Electronic Ephemera

From my personal collection (re, junk box on top of dresser):
A ticket to a performance by The Police at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tenn., March 17, 1982.

A Poem by Parks

I ran across this poem my son Parks wrote in March 2003 (when he was 7-1/2 years old):

what happens

When the sun goes down
the moon comes up and
darkness covers the sky and
when summer comes the
bears awake from there caves
and when Shaggy sees a ghost he says zoinks!

What's up with that blog name?

And were any animals harmed in the making of this blog?

"Jay's Embryo Pig Farm" (originally intentionally misspelled "embroy") dates back to 1978 when on the first day of class in AP Biology I mocked poor Christopher Dumas who claimed to have an earthworm farm in his backyard. Trying to impress my teacher, Mrs. Murchison, (who was listing off the animals we would be dissecting in her class that year) I blurted out, "I have an embryo pig farm in MY backyard!" And it just seemed to stick.

Classmates asked about the pig farm: Could they come and see it? When was I having a sale on the embryo pigs? Could they get on the mailing list for a catalog? And on and on...

Not one to disappoint the fans, I immediately launched an ad campaign for "Jay's Embryo Pig Farm" including posters on the Science Department bulletin board and the infamous "pigalogs" for mail order pigs.

I owe a lot to my predecessor, Lee Honsa. He was the creator of The Ludzons, a breed of strange stick-figure people purportedly from Alamo, Tennessee, with very poor handwriting and even worse grammer who had names like Calvin Stigler, Caffy Brottis and Ivan McGillicutty. I totally ripped Lee off, drawing pigs in the Ludzon fashion and knocking off the "drigalogs" for the "Big Sale at Jay's Embroy Pig Farm". Thanks, Lee. Wherever you are.

For years afterward, people would give me pigs. Pig figurines, plastic toy pigs, pig posters, piggy banks, Miss Piggy calendars. You name it, I got it. And I've still got most of the pigs. They're boxed up in my attic along with all the "pigalogs" and pig posters. Relics now. Memories of a simpler, simple-minded, time.

Many things have changed in the 20-something years that have passed since then. But some things haven't changed a bit: I'm still a smart-alecky, rip-off artist churning out posters and ads, and living in the city of my childhood — not far from Alamo.

Well, here goes nothing...

Everyone else has a blog, right? So why shouldn't I?

It's like what Adam said to Eve just after she was created, "I don't know how big this thing is going to get, so you'd better stand back."

I don't know what this blog will be. I have no idea what kind of things will be posted here. I just know: I send a lot of electronic ephemera to my friends and family; I have a lot of thoughts and cares rattling around in my mind at any given time; and, by golly, there are many people far less interesting than I am.

Yes, this is narcissism 21st century-style. But is it really any different than keeping a journal? (This one just so happens to be open and available to the wired planet at large.)

So, here goes nothing...or something...