from Gene’s Notebook

…and, the hurricane afar, like the ambulance’s scream in the night, and eveyone you love is within touch; like the bus accident that you’re not part of; like the body counts from wars that are not you and yours ….

Self-preservation, so so important, so so narrow ….

We look at Ike, earlier, see the W marks turn to WNW, and more NW and N, and we’re safe and snug, just like those ambulances, and just like the printed obituaries, beneath the morning coffee cups and bagels and dry cereal, why, you’re not in them, drink on, eat on, and it’s also nice that most of the people in them are unknown to you - yet live someplace long enough - and you’ll know a death daily ….

…a bike death, a bike accident, I’m afraid to open the newspaper, and it’s no one I thought it could be ….

To quote Phil Ochs, and does anyone recall him, “And it doesn’t really matter outside of a small circle of friends ….”

…are we better of more, or are we just so so inner …?

Bad bad, Ike! Bad to Haiti! Bad to Cuba! Bad to the Upper Texas Coast! Good to us! Us and we and you and me ….

…and before damning me, I do write checks to the Red Cross …. Enough? Hardly, but ….

Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky
September 12, 2008

Editor’s note: Gene put this in a comment on Hurricane Ike, but it’s too good and too honest and too intense to hide.