Here are some wandering thoughts that might interest you, and if they don’t, well … just remember this line from Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary in a performance of “Puff the Magic Dragon” in a live concert in 1963:

“Together we can sing it,

“It’s just a children’s song.

“And if you do not know the words,

“YOU’D BETTER LEARN THEM.”

Extrapolate, people.

—

Kathy has been trying to figure out the name of a Robert Frost poem about the vicissitudes of April and was having no luck. Oddly, Saturday in the Hampshire Hills fitness center, Tom walks up to me and says, “Maybe Robert Frost was right about April.” Excited, I said, “Do you know the name of that poem?” He didn’t.

On my way out of the club, Maggie was talking to some people about “Ethan Frome” and they were trying to remember the author and, foolishly, asked me, as if my long-term memory is any better than my short, and all I could offer was, “She also wrote ‘The Old Maid’,” which helped no one but Maggie looked it up and, of course, it was Edith Wharton.

So then I brought up the poem and someone else tried to find the name and, VIOLA! Did. It’s called “Two Tramps in Mud Time” and the salient section is this:

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.

“You know how it is with an April day

“When the sun is out and the wind is still,

“You’re one month on in the middle of May.

“But if you so much as dare to speak,

“A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,

“A wind comes off a frozen peak,

“And you’re two months back in the middle of March.”

Well, yes. This April, for sure.

—

The first time I saw a photo of Donald Trump, Jr., I thought:

VAMPIRE!

I wondered how he got around during the day. Did he avoid mirrors? Garlic?

Then when I saw the photo of him and his wife after she announced for divorce, I looked more closely at him and thought:

VAMPIRE!

But that’s just me. I’m sure many think he’s just so cutely gorgeous, what with that Brylcreemed hair and ALL THAT MONEY.

There’s this line from one of the episodes of season 3 of “Blackadder,” spoken by Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent:

HUGH: Oh, Amy, Amy, how I love her … father’s money.

Makes you forget about:

VAMPIRE!

—

I was in a lot of airports recently: Manchester, Baltimore, Atlanta and Nashville, and everywhere I saw young women wandering around in carefully ripped jeans. Never guys. Why is that? Are guys afraid to show leg skin?

So I Googled “cost of ripped jeans” and saw them priced from $52.50 to $98 and I wondered how much extra they charge for the holes. Because holes are, actually, nothing. Well, a hole in the ground contains dirt at the bottom and on the sides but if you discount that, then the hole is just nothing. So they’re charging extra for NOTHING.

So, if you start with a pair of jeans and, say, it costs $60 (which is absurd on its own), then you add rips, what’s the extra charge and is it for doing the ripping or for the holes?

Man, if it’s for the ripping, wander off to the Cheap Store, buy some jeans, bring ’em to me and we’ll negotiate a price for having me rip them. I’ll rip the living hell out of them if you want.

Resonable prices for unreasonable rips.

Here’s what I want to say about folks who buy pre-ripped jeans:

I can’t? Really?

—

When I was a kid, there were a lot of creepy magazines around, quasi-horror things, some real horror things, but creepy. I remember only one storie from those days, although I don’t remember the magazine, but the story concerned a guy who hated bugs and killed as many as he could, of any kind, as often as he could.

One night, he work up in a motel to find himself covered with bugs who were eating his flesh. He screamed, he fought, he died. That’s it; that’s all I remember.

But it might explain why I feel so queasy about killing anything, even those dopey, annoying little ants. I kill them, of course, because they are dopey and annoying (which, I hope, is not what the first intersteller visitors think of us) but I never feel good about it, or even complacent.

I don’t REALLY think it’s because I REALLY think that some night, their surviving friends and relatives will come to get me, although I don’t entirely discount that, but in my more rational moments, I figure it’s unlikely. Pretty unlikely. But-you-never-REALLY-can-be-sure unlikely.

Paranoid? Moi? Reminds me of this from Donovan’s “Season of the Witch”:

“When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?

“Some other cat looking over his shoulder at me.”

—

The four best covers of songs ever recorded are:

Jimi Hendrix, Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”

Martha Reeves, Van Morrison’s “Wild Night.”

Nina Simone, Paul Anka’s “My Way.”

Steeleye Span, The Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll.”

—

And that, dear friends, is that.