It wasn’t too long ago that I was asked to recite random words beginning with a letter chosen by the professional trying to evaluate my mental prowess. Us old folk do have challenges and I’ll tell you it ain’t fun to feel as that prowess slips slightly behind a mental fog. Yes, most of us will experience it to varying degrees as we stumble, squeek or blithely shuffle over, under, around and through life’s little challenges. Somewhere from the deep recesses of my mind during that testing exercise, “Onomatopoeia” popped up.

Of course, it slithered into my audio response in its phonetic equivalent because I had been instructed to concentrating on the letter “A”. Needless to say, that answer confused my evaluation guru because she had no idea what I could be talking about as I tried to utter each letter, spelling out the word on demand but I had not the least remembery of how to spell the word nor could I issue forth what the definition of the word save for it was a part of speech. Nor did I really remember grade school grammar lessons after a half-century or more of scribbling it in large block letters in the third or fourth grade.

Of course, you must be asking, what griffonage on earth brought on this little episode that I seem to need to write about my affliction. Well, it was the giggle that I had to expel while reading a tidbit about words that are constantly swooshing around us but oft times we don’t have hint of a clue what the actual “Dictionary” word is that started these thoughts and triggered the remembery. In part I blame Starbucks or perhaps more to the point, one of the many zarfs I encounter in my pretense to get myself get glugging away steaming hot 7-11 coffee in their always very thin paper cups. Zarfs! Yah hate ‘em but it’s burned fingertips or yah use ‘em.

It’s worth the clap of the heel of my hand to my glabella to knock some sense into me and feeling the realization course through me that perhaps just a little more of the, now refrigerated and the resultant cooling effect of Hazelnut Coffee Creamer would also prevent the singe to the tip of my tongue. Above a certain temperature that burn to my talking muscle can shake a clump or two of dried morning sand right off of my caruncle. I can admit at that time I’d wish anything to dull the pain of the burn which can only be calmed by a long swig of frothy super cooled barm. Although the same effect can be found by holding a bottle by its punt and swigging a soothing glug of sweet citrusy sangria after being soothingly poured over a healthy portion of super cooled, crackling ice cubes

Wishes often can’t always be satisfied when cross drinking different types of beverages but one can still wish to cool that savage beast. But as often happens, my mind wanders and settles back to the time I learned to write in block letters in early grades. Often during writing practice erudite teachers, had us hone our writing craft well prior to the current white boards commonly in use today and assign stints with chalk and huge slate blackboards. For me that was the highlight of the day. I became an expert drawing chalk, done at the correct angle, slowly across the slate so I could produce the most gratifying chalk squeal followed by a very similar organic one from nearby classmates.

Oh, how I loved to draw circular tittles above the appropriate vowel and convert them to tiny smiley faces. Although I distinctly remember being banned periodically from my auditorily painful board games. Oft times as punishment or perhaps a very tired teacher would just like a respite after a day full of antics and would send me to the chalk closet. The main task the room created was one to crank up the mechanical gizmo to a low bass whirr and slide the day’s erasers over the fabric wheel to clean them. The rotating wheel hit the erasers like a the staccato of a carpet whip which thumpth-thumped the chalk dust captured off the blackboards throughout the day. As I cranked that gizmo in the Chalk Room, I so enjoyed letting the white powder fly. Of course that led to one of my favorite of favorite tasks, leaving behind a finger drawn image of Kilroy and his dangling nose and fingers. Next to my artwork in chalk I’d draw a reasonably sized square and finish it with I guess I’d call, my signature of a quincunx.