bobberdilly.com

     Class of 911

Since the day I was born on April 13, 1943, I have re-lived every year of my life and event that had nothing to do with me. I wondered and wondered if it would ever come to an end, but each year on December the 7th, 1941, every American was subjected to endure another dasterly attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor.

I’ve seen the Arizona sunken a thousand times and heard the “December the seventh, nineteen forty one; a day that will live on into eternetiy until hell freezes over, Speech…” so much that I prayed to god we’d all one day forgive the Japs for starting it all up in the first place.

Then the damned 911 comes along and it all starts over again.

Please, all the children born after the 911… I feel sorry for you. Believe me this will never end. You might as well prepare your life to re-live the terrible events of 911 over and over and over and over and over again.

It will never die….. Now we have Pearl Harbor and 911 to make us more fearful and paranoid.

             

Fighting Global warming and fighting Trashzilla 

Here’s what it’s all about!

You go outside for a short or long walk everyday (or almost every day). While you’re outside walking, the goal is to become more heat tolerant. (Don’t go out and give yourself brain damage or heat stroke. That’s not the point). Go outside, so you can adapt to the heat, so the heat isn’t so intolerable that you need to go and exist in the air-conditioner every second of the day. Stay out long enough to just get a little hot… Some sweat wouldn’t hurt a bit. While outside walking, pick something up off the street or off the ground in an empty lot or along the curbing (I’m not talking about stealing valuables that people own. I’m talking about trash). (I’m picking up the round things of crap and lost gloves). I see other stuff that’s interesting and I pick up that stuff too. 

The point here is, that everyone should find something to pick up on the walk, weather it be trash or treasures. 

The point here is, You’ll be getting outside. You’ll be out of the air-conditioner for a little bit.  

It will be your decision what to pick up and what to do with it. Take a bag along… This is supposed to be fun. 

Here’s what it’s all about.

We all get out into the heat everyday. We attempt to build up our heat tolerance. We come back home and cool off and we decide to turn down the thermostat one or two notches. (Because we’ve become more heat tolerant). It all makes sense to me. Anyhow, in this way, the power companies won’t have to work as hard to supply electricity to our homes. In this way, the power companies won’t have to run the big rigs and spew more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have enough of that up there now. With less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,  the less heated it will become in the summer and less we will need to cool our homes and businesses and the more we can all enjoy being outside where it’s healthier. 

Warning: There will be a million arguments why none of this will make any difference and maybe, all of them will be 100% correct. Maybe, I’m completely wrong and will end up becoming the total ass of the planet; but I’m going to do it anyway. (I think it was Gandhi, who once said something like: “What ever you decide to do isn’t going to make the slightest difference, but it’s very important that you do it anyway.” So you can do as you please or come up with some other plan or no plan at all, as far as I’m concerned. If my friends or even if my wife doesn’t want to play along; I can still keep my car windows open and not run the air-conditioner if I like and I can go out on hot days and walk (with a bottle of water and a nice hat) and take my chances that something I do will actually make all the difference in the world.                                                            

                                                                 Robert Joy 

    Here is the results of a half hour walk and I only picked up the round things I found in the streets.

         We gotta do something?

Jeesusssss H! Please excuse my lingo language, but something has to be done. I’ve been out walking to keep myself healthy and I’m not so sure I want to stay around that long any more. I get up this morning with the radio blaring that the earth is heating up so fast that by the year 2040 the artic will be completely devoid of sea ice in the summer months. I keep asking myself: “What the hell can I do about it?” The government wants us to keep fighting wars with our neighbors, buy SUV’s to keep the economy healthy and to build more coal powered power plants to get away from all that oil we think is too expensive and to build more air conditioned buildings in the southwest to get everyone out of the high heat caused by building more buildings with giant air conditioners so we can all get out of the heat. Then there’s “Trashzilla!”

            I scanned my half hour haul on one small walk around Ellinwood. I’ve limited myself to just “Round things.” I just pick up the round crap off the street while I walk. I avoid picking up the cigarette butts, plastic cups and lids, broken glass, toys, cigarette packages, beer cans and bottles… etc. I have to limit myself. Today I walked a mere half hour and I had to take off my hat to carry the crap and I’m talking about only round things off the pristine streets of neat little Ellinwood. This is just the tip of the Tail of the Trashzilla Vortex that’s about to consume

            I can’t do much about all the problems facing our planet, but I can continue to pick up what I can. I’ve been picking up all the lost gloves lately and its mind boggling. I found one today in my small little walk, in-fact I found two yesterday and one the day before. That doesn’t even count the fifty or so I have on display in the Great Bend Public Library. It’s crazy out there!

            Here’s what we all should do. We should get off our fat asses and go take a walk. Get out into the heat for a few minutes and realize what were doing to our beautiful little world. We gotta get out in the heat and off our air conditioned asses and see what’s happening outside instead of just bitching about the temperatures… and while were out there, start picking up something. Someone should just pick up all the cigarette butts in the streets and side walks in their neighborhood or just their street. Someone should go on a short crusade to ride the streets of smashed water bottles, cups, soft drink and beer cans. Someone else should look for round crap like I’m doing. Two hundred million fat assed Americans off their ass and in the streets feeling the heat and ticking the tail of the “Trashzilla” will make a difference. Send this message on and around the world. Just do it!

                                              Robert Joy

                                               8/14/2007

   Waiting for my letter by Robert Joy. Published in 2006 by Monkey Stamp Press. Cost: $8.00 and includes shipping. It’s a short story of a girl waiting for her boyfriend to write the letter he promised he’d write while he was in Vietnam.

    The dope of happiness by Robert Joy. Published in 2004, by Monkey Stamp Press. Cost is $10.00 and includes shipping. This is a story of a newspaper reporter (Sid Trantaller) very frustrated with his job and life in general and is search for what he doesn’t know, and finds more than he expected.  It is a firey meeting set between a very rich and independent woman (Mary Morriset), who knows what she wants and gets it and her very inept boyfriend (Steve). Sid has been sent up by his Editor, to see Mrs. Morriset for a newspaper interview.

   Robert Joy’s greatest hits by Robert Joy. Published by Peckerwood press in 1996. Cost is $8.00 shipping included. It’s a collection of Robert’s best old poems selected and compiled by Steve Sassmann.

    Give me an F, by Robert Joy and poems selected by Karen Kline-Martin in 2002. Cost: $8.00 with shipping included.

     The dean of death by Robert Joy. Published by Monkey Stamp Press in 2006. Cost: $8.oo shipping included. The story is an old American soldier who fought in the trenches of World War One, telling his grandchildren about the horrors of all wars.

Please contact:   Robert Joy at 306 E. 2nd. St., Ellinwood, KS 67526. Phone: 620-564-2917. E-mail: bobberdilly@juno.com

 Ellinwood

        What an eye opener today. Everything straighten itself out. It must have been all my lovely friends writing in to the newspaper that broke the ice.

       I’d been having trouble with the paper not publishing my artshow intentions. This was like the third or forth art show the newspaper either didn’t acknowledge, forgot or just didn’t recieve. I have no clue as to what was going on. I know I was upset for several years and I was pretty sure who was causing it… but now I’m not so sure.

            Anyway…..   I was expecting the same thing and when it happened, but this time, I was much more prepared. I had expressed to Teri (The librarian in charge of the shows) that I really didn’t care about an opening reception or a press release to the news paper. She thought I should have one, so I gave her the press release stuff.

       Then the show came and went with nothing showing up in the newspaper.

     Then a couple of days later, Gina tells me she wrote a letter. I watched for it in the paper, but nothing . I don’t know if anyone else wrote, but this afternoon I get this phone call. I answer it the way I always answer the phone. I pick it up and say, ”hello” and if no one speaks right away, I hang up. (This is my way of avoiding the Telemarketers) Well, this time the caller calls back, but I don’t get up to answer it. I let the answering machine do the job while I listen. It’s Susan Thacker from the Tribune. She says she’s been over to see my show at the library and wants to talk to me about it. She leaves her number and then tries to get me to pick up the phone; I don’t. I delete the message from the machine, but not without a guilt trip for being so stuborn.

          I drove over to the Cornerstone for my afternoon iced tea. I start to read Alan Watts, “Wisdom of insecurity” and god spoke to me. I guess it was god that kept me from answering that phone call, because I started feeling better than I had for days and I centered out.

        I realized for the first time in my life, that the ball in my court. I can dribble it around or I can pass it back or forth or I could just let the ball sit on the floor and make everyone wait.

         I was thinking that if I turned up naked and dead in the Jack Kilby square one morning, they (The News Media) wouldn’t need my permission to write up and publish a story. They wouldn’t need my permission to walk over to the Public Library and look at the show. They would need my permission to have an opinion on a public display. That’s what the job of a reporter is…. “To report what’s going on.”

        The show speaks for itself… It doesn’t need me any longer. I figure the press can write about it without me. They can either like it or not like it…. that’s their opinion and they have a right to it.

      I can’t turn the time back and undo the neglect I’ve been getting. I can’t replay the opening, nor would I anyway. From this point on… if nothing else happens and Susan tells me to go screw myself for not responding, then that will have to be my problem, because I had my chance.

                                                              Thanks to all my friends

P. S. I went to see Susan Thacker today to apologize for being such a creep. I congradulated her on the great story she put in the paper today. I couldn’t have been better if I’d written it myself. She is a really nice person, but how could I expect her to grasp the extent of the problem I’ve been having with the Tribune. She is convinced its all just been a giant oversite and that Terri just didn’t deliver the materials in the proper ways. She forgets that all the other shows have gone off and Terri delivered those. Why are mine the only one’s that seem to have the problems? It’s over and now all I have to do is decide if I want to have dealings with the Tribune for my stuff in the future. I think I would be served best by just putting on the show and then informing them at the newspaper thats its up and running. They can go over and decide if they want to keep playing the game.

In a few hours I will be driving down to Great Bend to open my new show, “Orphans”. For the past few years I’ve been walking for excersise and thinking time. On those walks I’ve come across more gloves on the street than I could count. I’ve seen gloves on the street and often wondered just how many are out there. In the past couple of months I’ve actually picked up nearly 50 and i’m still seeing them in the street. Just yesterday I saw two more from my car while driving down 10th in Great Bend. What could all this mean?

   Carl Rosvall, Lucille Joy (Garver) and John Meyer

1.?  2.?  3. Donnelly B. Garver 4. Mary Lynn Garver  5. Mrs. Lyon  6. Donald Burton Garver  7. Frances Garver  8. Donald Lee Garver 9. Mary Garver.

 1. Brad Cummins, 2. Elouise Cummins, 3. Frank Cummins, 4. Mary Lynn Garver, 5. dog, 6. Loretta (Monteleone) Joy, 7. Burk Cummins, 8. Francis Garver, 9. Allen Joy, 10. Lucille Joy, 11. Robert Joy 

 1. Elouise Cummins, 2. Frank Cummins, 3. Francis Garver, 4. Mary Lynn Garver, 5. Burk Cummins, 6. Allen Joy, 7. Lucille Marie Joy, 8. Brad Cummins, 9. Dog, 10. Loretta Joy, 11. Don Garver.

 1. Brad Cummins, 2. dog, 3. Loretta Joy, 4. Don Garver, 5. Lucille Joy, 6. Francis Garver, 7. Mary Garver, 8. Frank Cummins, 9. Elouise Cummins

 1. Uncle Oden Samples, 2. June Meyer, 3. Deloris  Meyer, 4. Loretta Meyer, 5. Francis Garver, 6. Aunt Virgie Samples, 7. Donally B. Garver, 8. —— Lyon, 9. John Meyer, 10. Mrs. Lyon, 11. Frank Cummins, 12. Elouise Cummins, 13. Ronald Cummins, Madonna Meyer, 15. Jon Cummins.

 Front row, left to right: Grandmother Francis Garver, ——- Cummins, ——– Cummins, Loretta Ceicl (Meyer) Back Row: John Meyer, ——Ceicl, ——, Elouise Cummins, June Meyer, Frank Cummins, Mary Garver.  

 1. John Meyer, 2. Madonna Meyer, 3. Deloris Meyer, 4. Brad Cummins, 5. Mary Lynn Garver, 6. Burk Cummins, 7. Donald Burton Garver, 8. Jon Cummins, 9. Donally B. Garver, 10. Carl Rosvall, 11. Lucille Joy (Garver) , Ella Mae Rosvall (Garver), Donald Lee Garver.

 From left to right:  Donald Bush (Baby), Richard Bush (Jr.), Richard Bush (Sr.), Michelle Bush, Lois (Joy) Bush, Laina Bush and dog, Aunt Mary Garver.