Simple Things

“He was almost always happy, I think.” Somehow, I remember that as a quote from Dylan Thomas when he returned to Swansea as a grown man and found the old park keeper from his childhood. When asked about some of the children he had known, the keeper had that to say about the name “Dylan Thomas.”

Trouble is, I can’t find that exact quote, so maybe I made it up. Anyway, I thought about it yesterday. I thought of another quote and this one’s easy to find, “I make myself rich by making my wants few.” - Henry David Thoreau. It’s from Walden Pond, I believe; can’t quite remember. I know that a similar quote of his is, from Walden that is, “...for my greatest skill has been to want but little.” Then there is the unforgettable, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Anyway, yesterday was a simple but happy one for me, although I scarcely expected it. I had finished a little pro-bono piece of work I had gotten tangled up in because of my charming personality. Would you believe because of a pathological inability to say, “No?” Take your pick.

Then I found myself nonplussed for having volunteered some time ago to address a graduate class in the MPA program at UALR, on a Friday evening, believe it or not. Who wants an education that badly? Turns out, about 20 of the finest young folks I had met in some time do. We had great fun. I unleashed old jokes on a new audience. They laughed politely and disarmingly. They said things I intend to steal. (On casinos to end poverty and create urban rebirth: “They’ll come into our dirty home and take our money and money from strangers to keep for themselves.) They asked intelligent questions, made incisive comments and, I couldn’t believe it, never inserted an extraneous “like” into any sentence. Wow.

On the way home, I hit the “Overdrive” app on my Bluetooth. I had downloaded the old John Steinbeck book Travels With Charlie from 1962 that I last read when first it was published. I had forgotten how a master writes of simple things. Oh, wondrous word. I’ve read imitations since, some good, like Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. More recently, there’s one in which the author loses his way as often as he finds it, Spying on the South by Tony Horwitz. None capture America like Steinbeck. There just aren’t many like him. It entranced me.

It also made me think of something I read a while back. There was this man whose life was so totally devoid of any meaningful substance that he actually retraced Steinbeck’s journey across America for the simple purpose of proving that he, Steinbeck, couldn’t have camped at some of the places he claimed. Oh dear, the venerable old writer had used … shall I say it … poetic license. The horror! The horror!

And speaking of horror, back home I learned that we are about to do something about this mess into which we’ve gotten our country. It’s about time. I think the author of Grapes of Wrath would be pleased.

At day’s end, I could say that a simple time brought me simple joy, and it was free. I don’t think I could have bought it with any amount of cash.