Peeing on Parades

My good friend Bob Colvin had just finished turning the lobby of Memorial Health University Medical Center into a shopping mall complete with a coffee shop, boutique, grand piano and lots of light to shine on plastic plants. The information booth was slick, the foyer expansive it all made you feel better that it was a hospital that you were walking into. Fabulous art adorned the walls of the room. It was impressive but Bob always did things with style. At the dedication ceremony, all of Savannah's leadership stood admiring it all. Words were spoken and the audience worked to listen rather than admire the beauty of a transformed hospital. That's when the homeless guy in the trench coat walked into the middle of the room taking a stance on top of the hospital logo. Spreading his legs in a cowboy, gunslinger stance, he opened the coat and peed on it. Everyone was quite ... drowned out by the splashing noise. "You don't see that everyday," I remember saying. "Talk about peeing on a parade." The ceremony quickly dissolved into ... chaos. Bob led everyone to the reception but ... no one was hungry. Well, the elected officials all hit the buffet table but everyone else refrained. It was a shame that the punch bowl was filled with Lemonade because, with the ice and the floating lemons, it just looked like really pretty pee. I felt bad for Bob. Then again, I've had my fair share of parades that have been showered. I remember this story whenever it happens to me or when I watch people I love. We get so close to getting what we want ... we can taste it ... and there's this moment when we all take it for granted ... then it doesn't. It's like God ... or the Devil ... or elected officials kick the bucket of your life throwing everything off kilter. We get what we wanted though suddenly ... it's not all that. These times make me appreciate those times when I get something and it really is all of that all the more. To be honest those are the rarest of times. Most of the time, somebody pees on the parade ... even if its just a little. Homecomings are mostly bittersweet. Days have moments of glory eclipsed by routine, drudgery and not quite accomplishing everything you want. Families spring leaks and we use the Bible, blind love or Duct tape to stop the water. Worst of all ... just when everything's the way we like it ... something changes ... and we can never quite get it back again ... though God knows we try. The Promised Land remains ... over there ... somewhere over the rainbow ... too damn high. It's a Friday. The sun is shinning. Birds are singing and the ocean breeze is light. I find myself among the wildflowers. Soft music plays in the distance. Goddess is underneath my bare feet giving me love. Excited the weekend is finally here, I imagine everything I want it to be. I feel good about things. BANG!!!!!! The noise jolts me from the chair. Goddess jumps up barking. I hear someone yelling. Walking to the front of the house, I see that the City of Tybee is delivering new recycling dumpsters to each house. A truck with a couple of hundred of them has two guys throwing them off in stacks of ten at a time. It's loud, obtrusive and the dumpsters are downright ugly. I wonder how senior citizens will possibly roll them from the back yard to the front. A woman with a clip board is walking behind the bastards throwing the damn things in the middle of the street. She made her list and is checking it twice. When they get to the next block, Goddess and I walk outside. It takes both of but we roll our dumpster to the other side of the street. There are two apartments there and they only have one dumpster. They can have ours. I don't want it. Besides, it's a glorious Friday ... and they're not peeing on my parade. I make myself a mental note to take a Punch Bowl of Lemonade to City Hall.