Baaad Dude

Is that really December coming on up the road right there? Will we so soon be running out of 2016? What were those goals I set last January 1st?

A couple of days ago I went to the back of our front closet in our living room and brought out my old black leather jacket purchased from a street merchant in Istanbul, Turkey in 1999. I say “my old black, etc.”

Actually its condition is brand spanking new. It has been tried on annually since I bought it, but never really warn. Never, since I purchased it, has it felt so roomy. Finally I somehow mustered up the discipline to stick with my own exercise-diet plan and twenty pounds has vanished, one ounce at a time.

In the interest of credibility I just went back to that front closet and donned my now precious leather jacket. I zipped it up, snapped the snaps and glided up the steps in my office on up to my music room and stood tall in front of that big full length mirror and there wasn’t a bit of bulge in my middle section. There was plenty of room in that jacket in the shoulders and arms. Haughtily I raised my collar and put on my Marlo Brando bad look and sure enough I looked as baaad as I’ve ever looked and for a while I forgot that I was 87 headed into 2017 and 88.

We have a local poets meeting this coming Saturday at Anna Maria’s Pizza and I plan to wear my jacket. Right next door to Anna Maria’s is a bar where, on Saturdays, it is filled with people wearing black leather jackets. The parking lot is filled with several dozen motorcycles. Inside they have a heavy metal band blasting out. I just might find the courage to enter that bar after our poetry meeting and model my fit fitting leather jacket. I just might unsnap and unzip my jacket and display my big silver Harley Eagle belt buckle and strike a pose standing at the bar with my diet coke in my hand. I look forward to December and the new year because I have become one baaad dude.