My Story

Hello, I'm John Timothy Hardesty. Please don't get up or upset over me.

I'm currently battling Cancer with an egg noodle. Heading to the Cleveland Cancer 

Center, where it’s like Hotel California, you can check in any time you like but you 

can never leave unless you're on a gurney or in a coffin. I previously had several 

tumors removed from my optic nerve and skull, one was so mammoth it cracked

my skull wide open like a nutshell. The doctor sealed me up, replugged me in, and

reprogrammed me back into society only to endure 33 bolted-down radiation 

treatments. When you're in remission you're on top of the world, yet after two 

years of clinic visits, doctor follow-ups, and scans after scans, they tell you

to have a seat, and then the oncologist screeches out almost like he enjoys to 

say it, “your tumor is back in your skull.”

I go home and I immediately start hurting in my head, either from 

psychosomatics or psycho-bananas. I'm Frankenstein with a new attitude. 

I was nourished on Hemingway early in life, his stories connected me right

into the plot, he took me everywhere with his creative narratives. Hemingway

had some moledro or voodoo on me, I knew him well, so I thought. I suffered

through the poets of Lord Byron, Tennyson, Shelley, Poe, Dante, Keats, and 

Shakespeare. I studied every great poet in every country over the span of forty 

years, and many, many great novelists too. 

Yet, L.E. Sissman had the most influential nexalune upon me. 

Sissman was the class Poet at Harvard in 1949, yet, he was cursed with Hodgkin 

Lymphoma at 37, yet produced some dark poetry that stands out to me. 

Dead People Don’t Dream(Haiku)

 

                   Dead people don't dream

                   Dead people don't walk about

                   Yet, ghosts speak loudly

                   

                   

The Bluegrass Tavern Chronicles(Chapter 11)

 

                                                          Chucky Mardis

                                                          Chapter 11

     Chuck Mardis was many characters. He was short in stature and frame yet was tall in laughter and loyalty. We called him many names, unashamedly: Leprechaun, Mayor of Munchkinville, and James Cagney. Chucky was a die-hard Notre Dame fan. He absolutely loved them. In 2001, right after the terrible 911 incident, my aging Uncle Mac Hardesty sold me two USC/Notre Dame tickets at South Bend, he was nearing 90, and couldn’t attend anymore. I called Chucky, the very first one, expecting him to go, all expenses paid for but he declined and this upset me. Before he died he still never fulfilled his bucket list of seeing a great rival game, and you just can't walk in and get Notre Dame tickets to watch the Irish, impossible. When he died, I felt good about myself, inviting him the very first person. 

     Chucky was very funny. A constant cut- up. 

Dogs on Shows and in Movies, and Personalities

 

1. Hart to Hart: Freeway(Lowchen-Shelter Dog)

2. The Waltons: Reckless(Golden Lab)

3. Adolf Hitler:  Blondi(German Shepherd)

4. Our Gang:     Petey(American Pit Bull)

5. Married With Children: Buck(Briard, French Shepherd) & Lucky(Cocker Spaniel Mix)

6.  Baa Baa Black Sheep:  Meatball(Bull Terrier) 

7.   Blondi(film series):   Daisy(mixed Cocker Spaniel, Poodle, and Terrier) 

The Bluegrass Tavern Chronicles(Chapter 10)

 

                                                          Tommy Cecil 

                                                           Chapter 10

     Joe Lawrence loved music, all kinds too, and I admired that about him. He often had bands from our local area come to play on the weekends. My first intervention with Tommy Cecil was on a Friday Night, playing an Eagles’ song, James Dean, then he followed up with David Bowie’s Suffragette City. Damn, this blew me and the whole audience there away! Tommy had a gift that few could ever master in twenty lifetimes. 

     Tommy wasn't educated at Harvard or Princeton, yet you could certainly say his erudition was an innate musical phenomenon. An idiot wanders; the smart man travels. Wisdom often comes with suffering. Solitude is a prescription for wisdom. Youth is the very first season of disappointment. I conjecture that Tommy’s French ancestry runs deep with Gallic euphonious minstrels. Tommy utilized this gift to perfection; one might even say he had a pact with the devil, or delved deep into the Codex Gigas, because he was a master. 

     Tommy was a reserved man of few words, yet when he sang, the women hovered around him like ancient elders around a campfire. How could a person like Tommy conjure up so much talent from modest surroundings? Tommy was quiet as a ghost in a monastery, yet patient as a marble bust. Tommy’s music is his universal gift, he's a profound musician who always thought his sound was superficial when haggling over the right magical chord. Like Tommy, we both received our knowledge from the same God-lit candle at St. Thomas. His conscience was as stark as Gabriel's, he could sleep through a hurricane; he had no enemies! 

   He played that mandolin magnificently, he was adroit as an octopus, and yes, I envied him, and for whom myself, was as adroit as a sloth-I'm no musician. Tommy was kind to everyone and very respectful of all who entered his charmed circle. Ignorance never won any battles, yet kindness wins every contest. 

     Tommy had brothers too, and I think all of them played music very well. The Cecil Family endured hardships like every Catholic family, yet never lost their faith in God. Tommy had that Adonis mysticism that served his profession well. Tommy handled many people’s egos like a psychiatrist, and he dealt with Joe’s obduracy better than anyone. He defused any misunderstanding with ease-ego decombustion! Tommy’s ethics and facon de vivre or art de vivre were his defining traits. 

     Tommy lived his entire life in Balltown, a small town just a few miles from Bardstown with his wife Melissa. Tommy kept to himself and with his family, I never saw him drunk or wasted. He wore his honor through his musical prowess, and that was enough for the world. If a Heaven exists, I'm quite sure the angels reserved a seat for him near the band. Memories are but captured moments lived in this sorrowful life; Tommy may pass away one day but through his music, his, ‘non omnis moriar’ echoes forever in the hall of fame at The Bluegrass Tavern. 

Into The Oblivion

 

Are we but a speck in this vast spectrum of existence? 

We pass the time like it’s abundant as the sunlight above us.

Always dreaming of the next nexalune that only comes 

In the distant liminal color of black.

Hardesty Humor

 

Husband: Honey, can you please make my oatmeal less lumpy this morning? It is hard to swallow! 

Wife: She looks at him and grins. She continues to stir the oatmeal. Then drops a huge clump into his bowl.

Husband: Honey, it’s still lumpy! Didn’t you hear me? 

Wife: She grabs a skillet and knocks him upside his head! 

Husband: Honey, can you hand me a straw? 

- John Hardesty