The Grasshopper and the Lightning Bug, True Story

Once we were swimming in a quarry in Salisbury, Vermont and I was putting my clothes back on right by the water's edge and a grasshopper from the meadow landed on the sock that I had just slid over my foot. YAAAHH! Giant bug!!. Without thinking, I snatched him by the wings and flicked him into the water not two feet from where I was sitting and SNAP, a fish, like lightning, appeared from the depths, swallowed him whole and was gone. In half a second, a nice, fat grasshopper was flitting along in the summer sun and BAM, swallowed whole, down the gullet and into the depths of an abandoned quarry. La la la, life and then...

We finished changing and wandered back to the car. My buddy John had a VeeDub beetle, which it turns out, had been bumped kind of hard off the little gravel patch where we left it. But, this being Vermont, there was a note on the windshield with an apology and a contact number. Damn, but, ok. Dent's not too bad. John reached out to put the key in the lock and SNAP! He jerked backward and yelped. Electricity! The bug had been banged hard enough to be contacting an electric fence and the key made an audible BZAP on contact. John's arm was tingling and buzzing. What the hell?! Now what?! Can't even touch the car.

We were/are smart idiots, so we started pushing the closest fence post back and forth to create enough slack to free the car. In the process, we were sort of trashing 100 yards of high tension fence line. After a minute or two of yanking, the wire was off the fender and as we started to exit the scene, a large and old pick-up truck pulled up and out climbed a very tanned and scowling farmer and two farm hands, both of them twice the size of us. Great.

We started apologizing and they started laughing and told us not to worry about the stupid fence. No big deal, ferris wheel. Shit happens. All the time. Crazy shit.

What does this have to do with art? Everything. You, and I, are grasshoppers. La La La, summer day. Anything can happen, anytime. So go big. Don't hold back. Be that quick trout. Snatch that snack. And when lightning strikes, laugh about it. Fences need messing up sometimes. Strangers are friends you haven't met yet, especially the big burly dudes. They are often the merriest. Carpe diem team! Come visit the art show. Buzz me back with your stories about the snap crackle and the big fish.

See ya soon,

and love,

it is the answer.

B Mac