Way Back When I Was Younger

Here in the Bide-a-Wee Home for the Aged, I got a piece of toast with an image on it, and naturally I got it posted on eBay. It's an image of the Virgin Clarence.
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I been thinking for a while of favoring you with something I wrote before you knowed me good, and now's the time. Here are edited versions of two pieces I wrote in January. You'll figure out, by the time you're done, why both pieces are best by appearing on the same day.

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It's a Rap

Old Folks' Home Activity Director: "Announcement. Today a band will be playing at 3 p.m. in the Fireplace Room."

Hulda Hearsay: "I hope it's not going to be any of that awful Saran Wrap music."

AD: "I think that's just plain Rap, Hulda."

Hulda: "I don't care if its Plain Wrap, Fur Wrap, Saran Wrap or Christmas Wrap. I won't have it! Oh, that's a good idea. Have them play 'White Christmas'."

AD: "Christmas is 11 months away, Hulda."

Hulda: "What have you got against Bing Crosby?"

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Music Hath Charmin

This morning in The Home we were treated, as every Tuesday at breakfast, to the piano playing of Jeremy, a student from the Oregon School for the Blind. He is 16, with the "intelligence" of a 5-year-old. Yet he can learn a piano piece in 15 minutes just by hearing it once. He is touted as a prodigy.

A reporter came today from a Portland boob tube station to record Jeremy for posteriors posterity. After Jeremy finished, the reporter asked some of us for our reaction to the whiz kid.

Hazel Nutt (yes, her folks were filbert farmers): "I don't know how he does it."

Carolina Sister: "I'm so proud of him."

Hulda Hearsay: "I don't know why I have to sit here at breakfast and be abused by piano music. I hate piano music. Next thing you know they'll be running a drum and bugle corps through here, or bagpipers, or accordion players. You know what perfect pitch is? When you throw a banjo into the dumpster and it hits an accordion. Then it will be kazoos and mouth harps and ukeleles. When does it stop?"

Hulda (continuing): "And not only that, but in December he never once played 'White Christmas'. Why does everybody have it in for Bing Crosby?"

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My favorite word today is cohere. N., a grand plan. Def.: You and your buddy agree to meet at the mall in front of the "You Are Here" map.