FROM THE PORCH II

I gave you SCARY MAN.  Here is MR. WHISKERS.

Mr. W is old - well plus 80.  He is tiny, looks anorexic (all ribs and ossified cock), and shuffles along listing forward at 30 degrees with a hand-rolled cig protruding from the centre of his face like a navigational device.  When heading eastward toward the variety store his hands are clasped behind him in the manner of venerable Chinese gentlemen.  When proceeding westward a few minutes later his hands are engaged in peeling wax from a fistful of Scratch & Win tickets.  The navigational device remains in place, the trickle of smoke suggesting that it is functioning and will lead him home, there to celebrate his newfound wealth.

It is that trickle of smoke that gives me worry.  Mr. W wears a huge, luxurious grey beard dwarfing his tiny face - a massive growth well-greased by KFC and Burger King - a potential conflagration to give forest protection experts serious fits of the vapours.

Mr. W is not given to social interaction.  A cheery "Good Morning" elicits a vague smile and a side-step on the shuffle path to home and wealth.  He is surely playing on the back nine, due to expire soon.  When he does, I have a vagrant hope that he will lie down in our garden with a vague smile on his face and a winning ticket in his wizened hand.  And, if his navigational device fails to ignite his facial grow-op, I will be honoured to perform the cremation with by Bic.  Let him go in the blaze denied him in his simple life.

Like a Nordic god.

OK - I am what Margaret Thatcher would call a "Wet".  Sentimental sometimes.