A Few of My Favorite Things

Here is the first verse of the song A Few of My Favorite Things:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

The song is from The Sound of Music.  I have never seen that movie, but as I understand it, it takes place in Austria shortly before the Second World War.  A young woman is hired to take care of the children of a dour widower.  Young Woman, played by Julie Andrews, shows the children the joy in life.  She wins over the widower, some employer-employee sexual misconduct happens, the widower learns to have fun, the Nazis take over, the family escapes, the widower marries the babysitter, and they end up living in Vermont, running a ski resort.

Now you don’t have to watch it.

Here is a verse from the 1970 Mad Magazine parody of the original song, A Few of My Favorite Thugs:

Dynamite Danny, who hails from St. Louie,

Manny the Meat-Ax, who acts kinda screwy –

Fat Franie Freen, who’s escaped from five jugs –

These are a few of my favorite thugs!

Earlier this week, I walked through two recently-abandoned park-owned homes in my park in central New York.  I have ignored that park for a while.  Things have begun to fall apart; I visited to crack the whip.  While I was there, I toured the new projects and ran into a few of someone’s favorite things.

One of the homes had been rented to a guy named James Wilk.  Near the beginning of 2022, James disappeared.  Before this happened, he had been living with a guy who helped him mow the lawn and pay rent.  After James moved out, we would ask the roommate where he had gone, and the roommate would just shrug.  James’ nephew works at a local reform school with the new park maintenance guy, Marshall.  Marshall would ask where James had gone and the nephew would give evasive answers and act cagey.  Last month, the roommate moved out.

Here is what we found when we toured James’ home:

One working piano;

One cowhide leather jacket, good shape;

One multicolored feather boa;

One alcoholics anonymous manual;

Two 500 sheet bricks of printer paper;

One can of bear spray, unused;

Several bibles;

Several jars of homemade jam (blueberry, strawberry, rhubarb), unopened;

One large silver boom box;

Functional washer, dryer, refrigerator, stove, furnace and water heater (one of each);

Some crumbling OSB sub-floor;

Three mattresses, stained and upended;

Several black garbage bags, full;

Two syringes, emptied;

One breathable ball gag, still in the box; and,

One chrome-and-leather penis cage, used.

I did not recognize either of the sex toys at first.  The gag was sitting, in its box, on the dresser in the bedroom when Marshall picked it up and showed it to me.  “Hah, hah.  Look at this”, he said.  After the penny dropped, I said,

–Jesus!  I have never seen one of those in real life.

Marshall’s fianceé had joined us as we were walking around.  Both she and Marshall are twenty years old and exude a shiny aura of innocence, good faith and hope.  She said,

-Can you believe it?

-…and I’m an old man.  I guess that means I’m boring.

A tenant who lives across the way who works at Catholic Charities joined us.  She and the kids walked into the living room to pick out the things that the thrift store could take away.  I said, “I want the piano, the bear spray and the printer paper.  I am on the fence about the leather jacket.”  Marshall said,

-I wouldn’t touch that thing.

-Maybe you’re right.

Then, I opened the top left dresser drawer.  In it, I found a small contraption made of chrome and black leather.  By the time I realized what it was, I had already picked it up, taken it out of the drawer and unfolded it.  I walked into the living room toward the kitchen-laundry room area.  I said, “I think I could use that bleach.”  Marshall asked,

-What happened?

-I would like to wash my hands, please.

Later that day, I stopped in to speak with a woman who was short on lot rent who I will call Dora.  Dora is Black, with MS, sparse, pointy dreadlocks and a bronze-colored, horizontal chin-piercing.  Her husband is a good old boy who drives a truck with a Confederate flag on the back.  After some chit-chat, Dora asked me if any other homes or lots were available.  I said that the double-wide where James used to live had become free.  She looked at me with her big, slow eyes (I think the disease makes it hard for her to blink or move her eyeballs) and said, “You mean the yellow trailer?”  I said,

-I don’t remember the color.

-The one right here?

She did not gesture or point.  I said,

-The one on the corner of Epsilon and Digamma.  Right over there.

–That one?

-Yup.  That one.

A penny seemed to drop.  Dora has trouble moving now, but she sat up a little straighter and half-shouted,

-That guy’s a freak!

-We were in there today.  You don’t know the half of it.

And probably – neither do I.