Freddogg Off The Chain

I see dead people because I remember them. I forget many of the living because they are worth it. Short term memory goes first I believe because we don’t care to remember or new data skips off the surface of an already crowded cranial hard drive.

Many years ago my wife’s late grandfather Mart Murphy, a true comedic character if ever one existed, called a gas station in the blighted town of Mahoney City, where the only exciting new news was to check the “who died” list in the local paper because it was the only way you could make the paper and everyone knew everyone and who everyone was related to and at what bar they drank.

Mart called Itsy’s gas station although Itsy had died a couple years earlier. Mart was surprised when Itsy answered the phone. “Is that you Itsy? I thought you were dead? So you didn’t die then? Could you come down to Pine Street, I have a young fella here who can’t get his car started. No, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know anything. Listen, congratulations. I’m sure glad to hear you aren’t dead.”

Over the last three days I’ve run into three people I was pretty sure were dead. But unlike Mart, I didn’t congratulate them because two of them actually still are dead, so when I dropped a name and said hello they said hello back because I don’t think either of them were absolutely sure who they were or what reality they traversed on a daily basis and probably I looked like a person they thought was dead so they took the easy way out and copped to a misidentification.


The other person I thought was dead was, in fact, not dead, but peep this: He was carrying dead branches from a tree down the street said hello to me then said, ”I’m pretty sure these are dead and will no longer live” and I said, ”you can never be certain” because I thought the guy died about four years ago.

I’m off to the boardwalk now that I’ve discovered a new retirement hobby of communicating with the undead from the life of Fred.

Peace Freddogg