There Was a Crooked Man

It’s called a “traditional nonsense rhyme, sure to keep young children amused.”

Indeed you’ve probably seen them smile as you read of the crooked man walking the crooked mile, who bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse and they all lived together in a little crooked house.

But did you turn the page?

Did you walk your little ones in their imagination, listening as they were in rapt attention, up the crooked stairs of his crooked little home where he tied up a crooked noose and ended his crooked life?

Because that’s how it goes down for the man who went up, and all the while the crooked little man would cry and he couldn’t fathom why.  No happy ending to this fairy tale.  The typical last six words aren’t.  

Not unlike America.

His crooked little house was a sagging twisted wreck, the plumbing a perennial pain not unlike his nerve-pinched neck.  The toilet stopped up and foul and the house wiring gone awry, short circuits and blown fuses with not a clue as to why. 

It was a crooked little house with windows that wouldn’t shut, harsh winds and cold always blowing the pilot out.  There were buckets for the ceiling leaks and rats running free, tiles falling off the roof and the air choked from a clogged chimney.

And in this crooked messed-up house his life is much the same, blood moves poorly liked backed up pipes through his tortuous, twisted veins.  His chest all caved in and tight makes every breath a chore, climbing steps a journey till one day the crying crooked little man decides: no more.

Nervous system is in shambles, mind joins body without hope, such that the last we read of this little crooked man, he’s swinging from a crooked rope.

The above is adapted from a health and wellbeing website, and poetized for the portended demise of our country – a forum discussing this eventuality having convened recently as reported by John Stossel this past July 31 on Fox News.

Rome was the longest lasting empire in history – over 500 years.  We’ve lasted, to-date, just 237. 

One of the reasons the Roman Empire fell was its decline in morals. 

With our “hook-up” culture it would appear we’re ascending the crooked stair. 

That “the most gawked about” and popular performance this year at the publically funded Minnesota Fringe Festival is a nude filled play, perhaps is an indication we’ve reached the landing. 

Given the so-called bathroom bill that has been passed into law this Aug.12 - “California having become the first state in the nation to allow boys and girls access to the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice regardless of their gender” – is this just radical, or is it a rope?

Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute said, “This is a very radical idea.  You’re going to have first-grade boys going to the restroom next to first-grade girls without any supervision.”

As morals loosen, does not the noose tighten?

You say, ‘I didn’t know it ended like that?’

It does.