{"id":325208,"date":"2020-06-22T06:00:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-21T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=325208"},"modified":"2020-06-22T06:00:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T20:00:32","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-ghost-d-r-e-a-m-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-ghost-d-r-e-a-m-s\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T. Ghost D.R.E.A.M.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Growing Up on West Hill Road \u2018A\u2019<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFather was a violent drunk, we called him Daddy<br \/>\nhe swore like the WWII Navy sailor that he was<br \/>\nbrother Mike lean, Peter a heavyweight, me a fatty<br \/>\nMother was a pillar of strength, good thing she was.<br \/>\nAll five of us kids were born by Caesarean section\u00a0<br \/>\nin St. Joseph\u2019s Hospital in Elmira upstate New York<br \/>\nwe learned right and wrong under Daddy\u2019s direction<br \/>\nMother taught love &amp; kindness, use of knife and fork.<br \/>\nDaddy called us boys halfwits, the girls were angels<br \/>\nMary\u2019s looks favored our French side, Ellie the Dutch.<br \/>\nWe all played down by the creek in burdock tangles<br \/>\nfor Christmas and birthdays we never got too much.<br \/>\nWe had many happy times growing up on West Hill<br \/>\nMother cooked great food, growing up was real thrill.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>I am Past\u00a0I have Passed\u00a0I\u2019m Out\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am past, I have passed, I\u2019m out and about<br \/>\nMany dear old friends are dead and gone too<br \/>\nI am a memory of myself without a doubt<br \/>\nThoughts coming and going out of the blue<br \/>\nLike old lovers and funerals happy and sad<br \/>\nYet they are all gone like the morning dew<br \/>\n\u201cinto the nothingness\u201d of former old times *<br \/>\nInto a Philippine Sea of sinigang dreams<br \/>\nWhere senior memories sing simple rhymes<br \/>\nOf lovely days my heart and soul esteems<br \/>\nMy dear Tinian students and their parents\u00a0<br \/>\nI love the best alas many now gone to rest<br \/>\nDreams of Tinian cliffs where I\u2019ve slept<br \/>\nLoving memories in my heart I\u2019ve kept.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<em>\u00a0*Phrase from John Clare (1793 \u2013 1864)\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cInto the nothingness of scorn and noise<br \/>\nInto the living sea of waking dreams.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing Up on West Hill Road \u2018A\u2019 \u00a0 Father was a violent drunk, we called&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":321680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,23672,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-325208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-lvnv","tag-nola","tag-pepe-batbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}