"Flash Gordon"

for some reason the other day
while thinking about things on the porch
my mind started returning to the past
I decided to try to remember the very first
thing I could really remember
being seventy years old
it is difficult to find the beginning
I searched the pictures in my mind
and as far back as I could remember
was Flash Gordon my first space guy
now, you might ask how is this
and I would have to tell you
that back when the first tvs came out
probably somewhere in the late forties
my dad, who was a Chrysler dealer
made a deal which included one
it was a big day when my family
found out we were to get a tv
we gathered around the day it arrived
a big console, a three speed record player,
we had no records
an am-fm radio and a pretty big black and white
tv screen flat on the top and rounded on the sides
the two doors that covered the front
had two lion heads with brass
rings through their noses
I was impressed beyond belief
I suppose we had an antenna on the house
I don't remember that but after it was hooked up
and the big moment arrived
my dad turned it on and who should appear
but Flash Gordon in his spandex space like jump suit
with a belt that looked like a wrestlers champion belt
his space ships looked like the drainage pipes
they use to move water under the roads
with a top on them that looked like the tin hat
the tin man wore in the Wizard of Oz
to me it was an amazing miracle, a moving pictue
in our living room for the first time
I was spellbound knowing now because
my mind moves in pictures
like when you pull the handle down on a slot machine
the other thing I remember is the rug my mom
had in our living room which did not cover
the entire surface of the floor
it had a big butterfly on each corner
I thought it was beautiful
it held our brown horsehair sofa and chair
my sisters and I grew up here in the two bedroom
house with one bathroom with a tub no shower
our fox terrier dog slept on the bed
this was the best house in the world to me
and now we had a tv with Flash Gordon
how could it ever get any better