Small Town Cripples

It is indeed a very small town, population only about 1,500. But I could sense the presence of cripples all around me because there were birdhouses all around me and when there are so many birdhouses there are usually cripples not far behind. Because making birdhouses seems like the kind of thing they’d probably have small town cripples do. They probably bus them off to a local sheltered workshop every day where they make birdhouses. That seems like a cripple rite of passage. Back when I was a wee criplet, they made me make a birdhouse, only I wasn’t in a sheltered workshop at the time. I was in a rehabilitation center and during my occupational therapy sessions I made a birdhouse. Except my birdhouse wasn’t as artistic and elaborate as the ones that were lined up along the wooden railing of the strip mail that was in the business district of the small town, with various price tags on them. Mine was a wooden box with a round hole in front for entry and a perch that was made out of a Dowell rod, beneath the hole. I painted the house white and the roof and perch red. I never mounted it outside or anything, probably because I feared that if I did I’d be accused of being some kind of bird slumlord. I had a relative who was a small town cripple. He now lives in a bigger town but back when he lived in a small town he didn’t exactly make birdhouses but he did make what looked like ceramic sculptures of horse heads. They looked like giant chess pieces except they came in a wider variety of colors, such as red, blue and yellow. I don’t know what his creative process was, but all of his horse heads looked alike. That made me think that he must’ve poured some stuff into a mold of a horse head until it solidified. And I imagined that there was one of his horse head sculptures on every mantel piece in that small town. It’s easy to lend a helping hand to your local cripples when you live in a small town. All you have to do is keep the local sheltered workshop going strong by purchasing a birdhouse. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-