I was born with a silver spoon in my

This will make more sense if you know my WDC handle is sometimes "Steve Ellen"...

I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

As I lay there in my diaper, struggling to say Get this spoon out of my mouth!, I experienced my first bout of verbal frustration. But who can form proper words with a spoon in his mouth? Besides, I was a baby, so people just dismissed my babblings as "baby talk".

Fortunately, the spoon fell out one night, making a little silver tinkle as it hit the floor. Lying there in my crib, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Years later, I was visiting the old homeplace and there in a cobwebby corner of the old nursery was the tiny silver spoon. (My mother was a sloppy housekeeper.) I put the spoon in my pocket. The cornerstones of my life: that silver spoon and the dirty diapers I was always wearing.

I took the spoon back to the city with me, drilled a small hole in the handle, strung it on a leather thong, and I am wearing it around my neck as I write. It comes in handy whenever I need a small spoon. Eating sardines on the bus, for example. Not for drugs, in case you are so hip you have to leap to that conclusion.

I don't do any drugs, unless Sierra Mist is a drug. I am beginning to think it is. When I drink 10 or 12 in a row I start feeling really strange. It's like my mind is bubbling over with ideas. Very fizzy.

One day I was riding on the bus, looking out the window while I ate from a small can of pork and beans with my silver spoon, when a little old lady asked me if I was still yelling. I frowned and said "No" but after I got home that night and was going over the day's events in my mind so that I could drift off to sleep without any loose ends tickling me and keeping me awake, then it occurred to me that she might have actually said, "Are you Steve Ellen?"

It upset me to think that I had snubbed a fan so I resolved to ride that bus again on the next day and apologize to the old lady. Sure enough, she was on the bus, but the bus was too crowded to get near her. People were standing in the aisle holding onto the straps.

I managed to catch her eye and yelled, "I'm sorry about yesterday! I didn't hear you plainly! Yes! I AM Steve Ellen!"

I was standing near the bus driver and he asked me to please stop yelling.

However, the old lady didn't seem to hear me. She shrugged her shoulders and cupped a hand to her ear. So I yelled even louder, "I AM STEVE ELLEN!"

The bus driver turned around in his seat and with obvious anger said, "Are you still yelling? Get off my bus."

I shrugged my shoulders at the old lady and she shrugged back. I got off the bus and watched it pull away. What could I do but sit on the bench and wait for the next bus?

I recognized the driver of the next bus immediately. He had picked me up three days before when I had been thrown off of another bus. "Are you still yelling?" he asked with a smile. "Yes," I said with a sheepish grin.

My destination that day was the art museum. I like the art museum. Nobody goes there. It's quiet and peaceful. Most of the galleries have padded benches. It's a good place to sit and meditate.

"Wake up!" said the guard as he gently shook my shoulder. I had drifted off and was lying sprawled across the bench.

"Sorry," I said and straightened up. I looked at the museum clock. Where does the time go?

I must have said it out loud because the guard said, "It goes into the past, never to be seen again..." He had a far away look in his eyes. "And it comes from the future. It's the product of a highly advanced future civilization, the Time Masters. They have evolved to such a high level that they can create time and space. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't have room to breathe nor time to do it. We owe them a lot."

"Yes we do," I said. "But how will we pay?"

"Oh don't worry about that," the guard said. "It's these works of art all around you that is the payment. Everytime one of us paints a new picture or writes a new book, a Time Master gets a little shiver down his spine and he sends us a few more minutes to work with."

"I write and paint both. Seems like I should get some extra time."

"I wasn't referring to amateurs," the guard said. "I meant the people who do quality work."

"Oh," I said. "Some of my stuff is pretty good... I think."

The guard laughed. "Everybody thinks their own stuff is pretty good or they wouldn't do it."

I was getting tired of the guard. "Well, I have to be going. Thanks for your support and encouragement."

"I know you're being sarcastic," the guard said. "I'm no stranger to great artists and their mocking ways, their cynicism and their irony."

"You're a strange one to be a guard. You should be a critic."

The guard laughed. "If you ever produce anything worth criticising I'll take a look at it."

As I walked out of the museum I let my fingers rub the silver spoon that hung around my neck. I like the smooth cool feel of polished metal.