Eni, Mini, Miny, Mo

( I was born in Israel, I was a premature baby of two pounds and was supposed to die three times before I was three...after the third time I didn't talk much and I had a tendency to wander for excercise...there was a hermit who lived in a shack, and people would stare at him and kids, some of  who are the future over-compensating under-achievers of the world, would yell at him what the parents said behind his back, so he chased them away from his house and had an unfriendly reputation......anyway, he always had a lot of cats around, which fascinated me because my mom used to say I walk like a cat when I walked around quietly... ...one day I found a kitten and put her in a box and went to his door, and as the door opened his eyes met mine, I tend to look people in the eyes, even then, and he just stared and then cried...that incident told me high emotions are sometimes good, and crying washes the soul...

Thirty years later,I was in Ketchum/Sun Valley, Idaho for the summer, working in a restaurant   and hiking & camping a lot, ... GiGi was a friend I spent time with then, and over a bottle of champagne we got to talking about what   first animals we could recollect ( we both said cats).....also a sad song played in the background, and she said the song almost made her cry... so I told her I could write one that would make her cry...so I wrote this, as we were speaking  and then red it to her,... and she cried...and cried, and then  ......   we took a shower...to wash the emotions...)



      ENI, MINI, MINY, MO



When I was a boy there lived a man in a shack,

We all called him doctor because he took care of cats -

And I couldn't understand why he'd always run back in

whenever anybody got too close to him -



People would call him crazy & throw things at him,

Sundays they'd beg forgiveness, and Monday do it again -

Mothers would point their fingers & put their kids in blindfolds,

When adults got together they'd say he was eni, mini, miny, or mo ---



             It wasn't the pills and it wasn't the booze

             Money got nothing to do & it wasn't the noose,

             As I was bringing a cat to him,

             I saw thru a curtain where I could look in -

             And on a table there was some candlelight

             Where he worked on his broken heart in the middle of the night ---



He built his home with his own two hands,

For him and his fiancee he had bought the land -

And she took off with a man who had lots of trophies,

He cursed the day he met her & waited for her to come back ---



Everyday without fail he'd set out two plates,

And after he washed them he'd only put one away,

Now that I'm older I understand a lot more,

How anyone of us can get a broken heart & land on the killing floor ---



              It wasn't the pills and it wasn't the booze,

              It wasn't the rope and it wasn't the noose,

              People be telling he died of many things,

              But when you live like that it can only be one thing ---

              And I still remember the table and the candlelight,

              And a man with a broken heart in the middle of the night ------




(c) by Sol Spitz