a "tribute" to Tom Tobbins

A book was recently returned after a lengthy absense. It being another rainy morning ( I know, house cleaning. Well, the dishes are done and the laundry is started. And I have established paths thru the dust. So there.) I opened "Wild Ducks Flying Backward" to the section marked TRIBUTES. Read tributes to The Doors, The Sixties, Kissing, Leonard Cohen, and Diane Keaton. As I was reading the one to Redheads I knew what my post would be today.

This first appeared in GQ in 1988. The final three paragraphs read:

"What is your mission among us, you daughters of ancient Henna, you agents of the harvest moon? Are those star maps that your freckles replicate? How do you explain the fact that you live longer than the average human? Where did you get such sensitive skin? And why are your curls the same shade as heartache?

Alas, inquiry is futile: either they don't know or they won't say - and who has the nerve to pressure a redhead? We may never learn their origin or meaning, but it probably doesn't matter. We will go on leaping out of our frying pans into their fire, grateful for the opportunity to be titillated by their vengeful fury, real or imagined, and to occasionally test our erotic mettle in the legendary inferno of their passion.

Redheaded women! Those blood oranges! Those cherry bombs! Those celestial shrews and queens of copper! May they never cease to stain our white-bread lives with supernatural catsup."

Thank you Tom (may i call you Tom?)