Experts

It has always been a mystery about who becomes and expert and how they achieve that rank. There are genuine experts especially those who have worked in a particular field and have a record of success. And there are those who are self-proclaimed experts. We got this woman in town who claims to be an expert in art. Particularly modern art. She claims she can see things in pictures that escape the vision of the rest of us. Her walls are covered with copies of Dali, Picasso, and a bunch of other artists. Most of her paintings are things she did herself. Wallace Duby, a guy around here who is an expert in being a handyman, was called in to hang one of her works about a year ago. I reckon it was out of meanness, but he hung the picture upside down. She came in and told him it wasn't right. She wanted it two inches higher up on the wall. So he moved it two inches higher and there it hangs today. I was there last week and she asked me what I saw in the picture. I told her I saw a picture that was hanging upside down. She laughed real hard and said, "You people in this town will never get it. It's my impression of The City of New Orleans (a passenger train) coming into the Harper station." "Oh," I said. My imagination is good enough to recognize that if it was the City of New Orleans the passengers were bouncing around on the ceiling of the train, sparks were flying as the metal roof slid down the tracks, and people waiting at the station were running to escape the impending disaster. I even thought I saw a man dialing 911.