Retired Boomer in the Sunbelt

Performing at the Chinese New Years Festival

2012-01-30T14:40:00.004-07:00

On Sunday the Tucson Sino Martial Arts Group performed at Centennial Hall for the Chinese New Year Festival. TSMA has been together since 2006. This was the fourth time the group has performed for this event. I am the newest member of the group, joining in October of last year, and the only senior citizen among them. Even though I have over thirty years of experience in the Chinese Martial Arts, I have never been part of a performance group.

We were just a small part of the overall performance, our time on stage lasted about seven minutes. Our part of the program was scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm but we arrived at the hall at 10:30 am to get ready. On the sidewalk in front of the hall, we went through our routine a half dozen times. We were joined by Feng, Junjie a Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi master who currently lives and teaches in Phoenix. Just before noon we took our turn on stage to go over the routine one last time. The people running the show made sure all the details and loose ends were taken care of, like where we would stand on stage, the exact placement of our swords, the lighting etc.

We started training for our seven minutes of fame last November, meeting for 2-3 hours of practice at least once every weekend. The routine put together by our Sifu, Zhao, Shuping, contained an entire Chang Chuan sword set, a Tai Chi fan set and a short Chen Tai Chi routine. These three sets were surrounded and embellished by short Tai Chi and Kung Fu movements. It all had to be timed perfectly and set to music. It was apparent to me early on, that I had joined a professional group that knew what they were doing. The broadsword set and Chen Tai chi routine were new to me and I had to learn them from scratch. The Fan routine was performed by the women only. When I joined the group I was delighted to learn that the only other non-Chinese member, Rob, coincidentally had spent years studying and teaching two of the same southern Kung Fu styles that I knew. Sifu Shuping asked us to put together a short group of movements from the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu. We chose to each do a segment from the famous Tiger and Crane form. Simultaneously Rob performed the tiger section while I did the crane part.
The entire New Year’s show lasted well over two hours. There were dancers and singers and musicians. It was quite an extravaganza. I would have liked to have watched it from the audience. The people I know who did, told me it was spectacular and well worth the admission price. I watched as much of it as I could from behind the side curtain on stage. It was exciting being back stage with all the performers.
Besides performing with our group, Master Feng performed a Chen Tai Chi routine accompanied by Shi Yi on the flute. My wife, Katie, who was in the audience said, “It was so beautiful, I cried”. Master Feng also performed a solo routine, a drunken Kung Fu Form. This highlighted his incredible strength and flexibility. His interpretation of the form was both inspiring and humorous.
I am not an experienced performer and have a fair amount of anxiety about it. When I was in the seventh grade I was part of our annual Middle School Christmas Pageant. While standing in the front row singing Christmas Carols with the group, I passed out cold and fell to the floor. When I woke up, all the other kids were standing over me. It was humiliating. Even as an adult, that young boy who fainted in front of the whole school pops up when I least expect it.

I missed much of the first part of the show just prior to our group performance. I sat by an open door breathing in the cool fresh air and trying to stay calm. We were the sixth act to go on. The women in our group had applied their makeup, put flowers in their hair and I thought they all looked very beautiful. The whole seven minutes of our performance went by in a blur. I have no idea how we did as a group, but I do know I spaced out for a few moments and missed a few moves during the sword form. Others assured me later that it was hardly noticeable. Being in my 60s, I’ll write it off as a senior moment.

While the Centennial Hall show was still going on, the TSMA group walked over to a local Middle School to repeat our performance for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year presentation. The stage was very small. I was on the end and during the performance got tripped up in the electrical cords, lost my place and experienced an even longer senior moment. By this time however, I was so tired I didn’t care and no one seemed to notice anyway. The audience clapped and hollered loudly when we were through. They rewarded us with delicious Vietnamese sandwiches for our efforts. I ate mine with abandon. I realized I had hardly eaten anything all day. Just prior to our performance at Centennial Hall, we were fed us lunch which consisted of pizza and water. I ate one piece of greasy pizza and the fearful little boy inside warned me, not only might I faint on stage, but if I ate another piece of pizza, I might throw up as well.

Performing for the Chinese New Year’s Festival was all in all, a rewarding experience, but I’m relieved it’s over. Now our group can get back to learning and practicing the Chinese Martial Arts that we all love.

^{To see more pictures from the performance and other pictures by Jack Zhang go to the following link.}

https://picasaweb.google.com/102776910731860589428

Our Tedious Thoughts

2012-01-19T10:59:00.002-07:00

In the Jack Kornfield book “The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology”, Jack describes the below cartoon. I love Buddhist humor. Katie, my artistic wife, re-created it for my blog.

In my Tai Chi classes, the people who have the hardest time learning the movements are those who first process the moves through their minds and then try to translate it to their bodies. As adults, we all have a tendency to do this,some more than others. Most of my students these days are older adults and this phenomenon seems to get worse with age. Younger people have less trouble watching and doing. Children very easily imitate what they see without having to think about it. “Monkey see, monkey do” is not difficult for them. With many older people it becomes “monkey see, monkey think about, monkey ask questions and then monkey get very frustrated and possibly quit”.
When a person sticks with practicing Tai Chi regularly, it gradually becomes easier for them to get out of their heads and simply reside in body awareness. Getting over the initial frustration that results from this tension between head and body is the hardest. Abandoning the “thinking step” to learning Tai Chi allows the person to more easily “go with the flow” as we boomers used to say.
The concept of consciousness being separate from our thoughts is not something most people understand. Buddhism teaches that thinking is the cause of suffering. More accurately, out of attachment to thinking arises suffering. When we are conscious of our thoughts, thoughts then become a tool of consciousness.
We tend to believe what we think about ourselves and the world around us. Our thoughts and beliefs are interpretations of reality, but not reality itself. Thoughts and beliefs give rise to emotions. The alternative to unconsciously riding the waves of thoughts, beliefs and emotions is awareness of an alive stillness within the present moment. Only in the present moment, do we find true freedom. Even when there is chaos all around, there is a space within that is calm and still, like the eye of a storm.
Almost everyone has at one time or another experienced a deep sense of peace and joy that arises from totally letting go and being present. Like after a hard days work, when you finally get a chance to sit down and relax.
Practicing Tai Chi is only one way of cultivating the ability to get out of our thoughts and rest in this deep sense of peace, There are many other ways: religious faith, meditation, yoga or just totally accepting one’s self and one’s life.

A Quiet New Year’s Eve In Green Valley

2012-01-03T15:32:00.001-07:00

I woke up early on New Year’s day, 1 or 2 in the morning, and realized I’d slept through New Year’s Eve. It’s not unusual for Katie and me to go to bed before midnight on New Year’s Eve. What is unusual is not being startled awake by fireworks and people yelling and then having a hard time getting back to sleep because erratic explosions continue on into the wee hours of the morning. In Green Valley, the land of retirees, however, I didn’t hear one firecracker or one person yelling. It was blessedly quiet all evening.

One could make the conclusion that New Year’s Eve is a holiday for the young. There was a time when we would at least stay up and watch Dick Clark or someone ring in the New Year on TV. But we’re not even interested in that anymore. Seeing a bunch of inebriated people jumping around and yelling is not my idea of a good time.

Last New Year’s Katie and I were in Hawaii, staying at her son’s home. This was by far the noisiest celebration I have ever witnessed in the US. A ban on aerial fireworks was going into effect the next year, so people in Hawaii went nuts. I hated it. It actually started many days before the 31^st,building to a crescendo around midnight and then carrying on days later. On New Year’s Eve the smoke from all the explosions was so thick in Nuuanu Valley, we had to close all the windows, because we were all coughing and choking.

I remember the very first time I was allowed to participate in the New Year’s Eve craziness. It was in the 1950s in Ferguson, Mo. My parents decided to let my sister Karen and me stay up. Dad told us that when midnight came, we could go outside and make as much noise as we wanted. He gave us each lids from pots and pans and instructed us to hit them together like cymbals and yell at the top of our lungs. I couldn’t believe we would actually be allowed to do that. Our dad was always telling us crazy stuff and invariably mom would put a stop to it. But when I looked over at mom, she just smiled at me in approval and took a sip of wine.

Just before midnight, we stepped out onto the front porch. I looked up and down the street and to my surprise our neighbors were all standing out on their front porches too, well almost all of our neighbors anyway. I noticed a few dark houses, like our next door neighbors, Mr. & Mrs. Howard, who were in their 70s, and the family down the street who belonged to that strange religion. At 12:00 we all began yelling and knocking our pan lids together. I thought it was great fun and over much too soon.

The worst New Year’s Eve of my life and the one that soured me on the holiday from then on was in 1967 in Vietnam. I stayed in my hooch that evening quietly drinking and smoking a joint with one of my buddies. At midnight we stepped out the screen door to watch countless tracer bullets and flares fill the dark sky. The sound was intense, not unlike when we were under attack. I didn’t enjoy it.

Someone shot one of our Vietnamese interpreters, Chang, that night. For years I assumed the culprit was our redneck supply sergeant. He was crude and prejudiced. He called all Vietnamese “gooks” and along with our first sergeant was behind the movement to not allow our interpreters to eat in the mess hall. I stopped eating there as well in protest, but nobody cared or even noticed. In just several weeks from that night, we would experience the ’68 TET offensive and be the intended victims of a much bigger and more lethal barrage of aerial ordnance.

A few years ago, I attempted to get in touch with anyone from my former unit over the internet. I received one reply from a guy who worked at my base camp at that time. He was in communications and knew many of the same people I knew. He told me he was actually there when Chang was shot. A bunch of them, including Chang, were up by our headquarters hooch and at 12:00 all began to shoot their rifles into the air. One of the sergeants, not the supply sergeant, lost his balance and fell over while firing his rifle. The automatic weapon sprayed the whole area and this guy told me it was lucky they weren’t all killed. However, one of the bullets hit Chang by accident. They immediately arranged for him to be medevac'd to the Division hospital. All these years I thought the evil sergeant did it on purpose.

I’m always glad when New Year’s is over. Waking up at 2:00am New Years morning and experiencing the quiet made me thankful I’m at this stage of my life. It seems like a long time ago when I banged those pot lids, yelled like bloody murder and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Wisdom of St. Frances

2011-12-29T16:39:00.001-07:00

The western Saints tell us, what matters most is what we “Do” in the world.

To the eastern mystics, what’s most important is to mindfully “Be” in the world.

Frank Sinatra sang, “Do, Be, Do, Be, Do”, Very Wise.

Pop, Rock & Soul On PBS

2011-12-05T14:53:00.001-07:00

I like watching the PBS music specials, especially when the artists are from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Last night the special was called “’60s Pop, Rock and Soul (My Music)”. When PBS puts these concerts on, it’s always during a pledge drive so we have to suffer through the very long segments when they beg, plead and cajole us for money. Usually they have one or more of the musicians being interviewed by the regular PBS folks, so that keeps me watching.

The two musicians hosting the show were two Brits, Davey Jones and Peter Noon. Both looked amazingly good for their age, which has to be around 60. Both were young looking even back in the day, so they had un unfair advantage. Davey didn’t bring the other Monkees with him and Peter was devoid of the Hermits.

There were almost 20 different acts on the show and all of the groups had at least some of the original members. That’s probably a rule. The most noticeable absentees were, Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders, Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane/Starship and Smokey Robinson of the Miracles. I have to say the stand-ins were quite good at imitating the originals. The young blond woman who sang “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” was quite a babe and even had Grace’s fast vibrato down. I recognized Paul Kantner and Marty Balin from the original Jefferson Airplane. I was hoping Marty would do a song, but he didn’t. The worst of the 3 stand-ins was the blond guy who sang lead for the Raiders. He was a good singer, but no Mark Lindsay.

Other lead singers sans their groups were Mitch Ryder without the Detroit Wheels and Roger McGuine without The Byrds. I think Mitch sounds better today as an older man than when he was young. Eddy Floyd who sang “Knock on Wood” and Percy Sledge with “When a Man Loves a Woman” were amazingly good. Poor Percy had this huge hit, most of it sung in a high register. He’s doomed for the rest of his life to hit those high notes, but he did a good job.

The strangest group was ? and the Mysterians. They sang their biggest hit “96 Tears”. A Mexican American garage band from Detroit and Flint, Michigan, today they are thought of as Proto-punk, a precursor to Punk Rock. I never liked the song, but it was obvious that they were still having fun playing music.

The most notable one hit wonder band was the Kingsmen. They sang “Louie, Louie” just like it was recorded, the lead singer slurring his words so they were barely understandable. He even copied the mistake on the record where he comes in with the verse too early, stops and then starts again. The audience loved it. Most of us boomers know what the real lyrics are by now, but at the time it was popular, there was an FBI investigation of what the FBI thought were graphically explicit sexual lyrics. The song was originally written by Richard Berry in 1955 about a Jamaican sailor returning to his girl on the Island. It became a popular cover song around the Northwest. Paul Revere and the Raiders, another Northwest band, also came out with a version about the same time, but it wasn’t a hit. There was a movement in Washington at one time to make “Louie, Louie” the official state song. I ‘m not sure if it was all the original Kingsmen on the PBS special or not, but they must be damn tired of doing this song.

For me the highlight was Chad and Jeremy singing “A Summer Song”. In a pledge break interview one of them said it’s been 40 years since they’d played together, but these aging Englishmen, each playing an acoustic guitar, sang the song sweetly and with tight harmony.

As a kid watching the Ink Spots, Rosemary Clooney and others of that era, I thought their music was old-fashioned and corny. Well now it’s our turn to be old and corny. I didn’t realize back then that rarely are the most popular artists on these kinds of shows. But I enjoyed seeing them all and there are always enough of the ones I Used to like to keep me watching.

My Personal Profile

2011-11-23T12:07:00.002-07:00

On the left hand side of this Blogspot page there’s an “About Me” section. Under it is my picture and along side the picture a link that says “View my complete profile”. I need to let everyone know that this actually is not my complete profile. As I think over my 64 years of life, it’s apparent to me that I’ve left a few things out. This is the “facebook” section of the blog. I’ve never been comfortable with Facebook. I’ve been invited by “friends” to join , but always decline.
Social networking is a huge phenomenon. Mark Zuckerberg was an intelligent college guy, but awkward around girls. He discovered how to enhance the college dating atmosphere, creating a way for fellow students to put their profiles out there for other students to see. The blog profile feels to me like an extension of this mentality.
Right next to my picture is the category “gender”. I dutifully put “male” in there, but I suspect the mustache gives it away. If you need both a picture and label to help people identify your gender perhaps you should choose another medium for social interaction. The next most important thing it tells you about me is that I’m a Libra. Nobody ever asks me my astrological sign anymore. It happened a lot in the ‘60s and ‘70s. I take that back. When we’re vacationing in California sometimes someone will want to know. I’ve never put my sign on a resume though.
The other most important info about me according to the profile section are my favorite movies, music and books. There are no categories for politics or religion or for that matter my favorite car, my favorite food or psychologist. Katie has a favorite kind of garlic press. I think the “my interests” category is meant to cover all these other areas.
I suspect people put down only what they want others to know. Social networking then becomes an extension of our egos, or more specifically, our personas. The whole truth about ourselves is yet to be discovered. Few people are going to put down that they suffer from anxiety, have a bad temper, are addicted to prescription drugs, have hemorrhoids or hate their bodies. Those things are to be discovered later on in the relationship.
I like thinking and talking with others about favorite books, movies and music. I mostly choose favorites from the past, when things tended to have a greater impact on me. Having a favorite anything is an interesting concept. What I like changes over time. At one time in my life, my favorite book was Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine. It was a great book about a boy who invented a machine that did all his homework for him. I rarely have current favorites of anything. Actually I don’t think much in terms of favorites anymore, but I used to. I often have trouble choosing one thing over another. My favorite food tends to be whatever I’m eating at the time.
I’d like to add another category to my profile, “religion”. For my favorite, I choose Hinduism because it has something for everyone. It has plenty of Gods and Goddesses, and many different paths to God. In a sub-category of favorite Hindu Deity, it’s a tie between Krishna, the young good looking dude who played the flute and had groups of adoring young Gopis following him everywhere (not unlike my favorite rock ‘n’ roll star which would be in another category) and Hanuman, the monkey warrior, who was the devotee and protector of Rama. He was one fierce and devoted dude.
Under the sub-category of favorite style of Zen Buddhism, I would have to go with Soto Zen. Practitioners can just sit and mind their own business, whereas in Rinzai Zen the master silently creeps around in the background and then whacks you with a bamboo stick when you least expect it. I hate that.
Under the sub-category of favorite New Thought writer I would go with Joel Goldsmith. This New York Jew and renegade Christian Scientist created The Infinite Way. His teachings cut to the chase and can be summed up: Every moment of your life, practice the presence of the Christ within.
Under the sub-category of favorite saying by a Guru that could be put on a bumper sticker I choose Meher Baba: Don’t worry, be Happy.

Briefly Marching With OWS

2011-11-10T14:18:00.002-07:00

Katie and I were in Tucson a few weeks ago for the Tucson Meet Yourself Folk Life Festival. After I performed with the Chinese Martial Arts Club, we walked around to take in the rest of the Festival. We ran across the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters who were marching through the streets of Tucson, so we joined them. I didn’t know much about the movement at the time. We thought it had something to do with the rich getting too rich and too powerful in this country and influencing our politicians too much. We agreed with that so we entered the slow moving stream of people.
I don’t like being part of any large movement or organization. There is always something I don’t agree with. I’m sure it’s related to my experience in the Army and more specifically in Vietnam. We wreaked havoc on that beautiful country and its people and I was part of that effort. When I got back and decided to join the protest against the war, I found out that to the protesters I symbolized what they were against. I didn’t feel welcomed by them and didn’t like many of the things they were saying.
I recently allowed my membership in the American Legion to lapse for that very reason. For example, I didn’t agree with their efforts to amend the constitution giving Congress the power to prohibit the desecration of the American flag. The Legion is very hung up on the flag. I don’t want to burn a flag, but I believe in my right to do so. If I can buy one and own one, then I can burn it. Strangely I supported the right of that wacko preacher who wanted to burn the Koran. I also have a right to burn a Bible, which I don’t especially want to do either, but I don’t think the preacher would have agreed with that. The issue is individual freedom of expression. The flag is a symbol of that freedom, not the freedom itself.
When Katie and I fell into step with the marchers, I felt slightly uncomfortable. There was a young man directly behind us yelling about the greed of the fascist capitalists etc. and he kept stepping on my heel, causing my shoe to come off. He did that twice. Finally I turned around and gave him a dirty look. He looked back at me, but didn’t seem to care. He was too busy yelling nasty remarks for the cause. I feel these demonstrations should be peaceful and not have any destructive behavior or aggressive words, at all. But my wanting to turn around and knock that asshole down on the ground and give him a memorable experience with my shoe, didn’t seem in harmony with my message. So instead we dropped out of the procession.
The Occupy Wall Street movement was started by a group out of Vancouver, BC called Adbusters. I’m not sure how it made the transition from Canada to the US, but on Jul 13, 2011 they put out a call to those who read their website and publications to: Occupy Wall Street!, and the following statement:
In Solidarity, and as a response to this call, a planning group was formed [occupywallst.org], and an info sharing site established. The participation of every person, and every organization, that has an interest in returning the US back into the hands of its individual citizens is required.
Our nation, our species and our world are in crisis. The US has an important role to play in the solution, but we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies of our nation.
We, the people of the United States of America, considering the crisis at hand, now reassert our sovereign control of our land.
Solidarity Forever!
The first OWS protest was on September 17, 2011. Wikipedia says that within one month there were similar demonstrations in 70 major cities and 600 communities around the country. World wide protests similar to these have happened in over 900 cities.
This movement has obviously struck a chord with people and during the first month it grew very fast. The protestors call themselves the 99%ers. This alludes to the fact that 1% of the population has a disproportionate amount of the wealth. The 99%ers believe that because of the way our politicians are elected, they become beholden to those with the most money. This highly influences how these politicians govern and the laws they pass. We can’t trust the government to change this because they are the very ones perpetuating it.
Only time will tell whether this movement will continue to grow and affect some kind of change. Much of the third world is rapidly trying to become more capitalistic while the OWS movement is saying we all need to be less capitalistic. The western world has lived this wasteful consumer lifestyle for a long time now. We are in no place to tell the billions of people in the third world they can’t have it too. It seems pretty clear that if the billions of people in the third world do become affluent in the same way that we are, the earth will not be able to sustain all the waste and pollution and the energy demands will be astronomical. It’s apparent that we are heading for a big change.
With all these huge problems facing the world, do we want big business calling the shots? Capitalists are most concerned with making a profit and less concerned about the welfare of the people and the environment. So even though I support much of what the OWS movement stands for, I don’t think I’ll be marching with them again any time soon. Well maybe I will if they get rid of those angry, nasty, shoe destroying assholes.

Missing My Furry Friend

2011-10-31T16:43:00.002-07:00

We had to have the Vet euthanize our cat, Felis, recently. He was with us for almost 17 years. It’s been several weeks now and I still look for him when I come home and then that sharp pain somewhere between my chest and throat reminds me, he’s gone. He wasn’t sick very long, but I suppose the cancerous tumor had been growing on his kidney for a long time. We just didn’t know it. It was only in the last few weeks of his life that we realized something was wrong.
My son, Ben, and I picked him out of the litter along with his long gone sister, Flower. It was at Christmastime in 1994. Flower was cute, white and black hair with a shy demeanor. Katie picked her out as the one, right away. We planned on taking just one kitten from the litter, but Felis had so much spunk and personality that Ben and I agreed we had to take him too.
We lived at the time in a two story Victorian home and the two kittens had the run of the place. Flower was a natural athlete and that seemed to bother Felis. He was too aggressive for her and their fights always ended with Flower squealing for mercy as Felis pinned her to the floor, biting her neck. There was a big wooden ball on the bannister at the bottom of our hall stairs. In self defense, Flower learned to jump from the bottom stair onto this varnished ball. Felis couldn’t get to her. He tried many times to jump onto that ball, but always slid off, crash landing on the floor in a undignified manner.
Later we moved to a condo across town. The kittens got out one evening and I found Flower dead by the side of the road. She’d been hit by a car and the driver must have placed her up on the grass. I think I know what happened. Felis probably dashed across the street in front of the car with Flower following him. She always followed him. We buried Flower across the street in a field and Felis became our only pet. I was irrationally mad at him for a while for not taking care of his little sister.
He started doing string art shortly after that. Katie is a knitter and would make a small ball of yarn for him to bat around. He discovered that if he knocked it under the kitchen table, the yarn made interesting patterns, or perhaps he just enjoyed watching me untangle the mess when he was through. He sat patiently as I wound the yarn back up into a ball and then threw it for him so he could start the process all over again. Sometimes when he was finished, he put the string ball in one of my shoes, so I’d find it later and throw it out to him.
When we moved from Washington to New York, he got used to being on a harness and leash. On the trip across country we feared he might jump out of the truck when we opened the door. He became accustomed to my taking him over to the grassy areas at rest stops to sniff around. He became an old hand at traveling, because we moved from New York to Arizona, back to Washington and then back to Arizona. I can’t say that he enjoyed traveling, but as long as we were all together, he was content.
The best place we lived, from Felis’s perspective, was our friend Sally’s add-on apartment in Sequim, Wa. We stayed there for 4 or 5 months after we sold our house and just before moving back to Arizona. Her house is in the country and has an acre of lawn rimmed by thick trees. Sally had 3 cats at the time and we had adopted a stray named Farley. The cats ruled this acre of land. Felis loved to wander and explore the acreage. Sometimes the cats would sit around close to each other just watching and listening to the world around them.
Felis’s training on the harness came in handy when we moved to Green Valley. I didn’t dare let him out because of the many wild animals that roam the area. Maybe I was over protective, but we’ve seen bobcats, coyotes, huge owls, rattle snakes and herds of javelina on the grounds. So I started walking him on the leash. He loved it. “Walking him” is not the right term though, rolling on the sidewalk, sniffing bushes and chewing grass with a little bit of walking in between would be more accurate. We usually went out in the evening, when the light was starting to fade. The birds are very active at this time, but their chirping was engulfed by an expansive stillness as twilight approached. Felis and I spent many a sunset together on the sidewalks around the Villas. In the evenings now I feel sad that he’s not with me to enjoy it. Or maybe he is, who knows?

Performing with my Comrades

2011-10-20T13:32:00.003-07:00

Saturday, I performed with the Tucson Sino Martial Arts Group. I only had two minutes of performance time, out of more than an hour. The performance was at the Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival. This festival happens every year and brings together all the diverse cultural and ethnic groups of the Tucson area. Their website describes the festival as follows:
Tucson Meet Yourself is different from other large events: it is a “folklife” festival. This means that our focus is on presenting artists and communities that carry on living traditions rooted in a group’s own definition of identity, artistry and cultural significance. The festival has been held each year in Downtown Tucson, Arizona since 1974.
It’s a three day event and our performance took place on the morning of the second day. The weather has been hot recently in southern Arizona, and thankfully the performance was over before the heat reached its peak. I’ve been practicing and teaching Tai Chi for over 30 years and just recently joined this Martial Arts Club. My motivation for joining was to learn Chen style Tai Chi from a qualified teacher. As far as I can tell, all of the members of the club are Chinese except for me and another guy named Rob. We are referred to as the two “Americans” in the club. I assume that the Chinese members are Americans too, but they don’t refer to themselves that way. I’ve only been to one practice so far, but all of the members were very gracious and welcoming.

I’ve belonged to numerous martial arts clubs over the years, but this one is unlike any of those. The focus of my previous clubs has always been the self-defense aspects of the Kung Fu and Tai Chi movements. This group’s orientation seems to be on performance. The forms I already know come out of southern China and Hong Kong, brought to the US by teachers who long ago left China. The forms that I’m being introduced to at TSMAG have been more recently standardized in China for performance purposes.

In Chinese history, the years from 1912-1949 are known as the “Republican Period”. During this time the traditional Martial Arts were encouraged. They were taught and performed as a means to promote national pride. All the various styles of Martial Arts flourished throughout China. At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, a group of Chinese Martial artists demonstrated for the first time to an international audience. In 1949 the People’s Republic of China came to power and the Martial Arts were transformed. The PRC did not like the martial quality of the art and changed it to a regulated sport called Wushu. To quote an article in Wikipedia, “The new competition sport was disassociated from what was seen as the potentially subversive self-defense aspects and family lineages of the Chinese Martial Arts.” In 1958 the government established the All-China Wushu Association as the umbrella organization that regulates Martial Arts training. The traditional forms were standardized and regulated for performance and competition purposes.

My new Martial Arts club appears to be from this later period. I was the fifth act to perform at the Festival. During all the performances, music was played in the background. Some of the music sounded like revolutionary worker songs. Thankfully the music played during my performance was more traditional stringed instrument Chinese music. I was asked by Shuping, the Sifu of the club, to perform a two minute version of Sun Tai Chi. Sun is the newest of the five main family styles of Tai Chi. It was created in the early 1900’s by Sun Lu Tang. He was a practitioner of all three internal styles of Chinese Martial Arts, Tai Chi, Bagua and Hsing Yi. The Sun form was patterned after the Tai Chi long form and contains elements of all three internal styles. I’ve been practicing this style for about 15 years. My main Tai Chi style is the Yang family style which the troupe already knows. The Sun style adds something new to this performance troupe, so that’s probably why I was asked to do it.

When I arrived at the festival Shuping handed me a white silk uniform she brought for me to wear for the performance. I had cleaned and pressed my more traditional black uniform the night before, and Shuping said I didn’t have to change if I didn’t want to. I tried it on and it felt very sheer and silky. So this is how Hugh Hefner must feel all the time. Most of the other men wore their black uniforms and looked quite macho. At least I didn’t have flowers on my jacket like the women. The others said I looked good in it and I felt pleased and honored to be accepted as part of this Martial Arts Troupe.
I think the performance went well. Shuping and a few of the other women performed the Yang 24 form behind me while I did my two minutes of Sun style. I am not a seasoned performer, but this new club will definitely force me to work to become a better practitioner of both Kung Fu and Tai Chi.

For this second picture, everyone jumped into a martial pose and I just stood there like a dummy. Next time I’ll be prepared. Actually the guy next to me is an excellent Chen practitioner, so I’m in good company.

Playing in the Khoury League

2011-10-12T11:02:00.002-07:00

It’s the end of the baseball season and I still feel excited about the upcoming playoffs and World Series, even though I don’t follow baseball very closely any more. I probably won’t watch many of the games. The Cardinals are still in it as of this writing. St. Louis has been a baseball town since the St. Louis Brown Stockings were formed in 1882. Being a Cardinals’ fan over the years pays off unlike being fans of other teams who are rarely contenders come October.
The 50s and 60s were good times to be a Cardinals fan. Like most boys back then I collected baseball cards. On the back of each card was a wealth of information about the player. My favorite Cardinal was “Stan the Man” Musial. He played for the Cardinals from 1941-1963, a 22-year career, with one year out to fight in WWII. He was a consistently good player and set many records that are still on the books. He loved his fans and treated them with respect. Stan had a career batting average of .331. He was the Cardinals yearly batting champion 7 times, the most of any Cardinal, one more than Rogers Hornsby who played in the 20s. Stan had a very distinctive way of batting, keeping his feet close together while moving his body and his bat around in small circles.
One of the great missed opportunities of my life was the night some friends went downtown to Stan’s restaurant to meet him. I got sick and couldn’t go and felt extremely disappointed. My buddies did bring me back an autographed picture of Stan, which, of course, is long gone. I think my friend, Paul, still has his. In February of this year, Stan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. It couldn’t have gone to a more deserving guy. Watch him receive it on the following link. (Cut & Paste)
www.ksdk.com/news/article/244071/3/Stan-Musial-receives-Presidential-Medal-of-Freedom
As a kid I played baseball every summer. Little league baseball in the St. Louis area was called the Khoury League. It was founded in 1934 by George M. Khoury. The motto was, “The Khoury League is interested in the child that nobody else wants.” It rapidly spread throughout the St. Louis area and included spoiled county suburbanites like me. Participation was not on a try-out basis, but Mr. Khoury wanted all kids of various skill levels to get a chance to play.
There were six divisions, Atom, Bantam, Midget, Juvenile and Senior. The baseball diamonds were smaller than regulation size and even the ball sizes were adjusted for the age of the players. There was an all star game at the end of each season. This game was played at the major league ball park, Sportsman Field, which later became the first Busch Stadium.
I started out in the Bantam league on a very good team sponsored by Van Zant Realty. In the Atom division many of the players picked weeds in the outfield while fly balls dropped around them or ran the wrong way as their parents and fellow players screamed. But in the Bantam league the kids were more skilled and started to take the game seriously. I was totally intimidated by the skills of the other players. The best pitcher on my team was a boy named Jimmy. He could throw a variety of pitches including a wicked curve ball. If the pitch was a little to the outside, Billy Bob, the catcher, would quickly move his glove back to the center of the strike zone, attempting to fool the umpire. It never worked, but I thought it was extremely sophisticated and crafty.
Our manager forgot about Mr. Khoury’s dictum that all kids get to play, because that first year, I spent most games sitting on the bench. My dad must have felt sorry for me, because he decided to manage his own team. The sponsor was Barbay's Market. Unlike most other managers, Dad stayed true to the Khoury League spirit and let all the kids have a chance to play.Consequently, we didn't win many games. His other rule was, whether we won or lost, we all went out for ice cream. For the other teams, ice cream was a reward for winning. We often ran into our old teammates at North Hills Dairy Creamery and I wondered if they thought we were winning as many games as they were, probably not. Even though my dad knew near to nothing about managing a baseball team, he did know something about kids and ice cream.
I got better as a ball player and one year I even got a chance to play in the All Star Game at Busch stadium. I was definitely outclassed by the other players. My goal was not to screw up too badly and I didn’t. I usually played 3rd base and fancied myself a junior Ken Boyer, the Cardinals fantastic 3rd baseman, but in that game I was placed in the outfield. I didn’t get a chance to catch a fly ball, but fielded a few successfully and I was up to bat two times. I walked once and hit a single.
I’ll try to catch some of the post season games this year, but I always liked playing baseball better than watching it. I’d take more interest in the sport if I knew more of the players. Each season it seems I have to learn a whole bunch of new players. Very few stay with the same team for very long, unlike “Stan the Man” who spent his entire career with the Cardinals. I am familiar with Albert Pujols and it will be worth it just watching him play. Go Cardinals!

To Be Brave

2011-10-04T11:27:00.002-07:00

When I was in the 6^th grade and began having trouble keeping up with my school work in public school, my parents sent me to a private Christian school. The kids were nice at the new school and the classes were small. I didn’t have any trouble making friends. David was one of them. He didn't look like the other kids. His hair was short, cut close to the scalp. He wore flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, tight jeans and tan suede combat boots. Hanging out of his back pocket was a red bandanna that swayed like a horse's tail when he walked.
On my first day, he came right up to me and put his fist close to my face. I thought he was threatening to beat me up.
"Do you know how I got these marks?" He pointed with his other hand to the back part of his fist. I had to look closely, but then I saw what he was referring to, four tiny holes lined up in a row and evenly spaced.
"No." I replied, relieved he wasn't going to hit me.
"A high school kid stabbed me with a fork." He explained.
Sure enough that's what the little holes looked like.
"Why did he do that?" He had definitely gotten my interest.
"I squirted him with catsup."
I could tell he was enjoying telling me about this, but he kept becoming quiet, waiting for me to ask him questions.
"Why did you squirt him with catsup?"
He continued. "I was sitting on a stool at the counter in the drug store right next to this guy. He was eating a piece of apple pie and Frank, the guy that worked the counter, had just brought me my hot dog. I asked the guy if he could pass me the catsup, which was sitting right there in front of him. But he just kept on eating his pie like he hadn't heard me. I know he had, so I asked him again. I said, ‘Hey buddy pass me that catsup would you?’"
There was another long pause, which was my cue to ask another question. "Did he?"
"Nope, he just kept shoving pie in his mouth. So I said, ‘What’s the matter, are you deaf?’ and this got his attention. He looked over at me and said 'Get it yourself jerk'. But the catsup was all the way on the other side of him where I couldn't reach." Again David stopped and waited.
"What did you do next?"
"I got up, walked all the way behind him, grabbed the catsup and then around again to where I was sitting."
"Is that when you squirted him?" I asked this time without waiting for him to pause.
"No, not yet, first I slowly put catsup on my hot dog. Then I turned to him and in my nicest voice said, 'Hey buddy, here's some catsup for you,' and I squirted it all over his shirt." He smiled and kept looking right at me, I guess to see my reaction.
"Is that when he stabbed you with his fork?"
"Yep.He grabbed my arm while I was squirting him, slammed it down on the counter and jabbed the fork right there." He again pointed to the tiny holes on the back of his hand. I must have made a face because he laughed.
"Then what happened?"
It took him a while to answer. He was admiring his battle wound, moving his hand around until the light captured it at just the right angle. "I pushed him hard and he fell backwards off the stool and I ran like hell out of the drug store. By the time he picked his butt up off the floor, I was long gone."
I liked his story. I was amazed that after being stabbed by this big high school guy, he still had enough presence of mind to push him off the stool.
"Have you ever been in a fight?” David asked me.
I could only think of one incident. It wasn't really a fight. "One time, a kid at public school had a jar crammed full of grasshoppers. He was taking it around, showing it to everybody. I felt sorry for the grasshoppers. They could barely move in there. I asked him to let them go, but he refused, so I pushed him down, grabbed the jar, opened it and let the grasshoppers out."
David liked my story and told me that like him, I too was a warrior. But I didn’t really believe I was a warrior. I didn't mention that the kid was small and in the grade below me. I also didn’t tell him about the time a bigger kid punched me in the face at the public swimming pool and I was scared and spent the rest of the day hiding out to avoid him.
David said he was excited about a book he was reading. It was all about Vikings. They sailed around conquering other lands, fighting their enemies with axes and swords. “Can you imagine fighting some guy with a razor sharp axe or a sword?”
He looked at me as if I should respond, but then quickly added. “Now that is brave.”
David and I became good friends. We hung out together during recess for the rest of the school year. I loved listening to his exploits. When I was around him, I felt I could be brave too.

Faces in the Yearbook

2011-09-28T13:09:00.002-07:00

I’ve never gone to one of my high school class reunions. The last one would have been the 46^th. I find this hard to believe. McClure was a big high school in north St. Louis County, with over 3000 students, grades ten through twelve. Sometime in the 1980s, the planning committee for our 20^th or 25^thclass reunion tracked me down in Washington state. Ever since then I’ve been receiving yearly reunion notifications. In recent years these emails have also contained death notifications of some of my former classmates.
I didn’t know a lot of my classmates and many of the names in these emails sounded familiar, but I had trouble putting a face to the name. I saved the emails thinking that one day I would look these people up in the yearbook, which has been stashed away at my sister Karen’s house for the past umpteen years. On our recent trip to Seattle, I found the box containing yearbooks at the bottom of a stack of boxes in her basement and I threw it in the car for the trip home to Arizona.
The other day I looked up all my now deceased former classmates. To my surprise, I recognized most of them. Not only did I recognize them, but I could hear their voices and see some of their mannerisms. I’m sure I haven’t thought about these people since we were in high school, but now they have come back to life in my mind.
When I look at their pictures, my thoughts and feelings about them are frozen in time. I’m 63 years old, yet I’m looking through the eyes of a 17-year-old. That girl was really cute and what a body! That guy was tough, I wouldn’t have wanted to get on his wrong side.That girl was really sweet to me, why didn’t I talk to her more? That guy was cool but that one was a real nerd.
I found myself feeling compassion for all these students. We were together in high school at the very beginning of our adult lives and at a time in history, just before our society radically changed. I’m sure many of them married and divorced, lost spouses or children along the way, had multiple ups and downs and now those of us who have survived are in the last part of our lives.
One guy from my class never got a chance to be a hippy, go to college, have a career or a family. His name was Mike and he died in Vietnam in 1967, just two years after we graduated. He was one of the cool guys, tall with blond hair and good looking. I didn’t know him well, but we had a mutual girlfriend. To be more precise, she was my friend and his girlfriend. Her name was Marley and she went to a nearby Catholic school. I first met her out cruising the burger stands with some of the guys. This was an activity she never did, but on this one occasion the car she was riding in ended up right next to our car at the Jennings’ Steak & Shake.
That night we all ended up over at her friend Birdy’s house. Birdy’s parents’ weren’t home for some reason, so we raided their liquor cabinet, drank mixed drinks and listened to music. At some point, Marley and I paired off and found we had a mutual passion for a lot of the same music. It was 1964 and the Beatles had opened up America to the British invasion. She didn’t like some of the British groups, but she did like The Animals, The Kinks and The Zombies. We also shared a love for the early ‘60s girl groups like The Shirelles, The Chiffons and The Ronettes as well as Mary Wells. But our musical tastes parted company in several areas. She didn’t care for the “Stones” and she liked jazz and folk music, which I wasn’t into.
Marley was excited to share an album with me that she’d recently bought. It was “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. I had never heard of the guy. At first I didn’t like it. I thought he had a terrible voice and was an even worse harmonica player. But she convinced me to hang in there with him, which I’m glad I did. Marley and I became friends after that night. She called me Yeager and I felt I could talk to her about anything. We got together periodically, just to talk and listen to music.
After graduating from high school, I went on a week long trip to Florida with my friends Petie and Jeff. We drove non-stop from St. Louis to Fort Lauderdale in Petie’s Corvair, Monza, with the top down. When we got there, after considerable effort, we found a motel room to share. The rule was, if any one of us hooked up with a girl, the other two would stay clear of the motel room.
I spent most nights sleeping in the car or sitting on a bench on the board walk looking out at the ocean. Luckily I had the motel room all to myself to sleep in during the day. On one of the nights, I remember hearing the familiar nasal voice of Dylan coming from the arcade nearby. But it wasn’t one of the folk songs Marley and I had become familiar with. It was rock ‘n’ roll. The song was “Like a Rolling Stone”. I found the jukebox in the back of the arcade and played it over and over again that night. I was anxious to get back home to ask Marley what she thought about Dylan going electric. I thought about her a lot during that trip and decided I wanted to tell her my true feelings and that I thought our relationship should be more than just friends.
But I never told her my feelings and shortly after that I went into the Army. When I was home on leave after completing my training and prior to going to Vietnam, I went over to her house. She was surprised and happy to see me, but when I entered her living room, there sat Mike on the couch. I could tell they had a romantic thing going on and it made the visit awkward. Mike asked me about the Army. I told him I had signed up for 3 years which allowed me to choose my MOS(Army job). I felt my choice of Intelligence would be interesting and a lot safer. Mike was 1-A at the time and said he was going to allow himself to be drafted. I mentioned that he’d probably get stuck in the Infantry and he replied, “I’ll take my chances.”
I got a letter from Marley when I was in Vietnam. I had about 2 months left on my tour. She said that Mike had stepped on a landmine and was instantly killed. I had trouble feeling bad about it at the time. I had already experienced so much death and destruction. I knew Marley was devastated, so I wrote a letter back with what I thought were comforting words. I told her I would see her when I got back.
Mike looks happy in his yearbook picture. He wasn’t dating Marley yet, but I think he had a lot of different girlfriends in high school. I found his name on a replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Truth or Consequences, Mew Mexico a couple years ago.

Who Am I To Judge?

2011-09-19T09:54:00.002-07:00

I only broke down and cried twice in Vietnam. The second and last time was after my fellow interrogator, Jim, was wheeled out of the ER at the hospital in Chu Lai, briefly came to and said, “Yeager, I’m glad it was me who went instead of you.” He had been shot in the gut and it wasn’t the kind of wound that one surgery could fix. As he drifted back out of consciousness, I hurried outside, sat down on a wooden bench, put my head in my hands and sobbed. It should have been me lying on that gurney all shot up. It was my mission.
Earlier that day I was interrogating a young VC (Viet Cong) woman. She told me the location of a large weapons cache and I reported it to my superiors. It just so happened that one of our battalions was launching a mission into the exact same area that evening. I was told by “L.T.” (our lieutenant) to get my interpreter and the VC woman and mount up, battalion was sending over a helicopter to pick us up in less than an hour.
At the time, I was getting “short”. I had less than a month before going home. And as my time “in country” shortened, I was becoming increasingly paranoid. I was one of the seasoned interrogators. Part of the job was accompanying the infantry on their mission if we found out any vital information from a detainee, such as the location of a weapons cache. We also screened villagers in the field, if we suspected there was enemy activity in the area. Evidently someone higher up in the ranks liked the idea of us interrogators working directly with the units in the field. Rumors were circulating that our Interrogation team might be broken up and each of us assigned to a different battalion in the field. In other words they would turn us into grunts(Infantrymen). This whole prospect worried the hell out of me. I had heard of too many guys getting killed on their last days in country. I wanted to go home alive and with all my working parts.
Our unit put together the latest intelligence maps, so I knew this mission would drop me right smack in the middle of a big NVA (North Vietnamese Army) buildup. It was starting to get dark outside. I thought it would be suicide to attempt to lead the soldiers to this weapons cache in the dark and in the middle of hostile territory. I flat out didn’t want to go, but I had to. It was my job.
As I was suiting up, Jim approached me and asked if he could go in my place. Without a moment’s hesitation I said, “It’s all right with me, as long as you run it by L.T.” Jim and Steve had come into our unit at the same time. They were new replacements for some of the guys who’d already gone home. Both were smart and capable, but they were “newbies” and hadn’t been tested by fire yet. L.T. gave Jim the OK. I watched as the chopper briefly touched down on the heli-pad and Jim, the VC detainee and my interpreter, Chang, climbed into the Huey and flew off to NVA country.
Jim was excited about going out on his first mission. I remembered that feeling, it was exhilarating. I too was full of it when I first got in country. But it was totally gone within a few months. This was a seriously dangerous mission. An FNG like Jim shouldn’t have been the one going. But I didn’t allow any of these thoughts to occupy much space in my mind. My thoughts at the time followed a different path, more along the lines of: He wants to go on this mission and I don’t, so why shouldn’t he. He’s got to learn sometime and it might as well be now. Besides, I’m too short to give a rat’s ass.
That evening we were sitting on our bunks, having a few beers, probably passing around a joint. OD was playing his guitar and as we sang along to some popular song, I heard a jeep drive up to the entrance of our hooch. The brakes squealed and it stopped right in front of the door. The driver yelled, “Is Yeager in there?” My heart sank. I knew it had to be bad news. I opened the hooch door and an MP, not bothering to get out of the jeep, simply said. “Your guy’s up in the hospital, he’s been shot.”
I grabbed my rifle and helmet and hurried down to the motor pool to get a jeep. I drove alone up Highway 1 to the Americal Division Headquarters hospital. Thinking back, that was a crazy thing to do, but at the time, if I had been ambushed, I would have thought, I’m just getting what I deserve. I was an expert at pushing away my feelings. We all were, but as I followed the headlights up the dirt highway in the black of night, I was consumed with a sense of dread and guilt. God please don’t let him die.
Sitting outside the operating room on the wooden bench with my back against the wall, the guilt turned to shame. I can vividly recall how humid the night was. Above my head swung a bare light bulb on a wire, causing shadows to circle around my feet. I composed myself and walked back into the recovery area. Jim was awake and recounted for me what had happened. “I was walking point.” He said with some effort.
Those fucking grunts should not have allowed him to walk point. But, who was I to judge?
“II rounded a bend and thought I saw someone lying on the trail up ahead. Suddenly I recognized it was an NVA soldier, but before I could lift my rifle, he sat up and shot me, then all hell broke loose. I lay there feeling like I was going to pass out. Somebody dragged me off the trail and I stayed there in the brush listening to the others fighting for their lives.” He was eager to tell me everything that happened. I stood at the side of the gurney listening, trying not to pass out myself.
Jim told me he had to crawl to an area where a soldier hoisted him over his shoulder and carried him to a small open field. He said he lay in the field for what seemed like only seconds but it was probably longer, “My mind was going in and out ”, when a medivac chopper arrived.
Jim survived. I saw him that next year in Texas . I was still in the Army stationed at Fort Hood where he looked me up. We met in Temple, Tx. at a Mexican restaurant. He walked in with the help of a cane. I thought maybe he wanted to forgive me, let me off the hook, like he did the night he was shot, but that didn’t happen. Instead he told me in great detail about his many operations and how much of a struggle everyday things were for him now. I felt sorry for him. Then he looked me right in the eyes as we munched on our chips and salsa, and said, “You know Yeager, you’re the reason I’m all fucked up. It should have been you on that mission not me.”.
That was the last time I saw him, but I’ve thought about him a lot over the years. I’d like to think I’d do things differently if I got the chance, but the hard reality is, I probably wouldn’t.

Our Vacation From Retirement

2011-09-11T14:03:00.004-07:00

We spent 6 weeks traveling to and being in the Northwest. It was a chance to get away from the heat of the desert and visit family and friends. Now we’re back and having to adjust to the heat all over again. Highs here in Green Valley are in the 90’s, which is still damned hot, but at least it’s not over 100. We Southwesterners universally dread triple digit temperatures. The extreme heat does seriously impair one’s motivation to go outside.
I only wrote two blog entries during the month of August. I had trouble keeping any sort of routine going while traveling. Before we left, I promised myself that I would continue to write, exercise regularly and eat good, healthy food. After several days on the road, I realized that promise blew out the car window. I surrendered to the reality of being self- disciplined, on occasion. Our trip turned out to be a vacation from our usual retirement routine.
Katie and I were surprised by how much we enjoyed being in the city of Seattle. We stayed in a basement apartment of a friend’s house in the Greenwood area. We could walk to restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores. Prior to this trip, Seattle had been a place to visit for short periods of time, usually on weekends; after a few days we were eager to get away from the crowds, the noise and the fast pace. Now that we’re retired we discovered that during the middle of a weekday Seattle is a very pleasant city to be in. And there was always somewhere to go, something interesting to do and somebody to do it with. We just needed to remember to get back home by 3:30 in the afternoon.
It was good to see young people and young families out and about. Living in a retirement area for the past couple years, we’ve become accustomed to everyone around us being old. We enjoyed watching these young families. I could appreciate their energy and aliveness, yet at the same time, I was often struck by the thought, I’m glad I’m not in that stage of life anymore. The young adults seem so driven and rushed. As we leisurely walked around Green Lake, they would whiz past us either running (often pushing a stroller), roller skating or walking and talking fast and seriously with a friend. I hoped they were figuring out how to change the world for the better. I’ve certainly given up.
Another thought that came to me on these strolls was, We have to be whatever age we are. It just wouldn’t work to skip a stage of life. All the striving, worrying and disillusionment along life’s way seem necessary in order for us to be comfortable with our present age. From my current perspective, these young up-and-comers’ attempts to get ahead in the world mostly look like a big waste of time. I guess they have to do something with all that energy.
In Vietnam we had a saying that came in handy right before my buddies and I did something unauthorized, “What are they going to do, send us to Nam?” We felt we were already in the worst situation possible. Approaching old age puts us in a similar position. Most young people stop seeing older people, unless, of course, we’re in their way. And hardly anyone is interested in what we did in the past or what we’re doing currently. This realization could lead to depressing thoughts about oneself, or to a new sense of freedom. That woman who wants to wear purple and eat more ice cream seems to have figured it out. The hard part is letting go of old thoughts that instruct us to follow patterns of behavior that aren’t relevant anymore. To embrace this new sense of freedom, one has to stop caring so much about what others think. When I viewed the young people hustling around me as one giant ant colony, I felt like I was close to the correct perspective. .
I noticed I spent a lot of time doing the same things I do at home, only in a different environment:                                                                                                               .

               Here I am in Talent, Oregon, outside a coffee shop reading.



And here I am on our friend Pamela’s back deck, reading. Every once in a while I looked up and remembered, Oh yeah I’m not at home.

The best part about the trip was reconnecting with friends and family. There is nothing better in this life than being with people you care about and who knew you in the past.
But it’s good to be back in Green Valley, even though it’s still too hot. Traveling is a great adventure, but there’s nothing like home. Our vacation from retirement has given me new life and a resolve to do whatever it is I most want to do. What are they going to do? I'm old and getting older every day.

A Familiar Burden of War Veterans

2011-08-19T15:55:00.002-07:00

We’re enjoying being in Seattle again. I am more familiar with and more comfortable in Seattle than any other large city. I’ve only actually lived here a few times. The first time was in 1975. I had graduated from the University of Oregon the year before with a BA in General Social Science. This was a wonderful program that allowed me to take a wide variety of courses, but provided me with absolutely no specific skills or knowledge directly applicable to the job market.

So after graduating, I accepted a job in a factory that produced irrigation systems. I did a variety of bone weary menial tasks, but after about 6 months, I wanted out. I quit and moved from Eugene to Seattle. By this time I had been out of the Army for 5 years. College had provided a sanctuary away from the everyday world that I was having trouble relating to. Vietnam had changed me. I was confused, angry and traumatized by what I had experienced there. But this side was hidden way down deep under a “normal, nice guy” persona.

In Seattle I got a job as a taxi driver for Yellow Cab on the evening shift. Through map reading and much trial and error, I learned my way around the city. I enjoyed driving a cab most of the time and fell right into the roll. My hair was long and my uniform was a tee-shirt, jeans and leather jacket. I worked off the “extra-board”. I’d go in well before the shift started, sign my name on the board and wait my turn for the next available taxi. This allowed me to work when I needed money and take time off whenever I wanted.

I bought a 500cc Honda and rode it into work. On days off, and when the weather permitted, I took long rides up into the mountains.

As a cabbie I became familiar with the underbelly of Seattle. In the dark of night, I transported well dressed, middle aged men to seedy hotels and apartment buildings where they found drugs and prostitutes. Sometimes they paid me to wait outside. I felt more comfortable in this world than the daylight social world of relationships and commerce. I needed an element of danger in my life to feel alive. I was part of the city and drove my cab fast and with aggression.

I picked up a fare in White Center, south of Seattle. I took the young man to an address on Capital Hill. He said he didn’t have any money and quickly got out of the cab. I got out too, went around the big car and stood in his way. “You knew you didn’t have any money and still let me drive you all this way?”

“That’s right man, now get the fuck out of my way.”

I grabbed his coat and slammed him up against the cab. I didn’t say anything. Looking into his eyes, I saw fear. He could tell I wanted to kill him and he was getting ready to die. With adrenalin strength, I held him this way for what seemed like a long time, but finally backed away.

“Get the hell out of here.” And he shuffled off.

This was the first time I’d experienced a part of me that I now call “the angry vet”. I would have many opportunities to get familiar with this part over the next 40 years.

I got a second job at The Fish & Chip Company in Leschi on the western shore of Lake Washington. One day as I was starting my cab shift, I drove to the restaurant to pick up my first pay check. While walking back to the cab, a car slowed down and a guy thrust a pistol out the passenger side window and yelled, “Hey asshole” and fired directly at me. I hit the ground. I wasn’t hit. Before taking the time to think, I jumped up, slid into the cab and took out after the car. They realized I was after them and tried to lose me.

It was a high speed chase along the lake and then back into the residential area. My cab was a huge Plymouth Fury. It drove and handled like a barge. In pursuit, I side swiped a parked car. They were in a black Mercedes, much quicker and more agile. They ditched me in the maze of suburban streets, so I pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. I sat there for the longest time until finally breaking down into tears, huge guttural sobs. What was I going to do if I caught up with them? I didn’t have a weapon. The “angry vet” doesn’t think very clearly before acting. I would have charged right at them, even if their guns were blazing away.

Many of the Vietnam veterans I worked with as a counselor avoided a variety of everyday social situations. They would tell me that these situations made them uncomfortable. A big part of that uncomfortable feeling was their fear that the hidden “angry vet” would be triggered by someone and if it was, they were afraid of what it might do. It’s a familiar and disabling burden of war veterans.

Being in Seattle this time is about visiting with friends and relatives, enjoying the August weather and taking in the beauty of the surrounding water and mountains. Some of those seedy areas I used to be familiar with, like Belltown, have been transformed into upscale condos and shops. I’ve noticed cab drivers around town and wonder what their lives are like.

We Stopped in Palm Springs Before Heading North to Family, Friends and Cooler Weather

2011-08-09T14:19:00.002-07:00

Katie and I are on vacation. Being on vacation is not that different from our regular retired life, except that we’re sitting in different places, surrounded by different scenery and talking with different people. We’re in Seattle now and the most notable difference is the weather. We have successfully escaped the Arizona heat and there is nowhere more beautiful than the Pacific Northwest in August.
We drove here and our first stop was Palm Springs. We’ve been to Palm Springs several times before, but never in the summer. July is not the time to visit. The temperature was easily over the 100 mark. After putting our bags in the room, we decided to walk downtown to a Mexican restaurant recommended by the Concierge. The name of the restaurant was Las Casuelas and she said it was on the left hand side of the street in the middle of downtown. “The food is good, reasonably priced and the atmosphere is great with outdoor dining and live music.”
We were extremely hot on our walk downtown. Not only was the temperature over 100 degrees, but the humidity was high as well. Many of the restaurants along the way had water misters for their outside tables. The cool water vapor hung in the air over the outdoor tables and the sidewalks. We slowed our pace while passing through these cool spots. A few times we stood still in the mist for several refreshing minutes.
We noticed the merchandise in many of the stores was straight out of the 1950s. Some of it was actual ‘50s stuff and some retro; colorful plastic drinking glasses, rattan furniture, aluminum and vinyl tables and chairs, Polynesian artifacts and lots more. I don’t know if this is a national trend or just a Palm Springs thing. The heyday of this town was probably the‘50s, so the period stuff didn’t look out of place.
As we drew near the center of town, we began tromping on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars area. It’s similar to the one in Hollywood. Some of the names on the sidewalk were familiar, but many were not. We recognized famous actors, musicians, and authors, but who were these other people? I wondered what the criteria were for getting your name on one of these stars. You can find out just about anything on the internet, so I looked.
To be considered for a star, the individual has to have actually lived in the greater Palm Springs area with some regularity (the length of time is not specified) and his/her presence must contribute to “the charm, worldwide prominence and name recognition of Palm Springs.” (subjective criteria, to say the least). The categories drawn from are: show business, literature, pioneers/civic, humanitarian, sports and military.
The first people whose names were immortalized on these stars in 1992 were: Earle C. Strebe, William Powell, Ruby Keeler, Charlie Farrell and Ralph Bellamy. All of these people had been prominent and influential residents of Palm Springs. I was familiar with the actors William Powell (Nick Charles in the Thin Man movie series), Ruby Keeler (actress, dancer and once married to Al Jolson) and Ralph Bellamy (one of the old rich guys along with Don Ameche in “Trading Places”), but had never heard of Earle Strebe or Charlie Farrell. I discovered that Charlie Farrell was a silent movie actor. He and Ralph Bellemy, started the Palm Springs Racket Club. I can imagine the stars needing some healthy recreation and exercise between bouts of drinking, smoking and carousing. Earl C. Strebe was the owner of The Plaza Theater that opened in 1936. In its day, it put on live theatrical plays. Today it’s the home of “The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies”.
Katie and I found Las Casuelas restaurant which appeared quite plain, old and run down. In the front was a small hot looking seating area with no misters, so we went in and sat at a well used booth in the air conditioned interior. The food was good and the staff was friendly, but it seriously lacked atmosphere. After dinner we continued our walk downtown. We remembered the lights on the palm trees at Christmas during a previous visit and Thursdays when the street was closed for the arts & crafts and food vendors. The town was bustling with people at those times, but now, near the end of July, it was nearly deserted.
In the ‘90s Katie and I and my sister, Karen, flew to Palm Springs for a spiritual retreat. It was the annual New Year’s retreat with Gurumayi, the guru of Siddha Yoga. We didn’t actually attend the retreat, but went to a workshop just prior to it. The retreat, typical of Siddha Yoga functions, was too expensive for us. Our workshop was led by one of the monks, but unexpectedly Gurumayi showed up and led the large group in meditation. She was petite and quite beautiful. Some of the people around me were weeping in her presence. I wasn’t feeling much of anything, maybe just a little irritated at all the weeping going on around me. After the meditation was over, Gurumayi slowly walked down the aisle, stopping to talk with a number of people. She talked for a long time to a guy right in front of me. I have to admit, I would have liked her to look my way, just a little glance of recognition, but she didn’t. She walked right by me and I still didn’t feel anything. When she exited the large hall, everyone followed her with expectant looks on their faces. I’m sure it’s just my unenlightened ego, but I was embarrassed to be part of it. I absolutely did not want to chase after her like all the others.
The best thing about that trip to Palm Springs was the guided bus tour. Our tour guide and van driver was very informative and quite animated telling us about the history of the area and showing us the current and former homes of various stars. We couldn’t go to Bob Hope’s huge house on the hill, where, we were told, he entertained guests. But the guide did show us a small modest house in a normal looking neighborhood, where he said Bob and Dorothy actually lived. I strained to look in the windows as the van crept by hoping to see someone stirring inside, but no luck. I like thinking about Palm Springs in the ‘50s. It must have been a great time to live there and hobnob with the stars.
As Katie and I continued our walk downtown, we came upon another Las Casuelas restaurant. The old mission style building had a large courtyard crowded with people drinking margaritas, talking, laughing and listening to a live band playing infectious, compelling Reggae tunes. Water misters hung in trees above their heads, fountains bubbled everywhere and everyone looked cool and happy. The concierge was right; this would have been a great place to eat, oh well.
On the walk back to our room we paused at the sculpture of Lucy lounging on a bench. I heard on the news, she would have turned 100 years old the other day. I don’t know why there is a statue of her there, but she deserves it for making us all laugh for so many years. Tomorrow we head north to friends, relatives and cooler weather.

The ‘60s Store

2011-07-18T15:40:00.003-07:00

Fourth Avenue near the University of Arizona is filled with shops that cater to the student population. There are import stores, funky coffee shops, a bookstore and a Food Co-op to name a few. I like going up there, sitting in one of the coffee shops, having a latte and writing or reading. A store that got my attention recently is called the Hippie Gypsy. The outside of the building is hand painted with rock ‘n’ roll musicians from the ‘60s. I assumed it was a record/CD store, but it’s not.
The other day after finishing my Latte and needing to get off my sore butt and move around, I walked over and checked the store out. I thought maybe I could find some old music, but the store sells everything but music--posters, tapestries, clothing, jewelry, buttons, eastern religious icons, lots of doodads with the peace sign and love written on them and those strings of beads you hang in the doorway. Every item was meant to look like it came out of the ‘60s, but none of it did. It was all new stuff.
I surrendered my backpack to the young man behind the counter and immediately a sales girl came up and asked if she could be of help. I told her I was just looking. She continued to stand there, so I asked her who was into all this ‘60s stuff. She said a lot of young people and she was one of them. “That’s why I work at this store.” I asked her what she liked about the ‘60s and she said she loved the music and the look and everything. “Even my little sister is getting into it. She loves The Who.” She said her sister’s birthday was coming up and she wanted to get her something related to The Who. I suggested the CD and DVD of Tommy. She hadn’t heard of it, so I launched into a lengthy description about it; the first Rock Opera in the 70’s later made into a movie, how all the band members of The Who had parts in the film with Roger Daltry as Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind Pinball Wizard. Elton John played his rival the pinball champ, Jack Nicholson was the Doctor. I told her I thought Ann Margaret won some kind of award, but she didn’t know who Ann Margaret was and anyway I think I lost her somewhere near the beginning. She was standing there being polite, but her eyes told me she was actually somewhere else. When I stopped talking she said, “Cool”. I began to browse around the store.
She showed up again as I was staring at a giant picture puzzle. The picture was a view of John Sebastian from the back of the stage as he looked out over the sea of people at Woodstock. He was wearing tie-dyed clothes with an acoustic guitar hanging from a shoulder strap. She said, “Isn’t that a cool puzzle?” I agreed and asked her if she knew who the guy in the picture was. No, she didn’t? Well I couldn’t help myself. I launched into another informational lecture. Did she know that John Sebastian was not even scheduled to play at Woodstock? After Country Joe & The Fish finished their electric set, it had started to rain and the organizers feared the musicians might get electrocuted. They needed somebody to play an acoustic set, someone who could hold the crowds’ attention until it stopped drizzling. John was hanging out in the back with the other musicians. He hadn’t even brought a guitar with him, so he borrowed one from Tim Hardin, went onstage and played an unrehearsed set for half a million people. I realized I’d lost the sales girl again, but I felt this was such important information that maybe some of it would get through. Besides, I was on a roll. There was a little spark of interest in her eyes when I mentioned that John tie-dyed all his own clothes. I could have told her about the time I met him in Seattle, but I didn’t. It just so happened it was time for her break. She said goodbye, yelled to the guy behind the counter that she was going on break, and quickly left the building.
In a separate part of the store were shelves of hookahs, pipes and tobacco, a modern version of what we used to call a “Head Shop”. I recognized the small marijuana pipes, but none of the various shiny aluminum appliances with protruding hoses. The young man behind the counter explained that these machines added moisture to the smoke and made it real smooth, above us hung numerous posters of Bob Marley.
It was interesting to see which musicians were represented in this store. The main ones were Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, both sans their bands. The Beatles were all over the place, Mick Jagger, mostly without the other Stones, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and lots of Grateful Dead skeleton stuff, Frank Zappa, Stevie Nicks, who didn’t become popular until the late ‘70s and Janis Joplin. Bob Marley was heavily represented, but no other reggae musicians. Most of the merchandise represented the psychedelic era, but I saw no evidence of Grace Slick or the Jefferson Airplane and no Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge or Pink Floyd. I saw no evidence of the folk scene except for Dylan, no R&B artists and no British invasion groups except the Beatles.
My conclusion is that the store is promoting a lifestyle and a look all about peace and love and smoking marijuana from an apparatus that makes it moist and smooth while listening to ‘60s music and reggae and maybe some late Fleetwood Mac, while putting a puzzle together of a cool looking guy in tie-dyed clothes at a really big concert and all while looking really cool wearing some colorful clothes with lots of anti-war/peace/love buttons on them.
It could be worse. Remember when they were all wearing spiked dog collars with shaved heads and body piercings and singing about violence, destruction and hos?

The Latest Media Crime/Trial Extravaganza

2011-07-13T10:40:00.003-07:00

I don’t know how many horrendous crimes there are in the US each year, but periodically the media picks out one and this becomes the big story. We all can’t help but follow it because it catches fire, making its way into all media outlets. The latest one is the Caylee Anthony murder trial. This case proved to be typical of the cases that are played out in the media. It turned out to be frustratingly dissatisfying because we never find out what really happened.

This case is over now and but more questions were left unanswered than were answered. I heard three different theories as to how little Caylee died. One originally told by her mother Casey, then the one presented by the prosecution and a different one presented by Casey’s defense lawyers. None of them were substantiated by hard evidence. None of them explained why Casey’s trunk smelled like a dead body, how the body got out to the woods and why there was duct tape on the skeletal remains. These seem like pretty important questions that need to be answered. But getting down to the truth of what really happened did not seem to be a priority with either side in this trial.

Who investigated this case anyway? It certainly wasn’t Lt. Colombo. He would have kept showing up asking questions and being such a nuisance that the murderer would confess just to get rid of him. And if Perry Mason were prosecuting the case, of course he would have had to switch from being a defense lawyer, he would have made sure that Casey Anthony took the stand so that he could verbally break her down until she blurted out a confession. During the trial, Perry would have sent Della Street out of the court room only to return later with a critical piece of evidence that PI Paul Drake dug up somewhere. Don’t Casey Anthony’s lawyers watch TV?

When I worked as a Sex Offender Therapist for a few years, we routinely subjected our clients to lie detector tests. It was an excellent way to keep them on the straight and narrow.One lie detector test was not conclusive proof however, but a series of them over time had a high rate of validity. We know that Caylee’s mother, Casey is a chronic liar so she doesn’t need to be tested. But if they gave the trial lawyers lie detector tests, this would help keep them focused on the actual facts of the case instead of wandering off into their own fabricated stories.

The other big media case that comes to mind is the OJ Simpson trial. OJ’s lawyer, Johnny Cochran, became so famous because of this case that he was the inspiration for a character on Seinfeld. At the time of the OJ trial, I was teaching classes for perpetrators of domestic violence. One of my teaching tools was The Violence Continuum. On one end of the chart is verbal and emotional abuse and on the other is death. The theory being, if nothing changed in the relationship and there was no therapeutic intervention, the likelihood was that the violence would escalate over time and end with one of the partners killing the other. Statistically it was more likely that the man killed the woman, but sometimes it was the other way around. The OJ case was a perfect illustration of how the chart worked and I used it as an example in my classes. But the case didn’t end up like it was supposed to. Johnny ruined my teaching tool. The glove didn’t fit.

In his “tell all” book, “If I Did It”, OJ tried to cash in on the brutal murder by writing his version of the crime, but because of public outcry, it was never officially published. It was however leaked to the media. I read a synopsis on line and OJ portrays himself as sort of an innocent bystander at the at the death of his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. He just happened to be standing over the bodies, holding a knife with blood all over him. Go figure, But like Johnny Cochran said “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

I don’t think we’ll ever find out for sure what really happened to Caylee Anthony. If Casey Anthony ever writes a book, how could we believe it? Psychiatric experts have suggested that Casey probably has Anti Social Personality Disorder and/or Narcissistic Personality disorder. These diagnoses are similar in that the individuals do not have empathy for others. They live their lives like actors playing different roles as the situation changes. Without a stable integrating ego, they are totally self centered, motivated by unresolved childhood conflicts and trauma. The mistake many people make is judging others from their own frame of reference. If Casey is antisocial and narcissistic, she has an entirely different way of viewing the world.

After watching all the outraged people standing outside the courtroom screaming and holding up signs, I decided that Casey represents a side of ourselves that is repressed and resides in the shadow side of our psyches. Why else would we get so angry and want to see her punished. I’m not saying we all secretly want to kill our kids and go party, but there is a selfish side to our natures that at times surfaces when a child pushes our limits. Anyone who’s raised a teenager knows what I’m talking about. The majority of us are able to keep this dark side at bay, so in spite of how we sometimes feel, we continue to do the right thing and what’s best for our child.

Concerning the feeling of utter frustration these trials leave us with, maybe the answer is to withdraw from the real world into the fictional one. Even though Robert Parker died last year, I was pleased to learn that another writer will continue to write his Jesse Stone novels. I can count on Jesse to figure it all out and wrap up the case neatly by the end of the book. Peter Falk is also gone now, but I think watching some Colombo reruns might help as well, at least until the media decides what its next crime/trial extravaganza will be.

I still think Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill?

Old Drivers in Arizona

2011-07-03T15:41:00.002-07:00

In this morning’s paper is a picture of a big beautiful Lincoln Continental sitting in the produce aisle of our local Safeway. Somebody put the gear shift lever on D instead of R and stepped on the gas. A few people had minor injuries, but no one was seriously hurt. This is not an uncommon occurrence here in Green Valley. Not long ago a car leapt over the parking curb and destroyed the Red Box video machine in front of Walgreens--no first run movies for a few weeks.
Last month I got a ticket in Tucson for running a red light on my motorcycle. I had no idea I had broken the law until a few days later when I received pictures of myself in the mail. One of the many cameras planted around the city had captured me on video. There I was out in the middle of the intersection turning left with the traffic light above my head shining bright red.
In Tucson, most of the green arrows come on after the green light instead of before it. So those of us waiting to turn left against the traffic can be assured we will have an opportunity to turn left when the oncoming traffic is halted. Some lights however have a sign by them that informs “leading left turn signal” which means the left turn arrow is before the green. I’m not sure which one this particular light was and that was the problem, hence the ticket. When the light turned red, the car ahead of me took off and the car to my side took off, so I took off as well. I wonder if they got tickets too?
I was informed that I had three options to rectify this ticket. I could pay a fine of $322, I could go to court and contest it, or I could take a defensive drivers class costing $218. By taking the class, the ticket is wiped off my record and I don’t pay the fine. There were two options for taking the class. The first, I could drive to Tucson and attend a half day session with other law breakers or I could take it on-line at my own pace and in the privacy of my own home. I chose the on-line option--big mistake.
The information in general is repetitive and boring and does not have the older driver in mind. It specifically targets younger drivers who talk on cell phones, carry babies around the wrong way in car seats and ingest lots of legal and illegal substances while driving. I did learn a few things from the course like not pumping the brakes in a skid with an Anti-lock Braking System. It took me the better part of a week to get through all the material. I could have been done in half a day.
My strategy for taking the course was to carefully read all the material with the hope of recognizing the correct answer on the multiple choice test at the end. The course had 5 sections and after each one was a 5 question quiz. Throughout the text were randomly planted pictures of objects that were totally unrelated to the defensive driving course material.The quizzes contained detailed questions about these pictures.I think the testers were making sure I was actually reading the material and not cheating somehow.
I flunked the first 3 quizzes, all for the same reason, I ran out of time. While I was in the middle of reading question 4, time ran out. Thankfully these tests didn’t count towards passing the course, but I was beginning to feel anxious as to whether I’d have enough time to pass the final test, which did count.
To ease my anxiety, I called the contact number for the course and talked with one of the technical “experts”. She sounded like she was about 12 years old and didn’t have a firm grip on the English language. I told her my concerns about not having enough time to pass the final test. I asked her in a variety of ways whether the final was arranged and timed in the same way as the quizzes, but she either did not understand my question or didn’t know the answer or didn’t care. I assume it was a combination of all three. She repeatedly told me all the things I would have to do if I failed to pass, including attending the class in Tucson and paying additional fees. I thought that I would get some kind of reassurance by calling for assistance, but instead my anxiety level shot way up. I really didn’t want to have to attend the class and pay additional money.
I pushed ahead with the course. I needed to speed up on the quizzes and I came up with a few of shaving off a little time. I used a mouse instead of the two finger method on my laptop pad and I increased the size of the text for ease of reading. I did some deep breathing exercises before taking the 4^th quiz and to my delight, I passed, a glimmer of hope. But on the 5^th quiz the unexpected happened. My cat jumped up on the table getting in my way and breaking my concentration.. I flung him on the floor, felt bad for doing it, and flunked the quiz.
For the final test, I made sure the cat was sleeping in the other room with the door closed. I had been warned several times that once I started the final, I could not get out of it until it was over. Before starting, I was asked to verify that I was really who I said I was by answering 5 personal questions. Oh and by the way, this additional process would cost me another $15. This personal identification part happened after I clicked on, the final has started. One question was about my current bank. I couldn’t remember the answer and had to go into the bedroom and look it up. The time was ticking. In the process I woke up the cat who was sleeping in there and left the door to the room open. I found the answer, completed the personal questions and was ready to take the final, but I wasn’t sure where the cat was. But the final questions were totally easy and I had plenty of time to finish. The cat appeared on the rug in front of me where I was working and gave me this look like, what was the big deal?
These testing outfits need to design courses with us older folks in mind. There should be questions about how to avoid running down pedestrians in parking lots and how to safely back out of a parking space without having to turn your head around. And questions about golf carts and maybe one or two about what type of cushion to sit on so that you can see over the top of the steering wheel. And if you happen to smash through the front of Safeway, are you allowed a discount on the fruits and vegetables that are strewn all over the floor?

The Oregon Country Fair

2011-06-23T10:40:00.002-07:00

The annual Oregon Country Fair is in just a few weeks. If you lived through the ‘60s, this is a chance to go back in time. The Fair happens every July on a piece of land 13 miles outside of Eugene, Oregon, off Highway 126 near the town of Veneta. It’s a huge festival out in the woods that draws 45,000 people over a 3-day period.
The festival got its start in 1969 to benefit an alternative children’s school and was held in Eugene. Originally called the Oregon Renaissance Fair, in 1976 the name was changed to the Oregon Country Fair. In 1970 it moved to its current location. I arrived in Eugene that fall. The country had dramatically changed while I was away in the Army. There were love-ins and be-ins, black riots in the big cities, assassinations, the riotous ‘68 Democratic Convention in Chicago and Richard Nixon was President. The music had changed too. While I played soldier, the youth were listening to radically different new rock ‘n’ roll groups like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead. The Beatles had morphed into Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Buffalo Springfield and Cream had come and gone while I was away and The Animals, The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Yardbirds were gone forever. Timothy Leary advised American youth to “Turn on, tune in and drop out”. Woodstock and Altamont were over and journalists were describing the end of the ‘60s counter culture movement. The party was over and I had just arrived.
In 1970 right after I was released from the Army, I drove around the west in my brand new MG. My constant dilemma was whether or not to pick up the long-haired hitchhiker on the side of the road. If it was a young woman, it was a no-brainer. After dropping off one mild-mannered long-haired guy, wrapped in a Mexican serape, I realized he had taken off with my Seiko watch. I had placed it in front of the gear shift lever to keep track of time and Mr. Love and Peace stole it right out from under my nose. I wondered whether my flashy silver watch would impress the chicks at the commune where he was headed. I didn’t stop for hitchhikers much after that. Having been indoctrinated by the military and traumatized by war, I viewed these young drifters as undisciplined, self-centered, naive, unrealistic slackers, but I also envied their free spirit and sense of community and belonging.
I enrolled at the Junior college in Eugene for fall quarter. Eugene appeared to have been one of the hubs of counter culture activity. The remnants were everywhere. In 1972, the Oregon Renaissance Fair featured the Grateful Dead with proceeds going to the Springfield Creamery. That year the Creamery was struggling, so the money from the concert and a subsequent movie called “Sunshine Daydream” helped keep it afloat. The tickets were printed on yogurt labels.
Springfield Oregon is just across the river from Eugene. The Springfield Creamery was started by Chuck and Sue Kesey in 1960. Chuck is Ken Kesey’s brother. Ken was our local famous author and Merry Prankster. He often performed readings at the Fair. The Creamery limped along financially until it found a niche product, Nancy’s Yogurt. An interesting aside; according to the Springfield Creamery website, the sale of Nancy’s Yogurt didn’t take off until it was introduced to the Bay area by an ex U of O student, Gilbert Rosborne, and his business partner, Huey Lewis, yeah, that Huey Lewis. Huey hadn’t quite made the big-time yet and he and Gil were earning money distributing underground comic books to natural food stores around the country. While passing through the Eugene area, they decided to add Nancy’s Yogurt to their inventory. They filled a rented U-haul full of the yogurt with lots of bags of ice and hauled it all the way to San Francisco where the yogurt was well received.
In 1978, Katie and I worked in Ritta’s Burritos at the Oregon Country Fair. Ritta and Katie were friends and worked as nurses’ aides at a local nursing home. I was in graduate school at the time and worked there too on the night shift. I was eager to get to know the cute Asian I’d see when I came on duty. I found out that she helped Ritta at her burrito booth every week at the Eugene Saturday Market. Neither of them knew me, but probably had seen me around the nursing home. For numerous Saturdays, I hung around the Saturday Market and bought a burrito for lunch. It took me quite a few Saturdays and a boat load of burritos before getting up my nerve to ask Katie out. When I finally did, she said yes to having herbal tea with me at Mamma’s Truck Stop.‘
Soon we were a couple and I too was working for Ritta in her burrito booth. We helped out one summer at the Oregon Country Fair. Ritta’s booth was extremely popular with a constant line out front, so we didn’t get a chance to see any of the entertainment venues or wander around looking at the various booths. We worked hard and steady all 3 days, but we didn’t mind. We were young and happy, and living in the hippest town in the Pacific Northwest.
The current Oregon Country Fair still manages to capture some of the magic of those times. We went back a few years ago. Ritta’s Burrittos was still there with the ever present crowd in front. As we stood there talking with Ritta, we heard the parade approaching long before it actually passed by. It was winding its way through the labyrinth of pathways. We waited as the drums and cymbals grew closer until at last the long procession of costumed people, musicians, jugglers, men in underpants and topless women marched and danced by. After the last “Merry Prankster” disappeared around the corner, the dusty air hung heavy with the smell of patchouli and ganja. I noticed the people on the other side of the path, mostly aging boomers like ourselves. They looked grimy, tired and dazed, probably aware that our time had passed and we had long ago outgrown flower power. But, for a few hours at the Fair, we had all been hypnotized and transported by a groovy psychedelic time warp.

“Midnight in Paris”, Search for the Golden Age

2011-06-16T14:40:00.002-07:00

Katie and I went to the movies in the middle of the day on a Monday, one of the many luxuries of retirement. I still get excited when we enter the theater and smell the popcorn, though we rarely eat any. There are few things as satisfying as seeing a good movie on the big screen. At this time of year, the previews of coming attractions are all summer blockbusters. Most of them are action-packed movies relying heavily on special effects. Obviously, these movies are meant to attract the younger crowd. I’m rarely interested in seeing any of them.
We saw “Midnight in Paris” and both really enjoyed it. It is a typical Woody Allen movie. The main character Gil, played by Owen Wilson, one of the best Woody Allen substitutes yet, is a romantic. He is faced with the choice of either trying to live his dream or conforming to the norms and expectations of others. Gil is on vacation with his fiancée and her parents in Paris. He is thrilled to be there, in the very place where many of his heroes gathered back in the twenties. He sees this time in history as the golden age of Paris. He’s always wanted to live and write in Paris, but instead “sold out” to become a Hollywood screenwriter. His fiancée, Inez, gives him little to no support for his romantic vision and her parents, conservative right wing republicans, just don’t like him. Inez expects Gil to continue on in his secure and lucrative job in Hollywood, but to Gil this is beginning to feel like a shallow and empty pursuit.
In an attempt to immerse himself in the Paris magic, Gil takes a walk by himself through the city streets. At midnight, he is invited into an old taxi by some party goers who turn out to be Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The cab transports him back in time to the roaring ‘20s. He does this night after night, meeting and partying with many of his literary and artistic heroes. These famous characters of the time are portrayed stereotypically and humorously through Woody’s eyes. I loved seeing Owen Wilson channeling Woody and conversing with Hemingway, Picasso, Dali, Gertrude Stein and others.
As in many of Woody’s movies, the protagonist struggles with a deeper existential question. After experiencing Paris in the’20s, he is transported further back in time to another golden age, the turn of the century, and he comes to realize that the romantic vision of another life in another time or place is only that, a romantic vision and nothing more.
Gil had traveled to Paris earlier in his life and realized that he missed an opportunity to experience his dream back then. He doesn’t want to miss it again, and the movie ends with a positive ‘follow your dream’ message. Gil chooses to stay in Paris and write his novel in present time, and begin to live in his own golden age.
For many of us retirees, this is our time to catch up on missed opportunities. Some will always remain missed, but others can be realized to some degree or other. At this age, life looks different than it did when we were young. So many of the dreams we had were dreams of the young—dreams of becoming something greater than how we perceived ourselves. At various times in my life I dreamed of being a professional baseball player, a rock ‘n’ roll star and a famous writer living in southern Europe. In retirement I can still keep active physically, play music and write, right here where I am. Many retirees like myself are trying to transform the golden years into the golden age.
I’m having a little trouble letting go of the writer in southern Europe dream.

Dealing With Retirement Anxiety

2011-06-02T11:12:00.004-07:00

The snowbirds have returned to their homes in the north and we’re entering our second summer in Arizona. It’s the beginning of June and we haven’t hit 100 degrees yet, but we’ve been uncomfortably close several times. There’s a slight feeling of dread as the weather heats up. We know we’ll be stuck indoors much of the time.
The mornings are beautiful, by far the best part of the day. The temperatures are in the high 60s to mid 70s, the birds and bunnies are scurrying around doing their thing and we can sit in the fresh morning air reading and sipping our tea and coffee. If there is anything that needs to be done outside, I know I’d better do it now, because in a few hours it will be too damned hot. But since we live in a condo, there’s really not much that needs doing.
Around 11:00 the day becomes more of a challenge. We close the windows and doors to capture the coolness, let down the shades to keep out the sun and our cloistered cave-like existence begins. The other day we watched a movie in the middle of the afternoon. I remember as a kid watching TV on hot summer days, but not since then. Now some part of me feels like I’m doing something wrong. Luckily another part overrides it by saying, You’re retired, it’s incredibly hot outside and there’s really nothing you have to do right now. By the time the movie was over, my work ethic anxiety had passed.
My biggest problem with retirement so far is battling the feeling that I should be doing something but I don’t know what. “Should” is the operative word in that sentence and implies following the rules or doing what is expected of me. But there aren’t many rules in retirement and with only a few exceptions, no one expects me to be doing anything. So that leaves me with the thought, I can do whatever I want, which in turn leads to, Well then, what do I want? This questions drops me into an old familiar place even deeper and darker and more confusing than What should I do?
I remember getting stuck in this place when I was a child. I felt bored a lot during the summer months. I remember my mom asking me “What do you want?” or “What do you feel like doing?” I always had trouble coming up with an answer. My dad’s flippant advice to me was, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” Like many of the crazy things he used to say, there was some truth in it. When I would make my best guess and start doing something, sure enough, that feeling of boredom would pass. I made the decision before quitting work that writing would be one of my main activities in retirement, I‘ve tried to stick with that decision, but sometimes I haven’t the foggiest idea what to write about. So using my dad’s advice, I just start by writing something like,“I have no idea what to write about today” and more often than not something starts taking shape.
When I was still in the Army in the late ‘60s, I decided I was going to exercise on a regular basis. I started running around a local track. Soon I discovered that exercise helped me to feel better about myself and my life. It relaxed the anxiety within. I still exercise regularly for the same reasons, but I never feel like exercising. You’d think that after all these years I would, but it’s still a struggle to get started. I have to push through the feeling every time. This reminds me of what Woody Allen said on the subject, something like, ”When I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.” There is truth in this saying too. All things pass in time. So in this year and a half of retirement, I’ve learned that when the boredom becomes too great and when I can’t figure out what I want to do or what I should do, I take a nap.

Retirement, a Time for Being

2011-05-31T10:32:00.002-07:00

It was after reading The Magus, by John Fowles, sometime in the late ‘60s that I started thinking about the difference between being and becoming. In the novel, Nicholas, a young Oxford graduate, accepts a post teaching English on a Greek island. On one of his long solitary walks he runs into an older wealthy man who lives alone on his estate. They begin taking walks together and having long talks. I don’t remember much about the plot, but I do remember that on one of these walks, the older man makes the distinction to Nicholas that because he was young, he was busy becoming, while the older man was simply being.
The desire to become something comes from a place of dissatisfaction. I am dissatisfied with who I am and when I become something different, then I will be happy. People who are successful at their jobs, do the work because they love it. That’s where the satisfaction comes from. It does not come from the identification with or status from the role they play. Becoming is always focused on the future, not the present. It is self- conscious and concerned with how others view us. Adults get caught in the realm of becoming because of an underlying feeling that what they are is not enough.
Being is not future oriented but is totally in the present moment. To become a pianist, one has to spend much time in the being mode, practicing the piano. When one finally becomes an accomplished pianist, it is not the role that gives one happiness, but the act of being an instrument for the music. The pianist loses his/her personal identity in the unselfconscious act of playing music.
Young children more easily allow themselves to just “be in the world”. They also can get lost in the desire of becoming, but I assume this is normal for their developing personalities.
I’ve always liked honey bees. I like them because on one long hot summer day when I was a child, I sat in the back yard and watched the bees come and go on the flowering bushes. I had nothing to do and no one to do it with, so I surrendered to a state of being and to my delight, shared that space with the honey bees. They went about their business deliberately and meticulously. I felt a oneness with the bees and felt joyously alive. After all these years, the sight of honey bees can instantly transport me into the still spaciousness of being.
The mode of becoming dominated my life after puberty and when I entered junior high school. I felt that I wasn’t enough and needed to work harder to become a better athlete, create a better body, become a better conversationalist and a better student etc. In my fantasies I wanted to be cool, adventurous and fearless. All this angst about becoming something different arose out of a discontented place inside me.
In the mode of becoming, we never quite get there. Even when I did succeed in an area, it still wasn’t good enough. We’re only satisfied when we are in the realm of being. When we surrender to being, it absolutely doesn’t matter how good we are at something and we are not in the least concerned with how we appear to others. Our society is youth oriented and the young people are running around and working hard to become something. Retirement is the perfect time of life to focus on being and give up becoming. We are no longer immersed in the pressures of work and the world in general.
Where we live here in Green Valley, Arizona., there are a lot of bees and birds, and wildlife, and old people, all sharing the spaciousness of being.

Thanks For the Memories

2011-05-25T18:30:00.002-07:00

The other day I was thinking about a couple of people I never got a chance to thank, but would have liked to. One was my 5^th grade teacher, Mr. Atkins, and the other was Bob Hope. I narrowly missed an opportunity to thank Mr. Atkins when my friend Paul and I went back to Ferguson in 2002. We walked around the old neighborhood and then over to Lee Hamilton Elementary School which we both attended in the fifties. School had just let out and as soon as the kids left the building, we got a chance to go in and talk to some of the staff. When I asked about Mr. Atkins, the secretary told me he had died recently. She said he spent his whole teaching career at the school and that he had been retired for a number of years.
I don’t remember anything specific Mr. Atkins said to me, except that at a time when I was having trouble in school, he made me feel like I had great potential and could do anything I put my mind to. I was a poor student as a kid and at times, a nervous wreck. In the sixth grade my anxiety about school became so bad my parents took me out of public school and placed me in a private one. But I had no problems in Mr. Atkins’ 5th grade class. When the secretary told us about his recent death, it hit me that sometime during my life I could have at least sent him a letter or a card. He was right there at Lee Hamilton School the whole time, I’m sure helping kids feel better about themselves. I hope some of them made the effort to thank him.
I don’t think Bob Hope needed my thanks. He was arguably the most popular entertainer in the world for many years and he received numerous awards. I know there are and have been thousands of veterans like me who feel immense gratitude toward him. The love and concern he felt for the men and women fighting America’s wars was genuine and it came through in the shows he put on for the troops. He said once that his greatest honor was becoming an honorary veteran.
I recently read one of his autobiographical books called, Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me. It was about his show business career with the focus on the USO shows for military personnel. It all started in May 1941, when he was asked to take his popular radio show to March Field and perform live for the Army soldiers. He said at first he resisted the idea, but eventually was talked into it. This was before Pearl Harbor and our involvement in WWII. He realized early that these men and women were desperate for familiar sounds and sights from home and what they needed more than anything was to laugh. For that first show, he brought along Ray Milland, but soon realized the men in the audience wanted to see girls. So he started bringing along popular starlets of the time. He states in the book, “We represented everything those new recruits didn’t have: home cooking, mother, and soft roommates.”
From that very first show Hope felt he had been transported to comedy heaven. Even mediocre jokes got big laughs. After one so-so joke he comments, “The laughter was so loud I had to look down to see if my pants had fallen.” After returning to the civilian audiences, “The memory of the generous laughter at March Field haunted me…” He was hooked.
He headlined more than sixty USO tours over a span of fifty years, taking his troop to Europe and all over the Islands of the Pacific during WWII, later to Korea during the war and then to Vietnam. He even did shows for the troops during the first Gulf war. His entourage had many close calls, but this only seemed to make him more determined to continue bringing shows to the fighting men and women. He started calling the soldiers and sailors he entertained, “my kids” even though at the time, he wasn’t much older.
I got the opportunity to see the show in Chu Lai, Vietnam, Christmas of 1967. My buddies and I took a cooler full of beer and drove up Highway 1 to the Americal Division Headquarters outdoor amphitheater. We were pretty far in the back, but the acoustics were good, so we didn’t miss a thing. This 1967 Christmas tour was made into a documentary film and can be viewed on you-tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzOsLRT7d5c.
He had four women performers with him that year, Raquel Welch, Barbara McNair, Elaine Dunn and Miss World, who he introduced by saying, “I just wanted you to remember what you’re fighting for.” Also with him was Phil Crosby, one of Bing’s sons. Some of his jokes were about Bing and you could tell how highly he valued their friendship. This was the first overseas show without his lifelong friend, the comedian Jerry Colonna. The music was provided by Les Brown and his Band of Reknown. Bob characterized himself as a big chicken and made jokes about how scared he was when the firing started or the bombs fell. We all laughed uproariously at these jokes not daring to admit to our fellow soldiers that we were all just as scared much of the time.
On that tour, Hope and his troop did shows at 22 bases in 15 days. Some of Bob’s jokes were specific to each area they were in and that included Chu Lai. These were the jokes that got the biggest laughs. At the time, much of the country was against the war and it was hard for us to think about the lack of support at home. For a little while anyway, Bob Hope’s USO show countered all those feelings. They closed the show with Barbara McNair leading us all in the singing of Silent Night. I know there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience.
I consider this show to be one of the highlights of my life. Watching parts of it on you-tube now, my appreciation certainly wasn’t because it was the best entertainment I’d ever seen. The music was mostly from the previous generation. And I didn’t realize at the time that Raquel Welch doesn’t sing or dance very well. She was out performed by Elaine Dunn and Barbara McNair who were great entertainers. But Raquel was probably the biggest hit because she looked so hot in her skimpy blue and white knit mini-dress. I know that’s what I remember most from the show. The guys in the photography section of our Intelligence detachment took pictures of her from all angles, blew them up and made quite a bit of money selling them to other soldiers and sailors. Indeed, she represented what we were all fighting for.
So I wish I could have thanked Bob and Mr. Atkins, two men who made me feel cared about at two very stressful times of my life.

Truth or Consequences, a Town or a Game Show?

2011-05-16T10:00:00.003-07:00

In the previous blog I mentioned three game shows that I used to watch in the ‘50s with my neighbor, Mrs. Howard. One of them was Truth or Consequences, hosted by Bob Barker. When Katie and I were looking for a place in the southwest in which to relocate after retirement, we spent several nights in a town of the same name, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We flew into El Paso, spent a night in Las Cruces and then drove up highway 25. The town was known for its healing hot springs and so fleeing the cold and damp of March on the Olympic Peninsula, it seemed like the perfect place to go.
We stayed at River Bend Hot Springs. It used to be a youth hostel and was less expensive than some of the other resort spas. It is the only resort right on the edge of the Rio Grande. We stayed in a converted mobile home that was comfortable and clean. The mineral hot springs bubbled up into stone tubs previously used as fish bait ponds, with a choice of temperatures, mild, medium or hot. A separate tub was positioned so close to the edge of the embankment that you could spit into the river as you soaked. I, of course, would never do that. Check out the site at, http://www.riverbendhotsprings.com/
Truth of Consequences is an unusual name for a town. The locals told us that they refer to it as “T or C” for short and that indeed it was named after the game show. As Katie and I wandered around town doing our tourist thing and feeling mellow after our hot soak, we stumbled upon Ralph Edwards Park. I remembered Ralph from the TV show This is Your Life, but didn’t connect him with Truth or Consequences. I found out later that he was the originator of the show, which he hosted on the radio from 1940 until 1957 and on television from 1950 until 1954. Bob Barker took over as host in 1956.
In 1950 Ralph wanted to commemorate the shows tenth year anniversary, so a staff member suggested finding a town or city that would be willing to name itself after the show. The tenth anniversary show could then be broadcast from that town. I don’t know what the town council of the perfectly named Hot Springs, New Mexico was thinking, but they decided to do it. And this was at least 15 years before psychedelic drugs were widely used. Maybe soaking in all that mineral water made their brains soft and mushy. So on April 1, 1950 the Truth or Consequences show was broadcast from the newly named town of Truth or Consequences, Mew Mexico and from that day on, this date was christened by the town as Ralph Edwards Day. Every year for the rest of his life, Ralph returned to T or C on the first weekend of May to celebrate what is now called Fiesta.
The actual game of Truth or Consequences was pretty silly. The contestants were asked trivia questions that they could rarely answer. If they got the answer wrong, Beula the Buzzer went off and they had to pay the consequences, which was usually something zany and slightly embarrassing. For example, on one show a man read an account of a WWII airplane dogfight and the woman contestant had to make all the sound effects to accompany the reading. A middle-aged woman attempting to make airplane and gunfire sounds was kind of funny. The audience was laughing at and not with the contestant, not unlike some of the stupid shows that are on today. The show had a softer side though. At times they would reunite contestants with long lost friends or relatives. This is possibly what led to Ralph’s This is Your Life show idea.
Another unexpected find in T or C was a half sized Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall. It had been a traveling wall until 2002, at which time it was purchased by the state of New Mexico with the help of local T or C businesses. Katie and I spent a little time at the Wall. It was quite emotional for me seeing all those individuals from our time and generation, most of them young, like I was, robbed of their lives by a war that should never have happened in the first place. There are guys I knew up there and I felt lucky not to be one of them, but also guilty that I’m not. They have a nice, simple website for this wall. http://www.torcveteransmemorial.com/
In researching this topic, I ran across a dark chapter in the history of T or C. Five miles outside of town is a small community called Elephant Butte. This is where the “Toy Box Killer” David Parker Ray lived. This guy was a scumbag with a capital SCUM. I quote from Wikipedia,
“David Parker Ray tortured and presumably killed his victims in a $100,000 homemade torture chamber he called his "toy box", which was equipped with what he referred to as his "friends": whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, and surgical blades and saws. With these tools it is thought that he terrorized Truth or Consequences for several years with the added assistance of multiple accomplices.”
One of his victims was able to escape and testified in court against him. He was sent to prison for multiple lifetimes, but died of a heart attack shortly after incarceration. It is estimated that he had anywhere from 14-60 victims during that several year period. He perfected a way of cutting open the body so it would sink in water and they never found any bodies as evidence. There’s no indication that the “Toy Box Killer” was a fan of the show, but his gruesome crimes in T or C give new meaning to Ralph Edwards, standard opening line, “Hello, we’ve been waiting for you.”
I would definitely recommend going to Truth or Consequences for a visit and staying at River Bend Hot Springs. But if anyone in town asks you a difficult trivia question, turn and run like hell, the consequences could be ghastly. Mrs. Howard and I were fans of Bob Barker and I prefer the way he ended the show, “Hoping all your consequences are happy ones.”

The Path of Love

2011-05-10T17:30:00.002-07:00

When I was 3 years old my dad found a puppy wandering alone on the railroad tracks and brought her home. It was around Christmas time, so he gave her to me on Christmas Eve as a present. I named her Cookie. She was my constant companion during the day and slept at the foot of my bed every night. She was loyal and taught me about unconditional love. As a young boy I remember lying in bed at night, Cookie pressed against my leg and crying because I realized she would die before me.
Growing up I lived as though my life would always safely contain my mom, dad, sister and Cookie. We lived in the same house in Ferguson, Mo. from 1953 until 1965. From my perspective now, that doesn’t seem like a very long time. But those were my formative years and so for the rest of my life that house on Moundale Drive will always feel like my true home.
Next door were the Howards, an elderly couple who never had children. When mom started working and I was in elementary school, Mrs. Howard took care of Cookie and me if I were sick or there was no school for some reason. I loved my time with her. We developed a routine together. We watched television in the morning, three game shows in a row: The Price is Right with Bill Cullen, Truth or Consequences with Bob Barker and Tic Tac Dough with Gene Rayburn. For lunch we often had chicken noodle or tomato soup and Braunschweiger on saltine crackers. She made her special sauce of catsup, mayonnaise and I don’t know what else, to spread on the Braunschweiger. I always raved about it. She also had special treats for Cookie. I was the child she never had and I came with a nice little dog.
Missouri has crappy weather much of the year, but as a boy it didn’t phase me. I loved being outside any time of the year, riding my bike, exploring Moline Creek or just tromping around. My friends and I went to January-Wabash Park to swim in the public pool in the summer and ice-skate on the lake in the winter. And on the fourth of July, they put on a big fireworks display. My friend, Paul, lived nearby and he was always eager to do something together. It’s not easy being a kid and I had my struggles, but in general life was good and full of love and support.
By the time I got out of the Army, everything had changed. Cookie died while I was in Vietnam. My mom didn’t tell me until I returned home. She felt I had had enough grief in the war and didn’t want to add to it. My heart had closed down in Vietnam for survival purposes. I had witnessed too much cruelty, death and suffering. I remember thinking when she told me about Cookie’s death, You think I’m going to get upset about a dog dying, after what I’ve been through. I had no feelings at the time, even though my lifelong loyal companion was gone. My parents moved to Kentucky and so whenever I visited them, it was in a strange city where I didn’t know a soul. The Howards had moved back to Decatur, Illinois. I never saw Mrs. Howard again. Sometime in the 80’s I got a letter from Mr. Howard telling me she had died. He had enclosed a photograph of her headstone. Paul was away at college and we could only see each other rarely. The life I counted on for those 12 years was gone.
But I carried the essence of my childhood with me as my life unfolded. I had internalized those values learned in the ‘50s growing up in Ferguson. I had other pets, each one unique, and each one responding to the love and loyalty that Cookie taught me. I knew how to give and receive love in a family, because I learned that from my parents and my sister. I also knew how to be a supportive loyal friend, because of my lifelong relationship with Paul.
It took me two tries to find the right partner, but practice makes perfect. When I met Katie I knew right away that she was the one. There is nothing better than sharing your life with a person to whom you give your heart completely. When our son Ben was born, my heart was ripped wide open. When he died at age 28, I would have given my life in exchange for his without a moment’s hesitation.
My path is the path of love. Love is the purest and most satisfying of human emotions and sometimes it hurts like hell.

Another Mission Accomplished

2011-04-26T10:34:00.002-07:00

I’ve ridden on 4 Patriot Guard missions so far, two were funerals and two were “welcome home’s”. My second mission was the funeral of a young man who completed 2 tours in the Middle-East, got out of the Marines, finished his training to become a Border Patrol Officer and then died in a motorcycle accident. We provided a flag line at the entrance of the funeral home and another one at the gravesite in the cemetery. There were many young people at this funeral. A few looked like the deceased Marine’s service buddies. I could only imagine what they had been through together. Most of the mourners were probably his family and friends from Tucson.
We did a lot of standing around holding our flags in the hot sun on this mission. Out at the cemetery, it was at least 45 minutes before the mourners showed up from the funeral. I got acquainted with the guy standing across the gravel road from me. He is also a Vietnam Vet and is in a long fight with the VA attempting to get a disability for Post Traumatic Stress disorder. While standing there, suddenly two large hawks collided in the sky above us and clutching each other, spiraled down to the ground and landed in the field not far from the gravesite. I’ve never seen hawks fight before and I braced myself for the feathers to start flying. Then one of the guys down the line exclaimed, “They’re not fighting, they’re doing it.” I couldn’t make out exactly what they were doing, but he was right, they were doing “it”. The fluttering mass of feathers lasted a long time and I felt like a voyeur. Then all of a sudden the two individual birds rose up and flew off in different directions. As we watched them become small specks in the sky, somebody said, “What, no small talk, no cigarette?” We were thankful for the diversion from our standing in the hot sun.
As the cars began entering the cemetery, the Ride Captain announced, “They’re here”, and walked down the line of the flag holders. As he did he looked us over and said, “I’d ask you men to suck ‘em in, but I realize that’s as far as they go.” Sad but true, our average age is probably somewhere in the mid-sixties. Marines in dress blues gave this young Marine a 21-gun salute and then played taps. It was very moving.
Last Friday, the mission was to welcome home two Marines from Afghanistan at the Tucson airport. These welcome home missions are emotional as well, but different emotions. Up until this mission, I didn’t have any identifying patches of paraphernalia to wear. The other guys have vests, jackets, hats and or dew rags with patches and pins all over them. For the first 3 missions, I just stood there in my regular clothes feeling rather plain. So a week ago I ordered some Patriot Guard stuff from a website. I got a hat, a tee-shirt, and a sew-on patch for my jacket. When we met up at the American Legion before the mission, the first thing Sam, the President, and Ride Captain said to me was, “You got the wrong color hat.” It was a green Patriot Guard hat and I was supposed to have a blue one. I didn’t realize that color mattered. I made some excuse like, “It didn’t say anything about it on the website.” and Sam replied, “Yes it did, you just didn’t read it.” I thought the green was a really good color for me. I’m glad I didn’t pick maroon, only Ride Captains wear that color. He didn’t say anything about my new Patriot Guard tee-shirt, so I assumed it was alright.
I definitely needed to get more patches sewn on my jacket, so I decided to study what the other guys had on theirs. When we met up with the Tucson riders at the filing station near the airport, I discreetly checked out their jackets and vests. Except for a few guys who wore a simple shirt with a logo, most everyone else wore leather or blue jean vests with patches and buttons on them. Some were so full, it was hard to focus on individual ones. There were Patriot Guard patches, patches identifying their branch of service, American Legion or VFW Post patches, Vietnam Veteran patches and American flag patches. There were a few patches that I thought were wrong and triggered doubts as to whether I really belonged with this group. For example, one guy had a patch that said, “All I need to know about Muslims, I learned on 9/11.” It reminded me of an old guy in my Veteran support group who every now and then blurted out, “I say kill all those rag heads and let God sort ‘em out.” How do you respond to that kind of comment? I noticed one of the Ride Captains had a confederate flag patch next to his American Rifle Association patch. I was beginning to feel more and more like an underground liberal.
At the airport we rode our bikes right up to the main entrance and the security guy let us park in twos right there along the front. We set up a flag line inside the airport where the passengers are met. I had greeted my sister at that very spot just a few weeks before. The Marine’s plane was late, so again there was a lot of standing around and waiting. At least it was air-conditioned. I was talking to the guy standing next to me and inadvertently loosened my grip on my flag and the tip was touching the ground. All of a sudden a woman across from me yelled out, “Get that flag up off the ground. My husband died defending that flag!” Everyone looked at me and I quickly lifted the flag up and shot her a bewildered and somewhat hostile look.
Her commanding outburst brought up all sorts of feelings. My first thought was, why do I want to hang out with these right wing assholes? But I didn’t want to dwell on it or have it get the best of me, so after I calmed down, I decided to talk to the woman who yelled at me. I went over and asked her about her husband. She said he had been a Marine and was killed in Danang in 1970. I told her I was stationed not far from Danang and that I went on R&R with a bunch of Marines from Danang. She seemed surprised to learn that I was in Vietnam. I suppose I didn’t have on enough identifying patches and buttons. She had on a vest covered with them and one of them represented her late husband’s unit, a Marine recon unit. When she told me about him, she teared-up and then apologized for yelling at me about the flag.
Finally the two marines came down the hall and everyone burst into cheers. They were a young woman and man, possibly married. They thanked all of us flag holders as they walked by and I noticed the young woman Marine had tears in her eyes. They were clearly grateful and moved by the reception. After they passed by, we quickly rolled up our flags and exited. Sam said we needed to remove our bikes from the front of the Airport as soon as possible. We stashed our flags in the back of the truck, hopped on our bikes and took off. As they say in the Patriot Guard, “Another Mission accomplished”. Maybe I like being part of this group after all.

A Sunshine Cake Moment

2011-04-21T09:22:00.002-07:00

The last five years of my counseling career, I facilitated a therapy group of combat veterans. The members were all Vietnam veterans with the exception of two Korean War vets. These two men were older, one in his 70’s and the other over 80, were both Marines and always sat together. The older man, I’ll call Jack, was born in France. At the age of thirteen, he and his mother fled Nazi occupation. He joined the American Merchant Marines and sailed back over to Europe, transporting material in the war effort and witnessing much death and destruction. After leaving service in the Merchant marines, still a young man, he joined the Marine Corps and was sent to fight in the Korean War. I’ve worked with many veterans over the years and Jack, hands down, experienced more threatening and dangerous situations and did more actual fighting than any veteran I’ve ever worked with.
He was a gentle, sensitive man who empathized with others. He had an open heart and often became tearful when group members talked about their experiences. He often said that the Marines turned him into a “killer monkey” and even though he wasn’t suicidal, he welcomed death because it would finally give him piece.
One day in group he referred to an experience shared by another group member as a “Sunshine Cake Moment”. None of us knew what that was, so I asked him to explain and he told the following story. When the Chinese communists entered the war, Jack was with his unit in the northern part of South Korea. At that time in the war, waves of Chinese soldiers were pouring over the border to aid the North Koreans. The battle was intense, non-stop and lasted for days. Finally after a horrendous night of fighting, the battle over, there were hundreds of dead bodies strewn all over the hills. It was early morning and Jack was in his foxhole. He discovered a few bits of food rations and put together a little desert the soldiers called a sunshine cake. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He had survived the long battle and felt more alive than ever. He described a sense of peace that transcended his life circumstances. He had no past and no future, only the warm sun, the cool air and the delicious sunshine cake.
The other group members related to his story. Some told similar stories, none quite so dramatic, but all having the same theme, an extreme sense of peace and heightened awareness in the present moment. I thought of a time in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. It was the middle of winter in the Ozarks and we were out for the day of training. They marched us everywhere for miles and miles and I remember feeling exhausted most of the time. On one particular day, after marching for hours, we came to an open field. Our packs and rifles were heavy, my shoulders and feet hurt, and my legs were tired. The Drill Sergeant stopped the column in the middle of the dirt road and yelled, “fall out, smoke em if you got em and go ahead and suck on your canteens.” We all knew we would be able to rest for a short while.
Each of us found a place in the field. Some guys lay down on their backs, resting their heads on their packs. I sat on mine. Removing my boots, my body relaxed from the day’s activities and weeks of deprivation and abuse. I remember the warm feeling of the sun and the smell of dry grass. The sky was deep blue with a few puffy clouds and the winter air was clean and cool. I was at peace and totally free. It was a “sunshine cake moment”.

In Search of “The Thing?”

2011-04-13T14:59:00.003-07:00

During spring break, my step son and his family came down from Seattle to visit us. Fleeing the cold, damp weather of the Northwest, they reveled in the sun. Our seven-year- old grandson happily wandered up and down the sidewalk outside our condo, singing to himself and occasionally kicking a rock. The whole family went to the pool everyday, fitting it around our various trips and activities.
We went hiking in the Chiricahua National Monument, a park in one of the most beautiful and unusual mountain ranges in southern Arizona. On the drive over to the eastern side of the state on Interstate 10, somewhere between Benson and Willcox, we began seeing signs that posed the question, “The Thing, What is it?”. We could find out the answer, we were instructed, by getting off at Exit 322. We had no plans of doing this, because we all knew these signs were a come-on gimmick for some cheesey souvenir shop and that “The Thing?” more than likely was a disappointing artifact that served as a hook to draw people in to shop and eat. As we flew past Exit 322, I noticed a group of buildings including a service station and a Dairy Queen. The main building sported a sign in giant letters, “THE THING?”.
Once in the Chiricahuas we hiked the Echo Canyon Loop on a well maintained path, a total of about 3 miles. It led us through amazing rock formations called hoodoos,which appeared to be stacked by a kindergarten class of giants. The grandkids had fun identifying various animals in the rock shapes. During the hike, my eleven-year-old grandson and I began wondering about “The Thing?”. He thought it might be just the name of the souvenir shop, but I felt certain there was an unusual artifact inside that they were calling “The Thing?”. We talked about the possibility of a two-headed animal, or maybe a mummified creature from the past. The more we talked, the more we knew we had to stop on the way home to satisfy our curiosity. We were traveling in two cars, so after the long day of hiking and driving, it was sort of a big deal to have to stop. I suggested that if “The Thing” was really lame, at least we could get an ice cream at the Dairy Queen next door.
I thought about all those times back in the’50s on family vacations, when on a whim, my Dad would take a detour to see a giant ball of twine or a vortex where things rolled uphill or a giant statue of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. When my two step sons were young and then later with our son, Ben, we used to love to visit Ye Olde Curiosity Shop down on the wharf in Seattle. It was and still is a bazaar museum with shrunken heads, mummified creatures and fleas dressed in clothes that you view through a magnifying glass. Right next door is an Ivar’s Fish and Chips restaurant . We ate our clam strips and chips while sitting under heat lamps, watching ferries sail in from the Islands on Puget Sound. Wanting my grandchildren to have memories like these, I pushed to stop and check out “The Thing?”.
The gift shop was neat, clean and orderly, and even though the merchandise was mostly a bunch of cheap, fake looking tourist stuff, all members of my family seemed to find something interesting to look at. The seven-year-old bought a bag of polished rocks, enjoying picking out each stone with great care and the older grandson bought a small canteen in a fake leather pouch with a picture of an Indian in full head dress. He happily filled the canteen with water, slung the strap over his shoulder and carried it around on other adventures throughout the week.

The door to “The Thing?” was in the back of the shop. The admission was $1.00 for adults and $.75 for children. We paid the lady at the counter who told us “The Thing?” was in the third building, “Just follow the big yellow foot prints.” The first building contained a variety of extremely dusty artifacts from the past, including a few cars and tractors in ill repair, some buggies and a covered wagon. One of the cars was a 1937 Rolls Royce with a sign saying Adolf Hitler MAY have previously owned it. I had my doubts. Several mannequins were inside the car and sure enough, there in the back seat with his signature tiny mustache, Adolph Hitler sat slumped against the window. Further along was a section of cages filled with wooden dummies in various positions of agony brought on by ancient torture devices. I didn’t get a close look at this exhibit because our daughter-in-law made sure we all passed through this section quickly.
In the second building on either side of the walkway, were smaller antique artifacts behind glass. The old rifles from the 17^th and 18^th century were mildly interesting. One display sign announced an old and modern telephone. The old telephone was one of those big wooden boxes with the mouth piece sticking out front, a crank handle on the side and the ear piece hanging on a hook on the other side, the kind the Waltons used on TV. The “modern phone” was a black rotary dial phone that looked like it was from the early fifties. To my grandsons, this was an exhibit of two old phones. I had to ask myself, how much time and trouble would it have taken someone to remove the rotary phone and chuck in a used cell phone?
In the third building was a glass topped casket containing a dirty, fake looking mummy. There were other old dirty artifacts in this building and after a few moments of confusion, we assumed the mummy must be “The Thing?”, but we weren’t sure. When we re-entered the gift shop, I asked the woman at the counter if the mummy was “The Thing?”. She and a few others shushed me, I guess my voice was too loud and god forbid if the big secret got out. She softly replied, “yes, the mummy was it”.
There are huge gross signs all along the highway asking the traveler to ponder “The Thing, What is it?” so I had to ask her, “After all the hype, why isn’t there a sign that identifies ‘The Thing?’.” She answered in a matter of fact way, “ Someone stole it and they haven’t been able to find it yet.” I had a number of comments and acute observations to share with this woman, but my wife, Katie, nudged me, which I took to mean, “Leave it alone.”
With the exception of the person who stole the sign, it is obvious to all weary and curious travelers that the museum hadn’t been touched in decades. I researched the origins of “The Thing?” and found out that it was originally owned by Thomas Brinkley Pierce, a Phoenix lawyer. In an NPR piece about it, Rene Gutel interviews a distant relative of Homer Tate, who was also from Phoenix and made gaffes(weird creatures and artifacts) for circus side shows. It is suggested in the interview that Homer was the original creator of “The Thing?”. Pierce first displayed it as a roadside attraction on highway 91 between Barstow and Bakersfield. After he died in 1969, it was purchased by Charles Bowlin, who owned a string of travel centers in New Mexico and Arizona. Bowlin Inc. has been a family business since Claude Bowlin began trading with the Indians of New Mexico in 1912. Charles died in 1972 and the Bowlin Travel Centers are now run by his son Michael L. Bowlin. It says on the web site:
“Our company shall always strive to maintain the pride and tradition started many years ago - carrying first-rate merchandise and offering first-rate service to the traveling public. Our mission statement says it all, ‘Bowlin Travel Centers shall continue to grow and serve our customers in our long standing tradition of honesty, integrity, and hospitality by providing high quality products and services at competitive prices, while providing financial stability and a reasonable return on equity for our stockholders, and compensation in excess of market along with a satisfying work environment for our employees’.”
So here is a message to Mr. Bowlin, who undoubtedly reads my blog: It sounds like your company is growing and making lots of money for you and your stockholders by selling your “first-rate” and “high quality” merchandise. But when you say you take pride in your travel centers, perhaps you weren’t thinking about “The Thing?" museum on Highway 10 between Benson and Willcox. I think you need to come over and take a look. When you come, be sure to bring a dust cloth and a spare cell phone. And while you’re here you might want to push Hitler up out of his slump. And oh yeah, bring along a piece of cardboard and a magic marker, it seems someone stole one of your small but important signs.

The American Legion Breakfast

2011-04-05T16:22:00.002-07:00

Last Saturday I helped serve morning breakfast at the American Legion. This is the duty of the legion Riders twice a month. The Legion riders are guys who ride motorcycles and belong to the American Legion. It’s mostly men, but there are some women. The morning breakfast duty lasts about 4 hours. The actual breakfast is from 8:00-10:00, it’s open to the public and we served over 90 customers.
Sam, the Legion commander always comes in early and preps. I’m not sure what all he does. He probably turns on the burners and gets out the various ingredients. The breakfast menu is always the same items: scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon, blueberry pancakes and biscuits with or without gravy. One of the tasks I do know Sam does before the rest of us arrive is to prepare his special gravy for the biscuits. Rumor has it that he puts in chopped Sirloin, but nobody knows for sure. By the time I arrive at 7 a.m. he’s already busy cooking the scrambled eggs.
In typical military fashion, each member is assigned a specific task. One guy makes the pancakes, another guy is in charge of cooking the meat and tending the warmer trays. There’s a guy who makes coffee and keeps the coffee pots filled and there are two dish washers, one guy to wash the dishes and one to take the dirty dishes from the bus table back to the sink and replace the clean ones on the shelves. It all runs like a fine machine. When someone is getting overwhelmed and needs help, someone else will pitch in, whether it’s their assigned duty or not.
I’m always assigned to work in the dining room, either bussing or waiting tables. The kitchen duties are for the more experienced guys. These tasks are all interconnected, and require team work and multitasking. But there is one exception. One guy’s total job is to ladle gravy onto the biscuits. That’s all he does. While everyone else is running around performing a variety of tasks, this guy stands in front of the big pot of gravy waiting for biscuits to be held in front of him. He’s standing there every Saturday morning when I come in. You have to ask yourself, what’s with this guy?
Working in the dining room has its challenges as well. Two weeks ago I bused tables and helped with the blind vet’s, who are transported down from the VA in Tucson. Last Saturday my job was waiting on tables. The tables were divided between two women and myself. I was assigned just two tables. One of the women is very controlling and bossy. She is small and thin and rides a Honda Shadow like myself. Most everybody jokes around as they go about their duties, but she is “no nonsense” and “all business” all the time. I certainly didn’t want to get in her way, so like the gravy guy, I stood glued to my two tables with pad and pencil in hand waiting for customers to sit down.
I did a lot of standing around and got to know the other waitress pretty well, the non-bossy one. She looks like someone’s grandmother, in fact she is a grandmother. She told me she and her husband, who was bussing tables, love to ride together. They each ride their own Harleys. She said she started ridding in her late 50’s. She also said she has ridden over 150,000 miles. That’s a lot of miles on a Harley. She was a very sweet lady, but after talking with her, my macho motorcycle image became a little tarnished. I’ve been riding since the 1970s and haven’t ridden nearly that amount of miles.
One of the scandals of the morning was when the bossy, uptight waitress took an order from the Harley riding waitresses tables. How dare she, especially after making the rule and enforcing it on the others. Well the Harley riding grandmother waitress said she was not going to let this get to her. But later I saw her saunter over to one of the bossy waitress’s tables and take a man’s order. When the bossy waitress returned from the kitchen and realized what had happened, she shot a look that could kill over toward where we were standing. I guess they were working things out in their own way. I continued to stand there, minding my own business glued to my two tables.
After the breakfast is over, it’s time for us volunteers to eat. I’d never tried Sam’s famous gravy, so I decided to throw all caution to the wind and had eggs, sausage, hash browns and biscuits and gravy. They were right, the gravy was delicious. There were a bunch of us eating together at one of the large tables. The other guys finished eating and went back to cleaning up leaving me sitting alone with the gravy guy. I was tempted to ask him if the reason he never left his post at the gravy bowl was because he was afraid of the bossy waitress, but I didn’t. He began telling me about his golf cart and some of the modifications he’d made to it. I shared an idea I’d had for making money: buying used golf carts, fixing them up and painting them bright colors to sell to the boomers who are moving here in increasing numbers. You can’t beat the golf cart for cheap transportation around Green Valley. But the gravy guy just looked at me like I was nuts and so I decided to go help break down tables.
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, I felt sluggish and tired. Why did I eat that “heart attack on a plate” breakfast? But I survived to write about it. Sometime in the near future I expect to graduate from the dining room to kitchen duty. These are the crucial jobs that make or break the American Legion breakfast. Well except for the gravy guy’s job. What’s with that guy anyway?

The 2011 Tucson Festival of Books

2011-04-02T11:29:00.002-07:00

The Tucson Festival of Books is an event that I look forward to each year. I attended with my wife, Katie, and my sister, Karen. Just like last year, the event did not disappoint. We went both days, Saturday and Sunday March 12-13. When we lived in the Seattle area, every year we went to the Northwest Book Fest and learned early not to waste time wandering around looking at the various booksellers and publishers’ booths, but to attend as many authors’ talks as possible.
I’ve always admired writers. One of the women authors on one of the panels asked aspiring writers in the audience which they liked best, the idea of being an author or the act of writing itself. She followed this up by saying you have to be passionate about writing to be a successful writer. I had to admit, I’ve always liked the idea of being a writer more than sitting down and writing. I pictured myself living in southern Europe or Mexico or some other exotic place, writing by day and in the evening strolling into the local village for a drink and lively Hemmingwayesque conversation with the locals. I never pictured myself at home at the kitchen table. In retirement, however, this is changing. I am rediscovering the creative flow of writing which adds immeasurably to the quality of my life. When I write regularly, I cultivate an artistic attitude that positively alters my view of the world and my day to day life.
Over 100,000 people attended the festival this year and all of them got hungry at the exact same time I did. The lines at the food booths were so long that by the time I would have gotten my food, my next venue would have been over. So I managed to find a junk food machine in one of the buildings, which I hit repeatedly between talks, receiving needed sustenance: chips, granola bars and bottled water.
This year we managed to attend 7 different author panels. You can’t attend them all, because there are too many happening simultaneously. Like last year, there were more than 400 authors and we managed to see about 20. Choosing which venues to attend is the biggest challenge.
The first panel I attended was called Borderlines and all 3 authors had recently written books that take place near the Mexican border. The authors were Thomas Cobb, who wrote Crazy Heart and Shavetail, Phillip Caputo, A Rumor of War and 11 other books, the latest being Crossers, and Margaret Regan a Tucson journalist who wrote The Death of Josseline. Margaret Regan’s book is about a 14-year-old Mexican girl who dies in the Arizona desert. She and her brother crossed over into the US on their way to reunite with their mother. She became sick and the group they were traveling with decided to leave her behind. Regan’s story gives a human face to the immigrant problem. I noticed that the two male authors treated her with respect and admiration even though this is her first book. She exemplified the potential of a creative writer to affect public opinion concerning a misunderstood and sensitive issue. I hope her book is widely read.
Jeff Guinn was on another western theme panel and talked about his current book, The Last Gunfight about the OK Corral, Tombstone and the Earp brothers. I saw him last year when he talked about his book Go Down Together, the true story of Bonnie and Clyde. There are so many books written about the west and its characters and most perpetuate a romantic myth. I like the western romantic myth as well as the next guy, but I am most interested in the characters of the west from a more accurate and truthful standpoint. Many of the real heroes don’t get much attention. Either they weren’t self promoting like Wyatt Earp or they don’t neatly fit into our preconceived ideas about the west. Characters like James Hume, the Wells Fargo Detective, and Robert Paul, the Pima county sheriff. These two guys were life long lawmen who hunted down and captured or killed numerous bad guys. But few people have even heard of them. Everyone has heard of Wyatt Earp, but was he really a hero of the west. Jeff Guinn did extensive research and said his book destroys many of the myths about that time and place in history. Someone in the audience asked him what he thought about the current town of Tombstone and their shameless promotion of the western myth. He humbly said that he realizes the town has to bring in the tourist dollar to survive, but added if the residents take the time to read his book, there probably will be another lynching and he’ll be the victim. After he made that statement, I knew I wanted to read his book.
The most unusual panel I attended was called “Right on, Far out, Looking back at the 60’s” All three authors books take place during that time. One was Mark Rudd, a former leader in the SDS at Columbia University and co-founder of the Weathermen. Even though the two women authors on the panel were not as active politically, the questions from the audience mostly had to do with what happened to the sixties’ activism and what the panelists thought of the country’s current state of affairs. I always have mixed feelings when boomers start to romantically remember the good old days of activism. Not one of the panelists ever mentioned the fact that a huge number of us were forced into the military and had to participate in the war they were protesting against. And they also failed to mention how they treated us after we returned home. So while they were waxing poetically and triumphantly about how they changed the country and how exciting and exhilarating it all was, I was sitting there thinking “Fuck You”. How’s that for poetic
There was however one moment during the question and answer period when our differences melted away. Following a bunch of serious political questions, a shy young woman came up to the microphone and apologized for what she knew would be a trivial question, “I was curious if there was a certain song that really captures the times and stands out in your memory.” All three of the panelists’ eyes lit up. It was obvious that they didn’t think this question was trivial at all. The SDS/Weathermen guy chose an unusual song for his favorite, “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. It’s a great song, but hardly captures the times. One of the women authors chose “Get Together” by the Youngbloods and the other “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish, two great choices. I wished they would have asked me that question, and since this is my blog, I will answer it. My choice is “The Times They are a Changin’”, by Dylan.
There were other interesting authors and panels I haven’t mentioned, but I am well over my self imposed 1000 word limit. I’m looking forward to next year’s Tucson Festival of Books. If you’re in the area don’t miss it. PS, bring a sack lunch.

My First Mission with the Patriot Guard Riders

2011-03-21T14:05:00.002-07:00

I’ve never been a joiner of groups or clubs, and I’ve preferred to ride my motorcycle alone or with just one other guy, but the other day I impulsively joined the American Legion Patriot Guard Riders. I was walking past the American Legion Post here in Green Valley and saw a bunch of cool, big motorcycles in the parking lot. I asked one of the guys what it was all about and before you know it, I was a member.
I went on my first mission last Saturday. A 66-year old former Navy man suddenly died of a heart attack. He was a Patriot Guard Rider from Washington State and his wife thought it appropriate for the PGR to honor him at his memorial. The ride was out of Tucson and I was the only rider coming up from Green Valley. We rendezvoused at a McDonalds in north Tucson. Most of the guys rode Harleys and dressed in leather vests or jackets with military and Patriot Guard patches, pins and buttons all over them. I’ve never been one to wear veteran paraphernalia and have never dressed in a macho way, I’m sure I looked rather plain in comparison. But these guys seemed comfortable and natural in their “Hells Angels/Harley rider/veteran outfits”. In the not too distant past this group of ex-military guys and a few women, would have dressed alike in military or club uniforms. Somewhere along the line the independent rebel image took over. But there was a definite conformity to their nonconformity
I introduced myself at one of the outside tables and the guys were welcoming. A Mexican American guy called Baldy made sure to introduce me around to some of the other guys. I assume he was bald, but couldn’t tell because of his PGR doo rag. I had two main concerns about riding for that length of time in the middle of a long line of motorcycles.They were abated when one of the Ride Captains called out “fill your tanks and empty your bladders, we’re heading out in a few minutes”. After a short briefing from another Ride Captain, we left for the hour’s ride up to Florence where the deceased Navy guy and his wife spent their winters.
It was a beautiful ride from Tucson to Florence on Highway 79. The weather was perfect, sunny and in the mid 70s. Arizona has to be one of the best states in the US for motorcycling. The two lane roads are well maintained and open country stretches out on all sides. Our destination was a Sonic burger stand in Florence. There, we would meet up with other Patriot Guard Riders from Phoenix as well as the deceased man’s wife and two daughters.
After sitting around the burger stand for about an hour, finally a dozen or more riders arrived as well as a car containing the wife and daughters. The head Ride Captain, who was a tough looking woman with a pink bandana tied around her head, gathered us into a large circle out in the parking lot near our motorcycles. She introduced the wife and daughters. We all clapped and they tearfully thanked us for coming. Some of the guys walked over and gave them hugs. Then we all held hands, widening our circle. I grabbed the hand of a big dude with a leather vest and chains. He quickly switched our hands around, looked over at me and said. “I don’t know you well enough to hold your hand like that.” The ride captain switched on the stereo system on one of the large tricycles and the Lee Greenwood song, “God Bless the USA” began to play. I’ve always considered this song sort of sappy and overly patriotic, but standing there close to the family who were now openly crying, it seemed appropriate and even inspiring. I don’t think I’d ever really listened to the words that closely, but it is a tribute to veterans. It sounded as if it were written to the civilian population, telling them not to take our way of life for granted, but to be grateful for all those who served and gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy. I was actually tearing up a bit and feeling a little “proud to be an American”. I think I even gave the big macho dude’s hand a little squeeze.
After the song, we bowed our heads and one of the riders led us in prayer for the deceased and his family. One of the daughters ran and got her dad’s ashes from the car and they were placed on a motorcycle ridden by a Navy veteran. We lined up our bikes. The motorcycles with American flags up were in the front, One had a mounted Navy flag in honor of the deceased. In staggered formation, all 46 motorcycles with 3 local policemen escorting us, slowly rode toward the family’s mobile home court where the memorial would be held.
As we pulled into the trailer court, local residents lined the street with their hands over their hearts. We parked our bikes near the recreation center where the memorial was to be held. One of the guys opened the back of our support truck and began handing out American flags. We each grabbed one and stood in a big semicircle while the family and guests walked through and into the rec center. When they were all in and seated, we shortened the masts on our flags and walked into the rec center in single file. There was a table in the front of the hall with the deceased man’s ashes and a picture of him and his wife in an attractive frame. As each of us passed in front of the table, we stopped, turned toward the picture and saluted. We then formed another semi-circle behind the table and facing the audience. Our Ride Captain told the audience how grateful we were for the man’s service to his country and thanked the family for inviting us there to honor him. His family was again crying and thanking us profusely. I thought about all the veterans I’ve known who have died, especially my friend, Darrell. I had to hold back my tears.
Before going on this first mission, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it, but now I can honestly say, I felt proud to stand with other veterans to honor a man I never knew. I have absolutely no doubt that this ragged bunch of ex-military men and women helped the family with their grief. I received my “Mission accomplished” pin and was told I was no longer an “FNG” (fucking new guy).
After the ceremony most of the PGR members rode to a local bar for beer and burgers. I had a coke and hung around for a while. They all shook my hand and thanked me for coming and then Baldy and I took off for Tucson. Baldy lives in Tucson, but before peeling off for home, he made sure I knew the best route with the least amount of traffic. On my solo ride back to Green Valley, I thought about how good I felt for having been part of this mission. It did not feel political or as if it had any other agenda except to humbly show respect and appreciation for a man who willing and honorably served his country. I look forward to my next mission, and I’m going to proudly wear my PGR Mission Accomplished pin.

A Blog Hiatus

2011-01-30T12:43:00.001-07:00

My first blog entry was January 15, 2010, This was early in my retirement. Since that time I’ve written 67 blog entries. I knew that one of the activities I wanted to pursue was writing. I floundered around for several months, but couldn’t settle on a writing project. The blog idea came in a flash. The blog would allow me to explore a variety of subjects and have a readership, which would force me to write better. I’ve tried to make each blog entry into a somewhat polished piece of writing. I committed myself to writing the blog for one year. At the end of the year I would re-evaluate what I wanted to pursue for the next year.

The year is up and I’ve again been having trouble deciding what to work on. In the past year, I have established a discipline that gets the writing job done. Now it’s just a matter of deciding what to focus on. I wrote a novel in the ‘80s that is autobiographical. Even though I have re-written it several times, I’m still not happy with the final product. I’ve been working on several of the chapters lately and to my surprise, I’m getting into it. I thought I would be able to work on the novel and still do the blog, but that’s not happening for me. I am immersed in the novel and don’t want to think about other writing projects. So for now, I am taking a break from the blog. I’m not sure when I’ll return.

I don’t know what happens to abandoned blogs. I assume they continue to float around in cyberspace. If you have been a regular reader, thank you. If you want to contact me, my email address is yeagermin@cox.net.

As Texas Bruce used to say: Hasta la vista vaqueros, I’ll be seeing you wranglers.

Pictures of Ben

2011-01-22T17:47:00.002-07:00

Friday was our son Ben's 31^st birthday. It will be 3 years this May since he died. Katie and I drove up to Prescott to scatter a small amount of his ashes we saved for Arizona. We had several places in mind to scatter the ashes. but couldn't decide. Then it became clear, for the place was right before our eyes. On Katie's dresser is a picture of Ben standing looking out over a serene meadow and lake with trees. We found this picture in his drug and alcohol treatment workbook after he died. It was an assignment: show a place that represented peace for him.
It took us a while to figure out where the picture was taken. It was in Prescott, Az. overlooking the golf course by the condo we used to own. The exact spot where I practiced Tai Chi during the year we lived there. I had taken the picture. Ben was visiting from Washington and he and I rode out to the condo on my motorcycle. We had recently bought it, but hadn't moved in yet. I wanted him to see it before he went home.
I like to think pictures capture a hint of the essence of a person. There is one picture of Ben that was never taken, but is imprinted deep in my brain. It was the last time I saw him. Katie and I were in Seattle. Ben was working at Murphy's Pub and Grill as a cook. He was doing well and looking really good. We went over to Murphy's to eat lunch. He wanted us to experience where he worked and cook our lunch before we headed for home. It was simple bar and grill fare. I ordered a fish sandwich and Katie ordered a dinner salad. Ben served it to us himself. It was carefully prepared and beautifully presented. Katie and I agreed it was a delicious meal and I felt proud of him for being such a steady and dedicated worker. Throughout the lunch he came out from the kitchen to sit and visit with us for a few minutes. After the meal he walked us outside and stood on the corner with us as we waited for the traffic signal to change. It was May, but Seattle was still damp and cold. We allowed the crosswalk sign to change several times before saying goodbye. It felt good to linger together there for a while. Finally, anxious to get home, I started to cross the street when the light changed again. I glanced back at him standing there in his cook’s apron by his mom who was reluctant to leave. I waved goodbye and smiled. He waved and smiled back. That is the picture seared in my brain.
One of the hardest things we've ever had to do in life was clean out his apartment after his death. We had to go through everything and make a decision about each thing’s disposition. Typical of Ben's life, spontaneously a whole bunch of his friends showed up to help. We urged them to take many of his things and some of it was put into boxes with the decision process put off until later. Being surrounded by his young friends felt right. We all hugged and cried in Ben's place, surrounded by his stuff.
He had only two photos on display in his room. Both were pictures of his paternal grandparents. He was extremely close to my mom who died in 1993. I don't think he ever really got over her death. He knew my dad for just the first years of his life, but over time he heard numerous stories about him. Carefully framed and in the most prominent place of the apartment, on top of his television, was a picture from when he was about 15 months old. He is holding hands with his grandparents on the beach. He is happy and safe and the three of them are walking away.
Happy Birthday Ben, we miss you terribly.

Two Related Stories

2011-01-18T11:42:00.004-07:00

I'm currently teaching a reflective writing class and I wrote these two stories to illustrate how current experiences and the way we react to them are intimately related to past experiences. I didn't know these two incidences were related, however, until I wrote them.
I was recently invited to a motorcycle club Christmas party by my friend, Ron. It's a BMW club and most of the members ride BMWs even though Ron rides a Yamaha touring bike and I ride a Honda cruiser. I've never belonged to a riding club and have only ridden with a group one time previously. I prefer to ride alone or with a friend.
The club party was held in Sierra Vista, and there were four of us who rode down there together from Green Valley. I didn't have a chance to talk much with the two other men, but after the party was over and as we were congregating around our bikes getting ready for the return trip, I noticed one of them had a Vietnam veteran sticker on his windshield. Years ago I decided that if I identify another Vietnam veteran and if it seems appropriate to do so, I will identify myself as a veteran and say a few words to them, sort of a welcome home brother thing. So I went up to the guy and told him I noticed that he too was a Vietnam vet. I asked him where he served in Vietnam. He responded, “I was all over the country” and then silence. I told him I was in the Chu Lai area in I Corps and that I was in Army Intelligence. Silence. “What was your MOS(job)?” I asked. He said he was in communications and added “Whenever any Intelligence guys came out to the field where we were, they didn't know what the hell they were doing and had to be shown all the basics, like how to set up camp...” and I forget what else he said. I quickly responded that we were never trained in many of the combat activities and that when I went out with the infantry, I relied heavily on their direction and guidance. So I guess I was agreeing with him, which later felt like I was admitting, I didn't know shit about staying alive in the field and was a general pain in the ass to the others. I definitely don't feel that way, but that was the end of our Welcome home brother conversation.
On the ride back home I couldn't get this conversation out of my mind. The emotion was creating a big pressure in my chest. It was a combination of hurt and anger. I kept glancing at the guy who was riding up ahead and having thoughts like, why did you say that to me? And I don't need to go to any more of these stupid motorcycle clubs. And He doesn't have any idea what I did in Vietnam, where does he get off putting down Army Intelligence? And some thoughts that were more judgmental and hostile and probably not appropriate for my blog. When my friend and I peeled off to go home, I made sure not to wave goodbye to the guy. As if he cared.
I've written about this phenomenon before. I could write numerous other stories that are almost identical. This is probably the main reason I don't join veterans' clubs. There's usually somebody who will say something to me and trigger this powerful, unpleasant emotion. When I shared the experience with Katie, she asked me why I didn't come back with something in my defense or keep it light and tease the guy a little.
Thinking about her question, I remembered an earlier experience that felt closely related.
When I entered high school I was short, thin and weighed only 89 pounds. The wrestling coach came up to me one day and asked if I was interested in joining the team. He needed a boy in the 95lb. and under weight class. I didn't want to do it, but he convinced me that it would be helping out the school and the wrestling team, so I agreed. I was a terrible wrestler. I made the varsity team only because there was no one else to oppose me. Being small and not very popular, I admired the guys who were athletic and confidant, especially with the girls. They wore their letter jackets proudly and always congregated together. The girls were either flirting with them or glancing over and talking about them. This to me was an exclusive club.
My first year of wrestling was a disaster. I lost every match but one and usually by being pinned. Throughout the season, I desperately wanted to quit, but the coach kept encouraging me and so I kept on. This was a private school in St. Louis county. The majority of students were from out of state and boarded. I was a local student and we were referred to as “day-pups” short for day pupils. We were bussed to school and back home again. Most day-pups were not part of the “in-crowd”. There were exceptions, but I wasn't one of them. The faculty encouraged students to attend all athletic events, so the wrestling matches usually had a big crowd of supporters. Week after week, match after match nearly the entire school watched the painful process as I started off each match and promptly got pinned by a more skilled wrestler. I could hear the individual voices in the crowd “Come on Mike, you can do it! Come on, come on! Awwww.” And it was over that fast. Students would talk about the various interesting holds that pinned me. “That last one looked sort of like a pretzel hold.” The very last match of the season, I managed to tie my opponent, whoopee.
When the season was over, to my surprise, I had earned a letter in wrestling. By wrestling in every varsity match, I had accumulated just barely enough points. I didn't feel I deserved it and had no plans of wearing a letter jacket or sweater, but my mom convinced me otherwise. Her argument was that I had earned it by persevering all those weeks of humiliation and not quitting. She had a point and then I thought about wearing it around school, Maybe the girls would be attracted to me like they are to the other guys. So I allowed her to sew the big gold P on a sweater and wore it to school one day.
I felt extremely self-conscious wearing it. When I entered one of my classes, a boy, who wasn't a hotshot either, said to me something like, “Look at the big letter-man. What did you do win one match all season?” I don't remember what I said in my defense, but I thought, I didn't even win one match. After class ended, I stashed the sweater in my locker and never wore it again.
I hadn't worn anything to identify myself as a Vietnam veteran until recently. I'm not proud of having been involved in the war, but I feel a sense of camaraderie with fellow veterans and also want to honor those who didn't return or were wounded. In 2009 I put a sticker on my motorcycle and a pin on my hat. It hadn't been a popular thing to identify oneself as a Vietnam veteran until after the first Gulf war. Vietnam was the worst, most challenging, most exhilarating and most frightening year of my life. When that other veteran put down Intelligence personnel, I took it personally. I felt my war experience was being discounted by association. For a brief moment, I again became that little nerdy guy who didn't feel worthy of being in the exclusive club. Well I am in this club and very quickly the unworthy part was superseded by an “angry vet” part, which leads to other stories yet to be written.

Making Mochi with the Ancestors

2011-01-08T09:36:00.001-07:00

It's the Christmas holiday and Katie and I are in Hawaii spending time with her son and his family. Hawaii is the only place in the US that feels like a foreign country, an Asian country to be more precise. When I started writing this blog entry, it was Christmas eve and we were sitting in the food court at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, at a table adjacent to the Kansai Yamato Mochi stand. It's very crowded here at the mall and there's a line of people at the stand. In the display case, arranged in neat rows, are pink, green and white round, plump mochi cakes. Mochi is pounded sweet rice. It is extremely chewy and eaten as a snack or dessert. Some of the cakes have a toasted coating, some are filled with sweet bean paste and some have no filling at all. I can't think of an equivalent food from my mid-west background. At a time when I might eat a cream cheese Danish, a Japanese person would eat a mochi cake. I don't think a mochi stand would survive very long in Green Valley, Az. where we live, but Katie would love it if one tried.
When I was in Vietnam in Army Intelligence, I worked closely with Vietnamese interpreters and spent my tour of duty questioning Vietnamese people, soldiers and civilians. Ever since that time I have felt comfortable around Asian cultures in general. During the TET celebration of 1968, before all hell broke lose, an interpreter named Tan invited me to his family's home for the holiday dinner. His was not a family that could afford feeding guests. In spite of this, they managed to put out an elaborate spread of food, much of it I didn't recognize. I was 20 years old at the time and the only Asian food I'd eaten previously was canned Chun King chow mein. I remember especially liking the crispy noodles that came in a separate can. I didn't see any these crispy noodles at Tan's family celebration, but I made up my mind that I would accept and eat graciously whatever was served. To my surprise the food was delicious. Later, Tan told me what some of the foods were and I was glad he hadn't told me ahead of time. One of the dishes I remember was peanuts in ducks' blood. I thought of it as a yummy dish with a dark tangy sauce. While we were enjoying the meal, I noticed another full set of serving dishes over to the side that nobody touched. Tan told me that that food was for their dead ancestors. I wondered whether the family would eventually eat this food, or throw it away, but I never found out.
Christmas in Hawaii is also about getting together with family and friends and eating a lot of carefully prepared delicious food. I guess that's really no different from anywhere else. Our daughter-in-law is Japanese and she invited us to participate in one of her family's holiday traditions, making mochi the old fashioned way.
When we arrived at her cousin’s house, the process was already underway. It was all taking place outside the house on the driveway and in an open two car garage. After being introduced around, I stood and watched for a while. The men handled the activities on the driveway and the women stood in the garage facing each other across tables. In the corner of the driveway, close to the house was a stack of wooden rice steamers over a heat source. In the center of the driveway was a large stone bowl. One of the men grabbed the top rice steamer and with help poured the softened, cooked rice into the bowl. Some of the women, including our daughter-in-law, had soaked the rice over several nights and now it had been steaming for I don't know how long. Three men or boys then started to mash the rice with wooden sticks. This is the most tedious part and even our 6-year old grandson, Christopher, was even allowed to do this. This took about 5 to 10 minutes and was the most tiring part of the whole process. One of the older men kept checking to see if the rice granules were broken down enough. When given the OK, the rice mashers stepped aside and another man, wielding a large wooden mallet, began to rhythmically pound the rice. The pounding seemed to be the centerpiece of the mochi making process and the part that transformed the sticky mass into a more rubbery substance. Everyone stopped to watch. The mallet was heavy and needed to come down with force and accuracy. Between each pound, another man moistened and turned the ever thickening batch. When the glutinous product was ready, it was placed on the table where the women are standing. Each time this was done, the women commented on the look and feel of that particular batch. Now the forming of the mochi cakes began. The women worked quickly with skilled hands. Before long there were several boxes filled with perfectly round, plump mochi cakes. This whole process continued all morning.
I got an opportunity to participate in most aspects of the process. I started off mashing. The least skilled part, the grunt work. After mashing several batches, one of the men asked if I wanted a turn pounding. I had entered the holy grail of the process, the only part with spectators. On my second turn at pounding, I thought I was beginning to get the hang of it. One of the older men complimented me on my pounding technique. After working up a considerable sweat with the men, I asked the women if I could join them. They graciously made room for me at the table. Having worked as a baker years ago, it was somewhat familiar territory. I even received a few nods of approval at some of my finished products. I realized however that my mochi cakes weren't as smooth as the others and took me a lot longer to make.
I recently looked up a mochi recipe on the internet. It starts with rice flour and the cooking is done in the microwave. It only takes minutes from start to finish. What a difference from the process I had participated in. There is even a mochi machine, like a bread maker. It's all done automatically, you just add the ingredients. But the process Katie and I participated in wasn't about making the family's mochi. I witnessed this extended Japanese American family contentedly talking and laughing through an extremely labor intensive, time consuming process. This is something they do every year and something their mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts who are long gone did as well. Like Tan’s family, this family set aside some of the food for altars on New Year’s eve. In both cases I had no doubt that the ancestors were right there, celebrating the occasion through the eyes of their children’s children's children, just as they'd done for centuries.

Learning From the Existentialists

2010-12-29T20:06:00.002-07:00

I've been listening to a lecture series on existentialism. The focus is on philosophers Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre. These are some heavy dudes. The lecturer points out all the many ways they disagree and also the common philosophical thread that runs through their work: the way to find true freedom in this life is by taking total responsibility for one's choices and one's responses to the events of life. This is called living an authentic life. An authentic life has passion and commitment. Most people live much of their lives in a reactionary mode. Almost everyone has brief moments of clarity, but the life of the ordinary person is generally unreflective in nature. The existentialists encourage us to live our lives in the present and make our decisions through reflective choice.
In conformity, one does the right thing because that is what's expected by others. Non- conformity is the other side of the coin. The rebellion of youth is an example of this. Both are reactionary ways of existing. Following the existential philosophy one may conform or rebel, but the choices are made reflectively and in this way one’s life becomes more “authentic”. Sartre found authenticity in the French underground. Rebelling against the Nazis gave him meaning and purpose that transcended his individual needs and wants. Viktor Frankl found it when he was a prisoner in a concentration camp. Helping the other prisoners gave him the meaning he needed to survive. The existentialists tell us that finding meaning in life leads to true freedom.
When I first attended college at Florissant Valley Community College in North St. Louis County, it was1965 and I guess I wasn't ready. I flunked out. My concerned parents sent me to a counselor, who advised me to go into the military. He told me “Not everyone is cut out for college.” But at some point during my Army experience, I decided I wanted an education. My heroes were writers. Not just writers, but writers and adventurers like Hemingway, Jack London and Jack Kerouac. Both Jacks were in the Merchant Marines for a while. When I was a soldier on my way to Vietnam aboard a Merchant Marine troopship, I enviously watched the sailors as they went about their daily chores. They worked hard and had purpose throughout their day, unlike us soldiers, the cargo, who had absolutely nothing to do. We sat or wandered around the ship with too much time to think about where we were headed. I imagined myself as one of those seaman, after a hard day's work, lying on my bunk in the evening, making entries in my journal for a novel I would someday write.
In Kerouac's novel On The Road, he describes living and working with migrant workers. He describes this as a deeply satisfying time in his life, doing exhausting work in the fields all day and then falling into bed at night tired but happy. The long tedious hours of back breaking work forced him to engage fully in life. For Hemingway it was imminent death that forced his characters into this open, honest and vital way of living.
Some of the existentialists spend too much time raging against normalcy. Reacting in a negative way to the bland, unaware, mundane, un-passionate existence of others is just another reactionary mode. Without compassion for the human condition, we miss the mark. When we truly face our own inevitable death, when we truly face our ultimate aloneness in the world, when we become quiet and genuinely reflective, we discover a deep connection with and compassion for all life. The peace and security people yearn for can only be found by letting go of striving for it. Totally accepting oneself in whatever situation one is in is the way to true freedom. The Buddhists' call it non-attachment or the middle way. Let go of all clinging and be totally present.

Pick of the Litter

2010-12-18T08:27:00.002-07:00

I got first pick of the litter. Cheska was Suzanne's dog, the mother, and the father was a dog named Red. Both dogs were Springer Spaniels, although Red was so big we suspected he might not be pure-bred. Cheska was medium to small size, had reddish brown(liver) on her back with a white underbelly and white on her legs and muzzle. She could be dependent and whiny, whereas Red was strong, independent and had a regal appearance. Red's body was white with a smattering of reddish spots. Most of the color was on his head. He was owned by Suzanne's former boyfriend.
Suzanne and I lived together for a time in the early '70s, when one could easily drift in and out of relationships. Ours wasn't meant to last, but we shared a deep love of dogs as well as love and respect for each other. She was still living in Eugene in the house we bought together, but I had moved to Seattle and was eking out a living as a fry cook during the day and cab driver at night. I had been dog-less since my beagle, Blossom, was run over by a car driven by a young man going way too fast on a country road. I wasn't sure I wanted another one.
But getting pick of the litter was quite an honor and I was secretly pleased that Red's master was getting second choice. I can't remember how many puppies were in the litter, but a lot, maybe 8 to 10. Suzanne called me when they were old enough to adopt. There is absolutely nothing cuter than a bunch of Springer puppies. I couldn't resist and took my time watching them before making my decision.
Suzanne let me know which puppy the ex-boyfriend wanted. It was the biggest male with the droopiest face. He was lethargic, spending most of his time sitting and watching the other puppies play. There was something appealing about his mellow nature and for a while I thought he was the one I wanted. It may have also had something to do with taking the dog that Suzanne's irresponsible, cavalier yet ruggedly handsome ex wanted. But as I continued watching the puppies, I kept noticing one medium sized male, always on the move. Some of the puppies fought a lot, some slept most of the time and some whined until mom returned to feed them. But this little male went around bumping the other dogs with his nose until he got one of them to play with him. He didn't get angry or give up. He would bump a puppy, back up and then furiously wag his cropped tail. After two or three times of this, without response, he would move on to the next one.
When I touched his back, he looked up at me and for a brief moment I could tell he thought maybe I'd play with him. But when he realized I was just sitting there watching like that fat puppy in the corner, he again turned his attention to the other dogs.
I named him Murray after the Jason Robards character in the movie A Thousand Clowns. Murray was a writer for a children's television show. But he grows to hate the shows host and the conformity of it, so he quits. Murray realized that most people go through their lives reacting and conforming to others and to the “system” and lose the basic childlike joy of living. His nephew Nick lives with him and Murray wants him to live life with gusto and to stand up to the hypocrisy and phoniness of others. Throughout the movie Murray tries to act as an example for his nephew. In one scene he goes out into the street very early in the morning, looks up at the New York apartment buildings and begins yelling at them as if he were a camp counselor. “Campers, volleyball will be held out on the main lawn at 10 am sharp”.
I lived with Murray the Springer for over 15 years. We ran together, hiked together, lived in a variety of houses and towns. He endured my ups and downs with girlfriends and marriages. He loved and played with my son and two stepsons. He tolerated our other pets as they came and went. Throughout it all, I could count on him to bump me on the leg each morning wag his stump of a tail, back off and look at me straight in the eye as if to say, Isn't it great to be alive. What fun activities are we going to do today?
Murray had a stroke in 1990. His left side stopped working. When I took him to the Vet to be put down, we took a few minutes to sit outside the office by the side of a small stream. He knew something was wrong, but when he heard the birds chirping in the trees, his floppy ears perked up and he looked at me. Again I saw that little puppy. What do you say we go chase after those birds? I'm reminded of the Jerry Jeff Walker song Mr. Bogangles. “His dog up and died... after 20 years he still grieves.” It's been over 20 years since Murray died and I haven't gotten another dog and probably won't.

Thoughts on Christian Science

2010-12-09T09:27:00.002-07:00

I was raised in Christian Science. It was a good religion for a kid. The message was very positive. In fact in Sunday School we were taught that God is only positive. There are 7 specific synonyms for God; Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit and Principle. I learned that we are all part of God or more precisely, individual expressions or reflections of God. We learned that the material world is an illusion and that we are really spiritual beings. Sin was defined as our belief in the material world. The degree to which we believe in and are attached to matter, is the degree to which we suffer. Everything in the material world passes away, so the task of a Christian Scientist is to develop a Spiritual sense, which can be defined as a deeper understanding of our true relationship with the Divine.
I preferred the Christian Science message over the one at my previous Sunday School, which was Presbyterian. There was a scary side to their message. I felt I had to watch what I did or else I would be punished. Once I asked the Sunday school teacher if animals went to Heaven, he told me, no they didn't, only people. He probably didn't speak for all Presbyterians, but at the time I decided I didn't want to go to heaven, I wanted to go where ever my dog went. When I asked the same question of the Christian Science lady, she told me that all living things are part of God and that includes my dog. Also that Heaven was not a far off place, but was always present and could be experienced in this life. We didn't need to wait until we died. The way to experience heaven, I was told, was to quiet down, “be still and know that I am God”.
When I got older and started attended Christian Science church services, I had a lot of trouble “being still” and paying attention. The church service was excruciatingly boring to me. There are no preachers in Christian Science, just two readers. One reads passages from the Bible and one from Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health. There is absolutely nothing extemporaneous about the service, robots could do it.
When Katie and I lived in Rochester, New York we attended a Christian Science church a few times. It was a huge beautiful Cathedral, but there were only 7-10 people attending the services. We found that to be true in other areas as well. In Port Angeles, Washington, during the 5 years we lived there, the local Christian Science Church first downgraded to a Society and then went out of business altogether. Christian Science seems to be a rapidly declining religion. I Speculate that there are two main reasons for the decline. One is the rigidity of the way the religion was set up by Mrs. Eddy and the other is their stand on not receiving medical help for physical problems.
The First Reader at one of the CS churches we attended had a huge goiter on his neck. I'm sure he was praying like crazy for it to go away, and probably felt guilty that it wasn't. I know that guilt all to well. I wanted to tell the guy, just have a doctor take that thing off your neck and get on with your life. I suffered from migraine headaches for years. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. She asked me a lot of questions and one of them was, Are you receiving any medical help for them? I told her I took a migraine pill when I felt one coming on. This allowed me to go to work and function, as opposed to lying in a dark room all day. This particular woman was a renowned Christian Science teacher and writer and she told me she couldn't help me as long as I continued to take the medication. Her response turned me off and I started to argue with her over the phone until she told me she had to go. I kept taking the medication and stopped reading Christian Science.
Mrs Eddy was not the first person to use the term Christian Science and it wasn't a brand new philosophy that she discovered. She learned the basics from a spiritual healer named Phineas P. Quimby. After being healed by him, she hung on to his manuscripts and for a time considered herself his “disciple”. On her own she worked out the details of this new theology and spiritual healing in conjunction with Biblical Scriptures and much of it I'm sure came to her through revelation. It is fair to say she greatly advanced this theology. But it always bothered me that she took all the credit for everything she wrote and taught even though there are passages lifted directly from Quimby's manuscripts. And many other spiritual writers of the day had published works developing the same ideas. But it's hard to find mention of Mr. Quimby or any of the other spiritual writers and healers of the time in any of the official Christian Science literature. It's like they never existed. In fact it's taught in the church that any other person's interpretation of Christian Science or spiritual healing is tainted by “carnal” or “mortal mind”. So Christian Scientists give her all the credit for all the teachings. To be a loyal Christian Scientist you need to accept that all other systems of spiritual healing are wrong and only her system is the “Truth”. So like so many religions, you either buy into it entirely or you don't.
In the late 1800's, Emma Curtis Hopkins was at one time Mrs. Eddy's star student. She rose to the top of the organization and became editor of the Christian Science Journal. She then suddenly disappears from the Christian Science literature and is never to be found again. Ms. Hopkins saw similarities in Christian Science philosophy and Eastern Philosophy, particularly Hinduism. Also she realized that the evolution of the Christian Science philosophy cannot be contained within one organization. Revelation and Truth do not belong to any one individual. She began to talk about this publicly and Mrs. Eddy booted her out of Christian Science. Ms. Hopkins went on to teach classes which spawned the New Thought movement including Unity, Religious Science and Divine Science.
It's obvious that Ms. Hopkins learned much from Mrs. Eddy. The teachings are almost identical. Emma Hopkins sited the basic difference between her beliefs and Mrs. Eddy's with the following distinction; Mrs. Eddy states, there is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter. Ms. Hopkins makes the subtle, but profound distinction that, there is no absence of life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter.
Since childhood I've had a “love/hate” relationship with Christian Science. I suppose it's not unlike the feelings of Catholics, Jews and other Protestants concerning the religion they were raised in. Sometimes I am fiercely attracted to the religion and want to join up and believe everything it has to teach and at other times I reject it vehemently and see inconsistencies and hypocrisies within it. In the end I strive to remain true to an honesty of Being.

Bob Kuban and the In-Men, Our Local Band

2010-11-29T15:38:00.013-07:00

Wherever you grew up there was probably a local musician or band that made it big. The St. Louis area spawned many famous musicians, most notably Chuck Berry, Ike & Tina Turner and more recently Michael McDonald, who graduated from my high school, McClure High, in Florissant, Mo. I had already graduated before he began high school so I'm sorry to say I didn't know him. In North St. Louis in the mid '60s the local band that made the big-time was Bob Kuban and the In-Men. If you've heard of them, you are either familiar with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's one hit wonder list or you’re from the St. Louis area or you have an incredible amount of rock & roll trivia rambling around in your brain. I'm guilty of all three.

Bob Kuban was the drummer and band leader of the In-Men. On Friday nights during the summer, his band would play at Jackson Park, a relatively small park in Berkeley, a north St. Louis suburb. Jackson Park hosted a variety of local bands during the hot St. Louis summer nights. In the summers of 1964 and 1965, my friends and I would go back and forth between Jackson Park and the local YMCA where there was usually a band playing as well. But when Bob Kuban was playing at Jackson Park, we tried not to miss it. He had a first rate band.

The Beatles and the British bands were taking over America at that time and they were the major influence on popular music. Bob Kuban's band was not your typical band of the era. It had more more in common with the earlier rhythm and blues bands of Ike Turner, Wilson Picket and James Brown. In an interview Bob Kuban states that Ike Turner was a big influence on him and his formation of the band. As a footnote to my story, in 1951 before Tina joined him, Ike Turner's band was called The Kings of Rhythm. They recorded a song called Rocket 88 which some believe was the very first rock & roll song. How's that for local boy making history?

Bob Kuban had an eight piece band with horns, drums and keyboard, which was played by a guy from my neighborhood, Greg Hoeltzel. The lead singer was Walter Scott, who had a great voice for this style of music. During those two summers we listened to our local band, knowing they were a cut above the other local groups, playing in their unique St. Louis style. This was several years before The Chicago Transit Authority(Chicago) and Blood Sweat and Tears would bring the big band sound back to popular music. In 1966 Bob Kuban and the In-Men hit it big with The Cheater. The song was all over the radio for months. That year we watched our local guys on national TV, but their run was short lived. They had only a few other songs that got national play, Teaser and a cover of a Beatles song Drive My Car. I also remember hearing a song called Jerkin' Time and the Bat Man Theme on the radio as well, but they may have just been popular locally.

Walter Scott left the band shortly after The Cheater's popularity to pursue a solo career. He never had another hit song, but in his repetoire sang (Look out for) The Cheater over and over again in a variety of performance venues. In 1983 when Bob Kuban was trying to get the original band back together for a reunion concert, he discovered that Walter Scott was missing. Scott was found 4 years later floating face down in a cistern with his ankles, knees and wrists bound. He had been shot through the heart from the back. In one of life's ironic turns, it was discovered that his murderer were his “cheater” wife and her "cheater" boyfriend. There was a Forensic Files TV show about it as well as a book written titled The Cheaters: The Walter Scott Murder by Scottie Piesmeyer.

Bob Kuban still has a band that plays in the St. Louis area. I read that recently they played a summer evening gig at Jackson Park and invited all the fans to come out for old time's sake. I would have liked to have been there. That's the problem with being a nomadic type and having moved away years ago. Not only have I lost touch with most of my old friends, I haven't been back to St. Louis since my friend Paul and I visited eight years ago. But I still have memories of those hot summer evenings in the '60s at Jackson Park listening to our local band that finally made the big-time.

Wes Montgomery and a Giant Doobie

2010-11-24T14:00:00.004-07:00

Recently Arizona passed a medical marijuana law. It's still a very contentious topic, each side vehemently arguing against the other. Back in the ’60s and ‘70s I would have predicted the complete legalization by now. At this stage of my life I have mixed emotions about it though. I have some very fond memories from when I was in college at the University of Oregon in the early ’70s that include pot smoking. It seemed so innocent back then. Friends would gather. We'd be having a few beers, listening to music and someone would roll a joint and pass it around. Then we'd all become quiet, listening intently to the music until at some point something would strike one of us as funny and we'd begin to laugh hysterically. The laughing and giggling wouldn't stop until we realized we had a terrible case of the munchies and then we'd raid the frig.
One of the arguments used against legalization is that it is a gateway to other drugs. I think there is some validity to this argument, but for me it was a gateway to mystical experiences. I was influenced by authors like Aldous Huxley, John Lilly, Carlos Castenada, Joseph Chilton Pierce and Ram Dass. I was never tempted to drop acid even though it was the holy grail of psychedelic drugs. As a war veteran I was extremely afraid of getting stuck in a bad trip. I felt I could control marijuana. I knew just how much to smoke to get into a comfortable heightened state of perception. It helped me to understand that peace is in the present moment. It also taught me to let go of past and future, which is the only true freedom. But of course when the drug effect wore off, I was flung back into my neurotic self, feeling lethargic and sometimes with a bad cough and a headache.
I never heard of marijuana until 1967. I was on leave from Army training and getting ready to ship out to Vietnam. I went to a friend’s house to visit him and his girlfriend. They put on some strange music (Vanilla Fudge) and said it sounded even better when you're high. I thought they meant high on alcohol and I said “Well then let’s have a few beers.” His girlfriend looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Don't you know that stuff will kill you.” They told me marijuana was a much safer drug than alcohol and it made you peaceful instead of violent. They asked me if I'd like to try some, but I declined. They weren't too interested in hanging with me anymore after that, so I left.
The first time I smoked a joint was in Vietnam. The doobies over there were almost cigar- sized. You could purchase a bunch of them already rolled and neatly placed in a baggy for about five bucks. One evening in base camp, my black friend Mitch invited me over to his hooch to listen to music. Mitch was from Chicago. He wasn't trained in intelligence like the rest of us, but he was a grunt, an infantryman, assigned to our detachment as an aid to the First Sergeant. Our First Sergeant was an old man, probably in his 40s. He fought in World War II in the German Army. We used to refer to him as the First Nazi, behind his back of course. He could barely conceal his prejudicial thinking. How Mitch got assigned to him I'll never know, Karma I guess. Mitch had an attitude. He was a draftee and didn't care for Army life. He wore his helmet at a rebellious angle and when he wasn't wearing a helmet, he would stick his large comb in his barely perceptible afro hair-do. The First Sergeant could get pissed off just looking at him.
Mitch called me “Little Bro”. He said I was the only white guy he ever called that. I don't know if I believed him, but I liked it. We both loved Motown music. On the top of our favorite musicians list were Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. Smokey Robinson was like a God and then there was Mitch's local Chicago band The Impressions led by “my man” Curtis Mayfield. That night in his hooch, Mitch said he had some music he wanted to turn me on to. It was the smooth jazz electric guitar of “his man”, Wes Montgomery. While we were listening to Wes, he lit up one of those honking doobies, took a hit and passed it to me. I had already adopted the Vietnam “what the fuck” attitude and took a big hit. He told me to hold it in, which I tried to do until it exploded from me in a fit of uncontrollable coughing. After he and the rest of the guys in the hooch stopped laughing, Mitch coached me in how to inhale and avoid this happening again.
I'd like to say we then kicked back and enjoyed the smooth jazz together, but I became hyper aware of the explosions and small arms fire in the background. I thought I had become used to it. But it seemed louder and closer. I couldn't sit still anymore and got up to leave. I felt I needed to get my rifle, flak jacket and helmet from my hooch and then dive into a bunker. I was aware that my heart was beating hard and fast. Mitch stopped me and said I was just feeling the effects of the pot, but I wasn't convinced. He finally sent someone over to get my friend Rob. Rob was college educated and older than the rest of us. He was 22. Rob took me outside and talked to me until I finally calmed down.
Mitch and I had plenty of opportunities to practice the art of smoking Ganga and I became quite efficient at it. One day Mitch was gone. No one could tell me where he went. I assume he really pissed off the First Nazi and got sent out to an infantry platoon. I don't know whether he survived the war or not, but I hope he did. No one else ever called me “Little Bro”.

Buying a New Car

2010-11-20T09:31:00.007-07:00

Katie and I just went through the new car buying experience and came out the other side with a nice car, but we’re hoping not to have to go through that agonizing process again for a long time. We’d been talking about buying a car for a while now. Our Ford Focus was still running strong, but had almost 140,000 miles on it. We researched various cars and decided we wanted a small hatchback that was dependable, safe and got good gas mileage.
Last Saturday I went up to Tucson on my motorcycle to pick up a part I’d ordered. On the way home I passed by a Toyota dealer and decided to stop and see if they had any cars we’d be interested in. I was hoping to just look around a bit without being bothered, yeah right. A salesman swooped in on me before I took two steps on the lot. He was a friendly guy, of course. He asked me what I was looking for and I told him. He showed me a variety of used cars, but they were either too expensive, too old, too big or too something.
This went on for some time. We drove around a very large block in heavy traffic in several different cars, but nothing caught my fancy. Then he remembered a car they had just gotten in. He left me for a while and came back in an almost new Toyota Yaris. It was a strange color, appearing to be an off shade of purple. I got in and the salesman drove it out into the traffic, down the street until reaching a big deserted parking lot where he pulled in. He stopped the car and told me to try it out on some tight turns. I whipped the little car around the lot, swerving one way, then the other. I was having fun. It was like driving a large go-cart. It handled well, had good power and was comfortable.
I repeatedly told the salesman that I couldn’t commit to buying a car unless my wife liked it too. He said, “Not a problem, take the car home, keep it for the rest of the weekend and bring it back on Monday. If your wife doesn’t like it, just turn it in and walk away.” I was getting tired and had the thought’ this will be fun to drive around for a couple days, so I agreed. Then another fleeting thought, she’s never going to gofor this color.
But it wasn’t as simple as just driving the car home. My buddy the salesman added, “First I need you to fill out some papers before you go.” OK, I understand that they can’t just let me drive away in this almost new car. But I didn’t realize I had to go through the entire paperwork process as if I were actually buying it. What had I gotten myself into? First I waited for the financial guy to be able to see me, then they ran a credit check and I waited for the results, then I signed papers until my hand started to cramp. I kept asking the financial guy, “Are you sure I’m not actually buying this car?” and he kept reassuring me, “No, don’t worry, this is just a formality.” I made sure there was a paper saying that if my wife doesn’t approve of the car, the deal is off. The process took several hours and the whole time I was thinking, what in the hell am I doing? She’s not going to like the color.

During a break in the paperwork action and on my way to the bathroom for the umpteenth time, because the salesman kept showing up with another free bottle of water and I kept drinking them, I stopped off to take quick look at the car. The sun was now setting and when I stepped out the front door of the dealership, there was the little Toyota, a deep brown color, the shade of root beer. Silly me, my mind must have tricked me into thinking it was a putrid purple color. I think she’ll like it after all.

I went back in for the last round of paperwork signing and then finally was free to leave. We stashed my motorcycle in the back of the dealership and I took off for Green Valley in the root beer colored Toyota. Even though it was slightly “pre-owned”, it still had that new car smell. When I got home it was pitch dark. After my long winded answer to the question “You did what?” Katie decided to wait and look at the car in the morning. In the morning light we walked out to the parking lot and there it stood. But it wasn’t root beer colored anymore and wasn’t purple either, but of sort of a sickening shade of mauve. Katie’s first comment was “It looks like the color of a corpse.” We walked around it until I found an angle where it looked root beer colored again, but any slight movement to the right or left turned it into a rolling cadaver. “And besides”, she pointed out, “ it’s a two door and we decided we need a four door.”
How had I gotten sucked into bringing home this ugly colored little car? Why did I allow myself to go through all the waiting and paperwork hassle? If I had thought about it, I clearly would have realized this was not the car we wanted. These questions may never be answered. My conclusion is, I cannot be trusted to go into a car dealership on my own. Katie refused to go back with me to return the car. The unspoken words were you got yourself into this mess and you can get yourself out of it. I thought I’d learned my lesson.
When I took the car back on Monday, the salesman was surprised that it had been rejected. I told him we liked the car, but it was the wrong color and we needed 4 doors. He didn’t miss a beat, “Wait here just a minute, I think I have something you’ll really like.” and he took off before you could say, “Oh shit here we go again.” He showed up minutes later in a white Toyota Corolla. It was a lot more money than we wanted to spend and neither of us wanted a white car. But I drove it and liked the feel of it, it had good power, handled really well and had a huge trunk with fold down back seats. Again, I was ready to consider another car that wasn’t the right one. I told the salesman I was not going through all the rigmarole I went through the other day and that I needed to get my motorcycle out of the back and go home. He said, “No problem, I’ll follow you down to Green Valley and we can show the car to your wife.” In a brief moment of sanity I said, “I’d better call her first.” which I did. I told her all about the car and she listened very patiently and then said in a calm and authoritative voice, “Get on you motorcycle and come home now, without the salesman.” So I did.

Even though I told the salesman we’d be back the next day, we didn’t go back, Instead we went to a different dealership and found a car that fits all our criteria. It’s an arctic blue Nissan Versa and it continues to look Arctic Blue no matter what angle you happen to be examining it from. Katie mercifully went through the paperwork process while I zoned out. I couldn’t face doing it again. We are very happy with our new car.

I had spent a lot of time with that Toyota guy. I knew where he was from and why he and his wife moved to Arizona. I knew that he had a problem with his lower back and that he’s going to have it operated on soon. He hopes to buy another motorcycle, a Honda 1300. He was in the Navy, and just missed going to Vietnam. Well he called me the other night “How are you doing? How’s your wife? Did you get home alright the other night on your bike?” Have you been car shopping again?” “Yes,” I told him, “We bought a Nissan and I started to tell him why and that I appreciated all of his efforts to find me a car, but right in the middle of my sentence he said, “OK then.” and hung up. So much for our bonding experience the other day.

The World Needs Bucky More Than Ever

2010-11-11T15:31:00.003-07:00

I’m a supporter of the voluntary simplicity movement. I’m most enthusiastic about it between the times when I’m hungering to buy something new. Right now I’m a strong supporter. I rode my new motorcycle over to my favorite coffee shop and I’m sitting here writing this blog on my new nifty netbook. ‭ ‬I am pleased to see the voluntary simplicity concept is catching on with many young people. Only in a wealthy country like ours can there be a movement like this. It’s probably not real popular across the border in Mexico or in other third world countries. You can’t give up what you never had or have no hope of getting.
‭ Katie and I have been mindful of living lighter on the earth since the 70s. Since that time we have avidly recycled, mostly driven small fuel efficient cars, flushed our toilet sparingly and gave away or sold possessions we no longer used. The attitude of living more simply allowed us to retire earlier than most people and to retire without a fear of being poor. We now live in a 600 square foot condo, have just one small storage area on our back porch and 3 small closets. It seems we still have plenty of stuff. I can barely remember the many things we got rid of. Realistically looking at our attempts to conserve energy, we still consume way more than most people on the earth. And even if we became super good at conserving and recycling, would it make a difference in the grand scheme of things? ‬Looking to the future,‭ ‬it seems obvious that the entire world can’t participate in the making, buying and throwing away of things at the rate we've been doing it in America over the past sixty or so years.‭ The earth cannot sustain such wasteful activity on that grand of scale. Yet our consumer way of life is spreading around the globe like wildfire. In China, India, South America, and everywhere, people are becoming aware of all the goodies and want them, and you can’t blame them, some of these goodies are pretty cool. The third world is not going to choose voluntary simplicity.
‭ Sometime in the 1970s when I was in college at the University of Oregon, I went to a lecture by Buckminster Fuller. He was an architect, inventor, environmentalist and all around genius type of guy. He invented many things, but is most known for his invention of the geodesic dome. He also coined many terms, one being ephemeralization, which basically means doing more with less. At the time of the lecture, he was in his 80s. Sitting there in the audience listening to him speak, I noticed the large hearing aides behind each ear attached to thick black glasses with coke bottle lenses. I had to really concentrate to follow what he was saying. He talked in giant circles. I thought this old guy was just rambling on, but what I initially judged as a meandering, disjointed monologue, all of a sudden came together in brilliant clarity.
‭ He emphasized that we cannot continue our current way of living on the earth and hope to survive.

‭“‬If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.” “Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.” “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” “We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”

Bucky was a renaissance man. I remember him saying that the fall of western civilization will be because of over-specialization. I’ve been thinking about that statement off and on all these years and see examples of it everywhere. In the medical field you have to go to a special doctor for your feet, your heart, your eyes, your nose and throat, your allergies, your diabetes etc. And if you’ve ever had a house built, the list of people that need to be involved is almost endless. We are losing the big picture by each one of us focusing only on our narrow interests or specialties. He believed that by using our intelligence we could design systems that work for everyone and are in harmony with the environment. Not only could we feed the entire world, but he confidently said we could raise everyone’s standard of living higher than what we currently have in the US.
Bucky’s ideas were popular in the sixties and for a while a whole generation of young people cultivated a more holistic view of the earth and its inhabitants. We need Bucky’s ideas again today. He encouraged each one of us to do our part no matter how small. At his grave site there is a small concrete stone above his headstone that is inscribed with the words: “Call me Trim Tab”. The following quote explains this.

“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary, the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab”.
—Buckminster Fuller

Each one of us can make a difference and getting serious about voluntary simplicity is a good place to start. Bucky said we can save the world with intelligent design and the help of modern technology. I’m hoping that means I can keep my new laptop. Oh yeah and our TV is getting really old.

The Similarities Between Ricky and Frank

2010-11-05T19:36:00.002-07:00

I’ve written quite a few blogs about music. Music was and continues to be an important part of my life. It speaks a language that goes into the senses, passes through the thinking, controlling brain and stirs up the deepest recesses of my psyche. It hits parts of me that I am not aware of, loving parts, hopeful parts, angry parts, sad and grieving parts and the list can go on. At times it even liberates me from all parts and there is no separation between the music and my self.
I grew up with music in the house. My mom loved classical music and played it loud when she did housework. In my head are many classical pieces. I couldn’t tell you who the composers are or the names of the pieces, but I can hum along with the music. My dad loved music as well and whistled a lot when he puttered around the house. He liked popular music and that’s the gene I got. I loved popular music even before rock & roll, but it’s when I first heard Elvis that I discovered my music.

The first musician I identified with was Ricky Nelson. I watched him grow up on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Rock & roll began in our culture with Elvis. His way of interpreting songs became the standard. The problem was no one did Elvis better than Elvis, but everybody tried. His movements, his look and his inflections were all copied by other rock and rollers. Every one agreed he was the “King of Rock & Roll”. Even though Ricky idolized Elvis, he didn’t try to imitate him. Ozzie set him up with a top notch band (his lead guitar player, James Burton, would later become Elvis’) and Ricky sang the songs without theatrics. Like the old crooner, Frank Sinatra, Ricky showed restraint in his delivery and total appreciation of the music. I’ve always liked musicians who didn’t allow their egos to become greater than the music.

Frank was a musical force like Elvis, and a teen idol like Ricky, maybe the first teen idol. He chose his songs well and demonstrated an impeccable understanding and respect for the music and the musicians. He used his voice as one of the instruments of the band, even though it was the main instrument. Ricky had the same style. He didn’t put on airs, but sang the songs straight with feeling and as an integral part of the band. If you want to hear pure unadulterated ‘50s rockabilly rock & roll, listen to Ricky’s many hit songs.

My favorite music, evolving from that era, was Folk Rock, a genre that doesn’t seem to be a category anymore in the music stores. Folk Rock was born when Dylan went electric and Roger McGuinn fused the Beatles’ sound with Dylan lyrics. The Byrds, the Turtles, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Lovin’ Spoonful were some early Folk Rock groups. Folk Rock dominated popular music in the ‘60s and ‘70s.. Folk music was forever fused with Rock and individual artists like James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Brown were at the apex. The group that ruled the genre was Crosby, Stills and Nash and sometimes Young. In the mid ‘70s the baton was passed to the Eagles who, like the Byrds before them, fused in country music as well. In the late‘60s Ricky formed the Stone Canyon Band with Randy Meisner, who later joined the Eagles, and they helped pioneer the Country Rock sound.
Every generation has its own music and the generation to follow usually hates it. I remember my mom telling me about seeing Frank Sinatra with my dad when they were young. She talked about it as if it were something really special. I was heavily into the Stones at the time and thought, “Who’d want to listen to that corny old fashioned music?” After mom died, I discovered a live Sinatra record in her collection. It was recorded in Las Vegas with Count Basie’s Orchestra and arranged by Quincy Jones. I put it away in my useless record collection. Sometime in the ‘90s my sister gave me a Frank Sinatra cassette tape for my birthday. It contained songs recorded with the Nelson Riddle orchestra during his comeback in the ‘50s. I must have been ready at that time, because I discovered great songs with impeccable musicianship. I bought CDs of the live Vegas performance and the Nelson Riddle years and I now cherish these two recordings along with a Ricky Nelson greatest hits compilation. I love those two guys, they stood up there and sang ‘em straight.

Growing Up With Television

2010-10-30T10:29:00.002-07:00

A unique characteristic of baby boomers is that we are the first generation to grow up with television. The history of the development of television goes back to the early 1900’s, but it wasn’t until broadcast networks offered regular programming in the late 40’s and early 50’s that televisions became available to the public. By 1955 estimates are that half of American households had a TV set. There were just a few channels in those days and the programs were in black and white.
It’s the 1950’s shows that I remember fondly. Our TV set was in the basement during much of that time. Part of our basement was converted into a family room with knotty pine walls on which my parents allowed me to hang my precious baseball pennants. There was a brown and beige linoleum floor with an area rug, a coffee table, couch and chair so that our family of four could watch television in the evening. I loved getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch what I considered my own personal shows. I don’t remember the exact lineup, but there were a lot of cowboy programs; The Lone Ranger, Fury, Sky King, Roy Rogers and Hop-a-long Cassidy.
Andy’s Gang was a strange show hosted by Andy Devine and sponsored by Buster Brown shoes. It had some bizarre characters which included a mischievous toy frog named Froggy the Gremlin. Andy would say “Plunk your magic twanger Froggy” which elicited a twanging sound, a puff of smoke and the appearance of a stiff little toy Frog with arms and legs sticking out to the side. Froggy greeted us by saying, “Hiya kids, hiya, hiya hiya”, in a low male voice. One of the funniest bits to my child’s mind was when Froggy confused the teacher by interrupting him in the middle of teaching us something scholarly and serious. The interruption was “And I put it on my head” after which the teacher absentmindedly repeated the phrase and placed whatever he was holding on his head. I’m certain kids across America were laughing with me.
The Howdy Doody Show was the first television program I remember totally getting into. It was our Sesame Street minus all that healthy educational stuff. It took place in Doodyville and even had a Mayor, Pheneous T. Bluster. The most important part of the show for me and what made it more personal was the Peanut Gallery, a bleacher filled with kids just like myself. Buffalo Bob, the host, opened the show by asking the Peanut Gallery, “Hey kids, what time is it?” and all the kids would yell, “It’s Howdy Doody time,” and break into the Howdy Doody song, which was to the tune of Ta ra ra Boom de ay, an old Vaudeville song. I can finally admit that I sang along with the other kids. Some of the other characters on the show were Clarabel, who didn’t talk until the very last show, but instead honked a horn on his belt or squirted someone with a seltzer bottle, Chief Thunderthud who created the not very PC greeting and later resurrected by Bart Simspson, Kowabonga, and Princess Summerfall Winterspring, who vanished as a real person and later reappeared on the show as a marionette, like Howdy(unbeknownst to us kids, the actress was killed in a car accident).
The Peanut Gallery concept caught on across America. In the St. Louis area where I grew up, there were several shows that had live kid participation. One was Ernie Heldman’s Parade of Magic. My friend Paul and I got a chance to be on the show with our cub scout troop. TV was such a big part of our lives that to actually appear on it was a huge deal. I remember feeling nervous that Ernie would call on me to come up and help him with a magic trick, but he some chose other kids and I was relieved. Moments before the cameras rolled, our friend Craig spilled coke all over Paul and so Paul was pulled out of the gallery and didn’t get on the show. Later when it was on television we watched it and as the camera panned the rows of kids, I spotted myself. For a few brief seconds I felt the fleeting glory of fame. Then the show was over and my fame was lost in history. Very few of my friends saw that particular show and if one did, he or she didn’t remember seeing me on it.
A very popular show in the St. Louis area was Texas Bruce and the Wrangler Club. The kids were the Wranglers. Texas Bruce and his horse Trusty were popular figures around St. Louis. They appeared at many events. During the show, Texas Bruce allowed the boys and girls to individually say hi to family and friends. Most of the kids said hi to there moms and dads. On one show, a boy said “Hi mom, hi dad,” and then stuck up the middle finger of his right hand, thrust it toward the camera and added, “And this for you Herby.” The kid became legendary. Everyone was talking about him. Who was he? And who was Herby? What did Herby do to him to deserve this? I imagined Herby taking his revenge out on the kid and expected to see headlines in the newspaper, “One of Texas Bruce’s Wranglers murdered in his sleep.” But we never found out anything about the kid or Herby. In fact Texas Bruce denied that the incident ever happened. We couldn’t find anyone who actually had seen this show. Most parents believed it was all a rumor. But we kids were believers. This one brave boy who stood up to Herby the bully for all the world to see, lives on in our hearts and minds.
The unique feature of television is that you can relive history exactly as it happened in the past. Many of the shows we watched as kids were saved on film and can be viewed on the internet. I don’t recommend it however. The kids’ shows look cheesy and corny and the serious shows aren’t much better. I recently watched a few episodes of Have Gun-Will Travel with Richard Boone as Paladin. The shows concept was great and I would love to see it remade for current times. But when I watched these old episodes, I thought, Man is he ever an obnoxious one dimensional know it all. I guess we can’t really go back to our childhood. We can however savor the memories. I still believe in that lone Wrangler who gave Herby exactly what he deserved. As Texas Bruce used to say, Hasta la vista vaqueros, I’ll be seeing you Wranglers .

The Cola Wars

2010-10-23T21:00:00.002-07:00

I opened a checking account at a local bank recently. The teller was trying her darndest to get me to agree to a credit card that I didn’t want. She was good at it too. Even though I deny this to my wife, she was young and attractive and I was enjoying our interchange. She didn’t come right out and ask me if I wanted the card, but got me talking about myself. She shared a little about herself and at just the right moment slipped in the credit card pitch. I listened politely and even agreed with some of the points she made, which was a mistake. I used my standard way of weaseling out of it which is, “Before agreeing to anything, I need to talk it over with my wife.” This is an absolutely true statement. Katie handles the money and is savvier about money matters than I am. But this tactic always feels like a wimp’s way out, like I can’t make decisions for my self. But this young woman was determined. She must have felt she had her fish hooked and now just needed to reel him in. She called me at home that evening. She wanted me to know that I’m a valued customer with the bank and to make sure my overall banking experience had been to my liking. Only after softening me up a while, did she mention the credit card, sort of an Oh by the way tactic. I told her I wasn’t interested. She is still polite to me when I go into the bank, but doesn’t seem to care too much about my overall banking experience anymore.
I guess I should expect attempts to sell me things when I’m at places of business, but I hate it. I don’t like being manipulated. And after all these years I am still susceptible to being caught in their trap. I don’t know anybody who likes being accosted by a sales person, but we accept it as a way of life. Many times I’ve told myself, the next time a sales person comes after me with their phony baloney sales pitch thinly concealed by an interest in me as a person, I’m not going to react at all, but just keep walking. Or maybe I’ll summon up my inner Dirty Harry and out of the side of my mouth whisper, “Get lost asshole”.
I thought I was prepared when I was in the mall the other day. A young man approached me from one of the kiosks. He asked me about my current cell phone service. I told him I had T-Mobile which is what he was selling and he launched into his spiel about a new plan. Before I knew it, I was hooked again. The young man looked a little like my son and I figured he was trying to make an honest living. When I finally pulled away and caught up with Katie and my sister Karen, Katie asked me why I always stop and talk to those sales people. I told her “I don’t know”, and quietly practiced my “Get lost asshole” comeback hoping I’d be ready for the next one.
There is an inherent evil in Capitalism that our former and current enemies see more clearly than we do. Karl Marx built a philosophy around it and the Islamic extremists see it as the enemy of their faith. I looked up the definition of Capitalism in the dictionary: An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivated by profit. It’s from the last 3 words of the definition, motivated by profit, where the inherent evil springs. If there are no other values guiding the profit motive, all sorts of evils can occur.
It was in the mid 70’s when The Pepsi Challenge commercials first aired. A man stood behind a booth on a city street or in a shopping mall and offered passersby sips from two unmarked cups with cola in them. He then asked the individual which one tasted better. The person of course always chose Pepsi. The other cola was revealed as Coke. Coke had its own ad campaign and these dueling advertisements were referred to in the media as the Cola Wars. At the time I was a long haired liberal and into eating healthy foods. I thought both of these beverages should be poured down the toilet.
In the 1980’s, President Reagan deregulated businesses and they began to merge, the big ones gobbling up the smaller ones. I again thought of the Pepsi Challenge and The Cola Wars and had an idea for a novel, which of course then would be picked up by Hollywood and made into a feature film. It takes place in the future. Pepsi and Coke have become the dominant companies in America. All other businesses are subsidiaries of these two mega-companies. Every employed person in the US has loyalties to one or the other. This included politicians who are financially supported by either Pepsi or Coke. So everyone was a “company person” and had received many years of corporate brainwashing. People were allowed to only talk about what their company approved of. Everyone spewed the company line, even the news organizations, for they were owned by the Cola companies as well. Our hero and heroine were part of an underground group that regularly got together and practiced speaking the truth to one another.
I never wrote the novel, which is probably why I’m writing this blog and not screen plays for Hollywood. But every time I get caught by a sales person spinning a load of crap, I think of my underground revolutionaries practicing truth telling in the shadows. I also rehearse my Dirty Harry imitation. You never know.

John Lennon and His Four Piece Band

2010-10-13T15:10:00.002-07:00

The other day would have been John Lennon’s 70^th birthday. I believe he would have been a cool old man. He loved life and from what I can tell, lived it to the fullest. Every generation has individuals who are deeply important to them as a whole and he was one of those for us baby boomers. I can’t think of any individuals more loved and accepted by a generation than the four piece band John put together in Liverpool in the early ‘60s. The moment, when I heard over the radio that John had been shot and killed, is imprinted in my brain just like when Kennedy was shot, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and two passenger planes crashed into the Twin Towers. Like all icons of any generation, to understand John’s importance to boomers, you have to be part of the generation or talk to people who are. As I recently listened to older news reporters talk about his death and attempt to describe his importance to his “fans”, it was apparent to me that they didn’t really get it. Most young people today have a hard time understanding it as well. I can remember thinking, “What’s the big deal about Frank Sinatra?” But my parents got it.

On February 7^th 1964, 77 days after President Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles came to the US. The nation was depressed and needed a lift and the four lads did just that. They were on three consecutive Ed Sullivan shows and played a series of concerts. It was estimated that 45% of Americans watched those TV shows. The headlines read, “Beatles Conquer America”, but it felt like more of an adoption. Somehow the Beatles belonged to us as much as they belonged to England. After all, they embraced our early rock & roll, rhythm and blues and country music, reflecting it all back to us in their own unique way. It was a mutual love affair from the very beginning. Two years and six months later they played their final live performance at Candlestick Park. The venues had gotten too big and the audiences were too loud. Another band may have performed exclusive high priced gigs for the wealthy, but John’s band always belonged to the people.

In the winter of 1967 I was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. One of the few things I liked about the training was marching. Especially when the Drill Sergeants called cadence and we all sang in unison, echoing their creative and often crude poetic rhymes. Much of the marching, however, was done in silence, so I entertained myself by quietly singing my favorite songs. I thought at the time that Rubber Soul was the greatest rock & roll album ever produced. I had listened to it so many times by then, that during those long silent marches out to or back from the rifle range or another training area, I started at the beginning with the first song and worked my way through the entire album.

Not long ago I was at the mall browsing in a music store and came across the Rubber Soul CD. I noticed the songs weren’t in the same order and there were songs from other albums interjected into the mix. I took it up to the counter where I thought the 15 year old sales person could straighten me out about this discrepancy. Or at least this young woman would be interested in my observations about the original album and the differences in this current version. To my chagrin she wasn’t knowledgeable, fascinated or the slight bit interested in my observations. It may have been a female thing because my wife and sister, with whom I was at the mall weren’t interested either.

In the summer of that same year after basic training, I was sent to Army Intelligence school in Baltimore, Maryland. One night while riding around the city with a friend, I heard “A Day in a Life” on the radio. As we used to say, “I was blown away”. When we returned to the barracks, one of the guys had the Sergeant Pepper album. It became the musical background of the barracks for the rest of our time in training and no one ever complained. In a few weeks or months we would all be in Vietnam.

I recently re-watched Imagine, the film created around video footage John had shot of his and Yoko’s personal life. I again remembered his openness and honesty toward the public, especially in his songs. We didn’t love him because he was perfect, but because he was real. He was one of us and we knew it because of the way he acted and from what he said. Aware of his own imperfections, he chose to use his celebrity as a spokesperson for peace. Listening to John’s music and Beatles music today, I’m struck by how positive the songs are. They reflect the growth, struggles, and aspirations of an entire generation.

Farewell to Mercury

2010-10-06T13:34:00.002-07:00

Here I am alongside a Mercury convertible. It was at a car show that my friend Jim and I went to in the Seattle area. When we go to these shows, we like to pick out our favorite car of the show and this was mine, a 1952 Mercury Monterey convertible. I recently read that Ford was phasing out its Mercury brand by the end of the year. GM had already announced stopping production of Pontiac. I don’t know what I expect, but these historic car models are not going to be around anymore so it should be a bigger deal than it is. I’m certain there were plenty of articles in newspapers and magazines and announcements on the news, but I don’t remember seeing very much. A few years went by before I realized Chrysler no longer made Plymouths. Production stopped in 2001. And GM stopped making Oldsmobile in 2004.
I have to admit I turned my back on most American cars sometime in the 1970s. They just weren’t built very well during that decade. If you don’t believe me, watch any episode of The Rockford Files which ran in the mid ‘70s. That was the era of the car chase and James Garner, an experienced car racer, made sure there was one in almost every episode. His car was a Firebird, which he puts through its paces. It appears to handle the rough treatment pretty well, but the full-size ‘70s cars that are chasing after him are squeaking, floating and bouncing all over the road; you expect to see parts fly off around every corner. And in the background are plenty of examples of the crappy small cars that were built at that time like Pintos, Vegas and Gremlins.
I grew up in the ‘50s. Now that was a good decade for American cars. Our first family car that I remember was a 1952 Pontiac. It was cream-colored with a dark blue top. Shading the front windshield was an external visor. It had a cool chrome hood ornament of an Indian warrior. After a few years, my parents traded it in for a blue two tone 1955 Mercury. I had my first major rock & roll experience in the back seat of that car and it had nothing to do with sex. I was only 8 years old and we were returning home from a family vacation in Wisconsin. That was when I first heard Elvis on the radio.
As we cruised down the two lane highways in our Mercury, whenever an Oldsmobile passed by my Dad would say, “Now there’s a good highway car.” I don’t know why he never bought one. My friend Paul’s parents had the same exact Mercury except it was red. He and I first met around this time and we both thought that fact was extremely significant. My parents traded the Mercury in 1959 for a successive string of Chevrolets. Paul’s parents stuck with Mercury, trading the ‘55 in for two 1960 models. One was a white Monterey convertible, a behemoth of a car, the other a black Comet.
In 1964 Paul’s parents switched over to Pontiacs, a GTO and Firebird. He was the envy of many a guy driving around in the GTO which had a 389 cubic inch engine and 3 two barrel carburetors. The two of us spent many weekend days cleaning our cars together in his front yard. Today you would call what we did detailing. The GTO had a white interior and Paul had to use a small brush and a lot of elbow grease to keep it up.
The first Plymouth I remember belonged to my mom’s cousin, Marie. It was a 1947 and had a semi-automatic transmission. Marie explained to me how the semi- automatic worked, but to this day I’m still confused about it. She told me she would give me the car some day. I of course have remembered that conversation all my life, but she had no recollection of it. One day when visiting my grandmother in south St. Louis, Marie was there visiting with her brand new Nash Rambler. Without a word, my Plymouth was gone forever.
I could go on reminiscing about the various Mercurys, Pontiacs, Plymouths and Oldsmobiles I’ve known over the years, but even fewer people would read this blog than already do. If you like cars, I’m sure you have plenty of your own memories, but just one more quick one. Funnyboy’s parents owned a 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix when he and I were in high school together. They used to let him drive it to school every now and then and he’d take me with him. That was a sweet ride.

My Inner Steve McQueen

2010-09-28T16:44:00.002-07:00

Shortly after moving to Arizona, my motorcycle broke. Two of the four valves stuck open. I have no idea why and neither did the motorcycle mechanic who told me it would cost $2,000 to fix. I’m 62 years old and the thought crossed my mind, maybe it’s time to give it up. The service department is part of a motorcycle dealership and to get to it you have to walk through the showroom past all of the shiny new motorcycles. I’ve owned 5 motorcycles over the years and as I dejectedly left the service manager’s office and before I made it to the exit door of the showroom to the parking lot where Katie patiently waited in the car to drive me home, I saw number 6, a silver metal flake, 1100cc Honda Shadow Spirit.
Like so many guys of my generation, I blame Steve McQueen for initially igniting my motorcycle passion, specifically in his performance in the movie, The Great Escape and more specifically, one particular scene. I was 15 years old, sitting in a dark theater with a friend, totally transported to the WWII Nazi prison camp where the story takes place. Steve plays Captain Virgil Hilts, a captured Air Force pilot who had been shot down. The other prisoners, from various allied countries, have been digging an elaborate tunnel, but Captain Hilts wants no part of it. He escapes several times on his own by cutting the fence wire and slipping under it, but is always caught and put in the cooler, where he spends his time bouncing a baseball against the wall. The tunnelers see an opportunity in Captain Hilts and ask him to escape again, only this time, map out the area, allow himself to be caught and then bring back the important information that the tunnelers need for the escape. Captain Hilts reluctantly agrees. Steve’s character exemplified what’s good about the American spirit. He was highly independent, but when asked to sacrifice himself for the good of the others, he did so.
The night of the tunnel escape, only a small percentage of the prisoners make it out before being discovered by the guards. Captain Hilts made it and true to his character, continues on alone. Stringing a wire across a road, he successfully knocks a German soldier off his motorcycle. After killing the soldier, Captain Hilts puts on the German uniform and continues his flight on the motorcycle. When passing through a village, German soldiers stop him to ask him questions. Captain Hilts doesn’t speak German, so instead, makes a run for it on the road leading out of the town. The Germans chase after him.
The movie’s director cuts back and forth between various escapees, all attempting to get out of the country. Two of the escapees steal an airplane, several take a train, one rides on a bicycle. When the movie gets back to the motorcycle chase scene, we see the rolling green hills of the countryside. Then over the crest of one of the hills, Captain Hilts roars onto the screen. He has gotten rid of the German uniform and is now wearing a cut off sweat shirt and khakis. He stops the bike, looks in both directions trying to decide which way to go, then guns the motorcycle spinning it around to check out the other side. He does this several times until choosing a direction then takes off across the hills with the German Army in hot pursuit.
I was transfixed watching Steve handle the big German motorcycle like it was an extension of his body. Sometimes he raised himself up on the foot-pegs to negotiate a dip or bump. Spinning the bike around, he placed his foot on the ground just at the right time and in the right place to maintain control. His confidence was obvious. That was it for me. I didn’t just want to be like Steve McQueen, I wanted to be Steve McQueen. Since that wasn’t an option, I settled for some day getting a motorcycle and learning how to ride like that.
My first experience actually riding on a motorcycle was on the back of my friend Pettie’s Honda 90. We rode to an airport where his Dad ran an airline business. It was at least 50 miles outside of Ferguson where we lived. I remember being quite uncomfortable putting down the highway at a slower pace than the rest of the traffic. I’m sure the little Honda 90 was doing its best with its double load. It wasn’t quite a Steve McQueen moment, but the feeling of being on two wheels with my friend, tearing down the highway on a warm summer’s day was exhilarating.
Our friend Funnyboy owned 3 different motorcycles around this time. The smallest was a Honda 250cc Scrambler, his off road bike, a 500cc Triumph single cylinder, we called Thumper and his biggest bike and the most beautiful motorcycle I’d ever seen, a 650cc BSA Lightning, we called Beeza. It had a red and chrome tank with the signature gold sunburst on the sides and the letters BSA through the middle. One evening Funnyboy let me ride it. I felt he was making a big mistake, but wanted to ride it so badly, I didn’t let on. He coached me on how to shift gears and I took it out onto the highway. I clumsily went through each gear, and when I reached the highest one, I opened up the throttle and totally scared the shit out of myself. I had the frightening realization that the only reason I didn’t fly off the backend was because I had a death hold on both hand grips. If I had opened my fingers even slightly, the bike would have shot out from under me and I’d have been left behind, bouncing down the highway.
I didn’t buy a bike of my own until I got out of the Army. It was a Honda 500 twin. I’ve been slowly upgrading to larger bikes ever since. And now I own the shiny silver Honda Shadow and live in a part of the country where I can ride most of the year on well maintained two lane roads that lead across expanses of land and into the mountains and all sorts of other interesting places. I’m happy to report my ageless, inner Steve McQueen is alive and well. And I’m following the advice of an old crusty Harley guy I once knew, “Remember, keep the shiny side up.”

The World Needs Us And Our Hippie Values

2010-09-22T10:39:00.003-07:00

I recently read an article about the baby boom generation. The author was quick to point out the self indulgent nature of our generation and how we squandered what our parents’ generation worked so hard to leave us. Baby boomer bashing is all the rage these days and there’s nothing but praise for the “Greatest Generation”. It seems to me that each generation can be praised or condemned depending on what factors are accentuated. World War II gave our parents’ generation a cohesiveness which makes it easy to define them in a positive light. When the bad guys tried to take over the world, they stepped up to the plate, both on the home front and overseas, overcoming tremendous challenges and in the end saving the world. And there are many other positive qualities of this generation. They insured that greater numbers of us could get an education. We were well supplied with food, shelter and opportunities for work. In general, it could be said that our parents’ generation were good, decent, hard working people who sacrificed for the betterment of their families and the country.
But when you look at what the “Greatest Generation” left us, we had our challenges too. It was their generation who got us involved in Vietnam and then forced us to deal with it. For those of us who participated in that war, we came home with a seriously tarnished view of our country, our leaders and the people who supported them. We inherited a more dangerous world, the remnants of an arms race that caused us and the Russians to produce an arsenal of weapons that could totally annihilate all living beings on earth many times over. We inherited an America where capitalistic interests were confused with democracy and allowed to influence government decisions and policies at the expense of the natural environment. Capitalistic exploitation and military might became our primary forms of diplomacy around the world. The profit seeking super companies gobbled up small businesses and family farms. We inherited a dependency on the automobile because the highway system was given priority over other forms of transportation, like subways, trolleys and trains. This led to suburban sprawl which contributed to the death or near death of our cities and towns. We inherited a total dependency for energy on finite natural resources, with no plan of transitioning to renewable forms of energy. This insured our current dependency on foreign oil which continues to get us into all sorts of trouble.
In the 1960’s, our generation not only celebrated sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, (hey, we were young), but we also discovered that many of the priorities and values of the “Greatest Generation” were wrong. Subsequently the hippie movement was born. On college campuses across the country, young people began establishing a new set of values. The essence of these values were; all people on earth are brothers and sisters and we should work out our problems peacefully keeping this in mind. Every human deserves equal respect no matter their race, culture, sex, sexual orientation or age. Each individual has great potential and can make a difference by their personal choices and lifestyle. We should not continue to exploit our natural environment, but learn to live in harmony with it. We should strive to live more simply and not accumulate unneeded possessions. Animals have rights too and should be treated respectfully, even farm animals. Don’t blindly trust government and institutions, but look at what they are preaching and how they are acting, then decide for yourself whether to support them. All major religions have truth at the core and these truths are much greater than the differences on the surface. We should strive to live more simply, grow our food locally, and make more of the decisions about our lives at the local level. Peace and love are the guiding principles.
During my college days in the 70’s, I internalized the “hippie values” and was guided by them. They influenced how I thought and acted, how I voted, what I bought or didn’t buy, and the profession I chose. These values were sort of a “What would Jesus do?” guide for me. In fact maybe Jesus was the first true hippie. Using hippie logic, I could also ask, what would Buddha do? What would Krishna do? Or what would Lao Tse do?
The Beatniks laid the groundwork for the Hippie movement. Their proponents were mainly writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg, and the philosophy was expressed in literary form. The pied pipers of our generation were musicians. They came out of the early 60’s folk music scene and were influenced by the songs of the labor and civil rights movements of the 50’s. Although he denies it, Bob Dylan was our first pied piper in his early years and then with the help of the Byrds showed our musician/poets how to translate the message into rock’n’roll. Unlike today, we were all listening to the same music back then and it was broadcasting the hippie values. The airwaves were full of positive message songs like, The Times They are a Changing, What’s Goin On, Imagine, All You Need is Love, Get Together, Peace Train, He Ain’t Heavy and the list could go on and on. Hollywood jumped on board as well and produced movies like The Graduate, Dr. Strangelove, Little Big Man and The China Syndrome
Across America in our towns and cities there are currently individuals who have kept the hippie values alive. They should be our guides into the future. They sell organically grown produce at farmers markets. They use recycled material in their homes and renewable forms of energy. Many are partially or fully living off the grid. They buy locally and don’t shop at stores or buy products that exploit third world countries or do damage to the environment. And many of them are young people.
At the core of the sixties phenomenon was a significant paradigm shift in how we think about and live in the world. Those who never made this shift in thinking, cannot judge the movement accurately. Our generation inherited huge problems and much of the country is still in denial about them. But there are a significant number of us who embrace the hippie values. The sixties were a time of trial and error. Now in our older years, we should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, for the world needs us and our hippie values more than ever. Peace brothers and sisters.

The Truth About Dancing

2010-09-14T16:45:00.003-07:00

There was a segment on the news the other night about what dance moves men do that are attractive to women. Somebody actually did a study about this. They attached electrodes to various guys, had them dance and then computerized it. I think they had women watch the computer images and then rate the moves. My attention may have wandered during that part of the story. I’ve watched, and most guys look stupid when they dance, at least most white guys and the older they are the stupider they look. There are of course exceptions to this and one of them was a guy named Skeeter who was in the 8^th grade when I was in the 7^th.
In Junior High we had mandatory dances. We also had mandatory ballroom dance classes. I remember learning the box step, the fox trot and the jitterbug. At the actual dances most guys knew better than to do the box step. Even John Travolta would look dumb doing the box step. Variations on the fox trot and jitterbug were how we mostly danced. When practicing the jitterbug, we learned how to twirl our partner. Holding opposite hands, we stepped up and back and to the side and back, over and over until the teacher called out, “Ok gentlemen, twirl your partner”, and all the guys would lift their arms and under the girls would twirl.
It would be a good two years before I got my adolescent growth spurt. I was probably 4’ 9” weighing 70-80 pounds. Many of the girls’ bodies had filled out, especially the eighth graders and they seemed like giants, alluring yet intimidating. When I twirled these women/girls, they had to bend their knees and duck walk under my arm. At the real dance there would be no teacher telling us when to twirl the girl, and I was anxious about how and when to initiate it. Also, I was confused about how many twirls were appropriate for each dance. To reduce my anxiety, I decided I would do absolutely no twirling and of course no box step either.
At the dances, the boys wore coats and ties and the girls, pretty dresses. These occasions were torture for me. If I could have sat out every dance, I would have. I enjoyed listening to the music and watching the others dance. In fact that’s what I’ve done for the rest of my life, to the dismay of various girlfriends over the years. That was not an option at these dances, however. Slow dances were easy, especially when I had a partner my own size. We just hung on to each other and shuffled our feet around. It was embarrassing to slow dance with one of the women/girls though. I knew they were disappointed being stuck with the little guy and besides my eyes were right at chest level causing me some internal struggle. A few of them agreed to sit these dances out.
Watching the others dance, I noticed the girls moved their whole bodies, harmonized their movements with the music. The guys mechanically went through the dance steps, sometimes in time with the music and sometimes not. Most looked rather wooden, like dancing toy soldiers. A few did the box step and some were twirling their partners far too much.
Skeeter had dark hair and looked older, like a High Schooler. He already needed to shave. His girlfriend Cathy was blond, very sweet and one of the woman/girls. Skeeter wasn’t doing any of the steps we’d been taught in dance class. He moved his feet around in time with the music in a subtle but dramatic way, like he was kicking small rocks. He didn’t look smiley and goofy like the other guys, but had a sneer on his face like he knew the punch line of the joke. Every once in a while, he would look up at his partner and she would smile back at him in a way that made me want to figure out how to give a look like that. I never did.
There was a girl named Libby with whom I actually enjoyed dancing. She was slightly taller, but hadn’t filled out yet. Every time we danced, she seemed as happy to be with me as I was with her. She was a good talker and told me I was a pretty good dancer. I think she lied about that. We talked about how awkward we both felt at the dances and about some of our school classes. She appeared interested when I told her something about a particular song or singer. Once when it was girls’ choice, Libby walked right over and chose me. The song was Mister Blue by the Fleetwoods. This two and a half minute dance almost made up for the hours of torture.
It was during this time period that “The Twist” by Chubby Checker became popular. The ballroom dance steps and holding your partners hand was over. I noticed the guys didn’t look any better doing the twist than the other dances. At least there was no twirling to worry about. I was pleased to see that Skeeter didn’t succumb to the twist craze. He continued to stomp his feet around and give those looks to his partners.
I told Libby what I thought about Chubby Checker. His name said it all, a not very talented commercial version of the great Fats Domino. I went to a few dances in high school, but when they became optional, I opted out. I wouldn’t have minded a few more dances with Libby though. I wonder if Skeeter still dances. He probably doesn’t look as cool dancing in his sixties as he did back then.

An American National Treasure

2010-09-09T12:56:00.002-07:00

I watched Pete Seeger’s 90^th birthday celebration on PBS the other night. It was at Madison Square Garden and many celebrities were there to sing his songs. Pete looked good for 90. He was dressed in his working man’s clothes, a flannel shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. He doesn’t have much of a singing voice anymore, but that didn’t stop him from directing the large audience in several sing-alongs including Amazing Grace. Among the celebrities were Joan Baez, who looks and sounds great, Arlo looking the same with white hair, Emmylou Harris, a country songbird, and Bruce Springsteen, who spoke eloquently and from the heart about Pete. Roger McGuinn performed Turn, Turn, Turn on his Rickenbacker 12 string guitar with back up and it sounded just like the Byrds..
I briefly met Pete in 1969 at the Oleo Strut Coffee House in Killeen, Texas. The Oleo Strut was right outside Fort Hood where I was stationed. It was one of many coffee houses that sprung up outside Army forts, where GI’s who were sympathetic to the anti-war effort could come together. If you’re interested in reading more about this movement and the Oleo Strut go to www.underthehoodcafe.org/history.
I had over a year to serve in the Army after I returned from Vietnam. Most of the guys in my Intelligence Detachment were Vietnam Veterans as well and many of us had been in Nam during the TET offensive of 1968. The belief in the futility of the war and the lack of trust in our politicians and military leaders ran rampant among my fellow soldiers. We could congregate and talk openly at the Oleo Strut.
One of my fellow soldiers in the intelligence unit was a CID Special Agent. I think he was a Warrant Officer, but I’m not sure, he didn’t wear any rank. He must have been straight out of Special Agent training school at the time and I know he hadn’t been to Vietnam yet. The CID was the part of Intelligence that investigated Army personnel. We used to see him at the Oleo Strut, trying to look inconspicuous. He avoided making eye contact with us because if he did we would give him a little wave of recognition which in his mind would totally blow his cover. We were certain he was keeping files on us. We razed him a lot about it with our “what the fuck” veteran’s attitude. By the way, this attitude was born and cultivated in Vietnam. Whenever we broke the rules like sneaking into the local village or stealing another unit’s property we would say to each other, “What are they going to do send us to Nam?” We rationalized that if they put us in the brig they would be doing us a favor. For many of us that attitude carried over into civilian life.
The evening Pete was playing, I went down to the Oleo Strut with my buddies, Tony and Phil. Pete was dressed like he had just come off day shift at the factory. He had on a work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and workman’s pants and boots. His banjo hung around his neck. I don’t remember exactly what songs he played, but when he was through, Tony walked over to him and struck up a conversation. Phil and I joined them. True to his reputation, Pete was friendly and gracious. He was interested in our experiences as soldiers and what we thought about the war. He seemed to understand our dilemma of not feeling a part of the Army and the war effort and of not being accepted by the civilian population either. We were very grateful for his understanding and support and I hope one of us told him that at the time.
Tony asked him what he was up to and he told us about a ship he and some others were building, named the Clearwater. It was a Hudson Bay Sloop, following the blue prints of the old ships that used to run up and down the Hudson. He planned to sail it up and down the Hudson also, putting on concerts at the various river towns. His purpose was to raise awareness and money to clean up the river. He talked about it with such enthusiasm you could tell he was totally committed to this project. He was enlisting the help of fellow musicians and so far he said he had gotten Don McLean to sign on. This project is still going strong today, go to www.clearwater.org and read all about it.
On the PBS special the backdrop on the stage was decorated with an outline in lights of the Clearwater. The celebrities talked about Pete’s socially active life, singing his songs for all the injustices and downtrodden of the world. They also mentioned his many trips and benefit concerts up and down the Hudson Bay in the Clearwater.
Japan has a designation for people called “Living National Treasure”. The goal is to recognize and preserve the art and the level of knowledge and skill of the individual because it is important to the culture. Pete Seeger is an “American National Treasure” for the art of folk singing and the spirit of nonviolent activism in our country. I cherish the memory of that day we met him in the Oleo Strut.

Discovering Our Strengths

2010-09-05T13:30:00.002-07:00

Margaret was a 73 year old woman who was my counseling client for several years. Her diagnosis was chronic depression for which she had been on medication and in therapy for over 10 years. As a child she had been mildly depressed off and on, but her depression got dramatically worse as an adult after her husband died.
During the nearly two years I worked with her, she had recurring suicidal thoughts, but never made any serious attempts. We weren't making much progress in therapy. Each week I questioned her about her medication and assumed our weekly visits were somehow helping her to “maintain”.
In the community mental health center the push was to help each client return to their highest level of functioning as quickly as possible. When brief therapy models came on the scene, the therapists were encouraged to take workshops to learn all about it. I was somewhat resistant to this type of therapy. I believed therapy was about helping the client see more clearly why they thought and behaved the way they did by uncovering primary experiences from their past and seeing how the dysfunctional themes manifest in their current life. This takes time.
The first brief therapy workshop I attended was presented by In Soo Kim Berg. She and her husband developed Solution Focused Brief Therapy in the 70’s. My resistance broke down quickly after listening to Ms. Berg. She was a dynamic speaker who passionately believed in what she presented. I knew I would never become a complete convert to the brief model, especially for long term deep seated problems. I was comfortably rooted in a more Existential-Humanistic approach. But I left the workshop with one major idea that changed the way I did therapy.
In brief therapy the counselor does not focus on the history of the problem. There is almost no probing into the past to find its origins. The focus instead is on the client’s history of finding their own solutions to life’s problems. The solutions come out of their own past successes, what they did right, instead of what they did wrong.
Margaret came in one day very distraught. She said she had received a letter from the Department of Social and Health Services saying that they had paid her too much over the past year and she now owed them $800. The letter went on to say that DSHS would take legal action if she didn’t pay them back within a short period of time. Margaret lived in subsidized housing and was on a fixed income. Her medications were expensive and she only got partial help paying for them. She had no money to spare. She was in an agitated state over this and at risk for plunging back into deep depression.
Influenced by the workshop, I decided not to focus on the problem, but to work on uncovering Margaret’s strengths. I remembered her telling me during an earlier session that when she was a young woman, after graduating from engineering school, she got a job working in the fledgling aerospace industry. She was one of few women in a male dominated field and was proud of this. She said she felt like “one of the guys” and that she “could hold my own with the best of ‘em.”
As she droned on about her miserable life, how everybody took advantage of her and how she was again a victim of the “system”, I interrupted. I asked her to tell me more about her time in the aerospace industry. She didn’t see how this was relevant, but she reluctantly agreed. I kept up the questioning in my best “Colombo” style until she started getting into it and began spontaneously recounting experiences from that period. As the session progressed, I witnessed her transformation. The powerless, depressed woman that initially came in to the session had straightened up and become more animated and alive. In her once cloudy eyes, I now saw fire and clarity. I never once mentioned the letter from DSHS and when the session ended, I knew she was infused with a forgotten part of her self, a part that was confident, assertive and capable of handling whatever came her way.
At the following week’s session, Margaret didn’t mention the letter. Finally I asked her about it. “Margaret, what happened concerning the money DSHS said you owed them?” “Oh that!” she replied in a rather nonchalant way. “When I got home after our last session, I called my state representative and gave him a piece of my mind. He was very nice and finally said ‘Margaret, don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of everything’. A few days later I received another letter from DSHS saying I didn’t owe them anything”.
I never became a brief therapy convert, but it is my belief that we all have many parts that make up our personality. Some of these parts are dysfunctional and some are highly functional. When we are stuck in one of life’s dilemmas, we sometimes forget to draw on the more capable parts. Margaret had temporarily forgotten the part that “held her own with the best of ‘em” and over a number of years had come to identify with being a depressed, powerless victim.
That one session did not cure her depression, but it changed how we worked together. She was eventually able to get off medication altogether and rarely felt depressed. My therapy with other clients changed as well. We spent more time discovering and developing strengths and less time focusing on problems.

A Farewell Drink

2010-08-31T13:59:00.004-07:00

I didn’t expect a call from Rich. I assumed he was back in Tennessee glad to be out of the Army like I was. I was staying at my parents’ place in Louisville at the time and Rich said he was out at the airport and would like to see me before he caught his plane. I asked him where he was going and he said “Back to Vietnam.” I couldn’t believe it and he probably could tell by my long silence. He said, “I’ll tell you all about it when you get out here. I’m in the airport bar.”
I saw him sitting in the corner at a table for two with a mixed drink in front of him. He didn’t notice me until I was standing right beside his chair. He looked up at me and seemed a little startled by my presence. “Hey man, how’s it going?” He motioned for me to sit down. He was in his dress greens which I thought we had both turned in months ago. The waitress came over and I ordered a beer. We didn’t waste time on pleasantries, that’s not the kind of relationship we had, so I asked him straight out, “Rich, why in the hell are you going back?” He was smoking one of those unfiltered cigarettes that turned his fingers yellow. He took a puff and blew it out of the side of his mouth.
“I can’t relate to anybody here. If I’m around people very long, I just get pissed off about something.” He took a sip of his drink; his eyes got a faraway look in them. “I don’t know, things just don’t make sense for me here anymore.”
I was still in shock, “And you think it makes more sense over in Nam.”
“Well yeah, I know the war can be pretty harsh, but life did make more sense there for me.” The waitress brought over my beer. It was a little early in the day for me to be drinking, but that’s what Rich and I did when we were together.
We first met in Army Intelligence School in Baltimore. He was sort of a loner but we hit it off right from the beginning. He was a serious guy, preoccupied by his thoughts. He thought I was funny and he had this explosive laugh that sounded goofy. When the rest of the guys went down to the “Block” to a nudie bar, Rich and I would go over to the EM club for a few beers and talk. After our intelligence training was over, we were the only two from our class sent to Fort Hood Texas.
I remember the night we got our orders. The Enlisted Men’s club was packed. We were all celebrating passing the program. One of the Sergeants came in and someone pulled the plug on the juke box. It got deathly quiet. The Sergeant said he had our orders and began reading them in alphabetical order. Rich and I were last. There must have been 30 of us in there. A couple of guys were gong to Germany, and one to Korea, everyone else was headed straight to Vietnam. When he called out our names and said “Fort Hood, Texas”, for an instant I thought I was home free. But then he added,”… to be deployed with the 198^th Brigade to Vietnam”. The entire Brigade was going by ship to Southeast Asia, sailing from San Francisco. When the Sergeant left and the juke box was plugged back in, the song that began to play and had been interrupted was, “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” We laughed about making sure to get some flowers. We had to laugh.
Rich was sipping his drink, again staring into the open room. “So what happened at home?” I knew his mom had passed away shortly after he entered the Army.
“My dad’s still at the house, but he really didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“What about the job at the electronics store?” He’d worked at this store since he was 15. The owner, Herb, had taken him in after his dad kicked him out of the house.
“Herb hired a new guy. He said he would try to find work for me, but he really doesn’t need any more help.” He then added, “The Army told me I would make E-6 within the year and they’re giving me my old job back.”
Rich and I worked together for the first few months in Vietnam at the Headquarters base camp. Then he was transferred to Quang Ngai City. I only visited him once down there, but could see his lifestyle was much different from mine. He lived in a small walled compound in the heart of the city. He had his own small apartment. When he showed it to me, I could tell a female had helped him put it together. He said he had a hooch girl that came in and kept things straight. I suspected she was more than just his maid. We went out that day and had a beer in the city. It was the first and only time I was ever in a Vietnamese city. It actually felt civilized. He did his intelligence work under Lieutenant Wilcox and they were the only Americans working there. At the time of my visit, Lieutenant Wilcox and my lieutenant went off to play handball, then they were going to sauna before returning to work. Like I said, this was not at all like my Vietnam experience. They told Rich and me to go out and have a beer, so that’s what we did.
We sat in a café smoking and drinking warm Ba muoi Ba (Vietnamese beer). The waiter brought us a couple chunks of ice, but Rich waved him off and told me not to use it unless I wanted to spend the next few days and nights on the shitter. For a short while sitting there in the café with Rich, it didn’t seem like there was a war going on. The streets were full of bicycles, motor bikes and those 3-wheeled vehicles that were like tiny buses. I had trouble relaxing. I kept thinking how easy it would be for the VC to lob a grenade or satchel charge into the café.
Being together again at the airport bar, I thought this was probably the last time I’d see him, and it was. As he inhaled cigarette smoke, I noticed in this time of long hair and radical granny glasses, he still wore those grey plastic army issue ones. We shook hands and briefly looked into each others’ eyes. “Hang in there, bro’,” was all I could think to say. He nodded, “I will”, and he left the bar to catch his plane. I’ve looked for his name on the wall. There are several guys with the same name as his, but I don’t think it’s him.

An Authentic Retirement

2010-08-20T14:59:00.002-07:00

Neville encouraged me to retire. He seemed to have found himself after retirement. He told me he gets up early, puts on a pot of coffee, turns on his computer and starts writing. “Sometimes it’s way past lunch before I realize I need to eat something.” He said when people ask him what he does, he tells them honestly, “I’m a writer.” When we met on Friday mornings, he brought along the latest chapters of the novel we were writing together.
We originally just met once a month for coffee. We talked about books, movies, politics, ideas…anything was fair game. Our conversations had a vibrancy and liveliness that left us both feeling exhilarated. I thought of our time together as being like Hemingway and Joyce on the Left Bank, or Huxley and Lawrence hiking the hills of Northern Italy or Kerouac and Ginsberg at a coffee shop in the Village. During one of our meetings, Neville suggested writing a novel together. He had the central idea worked out and shared it with me. I wasn’t working on a writing project at the time and hadn’t for years. My excuse was I was using up all my creative energy at work and didn’t have any left over for writing. I liked Neville’s idea and decided maybe this joint project was what I needed to get me going again.
So we started meeting at a coffee house on my Friday mornings off. I loved the unhurried feeling of our Fridays together. The characters and story line began to develop rather quickly. Neville considered himself a scientist and I considered myself a social scientist and this was the catalyst for his idea to write the book together. It was a detective story, but instead of having one main sleuth, there would be two, one with an acute mind for the technical aspects of detective work and the other, with a trained, observant eye for human behavior. His vision was that we could channel our often intense and always interesting discussions into a work of fiction.
Neville said many times that this book was going to be great, maybe even a best seller. I believed him. We were both excited as the novel began taking shape. Neville was immersed in the creative flow and it manifested in all parts of his life. But this flow was happening for me only on Friday mornings, when we were together at the coffee house. The rest of the time, I was working at the mental health center and feeling worn out, like I wanted to retire. I was happy for Neville. It hadn’t been too long before this that he had hit rock bottom, stuck deep in depression.
We first met when he came into the veterans’ counseling program as a client. His story poured out easily, as if he had been waiting for an open receptacle. His wife had left him for another man, he was “let go” from his job at the college where he taught science classes and he was forced to live at the local homeless shelter. We related well to each other right from the beginning. Somewhere in the course of therapy, his depression gave way to anger. He was angry at his wife, angry with the guy she took off with, angry with the boss who forced him out of his job and angry with the homeless shelter for some of their unfair policies and practices. He had a lot of good reasons to be angry and he talked emphatically about all of them.
I would not describe Neville as a guy who normally got angry. But the anger was necessary, supplying the energy and direction to pull him out of the depression. One session he brought in a scholarly paper he had written laying out all of his complaints against the homeless center. It was well written, displaying passion, keen perception and intelligence. This was the beginning of Neville’s transmuting his anger into constructive behavior.
We saw each other as counselor/client on a weekly basis for about 2 years. At some point his attitude about his losses; marriage, work, home and personal identity, began to change. I noticed this shortly after he moved into his own apartment. One day he told me he had hung some pictures on the wall and was excited about this. “You know I’ve never really had my own place before.” He said he went into the Army right out of high school and married right out of the Army.
Toward the end of therapy, he asked if we could get together for coffee outside of the sessions. We both recognized a unique friendship quality to our counseling relationship. I told him I would like to meet with him as soon as the therapy sessions were completed. Several years went by before we actually began meeting. One day I ran into him at the bagel shop and one of us must have said, “Let’s really do it this time”, so we started meeting regularly over coffee.
Neville was working on several writing projects and gave me several of his shorter works. One piece was called “Finding a Niche”. It was reflective about the many roles he had adopted throughout life, like son, student, soldier, husband, father, construction worker, scientist, teacher and park ranger. The piece ends with his discovering and choosing his ultimate role, just being Neville, what Existentialists call “living an authentic life”. He was through living in a reactionary mode, doing this activity or playing that role in reaction to others wanted or expected it. He was experimenting with being genuine, really choosing all aspects of his life, including how he defined himself. He said the essence of who he was did not neatly fit into any one of his previous roles. He had come to the realization that these roles shaped and influenced him, but none totally defined him.
He started wearing a hat similar to the Smokey the Bear hat he wore when he worked for the National Park Service. People around town often recognized him as a former park ranger and he liked that. He had cherished his role as a ranger and so it remained part of his new chosen identity. One Friday morning I noticed a piece of tape around the middle of his glasses. He told me they had broken and this was the way he’d fixed them. “I’m paying homage to all those nerds from my school days.” He said he didn’t realize it at the time, for he was too busy trying to be cool, but the nerds didn’t seem to care what others thought of them. They were involved with ideas and activities, unconcerned with how they looked. Neville wore that piece of tape for a long time. He wrote a story about being “cool” and how shallow and relative that is. His creative side was really flowing and there was nothing beyond it’s reach.
Neville lived off his social security check. At times he was totally out of money but I never heard him complain about it. He no longer defined himself by money or possessions. He didn’t own a car the entire time I knew him. He liked taking the bus. “You meet a lot of interesting people on the bus.” I often felt a strong need to get out of town, but Neville didn’t seem to have this need. He loved our little town and its natural surroundings. He had found his place in the world and had no desire for any other.
As our novel began to take shape, my view of the town took on a new depth and richness that wasn’t there before. We discovered the town’s beginnings, what it was like during the late 1800s and early 1900s. We became familiar with many of the early characters important to the town’s development. Neville did most of the research on the computers at the library. One day we walked over to view a mural on the side of a building that depicted the town’s early days. He pointed out some of the details in the painting that illustrated the town’s history. For example, Neville said the men using giant fire hoses to spray the surrounding hills were sluicing. This process caused a mud landslide that ran down the hill and into the town raising the street levels. He pointed out the buildings in the mural and then we rode around town to see what used to be brothels, tobacco shops or mercantile stores.It was like we were living in two different worlds. I’m sure this effect was stronger for him, for I would return to my regular life of work and family, but Neville immersed himself in the time and place of our novel. The story was beginning to write itself and go in directions neither of us could have predicted.
At the coffee house Neville liked talking to the young barista. He drew her out like a master. She told us all about her less than attentive boyfriend and how she wanted a better life for her young daughter and herself. Neville encouraged her to follow her dreams. She lit up when she saw us coming on Friday mornings. I should say when she saw Neville coming in with his side kick. She had a load of recent information about her life to share. Neville acted fatherly and supportive. I have to admit, I was a little impatient with the whole process. It was too much like my work and I wanted to get going on our novel. But this was part of Neville’s new life, listening to others with interest and enjoyment, and giving them encouragement.
One day Neville told me about meeting a woman on the bus that he was most attracted to. He would ride the bus at certain times of the day just to run into her. He didn’t waste any time and was soon seeing her on a regular basis. He told me about the freedom he felt at this age, not feeling pressured concerning relationships. He was determined to allow this new relationship to evolve at a natural pace. One day he said he never thought it would happen for him at this stage of life, but he was in love. “I feel like a giddy adolescent.” Once on our way to the bookstore, he pointed out where the two of them liked to sit on the grass and look out over the water. One day he told me, “Life doesn’t get any better than this.” Neville had been happy with his life before this new relationship, so it was like icing on the cake.
After I decided to retire and move to Arizona, Neville worked out how our novel could end in the Southwest, leaving some clues for our detectives’ successors to pick up on in our next novel. We weren’t sure how we could work together at such a distance, but assumed we would figure that out. Katie and I moved to Arizona in November and all my attempts to get hold of Neville failed. I called and left messages, emailed him and wrote him a Christmas card, but didn’t hear anything back. I knew our friendship was strong and figured there was a good reason he didn’t respond. In December I got a call from his lady friend. She told me that Neville had died suddenly of a massive stroke.
I had wanted to tell him that I was writing again and was feeling the excitement and creative energy we felt at the coffee shop. And that I also felt that retirement, was a unique time for a new beginning. I wanted to show him a picture of myself in the big cowboy hat I bought. He would have loved that I looked kind of goofy in it. I wanted to tell him that I had been down to the library and did some research on the cowboy years in Arizona. I found out by reading old newspaper articles that the “wild west” really did exist for a short period of time and that this time period would be the perfect setting for our next novel. Now I’d like to tell him what an inspiration he was to me and how much I’ll miss him.

Inspired by a Politician and a Folk Singer

2010-08-06T16:37:00.003-07:00

I’ve not gotten involved much in politics over the years. In 1988 I volunteered as a delegate for Gary Hart’s presidential campaign. I went to only one of the delegate meetings and decided I couldn’t stand all the boring speeches and bureaucratic BS, so I quit. Soon after I dropped out, that picture of Donna Rice sitting on Mr. Hart’s lap became public and his campaign collapsed.
The first time I got fired up about a political candidate was in 1972. I was a student at the University of Oregon and the candidate was George McGovern. Interestingly, Gary Hart was his campaign manager. At that time the student movement against the Vietnam War was in full swing. I, too, was against the war, but as a Vietnam veteran I didn’t feel comfortable joining in with the other students who were often against the soldiers as well. The protesters managed to get the Army ROTC program kicked off campus. I was opposed to this. I felt we needed educated officers in the Army instead of what we called the “90 day wonders”, officers who went through OCS. I participated in only one march and that was “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”.
George McGovern was a decorated WWII bomber pilot. After the war, he became a History and Political Science professor. I thought he was extremely intelligent and capable of becoming a great President and Commander-in-Chief. I was excited when he came to the U of O on his campaign rounds. He pledged that within 90 days in office he would pull the U.S. out of Vietnam in exchange for all of the POWs. The Vietnam War went on until 1975. Think of all the lives that would have been saved if he had won. His campaign rally was inspiring. In addition to his opposition to the war, he talked about America’s need to wean ourselves from our dependence on fossil fuels and to develop sources of energy more friendly to the environment. He also talked about reforming the health care system so that all Americans could be covered affordably.
Around this time, I was working at the Eugene Airport as a parking lot attendant. It was the perfect job for a student because there were long periods when nothing happened. This afforded me time to study; my grades improved considerably after taking this job. The morning after the McGovern rally, a lone RV pulled up to exit the lot. The driver was a big man wearing a cowboy hat. As soon as he was alongside the toll booth, I recognized him. It was Hoyt Axton.
After I returned from Vietnam I still had over a year to serve on my enlistment in the Army. I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Having been out of the country for a year, I had a lot of music to catch up on. It was the end of the ‘60s and the new music that was emerging was folk blended with rock and country. There were a few artists/albums that I became passionate about. I listened to them over and over again lying on my bunk in the corner of the barracks. They helped me heal from my year in Vietnam. The albums were: Tom Rush,The Circle Game, Eric Anderson, ‘Bout Changes and Things , Richie Havens, Mixed Bag, Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen and Songs From a Room and Hoyt Axton, My Griffin Is Gone. I felt I knew these musicians intimately and owed them a huge debt of gratitude for their sensitive, heartfelt music that came at a time when I desperately needed to feel hope about life.
When Hoyt pulled up alongside the toll booth I said, “Aren’t you Hoyt Axton?” and he replied, “What’s left of him.” He told me about his months working for the McGovern campaign and how it had totally worn him out. We shared the hope that McGovern would win the election. I mentioned that just a few days before, I had bought one of his albums, but being somewhat star struck, I couldn’t remember the name of it. He mentally went through a list of his albums, and we finally decided it was Country Anthem. He asked if I had his most popular album, Joy to the World. I told him I didn’t. He disappeared into the back of the RV then reappeared handing me the LP. I didn’t think about having him sign it. He wished me good luck and took off down the road. I also neglected to tell him how much, My Griffin Is Gone, meant to me when I was in the Army.
McGovern lost the election by a landslide. I guess the country wasn’t ready for his “progressive” ideas and as we now know, Nixon ran a ruthless campaign. But McGovern is alive and well, living in South Dakota with history on his side. Hoyt died much too soon at age 61, but he lives on through his music and films. He gave us some American standards like Greenback Dollar and Joy to the World, but my favorite songs are on that 1969 album that I all but wore out when I was young and trying to find some sense to it all.

The True Self

2010-07-29T11:21:00.003-07:00

I have this theory that we all have a true-self. This true-self is our unique personality expressing the Divine. The true-self is positive, creative, curious and loving. It naturally expresses a joie de vivre. We can all recognize it in a child, a puppy or kitten, but rarely do we recognize it in ourselves. It is the nature of the true-self to be happy and to spread the happiness around. Being creative and doing for others is the work of the true self.
In retirement I’m again more easily able to get in touch with my true-self. Without the responsibilities of household, work and career life takes on a lighter more playful quality. In the 90’s I read a book called Silencing The Self, Women and Depression by Dana Jack. Her theory was that when the natural exuberance of the self comes out in young girls, it is often put down by the adults around them, at home, at school etc. Consequently it gets buried and covered over by a false persona. This leads to problems including depression and unresolved anger. I think this phenomenon happens to all children to a greater or lesser extent. Not only does our true-self get squashed by the adults in our lives, life experiences often produce disillusionment and consequently our enthusiasm for life gets lost along the way. When I worked as a counselor, I noticed that in an atmosphere of total acceptance and validation, some clients again feel safe enough to let their true-selves emerge.
When I was sorting through some old family slides, I ran across a picture of my self at about age 10 or 11. It was taken on a sunny, crisp fall day. I am standing next to my dog with my Daisy BB rifle in one hand gazing at some horses in a dry pasture. It was taken on a family outing at a farm in the Ozarks. At first I thought the reason I liked this picture was because of the way I was dressed. I am wearing a baseball cap with the bill curved just the way I liked it, a kid’s WWII bomber jacket with a fake fur collar, blue jeans and boots. I do like the clothes, but what really attracted me to the picture was I am closely reflecting my true-self. I loved wandering in the hills around this farm with my dog. Even though I carried my BB rifle, I wasn’t a hunter. It was more for the Daniel Boone feeling and effect. I did like shooting at old cans if I came upon one. You can tell by the picture that I am attuned to the natural world around me and feel happy and free.
On my desk is a picture of Ben, our son, who died at age 28. He has on one of his favorite baseball caps, an exact replica of an old St. Louis Cardinals team, and his long sleeve Navy Academy shirt. Over the shirt he is wearing farmers’ overalls with one of the shoulder straps falling away. He usually had one of them unhooked altogether because that was ”rad” at the time. I think he reluctantly hooked it for the picture. I questioned my choosing this picture for my desk instead of a more recent picture. After thinking about it, I realized that when he was the age of the picture, we still did a lot of things together. His parents weren’t totally “nerdy” yet and he enjoyed hanging with us. He was an integral part of the family at this time and contributed his creativity, humor and thoughtfulness to the group. I’m not saying there weren’t problems, there are with all kids, but at this age his true-self was less hidden.
At about this time we tried getting into baseball together. Neither of us had the time nor interest to watch many of the very long games, so instead we started collecting cards. We would spread them out in the living room and spend hours looking at them and reading the backs out loud to each other. At this time in the 80’s, they had just begun to market big league baseball hats for the general population. Ben and I loved the hats. We went back and forth on which big league hat we liked best. I finally settled on the Mets hat of the time because it was a combination of the old Brooklyn Dodgers(the blue color) and the New York Giants(the orange NY). Ben decided he liked the Texas Rangers hat best. One of his favorite players, Nolan Ryan, was on that team and he loved the big “T” on the front.
When he got older and things got more complicated, I loved to see his true-self shine through when we were together. He thoroughly enjoyed being with friends and family, especially his little nephews. He was playful, light and funny. There was an openness and excitement about life that came out in a gentle and loving way. That true-self is captured in the picture on my desk. After his death we discovered pictures his friends had put of him on their facebook and myspace pages on the internet. I see that light gentle spirit in these pictures too. This is what so many of his friends talked about at his memorial. One young man said what he really liked about Ben was when Ben introduced him to people, he would put his arm around his shoulder and refer to him as “my really good friend” and the young man said he knew that Ben meant it and it made him feel good.
I like to think that this true-self is our Spiritual nature and it is what goes on after the body dies. There was a great woman Saint from India named Anandamayi Ma. She was an Avatar, an enlightened person from birth. She stated that she would eternally be a young girl, and she lived into her 80’s. Even in old age she retained a childlike innocence and playfulness. The great religions tell us that to become enlightened, or to awaken to our true nature, or to enter the kingdom of Heaven, we must become as little children. Ben helped me get in touch with my more innocent playful side. I look forward to our true-selves being and playing together again.

The Crumpled Karate Master

2010-07-25T06:53:00.002-07:00

(This story is dedicated to Tom Tolliver a true Karate Master)

When our son, Ben, was six, he and I enrolled together in Taekwondo classes. Ben took to it right away. He had great flexibility and learned the moves fast. But, like his dad, he was not very aggressive and so we both needed help and encouragement when sparring. Taekwondo training requires students to do a lot of sparring and it definitely helps if one is aggressively competitive. At exhibitions Ben and I would demonstrate the forms along with the other students. Ben was often used as a model student to demonstrate flexibility. He could do a side kick way up above his head. To my surprise, I was used to demonstrate a spinning heel kick where I broke a board with my heel. Neither of us was ever used as examples in sparring.

Taekwondo is a regimented sport. The warm up exercises are always the same, the belt system has prescribed techniques and forms for each level and the students have to learn all aspects of the system to advance. The head instructor or Sabonim made sure all the kids had time to do their school work and could demonstrate passing grades by bringing in their report cards. The higher the belt, the more responsibility was given the student no matter what age. Neatness and cleanliness were the rule; uniforms were to be kept clean and pressed and belts properly tied. All equipment and clothing were stored in their proper place. Correct martial arts etiquette was expected of everyone, lower belts bowed to higher belts. When classes began, everyone lined up according to their rank, quickly and with no talking. Drills and exercises were performed by the Korean numbers with the students echoing the instructor. This particular Taekwondo studio or Dojang ran like a well oiled machine. The students were motivated, happy and proud.

I first noticed the Karate guy one day when I was stretching before class. He was in the corner talking to Sabonim. Our Sabonim was in superb shape, his uniform always neatly pressed and stark white. The Karate guy really stood out standing next to him. His belly bulged out so that the black belt around his waist angled down in front, his uniform was the color of old teeth and it was all wrinkly. He appeared to be in his 40’s or 50’s and was balding on top. During class Sabonim introduced him as a friend and a Karate Master. We were told he was some kind of champion fighter and would be helping out with sparring. I think a lot of us thought at the time, “Yeah right, this overweight frumpy looking guy.”

When my turn came to spar, I did a good job of blocking my opponent’s kicks and punches, but had trouble landing any of my own. Sabonim pulled me aside and said that Mister whatever his name was (the crumpled Karate guy) was going to help me. The Karate guy and I walked over to the corner of the room. He said he had watched me and could tell I had a lot of natural ability and some training, but that I was not staying grounded. He said I was so busy defending myself, I was missing many opportunities to score against my opponent. “You’re bouncing around out there losing your focus and doing all kinds of techniques that aren’t effective.” He said that when he learned to spar in Karate, he was only allowed to use one or two techniques. “I would hold my ground, wait for an opening and then execute my technique with total focus and complete dedication. If the technique was effective, the fight would immediately stop, and I would bow to my opponent.” And for emphasis he bowed to me as if I were his sparring partner, “My opponent would bow back.” I bowed to him, why not play along? “And only then would we resume the match.” Then he said something that has stuck with me all these years. “When you’re out there on the mat, sometimes you’re the teacher and sometimes you’re the student. Bowing to each other reminds us that students need to be grateful and teachers humble.” After being tutored by the crumpled Karate guy I never again had problems with competition or with the concept of winning and losing.

After our class was over I stayed to watch the black belt sparring class. I wanted to see this Karate guy in action. The Taekwondo black belts were good fighters; I’d watched them many times before. Sabonim made sure each black belt had a chance to spar with the Karate guy. By comparison, the black belts did a lot of bouncing and jumping around keeping a good distance between them and the Karate guy who just shuffled back and forth, easily blocking the kicks and punches that came at him. But then all of a sudden, he would shuffle in close to his opponent placing a punch, kick or push that usually sent the black belt tumbling to the mat. I couldn’t believe how fast this chubby guy could move. I watched as he patiently waited for the moment when the black belt was vulnerable and easily put off balance, usually when they were spinning, jumping and/or kicking. After a while I noticed the black belts began fighting differently. They looked a lot more grounded and focused and were careful not to take their eyes off the Karate guy for one second. And they stopped throwing those fancy kicks. I also noticed Sabonim standing on the sidelines enjoying the whole process.

The Dream

2010-07-21T16:22:00.003-07:00

I don’t have nightmares very often anymore. And rarely do I dream about Vietnam; but every once in awhile, I have a disturbing dream that is related to Vietnam. I had one of those the other night.
In the dream I am a new employee at an office. It is a large room filled with people. I’m unclear as to what I’m supposed to do, so I begin asking questions of those around me. They all seem to know me and are glad I’ve come back. A young soldier named Jake comes into the room. He is on active duty and currently fighting in a war. He needs to report to someone the information that earlier today he killed 21 enemy soldiers. I recognize Jake as one of my former Marine clients from when I was a veterans’ counselor. I want to help him, so we go around together and ask several people in the room. We are told that the person he needs to give that information to is in the next room. Together we walk through the doorway and into the other room, a crowded noisy office also filled with people. I figure it must be dress up Friday because all the women and men have on traditional Arab head coverings. It looks like they put sheets on their heads held in place by headbands like hippies used to wear with the rest of the sheet flowing down their backs. The atmosphere is party-like. I can tell Jake is tired and just wants to give his information to the right person and then go get some sleep. I ask one of the women if she knows whom Jake should report to. She looks around and points across the room. She is laughing, reacting to something someone else said.. Jake has a blank tired stare in his eyes. We work our way to the other side of the room, but no one there knows who handles that kind of information. As the party continues, I see Jake leave by the side door. I assume he has given up and is heading back to his bunk to get some rest before having to go back out on another killing mission.
Dreams contain an abundance of symbolism relating to our personal histories. Often in my dreams there are 3 people or entities. One is the witness, who I identify as myself in the dream and who is watching the other opposing entities. The two opposing sides in this dream are Jake and the party people. There is a big difference or gap between them. The office workers are totally preoccupied with having fun in their dress-up Arab costumes. The office work seems secondary to the party. Jake doesn’t care about the party at all. He needs to find the right person to report his information to. He then needs to get some rest. But no one in the office can help him. In his numbed out exhausted way, Jake is totally focused on what he needs to do.
Jake is like so many of my former clients and represents a side of me that can’t relate to the general population because of the awful knowledge of the reality of war. He is still a soldier and has developed a way to live with the brutality in his daily life, but this reality is so far from the world of the office workers. They represent the civilian population and that side of me that wants to fit in and feels compelled to play the game. The office workers are oblivious to the reality of the awful information that Jake needs to report. To them it’s just a matter of his finding the right person to report to. In a strange way Jake has also reduced the awfulness of what he has done to a simple bureaucratic problem as well.
While the office people are having fun dressing up and playing like they are Arabs, Jake is doing their dirty work which they have very little interest in. One of my Korean veteran clients used to say the Marines turned him into a killer monkey. This way of being changed him forever and set him apart from the general population. He knew that he could never again feel that he is a part of society. He wasn’t suicidal, but said many times the only way out of this dilemma was death. Many war veterans harbor a deep sense of guilt, not necessarily for their personal behavior, but for participating in the awfulness of war. They can never again be who they used to be. And what they have done and experienced can’t really be understood by the general population.
When I returned from Vietnam in 1968, I had trouble relating to people. I felt like I didn’t belong. For a time I concluded that in some ways being in the war made more sense than being in the civilian world. But I hated the war and being a soldier, so I tried to join the Merchant Marines. There was a long waiting list. I entered college instead. I remember those first days and weeks after returning home. The people on the street all looked distracted and in a hurry. They seemed obsessed with things and activities that to my mind were of absolutely no consequence. If I related one of my experiences from the war to a fellow student, chances are they might say it reminded them of a show they saw on TV or ask me how many people I killed or they might try to enlighten me about their political beliefs, but very few people knew how to listen to the kinds of experiences I needed to talk about. I also felt that no one really wanted to hear about it anyway. It made them uncomfortable.
I went to the college counseling center and the psychologist put me in a Gestalt therapy group with other students. There were no other veterans in the group. We worked on our dreams. The recurring dream I shared was that there were people with guns who were after me, trying to kill me. I was constantly running in fear for my life. After I was caught and the person was standing over me with a gun to my head ready to pull the trigger, I would wake up in a cold sweat. The group leader asked me to become the person with the gun and go around the room threatening to blow the heads off the other members. I attempted to do this, but after the first one, I broke down and started sobbing. The group didn’t know how to handle this and I was told to go back to my seat. They gave me a little time to compose myself and then went on to next person’s dream. I didn’t go back to the group after that. The psychologist who led the group had no idea how to help a veteran. The group was not veteran friendly; in fact to many students veterans represented the government and the war machine that most were protesting against. I never could figure that one out. At this time in history most soldiers were forced into service by the draft. I would much rather have stayed home and joined the party. I probably would have even dressed up on Fridays.
Jake is able to survive because he is still a working soldier. He still has structure and purpose. He knows that the office people could be killer monkeys just like him, but the office workers don’t know that and probably would deny it if it were suggested to them. We all have the potential to be either the assailant or the victim, the hero or the coward, the saint or the sinner. Jake can never join in on the party. All he can do is give his report like a good soldier and then go get some rest so that he can continue to function as an alert, reactive, killer monkey. The office people put on their costumes and play the game of life, trying to have a good time, pretending that suffering, death, and cruelty don’t really exist.
There is wisdom on both sides and desperate aloneness too. Carl Jung advises us to become aware of each side of our nature and work to integrate them. I need Jake to help me focus on what is real and do what needs to be done. But I also need the office people to help me live a more connected and carefree life.

Halleluiah, The Monsoons Are Here

2010-07-16T10:48:00.004-07:00

Finally after weeks of excruciatingly hot weather, the monsoon thunderstorms arrived the other day. We watched and waited in anticipation , peering out the windows of our closed up air conditioned condo. Large single well-spaced drops began bouncing and sizzling on the concrete. Tree Leaves nodded up and down and the birds vacated our bird feeder. The sound started to build. Those big heavy storm clouds that have been teasing us for weeks, lumbered overhead and like B-52 bombers, dropped their payload on a grateful desert and its dwellers. We flung open all the doors and windows, went outside and sat under the eve of our patio to experience the show first hand. The hard falling rain drowned out all other sounds except for the occasional rumble and smack of thunder. Neighbors began to appear, some we haven’t seen in weeks. The thin little old lady who lives directly behind us appeared from her back door, still in her housedress and slippers, walked right out into the downpour, turned her face toward the sky, opened her arms, and in a high pitched screech hollered “Halleluiah!”. She gave all of us neighbors a big toothless smile and then returned to her tightly closed up condo.
Sheltered from the muggy heat, we again wait for the next well deserved summer soaking.

Stumbling Into Paradise

2010-07-10T15:32:00.003-07:00

Trying to recall a 1970 European trip is somewhat of a challenge. I have been emailing Paul, my friend and traveling companion from that trip, attempting to get the facts straight. Some things get straightened out and many don’t. Memory seems to be a creative process anyway.

Paul is a saver of things, all kinds of things. He still has the Steak & Shake salt shakers from when we were teens cruisin’ around looking for action and chicks, which, by the way, we rarely found. I told him I wanted to write about what to me was the most memorable place from our summer in Europe, Port Bou, Spain. I couldn’t remember where we had stayed, so I fired off an email and he sent back an electronic copy of the Hotel Francia brochure and a copy of the actual receipt from our stay there. What more could a researching blog writer ask for?

To understand why Port Bou was so wonderful, I need to give a little background. When we stumbled off the train into that small border town by the bay, we were probably about a month or more into our trip. We definitely had had many wonderful moments up until this time, but there was a frenzied, pushing ahead and seeking quality about our travels and this lifted after we reached Port Bou. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as being lost in the desert and finally stumbling upon an oasis, but that’s the quality I’m talking about.

We landed in London, spent a few days, then crossed the English Channel by ferry to Calais, France. We had some idea of the places we wanted to visit, but were dedicated to keeping a certain spontaneity to our travels. We wanted to hold off as long as possible activating our three month Eurail passes. I’m not sure how we got to Belgium but it was there that we decided to try hitchhiking. We spent the better part of a day standing by the side of the road taking turns putting our thumbs out. Other young travelers were attempting to hitch rides as well. Not one vehicle stopped. Defeated we walked back to town, activated our Eurail passes and hopped a train heading for Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was a beautiful place with old buildings and canals, but for Paul and me, it just wasn’t our scene. It was crawling with young people from all over; most were ecstatic about the abundance of marijuana and hashish. As a Vietnam Veteran I didn’t feel comfortable around groups of people and once it was known I was an ex-soldier, I often didn’t feel welcomed anyway. At that time, Europeans associated Americans with the war. More than one young American traveler talked about putting the Canadian flag on their back packs just to reduce the hassles. In general, however, the locals were gracious to Paul and me.

We walked around Amsterdam looking at the canals and beautiful buildings, and wandered into the red light district where prostitutes sat in picture windows hiding their boredom by trying to look seductive. We weren’t tempted. I felt sad for the young women who were caught in this lifestyle.

And then an obnoxious guy named Cliff took a liking to us. He decided he wanted us to become a threesome. We couldn’t get rid of the guy. He was traveling alone, and we were hesitant to hurt his feelings. We felt sorry for him and probably even identified with him a little as well. Sorry or not, we decided he wasn’t our responsibility and wasn’t going to ruin our trip, so one of us had to step up to the plate and confront him. I don’t know whether we flipped a coin or what, but I ended up doing the deed. Cliff got angry and hurt, as expected, but we were glad to be rid of him and the guilt passed quickly. The weather in northern Europe had been overcast and cool much of the time which helped us make our next big decision which was to head straight south for the sunny, warm beaches of the Mediterranean.

We rode the train nonstop to Paris, and only spent one night there. We knew we would be returning at the end of our trip, and besides, we were pushing ahead to the beaches and the bikini clad babes we knew were on them. The French trains were fast, smooth and comfortable. We were making excellent time, but then we crossed over into Spain, switched to a Spanish train and everything slowed to an excruciating pace. The Spanish trains were not only slow, but were noisy and uncomfortable. We had planned to go all the way to Portugal, but only made it as far as Alicante, a sea side town about halfway between the French and Portuguese border. We got stuck in Barcelona on the way, spending one night shivering on a park bench. There were absolutely no available accommodations.

Not wanting to extend our time traveling on Spanish trains, we turned around and began heading back up the coast. Many of our fellow travelers were going north to Pamplona and the running of the bulls. We could imagine ourselves being trampled. Besides we thought we needed to get out of Spain. We were still in the pushing ahead mode and searching for who knows what. We headed back toward France along the sea coast the train slowly crawling along. When we got to the border, bone weary from travel, we hefted our back packs, exited the train and wandered down into the Spanish border town of Port Bou.

We checked into the Hotel Francia. It was a totally spontaneous decision, but immediately we knew this place would be special. We had stumbled into our oasis. In the front part of the hotel was an open dining area where guests were served two full meals a day, included in the price. The receipt Paul sent me shows the total cost for our 3 day stay being 16.60 piastas. I think at the time we figured this was about $2.50 a night. I don’t remember what we ate exactly, but it was well prepared and there was plenty of it. And the wine bottle kept being replaced throughout each meal. Our room was large with big windows exposing plants that grew all around. After that first evening meal, we walked down to the bay and sat for awhile gazing out to sea. It felt like we had temporarily left the more frenzied travel mode and were experiencing a vacation within a vacation.

Located in a Spanish town on the border of France, the hotel specifically tried to attract and cater to French travelers. The signs were in French first, then English and then Spanish. Right around the corner from the hotel was a French ice cream cart. We became regular customers, I remember specifically being fond of the glace’ au chocolat.

In the morning we were awakened by the sound of canaries. The locals placed cages out on their patios early in the mornings. The birds seemed to be talking to each other and welcoming the new day. There wasn’t much to do in Port Bou, but after our previous time of dashing about, we allowed ourselves to be seduced into the state of just being. We hiked the surrounding hills, sat in the hotel reading or hung out at one of the local cafés. On our final evening at dinner, we were joined by two attractive French girls. Neither of them spoke much English and as they struggled to communicate with us, Paul and I were smitten. I knew a little French and we spent the evening eating slowly, sipping wine, laughing and flirting until it was time to turn in--very European. We all knew this one evening in the café courtyard would be the extent of the relationship. In the morning they were headed to Madrid and we were taking off for Nice and the French Riviera, so we savored our evening together.

As Paul and I continued our travels around Europe, we hoped we would run into them again, but we didn’t. We did, however, run into Cliff again in Rome.

We Paused Five Minutes To Watch A Race

2010-07-03T10:59:00.006-07:00

We hadn't planned on seeing the race. My girlfriend and I just happened to be cutting across the campus behind Hayward Field on our way to Mamma's Truck Stop. As soon as I heard the crowd yelling I remembered, this was the day of the Hayward Field Restoration Meet and the big showdown between Steve Prefontaine and Dave Wottle.
Steve Prefontaine was not just another University of Oregon student like me; he was a legend in the world of track and field. The U of O is a huge track and field school. All other sports are secondary in status. Head coach Bill Bowerman had courted Pre to attend the U of O. In his attempts to invent a better track shoe for his star athlete, he poured urethane into his wife’s waffle iron, which later became the Nike Waffle Trainer. In the early 1970s Prefontaine held every American track record in races between 2,000 and 3,000 meters. We were all shocked when he failed to get a medal in the ‘72 Olympics. He came in fourth, which disappointed his fans. But he was only 21 at the time, so everyone chocked the loss up to gained experience for future races including the Olympics. None of us foresaw that like James Dean, he would be dead at age 24 after crashing his sports car.
I can't say that I knew him. The U of O was a big school, but I'd seen him around campus. On a few occasions I’d even sat up in the stands and chanted “Pre! Pre! Pre!” with the rest of the crazed fans as he took his signature victory lap. Every one knew he loved his celebrity status. Some said you either loved him or hated him. To me he was similar to Muhammad Ali. I was initially repelled by Cassius Clay’s large ego, but once I saw him fight, I was hooked. When Pre ran he was all guts, heart and charisma. I had to love the guy. Besides he was our guy at the U of O.
One afternoon he came into the men's sauna when I was in there relaxing after a work out. He was handsome, in a California beach boyish sort of way. His hair was long and bleached by the sun and he had a dark well-earned tan. His body was thin, but muscular. He definitely had the world by the tail. I generally don't last too long in the sauna, but on this day, I forced myself to endure. I guess I wanted to be around him a little longer. He was talking to a couple guys. I can't remember what he was saying, nothing of any consequence. He talked fast, all the while performing pushups, sit-ups and all manner of exercises. It was so damned hot in the sauna, I thought he deserved some kind of medal just for this exuberant display of calisthenics in the intense heat.
Dave Wottle had won the gold medal for 800 meter race at the ’72 Olympics. I remember watching it on TV. He held back throughout the entire run and as the pack rounded the last bend, this goofy looking guy in a baseball cap came out of nowhere and flew past all the other runners. And it was at Hayward Field on this very track that Wottle set the world record for the 800 meters at the Olympic trials, again holding back and then winning in the last few seconds. He had one hell of a final kick.
Prefontaine did not usually compete in the shorter length races, but was a master strategist in the longer ones. Time and time again I watched him pull ahead of the pack early and set a pace that would totally wear down his opponents. Most races he crossed the finish line alone well ahead of the other runners. He could push himself to the edge of pain and exhaustion and sustain it with sheer will power longer than anyone else.
I have since read an interview with Wottle. He said that two weeks before this first Hayward Field Restoration Meet, Pre had gotten the idea of their both going for the mile record and invited Dave to Oregon to compete. Pre told him that he would bring him around to the beginning of the final lap at a world record pace of 2 minutes and 56 seconds. Then after that, each man was on his own.
I think I was in love that summer, so stumbling upon this race just moments before the starting gun fired did not seem like just a lucky coincidence. You know how that is, for a while anyway the world becomes a magical place. We had spent the morning studying and sitting out in the warm Oregon sun and felt like we needed to move around a bit, so we were headed over to Mama’s to sit there for a while. But there we stood for just a few minutes looking through the chain link fence at the row of runners shaking their arms and legs in preparation for the race. Prefontaine’s golden hair shone in the sunlight like a crown and Wottle's baseball cap didn’t look goofy anymore. I guess Olympic champions can wear whatever they want. The gun fired and as expected, Prefontaine took off at a grueling pace leaving the rest of the runners behind. The fans were ecstatic as their hero once again ruled the track with flare and determination. He stayed in front of the pack until rounding the final bend, when Wottle made his move with that amazing reserve of energy that won him Olympic gold. He closed the gap and just before the finish line, passed Prefontaine. The historic showdown was over. As the rest of the runners crossed the line, there was clapping, but the anticipated roar of the crowd didn't happen. Neither runner set the world record that day, but both Wattle and Prefontaine ran their own personal best mile; Wottle in 3.53.3 and Pre in 3.54.6, just 1.3 seconds behind. When they came around to the beginning of lap 4 they were clocked at exactly 2.56 minutes as Pre had promised. This race placed Prefontaine at 6th fastest miler in the world. Wottle is quoted later as saying about his friend and this race, “Not bad for a 5,000 meter guy.” The next year at this same meet Pre would beat Frank Shorter in the 3 mile race and set an American record. By the following year he would be dead and the meet’s name changed to the Nike/Prefontaine Classic.
My girlfriend and I didn't wait around after the race. There would be no victory lap by our local hero. The sun was hot and we knew it would be cool at Mamma's where we could get a couple of iced coffees.

The Donut Deli

2010-06-29T11:23:00.007-07:00

It was only two weeks until Christmas. I’d been driving a cab for over a
year and was sick of the hustle. I needed a change. I was tired of staring at the rain on the
windshield as I sat for hours waiting by the cabstands. I was tired of the fares that didn't pan out. I was tired of the whores, pimps, small time drug pushers and I was especially tired of the sad middle-aged businessmen who slipped me something extra to keep quiet about their comings and goings.
My interview at the Donut Deli lasted only fifteen minutes. The elderly couple who owned the place led me into the back of the restaurant. The man explained, “We serve donuts and coffee in the morning, soup and sandwiches for the lunch crowd.” The job opening was for a relief baker on the night shift, but besides baking the donuts, I would have to serve people sandwiches if they came in at night. The bars closed at 2 AM and the owner said a significant part of their revenue came from hungry people stumbling out of the taverns. “We lock the front door at 3 AM.”
The couple took turns questioning me about my former work experience. The man was pleased I was a veteran. After completing the verbal portion of the interview to their satisfaction, they watched me from across the stainless steel table as I fumbled around with sliced meat, pickles, tomatoes and lettuce, attempting to put it all together as a hoagie sandwich. I finally wrestled all the ingredients into a bun and held it up for inspection. The man had a horrified look on his face. The woman turned and said to him in a quiet voice "Give him a little time, I think he'll do all right."
The Donut Deli was a small brick building right on Main Street, with a parking lot behind. A big green awning hung out over the sidewalk shading the front window. Three small tables with two chairs each and two booths were in the space in front of the counter which housed the doughnut display case. Behind the counter was the doughnut making area. There was a stainless steel cabinet with the fryer on top and doughnut rising shelves below. Along side was a large butcher block work space for rolling and cutting the dough. The cash register was at the far end of the counter and behind it, a large freezer that held 15 flavors of ice cream.
When I arrived that evening, George was already setting things up for the night's work. Country music was blaring from a radio perched on top of the ice cream freezer. George was a short balding man with a powerful chest and bowed legs. He had thick dark eyebrows and bushy sideburns, but was clean shaven. He said he had one week to train me before taking his vacation. I would be on my own for the next week and after he returned, work the two nights a week he was off.
He didn't waste any time in idle chit chat, but thrust an apron into my chest and motioned for me to follow him to the back. He grabbed a cake of yeast from a big silver refrigerator, unwrapped it and plopped it into a giant silver bowl. He placed the bowl in the sink, pushing the spout over to the side and turned on the hot water. Passing his finger repeatedly through the water stream, he made slight adjustments to the cold water knob. Finally he motioned for me to pass my finger through the water just like he was doing. "When it has a little bite to it, it's ready." I felt the hot water bite my finger and gave him a nod. The yeast was fickle and needed the temperature to be just right.
That night we went through the whole process of making doughnuts. It was a lot more complicated than I'd imagined. George wasn't one to explain things, but always made sure he had my full attention when showing me critical parts of the process. When he saw that I’d gotten the essence of what he was showing me, his eyes lit up in delight. His enthusiasm helped me feel motivated and challenged to learn the process. He had me poke the dough after the first rising to check the elasticity and we carefully examined the clarity of the oil in the fryer. After dropping the cake doughnut batter into the hot oil, I watched him twirl the chopsticks like a rock ‘n’ roll drummer before gently turning each doughnut over. He asked me to count the number of twirls; after six the doughnuts were ready to flip. We rolled out the dough for the raised doughnuts to a precise thickness and repeatedly pressed the doughnut cutter into the dough in neat rows paying close attention to the spacing between. I watched as he deftly pulled out the doughnut holes and pieces around the edges. He tossed these to the side of the butcher block to be used later for cinnamon rolls. At one point he turned to me with a hand full of doughnut holes and began juggling them. He laughed and then tossed them into the pile of dough scraps. This short chunky man was light on his feet and graceful to watch. He seemed to enjoy himself and appeared to be playing rather than working.
At the end of the shift, when all the freshly made doughnuts were lined
up on their trays and sitting in the display cases, George pulled out one glazed doughnut and held it up in front of my face. I thought he was offering it to me to eat, but instead he asked me to carefully observe it. “The fruits of our evening’s labor are best revealed by the glazed doughnut,” he stated. He then pointed out some important things to look for: the brown color on both sides was not too light and not too dark, the light colored ring on the outside edge was the same width all the way around, the doughnut was plump and not saggy, the glaze was clear and even with no runs or globs. As I watched and listened, I had to admit, this was truly a superb doughnut. George then pulled out a maple bar and held it up. I thought he was going to describe the subtleties of this particular doughnut as well, but instead he said, “These are my favorite,” took a big bite, turned on his heels and disappeared into the back to start cleaning up.
George wasn't like anyone I'd met before. He didn't seem to care what
others thought of him. He did care about people and was a good listener, but was happy to let them be without feeling the need to exert his opinion or advice. I felt fortunate that he made an exception with me and imparted a little of his wisdom. Sometimes I would complain to him about all the assholes I had run into while driving a cab. He told me not to be so quick to judge others; “They just might have something to teach you about yourself.”
Once when I was busy baking, I overheard George talking with one of the customers. This man and George had obviously talked many times before. At one point the man loudly exclaimed, "What do you know about it George? You've barely been out of Seattle. All you know how to do is make doughnuts." To my surprise George didn’t react, saying nothing back. I knew that George had been all over the world. He was an Airborne Ranger and fought in the Korean War and after that he spent over ten years in the Merchant Marines. I asked him about this conversation later. “George, when that guy accused you of never having been anywhere or done anything, why didn’t you set him straight?” He replied, "People will believe what they want to believe until they want to believe something different."
I had trouble understanding this at the time. I always felt a need to assert my opinion and didn’t miss a chance to let people know what I’d done and where I’d been. But I knew George was a wise man and had voluntarily dropped out of society to a certain extent. I had another question for him. "So George, what is it that you believe?"
Without hesitation, he answered. "I believe in making good doughnuts."
Even though it’s been over 30 years since I worked with George in the doughnut shop, when I’m feeling down or defensive or without direction, I find myself thinking about him and some of the things he told me. I’ve boiled his philosophy down to one statement, “Let people believe what they want to believe and go out there and make good doughnuts.”