POOKIES ADVENTURES AT THE START OF THE NEW YEAR (2022):

“Do not race your postcards home. Dally long enough for word of your adventures to arrive before you.Let them announce you and lay the foundation for your legend.”

Bancroft, Josiah. The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel) (p. 792). Orbit. 

 

 

A few days before the welcome demise of 2021, Nikki and Hayden came by to take Naida and me to lunch. For Nikki’s sake we went to a place nearby called Twin Peaks, a large sports bar featuring a large selection of lagers, various meats and fries, and scantily clothed waitresses. It was a pleasant lunch after which Nikki and Hayden returned to the Golden Hills.

Naida, Pookie, Haden, Nikki

Nikki with a New Friend

Nikki spent three day trying to cross the Sierra’s to visit with relatives in Reno but was stymied by the Great Snowstorm of 2021 that blocked the passes through the mountains. Eventually, the snow abated, Cal-Trans cleared the roads he succeeded it getting through to enjoy the joys of Reno and relatives.

 

The following day, I slept until noon and then spent most of the afternoon listening to Tony Bennet. The day was rather dark and dreary. That and Tony Bennett prompted some macabre thoughts about the rapidly approaching New Year especially since I may not experience another one. At my 76th birthday, a little over five years ago, for some reason, I was prompted to think about epitaphs. I came up with several. The winning one was:

 

“I came. I saw. I did not like what I was seeing, so I left.”

 

The problem about that one is if I did not like what I saw why did I hang around so long. Perhaps, one the others would be more appropriate. The also-rans were:

 

“His life had its ups and downs. It gave him indigestion,” 

“He hated winter,” 

“I never saw a good reason to get out of bed,” 

“Some lived their life like there were no tomorrows. To him there were only yesterdays,” 

“I really did not want to leave. I was only looking for a change of scenery,” 

“I could have done better, but the stories would not have been as interesting,” 

“I wanted to leave the world better off than I found it. I never knew why,” 

“His life was always a work in progress,” and, 

“Sometimes, it just doesn’t matter.”

 

Now, five years later, I think I am partial to “He hated winter.” That probably has more to do about the gloomy day today than anything else. Perhaps, “His life was always a work in progress” instead. On the other hand, “I never saw a good reason to get out of bed,” seems to fit me well.

 

On Thursday morning, I got up early and ate my usual breakfast of perfectly sliced bagels, slathered with cream cheese, and piled with lox, and coffee. As much as I enjoyed it, the persistent soreness in my throat was more painful than ever. I returned to bed, not because of the pain and irritation, but on account of the depression. I know that I often joke about my hypochondria and my supposed bouts with depression, but this whole getting old has gotten morose. I do not know how long I lay there feeling sorry for myself, but eventually Naida came up stairs carrying another severed stalk from the Aloe Vera plant in the back yard. She sat on the bed and began covering the sores of my chest and back with the slime from the plant while happily explaining the sociological meaning and significance of the movie, The Father of the Bride, starring Spence Tracy and Kathrine Hepburn that she had just watched again for the tenth time or more. Her method of applying the Aloe Vera slime consisted of cutting off a small piece of the severed leaf and applying it slimy side down to the sore and then covering it with a band-aid so that the slime did not get rubbed off or dried up right away. She also brought up a cup of Slippery Elm Tea for me to drink. She said the tea was used by singers to sooth their throats before going on stage. It seemed to work.

 

Suddenly I began to feel better. I looked out the window. The day that had begun in dark grey now had a silver sheen to it. So, in better spirits, I got up, went downstairs, had some soup for lunch, read a bit of the latest novel I am reading, and eventually wrote this.

 

Did you know Coddiwomple means to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination? I always thought I coddiwompled through life. Most of us do.

 

On New Year’s Eve morning, I got up early and rushed over to the doctor’s office seeking a diagnosis and hopefully a cure of my throat and skin maladies. I did not get a clear diagnosis but several medicined were prescribed, I then picked up some additional medicines and returned home. Upon my return, I turned on the TV and learned that perhaps one of the bleakest years of history has ended even worse than I could have imagined. Betty White died. For at least the last decade or more, she kept our spirits up. This elderly woman who’s indomitable good spirits made me smile whenever I saw her and is now gone. An already grim 2021, I feel, now passes into an even more unpromising and ominous 2022. Happy New Year.

 

2022 begins. It is about noon. Nothing too bad has happened yet today. We watched Fiddler on the Roof while we ate breakfast. So far so good for the new year.

 

Terry Pratchett once opined “What happens stays happened.” I say, “Once forgotten, why should one care what happened.” One of life’s worst experiences is someone reminding you of something you were happy you had forgotten.

 

Last night we watched television for several hours. This morning I recall none of it. If anyone knows what I watched, please do not tell me.

 

On Sunday, the day broke sunny and warm. After breakfast and while waiting for the SF 49ers game to begin, I decided to read Jefferson’s bible. Don’t ask how and why I came to do that, it is too complicated. In brief, I was doing my usual fishing through the internet to pass the time rather than watching old movies of the news on television or sitting slack jawed and staring out the window, I found myself directed to Jefferson’s opus and decided to read it. It is Jefferson’s revision of the gospel without the hocus-pocus — scrubbed clean of miracles and mysticism. It consists mostly of Jesus’ moral teachings. Everyone should read it if they would like to know what the Jesus Church was all about before it became prostituted into Christianity. Jefferson called it “the Philosophy of Jesus.”

 

The 49ers just scored to pull ahead. Jesus had nothing to do with it. They still will probably lose but at least it may not be a total embarrassment.

 

After the game (the 49ers won), there was still some sunlight outside  Naida, the dog and I went for a walk through the Enchanted Forest. After dinner at a noodle place, we returned home and watched “Cinema Paradiso” starring one of my favorite actors Philippe Noiret.

 

The past isn’t made of facts, not really, just stories people tell to make themselves feel better. I originally began writing T&T because, in part, I wanted to be able to remember my past. It has not worked. One always makes thing up whether we know it or not either because of errors of perception or the necessity of discretion when what is written may be read by those one may have written about. Only in writing fiction can you write those secret things of the heart and the bits and pieces banal evil we all carry around within us.

 

 

I guess it is just another example of the things we mean to do not matching what we accomplish. Or as Sir Terry Pratchett opines:

 

“We pride ourselves on making a good history of our lives, a good story to be told.”

Pratchett, Terry. I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld Book 38) (p. 314). HarperCollins.

 

 

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES (July 2021): Roger Smith Memorial and a Few Days in Mendocino.

On Sunday we drove to Lakeport in Lake County to attend Naida’s brother Roger’s memorial. He had died of a heart attack on Easter Sunday morning. Roger was an accomplished artist, vocalist, and builder of log homes.

 

Roger’s painting of himself as a young man

Roger performing with the Verismo Opera Company, Vallejo Ca.

One of Roger’s log houses being built.

Lakeport is a small town or the western shore of Clear Lake. The memorial was held in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Lakeport that Roger used to sing at. 

 

After we arrived, we sought someplace to store the dog where he would not expire from the heat. The minister suggested we house him in the janitors closet during the ceremony. Which we did.

 

The ceremony began with the minister, welcoming us and giving a short sermon. It was followed by some hymns sung by the Verismo Opera Company and concluded with commentary by those wishing to speak

 

 

 

From top left clockwise: Roger’s paintings; the minister; Naida; Roger’s girlfriend and a friend; the Verismo Opera chorus.

Following the memorial and releasing the dog from the janitor’s closet we drove to Mendocino to spend the next few days with my sister Maryann and her husband George. We arrived at their home just in time for dinner. She had prepared two of my favorites eggplant parmigiana and ditalini from our mom’s secret recipe washing it all down with a bottle of Charbono. After dinner we were both so exhausted from all the driving that day that we went right to bed.

 

The next morning after breakfast we all left for a walk around the headlands. Along the way, I tripped just like I did the last time I was there. I fell and injured the same thumb I did in my prior fall.

 

 

On top: Naida and I in Mendocino village. I am grumpy because I had tripped and fallen moments before. On the bottom: George, Naida and the dogs of our walk along the bluffs and a typical garden scene in the village.

After our walk we returned to the house. A sort time later we noticed that Boo-boo the Barking Dog’s penis was grossly extended and he appeared to be in pain. After consulting internet for a remedy, Naida whipped up a small bowl of sugar paste. While she was kneeling on the floor next to the dog applying the paste to his penis she began to shout, “His penis is shrinking. It is working. His penis is shrinking.” Although, as a bearer of a similar appendage, I was happy for the dog, I had difficulty with the concept of a woman shrieking with glee at the shrinkage of a sugar coated penis. Perhaps, it is just another example of the collapse of verities in out time — Hmm, I suspect there is a pun buried in there somewhere.

 

The next evening we attended the grand re-opening of the Pub in Caspar a small village on the coast just north of Mendocino. It specialized in pretty good “Pub” food and provides live band music on Friday evening. The owner runs around the place with his newest child strapped to his chest while greeting guests.

 

From top left and clockwise: The Caspar Pub owner checking on things in the pool room; us at dinner; George staring at the desserts; the micro lending library Mary and George erected at the edge of the road by their property. 

The following morning we left to return to Sacramento.

 

My last cup of coffee before departing Mendocino.

It was a long exhausting drive back to our home. So exhausting that we spent the next two days mostly in bed. On Saturday, we felt chipper enough to attend the Saturday Morning Coffee.

 

 

From left to right: Ducky — reputed spy, married an Admiral (now deceased) and mother to a son who with two broken legs after crashing his airplane in the Arizona desert crawled 20 miles to safety. Ed — Also a reputed spy, career high-level bureaucrat in US State Department and AID with many frightening stories such as personally observing the takeover of the Russian hydrocarbon industry by the Russian mob. Unknown woman. Artist (name unknown) who upon Naida introducing me to her as her boyfriend said, “Good for you dear, lately I have had to make do with only parking lot attendants.” Standing on the left: Jan — the woman who seems to delight in serving the rest of us coffee and cakes and is married to coach. To Jan’s right is a woman who I have not met. Sitting to her right is Coach (actual name unknown) member of the Nepenthe HOA board, high-school coach, civics teacher, ex-alcoholic, flaming liberal, part Cherokee Indian, believes conversation is only an opportunity to preach (I like that). To the right, The Soap Lady (name unknown) — Manufactures “Art Soaps” and sells them at the Coffee.

Later that day the handyman came by the house and hung Roger’s paintings on the walls. One of them, a painting of Roger and Naida’s mother, Alice, fascinated me. Naida saw her history in the painting, what was her mother thinking, would she have liked the way she was portrayed, and so on. I one the other had saw only the art – the way the color melded, the mystery of the woman pictured. It is a wonderful work of art. I sat there for an hour or so just staring at it.

The next day was the Fourth of July. We celebrated it in the morning by attending the first annual Nepenthe HOA 4th of July parade and picnic. It was a joy and absent false patriotism and war mimicking explosions. The crowd was made up primarily of the very old, the very young, and dogs. The children on decorated bicycles and a few old folks paraded along some of the paths in the Enchanted Forest while the rest of us cheered, engaged in inconsequential conversations and now and then picked up some dog-poop.

 

 

Later that day we went to Naida’s daughter Sarah’s home for their annual 4th or July party. Sarah and her husband Mark’s children, Isabel, a legislative aid and Charlie a local tennis professional were there along with Jennifer, Naida’s other daughter, her husband and two children, Josephine and Natalie. Some friends of their were there also. Sarah, told he she decided to take up painting again after many years. I always liked Sarah’s paintings. The dark palette of her landscapes were intriguing and mysterious. She showed us a seascape I had not seen before. It too had that dark palette, but where the errant rays of sun struck the rocks along shore, the bright strands of gold paint was magnificent.

 

We left before the dark and the fireworks. And so it goes…

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POOKIE’S APRIL ADVENTURES:

Sadly, on Easter Sunday morning Naida’s beloved artist brother, Roger, died of a massive heart attack. She had called Roger earlier in the morning to wish him a Happy Easter. The phone seemed to have been answered but all she heard was a slight sound and it was quickly hung up. Naida assumed it was her brother’s middle-aged, schizophrenic  and uncommunicative son that Roger had cared for all his life who had decided he did not want to speak with anyone that day. She surmised that Roger was out singing at one of the churches in the area as he often did every Sunday morning especially since it was Easter Sunday. In addition to being an artist, Roger also was an accomplished singer and in demand by the local churches as a soloist . She decided to call back later. A few hours after that, she received a call from Roger’s ex-wife that he had suffered a massive heart attack that morning and died.

 

     She had written in her memoir, “A Daughter of the West” that Roger was her close companion and support during their childhood as they, often alone, faced hunger, loneliness, and fear together. As I typed this, Naida had been listening to a phone message Roger left a few days previous asking for her help in searching for someone to donate a kidney needed for his son’s kidney transplant operation. She had misplaced the phone during our trip to Mendocino and now was upset that she was not there for him during this final call to her.

Some of Roger’s paintings and a recent photograph of Roger and Naida with Clear Lake in the background.

Today we woke up a bit late. The day was spring sunny and warm with the temperature hovering around seventy degrees. After breakfast, we decided to take advantage of the weather and go for a long walk through the Enchanted Forest. For the first time in the three years since I have been living here, we reached the opposite end of the subdivision. Usually, when I set out for the other side of the subdivision, I either get lost, turned around on the paths, or just exhausted, give up, and return home. Many of the trees were flowering this morning. The decorated cement duck that had disappeared ever since the pandemic began had returned festooned today with bright flowers on its head. Boo-boo the barking dog behaved himself for the most part.

Some of the flowering trees we encountered during our walk, Naida and Boo-boo standing before the fence marking the end of the Enchanted Forest, and the cement duck with his floral headdress.

In a preliminary return to normality yesterday, I had my hair cut at Great Clips. With the temerity of someone emerging from a bomb shelter, I requested only slight trimming in an effort to avoid errant unruly strands from flying about. The next day, I had the tooth repaired that I had chipped on an olive pit I bit into at Maryann’s house in Mendocino last week.

Before, after, and my new smile.

Now one may think I have gone a bit batty or around the bend taking photographs of my hair-do and repaired teeth and posting them for all the world to see. If one does so, then that person does not understand the purpose in life for someone reaching my age and decrepitude. The purpose of the very old is not, as some believe, to become a repository of wisdom but rather an example of the folly of misplaced ambitions and social dictums that diminishes one’s joy in a long, happy, and peaceful life. Alas, it never seems to work as a lesson to anyone but it does give some pleasure to those of us teetering on the edge of senility. 

 

    Tonight, Naida and I ate dinner at a place we had not eaten at before, Allora on Fulton St. here in Sacramento a few minutes drive from Campus Commons where we live. I have not had a better meal in years, nor as expensive. Although the cuisine was Italian, it was prepared in a more French style — lots of sauces and small portions. It is a shame to see Italian food which was made to be tasty and inexpensive become what it was never intended to be. 

 

     Later after we got home, Naida, while playing the piano, demonstrated how the chords in Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata can translate directly into How Much is That Doggie in the Window. 

 

     Besides playing the piano and writing novels, Naida sometimes regales me with stories about politics. Recently, she told me about a Cabinet meeting Ronald Reagan had called when he was Governor of California (Her husband, Kirk West, was a highly placed member of his administration at the time). There was a single item on the calendar — the electric power development of Round Valley, a major Native-American reservation. The development would flood the valley and displace the Native-American Community living there. The meeting was held in Round Valley and no Native-Americans were invited. At the meeting, the entire Cabinet was in favor of the development except for the Secretary of Resources, Ike Livermore. Reagan overruled his Cabinet saying, “I am tired of always taking Native-American Lands.” It should be noted that Rich Wilson, the largest private landowner in the valley and a member of the original prop 20 Coastal Commission, a friend of both Livermore and Reagan and a big supporter of Governor Reagan also vociferously opposed the power plan.

 

I have noticed, since we have become more mobile after our vaccinations, that I seem to have gotten more feeble. I  carry my walking-stick now not so much to assist me in walking but as additional support should I stumble. Recently, my balance seems to have deteriorated so much that my need for the walking stick has progressed from a caution to a necessity. Also, chronic fatigue has turned my joyful anticipation of traveling into a wary suspicion of all movement. Our memories, Naida’s and mine, have decayed, progressing from a forgotten word here and there to speaking in halting sentences as though we are learning a new language.

 

I fear I am becoming one of those bent and feeble little old men needing assistance crossing the street. That is not so bad when attractive young women try to help but, when 70 year olds also do so their offers of assistance drive me into the depths of despondency. They, the people at the community center, tell me the pools may be opened next week. That has cheered me up. It has been my fading hope that more exercise, a return to swimming laps, will halt and perhaps reverse my decline — a forlorn hope at best.

 

That evening along about the witching hour, Naida told me a true but eerie story. It seems that one day a few years ago she was sitting at her desk in the historic farm house that she lived in on the banks of the Cosumnes River. Her husband Bill resided at that time in a nursing home. She was typing a draft of her Memoir when she looked up and out the window and noticed it was getting on towards evening. The sky was streaked with the rose-orange light of the setting sun. She checked the clock and returned to her typing, holding her fingers lightly on the keyboard. She stared at a word she had begun typing and felt as though her mind was drifting off. She glanced at the clock again. It had advanced ten minutes since she last looked at it. She then looked out the window. The sky remained streaked with rosy-orange, but the sun seemed to be in the wrong place. She got up to look more closely. Her joints felt stiff and painful. At the window, she realized the sun was rising not setting. She did not believe it but when she checked further, it was true. It was morning. She had lost an entire night.

 

The following day in the early evening we walked Boo-boo along the paths the snake through the Enchanted Forest in a direction we do not often take.

   It is azalea season.

The following day, I drove into the Golden Hills. Haden drove us in the Mitsubishi to Subway’s for lunch. He has done wonders to the car. What was dirty and unkempt, and seemed one block from a breakdown now appeared shiny and new, and purring like a contented tiger.

Today marks, for me, the day summer begins — I wore my first Hawaiian shirt of the year — I also was the first to sign up to use the newly open pool tomorrow. Boo-boo and I walked this morning to the Nepenthe ClubHouse to register. He was very well behaved and that deserves to be noted and commended. This has been a special morning, from a delightful diversion in bed, to the magnificent weather and ending with an invigorating walk through the Enchanted Forest. May the afternoon and evening go so well.

Damn! The pool remains closed. Something about the heater not working. I did not know it had a heater. Why would the pool need a heater? Why would I need or want a heated pool? Well, I guess I will have to try again on Thursday.

This morning, (Thursday, I do not know what happened to Wednesday) at 10 AM I went for a swim in the small pool off Dunbarton Circle. I believe I am the first person in the subdivision to do so since the pools were closed due to the pandemic. It was great. The temperature was about 60 degrees. The water appeared warmer (Heated?) then the air. Two ducks had taken-up residence in the pool. They kindly exited the pool when I entered and returned when I vacated it

The swimming pool with the resident ducks.

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES: The Pandemic continues; some air quality relief arrives; and the destruction of American democracy looms ever closer. (October, 2020)

 

 

 

  Today, we did something that I am sure many others have done during this time of self-distancing. Naida wrote a note to our new neighbors (they moved in over a year ago, but at our age that passes as new) inviting them to a socially distant meet and greet on the lawn in front of our homes. They accepted and we all took out our folding chairs placed them in the shade of a tree and had a pleasant conversation for about an hour or so. oThey are both retired Sacramento State professors — he in chemistry and she in literature and poetry. It was a pleasant diversion.

 

That evening we had a Zoom wake for Tom Hargadon. I had received an email message from Don Neuwirth earlier in the day informing me that Tom had died and that he and his daughter Becca would be hosting the wake. I was both saddened and surprised at his passing. Hargadon was one of those rare people you meet that you cannot conceive of ever getting ill or dying. Like the leprechaun that he resembled, he seemed destined to go on forever seeking that pot of gold.

 

 I first met Tom way back in the early seventies when Don Neuwirth introduced him to me as someone recently arrived from Boston where he owned a pub and was looking to do the same here in San Francisco. Tom looked every bit the archetype of the Boston Irish — round face, braces(suspenders) and an ability to talk and tell stories endlessly. He spoke so fast at times that it often was difficult to understand him. I shall miss him. I, unfortunately, am at that sad period of my life where “goodbyes” are much more common than “I’ll see you arounds”

 

We continue to watch the news surrounding the election. It is as entertaining as a nightmare — you do not want to be there but you have no way to get out. You hope you will wake up some day and it will all go away and then you read something like the comments by Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D):

 

“If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in suing Trump and his administration dozens of times, it’s that when he threatens to cross democratic boundaries and constitutional norms, he usually does — and when he denies it, it often turns out he was actually doing it all along,” 

 

And you then realize it is not a dream.

 

The weather in and around the Enchanted Forest has gotten better though. The air is clearer and cleaner, and the temperature a bit cooler. We are in those few brief weeks between the debilitating heat of the summer when one can still wear summer clothes and before having to put on long sleeved shirts and sweaters and preparing for winter.

 

 I am running out of my old poems to post in the poetry blog I have been posting in recently. Well, they are really not poetry, more doggerel then poems. Anyway, I have begun writing new ones to post. Here is one:

 

 

Homage to Stephen Crane

 

I announced to the universe one day:

“I am.”

To which the universe replied:

“That means no more to me

then thou art not.”

 

“Homage” means I stole it.

 

Some people do crossword puzzles to pass away the time. I post things on the internet. I then get annoyed when people comment that what I wrote was crap. 

 

It’s a living — or a life. It, at least, allows me to avoid being left with only watching television while waiting to be released from self-quarantine. I’ve taken to scratching the days of my confinement on the wall by my chair. We are beginning the eighth month. Some of my marriages were shorter.

 

Yesterday, Naida was depressed enough by the continuing erosion of the political situation here in America that she was almost comatose. Today, she is better. The political situation is not. 

 

Today, it is I who am depressed enough to spend almost the entire day in bed. I have no doubt we are sliding into a crisis of which the progressive and rational forces demonstrate every day that they are ill equipped to prevent. The leaders of the Democratic Party and the anti-Trump Republicans are placing all their bets on a clear victory in the November election and the coming together of the instruments of society to support it. It is becoming obvious that on election night the results will not be clear and the Anti-Trumpites and the Biden campaign promise little more than a few squads of attorneys to contest the resulting confusion in courts stacked with judges unsympathetic to them. There will be no rising of the military to right things. There will only be police and armed thugs running amok in the streets putting down those few who place their bodies on the line in protest.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow I will feel better about things.

 

(If you are not paralyzed by depression like me and want to do something about the election please look up this site: https://www.balloon-juice.com/list-of-things-we-can-do/.) 

 

On Sunday, for some unknown reason, I felt very good so I drove up to EDH to spend a few hours with Hayden. While there, Natalie mentioned that she was planning to return to Thailand for an operation on her broken nose. Because of the restrictions imposed on travel as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, this will require her to spend two weeks in isolation in Thailand before she can begin treatment. I promised to spend more time looking after HRM. H and I then drove to Town center in order to put the Mitsubishi in for servicing. We enjoyed a pizza for lunch while we waited for the servicing of the car to finish. He is doing well but seems a bit unhappy that the unending quarantine limits his recreational options. In other words, life is less fun than he would like. 

 

Along with a lot of the nation, Naida and I caught the presidential debate last night. I suspect most of those who saw it were as appalled as we were. It was an embarrassment and painful to watch. That was not a president on that stage. It was not an adult. It was an unruly child. I do not think I will watch the future debates unless they make some changes. I did like some of Biden’s comments, especially:

 

“I’m not here to call him a liar. Everyone already knows he’s a liar.” 

 

Drove into the Golden Hills to visit HRM. He seems to be doing as well as can be hoped. Due to the epidemic and social-distancing, he is losing his fifteenth year. I guess that is ok. If I remember correctly, my own fifteenth year was eminently forgettable.

 

I used to measure my life in years, now I measure it in months. It does not much change what I do, only its meaning. Tomorrow is just another dream and yesterday  a smokey wraith. Today, however, is mine alone. Our lives are made up of short stories.  They are not novels. When one story ends another begins — until we reach the night that never ends.

 

Well, today Trump was diagnosed with COVID and was transferred to Walter Reed for treatment. It is difficult for me to show any sympathy for him. That makes me feel a little guilty. But, unfortunately, it is what it is.

 

For several years now, Barrie has been sending me postcards with fascinating pictures on the front and interesting tidbits about her life and times on the back. I have kept them all and now have a wonderful collection of several hundred. The photograph below contains a few of them:

 

My sister Maryann and her husband George arrived from Mendocino to spend a night with us before proceeding into the Sierras for few day in order to celebrate their anniversary at the old Sorenson resort. I gave her and George their combination birthday, anniversary, and Christmas present — an original painting by our Australian cousin Alexandra Leti of the garages in our ancestral home, Roccantica in Sabina Italy.

 

The following morning, before Maryann and George set off for the Sierras we had a pleasant breakfast of raisin bagels with lox and cream cheese along with Starbuck’s cafe latte.

It is October now. Perhaps autumn will begin soon. It is warm still and the air gauzed with smoke from the fires. It difficult to tell but lately when I go out or late at night, I feel a clammy heaviness in the air, a subtle chill when the sun is gone that slips through my skin and muscle like a fish knife. I am never cold, that comes later in the year. I am only uncomfortable as though an unwelcome premonition is scratching at my skin. My bag of tomorrows used to be full and although heavy on my back, I was young enough to bear them easily. Now that bag is almost empty but it feels heavier than it ever has been.

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Mopey’s Memories: POOKIE’S ADVENTURES DURING THE BURNING OF CALIFORNIA AND THE GREAT PANDEMIC OF 2020 WHILE MARCHING TOWARD THE ELECTION. (September 5, 2020)

“The universe doesn’t much care if you tread on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies. Gods might note the fall of a sparrow but they don’t make any effort to catch them.”

                  Pratchett, Terry. The Globe: The Science of Discworld II: A Novel . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 

 

 

  

Today Naida approached near hysteria after spending four hours attempting to send photographs of a cyst on her back to her doctor through the Kaiser computer messaging system. Early on I snuck upstairs to take a nap. Later, after downing three glasses of port wine a much relaxed Naida came upstairs to give a blow by blow description her epic battle with the cybernetic demons.

 

Today, was the day He Who Is Not My President was scheduled to give his acceptance speech for his nomination by the now virtually non-existent Republican Party. The acceptance speech is to be given illegally at the people’s house, the White House. The White House exterior and the nearby grounds are tarted up with political signage and other detritus of political campaign. We turned away from the telecast after hearing from obviously suborned or otherwise compromised speakers about how much the person claiming to be president loves people of color and sports stars. We turned to show about the coming zombie apocalypse on the History Channel.

 

I had my own cybernetic crisis that day. A document containing my notes of quotes, poems and other irrelevancies that I use to pepper T&T with cute ephemera had disappeared. I had maintained this document for over two years now and them removing items I had used and replacing them with new. I spent a frustrating hour or two begging the machine to cough up the missing document. Finally, just as I had given up, it magically re-appeared.

 

We turned away from the Zombie program and returned to MSNBC to catch the Mango Monster’s taking possession of the People’s House as though it was something given to him by his adoring followers for his remarkable ability to turn truth into lies and to defile anything he touches. After watching the commentators tally up his lies, we went upstairs to sleep. All and all it was not the best of our days.

 

That night while lying in each others arms we discussed the fear and despair of those over seventy years of age who are forced to deal with this rapidly changing cybernetic world. 

 

Two days have elapsed. I assume nothing bad had happened during those last two days. I seem in good health and I woke up this evening after my afternoon nap with the dog asleep on the bed next to me. He was not barking. That was a good thing too. 

 

I began reading James Lee Burke’s The Glasswork Rainbow a Robeacheux/Purcel novel that I had not yet read. It begins, as usual in his novels, with a long lush paragraph containing images of that part of the deep south that makes it appear to be heaven on earth, someplace where you want to lay down your burdens and spend your life sipping daiquiris under some magnolia tree. In most of the rest of the book, however, he demonstrates that that little bit or paradise is not much more than a pit of murder, mayhem, and mendacity. Nevertheless, I love those opening paragraphs. 

 

 

THE ROOM I had rented in an old part of Natchez seemed more reflective of New Orleans than a river town in Mississippi. The ventilated storm shutters were slatted with a pink glow, as soft and filtered and cool in color as the spring sunrise can be in the Garden District, the courtyard outside touched with mist off the river, the pastel walls deep in shadow and stained with lichen above the flower beds, the brick walkways smelling of damp stone and the wild spearmint that grew in green clusters between the bricks. I could see the shadows of banana trees moving on the window screens, the humidity condensing and threading along the fronds like veins in living tissue. I could hear a ship’s horn blowing somewhere out on the river, a long hooting sound that was absorbed and muted inside the mist, thwarting its own purpose. A wood-bladed fan revolved slowly above my bed, the incandescence of the lightbulbs attached to it reduced to a dim yellow smudge inside frosted-glass shades that were fluted to resemble flowers. The wood floor and the garish wallpaper and the rain spots on the ceiling belonged to another era, one that was outside of time and unheedful of the demands of commerce. Perhaps as a reminder of that fact, the only clock in the room was a round windup mechanism that possessed neither a glass cover nor hands on its face.

Burke, James Lee. The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (p. 1). Simon & Schuster. 

 

The earth rounded upon itself a few times until it was Monday. The air quality outdoors remained intolerable for those of our age so Naida and I spent them indoors as much as we could hoping the air-conditioning would moderate the impact of the smoke filled air. 

The Doleful Sun Over The Enchanted Forest.

In the morning I got the sad news of the death of an old and dear friend of mine in Sicily. Marco, my friends son, had text me with the news that Luigi (or Gigi as everyone called him) Gallo had died the prior evening of complications of Parkinson’s disease.

 

I first met Gigi the day I arrived at my families home in Canicatti Sicily after an almost 2000 mile drive from London England with my two and one half year old son. I have written about that memorable trip in other posts. Gigi and I were the same age and became close friends although he spoke no English and I only rudimentary Italian at the time. During the six months I lived in Canicatti, I saw Gigi almost every day. And when I moved to Rome for the next three years, I would often travel back to Sicily or he would come to Rome for visits. Even after I returned to the United States and settled in San Francisco, I would try to return to Italy and Sicily often. There were many interesting and amusing stories that emerged from our friendship, some of which I also wrote about in prior posts.

 

Eventually Gigi became a fairly well known race car driver in Italy winning an apartment full of trophies. It was very popular in Italy and Sicily to race mostly production automobiles up and down mountainous roads in the countryside. At this he excelled, and after him his son Marco did also.

 

I visited him and his wife twice in recent years. Once with my sister Maryann and her husband George and later with my son Jason who got to see the little car we travelled with across Europe so many years ago. It still exists, newly restored in Gigi’s garage along with several of the automobiles in which he raced over the years. Poor Gigi at the time of our visits was fully suffering the effects of his disease. I miss you greatly my dear friend.

 

Gigi and I in the vineyard. 1969

Gigi with the restored Trojan that I had driven from London to Sicily.

Gigi with some of his racing trophies. 2015.

Jason with Gigi and his wife. 2016.

In the garage with the automobiles.

Naida had a cyst removed from her back. After a day or two of pain and discomfort, she appeared better. The air cleared up a bit by Wednesday so I went for swim. It was delightful.

 

Often, here in T&T, I switch back and forth between the past and the present as though they are one and the same. I have come to believe they are and should not be considered separate entities.  As we appear today with all our psychological and physical scars and whatever of our memories that remain makes up the song of our lives.

 

This morning, I woke up thinking about Marcel Proust. You know, the man who spent most of his adult life lying in bed and writing an exceedingly long book about his also exceedingly boring life during — at least that part of it he was not spending all his time in bed. It is considered a masterpiece of literature because, apparently, it is a marvel of style in in his native language. I do not read in French, so I would not know about that. Anyway, Proust has always been one of my favorite celebrities for his masterful ability to become famous while lying in bed. Winston  Churchill was also noted for doing his best work while lying in bed and sipping brandy. He would get up now and then to make a speech and smoke a cigar. Anyway, every now and then Proust would hire some street boys to stand at the foot of his bed and masturbate. Now, when we are bored and lying in bed, we watch television reruns of old video series or more likely YouTube snippets on our smart-phone.

 

The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up it to grab my smart phone off my nightstand and move through my favorite sites in a strict order, mail, news, coronavirus statistics, 49rs Webzone, messages, Facebook, and Instagram.  I did this, this morning, even before hugging Naida and petting the dog, both of whom share the bed with me. In fact most of the bed is owned by the dog. Naida and I share a sliver on one side.

By the way, the dog tucks himself in at night.

On Thursday, I left for The Big Endive by the Bay for my infusion. The traffic down was not too bad. While most of my appointment was as usual, I did learn that I had  lost 12 pounds in the last two months. At that rate of weight loss, I probably will disappear from view even before I die. After the appointment, I visited with Peter and Barrie and played ain’t it awful about the current political system.  The drive home was awful. It took over three and a half hours to drive 90 miles.

 

The following afternoon, I took Naida to the emergency room. She had had pains in her arm and chest, confusion and nausea. She has had these symptoms on and off for months now, but today’s episode was the most serious. A bit over three years ago, she had a heart operation in which they replaced a valve. She also has a partially blocked carotid artery so we have to be attentive to anything that may appear to be a problem again. I returned home to await the results of the medical examinations and tests.

I walked the dog during the heat of early evening. We passed the pool where I happily swim most mornings in order to sign up for this weeks slots pursuant to the city’s social distancing guidelines. There was no sign up sheet, only a small sign that said the pool was closed because some people violated the city’s guidelines by holding pool parties instead of limiting use of the pool to no more than two people. This is turning out to be a very bad day.

 

The hospital eventually admitted Naida to spend the night. I returned to the hospital and brought her some things she wanted. She was hooked up to an EKG machine for the night. I stayed for a while. The hospital, Kaiser, was chaotic and understaffed. Naida appeared to be feeling much better than when I had left her at the emergency room. She was not so confused and laughed and joked with me. She suggested that it might have been the pressure of the writing process and the trepidation of remembering things that she would prefer to forget that may have been the source of her current physical problems. She thought that perhaps she should no longer work on it. 

 

After my visit I returned home. Wandered about the house a bit. Cooked dinner. Read a little of my current novel. Watched Rachel Maddow wax eloquently on Trump’s insults to the men and women in the military. Eventually, I went to bed. It is the first time in a long while Naida and I did not fall asleep in each others arms. I was lonely. Even the dog seemed to recognize something was wrong. He slunk into his dog bed rather then take his accustomed place on ours. Sleep was fitful, full of shadows and dreams of mortality, sorrow and vulnerability.

 

“Age is an insatiable thief. It steals the pleasures of your youth, then locks you inside your own body with your desires still glowing. Worse, it makes you dependent upon people who are a half century younger than you. Don’t let anyone tell you that it brings you peace, either, because that’s the biggest lie of all.”

Burke, James Lee. The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (p. 124). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. 

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Today’s Poem: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll by Bob Dylan.

 

The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
            By Bob Dylan

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll,
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’,
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station,
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder.

But you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all
fears,
Take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for
your tears.

William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years,
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him,
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland,
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders,
And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was
snarling,
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking.

But you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all
fears,
Take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for
your tears.

Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen.
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage,
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table,
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table,
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level,
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room,
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle.
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger.

But you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all
fears,
Take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for
your tears.

In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel,
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the
level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and
persuaded,
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ’em,
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom,
Stared at the person who killed for no reason,
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’.
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished,

And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance,
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence.

Oh, but you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all
fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face, for now’s the time for your
tears.

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES DURING THE SIXTH MONTH OF SELF-QUARANTINE:

 

“Like all old men, I nurse the illusion that if I can remember enough of the past and imagine enough of the future, I will never reach the end of my life, or if I do, it will take forever to get there.”

Hartman, Bruce. The Philosophical Detective (p. 30). Swallow Tail Press.

Alas, as my memories fade and become confused with the stories I may have told about them, I become as frightened by the death of what I was as I am with the end of my life. On the other hand, and there always is another hand even if you have two already, today sprung bright and warm from a surprisingly pleasant night. After a delightful swim, my usual breakfast and seeing to the dog’s comfort. I set off into the Golden Hills to visit HRM.

It was a fun visit. HRM was excited about his yard work business. He says he enjoys it, being out in the sun, building walls, clearing weeds, planting gardens and above all the money he is making. We had lunch by the TownCenter Lake walked around a bit, shopped in Nugget and talked about things of little import.

On Thursday morning, I skipped my scheduled swim in order to watch the John Lewis memorial on television. I was struck that among the notables giving speeches, Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, a woman, seemed to be the only one whose talk appeared remarkably free of rhetorical flourishes. Then, of course, there was that magnificent address by James Lawson (He was an associate of MLK and taught nonviolent revolution to Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, and John Lewis) who demonstrated the true stirring of the human heart that can be generated by genuine classical oratory. And then there was the music. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Church used music as an essential complement to ritual. Then, alas, there was the reaction that for almost 500 years replaced the magnificent music with simple chants. In the nineteenth century the black churches, in the South primarily, took these simple tunes and returned magnificent music to religious ceremony. At one point I turned to Naida and said, “ You know, I find it amazing that I am sitting here watching a funeral service in a church and find it as interesting and enjoyable as a great movie. It’s a spectacle with soul.”

In my previous T&T post, I included a photograph of me wearing sunglasses and dressed in a white bathrobe. There were several comments on the photograph. So far I have been accused of looking like Meyer Lansky, Santo Trafficante, Lucky Luciano and Vincent “The Chin” Gigante. I must be doing something right. Nevertheless, I always thought I looked a bit like Frank Costello — then again, maybe not.

 

 

Frank Costello

Me — Pookie

A few days later, while we were watching MSNBC, Naida turned to be and said, “You know, you look just like an aged Rachel Maddow.”

Recently, I do not know whether I am ill, exhausted, or depressed. Even Naida who always seems to approach the world with uncanny optimism seems down. After five months of social-distancing, who would not suffer bouts of seemingly terminal ennui?

I slept through the ringing of my alarm clock and missed my scheduled time for using the pool. I also napped away most of the afternoon. Should I be happy or worried?

Last night, we spent much of the evening with Sarah, Naida’s daughter and her husband, Mark, at their house a short distance off Watt Avenue. Mark is a supervisor of nurses at a Sacramento hospital, he has just returned from a two week fishing trip through Idaho and Montana. They loaded us up with a large shopping bag of produce that Mark and Sarah grew in their backyard some of which we ate this evening.

It has been almost a week since I last have written here. I wonder if it is because I have become so sedentary I no longer do much or so decrepit I no longer remember if I do. As I sit here typing this, Naida is playing the piano going through some old song books used by her mother and grandmother, both accomplished pianists and singers. Some of the song books are about 100 years old. After playing a mournful rendition of Old Man River, she told me it was her father’s favorite song. He was an excellent singer and when family and friends would gather at their home in the wilds of Idaho he would sing the song accompanied by Naida’s mother on the piano. She then showed me where her mother taped the edges of the song book pages so that while playing she could rapidly flip them without tearing them. Later we went back to the studio where I played with my computer and Naida continued to work on her memoir.

 

Pookie at rest

Naida at work

Another hiatus in posting here.

I have put off swimming tor two days telling myself that it has been too cold and returned to reading vociferously the most trashy novels I can tolerate. Are these symptoms of stir-craziness?

One evening, Naida and I, with the dog in tow, drove to a local frozen-yogurt place where we downed a cups of flavored yogurt. I buried mine under a healthy amount of hot fudge. The trip made us very happy — even Boo-boo the Barking Dog seemed delighted. Such small pleasures loom large in the constant struggle to maintain our mental health during this year of social distancing.

You know, being called old is something to be proud of. It means nothing has managed to kill you yet. On the other hand, when you creak while you walk, your plumbing’s amiss, and your skin begins to looks like a cross between a dried out pickle and a year-old prune, it is not much of a complement either.

A few days later… I went swimming this morning. For some reason, I felt like I did not want to swim, but I did anyway. Walking back I felt slightly dizzy and things appeared a bit dark. I got home and after a brief session in the massage chair, I went back to bed and slept until about four PM. After a late lunch, I returned to bed until about seven. I cannot point to any pains or specific physical upsets that might justify my fatigue. Perhaps, it is merely a symptom of age — unexplained bouts of exhaustion.

Hayden mentioned that he was taking the autistic boy at his school bowling on Sunday. The boy likes bowling and enjoys Hayden’s company. HRM often befriends other children like the autistic boy. Sometimes, I feel that almost all the members of the scooter gang are attracted to him in order to avoid being considered outcasts. I often wonder about that. Empathy can be a wonderful thing, but also a heavy burden. Well, his ego-centric years are coming up. They usually cure one of undo sensitivity.

This morning, Sunday I believe, we slipped out of the house and drove to Mel’s for a breakfast of overcooked bacon, blueberry pancakes and eggs. While we were waiting to be served Naida and I discussed poetry, namely Naida’s observation that Longfellow’s A Skeleton In Armor and Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner both use the device of an odd narrator telling the story to a somewhat unwilling listener. Naida can recite the Skeleton in Armor by heart and used to recite the Ancient Mariner by heart also but cannot remember it all now, so, I turned my iPhone to a youtube recitation of the poem. This all may sound odd and a bit fancy-dancy, but after six-months of social distancing there is no longer a limit to the depths to which we will plunge for entertainment. Besides, those poems are perfect for these desperate times. We have killed the albatross and forgotten those of our deeds worthy of the sagas.

“I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man’s curse;
For this I sought thee.”
          A Skeleton in Armor

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.”
          The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

On Monday, after my swim, I drove the Mitsubishi into the Golden Hills to visit Hayden. Although there are some similarities between El Dorado Hills and Campus Commons (e.g., socio-economic) there is one difference that stands out to me. When I lived in EDH I noticed that I rarely saw people on the streets. In the Enchanted Forest, however, whenever I walk around there I see people, some walking their dogs, some disappearing around a corner on the paths and others just strolling along. Every now and then, I see couples holding hands while they walk — In four years, I never saw anyone in EDH holding hands. Anyway, Hayden and I had a pleasant lunch.

The view from the front of our home in the enchanted forest.

Today after my swim, I took a long nap. When I woke up learned that Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his running mate and sat through several hours of various pundits on television and in print media tell me why I should like or not like his choice.

 

A FLOWER TO BRIGHTEN UP THE DAY:

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TODAY’S QUOTE: Leonard Melfi.

“We’ll keep a crystal vase near our pink and blue pillows, and after we wish and then after we kiss, we’ll lower our faces to the very brim, the very delicate edge of the crystal vase, and then we’ll let the syrup flow from our eyes into the gentle crystal vase. And every Christmas and every Easter and every other holiday known to man, we’ll feed the syrup to our seventeen children, and they will remain children forever. Their imaginations will be in full bloom forever…and they will never die. Everything will be forever…”
-Leonard Melfi from TIMES SQUARE.

Melfi, the well known off-Broadway playwright, an old friend who I last saw in the mid-sixties when we got very drunk in a friends apartment in Greenwich Village and believed in our boozy stupor that we had solved a notorious mass murder of the time only to discover a few years later we were utterly wrong. He died alone in 2002 at Mount Sinai Hospital of congestive heart failure due in part to his alcoholism. His body was misplaced and discovered four months later in a potter’s grave in Queens. His brother had him exhumed, flown to his home town of Binghamton NY, and following a funeral service and Catholic mass buried in his family plot. He would have appreciated the melodrama. Alas, nothing is forever.

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FINALLY, AN ANSWER TO WHATEVER HAPPENED TO “ONE PUNCH” SAMMY SANTORO.

About two years ago, here in T&T and in my blog Papa Joe’s Tales (https://papajoesfables.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/what-ever-became-of-one-punch-sammy-santoro/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true), I wondered what had become of old “One Punch” the terror of my neighborhood during my adventures as a teenager. I was convinced that Sammy (along with Pat Buchanan an acquaintance of my college years) would undoubtedly end up in the electric chair. A year or so ago, a reader of the blog notified me that Sammy, in fact, ended up in prison. “Where else would he be?” he added waggishly. This past week, another reader sent me the following:

“SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, SECOND DEPARTMENT 1979.NY.41511 <http://www.versuslaw.com&gt;; 414 N.Y.S.2d 583; 68 A.D.2d 939 March 26, 1979, THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, RESPONDENT,v.SAMUEL SANTORO, APPELLANT Damiani, J. P., O’Connor, Lazer and Gulotta, JJ., concur.”

“Damiani, J. P., O’Connor, Lazer and Gulotta, JJ., concur.
Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Westchester County, rendered April 19, 1978, convicting him of murder under former subdivision 2 of section 125.25 of the Penal Law, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. Judgment affirmed. Defendant was indicted and convicted of the “depraved mind” murder of Anthony Aiello, the three-year-old son of his paramour. The victim’s mother, Sadie Aiello, was the principal witness for the prosecution. She testified that defendant had moved in with her in January 1970, and had taken charge of the feeding and “discipline” of Anthony. The “discipline” included frequent beatings which resulted in serious injuries and the infant’s hospitalization on two occasions. In February 1971 she moved out with her children because of her concern about Anthony’s well-being. However, she returned with the children to live with defendant on March 1, 1971. On March 11th Anthony died after being beaten and strangled by the defendant. Defendant and Sadie Aiello initially told the police that Anthony’s death was caused by his fall down a flight of stairs. Six years later she appeared at the District Attorney’s office and reported the truth about the events of March 11, 1971. In our opinion, the trial court correctly charged the jurors that they were to decide, as a matter of fact, whether Sadie Aiello was an accomplice whose testimony required corroboration (see CPL 60.22). We cannot agree with defendant that Sadie Aiello was an accomplice as a matter of law. Neither her decision to return to live with defendant nor her conduct in concealing from the police the true facts concerning her son’s death constituted participation in the offense charged or an offense based upon the same or some of the same facts or conduct which constitute the offense charged (see CPL 60.22; People v Le Grand, 61 A.D.2d 815). Since the evidence did not conclusively establish that Sadie Aiello was guilty of such an offense by virtue of her conduct on March 11, 1971, the issue of her complicity was properly submitted to the jury (see People v Basch, 36 N.Y.2d 154). We agree with defendant that the court’s charge on the definition of “recklessly” was misleading. However, since no exception to the charge was taken, the question was not preserved. Moreover, the court, in a response to an inquiry from a juror subsequently correctly charged the definition of “recklessly” and thus cured any ambiguity. The trial court properly admitted evidence of defendant’s prior assaults on the victim to negative the defense of “accident” (see People v Henson, 33 N.Y.2d 63). Defendant’s remaining contention is without merit.”

Alas, Sammy escaped the death penalty as it had previously been declared unconstitutional by the NY Court of Appeals. I do not know if he remains in prison or if he is even still alive. Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, unfortunately, remains free.

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When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish.

I enjoy reading a blog called Logarithmic History. Using a logarithmic scale mapped onto the course of one year the blog traces the History of the universe from the Big Bang to the present day. On about Valentine’s Day, the history of the universe had arrived at that point when sexual reproduction on earth begins with eukaryotes. The author of the blog appropriately provides us with a poem for Valentine’s Day, by the biologist Langdon Smith. Martin Gardner has a nice account of the poem, in his book “When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,”

Evolution
By Langdon Smith (1858-1908)

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into life again.

We were amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man’s hand;
We coiled at ease ‘neath the dripping trees
Or trailed through the mud and sand.
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came and the eons fled
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day
And the night of death was passed.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms
In the hush of the moonless nights;
And oh! what beautiful years were there
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch bull
And tusked like the great cave bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o’er the plain
And the moon hung red o’er the river bed
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland lank
And fitted it, head and haft;
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the mammoth came to drink;
Through the brawn and bone I drove the stone
And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west to east to the crimson feast
The clan came tramping in.
O’er joint and gristle and padded hoof
We fought and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl with many a growl
We talked the marvel o’er.

I carved that fight on a reindeer bone
With rude and hairy hand;
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood and the right of might
Ere human laws were drawn,
And the age of sin did not begin
Til our brutal tush was gone.

And that was a million years ago
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here tonight in the mellow light
We sit at Delmonico’s.
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is dark as jet,
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet –

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags;
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones
And deep in the Coralline crags;
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?

God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds
And furnish’d them wings to fly;
He sowed our spawn in the world’s dim dawn,
And I know that it shall not die,
Though cities have sprung above the graves
Where the crook-bone men made war
And the ox-wain creaks o’er the buried caves
Where the mummied mammoths are.

Then as we linger at luncheon here
O’er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.

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