MOPEY JOE’S MEMORIES: POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN EL DORADO HILLS February 28 2013.

When I was about seven years old, our family was quite impoverished. It was a few days before Christmas, and my father was out of work, ostensibly searching for a job. We didn’t have enough money for Christmas dinner or presents for my brother and me. One day, the doorbell rang, and when my mom answered it, a young woman stood there, smiling. She announced that the members of the Parish church had decided that we were the most destitute family in the Parish. She then happily presented us with a large turkey, baskets of food, and presents for my brother and me.

I’ve always harbored resentment towards that woman. I could never forget the overwhelming humiliation I felt due to that small act of charity. Her smiling face often haunts my nightmares.

(“Don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.” – John Dickinson, “1776”)

Here in El Dorado Hills, it’s barely mid-February, and the trees are already beginning to blossom. The crocuses have bloomed, and the recent rains have brought a green hue to the formerly dun-colored hills.

These days, I spend about six hours a day reading. It’s become an addiction, not too different from alcoholism or gambling.

I’ve just finished reading a recent book about my favorite fictional repressed homoerotic couple, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell, in “Light of the World” by James Lee Burke. I wish they would just admit their feelings for each other. It might reduce their reliance on violence, bloodshed, and alcohol.

This book finds our heroes in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, enjoying a vacation on the ranch owned by their friend, a well-known author and environmental radical. They’re joined by Clete’s illegitimate daughter, who was sexually abused as a child and used to be a hitwoman called “Caruso,” operating out of Miami on behalf of the Cuban and Italian mobs. She finally killed her abuser and is now a documentary filmmaker. Dave has brought along his wife, an ex-Maryknoll nun who escaped the death squad massacres of nuns in Nicaragua and married Dave (Come to think of it, the death squads don’t seem much worse than being married to Robicheaux all his wives seem to die violently.). Also accompanying them is Dave’s adopted daughter Alafier, an orphan from El Salvador whom Dave rescued from the wreckage of a plane floating in the Gulf of Mexico. She attended Reed College and Stanford Law School, becoming an author, just like Burke’s real-life daughter of the same name.

In the early 70s, my son Jason and I used to spend a couple of weeks a year in the Bitterroot Valley with some friends. They lived in a small A-frame that stood alone in the middle of the valley, somewhere between Lolo and Hamilton, or perhaps south of Hamilton—I do not remember which. No other structures could be seen, only the valley’s flat grassy bottom with the mountains rising on each side. One winter, the valley floor was covered in snow, and we saw a herd of elk pawing at the snow in the front yard, searching for grass beneath. We watched them for hours, as if we were watching television or staring into an iPhone. Another time, during the spring, we visited a ranch that raised and trained rodeo ponies and spent the afternoon riding them among the spring wildflowers in the hills on the east side of the valley. Once, while hiking in the Bitterroot mountains, I got separated from my friend. He had Jason with him, and I had his two children, who were about the same age as Jason, with me. I am deathly afraid of bears, and my friend had told me that these mountains were filled with Grizzlies. I got lost and began to cry. The children led me by the hand back to the car.

Anyway, our heroes Dave, Clete, and their gang run amok among the mountains and valleys of western Montana in pursuit of a serial killer and an evil petroleum billionaire, leaving many dead and maimed bodies in their wake. As in most of the other books in which he appears, Clete gets romantically involved, and the woman inevitably leaves him.

After reading the sixteen quadrillion books Burke has written in this series, I have grown more fond of Clete. Dave could drop into a hole in the ground for all I care. Clete at least knows he is a screwed-up, violent alcoholic, while Dave is a member of a 12-step program, with all the preachy morality and self-importance that implies. (I liked him better when he was still a drunk.) Dave also hallucinates, which I think is a hangover from his past binges. I suspect even the author has finally recognized Dave’s deficiencies. He has one of the villains of the book, the son of the evil billionaire, say just before his head is blown off by a bullet from a rifle held by his illegitimate half-brother, a crazed ex-con who also has visions:

“We’ve researched every aspect of your life, Mr. Robicheaux. We have your psychiatric records, your pitiful statements about your dependency on your mother, your sexual history in Manila and Yokohama, the possibility of a homoerotic relationship with your friend, your constant complaints about all the injustices in the swamp you grew up in. The fact that you judge others for their mistakes has established new standards in hypocrisy.”

Burke, James Lee. “Light of the World: A Dave Robicheaux Novel” (p. 539). Simon & Schuster.

Pookie says, check it out.

HRM and his team, Mother Lode Rugby (Go you Mothers), played two games in Gridley, a remote town in the middle of ranch and orchard country in the northern Central Valley. They lost both games to different teams by the identical score of 60 to 5. I guess it shows some improvement.

Last week or so, I joined a local health club. So now, I have physical therapy two days a week and exercise at the health club about four days a week. That leaves one day a week free for me to refuse to get out of bed.

NEWS STRAIGHT OR SLIGHTLY BENT:

I have recently been informed by some of my correspondents in Thailand that the nature of the dispute causing the current demonstrations and turmoil in that country has shifted from simple politics to concerns about royal succession. The political issues have always revolved around the conflict between the culture of corruption among the ruling economic and political elite and the alleged corruption within the family of Thaksin the Terrible, the exiled former Prime Minister. Thaksin secured political power, it has been said, in return for programs that helped the country’s poor. It is now claimed by many that the conflict has shifted to the possibility that with the current King’s potential imminent demise, the throne will pass to his son. The son is rumored to be a puppet of Thaksin the Terrible. It is alleged that the Prince received substantial cash payments from the ex-Prime Minister’s family in exchange for his support and that he conspired to assassinate other members of the royal family who were competing for the throne. The leaders of the protest movement now insist that the demonstrations are not about political power but about preserving the monarchy. Why having a king or queen more amenable to their interests is

 

 

 

 

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES: The Promises of May 2023.

“THE PECULIARITY OF entering one’s eighth decade is that questions regarding theology do not sharpen but instead become less significant. Better said, need for proof of the supernatural becomes less imperative.“

                Burke, James Lee. The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (p. 215). Simon & Schuster.

I agree with Burke that after passing 80 theological questions seem less pressing. They are, in fact, replaced by concerns about the existential significance of the various and unusual alterations to our bodily functions and mental acuity. Being old may be better than being dead, but is nowhere as good as a younger body with its short term memory intact.

Since I started swimming again, I feel much better physically and mentally although I am sure the euphoria is temporary. Before this issue of T&T is finished Pookie the morose hypochondriac will arise again.

For the past few days, the weather has been sunny and warm with temperatures in the 90F. Surprising, the heat has not yet become uncomfortable. I notice on my calendar that tonight May 18 at 7PM Jazz by the Pool is scheduled. It is an opportunity for we alters to gather by the Nepenthe Pool, listen to a local band play the songs that were oldies even when we were young, and drink wine until it was time to wobble off home again on our walkers and canes.

Oh no! I had the wrong date for Jazz at the Pool. It is on June 18, not May 18. Alas, I am left with reading another book this evening or watching a movie — or God forbid playing with the dog. Well, I decided to walk the dog first, It was a surprisingly pleasant walk. The dog behaved himself, only a couple of growling and barking competitions with some Chihuahua’s interfered with our walk.

Friday was a nothing day for most of it. Some shopping for compost for the bak yard. Then in the evening it got interesting. It was dinnertime and Naida decided to cook. Naida’s cooking is often an adventure since she insists on creating her own recipes as she goes along. This evening she did something special. She almost burned the house down. I had been reading my most resent Billie Boyd novel* so I had not known what happened until after she called me to dinner. I noticed all the doors and windows were open. When I commented on that she explained that she had placed a plastic tray on the stove then turned on the burner that she thought was under the pan with the food. It was not. The tray burned before she realized it. Nevertheless, everything worked out and the dinner when it was prepared was quite goof.

(*The novel includes Billy’s interactions with Yogi Berra and Agatha Christie, both of whom were in the Dartmouth England area when the tragic events described in the novel occurred)

Later after dinner, Naida sat at the piano and played several pieces by Beethoven from a 19th century music book that she had been given by her grandmother. She was in good form and played the music beautifully. It was a pretty great way to end the day.

Saturday brought the Saturday Morning Coffee along with it. A significant amount of time was spent in a discussion about mosquitos. I do not know why. As usual, I missed the punch lines of the jokes. The weather was sunny and warm and the pollen in the air made spending time outdoors unbearable for me unless I risked overdosing on antihistamines. After we returned home, Naida puttered in the garden as she likes to do, the dog laid quietly in the sun, and I wrote this before going upstairs to take a nap.

After my nap, I had another episode of allergic reaction to my environment so I spent the next few hours semi-comatose while wandering through pieces of historical detritus about Tuckahoe, the town I grew up in, and wondering about the reason for my obsession with someplace in which I spent so little of my life. I can recall bits and pieces of only about ten years that I spent is that little village on the outskirts of NYC that I still refer to as home although I have spent over 70 years living somewhere else— in NYC itself, Yonkers, Yorktown Heights, Cape Cod Washington DC,, Virginia, London, Rome, Sicily, Bangkok, Jomtien Beach, San Francisco, Sacramento and the Golden Hills, and probably a few more places I cannot immediately recall. Yet, I recall with more clarity my time in that little village that I did not even like very much than anywhere else.

I began reading Christopher Paolini’s newest series Fractalverse. Paolini at 15 years of age wrote and published the magnificent fantasy series World of Eragon  which garnered him the Guinness Book of Records title as the youngest author to pen a best selling series. Fractalverse is a more traditional Science Fiction opus which fails, as does most modern SF, simply because during the past twenty years science itself has passed beyond the realm of fiction.

Later, I went swimming. I barely made it to 15 minutes of swimming laps before I was too exhausted to continue. Last year I could do 45 minutes and a few years before an hour to an hour and a half. Age is an annoying bastard.

Speaking of annoying bastards, when I arrived home I checked my Facebook page. I often share things that I come across that I fine amusing, interesting, appealing or which I may generally agree with. I recently passed on a post by Rachel Maddow in which, among other things she stated ”Here’s the thing about rights — they’re not actually to be voted on. That’s why they’re called rights.” I received a comment from someone who over the past few years I have had am ongoing conflict with. I consider him a nitpicking curmudgeon and he considers me a lightweight dilettante. We both are correct. This time he objected to Rachel’s statement because there is no objective morality only situational ethics. “Societies” he maintains, “decide what rights an individual has.” I accused him in my response of  “situational ethics”: and sharing along with Rachel a tendency to over generalize. He responded among other things “We do not have an inborn set of morals.” I answered “Yes, I agree. You and Rachel share the same tendency to over generalize.”  Now the reason I include this here is because it demonstrates how one cannot conceive of a more wasteful expenditure of a person’s time than to engage in a conflict of wills on social media. I should have my fingers cut off if I ever do it again.

I read a book called “Beware of Chicken” by someone with the pen name of Casualfarmer.  It is the author’s first novel. (Casualfarmer. Beware of Chicken: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel. Podium Publishing.) It is one of those light comic fantasy novels that I like so much. I won’t attempt to describe the plot, which could be longer than the book itself, except to note that the chicken is a rooster and the main character is someone from Canada just north of NY who for some reason never explained transported into the body of someone in another universe who had been killed. The universe he had been transported into appears to be a Chinese society that for some reason appears to have been moved into Canada. And, if that is not confusing and irrational enough, it gets more odd from there. Nevertheless, I found that for a first novel the author wrote surprisingly well and the novel became more and more endearing as it went along, almost like Alice in Wonderland.

On Wednesday I traveled into the Golden Hills for lunch with HRM at a Japanese restaurant we enjoy. He graduates from high school on Friday and leaves for about six weeks in Thailand and Japan with his friends Big Jake and Little Jake (Little Jake is actually bigger than Big Jake). Hayden was given the Chief Chef award in his culinary class.

I started on the next Billy Boyle novel. This one revolved around Jack Kennedy and PT 109 in the South Pacific during WWII. The author Benn was not very complimentary of Jack Kennedy. Nevertheless, It reminded me of the time when I was attending The E.A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC. I and several of my classmates volunteered to park cars at an event for then Senator Kennedy and Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. After the ceremony, Bobby Kennedy came over to us to thank us. He impressed me for both his humility and his humanity more than anyone I had ever met before and very few that I have met since.

Thursday May 25th was my daughter Jessica’s 47th birthday. I called her in DC to wish her well. She works for AID and heads the policy group for world-wide microbiological defense and aid. I miss her. It has been too long since I have seen her. Later that evening we listened to Nat King Cole for a few hours before going to bed.

On Friday a miracle occurred — or at least evidence of gross incompetence. Six months ago on our last day in Rome Naida bought me a birthday present. It was a very expensive and beautiful belt from one of the upscale designer shops located along Via Condotti. I loved it and carefully packed it in my luggage for out trip home. When, after first spending a night at a hotel in San Jose, we arrived back in the Enchanted Forest and unpacked our luggage the belt was gone. Panic ensued. We checked with the hotel in San Jose. It had not turned up there.We contacted the Hotel in Rome same result. We searched our bedroom, the closets, under the bed and every other place we could think of, No belt. Since then the cleaners have cleaned and we have also. Still no belt. Today, after my afternoon nap, as I reached down to pick up my socks, I noticed a small black tin canister partially sticking out from under the bed. It was the canister containing that belt. I opened it and there it was, the belt. I ran downstairs to show Naida and for the next hour or two we laughed and giggled. We were convinced it was either a miracle of we once again were playing the Return of the Grossly Stupids.

That evening I set off to Hayden’s graduation ceremony from high school. Graduation for high school is more than a step in educational progression for the students but an end to childhood, The ceremony took place on the HS football football field. The stands were full so I walked to the top from where I planned to watch the ceremony standing up. As I took my place, a man came up to me and said they had an extra seat and asked if I would like to sit down. I assume he had seen this decrepit old man being forces to stand during the ceremony and decided to help him out. I was happy, being that old and decrepit person, to accept his offer. I watched the ceremonies and later joined Hayden and his friends as they celebrated.

On my drive home I thought about life and other things most of which I had forgotten by the time I hade gotten home. But I do recall that most of them were sad. And I guess I will stop here. Tomorrow I will attend Naida’s grandson Charlie’s wedding and my sister and George arrive from Mendocino for a few days and then I will join them in Mendocino for the Film Festival nest week.

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Pookies Adventures in the Enchanted Forest February 2023.

“I treasure such fleeting moments as that, little beacons of pure joy and contentment that last for a few seconds before passing into memory. They’re always worth living and working for.”

                 Hearne, Kevin. Ink & Sigil (p. 305). Random House Publishing Group. 

 

Fleeting moments—this morning, as I sat there, I scrolled through my computer, riffing through some old posts from about eleven or twelve years ago. I stumbled upon something I had forgotten, although it doesn’t matter now what it was. Nevertheless, it sparked some thoughts. This was an event from my past that had slipped my mind and was not a part of my life until this reminder brought it back. Now, it has become a part of me again. Who we are is not solely defined by our journey through time and its shaping influence, but also by the interconnectedness of our awareness and memory. James Lee Burke eloquently expresses this concept in his novel, The Glass Rainbow:

“I have come to learn that memory and presence are inextricably connected and should never be thought of as separate entities”

          (Burke, James Lee. The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel, p. 216. Simon & Schuster).

Keeping a diary, journaling, or engaging in my writing endeavors affirms that we are more than mere physical beings, reacting to the sensory stimuli around us. Instead, our experiences are filtered through the lens of our memories, shaping who we become.

Over the past few days, the weather outside our window has mostly been sunny, with temperatures fluctuating around the high fifties. The camellias have bloomed unusually early this year, appearing a month ahead of schedule.

On Saturday we attended the Saturday Morning Coffee after which they held a training session on how to paint the doors into our houses. I don’t know why it was felt that we needed such training. It was interesting though. I never realized how complex painting a door could be. It was too complex for either of us so we left and returned home. As we stood before our faded doorway, we commiserated with each other that it would not receive the bright (in our case maroon) upgrade during our lifetime.,

On Sunday, while watching a movie about a young figure skating champion who had physical and personality issues, I was reminded of Johnny LaPadula. When I was a child, my parents enrolled me in an accordion school in Yonkers, NY, near Getty Square. This school was renowned for producing accordion champions. The son of the school’s director, a famous child prodigy, had even conducted the NY Philharmonic Orchestra when he was just six years old. After that, I never knew what happened to him. My parents had hoped I would become a great accordionist, as many Italian immigrants aspired for their children. However, I preferred the violin or tap dancing. I took lessons in both, but my parents had to pull me out of the programs due to financial constraints. Unfortunately, I couldn’t practice the violin because we couldn’t afford the instrument. However, I could dance, and whenever I was alone and unseen, I would dance.

Anyway, the star student of the accordion studio was Johnny LaPadula. He was a year or two older than me and received special treatment and praise as a prodigy. This disturbed me because I didn’t want to be like Johnny LaPadula. The only noteworthy moment in my musical career was in 1956 when I played the accordion while freezing on a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. In the same year, Johnny LaPadula represented the United States/AAA at the Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships. Shortly after that, I packed my accordion away and never looked at it again.

On Monday, I drove to the Golden Hills for lunch with Hayden, only to find out that he wouldn’t be out of school until after 2:30. So I ended up having lunch by myself at Bella Bru. I enjoyed a delicious Sicilian pizza and then drove back home to the Enchanted Forest. During the drive, my mind wandered to Quantum Theory, particularly Schrodinger’s cat. I pondered if an atom could exist anywhere in the universe until observed, wouldn’t the opposite also be true? Could it be that wherever we look, we find what we are searching for, and perhaps everything else in the universe as well? Lost in thought, I almost missed my exit, but luckily I glanced up and saw it in time. This made me wonder if the exit didn’t exist until I observed it. And after seeing it, did I also see every exit from every freeway on Earth? Could I have chosen any of the other exits instead of the one I took? Life always presents these kinds of quandaries.

When I finally arrived home, Johnny LaPadula crossed my mind once again. He was a part of my life, then disappeared for almost 70 years, and now he’s back in my thoughts. Is that a good thing? I never liked Johnny LaPadula before, and I certainly don’t like him any better now. If anything, I might even like him less now than I did back then. I really don’t need the memory of Johnny LaPadula in my life, neither now nor ever.

Tuesday was dentist day, and I also accompanied Naida to sort out the issues with her accounts that were disrupted due to her wallet being stolen a few weeks ago. As I sit here and write this, I realize I have nothing to write about, and I’m not even interested in writing. Perhaps I’m feeling depressed or simply exhausted. Whenever I reach this point, I usually look for something written by others that I can quote or borrow to mask the absence of thoughts in my mind. It’s one of the benefits of reading. Through reading, you can fill your own mind’s void with someone else’s thoughts. This also applies to TV and modern forms of communication, although the latter tends to replace the emptiness in your mind with a different kind of emptiness that sometimes sparkles. Anyway, here’s something I often like to read when I need to replace that emptiness:

“I’m wrong: perhaps we aren’t all alone in the end. I don’t have a great talent for friendship, and I can only try to combat death and oblivion with limited resources, but I realize I’m wrong when I look at my Auntie Poldi. Although it doesn’t always help me combat depression and loneliness or the fact that we’re our own worst enemies, it’s comforting. As long as we can join the family for Sunday lunch and argue about the best way to cook parmigiana di melanzane, and as long as we can sit silently in the piazza with a sad friend, and as long as someone invites us to a barbecue or says ‘Glad you’re back’—as long as we’re welcome somewhere, despite all our flaws and weaknesses—there’s still hope.”

               Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Lost Madonna: A Novel (An Auntie Poldi Adventure) (p. 325). HMH Books.

That passage always cheers me up.

On Wednesday, I had lunch with Hayden in the Golden Hills. We went to Nugget in Town Center and enjoyed pizza. During lunch, we discussed his future and shared stories from our past. Afterward, we went to his house, where I played with his cat and checked on the progress of the aquarium he’s building.

Thursday evening was dedicated to watching cooking and travel shows on TV. I also continued reading David Graeber’s book, Debt: The First 5000 Years. I came across an interesting passage:

“Most of our information on the Tiv comes from the mid-century when they were still under British colonial rule. At that time, everyone insisted that a proper marriage should involve an exchange of sisters. One man would give his sister in marriage to another, and in return, that man would marry the sister of his newfound brother-in-law. This was considered the ideal marriage.”

               Graeber, David. Debt (p. 183). Melville House.

It reminded me of the time I visited Sicily in 1968. Many of the traditions there seemed medieval to me. My uncle was busy negotiating the dowry for his son’s marriage. Eventually, he succeeded in arranging the marriages of his son and daughter with the children of another family. It greatly benefited my uncle and his family. Neither child had met their future spouse before the dowry negotiations were concluded, but my cousin Giovanni already knew his future brother-in-law. The brother-in-law’s nickname was Fru Fru. In Sicily, everyone had a nickname. Some of my friends’ nicknames were Gigi, Piccolo Gartano, and Beefsteak.

At the time, Fru Fru was the Director of Agriculture in Sicily, even though he knew nothing about agriculture. One day, Fru Fru, Giovanni, and I drove to Lucky Luciano’s old villa. Surprisingly, there was a café on the villa’s veranda, despite the lack of customers. I couldn’t figure out how it stayed open. I decided it was just one of the many mysteries of Sicily. We ordered Sambucca con Mosca (Sambucca with flies), which is Sambucca with three coffee beans floating in it. We sat at a table under a tree, sipping our Sambucca, while observing the workers crushing the villa’s orchard grapes using wading boots. As part of the dowry negotiation, Giovanni received a position as a deputy director in the Sicilian Department of Agriculture, even though he knew nothing about agriculture either. But on that particular day, in the middle of the week, neither Giovanni nor Fru Fru were at work in the department’s headquarters in Palermo. I never saw either of them go to work.

Friday was the day of my dental appointment, and strangely enough, I was looking forward to it. Anything that breaks the monotony of my old age is something to anticipate. The dentist filled four teeth, and the process was remarkably painless thanks to modern technology. I’ve despised dentists ever since I experienced the horrors of visiting my childhood dentist, known as “Butcher Musante.” I always believed he enjoyed hearing his patients scream.

On Saturday, we attended the morning coffee gathering at the Nepenthe Clubhouse. There was nothing much to report, except for the upcoming meeting on Monday between the city staff, the community, and the developers of the terrible development proposed for the Enchanted Forest. However, we did receive a number of terrible jokes as usual, which we usually share during Coffee. Unfortunately, I couldn’t grasp the punchlines of most of them, except for one told by one of the Spies:

“What do you call an Iranian who works in a wool factory? A Persian sweater.”

For the rest of the day, I spent most of my time on the computer researching the Hellenistic era of Israeli-Palestine, biblical scholarship from that period, and the rise of the Maccabees. Later in the evening, I recited Molly Bloom’s soliloquy to Naida. After that, I walked the dog, returned home, and fed the dog.

During the walk, I had thought of something I wanted to write here, but unfortunately, I forgot what it was. Terry Pratchett had something to say about stories, which was undoubtedly more insightful and erudite than anything I could come up with. So, enjoy his words while I retire to bed:

“What sets humans apart from all other creatures on the planet is not language, mathematics, or science. It’s not religion, art, or politics either. All of those things are mere side effects of the invention of story.”

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

On Monday evening, we attended a meeting with the city staff regarding the proposed development. The meeting was well-attended, with standing room only. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch much of the discussion due to difficulties adjusting my hearing aids and the resulting random noise. Despite being a relatively small development of only 25 units, with localized impacts, it seemed to have more negative consequences than many larger projects I’ve seen. It appeared that the developer intentionally aimed to cause every conceivable negative impact, except perhaps a typhoid epidemic.

 

The proposed projects 25 million dollar homes (twice the value of the other homes in the area) removal of the classic building, complete leveling the site (the existing construction sits on a 10 foot berm similar to that on either side of the property, and removing all the trees. 

Tuesday passed without comment of memory and then it was February. I hate February as much as I hate the holiday season. The sun was shining and the temperature in a spring like 60F. I drove into the Golden Hills and had lunch with HRM. It was great fun. Perhaps that is a good sign for this February.

 

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES DURING THE GREAT PANDEMIC AS THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RAMBLES TO ITS CONCLUSION.

 

 

 

If I were a purveyor of conspiracy theories like Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Russia, and the Committees to re-elect Trump, I could say that Trump created and released the virus in order to decimate the minority groups who oppose him and eventually declare a state of emergency so that he could eliminate the 2020 election and rule by martial law. Of course, I would not do that. Would you? 

 

Given the number of hours Naida and I watch television news about the coming presidential election and the misadventures of our so called Commander in Chief, I, at least, seem less and less able to discern an understandable story as to what is happening except that it is generally bad and the CIC seems to be losing his bid for reelection as well as his mind. People continue to die in droves from COVID and we continue to be shackled to our homes. Perhaps the sun rises and sets over some happy place on our planet, but I have no idea where that may be. 

 

Not having had enough of politics and being addicted to watching television programs glorifying it, Naida and I tuned into the Vice-presidential debate. At the end of it I concluded I could not support the dead man with the fly on his head to be the person a heartbeat away from the presidency.

 

Sometimes I just have to agree with James Lee Burke’s opinion that:

 

If you’re lucky, at a certain age you finally learn not to contend with the world or try to explain that the application of reason has little or nothing to do with the realities that exist just on the other side of one’s fingertips.

Burke, James Lee. The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (p. 218). Simon & Schuster.  

 

Thinking about debates, I wrote a bit of doggerel about the first presidential debate a week or so ago:

 

No President stood upon that stage
nor someone of an adult’s age
but a loathsome and petulant child.
with mouth not pants defiled.

 

Biden then boxed his ear,
and said “I’m not here
to call him a liar.”
“Everyone already knows
he is a liar”.
And with that, I happily close.

 

Tomorrow, I plan to travel into the Golden Hills to visit Hayden. Because he twisted his ankle at the skatepark, was in great pain, and resting at home this will be the first time I will see him in over a week. 

On Friday, he applied for his learners driving permit, a teenagers license into adulthood — or so they think. This lead me to ponder this moment when one gains all the indicia of adulthood, the body, the hormones, the grossly expanded frontal lobe and yes, the learners permit. It is a tough time for them. There is a good chance they will not become what we expected. Their teachers, parents and others with responsibilities for them are usually presented with two questions about this often unexpected stranger — What they would say to the child who evidences behavior they do not approve of (e.g., poor marks, late hours, drugs, anger, sullenness and on and on) and what is it that really makes them upset.

As to the first more often than not we tell them it is because they will be harming themselves or others in some form. As to what makes us upset is the deep feeling that we no longer know what to do with them. They make us uncomfortable, these beings we held in our arms and watched them grow but who now we no longer know and have begun to drift from us forever. Teachers, parents and other caregivers fear they failed. The child can no linger be fixed and so we all look to pass him off to somebody we believe can — the parents to the school, the school to the parents.

Alas, they no longer need to be fixed. The child, now the almost-adult, does not need to be fixed. They just have to be ready for when we stop trying. They rarely are. Were you?

Today we washed the dog. It has been far to long. At first he ran and hid, but when he was finally put into the tub to be lathered and princes he behaved admirably. After the bath we wrapped him in towels and I sat on the sofa holding him while Naida played “How much is that doggie in the window” on the piano.

I picked up Hayden from his house. He was still limping slightly from his scooter accident. We picked up Ethan. He was on crutches. He had stepped on while clearing some brush. We had lunch a Subway’s. The conversation consisted of the usual teenage monosyllabic responses to my questions.  

— Here I erased about one weeks entries —

Anyway, to try to make it all back up from memory:

On Thursday the three of us, Naida, Boo-boo the barking dog and I left the Enchanted Forest and drove to the Big Endive by the Bay for my immunotherapy treatment at UCSH. As we drove out of the garage, Naida began a magnificent tale about her grandmother Hazel Ker Miller. She continued the fascinating story without stop until we arrived at the UCSF parking garage at Mission Bay. Hazel was a fascinating women. Her mother a school teacher from a well to do family in NY as a young women traveled to the Dakotas to teach school. While there she met an Irish Catholic stage coach driver, fell in love and subsequently married much to the chagrin of her family who promptly disowned her and leaving her and her husband to move to Idaho where they raised their family in great poverty in part because the Irishman preferred singing and drinking to working. Their daughter Hazel, a great beauty and accomplished pianist fell in love with the oldest of two sons of the largest landowner in the area but eventually due to a lovers quarrel of some sort separated from him and married the second son much to her regret as the second son was far less accomplished and would inherit much poorer land that the first son. Nevertheless, she persisted, ran the business while her husband was off in the mountains with his sheep and cattle raised a family and ignored the rumors of romantic liaisons that followed her. Hr daughter Alice, Naida’s mother, also an accomplished pianist, singer and actress fell in love with a boy who Hazel had hired to teach at the local school attended by her children. After three children were born to the couple that marriage failed and Hazel, Alice and the three children left the hardscrabble life, bitter winters and embittered families of the Mormon dominated Montana-Idaho area for pleasant weather and more easy-going lifestyle of Carmel California.

My hospital visit went as well as can be expected. The doctor said I will be  coming to the end of my treatment in April and things had gone better than expected and he fully believes at theist the specific tumor they had been treating what no more than dead tissue. Good for me.

After leaving the hospital precincts we left for Peter and Barrie’s house for a Birthday dinner. Barrie’s again prepared a wonderful and tasty dinner washed down with prosecco and a fine bottle of Brunello di Montalcino wine. All in all, it was everything one would want for a dinner good wine, good food, good conversation and good friends.

We then left to spend the night at the Mark Hopkins where we enjoyed the view, slept well and lazed around in bed the next morning. 

 

The View From My Window

Later in the day, we enjoyed a birthday lunch at the Fog City Diner with my son Jason, his wife Hiromi and my grandchildren, Amanda and Anthony. Amanda enjoyed her first raw oysters while Anthony and I gorged ourselves on them.

 

Amanda and Papa Joe

Amanda enjoys her first raw oyster with Anthony and Papa Joe at Fog City Diner.

Anthony, Papa Joe, Amanda, Jason, and Naida

After lunch we drove back to the Enchanted Forest. One the way, Naida tool a story about Vardis Fisher the famous (at least at one time) Idaho novelist. He grew up in the little town that Naida had lived in and knew her great grandfather as well as her grandfather. Fisher’s father the town ner’do well worked for her great grandfather. Fisher’s first novel and perhaps his best was entitled “Toilers of the Hills” was about he great grandfather who “clubbed the desert and made it grow.” Fisher, before beginning a novel her would write an Elizabethan Sonnet about the characters in the novel. He wrote the following about Robert Miller

 

Time built a pioneer and set him down

Upon the greyest wast of Idaho

He clubbed the desert and made it grow

In broad and undulating fields of brown

He laid his might upon it, stripped its frown

Of drouth and thistles; till by sweat and blow

He left the aged and barren hills aglow

With color — and its flame was his renown

 

Few loved him, many feared, and some would smirk

Derisively and call his mind untaught;

Of foul speech, and unclean fro head to feet,

Who poured his great dream into golden wheat;

Until his gnarled and calloused hands had wrought

A deep quiet holiness of work.

 

In her memoir, Daughter of the West, Naida remembered her great grandfather’s hands and wrote:

 

“Throughout my life I would see such hands — hands used as bludgeons and prying tools on farms back when men engaged in the “deep and quiet holiness of work.”

 

Later in his life after publishing his book Mountain Man that was made into the movie Jeremiah Johnson by Sidney Pollack, Fisher was soundly criticized for writing in the book about the mountain man considering a storm like a performance of Beethoven because it was believed that they were ignorant and uncultured. Naida, however, told the story related to her by Hazel about the night she had her piano loaded onto the back of a wagon and driven deep into the Idaho mountains where she played Beethoven and Chopin to the sheepherders at their yearly get together (The Eastern Idaho Sheepmen Convention). They, the sheepherders, sat on bales of hay and listened to the music until it drifted off into the darkening skies over the mountains. Could Fisher have been there that night? Naida thinks so.

 

Hayden called and asked for a ride for him and his friends to the go-kart track so, on Sunday, I drove into the golden hills to pick them up. When I arrived I found that one of his friends who had gotten his driver’s license and had an automobile with him. Most of the Scooter Gang piled into that care leaving just HRM and Kaleb to ride with me. When we arrived at the raceway we found that they would have to wait several hours before karts would become available so Haden suggested I drive on home and he and Kaleb will return in the friends car after the races. I mark this day as the one where H the teenager has finally severed his social dependence on the adults that cared for him. Now, and for the next five years or so, his social life will be defined by access to his and friends automobiles. Financial independence takes a bit longer.

 

This morning Naida was feeling especially good, singing and dancing around the house. I asked her what was it that made her feel this was. I feel better about myself and I owe it all to a song — Little Red Riding-hood. Here are the lyrics. If they made her happy maybe they will make you happy.

 

Owoooooooo!

Who’s that I see walkin’ in these woods?

Why, it’s Little Red Riding HoodGo-

Hey there Little Red Riding Hood

You sure are looking good

You’re everything a big bad wolf could want

Listen to me

Little Red Riding Hood

I don’t think little big girls should

Go walking in these spooky old woods alone

 

Owoooooooo!

What big eyes you have

The kind of eyes that drive wolves mad

So just to see that you don’t get chased

I think I ought to walk with you for a ways

What full lips you have

They’re sure to lure someone bad

So until you get to grandma’s place

I think you ought to walk with me and be safe

I’m gonna keep my sheep suit on

Until I’m sure that you’ve been shown

That I can be trusted walking with you alone

 

Owoooooooo!

Little Red Riding Hood

I’d like to hold you if I could

But you might think I’m a big bad wolf so I won’t

 

Owoooooooo!

What a big heart I have

The better to love you with

Little Red Riding Hood

Even bad wolves can be good

I’ll try to be satisfied just to walk close by your side

Maybe you’ll see things my way before we get to grandma’s place

Little Red Riding Hood

You sure are looking good

You’re everything that a big bad wolf could want

Owooooooo I mean baaaaaa!

Baaa?

Baa

 

Now, to tell you the truth although I enjoyed the music, the lyrics didn’t do all that much for me.

 

So, days have gone by, things have happened. There was another presidential debate. The weather has gotten cooler. I have driven into the Golden Hills and spent the day with Hayden. We ate lunch at McDonalds. The dog still barks. Naida and I spend a lot of quiet time together and at other times sing and dance with each other. Now and then we sit and watch the telly or I read or write while she plays the piano or works on her memoir. A lot has happened and little has happened. I have read a lot of books. I am reading two right now one is “The Girl Who Could Move S**t With Her Mind,” and the other, “Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick.”  I usually read about Dick punching Zoey during the day, especially while eating lunch and I read about the shit moving girl before I go to bed. Their stories are a lot alike. I often get them confused in my mind and have Zoey moving shit and the other girl punching someone’s dick. It’s always something.

 

But, tomorrow is another day and I think this is enough for today. Take care and remember to:

 

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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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Pookies Adventures Continue in the Enchanted Forest and the Big Endive by the Bay.

A. POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST:

These are gloomy days. Moody skies cover the Enchanted Forest as the winter storms pass over the Great Valley. Threatening they may look, but they leave behind only a ceaseless cold drizzle and little silver droplets on the branches of the trees — the only bright spot in the muted and silent landscape. I assume the storms reserve their wrath for the mountains depositing layers of new snow to the delight of skiers and those who fret about reservoir levels.

My mood is bleak also. There are three daggers aimed at me now. My cancer of course, but also an enhanced threat of infection and a shut down of my ability to pee threatening irreparable damage to my kidneys.

Naida had a bad cold. We walk around the house with masks on, wash our hands constantly and I try to avoid touching places she has touched as though…well, as though a dread disease lurks there — which of course it does. As Rosanna Rosannadanna says, “It’s always something.” And, at my age, that is probably truer than ever.

My daughter Jessica is in San Francisco, thanks in part to the government shutdown and to attend a funeral she is hesitant to talk about. I am very excited to see her. It has been a long time, perhaps two years, maybe more.

(Note: As I type this, I am also watching a movie about Giant carnivorous rabbits attacking a town in the western US. This has got to be the nadir of my existence.)

During the past few days, a lot of the usual annoyances of life sped by — towing my car and the rush to get it out of the pound, confusing discussions with pharmacists and medical professionals, and so on. Naida remains sick, Trump remains not my president, life continues as it usually does until it doesn’t, and I find myself unusually bored. But, tomorrow is another day (Scarlett O’Hara).

On Sunday, my daughter Jessica arrived. She drove up from San Francisco to see me. Seeing her after almost three years made me very happy. It has been too long. She looks well. She’s recovering from a series of concussions she experienced playing soccer over the years. The concussion injury to her brain caused several perception and other problems. We talked about our various maladies and other things. He Who is Not My President’s governmental shutdown has had one good result, my daughter, furloughed by the shutdown, was able to return to California and visit with me.

It is now Tuesday night. What I wanted to write here since that time has passed on from when I thought it important or at least depressed enough to think so. It appears another of my medicines had caused an allergic reaction that resulted in me wanting to simply give up. It has passed.

I don’t often give up. Not giving up has always been important to me. In the almost incessant fights I found myself in during my youth, I would not give up no matter how badly I was beaten. And, I was beaten most of the time.

During my years as a trial lawyer, I asked only to be assigned cases no one in the office would touch because they believed those cases were losers. I still managed to amass the third longest string of consecutive victories at the beginning of a career in the history of New York (while also losing my marriage because of my obsession).

I refused to be daunted by opposition from the medical profession and my own colleagues in setting up NY’s Mental Health Information Service that reformed NY’s mental health hospital system from the horror it inflicted on my mom and innumerable others. It became the model for the nation. That agency still exists today.

There was no option for me other than the approval of California’s Coastal Program as it was expected to be, and the successful establishment and financing of the innovative California Coastal Conservancy no matter the cost to me (another marriage) and to those that worked for me. That occupied 13 years of my life.

The same can be said for the law firm on whose management committee I served and obsessively fought against often unanimous opposition to alter the economic and social mores of the firm for the benefit of the workers, women attorney’s and the firm as a whole by, among other things, demonstrating that the health and profitability of the firm did not depend solely upon the efforts of those with the largest books of business who inevitably end up plundering the firm for their own benefit. The health of a firm depended as much upon the lowliest of paralegals and junior partners and that balanced practice groups are necessary in order to weather the effects of the various business cycles and that those groups adversely affected by a business cycle should not be punished by those groups benefiting from the cycle (e.g., bankruptcy and real estate often operate on opposing cycles).

As a member and later Chairman of California’s High Speed Rail Commission during a period when it appeared to be foundering, I put it back on track so to speak, by pushing through its EIR, changing its tendency for locating its stations at the edges of the cities to bringing them downtown where they would revitalize the communities, developing the concept of the HS network as a backbone transportation system for California whereby multiple regional transportation systems could connect to the downtown stations and service the entire region; and finally fighting against the rapacious efforts of the four of five large engineering firms who sought to control the process for their own benefit and who, I believe, can be blamed for much of the criticism HSR has been subject to since I was removed by Governor Schwarzenegger over the issue.

On the other hand, when I lost (most often a marriage), I usually ran away and started again and again somewhere else. From New York to Pennsylvania, to Rome Italy, to back to the US, to San Francisco, to Thailand, to The Golden Hills and now to the Enchanted Forest. In each place, often penniless, I licked my wounds, struggled with despair, indulged in excess and dreamed of renewal, a new life somehow somewhere, and ultimately I moved on. There was, however, even during these times always something I could not give up on, first Jason, then Jessica and now HRM. I may not always have been successful in their view, but I tried and they kept me more alive and happy than I am sure they believe I have benefitted them. But no more now, they are grown (perhaps not HRM) and despair now is reserved for those times when the pains and discomfort of my various maladies become too much and instead of not giving up, I sometimes long for the peace of oblivion.

Talk about depressing things, the HAC just towed our automobile again. I left them a nasty message and threatened to sue them.

B. UPDATE ON THE MYSTERIOUS ORB.

For those interested in the odd adventures of the Mysterious Orb, it has moved slightly from when it emerged from the bush behind which it had been hiding to show Nikki the way to our house. It has now rolled on a short way and appears to be intending to hide behind another bush to await for whatever the orb waits for next.

It moved from its hiding place behind the smaller bush on the right where it had hidden for a few weeks to the center of the space where Nikki saw it. The Orb has since then moved on toward the bush on the left. Whether it will choose to hide behind that bush or proceed on up the alleyway, I can only guess. I await the next episode in the adventures of the Odd and Mysterious Orb.

The Mysterious Orb —Photograph Taken From Our Garage.

Today about four days after the above was written, the Orb made its decision and is now well hidden behind the bush on the left.

A few days later, during an early morning walk, I passed by the alley where the Odd Orb was hiding. I noticed one of the Turkey Gangs pecking around that part of the alley near where the Orb was hiding. It got me thinking. Do you suppose it is the Turkey Gangs that are moving the Orb around? The birds are big enough to do so. If so, why? Another mystery.

C. OFF TO THE BIG ENDIVE ON THE BAY.

First, we bailed the car out of impoundment. I grumbled and plotted revenge on those I believed targeted me specifically. On the drive home in response to my complaints, Naida said, “I guess we know now that there is a wicked witch in the Enchanted Forest.”

Then we spent some time on our computers doing last minute things. Finally, we and the dog set off to the Big Endive on the Bay. We arrived at Peter’s house in late afternoon. My daughter arrived soon after. We had a pleasant evening reminiscing. Jessica planned to leave on Friday to go back to Washington DC. I will be sad to see her go I do not know when I will see her again.

The next day I met with my doctor and received the first glimmer of good news in at least the past three months. He said that cancer had shrunk enough to bring the possibility of an operation to remove it before the board of surgeons. They then efficiently scheduled all tests and my infusion to occur the remainder of the day.

That night we had dinner at a local Italian Restaurant that I used to enjoy when I lived in that neighborhood years ago. It used to cost about $10 for the same meal I enjoyed that night. Now, that same meal cost me $70. Nothing had changed but the wealth of those that now live in the neighborhood.

Later, Hiromi and my granddaughter Amanda arrived at Peter’s house for a visit.

D. BACK TO THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

We returned to the Enchanted Forest on Friday. On Saturday I drove into the Golden Hills to drive the Scooter Gang around. While we were driving HRM turned to me with a big smile on his face and said, “Pookie, I have a girlfriend.” How does one respond to that? I settled on, “Good for you” and high-fived him. Now I worry.

Among the books I have read so far this month was James Lee Burke’s most recent Robicheaux and Purcell saga. The boys are getting old — and they know it. They still, however, act like adolescents while Burke places in their minds the sorrows and sadness of aging heroes approaching their end. Although, the novel takes place by Bayou Teche in Louisiana and Monument Valley Arizona, the epilogue has Dave, Clete and Dave’s adopted daughter Alifair recovering from their efforts and injuries in a motel in Bodega Bay California and traveling up and down Highway One for entertainment.

Alas, I just got word that Lucia’s bar in Sacile, a place I always considered the happiest place on earth, is no more. It has succumbed to the downsizing of the nearby American military base and the Italian economy’s multi-year depression. Lucia is now working as a barista in one of the other cafes in the town. This is all so sad.

I am losing my hair as a result of the chemo. Great gobs of hair flitter down from my head often falling into my food as I eat, making it even more unappetizing than usual. It all amuses me. If it continues I will become the first person in my direct ancestry to go bald in at least five generations. My head looks like it is covered with down.

hemothera

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Musings on the Blackfoot River, Fly Fishing and Hiawatha:

The Blackfoot River flows a few miles east of the Bitterroot Valley in Western Montana.

It is difficult to describe what the Blackfoot is like, because many of its natural qualities seem to have theological overtones. Maybe that’s why the Indians considered it a holy place. After the spring runoff, the water is blue-green and swift and cold and running in long riffles through boulders that stay half-submerged year round. The canyons are steep-sided and topped with fir and ponderosa and larch trees that turn gold in the fall. If you listen carefully, you notice the rocks under the stream knocking against one another and making a murmuring sound, as though talking to themselves or us. The boulders along the banks are huge and often baked white and sometimes printed with the scales of hellgrammites. Many of the boulders are flat-topped and are wonderful to walk out on so you can fly-cast and create a wide-looping figure eight over your head and not hang your fly in the trees. Wild roses grow along the banks, as well as bushes and leafy vines that turn orange and scarlet and apricot and plum in the autumn. When the wind comes up the canyon, leaves and pine needles balloon into the air, as though the entirety of the environment is in reality a single organism that creates its own rebirth and obeys its own rules and takes no heed of man’s presence. The greatest oddity on the river is the quality of light. It doesn’t come from above. There is a mossy green-gold glow that seems to emanate from the table rocks that plate the river bottom, and the trout drifting back and forth in the riffle are backlit by it.”
Burke, James Lee. Light of the World: A Dave Robicheaux Novel (p. 326). Simon & Schuster.

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (1976).

Classical, baroque or romantic, spare or lush style is a preference or a fashion but good writing is good writing.

Fly fishing is a wonderful thing. A friend of mine, Dennis Machida, a determined fisherman, took me fly fishing a few times. He tried to teach me how to do it. I liked it a lot, although I was not a very good student.

There was a comedian I saw once who described a women’s mind as always full and buzzing with thoughts and ideas but a man’s as packed with boxes each containing only a single thought. At the center of all those boxes is one box that for a majority of men was the most important. That box is empty. Many men spend much of their time there.

I always thought fly fishing was something that a lot of men put into that particular box. Imagine standing for eight or so hours in freezing cold water whipping a piece of string back and forth above your head making lazy S’s in the sky.

I think it is interesting that neither of the authors quoted above actually mentions catching fish. It is not the purpose of fly fishing to catch fish. Oh, maybe one or two just to show people you actually went fishing. The purpose of fly fishing is to empty your mind of thought. It is a type or meditation for those who like to be uncomfortable while doing it and are infatuated with gear.

 

More reflections on fly fishing:

I had written the above in a post I send now and then to several of my friends and re-posted at This and that…. It is always flattering when someone responds positively to something I write. The following is from Naida West one of my favorite authors. I consider Naida’s historical trilogy, The California Gold Trilogy, to contain three of the finest historical novels written about America. Unlike others who merely place their story in another era, Naida’s involves mostly actual people taken from diaries and other sources to which she adds missing thoughts, motivations and dialogue and a character or two. Her characters are not kings and queens and the like, but ordinary (and some not so ordinary) people who populated the banks of the Cosumnes River in California more than 100 years ago.

I loved your reflections of fly fishing, such as this: “(Fly fishing) is a type of meditation for those who like to be uncomfortable while doing it and are infatuated with gear.”

Here’s a reflection of my own:

My lawyer father, a delightful actor on life’s stage if one winked at his pursuit of women and booze, grew younger before my eyes as he neared his favorite trout streams. By the time we left the road and bumped violently over bushes and rocky outcroppings seeking a place to stop, he was a wide-eyed child at Barnum and Bailey’s tent door. He bounced out to retrieve his gear while I steeled myself for a day of boredom with the windows up, my only excitement murdering mosquitoes that had snuck in while the door had been open. As the sun edged across the sky I poached in my sweat, recalling the day I explored a riverbank in shorts while he fished. The angry welts all over me, overlapping even under my shirt, just about killed me or so I thought. My dad had scoffed and said I should control the effects with my mind like he did. Umm, no. He admired swamis who barefooted across glowing coals.

Yet for an hour or two, coming and going, I had my dad to myself. At the wheel he recited story-length poems by Longfellow, Gray, Coleridge, and Poe, using theatrical emphasis to convey the meaning of outdated idioms. Between poems he answered questions about the words and phrases, always in an interesting way, repeating the stanzas where they were used. I memorized some of those poems before my mother & grandmother hauled us to CA, and in the 8th grade my teacher had me go from room to room in Carmel High School reciting them to classrooms of older kids. I saw my dad only a handful of times after we left Idaho, though he lived until 1989.”
Naida

 

Hiawatha:

It is great to be reminded that there was a time when people quoted Longfellow, Poe and others instead of relying on street corner argot and advertising slogans to prove their intellectual integration with the greater American culture. For example, I often sprinkle my speech with the word “fuck” in an effort to signify my affinity for the common idiomatic mode of discourse we Americans use to express ourselves.

Speaking of Longfellow, I always felt he got a raw deal from the critics. He was part of a movement that began with Washington Irving and continued until Whitman gave up the ghost in an orgy of pantheistic individualism. They tried to create a new song unique to America out of the diverse traditions of those living or migrating to the continent at the time. True it was mostly wrapped in Yankee sensibilities. Nevertheless, they tried to bundle into a single melody the  of the stories Native American, Knickerbocker, Frontiersman, Acadian, Settler at the edge of the primeval wilderness and even the sad songs of slavery.  One can recognize those songs and stories even where altered to fit nativist sensibilities. I guess they were trying to write a “New World Symphony” decades too early. A violin differs from and oboe in its history, shape and sound, but, in a symphony by Brahms, together they create a song far different from what either could accomplish separately. No one criticizes old Johannes for failing to allow each instrument its own solo. Even Jazz requires the solos to doodle around with the underlying theme. (Come to think of it, Jazz was another attempt to meld the diverse music of several cultures, relying in part on the fundamentals of European folk music, African syncopation and rhythm, and Klezmer instrumentalization.)

Romantic and fuzzy headed, this movement died at mid-century when the two true songs of America emerged, one indescribably evil and malicious. The other almost as bad, lacking a unifying theme other than simple revulsion.

Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha, an attempt to use new interest at the time in Native American culture and legends to create a syncretic myth for the new country, has been soundly criticized. At first, the criticism appeared to emanate from the trolls of that era who focused, in part, upon the poems idealization of a people whom they believed deserved their extinction. Later, because the poem relied on the study of Native American culture by a man who was one of the first to take an interest in their way of life, it was ridiculed because significant portions of that research were in error and more recent studies decades after the poem’s publication came to different conclusions. This is like criticizing the ancient Egyptians for not using reinforced concrete to construct their pyramids.

Did you know that reciting the Song of Hiawatha provides greater psychological and physical benefits than meditation? It’s true, try it. Find a quiet room, darkened but not devoid of light. Make yourself comfortable and slowly, in a hushed voice as deep you can manage, recite the poem making sure you accent it properly.

Longfellow used the trochaic meter instead of the iambic that is more comfortable for Indo-European speakers. It is a more common rhythm in Ural-Altaic languages (in this case Finnish) that Longfellow believed, rightly or wrongly, reflected the natural rhythms of the language of the First Peoples. In any event, for some English speakers, it seems to produce a chthonic throbbing that reverberates in the marrow of their bones like the moan of a cello.

Try it, you’ll like it. Do not begin with that portion of the poem that we learned in grade school but at the beginning with the Introduction. To get you started I include it here:

“Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer.”

Note: Do not try this with Evangeline or any of the Acadian poems. Those rhythms can cause mild stomach upset to the inexperienced.

 

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