POOKIE’S ADVENTURES: ENNUI IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST (JULY, 2022)

 

 

 

“There are no whole stories, only fragments that suit the purpose of the moment.

                Liu, Ken. Speaking Bones (The Dandelion Dynasty Book 4) (p. 934). Gallery / Saga Press. 

 

 

 

Today is Tuesday July 5. After getting up, eating breakfast, checking my emails and messages, washing and brushing my teeth, ingesting my many medications, dressing, and staring at my image in the mirror and wondering who it was staring back at me, it was 1PM. I decided to go for a walk. I’ve been walking a bit more recently than I have been for the previous several months. I attribute my current improvement in well being and attitude to this increase in exercise. Of course, in truth, I have not been feeling better at all and my attitude is as lousy at it has ever been. I have always believed that deluding oneself is the secret of happiness.

 

Anyway, I went down stairs and announced to Naida and Booboo the dog that I was going for a walk. Naida suggested I take the dog. I demurred. Dogs, especially Booboo, are a good way to spoil a walk. To walk alone is the best way to delude yourself. Seeing the bright color of the flowers, hearing the sound of the birds abd the wind rustling the leaves in the trees, observing the odd antics of those you pass as you walk along, allows you to tell yourself you are happy rather than bored and tired.

 

As I stepped out of the house, the first thing I noticed was that the air was delightfully comfortable. It was in the low eighties and felt like I was wrapped in a soft warm blanket on a cold winter’s night. The Myrtle trees were in full bloom and have been so for the past few weeks. Did I mention that there is a species of myrtle in South America named petrillo? Why it is named petrillo, I have no idea. Why anyone would want to name anything petrillo seems bizarre to me. It is not a distinguished name. No kings or nobles, no great artist or scientists, not even notable serial killer have sullied our name (Well that’s not exactly true in the case of serial killers). From time immemorial my ancestors have lived a brutish and violent life on the side of a mountain outside Avellino in Southern Italy. Finally, about 100 years ago a few people left that mountainside, probably driven out. They washed-up on the shores of the new world where as luck would have it one of them managed to produce me.

 

Anyway, I walked past the pool as I often do on my strolls to see if anyone was swimming and to remind myself to do so later. There was one person sunbathing. After that, I thought it would be a good idea to walk to the lakes in the Enchanted Forest. I had not been there in a while and thought I would enjoy it. Also, it was a bit longer than my usual jaunts recently. For sometime now I would take several short walks during the day so today I decided that a longer walk accompanied by my thoughts would be beneficial all around.

 

When I arrived at the lakes, I sat on a bench. It was very pleasant. The fountains were all in operation blowing sparkling water high into the air. Pretty blue dragonflies fluttered about copulating with each other. The water was clear enough to see the fish swimming by and a group of ducks floated by dunking their heads under the water. An elderly woman (probably younger than me) walked by with her dog and asked what the ducks were doing. I said, “I think they are dabbling, although I have no idea what dabbling means in reference to ducks.” She responded “With a b.” “No,” I said, “ with a d. I think I have to go home now and check the definition dabbling.” And so I left her standing there and started back home. I decided to take the long way home through a dark wooded pathway I like. And so I did.

 

From top left clockwise: The lakes; me at the lakes; the copulating butterflies; the fish; the ducks; s view of the lower lake.

The dark path.

When I got home, I ate lunch and took a nap. When I woke up it was 6:30. I decided tomorrow would be a better day to swim,

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. It is my favorite holiday other than my birthday and my onomastica neither of which are actually a holiday but I consider them to be. I like the Fourth of July not because they celebrate American independence or freedom both of which seem to me to be a bit fishy given the actual history of the events in 1776 and thereafter. Anyway, none of the Petrillos were around then. I am sure they did not come here for freedom but for a job. I suspect Labor Day was probably more important to them.

Anyway, what I liked most about July 4th was fireworks — not the sparklers, or the little bits of explosives set off by kids on the day. That was a good way to lose a finger or an eye. No, I liked the big fireworks displays put on by a few Italian immigrant families who travel around the country putting on displays and raking in millions of dollars in the process. After all, isn’t that really what July 4th and freedom is all about— any mean and nasty SOB in America could make a ton of dollars off the backs of those not so mean and nasty and build themselves a large mansion from the upper story of which they could pee on the rest of us.

Recently, here in the Enchanted Forest, I found another reason to like the holiday. I have been attending the holiday celebration here for about four years. Yesterday, Naida and I walked to Setsuko’s house and took her with us to the Nepenthe community green space where they hold most of their outdoor get togethers, watched the children’s parade and met with our neighbors. There were no political demonstrations or displays of false patriotism but just neighbors getting together and enjoying themselves.

Later in the the early evening, we returned to the green for a concert by Val. Val often appears at events in the Enchanted Forest. She is only a bit younger than me but still plays gigs around the Sacramento area. Although she has lost some of the strength in her voice, she has retained her great phrasing, timing and interpretation. She is accompanied by a superb musician who is nothing less than a marvel. 

Later that evening we watched “Great Balls of Fire” the biopic of Jerry Lee Lewis starring Dennis Quaid. It was great fun. After that we watched “Mystery Train” by Jim Jarmusch another great film by Jarmusch.

 

All and all, this has been great (wonderful) two days, despite my smarmy comments about my ancestry and the state of the nation.

 

This morning, Wednesday, Naida and I spent an enjoyable time in bed, until the Booboo the barking dog drove us to distraction and we got up to face the remains of the day..

A few days ago, I republished in Daily Kos a poem by Tzŭ-Yeh the “Sing-Song” Girl of the Jin Dynasty Era that I had posted in a prior T&T. Today, I received the following comment from someone who signs himself “gmoke”:

 

Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)

I remain constant as the Northern Star,,,,

Joni Mitchell

Just before our love got lost you said

“I am as constant as a northern star”

And I said, “Constantly in the darkness

Where’s that at?

If you want me I’ll be in the bar”

 

“If you want me I’ll be in the bar,” words to live by.

 

It is 2PM and I am still here in my PJs screwing around with my computer. I need to get a life. Perhaps the dog is telling me something. Maybe I should start barking early in the morning and spend my day running through the Enchanted Forest smelling peoples butts and eating out of garbage cans. It looks like a good day for it, sunny, about 85F, and a slight breeze. What could go wrong?

 

Well, by about 4PM, I finally ate lunch and set off for the pool. The temperature was about 80F and there was a slight breeze. I swam for 20 minutes or so, sat in the sun awhile and then packed up my things, took a short walk through the Enchanted Forest and returned home.

 

When I got home, I remembered that while I was lying in the sun I had decided that when I got home I would eat dinner and then go upstairs to do something very important but I could not remember what it was. So I ate dinner and convinced myself that if I went upstairs I will remember what it was that was so important for  me to do. So, I went upstairs laid on the bed staring at the ceiling for quite some time trying to remember what was so important. After about two hours, it came to me. I had intended to take a shower before returning downstairs to watch some movies. So I took my shower. By then it was too late for the movie so I went to sleep. Well, that was three paragraphs of nothing.

 

This morning while I was preparing to go go shopping, Naida mentioned something her grandmother told her was responsible for her long life and clear skin — “Noxzema on the outside and aspirin on the inside.” Those were the good old days. Simple times. My grandmother told me her secret for a long life and a clear skin was  attending Sunday mass. Those were the days, Noxzema, aspirin, and Sunday mass. That’s where I went wrong. I rarely used Noxzema, took aspirins, or attended Sunday mass. Damn…

 

Today was Thursday. It was the day when most of those old folks who attend the Saturday Morning Coffee and behave responsibly discussing events and community things while drinking coffee, gather together at a bar somewhere drink alcohol and try to behave as irresponsibly as they can.

 

At a restaurant called Bennett’s located a few blocks from the Enchanted Forest un gruppo di anziani from Nepenthe gathered for Happy Hour. We talked, drank, and ate for two hours or so. No one became slovenly drunk, but most became remarkably talkative, even me. Naida was a bit tipsy. I met a man named John who was friends with Rick Rayburn who used to be director of one of the Regional Coastal Coastal Commissions while I was counsel to the State Commission. He is now a published poet.

Happy Hour With The Over The Hill Gang.

Friday — Hayden returned from his sojourn in Thailand. I set off to my dermatologist appointment. Naida had a furious argument with her iPhone. The dog slept and farted. The sun was shining. Everything seemed pretty good so far. One of the things I have learned in life is that when things all seems good, enjoy it to the fullest but be very very wary. When things are bad you don’t have to be wary. You’re already in the pooper. Just before I left for my appointment, Naida recited Longfellow’s poem A Skeleton In Armor. I do not know why. Anyway here are the first three stanza’s:

 

“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast

Still in rude armor drest,

      Comest to daunt me!

Wrapt not in Eastern balms,

But with thy fleshless palms

Stretched, as if asking alms,

      Why dost thou haunt me?”

 

Then, from those cavernous eyes

Pale flashes seemed to rise,

As when the Northern skies

      Gleam in December;

And, like the water’s flow

Under December’s snow,

Came a dull voice of woe

      From the heart’s chamber.

 

“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.

 

I wondered why she was reciting this particular poem to me. She said it was because she was trying to understand why it was she could recall complicated poems poems like this yet not remember how to use her iPhone. Another one of the mysteries of modern life.

 

At the dermatologist’s I found out that I was probably not going to die within the next week or two from an uncontrolled skin rash. Nevertheless, they loaded me up with additional medicines just to be sure. Aaa…not to be sure I die but to be sure it didn’t. Al least that is what I think they meant. I am sure that they did not was to lose the income.

 

Later I walked to the lakes and saw an interesting phenomena. A ray of light from the setting sun lit up one of the fountains in the lake turning it iridescent.

 

Then it was time for the Saturday Morning Coffee again. Although my hearing aid battery died making hearing the announcements difficult, thankfully there were few of them. After the announcements, I left Naida to her socializing went out to the pool andsat in the shade on one of the reclining chairs to wait for her to finish her social obligations. I promptly fell asleep, waking up at noon.

 

Later in the day, I drove into the Golden Hills to have lunch with HRM. We went to Hop Sing’s a Chinese Restaurant in old Folsom that Naida and I enjoy. It has been around since the Gold Rush. In addition to enjoying the good food, I listened to Hayden recount his fascinating adventures in Thailand. He was especially enamored of his made to order new suit.

 

That night Jason arrived with my granddaughter Athena. We had dinner at a restaurant Naida and I enjoy. Later we sat around the house and talked. Athena and Naida tried on the 140 year old clothing worn by Naida’s great grandmother when she migrated from Scotland to become a school teacher in Utah. 

 

The next morning, they left to play a round of golf and then return to SF. Naida and I returned to our usual daytime activities. She to sit staring at her computer and writing and re-writing the same three or so chapters of volume II of her memoirs while I,  at my lap-top, writing this and passing the time tracking down factoids of interest to no-one but me. At times I read. 

 

Currently, I am reading Denise Minna’s most recent mystery novel. I had found her early novels fascinating and brilliant. I always waited eagerly for her newest ones. Alas, her last two were a disappointment to me. I guess writers have their ups and downs like everyone else. I had finished Christopher Moore’s (Not Christopher G. Moore) novel A Dirty Job. It is about the owner of a thrift shop in North Beach San Francisco who becomes a “Merchant of Death,”   falls in love with a female Buddhist monk  and with the aid of the Emperor Norton and his dogs Bummer and Lazarus saves the world from the demon world. He also has a child from a previous marriage who is protected by two giant “Hounds of Hell.” Oh and among other interesting characters there is a troop of zombie raccoons and squirrels who help him out. I liked it a lot as I do with most of his books.

 

On Monday morning, Naida drove me to the train station where I boarded a train for San Francisco. I had an appointment with the radiologist for CT scans of my throat and chest. That night I planned to spend at Peter and Barrie’s. The train ride was uneventful mostly because I was still sleepy and I nodded off now and then as the train trundled on towards the Bay Area. I got off the train the Emeryville station and rode the bus across the Bay to the Transit Center in San Francisco and walked to the UVSF Radiology Center at the edge of Mission Bay. After the usual boring and humiliating medical procedures, I had lunch nearby at MoMo’s, a restaurant by the Giant’s baseball park, that I last visited about twenty years ago. After lunch, I walked back to Market Street and took the J Church to 24th Street and walked up the hill to Peter and Barrie’s house. I was so exhausted from all the walking (about 5 miles total) I almost immediately went to bed and slept until dinner was ready.

 

We had dinner with Judy Watson Davis who lives across 25th street from Peter and Barrie. We had set up that dinner because over 50 years ago in one of those amazing co-incidences that makes one question the validity of the existence of a simply arbitrary universe Judy and I had worked with the pre-Bernie Madoff, Bernie Cornfield. Bernie, born in Turkey and raised in Queens NY established a mutual fund in Geneva Switzerland, selling mostly to Americans living in Europe. The fund was blacklisted in most of the world, went bankrupt resulting in Bernie being sent to jail in Switzerland but ultimately acquitted. Judy worked for Cornfield in Geneva and at the same time I represented him in Italy as an attorney working in an American law firm with an office in Rome. We had a good time discussing Bernie and his foibles. Judy was also a doyen of San Francisco’s Hippy Renascence in the late 60s and 70s when I arrived in SF from Italy, She was closely associated with Chet Helms and other bright lights of the times.

 

The next day I returned to the Enchanted Forest exhausted and after dinner went almost immediately to sleep. A lit more happened these past few days, much of which I have forgotten. For example on the train ride to and from The Big Endive by the Bay, I seem to recall I had Big Thoughts that I believed essential to be included here. Alas, they apparently were not big enough to remember. So it goes.

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Today’s Poem: A Poem for a Rainy Day.

n keeping with the rainy season here in California, at least this weeks version of it, I searched for an appropriate “rainy” poem. I chose the following poem by Longfellow from among a number of worthy options. It is not among his greatest poems, but I chose it as my personal honor to Longfellow who has been relegated by the academic cognoscenti as a regional poet fit for reading by teenagers. They are wrong. Take his famous poem Hiawatha often chided for its erroneous depiction of Native-American life and legends. Instead of showing that the source material was perhaps the first attempt to chronicle the culture and traditions of the eastern woodland native Americans who had been subject to unprecedented ethnic cleansing before it disappeared from history, it was ridiculed because later research showed it was erroneous. As a result, a magnificent and critical epic poem was relegated to high school curriculum and dismissed as not serious enough. Shame.

‘The Rainy Day’

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
               By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

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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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Mopey’s Memories: A Few December Days 2018

Yesterday, Thursday, was a marvelous day. It began with Naida and me going our separate ways — she to doctors appointments and me into the Golden Hills to walk along the New York trail and through the autumn leaf fall

Fall colors fallen

Later I picked up HRM and his friend Tall Long Haired Jake And
I drove them home, gathered up my mail and my first Christmas present. I then drove back to the Enchanted Forest where Naida and I watched old movies and worked on our separate computers. We later watched a Highwaymen video (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jonny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson). Naida took out her guitar and played along with them. We also sang. I felt like I was back in SF in the early 70s. At one point, we started singing Frankie and Jonny and noticed each of us was singing different verses. We checked online and found as many as ten different versions including one by Burl Ives of surprising bawdiness.

Frankie was a fucky hussy,
That’s what all the pimps said,
And they kept her so damn busy,
She never got out of bed.
But he done her wrong.
God damn his soul.
Frankie she knowed her business,
Frankie went to the front door.
She hung out a sign on the door:
She rang the whorehouse bell.
“Fresh fish cost you a dollar here,
“Stand back you pimps and whores
Fancy fucking cost ten cents more.”
Or I’ll blow you straight to hell.
He was her man.
I’m hunting my man.
He done her wrong.
Who’s doin’ me wrong.”
Frankie went looking for Johnny.
Frankie drew back her kimono,
She hung out a sign on the door:
Pulled out her big forty-four.
“No more fish for sale now,
Rooty-toot-toot, three times she shoot,
Go find you another whore.”
Left him lyin’ on that whorehouse floor.
He was her man.
She shot her man
But he done her wrong.

And, as the evening wore on things got even better.

The weekend rolled around again like time took a holiday. Hey man, I’m damned old now. I want time to move as slow as I walk, Slower even. I’d like to see time bedridden.

Saturday, Naida continued to edit her memoir in silence. Boo-Boo the dog yapped at the leaf-blowers until the noise drove me to contemplate mass murder. Naida seemed to weather it better than me. When it all quieted down, I went back to doing nothing except playing on my computer until midnight.

The days move quicker now even though I spend most of my time doing little more than writing here and watching the news. Today I saw something amazing and amusing. The dust-up in the Oval Office between He Who is Not My President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over funding the border wall. Trump managed to conflate shamefulness with transparency. After Trump bragged at how much he had accomplished with the funds he had last year for border security, Schumer said fine we will give you the same amount this year so that you can continue with your good work (actually he had only spent 6% of the funds appropriated last year). Pelosi simply pointed out to him he did not have the votes — in effect either negotiate with us or sit on it.

Two more days until my treatment begins. My neck pains these last few weeks have gone from non-existent to irritating to aching. I do not think that is a good sign.

Last night while we were taking the dog on his evening stroll through the Enchanted Forest, Naida recited Longfellow’s Ballad, “The Skeleton in Armor.” The following is the first stanza:

SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest,
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?”

An apt poem to recite while walking through a dark forest. It certainly represented a departure from our usual singing of old show tunes as we walk along.

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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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