Siri, What's My Name?

You are
The Rock God
King of the Universe
Master of All You Survey.

You are
The One
The Only
More Than You Know.

You are
Light Itself
The Morning Star
The Evening one, too.

You are
The Spreading Chestnut Tree
The Sparkle in Your Mama's Eye
The Golden Child
The Chosen One.

You are
The Past, Present and Future
Calendars, Clocks and Sundials
Mark Your Time.

You are
Pure Genius
The Second Coming
The Next Big Thing.

You are
All there is
and then some.
All Day
Forever.

You are
Kind, Compassionate
and Forgiving
Generous, Empathetic
and Modest
to a fault.

You are
You.

Plane, Line, Point

Sometimes
I run my hand
flat
open
across the blank page
before I write on it.

The emptiness is a smooth,
cool
infinite Plane.

All surface,
No edge.

My words form a rough,
hot
finite Line.

All edge.
No surface.

These are my two worlds
These are our two universes
existing
side-by-side,
so close
sometimes we think we see
words on paper.

But words are an illusion.
Often enough to obscure
Seldom sufficient for change.

Plane
and
Line
never intersect.

The Do's of Life

The other day I started working on a Do's & Don't's of Life post as a way of keeping track of some of the more basic things I've learned in my fifty plus years of thinking about it.

Alas, so far I haven't got past the Do's.  I don't want this post to languish in draft, so even though this list seems truncated, treat it as a work-in-progress, Dear Reader:

Work - Every day everyone has some work to do.  Even if it's no more than getting up, getting dressed and making your bed.  You don't have to have a job to do your work.

Be Humble - You may be good but you are not the best.  If you think you are the best, that is proof of the contrary.  Everyone can improve.

Act - If it needs doing, do it.  Act on what you know needs doing, not on what you've been told to do.

Show Restraint - Not everything needs to be done or said.  Sometimes the best action is the absence of action.  Know when to be restrained.

Volunteer - Some things we do just because we know it's the right thing to do.  Volunteering is more than helping an old lady across the street, it's an attitude.  There's profit in helping others, but it's not monetary.

Allow - No one will do it your way but you.  If you don't want to do everything, you have to allow others to do things their way.  Allowing others to have opinions counter to yours will allow them to remain your friend and ally.

Forgive - Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone forgives.  If we don't forgive, we can't get past our own mistakes.  Small slights and grave injustices must all be forgiven in time.

Look - Keep your eyes off the ground and on the horizon.  Look at people.  Establish a sense of self awareness that includes others.

Listen - Words take time to process, so it may take a moment to understand what someone is saying.  Listening means doing more than planning what you will say next.

Read - Words are just one small set of signs and symbols we must decode daily in order to cope.  Reading facial expressions and body language is as important as listening to words.

Wait - Some things you must go get; most things you must wait to come to you.  Impatience destroys inspiration and deflects action by preventing it from unfolding in due time.

Be Quiet - Silence is not the same as quiet.  You need not suppress your voice to keep it down.  Important things may still be said while speaking in turn and without raising your voice.

Empathize - You don't have to agree with others to understand that they feel differently about life than you do.  Knowing this, try to feel what others do as a way of measuring and moderating your actions.

Improvise - There is no script to life.  Constant improvisation is required just to keep up.  Making plans is good for the mind, but be prepared to throw them away the very instant action is required.

Smile -  It never hurts to smile.  Sometimes we feel that way, as though smiling is a betrayal of our inner angst and anger, but that is just the angst talking.  In fact, smiling drives the anger from your face and consequently, from your mind.  Others will appreciate it and so will you.

Earworm

It began with an earworm.

See the dark night has come down on us. The world is living in it's dreams.

These words, sung by Gerry Rafferty over a deep and constant bass line and a gauzy Irish pop accordion melody are part of the opening bars to his song, The Ark.  This song had been swimming around in my head for weeks in what was beginning to feel like an endless loop.

Although it probably had actually lasted for only about three or four days, this is an eternity to someone like me who does not listen to music on a regular basis.  It was especially annoying because I had not actually heard the song for several years.

But there it was, boring out the inside of my brain--a horrible contradiction in terms if ever I heard one--every time I walked down the sidewalk or a set of steps, brushed my teeth or performed any sort of activity rhythmic enough to lend itself to a miserable four-bar soundtrack.  Over and over and over again.

Now, if either Reader is not familiar with the phenomenon I am referring to--the earworm--you are fortunate indeed, but I'll wager that the other Reader knows of the curse and may even be so afflicted from time to time.  Would that I could claim to have never experienced it, I am nonetheless grateful that the condition is only intermittent.  I cannot imagine the frustration that some kind of permanent condition--tinnitus--would have on me.  The sheer tenacity of this particular repeating sound loop was rendering me quite anxious to be rid of it.

I have been afflicted by earworms before, of course, and I am only able to call them that because I heard the term on a wonderful radio program called RadioLab, where they discussed the topic in some detail.  In the course of a twenty-minute program, the hosts of the show talked about causes, but since no one really knows the why, they dealt more with how--as in, how to get rid of an earworm.

It comes down to two methods:

1) Listen to the song.  Your brain obviously wants to hear it, so just give in.  Once you listen to it, it will go away.

2) Listen to another song.  Your brain is obviously stuck in a loop, so it needs to be reset.  Once you listen to something else, it will 'record' over the earworm and it will go away.

Way #1 suggests that there is a reason that your brain is stuck on the song.  It's like craving salt when you've been exercising.  It's your body's way of telling you that something is missing.  Something is needed.  Like a song.  Just go ahead and find it and listen to it already!

Way #2 suggests that your brain is just like a tape recorder and that you can just 'wipe out' an earworm by replacing it with another, equally catchy set of notes.  Your brain is just stuck like a car with a slipping clutch trying to get up a hill.  It just needs a little shove to get it started.  So go ahead and whip out the earphones and listen to something already!

Without getting into the philosophical implications of the two methods, I will say that what both have in common is the idea that to get rid of an earworm, one needs to listen to some music.

This poses a problem for me.  I don't listen to music.

Now, that's a pretty radical statement and will require some explanation as well as some qualifications.  First of all, it's not strictly true.  I do actually listen to music.  In some ways, in our time, (not just our culture any more) it is impossible not to listen to music.

Music is everywhere, and I don't just mean all the people with earbuds and earphones in and on their heads all the time.  I mean that even in public places--perhaps even especially--music is ubiquitous.  It is impossible to escape.  In every store and every restaurant and gas station in the world, music is in the  background.

Sometimes the music so loud that it seems like it's actually in the foreground, but I am sure that's just me.  I am particularly sensitive to music, so I am unlike most people, who don't actually hear the music they are 'listening' to.  This is because music is, for them, a sort of background noise, a soundtrack for their lives, if you will.

I am generalizing, of course, but it seems that for the great majority of people, music is almost like a requirement for activity of any kind, physical or mental.  People use their digital music players all the time, when they run, exercise, work and work out.  Many people also listen to music while they work, whether they have an active job, like in a kitchen, or a passive job at a desk.

Why is this?  I think it's a modern problem, one that predates the digital world, but not by much.  In many ways, the rise of the recording industry and proliferation of music forms and styles in the previous century was a prefigurement of the nature and pace of twenty-first century life.

The 'need' for music seems to be tied to the contemporary 'need' for multitasking.  It's another way of saying that work--or working out, as the case may be--is so boring that it requires an other source of stimulus to make the activity pleasurable and perhaps even possible.

I am not one of those people.  My relationship with music, if I may call it that, is stuck in a mode that even predates recorded music.  I simply cannot treat music casually, and this can cause a problem.  My reaction to hearing music is stronger and deeper than it ought to be.  My problem is, I can't help but actually listen to music.

In fact I actually cannot imagine not listening to it.  That is, I find it distracting at the very least, and often disturbing, to hear so-called 'background' music that I cannot listen to.  It almost literally drives me crazy when I can 'hear' music that is so faint that I can only actually hear the bass beat, or so loud that that's all I can hear.  Or it can be so repetitive (Xmas) that I have heard it a million times already, or so just so plain garbled that no one can actually hear it.  Oddly, to me anyway, when 'heard' this way, music ceases to be a source of comfort and actually becomes a source of pain.

Sadly too, even when I take the time to listen to music, it can bring up discomfort and pain in a way that nothing else is capable of doing.  Music, alone of all the arts, is capable of making me cry.

Images can make me smile or laugh, get angry or even feel sad, but they cannot make me cry.  In a movie, for example, the images are moving, but it is the music that brings the water to my eyes.

It's not that I hate to cry, or that I cannot cry.  Perhaps I have some deep psychological reason for wanting to suppress my tears.  Whatever the reason, I have to say that I just do not cry very often.

I did not cry when I heard that Bill died (I did throw up, though) and didn't shed a tear until I saw his body in the funeral home.  I didn't cry when Lynda died, though I admit to shedding a few tears alone in the car out in front of Christopher House when she was so critically ill.  Even then, it wasn't a flood of tears but a welling up, a kind of fullness that cannot be contained and has to escape in a series of gentle heaves and a soft application of hot wet eyes.

I didn't cry when Pierre died, though I felt I needed to.  I recall collapsing on my knees and weeping softly, but it wasn't the world-ending voice-ravaging primal scream like a scene from a movie.  It felt like that though.  The feeling--that moment-- was both obligatory and inescapable, but it was also (thank God) limited in scope and finite in length.

After that moment, it seemed as if my tear ducts had simply dried up.  They have lost their function because there is no need.  Tears are meaningless if there is no emotion to back them up, and I have by now, some three years on, so carefully restrained that emotion that tears seem superfluous.

They are not, of course.  My tears are still there.  My tear ducts still work.  I know this because last week, I listened to some music to rid myself of the earworm, and I cried--really wept--for the first time in many years.

It was after work, and I was headed home much later than usual.  I had stayed late to participate in a little talent show that the students from our program put on every year.  It's a bit of a spoof on Miss America, and as the contestants participate in the various rounds including talent, swimsuit and interviews.  It was a delightful show.  The audience and judges (of which I was one) got a lot of laughs.  The kids are beautiful and funny, talented and especially brave to get up and compete in front of their peers.

After the event, I headed back to my car.  Back came the earworm.  Each step I took reminded me of that song.

See the dark night has come down on us...

I decided to do something about it.

The world is living in its dreams...

I took out my music player and earbuds.

Time to go down to the waterside...

I plugged them into me and started listening.  Way 1.

To find the ship to take us on the way...

I started crying before I got in the car.  I listened to The Ark, but I didn't stop there.  I let the album roll, through Baker Street, and Mattie's Rag and even Midnight Train.  But it was the last song, the saddest song on the album, Whatever's Written in Your Heart, that really got to me.

The wave of grief that hit me was like a tsunami.  It was so large and so dark and so overwhelming that I was lost in an instant, swept up and carried along like the tiny bit of protoplasm in a maelstrom of life and death that I truly am.

I don't really remember the drive home.

The release was too vast for me to take, and my brain was overwhelmed.  Like a character in some Victorian novel, I literally swooned and lost my consciousness and myself.

By the time I got home, my face was wet with tears.  I had been heaving and sobbing like I was a two-year old child, and in many ways, that's where I was.  Thankfully, I found myself at home.  I stumbled inside.  Valery was comforting and helpful.  In her arms I began to find my way back out of the dark.  I must admit, it took several days of virtual climbing to get out of the pit I had inadvertently fallen into, but the fact that I am writing this is an indication of my recovery.

I am thinking perhaps that this incident has finally altered my perception of music.  I am hopeful that this means I can again listen to music without fear of some unseen trap.  I am hopeful that like most folks, I can enjoy music as a means of escape and relaxation.  However and whenever that works, we'll see.

For now, I am grateful for one thing.  That damn earworm is gone.

How Many?

How many heartbeats
between that day
and this?

How many blows
don't leave a trace?

How many footsteps
between that place
and this?

How many marks
won't wash away?

How many breaths
between that clay
and this?

How many points
make up a space?

How many daydreams
between that face
and this?

How many blinks
make up a day?

The Truth About Things

Things are here to break your heart.

It's a simple sentence and a simple truth.  Everything you have will eventually be lost, get broken or be stolen.

I learned this fundamental bit of knowledge many years ago, but it is only recently that I have managed to understand and articulate it.

I suppose I could best begin by asking you, Dear Reader, if you have ever had anything which was not lost, broken or stolen.  Oh, likely as not, you'll say yes, there are some things--usually inherited--that you own which can still be accounted for, things which are still fully functional and in no danger of being stolen.  And, I'd have to admit that you are probably right.

At least for the time being.

But in the longer term, what will become of that thing?  That dining table?  That vase?  The painting?  What about that gold and lapis ring?  The art?  The books?  Are all of these things destined to break and in so doing, break our hearts as well?

Yes.  Yes indeed.  Heartbreak is all things are, and all they ever will be.

Actually, the problem has not to do with the things themselves, but with our sense of ownership of them.  When we attach ourselves to objects by calling them 'ours' and making of them 'possessions' we create an attachment--a bond--to the object.  And therein comes this inevitability: This attachment--no matter how well meaning the 'owner' may be--will eventually be broken.  The result of the broken bond will be pain.

To be sure, this bond may not be broken until after the owner dies, in which case it is safe to argue that the thing is no longer capable of heart-breaking.  But the fact is, even in death, as the attachment is broken, the pain of detachment is still felt.  It may be felt by those who inherit the object, or by those who lament the loss of the owner by lamenting the dispersion of those formerly precious objects, now rendered with less meaning (if not rendered entirely meaningless).  The fact that the owner doesn't feel the heartbreak after death does not diminish it one bit.  The pain of detachment passes with the object.

So, loss is pain.  And the pain is from detachment.  Now, without attachment, we might reason, there would be no pain.  It's a simple dictum for a painless existence.  Do not become attached to anything and you will never feel pain.

But, is that realistic?  Sensible, even?  In the world today, to attempt to live without things is virtually impossible.  Even the homeless have some things that they carry.  These things may not be of any value to the rest of us, but that does not diminish their value to their owners.  Stealing from a homeless person would hurt them as much as a wealthy person.

We have cultivated the illusion in our society that our attachments to our things (and even those of others) is a good thing.  But is it?  It certainly can feel good to own things.  Having a few things gives us some comfort and peace of mind, after all.  A house, clothes and food all come to mind as things which we would not easily give up our attachments to just simply because we know they will, in the end, lead to some disappointment.

Now, I have to I admit to being attached to many, many things.  The truth is, even though I claim to be middle class, in real terms, in historical and even by comparison with the other seven billion inhabitants of this planet, I am a wealthy man.

I have a nice house, food in the refrigerator, clean sheets on a nice big bed.  I have heat and cool and light and two automobiles.  Even though I don't have a lot of things, I definitely have more than I need.  And I certainly wouldn't want to give these things up.  I like my level of comfort, and this means relying on those things.  It means relying on them even as I know that this attachment will eventually lead to some sort of pain.  It's a trade-off that I am willing to make.  A little pain in exchange for a little comfort ain't such a bad deal, after all.  We all do it.

But I would not trade any or all of those things for what really matters in my life: people.  There are a lot of reasons to be happy about who I am and the place that I live, but the truth is, things are not among them.

The loss of a thing, no matter how important and valuable, simply doesn't compare with the loss of a person, which puts the whole matter into some perspective.  I know that it was not until I lost someone suddenly that I finally understood the difference.  After that, the loss of a object--any thing--was so insignificant as to not even register in relative importance.

But if the attachment to objects is certain to lead to the pain of separation, might not the same also be said of human attachments?

No.  Our attachment to people is the exact opposite of our attachment to things.  Our links to people are vital.  I mean this literally, that links to other people are responsible for our health--for our very lives.  Even though some people cannot or will not live socially, the links are still there--felt by others if not themselves.  It's what keeps us alive.

For those of us that recognize and embrace the value of these personal attachments--in spite of the risk of loss and pain--for those of us who desire to live and love and laugh with others, the attachment and the loss are simply the price we pay.  And it's worth it.

What is not worth it is our attachment to things.  We accept the pain of loss and separation from people because we know that the benefits are so great, they completely outweigh the costs.  But things, well with them it is just the opposite.  It's all heartbreak.

I may not know exactly why we are here, but I do know this:  it sure ain't for the things.

Post script: Dear Human Reader, you might enjoy the irony in the fact that the first and only comment to this post was placed there by a thing: a bot/bit of software.  Is a 'bot' a thing?  Might 'Jason's' comment be titled: 'In Defense of Things?'

Why I Work

Why do I work?

For that little red Radio Flyer wagon, the one with the polished wooden rails and shiny black handle.

It was sitting on a shelf above and behind the soda fountain in the Abilene Drug Store in Abilene, Texas.  The year was 1961.  I was five years old and was being treated to a Coke float by my Dad, Bill.

This was a rare treat.  Although mindful of the special treatment I was receiving, as I slurped my drink and used that long spoon to artfully gouge the bobbing blob of ice cream in a glass taller than my head, I kept my eyes glued to that wagon.  At some point, with the verve that is typical of many precocious children (specifically a trait of mine) I decided to test my special status and asked Bill if he would buy it for me.

He was gentle about telling me no.  He explained that the wagon cost money.  In answer to my bold-yet-innocent query, 'So what?' he told me that we--the family--could not afford to buy me--the individual--that wagon.  We didn't have the money.

Now, this may not have been my first explanation of money, but it was the one that has stuck with me ever since.  This first denial of a thing due to lack of money imprinted upon me forever a very important understanding about life.  I realized that having something I really wanted required money. Immediately after this revelation, I was struck with another, even more basic understanding, one that has arguably affected me more deeply and for longer than any other impulse that I can recall (other than sex, but that's another story).

I realized that money came from work.

Now, I am sure that by this time in my life, I'd been told about work.  But the thing is, neither of my parents had a regular job in that respect.  From my earliest memory, they had 'worked' at their own business: the Abilene Bookstore.  The bookstore was actually connected to (and in many ways, a part of) our home, so when Bill and Lynda went to work, it simply meant opening the door to the bookstore, turning on the lights and unlocking the front door.

Thus, my earliest model for work was seeing my parents do the various chores around the store: stocking shelves, organizing books, placing orders and doing a lot of sweeping and dusting.  It never occurred to me that they were doing jobs, or that their activity was in any way related to money.

In fact, I had no practically no inkling that money was related to our lives at all.  To be sure, I knew that money was necessary to get things at the grocery store, thanks to an incident that happened when I was about four:  I took a pack of gum from a shelf in the grocery store without telling anyone.  When it was discovered that I was chewing gum in the backseat of the car, I  was busted.  I had to admit to my crime, return to the store with my mother, pay for the gum and apologize for taking it.  After that searingly embarrassing moment, I knew that money was necessary to get things from a store.

So, although I knew what it was like to want something, it wasn't until I saw that little red wagon that I knew what the lust for money was like.  Seeing that wagon that day--so tantalizingly out of reach (in more ways than one)--ignited a fire in my brain.  I was insistent that I wanted it.  Bill was equally insistent that we simply could not afford to buy it.

He did, however, tell me about a way that I could get that wagon: I could save for it.

Bill explained that by accumulating a little bit of money--like pennies, nickels and dimes--every day, over time, it would add up.  And, if I saved long enough, I would eventually have the money I needed to buy the thing I wanted.

He told me that he would buy me a piggy bank.  He even offered to jump-start my project by donating a roll of pennies to put in the new bank.

We finished our sodas and I reluctantly tore my gaze from the wagon.  We headed over to another part of the store to buy a piggy bank.  The one we settled on was iconic.  It was a hollow amber glass pig with a slot for putting money in and no place for taking the money out.  This meant that once the money was in the bank, I would have to break the pig in order to get the money out.  Bill said that this would help me save, since I wouldn't be tempted to take the money out until the bank was full.

He was right. Although I did manage to extract a few coins from time to time by shaking the bank upside down, the inefficiency of this method of bank-robbing--in addition to the fact that I really wanted that wagon--meant that over time I actually managed to put in more coins in the bank than I took out.

Most of the coins in that glass pig were actually contributed by Bill.  Sometimes he would give me a few pennies from his desktop change dish.  Rarely, he gave me a nickel or a dime.  And, on those super-rare occasions, he would give me a whole quarter.  Being a bright and ambitious kid, I realized, of course, that this was a game, and a potentially easy one at that.  The more coins I could gather in the shortest amount of time, the sooner I'd get my prize.

Seeing how quickly the bank began to fill when that entire roll of pennies was introduced to it in the beginning of the enterprise emboldened me to ask my Dad from time to time for another roll.  At first this request was semi-successful.  Then it it no longer worked.  My shameless begging was treated with a smile and a promise of 'perhaps'.  Soon it grew into an annoyance.  He told me that I couldn't expect him to just give me money.

My parents told me that if I wanted money, I would have make it.  That is, to do something in exchange for it.  I would have to earn it.  To this concept, I was immediately and enthusiastically agreeable.  Why not?  To an ambitious lad like me, the possibilities seemed unlimited.  I immediately offered to do all the things I was already required to do--like making my bed, organizing my laundry, brushing my teeth--in exchange for the new object of my desire: money.

Bill and Lynda quickly put that critical misunderstanding to rest.   Those things, they said (no doubt with a wry smile and a small bit of admiration for my ambition) were off the negotiating table, so to speak.  After all, those chores were my responsibility to the family.  As such those tasks could not be sold for profit.

Undiscouraged, however, I resolved to find other things to do--tasks not already in my contract, so to speak--that were also apparently helpful around the house.  I came up with chores like sweeping the kitchen, helping dust books in the bookstore.  I even helped my parents take inventory in the bookstore every month because I could climb around and count the books on the bottom shelves.

Eventually, I took charge of mowing the lawn (a task I really hated because the mower was so loud and difficult to maneuver) and helping with the annual raking of the Pecan leaves that flooded our backyard every winter (a task I loved because it meant many 'pecan feasts' with my brother on the stone barbeque grill that dominated our backyard).

I helped Lynda hang out the laundry and scrub out the bathtub.  I helped Bill count the money in the cash register change drawer and bring in the books from the second-hand book table that sat in the front yard of the house/bookstore.  For every 'job' I received a few coins.  I promptly put them all in that amber glass piggy bank.

Soon the bank began to fill up.  I reveled in each clink, thinking about the wonderful day when I would finally get my wagon.

Eventually, the bank was jammed with coins.  I had packed in the last possible piece of copper and took it down to Bill to show him that it was time.  He went to the garage and got a hammer.  We took the laden glass bank out to the driveway and placed it on top of an upturned garbage can lid where I smashed it.

It was a glorious feeling, liberating all that money toward the object of my desire.  I wanted to scoop it all up and carry it down the street to the drugstore and get my wagon right there and then.  Bill somehow held me back, and we carefully extracted the coins from the glass without severing an artery.

We took the money inside to the kitchen table, where the coins were sorted, stacked and tallied.  Months of saving were finally measured.  The result was devastating.

Not only was there not enough money in the bank to buy the wagon, but it wasn't even close.  I turned to Bill, who had assured me that this plan would work.  He had even told me--in my many moments of high anxiety about the seemingly small sum of these savings--that when the time came, even if it were not enough, he would help me make up the difference.

Well, when the time came, I learned an important--if difficult--lesson.  It was a double blow, a little about Life and a little about Bill.  He was not able to make good on his promise.   This was in part because the amount in my little glass bank (being made up mostly of pennies and nickels) was so small, but it was also because, despite his good intentions, my father simply didn't have the money to give.

This was a tough lesson to take.  It certainly felt like a betrayal to me, and though I am not proud of my reaction, I know that I internalized it as such.  I don't want to overstate the effect however.  It's not like I never forgave him, but I learned from this experience that promises--even from loving and well meaning people--aren't always kept, often for very good and logical reasons.

The net effect of this lesson was actually positive.  Although my faith in him had been shaken, I continued to worship my Dad and followed him around closely for many years. This dual feeling of love and mistrust that I had for Bill would have a long run, and this incident was an important early indicator of that how our complicated relationship was going to develop.  While had most of our differences when I was at my most difficult--my teens and early twenties--these were mostly resolved by the time of his death in 1981.

Needless to say, I did not get the wagon.  I processed this event mentally and emotionally as a disappointment and an opportunity lost.  Although I may have repressed much of the memory, this event was crucial in ways that are not as obvious as it might seem.  Ultimately, this moment raised in my consciousness an important revelation.  I resolved that I did not have to accept future such losses.  I realized that I could--had to, really--control my own monetary destiny.

Now, with that realization pressing me forward, I came to the next logical step. I needed a regular source of income.  This too seemed almost trivially easy to my six-year old brain.  I simply resolved to be responsible for getting money on my own.  I realized that I didn't need to beg my parents for money, or badger them into inventing jobs for me to do.  I realized that I all I had to do was just go get a job.  Then I could make all the money that I needed for all the things that I wanted.

I'd love to claim that this thunderbolt of a realization occurred on the very day and at the very moment when that little broken amber glass bank failed to fulfill my dreams, but it just ain't so.  This powerful understanding about my character did not come to me anywhere near the disappointing experience with the wagon.  It was actually a couple of years later--when I was eight--that I finally decided to take matters in to my own hands.

I decided to look for work.

Abilene had, at the time, a road not too far from our house that was lined--on both sides--with small businesses: cleaners, used car dealers, pet shops, barber shops and dress stores.  I set out early in the morning and arrived on this street as the shop owners were opening up their stores and getting organized for the day.

The scenario was always the same.  I walked in and introduced myself.  As the adults' eyes and smiles grew ever wider, I explained that I was looking for work.  I told them that I was prepared to do whatever I had to to make some money.

Place after place, time after time, I was presented with gentle smiles, pats on the head and back, and even some genuine encouragement.  But no jobs.  I somehow set my disappointment aside with each rejection and remained undeterred.  I decided that it was just a matter of asking enough people, a matter of making all the rounds.

So I did.  From early morning until late evening that day, I walked up and down the entire length of the strip, going into every single business to ask for a job.  Eventually, I ran out of places to visit and light to see by.  It was getting dark by the time I headed home.

In those days, we children were sent out to play in early morning and were really not expected back home until dusk.  As crazy as that sounds to today's generation of new parents, this is just how it was.  As kids, we really did not suffer from an absence of moment-by-moment attention, nor were we placed in any sort of exceptional risk.  I like to think that had someone tried to kidnap me, they would have found me to be so difficult to handle that they would returned me promptly, as in that O'Henry tale about the Ransom of Red Chief.  My difficult nature aside, kidnapping just wasn't a valid concern for me or my parents.

But coming home after dark certainly was.

Dusk is not dark.  That sounds obvious, but to a mother--even one as tough as Lynda--used to seeing her boy come bounding in starving and bouncing around the kitchen before dinner, dark that evening became a very serious moment.  Lynda experienced what every parent dreads: that moment of panic when your child is missing.

She was standing on the porch as I walked up.  Absent, however, was the pride I expected her to bestow upon me when I told her I'd been out looking for a job.  Instead, I got a serious scolding and was sent to bed without dinner.

Later that evening, I finally saw a glimpse of the pride I'd hoped to see in Lynda's face when she brought me some dinner in my room.  She had calmed down and explained how frightened she'd been.  of course, she made me promise not to go off and do it again.

She needn't have worried.  I got all the realization about the futility of that exercise that I needed from the shopkeepers that day.  I knew that getting a job was not going to be as easy as I once thought; perhaps not even easy at all.  I could tell that it was going to take time, and that making money would take some persistence.

Child labor laws being what they were then, this is when I started selling things door-to-door.

The first thing I sold was TV Guide.  On the back of comic books in my day, there were ads for TV Guide salespeople.  It was something kids could do for money.  They way it worked: they sent me about a dozen Guides, and it was up to me to go door-to-door to sell them.  For each one I sold, I got to keep a few cents.  The ones I didn't sell I could return, but if I didn't sell at least a dozen, they would not keep sending me the product.  For several weeks, I managed to sell my twelve copies and in some weeks I did even better.

Selling door-to-door was very hard work, not just because it meant a lot of walking, but also because it meant taking a lot of abuse from folks who quite frankly had no desire to be solicited, even by an ambitious eight-year-old child.  In six months or so, I saw a lot of strange people and some very strange (and messy) houses, but I never made enough money to make it worth the abuse.

I didn't give up my dream of making my own money, however.  During the years that I was legally still too young to work, I also tried selling Grit (a kids newspaper), Fuller Brush, Amway and even Time Magazine subscriptions.  When we moved to Austin in 1968, I immediately got a paper route, delivering about 50 Austin-Americans on my bike every afternoon after school and with Bill in the car on the early weekend mornings.

Sadly--or perhaps to my eventual benefit--none of these ventures ever actually panned out.  It wasn't until I was semi-legally old enough to work (15) that I got my first paying job, as a typist for a patent attorney with an office on Congress Avenue.  By the time I got that job, it was already part of a long personal history, part of a deep desire to work.

And to think, it all started with that little red wagon.

Billie's Eulogy

We held a wonderful memorial for Billie on Saturday.  More than sixty-five people came, including her sister Mary and her three children, Jane, Peter and Carey.  Valery's sister Alexandra came with her partner, Steve Welch, and, of course, Chris was there with Colleen (who also did the flowers). 

I was honored to give the eulogy as Billie asked me to do many months ago. 

For those who could not be there, here is what I said:

I am here before you today to talk about Billie.

In what must surely be the best model for these kinds of speeches--in terms of both density and brevity, Lincoln famously said that “The world will little note nor long remember” what he had to say.  True though this is of the other speaker’s words that day, Mr. Lincoln’s brevity was neither despairing of the death he had come to acknowledge nor unnecessarily deprecating of the importance of his words on the occasion.

He wasn’t saying that we shouldn’t be here, conducting this ritual; or that we shouldn’t be here, saying these words.  The World doesn’t need to hear these words, the World doesn't need note them nor does the World need to plan to long remember them in order for those words to be valid and truly meaningful.

The World may not care, but we do. The important thing is that we take the time to say these words.  In such rituals as these, words make the meaning of life.

Billie (like Lynda, my other mother) knew that I am a man of too many words, so as I speak, I can hear her calling out from the peanut gallery: “Too many words, Mr. Dubov!  Too many words!”

Billie,  I will do my best to keep it short.

So, what words?  What can I say about Billie that is not hopelessly hyperbolic or morosely solemn?

Well, I could talk about her name.  Her full name was Wilma Gayle ‘Billie’ Houtman Caselli Clark.  Whew, that’s quite a mouthful.  It seems impossibly long until you do a bit of parsing.

How we got from Wilma Gayle to Billie, I am not sure, but I do know this:  if my first name was Wilma I’d change it to Billie.   I can’t say as I blame Billie for doing it.  Of course, it wasn’t her doing at all.  The nickname came from her Dad Neal, who (according to her sister Mary) started calling her “Wild Bill from Vinegar Hill”.  Now, where Vinegar Hill was and why Wild Bill should be from there is still a bit of a mystery to me.   I believe there is an old song which refers to “Dirty Bill from Vinegar Hill...he never had a bath and never will."  Well, though we all knew Billie as a clean sort, this actually refers to Billie’s long-ago tomboy days.

Yes, of the four sisters, it was Billie who was the tomboy.  To those who knew Billie as one of the most beautiful women ever to grace their vision, such humble beginnings may come as a surprise.  But it says volumes about her that when the tomboy look no longer hid the truth, Billie accepted her name, her beauty and used them both  with the skill and grace that came to define her presence in all our lives.

Houtman, of course, was her family name, which is still shared by many others in the small town of Holland Michigan.  Her grandfather was instrumental in establishing part of the town's identity--the Dutch Windmill--and her parents Dorothy and Neal were both active members of the community.  Tulip Time was always an important event in the lives of the family as the children were growing up; the girls often dressed up in traditional Dutch costumes to entertain the crowds that gathered to see the parade along 11th street in Holland.

Caselli was Billie's first married name.  Pierre Caselli was a Frenchman, transplanted to the United States as a young man, where he met Billie while attending Hotel School at Cornell.  She was in art school in Boston and they met at a restaurant where she was a waitress and he was a dishwasher. They moved to and lived for many years in Austin, where he was the manager of the Lakeway Inn, and she was a teacher.  She had three children (Alexandra, Valery and Christopher) with Pierre, who died of cancer at the early age of 49 in Austin.

Clark was Billie's second married name.  After Pierre's death in 1981, Billie and John Clark-- who had known each other for years already--began to see each other socially and eventually married in 1984. Dedicated to his wonderful ‘Bride’, John adopted and was adopted in turn by the Houtman clan, moving up to Holland be a part of their lives and to support Billie in her many artistic endeavors.

But I didn’t come to talk about Billie’s name.
I came to talk about Billie.

I suppose could talk about me, especially because there may be some of you who are wondering just who I am and why Billie asked me to deliver this eulogy.  After all, I am just an out...er, in-law.

I am a late-comer to this story, an outsider in many ways that go beyond the different last names.  But from the moment I rolled her daughter Valery up to where Billie was working (painting a sign on a door in a Westlake Hills strip mall) in a shopping cart and introduced myself, Billie treated me as her one of her own children, with all the love, respect, and no small measure of the high expectations that come with that position.

I was privileged to be loved by Billie, who offered it without condition.  In gaining her love and trust, I also felt pressed to be good.  I felt the need to do well, for her, for her daughter, for her grandchildren, but most of all for myself.  Billie was my ‘other mother’ She inspired me to be a better person and I loved her every bit as dearly as I did Lynda.  I will miss her.

But I didn’t come to talk about me.
I came to talk about Billie.

I could talk about Art (with a capital A), because Billie was an Artist (with a capital A).  More than that, she was a talented and prolific artist.  In a time when that title (“Artist”) is often assumed by individuals who are neither talented nor trained and by many more who have never actually worked at the craft, Billie was, to put it bluntly, a real artist.

Born with a great deal of God-given talent and put into practice by virtue of her own determined efforts, Billie always considered herself to be an Artist.  She never lost sight of her goal.  That means, even as she was raising her family, wiping bottoms, reading, cooking, cleaning house, taxiing kids to music lessons; even while teaching art to grade-schoolers; even while painting dentist’s names on strip mall doors, or running the Message Parlor (her sign-painting studio in Westlake), Billie was true to her passion.  Billie was always true to her Art.

One measure of her passion may be found in the body of work that she left us.  Her prolific watercolors are on many of your walls and a few are here on the tables today.  She created dozens of sculptures, many of which, by virtue of the material and the skill of the artist, will survive long beyond any of our mere accomplishments, however great they may seem to be, for such things as degrees and houses and even poems will all fade away with the steady beat of Time, while Billie’s bronzes and the images cast therein will remain for as many generations as you and I are all together capable of imagining.

But I didn’t come to talk about Art.
I came to talk about Billie.

I really should talk about family, because as important as Art was to Billie, it was not as important to her as her family was.  Billie was from a large, loving family.  She was born in 1933, the daughter of Dorothy and Neal Houtman, the third of six children.  Her sister Mary is here today and will say a few words about her, while sisters Joan and Sally and brothers Don and Ken all send their love and affection to this gathering.   Billie was always been close to her siblings (especially her sisters, two of whom lived nearby in Holland), their spouses, their children, and even their children’s children.

Billie's own three children were a special point of pride for her.  To say that they were close is an understatement of the highest order.  Billie was especially fond of the two grandchildren (Pierre and Madelaine--Valery's children) that she had an opportunity to see grow up while she lived in Austin.

(By the way, Billie's brother Ken created the video slideshow that we’ve been enjoying here today; her son Christopher collected the photos for that and the album on the table; and her daughter Alexandra provided the music.  Alex and her partner Steve Welch have been playing for us ‘live’ thanks.)

As good as her family as been to and for her, it hasn’t always been free from pain and strife.  It was in part because of this pain that because she understood the value of family in a way that most young mothers do not. After her first husband Pierre died of cancer at home, Billie had to move into a smaller house and go to work to support her family, which she did without resentment or complaint.  Later in life she and her second husband John moved to Holland to be near enough to care for her mother Dorothy.

John's unconditional love and enthusiastic support allowed Billie to flourish as an artist and to be a close part of her family.   The nearly annual family gathering during the summers in Holland was a treasured time for all us, and Billie in particular.

But I didn’t come to talk about family today.
I came to talk about Billie.

I could talk about friendship, for even though I am merely a part of her family by marriage (I snuck in through the kitchen door, so to speak), I also enjoyed the privilege of being her friend.  Many of the people here today counted Billie as a good friend.  You know that the kindness, caring and loyalty of a good friend is a rare treasure, and you know that Billie was all of those and more to many wonderful people.  Somehow, she kept up with all our lives, our children, our projects, our trips and most of all, our plans, hopes and dreams.

When you spoke with her, she would remember all those details about your life that you thought no one remembered but you.  When she did, you realized (more than once, I hope) how grateful you were for such a good friend.  We were all warmed by her charisma and nurtured by her kind thoughts and comments.  The Purples (to which my mother Lynda also belonged) was an especially important group of Billie’s friends, and they are well represented here, thank you.

But I didn’t come to talk about friendship today.
I came to talk about Billie.

I could talk about teaching, because Billie was a teacher.  And while she would have, in her typical self deprecating fashion, have discounted her abilities as a teacher, she was in fact a terrific teacher.  The importance of teachers--good teachers, like Billie--in our lives simply cannot be overstated.

What made Billie such a good teacher?  Billie made us all believe that we could be creative.  'You can’t draw a straight line?  Ok, let’s do circles.  Can’t match colors?  Ok, let’s try the color wheel.'  How to hold a brush?  What color to put down first?  How to make a mold?  A casting?  Paint an Easter egg?  All these things and more I learned from Billie.  What about you?

While she definitely took up teaching to support her family during lean times in Pierre’s career, Billie still brought her passion for Art to the classroom.  She taught her students Art because that’s what her hands knew best.  She taught many different individuals, in many different settings, from classrooms to kitchens, from pre-schoolers to seniors.

But while many learned much from Billie,  the subject was only nominally about Art.

Billie actually taught her students about Life, because that’s what her heart knew best.  If you were ever lucky enough to be in one of Billie’s art classes, or had her show you how to draw, or if you ever had her gently guide your hand with a brush or over some clay in her studio, you learned a lot more than how to make a pinch pot or a paint watercolor still life.  You learned to love Art, but thanks to Billie's guidance, you came to appreciate what lay beneath: Life itself.

Billie was a teacher, of Art, and of Life.

But I didn’t come to talk about teaching today.
I came to talk about Billie.

I considered talking about God, for Billie was a faithful servant of the Good Lord, in His many manifestations and many subtle glories.  Billie was grateful to God for more than her existence, though.  She was grateful for the world itself, for the place that defined that her being and for the people with whom she shared this place.  She often made note of the small things that most people, in a hurry at best and inattentive at worst--would walk past, overlook or simply miss.  To God, she was as grateful for the World as she was free of malice for the cancer that claimed her life.

As gracious as she was with God about the illness that took her from us, I am not.  I am tempted to rail at Him for taking Billie from us so soon.  But Billie would remind me of my manners.  She would tell me that it wasn’t God taking her from us but a disease, so if there’s any railing to be done, there are better targets than Him.

Besides, I didn’t come to talk about God.
I came to talk about Billie.

Hoo boy, I could talk about Death today.  After all is there a better time and place than a eulogy?  Probably not.  Death wasn’t something Billie ignored or pretended wasn’t going to happen.  When she was diagnosed with the Cancer that took her life, she fought with the courage and determination that defined her life.  She was as realistic as the situation required, as hopeful as she dared to be, and as resolute as she could be about facing her end.  Billie faced Death without fear or remorse and with as much dignity as any one of us could hope for.

Indeed, I can only hope that when my time comes, I will face it with the same dignity and dare I say it, style,  as Billie did.  After all, we are all facing the same fate. Quite honestly Billie (the teacher) has shown me how to do it with right, with humor, grace and charm.

But I sure didn’t come to talk about Death today.
I came to talk about Billie.

Well, it seems that in spite of all the things I have not talked about, I have managed to say a word or two about Billie.  Of course, we didn’t come here today to hear my words.  We are gathered here to remember Billie--each of us in our own unique way.

The truth is that we’ll do most of our remembering later.

We’ll remember Billie when we read something in the paper we know she would laugh at, when see a piece of art we want to tell her about, or when we hear some beautiful music that we would love to share with her.  Those moments will be bittersweet, of course.  But despair not.  In those moments, you will know that she is not gone, but that she is here with you.

It’s a fleeting feeling, I know.  But then, what feeling is not?

As we carry on (and we will), some of us will be lucky enough to see Billie live on in the mirror.  Some will see her in the hands, eyes and smiles of her children and grandchildren.  Others will enjoy the privilege of seeing Billie in their hands, hearing her in their thoughts and sharing with others that ready smile she so often graced us with.

Still others (countless others) will never have met her, but will know who she really was as they stand before one of her works.  There, they will feel her presence, resonating within them like Life’s tuning fork.  They too will come to know Billie.

Billie was a person who made each of us--and by extension, this World--better.  By better I mean that Billie brought us--each one of us here today, plus many more not present--to become wiser, kinder and gentler people, simply by her presence in our lives.  This a rare trait, but then, Billie was a rare individual.

So, what can we do for her in return? It’s not a foolish question.  Even though she is gone, there is a lot we can do for her, each of us, from this day forward.

Resolve, if you will, on this day--and every day of your life going forward--to remember Billie often and with love.  Resolve to carry on her legacy by being grateful for your life, passionate in your love, and determined to make a difference in the World.

Raise a glass today (and every day, if you will) to a wonderful person who did all that and more.

Billie, we will remember you!

Blame It

Blame it
on your broken heart
on some missing part
on the fading light
on the clouded sight

Blame it
on an empty space
You won't need but lose the race
To blame your place
on an unfair start.

Blame it
on your broken soul
on that rocky shoal
on the rising tide
on those who won't take your side

Blame it
on a false mark
You won't need but damp the spark
To blame your dark
on a dying coal.

Blame it
on your broken mind
on those thoughts unkind
on the roiling seas
on that strange disease

Blame it
on a sad reprise
You won't need but life despise
To blame your demise
on a grand design.

Billie Houtman Caselli Clark 1933 - 2011

Billie died yesterday.

Billie was Valery's mother, of course, but she was much more than that to me.  Billie was a good friend.  She was also the Other Reader of this little journal, leaving just you, Dear Reader, to carry on here, alas.  As I was to her, I am grateful for your eyes.  I cherish yours even as I shall ever miss hers.

There is no rule that says one has to love or even like one's on-laws, but I sure loved Billie.  It is a happy circumstance for me that I met Billie twenty-eight years ago.  I was privileged during those many years--through moments happy and sad-- to love her as a son and, even better, to know her and like her as a friend.  For her part, she accepted me as both from the first moment that we met, and for that I am grateful.  She loved me as one of her own children and, as a friend, liked me enough to ask me to come see her in her final days.  I did, and it was a privilege, much as it will be to deliver a eulogy for her at the Austin memorial we plan to hold for her in the New Year.

Because she was in agreement with Lynda that I am a man of too many words, I am sure that Billie will expect me to keep my eulogy light, loving and above all, short.  Consequently, I am struggling to find not only the right words, but just the right quantity of them as well.  One strategy I have for crafting this short-but-meaningful bit of prose is to go at it several times, trying different techniques to say the things I don't even really know just yet.

One particular difficulty I have with the task is essentially self-inflicted.  Keeping with the notion that I should not do what I cannot stand to see done, I have concluded that the last thing I should talk about in Billie's eulogy would be myself.  Nonetheless, I have a story about how I met Billie that is worth writing about, even if it isn't worthy of mentioning in the eulogy.   Since this journal is about me, I think it is fair, in this context, to be a little self-indulgent.  Besides that, it does have something to say about Billie after all.

I met Billie delivering her daughter to her in a shopping cart.

Valery and I started dating shortly after Billie started dating John, sometime back in 1983.  Billie and John had known each other long before they became a couple, but by the time I met Valery, John was Billie's boyfriend.  He and I did not meet until after I met Billie, but it was indirectly because of him that I had the opportunity to roll up to her for our first encounter with Valery in a shopping cart.

John's family was in the car business in Dallas, and at the time I met him, he was working for a series of Ford dealers across the state, helping them with recruiting and training.  He was on the road a lot, traveling from dealer to dealer.  Because of his position, he was always finding good used cars that he could buy for a song and use as a road warrior car until it was used up.

Then, he'd sell it to a dealer for the remainder and move on to the next one.  He often had more than one car like this on hand, and sometimes he left them at Billie's house, for her use or for Valery or Chris--both of whom had cars of questionable reliability at best--to use.  The cars were always Ford or its upscale cousin, Mercury.  It was, I believe, a Mercury that Valery had borrowed and that she and I were driving when it gave us the chance to meet Billie for the first time.

In fact, it was Valery who was driving, so at first, I did not notice the plume of white smoke that was trailing us down Bee Cave Road as we headed toward MoPac.  But when we got down just past Westlake drive, the engine began to sputter and the now noticeable smoke turned from an ominous grey to a deadly black.  Before long we coasted to the side of the road right in front of a newly built shopping center on Bee Cave Road.  This being Westlake, it was a strip mall, and we were fortunate enough to coax the ailing Merc into a parking space at the far edge of the parking lot.

For some reason, Valery knew that this was the very place where her mother happened to be working that day, painting a sign on a dentist's door in the mall.  How she knew this, I don't know.  How we came to be at that particular mall on the very morning when Billie was there at work, I do know.

It's called synchronicity, and I've written about it often enough not to have to bore you with an explanation.  It's enough to say here that synchronicity was central to my life prior to this meeting, and that this encounter certainly served to provide further support for my belief.

It's worth mentioning that the reason Billie was at this particular mall, painting on this particular day was because that was what she did for a living.  She had an art studio, which she called the Message Parlour in small house (in which she also lived) on Bee Cave Road.  The name of the studio often led to confusion, especially to the men who would stop to partake of her services only to discover to their surprise and chagrin that those services did not extend to the laying on of hands (so to speak) that was expected.

So it was that Billie happened to be hand lettering a sign on the glass door of one of the outlying spaces in the mall when our dying Mercury delivered us to within meeting distance that day.  The distance, though small by comparison with that which had separated us previously, seemed too great for our impatient youth, so we commandeered an empty shopping cart that had been abandoned in the parking lot, loaded Valery into the basket and rolled off in search of her Mom.  When we roared up, laughing and screaming, Billie was just finishing the job, and looked up incredulously at the sight.

I don't recall much about what we said, but I can recall my first impressions.  First of all, she was nice.  I can recall her wonderful smile and welcoming attitude.  I don't know how much she knew about me, but it was probably nothing.  Valery had had a number of suitors in her day, so it was no surprise to Billie to see her with a new guy, I am sure.  She didn't treat me like that, however.  She was open and kind, curious but not prying.  She treated me with such respect that I was encouraged to think that I could meet with her approval as a mate for her daughter.  Good news for the new guy.

I was also impressed with her beauty.  It is fair to say that her profoundly kind and welcoming nature reinforced and compounded that beauty, but in all honesty, Billie's was the kind of pure and natural physical beauty that could take a man's breath away.  And so it did with me.

This experience was not new to me, though I confess that it had only happened to me with such force only once before, rather recently, when I met Valery for the first time.  You'll recall, Dear Reader, of the day when my life changed forever, but until I met Billie, I did not know of the source of Valery's captivating beauty.  Then, all of a sudden, I was face to face with a vision of Valery thirty years on.  And what a fabulous vision it was.

It's safe to say that had Valery had the same experience seeing my father Bill, she would not have been impressed with what was to come for me, physically.  Suffice it to say that although it wasn't much, I had a bit more hair than I do today.  Though I had some semblance of good looks in those youthful days, I doubt that Valery had any expectation of my getting better looking with age.

Seeing Billie, however, I concluded just the opposite about my future Bride.  I knew that as beautiful as she already was, Valery was going to become more beautiful as she got older.  Honestly, it wasn't until I met Billie that I knew just how much Valery would change for the better.  Valery will, of course, disagree with me on this point.  She is not happy about the effect that time has had on her countenance, but in truth, she is even more beautiful and captivating today than she was as a mere youth.

So on that day, as we rolled up to our first encounter, Billie and me, I was doubly fortunate in that delightful vision.  And so it is that today, even though I have lost one half of that vision, I will take some comfort knowing I'll see Billie every day, in her daughter's hands, her face, and in her smile.

The Digging Spoon

The Digging Spoon

Rummaging through the silverware drawer in our kitchen last week, I came upon something that reaches further back into my childhood than almost any other object that I own, yet it is still in use in our household today.

This is what I used to call The Digging Spoon.

I had what could probably be called a typical small town upbringing, and like most baby-boomers, I was spoiled by peace and prosperity because my parents had a direct recollection of the Great Depression. It was a common refrain (for Lynda anyway): "I had things so tough. I don't ever want things to be like that for you."

For the most part, this was her modus operandi, but it was also not unlike her to offer a simple (and cheaper) solution to her childrens' needs and wants.  For example, instead of new jeans every six months, we got iron-on knee patches to get us through the school year.  Rather than the latest Spider Man lunchbox, I toted my tongue sammiches to school in a (wrinkled) brown paper bag.

And so it was with the Digging Spoon.  What I really wanted was a shiny red Tonka truck.  What I got was the Spoon.

I don't recall the exact circumstances under which the Spoon was first given to me as a toy, but I can recall going up to Lynda on subsequent occasions as she cooked dinner and asking her for my Digging Spoon.  She would look at me and laugh, then go to the drawer and pull it out, presenting it to me as if it were a priceless treasure on loan, all the while reminding me sternly to be sure and bring it back.

You know, that Spoon was actually a fine toy.  I can recall digging some pretty darned good holes with it.  I used to sit just a few feet from the kitchen door, where Lynda could keep an eye on me from the window over the sink, and dig for hours in the dirt at the base of the big old oak tree that dominated the space in our side yard.  In the hours between lunch and supper, many a secret tunnel were formed and filled in that dark dirt in around the roots of that old tree.

Everyone loves to reminisce about their childhood as a simpler, better time, even if those memories are false.  I like to think that (most of) my childhood memories are true, and even if there is some sentimentalism at work here, that my happiness came from the love my parents had for me as well as the limitations placed on our family's material wealth.  The idea that a humble beginning leads to a fulfilling life is a cliche, but there is some truth to the notion that a more complicated life is not necessarily a better one.

In other words, maybe the Digging Spoon was a better beginning for me than the Tonka truck would have been.  It certainly was simpler.  And, while I can't say that having that shiny new red toy truck would have unnecessarily complicated my life at age five, I am actually glad that I got a Digging Spoon instead.

After all, even though I did get a Tonka truck eventually, I no longer have it.  But I still have that spoon.

However 'real' it may or may not have been, I am grateful for the childhood that Lynda and Bill gave me.  I am glad that they shielded me, as best they could, from the complexities of their lives.  I know now, of course, that while I was living the carefree life of an American child growing up in a small town, my parents' lives were actually very complicated.  They had many practical concerns as well as more than a few global fears.  In 1962, they had a business to run, a marriage to keep together, a family to raise, and, thanks to the Cold war, the very real prospect of a nuclear holocaust to worry about.

I had the great pleasure of growing up without having to worry, for the most part, about the concerns--local or global--of my parents.  And, if I were somehow able to suggest to my parents that 1962 was a better, simpler time, I doubt that idea would have any resonance with them.  I think they would have generally disagreed with the notion that back then, things were somehow better, either in our household, or in the world at large.

We would all, however, agree on one thing.  The Digging Spoon was a good toy.

Nice Hat!

Valery, Madelaine and The Nice Hat

When I was in Venice Beach last year visiting relatives in Los Angeles I bought a hat.

It wasn't an especially unusual or remarkable hat.  It was just one of several dozen piled high in one of many little souvenir shops along the boardwalk.  Or so I thought.

That hat has garnered me more attention than any other single article of clothing I've ever worn, including all of the many hats I've worn over the years.  I'm a 'hat guy' if you will.  I've always liked hats.  I have owned more than a few and have worn them all with some pride at one time or another.

But, something about this hat is different.  Just about everyone who has ever seen me in this hat has taken the time to remark on how much they like it.  That's a lot of comments!  They come from friends and co-workers, of course, but also from lots of perfect strangers--like a parking lot attendant or random people on the street.  Just yesterday while out walking, I saw someone staring at me and when I looked back, he smiled and mouthed, across the busy noisy street, "Nice hat"!

"Nice hat"?  Really?  It makes me wonder what it is that prompts them to make that particular comment.  After all, I am used to standing out a bit.  Some people will comment on my wedding ring (unique and simple) ties (always fashionably thin, thank you Mad Men) or my pen (I have many) or even my watch (a $9.99 Academy special), but this hat has taken the prize, so to speak.

At first, I thought it was because so few men wear hats these days.  But that is actually changing.  A lot of men are wearing hats again, though most are young hipsters wearing some small version of the 'old-fashioned' fedora.  Many men wear the plaid version of that old style, but most wear something very similar to the one I have, which is a simple blond straw hat with a black band about an inch wide.  Oh, and mine has some feathers.

You know, I think it's the feathers.  A small spray of colored feathers are stuck in on the right side, one of which happens to lean over in a delicious feminine curve.  The others back it up with a bit of stiffness.  It's not the kind of feathers, though, just the fact that they are there.  No one else has feathers in their hat.

But what is that saying?  Feathers?  What is it about them that prompts even the parking lot attendant to say something?  What makes a total stranger stop in the street and say "Nice hat?"

For a long time I thought people were so startled by the sight of an old guy in a feathered hat that they couldn't help but make a remark.  And "nice hat" is the first thing that comes to mind, even though they were probably thinking "Are you kidding me?  You look ridiculous in that hat!"

That could be true, I guess.  I never assume that folks are thinking anything but the worst about me.  But that's unnecessarily self-deprecating, especially in this case, after getting so many comments about the hat.  I have come to accept the fact that most folks are actually complimenting me.  But for what?

I've thought a lot about it and concluded that it's about a sense of style.  And it's not like I am a particularly stylish guy.  Ask my brother David or my Bride.  In fact, it's just the opposite.  It isn't about me or my style.  It's about style in general, in the world at large.

I think that people are so hungry for the visual appeal of someone dressed with a sense of style that when they see one, they often feel compelled to make a remark.  I think that it's simply a spontaneous reaction--an irrepressible expression of gratitude--for brightening their field of vision.

"Thanks for standing out!" seems to me to be the most literal translation of "Nice hat"!

Well, it's not like I have to work at it.  In fact, where I work, on a college campus, it is actually pretty easy to stand out.  My hat is more than enough to make me visible, especially when compared to a sea of t-shirts, khaki shorts and tennis shoes.

It's come down to this:  The uniform absence of style in the way that most people dress has us all (even those without a sense of style) hungry for some small bit of visual appeal.  Even though we hardly know it, we are all hungry to 'taste' something bright and fresh and flavorful for our eye.

That's the reason for style in the first place.  It sets us apart.  And that, sadly, is also the reason that so few people have a sense of style.  Most people just don't want to be set apart.  Most people just want to blend in, to become a part of the wave and avoid the crest.  Style is turmoil, and to be different is to be in the crest.  It's where the breaking up of 'normal' creates style.  It is a way of expressing the desire to be different.

I am not only not afraid of being different, I seek it out.  So, now when someone I don't know smiles, waves and says, "Nice hat!" I'll remember that they are the ones I do it for.

Talking to Machines

Hello?  Can you hear me?

These days, thanks to a few popular gadgets it has become fashionable to talk to our machines.

Today, it seems that many of the more forward thinking geeks think that we will soon be talking to all of our machines as a matter of course.  Me, I am not so sure.  

Part of my skepticism has to do with the technology, to be sure, but also with the way we expect to interact with the devices themselves.  The problem is not a matter of communication, but one of tone.  

We have unconsciously adopted a manner of speaking to our machines that closely resembles the way that wealthy classes spoke to their servants during the last Gilded Age. That is, they talked at their human subjects, in much the same way that the generation previous to them had talked at their domesticated animals (and slaves), who were--not coincidentally--their source of cheap labor. The good nobles of that fortunate 'golden' era talked at their human herd as if those sentient beings were possessed merely of the rights of the civilized animal classes just below them.  The effect of that talking, however, has long been known to be largely ineffective.

In the case of the 'dumb' animals, this may be a foregone conclusion.  The donkey's obstinance may be obvious to his master but resistance may not so clear in the case of people or machines.  Oh, of course humans were considered capable of absorbing verbal instructions (or admonishments) more easily than a dog or a cow, of course, but although good behavior from such efforts at control can be expected, it is by no means guaranteed. To this end, methods of discipline (both physical and mental) outside of mere speech, have been devised and long employed with some ruthless regularity.

Why?  Well, a good dog, for example, can be expected to figure out just what his master is talking about if it is a simple concept that directly affects the animal and the master has been consistent about beating it only when it is willfully out of compliance. Similarly, a good butler or maid could reasonably be expected to understand the master's wishes even when those wished are incompletely conveyed or altogether absent if they know how they are expected to perform generally. Regular beatings and repeated humiliations have been shown improve the performance of both human and animal classes but that is the subject of another essay on the dark side of Skinnerian discipline.

So why would we want to talk to our machines, anyway? What do we have to tell them? Anything of any importance?  Would we want to tell, say, the television what channel, or show, or team, actor, etc we want to watch? The elevator what floor? The car when to stop? Why?  Really, are buttons so hard to push?   Are handles and knobs really so hard to manipulate?  Do we really prefer talking to moving our hands?  I don't think so.

Imagine a world full of people talking to things. The babble will more than merely double our sound pollution problem. Already we have filled the air of many of our forcibly confined spaces with the sound of people sharing useless bits of information and far too rapidly updating their statuses on cellphones. Do we want to add to that the drone of millions of gadget-holders talking to the devices themselves? 

And do we really want--can we actually stand--to hear the responses? Talk about pollution!  And, all in that babble will be the same pidgin computer speech that can be often modulated but never improved, like some perverse strain of ancient Latin or modern Creole.

Sure, you can give the machine's 'voice' a feminine timbre and cover it with an exotic name but it's still a blow-up doll on a blind date. That's the geek point, really.  Use her and abuse her. She won't complain.  Personally, I think you'd have gotten better service from a cheap whore a hundred years ago than you will from a personal digital assistant on your phone today. Oh well, at least Siri won't give you the clap.

Ultimately, however, it's just pointless.  Speaking, or rather, talking at our machines, will not have the same effect as our forebears speech had upon the previous two lowest classes in American society.  This is because machines cannot be sufficiently beaten nor humiliated into improved responses and reactions the way that live beings can. 

Machines are infinitely indifferent to our desires, whether they be expressed as subtle hints or direct threats. They innocently fail to understand without fear of consequence. They say: Break me. Dash me to the ground. Grind me under your heel. Run me over with your golden carriage.  I don't care. The apathy of the machine is pure and incorruptible because it cannot be made to care about it's creator. 

Unlike Frankenstein, we are in love with our creation but it will never love us back.

Desert

No seed
No ground
No water
Will be broken.

No scene
No sight
No word
Was ever spoken.

No breeze
No breath
No sail
On this ocean.

Knot

If you will not
listen
you shall not
be heard.

If you will not
share
you shall not
be needed.

If you do not
seek
you shall not
be found.

If you do not
work
you shall not
be valued.

If you do not
love
you shall not
be wanted.

If you do not
hope
you shall not
be here.

Hater

Chester is a hater.
If he doesn't hate it now
he'll hate it later.

He hates the light
He hates the dark
He'll hate it when he sees it
And when it's out of sight.

He'll hate it
Before he feels the flame
By crushing out the spark.

There is no why
There is no end
There is no if
There is no when.

Why does he hate?
Is it just his fate
to some deride
and some divide?
Are some hopes
just victims to
eviscerate?

Is it just nature
that made this fool?
Is it instinct
of the cell
that's cruel?
Is mere chance the fuel
in the dual dance
around the pool?

However late
hate came to the plate
Chester the Hater
came later.
In last place
he lost the race.

Raise the Stakes

Who am I
Where I be
Who is you
What you see?

Where that shit
How it be
Who is this
When you me?

Why you been
Who I seen
What I give
Where you mean?

Don't look down
Don't look back
Keep your eye
On that track.

Don't reach up
Don't lean down
Hold your hand
Up the stack.

Moonbeam

Leave your fingernails
at the door
my dear.

Exchange them
for precious jewels
Rubies, Diamonds
Emeralds
Enough to fill it all
up to the top
end-to-end
everyday
until I return
with a moonbeam
to tie them up
in a million-mile string.

Hash them out
in electric coils
flashing from
dark to dawn
Time was a point
till then
the waves squares the line
and the sky
is on fire
with my love.

100% Recycled

My eyes
roll in the wave
of the wheatfield.

My ears
crack in the thunder
over the lake.

My tongue
sizzles in the heat
up from the pavement.

Breathe me.
I am diesel
corn syrup
gasoline
patchouli
sweet sweet
perfume
for flies
don't set the meat out
in the sun
unless you
like the way
maggots crunch
when you bite them.

Nutty
like sea-foam
appetizers
a thousand miles
from the beach
or a strawberry
or a blackberry.

It's not getting smaller
just
the litter
makes it seem that way.
Go for a Great Pacific Ocean
Patch Kid
100% recycled.

Go back to your sea-foam
sirens.
Tell ASCAP
I won't pay
Download it
to me tube.

I'll be the bad boy
Pirate
Cold-cash cop
you can't play
cause you don't pay
no fair
anyway.

Go back to your sea-foam
cups, Sirens.

100% recycled.

Infinity

This time
has no clock.

This space
has no map.

This matter
has no mind.

This motion is false.
This faith is not devotion.

This time has no end
This place is not frozen.
This light is ever lost
in the ever deepening ocean.

Dream on, dreamer.
Push past petals
falling in dark showers.

You are forever
laid fast
across the even ink sky
even now, writ large
with a billion bacteria
per square life lost.

We carry almost nothing
but baggage.
Stride, silent sherpas
for the hosts
of microbes waging war
like Gilgamesh in our gut.

Feeding vast armies
in the fecal field
we will not live
without them.

Vishnu is no god
no sage from a
chariot of fire,
a mere companion
to the genes
of a billion gods
each pure
infinite
in their instant death.

Outrun by zygotes
splitting and marching
up to the front
for easy slaughter
Vishnu sees
the terrible conflict only
when the assembled armies
are so deep and vast
he feels them pouring in
charged, alight, electric and hot
fissures of blood
open and run red
to remind
the God of
that is all he is
and is not.

Death is not just
for the infinitely small.

Vishnu strains at the dark
eyes lost
as the lights go out
weeping,
one by one.

Valery

Her name
Her being is
Strength itself, though the clay
is not yet set.

She continues to press
and stretch
and mold
her shape is her will
flexible
still seeking shape
as in a mother's
willing hands.

I lean on her now
as never before
I draw her up to new heights
Kissing her goodbye
Wrapping her fragrance
in my arms.

She leaves her fingerprints
deep in the clay
that is my heart
She slips and joins it
patching the fear
leaving a smooth
shaped soul.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me...?

The stock market was down again today.

Both readers are doubtless wondering why I would care, let alone write about this seemingly trivial and certainly temporal fact.  Having resolved some time ago not to wrestle with the quotidian events of life because such musings are out-of-date as soon as they are in print, this observation comes not without some considerable resistance on my part.  Yet I am obliged, I feel, to comment.

Having lived in the shadow of the Great Depression most of my life, I am keenly aware that this Great Recession was coming.  Actually, the shadow was Lynda's, and it was another Depression (not its poor uncle, Recession) that she predicted.

Naturally, I never questioned this reasoning, in the same way that certain children of Dixie never questioned their elders when told that the South would rise again.  It was something given.  A fact of life.  The economy, according to Lynda, was just a figment of the collective imagination, and I have to say, in the course of my life I've never seen any evidence to the contrary.  Now, although the US economy might have been on the rise all my life and most of hers, Lynda predicted with absolute certainty that it would go down again.

Certain, as in, not if, but when.

This assertion is a common characteristic of the Depression generation.  It went something like this:  "Hey!  Save that ______.  Do not throw that piece of _______ (fill in the blank: paper, glass, foil, plastic, steel, wood, food) away!  You never know when you might need it!"

Ok, Mom. I got it.  Even today I cannot throw a piece of foil or plastic away without a certain amount of guilt, and that's even when I put it in the recycling stream!  I know resources are limited, and that shortages will come again some day.  Or will they?

I mean, if it's just a figment of our imagination, why can't we imagine a better economy?  Why, all of the sudden, are investors so damn nervous?

A better question might be:  Just who are all these nervous investors?  Don't they have lives?  Don't they understand that what goes up must comes down and vice-versa?  I mean, if we little people--those whom the 'job providers' have decided to 'go on strike' against recently, presumably to punish us for our insatiable greed and constant need--are expected to stay calm, why can't the wealthy investors?

What causes these wealthy 'investors' to go screaming off the deck of the ship the moment it turns towards the rocks?  Is it pure selfishness or simple fear?  I think it's the latter; it seems that the wealthy simply have a lower threshold of fear than the rest of us.  To carry forward with the metaphor, not having been buffeted by real winds of change, the moment the breeze picks up, the wealthy run below decks, fearful that the wind of change is the precursor of a hurricane that will strip them of their goods.

One basic problem, I believe, is that these days, the question of who is wealthy and who is not has not been answered truthfully.  This failure to make a real distinction between the classes has poisoned the debate by allowing people who make too much to be middle class to nonetheless claim that they are poorer than they actually are.  This is nonsense.  It's time to draw a line.

I believe that people who make more than $250K per year are rich.  There, I said it.

I'll be even more specific.  To all the doctors, attorneys and professional administrators who are earning at least four times the amount of the average middle class family ($60K) and still consider themselves middle class, I say bullshit.  They are rich.  They are not bad people, just richer than they claim to be.

Now, they may not feel rich because they spend four times the average on their too-large houses, their too-many cars, their too-expensive designer clothes and their too-trendy brand-name 'ilectronics'.  They spend all their cash on Louis Vuitton bags and iPads, they avoid paying taxes by keeping their 'real' income tied up in 'real estate' and/or 'investments', and then they claim to be 'just one of the guys'.

Well, I have news.  They are not one of the guys.  They are one of those guys.

Of course, these days, those rich guys have a good reason to be nervous.  All that stuff just makes rich people nervous and afraid.  After all, when the economy goes down, they stand to lose all their stuff...and more.  They have all those investments to worry about.

We commoners are lucky, I guess.  We don't have McMansions, BMWs and Hummers or the latest 88 inch LED HD TVs to worry about.  Most of us are worried about simply keeping our houses, let alone all the stuff inside.  And we don't have investments to frighten us into sleepless nights.  The thought of losing one's job is sufficient for that.

Oh Lord, Janis had it right.  The lovely irony is that nothing has changed in forty years.  Today, if I wish for anything, it's not that the stock market will go up, it's that the whiny scared rich babies that have 'invested' in that Ponzi scheme will lose enough to force them to get back to work.

Of Mice and Me

There was death on the doorstep this morning.

Neither reader--knowing, as they do, of our seven cats--will be surprised by this statement.  Nor was I, having been the recipient of more than one newly or nearly dead small creature at the door in the morning.

Often this 'gift' is only half of said small creature, leaving me curious to understand why.  I mean, which half has been presented as an offering and which half was simply too tasty to leave uneaten?

I am not terribly grossed out by having to dispose of an unwanted half a creature first thing in the morning, and it's not the worst thing I have found on the doorstep.  The carcass (or half thereof) of a small creature is less likely to turn my stomach than discovering a pile of freshly chewed and still-warm-from-the-stomach cat puke.

But this morning, my 'gift' was not upchuck, or newly dead or even half-dead.  It was mouse, and very much alive.

To be perfectly clear, this was not a rat.  Admittedly, I've not dealt with a lot of rats in my day.  The actual number of rats that I've seen with my own eyes numbers around two.  But I have seen rats.

This was not a rat.  It was a mouse.

It was rather large mouse, about six inches long, nose to tail.  It had a light brown coat with a white belly and two very black eyes.  Although it wasn't injured, it was very frightened, likely the result of having been chased by one of the aforementioned septuplet of felines who reside in and around our environs.

None of the cats was present at the door when I opened it, however.  Just the mouse.

And I didn't even see it until after I went out, picked up the cat bowls and opened the screen door to go back in.  That's when I saw it, wriggling under the door and making it's way into the house.

Now, lots of people hate snakes.  And spiders.  Not me.  I don't exactly love snakes, but I won't go out of my way to kill one, and spiders, well, haven't you read Charlotte's Web?  I love spiders.  They eat mosquitoes, and that's just the start.  But this was a rodent.

I hate rodents.

Well, ok, hate is a hard word.  And, to be fair, like many people, what I really hate are rats.  I don't hate them because they caused the Black Death--although that would be a pretty good reason to despise them, I think.  Some say the Plague wasn't actually their fault, they were just carrying the fleas, but I'm not buying it.  I'm no fan of fleas, mind you, but rats are just bigger and nastier and must consequently bear an inordinate share of the blame.

I'm sure this position will not offend many, as the collective opinion of rats is (fortunately) very low.  Not so the general opinion of other rodents, though I doubt we'd find many people who actually like mice, either.  The misperception of mice as cute pink and wiggly creatures that is such a deep disservice to many has been fostered by the proliferation of the little white lab mouse--Algernon, anyone?

Size and furriness notwithstanding, I think that there are very few people over the age of ten who actually find mice adorable.  The same could be said of gerbils and hamsters.  Even though I confess to having had a number of hamsters in my youth, I never liked mice, especially after I saw them being fed to a snake in a pet store once when I was about seven.  Later, when I lived in the country (see my adventures on Maufrais Lane) I saw my first field mouse.  Cute--admittedly--but still a rodent.

So, though I might have written the script differently with more time to think and act, in the spur of the moment, the rodent on my doorstep this morning was destined to die.  Alas.

When I first spotted it, although it was still breathing, it looked like it's heart was about to explode.  It dipped and whipped and jumped around in front of me in response to my whoops and swoops with the cat bowls.  Somehow, I managed to turn him around and head him back out the front door.

In the back of my mind was the thought that I had just summoned the cats for their breakfast.  They were coming--as I turned back to the door a moment earlier,  I had seen three of the four older cats slowly making their way to the deck.

Fortunately for the mouse, my idly approaching hunters were still unaware of the potential to supplement their usual early morning cat crunchies with a bit of blood.  For my part, I sure didn't want to see this mouse get eaten right before my eyes, but I also didn't want it in the house.  So, honestly, I felt no angst about pushing it toward the hungry predators assembling on the porch.  Luckily for me (but not the mouse), things unfolded so fast that I really didn't have time to think much more about it.

As the mouse made his made along the edge of the house where it meets the deck, he was being pursued from behind, not just by me, but also by Jolie, who had jumped up from the side flower bed.  As I pushed the mouse forward, hoping he'd make it to the edge and wriggle under the deck, we came to the corner of the house.  The mouse turned the corner.  I turned the corner.

And there was Bitty.  Our oldest, and possibly most toothless cat.  In a flash--and I'm not exaggerating, it was a blur--she pounced, delivering a classic death blow to the neck of the fast-but-not-fast-enough mouse.

Lord knows that must feel really good to a cat, especially an old one like Bitty, who hasn't the energy to chase her prey much any more.  It actually looked merciful to me.  The mouse went limp instantly and Bitty raced off, head held high with her prize.

Moments later, she abandoned it, of course, in exchange for her 'proper' breakfast.  Later as I got in to the car to go to work, I saw one of the kittens playing with the corpse, tossing it up and batting it around.  I doubt he had any desire to eat it, leaving it instead for our one true blood lusting cat, Diablo, who was perched nearby.

I was a little perturbed by this turn of events, but as I've thought more about it, I am not upset by the death of the mouse.  I believe that all rodents, including rats and their smaller cousins, the mice, are inherently dirty and potentially lethal carriers of disease. That includes squirrels, who make it worse by being cute.  And even though they are not technically rodents, I reserve a special place in hell for  pigeons, who are just flying feathered rats by their nature.  Cf. Tom Lehrer, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

So sorry little (erm..semi-big) mouse.  But it's the Law of the Jungle.