Every Player Counts

Well, it was a good game, but alas, the Longhorns lost in the final game of the College Championship series in Omaha Nebraska last night. For those following along at home, this was a momentary big deal for me because I have been a long time UT basefall fan and this was the year that I finally fulfilled one of my longstanding dreams and actually went to Omaha to see UT play in the first game.

The experience in Omaha was like none other that I've had. I described it as the quintessential American experience for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it was held in the most classic 'old school' style of ball parks, Ronseblatt Stadium, and the day itself was like something out of a movie. Our drive to and from Omaha, as well as our action-packed hours at the stadium are well documented in other posts and the photo gallery that I posted online last week, so what I want to write about today has to do with fathers, sons, baseball and the relationship of the three.

First of all, a good friend forwarded to me a wonderfully well written essay by UT Sports Information Director and one-time voice of the Longhorns, Bill Little. Little writes about all UT sports, and he seems to know the story of every player and certainly every coach in every program in UT athletics. And, though it should go without saying, it always bears repeating: UT has athletes of every kind at the very highest level in the world. Our football, baseball and basketball players get al ot of the recognition, but UT is consistently at a very high level in track and field, swimming and diving, golf and tennis, just to name a few others.

I love sports and watching sports, and that is what this essay is about. Some might find it contradictory for someone like me who is and has never been anything but an academic (and not a particularly distinguished one at that, but that's another story) to be such a big fan of UT athletics. It is quite popular, among academics, to bash the athletics program as too big, too wasteful and disconnected from (at the least) or detrimental to (at the worst) the 'real' mission of the University: to educate and change the lives of young people.

Though I believe that I could actually make a case for the life changing and educating aspects of athletics (and not just for the athletes), the purpose of this essay is not to address that issue. The reason I am moved to write; what is of enough interest to me, and hopefully to one or the other of my Dear Readers, is how I came to be in this unusual position of being a sports fan despite a background that was not supportive of that ambition.

Consider if you will that one of the pastimes at our dinner table was to identify which composer's music was being played on the classical FM station, KMFA, that my father insisted on listening to whenever he was at home, especially during the dinner hour. I always guessed 'Rachmaninoff', because I liked saying his name--still do--and was rewarded occasionally as one who guess the time of a stopped clock. Twice a day you might just get it.

To say that I came from a non-sporting family is a considerable understatement. Without trying to sound as if I was deprived or abused in any manner, nonetheless one of the greatest gaps in my life has to do with the fact that I was never able to, or for that matter, even allowed to play organized sports.

There were several reasons for this, not the least of which was the fact that I was, as you might expect from a geeky kid raised in a bookstore, about as uncoordinated physically as I could get and still manage to walk. There was no question about the whole walking and gum chewing thing. For me, it was one or the other. That's no exaggeration, for the simple reason that I was and still am double jointed. Consequently, my fingers and elbows and knees all move in ways that they are not supposed to, and in some cases those involuntary muscle arrangements result in contradictory actions.

In other words, I sucked.

This would have been ok, I guess, if I had not somehow gotten the crazy idea through my head that I didn't have to suck, at least not forever. For some reason--and here begins the mystery, for it certainly didn't come from home--I had this crazy, irrational thought: if I just played more, I could and would get better.

Now, when I was in elementary school in Abilene, I used to walk to and from from school. Every afternoon after school a bunch of guys would get up a sandlot baseball game in a dusty corner lot not far from the school, and I would tag along.

At first, I just watched. Eventually, when they chose up sides, I lined up too. I didn't get picked because I didn't have a glove and probably couldn't have used it even if I had. I did get to 'umpire', which meant standing in the outfield to retrieve balls that went into the street. Sometimes someone would lend me a glove and play catch with me while we waited for enough guys to show up for a game. The act of throwing and catching a baseball is not hard and is one of the most satisfying feelings I have ever known. So, for that and other reasons still unknown, I had developed the notion that even if I sucked, playing baseball was something I desperately wanted to do.

Somehow, and I don't recall the specifics, I managed to convince my parents to buy me a baseball and a glove. I can recall the glove with almost perfect clarity. It was a light yellow color and already so worn out that the webbing had been repaired in a couple of places with big knots that distorted the arc of the mitt.

While most boys spend weeks rubbing their brand new gloves down with neats foot oil and breaking in their glove with repeated pounding with a ball, mine came already broken in. That is to say, it was used, which doesn't surprise me, knowing how 'frugal' my parents were in those days. Lynda probably picked it up at a garage sale or from a friend or neighbor. I remember putting the ball in the heart of the glove so it would 'get used' to it. That first week or so, I put it under my pillow; waking surprised see that it was still there.

I can also recall the mockery of the other boys whose gloves were either new or hardly in such a state of disrepair. Believe it or not, this was not especially daunting to me, however, because once I had a glove, I could actually line up to get chosen for a team.

I needed more than a glove and desire, though. Skill comes into play in the game, and very early. Boys just know. Well, at least most of them did, I did not. Invariably, I was chosen last and put in the outfield where it was determined that I could do the least harm. The strategy didn't necessarily work to the advantage of our team, however, as I can only recall dropping fly balls and running to retrieve ground balls that either bounced over my head or went between my legs. There was nothing surprising about this, when you think about it, because I had never actually practiced.

The reason I never practiced had much to do with my home life. Bill was simply uninterested in sports of any kind, and had no desire to get outside in the Texas heat and throws baseballs with his son. To his credit, he was always willing to read to me, tried to teach me how to play guitar and was never critical of my desire to play baseball. He just wasn't into it, as we would say today. I can recall only one time that he came outside to throw the ball around, but because he didn't have a mitt, he just threw some balls into the air for me to catch and allowed me to roll them back to his feet. Even this was so thrilling that I begged him to do it many times after, but he always had some excuse for not doing it.

Eventually, I got the message and took to practicing by myself. I spent hours tossing the ball up into the air to practice catching fly balls and bouncing it off the back fence to practice ground balls. As for batting, forget it. I would have to have had a bat for that.

Despite the lack of equipment and the poor practice facilities, I had a goal in mind.

One of my friends at school was a guy named Charlie Taylor, and he was in Little League. One day he brought a flyer to school inviting boys to sign up, and I took it home to my parents. Now, to their credit, they didn't tell me no (which they did a few years later when I asked if I could play football) but made it plain that if I was interested in doing this, I would have to work out the details on my own. I kept the flyer and practiced like mad in the back yard for a couple of weeks.

When it came time for the tryouts, I convinced Bill to take me.

When we arrived at the school grounds, there must have been a hundred boys there with their dads. Most had uniforms already and belonged to a team. They hung out in tight knots, playing catch, laughing and chasing one another around the base paths. I was electrified with desire to play, and even thought for a moment that I actually had a chance.

I chose to try out for Charlie's team, the Dodgers, but it was apparent that I was out of my league already, and this was just Little League! I recall doing very poorly but was, for whatever reason, not convinced by my failure that I couldn't play. All I needed, I thought, was to get on a team, watch, learn and soon I'd be playing. When the coach came to tell us that I hadn't made it, he saw the disappointment on my face. He told me that there was a team who would take anyone: The Yellow Jackets.

The Yellow Jackets did indeed take anyone, and that meant me too. I was thrilled, but looking back I realize that my parents were less so. For one thing, it meant shelling out money for a uniform. No special shoes or a new glove, though, at least until I had proved to them that I was going to go through with it. For another, it meant taking me to practices and to games. They took turns doing this, waiting in the car for me to finish. They didn't have a lot it common with the other parents, I'm guessing.

So, with their modest help and my foolish passion, go through with it I did. Well, one season, anyway. I actually played a whole season with the Yellow Jackets. Though I never started a game, I did get to play. Though we had a losing season, we did win a game. It was one of the best and one of the worst times of my life. Three things happened that I can recall.

First, I got hit in the eye with a baseball. I was sent in to play third base, and when a throw from second came in head of the runner, I dropped my glove to keep an eye on the ball. I kept my eye on it all the way in, busting open a gash below it (I still can feel the scar) and knocking me out of the game.

Second, though obviously not in the same game, I was allowed--for still unknown reasons--to come up to bat and promptly got hit in the chest by the very first pitch. All I can remember was getting up and choking out "Do I get to take my base?" I did. That was the only time I was ever on base.

Finally, and most importantly, I can recall celebrating with my teammates after we won our first and only game of the season. It came late in the season, a night game against the Dodgers--Charlie's team. Though I didn't actually get to play in the game, I proudly wore the uniform and was there at the end when we cheered and dogpiled at the pitchers mound. Now whenever I see that ridiculous scene on TV, I can't help but recall that moment when I did that too. I was part of a team. It's kinda fun.

Every player counts.

A Thousand Foot Fall

I look down at my legs
Dangling over the edge
Of a thousand foot cliff.

Falling
Backward through space and time
Past my own birth
And death
A thousand times
I see myself
I pass myself
So many times
The river reverses.

The dead return
Swelling the ranks
Of the living dead
With the merely living.

They dance in the darkness
That is my swollen iris.
With morning light
The stage is extinguished.

The sun comes up angry
Burning
Turning
It will deny
Food to the hungry
Water for thirst.

Rainbows in bubbles
Lift up and burst.

My American Dream

Last weekend, Henry and I made the trip up to Omaha Nebraska to see the Texas Longhorns compete in the College World Series. Though I have already managed to post up a couple of pictures, I can't go without at least a brief account of our time.

It was, to my mind, the quintessential American experience. As we stood for the national anthem in the literal heartland of America, I felt tears running down my cheeks. From where we stood in the left-field bleachers, the perfectly manicured green grass of the field spread out like a magnificent carpet and the infield dirt was flawlessly groomed and carefully watered down before the first pitch.

Fans trickled in for hours before the game, finding their seats and, like me, pausing briefly before sitting to take it all in once in place. For me, it took more than a moment of just standing there, surveying the field and the rest of the stands to come to the realization that I was actually there.

All around us were Americans of every walk of life, literally. There were elementary and high school kids, baseball teams with their coaches, husbands and wives, families with babies and a lot of Omaha natives who just "came for a good game".

Most were dressed in their school colors, but there was no sense of competition between the fans, only love for the game itself and a sense of grace at being in that special place at that time. People were smiling and waving, watching the players taking batting practice and occasionally jumping up for a fly ball that made it all the way out to left field.

What was the most amazing part of the experience, though, was watching all the various rituals and processes that baseball players, coaches and fans must go through to get ready for and then the play the game. They have a specific place to stand, a specific way of running and a magical way of coming together as a team that goes beyond the fact that they are wearing uniforms or play for the University of Texas.

It is, in fact, a tribute to the Texas coach, Augie Garrido, that he can take such a diverse group of young men, and with the power of his words and actions, inspire and motivate them to reach above and beyond what they thought they were capable of.

This was my American dream.

I'll Take it All

I'll take it all.

I want
your strip malls
your cheap beer
your dirty bars
your ugly hookers
your bad boys.

I want
your broken hypodermic needles
your shameless porn
your processed cheese
your fast food fat
your nuclear waste.

Bring me
vivisected rabbits,
a million tons of dead man-flesh,
rotting in No Man's Land
morning noon and night.

I'll take it.

I want
your dark streets
your angry mobs
your serial killers
your hidden paedophiles
your deserted ideals.

Torture me with soft lies
Spit out pleasantries
Like hearts on fire
And smile.

I can take that.

You don't have
enough litter
enough shit
enough disease
To make me gag.
Why do you retch?

There isn't
enough violence
enough sex
enough fear
To make me blink.
Why do you close your eyes?

In one drop of
my tears
my blood
my shit
There is
more here than gone
more now than then.

I'll take it all.

Now is not the time for fear.
Come for me,
Tooth and claw.

Time. Terror. Tears.

I'll take it. All.

Solar car @ UT

I want one!

The American Experience

Bottom of the ninth

Score tied @ 6!

The boys

Game #3. Arizona vs N Carolina

Archiving Their Art

Lately I have been--with the assistance of Valery and Madelaine--engaged in the task of cataloging and archiving Lynda's artwork and Bill's photographs. What I have discovered as part of this process is that Lynda was far more prolific and significantly more interesting than I had realized, whereas Bill's work was far narrower in both it's volume and scope than I had expected.

Lynda's work was all around me for many years and still is, so it should come as no surprise that she was remarkably prolific. As I undertake the task of archiving her paintings, however, it becomes obvious in a very physical sort of way.

After the fire that essentially destroyed her studio in 2005, we faced the arduous job of sorting through all of her now blackened materials and supplies, stacks of drawings and the dozens of soot-covered canvases that had lined the walls of her one-room studio and the halls outside. They were stacked against the walls and filled one third of the studio. Those that were not too badly damaged we removed the paintings, drawings and boxes of supplies to a storage unit. That was a job for Stephen and me, as Lynda was clearly not up to the task, physically or emotionally.

The supplies were not simply not salvageable. It was heartbreaking to throw away all the paint, brushes and pencils that she'd collected for years. We filled sack after sack with the soot-covered remains of a lifetime of craft. I saw pencils that I recognized from days when her 'studio' was nothing more than part of the kitchen after supper, simply thrown away with a dozen others. It's just stuff after all, but it was impossible to escape the sense of loss.

Though there was very little serious damage to the paintings, that damn soot was, to say the least, insidious. It was--still is--everywhere. It had settled onto the top edge of every painting; those stacked in the back merely had soot there, while those on the wall were subject to the forces of gravity and thus came out covered in a fine black film that still obscures them. it is enough to notice but not enough to justify destroying them.

Destruction is, I guess, a relative term. Certainly Lynda--natural pessimist that she was--held out no hope for salvaging the body of her work, but I was convinced otherwise, and still am.

Many of her drawings--especially the ones actually sitting out on the table or in a bin by the wall--were beyond hope and thus were lost to the trash bags. Other drawings--the majority, thankfully--that were piled up in books and journals were untouched.

Most of the paintings offered some hope of recovery. We gave it our best effort, in any case. Over the next six to eight months or so, Lynda and I spent several hours on Sundays cleaning each and every painting with baby wipes and paper towels. Some didn't make it. Most did, however just to remain in storage from that point on.

They are still in storage, but as I said, we are now engaged in the process of archiving her work. This means one last pass through the stacks of canvasses. Our goal is to move the entire batch into a smaller--thus more affordable in the long run--and climate-controlled storage unit.

Before that can happen however, we have to photograph and measure each work, wrap it first in plastic and then in paper to protect it from the elements and insects. Each painting takes about fifteen minutes to half an hour to process. Even though we've already done twenty-eight of them, we still have more than seventy five canvasses to go.

Bill's photographs, on the other hand, pose less of a problem when it comes to the issue of archiving. For one thing, although there are far more photographs of Bill's than Lynda's paintings, the photographs are not nearly as compelling as objects worth the effort of saving and thus may be sooner lost to history.

Why? In the box of his photos that was handed down to me after his death in 1981, although there were literally dozens of series of photographs that he took over the years, most of the fading Kodachrome images have simply lost their reason for being. Without him here to explain to us where and why he took these photos, the images are vapid, cluttered and ultimately, meaningless. Honestly, unless someone appears in the image that I can recognize there is no reason I can think of to save these fading pieces of paper.

The negatives are another matter. These are being carefully sorted, numbered and saved. For now that's all I have the time or inclination to do. Eventually they should be digitized, cataloged and properly archived, but that is a task I am not sure I am up for. At that point I'd be faced with similar questions about what to keep and what to throw away.

Even though digitizing Bill's negatives minimizes, literally, the need for culling the work, surely not all of them deserve saving. Is it really possible to imagine a situation in which all of his work might be considered a valuable archive? Does his body of work really constitute sufficient value for the future in the way that Lynda's art might?

This is not to say that Bill was not a good photographer or that Lynda was a great painter. This is an observation about my encounter with my parents' art as extensions of their personalities, even and especially now, after death.

I am surprised to find how little of Bill's vision was captured on film and how much of Lynda's still emerges from soot-shrouded paint.

The Mark of Maufrais

On my way to work at UT every morning, I step on a durable reminder of one of the most significant days of my life. Literally stamped into the concrete sidewalk at every corner all the way from Shoal Creek up to the University is the word 'Maufrais'.

The subject of much speculation among Austinites new and old this mark is is actually the name of the concrete contractor who poured this sidewalk and countless others in Austin, beginning in 1892. A number of sidewalks, especially in West Austin, were poured by the Maufrais Concrete Company during the post-war building boom that created the Tarrytown, Windsor Road and West Enfield neighborhoods.

As Austin writer Rob Hafernik observed in his concise and informative piece about the history of the company, "Just in the space of one good dog walk, I see the word a dozen times or more."

Well, we don't see the name Maufrais when walking the dog in our neighborhood, but when I lived in Clarksville many years ago, because I was required to see it on every corner between my house and the bus stop, I was unable to escape an unpleasant memory of what is my now-distant past: my arrest.

Yes, dear Reader, I was arrested in March of 1975, for possession of marijuana. I was just eighteen at the time, living with a co-worker on a tiny, dead-end street in far southwest Austin called Maufrais Lane. Ironically, there were no curbs or sidewalks on this street. It was a semi-rural area, with open fields next to freshly built subdivisions, technically outside the city limits. This key fact was both the reason we were arrested and the reason that the charges were ultimately dropped, though it was considerably more complicated than that.

In this era of plausible deniability fostered by our leading politicians and financiers, it seems foolish for me to admit that I was ever arrested, especially because nothing every really came of it. Nothing, that is, if you do not count the most dramatic and significant 'life lesson' that I took away from the experience; nothing but a dream denied and innocent trust abandoned. I will not claim to have been ignorant of my situation nor to have been simply duped by an unscrupulous roommate. I was certainly taken advantage of for being far too trusting and willing to go along with things I knew to be simply foolish, if not outright dangerous.

My roommate, Jim, was an old hippie, Vietnam war vet and committed pot smoker. This fact alone didn't bother me, for after graduating from high school in 1974, I too had 'discovered' pot. To say that I took to it would be something of an understatement, but it was, for me anyway, a vice that was both expensive and still quite hard to come by. Though the subjects of (my) drug use and addiction are worthy of reflection and comment, I will not here complicate the story by trying to resolve or even approach those rather controversial subjects. Another time and another place, perhaps. This is the story of the bust.

A little background to the story is required first, however.

Jim and I lived in a small two bedroom frame house at the end of Maufrais Lane. It was an old farm house, with a detached wood frame garage in back next to a long-abandoned plank-covered well. Beyond the back fence the land was still being farmed by the man who owned the house we lived in and the company we worked for.

Both Jim and I worked as welders for a small machine shop situated a few hundred yards up the road at the head of Maufrais Lane called B&M Converters. The owner was a big strong ex-GI named Marvin who ran the shop with the help of his British-born wife Betty. Together with another good old Texas boy named 'Old' Jim, Marvin, Betty, 'Young' Jim and I worked together in an un-airconditioned tin-roofed shed. For eight to ten hours a day, we cut open, cleaned out and re-built automobile torque converters.

Of course I knew nothing about these devices when I was hired. I know virtually nothing more about them now, thankfully. For the two years that I worked at B&M, however, I knew every type of bearing, stator, hub and welding bead required for every kind of converter for every kind of car on the road in 1974. That's something like 250 different models. That is also the number that I managed to forget in less time than it took to pack my bags when it came time to leave. Like many other sets of useless information acquired and abandoned in the years since, it is mostly gone, but not entirely forgotten.

The function of the shop was to take old, presumably worn out but not destroyed torque converters, cut them open, clean them out and rebuild them for re-sale to the many transmission shops and car dealers in and around Austin.

A torque converter is, quite simply, the clutch in an automatic transmission in an automobile. Don't ask me how it works. I know it has to something do with fluid dynamics and pressures. The insides of the devices bear this out. Having seen the guts of countless thousands of these devices in my short career with them, I can tell you this: at the very center is a circular set of what look like electric fan blades, called the stator. Over time, the stator wears out, which causes the car to acquire that lurching sensation--you know the feeling--that we get when the car is at a standstill but like an eager dog on a leash, doesn't want to remain so. When the stator wears out, the torque converter must be replaced, but that doesn't mean it can't be repaired.

Enter the B&M torque converter rebuilding shop. Torque converters look like steel doughnuts with a polished steel hub emerging from where the hole should be. The back side has bolt holes to attach it to the transmission, and there is a welded seam right round the circumference of the converter where the two halves were put together at the factory.

Marvin's job was to cut them open. He would mount the converter, still dirty, heavy and full of noxious burnt oil, on a lathe and cut it open like a filthy clamshell, spilling out the dirty blackened oil on the floor but retaining the guts.

It was my job to take them apart, remove the broken bits and 'file' the cleaned parts from in the inside in various bins in and around the rebuilding station. I spent the first half of every day over a fifty-five gallon drum three-quarters full of dirty varsol (a chemical cleaner not far removed in the cracking tower from kerosene or turpentine) being recirculated top to bottom with a endlessly whining pump. The broken stators were literally tossed out the back door into a huge pile of oily junk (EPA?) while all the springs, bearings, pins and shims went into their respective bins.

'Old' Jim--which is what we called him to distinguish him from my roommate was the master re-builder. He came in for just half the day. Like a surgeon with the special skills, he held himself apart from the rest of us as the 'brains' of the operation. To his credit, he did know his shit. The number of parts and pieces was staggering, but he knew them all by heart and hand. Re-building these devices may not be rocket science, but there is no doubt that the precision and skill of the re-builder was the core of B&M's business. If they didn't come back, we did good business, and Jim made sure they were built right the first time.

'Young' Jim's job was to re-weld the seam that Marvin had cut to start the process. This he did by mounting the re-built steel doughnut on another lathe with a automatic wire welder that completed the seam with just a start from the operator. Low though the skill to do that job might have been, my job required even less, so I was yet one rung down from 'Young' Jim.

Nonetheless, I managed to acquire some skill and thus escape perpetual part cleaning job for half the day by learning to use the heli-arc welder to patch holes in the seam weld and attach the polished steel hub to the doughnut hole.

The heli-arc welder looks and works something like a powerful electric arc pen. Unlike the wire welder, which required just a start and stop, the heli-arc required serious attention to the flow of liquid white-hot metal filling the gap between hub and hole. Rotating the piece in front of my on a wheel, with head down in a full face helmet, long sleeves, pants and boots, I was forced to remain focused on the bead even as I got stung by bits of molten sparks. After the weld cooled, I tested them by submerging the the converter in water and forcing air into them; bubbles meant more work.

I was still in my work clothes and greasy boots, smelling like varsol and writing in my journal after supper in the kitchen when it happened.

It was about ten p.m. Through the window over the sink I could see headlights coming down our road. First one set, then two, then three and four. Even a single set of lights on our road would have been unusual; Maufrais was a dead-end and our only neighbors were already home. The lights came up the road fast. Though paved for the first half, the half in front of our house was still the typical Texas caliche, so we could hear the crunch of the gravel as they roared up to a stop.

Even seeing this, I was only able to stand up and move a couple of feet to the center of the kitchen when the cops came bursting in through both the front and back doors simultaneously. I obeyed their orders to freeze, was handcuffed and placed in a chair in the middle of the kitchen. Jim, who had been in the bedroom, was also handcuffed and placed in a chair in the living room.

The cops began to tear the house apart, almost literally, all the while shouting at us, trying to intimidate us. In the kitchen, they pulled out all the boxes of cereal, bags of flour, coffee and sugar and dumped them all on the counter and the floor. The entire contents of the pantry and the refrigerator were dumped out on to the floor while I watched.

Where is it?" they screamed, over and over, as they tore through one thing after another. In the bedrooms they pulled out all our clothes and threw them around the room. They pulled up the mattresses and cut them open. One cop went up into the attic and actually fell down into the living room when he stepped off one of the ceiling beams. The six foot fall though a cloud of sheetrock dust barely dented his fat ass, and this blunder just made him, and the whole group that much madder.

They were angry with us because it was clear to them, almost from the instant that they burst in, that this wasn't the big bust that they were expecting. We din't know it at first, but they were expecting to find huge quantities of marijuana in our house.

After half an hour of literally frantic searching, they hadn't turned up so much as a single joint. This wasn't because we didn't have any. We just didn't have that much. We had less than a single ounce--known as a 'lid' back in the day--in a wooden salad bowl on the top of the refrigerator. It wasn't really hidden; that's just where we kept it. We didn't have that much because, contrary to the expectations of the Austin Police department, we were not dealers.

So, to the oft-repeated and most angry screams of "Where the fuck is it?" I could only say that I had no idea what they were talking about. And, in part, this was true.

Handcuffed and scared shitless in my now ransacked and damaged house, surrounded by armed, sweaty and angry policemen, I was seriously wondering what they could be looking for. Our lid? Seriously? Did it take eight cops in four cars to dispatch two scared hippies with a single ounce of shitty marijuana casually placed in a wooden bowl on top of the fridge? And, why couldn't they find it? Did they really need my help?

Or, were they looking for something that wasn't there? The reason they didn't look in the bowl on the top of the fridge was because the quantity of dope that they were looking for simply wouldn't have fit in that bowl. They were looking for tons of pot.

Police incompetence is another topic that is outside the range of this now lengthy recollection, so in the interest of brevity I shall let it remain so. Nonetheless, faulty 'intel'--as the Bush warmongers were fond of saying after their incompetence had been revealed--was at the heart of our little bust. The inability of the APD to find any dope was not unlike the inability of American troops to find WMD's in Iraq; you can't find what isn't there.

In our case, as I've said, there was something there, but nothing like what they'd been told to look for. The police had been told, by an informant, that we were major dope dealers in Central Texas, with literally tons of marijuana stored in our house on Maufrais Lane.

But if we really didn't have such quantities and weren't even actually dealing dope, how did they get that idea?

It turns out that all it takes is a combination of odd circumstances, bad luck and poor judgment. And stupid though it may have been to even possess marijuana back in the day when anything over a gram was considered to be a felony, the poor judgment that led to the bust was not confined to Jim and me.

The police more than anyone in this little melodrama embodied the entire collective failure of sense by choosing to believe a story told to them by an informant; a crazy pill-popping addict that Jim had foolishly befriended at a bar one night. Even more foolishly, Jim brought this strange cat home for a friendly smoke and a place to crash. The guy only stayed the night and was gone, but while he was there, he'd gotten some very strange and very wrong ideas about who we were and what we did for a living.

Again, the importance of the fact that this all took place on Maufrais Lane comes to bear on the story. It so happens that, at the time, although this half-paved strip of road was a named city street and had even a street sign, it was not actually inside the Austin city limits. This had but one serious consequence. Even though we had city water and electricity, we were not 'eligible' for City trash pickup. This meant that we were obliged to collect our trash in large plastic bags and haul them to the dump every week.

Well, obliged though we should have been to the task of taking the half dozen or so bags to the dump every week, recall that we were just a couple of dope-smoking hippies at the time. Taking trash to the dump wasn't high (pardon the pun) on our list of things to do every week. Especially because were were actually working hippies, with little ambition to clean house after a long day amid varsol and welding sparks.

So, the trash bags accumulated. We couldn't keep the bags outside, because the raccoons would tear them open and strew the trash around the yard, so we took to keeping them in a little utility room next to the bathroom in the back of the house. The room wasn't hard to find, by the way, but the cops didn't even open the door to it for at least a half an hour. Perhaps they just wanted to toss the flour on the floor before looking in more logical places, but for whatever reason, it was the last place they looked that night.

You'd think it would have been the first place that the police would have looked, given the fact that their informant had ostensibly told them where to look. The informant, when taking a piss the morning of his brief stay with us, had cleverly 'deduced' that the mountain of trash sacks he'd 'discovered' in the utility room were actually sacks stuffed full of high grade cannabis. Never mind that the dope we'd shared with him was of such poor quality that we'd paid no more than ten dollars for it, he'd pegged us as big-time drug dealers.

No doubt he enlarged on his story to make the case for lenient treatment on whatever charge they'd brought him in for, but even a causal visit to our little house at the end of Maufrais would have revealed to the police that we were neither drug dealers nor big-time anything. The ramshackle house and beat up old Chevy that Jim drove would have been ample evidence that their informant was selling them a load of bullshit.

In fact, this very failure to do any sort of basic investigation prior to the bust led to the fact that all charges were dropped in the case. Eventually, they found the bag of pot on top of the fridge, but not until they'd already loaded us into the squad cars and were about to take us downtown. One of the police came out of the house holding the half-full baggie exclaiming that he'd 'found it' but you know he and the rest knew it was just the opposite. What they had found, he hoped, was enough to make it look like they knew what they were doing when they planned the raid.

Ironically, this was the second time that they 'found it' The first 'discovery' came when they actually opened the door to the back room and found the trash bags. This was a critical moment for them. One of the officers brought out a bag into the kitchen and held it up for me to see.

"Gotcha" he claimed triumphantly, pulling his buck knife out to slice open the bag. Despite my waring--no, because of it--he only smiled as he cut out the bottom of the heavy sack, expecting to see me cry when my dope poured all over the floor. Instead it was he who had the surprise of seeing--and smelling-a load of maggot-infested garbage pouring all over his shoes. He looked like he wanted to puke. I laughed.

Don't laugh at the police. This just pissed them off more, as you might imagine. It certainly didn't turn us into big-time drug dealers that they were looking for and that was making for a bad night indeed. Lucky for them, they managed to find our little stash.

Lucky for us, they screwed it up in the end.

It turns out that the warrant issued for the raid was in error. The cops, it seems, had taken the time to come by and 'investigate' prior to the raid, but in doing so, they had parked on the wrong side of the street, and thus wrote up a description of our neighbor's house, complete with their address instead of ours.

Six months after the arrest--and one day after I made the final payment on the $2500 lawyer fee--the case was dismissed with a single swift strike of the gavel. Though I've always wondered about the timing of that event, I've never looked back. In that instant I was spared a lifetime of explanations and recriminations. Jim skipped town without paying a cent or even finding our that the charges had been dropped. For all he knows, he's still a wanted man in Texas.

For my part, I resolved not to let it happen ever again. I kept my job at B&M, but I cut my hair and moved into my own apartment on South Congress. By year's end I had moved 'back' home with my parents--who were now living in England--and had started a whole new life.

Although the Mark of Maufrais might have been placed on every curb in West Austin by city ordinance, I believe that it was really placed by there the synchronistic forces of the universe, as reminder to me about where I've been and where I want to go.

Maddie's Birthday Dinner

If this is indeed the 'restaurant of the future' you may count me as among those who prefers to dine in restaurants of the past.

Speaking of, we took Maddie out for her birthday dinner last night to a restaurant called The Melting Pot, which is a fondue joint that combines the communal dining experience, say, of Benihana with the do-it-yourself process of making s'mores around a campfire. Definitely fun, but not necessarily haute cuisine.

Nor was it meant to be, of course. With this in mind we actually had a very nice meal. The only trouble was digesting all that cheese, wine and chocolate. I had to sleep sitting up and it was no better for Valery or Maddie, who don't even suffer from the acid reflux that bedevils me every time I have a late meal.

To top it off, after the waiter cleverly extracted from me the fact that I work at H_____, when the bill arrived, it was zero. Now, we had just talked with the owner, who took the time to come by our table and see how we were enjoying it, but he never gave a hint of his generous intent.

After all, I usually never allow my association with the business to come up because I don't want it to seem like I am angling for special attention. I prefer to pass judgment on a restaurant based on my experience with the food, not the service. Not that service isn't important--the reader will doubtless recall plenty of previous posts stake out my position on service--but if and when the food doesn't measure up, even getting it for free won't improve the flavor.

The post facto indigestion notwithstanding, the food was quite good and I'd have said so even if I'd had to pay for the meal. Of course, the server got the best deal, since I left him nearly what I would have paid had I been presented the full bill, but the owner gets high marks for the gesture. These days I can't afford to return the favor, quid pro quo, but I will certainly welcome him to H______ with a special treat when and if he comes in!

Mighty Cone

We spotted this surreal sight as we left the restaurant last night.

Lightning Still Strikes

Looking at the fabulous photos taken recently by my family and friends, I am prompted to write about what I feel is important about photography in the digital age.

I am the son of a photographer. I am reminded of this fact every time I raise the camera to my eye and enter the viewfinder. Interestingly, even though my choice of digital camera recently was in part based on the fact that it has a 'live view' LCD screen (it even tilts--woo), I almost never use that feature. I am driven by instinct, not necessarily training, to lift the camera to my eye and look through the viewfinder. In a way, this mental exercise of looking, coupled with the physical act of pushing the shutter button down to receive that satisfying, endorphin-releasing click or ka-chunk is the very reason for doing it.

The wonderful thing about digital photography is that now, 'doing it' is no longer the cost-prohibitive and resource grabbing process that it was when I first learned the craft. My first real passionate episode with a camera came in 1968, when we lived in san Antonio and Bill worked at a camera store downtown.

One day, I walked all the way from South San Antonio where we lived all the way to his store. I have no idea how or why I was allowed to do this. I can't imagine doing it without telling Lynda, yet why she would allow me to walk that far I'll never know. It took me about three or four hours, and my route took me along what, in retrospect and taking into consideration that I was only about twelve--seem to have been some major highways. I don't recall being afraid, but tired and thirsty at times.

Along the way I remember looking at the highway overpasses and thinking how neat it would be to take pictures of them. I have never forgotten this inspiration; there isn't a 'spaghetti bowl' anywhere since that I haven't openly admired and secretly desired to possess in a photograph. In my life and experience, the urge to possess images is a force that I now recognize as a basic human desire. For me, the means to express and therefore resonate with beauty has, since that day, taken the form of photography.

Bill gave me my first camera that day, as well as my first roll of film. The camera was a Kodak Retina, and I kept it for many years despite using but once or twice after my first time. The principal reason for the lack of use was, to be honest, actually due to a lack of money. Given the camera and a roll of black-and-white film that comprised twelve pictures, I set out burning with the inspiration from my walk, and would have made it back to the highway had it not been so far away. In fact, there was a more intriguing subject on the way.

The subject of my first photo essay, would that it had been just that, was of what I believed to have been a old abandoned nunnery. I know this sounds incredible and I doubt that I still have the photos to prove it, but somehow, there in central San Antonio in 1968, I managed to find it. It was a ramshackle old frame building with a series of barracks-style rooms built round a central courtyard. My small size enabled me to wriggle in through the locked gate and into the overgrown courtyard. I wasn't the first to do this, obviously, but it was remarkably free of vandalism. Inside the rooms I found metal bed frames and sometimes, wooden desks and chairs left behind when the residence was abandoned.

If I remember all this with such seeming clarity, it is, I believe, because much of it is recalled through the curious lens of the viewfinder. Bill taught me--if not that day, on countless others while simply holding one of his cameras and 'playing' with it under his careful supervision--to pay close attention to what I saw when looking through the viewfinder; to be aware of in advance what the lens was about to capture meant focusing clearly on what is presented to the eye in that tiny, seemingly abstract frame. This is, of course, how one is supposed to prevent telephone poles and the like from 'growing' out of peoples' heads, but it is much more metaphysical than that.

The act of focusing is more than physically dialing the lens down to the right size, just as capturing the light is more than physically opening or closing the aperture or setting the shutter speed. These physical acts have corresponding mental constructs that, in essence, define the act and art of photography.

In the digital age, the connection between the physical and mental aspects of the art has actually been strengthened, broadened and deepened. What was once a narrow channel is now a wide open if often tumultuous sea. Talk about a sea change.

I took a dozen photographs of that abandoned nunnery in San Antonio in, oh, about twenty minutes. Given the time it took to get there and back plus some extra farting around while there, I'd estimate that it was not much more than an hour before I returned to the camera store to show Bill what I'd done and ask for some more film.

He was surprised, and even pleased, but not so impressed that he could shield me from reality. He explained to me that it would cost several dollars--please recall it was 1968--to have the pictures developed and printed. Add to that the cost of the film, and well, it was apparent that this was not going to be as easy as it looked. Needless to say I didn't get another roll of film that day.

I did get many more rolls of film over the years, however. Bill and I spent a good deal of time together on photo shoots of old abandoned buildings, demolition sites and rundown houses. I wasted a lot of film during these outings and many more of my own, but as often as not, like Bill, I simply took pictures through the viewfinder in my mind's eye, resisting the urge to consummate the act with a shutter click. Digital photography changed all that.

The means are still changing rapidly, of course, so there are many aspects of the medium and the future that are up for debate. Principally, the digital age has freed me from concern over cost and waste. Now I give in to the desire to take ten pictures when I would have only taken tow or three before. The result is more freedom but at the cost of an encroaching tyranny of excess. Not just excess of numbers, but of subjects as well.

I mean, how many pictures of flowers and bees can we take before we've seen and taken enough?

Surely there must be something else we can be doing with our new found freedom. Despite the temptation, the human aesthetic compulsion to take pictures of nature and the works of man, these are needs of the art form in its infancy. We are now participants in its adolescence.

So, take out all the flowers and bunnies and rain and what do you have left? What's left is a lot. What's left is the moment, pure and simple.

The photographs that will remain, the ones that suspend time and capture a moment in time are still the most compelling and enduring. The images that will emerge as memorable and thus worth keeping even in this digital deluge of the twenty-first century will be simple images, instances, really, of moments in time; 'things' saved like lightning in a bottle, contradictions in terms.

It makes perfect, simple sense in the same time it takes for lightning to strike.

The Unsold Millions

The other day I suggested, only half tongue-in-cheek, that GM give me a car as a way to reduce their bloated inventory and improve their image. Suggestions that I wouldn't really want a GM vehicle notwithstanding, I have seriously been wondering since then just how many cars are actually sitting out on dealers' lots, unsold and, these days, increasingly unsellable.

The question is difficult but not unanswerable. Wolfram Alpha doesn't come online till tomorrow, so for the next twenty-four hours or so, so it will simply be a matter for my speculation. Through the news of the past few days, however, I've just acquired a tidbits of information which might hint at the answer.

Chrysler just announced that it will close 789 of it's 3200 dealerships across the U.S. This is sad news, of course, for those dealers and their employees, but it shouldn't be a surprise to them or the rest of, should it? After all, the dealers are the ones who have had to look out at a sea of unsold cars and trucks every morning, listening to their reduced sales force literally begging customers to buy something, anything, please, here and how.

So that's my question: just how large is that sea of unsold cars and trucks?

Well, if we estimate that each dealer might have as many as 500 vehicles in inventory, waiting for a buyer who will likely not come for months, if at all, then there could be as many as half a million unsold Chryslers out there. And suppose they each had a thousand cars? A million!

It's more than that, of course. Just the other day, GM announced that it was doubling down on Chrysler by closing 1000 of its 3189 US dealers. That's another half-million to a million vehicles that need, literally, somewhere to go.

So, between the two of them, GM and Chrysler are going to have to move between one and two million cars! That still leaves uncounted the something like another two to four million automobiles that the remaining 4500 plus dealers are holding. The total, by my admittedly rough calculation, is that there are between three and six million unsold cars and trucks in the U.S. And that's just GM and Chrysler!

If you were to add up all the rest, all the Fords, Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, Hyundais, Subarus, and on and on, why that little three to six million is just a drop in the bucket. Worldwide, these numbers are absolutely crushing.

And these steel-glass-and-rubber behemoths aren't like the zillions of Blu-Ray players and Walkmans that Sony didn't sell last year. Cars just won't stay 'new' in the box in a warehouse for a year. If the car dealers don't sell them soon, I think that they are going to have to simply crush and melt them, the way a farmer plows under a field of withering drought-stricken corn. While we might miss the corn more than the cars, it is a shame to see all that effort go to waste.

Again, I humbly suggest: just give 'em away!

My Daily 2%

It occurred to me yesterday that spam--of the email variety, not the potted meat--might actually have a useful function.

It is estimated--by folks who ought to know--that 98% of all email traffic is spam. Even with all the spam that we have grown 'used' to getting, at first glance, this figure seems astonishing. After all, I manage to get a lot 'done' with email. I hardly pay attention to all that spam, thanks to the very effective filters in Gmail. I do still get a lot of spam though. Often I empty the 'spam box' two or three times a day, and when I do, the numbers are ridiculously high in comparison to my actual messages: something like two or three hundred to one. Right now there are 360 spam messages waiting for disposal. I suppose I could wait for them to automatically be discarded, but there is something I find satisfying about deleting them daily; sort of a virtual sweep and mop.

That sweep and mop is not confined to my email. Email offers an interesting statistical model and potential measure of the 'real world. It seems to me that the 98% number--or better, the 2% that remains when the crap is deleted--could be used to describe the experience of being conscious itself. If you really think about it, it seems obvious that most of the information that flows over, around and through us is simply wasted energy, the spam of the physical world.

This ratio may be exaggerated, but I think that 2% sounds about right when it comes to measuring the useful information that I get and am able to make use of every day.

So, where is my 2% today?

Construction and Destruction

Ever since I was a boy, I have been fascinated with two sorts of monumental human activity, the construction and destruction of buildings, both large and small. By lucky coincidence, for the past several weeks or so I have been treated to the sight of both on my morning walk to work at UT.

My first sight of a site comes just after I crest the hill on 24th street and start down toward Waller Creek and the Geosciences Building where I work. This two block long construction site is the new Experimental Sciences Building (ESB), and as of today it is now just over a story high. That doesn't sound like much, but in fact the new building has just emerged from a six-story-deep pit. The massive hole from which it is today rising was dug in part to remove all the toxic chemicals that had been poured down the drains since the first ESB was built back in the 1920's. It's sort of a UT version of Love Canal.

The relentless pace of the new building is amazing. As I walk by, there must be two hundred men hard--and I mean really hard--at work, dragging, pounding, cutting and muscling large loads of wood, metal and concrete into impossibly precarious and precise locations over a vast and complex site. I can see carpenters constructing the framework for the concrete workers to place the giant metal molds for the new floor that will be poured later this week. Two twenty-story tower cranes loom over the site, blasting air horns every time a load is dragged up into the space overhead.

Heavy rumbling tractors move around the perimeter of the building's rising framework, hauling huge loads of lumber and steel rebar into place for the next floor. Ironworkers tie off the framework for the internal columns while suspended in space. More men build the rebar cages on giant rigs set up underneath the cranes, some lifting the two-inch thick metal bars on their shoulders while others lace it together with wire too thin to be seen from a distance. Invisible to my eye, that wire is nonetheless capable of binding together the internal structure of an entire building. I am ever impressed by the fragility of permanence.

Watching the intensity of the activity that surrounds construction, it is hard to imagine that the result is actually impermanent; what looks solid is astonishingly easily torn down. In fact, just about three months ago, this very site was still undergoing destruction.

If construction is carefully controlled chaos, destruction is deliciously defined violence.

First, giant 'nibbling' machines were brought in. These are mechanical shovels outfitted with huge crab-like hydraulically powered pincers on the end of long, pivoting steel arms. These nibblers began with the top floors and literally ate away at the structure, pulling it down and smashing it so that the long-trapped rebar was released in tangled masses like so much fishing line dumped on a muddy bank.

Men with long fire hoses spayed jets of water on the jaws of the giant building-eaters as they crushed and pulverized every last pipe, duct and wire in the structure into manageable bits. Other men with massive shovels scooped up the loads of debris and dumped them, five scoops per load, into a procession of trucks that ran by the site of the site continuously every day for a month or more.

Though I obviously recall well the process that brought the old ESB down, I do not have to wander far to see more of the same. Just a block a way, the old Chilling Station #4 is coming down in much the same way.

You'd think it would be most economical to literally take the building apart piece by piece, carefully recyling the valuable materials inside like steel, aluminum and copper, while saving and re-using parts of the machines inside that still function. This is not the case. While there is indeed a crude separation of the materials into basic groups like metal and concrete, there is nothing particularly careful about the way these elements are removed as part of the deconstruction process.

The building is literally being torn down, pounded and smashed with seeming abandon, starting with the upper floors. Today, after just a couple of weeks, all that remains is the steel framework, piled high with metal, concrete and brick debris on top. No massive crew is required here. Just a couple of guys seem to be working on the site, using a giant nibbler and a front-end loader. It makes sense, though. Destruction is dangerous but not terribly exacting work.

They've cleared away most of the rubble from the sides and the interior is cleaned out. A hydraulic lift, once used to move massive pieces of equipment in and out of the cooling station remains attached to one of the steel I-beams that make up the ceiling. It is all that is left of the functionality of the building, a purpose now given over to another, even more massive and of course, modern cooling station built in behind. The open space that the destruction space will leave is welcome, but not likely to last long.

No doubt a tower crane will soon rise on the spot, anticipating the erection of yet another permanent yet very impermanent building.

My Free Car: A Proposal for GM

I've got a new promotional idea for GM. Give me one of your cars.

This is neither as nutty or as selfish as it sounds. To begin with, I have to admit that I've never actually owned a GM car of any kind, and this for a reason. I've always had the impression that GM products are, have been and will continue to be--how can I say this most delicately--pieces of shit. Now this impression may not have been valid, though it does seem that GM's precipitous tumble from the summit of the manufacturing world might have something to do with the steady decline in quality of said products and consumer perception of the same during my entire lifetime. GM management may of course choose to challenge that presumption, but it is safe to say that it would take considerable coercion on their part to convince me otherwise.

Like, for example, giving me a car. That could work. For both of us.

For my part, I am willing to go the extra mile so to speak, and actually talk up GM. Really, I will! Not only with I no longer refer to your products as pieces of shit, I will actually endeavor to speak positively about them and your fine, if somewhat scaled back and hopefully now humbled organization. I figure this is a good time for this proposal, what with the change in management and the summer-long shutdown looming and all the rest.

So, for you, GM this deal I'm offering could be a real alternative to say, going out of business permanently. I know you've been thinking about it. Why you've just launched the 'Rally for America' advertising campaign where you picture good and loyal Americans wearing baseball caps inside out in their good-faith attempt to rally the economy all while driving brand-new GM pieces of, erm, valuable transportation and earth-sustaining lifestyle-projecting family-friendly vehicles. Now, if you would just give them away, we'd have a deal.

I don't mean another of those ridiculous zero down, zero interest 'deals'. I mean zero dollars as in free. As in what lunches are not but GM cars ought to be. I think you ought to simply give the piece...erm, until you clear the lots of the--literally, no kidding--millions of unsold and potentially unwanted cars and trucks. These are the same cars and trucks that you built 'on spec' so to speak over the past year and now find yourself with so many 'extras' that you are shutting down production for nine weeks this summer. Nine weeks? Surely you saw the signs back in October of last year? Oh I know you did because that's when you started asking for money, claiming you were 'too big to fail'.

Well, news flash: GM has failed. It is over. Stick a fork in 'em ma, 'cause they're done. I'm hoping the new management will realize this and decide to simply give away what's left of the old pieces, erm, inventory in favor of a new start.

I don't know what that 'new start' will be like for GM and companies like it. For 'starters' though, I can guarantee it won't involve a whole lot of steel and glass. Have you car guys in Detroit been watching the Science Channel lately? There are some guys out there with some new ideas, and new materials for you to consider.

And, as long as you're considering, where and when can I go get my car?

Busy Bee

 

Sit, Loki, sit!

It has been about two weeks and the new member of our family is beginning to settle in to his new home in our house and hearts. It's an entirely new experience for me, one that I am really enjoying even though I have no idea what I am doing.

Valery bought a book about Border Collies from which I have already learned a great deal about the consistent care and focused training Loki will require in order to live successfully with us. I really think we've made the right choice with him but we really have to do some work here in the beginning. Actually, training him correctly will be a lot more like fun than work, even though it requires being consistent and focused--like work--because his energy and enthusiasm make the activity an exciting and rewarding for all of us, the dog included.

The first thing he is learning is how to sit. He already does it on command about ninety percent of the time, and clearly understands it as a command. As a puppy he requires constant reinforcement to make the connection between commands and actions, and as new dog owners, we require a similar reinforcement to make the connection between our desires and the dogs actions. He really does get it when you tell him, but I have learned that we've got to tell him, constantly and in a consistent, uncompromising way.

Anyone who tells you that there are similarities between raising a child and training a puppy has probably never done both successfully. It would be nice to think that our experiences with child rearing would come in handy for this exercise, but raising a dog requires a different, more basic set of skills. We decided to follow the book on training this one. Fortunately, there is one.

Dodging a Bullet

Confessing to being a thief, as I did in my previous post, has engendered more romantic thoughts of my rebellious, pirate side and prompts me to now admit that I am also guilty of committing an even worse--though equally innocent, if you will allow it to be so characterized after hearing my story--'crime' in my youth.

I shot my brother David in the navel with a sticker.

Many tragic stories have been told about the misuse of guns by foolish children, and as I contemplate this tale I am thankful yet again that it is a tale of foolishness and not anguish; a lesson learned without more serious consequences. I am the one who 'dodged a bullet' that sunny summer afternoon in the mid-sixties in Abilene.

All I remember of the actual day is that it was hot. The sunshine floods my memory of the moment, seared in my brain as one of those fading kodachrome snapshots, yellow and overexposed. This isn't surprising, as it was nearly always hot in Abilene. Most of my recollections of that place and time are of summertime, when I had a great deal of free time and a virtual absence of supervision.

These were two commodities of which I had an apparent abundance that fateful day, much to my brother's belly button's detriment. Oh, and I likely scarred him mentally for life that day as well, but this post is about my mental scarring, not his. Doubtless in response to this memoir I will hear more of his recollection, but for now, I press on to enter my long overdue mea culpa into the lublic record.

The weapon I had in my hand that day was a BB gun. It was a pistol, manufactured by Daisy, who still make BB guns today, though I very much doubt they have they model I got for my seventh birthday in 1963. The reason for my doubt has to do with the design and consequent killing power--or lack thereof--that this particular gun presented to me and my safety conscious parents.

While many BB guns are powered by compressed air that is 'pumped' into a chamber by repeated cocking of a lever or part of the barrel, my Daisy pistol was actually spring-powered. It resembled an old fashioned Colt 45 six-shooter, but the revolver was in fact, fake. The BB's were loaded into a holding chamber on the side of the gun, six at a time. Cocking the gun was a matter of sliding a bolt on the top of the barrel back until it locked. As the bolt slid back, the spring was compressed and one of the six BBs from the chamber was supposed to drop into the firing chamber at the back of the barrel, just in front of the spring, which had a small metal plate attached to the end to cradle the BB and push it forward when the spring was released via the trigger.

It was all very mechanical and remarkably low powered, which was no accident, and not necessarily ironically. The choice of this model was a compromise between my intense desire to have a gun, and my parents' intense desire to keep weapons of any kind out of my hands. As such it was a good compromise: it satisfied neither of us completely.

At first, however, I was more than satisfied. Thrilled is a good word for this feeling. I can recall my heart soaring as I opened the package at the table that day. I remember that it was my seventh birthday. I recall having the party at the kitchen table then going outside to play with my friends and my new treasure.

I also remember that my best friend at the time, Paul, was not impressed, and with good reason. He lived 'in the country' which, in Abilene, simply meant outside of town. Looking back, even living in town was a remarkably rural experience. Nonetheless, Paul was true country boy in a way I never was nor will be. He knew about guns. Of course, he had fired and even owned 'real' guns, so his opinion mattered a great deal. However, despite knowing the truth of its relative value, to me that Daisy was a 'true' gun. It was my first. In a way this is important because it was also a symbol of my parents' trust.

This story, then, is about how I dealt with that trust and what I've done with the lesson learned that day.

At first I had a hard time believing it it was real. So impossible did it seem that Lynda and Bill had both relented and spared the money for this birthday present that I can still remember placing it by my bedside before going to sleep, then waking up in the morning having convinced myself in my dreams that it was just a dream, only to be astonished anew when my eyes rested on it in the light of a new day. That was the first and last day for such joy.

One of the parts of the compromise that was most unappealing to me was the paucity of the ammunition. Tough I suppose it is a bit of an exaggeration, I recall being given something like a dozen BBs in a little clear plastic pouch. Since a full 'load' comprised just half a dozen of the little copper colored metal balls, I exhausted my arsenal in just two rounds and had to resort to retrieving them from the burnt straw colored grass in our front yard.

This was easier than it sounds for two reasons. First, the gun was so underpowered that I could literally see the BB arcing out of the barrel through the air toward the ground. 'Tests' conducted with the gun muzzle's proximity to pieces of wood and glass that the emerging projectile would neither embed in the former nor break the latter. Second, the bright copper color of the BBs was easy to spot in the withered grass and dark red dirt of West Texas.

Nonetheless, twenty four BBs do not last forever, and it may not even have been an hour before I was back in the house, asking Lynda when she would go buy me some more. Well, of course, when was a bit presumptuous. If was more like it. I was sent back out to play with my new weapon sans ammunition but not without imagination.

I soon discovered that other things besides BBs would fit into the loading chamber, hence into the firing chamber and barrel of my little pistol. Things like little rocks could be worked in, but I soon discovered that finding pebbles of exactly the right size and shape was hard to do, even in our gravel-filled driveway. Not so hard to find, and, as it turns out, easily manipulated into the 'right' shape without much effort were stickers.

If you live in Texas or have, you know what I am talking about. We called them stickers, but they are actually seeds. These are those big, old nasty, spiky, hard white, spine-covered balls of foot-pain inducing hell that hide in the grass, attach themselves to your socks and pant legs, then stab you and inject their horrible poison into your bloodstream.

Ok, I am really exaggerating about the last bit, but there's no doubt that after no more than simply being poked by one of these stickers, your skin will itch for far longer than the simple act of touching it deserves. Just plucking one out of your sock can mean several nasty pokes to your fingertips, so try and imagine, if you will, what it would be like to have one shoved, nay, rammed into your belley button with such forch that it literally disappears into that fleshy knot. Though it may not be an absolute center of your nervous system, it is certainly close enough to the solar plexus that the zing is not something you're likely to forget.

I doubt he's forgotten it. I certainly haven't.

I can only hope it is something one can forgive. I took one of those very nasty if not actually deadly stickers, loaded it into the firing chamber of my trusty little Daisy pistol and fired it, point blank, into my very trusting little brother David's navel.

Despite what I considered to be a demonstrable lack of firepower, the Daisy nonetheless managed to deliver the substitute ammo with enough force to drive the sticker into his tender, four-year-old flesh. In an instant, he was howling and all I saw in the moment before he went hurtling into the house was the spot of blood that appeared on his belly button. I was certain I'd killed him, but his screams and my mother's recriminating chords at soon convinced me that he would live, even as I feared that I would not.

Despite her desire to do so, it is to Lynda's credit that she did not shoot me with or even hit me over the head with my stupid little BB gun, much though I deserved it. Instead I had to endure several of the most horrible lectures about my lack of responsibility and the dangers of guns from both her and Bill. Bill solemnly placed the gun on the very highest shelf in the pantry as I watched, sorrowful less for my actions and more for my loss.

The physical damage to David's navel was, I am glad to say, minimal. I cannot speak to the emotional consequences of my act, if he even remembers the incident with the intensity that I do. Though deserving of a prominent place in my memory, it may not be the same for him.

Life went on, of course. Eventually, I was allowed to have the Daisy pistol again. I even went on to to get another gun--a powerful rifle--by convincing Bill and Lynda that I had learned a lesson. I had, indeed, but what I never told them was exactly why. You'd think the trauma of the actual event would be enough, but it was actually the dream that I had that night and for many months and even years afterward that affected me most.

In this dream, while caring for my brother, I picked up him around the waist to carry him from one room to another. As I picked him up, I squeezed him too hard, and his eyes popped right out of his head. The futility of trying to replace his dangling, useless eyes was overwhelming, flooding my heart with an irrepressible fear and anguish. Fortunately, the metaphor was just that.

Stealing the Cheese

When I was still in high school, I worked as a busboy at a restaurant in Austin called The Barn. Though I still could not tell you why I did it, one night when I was working there, I stole a ten-pound block of swiss cheese.

I certainly didn't do it for the cheese. That cheese was terrible, sharp and grainy, a poor excuse for the 'appetizer' it was supposed to be, especially when paired with the steamed white rolls that we served with it. But because eating it was taboo, that cheese was transformed--not unlike transubstantiation, if you're are inclined to believe that sort of thing--into a precious food with actual flavor. That flavor was imparted in major part simply by the act of obtaining it; always surreptitious, ever sly, eaten on the move and with as little mouth motion as possible to avoid deadly detection.

Honestly, the risk was way overrated. Although I never saw anyone get fired for eating that crap--or any other crap, including the 'bus tub buffet'--it was the legend that kept us on the down low, so to speak. It certainly made the low life crap that we were eating (especially the b-t buffet) seem somehow--against all odds and our tastebuds themselves--flavorful. The taste of risk, even an imagined one, is, it turns out, a better condiment than salt, butter or cream. Though the combination of the last three ingredients no doubt makes anything taste better, it was but a dash of perceived danger that made that disgusting block of swiss cheese seem like something actually worth stealing.

What else could have been going through my mind?

I don't think I did it on a dare, since I don't remember telling anyone. I also don't remember planning it. Had I attempted to plan the act, I would have thought too much about it in advance and failed to go through with it, No, I would remember if had it been anything other than a typical spur-of-the-moment crime. Of the type that often do damage far out of proportion to their real-world severity, I was lucky to have escaped all consequences for it. This is, of course, an post-facto rationalization. I willingly accept the fact that it was nothing more than a petty crime. No matter the motivation or the absence of consequences; no matter that it was just a dumb kid thing to do, I did it.

I didn't get caught, though, and by only the very thinnest of margins. In the best tradition of improving the view through the soft lens of hindsight, I see my escape as a warning, a lesson learned and truly never forgotten. I think it safe to say that I am not a thief by nature. I cannot claim to have never stolen anything. Besides the cheese, over the years, there have been a few candy bars in pockets and mints too. And, I once ran out of Denny's without paying for a chocolate malt. Though the potential for irony be much increased with such statements, I believe that I am only being honest when I say that I haven't stolen anything else that I can recall.

It's laziness, really. I think it much easier to work and earn the money to buy something than to plan for, take the risk of and live with the consequences of theft. I suppose you could say that I am perhaps deterred by international banking laws which prohibit me from moving large sums of money to and from 'offshore' bank accounts, but still argue for my moral bankruptcy by observing that I have no money with which to do so. True. Beyond that, however, down through the long line of property crimes all the way to big, nearly rotten hunks of swiss cheese, I may claim innocence. At the last offense, I admit the stupidity if not the criminality of that act here today.

I stole the damn cheese. I saw it in the reach-in cooler as I was on my way out. The last one out,lights were being clicked out all round me by the manager, who was closing up behind me as I left. He was in the other room, locking something because they knew the staff would steal it if it wasn't locked up. So paranoid! Yet here was this erm, lovely block of cheese, and in a flash I had removed my coat and wrapped it around my prize. As casually as possible, I made my way to the exit, calling to the manager cheerily.

Unfortunately, my hasty exit was prevented by a locked front door, which required that I wait for the manager to come perilously close to my heavy secret. I don't recall how I held that awkward load, nor can I remember whether or not he actually saw what I was attempting to conceal in the near dark of the closing restaurant. Oddly, as if he'd had a sudden intuition, he asked me to stay for a minute while he locked up the kitchen. He directed me to sit a booth near the door and wait.

"Here," he said. "Set a spell while I go lock up the back. Say it's cold out there. Oughten you be wearin' that jacket to your car?" He said this as he turned away and disappeared in the dark, so luckily I didn't have to answer.

I sat with my bundled contraband next to me on the black leather naugahide of the booth seat, waiting with sweaty palms as he made noises in the dark, wishing my anchor was smaller, lighter. I was wishing that I hadn't done it, hoping that he hadn't noticed. If wishes were horses, I'd have ridden right out of there.

Suddenly he was back, looming in the light over the booth, holding a tumbler full of an amber liquid. Was it scotch, or bourbon? I don't know; didn't know there was a difference then. It could have been marsala wine for all I knew. Before I knew it he slid into the seat opposite me and began to talk about honesty. The words are lost to me in the haze of fear that possessed me--rightly--for the ten minutes or so it took him to down his nightcap. I do recall the sad look on his face as he talked, desperately trying to read his intent. I burned with fear, wondering if he was going to call me out or if he expected me to reveal my secret. Reveal my burden I did not, and he soon shooed me out into the cold night without scolding me for carrying my jacket instead of wearing it.

Looking back, it occurs to me that he may have been the one to reveal something that night, something that quietly became part of who I have been, and who I am today.

Riding Around in a Bookmobile

The other Reader of this journal has asked for more stories about Lynda during the time we lived in Abilene, so while I am on a book 'theme' of late, I thought this would be a good time to recall what I can of my experiences riding around in a Bookmobile in Abilene with Lynda.

The Bookmobile was a large rectangular van, not unlike a modern day bread truck, with high sides and a rather narrow beam, with a single person-sized door in the back instead of the wide double doors of a delivery truck. Using a set of stairs lowered to meet a footstool placed on the ground, patrons would enter the Bookmobile from the back and pass down a single narrow aisle with bookshelves on either side from back to front.

The driver's area was visible from the 'stacks' but a low partition divided the two spaces so the only way out was also the way in. At most, three people could browse the stacks at a time. There was a passenger seat up front too, which is where Lynda sat while the Bookmobile ground it's gears around the west Texas plains in search of readers. There were no other seats. I sat on the floor in the aisle when the truck was rolling and the minute we were 'in port' so to speak, I got out to play.

Though hard-pressed to recall what year and for how many summers we did this, I know that moment must have been when I was still in elementary school. I had no particular interest in the books at that age. At the very least, books were already such a routine part of my life that the thought of reading more of them than absolutely necessary was definitely not what got me to riding along in the Bookmobile. Recall, dear Reader that I actually grew up in a bookstore. So, why did I hit the road with my Mom in a truck full of books?

Part of the reason I went along was simply my devotion to Lynda. I don't know how else to describe it. The Reader already knows that I am--or was--a Mama's boy. This journal was started in part to record and illuminate that very fact. I've already written about how I accompanied her on sales calls many years later, but my travels with Lynda really began here. Those travels really do go way back. From an early age, I developed a willingness--for want of another, better word--to accompany her to various places such as the store, the laundromat and the library. I went places with my Dad, too, just not as often. He took trips to the Bank, the service station and the hardware store.

Now, I can't say that I enjoyed the trips to the store all that much. Going to the laundromat was just flat out work and no fun at all. The library was another matter. This place I loved to go; and still do. And in the early sixties in Abilene, because the public library was one of the only public buildings--other than banks--that was air conditioned, it was literally the coolest place in town on a hot Texas summer day.

Another, less tangible but no less important reason that the library was also a 'cool' place to go was due to Lynda's friend, Len Radoff. Len was the Librarian at the Abilene Public Library during part of the time that we lived there. Although I do not recall all the details of how they met in that intellectual hothouse that was Abilene in the early sixties, I know that Lynda's dearest, closest (and dare I say oldest friends?) were Len and Lisel Radoff. They were--are--more like family than friends. Their daughter, Lesley have known each other now for something like forty-five years. She and I spent many days playing with sticks together in their back yard or ours; battling with 'swords' up and down the staircase of our house while our parents rattled on endlessly in the living room or kitchen about art, books, ballet, opera and politics.

I should point out that Len is like a favorite uncle, someone I always enjoyed being around. He is a very funny man, with a delightful wit and a love of play that no child can resist because he is always and forever will be a child at heart. He is also the most well read person--man, woman or child--that I've ever known, or even know of, including Lynda. Though Mom was a voracious reader, she had trouble sharing the information she gained from it with me, at least when I was very young. She could get exasperated with me, but Len had no such barrier. A more patient man in the world there is not. He treated me with such respect, intellectually, even at such a young age, that I can trace at least part of my love of learning, books and discovery to his gentle influence. Certainly he got me to read more books by persuasion than Lynda did by coercion during those summer-long book reading contests sponsored by the Library.

You know those contests, where the book list is updated weekly and a little tally is kept in the lobby so you can follow your progress and compare it to the other kids? It's likely a thing of the past now. It was meant to keep us off the street, and it certainly did that, though it was the air conditioning as much as anything that encouraged me personally to go regularly. For my part, I routinely read--was forced to read?--more than the ten or so books a week that comprised the minimum to compete and often ended up at or near the top of the list by the end of the summer. However, there was no prize that I can recall, so perhaps I never actually 'won' the damn thing. Who knows?

The trips in the Bookmobile were, for me, mostly about freedom. Freedom from the house and the absence of chores was a powerful incentive for me, I guess. I recall that each time the old van rattled to a stop in the parking lot of some new little town, I barreled from the back, looking, hoping to discover something new and exciting. Alas, there was precious little of that commodity in these dreary places. It doesn't take many visits to many small Texas towns to figure out that the great plains are not much on variation. At least there were plenty of horny toads and grasshoppers and ants no matter where we went. I managed to entertain myself in the dozens of ways that bored little boys do when left to their own devices out of doors.

Who knows, maybe I even read a book or two while riding around in the Bookmobile. I don't really remember. The Bookmobile adventure, if I can call it as much, certainly took a good bit of my attention during those long boring and very hot months of summer. It beat vacation Bible school, or so I'm told.

Peering into the Dark

I feel a bit like what an early astronomer might have felt. I am searching the metaphorical skies to try and determine where I--my writing--fits into the 'Gutenberg Galaxy'. Alas, that Galaxy is so vast and my size so small that it makes me realize that any determination is no more than a guess, and a poorly educated one at that.

Odd to think, I guess, that I am poorly educated and basically illiterate, even after two degrees and much reading. A close look in the mirror confirms the fact that the combination of the American educational system and my own inherent laziness have yielded a curiously false appearance of literacy.

For example, when contemplating the number of books that I have read versus the number I actually possess, it is clear that I am not very well read at all, relying instead on books to retain the information that I can't or don't want to keep in my head. And, though I have read a few famous works of fiction, thanks to college literature classes, that number is small indeed when compared with real readers.

Furthermore, when comparing the number and diversity of books I have read with those people in my life that I have known well, like Lynda, Stephen, Lynda's good friend Len Radoff and my old college professor, mentor and friend Francesca Weinmann, it is even more obvious just how poorly read I am. Yet, somehow, by comparison with those people who are not part of the book culture, I would actually be considered literate!

How funny is that?

I guess that if 'literacy' were a class, and the professor was grading on a curve, I could, just maybe, get an A. That illusion might satisfy some parents--not mine--and most students, but even (especially?) C students like me know just where we stand compared with the folks who got a 'real' A. I know that the difference between me and the truly literate looks very small to those who are even less well-read than I am. However, by any measure, the gap between someone like Lynda or Len and me is actually huge and consequently, very significant to my effort to be a writer.

That I would be struggling to figure out where I fit as a writer speaks of an absence of vision for my 'work' and reveals my dilettantism. The irony of this fact that must have been acute for Lynda, considering that though she raised me to be a part of the book culture that was her perceived heritage and gave me thus an opportunity to get a good education, that chance was squandered. How did this happen?

Lynda, could we ask her, might have blamed TV. I would accept this (escape from) judgment readily, but for the fact that others who also watched the 'boob tube' as she called it were not similarly affected. My brother David, for example, managed to watch (still does) his fair share of TV without abandoning books the way I did. I wonder how it might have been if we two had been in reverse order. How might David have thrived and grown being raised in a bookstore the way I was? I was literally raised in the Abilene Bookstore, crawling around on dirty gray carpet in the aisle, pulling out and up on books from the bottom shelf. Book boxes and piles of books were everywhere. Both my parents read to me daily and conversations at dinner were invariably about one book or another.

Ironically there was even a brief intersection between the worlds of TV and books in the early days in Abilene. As a small boy of six or seven I accompanied my parents to the local TV studio where they had a small 'About Books' segment that aired live once or twice a month. I can recall seeing them on the black and white monitor in a room somewhere off set. To keep me quiet the studio techs gave me ice cream in a small paper cup with a wooden spoon. This was in the days before we actually owned a television set, so my experience with medium went no further than seeing those grainy black-and-white images while downing a couple spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream at that point. My parents were just forward thinking enough to believe that television could be used to extend literacy.

Perhaps Bill and Lynda were just too forward thinking, or just naive, embracing the new technology in its most innocent day, fully believing it could be harnessed to advance the cause of literacy. In fact, it was just the reverse. It is just now, after a long, often toxic formative period, that we have some television programming that even Lynda might think worth watching.

Now, while it isn't at all clear to me that television has been entirely deleterious to my literacy and hence, my writing, it is fair to say that the rise of electronic culture--for which TV is both the earliest and still best spokesman--is the primary reason for my inability to follow in the footsteps of truly literate individuals like Lynda.

This isn't a bad thing. I'm just saying it is just the way it is. Life and culture are in constant flux. So what if I'll die before know just where my star will sit in the firmament? That won't keep me from scanning the sky every night looking for a place to put it.

Bad Days of the Heart

I can't predict them. I can't explain them. Bad days of the heart.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It started soft and warm with the threat of rain, but soon cleared up for one of the brightest most delightfully fragrant warm early summer days this year, or perhaps ever. But the clouds which passed from the sky remained in my heart.

By all accounts it should have been just in my head. Friends who get the migraines as I do, told me it had for them been a day for a real pounder, but my head was mercifully clear all day. Of course I should be thankful for this, but typically, selfishly I was unconscious; hurting elsewhere. It was my heart which hung heavy and dark, impervious to the gentle sunshine bathing my skin. I am not sure about this state of being. How does this work? How can I be happy and anguished at the same time? Is there no end to this contradiction; is this unpredictable haunting eternal?

In many ways, the metaphor of the migraine seems apt to describe these bad days. It is not an irony that light should weigh me down so; quite fitting that my dark heart should be aching so bathed in light, for my eyes want to burst when pulled inward by the pain of a headache. Unlike the pain of a migraine, the pain of grief is invisible to the world. So I press on. I am keenly aware that my head and heart do not define this world, but only serve to make it that much more precious to me.