afterword

yesterday, i labeled my post with three hash marks (# # #), the traditional writer's symbol for the end of a manuscript. Barring a series of afterwords, this entry marks the end of the blog Grandfather's Shirt (pleatedmile.blogspot.com). The adventure leading to that last post felt like the culmination of a chapter in my life, and, in a parallel way, the chapter of Grandfather's Shirt.

Now, i'm ready to take some time off as the year closes; I'll post word as another blog comes to birth, perhaps with the new year.

My missing yellow pencil found its way back to me, and i press it furiously to paper in many of my works of art. i press it here with the same love.

# # #

'I don't believe,' the traveler said to the statue. He heard a reply. 'You don't have to believe. You just have to show up.'

receipt novellas

A few months ago, I mentioned here the fabulous paper receipts that come from pharmacies and groceries and the like. The lengths of the receipts are so generous, one could write a novella on the back.

I sincerely believed this. It was as though I'd laid a challenge for myself on the table.

Well. This week, I not only completed a 7th paper receipt novella, but this one was a 3-parter.

for Mr. Rodrigue

the monstr cloud
one eye glaring through
foggy swaths of steely gray
grins
with ferocious gaping teeth.
i will remember you

love for the bugs

it is difficult to get your soil outdoors to produce natural foods without insects and mites and worms and grubs, all the fascinating life forms we used to say 'Yuk!' at when we were kids digging in the dirt with sticks. To help the earth nourish your little garden plants, your tomatoes and okra and raspberries and peas, it makes good sense to be hospitable to the critters that support the plants and their roots and pollination. Water and compost (especially including gooey eggshells and fungal mushrooms and active yogurt and moldy breads decomposing into the dirt) can help say 'Welcome!' to life.

I've been looking up different versions of the legend of the poinsettia. The gist of the story is this:

Long ago, a young child in Mexico looked forward to the village's annual Christmas celebration. One year, the child was worried. Other kids were bringing gifts to lay at the manger, and the child was poor with nothing to bring.

On the way to the celebration, the child saw some green weeds along the roadside, and felt an impulse to bring these to the manger. The child lay the weeds there and left.

In the days or minutes that followed, the weeds took root and grew into beautiful bright red plants. The villagers called the wild blooms 'Star of Christmas' and 'Flora de Noche Buena'.

i i i i i i i i i

I dotted some i's and dotted some more i's.
Rows of i's, like candles on a cake.
I had asked myself what I should write about, but there was no answer.

new and green
or crumbling on the twig
leaves maintain
their plucky outlook

One tradition my parents kept each year was sending Christmas cards to friends and family. Across almost sixty years of marriage, they may have missed only two or three holiday seasons. From a kid's perspective, it was a great tradition. There was a payoff to their efforts: we received holiday cards in return. Through the month of December and part way into January, fetching the mail from the mailbox was a treat. Any envelope addressed with a 'Mr. and Mrs.' that included 'and family' or 'and children ' or 'and daughters', we were allowed to open without parental presence. Inside the envelopes were pictures of the Nativity, or Three Wise Men trimmed in gold. There were glittered illustrations of snow, bells, holly, Christmas trees, angels, stars, ornaments, partridges and Santa Clauses.

Despite my notoriously bad penmanship, I was allowed to address the cards our parents were sending out, and that way got to know the names of their distant friends. (When I was grown up, I finally met some of these mysterious folks with the very familiar names.) My parents over time became sensitive to the different cultures their friends belonged to, and sometimes bought Hanukkah cards, or cards with more inclusive 'season's greetings'. As I addressed envelopes today, I thought about what a great tradition this is: the colorful stamps, the remembering each friend and family member with ink against paper.

Anyone who has worked in an institution for those with psychiatric disorders knows there are other ways to control a person's behavior besides physical force. Such methods have been called 'chemical restraints'.

Certain pharmaceuticals, used judiciously, can help persons who are psychotic, confused and/or anxious become calm and lucid. Some can keep a person who is distressed, noisy, dangerous, or just awake at inconvenient times knocked out. Regulations in the United States have prohibited their use without the permission of the client except when the individual is documented by more than one person to be a risk to self or others. Such medications - they are mostly prescription drugs - are used in facilities for the elderly, and with kids without psychiatric disorders who are more active than is convenient. The elderly may be given such medications for symptoms associated with dementia or other neurological and psychiatric issues. However, they too are sometimes treated just for being more active than is convenient. Persons who have been imprisoned at times are also administered such drugs.

when things are awry -

i helped an aluminum can on the edge of my path find its way to a recycle bin.

i like the idea when you come upon some little thing awry, take a moment to set it right.

there is feedback like reflection off a pond, and there is feedback with an agenda, aimed to manipulate behavior. I like the first.

there are designer relationships, and there is love - and I like the latter.

short-short story

'I'm turning off my freaking TV,' she thought,'and I'm going to freaking knit another freaking scarf.'

the right journey

we walk the right journey
but the wrong road -
the good firm earth
turns spongey -
with every step
the destination shifts.
the trusty north star
is lost behind
a patchwork of clouds -
we stride to a faint and distant melody -
our aching feet in touch
with the transforming path.

heaven

my idea of heaven
is skeins of yarn
near a sunlit window
and a little green tractor

my idea of heaven is
a flock of little birds
of many colors

do you remember parakeets?

my idea of heaven
is lots of marbles
in a drawstring bag

my idea of heaven
is a madras shift
with sandals

my idea of heaven
is the feel of a man's dress shirt
on a man's back

a box of painted wood blocks
a toddler dressed in washed cotton
a plate with a slice of cake

beer in a glass that's sat in the freezer awhile
or a glass of iced tea
leftover potato salad and
a cold slice of cantaloupe

the old couch
with the dark green floral fabric
the wood floor
and a cat on my bare feet

my idea of heaven
is goldfish in the horse trough
and my mother's old watch

my idea of heaven
is glaciers in the sunlight
open windows as the light fades
on a quiet night

cicadas singing
stars peppering a black sky
a silent friend in a coffee shop

In 9th grade, part of our English class included Greek/Roman mythology. Brutal, brutal stories! Three-headed dogs and ladies with snakes for hair! Goddesses changing young girls into spiders and men into grasshoppers! Gods throwing temper tantrums and flinging lightning bolts into the earth. Kings killing off their daughters' suitors. Jealousy, infidelity, and revenge around every corner. I felt deeply grateful that this was mythology, way far back in an unlikely past, and that nothing that powerful and capricious was in our realm of experience.

But now sometimes I wonder.

bulbs

Image of painting by Vincent Van Gogh via Wikimedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VanGoghIrises2.jpg


as we inch into winter temperatures, and the outdoor plants wither and droop without memory of the promise of spring, i think about bulbs. Lilies and tulips. Irises and onions. Daffodils and amaryllis. They come back year after year, and they actually depend on a freeze or two to get into the mood to bloom come spring. Fall and early winter are thus good times to plant bulbs - like, now for instance!

Irises tend to show up early. There was an oak in central Texas along a rural road. Each spring, irises would shoot upward in a circle around the trunk. What a spark of cheer after a drab winter to see the deep purple petals swaying and waving above the fresh green stems.



Onion bulb.
Image
via Wikimedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Onion_growing_shoots.jpg

My expectation was that I'd be a mother of daughters. That's where my experience lay: one of three sisters, 12 years of all-girls schools. Daughters would be companionable and familiar. Little Women in the 1990s.

I didn't know a thing about boys. Yet when the time came, two baby guys showed up, and I had a lot to learn and it was great. Boys are a lot of fun. I'm generalizing here, and it's not true for all kids, but girls like to talk and the boys tended to be more action. As a mother of sons, though I was curious about their friends and teachers, I never was told who said what at school, or who was no longer a friend of so and so because of this or that. The boys spent their time after school throwing a Nerf ball back and forth over the roof, or speeding down a hill on trikes they'd long ago outgrown or crashing through the house with phony swords and firefighter hats. They're grown up, but they haven't changed so much. It's been a good life, being a mother of sons.

Om

phrases from a Wikipedia article on 'Om':

'the basis of all uttered sound'

'The Sanskrit name for the syllable is praṇava'

'from a root nu "to shout, sound" '

' "to make a humming or droning sound" '


Happy Thanksgiving -

Happy Hanukkah

Baseball at Beekman's

the gentleman at the table was talking about when he was a kid in the 1930s in New Orleans, Louisiana. There was a store that sold men's goods called Beekman's. This is where he was fitted with his first pair of long pants, around age 7, for First Communion. Before that, he wore knickers. The transition from knickers to long pants represented a giant step toward manhood.

There was an overhang over the front of the store and when there were baseball games, a couple of fellows would man the canopy. They were able to receive data via telegraph from distant games in progress. As information flowed in, reduced to Morse code, one of the men at the New Orleans storefront would call the plays, like an announcer at the game. Because the information by telegraph was terse and limited, they filled in the blanks with action, with their own wild details of what could have led to the reported run or strike out. The people below loved the show.

Loretta

one of my favorite neighbors ever was a little brown mutt named Loretta who lived near the entrance to our rural neighborhood. She was a happy dog, and catapulted out of her yard to meet me whenever I walked by. Though she had plenty of space to explore with little objection to her freedom, she tended to mostly mind the front steps, coming out to sniff the butterflies, garter snakes and Mexican hats.

We both left the area around the same time, but I remember her now and again. Just a single little neighbor offered a sense of well-being, warmth and welcome to our little bit of the earth. 'Loretta, Loretta - where ya been so long?'

the door was open
(shelves filled with color
the glorious glow
soft sacred strands
running through my hands)
knowing nothing of knitting
i knew the seduction of yarn

the poetry of songwriters

Simon and Garfunkel, balladeers of the 1960s and early 70s, created poetry on wheels, stanzas attached to song. Many of their lyrics could be categorized as poetry. 'The Dangling Conversation' for example could stand proudly side by side with T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'.

Simon and Garfunkel are a standout example but many other songwriters could also claim credit as poets (and excuse me if my focus is back a few decades when I was a young adult during a great era of radio). Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) and The Indigo Girls come to mind. Think of 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' or 'Helplessly Hoping' by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Talking Heads. Eric Burdon. Stephen Sondheim's 'Send in the Clowns'. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Moody Blues.

Melody helps imprint poetry into our memories. Not only are song lyrics received in the language centers, they become anchored in areas of the brain that process music.

Then there is language with no words - piano, trumpet, drums - passionate sound, mind-expanding geometric travel that can pierce the wordy barriers of excuses and explanations we contrive and fly right to the heart of it all, without a single sentence.

mona lisa

once upon a time
in the 1990s
i went to the Louvre in Paris, France
i hadn't known this world-famous museum
was once a castle
the ancient building
as beautiful as the most precious art within

a crowd was gathered round
the 'Mona Lisa'
some consider 'Mona Lisa'
the most recognized man-made art of all
and here it was
the showpiece

the crowd was big
and Mona was in an acrylic cube
to keep her safe
she was much smaller than I expected
and i never was able to get up close
to see the brush work
to see the dance of Leonardo's living hand

sunflowers

sunflowers are a gift to bird and beast
fast growing
hardy under harsh conditions
covered with delicious seeds
brilliant and lovely to the eye

They say you can't step into the same river twice, and I guess that's true for the sidewalks in the neighborhood as well. The time of day shifts, and the sunlight sifts through different branches of the tree up ahead. Something new is being built and something old is getting torn down. The crepe myrtle is covered with blooms; now the petals lay strewn, confetti atop the grasses. The dogs are hoping for some excitement; then nap on the front porch. The mailbox next door is silver; now it's painted forest green. The lemonade stand is up, now it's not, now it's up again. You turn around, and the kids are all grown up.

evening highway home

the moon
a great companion -
just past full
and rising in the east -
with moonlight
and ribbon of meandering cloud
shaped a cast
of fleeting characters -
monster heads
the debonaires and funny faces -
as i drove down
the evening highway
home

silence

the silence of a city at night
after a soft and heavy snow
of a candle on an altar
yet to be lit

Foods that are roots: Potatoes for the Irish, beets for the Russians. French fries may be a bit heavy, but they are food, and potatoes are easy to grow. There are carrots and radishes, turnips and onions. Sugar beets provide us with sugar. Jicama is crispy and lightly sweet, like the nectar of honeysuckle. Yams and sweet potatoes are especially nourishing. Horseradish (a condiment) brings tears to the eyes.

the dogs in the hood -

when i first arrived in the neighborhood, the dogs would bark and bark and bark as I walked past. What a commotion -

A week or two passed, and the dogs would bark, but they wagged their tails and jumped up and down, happy for some distraction.

Then, more time passed, and they'd come to the fence, and just watch me walk by. 'What?' I'd say. 'Not even a token bark?' Wag, wag.

Now, they hardly glance up at me. The hind leg scratches an itch. Oh. It's just her.

'Woof,' I say.

No reply.

if it don't make money...

one of the biggest misconceptions of the past seventy-five years on earth may be this: if it does not make money, it is not worth pursuing.

The Geyser Charter

The Geysers, the only organization I embrace wholeheartedly and without reservation, still exists. I first published its charter in my last blog, The Ravens Map (where it has since been mysteriously abridged - ahem.) I'm posting it in its brief original entirety again tonight:


THE GEYSER CHARTER (Draft 5-3-12)

The Geysers is an organization with no specific purpose.

The only requirements to become a member are 1) to want to be a member and 2) to embrace these standards: Love, Principle, and Fluid Hierarchy.

One may belong to or leave the Geysers as one wishes.

This organization requires no dues nor exchange of money nor fund-raising. However, apprenticeships may be requested from one or more members. If the member wants to provide this service, that service will be offered freely. Details will be worked out between teacher and apprentice.

A meeting of members and visitors occurs at least once every 24 hours (currently at 10 AM). There are no rules about meeting content or who attends the meeting or whether it occurs above or below surface or both. In leading the meeting, the standard of Fluid Hierarchy is observed.

This charter is not secret.

A number of helpful guidelines have surfaced over time, and are hereby recorded for the edification and entertainment of members and any curious others:

No martyrs.

Being late is no crime.

Just because it looks like a hat doesn't mean it's a hat.

Don't forget to pass the relay stick.

Muddle through.

--
added 8-30-13

Leave no one behind.

In space, there is no up nor down.

we lived on a busy road and when I was ten, the only paved place to ride bikes was on the narrow driveway. There was a cracked line in the pavement toward the road we were not allowed to cross. So, one day, I rode my bike down the drive almost to the line. I veered right onto the ground under the cedar tree and circled back onto the drive and up the hill to the car port. Getting over the steepest part was work, but after a while, my body figured out how to do this with greater efficiency. This felt good. Soon, as the days went by, there was a hard, bare arc under the tree where we kids made our turnaround for years to come.

We didn't get anywhere, and yet we did. Riding this limited route over and over, after 20 laps or so, a light peacefulness and sense of well-being would descend.

the iced tea

my left shoe
was biting
my little toe
but the iced tea
the scone
beckoned
and i keep walking

i used to think of stargazing as complicated. You need equipment: charts and calendars; a telescope; a flashlight covered in red cellophane so you can see your charts and adjust your telescope in the dark without 'blinding' your eyes; a reclining chair; notebook and pen; etc. It's work!

it wasn't until I was older that I realized you don't need anything at all but to show up.

if you really want a clearer look, a pair of good binoculars works surprisingly well.

my favorite constellation for a long time was Orion. But my favorite to find through the binoculars was the Beehive. It has that fuzzy look that indicates there's more than a few isolated stars in your view; those are clusters and galaxies containing thousands of stars over 500 light years away. The implications rob me of my breath and set my tongue silent, my brain adrift, my heart on fire.





Image URL: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/06/m44bash.jpg
from nationalgeographic.com

poem by Wilfred Owen

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen
1893-1918

when we were kids in south Louisiana, our dad had a motor boat, and sometimes he'd take us out into the Gulf of Mexico to fish. We'd leave the house well before dawn with a cooler of drinks and luncheon meat sandwiches on white bread. By the time the red sun was peaking over the horizon, we'd be on the Intracoastal Canal, the motor humming, heading out for deeper waters. I don't know about recent years but back then, people sometimes tied their boats to oil rigs in the gulf to fish, and i read about why later on. The rigs, after being in place for a number of years, developed salt water ecosystems of their own that attracted the larger fish. Barnacles in their hard gleaming shells were latched onto the lower railings of the rig. Fish were leaping from the waves; there were sharks and stingrays and crabs and sometimes you'd see dolphins (the mammals). Each had their own body shapes and appendages, and thus different fascinating techniques for traveling through the water.

My memories are not all positive, though! Roped to the rig, the boat bounced up and down on choppy waters. I got terribly seasick - and sunburned. Most trips out, the boat broke down at least once, and we had difficulty interpreting what dad meant when he said, 'Hand me that thingamajig.'

the crepe myrtle

no one notices
the elder crepe myrtle tree
cloaked among
the vines and shrubs
at the edge of a parking lot
in an old part of town


with unpretentious charm
the strong limbs
decked with curling lichens
cup spirited clusters
of bygone blooms.
even in these
November afternoons
the leaf-shedding boughs
generate clouds
of pale light

there are songs that proclaim
the ancient oaks
the bending pines -
tonight i write
of the elder crepe myrtle
at the edge of a parking lot
in an old part of town

Mission San Juan Bautista & Father Tápis's Color Music System

Parts of the Alfred Hitchcock movie 'Vertigo' were filmed at Mission San Juan Bautista in California. I looked up that location on Wikipedia and came upon the following quote:


'Father Pedro Estévan Tápis (who had a special talent for music) joined Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta, at Mission San Juan Bautista in 1815 to teach singing to the Indians. He employed a system of notation developed in Spain that uses varied colors or textures for polyphonic music, usually (from bottom to top) solid black, solid red, black outline (sometimes solid yellow) and red outline (or black outline when yellow was used). His choir of Native American boys performed for many visitors, earning the San Juan Bautista Mission the nickname "the Mission of Music." Two of his handwritten choir books are preserved at the San Juan Bautista Museum. When Father Tapis died in 1825 he was buried on the mission grounds. The town of San Juan Bautista, which grew up around the mission, expanded rapidly during the California Gold Rush and continues to be a thriving community today.'


I'd like to see samples of written music using colors to communicate specific notes, but was unable to locate images or further information on Father Tapis's choir books.

When the kids on the playground in 1961 learned my mother was a nurse, they were horrified. 'Does she give you shots every day?!' I'd awkwardly explain she wasn't a nurse at home, she was a mom.

It's unlikely Florence Nightingale ever gave a shot in her life, but at some point in the 20th century, injecting vaccines and drugs became a major part of many nurses' duties. And you were very likely to be on the receiving end if you were a little kid whose parents were educated about the necessity of these new healthcare advances measured in a syringe.

Time passed, and I too became a parent educated about the necessity (by law in the US when it came to vaccines) of new healthcare advances for my kids.

worms, pigeons, bats, and beehives

It's Halloween, and I'm thinking about worms. Not the maggot-type things we sometimes call 'worms' - but earthworms. The house in central Texas was situated on dry, limey, hard-crusted soil and crumbled limestone. Semi-arid climate - the native grasses and shrubs had to be pretty hardy and drought-resistant. Though we had earthworms in the moist lovely crumbly dark soil of Louisiana, I never really looked at earthworms until I saw them at work in our back yard in Texas.

Three or four inches long, they traveled through the upper layer of earth (only a few inches deep) by swallowing the dirt in front of them and moving forward, letting it pass through their bodies out the other end. You could tell where they had passed because the dirt was more crumbly, and it consisted of cylindrical segments the size of what would have exited a worm's body. The earthworms tilled the soil!

Today I was driving and I wished I had a camera. There was a huge elegant ad for Rolex watches with a large image of a gleaming watch. Above the watch, perched on the structure of the billboard, were 7 pigeons, and something about the homey little birds and the giant fancy watch amused me.

I had the radio on, picking up a Baton Rouge station playing 'classic oldies'. I passed a restaurant with a flashing electronic sign advertising their menu and specials and oops, a large Halloween bat appeared on the sign, flashing off and on to the rhythm of the song playing in the car: 'Another One Bites the Dust'.

I was almost home when somehow I got to thinking about beehives. Not the residences for bees, and not the musical, but the hairstyle popular in the late 1950s, early 1960s. You held a strand of hair by its tip, and with a comb, you 'teased' or 'ratted' it into an airy nest, which you shaped like a beehive and held in place with bobby pins and lots and lots of sticky hairspray. They made a person look like a conehead (aliens popularized on Saturday Night Live a decade or two later). I remember a girl just out of high school getting into a vehicle, and the top of her beehive squashing against the ceiling of the car. As a little kid, I was impressed, but not envious.

The grasshoppers in our yard in Louisiana in the 1960s were a cheerful shade of green, and were about an inch long max. They were easy to catch in our hands, did no harm, and seemed happy and unresentful when released. Kids who were scared of most insects tended not to be afraid of the gentle little grasshoppers.

The grasshoppers in our yard in the 1990s in central Texas were a pale brown with handsome, geometric looking markings in darker colors. What hind legs they had! - and I think they had compact wings. The Texas grasshoppers were at least 2 inches long, had a harder exoskeleton, and when the lawnmower came through the native grasses, they flew up into the air a few feet, to sail out of harm's way. The ones that were damaged or did not survive were quickly consumed by mockingbirds. I'm guessing grasshoppers were a significant source of nutrition for many birds, such as robins and roadrunners.

Crickets were pretty much the same in both decades and locations - similar to the grasshoppers. Crickets, friendly and harmless, were dark brown, slightly larger than the green hoppers, and smaller than the Texans. They made chirping noises with their legs, and you could tell how cold the temperature was by the pitch of the sounds. The colder the temp, the slower and lower the sound. They served as food for many critters. One striking thing about them was that in the 1990s, they showed up sometimes in hordes. In Dripping Springs, Texas, crickets would be crawling up the walls of the schools, and covering the gasoline pumps at the service stations. They'd be on the sidewalks and crunch under your feet. I'd never seen that before, and I don't know what caused the plagues of crickets to occur.

The Naming of Cats

'The Naming of Cats' is a curious poem by the late T. S. Eliot. He states 'a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES' : 1) a 'sensible everyday name', 2) a 'peculiar' 'more dignified' name 'that never belong[s] to more than one cat', and 3) 'the name no human research can discover - but THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.'

Having called a very dear cat 'oreo felius cattus number 9', I get where Mr. Eliot was coming from.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, we lived in the country, and I didn't go to 'the picture show' very often, maybe two or three times a year. When Mom was busy on a Saturday afternoon, though, sometimes she left us at the show, and we sat through two or three runs of the same movie. At that time, as we understood it, once you bought a ticket, you didn't have to leave the theater. There was no big breaks between showings, and so if you came in late, you could still see the beginning next time around. In that way, we saw 'Help!' maybe three times in one afternoon. 'Moonspinners'. 'Gidget Goes to Rome'.

There were no videos - or video players - back then; I guess this was just an early way to experience the kind of imprinting kids in the 1990s experienced when they were home alone for an afternoon. Watching a favorite video three times over, or one that was considered off limits by their parents, was not uncommon.

invitation

at 8 am or so yesterday, in a bit of a funk, i was walking down a narrow street in our neighborhood, long and straight. This street was lined by trees and houses, and the asphalt was pebbled with twigs and dry acorns which crunched beneath my feet. The view ahead of me was layered one leafy branch against the next leafy branch, a mosaic of shaded patterns. at the distant end of the street, a mist of sundrops, an ecstasy of light, radiated like an invitation and, for some minutes as i walked toward it, the weight in me was lifted.

night art

(abstract photo I took during a night drive in August 2012 -)

on a raft of notes
floats a thin clear melody
across a human divide.

the dogs across the street are out;
they wag their tails.
a cat presses against the calf of my leg.

we give the dog a pat
or a mouse a cookie -
we give a gumdrop to a daughter.

what cannot be spoken
where words fail
words are not needed.

there is a nod,
or a shared stillness -
a stroke of paint against paper.

Thinking about the small pleasures of Halloweens past as Halloween 2013 approaches -

There are still trick-or-treaters who come to our door - and it seems more people now offer the really delicious little candy bars to the kids. But I do get wistful about the treasures of Halloweens past. In October, the corner stores started stocking the candy shelves with chewable sweetened wax toys. There were 4 items each year: the fat red kissy lips you held in place with your own lips, the black licorice flavored mustache, the toothy white wax fangs, and the orange harmonica-like wax pipes that did indeed make whistling sounds. They cost a nickel each. The popular candies were straws full of flavored sugar, candy cigarettes, Necco wafers, bubble gum cigars (in pastel pink, blue, yellow and purple), and jaw breakers. Then there were the noisemakers, the little tin rattles and clickers and the tin toy you spun with the plastic knob to make a whirring sound.

This way, you could scare off the ghosts!

and bless the moms and dads who each year made the sticky, syrupy, buttery popcorn balls wrapped in wax paper. (Steen's Cane Syrup, a local Louisiana product, was the key, not-so-secret ingredient.)

Then, thirty years later, my kids were kids in Texas. Friendly paper bats and pumpkins adorned the windows, with one big, scary-friendly skeleton waving a welcome. We made little ghosts to flutter on the tree in the front yard. The afternoon before the trick-or-treating, we carved a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern. The candle inside made its eyes and toothy grin flicker with golden light. We played a little cassette with owl, ghost, and witch noises over and over near the front door.

Though we were in a rural location where the houses were not very close together, the kids began to show up just before sundown. The tiny princesses, ladybugs and dinosaurs with their parents; the older kids racing about on foot with just a scary mask and one big bag for the sugary loot.

I. I am the Lord thy God - thou shalt worship no other god before me.
II. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.
III. Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day.
IV. Honor thy father and thy mother.
V. Thou shalt not kill.
VI. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
VII. Thou shalt not steal.
VIII. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
IX. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

The ten commandments are the fundamental code of ethics in Judaic-Christian cultures, and, I understand, are also to be found in similar form in Islamic and other cultures as well as in ancient societies. The list above is partly from memory from my Catholic childhood in the 1960s. There are many variations in English wording. The internet search I attempted was surprisingly muddled.

I just wanted to look at them again and ponder, from within and without a religious perspective.

Hedgerows

Smithsonian magazine - which originated around 1970 - has represented well the purpose of the Smithsonian Institute (founded and maintained by the United States government since the 1800s) 'for the increase and diffusion of knowledge'. I remember that many of the early magazine issues were weighted toward the arts, but a more expanded range of topics developed over the years. I've enjoyed learning about art - say, about the letters van Gogh and his brother exchanged during their lives, or the Tapisserie de Bayeux, or the glass artist Dale Chihuly. Well-written and researched articles in other areas have stuck in my mind. One was about how numerous mines were still buried in the beaches and fields of France from the world wars I and II. Another was about the many almost magical species of jellyfish (now more commonly referred to as 'jellies' since they do not meet the definition of 'fish') living in the Earth's oceans and seas. The article I'm thinking about tonight was about the hedgerows of England, something I've never had the opportunity to see.

Decades have passed since I read that issue but I recall that some of the hedgerows - living, natural walls or fences or landscape dividing lines - were centuries old. While much of England's land was devoted to agriculture, the hedgerows evolved into little wildernesses where wildlife on a small scale could still exist. The hedgerows have an ecology of their own - birds and small mammals feeding from the berries and building nests and dens within. Moles and foxes, and little mice coexist there. The hedgerows - made of vines and thorny shrubs and twisted trees - have become so dense that they are difficult to get through, and people go around to gates and breaks to get past the intentional barrier the hedgerows create.

I have not seen quite that complex a living structure in the US, but there exist taller brakes made of fast-growing trees that create a kind of labyrinthian sensation.

secrets of trees

looming larger in the night
those mighty trees
they arch against
a not so faraway sky
the patterns of
the leaves and boughs
come to crazy life

the secrets of trees -
all by themselves -
like a butterfly
flashing her wings
shh shh -
they generate
a little breeze -
those little leaves -
a distant wind

summer was in full glory
and where were the teenagers?
where were the sounds of boomboxes near swimming pools,
voices shouting out of cars with open windows
tooling down the two-lane streets
where were the basketballs
beating a rhythm in the driveway
the newest crazy music on the radios
the flowered shorts and flip-flops on sunburnt feet
the feasting on ketchup and fries?

the angel trumpet's
maize gold petals
yearn to touch the leaves -
sparrows nest
in the tufted bark
of the great palm trees.
the palm and the birds
they twitter and sway
partners in the
venture of life

music - 1960s, 70s

The shared culture of music united young people of the US (and elsewhere) in the 1960s and 70s as recordings of many different performers became easier to access than ever before in human history. The radios were jumping with new sounds, and high school kids were buying 45s (single hits) and eventually albums, 8-tracks, and cassettes. Concerts were sprouting, not only in auditoriums, but in fields and stadiums and parks and gymnasiums. This was a rugged, confusing time period during the Vietnam War, the nuclear armaments race, the moon landing, and multiple assassinations of public figures. Building on roots from big band to blues and gospel to bluegrass to country-western to folk, with soul and rock & roll exploding, popular music was a huge creative, comforting, and uniting force. Electronic instruments were coming up fast as were new ways to mix sounds and tracks.

I spend an hour or two now and again on youtube, finding treasures from that era, marveling at the complexity of sounds young bands were inventing, and the crazy, prophetic lyrics that surfaced. Tonight, I listened to early Elton John - 'Grey Seal' and 'Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters' - and to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Only Living Boy in New York', immediate and poetic. I feel the surprised gratitude I felt when I first heard them decades ago.

is there any simpler, more elegant form of mechanical recreation and transportation than the bicycle?

there was a picture
stacks of shark fins
drying on a rooftop
a picture
hundreds of wild ducks
quiet at the feet and shoulders
of a handful of hunters
i've lost my bearings


squirrels are busy
doing the work
armadillos and possums once did
crows quack like ducks
as they fly overhead
farmers prepare small fields
churning furrows of earth
an azalea in bloom
in the October sunlight

Stargazing

Stargazing - the ancient method of learning about celestial activity.

Illustration by Beth Krommes. http://www.danforthmuseum.org/assets/art/Krommes_Sing_SM.gif

a simple celestial timepiece

The North Star is like the center of the face of a clock. The center does not move. Two bright constellations (along with the rest of the stars from our earthling perspective) revolve around the North Star: The Big Dipper and Cassiopeia's Chair. They are always opposite each other, with the north star between them.

If you were in a dark place (in the Northern Hemisphere) and spent a clear night watching The Big Dipper and Cassiopeia's Chair, you would see the two constellations slowly chasing each other around the North Star in a great circle. It's fascinating, a simple celestial timepiece! The position of either one of the constellations and the North Star can tell you what season and time it is.

I'm living in Lafayette, Louisiana, my birthplace, after some thirty plus years away. It was here I first saw a production of the musical, 'Fiddler on the Roof'. Performed at the Heymann Center, it may have been put on by the University of Southwestern Louisiana theater/drama department, probably around 1970. (USL is now University of Louisiana, Lafayette.)

A movie of the musical also came out around that time. I'm snapping my fingers to the song 'Tradition', and the feet want to step to the wonderful timing of Jewish dance.

The other song I most remember from 'Fiddler on the Roof' is a conversation that goes: 'Do you love me?' 'Do I WHAT?'

There was beautiful music that I do not remember very well because it had a kind of grieving to it as the villagers are forced to leave their homes near the end, transforming from a stable community into refugees. It's painful, and the music suitable and very good.

I don't remember why there is a fiddler on the roof or why the actors in their colorful garb might be dancing on the roof tops, but that's the only scene I really visually remember. Like many American musicals - The Music Man, West Side Side Story, Camelot, Brigadoon, All That Jazz - it's truly American art that pleases and transforms the audience. It's still with me after these many years.

the yellow pencil

I bought a set of special colored pencils a couple years back, I don't remember where, but they have worked well for me and the kind of art I do. Even when several broke in two one day soon after I bought them, it just meant there were more of them!

The yellow pencil remained whole, and it added courageous heart to works that were incomplete, or fractious. Heart on fire is how I thought of it.

I say thought - as in the past tense - because although I used it today, carrying it about in my fabric bag - I cannot find the yellow pencil tonight. It'll likely show up, but I'm learning something here. There is mourning I feel over a pencil, or over a paintbrush that (with its unique wear and tear, weight, and paint patterns) leaves the table for good. It's worse than losing a favorite word in your vocabulary, or a favorite skillet in the kitchen. The painting and drawing are a passionate process. As oddball as it seems, I'm connected to this yellow pencil.

the house by the side of the road ...

...Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.



(my father's favorite stanza from 'The House by the Side of the Road' by Sam Walter Foss)

i want to tell you something
she said
tonight the kitchen door was open
to let in the cooler air
the neighbor cat
walks in and yawns
and has a bite to eat
'the kitten chow is good' he says.
his ears point up
and he trots out
following the soft noises of a prowler I do not see
the cat disappears, but there comes a striped tail in the bougainvillea
and then a face
a bold black mask outlined in white
the raccoon is digging up the compost I buried

i want to tell you more
she said
the tiny ants so busy on the counter
do not notice the sugar;
the crescent moon paired with Venus this evening
bright and personal.
the cappucino had no coffee in it
but the cold chicken and dried apricots,
the last of the blueberry wine,
made a good supper.
how happy the coupling
the red and orange scarf I'm knitting
the orange yarn entwined with the red
glows - you never would have guessed
you who are always near
and never here
perhaps you would enjoy
this good supper

Dad's in a wheelchair, his back partially exposed by the hospital gown, a bandage on a fresh abdominal incision, his face puffy with exhaustion, and he's cracking jokes, one after the other. Humor carries him an inch or two above the fray.

from a hospital window, eighth floor -

(from a hospital window, eighth floor -)

raindrops
like thousands of promises kept
fell lightly
fell soundlessly

iced tea

the glass of tea
was big and cold
with two hands
the withered woman
drank,
the ice cubes
winking in the light

There were water spigots every few campsites at the Mazama Campground at Crater Lake National Park in the 1990s. The water flowed well enough, but there wasn't much of a drainage system, so we used little or no detergent to wash our dishes when camping. In consideration for the people following us, it seemed best not leave a mass of dirty suds at the base of the faucet. The tin plates and plastic cups came out clean enough.

(Washing dishes under the great pines of Crater Lake has come to mind while I'm washing dishes in kitchens far from Oregon. The amount of detergent I use has grown smaller with every memory.)

Before going camping, our friends in western Oregon took us to orchards where berries and fruit were cultivated, not far from the Willamette River. We and the kids picked blueberries and sometimes raspberries too, to take with us to Crater Lake.

Once there, we sat at the picnic table taking fistsful of berries from the boxes, and eating wild salmon our friend had caught in Alaska and preserved in the smoke of alderwood. We were eating simply, yet came to know - this is a true feast. The taste of wild, fresh foods curls around the tongue and awakens the mind and heart.

as the past sinks

as the past sinks
it starts to swim
the fragments bobbing
on the crest of a wave
tumbled to the tideline
along the beach

i really want to write about whales
their breath
the myths
the Biblical past
where Jonah journeyed
within an unnamed friend

whales speak
beneath the surface
but do we hear -
do we sleep better
as their lives decline?
our lives decline,
our existence
undetachable
from theirs

the air outside is stale
so far from the oceans
the sea horses and clams
the marlins and barnacles beckon

There's a little 'Send feedback' tab in the blogger.com posting system, and I have used it from time to time to describe hitches in the process, or just to say thank you for providing this marvelous tool. Lately, though, my mind runs away, and I imagine sending feedback messages on the hitches in my life, and the hitches in the universe, and day-to-day irritations and soon I imagine the 'Send feedback' staff as a kind of silent 'Dear Abby', or the mute in 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter'. They accept and absorb my feedback on life without complaint, without reply.

the band

they played their crazy instruments
the drums
the strings
cans of dried beans
and informed the people in the crowds
(an eruption of music
searing soaring sound)
how it is
what words in any language
(english latin polynese)
could not begin
to tell

I was gazing out over my art table this morning when I came up with a line for a sci fi novel:

She looked out the window and brought her cup of coffee to her lips. 'Look, Dahling - things have shifted again.'

Yesterday morning, in Athens, Alabama, I stood outside our motel, holding a cup of coffee. (When I travel, I carry a cup or mug from home.) Below was another motel, and near the parking lot there, a small tree. I noticed movement, was it birds? Autumn leaves falling? The trees in the area were still green.

It turned out they were sparrows. They rained, plunk, as one, down to the ground. Then they rose back up in such beautiful synchrony, it was like watching a film being played in reverse. Down they dropped again, as though responding to a common prompt. Then, altogether, they rose again to the branches of the little tree. They were mesmerizing to watch.

I walked down to get a closer look, to see what was attracting them. There on the corner of the parking lot surface were a couple of handsful of sunflower and other seeds.

I haven't seen many sparrows of late, and it was a pleasure to see these small characters show up for free breakfast, not so different from us human guests at the motels.

John Lennon's drawings

in the 1990s, I was waiting, waiting in a parking lot, and as I waited, I discovered a small art gallery. I walked in. There was a traveling exhibit of John Lennon's artwork. I knew that, in addition to his gifts as a musician, he had been recognized as a visual artist, but had never seen anything of his up close before. I was surprised to discover, just by chance, so many pieces of his work in the middle of Austin, Texas in a narrow, nondescript location.

What I now recall is that they were mostly of black ink on white paper, simple line drawings. There was a repeated theme, he and his wife Yoko Ono in a large platform bed, sitting side by side. It was as though this were the most pressing subject he could convey.

happy birthday

the tic tap of keys
the cake at the door,
prose typed tonight
by birthday candle light

Today, I went to the drug store to pick up my dad's prescriptions. I purchased six items, and was handed a computer-generated receipt 3 feet, 4.5 inches long and three inches wide. That's over 120 square inches of paper total, 20 square inches per item. It's a trend. My favorite hardware store has a similar ailment, as does some of the big box stores. I've promised to write a novella on the back of one of these receipts, but haven't gotten it going it yet.

4-D Chess

What would 4-dimensional chess look like? Well, it might be fun to add in the dimension of time. With 2-D, you have a flat, checkerboard surface to play on. 3-D could be a cube, with checkerboard layers and columns. With 4-D, the checkerboards could be in motion, rotating on a spindle. The knight you are trying to capture might not be there by the time your Bishop arrives. Like in real life, whether sitting in a chair on a front porch, or racing in circles in the Indianapolis 500, the players are in motion. Your strategy would have to take into account pieces roving in changing locations.

So how would you play? You could do the math - where would you have to direct your pawn to meet up with the opposing pawn at the same moment. This is doable although complicated. You'd have to know how fast the pieces are going relative to your piece and in what direction. By the time you figure that out, everything might have shifted into a new configuration.

The better players of 4-D might be the lazy, relaxed type. Forget the math. With the boards in motion carrying the chess pieces, a 4-D champ might wander away into the kitchen, water the geranium in the window, grab a soda, and return to move that Bishop at just the moment the knight glides into view.

3-D Chess

You gradually learn to play the game, everyday chess. You can travel a straight line with a rook or a diagonal with a bishop and even spend some time dancing with the funky gait of a knight. Suddenly, it turns into Star Trekky 3-Dimensional chess with diagonals into space, and where even kings can hip-hop up to another floor. You're queasy now, way out of your realm of experience. Knights are galloping down zig-zag tunnels, and the queen soars above like a jet stream. The only way to finish the game is to step out of your familiar life on the 2-D board and take a leap of faith. You pray. Please don't throw me into 4-Dimensional chess.

Dobie Gillis

The last time I saw Dobie, the hero of the TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, was when I was seven. Then he reappeared in my life last night, half a century later, on a laptop screen via youtube. It was an episode I remembered, mostly intact, in black and white. There was Dobie, still a high school student, sitting in front of a statue of Rodin's The Thinker, contemplating aloud about his latest girlfriend and about his buddy Maynard.

a pecan drops to the ground with a tap
a breeze enters the window -
the curtain rises and falls, caressing the sill
chickens wander in the yard searching for beetles
the lawn mower is rusting beneath the shady oak where
cicadas sing a whirring
call and response
call and response -
it's 1959, and i'm in a dream
rubbing the sleep from my eyes,
scratching the chicken pox scab on my leg
(you're the bee's knees, she says -
the cat's meow
sliced bread
and the cat's pajamas -)

the fly's eye

One familiar illustration in high school science and biology textbooks was that of the eye of the common housefly. The fly's eye has many facets, multiple lenses that offer visual data with high accuity from many directions at once. This works as a great defense because no matter from what direction that flyswatter or frog's tongue comes from, the fly sees it coming and knows it's time to go. What amazing optics on such a small scale!

" 'mid oaks and towering pines..."

From sixth thru twelfth grade, I went to a Catholic school nestled among the oaks and pines of previous centuries. The first few years I attended there, it was a gentle, isolated world of its own. The nuns who taught us and administered the school lived there, as did a number of other nuns who were receiving care in their later years. People from the little town nearby, Grand Coteau, worked there. I have no idea how or what people were paid, but I had the sense that the school in some ways belonged to everybody, and people just showed up daily because that's what they did. Drove and maintained the bus, baked huge sheet cakes, polished the old desks and bruised banisters with mildly fragrant oils.

This was the mid 1960s when I started there. You curtsied to the nuns, just a little bob where the knees relaxed for half a moment and the right foot stepped behind the left. Monday mornings was Primes (preems) - Judgment Day for the previous week. You put on a little pair of white fabric gloves that were kept in your desk just for that reason. A council of teachers and nuns and religious hierarchy sat on the stage of the little auditorium. Each class was called in its turn to make a semicircle before this gathering of generally well-meaning, stern-looking school bureaucracy. There was a little clicker that one of the nuns held in her hand. At the sound of the click, our knees folded as one into a communal curtsy. Each of our names was read aloud. You heard one of these labels: Very Good. Good. Indifferent. Unsatisfactory. Being rather mute unless someone asked me a question, without any effort on my part at all I almost always got 'very good', as did a few other girls. I never saw any of my peers do anything particularly bad or wrong. But now I realize, just by being exuberant chatterboxes, they at times earned merely good, or (very bad Monday morning indeed) indifferent. If anyone ever earned unsatisfactory, I think they were out of the school before Monday morning ever showed up and never returned.

Our study hall desks faced a mural of Mater who was Mother Mary as a girl robed in pink and cream, seated with a spindle and a book at her side. We sang a lot at school, and processed, even sometimes to classes, in order of height. On holy days, or special school days, there might be a Holy Mass in the chapel. You always wore a head covering back then if you were female and inside a Catholic church. So, at school, we wore matching veils. They were stored in heavy manila envelopes and handed out just before the event at hand. Each veil had a tiny comb attached to it so that it would stay on your head. (No, I never heard of anyone getting lice at school.) There were everyday veils of black lace - the fabric was mostly durable tulle. There were formal somber veils of more elaborate black lace. Then, there were dress veils for celebrations - these were of white lace. There was one event each year where boxes of large plastic lilies were taken out, and each of us carried a lily, but I don't remember what the occasion was.

The mid 1960s ran into the late 1960s. Having formerly called the teaching nuns 'Mother', we were now to call them 'Sister.' The curtsies and veils faded, as did Monday morning Primes, and the school became more integrated with the outside world.

correction

When I wrote yesterday's post on banana blooms, I had some difficulty recreating in my mind the colors of the large banana blooms. Not sure why I wrote 'ruby reds' - the colors were creamy and pale in contrast to the hot pinks of the smaller upright blooms.

banana blooms

As fall approached last year, the yard maintenance crews were cutting back crepe myrtles and oaks and banana trees. Throughout the neighborhood, banana trees were thinned and cut short. I was told not to worry, they come back after winter.

And so they did, with their broad youthful leaves, yellows, greens - some with burgundy undersides.

Many banana trees had little blooms, four to six inches, a deep pink, that grew upward, unfolded, and with time lost their petals as flowers are wont to do.

The banana trees, though, had two kinds of blooms, the ones I just mentioned and other, larger buds. I've only seen two of the latter in the year I've lived here, the great blooms, rich in ruby colors, that hang down glowing like a lantern, on a stalk that bears row after row of fruit, above my reach. The one I was able to see on the tree was lasting longer than the small blooms and attracted curious flies and bugs who seemed to find cover beneath the curled fringe at the top. I no longer have access to the photos I took, but there was a magical quality to the interaction between the little critters and the blooms. The stalk was big and thick with evidence of bananas or plantains produced in the past, and others in progress. This tree, nestled within a cluster of banana trees, was perhaps thirty feet or more high, and look to have been left untampered with over many years.

The first great bloom I saw, perhaps a foot long, I photographed over a week in time. Day to day, it would shift in appearance, but not open. One morning, I saw the big bloom had been severed, only the stump of the stem was to be found.

The second great bloom I found was on a street curb, also last fall, with the rest of the remains of a very large banana tree, waiting for the truck that collects yard debris. I picked up the bloom - with the stalk it may have weighed a good fifteen pounds or more. Though there are a number of banana trees (some neighbors call them 'banana plants') in the neighborhood, I've seen no more of the grand, lantern-like blooms.

I haven't seen this second type of bloom on younger plants. I've wondered whether these are just different varieties of banana trees, or if perhaps some banana trees have complex maturational stages. Perhaps the great living blooms do not appear until the tree has matured fully over many years, without interference with its development.

'I had this lumpy alien under my skin. It didn't talk or anything, but it was there all the time. It worried me something fierce. Then one day, it went away, and now I miss it terribly.'

instead of friends and gardens, instead of love, happiness, we have cable tv, and recliner chairs.
idk if this is true, but it's worth considering as a hypothesis -

Greyhound Bus 1974

There is no sign
no crossroad.
There are no buildings.
Prairie grasses stretch around us
shimmering into the distance
and to the north
a low silhouette of hills
at the horizon.
The bus driver
in his grey brown brimmed hat
and grey brown uniform
leans back, listening.
He pulls to the side of the road.
The man behind him
grabs the shining pole
at the exit door
and swings down the two steps
and out into the field.

No trail, no markers
the grasses
pale gold in the rippling sunlight
he strides north
a slight unsteadiness
his blue denim figure
growing smaller with each step.
The driver turns back to the wheel
and we're on our way again.

one characteristic of many songs from the 1960s and early 70s is the interweaving of eastern instruments, harmonies, with western music and lyrics. I'm not particularly informed on this topic - but I do remember the newness of sounds that perhaps were from India or Tibet or Iran, the sitars and jingling percussions, the curious, sweet, wandering melodies. Derek & the Dominos, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young all used elements from the east, a kind of cohesive underlayer. Around the same time, incense was popular among young adults, and inexpensive fabrics, bedspreads from India decorated many an apartment wall or sofa. But it's the joining of rock and popular music with the holy fragrances and exotic sounds of distant lands that anchor memories from that time -

Siskel and Ebert

A couple of fellows from Chicago became two of the most well known movie critics in the US when they took to the television screen in 1982 through the late 1990s. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel were quite a team. They recognized a great film. Their comments educated about what contributes to a movie's success, and what kinds of problems can take away its power and beauty. Their faces lit up, their voices became animated, when they could discuss a movie that truly satisfied them. Siskel could become lyrical when speaking of movies that moved him.

Their hearts were in their work; they were hardly ever cruel about a film they were reviewing. They loved movies and appreciated the kind of effort and talent that filmmakers and actors put into creating a work that engages its audience.

Their back-and-forth exchanges enlightened the viewers, both about the movie at hand, and life in general. Plain-spoken, they were honest about what they thought was good or effective, and what they thought was not. They were civil to each other, but could get quickly heated when they disagreed about whether a scene was effective. Ebert could get snippy and irritable when his opinion was countered, and Siskel might push a button or two more before becoming the angelic peacemaker. No matter what, they kept showing up for the next program.

Viewers came away with useful info about which movies coming up might best interest them. They were pleasurably entertained by two knowledgeable, articulate reviewers. And they got to watch two people share an enthusiasm and work out differences week after week, year after year. A number of their videotaped reviews can be found via youtube.com .

Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

Image via Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vegetable_lamb_%28Lee,_1887%29.jpg (H. Lee, 1887)


Well, I was unable to access any material on the hurricanes of various years tonight, so then I looked up beryl, glass, The Graduate, and eventually, cotton. In the article on cotton in Wikipedia, I found a link to the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. What the heck is that? I got there pretty quick and found a thorough, well-researched but somewhat muddled article, replete with quotes and sketches from medieval poets and naturalists.

This must be a hoax - playful and humorous. Here is a link to the Vegetable Lamb article, just for grins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_Lamb_of_Tartary

Image (1959 poster for Sleeping Beauty) available via Wikimedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sleeping_beauty_disney.jpg


Last night, I searched through youtube.com , desiring to see clips of the animated movies produced by Walt Disney that were so popular in my early childhood and before i was born. These are works of brilliance, intensive labor, and much love.

I watched 'Zip a dee doo dah' from Songs of the Old South, and bits from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, and Fantasia. I also looked at scenes from later films such as The Jungle Book, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (produced by Disney's company after his demise). While the clips show signs of fading and editing, there is still richness in the sparkling effects, music, and humor. Little birds and mice appear in these works, and there are the marvelous intricacies of forests and architecture. (Sleeping Beauty reportedly benefited from a lot of research on Renaissance era art and structures). The foreboding cliffs, twisted rose vines, and smoke and thunder of scary scenes are a thrilling pleasure too. You can't help feeling like a kid watching animals and humans interacting at knee-high level, where grownups might miss the merriment and drama among the flora and fauna entirely. Having never seen Alice in Wonderland, I'm cheered to discover Alice learning from a couple of bespectacled little mammals behind steaming teapots that there are 364 Happy Unbirthdays to celebrate every year.

Hoover Dam

I overheard from the television in the next room today that Hoover Dam, constructed in the 1930s, used up enough concrete to construct a highway from New York to California. The dam blocks the Colorado River, the same river that over millions of years carved out the Grand Canyon. A paradoxical relationship exists between the natural wonder and the man-made wonder of the world, a physical haiku of tremendous scale, a poetic landscape with an ironic twist. The river that constructed the astounding canyon is held at bay by the dam, man's astounding construction.

Were mountains diminished to provide materials for a mountainous work?

the farm's star was a tractor
called Allis-Chalmers
that pulled a rusty plow,
or the old wagon piled with leafy ears of corn -

too hot outside to be exhilerating
there were still moments -
lunch in the shade of an untouched corner of land
juice of blackberries
trickling along the backs of our hands

the whisper of trees
with stout vines entwined around their trunks
and small snakes at ease
gliding down the bark

the return to the orange tractor
to finish out the day
winding up and down the striped furrows
of flat soft acres

in synch with the blackbirds
lighting on the stalks
the sun moving across
the arc of blue sky

the guys on the wagon
humming harmony
with the grumbling baritone
of the tractor

Snake Spit (and the Spittlebug)

We lived in a rural part of south Louisiana, and among the varied grasses, there would be little wads of white foam wedged under the stem of a leaf or along the length of the blade of grass. Our mother would point it out to us and say, 'Snake spit'. We'd 'ahh!' and imagine a little garter snake or a king snake swaying across the yard, leaving signs of its passage.

It wasn't until I was an adult living in central rural Texas (where the phenomenon was also common) that I took the time to learn more. Turns out 'snake spit' has nothing to do with snakes but is a secretion during a life stage of the spittlebug. I'm not sure about the stages of spittlebug existence, and whether its the adult or nymph that excretes the foam, but the following quote from a Wikipedia article sums up what the 'spit' is about:

'The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control. Without the froth the insect would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage, much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators.'

Link from Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittlebug

Milk delivery in the late 1950s -

Everybody called our grandpa on my mother's side Doc. He passed away when I was quite young. One of the few memories I have of Doc is in his sunny kitchen in New Orleans early in the morning. He brought the milk inside from where it was delivered to the door. He held the half gallon glass bottle in one hand and removed the little paper cap on top. Carefully he poured the cream that had separated and floated to the top into his coffee.

Milk was not homogenized then. If you wanted whole milk, you shook the bottle to disperse the cream back into the rest of the milk. But a lot of people did like Doc - poured off the cream that floated to the top to save it for coffee or oatmeal or desserts. The milk remaining had a lower fat content and was drunk with meals or used in cooking.

The bottle, once empty, was left at the door for the milkman to pick up and return to the bottling plant. The empty bottles were sterilized and refilled with fresh milk.

one afternoon
i rebound basketballs
for some friends on the team

they throw their right hooks
silently
because we're supposed to be meditating

we're on retreat
a three-day silent retreat
in an all-girls school -

(can you imagine
high school girls silent
for three whole days?)

over and over they throw
layups and foul shots
again, and again, and again.

the uneven rhythm
of basketballs
echos in the gym.

my eyes follow
the arc of the ball.
late afternoon sun is falling

from the high windows
above an exit doorway
onto the scuffed wood floor.

the ball rolls
around the rim
and through the net

my palm and fingers smell
of basketball and sweat.
I catch the ball

and pass it to a friend
doing silent free throws.
she catches the ball.

she toes the line.
she tosses the ball up
into the air

tomatoes and okra

in the spring, i planted four tomato plants and a couple of okras in the same little plot of land. The tomatoes took off. They grew big and wild and rambling. The okra plants looked limp and didn't grow and then, I couldn't find them at all.

a few days ago, i pruned back the tomatoes which were about done producing, and there in a now open spot was a small okra plant with one okra on the top about four inches long, brown and dried out. The okra had survived! I trimmed off the woody okra, and within days, another grew, and today, it was firm, bright green, and maybe even a little over grown. But I carried it inside anyway. Tonight, I washed it and except for about half an inch, I cut it up very thinly and added it to the onions, celery and bell pepper I was sauteing for red beans. As it was cooking, I spooned a sliver of okra out and ate it and it was good. I put the half inch I hadn't cooked into the compost bowl. Laden with seeds, who knows what might become of it.

i don't experience nature as i once did. there is a feeling of woundedness when at every turn the natural world seems awry, forced into geometric ornamentation, or deliberately mutilated by heavy machinery set into motion by human hands and ignorant or hurtful intention.

i patiently look for pieces of a glory of interwoven diversity that once existed on earth, and try in my way to shelter the natural process that moves us forward.

it's hot at dusk
sheets are still drying on the fence
a screech owl calls down
from a slim bough of the oak
its features dark in the twilight

iced tea

fallen pine needles
silvery gold
in the white sunlight
and iced tea
in a transparent glass
Schroedinger's Cat
under Nietzche's Hat
each element -
iron, mercury, sulfur, titanium, for example-
still tagged with its own identity number:
how many protons in
a single atom's nucleus?

Smoothie

one slightly overripe banana
one ripe Bartlett pear, cored and peeled
3-4 smallish ice cubes
1 tablespoon frozen blueberries (i was running out)
about 1/3 cup orange sherbet
about a half cup of milk
secret ingredient: one frozen precooked sweet potato patty



Get the above ingredients in your blender and liquify. Voila.

Better than some of the very good smoothies I made earlier in the week when all my favorite ingredients were on hand - sometimes you find delicious by accident.

There was a webcam set up last spring above the nest of a Great Blue Heron high in a tree (or perhaps a light fixture) in New York state. I visited the website a few times. There was a counter on the page showing how many viewers were at that moment visiting the live ongoing activity of the bird incubating her eggs. There was a constant stream of chat in one corner, most of it superficial and only barely relevant. The bird appeared tense, on alert, even though there were no apparent threats near her perch, and I wondered if she was aware of, if she could sense, the over five hundred people watching her every move on their computers, pads, or smart phone screens.

i drew a picture
of an orange and its shadow.
then i drew a table beneath it
and the table turned into a fish
the orange and its shadow
within the fish

i've walked today
and there's a pleasure in seeing
a bike and its rider
crossing my path ahead
the wheels in motion
the legs pedaling

just the image
a kind of doorway
out of reach -
or a little wink

kids' books

one of the gifts of parenting is that one is continually introduced, or permitted to return to, the wonderful stories and books in the realm of childhood literature. The books for the younger kids are accompanied by glorious sometimes hilarious illustrations, with new little details to discover each time you read the book aloud to your youngster. (Because your youngsters will insist that you read their favorites over and over and over again.)

We then come up with the brilliant understanding that, hey, we can return to our own favorite books, including adult books, and read them again and again should we desire.

And I've come to discover, even though my kids are no longer little and there are none about, I can still read children's stories should I want to. Wandering in the Lafayette Public Library downtown a few weeks ago, I discovered 'The Twins' Blanket', a picture book by Hyewon Yum. I was spellbound by the simple prose, its calming everyday story, and the flowing colors of fine artwork. Since then, I've checked out several kids' books. They're easy on the stressed soul and that's good.

Here's the blog that got me thinking today about kids' books: Good Books for Young Souls

http://goodbooksforyoungsouls.blogspot.com

the next tide

carved out sand
warriors beach
the smell of the sea
wet debris
leaves, twigs
seaweed
the arrangement
fragile
perfect
so temporary
deranged within
the rumbling pulse
the tender pull
of the next tide

breathe in, breathe out

Running is not so much about the strength in your legs as it is about breathing. Our Physical Ed teacher in high school taught us that some experts recommended the count of a runner's breathing out should be slightly longer than the count for breathing in, for example, three counts in, four or five counts out. That was a tricky procedure for a first time track team runner, and I can't say that I got it right. However, as I picked up long distance jogging later in life, I did learn to consciously use that technique from time to time. What has been most helpful over the years has been simple awareness of the breath, and changing up the pattern a bit when fatigued during a run.

Mostly, though, when running I try to think like a migrating fish, or a bird flying long distance. Don't think at all.

the foreground and the background

I walked early today. Sunday mornings are peaceful in the neighborhood. Usually, I notice what stands out - flowers in bloom, the awkward tree stump here or there, what the sun is casting its light upon, a cat chilling under a parked car. But sometimes, I make myself look outside of what first catches my eye. The crepe myrtle with its abundant blooms stands out - I notice that without effort. But then I take care to look a few feet to the left or right or below. I take note of the modest green leaves of some plant unknown to me. There's a crumpled cracking in the sidewalk, but I also look at the plain stretch of short grass in the lawn alongside it. Life's not about the foreground really - the lead actors, the king of the jungle. It's about the background too and how it all melds into the whole. There's the big picture: the dirt, the flowering tree, the calling dove, how long the sun is in the sky this day, the pattern of leaves on the curb. Ants check out the remains of a piece of chicken on a blacktop parking lot, and red birds flit into shrubs as fast as dragonflies.

yard man's debris
left at the curb
this and that
waiting for the city truck
to pick them up -
branches and vines
with drying leaves curled inward.

there hangs a treasure
almost transparent
within the shambles
a little nest
of wasp spit and fiber
from leaves and wood matter -
hexagonal cubbyholes
of paper perfection


the wasp nest glows -
a small 10-compartment affair
long ago abandoned -
an archaeological wonder -
the architecture
of humble inch-long masters
with wings

piano strings

it's the far side
of the year 2000
guitar necks shrinking
songs on the radio
fading into a tinny whine
we listen to talk show chatter
about the private escapades
of folks we've never met
and contemplate - hey!
where did the piano strings go?

Yellowstone


The wolf was resting in the sagebrush they said.
The valley was quiet, the sun blinding bright.
The children made a message out of sticks and bones
in the hot dry field.
They did not know how to spell, how to write
but they knew how to ask
for gracious assistance.

There's this movie - late 1970s? early 1980's? Jack Nicholson is on a train in the dining car. He asks the waiter for toast. 'I'm sorry, sir. We have no toast. We only have what's on the menu.' 'But toast is what I want! That's all I want.' 'I'm sorry, sir.' Jack argues a bit more with him, and finally says, 'Fine. I'll have the BLT, then.' 'Very good, sir.' And the waiter turns to go. Jack says, 'But wait. Hold the lettuce.' The waiter takes this down. 'Hold the mayo.' Pause. 'Hold the tomato.' Waiter purses his lips. 'And, one more thing...' Jack looks up at the waiter. 'Hold the bacon. Thank you very much.' Jack puts down the menu.

Or something like that. It's been a long time.

Then, there was this cat named Earle Wynn. He was named after a baseball player, but I only knew the cat.

He grew to be a grand old age for a cat when he took quite ill. He was no longer eating. His mistress was in much distress. Her cat was dying. A friend advised her to bring the cat some fresh trout. So, she went to the great Seattle market on the straits, found a whole, fresh-caught trout and brought it home to Earle. He sniffed the raw fish. He tasted. He ate slowly, and then with tremendous appetite, as though he had never eaten before.

He lived on for some time.

Meditation

I've been knitting, walking, sketching and painting this weekend. There are times I let go of words, times words get in the way of knowing what's around me.

Harrummph.

Two observations tonight. One is that when I walked home from the coffee shop this morning, I saw a cat - a calico kitten, really - and a dog - a small dachsund mix - together on someone's driveway. Now, that doesn't probably sound very worthy of notice except - it's been a long time since I've seen a cat and dog together, just hanging out on a driveway! Brought back memories of when neighbor dogs kind of cooled their heels around the front door step, and the cats sat under a shrub, and they all got along more or less. This kitten was wearing a collar; she was big as my father's shoe. The dog wagged its tail my way. The cat, focused on the dog, crouched into pouncing position, as though she were going to fly onto the dog, who looked back at her, like, 'Harrummph.'

The other observation is not new. There seem to be neighbors here and there experimenting with discovering what local plants would be flourishing if there were no suburban lawns. They set aside small areas - some as small as one foot by one foot, some maybe two by six. They create a border of bricks or stones, and then, they don't do anything. They don't weed or mow or prune what comes up in that little space, but just wait and see.

What would grow on this square foot of territory were it never mowed? The results are fascinating and surprisingly appealing - these tufts of wild grass, vines, tiny blooms and saplings. They have a kind of sparky personality and diversity.

Seeking the Pearl River
we came upon something smaller.
Shaded from the sweltering heat
by languid trees,
we floated down the little river
as though we were care free
and all that existed
was each other.

how you doin'?

How you doin' ?

I'm doin' alright - how 'bout yourself?

Not too bad, not too bad.

You not looking so good today. Whatsa matter?

You hear the news today?

Noooo. I don't read the paper. I don't turn on the tv. I don't got no internet. I don't got no iPhone, no androids. I'd hang out at the water cooler at work, but there ain't none. I go outside, sniff for rain. The kids call me to tell me when they got another baby, or somebody's croaked. That's about it.

Hmmm.

Whatsa matter?

Never mind.

At some point, you come to realize the labels we use aren't always accurate, and we miss the truth because we have certain things categorized and neatly filed away in the wrong drawer.

For years, I've bought bird food and enjoyed watching who showed up at the feeders. Back in Hays County, Texas - goldfinches, cardinals, scrub jays, chipping sparrows, golden-fronted woodpeckers were frequent visitors - and occasionally there might be a painted bunting. But then there were moments I'd holler out - there's a squirrel eating the bird seed! And one of us would go outside and wave our arms or toss a stick in the direction of the feeder until the squirrel would exit with hurt feelings.

I can't believe how long it took me to get past the label 'bird food'. The bag contained sunflower and other seeds, peanuts, kernels of dried corn, bits of dried fruit. Ahem. Squirrel food! (Mouse food! Horse food! People food! etc.)

Speaking of nuts, I remember sitting at picnic tables as a kid and as an adult while squirrels up above tossed one brown pine cone tab after another at my head as they dug out the nuts. Yesterday, for the umpteenth time this month, I passed under a pine tree where on the ground there were half-chewed pine cones that had never reached enough maturity to produce pine nuts. These cones were hard and green. The thought of trying to digest something like that gave me pangs in the gut. Why would a squirrel be trying to eat something that's not near ready yet?

So I've been thinking of the squirrels. I'm thankful for all the pecan trees and oak trees the squirrels have planted across the millennia, carefully burying nuts and acorns. Now when I see the skinny little squirrel that swings and sways in the 'birdfeeder' box hanging from the tree limb, I just nod my head and say, enjoy.

writing from Lafayette, Louisiana -

'life with computer'

( Image available via Wikimedia Commons. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Macintosh_128k_transparency.png/511px-Macintosh_128k_transparency.png )


Those of us who are part of the generations that experienced both 'life before computer' and 'life with computer' probably can come up with what got us initially hooked. For the general population, we're probably talking about the early 1980s here.

For some, it was a way of organizing office information, managing accounts, drafting documents, maps, and blueprints. For many, it may well have been the access to fascinating, stimulating, funny or adventurous games. (Before internet, you bought the software on floppy discs and manually loaded it to the machine.) For me, the main draw was the beautiful experience of using a word processor. It was awkward being a writer with terrible handwriting. Now, with my cube shaped Mac, I could clearly read what I wrote, and edit as I went. That experience was an enormous gift. (You don't know how bad my penmanship is!) The quality of my writing, the pace, and the quantity of finished product (such as poems, reports, short stories) skyrocketed. Although those first years I had no access to internet, I spent hours working at my computer, an invaluable tool.

As internet became available, the pleasure of emailing, of being able to receive and send work documents and messages to friends without delays, was a tremendous lure.* Then, as the internet expanded, companies came up with ways to sell products online. As more and more companies provided this service, and as ways to actually make financial transactions on the computer became available, the resistance to using a computer broke down among the masses, and it became an assumption that everyone had access to online information and activity.

Well, maybe it wasn't exactly like this, but from my perspective, and as my memory permits, this is how I experienced the rapid first stages of what has been both a great and, in some ways, a catastrophic, societal transition.



* (This was supposed to ease our consumption of paper products. Unfortunately, as printers became standard equipment - not only with office and personal computers, but with things like computerized cash registers and gasoline pumps - consumption of paper per capita has increased enormously.)

life with computer

( Image available via Wikimedia Commons. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Macintosh_128k_transparency.png/511px-Macintosh_128k_transparency.png )


Those of us who are part of the generations that experienced both 'life before computer' and 'life with computer' probably can come up with what got us initially hooked. For the general population, we're probably talking about the early 1980s here.

For some, it was a way of organizing office information, managing accounts, drafting documents, maps, and blueprints. For many, it may well have been the access to fascinating, stimulating, funny or adventurous games. (Before internet, you bought the software on floppy discs and manually loaded it to the machine.) For me, the main draw was the beautiful experience of using a word processor. It was awkward being a writer with terrible handwriting. Now, with my cube shaped Mac, I could clearly read what I wrote, and edit as I went. That experience was an enormous gift. (You don't know how bad my penmanship is!) The quality of my writing, the pace, and the quantity of finished product (such as poems, reports, short stories) skyrocketed. Although those first years I had no access to internet, I spent hours working at my computer, an invaluable tool.

As internet became available, the pleasure of emailing, of being able to receive and send work documents and messages to friends without delays, was a tremendous lure.* Then, as the internet expanded, companies came up with ways to sell products online. As more and more companies provided this service, and as ways to actually make financial transactions on the computer became available, the resistance to using a computer broke down among the masses, and it became an assumption that everyone had access to online information and activity.

Well, maybe it wasn't exactly like this, but from my perspective, and as my memory permits, this is how I experienced the rapid first stages of what has been both a great and, in some ways, a catastrophic, societal transition.



* (This was supposed to ease our consumption of paper products. Unfortunately, as printers became standard equipment - not only with office and personal computers, but with things like computerized cash registers and gasoline pumps - consumption of paper per capita has increased enormously.)

There was an article, or chapter in a book - something I read years ago - that addressed the duration of gestation (meaning - how long it takes for an infant to develop in the womb before birth). The author stated that gestational time is not fixed - that the birthdate of a baby depends upon the genes in the family, the circumstances (such as nutrition and health) during the pregnancy, and other conditions. He brought up deer as an interesting example. Deer, compared to many other animals, are noted for variation of time between fertilization of the egg, and giving birth. If the weather is good, and food and water are in steady, reliable supply, gestation is short. During a dry year when food and water are scarce - the time before birth can be extended as long as two months, until food and water are more readily available.

I also read, regarding human beings, that even when the fertilization date is exact, the timing of the birth can vary considerably from one mother to the next. One cannot reliably predict date of birth, it's always an ETA (estimated time of arrival). This can be hard on people who like to know in advance, to do everything on schedule as carefully planned! But there is a wisdom in how nature works.

i aim the nozzle way up high
water sprays the tree trunk
the undersides of branches
leaves nod and bob and tip their hats
they say
'thanks, mate!'

summer squash

I was going to list all of the zucchini recipes I keep stuffed inside the yellow Whitman's Sampler chocolate candy box I use to store such things, but I loaned the recipes out and I don't have them in hand. There must be twenty of them! Almost all are from the years in the mid 1970s when I was attending school in Pullman, Washington.

Pullman, Washington was unusual in a number of ways, but we'll stick to zucchini tonight - Italian squash. Quite a few people grew vegetable gardens in the short warm summers with long days. The soil must have been ideally suited to zucchini. It only took one or two zucchini plants to be overwhelmed by these long green vegetables. If you picked them regularly at short intervals, you'd have a satisfying supply of trim, manageable squash. But if you got sidetracked by work, studies, other projects in your life, and then said, oh my gosh, I've neglected the garden, you'd be likely to come staggering through the kitchen door, arms laden by zucchini the size of a chihuahua.

So what do you do? There is only so much zucchini one person can consume.

Well - I learned you can give them to friends, and if they say no thank you, you can anonymously leave them on their doorstep. The local grocery, Rosauer's, had recipes printed on index cards. So, no, you didn't have to eat zucchini stir fry every night. There were zucchini omelettes, zucchini and corn casserole, zucchini potato skillet and what not. Friends traded recipes, and you made zucchini bread and chocolate zucchini cake (which is a lot more delicious than perhaps it sounds).

And when all was said and done, there were still more zucchini, until winter hit and it was below zero (that's Fahrenheit), and the stuff inside of your nose froze as you slogged through four feet of snow. But that's a whole nuther story about what made beautiful Pullman so unique -

It's a long history of happy drives through Texas Hill Country and this one yesterday was welcome. Despite the drought and other factors, oaks and junipers appeared to be thriving, and there was little evidence of the dying, withered flora that has characterized trips in recent years. Yet, something is missing, and it's hard to grasp except that what came to mind again and again was, where is the milkweed?

What is gone is bigger than that, but the absence of milkweed seemed to clue the whole of it...

motel window

welcome to the hallelujah song
floating in through the window
the skyscraper lights
peeping from behind weighted drapes

the reflection on the glass
mirrors the mirror behind me:
the image of itself,
the skyscraper lights,
the hallelujah song

life in the 21st century

there was ice in my diet coke
and I had some in my mouth
my teeth were crunching ice
i long ago gave up that habit
and reminded my teeth
teeth,
let it go
but my teeth kept chomping up and down
upon the ice

a caregiver
told me of some items dad needs
to care for his feet
and I heard her, and I saw her write the items on a list
but no movement entered my body
no thought to get these things came through
even though obviously
this was my job to do

we were chatting
at the dinner table
and I mentioned east of Houston
though I meant to say west of Houston
and I started to self-correct
but blew on forward with the conversation
and proceeded to say
east of Houston
two more times...
or was it west of Houston

I was lying on my bed
in the mid-afternoon and I wanted to get up
but that seemed to make no difference
the back of my legs pasted against the covers
and I smiled because apparently I didn't care
apparently I wanted to spend half the afternoon on top of the bedclothes
then, someone passed through my mind
and I blinked and flew up and out of the bed
and watered the tomato plants in the back yard

these things are happening to many

Parties revive the spirit, add life to old friendships, and offer a chance to make new friends. When I was a little kid, there was a birthday party where the cake was a white, fluffy coconut rabbit with jelly beans - yellow, green, purple, pink - peeking from the green-dyed coconut grass. We stood around the table, and oohed and ahhed as the birthday girl blew out the little candles. Cool, huh?

As parents, we hosted many a party for our kids - friendly soccer game, spider pinata, treasure hunts. There were the impromptu parties too when the low water crossing was flooded, and kids in the neighborhood, freed by bad weather from the obligations of childhood, came by for sweet goodies and games. One morning, it snowed, and a couple of guys down the way came to wake up the sleepyheads in our house for a snowball battle. We fixed pancakes and bacon and turned it into a party of kids, faces flushed red with the fun in the cold.

We had parties with folks our own age too. Friends embraced certain dates for annual get togethers. One family celebrated April Fools each year, another, the 12th day of Christmas. Another had a Tamalade in December. We gave parties on an equinox, or a Christmas/Hanukkah celebration at winter solstice.

There's always a bit of risk in throwing a party - everyone under the sun may show up, or no one at all. As you heap barbecue on a platter, you may learn your friends have turned vegetarian in the months since you last saw them. You worry about keeping everyone happy. What kind of drinks to offer? What kind of music do you play when you've invited both classical afficionados and country western fans? But the truth is, most guests are so grateful to be invited to an event, they're not going to quibble about the details. At parties, a guest has the opportunity to try new foods, drinks, music, and to flirt with the safely marrieds. If the guest don't like the food and drink, the guest can always eat comfort food when the guest gets back home. With time, though, you do learn a little bit about the preferences of those who are dear to you, and sometimes are happy to coddle them. The main thing is a party is time set aside solely to enjoy life and friendship, and we do thrive on a little social happiness now and again.