Was I There?

I’d been looking for it everywhere. Unpacking every box of books in the storage shed, the patio cupboards, the carport cabinets, not once but three times. There are huge gaps plaguing me since I embarked on this journey of “blogging” my memoirs, which requires “jogging” my memory. I knew that if I could just find that high school annual, the Polaris, Class of ’55, it would help me recover some of the gaping holes left by years of neglect, moves, leaving behind stuff and people, repression, detours, adventures, successes, failures, and downright dumb decisions, as well as a few smart ones that have punctuated my living.

Could I have possibly thrown it out accidentally, or worse, intentionally? I never cared much for my past, or didn’t think so, until Marilyn and a couple of classmates tracked me down before our 40^th class reunion. Then I discovered Sheldon, another grade-school-to-high-school buddy, who lives a little more than an hour away in Orange County. We’ve been having lunch together every month or two. Sheldon keeps in touch with people and has been a big part of my “memory jogging” community of friends over the past few years. Fortunately I was able to borrow Sheldon’s Polaris (the name derived from our school name and mascot, North High Polar Bears) and began going through it page-by-page, thinking I would scan a selection of photos. This was a strange, humbling and less-than-satisfying experience, a little eerie in fact. Faces of teachers and friends looked familiar, but no experiences of actually “being there” were coming up.

My memories of high school years, where were they? There I was in the football team photo, number 35, last row, second from the left. There too in a Hi-Y club picture. And my senior class photo appeared in its place. But I was on the wrestling team until I cracked that rib. And the track team. Also on the AV Projection crew—I helped produce a movie about good old North High.

I went through it again. This was incredible. “I know I was there! But I’m not there!” Just like the movie about Bob Dylan with all the various actors. “I’m not there!” “Did I drop out of high school in the second half of my senior year?” No, I still have my diploma. I must have graduated. I have a degree from the U. of Minnesota. I couldn’t have got into college without that diploma, could I? I wasn’t the smartest kid in my class, but I did get good grades—top 10%.

Sheldon always says what a painful experience high school was for him. I always nod and let it slide off. But he may be right. All those notes we wrote in one another’s Polarises about how much fun we had in _____ or _____, and what a great ____ you are and I’ll never forget _____.

Maybe we were just covering it up. In my case, perhaps I just kept telling myself I was there when I wasn’t. Where the hell was I? To be continued . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Small Compulsions

I am compulsive about very small and insignificant things. I re-arrange the dishes in the dishwasher if anyone else has loaded it. I wash the dishes before I allow them to go into the dishwasher. Each pocket in the silverware holder has its assigned items: forks in one; teaspoons in one; soup and larger spoons in one; knives in another; and serving utensils in the largest pocket.

Furthermore, I am extremely perturbed at those who just willy-nilly throw dishes in the dishwasher, and with food clinging to the dishes.

Why I Am Not A Farmer

“If you squeeze it just so and at just the right spot with just enough pressure she won’t kick and you can get a good stream going.” I watched as the white tomcat and the grey puss, quickly joined by the half dozen kittens living in the barn, lined up with open mouths as the warm stream hit one mouth, then another. Tongues shot out, licking from one side to the other as my grandfather’s deft touch squeezed out arching lines of the white elixir, all the more amazing because of two partially missing fingers on the skilled milking hand, the result of a hand caught in a whirling pulley and belt on a corn grinder years before.

“Now you try it. But remember, it’s all in the right amount of pressure in the squeeze and the slight downward pull.” Sitting down on the one-legged milking stool I contemplated what I was about to do. Brownie, the Brown Swiss cow, looked around from her temporary stockade. Just for a moment our eyes met and I knew that she knew I was no master milker. But when I grabbed on to one teat with my little soft child’s hand, not at all like the rough-hewn-years-of-toil-grinding-out-a-living-from-the-soil hands of my farm-hand turned homesteader turned farmer grandfather, no hind foot lifted, no more looking back at this upstart wannabe occurred.

Apparently Brownie had decided it was inevitable. If this kid was going to learn milking, now was as good a time as any and she was just the one to be my guinea pig, or cow. I did eventually get a few streams heading in the cats’ direction, even though they had to keep jumping to get to the spot where the milk was heading.

I was just getting the hang of this milking profession when one day this shiny can with four suction cups appeared. I watched with fascination but some regret as the new milking machine was hooked up to Brownie and the others. I was out of a job! Automation had come to replace me! Probably just as well. I don’t think I was cut out for a farming career.

And when I watched my grandfather and Uncle Ralph struggle to make it on the land over the next couple of decades, finally having to give up their life-long livelihood to move to town, I realized that that milking machine was the harbinger of doom for the family farm.

Reasons to Survive November

November

Smell of falling leaves

Crisp mornings

Corn stalks

Roaring fires

Hayrides

Cold rains

Sniffling

Turkey—

That’s it!

86,400 Seconds to Live

And each second is a “now” preceded by a past second and succeeded by a future second.  Living in the Now and being present is a most difficult endeavor, but it is actually the only way to live. I’ve spent most of my life living in the past to know that’s a dead end. And even though I have a dream I know that it is another dead end way of living to try to live in it.

So tomorrow I will get up and greet the day, shave and know I am shaving, shower and know the freshness of clean and the hotness of the water. Then, if I have survived and thrived my way through that experience, I will walk, just walk, maybe ending at the coffee shop to smell the coffee, and read, yes, if my eyesight holds out until tomorrow, I will read. And then maybe I will write.

The Horse King

He lived just a few doors down from 1410 Oliver Avenue North where I lived in my early high school years. He had a basketball hoop and backboard attached to the garage in back of his house. I could go out my back door and down the alley to play “horse” with Joel Miller, who was a basketball star. He later played center on the North High basketball team, but now he was my friend and mentor. We would play “horse” after school nearly every afternoon, even in winter. On weekends there were always a bunch of guys there and we would divide up for “two-on-two” games. I was usually chosen last. But I didn’t care.  I was learning. Not well enough to try out for the high school team, but well enough to be a “walk-on” in my second year at the University of Minnesota. I just walked into the freshman coach, Glen Reed’s office and said I wanted to try out. I really worked hard. Made it to the final cut. But I at least proved something to myself. I always thought I should have been taller. So I reconciled myself to playing the game for fun and played on our church basketball team during the remainder of my college years. I did get some satisfaction when we had a pickup game with the “Benny Leonard” young men’s team, a Jewish team made up of some of the North High players and outscored them by a comfortable margin. My friend Joel Miller signed my high school annual “The Horse King,” indicating that I had never beaten him at the game in his back yard. I re-connected with him at our 40^th high school reunion. He is now a doctor in Denver and one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. I guess he taught me more than the art of playing basketball.

         Joel Miller the psychiatrist

      First Christian Church Mpls Young Men’s BB Team 1957-8

Gary and Me

I met Gary Lundquist almost the first day we moved into 915 Morgan Avenue North Minneapolis. I was about to start 1^st grade. Gary was three years older but we became fast friends. He lived in a 4-plex about five houses from our 4-plex. We were back and forth to each other’s houses constantly. He took me to the Lutheran church in the neighborhood where I attended all the way through 7^th grade confirmation class. Gary was legally blind from birth and had a glass eye, which always fascinated me, watching him take it out and put it in a glass of water before he went to bed. When we were in 9^th grade Gary got me involved in a weightlifting studio run by Alan Stephan, a former Mr. America. I was an usher at his wedding and got to go along on many adventures with him and his older cousin and friends. We lost touch except through my mother who liked Gary and always remembered his birthday and sent Christmas greetings. We did reconnect briefly in 1995. Gary was in a special education program at Marshall High which had many of the sight-impaired kids. He graduated and took a course to become a baker at a vocational tech. college in the city, after which he worked as a baker at the North Side Bakery on Plymouth Avenue for many years. I was amazed when I saw him after so long when he told me that he had actually been able with his one good eye to pass the test for his driver’s license when he was in his thirties or early forties. He’s living near his kids in southern Minnesota now. I’m thinking of phoning him up just to say “Hi.”

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Patsy’s Surprise!

“Mom! Patsy had her puppies! Today while I was at school!”

“What? How many? Where are they?” My mother had just come home from work. We had been anxiously awaiting the new arrivals for days.

“You aren’t going to be happy with where she had them,” I informed her hesitatingly. Motioning her to follow I led her to her bedroom door, expecting a scream. Instead my mother burst out laughing at the sight of Patsy, our little black and white Boston Terrier, in the middle of my parents double-bed, licking and nursing her three tiny, still wet and gooey babies.

We of course had to take all the bedding to the laundry and get the mattress cleaned as well.

Summer ‘07 Wake-up Call

“If this e-mail gets to you, please contact me. I have some information I believe you will want.”

I hadn’t heard from Denny for several years—not since our last get-together with the First Christian CYF/TNT ‘remnant’ gatherings. I quickly hit “reply” and typed a response: “Thanks for tracking me down. Please let me know the information.” Of course, I anticipated receiving news of someone dying. When I didn’t get an e-mail back the next day, impatience got the better of me. I looked up Denny Neill’s latest phone number from my address book and placed the call.

“Hi Mi! Sorry to tell you Ron Morehouse died of lung cancer this past May and Ev Hall had a heart attack and died in July.” After a shocked silence, I waited. He went on: “Yeah, they both had just passed their 70^th birthdays.” Silence—lengthy silence as it sank in—then acknowledgement of the obvious. “We both just passed our 70^th birthdays!” “Yeah!”

After I hung up, memories began to arrive, with random regularity, some warm, some painful. Ev, Denny, and I had been our high school youth group’s version of a combination of The Three Musketeers, The Three Stooges, and “wild and crazy guys,” always together and always ready with a prank or a bad joke. Ron had joined us when he and Ev returned from their two-year tour in the US Navy.

I recalled the canoe trip Ev, Denny, and I took up the Gunflint River into Canada before our last year of high school, and the stories they never tired of telling of their having to carry all of my gear for the last 3 days due to my having a sunburn so bad I could barely move, let alone paddle the canoe. Then, before I picked up the phone to call Bobby, Ev’s widow, there came the memory of nearly flunking out my sophomore year at the U. of Minnesota after she dumped me that summer. Ev, true friend that he was, came home from the service, dated Bobby briefly, and then married her. (Best thing that ever happened to me—I’m not sure I thanked Ev for that). The three of us stood up at one another’s weddings.

Then there were the weekend poker parties, the cutting class drinking beer parties, trips to Roosevelt Lake, water-skiing, scrapes with the Law, surviving driving with one another at the wheel, and through it all the feeling of belonging that makes me look back on those years with gratitude mixed with relief. Gratitude for the realization that some things outlive us, and relief that we outlive some things.

Thanks Ev, Ron, and Denny for reminding me of the richness and fullness that is life.

             This is me and Bobby in 1995

                                   

  Denny is the tall guy in the middle, then Ev, me and Ron in 1995

Oak Glen Snowfall

Below is the digital photo I entered in the Redlands Camera Club Winter Digital Competition last month.  It received a 1st place award in the Apprentice Class, Open/Miscellaneous category.

Poet’s Bench at Oak Glen Los Rios

This photo was awarded 3rd place in the Redlands Camera Club miscellaneous category, Apprentice Class Winter Digital Competition.  I wrote the poem a couple of years ago.

Poet’s Bench

I wonder if I’ll ever be a poet

And can sit with those greats

Who gave us leaves of grass

To ponder and trees and lakes

And oh yes mountains.

I think I’ll just sit down here

At my own Walden pond and

See what happens.

A Place I Know

Los Rios at Oak Glen in the fall is a special place for my wife and me. We love to stroll along the nature trail, especially down by the lake. Our favorite bench nestled in a little clearing where we can watch the shadows in the water and the mallard babies with their vivid colors, and even drab ones. There are always sounds from red-winged blackbirds and grackles and jays, and the coots with their familiar calls. We’ve both made a pledge to have our ashes scattered around the lake.

What Was Different About Junior High?

It was like going from the warm little world someone had created for you to kindergarten for the first day. It was like being yanked from a room full of friends and dropped off at a busy intersection of a large city and having no clue what any of the signs meant. We had heard that this would be difficult from kids who had older brothers and sisters at Lincoln Junior High. The building itself was right next door to our old familiar John Hay. Viewed from our vantage point it looked like a three-story prison, a big rectangular structure that covered much of a city block and surrounded a central court-yard (we guessed that court-yard was where they let the prisoners out for exercise).

Nothing, however, prepared us for what lay ahead of us. The fact that we all had “home rooms” did nothing to ease our discomfort. That was where they gathered you to take attendance, listen to the “orders of the day” from the home room teacher, salute the flag and exit to your schedule of classes. That was one big difference. Instead of staying in the same room with the same teacher and the same classmates for a whole day we had to go from classroom to classroom, remembering each of them, and it was not always the same schedule each day. Another difference was the regimentation. The hallways were “one-way” thoroughfares, so if your next class was one room to the left as you exited you had to go to the right and all the way around this big rectangle to get back to the room which was 10 feet from where you started. In addition, all the stairways were “one-way” stairways, either “UP” or “DOWN” and yes, they had hall and stairway “police” (they were never just hall monitors in our minds).

Another significant difference was the “required” classes. We got to choose between “Wood Shop” and “Metal Shop.” I chose Wood Shop in which the only thing I remember learning was how to use a wood lathe and turn a block of wood into a table leg or something. I guess someone thought we needed to learn a trade in case we didn’t make it to college.

The most shocking and humiliating difference was PE. We were all expected to “climb the rope” in order to make our grade. I struggled with that and never did make it more than a couple of feet off the floor. Worse than that was “swimming” day. The girls all got to wear tank suits, but the boys had to swim NAKED. For kids at various stages of dealing with their physical development this had to be the one most embarrassing thing that could be required of them.

Then there was the day that the PE warden, I mean teacher, blew the whistle and yelled “Everybody out!” Someone had done his business in the pool, which required that it had to be totally drained, cleaned, and refilled before anyone was allowed back in. As I remember, it was a couple of weeks before we had swimming period again. A brief respite!

The School Patrol

“Hey kid! You wanna get reported?” boomed the voice of the dreaded “school patrol.” No matter which route you took they were always there in their yellow and white belts that went around the waist and over one shoulder, and that big red and white octagonal hand-held sign that said “STOP!” You could not cross the street without them. Drivers respected them. I never heard of one of them getting run down by a motorist. Of course, this was Minneapolis in the 1940s and not California in the present day.

Today they have “crossing guards.” They are usually retired individuals. They still have the hand held STOP signs, but not those cool belts with shoulder straps. Our “patrols” were kids like us, only a little older. I never got to be one of the elite, although I did achieve the status of “hall monitor,” which I mentioned yesterday. The school patrols from all the Minneapolis schools were treated to an annual outing at Como Park. I don’t remember a hall monitors picnic but I do remember an all-city-schools event at that same park, lots of hot dogs and little ice cream Dixie cups, three-legged races, gunny-sack races, etc. It must have been in honor of us having made it through the 6^th grade (we didn’t have “graduation” ceremonies for everything in those days), celebrating our last year of freedom before going on to the 7^th grade prison known as “Lincoln Junior High School,” but that is another story.

I never got reported for crossing without permission, although I did receive a few warnings: “Hey kid! You wanna get reported?”

Young Love

It was fate. We were thrown together for a whole year in 6^th grade as “hall monitors” at John Hay Elementary. Twyla Holznagle and me. She was the smartest girl in my class and I was, well, pretty smart. But she acted interested in me. I don’t remember any of our conversations during that year. I think we were both pretty shy. But I remember the feeling sitting in those hall monitor school desks, of just enjoying being close to her. She had long wavy hair and smelled good to boot.

It took me the whole school year to get up the courage, but in the spring, just before summer vacation I popped the question: “D’you wanna to go to a movie Saturday?” “Sounds good?” Did she say yes? She did! She said yes!

It was only Monday and by Saturday I was a nervous wreck. What theatre? What movie? Do I have enough money? Am I supposed to pay for both of us or do we go Dutch? By Thursday it was all decided, during hall monitor period. We would meet at Plymouth and Penn Avenue, take the streetcar downtown to the Orpheum and go to Bridgeman’s for ice cream sundaes after the movie. Fortunately my dad handed me a ten dollar bill on Friday, so I was now flush enough to treat for the whole date. My first date, her first date. Our first date!

The date went off great, except for holding hands with sweaty palms in the theatre. I have no idea what movie was playing, but I am sure it wasn’t the usual “Hopalong Cassidy” flick we often got at the Homewood. Bridgeman’s was the place to go for ice cream sundaes or sodas so I know that impressed Twyla.

We finished the school year, went into summer vacation, and for some reason, did not keep in touch all summer or through the rest of junior high and high school. Perhaps it was partly due to my moving four times before high school graduation with two of the moves being to a different city and then to Iowa for two years. But it was more likely that we were just too young to know how to handle feelings. I know I was. And that didn’t change through high school. I had many friends who were girls but no girl friends. Also, I found most of my friends in the downtown church I became active in for high school and college years.

Twyla remained one of the smartest girls in her class and was senior class Salutatorian, which means her GPA just missed Tom Morehouse’s, the Valedictorian. She did not go to college, she told me at our 40^th high school reunion, because of finances. But she did continue being smart, a self-educated woman who served a couple of terms in the Minnesota State Senate. And she married a very nice man who she started dating in high school. At our 50^th reunion he greeted me at the entrance with “Twyla’s been looking for you” and made sure we were seated at the same dinner table. At the 40^th reunion she gave me a big hug and kiss while telling my wife, Linda, that she would just have to live with my being her first love. It is great having a woman pump up your ego and having a wife who keeps it from over-inflating.

Can you be both pumped and humble?

Journey of Awakening—Part 2

Sometimes I wish I could remember my life more accurately. I have been encountering blank spots, whole years or clusters of years in my growing up. It just occurred to me as I was writing my new blog posts that the years from 9^th grade through my junior year in high school are almost non-existent in memory. Almost, but not quite. I have a few quick remembrances of incidents in 9^th grade, such as the 9^th grade English class and Miss Johnson and Charles Smith in the “slapping,” which I have written about, Charles Few holding a knife at my throat, which I have not written about, the fight in art class which I also wrote about. But my friend Sheldon spoke of the “9^th grade talent show” which I had lodged in 7^th grade, but now I think he may be right.

I have a photocopy of the North High Annual of my sophomore year and there I am in the football team photo, in uniform, and my only memory of that fall is in August before starting high school practicing 40 yard dashes with a bunch of guys.

For some reason I did not go out for the team in my junior year, but vaguely recall being on the audio-visual crew, in which we made a movie of life at North High. My junior year was an especially difficult one because of what was going on at home, mainly with my dad’s drinking. I got several jobs during that period and ran around with some Plymouth Avenue “hoods,” had a ducktail and denim jacket with studs, and black “engineer boots.” The summer and fall of that year culminated in my “borrowing” the pickup truck from the back of the catering service where I was working, in order to impress my friends and a couple of girls with joy-riding.

This resulted in my dad, in one of his sober moments, giving me the option of “going to jail or going to church.” I was not stupid so I chose church. This was my second major awakening and it literally changed the direction of my life. I became active in the church youth group and met some really caring adults who became my second family. It probably helped me feel at home that a number of boys in the group were sons of alcoholics.

At the same time I did make some good friends through the high school clubs I belonged to, especially Hi-Y. Doug Ewald, son of a prominent dairy owner, Dave Johnson, Chuck Haight, now deceased, and Tom Moen, who went on to be a Lutheran pastor, were great friends of that year. Joel Miller, now a physician in Denver, lived just a couple of doors down and had a basketball “court” attached to his garage, where I learned all my skills playing after school. And Irv Rein on the next corner was part of the neighborhood group.

All of these connections kept me feeling that I belonged to something or someone, although I could not have articulated it at the time.

“Garf”

It was the first day at John Hay School. I was a new first-grader. Stanley Garfinkle, “Garf,” was a big kid who, like me, struggled with his weight all his life. I did not know that I was in a Jewish neighborhood, nor did the word “Jew” carry any connotations for me. I only knew that he had a funny sounding name, “Garfinkle,” so as unthinking and uncompassionate little kids sometimes do, I began playing with his name. “Gar-tinkle” had a nice ring to it. How about “Fart-inkle?”

“You’d better cut that out, kid. That is my family name and I’m proud of it. It has a long history and I’m not going to let anyone make fun of it.”

Of course this just got my mind going. I was getting more creative even as he grabbed me by my coat collar and slammed me to the ground and proceeded to sit on top of me while thumping my chest with his knuckle. “Are you going to stop?” Thump—thump—thump—“Are you ever going to make fun of my name again?” Thump—thump—thump—this went on for some time. I was stubborn and he was persistent. It was becoming obvious, however, that I was less interested in carrying on with this game than he was in extracting a “binding” agreement that this thumping should never happen again.

“OK, OK, OK, I give up?” as he continued thumping my chest, which was by now feeling a bit sore.

“You promise?” Thump—thump—thump.

“OK, I promise!” Thump—thump—thump. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t forget so he gave me several more for good measure.

I never made fun of his name, or anyone else’s, again, that I recall. Stanley and I became good friends, went through the remainder of grade school, junior high, and high school together, and because our last names were close in the alphabet, were often in the same home room and regimented seating arrangements we had in those days. We were on the high school football team, wrestling team, and track team together. We were both “heavyweight” wrestlers and my one “pay-back” moment came during a wrestle-off for who would represent the team in an upcoming match when I pinned him during the first 2 minutes. Shortly after I cracked a rib trying an “arm-rollover” move on Paul Casperson, a 250 pounder on the team, and Stan went on to represent the school in matches the rest of the year. In track practice everyone had to run the half-mile and the coach used to say “Get the calendars out. Garfinkle and Hamilton are running.”

As I mentioned, both Stan and I had a life-long battle with our weight. I eventually came to terms with mine. Stanley must have been over 400 pounds when he passed away a few years ago. I had trimmed down to 180. I saw him at our 40^th high school reunion at North High. It was a bit of a shock. He never went to college and I understand he became a plumber. Stan had a heart of gold and would literally give you the shirt off of his back.

“Garf,” I’m glad I knew ya. And thanks for the thumping. I needed it.

A New Day

Drinking coffee this morning

At Mickey D

On the way to Tai Chi class

Ah, the smell of it

The taste of it

Never before.

A new day dawns

A fresh encounter

With the sun,

With Friends,

With me

I need nothing more.

What Hath Been Lost?

From the time I was old enough to get on one of those big yellow electric land boats I loved the clang of the bells and the clackety-clack of metal wheels on metal rails and putting a token in the box under the watchful eye of the motorman. You could go almost anywhere in Minneapolis on those wonder-wagons. Sometimes when I just wanted to get away from home for a few hours or just for the ride, I would get on at Plymouth and Morgan and get a transfer to the Hennepin line, then another to the Lake Calhoun-Lake Harriet which took you around both lakes. All the way to the end of the line at about 56^th Street in those 1940s and early 50s days cost just one token— ten cents! But you better have another token to get back or you would have a long walk or a sore thumb. In summer all the windows would be down and you could feel the alternating cool and warm, sometimes hot, breezes as the motorman cranked it up to 30 or 40 miles an hour going through back yards and alleys behind huge homes around the lakes. Sometimes the connector to the overhead electric lines would slip off and we would grind to a halt, the conductor would jump off, go around the rear of the car and deftly pull on the rope attached to the pulley until he had it back on and away we would go.

It was in the late 50s while I was attending the University of Minnesota that they began to disappear. I don’t remember when the last of the tracks were dug up, but I remember missing those old lumbering yellow metal and wood behemoths. The Minneapolis Streetcar was no more, replaced by ugly, shiny new smoke belching buses. This was progress?

A group of retired streetcar fanatics in recent years resurrected the Lake Harriet to Lake Calhoun line and brought back one of the old streetcars that you can ride for two bucks from the Lake Harriet Station to Lake Calhoun and back. This summer I took my kids and grandkids and great grandkids, (or rather, they took me) for their first ride on a Streetcar! They actually had a motorman and conductor who gave a little spiel about the Minneapolis Streetcar Museum they had founded and the history of this great mode of transportation. I hope we come to our senses soon about the way we get around. I’m all for bringing back the streetcars!

My Great Grandson Jack with his grandparents

Self—A Diamante

(A Diamante is a diamond-shaped 7 line poem beginning and ending with contrasting ideas)

Self

Creative, Impotent

Forming, Solidifying, Dissolving

Neuroses, Relations, Graveyard, Paradise

Learning, Knowing, Being

Final, Awesome

No-Self

 

L-1 one noun

L-2 two adjectives

L-3 three participles (ing)

L-4 four related nouns (2 each for lines 1 & 6)

L-5 three participles (ing)

L-6 two adjectives

L-7 one noun

Me As Landscape

    This is the farm in South Dakota where I spent my first 4 years

Rolling hills, rocky soil

needing to be cleared for planting and harvesting,

and a meandering stream.

Smell of new-cut hay in a partially mown field.

Cotton clouds floating by overhead

slowly, slowly.

Oat field of waving grain,

gentle breeze-blown,

as far as the eye can see.

Black earth, cool and inviting to be touched,

so it gets ground into the skin.

Good! Good!

My Aunt Mattie: A Beautiful Woman

My Aunt Mattie was a World War II “pen pal bride.” She must have been 18 or 19 and just out of high school when she and my Uncle Ralph started corresponding. He was stationed in the Aleutian Islands and I believe, if I have this right, he proposed before he came home at the end of the war and she said yes before they met. At least that is the story as I had it all these years. Mattie was about 10-12 years younger than my uncle and I remember the day they were married (in 1945?). They had wanted to get married at the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa, about 12 miles from Charles City, the nearest town to the farm. So we all piled in cars and caravanned over to the Little Brown Church, located the minister and were all set for the knot to be tied right there, when the minister looked at their marriage license and announced “I can’t marry you! Your license was obtained in the next county!” We re-caravanned back to Charles City and drove with this line of cars all over town, going from church to church until we finally found a minister at home who would perform the ceremony. This was the beginning of a long and happy marriage that produced five children who grew up never doubting that they were loved.

But I wanted this to be about my Aunt Mattie. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and she always treated me as though I was one of her family, even after she had her own children. I suppose it was partly her being a “town” girl trying to adjust to the life of a “farm wife” and she knew I was my Uncle Ralph’s favorite nephew. And I was going through lots of turmoil at home. But she and I would sit on the steps for hours sometimes while she fascinated me with stories of her growing up in small town Iowa, she and her sister Mary who is now, I understand, in the final stages of her life. They have always been very close. Mattie herself has been in failing health in recent years and is trying to recover from a hospital stay as I write this. She did achieve acceptance by the Williams family and has been close to my mother and her two sisters, and held her own with my grandmother who was not an “easy accepter.” My Uncle Ralph passed away years ago and now Robert, Linda, Betty, Sharon, and Dennis, all who live close to her except for Betty, are caring for her the way she always cared for them. My Aunt Mattie still radiates warmth and beauty. I’ll never forget her.

Back to Plymouth Avenue

I was thinking about my old neighborhood again, where I said earlier that I ended up for 9^th through high school graduation. So I “Googled” Plymouth Avenue and so far only one photo came up, which is at the same location as the cartoon version I posted in an earlier blog. I am inserting it again along with the actual photo, which is from 1943. The first business visible on the left is the North Side Bakery, where my best friend Gary Lundquist was a baker for several years. In the middle of the next block is the Homewood Theatre, where we took in Saturday matinees for 12 cents and a dime for popcorn, and where I got so lost in the movieland dream world that my mother would on occasion have to come looking for me as I stayed for the second feature. And on the near corner is Strimling’s Drugstore, where we sat at the counter and slurped our cherry cokes and chocolate “phosphates.” The entire business district has been replaced after it was virtually burned out, I believe in the 1968 riots following the King assassination (correct me on the year if I have it wrong). There will never be another avenue like Plymouth or another neighborhood like the Old North Side. I do sometimes miss it.

The Hardest Part of Writing

Motivation to start writing is hard. Discipline to write every day is hard. Not getting distracted is hard. Thinking the first draft must be perfect is hard. Believing I can write is hard. Motivating myself to read is hard. Wanting to have more time to write is hard. Wishing for the one great idea is hard. Thinking I have nothing worth saying is hard. Looking for the “easy-write” button is hardest of all.

ROCK

Rock you’re not like me

Blacks and blues cover your skin

You are my brother.

A Haiku

 

Rock you’ve been places

Rock where have you come from and

Rock where are you going?

Rock I see your smooth surface

Rock I can’t see you.

A Tanka

 

Rock

Blue earth

Compressed earth

Depressed earth child

You cry out “Save Me!”

I hear your cry

I’m your kin

It’s time

Act!

A Lantern

A Tanka on Being 72

Drinking my coffee

After my meditation

Makes me less anxious

After seventy-two years

Alternatives considered.

(You can Google to find out what a Tanka is if you like)

Whose Question?

                                         

Bird outside window                 

What is it looking for? That’s  

My question—not hers.           

Little Hummer

Little hummer

Opaque wings buzzing

Like a fly

With added layers

Of beauty

Morning greetings

Always welcome.

Two Haikus During a Meditation Retreat

Gone to the movie

Enlightenment was showing

Missed it—popcorn’s good.

 

Two combatants wrestling

Reality will always win

Hold on there—who lost?

My Tombstone Story

Anonymous quote—The Voice from the Grave: “Life seems to come down to nothing more than being a dash on a stone between birth and death.”

Life seems endless when you are young, individual life that is, but is really short. When I was in my 20s and 30s I projected my epitaph to be engraved in the year 2007. The termination date keeps getting pushed back on each birthday. Hey, it’s all gravy from here on is what I’m figuring now. Ah, but life, that force that gave birth to this little individual life span, is not so easy to pin down or engrave in stone. Life goes on—so what is it’s meaning? That each individual has to decide for him or herself.