ROLLED UP SOCKS

When you wake up on the day after; whatever it was that propelled you through the day before and into the night, it has been spent like a Slinky Toy on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. You wake up to the sound of thunder and to rain drops, pelting through the screen above your head. The wet and cool feel good but what you can’t escape is the newness of the moment and the fleeting sense of yesterday’s adventure. It is a new day and it will unfold as it should but for now, I’m framing recent history. I don’t want to forget any of it so it runs over and over like instant replay. That’s how you do it. 

I never had a ‘Bucket List’, I’m not that organized. But I do get around and looking back at where I’ve been and what I’ve done, there might be a bucket list there, of sorts. I tend to see those kinds of things in hindsight, as entrees that life has served up rather than a list of things to do. From noon Tuesday through noon Wednesday, life served me up a truly awesome plate-full. This morning, still dark when it should have been light, with rain blowing in my window, I timed out. Before the new day could demand my attention, I took pleasure in yesterday’s wake.
           Baseball: I think of the movie, ‘Field Of Dreams’ and James Earl Jones’ omniscient voice. Kevin Costner was the star but it was Jones’ voice that defined the movie. He raised the game from National Pastime to Sacred Ritual. You could play the game but you were expendable, it didn’t need you. That’s the game I grew up with. When I was 9 my mother took me outside to play catch with a pair of rolled up socks. She threw the sock-ball up for me to run under and make the catch. She called the action, play-by-play just like on the radio; described game situations where we turned double plays and picked off runners in our own back yard game. From Little League and American Legion, through the army and college, I played baseball. 

If you buy into ESPN hoopla or the urgency of hard boiled competitors where 1st place is the only place and anything else is for losers, then we are chasing different dreams. I always wanted to win but win or lose, most of all I just wanted to play. My motivation was always rooted in the way the ball nested between my thumb and fingers. It was about the salty, dusty taste on your lip and the sting of the bat in your hands. If winning is why you play, then any game will do. I identify with the James Earl Jones character; there is something righteous about 90 ft. between bases and 60 ft. 6 in. from the rubber to the plate. Maybe more profound than the ten commandments, baseball spills over into every aspect of this life. 

When life took me in a new direction, baseball remained a constant. Bases loaded, 3 & 2 count, 2 outs, everybody running on the pitch: I walked away, it didn’t leave me. I’m not much of a fan. Teams come and go and in the end they are like the pipe that brings water to the tap inside your house. Without the water, it has no purpose. So when I got the chance to go to the College World Series in Omaha, it was about the game, not so much the teams.  L.S.U. & University of Florida had survived the double elimination preliminaries, meeting in the best 2 of 3 game, final series. I went to the second game; Florida had won the first game the night before. If L.S.U. wins, it forces a third, decisive game and if Florida wins, they are National Champions. I was ready to watch young men who were little boys at heart. They all hoped to play in the major leagues someday but that would have to wait. 

There is a saying among fanatics, “It’s not a game, it’s a way of life.” I think that’s a lot of self righteous bravado. I say, “Your way of life, whatever it may be: that’s what you bring to the game.” It truly is a game with a life of its own and what you do with it is up to you. With hot bats, strong pitching and solid defense, Florida steadily pulled away, winning 6 - 1. L.S.U. fans ranged from being graceful losers but more often to ugly, angry malcontents. I have some experience with the L.S.U. fan base and I have no sympathy for their super egos or their disregard for second place. They didn’t play well enough to win, simple as that but it was a good game. I loved it when every seat in the stadium was taken and standing room space was full. The L.S.U. crowd outnumbered the U.F. fans 3:1 or more and their passion was overwhelming. They expected a victory. Anything less would be a calamity. I was sitting in the middle of a tribal ceremony; like true believers praying for a miracle, convinced their prayer would turn the tide. When questioned, my neutrality was hard for them to understand. “I just want to be here, in this spot, right now and to see great baseball.” When I was a player, our coach told us every day, “Take preparation seriously, pay attention and work hard. When game day comes, have fun and let winning take care of itself.”It was something I could take with me and lean on for a lifetime: and yes, we won a lot more than we lost. 

So I can add another check mark to my bucket list; something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m not particularly fond of Nebraska but Omaha is special. It is very much a baseball town with great history and support for their teams and home of the College World Series. Besides that, Omaha is a railroad town. From the coming of the iron horse and twin rails across the continent, Omaha is still a transportation hub. Even with the evolution of diesel locomotives, it’s common place to hear the choo-chooing of old time engines and see steam jetting from around the whistle and behind the driver wheels. That is the other part of my 24 hours in Omaha but I’ll have to write about it some other time. 

SURELY OTHER PEOPLE

I can be thinking about something and before completing the thought, something else comes to mind by association, unfolding a sequence of random leaps, one idea to another. At some point you lose track of where the original thought was headed if not losing the thought itself. I do it all the time. When I get out there on the fringe and do in fact, find my way back with a cogent recollection or observation, it’s like money in your pocket that you didn’t know was there. Surely other people do this but I don’t hear anyone admit to it. I’m famous for stopping in the middle of a sentence, leaving listeners on the hook. They want to help me; put words in my mouth as if I had a lapse of vocabulary; that all I need is their prompt. I think there’s a part of my brain that would rather go exploring than follow the bouncing ball. If it takes off without permission, all I can do is wait for it to come back or go with it.

I am fascinated with trains. Before I can decide which particular ‘Train’ experience I want to relive it occurs to me that I can be fascinated by any number of things. So what will it be, trains or fascination? I’m fascinated with birds as well, humming birds in particular. I like woodpeckers too and shore birds; I collect feathers. I have a gull feather I picked up on a Nova Scotia beach. I keep it on the visor of my car. Then I have a Cherokee feather at home with my other treasures, from a storytelling conference a dozen years ago. It is white with a dark gray tip and ribbons braided around the quill end. Tim Tingle gave them to people who attended his workshop. He told a story of how his great-great grandmother died on the Trail of Tears and how they carried her bones with them, in a bag, to be buried at their new home so her descendants could find her. Larry Richard (Ré-chard) is a Choctaw friend of mine from Louisiana. He’s taken me to sweat lodge ceremonies and we’ve danced the Gourd Dance at Pow Wow. He speaks the same kind of language and shares the same rationale I found in Ed Mc Gaa’s books (Eagle Man). I read them several years before I met Larry. They don’t attribute what they don’t know or understand to God. They simply allude to the Mystery. What draws me to that culture is how they focus on finding their place in the grand scheme rather than becoming masters of the universe. Nobody seems to remember Manifest Destiny; the selfrighteous mandate to plunder a continent and it’s indigenous people; no responsibility other than self and greed. First Nation people still remember, long after the Lords of Industry drove their golden spike; long after those silver rails connected East to West. Still, the image of a steam engine chuffing and huffing a long line of boxcars up a grade can mesmerize a kid of 6 or 7. Missouri Pacific tracks ran under a creosote-timber bridge on he road, just a half mile from our house. My brother and I would stand in the middle as those huge, black, steam engines rumbled below, with steam hissing out in front of the driver wheels, belching black, coal smoke up the stack, full of cinders hot enough to raise a blister. We didn’t dare look over the side but we felt its hot breath shoot up through cracks between the timber planks and the earth shook. The engineer blew the whistle for us, a long, resonating pulse that rose in pitch then faded away, and we love it. In the 1990’s, Travis Tritt recorded a song that began; “First thing I remember is the smell of burning cinders and the sound of that old whistle on the wind.” Tritt has come and gone but I remember: “I always wondered where the train was going but I never cared at all where it had been.” The same Missouri Pacific line runs just a couple of blocks from my house now and I am always keen to listen for, to listen to the air horns. They pale in comparison to wailing, moaning steam whistles from the puffer-belly era but it’s all we get. It’s one of the few things that can disturb my sleep and it makes me glad: I wouldn’t want to have missed it. But I’ve always been fascinated with trains. 

CHARMED LIFE

I know that I live a charmed life but it doesn’t come home until something trivial disturbs it. I’ve been helping care for a friend’s dogs while she is out of town. I let them out early in the morning; 6:15 is early for me and they are waiting at the door. One stands up behind the glass, pumping paws up and down like a church-bell ringer. Their anticipation is not about me still, they can’t wait for me to open the door. They blow by my feet in a heartbeat, down off the back porch and out into the yard. They have business to do. When my bladder sends me that message, neither do I stop to socialize. Shortly they are back under my feet, wanting some attention. 

The neighbor across the street lets them out sometime after noon and feeds them. I’m back in the evening for the second shift and the neighbor gives them their last chance to play outside and pee before he goes to bed. All in all they get over an hour, maybe two, outside during the day and have human contact 4 times. Their preferred human will return tomorrow night and a happy home will be restored. 

Being helpful satisfies a fundamental need in the human psyche. Through the ages, evolution has endowed us with not only a need to serve our own best interests but also to help others. I don’t think it was thought out; trial and error sounds more likely but we serve our own best interests indirectly when we help others, who reciprocate the favor. I’m not referring to Machiavellian, tit-for-tat score keeping. I think it’s more Yin-Yang, what goes around comes around. That kind of social accommodation tends to make us feel good about ourselves and it strengthens bonds between individuals. So saying ‘Yes’ to the dog-sitting duty was a no-brainer. 

I didn’t expect it to change my life. I really like dogs; other people’s dogs and I like the monkeys at the zoo too but I don’t want either living with me at my house. I tried the dog thing sometime back, more than a few years but at my age, it feels recent. As much as I liked the dog I didn’t adapt well to managing poop and trying to anticipate a truculent child. In this case the poop was literal and truculent child, the metaphor. So after spending a ton of money and three months of chasing my own tail, I gave the puppy to a family who still have and love him. I’m out the money but live and learn. I learned: they should be like grandkids - playing with them is awesome and then you go home. 

In the past ten days my life has been altered to meet the needs of three dogs who simply, can’t let themselves in and out. The only thing I do after I rise, before I go to let them out is tend to my own personal needs. Then as the day unwinds I have to jigger my coming & going so I’ll be there an hour or so before dark, with at least a half hour to bow-wow and fraternize with a miniature speed-racer, an old tail-wagger and a compulsive licker. It doesn’t sound like much and it’s not really. But it’s reminiscent of  a house full of teenagers and I do know about that. They must need the human interaction even if it’s not their dedicated, mother figure. So I pet them, talk to them, throw toys be retrieved. I ignore their bad breath and clean up their accidents on the carpet. I think their indoor poop events are anxiety driven but I don’t have credentials there to speak with authority. 

I do have pets; I have lots of pets. I watch them in the morning at one of two bird feeders where they can come and go, poop wherever they like and care less if I’m in town or out. But I care. All I need is to see finches taking turns at the millet and sunflower seed buffet. I delight at woodpeckers on the peanut feeder and even the grackles, struggling to balance on a perch designed for much smaller feet. When the starlings come in droves I wish the neighbor’s cat would come around. It thinks it’s a cat feeder, the seeds are bird bait. Then the sight of a cat makes the idea of a dog there sound not so bad but that nonsense snaps me back to my charmed life. 

DOES A FISH KNOW IT'S WET?

National Public Radio has a Saturday morning program that is worth the listening. This morning they were broadcasting from Alabama with native, Alabama guest reporters and personalities. Early in the program I heard a word that set me back. The host, Scott Simon, referring to a slew of elected officials who have either gone to Washington with the new administration or have resigned to avoid embarrassing investigations or legal action, asked “Is this the (Alabamization) of government?” I thought, ‘OMG, what did he just say?’ They compared the phenomenon to Simon’s home state, Illinois where several former governors are all serving prison sentences for corruption. They concurred, (writers, reporters & pundits) the next year would be rich with material for them to write about.

I couldn’t get my head around the word, Alabamization. Missourification would be no better, nor would Indianazation. But, Alabamization; seriously! My feelings about the South and Southern Tradition are no secret. I wouldn’t call it a ‘Love-Hate’ thing but it is  certainly a conflicted thing. I would take a more nuanced approach, calling it, ‘Charmed-Disillusion’. Sons & daughters of the South would say I’m prejudiced but I think substantiated bias is more to the truth. The charm of Southern Hospitality and its home-grown virtue glosses over a taproot of ruthless, feudal privilege. Only 150-years ago (two lifetimes) more than half-a-million Americans died in a war fought over the fate of purchased & paid for, African slaves. Southerners would argue it was over State’s Rights but without the slave issue, there was no issue. An outwardly religious culture needed moral justification for that human carnage which was from the beginning, manifest in White Supremacy. I don’t think an informed, rational observer can embrace Southern Culture without acknowledging the legacy of White Supremacy. It is still deeply invested in that identity. It is internalized but no less present; the way it is, the way we were raised. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Southern sympathizers are overtly racist but then, does a fish know it’s wet? I love the music and the food. I love many of the good people there, one in particular. She is so, so Southern. But she is trained to observe and to weigh evidence objectively. Her sense of fairness is not compromised by the one for (iron fist-velvet glove) authority. She knows, she laments; the Good Old Boys rule and ‘White’ supercedes every other color. I suspect much of the resentment against so called, “Political Correctness” is the desire to publicly express a racist, sexist predisposition, like they did in the good old days. In Denham Springs, LA and Macomb, MS they tell me, “You can’t even hang a Nigger here no more.” White Supremacy is common above the Mason Dixon line but they don’t cloak it with molasses, call it something else and preach it’s virtue. They wouldn’t cultivate weeds and call it sugar cane. I could write a book, I already have, piece by piece, part by part, no need to resurrect a dead horse. 

Alabamization - I suppose we are ripe for it. What I see going on is polarization; middle class and the poor pitted against each other. It’s what the ‘Good Old Boys’ orchestrate when the natives get restless. I never thought I’d have a White Hero from Alabama, like meeting a tall, short, skinny, fat man. Great athletes, great musicians, great writers galore but nobody with a moral compass, oriented away from White Supremacy; not until E. O. Wilson. If you don’t know E. O. Wilson you should read his stuff. Raised in Mobile, Alabama he loved his growing up and he considers himself an Alabamian, even though he’s lived 65 of his 87-years in Massachusetts. He writes about the irresistibility of tribal identity, using himself and his attachment to his alma mater, University of Alabama as the example. He doesn’t tout Southern Culture as a good thing, just that he loves it. His insightful quote: “The trouble with humanity is; we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and God-like technology.” Emotions move us to action long before intelligence can boot itself up. That makes it really, really difficult to push back against a culture that has nurtured you and not surprisingly, few Southerners, or any other tribalist’s for that matter, do that. Alabamization; really - Scott Simon, why did you do that to me this morning? 

IF IT HURTS, DON'T DO IT

 

I went to a concert recently where the stage was raised and baffles designed so none of the sound leaked out the sides or up through the rafters. It was all funneled out to the audience. Seating was on a grassy slope, room for several thousand; you bring your own chair or a blanket. Before the show began they played recorded music over the PA system; not by the night’s performer but the same, blues/rock genre. The sound level was just right, it came across clean, clear, every note, every syllable. 

The introduction was short and the show began. We were in the middle of the amphitheater just behind and to one side of the audio control booth and the sound engineer. After the first verse, into the first break I tried to tell my companions that I had to leave; too loud. They couldn’t hear me, had to resort to sign language. “Pain; it hurts my ears.” I took my chair and headed to the high point in the far back; still had to cup hands over my ears. My friends followed in a few minutes. We still couldn’t hear each other. 

I remember in the 1980’s, Metallica, Van Halen; they were loud and offensive but my teenage kids loved it. I remember in 1958, the guitar riff at the front of “Johnny Be Good”. Our parents thought is was awful. After all, aggressive, edgy music was then, still is how kids push back against authority. Nobody could make you, not like music that pushes back. We liked “Sweet Little 16”, a black man singing to white kids, veiled, double entendre songs about sex, and it was too loud. "Loud" has evolved over time and technology and now it means (if it doesn’t hurt your ears it isn’t loud enough.) 

I understand, I really do. Musicians want to stretch boundaries and decibels is one way to do that. With “Rock” music, many if not most writer/arrangers consider the voice (lyrics) as just another instrument and whether or not it can be understood is not important. Sinatra and Fitzgerald started singing nonsense sounds in the 60's. They called it “Scat”. But they made sure you heard each consonant and every vowel. They were trying to embellish the story. The current norm is meant to overwhelm the sensory system, an experience rather than a connection. It takes half a million watts to drive 160-170 decibels out a hundred yards to the nose bleed seats in the upper deck. In bars and clubs, it’s common to register 150 d. which causes permanent hearing loss. You can see ripples on the surface of your drink as it vibrates toward the edge of the table. I know something about hearing loss. After decades of denial, I went to the doctor; 40% loss in both ears and I can’t hear for S#*t. When you’re 24 or 31 you can laugh it off; “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” There’s a very good chance you are too old: you will be the last to know but it’s way-way-too loud as well. Weird how euphoria can increase dopamine production which in turn suppresses the pain. Those same sound levels are used in some places to wear down resistance and torture prisoners. 

I like music meant to be loud, to be loud. But over 100 d. you’re just caught up in a trendy form of self immolation. Your ears don’t go “Boink” over night but they do go boink over time and the fix is over rated. I didn’t stay for the last hour and a half of the Amanda Fish Band. She was trying to howl like Janice Joplin but was just making noise, Janice didn’t need a bazillion watts to get your attention. Beth Hart screams but she is her own amplifier and every phrase is clear as a bell. So much for Too Loud. If it hurts, don’t do it. 

CLOTHES PIN & A RUBBER BAND

Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) deduced from her research clearly that funeral rituals are of and for the living. The correlation between self awareness and intelligence is obvious but the unhappy third element of that triad is the knowledge that we will most certainly die. As far as we can tell, animals are unaware that they were born or that they will die. In that vacuum they live ‘happy as a clam’ and good for them. It’s a scary, unescapable legacy. 

Once upon a time, people died at home. Death was as natural as birth. You could see it coming, something you could count on. My grandmother died in her sleep on the couch in our living room while I slept in my bed upstairs. We don’t do that much anymore. Our culture is obsessed with “Young.” Death is depressing and we’ll have none of it. We have nursing homes where old people go to die, with dignity if you believe the brochure and just as importantly, out of sight. Shortly after my dad moved to a place called Foxwood he told me, “This is the place where you walk in the front door and leave out the back on a gurney.” He knew he would die there. As much as we would like to live, happy as clams, we can not. Funerals are for mourning our own unavoidable passing as well, whether we understand it or not; evolution and human nature have taken care of that. It is the time and place when it’s appropriate to vent that double sorrow.

How many times have we heard people say they want their funeral moved up a year or so before they stop breathing to enjoy all of their friends at their ‘last hurrah’. I think it’s a great idea; macabre maybe but why not? I could write my own eulogy. It might go something like this.

FRANK STEVENS 1939 - 20??

Born the 2nd of three sons to Frank & Dorothy, he was naive and shy, loved to play games, especially games with a ball. He loved ladies but found them intimidating. It set up a life-long dichotomy that he could navigate but never reconcile. The boy could entertain himself with a clothes pin and a rubber band. The demands of work required self discipline but his imagination did not. Never lacking for imagination he followed it; his teachers said he was lazy but what did they know? 

He grew up reluctantly. The military bridged an awkward gap between aimless diversion and gainful purpose. Physically, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. But he was never the best, not even “Really Good”. But he was good enough to make the team, to play and to learn the lesson - being a small part of something grand is wonderful. Skydiving was his path to becoming, really good at something. People noticed; recognition is strong medicine. That self confidence would be a springboard to college and a career in education. When he had to chose between the adult work force and hanging out with teenagers, it was no contest. 

Reinventing the self was always a necessity, nothing to do with philosophy or insight. Living was like landing an airplane; any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Curiosity always trumped ambition. All he ever wanted was, to understand why, and how it works; to be loved. After that he wanted to please others and if possible, to have a fun toy. He tried to be a good son, a Christian to please his parents but like the Ugly Duckling, life had other plans for him. The classic Agnostic, he made the distinction between disbelief and unbelief; the absence of proof doesn’t prove anything. His doubts were great and many while his Faith could neither float nor fly. To meet his spiritual needs he trusted Gibran and Twain. Not knowing the unknowable simply left him with an inert question mark. ‘Whether or Not’ was simply irrelevant, it didn’t matter. Here and now, this life was enough. 

The only reservations he had about his own passing would be that someone might, in good faith, allow a cleric to pray or preach over his bones. That would be horrible. “Even when they believe their own hyperbole,” he would say, “they are salesmen exploiting someone’s grief.”

When the sun turns into a red giant and Earth itself has been reduced to star dust, it will have been enough to have been here for a while. In the movie Grumpy Old Men, 95-year old Burgess Meredith scolds his 65-year old son, Jack Lemon, “When you die, all you get to take with you is your experience.” Whatever becomes of his ashes, Frank’s experiences will still be his experiences. He would say, “Life is for the living; you don’t have that much time.”