SHE OWNS IT

I try to start a simple little story and before I can get a full paragraph on the page there are two or three other little stories that should be supporting parts of the same whole. John Muir was right; grab onto anything at all and you find it is connected to everything in the universe. Everything is interconnected and that is a great introduction to almost every story.
I am not good with technology. I did alright with the stick shift and knowing how tight was tight enough on the end of a wrench but I still get batteries in backwards. For music in 5th & 6th grade we played recorders. Blow in the little end, cover the finger holes and make a note. Move you fingers and music comes out. I was taking Horn lessons the summer between 6th and 7th at the Jr. High, set up for band class in the fall. But on Labor Day weekend on a Boy Scout swimming excursion I was in a car crash, face into the dashboard, broken teeth and stitches to close the gash in my lip. After a month it was understood that I would not be in band that year. Even when the lip healed the mouthpiece fit right over the scar and my buzz didn’t work, and it hurt. 
I wasn't making music but I did learn how to operate the radio and record player. Sometimes I would mouth the words to Tutti Frutti along with Little Richard “Tootie frutti, oh rootie, Wop bop a loo bop a loop bam boom.”  By the time I got in the Army I was listening to jazz; The Don Shirley Trio, Cannonball Adderley, Dave Brubeck and Roy Orbison on the side; not jazz but still cool. Come the late 1960’s I was too busy to be doing music and I got away from it. Then in the late 70’s I had been keeping a journal, writing, Story, imagine that. The Sturgis, MI radio station had a two hour, all music format on Saturday evening. I was in the car and a song came on that I couldn't, not listen to, it spoke directly to me; “Take it easy, take it easy, don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” I was hooked on those lyrics, a story put to music. Then I stumbled across Kris Kristofferson, then Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Dylan: I discovered them along with a second generation that was too young to get it the first time around. I was a generation late but discovery; it is what it is. Their stories are timeless and put to music, easy to memorize. I listen to a lot of music, have been for lots of years, know a lot of songs. 
I got my first cell phone in the 90’s and it was obsolete before I got my new number memorized. Leap forward to the smart phone. I am the stereotype geezer who gets tech support from his grandkids. I did that a couple of weeks ago. Last year we uploaded about four hours of music from my I Tunes library in my computer onto my smart phone. I walked for exercise on a bike path and hung my I-Phone in a pouch around my neck, listening to music as I walked. It was so cool; made the time pass, almost like therapy. 
So far this year I’ve been going to the gym instead of walking the bike path. I’m always near a bathroom, no bad weather to contend with and I transition from walking laps to the weight room effortlessly. So now I get both the cardiovascular walk and strength repetitions but I don’t feel right about my music. Others may not want to hear my tunes. Lot of gym folks wear earbuds or head sets and I presume they are listening to their own, whatever they listen to. 
This last weekend I got my own headset. The smart sales guy (Geek) assured me it was easy, just follow printed instructions when I got home. In a respectful way I told him, “No, you are the genius, I am the customer and I don’t follow printed instructions. When ever I have a question the pamphlet just ignores me. Before I leave here you will have paired the phone with the headset and answered my questions; any questions?” After that we got along great. He was a little embarrassed when he had difficulty getting the volume to balance sound evenly between the left and right ear. He was a nice guy but after a half hour and more head scratching than he was accustomed to, he was happy to see me go. 
I had known for some time I would be doing this so I leaned on my Granddaughter again to help me upload another playlist onto my device; device, listen to me, makes me sound tech-savvy. She helped me last year and we lifted about 4 hours of my favorites off the computer, onto my I-Phone. It worked so well outside on the bike path I wanted another, new play list go go along with what I had in the phone. She is a really, really great kid. I know! Grandparents think their progeny are great without cause but I have cause. When we finished with the music I thanked her and offered her safe passage but she was in no hurry to go. She is off to college in August and our conversation was incredibly spontaneous and candid. With over three decades in classrooms I can spot fake enthusiasm and sucking up and (cause) she was right where she wanted to be or she wouldn’t have been there. When she drove away I felt special and that doesn’t happen often. 
Today it only took a few minutes before I left the house to remember, rediscover which buttons did what and their sequence; I had music again. At the gyn I rechecked my settings again and discovered that when we uploaded the new playlist we had inadvertently transferred the whole library into the I-Phone; that is over 4,000 songs and I can set the selection mode on ‘Random’. So now I have a 4,000 + playlist and it was, it is awesome. I was reacquainted with some favorites I had almost forgotten about. One song would go into its fade at the end and my curiosity would peak. The anticipation was making my walk so interesting. One in particular, I listened to the lead in and I knew it was someone special. On the first word I knew that I knew but it took a few words for my brain cells to get serious. I was unfamiliar with the song itself but there is only one Natalie Merchant. When she sings a song, any song, she owns it. I didn't speed up or hesitate and I kept track of where I was on the track but I listened hard, didn’t want it to end. Good Story.  

WRETCHED OLD BONES

This is going to be a rambling sort of rant-thing but it is real and I think about it more than I want to. Here I am an old man, my family is grown, I am loved but nobody needs me, I’ve had about all the fun and good times any man deserves, my health is better than good but I chew on a couple of wretched old bones that I can neither digest nor spit out and that would be for ever and ever Amen.

I was a naive kid and to that end I’ve turned out to be a naive old man. With issues and circumstances that others pick up on instinctively, I am still the last to know or to figure it out. My growing up came in the 1940’s and 50’s when Jim Crow was a proud institution and segregation was the rule, wretched bones.

Jim Crow drove the culture, my parents nurtured southern sympathy and racism was incumbent in that package. Nobody thought they were racist and if no harm was intended then no harm done. “They are God’s children and we respect them but they are sub human, inferior and that is God’s plan.” I never experienced an epiphany, just a long suffering, slow moving sense of OMG, are you serious? I began to understand that parents are wrong sometimes and if I was the last to know then at least I knew. Still, I never had a conversation with or knew a black person by name until I went in the Army. Segregation does what it was designed to do.

Fast forward 70 years: I have been slow to concede to a damning truth that has always been there in plain sight. I don’t have to define Racial Prejudice. It is so deeply fixed in American culture that it often goes unnoticed or meets with tacit approval. “I don’t care, it’s how I grew up.” I suffered through Civil Rights in the 1960’s, through the fire hoses, billy clubs and police dogs at the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, through M.L.K. Jr’s murder in Memphis, TN. He was shot dead in broad daylight. In the last half century killing people of color in the guise of Law & Order or some distorted sense of justifiable homicide has never waned. There have been strides in the right direction but they are always answered with reprehensible reminders that black lives are expendable; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY and George Floyd in Minneapolis. There is a serious white supremacy movement underway and it is flourishing. They provoke violence confidently as conservative leaders who count on their support at the poles, they  change the subject and look the other way. 

It is no secret that I have serious issues with the way modern society exploits the weak and defenseless and I struggle with human beings in general. I remember my uncles talking about blacks; “They’re alright by themselves but get 'em in a bunch together and they get crazy.”  That’s how I see our species in general. In small groups (3 or 4) we tend to think first and act responsibly. But get a bunch of humans together and you end up with the KKK or worse. Christians say, “Love the sinner, Hate the sin.”  I hate the self righteous bigot as surely as I hate the transgression. There is no law against wishing someone dead, I could do that. My brother did that in college, wished his professor dead and the old man died before the end of the semester. Later he had mixed feelings about his wish but I don’t think I would. Sad as it is to say, I do hate racists and if they die they die and I can change the subject and look the other away. This makes me sound like a violent person and I'm not, really I'm not. But I feel the same kind of angst they do, just vent it in another way. I am convinced that on our best day we are high functioning mammals, armed with good intentions but without a compass. 

It is very easy, it comes naturally; birds of a feather flock together. We prefer to be with people who look like us, speak like us, resonate in the same culture we do. But we are also curious, creative and compassionate. With those attributes, hopefully, one day it will get us over the top. That part is not so easy. But where there’s a will there’s a way. Anything is possible. I really don’t want to go back to the Middle Ages with a bunch of malcontent knights running around killing peasants. You know; chivalry was not about fair maidens and jousting. It was a code with rules on who you can kill and rules of engagement. But the pattern is pretty well set. Change comes slow, one funeral at a time, lots of funerals, both natural and expedited. 

    I have not addressed White Privilege and I will not, not here, not now. By definition, privilege is an unearned benefit. The recipient does nothing to deserve a reward but still receives it. Others who do the same (nothing) and do not get the reward have, by definition, been oppressed. The two are like two sides of the same coin. One can not exist without the other. But that is another story. I take no satisfaction writing on this dreadful subject but racism upsets me, then I get angry and wish terrible things on terrible people. Our pledge of allegiance pivots on; With Liberty and Justice For All. But it seems a high percentage of Americans have trouble with just how to implement the (All) part. When I’m not here to defend my ideas and values I want there to be something that speaks for me. This little rant may be my only defense. 

BYE BYE BLACKBIRD

The Grand Old Lady of 12th Street, The Folly Theater has been a landmark in Kansas City for over one hundred twenty years and I was there last night. Opened in 1900, The Folly featured Burlesque and Vaudeville entertainers. It is one of few buildings from that era that remain. At 12th & Central it has a new parking pavilion, an updated ticket office and lounge but the theater itself still speaks to another time. Most often compared to New York’s Carnegie Hall, visiting performers laud Kansas City for protecting and preserving its legacy. I’ve been there at least a dozen times, to see Rose Ann Cash, Judy Collins and Randy Newman most recently.  
Last night the Linda Hall Library at U.M.K.C. sponsored a jazz collaboration titled, The Jazz In Physics. Stephon Alexander, a theoretical physicist and renowned alto sax man along with Donald Harrison, New Orleans tenor sax legend have been collaborating for the past decade on a project that links the improvisational nature of jazz with the language and principles of quantum physics. Last night was their first performance together from that effort with a score written just for it and it was great. 
I don’t know much about jazz other than I like most of it. The most interesting and attractive thing I do know is that if you actually listen, there are no boundaries. I liken it to a juggler with too many balls, hoops, oranges and butcher knives in the air, too many to manage but somehow they do. Frequently they get into call & response exchanges that go down perfectly, without words. They described their music as notes and emotions that create their own destination like an electron that is nowhere in particular but actually everywhere all at once; the clever quantum physics caveat. 
I am good with Newton and his laws and if I don’t have to do the math I can keep up with thermodynamics but once you cross over into theoretical physics I throw in the towel. Alexander and Harrison laid down some very real music and when they finished, the abstract concepts were confined to the conversation and tongue in cheek one liners. 
I went with a friend who had an extra ticket, who likes math & science and like me, doesn’t like to do concerts alone. The theater seats just over a thousand; I think the number is 1,076 plus or minus and there weren’t many no-shows. The crowd was pretty savvy, knew a transition from the end of the piece and timed their applause accordingly. But jazz fans don’t bother with boundaries either. The whistle and hoot whenever the spirit moves them. If you try to listen for something logical or an underlying pattern, forget it. The band counted five other musicians who slipped into and out of the set, sharing the same tools; piano, base and drums. 
Toward the end they were just having fun. Harrison lost track of the time and had to ask the stage manager. They played a Miles Davis classic,  Bye Bye Blackbird and there were parts I actually recognized. Still I kept wondering if they actually memorize the classics, all those fast notes and too fast notes or freelance their way through the central melody and skip away like a dog off its leash, following a new scent.  I had a good time. If it feels good do it. You don’t have to understand anything.  

SHOT AT & MISSED

  I shopped at Walmart today for groceries. Buying in bulk may save a few $$$ but I don’t do that. I want just enough food to get me through a couple of days. That way it doesn’t accumulate down low in the back of the bottom shelf and I don’t have to throw spoiled stuff away. Today I got one ear of corn which I ate for lunch before I put the strawberries, lettuce and garlic flavored croutons away. For me shopping at Walmart is a lot like Baptists buying booze in the liquor store. You don’t want to be seen there but as long as everybody looks the other way you don’t have to make up an excuse. But every Baptist I know has several righteous reasons for wandering into the ‘Spirits’ section or carrying out bottles in brown bags: Me & Walmart. 
Everything is so expensive you have to calculate the fuel cost for the round trip and include it in the grocery bill. Seriously, at Hy Vee a pound of Jimmy Dean Italian Breakfast Sausage costs $6.04 before tax. At Wally-World the same sausage is $4.89, I even save a dime on the tax. Don’t even stop for a look at the strawberries or granola section. I have a half dozen MRE’s stuck away on the top shelf for when the world actually does come to an end. So I shop now at Walmart in spite of their evil corporate schemes and sometimes I even turn to Amazon, but only as a last resort.
What I notice most (not in a good way) at Walmart now are the tattoos, summertime and all, with short sleeves and cutoffs I cannot let them pass unobserved, like skunk in the wind. I don’t stare or make conversation, don’t get me wrong, a little bit of skunk isn’t all bad and some tats are actually great; I’m serious. I like full and partial sleeves that look like they were there at birth and grown up with the person. Flowers with leaves and vines are my favorites with a butterfly or setting sun to break up a pattern. 
It is not unusual for young folks in the military to be tattooed. Some, I’m sure, can be chalked up to too much alcohol or identifying with peers. For some it’s like eating peanuts, they get started and can’t quit. Wow; there’s just enough vacant space on the point of my elbow for a big star and it only costs $225. Most of us had one or more tats before we got out or reenlisted (I moved on) but we prided ourselves on rating tattoos, what was great, good, not bad and then the really, really bad ones. In public it was common to hear someone state with a hint of disgust; “Shot at and missed.” A terrible tattoo had been judged and failed the test. What they didn’t say but certainly was implied was the unspoken, last half of the phrase; “ shit at and hit.” 
My dad had tattoos on both shoulders, arms, forearms and chest. One was a big heart with a scroll and my mother’s name. The eagle on his chest was supposed to be large but once the artist got started and Dad’s pain receptors kicked in they scaled it down to about the size of a cookie. I got my tat at 18, sober, no other purpose than to give my dada little respect. It is small and gets no attention at all. If you’ve ever seen it then you must have peeked when I was in the shower. 
In 2009 I was in Alaska for the summer and came away believing that every woman from Anchorage to Seward had been shot at and missed . . .  If you think the clothes you wear make a statement about your tastes or personality then what kind of statement does a tattoo or tattoos make: "I am different" or maybe "I'm just like everyone else?" I met a sailor in Okinawa who had a row of dots around his neck down close to his shoulders with “Tear Along Dotted Line” inked on a label next to it over his shoulder. I asked him how that was working out and he told me, “You win some, lose some.” 
This summer, especially at Walmart, there has been a lot of shit-shooting and the aim has been good. I saw a woman with 7 tats on one leg and 4 on the other and I couldn’t make out what any of them were supposed to be. She was bent over, busy with half gallons of milk on the bottom rack and it must have looked like I was checking out her butt. I didn’t say it out loud but I must have mouthed the words. When she moved on another tat billboard move into her spot. 

THE DOOUBLE EDGE COMPLIMENT

This week I went back into my journals to revisit what I was writing in the 1970’s and it was a lot like looking at old photographs. The old photographs confirm time’s passage in a subtle but profound way, like weathered paint on the cellar door. The door could use a few strokes with sandpaper and a fresh coat of paint but it will get us by as is for another year. The old journal gave me a déjà vu, ‘Oh my!’ moment. That was certainly my writing but clearly from another time. Those stories spoke of a young family or other people’s children in my classroom. Both have moved on into middle age or even into retirement for the person who took my place in the classroom. I’ve been writing that long and here it is coming back around. My vocabulary, syntax and grammar have improved over time but the stories and the memories they stir, they breathe new life. 

I remember in summer of 1967 our high school 10 year class reunion, somewhere, I don’t remember where. But we all dressed up, coat & tie, two forks and a separate plate for the salad. After dinner there was music; some people danced but most of us were busy renewing friendships. At age 28 those of us who were not already successful still had high hopes and the atmosphere was sweet. My wife and I were expecting (soon) the arrival of our firstborn and likewise I would soon begin my senior year at William Jewell College. 

Several former teachers were there and I remember a receiving line where we filed by and greeted each other. Mabel Smith was in that line. When my turn came and I reached out to take her hand she took a long, hard look at me, taking my hand in both of hers. Before I could react she told me, “Frank Stevens, I want you to know that you are the last person I would have ever expected to be graduating from college.” I recognized the double edge on her comment. It was a compliment of course and then again it wasn’t. She was in fact sharing her long held lack of confidence in my academic potential. In her English classes my report cards read the same every year; 1st quarter failure, 2nd quarter failure, final exam a D- and D- for the semester. She passed me year after year because she couldn’t bring herself to have me repeat the class. Several clever comments came to mind but I simply smiled and thanked her sincerely for putting up with me. 

For the next 37 years, in and out of classrooms, I would remember Mabel’s low opinion of me and her disbelief to the contrary. The revelation for me was: Never, ever give up on someone who falls short. People respond to others expectations, good or bad, they just do. As a well intended teacher or parent or even a convenient bystander, I don’t have to be on the same path as the person needing encouragement. It was about me, not them. You have to be real but keep encouraging and believing they have what it takes. You never know who is paying attention, who looks up to you. Fortunately, I had another teacher who kept telling me that I could be anything I wanted to be; just never give up. So here I am, the kid who failed every high school English class, still writing. I want it to flow with continuity and a sense of purpose, to say something that may have value decades later when someone lays eyes on it for the first time. 

My 50 year-old journal gives me the same, déjà vu sensation as looking in the mirror and seeing a wrinkle free, full faced, 34 yr-old image looking back. It is the face my son traded grins with when we took the training wheels off his first bicycle. At present, my output lacks some of that energy and urgency but it benefits from experience that can only be acquired over time. I am pleased to share with any and all of you that I am well and grateful for this life and for all the falling down and getting up. If I’ve shared these ideas before then I must believe it myself; so be well, take care of yourselves and always wear the hat you want to be remembered by. 

NOTHING IS WASTED

  I was on Padre Island a few months ago just up the beach from Corpus Christi. I was there a year or two before the Covid pandemic and since then the island’s shore has acquired one cookie-cutter, residential development after another. It’s none of my business but in a helpless, detached way it was disappointing. There were, what seemed like, thousands of new, gray or white units stacked and staggered, wall to wall for a couple of hundred meters down to the beach and then a quarter mile stretch of sand and brush between it and the next gated community.
All it will take is a ten foot storm surge and Category 3 or 4 winds to reduce those resort homes to rubbish. Somebody, lots of someones will be left holding the bag but not the developers who will have made their money and moved on. But again, it’s not my business. I had believed most of that shoreline was part of a wildlife preserve but evidently not. 
Mustang Island State Park is on the island near the causeway that comes over from the mainland (Corpus Christi). It’s an easy walk from the blacktop parking lot to the beach so I walked barefoot down to water’s edge. With sandals high and dry on a table top I went out ankle deep in the outgoing flow only to be pushed back by an over the knee surge from the next incoming. I’ve been walking beaches like these for lots of years and I never take one for granted. Unlike beach front condos up on the highway, very little has changed here since people first started digging clams on Padre Island. A wave’s crest collapses on itself and runs up the sand until it looses its energy. Then in rapid retreat it slips back out into the Gulf under the next incoming wave. 
Shore birds scurry around just above the swash action, searching for morsels from a crab or clam that has finished its race and is decomposing back into the food web. The birds have the next wave timed and harvest bits and shreds until the next flush runs them up the hill ahead of it. Nothing is wasted in nature. 
I cannot fault the money makers or their schemes. People want to live in harm’s way without any consequence. It’s what they do. It’s funny how we can share the same DNA but in another important way, be so opposite. Thats where I have more in common with the birds on the beach than my human counterparts who plant palm trees where wild sea oats should be and believe the Category 4 storms will turn away at the last minute, at least while they own the property. 
I spent six years as an environmental issues resource teacher at a middle school in the early 1990’s. We were getting tons of good research data on global warming, plastic in the waste stream and over population but nobody believed any of it. My brother, a biology major turned professional pilot told me the sky is too big for us to f*#k it up and the ocean too; said it was a liberal hoax. The world had just turned over the 5 billion people mark on the world popu-meter. Now the needle is pressing against 8 billion people and they all need a next meal and fresh water. The only best solution is to have a lucrative income and live in a rich, powerful nation; and it helps if you are white. My guess is those new residents and time share holders on Padre Island are white and don’t have to ask, “How much does it cost?” The beach at the State Park doesn’t have any palm trees but I like it. 

OTHER SIDE OF THE MILKY WAY

  A ‘Devil’s Advocate’  is someone who takes a contentious position on an issue or argument to provoke debate or test the strength of someone other’s opinion. I can do that. Sometimes I have trouble knowing whether or not to take sides or even weigh the options. I do sometimes get drawn into situations where there is disagreement, especially when there is some kind of moral caveat in play or someone thinks they already know what it is that I think or believe. I get sort of a knee-jerk reaction and I default to an Abraham Lincoln quote: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” But I usually have an opinion, just not the one they want to hear. I tend to wander off course and away from what they want to discuss. My first reaction to any question that might show up on twitter or facebook is is to say, “That depends.” I try to change the subject to learn how much they really know about their own argument. When they remove all doubt I’ll ask something like, “How do you know that?” 
This kind of ‘Outside the box’ distraction isn’t really appreciated by the people I meet. Those who know me allow some time and space for me to shake the tree and see what falls out. I can be for or against almost anything. At the root of my indifference is misgiving and general disappointment with intelligence and human nature. I am not a misanthrope, I love people, even jerks and wannabes. They can’t help it; they do their best. That pretty much applies to us all. 
You know; people haven’t always been smart. It doesn’t matter when our brains changed but they did, a long time ago, enough that we were able to create language that in turn allowed us to communicate complicated ideas and connect unrelated bits of  story. The better brain lets us ask and answer our own question; “What if  . . .” Next thing you know we were controlling fire, cooking food, painting pictures on cave walls, making wheels for the chariot, arguing if there is or if there is not a god and whether or not to burn books that address gender identity. 
What happened when we got smart was, it didn’t work the same in all situations. That wonderful, updated brain gave us wheels, pottery (if you thought I said poetry it gave us that too), shoes, steam engines and smart phones. We didn’t understand it, still don’t but we sure put it to work. It turns out the brain wasn’t a new brain after all, only an upgrade. The old, ‘I feel, I don’t care, I want what I want right now’ part of the brain is still there, still works like it always has. The new update gave us creative genius, ’This is how to make cool stuff, braid a rope, tie a knot, make bronze, build a skyscraper and figure out E=mc^2’. 
When it comes to (civilized) people vs. people behavior the ‘I don’t care, I want what I want right now.’ program controls human behavior. When it comes to people creating and improving things; mathematics, a better mouse trap, a better satellite, the updated program works like a charm. The selfish Me brain keeps giving us the same game plan; do whatever it takes, don’t get caught, lie if you do, wage war, kill people if necessary but take what you want right now. Every generation reinvents the aggressive, violent, weak people deserve to die, system. One brain system manipulates people for their own selfish interests while the other manipulates things for the sake of a greater good. 
So why am I so disappointed with the human drama? I was supposed to go to Alpha Centauri on the other side of the Milky Way but ended up here on earth with high functioning primates who think they think. When I explain myself to wannabe smarty pants they dismiss me and my Devil’s Advocate persona. They fall back on, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is smartest of us all?’ Then they argue. If there was some money in it they might throw stones, break bones or get a good lawyer and take you to court.