MID DAY SUN

  Arriving home after a roadtrip has some good aspects I suppose but I’ve never been one to dwell on them. Like a villain returning to the scene of a crime, I am reminded of all the tasks I left undone and how much catching up there is to do. On second thought, maybe all the mundane responsibilities are cause enough to get away from it on the road. I came home to a kitchen full of fruit flies, too small, too quick to swat, they lurk unseen until I get too close and then they swarm. All I can say for sleeping in my own bed is that there is no downside. I created a sleeping berth in the back of my Ford F150; a folding cot, several folded blankets, two good pillows a sheet and a good sleeping bag. In summer, even on cool nights up north I get the right combination and sleep comes easy.
This is day #2 back and I’m still putting things right. It rained an inch & a half last night so no need to water or mow for that matter but it’s always a puzzle figuring out what comes next and what after that. I’m gradually gaining on the fruit flies. A couple of spools of fly paper strategically placed overnight and (stuck) flies this morning are doomed to dry up and go out in the trash. 
Today is supposed to be the the first of many forecast with heat advisories. If we get even a small breeze, 97 today will be alright but after that the prediction is nonstop 98, 99 and triple digits for over a week. I will go out early, wear sunglasses and a hat that shades my ears. I’ll get my stuff done (gym, chores, coffee group) and hide inside through afternoon and evening. I used to thrive on hot summer but that’s for kids, mad dogs & Englishmen, so I hear. 
Back when Britain was an empire (18th & 19th centuries) most of their foreign territories fell on or near the equator. British officials and travelers alike were famous for a double dose of indifference and ego. Whether on assignment or vacation, Englishmen in particular arrived with little or no protection from the midday sun but it didn’t keep them from going out in it. Resulting sunburns were painful but their prideful pretense with British superiority would make it unthinkable to reveal any chinks in their condescending disregard so they flaunted their pain and discomfort instead. It would be a shameful day in Bombay when an Englishman conceded to the Indian Sun. Playwrite Noel Coward wrote a song by that name in the 1930’s that poked fun at England’s long held, self obsession. The song, Mad Dogs & Englishmen visits every former British colony with clever rhymes that go on and on like a Bob Dylan manifesto, laced with humor in the style of Randy Newman. I don’t remember hearing the song but the phrase still rings of self obsessed conceit one would associate with modern day New York City and all of Texas. If I have overstated N.Y.’s pomposity I have no problem taking some of that back. 
I’ll be out in the midday sun soon but I will be under shade, long white sleeves and with water bottle. I’m starting to imagine road trips again; too much planned for K.C. in the coming months to test my (West Coast) appetite but it isn’t even August and I hate to think my travels (long weekends don’t count) are done for the season. 

GOOD BAGELS

July 13, 2023: I just spent a few days with my kids in St. Paul, Minnesota and that’s always good. They just moved there from San Antonio, TX but they have been Great Lakes kids from the start. Getting back to real winters and (what is the opposite of ‘Toxic’?) nontoxic culture just makes the world feel a little better. The governor down there is competing with the governor of Florida to see who can get their head the farthest up their arse. Texas must have been a great place before the Spanish discovered it. But there are lots of places people have spoiled, too many to get hung up on just one.

I am in a coffee shop in Manitowoc, WI waiting for afternoon to drive onboard the ferry and cross the Lake to Ludington, MI. I have a folding cot and sleeping bag in the back of the truck, slept very well last night considering; the coffee and sausage/egg croissant this morning seem so much better knowing I didn’t throw a bunch of money at a motel just to be unconscious under their roof. I learned to sleep anywhere when I was in the army. I don’t tell that story when people thank me for my service, just nod and change the subject. I slept in the truck parking lot at Francis Creek Travel Plaza, just north of Manitowoc. At 5:30 this a.m. the hot shower was great. Talk about efficiency; try a full size towel and wash cloth rolled up in a paper floor mat with a rubber band around it and the key to shower #3. Falling asleep a little on the grungy side is tolerable when you know the hot shower wake-up is on the other end; and the $8 charge is just right.

I don’t know why I have this ‘Motel’ thing but it goes way back. I was in graduate school on spring break in 1970, my brother in law and I team-drove (sleep while the other is driving) my VW Beetle from Illinois to Colorado for a job interview. But we both needed sleep at the same time in Durango, Colorado and at midnight talked a motel owner into letting us sleep on the sofa in the lobby until they opened at 6:00, for $5. I thought it was a win-win and he didn’t complain. I got the job offer but turned it down.

July 15, 2023; Saturday morning in Glen Arbor, Michigan. It is 6:15 a.m. daylight but the sky is overcast and the sun is still off in the east somewhere thinking about it. Nothing open this early. Tourism is the only business here in mid July so the streets are bare and I’m alone at a temporary shelter next to the book store, across the street from Cherry Republic, a foodie place where everything has cherries in it: wine, cookies, chocolate, salsa, mustard, etc. I really like Cherry Republic but they won’t open for several hours. Most of the village is still asleep, it’s Saturday in the summer after all and who gets up with the sun besides me? 

Night before last I stayed in the parking lot at Little River Casino in Manistee. It rained so hard it woke me up several times but I was so comfortable I fell right back asleep. Morning came like today, still dark when my alarm went off but with a high cloud cover, puddles everywhere but promise of a beautiful morning. Inside the casino the security officer looked up, a couple of derelict guests were slowly feeding the quarter slots but I think my visit to the men’s wash room was the only productive action in the place. I’m even farther up the coast today in Glen Arbor. With no travel plazas or casinos I stayed in a campground. They (locals) up here are paranoid about not letting hobos like me camp on their streets or parking lots when we don’t pay taxes or fill their motels. I do spend money but that seems not to count. But I slept really well again last night, 3rd night in a row. 

I plan to take photos along a remote Lake Michigan beach and a meadow up in the National Lake Shore. There is a bed waiting for me in Grand Rapids tomorrow night but I’ll stay again with the revelers at Little River Casino tonight. They have a hotel in the casino but lots of their clients bring  their campers and sleep over like me, in the parking lot. I will say the food is both affordable and very good there. I was and then I wasn’t surprised to see kids in the casino, like 10 or 12, some with little siblings, playing the arcade games. Their parents turn them loose with a roll of quarters and a debit card (with a limit I would guess) in lieu of paying a babysitter. They seemed perfectly content to eat ice cream and talk to friends (I suppose) on their cell phones. 

I think I’ll try the coffee shop down the block. It feels like mid morning to me and I can hear cars on the main drag; not a stream of traffic for sure but the bagels are good and a dark roast sounds even better. 

DENSITY

  So far this life of mine has been charmed. The seasons of growing up, exploring, making hay, of breaking things and mending fences; my calendar has spent itself and all that’s left is December, which day I don’t know and that’s good. I identify with the line from the movie ‘Back To The Future’ where George McFly needs help expressing himself to Lorraine and Marty, his future son (Michael J. Fox) tells him to tell her, “You are my destiny.” But when the time comes, the pressure of the moment is too much and George tells her, “You are my density.” So here I am, December is my destiny, not what happens to me someday in an uncertain future. I think one’s destiny is framed in the moment, always in the ‘Now’. What becomes of you someday, I would call that my ‘Density’ and George would have been correct. The more years I accumulate the (denser) more dense I get. As the riddle comes together I hope it is early in December as I would like to stick around a while longer. “Charmed” I think is a fair depiction. 
Funny (figure of speech) how people tend to view the world as either a good place or not so good a place. Going back to the bible where King Solomon grumbles in his old age; “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” then Saint Paul tells us to be glad and take comfort in whatever condition we find ourselves. Personally, I favor Abraham (the other one) Lincoln who said, “People are about as happy as they choose to be.” and I prefer to be more than less even if it requires a dash of creative license. One does not have to be religious to make that connection. 
I am in Minnesota, visiting my kids in Saint Paul. In a few days I’ll head east, take the ferry across from Wisconsin to Ludington, Michigan. Friends there are taking me to a concert in Grand Rapids and music is more good medicine. If I have time I want to go across and check out London, Ontario. It is close enough and far enough as well. Something to be said for a civilized place where wannabe patriots are not carrying guns and women choose their own health care options. I can stay in Canada for six months on my passport and it’s only a two hour drive back to Port Huron, Michigan. My dollars go a little farther up there which counts a little bit. I spent 3 months in summer and fall of 2012 in Nova Scotia and enjoyed every day. There is a strong American expat community in Halifax and I fell in well with them like I belonged. I can’t do that (expatriate) even if I wanted to; too old and not enough money to invest but I can visit and spend what money I have. I would be looking for a warmer clime in winter anyway. January and February in Argentina would be perfect; summer down there. 

INDEPENDENCE DAY

  Special days often give me the bump that gets me writing and once I get started the ‘muse’ can take me with him anyplace he wants to go. Some holidays make me feel good and I carry that sentiment with whatever I do. My celebrating may not be obvious, maybe just clean socks and music on my I-Phone at the gym. I don’t need a reason to be thankful, life didn’t have to be kind but it has been with me. So here I am writing and the words are coming out soft, even forgiving. But Independence Day doesn’t do for me what it is intended to do. I’ll not beat up on my homeland on her birthday but neither will I do the self ingratiating, “Mirror, mirror on the wall - who is fairest of them all?” A long weekend at the front end of summer is good for morale and this year summer is looking long and hot.
Me, personally, I think every holiday should include elements of thanksgiving and humility but that’s just me. Without it there is nothing to buffer human hubris. On my nation’s birthday, 2023, I’ll remember my heroes; Mark Twain (a writer), M.L.K. Jr. (a preacher), Carl Sagan (a scientist), Crazy Horse (a warrior) all great Americans and my mother of course, the woman who taught me well, ‘There but for the Grace of God go I’. 
Independence Day is the day to feel good about our country and its people. There is plenty to feel good about but not everybody moves to the same rhythm and one person’s blessing is another one’s curse. I’m afraid our patriotic stereotypes have confused liberty with license and I don’t know the cure for that. So I’ll lean on my heroes and be glad. 

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.