Which Image is More Important? Which Image is More Real?

Tonight’s post is short.  Because of something I saw my mind has wandered into the idea of creating a chronology of some of my deeds and misdeeds, of some of my regrets and some of my triumphs.  There will come a time when these memories are gone, gone like dust wiped off a table in anticipation of the next dinner guest.  I am going to list every year 1956 to 2019 and try and put beside the year two or three events that still resonate.

What sparked this was my decision to take a picture to post on the blog.  I walked up under a bent sunflower that stood about 8 foot high.  Quickly I raised my camera and took a shot, I figure I would have to adjust it a bit.  When I sat down here at the ELPL, at my table for writing, I started to tweak the image. When I upped the exposure I discovered that inadvertently I had caught a bee working this plant.  Conversely when I upped the exposure I lost the clouds that were so wonderfully placed behind the very large flower.  Ultimately I opted for a collage to capture both the bee and the clouds.

Making the choices on what to focus in prepping that photo started me down the rabbit hole.  What events should I try and capture in my writing over these next few weeks?  What images were more important?  I can tell you that on Tuesday November 8 1960 I got my ass whupped by my Aunt Sugar.  I was 4 ½ years old.

How could I remember that date so clearly? Well, my dear Aunt had taken my cousin Billy and myself to the polling station where the election was being held.  It was Kennedy and Nixon on the ballot.

Really I don’t know who started it but Billy and I started going back and forth, while we were with my Aunt Sugar inside the drawn curtain of the voting booth. At first quietly and then quickly escalating to shouts, we kept repeating Kennedy no Nixon, Nixon, Kennedy!!!. Eventually shouts morphed into shoves and shoves turned into a tussle.  We knocked over the election booth.  It was just a three sided curtain atop a folding table, but boy was my aunt pissed.  If you need to guess, you don’t know me.  I was the Kennedy supporter.

So right now the list goes like this:

1956- Born during a thunderstorm in Salem Memorial Hospital.
1957-
1958-
1959-
1960- Got my assed whupped for my damn liberal leanings.

Over the next few days I will be filing in the years as best I can.  This should be interesting.

Sounds and Echoes

Sitting in the waning sunlight of a late summer’s day the old man listened to the sounds around him.  The man knew deafness was coming by degree. Still,  there were sounds that still stirred emotions in him.

At some distance from where he sat, let us say about a mile, someone on a broad boulevard opened up the throttle of a  motorcycle.  He knew it was probably a Harley from the visceral and guttural sound it made. The old man remembered his youth and hanging with people who owned motorcycles. He spent hours with his friends as they worked on their bikes.  The smell of the oil and the gasoline had never left his senses.  His mind was filled with sensation echoes, the feel of grease on his fingers and the intoxicating smell of burnt exhaust fumes. Those people were dead now.  Gone too soon.  Gone too soon.

Listening intently the old man strained to separate out the sound of crickets from the ever present tinnitus in his ears.  He could tell the chirping of different birds.  He could hear the wind in the trees.  But the quieter sounds were gone.  Someone in the distance was using a circular saw.  The old man hoped they were wearing ear protection.

In the distance the old man heard a train whistle blow.  It blew again and again.  The old man thought about the rules for warning whistles on the big diesels these days.  Things were a bit different when he was young. He knew what some of the signals were back then.

He remembered clearly that an almost endless whistle meant disaster.  The farm town where he grew up had numerous at grade crossing, none with cross bucks.  About once every year or two someone, either because of inexperience or drunkenness, would try and outrun a train.  He had seen what happened when the burst of speed from an old Chevy ended badly.  When the unceasing whistle blew the whole town seemed to  be called out to the scene.  The old man scrunched his forehead wrinkles, he wouldn’t open that box in his brain tonight. Hidden in his grey matter’s engrams were scenes of carnage that would never be erased; they were beyond awful.

The old man starting humming an old Jackson Browne tune, Song for Adam. When he thought back on the days of motorcycles and Hoppin’ Gator and weed the lyrics of that song would often cross his mind.  With warmth tinged with sadness he would think of a friend who he last saw riding off on his bike out over the causeway through the swamp.  He wasn’t a suicide like Adam in the song but his candle did not burn long.

Ah the bugs were getting bad and he had not put on bug spray.  The old man made a mental note to come to his memories, these particular memories tomorrow.


He was dressed in a leather jacket, leather boots, jeans and a black Bell helmet. 38 cents put a gallon in the tank of his BMW R50/5. A buck and a quarter filled it up.  With an average 99 mpg and a top speed of about 90 mph he could ride a long way into the heart of America.  Pulling his wallet out he was ready to take that ride.

The young leather clad man had lived in the same town his entire life.  Right now, his heart told him he needed to go, an ache in his soul made it clear to the man he really wanted out.  Thing was everyone with any spark in this small town wanted out. Every one under the age of thirty was tired of being judged from behind partially closed curtained.  Bland bitter people with chained dreams tried to tell anyone who would listen how to live. Every single teenager and twenty something was sick of being told, cut your hair and go get a factory job.

19 with a high draft number and a ramblin’ urge, he wasn’t planning on going back for his second year of college.  His spinster aunt who had always like him-it paid to say please and thank you- left him $3,000.  Her gift had paid off the bike easily and gave him enough money to go.

The old woman had hated the wagging tongues of the little town. The things they had said because she didn’t marry.  ‘To hell with them’ she had thought as she drafted her will, ‘I am going to free that boy’. As the pump boy finished topping off his tank, the young man had a map in his pocket and enough “fuck you Smallsville” money from his aunt to take on America, pulled two ones from his wallet and handed it over.  He waited for his change, change that would surely smell like gasoline.

Happy Birthday John Lee

 

Today is my son’t birthday.  A number of year’s ago I would have stated, today is my autistic son’s birthday.  John Lee has grown so much.  

He is still autistic but his personality is defined by things far outside that box. He is a deep thinking individual with a unique perspective on life.  He enjoys international travel.  He enjoys his work for an internet service provider.  He is focused on graduating this term with a degree in computer science from Michigan State. He likes elk steak and hard cider.  He loves fresh octopus.  He even likes that little Japanese pastry balls with octopus in them.

I hope his life goes well.  A few years back I posted the item below on Facebook.  It still mean something.

Sleep well this night John Lee after a day of celebrating. May the four winds guide you as gracefully as they have guided me.

Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

.........

Each of us must do the things that matter 

All of us must see what we can see 

It was long ago, you must remember 

You were once as young and scared as me 

I don't know how hard it is yet Mamma 

When you realize you're growing old 

I know how hard is not to be younger 

I know you've tried to keep me from the cold 

Thanks for all you done, it may sound hollow 

Thank you for the good times that we've known 

But I must find my own road, now to follow 

You will all be welcome in my home

End of Summer-Let us Resume our Decency

“People are not primarily evil. Evil behavior is a secondary consequence of the fact that most individuals
 don’t have the courage to leave the evil crowd.”   -Petr Ludwig

“Whatever madness that was happening that day was actually happening.”  -Neil Gaiman

My family will not let me watch the evening news.  Personally I struggle to listen to the morning newscast I used to love.  At those times that I have to go out to a website that has banners of the day’s headlines, I am genuinely shocked at the madness that surrounds me. Moreover, I am shocked at the people who acquiesce to the evil that is growing day by day in the halls of governance.

Weariness overcomes me as I try to contemplate all the mistakes of the big money boys’ club that have brought us here.  I call their actions mistakes only in the sense the actions taken by them did not foster the betterment of the public as a whole.  These actions were not mistakes in the sense that without values of citizenship in our country, and without a belief in stewardship for the future, their choices were made to make ungodly rich, those who were merely super rich before.

How do we not lose heart in the world that currently surrounds us? Is it because we are simply allowing our emotions to drag us dow that we feel the acids churning in our guts with each sound bite?

 A writer I read recently said that to move from this place of darkness we must acknowledge we are going unconscious-we are losing awareness. She asserted that we must look at the larger context.

 What does that really mean, the larger context? Well, we can start with the concept that life is very short indeed and that we have limited energy.  We should not be burning our limited energy on unproductive routines and habits.  We can’t get hooked in the cycles of pain that some in media foment.  We can’t get hooked into the cycles of I’m right and you’re wrong that fill social media interactions. We have to take a macro view of all that is happening so as to free our compassion on a day to day, one to one basis.

With rawness and vulnerability the writer argued we can have a positive impact on the world.  We need to trust in basic goodness. I guess that this means we live our lives based on our greater values acted out in a smaller scale world. I guess it means that we believe that being good might cull another good person out of the evil of the crowd. The evil in the world is massive and our singular acts of basic decency won’t end genocide, won’t end the mechanics of greed, won’t assure that we won’t have the living shit kicked out of us.  Our singular acts of decency will help bolster a greater communal mind set of decency, humanity and resilience.

Once when I was watching Billy Bragg at a small venue concert he said our real enemy is not the evil of those in power but in cynicism.  Cynicism motivates us to give up, leads us into a selfish self pitying cocoon.  Mr. Bragg urged us to participate in the world and to keep our actions above board. He too believed that our individual acts would bolster the humanity and decency in those around us.

Stilton Cheese and Paperwork.

The title is a bit misleading.  Stilton Cheese and paperwork are two discrete topics.  However, as I walked to my writing space I was thinking about both of them.

As to Stilton cheese.  I don’t have any.  I haven’t eaten any recently.  I am not sure I know where I can buy real Stilton, international borders being what they are.  Also agricultural protection being what it is.  I have memories of coming through customs returning from London two decades ago  and being asked if Stilton was a hard cheese.  I had some with me. The custom agent very carefully stated if Stilton was a soft cheese I wouldn’t be allowed to bring it in.  I mustered my best, “Well, I believe it is classed as a hard cheese.”  I got an OK and in it came.

Okay, I have not been watching Wallace and Gromit either. I haven’t been shopping at any of the little gourmet shops around Lansing.  I haven’t even ventured into the dairy aisle at Meier’s of late.  But last night I dreamed of Stilton cheese.  About the only fragment of the dream I can remember is that I was gifting people small quantities of Stilton cheese in hermetically sealed packets.  The people I gave  the cheese to got angry.  Almost to a person they began throwing the packets at me with force.  They were all grumbling but I don’t remember what the issue was.  I woke up.  I had to pee. Okay that is it on the Stilton.

Paperwork. Oh my God.  I have two big pieces of paperwork to create quickly.  One piece is a FMLA application form for my leave to have the cancer extracted from my kidney.  It took a bit of searching on the State of Michigan’s website but I got the two forms I need to get FMLA approved.  My form is now filled out.  The issue is how to get the one to the physician who must execute a separate form.  I am in Lansing.  The doctor is in Ann Arbor.  U of M uses a web portal to communicate with me.  I took about 10 minutes trying  to navigate it.  Found out stuff I didn’t know, like I need a colonoscopy and a vaccination for tetanus and pertussis.  Need to get those, pertussis is resurgent and it will screw you up.

What I didn’t find was how to get the FMLA form to the doctor.  I ended up sending a note to U of M Medicine’s customer service link on the portal to see what to do.  My guess, if what I have seen from then so far holds true, I should get clear and concise directions tomorrow.

The more screwed up part of the paperwork trail today was trying to sort out what I have to file to retire with the State of Michigan.  There are no flow charts.  There are no online forms.  All there are are links to generic discussions about retiring.  I, after having circled around in that hell online, decided to call the Office of Retirement Services.  I ended up talking after a 9 ½ minute wait to a profoundly unhelpful technician. Apparently nothing regarding retirement can be done online, it is all paperwork.

Having gotten a human I asked him about some insurance nuances that the website seemed to imply could be in my favor.  Now understand, I went to the site that covers my situation, a long term employee who missed getting a pension by two years.  I am a baby boomer 401k participant.  There was one line that seemed to imply I might be entitled to a specific benefit and it was on the “Defined Contribution” page.  I was told by helpful Harry that I probably didn’t qualify, but I might because different departments of the State of Michigan stopped offering that benefit at different times.  WTF.  I told him was unit I worked for, how long I had been there etc.  He said I had to fill out the paperwork to retire before they could tell me what benefits I have and how much insurance will cost me.

The problem is that how much things will cost me will play a factor on the when of when I retire.  It is a cluster.  I will wait for the paper packet.  I will fill it out.  I will send it in and I am sure I will wait.  Bureaucracy, ugh. Stilton and paperwork.

Fears Top Ten (Partial)

It is a hot and muggy day today. I am grabbing a couple of minutes here to write because the radar indicates I will never make it home before the storm rolls in.  The calculus is this, the the storm is 10 miles away moving at 40 mph hour. My home is a 35 minute uphill walk from here through totally residential neighborhoods.  Odds are good that if I don’t accept the ride I have been offered I will get soaked. No options exist for shelter on that 35 minute walk except one lone covered bus-stop.

Mind you I don’t’ mind getting wet.  I am also not afraid of getting drenched.  I have plastic bags to shield all the electronic and valuable paper stuff in my purse from the elements. What I am afraid of is the potential of getting fried by the one billion joules of energy  containing in a single lightening strike which is desperately and urgently trying to find its way to ground.

Dying, lightening, flying, being rejected and being alone…all qualify as top ten fears.  Having kidney cancer, hell that wasn’t even on the radar.  Okay, my guess is that we all can agree to a fear of death being in most people’s top ten dreads.  Even the most fervent of believers (in whatever or whoever) have to have some iota of doubt.  The fear of death is borne of uncertainty and/or the potential for  meaninglessness. There can also be a bit of fear of pain wrapped into the consternation we humans have regarding death, either pre or post the onset of the body’s failure.  Most people can intellectually accept my fear of death.

The fear of lightening, well only a select group of us will hold onto that fear.  Even my own grandmother gave me grief about my mostly irrational fear of lightening.  (Admittedly I have had this fear since a young age).  My grandmother would hold up her arm and it had a thin brown strip of a scar its entire length.  That was what she claimed was left from when lightening struck her as she was out in the garden as a much younger woman.  She used this visual aid to basically make the argument that your time comes when it comes and lightening isn’t the thing that you should tremble at.

I was good on flying up until my good friend Darvon drove me to the airport at the end of my freshman year at MSU.  On the ride there we smoked a joint the size of Delaware.  I felt “just fine” until the plane was taxiing to the runway.  Then encased in that aluminum cigar tube, I realized I was headed into the sky and that if something went wrong there was basically nothing for me to do but die.  It was, as they say, a moment of stoned righteous clarity.

Hey I have dealt with this one.  Thank you God for the benzodiazepine that is Valium.

The rejected and alone thing came from being overweight, isolated and ridiculed as a kid.  As God is my witness it was not until I was in my last two months of high school that I even had a hope that I would really develop a relationship. Still, when the real relationships came I just stone screwed those up with insecurity and insensitivity.

Part of this fear comes from doing the work I do.  Each day I see people who have burned their bridges with family irreparably, or who have outlived every peer they ever had. When you talk to these people there is an ache that is palpable for which there is no balm, for which there will never be a respite. No I am too social.  I don’t want to be in this box.

I don’t come back to the loneliness fear as often as I do to lightening or death or even flying, but it is in the top ten.

Maybe I should get a good therapist.  Maybe I should just suck it up.  Whichever, I have to go my ride is here.  Bye now.

Change Must Come First

The first day of the workweek has come and gone. I got my work done. I tried to make the best choices I could. At the end of the day, I always have questions. When the books are closed on the workday, I always have doubts. Still, I do our best and I hope I have come to a just outcome.

When I first took this position my initial supervisor told me, “Don’t be petty and don’t be cavalier; these are peoples’ lives we are dealing with”. He also told me not to be impressed by clothing or put off by virtually illiterate vocal patterns. He told me the key was to look and see what each person had done to build a wall against a relapse to drug and alcohol use.

Every day I’m trying to live by those words. Today showed me the truth of that. The person I saw at 3 PM was a person with maybe a ninth grade education. He was struggling but he was holding down a job at a machine shop. More importantly he knew what he needed to stay away from a relapse. He had people in place to hold him accountable. He had a sober group to hold him accountable.

On the other hand my 4 o’clock had all the right paperwork and said all the right things, but when you dug into it you found that he had no depth to his commitment. He still had the same friends. He still went to the same places and he had never taken a course about avoiding a relapse. He talked real fine but his words were hollow. Eventually the issue of the inconvenience of not having a license became the chief topic of conversation. He isn’t ready yet.

I don’t always make the right decision. But some people make my choice easier. If you are not committed to change then I can’t do anything for you.