Tag: family

talkin’ about your Madison shoes …

jono55

It’s now a couple of days since parts of America went to the polls and I am still basking in the warm glow that came from the burning of tyranny in effigy that took place on election day. It’s only a step, but as that guy Armstrong said in 1969: ” one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Of course there is still such a long way to go, and the outcome is still uncertain, but, hey, let’s just lie here for another few moments, sipping on our iced coffees and wondering whether Haagen-Dasz ice cream will ever come packaged with an Ozempic chewable nestled inside.

Here in Paradise there were mixed messages. The people whose first impulse at every election is to cover their fences with banners declaring “No New Taxes” even if there aren’t any tax-related issues on the ballot were successful in locally defeating a couple of state tax increases while across Colorado they passed handily. Our school board elections went entirely for conservatives and the hope is that at least they are among the Republicans who can read. It’s a high bar, but one can dream.

We had a recall election for a county commissioner who has been in office for only a year, but ha managed to reveal himself as incompetent, a bully, and a complete fool in that short time. He was recalled, and his replacement is an Independent who actually has credentials, experience, and can properly say the words aluminum and anonymous, which puts her above 99% of Americans in intellectual achievement.

******

With our great leader now using children as pawns and denying food to millions of them just for spite, around our community people are bumping up their contributions to the local food banks.

Robin and I and some of our friends from Indivisible set up a table outside our City Market grocery on Friday loading as many canned goods into the back of the Subaru as the good people of Paradise will contribute.

We collected more than $1000 in canned goods and other non-perishable foods in just three chilly hours. It filled the back of our Subaru and spilled over into two more vehicles. When we delivered our stuff to Shepherd’s Hand, a local food bank, we were greeted by the workers with relief, for their shelves were becoming bare. At least two of them had tears in their eyes, and I scored three major hugs by large, strong, and grateful women.

It is beyond disgusting that our government is using the well-being of children to try to achieve their sorry ends. There appears to be no level of depravity too low for them. Really, it makes me wish I believed in Hell, that I might contemplate their futures with unholy glee.

Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot

******

Let’s suppose that you are being interviewed by a visitor from another galaxy altogether. Let’s suppose that among the questions they put to you is this: “We keep hearing about something called rock and roll … what is that?” My suggestion would be to remain completely silent and play the following video for them. For me this is rock’s essence, being done by what must almost surely be one of the best American bar bands of all time. George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

Here they are playing I don’t know where at sometime in the past and when they were at their peak. I will now be completely silent.

******

We had guests staying with us this weekend. Robin’s daughters Amy and Allyson were able to get away for a couple of days to come help Robin celebrate her birthday week.* A good time passed too quickly. Saturday we drove to the Black Canyon National Park to tour the burned areas and take the hike at the end of the road, which is named the Warner Point Trail. It winds through one of the remaining unburned sections and ends with a precipice on two sides.

Brisk autumn weather, good company, enough food to munch on and a warm place to do it in. Gracias a Dios.

*Robin and I are not sticklers for needing everything to happen on the actual anniversary of the date we were born, so we have renamed it birthweek. It is a much more flexible way to look at it as far as scheduling events, and you can have cake on enough successive days to be a serious health hazard. I am typing this while in the doctor’s office where I am being given purgatives to treat a bad case of the butter frosting blues..

******

The Indifference of Heaven, by Warren Zevon

******

We are slowly coming to the end of one of the most perfect Fall seasons I’ve experienced. Loooong slow turning of the leaf colors, along with cool days without the winds or freezing rains that tear the leaves from the trees prematurely. A slow-motion autumn.

I’ll close this post with a haiku by Matsuo Basho, an old friend of mine, notwithstanding that he passed away in 1694. We’ve had our moments together.

on a leafless bough
the perching and pausing of a crow
the end of autumn

[The photo was taken on a walk at the Black Canyon National Park in the year 2015.]

******

A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight …

jono55

Our guests of the past weekend came and went. Our home is returning to normal as everything that was shifted has been moved back to its rightful spot in the cosmic scheme of things. The refrigerator is half-filled with leftovers of good foods that somehow were overstocked at meals and were too tasty to throw out.

No matter. Prudence and parsimony require that those leftover baked beans must be consumed right down to the last gaseous molecule. The old gag line: “We had a thousand things for supper … all of ’em beans” was never more true than at supper the last two nights. By Friday we should be able to look once more ahead rather than backwards in our menu planning.

Even though the teenagers largely ignored the adults, it was good to see those kids at play and to hear all that enthusiastic giggling. And as I went through the paces of cleaning my bathroom, which had been turned over to them, I was reminded of a constant thread that runs through all the generations that we are so fond of naming. Teenagers might be meticulous in their appearance, but they are positively slobs at the makeup mirror. Thorough cleaning required my use of a firehose and a strong right arm.

Good to know that some things remain the same.

******

It has become so depressing to read the news. We have become a nation where the only thing that other nations can trust about is that we can’t be trusted. We are the bad guys in all corners of the world. Perhaps not the only bad guys, but … damn. I find myself cheering for Canada every time they stick it to us in yet one more way. When British Columbia threatens to shut down the trans-Canada highway to Alaska, which is our lone land connection to the 49th state, some little interior voice says DOITDOIT!

Of course this regime will eventually fall apart, it is too villainous and selfish to last, but when will that downfall occur, and what amount of damage will have been done in the interim? What a shame. How many lives wasted, torn apart, spent in pain and sorrow that is completely unnecessary? It is truly our age of dishonor.

******

Hurdy-Gurdy Man, by Donovan

******

Well, that’s it. I’m tired of global warming and there’s no going around it. This endless succession of 90° days is making it impossible for me to grow my one tomato per year, and have become very tiresome.

I’m sure there must be some way of turning it off, and I would like the government to get about it as soon as possible. This just won’t do.

Right now, of course, our government is consumed with trying to decide whether the president is a pedophile or not. The insiders in his regime have decided that of course he’s not and is instead quite a wonderful person. Never mind that the rest of the world knows that he is almost entirely abominable.

******

Runaway Train, by Soul Asylum

******

Colorado is in the midst of a looooong drought. It has made things very crispy out here in Paradise, and one result was that bundle of wildfires that started a month ago during a dry thunderstorm. But we are not the only ones dealing with this natural but uncomfortable phenomenon. Right now the Lee wildfire near Meeker has consumed more than 110,000 acres, and there are many smaller ones scattered about. Here is a map of their locations as of yesterday.

The Lee wildfire, the fifth largest in Colorado’s history, has caused many people to have to leave their homes, and an entire prison needed to be evacuated and the population moved to one far away from fire activity. Schools are closed, parks are closed, some highways are unsafe to travel … it’s all a large and dangerous mess.

The only real bright spot is that to date no lives have been lost, neither of residents nor firefighters. Each year I marvel of the courage of those battling to contain the blazes. Whenever a fire is nearby, I will see these young people in the grocery store, shopping for supplies in small groups of very fit-looking men and women wearing a variety of uniforms. They are a cadre, proud and resourceful.

******

Aye, Aye, Ma’am!

jono55

Robin and I tuned in to the regularly scheduled (Wednesdays at 1800 hours) Zoom meeting of Solidarity Warriors, a branch of Indivisible Colorado. Their first guest was a woman who is running in the Democratic primary and who hopes to eventually take on and defeat Rep. Lauren Boebert.

For those of you who are not from Colorado, Ms. Boebert is most famous not for her diligence in representing her district, but for publicly fondling her date at a performance of Beetlejuice. The name of the person who hopes to unseat her is Eileen Laubacher.

You don’t know Ms. Laubacher’s name nearly as well, possibly because she hasn’t engaged in any indecencies while occupying a theater seat. Instead, she quietly raised five children, none of whom have been arrested. During this same period of time, she kept her day job which was as an Admiral in the U.S. Navy.

Yep, you heard right, an Admiral.

She has recently retired and finding herself growing more restive and nauseous by the day at the destructive antics of Cluck’s administration has decided to run for public office.

She spoke for nearly an hour, with solid answers to questions from the other Zoom attendees, and by the end of that time we wanted to just hug her to bits. Both of us. It was the first time for me. Wanting to hug a retired admiral, that is. (You’ll have to ask Robin about her own history). She was forthright, no nonsense, honest, blunt when bluntness was called for, and all with a grand sense of humor. A woman whose love of country instead of self came through so clearly it was like a glass of cool water on a climate-change 94 degree August day in the desert. Completely refreshing is what it was.

The Zoom meetings are being archived on YouTube so you can check this one out and see for yourself.

******

Howl At The Moon, by Ellen McIlwaine

******

We have house guests this weekend. Justin and Jenny are here from California on one of their too-rare visits, and Amy/Neil and the kids have joined them here in Paradise. We are ten at table.

I’m definitely out of practice in cooking for a multitude. And when four of the attendees are adolescents, whose appetites can range from birdlike to frightening, sometimes within the snap of a finger … ay, ay, ay.

Thursday it was 95 degrees here in Paradise. I have reached the mental stage where when it gets over 90 I just stay in the house and sip tasty beverages in a leisurely fashion. I think it’s why I’m still alive. But I also think I’ve carried things too far when I begin to wonder whether it is safe to push the trash barrel to the curb on collection day and whether that brilliant sunshine will do me in like a vampire who stayed out too late.

I’m not sure how it all came about, but during the past few days we had three female teenagers sleeping here, while their parents took refuge from the heat in local motels. The trio occupied a single room by placing a futon next to a blowup single bed, leaving a walkway of about six inches. Saturday night their light finally went out around 0100 hours.

Polite, thoughtful, kind, silly, energetic, smart … they can come back any time they choose.

******

Black Myself, by Amethyst Kiah

******

Talking with Justin about ICE and its violations of the law and any sense of common decency, I began to use the trite comparison with the Nazi Gestapo, but then stopped myself in mid-sentence. Even that evil army of psychopaths wore uniforms and were not masked. The thugs of ICE don’t observe conventions like that. Their behavior is instead that of criminals.

While our guests were here, we watched the first two episodes of the new season of South Park, episodes that have been generating quite a bit of comment for their take on the Cluck regime. They were just as ferocious and rude and tasteless as had been promised. They were also very funny and satisfying. The South Park brand of fantasy was much more entertaining than that of the administration, which steers daily toward the tragic, without a trace of humor.

My favorite scene? Kristi Noem and her ICE thugs on a kidnapping rampage in Heaven while she exclaims: “Just take the brown ones!”

******

Followup on our mushroom farming. It all looked like a failure for a while, with only a few puny specimens being produced. I had been following the instructions provided by several videos, all of which were filmed in areas with a more moderate climate than we enjoy here in Paradise.. So I said to myself: “Self, what have you got to lose? Let’s move from prudent to imprudent and see what happens.”

From that moment I began to water the very bejeezus out of the mycelial brick and within a couple of days there was new growth everywhere and I just finished gathering a very respectable harvest.

It’s all turning out to be a little more labor-intensive than I thought it would be, but when your efforts finally pay off, it’s a proper gas.

******

MADJB

jono55

I was leafing through a small-town newspaper the other day and came across this reference to a group of comics that liked to play music together and eventually got together and formed a band. Because they were all middle-aged dads they called it the Middle Aged Dads Jam Band, or MADJB. Eventually they began playing gigs, developed a YouTube Channel, and are living the dream.

Kind of a hoot, it is.

******

Robin and I went driving to see how far up the road to the Black Canyon National Park we could go without being arrested. Just before the gate entrance we encountered a very polite park ranger whose pickup was blocking the road and who instructed us that we had gone far enough, thank you very much. But from that point we could already see a large swath of burned-over rolling hills, our first view of the damages from the fire.

On the way back down the hill from the Black Canyon entrance we found this large herd of elk grazing in Bostwick Park. In the photo you can see that there are two groups of animals, one near and one far away, totaling close to 100.

******

Have you ever visited a fish hatchery? If not, here’s a brief description. There are large open concrete “ponds” of various sizes, each filled with small fish of a uniform size.

When you toss in any food, there is a great commotion as all of the fish compete with one another blindly, with so much swirling and splashing that you can no longer make out individual creatures.

That, my friends, is my metaphor for today’s Republican Party. A large group of undistinguished organisms largely inert until Cluck tosses out some random outrage or idiocy into the pond, and then there is pandemonium as they compete for scraps.

Right now, there is only one place for an up and coming member of the GOP to be, and that is with their nose planted firmly between the two rear pockets of the Generalissimo’s XXXL trousers. What they never seem to do is to look back behind themselves at the trail of bloody career corpses he has left in his wake. To Cluck, each of them is little more than a paper towel, to be used once and then thrown away.

******

From The New Yorker

******

After much reflection, I have come to a conclusion that I am certain many of you have reached before me. And that is the disturbing absence of fennel seeds in what passes for food in Italian restaurants. (And that includes pizza joints, which may or may not have Italian lineage).

To me, any red Italian sauce that doesn’t ‘t include a sprinkling of those delicious licorice-y and crunchy seeds is nearly always disappointing. Tonight I heated up a frozen pizza (confession time, here) and not only were there no fennel seeds but there was no basil or oregano, either. Which indicates that if one lets these commercial vendors get away with one thing that soon they are trying to get away with several.

There’s only one remedy that I can see, and that is legislative. Inclusion of fennel should be mandated, and let’s get it done. I will admit, although I have never heard of a case, that there might be people in this country who are violently allergic to this spice. Without having a choice there might be the rare bad spell for those folks in the new world I am describing. But in society some of us have to make sacrifices for the greater good, and this is one of those times.

Should Mom or Pop or Gramps perish as a result of being poisoned by Foeniculum vulgare we could all send something nice to the funeral and to the charity of their choice.

******

Volare, by Domenico Modugno

******

From The New Yorker

******

Over the next several days we will become a family of ten at table. Amy and Justin and their families are coming for a visit. The adults will be staying at a local motel, while the children will bunk here at Basecamp. The whole thing promises to be messy and fun and is a rare event these days, when that curious creation called family is spread thinly over thousands of miles.

Our own anxieties are pretty much of the “what will we do all day when the temperature promises to be in the 90s and the mountain sun is so unforgiving?” variety. Much food has been prepared in advance, beds are assigned … what could possibly go wrong?

******

The Sound of Two Hands Slapping

jono55

Robin was in Durango on Wednesday night, while I hung around Paradise to attend an Indivisible meeting on the Disappeared Ones. The meeting went well and at present I am out on the backyard deck where the overwarm day is cooling off right on schedule. The ongoing violation of constitutional protections is one of the more repellent programs Cluck has put into play. It’s straight KGB stuff, Gestapo stuff. The clay that authoritarians use to mold their citizens into subjects.

I took some time to read more tonight about the courage of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who kept coming back and asking the question of the brutish government “Where are our children?” They came back even when they were being beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and in some cases becoming los desaparecidos themselves.

Cluck is now breaking the law and disappearing people every day, using the masked thugs of ICE as his henchmen in our own version of the brutish Argentine government of 1977. There is no safety under such a president for any of us. To think otherwise is foolhardy.

******

Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2

******

******

Since Robin was away, that evening I went out to supper alone. At the next table was a family consisting of mom, dad, grandma, and three young children. The adults, as far as I could tell, spent way more time corralling their imps than they did enjoying their food.

It wasn’t that the kids were unusually naughty, it was that their energies couldn’t be contained on a chair. My takeaway from watching this drama was twofold. First, that kids in a restaurant can be amusing to watch if they are not yours. Second, I am grateful that I don’t have any small kids of my own any longer, and thus am able to eat serenely while others lose their cool and their appetites.

I still shudder thinking back to the time when my own kids were in their feral stage and the carpeting under our restaurant table looked like a picnic that had exploded. I’m quite sure that the waiters of that time looked on our arrivals with resignation and our departures with relief.

******

This is the time of year when visiting the Grand Mesa must be done cautiously. Right after the snows have melted up there, the gods turn loose one of the great plagues of mankind. Instead of saying “Release the Kraken,” however, they smile and whisper “Release the mosquitoes.”

The top of the Grand Mesa, billed as the largest flat-topped mountain in the US (or world), is very different from the valley floor. The types of trees and the abundance of lakes make it much like northern Minnesota. And the month of June in that fine state is another place to find all manner of tiny bloodsucking demons whose names start with the words Culex, Anopheles, or Aedes (there are actually 112 genera of mosquitoes).

Twelve years ago when Robin and I were looking for a place in Colorado to settle and were visiting Montrose we used one afternoon to explore the Mesa just a bit. Taking a short hike proved challenging in that we could not stop to breathe once the beasties zeroed in on the carbon dioxide in our outbreaths. Slapping frantically we ran to the safety of our car, slammed the doors shut, and vowed never to go back in early Summer again.

My father used to awe us children when he would allow a mosquito to light on his arm and completely fill itself with blood, turning its abdomen quite red. We could not imagine ourselves doing such a thing, but watching his recurring performances was both horrifying and fascinating.

.

******

One of Us, by Joan Osborne

******

******

Here’s something anyone of my tender years can use to strike awe into kids. They already know that we were born before digital cameras, before computers, even before television moved from the lab into our homes. So reciting those items won’t stun them one bit. But here’s the phrase that will be absolutely incomprehensible to them and will bring them to their knees, slack-jawed and unbelieving:

“I was born before ball-point pens.“

******

When Resistance Becomes Duty

jono55

On Friday Robin and I drove to Ridgway to join in a rally being held there against some of Cluck’s policies. I was going to say “”more reprehensible” policies but stopped myself – they are nearly all reprehensible.

It was a breezy day and sometimes two hands were required to keep the signs under control. Ridgway is a smaller village so there was not a huge crowd, but it was an enthusiastic one. A local grocer brought out two cases of bottled water as his contribution to the event.

Just that day I had learned about yet another man who had been whisked away by ICE and this time for a while there was no record to be found anywhere of what had happened to him. He had become the latest of our Desaparecidos. After several days had passed our government confessed that he was in prison in El Salvador. He has not been accused of any crime.

******

Across the Borderline, by Ry Cooder with Harry Dean Stanton

******

On Saturday I attended a meeting of the local Indivisible group that was held at a church in Montrose. This chapter of Indivisible had been dormant since the end of the first Cluck administration, but new governance has resuscitated it.

Robin and I had lunch with the leader a couple of weeks ago to get more information and to volunteer our services in whatever capacity is needed.

Brought together by a practical guide to resist the Trump agenda, Indivisible is a movement of thousands of group leaders and more than a million members taking regular, iterative, and increasingly complex actions to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions, and fight for progressive policies.

From the Indivisible.org website

The group is just getting up and running, and Robin and I are excited at being part of something positive in this era of routine and rampant negativity.

******

Robin is ecstatic, and when Momma is happy, it’s ditto for moi. While we were watching one program on PBS there appeared a “commercial” for another. It seems that the Earth was short at least one more season of “Call the Midwife,” so the gods mercifully have come up with the fix. Season 14 is now available for your viewing pleasure. There are only 8 episodes, and no assurances that a Season 15 is to come, so to treasure them and watch them s-l-o-w-l-y would be my advice, savoring each wholesome morsel.

I say “wholesome” not because the program is something bland and fluffy straight out of la la land, which it is not. But because it is based on realities, rather than something wholly imaginary. The problems that the characters deal with are sometimes harsh ones, are not always solvable, and are presented in a way that leaves the viewer smarter than they were when they started.

Someone is giving good medical advice to the writers of the series, and as a result I have almost no negative criticisms of the science presented, which is a rarity for me. Usually I am leaping from my chair, fists raised, and exclaiming: “That never happens like that, you jumble of blooming idiots!”

(At present we are watching the PBS series Marie Antionette. It is only two seasons long, and we pretty much know there won’t be a third group of episodes. That’s the problem with the baked-in spoiler that comes with a historical program like this one.)

******

******

Uncle John’s Band, by the Grateful Dead

******

The song Uncle John’s Band is my favorite cut from the first Grateful Dead album I ever purchased, which was Workingman’s Dead. Bought it in 1970, right after the album’s release. Loved it then, love it now.

Here’s a link to the lyrics.

******

Yesterday in a supermarket parking lot, I saw this sticker in a car window. It did not please me. Especially not at a time when we are experiencing a major measles outbreak here in the U.S. The largest in decades and it shows no signs of slowing.

I know that this is an example of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. And I know that this means that people who say the most awful and stupid things have exactly the same rights as I do when I utter my unassailable truths and scientific verities in the most beautiful and mellifluous tones.

But the sticker is stupid and untrue and dangerous and children will die. Completely unnecessarily.

What I want now is a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution that would allow me to take a propane torch to stickers like that and give them a good frying. Now I grant that this would also be stupid and dangerous, because if the owner saw me do it and took offense (how could they not?) the ensuing melee would end unpleasantly for me, I am pretty sure.

But there is a difference between children suffering and dying and an ancient dude getting what he deserved for vandalism. While this sticker may be protected speech, it is the sort of ignorant discourse that kills. Today it is measles … I wonder what will be the next preventable disease that we all get to learn about because like a vampire it has risen in its un-deadness to once again stalk our streets?

Forget that propane torch … what I really want is a stout cudgel. I feel the need to administer some vigorous corrections, and there is a particular group of students who have shown themselves unreachable by ordinary instructional methods.

******

How It Ends, by Goose

******

It is a good time to speak out. This is not a drill.

******

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemoller

******

Scouting For Dollars

jono55

The Girl Scouts have rounded up a few adults as helpers and are firmly established in front of our City Market, where in exchange for a few measly dollars they offer to sell me a product which is both delicious and unhealthy.

But, hey, if those were the only cookies that I was going to eat this year, there might be some justification in berating these kids for enabling me in my sugar cravings.

But alas, there will be others. And perhaps a slice of pie or two as well. And some cake.

Pudding … I think that’s a yes. Cobbler … bring it on.

I could save myself the trouble and expense of buying these ready-made products at the Market by simply sitting down with a pound of butter and a bowl of sugar and growling as I dove into them, but that would be gross and an ugly thing for any passing child to see.

******

From The New Yorker

******

Masters of War, by Vieux Farka Touré

******

This morning I was reading yet more reportage on the now infamous interaction between Zelensky, Cluck, and Vance this past week. The Cluck followers really are a sad bunch. Lost souls. I fear there is little hope for them.

I know that it’s a bit of a medieval outlook, but this mural from 1260 A.D. about sums up my views on the gaggle that is Cluck/MAGA.

In this painting Satan is devouring a passel of his devotees. Something very similar is happening on our American polítical stage. First their minds, then their souls, and then … .

One has only to listen to anything that comes out of Lindsey Graham’s mouth to see the truth of it.

******

BTW, if anyone need a list of why we need to resist our present poisonous government, Margaret Renkl has graciously provided one in today’s NY Times.

******

Granddaughter Elsa is staying with us for just under four days, and we are pleased as anything to have her here. There were more frequent visits when she was very young, but as she grew older they became fewer. As often happens.

It’s part of that becoming an adult stuff that parents and grandparents dread and kids can’t wait to have happen. What this all comes down to now is that no visits are taken for granted and no minutes are wasted.

When at long last I finally accepted the truth that change is inevitable and constant I began to treasure these moments more. Although they were always to be one-time occurrences, for the longest time it failed to cross my mind that they wouldn’t be repeated endlessly.

******

From The New Yorker

******

Out of the ten movies that were nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture this year, only three ever made it to the theater in Paradise. Sigggghhhhhh. I like small town life in so many ways, but it’s tough to be a movie buff when living in a hamlet. One small enough that Hamlet itself will probably never play there.

The powers-that-be in film scheduling for small towns obviously feel that we are mostly into car crashes and comic book heroes, and they feed us a constant stream of digital nonsense as a result. I have no idea if they are right or not, but I wonder if there aren’t more citizens who would appreciate watching an entire movie where nothing explodes than they calculate.

This complaint might come off as just another instance of me being a snob, but it’s really only a plea for fairness, or equal time, or something like that.

Call me a fool, but I love a movie that makes me think. One that holds up the world in its cinematic hand and turns it ever so slightly so that I see it with new eyes.

******

Yesterday the air was filled with the noodling and calls of the collared doves that are so plentiful out here. Filled the air for the entire day. Non-stop.

It has to be sex. What else could grab them by their tiny brains and make them sing one passionate aria after another?

For a while the music is charming, but after ten solid hours even the most fervent love song starts to wear thin. Enough to bring on the uncharitable wish they would all just get a room and be done with it.

******

Birds, by Neil Young

******

Warnings

jono55

A couple of weeks ago I introduced myself and you to a new artist, Stephen Wilson Jr.. Since that time, I have been listening to nothing but his music. His first and only album contain 34 songs, which is an unusual and formidable number, and has given me much material to listen to and to ponder.

What I have found is that he is a troubadour and whether he knows it or not, he is he is singing my younger Minnesota redneck life as well as his own. He sings it in the key of grunge and he sings it loud, with his own interesting guitar style.

You never heard of a Minnesota redneck? Check out the definition of the term right here.

  1. an uneducated white farm laborer, especially from the South.
  2. a bigot or reactionary, especially from the rural working class.

Dictionary.com

Nothing there about Southern exclusivity, is there? All you need to do is spend long hours in the field with the sun beating on the back of your neck and you qualify. It helps if you are dumb as a rock as well, but that’s not a requirement.

As for me personally, I have in turn been uneducated, white, bigoted, and still struggle with being reactionary at times. Also, the number of dumb things of which I have been guilty in my extended lifetime would make all but the most most adamantine rocks blush with shame.

******

From The New Yorker

******

On Stephen Wilson Jr’s album there are several songs that stand out for me.

Father’s Son describes the complexities in his relationship with his father over time. Complexities which many of us have dealt with in our roles as sons, fathers, even (as I am learning) grandfathers.

The Year to Be Young – 1994 : my own such year was 1956, but the rest of the lyrics could have come from my diary, if I had kept one.

Calico Creek: the words that caught my attention talked about a deep creek that was dangerous in the spring, but by late Summer …

Where the rope swings are rotten
Had our toes touching bottom
It’ll be dry by July, but if you walk down the sides
You can find some Rapalas

That last line … we kids from low-income families knew well to walk along the newly exposed banks looking for Rapalas and other fishing lures caught on snags and rocks during times of higher water.

Enough! You get the idea. To find so many songs that revealed those common experiences … for me this guy’s music falls under the category of a big fat blessing.

Father’s Son
Year To Be Young 1994
Calico Creek

******

From The New Yorker

******

PSA

This next piece is in the nature of a Public Service Announcement. Robin and I have discovered a substance of such addictive power that we aren’t even sure that we should put this information out there, on the outside chance that lives could be ruined.

A few weeks back we discovered a new recipe and decided to try it out. It sounded simple, promising, and could easily be manufactured at home using ingredients typically found around any kitchen.

The recipe was for a version of a rice pudding. A homely dessert if there ever was one, and ordinarily considered safe to eat. But our first batch was so tasty that within an hour we looked at one another across a table, spoons in hand, and realized we had eaten the entire bowlful. Little grains of rice were scattered on our shirt fronts, our eyes were glazed and out of focus, our pupils dilated.

To be sure that what had happened was not a fluke, we made another batch a week later, and this week yet one more. Each time with the same result. During the last episode Robin had to duct-tape me to a dining room chair and throw out most of the concoction. Flocks of birds descended upon it which then were unable to fly away without wobbling.

Here is the recipe. I publish so that you can avoid accidentally putting it together. It is the dessert equivalent of crack, and I can say with certainty that once you start on on it you will be unable to stop until you are rendered immobile and possibly nonverbal for hours.

Sharp objects and heavy machinery should not be available to those who ignore these warnings and commit to cooking up something they are not prepared to deal with. Like meth and rice pudding.

******

Memento Mori

Roberta Flack, a great lady of American song, passed on this week. She had many, many hits, including one of the most beautiful love songs I’ve ever heard, entitled First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. It was featured on the album First Take, released in 1969.

Even if that had been the only tune she’d ever recorded, it would have been enough for me to remember her name.

First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

******

Dreadful

jono55

Halloween here in Paradise is generally a tame affair, as it was this year. A gaggle of well-costumed children are paraded by our house, all accompanied by their parents. They come with collection bags open to receive our safely packaged bits of candy. All things considered, it’s a pretty sanitary evening, especially since it celebrates the demonic.

As a kid I would be sent out into the world wearing a cheap mask and carrying a pillowcase. I don’t recall ever having parental accompaniment. The world of treats had not yet devolved into the present-day tiny avatars of candy bars, but might feature a host of unpackaged things to eat. Among this bounty might be found:

  • home-made popcorn balls
  • apples, with or without caramel
  • handfuls of candy corn or peanuts
  • cookies out of the host’s oven
  • full-sized candy bars

There was a complete absence of razor blades, brownies containing psychedelics, or any of the other scary materials or objects that addled conspiracy theorists dreamed up to alarm the populace. (As a species we are so easily frightened that I wonder sometimes how we ever found the courage to leave the caves?)

After Robin and I had turned out the lights and got out of the giving away stuff business for the night, we watched a movie, Late Night With The Devil. It was one of the better horror films I’ve seen. I’d rate it a mild gross-out, but there is so much else to watch.

A movie to be savored. Rotten Tomatoes loved it.

******

Rivers of Babylon, by the Melodians

******

When I was quite young, and spent summers on Grandpa Jacobson’s farm, going to get the mail was a big deal. The large galvanized mailbox was located up on the county road about a mile from the farm. So when we opened that thing one day and found that it contained a large and heavy package, it was enough to be an excitement. The package was addressed to:

Nels Jacobson
Rural Route 3
Kenyon, Minnesota

At that age I was a bundle of barefoot curiosity, and when Grandpa was taking way too long to open the darn thing to suit me, I began to badger him about it until finally he reached down into the pocket of this Oshkosh B’Gosh bib overalls and retrieved his pocket knife. Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought, as the knife did its work and the carton flew open.

It was a book! A huge book! On the cover were the words “Holy Bible.” It was a true extravagance of a book, and Grandpa lived in a world of very few extravagances .

That farm, which I loved like no patch of earth since, was never big enough to support his family, and taking off-the-farm extra jobs was always a necessity. Leftover money at the end of any given month … or at the end of the year … zero.

But somehow this treasure had come to him. From then on it always rested on the small table alongside his armchair. Table and book to the right, coffee-can spittoon to the left. Evenings he would sit and read, the last thing done before going to bed.

Long years later, after his and Grandma’s passing, the well-worn book came to be mine. Grandpa had made me a gift of it. Inside the front cover were these words:

This Holy Bible shall be presented to our first and oldest grandchild, Jon O. Flom, by Grandpa and Grandma Jacobson, whenever I and Grandma are dead .

Nels was a man of short stature, but had been a giant in my world as a kid. His was a gift that was not taken lightly. Even today, just opening it has the power to bring memories flooding in.

******

In the Mississippi River, by Mavis Staples

******

In two days the U.S. takes its National Civics and Morals test, as Election Day arrives. It’s pretty obvious that a whole lot of folks haven’t studied for it at all. I am as prepared as I can get myself to deal with either depression or relief, but no matter how it goes, there will be a bad taste in my mouth.

In studying the history of the Third Reich, and the role that “Ordinary Germans*” played in that horrorshow, I had realized long ago that we must have at least a few of the same sort of people here at home. People who seem outwardly normal but given half a chance will quickly revert to barbarism. While in my gut I knew this, I hadn’t realized until recently how many of them there were … how many of our neighbors have kept a brown or black shirt in their closet, ready to put on at the first opportunity.

Fool me once … fool me twice …

*Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Goldhagen

******

******

River, by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

******

Our first snowfall of the year happened on Wednesday last. Big flakes off and on all day. Each one melted immediately on contact.

We’ve seen snow at higher elevations for at least a month now, but not in the valley. The San Juans are looking quite beautiful in their “snow-capped mountain majesty.” (Can’t remember where I heard that phrase but I’m quoting it anyway).

******

Today is Robin’s birthday. It is not up to me to tell you which one that is. We will celebrate it sensibly, as behooves sensible people, no matter what their years. No late-night partying, no extravagances, no hangover from the ingestion of an inordinate amount of cake frosting. Just quiet recognition of the passage of time, with perhaps a remembrance tossed in here and there.

We know our way around birthdays, we two. Experts, you might say.

******