Renee

I don’t know if that’s her real name, a nickname, or even if I’ve spelled it correctly. Sounded out it’s “ReeKnee” with an equal emphasis on each syllable. She left a voice mail this afternoon:

“David, this is Renee Ream. I was hoping to reach you now because I have kind of an urgent situation, but what I’ll do is call Nancy Rubin and ask her to send out a message to the neighborhood. I’m in a hospital bed, sitting in my living room by the front window, hoping to get into a board and care facility very shortly, so she will send that message out so that our neighbors will look up and wave at me for the time I have left here. You and Jadyne have been such wonderful neighbors for which I thank you very very much…I hope I’ve done that before. Bye bye for now.”

Nancy sent us a separate message. She wrote, Renee said that “when we moved into the neighborhood it really changed with all that we’ve done—open houses, block parties, emergency info, etc. She is ever so grateful.”

Renee has stomach cancer, a disease that has taken over her body. She can’t eat, she barely drinks, she’s made peace with dying. “I’m 86, she said, and I’ve had a rich and full life. I’m at peace.” Renee has enlisted the help of Kaiser’s hospice care workers. They brought a pain medication last night at 11:00. Her husband John, a former policeman in Oakland, a WWII P.O.W. is beside himself. They celebrate their 64th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Jadyne has volunteered bring her laptop so she can sit with Renee as she dictates what John will need to know to pay bills and take care of the day-to-day expenses.

John and Renee have two children, a son and a daughter. Andrew, the son, died suddenly in his fifties after completing a bike race in Sacramento. The neighbors held a service in his memory on the street in front of their house. I played “Amazing Grace” on the guitar. We held candles.

Amy, the daughter, has muscular dystrophy and lives at home. She used to walk around the block, and we would see her when she passed by the house. We haven’t seen her in two or three years. She was asleep when we came to see Renee, and I suppose, say goodbye, hoping that tomorrow she’ll be lying by the front window, waving back to neighbors as they wave to her.

John and Renee

Two days later. Our timing was impeccable. Renee is leaving for a board and care facility tomorrow or Friday morning. She doesn’t want to burden her family with her death.

Neighbors gathered under her window, carrying signs, balloons, writing “Renee, We Love You” in chalk on the driveway, signing a giant card, and Jadyne spoke for all of us. A neighbor passed by, “Someone’s birthday?” they asked. “No, someone is dying,” we answered, “and we’re all here to show her how much we love her.” We sang “Amazing Grace” and “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.

This was Wednesday night. Renee left her home for a board and care facility on Thursday. She died on Saturday.

Frank

Frank called Kaiser last January, waiting over six and a half hours for someone to answer the phone. He was able to schedule a vaccine in the first month that it was available, so both he (a retired teacher), and his wife Marion (a retired school principal) were able to be among the first to defend themselves against the onslaught of Covid-19. Only it didn’t. We spent the afternoon yesterday with Marion, leaving only when she and her daughters Liana and Sarah drove to see Frank, meet with the doctors, and for Marion, to make the incredibly difficult decision to tell them to take the ventilator away.

In mid-July Sarah and her husband left for a short vacation, leaving their two young sons in Frank and Marion’s care. Unbeknownst to all, the boys tested positive for Covid but were asymptomatic. Both Frank and Marion tested positive, and for Marion, it was just a cold. Frank thought he had a cold, too, but it morphed into full-blown Covid. He spent some time in the ICU, then because he was improving, moved to another room, then back to ICU. He was eventually put on a ventilator, where he remained for the last thirty days. By yesterday the ventilator, intended to aid with a patient’s breathing, was doing 100% of the work, and that’s when Marion returned to the hospital with the girls. Jadyne sat on the sofa with Marion, holding her for an hour or so, knowing that when we left she would have to leave too, having to make the most difficult decision of her life. “I had to do this for my father,” she said. “I never dreamed I’d have to do this for my husband.”

When I learned that Frank was on a ventilator I wrote this note to him. His daughter Annie read it to him last week.

“Frank, I don’t know whether you’re able to read this or not, but I had a very difficult night sleeping after reading Tom Nunes’ post about you. Above this post I’m seeing “Active 7h ago” so I’m hopeful that either you or Marion is able to read this. I want you to know firsthand how much you are loved and how, even if our paths seldom cross, your friendship through the years has meant to me. Thinking of you at this difficult time. If prayers and good thoughts can cure, then you’re already back on the golf course. I love you, buddy.”

The irony of being cautious, vaccinated, and careful. A screenshot from Frank’s Facebook Profile.

I taught at Cardinal Newman HS for five years, beginning in 1975. Frank joined the faculty in 1976, teaching art and Spanish. Frank was from Cuba, had relatives still living there. While I was at Newman he and I became the best of friends, a relationship that continued even after I left in 1980 and began my photography business, and later still, when we left Santa Rosa for the East Bay. The photo above at the top was taken five years ago by a former student’s wife. We both attended the 1981 class reunion with students we had both taught.

Both he and Marion raised two daughters who became teachers. Liana, the older, has a son who became a teacher, too. They were featured in an article last December in the Press-Democrat that I have referenced below.

Frank worked one summer as a parking attendant for the Sonoma County fair. Catholic school teachers’ salaries couldn’t match the public school salaries, and we often took odd jobs to supplement our incomes.

Frank and I played softball together. We both loved baseball, but we never cheered for the same teams, as his beloved Dodgers were the longtime nemesis of the Giants. Because my uncle had joined a group of men that purchased the Cincinnati Reds, I had access to tickets for any game I wanted. Frank and I skipped out on a faculty meeting on a Friday, drove to LA, and took in a World Series game with the Yankees. We sat next to Billy Crystal. “Who’s that?” I asked Frank. “He’s an actor on a TV show called ‘Soap’”, he answered. “Never heard of it.” We sat between home and first, and I have several photographs from the game—one of Frank Sinatra, another of Floyd Patterson, and this one, of Tom Seaver, Howard Cosell, and Keith Jackson, the announcers.

When we returned we were admonished for skipping the faculty meeting by Bill Finn, the principal, who, we suspected would have preferred to join us.

We celebrated Chinese New Year together every year with two other interracial couples and their children. (Marion is Chinese). After we moved to Kensington, Frank organized breakfast dates at Railroad Square’s Omelet Express. I drove up two or three times to meet old friends for breakfast, giving up only because the traffic across the Richmond-San Rafael bridge made it an impossibility. Frank sent me this post for my birthday, two or three days before he became infected.

Frank’s granddaughter posted this on Facebook. I t captures Frank’s playful nature and his family.

It’s been two days since Frank died. There’s no lesson to be learned here, no great generalization, just the inevitable and unwelcome sadness that accompanies loss.

Russ and Nick

Russ and Nick were Kensington neighbors from way back. They moved from the very gay Castro District in San Francisco to the very ungay Kensington neighborhood in the Berkeley hills. We instantly became friends, and we were saddened about five years ago when Nick received a job offer from the Rockefeller Foundation to work in Manhattan. Here they are in their backyard with Marcel, Russ’s dog. At that time Russell was working for a social media platform in San Francisco, and Nick was with Charles Schwab. Marcel was retired.

By the time they moved Marcel had passed, but they had two other poodles and two cats. We drove them to the airport and bid a sad farewell.

Before the move. Marcel is still with them, but Sassy, Rex, and Bandit have been added to the mix.

Neither Jadyne nor I had known gays before, or perhaps I should say that if we did we didn’t know we did.

Gay story #1. Jadyne had been asked by her cousin’s daughter to make a tart for a surprise menu item for her cousin’s birthday dinner, and Jadyne had never made one. She didn’t even have a tart pan. Asking around the neighborhood she was disappointed not to find one that she could borrow, that is, until when she asked Russ , he responded, “What size?” Bingo. Not only that, but he made it for her, and it was the hit of the party. Some weeks later Nick asked me if I had a pressure washer. I answered, “What size?” as I had a low power electric one and a stronger gas powered one. Laughing, he said, “I love living in a straight neighborhood!”

Gay story #2. Nick had a business trip to San Antonio, and Russell was going to accompany him. “Be careful, I warned, Russ, “those mechanical bulls can throw you.” He replied, “They’re really not as difficult to ride as the real ones.” Silence. He showed me photographs taken of him riding bulls in the Central Valley in rodeos. We would only be guessing if we thought that Russ’s bull-riding and his relationship with his father were interconnected, but both Nick and Russ spoke about growing up gay, coming out, and issues they faced in their families. Nick’s parents were from near Cincinnati. His mother drove a school bus; his father worked on the railroad. His parents, though Midwest Baptists, embraced and accepted Nick for who he was. Nick finished college here, but his lack of a degree had nothing to do with his native intelligence.

Both are excellent cooks, and Nick was giving me cooking lessons when he received the job offer in Manhattan. Of course, had he stayed I would have been the proud chef of a one or two star Michelin restaurant. I can still make a mean piece of toast, but we miss their dinners.

Although their home wasn’t an architectural masterpiece, they had two that were. First, Russell made a gingerbread house to the specifications of a home that he admired. It was built to scale, looked delicious, but was inedible. Second, Nick and Russ raised chickens, and of course, their chicken house was designed by an architect. Here is Maleficent, one of the former residents, who sadly, was destroyed by playful Finnegan, their boundlessly energetic poodle.

In 2015, our first visit East we stayed in Manhattan, where they lived at the time. Nick took us to “Flaming Saddles,” a gay cowboy bar where the bartenders put down their blenders, climb on the bar, and dance for the patrons.

Nick and Russ live in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a block or so from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a tourist mecca. Russell is an excellent knitter and owns a knitting shop in Ocean Grove. Here he is at home.

We feted them yesterday, bringing former neighbors over for a quiche, fruit, scone, pie, bagel, and coffee mid-morning brunch. Both Nick and Russ were wearing sweaters that Russell had knitted during the pandemic, and this blog entry ends on these two photos of Russell yesterday. The fabric he’s wearing is UV sensitive, white in the shade and dark pink in the sun.

I Wrote a Letter

Because my high school message forum rejects political comments, a group of 17 disaffected members of the class of 64 began one of their own. To them I wrote…

Long before Marshall Applewhite led his Heaven’s Gate followers to become one with the Hale-Bopp comet, he founded a group called “H.I.M.” which stood for "Human Individual Metamorphosis," a cult with about fifty followers. News reports indicated that there were missing persons among the cult, and on a Sunday hike my wife and I stumbled upon them on a hillside in Sonoma County’s Sugarloaf Park. We were puzzled to find so many people gathered in a clearing, and when we returned to the parking lot we were suspicious after seeing bumper stickers that read, “Caution. Driver May Vanish Any Moment”. My wife, in an uncharacteristic move, opened the glove compartment of an unlocked VW and found documents relating to H.I.M. We wrote down all the license plates and called the police. Missing persons were no longer missing. The cult disbanded. Marshall, however, began Heaven’s Gate, and when Hale-Bopp arrived, he saw his chance, and like Jim Jones, managed to persuade/coerce/threaten his followers to join him in space. David Koresh, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara, Donald Trump, and their willing disciples and aides, such as Marjorie and Lauren (the “shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers”) Matt Gaetz, Bonnie Nettles…
Not an earth-shattering observation, but hucksters and snake oil salesmen have always been with us and we should not be surprised when at CPAC people cheered when Biden hadn’t met his vaccination goals. They booed the people who want to save their lives. And Lauren Boebert, who “rose” to stardom after receiving welfare, proudly exclaimed that she wanted to deny her constituents the same opportunity. So, where am I going with all this? First, trying to understand, convert, or discuss issues that these people embrace is not in the cards, including the WHHS Message Forum. I’m optimistic that there are more and more people sitting at home silently, going to work, carrying on with their lives, people who reject this insanity, who are offended by the lunacy. They’re not in the newspapers. They don’t go to rallies. They don’t cause a ruckus. That some went to WHHS is probably the part that amazes us; we equate political sanity with education, and perhaps Hank can explain better why that isn’t a good bet.
I had a discussion with someone on Facebook who wrote, “I don’t necessarily believe the election was stolen.” End of discussion. Facebook often revisits posts that members have made a year ago, two years ago, etc. All mine are either my art photographs or diatribes against the “former guy.” Even as the news continues to focus on the loud, the brash, and hopelessly stupid, I’m trying to maintain a level of calm that left me floundering in 2016. On a local kiosk someone had posted openings for a class designed to help the afflicted through the Trump presidency. I’m assuming that all of you have found that his continuing presence in your mind has not done you any favors. It’s like my tinnitus, something that’s with me twenty-four seven, hard to ignore. After learning that Trump won, my brother introduced me to a new word—anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. We weren’t just disappointed that Hillary lost; it affected us in deeper ways. Again, Hank.
On the other side of this, though, was the pleasure I found this morning reading this excerpt from a forthcoming book about Trump, describing election night at the White House. Would that I were a fly on the wall for that one night.

(I’m pretending I’m at an AA meeting today, just bouncing my own feelings off others who share.)

Gold Mountain

Three miles of abandoned railroad tunnels and snow sheds invite hikers on the east side of Donner Pass, at an elevation of more than 7000’. The name “Gold Mountain” is translated from Chinese, two words caused by the discovery of gold in California, an illusion that brought thousands of Chinese to America in search of fortune. But work was scarce, and without money it became impossible for the Chinese to bring their families, let alone make enough money to eat. Uneducated and poor, they found the only work that didn’t require a knowledge of English, only easily learned skills—work that was brutally difficult, with low pay, and the likelihood of injury or death.

More than ten thousand Chinese workers blasted tunnels, built roadbeds, and laid hundreds of miles of track, often in freezing cold or searing heat.

One of those tunnels is Tunnel #6, which took almost two years to build and cost hundreds of lives. With little more than picks, axes, and dynamite Tunnel #6 was opened in 1868 and was used continuously by transcontinental trains until 1993 when the current path through the Sierra Nevada mountains opened. Tunnel #6 is one of several that we hiked through on the abandoned railroad beds.

Looking back to the entrance. The end of tunnel 6 is on the other side of the mountain, The wooden structures were built to prevent snow from falling on the tracks.

In the spaces in-between the tunnels and sheds, one can see views of Interstate #80, Donner Pass Road, and the Eastern Sierras.

Not all snow sheds are free standing.

The walls and rocks inside the tunnels and sheds are covered with graffiti.

Rocks inside the tunnel. I was struck by the shadows and colors.

Kennedy, Lilly, the Sphinx, and a cigar-smoking alien

More than the graffiti, the patterns of light and shadow, of space and distance, are mesmerizing.

An iPhone panorama of grandson Kennedy inside one of the snow sheds. The panorama transforms a straight path into this,

Many of the snow sheds have missing walls on the east side, and light pours in through the openings.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones to have discovered the tunnels.

Leaving Tunnel #6

Chevy's Fresh Mex, Parts I and II

From Chevy’s website: “We’re known for our mesquite-fired flavor and farm fresh ingredients. We use only top-quality ingredients to create all of your favorites like sizzling fajitas, mouthwatering guacamole, flautas, and handcrafted margaritas…no one does them better.”

Or do they? Twenty-one years ago we went to the Emeryville Chevy’s Fresh Mex to celebrate John’s twenty-first birthday, half his life ago. Our family, John’s friends, his girlfriend de jour, Cavan, all eight of us looking forward to an evening out.

Looks good, doesn’t it

After dinner I took the opportunity to thank the staff for a memorable evening:

February 28, 2000

Last night my wife and I hosted a party of eight at Chevy's in Emeryville.  We had planned a celebration in honor of our younger son's twenty-first birthday, and we asked him to select a restaurant where we could enjoy both good food and a lively atmosphere.  However, we all agreed as we left that we had all experienced the worst dining experience we had ever had. 

I'm still amazed a day later that…

No one came to bus the dishes that had been left on our table by the previous diners.  We carefully stacked them and brought them to the edge of the table, and after about fifteen minutes, were able to coerce a busboy to remove them.  (We were told that one busboy "was sent home", and that the bar area was short a busboy; nevertheless, when we finally were able to spot this busboy he was busing an empty table in the corner; oblivious to our needs;)

The busboy never did wipe the table.  We were able to moisten a paper napkin left from the previous diners, dip it into a half-drunk water glass, and use it to clean the salsa, beans, and other culinary detritus left from other peoples' dinners.

We never received chips.  After several minutes I stood in line with a waitress and busboy, took the chips and served them to our table.  The salsa couldn't be found.  It arrived minutes later with our dinners…

Which came just a minute or so after the two pitchers of margaritas.  The tardiness of the drinks' arrival wouldn't have been so bad had we been able to pour them into glasses.  Our waitress, Shanna, brought us five glasses, but there were eight of us.  We tried to find other glasses for the three of us who didn't get any.  We searched the closed room off to the side; we looked at tables where a clean glass might have been abandoned; finally, we stood in line again at the bar and managed to get two more glasses.  The birthday boy, who had ordered a virgin piña colada, received his drink at the end of the evening, just as our bill arrived.

And the food? It looked good. However, none of us had any silverware, so we couldn't eat it. We waited several minutes, then sent our waitress on a silverware hunt.  No luck.  I checked with the manager who promised that she'd get us some silverware.  We sent Jason on a silverware search.  Hey, now we're getting somewhere.  The food has only been on the table for about six or seven minutes, and at least three people were looking for silverware for us.  I felt better.

After about ten minutes the silverware finally arrived, and five of us began eating.  However, Scott and I couldn't eat because we had no dinners.  A few minutes later my combination shrimp and baby back rib fajitas arrived, but since there were only a couple of packages of tortillas for all eight of us—and virtually all of us had ordered fajitas—I had to eat my dinner with a knife and fork.  The food was okay, although my wife said her chicken was very dry.  But after what we were going through, a little bad food seemed inconsequential.

The waitress said that the manager had agreed to reduce our bill by $2 per meal.  I said "That's inadequate.  The least I'll consider is half."  I wish I hadn't said that.  The meal should have been free.  Actually, you should have paid us for the abuse and neglect to which you subjected us.

On the bright side none of us choked to death, nor does any of us think we might have contracted some rare, bizarre tropical disease associated with food poisoning.  The restaurant didn't catch fire.  No earthquakes.  No tidal waves.  No one held the place up.  (I'm trying to find the silver lining here somewhere).

 As an ironic and comedic footnote to an otherwise thoroughly unpleasant evening…as we stepped away from Chevy's we managed to avoid three piles of vomit that one of your busboys was trying to clean up by your front entrance.  In no way do we suggest that Chevy's was responsible for this gastronomic disaster, but the implication that someone else might have had a less than favorable experience at Chevy's wasn't lost upon any of us.  We climbed in our cars and drove away.

 There was nothing funny about the whole experience.  It was, as I stated in the beginning of my letter, both a culinary disaster and an egregious lapse of hospitality amplified by the fact that this was intended to be a special evening for us, a twenty-first birthday celebration.  You should be ashamed.

David and Jadyne Buchholz

Part II.

Twenty-one years later. Cavan is gone. John married Kim, and they have two children. Scott, one of John’s high school friends, is still a friend. And then the rest of us—Jason, Jennifer, Jadyne, and yours truly—we’re still around.

So, it has recently become a Mother’s Day/Father’s Day event for the offspring to take their parents out to dinner to celebrate. And what started as a joke—going back to Chevy’s in Emeryville—became a reality last night, our first visit to Chevy’s in twenty-one years. We arrived at 6:00 were welcomed (not recognized) by the staff, had dinner in front of the fireplace and enjoyed beer and margaritas. We all remembered Chevy’s Part I, and we recalled events from the letter. The offspring gifted me with a mug that has their photos on it, the same as the one they gave Jadyne, but with a different image.

It was a very different evening. And even if the service was indifferent, the food only okay, memories of the evening twenty-one years ago were lost among the spirited and animated conversation, the sharing, the love, joy, and appreciation we all have as a family, mixed in with the unspoken gratitude that we’re all still here.

We stepped away from Chevy’s and walked for a few minutes before getting in our cars and heading home. The Emeryville Chevy’s is situated on the bay, and as we left, I captured the sun setting over Mount Tamalpais, a very different image from the vomit that we stepped around twenty-one years earlier.

P.S. And what was the effect of the letter? The GM apologized and issued John and me two gifts for an “All you can eat and drink for two.” He and Cavan went back. Jadyne and I did, too.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

A friend sent me this advice today. I hadn’t heard it before. It means “think before you say or write, as what you say or do may offend.” (Of course there are times when you deliberately say or do something intending offense. Or wish to. I have had imaginary conversations with Trump, Boebert, Greene, McConnell, which aren’t conversations at all, but unkind thoughts I would love to share with them. I would try to offend them as much as I could. That’s a horse of the proverbial different color.)

I’ve expressed thoughts with no intention of offending, but did. A case in point. Years ago I was having dinner with my son’s in-laws. I had recently learned that my daughter-in-law’s father had been released from his position as provost at a California university. I had also learned that one of Jadyne’s high school friends was the president of that same university, and ergo, must have been the one who released said person. For reasons that defy my imagination, I released the connection at dinner. Mea culpa. The mind works in not-so-mysterious ways sometimes. Perhaps this was one of them.

Again. When I first joined Facebook I enjoyed reconnecting and hearing from a number of former students who appreciated and commented on my posts. As Jason neared his fortieth birthday I posted images from his childhood with made-up stories beneath the photos. In one image taken forty-two years ago I posted a photo of him with his sister. Jennifer looks insanely happy in the image. Jason is enjoying her good humor. I wrote some words about the absurd notion that he had just given her a joint, and that his two year old sister was stoned. It was inappropriate at best, a cheap attempt at humor.

In those two cases I regretted words I’d said. I’ve regretted actions, too. Several years ago I tried to reconnect with several old friends. Strange. All of them were women. A former student of mine said once, “I chose you for an essay I had to write about my favorite teacher.” I was touched. She then added, “I got a D on it.” A high school girlfriend found me on Facebook, and we played Words With Friends, exchanged emails, and after a few months she expressed regret that she had let her emotions in reconnecting with me overcome her. We’re no longer in touch. Two more, both named Gail—the first, a high school classmate who has become a friend to both Jadyne and me, and the second Gail, the girl whose sage advice prompted this essay. I’m grateful that she’s there, too.

What I failed to recognize was this—in trying to reconnect with many of these “old friends” I wasn’t thinking about what effect these searches might be having on Jadyne, that she might wonder if I might be expressing an unfulfilled need, one that she believed should be hers to address. What all of these searches, statements, and conversations might have in common. is that they were all predicated on what I wanted to say or do, disregarding or not considering the effect they might have on others. Again, mea culpa.

But consider this. Have you ever thought about what you were going to say, weighed the pluses and minuses, then said it…and been mistaken? Could saying what another deems thoughtless actually be something that you thought was well-considered? Just wrong? Some years ago we saw an automotive ad in the classified section of the SF Chronicle for a brand new BMW M3 convertible. The writer of the ad, after owning the car for just a day or so, listed all the comforts and accessories that were part of the car, then added, “What was I thinking?”

These are all sins of commission, words and behaviors that should have been kept under wraps, We may regret what we’ve said or done, and if given the chance, would have chosen differently. But also flying out of Pandora’s box are the sins of omission, the words unsaid that might have saved a life, the hug that should have been hugged but wasn’t, the elderly person you didn’t visit, choosing a baseball game instead only to find out that elderly person was no more. I’m not just speaking of myself now, although that last phrase was all me. Bad choice.

Here’s a photo of Rawson, one of the kindest people I have ever known. In the Great Book of Regrets, failing to see him, which would have been for the last time, instead of a Reds game with my brother, is on the first page.

J Rawson Collins

Some years ago I had cataract surgery in my right eye. My blurry vision suddenly became 20-20, and I only need glasses for reading. I begged the surgeon to remove the smaller cataract in my left eye, but she said that the contact lens that I was wearing in that eye improved my vision so much that they wouldn’t operate. Even corrected it isn’t as good as my right eye. I wear one contact lens. Where my vision is flawless, though, uncorrected and unenhanced, requiring no modifications at all, is my hindsight. I’m better than 20-20. Through hindsight I have never offended anyone, caused misunderstandings, acted impulsively, sought pleasure for myself, or caused anyone to think ill of me. Had I thought first to use hindsight I wouldn’t be writing this essay..

Gail #2 wrote this today. “I ask that you think beyond yourself when you write to me.” I’m replying, I suppose, in this little essay. Of course. Sounds easy. Just measure twice. After getting burned by a hot stove we don’t have to be told not to touch it. Check. Should I think before committing a cataclysmic act that will turn someone else into a pillar of salt? Yes, of course I should…

Tilden

Selby Trail

A 2 and 1/2 mile walk through Tilden, shared with turkeys and coyotes. I saw a deer carcass on Selby that might have been dragged up the hill by a mountain lion. in the early morning the coyotes compete with the dogs on nearby Wildcat Canyon drive.

Selby Trail

Before the goats arrive and eat everything.

The goats. Two weeks of non-stop munching in June.

Tilden in the winter. I remember when it used to rain. Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren about rain. When they’re old enough.

Below Lake Anza in a hard to remember wet winter

Eucalyptus trees at sunrise.

Jewel Lake

The next stop after the Little Farm with its cows, chickens, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, and sheep, is Jewel Lake. Today is June 16th. The lake is dry .

Jewel Lake in better days.

Memory Trail. The colors in winter are stunning.

Text not necessary.

Fall

Autumn in much of California isn’t majestic, but subtle changes in color remain.

Wild turkeys hang out at the Little Farm. They’re hard to miss.

Winter. Looking east from Seaview Trail. In the distance San Pablo Reservoir.

Redwoods in the fog. An iPhone shot. I came back with my Nikon on a sunny day. Not the same.

So many more images…

First Road trip...in a Tesla

I haven’t gambled in a casino in a zillion years. I’ve had meals on cross-country drives, but the only Tesla superchargers in Reno were in the Atlantis Casino in Reno, so we hung out there for the forty-five minutes it took to get our three year old car to the next stop, Lovelock, Nevada, made famous for the correctional institution that housed OJ Simpson.

We started our 2400 mile trip with some trepidation, having not ventured out of our house for more than short trips to Sacramento and Monterey in the last three years. We were aware of “range anxiety”, that nagging fear that you’ll run out of juice in some lonely out-of-the-way back road inhabited by local crooks and ne’er-do-wells. Not a problem. We were comfortable in Lovelock, Elko, and for the night in Wendover, on the Utah-Nevada border.

We soon relieved ourselves of any anxiety about running out of electricity, set the steering to “Autosteer”, sat back, turned on “Classical Essentials” on Spotify, and set ourselves enjoying the magnificent skies over western Nevada.

Montana bills itself as “Big Sky Country”, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Nevada.

Five miles east of Utah

On day 2 we stopped for lunch in Green River, dining in a nearby park while the local Green River Tesla supercharger gave us enough charge to get all the way to Glenwood Springs, our destination.

We meet people along the way. “I love your shirt,” I said, “May I take your photograph?”

We’re not in Kansas anymore…or maybe we are in more ways than we had anticipated.

And “I love your hair”, I said to this young lady at the Glenwood Springs supercharger, on her way to visit family in Iowa. “Can I take your photograph?”

So, why Glenwood Springs? Jadyne hadn’t seen her brother for almost two years, and because his immune system is compromised, he wasn’t able to come here.. So we went there.

Sean and Greg

But we didn’t just stop to see them. They live in beautiful No Name, Colorado, in the Glenwood Canyon, near a wonderful tourist attraction, Hanging Lake, accessible with a reservation, $12, and a one mile hike covering 1000’ in elevation. Is it worth it? You be the judge.

One of Hanging Lake’s friendlier residents.

We intended to drive to Marble, but nearby wildfires obscured the skies, so we ended up in Redstone, where we had vacationed forty-two years ago, when we announced Jadyne’s third pregnancy to my parents, who met us there for a week or so. Nearby is Hays falls, photographed below.

Hays Falls

And then we meet people that demand to be photographed. Lunch one day.

After three days, that time when fish and company begin to smell, we headed back to California, once again passing through the beauty that is Nevada.

And workmen outside of Lovelock.

And as far as buying electricity instead of gas. We spent $74 at superchargers for the first 1100 miles. A car getting 30 mpg paying $3.50 a gallon would have spent $130. We met some lovely people at the Superchargers. We spent an additional 2-3 hours charging, most of those times during meals and overnights. An inconvenience? I’m ready to go again.

So what did I miss? I had intended to visit Shooter’s Grill in Rifle, Colorado, made famous by Lauren Boebert, the most inept, unprincipled, ignorant, traitorous person ever elected to Congress.*

*Which says a lot in the company of Louis Gohmert, who wants the moon’s orbit altered or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who doesn’t believe in evolution, that “so-called science.”

Lauren’s the one in front. So proud to be an American.

An Exception

In my praise of Bob Dylan three days ago I quoted one of his lines, “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” I can’t understand this….but I do criticize it.

Yesterday morning a man set fire to his house, then drove to the rail yard where he worked, then shot and killed nine employees as they were getting off the night shift. He then committed suicide.

Two hours before the gunman left his flaming home we were treated to the otherworldly spectacle of a full lunar eclipse. This is what it looked like from my deck at 4:10 am.

Another image below of the same event by a nearby resident.: The photo isn’t the point. The text is. 14% of Americans believe the earth is flat; 26% believe the sun revolves around the world.

I can’t understand such stupidity, and I freely criticize the morons who believe either of those two false premises.

Wait. There’s more.

Trump lovers would take a bullet for him. Women would freely give of themselves to have sex with him. His base believes that he wasn’t elected, that he was actually selected by God to be the President of the United States. There aren’t enough adjectives that accurately address the depravity of the twice impeached scumbag that inhabits that loincloth. I can’t understand the devotion, the blind acceptance, the denial of facts and truth. I don’t try. I can only criticize.

Last Thursday Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgian congresswoman, compared the wearing of masks inside the House of Representatives to the holocaust.

"You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany," Greene said. "And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about."

It isn’t news that MJT is stupid. That’s been well-known long before she was elected. Her embrace of right wing conspiracy theories, her belief that California’s wildfires were started by a Jewish space laser, her acceptance of QAnon’s unhinged beliefs, all was known before she ran for Congress.

But here’s what I don’t understand—that Georgians in her district believe her, that despite her evil intentions she is one of the most prolific fund-raisers in the Republican party, and that the leaders of the party fear her, so much so that they won’t do anything to rid themselves and this country of this “troublesome priest.”

Maybe there’s a very simple explanation for all of this—that within the human breast the forces of evil constantly vie with the forces of good, and whether one attributes those evil forces to an external source—Satan, witchcraft, or an internal source—original sin, human fallibility, or free will, this is simply human nature. Ergo, our existence on this planet will be forever stained by the presence of those who accompany us on this ride—the evil, the incompetent, and the hopelessly stupid. So maybe I do understand, but I’ll still criticize. And no one, especially yours truly, is immune from these afflictions.

But why now? Serial murders, stupidity, cults, and political malfeasance have been bread and butter on the nightly news as long as we can remember, but the golden statue in the loincloth elevated them, gave them affection and respect, brought them out of the gutter, and served them to the masses on his faux gold platters in Mar-a-Lago.

What to do? Remembering that we have free will, we can choose to rejoice in the morning just because we woke up, acknowledging as Maya Angelou wrote, “There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing.” We can co-exist with The Flat Earth Society, the Trumpies, QAnon theorists, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, and cowardly Republicans, but we have to oblige ourselves by living the lives that nourish us, to be, as Angelou suggests, “the rainbow in someone else’s cloud.”

Postcards of the Hanging

I met the music of Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) through the music of folk singers, “Peter, Paul, and Mary.” Their version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” with its haunting first line, “How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?”, and the song itself resonated through America long before people became acquainted with its creator. Bob Dylan’s songs have been covered by hundreds of musicians, many of whose versions were more popular than his. His voice is as unique as his lyrics. “Bob Dylan isn’t a good singer. He’s a great singer. His voice isn’t pretty. It’s harsh and grating. His lyrics are often the same way—his vocals match what he writes. His voice can be insulting.” (The Odyssey Online).

More than 1500 artists (an incomplete list) have covered Dylan’s songs, everyone from Ray Conniff to the Grateful Dead. Even The Ventures, an instrumental rock band, spent 2:20 on “Quinn the Eskimo.” The breadth of his immense catalog, his songs, his voice, and his extraordinary lyrics led him to his well-deserved 2016 Nobel Prize in literature.

• “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”

• “Something’s happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.”?

• “Crimson flames tied through my ears/ Rollin’ high and mighty traps”

• “Ah but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now.”

• “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”

• “There must be some way out of here” said the joker to the thief.

• “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”

• It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe/ It don’t matter, anyhow”

• You’re the reason I’m trav’lin on/ Don’t think twice, it’s all right”

• “Go away from my window / Leave at your own chosen speed”

• You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows:”

• God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
  The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
  Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
  God says, “Out on Highway 61”

• May you stay forever young
  Forever young, forever young
  May you stay forever young

“Don’t trust anyone over thirty” has been questionably attributed to Bob Dylan, but today, May 24, 2021 Dylan will have passed that milestone fifty years ago. This is more just another of those “Sunrise, Sunset” posts, where the writer wanly looks back on the passage of time. It’s a full-throated appreciation of the genius of the man who gave so much of himself through his music to these tired old boomers, we who grew up with the “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, the Dylan who like Steve Jobs knew what people wanted before they knew they wanted it. He was panned when he wrote “Like a Rolling Stone”, disappointing acoustic loving folkies with one of his best songs ever. They didn’t know they needed this, but they did.

“You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?”

And That Made All the Difference

I don’t know why Jack played the cornet in band. It was a requirement that all “Effies” (7th graders) play a musical instrument for two years and be in the junior high band at Walnut Hills HS. So, three years later, I took it up. I can still play a note or two on it.

After two years I gave it up, and my mother said, “if you’re not going to play cornet, you have to find something else to learn.” I picked up a guitar that had belonged to my late father and thought, oh well, it’s the proverbial bird in the hand, so I went to Howard Early’s music studio, was assigned to the guitar instructor Bob Brock, …and that made all the difference. Still play. Still suck. Sixty years on.

Age 16 with my cousin Donald.

Three years later my Dad, an Episcopal minister at All Saint’s Church in Pleasant Ridge, decided that he needed a change. His friend, Dud Higbie, had taken over St. Paul’s in Burlingame. It had grown to the point that he needed help. He asked Dad. Dad came out for a visit. He liked what he saw. Mom and Dad came to my room one night and said, “How would you like to move to California?” I had lived in Cincinnati for all of my sixteen years and had never given a thought about moving. It took me a half hour to embrace moving to California. Leaving Cincinnati made all the difference.

After two years at Whitman College I returned to Cincinnati for my brother’s wedding. I stayed for the summer, found myself draft bait, 1-A, walked down the street from my uncle’s house, enrolled at the University of Cincinnati. Later I worked at a Kroger Warehouse from eleven at night to seven-thirty in the mornings, spent the days napping at a swim club where for inexplicable reasons an eight year old girl came over to my chaise lounge and began chatting. Why did she decide to come talk to me? Fifty-three years later, we’re still friends.

When I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969 I applied to go into the Peace Corps. When I didn’t hear from them I assumed that I hadn’t been accepted, so I took a position teaching English at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece. Soon after I was accepted by the Peace Corps as part of a volunteer group called “Tonga V”. I thought about it. I chose the Peace Corps…and that made all the difference.

I enjoyed Peace Corps training so much that a volunteer who was returning from Tonga thought I was not taking it seriously enough. He blackballed me. I was fired. I had to leave the next day. I had a friend in Tonga V who spent the last night with me, commiserating, knowing how disappointed I was. A week or two later she returned. On her own. That night I asked her to marry me. And that has made all the difference.

I took this image through the window of the plane right before I left Molokai. I didn’t know then that fifty-one years later we’d be celebrating our fifty-first anniversary.

Our son Jason visited the photography retail store of the returned volunteer who kicked me out of the Peace Corps. Jason met the owner. Here is the story: http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/new-blog/2017/4/1/the-encounter

For him, his brother and sister, it, too, made all the difference.

We moved back to California, and after eight years teaching high school English I had three kids, a mortgage, and a salary of $14,400, (double what I had received eight years earlier at Talawanda HS in Oxford), so I quit teaching and tried to make a living in photography, my real passion. I did. I still love it. And that has made all the difference.

Jadyne’s sister Teeny had reserved some mountain cabins in the Rockies during a particularly snowy winter in 1988. She, her boyfriend, and several others went cross-country skiing, planning to spend the night at the cabin. She decided to go. The two of them, the better skiers in the group of friends, led the way. They, and another man, never made it. She decided to ski. She decided to lead. And that made all the difference.

The guitar, the move, the return to Cincinnati, a lifetime friend, a decision, a rejection, a career change, a decision to ski, each made a difference. The future unfolds in ways determined by what at the time may seem insignificant, minor events—the traffic light that turned red just before a runaway car hurtles through, a flight not taken. (Jennifer took a flight a day before that same flight was hijacked. She also didn’t make enough noise walking through the jungle to alert the mother tiger and her cubs. Good decision there.) There are countless other near-misses, unknown events, decisions that may have changed our lives in ways we’ll never know. No couldas, wouldas, or shouldas. We look at what is and embrace it for all that it is, give thanks, and wait for the next decision.

Leaving

The premise In a year long class called “A Year to Live” centered on preparing ourselves for our own passing. We imagined that our life would end in one year, and we went through steps leading up to that point, culminating in our “deaths” a year after the class began.

In dying we would be leaving everything behind, so we were instructed to find something personal, something unique, of value, to give to another member of the class, recognizing that in giving it away we would be symbolically preparing for that time when we would be giving everything away. I gave away a clock that I had bought at Gumps in San Francisco and had given to Uncle Rowland. When he died his survivors went through the house, selecting mementos for themselves. I gave Rowland the clock. I took it back. I gave it away to someone in my Year to Live class.

So my focus isn’t on what we’ll take with us (nothing), but what we leave behind. There are the intangibles, of course, how our lives affected those that remain.

Yesterday I was talking to nine year old Isla. “The three biggest musical stars of the last century were The Beatles. Have you heard of them?” “Yes,” she answered. “Elvis Presley?” No. “Frank Sinatra?” No.

Kim, only one generation away, said that when Jadyne and I pass, the first thing she’d sell would be the photograph I bought at an Art Gallery depicting The Beatles in Indianapolis on their first North American tour, an heirloom…for me. The rich and famous pass away, not just in the minds and memories of those who loved them, but soon everywhere but in the pages of history books. For the Beatles their songs will remain. Elvis and Frank’s, too. But at some point the songs, too, may become uninteresting, irrelevant, dated, mere curiosities.

If, as George Harrison wrote, “all things must pass”, we accept that our lives, our memories, all that we experienced, loved, worked for, cared for, blessed, cursed, accepted, dismissed, are as temporary and as transitive as we are, then thinking about a legacy is a Sisyphian task. Except when the rock rolls down we won’t be there to stop it.

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I bought a new photographic printer this year, an Epson P5000 Surecolor. I’ve also downloaded some software programs that can take photos I’ve saved, many from as long as fifty years ago, and improve them. I am printing some of my favorites. They represent the one legacy that I have control over. They’re flammable, disposable, possibly recyclable. My offspring can do with them as they please.

Much of what I hold dear, much of what I believe, defines what represents me, is captured in my photographs.

My friend Darrell refers to photographs as “captures”, an appropriate term. What is “captured” isn’t just a moment in time, but in the best cases, recognizable worlds that reveal and define universal emotions and experiences.

Jennifer presenting her husband Andrew with his firstborn child. He sees Susanto for the first time. Jadyne shares in the joy.

Some images capture a time and a place. Free love no-holds-barred, hedonistic physical, religious, and spiritual movements coalesced in San Francisco in “The Summer of Love”, 1967. Busloads of tourists traveled down Haight Street to see the blissed out “hippies” with their long hair, sandals, dancing in the street, painting sidewalks, marching in Hare Krishna parades, and smoking ever-present joints.

The cymbals, the flower, the expression, the hair…this represents everything I remember about the time. I lost the negative, but I had made a print that I rephotographed. This is it.

America. There are countless images of America with its “purple mountain majesties”, and “its amber waves of grain.” Hidden among them are its “spacious skies”, such as this one along the “loneliest road in America”, Hwy 50 in Nevada. and the foreboding desolation beneath those skies.

Below are images that either have meant a lot to me or represent an area in photography that I’ve loved.

The “Old Man”, 1969, perhaps the first image I ever took that I really liked…the rooftops of Paris, $50 Best in Show in the first photography contest I ever entered…Denise, the ballerina who graced a magazine cover and with it a free trip to Hawaii…the funeral of Patrick O’Day, the first soldier killed in the Gulf War…a girl who posed in Delhi with eyes that looked right through me…the Sonoma County Hells Angels in 1976…my three kids…a beach in San Sebstastian, Spain in 1972…a New York street photography image…an old woman in India…49ers Cheerleader…a Supermoon 2021…Women’s March marcher, a coathanger tattooed on her chest…a friend I’ve known for more than fifty years…children being children and older children having trouble accepting them…a vendor on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue…an unusual Cuban dance troupe…animals of all kinds and stripes…flowers, thousands of flowers, …San Francisco sunset with thunderstorm…the homeless…things that amuse me…black and white portraits—photographer, optometrist, musician, architect, and birds…ya gotta love birds. I sold this as a poster.

So what have I “captured?” What do these images mean? Or do they mean anything? They are part of me, the way I look at the world, they are the people who accompany me on my ride, they reveal the joy that I feel in simply being a sentient being, one that expresses what I see and what I feel when I stand behind a lens.

The Andersons

In 1968 I worked at the Kroger Warehouse in Evendale, Ohio five nights a week from 11:00 pm to 7:30 am. I came home with the sun, went to bed, slept for a few hours, then drove to a swim club where I climbed into the pool for a few laps, dried off, then tried to add a few more “z’s” before climbing back in my car, then back to Evendale for another night on the loading docks. And a Whopper at the local Burger King at 3 am.

One morning an eight-year old girl came over to my chaise lounge, sat down, and began talking to me. Charmed, I found her adept and comfortable in conversation with ‘an older man.” “Do you want to meet my family?” she asked. “Of course,” I replied, still under her spell. I met her father and mother, her younger sister Mary Alice, her older sister Anita, her brother Bryan, and then was surprised to meet her identical triplet sisters, Cindy, Kristy, and Kathy. Seven kids! All between the ages of five and twelve.

How we came to meeting at a swim club to my coming for dinner many Sundays, taking the kids out to drive-in movie theaters, escorting them on Hallowe’en, spending Easter mornings on Easter egg hunts. and becoming an unofficial brother-father-friend to this motley collection of pre-teens, is a blur.

At that time I was in a college fraternity, dating Marianne Mesloh, the UC Homecoming Queen, a year away from graduating, and well on my way to an uncertain future punctuated by race riots, RFK and MLK’s assassinations, political upheaval, the arrival of hippies, Hare Krishna, a culture war, free love, long hair, and the never-ending Vietnam war. I was an English major and had no idea how those “first days of the rest of my life” would have upon me, but I was prepared to go into that future armed with a full tank of ignorance, naivete, and optimism. I found myself sidetracked by this wonderful family who welcomed me in ways that I had a chance last week to summarize in an address I recorded on the occasion of the matriarch’s ninetieth birthday, some fifty-three years after we all went swimming together.

Although I suddenly found myself with six sisters and a younger brother, it was one of the Anderson girls, the second youngest, the one who introduced me to her family, that made the deepest impression upon me. I always looked forward to going to their house, to talking, playing or just being with them all, but I also was puzzled to discover that this twenty-one year old was falling in love with an eight year old. And let’s keep this in perspective. I wasn’t a pervert. I had no designs on her. I just loved having a little sister, a girl with whom I felt comfortable chatting and just spending time with. I was bewildered, but having her and her family in my life was a rewarding change from college girls, drinking in bars, and grooming myself to make sure I didn’t stand out in any unfavorable way from my fraternity brothers.

Back: Don, Anita, and Barbara

Middle: Kristy, Cindy, Kathy, or Kathy, Kristy, Cindy, or Cindy, Kristy, Kathy, or…

Front: Gail, Bryan, Mary Alice

It was at that time that I bought my first camera, a Yashica rangefinder that my brother purchased for me in the base exchange at his Air Force base in Big Spring, Texas. This was one of my first efforts, in happier times.

Bryan on the left, Anita in back, and the triplets sandwiching Gail and Mary Alice

I had a field day photographing the triplets, even if I coudn’t tell them apart

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Right Coumn

Time passed. We lost contact, first in letters, then in birthday greetings. Gail married, brought three children into the world. Seven years ago I found them again on Facebook, and it was as if nothing had changed between me and them. The triplets married. Cindy adopted a boy, Kathleen, two girls, and Kristin had twins (of course). Mary Alice married, too, and her husband died in her arms on Christmas morning. Kathy divorced. Her former husband died this year. Kristin’s husband died, too And last week Gail’s marriage, after thirty-nine years, ended, too. Don died a couple of years ago, and Barbara celebrated her ninetieth birthday last week.

And then there’s this whole thing about what we remember, how we select, embellish, change, improvise, or invent what we’re always so certain we actually remember, when in fact, it might never have happened the way we remember it…or if it ever happened at all.

The Andersons happened. They happened to me at just the right time. I believe, too, that not everything that happens to us can be explained, that there are connections created that defy understanding. I’m not superstitious. I’m not religious in a traditional sense. I don’t believe in ghosts. I do believe in the soul, the spirit, and life, and I believe that even after more than fifty years I'm still a part of the Andersons….Gail and I are real friends, have been, are now, always will be…I am grateful.

Gail, 8 or 9

Mary Alice, 5

Don and Barbara a few years ago

I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969. The Andersons had moved to Columbus, then to Chicago. Before I left I had a few moments alone with Gail, now nine years old. I told her then that I loved her. She was the first female, other than my mother, I ever loved. Now sixty-one, she remembers. I wrote her a poem. She knows it by heart.

I returned to California, entered the Peace Corps, met Jadyne, and sent Gail a photo of Jadyne. She burned it.

We stayed close for a while. Gail came to visit us in Oxford, then after Jason was born, came to California. She learned to love Jadyne, too.

Gail at thirteen or fourteen

I remember how happy I was with the Andersons. I loved being with them, and I remember that they loved having me as a guest.

It wasn’t long after I moved to California that Anita started college. During her freshman year she took a vacation to Jamaica where she was killed in a motorbike accident. I never learned the details. Gail wrote me with the news. She wrote again when Bryan lay down in the garage, started the car and closed the door. It’s unimaginable for parents to lose a child. Barbara and Don lost two.

Something there is that doesn’t prevent life from continuing. Barbara looks radiant, even after her recent knee replacement. Kristy and Gail have grandchildren.

Gail and her daughter Natalie

I Woke Up

A friend told me this story a day or so ago. Her friend posted the following on Facebook: "Tell me something good that happened to you today (No matter how small it may seem)" Hope you can find it.”

She answered,

“I woke up.”

So much we take for granted, fail to appreciate, especially in the time of Covid. Starting with waking up, then fresh air. I’ve tutored Chinese UC post grad students, helping them learn conversational English. I asked one of them, “What are the three things you like best about America?” Number one, mentioned by a student from Beijing, was “clean air.” (FYI. The other two were “There’s no one here; the streets are empty”, and third, “the people are so friendly.”)

It hit a little closer to home last fall when a night of lightning strikes set thousands of acres of California on fire, culminating in the following sunrise.

My Christmas gift from my three kids was a Purple Air Sensor, which I’ve put outside, joining thousands of others who are participating in the Purple Air Map, revealing the air quality all across America at any given time. Instead of typing this I could be outside, enjoying fresh clean air. But I’m at my keyboard, giving thanks for 13.

I woke up, yes, and I was able to get out of bed, brew six cups of Peet’s Major Dickason dark roast coffee, raise the thermostat from 63 to 67, remove a small container of Horizon Organic Heavy Whipping Cream from the refrigerator, go outside, pick up the Sunday SF Chronicle, then return to a warm house with the first of two hot cups of coffee with cream, remove my iPad from its charger and promptly lose a game of Words With Friends. All common repeatable expreriences…until they’re not, until something unexpected strikes. For Jason’s friend Bill it was possibly a stroke or massive heart attack that fell him last week when he was riding a mountain bike with his eleven year old son, for my former neighbor and friend Bob Becklund, whose story in my blog appears two below this one, it was the accumulation of days and nights, about eighty-five years worth.

But I woke up.

I see myself as the man in the museum, staring at and trying to make sense, derive meaning, and learning to appreciate my canvas, my life.

I woke up, and for that I am grateful. I ate one of Jadyne’s freshly-baked cookies. I was able to walk four and a half-miles through the quiet streets and hills of Berkeley. I returned to a warm house, removed a small red Fuji apple from the refrigerator, a little Camembert Cheese from Costco, sliced the apple and the cheese, and ate them together in the warm house. I showered, washed my hair, put on freshly-cleaned clothes, and came upstairs where I began writing about all the quotidian events that make up my day, my life, and for the opportunity to do that, I am grateful. My friend Gail suggested that I keep a Gratitude Journal, entering a daily reason to be grateful. I haven’t done that, but after hearing “I woke up” I know I should.

Emily, a character in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”, visiting her twelfth birthday, asks the Stage Manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute.?” The Stage Manager responds “except for perhaps the saints and the poets, maybe.” By implication the characters do not seem to value or make an emotional connection to the daily activities of their rather ordinary lives. The inhabitants of Grovers Corners often lack any sense of wonder at what passes before their lives every day.

Which brings me back to the beginning. “I woke up.” And all that follows is a bonus.

Kahlo-Calder-Picasso

It was fitting that after sixteen months of isolation, carry-out meals, and social distancing that our first venture away from 330 Rugby was to San Francisco’s De Young Museum to see two separate exhibitions—Frida Kahlo, followed by more than 100 paintings, drawings, and photographs of Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso, an exhibition that was conceived and presented by grandsons of both artists.

First, Kahlo. I knew little about her before the exhibition, only that she was the wife of famous Mexican painter Diego Rivera, that she had become known and respected as an artist in her own right. I didn’t know that she had contracted polio as a child, or that at age 17 she had nearly died in a bus accident in Mexico City, that she had miscarried once, and that these themes returned to her time and again in her paintings, many of which were of herself, perhaps the first artist whose work centered on selfies.

One of the most dramatic paintings was commissioned by Clair Booth Luce, who after seeing the painting, found it so troubling that she wanted to destroy it. The subject is a dead socialite, a friend to both women, a troubled soul whose husband had lost so much money that she jumped out of an apartment building on the 16th floor. Kahlo painted her body with the flowing formal dress she had worn the night before.

Kahlo’s miscarriage showed up in the death mask on a small child.

Her damaged spine from the bus accident was reflected in the broken column and the punitive corset that supported a broken body.

The two Kahlos. Frida saw herself as an embodiment of both a male and a female. Her strong touching eyebrows and the faint mustache gave her a masculine appearance, and she explored the two Fridas in countless paintings.

Among the 100 pieces by Calder and Picasso was the following:

Nowhere is Picasso’s deconstruction more obvious than in the eleven sketches he made of a bull. In the final image the essence of the bull is revealed in one unbroken line.

Calder constructed, starting with space, adding lines, creating something from nothing. He was enamored of the jazz singer Josephine Baker. His wire sculpture is attached in such a way that a passing breeze sets her into fluid motion.

Again in the theme of deconstruction, Picasso’s painting of a girl in a red chair distills the essence of the title, and we are left with this:

In this final image Calder’s unmistakable mobile, a sculpture or “stabile” that both floats, spins, and stands is next to Picasso’s famous bull, a bicycle seat under handlebars. Two of my favorite artists. What a treat to see them together in this remarkable exhibition.

Bob

Bob Becklund died today. Shortly after eight his granddaughter Emma called his loving ex-wife Theresa, with the news. Theresa emailed Jadyne immediately. We knew within the hour.

Bob and Theresa were our next door neighbors on Dutton Avenue in Santa Rosa for many of the twenty-six years that we called Roseland “home.” They moved into what was a weed-infested lot with a decrepit house in front of which was an old Chevrolet, in such bad shape that when Bob called for a tow truck to take it away. parts of the Chevy fell off the hitch, covering Dutton Avenue with an axle, tires, and a transmission. Bob and Theresa turned the weed patch into a much more friendly and accessible weed patch. I gave him my broken Lawn Boy mower, and true to form he was able to repair it, then motivated by having a working power mower, dug up weeds in the back yard, planted grass, and invited me and Jadyne over for the inaugural “first cutting.” It might have been the last cutting, too, as the weeds were stronger than Bob’s will, and the mower went into retirement. The house was a different story. They remodeled it and made it possible to actually live in, to play ragtime piano in, and for Bob, a history instructor at the College of Marin, a place to work.

Bob and Theresa were the original “odd couple”, living proof that in some marriages age is irrelevant. At one point the four of us spanned four decades. Bob was fifty, I was forty, Jadyne was thirty-nine, and Theresa, twenty-five years younger than Bob, was twenty-four.

The May-December marriage eventually broke down, but the feelings between the two of them didn’t. Theresa wasn’t at his side when he passed, but he knew that she had returned in spirit. He squeezed her hand in the last days, as she reminded him how much she loved him. She passed to him our feelings, too, and he was able to recognize and understand the great respect and affection we had for him.

Here they are in happier times:

Bob, John, Theresa, and a mysterious gift certificate for egg rolls.

Both Bob and Theresa were kind and thoughtful beyond description. When Teeny died they were there for us, when our golden retriever was put to sleep Theresa built a little remembrance altar in our back yard with a candle on it, a final resting place for the ashes. Theresa’s sister Taffy was our most valued employee, a woman who was equally skilled at classical piano and violin. We hosted a compound, a family with Bob, Theresa, Taffy, Jadyne, and me.

Thirty-six years ago I wanted to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. I bought Jadyne several gifts, tickets to see the Lettermen at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, dinner reservations at the Tonga room in the Fairmont, and Bob and Theresa managed to procure what they thought was a limo, but was really a big Pontiac, and drove us down and back. Bob wore a tux. Theresa dressed to the nines, and the four of us headed to SF while Jadyne opened the anniversary gifts. I don’t know what Bob and Theresa did in San Francisco while we were celebrating, but they were the ones to offer this evening to us.

In an earlier blog post I wrote,

“Bob and Theresa were those rare Roseland residents and neighbors who spoke English as their native language. (After visiting Bob yesterday it’s hard to imagine getting by today without a command of Spanish). They were dear friends, and although we marveled that they could stay together we never questioned their affection for each other. Upon hearing an argument between me and Jadyne Bob once said, “I would be heartbroken if I ever heard Theresa talk to me the way you and Jadyne talked to each other.” Perhaps. But hearbreak followed. Theresa fancied herself an itinerant lesbian folksinger and took off for Europe on Bob’s credit card. Heartbreak followed heartbreak, and the two of them divorced. Theresa remarried and moved to Mendocino. Bob met Katie, and they continue to live together next to the house we lived in for twenty-six years.

We last saw Theresa ten years ago when we visited her in Mendocino. She opened a gift shop, which has since gone out of business.

Bob is eighty-four now. He and Katie still live next door to the house that we lived in for so many years. Angela lives there, too. She’s Bob’s full-time caregiver. We asked them about the neighbors, the current denizens of 1524 Dutton Avenue. He said, noise, violence, and drugs. It’s awful. Two years ago a Santa Rosa SWAT team escorted Bob and Katie out of their house as they trained submachine guns on a resident. A couple of days ago Bob overheard a scantily-clad neighbor offering to fuck another neighbor for $50.

Bob is a little forgetful. He didn’t remember the time he and Theresa took us to San Francisco. In fact, he couldn’t even remember Theresa. He said to Katie “…that woman I was married to a long time ago.” We didn’t know if he had forgotten or that he was just playing along. In either case, we were reminded of the passage of time and the changes that inevitably accompany it.

February, 2020. Bob and Katie at the Parkland Café

Katie left Bob sometime last year. His kids didn’t want to care for him in his dying days. His granddaughter Emma did. Theresa came back. R.I.P. Bob. We love you.

A Year and a Week

March 11, 2020. A day like every other day —except for one not so minor detail. A deadly virus in China had landed in the US of A. Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s press secretary, had revealed two weeks earlier that that wouldn’t happen. “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here,” she said, “This president will always put America first, he will always protect American citizens,” she added. (A year later more than 538,000 have died.)

If Kayleigh had been right I wouldn’t be posting this photo,

My second Moderna vaccine shot, thirteen days ago.

Kayleigh’s ignorant comment notwithstanding, her President (not mine) revealed months earlier that he was aware that Covid-19 was deadly. He chose not to reveal what he knew because, as he said, “I didn’t want people to panic.”

Stay At Home orders were soon in place. SF Chronicle:

Instantly, our days changed. I was used to spending Fridays at the Berkeley Food Pantry, Thursday, delivering Meals on Wheels, Monday and Tuesday at the Berkeley Homeless shelter. Jadyne volunteered at the shelter with me, delivered meals on Thursday, and spent hours every week at the Turnabout Shop, a thrift store on San Pablo Avenue. In-beween we hosted Hawthorn, Susanto, and Isla for piano lessons. All ended in an instant.

Staying home, not seeing anyone, I looked forward to playing guitar. That is, until on 3/12 when I was pruning a bush in the yard, and after I pruned my finger, four stitches and a lot of pain ended that:

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Eva, a little neighborhood girl, made a sign that’s still in our garage window.

“Let’s All Be Well” Indeed. We have been. We’re among the fortunate few who not only didn’t catch Covid-19, but didn’t know firsthand any of the millions who did.

The days came and went. I walked around the neighborhood, mask on, finding and clipping flowers, practicing a technique called “Focus Stacking.” I read. I played cards with Jadyne. I ate. I drank. Each day I tried to play guitar. I couldn’t.

And so life went on. Mr. Trump’s goal was to reopen the country by Easter. He went on camera and suggested that we drink bleach. Dr. Birx, his loyal doctor, cringed on camera as she heard him suggest that. The country isn’t open. And it still won’t be open on Easter—this Easter.

Jadyne and I were looking forward to our fiftieth wedding anniversary on June 13th, 2020, planning to host family at Gary Danko’s for dinner, then to a party at home, then three days at a ranch in the mountains. Jadyne even put on her mother’s wedding dress. So looking forward to such a big celebration!

Not exactly excited.

However, we were happily surprised by our family’s arrival on that Saturday, disappointed only in the cold five course meal that we had to carry out from a local restaurant. We haven’t been to a restaurant in a year. And we’re not planning on going to one soon.

With schools closed Jadyne and I became our own school in August, hosting our granddaughter Isla and her friend Ella, a one day a week rendezvous which has continued for the last eight months. Third graders with laptops, in touch with their teacher from time to time throughout the day. In between giggles, horseplay, indifference, boredom, and forays on the devices into verboten websites have been the order of business. We had no idea what lay ahead. Nobody did. Here was day #1 last August.

Summer came and went. In September we were “treated” to an incredible lightning storm that begat the worst fire season California had ever experienced. (If only we had raked the forests, as Mr. Trump admonished us to do).

And the skies, the orange and black darkness that descended on us one day in September.

10:32 am September 20th. Read that right? 10:32 a fucking m.

Jason, in the throes of a divorce from Rachel, moved to our house in October. After a court appearance in that month, our two grandchildren joined us for half custody. This has been a bright spot in our lives in what had been a pretty dismal year. They’re still here, and we’re still enjoying them. If anyone else would like to play “My Little Pony” with Hazel, I’m willing to give up Tempest Shadow…or Applejack, or Rainbow Dash.

Jason and Hazel ready for Halloween.

That leads us up to Thursday, March 18th. One more day and we’ll have officially arrived at the two week period following the second vaccination, a time when we will have achieved maximum immunity. Meanwhile only 11% of Californians enjoy the privilege. Jason hasn’t received his first. Jennifer has had her first. The vaccines are coming. Cases are dropping. ICU beds are now available. Against CDC warnings mayors and governors are dropping mask mandates, and the fear that we will see yet another surge is here.

At the beginning of the year 2020 Jadyne’s brother Greg was in a coma in a Denver hospital, with a disease that has never been diagnosed. He recovered, returned home, then was sequestered with Sean in Glenwood Springs, as forest fires threatened their home. They are home once again, remaining quarantined like the rest of us.

And in the meantime, beyond our simple little lives, Biden defeated Trump, who, by creating a story that the election was stolen, revealed that his drinking bleach comment was a high water moment in his intellectual prowess. Then two months ago, on the day that Biden’s vote count was tabulated, he directed an insurrection on the Capitol. Five people were killed. Trump was impeached for the second time.

And things that couldn’t get worse, did, and things that could get better, did. We’re on a roll.

The Lesson

Hazel’s hair has grown long enough for her to wear it in a pony tail, or after Jason was through with her last evening, in pig tails. She was so proud, admiring herself in the mirror. She came to the dining room to show me the new look. I took my phone out of my pocket and asked her if I could take her photo. (I always ask, believing that taking someone’s photo without permission, especially close-up, is aggressive and intrusive. When denied permission, I put my camera away.)

Except last night. I asked her again. And again she shook her head, “no.” I tried bargaining with her. “Hazel,” I said, “When you want to play My Little Ponies, I always play with you. I even take “Tempest Shadow,” (even though her unicorn is broken, and Tempest Shadow is, according to Hazel, always mean.) Still no luck. I kept at it for another minute or so before Jason, overhearing this one-sided discussion, admonished me to stop. I did, recognizing too late that permission means just that, and “no” cannot be construed to mean anything but “no.”

Hazel saw a printed piece of paper on the table. She said, “What’s that?” Jadyne replied, “That’s Granddad’s.” Hazel picked it up, crumpled the paper before I could say anything, then threw it in the garbage. The feelings and responses of three year olds are as palpable as those in the rest of us, and Hazel was expressing herself, her disappointment in my behavior in a way that we both understood.

Later in the evening Jason wanted to clarify his response to me. I said, “I get it. I should have respected her feelings the first time she said ‘no.’” He went further. “In a patriarchal society in which we both represent what it means to be a male, men believe that their words, actions, behaviors, can persuade women either to be the person that men want them to be, or to behave as men want them to behave. Even in an interaction as small and apparently insignificant as the one you had with her, she has to know that what she says counts, that her feelings, her responses are valid and not to be discounted or ignored.”

That was unexpected. I took it in a broader context, that we simply need to respect someone else’s feelings and words, no matter how old that someone is. That’s true, but Jason narrowed it down to a man-woman interchange, knowing that he was preparing to arm her with assurance and self-confidence, knowing that the male superior, male-dominated society was something she would be facing, and not just in kindergarten.

The Ides of March. Addendum. Last night Jason was downstairs helping Hawthorn with his math. Hazel had just emerged from the tub and was putting on her pajama bottoms. She ran around the house, laughing, as only she can do. She stood at the top of the stairs leading to Hawthorn’s room, then pulled her pajama bottoms down to her ankles, then began to make her way down the stairs. Her pajama bottoms were like a pair of cloth handcuffs. I saw her just as she was about to make her first step, and realizing that her first step could well be her last, I reached out to her, grabbing her arm. She began screaming, as I was preventing her from doing what she thought she wanted to do. When Jason heard the screams he came out of Hawthorn’s room and reminded Hazel that not only was I not the bogeyman, but I had possibly just saved her life. The image of her standing there has visited me a dozen times today, and as I’m now typing this, it’s still there.

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash

In 1912 the Italian painter, Giacomo Balla painted his locomotive dachshund in a way that heralded a movement in art that I practice today in photography—dynamism.

Balla’s student, Umberto Boccioni, had written a manifesto on futurist painting, claiming that all things run, all things are rapidly changing. He continued, “On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves; their form changes like rapid vibrations.”

In Sebastian Smee’s article in the Washington Post about Balla he concludes, “It reaffirms the one great thing at the heart of Italian futurism; a sense of spiritual urgency, a demand that we free ourselves to see everyday things—including dog walks—not just with a fresh eye, but also a kind of mad euphoria.”

In the following images I tried to do in photography what Balla did with a brush, what Boccioni did in his manifesto, see things. common things, in ways that the eye misses, and when successful, discover and reveal new truths.

Colorado, 2018

A fast shutter speed can freeze the action, but a slower speed captures so much more, the feeling of motion and speed, all under control of the almost frozen image of a man controlling all that appears to be spiraling out of control under him. I love this image.

Kensington, 2006. My dog isn’t as interesting as Balla’s dachshund, but the everyday act of walking a dog is apropos,as is washing the dishes, greeting a neighbor, or putting air in a tire, where the everyday, seen through the eyes of a photographer or artist is translated.

A photographer reduces three dimensions to two, then arrests the motion in one quick click. He can reintroduce dynamism by drawing out that click, and the results convey the motion and commotion of sports in new unseen ways. Nowhere is that more evident in sports like rugby or football.

In those four images the motion is everywhere. Even the ball carrier and the motorcyclist are blurred to the point of abstraction. It isn’t about any one person, but a broader statement about the activity itself.

In contrast, photographers often slow down shutter speeds while the camera is still, such as in the following image of a waterfall, where the falling water, during a shutter speed of several seconds, doesn’t look at all like water. The adjacent rocks and walls provide in their sharpness a contrast to the blur of the water. This is something else entirely different, one that I may explore in a future post.

Iceland