New Normals

It was about ten years ago when I began limping. I didn’t notice it, but others did. I talked to my doc and he suggested physical therapy, a foam column that I would contort myself around, like a horizontal pole dancer of the wrong sex and age. Six months and no change. Time for an X-Ray. “You’re a candidate for a hip replacement,” said the doc. “A candidate? Is this an election?” “It will only get worse,” he said, showing me the x-ray.

I could understand. The “No space here” was not a good sign.

He scheduled me for a new hip in three months or so, then told me that he could alleviate the discomfort with a steroid. “But,” he added, “If something opens up in the meantime you can’t have the surgery because of the steroid.” I declined the shot. A spot opened up about three weeks later, and I found myself in a waiting room, ready for “My New Hip.”

I wish I had taken the socks home with me.

The new titanium hip was just the beginning of what has become for me (and everyone), “The New Normal.” Although the first hip I received became infected and the operation had to be redone two weeks later, and I had to have a picc line in my arm and take antibiotics for several months, in the end all was, and is, well. I walk an average of 15,000 steps a day, work in the garden almost daily and, even though my flexibility has diminished, can manage with one flesh, bone, and blood hip, the other, metal. I’m used to it. It became my first new normal.

Then Dr. Kami, my dentist, advised me that in sleep I grind my teeth, and he advised me to wear a night guard, a molded device that I put in every night when I turn out the lights, then leave in until I wake in the morning.

I’ve always had issues sleeping. I couldn’t imagine that I could possibly sleep with such a thing in my mouth. I dreaded the first night, believing that I would doubtless lie awake for hours on end, frustrated and unhappy. I didn’t. I adjusted. I sleep with it every night. I’m used to it. It’s a new normal.

I have often asked people to repeat themselves, as I either couldn’t hear them well, or sometimes make out what they’re saying. I went to Kaiser to have a hearing test. My ability to hear, especially at the higher registers, has almost completely disappeared. So now I have hearing aids.

The little brown pieces rest over my ears and hold the electtronics. The black rubber pieces go in my ears. The stray wire fits into my ear and serves as an anchor so even in windy conditions the hearing aid remains in place. I can hear much better not only when people talk, but at the higher registers. When I leave the refrigerator door open, it speaks to me in voice I can now understand. It’s a new normal. I’m used to both the hearing aids and so many new normals..

While we’re on the subject of hearing…Six or seven years ago I woke up with a strange sound in my ears, a buzzing, or the sound that cicadas make every seventeen years, although mine was 24-7. I hoped it would go away. It didn’t. I had hoped that this sound, which I only heard when I was awake, might be related to a sinus infection, and that when the infection cleared up the buzzing would go away. No luck. I had an MRI. Again no luck. I talked to doctors at Kaiser, and they were concerned that my inability to accept this new normal might lead to something worse, that I might hurt myself. I couldn’t get rid of the sound, nor could I concentrate or anything else while I was awake. I was consumed. I tried mental gymnastics, cognitive behavioral therapy, white noises, drugs (Atavan), and meetings with doctors.

I called my sister-in-law, Janet, a licensed MFCC, looking for suggestions. She said, “Oh yes, I have tinnitus in one of my ears. It doesn’t hurt me. I can still hear. I can still do everything I’ve ever been able to do. It’s just there.” I took note. At one point I thought of the many thousands of dollars I would give away in trade for silence. Time went by. The number of dollars I had set aside to trade went down. After six or eight months I learned that not only could I live with it, but that I had accepted that I will never have silence again, but like in Janet’s case, it doesn’t hurt me, and I can still hear (see above). I’m used to it. This new normal business is adding up. Much as I would prefer to go back to some of the old “new normals” I’ve come to accept that that won’t happen.

So there are a host of new normals. I’ve gotten used to most of them more easily than I had expected, but some, (tinnitus), were challenging. Without the benefit of the passing of time, support from family, and one doctor I met in San Francisco, it would have taken longer, but I know now that it still would have happened. We adapt. No doubt there are many new normals to come.

But here are some new normals that I can’t get used to: One, Trump’s continuing presence in the American consciousness with his parade of lies about a stolen election; two, the sheer number (60%) of Republican believers who accept those lies, these enablers who promote Trump’s continuing presence in the American psyche; three, clowns like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, two hopelessly incompetent ignorant pawns, shallow liars whose elections reflect the ignorance of those enablers; four, the absence of meaningful prosecution of all of the above. When Biden was elected we all thought, “Finally!” We have waited ten months for indictments, prosecutions, and punishment. Instead, the morons who run the anti-American party, the QAnon believers, and their subscribers continue unimpeded and unchecked on their mission to mock the values that so many died to uphold.

It is a “New Normal”, unlike any of the others, and it’s damned depressing. It’s a new normal to wake up every morning, knowing that public servants are threatened by death for fulfilling their duties, doing their jobs. It’s a new normal to think that parents believe that they are entitled to dictate what children can and should learn from educators. It’s a new normal to find that the political party that accuses everyone else of cheating is doing all the cheating. It’s a new normal that that political party discourages voting and passes laws to restrict the ability to vote for those who aren’t rich and white. It’s a new normal to discover the woeful absence of courage and honesty among the elected. My personal “new normals” weren’t reversible. Perhaps these are. Forever the optimist.

After "After"

Bruce Greyson, M.D., a psychiatrist, wrote a book about NDEs, or Near Death Experiences. Jason handed it to me. He said, “You might want to read this.” I looked at the Acknowledgements first. Bruce wrote, ‘“I then ran every word by my talented collaborator Jason Buchholz, who showed me how to bring the story alive and turn the book that I wanted to write into one that others might want to read.” Oh, so that’s why he had it. But that’s not why he wanted me to read it.

It began a half century ago when Holly, a college student who deliberately overdosed, was driven to the ER by her roomate, Susan. While Holly was still groggy and sleepy, Bruce and Susan left the ER, walked to the end of the corridor and carried on a conversation. The next day Bruce returned and mentioned to Holly that he had talked to Susan the previous night. “I know,” Holly said, “I saw you.” Holly recalled the questions Bruce asked and the answers Susan provided, then followed by mentioning that he (Dr. Greyson) was wearing the same tie he had on the previous night, and that it had a red stain on it, which it did because he had spilled spaghetti on it, a fact that wouldn’t have been possible for Holly to have known.

And thus began an intern’s (and soon to become a full-fledged doc) fifty year search to find, interview, and discuss what is now known as “near death experiences” from “experiencers”, people who have demonstrated truths that can’t be explained. After undergoing open heart surgery a patient described the surgeon shortly before he began to operate. “He stood at the end of the gurney, then began flapping his arms,” he said. He then asked, “and why were surgeons messing with my leg?” Yes, the surgeon, a Buddhist, admitted that he “flapped his arms before surgery” as he thought that it might expunge his surgical gown from any germs or bacteria, and the doctors messing with his leg?” They were stripping a vein out of his leg to be used to create a bypass graft for his heart. The patient was fully anesthetized and his eyes were taped shut so he couldn’t blink. He shouldn’t have been able to see anything. And yet he did. He saw it all. From the ceiling. The Buddhist surgeon affirmed the arm flapping part, then added, “I’m a Buddhist. There are things we don’t understand.”

Greyson’s colleagues were skeptical. Without scientific evidence his interviews were anecdotal, insufficient. Greyson remarked, “You can sweep these things under the carpet for only so long; at some point the furniture begins to topple over.” Despite trying to engineer these experiences by placing an unfamiliar “target” in the operating room, hoping that a heart patient might, when he was under an anesthetic, remember or take note of it. It didn’t happen.

Two parts resonated with me. First, Greyson clearly identifies that although the brain and the mind need each other, they are different from each other, too. For many of the experiencers, the mind continued even when the heart and brain waves flat-lined. It is unclear just how the two are connected, how they work with each other, but if there really is something to these experiences, then it’s notable that the mind continues independently of the brain. Second, almost all the experiences focus on light and love. People describe going through tunnels, becoming overwhelmed by brilliant light, appearing in a dimension where they feel overwhelming love—for themselves and outwardly for others. Traditional religions are subjugated by this love, as these near death experiences affected atheists, agnostics, Christians, and all others equally. No Jesus. No bearded deity on a golden throne. No Allah. Atheists began to believe something. Many who approached death’s door and returned lost their fear of dying. In almost all cases, experiencers’ lives changed immediately after the NDE, and all for the better.

I’ve never believed in heaven or hell. It’s comforting and affirming, though, to think that something continues. I remember an image that I picked up in a college class. A bird flying through the night flies into an open window in a house, then flies out another window. The house is our life here on earth. The bird is our soul, our mind, or the part of us that existed before we were born and remains after we die.

Greyson met the Dalai Lama who told him “about the difference between Western science and Buddhism. Both disciplines, he argued, are based on observation and logical deduction, and both give experience precedence over belief in their quest for the truth, But he added, "Western scientists seem to seek understanding about how the world works in order to change and control the natural world. This is the goal of most scientists—to gain mastery over our environment. Buddhists, on the other hand see understanding about how the world works in order to live more harmoniously with it. In other words, the goal of Buddhism is to coexist with nature rather than gain mastery over it, in order to reduce our suffering.”

I sent this blog to one of my high school English teachers, (Yes, we’re all still here), and she said it reminded her of lines she memorized in high school, a part of Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality.”

Fixing Stupid

From the Washington Post this morning, “At the site overlooking where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated nearly six decades ago, scores of QAnon believers outfitted with “Trump-Kennedy 2024” shirts, flags and other merchandise gathered. They forecast the president’s son John F. Kennedy Jr., who has been dead for over 20 years, would appear at that spot, emerging from anonymity to become Donald Trump’s vice president when the former president is reinstated. The prophecy foretold online, of course, did not come true.”

That the Post had to add the last sentence, “The prophecy…of course, did not come true.” Really? Did they have to add that? A pizza box has printed on its side, “Open box before eating pizza.” Drano advises us that it’s not a beverage.

It’s hard enough to believe that hundreds of people would gather together, holding signs and banners that promote an expected Trump/JFK jr. ticket in 2024, but that even when he—and dozens more dead celebrities, such as Kobe Bryant, Debbie Reynolds, Robin Williams, Dale Earnhardt et alia—failed to appear, the expected venue was changed to a Rolling Stones Concert in Dallas last night. Someone noted that none of the dead celebrities had filed for a parade permit.

A political scientist and conspiracy theory expert Joseph Uscinski, opined, “Those attracted to these fringe theories incubated by the QAnon movement have certain personality characteristics, such as having malevolent qualities or leaning toward anti-establishment beliefs.” They are utterly and hopelessly detached from reality, a collective band of QAnon extremists (if such a thing is possible), for whom, even the belief that Trump is battling a Satan-worshiping cabal that traffics children for sex, is too mainstream.

Try to fix that.

And try to fix this: “Let’s Go, Brandon!”

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Office

It’s a waste of time to explain how this became what it has become, but “Let’s Go, Brandon” is a not-so-secret code, now shared widely in the GOP, for, get this, “Fuck you, Biden!” Too cowardly to say “Fuck you, Biden!” out loud, choosing instead to embrace juvenalia with a secret code that insiders—and now everybody—knows means the same thing, morons like Marjorie and Jeff Duncan, another congressman, proudly share communion by demonstrating and expressing their maturity with this not-so-secret phrase. So clever! So funny!

Our Leaders.

Fixing Marjorie Greene and Jeff Duncan isn’t in the works. Whenever I go to a grocery store I look at the milk cartons, hoping to see her or Lauren’s face on one of them.

Here’s a footnote, added later. Adults strike back, co-opting the little Republican children’s game.

Fixing Toni Morrison.

Laura complained to the Fairfax County School Board that she was horrified by the “explicit material” contained in Toni’s masterpiece, Beloved. Laura was equally undone by the suffering that her child had to undergo when he read it, (he couldn’t finish it) an event that brought him nightmares. Reading Beloved is for many, an exercise in empathy, presumably what should be taught in an advanced placement English literature course for 17 and 18 year olds.

Glenn Youngkin, the winning GOP governor of Virginia, featured Laura and her comments in what turned out to be a Thanksgiving dinner for the voters of Virginia—the end of Beloved, the end of learning racial injustice and a host of uncomfortable truths, which he conveniently combined in a catchall phrase called “Critical Race Theory”, an expression that for him and his constituents (had he not disavowed it), might have lead to first to understanding, then perhaps to empathy for those who lived the horrors to whom Laura et fils have closed their eyes. Here, stupid people, dine on that. Now the parents have control of the schools, the inmates run the asylum, and patients can direct their doctors to give them Ivermectin.

And how can we forget a disinformation campaign purportedly engineered by Russia? “Russia is going bananas in its efforts to undermine a coronavirus vaccine being developed by Britain’s Oxford University — claiming it could turn people into monkeys, according to a report.” Of course it does. As Mr. Trump might have added, “Everybody knows that.”

The Real Problem.

Stupidity, like dust, breeds. Cyrus Vance, where are you? DOJ, where are you? Georgia, where are you? We know where Marjorie, Lauren Boebert, Glenn Youngkin, Jim Duncan, Paul Gosar, and Donald Trump are. Without prosecution these fuckwits will continue to destroy the country that we thought we knew, a country that bears little resemblance to the one outside our front doors now.

And BTW…Republican US Rep Lauren Boebert's campaign incorrectly stated she is a representative of Utah not Colorado in a report submitted with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. In an amended filing, submitted on Thursday, Boebert's was listed as being hailing from the neighbouring western state.

The Offense rests.

More than a Butterfly

The Pattons are awash with milkweed. Carol buys young plants at Annies’s Annuals, then covers them with mesh while they grow because the chemicals they’re exposed to in their early days are toxic to caterpillars. At some point the milkweed dies out, and when spring returns the new milkweed is set out for butterflies of any shape or color. Around here that’s the monarch. Here he is in a before shot:

Even though the bottom this image is blurry, I can’t tell which end is his tail. Meanwhile, these little guys travel all over the milkweed, climb down to the Pattons’ patio, crawl around wherever they may please. At some point they feed on their own “skin”, then begin to form a chrysalis, where they’ll spend their next week or two becoming something entirely different.

When the chrysalis is first formed it’s a luminous green. Little white dots line up near the top. The thread that prevents the chrysalis from falling is so tight that even after ferocious winds and seven inches of rain, this chrysalis and soon to be born butterfly below are none the worse for wear.

The day before the butterfly emerges the chrysalis turns black, then immediately before birth turns clear. Afterwards it immediately changes to white. Here a crack emerges between the top part of the shell, the sequence of little yellow dots, and the lower part that clearly shows the wings. The butterfly emerged a second or two after I took this image.

The butterfly has left his chrysalis behind and has begun to climb the milkweed, where he will stay for the next hour or so, opening his wings and pumping fluid into them.

It is during this pre-flight time that the wings receive the fluid that will enable them to open and close, then fly away. The remains of the chrysalis is in the lower left of this photograph.

A close-up image reveals the intricacies of his creation—the spotting, the delicate legs, hinged joints, and even closer the ribbed wings.

But I promised “more than a butterfly.” And here’s the “more” part. When the Pattons told me that the butterfly was about to emerge I asked four year old Hazel to come watch it with me. She turned down the invitation. “I want to watch videos,” she said. Videos. Videos!

Jason turned to me and said, “she declined.” The history behind Hazel making that decision began a year or so ago. Rachel had just dropped Hazel off at our house, and I was charmed by what Rachel had done with Hazel’s hair.

“Hazel, can I take your photograph?” I asked. “No,” she replied. Surprised, I continued. “I like what your mom has done for your hair. I thought you might want to see it, too.”
”No.”

“Hazel,” I added, “I always play ‘Pretty Ponies’ with you when you ask. I’m just asking you to do something for me.” “No,” she replied firmly,

Later that evening Jason mentioned that I had been out of bounds. “I want her to feel that her voice counts,” he said, “and that in the male-oriented society that we live in, men, who control just about everything else, have trouble dealing with empowered women.. She has a say, she has control, and I want her to know that she does.” I was chastened. I accepted all that Jason said and was doing for her. I was impressed.

Later that evening Hazel walked by the dining room table and saw a piece of paper on it, “What’s that?” she asked. Jadyne responded, “That’s Granddad’s.” Hazel picked it up, crumpled it up and dropped it into the wastebasket. Yes indeed, she had a say, and I would never ignore her voice and her feelings again.

Turning the clock back another twenty-five years. We were spending Christmas at Lake Tahoe. Jennifer claimed that girls (children) should be able to make many or most of the decisions that control their welfare.. Jason countered by saying, “You mean that eight year old Lindsey should be able to have sex if she so decided?” The absurdity of the argument wasn’t lost on any of us.

While we want to empower our children, respect their feelings and their voices, there is a line between empowering and the decisions parents absolutely need to make for their children. Hazel voices her own thoughts and is given respect, but neither Hazel or Lindsey can make all their own decisions. Parenting requires knowing the difference between empowering them and taking control, disregarding the child’s feelings at the time. Those decisions need to be made for them and in spite of them.

When she chooses videos over watching a butterfly being born, she should lose that voice. She’s forgotten the video, which, of course, she could have watched at any time. Would she have forgotten the emergence of the monarch? It’s time to say, “No. You’re going out with Granddad.”

Land of Medicine Buddha

California is plumb full of hiking trails. Today we drove 90 minutes to the Land of Medicine Buddha, fifteen minutes south of Santa Cruz, a Buddhist retreat carved into the Santa Cruz mountains, a hop, step, and a jump beyond the little town of Soquel.

After paying our respects to one of the seated Buddhas and taking a spin at the prayer wheel, we opted for the six mile loop, a trail that took

us up the side of a mountain, then three miles later, a sloping descent to a canyon nestled by redwood trees and a barely surviving stream, which we hope will become much healthier in the days to come.

View fullsize

There were plenty of places in the forest to stop and meditate…

and donate…

We found our way up the mountainside, past a stupa under construction, and the headwaters of Six Mile Loop, which began by taking us straight up the mountain. I was already regretting signing up for six miles, thinking that this initial climb was as steep as I could manage. I stopped several times to catch my breath, rest my legs, then continue up.

We met several hikers along the loop, some almost as old as we are, many with dogs. In the living quarters of the Buddhist retreat there are several rooms labeled “dog friendly, as dogs, being sentient beings, are treated with respect and are provided with food and comfort.

No doubt the several butterflies and hummingbirds (not pictured) that flitted around the grounds were treated with similar respect, as is all living beings.

1. profitable land

2. safety of the family

3. deceased family members going to heaven

4. those alive living longer and healthier lives

5. aspirations being fulfilled

6. no flood, fire, or similar disaster

7. losses and failures being avoided for the whole family

8. family members being freed from nightmares

9. being protected by celestial beings wherever they go

10. frequently encountering holy connections.

    And while we don’t know or understand what “Ksitigarbha Pure Land” means, these people who love the land and all living beings, who are compassionate and loving, are all we need to know.

Several redwood trees had fallen, requiring us to climb over their carcasses. Erosion in the banks underneath the trees hint at the next ones to take the plunge.

Opossums are honored as well as the rare and nearly extinct “telephone booth.”

We walked mostly in silence, taking in the spiritual benefits of being in such a lovely place on such a beautiful day, recognizing how fortunate we are to be alive, to be able to witness such beauty, to have our health, and to have each other.

Birth of a Butterfly

Jim and Carol Patton have a garden full of milkweed. They’re currently hosting three chrysalises, although at noon they had four. The monarch’s chrysalis begins as a vibrant green for several days, then darkens, becomes black, then clears just as the butterfly emerges. I noticed that the one hanging from a plant stand had turned black earlier today. I went over to their house three times, then when I returned for the fourth time I knew the time was ripe. I planned to sit and wait, thinking that I would have enough time to cross the street, grab my copy of “The Great Influenza”, then return and read to await the emergence.

Just then I saw movement, the bottom of the chrysalis broke open, and what was destined to become a monarch butterfly dropped to the patio.

Birth + three seconds

After about fifteen seconds or so he turned over and began walking. I thought that he had emerged too early, that he wasn’t fully formed, that only one set of wings had developed, the rest of his body, just tissue. He’ll never fly, I thought.

Birth + a minute

A minute later he found another plant stand, began climbing and waited while the sun dried his wings. Meanwhile, what I thought was only tissue, as pictured above, became wings.

Birth + three minutes.

I put my finger out above his legs. He climbed up my hand, and I placed him on a nearby flower. From past experience I knew that he would cling there motionless, pumping fluid into his wings, a process that takes between an hour or two. As the wings filled with fluid he would open and close them several times before flying away.

I’d seen enough. I took a few more images, then returned to get ready for Game #5 of the Dodgers-Giants division series in two hours and forty-nine minutes, but who’s counting?

Carol texted. He spent almost three hours getting ready for the next part of his life. The monarchs may be endangered, but the Pattons and their milkweed are doing their fair share.

Birth + 5 minutes

Birth + 6 minutes

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