REdwood-1421

That was my phone number when I was growing up. Smitty’s was JEfferson 3592. My uncle Rowland’s was AVon 0229. Soon a “1” was added, so we became Redwood 1-1421. Then the names went. Just 731-1421. Now we need to add the area code as a prefix, even before the number. So now I’m 510, then three digits, then four more. Those were the days when phones were, well, phones.

Do people still talk on their phones? Most of us use them to browse the internet, send text messages, and oh yes, take photographs. Point and shoot cameras have disappeared. All hail the mighty phone, er, camera!

People know they can’t provide health care to the sick or injured. They call on doctors for that. They know they can’t design and build a church. They rely on architects and construction companies. But arm them with a phone, and by grab, they’re bonafide photographers. Professionals hear “that If I had your camera…” Yes? Then what? As a professional photographer I know the answer to that: “Your images would still suck.” Fifty years of experience, classes, and understanding count for something. too And yet we’re reminded, “If I had your camera…”

Well, now you do. The following images were all taken with an iPhone. The phone can take wonderful images. And besides, since we always have it with us, we can capture what Henri Cartier-Besson called “the decisive moment” every day. No excuses.

When the morning sun creates a shadow that surrounds her and lights her hair. When the girl in the stroller looks up and stares at the camera, her face a mystery of all that lies behind it.

It’s everyday stuff. A delivery truck driver on break in his truck. It’s the composition, the colors that work together.

It’s children on Halloween. Cousins, one an engine, the other an engineer. I photograph children at their level, not as an adult looking down. Expressions make it work. It’s a sleeping passenger on BART, occupying five seats making others stand. It’s people being people.

And animals being animals. The cat defines what it is to be a cat. The dog, tired and hot, waits patiently for his guardian in an Apple store. In the second image, the position of the phone tells the story, contrasting the softness of the fur with the hardness of the floor.

Some portraits are stronger in black and white.

Brie was a clerk in a neighborhood grocery store. She kindly obliged in this window light portrait.

I followed the woman across the street, grabbing my phone in the crosswalk. We wanted to buy a suitcase in a luggage store and were surprised by the parrot who lives in the clerk’s hair.

On Friday mornings I take a walk along Wildcat Road that borders Tilden Park. Some sunrises are better than others.

Our grandchildren. I try to avoid smiles. In the first image on this post Hazel is happy, throwing leaves in the October sunshine. In these two there is so much that we can’t understand behind the face. Go to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. No one smiles. It’s the “face in repose".”

Some photographs beg to be taken. I volunteer at the Dorothy Day House, fixing breakfast for the homeless. One of our clients.

Herschel Walker complained “Don’t we have enough trees?” We don’t. We don’t have enough flowers either.

Some phone images are easy. I took the one on top through the windshield as we were driving 75 mph on “The Loneliest Road in America”, Route #50 through Nevada. I loved the contrast of the asphalt with the barren grasses on either side. Once again, the leading line of the highway takes you straight down to the snow covered mountains.

The second image, though an iPhone photograph, wasn’t as easy. The ship traveled down the Straits of Magellan to one of the many glaciers that line the waterway.

We pass by flowers everyday. The photographer’s role is to see them in ways that others don’t. The naked ladies at the top were backlit by the rising sun and show their colors in contrast to the shadows behind them. The flowers at the bottom gain interest through the water and the web.

I’m mostly interested in faces. Matthew is one of the Dorothy Day breakfast clients. He entertains us with the harp. He’s 77 and lives on the streets. I saw the woman on the right in Peet’s coffee shop. I told her that she had one of the most interesting faces I’d ever seen, then asked her if I could take her photograph. She very kindly obliged, and I thanked her.

Stuff happens in front of you. Hot car, San Francisco.

More everyday stuff.

The neighbor’s turkey showing me his molting.

Another sunrise along Wildcat Canyon Road. I love the arching shadows of the trees. The yellow lines lead into the light.

Another image through the windshield. Morocco.

Mother and Child Reunion

Colors for colors sake

Ending this post with one of my favorite Covid masks. Selfie mit Covid.

Fall League

We went to Sacramento yesterday to watch eight year old Kennedy play baseball. The players in the Fall League don’t have practices, but they show up for games. Some have never played before, and it’s a challenge for them . And for their coaches, too. Baseball is complicated, and the skills required to throw accurately, hit a pitched ball, and catch take years to learn. The players walk, steal second, third, and home, all on wild pitches or erratic throws. Occasionally a batter makes contact and puts a ball into play. Rarely.

Yesterday Kennedy pitched, played catcher, and batted twice, walking once and striking out once.

Kennedy understands the game and is developing the skills to play it well. We were disappointed that he didn’t get a hit, but that’s baseball.

Kennedy wasn’t the star of the show, though. We noticed early in the game that Kyle, one of the opponents, was paying no attention to the game. He lay down in right field, he looked at his grandmother, he played with his hat. Kyle took no interest in baseball. I followed him around with my camera. Here’s an eight year old boy, who played right field, shortstop, and left field for an interminable hour and a half.

Priceless.

A Drop in the Bucket

September is the third driest month in California. Because it follows more than 150 consecutive rain-free days it seems even drier than that. Indeed, before these precious few drops fell, we had a week of temperatures well over 100 degrees, more typical than rainfall. Last weekend parts of the Bay Area welcomed a few drops here and there. Unfortunately, here, only a few drops, there, many more. Still, it was comforting , however, brief, from the continuing drought.

Actual rain, dripping off our roof. No, really. This is rain!

And if that doesn’t set you free, Mark Knopfler sings “Seattle”. “You’ve got to love the rain, And we both love the rain.”

The drama that we lacked in the day was made up for that night, A camera on my desktop faces west, changing its view of the Bay Area every minute. The clouds of the parting storm inspired me to drive up the hill to my favorite overlook.

The next day promised more interesting weather, so I drove to the end of Point Reyes, then back to South Beach for the high surf.

Looking east

“I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

T.S. Eliot…”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_

This is Alli. She lives in Bolinas. “These are the best waves in weeks,” she said. They were absent chariy.. She didn’t drown.

Who Was That?

One of the pieces in Roger Angell’s book of essays, This Old Man, focuses on celebrities that he encountered from time to time in New York. Arthur Rubenstein lived across the street from him, so he didn’t count. He saw Nixon at Yankees games. He chatted with Harry Truman while walking down the street. Paul Newman was in a grocery store. His list is a lot longer than mine, but I thought I’d try, too.

My father, an Episcopal clergyman. agreed that his church would sponsor and host my local Cub Scouts pack. At the age of eight I had only one hero—Ted Kluszewski, the muscle-bound first baseman (with bulging biceps so large that he had to cut off the sleeves of t-shirts), of the Cincinnati Reds, (Alas, Davy Crockett was dead). At one meeting Big Klu, Roy McMillan, and Johnny Temple, three of the four starting infielders for the Reds, surprised us by simply showing up at a Cub Scout meeting, answering questions, talking baseball. After the meeting ended my dad asked me into his office. Standing there, all 6’2” 225 lbs, towered Big Klu himself. He reached down to shake my hand, autograph baseballs, and prevent me from collapsing.

Years went by before I encountered celebrities again. In 1963 we moved to Burlingame, CA, which is adjacent to the tony hillside village of Hillsborough, where lived Bing Crosby. I saw him in a local Burlingame grocery store. Annoyed at me for disturbing him, he nevertheless autographed my grocery list. I didn’t keep it.

Back to baseball. In 1965 I went to Crosley Field to watch the Reds play the Mets. Jim Maloney, the Reds pitcher, threw a no-hitter through ten innings, then lost the game in the 11th on a Johnny Lewis home run. (Never mind that we sat behind the Beau Brummels, of “Laugh Laugh” fame). That’s not the story.

The next day I grabbed my window seat at the Greater Cincinnati airport, waiting for the five hour flight back to San Francisco. I was puzzled that the plane was mostly full of men, some standing in the aisle, talking to each other, some leaning over the seats, chatting with the men behind them. A man sat down next to me in the center seat. I looked at him and asked, “Are you Warren Spahn?” He answered, “Yes, I am.” I continued, “Are these the Mets?” “Yes,” he replied. Instinctively, I asked for his autograph. “Sure,” he answered. I had nothing to write on. No paper. I looked through the pocket in the seat in front of me searching for a pad, a slip of paper, something. I found this:

Trans World Airlines Wow! An autograph of the greatest left-handed pitcher in baseball history!

I asked, “Is Casey on this flight?” Mr. Spahn answered, “He’s in first class.” I excused myself, grabbed my motion discomfort bag, charged through the curtains, found Casey Stengel in an aisle seat, turned the bag over, and repeated the request.

I have this on my wall. I turn it over every few months. It’’s lasted a lot longer than Trans World Airlines. I was willing to give it up if Cooperstown wanted it, so I wrote to them. “We loved the story,” they said, “but no thanks.”

After I graduated from UC I drove back to California, meeting my brother and sister-in-law in Texas, then continuing on to New Mexico. We stopped at Santa Fe at a picturesque hotel downtown. My sister-in-law pointed to two men engaged in conversation. “Look”, she said, “There’s Anthony Quinn!” I began heading over to the two men, my trusty graduation present of a Nikon FTN and 50 mm f1.4 lens around my neck. Suddenly I realized just as they took notice of me, that I wasn’t certain which of them was Anthony Quinn. “Mr. Quinn, may I take your photograph?” I asked to the space between them, hoping for redemption. Just then Anthony Quinn said to his friend, “I think he wants to take your picture,” “Oh no,” I responded, silently congratulating myself for escaping total idiocy. He stood in the lobby, arms crossed, as I tried to hold the camera still with Kodachrome 25 in the camera.

1969

Not done with Anthony Quinn yet. Many years later my mother-in-law told us an unbelievable story about her cousin Larry, a retired Bay Area dentist. “When he was a boy he was in the movies,” she said, “Ducky Louie.” We took no notice of this, knowing that we were as likely to hear truths as falsehoods.

By then Google was in full operation, and we googled Ducky Louie. OMG. Here’s Ducky in action in Back to Bataan. (We saw it on Netflix).

But get this. At the end of the movie, Ducky is riding in a troop transport full of Japanese soldiers. They spot John Wayne leading American troops below and plan to ambush them. Ducky grabs the steering wheel and forces the transport to go over a cliff, killing all the Japanese soldiers. Ducky is thrown out of the truck and is rescued by John Wayne, in whose arms he dies. Ducky died in John Wayne’s arms! What an item on a CV! Oh yes, Anthony Quinn was in that one, too. So add, Ducky to my list of famous run-ins.

I had a portrait photography business. At Ursuline High School’s Father-Daughter dance I posed couples before the background, made sure that their hands were proper, that their weight shifted to the back leg, that they were standing at 45 degree angles to the camera (you look thinner), that their eyes were directed into the camera, their heads tilted slightly to the middle, and their wrist corsages centered. A father, his two daughters, and the grandfather came in, so I spent just a little more time with four than I would have with two. Here they are.

The Father-Daughter Dinner Dance.

A teacher standing next to me turned and said, “Did you realize that was Joe Montana?” OMG. Once again, I didn’t. I spent too much time making sure that they were posed properly to notice who they were. But here’s where the story gets better.

These were the film days. Jadyne was taking the orders, and everyone in line got an 8x10, two 5x7s, and 8 wallets. Joe wanted an extra 8x10 for his father. Jadyne explained that we couldn’t add individual photos to orders. The lab was directed to print the same photo package for every negative. She told Joe that he could have a second package for $20. He declined. Knowing who he was and pissed that he was so tight, she asked him for his name. He replied, “Montana.” “Oh,” she answered acidly, “just like the state?”

I photographed the wedding in Sonoma of a record producer. I was struck by the wedding singer, a man who had such a beautiful voice. After the wedding I told the groom how impressed I was with the singer. “Where did you find him?” I asked. “That’s Aaron Neville,” he said. He sang Ave Maria. I had a copy of it on tape. At home. I’m an idiot.

Well, at least I knew the next two celebrities, people I rode in elevators with. Richard Brautigan, the author of Trout Fishing in America was the first. He wrote that he always wanted to end a book with “mayonnaise.” He did. He also ended himself with a .45. The other is still with us. I was on a local school board. I had business in Sacramento. So did the mayor of Carmel, Clint Eastwood. There were women in the elevator with us. I made little progress with them. At least I knew who he was.

And I certainly knew who James Brown was. He was staying at the Hyatt House in Burlingame facing a paternity suit brought by the president of the James Brown Fan Club. Apparently, she took her position seriously. I was a room service waiter at the hotel, and in 1969 the $20 tip he gave me every time I brought him a slice of apple pie was a fortune.

I also knew who Walter Mondale was in 1984. Major democratic donors had been invited to Congressman Doug Bosco’s house on the Russian River for an evening with Walter Mondale. I took photographs of them with the donee, Mr. Mondale. Again, this was in the film days. I hated asking Mondale to wait while I loaded film into my camera so I asked a man leaning against the wall to hold my camera. “I can’t,” he said. “I have to keep my hands free.” Later that evening Mondale came out to the deck where I was enjoying the evening air, and he began talking about his boyhood in Minnesota. I loved my job.

I also knew Tommy Smothers. I had met Richard Arrowood when he was the winemaker at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood. He founded his own eponymously named winery and made wines for Tom and Dick Smothers, who grew grapes in the area, all bottled as Smothers Brothers Wines. I photographed Richard’s daughter’s wedding, and Tommy Smothers was not only a guest, but the evening’s entertainment, too.

We sat together at dinner and he commiserated with me about an unfortunate experience I had at the ceremony. The minister made it clear that I was not to take any photographs during the wedding, as it would detract from the sanctity of the service. So, I didn’t. Meanwhile, guests kept popping up and down like “Whack-A-Moles”, shooting images throughout. He said, “I was told the same thing when my brother Dick was married.” I asked, “What did you do?” He said, “As the best man, I entered the church in a suit that was covered with flashing lightbulbs, carrying a yo-yo in each hand.”

Then at a Yankees-Dodgers World Series game at Dodger Stadium I sat next to Billy Crystal. “Who’s that?” i asked my friend. “He’s an actor in a TV show called “Soap.” To be fair he hadn’t really made it yet

My neighbor Mike Dunbar was the defensive coordinator for the Cal Bears football team. He gave me free tickets. I drove him home after the post-game feast. I saw this man at more than one game and was puzzled about why he attracted so many young girls.

Adam Duritz, the lead singer of Counting Crows, an alumnus with a large and very open wallet.

It gets better. My teenage life changed when I heard “Walk, Don’t Run” by the Ventures. Paul Simons and I would buy their albums, learn the tunes, and add 12 new songs to our set list. I had the opportunity to see them play in Berkeley, talked my way into their dressing room, was photographed standing in the middle with them. Alas! Photo fail.

It gets worse. My dad stopped in Corbin, Kentucky on our way to Florida in 1955 at a restaurant called Sanders’ Café. I was served by the owner, a colorful figure in a white suit and goatee.

The coup de grace is as follows. My Kensington friend, David Anderson, is a cardiologist who treated another doctor, another cardiologist, until the patient died. His widow, Rita Moreno, was a guest at David’s sixtieth birthday party eleven years ago.

Rita Moreno, 2011. She was 79. She made copies of this or another image and used them at her 80th birthday party.

As we all sang “Happy Birthday” to David, Rita pretended to be Marilyn Monroe with JFK, singing Happy Birthday to David while wrapping herself around his legs. When I saw this I said, “Hey, it’s my birthday, too!"

I had asked the host if my gay neighbors could come, too. Rita is an icon, I’d been told, in the gay community. At the end of the evening Rita found she had no way to get home. Nick and Russ gladly obliged.

And last. As the English Department Chair, I had the honor of taking each of the school’s four classes to San Francisco to the ACT Theater. The staff knew me, appreciated the numbers of people I had brought to the theater. Coming to a play with Jadyne I was asked if we’d like a private audience in the dressing room of the star, Vincent Price. This was before the maniacal laughter he left on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” So glad I knew who he was.

P.S. The celebrity I never met. I left teaching in June, 1980. The fall class included Robert O’Brien, Trump’s National Security Advisor. Had I stayed I would have had him in freshman English. I would have suggested that he not to take the job thirty-nine years later.

Mammoth Lakes

Just returned from a mini vacation at Tamarack Lodge on Twin Lakes two or three miles from Mammoth Lakes, the southern Sierra ski destination for south California. The clean air, the 8000’ altitude, abundant wine, excellent food, and good company were a wonderful getaway.

Sunrise

Hidden at the back of the first image was this waterfall..

Inquisitive neighbors

Morning mist.

Devil’s Postpile is a forty-five minute drive from Mammoth Lakes. From Wikipedia, “Devils Postpile National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located near Mammoth Mountain in Eastern California. The monument protects Devils Postpile, an unusual rock formation of columnar basalt, “all closely and perfectly fitted together like a vast mosaic.”[3] The monument encompasses 798 acres (323 ha) and includes two main attractions: the Devils Postpile formation and Rainbow Falls, a waterfall on the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River. In addition, the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail merge into one trail as they pass through the monument.[4] Excluding a small developed area containing the monument headquarters, visitor center and a campground, the National Monument lies within the borders of the Ansel Adams Wilderness.[5]

Devil’s Postpile

Devil’s Postpile from the other side of the San Joaquin river. Roughly six miles of round=trip hiking from the ranger station. Sandwiched in between the hikes is 101’ Rainbow Falls, still roaring in the midst of the drought,

Watching and waiting while we ate lunch.

Our friends Tom and Andrea joined us for the four days.

On our last day we took the gondola to the top of Mammoth Mountain at 11,000 feet, then hiked halfway back to the lodge at the bottom. A ski paradise in the winter, a bike park in the summer.

At 5 am Jadyne and I stood in our pajamas on the deck of our cabin, admiring the night sky, only to discover on the 45 degree morning that we had locked ourselves out. Fortunately, Tom kept his phone on; mine was in my pocket.

Mammoth Lakes is thirty miles south of Lee Vining on #395, the north-south artery on the eastern side of the Sierra. Tioga Pass road cuts across the mountains, is closed in the winter. Leaving Lee Vining and climbing west in the early morning affords magnificent views.

The Rest of the Story

Another post I found today from Rebecca Solnit, one of my favorite writers, focuses on rest.

We moved to Kensington eighteen years ago. In 2004 I essentially retired from studio work—no more senior portraits, proms, families, weddings, all the day-to-day stuff that kept the lightbulbs on, the water flowing, for the previous twenty-seven years. At first the newness of a new house, a new neighborhood, a new city (or more appropriately, a new unincorporated village) kept both of us busy, walking everywhere, visiting Open Houses on Sundays, trying new restaurants. We still had Dozens of Muslins, our background rental business, keeping us occupied during the school year.

Not long after that Jason came to work for and with us, then took over the business and the backgrounds to Elm Court, six or seven minutes away. So by 2009 there was no shooting, no proms, no backgrounds to rent, no nothing. I sold some of my cameras, then some lights, then a few accessories, keeping enough to restart my business, should I choose. I didn’t choose. Or, I should say, I chose not to go back into business.

That was thirteen years ago. I was faced with real retirement, waking up every morning with an empty calendar. We both spent some of the day exercising; we had our house painted; we redid the landscaping. But we both looked for more. Jadyne continued as a hospice volunteer. I began working one-half day a week as a volunteer at the Berkeley Food Pantry. We volunteered, driving Meals on Wheels, spending time with UC grad students from other countries who wanted to improve their English, tutoring middle school children, and Jadyne continued her hospice work, which she had begun in Santa Rosa.

Still there were hours to fill, only we came to understand that you can fill hours with silence, with reading, with just closing your eyes, with doing nothing, and that doing nothing doesn’t mean that nothing changes. Things happen in silence and in quiet. Good things.

Mary has it down—whether the child’s midday nap, the resting dog, or the hours I sit quietly with a book in my hands. I drop it sometimes, or just put it down, close my eyes, and let something not part of my active mind take over.

I had never thought of the mating call of the bed, that it’s the sensual experience that Lynne describes, but there are times, to be sure, when it’s #1 on my To Do list.

Beyond the sensual and restorative powers of rest there is the time when we pull our stockings down, hike up our skirt, and cross our arms in front of our eyes to keep out the sun.

The immeasurable restorative powers of rest at work. “Seeds germinating underground”

There’s rest and there’s rest. At a Trump rally there’s no doubt that the dozing tattooed lady is finding the true meaning of “nothing.”

Some seeds never germinate.

When Bad People Do Good Things

My Facebook friend, Rebecca Solnit, had this to say about Liz Cheney: Apparently a lot of adults have trouble with the concept--and reality--that just as good people can do bad things, so bad people can do good things, and I give you Liz Cheney, who after what appears to be a lifetime of doing or at least supporting very bad things, including her war-crimes-profiteer father, is doing a good thing and paying for it”

Solnit continues, I get the impression people want everyone to be slotted into a tidy pigeonhole so they don't have to keep thinking and sifting, want people to be all good or all bad, and I certainly see a lot of tidying up of the record--excusing sins, ignoring virtues-- to achieve that goal (and a whole other tome could be written about the condemnation of people in the past for having the values and views of their time rather than ours).

Many on the left despise Liz Cheney for decades of political positions that the left finds unacceptable. But over the past several months she has displayed a courage that stands by itself. largely because everyone else in her party lacks it.

August 17th. The last of the primary elections took place yesterday. Lynn Cheney, seeking the nomination for congresswoman from Wyoming was trounced by an election denier, someone who Donald Trump supported. In her concession speech she said,

“A little over a year ago, I received a note from a Gold Star father. He said to me, 'Standing up for truth honors all who gave all,' and I have thought of his words every single day since then. I've thought of them because they are a reminder of how we must all conduct ourselves. We must conduct ourselves in a way that is worthy of the men and women who wear the uniform of this nation. And in particular, of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

This is not a game. Every one of us must be committed to the eternal defense of this miraculous experiment called America and at the heart of our democratic process—our elections. They are the foundational principle of our Constitution.

A few years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.

No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect, and I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty. Our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections. And tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over but now the real work begins.

The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history. Speaking at Gettysburg of the great task remaining before us, Lincoln said, 'That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.'

As we meet here tonight that remains our greatest and most important task. Most of world history is a story of violent conflict of servitude and suffering. Most people in most places have not lived in freedom. Our American freedom is a providential departure from history. We are the exception. We have been given the gift of freedom by God and our founding fathers. It is said that the long arc of history bends toward justice and freedom. That's true, but only if we make it bend.

Today, our highest duty is to bend the arc of history to preserve our nation and its blessings to ensure that freedom will not perish, to protect the very foundations of this constitutional republic. Never in our nation's 246 years have we seen what we saw on January 6. Like so many Americans, I assumed that the violence and the chaos of that day would have prompted a united response, a recognition that this was a line that must never be crossed. A tragic chapter in our nation's history, to be studied by historians to ensure that it can never happen again.

But instead, major elements of my party still vehemently defend those who caused it. At the heart of the attack on January 6 is a willingness to embrace dangerous conspiracies that attack the very core premise of our nation. That lawful elections reviewed by the courts when necessary, and certified by the states and Electoral College, determined who serves as president.

If we do not condemn the conspiracies and the lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct, and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.

Today, as we meet here, there are Republican candidates for governor who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results. We have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. And we have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and suggest that states decertify their results.

Our nation is barreling, once again, towards crisis, lawlessness and violence. No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility, where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future.

Our nation is young in the history of mankind and yet we're the oldest democracy in the world. Our survival is not guaranteed. History has shown us over and over again how poisonous lies destroyed three nations. Over the last several months, in the January 6 hearings, the American people have watched dozens of Republicans, including the most senior officials working for President Trump in the White House, the Justice Department and on his campaign—people who served President Trump loyally—testify that they all told him the election was not stolen or rigged and there was no massive fraud. That's why President Trump and others invent excuses, pretexts for people not to watch the hearings at all. But no citizen of this republic is a bystander. All of us have an obligation to understand what actually happened. We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

To believe Donald Trump's election lies, you must believe that dozens of federal and state courts who ruled against him, including many judges he appointed, were all corrupted and biased, that all manner of crazy conspiracy theories stole our election from us and that Donald Trump actually remains president today. As of last week, you must also believe that 30 career FBI agents, who have spent their lives working to serve our country, abandoned their honor and their oath and went to Mar-a-Lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat, but instead with a secret plan to plant fake incriminating documents in the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie.

Donald Trump knows that voicing these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on January 6, and it's now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further, yet he and others continue purposely to feed the danger. Today, our federal law enforcement is being threatened, a federal judge is being threatened. Fresh threats of violence arise everywhere. And despite knowing all of this, Donald Trump recently released the names of the FBI agents involved in the search. That was purposeful and malicious. No patriotic American should use these threats or be intimidated by them. Our great nation must not be ruled by a mob provoked over social media.

Our duty as citizens of this republic is not only to defend the freedom that's been handed down to us. We also have an obligation to learn from the actions of those who came before, to the stories of grit and perseverance of the brave men and women who built and saved this union. In the lives of these great Americans, we find inspiration and purpose.

In May of 1864, after years of war and a string of reluctant Union generals, Ulysses S. Grant met General Lee's forces at the Battle of the Wilderness. In two days of heavy fighting, the Union suffered over 17,000 casualties. At the end of that battle, General Grant faced a choice. Most assumed he would do what previous Union generals had done and retreat. On the evening of May 7, Grant began to move. As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column. He rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road. And there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north back towards Washington and safety, Grant turns his horse south toward Richmond and the heart of Lee's army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory. Lincoln and Grant and all who fought in our nation's tragic Civil War, including my own great-great-grandfathers, saved our Union. Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down the generations. We must not idly squander what so many have fought and died for.

America has meant so much to so many because we are the best hope of freedom on earth. Last week in Laramie, a gentleman came up to me with tears in his eyes. 'I'm not an American,' he said, 'But my children are. I grew up in Brazil. I know how fragile freedom is, and we must not lose it here.' A few days ago, here in Jackson, a woman told me that her grandparents had survived Auschwitz. They found refuge in America. She said she was afraid that she had nowhere to go if freedom died here.

Ladies and gentlemen, freedom must not and will not die here.

We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6, that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.

This is a fight for all of us together. I'm a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideals on which my party was founded. I love its history. And I love what our party has stood for. But I love my country more.

So, I ask you tonight to join me. As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together—Republicans, Democrats and independents—against those who would destroy our republic. They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this earth. And with God's help, we will prevail. Thank you all. God bless you. God bless Wyoming. God bless the United States of America.”

Idiot congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, "A clear message is being sent about what the Republican Party needs to be. It’s not anything like liar Liz Cheney, who is nothing like Abraham Lincoln."

And therein lies the stand off.

Ghosts of Gold Mountain

Part I

Left a week ago to “Donna”, the two bedroom condo owned by son John and wife Kim, the back seat filled with their two offspring, Kennedy and Lilly, ages 8 and 10. L and K were off to five days of Tahoe Donner camp, full weekdays with hiking, boating, swimming, and miscellaneous activities organized and run by teenage counselors, one of whom, after being assigned to the 3 and 4 year olds, confessed that she hated camp because “the 3 and 4 year olds can’t do anything!” Presumably that feeling wasn’t shared by L and K’s counselors, as 8 and 10 year olds can do all kinds of stuff.

Tahoe Donner Marina at the east end of Donner Lake.

While the kids were camping Jadyne and I spent our mornings on short hikes along the many trails that pass through the land owned by the Tahoe Donner community. Only in the mornings, as day time temperatures were in the nineties.

The condo is across the street from nature trails that run along a creek.

Truckee Thursday. Beginning at 5 pm merchants, tourists, the CHP, and food trucks pour into Old Truckee to assault both the wary and the unwary with loud music, children’s screams, and barking dogs. There was no escape, not even by consuming overpriced hot dogs, tacos, and in the case of the lady in front, a root beer float.

Truckee Thursday’s Best of the Best.

Part II

While Lilly and Kennedy were finishing up their week at camp, Jadyne went on a nearby hike. I drove over Donner Summit, then down two miles to Sugar Bowl, where miles of abandoned railroad tunnels beckon hikers, and as you can see, masters of graffiti.

The story of the creation of these tunnels is found in Gordon Chang’s book Ghosts of Gold Mountain. “From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would suffer a different kind of death—a historical one, as they were pushed first to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.”

The story is brutal. Camps were smothered by avalanches, leaving no trace of the workers who lived there. For so many it was fool’s gold, as their dreams became nightmares. No journals or documents of their lives have been found. Walking through these tunnels connects the hiker to the painstaking efforts, mostly by hand, pick, and shovel, of the Chinese who preceded him.

Today it’s a place for selfies…

graffiti…

The bright light at the end of this tunnel looked as if a train was barreling towards me.

A lone hiker in the distance, caught by the sun’s rays.

The 5th of July

Not everyone was able to celebrate yesterday. We helped provide a celebration of sorts at one of California’s numerous residential neighborhoods. We volunteer at the Dorothy Day Center in Berkeley. Every Tuesday we pick up two or three hundred day old doughnuts from Happy Doughnuts in Berkeley. If Dorothy Day has enough, we skim three or four for ourselves, six for the garbagemen who come on Tuesday, then repackage and deliver the remaining ones to homeless encampments. We often talk to the residents. They are grateful and appreciative, never failing to say “thank you.”

You will try but can never break me. God built me to last.

The 4th of July

Part 1

Kim set this up several years ago, a neighborhood parade for the kids.

It’s an unconventional parade. The kids (and adults) line up on their bikes and take a lap, riding down one side of the street, around a post and back. Because Kennedy absolutely has to win, (it’s not a race), he lines ready to roll on the front left under a powder blue helmet and a patriotic red shirt, determined to give his all.

And they’re off!!

Kennedy “wins” the race that isn’t a race.

Most had a good time.

I said “most.”

Isla on a one armed scooter, protecting her cast.

Another patriotic bike

Lilly on her bike.

Marie’s doughnuts donated twelve dozen doughnuts, and a box of doughnut holes. A neighbor brought a cooler filled with popsicles. Coffee was provided in two very large carafes, both caffeinated and decaffeinated. Someone volunteered to pay for the parade permit.

Parents pushed strollers, walked with kids on bikes with training wheels, Some walked. Some were on scooters. They all went round and round for more than an hour, pausing to pick up another doughnut hole, a popsicle, or head down to play Gaga ball, a version of dodge ball, suitable for all.

We returned to John and Kim’s, waited for the “parade” to end, dined on some leftover Chinese, then, as more and more people showed up, took our leave. It’ll go on until after the hundreds of fireworks have illuminated the night sky in Land Park, at a time when we’ll be sawing Z’s.

Part II

All this without sparklers and firecrackers. I remember the fourth of Julys of my childhood, the excitement, the huge fireworks displays, parades, traditional American summertime foods—hot dogs, hamburgers, the smell of the smoke curling from neighbors’ barbecues. It was a joyful time, one in which we could all participate. We Americans celebrated the promise of America, grateful for freedom, democracy, and the many rewards we all felt were ours because of where we lived, grateful to the people who had the foresight two hundred and fifty years ago to create a country where anything was possible, nothing was denied to the poor, the immigrants, the minorities. All people were created with equal opportunities and rights, and women held the same status as men.

Only, as things have worked out, that America was only a dream, and unfortunately, too many Americans don’t subscribe to those ideals. The dream has gone “poof.”

Celebrating the America that is today means addressing right wing groups that want America to dismiss immigrants, Jews, and minorities. “You Will Not Replace Us!, their battle cry. It means celebrating a Supreme Court that has taken rights away from American women, that is an enemy of the clear threat of global warming. It means shooting a fleeing black man in Akron, Ohio, hitting him with over sixty bullets. It means attending a 4th of July parade in Chicago and dodging bullets from a young white man intent on shooting and killing as many as he can. (Six, at least).

It gives a former President who tried to destroy the country, who tried to lead an army of pathetic, gullible, faux patriots in an attempt to overthrow the government, an opportunity to take comfort in his heartwarming words on the Fourth of July, inspiring us all to work for the good of the country.

“Warmongering and despicable human being Liz Cheney, who is hated by the great people of Wyoming (down 35!), keeps saying, over and over again, that HER Fake Unselect Committee may recommend CRIMINAL CHARGES against a President of the United States who got more votes than any sitting President in history. Even the Dems didn’t know what she was talking about! Why doesn’t she press charges instead against those that cheated on the Election, or those that didn’t properly protect the Capitol?…..

"I know it's not looking good for our Country right now, with a major War raging out of control in Europe, the Highest Inflation in memory, the worst 6 month Stock Market start in History, the highest Energy Prices EVER, and that is the Good News. Happy Fourth of July!!!" Trump said. "((Don't worry, We will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and remember, none of these terrible events would have happened if I were President!!!))."

So this American Fourth of July is soiled. The Supreme Court is a politically motivated arm of the Republican Party, taking rights away and bringing Christian Evangelism into the law. The Republican Party has set out to squelch minority voting, steal the next election, and swell its ranks with evil ignorant people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Herschel Walker, and dozens more.

So, please forgive me if I don’t feel like celebrating tonight, lighting a sparkler. The America that I love clings to its existence only in the ideals and words that were written a long time ago, words I wholeheartedly accept and believe, words that have so little in common with what I see this July 4th, 2022. I am not a pessimist. I also believe that those words, those ideals, are stronger than the phonies who’ve broken their oaths to uphold them. I also believe that there are many more like me, who won’t give in to this collective lunacy.

P.S. Loved the parade. May you children grow up to be the Americans that America needs.


Outreach

The Dorothy Day Center in Berkeley is ministering to several homeless encampments around the East Bay. Here’s the truck and trailer. I drive the truck. Jadyne and I park, climb into the trailer and hand out socks, cookies, pastries, tampons, canned ravioli, sliced peaches, beef stew, tunafish, pre-made sandwiches, peanut butter, razors, toothbrushes, toiletries, soap, water, fruit juice, toilet paper, lentils, milk, cereal, brown rice, whatever is available.

Our guests are both polite and grateful.

What We Drive

Where They Live

Who They Are

More donuts. Castro Street encampment. 7/12/22

A garden.

Downtown. We brought donuts to these folks today. Met a girl with a badge on her dress. Left in the BMW for work. It’s not all that people think it is.

Not so appropriate for “polite society.”Yes, it’s a contrast. People unashamed of who they are, friendly, welcoming, grateful.

8th and Harrison. At the corner next to the Tesla Service Center.

The homes

A resident.

Grilling sweet potatoes. He’s Tone.

“Can I have a box for my baby? I have a four year old and an eight month old baby. I paid $4000 for my car, and it was stolen, so I have to live here. I’m 24. I’ll be okay.”

Saturday was clean-up day. A caterer came to the Castro Street Encampment

Nurses arrived, providing vaccines and flu shots.

Residents were given big yellow bags and paid to remove garbage

Homes and grounds were swept, and residents were given incentives to keep their places clean.

A local resident. We brought dog chews and bones a day earlier. Many residents own dogs.

Tow trucks were lined up to remove the immovable.

Residents were enlisted to help with the cleanup.

Christmas at Castro Street

Cooking in the Rain

If At First You Don't Secede

The Texas Republican Party concluded its holy mission yesterday. By voice vote the party adopted the following as integral to its official platform:

(1) "We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution," the Texas Republicans said in their new platform. They accuse several secretaries of state of illegal actions, alleging that "substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas" distorted the results in Biden's favor.

"We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States," the GOP platform stated.

(2) "All gun control is a violation of the Second Amendment and our God given rights."

(3) The need to repeal the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the most successful piece civil rights legislation ever adopted by Congress.

(4) Declares that “homosexuality is an abnormal lifetime choice” and would define marriage as a “covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman.”

(5) It would aboliish abortions.

(6) It would fill schools with “prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments.”

(7) Saying the U.S. government has impaired Texas' right of self-government, the platform calls for rejecting any legislation that conflicts with the state's rights — and it suggests leaving the union might be the answer.

"Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto," the platform stated.

Deeper in the document, the GOP delegates urge state lawmakers to put a referendum on the agenda for the 2023 election, "for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation."

And of course that’s unimaginable. Much as I lament what’s happened in Texas lately—banning abortions, Uvalde shooting, open carry, etc, I know that the GOP in Texas represents only a part of the state, that there are Democrats who live there, that there are pockets of sanity, that the official line of the GOP fails to take into account members who disagree with such a platform, and that following through with such a plan—secession—would bring countless problems to a state that can’t survive the myriad crises it faces without federal assistance.

Besides, I like the chili.

McCartney

Paul McCartney turned 80 years old yesterday. I was a high school senior, 17 years of age, when I first heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the breakthrough song that an unknown English band brought to America, a song that turned this aspiring guitar player’s world upside down. It was the first on a 12 song tracklist of the album that went into my collection the day it appeared.

“I Want to Hold Your Hand” reached #1 i America in early 1964, and the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, playing before more than 700 in the audience and over 73,000,000 watching at home.

Some years ago a gallery in Petaluma hosted a traveling show of images taken by Curt Gunther, the lone photographer accompanying the Beatles on their first US tour. Curt’s son is in charge of the negatives and is printing his father’s photographs. About the following image, which I purchased from the gallery at the close of the show, a writer had this to say: “Taken on their first US tour in 1964 by Curt Gunther, this shot of The Beatles' performance in a packed venue in Indianapolis is simply amazing. The angle, the position of the band and the details are perfect. You can see the state troopers lined up around the stage, the crowd high up in the bleachers, the stage lights in the upper left. I just love looking at this photograph. The beautiful Estate Stamped prints are made by Curt Gunther’s son, Steve, a wonderful printer. This is my favorite Curt Gunther image, and one of my favorite performance shots.”

Steve is still printing from his father’s negatives. This image at 11 x14 sells for $900. Mine is framed and is probably five times larger. It’s a testament to the most culturally significant event in my lifetime, the songs of the Beatles. Paul’s genius as a singer and songwriter continues to grow, even now, as he is on tour once again, playing three hour sets as he crosses the US.

But the fact is Paul is now eighty years old. And musical idols, however great they are, tend to lose favor in the generations that follow. Frank Sinatra preceded Elvis Presley who preceded the Beatles who preceded music I despise. And how do future generations view our idols?

Let’s look at these posts from Kanye West dévotees.

The country couldn’t be more divided than it is right now between Trumpers and the sane. And if political differences weren’t enough, musical differences and musical ignorance add the exclamation mark.

I never saw the Beatles in person. Six years ago my three kids gifted Jadyne and me with tickets to see Paul in Sacramento. I was 70. Paul was 75.

I can die happy now.

Happy Birthday, Paul. Lennon would have been 80 this year. Dylan turned 80. Brian Wilson is 80. Never Trust Anyone Over Ninety.

Kindness

Amor Towles, the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, has written a new book called Lincoln Highway. This is one of the passages from the book:

“For what is kindness but the performance of an act that is both beneficial to another and unrequired? There is no kindness in paying a bill. There is no kindness in getting up at dawn to slop the pigs, or milk the cows, or gather the eggs from the henhouse. For that matter, there is no kindness in making dinner, or in cleaning the kitchen after your father heads upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.

There is no kindness in latching the doors and turning out the lights, or in picking upo the clothes from the bathroom floor in order to put them in the hamper. There is no kindness in taking care of a household because your only sister had the good sense to get herself married and move to Pensacola.

Nope, I said to myself while climbing into bed and switching off the light, there is no kindness in any of that.

For kindness begins when necessity ends.”

The Ayes Have It

Abraham Lincoln listened to his cabinet. He invited them to vote. In one instance he responded, “Seven nos and one aye. The ayes have it.” That they disagreed with his decision was inconsequential. His power superceded theirs.

When it comes to truth (the ayes) and the lies (the nays), will the ayes will have it? One such lie (oddly enough, perpetrated by the current version of the Republican Party), deals with Replacement Theory—that illegal immigrants, Jews, blacks, and ne’er do wells are being hijacked by the pedos in the Democratic Party to replace the divinely ordained white people.

Five years ago in Charlotte the right gave voice to this lie. “You Will Not Replace Us”

Unhappy white boys recognizing that they’re being replaced. And well they should.

The Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Trump sycophant, has tried to distance herself from her earlier replacement theory rhetoric after an 18 year old hate-filled POS murdered ten black people in a Buffalo grocery store. Although most Republicans are sneaky enough to cover up this embarrassing train of thought, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (of course) gave voice to it:

Boebert, 2021

And speaking of our girl Elise, a South Park writer was able to steal this away from her.

But wait! There’s more. In so many state houses around ‘Merica.

FOX NEWS is just one source. The patient has to be vulnerable, say, as whites who discover that they are no longer in charge.

White people are so terrified of “others” that governors and school boards have banned what is called “critical race theory.” Many of the people who are against it have no idea what it is, but hot damn! they’re against it. But what is it? According to Britannica, it's “based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color.” Those against CRT aren’t engaged in a traditional lie. They pretend that something that happened didn’t. Like Biden’s election.

Perhaps a simple explanation can be seen in Senator Tom Cotton’s tweet “honoring” Jackie Robinson.

What should be added is that in honoring Robinson for “breaking the color barrier”, he and like-minded racists don’t want students to learn WHY Robinson was banned. That’s critical race theory, friends, and terrified whites don’t want white students to know that Robinson wasn’t able to play because whites were terrified of blacks in any and all ways. And that would terrify those white students just as they would have been in Biloxi, Mississippi when terrified parents banned To Kill a Mockingbird. Shield them crackers. But then again, Biloxi? Puhleeze.

And more lies…In the G.O.P. primaries Tuesday, lies were rewarded. As Reid Epstein wrote in The Times, Republican voters in Pennsylvania anointed right-wing gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, “who helped lead the brazen effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election and chartered buses to the rally before the Capitol riot, and who has since promoted a constitutionally impossible effort to decertify President Biden’s victory in his state.” He also appeared at a far-right Christian conference organized by QAnon prophets that started with a video about “ritual child sacrifice” and a “global satanic blood cult.”

The lies aren’t confined to the good ol’ USA. According to NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, “Putin has pulled the wool over the eyes of a nation, deceiving Russians about the Ukraine war the same way he deceived himself. When a retired colonel blurted out the truth Monday on Russian state television, saying “the situation for us will clearly get worse,” it was another uncommon confessional moment.”

How does this all add up? Republicans cling to the lie that Trump won the 2020 election,. Whites, scared shitless by immigrants and other minorities more competent than they are, cling to authoritarianism and deny any culpability for the systemic racism that they have created. That’s how. Will the “ayes” ultimately have it? How full is that glass?

The Not Even Close To Being Supreme Court

The draft opinion of Roe V. Wade has been released. If the draft holds up, all good little Americans will kowtow to opinions crafted by five of the accomplished jurists who know stuff we don’t. Except they don’t.

Flawed opinions are part of the stock and trade of the Supreme Court. As Charles Blow in the New York Times wrote, the “we the people” part was written at the time that white women weren’t equal and blacks weren’t even considered citizens. So who are the “people?” Mostly white men who crafted these opinions:

Ruling: Dred Scott. Believed blacks to be “beings of an inferior order.”

Ruling: Plessy vs. Ferguson. “Separate but Equal.”

Ruling: Heller. 2nd Amendment. Interpreted the amendment to ignore the connection between gun ownership and being part of a militia.

Ruling: Upheld the internment of Japanese Americans.

Ruling: Upheld sodomy laws in Georgia.

Ruling: Forced sterilization of the disabled.

Blow: “The court is a permanent council that answers to no one. It can behave as it chooses. The robes can go rogue. This is the power Republicans want — the power to overrule the will of the majority — and the courts are one of the only areas where that power can be guaranteed.

Republicans don’t hide their agenda. They denied Obama his right to appoint a justice, then jumped at the chance to enshrine Amy, exposing themselves for the hypocrites they are. No matter. The President is inconsequential except insofar as he/she can appoint judges to a lifetime of politically skewed decisions.

So what’s next for the Unsupremes? What other precedents are at risk?


Memes

From a college freshman discussion. I asked my clergyman father about abortion. As I remember, his reply, “The more important right is the right to be loved”

And SCOTUS. Not interested in precedent or the public weal, effectively damning women, especially poor women, to fit their misaligned. mistaken, and misogynistic screed.

Since the Supreme Court’s leaked draft of their decision to overturn Roe Vs. Wade is pubic information, cartoonists and other political pundits have been busy.

The “pro-life” movement isn’t. Many of these rabid foaming-at-the-mouth conservatives support the death penalty and deny much of what is listed in the first meme. Pro-life means taking care of babies AFTER they’re born. In the words of a nun: “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”