24 Hours

After serving breakfast (I cooked bacon for 140) at Dorothy Day, Jadyne and I headed south to Pacific Grove on Thanksgiving morning, arriving at noon. We met our friends Tom and Andrea there for the next day and a half, returning to Kensington Saturday. In the twenty-four hours we spent together we played several games of Rummikub (all won by Jadyne), hiked around Point Lobos on Friday, then along the coast at Asilomar Saturday morning. A Thanksgiving dinner of salmon and butternut squash soup (thanks to Tom and Jadyne), then Friday night scallops at Passionfish, our favorite restaurant in Pacific Grove.

Of course I took my usual array of cameras and lenses, but in those two days all the images that follow were taken with my Nikon D850 and my 200-500mm zoom. That was all I needed. After a calm Friday we walked to Monterey Bay Saturday morning and were surprised at the cold wind that created massive waves, the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Asilomar

Peregrine Falcon, a neighbor

Hundreds of pelicans make the Monterey Peninsula home

…as do squirrels

Point Lobos. The western side of Point Lobos is closed to visitors, as the winter rains of last year have damaged or destroyed much of what we saw just a year ago.

The power of the waves was overwhelming.

Across from the Inn at Spanish Bay

Great herons were as common as the pelicans

The occasional turkey vulture

North of Asilomar, Monterey is off camera at two o’clock.

Near Spanish Bay

North of Asilomar

A few more.

Leashed and longing.

Habits, Obsessions, Addictions, Compulsions and Impulsions.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday I leave my home in the early morning and drive nine minutes to 24 Hour Fitness. I choose locker #54 (if available), slide my combination lock two numbers to the right, dress in gym clothes, then choose the treadmill underneath the TV tuned to CNN or MSNBC, put on the Bose earphones, choose “shuffle" from the songs in my music library, then raise the treadmill to 15, the speed to 3.4, and the time to 30 minutes. Without fail. Except today.

It’s a beautiful clear morning, and Jadyne suggested that we go for a walk. I knew that after I spent thirty minutes on the treadmill, then swum my accustomed mile in the pool, I would be too tired to accompany her, so I left the house, thinking that if I swam only a half mile I wouldn’t be too tired to walk with her later. I did all that this morning, except after seven minutes on the treadmill I hit the STOP button, stepped away from the treadmill, dressed and came home. Why? I recognized that I was a victim of my own compulsion, that I do enough for my health, and that spending time with Jadyne on a hike counted more than seventy laps.

I began to wonder when a habit becomes a compulsion or an obsession. Here’s what I found. According to the infallible internet, “A habit can be defined as an acquired pattern of behavior that occurs regularly. Habits may be involuntary or voluntary and are often difficult to stop.” They can be either healthy or unhealthy. An unhealthy habit might be biting nails, driving too fast, living a sedentary lifestyle. My gym habit is healthy.

Habit vs. Addiction

A habit is a choice. Neurological changes in the brain prevent an addict from making choices. An addict also experiences unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. A person with a habit may experience mild withdrawal symptoms or none at all. A habit becomes an addiction, says the all-knowing internet, “when it interferes with daily life, when it negatively impacts a person’s relationships, school, or work.” I am not addicted to exercise. I like the way I feel after I do it.

Obsessions, Compulsions

An obsession refers to unwanted thoughts, urges, or images that are often out of a person’s control, causing uncomfortable feelings. I have a friend from more than fifty years ago that I found through Facebook. I was smitten with her when she was young; I’m glad to have found her again. Details aren’t important, only the feelings, which years ago became obsessive. I was uneasy but I overlooked those feelings. Dopamine set in. I was selfish. Uncomfortable feelings followed. For most people with obsessions, the discomfort resides in the person with the obsession. Mine surfaced when I had to acknowledge that this obsession was painful to people I loved. The relationship returned to where it started, a friendship.

Those who experience the discomfort from their own obsessions often develop compulsive behaviors in an effort to temporarily relieve their suffering—excessive hand washing, house cleaning, and orderliness. My former daughter-in-law takes medications and goes to therapy to mitigate the damage that her obsessions and compulsive behaviors have generated. There are a multitude of theories about the cause of OCD. Genetics is one. The compulsive behavior that follows only provides short-term relief and doesn’t make the obsession go away.

Obsessions are not a formal diagnosis. Only when they take up a significant part of the day, are unwanted, or negatively affect your personal life and relationships should you suspect that you have OCD. If you meticulously clean your house you don’t have OCD, unless you believe that a totally germ free house prevents you from feeling distressed.

Impulsions

In an article published by a website, Verywell Mind, “Impulsivity should not be confused with a compulsion, in which a person recognizes the behavior is abnormal but cannot stop it. With impulsivity, the person will act out without inherently recognizing that the behavior is abnormal. This instability often causes people to struggle with feelings of inadequacy that manifest with unstable emotions, unstable behaviors, and unstable relationships. In Bipolar Disorder, for example, people may be quick to lash out at anything considered a slight and will often fail to recognize how those emotions are unreasonable or excessive. People who experience impulsivity may make hasty decisions, get into arguments, and engage in risky behaviors.

I’m not impulsive or compulsive in the grand scheme, but I had unwanted thoughts intrude in my mind many years ago, and they caused me distress, even though I knew I would never have put them into motion. I took a class at Kaiser that dealt with much of what I have discussed. We were asked not to think about anything for a minute, but to count the number of thoughts that snuck in. Double figures. We fool ourselves to believe that we have complete control of our thoughts. We don’t. We must control how we respond to those thoughts, what actions we take, and how we can dismiss those that cause us distress.

Stella

I’ll never understand AI, nuclear fusion, quadratic equations, Republicans, how TV images pass through space, how my watch knows that I’m going to 24 Hour Fitness at 5:30 am and how long it will take, and countless other phenomena that surround me everyday. But more mysterious than all that is Stella, our cat.

Stella could spend twenty-four hours a day in our shower, leaving only to eat or use the litter box. We have to shoo her out, then pick up the cat hairs, before we can shower.

She left the shower and spent two days in the plant stand…

11/22/23 Now a rotating cabinet in J’s room.

The shower is simply her home for a certain number of days, perhaps three or four, possibly longer. It’s only her current home. She’s had several more. Among them is the space between the toilet and the wall.

She used this as a bed for a couple of weeks, sleeping on the tile floor in a space just big enough to accommodate her. And who doesn’t like a drink of water in the night?

For a week or so she slept on my photographic printer. I laid a towel on it when I wasn’t using it so cat hairs wouldn’t find their way into the print head. Had I thought that this would have been blog material I would have photographed her there, on our bed, in various windowsills, closets, towels, chairs, on the backs of two sofas, as well as some other places if I’d ever been able to find her.

A no-brainer, sort of. There’s a drop off of about an inch between the inside sill and the outside, but it was a hot night, so…

This is actually a concert she played one afternoon. I’ve spared you by turning it into just a screenshot.

Stella climbs. Cats are agile and silent, as Carl Sandburg noted in his poem about fog. The “little cat feet” take her onto our roof, along the fence and into the oak tree that towers above the roof. This part I understand.

If we’re cold we turn on the heat, wear something warmer. If we’re hungry we eat. If tired, we sleep. If lonely we seek company. These are all predictable and understandable behaviors, common, I think, to both humans and animals. Having such options available, Stella turns down pillows for tile, light for dark, company for solitude, and any place where she might be stimulated by the sounds of birds, the passing of pedestrians, the changing of light, the sounds outside the bathroom, for the dark and silent stupid shower floor. Je ne comprends pas la chatte. Je ne comprends la Stella.

J Rawson Collins

Rawson was born in 1910. I knew him when he was in his late fifties. I took this image of him in his house on Dexter Avenue in Cincinnati.

J Rawson Collins

I lived with my Uncle Rowland on and off during the three years that I attended the University of Cincinnati.. 1967-69. One of Rowland’s friends was J Rawson Collins. (The “J” before Rawson makes his name seem like a title.) Rawson was wealthy. Not just your basic rich people’s kind of wealthy, but rich in that he gave money for new buildings for the University, for creating a place and paying salaries of staff who worked with disabled children at the Olympus Center in Cincinnati.

In 1972 Rawson asked Jadyne and me if we would be willing to go to London with him. He wanted to look at art, buy paintings, and he asked if we would accompany him for dinner every evening and share our experiences from the day. He, or course, paid airfare, all our expenses, the cost of the St. James Hotel (where maids turned down our beds at night, left a chocolate mint on the pillow, and served toast with the crusts cut off), and made sure we’d have a car and driver available at our request.

Rawson, Andy, Marilyn

In addition to simply having money, Rawson was kind, generous, and giving. I gardened for him in the summer, went to dinner with him and Rowland many times, and simply spent hours with a someone who was interested in what I thought. He was a listener.

In 1996 I returned to Cincinnati and made plans to see him. At that time Rawson was 86 and living in private quarters at a senior home. One day earlier I went to Riverfront Stadium for Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds, when in the first inning, the home plate umpire, John McSherry, collapsed and died on the field. The game was postponed one day, the day I was to see Rawson. I went to the game with my brother Jack, missed seeing Rawson, and learned of his passing later that year. I have regretted that decision.

And as a footnote, unrelated to Rawson. Before the game resumed the next day a minister asked all in attendance to pray to Jesus for the soul of John McSherry. I thought about the fans in attendance, the ones who prayed to Allah, the ones who would have respected the umpire’s passing with a moment of silence, the huge Jewish population in Cincinnati, and I felt then what I have felt many times in the fifty years since I piled up the U-Haul in Oxford, a stranger in a strange land, removed in spirit and thought from all that I remember about Ohio.


First World Problems

I couldn’t find my wallet. Jadyne and I turned the house upside down looking for it. Everyplace we looked once we looked again. I went through all my fleeces hanging in the closet, looked in the car, under the bed, in the nightstand, around the house. I drove back to 24 Hour Fitness, thinking that if I left it there in the morning someone might have found it and turned it in. No luck. I looked again today/ No luck.

We checked our accounts and discovered that no unauthorized purchases were made. Grateful, we put a lock on the three credit cards that I carry. I called the banks today. New cards are coming. We’ll have to check in with the twenty or so accounts that pilfer money from us automatically every month or two and update our accounts.

I have a photo of my library card on my phone. That’s enough. I’ll call Kaiser tomorrow. They’ll send me one. I’ll drive to the one BART station that issues senior cards. Replacement cards are $5. I’ll stop in at the DMV and get a new license. We’ll write a check to the dentist on Tuesday, as we have no working credit cards now. I’ll drive to Tesla and arrange a new card, the backup to my phone for the car. I had two ten dollar bills in my wallet, no change. I don’t keep photos. I’ll get a new debit card from Mechanics Bank. No one used that one, either.

It’s a pain in the ass, a nuisance, an annoyance, like a leak in the roof, a flat tire, the little comeuppances that change the trajectory of the day. Nothing we can’t afford, nothing with long-term effects. A First World Problem.

Being in a kibbutz when Hamas gunmen storm in, firing AR-15s indiscriminately, going to a music festival as armed paragliders massacre hundreds, lying in a hospital bed in Gaza without water or electricity, discovering that your family is missing, taken hostage by Palestinian gunmen…these are not first world problems, but these are real, happening to thousands of people who would gladly trade them for a lost wallet, all but the 230 who were massacred at the music festival, the 1400 Israelis who were killed on October 7th, or the 9000 dead Palestinians, many of whom were children.

Third World Problems abound in the First World, too. This morning I took my pressure washer to the Dorothy Day Center. Where our homeless clients line up for breakfast was filthy, stained by spilled coffee, urine and years of dirt. I spent two hours blasting away at the entrance.

I should have added a “before photo.” I don’t think anyone will even notice.

Our guests live in the first world, but sleeping on a city sidewalk, having no money, being confused, disturbed, and alone, are not first world problems. Give me a lost wallet. Not a problem at all.

The next day. I found it.

Remembering Work

Lately I've been posting my earliest digital images on Facebook. This one precedes those. I used to work. I frequently photographed high school proms and other events. This shows how I did it. First, I suspended an airbrushed muslin background from two stands and a wooden dowel in between them. Second, three strobe lights were set up: the first, on a boom with a little softbox, illuminated the hair of the subjects, the light also creating distance between them and the background. The other two strobes were placed closer to the camera. The strobes send the light backwards into two large photographic umbrellas made of two fabrics. The outside is black which prevents the light from escaping. The inside fabric, the one that receives the light, is white. The light strikes the inside fabric and then is reflected back towards the subjects. The closer the light is to the subjects and the softer the white fabric is the softer the overall effect of the lighting. The one to the right was metered at f5.6 ASA 160; the one to the left was at a 90 degree at a 45 degree angle to the camera. then raised to slightly above head level, metered at f 8. Attached to the Mamiya RB 67 was a manual wind 100' film back. Each roll of film cost a little more than $100. After each of the 400+ exposures the film was wound manually through the back. The camera has a waist level finder, meaning that I climbed the ladder and leaned over the back to take two to three hundred images. Alan Bartl, my assistant, is taping down the background. The background itself was airbrushed by an artist, Eric Sedletzky, who created it from his imagination.

I have six copies of this background, which is 16' long and 8' wide. My son still rents this and others through our website, Dozens of Muslins. The text for this background and an actual image from the catalog follows.

"Terrazzo: "a mosaic floor of paving composed of chips of broken stone, usually marble, and cement, polished when in place." Random House Dictionary.

Uh-oh. I shouldn't have looked up the definition before I named this background. This floor is certainly not composed of broken stone, but the effect of the striated cream and aquamarine diamonds is stunning, nevertheless.

Another classic Prom background, illustrating a most successful three-dimensional effect. The brown stones in the patio, which appear to trail off into the distance, don't. And the fountain doesn't flow, and the stars don't shine. But try to tell that to your clients, who won't believe their eyes."

For those who are familiar with "trompe l'oeil" in art, meaning trick of the eye, the background in photo #1 differs significantly from the background as it's viewed through the camera. In #2 the increased appearance of depth comes from Eric's skill and understanding.

Terrazzo

We're Out of Things to Say

Stephen King writes the inescapable conclusion to Wednesday’s shooting in Lewiston, Maine.

“There is no solution to the gun problem, and little more to write, because Americans are addicted to firearms.”

The Onion’s headline read once again:

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Published Thursday 9:02AM

LEWISTON, ME—In the hours following a violent rampage in Maine in which a lone attacker killed at least 18 individuals and injured numerous others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Idaho resident Peter Carter, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

The Onion has run this story multiple times, changing only the locations and the number of victims. This shooting claimed the life of a fourteen year old boy, a seventy-six year old man, and sixteen others. Thirteen were hospitalized. And he committed suicide. All that’s left is grief….and yes, those pesky but effective thoughts and prayers. Let’s all play.

If you press the button “Ban Assault Weapons” you are rejected and told to “pray harder.”

Jim Jordan (I couldn't ignore this)

Two weeks ago the Republican congress excised cowardly Kevin McCarthy from the position of Speaker of the House. The two immensely unqualified candidates, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, failed to impress their colleagues. Jordan, having failed twice to achieve the 217 fellow Republican votes to give him the gavel, is going at it again tomorrow for a third time. Failure is a given. Meanwhile the House is powerless in the midst of two wars—Russia vs. Ukraine and Hamas vs. Israel. And the House is crippled.

But who is Jim Jordan? He’s a congressman from Ohio who in sixteen years has never sponsored legislation. He was an assistant wrestling coach at OSU who was apprised of sexual misconduct by the team doctor and did nothing. He has always defended Donald Trump and has relentlessly attacked Democrats.

But David French, an opinion columnist for the NY Times, captures much more about him and the Republican party when he writes,

The Republican base admires Jordan because it thinks he is tough. It perceives him as a man of courage and strength. He is not. Instead, he is a symbol of the way in which Trumpist Republicans have corrupted the concept of courage itself.

To understand what courage is supposed to be, I turn to a definition from C.S. Lewis: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” It’s a beautiful formulation, one that encompasses both the moral and physical realms and declares that courage is inseparable from virtue.

Lewis’s definition presents us with the sobering realization that we don’t truly know if we possess a virtue unless and until it is tested. We can believe we’re honest, but we won’t know we’re truly honest unless we have the courage to tell the truth when the truth will cost us something we value. We can believe we’re brave, but we don’t know if we are until we show it when we face a genuine physical risk.

When I meet a virtuous person, I also know that I’m meeting a person of real courage. A lifetime of virtue is impossible absent courage. Conversely, when I see a person consumed with vice, I also know that I’m likely in the presence of a coward, a person whose commitments to virtue could not survive the tests of life.

Now contrast the Lewis vision of courage with the courage or toughness lionized on the MAGA right. From the beginning of the Trump era, the entire concept of courage was divorced from virtue and completely fused with two terrible vices: groveling subservience and overt aggression.

The subservience, of course, is to the demands of Donald Trump, the right-wing media or the angry Republican base. The command is clear: Do what we say. Hate who we hate. But how can anyone think that such obedience equals courage? Because in this upside-down world, aggression is equated with toughness and bullying is exalted as bravery.

Few politicians personify this distortion of courage into cowardice better than Jim Jordan, and it is a sign of the decline of the Republican Party that he was even considered for the speaker’s chair, much less a few votes away from becoming the most powerful Republican elected official in the nation, second in line to the presidency.

Is there anything that qualifies him for the position other than his subservience and aggression? His legislative record is extraordinarily thin. As Aaron Blake meticulously documented in The Washington Post, during Jordan’s 16 years in Congress, he hasn’t passed a single bill of his own. According to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, he’s consistently one of the least-effective members in the entire Republican Party.

What is Jim Jordan good at, exactly? He’s a Donald Trump apologist, a performative pugilist and a Fox News fixture. The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America collected data showing that as of this month, Jordan had been on Fox 565 times since August 2017, including 268 appearances in weekday prime time. In a party that now prizes performance over policy, each of these Fox appearances builds his résumé far more than legislation ever could.

But for sheer subservient aggression, nothing matches his enthusiastic participation in Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election. The final report of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol calls him a “significant player” in Trump’s scheme.

As the committee records, “On Jan. 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session.” On Jan. 5, “Jordan texted Mark Meadows, passing along advice that Vice President Pence should ‘call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’” He spoke to Trump at least twice on Jan. 6 itself and voted against certifying the election results, even after the Trump mob stormed the Capitol. In 2022, he defied a Select Committee subpoena.

Never forget that this reckless aggression was all in service of some of the most absurd conspiracy theories and legal arguments in modern American political history. Every Republican who voted against certifying the presidential election was the very definition of a coward. When the virtue of integrity reached its testing point, they collapsed. But, bizarrely enough, they often collapsed with a swagger, casting themselves as tough even as they capitulated to the demands of a corrupt president and a frenzied mob.

That MAGA aggression has spilled over to the speaker fight itself. As The Times reported on Saturday, “lawmakers and activists” close to Jordan “have taken to social media and the airwaves to blast the Republicans they believe are blocking his path to victory and encourage voters to browbeat them into supporting Mr. Jordan.”

He concludes,

The battle over the next speaker is yet another proxy fight for the soul of the American right, and the fact that a man like Jim Jordan has come so close to such extraordinary power is proof that the rot runs deep. Only a very small minority of elected Republicans have passed the test. Signs of courage remain, but as long as men like Jim Jordan and Donald Trump run the G.O.P., the bullies still reign.

One day later. Dana Milbank, Washington Post writer, wrote, “Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican from Arizona, issued a statement on Tuesday evening announcing that she would not run for reelection. ‘Right now,’ she wrote, ‘Washington, D.C. is broken.’ He adds, “No, Congresswoman. Washington isn’t broken. The House of Representatives is broken — because you and your Republican colleagues broke it.”

It goes on and on. The only difference between the Republican Party and the Japanese Kamikaze pilots in World War II is this: Kamikaze pilots committed suicide by attacking the enemy. Republicans fly their planes into themselves.

P.S. After failing for a third time, Jordan waited while a “secret ballot”expunged him from the speaker designee status that he had enjoyed over the past weeks. It’s Sunday, and the battle will be reignited tomorrow with ten potential Republicans now in the mix.

We came so close to having a traitor third in line to be President. Wasn’t the traitor who mismanaged the presidency for four years enough?

Feeling Stronger Every Day" Chicago.

Not.

Rosanne Leipzig is an expert on aging. Her book, “Honest Aging: An Insider’s Guide to the Second Half of Life,” examines what to expect in the latter half of life. I’m there. She says, “I think it’s time we say, ‘This is it; this is who we are,’ and admit how lucky we are to have all these years of extra time.”

I do.

Typically, predictable changes associated with aging “start to happen much more between the ages of 75 and 85,” she says.

Here are the highlights:

Older people often present with different symptoms than younger people when they become ill. (N/A)

Older people often react differently than younger people to medications. (N/A)

Older people have reduced energy reserves. Does napping count? Does yawning late morning or at 2:00 count? She suggests that the senses of taste and smell diminish. Not for me. Loss of appetite becomes common. I wish. The risk of dehydration increases. Gotta get me some water. Now.

The musculoskeletal system is less flexible. Balance is compromised. True that. The range of motion in joints contracts. Falls and fractures are more common. See broken ankle, April 2022.

Because of accumulated damage to hair cells in the inner ear, it’s harder to hear, especially at high frequencies. It’s also harder to understand speech that’s rapid and loaded with information or that occurs in noisy environments. Move this to the top of the list. In my hearing test I could only recognize spoken words correctly 66% of the time. That makes understanding Isla an impossibility.

Sleep becomes fragmented. It takes longer for older people to fall asleep, and they sleep more lightly, awakening more in the night. The nights I don’t awaken are few and far between.

It wasn’t that many years ago when Jadyne said to me, “You’re limping.” When my neighbor Cecile mentioned it I knew it was time to take a look. I tried exercises, a foam column, stretches, and after six months, an x-ray. “You’re a candidate for a hip replacement,” was the verdict. Done. I discovered that my deviated septum caused me constant stuffiness in my nose. A septoplasty followed. Done. I developed tinnitus overnight in both ears. No cure. My friend Chris had used the term “new normal” in describing the continuing series of physical downturns that had nested in me. What was implied was that the “new normal” was fluid, progressive, inconstant, and headed in only one direction.

Leipzig acknowledges the downturns. She concludes, “There is almost always something that can be done to improve your situation as you grow older, if you’re willing to do it.”

I am.

Two days a week I take at least a five mile walk through the East Bay Hills. One day Jadyne and I walk to Dorothy Day to feed the homeless. Three miles down, four hours on our feet, a bus ride home. I work in the yard, cut the grass, mulch, rake, and stay active outdoors. I go to Twenty-Four Hour Fitness three days a week, spend a half hour on a treadmill, then swim a mile. I read every day. I just finished 1400 pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I do Wordle every day, Connections, too. I write in my Blog. When not taking photographs I’m adding to my knowledge by printing them, studying software. I am, as she recommends, improving my situation.

Leonard Downie, the former editor of the Washington Post keeps a journal chronicling his 80th year. He notes that Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Brian Wilson, Lesley Stahl, Joe Biden, and Mitch McConnell are all 80. Nancy Pelosi is older. He said, “When you reach eighty, you’re playing with house money.”

In his journal he recounts numerous falls, a loss of balance, his naivete at falling for a computer scam, ugly swollen spots on his skin, occasional leg cramps, stiffness, forgetfulness, moody days thinking of mortality.

He concludes, “I’m defiantly not ready to retire or to fear the future.”

Retiring doesn’t mean stop doing the things you love. And fearing the future? No. I’m not eighty yet, but I am enjoying play with the house money.

Hamas

Early Saturday morning. I’m on the treadmill at 24 hour Fitness in El Cerrito. I aways hope to find one in front of the large screen TVS that’s tuned to CNN or MSNBC. I did. By 6 am I had learned that Hamas had launched a multi-pronged attack against Israel, killing hundreds with missiles, hand grenades, and machine guns. Kibbutzes were raided, residents kidnapped.

In a field where hundreds of young people were celebrating a music festival, paragliders armed with machine guns mowed them down. 260 bodies were discovered.

Running for their lives.

A kidnapped member of a kibbutz being taken to Gaza.

Images of dead bodies, entreaties from fathers whose families are missing, gnashing and wailing, all part of the madness of war.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, told President Biden on Sunday that Israel does not have any choice but to unleash a ground operation in Gaza. "We have to go in," the Israeli leader said, according to three Israeli and U.S. sources briefed on the call.

Hamas has promised to execute captives taken to Gaza if Israel attacks. Soldiers, men, women, children, young, the elderly, over 100 captives have been taken to Gaza.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh blamed Israel for the war, accusing it of "creating a climate of hatred, violence, incitement, and violating international law." Of course. It’s your fault. No, it’s your fault. No, it’s your fault.

The relationship between Israel and Palestine has never been smooth. Looking at it from an historical perspective is beyond anything I could write in a blog. Or even understand. It’s going to be long, bloody, and will never solve the issues that have brought these two peoples to this point.

Eleven Americans are reported dead. The US is sending ammunition, guided missile cruisers and other support. Iran appears to have supported Hamas. Could the US engage in warfare with Iran?

Just another Saturday.

But here in the USA...

Saturday, a week later. The 6-0 Oregon Ducks played the 12-0 Washington Huskies in Seattle. The tying short field goal sailed wide, and the Huskies won. Thirty seconds later the cameras recorded the rapturous Husky fans gathered on the field celebrating the team’s unexpected win.

Three Days Later.

Israel-Hamas War

Israel and Palestinians Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed Hundreds

Gazan health authorities said the explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike. The Israel Defense Forces said it was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by a Palestinian armed group.

Simon and Garfunkel sang it in the seventies when they combined “Silent Night” with the horror of the daily news.

After the LA riots Rodney King, the trucker who was beaten by LA policemen said,

"People, I just want to say, can't we all get along? Can't we all get along?"

“Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion too/Imagine all the people/Living life in peace” John Lennon

A relic from the sixties

Three Parks

Jadyne and I had last visited Yellowstone and the Tetons more than fifty years ago. It was time. We added Glacier National Park to the list, planned to drive our Tesla to Montana, drop down to Yellowstone, then the Tetons, then head home. We didn’t. We couldn’t find enough ways to charge the car in northern Montana, so we opted to fly to Bozeman, rent a car, then drive. We chose September 10th to leave, knowing that all schools were in session, and the likelihood of an early autumn snowfall was remote.

We began at Glacier.

On our last day we drove the “Going to the Sun” road, which goes from West Glacier to East Glacier, a 56 mile drive that takes almost an entire day.

Along with the majestic scenery we were able to find hidden waterfalls.

And one of the last remaining glaciers.

The drive to Yellowstone took us down two-lane highways and across the Montana that I had always pictured in my mind.

Jadyne drove while I shot out the window.

On the fourth day we arrived at West Yellowstone, the home of the Stagecoach Inn and its two flat screen TVs, both tuned to FOX news. We entered the park the next morning, passing by the Madison River. It was 7:30, 31 degrees. I stopped along the road.

Signs warned us of road construction on the 30 mile drive to Old Faithful, so we weren’t surprised when we stopped. Thirty minutes later Jadyne became impatient and went out walking, thinking that when traffic started to move again I could pick her up. She returned after a few minutes, out of breath. “Buffalos!” she said, and so I was off, walking up the road, past the stopped traffic, cameras in hand. Where everything changed was when I saw that the bison weren’t off the road; the entire herd was crossing the road. and I was among the herd. A ranger in a pickup truck spotted me. He shouted, “You’re going to get killed! Get back in your car!” Funny, my car was about ten cars behind me, in the same direction that the herd was going. I knocked on the door of a car in the middle of the herd, and they let me in, but not before I did what people would expect me to do—check camera settings, focus carefully, and hold the camera steady.

After surviving the herd we saw the usual cast of characters—geysers, hot pools, mud pots, and of course, Old Faithful.

It’s only a hop, step, and jump to the Tetons and our Heart Six Ranch.

Short on room amenities, the Heart Six Ranch more than made up for its shortcomings. 115 horses, an unobstructed view of the Tetons…the disappointments were bearable.

Too many photo opportunities. On the last day we caught the first snowfall on the Tetons at sunrise.

I’ve deliberately kept this post short. The trip was extraordinary, way above expectations. It was time to get out of our California bubble, even if the alternative was FOX news and a thousand Dodge RAMs.

I have posted about sixty images on my website, far too many to post on a blog.

Il Travatore

We spent an evening with Nancie and Charlie a week ago. Nancy is a pianist and a composer. Charlie is a well-respected pediatric specialist at UCSF. They both love opera. They had just returned from a night in San Francisco watching Verdi’s Il Travatore. They insisted that we go, too, but as a late-in-the-decade septuagenarian I tend to go to bed before curtains are raised. Life of the party? Ha! Most parties start after I've sawed me a few Zzzzzzs. Alas! The last performance was yesterday, a matineé. I had no choice.

Doomed.

For $80 a seat we sat in the balcony, about a runway’s length from the stage. We could see the outline of the stage, but the actors looked like little action figures. This, at the end of the performance.

To be fair, we enjoyed it. Everybody gets killed. One man unknowingly kills his own brother. A mother throws her baby into a fire. Her own mother was burned at the stake. Scorcese had nothing on Verdi. This was not Taylor Swift.

The voices were extraordinary. Even in the cavernous Opera House the singers’ voices could reach well beyond the large florid doors that separate the opera house from Van Ness Avenue, causing cars to swerve, and red lights to be run. And the softest of whispers carried deep into seats B 1 and 2. We were converted.

Having never attended an opera I expected all patrons to be wearing long dresses or tuxedos. Wrong. Shorts, t-shirts, sandals…I was overdressed in a shirt and pants with a belt. I wanted to see who came to an opera, not who were socially extorted, as we were. This is what I saw.

Two ladies at Will Call

A pretty Asian lady

A Woman waiting for a friend

Another woman waiting for a friend. Her expression reflects what I felt going in.

White socks?????

But going back to my first two ladies. They actually look as if they chose to go, perhaps even paid for their tickets.

This is the way you’re supposed to dress at the opera. Next time it’s shorts and sandals…with white socks.

BTW…here’s Nancie, the composer:

Oh, Happy Day!

Not really. That Donald Trump was arrested again, charged a zilion times more, isn’t a cause for celebration. Armistice Day, yes! Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, yes! The end of the Third Reich, yes! The first presidential mug shot from Fulton County, no!

For a $47 pledge you can get a t-shirt with this photo on it. Subjoined are the words “Never Surrender!”, although he had already surrendered four times. He was surrendering when they took this photograph.

Trump and his advisors planned and practiced the look they wanted for this image. Stanley Kubrick, the film director, had employed it a number of times on the faces of the deranged villains in his movies. Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” is an example. You tilt your head downward, look at the lens from this head lowered position, adopt a facial expression that suggests an attitude of anger, retribution, seriousness, determination, and above all menace. And the unmistakable look of a psychopath. Let’s not forget that. “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.”

Coink-a-dink?

I had to add this from Twitter, er “X”, as memes are a wonderful cultural phenomenon. When Biden was asked about Trump’s mugshot he replied, "Handsome guy," Biden said. "Wonderful guy." Sarcasm, meme’s twin.

Two can play the same game. Trump is using his mugshot as a fund-raiser. Joe Biden took the less than flattering nickname “Brandon” and turned it into a promising campaign ad. “Dark Brandon” is a Republican nightmare.

After his twenty minute stint at the jail Trump spoke to reporters briefly before climbing back on his jet. “What has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. And everybody knows it. I’ve never had such support.”

No Donnie, not everybody thinks that way. According to US News, “Three-fourths of Americans in the poll say Trump did something wrong. That includes 46% who believe the former president has broken the law, and another 29% who think Trump did something unethical but not illegal.”

So why wasn’t this a happy day? For some (me) it was, at least for a moment. Sarah Palin was asked in an interview, “Do you have concerns for the country?” She replied, "Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them: What the heck? Do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen."

Granted, Ms. Palin isn’t one of the Republican intellectual heavyweights, but if not Sarah, then who? Lauren ‘dancing in the sunflowers” Boebert?, Marjorie “should I choose a cabinet position of just settle on VP,? Greene” Andy, “I introduced a bill that will cut federal funds to the district attorney’s office in Fulton County and require the office to repay any funds granted after Jan 1, 2021, Biggs? Or Vivek, “I’m louder, more obnoxious, and more annoying than the man I worship” Ramaswamy? Or Ron, “Select all the photos with a bus in them…Captcha…I' am not a robot” DeSantis?” Or Mike, featured in the revised version of the New Testament, somewhere between Matthew and Mark in “The Gospel of Mike Pence” Pence? Or more to the point, “For four years minus one day I was a lapdog, but for one day, I’m a hero?” Nominations are open.

Hey, Mike, what would Jesus do?

Nothing that can’t be solved with Kyle Rittenhouse’s AR-15.

Gentle Reminders

When I was 21 I picked up a 35mm camera, bought some Kodachrome, and began taking photographs. I had met a family with seven kids, three of whom were triplets. Here they are—Cindy, Kathy, and Kristy. Or is this Kathy, Kristy, and Cindy? Or?

I really began my photographic career with the Andersons.

I wrote this:

“Congratulations, Kathy! How did this happen? When did you stop being the little girl I used to see Sunday afternoons in Cincinnati?”

A couple of days ago, Kathy, either bottom, middle, or top, retired from her position as an occupational therapist, a job she held for forty-three years. She posted this photo on Facebook at the party her staff gave her to honor her.

Kathy responded to my text, “Time is so interesting, isn't it? As a young therapist, I can remember thinking of retirement as being so far off in the future and now, here it is!”

But this isn’t about Kathy, photography, or retirement. Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” is a metaphorical equivalent of the surreptitious way that time passes us by.

“The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”

Cat feet enter quietly. Unobserved, the silent haunches remain for a moment, then move on before we’re even aware of the cat. Kathy never thought about retirement; now she’s gardening, playing with her dog. Sunrise, Sunset. My past fills volumes of memories. My future will perhaps be no thicker than a comic book, at best a thin paperback. I never saw the cat.

Dylan Thomas wrote a poem to his dying father, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” One of the lines reads, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

If I’m dying I don’t know it, unless in that very broad sense that from the moment we’re born we’re all dying. At age 77 I’m out of diapers. Pimples are so over. I’m of age to vote, to drink, and gain free admission to the Oakland Zoo. People on BART offer me their seats. The cat, still moving on its little cat feet, has left me behind.

We rage, rage in different ways. I rage when I swim a mile twice a week, when I take five mile hikes, when I wash the car, cut the grass, prune trees, pick strawberries, sweep the sidewalk, walk to the grocery, take the 66 steps out of BART in SF (not the escalator), carry my cans to the street, vacuum the floors, eschew TV, video games, arguments, complaints, regrets, self-pity. I’m working on new songs, learning new chord voicings on the guitar.

The reminders won’t go away. They beckon when I try to get up off the floor, put my socks on, bend to tie my shoes, when I stand on one foot trying not to lose my balance, or walk on rocky paths, or strain to understand conversations in crowded restaurants. I have no interest in the 63 rap stars who’ve passed , Snoop Dogg, twerking, the Kardashians, Trump supporters or flat-earthers. I can’t throw a baseball very far, play racquetball anymore, shoot baskets. More people call me “sir” now; I’m never asked to show an i.d. to qualify for senior discounts.

I’ve taken liberties with the definitions of “rage.” My raging isn’t centered on anger. It’s focused on taking the energy and violence of rage and turning it into something else. I’m raging against the dying light by lighting up the present, by celebrating the sun breaking through the morning fog, by admiring the flowers of the mimosa tree in the backyard,

by enjoying the sweetness in ripened strawberries in the garden, by the golden boot that Susanto held up commemorating his soccer win, by listening to Hazel read, by the first bite of a fresh doughnut, by the countless unpredictable pieces of life that show up unannounced each day. Writing this little essay is a gentle reminder to me that the cat, having moved on, has left so much behind.

The Roundup

Every August herds of goats descend on Tilden Park and eat everything organic. They’re cheaper than landscapers, and what they devour is turned into fertilizer. They move from one corral to another, surrounded by electrified fences, devouring all vegetation either on the ground or above their heads when they stand on their hind legs. The hillsides are denuded in a couple of weeks, and the goats are then herded into trailers and driven to their next meal, another park, another hillside. On a Friday morning walk Ted and I were privileged to watch the roundup of the last of the herd, courtesy of two men with sticks, one sheepdog, and a labrador.

Sheepdog waits for the last of the herd to finish dessert.

Don’t mind me. I’m just out for a walk, caught in a goat stampede.

Both the dog and the silhouetted man in the back are guiding the goats to a field to the left where a makeshift pen has been constructed. Unseen is the labrador, standing in the road preventing the goats from continuing down the street.

Behind the goats the two men have erected a temporary electrical fence. A truck will drive up, and goats will be herded down the pen, through the chute, and into a waiting trailer.

This herd is one of about six that spent late July and early August enjoying what winter rains brought.

"Take a load off, Fanni."

She did. Two nights ago Fani Willis, the DA of Fulton County, Georgia, indicted Donald J Trump and eighteen co-conspirators, listing 41 total felony counts; Trump himself was charged with 13 felony counts. In addition to the communal racketeering charge, the charges include “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer,” “conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer,” “conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,” “conspiracy to commit false statements and writings,” and “conspiracy to commit filing false documents.”

Fani and Donny, a match made in Georgia.

Trump is now facing 91 criminal charges, some in federal courts, some in state courts. Andy Borowicz, whose humorous memes arrive daily, posted this morning, suggesting that Melania was disappointed, thinking that Donald wouldn’t have time to show up in divorce court. His niece, Mary Trump, acknowledges that Trump’s new criminal enterprise is an extension of one he began years ago, only that now he’s brought people other than his own family into it.

More amazing than the 91 criminal counts that he’s facing is that Republicans still believe in him. He leads all other candidates by as many as forty percent. Only if the all the other candidates call him out will it be possible to save the Republican Party. As it stands right now the entire leadership of the party has chained themselves to the Titanic’s railings, and this only after it hit the iceberg.

The following was taken from an interview Geoff Duncan, the Lt. Governor of Georgia, gave to NPR this morning.

“Georgia's former Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan is calling on fellow Republicans to seize the Georgia indictment of former President Donald Trump as a "pivot point" for the GOP, as the party seeks to re-take the White House in 2024.

On NPR's Morning Edition Wednesday, Duncan urged "U.S. senators, conservative governors, state legislators – everybody that has a voice and a platform – should speak up as a Republican, and tell Donald Trump to get out of this race because it's not good for the party. But more importantly, it's not good for this country."

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, 63%, now say they want Trump to run for president again in 2024 and 74% would support him if he were the Republican nominee, according to an recent (August 2023) poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Analysis

Why the Trump indictments have not moved the needle with Republicans

This is Trump's fourth indictment since leaving office, but it's the first in a legal jurisdiction where cameras are permitted to show the proceedings.

When asked if televising a Trump trial in Georgia would benefit the country, Duncan told Morning Edition host Leila Fadel, "I think the more Americans can see and specifically Republicans... [the] crazy series of events that played out, the more they can see it in three dimension, I think the quicker we're going to start to heal as a party and move past Donald Trump. I just, I think history is going to prove that Donald Trump was one of the biggest mistakes this country's ever made."

Duncan was called to testify before the Fulton County grand jury, and hours prior to that appearance, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, warning Duncan not to testify and calling the former Lt. Gov. a "loser" and a "nasty disaster." Asked if he saw this as an instance of witness tampering or intimidation, Duncan responded, "It certainly didn't deter me from answering the questions of the grand jury, getting there on time and fulfilling my civic duties in front of the grand jury."

Trump and the other 18 defendants have until August 25th to voluntarily surrender to authorities in Fulton County, Ga.

The following excerpts are from an exchange between former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan and NPR's Leila Fadel, which has been edited for clarity.

What is it about this case that makes it maybe more significant?

What we watched play out right after the 2020 election cycle here in Georgia was just the series of what felt like, at the time, very coordinated events... to just hoodwink Republicans [with the impression] that everybody was corrupt in Georgia around the election system. And it was wrong. And it's taken us two and a half years to get to this point, unfortunately.

Why does he continue to have such popularity even as he racks up felony charges?

Donald Trump has confused Republicans across the country to think that the louder and more angry you are, the more conservative you are...I'm a Republican because I believe in the conservative principles of smaller government and public safety and national security. I believe in states rights. Those are the core tenets why a majority of Republicans got into the Republican Party. But Donald Trump's confused us. And this is a painful healing process for us.

This is our opportunity. If we, as Republicans, don't use this moment of insanity inside our party as a pivot point, then shame on us.

Do you want this case in Georgia, and the arraignment, to be televised?

Yeah, I do. I think the more Americans can see, and specifically Republicans, the more Republicans can see of the erratic, just a crazy series of events that played out – the more they can see it in three dimension – I think the quicker we're going to start to heal as a party and move past Donald Trump.

I just think history is going to prove that Donald Trump was one of the biggest mistakes this country's ever made.

Take a load off, Fani
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fani
And (And, and)
You put the load right on me (You put the load right on me)

Where it belongs. On all of us. Get rid of this clown. Close down the shitshow.

Tour de Force

The Federalist Society

According to Wikipedia, “The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.” It is today one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.

Two of the law professors from the Federalist Society, William Baude and Michael Paulsen, quoted from the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which reads,

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability,”

The professors responded with the following:

“The bottom line is that Donald Trump both ‘engaged in’ ‘insurrection or rebellion’ and gave ‘aid or comfort’ to others engaging in such conduct, within the original meaning of those terms as employed in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”

“Section 3’s disqualification rule may and must be followed — applied, honored, obeyed, enforced, carried out — by anyone whose job it is to figure out whether someone is legally qualified to office,” the authors wrote.

The man they’re discussing just wrote this:

This is the state the country is in right now. Taking Trump’s posting literally, we can only lament that he is one of the “violent criminals…roaming the streets while going untried, free, & treated with kid gloves.” Stay tuned, folks. The history is there for the writing.

"Thanks for the Tip, Everybody!" (1)

Those words still echo. We (I) failed to tip the drivers who took us from our motel to LAX to catch a flight. I should have tipped them.

Although they deserved a tip, many hands are out for tips that aren’t deserved. At Talavera, a local Mexican restaurant (fabulous burritos), after you tap your card a window shows up with possible tip amounts. At the bottom is the word “Other.” If you tap other (I haven’t) I expect that I’ll have a choice to add an amount of my choosing, or, perhaps a window will come up with this option: NO TIP. Instead of voluntarily allowing the diner to choose how much to tip, or whether to tip at all, the guest has to actively choose to select in a two-step process, NO TIP.

I’m accustomed to tipping for service rendered. Selecting a tip amount before the service is rendered defeats the purpose. Making it difficult not to tip makes it even harder. If I like the service and the burrito I will tip. Don’t ask me for that reward before I even sit down.

And who do we tip? Counter workers? I give the lady at Noah’s $1 when I pick up a dozen bagels. That’s an exception. I’m uncomfortable tipping when no real service is rendered. Incidentally, data reveals that people who order at kiosks tip higher than those who order at counters, probably because people order more at kiosks and the bill is higher. Some restaurants add a mandatory service charge of 18-20%, then add a space for “additional tip” on the bill. I leave that blank. The mandatory service charge formerly was applied to parties of six or more. Now two or more may find that a service charge has been included.

Although tipping is customary for services provided, there are exceptions: doctors, lawyers, teachers, plumbers, electricians, and other professionals whose salaries are independent of gratuities, In general, salaried workers.

i give Jenny a generous tip. My hair doesn’t require a “stylist”, but she’s meticulous with the clippers and the scissors. Tipping higher than 20% shows an appreciation for someone who goes the extra mile. I couldn’t have left enough of a tip for the poor maid who went to Jadyne’s and my hotel room in Madrid, as we both became violently sick during the night. We tried to leave a tip the next morning. We were turned down.

When Jadyne and I were engaged I worked room service at the Hyatt House in Burlingame, a hotel comprised of five or six outbuildings. Taking meals to a guest in one of those buildings was a chore. I carried four meals once, and the guest didn’t tip. I brought his blll to the front desk, wrote on it, “Add 15% tip”, then signed his name, an action that could have resulted in my being fired. I wasn’t. I brought James Brown a slice of pie. $20.

Giving Thanks

From the Washington Examiner today: " Former President Donald Trump fired off a series of Truth Social posts on Thursday ahead of his commute to Washington, D.C., for his third arraignment this year, saying, "I am being arrested for you.”

I gave thanks to Trump. (Can someone else be arrested for a crime you’ve committed?)  If he was arrested for me, then I must have committed a crime that escaped the authorities’ attention.  I went back to my past and came up with a few:

1) Sixty-eight years ago I kept returning the same empty soft drink bottles to a pony keg on Montgomery Road.  They would give me  $.03 for each bottle, then carry them outside to the back of the pony keg.  I would climb over a fence, take the same bottles, then return them again and collect the money.  I was saving up to buy a WeeGee squirt gun, but I was caught. Not arrested, and I did give the money back.

2)  A year later I held up the Pleasant Ridge PO with a Mattel burp gun, the kind that took roll caps.  There were two doors at either end of the post office.  I ran in one, fired at the clerks behind the counter and ran out the other.  I was never arrested for that, either.

3)  I snuck out of my house one night with my cousin, went to the Gayety Theater, and saw a burlesque show when I was twelve or thirteen.  “How old are you?” the ticket seller asked.  “Eighteen,” I replied in early-teen falsetto voice.  I lied, yes, but escaped arrest.

4)  I filled a mailbox on Grand Vista Avenue with leaves, then threw in a match, fanning the flames with the little door that’s still common to those mailboxes.  Got away with that one, too. a federal offense.

5) At sixteen I unscrewed some Christmas lightbulbs on the hedge in front of GIBSON CARDS off Section road, so that by unplugging the G, I, and B,  I could leave the S intact.  Unscrewing the top bulbs in the O turned it into a U.  I left the C.  Unscrewing the bulbs at the top of the R turned it into a K.  I unplugged the D and the S, so for one Christmas Gibson Cards' message was SUCK,  not Gibson Cards.  The next year a new spiffy cyclone fence made it impossible.  I’m confessing this today, thinking that the statute of limitations might have passed in more than sixty years.  Trespassing?  

I’m sure there are more, but it’s gratifying to know that someone else is taking the fall for these.  Knowing that Trump’s arrest prevents me from heading to the slammer, although in this spirit of confessing, I once went to the slammer on purpose.  As a freshman at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, I climbed over the outer wall of the Washington State Penitentiary and stole the hand-painted sign that read, “Inmate Curio Shop.  Open Daily.”  Got away with that one, too.  I wish I still had it.

Currently living anonymously in the Witness Protection Program at 330 Rugby Avenue, Kensington, CA 94708.