Christian Soldiers

When I was seven years old, singing "Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war" dressed in choir robes, goose stepping with the other choristers, single file, toward the stalls, an alter boy lead the procession with the “cross of Jesus” held high. A dead man on a pole. I couldn't help but think that nothing could be much more ridiculous than that. The image of a man nailed to crossed boards leading us into “war” with anyone who didn't believe the same silliness that we were being force fed and trying so desperately to believe.

This is supposed to be about love and acceptance? It's anything but that. Judgement-filled, exclusionary, demanding, demeaning, narrow, perverted. "Original sin?" oh please. The church invented the concept of sin as a way to extort money from the masses. There's nothing that money can't buy.

I thought: “What if God is actually the devil, a great deceiver? Always pointing the finger of blame in the other direction?” How can people swallow this stuff, why do they give it any credence at all?

It's early childhood indoctrination. Although it may not have worked so well on some, it does for most. We eat the foods of the culture we're born into, wear the clothes, and worship the gods. We generally don't question any of it very much. We think we're right, and we're ready to go to war to prove it. Lets fight some more over the name of god.

If I had been born in Japan, I would be Shinto. You would too.

 "Religion is a jumble of primitive folklore that humankind drags through the ages like a cosmic security blanket. Religion is passionate and irrational and messy. But philosophy is the flower of human intellect. It is reasonable and civilized. Religion inspires war and atrocity; at worst, philosophy incites mild arguments over coffee and dessert".

So when someone offered the fact that the alter and cross were undamaged in the Notre Dame fire as proof of God, I couldn't help thinking “step back from the trees, out of the forest, and look around”

Try a nice glass of water for a change and leave the red wine & bloody Kool Aid on the table.

You wish a mild intervention would put the poster on a path to the deprogramming she needs. But if her world is full of others drinkers of the Kool Aid that they've been raised on, don't expect too much.

It's next to impossible to get a cigarette smoker who lives in a house full of fellow smokers, to quit. Especially when the others are constantly sliding another cigarette across the coffee table to her when she pauses to simply catch her breath.

Even if I was God...

If I was God, had the power to intervene, change things. Perhaps nothing more than little tweaks here and there. You would get none of it. I believe your life could be no more full, celebratory and earned. You made it happen. We usually get what we deserve in this world based on what we've done up to the moment in question, good or bad. Your cup is full any way you look at it. I couldn't be more proud of who you are, luminescent as you go...  

Happy Thanksgiving?

Most of us will have a happy Thanksgiving, but I can't help thinking about many others who won't...

Once the dogs bugged me enough to take them for a run at Moses Creek preserve, I went ahead and loaded all three into the truck, as we do most mornings, and headed South to our somewhat isolated spot. A cloudless sky allowed an unfettered sunshine to nip at my skin. Vibrant greens and browns splashed the pines and scrub that flank our path leading to an open field. A light breeze seemed to be caught in transition, hot summer to cool winter, without too much lingering in between. Twenty minutes into our walk, the dogs were still lost in finding new scat, maybe that day old pile of hay left there after processing by whatever horse it is that regularly leaves tracks in the damp areas near a swampy place in the trail. The wind picked up and called for my attention as clouds moved silently in, completely blanketing the sky with gray. The rain started lightly at first but within minutes it poured in a way on which Florida seems to hold a patent. Giants overhead emptying buckets, a river falling from the sky. The four of us had no choice but to turn and head back without any possibility of cover. Soaked to the skin, the rain bouncing off of my bare head, Chica, the little firecracker of a terrier mix, sat down. Normally pointed ears lay flat. She was miserable and didn't know what to do about it. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We plodded on as I thought about the last time I had walked, uncovered, in a downpour. Nothing came to mind. That brief exposure was bearable because I knew that the dry truck was waiting for us, just a few miles ahead. But what of the homeless? What of the Syrian refugees? What if there was no truck waiting, no home for me with its closets full of dry clothes and refrigerator stocked with too much food? I remembered a picture someone had posted of a refugee, a big man in his forties dressed in clothes that made him look like anyone I may pass on the street. He was clutching his little daughter to his chest. Both were crying. The father crying out of frustration that he could no longer feed and house his child. What else had he lost to the violence? His wife? Other children? He had lost almost everything and he had no place to go. Terrified, exposed, almost in shock. No warm truck waiting at the end of the trail, his home a memory, lost.

This perspective helps me to be very thankful today, my plate is so full. But I want the Statue of Liberty to stand tall as it always has, welcoming: "Give me your tired, your poor,your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I hope we still mean it.

On the ride back it was immediately obvious that we had picked up a fifth passenger...myself, the three dogs, and the overwhelming stink of wet dogs with generous amounts of horeshit perfume rolled vigorously behind their ears. And I was, I am, a very grateful, thankful, man.

Bio

I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶o̶r̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶o̶o̶r̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶l̶d̶.̶ ̶ Sorry, that was Steve Martin. We weren't poor. Dad was a successful attorney with his own law practice at 25 Broadway in Manhattan. He was top of his class at Johns Hopkins and at Harvard Law. A very pleasant man, a walking encyclopedia, who didn't care much for kids. He cared very much for Mom though, and kids happened. Four of us. Our house was just like the Beaver's house. Mom wore dresses and pearls. She even looked a bit like June Cleaver. Dad read the paper and smoked Kent cigarettes. All that proper behavior gave me the hives though, so I went over to my buddy, David Callahan's house. Chaos ruled there. A Black Racer escaped from its cage and zipped all over the place and half-way up the walls, trying to bite people at every opportunity. Antique rifles were stacked in most corners. Many were loaded. A babysitter blew a hole through the living room floor and into the basement. We made bombs and blew stuff up. Mrs Callahan stocked the kitchen cabinets with Twinkies, chips, and all the wonderful “junk food” items that my mother never bought. If my house was like a library, David's was like a carnival.
College in North Alabama was an eye opener. I only went there because when my freshman year ended at the University of Georgia, they didn't invite me back. At Athens College, the entry requirements were not so tough. If you could fog a mirror, you were in. After four years of insanity dealing with all the social changes that Robert Zimmerman had been croaking heresies about while I was in a town straight out of the 1930's, I graduated in spite of it all.
But first, I lost a game of Ping-Pong to Howard Rau and was too bored to wait for my next chance to be up. Very stoned, impatient for life to start happening, I slipped around the corner and into a phone booth to call my college girlfriend who had already gone home. I asked her to marry me because I thought that was just what people did when they got out of college and I had at least another ten minutes before it was my turn back at the Ping Pong table anyway. That call set in motion a nightmare of events that included a huge church wedding, which I especially hated, and an old man three piece band that I hated even more. We divorced two years later.
Having drawn a low lottery number and with the Army breathing down my neck, I ran over to the Air Force recruiter and got myself signed up. DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency. Four years in the bowels of the Pentagon keeping records on Red Chinese missile sites and Jane Fonda. I witnessed shockingly few examples of any kind of intelligence at all.
Four years of bachelorhood in a huge lakeside townhouse shared with three other bachelors was one big, fantastic party. I was like Snoopy on top of his dog house, dancing feet a blur. So happy not to be married, every morning was Christmas when the fog cleared and the thought of being single came rushing back to embrace me, like waking up a millionaire with Heather Locklear next to me (remember, this was some 35 years ago. She was hot!).
But fate had other plans for my time. Working at The Reston Times newspaper, where I had been for a year or two, Carla started working in the classified department and we hit it off. I fell hard and we eloped within six months of meeting. Now, 36 years later, we have two unique and wonderful daughters.
Ruth is 33, a professional assistant and show nanny for some rich people in Hollywierd. The old, ugly nanny has to stay home when they travel. Ruth's life is all about private jets, personal chefs, trainers, bodyguards, and multiple estates. Tough duty.
Hannah is 28, a gypsy hippie yoga instructor who has been on her own since she was 15. She just didn't come home one day, called me, and told me that she had rented a condo on the beach, was safe and happy and didn't need my support. We've always been close and she's always been her own boss. That determination has taken her all over the world, solo. Dancing on tables in a tapas bar in Spain, surfing the coast of Rio, living in South Africa, Australia, SE Asia...and now in Medellin, Columbia. She's such a breath of fresh air.
Largely, her mom is responsible. Carla home schooled the girls. Threw out the rule book and listened very carefully to the girls needs. No TV, lots of books, field trips, chickens, country living at it's best. I worked in a variety of roles. Rising up through the ranks of a national air courier business in the 1980's, software development and sales in the early 1990's.
That's when we moved to Florida. I launched a magazine: “New Homes and Communities” recognizing the benefit of chasing the new construction market in Florida. That went well and lead me to the proverbial “offer I couldn't refuse”. I went to work as a realtor for a large home-builder that had been a print advertising client. The money got crazy and we bought investment houses. The recession put an end to all that. I'm a genius Realtor, I buy high and sell low.
Now the dust has settled and we're relatively poor again. I still work for a builder, but only part time. We live in what had been our smallest rental, and life is very, very good. Sometimes it's more about what you save than what you earn.
All in all, an average, uneventful life. Like most people, we spent the first half of our lives acquiring two of everything we never really needed, and the second half trying to get rid of that stuff. Life is simpler now, my give-a-shit levels are almost bottomed out. I care a lot more about a very few things, family, friends, and a lot less about most other things. But we've never had to deal with tragedy, lost a child, faced cancer or major illness. We've just had a very long string of warm, wonderful days full of great food and lots of laughter... days that turned into years, a lifetime. Maybe that's not so average after all.

No Agenda...

Yesterday afternoon...

Two old dogs fill sun drenched patches of grass, like puzzle pieces fit to size, both lost in deep sleep. I've got the deck, a recliner, looking up into the oak canopy, watching birds chase insects as squirrels run frantic circles around a massive Oak, snug in its Jasmine overcoat. The little dog, always excited, circles the tree, staring overhead, daring the squirrels to come down. She pauses briefly to dart after a green chameleon before returning to her job of keeping the squirrels off the lawn. The breeze is cool, fresh off the inter-coastal. My frayed copy of Bukowski's “Women”, that I'm revisiting for the second time this year, sits on a rusting side table next to me. Carla is at work, as always these days, lusting for money she doesn't really need that badly, but this afternoon, I,myself, have no particular agenda at all.

I Never Left Your Side...

I Never Left Your Side...

Invite me to walk with you on a mountain path,

Show me the pristine meadow with the bleached bones of a Red Fox,

Bushy tail still waving in the breeze.

I'll be there with you.

Let’s do Yoga on the beach, inhaling deeply of the first beams from a rising sun.

We'll leave only your footprints behind as we stroll along, close, like before.

Little has changed.

If you have a party or eat the foods we both love, save a place for me.

I'll be there.

Maybe an oyster shooter, mussels in broth, fresh baked crusty bread.

You know I'll be there.

But if you find yourself grieving, regardless of the reason,

We'll grieve together, hand in hand, you can lean on me.

I never left your side.

Just because I no longer have an address in this world,

Don't think that I am gone.

I will live with you, through you, for all your days,

Until that time when we walk the beach together once again,

Leaving only the footprint of the waves to mark our passing...

hmh

St Ambrose Fair

Keeping my promise to Carla, I pulled on my big boy pants and went to the St. Ambrose Fair yesterday afternoon. By myself. It's an annual event here in St Augustine, held at a very small, historic Catholic church that sits on a shady 10 acre piece of old Florida land, complete with huge live oaks dripping with Spanish moss that goes horizontal in stiff winds. Carla would have gone with me as she has every year, but she had to work this time. That's all she does right now. Five weeks ago, Carla told me that she had been solicited by a former patient to come and work for her exclusively, Monday morning through Saturday morning, 24 hours a day in her home at the beach. A live in position. But Carla also has no plans to give up her Saturday and Sunday job with another company either, helping with client needs in a group home, 9am to 9pm on both weekend days. Pointing to the fact that most married people live together made no difference with her. She's got her hand caught in the monkey trap and I've learned not to waste my breath when her mind is made up.

So that's it right now, married life. My wife is gone all the time except for late Saturday and Sunday nights when she crawls into the bed with me, exhausted at around 10PM. But knowing what I like, and feeling guilty at so drastically altering our time together, when I see her for those few brief hours, she gives me a few toe curling, eye rolling blow-jobs, and $1,500 cash. Am I supposed to be upset or delighted with this arrangement? Anyway, this year she couldn't go to the fair with me and challenged me to go by myself. Carla is outgoing, an extrovert. I'm the opposite, happiest at home. When left alone, I go to work and to the grocery store, period. The dogs and I go out into the park behind our house, but as far as the car goes, it's work and Publix.

“I don't know how long I'll be working these two jobs. You need to get out and do stuff without me”

“Why?”

“Because it's good for you, you can't just stay here at home!”

“Yes I can, I'm happy right here. Go to work.”

But in the end we agreed. I need to be more independent and outgoing. Push myself to go to events, eat dinner in a restaurant alone, walk in the historic district downtown. She said that the St Ambrose Fair would be a great way to start, and I promised to go.

So there you have it. A crisp, bright Sunday afternoon found me walking around the church grounds in my big boy pants, along with about 3,000 other people. Did I mention that I hate crowds? Well, I hate crowds. Skirting the perimeter, trying to get to the Chowder booth with minimal human contact wasn't easy, but I did, and the line when I got there was ridiculous. About 3 city blocks long, winding a serpentine path all the way across the lawn and back toward the main entrance. All for a five dollar cup of their famous “Minorcan Chowder” that frankly, I make make better than they do anyway. So fuck that. I wouldn't stand in line if Jesus had returned and was giving out signed 8×10 prints of himself posing with Kim Davis. Hell, I didn't even walk across the street at our old house on the island to see Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt at the Amphitheater. Too many bodies in a tight space. Gingivitis and farts in the air. It was the same deal with the booth for the famous pulled pork sandwiches. Miles of bodies. Fuck that one too.

Before I even went to the fair though, I had told Carla that I would text her a few pictures of myself while I was there, just to prove that I went. “Just look for the guy in the pictures, standing alone, head down, no wifeypoo to cling to.” With that in mind and having given up on chowder and pulled pork, I decided to walk the perimeter some more and find the five best looking girls in the crowd. I would tell each of them about my pledge to Carla and ask them to pose with me, arms around my waist, head on my shoulder. Hell, their boyfriends can take the picture, proud that some old guy said that their girlfriend was the prettiest girl at the fair. I planned to text the pictures to Carla to show her just how miserable I was without her. But guess what? Three thousand people and no good looking girls. None. Zero. The entire crowd was divided into two groups intermingled: old people with oxygen tanks attached to their scooters or perhaps taking baby steps on three headed canes, or young heavy girls, boobs falling out of stained Rebel flag T-shirts, tramp stamps touching ass cracks, dragging a screaming three year old in a small dust cloud behind them. OK, fuck that idea too.

A local country band screamed over the din the whole time I was there, finishing up with a third encore of “Freebird”, and announcing that they were going to take a break. Thank god. The lead guy said that we were in for a treat. Nine year old Debbie James was going to sing. “You won't believe this little girl is only nine!” Debbie came up to the mike, adjusted it like a pro, and immediately started to sing the National Anthem. Three thousand people stood up, clutching their beers, and each other for balance. Old veterans saluted as others put their hands over hearts. Little Debbie didn't need a mike, she was a cringe worthy powerhouse of shrill patriotism that ripped at my eardrums like a school of tiny Piranha swimming on the wrong side of my eardrum, determined to break through to the middle ear.

That was it for me. I ignored the sea of piercing looks, did an about face and walked in the opposite direction toward the safety of my perimeter. Done, wrapped up after an excruciating 42 minutes of disliking myself for being a human, just like all the other mouth breathers there. The whole time, all I did was think negative thoughts about the people, the food, or lack of it, the music, and the “Get to Know Catholicism” booth.

My main take-away? The image forever burned into my occipital lobe of the ass of a 16 year old girl in yoga pants sulking along slowly three steps behind her parents, who apparently were being fattened for slaughter. Their daughter's ass, however, didn't look that way at all.

After a very pleasant, breezy, drive back home, with all the windows down, listening to Mark Knopfler, I was at my nest. No one there other than Rufus, Chica, and Sasha to greet me. Perfect. I went to my Volcano vaporizer, filled a balloon, and headed out to the deck. I kicked back on the lounge chair that had been waiting for me and scanned the lake, listening to the high cries of Ospreys circling overhead, staring down intently for a carry-out fish dinner to pick up and take home for the family...unless they plan to eat out alone.

All in all, the afternoon was good for me after all, a learning curve. I know now with absolute certainty that other than trips to work or the grocery store, I may never go out again.

Deprogramming Awareness or The Other Way Around...

Early childhood indoctrination in action. It's often why, as adults, we do what we do. But I'm not just targeting Christians here. An Atheist friend said that he hadn't pushed his teenage daughter one way or the other when she declared her own Atheism. After he thought about it, he recanted. We all lead by example, good or bad. The mother of a friend smoked, drank, and slept with whomever, all the wile shaking her finger at her daughter telling her not to smoke, drink, and sleep around. Guess what the results were?

Of course it's up to each of us to lead by example for our kids and everyone else, mainly for ourselves. It's all about the person in the mirror. Certainly that's true when it comes to personal responsibility. We choose our reaction. No one “makes me mad” I may choose to react with anger, but that's on me. No scapegoating. 

My father taught me the most valuable lesson I've ever learned. “Question everything.” he said, “The teacher, priest, lawyer, doctor, everyone and everything, including me.” We must take nothing for granted, step back and run it through your own private obstacle course. Choose those things that make sense for us personally,and stand up for them. Be flexible though. The one absolute we can count on while making this journey, is that everything will, and is, changing. 

Storm!

A wicked thunderstorm rolled in late yesterday afternoon. Loud explosions of air clapping against air filled the void left by lighting strikes that hit like God's Gatling gun, spraying the area with chaos. This morning's calm, like a glorious exhaustion after frenzied sex. The cloudless sky, brilliant with sunlight that stings eyes and skin, bringing out peak colors, a crystal clarity, as if the storm peeled off a thin layer of film, dingy and spotted, washing it down into sewers and streams and ultimately, out to sea....

Now, driving home from the gym, Johnny Winter is screaming the blues:

If the river was whiskey and I was a divin

Baby I was a diving duck, whoa

If the river was whiskey and I was a divin Duck

I would dive on the bottom, Baby I would never come up

Well the suns gonna shine in my back door,

Baby in my back door someday

The sun gonna shine in my back door someday

Well the wind gonna blow all

Your blues away

And it did exactly that.

On the Road to Spuds...

Blazing blacktop road to the horizon, melting in the unapologetic sun, flanked by soggy fields sprayed with septic chemicals for too many generations, all banned now and leeched into the local groundwater. Heading West on that burning sauna of a Florida afternoon, radio says it's 101 in the shade, although there is none of that in sight. Just open fields of pale cabbages raised too long on Monsanto chemicals, slowly killing the earth, even as the crops try to grow. Heat snakes undulate skyward, blurring the horizon, dancing in mirage pools that evaporate into the searing oven with my approach. A shape on the side of the road ahead, at first fuzzy, unfocused, sharpens in flashes until I see him clearly. Dirty, stooped, dragging a piece of airline luggage like an errant child, jumping and bucking with a broken wheel. His back to oncoming traffic, the acknowledgment of his left thumb turned slightly outward with my approach, barely visible. An appeal, a question already answered by his hunched, defeated shuffle. He was heading the right way, walking hand in hand with a thousand miles of hopelessness, toward a little farm town that no longer had anything left to offer, as sick and toxic as the water that ran through its veins.

This Moment...

For our entire life, birth to death, we only get a moment. This one right now. That's it. Everything else is memory or a wish. So when Hannah speaks to me of her yoga practice and the need to do things with intent, to be in the moment, that resonates. When Carla mentions Carl Jung's appeal for mindfulness, we're all speaking the same language. If we waste this moment by not being in it, maybe thinking of our “to do” list or what's for dinner, we can never get it back It's as if we were never there. That's our life we're letting slip by. Did we pick up that faint scent of wood smoke in the air or hear the Geese flying in their chevron overhead? Our children grow a half a foot, seemingly overnight. Was I there? Did I even see it? Or was I thinking about work or the bills, or maybe wasting time worrying about something that may never happen?

Be mindful, move forward with intent, pay attention. Don't blink.  

Yellow Jackets

The first time I saw the artwork of Bryan Shanchez was in Medellin, Columbia, dominating the side of a five story building. Be it a 30 foot mural or a 3 inch tattoo, Bryan brings true artistry to all of his work. This tattoo is done in the “watercolor”, free-form style. The image of a Yellow Jacket takes me back to my 8 year old self, a budding Entomologist. I collected insects, impaled on mounting pins in neat little rows of dried exoskeletons inside of the colorful cigar boxes that were still made with Balsa. Wasps, beetles, hornets...but no Yellow Jackets. They were too common for me to collect and too damn mean. Unlike Honey Bees who prefer to mind their own business and only sting in defense, Yellow jackets sting just for the fun of it, over and over. Then they call their buddies in to join the party. “Hey guys, come sting this human with me! You'll love the way he freaks out, dancing and waving his arms. Yo Bill! Sting him right behind his ear, see if you can get him to make those high sounds like a girl! We've got to do this more often, I'm laughing so hard I'm about to pee on my own stinger!”

You don't want to fuck with Yellow Jackets.

Pulse of ife...

Curled up next to me in the bed, her regular breathing a reassuring ebb and flow. First sun warms the long curtains, glowing folds wave slowly in harmony with the lake beyond. Feet hitting the treadmill, their cadence marking a journey to many places beyond their immediate path to nowhere. 

Late afternoon sun warms our backs as waves break dramatically on stage, their rhythmic crash unceasing, hypnotic. Nestled in a lawn chair under the oak canopy, the Chiminea pops and cracks as it eats the yard debris thrown hastily into it's greedy maw. As embers dim and quiet, I hear the pulse of my own blood as much as feel it. Cool breezes appear unexpectedly, lured in by the tree frogs, now all dressed up and yelling for their nightly rumspringa to begin.

Tires for Jesus, and Me

After going round and round about new tires, price and features, the woman at Walmart Automotive Center locked in my choice.

“Now I go see if we have em, all fo” She said.

“You don't have an inventory system so that you know that from here at your computer?” I asked.

She started to hit the top of her screen and bang on the keyboard. “I don trus this no more than I trus my man.They lie!”

She said “I gotta check. Otherwise it be like standin in line fo a nice jucy Big Mac and they hands you a tuna sammich!”

Maybe I should have gone to the place next door. I doubt Jesus has these problems.

Real Men Don't Eat Quiche...

“Real men don't eat Quiche” Where did that horse pie come from anyway? No idea. But when I woke up at 1:30 I wanted to make it. One crab, one broccoli. But my deal with myself is that I don't get out of bed before 3AM, so I did my best to go back to sleep. I've always resented, the need for sleep. It feels like wasted time, like I'm missing out on something. Anyway, I made it to 2:45 and decided that the clock was 15 minutes slow.

Five minutes later, I was rolling. Pandora playing Hound Dog Taylor through an old wireless JBL that Hannah gave me years ago about the size of a hoagie roll that still kick ass.

Bent over a Pyrex bowl, grating Swiss, Gruyere, and Asiago. The broccoli was already blanched, mixed with cream and crab. Check, check, check, and check.

Quiche is best if refrigerated overnight and then warmed back up. That is the plan. And tomorrow? I will definitely eat Quiche. So as far as that stuff about real men goes, there is only one of two conclusions to be drawn:

1) It's not true 2) I'm not a real man.

I'm fine with it either way, as long as I get a big slice.

  

Chase the Ball

Birth to death, we're all stumbling forward, crawling, trying to walk upright. Briefly, someone stands and walks without falling, “Look at me! I know the way!” and then they're lost. We wonder why, how, what is it, what does it mean? Gods are blamed or credited to fill in for our lack of understanding. The sun is a ball of hot plasma, not the god we thought it to be. We were foolish then, but now, we have faith in gods word. Pick one of the one of the 5,000 gods to which we attribute the mysteries. 

That will change, everything does.

 “God is a metaphor for that which transcends all intellectual thought”. 

For now, we stumble, make up answers and Gods. We follow those who appear to stumble less, until they do.

Dogs get it. Be happy now with the sunshine on an upturned belly, thankful for the food in the bowl. No concern for origin or outcome. Right now is all there is. 

Chase the ball joyously, tomorrow never comes.

Hat Drill

As Carla and I were getting ready to go out for dinner, I glanced into the mirror and thought for the 1,000th time just how much it sucks to have my hairline start in the middle of the top of my head. I was disgusted with my shiny double forehead.

Yelling impatiently backward: “You ready?”

Carla shouted back: “Ill be right there, I'm just going to grab a sweater in case Ned puts us under the vent again and tries to freeze me.” Then she came down the three stairs from the main house into the great room addition, sweater in hand.

Going over to the hat pegs and selecting the “newsboy cap”, I said: “This makes me look like I should run an Italian Deli in New York. You like it?”

Carla: “Yes, it looks good” Switching hats, I asked: “Or do you prefer this ball cap? No, everybody and his brother wears these things. How about a nice Fedora? Or maybe this wide brim Panama?”

Carla, was tiring of the ritual and eager to get to dinner. “I like that last one best. Wear that.”

As I immediately hung the Panama back up on its peg she questioned me, sounding frustrated: “So which one are you going to wear?” Walking impatiently toward the door to leave, I answered...”None of them. You know I hate hats!”

It was an excellent dinner anyway, Ned's Trout Piccata is the best. Sitting toward the back of the main dining area, my head illuminated the dark corner as if someone had just oiled my double forehead. I could see my distant reflection in his big mirror across the room. “I've really got to get myself a hat.” I thought to myself as the waitress brought me the check.

Silver Circles

Twin circles of twisted silver bear witnesses to every moment of my adult life. Although I've never taken them off, that's no longer possible, even if I wanted to. Not anymore. Either my hands have gotten thicker or the bracelets have shrunk.

Scanners yell and point at me in airports and government buildings. I guess that could be the result of personality analysis software but I think it's the bracelets. They're every bit as much a part of me as a child's favorite blanket.

Those bracelets saw me place my hands gently onto my Grandfather's chest as he lay motionless on a mortuary table. I whispered my last goodbyes. They gave a tiny puppy something to chew on as she squirmed for unfettered freedom. That good girl grew to be my best pal for 17 years. Now she's been gone for more than twenty. Those bracelets hung loosely as I held my lover's hand, both of us nervous under the piercing glare of a Justice of the Peace. He transformed us from two into one. They often jangled like bells when I would salute an Air Force superior, catching the sun as well as his disdainful glare at my unauthorized adornments. Oh well. These days, they hover as I stir soups over the stove or share an embrace with my wife, like those spiral rings, warm, familiar, reassuring.

Each second of the passing hours of my life since my early 20's, they've circled my right wrist, silver rings that traveled every road with me. One day, I will cut them off and hand one to each of my two daughters with a request: Size them to fit. Have them soldered shut, end to end, full circle. Fused into memory rings that accompany you on your own journeys. There will be a time when I won't need them anymore. Take them, let me walk with you, through them, together every step of the way. 

NYC

Cold black mouth, tongue of rails.

Throat clearing scream blows urine breath.

Cinders hide in eyes narrowed to a slit.

Subway riders board the cattle train to Broadway.

Dirty legs extend from cardboard boxes,

shielding homeless people from monsters.

Like covers over a child's head.

Handsome men stroll hand-in-hand,

pausing to kiss and laugh.

They walk off quickly, wrapped up in shared secrets.

Food smells stake out their territory, mugging the passing crowd.

Gangs of stores change image and intent,

just one block down.

Everything changes just one block down.

If I Turn Into That Guy...

If I turn into “that guy” ...you know, the guy or lady in the grocery store, who stops their cart in the middle of the isle, neither left nor right, oblivious to the fact that people traffic is trying to go up and down both sides, most of us programmed to stick to the right... They weren’t allowing access for others to pass, they picked dead center. Apparently it never crossed their minds that someone, or several someone’s, may be behind them and want to get by. Carts parked in the center, backs, asses, and elbows on both sides, studying, evaluating, meditating, over a can of crushed tomatoes on one side, and some Mac and cheese on the other. Of course I can speak up, to whatever degree, but that's not the point.

I swear right now; I'm not going to turn into those people.

It was worse at the entrance to the store. Two older ladies had pulled their carts out of the horizontal stack, and met in the middle of the doorway. Past friends, seemingly engaged in an over-the-top love fest of “when was it” “low long” “we need to” ...lots of gushing. Those of us who were trying to enter started to stack up. I'm sorry to be so negative, but just how fucking clueless can people be? It was the fucking entrance to the store!

I bet a nice stun grenade would clear a path.

Then there was the older lady in the express check-out lane. you know, ten items or less. Her purse was the size of most carry-on luggage, and she wasn't sure where she hid her wallet in there. After digging for what seemed like an eternity, she found it in a small compartment, inside a larger compartment. Apparently she was out of cash and didn't really know how to use her credit card properly so she had to write a check. Where is that checkbook anyway? Two forms of ID please. She produced the necessary check and IDs in excruciatingly slow motion as I wallowed in evil thoughts and an urgent need to pee. When all of her transactions were completed and paid for, the lady in question couldn't simply push her cart out of the way and put all her checks and IDs back in their respective holders elsewhere so the express lane could move again. No, she had to do all it at the register, just to make sure that she held the bottleneck tight for as long as humanly possible.

I've never beaten an old lady (she was probably my age, everyone my age looks old to me) but I can definitely understand the attraction and entertained myself with that fantasy until she was done.

Anyway, I'm starting to feel better, venting and all, but still, if I turn into that guy, or maybe pull a Bruce Jenner and turn into that woman, please humanely euthanize me.

Print out this post and consider it to be my permission slip.

Zeppelin Boy

Throughout my life as an East Coast guy, which is all of my life, local insects have fascinated and charmed me, garnering my attention to this day. I collected them as a kid, murdered and mounted, but I evolved quickly into a lover. They were a weapon to use against my older brother when he thought it might be a good idea to alleviate his boredom by wrestling me to the ground and sitting on my face. But I could get lost in their world, and frequently did, looking at and handling bees and wasps. I knew that bumble bees were the Zeppelins of the stinging set. They're big, beautiful, and rather benign. Labrador bees. I would gently cover them with my hand and lift them from flowers. When I stopped running and opened my hand to show my brother, the tide turned, he ran, me chasing. Bumble bees, among others, were my buddies. So when I went into the laundry room this morning, and heard a buzzing, of course I looked around. There, In the bottom of the laundry sink, was a big, beautiful, healthy looking, bumble bee, drinking long and hard from a thimble sized pool of water held together down there by, cohesion, adhesion or some other form of magic that defies logic. He must have gotten trapped in that room; it opens to the driveway. As I put my hand down flat on the bottom of that deep utility sink, offering him a ride back outside, he climbed up as if he had been waiting for the elevator and the doors had just opened on his floor. He gently tasted my thumb as I opened the door to the fresh air, buzzing, bumbling really, at the end of my outstretched arm. He was just being a bumblebee. Slowly, laboriously, with what seemed like more weight than power to make himself fly, he lifted off... as if he were filled with Helium..

  

Street Dogs...

Street dogs in Columbia really know how to work a crowd. Savvy, cautious, independent survivors, thin but not starving. They live an unfettered life marked by handouts from the passing crowd and deep sleep on a sunlit stoop. I bought a bag of fresh rolls, just for them. A large, shaggy Shepherd mix approached me openly as I waved a bun and called out to him. Taking it immediately into his mouth, he promptly spit it back out, staring at it on the ground as if daring it move. I picked it up and offered it again, he took it and spit it out. Given the number of mom & pop bread shops that are so common on every street, I realized that bread must be the most frequent donation the canine beggars get. This guy wanted something more substantial, egg, meat, cheese... Some kind of protein. Please, enough with the bread already! He wandered away. Four more dogs came and went, all rejecting the bread. None appeared to be starving, all just working the procession of bodies as they walked up and down the narrow street. The dogs were pros, particular about just what kind of donations they would take.

Back at home, Carla and I had a late lunch on St George Street, the main pedestrian drag for tourists visiting St Augustine. As we walked back to our car, maneuvering slowly through the crowd, Styrofoam leftovers in hand, I spotted a familiar homeless guy lounging on a sunlit stoop by the Coquina wall of the “Oldest Schoolhouse in the USA”. He's a regular at that spot, living off the generosity of the passing parade. I realized that since I hadn't touched my Shrimp dinner, it would be a special meal for the homeless guy, lying with his head propped up on one elbow. “Would you like a nice shrimp dinner? I haven't touched it!” Looking a bit like that shaggy Shepherd mix who spit out the bun, and without taking the Styrofoam from my outstretched hand, the homeless guy looked up at me and asked: “How was it prepared?” The guy is a pro, particular about just what kind of donation he would take.

Gypsy Queen

 

Flying down to Medellin,

To see my little Gypsy Queen,

I'll watch her teach the downward dog,

Add a page to my current blog,

And drink some cold cerveza.

First light calls for Cafe Tinto,

A bus ride with an open window,

Idyllic views of small Casitas,

Images of beatific Jesus,

Line hilly streets of color.

Ten days on, I'll need to fly,

A sardine can,

Built for sky.

I just so hate to say goodbye.

So I'll do no such thing.

Nos vemos mañana,

mi niña hermosa...

A "Layla" rescue...

 As is true of most mornings, I pulled up to Planet Fitness at 6:15 today. But uncharacteristically, I was able to park right in front of the main door. Inside it was a ghost town, only two other people were there. I guess some had forgotten to change their clocks and Sunday mornings are light traffic anyway. Which was fine with me. So I picked an elliptical machine right in the front row under a bank of seven flat screen TVs hanging just above. With all those channels to choose from, I can almost always find something interesting to make 30 minutes go by quickly. But not this morning. Of the seven stations available, Chuck Norris was advertizing his Total Gym on one of them and I wasn't in the mood to look at his hair, that awful dye job, and listen to him jabber. Another fitness show ran on channel 3. That guru wanted me to buy little plastic containers that are color coded to help me learn how to eat correctly. All I have to do is put the protein in the red plastic, the veggies in the green one, and so on. It's portion control for idiots. Oh, and I have to follow the workout on the two CD's that come with it. (The CD's alone are a $195.00 value!) The price for a few colored plastic containers and two CD's? Only three easy payments of $19.95. The profit margin they make on each sale is huge. No thanks, I still had five other channels to pick from. Oh shit, it's Sunday morning and all five are church stuff. There's a black preacher dancing and shouting as he wipes the sweat from his face with the small white towel that seems to be permanently sewn to the palm of his right hand. No thanks. A white lady was yelling on channel 9. I wasn't listening to the sound on any of these, just watching her get red in the face and yell. I had to pass. The last one I looked at before turning it all off and the music on, was the best. A middle age white guy, way too heavy for the red light special Kmart suit he was bulging out of while pointing at me, angry and spitting. An obvious douche. But there were thousands of people in the audience wearing suits and dresses, paying rapt attention to the fat angry guy. They were getting to me. How lame must you be to sit and listen to this blowhard yell at you or to even assume that he has anything to say that had would make it worth the unpleasantness? Pretty fucking lame. I was disgusted with myself for being a member of the human race, preferring to emulate and learn from just about any dog I had ever met over that charlatan.

So I turned it all off and the radio on. The beginning notes of Derek and The Dominoes “Layla” started playing. It was nothing short of a true epiphany as I thought: “Now. Now I really am in church! Amen brother...”

Coal Country Shack

“We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout...” That was January 15, 1978. I turned 30 eight days later and Carla baked me a cake in our funky antique stove. She was 21 and I whisked her off to a remote shack in the woods near the huge metropolis that is Chauncey, Ohio. Population: no more than a handful of stragglers, left over from when coal money was mainlining into the veins of the local economy. Thirty years prior, the Mill field mine disaster had forced the shutdown of the Sunday Creek Coal Company and put a period at the end of the death sentence for coal mining in that area. Our shack had been built on stilts in a three day frenzy of alcohol and hallucinogenics, or so I'm told. No pluming, no problem. I like outhouses better anyway. You know, sitting among the trees, bird calls and fresh breezes while adding to the pile below, lightly dusting each new contribution with lye... powdered sugar on an inverted chocolate cone. Carla screamed from there one fine Spring day when it seems that a snake had managed to slither up to the top of the pile and get within ass striking range. Good thing she looked down before she sat down. I quickly went into waste removal mode, no problem. All in all, it was a great year. She did typing at home for The University of Ohio, I went to grad school to study Interpersonal Communications. Mostly though, I studied Carla, and the THC content of various strains of Columbia ganja that I got from my brother. Our dirt driveway was deeply rutted from the tire chains that were standard equipment in the winter. Most cars couldn't make it. Almost no visitors was fine with me, but when the Jehovah Witnesses made it all the way up to our house, their car lumbering and shaking with age and the demanding load of four, very large ladies, they were welcome. As the first Witness put her heavy leg out, planting a too tight shoe and badly swollen ankle on the ground, I went inside to roll them a doobie, just to be hospitable.

  

Knock if You Dare...

It's said that you can never go back again, but in dreams and memories, we do it all the time.

When I look at this old door knocker, I become that six-year-old boy, looking up at the massive front door of my Grandparents cavernous Victorian home. I strain to get up on my toes high enough to lift that heavy clapper and let it fall. Again and again.

Their street was lined with mature Sycamore trees, the bark mottled, flaking off in irregular patches like the skin on the legs of my ancient Aunt Jeedie. Her bark was flaking and peeling too, made worse as she absent-mindedly reached down to scratch. Her room there at the old people's place, heavy with the dank smell of dirty laundry and human decay. But those trees were still youthful and strong, shading the street from all but the most persistent sunlight that managed to run the gauntlet from the canopy top, to the ground, once there, it would do a celebratory dance on the well-manicured lawns, like a thousand flashes of light from a brilliant mirror-ball suspended above.

Many years before that time, my Grandfather had worked in India for the Standard Oil Company. That's where my Mother was born and that's where the door knocker originated. It was more than just a way to announce visitors, it guarded the house with a grotesque grimace, daring people to knock. But I just liked to flip it and wait for Grandma to open the door to a house that felt like the setting of an old Basil Rathbone movie. A cornucopia of wonders spilled out from every room throughout that voluminous old place.

Just inside, guarding the front door, stretched out flat on the hallway floor, was the pelt of an adult Bengal Tiger that Grandpa had shot on a hunting expedition. The whispered backstory was that he hadn't actually shot it himself, one of the guides had, but in those days, the bragging rights were part of the package for the " Great White Hunter" to take home. The skull had been removed, cleaned, and inserted back into the head, forever threatening, caught in mid-attack, mouth open wide, deadly fangs ready to grab anything that moved. Bright glass eyes followed me in the door, waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

I immediately flopped down, pointing my Keds in the opposite direction and kissed his nose, rubbing the stiff bristle of whiskers that no longer moved on their own. “Hello Tiger” I cooed lovingly as if to my best buddy, Roxie, the fat beagle who was probably asleep right now on the living room couch she was forbidden to mount. She would be right there, defiantly waiting for me to return home.

Roxie was stuffed too, but it was with food scraps and dog treats, and she never even once tried to look scary.

St George Street

Shade from the eves cut a sharp line across his chest, allowing him respite to look out into the unrelenting sun that had been using his eyes like a pincushion all afternoon. He propped his shoulders up against the coarse coquina wall, enjoying the back scratch as he shifted his weight. The narrow St George street tourist promenade was packed with bodies, heaving, sweating, lumbering forward to the next Sweet Shoppe or Fudge Palace. Watching the parade of excess, middle America, he felt bad about his cruel judgments, and about himself for entertaining them. A lanky high school boy with severe acne offered a sampler plate of thin crust Pepperoni pizza, small squares. just outside the door of Pizzalley's. Only two pieces, mostly crust, were left. The Eagles, “Take It Easy”, drifted in and out above the buzz of the crowd, from the restaurant courtyard two doors down. A triumph of the singers will over his appalling lack of ability. Don't quit your day job, pal. Looking down to the far end of the pedestrian street, bodies became indistinct, blending into a sea of color, heat snakes rising above, heads bobbing like peaked waves, breaking just beyond the horizon.

Looking to the left, he saw her coming, hugging the wall on his side, gliding smoothly, faster than the crowd she was avoiding, as if it were a living thing, separate and unpleasant, which it was. She almost brushed him without notice. He was no more than a lamp post or another round trash receptacle, made of coquina to match the wall he supported. The slight breeze of her passing carried a hint of Lavender mixed with Ivory soap. A black tank top clutched small breasts, half oranges with nipples that apparently thought it was cold in that summer heat, held aloft by the Gods who vied for the honor to do so. Washboard abs spoke of beach time, ripping under a flawless tan. A perfect derriere, painted black in yoga pants, her second skin. She could crack walnuts, equipped with a vise disguised as a cherry tomato. He watched her go, a waterfall of shimmering russet flowing down her back, until she too was lost to the rise and fall of that human sea.

Shifting his weight, he closed his eyes, welcoming the cool dark as he put the chaos on pause, clearing his mind of everything...except for her.

Footprints...

Intentional or not, we all make a statement to the world about who we are. Our footprints on this planet may be similar, but each one is unique.

Certainly we learn a bit about a person by the car they drive. Is it a mom & pop mobile, indistinguishable from many others in the maddening crowd? Does it blend in, like the drivers themselves? Maybe it’s a truck with huge muddy tires, rims that come to the roof-line of everything else on the road? What about a convertible sports car, or a Hybrid? And who drives that Junker? Do they not have any money, or is it that they just don't give a shit about cars, happy with something cheap that gets them from here to there? Of course if a car has bumper-stickers, the guesswork gets pretty easy. Political stickers fade on rear bumpers, long after candidates have lost or won elections. Passions expressed with decals that support or condemn a myriad of causes, an unruly mob, disjointed. Profiles of a six-point buck flanked by hunting rifles. The traditional image of an Aryan Jesus, beatific with his upward stare and open palms, crowded to one side by the bright red decals of multiple Redskins helmets. Rebel flags and peace signs catch different rides. “My kid is an honor student at Knox Landing Middle School”. There is no shortage of “In Memorial” tributes to a loved one, peeling memories baked by the sun, seen in reverse by the driver looking in their rear view mirror. Will that be my legacy?

The same questions and judgments apply to us as individuals walking through this world. Is the guy in a badly rumpled suit wearing the uniform of an equally depressing job? Does the lady in massive, tight jeans, her fleshy muffin, super-sized with too many McMeals, stretch-marked and gravity drunk, hanging over her belt...does she see herself differently than we do? The big guy swaggering in his T-shirt with the arms cut off, ragged...does he mistake brawn for power? The older lady in heels so high they could double as the business end of ice axes, the kid with his patterned boxers tied off at the base by jeans so baggy they look like he's about to enter a sack race at Camp Waywayonda. What about the couple that just passed by, very tastefully dressed, not too showy, not too dull...just right, well, just right for them at least? They pose together in the lobby mirror before venturing out to their audience. Why do we feel such a strong need to be...seen? Can you judge a book by its cover after all? Are the packaging and the package indistinguishable from one another?

These days, aside from our dress and personal appearance, many people wear living bumper stickers as well. Older veterans sport dark blue amoeba like shapes on hairy forearms, unidentifiable wading pools mark hanging skin. A massive shoulder, covered in jet black spears, a tribal statement of social edginess that has become a mainstream mockery of itself, struts by in the crowd. Please God, no more dream-catchers hanging on heavy white thighs... In the check-out line, among the living dead of Walmart, a little old lady, late 70's early 80's stooped over, her housedress as faded and worn as she is herself. Someone's sweet Grandma. On the back of her neck a circle of freshly inked snakes, angrily entwined, fangs exposed, threatening. True artistic talent to restroom scrawls and prison tats, we want to make a statement about ourselves. Indelible ink screams out from an epidermis canvas.

Our nests themselves speak volumes, happy to gossip and dish. They rarely keep secrets. From the books on the shelf or the magazines thrown, half open, onto the coffee table or the steamer trunk that acts as one, to the food in the fridge. An unwrapped piece of petrified Cheddar, teeth-marks on one side, a puzzle piece. Is the bathroom tub clean, the shower curtain torn, do the stained outlines of sandpaper feet in the tub prevent a fall? How long have those sheets been crumpled into a ball on the naked mattress?

Even more telling is the path we choose to take while navigating in traffic on the electronic highway. We drop crumbs along the way, marking our path. What's in our “favorites” folder on the laptop or iPad? Would Aunt Bee be shocked or just shake her head in amusement? What about her own files? Does she have kinks under her plump roundness? The music on our iPhone, our call records, the TV we watch, the electronic signature of our credit card and buying habits, all documented, footprints.

Everywhere we go, we leave our scat, just like everyone else, but still one of a kind. Any dog with a proper sniffer would know.

We wrap ourselves in comforters of our own making to insulate us from the rest of the world and show the face we paint for public consideration. From Owl butterflies with their huge eye spots that stare menacingly from outstretched wings, to stick insects, indistinguishable from any of the twigs they hang with, we pose, hide, posture and rage, celebratory in our unique aura. With every breath we take in this millisecond of life we're given, we leave footprints in the sand that can only be ours, unique to us only.

And then, when the inevitable tides of time wash our footprints away, we, and all of our decorated guises, manifestations of our desperate attempts to strut our uniqueness on stage, are gone forever, as if we had never existed. 

At that moment, and for all of eternity, we are everyman.

hmh