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Showing posts from April, 2009

Reckless Love

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The moment of truth came when I shuffled through the half dozen albums in my hands. The crushed cellophane wrapper peeling back revealed a signature. A dedication. Country music legend Rose Maddox had written a personal note back in 1977 when we both appeared at the Santa Rosa Folk Festival. Being on the program in with a version of the Woody Guthrie show we did back then, I had access. So here I was 30 something years later and I wasn't ready to sell this album in my yard sale. In fact, I wasn't ready to sell any album. Trouble is, I didn't know that. Not until I saw that inscription did I get a clue. I committed the ultimate in yard sale sins. I wasn't ready to sell. The grisly SOB standing in front of me huffed away. I'm lucky he didn't yell, "Citizen's arrest, citizen's arrest." I felt terrible. Then angry. Then nothing. That night I awoke and the "incident" popped immediately into my head. In the darkened tranqui

Writing on Ice

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     The temperature in in the 90s today. It's still April. I'm glad I don't have to begin this Monday after Spring Break back in the classroom. But I am going back today. Tomorrow I drive back up to Portland and today is my only chance to see the new El Cerrito High School. I'm curious if any of the ghosts of the school that once stood on the exact site will be lurking in the new hallways. Will any of the faculty, administration, the thousands of students I taught, be in attendance. It's quite humbling to see a school disappear into this air, and then reappear. Realizing you know nothing of the new campus is like playing chutes and ladders with your career. And yet, I am there. In teaching and discussing Arthur Miller with my classes, I often used his ideas on immortality. Miller believed the human desire to be "known and remembered," as Willy Loman said, was the greatest human need. "Greater than hunger, sex, or thirst," he said. But

Where in the World

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It's an old tale. I've heard it many times. Sad to say, it happened to me as well. If life is full of mystery, and it is, then this one is repeated almost daily. It just might be one of the quintessential experiences of American men growing up in the second half of the 20th century. I lost my baseball cards. Or rather, they lost me. Somewhere between the throes of my first love affair and the day I left home, they slipped from my grasp. After loss, disillusionment, much wandering, and coming of age, they disappeared from my boyhood closet. I hope they didn't meet an untimely fate. I hope they continue to be appreciated. I hope someone benefitted from that shoe box full of Topps cards from the mid 50s. I had a great collection. For many of us who grew up in the 1950s, this was the Golden Age of Baseball Cards. We'd buy them for a nickel a pack, chew the brittle pink gum dusted with white sugary powder, and then either complain or marvel at who

Birth Certificate

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“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." _Anais Nin I'm being pulled by past present and future a good deal lately. Probably because I have the luxury of reflection. A year goes by so quickly. The fraction of our lives grows smaller every twelve months. At two its 50 % longer, at five, 20 % at 40, it's 1/40 today it is 1/62. And yet, I'm 19. If you need proof, just go fishing with me, go on a road trip, or wake up with me. Now that I'm here, it's comforting to know I've some growing yet to do. Lately, I've developed what can only be termed a new kind of denial. I noticed it when a friend of mine from the Bay Area came to town for a few days a

Dysfunctional Families

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The other day I watched a portion of an Oprah show. Our queen of all media host paid a little visit to the "Yearning for Zion" group compound in Texas. This is the LDS splinter group that made national headlines a few months ago when many of the children were removed. Oprah went to get a first hand look at the polygamist lifestyle, the children, the "prairie dresses" and, of course, the distinctive hair styles of the women. Obviously prepped for the visit, all the women and kids were filled with smiles and kind words for their "family" their "heavenly father" and their heaven on Earth living situation. They were all quite sincere. Only a few of the men squirmed a bit when the topic of sexual abuse, marrying teenagers against their will, or some of the evils of this post modern age, like TV, computers, movies and other technological innovations. They do have cell phones, though. Aside from being entertaining, the program was, for t