Daily Blues & Views

Back in the 16 year old days of my life I went for a walk on Christmas eve.  It was an uncommonly cold winter for Southern California, and while there was no hope of snow, there was thick fog and the breath we blew turning to mist and leading the way.  In my new found freedom as a 16-year-old, I went on a little excursion around my neighborhood.  Announcing that I'd be back in a few minutes, I walked the length of my street noticing the frosty windows, the lit Christmas trees or an occasional blue and white Hanukkah arrangement. It was a transcendent moment. I realized too, that every house on my block, both sides, was lit up.  There was no agreement among neighbors to do anything, it just turned out that everyone was on board that year. As I turned to walk back up the street, I stopped and made a vow.  Squinting my eyes to make the colors melt and sear them into my memory, I vowed to remember that moment always. I can still see the golden reds and bluish purple...

I've been reading Patti Smith's autobiography entitled Just Kids.   This is not going to be a review of said book or even a critical account in any way.  Rather, it will be what resonates for me because give or take a few months, Smith and I are nearly the same age and definitely from the same generation. Yes, Patti is an unabashed name dropper, but when you spent a good chunk of your life running around with the likes of  artist Robert Mapplethorpe and poet Gregory Corso, that's t be expected.   Sharing Andy Warhol's table or a chance meeting with Allen Ginsberg can create such opportunities. I'm fine with that. What resonates most for me is the honesty and self assessment that Smith consistently employs in her narration.  That is, she shares her misgivings about drug use, queer identity and some of the biggest rock stars of the era, like Jim Morrison.  In some ways I hear a voice chiming:"You had to be there." There was a time, you see, when our cul...

People in this town are still friendlier than most places.  They acknowledge your presence, they smile occasionally, they even speak.  Once in a while there is a dismissive look, but usually from someone who associates me with a parent or authority figure, or a walking stereotype. Yet, the general malaise persists.  This post-election new normal is slithering down our throats like cod liver oil or that cough medicine we never could stomach.  But we continue on.  In some ways it's that quiet shock that accompanies us daily. Other signs are present.  A bookstore displays Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, and suggests the parallels are uncanny.  I open a copy and read at random.  Could be.  Could be it is happening here.  But, I question myself, maybe it's been happening since the 1903s when that novel was written.  Fascism oozes slowly, sometimes over decades. This year the holiday spirit seems caught in a snare.  The snow...

               Junior High Seventh grade fears are                                 carved in soap, Gymnastics with an Olympic medalist,                                 the idiot who pees on your books in the                                    lavatory where no body laves, Each day after shifting gears by the volleyball nets,         dodging balls and anti Semitic jokes and jive (they used to throw pennies at us) I come home to Ray Charles who never disappoints. I play the album repeatedly,  a candle in the dark valley.                        "What'd I say,"           ...

I know a few young people that seem very disappointed with the speed of change.  Aside from the recent election, they feel as if nothing changes at all, or if it does it's at a snail's pace.  It often seems that way, but social change does happen, and it's very subtle, if not sneaky. In mulling over some short story ideas, I've been thinking lately about all the things my parents never did, saw, used, or experienced.  Since I'm a classic Baby Boomer, it's safe to say that what I'm about to elaborate on considers about the last 70 years. This thought started when recalling a memory from the 9 year old days of my life.  On my first trip to Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, my family went with my aunt and uncle.  This was Disneyland's first decade and some of the things it's known for weren't even in existence then. I was sitting next to my Aunt Dorothy on the seat of a horse drawn streetcar that went up Main St, and it occurred to me that m...

In times like these, it's useful to see what our finest minds have to say.             From Rebecca Solnit: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown

I read an article this morning about the mythology surrounding the first Thanksgiving.  Like all holidays in this country, it's been twisted and transformed, co-opoted and swallowed up by our consumer culture. The piece I read explained that there were no Pilgrims, rather Puritans, and that, the first Thanksgiving feast wasn't actually a pleasant affair, but rather a survival meal that hardly contained the mighty away of offerings found in most homes today. The tribe present was the Wampanoag, whose name translated to "People of the Dawn." How appropriate, I thought, on this Thanksgiving day with the confrontation going on over the North Dakota pipeline and the pall surrounding these United States after the recent election to recall the people of the dawn. As the song says, the sun will come up tomorrow, so we do well to take some inspiration from telling our truths, especially to the new power structure on the horizon. I was reminded too of that Ron Cobb cartoon...

People who don't think like I think               are what I've been thinking about. I hope you know some who see the world through a very different lens than you do                             They will make you think. I have fears too,      seems to me those who share the views of my friend Tim are burdened by their fears in a different way, they feel they are playing for keeps even more than I do;           they seem terrified/calm They nurture themselves with the soft feel of gunmetal and see the Second Amendment as a framed portrait unable to fade or be re-framed when the paper yellows and the print blurs,                    1790 never felt so right, Tim is sensitive to education, his lack and my surfeit,                     ...

This is the day we've been waiting for; the day we elect a President and settle some other political races as well as a handful of ballot measures has finally come.  Rather than a collective sigh of relief, we need to brace ourselves for the flood of emotions sure to follow as we process what it means to win and lose this time around. Our wounds have been exposed and our underbelly revealed to be far softer and uglier than we may have realized. This we need to see as a positive, lest we get lazy and ignore more of our history and fail to see how easily a moral compass can get lost. As an educator, I see the role of our educational institutions far more crucial this time.  Because so many people are getting their news either from social media or networks that are narrow in scope we seem to have limited opportunity for real discussion and dialogue with opposing viewpoints.  What passes for debate/discussions could never be acceptable in most classrooms I know.  But w...

Now and then I'll think about somebody for the first time in a good while.  I sometimes remember people I went to school with or a friend I knew briefly in a college course. Often it is a childhood friend or acquaintance who occupied a brief space in elementary school, Boy Scouts or Little League. Sometimes it's a former colleague I worked with for only a few years or even one year. So many of those young teachers appeared and were gone within the space of one school year. Something will remind us of the person time or place.  Case in point, I once taught next to a teacher whose name was John Brown.  This was at a poor middle school in the Richmond ghetto of Northern California.  The student population was mostly Black and Latino, with a smattering of poor white kids and SE Asian refugee groups that included Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao. So here were Mr. Brown and Mr. Greene virtually next to each other in the hallway of the main building.  Both of us were i...

We could hardly have known it at the time.  Known that there might be a way that we, as teachers, could keep track of how some of our students were doing long after they exited our classrooms for the last time.  Of course, there are some teachers who couldn't care less.  Just a few, in my view.  But for most of us, we care about the people our former charges are becoming. When I retired from full-time teaching I knew very little about Facebook.  Other than it involved being "friends" with one's peers, it was mostly used by college students and had just begun to infiltrate the universe of high schoolers.  That was only 10 years ago.  Since stumbling on to my own account on Facebook, mostly to sign an Amnesty International petition, I've been able to have contact with a few hundred students from about 25 years ago to the present.  I rarely ask them to friend me, as a sign of respect for their privacy.  But if they find me and request "frien...

When I heard the news, I gasped.  Breathtaking.  Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. I fact checked lest I had been tricked by the artifice of the internet.  There it was in the New York Times. I let it            sink                       in. By the end of the day I brought myself back to my high school graduation weekend.  The Saturday night following my speech at graduation, in February of 1965 I went to a party with and for my classmates.  The Beatles were hot and hotter that month.  But a specific memory came to me of standing in a circle talking about music with my friends.  I was defending a particular singer, an unusual performer I'd recently learned about through my best friend.  Bob Dylan...the guy who wrote some of the Peter Paul and Mary songs and the guy with the very folkie sound who recorded my favorite song of the previo...

I haven't felt that feeling in years...decades really.  That notion converted into a sinking awareness that the train is off the tracks, that those in the control room are so misguided that we are all in danger.  That feeling that mirrors the far side of what most believe to be accurate but is, in fact, a mirage.  A mirage with bad intentions. I felt it during the height of the Vietnam War.  When your personal freedoms are impacted based on age and gender, there is no way around it. The law comes calling.   As the evidence mounted of ill-informed decisions and a government that valued duplicity over the lives of it's youngest men...the feeling grew.  Simply stated, it's an "I gotta get out of here moment."  When you realize that there is no unity of thought, that there are people that are "face down in the Kool-Aid" and broadcasting lies and misinformation and it's all tangled up in life and death consequences, it gives rise to a specific emotion. I...

Yesterday was the day.  The clear October day, before the rain and snow set in and the transition to winter cannot be denied.  It was my chance.  Last chance to get one more day of fly fishing in on one of my favorite Mt. Hood lakes. These lakes fish best from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. so the thought of being home to catch the Division series game between the Giants and the Cubs was also foremost in my mind.  I put my eggs in a 4 hour basket.  If I rise at 6:30, I can make coffee, drive for a couple of hours, get all geared up (inflate float tube, change into waders, assemble fly rod, tie on fly, and get down to the lakeside) and fish until 1:30 or 2:00 without getting in rush hour traffic on the drive home.  A few fish, some spectacular weather, and then a victory by the Giants to extend the series to a final game wasn't too much to expect. Right? It didn't hardly go that way. Things happened.  I did catch a couple of trout.  But they were on the...

A Tropical Storm that the Governor of Florida says "will kill you" plods toward the East Coast      Some have "hurricane complacency" and want to ride it out           The election is 35 days away and we must endure what passes for a debate                we must ride it out                     when a horse in a race has given his best, but it isn't enough for that day, the jockey                           must ride him out: keep trying or at least make it look that way The season is changing by degree(s) daily: we smell rain, breathe in spores with colder air and      calculate the consequences of turning on the heat too soon           By the end of the month, we'll feel some relief when Halloween reminds us to wear another     ...

I sometimes wonder why would anyone run for President of the United States.  But then I realize the nature of the "political animal," as Aristotle so perfectly labeled us.  The power is seductive for those attracted to same.  The desire to sit at the top of the heap, call the shots, and perhaps most significant, to realize you have a place in history, must be all to much for those of us with enormous egos to be assuaged.  Occasionally, we'll see a genuinely selfless person throw his/her hat into the ring, but for most who give it a try, they all have that common denominator. In this current campaign, we've seen some new lows.  Decorum be damned, most of the political discussions that pass for serious commentary quickly disintegrate into alley fights with people talking over each other smiling a smarmy smile until some kind of order is restored.  What I've seen on the networks lately, I wouldn't let stand in a classroom discussion.  Some role models we...

I dropped Elvis in the slot       His signature guarding my mortgage payment on a journey to Southern California. The stamp said Forever, like the inside of the Community Market resting for eternity in my brain. As a 10 -year old, I purchased "Jailhouse Rock" for 69 cents. The 45s were in a bin near the cash register. At 69 I hope to have 10 years in my home. Elvis is forever Right?

Yesterday I watched the President speak at the opening of the National Museum of African American History.  Long overdue is the understatement of the year; even in this year of the Trump!  Against the background of a nation building a shrine to the people and contributions that literally made this country came a couple of cringe-worthy news sound bites where people in the Trump campaign showcased their ignorance by making such outrageous claims as, "There was no racism before the Obama administration." Where to begin? That many people in influential positions do not know their own history is a good place.  This is the mission I was on when I decided to become a teacher.  I was fresh from a history textbook education when I entered college.  It just so happened to be 1966.  In the immediate years that followed, with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement came my real instruction in American History.  Fortunate enough to find myself with the likes of Ka...

So here we are with the familiar lesser of two evils situation for a Presidential election.  So many people feeling the pull of "been there and done that."  Except that the done that part is different because they don't want to "do" anything.  They don't want to vote. Dangerous thing. Very dangerous thing. If we have a "both candidates suck," situation, shouldn't we work on how we got this way?  Shouldn't we realize that whether we vote or not, someone...one of the evils is going to be the next President of the United States? Third parties are tempting.  They will siphon off thousands of votes this time, like they always do.  But they will probably do nothing to ease our dilemma.  Still, I hear, more and more, "Im not voting this year. So what exactly happens when an individual surrenders her/his vote?  This time around, it makes possible the first candidate in a good while that is truly unfit for the job.  It makes the for...

The weather changed and day two at this small lake high in the Cascades dawned clear and sunny.  The water was calm with only a twinge of wind from time to time.  Still the fishing was slow and all I got for my efforts was tired.  Nevertheless, it's wonderful to be there.  I thought the rainbow that appeared over the lake yesterday might be some kind of omen.  Just a brief beauty, that's all.  After about 6 hours in two visits, I decided that the fish were laying low and not eating much.  Maybe they indulged too much on Labor Day? Then a dragonfly landed on me?  Another omen?  I was hoping.  By 1:00 I was hopeful of a hatch and fish rising to make landing something easier.  Not to be.  Then, in a heartbeat, it all changed.  A bump...was that a bite?  Well, just making contact was a relief.  I can stop second guessing myself.  Then that unmistakable feeling of a fish on; fish gone.  Finally a hug...

I drove up to Three Creeks Lake this morning.  It was only a 16 mile drive because we've been staying in Sisters, Or for a few days.  I usually get up there once a year and put my float tube on that little alpine lake high in the Cascades in search of Rainbow and Brook trout.  It's a fickle lake offering up some of the finest days and then some of the worst.  But...in fly fishing, or rather the Zen of fly fishing, it all has meaning and my task is to be content to learn from what I get.  What I got this day was cold, wet, and very windy.  Wind is the foe of the fly fisher.  It's difficult to cast line because the wind will blow it off course, or back in your face.  For the float tuber, like myself, it's a double whammy because you get blown all over the place and kick with your fins (we wear swim fins on our feet) twice as hard.  In the end I took a little break after a couple of hours kicking around the lake.  I went back for more, ...

Census Taking               South Texas-1970 The front door is not visible, We walk up a pathway to the side of the house, A backdoor awaits; three crisp knocks, A voice barely audible Vertical? We try Spanish; "Es El Censo..." "C'mon in, just turn the handle, it should work." She sits at her kitchen table, surrounding the wooden chair, leaning forward, yellow-gray hair sighs, First question: Names of all people in residence? "It's just me, and I'm waitin' to die." There is no room  on the form for commentary, We stay an extra few minutes, Maybe there is something we can do? No, something we can actually do for her. There isn't. Just finish the required questions and leave the gifts of the future behind. Back on the street; four more unanswered doors. All with children playing in the front yards. Some of these kids understand English and my Spanish Between the mixed dialogue we learn there are six families ...

Fritz Ehrler was as German as the name indicates.  Yet he was a WWII vet who spoke little about that as well as the pin-up tattoo that adorned the inside of his forearm.  He had deep tanned skin, no doubt because of the hours he spent fishing in sun drenched lakes.  Making Fritz smile or laugh was simple and often elicited a story or two from his reservoir of lifetime experiences. He found his way into my life through my Texas born neighbor who was trying to patch up a leaking version of her California dream in post war suburb. Fritz had deep lines chiseled into his face.  He had tools and worked with wood easier that he could hold a conversation.  Yet, sometimes he'd open up on those long trips back home after baking all day and handling big lake trout. Something deep in his past triggered the tale of a phone call he'd received in the recent past.  The story he told goes like this:  He and Mary were painting a bedroom when the phone rang.  Bei...

When the weather in Portland hits three digit heat, I often think of growing up in Southern California.  Everything from Little League games in scorching weather to sitting outside till dark licking popsicles with neighborhood kids comes flooding back.  And then the people...the characters, and of course the neighbors. Today I thought of Fritz.  Fritz Ehrler was a father figure for me because he liked to fish and he took me fishing...often.  Something I couldn't do with my own father.  My dad and I had baseball to share, but Fritz was a real outdoorsman who had the patience and kindness to teach me what he knew.  He also had access to a private lake.  As a member of something called the Fin and Feather Club, he could bring one or two guests along in his small boat.  The lake was located in Palmdale, way out in the desert North of L.A.  It took a couple of hours to get there and by the time we'd get his small boat off the trailer and into the...

With the political ascendency of Donald Trump comes one of the true moral challenges of our time.  In deciding whether or not to support the nominee of their party, Republican politicians as well as the base of the party are confronted with the politics of sociopathology.  When, in the course of human events, it becomes obvious that one who seeks power displayed the characteristics of mental illness, what to do? For some, the choice would be simple.  Their moral compass makes definite the options.  They draw upon the lessons of history, the instances of crossroads previously chosen, and the powerful example of reasoning the consequences of a haphazard decision.  But even the notable moral philosopher/psychologist Kohlberg acknowledged that for most people, attaining the highest level of moral reasoning based on conscience is difficult, if not unreachable. One also runs the risk in this discussion of being the haughty one on moral high ground while you all stru...

I have a friend who seems to have made a major pivot in his life.  He's realized that he's lived more days than he probably has left and has altered his reality accordingly.  Unemployed, he'll probably never work again because the economy and the skill set he possesses don't quite fit in to today's circumstances.  He's bright...very bright, a college grad and has the gift of empathy.  Lots has gone wrong in his interpersonal relationships, but he's content to spend his time reading, observing, and commenting on the current political farce now playing everywhere. I mention him because like many, he's an anomaly.  Between social and cultural realities, no sense of urgency, watching the parade go by.  Who knows, maybe he has a trust fund that supports this lifestyle.  There is often more behind what we see from the outside looking in.  But it occurred to me that this purgatory applies to us all in many ways, especially those of us who relate to the ...

Today I read a short piece in an online literary magazine about robots that can now write poetry.  This type of "Artificial Intelligence" uses algorithms to churn out complex imagery and messages from the heart. My....my...my.  Is this an example of because we can or is it perhaps something to be welcomed.  We can't stop it but the contradictory nature of this genre seems to be something we might learn from.  At least it seems to be. Perhaps there is a slippery slope here.  If the trend of replacing humans with robots goes uncontrolled, what can human beings expect for future generations.  This could go two ways.  There's an idea for a novel: one scenario, two possible outcomes.  I see the dark version already.  It's probably the one that would win out and that explains why so many dystopic views of the future are so negative.  They abound.  From the Hollywood tropes like "Wayward Pines," to some of the classic literary version...

We've hit the dog days of summer.  Uncommonly hot temperatures that help create the image of a pack of tired hounds lying around trying to beat the heat.  Even though the expression traces it's roots to the star Sirius, (the Dog Star)we use the term to illustrate that time of year when we're "dog tired," hot, and worn out. The dregs of July through the middle of August usually encompass this time to lay low.  I don't fly fish much in August. The fish aren't as active during the daytime.  They lie deep in the darker cooler areas of lakes and streams. Maybe, if your offering brushed close by they'll nip at it. If you go after them, you bake up top.  Sun screen, water, an oversized hat and some breaks now and then are necessary. The fact that the two political conventions take place during this period really adds to the theme this year.  We're enduring the process like walking, or rather slogging trough an enormous swamp. August is when teachers ...

After a while it was not uncommon for Alex to give me a phone call.  I became his companion to the dictionary.  Usually it was an idiom that made no sense to him.  It could be something like “let sleeping dogs lie” or perhaps a slang expression that he took literally. “Gree” what it mean when someone call something “raw” or “bad” but it not really bad.” Try explaining that bad is good and raw is a very positive connotation.  After a while it got humorous.  Very humorous.  But always, with thanks and plenty of relief, Alex seemed to get the difference between the literal translation and an idiomatic expression.  One afternoon he seemed very preoccupied with something.  When I pressed a bit, he told me that he was worried about a car that he had.  It hadn’t run for months and he was trying to save up a little cash to have it looked at.  His main concern was that he’d let the registration lapse because he had no plans to use the ve...

I met Alex at the race track.  At first he was just one of those familiar faces passing by in the line for a program, the line tomato a wager, the line to by something to eat or drink.  Something about his smile and his ability to be alone in a crowd was soothing.  He often huddled with groups of other Asian horseplayers.  They all spoke Chinese, I guess.  But once Alex asked me something in English.  It was probably the meaning of some footnote in the program. "What this mean, horse is two pounds over?" "It means the total weight carried by horse and rider is two pounds more than the assigned weight. "Why that important?" "Maybe the jockey ate too much last night or drank too much water, but they are just telling yo what the horse will carry." "OK, thanks." Our friendship grew from there.  When Alex learned I was a teacher, his questions about language usage multiplied.  He was always asking about idiomatic expressions.  I was always ...