Daily Blues & Views

The only journey is the one within                           Ranier Maria Rilke Alone To be alone... To be able to be alone One of the more popular television shows in the genre of "survival" is simply called "Alone."  10 skilled survivalists are dropped off miles apart in a remote region of the world.  From Canada to Patagonia, they must survive using only their skills and a few personal items.  They have clothing appropriate to the climate and sometimes a few simple items like fish hooks or a knife.  One participant actually brought down a moose with a bow and arrow.  Not a high-tech weapon, just a simple, self-made bow, and arrow.  These folks have real skills.  One of the women on the show once made herself a sauna.  She lined a shelter with found materials, built a fireplace with rocks and heated water for steam.  There was even a mossy path to the sauna that she...

Two things that happened yesterday converged in my mind.  I learned that there were at least 3,000 homeless people in my hometown, and I began reading the most interesting and unusual book called The Stranger in the Woods.   The book is the story of a man who willingly pulls himself off the grid and lives hermit-like for 27 years.  Before he was discovered and subsequently arrested for burglary (he stole food and supplies from cabins and institutional camps) he had no contact with any other humans. These two lifestyles have much in common, but their differences are what resonates even more loudly.  They both live in the margins...on the edges...until discovered.  The homeless in my area seem to be always on the move, while the hermit in the woods of Maine is able to stay put for decades.  Both are dependent on the world around them for basic necessities. I suspect the emotional conscience of the homeless is more complex because they are visible....

Various theories of representation with regard to congressional members exist.  They essentially say that an elected representative, either Congress or Senate votes with either his/her conscience, party, or constituency.   That's logical, but in today's political climate, there seems little place for the conscience if the representative has any hope of re-election. As the current impeachment debate slogs along, more and more members of Congress are struggling with which theory best serves them. My bias is that an act of conscience is the preferred choice.  To me, it's much higher on the moral reasoning spectrum.  That skill seems most desireable for a lawmaker in my book. Not so with so many in Congress today and their districts.  The country is awash with divided political opinion and most shocking is that so many are having a difficult time deciphering just what it is that they think                   ...

                 They say everything can be replaced                  Yet every distance is not near                  So I remember every face                  Of every man who put me here                                                 -Bob Dylan                                                 I Shall Be Released I'm watching much of the Impeachment hearings.  My attention wanes on occasion.  It's tedious. But then we knew that.  This time around, the division is palpable.  It is wearily all-consuming.  Both sides see the same set of fact...

              It's OK to look back at the past, just don't stare.                                                                   -Benjamin Dover I've always been fascinated with the past.  From pointed questions about who my ancestors might be to regarding my history book as one of my most prized possessions, I enjoy looking and thinking about things that have happened...people who came before me. By high school, all I ever aspired to was becoming a history teacher.  That almost happened.  The reality of public education tacked on English and Psychology to the 11 or 12 other history courses I taught in a 30 plus year career. I read historical novels and easily as much or more non-fiction and autobiography/biography than other genres.  I am a student of the past...

I've been volunteering at my neighborhood elementary school.  There is a program called SMART, an acronym for Start Making a Reader Today.  I read with and to kindergarten kids for an hour.  I have three charges, all girls, and I spend 20 minutes with each, one day a week.  It goes quickly, most of the time.  These kids can't read yet, but they are learning to love books.  We read together whatever they choose from among hundreds of titles distributed around the small classroom.  Most of the books are clever little titles that can be read in about 5-7 minutes.  I did read one last week that was 48 pages long.  It took almost the entire 20-minute segment. My three "Smarties," as they are called, couldn't be more different.  The first little girl is very quiet and shy.  But she smiles freely and responds to my occasional questions with bright, alert, answers.  I've learned her favorite foods, animals, and colors.  The third...

I used to explore the theme of childhood with my Junior English classes.  In literature, it's very popular...also a winner.  Everybody has one.  Everybody loses one.  The stories are important and valuable.  Usually, when teaching the novel The Catcher in the Rye, I'd ask my students to bring in an object that represents their childhood.  I'd do the same.  This exercise came early on in the year and would work as an ice-breaker and help us all get to know one another better.  Of course, there was all manner of Barbie dolls, and model cars, airplanes, rocket ships, and superhero toys.  Some kids would bring books and others went conceptual, like the student who poured a container of water through the air into a container and said that water represented his childhood because he almost drowned.  One of the most memorable was the student who brought in some clothing from her native Iran and proceded to tell a story about how she and her...

I'm seen as an old man named after an uncle I never met, If promise was a flood, and fire was frost Twilight would be more than life-like dreams  that bubble over the ledges of time Give me the uniform of a minor league team that exists only in the mind, Just one more look to hold dear, with colors that make this life half as hard. As a young man, my lovers came mostly from ancient cultures but others from those busy being born, Most were restless within own their own boundaries, If I never wandered through dark woods the most beautiful would never have appeared.  Eventually, I moved on and away as they pushed years along like a noisy shopping cart. Old photos bring new smiles.

There comes a time when downsizing becomes more than just a good cleanout.  Some items that we seem to have clung too for a lifetime need new homes.  They are the objects with which we have emotional attachments.  They are the things we never could quite have let go of without an emotional toll. Yesterday I moved one such piece on to a new life.  It was a painting my father bought when a young man in New York City.  The piece was a signed oil by a rather unknown Austrian artist whose father was a bit more famous and thus more successful.  Nevertheless, because the painting is almost 100 years old, despite its condition issues, there is always a chance that it could accrue in value. I ended up selling the painting for a store...literally.  Well, not literally because I also got about half the asking price, which was fairly modest, to begin with.  The story is that a man bought the painting for his brother, who is beginning to show an interest in ...

Aside from all the other scandals and tales of corruption and greed, we're currently being exposed to these days, don't forget that this will go down as the year of the college admissions scandal. Today, the top of the news featured the headline that the 10th person (i.e. parent) was sentenced to jail time today. There is something particularly conniving and evil about the parents who would cat and buy their way into prestigious schools.  They have the money and the inclination to apply their sense of entitlement and privilege to the fullest.  Their kids will have the best...that's all their is to it.  But no, that is not all there is to it.  In fact,  I'd go further and say that is not all there is.  Getting into what you might consider a "good" school is highly overrated. Some of the kids whose parents got busted could care less about where they go to school.  In fact, a few were vocal that they didn't even want to go to college.  So what mak...

I recommend doing this.  Take a minute and search on Google maps or a similar website the home address of a residence where you once lived.  The older you are the better.  That way you can look back at how a neighborhood or specific street has changed over the years. It's been 50 years since I left the home I grew up in.  My folks were California transplants shortly after the end of World War II.  That makes me the classic Baby Boomer. Since they were older when they first had kids, their version of the American Dream didn't begin until they were in their late 30s and early 40s. The little home they purchased was finally paid for after both were gone.  What sold for about $15,000 then would probably go for $515,000, today.  That's a conservative estimate. Something sent me back to that old neighborhood yesterday and through the magic of the internet, I was able to walk up and down my old neighborhood streets. Back then, in the early 1950s, there w...

I found an old Peanuts cartoon panel I'd saved the other day.  Lucy is sitting on a rocking horse wearing a football helmet.  Charlie Brown says, "Football is the number one spectator sport in the country, horse racing is number two."  Lucy responds, "I can go either way." There was a time when horse racing was number one.  The old film clips show the grandstands jammed with thousands.  They once huddled around their radios to listen to the big races.  Telephones used to be banned from all racetracks.  Things have changed. As the sport struggles to right the sinking ship, there are a number of things that can be done and a number of things that already have been done. The track surface seems to be the narrative of the recent deaths at Santa Anita.  It's only one variable, and the abnormal amount of absorbed rain in Southern California last year is often cited.  Possibly.  But the strength and stamina of the breed factors in here....

I hear the calls.  I feel the anger and frustration.  The storm clouds rain down for a good while and then lift.  But back come the calls, the patience wears thin.  We may not be able to wait this one out.  This time the opposition is fierce. People have had enough of horse racing.  Too many deaths in the last year.  Almost 40 at Santa Anita alone.  "The Great Race Place" is fast becoming the great wasteland. I'm unabashed.  I love horse racing.  Like horses, themselves, it has been an important part of my life an experience.  The recent rash of break-downs and controversial decisions are all part of the sport.  They always have been.  Somehow the media attention that currently swirls around the coverage of the sport has become a vicious vulture with talons ready to sink deeply. I'm worried for the industry, but mostly because the image portrayed is not always fair and impartial.  Having been a correspondent for...

I am watching the response to the New York Times 1619 Project carefully.  This project is centered around a supplement magazine being widely distributed around the country right now.  In some circles, it is regarded as a keepsake, a valuable possession, an heirloom. As this country grapples with the issue of reparations for African Americans,  it has become abundantly clear that many of us know very little about our own history.  There is some vague sense that slavery was wrong and that it had consequences being felt today, but in the area of specifics, as a nation, we are deficient. I knew I wanted to be a history early on.  It was secure employment, something not always counted on in the house in which I grew up.  My father was a casualty of the Great Depression, having to drop out of college and support his new wife in the early 1930s.  I loved many of my teachers, especially my history teachers, so it was natural for me to pursue the goal of tea...

Last week we marked the passing of Cokie Roberts, one of the "founding mothers" of National Public Radio.  Cokie was a living metaphor for honesty and integrity in political journalism and it's no wonder the tributes have been pouring in all week.  Of course this is all set in vivid relief by the current state of affairs and the relationship of the current occupant of the White House with the press corps.  In many ways we seem to be marking the passing of civility along with integrity. Cokie Roberts interpreted the the news in a way that was free of bias and represented the product of hard work, good contacts, and a lifelong commitment to accuracy.  No wonder so many followed her stories and came to depend on her for their political news. At the risk of being called a name dropper, I have a story to tell  the day I crossed paths with Cokie and her well-known news partner Linda Wertheimer. A colleague of mine once served as the Director of the National Coun...

"...I am interested in making a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe it is the only way to make people see..."                                  Flannery O'Connor The above quote is mostly attributed to Flannery O'Connor, one of our culture's most influential and outstanding writers.  The diminutive Southern woman was a devout Catholic and suffered the pain that comes with Lupis, the difficult disease.  No wonder, many say, that her short stories are laced with all manner of violent and insufferable scenes and people. Distortion, especially in this day and age, attracts attention.  To manipulate that attraction in the interest of advancing positive and humane ideas is possibly pure genius.  "First," as the old joke about the farmer who struck his mule goes, "you get his attention." It was with this idea in mind that I watched the first episode of a new fantasy ser...

When he died 42 years ago this month, Elvis Presley was hardly himself.  He wasn't even beside himself.  It was more like he became a parody of himself.  That he was only 42, seems to escape us now.  Especially as we watch 75-year-olds like Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan muster the strength and endurance to keep going and doing so as good as ever. Elvis was plagued by everything from bad diet to high blood pressure, liver disease and lots of gastro-intestinal issues.  No wonder he was found dead ingloriously on the toilet.  But for many of his legion of fans, there is no young or old Elvis, no fat or thin Elvis, there is only one Elvis, the undisputed King of Rock and Roll. Elvis, you might remember was the kid from Tupelo, Mississippi who could "move like a black man," in the words of Sam Phillips, ergo "a million dollars."  In reality, many millions of dollars. I saw Elvis in concert once, under interesting circumstances, and it proved to be more compl...

     Guess I'm bound to have this condition for the duration. It never seems to go away. The strength never dissipates either.  I shouldn't be surprised.  It is part of my identity I can't seem to shake.      So what is this cosmic force? The pull to go back to school which is always preceded by going to a stationery store for new supplies.  It's been 13 years this September since I opened a school year and readied a classroom, yet the pull remains.  I think it has something to do with the emotions connected to one of the best parts of a teaching career.  The phenomena of beginning again is at play here.  It's all the "this year I'm going to..." stuff, .and the realization that last year's classes do not exist as entities in the universe any longer. It really is a fascinating condition and so short-lived that it's best to be experienced in full. True career professionals in education find pure joy in opening a school year....

Life in a divided country today is remarkably different than it was during the last era of division.  Computers, and specifically social media, account for that. Fifty years ago, as this nation fought an unpopular war, it wasn’t as easy as it is today to determine the politics of your friends, family, and neighbors. People didn’t post daily. They didn’t discuss their political leanings as readily, and they certainly didn’t articulate their differences the way they do today. They did show up (or not) to political demonstrations during a time that the role of the media was quite different. Historians and social scientists of all stripes agree that the images broadcast during some of those demonstrations had a powerful impact on helping to bridge the divide(s) that encompassed the anti-war movement as well as the civil rights movement. Who could easily forget fire hoses turned on people who wanted nothing more than the right to vote and the guarantees of liberty and justice for all....

"Old Town Road," the popular country/rap crossover is a fascinating phenomena.  Guess it was bound to happen that a gay Black man sitting on a horse rappin" about riding that horse down the old town road would hit the pop charts.  Music in America has always been a place of cultural blending and, as such, it is something this culture can be righteously proud of.  Like food, dance, and a few other select things, music has been the vehicle to showcase our best multi-cultural efforts. Still, the genres, despite their bleeding and bending have remained fairly stable.  Blues is blues, rock is rock, and country is country. Each style has its own characteristics.  The roots remain intact even though the base has often provided the foundation for all sorts of collaborations. Speaking of country music, the great U Utah Phillips (the golden voice of the great southwest) used to say that there was a way that anyone could write a country song.  Phillips was for ...

There is something particularly haunting about an empty racetrack.  A horse racing oval is what I'm talking about here.  You can find them in the off season or sometimes late in the afternoon.  In the morning they are alive with horses working out or people meeting, negotiating, dreaming and hoping. What makes an empty track such a striking place is that when un-occupied they look dead.  They are shrines for noise...for the electric...they are emotional places reminiscent of a circus or carnival.  In recent years the probability of finding an empty track has increased dramatically.  Many have closed as the impact of technology has intersected with waning interest in the sport.  Historically, efforts to promote the sport have failed miserably and for some reasons, success has only come in shooting oneself in the foot.  When national interest peaks, some unfortunate accident, or unexplainable tragedy occurs to hasten the public's tolerance of all t...

A visiting relative gave me a little present when I was about 6 or 7 years old.  It was a bookmark with the head of an owl drawn on the long leather strip.  The owl was there to impart some wisdom.  "Books like friends should be few and well chosen," was written on the front of the bookmark. I've kept this little gift for over 60 years now.  It's been a good reminder.  Just as I have tried to choose my friends wisely, so too have I acquired the collection of books I now have. Now, however, change is on the horizon. Slowly, I've been passing many of my books on to people I think can benefit from them or to re-sell for credit to buy the books I am currently reading.  When I made a major move from the Bay Area to Oregon 12 years ago, I thinned out my books considerably.  It's now time to move that downsizing to the next level. As for the friends part of this equation, with my move came the loss of some lifelong friends.  Oh, we still keep in t...

Things disappear.  Your favorite things included.  Ever walk into your favorite grocery store to pick up a box of or a package of or a few of something you often buy only to discover it isn't being made anymore?  Sure, haven't we all.  But it does seem to me that lately this is a more common occurrence. I've lost my favorite brands of mayonnaise, energy bar, crackers, and frozen yogurt.  And that's only the tip of the iceberg that seems to be melting ever faster. It's not just food.  I'm finding that brands of clothing, restaurants, and even soap have come up missing. I know this happens all the time, but something else is going on here, I fear.  In fact, I once wrote to the manufacturer of a popular hair shampoo because, without notice, it disappeared only to be replaced by a different looking and smelling product under the same name.  All in vain, of course.  I did receive a response, but it only reassured me that they knew what they wer...

It's another example of the myth of the eternal return.  Another form of the circle of life.  Yes, another example of what comes around goes around.  As such, it fits neatly into the mythology of the tribe trying valiantly return an orca to it's original home...it's indigenous waters. Have you heard about an orca named Lolita?  She was taken from Washington to Florida over 50 years ago.  In a round-up of orcas in 1970, Lolita ended up at the Miami Seaquarium, where she has performed for decades to the delight of children of all ages on the other side of the country.  The Lummi tribe of the Pacific Northwest see the orca as a spiritual entity.  The name translates to "people who live under the water." They want this "person" back.  This is a heartfelt belief that seems almost impossible, but the move is gaining strength and financial support.  Of course to transport this elderly animal back across the country would be very risky. ...

It's a small Northern California town.  Charming, still in many ays, but like many towns this size, it has changed and is changing rapidly in this increasingly technological society.  Some would place it square in the heart of wine country.  Easy to do since one passes miles of grape vines on the path that leads here.  But no, it's really not in Napa county.  Not in Mendocino county either.  That leaves Sonoma county and that would be accurate. I used to come here with regularity 30 years ago.  The glimpse of what it was then with its little downtown area of banks, curio shops and restaurants is still possible.  The tavern I played music in with some friends is long gone.  The little market has been replaces with a Whole Foods, and a couple of coffeehouses and a decent bookstore struggle along. I could live here.  It's far enough away from deep urban problems, but it lack the diversity I'd crave.  It's close enough to major ame...

I hear it all the time.  Depends on the holiday or the anniversary.  Well meaning, intelligent people say that our kids don't know history.  They tell their interviewers that students today don't know anything about the Civil War, World War II, or even the Holocaust. That's hard to believe.  I say this not because as a former history teacher, I've taught these topics, or because I know firsthand that every one of them featured prominently in the curriculum that my department developed and used.  I say this because I'm dumbfounded how any student with a U.S. or World History course could avoid such huge content areas. So, maybe the subjects came up in some classrooms but there was no retention of knowledge.  That's still hard to believe, given this culture's fascination with war, action films, and historical dramas. In my Forty plus years in and out of classrooms I've seen many lessons focused on the history of the Holocaust.  The graphic novel Maus ...

People survive.  Though it may be a much more complex concept than we think, survival happens.  It happens in a myriad of nuanced ways. Needy people find food, clothing, and shelter in random ways.  Take a walk through an area you normally drive through and see what shows up.  If your survival depended upon it, the fear or stigma of bending down to pick up something discarded fades away.  We see the consequences of survival all around us.  Walk  foe a mile and then make a list.  Tell me what you see.  Put what you find on that list. I succinctly recall one of my college professors lectures on Social Darwinism.  His thesis was that the concept was bogus because with human beings the Darwinian notion of "survival of the fittest" doesn't apply.  It's not just the fittest who survive, some people who are far from the upper echelon of the fittest, will survive.  "They are not the fittest," he said.  "But nevertheless they surv...