Sooner or Later

There's something about Oklahoma that draws me.

I've never been there, only seen pictures of it. They have tornadoes there.

It seems like there are two mid-wests. The northern one and the southern one. Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska would be part of the northern one, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, the southern. I'm not sure where to put Wyoming. Or Colorado. Probably just plain west.

This is all just me talking. I have no idea the official definitions of what falls where.

But I see a different sort of sensibility between the two I have perceived.

There's also a northeast sensibility as well as a southeast one. I'm sure there's a southwest and perhaps northwest, too.

I don't think there's a California sensibility. At least not from what I've read.

Here's what I associate with those regions: Southwest - turquoise and rattlers, Northwest - dark roast and grunge, Southeast - grits and gators, Northeast - snow and seafood.

I see I haven't included the middle northern folks - Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas. Really just an oversight on my part as I don't spend much time thinking about them.

I don't include Texas in the mid-west. It seems like it is its own country to me.

Too far south, also.

I mean, it borders Mexico.

So, I guess that makes it part of the southwest?

Still, there's something about Oklahoma. I confess that most of my Oklahoman experience comes from entertainment.

You know, "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain."

Or the move Twister.

Or even The Wizard of Oz. No wait, that's Kansas.

What the devil is a Sooner?

Oklahoma has a panhandle which makes it look something like a ladle. I wonder if that's where the term 'panhandler' came from.

Route 66 goes through Oklahoma, and isn't there quite a bit of the romance of travel associated with that famed highway?

As near as I can tell, a lot more songs have been written about Oklahoma than Kansas. Many of them are blues songs. I don't know any blues songs about Maine. It's just a different kind of soul.

I picture Oklahoma as being a big drive-in theater. Or drive-in restaurant with carhops on roller skates. Is it too much to wonder if most of the people still are driving Studebakers and DeSotos?

I know if I ever went to Oklahoma many of my notions would probably be dashed. Since we have no plans to travel there any time soon (or sooner), I'll just have to content myself with whatever delusions I create.

I can live with that.

Passing

Twenty-five years ago yesterday, I said "I do" at the First Baptist Church of Spindale, North Carolina. Coincidentally, my wife did the same thing at the same place and same time.

A lot has happened since then.

My wife's mom, dad, grandmother, uncle and great uncle all passed away. My mother survived breast cancer, and my father survived prostate cancer. I had a spot with melanocytic cells removed from my back, though the doctor never came out and said I had melanoma. My wife had a brain tumor which was successfully removed. She had a uterus that was successfully removed as well. Long prior to her hysterectomy, I impregnated her four times. Two of those were miscarried. The other two are my sons.

I have held nine jobs that I can remember. My wife has held two jobs since her discharge from the Army. We attended four different churches as regulars. I can't even begin to count the number of cars we owned over that time. A quick count tells me it was at least fifteen.

We had a house built. Since then, floors have been torn up and replaced. The roof has been replaced. A lot of planting has taken place. A new room has been built. There's different furniture and fixtures, not to mention wall-covering.

Together, we have been to or through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. But never Vermont, though I'd been there long before we were married. Guess it's too far out of the way.

We have purchased land in four other states besides where we live. And I still keep an eye out for other locations.

I have written ten books, a few songs. I displayed paintings in art shows for six years, won some awards in doing so. Made a few dollars. My wife must have made biscuits or corn bread about a million times. Her real craft, though, is playing piano. To that end, we bought a Yamaha full-size electronic keyboard for her to play. We have played and sang together in church many times with her on piano and me strumming guitar.

We attended numerous Little League, Junior League, Babe Ruth, Junior Legion baseball games. We also attended numerous Portland Sea Dogs games. They are the AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. We've been to one Red Sox game at Fenway Park and one Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field. There have been too many restaurants to remember and count.

We've seen many friends die. I know we've been to more funerals than weddings.

We've seen friends come and go. Some have returned via Facebook, and that is nice, though it's not quite the same as having them around. My oldest son has graduated high school, gotten his first job and completed his first semester in college. My youngest son has become a pretty proficient guitar player.

There have been five presidents, five governors of Maine and two wars in the Middle East.

Much has happened in the last twenty-five years.

The time has been full.

Gas? Gas? Gas??

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 has passed the Senate with a 93-7 margin of victory. It hasn't been signed into law yet by the President. The NDAA has been enacted each of the last 48 years to specify the budgets for the Department of Defense.

NDAA 2012 has civil libertarians concerned.

Apparently, language has been inserted into the bill that allows for the use of US troops on American soil to search and detain American citizens suspected of terrorism or abetting terrorist acts. Further, the length of detainment is indefinite and the detention may be without explanation or trial.

Much like the Patriot Act of 2001, NDAA has had early decriers of the bill who fear that it supersedes the Constitution and abolishes fundamental rights of Americans. You can find videos on YouTube that craft comparisons between the passage of NDAA 2012 and what happened when HItler rose to power in the 1930s, partly by blaming the terrorists of that time - the Communists. These videos are chilling with their simple analogies and dramatic background music.

Should we be concerned? After all, it appears that suspicion of terrorist activities is sufficient cause to ignore the 4th & 5th Amendments of the Bill of Rights.

I think concern is warranted. Much like the Patriot Act, our federal government makes the case that it needs these powers to protect us against terrorism. Many citizens probably feel safer with such provisions in place. After all, it won't affect innocent people and how else can you constrain such activities in a free society?

The problem as I see it is not what is happening at this very moment. The problem comes some time down the road as those in power feel less restrained from exerting their power in the form of abuse leading to totalitarianism. As these bills become law, they erode the protections of freedom we once knew making the freedom we currently experience nothing more than a faint representation of what it used to be.

It's the old frog boiling adage.

Unfortunately, in a free society, bad elements can often scheme and move about with impugnity. So it's entirely reasonable to see how all this is coming about. However, I believe that throughout history there have been people who wanted to see the Constitution abolished and replaced with a collectivist system. And I believe that there are many who hold political office right now that embrace that very sentiment.

So, are NDAA and the Patriot Act merely symptoms of the times we live in? Or are they opportunistic efforts taken by those who have an agenda?

I can see how both questions would receive an affirmative answer.

Much of what made this country great was its integrity born out of Judeo-Christian principles. Even if folks didn't personally adhere to those principles, they still followed them to a great extent, working hard, keeping the order by obeying laws, respecting others. Bad behavior caused shame which was sufficient to prevent it from happening too much.

Now, bad behavior is embraced, encouraged and applauded.

The entropy of sin has eroded the United States of America to the point where an over-reaching government just doesn't seem all that strange any more. Given that we appear to be on the downward side of the great experiment, we would have gotten to this point sooner or later.

There is much to consider.

Hoarding

Ideas and images fill my head regularly.

When I try to record them with words, I am usually unable to capture them with an accurate reflection of what they were doing in my head. I don't know why this is the case. But somewhere after jotting down the first words, the entire piece takes a turn into a realm that either trivializes what I was thinking or goes far afield from original intent.

Some of the threads I have followed have led to decent replacement pieces from the original. More likely, though, they become bland or silly and not worth mentioning in any form or forum. Yet, I still do, because they are all I have at the moment, and the readers of such don't necessarily realize what has happened from my perspective.

It seems that I have three major subjects about which I keep writing.

These are the three subjects with their subsets:

• Time (aging, the past, changes which occur with the passage of time)

• Relationships (love, sex, my wife, ex-girlfriends, good and bad aspects of relationships)

• Nature/Environment (the wind, seasons and the changing thereof, city environments, different locales, ie woods, ocean, mountains, etc.)

Most of these are to be found in poems. Some of my blog entries deal frequently with the first in the list. Short stories are a bit more difficult to categorize, though you can find elements of these subjects as well.

I guess that in the end there's only one thing I can take from all this. I have been writing first and foremost for myself since I started. Unlike commercial writers who produce for a broader audience with the expectation of making money (which wouldn't have bothered me in the least had it happened to me), my audience the entire time was one person.

I don't think of this as narcissism in the literal definition of the word, but maybe it colors the efforts. The greater motivator, I think, is fear. Fear that if I don't record these things, I will somehow lose them in the swirling mists of time. Even at the age of 51, I find my memory has become unreliable and more than a bit fuzzy.

But what is the value of these memories that has caused me to spend so much time composing the written items? It's not a matter of learning from the past. It's not a matter of recording great events with historical worth. And I think that in my last days on earth, I won't be trying to recall going fishing or riding a bicycle or playing a pickup game of baseball.

Yet, I'm compelled to keep doing it. Maybe some day, a valid reason will present itself.

Until then, I'll have to use the George Mallory reason.

Because it's there.

Rummage Sale

We are formless, nameless.

We trudge through life looking for angels.

Looking for Eden.

Because neither are immediately available, we make up our own.

Initially, we think that Mom and Dad will provide us a paradise. But the truth is Mom and Dad are not equipped to do so. In fact, they, too, are looking for it. And often, they are searching through their own torments carried from childhood through teen years to adulthood until they unload them onto us. We become beasts of burden.

Then we think that education will give us the needed direction to gain paradise. Go to school. Learn all you can. Don't you know that the more education, for which you pay dearly, the better your economic status will be one day? Statistics say so.

Hooray for statistics!

Out of school and into the workforce, we ride the expectations of climbing the career ladder. Perhaps Eden lies at the top? It must! Look at all those smiling people driving their expensive cars, living in palatial homes, vacationing in the Caribbean for much of the year.

Yeah!

But, wait. There are long hours of unfulfilling work. There is numbing boredom found in repetitive tasks. There are stresses from unreasonable expectations, and, for the most part, we end up slaves to someone else's search for Eden.

So we try church. After all, that's where we first learned of Eden. The church must have the answers. It surely must know.

And we go to church. And the church gives us recipes. Add a pinch of prayer, a lot of love, stir in a tenth of your income, do this, don't do that, act like Jesus - what would He do? That's if the church actually believes in Jesus. Many don't.

Some churches say that it's not about the rules, but the relationship. Unfortunately, this creates a whole new set of rules and recipes. We take those recipes and try to bake our Eden cake.

Too bad, the cake fell flat.

Because we think that it takes a certain number of genuflects to achieve Eden, and because that number seems to be an ethereal secret known to no one, not even the Pope, we give it what we consider a fair shot. It's no wonder we fail.

Maybe we can find Eden if we only look inward.

Some things certainly feel like Eden for a while.

Sex, drugs, alcohol.

Fantasies in the dark.

Yet, with all their promise of enlightenment, of ecstasy, they don't remain in our systems. So, it's more and more and more and more and more and more and more... until

Crash, disease, obsession, insanity, destruction.

Death.

Or repentance.

To trudge back up that weary hill looking once again for Eden.

We are formless, nameless. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

They are living in a fantasy.

What'd You Say?

I don't know if the internet has merely exposed poor English language skill/knowledge or actually encouraged it.

I know that in the heat of typing something quickly so as to be an early responder, mistakes get made. I know that because I make them. But I'm not talking about typos here.

I'm talking about a regular pattern of poor English.

Not everyone excels at language arts. I understand this. Some people are good at math. Others enjoy history or art. My own sister has a tendency to misspell the word "picture" as "pitcure." I've watched her do it several times.

However, I’ve seen an ongoing misuse of words and poor spelling that spans across many people.

For instance, the use of the word “of” in place of “have.” I can't say how many times I've read a Facebook post that said something like this, "I should of done something about it." I know that elided speech tends to make "have" sound like "of." But "have" here creates the past perfect tense of the verb "done" and "of' doesn't do a thing except take up space.

Another common - and I have no idea from where this came - mistake is the misspelling of "huge" as "hugh". The letters "e" and "h" aren't even near each other on the keyboard, so it can't be a mistype. I guess I am to understand that there are a lot of hugh things and events out there and we probably must be careful.

Compound words are not unusual. Nobody, somebody, someone, anybody, anyone. How about "noone?" I see it quite frequently and every time I do I want to say something about Peter Noone, former frontman for the Herman's Hermits. Turning "no one" into the compound "noone" is not accepted in traditional English rules. One of the problems with it is that it looks as if it should be pronounced much like "noon." In fact, I believe it is an archaic variant of the word.

But it seems people insist on using it in the manner described.

Of course, there's always the "its" and "it's" issue as well as "there", "their" and "they're." To be honest, sometimes I have to stop and think if I used the correct word and have caught myself having to change it.

It's a dicey move to try and correct someone on their English. I once made the comment that jewelry is not pronounced as joolery, and a fellow I knew from college became incensed. He didn't think it a good idea for me to offer up correction as it had the potential to hurt someone's feelings. If I read between the lines of what he wrote to me, I have to assume that perhaps he does, indeed, pronounce it as joolery. Yet he tried to make himself sound like the grand protector of all things ego.

I don't spend much time correcting people online - only in venues where I know it will be appreciated. I do wonder, though, what the language will look like ten, twenty years from now.

After all, without adherence to some sort of rules, order will be reduced to chaos.

How I Met Her

You always notice the newbies.

Then they get absorbed into the unit, and they may or may not become significant to you. That's the way the social order in the Army evolves. With the observation, whether loosely or tightly, of non-fraternization rules, various levels of familiarization and friendship will be made.

I certainly noticed her when she arrived. She was taller than most I had known. Her lovely hair was brown and her blue eyes were inviting pools.

Somehow, someone else noticed her before I did, and she started seeing him.

No matter. I was sort of seeing someone at the time anyway, though I really shouldn't have been.

Even so, I kept an eye on the new woman. It sort of bothered me that she was seeing the fellow from Bravo Company. I always thought that she should be hanging around with her own, and by that I meant the members of Alpha Company. But attraction doesn't know boundaries like we do.

She was in third squad. I was in second squad. In every formation, I stood in front of her. Knowing she was behind me, I acted up a little - talk about regressing back to childhood. Of course, I couldn't act up too much. After all, it was the Army and we had to follow decorum.

So, until "attention" was called, I would boisterously joke and laugh with my squadmate and roommate, Jake, with the hope she would notice my social joviality skills.

I remember offering to shine her boots for an inspection, and she took me up on it. After all, I had a pretty good gloss on my own. I think she saw that. Or maybe she just hated shining boots.

Eventually, she started eating with us now and then in the mess hall. I can't recall any of the conversations, but I was delighted and a bit nervous. It was almost like dating.

The person I was involved with was getting ready to move to California. It was a somewhat difficult time for me, but I hadn't been seeing her for long. The day she left, I went to see the newbie. By now, she wasn't a newbie any more, and we had become casual friends.

I knocked on her door. When she answered, I said, "Emily is gone. I need a hug."

She obliged.

Hugging her felt so right. I think I told her that.

I kissed her and she kissed back. It was sweet and wonderful.

We went out on a date shortly after. I found out she had a boyfriend stationed in Panama, but she wasn't particularly committed to him. He would come to visit her at some point during our dating which caused some issues. However, he left, and I remained.

That was over twenty-six years ago.

This December 27th, she and I celebrate our 25th anniversary.

Despite the graying hair, the bodies that aren't as firm and smooth as they once were, I still have a great desire for her. I once told her that I wanted to grow old with her.

In retrospect, my real wish would have been to remain young forever with her.

Reality has other plans.

Book 'im, Dano!

The library always had a smell to it. A little woody in its olfactory texture, maybe some undertones of floor polish and leather, the predominant smell was of paper. Paper and silence. With the exception of the occasional sniff or turning of a page, both of which were quite subdued, silence ruled the large, book-laden room. At the librarian's desk in the hallway between the children's side of the building and the opposite adult side, talk was committed with a low voice.

The building itself is a modern structure of concrete, glass and stone. Two levels, an entrance at each level - the contours of the land on which it sat allowed for this - the lower of the two had an open staircase which led to the main level. Below the staircase was a sort of rock garden. As to what was on the lower level was something I never found out. It seemed like a forbidden zone, but it very well may not have been.

I say it is a modern structure, but the style was modern for the 70s. Modern like the Brady's house was modern. Still, it's a look that has worn well over the years.

When I first started going to this library, I was young enough to peruse the children's side. Of course, the desire was to go over to the adult side. I don't know of any prohibition against it, but it seemed as if one needed to be of a certain age before being able to do so.

The children's side was brighter in color, perhaps a little noisier. If one enjoyed reading, then it was much like entering a candy store. I still remember something of stories I read from there, though I don't recall their titles. The tables and chairs, of course, were smaller to accommodate smaller bodies. In thinking back, I can't recall how I got to the library at that age as it was over a mile from where I lived. I suppose it entirely possible that my friends and I rode our bikes there. We were pretty wide ranging on our bikes at fairly early ages. There just didn't seem to be much danger back then.

Eventually, however, I became a teenager and graduated to the adult side of the library. I remember Wally, a friend and classmate, trying to convince me that the library sold hamburgers. It wasn't a believable tale he told me, and I refused to approach the librarian to ask. But I did sort of cast a glance here and there while looking at books to see if there was actually a kitchen somewhere in the back. The thing is, were there hamburgers, I'm sure I would have smelled them cooking.

Instead, I just smelled paper.

The move to the adult side of the library, though anticipated, really meant work. Whereas I used to take out children's books for the enjoyment of reading, the adult side was required for research for school papers. Even so, I still managed to find books for recreation as well. I read a lot of Jacques Cousteau's books, being interested in scuba diving at the time.

Since then, I've been to small town libraries, university libraries, the large Portland Public Library, the huge Boston Public Library.

But none of those approach the memories I have of the South Portland Public Library.

It was my first library.

Of Guns and Power Tools

I can't say with any surety that I know a woman who likes guns.

Most of those I know that have commented have expressed a dislike for them in their homes with some absolutely forbidding them.

Even my wife, who served in the US Army and has trained with machine guns, hand grenades, assault rifles and claymore mines, doesn't much care for them.

I find this attitude towards firearms to be interesting. It would seem that our culture has civilized the pioneering fortitude right out our women. Probably the men as well. And now what had been a perception that firearms were a useful tool for defense and sustaining life has evolved into fear.

I blame the media for generating this fear toward guns. Sensationalistic stories of family members - usually a husband or boyfriend - using a gun to kill a spouse, fiancee, children and/or relatives have created this notion that a weapon sitting in a closet, drawer or gun cabinet is just a timebomb ticking away, waiting for an occasion to explode.

What other reason for the fear?

Well, I know more people who have been harmed by power tools than I have by guns. In fact, I always approach my table saw with a bit of trepidation and suspicion that one day it will eat my fingers. That happened to my father.

My mother has never told him to get rid of his table saw, though.

Granted, potentially losing your life is more serious than losing a pinky. However, the chances of the latter happening are probably greater due to more frequent usage. How often do people get their guns out besides for hunting season or target shooting?

I think we should approach all tools with a measured amount of fear. This generates respect for the implement and, with it, a more careful approach when using.

Otherwise, our driving just might go all to hell.

The Unbearable Swiftness of Wane

It's December 2011, the final month of the year.

It has been two years and a few months since my wife's mom died. It has been almost four years since her dad died.

They have disappeared.

Vanished out of sight.

For a time, they were there and now they're not.

It seems that the older I get, the more profound this all becomes. I don't know; maybe it's a perceptual thing.

When my grandparents passed on (the most recent being around twenty years ago), they all seemed to be matter-of-fact events. That may be partly due to not being particularly close to any of them. But none of their deaths led to any sort of contemplation on my part. It was really no different than reading about some stranger's death in the newspaper.

My wife's parents' leaving, however, has remained with me.

I still think about them; perhaps not as actively as I once did. Now and then, though, they will pop into my mind, and I will remember specific times with them.

My wife and I had been married twenty-one years when her dad left, closer to twenty-three at the time her mom passed on.

Two decades plus is a long time.

Yet...

It isn't.

We were already older when we married. I was 26 and she was 32. We put off having children for seven years. Because of our lack of immediate timing, my in-laws never got to see their grandsons graduate from high school. I think about this from time to time. They won't see either of my sons get married and have their own children.

It's too bad, really.

My parents are alive, so there are still grandparents available for my sons. They've been able to see the Little League games, the graduation and other important events in the boys' lives. Hopefully, this will last for a while. Both parents are approaching their 80s, but they are still in pretty good heatlh.

Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1651, "Life is nasty, brutish, and short." This is a paraphrase of the actual line which was longer by several words. He was speaking about his time, of course, when life was as described, especially without a sense of law and order. It is a sentiment often applied to current times as well when moroseness sets in. There appears to be a common feeling among my peers that time goes by so fast and kids grow up in a twinkling before our eyes. Before we can even blink, we have gotten old.

I have been trying over the last few years to enjoy moments as they come, to not get so wrapped up in doing stuff that I lose track of time's passage. That's what you're supposed to do, right? Live a day at a time. Take it as it comes. Seize the moment. And so on.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have had any real effect, for every time I turn around it seems like another month has passed, another year.

Like everyone else, I have no idea how to make it stop or, at least, slow it down.

So, I'll just think about my in-laws now and then. Maybe look at some pictures and video.

And cherish the people I still have with me.