Born To Drive

July 4th, 2011

Born to Drive

Today being the Fourth of July, I find it natural to reflect on the concept of freedom. Being able to live as you choose, including traveling about in your own vehicle, are key components of this theme. With this in mind I want to tell you about last October, and Mama’s desire to retain freedom.

Which of the following reasons would prevent a person from obtaining a driver’s license?

a)  Being eighty-eight years old

b)  Having cataracts on one’s eyes requiring surgery

c)  Having limited use of one of your hands, because an ailment has developed, making use of that hand impossible without a fair amount of pain.

d) All of the above.

e) None of the Above

If you guessed “e,” then you were right. It’s a long story, but kind of an important one in the big picture, because it tells us a lot about Mama. She is an independent person, and to her, independence means being able to get into her car, and go to the post office. Independence means not having to rely on others for transportation. Independence means renewing her driver’s license every October.

Unfortunately, living up on a ridge-top in northern Mendocino County does not help the situation out. Even to get to the nearest town requires some tricky highway driving, exacerbated by the Type A driving personalities one encounters on the highway these days. Not long ago, Mama returned from a trip to Shingle Town with the side of her little station wagon all scraped up. 

I had stopped by to carry in her groceries for her, and it was pretty hard to ignore.

“Whoa, what happened? Drop your watch?”

“What? Oh, that. I have to make an appointment at that place in Willits.”

“Yes, I can see that. Jim Yokum’s body shop is the one you mean,” I murmured.

“I suppose.” That pained expression.

“And how did it happen again?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Could you try?”

“Well, there was this pickup truck.”

“Pickup truck? What kind of pickup truck?”

 “Big. It was huge and covered with mud, like they were doing a lot of off-road driving.”

“Or a lot of on-road driving, at high speeds. So what about it? You didn’t like the color and decided to sideswipe it?”

“No, he sideswiped me," she exclaimed indignantly.

“What did you do? Did you get his license? Are you all right?” She looked fine, just moving slowly after the long period of sitting.

“I’m fine but I couldn’t get his license; I was trying to keep from ending up in the river.”

“Hold that thought, Mama.  Can you start at the beginning? Take a load off your feet. Here’s the mail; I’ll just put it on the table next to you. Where did this take place?

“Right where you leave Highway 5 to get back here to Mendocino County.”

“And this man tried to force you off the road? Did he even see you?”

“How should I know? He came out of nowhere.”

“I hate when that happens. He didn’t stop? You didn’t call Po-Po?”

“No, he didn’t stop. I don’t think he ever saw me.”

“So you don’t want to pursue it? We should just ignore that someone tried to kill you, whether purposely or not?”

“I don’t think he saw me.” 

“Well, I don’t think so either, otherwise he might have avoided you. So OK. Let’s make an appointment and get rid of the evidence.”

"Can we make this our little secret?" she implored. Uh, oh.

When I relayed this to her, Annie couldn’t help thinking of Dean, the ninety-one year old beau of a friend’s mom. Dean was personable, even charming, and he was also desperate to retain his driving rights. Unfortunately, he kept running into other people’s cars.  

To avoid complications, he had taken to carrying around large amounts of cash, so as to better extricate himself from any legal entanglements before they began. He simply paid off his victims so handsomely, that all discussion of constabulary procedures evaporated.  

It’s not that Mama went around running into cars, or paying off people with cash, but there was that desperate need to retain her driving rights. It goes back to being independent. She will be the first to say, “I have been driving for more than seventy years.” You can look it up.

When it came to renewing her license last time, Mama had problems with the vision portion of the DMV test.  It seems those pesky cataracts were being problematic, and she had had to go to her eye doctor for a statement that her vision issues were not severe enough to prevent her from operating a motor vehicle. She emerged triumphantly from the Ukiah DMV, license in hand, ready for action for another year.

This year, in addition to vision challenges, Mama had developed some technical difficulties with her left hand. I came in one morning in early October, to fill the woodbox and empty the compost. Mama was quiet, reserved, her face pinched in pain.

“Morning, Mama. What’s up? Are you in good shape for the shape you’re in?”

“Good morning. Not so’s you’d notice it. I’ve been better.”

I looked closer. It was chilly outside, the October air tinged with the coming winter.  The breeze carried with it the threat of things to come, as we readied ourselves for winter. Mama was hovering over one of the candles on the counter, fumbling with a wooden match, striking it against the box fruitlessly. She had the match in her right hand and was attempting to keep the box in place with her left hand. Something was not right.

I have found that when something is not right, it is generally wrong.

“Is everything OK? What’s with your hand?”

“I’m not sure.”

Whatever answer I was expecting, it wasn’t that one. “You’re not sure? It hurts though?”

She was still trying to light that candle.

  

“Here, let me do that for you.”  Mama had her hand in front of her at stomach level, looking somewhat claw-like, with her fingers closed in a weak fist. “I can’t seem to open my hand.”

“Yes, I noticed that. Does it hurt?” Jeff Foxworthy would have been proud. 'Here's your sign.' I could tell that it hurt; I just wasn’t sure how severe the pain was. 

“Yes, it hurts when I try to open my fist, or pick something up.”

“Have you ever had this problem before?”

“No, but Robert did. He dealt with something just like this and eventually, it went away.”

“OK, then. Why don’t you schedule an appointment, and we’ll get it checked out?”

“Well, I will, but that won’t be able to happen until after my driver’s license test; I can’t delay that.”

“Mama, don’t be ridiculous. We will have to postpone the driving test

if you can’t use one of your hands."

“Postpone? My driving test? Why? We can’t do that!”

“But Mama, how are you going to take the test if you only have one useable hand?”

“Never you mind [Mister]. I am perfectly capable of driving. I will come out of the DMV with a driver’s license.”

“Well. excuse me for asking, but are you going to drive one-handed or develop a third arm to help out?  Otherwise, I’m sorry Mama, but this just doesn’t make any sense. How can you drive a car if you can’t grip the steering wheel?”

“I can drive just fine, thank you very much. I only have to drive around Ukiah.”

“Ukiah has deer, rabbits and other things that get in the way of cars, like big rig trucks and lots of traffic. I still don’t know how you can drive a car, when you can’t light a match.”

“I can drive just fine [Mister],” she repeated.

Deciding that the best thing to do was to call on older brothers for assistance, I responded, “OK, Mama, how’s about I call Bro Brian and ask him what he thinks?”

Brian was the chief-of-staff of the Veterans' Hospital in Martinez.

She nodded enthusiastically. “That’s fine.”

I was a little surprised that she acquiesced so easily, but I suspected that it was because she already knew what his response would be, unlike me. I was taken aback when Brian responded to my concern by being sympathetic to her cause.

“I don’t think there is a problem,” he announced, after I had presented the situation to him.

“Not a problem? She can’t even close it, let alone clench or unclench her left hand. How is that not a problem?” On the one hand, I was happy to have Brian make the decision; on the other hand, I had been certain that he would side with me.

  

“Mark, listen. She can take this test, It’s not going to affect her to the point that she can’t handle the car.  She is as sharp as a tack.”

“Dude, you didn’t see her. She’s in a lot of pain. How is she supposed to drive a car? And what does being sharp have to do with being in pain?”  

I always hit the “Dude” button when I get worked up, though Brian stopped being a dude when he became chief of staff of the Veterans’ Hospital in Martinez, a hundred years ago.

He responded in a matter-of-fact voice. “The pain is not so debilitating that she can’t handle it for fifteen minutes during a driver’s test.”

That was that. I was relieved on several levels, especially after I spoke with Eric and got the same feedback.  All I was trying to establish was that someone who knew more about the nature of the ailment, was able to override my opinion so that fingers would not point to me later, as someone who should have stepped in.

The grand day arrived all too soon, and Annie elected to drive Mama down to Ukiah. Mama was so matter-of-fact about the whole thing, it was somewhat disconcerting. Here I was, apparently ready to shuffle her off to pedestrian land, when she still had “wheels” on her mind.

Later, Annie was to tell me in great detail about the day, it being one that mixed routine with adventure.  Because they had to travel all the way down to Ukiah, there were ample stops along the way. In Laytonville there was the first of two stops at the post office, on the way down to Ukiah and on the way back through.  Now, as she resumed her seat in the car, Annie asked what was next and was told that the gas company was.  They stopped long enough for Mama to run in and pay a bill before they went on to the pharmacy, where she picked up a prescription.

Without going into detail on every pause, let me just say that there were fifteen stops all together, the most noteworthy being the Willits Senior Center, where Mama stumbled. She tripped over the cement stop that jutted out on either side of the front of the car. She recovered sufficiently enough to shuffle along to the bank, Coast-to-Coast, Safeway, the Triple A outlet (to pay another bill), and then on to Ukiah, where the first stop was Food-for-Less.

“Maybe we should go have a cup of coffee and take a little break,” suggested Annie. “You need to conserve your strength for the driving test.”

“Oh, I’m not too worried about that,” said Mama, and Annie believed her.

Eventually, they made their way to the DMV for the eleven o’clock appointment. They parked out front, entered the glass door and stopped in front of the window. Mama presented her appointment slip and the woman motioned her to be seated, while they processed the paperwork.

Five minutes later Mama and Annie were directed off to the right, where the driving appointments were handled, to a desk where they found the driving examiner herself, seated. She was formidable indeed, with a desk that contained all of the embellishments one would have expected to find: computer, printer, in/out box, and a jumble of papers. 

Standing there in the in front of the desk, Annie and Mama presented an interesting spectacle. Mountain people was the term most frequently used. Annie was dressed in Levis, hiking boots and a heavy blue sweater, her long, perfectly straight dark hair hanging almost to her waist.  

Mama had on green polyester slacks and a flowery blouse, cleverly concealed by her voluminous tweed coat, heavy and blue, that reached down to her knees. She was dwarfed by the coat, her head sticking out, as though from a blue turtle shell, clinging to her back.  

She had donned her trademark black dress shoes, with the inch-high heels. Annie was terrified to see her in them, for the exact reason that the fall at the senior center suggested. Flat heels would have worked better, but flat was not her style.  

“Please take a seat right over there,” the woman behind the desk said, indicating a row of chairs to one side.  Already perched on one of the hard, plastic, bright orange chairs was a dapper gentleman, older in appearance, dressed nicely in cream-colored golf shirt with tailored, chocolate-colored trousers. His neatly trimmed mustache was salt and pepper-colored, and his rimless glasses made him appear more dignified than the jaunty yellow cap might have indicated.

The woman behind the desk, indeed, the driving examiner herself, was a study in contrast to Annie.  Whereas, Annie was a mountain gal, this woman was a city girl.  I could describe her as business-like, but only in a San Francisco setting.  Here in Ukiah, swank was more like it.  

Her perfectly coifed blonde hair was elegantly styled, without a strand misplaced. Her black wool skirt was impeccable, and the turquoise silk blouse, decorated with a brooch in the shape of a butterfly, was stunning.  She was slim and trim, and looked as though she belonged in a law firm, with a bevy of secretaries to serve her.

Alternately studying the paperwork in front of her, while glancing surreptitiously at Mama and Annie, waiting expectantly, she seemed to be searching about for a lifeline. She shifted in her gleaming swivel chair, rustled that paperwork around once again, before seeming to reach a decision.  

A few minutes later, Mama’s name was called out and she and Annie stood up and approached the desk.  Ignoring Mama, the woman gestured to Annie, saying, “Why don’t you bring the car around to the front here, so we can get started?”

“You want me to get the car?” asked Annie, momentarily surprised that it wasn’t Mama being asked.

“Yes, if you will.  I would like to take one more look at this paperwork.”

Annie snagged the keys from Mama and brought the car around front. The woman had busied herself in the few minutes it took to accomplish this, and now she gathered herself up to take the plunge. Standing up, she glanced to her left as Mama’s car came into view, and then abruptly sat back down.

   

What she saw was a product of the hill. It being fall and the rains still being held in abeyance, the little station wagon was an interesting sight. We are talking about a 1994 electric blue, Ford Escort Station Wagon, in need of washing. The little car was covered in a filmy cloud of dust.  

The side visible to us was the side that still showed the ravages of that incident with the errant pickup truck, and the oak branch jutting out of the windshield reservoir, presented the crowning touch. Not just the branch but the leaves and acorns too, were clearly visible from her vantage point. This desultory symbol, so innocent, in and of itself, was the final straw. 

The driving examiner sat back down with a whoosh, surprising for a woman so slight. Reaching for her phone, she hit one of the buttons, and spoke earnestly into the mouthpiece for several minutes. Replacing the phone, she looked up at Mama with a dazzling smile.

 

“Good news! I have determined that your driving test is unnecessary.”

For emphasis she shuffled through the paperwork one last time. Annie wondered what she had found there, that had not been present the first seventeen times, and the only conclusion she could reach was that it involved Mama’s car.  

“You simply need to have your picture taken, pay the fee and then you are set.” Meanwhile, she glanced past Mama, and smiled becomingly at the gentleman with the yellow cap. “Are you ready, Pierre?”

“Oui, Mademoiselle,” he said, doffing his cap and bowing ever so slightly, as he smiled broadly, revealing the best set of dentures that money could buy. “I’ll vill bring zee Bee-mare around zee frahnt.”

And as that little BMW convertible glided to a stop out front, the driving examiner allowed herself to be escorted around the tiny car, while Pierre opened the passenger door. The little smooch he bestowed upon her outstretched hand spoke volumes, and the last Annie saw, the car was shooting away without a speck of dust to be seen.

After only five minutes, Mama emerged once again, clutching both purse and newly acquired driver’s license, ready to prowl Mendocino highways for another year. 

Annie asked brightly, “Shall we see about a little lunch? How about if I drive?”  

Mama agreed, settling back into the passenger seat, after carefully removing and discarding the little oak branch, and the gesture, so casual in nature, made Annie think again.  

Was it possible that Mama had known more than she let on? Was there a plan all along? I’d hazard a guess but that would be all it was, a guess. From what I have seen and heard, I think Mama was following a road map all along, one that she drew up as the situation warranted.  

After all, if she wants to drive, she needs to be able to follow a map, and it’s always nice if you are the one who made the map because then you know where you are going.

Born to drive.

You Can't Beat that with a Stick

You Can’t Beat that with a Stick

Our family matriarch, my mother Pauline, passed November 15, and though unexpected in the sense that she was still ambulatory and mentally alert for the most part, we had been advised by Pauline’s primary health care provider, that Mama’s heart was experiencing an ongoing spiral downward, and that we should be prepared for her impending demise. 

Knowing objectively that what cousin Mary said was true, and that Mama’s heart was weakening, was only one of many signs that the recently-celebrated, ninety-second birthday, would be her last. Honestly, she started a more subtle transition towards her passing, the minute she moved off of the mountain, and down to Willits, a move precipitated primarily by me, in the summer of 2011. 

I was concerned about her being isolated on the mountain, during times of severe weather, when I wrote “Swan Song,” (http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/2011/10/swan-song.html) and I used that concern as justification when I asked my siblings to rally together, to urge Mama to relocate.

Pauline had been experiencing mild symptoms of confusion in her thinking, but she was adamant that continuing to drive her little Ford Escort was non-negotiable. This prompted me to chronicle a humorous account of her triumphant acquisition of her California Driver’s License, on the occasion of her 89th birthday, in “Born to Drive.” (http://markyswrite.blogspot.com/search?q=Born+to+Drive)

Whereas, this fierce independence precipitated, on the one hand, a concern for her health and safety, on the other hand, it fostered an admiration for her spirit and determination to not allow circumstances to prevent her from getting what she wanted. Mama was still a child when the stock market crash of 1929 signaled the onset of the Great Depression, a time when she grew up, first helping, and then ultimately substituting for her own mother, who passed prematurely of complications from heart failure.

When I was in eighth grade, and JT in seventh, in September of 1965, Papa took the two of us aside, early on in Mama’s pregnancy with brother Kevin, and told us quite bluntly that Mama’s doctor had warned him that if she did not slow down, she would die from the same disease that killed her own mother. 

JT and I were seriously frightened, and it produced an unparalleled time of cooperation and helpfulness from both of us, as we made lunches for ourselves and three younger sibs, and found time to do the breakfast dishes every morning, before leaving for school. That was 49 years ago.

Mama resisted moving up to Bell Springs in the first place in 1977, recognizing that to do so, was to say good-bye to all of the friends she had made in SoCal, over a twenty-five year period of time. And when she first got up here, it was hard, because there was no extended family in place, the way there was when Annie and I first came up, in 1982. 

The closest neighbors were incredibly welcoming and were able to provide many answers to the hard questions, but these same neighbors were almost all young enough to be Pauline’s daughters, with babies and toddlers occupying their attention. So the notion of new friends kind of fell alongside the wayside, much the way her ability to communicate with old friends, also fell off, with trips to town being few and far between, and the internet still twenty-some years away.

Isolated on the mountain with only immediate family, Pauline began to write, chronicling the story of her upbringing in Wilmar, what life was like during WWII, and then life on Fellowship Street, down in La Puente. The fourth in her series was the story of her experiences up here on the ridge.

I know of only the copies that she had printed and given to immediate family members, and none beyond that. The time may come when it is deemed appropriate to pursue the matter further, especially through cyber means, but for now the novellas remain very near and dear to the hearts of those who have read them.

I focus on the writing in particular, because it was a source of immense pride to her, that she was able to produce those four pieces of invaluable family history, forevermore to remain as treasured memoirs of an extraordinary woman.

Mama’s passion for writing was reinforced through a little exchange that JT shared, between Mama and Stephanie, the liaison between Pauline the facility at which Mama resided. Stephanie shared that Mama had made it clear when she first moved in that if she ever stopped writing, she would die.

Well, Stephanie went on, whereas Pauline did not keep writing, she actually ended up doing something far more surprising: She found a friend, Sister Maura, a gentle woman with whom Pauline made a tight bond, in as short of a period of time that it might have been.

The last several times that Annie and I visited, the two could be found together, sometimes hand in hand, and my impression was that there was a deep sense of acceptance and camaraderie between the two, something I had not seen Mama experience since she moved up on the ridge.

Being in Windsor may not have been the way Mama might have envisioned her last ten months of her life, but I would venture to guess that if she could have written out a plan for her final chapter, and included in it, her most wistful idea of existence outside of being with her children, what actually unfolded in this comfortable assisted-living facility in Windsor, might just have been the exact outline that she would have penned.

As she might have said herself, “Well, all right! You can’t beat that with a stick.” 

Leaky Lifeboats

My leaky lifeboat

I woke up the other day and realized I was 65 years old. I mean, I already knew that, objectively, having blown out the candles the prescribed number of times accordingly, but subjectively, I’m not sure I could say the same. Instead of viewing my life from the beginning onward, as one does with the celebration of birthdays, I am now viewing my life from backwards, as in how much time do I have left?

You've done that too? Weird.

My father Robert was born in 1922, and moved up to Bell Springs Road at age 55, in 1977. I was born in 1952, and moved up to The Bell for good in 1982. There were thirty years’ difference in age between me and my father.

HeadSod-Buster was born in 1982, thus making it also thirty years’ difference in age between the two of us. Gluten-Free Mama and I had only been on the mountain for eleven weeks, trying to convert a 16 by 20 shell of a cabin, into a home, when the littlest sodbuster burst upon the scene.

He is the real McCoy-mountain-born and reared.

So in many respects, HeadSodBuster and I are living parallel lives to that of my father and me, with me in the role of my father. Does that mean I have nine years left, as Robert was 74 when he woke up one morning, suffered a heart attack and died within an hour?

You tell me and we’ll both know.

Meanwhile, I am in a unique position because I cannot help but compare myself to Robert, at EVERY STEP of the journey. Am I perceived by my sons, in like manner to that way that I was aware of and took note of Robert? Or more likely, what are the differences?

Robert at fifty, down in Baja.

I try to remember the specific things I had to do for Himself in the later years, most of which concerned his little cannabis patch. He never grew more than 20 or 25 plants, heavily concealed amidst the manzanita, and I helped him transport soil/amendments, and I helped him sex the plants, weeding out the unwanted males.

I also remember one year having a male “get away” from us, either through error, or more likely, through hermaphroditing. His entire crop, meager as it was, had seeds throughout it, rendering it practically worthless. 

In the greater scheme it was not catastrophic since the cannabis was nothing but an auxiliary source of income, used for special projects or the occasional run over to Reno, for some R & R. Primarily that consisted of playing blackjack and the ponies, albeit not at the same time. 

Nonetheless, I felt horrible, knowing that if I had been more attentive and spent more time on-site, I would have been able to catch the miscreant, and remove him from the venue before damage could be done. Indirectly, I had become responsible for my father’s economic wellbeing, or at least that part of his wellbeing that allowed him some pleasure.

Parallel lives? HeadSodBuster and BossLady work countless hours to not only run a farm, but to help with the monumental job of trying to hammer out cannabis regulation. I contribute to the workforce on-farm, and thus earn a modest salary.

Without this income, I would still have my pension from the school district and my newly acquired Social Security, but it would be a squeeze, and that’s without the medical bills. Bottom line is that HeadSodBuster must feel similar unneeded pressure to continue the status quo.

When his grandpa was 65, as I am now, HeadSodBuster would have been five years old, and therefore it would be impossible for him to draw any accurate parallels, his five-year-old eyes till seeing life from stomach-level of the adults in his life.

Helping Dad with footings

As time progresses, though, the scale will start to balance itself out, and I will no longer be able to move and stack the five cords of firewood I require, to make it through winter. I am already hampered by an inability to drive any farther than Ukiah.

That means GF Mama has to rely on others to transport her to Sacramento for her immunotherapy infusions every two weeks. It’s not good; it’s not bad. Rather, it simply is.

As for “making it to 74” or not, I’m in the same leaky lifeboat that everyone else is in-we each have our own, you know. Could be yes, could be no, could be just maybe so. I ain’t worried and I’m not particularly scared, at least not of the ultimate destination.

If I knew I were simply going to wake up dead one day, then hey, that would eliminate the only part of the process that makes me nervous. Again, no one knows when the leaky lifeboat each of us requires to stay alive, will finally take on too much water, and sink.

It does no good to compare one leaky lifeboat to another, over a couple of generations, but I do it just the same. Or differently. Who knows? We may be in this world together, but we cannot share lifeboats. 

My lifeboat might seem tighter than many because I am physically active and eat mostly farm-grown food, but my lifeboat could also hit a rock in white water rapids, capsize and sink. I could make it to 74, or older, or I could keel over after a bodacious bong rip.

That might be kind of fun. Folks could nod knowingly then and quip, “Talk about achieving liftoff on multiple levels…”

45's leaky lifeboat

Has Anyone Seen My Mop?

I am even entrusted to wash the quilts.

Has Anyone Seen My Mop?

In Spanish, the word mal means bad, besides-coincidentally I am sure-being the first three letters of the word “male.” 

Well, I’m here to tell you that I am male: Hear me roar!

I am a male. I don’t drive a monster pickup truck; no, it’s this cute (if that word can legitimately be applied to pickups by a male) Ford Ranger. 

I am male. I don’t get drunk on weekends, or any other time for that matter. I am quite efficient at playing the fool, without the element of alcohol, thank you so much.

I am male.  I don’t ogle anything in a skirt, unless she is Annie. Respect is a concept that supersedes any other.

I am a male. I scrub the toilet every morning of my life because, well, it needs it.

I am male. I empty the trash, recycling and compost as needed, without having to be reminded about it every six months.

I am male. I refuse to acknowledge discomfort until such point as hospitalization is required. Surgery can then be expected to follow.

I am male. I bring Annie coffee in bed every morning of her life that we are in the same venue, and have done so since January, 1981. 

As many cups as she desires. 

I'm not that complicated of a guy when it comes to laundry.

I am male. I do my laundry, the household laundry, and Annie’s laundry, when she is in a trusting frame of mind. 

I am inordinately careful with Annie’s laundry.

I am male. I could no more make love to a woman not named Annie, than I could vote for Donald Trump.

I am male. I sweep, I dust and I mop. Ever since Annie has been poorly, I do my best to ensure that she does not sweep, dust nor mop. 

She needs her strength for more important battles than house-cleaning.

I am male. I wash the dishes after we eat and I always have. Being the fourth consecutive son born to Robert and Pauline, prior to my poor sister JT arriving amidst all that maledom, I learned at a very young age that if I wanted to eat, I had better learn how to do the dishes. 

There was no shame in pot-walloping in our household.

I am male. I learned how to peel potatoes, dice onions/bell peppers and slice carrots/radishes as soon as I was old enough to stand on a stool at the counter and keep my mouth shut. 

I’d like to say that the two tasks were equally challenging, but that would be a falsehood.

I am male. I am squeamish at the sight of blood, except for my own or that of kids and Annie.

I am male. I hate scary films. It’s not a matter of dislike; it’s a matter of self-preservation.

That's Lito hitchhiking...

I am male. When the boys were still small, I habitually had one in a backpack on my back, while I went about the business of washing dishes, cooking or restocking the woodbox.

I’d bet my bottom dollar that each of my three sons will do the same for his children.

I am male. I am a sucker for a romance movie, especially if it is a drama.

I am male. Though I enjoy professional football immensely, I have never watched a hockey game on either television, or in person. I do not like to watch dudes punch each other in the face. 

At least in football, you don’t generally see the nasty stuff, or if you do, it is heavily penalized.

I am male. I learned how to cook from watching my father cook for a family of eleven, intoning as he sampled the ambrosia he was preparing,  “To the North, to the South, to the East, and to the West. And to all of the gods in the universe, to Mercury, and to Mars…”

I am male. I open doors for women, help Annie on and off with her winter coat and jump up to refill the glass of any female who happens to cross the threshold of my home.

I am male. I cuss like a mofo, except when there are females present (Annie excepted, because she can out-cuss me any day of the week and twice as colorfully before she has had that first aforementioned cuppa Joe.)

I am male. I will not apologize if your male cannot keep it in his pants. It sounds like a personal problem so maybe you should talk to a chaplain.

I am male. In the unlikely instance that I would be hit on again by another male, I would feel the same way I did the other time: genuinely flattered but as just equally, genuinely uninterested. 

Why would I feel any other way?

I am male. If you are a guest in my home, you may sit and enjoy an after-dinner bowl if you’d like, but you will not be doing any dishes.

When I visit your home for a meal, then you can do the dishes for me.

I am male. I could no more hit a woman-or a kid/dog-than I could poke an ice pick in my eye.

Make that both eyes.

I am male; hear me roar, “Has anyone seen my mop?”

When Doves Coo

When Doves Coo

What are my personal recollections of Grandpa? Having written about his emigration from Germany to America, in 1901 as a 14-year-old, I will just say I would never have known that from him, personally. I had to read it in the manuscript he wrote, after he had retired-possibly, even as I was scrambling around beneath his feet.

He did have infinite patience with me. Whether his patience stemmed from my being a natural born charmer, or because I was somehow chosen to be a godchild, I do not know. I know that his voice rarely changed in tone, and that he had a keen sense of humor.

Oh. My. That. Hair.

He was not above making a slightly bawdy comment, which of course would probably be delivered in German, depending on just how bawdy it was. He and Auntie Anne would lapse into German any time they wanted to escape little pitchers’ ears. 

[Auntie would ask, ‘What do you think, Dear? Are you up for taking them to that western that’s playing at the drive-in? Oh, and for heaven’s sake, stop at the store and get him his chocolate milk, before he drives me nuts.’]

In the piece I wrote last January, I included a snippet about being at the drive-in once with Grandpa. In response to the comment that the movie we were watching (Walt Disney’s Pollyanna”) was neat, he responded by gesturing over to a car parked off to the left, “True, but the one going on over there is not bad either.”

I would have agreed, possibly, had I been able to see through the foggy windows, which obscured exactly what was going on in the car next-door. Grandpa was a proper gentleman at all times, but he still had a very human side to him that included humor and innuendo.

In October of 1956, Mama wrote in my journal that Noel and I spent almost two weeks together at the Wilmar House in August, so I would have  been almost four years old. Noel would have been almost seven. More importantly, Grandpa would have been close to seventy years old.

My earliest recollection of staying overnight, is one which included sleeping upstairs, in the back bedroom to the left, as you got to the top of the stairs. In later years it became Grandpa’s office/study. All four of us older boys were there, and I was still sleeping in a playpen, I was that small. 

Deceivingly innocent, in appearance.

I think the folks went up to Yuba City, circa 1955, but that is only a guess. It goes without saying that I cannot connect all specific memories to specific visits. I stayed with Noel, by ourselves, with JT, with Greg, and also once with the twins, Reggie and Celeste, in October of 1958, while Mama was in hospital, welcoming bro Tom into the world. Mama says I did not seem to get along with the twins, though it’s hard to believe I would display any unhappiness while at Grandpa’s house. It was that enjoyable.

Of all the places I slept in the house at Wilmar, none comes close to comparing to the screened-in porch, upstairs, accessible only by passing through Grandpa’s room. When I was allowed to sleep up there, I felt privileged because I really was in Grandpa’s space. Lying awake in the predawn, reading, I used to hear what I thought were owls.

Several decades and a couple of lifetimes down the line, I discovered the sound I was hearing was actually doves cooing. It remains one of the most soothing noises I have ever enjoyed.

So being in his late sixties/early seventies when I was a sprat, Grandpa was reasonably sedentary. He still went off to work before seven each morning, after preparing for his work day, including making his own breakfast. When he ate with us, he favored soft-boiled eggs, and I used to get off watching Auntie Anne prepare and serve them in those little egg-cups. 

I don’t remember soft-boiled eggs being on the menu, at home on Fellowship Street.

Grandpa served as chauffeur for Auntie Anne, driving her to the grocery store, and to the San Gabriel Mission for mass, rummage sales and pinochle tournaments. He did so uncomplainingly, often playing the radio at a low level. 

As out of character as it might sound, I remember specifically hearing Johnny Horton’s, “The Battle of New Orleans,” playing on the radio, with Grandpa rocking out to it, in his inimitable fashion. You know, “We fired our cannon ‘till the barrel melted down, so we grabbed an alligator and we fought other round. We filled his head with cannonballs ’n’ powdered his behind, and when we touched the powder off, the ’gator lost his mind.”

I remember going with Grandpa and Auntie Anne to a Marine World of sorts, but it was indoors. My impression is that it was in Long Beach. I also remember the epic trip to Disneyland circa 1957. The four older of us boys went, but I was not tall enough to ride the little go-carts on the track, and had to be a passenger in Noel’s car. Still, I was there.

The fact that both the grandparents were willing to take four boys to Disneyland, tells you something about their character. I am sure I would have been a challenge for the weak-of-heart. In 1957 Grandpa would have been 71!

We drove in his late-model Rambler sedan, which was always meticulously clean inside. When he took Greg and me fishing at Legg Lake, he sat in the car and read the newspaper, while Greg and I unsuccessfully attempted to land dinner. He was not the type of guy who would bait our hooks, leaving that up to us, but he was still willing to transport us there.

Eighth grade

One year I received from Grandpa a subscription for “Mechanics Illustrated,” a monthly publication that was geared to do-it-yourself projects that Grandpa thought might appeal to me. He was generous to me, as Mama indicates in her journal, there being gifts for me at Christmas and my birthday, religiously, though Auntie Anne most likely handled the logistics.

In my journal Mama notes that as a gift for my eighth birthday, Grandpa and Auntie Anne took me (and probably other munchkins) to the Los Angeles County Fair, on October 16th of that year, an excursion I remember with a fair amount of clarity. I used my own money to buy Mama a glass swan, that allowed one to fill it with artificially colored water, to create a pleasing effect.

Somewhat noteworthy, in her special way, Mama managed to hang onto to that little glass swan, when the move was made to Bell Springs Road, because it appeared on book shelves above the piano, at one point as the big house got furnished. When I expressed surprise that she still had it, she feigned shock that I would have the unmitigated gall to suggest she would ever throw it away.

One Christmas season there was a fundraiser going on at the Mission, and I was recruited to go door-to-door selling Christmas wreaths. The pool room at Wilmar had been converted into a wreath-making factory, and Grandpa ferried me around in the Rambler. He thought he had it all figured out because he took me to this apartment complex, where there were a whole passel of doors to be knocked on, with minimal traveling.

I got the boot after about three doors.

In 1961 I spent three days at Grandpa’s house, and then returned and spent the Labor Day weekend there, which coincided with my ninth birthday. Grandpa and Auntie Anne took me to the San Gabriel Mission fiesta, including the parade. 

Finally, as my sister JT pointed out on a recent post, there was the television set. We are not talking about a TV here, but nirvana-with color. Watching “The Wonderful World of Walt Disney” in color, specifically the “Swamp Fox” series, was incomparable short of going to the theater, which occurred on the average of twice a year.

Here are two of my four arches.

And if you want to see Grandpa’s influence over me, know that as we faced the television set, from any angle in the spacious living room, in the background were two arches, one on each side. They led into the small library that was filled with books, many of them in German.

I say Grandpa influenced me in that I liked those arches so much, I have four of them in my house. I constructed three of them, and though they are not perfect, they are perfect to me. 

Somewhere long about 1968 or so, the four older of us boys traipsed off to Wilmar one Sunday afternoon, ostensibly to visit, but also to take advantage of the pool table. By now Grandpa would have been eighty. I mention this in passing, because he always seemed available to me/us. 

I went with Mama to visit him in the hospital, only days before I shipped out to Missouri, in January of 1972, and he told me he was proud of me for entering the service. When he passed, only 17 days after I began boot camp, I knew I could not return home for the memorial.

As overwhelmed as I was by his not unexpected passing, I had plenty enough on my hands in the frozen tundra of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Quite candidly here, I was afraid that if I went home, I would never return. True story.

I remember his voice vividly and I remember his laugh. For a man who described in his own words, being raised in an environment where the adults were all considered good, and the children were all considered bad, he had a funny way of showing it.

I conducted myself properly when around my father, because I knew what was in store for me, if I did not. I conducted myself properly around Grandpa, because I knew instinctively that I had a good thing going, and that if I acted like a jerk, I would have the rug jerked out from under me.

I remember him clearest, sitting in his big easy chair, a solid wooden number, with three adjustable positions for sitting straight up, or reclining. With a hand on either armrest, he would watch television and we would watch with him.

I spent the weekend following the assassination of JFK, at Grandpa’s house, and the television was on a lot, tuned in to the coverage of the atrocity in Dallas. I was just past my 11th birthday, and I really feeling the pain. 

I couldn’t believe the guy who was the center of “PT109,” a film Papa had taken us all to see in August of 1963, was gone. Correspondingly, it took me a long time to absorb that Grandpa was gone. 

It’s been 45 years now but his memory comes back to me now every time doves coo. On this ridge-top where I live, I hear doves a lot.

The STUD

Think of it as Winnie the Pooh plopped down in the middle of the wild, wild west, where civilized conduct and courtesy sometimes go the way of vinyl LP's and cassette tapes. Like po-po, they are not to be found-not up on a remote ridge-top, on what used to be a stage coach route back in the day.

The reality is that folks who live in remote areas, don’t want to see the sheriff in the ‘hood, if you catch my drift. Maybe cannabis is an issue, maybe there are no permits, or maybe there is a deer suspended from a home-made, two-by-four frame out back, a few months out of season. Doesn’t matter the reason: Having po-po show up is never all the fun it’s cracked up to be.

Huge/tiny; show-room/scrap-heap; Mercedes/Subaru; 4WD/2WD; big-rig/quad: Many transportation options exist on Bell Springs Road, from GreyHound buses to bicycles. Similarly, the age level ranges from teens to old-timers and all points in between. We all get along, for the most part, and we've see it all. 

Double STUD salute...

I have been seeing it all since 1981, the year I originally ventured up to my twenty-acre spread and erected a small cabin, sixteen by twenty feet, which was to become our home in the earliest years. To access our spot from The 101, we have to drive just over five miles of dirt/gravel road, the first three of which climb steadily up to more than 3,000 feet in elevation.

In the infancy of my teaching career, I figured out that the five miles of dirt road and the eleven miles of highway from the ‘Ville to the bottom of the Bell took x amount of time. No matter how much faster I traveled, I could only shave y amount of time off, and it was never enough to justify the increase in speed. (And they say we never use algebra.)

In case you have never had the pleasure of navigating Bell Springs Road, it is mostly just an exercise in patience, the washboard effect limiting just how fast one can go. Naturally, there are those who want to zip right along, and those who do not want to put Duane and Shannon’s kids through college, by needing their front suspension systems replaced every year.

I wrote this passage to my sister JT Thursday morning, before I set out for Willits: “I can’t believe how hard driving has become. If there were no other people on the roads, I wold be fine. Sadly, such is not the case.” Talk about foreshadowing-I thought that only happened in novels.

The drive from Willits back to the Bell went marginally well, with the cruise being impacted by a driver who chose to go the last six miles into the ‘Ville at 45 MPH, and then headed north at all of 40 MPH, until he mercifully pulled off at Ten Mile.

No matter how slow the driver in front of me goes on the highway, I will not tail-gate. I won’t; I just won’t.

Hitting the Bell is always a huge relief because, though I will not partake of my meds while on the highway, I have no such qualms about BSR, where I don’t exceed 15-20 MPH. I mention this primarily so that the reader will know in advance, that after taking two hits off of a phattie, I was pretty relaxed and in no way stressed out.

Old Yodas are the preferred choice.

The first mile up went smoothly until just past Orange-Marker Road, when I came around the bend and spotted up ahead a truck-and-trailer rig, hauling what was undoubtedly compost to a grow site. It was preceded by a pilot truck, ostensibly “clearing the way.”

No, don’t do this to me. I’m begging you. No, no, no! 

Whether highway or byway, the law requires that slower traffic allow normal traffic to get past; it’s not just a special code for Bell Springers. 

Imagine me being referred to as “normal,” one of life’s delicious ironies.

And contrary to what the uninformed individual may think about Bell Springs Road, it is not a narrow, single track. In all but maybe a half-dozen spots on the road, two vehicles can easily pass one another. This means that if two vehicles going in opposite directions can pass, then two vehicles going in the same direction, could engage in similar activity. Duh.

In 35 years of navigating Bell Springs, there was only one other instance of a trucker who wouldn’t allow me to pass, a water delivery truck. I did pass him, eventually, after about four miles, swearing at him in both English and Spanish, while conveying his IQ and number of friends he had before his dog died, simultaneously, with the middle finger of my left hand, extended out the driver’s-side window.

Tentatively coming up behind the dust-spewing behemoth Thursday afternoon, I hung for a second before dropping back to a comfortable distance, to await a good spot to pass. Less than a minute later, such an opportunity afforded itself, but the driver of the big rig missed the memo.

OK, well, I can’t understand why he wouldn’t have taken advantage of that wide stretch there, but no biggie. I can handle a little adversity in my old age.

Again, almost around the next bend came another ideal spot; I edged up closer to the dust-monger once again, only to be ignored again. This time I tapped the horn to let him know that I had certain expectations that were not being met.

My, that is a strident sound. “Patience is a virtue-have it if you can, found seldom in a woman, never in a man.” Hell, I wasn’t asking for his first-born; he didn’t even have to stop. Just let up on the pedal there while I dash past. A little courtesy will do you no harm.

“It didn’t take,” as Gluten-Free Mama has been known to say, having heard it first from her own mama. I know I did. By that she meant that the driver of the truck had obviously not comprehended my desire to get around him. Either that, or he was a- Never mind.

We've had our quad more than ten years.

After repeating this scene several times, I tapped on the horn and forgot to untap it. Pretending I was playing Black Sabbath for the mountain, I never let up on that horn until such time as I made my move. Don’t worry-it was [probably] no more than five minutes in duration. 

I was not particularly thrilled with the way things were developing, but I was not going to let that get in the way of pouring more gasoline on the smoldering coals. I was a man on a mission. I was not asking the dude in front of me to do anything that I did not do myself every single time I ever drove the Bell. I hate having people on my tail, and I won’t do it to others, so I pull over and let them pass.

Eventually we approached one of the widest turns on the road, and as the big truck ahead of me swung wide, I hit the accelerator and almost creamed a vehicle heading toward me. No wonder the truck had swung far to the right, for once. The road was actually wide enough to accommodate all three of us, right here, so a split-second later I completed the maneuver, easily able to sally past the dust-banger.

I had removed my hand from the horn, so it was handy for the single-finger salute to jerks. If that made me a jerk too, then so be it. Never was being a jerk so rewarding. I kept that STUD (salute to unconscious drivers) extended as I passed the pilot truck, holding him equally responsible. If he had stopped, the big rig would have had to stop too.

I made reference to being Winnie the Pooh, in the opening of this sordid epistle, a moniker once assigned me by a community member, a long time ago in the late eighties. I had had a restraining order issued against me, the product of an ongoing feud our education collective had with an eccentric woman, who eventually caused our little school up here on the mountain to close. What Kat said was, “It was like seeing Winnie the Pooh get a restraining order.” 

I took it as high praise.

For anyone who thinks that the big truck and trailer had the right to continue to hog the road, simply because it was big, I would politely disagree. The bigger it is, the more the responsibility its driver has to pull over. 

In light of these events, I suspect that the subject of my bipolarism might possibly surface, and that maybe if I were on conventional Big Pharma meds, I might have been content to suck dust for a half-hour.  Yeah, sure, and I might have voted for 45, too, but I didn’t and I wouldn’t. Be content to suck dust for half an hour, that is. 

Neither would Winnie the Pooh.