Don't Rock the Boat

Don’t Rock the Boat

The contrast provided by the juxtaposing of candles alongside Terra Jean, my laptop, is startling.  On the one hand, the presence of the computer indicates everything 21st century; the glow provided by the flickering candlelight, screams 19th century.  I am somewhere in the middle, planted firmly in the twentieth century, not quite all the way to the present, but a lot further into the process, than I might have expected.

So what’s with the candles?  We have no power.  This is a common enough event, that of the power suddenly cutting out.  It is par for the course, that we encounter and endure a plethora of logistical happenstance, in order to keep our lifestyle alive and flourishing.  Normally, it means having to go out and determine which of a number of possibilities exists, which has thrust us into darkness.

Generally, because of the lack of sun, the solar panels have not generated sufficient electricity to charge the batteries, and I now must supplement the flow of energy, with my generator.  Unfortunately, after charging for hours, the eight deep cycle batteries refused to hold a charge.  After running down the list of possibilities, I checked the water level in the batteries, something that should be done monthly, and found that two of the eight batteries, were drastically low on water.

Filling them up, and adding water to all of the rest, provided no relief.  I usually monitor the water level closely, but have been lulled into a false sense of complacency by the benign weather pattern.  Now, I fear the batteries are history.  Like shock absorbers, or spark plugs, one never replaces just one.  If one of the eight batteries is wasted, the others are in the same predicament.  

Logistically, replacing the batteries is painful, because they are far too heavy for this old cowboy to be shifting them around.  There was a time, but those days are gone forever.  Now I rely on the strong backs of the twenty-somethings around me, to take care of these things.  I will cook the chicken cacciatore, and make the salad, and they will switch the batteries.

For the time being, I can go out to the inverter, and push buttons to activate the system, for fifteen minute intervals.  Casey explained that he thought there was sufficient energy stored in the batteries, but that the one or two batteries which had gotten so low on water, were probably shorting out.  So I have power for fifteen minute increments, just long enough to post a piece of writing, or sneak a comment in.

Meanwhile, Annie and I resigned ourselves to an adjusted lifestyle, until these plans to rectify the power outage can be implemented.  I washed the dishes from our meal of tostadas, Spanish rice and salad, with candles on either side of the sink, while Annie put the dishes away.  We don’t get too excited by these challenges, because we’ve had a lot of practice.  After all, the fierce winds and heavy rains have knocked the power out for many of our contemporaries in town, so we are in good company.  

On a whim, Annie got out the dominoes, and we played four consecutive contests, with the two of us splitting the victories.  We had been playing cribbage lately, and the change was pleasant.  The television remained off, and when the time came for dinner, Annie had gotten out the candles and their holders, and scattered them throughout the downstairs arena.  Each trio of candles is in a metal pie pan, or some other type of receptacle, to ensure that neither wax drips, nor candle flips.  If a candle does get knocked over, it can’t burn the joint down. 

I hear dripping in the downstairs bathroom though, a result of all that trampling around up there earlier this year, while I orchestrated the connecting of the new addition to the original house structure.  I had been up on the roof, weaving the composition shingles that still exist on the original roof, to mesh with those of the new addition.  My actions had taken their toll.  Luckily, the bathroom roof is small.  

The other development is that the little generator is smoking, an ominous sign.  If I keep running it, I risk extensive, additional damage.  But if I take it in to the shop, I will have to borrow Casey’s for the extravaganza tomorrow.  That’s not a problem, but it just means things are starting to domino out of control: power outage, leaky roof, genny in the shop.  You know what they say about not rocking the boat-I wonder if Annie and I should have stuck to cribbage.

Texas Hold 'Em

Texas Hold ‘Em

I am looking at a home-made flyer, detailing the sad case of Chris, a father of two, who was being held in Mendocino County Jail, on a Texas felony warrant.  Chris is accused of having in his possession, fourteen grams of marijuana, including some cannabis concentrate, and was returned recently to Texas, to stand trial in the case.

A little over four grams of what he had, was hash, made from marijuana, and this is evidently the nail that is going to seal his coffin.  The presence of hash makes this an offense punishable by 5-99 years in a Texan prison, because it was deemed that he had it for sale.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.  California and Texas represent two sides of a coin.  On the one hand, both represent states in the greatest nation on earth, one which purports to be the land of the free.  On the other hand, anyone over the age of seven knows that Texas and California are as different as the yin and the yang.

I am an open-minded person, and I want to view this mild political controversy with as much balance as possible.  After all, Texas has no reason to treat Chris any differently than any other political prisoner, does it?  I want to believe that Texas genuinely sees marijuana as evil, and that a person in possession of it deserves to be incarcerated for life.  But the thought that Texas could be so medieval in its approach baffles me.  Is Texas living in a vacuum?  Are there not medical personnel in Texas to educate those in need, that medicine comes in many forms, and not all of them come from corporate America? 

Texas is accusing Chris of having traveled from Texas to Mendocino County, for the purpose of bringing back “drugs” for sale.  Texas evidently believes that it would have been lucrative for Chris to have made a round-trip journey in order to infuse the unwary Texan populace with four grams of hash, not even the exotically imported variety from Turkey, just the garden-variety type (no pun intended) grown right here in Mendocino County.

Chris has a legitimate, documented California medical cannabis prescription, to account for the presence of the herb in the first place.  Unfortunately for Chris, the medical prescription has no validity in Texas, a state that the home-made flyer insists is “evil.”  I don’t think of Texas as evil, so much as inept, a bumbling idiot, full of self-righteous bigotry, an image that puts Texas in a negative light.  This is the twenty-first century; if I were Texas, I think I would rather be thought of as evil, than bumbling, or inept. Mighty Texas as a buffoon?  This is not the image one might think Texas would embrace.

To compound the problem, Chris has suffered from asthma since age two, and requires constant medical attention.  The flyer includes a statement from Chris’s doctor, stating simply that “Chris being sent to Texas is a death sentence.”  The flyer went on to say that he was denied basic health needs and medical treatment in the Mendocino County jail, with not even a rescue inhaler on hand to contend with the rigors of his medical condition.

Why bigotry?  The flyer states that the “Texas Highway Patrol admitted to profiling California license plates” in pulling Chris over in the first place.  In essence, Chris is guilty of calling California home, and that merited a look-see by the constabulary.  Yes, they found what they were looking for, and now two kids don’t have a dad in the home any longer, and there’s the real crime.  

By inflicting a narrow and antiquated law on its citizens and those of different states, Texas demonstrates that it is impervious to what is normal and decent.  “We’ll teach you people what happens when you bring 'drugs' into our state.”  It’s like the parent saying to the child, “Why?  Because I said so.”  More pertinently, it’s like a dude shoplifting at a liquor store, and emerging with a pack of baseball cards.  Only there are two children, and they are now without a father in the home.  If there is a crime being committed here, it’s one being perpetrated by the law enforcement agencies of Texas.  

As the cards are dealt, Texas holds all the aces, and Chris is a joker.  The only problem is that the pot contains the ante of two children’s lives, and that is too steep a price to pay.

To Gingst or not to Gingst

To Gingst or not to Gingst

Word verifications is a topic that has been screaming at me to address.  It all began when I first started visiting Ess Stauss’s site, where she asks to be kept appraised of the more unique verification words (which shall be heretofore referred to as vw’s) we encounter.  I bet she has a nice cache of collectible vw’s.  Personally, I am still pondering the eternal question of why this process is necessary.

Bear with me, if I am the only person who does not understand how “spam,” which I thought meant unwelcome e-mails, has anything to do with blogs.  Why would a company want to thrust its message into people’s private space, when such an intrusion would be met with understandable resistance?  More pertinently, why do the vw’s have to be so doggone challenging? 

I almost never penetrate the wall the first time through.  I can not differentiate between lower case l’s and capital I’s.  See, I bet that was confusing; maybe I should have typed (word-processed?)  the difference between lower case L’s and Upper Case i’s.  Frequently, I have to try three times to leave a comment.  But I persevere, because that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Often it is not the word itself, but the timing.  My best, hands down, but one I was understandably hesitant to share, came after posting a comment on a heart-wrenching piece of writing about the complexities of alcohol addiction.  My vw?  “stoli.” I can’t make this stuff up; I’m not that creative.

After reading about a piece in which there was great bustling and industry described, my vw was buslbisy.  I would have settled for busl or bisy, and I got them both.  Another thing I like to do, is either pose or answer rhetorical questions that I have formed from hyphenating two words.   “I got the word togingst.”  I immediately thought, “To gingst, or not to gingst, that is the question.  The beauty lies in attaching any definition to “gingst” that I want.  Today “gingst” happens to be, “aimlessly pursue any course of action that I choose, so long as I do not leave my folding chair by the kitchen fire.”  So I have been gingsting for the past three hours, thank you very much.

 

When I encountered “scrubbl,” I immediately pictured a team of medical personnel, sitting around in their scrubs, playing Scrabble.  

It is an entertaining game for a guy who is fascinated with words, because I am not bound by dictionary or thesaurus.  I enjoy my encounters with this new form of entertainment and look forward to future revelations by Ess Stauss, something along the lines of “greatest hits,” or even different categories, from most original, to most timely. 

Maybe we should organize a vw olympics, where we compete for “best of” categories.  “Please submit your entry by no later than...in order to qualify for this years’s cherished vw awards.”  

Winners to be announced April First.

The Middle of What?

The Middle of What?

I read a comment the other day in which the writer mentioned being a middle child.  In the middle of things is generally perceived as a positive thing, because who wants to be on the outside, looking in?  I have three older brothers and three younger brothers, which is right in the middle of seven sons, with two “little sisters” mixed into our family baseball lineup of life.

Having three older brothers while growing up, is like having three directors running the show.  Oldest brother Eric was unquestionably the leader, already taller than the rest, and accustomed to being at the helm of the ship (rowboat?).  Brian was the smartest, the vowels of his first name having been accidentally reversed on his birth certificate, but Noel was the funnest, the one most likely to direct both of us into trouble. 

Competing with those three guys, along with the usual competition encountered when younger siblings arrived on the scene, was a full-time job, and one that Mama reports in my baby book, that I pursued diligently.  

“Look at me!” was what it was all about.  I used to play this very fun (read, obnoxious) game called, “Touch me in five seconds I will...” fill in the blank with any of the following:  “...give you a quarter...give you a dollar..give you a million dollars...” and the winner... “do the dishes for you tonight...do the dishes for you for the rest of your life...”

The resulting chaos of kids springing up from all over the room, from [mostly younger] siblings, was enough to bring me into focus all right, but not in a favorable way.  Eric christened me Clown, or Clownie; Brian called me Babe or the Babe, and there was no connection to baseball; Noel to his credit, called me Markus Aurelius, since he was no one to be bandying pejorative terms about, having established new horizons himself, as far as mischievous behavior is concerned. *

When you talk about the middle, there are many negative connotations.  Consider “middle brow” as lacking in intelligence or sophistication; “middle of the road” as someone who can’t make up her/his mind; “middle class” as someone who has crawled out of the lower echelon, but not made it to upper class yet; “middle name” as the unimportant one, the one that Mama’s maiden name always ends up attached to in some poor kid’s name.  And how about middle-aged spread?  There’s an uplifting thought.  

Then I chose a career in the middle school, working with kids who were caught in the middle of being children, and being adults.  It was a crystal clear case of the blind leading the blind.

Tack on the “middle of the pack,” the “middle of nowhere,” or the “middle of the pile,” and it spells average at best, and mediocre at worst.  I spent a lot of my younger life looking for the real me.

Now that I have found him, he is no longer willing to be in the middle.  He wants to be at the edge.  He feels that if he is in the middle, he is taking up too much space.  But there’s plenty of room on the edge, if you care to join me.

*  See my blog under July for Fellowship Street: Sound the Alarm    and   Fellowship Street, The Plum Tree 

Chop, Chop!

Chop, Chop!

I am cooking chicken cacciatore on Sunday, if you’d like to stop by.  I won’t continue to trumpet the reason why people might drop in, but I do have a television and a satellite hook-up, so that I can get reception on all major television “events.”  It is admittedly more appealing to guys than to women, but I also do not want to insult anyone who is a fan, especially anyone who happened to “drop” the line, “Go Niners!” on me the other day.  That is pretty cool, that an acquaintance would cheer for my team, just because I do.

Speaking of acquaintances, what is the difference between an acquaintance and a friend?  Is it time?  Is it specificity of topic or content?  If I let an elephant or two out, to wander around within clear view of others, does that make me less of an acquaintance, and more of a friend?  

In either case, I am having some friends, both male and female, join me and Annie on Sunday, for an event that commences at three-thirty (that would be Bell Springs time), and goes until probably seven or so.  Therefore, I want to be able to serve dinner.  I do not want to say to Annie, “Hey, I’m having some guys over-make some dinner.  Chop, Chop!”

Aside from the fact that I would get nothing more than an amused glance, it would go against the grain.  I learned from my father that men can cook, if they are of a mind.  I also know that when I begin with the home-canned tomatoes that I put up last fall, I am going to start out ahead of the game.  Annie includes my cacciatore with popcorn and coffee, as being a dish that she prefers my cooking to her own.  That, my friends, is a compliment, and one that I do not take lightly.

Last Saturday, when a few of my friends stopped by to watch the [event omitted], I was the one who started the barbecue with manzanita and oak, instead of charcoal, because charcoal had not been purchased.  (Ah, the perfect application of the passive voice...)  I wasn’t planning on eating anything that came off of the barbecue, but I figured that my friends would not have been here in the first place, if there were not an event on the tube, so I was happy to help out.

Not only that, but I peeled, sliced and placed into a mammoth silver bowl under water, a sack of organic Russet potatoes.  When the time came, I heated up the oil, and started cranking out batches of home-made French-fries, and for the first time in the history of the game, managed to make enough for Casey.  I was also thrilled to serve my home-canned ketchup, which came out so much better than the previous year.  I said it was my ketchup, but it is as much Annie’s, because she adds the spices and-ta da-the sugar. 

See, last year, I liked the ketchup, but it wasn’t really like the stuff I grew up with, off the shelf from Sunrize Market.  There was something not quite right.  When I asked the great dispenser of spices about it, she gave it long thought and announced that it was possible that the sugar was an issue, and she cut it in half.  Voila.  As simple as that and twice as tasty. 

So I will be dicing the onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, thyme, oregano and basil for the cacciatore, and browning the chicken that I will not be consuming, so as to combine and simmer on our wood-stoves, because both will be going this Sunday with the weather finally turning.

Pull up a chair, grab some of Casey’s fresh salad greens, carrots, and beets, some pasta or rice, and whatever else floats your boat, and gather around the action, while we find out whether or not the West Coast Offense can tame the East Coast Beast, the team from New York.  

It’s a tough one to call because the two teams have met already, with Cali clawing its way to a hard-fought, close victory over Eli and his teammates.  They say it can’t be done twice in one season, but I say if once was good, then twice is better.  So, with fervent apologies to anyone who might be rooting for the East Coast Beast, I must say, “Go, West Coast, all the way to Indianapolis.”

Excerpt from "Big Deal at Big Sur"

This is an excerpt from Big Deal at Big Sur, a piece I wrote about my own travels after graduation.

Big Deal at Big Sur

Mama and I had a multitude of battles, with each of us winning our share, but there was no conflict more volatile, or more controversial, than the big deal at Big Sur.  This is that tale of the one really big war that I had with Mama when I was seventeen, back in the summer of 1970.

When my friends and I first came up with the idea of going on an epic journey upon graduation, it was such a great idea, that we knew we didn’t have a chance.  Still, we hashed it over every time we got together from about February on, and as we approached June, we had managed to gain permission from our respective parents. 

We followed all of the ground rules, having decided before we left that beer did not constitute “liquor” so much as say, whiskey might have.  Today, from the standpoint of a parent, that makes no sense whatsoever, but it was our defense nonetheless.

Girls never really entered the picture, simply because there were five of us, and one guy would have had to take a backseat to the rest; we put our love lives on hold.  But a funny thing happened during the twenty-two days we were traveling. 

Though John was seeing Peggy, and I was seeing Debbie, the Red Fox, when the girls started talking about taking their own graduation trip, we didn’t think anything about it.  At some point along the way, Bill received a postcard announcing the glorious fact that they were going to meet us at Big Sur, on the last weekend of our adventure.

Say what?  How did this happen?  We literally had no control over it, as the planning had gone on during our absence.  All of the seven girls had received permission for a weekend camping trip to Plaskett Creek, closer to the San Luis Obispo side of Highway One, than the Carmel side.  What could we have done to stop them?

The subject had surfaced just before we graduated and everyone laughed at the idea of actually hooking up in Northern California somewhere, say Big Sur, and celebrating the end of our high school careers.  No one thought it would ever happen, simply because we didn’t think the girls’ parents would allow them to go unchaperoned.  There was no attempt on their part to conceal any of the facts.  In the spirit of the new age of freedom, and approaching adulthood for us all, the parents of the girls gave their permission for them to go ahead with their plans.

Debbie was a gal I had only been seeing only since the run of parties had begun the week before graduation itself.  She was actually Walt Cousineau’s brother’s girlfriend, but she was engaged in a running battle with him whether or not she should go all the way with him.  As she explained it to me, she was saving herself for marriage.

Just having this sweet young thing confiding all of this good stuff in me, made me feel as though I were the man.  The last thing, and I do mean the last thing, that I would ever have done, was to take a chance that I would somehow end up in the same category as Walt Cousineau’s brother.  

I was very innocent at the time, and I swallowed every word she said.  I have always considered this to be the most ironic aspect of the whole business.  If we had been fooling around, I would have been consumed by guilt.  But self-righteousness takes a back seat to very little, especially a critical mother.

We had a great time up there that weekend, and no one fooled around.  Heck, we had all twelve of us sleeping in a six person tent, so there would have been little chance of pulling something off, anyway.  We didn’t see the need for adult supervision, because we were all adults.  We just saw the need to have a little fun. 

However, the time came for the weekend to end.  Since we had no intention of deceiving our folks, I drove back with Debbie and one of her friends, in Debbie’s car.  I’ll never forget coming through the front door and seeing Mama standing in the middle of the living room, with the whole place a shambles.

The piano was in the middle of the room, if that gives you any indication, and everything was heaped around it, while the room was being painted or papered, or whatever was being done to it.  At our house, you didn’t move the piano away from the wall to clean.

Mama stared at me, barely acknowledging my introduction of the girls.  Sensing that all was not well on the home front, I diplomatically suggested an early departure to my two friends, and went back in to face the music, or the firing squad, it being pretty much the same thing.

Mama was pretty upset.  I guess it was probably a combination of anger, frustration and disappointment.  She’d been expecting the van to pull up, with all of those guys piling out, spewing tales of our adventures.  She probably was hoping that we would move the piano back into place.  Poor Debbie.

Instead, she indicated that I had clearly violated her trust.  I had broken the most sensitive rule of all-fraternizing with the female species.  Perish the thought.  Though I strongly maintained my innocence of any wrongdoing, and she admitted that she believed me, I was still a permanent member of Mama’s dog house.

“How long are we going to hash this out?  Why can’t you let it go?” I finally protested one night. 

“I have told you why I am upset.”

“Yes, I know.  You are worried about my reputation.  Well, I am not.”

“Your reputation?  What about my reputation?  I have to hold my head up among my friends.  You do not care.”

“I see.  Because I did nothing wrong, that means I don’t care.  It seems as though it would be the opposite. Maybe if I had done something wrong you could say I didn’t care about my reputation.”  

“You just don’t get it.  I am the laughing stock of my friends because you can’t be trusted.”

That was it.  I did not do anything wrong.  So I issued the one and only ultimatum I ever delivered.

“Either forget about stupid Big Sur, or I am so out of here.  There are a million places I could move to...”  But I was shooting blanks, and she probably knew it.  In any case the war was over, and life went on that summer peacefully.  That is, for about two days.

I had come back with a flaming red, three weeks' growth of beard, and immediately picked a fight with Augie, the manager at Sunrize market.  I was angry that he had promoted Jimmy Richardson to head box boy, as revenge for my taking off for three weeks, so I quit.  I figured I could find a job anywhere I wanted, but found that I was wrong.  Oh well, at least Mama wasn’t worried about Big Sur anymore.

We both grew a lot back then, me into adulthood, and she into a better understanding of a rapidly changing social and cultural world, outside of her home on Fellowship Street.

A Nice Ring To It *

A Nice Ring To It

I feel delight, contentment, a sense of approaching full circle and finally, a feeling of deja vu.  The San Francisco Forty-Niners, led by Alex Smith, upset the former NFL champion New Orleans Saints, Saturday afternoon, 36-32, to advance to the NFC title game, for the first time since 1997.  The victory was the result of a superior, balanced effort, on the part of the defense, special teams, and oh, by the way, Alex Smith.

No one is surprised to hear that Patrick Willis, Dashon Goldson, Justin Smith, and Aldon Smith on defense, and David Akers, Andy Lee, and Blake Costanzo, on special teams, were a huge part of the victory.  However, it may interest you to know that the much maligned Alex Smith, the much ridiculed Alex Smith also played a role in the victory, a role that no other NFL quarterback has ever performed before, not even Joe Montana, or Steve Young. 

Alex brought his team back into the lead twice in the final three minutes of the Saturday playoff game, by engineering scoring drives that resulted in touchdowns.  He scored himself, on a designed bootleg around the left side, surprising the Saints with his only intended rush of the game, and he sent a laser beam to Vernon Davis, with nine seconds remaining on the clock, to seal the deal.  Quarterbacks, including Montana and Young have come from behind countless times before, but never twice in the same playoff game, when pressure is the greatest, and there is the most to lose. 

The Niners have been able to ignore the lack of respect they have garnered from the out-of-areas media.  After all, they had yet to prove themselves in the playoff arena.  There were four quarterbacks entering this past weekend’s playoff schedule, who possess Superbowl rings, one of them having earned three rings.  None of the four is named Alex Smith. 

Alex hasn’t had the opportunity to play in the playoffs before.  He has played under three different head coaches, and astonishingly, seven different offensive coordinators, in seven seasons.  That means he has had to learn seven different play-books in seven different seasons.  Though he is a cerebral guy, that is a lot to ask of someone, and then expect that he will be able to establish any semblance of continuity, in a single season.

Alex was joined in 2006 by Vernon Davis, the same year that Frank Gore was established as the primary running back.  All it took was a head coach who had faith in him.  Mike Nolan felt that Alex lacked leadership, and Mike Singletary called the former number one draft pick “meek.”  But how fair is that?  He was never given two consecutive seasons to develop a rhythm to his offense, never given a head coach who could orchestrate all three components of a successful NFL team, to allow Alex to show his ability.

With the defense taking the ball away, and the kicking team dictating favorable field position, on both sides of the ball, Alex has stepped up to the task of providing the leadership qualities that the four ring-bearing quarterbacks possess. 

In this, his seventh season in San Francisco, he has thrown only five interceptions.  He has not thrown for more than 300 yards one time this season, accumulating 299 in the New Orleans game, and he barely topped 3,000 yards, unlike Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees, who both threw for more than 5,000 yards, each.  But, unlike Alex, both of those quarterbacks will watch the rest of the tournament from their living room couches.

Alex said prior to the game, when asked about the disparity in yards thrown, that he did not care if he, Alex, threw for more yards than Brees, only that he outscore him. 

When the Saints went ahead with only three minutes to go, Alex delivered, and when they retook the lead with 97 seconds left, Alex once again came through.  When it was over, he had done what no other quarterback has done.  The only thing left is a ring.  

But first we have invited the New York Giants to visit.  Things worked out well in the first meeting, as the Giants’ defense shut down the Niners’ running game and Alex produced a victory.  He has to do it again to join the circle of elite quarterbacks, with a ring of his own.  There, that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?