Kissing 2015 Goodbye (Off?)

        It began with a sucker punch to the gut and didn't get any better fast.
        My funny Valentine Pat presented the day after the year appeared with a stomach ache. Pill Hill told him it didn't look good. Indeed, at the end of a week of more invasive tests he was handed a death sentence. Which he accepted with characteristic good humor and uncharacteristic courage. I know I was not the only one who admired his un-whining forthright acceptance of the finality we all face.
      Before all of that, in fact August 2013, I had begun researching and writing The True Story of John Yates Beall, and committed to produce it in 2015, the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. So the balance of April, May and June till the 4th was dedicated to the dizzying whiz of costumes, set, props, lights, music, rehearsal imbroglios, and performances.
      In late August, I hopped the train to Denver, and my dear Sister drove us to Silver City, New Mexico, where I delivered the quilt I had been working on for my nephew for the past year. On the way, we stopped in Albuquerque, NM, and I saw a friend and former roommate I hadn't seen for a quarter century.
      A right fine trip, until I opened my email one day and found a message from a Des Moines lawyer. I had written a contract for 3 performances with the little piece of work who played the lead in Beall, and I had been in the process of arranging a third, when said little piece REFUSED to do the third, but wanted to be paid anyway! Intent on redefining entitlement, I guess.
      From the time the play was over, I dealt with kids, undoubtedly, stealing my bikes, which were left in the park, thrown on top of the pop machine and I was left riding an old Schwinn with no gears. During the three months this was going on, I finished the editing changes to a book I completed last year called A Boomer Teacher Memoir, detailing the course of my career from 1st grade teacher, to publisher, high school teacher, to college adjunct and beyond. (Thanks so much, Diane!)
       Despite having to pay the Des Moines cutie 5 times what I earned for two years work on Beall--of course, nobody believes you go to a lawyer with 15 partners on the letterhead and offices in a downtown bank building, she's certainly schtoomping somebody in the vacinity, tho' I have no clue who--the year ended on a positive note. 
      My friend and fan, Tim Fay, agreed to publish a chapter from the book in the Wapsipinicon Almanac. (Eternal thanks, Tim.)    
      While in New Mexico in summer, I had interviewed to teach an intensive English course to Mexican kids. In early Nov. I was invited, packed, and boarded a train in Galesburg, IL heading south. Though teaching 9 hours a day, it  was such fun and the Mexican young people were so hard-working, sweet and respectful that I am looking forward to going back. 
       . . . sitting here at the end of this painful year assessing, doing my best not to compare the Mexican young people I taught the last couple months with the bicycle thieves, the entitled pieces of work I have dealt with this year, but I am sure you can appreciate, it's hard.
   
   

   

Christmas in Las Cruces

Christmas in Las Cruces was delayed until Saturday late by the arrival of the NYC sister of my gracious hostess, L___. A more or less fortuitous delay, as it began snowing mid-morning and by late Saturday looked more like Christmas itself had.
     Less fortuitous because I had ridden a dozen blocks south to a big shopping street, not followed directions and not arrived on target: Albertson's.
    However, the local Humane Society junk shop up the road was most amusing, and I squandered the better part of an hour oogling stuff I didn't need, couldn't  buy or carry. Invested in a travel bottle of body wash, donated to the dogs, discovered the grocery store was 2 blocks up and finally arrived at the destination I set out for more an hour before.
     By the time I located the wine, the coffee, acceded to the non-list impulse of a Ghirardelli raspberry-filled chocolate bar and waited longer in line to pay than I had spent picking things up, it was snowing fistfuls of fat, wet flakes, which were melting in the warm streets, accumulating in the yards on the cacti and yucca.
      Riding a fender-less bike, I was soaked through by the time I got home. Good excuse for a glass of wine. The dinner was grand; A Child's Christmas in Wales, a gift to one and all from Dylan Thomas, perennially heartwarming; the presents more than we deserved.
      In short, a superb, snowy Christmas in a sunny clime. It has been mostly in the 60's here, as it was  mostly up the road in Silver City, most of November.
 

From a Place in the Sun

As I have been running around saying, "If you don't have the bucks for a winter get-away; get a job in the sun!" Done.
Greetings & salutations from Silver City, NM at the University of Western New Mexico, which is about the same latitude as Phoenix, only in the mountains. The sun in persistently blue skies is warm, but the breezes are quite cool and for the most part, I have been running around in a sweater.
Tomorrow, I will begin teaching 2 sections of Grammar and 1 of Speaking and Listening to classes of Mexican students coming here for intensive English. Intensive, I guess, 9 hours a day!
I did think my grand plan had gone array last Monday morning. The day dawned sunny, and I took off across campus to find the Admin building and sign the papers that will allow me to get paid here. By the time I finished, a fierce mountain blizzard that howled very like its Iowa equivalent had set in. Eternal thanks to a generous colleague who had come in her car and ferried me home.
It seems warmer than it really is, I suspect, because, though the air temp is in the 50's, the sun is hotter than farther north, and I brought all my dark clothes, so sometimes it seems like 70-plus.
The snow disappeared by mid-day Wednesday, and the place could do with a few drenchings, but that would drown the indigenous vegetation, so I will not wish for roses in winter.
Am getting more than my share of exercise hoofing about, as the place is in the tail of the Rockies, and I have no bike. Not sure I could even pump it up these hills, if  I did! I have found the weight room--in lieu of yoga.
Stay tuned for more on the City of Silver itself, a fascinating place.

Happy Horrors

The end of another month and I have not posted a single word to this blog because it is very difficult to get past the ridicule.
For the better part 30 years, since the late 80s when I moved back here after my mother died, I have ridden a bike around town--good for the environment and your health.
In mid-July, my good bike was stolen out of the  front yard. City workers found it in the Legion Park. While I was in New Mexico in August my old one, essentially a yard-ornament was stolen. Dagwood had found it, first, on the bleachers and then on the pop machine. Clearly this is kids. 
A week later my good bike was stolen again and has now been gone for the better part of a month.  On Wednesday, I went out on my front porch and the antique mailbox, of some sentimental value was gone.
One year I went to the Fireman's Halloween Dance& a high school student was there dressed up as me, wheeling a bicycle. Every time I go past the high school, with its parking lots full of cars, trucks and scooters, but no bikes I think of her and now this, and wonder where kids get off ridiculing a woman who has done right by the environment for 30 years?

Gratitude--Pranked & Flummoxed

All this superb September, I have been working at cultivating a characteristic I lack—gratitude.  For starters, trying to be grateful for the gorgeous weather we have enjoyed most of the month. Rain when we needed it. Sunshine and moderate temps the rest of the time.

Most years, recent ones at least, we have had a hard freeze by this date. But the garden is still giving carrots, broccoli, leeks, and there is still basil for pesto.

Weather gratitude is a tough slog for an old atheist, though, because it requires an God. I was further sabotaged in my efforts, when somebody took my good bike out of the front yard.  A week later, one of the city workers brought it back. A prank—he found it in the park.

While I was in Colorado, my back-up bike (Rita Kauder’s old Schwinn) disappeared and was also found in the park on top of the vending machine. I looked along the roadsides in the ditches and the creek back of it. Thanks to Dagwood who recovered it—I am very grateful to you and Marty Hoffman.

Nonetheless, my gratitudinal (!) efforts are largely flummoxed by these pranks and my deep conviction that someone who does what is right by the environment, whether or not it has personal benefits, ought reap the reverse—respect not pranks, which, honestly feel like ridicule.

Sad Scenes aside. . .

At dinner last night several people were lamenting the plight of Syrian immigrants in Hungary and a small boy drowned off Turkey. Maybe because I don’t watch TV, but read or hear my news, I miss the essential pathos of these stories.

Therefore, I cannot dispel nagging questions like: Why are/were so many Middle Eastern, Islamic countries--not only Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Bashir Al Assad’s Syria but countless others—dictatorships? Is there something inherently paternalistic or non-democratic that requires a strongman to hold a state with variants of Islam together, to keep civic order?

Were you flabbergasted watching the Egyptians endure the misery of revolution; then around and vote for the Muslim Brotherhood, only to find themselves back where they started? What does the endless, intractable standoff between Israel and the Palestinians tell us?

Is there some correlation between the corporate Islamic mindset and public life that leads an essentially undemocratic place? Has everybody forgotten the Charlie Hebo affair? What happened to Theo Van Gogh?

Living in Germany and France I found Europe a saner place than here for its sensible gun control, reasonable (3-month) election campaigns, social practices and other public policies. There, you are less likely to get a county clerk taking it upon herself to defy federal law because of religious principles.  

It goes without saying that modern society means porous borders. What scares me about Islam is there seems to be more of that Kentucky clerk tendency in it, and I can’t help but think the influx of that to a saner place as problematic for the future. Sad scenes aside.  

Best Vacations: Old Friends/Soul Friends

While my life is clearly not well-heeled, it features one priceless element: friends. Midday Monday I drove up to Madison, WI and met my college roommate for lunch.

Though she lives in New York and travels around the country selling wine, when she lands nearby—Madison or Coralville—she always invites me to drive there, spend the night in a posh hotel and eat nouveau cuisine in a trendy restaurants, where often her high end ($50 a btl) wine is served.

Which I enjoy immensely, but not nearly as much as our talk. This year what with the “Spy” Project and the death of my funny Valentine, Pat Kurt, I have boodles to share. 

The special part of all this, however, is that there so much I don’t have to tell her, so much she already knows about then—the continuum of my life.

Sometimes I feel sad for young people. By the number of their years they don’t have old friends. And this is wonderful week. Having seen my college roommate on Monday, next week I will see another of my old best buds from the 70s when we were Denver roommates.

Shop Till You Drop: Dead

Last Thursday with a couple birthdays looming I took myself into Younkers. The place was practically deserted.  No secret department stores can’t/won’t provide staff anymore, but notable was the paucity of customers.

Not that I was surprised; stats confirm that consumers are carrying less debt. How indeed would people leverage the equity in their houses? Many have lost them!

Nonetheless, the National Retail Assoc. and biz/finance class is apparently surprised that retail sales have not returned to previous pre-recession i.e. gangbuster levels and has had to lower its growth forecast from over 4% to 3.5%.  Other stats reveal people don’t have as many credit cards or as much debt on the ones they have as they once did.

Duh, Folks! You haven’t lowered it enough! Cast a critical eye on the middle class if you are waiting for the “rebirth of the shop-till-you-drop” spender. What with recession, immigration, etc. a goodly percent of it has slid into the have-not class. Good luck waiting for a come-back.

Poisoning Democracy?

Sometime in the last 24, I caught a item that didn't make the national news and I get the sense, barely made the local Iowa.
On line, this non-explanation in the Clinton Herald: "The Palo Alto County Sheriff's Office says the plane owned by Steier AG Aviation was hit in a wing flap while spraying a field in Fairfield Township on Friday morning. The pilot landed safely at Steier's landing strip in Whittemore (IA)." 
Somebody shot it. Further research reveals 3 similar incidents in Texas, 1 in Idaho, 1 in Missouri, and couple in Canada. 
The gun mania, unique to this country that has produced a shooting every couple weeks often by the mentally disturbed guy, can't be attributed to the NRA alone. 

In fact, it makes a critical eye wonder if gun mania isn't a broader statement of failing faith in American democracy. What with the cancer rate, most people abhor being being sprayed, especially from the air, but they have no notion how to stop it. For a decade and a half, the Des Moines Water Works waited for voluntary curbs on nitrogen farm groups instituted to reduce nitrates in city H20. It never happened. They finally filed law suit on the local drainage districts which provide direct conduit into the Raccoon River, where the city gets its water. The farm orgs howled like proverbial stuck pigs. Who do we file suit on?

No Plain Jane--RIP Jane Lyons Boffeli

The Denver sister called with sad, but not unanticipated news yesterday: Jane Lyons Boffeli succumbed to the cancer she battled so fierce and spiritedly the past years. One marveled at it, especially when we visited her in May, found her fashion model thin, voluble as ever. 
(Love those two--the Denver sister and hubby ever appropriate: when I faltered before challenge of what to give a dying woman; they came with the quintessential one: Colorado weed!)
Jane had been through rounds of chemo and a couple remissions by then, and we wondered how, where she got the force and fierce, since sis and I both know neither own that.  
Jane & Dave lived in a geodesic dome-abode in the woods that felt like a tepee with electricity and indoor plumbing. She had filled it with Indian memorabilia, which intrigued me, as her personal style had a sparcity that is the antithesis of my ornate Victorian one. 
I recall a sunny day in summer 2013, when Jane and I sat on her deck among the trees and flowers, drank beer, her favorite libation, and I presented her with another just-right gift the Denver sister hadn't time to bring: a wind chime. Jane enthusiastically loved it (I take half the presents I get back) and installed it just behind us, where it tinkled like a bright blithe spirit throughout our visit that day and was still tinkling in its place in May.
That afternoon I discovered in Jane Boffeli someone so rare I could barely count on the fingers of one hand individuals the like of her: Someone who understood me instinctively, to whom NEVER need apologize or even explain what I thought or said or did, and I reveled in it. A couple hours in her presence left me a blithe spirit--right and light almost birdy--so very rare for a laden, leaden soul, often fired, indicted and dismissed by the rest of the world. 
That afternoon, then I suddenly noted the shadows had grown long, and Jane sat exhausted, barely able to say goodbye. I jumped up and ran off, chastising myself for remaining  too long, dissipating and usurping the force she needed for her own battle, vowing never to return.

Any critical eye realizes grief is half regret--I-should-have. . . I-shouldn't-haves, and this morning I am grieving a woman I knew so well and so little.

Seedy & Scented: Insight to Civil War

What with The True Story of John Yates Beall culminating a year plus of research and preoccupation with the Civil War, I could not resist the Boscobel reenactment this past weekend.
Expected demonstrations of horseshoeing, tent & candle-making, spinning, etc.  None. However, nosing about the encampment of white canvas tents, (historically correct for 1860's and quite handsome) I came upon a woman named Caroline who had been doing  reenactments for 37 years. Everybody else was off at the battle, the weekend's central event, tho' that struck me as mundanely barbaric as picnickers at Manassas coming to the 1st battle of the Civil War.
I mean, would you be really able to eat potato salad and picnic chicken after seeing men shot dead and wounded in an open field?
Regarding my expectations, Caroline replied, "That's why I always do something they would have been doing." She held up a small harp-shaped tool, looping a single thread over itself on the two tines of it.
"A lucet," she explained, "makes a very strong flat cord they used for corsets, to hang or tie anything."
"I suppose there were no women in Civil War encampments."
"Who do you suppose did the laundry and sewing and cooking?" They had sewing machines, but after the blockade couldn't get thread, and handmade was uneven and couldn't be used in them.
"Then there was always the world's oldest profession!" She chuckled, and encouraged me to go to the battle since I confessed to having never seen one.
The "play by play" was interesting and obviously well-researched; the cavalry Hollywood--dark roanish horses no paints, Palominos or sway backs. As I was leaving early, it galloped by.

And I got a whiff of critical insight--the sound of the commradery, the scent of the horses, the creak of their tack may be what modern life is missing. And perhaps barbarity is just a part of the total human mix.

Thieves in the Night

This a.m., I looked out and noticed my dark green Diamondback bike with the longhorn handlebars was not where I parked last night.

The basket had been jettisoned around the corner by the pool. Since I ride it so much nobody with their wits intact would steal it to use, so it was stolen to sell.

I called the police, but Fred’s on vacation, which he certainly deserves. Americans get far less vacation than Europeans, and many don’t take what they are entitled to.  

My favorite presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, estimates that what with underemployment and discouraged workers no longer job hunting real unemployment in this country is upwards of 11 percent.

You would think the city could hire a couple 11-percenters to cover vacations, because when you need a city service, if it is not there then, it feels like it is never there.