Meeting John McCain

Tonight is not the night to cite the many times I disagreed with Senator John McCain politically.  Perhaps that will come at a later time, when our country is not under siege from within and without by scoundrels, crooks and opportunists and my energy is better directed at resisting. 

No, tonight is a night to remember the evening I shook John McCain’s hand.  It was February 28, 2000 and Republican candidate for President, Senator John McCain, was flying into Redding for a campaign stop.  Tim and I were immersed in following all things politic and he insisted we take the one-hour drive north to see a presidential candidate although we were both probably not going to vote for him.  Still, we were curious about this “maverick” and just what brand of Republicanism he represented.

We arrived at the airport and waited in a hangar that had been set up for a brief stop.  The hangar was packed for a Monday night and we spotted Joe Klein, Time political writer and (originally anonymous) author of Primary Colors, restlessly waiting for the candidate.  His coat was rumpled, no doubt from too much time on the press bus or press plane. We waited and waited and waited.

When the McCain plane finally arrived, we were standing near the back of the hangar and remained there during the very brief speech which was not memorable except for the fact that a national candidate was in Redding.  The crowd was enthused but the wait had taken a bit out of them.

Tim was comfortable in this milieu and also, as always, intent on making every adventure memorable.  He saw McCain and his wife descend from the makeshift stage and quickly tracked the likely exit back to their plane.  It was then that he insisted we get up to the rope line so I could shake McCain’s hand as he worked his way back to the plane.

I am too short to see in a crowd, but followed Tim’s back as he knifed our way through the crowd.  Suddenly, there was the rope line.  Tim nudged me into place and shortly thereafter I shook the hand of the Republican candidate for president.  (I have to insert that Tim was similarly insistent about a Clinton book-signing line; I had given up – the line was very long – but we worked it and I now have a signed Clinton book and a memory of shaking Bill Clinton’s hand.)

I knew at the time that McCain was a war hero, a prisoner of war who was tortured and in solitary confinement in the Hanoi Hilton.  I also knew that he was coming to California on the heels of a South Carolina GOP primary, during which Bush operatives odiously spread misinformation which accused him of not being a hero, of fathering children out wedlock and fathering a black child (the McCains had adopted an orphan from Bangladesh).  Leaflets and phone calls spread this ‘fake news;’  Bush’s campaign had not done well in New Hampshire and so Rove and company broke out all the stops to take South Carolina.

I did not know that because of his injuries he could not comb his own hair or raise his hands above his shoulders and there was probably some pain in shaking so many hands at so many events.  I did not hear him that night in February 2000 vent or whine about the below-the-belt tactics of his opponent in South Carolina.  He was a total pro, continuing to speak out on his issues and moving ahead with his campaign on his terms.

He was a public servant his whole adult life and in the twilight of his life cast a memorably decisive vote on the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act and spoke out about the dismal performance and disgraceful actions of the current occupant of the Oval Office.   But before those last stands, there was a moment I will never forget  -- a gracious concession speech after losing to Barack Obama which the nation needed to hear.  (Aside from the praise of Palin – again, another blog another time).  It was an important moment in American history and the right words were required to meet the moment.

The nation had just elected the first African American president, the Palin tea party crowd was ascending right and wacky in the GOP, but the tone of his speech, filled with the usual thanks and acknowledgments, considered history and acknowledged and elegantly appreciated the significance of the moment.  We needed a citizen patriot at that moment and I think he rose to that occasion.

For that moment and for his years of service, I thank Senator John McCain.  In pain no more.

https://youtu.be/NvgqRKYapU8

The Forest for the Trees

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life - it goes on.

   ~~ Robert Frost

The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life.  Overcome fear, behold wonder.

   ~~ Richard Bach

I lived in Golden on the opposite metropolitan edge of Denver from Aurora when Alan Berg was gunned down in his driveway by members of a white hate group.  It was shocking at the time, yet not too far in time or place from Littleton and Columbine High School.

I woke with Tim one day in 2001 to watch the World Trade Towers crumble.

And in 2007 as we woke to prepare for a drive to Stanford for a battery of tests to see if Tim could pass muster for a lung transplant, we watched the unfolding news about Virginia Tech.  My niece was a freshman at the school, and it was several anxious hours before she was able to get through to family and let us know she was ok.  It is an indescribable feeling to not know.

Time stands still at times like these.  

Yet, if the past is prelude, there will be predictable aftershocks.  There will be debates about our nation's obsession with violence and guns, but candidates and legislators will take no action.  There will be people seeking their fifteen minutes on Nancy Grace and extended sensational coverage of a trial if one is held.  There will be much second guessing about parental failure of one sort or another and idle questions about why no one noticed odd behavior.  Flowers will be left at the scene.  And soon it will be forgotten...until the next time.

But tonight, I try to center myself, for once even indirectly touched you can't help but remember how fragile we all are, how random life's tragedies strike, and how difficult it can be to find the way to see the wonder again.  But how necessary it is to find that way.

Music for centering and reflection:  Claude Debussy, Clair de Lune

Photo of aspens in Colorado Rockies:  Carrolls

Song Saturday - Four Seasons

Decided the best way to kickstart an unplanned retirement was to leave town that first week as a retiree - clear the mind, decompress, cleanse the mental palate with my favorite fun thing - that would be music. So, off to Vegas for a solo trip to catch a musical trifecta - Santana in concert, the Cirque's "Love" show featuring the music of the Fab Four, and reaching farther back into musical memory bank, capping this quick trip with Jersey Boys, the Tony-winning show telling the back story of the Four Seasons. Polished and well-staged. Fast-paced and somehow gets about 27 song snippets staged as the story moves from the streetlight singers in Newark to Valli as a solo artist. 





When I think of the Four Seasons, I think of harmonies bookmarking a soaring falsetto, black and white tv, and junior high. It was the exact time I was starting to listen rabidly to tunes on my clock radio - a treasured transporter. It's odd to think the Four Seasons co-existed with the British invasion - somehow their sound takes me mentally back further to babysitters with short shorts and transistor radios attached to their ears as they walked down the street - the precursor to earbuds and ipods.






Frankie Valli, with a three octave range, is amazingly still kicking it in his seventies with new Seasons to back up his still-crystal falsetto. Guess as I ponder what's next, I'll take inspiration from an old pro who still tells me, "big girls don't cry."  Move forward and follow the music.

Not Fade Away - Song Saturday

And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.  ~ ~ Douglas MacArthur

My retirement day from local government service came and went Friday, but I don't know what Douglas MacArthur was thinking about when he addressed Congress and expressed a desire to 'just fade away.'  I wonder if he ever had second thoughts about making that statement.  Just not my vision.

Tim impressed on me the importance of deliberately constructing memories, for at the end that's all we have - memorable life moments with memorable people.  He also taught by example how to face significant endings (he was dying) and mold to the extent possible leaving on self-determined terms.  So, after I processed the word "layoff," then elected to retire from the public sector after 25 years, and consciously worked at rapidly running through the five stages of grief about the loss of my job, I knew I had to deeply consider my last week at work and how I wanted to remember it and, as importantly, how I wanted my colleagues to remember me.

Song Saturday - Robin Gibb

A news article, a touchstone to an ethereal voice from the past, through many decades. 
 
I have an indelible memory of slow-dancing as a teenager at an American Legion dance with my latest mad crush.  The object of the crush is forgotten, but what I remember is the way I felt, slow dancing to a local band cover of "To Love Somebody."  Why do certain songs cement memories - how could I have forgotten the boy, but remembered the song?  Maybe it was always more about my perceptions, my impressions.




I'm saddened to hear that Robin Gibb is gravely ill.  The Bee Gees, a band that many either feel are overrated or underrated, even an object of scorn when the Fever fashions and tunes were categorically declared passe, have always been there in my life.  They recede and then reappear at moments in my personal narrative.

I adored their close, tight harmonies, and was intrigued when I understood that while I was moving, eyes closed, lost in some adolescent fantasy, they were only slightly older than I and already international stars.   With two strong tenor leads and high three-part harmonics, they had a sound that was immediately recognizable.





Somehow the disco period passed me by. I was a road warrior and didn't really have access to radio. Yet I have memories of driving the United States in Ray's eighteen wheeler with an eight-track of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack that I bought at a truck stop somewhere- it was great road music for those long dark stretches on I-80.  But how I loved the move and the groove.  It was almost irresistible.  I knew all the songs - didn't everyone alive at that time achieve peak saturation on that album?  To hear even a few opening bars of Night Fever - you anticipate Barry's falsetto all these years later. I loved the precursor "Nights on Broadway" with the interesting harmonic slow bridge.



But through the long decades and huge Bee Gees song catalog, my favorite moments were almost always when Robin came in on high harmony or with a solo moment.  That voice, like the jagged edge of the dark side of melancholy, with a trembling vibrato, cut through and soared.  The voice suggested pain, loss, vulnerability, insecurity - and kept the group vocals from sounding too saccharine.  His stage presence - awkward, unassuming and self-conscious until he stepped to the mike which he often clutched with both hands as if he was hanging on to life itself. 

This latest composition from the classical work he wrote in commemoration of the Titanic centennial.



After all these decades, still writing, the voice still distinctly his, I consider mortality and the immortality of  music.

Fulfill your destiny
It's there within the child
My storm will never end
My fate is on the wind
The king of hearts
The joker's wild

from "Immortality"
written by Brothers Gibb

One Man, Many Movements

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. ~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We move ahead, we fall back.  We try to stand again.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s struggles in the 60's are ours today, and we should be mindful that progress is a long, hard slog that requires voices.

He spoke of the need for civil rights and equal opportunity in an era of Jim Crow.  Today, we face political movements which would seek to reinstate barriers to voting, negating our most basic democratic right.

He spoke of economic justice in his Poor People's Campaign.  Today, we are speaking of the 1% versus the 99%.

He encouraged peaceful and non-violent protests against the status quo.  Today, we see the Occupy movements and rallies in Washington D.C.

He questioned the prosecution of the Vietnam War and saw that the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement were linked through views that opposed oppression of others and waste of economic resources on endless occupation in colonizing foreign lands.  Today, we are trying to extract ourselves from wars overseas that have not advanced democracy here or abroad and have extracted an onerous economic toll at the expense of investing in our future.

He went to Memphis in April of 1968 to support striking sanitation workers.  Today, we have Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana seeking to break unions and invest corporations with more power in the political arena.

King's speech in Memphis on April 3rd, the night before he was assassinated, was prescient and moving and calls to us today.    Voices call to us from the distance of history, urging us to return to the promises of what was written so long ago.  We need to climb to the mountaintop again.

Song Saturday - October Surprise 1978

 

Normally the term "October Surprise" refers to a dramatic political event timed to sway voters that first week in November.  My favorite October Surprise was the dramatic entry of my son on the 15th of October, 1978.  We had him pencilled in the appointment book for December, but apparently he had other ideas.  Not the last time, just the first time.

1978 was a mixed bag.  There were three popes that year, Annie Hall won Best Movie at the Oscars causing women everywhere to start raiding men's wardrobes, the Camp David Accords were signed and still Jimmy Carter was underappreciated, and the damn Yankees won the World Series.  Some things remain predictable.  What is unpredictable is what makes life interesting.

Orange Crush Days in Denver

  
So, today, I take time to remember that very first, very intense unpredictable experience with my son and all the days since.  It is a relationship unique and wonderful, born in urgency, nurtured over time, maturing even now.  He was only 3 lbs 14 oz at birth, but he has always been living large in my mind.

Surrounded by Love

We made it through scrapes and skateboards and tongue piercings and tattoos and soccer and Little League and Cub Scouts and moves and divorce and he survived and emerged wiser than I in some respects.  A loving son to his dad and then stepson to Tim, a great companion, a loyal friend.  Not much more I could want.

Tim cuts his hair

Always a Hat Fancier

I don't take too much credit for who he is today.  He has always been a well-formed, well-defined person who has the enviable talent of knowing no strangers. 

The Rolling Office

We have had goofy times and tender times and they all blur together as one sensation of overwhelming Yes.  On the day of Tim's death, my toughest day, I dialed his number, said only "help" three times and hung up.  I had no doubt he would be there when I needed him most and he was.  Rock steady.

This year's birthday is especially sweet - he is engaged and so very happy.  So, even though he is on the other coast tonight, all is right in my personal universe.  My sole wish for him was always to find his happiness on his path.  The future indeed looks bright.

Sweet!

A bright future - Sweeter

A special Song Saturday birthday wish...


No. 83 from the Top 100 in 1978
Whenever I Call You Friend
Kenny Loggins with Stevie Nicks
Happy Birthday, baby.

Song Saturday - When October Goes

Reflection.  There's not a year that goes by that I don't linger and listen to this song when the calendar page turns to October.

Barry Manilow was one of Tim's guilty pleasures, although he was not the type to feel guilty about his choices.  This song embraces the poignancy of this time of the year for me - my favorite season and memories of my favorite guy, all in one brilliant Johnny Mercer lyric paired with a beautiful minor key melody from Manilow.

September in my hometown still evinces summer -- the heat of the valley, the trees still desperately clinging to their green facade, people in sleeveless shirts and shorts listening to that last summer concert in the downtown square or cruising the Farmer's Market.

October signals the cycle of change and preparation.  The initiation of autumn, rather than the end of the year, is my time of deepest reflection and planning.

I notice the avenues of trees and watch for them to put on their finest colors and then slowly undress.  I wait for that first full moon that breaks through the naked branches.  I try to anticipate November, our birthdays month, and gauge if another year down the road of grieving and loss has moved me farther along the path to release.  He'd surely tell me, "get on with it."  He did.  I think I'm almost there. The leaves will drop; the rains will come. I will still hate to see October go.

I should be over it now, I know.  
It doesn't matter much how old I grow.
I hate to see October go.





Art: Maxfield Parrish - "Dream October"

Spirit in the Sky

I'm posting Song Saturday on Friday on the off chance the world is ending.  Of course I know it won't because the Mayans have pointed us to 2012 and I haven't finished my spring cleaning. 

The billboard around town has been touting this harder than a studio gearing up for the Oscars. To believe it, the faithful will be snatched up and the rest of us will be left here to endure a hellish experience - the selection of a credible GOP presidential nominee.  I guess the most memorable ascendant experience I had was witnessing from afar Hunter Thompson's ash launch.

Both big fans of his writing, especially his trenchant analysis of American politics, Tim had spent time with him in the 80's in San Francisco.  Those were the days of Hunter's stint with the Mitchell Brothers and the 1984 Democratic Convention which nominated Walter Mondale (running the spectrum from titillating to boring). 

Our trip was eventful - Tom Petty concert at Red Rocks, I-70 closed due to rockslides, side trip to the Broadmoor, Rocky Mountain National Park and Hall of Fame for Figure Skating.  When I-70 was finally opened, we zipped through and were on the down side of the continental divide narrowly missing a small plane near Vail that skipped off the freeway in front of us before coming to a rest by the side of the road.  Typical of the strange brew that seemed to be our travelling companion, most particularly on that trip.

It was not unusual that John Kerry walked by in a baseball cap on his way into the Woody Creek Tavern.  No entourage, just a lone figure who was recently a Presidential nominee.  He looked down - I remembered the swiftboating.


That night, the tower with the peyote fist started glowing then spinning and then came the fireworks and the launch of his ashes.  Going out with a bang.  To the strains of Spirit in the Sky and Mr. Tambourine Man. Tim's comment:  "I can smell the bastard."  Said in love, yes.


I won't forget watching the spectacle that 
August night from our selected spot on
the side of the opposite mountain.  Another memorable vacation.  They always were.


It must be Saturday somewhere and I am still typing.  Another much-hyped non-event like Y2K.  

 

Ho-hum.  Another day, another dollar to extract from believers to fill the coffers anew.  Another day, another way to explain why Jesus didn't come this time.

 

No doubt it's Obama's fault.

For your listening pleasure:  Norman Greenbaum's
Spirit in the Sky - love the fuzztone opener.

Leon Russell - Still Performing at the Speed of Light

Sometimes the messy threads of life unravel and re-form into a great big bow.  Sometimes you unknowingly attach to something that lasts, permeating your consciousness with such force that even a slight nod to that memory brings a special kind of bliss.  Those moments suspend time, destroying momentarily its linear power. 

Leon Russell's music is one such thread in my life.  College years - blasting his first solo album down the halls of my old dorm and out the windows toward the banks of the Fox River on a spring day.  Wearing down those grooves - repeated playings - joyous movement.  Innocent times, good times.   I moved those vinyl albums faithfully through the years because I couldn't imagine parting with them.  Old friends those songs.

I didn't sense he had stepped off the big stage because I often returned to those tunes.  By the time I met Tim, technology had advanced and, sharing our love of Leon and Tim's chronic need to downsize, we eventually ditched the bulky albums and stereo for replacement CD's and hand-selected mixes great for road trips of our own.  Good times, not as innocent times.

Heaven on Their Minds

These days, whenever Easter completes its calendar roving and suddenly is upon us, my thoughts go to 2007.  Tim's last Easter...the one after the terminal diagnosis...the one that had children and grandchildren gathered around for what we knew was the last Easter.

Having shared the Catholic kid experience, our conversations often delved into spiritual questions and dilemnas - his well-developed and thought out, mine predictably impressionistic.  Left brain/right brain activation, trying to find the bridge.

Sharing the catechist's experience, we could speak in catholic shorthand.  So today, I want to drop some of Tim here with two samplings from his last Easter season blogs.  By this point, the oxygen wasn't flowing to his brain adequately, typing his blogs was difficult, (the thick, heavy finger effects) and the frustrations of trying to express himself  were acknowledged, shared, and then he moved on. 

Tim did not meditate on the Good Friday or Easter themes - the day that took him far into thought and sometimes was the hardest was Holy Thursday...particularly the story of Jesus alone in the Garden of Gethsemene wrestling with the soul and the demons.  I wish he had been able to write it out before he got ill.  What follows is a brief glimpse...what he shared with me were the thoughts about dualities, self-doubt and an assortment of deeper topics that continually challenged me to keep up.  

Tectonic Forces

Tectonic forces:  forces originating beneath the surface that alter the surface configuration of the earth as a result of tectonic plate movement. 

We are all connected these days.
Global economies, global social networks, global environments, global networks.


So, when a tremendous force such as the recent earthquake in Japan and resulting tsunamis occur, the shockwaves reverberate, gather energy and reach around the Ring of Fire which encircles the Pacific Ocean.  At some point, the energy dissipates, but the landscape is never the same.  Neither is the sense of security for that generation.  People have short memories.


The TeaPartee movement also seems to be generating its own misshapen energy force and as this disparate group of the disaffected, the nihilists, the anti-governmental wing, the older conservatives, the racists (yes, there I said it) and the fearful emerged and coalesced without leadership following the election of Obama, that vacuum of leadership was ripe for the taking.


The recent events in Madison and other statehouses to privatize (eg, monetize) governmental functions is the result of leadership filling that vacuum behind the scenes.  The end goal is commerce and power; the losers are the vaporizing middle class and the already downtrodden.  The aftershocks are about to commence.  Strap in and speak up.  Yes, most states are in a boatload of troubles that will require draconian measures to right the ships of state.  But there must be a rational way to make it through these economic tsunamis without destroying the middle class or turning a service model into a commerce giveaway (no-bid contracts, cronyism etc).

Even if recalls and elections turn out the scoundrels, the damage may have already be done.  Be careful when you invoke the tectonic forces.  The landscape may never be the same and may be altered in ways you never intended.


Today's Song Saturday pick:  
That Man in Black and "Ring of Fire;" some forces never die or fade away.

Fatwa: The Anti-Vagina Monologues

Fatwa:  A legal pronouncement in Islam, issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue.

Substitute certain legislators and judges for Islamic law specialists and you may sense that the current right wing agenda includes legal prohibitions with Jesusland evangelical underpinnings targeting any sense of progress and personal control for American women.
 
The one-sided monologue goes like this:

Limbaugh the Loud labels modern women as 'feminazis'   Apparently, the frequent groom has more trouble living with women than lambasting them.  This might have remained a private embarrassment, save for the platform of a radio broadcast deep from the bunker that allows him to act out his issues M-F for a lot of money.  Perhaps that will pay for lessons in achieving success in personal relationships.  The Dittohead Nation absorbs, but does not talk back.


Legislators cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which serves as a primary health care center and educating organization not just for women, but also men.  Apparently, the agenda can't tolerate access to contraception, routine gynecological exams and information about avoiding risky sexual behavior that can lead to sexually transmitted diseases. 


The right promotes and funds female politicians like Sarah Palin.  Some might argue that she, having not come close to holding the second most powerful job in the world, is still a feminist role model.  Although I might argue that the freedom of control and choice and an equitable chance to succeed in whatever path one chooses is a feminist credo, she doesn't make my feminist cut.    I see Palin as a thin-skinned mean girl who winks her way along, causing right wing columnists to see "starbursts" when she speaks on the teevee.  She's gone rogue only because she's a throwback to the days when women were seen as useful window dressing and being attractive was the primary measure of success.  However, she shows no inclination of wanting to master literacy, basic human communication skills or most any job she's won along the way by pretending to know what she's talking about (Governing - It's so hard).  Being a flavor of the month in politics is about as far as she'll get unless the mad rule the earth, but it won't stop her from grifting a hefty nest egg along the way.  Had she wanted to enlarge her limited intelligence, she could have been a contender.  She seems content to be the lipstick on the pig, carefully applied but staying within the ghostwritten party lines.  

The law of the land on abortion rights is being eroded by legislative and court maneuvers that deny not only the spirit but the intent of the ruling by removing funding for programs or supporting prohibitive edicts against siting clinics or citing 'free speech' to organizations that trespass on privacy, use harassment and stalking tactics and generally intimidate clients and providers.


Legislators are trying to redefine rape.  Perhaps they need to be reminded to invoke Reagan - Nancy, that is - and understand the meaning of Just Say No when adult words or behaviors invoke this mantra.  It's pretty easy to understand rape if you can fall into the Reagan vernacular.  Rape of minors should be self-evident as never a matter of choice, but an exercise of power over the most vulnerable.  Seems pretty simple to me - so what am I missing?


Little covered in the move to bust the unions is that they, along with the reforms that produced the civil service, have served to help women in the workplace.  In the public sector, anyone who holds a defined job title is paid equally whether male or female.  There are protections and grievance procedures that have served women struggling for pay equity or access to non-traditional jobs.  From there, it's ability and dealing with the normal workplace politics that may move one ahead, but the female foot got in the door.


Lastly, on the highest court in the land, we have a judge whose idea of a come-on was once cited as mentioning a pubic hair on a coke can.  Clarence Thomas, please use your vote to leave my uterus alone.


There are many men who do not support the above agenda, but there are too many men and, sadly, women who are ideologically opposed to women's strides and would like to impose their religious dogma by nailing their 95 Theses right through our freed reproductive organs.

It's time to misbehave again, cuz "You Don't Own Me" and we've come too far to go back.

courtesy of Leslie Gore - even then we knew better

Taking It To the Street

The gloves are off in Wisconsin.  The naked ambition of the 'conservative' agenda is on full display and the Wisconsin hibernation season is abruptly ended.  People are massing in the streets - they sense the desperate moments are here.  

Soon, the TeaPartiers will be there, organizing against their own interests, unknowingly complicit in the attempted destruction of the American middle class.  Joe the Plumber will grab a mike and another 15 minutes of unwarranted fame to be the mouthpiece of hidden vultures who wouldn't let him in the back door, much less the front door, without a security screen and a background investigation. Another useful idiot who will do the dirty work of fronting for this generation's robber barons.  Mission accomplished. 

The Fox Network will crank the propaganda into overdrive until people's heads vibrate with a few well-chosen talking points repeated endlessly by their unfair and unbalanced talking heads as if it were apocalypse now (hello, Glen). In the process, teachers, nurses, secretaries, firefighters, police officers, road maintenance workers, sanitation workers, accounting clerks will be vilified as responsible for the imbalance in the economy.  You can almost hear the chattering class gearing up in the distance.



Confession:  I am a public employee.  I work with other public employees and have for decades.  As a management employee, I am not in a formal union now (but have been previously).  We are an informal collective bargaining group.  We function as a union and our representatives have many meetings to reach a memorandum of understanding on our working conditions.  It's called negotiating.  It means give and take.  It means reaching mutually agreeable settlement in light of current conditions.  It's not what is happening in Wisconsin.  What is happening there is a unilateral assault on unions and, by extension, the political party they historically support.

I've tried to write my way out of this, but words are failing me.  The bad apples in the public sector (see Bell, California) have most certainly tainted people's thoughts about public employees.  That lingering taint is the fertilizer for those who would blame unions and public pensions for the current economic meltdown.  Granted, times change and it's necessary to revisit wages and benefits in light of current realities.  That's what negotiations are expressly able to do.  But the scale of the Bell corruption does not compare to the ginormous ripoff of the credit default swap scam courtesy of Wall Street or the housing bubble or the cost of two wars that were never funded the old-fashioned way (with tax increases).


So, while the truly greedy continue unabated by any new regulation, picking on the dozing middle class appeared to be as easy as gathering the low hanging fruit.  At least that what's they thought until Wisconsin.  The intensity of this current political theater, with the teabag brigade approaching, will be compelling and tense.  The last act may dictate an historic sea change one way or the other in this country.  Stay tuned and stay safe.


PS - This year, after months of considering the current economic climate, my group took a 5% cut requested by upper management.  Our group chose the method of reduction - options included increased contributions to pension, increased contributions to health insurance costs, or pay cut.  That's called negotiating - a practice the governor of Wisconsin is not willing to even discuss. 


Photo Credit:  AP Photo - Racine, Wisconsin 
Tune:  Michael McDonald - a favorite from the Doobie era

Local Wonders

"If you can awaken inside the familiar and discover it new, you need never leave home..."

Ted Kooser
Nebraskan and U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-06



Perhaps I hadn't quite learned this lesson.  Perhaps it was because it was that time of the year that required vacation - the lull before the work cycle storm of January.  Perhaps it was my restless mind seeking a rest and, like a homing pigeon, looking to the home of my youth and a chance to reconnect with friends from that time I missed the last time around.

Christmas is the season of eternal nostalgia - the season of scents remembered, of songs sung, of crunching snow, of lights and color, of musky midnight masses.  I needed an assist to prepare this year and when I saw that one old friend, Paul Amandes, was opening in a production called Local Wonders, based on a Kooser book, with music he wrote and a play he co-wrote with Virginia Smith, that fact became the anchor, the set piece for an excursion to Chicago in the dead of winter.

I'm a homer, so my bias and admiration for the artistic efforts of those I know is evident.  Still, this production touched me, in that quiet place that reflects and ponders and is as certain as the eternal cycle of the seasons.  I marveled at my friend's artistic maturity.

The 90 minute play with music is both particular and universal.  We follow the specific threads of Kooser's life as a Nebraskan, a writer suddenly faced with a cancer diagnosis.  This rut in life's road is examined as the facets of the man's life are revealed and rolled out through anecdote and song.

Kooser's Nebraska and his Nebraska life, that landscape shaped by storms, is detailed in all its particulars through the spoken word and song - - the tilt of its geography, the treehouse in the backyard and the child who leaves, the pair of geese that come and go with the seasons, the order and disruption of the organization of a man's tools, his very practical mother, the old highway 30, the uncle in his recliner, the old blue heron, a father's hands, monarchs blanketing a distant tree.  No detail too small, every rock and track observed and noted, the wrestling of human nature between the poet as writer/craftsman and the poet as celebrity.

The musical interludes wind throughout the narrative much like the course of the Platte River, with Anne Hills providing lilting lyrical support (big vocal biceps!) and sharp observations and particular contrasts as Kooser's wife and a cast of locals.  Despite the difficult nature of this type of multi-character assignment, the flow of the play and physical stage coverage allowed her to neatly evoke key players who interact with Kooser in a series of tilts from scene to scene.  Harmonic support, both as an actor and singer.

I needed to see it twice - it's densely aural - and richly textured.  For those friends who may live near Chicago - do see it.  Twice, if you can.  It leaves you with that warm feeling, that Christmas feeling of touching base with old familiar experiences, of small things now noticed like the first snowflake in a winter sky, of the promise of hope and magic that lies just out that open window in your own backyard.  Like leaving home to come home. 

You can order tickets here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/132271

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Thanksgiving Leftovers

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.  ~~ Erma Bombeck 

I have no Thanksgiving leftovers in the traditional sense.  Hit the road with Buster and enjoyed a feast with the Amazon Grandchild. She is growing and glowing and I realize that time slides quickly holiday by holiday when you are watching a young child grow. I didn't have seconds, resisted the multiple pies in my quest to be rid of pants with elastic waistlines, and arrived home safely. No rain, no bad road conditions, just the low hanging post-full moon golden on the horizon to guide me and Buster down the yellow brick road.  There's no place like home.

No, my leftovers are the mental residue, the crumbs that linger and must be shaken out before they stake a claim on real estate in my brain.  After living well over five decades, I am now at capacity and only capable of infill development.  Grow up, not out.

Holidays have not been the same now that I'm solo.  They signal the end of the year, another birthday and a time to try to keep looking forward.  Still, I'm finding things to be thankful for - reconnections, a President who is intelligent and not prone to Palinesque outbursts, sufficiency,  digital cameras, a challenging job, and a faithful furry companion.  For now, that's enough.   Sufficiency and simplicity.

The aroma of spice and cinnamon fills the house, the lights are about to go up, the tree about to be assembled.  All's well in this little corner of the world.  Time to buckle up and brave the shopping madness.  

What I wouldn't give to happen upon a random act of culture like this one while shopping.  It takes me back to a simpler time.  A glorious complex choral piece, memories of practices starting in college through my various incarnations and life seasons - a gentle thread.  The pleasure of lifting a voice as part of something larger.  Unplugged and each a contributor.  The sounds of the season.  Giving thanks.

Goodnight, Tim - Wherever You Are

November 16 - Tim's birthday. 


My poem for his birthday on our old blog platform - it turned out to be his last birthday in 2006 - his 52nd.  He was, like his hero JFK, a fatalist who raged against the dimming of the light.  He always believed he would die young.  He did.

When you rob the cradle in your 40's
There's no need to worry about teething biscuits
There's lots to chew on with a political scientist
Who knows a thing or two
About philosopher kings and steppenwolves
And tenderness and mating the queen
And Yes and streetlights that go out
And synchronicity abounding all around
Impressionism met realism with a cubist twist.
He anticipates every hidden eddy of the river
And knows all my undercurrents too
My full moons are reserved for a lifetime
Happily.
 
Happy birthday, my Tim.

When I watch this YouTube I made as some kind of therapeutic exercise, I think of being on the other side of so many of the pictures in this video - I am thankful for the miracle of digital photography - both for its instant gratification and its not insignificant role in my delight in chronicling all our adventures.  I see now what I saw then through the lens.

It's still difficult to write about him.  I've tried.  It's still very raw.  But with pictures and music, I am soothed and remember through a sampler of our moments together how much I still love him.

Douche of the Decade

"The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards,

liars and the selfish hide in high places. "

~Bryant H. McGill

I sometimes wonder when someone is going to write the definitive book "When Good Things Happen to Bad People."  Karl Rove deserves his own chapter for an intelligence devoted to exploring the Dark Side of the American psyche.

Karl Rove is Watergate's Donald Segretti gone rabid.

Whether steering the American Titanic that was George W. Bush's political career or making out like a bandit as a paid Faux News pundit and chicken circuit speaker at GOP functions, Rove the cynical opportunist has found his version of the American dream.

Equinox

My favorite season is here at last. 
The early-now nights a little crisper,
The trees prepare to launch the pirouetting leaves,
Between sun and shade, the illusion comes
Nature's ironic wink - recycle and replenish

My illusions are more obvious
Solitude approaching holidays tumbling one after another

Is this a reminder of endings or beginnings
The conflicting colors of autumn
The greens yielding to reds and golds and then muted earthtones
Influence my dreams
I think of you.

This season of our birthdays
Of manic election years memories
Of drives beneath a glowing harvest moon
Removing the car top
The last hurrah tbefore the grey rains come to stay
Passion's last play before hiatus

Autumn, you are my favorite child.

Cris 9-22-10

 Earworm for today:  Tim's favorite autumn song by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues - an oh so poignant memory of concerts and long talks and longer moonlit drives:  Forever Autumn

Blog Photo Credit:  Anthony Dunn, Photographer  - Bidwell Park in Autumn

Boomer Retirement Tuesday

Today we held a special lunch for a whole batch of newly minted retirees.  The traditional Chico bbq trailer  for the tri-tip was wheeled in along with barrels for roasting many chickens.  Veggie burgers had been prepared and huge bowls of salad and beans along with grilled garlic bread were spread out in a now vacant section of the building which is now used as a yoga center and workout space during off hours.

It was a perfect late summer day for lounging on the grass, visiting with old friends and contemplating endings.

Budget constraints, groaning workloads...all that was forgotten for a bit as our City family gathered to wish these compadres all the best.   There you would find the police chief, officers and dispatchers, the Mayor and a few Councilmembers, the street crews, the planners, the City Manager and Assistant, the engineers, the finance folk, the attorneys and legal staff, fire personnel, human resources and risk managers, housing and neighborhood services staff, building inspectors, code enforcement officers, the urban forester and park rangers and a few babies and toddlers mingling on the lawn, reminiscing or chasing balloons. 

The visionaries and the pragmatists who populate my work-world.  My second family.

I contented myself with snapping my camera madly and experiencing this day through a focused lens - it seems to help me deal with losses.

These retirees are irreplaceable, although their work remains and will be spread throughout the ranks.  Tough times in the public sector.  The need for public services remains, no matter how thin the staff.

After lunch, I prepared for a City Council meeting that evening.  So it goes.

To my comrades at arms about to embark on the next adventure, here is my video homage and my parting advice:

Happy Trails and Enjoy!

PS - I am so jealous.