In the Time of COVID. Day 32

April 19, 2020

In the Company of Genius

in the spring of 1973, my pal Billy and I hit the road for Mexico. We hitch hiked, took the train and caught a chicken bus or two. It took us a couple of weeks until we arrived in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas. We were about 50 miles north of the Guatemalan Border, in the Mayan Highlands.

At that time, San Cristobal was a remote outpost on the Pan American Highway. Most young people were in search of cheap, plentiful drugs and that wasn’t the scene in SC. They congregated in Oaxaca and Michoacán or along the beach in Acapulco , Zihuatanejo and Mazatlan.

The backpackers in San Cristobal were a global wandering tribe. They were interested in culture and art, rather than getting loaded. Some drifted down from Mexico City and further north, others came up from South America . San Cristobal was a wonderful resting place. There were backpackers from many nations. I settled in for a couple of months.

The first private automobile arrived in the town in 1948 after the completion of the Pan Am “Highway”. Trains of burros were more common than cars. The walled center of the town had narrow passages that only wagons could traverse. It was a fine place to take in the charms of remote Mexican village life.

One day I was looking for a new book to read. There’s was a used book rack at a cafe just off the zocalo. As I was searching the spines for English editions, I heard a group of young people around a big table. At one end was an older , white haired European. Next to him was a young Quiche Maya woman, dressed in a traditional huipila. She was nursing a light skinned baby. She was blind.

I listened in, and the older man invited me to join the discussion. The young people were speaking in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, Japanese, German, Dutch and Quiche. The topic was what would become of the Mountain Mayans as progress overtook the region. I knew this because the older man was rapidly translating what everyone was saying so that everyone could understand. He made the point that within 10 years the Mayans would be riding bicycles.

Actually, within 20 years those very Indians came down out of the mountains with wooden carved gun replicas to try to reclaim land they were being driven off of. Their movement was called the EZLN. The Emiliano Zapata Liberation Front. For two decades they stood in a state of rebellion against the Mexican Government.

I’ll call the old European, Karl. I learned that he was on a study sabbatical from the University of Amsterdam. He came to Mexico to write down the Mayan legends and the Popol Vuh in western phonetic Quiche Maya so that the Maya could retain their sacred cultural identity. While in Mexico, He fell in love with Akna. She nursed their child.

I had never met a person that seemed to understand every language and could speak and shift from language to language effortlessly. He refused the demands of his university to return to his professorial responsibilities in Amsterdam. He lived with the Maya. He found his people and his home. He and Akna lived higher in the mountains in her parents village, away from The Mexicans.

He was a genius, pure and simple. He was so awake he could read everyone’s concerns at the same time and in multiple languages. As we broke up our political salon that day, he directed me to the bookshelf. He pointed at a book and said, have you read Graham Greene? I hadn’t heard of him. Karl said “The Power and the Glory” will teach you about Mexico.

I spent the next few days laying in my hammock engrossed in a tale that occurred during the Cristero Rebellion in the 1920’s. I have loved studying the history of Mexico since.

In the Time of COVID. Day 31

April 18, 2020

Singing Plow

During the 19th Century there was a great upsurge in Utopianism. Much of it was driven by Christian Pacifism.

From Russia, the Doukhobors fled persecution and military inscription. They fled to the plains of southwestern Canada and the region around Lake Kooteney, in British Columbia. The Hutterites fled Germany for similar reasons. They moved along the Canada / US frontier on both sides. Both groups created what they considered authentic Christian communities. To this day they live in exclusive farmsteads, in communal housing, in communal everything. They are industrious, hardworking and faithful to their covenants. There is a Hutterite community near Warden, Washington, less than 50 miles from my hometown.

I remember seeing strangely dressed people coming into Spokane when I was a kid. The men had long beards and no mustaches , they wore black clothes and tall black felt hats. They spoke to one another in German. The women wore long black dresses and discreet bonnets covering their hair. They stayed together when they shopped. Their coming too town was a rare event.

In 1962 a 250 acre parcel of farmland was inherited by a guy name Hugh Williams. His grandmother was an original farming settler in Eastern Washington. Hugh was a pacifist. He was involved with the Committee for Nonviolent Action. CNVA members actively protested Nuclear Arms and war of any kind. Hugh lived by those principles. He placed the 250 acres into a communal farm. He named it Tolstoy Farm. The Original Tolstoy Farm was created by Mahatma Gandhi in 1910 in South Africa.

Hugh put the word out in Anti-War publications that Tolstoy Farm, in Washington State was inviting dedicated Pacifists to join the commune. The organizational model was government by consensus, no leader. The whole farm was off the grid. There was to be no private property. Those who wished to live life as authentic purposeful pacifists in a decentralized rural setting were welcome to give Tolstoy Farm a try. At the end of one year a consensus vote would be taken to determine if the person could stay as an actual member. There was a central farm house with community kitchen and library and sleeping areas. Eventually cabins dotted The acreage. The toilets were out-houses. Eventually there was a sustained population of 2 dozen people from all over the world. The farm was less than 30 miles from Spokane.

I met these guys and gals at a Ban the Bomb rally at the Federal Court house in Spokane in 1964. The farm was then a fledgling enterprise. Several members were from Seattle, Portland, New York, Boston and Chicago. For reference, this was 2 years before the Summer of Love and the Hippie Thing. We spoke and they seemed sensible and well educated in their beliefs. They invited me and my friends to come visit. We did. We brought sleeping bags and crashed on the floor of the farm house for the night. We learned more about the peace movement.

The guy that impressed me the most was “Singing Plow”. He and Hugh got hold of a couple of healthy draft horses and Singing Plow harnessed them. The horses pulled a 19th century steel bladed plow, called a singing plow. Singing Plow took the name as his own. The guy loved to plow the alfalfa fields and the Potato field and what became a massive garden plot. A sunflower field on the lower 40. He, with the team, was a plowing power house.

One day when we were visiting, a couple of big farm trucks pulled up out of the blue. Down hopped a bunch of those black garbed Hutterites. They announced that they had brought chickens, chicken feed, and the materials for a chicken house with roosting boxes and a fenced chicken yard. Where did the folks want it set up. It was a gift of charity.

Hutterite women pulled out food baskets and set up some tables to feed everyone. There was a big discussion about the proper location for then hen house, and it was decided near the creek, near the farm house , near the big garden. Everyone set to work. There was pounding of hammers, the singing of hand saws against fir boards, they hump hump of post holes being dug and and stretching of wire. It was a wonderful site to see the chicken house go up and 4 dozen chickens and a few roosters, released to scrabble for cracked corn spread out over the ground.

After the meal, they loaded up and off they went, waving back at us with big smiles as dust kicked up behind their trucks and they climbed the road up out of the valley. It was like Christmas time. The bounty of eggs would be a daily blessing. The gardens would love the chicken shit.

Some months later I was back visiting when one of the folks announced he was of a mood to have himself a chicken dinner. Some of the others drew back in revulsion. They had a big consensus debate. The hungry guy went to the kindling box and picked up the hatchet. He was hungry for some fried chicken, vote be damned. He stormed out the door toward the hen house with lust for chicken in his eyes, Singing Plow jumped up and ran ahead of him. He pivoted to face the hatchet man just in front of the gate. He got down on his knees and stretched out his neck. He yelled, “if your going to cut off a head , cut of mine!”

This may seem melodramatic but Singing Plow at the moment was absolutely willing to give his life to protect those chickens. It was another vegetarian meal that evening.

To this day Tolstoy Farm exists. They supply the best quality organic produce to the Spokane Farmers Market.

In the Time of COVID. Day 30

April 17, 2020

“Elizabeth”

This is a carry-over from yesterday’s episode “All the Lonely People”

Elizabeth was a resident who lived on the 3rd floor of the “Home”. She had her own little spartan room with a view down to the bay. She was silent and timid. Each day she spent time in the linen closet on her floor. She stowed the clean laundry in it’s proper place and she gathered the bags of soiled linen and placed them near the closet so the laundry staff could pick them up. Besides her faded and washed-out dress, she wore an apron that covered her front . It had two big pockets. It was the sort of apron grandmothers wear in rural Mexican villages.

If Elizabeth was walking in the hall, she wore slippers and shuffled along, her head cast down, her hands inside her apron pockets. She made no eye contact. She often appeared to be silently talking to herself. Lips moving, no audible sound. Her hair was mousy gray, and brushed straight. She was in her mid fifties.

I was 24 in 1972 when I worked at the home and people like Elizabeth seemed old to me, but, until she was 23, Elizabeth had lived an entirely different life.

Every Wednesday morning there was a note on my project board that read “Middle stall, women’s bathroom, 3rd Floor, clogged”. I hate plumbing. I got the snake and plumber’s helper, and arrived at the errant toilet. It usually took at least 20 minutes to unclog the bugger. It was never gross, it was little flecks of white paper floating up but it stopped up every week at the same time. Sometimes I attacked it from the roof down the stand pipe but usually I was down on my knees hovering over the pot, working the snake or plunger. I probably cursed under my breath. Did I say I hate plumbing?

Elizabeth’s room was just across the hall. Sometimes she’d linger by the door looking toward me as I worked. Usually I took no notice. But one morning, I looked over my shoulder to her and said “Elizabeth, what’s down there?” Her eyes got real intense and she shrieked “ The heads of Japs!”. She scurried into her room and slammed the door. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

A couple of days later I happened to be in the director’s office and I mentioned the event to him. He said “Sit down. I guess no one told you about Elizabeth. She and her Husband went out to the Philippines in 1940. They were Methodist missionaries. He was a doctor and she had some training in nursing. She was quite young but certainly had enough knowledge to be of assistance in a remote mission hospital.

About 6 weeks after Pearl Harbor, The Japanese Army commandeered their hospital, they ordered all the patients and staff out of the building and lined up the men and women facing each other. Elizabeth’s husband complained and was brutally slain with a sword in front of Elizabeth’s eyes.

The young women were sorted from the others and loaded in a truck. They were taken to a barracks on the army base. For four years Elizabeth was forced to be a ‘Comfort Maiden”. She was rescued after the Allies liberated the Philippines but the trauma had been total. She was returned to the US but no amount of therapy could bring her back. She has been here since we opened in the mid 1950’s.”

I hadn’t realized that people could be destroyed and still live. I started to observe Elizabeth more closely. I discovered that every time she went by a box of Kleenex, she took a sheet. All week long she collected tissue and waded it in a ball in each of her pockets. The balls grew bigger and bigger, she squeezed harder and harder and then, sometime in the middle of the night once a week, like clock work, she flushed those heads too hell.

In the Time of COVID. Day 29

April 16, 2020

“All the Lonely People”

At wakening this morning, “All the Lonely People” that line from Eleanor Rigby, was playing in my dreams. I often dream music. I was raised in a musical family. When I was little guy there was a TV program called ‘Name That Tune’. The concept was, a panel of contestants competed to identify a song. They would try to identify it in just a few notes. In my family, it was blood sport. Often one of us would get it in 3 or 4 notes. That was before the Beatles, for sure.

My father played piano for at least an hour a day, but as he entered his 70’s he had a series of small strokes. He still played but the songs ran together into what I called ‘Heart of My Tiger Rag’. Eventually he was moved to a nursing home and was over drugged into a coma for 4 years. We thought he was off in the twilight. After a fall from bed and broken bones, he was moved to a different nursing home where his meds were reduced. He woke back up.

On the very day he died he played piano in the dining room for a couple of hours. His picture was taken. He had a sublime smile on his face. He was taken back to bed where he died peacefully in his sleep. For my dad it was a wonderful way to die. Music is one of the last memories we loose. He was with his friends, the songs. He was not lonely.

Now, we see images of residents looking out through the glass at rest homes. Families are unable to keep close contact with loved ones as this terrible pandemic reaps havoc on the elderly and young alike, as many slip away without the comfort of loved ones, bedside. We’ve seen the photos of health care professionals with that far away stare in their eyes after a grueling shift after a grueling week after a grueling month. “All the lonely People”

Nearly 5 decades ago I lived on Bainbridge Island, across Pudget Sound, from Seattle. For a time I had a job as a sort of gopher, maintenance man (putting beds together, unclogging toilets), ambulance driving helper at a convalescent home. The grounds were beautiful. From the home, a lush green lawn sloped eastward to the water’s edge. Across Elliot Bay were the bluffs of Magnolia Hill and to the right further back, The Space Needle and the Seattle skyline. Further yet the volcanic mass of Mount Rainer.

The postcard view and park-like grounds, belied the truth of what was happening at the ‘Home’ while I was there.

The “Home” was once the student living quarters and cafeteria of the Moran School and then The Pudget Sound Naval Academy, a military school for boys . It was shuttered in the early 1950’s.

The main building was a haunted place, abandoned auditorium, classrooms, wide ,hardwood lined, stairwells climbing four stories up. We stored extra beds and such in a portion of the main floor near the convalescent center’s office.

The people who were residents in the early 1970’s were mostly Wards of the State. That’s a legal term that means when a person is incapable of caring for themselves and they have no family willing or able to attend to their needs, the State becomes the responsible party. Children end up in orphanages and institutions and Foster care. Adults are entered into several levels of institutions. Our Home was for adults who were harmless.

During my time there, I can’t remember any family coming to visit. The patients were warehoused, fed, and bathed if incapable of doing so themselves. They were turned in their beds, if paralyzed or in comas. There was no personal clothing. All garments were hospital property and washed and supplied to residents as needed. The top 2 floors were secure , with outside access to locked and fenced yards. On the first floor was the cafeteria and men’s and women’s wards. These patients were able to walk freely outside when the nurses allowed.

While these folks were without family, they made due with the people around them. The nurses and aids were kind people but overworked. The patients were not mistreated unless being left to slowly fade away is considered neglect.

Each morning as I arrived, I looked at a board that had projects and expectations for my day. Once I checked that, I made the rounds of the population saying good morning. I helped people with their glasses, and wiped food off their faces. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t my job. It was a little thing, but I was one of the only people who talked to them all day. They had been forgotten by society. They weren’t angry but there were moments of frustrations. There were several levels of intellectual ability from adults with the capacities of a 2 year old, to guys like Smitty , an old logger , who was just plain worn out.

In the days to come (hell, I ain’t goin’ nowhere) I will tell some of their stories. Elizabeth will be tomorrow. What I found out about her, I have never forgotten. She was a true lonely wanderer in her mind and I know why.

In the Time of COVID. Day 28

April 15, 2020

“There’ll Be Some Changes Made”

Today , for the first time in four weeks, we left our house and drove 36 miles to do some grocery shopping. Trader Joe’s and Sprouts both have early hours for senior folks. Friends told us about it and truth be told both stores have approached this crisis with sensible strategies that protect employees and customers alike. There were lines at the door and physical distancing clearly observed. Everyone masked and gloved, sanitized carts. We were able to stock up for another 4 weeks.

The traffic to\ the ghost town of San Luis Obispo was weird. It was sparse along the ocean drive north of Morro Bay but as we approached SLO more cars. It was less than during the before time, but compared to Cambria it was hustle and bustle. After a month at home, it was disorienting. We have slowed to a stroll at home.

It brought to mind Ethel Waters and Fletcher Henderson. They recorded “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” in 1921, on the Black Swan Label in Harlem. It has become one of the foundational songs of the Harlem Renaissance. It has been covered so many times that at least 400 people have recorded it.

There will be some changes made. Everyone wearing masks, no social gabbing, just get your buisness done and get away from each other, furtive glances , steps back from people who come to close. That used to be rude, right? Now it is survival.

I feel for the young folks, they thrived on proximity, they danced, the hung on each other, piled to many into a car and howled at the moon. They flirted with danger and were certain they would live forever.

This year, no rights of passage, no graduations, no proms, no field trips, probably no summer jobs. How do they recover from that?

Will we ever return to the social inter-actions of the before times? Is the mask here to stay. Is distance learning the new classroom? Are crowded concerts and sports stadiums a thing of the past? How long until this seems normal?

In the Time of COVID. Day 27

April 14, 2020

“He’d Steal a Coin from a Dead Man’s Eyes”

There are some anry cusses and low-down scallawags in this world. We, out west, have a body of dime novels and decades of B westerns that attest to the fact. You got your Highwaymen and Alley Cats, your Rollers, and Road Agents. There are gangs of Desperados and corrupt cattle barons. There are claim jumpers and cattle rustlers, your train robbers and your gun for hire psychopaths.

The victims are hard-working sod busters that just want a little fence around their place but they have no defenses against the greedy and corrupt black hats that ride the range, jump the claims, steal the water, redirect the railway, or bush-wack the stage coach.

Enter the Paladin, the chivalrous loner with a fast draw and the morals of a saint. He stands against tyranny. He defends the hapless and rids the territory of evil forces. At the end, White Hat still crisp and clean, he rides off in the sunset while little boys and love sick maidens lean against corral posts. The little western main streets are back to bustling business.

How do I know this to be true? I spend Saturday at the matinees . I loved the El Rancho theater. 3 westerns, a cartoon and a news reel. I got the straight scoop. I learned about good and evil and how there was always someone willing to stand up and defend the weak.

At home I read Zane Grey, and Robin Hood and followed Prince Valiant in the funnies. I read Tarzan of the Apes and Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. I knew there were good guys. In all the stories , every one of them , good triumphed over evil . It was a certainty.

Now I hear some State Governors who have arranged PPE shipments for their desperate health care workers are having their supplies bush-wacked Federal Highwaymen (FEMA). The Feds ride for an evil orange-skinned varmint who would steal the a coin from a deadman’s eyes.

I hear that a significant shipment of PPE is scheduled to arrive at an unspecified port in an unspecified western state and that governor is amassing his National Guard to protected it from plunder.

We know how to get the drop on the bad guys out west. Folks, Just stay inside , duck low and and let the Governor meet the bad guys at high noon.

In the Time of COVID. Day 26

April 13, 2020

The Death of Fashion Foretold

This morning as April read the paper addition of the local news, I read it’s digital edition. An ad was centered mid-article in the page. It read “Ace Sweatpants… The Last Pair of Sweats You’ll Ever Buy.. Shop Now”. It made me think ; Was this an omen of The Death of Fashion Foretold? Some days we do linger in our lounge ware into the mid-day. Is fashion dead?

Some days I hop up and put on my project pants. They are black, and two sizes to big. I have to cinch a belt to make them say up. They have paint spots From several projects and sometimes they get stiff from the wheat-paste I use when I am working with papier-mâché. When I’m going to get messy, I wear those.

Yesterday we were missing our kids, who are geographically spread out. We both dressed “up” for the day, without having discussed it. April wore a colorful global ethnic print peasant blouse. I put on one of my collarless Irish linen and cotton Grandfather shirts. We looked nice for each other. It was a good thing to, because outside it was gray and overcast. It would be very easy to get depressed with cabin fever on a day like that.

How many people, in this new reality, never get out of their grunge garb? One friend only shaves on Sunday. That way he knows the days of the week. There are many amusing internet images of screwed up haircuts when couples, parents and housemates decide cutting hair can’t be that hard. YES IT CAN.

Women who have their hair colored are freaking out. The truth is emerging and as we approach a month it is speaking loudly. Forget the toilet paper and paper towels, there is a frantic search of near-empty shelves for hair color products . People who never thought they would color someone’s hair are trying their frustrated best. Good luck, boys.

I have heard it said that women, now house bound, are abandoning their bras. This isn’t a Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug movement. It’s just life in PJ’s and lounge ware. Let the ladies dangle.

Probably isn’t much use for lipstick now that everyone is wearing face masks. But guys, if April is any judge of sartorial manners, clip your nose hairs. If you live alone, what the hell , turn those nostrils into forests. Nobody is looking at you.

I can see the ever-growing mountains of hair clippings, when the barbers and hair stylists open back up. Their hands will ache from carpal tunnel as they snip those scissors and try to keep up with demand. Outside the window, the hairy legions will queue for their turn in the chair.

Until then, we are house bound for maybe 3 more months. Is the new high-fashion outfit, sweatpants and beat up slippers. Is it cool to wear the same clothes for a week? The paper I pick up at the end of the driveway 6 days a week is slender. There are no advert-inserts. Most of the ads I see arrive by email and fry your hard-drive if you are foolish enough to click on the ‘You’ve earned $50” . Should I buy that pair of overpriced sweatpants and never buy another pair again? Which one of the four colors should I choose for my “until they roll me out on a gurney” outfit? Is this the death of fashion foretold?

In the Time of COVID. Day 25

April 12, 2020

I don’t know what to call it

We have a golden retriever. She is 2 1/2. In the before time, each morning she looked forward to hanging with her buddies at the dog park. She was so into it, that if I didn’t lace up my shoes and get on with it, she became a pest. Goldens can jam you hard with a thrusted snout, I know. She would lay on her side with her nose under the base of the couch where yesterday’s tennis balls were just out of reach. No kidding, she moaned , she yodeled, she sang the tennis ball blues.

We can’t go to the dog park anymore. Someone stole the hand sanitizer. Community tennis balls are slobbery, who touched them and when, is a big concern. Random out-of-town visitors bring their dogs and it just isn’t safe.

We have tried to find a work around. Sophie needs exercise, we need exercise. This week, second home part-time Cambrians and some vacation renters have come in numbers to our favorite coastal walking trail. Perhaps next week will be better. But, for now, we can’t go there.

We have a neighborhood loop, which is a one way. There is only one exit to our neighborhood so we walk the loop 3 times a day, and enjoy the tranquility. No one is driving to work, No traffic, and beyond the trees to the south, is Highway 1. It doesn’t have any traffic either. Zip, nada.

Well, Monday is a big deal, the Garbage, Green Waste and Recycle trucks rumble through. Daily about 3 pm the mail jeep comes by, and there is Brian, the UPS guy. That’s it.

During the last week , I’ve noticed a change in Sophie. She stopped yodeling, she stopped singing. Her behavior is puzzling . She takes more naps, and is less insistent . Is it kinetic intuition? I don’t know what to call it. Humans create so much zoom zoom energy, pounding hammers, cars going by, Doors of cars slamming, leaf blower sounds and chain saws, and the constant faint rumbles of the highway. The school bus twice a day, someone is cutting wood on a table saw. We have become used to a constant background of noise generated by human kinetic behavior. But know “You could a heard a pin drop”.

Is Sophie less cranked up because humans have cranked down? Are we returning to a slower time, a more peaceful time? As I walk Sophie I pass houses where I know kids live. This is weird. No kids laughing or riding their bikes or skateboards, none. I did see three teenage girls standing about 10 feet from each other , chatting for a bit.

Does Sophie have kinetic intuition? Does she pattern her physical demeanor on the behavior of humans? I just don’t know what to call it.

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In the Time of COVID. Day 24

April 11, 2020

Simple Gifts

Tonight is calm. Eric Satie is playing piano in the background. We just came in from the our nightly soak. Above in the moonless night wisps of fog fingers reached ashore and a white owl flew above, it’s belly and under wings softly illuminated by a neighbors’ yard light. The constellations played hide and seek with the clouds.

I have the lingering taste of a tangerine in my lips and a whole head of images from my walks today. Normally we are an arid land, constantly worried about the lack of rain, about the lowering aquifers. That we have lots of Monterey pine here is because those tall beauties capture moisture on their needles at night and each morning they drip the condensation around their bases. They water themselves.

When northern climates are still struggling with snow, our area gets rain and in a good year the landscape is Irish green. The low spots become ponds and Snowy Egrets stand lonesome sentinels, patient for a tadpole dinner. This late winter to spring has been wet and the land is rejoicing.

A reclaimed lot, once a hoarder’s junk yard, is hosting lilies and toward the street, mushrooms are covering the edge. Across the road volunteer white irises are showing their faces. light purple Golly Polies and orange California Poppy are booming. The spring grasses are going too seed and the wind of the morning lightly makes them dance and sway.

On such a morning, a still white cat lays in wait. Down a hillside into the surrounding forest the gobble of the neighborhood wild turkeys is in the air. A fast fluffy squirrel darts across the road. My dog sniffs the margins and alerts to invisible possibilities. The sound is still and natural, The road has few cars to disturb our walk. No one else out.

Today I built a few more raised beds for our garden and it was a present time. The peas are 2 inches high, the sweet peas are up . The Tomatoes are reaching. Potatoes are pushing green leaves above the soil. I can see the hairs of green onions coming and cilantro awakening. This year, anything will grow.

Elsewhere people are going through a nightmare landscape of grief and fear. At our age the best we can do is stay at home.

We celebrate our simple gifts, we are thankful, the earth is promising another season. the wildlife are no doubt happy that they can cross the road in peace.

In the Time of COVID. Day 23

April 10, 2020

When the laughter of crows kept me sane

It’s been over three weeks of staying home. Mid-day today I got cranky. If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to you. I took some headache meds and took a nap. I could have savored the mood, like a tongue against a sore tooth but when I got up, I attacked one of those things on the list. The list, the reminder that we can improve our nests. As Gandhi said “It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters that you do it”. It all gets down to busy hands. If you are feeling whacked out, get your hands busy.

Busy hands bring to mind when I was 26 and crazy as hell.

Hitch-hiking can get pointless. Sure, you can learn some cosmic lessons like, you are invisible until your ride shows, but standing along a Texas interstate, west of Amarillo with nothin’ anywhere, flat, flat, flat, hours ticking by, cars flying buy, it gives you a chance to revisit your life’s choices. At 26 I was washed up on the on-ramp of life. Something had to change.

Some weeks and a few multi-day odd jobs along the way, I rolled into the Baker Farm on West Dry Creek Road, in Sonoma County. It was harvest time and Ol’ Man Baker had prunes to shake, and pears and apples to pick and prunes to sun dry out in the big field beyond the trees. Man it was hot, it was hard work, but it kept me busy. For a time I lived in a little trailer under a shady Paulownia Tree. I walked the three miles each way to the country store. Eventually a little blue cabin came available on the hillside above the barn. I lived in that haven for three years.

I was in self imposed isolation. I wasn’t fit company for man nor beast. and I spent my free time rehashing all the mistakes I’d made. The trail of broken hearts. I was steeped in a stew pot of self pity. When I wasn’t working I was either drinking or reading my one book, a dictionary. Ya, crazy.

I’ve known guys that got locked up in their own dungeon of self pity and never found the key to escape. I was scared it would happen to me. It may be the stuff of country western songs but I didn’t want to end up that way.

Fortune smiled on me. A lady at the CEDA trailer in Healdsburg gave me a paper that said “if you hire this guy for a wage he would earn after 6 months training, and you promise to keep him on after that, CEDA will pay half his wages for the first 6 months”. Then she said to me “Now it’s up to you. Go find a job”. I did.

A nature book publishing company was run out of a house, barn and warehouse further west out my road. I was hired as a bindery apprentice. I was trained to operate a paper folder and a big old paper cutter with a “deadman switch”. I worked a machine that bound paperback books and I did that job for nearly two years. I walked 3 miles each way to work.

Rhythm came into my life. The haunts lessened. But it was the crows that helped with that. Rural Sonoma County is covered with patchwork’s of vineyards and orchards. Walking 6 to 12 miles a day on a country lane in wine country has a calming effect. I was still in a deep pout but while walking to work I was greeted by hundreds of crows. Try as I might to bum myself out, the crows laughed at me. They became my social critics. I still love the laughter of crows. They say “what do you have to cry about? Get your shit together”. They are black angels of chaos, black jokers in swarming diving clouds.

I agreed to take care of an old brown mare at the pasture by my cabin. I was paid a refurbished Underwood Typewriter, a couple of reams of paper and and a new ribbon. I started to write myself out of hell. Busy fingers at work, busy fingers on the typewriter, busy walking with the crows. I wrote some letters to people I hadn’t seen in years, my confidence was growing.

A female visitor was coming from Washington State, a chance at some romance? I was unnerved and loosing focus. As I dressed for work, I looked out my bedroom window to the artichoke patch. There sat a huge jack rabbit looking away toward the horse pasture. Suddenly it turned to look my way. It’s right eye was red and swollen 3 times it’s normal size. It just gave me that stare. Ever seen an evil eye? Now, that’s another story.

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