Scored an EpiPen

Epic EpiPen battle story from 2016, updated: I went out and fought all afternoon with the old juniper hedge, more dead than alive, cleaning out the understory, decades of debris. Now I am having trouble breathing and remembering how allergic I am to juniper, and cursing the man who stole my car along with my last expired, but still usable EpiPens in it.

When I tried to replace it, I was told the price was $800 and change, nearly double the insurance value of my car. Talk about sticker-shock, it costs pennies to put together your own kit with a syringe and needle but you can’t buy adrenaline over the counter unless you go to Canada. My last EpiPen cost me $15, I am so pissed off at that cock-eyed Mylan woman who raised the price of adrenaline to the stratosphere. Because she could.

Stop price-gouging the millions of people who need an EpiPen to save their lives if they have a severe allergic reaction. UPDATE: The company’s “solution” in the face of overwhelming public outcry is to offer more coupons. But it has not lowered the price ONE CENT. So keep the pressure up!*sign the petition. Millions of children and adults in the U.S. are at risk of fatal allergic reactions from common occurrences like getting stung by a bee or accidentally consuming peanuts. 

May she one day be in need of an EpiPen and may none be available at any price, because no one can afford one—she who raised the price 800-fold because of nothing other than greed. Meanwhile I'm swigging liquid Benadryl, and taking lots of cold showers, cultivating cold thoughts, but I am steaming mad and I want to kick some shins. But first, I want to be able to breathe normally again.

Update: I now have an EpiPen again, thanks to Jack Glider. I’ve an EpiPen all decked out in a wasp color-themed in a stripy black and yellow case. Was a time when I carried two EpiPens. I once was attacked by an entire hive of enraged paper wasps, my donkey stepped in a gopher hole, where they had their nest hidden, so I’m overly sensitive to stings and insect bites. My favorite part of this updated story with Jack, is that his wife never used hers, but once saved a person’s life with her epic EpiPen. Now that gave me goosebumps. May I never need to use it. Odd how old Facebook memories pop up in such a timely manner.

About those pesky typos

Head's up, since I've been somewhat itinerant, writing bloggy-bits on my iPad has some serious limitations—especially when it comes to editing. I can only see a few lines of what I write at a time and I literally can't access the the bottom halves of my blogposts. But I can read the typos on the finished page  just fine! Please excuse my typos. I literally can't get to them in order to fix them unless I'm on my laptop. In other words, I can’t fix the typos. So, stand down.

Climbing Mt. San Jacinto (photos)

Swimming in the headwaters of San Andreas Creek, on the upper slopes of Mt. San Jacinto, where the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults meet. We wallowed in a pool sheltered by house-sized boulders that created a cave. The water was icy cold, while the ambient air outside about 119°. The gap of sky between the massive boulders created a visual tension that made bathing worrisome.

I once climbed Mt. San Jacinto in the late 1980s. It took us all day to climb the 2nd highest peak in SoCal on what is now called the Cactus to Clouds Trail that begins on the desert floor in Palm Springs, and rises up through granite scree to the summit at 10,834 feet. That's one mother-tough 10,700 ft. climb through five climate zones. The only climb more arduous than Mt. San Jacinto was Mt. Whitney, and that hike took us three days. (Not counting Machu Picchu, that was the mother of all climbs.)

Thought I was gonna die by the time John Oliver Simon and I reached the lodgepole pine timberline. I hardly even remember being on the summit. I remember seeing some sort of bog orchids and corn lilies, but not the summit. John was a stickler for things like that, so I know we reached the summit. I probably tried to die right there. Or take a nap on the geodetic marker.

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway sure saves a lot of time. But that wasn't an option. We descended down the mountain in near darkness and camped on San Andreas Creek, beneath the native CA fan palms (Washingtonia filfera palms) whose fronds clacked and gurgled like creek waters. And we slept and slept and slept in the oasis. I have no photos to commemorate the event. Only a memory triggered by another memory.

But on this day captured in the photo, the 4th of July, 2007, we merely hiked up the San Andreas Creek until we could go no further. I was hiking in flipflops, and I blasted my knee...but the water was so cold, I never even knew it was injured until we came back down the canyon. Then it swelled up to the size of a basketball. But my wrist, which I had strained from an excessive pruning bout, was fine (note the wrist brace.)

Eons of snowmelt carved a deep gorge in Andreas Canyon. The canyon wall looks like the trunk of the native California Washingtonia fifera fan palm. I felt like a child caught between giant elephant legs. Native California palms are like redwoods, they need to keep their feet cool. Both have an extraordinarily small range and specific micro-climate needs. They favor the fissures caused by the San Andreas fault.

To the Cahuilla Indians, the peak was known as I a kitch (or Aya Kaich), meaning "smooth cliffs." It was the home of Dakush, the meteor and legendary founder of the Cahuilla. Naturalist John Muir wrote of San Jacinto Peak, "The view from San Jacinto is the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth!" —Wiki

Marin watersheds

1898 tourist map of Marin replete with trails and creek names.

The creek where I grew up one has many names, and I even wrote a poem about all the name changes. I realize that all those names represent a slices of history. Who came first who came second who came next. Of course the Miwok names are lost. The creek I grew up on, was once called the Arroyo de San Geronimo, which runs from White's Hill/Woodacre to Shafter's/Inkwell where it joins Lagunitas Creek. We called the whole thing from Woodacre to Shafter’s, Lagunitas Creek. But we were wrong.

The headwaters of Lagunitas Creek is Lake Lagunitas on Mt. Tam. All those Marin reservoirs including Kent Lake, are filled by Lagunitas Creek, and its sibling, Carson Creek.

Was a time the old name of Arroyo de San Geronimo Creek was applied all the way to Pt. Reyes Sta. and Tomales Bay. I found it on an old Rancho map.

After Samuel Taylor set up the paper mill, the bit of creek that ran from Shafter's pool to White House Bend was eventually called Papermill Creek, and just to confuse things, also Lagunitas Creek.

A. Van Dorn’s 1860 map of Marin labels the stretch of creek that goes from Woodacre to Pt. Reyes Sta. in its entire length, as Arroyo de San Geronimo. The paper mill is marked on the map but the creek wasn't yet called Papermill Creek. Probably Arroyo de San Geronimo morphed into Papermill...but Lagunitas Creek was one ridge to the west, not in the San Geronimo Valley.

The creek that ran from Woodacre to Shafter's was NOT called Lagunitas Creek though it runs through the town of Lagunitas (more on that later). As kids we called the creek San Geronimo, Creamery, Forest Knolls, Lagunitas, even Papermill Creek, depending upon where we were located....same creek, different names, depending on one's whim.

The map above predates the construction of the reservoirs, and you can see that the long north-south creek following the San Andreas faultline, where Kent, Alpine, Bon Tempe, Phoenix, and Lagunitas are all located, is clearly marked as Lagunitas Creek.

Today's town of Lagunitas didn't yet exist, it was a 1910 subdivision. Some say that the real Lagunitas was where Shafter's RR spur and water tank, along with the Log Cabin were located, at the sharp bend where Arroyo de San Geronimo joins Lagunitas Creek. Lagunitas Canyon had several logging camps, hence the name, Lagunitas. But there’s more to that story because there was also a Lagunitas above Ross. Kent Lake wasn't yet there....

1875 NPCRR picnic and campout at the Shafter's RR spur and water tower at the Inkwell,
where San Geronimo Creek joins the MOUTH of Lagunitas Creek. Note the use of the word "mouth." As in terminus.

Facebook friend, Steve Tognini wrote: Don’t forget that the section from the inkwell to Pt Reyes station was called Daniels creek after it was arroyo San Geronimo and before it was Papermill creek. Also, early on Lagunitas creek in Lagunitas canyon ended at Carson creek and that junction down to the inkwell was called Big Carson. Lagunitas canyon and the community of Lagunitas in that canyon consisted of Lagunitas ranch, Lagunitas dairy, Liberty ranch and resort, Lagunitas gun club, Malliard cabin, Kent cabin, Masons cabin, shafter/Howard sawmill, possibly a Malliard saw mill and the logging community.  It’s this community that voted for Lincoln in 1864. This is also the area where the little lakes existed and where the Lagunitas name originated from. Once the dams pushed this community out the name migrated down into the area it occupies today.

I said, Niice Steve. Yes, my family used the Big Carson name, and though I know where it is, I didn't understand why. Makes more sense now.

Pretty much all of Marin voted for Lincoln.

It seems our concept of where creeks begin and end is on really shaky ground. It sounds like our definition has also shifted. And that there is a huge uneasy conflation of all the Lagunitases into one thing. 

A revelation that Lagunitas Creek spilled into Big Carson creek that ended at Shafters, and another creek name was introduced at that junction. Daniels creek. I guess it didn’t last long before Daniels Creek succumbed to Papermill Creek. Who was Daniels anyway?

I always found it puzzling that some kids called San Geronimo Creek—Papermill Creek—as there was no papermill in the SGV. So renaming the Forest Knolls Lodge Papermill Creek Lodge is a weird misnaming that happened in the 1970s. It was always the FK Lodge, founded in 1907, when I was growing up in the 1960s.

I suspect June Berensmeyer, who, to the consternation of local valley folks, often muddled valley history, is ultimately the source for renaming the Inkwell as a plural entity.

According to my grandmother, the San Geronimo Valley, there were vernal pools from Flanders field and at the Woodacre turnoff, and at Dickson Ranch, and the Dougan/French Ranch, and on the back side of the golf course for starters. Even more pools during my grandmother's time. So we do come by the name fairly.

But I’d bet in Lagunitas Canyon there must have been another string of little lakes where the dams are now.

Steve said I read an article from the magazine Outdoor Monthly, 1875, I think, it’s on the SGV Stewards page, that describes hikers dropping into Lagunitas canyon from above and walking past the “little lakes”. If the name originated in Lagunitas canyon, and I believe it did, then it follows that the little lakes would be in the Lagunitas canyon. Our town of Lagunitas did not exist in the SGV as a place until much later so I feel that likely removes the valley from consideration for the location for the lakes. Pretty evident that names changed and moved from place to place. I think it key that we remember that Lagunitas canyon was the first place that held that name.

I said, Steve Tognini  yes, that story makes sense....except there were also many vernal pools, my granny loved seeing them from the train. And of course, she said that’s how Lagunitas got its name....
Some modern map resources on watersheds, since some people don't know their watersheds, or where their local creeks drain to:

http://www.marinwatersheds.org/resources/maps

Full-sized download, here: 33 megs, 6165x4904 pixels -- which works out to 16x20 inches if it were printed at 300 dpi.

From a Facebook post

VERB AND NOUN

While scanning old negatives

I accidentally reversed one, 

& then when I posted them, 

I was startled by a mirror image

heart made of granite and snow. 

So that's why his smile looked all wrong 

in the photo, because it was reversed.

A stranger was grimacing at me.

Maybe if I had seen the flip side, then,

I might have saved myself some grief.

I literally scaled mountain peaks—

even the heights of Machu Picchu with that man—

it was a short, fierce relationship, 

lasting only a few years, 

but it came with a lifetime sentence. 

Sometimes the sentence is all there is: 

all verb & noun. The temporalness of snow 

and the endurance of granite.

8/13/19 & 9/11/19

Tule elk and eco-justice warriors rant

A half-baked opinión piece posing as journalism published in the Fresno Bee and the Sacramento Bee plays on sentiment and manipulates emotions through half-truths, or half-lies, depending upon whether your cup is half empty, or half full. People will read the article on the culling of a handful of Point Reyes tule elk will just assume it's a well researched story, when in fact, it's an incitement, armed with half-facts and partial truths.

This kind of exploitative journalism is exactly why we were all so concerned when Kevin Lunny's Drake's Bay Oyster Farm (formerly Johnson's Oyster Farm) came under scrutiny by eco-justice warriors, and it snowballed into an imbroglio with the NPS and the GGNRA falsifying bogus scientific reports to prove their claims.

Once DBOF went down for the count, in 2012, we knew it was merely a matter of time when the ranchers would be next. Few people remember that the ranchers are the key reason why there’s even a park in the first place. Not only that, the ranchers were assured that they could preserve their way of life via leases. Looks like there will be a trail of more broken promises ahead.  Kind of like Trump stomping on our national parks. Welcome to the future where missionary zealots from afar, armed with half-truths, and fabrications, are hell-bent on changing our county to fit their ideals.

FWIW, yes there were once tule elk in Marin, BUT these transplanted elk are from Tejon Ranch in SoCal. The native elk also once had predators but we've removed them from the conversation. So if we destroy the dairy ranches—we also kill Stornetta-Clover, and Straus dairies. Ironic in that Albert Staus' mother also founded MALT to preserve the West Marin ranches. She’d be rolling over in her grave.

Just out of curiosity, how many of the eco justice warriors were there to protest the NPS slaughter of Old Man Ottinger’s imported white deer, and fallow deer to make room for the tule elk? When I was a child we used to go out and visit him and all his animals. One time we camped out at Wildcat Beach and there were white bucks in the moonlight. Magical.

See Oystergate

Here’s the article in question.

"Feds plan to kill elk at Point Reyes to protect ranches. Here’s why they might start killing tule elk at Pt. Reyes
New legislation may give the National Park Service authority to kill tule elk so dairy cows can graze at Point Reyes National Seashore.
The majestic tule elk that lock antlers and lazily graze on the hillsides beside the Pacific Ocean are a popular attraction for visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County.
There’s just one problem: the elk in an area of the park known as Drakes Beach are eating too much grass, taking feed from the cattle that are grazing the family farms and ranches that have been in business inside the park’s boundaries for decades, well before the park was owned by the federal government.
The feds now plan to shoot a few of the elk each year to reduce the conflict with ranchers — a move that infuriates some environmental groups who’d rather see the cattle operations gone from the park.
On Thursday, the National Park Service opened up its draft environmental documents for 45 days of public comment. According to the documents, the government’s preferred plan is to limit the Drakes Beach herd to 120 adult animals.
If the plan was in place today, that would mean the Park Service would kill around four adult elk, since at the end of 2018, the Drakes Beach herd was made up of an estimated 124 total animals.
But due to the rapidly expanding size of the Drakes Beach herd, which grew to 112 animals in 2017 from 76 in 2014, the Park Service estimates that as many as 10 to 15 adult elk would likely be shot annually, the venison to be donated to local charities.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Park Service has conducted a cull of antlered animals inside the park, outraging the animal rights activists who are a powerful force in the Bay Area.
In 2008, the park hired a wildlife management company to kill a herd of hundreds of nonnative fallow and axis deer that had been living on the park for decades and were competing with the native tule elk.
Opponents put up a “wailing wall” at park headquarters. Around the park and nearby towns, activists hung “wanted” posters featuring a photo of owner of the sharpshooting operation. They also hired helicopters to harass the gunners during their aerial sharpshooting operations.
Point Reyes spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said Thursday that the Park Service wouldn’t need to go to extremes under this plan. Park employees would likely kill a few elk at various times throughout the year, carefully selecting their targets for a proper ratio of males and females to ensure the herd stays viable.
Other alternatives
The Park Service ruled out other alternatives to limit the elk population as being impracticable or unsafe, according to the documents.
The Park Service nixed using contraceptives on the elk or sterilizing them, saying it would be too labor intensive, expensive, the drugs aren’t very effective and handling the animals to administer drugs or perform surgeries would put the elk under dangerous stress.
Moving the elk also is out of the question because some Point Reyes elk are infected with the microbes that cause Johne’s Disease. Because of the risk of infecting other livestock and wildlife, state wildlife authorities wouldn’t allow them to be moved to new habitat outside the park, the documents say.
Bringing in recreational hunters to shoot the elk was deemed too impracticable. Due to safety concerns, the park would have to invest too much staff time and resources to train hunters and conduct a hunt safely, the documents say.
The documents outline a range of other alternatives to address the conflict between elk and livestock, including eliminating the dairies and ranches outright, and Point Reyes spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said the park is open to suggestions during the comment period.
Tule elk are North America’s smallest elk species (though males can top 800 pounds), and are only found in California. Once numbering close to 500,000 animals, they were nearly hunted to extinction during the Gold Rush. Thanks to reintroduction efforts such as the one on Point Reyes, there are now 21 herds totaling 3,800 animals in the Central Coast and the Central Valley.
In the early 2000s, groups of tule elk moved into the farms in the Drakes Beach area after splitting off from another herd that roams the park’s wilderness area. In total, more than 600 elk roam the seashore in three separate groups, whose numbers have steadily climbed since a handful were released to the park in 1978.
A liberal congressional ally
While killing elk to keep ranchers happy outrages environmentalists such as the Center for Biological Diversity, keeping the livestock operations in the park has strong support from the region’s congressman, Rep. Jared Huffman, a top environmental advocate in Congress.
Huffman argues that the ranchers are a key reason why there’s a park at Point Reyes in the first place, preventing that part of the Pacific Coast from being devoured by urban sprawl.
In the 1960s, Congress passed a law that paid the original landowning families $50 million for their properties. The ranchers were allowed to lease them back and keep working their acres.
Currently, two dozen dairy and ranching families have leases on the national seashore and on the adjacent Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is also managed by the Park Service. In total, agriculture takes up about 28,000 acres – around a third of the federal parkland.
“From the very beginning, Congress talked about this as ‘the pastoral zone,’” Huffman told The Bee last year. “It was always envisioned as this mosaic (of land use), to preserve the character of what was there. It was partially agriculture. It was partially wild lands and wilderness. That’s what parks do. They preserve this.”
Gunn, the Point Reyes spokeswoman, says a final decision is likely to be made early next year, and, barring lawsuits or other challenges, officials could begin shooting the elk before the end of 2020.

Granite heart (photos)

An accident while scanning negatives last night, I reversed one, and when I loaded them onto FB, I was surprised to see the images made a heart of granite and snow. I also realized the reason why John's smile looked all wrong, because it was reversed! It was as if a stranger was grimacing at me.Maybe if I had seen the mirror image, then, I might have saved myself some grief. I literally scaled mountain peaks—even the heights of Machu Picchu—with this man. It was a short, fierce relationship, it lasted only a few years, but came with a lifetime sentence. But sometimes the sentence is all there is: verb and noun. The temporalness of snow and the endurance of granite. We had decided to forego following the trail (we don't need no stinkin' trails) and traversed a narrow bridge from one summit to the next, a "Thank God" ledge no wider than our feet, we inched along the crest of a sheer wall, I was terrified. Even Edwin Drummond had never taken me out on a ledge like this. I nearly fell off that mountain because I forgot to hug the wall with my hips. John reached over and shoved my ass back to the wall. I hugged that wall with my hips for all I was worth. I damned near made love to that blasted rock face and lived to tell the tale. I'm not too sure what happened to my pants. I seem to be wearing only longjohns. Awkward family photo mpment. Desolation Wilderness, near Echo Summit, 1986. Pyramid Peak stands at 9,984′, but soon it will be 10,000'. The Sierra Nevadas are young mountains still growing.

RIP John Oliver Simon. Gone little over a year. I still miss him. (John was Ansel Adams's cousin—scaling mountains was in the bloodline).

Broken homes do not create mass murderers

Broken homes do not create mass murderers, letter to a 2nd cousin who is a Republican

I was raised without a father. Or a mother, for that matter. And I’m hardly intellectually disabled. I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to go out and massacre a bunch of people! Broken homes do not necessarily make criminals or assassins. The shooters are young white males who support the far right, not the far left. And they seem to all be racist. And while you’re painting things in stark generalizations, most liberals, myself included, do not advocate taking guns away from everyone.

But assault rifles do not belong in the hands of the general populace. There should be background checks before someone purchases a gun. There should be gun licenses. The mentally unstable should not be allowed to buy guns. And someone buying a lot of ammo should raise red flags somewhere. Just common sense. Americans make up 4.4% of the world’s population, yet own 42%of the world’s guns? That’s not the second amendment, that’s stockpiling for Armageddon.

Clearly making a generalization that terrorists come from broken homes is far too simple an explanation. Many of these shooters are not from broken homes, and were raised in a traditional households. Of course, the other absurd extreme is that video gaming creates these terrorists. But only in America. Nowhere else....

Time would be better spent by looking at ways to regulate gun control. The root cause is not fatherless sons. But racism seems to be the main motivating factor. Teaching tolerance would be a place to start. Many feel that gun ownership should be like owning a car—with a license, insurance, registration, etc. that’s a start. But how do we even begin get guns out fo the hands of those who are irresponsible, crazy, etc., that’s the real dilemma.

The Love Shack of J Alfred Prufrock.

I have dyslexia & often misread things— delighting my sense of the absurd. Today's misread: The Love Shack of J Alfred Prufrock. A former student, Heather, said, Now that they’ve rebooted Cats, I see no reason not to do an Eliot/B-52's mashup on Broadway. "I've heard the mermaids singing, each to each---TIIIIIIIN ROOF! Rusted!" Would definitely buy tickets.

Meow. Sure beats seeing Hamilton.

Synchronous photo shoot on the Petaluma River (photos)

Sinead & I wasting time in a floating Gazebo. Sande Anfang  photo

I was surprised to find this photo on Facebook posted by a poet friend, because I had simultaneously taken a photo of her in the boat as well, neither of us knowing that we knew each other. Small world. What a strange and delightful gift to find on Facebook. Zero degrees of separation.

I posted a comment beneath her photo of us: Sande Anfang.That was me in the gazebo. What are the chances of us meeting in the middle of the Petaluma River like that, each taking a photo of the other without knowing that we knew each other, only to find ourselves posted on Facebook, after the fact? What are the chances?

Sande said: Oh! So cool, Mo! I couldn't see very well. Sun was in my eyes. My friends take their little boat out all the time. Such a blast! It's tough to take focused pictures in the wind and water, everything moving.

I said, We thought to ask you for a lift, just because.... I'm bummed my camera didn't focus. Most pix I took today, I wound up tossing all of them. Yeah, it was one of those days where my camera said Nope nope nope. I need a new camera.

Sande Anfang headed towards Petaluma. Maureen Hurley photo

Sinead and I had been ingloriously unhomed, after the methhead drove his truck into the living room of the Nicasio house on the 4th of July. So we had odd bits of time on our hands, both of us experiencing PTSD from the accident, so we revisited old haunts, seeking some sort of equilibrium and balance. Not much stability on a floating gazebo—more like a rocking bed—like the beds we had to flee three weeks ago. I guess the world is our bed now. No turning back to what once was. A portion of our life has ended. So that day in the gazebo was a little bit of magic, a waiting room while we waited to see what the future would bring.

• Post Truck Stress Disorder
• Happy 4th of July like no other

SUMMER CACOPHONY

Two stray goats—a wide nanny
with one on the way and a kid at her side—

wandered up the country road at dusk. 

The lost goats, looking for home,
were bleating at the front door, 

and the roosting chickens, 

never having seen goats before,

were losing their minds in an uproar,
leaving me to wonder which team won
the chicken nightmare contest:
The resident bobcat or the stray goats?

7/23/19

WAR'S END (3 days after Hiroshima)

What happened to pilot Major Charles Sweeney
after he dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki?
Did he think he could turn the B-29 Silverplate bomber,

Bockscar, around in the wild blue yonder, then fly back
on empty to Tinian, largest airbase in the world,

as if nothing had happened? After all, he'd practiced
13 trial runs, and 3 dress rehearsals. Shame to waste all that....

The Great Artiste wasn't ready, so he swapped planes.

Ground crew warned him the reserve fuel pump was bad.

The mission was moved up two days because of a typhoon.

Nearing the 11th hour, mad Sweeney circled three times

looking for a gap in the clouds, but he was low on fuel,

so his original target, Kokura, with its venerable castles
obscured by clouds, was spared to live another day.
A fuel pump sealed the fate of Japan's window to the world.
Nagasaki, home of M. Butterfly, became the hired wife, Plan B.

Tapping the fuel gauge, Sweeney ignored orders. Flying blind,
he could've aborted, but he bombed Nagasaki anyway,
when it appeared through a curtain of clouds like a mirage.

Looking over his shoulder, the pilot who leveled Nagasaki,

saw an iridescent lightning-infused cloud rising 
faster than Hiroshima, more intense, more angry, 
at once breathtaking and ominous.

Unable to reach Iwo Jima, he crash-landed

on Yontan Field, in Okinawa, both engines, dead. 

The plane hovered on the edge of the cliff like a tired gull.

An officer shouted, You fucked up, didn't you, Chuck?

Another said We had the wrong guy flying the plane.
Even Enola Gay's pilot Paul Tibbets went a little mad.

But Sweeney, who commanded the last atomic mission, 

maintained to his dying day that he'd made the right decision.
I took no pride or pleasure in the brutality of war, 

whether suffered by my people or those of another nation. 

Every life is precious. But I felt no remorse or guilt 

that I had bombed the city where I stood.

Did we also drop evacuation leaflets, like paper doves,

or was that another story of a story told after the fact?
After Tokyo, Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito said:
We must now bear the unbearable and endure the unendurable.
A hundred thousand gone. According to the Manhattan Project,
it was a smashing success. But Shiva was unleashed,
and a hundred thousand more burned from within.
The voices of the hibakusha sang a silent aria of grief.
Oppenheimer invoked Vishnu:
I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

No matter that the Japanese, already defeated, 

had surrendered, de facto. But we taught them

a lesson, not once, not twice, but three times

for Pearl Harbor. And we taught them again.

Again and again.

7/23/19

Published in the 2022 fall issue of 

War, Literature, & the Arts anthology (online)

Dept. of English & Fine Arts, 

United States Air Force Academy, Colorado

War, Literature & the Arts publication of War’s End

Cock o the Walk (photos)

Pele rarely stays still long enough for a portrait. He takes his job guarding the hens very seriously. He has several vocalizations: Juicy Food Here! Let's get laid, and Danger danger danger. The mangy bobcat nabbed some chickens. But not this year. The cock o the walk struts his stuff. Maybe we should call him Harry, or Hotspur. He has to carefully lift each leg over his own spur. Otherwise, he'd trip. The chickens have only each other to fear. Pecking order is the status quo.

Since the photo assignment was to focus "within walking distance." I took a rather laid-back approach and never left the hammock. As I lolled, I never before noticed that each chicken has a distinctive comb. Kind of like a fingerprint. Even their wattles are varied. Some are like dahlia petals. Others, like roses. 

My cousin once had a hen named Rosie who preferred to roost on the BBQ grill. She didn't get the joke. But her owner became a vegetarian. One hen has a deformed beak, don't let that fool you. She is savage when it comes to bugs and mice. But she is also the most personable. She listens intently when I croon to her. I speak imperfect cluck-cluck so she can't always make out the words. She always politely answers back.



The last bird is the same size and shape as a chicken but he is not a chicken. He is an impostor in death's clothing. I don't speak his language either. I am also not yet quite ripe enough. But he is extremely patient. Perhaps some day I will master his language. Hopefully, not too soon.

HOW TO GROW A PINEAPPLE

My granny decided to grow a plant 

from a pineapple top.
We said it would never root.
Well, it rooted.
Then we said it would never flower.
It flowered, not once, but twice.
We said it would never fruit.
Well, it fruited. Twice. For spite.
No idea what pollinated it.
We said the mini pineapplet would never mature.
It didn't. It withered on the vine.

Turned into a mummified pineapple.
But by then it was a standing family joke.

Seeking Robert Bruce Hamilton (again)

In the process of trying to track down my first true love, Robert Bruce Hamilton, wondering if he's even on this earth, I can't find a thing on the internet. It's strange in this day and age, not to have some sort of an internet presence. We've been hunting for Sweet Old Bob for seven long years now. Dulcie, was his first girlfriend, both before, during, and after—me (yes, you read that right—I met him after they broke up, then he left me, for her). At least we think he was a serial monogamist. What can I say, it was Marin, during the 1970s. We have been shaking down any leads we can find. No luck. Trying to track Robert Bruce Hamilton or Bob Hamilton is impossible, as it's such a common name.

I never expected to become friends with Dulcie, but she found me via the internet, in August, 2012, from a blog post I wrote on SoB, and she felt compelled to tell me her side of the story. Kindred soul. Our correspondence fell away after a few months, but we finally met at the end of 2016. Since then, our friendship has evolved in other directions—other than Bob, that is. Then the question inevitably arises: is he still alive?

Taking stock, old inventories of the past, blog list

It took a couple of years to get the bulk of my poems posted online, a lengthy process I began in 2015 (Updating Old Poems) when I thought I had lost almost all my work due to a computer glitch—outdated software turned my files into UNIX bricks. I was able to salvage most of my work but it was a process done in fits and spurts.

Then in 2017, I found several handwritten journal entries, and revised first drafts. I scanned and posted those below the poems, so it's been a poetic archaeology hunt. The early poems were not in electronic format, so transmuting them to text from a jpg became another huge project I took on last year when I got some OCR software.

Salvaging the past seems to be an annual summer project. Taking old inventories as it were. I still hold out a dim hope that I'll find more work for the weak years: 2006 (19) 2005 (18) 1999 (21) 1978 (22). (Numbers have gone up by 1-3, not much, 2022). Only way to salvage those years is to find long lost notebooks. But we've come a long way, indeed.

Lately I'm collecting what little artwork I have left, and I've created a separate blog for that. The blog has a long way to go and is riddled with gaping holes. Sadly, my early drawing portfolios were turned into pulp during the winter of 2015. And few photos of my ceramics have emerged, I think that chapter of my life is forever gone—except for a few stray pieces that survived the odds. Makes me sad as I had taken slides for a portfolio. I've already scanned all my old slides, so unless I misplaced the ceramics slides in Forestville, it's a lost cause.

Maureen Hurley Art

Then there's my photography. Most of my people photos are posted on Google Photos, and I've sent links out to the pertinent people. But I'm woefully behind on uploading my landscapes. I probably should make another blog of a few of my best photos, but I want to find a different format for them (and my art) than Blogger. Right now they're just placeholders. I did this then—sort of thing. Google Photos is merely a storage locker, as no one can see them, sans link. So that's not particularly useful for simple sharing. I miss Picasa. So much easier to share things.

Right now, I'm beginning to scan my B&W negatives from the 1980s and 1990s. No idea where I'll post them as I haven't found the right venue, other than Google Photos. Suggestions? I’ve created another blog for them.

Maureen Hurley photos (added 2022)

The photos from the Russian River Writers' Guild, I'll eventually post photos on the blog I made last year. Lots of famous poets! We are missing most Open Hug flyers for 1985, and we are missing flyers from 1987 onward to the last reading. It still needs the final years of Obligatory Hug when we moved to Johnny Otis's cafe. I don't have copies. Wonder who does?

Russian River Writers' Guild

I can't even get into the blog I made for Marianne Ware in 2010, which is maddening, as I now have new photos to share on that blog.

Marianne Ware Memorial Page

St. Vincent’s School for Boys

Don Timeteo Murphy, from Wexford, Ireland, while on his deathbed with appendicitis, bequeathed 317 acres to the first archbishop of San Francisco—on a dare, to build an orphanage for boys who lost their family from cholera (it was called an orphan asylum), and the stipulation was to have it up and running within two years—or forfeit the land. So Alemany called in the nuns— namely Sister Frances McEnnis. Fellow Wexfordian, James Miller helped to build it. Miller was also a benefactor of St.Vincent's School, lending the school his labor, timber resources, and financial support in its earliest years.

St. Vincent's RC, 1855 - 1924, Orphan Asylum

"The lumber and supplies were hauled by ox team and Mr. Miller and a Mr. Kirk built the building. The school was completed and named St.Vincent’s Seminary, the name of the patron saint of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul." —Dixie Schoolhouse (dead link)

On January 7, 1855, St. Vincent's School for boys opened its doors—“to aid in the establishment of a seminary or institution of learning.”

"On his deathbed, San Rafael land grantee Timothy Murphy promised 317 acres of land to Joseph Alemany, the first Archbishop of San Francisco. But as with any good Irishman, there was a catch to Murphy’s offer: the acreage would revert back to Murphy’s heirs unless a school was operating on the premises within two years. And as often happens, the best man for the job was . . . a woman. At the time, however, Sister Frances McEnnis was living with the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

According to A Mission That Endures: A History of St. Vincent’s School for Boys by Peter Rudy, when notified by Archbishop Alemany that the Sisters of Charity were needed to care for children orphaned by a recent cholera plague, Sister McEnnis and a small band of nuns agreed to make the hazardous trip and immediately headed west. After a grueling cross-country journey, they raised the necessary funds and made sure the school was open for students on January 1, 1855—beating Murphy’s deadline by ten days. As for naming the school, Sister McEnnis reached back to her roots: it would be called St. Vincent’s.

THE LONG RACE

THE LONG RACE

My childhood heroes were full of horses,
Tonka Toy horses, not Barbie dolls or action figures.
I was crazy about horses,
especially Secretariat and Seabiscuit.
I grew up with a lithograph
of the Irish horse, Arkle, on the wall.

When my grandmother wasn’t looking, 

I’d trace around the edges of his nostrils
with a red pencil, as if to breathe life into his portrait.
He glowed like the fairy horses of the Otherworld.

My grandmother noticed, but never said a thing.
I could recite a litany of pedigrees,
bloodlines, jockeys, and stables. Willie Shoemaker.
Whose lineage traced back to Native Dancer,
War Admiral, Three Bars, Man O War—

right on back to the founding sires, 

those hot-blooded desert horses with English names, 

the Godolphin, the Darley, the Byerley Turk.
But I couldn’t keep up in school, always the last to finish,
with heart pounding as if it were about to burst.
That moveable feast, the finish line, was ever out of reach.
I was unbelievably fast, a sprinter, no one could catch me,
I was Of the Cloak, that foundation mare of the desert winds,
running from fear, running from life, until there was nowhere left to go.

But I was given a plug mare who taught me perseverance, 

when she died, I was given a red Three Bars mare, a sprinter,
the fastest horse in the valley. It was like riding a barrel
on a stormy sea when she leapt into the void.
Those horses were my teachers. When the gates opened,
I found I could stay the distance, eight furlongs,
head to head, then twelve, neck to neck.

The invisible crowd cheering as I crossed the finish line.

And then there were roses bleeding on the ground.

7/12/19

For you, John, I wrote this poem today 

in a Petaluma parking lot 

while the wildfires ravaged the sky 

until it was the color of imprisoned amber.

The sun was an angry baleful eye

and we sipped the air carefully through masks

wondering if the world would end in ashes.

Where are you these days, John? Geoffrey Davis mentions you from time to time. (I have no idea who I was writing to. Not Rambling Jack Elliott. Probably to John Watts, whose thoroughbred racehorse, Ceres, I used to sometimes ride—with his sister, Joan. With whom he isn't speaking.)

Do not paint down historic WPA mural. This is not 1930s Germany or 1917 Russia.

Do not paint down historic WPA mural at George Washington High School. This is not 1930s Germany or 1917 Russia. This is censorship. Golda Meir once said, “One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” In a toxic move to be politically correct, it seems we’re doing just that. Erasing inconvenient truths in order to feel good.

In an alarming trend to be "politically correct", school boards are whitewashing the past. Last month a Marin Co. school board expunged the name of historic Dixie School, though its founders did not support the Confederacy during the Civil War. 

The latest attempt to change California's past is to remove an historic WPA mural at George Washington High School in San Francisco—for depicting an historic truth. What's next? Grace Cathedral and Coit Tower WPA murals?

And the censorship continues an alarming trend. Why destroy the historic mural? Why not put panels over it? 600k to paint it over? really?

SFUSD thinks it will cost more than that—and they don't care. I guess house painters are very expensive these days. More expensive than hiring a fantastic muralista, say, Juana Alicia, to paint an alternative mural that would create a dialogue with Dewey Crumpler's rebuttal mural, on whiteboard, to protect Victor Arnautoff's original WPA-era mural.

The problem is that we are artistically illiterate, unable to understand allegory, or symbolism. The role of art is to instruct, to teach, not lull us into complacency. We take everything at face value. We don't want to actually think, or have to decode the message embedded within the art. That's why the inane decorative plastic arts that plague us everywhere, is mistaken for art. Students can't see that the mural is highly critical of our sappy rendition of our history, and of George Washington, who, apparently owned slaves. I didn't know that, did you?

Zana Darrow brilliantly noted that the monochromatically painted frontiersmen were depicted as soulless. And they were ruthless—especially the Mountain Men, Kit Carson and John C. Frémont—who mercilessly killed natives as they journeyed to California. That depiction is correct. So we want to hide this ugly chapter of history?

"The artwork on the walls of George Washington High School in San Francisco painted by a WPA artist Victor Arnautoff, exposed the hypocrisy of American History and that is not being seen or understood by those trying to remove and paint over the past.

“The murals represent social history. They provide an inclusive and truthful history… Removing them represents censorship as well as a reactionary moment in time,” an unidentified commenter said. “What I do recommend is that the school board establishes a multimedia display... that indicates the complexity and contradictions of George Washington [and] the extraordinary history of Victor Arnautoff.”

The mural depicts a historic, if harsh truth, Anglos treated the natives and Latinos badly. we should whitewash that out of history? —Change.org

Of course art is political. And people no longer know how to read art or understand the juxtaposition of symbolism. They’re artistically illiterate and don’t want to take the time to actually see what’s going on. They don’t want to actually have to think. They say, oh, it’s pretty, it’s decorative, I like it. Oh, it’s negative, I hate it. A fallout of our consumerist society where we call the decorative arts art, and I don’t mean art for art’s sake.

Post Truck Stress Disorder

Interesting, any abrupt noise, like the motel maid’s cart banging on the wall next door has me hanging ten from the ceiling. Reptile brain in action. Yes. I’m feeling very depressed today... palpable, visceral. Someone says that I have Post Truck Stress Disorder. I hope my PTSD lessens, I was in the room directly above the truck's hood. It slammed the house at about 70MPH, the bed absorbed most of the shock, but I was launched out of bed. Just glad there were no flying projectiles. I could've been a shiskabob.

I drove north to take care of my friend's plants, housesitting, and conked out. I never nap. Some 4th of July fireworks! I’ve another place I can stay in Sebastopol with a friend but I need a Forest Knolls couch too...Barbara Scott said I could stay with her a few nights.

Spent the first two days sorting and tossing splintered beams, and yesterday picking up wood fragments and glass. The wood was pulverized in some cases. I actually managed to sort the three woodpiles and toss the splintered wood. I filled five large trashcans. Still a lot of small wood fragments and glass to pick up. it will be months...the wiring has been severed for half the house.

Eating actual meals has been an iffy concept. It’s been mostly shove something in the piehole, on the run. First meal since the 4th, French toast. Almost pie. We’re holed up in a motel. I am really tired today. Wow. First downtime. Just a little adrenaline? Yesterday I was as turfy as Rocky Grazziano!

4th of July party crasher

Eating actual meals has been an iffy concept. Its been mostly shove something in the piehole, on the run. First meal since the 4th, French toast. Almost pie. But my digestive skydives give system is on lockdown.

I haven’t talked about the elephant in the living room. Namely, how a Petaluma man named James Reisenhoover, who, apparently was having a little private party of his own while driving back from the Graton Casino, then missed the Petaluma turn-off, and managed to drive  all the way to Nicasio, to ram a brand new Titan truck through my cousins’ living room at 4:56 AM on the 4th of July. We’re still in fight-flight syndrome. Unfortunately, writing this is like reconstructive surgery. So I’ll lift comments from my Facebook posts and see what happens.

Nothing quite like waking up to an explosion beneath the bed and. an  engine revving in the living room.  That was some AM wake up call. Replete with a bed ejector button. Dude should've just knocked at the door, instead of almost knocking the fucking house down. I guess he didn’t like all my cousin’s potted flowers and tchotchkes on the front steps. WTF, why is he on his phone? Who you gonna call at 5 AM? Perhaps a 911 call would’ve been more appropriate? at least the Marin County fire department was on it.

The little cat is still so freaked out. We think he was on the couch that the truck hit, that launched across the crowded room, which also  launched small items about 6 to 8 feet forward...like Sinead’s wine glass! Monster is still so skittish. Definitely has PTSD. will hardly even eat, and he’s a chow hound. Gives me tiny wrist kisses. Sinead’s scitzy cat  Ceilidh, on the other hand, who normally can’t tolerate humans, and this thing they do called petting, wants pets and reassurance from the firemen. Go figure.

It was a four fire department event, Nicasio, Woodacre, Hick’s Valley, and Novato all turned up, plus lots of first responders, three CHPS, two sheriffs. A real block party. Shout out to the Marin County Fire Department and First Responders who went well above and beyond the call of duty, and came back and shored up my cousins’ house. Jeremy from Nicasio FD, Matt from Hick's Valley FD, and John from Woodacre FD. And to all the handsome young firefighters who are the next generation of firefighters. And to the CHP, and the Marin County Sheriffs... you all rock. And to Stephen Sproul ❤



I keep thinking What if. The live electrical wires had touched the truck—as the water was geysering. So glad I put my rubber-soul shoes on. Angels in the outfield.

More cleanup is ahead. Soothing the cats, telling them it’s OK, is also on the list My fingertips are raw and sliced from picking up so much splintered wood and glass. Picked up more glass and exploded wood fragments yesterday, cleaned and culled three woodpiles on the 4th and 5th. Filled five trash cans with tightly packed beams and fragments, so much more glass to go.... pruned and propped up the remaining 75 year old heritage rose. Tried to salvage the other one ripped out of the ground.. You really can’t pick up glass fragments in garden gloves.

Angels in the outfield

 

PTSD

 

Earthquakes in the Mojave desert flush out the Facebook Bible belters

CNN posted a story about the Searles Lake/Ridgecrest earthquakes. Ok, so 7.1 is definitely big, but not unheard of. What gets me is the collective hatred in biblical proportions unleashed towards California that manifests in the Facebook comments.

Yeah, makes me wonder why don’t all these so-called Christians actually do something useful, like donate to a disaster charity?

#science fergawdsakes. The sheer collective ignorance unveiled on that thread is astounding. Didn’t they learn anything about geography or geology or plate tectonics in school? How do they think mountain ranges are created? By plate tectonics. Ostriches are smarter, they don’t actually bury their heads in the sand.

Christ didn’t sit back in an easy chair with his beer and remote control in hand, and pray for those sinners during the 6 O’clock news. He was all about action. Boots on the ground. Action. He didn’t go around posting passive aggressive snide comments about repentance, sin and prayer on Facebook. Prayer should be a private contemplation. Not something broadcast like a commodity. It’s not a celestial stock market.

What’s with all these so-called Christians claiming an odd petty moral superiority via prayer, saying California deserves earthquakes and natural disasters because we Californians are somehow less deserving of life than they are? So many tiny minds at work, it’s frightening. That’s the real antichrist in action. Right there. No matter that California has been experiencing earthquakes for millions of years. Gawd forbid, don’t let logic in.

Long before the so-called Christians invaded these shores, the Ohlone Indians had a saying, that California was dancing on the brink of the world. They were referring to earthquakes. Earthquakes are how the extraordinary landscapes are formed. Tectonic plates subducting and shoving up mountain ranges, creating magma zones are all part of the process.

#science matters.

Happy 4th of July like no other

Well, now, the 4th had some seriously heavy duty plans for us, kicking us out of bed at 5 AM, when a  brand new Nissan Titan truck drove through the front door of my cousin’s historic house and took out the 150 year old picture window.

Firemen from Nicasio, Novato, Hick's Valley, and Woodacre Fire Departments responded blocking of the road on both sides, then, after the truck was pulled from the door frame, they came back and shored up the porch and support beams, and foundation. Foundation and the main corner support beams holding up the house are compromised.

The house is 150 years old so everything is hand-milled, non standard sized wood. Hand-made nails. Redwood older than the concept of Christ. But the firemen are adapting, going over to the firehouse by the Rancho Nicasio and raiding their woodpiles to find big enough struts to make this so.

Meanwhile, Ceilidh, the crazy cat, who normally won't let anyone near her on a good day, is asking for pets from the firemen. We found little Monster, a rescue cat, holed in Sinead's closet, scared out of his mind, he's still a baby kitty in an almost grown-up cat's body. Every little movement or noises sends him back into the linen closet. I think he was on the couch sleeping when the truck launched it across the room. How do you even begin to explain PTSD to a cat?

Front of the house is wide open (talk about open house!) and cats are not interested in escaping....LOL. Usually they're making a beeline for the front door. But all the tourists, seeing the fence down, and all the activity, think it’s a store and want to know what it is we’re selling. I’m rather cross with all the looky-loos and tell them to contact the county to at least put a caution sign and rumble strips up. Fix the road. What will it take, one of us getting killed?

Marin County Fire Department totally rocks! ❤ May the 4th be with you.

Stomach bug flattened me so I scanned photos instead

Advil. Check. Headache gone. Check. Tea. Breakfast. Check. I can do this. Check. What a difference a "down" week makes. Even if I was sick the entire week, I still got some good scanning time in.

Some Facebook collections of my newly scanned photos include:
Chris Caswell
Utah Phillips and Doc Watson, Rosalee Sorrells
Jack Mueller, national poetry week
Boschka Layton, SSU reading
Paul Mariah
Glenn Ingersoll
Lucille Clifton, Elizabeth Herron
Michael Daley
Poetry Flash event QR Hand, Sharon Doubiago
CPITS retreat Noyo River 1985
Edwin Drummond
Peter Capp
Cal Davis
Brownie Mary, Tony Serra
My family, Feather River 
Kitty Ward funeral 
Wake
My 30th birthday
My grandmother

Political Pendulum

Sodden thought—in Lincoln's era, I would've voted Republican because of civil rights—they were considered radical liberals and believed in social welfare for all. But the Democrats were still firmly stuck in the antibellum era. Mostly Southern slave owners. Filibusters, and 3/5 vote for African Americans. But women didn't have the vote until June 4,1919. Happy centennial anniversary for the passing of the19th Amendment. Now the Democrats are perceived as the liberals promoting too much social welfare. How far the pendulum has swung.

VIRAL HAIKU

Ice cream is what's for dinner.
Fever finally broke but walking
is a surreal experience.

Slept all afternoon.
Yesterday I was so tired
I dozed off in the car.

Isn't it lovely to contemplate
ice cream for dinner and have no guilt?
Remorse, maybe later.

Maybe that wasn't such a bright idea.
Ice cream is hitting my lower gut
with a renewed vengeance.

Historic Dixie School District to lose its name

In a reference to Nazi Germany, novelist George Orwell wrote, in his science fiction novel, 1984: Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. In an alarming trend to be "politically correct" replete with an Orwellian twist, school boards are intent on whitewashing the past. In June, a Marin County school board voted to expunge the name of a school, the school district, which includes the historic one-room Dixie School building, now a museum, though its founder, pioneer James Miller, did not support the Confederacy during the Civil War. It's an odd case of guilt by association.

The man who founded the school ca. 1862, rancho owner, Irishman, James Miller had a right-hand foreman who was a Coast Miwok named Dixie, whose wife was Mary Dixie. Miller, who had also adopted two Coast Miwok children, XXXX named the school after her, Hence the name Dixie School, or so one story goes.

Wilfred A. Lang, painter (1915-1994)

in progress....

from the  The Wilfred A. Lang Gallery 

My growing collection of Wilfred A. Lang notes from my previous post, suggests another post entry is needed. So little information on him on the internet. Where to even begin, when my imperfect memories gathered in youth, imperfectly recollected and transposed now that I'm older that dirt, makes this more of an act of fiction than anything else.

A defunct Angelfire site was the only decent reference I could find on Wilfred. (No I'm not referring to the Shanghai artist, born in 1954, who cranks out dreadful urban landscapes and sailboats with a palate knife and a fan brush.) Wilfred A. Lang was a complex artist, a student of Robert Stackpole, who worked in complex layers, his imagery embellishing a mythos to ordinary subjects.

I knew Wilfred’s first wife Betty—who was like a second mother to me, and four of his children, and the infamous Sausalito Hoffmans.

Wilfred was always larger than life. As kids, we were terribly excited whenever he came to visit Pat & Betty Wall. I remember him, grizzled, and laden with massive turquoise and silver jewelry, and his haughty second wife, Marcia, in her long flowing skirts, and aquiline nose, who walked like a goddess. She very much resembled her portrait that hung above the daybed in the living room.

That colorful full-length abstract portrait that Wilfred gave to Betty mesmerized me. I always thought it odd that he gave Betty a painting of his next wife, who left him soon after. But the full-length portrait was gorgeous. As a child, I stared at it for hours on end, following the intricate ghost calligraphy embroidered on the painting.

I didn't know of Wilfred's Sonoma County presence until I began this post. I'm sitting here writing this blog post a stone's throw from where he built a house in Mays Canyon. Wilfred was friends with Bernard Zachaim, and also stayed at Marguerute Wiildenhain's Pond Farm, in Guerneville. So he also had Bauhaus connections as Walter Gropius was a frequent visitor to Pond Farm as well.

Sonoma County supported a thriving artist colony. After McCarthyism raised its ugly head, many artists, writers, and especially the Jewish movie industry folks fled the urban jungles for a country life, raising chickens. When the bottom of chicken nest fell out, and chicken farming couldn't compete with agribusiness, the fallow chickensheds morphed into artist studios. It was odd to see a portion of a movie backdrop incorporated into a chickenshed. 

Polish-born deep Leftist, Bernard Zacheim (1896-1985), a student of Diego Rivera, painted the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. He co-founded the San Francisco Artists and Writers Union, which supported artists viafederally funded arts program during the Great Depression. The Public Works of Art Project, funded Zakheim's work on Coit Tower. Zacheim moved to Sonoma County, first to Mayes Canyon, a pocket canyon near Guerneville, and later, to a Sebastopol apple orchard. 

Several artists fleeing the confines city, joined him, Wilfred Lang, among them. I would love to know more about that era, Zacheim was always a presence at art openings, but both he and his daughter Masha, who documented the WPA mural movement are both gone now. Perhaps his son, Nathan, a mural restorer, might have some oral history of that era to share. Wilfred’s eldest son Pete, wrote a comprehensive biography, which I’ve posted below in the notes. At one point, I will weave them in with my notes.

NOT DONE

Giving back old photos

Scanning old photos and trying to date them always conjured up the most unlikely of memories. Like the photos I took of Pete Lang in Park City, near Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island in 1981. I never expected to find his daughters on Facebook when I posted some old photos on my friend Micaela Wall's page. It was such a magical time for me hanging out with Pete's family. I always adored Pete, I knew him since I was a child. Almost as long as I've known Micaela. She was called Miranda in those days. Pete was her step-brother. He mooned after her while she mooned after his handsome younger brother, Stan—a wild one with hair slicked back like James Dean. Those New Mexico boys by way of Sausalito, with their tall boots and tooled leather belts, seeking distant horizons, got under the skin like fine desert sand. I was always the one left out of the moon's capricious equations. Pete saw me as the little kid down the road. Sometimes he'd drop by to visit my granny and me in Forest Knolls after Micaela's dad, Pat Wall, sold the house moved north to Fort Bragg. Pete was living in a trailer on the headlands by the botanical garden. Paradise on earth. I've an early memory of Pete leaning against our sawhorse, by the woodpile, playing his Martin guitar. He left town, became a spy, joined the CIA, or was it the FBI? The Lang brothers went the way of lost cowboys in search of a one-horse townor a horizon that just wouldn't settle. Maybe it was the high desert winds spurring them on. But they couldn't stay still in any one place for long. We ran into each other in BC, by then Pete was married, with two daughters, but the wife was stepping out with the mayor on the side. It broke my heart. We lost touch. They moved to Florida where he built wooden boats, got divorced. Last I heard, he was in Galveston, Texas, working as a private eye, probably to be closer to his father, the Bohemian sculptor / painter Wilfred. Stan sailed off to the Virgin Islands became a carpenter, and met death by bottle on the old plank road. I eventually got a Martin guitar too, but I could never play it like that. Pete gave me some folk songbooks too—which I still have. Back copies of Sing Out!, a little Woody Guthrie, some Baez, but no Dylan. But I never could play those songs without remembering Pete bending over his guitar, head canted as if he were ciphering a story from those whispering guitar strings.

JUNE GLOOM

Winter blankets back on the bed.
Eyeing my folded flannel sheets
will not warm my feet.

Revising old Facebook posts: Ebbe Borregaard, Stephen Torre & John Haines

An old Facebook fragment also written on a dreary Saturday, in 2013, evolved into a memoir piece of sorts, Woodbutchers and carpenter poets: Remembering John Haines, Stephen Torre, and Ebbe Borregaard. Six years later, I still haven't found out much about those poets. They seem to predate the internet, as it were, and were obscure enough poets, that no one has taken up the torch to post their work online, or to mention them on blog pages. They were my teachers. And here I am, still wondering about those poets on this grey misty morning, mid June. I sometimes revisit my FB memory lane pages to see if there's a fragment of writing I might have missed or that that I might want to add to my blog. Mostly dross. But every so often, I find a fragment that's still compelling. I had already added my knee comments and fashioned them into a blog post, but not this first bit on Ebbe. Like Death, I stopped to fix a typo, and an hour later, I'm still revising it, hammering the nails into the memory coffin. Ya never know what will spark another bit of writing. I'm certainly the last to know. Typical. So, the question begs: is it a piece from 2013, or a new piece if it's extensively revised? Too OCD for my own good.

SHEET SWAP

Whenever I swap my flannel sheets 

for crisp summer ones, the weather changes—
damn near froze most of the night.

6/14/19

Flannel nights

Hot June nights. Time for the ritual to swap out my winter flannel sheets. Now watch, as soon as I do that, the weather will take a turn for the worse. Never fails. Whenever I swap out my flannel sheets for summer ones, the weather changes—damn near froze most of the night. Why do I always forget about June Gloom? This is as close as we get to rain these days. Fizzle drizzle. I managed to wear my summer nightie all of  3 times. Now it’s back to my flannels. I've been cold all day, I'm hopelessly dressed for summer, a sleeveless top and shorts, but my frozen feet are realists. We may be moving toward the Summer Solstice, but encouraged by an outbreak of Karl the Fog, the coast has its own ideas. I found some really nice extra roomy flannel nightgowns at the local Goodwill. I won’t be able to wear them for months but I’m very excited by the prospect. 

Feeling blue

Feeling a bit blue today—as if the light
at the end of the tunnel was closed
due to unforseen circumstances
& I'm left without a torch.

This sadness is palpable. I know it will pass, but when? One foot in front of the other. Trying to stay absolutely in the present tense, knowing this too shall pass, which helps. Sometimes I think it help to admit it, and then it's easier to let it go. I feel better now, more empowered, thanks to a core of Facebook friends. Better. Emerging. Slowly. Thank you. My litmus ones. My heart's core.

I edited some Tomales Bay pix, etc., and it got me out of my head for a few moments. Hanging out in bed today....much better today. So far. Absolutely hate it when this happens. So crippling. When I was a child I'd curl up somewhere and hide. Reading was my escape, or my horses. When it happens, I can barely do anything at all. Doesn't happen often, TG. A few times a year. A reading jag usually works. I understand it's all part of the process. The ups and downs. It's just so debilitating when it happens.

Form a Facebook post

Indus Arthur, Renaissance Pleasure Faire, photo, 1984

I posted some photos of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire on Facebook’s Lost Marin site. My post was wildly popular and soon I had hundreds of hits—and so many wonderful comments emerged as people began identifying each other, and sharing the post. I wanted to capture a slice of oral history so I asked people for their stories. One viewer took umbrage because I had asked people to tag themselves, or their friends on my posts. I asked, so that I could credit the Ren Faire actors, and also so they could have a copy of the photos for their own archives. Her rage—it toppled my house of cards. She started maligning me, calling me a stalker because I wanted people to share their stories.

In frustration, and dismay, I took the entire post down rather than leave the negativity up. Katelin Stuart said don’t rent space to them in your head. But it was too late. The reason why it was so distressing was that because for 35 long years those slides were locked away behind cellulose, never before seen by the world, and I was so excited to finally have a scanner that could scan those slides and negatives, and I thought Lost Marin would be the perfect venue to do a wild release of those photos... But Carrie Smith wanted to equally share my photos—while berating me, the photographer, for wanting to know performers' names, and of their Ren Faire stories... Kill the messenger.

Indus Arthur, Renaissance Pleasure Faire, Agoura, CA, 1984

The photo that set off the imbroglio was of Indus Arthur, a beautiful harpist, which ignited a FB war in the Lost Marin group. The reason was completely lost on me. It was like a bully scene right out of Animal Farm. Sadly, Indus died in December, of 1984, a few months after my photo was taken. Complications of skin cancer, and a brain tumor.

This may be among the last photos ever taken of the stage and screen actor, Indus, who, like her grandmother, was named after a river in Tibet. I remember that we talked about our grandmothers. I had no idea that Indus was a popular TV star—none of that mattered, we were in a time out of place, in a backlot of Paramount Ranch, in Agoura.

The photo was a moving tribute, or so I thought. I had spent the afternoon talking with her, a lovely soul, both ephemeral, and fey. Did she know she was dying? That this was her last gift to the world, this harp music? She died so young, she was only 43. She is buried somewhere in a secret location in Los Angeles.

But Carrie Smith wouldn’t let it go, she objected to my asking people to tag themselves, or my even knowing who Indus was. Then Carrie waged war on me, she began tagging her equally obnoxious friends, dragging them into the fracas. Where did all this anger and rage come from, over an old photo? Clearly Carrie (aka Mrs. Owens, Dickens’ cook for the Dickens Faire) had some deep-seated anger management issues, but for some reason, she came unhinged when I asked for people to tag themselves. It was the last straw, too many other negative things going on in my life. I saved the vitriolic conversations thinking I might someday use it, but it’s so depressing. And I so wanted to honor those actors who brought us such delight during the heyday of the RPF.

Apparently Carrie, thought I was a stalker, or worse, because I was asking people to tag themselves in the photos of themselves. But it’s not my job to explain her aberrant behavior. Get out of my head. I had merely asked people to tag themselves so that THEY could keep my photos—and/or share stories from the Ren Faire days among themselves. After all, that was the whole point of the Lost Marin Group. Here I thought that it generous gift from the past. No strings attached. The cadre of Ren folk even objected to my use of the word Ren Faire, took umbrage to the term Ren Faire, and to the rather endearing term, Ren folk... All of this tempestuousness is so ironic as the Renaissance Pleasure Faire’s actual web address is renfaire.com

Suffice to say, it was a total bloodbath. So, rather than leave the negativity up, I deleted all 36 photos. Most folks were thrilled to see the photos, one woman even tagged the Patterson sons... but I didn't want to leave an album of my photos up, as a chronicle their bad behavior.

From a Facebook post

Phyllis Patterson RIP – She changed my life! JoshWillTravel blog, a good inside peek into the Faire.