Category Archives: US History

Plants, Politics, The West, US History, Weather +Climate

I can feel it emerging

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Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Kep, struggling again. Gabe up for a Rockies afternoon game. Ruth for a night at Dazzle Jazz. Alan as Uncle Moishe in Ron Solomon’s Purim spiel. Monday night. Rich and his class. Luke and his new job. Mike and Kate coming up here sometime this month for barbecue: Campfire Grill in Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie’s ski trip. Race #1 of the new F1 season: Bahrain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

 

Reading Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place again. A radical thinker. At one point he writes about the Cartesian/Baconian advancement of science and the rational method of inquiry. Descartes says in his Discourse on Method that the more he sought to know, the more he realized he had  yet to know. Jackson makes this wry and insightful comment: “This statement would have been all right if he had stopped there. Unfortunately. Rather than regarding informed ignorance as the human condition, and the appropriate result of a good education, Descartes believed our ignorance to be correctable.”

Jackson identifies this hubris of the scientific method as a root source of many of our current maladies. We believe we can extract the parts from the whole, understand them without regard to it, then act on that information. Turns out though if you do not understand, say, the nature of ancient energy and privilege it over contemporary energy sources like wind, solar, photosynthesis, you can do great harm to the whole. Change the climate, for example.

He believes science and humility need to work together. In the instance of agriculture he tells the story of a man in Nebraska who developed seeds and sold them. But only to  farmers in his region. His seeds had characteristics that made them strong in that regional ecology. A local seed source rather than the abstracted seeds sold by Monsanto, Bayer. They did not need Roundup ready alterations because they already knew the soil and the other plants that grew there.

What Jackson wants to create is a new rural life, a new localism predicated not on Cargill or Monsanto or John Deere, but upon perennial crops and a system of trade that could hook up a small Kansas town with a small North Dakota town, one that grew crops better suited for that local ecology. A new localism in which both flora and fauna were appropriate to their location, yet benefited all through trade without gigantic corporations in the way.

This vision. A hard one. Only thing harder, probably? Continuing on the soil and region destroying path we are on.

I’m beginning to see linkages between the Jackson’s and Wendell Berry’s and the fracturing nation in which we live. How their vision for a local agriculture, the base after all of civilization itself might contribute to a new politics. How the breakdown of the country might have a positive outcome. Especially when connected to the old neighborhood politics I know so well from my working days. And when bonded with the actions necessary to tip the climate change scales away from apocalyptic scenarios.

There could be a path here. Needs more noodling, but I can feel it emerging.

Minnesota, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Could Be Fun

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Smiling Pig. Furball Cleaning. Chance of Snow. Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday. Red Bull. Ferrari. Mercedes. Aston Martin. Alpine. Alpha Tauri. Williams. McLaren. Haas. Alfa Romeo. Probate. House cleaning. Good sleep. Radiation. Pacific Cod. Breaded. Lodge skillets. Cooking. Findlay and the deer. Max. Kep. Tweaking his meds. Dr. Doverspike.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Workout yesterday. 110 minutes.

 

Down a rabbit hole. A lot of my attention has gone to the Vanity Fair article Diane sent out. Fascinated. No, not going conservative. But the threads of political ideas active in the U.S. have entered a zone of extreme ferment. Not always visible.

Ever since my Alexandria days fringe political movements have interested me. Even then, in the late 1950’s and 60’s, we had the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, and the Ku Klux Klan active in our town. One of our doctors was a Bircher. Founded in 1958 in Indianapolis one of its early members and top financial supporters was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

Dad published a page or two from the John Birch Blue Book in the Times-Tribune, our local newspaper. It exposed the radical ideas held by Robert Welch, the Society’s Indianapolis based founder. Made me feel good to see Dad take a stand against them.

Both the Birch Society and the Minutemen held strong and in the latter case, violent, anti-communist views. Wikipedia entry: “…observers have stated that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement.[18][19][20][21] Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Reinbach called the JBS “the intellectual seed bank of the right.”[22]”

The KKK passed out leaflets in town from time to time and held recruiting drives at a local restaurant on Highway 9, aka the Highway of Vice Presidents (Dan Quayle and Benjamin Harrison were Hoosiers.)  The Klan has a long and infamous history in American fringe right wing circles, but the Birch Society and its effect on the Koch family has to get its props, too.

What reading the Vanity Fair article did. First. Though perhaps still fringe movements in regard to the larger society the New Right, the Dissident Right, the Christian Nationalists, the Evangelical right, and the Trumpists do have a strong hold on the Grand Old Party. Second. Some, hardly all, but some of the ideas in the article resonated with my back to the land, anti-war, anti-establishment ideas of the late 1960s. Third. Got me wondering about if this might all weave together at some point. Far left. Crunchy right.

Most of all. Back in the day. The day being 1968 in Muncie, Indiana. Not all that far from Indianapolis. I told Bill Hariff, leader of the SDS on Ball State’s campus. I want to be a theoretician for the revolution. I know. Naive. Precious. Maybe even laughable.

Yet. In these days of living on the mountain top. With a deep background in both the history and reality of right wing extremists and far left extremists. BTW: Among whom I still count myself. Could I take on a role as a writer about these movements? Maybe a new weekly blog? Say, notsoAncientrails. Wondering. Or, help organize an online think tank that might do for the next New Left what the Birchers seem to have done for today’s buffet of conservative ideas? Probably both have been done and I don’t know about them. Still. Could be fun.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History, World History

Jon. Apocalypses.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep, struggling outside. Jen, anxious about money. Ivory going to a new home. Jon’s house mostly cleaned out. My son managing matters from the middle of the Pacific. Cooling down. 62 yesterday in Aurora. Snow midweek. Doubt about the pain management protocols. Trust your doctors and zip up. OK, Kate. Matters of business. The New Right. The Dissident Right. Conservatives. Integralism. Ways of thinking about our commons. Socialism. Globalism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bill and his granddaughter in Atlanta

 

Down to the old house. Jon’s place. Floors still messy, but furniture, piles of clothes, tables. All gone. Almost everything cleaned out. Jen made some decisions about what to keep, what not. Wants to involve the kids. Makes sense. Found Merton’s photographs, slides. E-mailed a pic to BJ.

Jen took home the Bernini, Kate’s fancy sewing machine she bought with her inheritance money from Merton. Also, Kate’s featherweight. A portable Singer sewing machine. A shop Vac and an air compressor. These matters are on their way to a conclusion though still slow. Now six months out from Jon’s death. Have I mentioned MAKE A WILL!

The big dumpster outside Jon’s house had cardboard boxes, furniture, appliances in it up to the brim. A life’s material contents on their way to a landfill. Inside remains photographs, art, Grateful Dead tapes, LP’s, a bicycle. Tools. A printing press. Two dishwashers. ? Some other unconnected appliances Jon intended to put in his kitchen, still bare. A metal sink from our garage. A few boxes of indeterminate things.

The cleaners worked hard. A physical challenge. When Jen and the kids decide what they want to do, the cleaners will finish up and the house will go on the market as a distressed property. I pay the cleaners and may have to cure the mortgage since the bank has begun foreclosure noises.

When the house sells, and the realtor thinks it will go at or above asking and probably fast, I’ll get my money back. He said hopefully. Oh. Did I mention make a will?

 

Onto other less dramatic topics like the various apocalypses on the global stage. Climate change. Still trundling along toward Hothouse Earth. Emissions increasing. The Ukraine. Fighting to the death with a wounded Russian Bear. A dangerous animal with a lot of tooth and claw left. All those displaced Ukrainians. Europe discovering it needs muscle. Again. Same with the Chinese sphere Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.

Those American right wingers invested in various gilded back to the land exits. The huddled masses of Mexico and Central America yearning to be Americans.

Racism here in the U.S. White supremacists headed to Idaho and Montana and Wyoming. Different strategies to deny American citizens their vote. Women stuck between a post-Roe abortion wall and unwanted pregnancy. Inflation and high employment running along together. Wildfires, atmospheric rivers, floods, sea level rise, empowered hurricanes. All this the view from the top of Shadow Mountain. Glad to be at 8,800 feet.

Dogs, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, World History

Kepler. The New Right and the West.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. A man of high energy. And, acupuncture. Kep, the confused. So much adulting this weekend. Dogs. Doverspike’s Mesa. Powder hounds. Alan and Cheri, tired. Very tired. That article from Vanity Fair that Diane sent me. Ukraine, a year in. Soul Food Cook Off. The New Right and the Far Right. Christian Nationalism. Back to blood and soil. A fermenting politics of imminent doom. Good news for Kep.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep’s pain management

 

So. Much. To.

Let’s start with the pain management and mobility vet, Dr. Doverspike. He drove up at 11am yesterday, a 13 year old German Shepherd in the backseat of his Audi. She goes with him on house calls. Glad she didn’t come in. I would like to have met her, but Kep. Not so much.

He watched Kep move, take his slow way up the stairs from the lower level. When Kep finally got up, Doverspike took off his stethoscope. Listened. Pressed Kep’s back legs in several different spots.

Not what I thought. Not torn cruciate ligaments. Muscle weakness. We can bring him to near 100 percent.

We’ll see, but I want him to be right. He gave Kep an injection, a pregabbepetin capsule and inserted acupuncture needles along his spine and along his shoulder blades.

He’s the nicest Akita I’ve ever met. I get that a lot. Well, it’s a testimony to you. (And, Joe and Kate)

Dr. Doverspike has a multi-modal approach to pain. Acupuncture. Different meds. Physical therapy. I have to have Kep stand on the same soft blue plastic device I use for balance. Each back leg, five minutes. Every day.

Doverspike will come weekly until Kep improves. Then monthly. Then maybe every three months. He does acupuncture each visit. A former Florida guy, but before that Colorado, he lives in Conifer now with his wife. His practice, Mesa pain management and mobility, gets its name from Mesa, his first German Shepherd. She went back country skiing with him. Including jumping off cornices. Often steep ones.

If he succeeds in getting Kep’s back legs better, I’m sure Kep will live longer. So, go Dr. Doverspike. Not cheap, however.

 

Cousin Diane found this article in Vanity Fair, Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier, the American West. It fits with this article from the Washington Post about northern Idaho, ‘Christian patriots’ are flocking from blue states to Idaho, and this one from the New York Times: How Montana Took a Hard Right Turn Toward Christian Nationalism.

The Vanity Fair article focuses more on Wyoming while also taking a much broader look at the New Right. Including tech billionaires who want to build city-states and crypto countries. I plan to reread the Vanity Fair article and match it to some other reading I’ve been doing this year about the Far Right.

Though anti-globalism features as one of the big ideas promoted by nearly all camps represented in the Vanity Fair article Diane points out the frequent references to Orban in Hungary, the new far right Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and even Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, the Hindu nationalist. Anti-globalists, eh?

Diane and I both agreed on the privileged nature of those seeking the right to exit. There are deep peculiarities and ironies here, too. Many who to seek to exit have an almost back to the land reverence for nature. Many are also anti-big corporation and all are definitely anti-establishment. There’s a lot to think  about, talk about. Something’s happening here, what it is is not exactly clear.

 

 

Asia, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, World History

Pruning. Oblation. China.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Cool night. Kep, the early. Now, me too. Good boy! Dr. Simpson. Radiation oblation. Hep B. My son. His wife. Korea. Korean. Hangul. English. Animas chocolates. Thanks again, Mary. Liminal spaces. Lenticular Clouds. The Clouds before a Snow Storm. Mountain Weather. Sano Vet. Palmini. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Stinkers for gas. And quarts of milk.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moving forward

 

Quite a day yesterday. Robin and Michele came. All the art is off the upstairs walls. Means Doug can start the first of March. Main level. Garden Path green. The upstairs door will be Backwoods green. Benjamin Moore. They also removed all the clothing I thinned out from the walk in closet. A lot. Coats. Shirts. Shoes. Sport Coats. Michele moved all of the photographs into the closet and consolidated my clothes on one side. She also took an area rug I no longer wanted.

Kate’s molas from the Cuna Indians are now in a pile on the table. All her sewing related art, too. Everything is off the fireplace mantel. Once Doug is done I’ll have some fun rehanging art. Herme will have to come down for a while. Excited about the new colors.

Also excited about the leaner feeling the house has now. When I’m ready to move, most of what’s left will go with me. Except for the books. The books have got to slim down. Way, way down. Way down. But I have four years for that painful process. One more visit with Robin and Michele. Then, I’ll be done for now. Three more closets (smaller). Linens and towels. Perhaps once more through the kitchen.

 

Also a long conversation with Dr. Simpson. The pros and cons of radiation for my two mildly active mets. It probably won’t increase your survival, but it will increase the amount of time you can be off the drugs. Oh. The drug holiday coming this summer. So. In terms of risk and benefit? Worth it since the quality of my life is high and a longer drug holiday will enhance it.

Downsides. Possible bowel obstruction. Possible chronic pain. Possible paralysis. But the odds are very low for those. Decided to go for it. Dr. Simpson’s a good guy. We decided together, Let’s treat it!

Will get started sometime soon. Probably eight sessions in all. See the old gang. If they’re still there. I know Carmela is because I’ve talked to her on the phone.

 

China and Russia. Share a long border. 2600 miles. Little real history together in spite of that. Very different cultures. And a lot of that border is far away from centers of population. Bonded now though by their enmity towards the U.S. Putin’s Russia also abhors the decadent West. As in Europe. I can imagine them imagining a war where they guard each others flanks and project power east in the instance of China and west in the instance of Russia.

I don’t think China understands how weak Russia really is. Their military has suffered tremendously already in the Ukraine. And will suffer more.

And China may not understand how determined the U.S. is. We’ve made partnerships with Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia. Even Vietnam. That means for China to get to our mainland they would have to send out ships and planes from their mainland, through a gauntlet of U.S. allies.

Just thinking out loud here.

Cooking, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Sport, US History

A 76’er

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Imbolc and the Valentine Moon

Monday gratefuls: Birthday dinner with Ruth and Gabe. Pappadeauxs. Chiefs win. Kep’s new gettin’ up time. His sweetness. Ruth, newly black hair and pink glasses with crystals. Gabe in his fancy shirt with no pocket. The old man eating alone. An American revolutionary birthday tomorrow. Pulmonologist. The Ancient Brothers on their favorite things. Dogs. Hawai’i. Sushi. Dr. Zhivago. Little kids. The Chiefs. Mendocino. Delmar, California. Shanghai. Wombats.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dining with Gabe and Ruth

 

Realized yesterday that this is my American revolution birthday: 76. A revolutionary celebration. I like it. All you 76’ers out there. We’re not done yet. May not be nearer to God, but I am nearer to 80.

As you can tell, my mood has lifted. Thanks to those of you who expressed concern. Sadness stands next to joy. Both are important.

Pappadeauxs. Disappointing. Could have ordered off the Cajun menu: gumbo, crawfish etouffé, jambalaya, but I chose a dish I first had in Savannah, shrimp and grits. Loved it there. The Pappadeux version was over spiced and not very good. Though. Gabe loved the Red Snapper. Delicious, he said. Ruth had a dish with blackened catfish, cooked oysters, shrimp, and dirty rice. She loved it though, I’m trying to get off sea food. Wants to go to Watercourse, a full vegan restaurant for her birthday. 17. A teen queen.

Ruth says she’s reintegrating at Northfield H.S. She sounds and looks good. Earlier drug related jitters calming down. We talked about food, being a teen, cancer, laughed a lot. Took one silly picture. Gabe tried with some visible discomfort to dine with aplumb. Those bread crumbs spread around his plate told the tale.

Glad they were able to join me. They were both eager Eagle’s fans. I told them I wanted the Chiefs to win. Nah, Nah, Ne Nah, Nah. Hey, Hey.

At the table next to ours an older man than me dined alone. He had on a red and black plaid shirt and ate his catfish carefully. His hair was white, his skin the papery texture I associate with a person in their 90s. Wondered if his wife had died, or if he had been alone a long time.

Got home about 7:30 pm. I did notice that my jaw clinched on my way home, but it lifted as soon as I got back into the Mountains. This is home and my body knows it.

 

76. Eh. After three score and ten, we’re all in bonus time. My friends are older now, too. Though I have Luke, 28, and Mike and Kate. Ruth and Gabe. They keep me connected to earlier days of the journey. Glad I’m no longer scanning the horizon for what I want to do.

 

How bout those Chiefs. Stand up of that Eagle’s player to admit he did grab the jersey of the Chief’s receiver. Resulted in a penalty that gave the Chiefs a chance to run out the clock and kick a winning field goal. Wish I had had the opportunity to watch this one. A true championship game.

 

Aging, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

It was a lynching

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Hot Water. My shower. Marilyn and Irv. Ageism. Aspen Perk. Aspen Park Dental. Darlene, the hygienist. Seeing the Magpies against the Snow as I sat in the dental chair. Clean teeth. Good gum health. No work needed. Yes. Grocery pickup. Home. Brined center cut porkchops. Cooked in the Air fryer. Mixed vegetables. Tangerine. Mary’s photos of her last days in Kobe. Eau Claire. Air travel. Sarah and Annie. The Jeep.

Sparks of joy and awe: Friends and family

 

A note I sent to my county commissioner, Lesley Dahlkemper, about a proposed Mountain bike park on Shadow Mountain Drive:

Hi, Lesley!

Met you at Marilyn Saltzman’s 70th birthday party. Before you became a commissioner. Congratulations!

I live on Black Mtn Drive. Up the hill about 2 miles from the proposed mtn bike park. Aside from the obvious degradation of a mountain side and a beautiful, clear running stream and aside from the obvious traffic nightmare on already difficult to navigate blind curves and narrow no shoulders Shadow Mountain Drive, I’d like to tell you about a 7 AM drive I took that passed by the bike park area.

There in that meadow were thirty cow Elks and one magnificent bull, a fourteen pointer. A mist was rising from Shadow Brook. Now that may not be a logical argument against the bike park, but it’s damn sure a good one to me.

 

Tyre Nichols. Still think the role of police in our culture doesn’t need drastic and dramatic change? Tainted by the power given to them by a frightened white majority the police live out the violent fantasies of those at home watching TV. Their color does not matter. What matters is their intent, their willingness to step well beyond the bounds of decency. Remember Derek Chauvin’s knee? One of the officers who stood by was Hmong. The others who stood and watched? Rodney King?

Tom Crane found an interesting interview with Rev. Dante Stewart. His words on lynching are worth sharing:

“That was more than police brutality. That was a lynching. They wanted to kill him because, in some sense, lynching is about the spectacle. It’s about what someone with power does to another human being to ride and rid them of every ounce of their dignity and put it in the public to show this is what we think about this person.

“When those in the past put Black people up on noose, it was a message to them: This is our estimation of your life, and much more, this is our hatred of your life. And when Tyre Nichols was beaten and the just immense disregard to him, it showed us in public once again the estimation of Black life, white racism and white supremacy.”  WBUR

This sort of action by the police reimagines the whip of the plantation slave master. Sanctioned violence to keep the enslaved in place. We still fear the emboldened and empowered other. What might they do to us? What to do? Do it to them first.

 

On a better note, also from Tom. On Kernza Grain. “I just came across this perennial grain developed by the Land Institute. I also ordered some from a site which sells it as a cereal much like oatmeal. I’ll let you know how it is.”

The Land Institute is a solution finder. Glad Tom found this product, the first commercial fruits of the Institute’s work. I’ll let you know what he thinks.

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Dogs, Memories, Plants, Politics, Travel, US History

Stolen Work, Stolen Land

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kate Strickland and Michael Banker. Seeing them on Sunday. Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. Diane this morning. Tom tomorrow. Tom Tomorrow! Alan on Saturday. Mussar today. Fresh white Snow. Kep, the sleeper. His sleeping sounds. Sudbury Impact Crater. Ejecta all the way to Gunflint Lake in Minnesota. Subduction. Nickel. Copper. Platinum. Paladium. Zircon. Uranium. Colorado Plateau. Placer deposits of uranium. Manitoulin Island. The Georgian Bay. The Chi-cheemaun.

Thursday gratefuls: Life in all is wonder

 

Getting a distinct Canada jones. This Origins of North America course has rekindled memories of Stratford, Ontario, taking the Chi-cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island. Also my trips circumnavigating Lake Superior. I’ve always loved Canada. Every since our first family trip there and I saw those road signs with the crown on them. And those Fords that looked like Fords but had a different name: Meteor. That moment on Lake Huron in Ipperwash Provincial Park. One with the Lake and the Sunseen.

Now I see this is land stolen from the Chippewa Band of Kettle and Stony Point. This story about the sniper killing of band member Dudley George in 1995. Maybe the spirit of the Anishinabe inhabited me that day.

And so back to Imani (faith) Perry and her South to America. In her chapter on the Soul of the South she talks a lot about the Black Belt, a geological region that runs through Alabama, Mississippi, parts of other Southern states which was especially good for growing cotton. The term also has a broader definition: “Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production.” wiki

The Black Belt and the Chippewa’s struggle over Ipperwash are of a piece. They are land used by White governmental and economic structures enforcing white supremacy over those deemed lesser. This is why Perry says to understand the U.S. we have to go to the South. Because slavery informed the founding documents of our nation and because the wealth of the early United States had its base in cotton production and trade. These two facts go together. The wealth of the Southern states allowed them to have an outsized voice in the negotiations creating our nation.

That would mean that originalism is ipso facto racist. It says we have to interpret only the words of the constitution and use the plain meaning of those words as laid down by the founders. Well, hey. The three-fifths clause. The electoral college. Senators two from each state. That means the Extremes are not only hard right conservatives but also standard bearers for white supremacy. Wonder how Clarence feels about that.

February is Black history month. Would be a good time to read some DuBois, maybe some Richard Wright, Imani Perry, Frederick Douglas. Margaret Walker. Toni Morrison. Maya Angelou. James Baldwin. Langston Hughes.

Back to that Canada thing though. Think I’m gonna plan a trip. True North Shore of Lake Superior, over to the Georgian Bay, cross the bay going South, Head to Stratford for some good theater. Anybody wanna come?

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

Books and the dumb side of Politics

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate and our IRA. Enough money to keep me alive. Another new knee. Warren. Ode. Now Stefan. Age and its attendant insults. Medicine and its remedies for them. Rich’s new class. Looks fun. The Muddy Buck. Old Evergreen. The Evergreen Hotel, long gone.  Evergreen. A mighty fine Mountain town. Living in the Mountains. The silence of a Shadow Mountain Night. Sleeping. Kep, the dogged. Solving problems. Accepting reality.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Silent Night, Holy Night. Every Night

 

All that. Money stuff. Doctor and pharmaceutical stuff. Put to bed for now. Moving on. Occupied me for two days straight. Gotta have stuff to do when you old.

 

Reading two new books. Stunners. The first South To America by Imani Perry. A professor of African Studies at Princeton. A delicate, hard fisted, beautiful intelligent travelogue of her journey to her home state of Alabama. She begins at Harpers Ferry with thoughts on John Brown, Confederate reenactors, an unexpected conversation with one who volunteers at a store that’s part of the historic Harpers Ferry.

She writes about race and racism in a way that enfolds and  unfolds its complexity. An example. Her feelings of tenderness toward the exploited coal miners of Appalachia. All of them. Then an observation about how even in the mines Blacks had the filthiest most dangerous jobs. Lived on the fringes of white poverty.

I’m still early in the book. Virginia. Trenchant and profound observations about Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Both owned slaves. Both believed it was wrong. But lust overcame Jefferson and ambition overcame Patrick Henry. They kept their slaves.

 

The second. The Good Life. By Robert Waldinger and Marc Shultz. Director and Assistant Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Longest running longitudinal study of human development in the world. Its message. Develop and keep good relationships. Intimate ones. Friendship. Family. Even strangers. Well written, clear. Helpful. Reinforcing.

In that spirit I have breakfast with Alan this morning at the Parkside Cafe in Evergreen. The newer part of Evergreen. For locals. Tourists sneak in on occasion, too. Near the Bread Lounge. Often has folks I know.

Rebecca Martin should be back from India and we can resume our breakfasts. Luke and I have our lunches. Diane and Tom. The Ancient Brothers. MVP. Mussar on Thursday. Staying connected. Rich again in two weeks. Knowing and being known. Seeing and being seen. The human, the primate, way. Love in its many forms.

 

How about those classified files at the Bidens? Ooops. There goes a second term. So. Damned. Stupid. And right now? He’s overperformed. Rich and I agreed. Then stepped right on his well you know. And hard. Without necessity. Come on, man!

Takes the stage away from that lying George Santos. The Long Island prevaricator.

How bout those Bolsanorans? I mean. Guys. He fled the country. To Florida. On an A-1 visa reserved for heads of state. He left Brazil before he left office. Trump went to Florida, too. Lots of parallels, eh? Trump and his like are cancers in the body politic of many countries. As 1st graders used to say, He’s copying!

All for now.

 

 

 

 

Aging, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, Woolly Mammoths, World History

Aging and its good news

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Samain and the Holimonth Moon

Monday gratefuls: BJ and Sarah. Kep at 4:30 am. David Olson. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Gabe’s Hanukah wish list. Ruth in her dad’s sweater. The Ancient Brothers on the assets of aging. Morocco and Croatia. The World Cup. Ruby and her AWD failure notice. Clearing the way for some moving. Sleeping in. Hard reset on my hearing aid worked. Phonak. SpaceX to the Moon. Elon Musk. Sort of. The clear, clean days of Winter.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Moon as it changes

 

Yesterday after the Ancient Brothers identified the assets of aging I took a rest day. Saturday was too much driving. Although Kep seemed to like it. Read, watched TV.

In the early evening I talked with BJ and Sarah. What different lives we all have. Sarah and Jerry and their self-built gardens and buildings in rural North Carolina. BJ and Schecky who biked 5 miles to New York Cake and back from their home in the Hotel Beacon on Broadway. Me on Shadow Mountain with the Elk and the Mule Deer.

 

The assets of aging. Too often aging = kvetching. Aching bones. Tired from driving. (see above) This knee, that hip or shoulder. Maybe replaced. Friends and family members dying. The stock market. The bowels. Care taking. Cancer. Arthritis. And the list goes on, seeming to grow a bit with each added year. BTW: not diminishing the reality of any of these. Or the disruptions they create in daily life. But. It is easy to get lost in the obligations and ailments. Forget the wonderful gift still daily available. Life.

So Tom asked the question. What have we gained as older folks? What are our assets now? Knowledge accumulated through the days and months. Having seen things fail and things succeed. The ability from that to put life events, even dire ones, in perspective. Including death.

The bonds of friendship. As one of us pointed out, it does take forty years to have a forty year friendship. Or, with family it take decades to enjoy grown children and have them enjoy you.

We often have some money squirreled away and with it the ability to help in modest ways when necessary. A real joy.

Love. Its necessity and its travails. Its various focii. From partners to brothers and sisters to friends and pets to Mountains and Trees and moments in time, special places. That it can be lost and regained. Its mystery and its beauty. Long experience with how love can enter and transform lives can give us old folks a certain softness, a way of being with another more easily so love can seep into the cracks. This is a great and wonderful gift.

Loss. We’ve seen death up close. Know its horrors and its mystery. It is no longer far off. We also know the death of loved ones can be survived, even when everything within says they can’t. We also know the death of a pet is the loss of a companion, a friend of many years. Not to be diminished.

Though there are many other assets I’ll only mention one more. We have seen our culture change from the closed in, materialistic immediate post-war years to the thousand flowers blooming of a counter-culture and a reaction against it that has not yet run its course. Here Philip Slater’s little book, The Chrysalis Effect, suggests that the integrative, democratic culture of the anti-war, back to the land, civil rights era remains ascendant in the face of stubborn and even violent responses to it. Women have still gained power. African-Americans and Latinos have more power. First Nations people have begun to feel their influence grow. The LGBTI+ community has blossomed. Globalism has won the day as trade interleaves nations with other nations.

We remain to support the rise of integrative, democratic culture in whatever ways we can. Loving our GenZ grandchildren. Donating money. Acting politically. Giving our validation to these changes. Pressing back against what Slater calls the Controller Culture. Being imaginal cells for the changes birthing themselves as I write.

Assets indeed.