On the left hand side of this Blogspot page there’s an “About Me” section. Under it is my picture and along side the picture a link that says “View my complete profile”. I need to let everyone know that this actually is not my complete profile. As I think over my 64 years of life, it’s apparent to me that I’ve left a few things out. This is the “facebook” section of the blog. I’ve never been comfortable with Facebook. I’ve been invited by “friends” to join , but always decline.
Social networking is a huge phenomenon. Mark Zuckerberg was an intelligent college guy, but awkward around girls. He discovered how to enhance the college dating atmosphere, creating a way for fellow students to put their profiles out there for other students to see. The blog profile feels to me like an extension of this mentality.
Right next to my picture is the category “gender”. I dutifully put “male” in there, but I suspect the mustache gives it away. If you need both a picture and label to help people identify your gender perhaps you should choose another medium for social interaction. The next most important thing it tells you about me is that I’m a Libra. Nobody ever asks me my astrological sign anymore. It happened a lot in the ‘60s and ‘70s. I take that back. When we’re vacationing in California sometimes someone will want to know. I’ve never put my sign on a resume though.
The other most important info about me according to the profile section are my favorite movies, music and books. There are no categories for politics or religion or for that matter my favorite car, my favorite food or psychologist. Katie has a favorite kind of garlic press. I think the “my interests” category is meant to cover all these other areas.
I suspect people put down only what they want others to know. Social networking then becomes an extension of our egos, or more specifically, our personas. The whole truth about ourselves is yet to be discovered. Few people are going to put down that they suffer from anxiety, have a bad temper, are addicted to prescription drugs, have hemorrhoids or hate their bodies. Those things are to be discovered later on in the relationship.
I like thinking and talking with others about favorite books, movies and music. I mostly choose favorites from the past, when things tended to have a greater impact on me. Having a favorite anything is an interesting concept. What I like changes over time. At one time in my life, my favorite book was Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine. It was a great book about a boy who invented a machine that did all his homework for him. I rarely have current favorites of anything. Actually I don’t think much in terms of favorites anymore, but I used to. I often have trouble choosing one thing over another. My favorite food tends to be whatever I’m eating at the time.
I’d like to add another category to my profile, “religion”. For my favorite, I choose Hinduism because it has something for everyone. It has plenty of Gods and Goddesses, and many different paths to God. In a sub-category of favorite Hindu Deity, it’s a tie between Krishna, the young good looking dude who played the flute and had groups of adoring young Gopis following him everywhere (not unlike my favorite rock ‘n’ roll star which would be in another category) and Hanuman, the monkey warrior, who was the devotee and protector of Rama. He was one fierce and devoted dude.
Under the sub-category of favorite style of Zen Buddhism, I would have to go with Soto Zen. Practitioners can just sit and mind their own business, whereas in Rinzai Zen the master silently creeps around in the background and then whacks you with a bamboo stick when you least expect it. I hate that.
Under the sub-category of favorite New Thought writer I would go with Joel Goldsmith. This New York Jew and renegade Christian Scientist created The Infinite Way. His teachings cut to the chase and can be summed up: Every moment of your life, practice the presence of the Christ within.
Under the sub-category of favorite saying by a Guru that could be put on a bumper sticker I choose Meher Baba: Don’t worry, be Happy.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Briefly Marching With OWS
Katie and I were in Tucson a few weeks ago for the Tucson Meet Yourself Folk Life Festival. After I performed with the Chinese Martial Arts Club, we walked around to take in the rest of the Festival. We ran across the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters who were marching through the streets of Tucson, so we joined them. I didn’t know much about the movement at the time. We thought it had something to do with the rich getting too rich and too powerful in this country and influencing our politicians too much. We agreed with that so we entered the slow moving stream of people.
I don’t like being part of any large movement or organization. There is always something I don’t agree with. I’m sure it’s related to my experience in the Army and more specifically in Vietnam. We wreaked havoc on that beautiful country and its people and I was part of that effort. When I got back and decided to join the protest against the war, I found out that to the protesters I symbolized what they were against. I didn’t feel welcomed by them and didn’t like many of the things they were saying.
I recently allowed my membership in the American Legion to lapse for that very reason. For example, I didn’t agree with their efforts to amend the constitution giving Congress the power to prohibit the desecration of the American flag. The Legion is very hung up on the flag. I don’t want to burn a flag, but I believe in my right to do so. If I can buy one and own one, then I can burn it. Strangely I supported the right of that wacko preacher who wanted to burn the Koran. I also have a right to burn a Bible, which I don’t especially want to do either, but I don’t think the preacher would have agreed with that. The issue is individual freedom of expression. The flag is a symbol of that freedom, not the freedom itself.
When Katie and I fell into step with the marchers, I felt slightly uncomfortable. There was a young man directly behind us yelling about the greed of the fascist capitalists etc. and he kept stepping on my heel, causing my shoe to come off. He did that twice. Finally I turned around and gave him a dirty look. He looked back at me, but didn’t seem to care. He was too busy yelling nasty remarks for the cause. I feel these demonstrations should be peaceful and not have any destructive behavior or aggressive words, at all. But my wanting to turn around and knock that asshole down on the ground and give him a memorable experience with my shoe, didn’t seem in harmony with my message. So instead we dropped out of the procession.
The Occupy Wall Street movement was started by a group out of Vancouver, BC called Adbusters. I’m not sure how it made the transition from Canada to the US, but on Jul 13, 2011 they put out a call to those who read their website and publications to: Occupy Wall Street!, and the following statement:
In Solidarity, and as a response to this call, a planning group was formed [occupywallst.org], and an info sharing site established. The participation of every person, and every organization, that has an interest in returning the US back into the hands of its individual citizens is required.
Our nation, our species and our world are in crisis. The US has an important role to play in the solution, but we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies of our nation.
We, the people of the United States of America, considering the crisis at hand, now reassert our sovereign control of our land.
Solidarity Forever!
The first OWS protest was on September 17, 2011. Wikipedia says that within one month there were similar demonstrations in 70 major cities and 600 communities around the country. World wide protests similar to these have happened in over 900 cities.
This movement has obviously struck a chord with people and during the first month it grew very fast. The protestors call themselves the 99%ers. This alludes to the fact that 1% of the population has a disproportionate amount of the wealth. The 99%ers believe that because of the way our politicians are elected, they become beholden to those with the most money. This highly influences how these politicians govern and the laws they pass. We can’t trust the government to change this because they are the very ones perpetuating it.
Only time will tell whether this movement will continue to grow and affect some kind of change. Much of the third world is rapidly trying to become more capitalistic while the OWS movement is saying we all need to be less capitalistic. The western world has lived this wasteful consumer lifestyle for a long time now. We are in no place to tell the billions of people in the third world they can’t have it too. It seems pretty clear that if the billions of people in the third world do become affluent in the same way that we are, the earth will not be able to sustain all the waste and pollution and the energy demands will be astronomical. It’s apparent that we are heading for a big change.
With all these huge problems facing the world, do we want big business calling the shots? Capitalists are most concerned with making a profit and less concerned about the welfare of the people and the environment. So even though I support much of what the OWS movement stands for, I don’t think I’ll be marching with them again any time soon. Well maybe I will if they get rid of those angry, nasty, shoe destroying assholes.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Missing My Furry Friend
My son, Ben, and I picked him out of the litter along with his long gone sister, Flower. It was at Christmastime in 1994. Flower was cute, white and black hair with a shy demeanor. Katie picked her out as the one, right away. We planned on taking just one kitten from the litter, but Felis had so much spunk and personality that Ben and I agreed we had to take him too.
We lived at the time in a two story Victorian home and the two kittens had the run of the place. Flower was a natural athlete and that seemed to bother Felis. He was too
aggressive for her and their fights always ended with Flower squealing for mercy as Felis pinned her to the floor, biting her neck. There was a big wooden ball on the bannister at the bottom of our hall stairs. In self defense, Flower learned to jump from the bottom stair onto this varnished ball. Felis couldn’t get to her. He tried many times to jump onto that ball, but always slid off, crash landing on the floor in a undignified manner. Later we moved to a condo across town. The kittens got out one evening and I found Flower dead by the side of the road. She’d been hit by a car and the driver must have placed her up on the grass. I think I know what happened. Felis probably dashed across the street in front of the car with Flower following him. She always followed him. We buried Flower across the street in a field and Felis became our only pet. I was irrationally mad at him for a while for not taking care of his little sister.
He started doing string art shortly after that. Katie is a knitter and would make a small ball of yarn for him to bat around. He discovered that if he knocked it under the kitchen table, the yarn made interesting patterns, or perhaps he just enjoyed watching me untangle the mess when he was through. He sat patiently as I wound the yarn back up into a ball and then threw it for him so he could start the process all over again. Sometimes when he was finished, he put the string ball in one of my shoes, so I’d find it later and throw it out to him.
When we moved from Washington to New York, he got used to being on a harness and leash. On the trip across country we feared he might jump out of the truck when we opened the door. He became accustomed to my taking him over to the grassy areas at rest stops to sniff around. He became an old hand at traveling, because we moved from New York to Arizona, back to Washington and then back to Arizona. I can’t say that he enjoyed traveling, but as long as we were all together, he was content.
The best place we lived, from Felis’s perspective, was our friend Sally’s add-on apartment in Sequim, Wa. We stayed there for 4 or 5 months after we sold our house and just before moving back to Arizona. Her house is in the country and has an acre of lawn rimmed by thick trees. Sally had 3 cats at the time and we had adopted a stray named Farley. The cats ruled this acre of land. Felis loved to wander and explore the acreage. Sometimes the cats would sit around close to each other just watching and listening to the world around them.
Felis’s training on the harness came in handy when we moved to Green Valley. I didn’t dare let him out because of the many wild animals that roam the area. Maybe I was over protective, but we’ve seen bobcats, coyotes, huge owls, rattle snakes and herds of javelina on the grounds. So I started walking him on the leash. He loved it. “Walking him” is not the right term though, rolling on the sidewalk, sniffing bushes and chewing grass with a little bit of walking in between would be more accurate. We usually went out in the evening, when the light was starting to fade. The birds are very active at this time, but their chirping was engulfed by an expansive stillness as twilight approached. Felis and I spent many a sunset together on the sidewalks around the Villas. In the evenings now I feel sad that he’s not with me to enjoy it. Or maybe he is, who knows?
When we moved from Washington to New York, he got used to being on a harness and leash. On the trip across country we feared he might jump out of the truck when we opened the door. He became accustomed to my taking him over to the grassy areas at rest stops to sniff around. He became an old hand at traveling, because we moved from New York to Arizona, back to Washington and then back to Arizona. I can’t say that he enjoyed traveling, but as long as we were all together, he was content.
The best place we lived, from Felis’s perspective, was our friend Sally’s add-on apartment in Sequim, Wa. We stayed there for 4 or 5 months after we sold our house and just before moving back to Arizona. Her house is in the country and has an acre of lawn rimmed by thick trees. Sally had 3 cats at the time and we had adopted a stray named Farley. The cats ruled this acre of land. Felis loved to wander and explore the acreage. Sometimes the cats would sit around close to each other just watching and listening to the world around them.
Felis’s training on the harness came in handy when we moved to Green Valley. I didn’t dare let him out because of the many wild animals that roam the area. Maybe I was over protective, but we’ve seen bobcats, coyotes, huge owls, rattle snakes and herds of javelina on the grounds. So I started walking him on the leash. He loved it. “Walking him” is not the right term though, rolling on the sidewalk, sniffing bushes and chewing grass with a little bit of walking in between would be more accurate. We usually went out in the evening, when the light was starting to fade. The birds are very active at this time, but their chirping was engulfed by an expansive stillness as twilight approached. Felis and I spent many a sunset together on the sidewalks around the Villas. In the evenings now I feel sad that he’s not with me to enjoy it. Or maybe he is, who knows?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Chinese Performance Group
Saturday, I performed with the Tucson Sino Martial Arts Group. I only had two minutes of performance time, out of more than an hour. The performance was at the Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival. This festival happens every year and brings together all the diverse cultural and ethnic groups of the Tucson area. Their website describes the festival as follows:
Tucson Meet Yourself is different from other large events: it is a “folklife” festival. This means that our focus is on presenting artists and communities that carry on living traditions rooted in a group’s own definition of identity, artistry and cultural significance. The festival has been held each year in Downtown Tucson, Arizona since 1974.
It’s a three day event and our performance took place on the morning of the second day. The weather has been hot recently in southern Arizona, and thankfully the performance was over before the heat reached its peak. I’ve been practicing and teaching Tai Chi for over 30 years and just recently joined this Martial Arts Club. My motivation for joining was to learn Chen style Tai Chi from a qualified teacher. As far as I can tell, all of the members of the club are Chinese except for me and another guy named Rob. We are referred to as the two “Americans” in the club. I assume that the Chinese members are Americans too, but they don’t refer to themselves that way. I’ve only been to one practice so far, but all of the members were very gracious and welcoming.
I’ve belonged to numerous martial arts clubs over the years, but this one is unlike any of those. The focus of my previous clubs has always been the self-defense aspects of the Kung Fu and Tai Chi movements. This group’s orientation seems to be on performance. The forms I already know come out of southern China and Hong Kong, brought to the US by teachers who long ago left China. The forms that I’m being introduced to at TSMAG have been more recently standardized in China for performance purposes.
In Chinese history, the years from 1912-1949 are known as the “Republican Period”. During this time the traditional Martial Arts were encouraged. They were taught and performed as a means to promote national pride. All the various styles of Martial Arts flourished throughout China. At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, a group of Chinese Martial artists demonstrated for the first time to an international audience. In 1949 the People’s Republic of China came to power and the Martial Arts were transformed. The PRC did not like the martial quality of the art and changed it to a regulated sport called Wushu. To quote an article in Wikipedia, “The new competition sport was disassociated from what was seen as the potentially subversive self-defense aspects and family lineages of the Chinese Martial Arts.” In 1958 the government established the All-China Wushu Association as the umbrella organization that regulates Martial Arts training. The traditional forms were standardized and regulated for performance and competition purposes.
My new Martial Arts club appears to be from this later period. I was the fifth act to perform at the Festival. During all the performances, music was played in the background. Some of the music sounded like revolutionary worker songs. Thankfully the music played during my performance was more traditional stringed instrument Chinese music. I was asked by Shuping, the Sifu of the club, to perform a two minute version of Sun Tai Chi. Sun is the newest of the five main family styles of Tai Chi. It was created in the early 1900’s by Sun Lu Tang. He was a practitioner of all three internal styles of Chinese Martial Arts, Tai Chi, Bagua and Hsing Yi. The Sun form was patterned after the Tai Chi long form and contains elements of all three internal styles. I’ve been practicing this style for about 15 years. My main Tai Chi style is the Yang family style which the troupe already knows. The Sun style adds something new to this performance troupe, so that’s probably why I was asked to do it.When I arrived at the festival Shuping handed me a white silk uniform she brought for me to wear for the performance. I had cleaned and pressed my more traditional black uniform the night before, and Shuping said I didn’t have to change if I didn’t want to. I tried it on and it felt very sheer and silky. So this is how Hugh Hefner must feel all the time. Most of the other men wore their black uniforms and looked quite macho. At least I didn’t have flowers on my jacket like the women. The others said I looked good in it and I felt pleased and honored to be accepted as part of this Martial Arts Troupe.
I think the performance went well. Shuping and a few of the other women performed the Yang 24 form behind me while I did my two minutes of Sun style. I am not a seasoned performer, but this new club will definitely force me to work to become a better practitioner of both Kung Fu and Tai Chi.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Playing in the Khoury League
It’s the end of the baseball season and I still feel excited about the upcoming playoffs and World Series, even though I don’t follow baseball very closely any more. I probably won’t watch many of the games. The Cardinals are still in it as of this writing. St. Louis has been a baseball town since the St. Louis Brown Stockings were formed in 1882. Being a Cardinals’ fan over the years pays off unlike being fans of other teams who are rarely contenders come October.
The 50s and 60s were good times to be a Cardinals fan. Like most boys back then I collected baseball cards. On the back of each card was a wealth of information about the player. My favorite Cardinal was “Stan the Man” Musial. He played for the Cardinals from 1941-1963, a 22-year career, with one year out to fight in WWII. He was a consistently good player and set many records that are still on the books. He loved his fans and treated them with respect. Stan had a career batting average of .331. He was the Cardinals yearly batting champion 7 times, the most of any Cardinal, one more than Rogers Hornsby who played in the 20s. Stan had a very distinctive way of batting, keeping his feet close together while moving his body and his bat around in small circles.
One of the great missed opportunities of my life was the night some friends went downtown to Stan’s restaurant to meet him. I got sick and couldn’t go and felt extremely disappointed. My buddies did bring me back an autographed picture of Stan, which, of course, is long gone. I think my friend, Paul, still has his. In February of this year, Stan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. It couldn’t have gone to a more deserving guy. Watch him receive it on the following link. (Cut & Paste)
www.ksdk.com/news/article/244071/3/Stan-Musial-receives-Presidential-Medal-of-Freedom
As a kid I played baseball every summer. Little league baseball in the St. Louis area was called the Khoury League. It was founded in 1934 by George M. Khoury. The motto was, “The Khoury League is interested in the child that nobody else wants.” It rapidly spread throughout the St. Louis area and included spoiled county suburbanites like me. Participation was not on a try-out basis, but Mr. Khoury wanted all kids of various skill levels to get a chance to play.
There were six divisions, Atom, Bantam, Midget, Juvenile and Senior. The baseball diamonds were smaller than regulation size and even the ball sizes were adjusted for the age of the players. There was an all star game at the end of each season. This game was played at the major league ball park, Sportsman Field, which later became the first Busch Stadium.
I started out in the Bantam league on a very good team sponsored by Van Zant Realty. In the Atom division many of the players picked weeds in the outfield while fly balls dropped around them or ran the wrong way as their parents and fellow players screamed. But in the Bantam league the kids were more skilled and started to take the game seriously. I was totally intimidated by the skills of the other players. The best pitcher on my team was a boy named Jimmy. He could throw a variety of pitches including a wicked curve ball. If the pitch was a little to the outside, Billy Bob, the catcher, would quickly move his glove back to the center of the strike zone, attempting to fool the umpire. It never worked, but I thought it was extremely sophisticated and crafty.
Our manager forgot about Mr. Khoury’s dictum that all kids get to play, because that first year, I spent most games sitting on the bench. My dad must have felt sorry for me, because he decided to manage his own team. The sponsor was Barbay's Market. Unlike most other managers, D
ad stayed true to the Khoury League spirit and let all the kids have a chance to play.Consequently, we didn't win many games. His other rule was, whether we won or lost, we all went out for ice cream. For the other teams, ice cream was a reward for winning. We often ran into our old teammates at North Hills Dairy Creamery and I wondered if they thought we were winning as many games as they were, probably not. Even though my dad knew near to nothing about managing a baseball team, he did know something about kids and ice cream.
I got better as a ball player and one year I even got a chance to play in the All Star Game at Busch stadium. I was definitely outclassed by the other players. My goal was not to screw up too badly and I didn’t. I usually played 3rd base and fancied myself a junior Ken Boyer, the Cardinals fantastic 3rd baseman, but in that game I was placed in the outfield. I didn’t get a chance to catch a fly ball, but fielded a few successfully and I was up to bat two times. I walked once and hit a single.
I’ll try to catch some of the post season games this year, but I always liked playing baseball better than watching it. I’d take more interest in the sport if I knew more of the players. Each season it seems I have to learn a whole bunch of new players. Very few stay with the same team for very long, unlike “Stan the Man” who spent his entire career with the Cardinals. I am familiar with Albert Pujols and it will be worth it just watching him play. Go Cardinals!
The 50s and 60s were good times to be a Cardinals fan. Like most boys back then I collected baseball cards. On the back of each card was a wealth of information about the player. My favorite Cardinal was “Stan the Man” Musial. He played for the Cardinals from 1941-1963, a 22-year career, with one year out to fight in WWII. He was a consistently good player and set many records that are still on the books. He loved his fans and treated them with respect. Stan had a career batting average of .331. He was the Cardinals yearly batting champion 7 times, the most of any Cardinal, one more than Rogers Hornsby who played in the 20s. Stan had a very distinctive way of batting, keeping his feet close together while moving his body and his bat around in small circles.
One of the great missed opportunities of my life was the night some friends went downtown to Stan’s restaurant to meet him. I got sick and couldn’t go and felt extremely disappointed. My buddies did bring me back an autographed picture of Stan, which, of course, is long gone. I think my friend, Paul, still has his. In February of this year, Stan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. It couldn’t have gone to a more deserving guy. Watch him receive it on the following link. (Cut & Paste)
www.ksdk.com/news/article/244071/3/Stan-Musial-receives-Presidential-Medal-of-Freedom
As a kid I played baseball every summer. Little league baseball in the St. Louis area was called the Khoury League. It was founded in 1934 by George M. Khoury. The motto was, “The Khoury League is interested in the child that nobody else wants.” It rapidly spread throughout the St. Louis area and included spoiled county suburbanites like me. Participation was not on a try-out basis, but Mr. Khoury wanted all kids of various skill levels to get a chance to play.
There were six divisions, Atom, Bantam, Midget, Juvenile and Senior. The baseball diamonds were smaller than regulation size and even the ball sizes were adjusted for the age of the players. There was an all star game at the end of each season. This game was played at the major league ball park, Sportsman Field, which later became the first Busch Stadium.
I started out in the Bantam league on a very good team sponsored by Van Zant Realty. In the Atom division many of the players picked weeds in the outfield while fly balls dropped around them or ran the wrong way as their parents and fellow players screamed. But in the Bantam league the kids were more skilled and started to take the game seriously. I was totally intimidated by the skills of the other players. The best pitcher on my team was a boy named Jimmy. He could throw a variety of pitches including a wicked curve ball. If the pitch was a little to the outside, Billy Bob, the catcher, would quickly move his glove back to the center of the strike zone, attempting to fool the umpire. It never worked, but I thought it was extremely sophisticated and crafty.
Our manager forgot about Mr. Khoury’s dictum that all kids get to play, because that first year, I spent most games sitting on the bench. My dad must have felt sorry for me, because he decided to manage his own team. The sponsor was Barbay's Market. Unlike most other managers, D
ad stayed true to the Khoury League spirit and let all the kids have a chance to play.Consequently, we didn't win many games. His other rule was, whether we won or lost, we all went out for ice cream. For the other teams, ice cream was a reward for winning. We often ran into our old teammates at North Hills Dairy Creamery and I wondered if they thought we were winning as many games as they were, probably not. Even though my dad knew near to nothing about managing a baseball team, he did know something about kids and ice cream. I got better as a ball player and one year I even got a chance to play in the All Star Game at Busch stadium. I was definitely outclassed by the other players. My goal was not to screw up too badly and I didn’t. I usually played 3rd base and fancied myself a junior Ken Boyer, the Cardinals fantastic 3rd baseman, but in that game I was placed in the outfield. I didn’t get a chance to catch a fly ball, but fielded a few successfully and I was up to bat two times. I walked once and hit a single.
I’ll try to catch some of the post season games this year, but I always liked playing baseball better than watching it. I’d take more interest in the sport if I knew more of the players. Each season it seems I have to learn a whole bunch of new players. Very few stay with the same team for very long, unlike “Stan the Man” who spent his entire career with the Cardinals. I am familiar with Albert Pujols and it will be worth it just watching him play. Go Cardinals!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
To Be Brave
When I was in the 6th grade and began having trouble keeping up with my school work in public school, my parents sent me to a private Christian school. The kids were nice at the new school and the classes were small. I didn’t have any trouble making friends. David was one of them. He didn't look like the other kids. His hair was short, cut close to the scalp. He wore flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, tight jeans and tan suede combat boots. Hanging out of his back pocket was a red bandanna that swayed like a horse's tail when he walked.
On my first day, he came right up to me and put his fist close to my face. I thought he was threatening to beat me up.
"Do you know how I got these marks?" He pointed with his other hand to the back part of his fist. I had to look closely, but then I saw what he was referring to, four tiny holes lined up in a row and evenly spaced.
"No." I replied, relieved he wasn't going to hit me.
"A high school kid stabbed me with a fork." He explained.
Sure enough that's what the little holes looked like.
"Why did he do that?" He had definitely gotten my interest.
"I squirted him with catsup."
I could tell he was enjoying telling me about this, but he kept becoming quiet, waiting for me to ask him questions.
"Why did you squirt him with catsup?"
He continued. "I was sitting on a stool at the counter in the drug store right next to this guy. He was eating a piece of apple pie and Frank, the guy that worked the counter, had just brought me my hot dog. I asked the guy if he could pass me the catsup, which was sitting right there in front of him. But he just kept on eating his pie like he hadn't heard me. I know he had, so I asked him again. I said, ‘Hey buddy pass me that catsup would you?’"
There was another long pause, which was my cue to ask another question. "Did he?"
"Nope, he just kept shoving pie in his mouth. So I said, ‘What’s the matter, are you deaf?’ and this got his attention. He looked over at me and said 'Get it yourself jerk'. But the catsup was all the way on the other side of him where I couldn't reach." Again David stopped and waited.
"What did you do next?"
"I got up, walked all the way behind him, grabbed the catsup and then around again to where I was sitting."
"Is that when you squirted him?" I asked this time without waiting for him to pause.
"No, not yet, first I slowly put catsup on my hot dog. Then I turned to him and in my nicest voice said, 'Hey buddy, here's some catsup for you,' and I squirted it all over his shirt." He smiled and kept looking right at me, I guess to see my reaction.
"Is that when he stabbed you with his fork?"
"Yep.He grabbed my arm while I was squirting him, slammed it down on the counter and jabbed the fork right there." He again pointed to the tiny holes on the back of his hand. I must have made a face because he laughed.
"Then what happened?"
It took him a while to answer. He was admiring his battle wound, moving his hand around until the light captured it at just the right angle. "I pushed him hard and he fell backwards off the stool and I ran like hell out of the drug store. By the time he picked his butt up off the floor, I was long gone."
I liked his story. I was amazed that after being stabbed by this big high school guy, he still had enough presence of mind to push him off the stool.
"Have you ever been in a fight?” David asked me.
I could only think of one incident. It wasn't really a fight. "One time, a kid at public school had a jar crammed full of grasshoppers. He was taking it around, showing it to everybody. I felt sorry for the grasshoppers. They could barely move in there. I asked him to let them go, but he refused, so I pushed him down, grabbed the jar, opened it and let the grasshoppers out."
David liked my story and told me that like him, I too was a warrior. But I didn’t really believe I was a warrior. I didn't mention that the kid was small and in the grade below me. I also didn’t tell him about the time a bigger kid punched me in the face at the public swimming pool and I was scared and spent the rest of the day hiding out to avoid him.
David said he was excited about a book he was reading. It was all about Vikings. They sailed around conquering other lands, fighting their enemies with axes and swords. “Can you imagine fighting some guy with a razor sharp axe or a sword?”
He looked at me as if I should respond, but then quickly added. “Now that is brave.”
David and I became good friends. We hung out together during recess for the rest of the school year. I loved listening to his exploits. When I was around him, I felt I could be brave too.
On my first day, he came right up to me and put his fist close to my face. I thought he was threatening to beat me up.
"Do you know how I got these marks?" He pointed with his other hand to the back part of his fist. I had to look closely, but then I saw what he was referring to, four tiny holes lined up in a row and evenly spaced.
"No." I replied, relieved he wasn't going to hit me.
"A high school kid stabbed me with a fork." He explained.
Sure enough that's what the little holes looked like.
"Why did he do that?" He had definitely gotten my interest.
"I squirted him with catsup."
I could tell he was enjoying telling me about this, but he kept becoming quiet, waiting for me to ask him questions.
"Why did you squirt him with catsup?"
He continued. "I was sitting on a stool at the counter in the drug store right next to this guy. He was eating a piece of apple pie and Frank, the guy that worked the counter, had just brought me my hot dog. I asked the guy if he could pass me the catsup, which was sitting right there in front of him. But he just kept on eating his pie like he hadn't heard me. I know he had, so I asked him again. I said, ‘Hey buddy pass me that catsup would you?’"
There was another long pause, which was my cue to ask another question. "Did he?"
"Nope, he just kept shoving pie in his mouth. So I said, ‘What’s the matter, are you deaf?’ and this got his attention. He looked over at me and said 'Get it yourself jerk'. But the catsup was all the way on the other side of him where I couldn't reach." Again David stopped and waited.
"What did you do next?"
"I got up, walked all the way behind him, grabbed the catsup and then around again to where I was sitting."
"Is that when you squirted him?" I asked this time without waiting for him to pause.
"No, not yet, first I slowly put catsup on my hot dog. Then I turned to him and in my nicest voice said, 'Hey buddy, here's some catsup for you,' and I squirted it all over his shirt." He smiled and kept looking right at me, I guess to see my reaction.
"Is that when he stabbed you with his fork?"
"Yep.He grabbed my arm while I was squirting him, slammed it down on the counter and jabbed the fork right there." He again pointed to the tiny holes on the back of his hand. I must have made a face because he laughed.
"Then what happened?"
It took him a while to answer. He was admiring his battle wound, moving his hand around until the light captured it at just the right angle. "I pushed him hard and he fell backwards off the stool and I ran like hell out of the drug store. By the time he picked his butt up off the floor, I was long gone."
I liked his story. I was amazed that after being stabbed by this big high school guy, he still had enough presence of mind to push him off the stool.
"Have you ever been in a fight?” David asked me.
I could only think of one incident. It wasn't really a fight. "One time, a kid at public school had a jar crammed full of grasshoppers. He was taking it around, showing it to everybody. I felt sorry for the grasshoppers. They could barely move in there. I asked him to let them go, but he refused, so I pushed him down, grabbed the jar, opened it and let the grasshoppers out."
David liked my story and told me that like him, I too was a warrior. But I didn’t really believe I was a warrior. I didn't mention that the kid was small and in the grade below me. I also didn’t tell him about the time a bigger kid punched me in the face at the public swimming pool and I was scared and spent the rest of the day hiding out to avoid him.
David said he was excited about a book he was reading. It was all about Vikings. They sailed around conquering other lands, fighting their enemies with axes and swords. “Can you imagine fighting some guy with a razor sharp axe or a sword?”
He looked at me as if I should respond, but then quickly added. “Now that is brave.”
David and I became good friends. We hung out together during recess for the rest of the school year. I loved listening to his exploits. When I was around him, I felt I could be brave too.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Faces in the Yearbook
I’ve never gone to one of my high school class reunions. The last one would have been the 46th. I find this hard to believe. McClure was a big high school in north St. Louis County, with over 3000 students, grades ten through twelve. Sometime in the 1980s, the planning committee for our 20th or 25th class reunion tracked me down in Washington state. Ever since then I’ve been receiving yearly reunion notifications. In recent years these emails have also contained death notifications of some of my former classmates.
I didn’t know a lot of my classmates and many of the names in these emails sounded familiar, but I had trouble putting a face to the name. I saved the emails thinking that one day I would look these people up in the yearbook, which has been stashed away at my sister Karen’s house for the past umpteen years. On our recent trip to Seattle, I found the box containing yearbooks at the bottom of a stack of boxes in her basement and I threw it in the car for the trip home to Arizona.
The other day I looked up all my now deceased former classmates. To my surprise, I recognized most of them. Not only did I recognize them, but I could hear their voices and see some of their mannerisms. I’m sure I haven’t thought about these people since we were in high school, but now they have come back to life in my mind.
When I look at their pictures, my thoughts and feelings about them are frozen in time. I’m 63 years old, yet I’m looking through the eyes of a 17-year-old. That girl was really cute and what a body! That guy was tough, I wouldn’t have wanted to get on his wrong side.That girl was really sweet to me, why didn’t I talk to her more? That guy was cool but that one was a real nerd.
I found myself feeling compassion for all these students. We were together in high school at the very beginning of our adult lives and at a time in history, just before our society radically changed. I’m sure many of them married and divorced, lost spouses or children along the way, had multiple ups and downs and now those of us who have survived are in the last part of our lives.
One guy from my class never got a chance to be a hippy, go to college, have a career or a family. His name was Mike and he died in Vietnam in 1967, just two years after we graduated. He was one of the cool guys, tall with blond hair and good looking. I didn’t know him well, but we had a mutual girlfriend. To be more precise, she was my friend and his girlfriend. Her name was Marley and she went to a nearby Catholic school. I first met her out cruising the burger stands with some of the guys. This was an activity she never did, but on this one occasion the car she was riding in ended up right next to our car at the Jennings’ Steak & Shake.
That night we all ended up over at her friend Birdy’s house. Birdy’s parents’ weren’t home for some reason, so we raided their liquor cabinet, drank mixed drinks and listened to music. At some point, Marley and I paired off and found we had a mutual passion for a lot of the same music. It was 1964 and the Beatles had opened up America to the British invasion. She didn’t like some of the British groups, but she did like The Animals, The Kinks and The Zombies. We also shared a love for the early ‘60s girl groups like The Shirelles, The Chiffons and The Ronettes as well as Mary Wells. But our musical tastes parted company in several areas. She didn’t care for the “Stones” and she liked jazz and folk music, which I wasn’t into.
Marley was excited to share an album with me that she’d recently bought. It was “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. I had never heard of the guy. At first I didn’t like it. I thought he had a terrible voice and was an even worse harmonica player. But she convinced me to hang in there with him, which I’m glad I did. Marley and I became friends after that night. She called me Yeager and I felt I could talk to her about anything. We got together periodically, just to talk and listen to music.
After graduating from high school, I went on a week long trip to Florida with my friends Petie and Jeff. We drove non-stop from St. Louis to Fort Lauderdale in Petie’s Corvair, Monza, with the top down. When we got there, after considerable effort, we found a motel room to share. The rule was, if any one of us hooked up with a girl, the other two would stay clear of the motel room.
I spent most nights sleeping in the car or sitting on a bench on the board walk looking out at the ocean. Luckily I had the motel room all to myself to sleep in during the day. On one of the nights, I remember hearing the familiar nasal voice of Dylan coming from the arcade nearby. But it wasn’t one of the folk songs Marley and I had become familiar with. It was rock ‘n’ roll. The song was “Like a Rolling Stone”. I found the jukebox in the back of the arcade and played it over and over again that night. I was anxious to get back home to ask Marley what she thought about Dylan going electric. I thought about her a lot during that trip and decided I wanted to tell her my true feelings and that I thought our relationship should be more than just friends.
But I never told her my feelings and shortly after that I went into the Army. When I was home on leave after completing my training and prior to going to Vietnam, I went over to her house. She was surprised and happy to see me, but when I entered her living room, there sat Mike on the couch. I could tell they had a romantic thing going on and it made the visit awkward. Mike asked me about the Army. I told him I had signed up for 3 years which allowed me to choose my MOS(Army job). I felt my choice of Intelligence would be interesting and a lot safer. Mike was 1-A at the time and said he was going to allow himself to be drafted. I mentioned that he’d probably get stuck in the Infantry and he replied, “I’ll take my chances.”
I got a letter from Marley when I was in Vietnam. I had about 2 months left on my tour. She said that Mike had stepped on a landmine and was instantly killed. I had trouble feeling bad about it at the time. I had already experienced so much death and destruction. I knew Marley was devastated, so I wrote a letter back with what I thought were comforting words. I told her I would see her when I got back.
Mike looks happy in his yearbook picture. He wasn’t dating Marley yet, but I think he had a lot of different girlfriends in high school. I found his name on a replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Truth or Consequences, Mew Mexico a couple years ago.
I didn’t know a lot of my classmates and many of the names in these emails sounded familiar, but I had trouble putting a face to the name. I saved the emails thinking that one day I would look these people up in the yearbook, which has been stashed away at my sister Karen’s house for the past umpteen years. On our recent trip to Seattle, I found the box containing yearbooks at the bottom of a stack of boxes in her basement and I threw it in the car for the trip home to Arizona.
The other day I looked up all my now deceased former classmates. To my surprise, I recognized most of them. Not only did I recognize them, but I could hear their voices and see some of their mannerisms. I’m sure I haven’t thought about these people since we were in high school, but now they have come back to life in my mind.
When I look at their pictures, my thoughts and feelings about them are frozen in time. I’m 63 years old, yet I’m looking through the eyes of a 17-year-old. That girl was really cute and what a body! That guy was tough, I wouldn’t have wanted to get on his wrong side.That girl was really sweet to me, why didn’t I talk to her more? That guy was cool but that one was a real nerd.
I found myself feeling compassion for all these students. We were together in high school at the very beginning of our adult lives and at a time in history, just before our society radically changed. I’m sure many of them married and divorced, lost spouses or children along the way, had multiple ups and downs and now those of us who have survived are in the last part of our lives.
One guy from my class never got a chance to be a hippy, go to college, have a career or a family. His name was Mike and he died in Vietnam in 1967, just two years after we graduated. He was one of the cool guys, tall with blond hair and good looking. I didn’t know him well, but we had a mutual girlfriend. To be more precise, she was my friend and his girlfriend. Her name was Marley and she went to a nearby Catholic school. I first met her out cruising the burger stands with some of the guys. This was an activity she never did, but on this one occasion the car she was riding in ended up right next to our car at the Jennings’ Steak & Shake.
That night we all ended up over at her friend Birdy’s house. Birdy’s parents’ weren’t home for some reason, so we raided their liquor cabinet, drank mixed drinks and listened to music. At some point, Marley and I paired off and found we had a mutual passion for a lot of the same music. It was 1964 and the Beatles had opened up America to the British invasion. She didn’t like some of the British groups, but she did like The Animals, The Kinks and The Zombies. We also shared a love for the early ‘60s girl groups like The Shirelles, The Chiffons and The Ronettes as well as Mary Wells. But our musical tastes parted company in several areas. She didn’t care for the “Stones” and she liked jazz and folk music, which I wasn’t into.
Marley was excited to share an album with me that she’d recently bought. It was “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. I had never heard of the guy. At first I didn’t like it. I thought he had a terrible voice and was an even worse harmonica player. But she convinced me to hang in there with him, which I’m glad I did. Marley and I became friends after that night. She called me Yeager and I felt I could talk to her about anything. We got together periodically, just to talk and listen to music.
After graduating from high school, I went on a week long trip to Florida with my friends Petie and Jeff. We drove non-stop from St. Louis to Fort Lauderdale in Petie’s Corvair, Monza, with the top down. When we got there, after considerable effort, we found a motel room to share. The rule was, if any one of us hooked up with a girl, the other two would stay clear of the motel room.
I spent most nights sleeping in the car or sitting on a bench on the board walk looking out at the ocean. Luckily I had the motel room all to myself to sleep in during the day. On one of the nights, I remember hearing the familiar nasal voice of Dylan coming from the arcade nearby. But it wasn’t one of the folk songs Marley and I had become familiar with. It was rock ‘n’ roll. The song was “Like a Rolling Stone”. I found the jukebox in the back of the arcade and played it over and over again that night. I was anxious to get back home to ask Marley what she thought about Dylan going electric. I thought about her a lot during that trip and decided I wanted to tell her my true feelings and that I thought our relationship should be more than just friends.
But I never told her my feelings and shortly after that I went into the Army. When I was home on leave after completing my training and prior to going to Vietnam, I went over to her house. She was surprised and happy to see me, but when I entered her living room, there sat Mike on the couch. I could tell they had a romantic thing going on and it made the visit awkward. Mike asked me about the Army. I told him I had signed up for 3 years which allowed me to choose my MOS(Army job). I felt my choice of Intelligence would be interesting and a lot safer. Mike was 1-A at the time and said he was going to allow himself to be drafted. I mentioned that he’d probably get stuck in the Infantry and he replied, “I’ll take my chances.”
I got a letter from Marley when I was in Vietnam. I had about 2 months left on my tour. She said that Mike had stepped on a landmine and was instantly killed. I had trouble feeling bad about it at the time. I had already experienced so much death and destruction. I knew Marley was devastated, so I wrote a letter back with what I thought were comforting words. I told her I would see her when I got back.
Mike looks happy in his yearbook picture. He wasn’t dating Marley yet, but I think he had a lot of different girlfriends in high school. I found his name on a replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Truth or Consequences, Mew Mexico a couple years ago.
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