SmokeSound

Once, when the world was young, we stopped somewhere in Wyoming (I believe it was:  perhaps elsewhere) and hiked a short ways to see old ruts in the grass which were part of the Oregon Trail.  It was easy to imagine wagon after wagon, time and again, following and creating those ruts, still there. Sometimes "going west, young man" meant leaving from Independence, Missouri, and driving a team of horses or oxen pulling a conestoga wagon, or something, all the way to Oregon City, Oregon.  Here and there, one can still see the tracks in the grass, as unplowed yet as they were then, neglected by every kind of subsequent machinery. Earlier this month, Daniel and Ellie drove Mari and me to Oregon City, where Daniel sometimes works, and where we had lunch.  There is a monument to the terminus of the Oregon Trail, if monument it is to be called.  It is supposed to be a Conestoga wagon train, but it looks like boxcars with great pipe hoops arching overhead, resting...

Daniel and Ellie invited Mari and me to visit them for several days, and we think we did. The way to Portland, if you live in Tucson, sometimes goes through Salt Lake City, probably because Delta believes in full airplanes, or maybe because no one should too suddenly turn from desert to the bottom of the sea.  On the first leg of the trip, we met the most beautiful dog in the world.  He was an Akita, of amazing good humor, whose duties consisted of keeping his owner in good humor, too. Ellie and Daniel live in Portland, Oregon, where the nights and days strive for equal light levels.  I exaggerate, or course, else what is the point of telling the truth?  As a person who orients himself by the position of the sun in the sky, I had to wait what I think was three nights and two days to catch sight of it, and then it was diffused beyond position. My phone kept posting messages to me that as soon as it could distinguish up from down, it was going to send me my l...

Once, in a silly moment of self-indulgence, I had thought that getting up and walking after having had hip surgery was painful; almost more than I could do.  But then I remembered what it was like to have gout; thinking that I was walking on the rawest splinters of broken bones in my foot.  As you might surmise, I have not had much notable pain in my life.  In fact, the most painful moments in my life have not had to do with surgery or broken bones, at all.  They have been when someone has asked me to dance. And truth be told, the pain of having to dance, when I could not, has been more painful for the other person in closest proximity when I have tried to dance.  But I have not felt overly sorry for them:  they had a choice.  I had none.  I cannot dance. Why can I not dance?  I have taken dancing lessons.  It was like trying to teach a rock to float; like asking a frog to sing a serenade.  It was humiliating. Why can I not...

"Garlic in my food!  Garlic!  We are Englishmen, Sarah, not savages!"                                   (From a postcard Mari received from Marilyn.) "You can never have enough garlic.  With enough garlic, you can eat the New York Times."                                   (Morley Safer)                                                  “Shallots are for babies; onions are for men; garlic is for heroes.”                                                              (Unknown)             ...

I had been looking forward to the Jury Duty assignment, partly because it is an important, although dreaded, part of how we govern ourselves, and partly because I had an unblemished record of never having been selected to serve on a jury.  I wanted to know what it was like. As often happens, the first call of jury duty was postponed about a week, but then the second week came around, and I reported.  Hundreds of us took our places in what was called the Jury Assembly Room, where we completed a questionnaire, and waited.  The "Jury Assembly Room" sounded like a place where juries were constructed from parts, and that was about right.  The actual assembly happened in a courtroom upstairs.  The deconstruction preceded the construction.  We were divided into three groups, something like the medical process of triage:  those in pretty good shape, those who were hopeless, and those who should get first attention, because it would make a real difference...

By happenstance, recently, I rediscovered Pendleton Woolen Mills.  I was looking for a vest, and they have some glorious designs. It brought to mind a most curious memory.  Long since, while still a callow youth, I was a callow clergyman in California.  Every year, the congregations in the Synod to which we belonged held meetings.  Like most organizations, there were the Big Shots who ran things.  I do not know whether there is anything smaller than bird shot, but if there is, I was one of them. The name--Pendleton--brought to mind that when the clergy met to do whatever they did, there was always a time when the stiff collars were set aside, and we got casual.  The Big Shots loved Pendleton shirts, and wore them like grouse stamping around in . . . no, I guess that for grouse it is mating season.  The clergy I remember just preened in their expensive plaid shirts, providing what Autumn and aspen trees do in other places. For real color, one nee...

I am still thinking about the almost incomprehensible contempt for government that we have all around us.  It stuns me!  How is it possible for any normal person, who has any  understanding of what it is to live in society, to have contempt for what it is to live together?  Government is nothing more than the way we organize our lives together.  It might be a monarchy, or a commune, or a Wild West with pistols and saloons and cattle and sheep, but it has to be something . It occurs to me that what is happening now is almost devoid of sensible debate about what we want our country to be, what we want our cities and neighborhoods to be.  We have so much contempt for what our politicians do when they get into office that we look around for someone running for office who promises to do even less.  We don't debate about kind of health care system would serve the nation best, or how to deliver it:  we ask someone to do less.  We don't talk abou...

I am utterly baffled by the people who claim to hate government. Were they to say that they preferred to have a king to govern them, I could at least know what they were talking about.  I would think them to be hopelessly lost in time, but I would understand what they meant. Were there people who really did not want any government, who really meant it when they said they hated government, and that they thought they would like to move to the panhandle of Idaho, or to an island somewhere--somewhere absolutely cut off from people who did not also hate government--I would hope that they could find such a place, and move there.   I don't want to live there, where there is no law; where there are no limits to what one can do, but maybe people who want that ought to arm themselves, stock up on biscuits and baloney, and go there.  I cannot think of any place in the world where anyone wants that, but maybe it ought to be tried. But people do say they hate government; not si...

 "How many grandchildren do you have?", somebody asked when Jao showed up at the Old Timers's game.  "About ten," I replied, as if a bit uncertain.  It seemed like a lot more. We have been starting the day with a new routine, lately.  Until recently, Jao and I put on our shoes and went down the driveway to get the newspapers.  Then I sat down at the kitchen table, with coffee and the newspapers, while Jao did things to fascinate his grandmother.   Then Jao discovered that he could build a train by putting his folding chairs in a row.  Now I am finding it easier just to take my assigned seat in the caboose, and make train noises.  Today, Jao noticed how much I missed the newspaper, so he brought it to me, aboard the train.  I continued to make "chugga-chugga" noises, with an occasional train whistle thrown in as we approached crossings, on the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe. Our days are busy for me--the octegenarian--and for Jao the ...