SmokeSound

"The Round House" I am building in our backyard has been a slow-motion project for two reasons: it was difficult to find someone to apply flexible roofing (conical, curves, and rubberized materials), and I had to wait for a doctor to sharpen his meat saw in order to replace my hip with scrap parts. Now, both projects have been done, and I am easing myself toward real work, again. There is a small boy, one of whose virtues is that he keeps getting in the way of other kinds of serious work, who has been complaining lately that the round window he likes to look through is too high off the ground.  That is important, because it is from that window that he is able to see mountains all around, which reminds him (somehow) that the earth goes around the sun, so he says so, every time. That is why, today, I bought a couple of pre-cut porch stringers, and cut a scrap piece of pine board to make treads and, in the best tradition of fine craftsmanship, made a bann...

We are an old-fashioned family, finally! As if it were the Second Coming of Fruition, news sources bombard us with evidence that kids cannot afford independence, and parents cannot escape from the kids living at home with Mom and Dad after college, after work, after all. Mari and I, each having been married before, have had complex opportunities to extend our family ties. Part of those opportunities has been a spare bedroom or two. I have long been a fierce defender of the living room couch, never granting--hardly ever granting:  reluctantly granting-- that it might become a bed.  I have stoutly defended my right to stumble into my own living room, in the middle of the night, and belch and scratch myself if I needed or wanted to; where and as I wanted to. The Lord of the Manor (I have always maintained) should be free to get up in the morning, ramble down the driveway to get the newspaper, and make and drink coffee without having to do it in what ha...

 When she said, "Today I am going to tidy up the house, and sew some things!", I knew I would have to help tidy the house and the back yard and the windows and the garage, and that called for a major alternative: "While you are tidying and sewing and doing all the things that ought to be done," I replied, "I think I will escape this heat and this playpen our grandson has created around us and drive up to Mt. Lemmon." And that, of course, is how we came to our senses together. Mt. Lemmon is 9,000 feet high, and even in the Sonoran Desert, if you stand almost two miles tall there will be tall trees and cool winds, almost to the point of wishing you had brought a thick jacket. Reaching back thirty years, since when we had lived here while collecting academic software, we had occasionally driven to Mt. Lemmon, sometimes even when there was snow on the ground, for the cool breeze and a bowl of chili at The Iron Door; ...

What comes to mind is that miserable old line about selling refrigerators to Eskimos. That is to say, I live in Tucson where it last rained during the reign of the Conquistadores-- which is not true:  it did not rain, then-- and I have just bought a pair of rubber boots. Another guy, buying similar boots, said he had a dirt driveway (leaving his argument there, as if boots were a cure for dust), and that cactus spines stuck to his sneakers, so. . . . I bought rubber boots because I wanted to reset and replumb our birdbath, and the birdbath stands in a dense bed of greenery from which I have occasionally seen snakes come out. Some of those snakes made rattling noises, and I read that snake fangs will not pierce a stout pair of rubber boots. That may not be true but I am a believer and I do  know fangs will pierce sneakers and socks. The proof of the pudding is that I did the job and no snake struck through my new rubber boots, or anything e...

When Mari turns her back announcing an errand I can do without I often ramble camera in hand. Hearing of a small lake south of Tucson is like the children of Israel finding water in the Negev: I had to go to John F. Kennedy Lake. It was like finding a little water in a desert.  "What?  What! Is that a pilgrim come walking?"  Today, while waiting on a tonneau for my new used pickup-- it was time for the three-quarter ton to go look for a load-- I explored a cemetery upon the advice of the Audubon Society, looking for birds looking for water and bugs. Not many. Strange to see swallows (I assume) unrelenting in their determination to live in a mausoleum,  and creepy eerie to find a bathroom on a wall otherwise occupied with citizens in repose. Something like a bird finding a whirly-gig at a grave marker.

Before my outing to the meat market, where the good doctor removed my bad hip and gave me new machinery, cautioning me that the apparatus would be good for only thirty years-- he finally told me to stop laughing-- I had the rondavel ready for a rubber-like roof. They finally came, this week, did a good job except for the wrong color, which we shall talk about. Whether it is water-tight is moot, in Tucson. It may never rain again.  

Some hero from North Carolina, on a flight from Chicago to Albuquerque, walked several rows forward and ripped a hijab from a Muslim woman's face and screamed at her that this was America!  And so it is. I talked recently, with some guys who fumed that Barack Obama wanted to endanger good, decent, god-fearing, sexually identifiable women by allowing rotten, criminal, deviants to dress up like women and attack little girls in toilets. Sometimes it difficult to have sensible conversations.  I suppose that this is America, today. Either/Or.  Neither/Nor.  Man/Woman.  Male/Female.  Up/Down.  Left/Right.  Right/Wrong.  Good/Bad. Our heads like nice, clear choices.  Is an acorn a tree, or is it not?  Is an egg a chicken, or is it not?  Is a fertilized ovum a Democrat or a Republican?  Should a fetus be counted in the census?  Is a woman with small breasts beautiful of is she not?  (We own that one to Donald ...

Hit #1000 as an Old Timer 250 years of Baseball Experience 1 Bad Sartorial Decision A Very High Hard One

Isn't this a wonderful political mess? It appears that Donald Trump has captured the Republican nomination for the Presidency, and that is causing establishment Republican politicians to cramp up.  The problem is that somebody, presumably establishment Republicans, rounded up sixteen other candidates to run against Trump, and they failed miserably. Now the Donald is embarrassing them.  His slogan is, "Make America Great Again", but what he talks about is making America white again:  build a wall between us and Mexico, scorn the Chinese, quit paying our debts by declaring federal bankruptcy and then reorganizing under Chapter IX, banning all Muslims from entering the country, round up and ship out twelve million Mexicans who live in the US, muscle up our military until it scares everybody, and when he is elected President, move the Executive offices to Trump Towers.  Yes, and that women with small breasts are odd, or invisible. "Awful!  Shameful!  Unt...

There are those who, when they reach what might be called "their best years", "the prime of their lives", or even "the acme of arthritis", slide grumpily down into their la-z-boys, but not these guys! They do make small concessions to hundred-degree days-- starting an hour earlier and quitting an inning earlier-- but the baseball is still as hard, even if the fast ball is not, and playing first or left field is a glare facing east in the morning, but-- let us be honest-- playing baseball beats fighting algae in the swimming pool, and the beer is on ice. The Tucson Old Timers Baseball team!

"Let there be light!" And the light came. "Did you see that light?" Old Lightfoot Gray Dawn Line High Noon Harsh daylight pouring in and no music.... Sometimes you lose speed but never grace. "The ball, the ball!  Where's the ball?" "Did you see that?" He didn't see that.