SmokeSound

As it happens, I descend from Nordic people. Who one's ancestors were, and who we find ourselves to be, is about the most out-of-control thing that happens to us. I do not know anyone who chose which ancestors to have. Sometimes I say I grew up in Western Washington State, but that would be patently false:  I did not grow up until long after I have moved away from home, and even then, there are those who are willing to argue. There where I spent my first twenty years or so, I knew that my tribe was Norwegian.  My dad was born in Norway, and all of my mother's ancestors were from Norway, too. While they were all from Norway, it was in Washington they met, having more in common with each other, largely by language and religion and codfish, where they patched a tribe together. I always knew that we were American Norwegians, although that was a term no one ever used:  we were Norwegian. And what did that mean?  It meant we were the people who h...

That is a dreaded sight! An empty driveway; not a newspaper in sight. What is morning without coffee and a couple of newspapers? The New York Times and the Arizona Daily Star? The latest in a long line of newsprint stretching back sixty years? I know, although I will not admit it, that news by newsprint is morbid. I first subscribed to the NYT when, in the early sixties, a Western Edition was first printed in Los Angeles. Almost always, ever since, there have been at least two, and sometimes three, newspapers in our driveway every morning. I am not opposed to electronic print media. I am altogether too familiar with logging on to online editions of newspapers I have become familiar with, only to have the screen lurch in protest that I have not paid to read them digitally, so they go go blank, and then present me with gobs of guilt at being a freeloader, and then proffer redemption by credit card subscription. There is no admission that I have, often for decades,...

Donald Trump is a bigoted racist, a shameless sexist, a textbook example of narcissism, an embarrassment as a Presidential nominee, and self-deluded about war and peace. And those are his good points.  It gets worse. What is important about his capturing the nomination of the tattered Republican Party is what has fueled his support: a lot of people in America are hurting. America is rich, and a lot of people have gotten richer, but even more have gotten poorer. The fundamental economics of not only our country but of much of the former industrial world is shifting to a new economy, an information-based economy, and the old industrial workforce has been left to do the best they can with boarded-up buildings and work at a hamburger joint. The landscape is littered with anger and conspiracies. The anger is legitimate.  The conspiracies are absurd. If there is any truth at all to the conspiracies, it is that the shift of wealth to the rich and the er...

Oh, oh!  Everybody's watching! Making retirement look good! Decision time. Well, then, let's just not call them friends. Headed for the fence:  wrong fence! Just like the Babe. Decision time. They're trying to catch flies? Form Precedes Function Left column:  who sits out which inning. The line-up card is a Rubik's cube.

'Tis an old moving blanket, a well-traveled moving blanket that has cushioned us around the continent several times, finally--well, most recently--settling down in Tucson. Because it had gotten drenched in what understated Tucsonans call a "monsoon", I laid it out on the gravel to dry; much faster than any other method. But I forgot it before it rained again, and the winds attending the monsoon flipped it up on itself. The dark brown parts are what is left of its rich brown color; parts that ended up facing down, or covered by some other corner of the blanket itself.  The lighter section is where the southwest sun not only dried the blanket quickly, but sterilized it of everything that offended the sun. I should have known it would happen:  I looked into the bathroom mirror today.  

Probably headed for the shortstop. Yep!  The shortstop. Why is the shortstop still holding the ball? My two-fingered, rising, double-dip, sinker. A study in excitement. A study in perplexity. It's still moving.  Got to beat it to first. Ought to be another special rule:  no yellow shirts when playing with a yellow ball, unless your other shirt is still in the wash. Ought to be a rule:  nothing below the knees for anyone over ninety. Home to the left.  Dugout straight ahead. Where'd it go? Not so promising. Let me hear that again:  if he doesn't leave first and the batter. . . . Long and lousy foul. Help over here!  No, getting back up! Canadian Sourpuss.

Those are the Santa Catalina mountains, seen from a ridge near where we live.  Most of the sky was quiet and blue, but over the Catalinas--which my Norwegian heritage makes we want to call, the Cat of Santa Lena's--whatever weather there is bunches up and does what it really wants to do, given a place that is cooler that the desert floor. I stopped again, later in the day, which gave the wind and whatever it carried a chance to spread out, reaching out toward the Rincon Mountain. There is no secret in this.  It is just that beautiful is beautiful, and that beautiful in the Sonoran Desert is often a study in contrasts.  Down here, where the floor is, we are brown and green and throbbing.  But up there, not far away, but much higher up, everything that is happening to us is becoming something dramatic, spreading out, making us admit that we live in a splendid place. It is not the only splendid place:  they are everywhere.  But this one is ours.

 Nobody else on the Tucson Old Timers Club remembers these things, but Floyd does, or he ought to, and more and better besides! Floyd was born in 1925. The first motel opened in 1925, in San Luis Obispo. The other great--The Great Gatsby--was published. Mt. Rushmore was dedicated. The Scopes Monkey Trial ended. The Chrysler Corporation was founded. The first Sears Roebuck store opened, in Chicago.  The first issue of The New Yorker was published.  (Floyd was not in it.) The Grand Ole Opry began broadcasting. Johnny Carson, Margaret Thatcher, Richard Burton, and Tony Curtis were born in 1925, also. The Washington Senators won the American League. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the National League. The Kansas City Monarchs won the Negro National League West. Hilldale won the Eastern Colored League. Lou Gehrig hit his first Grand Slam. Dazzy Vance pitched a no-hitter. 1925 was a very, very good year!  Ninety-one years later, Floyd Lan...

  One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.   -- Thomas Arnold Well, so much for that! It is Labor Day. The Tucson Old Timers  did not plan to play a game, probably not so much  as a testament to the holiday as an inability to multiply 9 X 2. They came to the ball park, anyway, dug out the pitching machine, a bucket of balls, a bat or two, and an undying desire to reach the major leagues someday. That, and something better, not really said out loud, about being happy to see each other. Bating practice: "I'm still topping everything!" Outfield practice: "Maybe it is these glasses." Infield practice: "Good Lord, is it only 90 feet?"  It is a good way to get to know each other, without ha...