what about bernie?

FROG HOSPITAL -- December 29, 2015 -- unsubscribe anytime
What About Bernie?
By Fred Owens
Bernie Sanders has a wife, Jane Sanders,  and the NYTimes has a story about her . She seems like a good sort. Makes me want to vote for Bernie.

Hillary Clinton is going to bring out her husband Bill as her not-so-secret weapon. Bill Clinton is a major liability to her campaign  -- he has so much baggage and he supplies major insult material for  Donald Trump. Trump versus Clinton will get nasty. Cover your ears.

I support Bernie on the basis of character and decency. He's a pretty square guy, and not mega-rich like the Clintons. But I don't endorse Bernie's socialist agenda, and I end up back in Hillary's camp because her middle of the road position is similar to my own view.


Bernie Sanders, if elected, will be the President of the Way It's Supposed To Be. Hillary Clinton, if elected, will be the President of the Way It Is.

Let me explain that. Americans are supposed to love trains and use public transportation, and that will wean us from fossil fuels and reduce congestion.  That's the way it's supposed to be. But Americans don't love trains, they love cars. That's the way it is. Look out the window -- this isn't Europe. Let's make America a better country, and let's start by loving it the way it is.
Enough of that.

Cold and Dry in Santa Barbara and Still No Rain. I planted garlic on Saturday. I should have planted the garlic in October when the soil was still warm. That's what the book says, and the book is right. There is nothing more discouraging and defeating then gardening advice from the experts who write these books. Screw 'em.

Or these lame-brain tightly-scheduled pruning manuals. Oh no, you're not supposed to trim your forsythia until AFTER it blooms. And if you have no life, you can follow that schedule. But if you do have a life, then you trim the damn forsythia when you get around to it, and you will have my complete support in doing so..

The good books and the good garden masters encourage you to learn by making mistakes. Prune! Plant! Dig! Sow! Rake! Fertilize! All that. It won't always work, but so what!

The very best gardeners and farmers are not really smarter than you are, but they have that one supreme quality -- they never give up, they just keep going. And this coming year of 2016 could be the best year ever.

The Bus Book. It will not take me very long to re-write this novel, called the Bus Book. I threw out Chapter 2 and that was the only big problem. Now I need to re-write the beginning of the book -- the first few pages. This is key. I was browsing the fiction section of the bookstore last week, viewing the opening paragraphs of authors I admire, looking for an idea to steal.
I have no title for this book. I am unable to do that. I will ask my First Readers to suggest something.
Anyway, all this will not take a huge amount of time. Estimating to finish the work in mid-January.
I Only Work for Nice People.   I have a part-time business doing gardening work for people in Santa Barbara. Here the ad I run in Craigs List to drum up business:
I only work for nice people and I give them excellent service. I will be kind to your small children and your pets. I will respect your property and your privacy.

In January we prune the roses. I have some experience in rose work.

January is also a good time to plant bare-root roses and fruit trees. La Sumida Nursery has a good stock of those plants.

Any potted plants can go in the ground now, and transplanting also works best this time of year -- when the weather is cold and the plants are dormant.

This is a good time of year for me to spread mulch on your garden. I can arrange to have it delivered or you can do that yourself. Mulch slows evaporation, smothers weeds, softens the soil, and adds organic matter as it breaks down. Adding mulch is a no-brainer. And new mulch makes your garden look beautiful.

I bring my own hand tools and prefer organic methods. I have local references, and I will give you an honest deal.

I don't mow lawns as a regular service, but if you are in a pinch and if you have a working lawn mower, then I can do that too. I am also glad to help you clean out your garage and do basic chores, as needed.

I do volunteer work at the Mission rose garden and at the Mesa Harmony Garden.

Give me a call if you are interested. I will come and see your garden and we can make a plan.
Happy New Year. I am so grateful to have friends and family -- some close by, some out there in the world. I am so thankful to have such a lovely girl friend -- Laurie Moon is the very best of the best of the best, and her two lively daughters Mariah and Shannon are extra good.  My two wonderful children Eugene and Eva are all grown up and doing well. My siblings Tom, Carolyn and Katy are so kind and careful.
Special Thanks to all Faithful Frog Hospital Readers and Subscribers. You are the best, and you make every news letter a love letter as well.
Be well. Take Care. All my best to you and yours.
Fred

Frog Hospital Subscription Drive.   Your contribution of $25 is greatly appreciated. The Frog Hospital newsletter has been cruising down the Internet for 16 years now. I have tried to kill this newsletter several times – tried to stomp it out like the ember from an old campfire, or dig it up like a pestiferous weed, but it won’t die – Frog Hospital just keeps on going.

So please send a check. Your contribution keeps me from getting cranky. It helps me to maintain a detached attitude. Let’s keep it going….
Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25,
or
Send a check for $25 to
Fred Owens
1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Hitchhiking with Larry

Wabi-Sabi. Here are a couple of videos to serve as an antidote to Trump Fever. The first one is a Zen Humdinger starring Robert Sund in a walk-on role. Robert was a poet and he died in 2001, but we don't forget. And Fishtown is still there, if you know how to find it. This is called Wabi-Sabi.

The second one is to get you dancing. It is the Jerusalem Steel Big Band playing their version of the Happy Wanderer. Everybody join in to sing Val-da-ree, Val-de-rah, Val-de-ree, Val-de-ra-ha-ha-ha. You gotta love this one.

Yes, there is a cure for Trump Fever. Get your relief today.

Gun Control.  Charles Blow writes a column for the New York Times. He favors gun control and has the mighty power of his newspaper to back him up. But read this column -- where he talks about his own brother, who is a gun collector. And his brother takes him to a gun show to see all the weapons, and they have a civilized debate about who gets to own and use what weapon. But Charles Blow can't even convince his own brother to change his mind.

I have plenty of friends, gun-nuts on the one hand and peace-niks on the other hand. Nobody has changed their mind. A discussion on this topic is not fruitful, not at this time.

Roger Cohen also writes a column at the New York Times. Cohen is my kind of guy -- spends a lot of time in Paris, owns property in the south of France, living the life. He fears the rise of Donald Trump. He speaks of the decadent Weimar Republic that led to the rise of Hitler and says it can happen again in America, so we have been forewarned.

Roger Cohen is a good and forceful writer, but is he really my kind of guy? His life is utterly foreign to me. I don't spend time in Paris. I don't own property in the south of France. What do he and I have in common? Very little. Still, I would rather live in his world than in a penthouse at the Trump Tower.

To get my feet back on the ground, I called Stuart Welch, former owner of the Rexville Store in LaConner, Washington. Stuart has the answer to any question you can ask. Maybe not the right answer, but "I don't know" is not in his vocabulary. Stuart fears the rise of Ted Cruz more than he fears Donald Trump.  I'm not sure why -- he said this at the end of a long conversation on other matters. Stuart probably has a good reason for fearing Ted Cruz, and I will keep that in mind.

But -- this goes on and on because I know a lot of people -- Elaine Kolodziej is my former boss, the esteemed publisher of the Wilson County News in Floresville, Texas. She favors Ted Cruz above all other candidates, and she is one smart cookie.

Now to get this all mixed up -- Stuart Welch is well acquainted with Elaine Kolodziej in Floresville, Texas. That's because Elaine, for many years, has sent a courtesy copy of her weekly newspaper to the Rexville Store in LaConner, Washington. And Stuart likes to read her newspaper, although his politics don't jibe with Elaine's politics. And I will take credit for introducing these two vital people to each other, pro-Cruz and anti-Cruz.

So there you have it. I myself with will vote for Hillary Clinton. She's okay.

Hitchhiking with Larry. Here is an excerpt from a book I am writing. Tom Blethen left his job at the mental hospital in New York in February of 1973. He was hitchhiking to Texas to get some fresh air. He camped on Padre Island, but the mosquitoes and the humidity drove him batty. Later he went to Austin and had a good time....

He partied for a few weeks, on the town, a guest of the good people of Texas who seemed more than willing. Food here, beer there, plenty of pot, sunshine and sweet ladies. He took to being pals with Larry, a guy from Arkansas with a twang as thick as peanut butter -- even though it was an embarrassment -- not Larry’s twang, but his age, easily 30. What were the two of them doing in this college town? It wasn’t like they tapped you on the shoulder and said you were too old. Heck, there were graduate students older than 35, and superannuated panhandlers going gently into the night. Maybe no one else but Tom noticed, but he and Larry were getting past this.

A tornado leveled the small town of Marble Falls, out west 60 miles from Austin. They saw it in the paper, talking at the coffee shop.

“Larry, we ought to go out there. We could help clean up the mess, just do it to be good citizens, if they paid us, even better.”

“Well, we’re just fucking the dog here,” Larry said. He had a big grin, all the time. Teeth with no future, a scrawny build and no education.

Decided and done, they got their packs and hitched out to Marble Falls, wandering through the small downtown, the whole town with its guts spilled out in the street. Nobody was around, which surprised them. They walked slowly, awed by the destruction.

“Look at all the washing machines and furniture in that store,” Larry said, point at an emporium with the roof gone and plate glass windows all smashed.

Just thinking about those goods might have triggered an almost violent response from the sheriff’s deputy as he came roaring up to them in his Ford Victoria. He screeched to a halt, jumped out of the car leaving the door open, and marched towards them, in a blinding white starched shirt, holstered gun and shining boots.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The deputy said, loud as brass.

“We…”

“You’re going to turn around and get out of this town as fast as you can walk. I don’t care where you’re from, but you don’t belong here. Now git.”

Tom and Larry stood there like idiots. Larry’s shit-faced grin made the deputy even madder -- but he couldn’t help it, he was always grinning.

“You goddam hippies better start running or you’re going to jail,” the deputy said, hand going near his gun.

Tom acted fast, grabbed Larry by the shirt, and they began to dog trot back out to the highway, their packs bouncing on their backs, panting, a quarter mile, than slowed a bit to a fast walk, not talking, clearing the edge of town, past the houses, out to empty fields by the highway, then slowed to a ready walk, but kept going a good mile before they stopped for a smoke.

“Geez, we were gonna help,” Larry said.

“Yeah, we weren’t doing anything wrong,” Tom said, but he had figured it out. “It’s they were scared. You saw all that stuff lying in the street. That’s everything they owned, and they didn’t know us from thieves.”

“Well, they could have asked us. They could have checked us out. We didn’t mean any harm. It was going to be one brother helping another.”

“But they were scared. That’s why the deputy was so up tight”

“I don’t want their fucking stuff,” Larry said.

“Doesn’t matter. We ain’t wanted. Let’s get back to Austin.

“I tell you, I’m never coming to a place like this again. Stupid rednecks.”

“Wrong place, wrong time, that’s all,” Tom said.

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading my words. I really appreciate that.

Frog Hospital Subscription Drive.   Your contribution of $25 is greatly appreciated. The Frog Hospital newsletter has been cruising down the Internet for 16 years now. I have tried to kill this newsletter several times – tried to stomp it out like the ember from an old campfire, or dig it up like a pestiferous weed, but it won’t die – Frog Hospital just keeps on going.

So please send a check. Your contribution keeps me from getting cranky. It helps me to maintain a detached attitude. Let’s keep it going….
Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25,
or
Send a check for $25 to
Fred Owens
1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105


--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

President Obama tells us to be calm

Terrorism

By Fred Owens

President Obama addressed the nation Sunday night. He wants us to calm down and be patient. I am already calm and patient, so I skipped his speech. I spend a lot of my time in gardens, in parks, and on farms -- those are very calm places. I suggest you spend more time outdoors, you will not only feel safer, you will actually be safer.

And just to make a political comment -- I do not care if you feel safe or do not feel safe. That is no concern of mine. I do care very much if you are safe, or if you are not safe. Is that too picky?

Speaking of terror, I realized that my knowledge of Islam has expanded a hundred fold in recent times. You all know the difference between Sunni and Shia. And you learned that difference sometime after September 11, 2001. You may know that a Pakistani is a Moslem, but not an Arab. You probably know that the Saudi Arabians practice a very stern version of Sunni Islam.

Islamic terror has become the teacher about Middle Eastern ways. That is not a good thing at all. We're learning about Islam from fear, not from admiration.

You can arrive at a point of admiration, but it was fear that got you started.

I notice this difference because of my genuine delight in learning about the cultures of people around the world -- Jewish life, Buddhist chants, African dance, Latin food -- all a delight, all to satisfy my curiosity. But not Islam -- I approach that topic defensively.

Weaponry. Recent events, the killings in San Bernardino, in Paris, and at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, have intensified the debate about gun control in our country. The voices are louder, but I observe no change of heart. This is not going anywhere, not that I can tell, except people are getting more strident and that is a concern. First I thought, what could be worse than mass killings? But there are many things far worse than that. You could choke to death in the Beijing smog for starters. You could get shot six different ways if you lived in Syria. Let's ask the people in Syria if America is hell on earth. They all want to come here.

Friends in Prison. I seem to be connecting with friends in prison. Eben has been in for 15 years and this was the first time I sent him a letter. How do you write to a friend serving time? By talking about ordinary things and not making petty complaints, and by not asking questions about the crime that got him there. It is a good deed to visit those in prison, it says so in the Bible. You don't need to get into it any deeper than that. In the case of Eben, he will not see daylight in my lifetime, and how much punishment he deserves is not a matter for my judgment. I'm only his friend, and I write him letters.

Time to Finish the Book

"Tom Blethen sat at the edge of his bed reading a letter in the men’s dormitory at Rockland State Hospital in New York...................."

That's the opening line of an autobiographical novel I have written, although I might change it. I worked there as a psychiatric aide in 1973, but I was about to quit and head for Texas to get the mental hospital aura out of my system. That's the story. And I met some people along the way and stuff happened.

Most of what I wrote actually happened, but I never, not in real life, had Maria for a girl friend, so I turned it into a novel and I became Tom Blethen and he and Maria had this thing --- but that was short-lived..... it's in the book.

Except it's not finished. To finish it would require a degree of concentration that is not possible for me at this point. Maybe, if I spent six weeks starting in January, and did nothing else but finish this book -- that's what it would take.

I chose Tom Blethen as the name of the main character. Tom, because it's a family name and common to most people. And Blethen because it's a Welsh name like Owens.

Owens and Blethen -- both with two syllables, both sounding soft and easy.

I had a girl friend named Rosana Blethen in 1989. She was related to the Blethens who own the Seattle Times. Those Blethens are very wealthy and powerful in Seattle, but Rosana's father was the black sheep of the family and Rosana herself had no position of wealth of prestige for that reason.

But Blethen is a good name, so I hope she does not mind that I borrowed it for my main character..... Tom Blethen..... what do you think?

Subscription Income Reaches $600. Frog Hospital had a good year in subscription sales and we still have a few weeks left. We took in $600 which is $50 every month and almost like getting paid. The income improves my attitude in a tremendous way and I appreciate it very much.

Remember how small we are. You might like the New York Times, but try reaching them on the phone. Well, you can call me anytime, 360-739-0214. I won't pick up, I never do, but if you leave a message I will call back. Or send me an email  -- i would love to hear from you.

The Frog Hospital goal for 2016 is $5,000 in income and 5,000 readers. And the emphasis will be on gaining new readers. I would like the audience to get bigger.
Frog Hospital Subscription Drive.   Your contribution of $25 is greatly appreciated. The Frog Hospital newsletter has been cruising down the Internet for 16 years now. I have tried to kill this newsletter several times – tried to stomp it out like the ember from an old campfire, or dig it up like a pestiferous weed, but it won’t die – Frog Hospital just keeps on going. So please send a check. Your contribution keeps me from getting cranky. It helps me to maintain a detached attitude. Let’s keep it going….
Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25,
or
Send a check for $25 to
Fred Owens
1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105

Thank you very much.......

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Eugene goes to School

By Fred Owens

Eugene was born in April, 1977 at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois. We lived in a nice apartment on Clyde Street at the time, but we moved out a few months later and we kept moving all through his childhood.

Why did we keep moving, you may ask? That doesn't matter. The truth is that we moved a lot and we never asked Eugene if he thought that was a good idea. The truth is he didn't like it -- being moved, having to go to a new school in the middle of the school year.

I can see him being lead into a classroom by a smiling teacher and the teacher saying, "Class, this is Eugene Owens, he just moved here from _____ and let's give him a warm welcome." I don't think he enjoyed this ritual.

But that was later. He was born in Evanston, Illinois. We quickly moved to Long Beach, Mississippi, then to Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and then up to Marblemount in the Skagit Valley in Washington State. All that doesn't count because Eugene was a toddler and moving makes little difference at that age.

Besides that, in defense of his mother and me, Eugene was surrounded by a cocoon of constant love and attention. He was swaddled and petted and played with. We were poor, but little kids don't even notice that. He slept in a suitcase one month, in a camp by a rushing stream. It was summer and it was a nice place when we stayed there.

But we moved to LaConner after our daughter Eva was born, and we attempted to stay put, and we did stay put for several years and Eugene began school. Gretchen Robinson was his kindergarten and first grade teacher. She taught him to read and he will always be grateful for that. Then he had Mrs. Good in the second grade.

In January of his third grade we moved to Austin, Texas. He went to the Zilker School. We picked that school and rented an apartment nearby because it was integrated and Eugene would not have to be bussed across town. Bussing for integration was a bad idea, in my opinion. We could see the Zilker school by looking out across the park from our apartment window. We could see Eva and Eugene skipping across the grass to school in the morning. We should have stayed there.

By now it was 1986, and Eugene was seven years old. That summer we moved to Anahuac, in east Texas -- in a country of high heat and humidity and rice fields, and gators, and all that backwoods stuff. Eugene began fourth grade in the Anahuac School -- which featured a brand new building because the price of oil was high at that time and local schools collected a tax from local oil wells and so the schools had extra money.

As you could guess, Anahuac was not such a good place for us to live, so that November we moved all the way back to the Skagit Valley, but not back to LaConner, where Eugene was well known and had many friends. No, we moved to the nearby town of Mount Vernon, and plopped him down in the middle of the school year in the fifth grade at Madison school. Mr. Lupinacci was the principal. He was a good guy and all the students and teachers embraced Eugene with warmth and friendship.

Eugene was basically doing well in his young life, happy enough, doing his schoolwork, minding his parents, playing well with other kids. He liked playing video games at the mall, but he never cared much for sports.

That was the Madison school, but then he finished grade school and went to junior high at LaVenture. Junior high is a bad concept in my opinion. I much prefer a school system that goes from kindergarten to 8th grade. Junior high is a perfect storm of awkward, atrocious pre-teens. Eugene did not do well at that school and had very few friends. I felt bad about that. He stayed home and watched TV and read books -- lots of TV and lots of books. He seemed lonely.

In January of 1991, we moved clear across the country to Cambridge, Massachusetts and Eugene finished the 8th grade at the Peabody School. He made a lot of friends there. At his 14th birthday party that year, I took him and all his friends to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Show -- the kids loved it, I didn't.

He graduated from Peabody and began his freshman year at Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School. That was a rough and ready urban school, almost adjoining the campus of Harvard University -- but all the Harvard kids went to fancy private schools -- the Townies went to Rindge & Latin.

It was a rough crowd and Eugene got into trouble and was expelled late in the school year, sending him to yet another school, a small private affair set up just for those kids in trouble.

After school, Eugene hung out with his low-life street friends at Harvard Square, around the entrance to the subway. I was worried about him.

This was the only time we moved for the benefit of the children. We were losing Eugene to the street life of Boston, so we moved, again in January, 1993, to the leafy, prosperous suburb of Newton, where wholesome young high school students are simply not allowed to get into trouble.

Eugene did not like being moved. For the first time, but after many abrupt moves in the past, he burst into angry tears and shouted, "I don't want to move, I don't want to move."

I felt bad about that, but we did move, and Eugene did well at Newton North High School. The kids he hung out with were pretty decent, and I was not worried about him. He graduated in 1995.

That was 20 years ago. I am still in touch with Gretchen Robinson, his first grade teacher. She married LaConner High School teacher Vince Sellen. They are retired now and they live in Anacortes. I thank her and Eugene thanks her for teaching him to read. Eugene's mother helped a lot with that too.

Now Eugene is 38, with a masters degree in library science, and a position as a librarian in the Los Angeles Public Library. He lives with his girlfriend Erica Rawlings in a nice apartment in the Highland Park neighborhood near downtown.

He loves his girlfriend, he likes his job and he likes where he lives. I just saw him over Thanksgiving.

Good Cheer.
.
Merry Christmas everyone. Drive safe. Keep warm. Spend more time with your dog, or your cat, or your horses.

Frog Hospital Subscription Drive. Your contribution of $25 is greatly appreciated. The Frog Hospital newsletter has been cruising down the Internet for 16 years now. I have tried to kill this newsletter several times – tried to stomp it out like the ember from an old campfire, or dig it up like a pestiferous weed, but it won’t die – Frog Hospital just keeps on going.

So please send a check. Your contribution keeps me from getting cranky. It helps me to maintain a detached attitude. Let’s keep it going….

Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25,

or

Send a check for $25 to

Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105

Thank you very much.......



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital