October is the most beautiful month

October is the most beautiful month. The weather is good almost everywhere in the country. You can go camping and sleep well in the crisp air. Frost has killed most of the bugs.

Of the four seasons, autumn is the only with a home -- New England. It was created there. Pictures of pretty leaves -- that's not it. The visual splendor is the lesser joy. It's the air itself that breathes magic. And if you're lucky to be in New England now, I'm happy for you.

It's pretty nice here in the Skagit Valley too, so we can't complain. Even Southern California has been blessed with a rare October rain -- my brother Tom called from Pasadena to say that the grass was growing there.

On Beaver Marsh Road, we are still gathering potatoes left over in the field after the harvester has passed through. I have about 200 pounds in a big pile by the barn. They store better unwashed, I have learned. I clean them up in five-pound batches, making a nice gift for friends.

Gleaning is not just for poor people anymore, because there are literally tons of potatoes out there for anyone who cares to gather them, and the farmers readily give permission for this traditional activity.

I don't give a hoot about global warming, but you might think about all the energy required to grow these potatoes -- come on out and get some spuds and earn your carbon credits.

One Harebrained Scheme after another

My life is about one harebrained scheme after another. Nothing ever turns out right for me because I have global dyslexia.

In my journey these past few years from here to Ohio, to Texas, and to California, I have lived in tents and lived in mansions -- but nothing really happened. And I haven't exactly risen up in the world -- it seems I mostly move sideways.

It looks like I am right back where I started from -- with this one very large improvement, because I no longer live in the insular, incestuous village of LaConner (pop. 800) but enjoy the spacious air out on Beaver Marsh Road, among farm-fields.

Out here, I am not aggravated and do not return the the favor. It's better. I visit LaConner almost every day. It's only five miles away, but, if you may have noticed, I write nothing about the town in this blog.

The petty feuds bore me, the arts are not interesting, there is a ban on music and dancing -- not an official ban -- but I only see the dullness of older people sitting on oak benches besides potted geraniums. There is simply nothing to write about in LaConner.

Maybe that's good, because it's still a great town for raising children, and nothing else matters nearly as much.

Picking onions

Re: Immigrants, legal and illegal.

Nice people, but too many. Any large population shift is inherently unstable.

Also, I am angry that there are other people in this country with false papers. I keep papers in my wallet, SS card, drivers license, etc. It has always been a pain for me to keep this ID up to date, because I have moved around so much. But I am who I say I am, and I am not willing to share this country with somebody who can't live up to that standard.

There is no historic crime which we need to explain or apologize for -- this is our country, and we get to decide who comes in and who doesn't. It's the same thing in Mexico - try getting into Mexico if you don't have any money -- they won't let you in, and they don't have to. In fact they don't even need a reason, and neither do we.

So, build a fence, send out the National Guard, deport a bunch of people, and then hopefully, the message will get down to Latin America and elsewhere that the U.S. is closed for the time being.

We should have limited immigration in the early 20th century before the Klu Klux Klan nativist reaction set in, ending immigration entirely for the next 50 years and contributing to the dull conformity of the 1950s.

Immigration should be "governed" like the governor on an engine, never too fast and never too slow.

So, nice people, send 'em back where they came from.

And the farmers can rot. They say they will go out of business if they can't hire cheap labor, but they love the superiority of watching campesinos bending over in their fields. And American consumers can stop acting so spoiled. If we want onions, then we either pick them ourselves, or pay decent wages to some one else to pick them for us -- or we just don't get any onions.

From New Jersey to Boston

Artist Bobby Vilinsky has traveled the world from New Jersey to Boston....I just wrote that because it sounds funny. Bobby is a good friend of mine and he has seen many things in many places, but it is true that he grew up in New Jersey and has spent most of his adult life in Boston.

Not Boston -- Cambridge. Local neighborhoods count quite a bit in New England. Cambridge -- anybody who lives there will tell you -- is on the other side of the Charles River from Boston and quite a different town.

Then, people in Cambridge will want to know in what part of Cambridge does one live -- certain neighborhoods have their peculiarities.

Bobby Vilinsky, depicted here, in a handsome and appealing portrait, used to live near Central Square in Cambridge, but now he lives almost midway between Harvard Square and Central Square and partakes of both, or neither.

More importantly, his apartment comes with a parking space for his Honda Civic, plus he can walk to either Harvard Square or to Central Square and descend to the Red Line subway, which will take him in to Boston if, for example, he wanted to visit the Museum of Fine Art, or go to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox.

Bobby has had his art displayed at the Museum of Fine Art, an august circumstance which has not gone to his head. Bobby is the same old friendly fellow I have always known.

I would display a photo of his art, but it is conceptual, often three-dimensional, and does not reproduce well on this flat screen. But I think a photo of the artist himself works quite well. Bobby has a strong smile and it comes easily.

My Mind is not "Open."

Ambiguity is essential -- it's the sign of a growing mind. Internal ambiguity is a reflection of the outward contradictions we observe. It is not necessarily our goal to resolved disparate views -- a large mind has room for many things.

John Kerry -- I didn't like him but for one quality - his deep, unresolved conflict about the War in Viet Nam. He wanted to serve, he wanted to be a hero, and that's why he earned his medals. Then he threw them away, because the whole war was a bitch. Decades later, Kerry's mental state is still ambivalent about that conflict -- in that sense he represents a large number of American men.

On another note, I will no longer use the term "open mind." I use the term "growing mind" and "large mind." Openness, being open, is one of our new faux virtues. My mind is not open. My mind has boundaries, barriers, walls, portals, gates, and doors. My mind has visiting hours, but I run the joint, and not every notion is welcome.

In support of that resolve, I have included an image of the famous slogan from the Revolutionary War, "Don't Tread on Me."

Quoting this slogan in a meaningful way, as it applies to myself, and as it also applies to our national defense, should not be read as any endorsement of President Bush's wildly irresponsible invasion of Iraq.

It's so Silly

You can de-construct Columbus Day all you want, but I am sticking with the original version by Samuel Elliott Morrison in his book Christopher Columbus, the Voyage of Discovery 1492. Morrison seems to think that Columbus was one of the outstanding navigators of all time -- but what does Morrison know? He's just old, stupid, and dead.

Frog Hospital mocks all the nonsensical historical revision going on about Christopher Columbus with the following satiric post.

Christopher Columbus was a Very Bad Man

Let us revile the memory of this supposed Discoverer. Let us question the sanity of our foreparents who made this day a holiday. For Christopher Columbus was a very bad man, his crimes innumerable, and his vices legion.

He was a pronounced Catholic bigot with no respect for other religious traditions, counting Moslems as heretics, and Native Americans as devil worshipping heathens.

He was in league with the supreme anti-Semites of his day, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who sponsored his brutal voyage of conquest and cruelty. The Spanish monarchs had only recently expelled all Moslems from the Iberian Peninsula, and were about to launch the Inquisition, to torture, evict, or convert the Jews who had lived in Spain for centuries.

Christopher Columbus was also a male chauvinist and despicable sexist. Staffing, "manning," he would have said, his three vessels, he insisted that not a single female be recruited, going so far as to say, with no apology, that it was bad luck to have a woman on board.

As leader of this pestilential fleet, Columbus assumed dictatorial powers, never once consulting his crew, or even his mates, but making all decisions himself. There was no vote, there was no consensus. To disobey the orders of this tyrant meant the lash.

Furthermore, besides being a bad man, Columbus was profoundly stupid. Discoverer? Pah! He was lost. he thought he was in China.

It is important to mention these crimes, alongside with his well-known role as enslaver and killer of Native American peoples.

We, his descendents, especially those of us from Italy, where Columbus was born, can only consider ourselves to be the evil spawn of this malignant monster.

It is entirely appropriate that this most awful day in human history, October 12, be a day of mourning, ashes and weeping.

It was all wrong, and everything that happened since then was wrong -- truly there is an Original Sin, but it was not Adam and Eve, but Christopher Columbus, who destroyed the Garden of Eden that was once America.

(Only we need to call it something else besides America, which comes from the name of a self-promoting mapmaker, Amerigo Vespucci -- another one of those damned Italians.)

Power Couples -- and Powerless Couples

The pre-eminent power couple in the land is Bill and Hillary Clinton. I so strongly wish they would retire -- don't they have a ranch somewhere? like the Reagans did, or like George Bush does -- I can't wait for him to retire too.

I will not vote for Hillary, and I very much hope she is not elected -- primarily because "they" will return to the White House. The Clintons are addicted to supreme power and they can't let go.

In the new "classless" America, since we destroyed the middle class -- and I regret to say that I had a major role to play in that destruction -- but in the new order, we have power couples -- such as Bill and Hillary -- he's a lawyer and ex-President, she's a lawyer and US Senator.

And every power couple is matched by a powerless couple, call them Ted and Beatrice. Beatrice works swing shift at a convenience store, and Ted works construction, which used to pay well before illegal immigration trashed that occupation.

But Bill and Hillary are just folks, not the kind to put on airs -- I'm not being ironic here -- they truly do not act fancy. But they are all about power, keeping it and wielding it.

The Owens family could use more power, so could our fictional Ted and Beatrice, and we will attain more power, by opposing the Clintons.

The Battle of the Sexes

Frog Hospital reviews the battle of the sexes, choosing archetypal couples from the 1950s, 1960s, and the present day. Scrolls down to the next three posts for photos of the couples, plus commentary.

George Burns's squarely fitted suit, careful hair, and strong, balanced cigar speak of confidence in himself and love for his wife, Gracie Allen. His gravitas balances her dancing spirit. She has the string of pearls and he has the last word.

Richard Burton's craggy, pockmarked, rugged features, and brassy-baritone voice are a wonderful contrast to violet-eyed Elizabeth Taylor. She of the busom and you know they're real. And he, fearless, daring, moving towards her, never looking back. Did they feed off the enormous energy of the 1960s -- or did they create it?

The last couple hardly compares. Angelina Jolie is far too dominant. Men, where is our champion?

The Reign of the She-Goddess

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are not a couple. She's a queen and he is an accessory. She is beautiful, and he is merely good-looking. She is powerful, he is a doormat. Her power is unique -- unless it represents the triumph of womankind.

Angelina went to Namibia to give birth. It was significant that she chose pre-patriarchal Africa, and dropped a veil of secrecy around an act watched by the whole world.

As for Brad Pitt, well, he doesn't have much to do or say.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

"Liz and Dick." It was a match made in heaven -- or hell -- hard to tell. They fought, drank, loved, and threw furniture across three continents -- a titanic struggle. Elizabeth Taylor stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds and chewed him up for a light snack before lunch -- what a tigress!

But she met her match in Richard Burton, the bellowing, brawling Welshman. She could not out-drink, out-talk, out-act, or out-fight him, and she loved him more than anything.

And it was the death of both of them.

Burns & Allen -- Old TV is better than New TV

Look at the body language in this photo. Who's the boss? Who's in charge? George and Gracie are in the battle of the sexes. Love, equality, justice, fate -- it's all there.

And they look so good, such very nice clothes. Her hair is pretty and his suit is smart. She has the string of pearls, round gems of the ocean. He has the cigar, brown, burnt, and frankly phallic.

The New Moon is Coming

We're having the last quarter of the old moon right now, and we'll get a new moon on October 11. The new moon is a tiny little sliver in the sunset sky. And it will grow and grow and become a full moon two weeks after that -- at least I'm pretty sure it will. I mean it always has done that -- start out with a new sliver and grow into a big round luscent ball. The moon being one of those things you can count on.

The moon governs the tides. Here where I am on the farm, a few miles from saltwater, and the flood tide will back up the sloughs almost to the farm. Because the moon moves the water. I don't know how the moon moves the water, but I am sure that it does. At least that's what everybody says.

The great thing about the moon is that there is so little to argue about.

The Image is the cover page of Nancy Passmore's Lunar Calendar. She is the guiding spirit behind this important tool -- you hang the calendar on your kitchen wall and you only have to look at it to see where the moon is going to be. It's nice to know this kind of thing -- you can even tell your friends, "Hey, head's up -- we gotta New Moon on October 11."

Nancy works out of a small office in Jamaica Plain in Boston. You can get one of her lunar calendars at Luna Press.

Watermelons are supposed to have seeds

Watermelons are supposed to have seeds. The color scheme is a perfection of nature, from the green of the rind, to the white of the inner rind, to the red of the meat, and then the essence -- the black seed.

The green synmbolizes life. The White stands for purity. The red is our carnal nature and what is substantial, and Black of the seed is the most important color of all, for it is the key. Black for death, because it all comes to an end, but Black also for the fertility of the earth, and the black seed will grow and make more watermelons.

Seeing the seed, spitting it out, or picking it out with finger or fork, or watching it slide in watermelon juice across the kitchen table -- now that's a melon.

Eating a watermelon is about getting INVOLVED, you gotta tuck in and be one with the juicy abundance of America's biggest and most luscious fruit.

And so, I speak with rare authority and finality, but a seedless watermelon is an abomination. It marks the corruption and convenience of American life -- the squandering of important resources to produce a sterile (seedless) phony version of the real thing. You wanna know what's wrong with this country? I'll tell you -- seedless watermelonds.

Helen Hawes lives in Vermont now

Her daughter Kathleen and my daughter Eva were best friends in high school, so they decided to fix us up -- Helen and me. It was a memorable date -- at the S&S Delicatessen, at Inman Square in Cambridge Massachusetts. The S & S is a local landmark, always full, good food, nice prices -- the right place to go for a get acquainted date.

It was not too awkward, getting fixed up by our daughters. We had a nice time and split the check.

Basically, we became friends and helped raise those two girls together. We both lived in Cambridge at that time -- I had an apartment on Blakeslee Street near Fresh Pond. Helen owned a two-apartment town house on Line Street -- called Line Street because it formed the boundary with Somerville.

She was a successful artist. I was "a good enough writer to be bad at everything else."

AND -- this is key -- living in this busy, tense urban environment, neither of us ever locked our doors. Seriously -- I never locked my door, day or night. My two teenage kids didn't even have the keys -- the door was just always open. And Helen was the same way. When I went to her house, I just pushed open the door a little bit and hollered.

That was ten years ago. The kids grew up. I moved back to the West Coast, and Helen sold her townhouse in Cambridge. She lives in Vermont now.

Air Traffic Safety Improves -- Unnoticed Good News

In a wonderful announcement of good news that did not make the front page of most daily newspapers, the Federal Aviation Authority announced a 65 percent reduction in fatalities since 1996. That's a very impressive improvement, and we ought to feel un-cynically happy about this.

You will be treated like sardines in a can, your luggage will be lost, and the "on time arrival" is a fantasy -- that's the bad news. The good news is that you get to live. When you add it all up, I'd rather lose my luggage than get killed in a plane crash.

The Barn on Beaver Marsh Road

I live here, near these fields of tulips. The Roozen family grows many acres of tulips just down the road from my house. The tulips blossom in April and this is a very pretty sight. The Roozens dig up the bulbs in late summer to sell to gardeners all over the world. Last year the Roozens grew ten acres of irises in the field next to our place -- pale blue and very fine, the irises bloom in May.

The barn is 100 years old. They used to store hay in the big room upstairs. You can still see the hooks and pulleys they used to hoist it up there. Then the cows lived on the ground floor, and had there hay ready to eat all winter.

My "house" is a small trailer next to the barn. I have it parked on the north side, in the lee of the barn, because the south wind blows pretty strong out here in the winter. I'm the caretaker on this property -- it ain't hard work, not like I've done for other people, but the owners like me to keep an eye on things.

Glenn, Wayne, and Al Gore

The next three posts profile the lives of three men. Glenn Johnson has a serious and commited life, dedicated to organic farming and the wise and spare use of energy. He is bursting with ideas and energy but he has failed to get his message across to the public, despite his attempts to run for office and write pamphlets. I have tried to help him improve his communication skills, but the results are not favorable. Suffice it to say that Glenn is an unrecognized genius.

George Bush, the current occupant of the White House talks conservatively but spends money like Donald Trump's wife. And one says of conservative philosophy -- maybe we ought to actually do it, and find out if it works. It has worked in LaConner. Wayne Everton,the mayor of this small town of 800 souls, is the first conservative I have ever met who actually governs conservatively -- would there were more. He does not do what he wants, but only does what needs to be done. Wayne's views on the wise use of energy are quite contrary to Glenn Johnson's. Let's just say that Wayne is more of a high-octane guy. But he has the virtue of consistency.

Our third man is Al Gore, who talks about the conservation of natural resources but lives pretty high on the food chain. Al, you gotta walk the walk to get my respect.

Attacked by a Mouse

[Photo: Glenn and Charlotte Johnson celebrate another good harvest of tall, sweet organic corn at Mother Flight Farm, on Fir Island, in the Skagit Valley.]

Glenn Johnson is not a pacifist. "If I was ever attacked by a mouse, I would defend myself, no question," he said.

Glenn farms 40 acres of choice bottom land on Fir Island, organically. No pesticides or herbicides, and he hasn't used them in 15 years. So he has to use his wits to outwit the field mice that live on his farm (or he lives on their farm, as the mice no doubt believe).

"I finally figured out how stop the mice from eating the squash. I do that by planting beets and squash together, a row of beets, then a row of squash."

Glenn showed me where the mice nibble the squash. "The little buggers don't eat the squash, they just take a little bite out of each one, then the next one, and the next, always leaving these little scars on the squash and then I can't sell them. But the mice would rather eat the beets, because their softer."

He showed me where the mice ate the beet – it was more than half eaten. So they eat the whole beet, but just one, and leave the rest alone, and stay away from the squash.

Yes, Glenn has to be thinking every day out there in the field, always working on a strategy, always carefully guarding his ultra-thin profit margin. You have to be smart to be a farmer.

Glenn has run for public office several times, but has not yet gotten elected. His political stance is straightforward He says that if he is elected President he will run the country just the way he runs his small organic farm. He will defend himself as a last resort, if the mice ever stage an armed attack, but mainly he will simply work to his own advantage, figuring that he can outsmart a rodent six days out of seven.

Al Gore is Scaring Little Children

Al Gore, former Vice-president and almost winner in 2000, has made a slide show that goes round the world, scaring little children with his doomsday, secular apocalypse of collapsing glaciers and rising sea levels. He has hijacked an important scientific discussion for the sake of his own tarnished glory. The man is a fraud.

I can only compare him to myself. I made a serious commitment to reduce my carbon foot print in 1969, almost forty years ago, although we didn't call it that back then. Nevertheless, I have accumulated a massive amount of carbon credits since that year -- in terms of energy not used, cars not driven, electricity conserved, and so forth. The Owens family has lived lightly on the planet for decades, while the Gore family has squandered and spent with hypocritical abandon.

And yet Gore has the nerve, with his slide show, to assume the leadership of something he has had little part in building.

I mention my own example as one who has made a lifetime of conserving natural resources -- there are thousands of people like me -- and we can all take a little credit.

But we lack Gore's showmanship.

All I can is that I wish Gore a future of simple obscurity -- it would do him and the world a lot of good.