"He's Out At Fishtown"


By Fred Owens


You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.

― Saul Bellow, Herzog



“Have you seen Keith Brown? He’s been looking for Lisa again. He came to the Lighthouse and started giving Ernie Benson a hard time. This is putting me on the spot -- I gotta watch out for him now.” It was Larry Yonally asking.

“He’s out at Fishtown,” Jimmy said, leaning into the window of the police car.

Larry was the LaConner police chief. He had one full-time deputy and a part-time reserve officer on his staff, which was enough to keep the peace in a town of only 650 souls. Larry had slicked-back dirty blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. He was close to thirty in age, but he wore a 12-year-old grin at times. He had a prepubescent pudginess in his torso, like he had been eating large boxes of buttered popcorn at the movies. That was how he looked -- youthful. Thankfully, Larry did not compensate for his physical immaturity by assuming a tough-guy pose.

A tough-guy cop would never do in LaConner -- you had to just go easy on people, let the drunks find their way home after the tavern closed, maybe just walk into the bar around midnight and say a quick hello, but not stick around, not watching people like a cop, but just being officer friendly – Larry did that well. He kept the peace. That was his job.

He lived with his wife in a doublewide on Caledonia Street in South LaConner and kept his police “vehicle” (cops like to say “vehicle” instead of “car”) parked in his driveway face forward, ready to go, being on-call at odd hours.

But this was day time. He drove down Caledonia to South First Street and saw Jimmy and Hitch walking down the middle of the road, which people did because there was no sidewalk and no traffic either. But Larry spotted them and waited at the intersection to ask about Keith Brown.

Keith was certifiable. He lived out in Fishtown and had been out there for ten years already. In the fabled saga of Fishtown, 1982 was part of the “Empty Years.” The poets and artists who had enriched the river cabins had since departed. Charlie Krafft had taken a studio in Chinatown in Seattle. Steve Herold started a graphic arts business, also in Seattle. Beau Diller and his wife, the Turkish Terror, had rented a house in LaConner. Paul Hansen was still on the river, but he was occupying a decent rental, meaning a house with electricity and plumbing, up at Al’s Landing.

That only left Keith and Art Jorgensen and the empty cabins between them. Art was becoming a true hermit, he never came into town, and you never saw him go anywhere. He just stayed in his cabin and worked a little on his boats. He was a master craftsman, woodworker and sculpture. He was just not projecting out into the world.

So that left Keith all by himself at the other end of the boardwalk, with no one to talk to and he began hearing the voices again.

A lot of people wondered where Fishtown was and how to get there, and the poets always said if you look for it you won’t find it, but if you don’t look for it, well there it is.

Anyway, you had to walk across Ken Staffanson’s field, which he rented from the Chamberlain family, to get to the cabins. Or you could drive up to Margaret Lee’s farm at the top of Gages Hill, where Margaret kept a few dairy cows and she had the finest river, bay and skyline view in all of Puget Sound. But you needed her permission to drive up there and park your car, and then traipse down the hill and then get on the boardwalk which was built to go around a gigantic rock and there you were – in Fishtown. Charlie Krafft would come out to Margaret Lee’s farm and when he got to the boardwalk, he would gratefully say hello to the blackberry branches which fell over the path, and he would greet them, each branch, and carefully push them aside, so they might spring back into place – that was the kind of place that Fishtown was. But Charlie and the others were gone and Keith was by himself.

Charlie said, “Keith only made any sense about half the time. You would be talking about something, like fixing a hole in the boat, or going into town for groceries and having a normal conversation, and then in a split second it was like you were on the north pole of Mars -- totally disconnected. But we were all like that back then, so it didn’t matter.”

Keith was no artist but he had his projects – building solar collectors that empowered 5-watt tiny light bulbs and collecting manure for methane-powered generators, which he built from scrap parts and then, by candle light on windy winter nights, he read mail order catalogs fat as phone books for obscure electric diodes. He could turn a lawn mower into a computer or vice versa, a real electronic genius.

But people got busier and had less time for long talks with Keith. They stopped hanging around all day – they had paying work and lived in town, and Keith just got crazier and paranoid in a bad way. He started talking about the anti-Christ and the CIA and how his mail was being intercepted by the FBI and how he would be going on a special mission to restore the True Order of the nation, and how there were bodies buried underneath the Lighthouse Restaurant in LaConner.

He spoke with Jesus as well, and became conversant with the thunderous condemnations of Old Testament prophets and he began writing their instructions and verses in felt-tip pen on his brown field jacket, and then on side of his van -- “Woe unto you,” quote Jeremiah. And, going into town -- a small town where people had a great deal of patience for eccentricity – he began to worry people and then to frighten them. “I hope he gets all right,” someone might have said. “I hope he doesn’t have a gun.” Other people said Keith would never hurt anyone, but they said it with less confidence.

Larry knew Keith Brown and he hoped to monitor the situation, but the reports were disturbing – Keith was looking for Lisa again and that could be very bad.

Jimmy and Hitch didn’t have any fresh insight to offer Larry and he drove off.

“What’s wrong with Keith?” Jimmy asked.

“Nothing,” Hitch said.

“But Larry is worried.”

“Well, he’s a cop.”

Jimmy and Hitch continued down Caledonia Street on their journey to the Frog Hospital.

Two key South LaConner personalities lived on the north side of Caledonia Street. Guy Anderson, the famed artist, lived with his piano and cats in a self-designed hutch with large blank canvases and the luscious ivory-white pigments of man-loving torsos in celestial poses.

The basal granite of LaConner’s hill began even in his backyard and swelled upward steeply to the Sacred Heart Catholic church, built in 1899, but Guy Anderson was of and for the people of the South LaConner lowlands. He would greet Jimmy and Hitch with a broad smile, and Jimmy didn’t feel small or look at his shoes.

“He’s one of us,” Jimmy said.

“Guy is all right” Hitch said.

But Caledonia Street had the dynamic tension of a border region between the lowlands of South LaConner and the hill. The two adventurers, bound for the Frog Hospital, turned the corner on Caledonia going one block westward to the Don Wright estate, he being the flipside of Guy Anderson’s aesthetic, he being called Don Wrong by Sam Cram, he being for many people the defining personage of South LaConner, defined by his yard’s abundance of un-pruned blackberries concealing rusted riding lawnmowers and old tires, surmounted near his front door by the most gorgeous abundant climbing yellow roses which were the envy of every serious gardener in town, and yet all he ever did for those roses was flip filter cigarette butts on them on his way out the door to his job as a fork-lift operator at the Moore-Clark fish food factory right next door to his house.

It was a blue whale of a building, the old Moore-Clark warehouse, with mighty timbers of old-growth fir beams, a cathedral space filled to the rafters with 100-pound sacks of fish pellets -- pellets made from the guts of dead fish, ground up, processed, vitaminized, packaged, shipped around the region, and fed to nursery stocks of new-born fish that would one day die themselves and be fed to the next generation.

Moore-Clark and the 25 men who worked there, including Don Wright on his fork lift, were an essential part of the cycle of fishing life in Puget Sound and the wages were good too. It smelled like dead fish and it smelled like money to the townsfolk.

And the smelt loved it. Schools of tiny smelt flooded Swinomish Channel in winter months, dining on the unfiltered effluvia of Moore-Clark’s fish food factory. So the big fish ate the little fish out in the ocean, but then the little fish came back to eat what remained of the big fish. It went round and round, and a man could stand on the dock with a pole and a jigged hook and catch a mess of smelt for his dinner, being a part of this grand drama. And sail boats slow-motored past rafted gillnetters on the channel, past purse seiners, past dinghies and skiffs, underneath sea gull skies.

Jimmy and Hitch walked by the Moore-Clark warehouse. They saw Don Wright on his fork lift. He said hello, nodding his dark-rimmed glasses and his gimme hat and his pre-grizzled beard. Don was maybe half-redneck. He drank as much beer as anyone on the Sand Spit, but he had a job too.

“What are we going to do about Keith?” Jimmy asked himself, but out loud. “He’s my friend. If he comes into town and he tries to find Lisa, this could get pretty bad.”

“Trouble comes when it comes,” Hitch said. “Just listen to the voices.”

Potato Love

Orville Riggles grew red potatoes on the west side of Mount Vernon. He was stubborn about that, growing three acres of spuds, which you couldn’t do. The real farmers grew 40-acre fields of potatoes and had the equipment for that – plows, drills, and harvesters. And home gardeners planted a few 50-foot rows and put the potatoes in their root cellars

.

But three-acres didn’t make sense – way too many potatoes to eat yourself, but way short of a commercial profit – Orville Riggles didn’t care about that. He was a good enough welder to build his own harvester complete with hydraulic fittings. By God, he was his own man for all that.

Marc Daniel, being his own man for all that, came by Riggle’s farm that July day in 1982, to pick up a sack of new red potatoes. He made an offer to pull weeds for an hour or two, but Riggle’s just waved him off and handed him a big sack.

Marc was learning to be organic and countrified, but he mainly fueled his interests with cocaine deals. You buy the cocaine, you step on it, you sell it, and you can keep plenty for yourself and buy a quart of Wild Turkey bourbon into the bargain.

He was from New Jersey and he talked very fast and loud, between cigarettes, hoarsely shouting, walking and stomping from car to field, to shack, back to town, running his mouth, three steps ahead of all-out crazy, and going too fast for the law which had not seen his likes in these parts.

Marc Daniel had just enough sense to stay out of jail, and people called him Zappa because that’s what he looked like. “I look more like Frank Zappa than he does,” he said and he grinned and shouted and kept talking.

He drove out to the Sand Spit with his sack of new red potatoes, hoping to see Joy Helen Sykafoos, hoping she would make him some potato latkes like his mother made him back in New Jersey. You make latkes with shredded potatoes and grated onions, bound with flour, salt and eggs, fry them in hot oil until they get crispy brown on the outside and melting warm inside. Just like home.

Joy was home on her float shack. She cooked on a two-burner stove fueled by a 5-gallon propane tank. She had three beautifully seasoned cast iron skillets in different sizes. And she had curtains, not dainty, but feminine, and the red heart tattooed on her forearm to remind her about not being a fool for love.

Guys like Zappa would barge in – or try to. But Joy would slam the door shut and scare them off, mumbling something about witch craft and herbal potions, which wasn’t true, but it worked, because she did not, not, not want that kind of company.

The trouble is that Zappa came all the way from New Jersey with a head of cocaine-fueled steam and made it all the way into her one-room kitchen and cabin. She had to feed him to get rid of him. He was too skinny. He talked all day and he never ate. Someone needed to take care of him.

“This was meant to be,” she said. “I will make you latkes. But you understand, I am part Indian. I am from Oklahoma. I’m not your mother and I don’t know how to cook latkes.”

“But you said it,” Zappa answered. “It was meant to be.”

His eyes were on the bed.

Subscriptions. We need your help to continue this story. Please go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your $25 donation. Or write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens and mail it to 35 West Main St., Suite B #391, Ventura CA 93001.



Plot Summary. Today’s passage is the fifth installment in a story about Jimmy and Hitch, two Sand Spit shack dwellers on the outskirts of LaConner, a small fishing and tourist town at the mouth of the Skagit River in Washington state. In the story, Jimmy and Hitch are making a beer run to the Frog Hospital, which is their nickname for the grocery store in the Quonset hut in downtown LaConner. Along the way they keep running into people they know, which is what happens in a small town, but things are going to get dicey and even dangerous. Today’s installment concludes with the pair coming round the corner from the Moore-Clark warehouse and about to enter downtown LaConner -- it’s gonna get complicated, and it might seem that they never make it to the Frog Hospital. I don’t even know myself, and I’m the guy who’s making this all up. I should re-state that Jimmy and Hitch are fictional characters, although some of the people they meet, like Don Wright, are as real as rain.












--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

The Wisdom of Charlie Berg

By Fred Owens

This is a continuation of the journey of Jimmy and Hitch to the Frog Hospital. It takes place in LaConner, in July of 1982.

“Only against death does man cry out in vain.”
― from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Jimmy and Hitch left the wedding in Pioneer Park and came down the hill to South First Street, right there by Clayton James’s studio.

Jimmy had a sense of deep well-being as he came upon South Fourth Street. “This very spot,” he said to Hitch, “is the heart and soul of LaConner. There is some kind of magic in this spot, right here on this little street. It’s river magic. There are underground channels of water here. It just seems so mystical and so good and right.”

Jimmy felt so good that he had a troubling thought.

“Hitch, we’re all going to die,” Jimmy said.

“Nope, Swinomish people don’t ever die. We’ve always been here,” Hitch said.

“We’re all gonna die,” Jimmy said. “Just look up.”

“It’s a bird, it’s a plane…” Hitch said.

“No, look at Mount Baker. See? Over there. It’s a volcano and it’s going to explode and send a wall of mud and ice racing down the valley at 60 miles an hour and we’re all going to die,” Jimmy said.

“Not me,” Hitch said, “I have bird friends. The swallows will come and save me. When the mud flows, I will just fly away.””

“Okay, but I gotta think on this,” Jimmy said. “We could ask Clayton James….”

“Not Clay Man, he’s too happy,” Hitch said.

“Okay, we can ask Charlie instead,” Jimmy said. So they walked a little further to Charlie Berg’s house. Charlie was in the front yard dismantling a 1957 DeSoto. The DeSoto had a two-tone paint job. The body was aquamarine blue, and the roof was candy-copper-red.

“Old Man, Owl Man, Charlie Berg,” Hitch cried out by way of greeting. “Are we all gonna die?”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “We live under a volcano and we’re all going to die. That’s why I keep these lawn chairs in the front yard. This is how I figure it – when she blows, the mud and ice come racing down the valley, first Concrete, then Lyman, Hamilton, Sedro-Woolley, one town after another all swallowed up, cows flung about like matchsticks, sirens blasting, people racing around, but not me – when I see that mud flow coming at LaConner I just sets me down in this lawn chair and watch the show. The End. We go out with a bang. It will be like the last surfer riding the biggest wave.”

Charlie had a brain the size of Buckminster Fuller and a milky cow-eyed kind of look on his face – that comes from seeing in all four directions, as he explained it – “I can see things in a vision, so I try never to focus. I let the rainbow dance and I can see all the colors.”

Charlie was dismantling the DeSoto. “I’m going to compost the entire car. I will lay out the fender panels in the sun, and these flocks of crows will come and chip off the paint, and then the metal will slowly rust and melt into the ground. Then blackberries will eventually consume the engine block. It will take a few hundred years to compost a DeSoto, so I better get started right away.”

“That makes sense,” Jimmy said, “but I think we’ll all be dead by then. Except Hitch.”

“After you guys die, I’m coming to take the car,” Hitch said.

Charlie’s house was the hippie capital of South LaConner, not the house itself, but the long chicken coop by the side. When you got to town with a backpack, you flaked out in Charlie’s chicken coop. You could stay there for a while until whatever happened next. Truman and Mary had the house before Charlie took it over. Truman played the violin and Mary was crazy. Mary slept with a lot of guys and Truman got mad about that and he couldn’t play nice songs on the violin anymore, so they split up. That’s when Charlie and his wife moved in. She made infused herbal vinegars on the back porch and Charlie studied recycling from Zell Young in Mount Vernon, who was a legend in that field. Somehow they made living and Charlie’s projects mushroomed all over the lot.

Jimmy and Hitch left – they still wanted to get some beer at the Frog Hospital. A little bit further down South Fourth Street, Dean Flood was coming out of his house, working his way down the wheel chair ramp to his car. His legs were in metal braces and he struggled with crutches.

“Hey Dean, how goes it?” Jimmy said.

“Helloow, whts foe thr ddlls ggd,” Dean said a big smile.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Jimmy said.

“I fesh ths ewotuf, rssdd, is sat so?” Dean said, and he became annoyed because he had to repeat himself over and over again. People couldn’t understand him ever since the car wreck that crippled him. Guys came to hang out with him at his house and watch TV and women were solicitous of his well-being, but Dean was looking at life in a wheel chair. He took a remarkably cheerful attitude anyway.

“Lkosoow, rrtheiosui, g’bye,” he said and climbed into his car drove off, wandering erratically on the wrong side of the road.

“Geez,” Jimmy said when Dean left in his car. “I couldn’t handle it if I was him.”

“You’re not him,” Hitch said. “If you were really luck you might be me, but you’re not."

“We’re all gonna die,” Jimmy said.

Lipstick On Your Collar

Lipstick on your collar told a tale on you.

Lipstick on your collar said you were untrue.

Bet your bottom dollar you and I are through

Cause lipstick on your collar told a tale on you, yeah.

-- Connie Francis

Harriet’s cabin was perched on pilings over the edge of the breakwater on Swinomish Channel. She looked out her window to see sailboats motoring quietly out to Skagit Bay, and she heard the small waves lapping on the sea weed under the pilings. Harriet’s white underwear, neatly pinned on the clothes line, flapped gently in the afternoon breeze. It was high summer in the Skagit Valley. Blackberries were ripe for picking everywhere. The cabbage plants had spent their soft yellow blossoms and were forming seed pods. The tulip fields over by Beaver Marsh Road were falling down brown and ready for digging. Tourists flooded downtown LaConner slurping ice cream cones.

Harriet watched the passing of this season with complete approval, to her as natural as the exhale after the inhale, as natural as the dust on the gravel road next to her cabin. “Someone kicks up the dust, the wind moves it around, then it settles back down again,” she said to her cat. Harriet preferred speaking to her cat. She liked people well enough, but only to look at from a distance.

Joy Helen Sykafoos left the wedding and raced down the Sand Spit gravel road. She wasn’t mad or upset, she always drove that way. She came screeching to a halt in front of Harriet’s cabin.

The problem, as she saw it, was that she was thinking about Jimmy and she was pretty goddam sure that he was not thinking about her. This was intolerable. She only liked him a little bit, but he ought to be pining away for her, at least by her standards.

“Harriet, we need to talk,” she said, and this cry brought Harriet out of her repose and come to the door of the cabin. “Joy, look at the wild roses over there,” she said, but Joy got right to the point.

“Harriet, why do men act that way?” Joy asked.

“Because they fear death,” Harriet explained.

“Death?”

“Men fear death. That is why courage is so important to them, because without courage they are only boys crying for their mamas.”

“So Jimmy is just a boy?”

“And he’s not worth the trouble. He needs to find his courage again. He needs to accept death. When that happens he will be a good lover.”

“What happened to your man?”

“He’s gone. Died really. You end up alone. If you’re lucky like me, then you have this nice place. I’m up early every morning. In the summer I get up at 5 a.m. The sun is bright and it’s so quiet out here. I have children. I have grandchildren. What do I need? I make spaghetti and I cook cauliflower for dinner. I make eggs for breakfast. I feed the cats. I watch the sky and the sailboats.”

“But Jimmy?”

You’re too young to understand,” Harriet said. “Just be kind to him. Have a heart. I see him when he comes walking back from town late at night – he wants to be a man, he has that goodness, let him breathe.”

“Well….”

“I like your skirt, it’s got that frilly edge. It moves like the wind. For a woman – to hell with men – if you have good movement you have beauty and you have strength. Now, can I take a closer look at the turquoise?” Harriet asked. Joy held out her wrist with the turquoise bracelet -- such silver gleaming around the blue stone that held all colors deep and fine, catching the gleam of the sunshine on this summer afternoon.

Notes. Under the Volcano is a classic novel written by Malcolm Lowry and published in 1947. It tells of the despair of a British man with a minor diplomatic assignment in Mexico. He lived in Cuernavaca “under the volcano,” that is, in the shade of mighty Popocatepetl – an active volcano over 17,000 in elevation.

Connie Francis wrote and sang Lipstick On Your Collar in 1959. The tremendous power and sensitivity of her singing voice stems from a childhood in New Jersey. People, even urban people, come from the land where they are born, and New Jersey is as real as it gets.

Talking Points. Will Jimmy and Hitch ever get to the Frog Hospital? Yes, but there’s trouble brewing, in a bizarre plot that involves druggist Fred Martin, police chief Larry Yonnally, and Keith Brown, a long-time Fishtown

resident who has finally gone over the edge. It’s a dangerous situation but it might be that Jimmy saves the day.

Subscriptions. We need your help to continue this story. Please go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your $25 donation. Or write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens and mail it to 35 West Main St., Suite B #391, Ventura CA 93001.

.
















--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

Joy Helen Sykafoos Goes to a Wedding

By Fred Owens

Nearly Normal Jimmy and Hitch were walking into town to buy some beer at the Frog Hospital and this was turning into a very long journey. The time is July, 1982.

Jimmy and Hitch made off from talking with Robert Sund under the Rainbow Bridge. They went around the corner, past the boat launch, past Tom and Esther Clark’s house, going down Sherman Street past the warehouse, walking in the street under the shade of moss-covered maples that grew on the steep north slope of Pioneer Park. There was no traffic except Joy Helen Sykafoos when she pulled up in her VW van. She must have come back from a long trip, being glad to see Jimmy and Hitch and saying hi.

She was coming back to her float shack on the Sand Spit landing and she was glad to be home again and rid of the road dirt.

Joy admitted that she was from Oklahoma, from the town of Ardmore. “It wasn’t much, growing up there,” she said, “nothing but red dirt. I hope I never go back.”

“Well,” Hitch smiled, “you can take the Okie out of the mistletoe but you can’t dress … I forget how that goes.”

“I’m part Indian,” Joy said.

“Which part?” Hitch asked “Everybody in Oklahoma is part something. The red dirt got on the tires of your car – look you can see it.”

The VW van had red dirt stains, and big blue letters running down the side saying “Mexico Me Encanta.”

“Why do you have Spanish?” Jimmy asked.

“I was going to Mexico. I wanted to look the part,” Joy said. “But I didn’t go. I ended up back in Ardmore again – that’s a long story.”

Jimmy was looking at his feet. He was bashful. Joy was good-looking in a way – pretty, but she could have been softer. She had black hair with loose curls, fine skin but not pale, a figure not petite or too big either, it only depended on how she felt that day. And she had a red tattoo of a heart on her forearm. “I got the tattoo when I was back in Ardmore. The heart is for love,” she said. “Someday my prince will come -- only I don’t really believe that. I married Ralph eight years ago and he drained all the love energy out of me, but I guess I’ve been driving all day and no one to talk to. What are you fellas up to?”

“Not much,” one of them said.

“I got back just in time for the wedding. Are you going?” she said in a happy way. “They’re getting married in Pioneer Park in the pavilion. Alan and Karen are getting hitched. Paul Hansen is saying the vows. You can come.”

Jimmy and Hitch worked that one over. Free food and beer were definitely a plus. Alan and Karen lived tucked back in the willows just off Sullivan Slough. You couldn’t find their place unless you knew where it was. Jimmy sometimes paddled over there in his canoe to visit. He knew about the wedding. He knew the wide open nature of the invitation, but he hung back – maybe it was happiness of a wedding.

Hitch felt the same way, he said, ”I’ll just go home,” nodding his head toward the Swinomish reservation across the channel.

But Joy said to get in and they drove around to the park entrance and came into the picnic shelter for the festivities with balloons and children running around.

Karen was the prettiest, tallest red-headed woman in the Skagit Valley, she had red-golden curls and Irish skin. Alan was a redhead too. Marriage was a blessing. Paul Hansen came to officiate. He had a poet’s voice, loud and ranging, he could go from a deep baritone to a high-pitched whine. He wore cordovan shoes and a wool herringbone suit jacket, the only river rat who ever wore a tie, so he said the vows. Hansen was half Tao and half I Ching and he had penetrating eyes. Someone brought deviled eggs, plus entire picnic tables covered with pies, and a huge salmon barbecue, and a jug band playing banjo. Alan and Karen wore white flowing clothes and they danced round and round.

Joy felt wonderful. She began tapping her feet. Jimmy and Hitch could have drunk and ate all day but they hung back like they didn’t belong. Joy looked at Jimmy like he’ll never come and dance with me in a hundred years. But I’ll go over and kick his ass, she thought, “Why are you ashamed, Jimmy? You got shoes, don’t you? You got feet, you can move. Do you hear the music? What’s wrong with you, Jimmy Dee Fish Face?”

“She’s right, you gotta face like a fish, maybe a dog salmon with a hook nose,” Hitch said.

Jimmy mumbled and shrank down. He was a bum and his artist spirit inside was like a beaten boy. He made careful drawings of snow geese and herons, but no one ever saw them. He wanted to make mosaics or carve stone into the forms of heroic Greek women. He studied the shapes and colors of Swinomish totem art -- the strong shapes and primary colors of the bear and the eagle carved in cedar, but he was a bum who lived near a trash pile, and Joy was making him feel small for trying to make him feel big.

She put her arms on her hips and saw right through him. Okay, she said to herself, I don’t do saucy, but I’m going to do saucy right now. She made a smile and gave a toss of her hair and a slide to the side of her hips. Now Jimmy was really scared, but Hitch was not.

“Joy Jolly Go Lightly, do you love me?” Hitch said with a big grin. Jimmy punched him. Joy was disappointed, she put the sauce back in the pot and gave the two of them a long, sad, tender glance and walked to her VW van and drove back out to the Sand Spit.

“I guess we ought to go,” Jimmy said.

“She likes you,” Hitch said.

“No she doesn’t,” Jimmy said. “Let’s go.”

They headed down the hill and got to Fourth Street and saw Charlie Berg working on a car in his front yard.

Meanwhile Joy Helen Sykafoos pulled her VW van up alongside Harriet’s cabin and wanted to have a talk with her.

(to be continued)

Photo. The remains of Harriet’s cabin. The remains of Harriet's cabin on the Sand Spit. I never knew what her name was actually. This little cabin was perched on pilings on the edge of the breakwater, across from the entrance to Shelter Bay. There was an old woman who lived there -- she was friendly, but she never seemed to talk with anybody. And she always had her underwear neatly pinned on the clothes line outside.

Subscriptions. We need your help to continue this story. Please go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your $25 donation. Or write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens and mail it to 35 West Main St., Suite B #391, Ventura CA 93001.

Thank you very much.
Fred Owens






--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

The remains of Harriet's cabin on the Sand Spit. I never knew what her name was actually. This little cabin was perched on pilings on the edge of the breakwater, across from the entrance to Shelter Bay. There was an old woman who lived there -- she was friendly, but she never seemed to walk to talk with anybody. And she always had her underwear neatly pinned on the clothes line outside.

The story is becoming a tale of Nearly Normal Jimmy's long journey from the Sand Spit to the Frog Hospital to buy some beer. In the last installment, Jimmy and Hitch spoke with Robert Sund underneath the Rainbow Bridge. The story continues when they meet Joy Sykafoos and go to a wedding in Pioneer Park -- that becomes very interesting.

What does this have to do with Harriet and her cabin? I don't know, but I'll figure it out.

skunk cabbage blues

FROG HOSPITAl

The Skunk Cabbage Blues

By Fred Owens

I got them lonesome dying skunk cabbage blues -- Robert Sund

Dunlap Bay, July, 1982. Swallows danced over the water. “They eat mosquitoes,” Jimmy said. “They make a burst of wing-dash, rise up, then go down, grab a bug in their mouth, then make another wing-dash. Nobody can fly like a swallow.”

“But you can’t see the mosquitoes,” Hitch said, “so how do you know?”

“Just figure it out,” Jimmy said. “There’s bugs up there and swalows have to eat. That’s dinner. They’re not putting on a show for fun.”

“They’re having fun,” Hitch said with determination.

“We need to get some supplies,” Jimmy stated, as if he was in charge. It was time to walk into town, already dressed, bring an empty rucksack, no wristwatch to check, but it was day time and the store was open – making a run to the Frog Hospital.

That’s what Clyde called it – the grocery store in a Quonset hut owned by Mr. Grobschmidt. Clyde thought Mr. Grobschmidt looked like a frog, and since that’s where they kept all the beer, he called it the Frog Hospital, which made sense in the river rat school because you could get what you needed at the Frog Hospital – 12-packs of Schmidt’s beer, Fritos, and Sophie’s fried chicken.

“Sophie’s chicken is the chef de cuisine, which is how you say it if you were educated.”

“I’m not,” Hitch said.

“Not what?” Jimmy asked.

“I dropped out of high school,” Hitch said. “I didn’t like it.”

“I got an idea. What if we can find Robert Sund and maybe he will give us one of those Floating Fivers,” Jimmy said.

“Old Robert Sund,” Hitch said. “He talks a lot.”

Robert was the poet of the city. He invented the Floating Fiver one evening shooting pool at the LaConner Tavern. The concept was simple – if someone could float a five dollar beer in his direction, then he could have more beer. Many people came to believe in the floating concept. “You see, money is like currency, it flows like the river,” Robert explained, although it never seemed to float past him.

The odds were against Nearly Normal Jimmy and Hitch getting a five-dollar bill from Robert, but these Sand Spit warriors didn’t know Quit – they were making a beer run to the Frog Hospital and that’s all there was to it.

“You see, this is America,” Jimmy explained. “It’s the land of opportunity. You just gotta keep your eyes peeled and the natural abundance will come to us.”

With Clyde out of town, Jimmy and Hitch considered the parking lot franchise. For a few dollars Mr. Grobschmidt would let Clyde sweep the parking lot.

“But that’s Clyde’s thing. I can’t take his job. Besides, it doesn’t suit me,” Jimmy said.

“You don’t have a suit,” Hitch said.

They got up and started moving toward town, less than a mile down a gravel road which ran alongside the breakwater and Swinomish channel, past blackberry brambles and sparsely grown sand hillocks, past Harriet’s cabin.

“Did you ever talk to her?” Jimmy asked Hitch. Harriet was an old woman. She made a friendly wave from her cabin door. Her underwear was neatly pinned to the clothes line like it always was.

“Harriet washes her underwear every day. Maybe she wants a boyfriend.” Hitch said.

“Not me,” Jimmy said.

Coming into LaConner, past a field of cabbage plants, past the almost shut-down hulk of the New England Fish Company cannery and they came to the grandest edifice of all LaConner – the beautiful Rainbow Bridge.

There was Robert Sund, the poet of the city, under the bridge, leaning against the trunk of an old madrone tree, smoking a cigareet in his straw hat and faded blue chambray shirt, wearing those cheap black cotton slippers from Chinatown. Past 53 years of age, his beard was long and white, and Robert was singing to the clouds,

“I got them lonesome dying skunk cabbage blues,

Yellow dreams of heart-ache,

Lonesome lovers want to drown,

From them old dying skunk cabbage blues."

“Hey Robert,” Jimmy and Hitch sang out like in a chorus.

“Hail the Sand Spit Warriors,” Robert exclaimed.

“Jimmy, mighty oarsman, Hitch, swallow friend.”

Jimmy and Hitch approached and Robert declaimed, swelling to a height of almost ten feet.

“I am the heir of Walt Whitman and a first cousin to Gandalf.

I row the marsh and the sweet yellow iris calls my name.

I sing the tide and work the wind up the river,

To Disappearing Lake, around Bald Island,

Returning on the ebb of tide and through Hole-in-the-Wall.

Aflame with thirst, I drive my oared skiff to the LaConner Tavern,

To shoot pool and quaff pitchers of Olympic beer.”

“Robert, you talk like a poet,” Hitch said.

“I am the poet of the city”

“LaConner only has 600 people.”

“Yet I am the poet of the city, the bard of the river,

Singer of the Salish Sea, I hear the music

Of Samish, Snohomish, Skykomish, Stillaguamish,

And all rivers with salmon – of these I sing.”

“Robert, we’re on our way to the Frog Hospital to get some supplies, and we were wondering….”

“Poverty is a blessing, we are anointed as brothers,

Beer comes to those with imagination,

Only believe and a half-rack will be ours.”

“Ours?” Jimmy said. “I don’t know about that, but hey, Robert, if we get what we need we can always share it with you.”

Nearly Normal Jimmy and Hitch continued walking into LaConner. Robert remained at ease by the madrone tree and he began blowing smoke rings as he exhaled his cigareet.

“I got them lonesome dying skunk cabbage blues…..”

The Rainbow Bridge, joining LaConner with the Swinomish Reservation, is painted a bright industrial orange. Its many-riveted steel beams arch gracefully over the saltwater channel.

Underneath the Rainbow Bridge grows an ancient madrone, paler orange of peeling bark and leather leaves. The madrone always grows near the saltwater.

(to be continued)

Notes. What’s going to happen next on Jimmy and Hitch’s long journey into town? They will be going past Clayton James’ studio. He’s been building a bread oven out of recovered bricks. And Charlie Berg’s chicken coop is right next door. Charlie is out in the yard composting a 1957 DeSoto.

Will Nearly Normal Jimmy and Hitch ever get to the Frog Hospital? And how will they get the money for their “supplies”?

The Rainbow Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge was built in 1957. Harry R. Powell, the bridge designer, should be celebrated as an artist equal to any other in LaConner’s history. It is no wonder that Robert Sund perched himself under the bridge for his cigareet. Read Harry Powell’s on words on the bridge at the bottom of this message.

Subscriptions. We need your help to continue this story. Please hit the PayPal button with your $25 donation. Or write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens and mail it to 35 West Main St., Suite B #391, Ventura CA 93001.

Thank you very much.

Fred Owens

· From the Puget Sound Mail July 17, 1957.

In his own words, Powell describes how he got the idea for the design of the bridge.

“The obvious way to replace the existing LaConner Bridge, which was built about 1916, would be with a swing span similar to the existing bridge, except that its construction would be more modern without the load limitations that the present bridge has, with quicker operating motors and electrical controls, so that the bridge could be opened and closed with a shorter interruption of vehicular traffic. My firm was commissioned to design such a structure for the county. As there were Federal Funds involved in the construction of this bridge it had to meet the approval of the Bureau of Public Roads and the State Department of Highways. Both of these agencies were very cooperative and contributed many valuable ideas to the design of the final structure.

“We did all the preliminary work for a swing bridge on the site of the existing bridge and anticipated that we would have to detour traffic during construction of the new bridge. The detour was not too happy a situation but was one that would have to be lived with if a new swing bridge was to be built in the location of the existing bridge….

“After the preliminary studies were made on the swing span and approaches, I was at the site with Hjalmar Walberg who was then County Engineer. Standing on the existing bridge looking towards the Park and thinking of the problems that a low level bridge occasioned, I mentioned to Mr. Walberg that we should have a study on a high level bridge between the rock out-crops on the City Park and the Indian Reservation. I told him it was a beautiful opportunity to get an arch bridge in there and that it would have the following advantages over the construction we were discussing. First, there would be no equipment maintenance and no need for a bridge tender; second, we would have no piers in the stream to bother navigation; third, I believed that we could get a much better looking bridge on the site. I asked him how that would affect his road alignment and his statement was that this was a much better location for the bridge and that eventually the City of LaConner would come to that conclusion.

“We made some studies on an arch bridge and found out that a flexible fixed arch was the type that suited this location the best. This type of arch is not particularly common. There are presently two bridges of this type with long spans in this country and one or two in Europe. There is one being designed over the Fraser River, which design was probably the result of the construction of the LaConner Bridge.

“After we worked up our preliminary estimates and designs for the arch span we submitted it to Mr. Walberg and the County Commissioners who agreed with us on the analysis of this problem and who gave us every consideration and cooperation during the design and construction of this bridge. We had the pleasure of meeting with the Commissioners, the Mayor and the Council, and interested citizens of LaConner at a public hearing of the new bridge. The proposal to change the location of the bridge was a new and radical idea to both the Council and the people of LaConner, and it was gratifying that they went along with us on this new location. I made the remark at this meeting that when the bridge was completed on this location they would be happy with the new structure…..”

Powell concluded that an engineer gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build something so good and so true, and the Rainbow Bridge was his dream.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

The ponderous river, kinda huge and quiet, Molding mud in silence. --Clyde Sanborn

Nearly Normal Jimmy woke up on a mound of Schmidt beer cans. He didn’t remember a thing. That was good. And it didn’t hurt either – that’s why he liked living out on the Sand Spit – no rocks or anything, nothing but soft sand and moss-covered logs to fall down on.

It was a Sunday morning in July in 1982. The tide was up and the old logs cluttering Dunlap Bay rose a foot or two off the mud bottom. The sky was cloud-free and the hot sun came up early . Jimmy got to his feet and stretched. “Kee-rist, I’m going back to bed,” he said and he stumbled back into the cabin and slept until noon.

Jimmy’s cabin was just past the young, tender willows, on the edge of the bay. The mound of beer cans was tidier than it seemed. If he had some fried chicken from town, he gave the scraps to Herk, his big black dog. So there was really no trash and the air was fresh anyway. No one else lived out there except Clyde and Clyde was gone.

This was a time in the life of Clyde Sanborn that most people forgot about. Clyde, a charming man with a velvet baritone voice, was attractive to more than one woman, but Linda was the one who stuck around long enough to reform him. She got him to quit drinking and move off the Sand Spit. They took an apartment in Big Lake, which was far enough from the river to give Clyde a new start in life. And he got a job -- that was amazing – Clyde going to work as a clerk in the Washington Unemployment office in Mount Vernon -- where a lot of his friends who were fairly often unemployed themselves, would come in for the weekly check and see Clyde behind the counter in a clean shirt and regular shoes. “And I tell you,” Nearly Normal Jimmy said. “Clyde must be the unhappiest man on earth since he quit drinking. You should see the look on his face. I’m taking bets he won’t last until Labor Day.”

He said that to Hitch, a friend who sometimes shared soft summer nights on the Sand Spit. Hitch was a Swinomish man and a leader of the Clan of Men Who Walk Slowly into Town. And for being a quiet and gentle man, his words counted when he spoke, “Clyde will be all right.”

“I was just saying that,” Jimmy replied. “Don’t get mystical on me, and don’t Bogart the Fritos.” He reached over and grabbed the bag from Hitch. That was breakfast, and the afternoon stretched out before them.

“You shoulda been there last night,” Jimmy said. “I was at the Lighthouse and Ernie Benson was mixing free-style cocktails for me and Barbara Cram, we just had a good time.” “Yeah, Barb, she’s all right,” Hitch said. “But she was getting on my case – you know how she does that, saying Jimmy, when are you going to make something of your life -- stuff like that. Barb will get right in your face. I told her my life is on the river. All I need from town is beer and cigarettes …. well, food, but otherwise what do I need? I got it all here.”

“It’s all here,” Hitch said, looking around.

“We got blackberries in the summer and salmon in the winter and we can order up a hundred pounds of potatoes from Midnight Produce. If I need firewood, it just comes floating down the river. I explained all that to Barb, which she already knows anyway, and we drank a lot of Ernie’s cocktails. I don’t remember too much after that except walking home pretty late, “Jimmy said.

The Sand Spit didn’t really belong to anyone. One hundred years ago it had been where the Skagit River came around the bend and swept into LaConner. But they built a breakwater from the hill at Pioneer Park out to McGlinn Island and diverted the river around it, and so the sand piled up where the river once flowed, and then after a while the willows and alders began growing. You couldn’t farm it and nobody really had title, so it was rent-free for shack dwellers and river rats and a few old cars that might have worked at one time or another, and a landing where people from Fishtown tied up their skiffs -- plus LaConner’s only communist trash pile. “It’s a communist trash pile,” Jimmy explained to his visitors, ”because anybody can make a contribution and somebody might haul it away to the dump but otherwise it just stays here and it belongs to nobody.”

That was his explanation. But Jimmy sometimes got nervous, thinking maybe some fastidious townsfolk might make inquiries, or there would be too much talk, like maybe those bums ought to work for a living instead of smoking dope all day. Maybe they ought to clean up that mess. Jimmy kept his eyes and ears opened for such vibrations – that was his role in the scheme of things, to warn the river rats.

“I keep my eyes peeled,” he said.

“Like a banana,” Hitch said, “but you don’t look like a banana.”

“Hitch, you don’t make any sense,” Jimmy said.

“White people are crazy,” Hitch said.

“Let me finish. My job is to keep my eyes peeled. I try to see trouble coming before trouble sees me,” Jimmy said.

“You wouldn’t see trouble coming if it fell out of the sky. You couldn’t see Godzilla if he farted in a hurricane,” Hitch said.

“Yeah, but I can make it home when it’s darker than inside of a skunk’s ass,” Jimmy said.

“You might make it half-way home, but you fall down, get up, fall down again, you only don’t get lost because you’re not going anywhere,” Hitch said.

“You’re right. I never get lost, because I’m always home.” Jimmy said, “and this is the best place anyone ever lived.”

“That’s right,” Hitch said, “but you forgot to mention the clams -- lots of clams around here.”

“Hitch, you got to shave off that Fu Manchu mustache, it’s way too ugly,” Jimmy said.

“Ugly? Not half as ugly as your mama’s mustache,” Hitch said.

“Your mama is fatter than a whale, she couldn’t fit through Deception Pass at high tide,” Jimmy said.

“Your mama….”

The Sand Spit wasn’t on the map. It was where the Skagit River used to be, and the River might come and take it back some day. (to be continued)

Note: “Midnight Produce” refers to the practice of helping yourself to the bounty of a farmer’s field. Also, some people are wondering whether this is all true or if I just made it up. My advice is just enjoy the story. Poems by Clyde Sanborn can be found here. If you find a map of LaConner on the Internet, you can see the Sand Spit as an un-marked stretch of land south of Pioneer Park. McGlinn Island now belongs to the Swinomish tribe -- I guess it always did. Ask someone else about these legalities, and a NOAA chart will give a more accurate rendition of the area, although even those charts can be out of date, because the Skagit River keeps moving around.

Subscriptions. What will Nearly Normal Jimmy and Hitch do next? Will the Buddhist ever come back to the bar? And will Ben Munsey jump over any more fences? No, he won’t, but Singin’ Dan still has an oar in the water. ….. We need your help to continue this story. Please go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your $25 donation. Or write a check for $25 made out to Fred Owens and mail it to 35 West Main St., Suite B #391, Ventura CA 93001. Thank you very much.

A Buddhist Walked into a Bar

Rick Epting walked into the LaConner Tavern one night in the late spring of 2002. He had been in town for the poetry festival. His poet friends were gathering at Nell Thorn’s pub, but Rick decided to go down market and have a Rainier on tap at the LCT as the locals called it.

Gordy Bell occupied a stool midway and he gave out a Hey to Rick, so they joined company and began to drink the beer, paunch and paunch, side by side. Gordy was a hands-on working man of a liberal persuasion. He ran LaConner’s public works crew, fixing potholes and such. There were two men on his crew, Lynn Berry, wide and squat, an expert with the weed-whacker and twice as smart as he looked, and that other younger guy Brian who looked good but wasn’t really that smart.

Anyway, Gordy had but public works aside for the day and was enjoying the view – although sitting on a bar stool all he saw was the bartender and all those bowls of lottery tickets – meaning he enjoyed the view in his mind, maybe thinking of some good day he had out on Skagit Bay on his boat, and secret places near Hope Island where he could trap the best crabs.

It was that far-away look that grabbed Rick’s attention, and the reason he grabbed a stool next to Gordy, Rick being a word guy, and Rick being a guy who had spent most of last two days listening to poets who were all gathering at Nell Thorn’s to detox from the word-fest with plenteous booze.

“So, Gordy, how does it look?” Rick asked. Gordy raised his glass in response. “I just finished the poetry festival,” Rick began, “I got all these thoughts buzzing in my brain. I got that feeling like a balloon head. I’ve been a musician, you remember Future Pastures? That was my group. Then I helped with the Ducks when they played at Rexville Grange, or you can go back all the way to the beginning of hippie world at Toad Hall in Bellingham, I was there. Then I worked at the newspaper. I interviewed various Berentsons serving in public office. I visited Bud Norris in his county commissioner some-time-Democrat, sometime-Republican office with his feet up on the desk. I convinced Norris to deny the nuclear power plants proposed for Sedro-Woolley, although I can only a take a little credit for that one – but I was part of it. And the Food Co-op, I helped get that going when all they had was 25-pound sacks of brown rice and a cup full of brewers yeast, when the broken down hippies – I mean the hippies in their broken down cars – came in from Walker Valley to spend their food stamps and one of them always needed a jump start to get back to camp. I helped that to go. And I prayed, or I should say I learned not to pray. I learned to be a Buddhist, which means I learned to be the Buddha, I learned we’re all the same inside, what do you think, Gordy?” Rick was very earnest.

Gordy smiled beatifically and said, “Let’s move over by the window, we can watch the tide come in, it’s a 12-foot tide today.”

The LaConner Tavern sits on Swinomish Channel and the back part of the tavern, past the bar and the pool tables, opened to picture windows of the ever-changing current of the channel – four movements of the water, and those four being in, out, up and down, meaning the tide comes in and then it goes out, the water rises and then descends, in a rhythm that only the stars can truly understand, those four movements joined by the sublime non-movement, slack tide, when the surface of the water takes on a mirror finish on a windless day and stillness reigns.

So Gordy steered Rick over to a table by the window and the waitress brought them two more flagons. The sunset burnished the sky over the Swinomish Reservation across the channel. “There be Indians,” Gordy intoned, pointing across the channel.

“No, I can’t see them,” Rick replied. “You can’t see them with your eyes wide open,” Gordy said.

Rick closed his eyes and began chanting, “Om, Om, Om.”

“Now, see the salmon,” Gordy said. “They come up from Padilla Bay in flocks and herds and schools, splashing and leaping, mad with sex and desire, salty and driven by wind, they come into the channel and then down the channel, and past the tavern right here, and they go around to Hole-in-the-Wall and then up the river.”

“I can’t see any fish,” Rick cried now in anguish.

“Close your eyes,” Gordy said. “Forget about now. Times goes forward and backward just like the tide. There was lots of salmon back then. Turn your head back one hundred years. Can you see the salmon now?”

“Yes,” Rick said, “I see them leaping!”

Jimmy Schermerhorn walked in to the bar, saw Gordy and Rick and came by to say Hey. Jimmy didn’t drink anymore, he just came in to use the men’s room, but he pulled up a chair for the moment. “Hey, Rick, how did you like the poetry festival?”

Rick said, “It was awesome. The poets chanted and we could see the salmon leaping.”

Later, Rick drove back to his home in Mount Vernon and Gordy went back to his bar stool. He asked the waitress, "Who was that guy I was talking to?”

Ben Munsey leaped over the fence

Ben Munsey leaped over the fence that June day in 2002. He crashed the party at the Museum of Northwest Art in LaConner, the annual fundraising auction fueled by high-ticket prices. Munsey didn’t have the money and he didn’t believe he should have paid anyway.


Docents guarded the front gates of the museum that fine summer evening, smiling at the ticket holders, but glaring at street urchins like Munsey.

“I’m too told to be an urchin, I’m past fifty years now. I teach English at Skagit Valley College, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pay $150 to eat shrimp off an ice sculpture and speak nonsense with nobodies from Seattle who come to the valley to ride their bikes past fields full of sweating Mexicans picking strawberries. I live here. I’ve been here a long time, before they built this museum. There was an apple tree right here, the tree was here for years, in a field of tall grass, before they built the museum, which I call a mausoleum, a burial place for the living art which once graced this little town, before the swells came and bought it up, and the before the docents came to keep out the riff-raff. But I am talking to myself,” Munsey said.


He spotted Singin’ Dan, who used to live on the river, a former river rat like himself, a denizen of Fishtown and Shit Creek, a slum dog drummer on Bald Island summer nights. “Dan, I thought you didn’t live here any more,” Munsey said.

“Well, I don’t live here anymore,” Singin’ Dan said, “I sort of got married and I sort of live in Olympia now.”

“Okay, so maybe we can sort of get a beer or something,” Munsey said.

And they stood there on the sidewalk, watching the patrons ensconce from polished vehicles. “Pretty soon they’ll have valet parking,” Singin’ Dan said.

Then it was like – not a plan, no, without any intention, or desire, or any voice of complaint or rebellion, but as natural as the tide rising that Munsey and Singin’ Dan drifted around to the back entrance of the museum, where the busboys unloaded the catered dishes, where the portable fence was installed to guard the premises on this special fund-raising evening -- a fence that looked like a double dare to two old hippies.

Munsey and Singin’ Dan – years later they both said “I thought it was your idea” – but it wasn’t anyone’s idea, more like the purest of action, despite being much too old for such a stunt – they leaped over the fence, Singin’ Dan easily and thinner, but Munsey with a beer-filled paunch dragging over the top rail.

It felt like robbing a bank, Munsey said later, you might spend twenty years in prison, but for a few seconds you feel more freedom than you ever felt in your life – like a vision of ecstasy, like breaking the law is even breaking the law of gravity and you’re flying.

They dashed right into the main gallery of the museum, to the fountain of ice festooned with dainty bowls of shrimp and smoked salmon and real wine glasses for the white wine, people talking in summer dresses and heels and linen sport coats, juggling napkins, and some idiot playing the guitar in the corner to give it that lah-di-dah flavor.


Munsey and Singin’ Dan filled up their dainty plates, but the matron came barreling down – it was Kathleen Willens in a stern, very stern voice who came bearing down with the brunt of the law, because she had been told by the bus boys that two old hippies had crashed the gate and leaped over the fence.

In truth, Munsey and Singin’ Dan stood out from the crowd and, besides that, Willens knew them for who they were, knew that Munsey and Singin’ Dan needed to be watched and suspected. She marched up to them and asked to see their tickets, knowing as well as the skies above that they did not have any tickets
Willens could have let them stay, if only for a hoot. How did all that art get to the musuem if it wasn’t for a hoot?

But the hoot was over, there was no more drinking sake at Fishtown. No, by the summer of 2002 it was all in the can, under lock and key at the museum, and creatures like Munsey and Singin’ Dan may as well move on down the road. If you don’t have a ticket that’s just too damn bad.

What is a Poem? I wrote this little prose poem to prove a point. For the seventh time, I was not invited to read my words at the Skagit River Poetry Festival. The nominating committee gets completely anal about their selections. They turned me down because I'm not a poet and I don't write poetry, which is pretty goddam picky if you ask me...... This obsession with classification and genre really gets pathetic..... I happen to be a writer who does not fit well into any category....Do you know how many times they wouldn't hire me at the newspaper because they thought I was a poet? The newspaper says I'm too much of a poet, go away. Then the poetry committee says I'm not a poet because I have committed acts of journalism -- excuse me for complaining. Have a great day.



the annual spring subscription drive.

Save Frog Hospital!

Actually we don't need saving and we face no crisis, but we sure could use a few checks. Subscription revenue keeps the editor from getting cranky. It makes me feel good. It helps me to point out the good things going on in our trouble world. Subscription revenue prevents the harsh tones of self-righteousness. It helps me to make my point without preaching.

So please make out a check to Fred Owens for $25 and mail it to

Fred Owens
35 West Main Street, Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Or, much easier, go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button.

Attachment Parenting

Frog Hospital – May 11, 2012 – Unsubscribe anytime ATTACHMENT PARENTING By Fred Owens Attachment parenting is the latest fad. The tenets of attachment parenting are as follows: 1. No strollers, carry the infant at all times. 2. No cribs, bring the baby to your own bed. 3. Keep the child on the breast for a long time, with no early weaning. When I read about this "exciting new trend in parenting" -- there was something familiar about it, something that rang a bell, and then I remembered -- attachment parenting is nothing but a re-hash of Third World poverty-induced family habits..... This is something I saw everywhere when I was in Africa -- nobody uses a stroller, they don't have the money, none of those Babys-R-Us geegaws either. In Africa, babies are carried on their mother's back, all day long, or their older sister's back, all day long. In Africa, people live all in one room and sleep on the floor, very commonly. Babies don't have cribs, they lie next to their moms and dads, or very nearby, surely not in some other room -- there is no other room. And babies are on the breast everywhere in Africa. Who has the money to buy formula? So we have this curious situation in America where relatively affluent mothers, from choice and not from necessity, are adopting the child-care practices of Third World mothers who really don't have a choice. I don't object to the practices of attachment parenting per se, but I think this connection with poor African women should be acknowledged. I only advise young mothers and fathers to trust their own judgment and trust their own instincts. Babies thrive in a relaxed atmosphere. Obama is a Lucky Man Obama is a lucky man to have Mitt Romney for an opponent, and Obama will win easily in November. But I am totally dissatisfied with Barack Obama, and I have no place to go. I have no leverage with this man. He doesn't need my help, he doesn't need my money, and when he wins a second term, he won't be working for me.....So the best thing I can do is put my efforts elsewhere, and local issues seem like the best place to go..... I wrote a story in the local paper about the condition of the sidewalks which are crumbling all over. Los Angeles is ten years behind schedule on sidewalk maintenance. Where did all the money go? Yes, sidewalk maintenance is a totally non-exciting topic but a much better use of my time than going to an Obama election rally. Alley Cruising in Venice. I have also spent more than 8 hours this week on a personally-guided tour of all the alleys in Venice, the Los Angeles neighborhood where I am staying right now. Again, this is not a glamorous topic, but it’s real. I have taken notes and photos, and discussed the alleys – their uses and abuses – with local residents. I will write another story about alleys for the local paper. I was walking down the alley – it’s quiet and bare. There’s no traffic – it’s much quieter than the street. The pavement is cracked and crumbling but not really in bad shape. I would call it serviceable. I need to find someone in a motorized or hand-propelled wheel chair and ask them if the Venice alleys are navigable – if they are usable – but they seem okay. I didn’t see any nasty garbage or fast-foot debris. No foul odors, no creepy corners -- basically folks are picking up after themselves. I saw one unleashed dog. He was a very old fellow, just limping along and no harm to anyone. The good thing is the very widespread custom of dog-owners cleaning up after their dogs – you don’t step in it very often. I saw one furtive drug transaction – maybe it was drugs – but the young woman handed something to the young man while they both looked around to see if anyone was watching. I just kept walking. Apart from that one dubious transaction, after some 8 hours of alley walking, I saw only good people going about their business - - like fixing cars and so forth. The alleys are safe. I saw nasturtiums, wild fennel, lantana, geraniums, and various weeds and wildflowers springing from cracks in the pavement. I did not see any rats, raccoons, possums, feral cats, nor coyotes, but they are surely present. There’s an old saying, which I just made up, “You may not see the coyote, but he sees you.” This is boring. Boring is good. The alleys in Venice are in good shape, so you can check that one off your list. Unfortunately Unemployed. The thing is, I’m out of work. So here’s how I spend my day – I budget 45 minutes each morning for anger, resentment and depression because I am not a fully evolved person. My current resentment is against Obama and George Clooney for sponsoring a $40,000 per plate fundraiser -- I don’t like the way this makes me feel small. But we move on. I look for gainful employment naturally, but that doesn’t take up the whole day. That’s why I come up with volunteer community-service work as a way to fill out my day in a positive manner – like my sidewalk and alley project. I strongly urge and recommend to any who is unemployed like I am right now – do not sit at home waiting for the phone to ring, stewing in your own juices. Get out of the house and do something. If you can’t find paying work, then do volunteer work. I would say more, but that would be preaching – and we never do that at Frog Hospital. Thank You. Thank you, Harriet Spanel for your subscription check. Harriet is the former state senator from Bellingham, Washington. Save Frog Hospital! Actually we don't need saving and we face no crisis, but we sure could use a few checks. Subscription revenue keeps the editor from getting cranky. It makes me feel good. It helps me to point out the good things going on in our trouble world. Subscription revenue prevents the harsh tones of self-righteousness. It helps me to make my point without preaching. So please make out a check to Fred Owens for $25 and mail it to Fred Owens 35 West Main Street, Suite B #391 Ventura CA 93001 Or, much easier, go to the Frog Hospital blog and select the PayPal button

BeauDee was a 20-year-old quarter horse gelding. He stood in his corral all day at the old farm where I worked and he was depressed and bored. The trouble is that he never got to out for a ride with his owners -- just standing all day in the corral with nothing to do and hanging his head, thinking about whatever horses think about when they are depressed. The owners have had BeauDee the whole twenty years of his life. They showed him and rode him and trailered him and the life was very good, but the owners got old, past seventy, and they couldn't ride him anymore and they made fewer trips to the corral to brush him out or just take him for a walk. I used to feed BeauDee every day and clean up his corral. He liked me well enough, but he didn't care for me to handle him or brush him out or take him for a walk. He just pined for his owners and he just stood there all day with his head hanging down. I would talk to him, "BeauDee, lighten up. The sun is shining. Life is good. Be a proud all horse. It's not over. Wait and see -- things will get better." But my words did not heal him. He developed arthritis from lack of movement. It was sad because he was such a beautiful horse. Then one day last spring the owners came and took him away -- to greener pastures up by Lompoc, to live in a 20-acre field with six other horses, where he could roam around and get some exercise. The owners told me that BeauDee was a lot happier up there and his arthritis went away -- holding his head up high like I told him it would be. I miss taking care of BeauDee, I used to give him a carrot every morning. Now he's gone to greener pastures. I moved off the farm myself two months ago and I wonder where my greener pastures will be.

Yard Art. I made this display of yard art when I lived on the old farm up in Ventura. The plant is a cilantro. In back of the plant is a rectangle holding the pale moon, which I painted, and both sit upon an old oak chair. In the background we see more old chairs and the outer edge of the chicken coop. This is how we make our yards beautiful – by taking stuff that is already there – that’s the key – don’t be going to the store and buying things – the key to yard art is artfully re-arranging what you already have. In fact, you can live your whole life this way.

People are like Plants

People are like plants. They need water, nourishment, sunshine, and a certain amount of attention. The cells of people are made of the same stuff as plants -- carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iron and copper ( I hope I got that right ) ...... I think plants need a few trace elements as well -- zinc, molybdenum..... Anyway, that's what my botany book says. It was published in 1963, and the author himself says further research might change the list of the essential cell-building elements. But it would still be safe to say that YOU are LIKE a TULIP in many respects.

The First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another............. Says who? What if the universe had a leak?

A Wet Spring in Southern California. We had a dry and mild winter, but it seems to be raining well enough this spring – even today, pouring down, where I am staying in the Santa Monica Mountains. The hills are bursting with green grass and the yellow of wild mustard. I saw rocks tumbling off the hill by the highway -- I hope it doesn’t slide.

Mudslides, Earthquakes, and Brush Fires. We have mudslides and earthquakes here, as you know, but the ones that people fear, the ones they talk about with dread, are the fires, the brush fires that can race faster than a car. Just yesterday, I was having coffee with Mike and he said why doesn’t the grounds crew clean up the pine needles that are heaped by the stream -- pine needles are good tinder and set ablaze by the smallest spark during the hot, dry months of late summer.

Bad Weather. Chicago had eighty degree temperatures in March and violent tornadoes sprung up all across the Midwest -- it was much too early in the season. Heat records were broken. Is it global warming? Or is it God’s vengeance? Or does it just happen sometimes?

I won’t settle that question here, but say that no matter what explanation makes sense to you, if we have extremes of weather, we need to be prepared and work together. We need to work with the people who don’t agree with. Tornadoes can kill Republicans and Democrats equally and they might come in unusual places and at unpredictable times. If you live in Oklahoma, you know the drill, but people in California haven’t got a clue.

But what if a tornado did spring up in California? Would you know what to do? Lots of people in California are prepared for an earthquake -- but perhaps a kind all-over preparedness might be better – and a determination to survive, along with a spiritual acceptance of events beyond our control.

I support the climate-change hypothesis, that human activity has become a major cause of it. That’s one of the reasons I am studying the botany text – so that I can make a serious inquiry into the works of climate scientists, because I will never say I “believe” in climate change. The word belief in this context is a casual but damaging mis-use of language.

I’m smart enough, and you are too -- to actually read some of this stuff, and follow the logic and test the scientific evidence -- I think we kind of have to do that -- because it’s not a matter of faith, it’s a matter of rational skepticism.

Or maybe it is the plagues of old Egypt come to visit us and punish the wicked -- either way, it’s best to keep a battery-operated radio on hand, plus some canned goods, and maybe five-gallons of drinking water.

And a couple of one-pounds cans of coffee. If I had a hot cup of coffee in the morning, I could face the Apocalypse.

Hoodies?

Gratitude. Thank you, Barbara Z, for renewing your subscription to Frog Hospital. Your check for $25 is very gratefully received.

Barbara Z is one of many intelligent, socially-concerned subscribers to the Frog Hospital newsletter. You can join this excellent team. For more information on our spring subscription drive, see the bottom of this newsletter.

Ted P. from Boston sent a check. He's been with Frog Hospital since the beginning, in 1999. He sends me postcards from far away places like Cuba or Finland, but he gets around and sees the world. I got to know Ted years ago, in 1993 when I lived in Boston and belonged to the local Tikkun group.

Spring. I left the dahlia farm in Ventura after 17 months. I had hoped to stay long enough to see the sweet peas blooming again because I had worked on that crop all winter. But things didn't work out. I was replaced by another fellow -- I guess you could say he shared the owners' vision, while I did not.

I landed on my feet, and I think that's why I like living in southern California so much. The day after I left the farm, I secured a six-week job restoring two gardens in Altadena, at pay better than I was making on the farm, so I guess that's all right.

It's landscaping work, which pays a lot better than farm work, except it's not steady. You have to hustle and network and accept it that down periods will come and nobody calls. But I put my rate low enough to catch the market and there is more work out there -- I'll find it. They might even find me -- whew!

The weather has been good. We had some decent late-winter rains, so the hills might green up a little bit.

Hoodies?
The only time I ever got beat up by a cop I was wearing a hoodie. This happened in January 1976 in a suburb of Orlando ( not Sanford, but nearby ). It late at night. Wearing a hoodie, you can't see the face too well. I compounded the error by thrusting my hands in my pockets -- a stupid move. The cop worked me over with his night stick. A young man should know -- keep your hands visible and don't cover your face. That's been my custom ever since......... Orlando was kind of a nice place in 1976, before Disney World blew the place all to hell. But back before that it was a sleepy southern time, and we were there that winter, just hanging out in the park downtown, enjoying the sunshine......... The thing is -- what was I doing wandering around at 2 a.m. in the morning? That's when I ran into the cop. I decided, after this one-sided altercation, that I just ought to get off the street and stop hanging around.... Shortly after this, I asked my sweetheart to marry me, and we had two children and the rest is history.... That's how it worked for me.
But I'm still careful about where and when I put on a hoodie. It shows very poor judgment on the part of Trayvon Martin's supporters to be using the hoodie as a symbol of righteousness. I stand with Trayvon and his supporters, and I say keep your face free where I can see all of it and keep your hands out of your pockets and pull up your pants.
And, jeez, I wouldn't ever go back to one of those cracker-barrel redneck towns in Florida. The cops didn't hate Trayvon,. They weren't glad he died, but there's seems to a lot of evidence that they took the easy way out, like how can we resolve this situation with the least amount of paperwork and expense. Because a homicide in a small town is a huge problem. First of all, they don't have their own full-time homicide investigator, so they need to bring one in from the big city, some wise-guy know-it-all who takes over the investigation and makes everyone else look like a bunch of hicks. So they don't want to do that.
What I think is that Trayvon Martin is lying dead on the sidewalk and the cops are strategizing on a plausible scenario and a way to wrap this thing up -- Self Defense! Yes, that could work, and that's where the racial prejudice comes into play. Trayvon Martin. His people are not well-connected. They won't fight the ruling. We can spare ourselves a lot of paperwork.
Not forgetting the expense of a murder trial that could absolutely ruin the budget of a small town in Florida. So they had reasons -- they wanted that self defense ruling. They were all sweating in their socks. They knew their careers were at stake......Or they just wanted to go home that awful night, and maybe they just didn't care enough about the youth bleeding, now dead, on the sidewalk.

the annual spring subscription drive.

Save Frog Hospital!

Actually we don't need saving and we face no crisis, but we sure could use a few checks. Subscription revenue keeps the editor from getting cranky. It makes me feel good. It helps me to point out the good things going on in our trouble world. Subscription revenue prevents the harsh tones of self-righteousness. It helps me to make my point without preaching.

So please make out a check to Fred Owens for $25 and mail it to

Fred Owens
35 West Main Street, Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001

Or, much easier, go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button.

Cops in Florida. Okay, back to my essay about cops in Florida. It seems that this little town in Florida might be one of those shit-heel places where the mayor's brother gets arrested for running a meth lab, and the town treasurer is embezzling the funds, and the town council members are all first cousins to each other. These places exist and they have lousy cops and the harsh glare of national publicity is what they deserve.

But I wouldn't smear the whole region. Not every small southern town is like that -- some are just as good as anyplace on earth -- you know, Mayberry, with Andy Griffith and Barney Fife -- that's not a total fairy tale, it's real and it's the flip-side to this sordid tale from central Florida.


--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

Native Schmative

I had a cosmic experience at the car lot. Laurie and I went car shopping this Sunday in Santa Barbara. Our first stop was Hughes Pontiac. The salesman, Gary Tschantz, came out to greet us and I told him I owned a Toyota but it was getting old, and did he have a newer one for less than $7,000. He said, "I know just what you need, follow me." So we walked over with him and he showed me a Buick…… What part of Toyota don't you understand I wanted to say.

But instead I let him give me a pitch for the Buick. Well, it was in pretty good shape and only had 88k miles on it, a golden Buick LeSabre from the year 2002. And he would sell it for $6,600 -- or less.....Okay, this is the wonderful thing about the guys who sell cars -- they really know how to read people. They live or die by how well they can read people. And Gary Tschantz had me pegged from the minute I got to his car lot -- that I was, in fact, an Inner Buick man, that I had owned and enjoyed two Buicks and I loved the ride..... This is where we get to the difference between a Japanese car and a car made in Detroit..... I love my Toyota, it runs good, it never breaks, it looks nice, and it doesn't use much gas, that's why I love it. But a good Buick -- you could LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE a good Buick.

Anyway, I knew I liked the car, but I told Gary I was only looking and so we left, and went to three other dealers and looked at some nice Toyotas and Hondas -- reasonable cars at reasonable prices.

That was Sunday. Today is Monday and here's where it gets cosmic, because I left Santa Barbara in the morning and drove to Ventura to pick up my mail and stop by Tuneups UnLimited on Thompson BLVD where my friend Redgie works as a mechanic. He's my go-to guy for car-buying decisions and he had advised me all along to get another Toyota.

But I had this funny feeling. I found him in his office and I was about to tell him about my car shopping venture the day before, but instead I asked him, "Redgie, what kind of car do you drive?"

"A Buick," he said. "It's out on the lot."

(Insert cosmic vibration music, like some kind of telepathic connection to Detroit)

I go out to see Redgie's car and I swear this is true -- he owns and drives the exact same car that I was looking at -- a 2002 Buick LeSabre only it's silver instead of gold.

"Oh, it's a good car," Redgie, "and it gets pretty good mileage on the highway."

So, will I buy the Buick? -- maybe. I won't be back to Santa Barbara until next Sunday, but if the car is still there, I'm going to take it for a test drive.
More Car Talk. We see interesting patterns in car buyers. Left coast liberals buy Japanese cars made by non-union labor in Alabama, but crusty old farmers from Nebraska by Buicks made by union labor in Detroit. Can somebody explain this to me?
Casey Stengel Said. Casey Stengel once said that “most ballgames are lost, not won.”

Harvey Blume Responded. i was just thinking about casey stengel. i remember him well, the things he sd. they prepared me for "finnegan's wake". people quote yogi a lot. that's cause yogi's nonsense made sense. but you won't find good compilations of casey stengel'...

Then I said. Casey Stengel understood a lot of things, and he didn't say "Nice guys finish last." ………… Who did?


MAIMONIDES in the MORNING. Reading Maimonides is a superior way to begin your day. He was a philosopher, legal scholar, and physician, his fame was worldwide, his authority was respected by Moslem and Jew alike. He lived in Cairo for many years and during those times Jews and Moslem lived together well. They sometimes shared a business together, such as goldsmithing. The Jew would go home on Saturday, his Sabbath, and the Moslem would go home on Friday, his Sabbath, and that way the shop could stay open seven days a week -- a pleasant arrangement, don't you think? But the Jews at that time, although prosperous and widely travelled, were a formally dependent people. They must pay a certain respect to the Caliph and they must, in certain ways, recognize the superiority of Islam.That live and let live arrangement lasted until 1948 when the Jews declared independence -- they would no longer bend a knee to the Caliph. The furious reaction to that independence continues since that fateful year of 1948. I wonder what Maimonides would say about that, because his life was dedicated to accommodation, to working things out under the current conditions. The thrust of his scholarship was to bring reason and scientific understanding to bear on traditional biblical studies, but he was no revolutionary and he never defied the Caliph.

I have a friend, an email correspondent, whom I never met, but he's a Jew and he was born in Cairo, and his family was expelled from Cairo in 1948. In that year all the Jews were kicked out of Cairo, where they had lived for several hundreds of years, since the time of Maimonides, but they were kicked out and so his family migrated to Italy where he acquired Italian citizenship as a young boy -- they then moved to Israel and that is where he grew up. Now this man owns a vineyard in the Judean Hills, called Domain du Castel. He makes fine wine and he hopes to stay on this land forever, but ----- BUT, he still keeps his Italian passport, because he knows he might not be able to keep his vineyard for all his days. There is no promise of tomorrow for independent Israel, but for now, he does not bend his knee to the Caliph -- do you think he should?

from Wikipedia

Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون‎), or Rambam (רמב"ם – Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon"), was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain) on Passover Eve, 1135, and died in Egypt (or Tiberias) on 20th Tevet, December 12, 1204.[6] He was a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt.

Subscription Drive. The annual subscription drive begins today -- we do it every spring and rake in a few hundred dollars as a reward for our effort throughout the year -- doing this newsletter twelve years now.... It is a great group of readers we have, like lawyers -- we have a few lawyers on the mailing list -- Pat Paul in LaConner, Felicia Value, also in LaConner, Aisha Barbeau in Alameda, California, and the inestimable, always Irish Ed Burke in Framingham, Massachusetts.......So, when you read the Farm News/Frog Hospital, you are part of a high-quality crowd.

Send your $25 check today. Make it out to "Fred Owens" and mail it to 7922 Santa Ana RD Ventura, CA 93001. Or use Pay Pal -- go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001






--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

Farm News Gospel

FARM NEWS GOSPEL. I read this passage in the Gospel -- the parable where the sower cast seeds upon the rocks and among the thistles and thorns and also on fair ground.

Well, duh, he was a pretty useless sower. I mean, why did the guy throw seeds on the rocks, didn't he know? And the thorns and thistles, it sure was dumb to throw any seeds in there.

The lesson from this parable is get a smarter sower. Here is the text in the King James Version:

Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, some an hundred. He said unto them, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.

— Mark 4:3-9

Bobby and Dixie Mutz talk about their son, Mitchel, a soldier who died in Iraq in 2006

I wrote this story in 2006. I went to interview the parents a few days after their son died in combat in Iraq. I had not met Bobby and Dixie Mutz until the day I knocked on their door for the interview. However, the Mutzes knew and trusted the newspaper I represented, the Wilson County News, and they agreed to give an interview so that local people who did not know Mitchel Mutz personally might learn the story of his life.

It was a difficult interview, as you can imagine. It was important that I become as still as possible and let the Mutzes talk in the way they chose to talk about their son. I also interviewed several people in the very small town of Falls City, where the Mutzes lived.

So I am running this story today because I promised the Mutzes that I would not forget their son. He was a good and brave man who gave his life for his country.

--from the Wilson County News--

FALLS CITY, TEXAS — The last time Sgt. Mitchel Mutz
called home was Oct. 21, the day his brother, Nathan
was married.
“He called us at the reception,” his father, Bobby,
said. “I heard the cell phone ring in my pocket and I
knew it was him.”
Mitchel had stayed up 24 hours straight in order to
make that phone call at the right time, speaking in turn
to Bobby, Dixie, Nathan, and Nathan’s new wife,
Shawna.
“It was the last time I heard his voice,” his mother,
Dixie, said. “He told me he loved me.”
Mitchel sent several e-mails after that, short notes
that said not to worry, but on Nov. 10 he sent a long email
to his brother, Nathan.
The e-mail to his brother described a more dangerous
situation at his new location in Baqubah, asking
Nathan not to share that information with his parents.
Mitchel’s foreboding came to pass Nov. 15 when a
roadside bomb exploded near the Humvee that he and
Sgt. Schuyler Haines, his platoon leader, occupied.
It was not surprising to Mitchel’s parents that he
spent his last moments with a man he admired.
“Mitchel and Sgt. Haynes were pretty tight,” Bobby
said. “Sgt. Haynes was 40, older than the other guys.
He didn’t have kids, but he was like a father to some of
his soldiers.”
Haynes was from New York City. He was buried in
a military cemetery in Albany, New York.
“We’ve spoken to his family several times on the
phone,” Dixie said, indicating a mutual understanding.
Mitchel was a scout in the First Cavalry Division,
based in Fort Hood.
He served in that role during campaigns in Najaf
and Falluja, and it was a dangerous assignment, occupying
advance positions and scoping out the terrain for
troops that would come later in force.
“That’s what he wanted to do,” Bobby said. “That’s
the kind of kid he always was. He wasn’t one to complain.
He never regretted joining the Army.”
When Mitchel was sent back to Iraq this summer for
his second tour, he told his father he was getting bored
at Fort Hood and he was ready to go again.
Kim Moy, his fourth and fifth grade teacher in Falls
City, remembered a much younger Mitchel Mutz. “He
was a very sweet boy,” Moy said. “He had such good
manners.”
“He came to school every day with a pack of his
friends from the neighborhood, and you couldn’t get
them apart,” she said. “Sometimes they would have
furious arguments, but they were all basically pretty
good kids.”
Mitchel’s boyhood home, where his parents still
live, is only two blocks from the school.
Bobby and Dixie said it was just like what the
teacher said, “Those boys were together morning,
noon, and night, playing football in the street,” Bobby
said. “There were four or five boys and one girl, and
that one girl played just like the boys did.”
Sometimes they went fishing at a tank just past the
end of the road or played other games, but the overall
image is one of rip-roaring, good-natured fun, and lessons
learned, and chores done, and other good things
about growing up in a small town in Texas, where
everybody knows you and you can’t get away with too
much, because everybody will find out.
That closeness is what made so many people in Falls
City sad about losing Mitchel.
“It was like it happened to my own child,” one
neighbor said. “I knew him since he was a baby.
Around here you do for someone else’s child just like
you do for your own.”
The town’s grief was palpable.
Mitchel’s “big” brother. Nathan, is four years older
than he was.
“They squabbled a lot when they were young,”
Bobby said. “Mitchel would irritate Nathan, but
Nathan would always stick up for Mitchel when that
was needed.”
As the two brothers grew older, they grew closer,
Dixie said, “but they were very different from each
other.”
Nathan went to Texas A&M and then became a
Texas state trooper, stationed in Floresville.
Mitchel loved the Aggies and always liked going up
to College Station when his brother was in school.
“That’s one of the things he talked about just recently,”
Bobby said. “He said when he got out of the Army,
he wanted to go to Texas A&M.”
Bobby encouraged his son to
continue his education and suggested
that he begin taking classes
online while he was still in the
Army.
The Mutzes had no more words
for a future that did not come to be.
“We’re holding up as best we
can,” Bobby said.
“We’re very grateful for the love
and support we’ve received from so
many people,” Dixie said. The
Mutzes have received cards and letters
from people all over the country,
expressing sympathy and gratitude.
“It’s been hard to bear, but that
makes it a little easier.”

Subscription Drive. The annual subscription drive begins today -- we do it every spring and rake in a few hundred dollars as a reward for our effort throughout the year -- doing this newsletter twelve years now.... It is a great group of readers we have, like lawyers -- we have a few lawyers on the mailing list -- Pat Paul in LaConner, Felicia Value, also in LaConner, Aisha Barbeau in Alameda, California, and the inestimable, always Irish Ed Burke in Framingham, Massachusetts.......So, when you read the Farm News/Frog Hospital, you are part of a high-quality crowd.

Send your $25 check today. Make it out to "Fred Owens" and mail it to 7922 Santa Ana RD Ventura, CA 93001. Or use Pay Pal -- go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the Pay Pal button.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

send mail to:

Fred Owens
7922 Santa Ana Rd
Ventura CA 93001

Field of Dreams from the Farm News

By Fred Owens


This being Oscar week and the awards coming Sunday, February 26, and this being the Farm News, it is time to nominate the two greatest farm movies of all times, those two being Field of Dreams with Kevin Kline, and the Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda.

Now it could be said that, as good as Kevin Kline is, he is only half as good as Henry Fonda, half as tough, half as deep, and half as good-looking.

Can anyone, man or woman, match the sparkling blue eyes of Henry Fonda? And we know that the Grapes of Wrath is the greater movie, and one of the greatest movies ever made, and yet we can also ask, is it a better movie than Field of Dreams?

It is not a better movie, because the Field of Dreams is not just about farming, it's about baseball.

And so I form these words, connecting the farm with baseball, because it's spring, because life is real and life is good, and it's time to play ball on the Field of Dreams.
TRAGIC INTERLUDE. I was watching a replay of Game Six of the 1986 World Series when the Red Sox lost to the Mets. It was like dying all over again..... I first heard this game on the radio in 1986 when I was driving from Anahuac, Texas to Venice, California in a 1978 Buick Electra 225..... The Red Sox lost and my whole life changed..... The weird thing is that, at the time, I wasn't even a Red Sox fan. But it was so real, and majestic, and tragic...... Four years later, I moved to Boston because it was my destiny to be there. I became a Red Sox fan.
The Red Sox loss in 1986 was the ultimate sports tragedy, the cosmic choke of all time, a soul-searing collapse ---- Fate! --- The Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, but by then it didn't mean that much to me, and that's when I let the Red Sox go....... Now I live near Los Angeles, and I would LIKE to be a Dodgers fan, if they weren't so screwed up. But no more will I follow a tragic team, I know it's easier, but I want to be with a winner.
The Old Ball Player
He wore a World Series ring with Real Diamonds
I worked for the Wilson County News, a newspaper in South Texas. I was the farm and ranch editor, which was a really cool assignment, going around to ranches and livestock auctions and so forth, talking to people about cows and the price of hay, and the weather, which was always a drought.
But it was a small newspaper and the editor let me write any kind of story I wanted to, so that spring I started driving into San Antonio, to Wolff Stadium, seating 5,000 fans under the starry skies of Texas on warm spring evenings, to watch the San Antonio Missions play their Texas League opponents in Double A ball competition – teams from El Paso, Corpus Christi, Austin, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City.
The young Double A ball players had all the athletic skills of major leaguers – they could throw, hit, run and catch as good as any star player -- but what they lacked and what they needed to learn, if they were ever going to make it to the major leagues, was a kind of baseball maturity – meaning focus, judgment and sustained concentration, which is to say, “you got to keep your eye on the ball if you want to make it to the Show.”

But it was fun watching the kids play. I had a pass to the press box that season, it was like being in baseball heaven, sitting in cushioned seats in air-conditioned comfort with catered fried chicken dinners and all your coke and iced tea and potato salad.
Gathered around the press box most evenings were major leagues scouts and retired ball players talking inside baseball. They were as gods to me, talking about the game at a level that I could not even begin to understand. These men – their whole lives were about baseball. That’s how they lived.
I said nothing, I only listened, but I loved it. One man, older and quieter than the rest, often sat near me and we would exchange greetings and little more.
Then one evening, I noticed his hands, and looking closer, I could see the big ring he wore, a World Series ring, with real diamonds.
I was astounded. Here was a man, like me, or like you, and yet, by evidence of his ring, he had played in the World Series. You can only imagine the respect I had for him. So I asked him his name and that night when I got home, I looked him up on the Internet – Joel Horlen, who won 19 games for the Chicago White Sox in 1967 and pitched a no-hitter – that was the best of his 10 years in the major leagues.
The next time I saw him I asked for an interview. This is the story I wrote:

San Antonio native Joel Horlen began his baseball career in sandlots and summer leagues.

He earned a scholarship to Oklahoma State University and then was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 1959.

They brought him up from the minor leagues in 1961 to Comiskey Park on the south side of town, a magical place run by owner Bill Veeck, who invented the exploding scoreboard.

Horlen, a 6-footer, 24 years old, and righthanded, took the mound to face awesome hitters such as Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, who hit 61 home runs that year. It took a lot of confidence for a rookie like Horlen to face down Maris and Mantle.

Horlen didn’t do so well. His record was 1-3 that first year, his ERA a dismal 6.63.

But he must have shown promise, because they kept sending him out there. In 1962, he won seven and lost six.

He got better and stronger every year with the White Sox until his best year, 1967, when he won 19 games. His ERA was 2.06, the lowest in the American League. He pitched a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers. He was a cinch to win the Cy Young award, but Jim Lonborg of the Boston Red Sox received more votes for that prize because the Red Sox won the pennant.

They called him Hard Luck Horlen after that, but he was playing for a hard-luck team -- the White Sox came in second place behind the Yankees year after year in the 1960s. They were good, but just not good enough.

Horlen stayed with the White Sox until 1971, when he was 34. His speed was off. They traded him to the Oakland Athletics, and that next year was his last one in the majors.

The A’s didn’t use him much. He won three games and lost four. But that year was the beginning of the mighty A’s dynasty -- the team with Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter, and Reggie Jackson.

The A’s won the pennant, and Hard Luck Horlen got a chance to pitch in the World Series -- a long way from the sandlots of San Antonio.

Having the grace of a gifted athlete, Horlen decided to retire after that. He quit while he was ahead, because he had seen other players play beyond their years trying to hold on to a career meant only for young men. His lifetime record was 116-117, a respectable and durable achievement.

He went back to San Antonio with his wife and children and started a construction business. “I thought about continuing as a coach, but I had a family to raise, and I had to make a living,” he said.

Major league players did not earn million-dollar salaries in those years.

After 15 years in construction, Horlen returned to baseball as a minor league coach for the San Francisco Giants.

He returned home for good 12 years later, a respected baseball elder.

In that capacity, he often visits the press box at Wolff Stadium to watch the San Antonio Missions play. He listens to the other old-timers talk about baseball, but he doesn’t say much himself.

Horlen was famous for that reticence as a pitcher. Reporters liked his game, but he was no talker. “I probably wasn’t a very good interview,” he admits. “I thought my actions on the field would speak for themselves. I’m still that way today.”

Asked about the enormous salaries of current players, Horlen said, “They deserve what they can get. I was just glad I got to play.”

He did wonder, however, about how often current players get injured. “I played 12 years. I was on the disabled list only two times because of my knees, but my arm never gave me any trouble,” he said.

During his career, the best advice for a pitcher in the off-season was to stay away from the training room.

“I wouldn’t pick up a ball from September until January. All I did was hunt and play golf, and I think that was better.”

Looking over the Missions’ roster this year, Horlen was not willing to choose the rising stars -- the ones who will make it to the major leagues like he did.

“It’s hard to say which ones might make it, but they all have a chance, you know,” he said, a fine sentiment from a man of few words.

Today, he still wears a special ring with a sparkling diamond in the center. Around the stone it says “World Series, 1972, Oakland Athletics.”