California Drought

No rain in sight. Brown lawns and dusty cars. The Governor declared a drought. This proclamation hardly made the front page -- because everybody already knows.

It was the heat wave in mid-January that finally pushed public awareness over the edge. We had a string of strong Santa Ana winds and daytime high temperatures of 85 degrees and higher. It just feels like it's never going to rain again.

But I am no native, so I contacted the folks with 50-year memories. Oh yes, they say, it was like this in the 1970s, seems like it went on for years back then, endless blue skies, water rationing, short showers, saving the dish water to pour onto the roses, you just hunker down and hang on -- that's what they said.

Walking on the beach we see a lazy haze over the water. Air pollution is up. Dust lingers in the air and not washed by the rain. Spring flowers are unlikely. The weather people are more accurate than they used to be and the long-range forecast is bleak.
But you never know -- it could rain in February and March. Everybody would be happy if it did.

Yesterday we saw a bobcat just sitting in the corral in the backyard. The bobcat lives in the ravine past the edge of the property. The bobcat just sauntered off when he saw us looking at him. But that got us thinking about how all the critters suffer when there's no rain. Where do the little birdies get their drink of water? Maybe they overcome their fears and drink from the pond in the garden near the house. Maybe the bobcat is waiting for them.
And the trees. You know some of them are dying even if they look fine today. The old ones and the weak ones. Drought culls the forest and the hills.
But the tougher plants have deep roots and they will survive.

Rain washes the mountainside. Sediments and minerals flow into river and into the sea. Plankton feed off the milky stew. Fish eat the plankton. Pelican eat the fish.

But there's no rain, no nutrients falling to the ocean, less plankton, fewer fish and the pelicans are getting hungry.

There are two things you say for certain about a drought:

Droughts always end, and
We never know when.

Civil Rights. I can't remember the name of the church on the south side of Chicago where I heard Martin Luther King preach in the summer of 1966 but I remember being there a half dozen times. It was a large Baptist church and it was packed to the roof. King gave long and mighty sermons -- what a preacher he was! I never did care to hear a sermon, but I did listen to him. You had to be there -- it was hot, sweaty, crowded, and electric.

King marched with hundreds of people through white neighborhoods, surrounded by even more hundreds of Chicago cops who were there to protect us marchers from thousands of very angry people who were yelling and cursing and throwing rocks and tossing garbage cans at us. You had to be there. King's presence started an argument that raged through every home and church and tavern in the city. The thing is, the man was right in his actions and he had a right to be there, but he wasn't from Chicago. Not a local. Jesus could have walked through some of those neighborhoods and met the same reception -- not a local. You had to be there. The locals weren't right, but it wasn't all about race, it was also about territory. That's the way I see it. Of course, they might have welcomed Rev. King and rented him a house and brought him a tray of cookies and then none of this would have happened.......This was all a long time ago. They made a holiday after him, but I never liked that. It seems to usurp my personal memory of those days. You had to be there.

Long Disheveled Black Hair Tumbling Down Her Back

(a very short story about college years at St Michael's College at the University of Toronto)

I remember being in the second floor lobby of Carr Hall, in September, 1964, just starting college, waiting there to get into Father Waldron’s office. He was the assistant registrar, a grey-haired bespectacled priest who assigned the Freshman students their courses.

Waiting in the line in front of me -- on the second or third day since my parents had delivered me, now emancipated, 18, a baby-man, to St. Mike's -- was Curley Dowling. Boy, was I ready for her. She was a vision in beatnik black. She had a black trench coat and high heels. She had long disheveled black hair tumbling thickly down her back. She was tall. She was not pretty, with a blotchy complexion and a round nose. She chewed her fingernails and smoked Pall Malls.

We struck up a conversation. I had just spent four miserable years with 1,600 snotty, spoiled suburban punks at Loyola Academy in Chicago -- all boys. Here was a woman. I immediately began to see the possibilities. She recognized something in me that I had never dreamed of. We were kindred spirits. Things happened fast. It became too boring to wait in line to register -- all this administration nonsense. We decided to go to Yonge Street for a cup of coffee. I didn’t even drink coffee, but I was game. The conversation became -- what’s a good student word? -- intense. In those years I had a lot of intense conversations, and this was the first one.

Oh, the world was new, and I was just born, the structure fell away and I was free. Curley, it turned out, unlike all the other Freshman women, did not live in the dormitory. She shared an apartment with her older sister Gretchen, a senior. Heaven.

We went to the apartment and someone brought over the beer that night. Curley and I walked around town and made love in the elevator late at night. Or maybe it was just drunken groping, we didn’t know better. It was very passionate.

Curley didn’t stay with me long. She hooked up with David, a “hippie” who lived in Yorkville. This was 1964, so I put the word in quotes, it being the first time I ever heard it.

But I loved her still and we became friends. During our school years it seemed that she was available for me when I was going with someone else, and then I would break up with that someone, but she had a new boyfriend.

Once, several years afterward we met at a bar across from Grand Central Station in New York. We drank the place dry and had our last intense conversation. She caught the milk train back to Greenwich, and I never saw her again.

Five years after that she sent me a postcard: she had married an attorney and was living in Portland, Maine.

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Polly Pojante

Polly Pojante

Tom Blethen recently moved from the West Coast to New England. He sent a letter to his friend, Polly Pojante, an artist who lives in a salt-marsh shack on The Skagit River.

The letter gives portraits of three women: Cathy O’Brien, a school teacher, Louise Benton, a poet, and Nora Glass, a corporate wife.

March, 1991

Dear Polly Pojante,

I heard you didn’t marry that guy in Alaska. Well, he sure was a good looking fellow, and he was crazy about you, I could tell. Steady worker too. It must have been a tough call.

Do you want to marry me? I think you’re cute. I better be careful what I’m saying.

I told Don Coyote that if I wrote you guys a long letter, then he would take pictures of everybody and mail them to me. Jim Smith promised to write me a letter and tell me who’s sleeping with who. I want to know.

I have set myself in fancy digs in Cambridge, just down the street from Harvard Square. Nice people live around here, all intellectual snobs. Everybody thinks they’re really smart, and most of them are really smart.

It’s very expensive to live in New England, which is why everybody is leaving and moving out to your neighborhood in Puget Sound. I tell them, “Move to the Skagit Valley. It’s cool, and when you get there, tell them I sent you.”

This is a story I wrote about three women who live in Boston. They don’t know each other. They’re at three different income levels. I’m the connection. That’s what I do. I carry the affection and hostility from one group to another. Here goes --

It’s Wild in Woburn

It’s wild in Woburn -- I used to make a joke about that to Cathy O’Brien because it’s such a quiet suburb. I went to Cathy’s house yesterday. She lives on Mayflower Street.

She said, over the phone, “All the houses on Mayflower Street are Cape Cod. My house is the only one with a brick front.” It’s a nice little house. It looks like a school teacher’s house. I really only saw the kitchen because I went in the back door, and our plan was to go out walking.
She wore a leather jacket and sneakers. She put her ear muffs in her pocket, just in case. It was windy and sunny that afternoon. She got in my car and we drove to the pond. We began to take the path around the pond, walking at a brisk pace, fast enough to stay warm, but slow enough for talking.
I wore my black cloth trenchcoat -- perfect for walking in the city. I like to put my hands in the pockets and turn the collar up. I walk up and down the Charles River everyday. I walk by the Fenway Marsh in Boston, and I walk around the different ponds in Cambridge, usually by myself. Cathy says she prefers company when she walks.

What did we talk about? Her kids, my kids, the high school where she teaches, this and that. She has two children: Hal, a high school senior, and Beth, a sophomore. She said that neither of them were very ambitious in their school work, but they were good kids. She raised them herself all these years. Her former husband has been long gone and no help. She has been a teacher of English as a Second Language in the Boston Public Schools for many years. She explained, “When my children were small I taught adult students. Adults learn more slowly, and I wasn’t sick of children by the end of work. So I could come home and care for my kids. But it was never easy -- doing it by myself. Now, of course, I just teach teenagers. And the immigrant kids are wonderful.”
Cathy doesn’t seem to be beat up by life, or resigned to her fate. Maybe that’s from being a high school teacher, and being motivated by those earnest young faces.

The sky was bright blue. The wind whipped across the frozen pond, but the bare trees gave us a little shelter. We skipped around icy puddles, keeping our stride, and I told her about my life and my kids.

We came back to her house after about an hour of this, and sat in the kitchen. I told her that I admired her kitchen cabinets -- maple, with a lovely grain and a glossy, satin finish. She said, “Thank you, yes, they’re very easy to keep clean too. Do you like decaf or does it matter? My daughter baked the cake.”

I had noticed the cake right away -- two layers with a misshapen lump in the middle and chocolate frosting. We talked and ate the cake. Then we both ate oranges. I said, to be funny, that the oranges were dessert for after the cake.

I brought in my New England road atlas from the car so Cathy could explain about the beach towns on the north shore. She recommended Crain’s Beach and Plum Island. I plan to do some summer beach-walking out there someday soon.


Then I started to tell Cathy about Louise Benton, a woman I know who lives in Cambridge. Louise is the older sister of Mary Agnes Benton who lives in Minneapolis. Mary Agnes is a dear friend of mine from college days. Now it seems that Mary Agnes has not seen or spoken to her sister in more than ten years. Louise will not talk to her mother or her two sisters, or return phone calls or answer letters.

Thinking that Louise might be my friend because she’s a poet, I visited her and I wrote Mary Agnes a letter telling her how Louise is doing:

Benton Girls are Fun

Dear Mary Agnes,

Louise has been living in that apartment for twelve years. It could use a coat of fresh paint. The walls are getting yellowish from the cigarette smoke. In one room golden clouds were painted on the ceiling, painted many years ago. Hundreds of books lined one wall. In another corner is a neat pile of clothes, folded in a pile about three feet high, like a pyramid against the wall. She has a very nice 12-inch Sony TV, on a long term loan from a friend. Next to it is a small desk with an IBM typewriter.

On the wall next to the doorbell outside is a business card that reads “Louise Benton, typing service, manuscripts, etc.” Next to that is a large manila envelope for customers to drop off papers. But there’s no more business, she said. No more writing of poems either, I think. She goes to demonstrations for poor people, and haunts the corridors of the state capitol on Beacon Hill with a group of activists.
There are eight units in the apartment building, which is owned by a retired policeman. He can be a bit of a sleaze ball at times, Louise told me, but she has never had any problem with him herself.

The building is about four blocks from Central Square, the low-rent, bohemian, immigrant center of Cambridge, as opposed to Harvard Square, which is quite a bit uptown. Central Square is more crowded, more urban, poorer, but not a threatening or menacing place. It has Indian restaurants, donut shops, inexpensive stores, taverns, litter, winos, idle youth, and people waiting for the bus.

On Monday nights the Stone Soup poets perform at a tavern on Brookline Street, which is a few blocks from Louise’s apartment. The Stone Soup poets have been doing this every week for twenty years. It is an open mike thing, you sign up and you get five minutes. They have two featured poets who read for about twenty minutes.

I went with Louise one night. It was her idea to go. She said that she hadn’t been there in a long time. Jack Frazer runs the show. He was very glad to see Louise and urged her to come back and be one of the featured poets very soon. Louise said she probably would, although she hasn’t read in public for some time. She said to me, looking at the crowd, “It’s intimidating. Everybody looks so young, and the women poets are so angry.” I told her, “Don’t let that bother you. We’re middle-aged and we can tell these kids to just get the fuck out of the way.”

It cost $3 to get in. I paid for both of us. Then I bought two Rolling Rock beers at the bar and brought them to our little table. Rolling Rock comes in a green bottle; it is brewed in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Louise liked my taste in beer -- it is the proletarian brand.

Louise smokes Salem menthol cigarettes, which is a serious problem for me. Not because she smokes, I mean I used to smoke a lot, but menthols are weird, almost deliberately anti-poetic in my mind and reeking of the psychiatric ward.

Her hair is grey. She had a light brown rinse on it, but she had let it grow out and two inches of grey roots were showing. She has a nice, soft face and warm, friendly eyes. She wore a dark, ribbed sweater and dirty old sneakers. The sneakers bothered me too.

Louise was very interested in all the poets; she had a very kind and supportive attitude towards them. Although some of them were clearly awful, not a discouraging word came from her lips. She just said, “This is great.” She insisted on staying until the very end because, “You never know who’s coming on next -- it could be very good.”

Two days later we met for coffee in a Middle Eastern restaurant in her neighborhood. It was so easy to talk with her, and I could tell that she liked me. I told her that I was living uptown now and busy erasing all traces of poverty in my life. I reminded her, in the kindest way possible, when we talked about your old home, where your mother lives now, that she had not always been so poor, that she grew up in a house like mine. I said simply that I was once again living the way I lived when I was a child -- in a nice house in a nice neighborhood.

Now I’m not trying to get her to move uptown, but I’m trying to stretch her mind a bit to see if she would be willing to be friends with me. Because I said, hey, I’m not into these politics anymore. My own politics used to be intensely radical, the same as hers, which is why we talked so easily.
I’ve just decided to keep my mouth shut, so I can live more comfortably. Louise has been living a little hard herself -- and a little afraid, I think, to have too much contact with people who aren’t poor. There is such a barrier between poor people and middle class people.

Your friend,
Tom

That’s what I wrote to Mary Agnes. I can see Louise’s point of view. She’s poor; she lives on her SSI check. She used to write poetry, and she might have been very good. I don’t know, because she never showed me any poems.

I can understand why she hates Mary Agnes, so smug and well-married and comfortable in her brick house underneath the lovely elm trees of Minneapolis. Louise is a poet, but an object of pity and concern in her sister’s eyes.

I’m a little like Louise myself.

I told Cathy that I’m a little like Louise myself. I said, “Louise can’t work at all, I can kind of work, now and then, and you work steady.” when I said “you” I pointed my finger at her. I immediately realized that I had been rude to her, had characterized her. I wanted to apologize but this got Cathy animated for the first time that day, to defend herself, to say, “I’m more than what you see.”

She told me of her plan to take a year’s sabbatical from teaching. “I’m going to live in Haiti and learn to speak Creole.” Many of Cathy’s high school students are from Haiti.

Cathy’s problem is her children. She can’t let them go. “I can make them go with me. After all, I’m their mother. But if I forced them to go, I couldn’t stand their negativity. I’m not strong enough to make them do a lot of things, and they’re very conservative -- they have no sense of adventure. It would be so good for them to live in Haiti.”

I told her it was a great idea. When I drove home I thought to myself -- Is that what poets like Louise Benton do? Wake people up and get them to talk about their plans and dreams?

Several days later I visited Nora.

Corporate Wife

Nora Glass lives in Newton, in a house overlooking a pond. She’s a great fan of Yo-Yo Ma, the celebrated cellist. When I arrived in Boston, she and her husband invited me to a performance by Yo-Yo Ma of the Bach Suites for Cello, at the Boston Symphony Hall. We sat in the second row. The music was heavenly. The man is a genius. The people of Boston have always loved classical music, and Yo-Yo Ma is a big star. He lives in a very nice house in Winchester, every bit as big as Nora’s house by the pond in Newton.

Nora’s husband works downtown, as a partner in a big-name law firm. Of course, we can’t talk about such things, but he makes an enormous amount of money. If I hadn’t known Nora for the past 25 years, I’m sure she would never let me in her house on a social footing. I’m really angry at her, I should say that right now. It’s about money and art and Louise Benton and Nora’s brother Billy.

Nora grew up in Pittsburgh, the oldest of five children. Her father is a doctor -- stern, Catholic, and old-fashioned. “Would you believe that I married the first man that I slept with?” she told me once. I forget what I said then, but, yes, I believe it. Her first husband wanted to be an artist. She made him go to law school. He quit law school and they divorced -- no children.
Her next and current husband was willing to go to law school. He quit his teaching job after he married Nora. Nora worked to support them both until he got his degree and until she became pregnant with their first child.

It’s a life. She stays home to care for her three daughters. She drives them to music lessons now. She reads books -- Tolstoy, Dickens, modern novels and poetry. And she believes in Bach, her personal religion. Music -- Bach -- is God, holier than words or written beliefs.

So I can relate to her on this basis. I can go to her house and play Bach pieces on her wonderful grand piano in her spacious living room -- such a piano made possible by her husband’s large salary. Except I have such a contempt for the legal profession. I keep my mouth shut. We are always polite. Politeness is required at Nora’s house.

She talked mournfully of her dear brother Billy, “Poor, poor Billy.” He is the would-be artist of the family. As the son of a doctor he had been required to pursue a profession, and he chose architecture, which is acceptable. But unfortunately, he’s much too interested in designing beautiful buildings and tends to disregard the bottom line. Worse, he took it in his mind once to design furniture, which everyone agreed was wonderful, but which no manufacturer would produce. “Billy doesn’t know how to market his work,” Nora explained. Poor Billy. He drives an old car. He lives by himself in Washington, D.C.

“I’ve tried to help him. I’ve sent him a few hundred dollars. It’s so hard for him. Dad doesn’t understand him at all. They hate each other,” she said.

Then the fight started. I said, “You sent him a few hundred dollars? Your brother? You spent $6,000 last summer to send your children to camp. Why don’t you send Billy $6,000. That’s real money. If you send him $6,000 it’s like saying I love you, you’re my brother. But when you send him $200 it’s like telling Billy he’s a pathetic puppy.”

I trespassed the boundaries of politeness. I was angry because I couldn’t understand -- it was this barrier that she couldn’t cross. She loves music and reads the books. Doesn’t she understand what it takes and what it costs to create the books and music? I had expected her to understand, but she couldn’t, and I was disappointed.

I said, “You see, it’s like a battle.” I was preaching to her now because I was angry. “You love Yo-Yo Ma because he’s a star. He’s a hero. He’s one of the best. He won the battle, and he came home. We all cheered at the parade. We gave him medals and showered him with gifts.

“But Louise Benton didn’t do so well. Louise was in the same battle. She took a bullet in the spine, and now she’s permanently paralyzed from the waist down. There was no parade for her. Her family doesn’t want her to come home. She lost. Her poems are dead.

“And what about Billy? You pity him. You’re stronger than he is. You try to help him -- I understand that -- and I know you love him, but you torment him too.”

End of tirade. Nora was smiling, calm, under control, barely. I left.

I drove home and I thought about you, Polly Pojante. You had to decide whether to marry that guy and change your life, and stop living in a shack by the river. Did you do the right thing?

I love your paintings and your sunny smile. I know you’re not happy all the time -- who is?

When you’re looking out the window, watching the tide come in, will you think about me?

Your friend,

Tom



Bookman Old Style CyrBookman Old Style GreekBookman Old Style TurBookman Old Style Baltic @SimSun Western ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ L ‘

Rebecca

Rebecca -- Sunday, November 27, 1989

A day at the Farm and an evening at Barkley’s Pub, rather ordinary -- as the world turns, and things happening in Eastern Europe are changing our lives in more ways than anything that has happened here lately.

I worked all morning on the farm, cutting and splitting wood, pulling weeds, raking up debris and re-planting daffodil bulbs. Martin had the hardest work, he was crawling underneath the house to put insulation on the plumbing and did not come up for hours. Paul slept until 11:30, by permission. When he got up he stacked all the new wood on the front porch.
I was going to cut the wood with the handsaw when I got up that morning because we do not yet have a chainsaw. But caution and past experience was guiding me and telling me to approach this arduous task very slowly.
As I approached the pile of 6-foot limbs which we had snaked out of the woods, a man drove into the yard with a pickup truck. His name was Kelly; he lives in Avon. He asked me about the old boat in the barn, and he said that a friend of his wanted to buy it, to plant in his front yard, filled with flowers.
The boat had been in the front yard for two years. It was 17-feet long, built of wood, with a stout keel and mounting for an inboard engine. It had been recovered with fiberglass and was painted red. The boat had been stored in a shed at Fishtown for many years. Bo Miller was the nominal owner. During the Fishtown Woods Massacre, we decided to have a fundraising auction, so Bo and Jack Hubbard somehow manhandled the old boat on to a truck and brought it over to the farm.
The auction fizzled out due to a lack of planning and interest and there the boat sat. Six months later I moved off the farm into an office-cum-lodging facility in LaConner -- but I was rudely evicted from that spot when the landlord sold the building to a new owner who simple didn’t want me around. After a three-moth odyssey of temporary quarters, I moved back to the farm, which is at 3325 Martin Road in Mount Vernon, under the auspices of Friendship House. The boat was still there.
And Kelly wanted to buy, but I didn’t really want to sell it -- I like old boats. I was planning to drag it out of the barn someday and turn it upside down on blocks and just let it set there for decades, so I could admire its beautiful lines.
So I said “$50”, hoping to discourage him. Then he said he really didn’t want it, that it was for a friend, it wasn’t really worth much...
Obviously he preferred to pay nothing, and I began to think that he was lying, that he wanted the boat for himself, because he told me he was a fisherman and had three other boats. His little lie did not disturb me because I felt that if he really wanted the boat, he might give it a good home.
I was thinking this as I stood by the woodpile with my handsaw trying to avoid brute labor. Then I got a flash, I asked “Do you have a chainsaw?” Kelly said yes, he was cutting cords of wood for spare money at the time. “How about if you cut up this wood, and help us cut up some more wood in the forest by the road, and we’ll give you the boat?”
Deal.
And I thought, thanks, Dad, for sending me to college -- so I can use my brain because my back is not that brawny.
The wood was cut, the boat was hauled out of the barn and on to Kelly’s truck, and we have not seen him since.
Later in the day, about 3 o’clock, Paul and I took a walk around the farm. The farm is 40 acres -- about 15 acres of overgrown unfenced pasture, and 25 acres of woods. It lies on top of a hill just to the north of Skagit Valley College. On the south and east sides of the farm, it is abutted by new housing developments, but the north side joins other farmland, and the eastside is just up the hill from Barney Lake, where the trumpeter swans line in the winter. Rainwater from the farm drains into the Nookachamps River. And although our farm is located with the city limits of Mount Vernon, we consider ourselves to be Nookachampions just lie the folks in Big Lake and Clear Lake.
The farm forest is primarily alder interspersed with towering cottonwood trees, vine maple, wild cherry, and here and there a heavenly-scented grove of young cedar trees. A small herd of deer inhabit the woods and have left well-marked trails.
Paul and I call our walks “surveying the property.” We found a lovely fern garden, and I discovered red berries growing on a small tree, of a kind which I have never seen before. We picked small branches of the red berries plus some ferns to put in the cookie jar (we use it as a vase) on the dining room table. Martin got the cookie jar at the Salvation Army thrift store where he works. It looks like a pig sitting up on his hind legs and wearing overalls and a straw hat -- we call him Farmer Pig.
The Friendship House Farm is probably the last low-rent old farmhouse in the valley. The property is owned by a logging company which owns extensive acreage throughout the area. The owners plan to log off the woods and then sell the property to a developer who will build more housing. In the meantime it has been offered for our use free of charge. The house needs a lot of work, especially the plumbing and insulation. So we make improvements in lieu of rent. The farm is ideally suited for additional housing because of its flat hill top location. We don’t object to the plan, but only hope that some of the trees are spared, especially the cedar groves. We also hope that the farmhouse and barn plus a few acres around it could be sold to Friendship House at a reasonable price -- we have plans to do some serious gardening and chicken-raising.
Oh, we also have a cat with two tails.
Oh, we also have a cat with two tails. Her name is Twig, she’s a calico, about five months old. It’s really a split tail, about four inches long; one part has the bone and it doesn’t move, the other part has the muscle and it wiggles around.
At four o’clock I took a bath; I was very tired. I put on nice clothes and went to visit Susan and the kids. The kids were playing upstairs. Susan had laryngitis and was talking in a whisper. She had made a beautiful quilted wall-hanging with warm, rich winter colors. She invited me to dinner and heated up some turkey, gravy and dressing.
At Barkley’s Pub
I left Susan’s house, got into the car and didn’t want to go back to the farm. I tried to think of anyplace to go besides Barkley’s Pub in LaConner. I had not been to Barkley’s for a week because I had drunk too many brandies on the Saturday night previous and felt stupid about that.
But I went there and had only one. I sat with Rebecca and artist Richard Gilkey of Fir Island. I sat with them in the booth and listened mostly because I was too tired to talk. Steve was sitting on a barstool with his back to us. He turned and asked Rebecca if Amy had come back for Thanksgiving. Amy is Rebecca’s daughter. She is a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts.
“No, she’s not,” Rebecca answered, and she said that Amy had been a bit homesick, but she has a boyfriend now. The boyfriend drove Amy down to Baltimore to stay with friends for the holiday and then continued on to South Carolina.
Steve remarked that it had been snowing back East. Steve is from Massachusetts and travels frequently on business, going from one big city to the next, although he rarely has time or energy to look around these distant places -- just the airport and the hotel. He lives with Sue Dental in Bonnie McDade’s old house on Snee Oosh Road.
Steve has a round head and face. A rim of black hair surrounds his evenly bald head and is balanced by a neatly trimmed beard of the same proportions. He is both cheerful and quiet.
He mentioned that he had a frequent flier discount coupon good for a roundtrip to the east coast for only $175 and offered it to Rebecca, who said she was interested.
Then Rebecca began talking about what she calls “mama drama” and she as able to embarrass her 18-year-old daughter at a distance of 3,000 miles. Amy had been calling home more frequently in the past week because she was homesick. So Rebecca wrote a note to the senior student in Amy’s dormitory, telling her that it would soon be Amy’s birthday and asking her to give Amy a birthday hug from Rebecca. Apparently the senior student made a big production of this at dinnertime in front of all the other students.
Rebecca and Amy are a two-person family. They moved here to LaConner from Mukilteo about seven years ago. Rebecca works as a waitress at the Lighthouse Inn and has rented several house and apartments in LaConner since then. She does not like waitress work although she has no complaints about her employers at the Lighthouse, who provide Scandinavian security and stability to their employees, who, in return, do not leave to work elsewhere. Both mother and daughter are gifted with a fine intelligence and a yearning to do and be more than what they are.
Richard Gilkey, the artist, sat across the both from Becky and me. He is over sixty. He has short, grey hair, rugged wrinkles and dark, sparkling eyes. He was wearing a logger’s hickory shirt and drinking Cutty Sark and water. He had a car accident about five year’s ago which messed up his shoulder. It has pained him ever since. Two months ago he had an operation which repaired the rotator cuff and “cleaned up the debris”, as he put it. The operation had been successful and Richard praised the doctors. But he talked about how awful it was for him to be running down to Seattle for treatment. Truck drivers splashed mud on his car as they passed him.
Rebecca agreed that truck drivers drove much too fast, were string out on amphetamines -- how they tail-gated at 65 mph, etc. This was said without any animosity, but more to continue the conversation which seemed to want another topic altogether. I supplied one. I mentioned that Lloyd Trafton commuted down that same freeway everyday to his job in downtown Seattle.
That reminded Richard that he and Lloyd had been high school classmates years ago at Ballard High School. Lloyd is in middle management at IBM and has a 25-year pin. “I don’t know how he does it,” Richard said. Lloyd frequents Barkley’s and provides an interface between the corporate world and the rest of us.
Rebecca sat next to me in the booth with her knees up, relaxed as if she had her shoes off. She told me two times, first when I entered, and second when I left, how much she liked my red shirt. I replied, “Yes, I took a bath”, and she laughed.
What I meant was that I looked good because I felt good, and I felt good because I had done some good outdoor work and got cleaned and got dressed afterwards. But I was tired and I could only manage that short phrase. I would also have said that I bought the shirt one day when I was feeling low. I had driven over to Clear Lake to visit Helen Farias. She was wearing a red dress which I found very cheerful. She and talked about how different colors create different moods. I left Helen’s house and drove directly to J.C. Penney’s where I bought the reddest flannel shirt I could find for $30. It does tend to cheer people up.
No one else was in the bar except Ben, the cook, who fills in as bartender on Sunday night. Ben was wearing his special paisley vest which everyone admires. He has a long and rather interesting story about how he acquired it in exchange for a painting. I have offered to rent the vest from him by the week, but he declines. He lives in Burlington and is devoted to his work at Barkley’s and to his employer, Michael Hood.
Michael came in just then, stood behind me and talked to Richard. Michael and I do not get along well. We ought to get along well, but we don’t.
He talked to Richard about the opening of the Kaleidos Gallery on December 1. Susan, the owner of the gallery, had mailed out over 2,000 invitations to God-knows-who. Michael was wondering how many people would actually show up, since he was catering the event. Richard said, “Put out a lot of peanuts”.
Richard talked about Janet Huston’s gallery. She is Richard’s dear friend and show his paintings. She has been collecting names for her mailing list for 15 years, he said. She is very sharp and professional about this. The artists approve of Janet because she shows many of them and brings in buyers with big bucks.
Michael has been a bit short lately, not his usual gracious, humorous self -- most likely because he lost the election for town council to Jerry Hedbom by only three votes. Ben had turned the radio to KPLU in order to hear the jazz and blues program which starts at 7 p.m. and which everyone likes. The problem is that it was only 6:45, so we were listening to “Car Talk” with Click and Clack from Massachusetts -- two guys bantering about mechanical problems and fielding call from the listeners. Michael wanted the station changed. Ben registered a mildly strained expression on his face and then switched to classical music for the remaining 15 minutes.
During a lull in the conversation between Rebecca and Richard, I decided to talk about recent events in Czechoslovakia. I said that I enjoyed watching the huge crowds on television -- so full of life and hope. They both nodded with approval and looked like they were ready for me to continue on that subject and all the big changes in eastern Europe, but I was too tired to elaborate.
The conversation drifted on, but slowly my mind came into focus, and I said, “Can you imagine the conversations and the people talking about things they never could talk about before, and people talking to complete strangers, pouring their hearts out -- endless exciting talk?”
Again they nodded with genuine sympathy. And I wanted to say more, even loudly something like this, Look, I read the newspapers every day and often watch the TV news. Every little story they cover, they smother, they frame it up tight and interpret it; they make it clear that this little bit of news has been “brought to you by CBS” and Dan Rather is spoonfeeding this little slice of life to you from the network government.
But what is happening in Eastern Europe is so alive and incredible that the media cannot interpret or filter or “present” this torrent of life and awakening. The wall has been torn down, the East Germans are flooding across, real life is cascading through the airwaves and into our newspapers and living rooms -- real life, direct, live, unedited. It’s wonderful.
But I didn’t say it, I was happy just to sit and listen. I left after one brandy and drove back to the farm. I stopped at Safeway to buy cornflakes, milk and sugar, which Paul had earnestly requested. I also bought ten Medjool dates at $2.98 per pound and three golden delicious apples.

She Died in December

I worked for Glenn and Charlotte Johnson a few years ago -- their organic farm on Fir Island. They were a loving couple. Charlotte complained about Glenn all the time, and right in front of him too. Charlotte was largely disappointed in all of us. We never worked hard enough -- not as hard as she did..... I just loved her, she was so warm and beautiful.... and her complaining -- it all fit together..... Glenn would have been in a mental hospital or in prison if he didn't have that farm and Charlotte to keep him balanced. He is or was the most manic individual on planet earth, but working 18 hour days on the farm used up most of his energy, and he was able to be peaceful.

One day Charlotte drove the step van to Anacortes for the market. The van broke down on Highway 20. She called Glenn to come and help her. He was not near his phone. So she called me and I drove out there. Meanwhile the tow truck driver came, but the van was too big and heavily loaded for the tow truck to handle. Charlotte was mad enough to spit. "I have to get to the market, there are people waiting for me, my farm depends on it," she said.

The tow truck operator heard her cries of anguish, and he said, "well, I can't tow you, but if you off load your produce to the back of my truck then I can bring you and the lettuce to the market."

Charlotte said wonderful and gave him a great big hug. Working really fast, we moved all the produce boxes from the broke-down van to the tow truck and off they went. Charlotte got to the market a little late, but she sold all her produce to her loyal customers.

That's how things worked on Charlotte's farm. Everything was always breaking down, but she never gave up, and that's what I tell young people when I talk about farming. I say, it's not like farmers know how to grow things better, it's more like they just never give up.

A good life for Charlotte, and I hope the best for Glenn.

This photo shows the Snow Geese flying on Fir Island near Glenn & Charlotte's farm.
Inline image 1
Career Choice -- Advertising or Short Stories

My Dad showed some promise as a short story writer when he was a young man. He could have pursued that as a career and ended up living in a shack with a bad drinking habit. But he avoided that calamity and went into advertising. From advertising he made a good living, and found a pretty wife and had a nice home and five children and he put them all through college.

Advertising or short stories -- what would you have done?

(Fred E. Owens, Sr., born 1904 in St. Louis. As a young man with ambition he moved to Chicago some time in the 1920s. That's when he wrote the short stories, and that's where he later found work in advertising, first at Grey Hound Bus Lines, and then as advertising sales manager for the Sporting News.)
Speaking of Short Stories

Raymond Carver was quite the best short story writer. Here is the opening sentence to each story in the collection titled Where I'm Calling From, 1989.

Read Them Aloud and Slowly.

I could hear them out in the kitchen.

He had been reading to her from Rilke, a poet he admired, when she fell asleep with her head on his pillow.

Earl Ober was between jobs as a salesman.

This has nothing to do with me.

I am sitting over coffee and cigarettes at my friend Rita’s and I am telling her about it.

Jack got off work at three.

Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple.

The telephone rang while he was running the vacuum cleaner.

I was out of work.

Fact is the car needs to be sold in a hurry, and Leo sends Toni out to do it.

That morning she pours Teacher’s over my belly and licks it off.

Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water.

Vera’s car was there, no others, and Burt gave thanks for that.

My friend Mel McGinnis was talking.

I’ll tell you what did my father in.

My husband eats with good appetite but he seems tired, edgy.

I was getting a haircut.

I had a job and Patti didn’t.

After a lot of talking—what his wife, Inez, called assessment—Lloyd moved out of the house and into his own place.

L.D.’s wife, Maxine, told him to get out the night she came home from work and found L. D. drunk again and being abusive to Rae, their fifteen-year-old.

It had been two days since Evan Hamilton had stopped smoking, and it seemed to him everything he’d said and thought for the two days somehow suggested cigarettes.

Carlyle was in a spot.

This friend of mine from work, Bud, he asked Fran and me to supper.

Saturday afternoon she drove to the bakery in the shopping center.

I was in the room one night when I heard something in the corridor.

My mother is packed and ready to move.

The call comes in the middle of the night, three in the morning, and it nearly scares us to death.

I have some business out west anyway, so I stop off in this little town where my former wife lives.

I knew it was a mistake to let my brother have the money.

This Collection of Opening Sentences. I did not copy and paste this selection from some source on the Internet. I had a copy of Raymond Carver's book and I typed in the first sentence of every story. It was an enjoyable exercise.

Happy New Year !

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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

Syrian Refugees in Our Midst

There is a community of Syrian immigrants in Santa Barbara where I live. I talked to one of them at the local convenience store where he works. He said he came from Syria on a tourist visa in January, 2011, before the war started. Now he says he can't go home. His wife and his small son are left behind in Syria. He can't get them a visa. I said, can you send them money? He said yes, but what is money? He is my son and I can't seem him, I can't go home...... I couldn't say much after that, I shook his hand and wished him the best and then I left.
The Best Defense Against Terrorism. Organic gardening and farming is the number one defense against international terrorism. Evidence? There has never been a successful terrorist attack against an organic farm or garden in the United States. And this has been done without SWAT teams in armored vehicles or surveillance cameras.

What is there about a garden, a farm, or a ranch that makes it peaceful? What is there about a shopping mall, a public school, or an airport, that makes it dangerous? I can't tell you in so many words what the difference is, but the facts speak for themselves.

I suggest spending more time in your garden, or go to work on a farm. It's a good place for you and your children. The farms and ranches and gardens in America make us a strong and free nation.

Message to Ronald Reagan: The government does some things very well. We sent Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969 -- the federal government did that....... I mean, it does happen, now and then.
Message to the Democrats. The moon shot succeeded because it had broad bi-partisan support. What that means is that you need to gather widespread support before plunging ahead with a major initiative.

This is a Short Story ---- The Title is "Major Accomplishments."


Men are judged by their accomplishments, which is kind of tough for men who haven't accomplished much.

Like Larry. He said, There's nothing wrong with me, but I guess I really haven't done much. I tried out for the basketball team when I was a sophomore in high school. They said for a short guy I was pretty slow, so I didn't make the team. But it was the effort -- doesn't that count?

I don't know. I can't get a date. I try to impress women, you know, like I don't smell too bad. My personal hygiene is pretty good. But I haven't got a story or anything. Maybe I ought to make stuff up, like the time my car broke down in the desert, except it was only a ten minute walk back to the gas station and I got the guy to come and give me a tow, so it's not really a good story.

And I try new things. I'm actually not a boring guy. Like movies, I might go and see something different. Not Chinese food, I tried those noodles you can see through. I didn't like them -- but I might try other things … sky diving, something….

People say be yourself. That's me all right.

My mom says to be confident and have good manners. I like my mother. I mean, we don’t hang out, but when I’m back home for a visit, it’s okay. She doesn’t run my life. But you can’t talk about that. On a date, don’t talk about your mother. Which is weird. Because everybody has a mother, and if you like your mom, who is a woman, maybe some other woman would say you were all right. But that doesn’t work, so drop it.



When I go out on a date I don’t talk too much. I mean, I talk a lot, but then I stop and wait a little bit. Like if we’re eating, I go for the salad and keep quiet a bit, or I ask her a question so she can talk if she wants. I figure that’s good manners. Or what we’re going to do. They usually want you to say what you want – see a movie, or what movie you might like. So I say what I want, but in a way they can say no, and then we go and do it.

I don’t like it when they make me sweat. If she asks me a question like what kind of job I have, and then she asks my another question like she didn’t believe me the first time, like she’s checking up on me, and then I start to sweat -- who would like that?

I understand she wants to be sure, but I’m not some kind of hustle guy. I’m in no hurry. Maybe I am in a hurry. Maybe I want to find someone to love, if that’s not too corny. I just want someone to believe me. I don’t like it when they make me sweat. I’m not saying it’s her fault, but it doesn’t work.

I said I can’t get a date. I can. What I meant is I go out with one girl, maybe a second date, or even a third, but nothing happens. There’s no girl friend. I go back to the Internet and start again. I put on a smile. Hi, I’m Larry…. I’m getting tired of it.

I have a Mom and Dad, a brother, teachers, good friends, I read books, and I used to go to church. A lot of influences that I can think about. I can have a conversation with these people and they don’t even have to be there, I can just talk with them in my mind and figure things out.

I’m not some kind of hard-up case or desperate guy, no way. I have friends, people like me. I’m on the softball team in the summer, kind of a utility player. I play position in the outfield. I mean it could be left, right or center field, but I come in close or go back toward the fence depending on the batter. I go by my instinct.

I don’t have such a strong throwing arm for an outfielder, but it’s just a game. Anyway, I’m not a loser.

I take business courses at the community college part-time. I have an aptitude for business, and I expect I will be a success some day. My intelligence is better than average.

I have some ambitions, only I don’t feel like I should talk about that -- because I don’t like a bull-shitter, you know, some guy with big plans, all talk, and the next day he has another plan. Not me.

I guess you got me talking about myself. You’re a good listener.

I want to tell you about Mona the next time we get together. She’s a girl I met last week.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky. Your dollars keep him on an even keel. He needs to maintain a sense of detachment and keep his sense of humor. Help him out. Send your check today or hit the PayPal button...... Just follow the instructions below.

Subscriptions. Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25. Or you can mail a check to the address below.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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

The Minimum Wage

Mr. Obama said in a speech on the economy and the widening gap in national income that he will devote the rest of his presidency to the crucial issue of social mobility.

I agree that this is a serious problem. It is observable at many levels. The people who "earn" 100 times more than I do are not 100 times smarter and they do not work 100 times harder. It doesn't even make sense.

I put myself in one of the lower income tiers to offer as an example. So, I must quickly add that my life is not a living hell. I do not need the Food Bank, although I know it is there and recently they had so much food that they ran out of storage space. And during some times of low unemployment this summer, I put in extra volunteer hours at the community garden which donates its produce to the local Food Bank.

We are getting by, those many of us who are statistically broke.

Even so, I want to put the hammer down on those rich bastards..... and I soon as I typed those words I realize that I ought to manage such a harsh sentiment.

Anyway, President Obama has raised the issue of inequality. It is a problem. Government initiatives are dubious, but raising the minimum wage is a workable partial remedy.

If there is no solution, there is no problem.

Say it again. If there is no solution, there is no problem. I composed this sentence recently and I had a chance at a Thanksgiving dinner to launch it into the public sphere. I was sitting next to a planetary researcher from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena -- a genuine rocket scientist.

We were talking about asteroids, large ones, hurtling toward us from outer space, on a collision course that will end all life on Planet Earth. He said it will happen, it's only a question of when.

This gave me an opening. I said, "If there is no solution, there is no problem."

The scientist paused for a moment and replied, "You're right."

The Frog Hospital assignment this week is for readers to come up with other unsolvable situations which, therefore, are not problems.

Why the Dutch Love Black Pete

Washington has the Redskins and the Dutch have their Black Petes. These are old-style ethnic monikers that may have served their time.

But I don't react one way or the other. Do you know what I really want? I think I would like to go to Amsterdam -- ....... Go there for a week, and then two or three weeks in France, and some time in Italy and then come back.

Actually, I could skip Amsterdam and just go to France and Italy -- that would be on my way to the Middle East. Of course, if I go to the Middle East, which country would I visit? Not sure about that just yet.

Anyway, here I am in Santa Barbara (can't complain) reading about an important social issue in the Netherlands, and realizing that I have such a poor understanding of Europe because I have NEVER been there -- except for three weeks in 1969 which was such a short trip and so long ago that it doesn't really count.

I hear people say Europe this, Europe that, and how can I respond? I need to get there and soon.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky. Your dollars keep him on an even keel. He needs to maintain a sense of detachment and keep his sense of humor. Help him out. Send your check today or hit the PayPal button...... Just follow the instructions below.

Subscriptions. Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25. Or you can mail a check to the address below.



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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

A Talk about Bullying

By Fred Owens



If you got your ass kicked in 3rd grade, it's because you were a twit.

There are no solutions here, but some honest talk about real experiences.

One of the talkers asked to have his name withheld, so I decided to withhold all the names.

And, without further ado, let the discussion begin.

Avenger. If you got your ass kicked in 3rd grade, it's because you were a twit.



The Nice People are rampaging across Facebook in the new war against bullies. I instinctively take the opposite side. It is time to, judiciously, blame the victim.

Little Sister. Don't even joke about it.

Garden Man. I was always the victim - nerdy, lacking social skills and uncoordinated, I had to sneak to school and sneak home or risk being assaulted. It was not funny. In some moments it still hurts unbearably.

Avenger. I have always felt that way -- to not pick on people, to not let people pick on me. Yet I distrust this current fad, as if some people just last week discovered that some of us are not as nice as we could be....... There is a generic Facebook social media movement against bullying. I oppose it. It is totally phony. I am not nice, and I don't care to associate with people who are.

Garden Man. "Not nice" and bullying are two very different phenomena! Very different!

The Avenger. Lately there has been a lot of media hype on this topic -- and it's crap. Facebook/social media creates false hope and pushes phony agendas. What you can expect from this is that someone -- at a school or business -- will create a program and set up guidelines and require students and employees to attend workshops on the issue. And I say all this is crap. I am not joining. It's a waste of my time.


I suggest instead that we deal with individual situations as they arise....

Garden Man. Well, I WAS a twit, but I don't think THAT justifies beating someone up! It didn't make me less a twit and it didn't improve my grades, my self-esteem or my popularity. It increased my fear, which was the story anyway, and ruined any chance I had at enjoying my years in school from 3rd grade to 8th grade. I wished I could die every day I was in school and the adults who knew about it did nothing. I was left to my own wits about how to make the one mile walk from home to school and back and not get beat up again.



The last day of school in 8th grade I had to leave the town, walking through fields to the south east, and walk a huge arc through fields to arrive at home hours later from the north west to not be beat up by half dozen football players. I have no problem against pulling against the viral crap of Facebook, but you have provoked a nerve. I verily wish that someone had been there for me, viral or not. Being tortured like that is not anything that any child should endure. Come to the garden with me as the middle school students wait for the bus. They are vile and cruel. I hate them.

Hawk Woman. We have created a society of victims. Pointing blame, passing the buck and developed dependency to the degree of LEECHING. Garden Man, I feel for you and know your pain. Because I too, experienced "bullying" and not by any cause of my own. From the age of 12 until nearly 19, I suffered from SEVERE cystic acne all over my face. I kid you not, cysts and boils the size of small eggs, dozens of them all over my face and neck. I am not exaggerating in the slightest and the scars that cover my entire face are plain proof, I look as though I dipped my face in a bowl of flesh eating acid to have the scars that I do.



As you can imagine, I was horribly made fun of, bullied, teased, and the feeling of hopelessness that there was nothing I could do to change my face. There were no products available to cure me. I am so grateful beyond words for one person, my mother, whom loved me more than I can ever know, and showed me what life is all about. What I did in the most important years of my youth is that I learned the value of heart. I learned the value of kindness, and of silent healing. I learned the value of encouragement. I learned compassion, not pity. I moved forward, that is not to say I didn't have moments of staring in the mirror at an unrecognizable, deformed face wondering "Why me?" I learned from this...



Instead of creating hate and anger, bitterness and victimization, I learned great strength, mental discipline, compassion, motivation, determination, spirituality, mental exploration, seeking out knowledge, I was not consumed with beauty any longer, or fashionable clothes, or fancy cars, or being a cliche teenager often consumed by material possessions, appearances and boys. I learned raw confidence, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, and the VALUE OF A HUMAN SOUL, far beyond what your eyes can see. Much too often people see with their eyes. See with your hearts. ONLY THIS, only this love will prevent bullying. Not pink t-shirts and silly slogans.


Love your children unconditionally, love your family unconditionally, love your neighbors, your enemies, your allies, your foes, earth, creation and all things... When you can do those things, you will see beauty at its finest as you've never imagined it.


Love conquers all, indeed.

Garden Man. This thread has been very difficult for me to respond to. Obviously you had a good parent to intercede on your behalf. I did not and many victims do not either. After a bullying incident in high school, I was institutionalized to prevent suicide. All through my life, I have struggled with suicidal ideation and depression, even to this day (I'm 61). I was released from the institution when I overcame my fear; they did not know I had found drugs and alcohol. I finally had to get sober some 20 years after the fact and have had to face these demons. It is STILL not easy for me, I still fight with the fears burned into my face and body at their hands. I learned nothing from my time in school except to FEAR. If you think it's OK for bullies to persist, I can only vehemently disagree. No child should have to fear for his life or want to take his life because he cannot bear to suffer along alone. Sadly, I would imagine that more bullying victims have experiences more closely tallying mine: no parent, no adult to intercede on their behalf and a shattered life because there were no lessons to learn except self-worthlessness.

Hawk Woman. No, no, no I did not imply bullies should persist. I feel for you, and have compassion for your journey. I believe bullies should be brought to justice when these instances occur, there should be available help that you can feel comfortable talking to, and that will be able to provide tools for legal intervention.



I know that apologizing to the plate after it has been broken does not make it magically reform itself back together. These bullies had something happen to them to make them angry, when we come out of the womb we are not born with hate. The first, and only thing we feel at that moment is love. My point being, it is up to the next generations to help extinguish these fires by the means I explained prior. If a child is shown love, it will only know love. If there are no bullies, there are no victims of bullying.



I suppose I am a rare case to have come out what people see as "unscathed", that is not true. But it did take a lot of work on my part and comprehension of mental discipline at such a young age. I am 22, and aside from my work with birds of prey, my mission in life is to love everyone unconditionally, provide encouragement, and find the peace within all of us. I don’t say these things for my own glory, I say these things because we have forgotten our true purpose here. We have forgotten the balance. We have forgotten unity, strength in numbers, and serenity.



I am, because we are. We are all in this together, the superficial and material society has divided us. It has caused division, hate, anger, depression, mental instability, physical ailments, anxiety, and ultimately death. We were not born hating, we were taught. We can learn to love, too. I feel for you, Garden Man.. There are still some of us who really care.

Avenger. Well said, Hawk Woman ---- I don't mean to suggest I have any special experience to relate here. I've just been reading stories on the Internet lately and it all seems like the latest hype, so my aim was to make it real, and I feel that you and Garden Man have done just that....

Big Sister. While I find meaning in both Garden Man and Hawk Woman's stories, on the whole I think kids today are being trained to be overly sensitive on the one hand to too immune to abuse on the other hand. I cannot find the balance. My understanding for boys is that you are not really a man until you have survived a fight, I am not sure about girls.



As a high school teacher, I can tell you that frequently I had students say so and so is mean to me, or says things about me. First of all there is very little a teacher can do, especially if she doesn't actually witness the abuse. Secondly, with all that a teacher has to do, that is almost beyond the realm of possibility to protect kids from meanness. I really don't know what the answer is, but being overly sensitive sets you up for a lifetime of hurt feelings, while being hardened to meanness makes you, well, hard hearted and insensitive. Life is always in the balance.

Hawk Woman. Great to hear it from someone who is on the inside of it all, a teacher. I see how your position can be limited. It is a lot of he said, she said and is difficult to determine. I would suppose that I put too much expectation on the youth to bring a serious situation to light with someone who does have the authority to implement justice in the situation.



Granted, in my mind I am thinking of those that are being physically abused. As I stated before about my past, mine was indeed only verbal abuse and I agree with you that we have become too sensitive to one teeny tiny little fact, that the world is not fair, nor is it kind. Instead of simply consoling their emotions, I think it is greatly beneficial to equip them with the ability to move forward against all odds. By having it nice and easy at school, you will have a rude awakening when we must grow up and realize that the people in the real world aren't always bright and shiny, nor do they have our best interests in mind. Teach the children to be strong and confident, full of ambition and the motivation to fulfill that ambition. Teach them kindness, not to let these experiences harden their hearts, crush their dreams or make them bitter and reclusive. Life is what you make of it, push forward and enjoy it. Your energy is not worth being spent on the negatives. As for the ones being physically abused, stand up for yourself as best you can, stand tall and do inform someone who can help you. I love to hear honesty from the classroom, the ones who are actually witnessing what is transpiring in our children today, the future of our world. Thank you very much for sharing.



The Lone Ranger has been listening to all this with great interest, now he has to jump in with his own tale of childhood abuse.

Lone Ranger. Oh, so all the times that I got waylaid on the way to the park by roving gangs of chicano kids who slapped the shit out of me and threw my lunch in the street? That was all my doing? Thanks, Avenger. I feel so much better.

Little Sister. There is just no excuse for bullying!

Avenger. Lone Ranger, you were not a twit, you just grew up in the wrong neighborhood...... When did this start? My Dad grew up in a tough neighborhood in St. Louis, that would be 1915-1925, give or take a few years. He was treated roughly and he didn't care to talk about it. But he made it his life's ambition to get out of that place and he did get out.... Just saying this is not a new thing, but saying that I do not trust the current interest in the problem.......... It smacks of a trend. It's phony and it will produce phony results. Committees will be formed. Regulations will be passed. Politicians will get on the bandwagon. The whole thing is going viral, and nothing will happen........ As for bullying, I did not suffer from it. I don't understand why it happens, and I don't know how to prevent it...... That's a good place to start.

Little Sister. Also, remember that the bully will grow up to be someone's parent, someone's spouse, or someone's boss.


Lone Ranger. I agree that the new emphasis on bully-awareness is just one more way for the hover-parents to act as if they discovered children. But I do think I know where it comes from. It's a status behavior. Old as the species itself. And we won't ever eliminate it entirely. But, I do have to say that I think it is LESS prevalent now than when I was a kid. It was really Lord of The Flies back then.

The Avenger. The bully in my class in grade school was Leroy -- that was his real name. He was big, dumb and mean -- he had a grin on his face like Ernest Borgnine in From Here To Eternity. He lived right down the alley from my house, but I think he found easier targets.....

Big Sister. I remember Leroy, dumb and bad. I suppose we should feel sorry for dumb kids, how else are they going to get any attention?

The Avenger. I liked Leroy, but he was too stupid to hang out with.

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

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

In November

I was going to write about November, 1963 when I was in high school in Wilmette, Illinois and we rode to school every morning in Billy Anderson's 1962 blue Chevrolet convertible....... With the top up. The top was always up because it get's pretty cold in November on school days mornings at 7 a.m. We got in the car and rode to school, three miles.

But a story about high school is too depressing, so I have picked a much better November, one of my very best -- November, 1995, in New England, in the western suburbs of Boston -- Concord, Acton, Lexington, and Lancaster -- those old colonial towns.
Neil Jorgensen. That year I was working for Neil Jorgensen, the best landscape designer in New England. Neil was a geologist by education, so he knew his stones, and New England is practically built out of granite. More stones than soil -- I knew that from getting my hands on it. Neil could look at a hillside and describe what the glaciers had done to it.
Neil had won the Silver Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He had customers lined up waiting for him to come and do their gardens. And when he came, Neil would tell his customers what he was going to do. You paid him well and you agreed to his overall plan. He was at the pinnacle of his profession.
Neil had vision -- he could see five years ahead. He could see in all four seasons. So if we planted a small tree in a certain place, it wasn't because of how it looked now, but how it would look in the springtime five years from now.
Neil had reached the highest stage of creative energy. You could hire a landscape designer and get a grade A design, and your friends and neighbors would praise the new garden and comment knowledgeably on this rose and that rhododendron and how the new path fitted the curve of the hill.
But that's not the highest level. Neil was above that. When you walked into one of Neil's gardens, you didn't notice the design. You just started to feel good. You began to have wonderful thoughts. You took a kinder attitude toward your family, you felt a blessing to mankind and all of nature. That is a good garden.

And Neil's gardens looked lovely too -- just not overdone, surprisingly simple in fact.

We worked through August, in the heat and humidity, swatting mosquitoes, dodging poison ivy. In September the weather got better and we felt new energy. We laughed and joked all day. We had beers and ate Reuben sandwiches for lunch. October was too glorious to even mention. October in New England is like heaven on earth, and we kept working.
By November it was grey and the leaves were down. Mornings were cold and stiff, but we kept planting, working extra hours, using all the dwindling daylight. We worked on Dr. Patel's garden until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was snowing when we finished on the last day of the season, but the garden was done.
That was the best November I ever had.

Neil is retired now. He lives in Kittery, Maine by the sea, tending his favorite maples and English primroses. I might call him some day and see how he's doing.

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens
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Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
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I am at my sister's house in Venice

I am reading the Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. It was published in 1860. I've decided to stay in the 19th century for my reading pleasure. With all of time spread before me I choose this period. I like Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Tolstoy, and Trollope.

I like Joseph Conrad and Balzac. I don't believe I will read anything written after 1914.

Health Care. It's kind of a mess. I wish I could say or do something to make it better, but I am quite at a loss.

Drought. I'm beginning to hear this word around Southern California. For a while I was hearing "It sure has been dry this year" and "I sure hope it rains pretty soon," but now I'm hearing the "d" word -- drought. Lake Cachuma is very low. Leaves are falling off the sycamores a little early.

I can't do anything about that either -- can't make it rain, can't fix health care.

Let's Pep it Up. The problem is that I have been sitting in this over-stuffed chair here at my sister's house in Venice. It has influenced my mood. I am reclining into a state of utter passivity. I don't actually need a plan. I just need to get up and get moving.

What can I do? What I can do is walk down the street to the Abbot's Habit coffee shop and sit down with Eric. He comes there every morning. I will talk it over with him -- Eric is a pretty smart guy. He might know what to do.

So I got coffee and sat with Eric. Sky walked in. She's a California babe with cascading blonde curls, wearing light blue slacks and a tank top cut low. She has a figure like a Barbie doll. "Hi, I'm Sky." "Yeah, we've met, I'm Fred."

They all come into the coffee shop and sit with Eric and tell him about their boy friends, or their work, or their real estate problems. Eric is the godfather. He listens, he might say something or he might not say anything........ Sky said she is going back to New York for a while and she is going to put her house out for a vacation rental. "I can get $500 a night."

In Venice, if you're near the beach, you can get that kind of money.

Eric nodded his head. "This is what people are doing," he said.

Sky made some inquiries about my gardening work, but she's all-city and not really interested. Then she got up, gave Eric a big kiss and said "I'll be back in six months."

So I left the coffee shop. Health care is still a mess and the drought continues in Southern California. But if you know people like Eric and Sky -- this is the greatest place on earth.

Later for Lunch. I bought one container of egg salad and one of potato salad before I left the coffee shop. This was to bring to the pot luck lunch at the Learning Garden.... They have this every Friday. And lots of people came -- a women from Bulgaria, she said her name was Mimi --- like that wasn't actually her name, but you could call her Mimi because that was easier to pronounce than her Bulgarian name. She brought potato soup. Julie brought a warm dish of baby bok choy and mushrooms. Others brought salad and pumpkin pie...... By the time Mel got there, the food was almost gone and he started to get annoyed. "How come you got all the food?" he whined. And David King, the master gardener, said, "Hey Mel, that's why they call it pot luck -- you gotta be lucky."

But more people came and someone brought a big tub of spaghetti and someone brought a sack of Halloween cookies, so Mel got his plate full.

Then the fellow who lives across Walgrove Street from the Learning Garden, he brought an entire wheelbarrow full of avocados from his back yard tree, hard and green, he dumped them in a pile and said help yourself. So I snagged a dozen and went back to my sister's.

Dinner. I have dinner reservations at 7 p.m. at Piccolo's on the Venice Boardwalk, with the person who wishes to remain anonymous. She said don't mention it. I said fine, nobody needs to know. But I will not be conspicuously curious and ask her why she wishes to remain incognito. No, that's not my style -- to ask questions.......

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm driving back early to Santa Barbara because Amanda wants me to clean up her yard -- she's having people over for brunch on Sunday.

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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

paths of glory

Paths of Glory was filmed in 1957, directed by Stanley Kubrick as an anti-war movie, starring Kirk Dougle at his fiery best and Adolphe Menjou as on Old World Cynic. The story involves the trial of three enlisted soldiers who refused to go over the top in a trench warfare battle, refusing to risk certain death. They were arrested for cowardice and put on trial. Kirk Douglas defended their actions as the reasonable thing to do, that is, the four soldiers did not want to die.
Nevertheless they were found guilty of disobeying the order to attack. At the end of the movie the three soldiers are executed by a firing squad.

And there is one final scene, which you can watch if you click on the link below. The song is an old German folk tune and it brings the rowdy soldiers to tears.

Paths of Glory. I love this movie and I will make two points.

1. Anti-war movies have the opposite effect from what was intended -- they celebrate war even if the "message" is against war.

2. The German people are hopelessly sentimental -- listen to the song.

Paths of Glory -- Hugo's Version
We had a kind of hobo gang in the 1970s, avoiding useful labor and riding trains. Hugo was trapped in the Hare Krishna Temple in Gainesville, Florida, but we helped him escape.
Then Hugo joined us romping around the country for a few months. One day Hugo I and were smoking cigars in a camp near Santa Cruz on the West Coast. The cigars were a cheap brand called Swisher Sweets, but they smoked pretty well for the money, which we didn't have. That particular conversation with cigars -- sitting on a rock, by a stream, under the redwoods -- was memorable for some reason.
Forty years passed and I got a letter from him, catching up. He's a doctor in Florida now, has children and grandchildren, living well enough, and then he told this story which I share with you...... He talks about the people we knew -- Bartholomew was our unofficial leader -- a lanky man from Tennessee. And Selma the beautiful Egyptian woman. And Gabriel from Brooklyn and Susan Simple. I was Frederick the Great.....

Dear Frederick,



Do your children know about our old times on the road?



Like you, I have spent 40 years moving around, have gone to all continents. My great fortune was to find a very strong and independent woman who has put up with all of my eccentric behavior for many years.



She has her own spiritual identity, completely different than mine (whatever that is), and we never discuss my history on the road, she knows very little about it.



I met up with Barthalomew, Gabriel and Selma, many years later, a few years before Bartholomew left this earth. It was depressing for me, because the magic was gone, Bartholomew was a shell of a person impressing very lost people with the same old stuff. I discovered that there were urban legends formed around many of our own experiences. We did live out a miracle, I have no doubt about that. There were too many unexplainable events.

You know, I have often thought about you, and what became of you. So glad to read your blog, and see all you have accomplished.



There is one thing I've been dying to tell someone, but every time I try, it just doesn't come out believable. So here it goes.



A few weeks after we smoked those cigars near the creek under the redwood trees we went in different directions. Just outside of Santa Cruz , I was crossing a bridge alone, and there was a girl climbing over the rail, apparently she wanted to jump.



She was very pretty and pure looking; I slowly approached her and said, “Sister , please don't jump , I want to share something with you.” She was crying, and asked me not to come any closer. So, I put my bed roll down, and sat on top of it about 6 ft. away from her. I noticed she had on tulasi kunti on her neck; remember I had just come out of a Hare Krishna temple when you found me in Gainesville. And what I never told you, was that the day before I met you and Bartholomew and Selma I wanted to take my own life. You know Frederick, you actually saved me from that, and I never found the way to thank you. So, thanks brother.



Anyways, back to the jumper on the bridge. Noticing her neck beads, I said, “You know Krishna is just another name for God. Just because you didn't find peace, doesn't mean it's not there for you.” She said, “How do you know about my confusion?” I said, “because I am just like you. I wanted to just stop thinking about God, and Krisna, and chanting and deities, and people telling me what was right and wrong. A million light years ago, about 4 months ago, I left the Gainesville Hare Krishna temple, and was on that same rail your on. Somehow I was saved by brothers and sisters that opened up another gate to heaven. And that's what I'm here for. The heavenly father has sent me to tell you that he loves you, and that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But you cannot end your life, because your body is just a horse that you' riding. You are eternal, and will just keep suffering in another world.” She asked me if I was an angel, and I said yes, I'm your brother and you must choose to live in this world, but not be of this world.”



I told her that I was going to walk in any direction she wanted, and all I wanted was for her to walk a while with me. I would not preach to her, give her any more advice, not even talk. I picked up my bed roll, and sure enough she followed me like a stray cat. Not sure how far we walked, or how much time went by, but we never spoke. Then she said, “I will never be able to re-pay your kindness, but I have something to say to you.” So, I listened. She told me she knew who I was, she had seen me sing with a traveling Hare Krisna group called Radha Damodar in Atlanta about a year before. Now this really blew my mind, because I did travel all over the country in a greyhound bus with no seats and just Indian instruments. She had my undivided attention. Suddenly she had strength, and I felt like jumping off the bridge. She told me in a very matter of fact way, “Your family needs you, go back to them. I am going back to mine, thank you.” And she turned around and walked away in the opposite direction.



That night I could not sleep, and had visions of a woman, fat and old, extending her hand full of bangles, for me to grab. Like if she was a gypsy or something. The next few days I did not eat or smoke. It was like a demon had left that girls body and jumped into mine. But it was not that. Somehow , I don't know now if it was a day, a week later, I ended up in Chico, California. When I rolled into town, all I could think about was that girl saying go home, your family needs you. I started to cry for the first time in years, and was sobbing like a little girl on a corner, with a dirty robe on, bare feet, and no desire to move from that curb. I prayed to God, and told him how confused and lost I felt, that my life had no meaning without love and people to share it with. I asked for a sign, a direction, anything! Then I was suddenly very hungry, but there was no peanut butter or money, so I went to look for a salad bowl. I passed an old house with a big palm on the front lawn, a palm readers advertisement. And out of a screened front door came an old fat hippy woman with bangles and tie-dyed robes, I was shocked because she looked just like the fat lady in my dream several nights before. I was paralyzed and just stood there looking at her.



She went inside and came back and walked over to me and put a silver dollar in my hand. She asked me to get off of her front lawn. I walked about a block, and there was a garage sale. Out near the side walk was a mannequin about my size, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and penny loafers with a sign on the headless top saying $1 dollar. I looked at my new silver dollar, gave it to a kid inside the garage, and he removed the suit, shirt and shoes from the mannequin, put the clothes in a brown paper bag and gave it to me.



I followed the yellow brick road on our usual magic carpet and there was a church. I walked into the empty church, knelt down and prayed. A young priest approached me, and asked me if I was hungry. "Yes, father."



He led me to a courtyard and brought me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk. I ate it, and he asked me, “So, what's going on?" I told him the short version, like...I grew up in Evanston Illinois, went to Catholic schools, attended Loyola Academy, joined a Hare Krishna Temple, then I traveled the states and rode the rails with a hobo gang, searching for truth....and now I just want to go home to Chicago. He asked me for my parents phone number, went inside, and came back about an hour later and said, “I booked a flight back to Chicago tonight, your Mom is picking you up at the airport. Let me get you some clothes, and you can come take a shower."



"Father , I have my own clothes in this bag. " I pulled out my $1 dollar outfit, took a shower, shaved, cut my hair, and went back to Chicago." That was 1975, August 17th.



So Frederick, I've been holding this completely unbelievable story inside of me for almost 40 years. You might be the only person I know that might believe it.



Hugo


It's nice to hear from you, Hugo. Sometimes a good cigar is all you need.


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--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

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

a letter from Africa

Themba Sibanda sent me this message from South Africa:

Hello Mr Fred Owens I need your help I am Thembe Sibanda, Precious Sibanda she's my aunt, I am staying in South Africa its hard cs I am a foreigner and both my parents past away I am 21years and I want a good life and make my family better its hard Mr Owen please help me to come to America please help me I will help you in the name of jesus & I beg you Mr Owen.

Thembe is my relative by marriage, so it is appropriate that he comes to me for help & advice. I was married to his Aunt Precious. Thembe is the son of her brother Lawrence who has passed away. Thembe grew up in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. Hardship and political turmoil has driven many young Zimbabweans like Thembe into exile. They go south, across the Limpopo River, they swim across the river and hide in the bushes from armed patrols, and they make their way down to Johannesburg where they can find work.
But the immigrants are not welcome. They are nothing but cheap labor, to be exploited, to be robbed, to suffer in the worst housing. Even so they can make money, and if they hold fast, then can improve. So I wrote back:

Thembe, you must pray for strength and carry on as best you can. Never give up! You are young and strong, you will survive, and someday your dreams will come true. Make the best of what you have --- and listen to me -- you must stay away from bad people. Choose your friends carefully. Only chose friends who are honest and helpful..... do not choose friends who steal and lie and fight -- this is my advice for you and I will pray for you every day.

Johannesburg has a high rate of violent crime and immigrants from Zimbabwe are so vulnerable. Thembe's father Lawrence worked as a security guard at a jewelry store and he was killed in an armed robbery -- this is much too common in Jo-burg as it is called. For that reason, my strongest advice to Thembe was to choose his companions carefully because in that way he will increase his personal safety. Running with the fast crowd in Jo-burg can quickly lead to death and prison.
I could have also said "read books and pursue any opportunity for education" -- but to this young man, I wanted to say only one thing and that is to choose your friends wisely -- because you have a choice in that regard. Other circumstances -- the poverty and violence of the immigrant community -- are beyond your control.
Even so, to be young and strong and brave and have a little hope for the future -- isn't that most wonderful?

Here is the photo he sent me.
Inline image 1

Thumb's Up, Thembe

Thembe Sibanda and his family come from Bulawayo in the southern region of Zimbabwe. Bulawayo was not prosperous in 1997 when I lived there, but it was decent -- there were no hovels or shacks, people lived in small brick houses with cold water taps and a flush toilet. The electricity worked. The water was potable. And all the children went to school and learned how to read and write.
But disaster struck in the form of two evils -- the AIDS epidemic struck down thousands of vital young people. I can recall the lineup of fresh graves at the Luveve Cemetery, and the reluctance of Zimbabweans to name it -- they would say of some deceased family member, "otherwise he had cancer" -- but he was only 32-years-old!
And the great political evil of Robert Mugabe who drove out all the white farmers and seized their lands for gifts to his corrupt henchman and they sold off the cattle, and ripped the fences and tore down the greenhouses and barns and ruined some of the most abundant farmland in southern Africa -- leading to near famine conditions in a country once well-fed.
It was these two disasters that drove hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans across the border to South Africa, which is where Thembe struggles with his hopes today.

Barn Paintings

My barn paintings feature the moon, the leaves, and the fishes in an underwater garden.


Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky. Your dollars keep him on an even keel. He needs to maintain a sense of detachment and keep his sense of humor. Help him out. Send your check today or hit the PayPal button...... Just follow the instructions below.

Subscriptions. Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25. Or you can mail a check to the address below.





--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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

Learning Arabic

But first the garden news. I was gardening yesterday at my sister's house in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. It was hot for October, a bit sweatacious for working in the sun. I cleaned up the front yard -- pulled out some grass that keeps popping up under the shrubbery. The soil was very dry because this part of the yard does not get watered and there has been no rain for six months -- but still the grass came up easily because the soil seems to be free of clay...... Gardens with clay soil are bound up like concrete this time of year -- you need a jack hammer.

I figured out why more people are calling me for gardening work these days -- because after 3.5 years working in the Southern California landscape I am finally getting tuned into the local ecosystem and plantscape. I kinda got the feel of it.

It's like if a carpenter moves from one state to another state, his work methods don't change very much. But you take a gardener (me) from the Pacific Northwest and move him to SoCal -- boy, it is way different down here. So many new plants to learn -- that is the fun part, but the inexperience makes you a doubtful hire in people's gardens.... Anyway, I am over the hump and kinda know what's going on, so I have more work.

Learning Arabic. If I was a cool guy I would be learning Chinese. Being able to speak even a few words in Chinese is cool. Learning Spanish is cool too -- that makes you a part of the multi-cultural vision. If you learn Chinese or Spanish you're fulfilling the principles of diversity.
Or you could learn Gaelic, the language of Ireland and Scotland -- going back to the Olde Country in Europe. That's cool too, in a retro way.

If you're really cool you could learn an indigenous language, like Quechua, which is spoken in Bolivia, or Coastal Salish which is spoken in Puget Sound.
But who needs to be cool? Not me, I'm learning Arabic and people think that's weird. They get kind of an uncomfortable look on their face when I tell them, like saying "Can we talk about something else?" Or else they say, "Isn't that pretty hard?"

People don't like Arabs for one thing -- I mean in general. And the Arabs -- what they think about us I can't print, so it's not cool.

Returning to my mention of the Chinese people and our Spanish-speaking neighbors -- they don't hate us at all. We're not even at war with them. Well, they might quietly despise us and they might plot to overwhelm us economically, but they don't hate us. But we can't say that about the Middle East -- the Middle Eastern people hate us, some of them do.

So an unspoken fear is don't learn the Arabic language, because you might unknowingly besmirch the reputation of the Prophet, and then Al Qeada operatives will capture you and have you beheaded and the videotape of your execution will be sent to your nearest relatives.

Or worse, if you study the language of this hostile culture, the NSA -- which might be looking over my shoulder right now as I type this message, and if you're reading this message then they might begin watching you too because they have flagged certain words such as "Arabic" -- the NSA might want to talk with you, at a safe house, after a long car ride........ No, better to learn Chinese or Spanish.

But what do I care? I'm old and I'll do what I choose to do. So I'm learning Arabic. I have engaged a tutor. She's very smart and I've learned a lot from her. I have become friends with Arabic-speaking people who have immigrated to the United States. I have made Facebook contacts with people in Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- they're very nice people, and I'm very glad to be friends with them. And they don't hate me, although it's possible that they might find me somewhat annoying at times.

But this does nothing to solve the intense political problems that set their culture against ours. I can't fix that.

There's another reason to avoid learning Arabic. Classic Arabic is the language of the Koran, the foundational text of Islam. Islam is a patriarchal monotheistic religions -- like Christianity and Judaism -- and that's not cool. To learn Arabic is to learn the Koran either directly or indirectly. This is just the way it is and likewise with the study of any Western language we will encounter the Christian heritage, like it or not.

We have our own fundamentalists whom we despise for their dogmatic fanaticism, and the Moslems have their fundamentalists (and the Jews too have their fanatics, except they are not dogmatic), and the only interesting question is whether their fundamentalists are worse than our fundamentalists.

To which I answer undoubtedly -- their fundamentalists are worse than ours. But I don't want to start a debate on that topic. I only want to say that learning Arabic has been a wonderful, stimulating, emotionally-satisfying experience. The language, written and spoken, is rich beyond measure in poetry, music, rhythm, depth, and beauty.

The political problems fester in a climate of sustained mutual hostility. "What you did to us! We will never forget!" The image of mobs of unshaven men shouting with anger in the streets of Cairo and Baghdad. I can't do anything about that.

Except to say that the war will end. Wars always end. And this war will end someday and I hope that day is soon.

My Arabic Tutor Responds

I study with Miranda Zora. She is a Middle Easterner, a native speaker of Aramaic and Arabic. She is also an undergraduate student at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In her response, Miranda points out the positive aspects of studying Arabic.


I really like your essay. It's true, a language is related to the history and politics of the countries/cultures that speak it.
I like specifically the part about language and religion, because that's mainly why people don't like Arabic; it's the language of the "terrorists". Moreover, English is based on Christian traditions. Expressions such as "Thank God," "Bless you" and "Oh my God" express that idea.
However, the main benefit and positive thing for me is that the only way you can understand the culture behind something so controversial and so different is by learning its language. People are afraid of Islam because it's so different; or at least they think it is. However, once they learn the language they will realize that it's in fact not that different and they will be able to relate better to the people who speak the language, AKA Middle-Easterners.
For me, as a linguist and polyglot, I know that language is the reason why I can relate to so many different people and cultures in the world. I can relate to people who speak all the languages that I speak; Aramaic, Arabic, English, French, and Spanish; and even to people who speak languages similar to these. When I meet people who speak Hebrew for example, we end up comparing our languages because they're very similar -- Hebrew came from Aramaic, and that's the basis of our conversation.
Therefore, when I do go on further with my passion and learn more languages, I definitely don't want to learn something that is so similar to what I already know. I'm not going to learn another romance language, I already speak three. I'm not going to learn another Semitic/Middle-Eastern language, but I'm going to learn something that is so different and alien to me; also taking into consideration what will help me in my career later. I want to learn Greek for example, because I love the culture and it's nothing like what I already speak. My other choices are Chinese and Russian, because they're different and would help me in my career later on.
So I actually think it's a smart choice for you to learn Arabic at this time, because it is one of the main languages in the world right now and it's especially important because of the political situation between the US and the Middle East. Plus it opens your horizons and helps you relate to and communicate with so many more people in the world than what you can now without speaking Arabic. 150 million people speak Arabic, and you can relate to them now because you're learning Arabic.
My point is that learning what is different for you is what will make you a global citizen that can survive in this world in any situation and in any country/culture, because I think that that's what's required to survive in this extremely diverse world that we live in today.

Subscriptions. Your subscription money keeps the editor from getting cranky. Your dollars keep him on an even keel. He needs to maintain a sense of detachment and keep his sense of humor. Help him out. Send your check today or hit the PayPal button...... Just follow the instructions below.

Subscriptions. Thank you --- Subscriptions can be paid at PayPal on the Frog Hospital blog for $25. Or you can mail a check to the address below.

--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

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


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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My blog is Fred Owens

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