Love with the Proper Stranger

FROG HOSPITAL -- August 28, 2020

Love with the Proper Stranger

By Fred Owens

Love with a Proper Stranger, starring Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen, 1963. This is the trailer. We watched it last week on Turner Classic Movies. Black and white, romantic drama/comedy.

She gets pregnant and finds him at work to let him know. They hardly know each other. Only one night, you see, but one night was enough. He is a musician living with Edie Adams, a dancer in a friends with benefits situation, although they did not use that term in 1963. But McQueen is willing to help Natalie find a doctor to terminate the pregnancy. They gather the $400 fee but the doctor proves contemptible and they both refuse to go through with the procedure. So, now what? Under pressure from her older brother, McQueen agrees to marry her -- to do the right thing, which is what some people did back then and some still do today. She refuses his dutiful proposal, it's not love, she says. Anyway, through this and that they actually do fall in love and he woos her with bells and banjos. Great movie. I've seen it several times. McQueen's only romantic movie. He plays a guy who is not used to traditional romance. In other words he is playing himself. She plays a young woman who wants to get away from her traditional family. Natalie Wood is the all-American girl in every way -- she reminds me of my big sister who was 24 when this movie came out and going out in the world with her own job and her own apartment and in no hurry to get married, which was a bit unusual at that time. McQueen plays it well too. He had just finished the Great Escape with the fabulous motorcycle chase and he was up to the challenge of a romantic lead -- but he is so much better than Tom Cruise in action or in romance. Natalie Wood is everyone's big sister even if you don't have one. She was just how it was supposed to be in 1963, before it all changed. She is what America looked like in 1963.

And 1963 was the last year you could say that. The civil rights movement was looming. After 1963 if the cast of a movie was still all-white, it wasn't supposed to be. You could either give Sydney Poitier a serious part or else prepare a good excuse why he wasn't included.  Integration was the goal. We were all going to mix together. It was inspiring.

Seeing to these changes was James Baldwin among other luminaries. He is shown here in a famous debate with conservative ikon William Buckley at the Oxford Union in 1965. Talk about crisp diction. These two fellows outdid each other on presentation. Buckley, and I'm being charitable, represented the brakes on the train of progress. Both of these fellows had been through this dance on other stages, using well-worn yarns and words pronounced so carefully they were almost chewed.

Baldwin made his point -- that the goal was that men like Buckely, although probably not Buckley himself, but some white men in any  case, might rise to the level of power and vision that was already in the possession of Baldwin and his fellow Negro advocates.  It was not, and Baldwin said this in a dozen different ways, an equality where he was to rise to Buckley's level, but the other way around. Such a bold stance was shocking in 1965 when Baldwin addressed the Oxford Union. Such pride and ego! And yet one can find in his writing and speeches, without too much trouble, moments of humility and the humor and smiles that come with that humility. One prayed, almost hopelessly, that Buckley might some day achieve that same humility, but he only became uncomfortable. You can see him squirm in his chair when Baldwin was speaking.

Notice the archaic language, Negro where we would say African-American. And he, where we would say he or she. It was the grammar of integration and the proper thing in 1965

Maybe this isn't useful, reviewing a movie from 1963 and a civil rights debate from 1965. It could be that I am just more comfortable with these words and these actors from times past.

Fire and Flood. Stuart Welch, the former owner of the Rexville Store in LaConner, helped me to make sense of the current disaster. We have multiple connected disasters all caused by climate change. Fire in California, flood in New Orleans, pandemic  virus globally, economic dislocation, and a President who is clearly unhinged  -- all connected and related, said Stuart in wise reflection. It is one great big problem and to know that and describe that is more than half way to a solution. so let us keep connecting the dots.

At Our House. Laurie has picked over 100 pounds of Concord grapes from the solid old vine in the back garden. These grapes are for juice and jelly or just to eat fresh. We processed seven gallons of juice for the freezer, and to enjoy on special occasions throughout the year. Then Laurie posted on the Internet to sell the rest of the grapes at $2 a pound. We also expect a bountiful harvest of passion fruit in October, some hundreds are green now but will develop that ripe purple color in due time. Last year Laurie sold her passion fruit at a dollar a piece and took in over $300. The almost ancient avocado tree, which has not had much fruit in the nine years that I have been present on this hacienda, is showing hundreds of ripening fruit which will be ready for harvest in March. So, in summary, it has been a good year for grapes, passion fruit and avocados, but the reliable golden delicious apple tree is taking a well-earned year off and not yielding much fruit.... Laurie just reminded me that the apple tree had a ton of fruit just last year and made many pounds of apple sauce.

We are sad realizing that the Thanksgiving party at her brother's house in Manhattan Beach will be cancelled this year. Not this year the happy house jammed with loud boisterous relatives, not the table overburdened with food, not Uncle Sam sprawling on the couch in the den watching the football game the whole time. But it will be like this for many families and we will all get by.

'

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214
t
My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

The Fire Next Tiime

By Fred Owens

God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!

Eugene asked me what I wanted for my birthday, June 25. I said James Baldwin. I had read several of his novels when I was a kid and I thought it might be worthwhile to read them again. So Eugene sent me Collected Essays, which includes The Fire Next time. I read a few pages as a warm up to see if my serious reading brain still worked. I often read challenging works during the sixties when I was in college, but these days I often look for something easy and I'm afraid Baldwin is not too easy. But worth the effort.

Baldwin is rich. Here is one section from Down at the Cross, written about his coming of age when he became 14.

"Negroes in this country -- and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other -- are taught really to despise themselves from the moment their eyes open on the world. This world is white and they are black. White people hold the power, which means they are superior to blacks ...." 

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, was published in 1963, about 50 pages, 2 essays. This is difficult for me to write because it is a serious book and I have never, in all my years writing, written a book review. So I'm going to ask people to work with me on this.

I asked Eugene to find a public domain photo of Baldwin that we could use to illustrate the essay. "Whatever looks good," I told him, figuring he would choose one of those deadly serious author poses so commonly placed on the back cover of a book. Instead he selected Baldwin smiling in sun glasses standing next to Marlon Brando. They were friends, it turns out. They even roomed together for a period. And Baldwin is showing a Hollywood smile with lots of teeth. Not that he had good teeth, because he didn't, but you know he had his moments when he knew he was as good as Marlon Brando. Viva Zapata was my favorite Brando film, followed by On the Waterfront. "I could have been somebody. I could have been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

I could have been somebody. I know exactly what that feels like. Brando I understand. Not James Baldwin.  I don't understand him. No, that's not right. Let me try and say it another way. Baldwin describes his life and his options as a young black man in Harlem. I know I don't understand it.  I got the book out on Monday and raced through the fifty pages in two days. It was intense. But I didn't get it, so I'm reading it again.

In 1963, that was the year of the big civil rights rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Baldwin was there, of course. Brando was there. That's when the photo was taken. It was a tragic time, August, 1963. Kennedy was assassinated in November. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. MLK in 1968. In 1963, when Baldwin's book was published, I was a senior in high school. I didn't have a clue. But I read his books, The Fire Next Time and Another Country and Giovanni's Room. That was a world I didn't live in.

Now I am reading a short story by James Baldwin titled Sonny's Blues. Sonny is the younger brother by seven years of the narrator. Sonny plays the drums and piano in various pick up groups at jazz clubs around Harlem, but doing heroin, which concerns the narrator who wants to help his younger brother find that thing that matters. I am on page 30 of the story which goes to 36 pages..... I don't think I have ever been to Harlem. I was at Columbia University for a Tikkun Conference in 1994 -- from the campus you can look down the hill to see Harlem, but I never went down the stairs.

I've never written about race, couldn't do it justice. We watched the 2016 documentary on the work and life of James Baldwin, titled I Am Not Your Negro. Baldwin has a very expressive face and an elaborate diction. Where am I taking this? I was in Africa for a year and married an African woman and we lived together for seven years. What did I learn? I must have learned something, just not much to write about now. I might do better writing about the time Jim Smith and I went fly fishing in Montana, right outside of Yellowstone Park, on the Madison River, full of hungry trout and easy to catch. Now I'm comfortable with that. But the Fire Next Time is not approachable. Well, Mark Twain could not write that story either. He would put Baldwin on a raft and call him Jim, but without the humor. Mark Twain would rip up draft after draft trying to write about Baldwin. He would curse a lot, puff on his cigar and give up. Norman Mailer would put Baldwin in a boxing ring fighting at the welterweight level and the result would be embarrassing. So if I screwed it up I would be in good company.

To be Continued .....

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Precious Comes to America

By Fred Owens

The photo shows Precious shivering in her winter coat but obviously enjoying her first glimpse of the daffodils in the Skagit Valley. This was in February, 1998.

"It's really cold in America and there are white people everywhere, you sure you want to go?"  I asked her and asked her again. "Yes," she replied with no elaboration and no declaration of goals about how America was a dream of Disneyland, wealth and freedom. For her, life in Zimbabwe was not only harsh, it was boring. To me life in Zimbabwe was exotic. To her it was like New Jersey. A question I never asked, because I didn't want to hear the answer was  -- did you marry me to get a visa?

We got her a visa, it took four months. At one point I had to call Ed Burke, the attorney, who lived in Framingham, Massachusetts. Ed had recently retired from a position as state senator in Massachusetts and began a private law practice. He was the widowed husband of a college classmate, that's how I knew him. I left him $5,000 on retainer before I went to Africa, figuring he might have to bail me out of jail or get me out of the hospital. He didn't ask for the retainer, but I thought paying him in advance like this would simply guarantee faster action and greater conviction. Because what if I did end up in jail or in hospital in Zimbabwe, who would get me out? Ed Burke.

This turned out not to be a problem, but we needed to jump through some immigration hoops to get her visa, so Ed took care of that.  A funny thing is that she needed a criminal background check among other documents. We had to drive four hours to Harare to get that document because the issuing agency had run out of stamps and could not mail it. This is Africa, waiting for stamps. But we did not want to wait for the stamps so we drove the four hours and there was Precious's criminal background report sitting on the bottom of a stack of un-mailed letters.

We collected the document and looked it over. "Precious, it seems you were arrested for assault a few years ago, how did that happen?" She immediately launched into an elaborate fabrication of events. The boldness of her dishonesty astonished me. There was a fight. Somebody hit somebody else. Somebody called the cops. Somebody -- that would be Precious -- got arrested, but it wasn't her fault. 

This situation did not disturb me. I knew her to be very feisty and strong. I had seen her look out for herself. Sometimes an African woman has to do that. And how much safer and easier would it be for her being a black woman in America?

We drove again to Harare for the interviews. Separate interviews were held at the American embassy to determine if our marriage was a matter of genuine affection and not some pay off for the visa. The embassy staff was charmed by our mutual appeal and gave us the thumbs up.

We got the visa in late February, 1998, and bought plane tickets to the Promised Land. Precious was never one to show excitement but we did get to the airport more than two hours early, her first time on a plane. We landed in Jo-burg for a four-hour layover. Precious did not fear flying but the escalator scared her to death so we took the elevator, which did not scare her. Whatever.

A long plane ride to NYC, a hop to Logan Airport in Boston for a short visit with my son. It was very cold and there were white people everywhere. Precious did not admit to being afraid but her face broke out in pimples, because she was afraid. But she was strong and there was no going back. We flew to Cleveland and visited my daughter at Oberlin College. Then we flew across the country to Seattle and took the bus to LaConner, just in time to see the daffodils blooming. It was very cold. She never complained. I think she liked it.

We bought a house. I made sure it was what she liked and I put her name on the deed alongside my name. We lived in that house for six years and then got a divorce. I guess you might say we ran out of things to talk about. I don't want to criticize her behavior or mine. It just didn't work out. And truthfully most people who knew us were not surprised. We didn't look like a couple, didn't fit in the grand plan. Except there is no grand plan.

For a long time afterward, I wished I had never gone to Africa and I wished I had never married Precious, but I got over that. I did get a good story. Precious lives in Pennsylvania now and works as a nursing aide. She returns to Zimbabwe every few years to see her family.

The End.

The Fire Next Time. Eugene asked me what I wanted for my birthday, June 25. I said James Baldwin. I had read several of his novels when I was a kid and I thought it might be fun to do it again. So Eugene sent me Baldwin's Collected Essays, which includes The Fire Next Time. I will read a few pages in coming days and let's see if it still works -- my reading brain. I often read challenging works during the sixties when I was in college, but these days I often look for something easy and I'm afraid Baldwin is not too easy. But worth the effort?

Baldwin is rich. Here is one section from Down at the Cross, written about his coming of age when he became 14.

"Negroes in this country -- and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other -- are taught really to despise themselves from the moment their eyes open on the world. This world is white and they are black. White people hold the power, which means they are superior to blacks ...."

The Election. ..... Current events can be overwhelming, but the news about Kamala Harris is uplifting...... Harris, quoting Biden, said "There is room for everybody." That is a hopeful mantra. The African story comes to a close this week. There are many more stories coming out of Africa, but who will write them? The entire text is about 35,000 words and could be worked up into a proper book manuscript. That is possible. But my energy, for the next few months, is getting Biden elected in November, so we are giving Africa a rest for now.

waiting for the bus

FROG HOSPITAL -- August 7, 2020

Waiting for the Bus

By Fred Owens

I have these moments when everything is just right and this was one of them. We were sitting by the side of the road waiting for the bus. It feels calm, I mean who knows if the bus will ever come or if it ever has come, that's not our problem. It's for us to wait. And she was being kind to me, as you can see in the photo. She gave me the shade, me being fair-haired from northern climates and not used to the hot African sun, while she was at home in it. So she gave me the shade.

Waiting for the Bus is what people do in Africa. You can buzz right through it as a tourist, or sign up for an NGO and do some decent development project like teaching children to read, or helping to re-build the well in the village that goes dry half the year. But you don't become Africa, you don't be Africa unless you're waiting for the bus. That's hope and no hope. I got to be Africa, waiting for the bus after many false starts. They could tell I was trying to get somewhere, until I finally realized I was already there. That's Africa, when you be Africa.  But by then my time was up. That's what I said at the beginning of this story. It doesn't matter if you love or hate Africa, or if you want to stay forever or leave tomorrow. You are given so much time and given by whom I cannot say but you are given so much time, and when that time is up, you better heed the signal because it's time for you to leave, and you should be mighty grateful that you got to stay here at all. I got to stay for a year and sometimes she gave me the shade.

We got back from Malawi in early November.........Mr. Mataka and his two daughters, Marji and Winnie, stayed behind to share  secrets with Amina, to tell old stories around her small cooking fire, and she laughing the whole time. But Precious and I headed back to Blantyre, the big city in Malawi and there I almost got killed by an angry mob. This man accosted us. He seemed to know Precious very well. He began to shout that I had stolen his wife and I must give her back. Quickly a crowd formed and the language became more heated. I was frightened. But Precious rose to the occasion and confronted this pig. She said to the pig, You do not own me. I am not your slave to order around, I go with this man now and we are married. You were a pig to me, but he is kind. So shut the fuck up and go back to your lemonade stand. You are bothering me. I will call the police and you will go to jail........ so she said to this man speaking in Chewa, which is the language of Malawi. She was very calm. The bystanders drifted away. Some old boyfriend I guess. 

This reminded me of how little I knew about her. She had two passports. One from Malawi said her name was Precious Mataka and that she was 25 years old. The other passport was from Zimbabwe and said her name was Precious Sibanda and that she was 32 years old. I did not believe either one. I figured I would never get to the bottom of the common African practice of multiple identities. She was who she said she was when she said it.

Well, I said, I guess you are.

The photo was taken right near Victoria Falls and we had come out to this road to view the world's largest baobab tree, called the Livingstone Tree, named after Scottish explorer David Livingstone. They never tore down his statue when they kicked out the colonial govt. in Zimbabwe. They tore out all the other statues of European heroes, but they left Livingstone standing because he did no harm.  He just wanted to find his way.

Who took the photo? It must have been my daughter Eva who came to see us that summer of 1997 in the few weeks before we got married. Eva stayed with us  before starting college in September. She took the photo. Then she got on the bus and saw her own adventures in the cold mountains of Chimanimani, which lie near the border with Mozambique. The guerilla partisans used to pass through there into Zimbabwe from their training camps in Mozambique but that war ended in 1980. Still it was wild, rugged country and I can't believe I let Eva go there all by herself having just turned 18.

How the Pandemic Defeated America  Defeated, yes, but it's not over. This matter of fact story in the Atlantic does not hide the truth but just lays it all out. I accept this judgment and say we can fix this if we first make a ruthless explanation of how it happened. Trump and the attitude that elected him is the biggest problem. But the whole notion of private health care and insurance by means of employment needs to be challenged. The last paragraph reads, "The pandemic has been both tragedy and teacher. Its very etymology offers a clue about what is at stake in the greatest challenges of the future, and what is needed to address them. Pandemic. Pan and demos. All people."

If You're Not Happy Today, That's Totally Normal. Barton Goldsmith explains this in Psychology Today. More than a thousand Americans are dying every day, plus many more thousands are dying around the globe. The human family is under great duress. So, to put it bluntly, these are not happy days. He writes, "Right now, I don’t think there’s any way to manufacture happiness when there is so much going wrong in our world..... your job is to survive—having a good time and feeling happy again will come later if you just do that."

Africa Knows How to Survive. Africa has survived every disaster since the beginning of the human race. Africa can say, better than anybody, that we're still here, we've always been here, and we always will be here. Africa is the place where herd immunity was invented. Individuals may die but the tribe lives on. This is something I neglected to mention in my quest to visit Chembe village and meet with Amina, the wise sister of Mataka, because this is where the human race originated. Somewhere around here, many thousands of years ago, a young creature stood up on her hind legs, looked around and realized that she was different from all the other creatures. She realized that she was a human being. And she began the process, taking many thousands of years, of finding out what it means to be human, a process that began somewhere near Chembe Village and continues to this day, to this pandemic. So tap into that life force and survive. And when it's time to be happy crack open some cold beers and smile,  because that's what they do in Africa.

In the Next Issue, Precious and Frederick Begin Their Migration to America. Leaving Africa, Coming to America. They got married September 1, 1997, the day after Princess Diana died. They made a honeymoon homecoming journey to Chembe, Precious's ancestral village. They came back to Bulawayo and began the visa process. Precious is about to take her first flight in an airplane.

See you next week,

Fred

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital