That Long, Lonesome Highway

Prologue: This is about an odyssey. taken once- monthly to the family hermitage on the other side of Mount Hood.  On this occasion, there is more on the agenda than simply "getting away from it all".  In John Wayne's immortal mandate, "A man has to do what a man has to do."  That translates to the rites of preparation for the cold, inhospitable weather that invariably comes on the heels of autumn. (-As an aside, we scrupulously avoid the use of the "W" word in reference to that period on the calendar which follows a certain solstice.
            In addition to the usual "R & R", there will be the necessary business of wrapping outside water pipes, and hunkering down to seal vent openings in the foundation.  It is to be a bitter-sweet trek, inasmuch as it will be the last time until the spring thaw that we'll be able to use this route to reach our home away from home; "Taj Ma Hollow."

Mile 0 Boring.  Taking leave of what serves as "headquarters" for three plus weeks of every four, thoughts abide about what lies ahead.  Some things will be constant and familiar, and some will not.  That's part of the adventure of going to a place you've been to many times before. The time-honored plan is to drive down the hill, and onto state highway 212 until it feeds into U.S. Highway 26, which will carry us over the summit and beneath the tallest mountain peak in the state.  As we drive through the two-block main drag of our town, everything looks virtually the same as it has for decades.  The only new businesses are a pair of auto-repair shops.  Things are slow to change here, and that's mostly comforting.

Mile 8.4 Sandy.   The city of Sandy bills itself as the "Gateway to Mt. Hood". We,

who live just a marble-roll down the highway, will concede the point.  Still, it would be pleasant to think of Boring, billed as Mt. Hood's gateway.  Several years ago, Sandy had the grandiose marketing idea of cosmetically fashioning its business district into a Bavarian-style village, ala Leavenworth, Washington.  As we drive through on the one-way east-bound side of town, we note that one strip mall and one (1) separate commercial enterprise have bought into the idea.  Nice try, guys.  Boring, on the other hand, makes no pretense when it comes to image.  We can't even agree to incorporate, and become a village!  However, we retain the claim to being the unofficial, undisputed pole-building capital of Clackamas County!

          
Mile 24.2  Welches, the Zig Zag Inn. This has become our dining hang-out on the mountain.  Locals always refer to almost any location between Sandy and the highway 26 summit as being, "on the mountain".  We like to be considered locals.  The 70 year-old establishment has

an open-beam, log cabin motif, combined with just the right touch of whimsy; as the loft will attest.  That area, which once provided lodging for travelers and skiers, has been given over to memorabilia such as old-timey snow skis, crossed walking crutches,  a period rattan-backed wheel chair, and a "time-honored" guitar. Not to be missed are the chandeliers above the dining booths; bedecked with racks of deer antlers.

            For those who frequent the place, it doesn't take long to figure out that a rainy October Wednesday is not an off-day for the Zig-Zag.  As we drive into the parking lot in a steady downpour, we have to settle for a spot in the last row of open spaces to park the van. "Tara", our server is non-plussed about all the hullabaloo; much was generated by a group of church-camp leaders.  "In less than an hour they'll all be gone", she averred.  This writer's hunch is that the kitchen crew must be staffed by more than one cook.  Suspicions are confirmed as order after order breezes by our table.  Management had anticipated the "storm" before it hit.  Our gourmet hamburger with fries and chicken primavera arrived in good time; piping hot and scrumptious.   

Mile 25.8 Rhododendron,   Mt. Hood Roasters.  To combat the effects of sleep-inducing tryptophan after a filling meal, and another hour on the road looming ahead, a stop at a favorite coffee depot is mandatory.   It's not surprising that this merchant has carved out quite a healthy niche on Highway 26.  Not only do they roast, they also market effectively, and reach out to local non-profits with several money-raising projects.  It's the perfect time to score  a 12-ounce, double-shot capuchino, to wash down one of their irresistible  oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies.  Starbucks this is obviously not.  But which would you prefer, good-tasting, locally-made product, or slick marketing?

Mile 36.3   Government Camp.  Laws of nature are taking hold, and when nature calls, it's far-far better for septuagenarians to heed it sooner, rather than later.  Only eleven miles distant from the Roastery we take that necessary pause in our travels, knowing full well that the only relief we would find for the next forty miles would be in the off-road puckerbrush of central Oregon.  This village, at the crest of Highway 26, is the envy of more than a few denizens of our home town.  They had the foresight to incorporate, thereby protecting their turf from future urban sprawl.  (Boring, on the other hand, treated the same opportunity like an aggregation of angry feral cats.)   
           In winter this spot is swarming with snowboarders, bunnies, and skiers. It is also the prime location for local television stations to relay to viewers just how bad the driving conditions are, seasoned with shots of kids inner-tubing on the nearby slopes.

Mile 38.5  Hood River turn-off to State Highway 48.  This is where the road opens up and the vehicle traffic thins.  One, and only one, gas station now lies between us and our high desert haven. We avoid that station like the plague, inasmuch as they want some blood-letting tacked onto their price per gallon of gas.  Experienced road warriors, fuel-up either before or after the trip over the mountain.  Never during.   Some road improvements are noted along the way, among them- a newly-finished overpass; spanning White River, or what will be White River; once that "other season" arrives. Right now, it' a dry river bed.  The tree species long this portion of the route are still of the fir and spruce variety.  Mt. Hood looms just above, shrouded.  Given the rainfall in the lowlands of late, it probably has received its first coat of snow.

Mile 43.1  From highway 48 to Forest Service road 34.  The State of Nevada calls their stretch of asphalt between the cities of Ely and Fallon as "The Loneliest Highway in America, and deservedly so.  However, #34 runs a close second.  Given the time of day, it will be very much of a surprise if we see one other car between here and Wamic.  As it turns out, we don't.  Five miles in, the canopy of trees gives way to some big sky.  Oak and pine trees start to ease into, then take over the terrain, along with rocky outcroppings that flank one side of the road.  Some of the yield has been "harvested" from time to time for landscaping back home. We pass over the first of eight cattle guards.  These are gratings of iron bars, installed flush with the road surface to discourage open- range livestock from wandering too far afield.   Apparently, they do the deed. But just as effective, we've discovered,  are white parallel stripes; painted on the road! Skies overhead predictably begin to clear.  The mountain often serves as a natural barrier to rain-laden clouds.  Leeward central Oregon receives about half the precipitation of the windward side.

Mile 72.4  Wamic.  

There is definitely some history to this "town", which is constituted by an auto-repair shop and a general store, which laughingly refers to itself as a mall.  True enough, if what one is looking for can't be found there, it can probably be done without. For those in a need to know what's happening, this is Intelligence Central.  Some years ago, in a cost-cutting measure, the postal service took away it's zip code identity and quaint, old office , but there are still many remnants of what once was, elsewhere.  Take the Barlow Road, for example.  Built in 1846 by Sam Barlow and a business partner, this road represents the final segment of the original Oregon Trail. which extends from Jefferson, Missouri to the Willamette Valley in the western part of our state.   Wagon wheel tracks can still be found where the land remains undisturbed; both here and in eastern Oregon, behind the city of Pendleton.  Barlow Trail Days are THE event in Wamic each year.  The parade and out-house races are the stellar attractions. But not to be missed are the artisans, dressed in period clothing and doing the  things tradespeople did in those days, including blacksmithing and loom-weaving.

Mile 76.8   Refuge reached. One hour later it's wine, crackers, cheese, and who cares!!!  This place has always been endowed with restorative powers.  Freedom from many of life's daily vicissitudes, but certainly not all.  "Tomorrow", as has oft been said, "has enough worries to take care of itself."  Pipes and vents will wait another day.  Let the good times roll!  Maynard's cows in his pasture across the road moo an "amen".  

Reunion

"How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh,
outweigh the bad.
I thought we'd get to see forever,
but forever's gone away.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

I don't know where this road is going to lead.
All I know is where we've been, and what we've been through.
If we get to see tomorrow, I hope it's worth all the wait.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And I'll take with me the memories
to be my sunshine after the rain.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
                                            Jason Mraz

         Nothing says "yesterday" quite the way that a class reunion does; more, especially a fifty-fifth class of '59 college reunion.
         Your scribe spent a scant one-and-a-half years at Willamette University, across the street from the state capitol grounds in Salem. 
         Fresh from high school, and flexing wings of independence for the first-ever time, old W.U. proved  to be this guy's Neverland State College.    Everywhere there were exciting diversions;  fraternities, the Old Mill Stream, evening serenades, touch football on the green, the Elsinore Theatre, the A&W drive-in, and of course, a Certain Lady.  Class assignments had to compete for attention with A): all the above.   All too often,  A)  prevailed. 
         This Certain Lady became an almost all-consuming object of my attention and of course, affection.  "My name is Ann Rees", she averred to our English Comp. prof on the first day of class; an instructor who turned out to be a more effective sedative than melatonin.  But she said it in such an elegantly demure fashion, that she had me locked-in, from the first time I beheld her countenance.  Suffice to say, Romance was not the college major my... financiers had in mind.
         The handwriting on the wall of academic achievement should have been evident following my first (but hardly last) collegiate prank.  The above-mentioned prof had a bust of a Neanderthal man positioned directly in front of his lectern.  On the second day of class, your scribe placed a freshly-lit cigarette between the lips of the ancient one.  Good for at least a modest guffaw; or so went the expectation.  "Murco" entered the classroom.  He immediately spotted the burning cigarette, grabbed it, extinguished it, and summarily tossed it out the window; all performed without comment, or the slightest reaction; as if he were dispassionately flicking away a fly.   (As an aside:For every last lecture, his variety of vocal inflections were a perfect 1:1  match for his facial expressions.) I digress.  As the demon weed left his fingers, one could hear the sound of air escaping from someone's balloon.
          Somehow, "M" must have deduced the identity of the culprit.  Following that fiasco,  no matter how sparkling the syntax, nor finely-tuned the footnotes, every piece of written work submitted was returned with a grade of "C".  This ploy was not the portal one should have chosen to access the honor roll, or even scholastic respectability.  But then, there was always this Serene Charmer to keep one concentrating on more pleasant pursuits. 
         For times without her, there were always fraternity brothers and other classmates.  Almost 400 of us were enrolled for our freshman year; the largest ever at the school.  Attrition of one kind or another reduced that number to 128 graduating seniors. Because of the semi-cloistered nature of our community, virtually everyone on campus had at least a nodding familiarity with everyone else.  A word of explanation about that "cloister":

       The university, founded in 1842 by Jason Lee, a Methodist minister, had several  "quaint regulations" imposed on its students.  To mention but a few, ~students of opposite sexes could not share the same blanket, even while sitting in a park. ~Folded newspaper was madataory on a boy's lap before a girl could alight atop.  ~The seating plan for the first football game of the year required male and female students to sit on opposite sides of a rope; extending from top row to bottom on the stadium bleachers.  This scheme was designed to heighten the rah-rah level in the cheering section.  ~Co-eds were allowed to wear jeans or pedal-pushers only in their dorm rooms on Saturday mornings.  ~Attendance at weekly chapel was obligatory: six un-excused absences per semester placed the guilty party on social probation.  ~11:00 pm on week nights was mandatory campus-wide lights-out.   ~All freshman were required to wear 'beanies" when walking about the campus. ~ Alcohol?  Surely you jest! Less than half the aforementioned regulations was ever taken seriously.
        Unbeknownst to this writer, several life-long friendships were being forged during those halcyon days.  My spring semester roomie remains in constant touch, and we make it a point to get together at least once a year to reminisce, talk baseball and politics.  Several others exchange notes and phone calls.  The tiny blip that a year and a half creates on a time-line of over eight decades doesn't seem to matter.  What does matter is that the blip is there. 
            As I gazed around the hotel dining room where we gathered on that mid-September evening, three thoughts became prominent.  The first was that it was startling to see all that silver hair on heads which were once covered by cardinal and gold beanies; almost yesterday, in fact. 
                   Second:  Though my tenure at Willamette was relatively brief,  classmates recalled, with smiles, many occasions and episodes in which our paths crossed.  This prompts a disclaimer:  There is no truth to the rumor that this writer was part of a conspiracy to "lift" the cheer king's VW Beetle, and deposit it during the night on the main floor of the administration building. 
                     Finally, it's abundantly clear that our class has graduated again; to the extent that we no longer feel obliged to assume airs or pretense.  There is, after all, nothing left to prove.  Every last one of us appears downright comfortable in his own skin; wrinkled, as it may be. 
                    Our class president gave us a parting charge:  "Unless you're in heaven, be there for fifty-seven."  As we bade our fond farewells, we picked up our celebratory wine glasses.  Had he but known, the Rev. Mr. Lee would have done a 180 in his grave.  See you guys in two years!
              

"

"Bright college days, o' carefree

days gone by;

to thee we sing with our glasses

raised on high.

As we now go our

sordid, separate ways,

We will ne'er forget thee -

thou golden college days."

~Tom Lehrer~



            
          

          
         

Adrienne's Sacrament

~He took the bread, and after giving thanks, He broke it, saying, "This is my body which is given for you.  Take this in remembrance of me."~

       We are loved.  We are forgiven.
          
          Several years ago, during the course of a mens' retreat, a  short film was shown, entitled "Communion."
          The story opens as a young girl, scarcely nine years of age,  enters a reception room in a convalescent facility.   With a basketful of posies, she proceeds to waltz about the room; giving each of the patients one of her prized picks, and unhesitatingly offering a hug to every last one of the assembled.  Neither their age nor infirmity made her hesitate in pirouetting from one chair to the next.  Every last one of them was deemed worthy of her gifts;  given with selfless, unabashed gusto!

Was this offering art imitating life?

Or........

Was it life imitating art?

         Some days ago, the neighbors' daughter appeared at our front door, unbidden and unannounced.  Adrienne is about to enter the fourth grade.  She's a girl without guile or pretense.  In a very refreshing sense, what you see is what you get with her. The genuine article.  At times, during the early spring, I've seen her practicing her pitcher's "windmill wind-up" in an adjacent field with her mom, in preparation for an upcoming softball season.   To this point in our relationship, she has made a few brief visits to our home on the hill; usually for the exchange of Christmas goodies, or to solicit a sale of candy or cookie dough for a school fund-raiser.  For these visits, she is almost always accompanied by her mom.  This day, it was different. Very different.  She was making a pastoral call......a sacramental visitation.....all by herself.

 

        She brought with her a bouquet of flowers; all of her selection, accompanied by a card of her design.   One could tell by the earnest look in her eyes that this sacramental offering was prompted by her own, personal calling.
        Much is made of the time, preparation and sacrifice required to receive ordination.  The respect and admiration accorded those who receive holy orders is richly deserved.
        Just as deserving of praise are those un-ordained among us who offer sacraments; at times oblivious of the resounding  joy and release they leave in the afterglow. 
         It is doubtful that Adrienne was fully aware of the impact on those who received this special sacrament.  She probably performed her rite simply out of the need to do good.  That makes her act all the more beautiful.....and just as valid as those things a priest does while wearing a stole, and bearing Host and chalice.

                                                            We are loved.  Amen

 
           
 

        

         

 

 





                          

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

When our first color television set lit up the living room, "Star Trek" quickly became our favorite series to watch....and watch....and watch.  We became so familiar with the dialogue that we could actually parrot the words many of the characters spoke.
           To this writer, the most memorable episode was and is, "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield" (v.1969).  The plot involves two solitary inhabitants of a planet far, far away.  At first glance, the characters look like identical, "monochromatic" twins.  But then, as they both are quick to tell the crew of the Starship Enterprise, they are decidedly dissimilar. 
           One,  you see, is white on the right side of his body, while the other is white on the left.  That makes not just a world, but a galaxy of difference, and is at the roots of an immortal conflict.   They absolutely abhor one another.  Call it sibbling rivalry, run amuck.  Despite repeated efforts by Captain Kirk to establish a truce, the duelists continue to inflict punishing, painful cosmic zaps to each other.  The realization by both combatants  that neither has the power to dispatch the other does nothing to dissuade them from trying; trying throughout all eternity.  As first officer Spock observes, "To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme view points is not logical."
                 Gene Rodenberry, the executive producer of the series, was a visionary.  Doubtless, he saw in Last Battlefield a parable of huge dimension and implication for this troubled star-base of ours.  Every passing day, for the last two weeks, has been riddled with lead stories about the conflict along the Gaza Strip.  The Israelies (white on the right) have every right to protect what is theirs.  Meanwhile Hamas (white on the left...bank?) wants to protect the sovereignty of the Palestinian state.  Both sides are showing a "no quarter given" approach to on-again-off-again negotiations. Both sides have inflicted huge pain and suffering on the other.  While the leaders of both countries talk the good talk, there is far less willingness to walk the good walk.  Each accuses the other of breaking treaties and accords.
                  Since it achieved independent statehood in 1988, Palestine has been an irritant, at best, to its neighbor, and the feeling is mutual.  The two opposing sides can't seem to acknowledge that way back when, they were of the same ancestry.  Both Jews and the Muslims can trace their lineage to Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, so the bible says.  They have occupied the same corner of the cosmos for a couple of mileniums;  veritable brothers under the skin.  Yet today, much of Jerusalem has been reduced to rubble by a conflict without end. Dead and wounded bring mounting measures of grief.  Sadly,  cease-fires have the life expectancy of wind-gusts. 
               In the final scene of Last Battefield, the Enterprise departs the far-away planet; leaving the two adversaries to continue their titanic mano-a-mano tussle.  Unfortunately, we are all confined to Starbase Earth, and for this country and these circumstances there is no place, but home.  We are morally obliged to stay the course,  and provide diplomatic help whenever it's requested..... even by mentalities of extreme viewpoints. There should be nothing more offered, as long as the principle players insist on re-enacting this episode.

                
                                                 


                 
                     

Spinning 45's

A prologue for those too young to know:  There was a time in history, after the age of the Cro-Magnon man, but before that of pop tarts.  It was the age of saddle shoes, black and white television sets and Ford Edsels.  It was also the era when the latest craze in sound reproduction hit the music market; more specifically the youth music market.  It was compact, fairly inexpensive, relatively light, and who cared in those days if the the listening quality was just one notch above "tolerable"?  This was the time of the 45 player.

"45" was a designation for the discs which turned on the machine at a rate of forty-five revolutions per minute.  (R.P.M.'s referred to things beside car engines in those days.)  45's were considered an advance over those ancient 78's, which were heavy and brittle enough to crack under the impact of scarcely more than a poorly placed elbow.  The 45 was engineered for survival, and pliable enough to withstand the weight of an adult male sitting on it, if it wasn't for a very long period of time, and the male in question wasn't over-indulging on pop tarts.  In size and weight,  they are what a cd on steroids would look like.
           
            The playing device adorned many a bookcase of high school and college kids; yours truly included, of course. The fact that they were high maintenance, requiring repeated disk replacement for every four minutes-worth of music, did nothing to dissuade the afficionado of his day... or even the would-be afficionado. I remember, as a high school freshman,  the first time I ventured into West Portal Music in San Francisco and asked for a 45 of a certain tune that was given a lot of play on the radio.  Knowing my parents, as well as their old school 78 equipment, the clerk asked, "Why do you want to buy that?"  He received the most lame of justifications, "Because."

             It is a point of pride with this writer that he is able to associate almost every song, every disc he has collected with a time and place when it was first heard.  Some might call that a trivial pursuit, but anything that deters a septuagenarian's aging is not trivial.  Pat Boone: the prince of the pop charts, the "April Love" movie, and Yale University.  What more does a guy need?!  Boone provided the only incentive necessary to buy my first pair of white buck shoes.  "Don't Forbid Me" was a tune which defined the last days in the age of naivete, when a beau worried about negative reactions of his intended to "the whisperings of sweet nothings in her ear."  That age ended around the time of the McCarthy Hearings in the U.S. Senate.

       Patience and Prudence was a female duet whose monikers defied, dare we say,  "credence".   What are the odds, after all, that these two girls would discover each other's names before entering into a recording contract?   As things turned out, "Tonight You Belong to Me" was their only big hit, but in the fall of 1955 it was well worth a buy.  
           The disc was played countless times in my room at the Phi Delt fraternity where I pined over the girl who captivated me.  The result was that academic pursuits were pushed into mañana status.   Bye-bye, four- year degree, and hello, girl of my dreams!  It was not all that difficult to dismiss the consequences of his deeds for a young and reckless soul.
               Comes September of 1958 and the approach of matrimonial bliss. My two closest and dearest high school  friends, "Deacon", and "The Mule Skinner" accompanied this writer on a ride up highway 99E from Palo Alto, California to Portland in a newly purchased, but not-nearly-so-new 1953 Ford Customline four-door sedan; equipped with four partially-bald tires.  The ultimate destination was a chapel with a priest and lady in white rainment. As we sped along the highway, I felt a tell-tale wobble from one of the front tires.  Deacon told me that if my car was like his, once we passed 50 mph, the wobble would go away.  It did,  just as he said it would.  What a guy, and what a best man!! The three of us continued our northward journey;  interspersed at junctures with moments of personal, voiceless prayer whenever the critical speed was approached.  
                 The music on the car radio filled the air, and provided brief respites

from anxiety and road-exhaustion.  One of the songs we heard was Don Gibson's "It's been a blue, blue day.  I feel like running away.  I feel like running away from it all."  That song drew rounds of guffaws each time we heard it.
            But for your scribe, the most memorable of tunes was composed and produced by another  virtual unknown,  Peter De Angelis, called, "The Happy Mandolin."  The station we were listening to must have played that at least a half-dozen times altogether on the round-trip.
           It is indeed a happy song, but it also carried with it a "coded" message that everything was going to turn out well.  So far, it has.  Upon my return to the work-a-day world at St. Paul Insurance Co., I bought two copies of that song.  There was the distinct chance that this guy's gem might never come my way again.  There was no sense in taking a chance with something so special.  As it turned out, it's now available on I-Tunes.  Whenever I play it on the car cd player, I have to ask the Bride if she remembers when she first heard it.  She smiles, but has grown tired of answering the question. 
             Finally, there is Joe Dowell who recorded a handful of hits that grossed a million dollars, including "Little Red Rented Rowboat," and, "Wooden Heart", which Elvis made popular in Europe.  However, in our house, he is best remembered for "Bridge of Love", which was oft-played on the air while yours truly was stocking Safeway Store shelves after hours in the early '60's when our children were very young.

      When I hear it play, it brings back memories of the first home that we were able to call "our own".  The house was situated in a working-class neighborhood in s.e. Portland.  Almost all the neighbors were good friends, and were actively, but respectfully engaged in each other's lives.  Fast forward now to 2014, and a hill in Boring.  Here, we can honestly classify but one pair of neighbors as good friends.  Times change, and not necessarily for the better.
         This collection of 45's was lost for well over a decade, and was "unearthed" during the course of an archaelogical expedition, conducted by the Bride,  into the deepest, most remote reaches of basement storage room #2.  This "cavern" allows for inspection in an upright position, but still, it is not a place where the feint of heart nor weak of knees should ever venture.  That cavern-caveat notwithstanding, if the reader has such a burial ground, it would be adviseable to explore it more often than once every ten years.  Who knows what riches might be rediscovered?!
          

Another Day In Paradise

May 9, 2014: 6:50 am
As I roll out of the feathers, I pause to clear out the cobwebs in my mind.  Next,

I run a quick systems check on my Swedish chassis.  The user advisory has been laid out: one cannot be too careful when operating vintage 1937 equipment.   Warranties are no longer in effect.

               Everything seems to be working as it did yesterday.  As I stand, I feel no pain, and I am well aware of date, time, and location.  Thank you, Lord.  Put this day in the "win" column.  Before heading to the bathroom for morning ablutions, I walk to the starboard side of the bed to give the Bride a buss on the cheek.  She is battling a cold, and despite the fact that we share the same bed, and breathe the same air, she insists on no lip-to-lip contact for its duration.  Go figure.

7:01 am

Chica paws at her crate in anticipation of her release to answer nature's call.  She regularly ignores the canine code of conduct, ie:  thou shalt not do one's business on home turf.  She turns a blind eye to the acres of green lawns and pasture that surround our house on the hill.  Hilario, our "2nd son" and gardener, playfully chides us by saying that he is going to start tacking on a poop-scoop surcharge to the monthly bill. While fetching the morning newspaper (now only 4 days of hard copy-3 days digital), the boss observes that his "White Shadow" has done the deed again.  With a grimace, the pooper-scooper tool is fetched.  There will be no-surcharges here, by gum.
7:15 am
The morning ritual continues.  This involves yours truly getting "down on all fours" to get as close to Chica's level as possible for two minutes-worth of "schmoozing".  This means all manner of belly scratching, head-rubbing, and nonsense-talking.  Then, of course, it's on to the same breakfast of which, year after year, she never tires.  The more hard and fast the routine that dogs have in their lives, the better they seem to like it.  Before the food is set before her, she performs her one and only "patented" trick: a four-legged pirouette.
7:22 am
The news in the morning paper is rather on the innocuous side.  Putin says he's withdrawing troops on Russia's border with Ukraine.  Drone surveillance says otherwise.  A tea-party candidate for Oregon senator is trying to buy her way into the ballot box in November.  Eight-tenths of an inch of rain were recorded yesterday in our local area.  One uplifting piece of news comes from the sports page.  My beloved San Francisco Giants have taken the measure of their arch-enemy, the Los Angeles Dodgers (aka: "Doggers"), 3-1!
8:35 am

Time to head down the hill to meet with the delivery man from the shop where our church has had repairs and maintenance performed on its riding lawn-mower.  As I drive, I wonder and worry.  With  the exception of five Anglos, we are an all-Latino parish, and have been for years.  This writer is the last of the grey beards; the guy who tends to the work around the church when nobody else is available.  That means Monday through Friday.  When I am no longer able to carry the torch, who is going to be there to pick it up?  For today, everything worked out fine, but tomorrow?  God only knows.  The priest tells me, "Hal, you take too much on yourself!"  Right, Padre, but who else is there?  Ysidro?  (Inside joke:  At Holy Cross/Santa Cruz, there is nobody named "Ysidro")
9:05 am
"Rich", the deliveryman unloads the tractor, and since the skies have yet to rain, I make the decision to parade around the front lawn.  Before starting, I accidentally pour about 1/2 gallon of oil mix gasoline into the tank.  This is used for 2-cycle engines like weed-eaters and leaf-blowers; not tactors!  Panic-stricken, I call the shop, whereupon the foreman tells me that the tractor engine might belch some small, black clouds, but not to worry.  Today, one "oops-moment" will go undetected.
10:15 am
After having made about a dozen circuits of the lawn in the "front forty" of the church, the clouds opened  up.  As singer Kenny Rogers once sang, "You gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em."   Skies are supposed to be clearing tomorrow afternoon. Hope springs eternal.  Maybe somebody not named "Ysidro" will show up during the day to finish the job.  The Y-guy cannot be counted on. 
11:20 am
This journal entry continues apace.  While trying to update and transfer materials from laptop to desktop computer, I am besieged by an irritating "RegCleanPro" popup which refuses to take "no" for an answer.  Purging it and all of its relatives from my hard drive doesn't seem to thwart this pesky beastie.  But the grace of persistence ultimately prevails. and one nemesis has been sent down the tube.
12:05 pm
There is no need of a time piece with Chica in the house.  Her internal clock tells her unerringly when the noon hour has arrived.  That is chow time.  It is one of several instances during the course of a day when she absolutely refuses to be ignored.  In situations where push comes to shove, she will push her paw against my ankle...repeatedly...until I cave into her persistence.  Chica is always fed before the boss prepares his sandwich of the day, which is accompanied by a Gatorade "chaser".   
12:20 pm                                                                                                                                          As Annie and I finish our noon-time repast, it is twenty minutes into our favorite news program on television.  Amazingly, there have been no private, body-function commercials, and therefore, no need to hit the mute button on the remote.  Will wonders never cease?!
12:57 pm                                                                                                                                     Back to the basement, and what passes for my office; or, what I regularly refer to as "The Dungeon". It is time to research and provide some questions for my weekly trivia contest on amateur radio.  Ostensibly, the 7:30 to 8:00 pm hour on a designated frequency is given over to emergency preparedness, and relaying of various pieces of relevant information, called "traffic".  There are usually between twenty and thirty operators who "check-in" to this network of a Friday.  Things invariably begin to lag, mid-way through the half-hour.  That is when I launch into my trivia questions to fill in the time, and restore a comfort level.  Hams hate "dead air" when nothing seems to be happening,  Some operators, during a stretch such as this,  Most seem to enjoy the departure from the regular business of the net.  Looking outside,  the sun has been playing hide and seek with the rain clouds all-morning long.  Now it's choosing to show itself once again.
5.09 pm                                                                                                                               Received a phone call from Fr. Roberto, our priest, who has his feet in two camps.  One of these is in Boring, the other in L.A.  Our guy is a political animal, very steeped in moves and counter-moves when it comes to matters in our diocese.  Once monthly, he flies to the sunny southland to touch base with his daughter and former parishoners.  But he always manages to make it back to Boring for mass on Sunday.  The majority of our chat time was spent discussing an upcoming meeting of five churches in the eastern reaches of our convocation; all of which have Latino constituencies.  He suspects that this will become a discussion of attrition.  Bottom line: one flock will be told that, because of financial necessity,  they have to "fold their tent", and merge with another parish.  In that case, both he and I won't hesitate to tell the bishop that "ain't necessarily so". 
7:15 pm
Trouble in Dungeon-Paradise.  In queuing up the transceiver and computer for the Friday night amateur radio net, I discovered to my dismay, that all my roster files for operators checking-in had been corrupted, and none could be coaxed into restoring themselves.  This resulted in the same process I started with, over fifteen years ago, to wit: doing all data in Neanderthal-ish long-hand. (They don't even teach penmanship in grade schools, these days!)  Then, as if that weren't enough adversity, almost all the early check-ins told me that there was a lot of "white noise" with my transmissions, making for a "rough copy". 

           What a blow to the old ego!  The clarion call of Clackamas County........ with a poor signal?!  Unheard of.....until this evening.  Switching from one antenna to the other avails nothing significant.  One ham friend tells me, on air, that it's not my problem, but one created by the atmosphere.  Thank you, sir.  Then, another ham chimes in that the atmospheric conditions have nothing to do with the case.  (The hissing sound I next heard was air escaping from my balloon.)  I chose to abide with my friend's diagnosis.
             The rest of the session went fairly well. There were twenty-six operators who checked in, and five of the fifteen questions were answered correctly. (There are no prizes, but think of the prestige!)    Looking ahead to next Friday, very few of life's mechanical and electrical problems are self-correcting.  It can be hoped that this data base crisis will be one.
9:00 pm
TV time in this house takes place in the family room; family consisting of the Bride, Chica, and yours truly.  Things proceed normally for the first hour.  Our doggie has chilled between my knees on the recliner, and  the Bride and I are engrossed in Grimm.  This series marks the one and only time when Annie regularly watches a program where a human morphs into something hideous.  She insisted on keeping a light on in the hall after watching Lon Chaney Jr. in "The Wolf Man" on a rented tv in the fall of '58; right after our wedding.  I am sure she would tell you that now, it's all due to "character development". 
10:00 pm
"Blue Bloods", the program which I point to all week long, is showing the opening sequence.   It is the on-going story of four generations of family; two of whom are actively involved in law-enforcement.  There is no on-screen violence; pretty much "after the fact" revelations of capital crimes. 
       "Danny", a hot-headed detective with a penchant for putting himself in tight scrapes" is the character that I gravitate toward. Grandpa Reagan is a retired police chief.  He customarily presides at the head of table for the weekly clan meal, which is always preceded by a blessing.  This one scene bonds family, and is, to this writer,  the most endearing and compelling of every Friday night's story. Will Chica give me a free pass, at least until the first commercials, before asserting herself?  Well, of course not. 
                     Naturally, it's  more than just the "I've got to go to the bathroom, Daddy."  Kids aren't the only ones to ply this ploy.  The exotic scents which didn't rate a second sniff during daylight hours now merit serious scrutiny.  Back in the den, N.Y.P.D. chief Frank (Tom Selleck) Reagan is undoubtedly finding son Danny in another vat of procedural hot water, while Chica is still scanning the territory;  no doubt thinking of ways to prolong her escapade.  This lack of focus (teacher word) on the task at hand prompts two tugs on the leash.  Awe, come on, doggie!  Two more tugs and she finally gets serious about the original objective....my (teacher) objective. But she still has one trump card left to play; the obligatory ball-toss from the family room to the hallway. Six or seven lobs later, Chica contentedly curls up on her pad; satisfied that she has played the boss like a violin, yet again.
                    Upon returning to the recliner, The Bride tolerantly and dutifully gives me a summation of what I've missed.  Fortunately, it was nothing flow-changing.  The familial gathering  sequence follows, one commercial-break later.  Danny has extricated himself from another mess,  Frank manages to stay above the political fray, and all is almost well with the world. However,  in tv series as in real life, there are no absolutes until the final episode.  It is the next item on the agenda, and that unresolved plot twist that propel us onward and upward.  I think.
11:05 pm
                 My "finny friends, piscine pals" are about to get their daily ration of frozen blood worms and daphnia.  Five minutes ago, all the inhabitants of my 29 gallon water world were docile and demure....if indeed those are apt descriptors of tropical fish emotion.  It could be that they are devious and were game-playing their provider.  But now that he is up-close-and-personal, there are a dozen pairs of pectoral fins, pressing on glass.  Gee guys,  you're
always so glad to see me!  What an ego-trip!
11:10 pm
Chica trundles down the hall with me to the bedroom for the last of our daily rituals.  While hoisting her up on the "feathers", I murmur sweet nothings in her ear, like how much of a winner she is in the eyes of her boss.  Then, after another round of bathroom ablutions,  it's another spate of scratches and pats for the doggie, during which the Bride repairs and prepares for sack-time.  This is Chica's clue to vacate the premisis,  which she does willingly.  During our walk down the hall to her crate, she is advised of what the morning will bring, and what excitement awaits her.  After ten years of one-way conversation, she listens, and doubtlessly intuits all the subtleties of meaning.
11:28
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on the tube in our boudoir.  With tv parked on her night stand, I snuggle and buss The Bride on the cheek, while we watch Jimmy write his every-Friday "Thank You notes" to people both real and imaginary.  One particular note is written to people who wear "W.W.J.D." bracelets. Translation: "What Would Jesus Do?" He writes, "Thank you for wearing those bracelets while doing things that Jesus would  never do". This was a definite jab at Christian hypocrisy.  It fetches at least one and a half laughs out of his Boring audience.  
           The lights then go out, and another morning, afternoon, and evening are entered in the books. This writer's last waking words: "Love you, Babes."  The last waking thought:  Providence had smiled on this writer again; just as it had countless times before.  Just another day in paradise.
         
                                 
               
               
              

     

Voter Fraud and the Straw Man

           

According to a Department of Justice analysis, out of 197,000,000 votes cast in federal elections between 2002 and 2005. only 40 voters have been indicted for fraud.  With a calculator and some basic number-crunching the fraud rate turns out to be a sub-microscopic .00002%.
          Yet despite this rather trifling tally, one political party has chosen to make voter fraud an issue, big enough to engage entire states and, beyond that, regions of states. To one school of thought, it is an insidious phenomenon, capable of enveloping huge portions of the electorate, and corrupting a primary privilege of citizenship.  Enter the Straw Man.
             The Straw Man,in reality is an argument; an argument that requires the reader or listener to suspend recollection and belief of the original premise.  It has been used for ages in debate; particularly with regards to emotionally-charged issues.  The tactic makes use of exaggeration, misrepresentation. and, if all else fails,  total fabrication.  An example might be, candidate Dick believes that more county tax revenue should be allocated to restoration of highways and roads.  Candidate Jane responds that she is sorry to hear that Dick is opposed to funding for the sheriff's patrols.  In the case of voter fraud, one particular party has become rather, shall we say "cozy" with the Straw Man.
             For our purposes,  we'll refrain from naming political parties in this post.  Instead, we will refer to them by their color of preference.  The party which espouses the existence of this "grainy guy" we'll call the "Party of Red".  The party which considers him a myth we'll designate as the "Party of Blue".  As to the those who sniff the prevailing winds of sentiment during election years, and fluctuate between Red and Blue will be referred to as "Purple People".
                                                            ~Back to the chase~
             The Straw Man is "an undocumented" who takes advantage of alleged lax voter regulations.  To allow such an abuse to continue, so the thinking goes, is to jeopardize the integrity of the entire electoral process.  An organization which calls itself "True the Vote" cites a statistic that there are "1.8 million dead voters still eligible on the rolls across the country."  And if there are that many, as the reasoning seems to lead, there are 1.8 million potential abuses.  This publication states further that "2.75 million voters are registered in more than one state". 
          In both of these arguments, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, comes into play.  Translated: after this, because of this.  In other words, if this  is caused then this can be the only possible effect.  It is a fallacy introduced to this writer in Logic 101, many moons ago.  These statistics are used to lead the reader to conclude that there are four and a half million votes out there, ready to be grabbed, like so much low-hanging fruit.
          The Straw Man, in this voter fraud scenario is a person without valid documentation who exercises a right of citizenship which is not legitimately his.  He lacks a birth certificate ($10-$45), or a passport ($85), or certified naturalization papers ($19.95).  He might also lack other resources (transportation, language skills, advice) to acquire any of these documents.  As this scenario plays out, the only asset he may have working for him is the cunning to leverage the system and score a vote to which he is not entitled.
         Another tenet of Logic 101 that has stood the test of time is that it's impossible to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that something does not exist.  That is a rock which theologically has stood the test of time.So, it is impossible to argue the non-existence of straw men, but in the real world those most affected by more stringent voting regulations are not those who vote on behalf of dead people, or those who fly from state to state to tilt election outcomes. Rather, they are those who number amongst the poor, the elderly, the minorities, the students. Those without a powerful advocate to speak on their behalf.
           The reality is that twelve percent of voting age people have no form of valid voter identification.  The reality is that voter id laws are seen by some as a modern form of poll tax, as many of the country's poorest will not be able to vote due to a lack of proper state-issued identification.  The reality is that in states governed by "Purple People", the "Party of Red"has sanctioned voter id laws to prevent the "Party of Blue" from gaining control of state legislatures.
             The reality for your scribe is that the last six words of our nation's pledge to the flag sound rather hollow, at the moment.