Unimaginable

I love all my brother-in-laws. But the one of them who is closest to me in age is special. That would be Lenny Brzycki from Chicago. He's married to my sister Mary Isabelle and they live in Salt Lake City. I could write a whole bunch of blogs about Lenny, but for the nonce what's essential is that you know he is a fanatical hunter and that he has children by a previous marriage, a daughter and a son. His son David is also an avid hunter, and he and Lenny once a year go hunting together. They have a very close relationship.

Here's what happened on Sunday. (This story is simply the bare bones.) A grizzly bear attacked David in the woods of southwestern Montana, and the horrific injuries inflicted upon him were near fatal. His face was mauled, both arms broken, left hand mauled. Only by the dint of heroic effort did Lenny manage to get his boy out of the woods and to hospital. He's now in Seattle hospital, after being med-evaced there by aircraft. Lenny had to drive all the way from Montana in his truck to be with him. Oh, how my heart aches for him. If you believe in prayer, as I do, please hold David, Lenny, and all the family up to the mercy of God in this terrible time.

Update I: David underwent extensive surgery on Monday, is stable in ICU, and faces months and months of restorative surgery yet. He is lucky to have survived. Many of the family members from around the country are up at the hospital. I had an extensive conversation with my sis last night (Tuesday).

Update II: David has had to be given injections for rabies and the feeding tube he's been on now pipes directly to his stomach. He's got more reconstructive surgery next Thursday, the 12th.

Hospice

Hospice

by Robin Becker

I wanted to believe in it, the word
softer than hospital but still not home—

like any other frame house on the street,
it had a lawn, a door, a bell—

inside, our friend lay, a view
of the garden from her room but no lift

to raise her from the bed. A sword,
the sun plunged across the cotton blankets.

I wanted dying to be Mediterranean,
curated, a villa, like the Greek sanatoria

where the ancients cared for their sick
on airy porticos and verandas

with stone paths that led to libraries.
A nurse entered her room and closed the door.

For the alleviation of pain, I praise
Morpheus, god of dreams, unlocking

the medicine drawer with a simple key,
narcotic placed beneath the tongue.

In the hall, the volunteer offered us coffee.
How could I think the Mozart in G major

we played to distract her could distract her?
Or marble sculpture in the atrium? 
 
"Hospice" by Robin Becker from Tiger Heron.

What's the poem saying to you? The chastened mood, the language so supple and simple, the mood as quiet as death itself. For me, somehow, poetry gets to the truth of the human experience, and the bedrock truth of human experience is that we must deal with death. It surrounds us, haunts us, defines us.

Powderfinger's Back

Hey! I have returned. And back on the job of observing this insane world.

I've been on a little pleasure jaunt down to Texas. Family, baseball, good food, great music concert, old friend Frank Vicari--we go back to the 5th grade--who graciously put Stu and me up at his place for two nights in Dallas. What could be finer than all that? The Arcade Fire concert was dynamite, the biggest adventure trying to find a place to eat "on the way." We ended up at a literal trailer cookery called "Pollo Regio," where the pollo was muy bueno, but the general appointments and atmosphere left something to be desired. But the music was great, even though it was a really long trek from car to venue, which was a huge outdoor amphitheater called the 360. Susan and I had to ride a rickshaw bike and we rode the parking lot shuttle back. I really was bothered by the fact that walking any distance bothered the hell out of my left leg. I'm hoping it's still post-op stuff going on--one of the aneurisms was in the artery feeding the left leg--but I don't know. Whenever there's anything like this, you're always thinking: "Uh oh, are we going into permanent deterioration mode on this part of the body now?"

Wonderful time at the ballpark. Cousin Christine who took marvelous care of me on Sunday got to see her team, the Astros, beat the Rangers on Saturday, 6-5 in 10 innings. The game the night before, which went 12 innings and ended in a 1-0 Ranger win was a classic. Great game. Christine wanted me to meet her Aunt Kathryn and Uncle George on her mom's side. Actually Aunt Kathryn and I had met at her sister Leah's wedding who knows how many eons ago. But it was a real hoot. I think we sat there nearly two hours just having laughs and great conversation.

A lot more: the joy of spending time with two of my kids. My dear Susan. Always Susan. I even enjoyed the Amtrak train from Ft. Worth back here to Norman. A comfortable and reasonably on-time ride. 

One of the Saddest Poems I've Ever Read

Somehow it seems inappropriate to begin a brand new year like this, but I was so moved by this poem, I cannot help it. And in a way, it does serve as a pertinent New Year's Day reflection. My mom will turn 93 on the last day of this month.

Parents 

by William Meredith

                                                

For Vanessa Meredith and Samuel Wolf Gezari

What it must be like to be an angel

or a squirrel, we can imagine sooner.

The last time we go to bed good,

they are there, lying about darkness.

They dandle us once too often,

these friends who become our enemies.

Suddenly one day, their juniors

are as old as we yearn to be.

They get wrinkles where it is better

smooth, odd coughs, and smells.

It is grotesque how they go on

loving us, we go on loving them.

The effrontery, barely imaginable,

of having caused us. And of how.

Their lives: surely

we can do better than that.

This goes on for a long time. Everything

they do is wrong, and the worst thing,

they all do it, is to die,

taking with them the last explanation,

how we came out of the wet sea

or wherever they got us from,

taking the last link

of that chain with them.

Father, mother, we cry, wrinkling,

to our uncomprehending children and grandchildren.

I'm a Worry Wart . . .

. . . about some things. Not all things. But some things. And right now I'm worried about my relationship with my kids. I'm sure this will pass, but it's where I am at the moment. I usually just worry about them generally, their well being, their futures, but I just am burdened with the thought right now that I'm aging out of their lives. There are three of them, all of them flesh of my flesh in one way or another, but all completely different, too. I find myself in a much less fulfilling relationship with them each one in its own unique way than I had imagined, and, I must admit, it's a source of pain.

Which got me to thinking about the whole subject of suffering, and it just so happens that just in time for church tomorrow, and just in time with my glum mood, Richard Rohr's meditation today really speaks to me. Of course, it speaks to matters far more tragic and painful than my little bout of self-absorbed angst, but it's the perspective for all pain and suffering, and I thought I'd share it with you. Apologies for the gloomy mood. 

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing—that we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.

If religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, humanity is in major trouble. All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. Great religion shows you what to do with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform this pain, we will most assuredly transmit it to others, and it will slowly destroy us in one way or another.

If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somewhere in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. The soul does not need answers, it just wants meaning, and then it can live. Surprisingly, suffering itself often brings deep meaning to the surface to those who are suffering and also to those who love them.

46 Years

Today Susan and I celebrate 46 years of marriage. Three grown children; two lost very early in their lives; two grandchildren; several major changes of vocations and life venues; our share of marital crises, arguments, and pains--and amidst them we'd often construe them as considerably more than our share--here we are. Still discovering each other, still in love with each other, still amazed at what love has wrought in our lives, still looking forward to more years together. Because we know that the essential grounding to what's real that we share in our love for one another will only grow.

We've long past the point where our consciousness of being melded into the other is palpable, where we know (sometimes, lots of times) what the other will say or think before the words express it. And yet we remain for one another the essential mystery of life. We're past the point of thinking about the might-have-beens. Those are for people who haven't gotten here yet. Of course, there are regrets, but all of mine are about hurts I've caused, things I wish I could undo or unsay. But I don't wonder, as once I might have, if somehow I could have more of Susan's love had I not hurt her. Don't wonder at all because I know I'm loved by this other person as much as she can love anybody. Because I'm so secure in her forgiveness and she in mine. That's the way this works.

I cannot help but believe there's something utterly otherworldly about the power of human love. It's a glimpse into another reality where we long to reside all the time. Like everything else in life, though, we cannot grasp it and keep it, that glimpse. We see Reality but we can't hold it. We're always pulled away.

I love you, Susan. I always have. I always will. What more can be said?

Family

I was musing during the drive back today from Houston – 7-8 hours from Norman to there – just how vital family is. We were coming back from a wedding of one of my nieces, Stephanie Brown, who is about 30 years old out of school and working. It was a great wedding, as all the weddings of the Gremillion family are, but only one thing was missing. My kids are not going to like this, but they were missing. Everybody asked about them and inquired about their lives and what they're up to. And to tell you the truth, I was embarrassed (and I think Susan was too) that of all the families represented there, mine was the only one that didn't have any of my kids.

Oh, they all had valid excuses: going on a long trip, just coming back from a long trip, starting for the bar exam. Certainly legit. I won't quarrel with that. But there's something about their seeming reluctance to join family functions that involve the larger families on both sides that bothers me. I'm at the stage of life where it's completely apparent that very little in life, certainly not the things that are so important to us in our early life, actually matters. I narrow these important items down to two: family and friends. Because in the end, that's all you've got. That's all you can rely on. That's the love you can count on. It's your blood, and it's always going to be your blood, and it's always going to be faithful. I don't like to think that my children somehow are not aware of this. I like it even worse to think they are aware and just don't care.

They will argue that "they don't have anything in common" with the other members of the family. Well, to a certain extent that's true. We've always lived away from Baton Rouge, where just about all of Susan's family lives, and we've been away for quite a while. I would not disagree that this is true on a superficial level. But on the level it really matters, it's not true at all. Because this is blood we're talking about, and blood is thicker than discomfort around people you "don't have anything in common with." Besides, as families go, Susan's family is fantastic. They are good, good people. Generous and kind. It would be a great blessing for my kids to know them all better. And that blessing would run both directions.

Legalities

My son Ben is going to graduate from the law school at the University of Florida in a few weeks. I'm really quite proud of him, as I am of all my kids. He's done really well in school, and in a way following the late bloomer path his father did, spending some years out in the world before deciding what he wants to do with his life. And now he's about to launch the rest of his life as an attorney. Already has a job at a good firm. Way to go, son!

I've often thought and others have occasionally observed that I might've been a lawyer. I'm not unacquainted with law school. I did fairly well on the JSAT years ago and actually began law school in the fall semester of 1965.That's a long time ago. I was 22 years old at the time and had yet to grow a brain. But I did have the presence of mind to know I did not want to be shoveled into the maw that was the Vietnam war, an absurd Cold War exercise in "stopping Communist aggression" that cost over 58,000 American guys their lives. I wanted no part of that damn war, so I enrolled in law school at LSU. Long story short: I attended about six weeks . . . and was crushingly bored. The only good things that happened to me that semester were: I met my darling wife Susan in the Catholic Newman Center next to the law school (where I used to go to nap between classes) and I kept my ass out of Vietnam. It was all perfectly above board. Those were back in the days of the draft, and you could be deferred if you were a full-time student. (It was an excellent way, it might be observed, to make sure that only the poor and disadvantaged of the nation did most of the dying for the rest of us. The kids who could not afford college were the guys who got drafted.)

I didn't mean to drag this on and on. Suffice to say, I eventually had to spend four years in the Air Force, but I never got sent to Vietnam. And I never became a lawyer. I became a historian instead when, after growing a brain, I went to grad school and got a Ph.D. in American history thereby assuming the mantle of pointy-headed intellectual, which I leave it to others to determine whether it's an apt description or not. I'm not for a moment insinuating that my son Ben did not grow a brain long before his old man did. Indeed, he had a firm business foundation and was doing well before he departed for law school. I can only wonder what might have been had I stuck with the law, which, by the way, has always remained interesting to me, if you're talking about constitutional law, philosophy of law, stuff like that. But not the day-to-day grind of it.

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Funeral

I didn't listen to Obama's State of the Union address last night. My daughter, wife, and I spent the whole day driving back from Baton Rouge, where we had gone to attend the funeral of Susan's mom. It was a miserable ride back. It rained virtually the entire way, and by the time we got back in Oklahoma it was cold as well. The last thing I wanted to do was listen to a speech by a politician . . . any politician.

Susan, as well as her whole family, is doing well. This was not a death that was unanticipated. Indeed, Sadie Coco Gremillion's passing from this plane of existence to the next was protracted. I cannot tell you how many years now we've been expecting to be her last. And until just recently, it was not clear how long she would survive. All of which leads me to the melancholy observation that about the only thing on the face of the planet that unifies us as human beings is death. Nothing else has its power to mystify, to terrify, to put us in our place. And nothing else--except perhaps pain--is as universal. Death is the one thing we all understand, and our understanding of it, at least on a certain level is perfect. So funerals are a tribal kind of gathering. Not only do we gather to honor the past life of the one who has died, and in this case that was something to celebrate indeed, but we gather to acknowledge the future . . . our own and that of everyone else who is there. So rest in peace, Meme. You have finished the race, a good and faithful servant.

It's a New Year

. . . and a new day for What Powderfinger Said. My faithful readers, all half dozen of you, have doubtless noticed the absence of posts for the past couple of weeks. It was no accident. I just stopped doing blog posts while my two boys were in town for the holidays. I am now resuming the blog, but I'll employ a different approach going forward into 2013 and beyond, God willing. More on that in a few minutes.

I trust you didn't think there was anything wrong with me. Don't worry about the health of the blogmaster. He's fine (although he did experience a bout with the 24-hour bug, as did half his family, including grandchildren and son, who was cursed with the affliction on the airplane flight home to Florida.) No, I am fine for an old, overweight guy. No permanent health problems besiege me as I enter the new year. In one of the world's great marvels, my wife still loves me and consents to share my bed and roof. I am happily engaged--for pay even!--in doing work that I love: writing and editing history. All of my kids are doing well, and my grandkids continue to grow daily in smarts, good looks, and promise. I've found some measure of spiritual peace with the little church I attend now, a congregation of progressive Christians who love peace and justice and believe that God is still speaking to us today in myriad ways.

So on the personal level, everything's more than cool. (Or maybe that depends on who you ask.) Of course, on levels beyond that, there's a hell of a lot that's messed up. I cannot believe the continued idiocy of the people we've sent to Washington to govern us. If you're paying attention, you know that we just dodged one potential lethal bullet with the "cliff" business, and now we're locked and loaded for another vicious fight over extension of the debt limit, which, if you can remember back just three or four years ago was about as controversial as getting in out of the rain.

Of course war and killing still dominate the planet. Humankind has yet to figure out after almost countless millenia that war and killing never solve anything. What war and killing does is engender more of the same for the following generations. And of course with their innate and sluggish stupidity, humankind continues to fall for the same old lies about why war and killing is inevitable and necessary. 

It just makes one want to escape, which is easy for me since I have so many avenues: chess, music, my books, poetry. Hell, even blogging and TV, if it comes to that. But I can never really escape, because I cannot purge my mind of all the imbecility that seems to reign--outside my brain, I should add, but I cannot rule out the other possibility.

I haven't even gotten around to what I meant to say earlier about Powderfinger and where it's going. Well, it's not going anywhere is the bottom line. But unlike my friend Paul over at his excellent and brainy blog, I cannot maintain the daily pace anymore. It's too toxic for my mental peace because I cannot stop beating myself up if I miss a post. So, the sensible move is to scale back. Which is what I'm going to do. Look for Powderfinger 2-3 times a week from now on. Rest assured I'll be as feisty and insufferable as ever . . . and likely more long-winded. But I may even be more interesting since presumably I won't be scraping the basement of my brain for ideas so as to meet the daily grind.

So here's to the new year! May it witness the dawn of universal peace and justice. And if not, may God help me to inch both a little bit further along by calming my spirit and letting go of what I can.

Quoting Kuntsler

The dust is finally settling, and I do hope I don't have to hit the road again till next year. I'm tired of traveling, tired of airplanes, airports, highways, and living out of a suitcase. We got back from Louisiana last Sunday. Our son Stu arrived about an hour before us, and he just left this morning after an all-too-short visit.

It's catch up time in a bunch of arenas, not the least of which is re-energizing this blog; I've been pretty spotty over the past week or so. And then there's all the blogs that have to be read . . . friends and relatives and my regulars. Of course, there's no way on God's green earth I keep up with all the blogs I dip into. There are few I read religiously, very few. James Kuntsler's "Clusterfuck Nation" is one of the exceptions to this rule (off the top of my head, I can think of only one other: "Baseball Time in Arlington" about the Rangers). Kuntsler and Matt Taibbi are writers who employ what I'd call the slashing style. No pussyfooting around with language niceties or foggy expression of their beliefs. And so Kuntsler begins his piece at the beginning of this month thus:

 Portents of winter and the toothless chatter of flag-draped traitors vies with a fog of lies spread by Koch Brother messenger boys, Reagan nostalgia hucksters, suck-ups in office, Murdoch empire servlings, Banker PR catamites, and Jesus terrorists to occupy the national mind-space with a narcotic Jell-O of half-formed wish fulfillment scams. The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food. Mandatory motoring. You name it. What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that.

Is there a clearer expression of the calamity that is our current state of affairs than "hostage to a confederacy of racketeers?" Is there a stronger expression of condemnation of what we've become than "disgrace"?

His outrage at the Penn State sex scandal is near boundless. He begins "Rudderless" like this:

     The Penn State football sex scandal, and the depraved response of the university community at all levels, tells whatever you need to know about the spiritual condition of this floundering, rudderless, republic and its ignoble culture.

Correctly, trenchantly he interprets the hideous affair as a metaphor for America. And he's right on. He's revolted by every aspect of the scandal: "The intersection of America's fake warrior culture of football with the nation's fake moral and ethical culture is instructive. It has many levels . . . " from the cover-up by the university higher-ups to "the pretense that college football is a character-building endeavor." From "the phony 'prayer' session held in the Penn State stadium just before Saturday's 'big game' with the University of Nebraska" to the student demonstrations of support for Paterno and the football program to cable news wall-to-wall coverage of this event while several other earth-shaking events like the European debt crisis hardly got mentioned.

No, Kuntsler's not happy. He's angry and disgusted. Who can say these are unwarranted emotions? 

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Hello Again

I've been "out of pocket," as they may still say in federalese. I've been engaged of late in heavy family matters. Driving Mom down to Louisiana--the trip went fine, by the way--and then the very day we got back, my son Stu is here to visit for several days. For the first time, I think, since we've been in Oklahoma, my two sons will not be able to sync their holiday visits. We will see Ben for a few days before Christmas. One of the awful things about having kids is that they invariably leave, and you have to fashion family out of these scattered precious times you have with them. All this by way of explanation as to where I've been and also to where I am if I cannot squeeze in a few moments to post over the next few days. It took me a couple of hours to catch up with all my online chess games that were hanging short of time just now.

Of course, the idiocy of what passes for our national government has not taken a holiday. It was announced yesterday that the so-called "super committee" that was going to attack the budget deficit has adjourned without accomplishing a damn thing. It's a broken record, this idiocy out of Washington. Naturally, I blame the Republicans, who would just as soon drive the country straight to hell before coming to grips with the perfectly obvious fact that the federal government requires more revenue to conduct its business. The vicious partisanship that has virtually paralyzed the government since Obama took office shows no sign of slacking.

I should mention that I don't consider the deficit the largest problem facing this increasingly sinking nation. No, first comes the economy with all those millions out of work, those millions who have been in this condition for months now. All those people who are losing their homes, and who are not going to have a Christmas this year. And then the interminable war in Afghanistan, which shows no sign of ever ending, and which is sucking billions of dollars out of us every month. So the government is as wrong-headed now as ever, and every day that passes just digs all of us into a deeper and deeper hole. Now I'm going to be a broken record: we are a doomed people.

Definition of a Good Day

Day after a nice Thanksgiving day with the grandkids. Good food, good wine, family yesterday. Even if only part of the family, it's good. My daughter, bless her, brought me the chocolate chip cookies I requested. Nice day. And today? Well, today had three excellent things. My granddaughter, who is seven, came over to help her Mimi decorate the house for Christmas, and she stayed the whole afternoon. Two, all the Christmas decorating got done today. No more to do. All the boxes put up. House looking great. And three, I received in the mail this morning the latest batch of CDs my friend down in Louisiana has burned for me. Fifty of them! This is like getting a $500 gift certificate for iTunes downloads, and buying all those tunes at once. 

This is the fifth batch of CDs I've received from Bill, and by far the largest. I estimate well over 100 CDs from Bill over the past six months. We discovered last summer that we both shared a profound love for music, music of all types. "What kind of music do you like?" they ask. "Everything," I answer truthfully. Everything. Like food or poetry or books, I'm willing to try it if I haven't had it before. I don't know much about jazz, world music, or hip hop, which is not to say I don't appreciate some of it, just that I don't listen to it much. I'm not too crazy about crooners or show music, although there are individual exceptions here, too. But I love the rest of it: reggae, rock, blues, classical, opera, country, some metal, electronic, R&B, and probably know enough about these to be mildly dangerous.

Anyway, this latest batch had just a whole flock of people I'd never heard of. Kings of Leon, for example, over there on the right. And The Mars Volta--well, actually, I have heard of them before, but only because Bill has sent me a previous album--and Fastball, Ozomadi, and Oysterhead and Primus. Plus some familiars: Richard Thompson, Miles Davis, Soundgarden, Kate Bush, Buddy Guy, and Porcupine Tree (another band, one that I really like, that Bill introduced me to a few batches back). The mix of music was wide: rock, blues, metal, a little folk, plus an oddball guy with an irreverent attitude and a potty mouth named Mojo Nixon, whose music is hard to classify. I just called it "Other" on iTunes. Even some holiday music. (By the way, I wish I could have pointed you to the Allmusic site for each of these bands, but it don't work that way. The URL will always default to the generic opening page.)

I'll say one thing for a bunch of new music. It takes your mind off the miserable state of the nation for a while. I fear I soon must address some of these distressing topics soon.

Events

It's been quite some time since I've been away from Powderfinger for as long as this last lapse. To tell the truth, I always feel a twinge of guilt when I don't attend my postings. Even if I have the very best of excuses. Like I have now. My son who lives in Florida arrived here on Friday to attend

Event 1: the U2 concert in Norman, Oklahoma. [Set list, pictures, and fan reviews of the show here.] On Sunday evening at the OU football stadium before an estimated 60,000 people. I've been to a lot of rock concerts, though probably not as many as my children, and I have to say this was one of the best ever. My wife, not what you would call a heavy rocker, really loved it too. Review of the Oklahoma show here. Spectacular lighting, staging, sound. This is not my favorite band, but it could easily have been last night. Pleased to report that the geezer contingent of which my wife and I proudly belong, was well-represented at the concert. Bono and crew was worth the slight discomfort of a chilly Oklahoma fall wind.Opening act, for the first time on the tour, was The Black-Eyed Peas. A hip-hop band that the kids seem to like. It will take a little more time for me to get to that point, I think.

Event 2: the New Orleans Saints crushing win over the also-unbeaten New York Giants on Sunday at the Super Dome. I am normally not a pro football watcher, but I recorded this game to watch later. And I did. For a New Orleans kid who followed the Saints with mild interest until I inhabited Tampa when the Bucs won the Super Bowl (XXXVII, I forget what year that was), seeing any Saint team seemingly this good is something of a wonder. I mean, they put a severe hurt on a team with serious championship pretensions. 48-27 doesn't leave much doubt about which team dominated. Saints had over 500 yards of total offense. Amazing. This is not going to be the last time I watch them this year.

Event 3: Baseball playoffs. (NL here, AL here) I've seen parts of several games. I watched the entire one-game playoff for the American League for the Central Division champ--Minnesota over Detroit in a great ball game. A 12-inning nail-biter that the Twins won. Which now seems like a million years ago, since Minnesota has been eliminated by the hated Yankees and both the league championship series are well along. The aforementioned hated Yankees are leading the Angels 2 games to one--and I saw the better part of an extra inning game that the Yankees won the other night--and the Phillies are up 3 games to 1 over the Dodgers.

(I also had an assignment poem to write before Sunday.)

The point is Powderfinger has taken a back seat to several instances of million-dollar entertainment. Which, when I state it like that, seems like not a good enough excuse to avoid blogging. This weighs on me more than it should, but I'm already thinking about the 8 days or so I'm going to have to shut down beginning on Friday while I'm out of town in Texas.

Years, Friends, and Other Stuff

Tonight I'm sleeping in a strange bed. I've got to go to a sleep center and spend the night, all wired up to a bunch of monitors. It's to see if I've got sleep apnea. I'm pretty sure I do, since I've been diagnosed with it before. I'll let you know. This is the kind of stuff you must put up with when you're falling apart. I'm not really, but sometimes it seems like it. That's not really true either. For a person who will be 66 years old on the morrow, I'm in great health, thanks be to God. I know people much younger than I who have awful ailments; I know people much younger than I who aren't younger anymore. They're dead.

One of the features of life as you begin the autumn years is the increasing frequency with which friends die or get seriously ill. It's always painful to experience. Next to family, friends are the greatest blessing I think we can have. Who else besides family and friends know you . . . and still love you? There's a human vulnerability in friendship that gets to the core of us. It's about love. I frankly think there is more to love in people than to despise. When people are despicable, when they inflict great pain and suffering on their fellow human beings--almost the definition of "despicable" . . . well, as hateful as that is, I consider it much more a betrayal of our true nature as human beings than a reflection of our true selves. Granted, some people disguise their true nature under layers of meanness, selfishness, and bile . . . but which of us has not been guilty of that? And considering the infinite number of factors and circumstances that bring us to the exact moment of now . . . well, who is ready to pronounce judgment on that person's experience? Who is ready to say what that same combination of infinity would have made of you? Verily, I do believe this, but damn, is it hard to put this into practice in your life. It's practically impossible to get beyond the meanness, selfishness, and bile most of the time.

I could have never, I don't think, come to these kinds of conclusions without the benefits of having experienced a good deal of life. The years are kind in that, if you pay attention, they can actually teach you something about what life might signify and all your fellow creatures who are living with you. Sometimes, too, life provides coping, survival tools to allow one to live at total peace within one's self. Once you get there, you're where you can actually forego judging other people. Alas, you might have have to live 200 years to get to that place. I'm sure that's about how long it would take me.

The Big Four

The big four--Love, Sex, Death, and God--are really the only things worth talking about eventually when you come right down to it. I say eventually because all kinds of distractions intervene before one comes to realize that the big four are what matter. In the interim other lesser subjects--business, politics, academic subjects, sports, hobbies, and so forth--intrude. But even these subjects, if you're creative and honest in seeing it, wend their way back to one or more of the big four. Love, Sex, Death, and God: it's the stuff of all art, and therefore the stuff of everything that makes us human. Think about opera: all opera is concerned with at least three of the big four, and sometimes about God, too; someone once said that all poetry is about death. I'm not necessarily going to argue. Music is a spiritual language . . . who will say that Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven don't speak from another realm? Why do we hear these voices so clearly? And why do they so transport us?

Reason these thoughts are on my mind today is because this evening I visit again a longtime friend who is dying. He has, I'd guess, only a few more days left in this sphere of existence. And his existence at this moment is unswervingly focused, as focused as it will ever be, on Love, Death, and God. He believes in God, as do I, but this doesn't answer anything, does it? Or perhaps it answers everything. Who is to say? So proximate, Death drags with it all the questions that ultimately matter. He's been in love and married to the same woman for 43 years. How does one measure the depth and extent of the love that move her to say about her life with this dying man: "I would not change a thing."?

I think my friend is already half gone. At times it's perfectly obvious that he's not here, but elsewhere. Elsewhere, embracing his destiny. It's my privilege and a blessing to stand with him and this close to the mystery of our existence. It's my friend's final gift to me. Go in peace, Jim. I'll be along after a while.

Tears

The other night my wife for life Susan and I watched the latest movie we got from Netflix. I'm terrible about remembering these things. I had to look it up just now to see exactly what the title of it was. I'm thinking it was a movie called Rosenstrasse--although it could have been Ladies in Lavender with Dame Judy Dench. I don't remember. Rossenstrasse a German movie about the resistance of righteous gentiles to the rounding up of the Jews. In this case, it was a fair-sized group of spouses of Jews in Berlin in 1943. But that's beside the point I was going to make. Which is: the movie made me cry.

Tears are on my mind today. For a couple of reasons. We're headed to a funeral next Monday--see my last couple of entries--and I'm sure there will be tears. I don't know if any of them will be mine, although I'm often moved to tears by the tears of others. But what really makes me think of tears is the plethora of them I shed yesterday when for about an hour I thought I had lost my little dog. Some nice people found and returned her, but for a while there I thought she was really gone. Yes, I know it seems ridiculous looking at it on the page now, but I couldn't help it. This raises all kinds of questions, such as how can one get so attached to an animal? And how can one be so devastated by the loss of a pet? And the really big question that occurs to me: why am I making such a big deal about this?

Because it's on my mind. My little granddaughter saw me cry, and my daughter, although it's not the first time for her. Men are not supposed to cry. That's why. Despite all the inroads that have been made in our understanding of men thanks to the ongoing liberation of women, men are still not supposed to cry. And especially at something as inconsequential as the momentary loss of a dog. Yeah, yeah . . . I know about all the dismissals you could make of such a statement, but that doesn't change the fact that this is what I think about it. And I even know why. Like bazillions of others, I was brought up not cry. Men, make that boys, the world over are socialized to stuff their emotions, especially those emotions that bring on tears. This strikes me as bizarre and unnatural, but who am I do try and undo millenia of male formation that whipers in our psyches "crying is for sissies and weaklings"?

This can't be right. But there it is.

Sea of Troubles, II

The awful situation I talked about yesterday gets worse. My brother-in-law was not officially dead until a little while ago. Although he had a living will, he was also an organ donor, and according to Louisiana law, the plug cannot be pulled on the latter until the tiniest little spark of life has vanished. It may not be law--it probably is, what I'm saying is I don't know for sure--but this little spark didn't go out quickly.

A trio of awful thoughts I've had today: first, John's two sons were not enough reason for him to live. I have two sons myself, and I cannot imagine ever being in the frame of mind where I would not consider the effect of killing myself on other people. Both my boys, or either one, is reason for me to live, not to mention my dear wife, daughter, grandchildren, friends, and more. The second thought is even worse: John's two sons ever after are going to have to live with "my dad committed suicide." Wouldn't you think this might have occurred to him? What a burden to lay on your children! And the third thought is worse yet: one of John's sons is quoted as saying he thought he had gotten rid of all the guns in the house. Now is this young man forever going to carry around guilt because his father hid the gun? How could he not? I would, despite everything you would hear about how it's not your fault.

One more bit on this terrible subject: did you know there are people who make their living removing and disposing of mattresses upon which someone has died? (I wonder if this is their sole occupation? Surely not.) The mattress in question here was covered with gore. Price to remove it: $2,400. That is not a misprint. I can't imagine people with the gall to charge a suicide's family such a price for such a task. Another brother-in-law is taking care of this. That's what family is for.

A Sea of Troubles

The first words that occurred to me when I heard were: "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them." From Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. I just got word a few minutes ago that my brother-in-law put a .22 rifle between his eyes and pulled the trigger. He's alive . . . on a respirator, and he's not going to make it. A sea of troubles must have been raging in him. A typhoon, a tsunami, a Cat-5 hurricane. So he took up arms and ended the troubles.

He leaves behind two sons, one of whom was in the house when he did the deed. Who can understand what brings a person to this pass? I never knew him well, and I never knew him over the course of 25 or so years to be happy actually. Rumor had it in the family for a while that he was suicidal. But what can anybody really do in this situation? What can you do? I'm sure there must be some people with suggestions, but can you watch, guard a person 24/7? You can't commit everybody who flirts with the idea that oblivion beats existence. I'm sure the thought occurs to a lot of people. But few go this far and make it so.

I'm sure there are numbers and charts and graphs and statistics and learned commentary on the phenomenon of suicide, its whys and wherefores. But none of it explains anything at a time like this.

From the outside, it it's difficult--nay, impossible--to see anybody else's inner demons. Grappling with them is by definition a solitary, personal task. Loved ones, even if they number in the hundreds, can't tote this load for you. And not everybody's up to it. That's the only way I can explain a person I know doing something like this. And in the very next thought, you're saying to yourself: yes, but what could I have done from miles away? What could anybody have done?

I can't help but think of his long-dead wife, Nora, who succumbed to lung cancer when she was 34 years old. Thank God she was not around for this. Maybe John never recovered from her absence. Who knows? Hell, this is impossible. Doing what he did just makes no sense in the skin I inhabit. And it's just impossible to get inside another's. Go with God, brother. There's not much else to say.

It's a F**king Cartoon!

Just found out that a first cousin of mine, in the same generation as my kids--I'm the old first cousin in this bunch--is blogging out of Lafayette, LA on Louisiana politics and that he's been at it for years. If you're the slightest bit interested in a (rare) solid leftist viewpoint from those environs, check him out. It's encouraging to know that there's a young person down there in the heart of the red, red bayous bleating out a small voice for sanity amongst the natives. Even if you're not interested, check it out because Louisiana politics are more fun than a circus with twice the number of freaks.

One of the things that people who are reading him are worried about is something I intended to ignore here because it's yet another triviality that's been pumped up by the airheads of the media into something that's supposed to be news. It fits right in there with flag lapel pins, terrorist fist-bumps, and bitter, gun-toting, religion-hugging blue color voters.

I'm talking about the now famous New Yorker cover depicting Barrack and Michelle Obama in outlandish outfits: Muslim and terrorist, respectively. After reading several comments along these lines, I had to respond. Herewith that response:

Don't necessarily agree with the hand wringing over the Obama cover on The New Yorker. I'm with Jon Stewart on this one, a guy who's correct far more often than he's not. "It's a fucking cartoon!" is what he says. Check out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/vide...e=obama- cartoon

Yeah, there are bigots and pea-brains all over the country, and yeah, you've got a lot of 'em in Lafayette. But believe me when I tell you, there are more of them per acre here in Oklahoma, the so-called "heartland," than you want to think about.

Alas and alack, a lot of people are simply not going to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. My mother, for example, and my wife's mother. Both from Louisiana. Half my siblings, all in Louisiana. All of my wife's siblings. All from Louisiana. Same will be so for bigots and bumpkins nationwide no matter what the hell was on the cover of the magazine. Hell, they could have had a photograph of Obama garroting a terrorist while wrapped in a huge American flag with an Uzi in his belt wearing a monstrous McCain lapel pin . . . wouldn't matter.

Do you think for one second if The New Yorker had never run that cartoon, it would have made the slightest difference to these people? I don't.

I'm afraid this manufactured flap about nothing is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing from now till November on the tube, that monster of distortion and that haven for the overpaid lame brains who call themselves journalists. Don't get me started.