7.2.2022 – laughter, singing rang

laughter, singing rang
again, all the sounds of the
earth were like music

Adapted from James Thurber’s Further Fable, “The Bears and the Monkeys.”

I have used this fable of Mr. Thurber’s before.

I will most likely use again and if I don’t use it again, I will read it again and most likely often.

The fable is an analogy on the red scare of the McCarthy era when folks were afraid to think for themselves and wake up to find out they were accused of being a communist.

It was better to let someone else do the thinking for you than risk being labeled being part of the red threat or a pinko commie sympathiser.

So they thinking went according to the monkeys.

When I first read this probably 50 years ago when I was a kid, I think I was able to grasp the meaning that folks do not want anyone telling them what to.

Maybe I was thinking along the lines of Mr. Lincoln’s “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”

I thought the story noble in its’ irony.

I read it today not in with humor but with horror.

I read it today and feel that the irony now goes over most folks heads.

I read the line, “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” and I hear folks yelling, “YESSIR, THAT’S IT!”.

As Mr. Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”

BOY Howdy 😦

I still somehow have hope.

Maybe its more I want to refuse to be hope-less.

But I do hope that one day folks will break the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and begin playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And folk’s laughter and gaiety will ring through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing begin singing again, and all the sounds of the earth will be like music.

The Bears and the Monkeys.

In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”

The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.

Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”

So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.

“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”

Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.

MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber, New York, Harpers, 1940.

6.25.2022 – this stormy present

this stormy present
occasion is piled high
with difficulty

Again and again I keep coming back to Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Annual Address to Congress when he wrote ( and I saw wrote as the speech, now known as the State of the Union, was not delivered by the President in person until Woodrow Wilson first did it in 1913) so this speech was read to Congress by a clerk.

Mr. Lincoln closed this address with these words.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.

As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.

We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

We say we are for the Union.

The world will not forget that we say this.

We know how to save the Union.

The world knows we do know how to save it.

We, even we here, hold the power, and bear the responsibility.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.

We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.

Other means may succeed; this could not fail.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

6.22.2022 – they did not value

they did not value
resources, communities
historic nature

Today’s haiku is adapted from a quote from US Representative Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico when she made a statement about the US Forest Service and that they made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were in the south-west, causing a planned burn to reduce the threat of wildfires to explode into the largest blaze in New Mexico’s recorded history.

Representative Fernández said, “These are complex issues. Starting a prescribed burn in an area where there are homes and watersheds and communities should be something that you take incredibly seriously because those are high value assets. They did not value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.”

She was speaking about forest management.

You could easily think she was talking about any number of things in the news right now.

When talking about right now I must be talking about rights.

Right to vote.

Right to have your vote counted.

Curious how right and right are the some word.

The online Merriam-Webster defines the words like this:

>Something to which one has a just claim.

>Conforming to facts or truth.

>Being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper.

>Qualities (such as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval.

My thought this morning was to write about how difficult it has been of late to construct a daily haiku and write some commentary in a light hearted way when I am feeling anything but lighthearted.

I saw this quote of Representative Fernández’s and thought how easy it would be to use the words in a commentary on how so many decisions and actions are being taken today without any consideration to the value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.

Then by chance I hit that word right.

Seems there has been a major disconnect on the importance of this word.

Right.

Rights.

Right rights.

I am reminded of Proverbs 21:3 (NIV) –

To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

It was a long time ago but I had to take a class in school to learn how to drive a car.

It was a free class offered by the Grand Rapids Public Schools, all you had to do was sign up.

The only restriction was that you had to turn 16 years old, legal driving age, either before the class started or by the time it finished to sign up.

In the winter of 1976, for reasons I have never understood, my Dad was interested in my getting a drivers license.

At the same time he also took a life insurance policy out of me.

Maybe he thought it was a good investment.

It was January and my birthday was in July and I knew that I couldn’t sign up until then but he kept after me to sign up for drivers ed.

Maybe he just wanted to avoid another summer of having a kid in drivers ed instead of during the school year.

To make him happy I went into the office and asked for a registration card and filled it out and dropped it in the office inbox and forgot about it.

I can’t say I have had many you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocks in my life but a week later, this would have been January still, I was walking home from school in the snow with my buddies when my Dad pulled up next to us in his car, rolled down the window and said, “get in.”

This NEVER HAPPENED.

The first thing that went through my mind was to examine my conscience to figure out what I done wrong.

Truthfully, the list was so long I most likely didn’t know where to start.

My buddies all looked at me with that oh-are-you-in-trouble look and they all moved away from me to get away from any possible shrapnel.

Very slowly and tentatively I opened the car door and got in my Dad’s car.

My Dad’s car was one of the pleasures’ he allowed himself to indulge in.

My Dad had driven a Thunderbird convertible in the early 1960’s when there might not have been a more coveted car in America.

He updated that to the Buick Riviera, which in the late ’60s had POWER EVERYTHING.

From the Riviera, he got a 1976 two door navy blue Mercury Cougar.

It was this car I was now sitting in.

15 years old and I learned how to drive in this car

Sitting in the front seat and waiting to find out what I had done.

My stomach was doing all kinds of calisthenics and I kept my mouth shut.

My Dad drove pulled away from the curb and said, “We are going to the park so I can show you have to drive. School called and you have Driver’s Ed at 4 o’clock!”

HUhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Talk about you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather!

We got to the nearby Riverside Park and I was put in the drivers seat of my Dad’s Cougar and on a snow covered park road, I got a quick lesson in how to start a car, put it in gear and drive.

While I drove, my Dad explained that School had called and said that due to a cancellation there was an opening in the Drivers Ed class that started that day.

As it happened, my card was sitting out on the desk and the school was calling to see if I was eligible for the class.

See, when I filled out the card, I put my birthday as being in July, 1976!

The current year.

The school was calling to check if was old enough.

In other words, had I been born in 1959 (when I had been born in 1960).

My Dad said that my Mom had taken the call and she looked at Dad and asked what to say.

“TELL THEM YES!,” my Dad said.

About an hour later, I was dropped off back at school and found the Drivers Ed class where the teacher had my card in his hand.

“You Hoffman?” he asked.

I said yes and the class started.

The teacher started talking to the class about driving and getting a drivers license.

“Let’s get this straight right now,” he said.

“A drivers license is a PRIVILEDGE not a RIGHT.“

“Privileges’ can be taken away.“

“Rights cannot.”

I have never forgot that.

Living in this country, we have so many rights.

Why do we forget what a privilege this is?

6.19.2022 – happy the man and

happy the man and
happy he alone who can
call today his own

Adapted from, Happy the Man by John Dryden (1631-1700)

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Of late, I have been reading a lot of Civil War history and Grant out in the West and the battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

While I was reading I was reminded of my families visit to the battlefield in what must have been the spring of 1976.

Once my brother Paul got married and moved to the Washington DC area in 1969, our family spring vacation trips were to Washington and all the memorials and museums and other sights along the way.

But in 1976 (I think) my brother Paul had a short term assignment to the west coast and my Dad decided we would go south instead.

I am not sure of all we saw but we went to the Land between the Lakes in Tennessee and the Shiloh Battlefield.

My Mom always got us some new clothes for our spring trips and this year she bought me, Pete and Stevie and Al matching spring navy blue windbreakers with MICHIGAN in gold letters across the back.

Everywhere we went, at all the diners we stopped at and such, folks would say, “Y’all from Michigan are you??” and we would smile and nod and wonder how did they figure that out?

Anyway part of the Shiloh Battlefield connects with the Tennessee River at a point named Pittsburgh Landing.

This is where boats that supplied the Union Army under US Grant were able to dock and where much of the Union Army ran and hid after the first day of battle.

Today it is a parking lot and overlook of the river where you can park and look over the river and the read the plaques that describe the scene in April, 1862.

We drove around the park and pulled over at Pittsburgh Landing and parked.

There was one other car already parked there.

Outside the car was a little family of a young man and his wife with the wife holding an infant baby wrapped in a blanket.

The man and the woman looked none too happy and it turned out the young man had locked his keys in the car.

He was able to get a coat hanger from the Park Rangers and was trying to work the hanger into driver door but as I remember it, the doors had metal frames and he couldn’t work the hanger past the frame.

My Dad walked up to car, my Mom of course had engaged the young Mom in conversation about diapers and bottles and that the baby bag was IN THE CAR, and Dad looked over the situation.

The car was a hatch back and he noticed one window, one of the back windows that pivoted out on a hinge horizontally, was open just a tiny bit.

The young man pointed out that the window had a latch that let you open the window but he couldn’t get his hand in nor was his hanger long enough to reach the locks.

The young man looked at my Dad and said he didn’t know what else he could do but break the back window.

Maybe a bit drastic but the baby was beginning to fuss and the young wife was beginning to fuss as well.

But my Dad said to hang on and he called us boys over.

“See if you can reach in there”, he said to us with our skinny little arms and hands.

I don’t know which one did it, but one of us could reach in and at least open the latch so the window opened about two more inches.

This got the young man excited but it turned out even with the window open wider he couldn’t get anything unlocked.

“I am just going to break it”, he said.

But my Dad said to hang on and he went to out car and came back with a screwdriver.

My Dad always had a tool or two in the glove compartment of the car.

“Maybe we can detach the window from the latch”, my Dad said.

The young man got the plan right away but he could not get his hands inside the window with the screw driver and get the screwdriver on the screw heads that held the latch plate to the glass of the window and get any torque to turn the screws.

Us kids tried also with no luck.

But my Dad was a Dentist and was used to working with his hands in small spaces.

I can see it in my mind as he took the screwdriver and reached in through the gap and it seems with just his fingers got that screwdriver in place and exerted enough pressure to be able to turn the screws out of the plate.

As soon as the first screw turned us boys all cheered.

My Dad kept at it and removed four screws, took the latch plate off the glass, open that back window wide and reached over the drivers seat and unlocked the door.

“There you go,” he said with this big grin.

The young mom bursts into tears and hugs my Mom.

The young man looked like he wanted to burst into tears and shook my Dad’s hand over and over.

Us kids were all thrilled to have been there, to have helped and to have witnessed ‘Pater triumphans.‘

My Dad, he just looked happy.

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour

One of the many times my Dad had his hour.

6.14.2022 – just another straw

just another straw
is always sunrise somewhere
still holds, reveals much

A graffiti-covered trail in Yosemite national park on Sunday. Photograph: AP

I have never been to Yosemite and most likely, I have to admit, I will never get there.

But I get pleasure knowing it is there.

I know its a manipulated moment in time, but after years of seeing it, I can still stare in wonder at Ansel Adams photograph, “Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park.”

Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park Ansel Adams (American, 1902–1984) about 1937 Photograph, gelatin silver print *The Lane Collection *© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust *Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

It was dismay.

It was with grave misgivings.

It was with sadness that hit my core when I read that someone had visited Yosemite and had to leave a record of their visit with spray paint.

Stupid I know.

Misplaced and maybe over reacting.

But hear me out.

I can spit in any direction and hit more problems with this world than can be collected in an encyclopedia.

Climate, politics, human rights, civility, guns, housing, wages, food and almost any other story that appears on any front page, and it becomes quite the pile of straw on the camels’ back.

I saw a story on NBC news last night about abandoned disabled people in Ukraine that if it didn’t break your heart and drive you to your knees to beg forgiveness from God for being part of the population of a world that allows this to happen then I don’t know what to say to you.

There is enough, too much, we can agree I think.

And Yosemite National Park got tagged.

Why is this the straw that seems to break my back?

I would say it goes to state of mind.

Yosemite is not easy to get to.

I don’t think it is the type of place you say, “Hey lets go spend a day …” but more of the place where you might say, “Let’s plan …” and you make the trip.

According to the National Parks Website, reservations are needed during peak hours.

Once at the park and the decision is made to hike the Yosemite Falls Trail, visitors are advised that:

Start your hike early; this trail can become very hot mid-day in the summer. By starting as early as possible, you will be able to hike during the cooler part of the day. The upper portion of the trail is exposed, receiving no shade until late afternoon or early evening.
Avoid becoming dehydrated or experiencing heat exhaustion. Drink plenty and drink often; pace yourself; rest in the shade; eat salty snacks.
Sprained ankles and knee injuries are common on this trail. There are many areas of loose sand mixed with rocky terrain, which makes for slippery footing.
Stay on the trail; there are numerous steep drop-offs and ledges off-trail.
Know your limits. Pre-existing medical conditions can be easily exacerbated on the steep ascent.
Do not swim or wade in the creek above the waterfall.

The Parks Website states, If you make the one-mile, 1,000 foot climb (via dozens of switchbacks) to Columbia Rock, you will be rewarded with spectacular views of Yosemite Valley, Half Dome, and Sentinel Rock. From there, it is worth the time and energy to hike another 0.5 miles (0.8 km) (some of which is actually downhill!) to get a stunning view of Upper Yosemite Fall. Depending on the season, you may even feel the mist from the fall, which may be welcome respite after the tough climb.

I am assuming that some one read all this, knew all this, packed up there gear, maybe a lunch, water, good shoes and then made sure they had at least two cans or colors of spray paint all ready for the hike.

Who thinks this?

Who plans this?

Why?

What does that say about us?

Can you hear them going over their supplies?

Granola Bars?

Check!

Water?

Check!

Spray Paint?

Check!

As I have already admitted, in today’s news about the climate, politics, human rights, civility, guns, housing, wages, food and almost any other story that appears on any front page, there is plenty to get me going.

As I said, I saw a story on NBC news last night about abandoned disabled people in Ukraine that if it didn’t break your heart and drive you to your news to beg forgiveness from God for being part of the population of a world that allows this to happen then I don’t know what to say to you.

But the story of man’s inhumanity to themselves is as old as Caine and Able.

To willfully damage Yosemite with malice aforethought?

John Muir was the man who set up some of the first boundaries of what became Yosemite National Park and camped their with Theodore Roosevelt that led to lots of parks and preservation of wild areas for the benefit of all of us (Though I have to point out it was Mr. Lincoln who signed a bill on June 30, 1864, granting Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias to the State of California “for public use, resort and recreation,” the two tracts “shall be inalienable for all time“).

Mr. Muir once said, “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising.“

It is always sunrise somewhere.

It is always a new day.

But this place, once the sun comes up, reveals a place I don’t recognize anymore.

Just one more straw.