5.7.2020 – just be by myself

just be by myself
feel evening breeze, gaze at moon
I lost my senses

Stay at home.

Quaruntine.

Is it any wonder we are losing our senses.

As someone said, the problem with common sense is that is it so uncommon.

The words of that old cowboy poet, Cole Porter, keep coming back to my mind.

Okay, so Cole Porter stole the words or came by the words in such a way that a court had to decide they were his.

Not the Roy Rodgers way now is it.

But the words are there anyhow they came to be.

I just don’t like fences.

Oh give me land, lots of land, and the starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evening breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle on
Underneath the western skies
On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise

I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences
To many words, gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences
Don’t fence me in

Oh give me land, lots of land, and the starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in

(for what its worth, Mr. Porter said it was his least favorite song. Go figure?)

5.6.2020 – library feeling

library feeling
of communion, a feeling
of vitality

In the middle of the United States of America’s part in World War 2, EB White got a request from the War Department to write out the meaning of Democracy.

In the the Notes and Comment section of the July 3, 1943 edition of The New Yorker magazine, Mr. White’s response was printed.

Andy White wrote:

We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.”

It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.

Surely the Board knows what democracy is.

It is the line that forms on the right.

It is the don’t in don’t shove.

It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere.

Democracy is a letter to the editor.

Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth.

It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad.

It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee.

Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

It is the don’t in don’t shove ought to be added to our money just under In God We Trust.

And that Library feeling of Communion.

I guess you feel it or you don’t.

If you don’t you have my sympathy.

I hope you enjoy the mustard on the hot dog.

My youngest son is named Ellington.

His middle name is Bernard after his Grand Father.

I snuck an EB into the family without telling anyone.

5.5.2020 – bridges toll, bells toll

bridges toll, bells toll
toll as death toll totals climb
along life’s tollway

Toll.

The cost.

A charge payable for permission to use a particular bridge or road.

And the number of deaths, casualties, or injuries arising from particular circumstances, such as a natural disaster, conflict, or accident.

Or the sound or cause to sound with a slow, uniform succession of strokes, as a signal or announcement.

As well as taking a toll.

Or, have an adverse effect, especially so as to cause damage, suffering, or death

Such a sad word.

Too many applications.

Heard too often.

5.2.2020 – need a solution

need a solution
to a problem, first admit
there is a problem

The United States of America is a big country.

For every 1000 residents, you will have 1000 opinions and points of view that have a right to be heard.

It is difficult to achieve a consensus let alone unanimity on any topic.

It takes a lot to change peoples minds.

Back in May of 1941, a nationwide poll showed that 80% of Americans were against getting involved in World War 2.

On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR’s request for a declaration of war against JAPAN passed with one NO vote.

Note this was a war against the Empire of Japan.

The United States did NOT declare war on Germany.

Germany, so far, had not done anything to the United States.

The US got into the European war at that time only because Hitler declared war on the United States on December 8th.

I would have put this current emergency up there.

While I would not expect that everyone could agree on how to handle Covid, I would have thought there was agreement that we need to do something.

Silly me.

But then I would have bet my last dollar that it was against the law to carry an M16 into the State Capitol Building in Lansing, Michigan.

In my nuttiest, most US Constitution embracing moment, I never would have thought that the 1st Amendment right to assembly would have given me the right to stand face to face with the Michigan State Police while carrying a loaded assault rifle in the rotunda of the State Capitol.

I just can’t imagine it.

I want to stay away from that argument and focus on the mindset.

As Atticus Finch famously says in “To Kill a Mockingbird“, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.”

Let me try to get into the shoes of those protestors in Lansing.

I am thinking of one feller who was captured on the network news, standing face to face with a Michigan State Police Trooper, and screaming something.

There was no audio so I don’t know what he was screaming.

But this feller woke up that morning.

Got dressed in his camouflage so he wouldn’t stand out, I guess.

Got his coffee and his rifle and drove to Lansing to defend his rights.

Not exactly the Lexington Minute Men gathering on the village green to confront the redcoats but close enough in his mind.

Our feller parks his car and gets out and assembles with his fellow countrymen outside the Capitol Building.

At some command or order or maybe just a mass rush, the assembly moves into the building and our feller finds himself in the front row.

The next thing he knows, he is in the Rotunda of the Capitol, surrounded both by his buddies but also by glassed cabinets of flags that circle the Rotunda.

Flags of the volunteer regiments of the State of Michigan that decided Black Lives Matter and that the Union was worth preserving and marched off to the Civil War.

One of those flags is the flag of the 16th Michigan Volunteer Infantry.

A member of Company C of that Regiment was 18 year old, Edwin Barlow.

Private Barlow was my Great-Great Grand Father.

Back to our feller, who is now explaining to the State Trooper why he and his friends are there and what they want.

Feller seems to be quite agitated and explaining himself very loudly.

The Troopers don’t move or react.

The Troopers don’t arrest anyone.

Though, like I said, I would have bet my last dollar it was a crime to bring a loaded AK-47 into the State Capitol or engage a State Trooper while carrying a loaded AK-47 but that is beside the point.

After a bit our feller leaves with his buddies.

After exchanging farewells with the assembly our feller goes back to his car and drives home.

He gets home and hangs his rifle over the fireplace.

He goes to the fridge and gets a beer.

Does his wife greet him with a hug and a ‘Good Job Honey’ hug?

Does he sit in his rocker or his lazy-boy and review the day?

Does he feel satisfaction in delivering his message to the man.

Does he feel like he delivered his message that we are fed up and can’t take it anymore?

I am trying to follow Mr. Finch and understand a person by considering things from his point of view,

I am trying to climb into his skin and walk around in it.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to wear a mask.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to stay home.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to protect myself, my family and other people by not risking the spread if this illness.

Or am I missing it?

Am I the problem here that I don’t feel threatened by my Government as they bass ackwards try to figure all this out.

Am I deluded by the bread and circuses.

Maybe.

But I just can’t get comfortable in that feller’s shoes up in Lansing.

I often refer to problems as Charlie Sheen problems.

The 1st problem Charlie Sheen needs to deal with is that Charlie has to admit he has a problem.

If he doesn’t see a life focused on drugs and alcohol as a problem, then there is nothing to be fixed.

What is the problem right now?

What is the biggest problem?

That’s my problem.

4.29.2020 – reality so

reality so
subtle that it is more real
than reality

I used to have a rule.

I refused to work somewhere unless there was one other person in the building who knew who Alfred Stieglitz was.

This changed from a rule to a hope.

Then it changed to a wish.

I will ask co-workers from time to time if they had ever heard of Alfred Stieglitz.

I try to stay away from mentioning his wife, Georgia O’Keefe.

I do this for two reasons.

One is that I want the person to really be acquainted with Stieglitz for himself and not for his wife.

The other is that I am afraid that I would be doubly disappointed if the person had not heard of Georgia O’Keeffe.

But there it is.

I was thinking of Mr. Steiglitz today.

It was raining here is Georgia and the streets and rain slicked and wet.

When I see rain slicked, wet streets I think of the photograph, A Wet Day on the Boulevard, Paris – 1894 taken by Mr. Steiglitz.

The rain and the wet in the photograph are more real than real.

A subtle reality more real than reality.

It was Mr. Steiglitz who said, “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.”

Beyond photograph, in this covid impacted life, reality itself has become so distant, so subtle that I begin to doubt reality.

How did this happen.

Maybe it’s more real in black and white.

Wikipedia says, “Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary.”

Well, what if I can only imagine reality.

Does that make it less real?

Look at the photograph again.

Then look at again,

Truly, in this photograph, there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.