Smokytown

DEATH BE NOT PROUD - November 2009

    

   Poet John Donne (1572 – 1631) challenges Death to forgo his pride and recognize that the dead will eventfully rise from their graves and end Death’s sovereignty.

   Recently, skiers, football officials, to name just a few, after showing no signs of life have been cheating Death.  Often a fiballator has been the electronic midwife. Those revived from death speak of a long dark tunnel with a bright light at the exit and a sensation of great peacefulness.

   Resurrection stories are embodied in religious literature. Classical mythology abound with the condemned being rescued from various levels of Hades.

    GUEST WRITER

   Doc, a frequent contributor to this blog, returns disguised as a troubador, singing poetry up and down the Pacific Coast from Pismo Beach CA. to cramped villages near   Cochabamba, Bolivia.

   On the outside of this blog, Doc Holliday is better known as James McEnteer, a freelance writer and author of two great books on politics and journalism—Deep in the Heart  & Shooting the Truth.

 

   You might be interested to learn that Doc was once a student of mine at a private school in Indiana. After that,  he escaped to the Ivy League and ended up at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

   As an excuse not to finish his third book, he writes poetry, some of which I’ll share with you here:

   Salsa music will be playing

when the world ends, upbeat, catchy but soulful as a Mexican mountain

crumbles and falls

    crushing the random village

    where you chose to spend the night

  

Or a stray bullet

    from a Colombian crossfire 

-    some virulent feud

  that had nothing to do with you

   until now -

   lodges in your brain

   oye, como va?

Or your bus plunges a thousand feet off some Andean ledge,

its final, failed flight

set to a frenzied threnody

of trumpets and guitars   

ay ay ay ay!

Or you tap your fingers

on the steering wheel

to a driving Latin beat

as a tanker truck doing 120

comes at you in the wrong lane

on a blind curve near Quito

Or an agent of oblivion

whose face you never see

slips a knife in your gut

to steal money you don’t have

in the bathroom of a Sao Paulo nightclub while the place rocks outwith a visceral, relentless rhythm

and your movie fades to black

 

  
  

Emily Dickinson in Latin America

    By James Mcenteer

Death looked at me and smiled today

From several different places,

The window of a crowded bus

and sickly children’s faces

And all along my way I see

The crosses of mortality

That show me anyone may fall

Almost anywhere at all.

Among the great mercado stalls

where half the world strolls,

and most folks look for things they need

Death window-shops for souls.

He’s known by many different names:

La muerte, El Testigo…

But as we travel, side by side

I call him Mi Amigo.

   If you’d like to read more of Doc’s writings, check out his blog  http://weatherincochabamba.blogspot.com

   POSTSCRIPT

   My thanks to Jim for sharing his imaginative poetry. Now, Jim, get back to writing the next book. I’ll take care of the poetry, or in my case, the doggerel.

   Waiting outside the throbbing hall

   Is bony Death holding a bright knife

   Which penetrates the midsection of the quarterback.

   It’s too late for a Hail Mary,

As time runs out in the End Zone,

   Ahead of the white stripes turning blood red.

   >>A feeble attempt to pay tribute to a wonderful athlete who died too young.

   >>Did you hear about the pilot who arrived home and had to tell his wife that he had been fired?

   WIFE: what happened?

   PILOT: I missed Minneapolis.  

   WIFE: By how much?

   PILOT: We missed the runway by 150 miles.

   WIFE: Did you and Steve both take a nap?

   PILOT: No, we were both distracted. We started to play Bejeweled and were simply consumed by the challenge.

   WIFE: You endangered a plane loaded with passengers to play a stupid video game? I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

   PILOT: Oh yes, by the way, our gas bill will be higher this month. How much is half of $13,589.63?

   Moral;  Don’t frolic with Bejeweled in the cockpit.

  >>The death toll of our troops this month in Afghanistan is the worst ever. I still say we should wipe out the poppy crops with Agent Orange and enlist the farmers to wipe out the Taliban.

   ...Finally, to deny Death any unexpected bonuses, I vote for cameras in the cockpits of planes. As for drivers on roads, eliminate all distractions and pay full attention to the driving.

########

 

  

GUEST WRITERS Oct. 2009

   In the interest of writing a blog that is fair and balanced, unlike the rabid Foxes that eat the tender grapes, I have been publishing some negative commentaries about the content of my blog. For example, my stand against gun violence and the NRA caused a volley of criticism from gun lovers and hunters, including some from friends and relatives in Wisconsin, where I was born and spent my boyhood. Can you believe it there are still supporters and admirers of Senator Joe McCarthy in the Badger State?

   At the expense of my innate modesty, I hope you’ll forgive me for printing a few positive letters.

From JAN: I DON’T CARE WHAT Mr. Willis says about you. I find you and your writings delightful, especially the humor. Too bad YOUR DETRACTORS never had the opportunity to join you on your front porch for a bit of libation and a carload of funny stories. Don’t let that old grump stop you from writing your informative blogs.

From Pedro: Keep the rascals on the run by exposing their villainy on your blog.

From Prof Z: I want to let you know that your blog shows well your point of view and you should not be deterred by the responses of others who complain. Negative responses show, at least, that they are reading your material even if they are pre-programmed against actually thinking and digesting your interpretations of current events.

For myself, I appreciate your blogs. They reflect an overview that is hard for me to maintain. You see patterns, you perceive trends, and the cumulative impact of all of these separate items, which you collate for your readers, may really have a cumulative effect upon us all that is otherwise hard to see because each is heralded in the popular media as isolated events. You perform a valuable public service.

In addition, you are a critical reporter and do not pull punches. You tell the truth - Rush is a liar, Cheney is a threat, Sarah P. of Alaska is an embarrassing joke, pet planes in a time when people die early because they are poor and have no basic healthcare are a true moral indictment of our whole society. I can also do without a so-called expression of freedom by bringing firearms to public gatherings and feel it is insidious. Better they came naked to celebrate their right of free expression in public. Ha. You called it. If interested you might glance at my blog: http://tzoss.typepad.com about healthcare, and other things.

I say GO, HARVEY. Keep it coming. Your Hoosier cheerleader...

     ############

   Thank you, Tom, for those kind words. In return for your favorable review, I’ll share with my readers a few excerpts from your blog on healthcare.

From Tom Zoss-- There is an old saying that if you wrestle with pigs you'll both get dirty, but only the pigs LIKE to get dirty. Sometimes it is necessary, so let's get down in the mud.

There are many videos, cartoons, and chain letters going around right now. These stupid, inaccurate, and false promotions are scary things from the far-right.

First, the video I received was too slick. I suspect an agency produced it (and was paid thousands of dollars) so nice people, thinking it is funny, would send it to friends. I am afraid it is all part of a plan the medical and drug companies have to keep the country from honestly debating a very serious subject by manipulating us.

I see this as an ethical and moral issue. I wonder how religious and ethical people can sleep at night knowing we're the only civilized country that cannot figure out some way to take care of all of our people. Millions of Americans live in fear of a health problem, or die early we should all be ashamed that thousands may die early because of inadequate access to our so-called wonderful healthcare system.

##############

   Way to go, Tom. I suggest to my readers that they go to Tom’s blog and read the entire article and his next one about how to get the health bill passed. That blog should be required reading for Senator Lugar and Senator Bayh, who can introduce the new senator—Paul Kirk and quickly pass the health bill, while the ones opposed are busy counting the bribe money from lobbyists. Democrats better take it easy with Senator Byrd, who is recovering from a fall and needs to get healthy for passage of the bill to help the uninsured, the poor, and the helpless little ones.

It’s not true that Byrd was knocked off his perch by a blast from Right Wing high blood pressure from the President appearing on five Sunday talk shows, called Obamalogue or Obamarthom.

I thought President Obama gave a reasonable oration at the opening of the U.N. Before he finished, Rush Limbaugh was tearing the President, his speech, and the U.N. to pieces, claiming that Obama had “ripped the country to shreds.” It’s hard to believe that the insults came from someone who backed the previous administration, one that started two wars and plunged us into a second Great Depression. I was happy to find comic relief by turning off Rush and watching another polarizing figure—Moammar Kadafi, Libyan leader, a killer without a conscience, while the other assassinates with lies.

  Next month, I’ll print some poetry from Doc, who seems to be captivated by Death. I hope he wasn’t thinking of me and my 88th birthday on the day before Halloween. I missed being a goblin by one day. Well, maybe in the next world. Which reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.

That quote is too grim. Let us return to where Tom started with getting down in the mud and grappling with pigs, hoping to dodge swine flu.

   'Twas an evening in October, I'll confess I wasn't sober, I was carting home a load with manly pride, When my feet began to stutter and I fell into the gutter, And a pig came up and lay down by my side. Then I lay there in the gutter and my heart was all a-flutter, Till a lady, passing by, did chance to say: "You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses," Then the pig got up and slowly walked away.

--Clarke Van Ness

And so it’s time for me to walk away and go wee-wee all the way home.

#########

The Tale of the Dog: August Dog Days – 2009

     

   After deep-frying the West Coast and later starting massive fires near LA., Mother Nature turned up the heat in the midsection of the country and then spread it to the Atlantic Ocean, where a hurricane was waiting. It was useless to complain. After all, what do you expect during the madness of Dog Days?

   The canine craziness inspired barbarous behavior at town hall meetings about improving the country’s healthcare. At some meetings, guns were openly displayed, enough of a reminder to awaken Abe and JFK from the dead.

   Gun lovers were probably pleased by a woman-hater who killed and wounded women at a fitness club. Here are a few more violent incidents: a toxic mother makes a wrong-way turn and kills herself and the passengers; a light plane collides with a helicopter and kills nine over the Hudson River; drug trade spreads throughout the country and even into Maine; horses stolen and butchered alive in Florida; after multiplying in the Everglades, pythons move into inhabited areas; wild dogs attacking and killing people in cities and along country roads; Need more? I won’t mention the bombings in our two war zones, the typhoons, the mud slides, rip currents from the hurricanes—thousands of Chinese children being kidnapped or poisoned by factory fumes and from the disintegration of OUR DISCARDED COMPUTERS. It makes me want to yell: STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF.

                HOUND BITES

   It’s probably a misnomer to call the last of August madness dog days. After all, dogs are supposed to be man’s best friend, unless someone like Michael Vick trains them to fight and kill. I guess he’s not as vicious as the Lockerbie bomber, who returned home to a hero’s welcome. Vick is also not as sick as the CA creep who kidnapped an 11-year-old girl, raped her and kept her prisoner for eighteen years. Thank goodness, the dog days have finally turned tail and left.  

   The most vicious dog is found in classical Greek mythology. Cerberus, a three-headed dog, guarded the Gates of Hades. One of Hercules’ tasks was to remove him from the doorway. 

   The most loyal dog in literature is Argos, or Argus. He faithfully waited about twenty years for Ulysses to return from the Trojan War and his entrapment on the high seas. Neglected in dirt and manure, Argos managed to lift his head and look with great love in his master’s eyes before giving up the ghost.

         Two Attack- DOGS

 

   Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin continue to attack the President, accusing him of being evil and of being a Nazi. Not civilized enough to show any respect for the recent Kennedy deaths, Rush accused Eunice K. Shriver’s father of working with Hitler, ignoring the fact that Eunice had founded the Special Olympics. During Edward Kennedy’s last rites, Rush described the accolades as “slobbering.”  While thousands and thousands were lined up ahead of the JFK Library in Boston or glued to TV screens to pay tribute to Senator Kennedy’s long service to the country, Rush told a barefaced lie by maintaining that no one cared—with an outpouring of respect right there on the screens. The thrice-divorced Con man went on to say that anyone who marries a Kennedy should be embarrassed. When are his listeners going to realize that Rush will twist the facts to support his right-wing stance and often his choice of words will reveal that he is a misogamist? He boasted about tickling the funny bones of his shriveled neo-cons by changing “Lion of the Senate” and denigrating the praise and adulation of the dead senator by calling it “Puke City,” an apt word for his getting into bed with Glen Beck on Saturday night. 

     

  

   I wish Sarah P. would take Rush by his nicotine-stained fingers, lead him out her back door, and keep going until they reach a spot in Siberia where there is no way to communicate with the outside world, except by dog sled. They can pass the time by sucking the venom from each other’s wounds from the last election. Or she could show him how to shoot moose and wolves in the back from a light plane, leaving them behind to die a painful   death. Why not invite Dick Cheney to join the hunting party?

   On a recent Rush propaganda program, a woman named Christine told him he was wrong about the healthcare bill still in progress. He lost his temper and called her “a frickin’ woman”—a euphemism for one of the dirtiest words in English.

   At long last, Mr. Limbaugh, have you no sense of decency?

              

    A FEW MORE DOG BITES

~~~Pups behind Bars:  A great program all around. Prisoners are given pups to train these wonderful companions in preparation of going to school and then given to returning veterans suffering from emotional combat stress.

~~~Pet Planes:  a new airline that transports only pets.

~~~Titan, a Great Dane, has been designated as the world’s tallest dog.

~~~U.S. citizens spend six billion on dog food each year.

~~~The tale about an interview with a dog has been cancelled. It seemed a bit inappropriate considering Senator Teddy’s death. My one-sentence tribute:  Ted always fought for the underdog.

~~~Cash for Clunkers was a smash success, although there were some delays with paper work. Now they are planning cash for kitchen appliances. How about calling it:  CASH FOR KITCHEN-PITCHIN’?

~~~The poppy crop in Afghanistan is feeding the Taliban, who killed 49 of our soldiers in August. Why not spray Agent Orange on the fields and enlist the displaced farm worker in an army to clean out the Taliban?

~~~It’s time to end this doggone blog before someone pulls the plug on me. I’m off to put a leash on the Blue Dog Democrats to get them to vote for the Kennedy-Obama Healthcare Bill.

          ###########

BITS ‘n’ PIECES – 08-0l-09

Some readers are complaining that I’m too loquacious, which means I talk too darn much. On the other hand, a few perceptive readers enjoy my rambling and ranting. Opined Al: “This was a particularly fun travelogue from Egypt to Little Egypt in Southern Illinois. I do agree with the fellow who wanted you to write an autobiography. That would be a great read.” From Pambi: “Eyeless in Caza was a sobering and memorable read. Elie Wiesel’s experiences in the Nazi extermination camps were too tragic to believe. Is your play Deadlock in the Culver library?” It’s catalogued in the Huffington Library on the campus of the Culver Academies and should be on your doorstep. Elie recently acted as President Obama’s guide of the Nazi camps, and one of the most touching moments was his description of the death of Wiesel’s father dying in the bunk above Elie, begging for a little water to wet his lips. Too frightened to help his father during the final moments led to Elie’s loss of faith. From Tomo comes this comment: “It is so true that once you regain your faith, you will want to live. I’ve never lost mine for any extended period of time, but I know when it returns, joy is soon to follow.” A Mr. Willis writes: “Last month you lost me as you leapfrogged from Cairo, Egypt to Cairo, Il., via Green Bay. I’ll bet you confused most of your readers” Sorry, Mr. Willis, if I lost you, but don’t blame me. I was following President Obama as he traveled around and delivered speeches. To accommodate Mr. Willis and other readers with short-attention spans, I’ll write some miniature blogs.

· Here’s a one-word oxymoron: QUIET!

· A Canadian musician watched horrified as baggage handlers on the tarmac mishandled his possessions. He wrote a song: “United, United, You broke my guitar.” It’s on the way to the top of best sellers, and United is using it to train its workers. I GUESS we’ll have to classify that song as folk music. Come to think about it, all songs are folk songs—have you ever heard a cow sing? Incidentally, if you’re planning a vacation, wait until mid-August when prices on planes and at hotels will be slashed in half. Sing “School Days.” Oops, sorry, Mr. Willis.

· Are Eskimos allowed to vote? By resigning, did Sarah Impaile herself on her greed?

· Did you hear the one about the guy that arrived before the church service and told the minister his bike had been stolen the week before during the service. The minister told him to sit in the front pew and when he mentioned Thou Shalt Not Steal” to look back and search for the guilty party. After the service, the minister asked if it had worked. The guy replied, “Not until you reached the commandment about coveting thy neighbor’s wife. Then I remembered where I had left my bike.”

· Sorry, Mr. Willis, was that too long? Did you hear the one about the dog going into the bar? Nope, I can’t tell that one, too long. How about Two Irishmen were leaving a pub early? No, that would never happen.

· WHITE IS RIGHT. Don’t jump to any conclusions about a racist remark. Paint your roof white and you’ll save half on your heating bill. PAINT THE WHOLE TOWN WHITE. Putting in some solar panels will help, too. Are you old enough to remember back about 40 years when Black was Beautiful? During that time, the town in Little Egypt nearly killed itself because merchants refused to hire black workers. Race discrimination lives on. Just this month a black professor at Harvard was arrested in his own home for disorderly conduct. I plan to write a Perry Mason TV drama called “A Prickly Professor Meets a Bull Doggish Cop.” Which reminds me, the National Rifle Association refuses to endorse Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. That figures.

· Time for a blog commercial. My son runs a boxing school in Warsaw, In. boppinbob@BBBSW.net

 

· Speaking of commercials, on the 40th Anniversary of the Men on the Moon, after a few seconds of interviewing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the two astronauts who stepped on the moon, the lady announcer said she had to interrupt for an important announcement, and took the viewers to a Home Depot commercial. In some of those $l9.95 ads, don’t you just love those demented auctioneers yelling at the top of their stupid lungs? Even worse, are those ads that trick toddlers. Mr. Willis, would you be willing to donate your sweaty socks to be shoved in the mouths of TV car salesmen? Let’s get to a topic more cheerful.

· GUN VIOLENCE what I’m going to say next will hurt the feelings of gun lovers and hunters, but I have to ask a question: “Isn’t it time you stop playing cowboy-and-Indians, and grow up? I know there are multitudes in this country who support the right to bear arms and are members of the National Rifle Association and go to gun shows. Why not poison shows to teach youngsters how to concoct really potent liquid killers? 

 

Thank goodness, there are organizations like Mothers Against Gun Violence to offset the trigger-happy, but they were unable to prevent the deaths of 63 kids in Chicago this year. How is it possible that English law enforcement officers maintain control WITHOUT CARRYING A GUN? I imagine there is nothing to stop the killing of those beautiful birds and wild animals, but surely in a civilized country our wonderful children must be protected. Sorry, Mr. Willis, I got carried away. I’ll cool down by ending with a bit of doggerel dedicated to Mothers Against Guns. Mothers of the AGV Take La-laPierre By his skinny ear And lead NRA’S bore Into the shattered kids’ Morgue.

· Progress: A bill squeaked through that prevents Pistol- Packin’ Mamas and Papas from carrying guns across state lines. Way to go. Rip those guns from the dead, withered hands.

EYELESS IN CAZA June 09 – The Month the Moon Walk Died

  To mark President Obama’s now famous speech in Cairo, I thought I might sing an old Egyptian love song. Fortunately for the readers, they won’t be able to hear my raucous voice—

Igity-itity, waa-sinie

Waa-sinie. Ee-sa,

Habib wo mistani.

I’d better quit before I drive my spellchecker mad. I learned that song while stationed in the Middle East during World War II. Contrary to any rumors, I did not take any lessons in Belly Dancing, but I continued to practice the high art of yodeling, a way of gargling that caused hysterics among friends in Casablanca and now in Cazenovia, New York.

ANOTHER STOP

Onward to the Badger State for a Town Hall meeting. There the most published event was awarding an excuse slip to a young student for playing hooky, a nice way to highlight the importance of education.

I may have missed it, but how can you visit Green Bay and not mention the Packers? Having been born and raised in Wisconsin I still wallow in my adulation of Coach Vince Lombardi, the famous pass duo of Herber to Hutson— and learning from Vince Lombardi that “winning is what the game is all about.” If I may boast a bit, I made good friends with Coach Lombardi’s relatives in Waukesha, where they ran a tavern for factory workers and college students.

Of course Obama’s home state is next-door with the City of the Big Shoulders on the edge of Lake Michigan and Little Egypt with its gangsters and Belly Dancers at the other end. Unlike Wisconsin it doesn’t have as many cheese factories and breweries, and the ghost of Senator Joe McCarthy and methane gas and other malodorous eruptions. That is not to say that Illinois is free of strange political odors. A goofy governor is now featured in the Second City comedy group, and his selection to replace Obama is on wobbly grounds. In a recent interview conducted by Chris Matthews of Hardball, I thought Senator Burris was saying “Skid Row pro,” but he was trying to show off his mastery of legalese by saying “quid pro quo,” meaning “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Other states are having a harvest of nutty governors: cheating on wives, double-crossing his wife on Father’s Day in Argentina, seceding from the Union, terminating his state in an ocean of economic woes, killing wolves in Alaska from airplanes and leaving them behind to die an agonizing death. “I didn’t bribe Blago.”

BACK TO BARRACK

Let’s not overlook Obama’s visit in Germany to the Nazi extermination camp. So you’re guessing I have no connection to Buchenwald. Don’t count me out, Skippy Skinner.

The slender, white haired gentleman acting as Obama’s guide was once a 12-year-old boy incarcerated in the camp that killed thousands of Jews. Both his mother and father were gassed and burned, but Elie Wiesel lived to write about his terrible experiences. I combined two of his books into a play called Deadlock, which was produced twice at the Culver Academies in Culver, IN.

It was in 1963 that I wrote my adaptation—Deadlock—of Wiesel’s two books, Night, the horrendous account of his experiences in the death camps, and Dawn, the birth of Israel after WW II.

To save this blogger from going totally eyeless, please scroll down to March 2006, that was the time Oprah had selected to feature Wiesel’s Night.

I hope you’re not confused by these sudden jumps in time. Hang in there. To return to this June, after Obama and Wiesel return from their visit to the death camp in Germany, the white-racist nut forces his way into the Holocaust Museum in Washington and kills a guard, halting the rehearsal of a new play entitled Anne and Emmett, a dialogue between two victims of hatred: Anne Frank and Emmett Till, a Chicago boy who whistled at a white woman in Mississippi and was murdered.

Are you still with me? If not, I suggest you take another look at the blog dated March 2006 and then read Wiesel’s books.

A FEW SCENES

As a boy in Hitler’s killing camps and later as a Jewish freedom fighters in the Promised Land, Elisha is the main character in both books. In the struggle to end the British Mandate, he is given the task of executing an English captain. While working up his courage to carry out the assignment, he is asked this question by a fellow fighter: “There’s just one thing I don’t know. What saved you? Six million Jews were gassed and burned to death. Why were you at age 12, saved?

ELISHA:

I OWE MY LIFE TO A LAUGH. You didn’t expect a funny story, did you? It was during one winter at Buchenwald. We wore rags, and hundreds of people died of cold every day. In the morning we had to leave our barracks and wait outside in the snow for as long as two hours until the barracks had been cleaned. One day I felt so sick that I was sure the exposure would kill me, and so I stayed behind, in hiding. I was discovered and dragged before the barracks leader. He caught hold of my throat and said dispassionately: “I’m going to choke you.” His powerful hands closed in on my throat and in my enfeebled condition I did not even try to put up a fight.

The blood gathered in my head. It was several times its normal size; I must have looked like a caricature, a miserable clown. I was sure from one minute to the next that it would burst into a thousand shreds like a child’s toy balloon. At this moment the barracks leader took a good look at me and found the sight so comical that he released his grip and burst out laughing.

He laughed so long that he forgot his intentions to kill. It’s funny, isn’t it, that I should owe my life to a killer’s sense of humor. The funny story… always the funny story.

THE BEGGAR

Drifting in and out of the play is the Beggar, a manifestation of an Old Testament prophet. While talking about looking into dark windows and men’s eyes, he sounds a bit like Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.”

BEGGAR:

You mustn’t be afraid of the dark. Night is purer than day. It is better for thinking and making love and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of the words spoken during the day take on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things by night that should be said only in the light of day.

(TAKING THE BOY ELISHA BY THE ARM)

I’m going to teach you how to distinguish between night and day. Always look at a window, and failing that, look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face.

ELISHA SPEAKS AS A MAN:

I never forgot his words. Every evening I stand near a window to witness the arrival of night. And every evening I see a face outside. In the beginning, I saw only the face of the beggar. Later, after my father died in the camp, I saw his face with his eyes grown big with death and memory. And now I see in the blackness only the face of my sins.

The Beggar:

You think the God of your childhood died in the death camps. You believe that all hope for you is dead. When you rediscover your faith, you will want to live again. Do you see what I mean?

READERS FIRE BACK

        

   “The End of the World?” Blog, a few months back, drew heavy reader response. From the tip of South America, Doc queries:  “Do you really think Doomsday is coming in three years?  That means I’ve got to get in as much travel in a hurry.”

   From Lady P.O.: “Wrong. Wrong. I know for a fact that you can’t be right. I just took one of those online Facebook quizzes and it says I’ll live until 2023, which come to think about it, doesn’t give me much time either. More later. I got to get cracking.”

   Ruthie was slightly overwhelmed with 8 years of blogging to catch up on. She writes: “As for moving over to the next universe –VERY, VERY

interesting that you came up with the same 12/21/2012 end-of-the-world that I heard was predicted by the Incas or Mayans many centuries ago.”

    Karl the Actor is not exactly bewitched by my ability to foretell the future in this e-mail:  “O, you who see beyond the illusion what this world truly is!

  If the end does come, and mankind is not prepared, you can say, Cassandra-like,

- Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

O, Prophet, O, Seer, a question:

Is schwein flu the harbinger,

the first outrider of the coming   apocalypse?

   Speak O mighty prophet,

   I charge thee.”

Answer to Karl:  Sorry, you cannot charge me—I’m a nonprophet operation.

 

           THE GREAT DEPRESSION

 

   From Marcia the Novelist comes her version of what happened to her during the first Great Depression. She is, of course, much younger than I, and as you will see in the next section a much better writer than yours truly, the Blind Blogger.

                  Palestine, nicknamed “Little Egypt” was an incorporated town with 1200 citizens, 4 churches, 2 saloons, 2 doctors, and a town park with a live zoo. The zoo had 2 black bears, 5 monkeys and a raccoon that someone must have felt sorry for so gave it a home. After the monkey bit a child’s finger (no idea where the parent was), and a bear lumbered off campus one winter, the old boy with the badge closed the zoo, but not the park.

     My dad owned 3 farms (of various sizes), a farm implements business, and a grain elevator. The Illinois Central Railroad tracks ran alongside the elevator and carried grain to city markets. Later, during WWII, I would ride the train to attend Indiana University in Bloomington. (My dad had gas stamps for his farms, but didn’t let us use them for family travels).

     My best friend was a neighbor named Malcolm. We played with little cars in his front yard that had a big Maple tree. Its huge, lumpy roots stuck out of the ground and made great bridges and tunnels. I’ve loved cars ever since.

     At the age of 5 and up, I helped my mother and sister with a yearly Prather Elevator bean soup dinner for all the farmers’ families of the area. With the help of some of the farm wives, my mother prepared bean soup, corn bread, and pie. Crowds of families would come to see the latest John Deere farm equipment… but mainly to have a free meal. In those hard times, many mothers used Prather Elevator sacks to make dresses and shirts for their children.

     It was a time of no jobs and starving families. Men would ride the rails to Palestine to beg for food for their families. My Grandpa Prather was the Presbyterian Minister of the town and Grandmother always had a cup and platter out on their back porch to feed the “tramps” and “hobos” that came to ask for food. One day she was busy baking for a church supper. I was 6 and helping her. A hobo came to the back door asking for food and, being pressed for time, sent him away without food. A short while later she asked me to run and get that man so she could give him some food.

     I never once heard my family talk about the depression. We had food from our farm close to town to provide us with meat, milk and vegetables. I do recall chocolate pudding with pecans, still a favorite, instead of fancy pastries for dessert. It was a fact… money was hard to come by during the Depression, but we made it. Of course, we didn’t have to give up television, Game Boys, American Girl dolls, or speedboats. We came through those hard times, and maybe are just a wee bit proud of ourselves for not being wimps about it.

     Thanks, Harvey, for your memories. It sure brought back lots of my own!

 

             A Firari Safari

 

   A final word from Pambi, “I found Travels with the Blind Blogger interesting and poignant. I would love to read your autobiography one day. Many would love reading about your very interesting and thought provoking life.”

 

 

 

 

TRAVELS WITH THE BLIND BLOGGER

    You may want to think twice before going on a trip with a housebound docent. Except for three days in a hospital, I found out that my reduced vision has prevented me from playing the roles of a modern Magellan or a Vasco de Gamma.

 

     In the meantime, I’ve noticed that family members or friends would rather take my shopping lists in hand than to take my arm and lead me into stores, where those noxious displays in aisles are immediately designated as endangered species. I must confess that I take some pleasure in demolishing those annoying road blockers.

 

          Baghdad on the Bay

 

     With that warning in mind, let’s go around the world. Don’t worry, you’ll find that I’m an experienced tour guide. A few years ago, after I had written two reviews of books about San Francisco, I was invited to conduct tours around Chinatown. I didn’t last long. While taking a group of Methodist Sunday School teachers around Chinatown, I took a wrong turn. I led them down an alley and into a factory that made pornographic fortune cookies. 

 

      One of the books that I reviewed was Chinatown—A Walking Tour and the second was a history of young kidnapped Chinese girls brought to Chinatown, locked up in wire cages and put on display for potential customers. You may be surprised to learn that the little ladies soon enjoyed their pampered existence and resisted being released from such sordid service.

 

     But I go astray. The most recent news came from KV, a former student and now an astute movie critic, one of the best in the Bay area. A few days ago, he had the onerous task of attending the International Film Festival and had to view 40 movies. KV writes: “My favorite film so far this year, Coraline, the animated story of a teenage girl who sees ghosts.”

 

           Next Stop—Bolivia

 

      Moving down the Pacific Ocean to South America, I find great pleasure in re-introducing you to Doc, a frequent contributor to this blog. He and his son Jake just returned from a jolly time in Brazil. (I created a bit of doggerel about “feeling ever so ill, after reading what was said by the President of Brazil, the global economy crisis is not caused by his lie, just because my eyes are blue and my skin is white.”  I messed that up—lies is supposed to rime with “dead blue eye”). An author of a number of political books, Doc has just had an article published in CounterPoint about the massacre in Binghamton, NY., where the day before I had two close relatives working on signs. Doc wrote: “Shortly after the murder of 13 innocent people, a Taliban sheikh in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. But since the gunman was a Vietnamese-American and lived with his parents just outside of Binghamton, the sheikh’s claim smacks of mere jihadist opportunism.”

 

               Spaghetti, Anyone?

 

      Let’s go across the Atlantic to Italy. Herodotus, a dedicated contributor to this blog, was recently traveling down the Italian boot when he and his group got all shook up. It was no FAULT of mine.

 

     “The 26 students and five colleagues were spending a week in Spoleto, where we were quartered in a convent. On the last day of our visit, as we traveled toward Rome, the earthquake hit nearby in L’Aquila. We were aware that something big had happened, but it was later that we found out about the magnitude of the terrible disaster.

 

         SPEAKING OF STUDENTS

     Do you recognize these two?

 

                   

 

  I’ll get to them later.

 

     With travel restrictions being lifted in Cuba, I’ll be inviting you along on a trip there in the future. Even before Castro gained control, I had Cuban students in my classes. For example, while Dictator Batista still ruled, I had his children and wards in my English class. I found it rather annoying that their bodyguards stood outside the classroom and, from time to time, would stare at the students and me through the window in the door. One time I was going to ask them to come in or go away, but a Cuban student said

“Es cuidado” or something like that, warning me his guards were packing heat.

 

     So on this journey, let’s skip Cuba and stop in the town of the Boston Tea Party. There, a medical student, Philip Markoff (who carried his gun in Gray’s Anatomy) instead of dedicating his career to saving lives, instead took lives. Pedro, a faithful contributor from Boston, had this to say: “It’s a good thing to rid the medical profession of thieves and murderers. Fortunately there are few premeditated murders in the profession, but unfortunately the thieving takes many forms—granted not at gun point.”

 

     I sometimes think that the heartless killers are not possessed by evil, but lack a conscience to help them distinguish between good and evil. More on this topic next time:  Get the guns off the streets. La-laPierre and his gun lovers can go to NRA-Hell and fight it out there.

 

     Last week, citizens and students in the Columbine area commemorated the massacre at the school by the two killers in black raincoats.

 

           LAST STOP—DENVER

 

     I may require some help, for I haven’t been in this area since I was enrolled in a tech class at Fort Logan at the start of World War II. So I’ll get help

from another former student and author, John-lows, who sent me a  record of his sadness, three pages that deserve wider publication than my blog.

 

     “How nice to hear from you, Harvey. As you might imagine, Columbine High School and the massacre that took place there ten years ago are the themes this week. The Denver Post did a very professional job of keeping the events of that terrible day in perspective. Interestingly, five of the kids in the building that day have returned and now teach classes at Columbine.

 

     “There is a touching memorial to the slain kids in a  park next to the school. I visited it last spring and was deeply moved by the dignity and solemnity of it. “

                      

               

     “Each family was allowed to have one statement inscribed at the station in the memorial that honors their child.

     “Because law enforcement stayed outside the school, one teacher, Dave Sanders, died in his students’ arms three hours after being shot. Students tried to save his life by posting a sign in the window—1 is dying.

     “The kids who attend the school today do not have any significant memory of the murderous assault. That strikes me as a good thing in terms of a community getting on with life.”

 

                TOUR OVER

 

     My thanks to all those who shared their thoughts. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: Nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a

Word of it.”      --Omar

 

                  #######

END OF THE WORLD

          

     Doomsday predictions are no laughing matter, although cartoonists sometimes have a field day with the deadly topic, like the old man with a long beard, dressed in a gown, and holding a sign that reads:  “The End is Near.”

     The History Channel has been running some specials that trace dire predictions from the time of the Mayans into modern times:  A famous example is by T.S. Eliot, who wrote that the world will end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

     A more recent threat was made up by the team of Bush and Cheney in an attempt to justify invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s mythical H-bomb and its use to destroy our country have now been validated as White House dark lies. 

     The literatures of all civilizations reveal concerns with the world’s end. In classical Greek mythology, Apollo is one god with disciples supposedly able to predict the future, some of them with physical disabilities. Tiresias was blind, Cassandra made accurate prognostications, but was never believed. A seer-witch who lived in a cave drew inspirations for future events by sniffing the gas that leaked in through the ground.

     The Old and New testaments abound with tales and revelations of world destruction. After Lilith, Adams’s first wife, was driven out of God’s organic Garden, she engaged in terrible acts of destruction. And don’t believe those gays who insist that the first inhabitants of the Garden were Adam and Steve. 

     In another Biblical story, at a distance Abraham observed the heavy smoke from the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, sinful cities he and his family had escaped from the night before. 

     From fire to water, we should take note of the great flood that destroyed those sinners unable to book passage on Noah’s Ark. After the flood receded, God promised not to destroy mankind again and set a rainbow in the sky to remind us of His promise. Let’s hope He remembers to withhold fire and floods in modern times.

                    

     Some years ago, I wrote a play called “The Bridegrooms,” based on true events. This vehicle involves an end-of-the-world movement founded by William Miller during the first half of the 1800s.

     On March 3, 1844 the Millerites gathered on a hilltop and waited for Christ to come and open the Gates to Heaven. As you well know, the ascension failed to materialize.

     Eventually, the movement gave rise to the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witness. A copy of the script is in my archive of 20 original writings at the Huffington Library of the Culver Academies in Indiana.

                

     So how long do we have before Doomsday arrives?

     In my opinion, we have about three more years. I realize my prediction is rather doubtful, but you should be reminded that I have the physical disability of Tiresias, the blind prophet.

     Astronomers have recently discovered a Black Hole in the Milky Way. When the hole aligns itself with the Earth, chaos will reign. The North Pole will exchange positions with the South Pole. Cities along the coasts will be submerged. In the interiors winds will drive destructive fires in all directions.

     What is the date of Doomsday? December 21, 2012.

     Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just keep in mind the invitation of e.e. cummings:  “Listen, there’s a hell of a good universe next door, let’ go.”

                 ######

                

Oh no! NOT ANOTHER GREAT DEPRESSION

      I can tell you this, dear readers, there was nothing great about the first depression, when I was a grade-school kid eighty years ago.  Yes indeed, 80 years ago.

    

     Although I had to wear the hand-me-down bib overalls from two older brothers, I guess I was fortunate to belong to a family with a steady income. My dad owned a farm implement business with a garage to repair any machine, a hardware store, and a sawmill. Sometimes called “Pumpkin Center,” North Lowell was an unincorporated town, population 17, 7 of whom were my family. A railroad ran through the town so my mother fed unemployed men who rode the rails. Across the tracks from our place were a lumberyard with a manager who taught me how to collect stamps and opening my eyes to a huge world beyond the cow pastures, a train station with a master who taught me how to tap out messages in code and regaling me with stories about fun in the caboose, and a combination grocery store and saloon with an owner who let me tend bar and often took me fishing. With friends like that who needed a family that thought it was strange that I could read and write before enrolling in first grade.  

     

     When the nearby farmers couldn’t pay their bills, they would bring in farm produce like eggs, live chickens and other produce including an eviscerated pig. I dreaded the butchering season, a time for swimming in grease, watching a black machine stuffing meat into slippery casings, and preparing hams for the smoke house. The best part was the pigskin, a forerunner of pork rinds. The worst part consisted of pickled pigs’ feet and sauerkraut.

                

     If I remember correctly, this picture was taken at the time of my graduation from grade school. What I do remember for certain is that President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the economic downfall. My father believed that Hoover could not be trusted because he avoided looking you in the eye. Some PR man forgot to tell Herbert to look straight into the camera.

     I didn’t dare to share my theory that Calvin Coolidge, the president just before Hoover, shared the blame for the economic crisis. “Silent Cal” suffered from verbal constipation and kept his secrets close to his vest. One Sunday his wife was feeling poorly, and he went to church alone. When he returned, she asked what the sermon was about. He informed her: “Sin.” When she asked what the minister said about sin, he replied: “He was against it.”

     He was a favorite target of the witty members of the Algonquin Round Table. When Coolidge’s death was announced, Dorothy Parker asked, “How could they tell?” Dorothy had one of the sharpest tongues among the group. You might say that they were the depression’s Saturday Night Live. Another famous one-liner by Dorothy” “That woman knows 80 foreign languages, but can’t say no in any of them.” Once when George S. Kaufman was asked by a press agent how to get his leading lady’s name in Kaufman’s paper, Kaufman replied: “Shoot her.”

     Unfortunately, the lighter moments were few and far between. Empty bellies are no laughing matter. Family providers out of work often sent children to bed on the edge of starvation.

     One event sticks in my mind. Veterans of World War I organized a march on Washington, DC to get some additional payment for their service to their country. Regular Army soldiers under the command of General MacDouglas stopped them with live ammunition.

     I was reminded of that hideous mistreatment while listening to Rush Limbaugh boasting to his fat-cat conservatives that since they had earned their wealth, there was no reason to share it with the under-provided. What a disgusting display of greed, earning another standing ovation during the self-appointed GOP mouthpiece’s ninety-minute tirade. One of these days those Cuban cigars Rush smokes will take him down.

             

       

     But I was talking about the first Great Depression. We managed to survive it, so I guess the present one will gradually fold away.

     Next time, if there is a next time, I’ll have some suggestions how hospital emergency rooms should look and be run. I’ll never forget the young man with the torn shoulder who cried and moaned for two hours with no attention from the arrogant hospital attendants.

 

     Until then, say a prayer for the starving children and the weeping wounded.

                        #####

My Soul to Keep

After not missing a month for eight years, I'm sorry to announce that medical treatment for reduced vision and a possible gallbladder operation have ended my run. After three days in the hospital though, I emerged with all my organs in tact. Why? I don’t know, but it was the most noninvasive operation in medical history. I hope to make a comeback, but it will take some time.

My regards to all my faithful readers.

p.s. Thank you to my former students and faithful friends.

FROM:

Pam B.

After eight years you deserve a rest, YOU will definitely be missed!  I wish you my very best with your medical treatments and an easy recovery.  Our son had his gallbladder removed with little fanfare – and it was removed through his belly button! 

Please know you are in my and John’s thoughts as you go through this.   We’ll wait to hear when you are ready to get back to it.

Pedro

SO SORRY TO LEARN OF YOUR CURRENT GALL BLADDER TROUBLE, AND THE TREATMENT PROBLEM WITH YOUR EYES.  WE WISH YOU A SPEEDY RECOVERY, AND HOPE YOU WILL BE PUBLISHING AGAIN IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

Modest Editor

Not the first time you've been "benched." We're all looking for your early return to good health and prolific blogging.

 

John F.

God bless you, Harvey. You are in my prayers. Looking forward to your next blog.

And finally, I would like to share with you an unusual coincidence of Abe Lincoln. There is a fusion craze of late that melds portraits of Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama. Here is Ron English’s rendition.

This is a rerun from 1949 when Carroll College (now Carroll University) students created a similar evolutionary portrait, only then it was of a little known actor. The caption under the picture reads, “Any resemblance between Harvey Firari and Abe Lincoln is strictly intentional. Harvey a senior at Carroll College, plays the title role in ‘Abe Lincoln in Illinois’ which is slated for the Avon theater, Waukesha, Thursday. Students at the college feel that Harvey, a lanky, six footer from Portage, really looks like Abe, and this is how they’re emphasizing their point: A huge charcoal drawing of the real Lincoln hangs in Great Hall. Gradually the Carroll Players are dubbing out Abe’s features and substituting Harvey’s. Students’ mental picture of Abe change along with the portrait. Pictured at rehearsal are ‘Lincoln’ and his two sons.

I’m pleased to have something in common with both Abe and Barack. The next chapter could be of Obama morphing into a picture of me – they say you age 2 years for every 1 year in the White House.

I close with an Abe anecdote. A boastful, minor official said during a Lincoln gathering that he was the reason Abe was elected to the highest office in the land. Lincoln turned to him and said, “So you are the one responsible for getting me into this mess!”