“Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water.”
― Albert Schweitzer
My daughter seeks out the piano. She plays slowly and thoughtfully.
The first movement of Copland's Violin Concerto
arranged for solo piano.
The old local dentist, a white man with family ties in the area, who retired recently, used to do root canals and whatever else you needed, but the new dentist, a Korean woman, does not. There is a traveling endodontist (no, really) who swings by every whipstitch, as my grandmother would have said, but he is booked up months in advance. I honestly don't get that -- if you need a root canal you are in some nasty pain: how could you wait months to get that fixed? I guess if ya gotta, ya gotta.
Anyway, we found our man an endodontist in Spokane who would take him right away and I flew him there first before taking my uncle back to his appointment. The weather was nasty and I decided to take the King Air rather than the Baron. It was like up and down and there we were, about 45 minutes block to block, hitting FL230 for about a dozen or so minutes, trucking along at 310 knots, blowing through about a hundred gallons of go juice, as dad called Jet-A. Just one of the employee perks of working for Ranch Wanda, lol. White glove treatment for the calloused hand.
I thought about how a dentist deciding to retire cost the people he served so much money. If I hadn't flow him, my man would have had to drive to Spokane, hours on the road, probably had to have gotten a motel for the night and driven home the next day, losing a day of work, so gasoline cost, fast food or restaurant meals, motel, wear and tear on the car, lost wages .... And that was just one person. Imagine all the other people who had to go out of town for dentistry and all the lost income to the area.
Then there is something else lost besides money. The old dentist knew his patients, often knew their parents and grandparents, had treated them for not just years, but decades. I remembered him from when I was a kid. It was not scary to go to him. He was friendly, chatted with you about this and that, your mom or brother, what his son was doing, the kid who won the roping contest. He even knew the names of people's dogs. The office was full of chatter and gossip, jokes and laughter. So it was kind of fun to get your teeth taken care of by him.
But the new person -- and don't get me wrong, the community is lucky to have a dentist and appreciates that -- but this new person, well, it's different. She's competent, no doubt. But there is no small talk. All the old staff are gone and the way it works now is a person does the preliminary stuff like checking your blood pressure, reviewing any changes to your health, going over your chart and so forth. If you need work done, then the dentist comes in, doesn't even say hello, the only communication is directly related to the treatment you are undergoing, and when she's done she leaves, doesn't say anything, just leaves. It's kind of weird. She has an assistant do everything else. But she is fast. Zip, zip. No pauses to talk about the car wreck Wade Scofield's daughter's boyfriend got into last Friday on the way back from dropping off the log splitter he fixed for Jack Spratt's cousin Kevin when a deer jumped out in front of him on that curve just past the old Dodge place and he swerved to avoid it and ran off the road almost hitting the same tree that Dave Miller crashed into and killed himself when he missed the curve coming back drunk from that tavern that the county sheriff had to shut down out at Three Corners because it was home to some sporting ladies. One of them was Louise Hixenbaugh, remember her? She got in a terrible fight with her husband --what was his name? Sam Brixton, that's it; he was up from Gulchville, the Gulchville Brixtons, a bad bunch, all of them, if you ask me -- and ran off with Jed Cranston who had the feed store next to the old Gulf gas station, but that didn't last. Oh, she was a pretty one. Did I...? Well, I tell no tales on myself. Anyway, ol' Dave was quite the character. I remember one time ....
The Korean lady dentist takes the last half of December and the first half of January off to go back to Korea. You get the sense that we are not really real to her. If you know what I mean. We are just dollar signs. It's good to have a local dentist, but.... Ya know? Sigh. Can somebody take me back to before?
My uncle was pretty cheerful before his visit to his dermatologist, but was subdued after. He needs to see an ophthalmologist. There's a discoloration on one of his eyes that needs to be checked out. He warned me not to get old because there was always something wearing out or breaking. I felt bad that he wasn't feeling randy and feisty as he usually does. I'd gotten used to that.
I wanted to make him feel better so I thought of something, hesitated, and then told him about the, um, gentleman's service shoppe I had blundered into on one of our previous visits to town. He perked right up so I asked if he wanted to go and he gave me an enthusiastic yes, so we went looking for it. I wasn't sure if I remembered exactly where it was, but we found it and he strode right in.
As I watched him go, I thought how strange it was that at his age he still had the overpowering urge, the need, to engage in sexual congress. What was the point? Why was he, was any man, I guess, whatever their age, willing, eager, to spend hundreds of dollars for three or four minutes of this variety of pleasure, culminating in a couple of seconds of...whatever a man feels when he ejaculates. Good, I guess. I get it. The Big O. I suppose it's just the innate urge to reproduce programed into us by our genes. As long as we are alive we are compelled to try to reproduce. The reason we exist as biological organisms is to pass on our genes. Richard Dawkins laid this all out back in the Seventies in his book The Selfish Gene. Throw that in with the more or less contemporary Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson and you've got a pretty dismaying glimpse at this old world of ours.
According to Wilson, an organism's evolutionary success is measured by the extent to which its genes are represented in the next generation. Period. That's it. Every human behavior from altruism to aggression is dedicated to that end in mindless biological determinism. We are just gene machines. Free will is an illusion in a soulless, material world. Thus an 80-year-old man must mate with a female in a last attempt to spread his genes into the future. Those genes drive his behavior, not his free will.
You doubt I really had all those thoughts in the few seconds it took my uncle to leave my side and walk through the door of that whorehouse? I did. In a kaleidoscopic flash. That and much more. My stupid brain trying again to hurl me into dismay, depression and despair. (Of course, I looked up the quote later to verify it.)
 |
| Wanda Kosakiewicz |
Someone described Sartre as looking like something hanging off the outside of Notre Dame. But Camus looked like a Gallic version of Humphrey Bogart. Um...I guess. Kind of. But he was like totally cool, man. One look from him and I would have flopped on my back, legs spread, hips raised, waiting for him to wrap us both in his trenchcoat. He wouldn't have had to rip my bodice. I would have ripped it for him. Haha. Kidding. He's not my type. Neither is Bogart for that matter. Sterling Hayden in Asphalt Jungle is more my kind of guy.
Now I'm thinking of that song from Easy Rider where someone sings, "Don't Bogart that joint." What did that mean? I understand each word, but the sentence baffles me.I digress. From what? Um....
Anyway, after a while, my uncle strutted into the coffee shop wearing a grin the Cheshire cat would have envied. Spotting me, he eased into my booth, patted my hand and just sat there smiling at me.
"What?" I asked.
"What, indeed," he said, "what what indeed."
"I take it you enjoyed yourself."
"Two. Two mints in one," he said.
"What? You mean you --"
"Yup. Two of the most gorgeous gals."
"Two? But you're like 80."
"Not yet, Wanda, don't add years."
"Well, you're pretty --"
"I came in both of them! Twice I did come!"
I looked around the diner. "Keep your voice down, for crying out loud."
"I want the world to know!"
"The world doesn't need to know."
"Yes it does! Oh, yes, it does!" He started to stand up.
"Will you sit down! Control yourself."
The waitress came over and asked if he wanted to see a menu. He asked if they had steak. She said they had a roast beef and mashed potato special. Or a meatloaf and mashed potato special. He asked which she recommended. She said the meatloaf was made from day-old roast beef. He ordered the roast beef and a beer. She said they didn't serve alcoholic drinks, so he said fine, coffee. She called him dearie and honey and he called her sweetie and toots. No, really. Toots.
When she swished away, his gaze following her, he looked back at me, patted my hand again and said, "Seriously, Wanda, thank you. You know what a man needs. I feel great now. I could beat the world."
"Okay, but don't tell mom. Please don't tell mom. She'd kill me."
"And me, too. This is our secret, Wanda girl."
"So, I guess you'll be wanting to come back?"
"You betcha!"
"Maybe they have a customer reward program. Ten visits and you get one free."
"Is that how you'd run the place?"
"Honestly? No. Wouldn't be any need. But I'd sell souvenirs of your visit."
"Like what?"
"Photos, I guess. Panties, stockings, lacy bras, heels. Buy 'em wholesale and sell them for a pretty penny."
"I'd buy them. Got any of yours you want to sell?"
"Oh, cut it out, you old goat."
"Just asking. I know guys..."
"I bet you do."
"... and I heard about the guy you give shoes to."
"Crap. That was supposed to be a secret. No such thing, I guess."
"So how did you two start that?"
"Well, since he blabbed I will, too." And I told him the whole story, which I've written about before. He laughed a good hearty laugh.
"The thing is, though, now that I'm doing this for him, I can't stop. You know? That's what being considerate and non-judgemental gets you. Into a bind. I should have read him the riot act from the get-go."
"You want me to tell him to lay off?"
"Would you?"
"Sure. If you want me to."
"Let me think about it. I don't want him to get mad and quit or something."
About this time I remembered root canal guy and checked my messages. Nothing from him so I texted him. He fired right back that he was done with the endodontist and had gone shopping at Nordstrom's to get his wife and kids some things and when were we going to pick him up. I said meet us at the airport in about two hours. If you're hungry we can all eat at Frank's.
The waitress had put the bill down on our table a bit before, a hint for us to get moving and open up the spot for other customers. I pushed it to unky. He gave me the old arched eyebrow but coughed up and we made tracks for our plane, leaped into the sky and headed for KSFF. Once there we met our passenger and caught an Uber to Frank's diner. Unc got his steak there with fries, he still having an appetite from his day's activities. I had a BLT with potato salad and Mr. Tooth settled for a meatloaf sandwich on untoasted white bread and mashed potatoes. Both the men had two beers each, local microbrews. I had iced tea. Then we skedaddled for home, enjoying a lovely sunset above the clouds.
Uncle, feeling pretty good, began singing from his repertoire of bawdy songs and Mr. Tooth hesitated, looking at me, when unc urged him to join in. I smiled and nodded and so he cut loose, too. Let the boys have their fun. Then they began trading dirty limericks. Unc had been in the co-pilot's seat and I told him to go back in the passenger compartment with his singing partner so I could concentrate on flying.
After a few minutes they both fell silent. I glanced back. They were asleep and I had the sky to myself.
It's one of those nights. Everyone's asleep but I'm still up, finally wrapping up a long, long day. The house is silent. My eyes are sleepy but my mind is awake in a fuzzy sort of way. I see what's in front of me, but it's distorted, fading in and out, and my thoughts drift toward loneliness and regret, regret for lost days, lost times, lost loves.
The pay was good, $100 an hour for nude posing like this. There was never anything graphic, just artsy stuff. I had an agent who dealt only with known professionals. It was definitely a step up from posing for amateurs or art school students, if rather tedious. And paid a lot better, believe me. I was contacted by Playboy to be in one of their college girl pictorials, Girls of the PAC-10, after my agent sent them my portfolio, but nothing ever came of it. That would have earned me $500 -- not an hour, just a flat fee. So considering how much time that would have involved, no great loss.
I met a woman who did appear in one of those college pictorials in the 1990s, I forget which year or which college, probably NYU. Anyway, I think she said she got paid $200 or $250, something like that. She was an artist living in New York City. She's since had her paintings shown at Harper's Chelsea 534 and elsewhere, so she's doing all right in that field.
 |
| Light 'em up, gurlfren! Not my job. Just having fun with the boys. |
********
I also ran across the item above it from some website or something. It gave me a chuckle but I have no idea what it is related to. Oh, those good old days, huh.
Then I found some files from a message board for women working another job I had back then. Got lost browsing through it remembering a lot of stuff I had totally forgotten about. One thing was this:
What'd I say? What'd I say?! And why was it censored? Haha.
Then, on a more serious note, discussing the job, there was this:
That was one of the most memorable jobs I've ever had. I was like 18~19 years old, plunged into...oh, man.... But the women I worked with were just the best. Everybody helped everybody else, plenty of laughter and appreciation for each other and what we had to deal with. Wasn't a lot of money in it, but for most every dollar was a dollar dearly needed. I didn't last long, though. Like all the jobs in those days, a few months and I was gone.
 |
| The de Bohun swan, symbolizing their descent from the legendary Swan Knight, first told about in the 11th century Chansons de Geste collected in Le Roman du Chevalier au Cygne. |
Reading more family genealogy, I find that I am related by marriage to Henry the Fourth of England. I am descended from his first wife, Mary de Bohun, whom he married when she was 11, five years before he became king. She gave him six children, dying giving birth to the sixth, at the age of 25 on June 4, 1394.
That sort of thing was common in those days. Life for a woman was difficult and short.
One of her children, born when she was 18, became Henry V, the hero, shall we say, of the 100 Years War and especially Agincourt.
Mary was the younger daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton. When he died, she, along with her sister, inherited his estate.
The Bohun family originally came from the Cotentin Peninsula in western Normandy in the department of Manche. That's near the arrondissement of Saint-Lô by what today are the communes of Saint-André-de-Bohon and Saint-Georges-de-Bohon (that's the way the French spelled the surname). Apparently, ruins of their castle are still visible near Saint-André. I should go take a look next time I am in France, assuming there still will be a France safe for a white woman to travel in.
The founder of the line was Humphrey de Bohun, godfather of William the Conqueror. He sailed with him to England and fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, for which he was awarded the manor of Tatterford in Norfolk as recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book. Otherwise he stayed in Normandy.
Humphrey founded a Benedictine Priory at Saint-Georges-de-Bohon in 1092, donating the local church to the Abbey of Marmoutier. The charter for this priory was witnessed by members of William the Conqueror’s immediate family.
Humphrey died in 1113 and while most of the rest of his descendants continued on in Normandy and France, his youngest son, Humphrey I de Bohun, focused his family’s future in England. He married Maud of Salisbury, thus acquiring the Barony of Trowbridge. From then on for the next 350 years his family kept adding land holdings until his descendants became the Earls of Hereford and Essex, and hereditary Constables of England.
Another line of his descendants established the Bohuns of Midhurst in West Sussex. This branch gave birth to Richard de Bohun (Bishop of Coutances) and Josceline de Bohon (Bishop of Salisbury).
Mary de Bohun's great-great-great-grandfather, another Humphrey, was one of the 25 barons elected to compel King John to observe the Magna Carta in 1215. He joined the Fifth Crusade in July, 1217, going to Egypt where he fought at the Siege of Damietta. He died in the Holy Land on June 1, 1220. Mary’s great-great-grandfather, Humphrey, took the cross, as they called it, and joined the Seventh Crusade in 1250. Gilbert de Bohun joined the Ninth Crusade.
Honestly, I think it is kind of -- no very -- cool that I am descended from both an enforcer of the Magna Carta and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Oh, and the Crusades thing, too.
I have to say, though, reading about all this, I got sort of a Tess of the d'Urbervilles vibe. (*Looks left and right, up at the sky, whistles tunelessly, twiddles thumbs behind back....*)
Thinking about these ancestors, I remembered some British guy dismissively saying to me that all Americans claim they are descended from the Duke of York or some nonsense like that and I responding no, more likely an American would claim to be descended from Jesse James.
He didn't get that at all. First, he didn't know who Jesse James was, and when I explained he was baffled: why would anyone want to claim an outlaw as an ancestor? Well, Americans do, and look down on snooty pants types who claim to be descended from some limp-wristed limey poof with a posh title. They'd rather claim descent from horse thieves and bank robbers, the Order of the Bandana and Crossed Colts, shall we say, than any foreign royalty. Why? That's just the way we are. Ya know? I'm talking about real Americans, of course, not all these Johnny-come-latelies and assorted glomers-on and parasites.
Foreigners honestly don't get that Americans are really interested in America and don't much care about the rest of the world. That's not because they are dull-witted oafs, as the foreigners suppose. But because America and it's history -- our history -- belongs to us and it is astounding, mesmerizing, appalling, wonderful...just everything in human experience has happened here. And just a few generations ago not a thousand years ago.
Old-stock Americans, as they are called nowadays rather than just actual Americans, take pride in claiming descent from the earliest arrivals to these shores that they can. Thus one will cite his ancestors aboard the Mayflower while another will top that with descent from the Jamestown colonists. But their ancestors before those...eh, who cares?
The scions of the seccesh will proudly give you a Genesis-like list of descendants from their ancestor who fought at Spotsylvania, but don't have any particular interest in who their ancestors were before coming to America. Descendants of unionist do not do that as often, if at all, but also don't have a great deal of interest in their overseas ancestors.In the 1939 movie Midnight, starring Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert, Colbert plays an American chorus girl stranded in Paris posing as a European princess. Getting tired of the gig, when asked what her lineage was, she snaps "Choctaw and Scotch-Irish!"
When he was on one of his European trips, Mark Twain was queried as to his ancestors. He stated with some pride that he was a direct descendant of Adam and Eve. That's your American for you. Nuts to rank and privilege.
I had a thought about Henry IV, too. He was the first king of England to speak English since the Norman conquest, which is an aide-mémoire as we might put it that the English were a defeated and conquered people who were reminded of that fact every day for centuries, but in the end they overcame that and recovered, then went on to do great things. We should always keep such lessons from history in mind, especially in these troubled times.
Henry also gave the order to burn the Lollards alive for heresy. Lollards were what is called proto-Protestants. They translated the Bible into English and believed ordinary people should be able to read it for themselves, among other things. So they were pronounced anathema and persecuted unto death. Very Muslim-like of the Catholics, if you ask me. But Catholics don't do that sort of thing anymore. Hint to the Muzzies.
Another thought I had, or where my thoughts strayed, was about Gregory Clark's book, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility. The Amazon blurb:
"How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does it influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique―tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods―renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies.
"Clark examines and compares surnames in such diverse cases as modern Sweden and Qing Dynasty China. He demonstrates how fate is determined by ancestry and that almost all societies have similarly low social mobility rates. [The book reveals] the deeply entrenched force of inherited advantage,"
Clark's latest book, originally titled For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls, but renamed To Have and Have Not, could not find a publisher, so he has made it available free to download. Click the link to get it.
I wrote this in a blog I had some years ago. I wouldn't do any of these things today, but back in the day I was a rascal, for sure.
I've been busy dealing with the Patagonian estancia and with all the extra workload it's given me I began thinking why did I ever get involved with this and then I realized it was because of Jeff. This was what he wanted to do but didn't have a chance to carry out. So I just completed the task. I'm channeling him, in a way. He's working through me to accomplish his goal.
Once I thought about it that way I relaxed and just did what needed to be done. I even chattered with Jeff in my head as I did things, explaining to him what I was doing, asking his advice sometimes. Did he reply? I kind of thought so. In fact, one time while I was sitting at his office desk going over things, I heard the big overstuffed chair where he always sat to look out the window and think creak and the ottoman scrape as if someone had sat down in it, nudging the ottoman aside. I turned to look and see who it was, thinking maybe my mother had come in and sat down without my noticing. But there was no one there. The room was empty.
I got up and went out on the landing and called "Mom?" I heard her respond from downstairs. I asked if she had just been in the office and she said no, she'd been sitting with the baby.
I went back into the office. I felt light somehow. "Hey, Jeffie," I whispered.
"They say foul things of Old Times still lurk
In dark forgotten corners of the world.
And gates still gape to loose on certain nights
Shapes pent in Hell."
—Justin Geoffrey
“I’ve always liked to drive alone at night. There is a sentimental brightness to things. I always see the world perfectly then, see it in all its great pathetic clarity. I become invincible, beyond life and death. With the hum of wheels under me, I can love the human race as I never can at any other time. I can think great cloudy thoughts, and tremble with the power of life surging in me. I resolve then to have a dozen children and live forever. It seems possible.”
― Shirley Ann Grau
"I want the old days back again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world falling about my ears."
― Margaret Mitchell
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury
Don't you worry, I won't let them shoot you. You can eat my roses. I don't care. I have plenty more behind an eight-foot tall fence.
I saw you when you were a little fawn. I know your mom. I call her "Split Ear" because she has a damaged ear she got fighting with another doe. I saw the wound when it was fresh and bloody. That was before you were born.
I don't know who your sire was, but that autumn I heard antlers clashing in the field behind the deodor cedars and the Afghan pines that were planted in 2001. But I think I know your offspring. I'm not sure.
As long as you stay around here and as long as I am in charge, you will be safe. I'd like to pet you, but I know you wouldn't allow it. You have your dignity, and you are not tame and do not want to be. You are a wild stag, free and proud. In charge of your own fate.
That's as it should be.
So I piled everybody into the van, one of those big old E-350 Econoline jobs and hit the road. We had nine souls on board: me and mom, my mini-me, the baby and the toddler, the two boys and two aunts.
Along the way I had to stop for gas and to give everybody a bathroom break. The pump hose was twisted and I was trying to get it untwisted when a man filling up on the other side stepped around and said here let me do that and I let him. He looked in his early forties, broad-shouldered, fit, no gut, wearing jeans, tee and a battered ball cap. His hands were rough and calloused, arms tanned. Once he had the hose untangled, he held up the nozzle, winked at me, inserted it into the filler pipe and got the juice flowing. Then he touched his hat brim with a finger and headed into the station office. I watched him go. My kids swirled around me, my aunts jabbered. My mom, holding the baby, looked at me.
The pump dinged and my mind snapped back into focus. While I was replacing the hose nozzle and trying to pay, the man drove off without me noticing. The pump wouldn't let me pay for some reason so I went inside to pay. The clerk said a guy had already paid for me. I couldn't quite process that for a second. Who? I asked and he said that guy in the baseball hat.
Oh. Who was he, I asked. He didn't know. The man was a regular customer but he always paid with cash. Did he say anything, I asked. No, he didn't, just said he was paying for the lady with the van.
I walked back to the van wondering. That fill-up was like a hundred and fifty bucks. Why would he spend that much money on someone he didn't know? He didn't chat me up or anything. Our whole interaction was less than a minute, with maybe a dozen words spoken between us.
My mom was watching me as I came back to the van and climbed in. What? she said. Oh, nothing I guess, I said. That guy who untangled the hose for me paid for our gas. Why would he do that?
My mother looked appraisingly at me then said you know why.
But he doesn't know me, I said.
My aunt, who had been listening, said, he knows you, dear, at least by sight. And she told me who he was and proceeded to fill me in on his biography.
While she was talking I started the van and drove back onto the highway. As I did so, my other aunt cut in to say, well, I don't know who he is but I wish he'd point his nozzle at me the way he did at you, dear. Both aunts cackled.
********
For lunch we stopped at a local burger stand. It's family owned and operated, serving burgers made with local beef and veggies. They bake their own buns. They also serve roast beef sandwiches. They make great potato salad for a side and serve homemade pies for dessert.
Behind the stand they have picnic tables under shade trees, a place for children to play and a dog-walking area. A bit behind the picnic tables is a creek to wade in or skip rocks.
After we finished eating, the kids rushed over to the playground and my aunts and mother went wading in the creek. The toddler and baby stayed with me to get their lunch. I unbuttoned my blouse and let them have at it. Using the double cradle hold I fed them both at the same time. If I didn't, my toddler would throw a fit. But I told him I needed him to show his little baby sister how to latch on and suckle without hurting mommy (He was the biter, not the baby, but now with a job to do he didn't bite and suckled gently.)
I relaxed against the picnic table, enjoying the day and the feel of my little ones against me, looking up at the fair-weather clouds. Some women get stressed out by breast feeding but I have always found a sort of dreamy pleasure in it. My whole body relaxes in contentment.
While I was nursing, a high-school-age boy sat down at the next table to eat his lunch. He glanced over at me a few times and I smiled at him. When he finished he asked if he could talk to me, calling me ma'am. I said sure and he came over and sat down beside me. He said he'd never seen a woman nursing before and was it okay if he looked and I said okay. His attitude was a nice change from the usual scowls and growls I got when I nursed in public.
He asked after me and my husband. I said I was a new widow and really hadn't got used to it yet. He said it was awful to hear that and his cousin's husband was killed in an accident at work last April and it was a really bad thing. Then he said he was just starting his junior year in high school and would be 16 next month. After he graduated he was going to join the Army. He wanted to be a tank driver. I said that was an admirable goal. I didn't know any tank drivers and he would be the first.
He asked me what it felt like to nurse and how long did I nurse, looking at my toddler, who was 29 months old, and greedily sucking away. He asked why I didn't bottle feed with formula and I explained the natural advantages of breast milk. He asked what breast milk tasted like and I said I didn't know, never having had the urge to drink my own milk. But I had let my husband taste it and he said it was sweet. You mean like Eagle brand, the teen asked me and I said maybe.
My toddler broke off nursing and scrambled down, asked where his grammy was, spotted her and trotted off. My baby unlatched and posseted, so I burped her, held her for a few minutes, then put her in her cradle and took out a couple of handiwipes to clean her and then myself. The boy watched everything I did intently. When I began wiping my breast he asked why I did that and I said to keep it clean and prevent any infection. He watched me holding my breast and using two wipes to make sure it was fully clean. When I opened another handiwipe to clean my other breast he asked if he could do it, please could he. I hesitated, then said okay, sure. He took the wipe and began to carefully clean my breast, giving special attention to the areola and nipple. Then he hesitantly cupped the breast, looked up at me and I smiled okay, so he wiped the whole breast very gently. His hand was warm and I enjoyed his touch.
When he finished cleaning, he put down the wipe, leaned forward and lightly kissed first one and then the other of my breasts. I was a little surprised but not much. I was still in my semi-dreamy state which his caressing -- and that's what it was -- had brought full on. He looked up at me and asked if he could taste my milk. I nodded and watched him take my nipple in his mouth and, kneading the breast with his hands like a cat, begin sucking. I felt strange. For some reason, I kissed his forehead. He stopped suckling but still held my breast in his hands, looking at it. Then he looked at me and said, It's wonderful, like it came from God. He wiped my breast clean again. Then he hugged me and said he thought he loved me.
I closed my blouse and said it's nice to be in love. It's one of the best feelings in life. I'll take care of you, he said. I'll marry you so you won't be a widow. You won't have to worry about anything. Just as soon as I get out of the Army I'll marry you.
I smiled at him, took his hand and pressed it to my lips. If you still want to when you get out of the Army, I'll be here, I said. Oh, I will, I will, he said.
A woman was yelling. He looked around. That's my mom, he said. I better go. She's probably mad at me. She's always mad about something. You're not like her at all.
And he ran off, turning around once to say I'll marry you! Don't worry about anything!
Then he was gone.
There were others I've not written about but that I remember well.
Anyway, I circled the field. The runway had no yellow X's painted on it. There were no NOTAMs saying it was closed, so I dragged it a couple of times checking it out, then decided to land.
I hadn't intended to, but suddenly I felt the pull of older days when I was in and out of there a lot, often with my father or grandfather, my husband, my mom, my mini-me and the boys. So I set down on the old familiar strip.
This was the runway I'd first flown the old Beech from, my grandfather right-seating it as he coached me through taxi practice in the big tail-wheeler, then teaching me wrist-action on the throttles to keep it lined up and straight on the take-off, not forgetting to lock the tail wheel, then managing throttles and rpm, cowl flaps, flaps and gear as we climbed out. Then flying around the flag pole, as he called it, doing pattern work, remembering to lock the tail wheel before landing, he teaching me all the tricks to minimize landing roll, pounding into my head the need for stabilized approaches no matter what the wind and weather, watching that airspeed like a hawk, crabbing it, slipping it...
Oh, he was a stern instructor. But he knew everything there was to know about flying any kind of airplane there was. And he passed it all on to me, or as much of it as I was capable of absorbing. And in later years my own flying taught me that I knew how to do things when I needed to do them that I didn't know I knew because he had taught them to me and embedded them in my brain, filed away for use in time of need.
My father taught me how to fly out of this airfield, flying one of Duane's old rentals, Cherokees and Tomahawks, an ancient Piper Colt and an even more ancient Piper Cub to learn managing a tail dragger, a Citabria to lean basic aerobatics before I got the full dose from an old AVG pilot down in SoCal.... When, years later, the Navy thought they'd teach me how to fly it was all so familiar -- and none of the instructors were even close to being as hard on me as gramps and even my dad. But granddad was the toughest. By God, he was going to make sure I did it right, whatever it was. There was no "or else." I would do it. Period. And do it till I could do it in my sleep, exactly right every time. Thank you, thank you, dear grandfather. I'm still inhaling and exhaling thanks to you.
I parked the plane in its old spot, shut down and climbed out. There was a light breeze in the sparkling sunshine. The sun was warm on the ramp. Everything was as it was. I walked over to the operations shack, tried the door, locked of course. I expected that. I don't know why I tried to open it. Habit, I guess. I peered in the window, half-expecting to see everything trashed. But nothing was disturbed as far as I could tell. It was just empty.I stepped up onto the covered porch, appreciating the coolness of the shade, and walked over to the diner, my hand automatically reaching for the screen door. It opened but the inner door was closed and locked. Inside I could see the counter and stools, make out the coffee urn and other tools of the trade. Nothing was touched. Maybe the average passer-by didn't realize the airport was closed, so left it unvandalized. I walked over to the door to the restroom. Locked, of course. I went around to the parking lot and saw a car parked and for a second thought someone must be here, then realized I recognized the car, had driven it. It was an old Chevy, one of the beaters Duane kept on hand for pilots to borrow. Why was it parked outside? Who knows? Maybe Duane had put it there so people would think somebody was here, same as I thought for a sec.
I went back to the diner and sat down on the bench by the door and looked out over the empty flight line. The past stirred. All those people. Everybody's gone now, I thought.
Duane passed away shortly after he shut down the airport and retired. I didn't even know about it till someone casually mentioned it. That gave me a jolt. Not only because he'd died, but that I hadn't known. No one told me. He was important to me, a friend of years. But I guess no one considered me his friend, probably never even thought about me. Well, that's how it goes. How many people do you know and like that others in your circle don't know about at all? Or how many in their circle don't know about you? Funny thing is that for the longest time I didn't know Duane's first name. I always called him by his family name. With a Mr. in front, of course.
Randy left when the airport closed, as was to be expected. He was thinking about leaving even before then. There was not enough work to keep him busy. I knew where he went at first, but he's moved on from there and I've lost touch. That's also the way it goes. People in your life for years, then one day, not.
I don't know where Jim is. I asked around once and most people just shrugged. One guy said he'd heard he'd tangled with some power lines crop-dusting somewhere in Georgia. But who knows? He called the Twin Beech a freight dog, and also referred to pilots who flew it as freight dogs, though nobody has flown freight in an 18 professionally for many years, so no freight dogs of either description around any more.
And Butch? I don't know. I remember Duane saying that when he told him that he was going to shut down, Butch just said that he'd been looking for a job when he arrived and he'd be looking for one when he left. And that's what he did. He left. Got on his motorcycle and rode away. At least with a few more dollars in his jeans than when he came. All the work he did to resurrect the airport diner and bring in customers...ultimately futile, accomplished to no end. Like so much of the effort we put into this life.
So I'll never see any of those people ever again.
And my grandfather and my father are both gone, too. And my husband. So many and so much that were are not any more. Who's next to go?
Maybe me.
I'm the little black dot in the lower right on the top chart. I guess that's okay. I'm destined to be the old ball and chain. Or was destined.
But I ain't or warn't no trad wife.
I wonder if my "marriage zone" is a reflection of my personality as evidenced in this chart, lower left:
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| Wut? |
By the way, the name Quaker was one of the names various dissenting religious groups got tagged with by the English in the 17th century; others were Diggers, Seekers and Ranters.
The family hailed from Hornton in Oxfordshire, England, probably living there for centuries. But the direct ancestor of my American Rushes was Captain John "Old Trooper" Rush (1620–1699). He served as a cavalry commander in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army during the English Civil War, and converted to Quakerism in 1660. He and his family followed the William Penn colonists to America in 1683. They settled along Poquessing Creek in Byberry, Pennsylvania.
I found it interesting that he is the ancestor of Dr. Benjamin Rush, surgeon, abolitionist, women's rights advocate, professor of chemistry, Christian Universalist and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It seems I am descended from a long line of radical Protestants who believed in liberty of conscience and who were also equally radical republican egalitarians. Nutters all, the English aristocrats would have called them. But they kicked King Charles's ass and King George's, too. And created America, God's own country, as they used to call it.
It's baffling to me how much religious hatred there was in Europe in those days between Protestants and Catholics. My Anabaptist German ancestors, the Dunkards, were tortured and burned alive by the Catholics and fled to America to escape them. The Martyr's Mirror recounts the horror in detail. There was Bloody Mary in England, and Cromwell did turnabout on the Catholics. Then there was the Thirty Years War. I guess none of those guys had any use for Matthew Chapters 5 through 7, which to me is the heart of Christianity, and what I always try to keep in mind, despite my doubts and skepticism about, well, everything. Considering that those who founded our country emerged from that intolerant, murderous era, it is remarkable that America embraced from the beginning religious tolerance and freedom of religion as a fundamental tenet. I think it speaks well of us as a people. It was that liberty of conscience thing come to fruition on a fresh new continent.
Anyway, my John Rush was a member of the Sons of Liberty. He fought at Brandywine, Germantown, White Marsh, Red Bank and the Siege of Ft. Mifflin, where he was badly wounded, having his leg and arm amputated. He was just sixteen years old. He had earlier survived the brutal Paoli Massacre, where the Brits showed no mercy, refusing to accept the surrender of wounded Americans and bayoneting them. If Rush had been killed in that massacre would I exist today? I guess not.
Oh, after the Revolution Hebb was such a vigorous abolitionist that he was chased out of the Old Dominion and settled in what is now West Virginia. Five of his great-grandsons served in the Union army.
One of the many oddities of history is that in the 20th century we fought on the side of Britain, our old arch foe, and they formed what they called "the special relationship" with us.
"Now, I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him."
~ Ishmael, Moby Dick
“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near―
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you ...."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until the moment I was lifted and struck.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
C'est tellement mystérieux, le pays des larmes.
It's later than anyone thinks.
I published this in an old blog I had, October 27, 2017. Since Annie Dillard passed away today, I thought I'd republish it. Kathy Shaidle, the Canadian poet and social commenter, sent me a nice note about it. She liked Dillard, too, I guess. And reading. Shaidle has since passed away. She was an interesting person. I learned a lot from her movie reviews, more than just about the movies. At one time she tried to be a "sex pot" but failed. She wrote about it. She did not know where her mother was buried and did not care.
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| N.C. Wyeth, cover illustration for the March, 1922, issue of The Ladies Home Journal. |
“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of my favorite things to do is read. It always has been, but I don't read now the way I read when I was younger. Then, reading was a special, private door into an unknown and fabulous world of elsewhere, othertime and otherness. Now I know they're just books.
“Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.”
“I read with pure, exhilarating greed.... Books swept me away, one after the other, this way and that; I made
endless vows according to their lights, for I believed them.”
"When you open a book,” the sentimental library posters said, “anything
can happen.” This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land
mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been
rusting out of everyone’s way for so long that they no longer worked.
There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to
throw yourself at them headlong, one by one.”
“What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought
and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter; some nearness to
death; some call to courage. I myself was getting wild; I wanted
wildness, originality, genius, rapture, hope. I wanted strength, not tea
parties. What I sought in books was a world whose surfaces, whose
people and events and days lived, actually matched the exaltation of the
interior life. There you could live.”
“Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret
knowledge, a secret joy and a secret hope: There is a life worth living
where history is still taking place; there are ideas worth dying for,
and circumstances where courage is still prized.”
~ Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
The study by a French sports scientist named Jean-Denis Rouillon followed 330 women who stopped wearing brass, ages 18 to 35, over a span of 15 years, comparing them to a control group of women who continued to wear bras. The results: For those who did not wear bras, breast tissue became firmer, not looser. Nipple position lifted, on average, by 7 millimeters per year. The internal supporting structures of the chest — Cooper’s ligaments, the pectoral muscles, the connective tissue — became measurably more active and more effective at holding tissue in position.
The study was done in the early 2000s and there have been no follow-ups that I found, but it does seem to, um, uphold my impression. Bras are necessary sometimes — vigorous movements are uncomfortable without them. Guys may like looking at boobs bouncing up and down under your blouse or shirt but it is annoying (the bouncing, and sometimes the looking) and can even be a bit painful. Another reason is to be polite in public and not attract attention when it's inappropriate.
But otherwise I like to let the girls breathe free. And that's not just a phrase. Bras cause sweating, chaffing and other discomfort. The sweat that can't evaporate causes rashes, even back acne where the bra strap wraps around behind you. When I do wear a bra, it's such a relief to take the darn thing off.
My breasts are naturally firm and don't sag. That seems to run in the women of my family. My mom still has a nice rack and she rarely bothers with a bra, too. I think I got the aversion to them from her. She tells me her mother, my grandmother, also had firm breasts. I remember her but honestly never paid any attention to her boobs. I only mention my mother's breasts because we've talked about this, concluding some women need the support of a good bra and others, such as we, do not. But we all need to wear a bra in public situations for the sake of decorum and social expectations.
But around the ranch on normal days, I almost never wear a bra. If I'm meeting people about ranch business, of course I do.
I wonder if bras will eventually become out of style, like girdles. Who wears a girdle anymore? They used to be a common undergarment but I don't think I've ever seen one for sale when I've been out shopping. Maybe they are, but I just haven't noticed. If I did, I would think they were some sort of prosthetic device or something. Hosiery is another item of wear that seems to be almost gone. In my grandmother's day, nylon stockings were a must, held up by garter belts that you lashed on over your underpants. What a pain. In my mother's day that gave way to panty hose and now most people don't bother with stockings at all. Supposedly, they are making a come-back, but I wonder. I enjoy wearing thigh-highs and knee socks; I do it because it's a style I like. But among the women I know, stockings are just one more thing not to have to bother with. I can see a day when bras will be considered the same way.
Then in the Seventies came bra-burning in the name of women's liberation. Guys may wonder what the connection was, but that one of the first things women did to express their "liberation" was torch their stupid bras tells you how much the things are hated.
Of course, men were baffled because they just think of breasts as sex objects -- sweater puppies, whoopie cushions. So letting them free seemed like some form of provocativeness, which it wasn't.
I especially hate to wear a bra when I am nursing and my breasts are leaking, swelling with milk, contracting after feeding. Clogged milk ducts, mastitis, thrush, even reduced milk production...gawd. All that goes away for me when I don't wear a bra. Okay, guys, if you want to look at my stupid boobs, look. Like you've never seen tits before. I don't care. Of course, as I said, if I must go out in public, I have to bra up and strap on a nursing bra for the duration. But I hate it. I think I said that. Haha.
Anyway, what a relief it is not to have to armor-up before going out the way women did back in the day, with granny panties, bullet-bra, girdle, stockings and garter belt. These days that's all history. I have run down to the post office wearing just a sun dress and nothing more. There would have been a time not all that long ago when, had I done so, I would have been arrested. These days the only thing that might happen is that one of the loafers lounging in front of the general store next door will say, "Oh, honey, you just made my day!"
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