I'm from the government...

 Things I've learned since I have become the head honcho of this outfit:

(By the way, did you know that honcho comes from the Japanese word hanchō (班長), meaning section or unit chief, especially in the military.  US occupation troops in Japan and during the Korean War picked it up, changing the pronunciation to honcho and adding "head" for those with more authority.)

Okay, enough of that.  I could go on, you know.  Want me to tell you about "skosh"?

Where was I?

Oh, right. Um...

So like, remember when I wrote about shooting a mountain lion that time when it killed my dog and my horse bucked me off and I caught a hoof on the way down? And the horse ran away.  And I, pretty badly injured, carried my dog back home, walking quite a few miles from the remote line shack near where the incident occurred. Yeah.  Fun times.

Well, what I didn't know then was that, by law, I was required to leave my dog at the scene, not move him or the lion and was also required to notify Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, who would send a game warden out to inspect the scene and decide whether or not the killing was justified, and then turn the carcass of the lion over to them.

Well the second, it took me a day to get home -- with my dog. I was not going to leave him! He died protecting me. Then the priority for my family was to get me to a hospital, not comply with all that crap.  But now I  know why my dad flew the Aviat out to the scene and checked it out.  That was a dangerous thing to do in winter, as it was, and land where there was no airstrip. And take off.  Very few pilots would even contemplate doing that.  But my dad was totally the best.

He did that to comply as much as possible with the damned government requirements.  Oh, and a game warden did come out to the ranch and chastise my dad for me having moved my dog, but he was too chicken to fly out with my dad to the site and finally accepted the photos my dad took of the scene and his examination of my dog's body as well as my injuries as proof the shooting was justified.  He did still want the carcass and said he would be back to get it, and come spring he did, but by then it was gone, of course, dragged away and eaten by other predators and carrion eaters.

I never knew anything about those events or those rules.  

Anyway, fast forward to earlier this year and what else I learned. Some of our cattle got into larkspur, which is a beautiful flowering plant but deadly to cattle, killing them within hours of eating it. We keep cattle out of pastures with larkspur till after it has gone to seed, but this year, maybe due to the weather, some larkspur bloomed late or something.  Anyway, cattle got into it and died.  That was bad enough.  But their carcasses attracted predators and scavengers, most especially grizzly bears.  The grizzlies attacked and killed more of our cattle.  

Now, you'd think we could just go up there and shoot the damn bears.  That's what I thought. Oh, no.  No, no, no. 

You can only legally kill a grizzly bear if it is in the act of killing livestock. Now how the hell often are you going to be out on the range with your cattle when that happens? I mean really.  Come on. 

But that's the law.

I am going to paste an AI summary of all the crap you have to go through to deal with a predator killing your livestock.  It is just too much, man.  Just too much.  But you have to do it. And you know what? Just about everything involving ranching is regulated by federal, state and local laws, ordinances, advisories....  So much for the wild west.  This is the land of the bureaucrat and the cowed.  Huh. That's a pun. Sort of.  "The cowed." I made a funny. Ha. Ha.

And I have to get guard llamas.  I shitteth thee not. Guard llamas! What in the world? God is just fucking with me for the lulz. (Okay, the Government, not God. Same diff.)

________________ 

 The AI summary:

When past livestock kills or persistent predator threats occur in Montana, ranchers cannot handle the situation privately. Instead, they must trigger an official state and federal intervention protocol.
Because grizzly bears are federally protected, and wolves/mountain lions are strictly managed by the state, the details of trapping, removal, and official kill permits are highly regulated:

1. The Investigation (The First Step)

Before any trapping or permit is issued, an official investigation must confirm the predator threat:
• Who to call: The rancher must immediately contact USDA Wildlife Services or Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP).
• Evidence preservation: The rancher is required to protect the carcass and the site from scavengers (often covering tracks or using tarps) so investigators can look for specific predatory signs (e.g., specific bite marks or tracks).
• The Verdict: An official agent must formally classify the incident as a "confirmed" or "probable" predator depredation.

2. Trapping and Relocation / Removal

If a chronic conflict is confirmed, government specialists (not the rancher) take control of the trapping and removal process:
• Who does it: Only authorized federal USDA Wildlife Services agents or state FWP biologists are legally permitted to set traps or snares for these large predators.
• Relocation: If the bear or wolf has no prior history of livestock conflicts and is caught in a flexible management zone, authorities may choose to drug, tag, and relocate the animal to an approved wilderness area.
• Lethal Removal: If the animal is deemed a repeat offender, highly habituated to livestock, or a threat to human safety, government agents will euthanize the animal.

3. Official Kill Permits (Issued to the Rancher)

Under Montana Code Annotated § 87-5-301, the Director of Montana FWP can issue a conditional, non-transferable kill permit directly to a livestock owner (or their authorized employee) to shoot a specific problem animal:
• The "Threatening" Threshold: The permit is only issued if FWP legally determines that a specific animal poses a persistent threat to humans or livestock.
• The Nonlethal Prerequisite: Montana administrative rules require ranchers to demonstrate and document that they have first attempted nonlethal deterrence measures (such as electric fencing, carcass removal, guard dogs, or fladry) before a kill permit will be granted, particularly if the livestock are grazing on public lands.
• Strict Geography: The permit is strictly limited to the specific boundaries where the owner's livestock are legally authorized to graze. It does not give the rancher permission to hunt or track the animal outside their property or active public allotment.
• Reporting Deadlines: If a rancher successfully takes an animal under an official kill permit, they must report the kill to FWP within 24 hours (compared to the 72-hour window allowed when catching an animal "in the act") and surrender the carcass.

Under Montana Administrative Rules (ARM 12.9.1304), "nonlethal effort" is legally defined as a variety of active husbandry practices and physical deterrents meant to mitigate wildlife conflicts without killing the predator.
To show valid proof when applying for an official kill permit, a rancher must demonstrate they have deployed specific, documented tools from the following categories:

1. Physical and Visual Deterrents

• Fladry or Turbo-Fladry: Highly visible flags hung from fencing lines to deter wolves. Turbo-fladry incorporates an electric shock wire running through the flags.
• Electric Fencing: Temporary or permanent high-tensile electric fencing designed to keep large carnivores away from calving pastures or night pens.
• Scare Devices: Deployment of motion-activated alarms, strobe lights (such as Foxlights), or noise-making devices like starter pistols and cracker shells.

2. Guarding and Husbandry Practices

• Range Riders: Hiring or acting as a range rider to maintain an active, daily human presence around grazing livestock to deter predators.
• Livestock Guarding Animals: Active deployment of specially trained livestock guard dogs (such as Anatolian Shepherds or Akbash), guard llamas, or donkeys.
• Shed Lambing or Calving: Confining vulnerable pregnant or newborn livestock into secure indoor sheds, night pens, or smaller, highly managed structures.

3. Attractant Management

• Carcass Removal: Rapidly cleaning up and removing dead livestock from the pasture to ensure predators are not being actively baited or drawn to the herd.
• Grazing Management: Altering pasture rotations, utilizing supplemental feed to keep cattle bunched tightly together, or moving vulnerable stock to alternative, lower-risk pastures during peak predator activity.

How to Prove It to State Officials

The state requires an incremental approach before issuing a lethal permit. Ranchers prove their nonlethal compliance through:
• Written Ranch Management Plans: Documenting active grazing rotations, carcass disposal strategies, and predator deterrence protocols.
• Visual Evidence: Providing time-stamped photographs or video proof of electric fencing, fladry installations, and guard animals actively working the herd.
• Logbooks and Receipts: Keeping meticulous daily logs of human presence (range rider schedules) and receipts for purchased deterrence equipment.
• Joint Monitoring: Participating with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) or USDA Wildlife Services to track radio-collared predators in the area, proving that deterrents were actively deployed in the direct vicinity of known packs.

_____________

 There's more official crap to deal with, but this is enough to give you an idea of what a rancher has to deal with to get you your quarter-pounder. Want me to tell you what all we have to do to get reimbursed for the animals killed by predators? I know, you ain't got time.  You got a brain transplant scheduled that you totally forgot about and have to get going.

Oh, we can still shoot the gol' durn coyotes on sight.  But in California I hear you can't even do that. Probably soon enough we won't be able to do that either. 

Anyway, you have some idea of why I am so tired these days.  I have so much to deal with. Why not hand it off to the ranch manager?  Because I have to know about it all, understand what needs to be done, how things operate.  I can't just be some flibbertigibbet  trusting the the good will of the world.

So I have a ranch to run, employees to deal with, five children to raise, an ailing mother, a...; well, a lot is on my plate.  I know.  Boo hoo.

But on top of this, people are urging me to date.  Move on with my life and all that.  Chase down, rope and hog-tie a new husband. They don't put it that way, but that's what they're saying. They don't understand that, even if I wanted to, were I to go on a date, say to some romantic Italian restaurant, with Mr. Wonderful, as he was charming me with his charisma, composing love poetry to me on the spot, I would doze off and fall face first into my spaghetti, my snores bubbling the sauce.

Forget it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Live your own life

 

Reading Plato's Republic, in Book VI I came across this: 

"Those who...have...seen enough of the madness of the multitude know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight. They may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts -- he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the state or to his friends, and reflecting that he would throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can live his own life."

I agree with that sentiment and hope to convey it to my children so that they do not throw their lives away on some political crusade or trumped up war, revolution or riot.  Stay out of the way of the thundering herd and keep your own council.  Think what you will but express little of what you think or, better yet, nothing at all.

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, the 18th century French poet, was of a similar mind.  He is most remembered today for averring that, as it is usually phrased in English, "to live well, live hidden"; that is, out of the way of events.  Alas, it did him no good, for he was deemed an enemy of the Revolution and imprisoned, only spared from the guillotine by Robespierre's death, instead, still imprisoned, dying of tuberculosis in 1794.

The fable in which the famous line is the moral:

 LE GRILLON

Un pauvre petit grillon
Caché dans l’herbe fleurie
Regardoit un papillon
Voltigeant dans la prairie
L’insecte ailé brilloit des plus vives couleurs
L’azur, le pourpre & l’or éclatoient sur ses ailes.
Jeune, beau, petit-maître, il court de fleur en fleur,
Prenant & quittant les plus belles.
Ah ! disoit le grillon, que son sort & le mien
Sont différents ! dame Nature
Pour lui fit tout, & pour moi rien.
Je n’ai point de talent, encor moins de figure ;
Nul ne prend garde à moi, l’on m’ignore ici bas !
Autant voudroit n’exister pas.
Comme il parloit, dans la prairie
Arrive une troupe d’enfants.
Aussitôt les voilà courans
Après le papillon dont ils ont tous envie :
Chapeau, mouchoirs bonnets, servent à l’attraper.
L’insecte cherche vainement à leur échapper,
Il devient bientôt leur conquête.
L’un le saisit par l’aile, un autre par le corps ;
Un troisième survient, & le prend par la tête :
Il ne falloit pas tant d’efforts
Pour déchirer la pauvre bête.
Oh ! oh ! dit le grillon, je ne suis pas fâché ;
Il en coûte trop cher pour briller dans le monde.
Combien je vais aimer ma retraite profonde !
Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés.

*************************************************

 

 I've been reading Plato's Socratic dialogue Gorgias, and became intrigued by the ideas of Callicles, aka Mr. Realpolitik.  Appropriate reading for these times. 

Aside from his brutally frank evaluation of democracy and non-idealistic views on how society should be organized,  Callicles also has something to say worth considering in his advocacy of hedonism:  Maybe that really is all we should concern ourselves with.  Maybe the "if it feels good, do it!" hippy-dippy Sixties pop philosophy is correct.  At least for those of us with no power and no influence, living lives without significance or consequence, except to our small circle of friends and family; people who also are much as we are: observers on the sidelines, who, for all the good it does, might as well not even bother observing, but just ignore it all and get on with their own lives.

My father always described the events of the larger world as "a dull background roar" that it's not worth paying attention to.  Of course, that dull background roar had a lot of influence on his life, mine as well, as I suppose it does us all.  

But...if you could really do just what you wanted to do, would it really involve politics, law, foreign policy and all that stuff,  or would you want to shine work on, pig out on all of your favorite foods and drinks, have all the sex you wanted...just let your id run wild.  It sounds attractive.  I remember reading a book called Memoirs of a Round-Heeled Woman or something like that.  It was written by a person who decided at the age of 67 that she was going to have as much sex as possible from then on, and, by golly, she did!  I was kind of grossed out by the idea of a grandma...you know...but, man, she went for it and had the time of her life, after having lived the routine marry, have children, raise them, work hard, behave yourself existence of us normies. 

I think when I get to be that age all I'll want to do is knit and take naps, but who knows?  Maybe the thing to do is indulge yourself while your animal appetites are still strong and your body can handle them.  The problem, of course, is that you could hurt important people in your life by being a self-centered pleasure seeker.  You could lose a lot more than you could ever gain.  And you might very well end up being a jaded, diseased, friendless wreck.

So I guess the thing to do is to indulge with your partner.  I suppose that's why there are clubs, bars, dance venues and fancy restaurants -- all places where you and your significant other can indulge your appetites together. Alas, I'm too much of a germophobe to do very much indulging. I'll just hold your beer.

So, anyway -- here's to hedonism, such as it is.  Eat, drink and be merry, and let the rest of the world go by.

 By the way, in case you can't read it, the overlay text in the image above reads:

"Callicles argues that the 'best life' entails the indulgence of one's appetites. The good life doesn't consist of restraining one's desires, but in knowing how to indulge them. The individual who would live correctly ought to allow his own appetites to get as large as possible and not restrain them."

It's from the dialogue where Callicles debates natural justice and pleasure with Socrates. Socrates has a different point of view, to put it mildly.  This is the dialogue where Socrates introduces the allegory of the leaky jars, which is kind of okay, I guess, but ol' Soc goes on from there to really mop the floor with Calli-chan.  Ima make sure my kids read this dialogue and we talk about it from every angle. If you ain't not done readed it, y'all should.  Def should.

 

What dat?

 Yeah, I reckon. Kinda. I guess. I am a big fan of tranquility.

 

 

If all y'all wanna take this yhar test, here she be.

This song is more me, actually. 

 

“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 to work out the grief of losing her father. She plays slowly and thoughtfully.

The first movement of Copland's Violin Concerto
arranged for solo piano. 

 

 

 

 

 

A day

 I flew my uncle for his now semi-annual check-up with his dermatologist.  I also flew one of our ranch hands to an endodontist for a root canal. 

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. I actually thought when I mentioned it that he would decline and we'd just have a bit of risque banter as we usually did. Even as we were looking for it I thought if we found it he wouldn't.... But he did. He did.

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.  

Camille Paglia fought against this rule to reproduce while acknowledging its dominance. In Sexual Personae she wrote, "in nature, procreation is the single relentless rule. That is the norm. Our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction." She said that refusing to reproduce was an expression of the human will revolting against that which was ordained by the universe. But a pointless revolt. Nature doesn't care if you don't reproduce. It only cares if you do. 

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

I waited for my uncle around the corner at a local coffee shop/diner, reading a copy of Albert Camus essays, Actuelles III : Chroniques algériennes, 1939-1958, that I'd picked up in the second-hand book store next door. « Je crois à la justice, mais je défendrai ma mère avant la justice » and all that. I wondered what Albert would think of the doings in Frogville these days. Then I got to thinking about Wanda Kosakiewicz and how she was, um, entertaining, shall we say, Sartre and Camus at the same time but really preferred Camus. I mean like who wouldn't, right? Reading Les chemins de la liberté gave me a sense that there was something nasty at the core of Sartre's character. I wouldn't want him on top of me. Camus, though.... Yeah.  I could see why Kosakiewicz fell for him.

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 The 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.  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. 

Let the boys have their fun. Soon Mr. Tooth would be out in the freezing cold, spending days repairing four-wire fence, getting his hands torn up by the barbed wire and telling himself that it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the wind. And my uncle, a widower, would be pacing the empty rooms of his house, wondering if one of his kids would call, eating his supper standing by the kitchen sink, forking it out of the pan he cooked it in, then flipping through channels on the TV till he grew tired enough to go to bed....

After a few minutes they both fell silent.  I glanced back. They were asleep and I had the sky to myself.

 

In a sentimental mood

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back then

 Found another photo from the days when I was photographer and artist's model. I think the original of this one was shown in a gallery.

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.

Why did I give up modeling? Well, it's just another thing I used to do that I don't do anymore.  That's a long list. Why didn't I keep it up? I just moved on with my life, that's all. It wasn't anything I was particularly interested in doing.  Around the same time I was writing for a magazine; I've talked about that on this blog. And I was also flying skydivers out of the local airport. Meat bombs we called them. Then in summers I flew Part 135 in Alaska, in and out of some pretty iffy airfields for chump change. I was also a waitress, a shooter girl, a ...; well, a lot of stuff. And, of course, I was going to university. Then Uncle Sam crooked a finger at me and beckoned....

 ********

 

I was digging around some old files from back in those days and ran across this photo. The pose is so similar to the one above -- but with clothes on -- that it caught my eye. I wonder what I was doing. 

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.

Looking back from where I am now, a rather dull adult burdened with responsibilities and anxieties, cynical and tired and not really giving a GGD about anything, I can only recall those days as my wonder years, full of promise and excitement, each day sparking in radiant, glowing colors like a MySpace page, heh.  The future really was so bright I had to wear shades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Son (and Daughter) Also Rises

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....*) 

 By the way, all this genealogical research was done by my aunt, who is a Certified Genealogist and has an MSc in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and an MLitt in Archives and Family History from the University of Dundee, also in Scotland, as well as a BA from Brigham Young University in family and genealogical research.

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. 

One of my grandmothers was born when her mother was 50, an unexpected surprise, as she said. She was born in 1920, which means her mother was born in 1870, out on the wild plains of the western frontier. When as a child I misbehaved, my grandmother would tell me to settle down or the Indians would come in the night and scalp me. That's what her mother had told her when she was a child -- because her mother had said that to her at a time when that was a real fear; it actually happened to people.  That's why they kept a rifle over the fireplace and never went outside without a six-gun on their hip. There was a reason why they said the Winchester was the rifle that won the west.  Back in the days when we were proud to be winners. And why when I load a Colt or a carbine with .44-40 WCF and head out on our ranch I feel, just a hint at the back of my mind, a connection with so much that has gone before on this land I tread. What does Europe mean to me? Or some stupid king?

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.

To Have and Have Not

 

 

 

 

 

Goofy things I've done after watching too many old movies

 

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.

• Flagged down a cab, piled in and ordered, “Headquarters! And step on it!”
• Walked into a diner, sat down next to a friend and said, “So, what’s a dame like you doing in a gin joint like this?”
• Stepped into an office lobby, paused, listened to the Musak, raised my hands up beside my head, snapped my fingers, danced a wiggly two-step and and shouted out, “Hey, Daddy-O! Dig that crazy jive!”
• Glanced out a window, gasped in horror, pointed and cried out “Them! Them!”
• When someone reached out to shake my hand, stumbled back in terror crying out, “Don’t shoot, Rocko!”
• Finished adjusting my face in the ladies room and muttered, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up now.”
• Gone up to a security guard and commanded, “Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!”
• After a bell boy has loaded my bags into a cab, clutched his hand as I tipped him, looked deep into his eyes and whispered, “We’ll always have Paris.”
• Upon leaving a particularly successful interview, clicked my tongue, arched an eyebrow, jabbed a thumb in the air and said, “Print the legend!”
• Told the driver of an airport shuttle, “Open the pod bay door, HAL.”
• Spotted a flasher and yelled at him, "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" 
• Observing my guy dead to the world after performing his masculine duties, smiled and said to myself, "It wasn't the airplanes.  It was beauty killed the beast."

 

 

Someone

 

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 it 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

 

"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

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deer-chan

 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. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encounters

 

The other day everybody was getting cabin fever so I suggested we go for a drive -- you know, that great American pastime just tooling around in the car, listening to tunes, stopping at Dairy Queen for a banana split.

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back

 

A while ago I decided to burn off some of the remaining fuel in the Twin Beech's tanks rather than drain it all before putting the plane in storage and flew down to our now-abandoned local airport. I've written  a few times before about it and some of the memorable, to me, people who used to populate it -- Duane, the old FBO who served with my father aboard the Kitty Hawk when he was a young man, Jim the gypsy cropduster, Randy, the ace A&P guy who knew all our planes as intimately as a lover, and Butch, the short order cook at the diner who'd walked into the parking lot pushing his motorcycle, out of gas and looking for enough work to buy some and keep on moving but who instead got a job that put him back on his feet and made him a valued asset to the community.

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.