A Bit Too Much Work

I finally figured it out: it was the raking that did it. Not, as you may expect, raking leaves, little twigs, grass or pine straw. This is Arizona, a suburb with zoning restrictions, so what was getting raked was rocks. 

Our back yard fills with pine straw on a monthly basis, or even more often right now since spring winds knock it down regularly. Being cheap, I've hired getting that part of the raking done but only on an annual basis. Leaves do fall off our few very young trees, and bushes need pruning, but most of that I do myself when able. It may take the whole 9 months we're usually down here, but I manage. While I'm picking up behind dogs, I may as well collect a few branches as well. None of that is why I need to rake rocks.

It's because of a couple wanna-be yard clean-up guys. The first came knocking at the door, looking to make $50 in exchange for raking the back yard pine straw and pine cones. He was hoping to afford an engagement ring. We agreed to the deal. Once he was paid, we took a better look at the yard. Yes, the stuff he agreed to remove was gone. However, the river rock beds which border the back yard had huge amounts of their rocks raked into the rest of the yard.

You may well ask, so what? Well, they're very noticeable, first of all. Some idiot previous owner had taken the rest of the back yard, covered it with uniform smaller rocks, spread out evenly and semi-flat, then cemented everything in place with a dark green coating. 'Cause, you know, they just can't give up their illusion of grass, I guess.

They may be savvy enough not to bother to try to grow it, wasting all the water and the energy to keep it mowed, but still, flat & green. So river rock stands out. It also trips you up as you walk across it without picking your way carefully. That green stuff is already bad enough and old enough that large patches of it have loosened and been removed so it's uneven enough all by itself. The river rock just makes it worse.

If that wasn't already bad, the crew for this last cleanup, including a major pruning of the pine tree clearing out swaths of branches which had died over this last record hot summer, included the otherwise unemployed brother of the head of the crew. He need to both look and be busy. We had specified before work started that we wished the yard "blown" as the final pick-up. In other words, a powered air blower lifts the light straw and leaves  into a pile on top of a tarp to be hauled away. It leaves the rocks in place!  But dear brother just couldn't do something that simple. Or perhaps it was he couldn't do something quite that complicated. While the pruning was going on, he was digging his rake into all the rock beds knocking everything he could reach out into the main yard. Besides leaving a rocky mess, a lot of those (expensive to replace) rocks got raked up onto the tarp and hauled away to the landfill.

But there were still a great plenty needing to be returned to their border beds. I nominated myself for the job. I could do it in small patches, and get the damn things where I really wanted them. I didn't charge for my services either, feeling my reward was both in the progress in making the yard look nicer but in getting exercise without risking covid exposure like I would walking in the pools.

I had rakes, both leaf and garden varieties, moved down here back in 2012. By now they are likely 20 years old, and wear their age. The business ends are rusty, and the wood cracked and splintery. Gloves are a must - I know! - but they still have enough strength to be useful. The leaf rake does the job without digging up more rocks, most of the time. Patches of green chunk still break off but they've been undermined over the years between wind, foot traffic, and various animals not limited to dogs. (Tunnels are plentiful.) That part I don't mind, and larger chunks get tossed under the baby mesquite tree to provide mulch. The eventual plan is to get rid of all the green and replace it with pea rock or something easier on the feet than all the sharp angles on the red rock in the front yard. We can fall, after all. We shouldn't need to worry about bleeding out while we maneuver our way to vertical again.

I have discovered a tiny benefit to the concrete-like finish over the years. It keeps water from absorbing into the ground to support weed growth. Of course, that also keeps water from soaking into the ground to keep the pine tree alive. Or other desired plantings. Weeds can be sprayed or pulled, much more economical than watering. So still going ahead with the grand plan.

Back to raking. The garden rake being too heavy for the job means the leaf rake needs to make do. It's fairly flimsy, so more arm work is needed. The first few energetic days I went to bed with mild soreness. No biggee, it was gone by morning, and after several days of raking an hour or so, no longer a problem. That was good since I still had weeks of raking to go at my rate. The flimsiness of the rake means I adapted my own technique to the job, more of a sideways sweep then a pull-to-me stroke. It took a whole lot of motion, a lot of twisting, especially as each pile of rocks grew. Initially I took a dust pan, scooped them up, and dumped them where needed in the rock beds. That was great for the bare spots - and yes, there were plenty of those. But later, quantities of remaining rocks vastly outnumbered obvious dumping spots, and those dustpans full of rocks got pretty heavy to carry. So I just kept sweeping smaller patches further in order to get close enough to the border beds that I could just sweep really widely to kick those rocks up over the brick borders and into the beds. It worked! Yesterday I managed the largest big sweeps ever. That corner of the yard is finally finished.

As am I. When I came in and sat down, it was a big relief. When I tried to stand up again, not so much. Quite the opposite, in fact. My back loudly announced that it has exactly one semi-comfortable position. None of the other possible 75 positions are it. No compromise.  A full night's sleep made a big difference... until I really woke up and had to move.

I am blessed by two things. First, a large refill of the well-used bottle of ibuprofin in the bathroom. Long years of experience have taught me that I can tolerate the maximum dose of 800 mg., 4x a day. With food, of course - never a problem as long as I stay off the scale. Second, a son who understands the actual nature of the job needed and willingness, strength and time to finish the job for me. 

But excuse me, I'm needed down the hall. It'll be a while before I get back, since the back position needed to properly use that perforated paper off the little white roll on the wall is a long way from being that one comfortable one I previously mentioned. Even getting there and back again uses 9 more of the 75. Then it's time for more ibuprofin, reaching for which uses 3 more, so....

Never Quite The Same

There were some changes this visit. Steve, my son Rich, and I went to Gilbert Riparian Reserve yesterday. The guys hadn't been before. I was there several years back, but with my youngest, Paul, along on one of his visits. Possibly he was there more to assist me, like Rich was there to assist Steve. Last time I was on a scooter, shortly after one of my knee replacements. This time I was walking. But Steve needed his scooter, and that monster is so heavy that I can't break it down, load it, and put the pieces back in the car any more. Even Rich insisted that I never had been able to, but I was in great working shape years ago. I manhandled Daddy's scooter too. Honest! Of course, I took the batteries out from the heaviest part first.... So Rich came, but rather than walk the trails with us he decided to catch up on his sleep in the car while we were gone. 

But hey, still help.

This time both of us had cameras. (Paul isn't much of a photo enthusiast, though he can often get shots I can't if he's along, and does a pretty fair job of it.) Steve had just bought a new tripod and was giving it a whirl before we do our northbound sojourn. By the time he'd taken his first half dozen shots, he announced that it had already paid for itself. My hands are still steady enough to support my camera (the same kind as his, by the way), so I get by without one for now. I'm sure the day will come.

Last time was a much longer trip. When I was on my scooter, I could last as long as the trails did. Yesterday I made it around the first big lake and back to the parking lot, with pauses at every stop on a bench or large rock the place offered, which were a lot. My feet ached by the end as well. Steve made it only as far as I did, quitting first mainly because his back was bothering him. By the time he needed to head back, I was beyond protesting.

I wanted to. The back ponds have fewer visitors and different birds to shoot from closer viewpoints. The first time I was there several flocks of shore birds and dozens of turtles hung out where the shooting was good. Today a few turtles hid on rocks behind brush but no sandy strip of shore was lined with dozens - at least not where my route was. The shore birds stayed hidden out back. The ducks calmly swimming along a walkway last time were now frantically going after whatever a plethora of kids and parents were feeding them, so one good shot I managed to get was something of a miracle. But it was a great shot! The details in the feathers and the iridescence in the head were spectacular. Kind of a shame it was "just" a mallard drake. So ordinary in Minnesota.

There were some benefits to pooping out early. Having to sit on the benches to rest gave the smaller birds the security to come back and rummage for food within good camera range, enough so that a couple I'd never really seen before posed for a half dozen shots each, in much the same spots, so I could be fussy about which I kept and which were deleted. Bees visited close enough for portraits, even as fast as they flit between flowers, and shy gambel's quail dashed in and out of what I thought were just scenic shots of the water and surrounding trees, posing at just the right second. One bench was apparently a traditional feeding spot for a variety of ducks, and one little lady kept me company for quite a while, finally deciding that whatever was on the bottom was tastier than the nothing I offered.

I was disappointed about not getting a chance to shoot a great egret at one of those back ponds however, nor any herons like last time. I had taken pictures, but not good shots. My best egret shot cut off its tail and a heron was a blur of distant wings before the camera clicked. A green heron was so far away that I'd deleted the picture before I remembered there was supposed to actually be something in it. So imagine my delight when I snuggled up to a multi-trunked tree at water's edge to try for some ducks which were too far away anyway, when right by my feet an egret strolled past, seeking lunch. It was a small opening in the brush along the shore, and he wasn't dawdling, but I got time to get two shots off. This time, of course, one shot beheaded it, but the other one was perfect. I even had to zoom back in to include the whole bird! But I got it.

I would have danced the way to the car from there, but, well, I think those days are long gone.

I may have to bring my little scooter down again some trip when we're otherwise traveling light and have room in the car for it. Anyway, it gives Steve something to use for a trip to the post office or convenience story when we're up north, and me the means to hit the whole bike bath through town if I need it. Nice path, two miles, three benches. Let's not pretend it's just the 8,000,000 mosquitoes that keep me off it.

Them's Fightin' Words!

Or maybe just stupid. But I am making an assumption.

It was just a glimpse in the grocery store as we turned different ways at the aisle end, just enough to capture the concept boldly printed on her tee shirt that she chose her religious views over peace.

Now I get feeling strongly about whatever your religious/spiritual views are, whether or not they include any actual religion, whether or not that choice is different than mine. That's your right. But what if it's a false choice?

Here's where my assumption comes in, that since nearly all major religions ask for its followers to be peaceful, her views spring from one of those. That's the love part, the "do unto others" part. Sure, there's proselytizing, the mine-is-the-best-so-I-must-convert-you idea. But doesn't fighting, even killing to achieve that contradict the very core of those religious teachings? We humans have a very long history of killing each other over whose religion is best. Maybe that very history is why we need to pay attention to our religions, because we are a tribalistic species and need religion to teach us to be better. Religion is too often subverted to gain power over others.

Whatever else my religious views are, they are peaceful at the core. For me it's never a choice between them and peace. I find something very wrong with believing you must make that choice. But then I'm one of those people who are much more impressed with how you live your life than what particular set of words you use and when, or deity names you drop.

Never Say....

I heard this on TV this morning. "The Stephanie Miller Show" on the FSTV network is also simulcast as a radio show on AM channels which haven't been bought out by right-wing folks to air anything else, though always with worse ratings than Stephanie brought.  The comment came from a caller known as "Sue in Rockville" during a discussion trying hard not to celebrate the death of Rush Limbaugh. Yes, really trying. It was hard. He's done so much damage in his life, spreading hate, propaganda, misinformation, and hipocricy. 

Sue's mother always told her not to say anything about the dead unless it's good. Always respectful (of her mother) Sue came up with what I think is the perfect comment.

 "Rush is dead. Good."

My New Favorite Sticker

This is opposed to my previous favorite sticker, the one that says, "I VOTED." It took a long time to get that one. First, when I was 18, we weren't allowed to vote yet. That's one thing all the protests were about, being "eligible" to go die in Vietnam if you were a guy getting drafted, but not able legally to drink or vote (for somebody who promised to end the war). By the time the laws changed, my first election was when I was 24.

They didn't offer stickers then.

In 1991 I moved into Shafer, a very small town with 3 liquor licenses and no churches. That last was because an abundance of the early residents were Jehovah Witnesses. (The first was for the rest of us, I guess?) They went to each other's homes to worship and didn't need a special building. They also didn't believe in voting, though the city offered it. I was one of about 70 or so who showed up to vote back then. By the time I left, the population was over a thousand, and around 200 were regular voters.

Shafer gave stickers. They weren't very sticky, likely because they'd been saved for decades since the roll hadn't gotten used up. I'd proudly go in first thing in the morning, usually #1 or #2 in line, and put my sticker on my work  uniform shirt. Before 10:00 my seatbelt would have knocked it off, no matter where I'd placed it. After I moved away I heard they got a new roll of stickers that actually stuck.

With permanent early voting by mail in Arizona, there aren't stickers. No biggie, there's nobody to show them off to anyway. It was more about prompting others who saw the sticker to go vote themselves, anyway, and while we seniors do mostly vote, the snowbirds did before they left to come south and the rest of us vote over a couple weeks. It's not like I'd see a bunch of people to show it off to anyway. It just wouldn't mean as much.

I got my new favorite sticker this morning, as did Steve. I like it so much that I'm planning to tape it across an old campaign button pin, clear packing tape holding it in place and protecting it, the pin enabling me to wear it over and over on any shirt I choose. This one is round, blue on the top half with white letters, white on the bottom with red letters. The top says "I WAS VACCINATED". The bottom reads "SO I CAN DO LIFE." The "O" in "DO" is a smiley face. 

It kinda matches ours as we drove off.

Hating G-Mail !!!!!

My email address goes way back. Wayyyy back. It goes so far back that when I try to use it in response to something on somebody's blog, for example, I get back a form announcement that it isn't real. (Somebody please tell all those spammers that, please.) I've even had problems sending something to my congress critters. When I want to reach out to them, I really want to reach out to them.

At one point in the not-too-distant past, I decided to set up an additional address via G-Mail. It was complicated, so I brought in Rich, who has his email through them. Oddly, once it registered as a new g-mail account, my laptop also brought up his as already existing on this device.

Hmmmmmm....

But, OK, it was set up. I copied down every little bit, letter, character, number, what have you, involved in setting the account up. It's saved where I save all such things, especially after those other places demand a more secure or just a different password. No biggie with all of them. Can't remember the change? Got a list. Done, and done.

A few days later, without having given the new address out to anybody yet, I tried to go into it to see what may have accumulated in its inbox. I have complete trust that there are folks out there who run systems just to dig up random email addresses in hope of reaching somebody, anybody in order to, what, sell something? Perhaps G-mail themselves (or is that "itself"?) might have sent a formulaic welcome-to-us note. It was never going to be my primary email, just a backup for those places who refused to recognize me as a real person for whatever reason.

Good thing I hadn't shared it. I couldn't get back in to it. Ever! It always cuts me off when I try to give it my address name. "That's already taken." Yeah, I know. By ME! I try using the password I saved, and nope, no go. Rich's shows up as a possible place I really wanted to go, somehow without realizing it or something.

Seriously? 

I don't even have his password, even if I wished to see what he was sending/receiving. Which I don't. And his account wouldn't show me any possible activity on my account. I think maybe I hit a wrong key somewhere and go through this same routine a couple more times, always winding up at the place where I'm told my account isn't mine and my passsword won't work.

So I try "forgot my password". It works with other companies. It even kinda works here. They text me, using the phone number I gave when I signed up, the one attached to this particular address, so they must know me. I put in the code they send, and... "This account is already taken."

Google, I don't know what  your game is. I've stopped playing. I'll just muddle through with the old email address. It was picked up to be supported by Yahoo a few years back, exactly as it was, incidentally losing all my archived stuff in the process. If suddenly this becomes impossible to continue, I'll see if I can get the same front part with @yahoo on the end. They seem much more hospitable.

And if nothing else works, all those congress critters also have actual phone numbers. I actually called one up last week.

Appreciation For The Claw Hammer

First, let me assure you all that my tetanus shots are nicely up to date. Those nails were all pretty rusty! But I'm getting ahead of  myself.

We'd tried to sell the chair. Apparently everybody who looked at it knew what we knew about it, an accident waiting to happen. We tried giving it away. Same result. We even tried throwing it away, setting it next to the garbage can in hopes that the guys picking stuff up were in a generous mood. Nope. So it got stored on the patio for months, back in a large stack of other stuff needing sorting, tossing, whatever. 

It once was a really nice chair, a gift from a friend, rattan on wood frame, with some components that I'd label wicker. Really, I can't tell the two apart officially, but we have several wicker pieces of furniture, and the materials in them seem to be round and thicker than most of this old chair. Rattan and wicker have a history almost as old as human history, meaning it definitely predates the iron age. My point here is that furniture made with it was made for ages without need of nails. Perhaps those skilled craftsmen have all died out. This chair had around a hundred of the buggers. You want to know how I found out? Oops, ahead of myself again.

The cushion was the first to go, but then it came with the chair, which itself predated my wicker furniture by several years. The wicker, in turn, acquired cushions once we moved everything down here. The whole group became patio furniture, covered from rain unless wind blew it in under the roof, but not protected from the Arizona sun peeking under the roof edges for 9 months of the year. (In summer, we brought it all inside and locked the house up tight. It made vacations a bit more work, to be sure.) Anyway, the fabric rotted, so more cushions all around were purchased. Not too long after, the seat itself gave signs of starting to lose its strength, so we simply quit sitting in it. Mostly.

But now it was finally time to get rid of it. How? The other options hadn't worked, so we were down to demolishing it and feeding it into the garbage stream disguised as a Hefty Bag. That's worked for so many things these last few months. I took it on as my personal project. I've done my share of (mediocre) carpentry projects in my day. I've also done lots of tree trimming. Both combined to give me some knowledge of both hand and power tools and ability to use them. I know, for example, the difference between several different kinds of hammers, or which kind of cutting tools would serve the needs of this demolition best. 

For cutting, it turned out I needed all of them: a straight saw, short lopping pruners, and scissors. There was quite a variety of sizes and strengths of materials in this chair. Digging deep enough, I discovered there was even - gasp! - plastic strapping. That's definitely not old-school construction. Nor, it turned out, were all the nails!

Now I could show you exactly how I discovered the nails in this thing, but I can't remember exactly which part of me started bleeding first. Well, sure, it was on my hands, but then they all were. I kinda had my suspicions earlier when I was sawing the first leg off the chair. I heard this peculiar high pitched noise that, looking back, obviously was caused by my sawing through metal. Good thing it's a very sturdy saw! Those teeth are still sharp too, and none of them bent.

Fortunately, Rich was home this afternoon. He knows exactly where - uh - most of the household tools are stored these days. He's rearranged the workroom, and even has something of a path through there on good days. I needed a claw hammer, and was inordinately proud of myself for coming up with the exact term right off the bat. There are still days where the simplest words evade me anywhere from minutes to - ever. It took Rich less than a minute to provide me the hammer. It worked like a charm, most of the time. There were a few monster nails in impossible angles for one to work, so I left them for Rich. He has the knees and strength to pound them backwards to where they can be pulled. The little one inch nails had been used to secure the rattan in hundreds of places to make up for lack of skill by whoever was supposed to wind the stuff around the wood frame so it wouldn't gap or fall off. Yep, definitely a lost art.

Oh, did I mention I was barefoot? I had no idea where this task was going to take me back when I started. I had to warn Rich to put shoes on before heading out. He promised to bring out  a magnet for later to be sure all the nails were found, and he's still out there now working on that. You see, all the bits of curly rattan I cut off or broke off were dumped in a pile around me to be picked up later. And the little nails fell out of the hammer about a third of the times I pulled them out of the chair. Of course I knew where most of them landed, so when quitting time for the day arrived, I made myself a safe path back into the house. 

But again I'm getting ahead of myself. What I really want to do is give praise to whoever it was who invented the claw hammer. Now you might think it was developed either by or for an incompetent carpenter who couldn't even drive them in straight. You know, like that was a bad thing. But shame on you! Everybody has to start somewhere. Mistakes are how you learn, along with practice. Lots of practice. Driving a nail accurately requires developing muscle memory, and as far as I know, no baby was ever born with it, no matter how much of a carpentry genius it grew up into. Great carpentry takes work. 

My shoulder muscles are telling me it also takes a lot of work to remove nails for destructive purposes. Must be time for ibuprofin and TV. I hear there's an impeachment trial going on. I can work on the chair again tomorrow.

Pain In My Neck, RIP

It's been an annual struggle, but it's finally over. I finally ended it, once they made it impossible to continue. I'm talking about filing Sales and Use Tax with the Sate of Minnesota.

Years ago, I printed out some posters. Each was a labor of love, combining a favorite photo with an original poem. The idea came from a photo taken years earlier, in August when the morning air temperature is significantly colder than the water. A sailboat floated at anchor out in a lake up near the BWCA, morning fog enclosing it thickly enough to completely hide the rocky island a short ways behind it, sun coming in from over my shoulder lighting the boat up in gold, perfectly reflected on the mostly still surface of the lake.

I was on an early morning walk while at a retreat/workshop at YMCA Camp Northland on Burntside Lake, a few miles north of Ely. The support group I was both a member of and Board member for went there for a week each year for several years after a United Way grant paired us up with the St.Paul Y. The  workshops we put on there were already emotional experiences. This scene, this one photo nobody else shot because they were all sleeping in till all they got was ordinary blue skies, was one of the top experiences from my perspective. Since I was into poetry back in those days, this cried out for a poem. It took a year or so, but I finally came up with it:

BOUND

Rising from the lake
White mists held
Our vision of the morning
Captive,
Confined
To what lay
Immediately before us,
Bound
Like sails on anchored boat
Awaiting the breeze
That would unfurl the day.

A few years later a modest inheritance allowed me the indulgence, after paying off my mortgage,  of printing a bunch of those. Uh, a fairly big bunch. Then it was suggested that these would sell better if they weren't a "one-off." Thus 4 more. And of course I registered for sales tax exemption. You may have also guessed, they didn't sell well. I even got one request, after one poster was printed, if I could make him one without the poem.

(Uh, it is what it is, dude! See those numbers at the bottom, number x out of y printed? Done deal.) Fortunately I only thought that. He bought  one anyway.

OK, it might have helped if I had any skills whatsoever at marketing. The poster stacks sit up in Minnesota, and I "get" to file Sales & Use tax forms annually. The first year there were a very few sales. I made sure I could do the paperwork. I was, after all, filing my own business income taxes most every year from 1970 till retirement, and filed trust forms for about 6 years, justifying every investment and penny I spent as trustee for a juvenile. In following years, my sales & use tax forms were even simpler: all zeros. The online forms changed every few years, and I had to dig out my old records and try to remember which password I used, what possibility was my user name, what's my tax ID number, but I thought I finally got it all down last year, all that information in a secure and findable spot for this year.

So this year they changed the form. Big time! I tried unsuccessfully to even be able to log in for three days. After begging for a"reminder", turns out what I'd written for my online ID wasn't what I'd used. Oops. Luckily my prompt word got it done. Now, however, instead of filling out zeros in 4 places and hitting enter, there was this gawdawful long form to complete in full, with a type font from the website of about a size 3! Dang, do they all think we "business people" are teenagers with fantastic near vision? I've needed bifocals and trifocals for... well, nevermind.

They have a phone number. For four more days it was as busy as the covid number I called to get my vaccination appointment. No way was I going to wait on that line for over an hour just for this. Covid shot, yeah. Taxes, no. Especially when I owed none. Last Friday was the deadline to file. Today, Tuesday, I finally got through in under a full minute. 

I apologized, letting a very pleasant woman know that I was very frustrated and would try to be patient before explaining my issue. She needed information, of course, all of which I had ready, proving who I really was and things like my address and tax number. When she got to my birthday, as soon as I finished giving her my birth year, I added that this date was the likely reason I was having so much trouble with their changing online forms. She laughed, understand my joke while trying not to be offensive. Then she agreed that this year's changes were challenging, offering me an alternative. She really had been listening when I explained that I'd been filing all zeros for years. Would I like her to close out the company? When I asked what was involved, envisioning a nightmare of back sales taxes not paid on the front end needing to be caught up on at the back end so the state got its share. She informed me to my great relief that all it took was a few keystrokes on her part.

That simple? Seriously? Let's go  for it! She "killed" it off effective 2019, meaning no filing needed for this year, no impossible forms, no penalties. I am no longer "Poetography." RIP. I'll miss the name. But not the hassle. If I change my mind about that last, I can restart the company and pretend I know an iota about marketing, but I'd have to care.

Ahhh, freedom!

Spending The Stimulus Payments

Steve and I get our 2nd Pfizer shots in less than 2 weeks. That's when we start to really make our plans. It's not that we haven't been talking about how to spend it, and by "it" we're talking about the $600 each from the last time and the proposed $1400 each proposed for this spring. That's $4,000.

We're lucky. Being on SS, our income hasn't changed due to Covid. Our expenses have, however, due both to getting more things shipped and all the purchases related to fighting our bug infestations this last year.

I read a lot of (political) blog commentary from people who say they personally don't need the funds but intend to send them to a struggling family member or local food shelf or pick-your-charity. That's nice for them. I already manage a variety of regular contributions on a modest level, and don't feel guilty about not sending more. Struggling family members do get some assistance, again limited by our own needs. That's not what we plan for the proposed influx of funds.

The money won't be saved beyond the time it takes to devote it to what we are planning, supporting a really struggling portion of the economy: tourism.

We didn't travel at all last summer. Even for only a fast trip to Minnesota, during the three-day dash each way of 1800+ miles, motels, gas stations, and restaurants would have gotten our business. We'd hoped to take longer and see more. Covid and sense kept us home. Our immunizations will free us from that restriction. Another factor is looking at how each is aging and what we're able to do, with how we're less able as each year passes. So this year will be our last year's thwarted plans... on steroids!

The idea is to start earlier, stay longer, visit more places, spend more comfortable nights in slightly to unavoidably-much-more-than-slightly more expensive lodging. Start by traveling with a dog again, cost goes up. Add staying near or in more National Parks, and hike the cost again. Even as economically as we live, this takes a bite. At least the hatchback is economical, still getting 41 mpg on the freeways.

This may be our last big trip. Walking becomes increasingly difficult for Steve, and we both acknowledge the likelyhood of flying him back and forth in the near future. Ultimately, in order to even see our families, we may have to sell here and move back north, something I - we - shudder to contemplate.

To make the most of it we both have pretty decent cameras,  a bunch of SD cards, and lots of space on our laptops to store photos. Rich can help Steve get some needed software on his laptop for working with them, cropping and whatever. We can relive this trip with photo-enhanced memories for the rest of our lives.

That's a pretty good investment for our stimulus, right?

Just a further note: morning national news revealed a survey indicating a huge percentage of Americans are planning much the same thing this year, adding a week to their vacations. We better lock in those reservations quickly, I think. No more seeing which of 3 cheapo motel locations have an opening for the evening, depending on how far we are wiling to drive.

My First African

I know, sounds racist as hell, right? That's what this post is about, an exploration of my growing from no awareness of the topic to where I've gotten now. Growing up in "white bread Minnesota", as I think of it, there were no encounters and little information other than books.

While I was still a toddler my parents moved our family out of Minneapolis to a resort up in Hubbard County, then later into a nearby town, Park Rapids. No black people lived there, nor brown, nor yellow that I was aware of. Yeah, not PC labels, but that was way back then. It was still too soon after WWII to call Japanese anything but Japs and it wasn't in a nice way. We did have "redskins" however, the locals being Ojibwe, referred to as Chippewa. Mostly they still lived on the reservation, so I only saw them two ways. In school was the first. The second happened once, when I had a morning doctor's appointment. The car passed a bar where there were several men sleeping on the sidewalk outside. Having never seen anything like that, I asked about it. I was told they were Drunk Indians, those two words summing up their whole identity. End of story. It was how they were seen.

My own personal encounter involved the Boswell sisters. I was dimly aware of Phyllis, being in my grade. This particular afternoon I was walking home from school through the park where the local beach was. The beach was now closed and I was the only person there, until the three girls appeared. Unprovoked, they surrounded me and began shoving and hitting me. Being naive - aka stupid - I thought reasoning with them could keep me out of any further trouble, so I kept asking them why they were doing this. They only repeated that I knew what I had done. I didn't fight back, not just because I had no clue how, but it was, after all, three against one. Eventually they quit and left, whether from lack of further justification to continue, or just boredom. I never told my parents, 1) sure they would say it was my fault, a common pattern, and 2) having sustained only minor bruises that I figured I could hide from them, and a lingering bewilderment.

As an adult looking back on the incident, I figure the sisters were "paying it forward", the only way they could to deal with their surrounding society "keeping them in their place" with all the problems that imposed on their lives. I have long since forgiven them, hoping they have found what they need in their lives. They have never been forgotten, however, although they don't take up much space in my emotional life. A post on this topic brings it all back for a while as I struggle with how to accurately depict it.

Aside from that, the most exotic that people got in my world were from slightly different versions of Christianity. Being Methodists, Baptists were pretty strange, prohibiting dancing. "Why don't Baptists have sex standing up?"  (Wait, you can do that standing up?) "Because God might think they're dancing!" We thought that was hilarious. Dancing was the lifeblood of teenagers, though I didn't know how and never went to a dance until Prom. REALLY out there were the Catholics, somehow enemies to all that Protestants believed.

My best friend Charlene, who lived across the street, was Catholic. Hmmm. I knew that meant no meat on Fridays, a different school, and a large family, but she was pretty nice, and her father let us neighborhood kids watch while he butchered snapping turtles in their backyard for Friday meals. He even let my brother have a clutch of eggs to bury in the sand to hatch. So I snuck into her church with her one Sunday to see what a mass was all about, back when those were mostly in Latin. They got a lot of exercise, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting. They also did very little singing and only meekly, something Methodists did full-throatedly. Charlene had told me what I was expected to do and was excused from doing, so sitting next to her I was completely comfortable.

Mom had thought I was heading out to our church as normal, and I'm not sure how she found out that wasn't so. I even walked to our church, before walking past and changing direction to the other church. Somehow she always found out what I was up to. When she confronted me her main point was about why I had to sneak around to do it. When I asked her whether she would have given me permission had I asked, she wasn't sure. Point made.

So where does "my first African" come into the picture? Church camp. Northern Pines was (is?) located along the Fishhook River, about a three miles drive from home. That same river meanders through town, a bay providing the public swimming beach, though some years ago a developer bought it out and no public beach still exists there. Camp had cabins, a dining hall, a beach of its own, a large campfire circle, and it nestled in a fairly large plot of northern woods, including some wonderfully large pine trees, hence the name.

I learned about camp in church. I'd started attending after we moved into town. It was partly a chance to socialize out of school at MYF, Sunday school, and Tuesday school, where back then kids were excused from school Tuesday mornings to receive their own church's training. Until band, it was my only real chance to socialize with kids my age, since Mom kept a tight rein on me. I also went to church in part as rebellion against my parents whom I labeled as hypocrites for only attending on Christmas and Easter. I was pretty smug about it too, something I've come to hate in other people, but never really got around to apologizing to my parents for. Mea culpa. Church came to mean more later, a chance to really sing, and to see the kid I had a tremendous crush on, the new preacher's son, David.

Camp was a way of extending my knowledge of my religion, a place to have fun, take nature walks, swim, learn new crafts, but even more than that, a chance to get away from Mom for a week each summer. I'd also hoped to meet new kids who had no idea what a horrible person I was back home, as I saw myself then and figured everybody else did too. Maybe I could make new friends? Well, for a week, maybe. The best part was its approach to teaching religion. We'd meet for a short lesson, then scatter to individual places, whether in the woods or along the water, whatever we found as a spot to be alone with our thoughts, read the Bible, and to speak to God. Or maybe watch a squirrel. Perhaps there was no essential difference, the one being the creation of the other. God didn't need a church to speak with us.

One year there was a new counselor at camp, a young man from Africa, either Nigeria or Kenya, I think. He was good looking, very black skinned, with a lovely British accent, and a very pleasant personality. I took great pride in the challenge of learning to pronounce his name correctly, Olumuyaway Ossinami if I still have it right and as close as I can spell it by how it sounds. The accents are on "mu" and "nam", with all the u's being long vowels. The other counselors were very enthusiastic about him being there, and we took our cues from them. He was almost never without a group surrounding him, though I recall hanging back a bit, wondering if I had anything to contribute to the conversations. I was beginning to realize there were some gaps in my upbringing by then, still too ignorant to realize how large those gaps were. My idea of what it was to be "negro" was filling in just fine, thank you. My image of how that worked in this country was nil.

The next time that topic came up, it caused a conflict with my father. It was during Sunday school, and he was then our class's teacher. When some question was asked, he answered that yes, he did believe that they - Negros - did deserve equal treatment. Unfortunately, he went further, explaining that despite that, he would consider it the worst possible insult and disgrace if his daughter - me - were to ever marry one. I was totally shocked, being by then a firm believer in equal rights, something which was taught in school as our country's ideal. (Little of our country's reality was taught, however.) I challenged Daddy on why it would be an insult, and was promptly shut down. Once home, he soundly scolded me for embarrassing him in front of the whole class. It was how he was taught, was his excuse. I'm not sure if the embarrassment was because it might be wrong, or if it was just being challenged by his daughter? At least they hadn't bothered to raise me the same way, and by 8th grade, it was too late.

As it happened, I never did marry, nor even date, anyone black. We never needed that confrontation. I did, however, marry one who claimed secret Native American (Canadian) ancestry, which turned out to be a lie, per DNA testing of his kids, and a second one who traces his ancestry to The Trail, that stain on American history where Cherokee and others were forcibly relocated under the most brutal of conditions, "conveniently" resulting in huge numbers of them dying along the way. He's 1/32 Cherokee, and as the years go by, embraces more bits of his heritage, though without wanting to claim tribal status. I never did apprise Daddy of either one's heritage. He was able to hate or like each of them on their own merits, and was wiser, sooner, than I in each case.

In 1964 the family uprooted, moving to St. Paul. Central High School's population had a mix of white and black  kids. Walking down the halls between classes, the other 1800 people were a sea of mixed faces, mixed races. They had newly combined that year from Wilson and Highland Park schools, so for everybody at least half of them were familiar, half new. I was one of the few for whom all were new. If you were somebody who spoke up in one of my classes, I became at least a little familiar with  you. If you were in band or choir, I made actual connections. One of those was Carol, sitting next to me in the coronet section, who became my new best friend "next door." She actually lived about 4 blocks away, but when you walk two miles to school in all kinds of weather, "uphill both ways" as we used to joke, that's practically next door. 

Among her circle of existing friends and another band member was a young man named Louie, whom I came to understand was a Jew. History repeats, and I went to his Temple to see what that was like. This time Mom knew. I explained it as a school project. If she thought Catholics were far out there....

I had no problem with my fellow black students. I didn't actually make any friends with them, but I barely made friends period. I hated the city. I hated leaving the country. I hated the loneliness of being one (or maybe two with Carol though we really had very little in common) among 1800. This band was a poor substitute for the award winning marching one in Park Rapids. This choir director was very hoity-toity and kept trying to get me to sing through my nose, though Finian's Rainbow where I made chorus was fun to put on. Basically, I adjusted badly.

Fast forward decades.

About a dozen years ago I had the opportunity to attend and learn from a weekly Dakota language table in Minneapolis. It was led by a U of M professor of Dakota whose name I can't recall. My bad. He was Dakota himself, and spent as much time as he could conversing with the elders, learning language, traditions and history from them while he still could. He related to us going to them and asking what they would call a television, something nonexistent when the language flourished. They discussed it and figured out a proper term, using the way the language combines multiple ideas into complex words much like German does.

The language table was held in a church basement just south of downtown Minneapolis. I'd heard about it from a work friend who had close connections to several Dakota, assuring me it was open to all. He even met his wife while learning to speak Dakota. She'd approached him after hearing people repeat "washte" frequently, wondering what it meant, which is "good", commonly said in class in praise of somebody mastering pronunciation or meaning of a word. He just riffed on about how it was "wash day" and they were discussing laundry, but it caught her attention and she forgave him the joke. Some of the professor's students also came to the table, both to learn and assist, and like me were washichu, white. Only one person tried to make me feel unwelcome, and was politely corrected. The language itself is a holy thing and should always be spoken only with respect. 

We also learned culture and local history along the way. Each meeting started with a pot luck. The first plate filled was for the spirits, with a tobacco offering sprinkled over the top, a Dakota prayer to them said, then placed outside. The empty plate was cleaned up after the meeting so as not to litter. Who or whatever cleaned it up was sent by the spirits. It was at this table I first heard of "The Mankato 38", another terrible time in local history, not taught in schools. About this same time NPR started talking about it, so I took extra note, and wound up taking my granddaughter down there for their annual commemorative wachipi, what we call powwow. I even taught her to say, "Mi kunshi kchi wai", the last word two syllables, wa-ee, the whole sentence meaning my grandmother brought me here. 

It was truly a privilege to be able to take part in that language table. Pidamayaye!

This happened some time after Dances With Wolves came out. So many films about Native Americans get everything wrong, from storyline to casting to language. One infamous movie has a war party talking among themselves in their native language supposedly about strategy, where the actual translation has them mocking the tiny penises of the white people.  The makers of Dances took pains to have Lakota spoken properly during it, but our table was informed they did it wrong. This was after teaching us the difference between Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. They are related tribes, but the language has minor differences. In Dakota, some words have a "d" sound. In Lakota, those words are the same but the "d" is replaced by "l". If you can't have guessed it yet, in Nakota, those same words are pronounced with "n". That part of Lakota the film got right, using the "l". 

What gets language speakers giggling is something else. You noticed I used a Dakota word "pidamayaye" above. It means thank you. Sentences in the three languages, to be polite, end in "ye" or "yedo" (or yelo or yeno). "Ye" denotes that the speaker is female. "Yedo" etc., indicates the speaker is male. Everybody in the movie ends their sentences in "ye" as if they were all women. Oops.

A few years before my retirement, the company hired a number of recent Somali immigrants as drivers. Of those, a group subcontracted as dedicated drivers with a pharmacy company which specifically serves nursing homes on a route basis. I came in at the end of the day as an on-call driver, hoping for one of their frequent runs up to my home part of the world, a way of avoiding the dead-head home. Those given me were emergency runs for residents newly admitted or newly sick who weren't yet included in the regular routes. Often they even led me well into Wisconsin, making for some very late nights - and nice paychecks. But these runs weren't guaranteed, so there was often a wait, even a deadhead. I had a chance to meet and talk with both the drivers in their spare moments and their supervisor.

Most of them were devout Muslims. Prayer rugs were kept in or above lockers in the waiting area, and I would see them pulled down for quiet prayers at the far end of the room when I happened to be there at the right time. All present who were not praying were respectfully silent, or whispering about work they were getting. The bathroom in the waiting area was remodeled to add a faucet and basin/drain at floor level for washing feet. 

One man wore a beautiful white and blue cap called a kufi, prompting a conversation on the elaborate sewing/embroidery its maker had put into it. Every time we met after that, he smiled at me, and we exchanged "how are you"s. There was never time for more. Those times when the other drivers were out and the supervisor wasn't busy, we had long chats about family life. He takes his paycheck home to his wife, she controls how it is spent to take care of the family first, then gives him an allowance from what is left to spend as he chooses. But always, family first.

I never saw Muslim women where I worked, but downtown Minneapolis and the near south area was full of them, their hijabs and long skirts in brilliant colors and beautiful patterns. In winter, they'd be worn over puffy parkas for warmth. In summer the women were still covered despite the heat and humidity. They were beautiful, always walking in twos or more, either silent or pleasantly conversing, occasionally leading children. Dressed as I always was in the company uniform of a man's blue shirt, and pants of restricted colors, I often envied them of those wonderful fabrics and their comfort with their brightness. It was quickly tempered by my awareness of the struggles we imposed upon them after 9-11 and the strict roles their religion imposed as well. Not for me, but also not to hate or fear. All I ever met were better human beings than many I already knew. Maybe even me.

Echos From "The Big Job's Daughters Secret"

Blogspot gives me statistics on views of my posts. I also get emails notifying me of comments and giving me the content of them. By far the most visited and  most commented on post is "The Big Job's Daughters Secret", posted way back on January 23rd, 2010. Over 11 years later, every month it still gets dozens of new looks. Every once in a while it gets a comment.

Some of them break my heart. I found my experience confusing and somewhat isolating. I always assumed it was just that I didn't "get" the lodge experience and couldn't figure out why, exactly, we were all there. Some women came to its defense, proclaiming how wonderful it was, but there are several commenting on their common experiences of ostracization and isolation. Here was supposed to be a "guaranteed" chance to belong to an organization that would support you in open fellowship wherever you went that had another lodge. With the parent organization being Masons, that should be world wide. (To those who had that kind of experience, I am happy for you. I found it much later in life in a very different place.)

It's like a sorority but it follows you throughout your life as you graduate to Eastern Stars, and can support and follow your family as well. Instead it seems for many to be the high school girls' version of "Lord of the Flies." Nobody dies, but souls shrivel. Scars remain for decades.

It begs the question of whether this is deliberate, somehow weeding out whatever or whomever is considered "undesirable"? Perhaps a "correction" of failing to blackball some members before they can join? Or is this just a logical mean-girls way of dealing with lack of adult guidance to show the way towards some kind of personal growth among its members? Are we who didn't thrive determined by others to be inferior? Or might they be lacking in character, or perhaps training, for not bringing us fully into the fold?

The relative popularity of a single post from a fairly obscure blog leads me to believe that this is an issue still resounding for many. I wonder if anybody reads this and resolves to make some course corrections, if in fact any are possible in this kind of "we're better (fairest in all the land)" club. Do Job's Daughters thrive these days? Do its members still graduate to Eastern Stars? 

I even wonder if, like my particular bethel, they all happen to be white and protestant only, or was that just an artifact of the small Minnesota town we lived in back then? It was never on my radar as a teenager in the 60's, still before civil rights marches exploded into the news. BLM makes it almost impossible to avoid the question now. I'll be linking this to my original post, and if any of you care to comment on this in particular, I'd welcome any and all input.