orange chair pictures

First Period: November, 1971

2012-02-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

It wasn't raining, at least not yet.

Instead of a slog through tire ruts ankle deep in cold mud, on this morning the alley behind my house was a crisp one. Where puddles of brown water would have otherwise been soaking, there were pockets of ice, dotting down the path like a thin layers of white candle wax. The route stretched five blocks, dead-ended on the same block as the High School. The last minutes of a full moon dangled pale on the horizon, as if a faded Christmas ornament, drifting alone. It was starting out to be a beautiful day.

I could hardly remember a morning- a sunny morning - when at least one gull had not straggled in from the banks of the Skagit, a couple miles south, for a morning sweep over town, and there were usually several. Motionless, they swayed in wide arcs a hundred feet high, north to south, east to west, coasting on the same cold breeze that swept the hair out of my face as I headed to school. My hair was still summer-blond, almost but not quite genuine hippy-length, it was still longer than the local male masses, most of which adhered to shorter (though equally rumpled) styles, cuts which often included lots of bangs sloping right or left, the rest maybe touching the ears but hardly ever much past the collar. Except in the case of the occasional wild mullet, which numbered under a dozen.

I was aiming himself at the vanishing point of the alley and the blue, making my way as shadows and sunlight flickering across my face to First Period. Which in my case meant Junior Art. An elective, Art was conducted in one of the half-dozen shabbier, basement classrooms at my high school, one with just two windows on two walls, both which opened to a ground-level view not up and to the sky, but to rain spouts and more walls of brick situated close enough that updward they were all you saw until eclipsing your line of vision.

Because of it's subterranean location and often shabby selection of paints and other art supplies, I had come to presume that Art had become one of the underfunded classes in my school. While this notion did not rank high on my list of daily meditations, I'd nonetheless resolved that the reason for this was due to (although I was aware I had no way of ever knowing for certain) - to one or both of two things: the general lack of esteem placed upon the subject itself by school administrators; or the timid, perhaps even quietly desperate temperament of its single instructor, Miss (Judith) Higgins.

Miss Higgins was overweight, overwrought and always appeared in a rush, such as when to discussing her latest extravagant topic or technique (Papier-mâché being one of the more exotic). While a somewhat imposing figure at nearly 6' (in heels), this was still not her most defining feature. Here was a woman so tragically self-conscious of her own hairy forearms that she appeared to shave them on a semi-daily basis, and to well above the elbows. Ironically, the end effect of this regimen was that her arms would alternately - and conspicuously - appear as either satin-smooth (an early- morning shave perhaps), or else covered with a noticeably thick, dark stubble not unlike a five-o'clock shadow. The latter, of course, being most of the time.

This situation, however pitiably, did serve to inform me how such a minor flaw as this could reduce an individual - even an adult, and a reasonably fine person as was Miss Higgins - to be regarded as pathetic, and thereby largely impotent as an authority figure of any kind. This despite her most assertive - and heartfelt - attempts at keeping her classroom under control, to not spiral down into a cacophony of wisecracks, laughter, and general anarchy. The end effect, was that most class time in Miss Higgins' Art was spent in a class-wide chorus of don't-give-a-shit, with most everyone doodling away on pictures of a motorcycles or race cars or horse heads, as opposed to sketching the object du jour, as they'd been meekly instructed. In other words doing whatever they damned well pleased 90% of the time.

Mind you, these were not your lazy or usual unruly bunch of schoolyard routs, but students who otherwise, in other classrooms, were largely a picture of cheerful, scholastic goodwill. As if a rotting animal carcass on the hot African tundra, the smell of failure on Miss Higgins was as acute and obvious to a teenager as would have been the soured stench of death itself. This, of course, only granted an additional degree of hopelessness to her situation, one that might seem to beg pity as well as minimal facade of compliance. Instead it demonstrated in brutal fashion that sympathy came less easily to heyenas and fifteen year-olds than did contempt, and especially when the food chain of authority was called into question.

In fact, had any of her students possessed the gift of precognition it might still be anybodies guess if that would have made any real difference, or moved the needle a significant degree on our dials of adolescent empathy, such was our mutual self-absorption. Whatever the case, in a handful of years this fretful woman would be buried, and long after, when I'd eventually learned of this, her face and figure remained a clear memory. I cannot begin to guess at the details of her personal life, only that human lives are sometimes overwhelmed by a darkness they cannot endure, and in her case, ending in a final descent to death at her own hand. A suicide. I have to hope that if the slack-jawed faces in her classroom had haunted her at all, that we did so not as demons, but simply as the clueless, bratty teenagers we were.

But back on this particular morning Miss Higgins was still very much alive, left alone to suffer out this first period class and a remaining full days worth of other ones just like it. She chatted away - most of the speech being largely ignored past the baritone of her voice - as her students dragged out their 8" x 8" squares of red linoleum and continued (or pretended to continue) their lesson in print-making from last week. A simple picture or design was to be first outlined in pencil on the linoleum and then a curved cutting tool used to scoop out the image, now in relief. This image or shape - now in shallow two dimensions - would later be coated with a layer of a thick ink and pressed onto a sheet of paper, or in the case of a especially enthusiastic student, a white t-shirt.

This was one of the art projects that I personally enjoyed, as it gave me the opportunity to embellish the logo of my 8mm film club "Greasey Films" onto a virtually endless host of objects. Just as I was nearly done cutting my block print (a design variation of a "bomb with wings" I'd admired in a book of military insignias), the linoleum cutter jumped from the square, landing in the tip of my left thumb, and partially "scooping' out a 1/4" thick strip of my flesh instead of linoleum.The skin flopped back into place, and as I gaped, for an instant, it did not bleed. In that moment I was unable to judge how badly I'd injured myself. Another moment later and the blood, almost purple, arrived - seeping in first under the flap, and then into my palm, then the table.

"Shit!"

In a sweep to pinpoint the epicenter of that blurted this profanity, Miss Higgins' face whipped upward with an expression with equal parts surprise and anger. That face melted nearly instantly, replaced with furrowed brows as she came scurrying to stand at my side. "Oh, my gosh!". I was still staring at the wound, from which now emanated a dull, ever- increasing ache. Our eyes locked, first on one-anothers, then back to the wound: It was probably going to require stitches. To her credit, Miss Higgins did not over-react, but stepped calmly to the large sink in the rear of the classroom and tore a long sheet of paper towel from the dispenser. Soaking under under cold water, she gently wrapped it around my thumb. "You'll need to see the school nurse. That might even require stitches."

Impassively, I rose from the chair and lumbered to the classroom door. As I stepped out, I could hear "Way to go, Ketchup!" followed by a small chorus of laughter, one of which was unmistakably that of Rob. I didn't bother looking back, but kept walking, turned the corner, and started up the wide stairwell that led back up to the first floor.

The Attendance Office, in addition to being the main entrance to the teacher's lounge, was also homebase to the Principal and Vice Principal's offices. Additionally, a adjacent alcove served as the "sick room", a tiny nook where the part-time attendance secretary played double-duty as part-time school nurse. When I arrived at the attendance counter, however, neither of her two persona's were present, so,after glancing up at the clock (20 minutes 'till my next class), I stepped back and slumped into one of the chairs under the teacher's mail nooks.

While the seating arrangements were not new to me - I'd be waiting in precisely the same place if I'd been called into the Vice-Principals office for a dressing down or under the worst of circumstances, a swat.

In about five minutes, Mrs. Lagstrom finally showed up, unlocking the door to the nurses room and lead me inside . "That's a nasty one!" the comment came from over her shoulder. I thought the room smelled faintly of mouthwash. Two plain oak chairs sat in the room, painted entirely white, across from a single narrow cot, also white, which was covered with a plain wool blanket and a single pillow. Once, as a freshman, two years ago, I'd spent a few minutes on this cot while he waited for a phone call from my Mother, standard procedure when students were targeted for going home early, sick. Mrs. Lagstrom took her time carefully cleaning my wound, dabbed it with a pink cotton ball soaked in disinfectant, then covered it with a large wrapping of white gause, which was then taped again, almost from top to bottom. The ridiculously huge bandage would no doubt supply my friends with additional fuel for their amusement, and as she finished up I considered my options.

"I'm going to call my Mom and see if she can take me to the doctor."

Nurse Lagstrom agreed it might be a "good idea, just to be safe" and I stepped across and out of the room and dialed my home number. Over the sound of unanswered electronic ringing at the other end, I pretended to be talking to my mother, supposedly arranging to be taken to the doctor "for stitches". I wrapped up the phoney conversation with"OK, I be out front. Thanks, Mom!" and glanced up at the nurse. She seemed pleased.

I headed out of the building and started walking home, ,thinking maybe I'd watch cartoons for while then head back in time for lunch. Join my friends for a smoke before heading to my afternoon Periods, once of which was working on the school newspaper, a class I probably enjoyed more than all my others combined, except maybe for Drama.

I crossed the intersection and headed to the alley, turned into it and pulled a wrinkled pack of Old Gold cigarettes out of my coat pocket. I looked down at the bandage on my thumb, then pulled it off. My thumb badly swollen and also bright pink (from the Mercurochrome). I'd intended to throw the bandage away, but instead pushed it back on, crumpling it slightly and causing a fresh jolt of pain to jump up my arm. Fuck. I raised my smoke and took a long drag, then started walking again. In another minute my eyes were fixed once again on the blue sky, and the gulls, still up there.

It was Wednesday, and I was starting to wonder if I could find some acid by that Friday night. Mikey, a teenager with as purely sweet a soul as ever their was, would be the guy to see.

Asked to describe himself in a single word...

2012-01-30T18:19:00.001-08:00

He replied "Easily confused".

long ride home

2011-04-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

I just now finished an excellent online read of a mother who, accompanied by her two young daughters, pays a visit to her ailing father, who is likely drifting into the last, exhausted stages of his long life. It is a meditation on dying, and not so much on death, but how we introduce such a concept - and it's cacophony of complex emotions - to our children. Very thoughtful and wise.

It occurs to me midway that I share little with this woman, save perhaps that we were both raised in families that kept a tight lid on the topic of death, a subject which was never broached, a word that was never used, at least never aloud or in the presence of me, my brother or sister.

My first personal impression of loss came when, at the age of around four, I was suddenly sent away to live with an aunt and uncle in Seattle. My memories of that summer visit are vague and strange, and include my first glimpses of both false teeth (my aunt Aggie's) and a lightening storm, which I beheld, alone and breathless in the late hours of night, as spied through a thin part in the long, blue curtains that hung next to my bed. Both events were impressive, and seemed equally ominous.

As far as the idea of death itself goes, while no explanation was offered to me regarding my re-location (not to mention what had became of my parents, brother or sister), it soon became my silent presumption that my mother had "gone away", was in fact, gone. I had no innate concept of death, but of finality, yes.

So it was then with immense surprise that several weeks later - with equal abruptness - I was ushered back again to my family and home, which appeared to be miraculously intact. There was no pomp and circumstance to my reappearance, it appeared merely a simple matter of my aunt and uncle dropping in to say hi, and then driving away, leaving me behind to resume where I'd left off, once again with no explanation or even acknowledgment of what had been or now would be. What little I recall of the matter shuffles in a pale fog, as surely I must have too. Only too happy to bolt for the back door and out into the fields where I could quickly put the entire, very odd, experience behind me. I was never told why I was away (at least not for several years) and I never asked. A hair past forty-eight months of age, my mental vacancy regarding this seemed a clear demonstration that I had absorbed as much emotional confusion as I could manage.

Fast forward six years: my mother has divorced and remarried, this first time to a skinny man in a cowboy hat and boots, whom we join in his rural home outside Ferndale, Washington.Name is Don. Although countrified and in a slightly emaciated fashion, Don physically resembles a man not unlike my real father, in the style I would now have noted as the none-too-subtle signs of a heavy drinker.

The house is two stories of gray, asphalt tile, heated with a single downstairs wood-burning stove, and has two bedrooms upstairs, the smaller of which has no wallpaper (mine) and the larger of which has no closet (my sister's). Don and mom share a bedroom off the kitchen. A recent high school grad, my brother wastes no time in exciting the situation, pointing his Ford towards the promise of a big-paying job in the Montana oil fields.

We have one pastured cow (which is eventually butchered for meat having suddenly dropped dead) and Don's most prized possession, an Appaloosa mare. I have no recollection of him ever actually riding the creature, although I'm sure he also owned a saddle for it, which I had observed being stored in a small tack shed behind the main house, a untidy but revered location which was soon deemed to be the one space forbidden above all others to me.

It is a time when my afternoons after school are spent mainly alone - no other kid I know lives closer than several miles - with a lot of wandering in the woods. But I do have a dog, named Cindy, who over the course of our year's interment I have successfully raised from a puppy to a full-grown mutt. She is simple company, but faithfully so.

My mother's days appear equally uneventful, except for her frequent trips to the supermarket in town, and occasionally visits to a friend or acquaintance, also by car. On these occasions, largely out of a complete lack of other prospects, I generally tagged along, curled up in the back seat of my mom's black and white '55 Fairlane.

I don't recall knowing any of these people in particular, or even knowing anything about them, only that I usually kept outdoors during her stays, every so often in the company of an equally anonymous child who may or may not have been in my general age range. Either way, I was glad for the company, as was my mother, evidently.

It was to be one of these visits wherein I would be passed a first lesson of loss and death, and it would come to me on the long drive home, my mother at the wheel, me in the back seat, flattened down in my way against its cool vinyl seat covers. The ride home began with my mother cheerfully wishing her friend well, tucking herself and purse behind the steering wheel. The door closed, the engine revved, and we pulled away, Mom aiming one last smile over her shoulder to her friends on their front porch, slipping finally out of view. She drove, I starred \out the window, blankly observing cornfield after cow pasture that streamed past.

At a certain point - I have no grasp of how soon or later - and without so much as shifting in her around in her seat, my mother's voice announced: "Sonia called while I was inside. Called from home."

"Yeah? What?"

"She said Cindy was run over by a truck out in front of the house. She's dead." Just like that.

I squinted a short while in the direction of the back of her head while her words slowly took a legible form in my head, she now completely silent, and then turned back again to the scene outside the. whatever it might have been.

In the next instant came an explosion, a burst so huge and sudden it was like stick of dynamite had been lit and shoved inside my gut. I was literally all over the place-- up against the roof, on the floor, the seats, kicking, crying, screaming, shrieking, with every bit of strength in my lungs, lashing out with both arms, both feet, both hands like a giant, crazy cat caught in a spring trap. How I missed breaking a window I can't image. And this went on for miles, this rage, this fit of all fits, body parts continuing to fly in in every direction.

I was a human hand grenade, and she'd pulled the pin.

Mom, she was like a statue.

As astonished as I am know to recollect it, she didn't pull over, didn't reach out a hand, didn't so much as even glance in the rear-view mirror at as far as i could tell. Just sat there and stared ahead, gazing down the road as if it were an endless tunnel, never herself making as much as a single peep, or sigh.

The next thing is it's all over, and I'm laying sprawled flat across the rear floor, fingertip to toe, and I hear the sound of the gravel, popping under the car as we pull into our driveway. She parks, turns off the engine, steps out and closes the door behind her. I laid there for a while, all cried out, then pull myself back up into the back seat. I am still dazed, but beginning to move on, towards considering the practical matters of the event.

I buried Cindy out in the big pasture behind our house, under a tall fir. It seemed like a nice place. When I checked the following week I realized I hadn't buried her deeply enough, as coyotes or some other varmint had raided the grave site, dragging her remains off somewhere else, to eat, most likely.

But it didn't seem important to me by that time. I knew she was gone already, long gone, dead and gone. Gone forever.

All that remained was me, and a word that had once been her name.

paradigm shift

2010-09-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

This is not pronounced "para-dig-em"...

In a most-beloved state of mind (3 VERY stiff screwdrivers) I have this to offer to my regular readers (1): Life is a jigsaw puzzle that is presented with 8-10 critical pieces missing.

Good luck figuring it out. You may come close, but...

some kid, calling...

2010-08-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Late summer, a simmery afternoon. A voice juts out, screaming in unmistakable child octaves. "Hey, Geff!" This time it's through the open rear window of my car as I cruise the last block to our house in south Tacoma. Kids in their yards, on their bikes. Running off, to something, to somewhere.

By the time it had reached my ears it was already a chorus, joined with a hundred echoes of a dozen other kids, calling out my name across my lifetime, hundreds of times - across a street, across a playground, a stream, down a hallway, down an empty street, up a tree, way over there. On the beach. It's what you do when you spot an old friend. Old, friend.

From there it was a short shot to my heart, and even before I had a chance to catch it it had already ripped it, slightly. All I could do was to be left sitting there, parked at the familair curb, sobbing a bit like an eight-year old kid would, mainly because it was an eight year who was crying, and it was me.

Now that I realized, I knew it wasn't really me they called for. If they had any news, any use for me at all, it would have been "Hey, Mister!".

Back, alone again. Locked away in a grownup life, with the face of a middle-age man, dressed for the role. But then suddenly aware it was not unthinkable that no little boy or girl might ever care to call out my name as I drove up the street - my first name - again.

Not "Hey, guy!", but the automatic exclamation that bursts out when seeing a familiar, regular friend.

Far off, somewhere deep, the eight year old in me had stirred, awakened, and thought, just for an instant, that someone had called out his name. To play?

When the nameless little boy or girl who owned that voice realized that they'd been mistaken, seen another person, caught a shadow, meant another name, they fell silent. Oh. Just a moment, mistaken.

Not today. They were calling someone else. Do they even know I'm still here?

You push it away and watch it become invisible again, as if it had been your own breath fogging a tiny spot on the window, almost forgotten.

Get up, Mister. Grab your work stuff and head in.

Time for supper, you know. That's what time it is.

The Bob T Collection

2010-07-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

This is something that Bob T would have really appreciated knowing: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/Chronicle/excerpt/0811845389-e3.html .

Bob T, and his wife Fefee, were house parents at a group home where my wife and I worked at in the mid '70s, a hodgepodge of largely decent, but DSHS dependent kids ranging in disposition from dangerous to merely bored. Mainly, they were just teenagers, a condition which is cruel enough without imposed legal custody, but we did the best we could to remind them it was temporary confinement and for the most part, generously benevolent.

Back to Bob T, though: one of the duties of the houseparents on duty was to arrange entertainment, and while that budget was always a tight one, it occasionally meant the boys being treated to a night at the movies, selected by Bob T.

Bob T loved disaster movies, or for that matter any movie that dealt with something involving large, calamitous special effects, the more ridiculous and unlikely the better. Bob T himself was large, a reference I make with due reverence to that term, as it applies to the male human physique.

But as for movies, Bob T had been blessed with the '70's being a very good place to land if you were looking for bad action-disaster films. To name a few: The Towering Inferno, Airport, Airport 1975, The Poseiden Adventure (in the '70's an "adventure" is what you called it when you are trapped in an inverted, sinking cruise ship with Shelly Winters), The Hindenburg, Hurricane, City on Fire, Avalanche, Skyjacked. At some point George Kennedy became linked, either by karma or an overly-abitious press agent, to almost every one of these. But I digress...

The ultimate in this furious spate, without doubt, was Earthquake, a film which not only starred Charlton Heston (and Geroge Kenendy) , but also one that featured Sensurround, an overly-hyped soundtrack gimmick which employed a bevy of single-story speakers and was billed to be "So real, you'll FEEL it!").

Needless to say, Bob T had finally come into his own. As I recall, he was so excited he'd have payed for the entire boys home to see this film even if he'd had to pay out of his own pocket (which was not the case, then or ever).

Ok, now. Hoardes of people - normal people - flock to movies like this (and worse) and I have no problem with that. I personally have an extensive list (in writing, yet) of my favorite "bad" movies, and to a degree I simply resign it to personal taste and the trends of the times - so what.

But the thing with Bob T was, he would never admit to actually liking them. Not at all. No. Absolutely not. Bob T insisted that these films were "educational".

"Wouldn't YOU want to know what to do in a situation like that? Well, wouldn't you? You don't admit it, but I know you would." He was that kind of guy.

And more. Bob T was not only large in substance, but multi-dimensional as well, having worked at a variety of jobs that would have been impressive had it spanned a half-dozen men over their individual careers. A range which spanned the menial to the majestic, and beyond. He boasted of having been a window cleaner on the Sears Tower and with equal veracity insisted he had at one time also privately counseled deposed Heads of State. He worked, allegedly with a Top-Security Clearance, shredding documents at the Pentagon. lHe was a turnkey at an exclusive east coast facility that housed both the criminally insane and very famous (I know this to be a fact, as years later it was verified by a very impartial third party). He lived in an Ashram in India, and forsook it. Was an EMT, and saved the life of an over-dosed Govenor-who-shall-remain-nameless. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There were times I wished he was kidding, but knew he wasn't. Somehow, in some way, Bob T and George Kennedy had taken on similar roles, one in film and the other - however unlikely it seemed, and still does - in real life.

And the thing was, any one of these jobs you could look at Bob T and think "Yeah, I can see him doing that."

Eventually the key ingredient seemed to be that, to Bob T, the world was Black and White. Totally. Right or wrong. Sane or insane. Correct or in need of correction. His logic was as intangible, defensive, and stubborn as it was iron-clad.

At 6 feet and just under 400lbs, Bob T clearly intended no slight when he once looked over to me and observed, in obvious and utter sincerity, "I was slender once, just like you. I looked just like you, I had a frame like yours. But you'll gain, you'll see, just like me." And then the capper "Geff, by thirty-nine you'll weigh exactly as much as I do now." Had there not been such a tone of kindness in his voice, I might have challenged him on it. But the truth is, it still worries me.

A devout (and morbidly devoted) Mormon, Bob T showed no shame in proselytizing to his workmates or friends, and did so frequently, often sweetening up his hopes of conversion with a dinner invitation or afternoon picnic. Truly, the word duplicity could never be applied to Bob T, as his intentions were always as conspicuously transparent as the windshield in a new Pontiac. Cleaner, even.

But Bob T could be persuasive, if need be. This was adroitly demonstrated (with no small degree of glee) with two of our then-closet friends, who worked at the same group home. They were about the same age as us and had long-before established themselves to be - and quite joyfully so - died-in-wool hippies, replete with tandem 3-foot ponytails, a log cabin, hobo-patched jeans and equally strong Buddhist leanings. Surprised was not the word to describe our reaction when they both suddenly dropped out of site for several weeks, only to reemerge and reveal they had both converted to being Latter Day Saints, under Bob Ts proud tutelage. Just like George Kennedy, landing that Jumbo jet in the last reel, and pardon me when I scream Christ O Mighty!

Bob T also had this thing for sugar.

That's a whole 'nother story...

child bride

2010-07-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

First off, I'm trying hard not to go on and on about this. I'd just like to make a certain point, which I think bears mentioning, if not just for the fun of it. Especially for those of us at a certain age.

There's also going to be a lot of numbers flying around here, too (I actually needed to pull up my desktop calculator to help keep track). But it's worth it, I think.

OK, now. So. The first time I watched The Bride of Frankenstein was in 1962, on a local TV late-show, I being eight at the time.

Fast forward to 1998. I'm watching another film, Gods and Monsters, a mildly fictionalized account of the last years of James Whale, the man who directed The Bride of Frankenstein. Seems as though by 1957 Whale was regarded - by Hollywood standards and popular culture both - not only as something of a virtual dinosaur, but an extinct dinosaur as well. This despite the fact that in '57 only 22 years had passed since the BOF had uttered her first beguiling hiss.

Well, all this talk of Hollywood dinosaurs gets me to thinking. About time in general. What is "old" as compared to "new", and how that perspective changes so very rapidly with each generation. At jet speed, really.

Consider this: Bride of Frankenstein was 31 years old when I first saw it back in 1962.

If you went looking for a film today, in 2010, that was the same age now as BOF was to me then, you'd be looking at films released in 1979. To refresh your memory, here is short list of notables from '79: Alien, Kramer vs Kramer (it won the Oscar for Best Picture that year, in addition to four other Academy Awards), Apocalypse Now, Rocky II.

To keep this in perspective, Sigourney Weaver - does she seem like a fossil to you? Interesting to note also that when she made Alien, Weaver was 30 years old, only three years younger than Elsa Lanchester herself when she became The Monster's bride in 1935.

So, just to wrap up on this theme, how about this one: a teenager today sitting down to watch a DVD of Easy Rider (released in 1969) is the same as if - using my earlier comparison of me in 1962 - instead of Bride of Frankenstein I'd tuned in to watch The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, released in 1921. That's a silent film, of course.

It's odd: That Bride, she looks prettier every time I see her.

And so young.

news clips: heroes

2010-06-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

The word hero seems to get a lot of extra mileage these days - I'm not certain of what to make of it.

When I was quite young it seemed to be a term reserved almost exclusively for the likes of Audy Murphy, or Desmond Doss, the World War ll army medic who carried or dragged 75 wounded fellow soldiers back from the front lines and to safety, miraculously dodging hours of Japanese bullets and hand grenades. Doss himself refused to carry a weapon.

Nowadays it appears that occasionally even something as cozy as a fat donation to a local charity will win someone that same title. While I respect the privilege of folks in free country to dole out such distinctions as they personally see fit, I feel it's a bit overused. A devotion to one's community, for instance, while an important and admirable thing, does not necessarily qualify as heroic. My personal definition of a hero would be of one who displays courage or genuine bravery, and in in doing so violates his or her own safety in performing an act that will, or ultimately will, save lives.

I have never served in the armed forces, but I've met a hero or two, and photographed several, I'm honored to say. Many insisted they themselves were not heroes, however great their sacrifice or deeds. Instead they contend "I'm not a hero, but I have stood beside heroes", such is their humility.

It was a quiet Saturday morning and I'd been hanging out in the newspapers darkroom (as was my beat on that particular weekend), when I responding to a situation that the police scanner labeled as "a fully-involved structure fire". I gunned my engine and raced towards a small, dead-end street in South Tacoma so short I had a hard time spotting it in my Thomas Guide. Only few minutes later on this same trajectory, I would find myself standing beside some real-life heroes, one of which turned out to be the bravest person I'd even seen. He was only ten, and would forever remain so.

A good-sized battery of Police, Fire and Rescue units had already converged at the scene, the street now cordoned off. A woman police officer stood poised in middle of the adjacent main arterial, directing traffic by hand, stopping or diverting traffic, so I parked down the street. Leaping out with my camera, I hoofed it in as close as I dared into to the area. My caution was needless - the scene was chaos, everyone too busy to notice, and too busy to care to notice.

What events that follow must now be only by my best recollection, as no records appear to survive of that fire in any official archive (procedure requires that they be kept for ten years only), despite my attempts at rooting out exact details. Reporters, other photographers and even the Fire Marshal himself who conducted the subsequent formal investigation, report that they recollect the incident only in the broadest strokes. Six Feared Dead in House Fire.

That I myself am certain it occurred in 1989 is purely because my own son was also ten years old at the time, a corresponding fact that was preeminent to me then, and is still.

What did happen was this: I aimed my camera and fired off shots of the house itself - no flames were showing, but smoke was funneling out of the roof and windows, puffs that took the shape of rusty mushroom clouds. Then something else - simultaneously - caught my eye, something happening back out in the middle of that cordoned-off street. I glanced back, but firefighters were rushing past me, back and forth to and from their rescue units and pumper trucks, faster than I could keep track of. I moved up closer yet and saw it the same instant he emerged: a firefighter stepped from the front porch, carrying what looked like a three or four year old child, his or her pajamas and face covered with soot. When he'd gotten far enough from the house, he placed his bundle down onto the grass. Shit. Then, behind me: again I spun around to the commotion I'd heard coming from the street moments before. Somebody, a woman maybe, screaming and crying.

Back over there an adjacent drama had been unfolding: traffic was at a standstill, with shocked and curious faces pouring in from every direction, both in cars and on foot. One driver of an older-model sedan (a woman) was stopped dead-center in the street, clearly having been forbidden to move any closer, and was reacting in hysterics to what she was seeing happening a few yards away. In the next moment the woman had leaned out her window, and now at her side next to the car, the traffic officer had taken her her hand to offer what little comfort she was able. She was looking past me as well, towards the nightmare-in-motion, spilling out across the house and small yard to my back.

The racket, radios and pumper trunks made it next-to impossible to decipher exactly what the woman driver was screaming, but pointing my longest lens towards her, it seemed to be this: "My children!", over and over. This was the mother, trapped outside the police barricade while smoke and fate unfurled. She cried out again, reaching almost her entire body out through her driver's side window, then suddenly pulled her hands back to her mouth, in terror of what she was seeing.

I craned my neck back at the house and recognized her alarm: another firefighter brought yet another child out of the house, and lowered it - limp - to the lawn.

I spun my eyes back and forth, from the street to the yard to the firefighters, then back to the street, not knowing where I should concentrate with my camera. I stood and took a last look back at the mother - trapped in a whirlpool of unimaginable panic - then opted to move again towards the house. I brushed the shoulder of a firefighter, took a startled step backward, and then understood the harbinger of her last screams. Three feet from me, cradled in the arms of a fireman moving in slow motion, was a boy, who appeared to be about ten years old. Used to framing and shooting in an instant and on pure instinct, I froze and watched. The blond haired boy was draped across the firefighters arms, his feet bare, wearing only a pair of white briefs. Eyes closed as if in sleep, his face - pale and white - was covered with thick soot except for smears where the firefighter had administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Looking on, the rescue attempt offered no clue as to success or failure. I remained still.

As news photographers, we're trained from our inception to capture not just telling and dramatic and moments, but the moment. It is most often the case that we chase them, but are alluded - they are too quick, too far, too fleeting.

But on this pale morning, at this scene, the moment hung motionless before me as of it were a finished painting, and I did not act. The firefighter neither had implored me not to shoot, nor did he so much as look up, or even in my direction. Standing outside the open doors of a rescue unit, I'm not sure he knew I standing right there next to them. He was working.

I raised my camera, and then lowered it. I had only one thought, and for me it was an unexpected reaction. A single word filled my mind, gave me pause: disrespectful.

The moment passed.

In doing so, things suddenly burst back to life in every direction, police and firefighters shouting, then running, myself running as well. When I returned to the newspaper later that morning I had many photos: the house, the smoke, the scene in the yard, even the frantic rush when two surviving infants were moved from the house to a waiting rescue vehicle. But the only pictures of heroes hiding in my camera were those of the firefighters, and police officers, and paramedics themselves, doing what they do.

Six Feared Dead in House Fire.

Incredibly, there were eight children in that house that early morning, with parents away. Five were declared dead at the scene, as it is referred, the event being a tragedy of scope shocking enough that it appeared in papers across the country.

As the day drew on, the next wallop came when the events of that morning were re-constructed and it was learned that the ten-year-old boy had, in fact, been the first child out of the house, uninjured. Calling upward to his brothers and sisters in the second story and unable to stir any of them to flee, he chose to re-enter the burning home to rescue them.

I once recounted this experience to a classroom of high school journalism students, exactly as I've outlined it here, then asked them what they'd do. The to explain to me what they thought would be the right thing do, and then to justify their reasons. Perhaps predictably, the majority of them indicated they would have acted just as I had, at they very least insisting that sparing the family the pain of that (uncaptured) image was the more noble deed.

Then I provided them with the wrinkle, the real wrinkle. It was a final twist that reporters did not learn until the next day, when fire crews were sweeping up, and had conducted a thorough search of the home. In it they discovered a fire alarm hanging from the ceiling, but one whose batteries had sometime earlier been removed, leaving it useless.

That dramatic or shocking photos have a way of driving home a message was not lost on me, of all people. A photo of this weight could (and does) wake up its onlookers, perhaps hundreds, prompting them to rise out of their chairs and check their own fire alarms, averting possible similar tragedies.

Except that was not a photo I'd taken.

As a follow-up to the story several months later, I accompanied a reporter to a nursing facility where the ten year old boy in question still lingered, unconscious, suspended by tubes and artificial airways that could furnish him a heart rate, but not a life. In a few weeks that too would vanish.

So. A newsroom can be a peculiar place, often at odds with the same conventions of the society towhich it also claims stewardship. An environment both extroverted and insular, it is one of generosity, but just as easily one where otherwise cruel and self-serving acts are praised and even rewarded. Humility, pity and remorse exist so at their own risk. But flourish, nonetheless.

It is at this difficult bridge - between the facts, the hard-headed and the hard-of-heart - that this story finally arrives. There is no correct answer lurking here, at least not by my own estimation.

My personal conclusion is, as decision makers, we are deeply flawed, which allows us only the most human of choices. I will also add this: that the older I get, the easier I am persuaded to believe that old aphorism that speaks to our flaws as being some of our most redeeming and compelling features.

There is also that rare and amazing force, built of bravery and self-sacrifice, the spark of which may indeed exist in all of us, but more in some, and in a rare few, infinitely so.

From it rushes forth our heroes, tall and small, and we are honored to have seen them. If only for a moment, even stolen.

chances of survival

2010-06-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

I received an email last week from Judy, an old friend that I've known since my high school days, and the email was blank except for one sentence:

Are you at work today?

There is only one other word on the whole page, but perhaps it is all I require for a clue as to her waiting message.

Subject: Matt.

Seeing his name, my mind had a completely automatic reaction: He is dead.

To be honest, while I had not seen Matt's face for perhaps 35 years, not heard of him for nearly as long, he was a friend not to be forgotten. Always cheerful, jubilant and easy-going, simply put, Matt was one of the nicest people I had ever known. Never had a harsh word to share against anybody, and had a smile for everybody. For reasons that will soon become clear, I never expected him living long enough to celebrate his 20th birthday.

Matt was the only kid in our high school that I personally knew to be regularly shooting drugs, which in 1971 was a minor distinction in itself, though a sad and dangerous one. By this time our bunch were onto a wide variety of drugs, mainly pot and psychedelics, but because Matt had offered me a setup to sample some real "junk", I also knew he was doing heroin, who knows what else. Cocaine had yet to arrive on the local scene.

I dialed Judy and she reported her latest news, and yes, it was about Matt.

But first will come a story of my own, also about Matt. It's a story which would seem to underline his fate from a young age, and those slim chances of him surviving to adulthood that I've already mentioned, smile or no smile.

Picture a Friday night, early winter, and one Matt and I had spent mostly walking around town, just the two of us. Hoping for news of a party somewhere, or at the very least somebody willing to share a joint or maybe a few beers, we'd struck out. Most of the town, it seemed, had packed into the Sedro-Woolley High School gym for that weeks big wrestling match, a bout that Matt's older brother was competing in. On our travels, we passed the gym and paused briefly, gazing in at the tint of the yellow gym lights and hollering crowd, but moved on, hoping for richer fare.

We eventually walked back over to where we'd started, Matt's house, which was on the complete opposite side of town. Matt lived with his folks and his older brother in a modern styled house the likes of which were then referred to as "ramblers". It was fairly new, at least relative to most of the other homes homes in town at the time, many of which dated back to the '20s, or even earlier.

I had never met or even seen Matt's father, but his mother was a very familiar face, since she'd worked for many years as one of the cafeteria cooks at the town's single junior high, just down the street. Like her two sons, she was shorter than average, but her emaciated figure gave the impression of her being even tinier. She seemed quite frail, in addition to appearing prematurely old, the way heavy smoking and/or drinking will make you look after 20 years of it. She also wore an expression of grief stamped permanently across her face. Very sad.

We arrived at Matt's home that night before 9pm, disappointed and dead-sober, turned on a few lights and went into the little den where Matt kept his stereo, LPs and 8-tracks, He slipped on an LP, perhaps "It's a Beautiful Day" (very popular at the time), perhaps not, but something I recall as being "cool" and fairly loud. He handed me his headphones to listen and then drifted away towards the kitchen.

I'd been cradling the headphones (by myself) for about 10 minutes when I realized Matt had yet to return, and slipped off the headphones to go look for him. Instantly I could hear there was some kind of commotion going on out near the kitchen and, rounding the corner, the first thing I saw was pat's mother wringing her hands, weeping. At her feet her husband (a much meatier male than either of his sons) had Matt pinned to the floor with one hand and with the other was punching him in the face, and then trying to strangle him, as Matt struggled to escape. He was screaming at full volume, accusing Matt of being "GOD DAMNED HIGH!", which ironically on this one occasion he definitely was not. Not that it mattered.

I have no logical explanation of exactly how I may have ascertained this, given the riot of swearing, screaming, crying and slapping, but what I believe to had occurred was this: About the same time Matt and I were roaming town, his parents - already drunk - had arrived at the school wrestling match, where they sat and watched as Matt's older brother fought his best fight, but was defeated. Although only a ten-minute drive back to their home, it was amble time for dad to knock back what remained of his bottle. His rage unabated, it might have been pure bad luck that Matt was the first person he spotted in the crosswalk, so to speak. Employing that same metaphor: when he saw Matt, he floored it.

By any estimation, it was a horrific scene, and looked as though his old man was going to kill him, trying to kill him. Matt himself was crying and screaming, trying to fight off his dad while at the same time begging for his mother to call the cops and "have me tested!! I'm not high!!" but she just stood there, afraid to move a muscle. Just like me, cowardly shit that I was.

In fact, I remained frozen and watched for a few more seconds, then just stumbled back into the den, put the headphones back on and proceeded to blank out. When his mother came into the room a few minutes it was to ask me, in tears, to please leave. I can't tell you if there were still sounds of a struggle coming from the other room, only that when I walked out of the house I wasn't sure if I'd ever see Matt alive again or not.

I walked home in the dark and never said anything about it to my mom or to anyone else, mostly out of pure shame. The whole thing still makes me a little dizzy when I think about it, literally.

At that point, on my long walk home, guided by a vanishing point of ragged streetlights, if Matt's deepening submersion into hard drugs had required an explanation, it did so no longer.

The next week I passed Matt in the hallway at school, and later bumped into him in the smoke lot. He never mentioned the previous Friday night and neither did I.

We continued to be friends, but lost track of each other shortly after graduation. While I may have heard brief, unsubstantiated reports of him from time to time, when I did try looking him up a few years back, I hit a dead end. The sweetest kid I'd ever met had dropped from sight, perhaps never to be seen or heard from again.

Now it comes, some forty years after the fact, that Judy has some real news for me: she's talked to Matt.

Matt is alive and well, and very happy. Chased the demons out of his soul years ago and made a real life for himself, a hard-working one. Never married. No kids. Not too long ago drove a full-dress Harley from B.C. to Belize, solo: "No booze, no dope, no women, just the bike." He laughs and his laugh has a familiar, warm resonance. Real. Matt.

When I hear that his dad has passed away, I feel no sadness. That Matt managed to carve joy and a good life out of that mess is to his own immense credit, as well as a measure of his own strength - part of that hard work he mentioned - against all odds.

One of the nicest, sweetest young souls I have ever known. One I judged would never to live even to legal age. But he'd made it. Happy.

He won.

10 things I've learned from women

2010-06-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

1). Grab a damn cart! I don't know how many times I've rushed into a supermarket on a "quick mission" thinking I had no use for a cart only to end up lugging an enormous, awkward armload of items to the checkout aisle, dropping a few en route. A large package of toilet paper skidding behind me was par for the course. Every woman knows this almost from the instant she takes her first baby steps: a shopping card is standard operating equipment!

While we're on this general topic,
2). Shopping is a journey, not a destination. I know this goes full-against our hard-wired DNA, but battle your primal male urge to "Pursue & Purchase". Your reward will not only be a less-stressful shopping experience overall, but one filled with surprise and friends, in addition to unexpected side-trips, and quite possibly a fabulous lunch. Note: Brace yourself that you may not, in fact, end up purchasing anything and remember your new mantra: Any man can purchase, but only real men can shop!

3) If someone says you are "fun to talk to", it usually means you're a very good listener. Take one step back to observe any recent, good conversation with any of your female friends and more likely than not you will discover that you did most of the talking, perhaps all of it. Women have intuitively known, since we all stumbled out of our caves, that men adore talking about themselves, and especially so when listened to by women. Next time you sit down over a coffee, beer or glass of wine, try turning the tables and subtly encourage her to talk totally about herself - you may be captivated by what you hear. Important: DO NOT INTERRUPT HER at this point, even if something up on the TV monitor is really interesting.

5). As a species, Women are more socially evolved. Observe them! Frankly, you have thousands of years of conditioning to catch up to do in this category, but it's never too late to start. Lessons learned here can benefit you not only with an expanded and enhanced social environment, but can add literally years to your life! Fact: After retirement, men on average will die 5.2 years earlier than women, and by age 100 are outnumbered by women 8 to 1. One key ingredient: have lots of friends and don't hesitate in asking them for assistance. Try these unthinkable few words in a sentence and observe what magic occurs: "I have a problem - could you help me?".

4). The only people who notice guys on motorcycles are other guys (or girls who also are on motorcycles). I know this is a heart breaker, but motorcycles (with a few exceptions) are pretty much another one of those guy things. It's the male tribal community that's paying attention here, so don't kid yourself. All the black leather, the tattoos, the boots, the premium-fueled flatulence, it all goes mainly unnoticed by the majority of female-kind. In fact, in this particular department, most of the human She's and He's are in full agreement: they'll take a reliable, clean convertible over any Harley, thank you very much.

5). The cast iron "steel nutsack" - the one hanging down under your 4 x 4 - is really gross. Really. It also implies the driver (that would be you) is the type of guy who meets most of his "dates" across his table at the local strip club. Or possibly a milking barn. Which is also not to assume that you are a very popular face in either.

6). Manners still matter. No, opening a car door has not gone out of style, and likely never will. This also applies to holding a door as you both enter a restaurant (or even a dive) and also pulling out her chair when being seated. Or making sure she has water in her glass, when your waiter doesn't. While it occasionally does happen (and most women who'd protest are quite content to serve notice when it does), most females don't object to the extra attention and thoughtfulness of a polite courtesy. Example: When was the last time you objected to a woman offering to cook your favorite meal, no matter how much work may be involved? Get it?

7). Just because she's never told you, do not conclude that the woman in your life doesn't consider your mother to be a total bitch. That one's simple enough, right? Now, you may be the lucky one in fifty men to which this does not apply, but remember, those odds are 50 to 1. Is that a horse you'd bet on?

8). Three words: Laser Hair Removal. Public enlightenment on this one has begun to infiltrate the male ranks, but just in case you haven't already heard - excessive body hair is a turn-off (That's why only the creepy, fat, evil guys in the World Wrestling Federation have so much of it, right? Think about it.). Now: A new chrome cargo rack for your jeep, or a shiny new pair of hairless shoulders for you?

9). Unless it's a wedding ring, or weighs in at over 3 carets, diamonds are dumb. A brief disclaimer here: She probably won't throw those $99 earrings back in your face, but poll after poll continues to bear out that the majority of women find diamond jewelry to be a boring, unimaginative gift, and in general, another "guy thing". What's the "guy thing" part? That you've been listening more to those cheesy TV discount-diamond ads than you have to your own girlfriend, who, chances are, has hinted to you dozens of times what she'd really like you to buy her. Still don't get it? Go back and read #3, again.

Finally,

10.) You're just perfect - NOT! Sorry, but I had to break this one to you at some point, and now is just as good a time as any. No, you're not huge, not even larger than average, and your body is about in the same boat - merely average. The good news is that she still thinks you're a cool guy - in fact loves you - even loves having sex with you (most of the time), despite your newly-revealed deficiencies (which she's known about from the start). Here's a last tough one for you to swallow: she's probably had better sex with other guys, but still prefers you best of all. See how lucky you are she's not like us?

tic tock goes the clock

2010-06-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

I wander onto the online classroom homepage of an old friend, one quite long out of touch, and smile when I see the footer quotes a mid-life observation of Albert Einstein: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." How so I agree. Beautiful, but also an artwork rendered with colors human eyes cannot fully appreciate, if they are always able to identify them at all.

For people like myself, the realm of the mysterious in life appears to have to been shrinking annually, something like my tee shirts. Season after season sees it fade, grow flimsier, fainter, until it has become something impractical, something that no longer quite fits. Like the damned tee shirts.

Except.

In 1981 my son was five years old, healthy, of clear complexion and usually ready for bedtime by 8 pm. At the time we lived in a plain, single-story rental that featured a washer and dryer, a small front porch and the deluxe accommodation of a rope swing out in the front yard, which we shared with the second rental that rested further back but on the same lot.

It was the beginning of our second year in the house, Andrew had just started taking swimming lessons at the Y down the street, and I was settling into my new full-time photographer post at the Skagit Valley Herald, a local daily in Mount Vernon. After some early years with concerns for our son's health, and a spate of part-time jobs for me, life seemed to be settling down nicely.

Andrew's room was just off the living room, and without doubt was the prettiest room in the house- his mother and Nana had made sure of that, having spent days fixing it up with fresh paint and rolls of new wallpaper, a peaceful mural of clouds and kites in a blue sky that stretched from corner to corner, floor to ceiling. It was the perfect room for playing, and even more perfect for dreaming. I relished it at the time as a small corner of boyhood heaven.

Bedtime had become a predictable and playful ritual for us, one that usually included a rendition of his favorite, made-up bedtime story, "Cocoa the Clown". Following a rollicking series of events which included a ride on a steam engine, a ferris wheel and a hot air balloon, the story would always end with the same, spectacular stunt: the main character (Andrew) tumbles downward in a thousand-foot fall, down through the sky and ultimately right through our own shingled roof, finally bouncing safely down, uninjured, right into his very own own bed, which lay warm and waiting. The perfect end to any kind of day, for both of us.

After tucking him in with a hug and kiss, I would begin another part of the bedtime ritual, a secret second part, of which he was unaware and is perhaps still. While he was drifting off to sleep, I would stand outside of his pale blue room and peek back in through his door, making sure he didn't notice, until I could just barely see his face there on his pillow. My secret game was to stand in the shadows and imagine as hard as I could that I was now very, very old - many years had passed - and Andrew was all grown up. Flown the coop, and far away from his folks, living his life. With my imagination and some non-specific magic, I would then pretend that the "Old Geff" was then able to travel back into time, back through all the years, back until he was standing right there at that exact same spot. Where I/he could/would stand and watch and behold my beautiful little boy once again, safe and asleep, and for as long as I cared to gaze. And just drink it in, to my very heart's content.

It worked every time. Bedtime was magic time, that was for sure.

This went on for several months, my secret nighttime visitations known only to me, and the "Old Geff" from the future.

Then one evening, with no warning at all, the Universe decided to follow the two of us to bed. Or at the very least, its pocket watch did.

As I trailed Andrew into his room one completely ordinary night and approached his bed, I was suddenly aware - with no mistake - of a loud "ticking", apparently coming from nowhere. Pulling his blanket snugly up to his shoulders, I stopped, stood up straight and swept the room slowly with my eyes - no clocks, no toys, no watches, either, or radios. It was at that same, peculiar instant, that I also felt a string of words suddenly surge into my mind: "Time is running out." Just like that. The voice was calm and clear. It came in my own thoughts complete and with perfect diction, like a living flashcard. I felt a chill.

While I am not accustomed to messages coming by way of the supernatural, omnibus or otherwise, my ears are definitely perked at this. What the hell was that?

Time is running out. A warning - of what? And from whom? Rather than worry Linda that it may just be some kind of foreboding omen or something having to do with our son, I kept silent. And chose to pretend that I may have been just hearing things, or imagining things, or had it happen in a dream even, who knows. Either way, it's over now.

Weeks pass, quite a few actually, and slowly the everyday hum-drum does its work, performing as a force of mental gravity that eventually lowers the importance of possible "mystical" experiences (and anything else it can sink its mundane little teeth into), first to eye level, then below, and then out of your peripheral vision all together. End effect: Weird, yes? Significant, doubtful.

I had the mundane to thank, at the very least, for sleeping better.

I'm watching television, alone in the living room - this is a good 6 weeks later - when all of a suddenly, out of the blue again, the ticking. Not like from a TV, or a record player, but as if someone is holding a fine instrument, an invisible stopwatch, right up tight, next to my ear. It is precision machinery I hear, held infinitely close. And yet it is nowhere. I take a breath, look over my shoulder, ponder my options, and decide to completely ignore it. Eyes back to the TV. Tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc.

Absolutely ridiculous, but I refuse to let it shake me - whatever "it" is.

Linda enters the room, plops down on the couch, pauses for an instant and says "Do you hear that?"

"What do you hear?"

"You can't hear that ticking?!" And she begins (and I join her) to rifle the couch, pulling away cushions, reaching the arms, searching everywhere for it, the source of this insane ticking. We turn off the TV, slide the couch away from the wall, check the space behind it, under it, and make a cursory search of the entire room, ending up again on the disheveled couch, all the while the "clock" is ticking away.

Linda shakes her head, dumbfounded, perhaps now looking even a bit frightened when she says "It's so weird, Geff... it's like time is running out!" and that exact instant the ticking stops, dead, silent.

Now I'm fucking shook. I tell Linda my bit of backstory, that I heard the ticking weeks earlier, in Andrew's room while putting him to bed, but didn't know what to make of it. Shit, I still don't know. But something is definitely going on here.

We continue to tear down the room, to find nothing. We lay awake in our bed and swap possible scenarios, but not a one seems to make any more sense than the other. I am perplexed but have also come to the immediate conclusion that this all is 1). Defintely a message, and 2). One that does not require the talents of Edgar Cayce to interpret: Watch out, and possibly, watch out for you lives. That an impending catastrophe or tragedy lay in wait for Andrew, or Linda, or for all three of us, I had no doubt. Just a matter of... time.

And for two full years I payed very special attention, to every day, and every evening, and especially every moment that I spent with Andrew. And I was afraid that it would all end, end just like that. In a swimming pool, a side street, an intersection, a park, you name it. Bang. Gone. Over.

But it didn't, as it turned out. And what?

If you'd had almost an entire lifetime of years to unravel that strange little ball of string, what would you make of it?

Here's my best shot: What if it wasn't a warning, or at least not a warning that something bad was about to happen. What if, instead, it was a message, but a warning to be good. To "Take care. Don't let it slip by." What if someone had reached into our lives with a magic timepiece and was whispering to us: "You are together and these are precious, joy-filled years - pay attention! You have a beautiful, happy son and he will soon be growing up. Play on the swing! Love each other! Enjoy! Time is running out!"

And maybe to be a tiny bit afraid at the time isn't all such a bad thing, given the stakes, given what you have to loose. No rehearsals, people, you're on.

Come to think of it, that's exactly the type of message I'd like to send back, if I was able to, somehow.

Hey Andrew, hey Linda, close your eyes.

Listen.

I love you. love you.

2010-06-08T18:26:00.001-07:00

one of us

2010-06-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

I have a storyline in my head, a short story - not even quite enough for a novella - about this old timer who lives alone a few miles from a flyspeck town somewhere in Nevada or Arizona. The desert, way the hell out in the sticks.

It's still somewhat nebulous in my mind, but definitely does not involve any kind of huge, melodramatic plot, more like a slice of life kind of thing. A simple character study depicting a few days in the timeline of this old fart and the little life he has carved out for himself over the years, in a who-knows-where patch of sand and scrubgrass. Let's call him "old Ray". I picture him on a tiny ranch he's cobbled together (something hardly more than a shack, along with a small barn), where he spends his days and nights alone, but with the critter companionship of a goat, a scruffy old mutt, plus a cat or two (he likes "creatures").

Following along, we also observe him visiting a lonesome-looking grave (always bringing colorful, plastic flowers), as well as chatting with a few of the other local characters on his brief trips into town for food and various other provisions. The days pass slowly for old Ray, a fair amount of his time being devoted to wrenching on his worn out Land Rover, which serves, along with the mutt, and the goat, and cats, as something of a sidekick. As I mentioned, his is a little life, and one spent somewhat delicately at the perimeters.

One more thing regarding his situation: buried under the barn, a few inches down in the dust, are the remains of a shiny, broken spaceship. Ray's ship. We learn that a little over a half-century earlier (our time), alien-astronaut Ray crashed his ship onto an unfamiliar orb of sand and sea, in a strange galaxy, light years away from his home planet, and was hopelessly marooned. Here. As weeks stretched into months and then months into years, old Ray accepted the fact that, alien or not, he'd be living out his years in a place about which he knew precious little, and amongst a people he had only the vaguest understanding of. Worst of all, and most worrisome, he possesses no powers here.

By the way - and I hope i'm giving away too much when I say this - the concept is somewhat autobiographical.

I'm not joking. I may not have had green skin and hairy antennae, but for a good percentage of the people I met in my early life, just having grown up in in a town named Sedro-Woolley would qualify me, if not for being pretty damned peculiar, at the very least highly suspect. "The Nuthouse?"

If you were additonally unfortunate enough to have had either of your parents (or in my case, both) locked up, er.... patients, in that place, then matters were only that much worse. As that unique sub-class of being, you no longer required odd glances or whispers to confirm your creepiness, you already knew it, from the inside out. Not that folks weren't happy as heck to remind you, just in case it occasionally accidentally slipped your (unsound) mind.

Humans.

Modern kiddie self-help books seem to champion the notion that loony eccentricity can often be a creative and inspiring kind of thing. I can personally vouch that this kind of diversity was as uplifting, spiritually speaking, as a diagnosis of ringworm. Both having very similar effects on your upward social mobility, not to mention your place in the lunch line. Few things serve to cool a relationship quicker, new or old alike, than having a bonafide lunatic in your family. The only thing worse was having one in the house with you. Trying to kill you.

Lucky for me I didn't have far to look to find a surrogate tribe: TV. I gorged myself on a childhood of Leave It to Beaver, Twilight Zone, and Ozzie and Harriet, convinced theirs was the real world, and my mine merely a temporary misunderstanding, like the stork who delivered the baby pig to pair of confused and disappointed baboons. As a result, my adolescent re-entry was a rockier one than some, and fueled with a hunger for life as 30-minute episodes, all which came with a interesting beginning and middle, and pleasant end. Drugs helped in the pursuit of the quixotic, and while that intermission lasted, I simply was TV.

Fortunately in my case, unlike old Ray, there were other aliens stuck out in that desert besides just me. My friend Bruce was a first-string player on that team, and from an extremely early age, as anyone reading this blog has already surmised. And there were others out there, lost and found - or discarded - along the way.

So, in case I may have invoked your sympathies, here is the story of but one: I bumped into Philip on a noontime recess during my first few weeks at a new grade school in Bellingham, Washington. Right off the bat, we clicked.

Turned out it was Philips' first year at Columbia Elementary as well. The more we spoke and exchanged info, the more we seemed to share a remarkable degree of common interests, on and off the playground.

Philip appeared to be about my same age, and a very keeno kinda guy, even if he didn't have the same home room as I did, of which Columbia fifth graders there were three. We still lucked into sharing the same recess, however, and used that time to bear down each other with increasing mutual enthusiasm, cheerfully sharing stories, portions of our brown sack lunches and tales about other kids at the school that we both hated or feared.

We'd been hanging out like this for a few days when I had him over to my house after school - I lived a scant two blocks away - in a two bedroom rental kitty corner from a local mom and pop market. Over ice cream cup sundaes we pondered the finer points of James Bond's new super weapons and the latest jokes from MAD magazine. We snuck a long peek into one of my brother numerous editions of Playboy, and showed off my clunky selection of plastic WWII bombers and fighters. Philip totally got me, and I him. When he left my house that afternoon just before suppertime, he carried under his arm a library loan-out composed of the pride and joy of my private collections: a stack of my favorite issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Archie and Dennis the Menace. My best, as it were.

Philip seemed too good to be true, even then, so it is strange to me now that I can recall so very little about how he actually looked, or even dressed. Were his eyes were blue or brown (?), I'm clueless. Despite my great affection for him at the time, the single trait I can recall is a round and perfectly white patch of hair, about the size of a silver dollar, that stood dead-center at the top of his otherwise solid-brown head of hair.

It must have been only a short while later that same week that things changed. For some reason, my attention had been drawn to the fact that Philip did not appear to be in any of the 5th grade classes at Columbia, at least so far as I could observe. The more I looked into it, the more perplexed I became. It was with the vaguest of suspicions that I continued to casually investigate the puzzle, and only by complete accident that I discovered that he was, in fact, in the Special Education class.

The revelation went through me like a bolt lightning.

Special Ed. Holy Shit.

As a footnote, it bears mentioning that this was the tail end of a sad era for Special Education in public schools, a time when it was perceived to be - often correctly - as an under-funded collection of unfortunate children huddled under a single umbrella, whose personal issues ranged wildly, from grievous deformities and other physical handicaps, to mentally retardation, to children who were perfectly normally (perhaps even gifted) but were confined to a wheelchair. Toss in a handful of kids with ADD (long before that diagnosis officially existed), one or two who might be genuinely emotionally disturbed - or just have problems fitting in - and you just about have it. Sometimes things even got a little rough, physically. It was not an enlightened time. "Mainstream" was still a concept yet to invented.

Although at the time I was not sure exactly how he quite fit into it, it was obvious I had learned Philip's secret. Here was the boy that I had believed was remarkably just like me - or was he?

I will save you any guesswork regarding my reaction: I completely shunned him, beginning at that very moment. If I could saw he was out in the playground, I avoided it. If I glimpsed him in a hallway or staircase, I turned on my heel and ducked him. Lunchroom: the same. Day in, day out. I don't recall ever having confronted him directly, or he me, only that I made every effort - successfully - to make certain we we would not cross paths ever again.

The innocent boy, whose oh-so tender heart had once sank upon hearing a cheap whisper of The Nuthouse, was not such an innocent after all. And while I may have neglected or failed at most of my homework on humanity, I obviously had at least one lesson down-pat: how to behave like a complete heel.

One image I can still recall, with with crystal clarity. It is the day, some time later, when I returned home alone after school and found all my magazines and comics waiting on the doorstep, stacked ever-so neatly, as perfect as the day they had been lended. A note was attached, which stated simply "Thank you."

Over the years I have often wondered how my betrayal may have scarred him, as well as what great friends we might have eventually become, had I shown even one shred of courage, not to mention decency. My imaginings drift also to his parents: did they hearten and share his happiness when told of his new-found chum, only left to wonder when their son so soon appeared saddened, the new friend missing? I'll never know. I never saw or heard from Philip again, or if I did, I blocked it out of my mind. I guess I thought I was too good for him.

This, mind you, from a fifth grade boy who stayed in during his lunch hour to cut nazi armbands out of colored butcher paper.

Humans.

Quite the bunch.

boys and wars

2010-05-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

In a rare burst of wisdom, I once proclaimed that there was no fight ever as fierce as the one waged in the defense of ignorance. That revelation summed up, as good as anything, my own teenage years as well, an inauspicious time concocted with backwater recipe of bland idealism, incorrigible (and incredible, under the circumstances) conceit, aimless rage and flat-out stupidity.

My complete and total lack of appreciation for all that had come before me at the time, and any debt of conscience, is laughable, or at least it would be, otherwise.

I have a clear recollection of Mr. Bricka, then principal, addressing the 1972 graduating class during what was to be our final high school assembly. Speaking from behind a tall podium of varnished plywood (likely as not built years earlier as a student wood shop project), he looked out over us and proclaimed that we would "..look back on these high school years as the happiest of our lives." His words rallied a tiny, polite applause, a handful of pre-drunken hoots from the back rows, and from me a silent, incredulous wince: "Best years?". For me, at least, they had been anything but.

For the middle-aged man on that stage, however, and an entire generation of men and women like him, I realize now those young years might very well have been the best years, and most carefree. Happy days to recall before the lot of them were to enlist or be drafted into the maelstrom that was World War ll.

Bricka himself was not only a veteran, but a veteran for whom the Battle of the Bulge was more than a page in history, since he'd lived it, meaning fought it. As an epic 40-day-long fight endured (and won) by hungry, freezing and under-equipped troops that ranged in age from seventeen to forty, brutal would appear to be an understatement. The topic introduction in Wikipedia notes it as the "... single largest and bloodiest battle that American forces fought in World War II", one which left 100,000 American troops either dead, wounded or captured. It was never a subject I discussed with Bricka himself (we were on less then friendly terms at the time, and he passed away in 1982), but if he was anything like many of the veterans I've talked to since, it's a fair to guess that it was a memory he both took immense pride in addition to being one he may have also wished to forget.

Our vice-principal was also a WW II vet, and our schoool counselor wore large brown hearing aids in both of his ears, the result of an exploding hand grenade, also in Europe. There were probably others as well, if I'd been paying attention, which I was not.

Fact was, growing up in the 50's and 60's, almost every adult male you encountered, including your own dad and for that matter your mother as well, had likely played some part in that war. Almost as likely, every family seemed also have at least one name that would come up from time to time, a brother or cousin or friend, someone they had seen off to The War but had never came back. In my wife's family it had her mom's brother. At our house it was Otto Hinds, Jr., my dad's youngest brother, whose plane had been shot down somewhere over Europe. While that war to me at the time seemed as far-off and irrelevant as the Civil War, I do have one recollection that served to nudge it a bit closer: visiting my grandparents in Kansas one summer in the late 60's, I slept in the basement bedroom, the coolest room in the house. Across the floor, near a wood shelf rack filled with canned fruits and vegetables, I noticed a large green chest, bolted shut. My father informed me later that when each one of their five sons had left for the war, their keepsakes had been tucked away in matching chests, for safekeeping, until their return. My grandparents had never had the heart to open it, and to the best of my knowledge never did. The silent message of that grief, oblivious to time, multiplied beyond my comprehension, gave me pause even then.

Of course as a stupid-ass kid, I was always unprepared when veterans didn't jump at the chance to reminisce. Raised on the Hollywood likes of Combat!, Twelve-OClock High and Rat Patrol, I was eager to hear a first-hand account of the action. That it never quite fit with the TV image was slow to sink in. Meeting my stepmother's brother, it was with the anticipation of having been told he was loaded with war stories. True. Souvenirs, too, including a genuine German pistol, pretty juicy stuff for a fifteen-year old. He followed that up with an adjacent story that surprised me at the time, but doesn't anymore: the gun would have been a Walther P-38 - a prized handgun issued chiefly to German officers - but as his platoon entered a small village he'd loaned it to a fellow GI, who ended up gunning down a German soldier with it. "I told him to keep it, or just throw it away...." he said, and then was quiet for a few seconds. "I didn't want a gun that had ever killed someone."

For a deluxe multi-page article on the 50-year anniversary of V-Day, I was once assigned to interview and photograph over a dozen WW II veterans, a diverse group of silver-haired men and women from all walks of life who had one thing in common: The War. All were a pleasure and a privilege to meet, but one veteran, sturdily built but in his 70's, stands out. A naturalized US citizen, he was a native Philippino who'd spent the bulk his wartime fighting as a jungle guerrilla - a member of of the legendary Philippine Scouts- following the Japanese invasion of the islands in 1942. By all accounts the Scouts were very tough hombres. All the more reason to take notice when, after fifty years, he broke down and wept when describing to me the day the Islands were finally liberated, and his fellow scouts and US troops paraded the American flag from village to village.

I would like to say that, even as a rebellious, pain-in-the-ass teenager, I held each and every veteran, and their sacrifice, all in high esteem, but that was not the case. And that is most assuredly both my loss, and my regret. It does not diminish what truly matters, or the matters of true greatness, the likes of which I had no clue, and likely really still don't, although the space that I reserve for such is now infinitely greater.

It's only at this point that I am able to appreciate what a privilege, although not a proud one, it was to be so young, and so stupid. I mean that sincerely, and I thank all of you, sincerely, and with my whole, imperfect heart.

It was perhaps, in the most generous sense, how youth might have been intended to be experienced.

Safe, and smiling, and stupid, and completely ignorant of the real world, except for what we dream, and imagine and hope that it will be.

Hollywood, or bust

2010-05-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

As a child, growing up in string of equally minuscule towns across the Pacific Northwest, I considered it simply an unspoken given that I would grow up and become rich and famous, though not necessarily in that order.

After all, my list of heros - and those I imagined to be "my mentors from afar" - were all movie men. First came the special effects wizards: Ray Harryhausen, Douglas Trumball, Willis O'Brian - it was their galleries of monsters and/or visual miracles that stoked my own mental storyboards. Next came screen icons Humphrey Bogart, Jerry Lewis, Rod Serling: a diverse pack of gents who shared a common creative theme: Loners. As I came of age a list of "Hollywood outsiders" was added to my list: Peter Fonda, Tom Laughlin, Dennis Hopper (while my role call appears to have been been only a mildly enlightened one by 70's standards, it certainly lacked no passion at the time).

Each year, when I sat cross-legged in front of the TV in my pajamas to watch the Academy Awards, I would do so feeling as if I were an active participant, that it was only a brief matter of time before I'd join the ranks of my brethren on stage and bask beneath a waterfall of praise, accolades and awards that would stretch out over my entire adult life.

A given.

Also please note that in my case it was never merely the "fancy" of such a life that drove my fantasies as much as my belief that I shared a visceral, gut-level connection with the entire process, one that drove me to compile huge inventories and lists (both physical as well as mental) of films, directors, character actors, soundtracks, scripts, film magazines and back stories.

At about the time I floundered into my teenage era, I was also writing and compiling my own movie reviews, notebook by notebook, an avocation that inevitably spilled into my High School newspaper, The Cub, in the form of awkward and often inarticulate words of praise for my latest favorite film. Looking back, precious few of these pictures rated a second glance, not to mention my clumsy editorial fawning.

Early in my photojournalism career, when a young reporter inquired as to what had prepared me for a career behind the camera, my answer was a dead-pan fact: an entire childhood of sitting in front of a horizontal screen, for better or worse.

As the gap between my childhood fantasies and the impending threshold of a real-life adult career continued to tighten, my likelihood for being a Hollywood success story seemed to rally, if only briefly.

In the Fall of 1970, a the beginning of what would be my Junior year in high school, myself and a small group of classmates - many who were also the stars of our school Drama Club - joined together to form a fledgling gaggle of young filmmakers. True to the spirit of a breed suckled on the sarcastic and irreverent sensibilities of Mad magazine, Laugh In and Stan Freburg, we christened ourselves "Greasey Films" and set out to set Hollywood on it's ear, 8mm at a time.

Since audio was not yet accessible for most 8mm and Super8 filmmakers (and the advent of home video was still fifteen years in the distant future), we decided our endeavors must be silent ones, and governed by the A-B-C choice (as we judged it) of Silent Film: A)Slapstick B)Spectacle C)Violence. We opted for bloody, and the more the better.

Shot after school hours in the course of two afternoons (it would've been just one if the magazine of 8mm film had not secretly jammed in the camera during the first shoot), "The Hunt" featured a sniper, a crazed escaped convict, two angry, pitiless lawmen and a small arsenal of weapons (both real and manufactured). True to our Greasey Films credo, we kept "plot" to a minimum and the amount of prop blood at a maximum. Its 1086 frames of 8mm Kodachrome film has a running time of four minutes and fourty-eight seconds, during which time four young men cavort through the woods, three of whom are gunned down, one execution-style. The final few moments of The Hunts original ending has now been forgotten, since years ago the final strip of 8mm film from the reel simply broke off and then was lost.

Shown during the lunch hour in our high school little theatre at the time, students payed twenty-five cents each to share our little cinema bloodbath, many paying to watch a second, a third, a fourth time and more. While a vocal soundtrack may have been completely out of the question, we did spruce up things with a series of thematic music played (on a cassette deck) during film presentations (gleaned from my own personal library of soundtrack albums). Shabby, perhaps somewhat, but judged by student-qulaity standards of the early '70s, pretty good stuff. And it got better.

Predictably, our next series films gradually became more ambitious: "Monster from the Deep", a ultra-short bit of improvisation that frame-for-frame may be our most inspired piece; "Eastwood", a western attempt that herds more cliche's than it does cowboys (sound effects were added to background music to help "imply" we were using real horses!); "Measely Rider", a lazy local send-up of the Peter Fonda classic.

There is little doubt, however, that Greasey Films' shining moment came with the genesis of "The Clarker Bunch", yet another cops & robbers film, but one with enough of a topical twist that it's premise still packs genuine box-office potential, even thirty years later. Hatched scene-by-scene over many an after-school cigarette (and occasional joint) in Roland Yarcho's black '66 Karmann Ghia coupe, TCB follows twenty-year-old Moss Clarker, just home from an Army tour of Vietnam, first through an unsuccessful series of (pantomimed) job interviews, and then reuniting with three former soldier buddies to embark on a string of bank robberies, a somber and relentless lawman in deadly pursuit.

Much of the film's drama is derived from the remarkable cinematic eye of cameraman Bruce Arnes, who appropriated his father's Bolex Macro Super8 camera (then something of a state-of-the-art contraption for home movie making) and tripod for our efforts. His stunning gift for ironic detail, for spotting a perfect location and then framing it on film just as perfectly, added a depth of character to our story where often the script left off, one that frequently surpassed not only our expectations, but likely as not even our ability to even fully appreciate at the time. Years later, as a "award-winning" photojournalist well-immersed in a "successful" career, I would marvel (and still do) at the photographic prowness of this formally untrained 11th-grade student. Above and beyond any of us others at the time, he is one whose professional-grade talent - a natural shooting ability and sense for cinematic magic - should have been his real ticket to Hollywood.

Perhaps the greatest compliment to The Clarker Bunch came the following year, when, while lingering outside a local movie theatre, we noticed the poster for an upcoming film. It pitched an plotline that for us was like a bolt of lightning: a group of GIs return home from Vietnam and, dejected, go on a deadly rampage. Wow. Rip off? Unlikely. A peek into a "Parallel Universe"? Without a doubt. It is one where dreams come true, and merely by wishing for them.

Warren Etheridge, a talent and critic in the film industry whose opinion I have come to highly regard as having an acute insight into such goings-on, once observed of his comrades that they almost could be divided into two camps: One group was employed in the film industry, being bored by and hating it in equal measure; the other group, desperately wanted "in", but so far without success.

Hollywood, at least for me, came and went early on. What at one time had been my powerhouse of knowledge, was now mere trivial pursuit. If raw talent only were the ticket, things may have taken different directions. Or not. Even at that there's no guessing which might have lead to lasting happiness, if such a crayon color comes in that particular box.

For all of its illusion and pretense, one thing Hollywood amply illustrates correctly is that our natural gifts and talents generally come in equal measure to our shortcomings, if not some personal demons. While the records of such wrestling matches occasionally make their way to the silver screen, they are first fought alone, in flawed hearts and silent rooms, without witnesses.

Back in the day, if you were to have lived just in the moment, you could have been there and believed that we all made it, right to the top, each and every one of us. Hollywood, Academy Awards, the whole rip. That's not an entirely bad way to let it go, in fact.

And as to what the hell came after, who the hell knows?

the little telescope

2010-05-13T05:55:00.000-07:00

The woman I have lived with for thirty five years (and is also my wife) has a shiny little telescope that lives in her mind, one that comes and goes as it pleases, occasionally leaving behind a puzzle or an image for her to ponder.

Once it was a snapshot of a scene that involved Peter Haley, an old friend now, but just a photographer at the time, and one whose name I recognized solely by his reputation alone - we'd never met, not even close.

The picture in the little telescope was of Peter (we'd seen his face next a prize photo he'd taken in a magazine), as he approached me during a party of some kind or another, and of us talking and carrying on as if we were the best of friends. From the telescopes narrow point-of-view, it looked to be that we were at some kind of party or another. Blurting out the image a moment or two after it had just occurred to her, completely out of the blue, she stated at the time that "You and him obviously knew each other quite well - you were laughing and talking, clearly very familiar with one other." And then: "You two will become very good friends someday."

A couple of years later Peter and I would briefly cross paths - for the first time - at a sporting event we were shooting for our respective newspapers. There were no magic moments, no bolts or jolts of instant recognition either way, and for a while I thought nothing more of it, mysterious prediction or not. Months later, however, we were both interviewed, and subsequently hired, as part the new photo team for the News Tribune, a paper which had recently come under new ownership in Tacoma. And, what do you know, a few months later we'd be sharing that exact little moment that Linda had spied a few years earlier, through her little telescope.

Such things do occur, it's only for us to decide under what category we file them in our lives. Precognition, or predictable situation? Your guess is as valid as the next, although I personally opt for the "mystical" interpretation, as I have long ago discovered that any life stripped of the mystical is hardly one worth living.

The spyglass begs some additional explanation: She may occasionally peer out into her own life, and into the lives of those in her close orbit, to witness a random hug or stray giggle, a kiss, a warm embrace. But there is also a cautionary note here: because the little telescope is simply that, and does not possess a soul - not to mention a heart - of its own, it may also reveal events or circumstances that are frightening to consider, even painful to know.

The moment of her own death, for instance.

Without elaborating, she says she has witnessed it all, through the tiny lens, and is not afraid, just the opposite, in fact. It was/is a simple moment, she tells me. Perhaps to soften the blow, she tells me that that my face is the last thing on this earth she will see. Without the benefit buffer of a mystic glow, it is perhaps harder to listen to this than it is to have seen it, and no part of this message arrives as the least bit of comfort, at least to me.

The little telescope can be a mischievous one, it seems. Perhaps as time goes on and on, and the nearer to the end it moves, it is simply just running out of new snapshots to share, glimpses to glimpse. Could that be it?

It doesn't speak, although I sense a smile.

Only recently a picture postcard of myself arrived, taken from down on the death promenade. It was an old moment of me, very, very old (or at least, that's what I'm told). My exact age was not in sharp focus, but I was looked to be in my late 70's, maybe a bit older. In the spyglass I was seen walking, alone, along a dusty road. I stopped and slowly bent over to pick up a small branch I encounter in my path. There is a pause and "Pop!" - a little blood vessel bursts in my head. And I drop down into the road, dead as a door nail. As I'm laying there, a small group of children approach me to see what it is the matter. But I am long gone.

What my old friend and the little telescope couldn't have known was that I had already previewed that exact scene myself, almost a whole lifetime ago, when I was still barely a boy. Thirteen.

My visit came in a dream in which I drifted, a dream that is still as clear and real as raindrops: I'm walking alone along a quiet road (just as she says, I am very old), when I stop to pause. From her own vantage, it appeared that I was stopping to pick up a small branch, but that is only how it would appear from a distance, out of speaking distance. In fact, it is not a twig that catches my eye, but a voice that catches my ear. It is a familiar voice, and startles me as being so, yet one I am unable to instantly place it.

I turn my head around to see - is it perhaps someone who has stolen up quietly beside me? Then I see him. And I remember. Everything. Remember that "he" is me, and that this is my last dream and that now, also at last, my time is finally all up. And in that same moment I both vanish, awaken, and reappear. Somewhere entirely else.

I'm still working on the part up to that.

march, 1994: big black dog

2010-02-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

A few years short of our new century (and my 40th birthday), an old voice called to beckon, at 4:30 a.m. on our bedroom phone. Never a happy omen.

On this particular morning the sound didn't come as a complete shock - Linda's mother was
in a local nursing facility at the time and was not expected to live out the week - but the voice at the other end gave me pause - it was my older brother.

"I wanted to let you know that Dad died last night."

Under the circumstances, I wasn't exactly sure how to respond. Several weeks earlier he'd phoned as well, timidly inquiring (as much he was able) to see if I would be interested in flying back to Kansas to visit Dad one last time, as if a family. I opted not, and stayed behind. Roger flew back alone. Poetically speaking, a bold stroke.

"I'm sorry for you, Rog."

But, in fact, I was more curious than sorry, and less about the old man's pitiful, final hours then why a son he had routinely beaten the shit out of (at around the age of five) would end up rushing to his bedside in his final hours, except perhaps to hear an apology, which no one on this earth would have expected (or ever received) in the case of Dale H. Hinds. Wife beater, child beater, and worse.

Picturing it all I found equally difficult. What kept pushing its way into my mind was the image of a dog that had lived in our old neighborhood, so many, many years ago. A mean, black dog. Every kid on the block feared it, and hated it, and it hated us.

A handful of years before our family had split up for the first time, we lived in a two-story corner house on Jameson Street, in Old Woolley. In those days, Jameson was a cement-topped street, although it lacked an actual curb, and just a few yards east of us even that distinction ceased - it was where the marked streets ended and gravel and dust began.

In the communal map of a child's mind, our homes, schools and the corner store were connected with an informal and invisible grid of shortcuts and favored paths, which wandered through assorted backyards and alleyways, overgrown vacant lots, local playgrounds, and in very special cases, an abandoned building or two, which could serve as a hiding place, if such a need arose. And occasionally did.

Guarding one such alley was a single vicious, nameless cur that roamed freely the realms between our street and next few running north. He showed no sign of either an owner or home base, and if a dog actually did stand guard at the gates of Hell, at least to our wary handful of five and six year olds, he was it. We referred to him simply as the "Black dog" and avoided him at nearly any cost. But of course there was a catch: his alley was also the quickest direct shortcut to and from our grade school.

Although a Hellion, our experience had lead us to believe he was also a lazy one, and only half the time at best was found to be guarding his post. In fact, many mornings were just fine, and showed no sign of him. But then, just when you had almost forgotten about him, there he was, lurching around the corner with teeth bared back to his ears, and a snarl to send you running, late for school or not, our lunch bags dropped and left for him to savage.

Several of us had even taken the precaution of stashing weapons along the route, just in case. Rocks, bottles, sticks, a broken hammer, the usual items. At some point I'd found an old bean pole, sharpened to an approximately lethal point, that, at least in my imagination, would protect me come what may. I kept it at the ready, tucked under a garage just off the main street on the way in to Black dog alley, and in a thick bush at the other end, and it provided a degree of security that allowed me at least to consider the route a survivable path, although I never had the opportunity chance to actually use it. And likely wouldn't have, if genuinely confronted. But like the others, I stayed lucky.

And then came the day, on the way home from school, on a early, crisp September afternoon, when luck, real-life and illusion smashed headlong in a way it will do only with an innocent life.

I took a look down the alley in question - clear -, slipped my sharpened stick out from under it's hiding place, and preceded home, straight in the direction of Kool-Aid, cinnamon toast and J. P. Patches. I didn't make it. Halfway there I heard him coming.

Or at least had thought I did. I burst out of the alley and ran towards a large vacant field, the last stretch that separated me from the safe island of my own front porch. But I could still hear him. Somewhere. Close.

I looked over my shoulder, thinking that maybe someone else had snuck up behind me,
making a panting sound. But when I turned, I was alone. I turned around and scanned the drying grass across the little field, but saw nothing. Then came a whimper. I moved closer
into the field, sticking close to the skinny path that a thousand small tennis shoes had patted down and carved through its center, step by step.

At first the sound and shape was unclear, but as I clutched my beanpole and inched warily, deeper into the tall grass, a form finally came into clear view: it was Black dog, he was hurt, and hurt bad, obviously either hit or run over by a car, and left for dead. Even at six, it occurred to me that, given his track record in the neighborhood, it may have been no accident.

Still alive, but just barely, he was bleeding and shivering horribly. With a Herculean effort, he'd somehow managed to drag himself a few yards into the field and out of the street, but from the looks of things he wouldn't be moving much further: The grass underneath his spotty-black belly was matted with thick, dark blood and one leg was twisted strangely under his one side, out of sight. Bad.

Although I wasn't about to move any closer, it was clear that most of the fight had already leaked out of him, and when he did see me, and raised his snout to aim his yellow gaze in my direction, it was not with the fierce, bared teeth I'd come to recognize as the image of pure fear. It was a helpless, suffering stare that was, with no other words to describe it, eye to eye, creature to creature. Without dropping my stick, I sunk to my knees and just watched him.

Die.

It was me and Black dog. And I squatted there and waited, until his panting slowed, his head bowed, and his tiny whimpers faded to be only the air moving in and past his whiskers, and then did not move at all. When dark came, I stood up and walked the half-block to home.

By the time I reached it I knew that death had came to us both that afternoon, in the same gold-grass field. Me, for the first time, and for Black dog, a last time. There was no fear left in my heart now, only shame, and pity, and sorrow. For the both of us. I had seen Death wink at me and would never forget its face. Ever.

So when my brother asked me to ride with him back to see Dad one last time, I knew entirely what I was passing up.

For that poor, angry, dumb, black creature I had spilled out my heart and had it broken, piece by piece, drop by drop, until I was almost dead myself.

Men and fathers, at least my own, did not warrant such a privilege.

my old girlfriend from Paris

2010-02-15T07:45:00.001-08:00

The face certainly comes as no shock to our old friends and confidentes. Andromeda, She's French, and a tad older than me.

She's been with me since I was just sixteen, all through high school (we meet quite unexpectantly on a shopping trip). She was never any kind of secret as far as my family was concerned, after all she stayed in my bedroom and and that was that.

When I was married, at 26, it went without being said that she was just part of the arrangement. And the three of us, Linda, Andromeda and I, have been pretty good company.

to be continued...

news clips: death goes click

2010-01-11T20:36:00.001-08:00

Viewed on the scale of a map, or from a great altitude, roads and highways often appear almost as straights lines, linking them ever so neatly between given way points, but that is hardly ever actually the case.

Except for the unusually featureless expanses of a desert or flat grid of Midwestern farmland, they each will invariably possess any number of unique curves, swoops and corners, and that applies to almost every road leading to anywhere.

Our very own lives suffer this same illusion, and particularly so when observed by strangers.

As horrible as it sounds now (which it does, and should) I once spent sunny weekends stalking motor vehicle accidents, the kind of which some newspaper photographers seem to specialize in, and along a certain road. I would agree that aspects of a pursuit such as this are, by its very nature, somewhat despicable, and in writing this I will mention that I neither seek forgiveness or expect it, except to say it was not done out of blood lust. It was all about pursuing the meager local offerings of journalism's sacred Three Ds: Death, Destruction and Drama. Such as they were.

Chuckanut Drive, a Washington byway often cited as one of America's most beloved and scenic drives on the Pacific Coast, was a such a place for me, and specifically for the above stated purpose. I do not pretend that I did it solely because "it's my job" (or was at that time), or that it was the most distateful aspect of my then profession (it wasn't). This is not to say I am a completely heartless bastard, only that where there are accidents there is drama, and where there is drama there is always the opportunity for a dramatic - perhaps stunning - news photograph to be made. Heartless bastards not withstanding.

And there were plenty. Of both.

A biker who cut the one last swooping corner into the oncoming lane - into the grill work of a 3/4 ton van filled with vacationers. Another who took his girlfriend out for a fast ride but lost control in the gravel of a sharp curve, then slid into a guardrail, rocketing them both down the cliff (he lived, she did not). A young woman who left a late-night party too late and was found the next day, 100 feet below, twisted into in a pile of dead leaves. They are not photographs of events that were ever published, except in a place I would choose to forget them, but won't.

Now, it must be pointed out that motor vehicle accidents, and especially fatalities, share a certain morbid irony. The more terrifically horrible they are, the greater - and lesser - chances are they will rate a photograph in the local rag. It's a tricky business for newsrooms, because while technically being real news ("spot news", to photogs) they will generally stand a slim chance of ever seeing ink, at least in the photographic rough. Editors avoid them like dog shit (not an undo comparison, in some cases), mommies don't like them, and a whole lot of other people don't either (not to mention the grief-stricken friends or relatives of the injured or deceased). Wise photographers learn to shoot around the ugliness, thus sparing their editors the dilemma of deciding whether or not to publish, and their readers the unvarnished reality as it honestly appears, year after year, tragedy after tragedy.

But again, death or heinous injury still holds the eager promise of high drama, and that is the magnetic force that attracts news photographers like flies, myself included. In this instance it meant cruising a lovely but occasionally perilous 10-mile strip of two lane blacktop winding north along the coastline cliffs into Bellingham.

There's one more thing I should mention about Chuckanut Drive - it was where I witnessed my first fatality, so in this sense we shared a sort of personal history, albeit a regretful one. That same accident (a motorcyclist hit broadside when a sedan ran a stop sign doing 40 mph) was also my first glimpse of a dead human being, or very soon-to-be. So I was a sort of a double-virgin at the scene, all eyes and with very little to say.

Such events stamp deep impressions in one's mind, if not their souls, and that's no matter their professional intentions. As paramedics and police went quietly about their grim business, so did I. Even when there is no decently publishable photo to be made (and with such happenings, more often than not, that is the case), there is still always a story, though it may not always make ink, for one reason or another.

This time is was about 16-year old girl who took a chance at a familiar intersection and lost badly, though not as badly as the teenager whose life she had just ended. By the time I arrived the motorcyclist was already dead - or very soon would be - sprawled across the road a few feet from the twisted hulk of his motorbike. There was very little blood (as was not unusual, I would learn). He wore no helmet, this fact explained as a horrible fluke by his parents when they were briefly interviewed in following days edition. He was simply unlucky, and only for a split-second.

The girl, the motorist, had already assumed a stunned pose of shrunken grief, and was kneeling, entirely alone, beneath a large fir tree not far from the intersection.

In terms of imagery, it was a scene neither fantastic nor even remarkable, except for its obvious tragedy. Looking back now, with the memory of having photographed literally dozens of accidents, fires, rescues, drownings, shootings and what-have-you, on the whole I'd say it was just about average, as fatalities go. Quiet, cold, sad.

For the most part, the others present were all professionals, or seasoned volunteers, who went about their work in a well-trained fashion. Their apparent lack of surprise or shock spoke to a presumption that there was probably little here that each had not witnessed too many times previously, and likely far worse. They undertook their role with the same steady cadence and precision as might a highway work crew, each man or woman silently at their own specialized task, secure in their own mind as to where their job fit into the team effort. The same could not be said for myself.

State patrolmen coolly measured and mapped the distances of tire marks and positions of the wrecks themselves, estimating speeds and angles of impact. As paramedics and fire personnel attended the motorcyclist as best they could, others set to sweeping up or gathering the assorted pieces of catastrophe - a shattered headlight, an empty shoe, a brown leather wallet, this in addition to a scattered bag of groceries that the motorcyclist has carried on his last, short errand from a local roadside market. Three hours later you'd have driven past and never guessed what had happened, if it occurred to you that anything had happened there at all.

In every sense, it was long ways off from the way you tend to picture such things in your head when you read about them, and definitely a far cry from the sirens, screams and body fluid-drenched dioramas that you see depicted on TV and in the movies.

If you had been there earlier, in the minutes soon after, I would guess that only three individuals might have stood out from the rest, if only subtly.

One was alone in the middle of the intersection, covered with a yellow cotton blanket, and one other was sinking slowly under the first waves of everlasting regret, alone, under a tree.

I had not captured a "moment". At the same time I received some friendly advice from an inner demon I thought of as being strangely benevolent, under the circumstances. The message was as clear as if it had been whispered into my ear:

Watch, carefully. Do not feel.

It was a good tip, and intended to help keep me alive.

On the inside.

news clips: a first pop

2010-01-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

The first photograph of mine ever published in a daily paper was of a firecracker exploding in the hand of a kid standing in a Mount Vernon parking lot. It wasn't a "great" shot, but it did "capture the moment" (see glossary) and it was taken on a slow news day, which was also the Fourth of July, two lessons in successful photojournalism which are worth noting because they amply demonstrate how and why certain images reach the public, often in lieu of much better ones.

It was 1/4 incentive and 2/4 "newsworthy", chiefly, once again because it was a certain event happening on a certain day when a certain need arose. The other 1/4 came from my motor drive (at 1/1000th of a second), which captured an image that I honestly never even actually saw happen at that moment, at least with my own two eyes.

If I'd kept a copy of it (which I never bothered to do) I'd show it off to you now, but again, I didn't, and because of that you will likely imagine that it was far better than it really was. That's one more important thing: the facts surrounding a particular photo are often less interesting than the actual image itself. Your imagination will serve to fill in the blanks (the fragments of paper bursting in all directions, the look on the kids face), applying your own standards and imagination in the process, and I will gladly take the credit. I'd be crazy not to. That's the gig. When you win, you're a whiz, and when you screw up, the readers don't even know about it. Magic. Illusion, really. But that's the nature of the gig, as I said.

Not much later, after I'd signed on with that first daily paper (the Skagit Valley Herald) back in 1984, a favorite newsroom joke was repeated to me, which was: if you got more than two photographers in a room together, the first thing they'd do is appoint an awards committee. Funny, and also not entirely inaccurate.

Now, I'm sure no stranger to photo contests, nor to the large helping of foolish pride frequently attached to pursuing them. They can be heart breakers, but also career makers. And especially for the unknown photographer, they can provide a crucial means by which their best work, and their name, can be seen outside the small town where they may feel professionally marooned. In some cases this will mean it is shared with top editors and photographers from across the entire U.S., or even around the world. The effect of that kind of exposure (pardon the expression) can be nothing short of miraculous. My own career might have stalled right where it began were it not for a handful of winning photos that caught the eye of just the right folks, at just the right time. More on that later.

There was a time (I need also mention that it is a tradition now almost wholly extinct), where most newsroom employees (which includes reporters, photographers, editors, layout folks, advertising people, the entire lot) all began their respective careers at the very bottom and worked their way up, inch by (column) inch. In that distant, semi-non-computer-stone-age era there was still such a thing as a "print-out" (news copy being physically printed out before being passed on the next editor), and subsequently, a need for some poor schmuck to shuttle paper from desk to desk to desk. Copyboy, was the vernacular of the day, but in '85 it was a job description with a short lifespan.

From that lowly post (and a 35mm camera, or ninth-grade grasp of the English language) you could conceivably work your way up to be a part-time "stringer", when you would occasionally be asked to cover a story or two, which very likely would be "breaking news" or a piss-grade local sports event. The same rule applied to any prospective photogs, except their lowest rung would be shooting "real estate" photos (in fact, houses for sale or rent), or used cars for the advertising sections.

With signature aplomb, it was little time before us "shooters" began competing for top honors, which in this case would come for having invested the very least amount of time possible required to shoot the actual picture. Note: When considering this dubious distinction, it is important to consider the extremely hybrid - and insular - environment of the average newsroom. In this particular case, the winner eventually was a photographer who not only didn't leave his car to get his shot, but simply photographed it by rolling down his drivers-side window and firing his motor drive as he (briefly) slowed the car while passing by. 1st Place!

Honors, by necessity, had to be gathered such as they were. On one car lot "assignment" I recall having to wait while a dealer coasted a vehicle out onto the lot by hand, not just because it simply lacked a battery, but also because it would not have started even if it had had one. This so that I could take an unobstructed photo of the vehicle for his weekly half-page ad, which proclaimed "Great Little Commuter - Needs a New Home!". True story, needless to mention.

On another occasion, as I scribbled down the details of a dealers weekly lineup, the sales staff (composed largely of men five to ten years older than me, mind you) took turns shooting me in the ass with paper clips, fired over their desks from across the room.

These were humbling affairs, for reporters and photogs alike, but their sting was always softened with the hopeful prospect of a shot at the real deal, which meant landing a full-time job at real newspaper (any newspaper), and the opportunity to be working on "real" news stories on a daily basis.

Starting out was always a tough gig for news folks, and one fueled far more by fantasy than the desire for overtime pay, an idealistic inclination that most any newspaper was (and still is, I'm guessing) only too happy to oblige. The "big" assignment beckoned.

As it turns out, however, when compared to sleazy car lots and real estate ads, your first so-called breaking news or sporting events often measure only a notch or two up on the scale of mediocrity, and - in grand newspaper tradition - they're frequently garnered standing in the rain, or working late on weeknights and holidays, most often with the verbal arrangement that your work time is officially "off the clock".

But, after all, what is life without the fantasy of fame or fortune? Or at the very least, a photo credit?

after the fremont thing

2010-01-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

My wife, Linda, occasionally reminds me that in a blog, entitled "orange chair pictures", I hardly ever include any "pictures". I agree.

Even though I no longer earn my living by taking photographs, I confess that almost every night I dream that I am still out roaming with my camera bag, making snaps, meeting new faces.

Unlike my old, veteran and behemoth shoulder-lug, in the bag I carry now are nondescript items much closer to means of personal, rather than professional, survival. There is my wallet, a flashlight, extra batteries, Pepto-Bismal, prescription reading glasses and a variety of items that let me lead an orderly life. Lately, this includes a notebook, several pens, a few unnamed meds and two or three unpaid bills, just to help me keep track. Most importantly in there, however, I still pack a camera, although it is not very high-falootin' by today's standards. But it is reliable, and gets the job done in a fashion I find predictable and pleasing.

Today, spending a few hours with Linda at her Fremont flea market thing, I managed to record a good image or two, most notably of Frank, our friend and a premier junker. The two photos you see are my favorites of the day. One is plucked from a pile of abanonded old photos showing a young woman - whose name I shall never know - young, beautiful and sporting a new gown on her front lawn, obviously for a pageant or prom. Love that picture.

The other is our good friend Frank, also a beauty. I adore this photograph as well - far more, really - for the trust it took to take, and that it speaks of everything about my own self that I lack the honesty to tell you.

So here are photographs, just my same my orange pictures really, although somewhat more tightly cropped.

Thanks Frank.

bruce: weekends, radios, electric chairs

2009-12-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

Workplace anniversaries are typically marked with perfunctory, polite accolades and tidy, room-temperature anecdotes, spiced up with few mildly embarrassing snapshots, and mine was no different.

Later that afternoon, as I zeroed in on our parking lot after quitting time, I was surprised to be gently confronted by a woman I did not recognize having met, on campus or otherwise. As she spoke she struck a classic poker face, vacant of both smile or frown: "They didn't mention the electric chair." she said.

For a long moment I mentally stumbled, speechless, and upped my effort to place her face. Nothing. Electric chair...? Then it hit me: during the first days at my new job, the employees had gathered for the annual after-hours Christmas party. Among the usual festivities and chit chat was also circulated a fresh pad of post-its, upon one of which we were directed to scribble "something about you that no one knows", to be left unsigned. Favoring a persona of vaguely weird over the ubiqitous cuddly or cute, I jotted that I "..had once constructed an operational electric chair". Party goers where later playfully challenged to match this "secret" with the wide range of mostly familiar faces.

My note and I were eventually paired up and, apart from a few snickers, that was that. Again I mention, this event being ten years prior to the awkward moment I was currently sharing in the parking lot. "You remembered that?" I asked. "Well, yes." These two words came delicately framed with a facial expression which hinted kindly at the obvious, and in this instance might best be summed up as being Vaguely Weird. Ouch.

But weirdness is spawned not from sunshine, a poet may have said.

In the Pacific Northwest of the mid-60's, rainy weekends were not typically special days, and very often only especially-boring. It was such a day, left alone to drift about our fir-enshrouded house, that the challenge became to find out how best to make a good time of it, in spite of the weather.

On summer Saturdays I could walk the train tracks out of town for two or three miles and pay a visit to Bruce's new residence (a much smaller abode just off Hiway 9), but during winter it usually came down to making phone calls and hoping that someone would just show up and help you pass the time.

Burt, the latest of my short string of stepfathers, was an electrical engineer who had a passion for electronic gizmos even greater than my own. One of his best was a console reel-to-reel tape recorder that he would use to compile hours of Louis Armstrong jazz tracks for later listening. For me personally, this was a toy almost as much a delight as a movie camera (or video camera, if it were 25 years or so in the future). In a similar vein, it seemed so natural at the time that both Bruce and I collected the same, enhanced stereo sound effect albums (LPs), that the fact bore no scrutiny between us whatsoever. Together with Bruce, Burt's tape recorder and our pile of sound effects records, every MAD magazine or ARCHIE comic became a potential radio script, which we populated with an ambitious and ridiculous assortment of voice characterizations limited only by our imagination and a mid-adolescent larynx.

But, getting back to the electric chair, that was Bruce's idea. And a short time later, his sincere regret, of course.

The whole thing began when Bruce, alone at home in his basement, had accidentally dropped a large vacuum-style radio bulb on the cement floor. When it shattered, it sent aloft a pale cloud of an anonymous gaseous nature, potent enough to send him running for the stairs, and then to his backyard in order to avoid fainting after his whiff of the mysterious and unnamed fumes.

This event appears to have posed to Bruce a reverie of sorts, but not in the cautious direction of self-preservation that one might have expected. Instead, he began to quietly ponder a diabolical use for his newly discovered supply of "gas". By his own admission, his first inclination came in the thought of constructing an actual "chamber", possibly employing a hollowed-out hot water heater for the vessel itself, it being the approximately correct size to encapsulate a like-sized teenager. Into this sealed vault he could then vent the odorous contents one of his broken vacuum bulbs, and then "just watch". Then what?

His zeal for this particular contraption lost steam when he began an actual examination of the family hot water heater. It was soon obvious that the transformation from heater to gas-chamber would demand heavy labor, too much, he decided. But with his appetite for mock-execution already wetted, he wasn't about to give up, and began looking at alternatives to his original plans for "gas". Iron Maidens and guillotines posed much the same obstacle as the gas chamber - too labor intense - and while a trap-door gallows held a certain charm, he ultimately judged it too pedestrian.

It was about at this point that my Saturday blahs and Bruce's gruesome imaginings met head-long, in the way of a serendipitous visit to my stepfathers wood shop. It was only by chance that on this particular day an ordinary, straight-back wooden chair had been left there by person or persons unknown, but there in the sawdust it did linger. Bruce did not, his inspiration once more aflame. An Electric Chair. Yes.

Rummaging my house and garage for the additional components required (electrical wiring, some steel grating, assorted bolts, straps and a helmet of some kind), we devised a blueprint on the fly that bloomed before us as if it were a sunflower in a dark swamp.

In less than two hours it was completed, right down to the leather leg straps we'd manufactured from an old belt. As much as possible, every necessary detail was attended to, including a five-inch eye bolt that could be "screwed" down into the head of the due-to-be-executed. Wooden manacles (sculpted carefully from plywood using a jigsaw) hooped around ankles, wrists and elbows with equal, solid security.

So there we stood, admiring our greatest creation, without doubt the pinnacle of our most heartfelt and malevolent mischief. The Chair. And if there was ever to be a single moment wherein our two peculiar-formed psyches merged to form a single, monstrous mind, this was it.

Of course, Bruce was a fool for ever letting me convince him to be strapped in. To say the least.

With every appendage secured or strapped into place, it was now all he could manage to simply twist his wrist, not to mention in any way actually free himself. True to his vision, he himself had made certain escape was virtually impossible, and he knew it. He also realized that, in as much as he'd become obsessed with the construction of this screwball abomination, so was I now being swept up with the notion of convincing him he would be it's first test pilot. So to speak.

As he bounced and squirmed atop the chairs steel-lined seat (an electrical conduit cleverly fashioned from the bottom rack of my mothers refrigerator) I held up the electric cord wired to the chair and dangled it absently in the direction of the electric outlet next to my stepfather's workbench. Try as he might (and did, desperately), he was trapped.

But of course I let him go, eventually. And he had his day as well, when my own time eventually came. In both instances we remained close friends.

While she doesn't actually know me, or for that matter ever heard of Bruce, or even the slightest in particulars regarding our friendship, the woman in the parking lot was right.

In fact, a few minutes later that same evening, as I drove home and caught myself giggling out loud, I was sure of it.

bruce, later

2009-12-29T20:37:00.001-08:00

Throughout my younger years, Bruce was (and even in absentia, honestly still is) a strange and singular presence in my life, a product of personality which I have observed emerges only in the rarest of circumstances from a mundane and healthy home life. Given his bloodline, this was a case which Bruce certainly needn't fret be his own.

Rosemary, the mother, a woman near a skyscraper in height and given to a forceful, no-nonsense nature, was quite as likely to deliver, seemingly without provocation, a flat-handed slap across your rump as she was an unexpected compliment on the curl of your hair. On a visit over coffee in our living room, she once bargained to buy all of the warts on my middle finger for a single copper penny. Soon after they promptly vanished, and remained so forever, she being not nearly as surprised as I, if she was even surprised at all.

Bruce's father on the other hand was as an unassuming individual as Rosemary was outspoken, nearly invisible, really. Although rumored to be an fanatical eccentric with esoteric dabblings ranging from antique steam engines to wild electrical experiments, and while his experiments may have been ignited from the published letters of Nikola Tesla, the man himself seemed more an apparition than a parent. Personally, I can recall nare a glimpse of him until I was almost out of high school, many years later. What I do recall is that he leaned towards wool cardigan sweaters and constantly smoked a pipe, a habit I took be a wonderful and professor-like distinction, in particular during an era where Camel, Pall Mall and Lucky Strike ranked (in every sense) supreme.

Their relationship itself appeared tepid to the extreme. Words were rarely exchanged (almost never in the presence of another neighborhood boy or girl) and, while his dad was odd enough right out of the box, Bruce was compelled to up the ante considerably: it was crucial that we all believe that he had also secretly been a pre-WWII member of the American Nazi party (this being a supposedly distinguished heritage), a footnote which I was in no position to challenge, either then or now. This was entirely Bruce's call.

All subjective observations aside however, there was one indisputable bit of evidence in his household which could not be overlooked, or set on spin: a few feet inside the entryway to his family's front room was a enormous, chest-high glass cabinet just too large to miss. Inside, gaping at you at full attention from the inside-out was not one, but two stuffed adult Emperor penguins, one slightly larger than the other, the two being nestled in an accompanying throng of dozens of smaller porcelain facsimiles, also glass-eyed, also erect. If they were a male and female couple it was a detail that escaped my pre-adolescence scrutiny. But, needless to say, it was the first thing you noticed when entering the home, and almost certainly the last detail you'd be pondering on the drive home.

Such was the mirror of Bruce's early family years, at least as I viewed it.

Rosemary taught piano, and while shy of being an bonafide child prodigy, her son still posed a mental force to be dealt with, headlines she simultaneously endorsed when proclaiming to friends and fellow parents that Bruce was both unteachable and gifted at the keyboard. He was able play the instrument completely and intuitively and without the cue or guidance of a single written note of music, "by ear" as she put it. Whatever the case, this was a boy clearly gifted beyond his years, a trait of fascination and frustration to the uneasy adults in his orbit, and one that he dispensed in gleeful torment, employing both his expanded vocabulary and guileless appearance to exhaust little doubt as to his complete and total disregard for grown-ups and all they held sacred. Indeed, even from the earliest age, Bruce was his own champion, living by his own standards, which included converting his upstairs bedroom into an combination chemistry lab and middle eastern oasis, or WWII bunker, at his whim.

Personally content with my own backyard sandbox, I was impressed to watch as, before he was even ten, Bruce managed to assemble a mail order HeathKit Ham radio entirely from scratch. At a time when I may have mistaken the name of Frank Zappa to have been an Tibetan mystic, Bruce informed me that he was, in fact, a genius at the helm of the next generation of music. "...the dream of a girl, just thirteen. Off with her clothes, and into a bed, where she tickles his fancy, all night long... BABY, BABY, BABY, BABY!!!". In a very real sense, of course (something it would take me a near-half century to confirm), he was largely correct.

As Sedro-Woolley offered no Louvre or Smithsonian Museum, or even the reliable outside possibility that you'd ever get closer than a postcard to either one of them in your own lifetime, Bruce was a precious commodity.

While his somewhat skewed portal to the real world may have been cluttered with stuffed penguins, rampant sarcasm and an intimidating mother, a portal, at least to the ragamuffin kids on Jameson Street, he truly was.

last call

2009-12-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

The right brain ponders: The lives we share, or choose not to, with our supposed most-loved ones, are victim by their proximity alone to also be our most contentious and confusing. This despite the rivers of love and understanding that run deep in such relationships, at least as commonly depicted across the maps of popular human culture. More often than not, given to the same flaws as their human craftsmen, these maps are in error. Even at the very end of a lifelong arch, at a time when we are lead to hope that the big picture might at last snap into focus, we are left lacking. No such map exists, or shall ever exist, except for what little landscape of light and darkness that we have foraged out somewhere within ourselves. This is our personal, imperfect guide to the experience of death, as was always the intention, it would seem.

On a recent Saturday morning, Linda and I met with the staff at a local hospice and checked my mother into a private room, a quiet and sunlit place that we understood was where she would take her last breath. Hovering in a coma since the previous weekend, she'd collapsed with a stroke on Sunday afternoon, spent several days in a critical care ward, with hopes she'd somehow bounce back. At 87, she'd held a reputation as a tough old bird, but the time for tough had run out. On the brink of renal failure and paralyzed completely on at least half of her body, she was now presumed never to awaken, or even live out the week.

Earlier, when the decision to withdraw feeding and fluid tubes was finally made, Mom was unplugged from her tangle of plastic tubes, scopes, probes and cables and set free to lean her head back and snore like a logger, as was her style, this time in the numbing embrace of a morphine IV drip.

During a long week in her hospital room, my brother Rog, Staci and I exchanged remembrances, do-it-yourself tips and hour after hour of topics ranging from my mother's current breathing rate, to HBO On-Demand, bargain gasoline, back exercises, best vacation stories and back again. We sought comfort in each other and the common thoughts and events of the everyday. Doubtless in countless rooms surrounding us in all directions, others were relating similar tales, and under similar circumstances.

Her gray head braced by a stiff pillow, the three of gazed silently at the woman between us: perilously near the edge of the past-tense, here was a helpless figure that for each of us at a given time had once been the bright center of our respective universe.

That same week, in the course of a regular-scheduled hour with my therapist, death was naturally the main topic. My summation came in the form of a childhood memory: when I was nine or ten and we lived in Burlington, I'd often ride my bike to the small park across the street from the city library. Here, I would sit and imagine how wonderful it would be when the carnival would return in June, and set up their show on this very lot. On one of these afternoons I looked up from my swing and saw my brother's '53 Ford sedan - canary yellow with a black top - heading up the street, just across the playfield. Mom was driving, alone and at the wheel, window rolled down, and when she spotted me she threw her arm out the window and flapped it in a tall arch, all with a huge, happy smile. As if it was the happiest day of her life. Back those days her hair was a rich, dark brown and her lipstick an impossibly bright red. Beauty, laughing. That image of her through the window, waving and waving with that big smile, in the old Ford, that picture is still as clear as if it had happened a few moments ago. At that same instant, the moment when I raised my hand to wave back, was when I also suddenly realized that She will die someday. She, my mother. Will die.

I lingered on my swing and let it in sink in, and then cried. As every child must discover, it was true.

On Friday morning, having shared the week in Mom's Hospital room, Stacy flew back to her home in Frisko, Texas. The evening just before, this most beloved granddaughter had slept in the chair next to Mom's bed for the entire night, their hands entwined in a familiar fashion, but for a last time.

Two day later, at the hospice, I gingerly combed my mother's hair and left for short trip to the local supermarket, then headed home. When the phone rang a few minutes later, I was surprised to hear the caller announce herself to be Resa, a hospice nurse we had met only an hour or two earlier. My mother had just passed away, she reported.

Whatever goodbyes were coming, had all been made.

orange chair pictures

2009-11-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

My old, orange chair began its life as a different color, and so long ago I no longer have even the slightest recollection of its original print or shade, except that it was definitely not orange (the orange cover arrived by mail, from Sears). It was stuffed with foam rubber, the usual treatment for lower-priced furniture in the 50's and 60's.

It's anybody's guess the first day I discovered the small wooden table leaf, or that it would fit exactly between its arms, but from then forward the chair became my personal throne and drawing bench.

Squished into that orange polyester cockpit is where the best pieces of my mind met paper. Two-man submarines figured heavily in that mix, as did dark and elaborately dangerous funhouses. From here I also mapped out my future (if not highly unlikely) adventures, as well as an plethora of "scientific" notions, their topics ranging from spacecraft to motorcycles to a breed of deadly advanced lasers fashioned from common light blubs. Among others. These were lovingly rendered in pencil, and later by felt tip pen or colored marker, as my budget would allow.

Although my chair also served me as something of a small, privare bubble, it could not completely isolate me from the household events that swirled in shallow orbit. It was a decade in which we packed up and relocated on a pretty regular basis, a new boyfriend or husband entering or exiting with each move. Next we'd moved to a farm in Ferndale, a tattered horse trail of a town near the Canadian border. Here Till re-married for a first time, and then moved to Bellingham when she divorced Don just a year later. We moved back to Sedro-Woolley when she had began dating again, eventually marrying Burt. In another year we moved out yet again - on this occasion just across town - when the new husband took to gambling his paycheck away on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, while my orange chair was no match for bucket seats in James Bonds' Aston Martin, the 007 spy car continued to be one my most extensive and pet projects. This was a vehicle whose arsenal I judged to include far too few machine guns, not to mention ground-to-air missiles, and booby traps and countless other secret weapons still in development by both me and govenmental agencies unknown.

Then came the blueprints for my future Adult Home, a design born by equal parts Playboy magazine and Edgar Allen Poe. A five story A-Frame, it was both a vision only a boy could adore and even believe even possible. Unencumbered by the faintest grasp of architecture (or laws of gravity), my drawings called for the ultimate playhouse, replete with a swimming pool penthouse, sliding bookcases and gothic stained-glass windows that stretched from the ground floor to the astro observatory five stories above. My palace to be.

Despite all of my full-color illustrations, real life was pale. But no matter when or where we moved, my archive of drawings would follow. Eventually this came to be a huge floppy-eared grocery box, which though kicked and clobbered with each subsequent move, protected my orange picture collection like a behemoth cardboard vault.

Until.

As had become the norm, our next move arrived again on the cusp of marital dissolution. On this occasion we'd be moving on a Saturday, just across town.

Saturday arrived but, I had privately declared to take this Moving Day off -- my butt hit my bicycle seat and I was gone for the day, who knows where. When I returned later it was nearly dark, with all the packing nearly entirely finished, it seemed. As I rolled my cruiser into a silent driveway, I spotted my mother in the back yard out by the burn barrel, the two of us avoiding both eyes or answers.

It was only weeks later, having settled into our new address on Jameson Street, and all boxes unpacked, that I realized what had actually taken place on that particular Saturday, and in the burn barrel specifically.

So many dreams, up in smoke.

Forty years has shed little wisdom on the wound. Clearly, while there was much we didn't share that long Saturday, my mother had moved to impart a notion that she had long and deeply embraced. As viewed from my own twelve-year-old haze, that notion still remained faint, but was no less impressive.

Alone.

Bruce, down the street

2009-11-16T17:34:00.000-08:00

Until I was almost seven, Bruce lived just down the street. At that time there were precious few people in my world who supplied as many "firsts" as did Bruce, this the domain of my very early years, when I had first awakened to the unwritten life, such as it was. Firsts were aplenty: The climb to his bedroom was the first stairway I ever explored, and his mother, Rosemary (another first - I'd never met a Rosemary or knew any other child who addressed his parents by their first name) was also the first woman, besides my own mother, I ever kissed goodnight. The first brown bat I saw (not on television) came flapping out of Bruce's brick chimney, and together we built our first coast car, in his empty garage. To a boy under six, this is a landmark list.

His home was a white, two story affair, and next to it grew a tall, peculiar apple tree. Plain by most standards, it had the distinction of being the first apple tree I ever recall seeing, and grew the first apple I ever tasted: green and sour - the way I still prefer them. Far more significantly at the time, anchored up at its shoulders with a pound or so of rusted nails, stood the first tree house I would ever lay eyes on. It was not a complex or fanciful structure, even by a five-year-old's estimation - hardly more than a platform pieced together from a few scraps of plywood, cedar fencing and 2x4s - but the very idea of such a thing was in itself a revelation. With its frail rope ladder dangling from the trap door entrance, I confess that any tree fort I have imagined or seen since is still compared to it in one way or another.

Bruce himself was, in the parlance of that era, a tow head. That meaning his five year old head was a mop of silken hair and as white as fresh meringue. If I picture him then, it is beneath that white mop, with him stretched out in a lawn chair in front of his house selling Kool-Aid for a penny a cup. The other image would be him lined up in front of my sandbox with the other neighborhood hombres - but this is a photograph more than an actual memory, for I am there, too.

In those days Jameson Street, unlike many of the other side streets in Woolley, was paved, although it would not boast an actual curb for ten more years. Asphalt was still a decade away at that time, so cement was it, flat, plain and gray.

On the best summer days I could squat low over that street and pull the heated black tar out from between the cement slabs like it was hot bubble gum, only better. It was a delight indulged in without a lick of shame or single ounce of presumption, only because it was there and impulse demanded me to do so, that simple.

As for Bruce, we picked up our friendship some years later, when I had finally moved back again to Woolley, my Mom having re-married not once, but twice more in the process. The day I re-entered Junior High, Bruce would be waiting for me, although being one year younger we never actually shared what was then called a "home room".

Surprisingly enough, at school Bruce was bestowed a robust popularity usually reserved for the athletic or handsome - neither being a rank he could honestly qualify for. But he did possess a certain spirit, it being a singular and unique quality I am still at a loss to fully explain or grasp, except to describe it as being a quick and unusually sarcastic wit, well beyond his years. This, and much more, certified Bruce at a very early age as being both extremely bright and a child whose precocious, mischievous nature had little or no respect for the law, including those of gravity, chemistry and common sense.

I must stop to observe that while the details of these ancient events continue to fade, their colors persist, and vividly so. As does Bruce.

the haunting

2009-11-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

For one week during my thirteenth summer, my hometown shrank to the size of my sister's single-bedroom rental as, alone on her white vinyl couch, I drilled into her battered copy of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. While my niece and nephew played, ate, or slept, I was passed the sordid family secrets of Hugh Crain, and his legacy of evil, insane obsession, now made ghostly. With gaining apprehension, I wandered the vast halls of Hill House alongside poor Eleanor, and like her, labored to pretend that the real world no longer existed outside of our respective walls. While she avoided a smothering, manipulative mother, my hope was to squelch the celebration of Loggerodeo (one word), a fevered state of timberland clamor that descended (and still does) upon my hometown and its people once every year, on or around the Fourth of July, complete with parade.

Fact is, my town of Sedro-Woolley (two words) had one other standing claim to fame at that time, Loggerodeo being the lesser and the considerably less infamous of the two. It was also home to Northern State, a sprawling state facility for the mentally ill located just outside town, an institution which at that time employed nearly everyone that the local timber industry did not. So great was the hospital's reputation that its name had eventually become synonymous with Sedro-Woolley itself, the two freely exchanged for one another in discussionss of current events exclusive, but not limited to, regional gossip and goings-on. A junior high student at the time, I shared the universal, communal cringe at the out-of-town mention of Northern State, for fear that I should also be stamped with its indelible reputation.

More secretly (and key to the true grip which Hugh Crain held over me), was yet another relationship I shared with the book: a decade earlier, my own father had been committed to Northern State, as a patient.

I read on. My young, rural mind might have been too blunt an instrument to appreciate the wry lesbian overtures flittering between our sweet Eleanor and the cruel, beautiful Theo, but the big headline, the message of familial craziness and generational codgery rang true: there are some houses, and the people who live in them, who truly are haunted. By madness.

Eight or ten blocks away, the Skagit County Sheriff's Posse led the annual Fourth of July parade down the center of main street, sparing no shit, horse or otherwise.

This entry was originally published as Field-Tested on Coudals.com .

be here now, or there

2009-10-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

Last night at dusk as I puffed on a cigarette on our back porch - one of my favorite savored moments of the day - my mind was already ahead me, installing a new monitor for my wife's computer. After all these years, I had still not fully mastered the essential art of Being in the Moment. From a star's distance, my Other Self whispered to me a familiar message: life is not what happens next, it is right now. Enjoy this.

But the moment escaped me. Reaching for the next.

I have spent no small margin of my life waiting for one thing or another to arrive, a date, a package, a new film, vacation, Christmas morning, my birthday, a weekend, later this evening, you name it. I am told the mechanisms we create to save our lives, left unchecked, eventually will overtake and destroy us, left unchecked. But capricious tones aside, these are hard-wired behaviors.

During the winter, when I was eight or nine years old, I'd quietly sit alone on one of the weathered swings that hang on iron chains in the old Burlington city park and pine away at the prospect of a time when the carnival would return to town and set up in this very same playground, and how I just couldn't wait - how good it would be, then. in the meantime, i would spend my afternoon leafing through last years Sears Holiday Catalog or filling in order blanks for back issues of magazines like Famous Monsters or MAD, or perhaps an orider from the Johnson Smith Co. (where i discovered leather arm bands, 8mm Three Stooges rings and magic floating balls) and then add up all the prices, tax and shipping. Only rarely did these exercises ever reach fruition - in terms of dollars and cents - but I spent a helfty amount of time thinking about ordering them, and how I would feel when I had them.

On the occasion when I would actually complete and mail in an order (including the coinage, scotch-taped to the order blank), each subsequent day would be marked with unbearable anticipation as I awaited the (amazing, important, wonderful!) package, which for some reason I fully expected to arrive almost immediately, despite distant verbiage stating orders would take 6-8 weeks to arrive. Instead, the following days, weeks and in some cases, months, were marked hour-by-hour, occasionally including solemn calls or trips to the local post office inquiring if, just perhaps, my order had possibly been delivered to the wrong address, or somehow delayed or misplaced in the backroom.

When my package would eventually arrive (in 6-8 weeks), it invariably proved a disappointment: the dozen original classic Sci-Fi movie posters I had ordered from "Movie Poster Treasure House" (the firm reserved the privilege of substituting titles of "equal or similar value") would be whittled down to three lesser desirable titles , in one case stooping so low as being a Jerry Lewis re-issue; the 8mm film of the Three Stooges "at their funniest" was just a 2-minute silent clip from "Snow White and the 3 Stooges", arguably the most despicable and disliked Stooge film absent of "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules" (also starring Joe DeRita, who may have been a decent man but was no Curly Joe). My pro "Truck Driver" leather armband was neither real leather, or empowering, in fact its color ran and stained my shirt sleeves when it got soaked walking home from school in the rain.

I understand now that the only real joy these objects provided me was the anticipation of having them.

Not surprisingly, this behavior descends from a thoroughbred line of dysfunction. It was (still remains) my mother's dearest holiday tradition to spend the weeks previous to Christmas planning and preparing a sultan's feast of edibles for our clans' annual Xmas eve get together. This roster of family favorites is usually no less than thirty or so various treats, which includes: home-made popcorn balls, fresh backed fudge, seven-layer avocado bean dip, ambrosia, macaroni salad (with and without shrimp), divinity, coconut clusters, mock Almond Roca, pumpkin and mincemeat pies, vanilla spritz cookies, scratch-made peanut brittle, chocolate no bakes, nut balls, (apropos for the occasion!), macaroons, fruitcake, and eggnog. All this in addition to the perfunctory Japanese Mandarin oranges, hard-shelled nuts, jellied fruits and miscellaneous mini side-dishes.

As heartfelt and as much hard work as my mother's recipes mustered, they all lacked a crucial ingredient: a wisdom to foresee that her many week's worth of anxious anticipation could never, ever be fulfilled in one short evening, no matter how perfectly she had planned it. There are only so many moments in a evening, and only so much affection you can extract from a mouthful of fudge, no matter how sweet. And so, almost from its beginning, she locked herself in the anxious dread of its eventual end, always only minutes away. If she understood her true joy had been in anticipating the evening (and not living it), she didn't show it.