Category Archives: LIVE AND LEARN

A Veteran Scholar

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My father served in the military in World War II.  He wasn’t an ambitious, fighting kind of guy; he was an unassuming Shakespeare scholar.  Nonetheless, in 1942, leaving behind a masters degree in english literature and a valuable professorship, he joined the Second Air Force.  He enlisted as a private, the lowest rank available.
Though he kept a low profile by working as a company payroll clerk, he was too well educated to avoid getting bumped up the ladder.  Eventually the adjutant general spotted him and sent him to the Second Air Force chief of staff, General Nathan Bedford Forrest III, grandson of the first General Forrest, who had gained fame by having quite a few horses shot out from under him during the Civil War.
My father accepted his new assignment as assistant chief of staff for military composition.  His primary duty was rewriting outgoing communications for the Second Air Force so that they made actual sense.  Because his duties required accessing and composing top secret documents, it became necessary for him to have a rank somewhat higher than a private.  So, for a few days, he was a corporal.  That’s how long it took for General Forrest to decide he wanted my father to also be his personal aide.
So much for staying low.  Because corporal isn’t a stuitable rank for a general’s personal aide, my father was immediately ushered off to Officer Candidacy School for proper credentialing.  He hadn’t even gotten to be a sergeant.  One week he was safely ensconced behind a desk as a private; the next week he was at OCS learning to be a lieutenant destined to be at the side of a general who was destined to go to battle.  My father could have declined the promotion, but he didn’t.  And as it turned out, it didn’t matter that he hadn’t turn down the dangerous assignment.  Before my father finished his training at OCS, General Forrest got his plane shot out from under him–something that is much more difficult to survive than loosing a horse.
So, with no live general to aid, my mild-mannered father spent the remainder of the war as a sort of officer at large who, in the eyes of some, hadn’t really earned his bars.  After a series of adventures and further promotions, he ended up as a troop commander, a captain, at a US base in British Guyana where not even the iguanas were afraid of him.  His greatest enemies were mildew and dirty water.  That was fine with him.  Unlike some of his friends, he had survived the war and was never in range of angry bullets.  And unlike the iguanas, he could trade the jungle for his home town and his old job teaching Shakespeare at a local university.
Life is good.  For soldiers, life sometimes is good, then interrupted, then anxious, then over.  But mostly, life is good, then interrupted, then anxious, then interesting, then good again.  Here, but for the grace of God and vigilance–even hesitant vigilance–go we.

Nov. 13, 2012

Cats!

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I have a cat, Rosie, who is my muse.  Like all cats, she has absolutely no respect for us humans, especially when we’re walking downstairs with armfuls of dirty laundry.  They remember the trick we’ve played with them over and over: dropping them upside-down to watch them twist and flip and land on their feet.  Cats amaze us.  So we shouldn’t be surprised when they scoot down the stairs ahead of us and stop on the third to last step.  They just want to see if we humans can perform the same trick.  If we land on our feet, they’ll grant us peace by allowing us to gently scratch their heads and fill their bowl with kibbles.

Cats are funny.

I want a dog.

 

Nov. 5, 2012

 

My Rules

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I’m an industrial photographer who sometimes accepts journalism asignments.
I was covering a townhall event some years ago and was trolling for a spot at the back of the auditorium for some long-shots of the Washington State govenor. I lucked into a sweet little pocket right behind the middle-last seats. As I set up my tripod a gravelly voice behind me growled, “Guy, my shot’s blocked!” I turned to see a cheap t-shirt not quite covering the hairy paunch of an unshaved camera operator from a local news crew. Other crews on my left and right had set up farther forward, but they all had dressed as if they had just left factory jobs to get to the event.  In my jacket and tie I stuck out–I didn’t meet code.
I’m a deferential kind of guy who avoids confrontation.  If one of the regular news photographers really needed to share my spot, and asked nicely, I’d have bent over backwards to make extra room. So I looked into the eyes of the hairy Buddha-belly guy behind me and replied, gently, “I guess you’re not in a good spot back there”.
I may not be a veteran photojournalist, but a fifty dollar tie has a few rights over a two dollar t-shirt.
Unlike the scruffy veterans, I was invited to meet and photograph the governor after the event.  They served me good scotch.

Oct. 31, 2012

Control Issues

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This has been a day of weirdness.
It began after lunch with finding an unopened bottle of SmartWater next to a drinking fountain at a doctor’s office. By itself, that’s a minor non sequitur. Something I could chuckle at and report on Facebook. Then, late in the afternoon, while on my way to a downtown appointment, I found myself behind a late-model car being driven by a man who was behaving even more weirdly than other Seattle drivers.
The elderly fellow was rolling slowly along in the second lane of northbound 99 on the Viaduct. I’m pretty sure he was hoping to change to the right lane, which becomes the only exit from 99 into downtown Seattle. However, every time he started to move to the right his windshield wipers switched on, leading to his jerking the car back into the second lane. Each time he returned to the second lane his windshield wipers switched off. After several aborted attempts, he ran out of room to make the lane change, so he continued north. He had not once used his turn signal. It was not raining.
I’d like to find this hilarious. I can’t because I realize how difficult it is for me to remember which dials on my stove control which burners and what the login password is on my computer. I’m not old, though that shouldn’t make a difference. I’m intelligent. I pay attention. Nonetheless, some things just don’t stick in my memory. My father was the same. The only way he could find his little brown car in a parking lot was to try his key in the doors of one car after another until he found a door that opened. But he wasn’t weird. Neither am I. I’m not that man who can’t figure out his turn signal lever.
Please let me laugh. I really want to laugh. What would Jesus do? What would John Stewart do?

Oct. 23, 2012

In Memory of a Rat

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As my daughter Hana was getting ready for bed this evening, she checked on her elderly pet rat, Chew.  She found Chew had died–earlier in the evening we presume.  She was very old.  We made a proper fuss over her before wrapping her up for temporary storage in the freezer.  We’ll bury her this weekend.
Yes, she’s a rat.  Smaller than a cat and larger than a cricket.  Taxonomy seems to recapitulate psychology, in the sense that the degrees of human psychology we confer upon other creatures often relates directly to certain warm and fuzzy details of their taxonomy, as well as to how close to our dinner tables they rest without us eating them.  I say, in for an ounce, in for a pound.  It might be only make-believe, but it’s also part of how we learn to deal with other lives.
Yes, its a game.  And if you can’t play this game with your pet, how should I trust you’ll play it with me?

 

Sept. 26, 2012

 

Gavin’s Glossary of Terms of Existence

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I’ve started a glossary of terms relating to human existence. I’ll flesh it out as our existences go by. Quite a bit of this is stream of consciousness, so it isn’t in alphabetical order.

Birth:
A transpiring event you don’t recall and of which you imagine everything, including a god

Death:
An expiring event you won’t recall and of which you fear everything, including a god

Karma:
Feeling frustrated that, while sitting on one side of a balance scale, you can’t throw marshmallows onto the other side fast enough to raise youself from the tracks before the Evening Express comes through.

Grace:
In the Catholic sense–having invested in a marshmallow factory when you were young.

Luck:
The Evening Express being delayed by a landslide in a mountain pass. All the rail cars have been swept into a swollen river and everyone has died who wasn’t carrying a large bag of marshmallows.

Buddhist monk:
A kindly man in a saffron robe sitting under a nearby tree and telling you in a soothing tone, “Just wait”.

Franciscan monk:
A kindly man in a brown robe sitting under a nearby tree and telling you in a soothing tone, “God‘s will”.

Jesuit priest:
A kindly man in a snappy black suit sitting under a nearby tree and telling you in a not-so-soothing tone, ” Sucks, doesn’t it”.

Bishop:
A kindly man wearing a pointy hat sitting under a nearby tree and asking, “Would you like to buy some marshmallows?”

Satan:
A kindly man with pointy ears and a tan sitting under a nearby tree and asking, “Would you like to buy some marshmallows?”

Politician:
A friendly man wearing a blue and red suit sitting under a nearby tree and imploring, “Be afraid; be very afraid! May I have some of your marshmallows?”

Anthropologist:
A studious man looking at the wrapper of the Big Mac you had for lunch and wondering, “Does this mean he worshipped a god?”

Husband of premenopausal woman:
A clueless man living under a nearby rock exclaiming, “This is funny. Let’s roast marshmallows.”

Premenopausal woman:
A nervous woman sitting on the end of the weakest branch of a nearby tree screaming, “This is not funny! Wait–yes it is! God, it’s hot in here! This is not about marshmallows!”

Catholic nun:
A kindly woman sitting under a nearby tree and asking, “Do I really have to sit with these nits?”

Religion:
Praying for marshmallows to be bestowed upon you by the owner of a marshmallow factory and for a temporary reprieve from the chemistry of oxidation, while ignoring the ultimate effect on everyone in those rail cars.

Fate:
Watching the hooks on the balance scale slowly rust away.

Freedom:
Choosing to get off your ass to see what you can do for anyone in those rail cars who is still alive.

 

Sept. 2012

 

 

Recess

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I’d bind these shattered, scattered pieces with
ribbons from a maypole–or memories of maypoles,
which we never really had, which instead of we had

a deflated leather ball that no one really liked,
and swung from a chain, rebounding off our fists.
Our red fists: at the bell they had rebounded from

the old black chalkboard and Big Chief tablets,
from endless long divisions, which we deserted like
a mob of happy crows. That seems so long ago,

and so much simpler than this division of memories:
our promises sparked red, faith pulsing in each kiss,
all our knotted fears unwound beneath the moon’s caress;

unwound like ribbons loosed to end a maypole dance,
which we no longer dance because all we have left
are deflated leather souls and flailing, angry hands.

Big Chief tablets wait blank on ink-stained desks,
and the chalkboard asks what we don’t want told.
The bell is ringing, calling us in from recess.


August 2012 (revised Jan. 2013)

 

Busy Signals

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A green traffic light means go.  A red traffic light means stop.  It’s the same here in Seattle as everywhere else–except in the turn-lanes.
In Seattle a green turn-arrow means put your coffee cup down, adjust your mirror, check what the car behind you is doing, check the GPS to make certain you should be turning at this intersection, check what the car in front of you is doing, note the price of gasoline at the station across the street, SQUIRREL!, put your lipstick or electric razor down (or both), note that the car in front of you has cleared the intersection and is half-way down the next block, signal your intention to execute a turn, put your car in gear, check what the dog at the hydrant is doing, note that the turn arrow has changed from green to amber to red, slowly depress the accelerator pedal and proceed carefully through the intersection while disregarding the honking horns and angry curses.  So it will go, whether you are the first or tenth car in line.
In the through lanes, on the other hand, you will smash the accelerator pedal to the floor the instant the light turns green, race through the intersection, and blow your horn and curse at all the slow drivers in the turn-lane.
In short, if you live in Seattle, you will exhibit both behaviors and you will think nothing of the difference.

 

Aug. 24, 2012

Cruis’n For A Bruis’n

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MV Tillikum

MV Tillikum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re in your little wooden cabin cruiser, threading your way through the shipping lanes of Puget Sound, and you suddenly hear five short, loud blasts from a ship’s horn, you should infer the possibility that every part of your boat, from stem to stern, is in imminent danger of being destructively dissected by the metal hull and propeller of a large ship whose path you are nonchalantly crossing.
In other words, you should wake the hell up!  If you do nothing to head off this destructive embrace of wood and steel–if you’ve deserted the helm to have a crap, mix a vodka tonic, or become a member of the seamen’s version of the mile-high club–you’ll be offered just one more series of five blasts from the metal monster before it has your life for lunch.

I was on the MV Tillikum‘s passenger deck when I heard five horn blasts from her wheel house.  I’ve heard this warning signal only a couple of times in all the years I’ve ridden car ferries around the Sound. None the less, I went back to fiddling with my camera and watching my daughter read a book.
Then I heard the same warning blasts from another ferry, followed by a second warning from the Tillikum, followed by yet another warning from the other ferry.  That got my attention.  I jumped up and dashed to the Tillikum’s forward observation deck just as she hit the brakes.  (A three-hundred foot ship doesn’t really have brakes, which is the reason it’s vitally important to heed warning signals from ships‘ horns.)
About a thousand feet ahead and a little to port was a medium size pleasure cruiser intent on crossing the Tillikum’s bow.  It had just crossed the bow of the other ferry, which was sailing from the opposite direction.  Both ferries came to a full stop as the small boat’s captain finally realized the pickle he was in and cut his engine.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my telephoto lens, so I couldn’t tell whether or not the fellow had pants on.
After a long minute of everyone waiting for Godot, the Tillikum and the other ferry resumed their original courses, leaving the small boat’s captain to fend for himself in their intersecting wakes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy put his boat up for sale as soon as he arrived back at the dock.  There is no bowel movement, cocktail, or sex worth the risk of having that experience twice.

July 19, 2012