SUNRISE,SUNSET

Clouds stream over the bay,

Waves lash the shore,

Strands of memory,

pearls of time.

1968

We hadn't gone to the moon yet, I hadn't got laid yet. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had been assasinated, protests were crushed in Chicago, Mexico City, Paris, Prague.
The war headlined every news cast, the democratic party was in turmoil, old liners challenged by a new wave.

A seminal moment, kind of like now. My confidence is not high. Experience has not been encouraging.

Old guard somehow always manage to survive. It was a rush though, that summer. The times they were a'changin.

WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT

Spring is only one full moon away.

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son [or sun] of York" Richard III

Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, one year after "...for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception", in other words, lifetime achievement, Grapes of Wrath being the great American novel. Winter was criticised for its poorly conceived moral emphasis, transparent characters, lacking the stylistic integrity of previous works. I first read it about 10 years, and true it was not Grapes of Wrath, but I liked it very much. Identified with Ethan Allen Hawley, disilusioned, disappointed, feeling a failure to his family, almost going through with the bank robbery plot, the immigrant boss who had bought his family business he turned in, and in the end as he was about to be exported, returned the grocery to Ethan. That guilt along with Danny his life long friend and town drunk he loans the money to that puts him on the binge that killed him, and left him the property that reestablishes his status, his laid aside legacy. Steinbeck died in '68, I think a part of me died then too, although I was only 17, maybe innocence or hope.

OBAMACRAT

Well, it's official now. I'm a certified bureaucrat.

The Indiana State Office Building, above. A badge, parking space, and cubicle in a row with fifty other bureaucrats. I do have a window on the 4th floor though, looking north. I work at the will of the people, the citizens of Indiana.

DEMOCRACY "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."

The first time in 40 years Indiana might play a role in determining a presidential candidate. As the campaigns wear on, more and more is revealed. McCain, a man I respect very much, now catering to a withering Republican base, Hillary continually reminding us of 'her' legacy, a failed fantasy. Barack just keeps on with the same message. He has the least to lose and we have the most to gain if he can end this divisive rhetoric. Silence the Limbaughs or at least render their ravings impotent. I believe there is some good in conservatives and even the progressive liberalism I adhere to needs its checks and balances. He's got my vote.

BROWN COUNTY

Spent a lot of time there. High School summers I was counselor at CYO Boy's Camp. Wonderful memories. I also dated a girl there for a while. My room mate dated her sister and we'd go down every weekend. Some good memories there too. But this is about my great aunt Mary. She was an artist, lived in Brown County in the summer and Florida in the winter. I have one of her paintings hanging in my living room. A large 3X2 canvas of a scene in either late fall or very early spring. Beautiful, I often find myself getting lost down the road toward the cabin, framed by blue sky. My grandmother would visit and take me with her. Stark contrast, my grandma was down home country and Mary was sophisticated, self educated, rich and generous, very down to earth, they shared the same roots. One time, I was about 10 and sitting in a wicker chair by the fire, they had a beautiful place just coming down into Nashville, windows opening out on the hills, it was her studio, easels and canvas and paints, mesmerizing for a boy from the inner city. Bill her husband was sitting in front of me intently telling me a story about his youth, his face alit. He was part of a combine crew harvesting wheat, they would start in Texas and Oklahoma, travel north all season, ending in Montana and Canada, steam driven. I drove a combine when I was in Wyoming, harvesting wheat, and remembered that conversation at the time. Bill had later gone into business, self made man, built up some large company then sold it. That day though he was reliving a much simpler time in his life.

BAOBAB

The upside down tree with it's roots in the air and branches underground.

A fickle god who throws creation on it's ear.

I hear the sound of far off bells.

No storm can shake my inmost calm when to that rock I'm clingin'

Counterculture

What you get in a yogurt shop

Just a lonely man walkin' down the road