Bouganvillea

My mother had gotten in touch with a long lost brother who just happened to be living across town.  My uncle and his son, neither of whom I had ever met, contacted me and arranged to pick me up.  I was terribly excited to learn that I had relatives I didn’t even know existed.   The son, my cousin, was four years older and that meeting was to start a relationship that would last until his death recently.  Pete was the big brother that I had always wanted.  So when I  left my houseboy job, my uncle, a widower, told me to stay with them.

Again I found myself looking at the want-ads for a job and one that advertised   “Learn massage. Room, board and salary” caught my eye.   I applied at a big brown house on north Vermont  Avenue–a house that only the wealthy could have afforded in its early day.  I was hired by the general manager, a tall bushy-haired man with a likable smile.  He would prove to be my mentor there, often teasing about adopting me as soon as I agreed to being circumcised.  The deal was they would train me for six weeks and I would work for a year.  The salary was four dollars a week while in training. 

I met other members of the staff and I was shown the male dormitory down stairs.  I noticed it had a separate outside entrance.  We all ate in a common dining room.   After dinner I suddenly began to notice the lighting was being turned on very low and very pink.  There was occasional door bell ringing and a masseuse would leave the group and be gone for a half hour period.  I became convinced I had landed at a house of prostitution and I wanted no part of it.  I sneaked off downstairs to make my getaway.  While I was getting my little black suitcase repacked one of  the male students came down and interrupted my plans.  He introduced himself and was very friendly.  He told me what to expect and what was going on.  I was relieved to hear it was not a bawdy house.  In answering the telephone, though, I noticed the girls talked in a provocative sort of come-on voice.  In time I would learn that the shady aspect of the business was in locating the salons (of which the owner had a chain) in buildings that had been a house of ill-repute or, failing that, in a house close by. 

The Vermont house was the headquarters and to give greater legitimacy to the operation, Mrs. James, the owner, created a health institute which would offer, sweat baths, reducing massages, exercise,and other health amenities.  The big rage though was reducing massage.  You read about it in the papers and magazines.  The theory was you pounded the bejasus out of the fat areas and the fat cells would float away in the blood stream and be eliminated.  It didn’t work but I didn’t know that at the time.  However it was here I found my niche.  The masseuses didn’t like to do reducing massages because they were very strenuous. Whenever the female patient would accept a masseur I got the call.  Since we were close to the motion picture studios quite a few young starlets wanting to achieve that perfect hip came our way–more often my way and I enjoyed it.  They were beautiful, they were full of life and sparkle.  We would have some interesting conversations. 

Let me set the stage for one encounter.  Here I am an eighteen-year old farm boy from Wyoming.  I enter the massage both.  She is lying on the massage table with nary a stitch of clothing on save for a couple of small towels in appropriate places and a very light sheet covering her.  I greet her cheerily.

“We’ve got to get this little pouches on my hips off,” she says.  I nod. The masseuse is standing at the head of the table  I reach to the far side of the table and fold back the sheet, gingerly exposing the offending area of fat. 

I begin work in earnest.  I’m eighteen and I’m going to get that lump off!   I twist and pull my best to get those fat cells to run for it.  The masseuse is at the head of the table working under the sheet giving her bosom a soothing cocoa butter rub.  The patient is gritting her teeth–she wants that fat bump off–she groans,

“Good lord,  Bob, where did you get such strong hands.”

I’m only eighteen and think all questions must be answered.  I reply,  ” Uh, I guess I got them from milking cows.”

She squealed and grabbed the hem of the sheet pulling it up to her chin.  “My god, nurse, don’t let him up at this end!” 

We had a good laugh at my expense and I loved it.   Not all incidents were so amusing.  I had been transferred to our Hollywo0d salon at Sunset and Alexandria to be nearer our clients, the movie starlets. Three masseuses and myself made up the staff.  Daytime patronage was mostly reducing massages done by me or the on duty masseuse.   Night-time patronage was mostly for “relaxation” massages.  At any hour of the night, lonely men would come for a welcome feminine voice and the touch of hands on their back.  If they fell asleep we let them be.  I slept in my whites to be ready instantly if the masseuse had more patients than she could handle.  About 2 a. m. one night, the masseuse woke me,  looking frightened.   I heard a man yelling. I went out to confront a wild-eyed, straggly-haired man cursing and yelling.

“Give him his money back,” I said.  She handed me the money. He grabbed it from my hand and turned to go, cursing all the while.  That should have ended it but Greg, one of our regulars, yelled for him to shut up and came out from his booth.  He was not going have anyone cursing a lady.  The man turned his curses on Greg, who went after him chasing him to the sidewalk and around the corner of the building next door.  Greg came back holding his stomach with one hand and his chin with the other, blood dripping from both.  We laid him on the kitchen floor and tried to staunch the flow of blood as best we could.  Emergency arrived quickly and the police asked me to ride with them cruising the streets but to no avail.   Greg survived and returned again as one of our night time regulars but not for long.  The City of Los Angeles passed a law forbidding the giving of massage to a member of the opposite sex.  Mrs. James shut down her business and as for me–it was back to the the classified ads.

Politics

From one recession (1934)to another (2008) there have been many recessions in between though not as severe as those two.  One thing they all teach you is that they do end and better times come again.  Judging from history this will always be so.  Joseph the adviser to the Egyptian pharaoh, Seostris II, warned the ruler that tough times were ahead and the pharaoh should prepare for it, which he did to the benefit of his country.   With all our science and knowledge why could we not do the same?

As a nation we are preparing to spend billions upon billions adding to our debt. Would it be possible that that in spending these vast sums in rebuilding our infrastructure, we could encourage people to save through something like the Liberty Bond program used during the two World Wars?  Instead of paying the interest to China, wouldn’t it be better to pay ourselves and at the same time encourage more savings by the people.   I’m sure many wish they had saved more and spent less.  I rest my case.

Haiku

I wrote a haiku for this space but somehow don’t think it qualifies for the honor.  It’s 7/7/3 syllable structure is not forbidden these days–the rigid structure 5/7/5 is ignored as often as not–but the haiku doesn’t seem to work here.  I personally like the restraint imposed by the 5/7/5 and believe it stimulates better ideas.  I don’t see it as aping the Japanese 5/7/5 sound structure–I see it as a bona fide fixed form in English just as the sonnet or other fixed forms.  I hope to return to it.  Abigail Friedman in her book, “The Haiku Apprentice,” which I have mentioned here before, goes into these differences in detail’

Poem

The Sharper Image

 

Here in long rows, shelf on shelf

Are glasses for the nearsighted,

The farsighted, the weak sighted,

And the ego-sighted.  Every lens

Is a promise of a sharper world,

A world of truer colors, a world

Where intimacy abounds,

Promised all at two hundred dollars a pair

With the hands of the optometrist

Thrown in, fitting and twisting the frame

             To enhance satisfaction and feelings

Of self-esteem.

(From Blue Flame~Selected Poems Copyright 2003 R. Dean Tribble)

May the coming year be more beautiful than all the years we have known. 

Part 5:  Remembering

The euphoria of having a job with all the comforts of bed, food and shelter and miscellaneous perks made me feel it would last as long as I wanted it to.  It was not to be but I fell into the routine of my houseboy work very quickly.  Up at seven, fix breakfast for the Mr. and Mrs., the Mrs would leave for her staff writer job at the Daily News while he would sit and nibble toast and coffee and browse the morning paper.  About nine he would shower and dress to go to his furniture store in Huntington Park nearby.

The rest of the morning was typical houseboy work–clean up the kitchen, make the beds, do laundry as needed, tidy the house, shop for groceries.  Usually by noon I was finished and time was now mine to do as I pleased.  At three I would start dinner.  The menu was up to me although often she would suggest it, especially if we were having company.  I had no culinary imagination so I went by the cookbook which satisfied her.  Early on she had coached me in the graces  of table setting and serving. 

After I had cleaned up the dinner dishes, the evening was mine.  One of the perks of the job were free passes to sneak previews of new movies which the Mrs. received as part of her job as movie reviewer at the News.  Sneak previews were very popular with Hollywood and the public.   Sometimes in the back row, dark glasses would come off and if you were extremely lucky you might glimpse  a favorite actor or actress.

What luck!  My very first one was “Flying Down To Rio” with the incomparable Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and I fell in love with them–an adoration that would last through seventy years and counting.   There was a young chap of sixteen or so next door and I would invite him to join me whenever I had passes.  He in turn invited me to go with his family to the beach.  Long Beach was the place to go in those days. I  loved the long sandy beach that buffered each ebb and flow of the tide.  I was just as fascinated by the strand and all the funny shops and eateries that wanted to take your money. 

The Mr. & Mrs, owned a ketch and took me out on it on one occasion.  I was a bit queasy at first but when they set the sail I was even more worried when the deck suddenly took a tilt as the sail filled.   I soon began to enjoy it, fascinated by all the boats, the curving shoreline, the breakwater,  the slip with a huge ship up in the air being worked on.  One of their recreational activities when they took their boat out was the harvesting of abalone, a much easier thing to do in the thirties  (A recent article in the Los Angeles Times recounted the high number of deaths by drowning of divers searching for the tasty seafood.  Over the years the abalone has been been harvested so much they can only be found in deeper and more dangerous waters.)  The Mr & Mrs would dump their catch in the sink and I would go to work.  Cut into slices and pounded to tenderness, dipped in egg and bread crumbs, and deep fried, the abalone was a tasty dish.

The Mr. & Mrs were very nice to work for and yet I was beginning to be very unhappy and restless for a change.  Although they were more than happy with my cooking, and went out their way to tell me so, I was always in an anxious state before each evening meal, worrying that it might not be quite right.  The house work was terribly boring, laundry, vacuuming and ironing.  Looking back I can see that at eighteen I didn’t have enough maturity to deal with my boredom.  There was the library which had befriended me that first week, I could have gone to church no doubt to meet young people, there was night classes that might have stimulated me in the right direction.  None of these came to mind and it seemed the only way I  could escape my boredom, was to quit.  And so after about seven months I gave my notice.   (To be continued.)

ON POLITICS

Well, we did it right this time.  On November 4th, we elected a man whose skin is the color of black.  We judged him to be intelligent enough to be commander-in-chief of all our military forces, and smart enough to change the course of the country.  On January 20, 2009 he will swear to uphold the laws of our Constitution and we will trust him to do so.  Not every one voted for him and the margin of his victory may not have been enough to completely eliminate the racial divide, but it certainly punched a lot of holes in it.   It will be very hard to believe that things will not get better.  Choosing an African-American only one generation from Africa to be our president is so unprecedented that we still shake our heads and ask “Is this real?”   Although he wasn’t my first choice (yeah! how about a woman running for president–how unprecedented was that?)   I am proud that we did it.  I think our world prestige went up several notches because of it.  Now we wait and see if he can deliver  His proposed appointments augur well.

POETRY

As we grow older, as I  and others have,  we become aware of the transitoriness of life.  Some five hundred years ago an Aztec poet asked the same question:

Is it true that one lives only on earth?

Not forever on earth: only a short while here

Even jade will crack, even gold will break,

Even quetzal feathers will rend,

Not forever on earth: only a short while here.

(The Aztec Man and Tribe by Victor W. Von Hagen) 

 

And today’s HAIKU:

We grow older

Every time we see

The bared limbs of the oak.

  That’s it.  Dean

When I crawled out from under the cardboard that had protected me from the rain, I  was glad to see it had quit but the clouds still held the sun back.  I began the long walk into town, stopping at the produce market to look for food.  All I could find was a hand full of green plums.  It was not a good start for my day.  I went on to the depot and washed up before going on to the library.   The ad for houseboy was still there.  I was down to my last dime but there were no other ads that merited my spending it on a call.  I decided I would wait till three and give the Walnut Park lady a call.  It was the only hope that I had for the moment.   In the meantime, I would spend the day savoring the library, the smell of its newness, it’s rich brown woodwork, the beautiful rotunda, the stacks on stacks of books–it was all so uplifting–I could forget that I was hungry ( a green plum gnawed on helped).    Before I knew it, it was time to call the lady.

"Oh, yes, I’m sorry I didn’t decide when you were here last night.  Do you have car fare?"

"No ma’am."

She directed me to a secretary in the nearby Architects Building and I picked up the car fare from, as I was to learn, her long time friend whom I would be seeing often on her visits.   I was now on my way to a job!  Mrs W. greeted me warmly.  She showed me the servant’s room and bath.  My own room and bath!  And not a little cubbyhole either.  A desk sat in one corner.  I put my little black case on it and hung my raincoat in the closet.  Such luxury!  I  returned to the kitchen and she began my education as a houseboy. The table setting was to be so.  Individual bread and butter dishes with two small patties of butter and a butter knife.  Neatly sliced bread covered with napkin.  Salad plates on the left. Napkins placed so.  Glasses, silverware likewise.  Serve from the right side.  Clear everything before serving the dessert.   Do I dwell on this too much?  Remember, I’m just a country boy from a dry land homestead ranch in Wyoming and I found it fascinating how the wealthy and would-be-wealthy lived.   After I finished the dishes, I sat in my room,  gloating.  In seven days time I had a job, a place to sleep, bathe, eat.   You who have been hungry and cold know my exultation.  (To be continued.)

HAIKU TIME

Spring rain

Summer flowers

Brown leaves not far away.

POLITICS

Biden is in.  Obama has made his choice.  Is it a good one?  Does a VP pick help a candidate?  Appointing him for his foreign affairs expertise may highlight Obama’s lack of it.  I never thought that FA expertise was a necessity myself.  Clinton was green at first but took to it handsomely and today he is more popular abroad than the current resident of the White House.  We won’t bother to discuss Bush’s expertise.  Everybody seems atitter about what the Clintons will say and do.    The only sensible thing for them to do is to go all out for him and help win the election.   And being sensible people I think that is what they will do at the convention.

POETRY

TO HILLS SEEN ON THE ROAD TO SALINAS

 

I could make love to these hills

So soft, so rounded, so warm in the sun,

Formed in the ancient embrace of oceans,

They could love me back having known

Closeness like to a child at breast.

 

Oh, yes , I could embrace these hills,

Lie clasped in groves of sun-dappled oaks,

Listen to secrets spoken eons ago

And whisper back my love for Earth.

  From Blue Flame ~ Selected Poems   by R. Dean Tribble

  May you always tan in the sunshine of happiness.

Dean

REMEMBERING LOS ANGELES, PART  3

Each morning for the next several days I would wake from my newspaper pallet under the church to the noise of traffic on Figueroa street. It was not a roar like we hear today from the freeways but a conglomerate of automotive noises ,each of which was more or less identifiable.  There would be lulls and, straightening my clothes as best I could, I would quickly crawl out into the morning light. 

First on my agenda would be the depot where I would wash and shave and do a final brush down of my clothes.  I was determined not to look like a vagrant.  Next, a  visit the produce market where one never failed to find something edible, usually a carrot, potato or piece of fruit fallen from a truck or vendor’s cart, which I took to a hydrant and washed.  If nothing else it was a healthful diet and I survived quite well on it.

Next to the public library at Fifth and Flower, still with the smell of new on it, to check the newspapers ads.  Although I usually made it there shortly after the doors opened, there would often be a long line waiting to look at the papers.  Times were tough in 1934 and a lot of people were looking for work.  Most of the ads were for sales work.  I tried selling door-to-door but one try soured me–I never made a sale.  Obviously I wasn’t the salesman type.  Others told me, "You’re too young," or "We want someone with experience."

On the sixth day I woke up to rain.  In my days growing up on a Wyoming  homestead, rain was always considered a blessing.  I took it as such.  My coat, though light, was rain proof and a little water would not hurt my hat either.  When I finally sloshed up the steps into the library, amidst the sales ads was an ad for a "houseboy, room and board and salary.  Call after 3 p.m."  I had done quite a bit of cooking and got a cook’s job in Colorado on a demonstration of  my delicious pancakes.   Promptly at three-fifteen I called the number.  "Yes, I have done cooking," I said to the lady who answered.  She gave me the address.  "Oh, it’s too far to walk.  Take the J car to Walnut Park."  My heart sank.  I was down to my last dime but I went.   The interview went well enough but she wanted to consider others.  "Call me tomorrow and I will let you know."   I figured the lady was just being polite.  I left and began the long walk back to downtown.  For the first time I felt discouraged.  I was tired and hungry. I would have given anything for a piece of bread if I’d had anything to give.  It was beginning to rain again and getting dark.  I saw this stack of big cardboard  boxes folded in a pile.  I managed to crawl in among them out of the rain and go to sleep.  (To be continued)

POLITICS

It doesn’t look too good for Hillary to become the first woman president of the United States of America but I admire her for sticking it out to the end.  Having a black man run for president with a strong chance of winning is a landmark event for our country.  God bless America!  I think we are a better nation for these two bold campaigners.  Though I backed Hillary, I will be happy with Obama if he wins the nomination and the presidency.  I suspect many people feel the same way.

POETRY

"This universe, wherein we threadly hang

On Earth’s round ball, late come of  that Big Bang

Is doomed some say, to explode into a void

More lonely than the point from which it sprang

 

"But  if from such small point came heaven’s grace

And time’s incessant tick though dusty space

As some would have us think, forgive my asking,

Whence came the point at which that Bang took place?"

                                                –From The Rubayat of R. Dean Tribble 

Did I get the job?  Tell you next time.  May your days glow with happiness.   Dean.

ARRIVAL ~ DAY 2

Awoke to the sound of cars honking on Figueroa Street.   I sat up and the first thing I noticed was the spider webs hanging between the floor joists.  They were old and dusty and didn’t seem to have any spiders.  Nevertheless I wiped away all those in reach with a folded newspaper.  I crawled to the outer porch and seeing no one in the early dawn light, crawled on out and stood up.   Walking quickly, I headed east on Sixth Street.  I needed a restroom and I had heard that at the rail depot there were wash-up facilities.  I was to learn there were two depots –one for Southern Pacific and one for Santa Fe but the former was my destination this morning.  The washrooms required a coin, save one which was free for those who couldn’t afford a nickel.  That certainly included me.  I had to wait for two others in line but when I finally got in, it was such a joy to wash-up and shave.  Carefully brushing my clothes I felt ready to interview Rockefeller himself.

Still had thirty-five cents left.  A nickel went for a candy bar for breakfast.   That left me the price of two fifteen-cent dinners for two days.   By then maybe I would have a job.  A job?  The city was filled with the unemployed.  Where to find out about jobs?  The newspaper.  Where do  you find a newspaper for free?  I decided to try the library.  In 1934 The Los Angeles Library was just recently built.  I was awed by the beauty of it, the murals, the shelves and shelves of books, the room for periodicals, the clean restrooms, and the newspaper room.   There were newspapers from all over but I soon learned that my interest would be in the two morning papers, the Los Angeles Examiner and the Los Angeles Times–especially the former which boasted the most ad coverage at that time.  it was obvious that I was not alone in my interest.  The wait for a paper could be considerable if the holder of it chose to read the news instead of look at want ads as most would do.  Finding nothing, I was tempted to settle down in one of the reading rooms but decided to go out exploring.  

Walked east on Fifth Street.   This led me to the wholesale produce district.  It was a noisy, exciting place filled with trucks and workers and endless stalls of fruits and vegetables.  While walking about I saw an apple in the gutter.   I took it to a faucet and washed it.  That apple tasted so-o good!  Later I found a potato.  As a kid back on the Wyoming ranch I used to like to eat raw potatoes.  Out came my "two-blader" knife.  I found other things which I peeled or washed.  I even found several nuts.  

My hunger satisfied in the produce market decided to forgo my 15-cent dinners.  Shouldn’t have spent the fifty cents for the movie the night before.  I was going to need my nickels for the telephone to query a job ad.  I went up town on Seventh Street.  Bullocks– so many beautiful things in the windows!  I went back to the library and escaped for several hous in reading until it closed.  Just a block or so away was my  church "hotel."    Crawled under and was soon asleep on my newspaper pallet. 

POLITICS

Charley Gibson and George Stephanopoulos in my opinion did not shine brightly for the media in the recent Clinton/Obama debate.  I thought Obama did a pretty good job of deflecting the criticism.  Clinton, not being picked on as much, was a little smug.  But where was the discussion of issues?  The media was more interested in mosquito biting the candidates than in evoking a clear vision of what each candidate stands for.  We know candidates have these small vulnerabilities–all candidates have them–but they generally do not affect performance.  Go back over the presidents of our yesteryears–you will find  flaws in every one of them.

POETRY

     RED LADDER TO HEAVEN

     The red ladder stands to the high, high ceiling

     Does the workman pretend he’s climbing to heaven

     As he disappears roundly through the square crawl hole?

     A false step on the false ceiling    

     Will see him crash to the floor

     So close can he come to plunging to hell.

                            From "Blue Flame~Selected Poems by R. Dean Tribble 

Have a good life.  Dean     

It was late afternoon when the big truck rolled into the city and came to a stop at the corner of Fourth and Los Angeles streets.   The first thing I noticed was the smell of oranges–fresh oranges but also with that peculiar smell of oranges not so fresh.  I had watched the setting sun bouncing off a high tower–"City Hall," the driver said–as we topped each rise in the road and now it was only three blocks away!  I was excited by all the sights and sounds but I was also hungry.  I fingered the last dollar in my pocket.  Holding my little black suitcase –it had a few pieces of underwear, socks, a couple of shirts,  a spare pair of pants and a notebook–I set off in the direction I figured Fifth Street ought to be.  I had been given advice by a fellow worker in the lettuce fields of  Avondale, Arizona to go there and find a restaurant serving meals costing only fifteen cents.  I found it easily.  People were lined up briefly at the door as they waited to be seated.  Soup, salad, vegetables, meat, drink, and dessert.  A full meal.  I looked at the people.  A few were scruffily dressed but many of the men were in coat and tie dress, women in dress neat enough for church.  This was 1934 and at eighteen I did not fully understand what had happened to people in the cities.   With little money to spend this eatery and others like it made it possible for them to get by.  I would later learn that these places were supplied by the day’s leftovers from the major restaurants of the city. 

With my belly full, I "sallied forth" as they say of knights of old.  This would be my LA!  Already I was on familiar terms. Hollywood was down that way.  A good long walk but in walking distance.  But Hollywood would have to wait.  I began to walk up and down the streets,  Main, Spring, Broadway, Hill on to Figueroa. I learned their names and their order.  They had wonderful stores with huge windows with things you could buy if you had the money.  The lights were everywhere.  My city!  I had fallen in love with it head over suitcase!  I found myself under the the marquee of a Broadway movie palace.  Again I fingered the remaining eighty-five cents in my pocket.  It was no contest. Fifty cents?  The movie won out.  For the next four hours I let Hollywood woo me. 

When I reluctantly came out of that magic place the reality of night hit me.  Where was I going to sleep?  I remembered a church I had seen earlier at Figueroa and Sixth.  It runs in my mind it was a Christian Church but no matter.  It had a platform entrance that was open underneath on the side wide enough for me to crawl through and get under the main building.  The place was dry with plenty of headroom.  I spread out a newspaper,  lay down on it and pulled my raincoat over me.  No one could see me walking by.  The sound of  cars going by seemed far off.  It had been a great day.  Sleep came quickly.

POETRY

This is the place to give you my paean to Los Angeles:

REMEMBERING CLARA BOW

When first I saw Los Angeles

Shimmering at long distance like a mirage

On burning deserts, I shouted, “I’m coming!”

The shimmering turned to substance

As the wheels brought me closer

And, torched by the setting sun,

The City Hall flamed gold, flashing

Its pyramid crown beacon-like above all.

I stood on the steps and shouted again,

“I’m here, why do you smell of oranges?”

I walked down Hollywood Boulevard

Looking for Clara Bow. I was eighteen

And now I’m eighty remembering

When first I saw Los Angeles.

You were kind to me then, O City of Angels,

You fed me at your fifteen-cent cafes,

Your Chili Bowls, your Big-O Doughnuts

And yes, even at your Brown Derby.

You pampered me with sweet buns

At windmill bakeries and carried me

On toonerville trolleys and big red cars.

Many a footstep I left on your sidewalks

As I explored your sights by sun and moon,

Your streets hummed with the spin of my wheels,

Griffith Park was sanctuary to my soul

And often have I meditated in your holy temples.

I have brushed the sand of your beaches

From my ankles and tasted the salt of your oceans.

On flip-over seats at the Turnabout Theater

I laughed at puppets, and on hard benches

At the Hollywood Bowl I wept

For the beauty of Beethoven.

In nights warm with the flesh of bare shoulders

I rocked at the Palladium, did the Carioca at the Mocambo

And at Ciro’s danced the passion of the tango.

I could not know when first I saw Los Angeles

How easily the city could slip into my heart.

I was eighteen then and now I’m ninety

Remembering—remembering Clara Bow.

That’s thirty for today.

Dean

h     there is concern that we are heading to a recession–maybe, god forbid–a depression.  I  was thirteen when the great 1929 October stock market plunged the world into the hard times we still hear about.  Of course, I went through all the subsequent recessions as well.  One thing to remember about depressions/recessions is that they end and this buoys hope for better things to come in the months ahead. 

The Iraq/Afghanistan wars weigh heavily on us, especially the Iraq–the unnecessary war.  If the Bush/Cheney team had been a little less arrogant and worked through the United Nations we wouldn’t be in the fix we are today and the name United States would not be anathema around the world.  This is not a hindsight opinion –I emailed my protest to Bush and Colin Powell when it was first proposed.   Somewhere in the Archives my tiny protest lies for anyone to dig up if they choose.  

Whoever becomes our next president may well wish the other party had won when finally confronted with how to get out of Iraq.  The problem is simpler for McCain who supports staying the course.  For the Democratic winner (if we ever do get one) he/she is going to be constrained in ways neither could have imagined as they traded slings and arrows on the campaign trail.  Neither may have to face the problem if they split the party and hand the White House to McCain.   McCain is already adjusting his rhetoric to one more palatable to voters and will not be a pushover.  He rates a lot of respect even with many Democrats.  If Clinton should falter in Pennsylvania, she could be heroine of the party by withdrawing in the interests of unity.   If she wins there, one can hardly blame her for continuing though it prolongs the decision.   One thing is certain Democrats need to unite.  A few good debates on issues besides race and gender would be healthy for party and country.  The latest Clinton/Obama speeches give hope they are listening and talking issues or at least going after McCain.  Time will fidget on, or least we ourselves will till it flies to a decision.  Let us  hope for is a fair and honest one.

From politics to poetry is but a short hop.  There is much to argue about in both.  Poetry of today is a business more than an art.  Universities by the hundreds are featuring MFA’s In Poetry and with easy publication for their poet professors under the college aegis.  There appears to be a lot of  "I’ll  brag on your book, if you’ll brag on mine."   There’s very likely some good poetry out there but all too often the books are long on quantity and short on quality.  The students swell the ranks of poets who shell out dollars for contests that only benefits the one who wins the nod of a supposed expert judge.  Okay, so I’m ranting a little.  Let me redeem myself by urging everyone to read all the poetry they can get their hands on.  A lot of it will be bad but now and then some poem will grab you in the heart and you will be wiser and better for it.    After all that bit of pompousness, permit me to poke a little fun at poetry with this four liner:

He wrote a poem. 

I said, " what does it mean?"

He shrugged and said,

"Whatever you want it to mean."

And here’s today’s HAUKU

The fire that flames brightest

May not be the hottest.

Auf wiederzehn

Dean.

could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood. 

(See more cute pics at Hoghaven.com)

Yes, Ground Hog Day is today as I write this.  It should be called Woodchuck Day thus honoring the Indian derivation of the name.   Imagine trying to sing  "How much wood could a Ground Hog chuck if a Groumd Hog—-"  well you get the idea.  All in the interest of poetic beat.  I have in mind writing some little ditty about what happens when he sees or does not see his shadow.  

When Woodchuck Phil

Slides down his hill

And sees his pudgy shad-O

He turns around

And with a bound

Goes back to his pad O.

Six weeks more

Are in store

Of snow and rain and wind O.

If no shadow’s  had

Sunshine’s the  fad

And joyous spring  will be the thing O.

Okay, Okay, it’s pure doggerel but I’m in good company .  There are any number of doggerel bits explaining the animal’s shadow or or lack of it on Candlemas Day.   Punxsutawney Phil is just one of a half dozen groundhogs who come forth on their namesake day to trumpet their weather predictions,  but Phil seems to have the best press as thousands descend on the town of Punxsutaney,  Pennsyllvania every year. 

FLASH!   This just in.  Punxutawney Phil came out and and predicted six weeks more of winter weather !    (Safe enough the way the weather has been acting. )

POLITICS

Wow!  Don’t you love the way the excitement is building up for super Tuesday?  And what a difference a couple of weeks make.  Down to three in the Republicans with McCain looking the almost sure winner,  Down to two in the Democrats with no surety of who will come out on top.  Be sure and VOTE!  As for me, as a Democrat, almost on the verge of tossing a coin, I finally decided on Hilary as being the more experienced.  I like McCain, too, and that makes him a formidable opponent as there are a lot of us that like him.  But he IS a Republican.

Todays HAIKU;

Snowy white cotton fields,

On every stem

A towel, a sock, a blouse, a shirt.

That’s thirty for Ground Hog Day–er Woodchuck Day

Dean

FINALITY

For him who reaches the topmost summit

Naught else is left except to plummet.*

Some presidential aspirants have already learned the truth of that theorem  and others may well learn of it before long.  It is going to be an exciting election and the ethnic diversity of contestants speaks well for our form of democracy for all of its shortcomings.

As an American  I’d like to hear some one who would articulate a vision for America.  Oh, I hear we got to change, but change to what?  Change the war, change the health plan,  change the economy, change our debt, etc., but what about a New Vision for A Great America?  One that incorporates change as needed but looks ahead for the next century.  Too far? Ok,  a half century.  Even that  would catch my imagination and my vote.  With our tendency to be rotating parties in and out of power it might be difficult to implement a long term vision.  One solution could be to set up a Vision For America Board.  It would be non-partisan, somewhat like the Federal Reserve Bank and once the government approved an action or proposal made by VFAB it could not be overruled by Congress or the President although they would exercise the usual oversight.  VFAB would be composed of long-term members, appointed for ten to twelve years, in order to promote continuity of effort.  Such a project would help unify the nation and make it truly great.

So much for the soap box

Today’s Haiku is by Noel Kaufman from free internet.

Behold the ego
Set in glowing emptiness
On the edge of time.

It may not be the most perfect haiku but it sure puts us in our place. 

Here’s to a better world.   Dean.

Christmas   Day 2007.    Reel the calendar back to Christmas morning 1918.  A sleepy three-year old boy wakes up to a glorious and exciting scene–a small Christmas tree  covered with blazing  candles.   Yes, those were the days when candles were used on Christmas trees, a flammable situation that burned down a good many houses.  With the father carefully monitoring each tiny flame,  no bad thing  happened .   But to the child nothing he would ever see on a Christmas the rest of his life would equal the wonder of that morning.

Scroll ahead two years to Christmas eve 1920.   The family was poor.  The heavy snows of the past weeks  made it impossible to get to town and if they could there was no money.   The five-year-old  was asking if Santa would come,  not too sure that Santa was real but still wanting to believe.  "Will there be a tree for him to put the presents under?"  asked the boy.   "Do you see any trees?"   "No Mama."   "He may not be able to make it this year, son;  still maybe we can have a tree.  You and I will just see if we can make one."  She took an axe  and  together they trudged through knee-deep snow to a patch of ground cedar and chopped out an arm load  of cedar branches.  Back at the kitchen table, she  took a broomstick, anchored it in a rock-filled gallon can. and proceeded to tie the cedar branches to the stick.  The youngster was allowed to hold the pieces as she tied them on to make a small but lovely tree.   The next morning there  was only home-made cookies and an orange under the tree.  It didn’t matter.   It was his tree , his Christmas, his pride in being a part of something beautiful.  In later years he would appreciate how the mother had made something beautiful out of practically nothing.

POLITICS

Memo to Democrats:  Am I missing something?  In all the literature , the speeches, the television ads, I have not seen or heard a Grand Vision for America promulgated.  I believe the candidate who does so will have an edge, especially if he or she is a Democrat.  I’m not sure we would trust a vision put forth by a Republican. 

POETRY

Here’s a little piece that’s always a hit at my readings, partly because it is a true story

LINES TO A WIFE WHO WORKS  (From a Husband who doesn’t)

Darling, you must have been a princess
With your flashing raven hair,
A Babylonian princess tripping lightly down
A some once golden stair,

 

I was your faithful slave
At beck for your every whim
As you drove your milk-white chariot
Through the streets of Zabalim,

 

There came a day you smiled on me
And I blushed hot to be so graced
Henceforth, through every incarnation
That smile of yours I traced

 

And now as then, I’m still your slave
And bring you coffee for your sleepy head
That you may get to work on time
While I crawl back in bed.

From Blue Flame ~ Selected Poems by R. Dean Tribble

TODAY’S HAIKU  is by Phil Wahl from free haiku Internet zine.

The flap of a bat,
drip drip of monsoon waters.
Ancient image stares.

I love the mystery that these images conjure up.  I hope you do to.

May all good things be yours, dear readers, in the coming year.