It's Tuesday--Mystery Solved--Stop Obsessing

At about 2 am, I was kicked off the Internet. I had both my old and new computers on and couldn't figure out what was wrong. After too many tries to get on my new computer, it closed me down. This morning, I looked at my old computer and saw it was in airplane mode. In my hazy late night, early morning stupor, I thought, as the cat walked back and forth over the keyboard, he had changed settings before, so I closed it. Too late. He had turned on airplane mode and said, "For Heaven's sake, go to bed." So, how was your night?

Chapter 49

My Friend Bill

"Life, you know, is a constantly chuckling teacher of unexpected lessons."

—Bill Fisher

 

"The human brain is genetically disposed toward organization…I knew her, she was a managerial fragment to another on the flimsiest pretense and in the most freewheeling manner, as if it takes a kind of organic pleasure in creative association without regard for logic or chronological sequence."

—Tom Robbins.

Isn't that what I said?

Hardly. I do not have the elocution of a Tom Robbins. 

I had to laugh, though, when I read it. Not only does it weirdly, creatively, and articulately describe how the mind works, but it also reminds me of Bill Fisher, my old buddy from far away. 

Bill loved Tom Robbins' writing style. And his dream was to write in that vein.

This morning, as I searched through old emails, I found an email from Bill Fisher. I knew I was missing some and wondered where they were. It was one of Bill Fisher's final letters to me.

For years, Bill and I shared our writings with each other. I loved Bill like a brother and his wife Beverly equally. Bill had a Ph.D. in medieval literature. He was a former Real Estate Agent, and during the time I knew him, he made his living writing a weekly newsletter called The Wednesday Wrap. He sold The Wrap to various Real Estate Agencies, which published it under their brand.

He taught writing in Colorado in the summers and dreamed of being a published Robbinest novelist. (Robbins described ordering Thai dishes as "sounding like a harelip pleading for a package of thumbtacks." Now, what sort of mind comes up with those things?)

Bill, Beverly, and our family lived in the San Diego area. Shortly after we ended our two consecutive training sessions at The World Healing Center, both families moved to the Pacific Northwest. Bill and Beverly moved to Olympia, Washington, and we moved to Eugene, Oregon. And we kept in touch.  

In his letter, Bill told me that Bank of America wanted him and his colleagues in the newsletter trade to take over the writing of three monthly 4-page newsletters, plus a weekly economic summary. He said the pay was remarkably good, but the work was soul-deadening. "I had to unlearn much of what comes naturally to me now as a writer. They wanted 8th-grade level, simple, uncontroversial, and uninspired. We would go round and round over a piece. They don't believe dashes should be used. Vocabulary should be simple. Humor should be avoided (good old humor usually offends at least one person.) And everything I wrote was reviewed by roughly six VPs, and one or two from the legal staff (speaking of an unimaginative, humorless bunch)."

 Bill had recently taken a trip with his family to Portugal.

"I knew from the get-go that there was nothing I would love more than to create a book out of the travel experience and intuited that the experience would have much to teach me. Little did I know. The central learning experience was a broken ankle--my right leg broke in two places, actually, when I fell on a hike, we were attempting as a shortcut to a close-by secluded beach. I continued to walk on that leg for ten days in huge pain but nonetheless loved every moment of the trip. I tried to convince myself and everyone else that it was a sprain, not a break. I was wrong."—Bill Fisher.

 The doctor in the States said he would have operated on Bill's leg immediately, but since he had walked on it, the leg had set, and it was healing, he put a boot on him and sent him on his way. 

 Wow.

During one of Bill's and my sessions at The World Healing Center, a young man from our twice-a-week, full-day group meetings was emoting, sharing how he, a white boy in Africa, loved the comradery of the other boys. They would play and walk down the street with their arms around each other. Here, he felt lost and had no such friends.

From the back of the room came a voice in Swahili.

The rest of the group didn't know what it said, but the kid did. He fell apart, and the room exploded into hugs, kisses, and whooping. It was Bill's voice, and the words meant, "Welcome, Brother!"

Bill had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.

'' Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.” - Abe Lincoln 

In my dreams...

This is the 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt election results.

Stop Obsessing over the polls says Michael Moore:

Jeez, my mailbox is exploding! Everyone is freaking out over the latest polls, the pessimistic pundits, the sudden (?) rise of Trump, the warnings of doom and gloom! Mike! Mike! Please tell us he’s gonna lose! She’s gonna win! Flowers will bloom in December! Unicorns will ride on the backs of lions! The McRib will return!

Whoa. Everybody please calm down. We’ve all been here before. Exactly 3 weeks til Election Day — so that means it’s official, folks! We’ve entered the fear-mongering, pendulum-swing stage of the election season. We are no longer basking in the glow of Biden’s withdrawal and the adrenaline shot from Kamala’s injection into this race...

For more, Read Michael Moore on Substack

https://substack.com/@michaelmoore

Really?

As I go through this book copying chapters here, I find instances that I want to change, which is invariably what happens when you go over a book. I'm curious if some authors are happy with their completed project or if they finally say just print the darn thing.

 

 

48

June

"To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight." –ee cummings.

 

Two years ago, my eldest daughter filmed our ninety-six-year-old friend June.

My daughter's primary interest was what she ate. She wanted to know how people fared before they had all the processed foods we have today. 

However, we found June's attitude far more fascinating.

June grew up in Chicago, which was not a good place to be during the Great Depression. Her biological mother died before June could remember her, and her stepmother died slightly later.

According to June, her father was a traveling salesman and a con man. Her father often couldn't pay the rent, and she frequently came home from school to find their belongings on the sidewalk. They would then move to a new place, and June would move to a new school. That amounted to 13 schools by the time she was in the 8th grade.

After the death of June's two mothers, her father couldn't or wouldn't cope with June and her two brothers.

June said she was always hungry and stole food, mainly fruits and vegetables, displayed outside the store. She would choose a store on a corner where she could run down a side street. She was the fastest runner on the block and thus elected to steal while the other kids waited a distance away, where she would share her bounty.

After her father left, she lived with various family members and eventually ended up in a girls' school. June had gone before a judge and asked, "Your honor, do I have a choice about where I live?"

"You most certainly do," he answered, and thus she chose the Girl's school. Her guardian aunt keep trying to save her soul, which clashed with her grandmother's teaching on metaphysics.

She said the food was basic but good at the school, mainly fruits and vegetables, as meat was expensive. Breakfast was oatmeal or porridge. One egg on Sundays was a treat.

Her aunt, still her legal guardian, wouldn't let her join the military when she was fresh out of high school, so she got a crummy job (her words) until she was twenty-one and then joined the Army WACS.

While in the military and egged on by her roommates, June stole a pie from the kitchen but didn't run fast enough and was caught. Her sergeant placed her on potato peeling duty, where June commented that that was the worst job. "Oh, no, it isn't," said her sergeant, moving her to garbage duty. The stench was so putrid that June began throwing up and couldn't stop. Thus, she ended up in the infirmary.

She realized that leaving school was a mistake because she wanted to attend the University. When she was discharged from the WACs, the GI Bill was available, so she took a test and qualified for college admission. While in the military, she met her husband, and after she left the WACS, both became students.

He was a pilot and a vegetarian, so they continued a no-meat diet, for they liked it, and meat was too expensive for two struggling students. When they became more prosperous, they tried a steak but didn't like it. However, when June became anemic, the doctor told her to eat liver, as raw as she could stand."

June was an artist. Her husband ("He was beautiful," she said) was a military pilot and the love of her life. "Your job isn't to clean house," he told her. "It's to paint."

And then came the fateful day when two uniformed officers came to the door. June ran, knowing what their presence meant. The officers chased her to tell her that her husband had been killed in a plane crash. His buddy pilot in another plane flying beside him saw him slumped over, so he must have either lost consciousness or died before the crash.

Howie's death sent June into a depression, and she drank heavily for a time. She considered herself an alcoholic, and she stopped drinking alcohol for about 20 years. In her later life, a doctor told her that a little red wine in the evenings would be suitable for her, and she drank it with no repercussions. She found she could take it or leave it. 

A military doctor told her she was diabetic. She said, "No, I'm not," but for the next 50 years, she monitored her food, checked her blood sugar level, was healthy, and never took medication.

June grew up a Christian Scientist who did not believe in illness. Once, she had the mumps and didn't know it until someone told her. Still, she carried on as though having the mumps was nothing.

I know she had many love affairs over the years but never re-married. One relationship that meant a great deal to her was a platonic relationship with an elderly gentleman who wanted her as his driver. They traveled extensively, and she had the opportunity to see the world. Once, this little old gentleman who dressed impeccably, was an engraver, and June told me she never knew precisely where his money came from, told one of June's unsuitable suitors she couldn't get rid of that he would have him killed, and he knew the person to do it. The man left the city, and she never heard from him again.

June moved from Florida to Oregon with her boxer dog. When he wouldn't walk across the road at a Motel because it was too hot, she told the owner they had to stay until the temperature dropped.  

June traveled to a ranch with me one day, where I wanted to see a particular horse. I didn't want the horse, but they had a little Pomeranian dog for sale. June debated about buying it, for she thought she was a big dog person. But decided to take the dog. 

She named the dog Lucky Lady Lilly, which sounds like a dance hall girl, and that fit June fine. The two remained buddies for the rest of Lilly's life. June had hoped they would go together, and once June told me she never thought she would live so long. June knew Verner Erhart, the founder of EST, and Dan Blakenship who spend 50 years searching for the treasure of Oak Island.

I told her she lived so long because she appreciated life. She loved people, and people loved her.

Although June had said she would not go into an "Old folk's home," her niece convinced her, and she entered a luxurious complex where she fell in love with a widower. They had one glorious year together until one morning, the attendants found him dead. He had declared that they were getting hitched at the beginning of the new year.

"I would have loved to be Christian's wife," June said.

I'm telling you this because while June had a challenging life, for the thirty-some years I knew her, she was the most positive person I have known. Besides, some people's lives deserve to be told—like Bill's, who you will meet in the next chapter.

 

 One of June's paintings:

 

I believe Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s niece who has known Donald Trump her entire life when she says that he has always been a bully, and that if elected President he will seek revenge on the people who have opposed him.

That is not Presidential material.

I have said many times that I don’t care if you like Kamala Harris or not, but I still believe in democracy, and want to preserve it. We have a country built on checks and balances to ensure that one aspect of the government does not overpower the others. Really folks do you want to give the President absolute power?

That’s absurd. That is a dictatorship.

Trump wants absolute power. Harris does not.

Where's the choice?

 Really?

We're been off-kilter, angry, polarized, fearful, raciest, and anti-women long enough, and I believe it was largely stirred up by Trump.

Time to have some joy in our lives.

 

From Michael Moore posted in Substack:

"Which is why maybe at this point in my rant I just need to say out loud that which is being said to me in private by people I respect — and not just in whispers, but in excited tones of exuberance: That a new era is being born, one where Caucasian is just one of the options but no longer the bossy pants of the world. Where it’s OK if you’re missing the lower right quadrant of the second X chromosome thus making it a “y” which means you’re never going to have your own Fallopian tubes so just deal with it and keep your hands off the gender who has them. Simple. 

"An aggregate of top polls as of today shows that Harris will defeat Trump in the Electoral College count by 270 to 268.

But I think we need more. We need to ensure Harris wins by a landslide.