Springtime

Ginter Garden Flower

I did a quick trip to Ginter Garden yesterday. The trees are filling out with their green, oxygen-giving leaves and the tulips were in full bloom. I put the day’s news behind me and sat on a bench in the woods to watch the leaves grow; a gentle breeze, waving branches with the sound of quiet voices as passersby walked by my bench. I thought of the times when I was “young,” well, younger and asked myself why older folks sat on benches a lot. Ha. Now I’m one of them and I finally get it.

Pollen is a challenge. Taking a deep breath was a dare to my lungs to not cough! Maybe I should have worn a mask. I was going to change lenses until I saw my camera was coated with pollen and changing lenses would expose the innards to the springtime storm of yellow dust. I decided to just enjoy the moment. I’ve been waiting for the trees to bloom, I’ve missed my time with them and look forward to more bench time in the future.

Time in the woods is more difficult here in Richmond than in DC and the surrounding suburbs. DC is a city of trees and parks and that theme is continued in the ‘burbs. Trees and fields and water are here in the Richmond area, in abundance, but most are private. We don’t have parks close to where I live (15 miles west of Richmond), in fact, there are no parks, schools or libraries in the eastern half of my county. We have a small stream in my community and the stream has thin strips of trees but not many benches. Still, I’m thankful for them.

The pollen will lessen in a few weeks and I’ll be able to change lenses without pollen worries. I’m determined to spend more time enjoying the trees. I’m reminded of J.R.R. Tolkein’s Ents, the shepherds of trees who became more and more like the trees they cared for. Hmmm, not a bad thing.

A walker and a bench in Ginter Garden

“The Daily Plainsman”

Linotype in Industrial Museum, Baltimore, MD

The Plainsman was my town’s newspaper when I was growing up…it still is. The newspaper’s name was different then, the “Huronite” but changed to The Huron Daily Plainsman. Not sure why. Economics, no doubt. My grandfather Ed Halvorsen worked there for several decades as a Linotype operator. I don’t remember the entire printing process…it was a long time ago. They’d mostly let me walk around whenever an adult could watch me. To an elementary student, the newspaper’s processes were magic and I loved the place, although, it could be a bit intimidating…loud machinery, intense people always on a deadline, the smell of ink and paper and molten lead, the sense of mission. Oh, and the words, they were everywhere. The language, the style, the content.

My grandfather married when he was 20 and his bride was 19. There was no work in small town South Dakota in 1909…the newlyweds got on a train and went to Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada where he became a journeyman Linotype operator. The Linotype was a machine that revolutionized the print industry, no longer would type have to be set one letter at a time, one slug at a time and then each letter had to be returned to its proper drawer. No, the Linotype changed all that. The letters could be typed, like magic a matrix would fall down from a magazine into a row, the operator would put spaces between words, when the “line of type” (Linotype) was done, the operator would move a lever or pedal and the stack would go into a pressure mold where hot, molten metal was pressed onto the matrices and voilé, a line of type was cast. The area where the linotypes were was dark and hot and LOUD. The machines made a lot of noise but it was a very organized noise with whirs, ticks, whooshes, and bangs, and clacks and more…a veritable symphony of flowing words and thought. I loved it.

Somehow, I don’t remember how, the columns were changed into sticks, then galleys (pages), then type drums. Once a “page” was formed, they were “proofed” on galley proofs. Back in the day, the Huronite had quite a few proof readers because sometimes the Linotype operators or the reporters made mistakes, but seldom the proofreaders. The drums were put on several rollers and the paper would roll over them and somehow the ink, the drums, and the paper met, were sorted and cut or cut and sorted. For a little kid, this was high drama.

My grandfather retired from the Huronite and went to work for FH Brown Printing located under the National Bank at 3rd & Wisconsin. They had a Linotype. I often visited the print shop but it wasn’t the same as the Huronite…I missed it. So did he.

Appomattox

Appomattox Court House Grave

Yesterday I drove to Appomattox for a quick walkabout. This was my first outing in months and the weather was perfect. The light was a bit “harsh” because midday is, well, middle of the day…not at all the “golden hour.” But in spite of the noon sky, the light was wonderful…large, puffy clouds flying rapidly through the sky while their shadows raced with one another along the ground. I’ll have a more detailed post in a few days but wanted to highlight this unusual cedar tree next to the grave of a 19-year-old soldier who died of typhoid without ever seeing combat. The unusual lighting highlighted the orphan like quality of the tree and grave in the middle of a meadow.

The drive to the Park was just over an hour, mostly on two lane roads running through farmlands dotted with large confederate flags. Few people were visiting the park, I assume because it’s March and a Monday. The Park is a semi-reconstruction of the village, called a Court House, at Appomattox, some of the buildings are original, some are reconstructions, some are gone. The surrender was signed in the McClean House which is a reconstruction. I tried to imagine the tensions, the emotions, and the personalities at the surrender, all taking place in a relatively small room.

The tree and grave were fascinating. I’ve included a color version of the B&W and another angle of the scene. Just another example of what hate can do in an “Us versus Them” kinda world.

Appomattox Court House Grave

Appomattox Court House Grave

Rain, Rain…

This is the time of year when everything begins to wake up…leaves come out, migrating birds return, pollen erupts, taxes are due, and, of course, spring showers bring May flowers. The soil where I live is not the same kind of dirt I grew up with in South Dakota and have experienced in most other places I’ve lived. No, the soil here is red clay which does not absorb the rain very well. When the rain comes, the water runs off. Or. Sits. And sits. And sits. Our “lawn” is muck. For Sunny’s exercise we walk which is good for us as well as Sunny since we can’t play with her in the yard. The color green is still mostly hiding and I admit missing the green.

My creative energy is at a low…which happens quite often so I’m not alarmed. However, at my age the time horizon is a bit different and I’ve grown to resent non-creative hours. I know this is a self created problem. I think I’m reluctant to go out because I don’t know the area well and some of the places I want to go are potentially not appropriate for someone my age with a big camera. Perhaps I should get a smaller camera. Another self inflicted problem. Today, I’m heading for Appomattox on a search for my creativity!

Forest Poem

Natural Bench at Hidden Rock Park

The weather warmed up a bit and I went out for a walkabout! I only had an hour so didn’t do a lot of wandering. The objective of my walkabout was to jump start some creative energy and do some writing. The county where I live is mostly rural and has few parks. Forests abound and the James River borders the county on the south side…but most of the land is private and not accessible to the commoner…me. A notable exception is Hidden Rock Park, a large park close to the county seat, Goochland. I was the only visitor so I sat on the rock in the image above and tried to craft a poem to match the Zen theme of one of our rooms. Many things came to mind but none stuck. Until 2:00 a.m. this morning, I woke with a haiku in mind. It’s not perfect, but tomorrow is another day.

Quieting colors
warming my heart and my soul
edges fade, time blurs

The Midnight Library

Abandoned High School, Alexandria, VA

One of our children gave me “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig. He’d read it during the year and wondered what my impressions would be. The protagonist is a young woman, Nora Seed, mid thirties, who is introduced to us as a teenager in a high school library discussing life’s possibilities with Mrs. Elm, the librarian. Sharp jump to 19 years later, Nora answers a night time knock on the door and is told her cat was run over and killed. She envied the cat because it was no longer suffering, it was dead. This was just one more straw, loss of job at String Theory Music Store, loss of relationship, loss of her parent’s hopes for her, and now the cat. She decided to end it all and the rest of the book is a countdown to her self-scheduled death. The actual time was probably minutes, Nora’s perceived time was years.

In the countdown and again without warning, we are taken to a solitary room filled with books. Mrs. Elm is the librarian and tells Nora this is the “Midnight Library” and each book contains a different outcome for her life, she only has to pick a book and she will be taken to that life. If she is unhappy in that life, she should just wish to come back to the Midnight Library and choose another. The remainder of the book is Nora playing the What-If game with lives from the books. She finds that even in her most comfortable, joyful life, all things and people aren’t the way she’d hoped.

The book is very straightforward with few characters and no subplots. Each life story Nora lived sprouted from an event or relationship or hope/dream she’d had before she decided to commit suicide. Each time one of those lives disappoints her, and that was quite often, she returns to the library. She notes the library’s infrastructure is crumbling a little more with each return visit. Every visit to the library grounds us in the actual life remaining since the overdose is changing everything in Nora and the library. Although I anticipated the story arc and even some of the story events, I was never quite certain how the book would end. Viewed from 10,000 feet, the book almost becomes a cliché…troubled girl, finds herself, rises from the ashes. While true, each adventure is a stepping stone to the next and each new life arc added a dimension to Nora’s grasp of life and life’s meaning and especially life’s value.

As Haig introduces us to Nora’s other possible lives…he brings us to meta-scapes, parallel universes, taking us down the ultimate “what if” path. The technique provides Haig the means to bring Nora through family crisis, tragedy, joy, anger, success, failure, and on and on and on. She searches the library for the perfect life and sometimes comes close but never 100%. In her Library lives she touched perfection many times but never enjoyed the nirvana she’d imagined. Self discovery about her own worth, the value of others, the continuing evolution of life uncovered the reasons to live and she chose life. But it was close.

Other perspectives come to mind which I guess is appropriate given Haig’s multi-channel approach to finding human value. The first is chess which is a presence in most of Nora’s visits to the library. I can’t find the exact quote but Mrs Elm told Nora something like, after three moves, there are over 9 million variations possible, over 250 billion different possible positions after 4 moves each, with even bigger numbers to follow. The placed where Nora worked and was successful on a human level was called String Theory but she had difficulty working with customers and so was let go. Haig’s approach to Nora’s outcome seems loosely based on principles of quantum physics and string theory. Pulling the string might bring results not anticipated or comfortable. Nora got to pick a book based on a high level description of a particular outcome/regret she wanted to relive, for instance, not giving up professional swimming strongly supported by her father. In real life, she’d given it up and he’d died disappointed in her. In the Library’s life, she was an Olympian and her father was beaming. But she wasn’t happy. The people around her weren’t happy. So…back to the library. She’d leave the library with a new life, but like string theory physics, the exact outcome was difficult and not predictable. But, I digress.

I enjoyed the book and found the mental adventures worthwhile. In the back of my mind, Nora’s pending death bothered me. But she came out of it! That disturbed me a little since the mental state that drew her to suicide wasn’t a theme…I mean, did she seek treatment? Why not? What could she have done? Her recovery was a little too “They lived happily ever after.” Lots of life lessons, I think the most important is to pay attention to you, don’t compare yourself with or judge others. They each have their own library.

Warranty

My car died a few days ago. One side of me really hated the end…the other side relished the idea of a new “gadget.” The side hating the end loved the way the car rode, the relative economy, and the up-until-now, reliability. It’s obituary: Born in 2008 and adopted in 2010 by my family, a Toyota Highlander Limited Hybrid with three rows of seats, an as needed car top carrier, comfortably carrying seven people (two adults, three kids with friends: dancers, hikers, baseball players, college seekers, etc). Tens of thousands of miles, hundreds of baseball games, so many dance runs, art runs, sleepovers, photo trips, adventures, vacations…

Each year I religiously took the car in for an annual checkup, spending the money on expensive stuff like timing belts, joint replacements, coolant hose repair, headlights, sensors, etc. Each year I was glad to hear it was healthy (after necessary repairs) and easily passed inspection. But then (dramatic music), a year ago the check engine light came on followed by what in my pilot days I would have called an astounding display of most of the warning lights. Then a tow truck. Then diagnosis and repair. Then a thousand dollars. And finally, back on the road with a smile on my face.

The car is, after all, sixteen plus years old and a comfortable, sturdy ride. But two weeks ago, without warning, the “Check Engine” came back on. Oh no, I thought! I’ve been good to it! Changing the oil, new brakes, new this, new that, I exercise it often…what the hell!! I wouldn’t mind a new car but at my age I’m not sure it’s worth the expense. So, I called the service department at the dealership I’ve been taking the car to since we moved here, the one where I’ve spent some thousands of dollars.

“The earliest appointment we have is in ten days,” was the response I received when I told them my issue. Ten days.

“That’s a long time without a car,” I told her.

“Ten days. Do you want to make the appointment?” she responded.

So much for Toyota loyalty. Maybe now was the time to stop driving. But my wife certainly isn’t going to ferry me around. And she has her own schedule of places to go. My dilemma was the one we all go through, do I spend another large sum of money on a car that is reaching the end of its life expectancy?! Some people run their cars for 20, 30, or more years and hundreds of thousands of miles. Good for them. Good for their cars. But for me, I’m pretty sure the big battery in my hybrid was giving up the ghost and replacement was $2,500+ not including labor. And even if I did replace the big battery, who knew what was next. Sigh. A familiar internal debate. As much as I love new gadgets, I really loved my old Hybrid Highlander…the perfect ride for me. Think, think, think.

"No,” I told her. The internal debate was over, I traded it in. I’m sure it will be taken to a farm somewhere to join other SUVs helping out and enjoying life out in the wild. I wonder why warranties don’t extend to 10, even 20 years. Perhaps because car manufacturers can’t “warrant” how drivers will use or abuse the machines. Squeaky parts, stiff ride, failing functions, crummy fuel, sticky oil, unexpected starts & stops…all part of the aging game.

We have a new car. With a five year warranty. But, then what. Oh.

I Don’t Scream Anymore

Mt Assisi Garden

I don’t scream anymore
With death just out the door.
I smile and sink deep inside
Mind seeking right, eyes open wide. 

Burn the books, call for war
Make it tough for all to score
Let voter access freely slide
So your wagon is the only ride. 

But know that deep inside
Somewhere is a rising tide
Of fairness, human to the core.
So, I don’t scream anymore.

Songbirds & Snakes

Inside Union Station, Washington, DC

I finished Suzanne Collins’ “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel to the Hunger Games books. Before I started to read it, I binge watched all four of the Hunger Games movies, but NOT the movie from this book. This book was so different from what I expected that halfway through I watched the last movie in the series again…what I was reading seemed inconsistent with the storyline in the movies. Granted, books are usually different than the movie but this felt so divergent I wanted to ensure I hadn’t misremembered what I’d seen.

The Hunger Games world is a dystopian view of the U.S. and the prequel was no different except the murderous Game itself was still in its infancy. The protagonist of the novel was Coriolanus Snow at 18 years old. In the Hunger Games book trilogy, Snow was president of the country and evil personified. In "The Ballad,” he was a teenager struggling with his identity, society, economics, racism, and tradition. As a reader, I empathized with Snow and felt sympathy for him as he struggled through life, and, struggle he did. Snow was part of a formerly wealthy and respected family however family fortune and reputation had decreased dramatically and Snow was at risk of not attending university and being forced out of his family’s ancestral home. He was appointed a Hunger Games mentor to a “tribute” from impoverished District 12. The tribute’s name was Lucy Gray.

Snow struggled with his self confidence, with his view on how his peers viewed him, and with his undisclosed financial emergency. He believed if “his” Lucy Gray won the Games, he would be rewarded with cash for his tuition and family home. Lucy Gray was a small girl, not physically strong and unlikely to survive by brute force. Snow and Gray began a relationship…perhaps a metaphor for Snow’s relationship with his world.

I was struck by the power of social media in the book…how misinformation and disinformation shaped the opinions and actions of the populace…the mob. (Not too different than what it’s like in today’s America.) The oligarchical nature of the Capitol suppressed intellectual and financial growth in the Districts. A caste system had been formed with physical, psychological, and spiritual divides among the residents of Panem. The Capitol maintained order through power and media control…armed “peace keepers” were everywhere and an inner circle maintained total control of a Big Brother like television system. However, Snow discovered that in the Districts, few televisions were available and the message of the games wasn’t well known. He and Lucy Gray manipulated the media and won the Game, Snow discovered the power of the media on the masses and the potential benefit to the Capitol. He began to institutionalize the role of media in the Games.

In our family discussions of the book, I was a bit off track from the majority view. “Too sympathetic!” was one comment. Apparently, I was identifying too closely with the protagonist, Snow, and missing the evil texture of his existence. Maybe. But. He was 18 and the world is a different place when you’re 18. And, he’d been raised in a caste system where he was at the top of the food chain and at risk of losing that position. His parents were dead so family support came from his cousin and grandmother. It was a societal norm to oppress those different than you. So…in my reader’s mind, Snow had nothing worthwhile (by my standards), he was living a shallow life which was quickly falling apart. His relationship with Lucy Gray seemed a positive force, he was learning about personal things, learning to care about someone besides himself, and learning to help others. But, was the response, all that he did for Lucy Gray, he was really doing just for himself, not her. He used her. Probably. Maybe. Hmmm…but, Lucy Gray used him. Her sweet disposition, her music, her personna was captivating, addictive, alluring. For Snow, and, for me, the reader.

I didn’t have a clue how the book would end. In fact, I’m still anxious about the ending even though I finished reading it. I want more. I guess that’s what a prequel does.

Drugstores

Soda Fountain, Baltimore Museum of Industry

The Wayback Machine was kicked into overdrive when I started thinking about Huron College. Our teen years are usually indelibly imprinted or forever erased, I have some of both. Do you remember “Soda Fountains?” I am pretty sure that my first “date” was to a soda fountain, 7th grade, I think. I had a crush on a girl named Mary and asked her to join me after school for a soda at the drugstore. And…she did!! I very distinctly remember being nervous as hell but also wanting to show how cool and sophisticated I was so I ordered a chocolate coke. Chocolate syrup in the bottom of the glass, cola drawn from the tap at the bar, and a long straw to stir and sip. Yep…I was cool. Not. I was 13 years old and imaginative.

The drug store was Miller’s Drugstore in the 300 block of Dakota Avenue, next door (I think) to Smith Jewelry. Miller’s was the epitome of an old time drug store, not like today’s CVS, Walgreen’s, etc. I remember four drugstores in town, Miller’s, Humphrey’s (of Hubert fame), Lewis Drug, and Perriton Drug & Jewelry. In Miller’s, there were shelves of health paraphernalia, a pharmacist in a caged enclosure, and a magnificent soda fountain with ice creams, sodas, sprinkles, and other sweet magic things. If I remember correctly, Humphrey’s also had a “snack bar” but it was not the classic Soda Fountain. My date and I sipped on our exotic sodas and I probably quivered like a leaf in the wind, but it was fun, and, memorable. We had one more “date” like this and then either her mother or mine changed the ground rules and after school hours became more “regimented.”

Today’s drugstores are different. The world is different. We are an aging population. Health science has increased exponentially. To keep us oldsters alive, mobile, and alert, drugs are imperative and so pharmacies today are crushed with demand as well as diversity of available medications. Remember when pharmacists had time to talk with their customers? Not so much anymore in chain pharmacies. The retail margins are so low in the industry that some pharmaceutical technician salaries are barely above minimum wage. Pharmacists often “supervise” four or so technicians who are actually pulling the pills and doing the insurance process. I understand the burnout rate for pharmacists and their technicians is increasing…they are slammed by demand and the chains can’t charge more than insurance allows and insurers negotiate huge discounts…which is a completely different post. Anyway. I empathize with pharmacists, they’re under extreme pressure in the middle of an extraordinarily complex process among Pharma, doctors, corporate, and lastly…us.

But, I had that date. Terror, excitement…oh, what a time. Smile.