Speaking of, I posted the following on August 19th, 2021, my 62nd birthday (even tho’ it’s saying August 20th, the birthday of my cousin Susan, may she rest in peace).

This is the first of six posts, selected chapters from the novel I wrote some years ago and submitted, unsuccessfully, to the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. In fact, I should’ve started here with the intro to that sixth post down: “Elaine Vitale.” Read that, it explains this – fragments of a novel I finally put together but did not finish six years ago.

This first chapter creates a motivation for two workers in an old folks home to learn the stories of their clients, their patients, their mentors. It is a frame story with connecting threads. Missing in the next posts are stories about my Aunt Lourene, other old folks, and my imaginary neighbor who hides in plain sight from the CIA, a sanctioned mafia.

Perhaps I should include all those chapters, but I only polished these a bit. Clare starts it off, but the finish, the euthanasia of another character, I could not write. I could not give up the ghost, go gentle, hear the bells toll, or ever say no to another breath. Here’s to trying again, reincarnation, renewal, and gasping for a grasp (or vice versa)...

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Young with a new idea, she was surprised to find herself old. Drifting out of sleep, back into semi-consciousness, Clare was aware of her bones and her breath. Summoned by the hum of the attached medical equipment, she felt the echo of the ache of the age of her body. Her eyelids parted to reveal a big, hazy moon hanging just outside the small window of her room. Slowly, she rolled her head over, stretching the tubes in her nose to see the blurred blip on the screen of a machine on a rickety rack of techno-gadgetry next to the bed. She turned back to the window and, attempting to stretch her toes, arthritic joints and the dust in her lungs brought her more completely back to reality. Tired still, she closed her eyes again.

She had been dreaming of her youth, and just a moment before she had been young, sprightly, and beautiful. It was a sunny day abbreviated by fluffy clouds. She was in a meadow running, not too fast, from her lover. He had finally and gently caught her and they had tumbled together through the grass. They had lain on their backs breathing hard and watching the clouds above drift through the bright sunshine. He was holding her, whispering love in her ear, and she was smiling with joy – for a moment.

Then, she was running again in the meadow, faster, away from her lover – no, away from her husband. In the dream, she went through a series of scenes, being caught and tumbling through tall grass, through dried lawns, through a mountain of laundry, into beds, classrooms, doctors’ offices, and a wilderness of cities and forests, always in bright light. Her idea was a regret-tempered contentment, a resigned satisfaction, her artwork was finished, no more retouching. She thought maybe she had felt a tear follow a wrinkle down to a smile.

Waking up, she was on her back again, but now however, she was old, alone, and pained in the small hours of the night. Instead of the sun, she looked back at the moon and started to cry, her gentle sobs changing the blip on the machine screen. She tried to cry her way back to sleep, back to her dream, her joy, back to her lover in the meadow, or even to her husband, to her children, or to some part of the wilderness of her life and that idea of contentment. The pain in her body prevented such sleep relief, and she was conscious only of the drone of those medical contraptions calling her to keep breathing, forcing her to keep feeling the pain.

As sleep did not come, Clare began to wallow in the pain, to revel in her misery, and she allowed a wave of self-pity to sweep over her, a torrent of cleansing tears. In the next slow moment however, she felt guilty for such selfishness. She had lived a long and wonderous life. Her dreams reflected many moments of joy and complexity, befuddlement and confidence, achievement and frustration, tedium and transcendence. Many others, she thought, led lives of nothing but simple suffering, short ones at that, perhaps even brutish.

Under her translucent, wrinkled skin a nostalgic imagination could see a lovely woman. Svelte under wilt, cheekbones dappled. White hair flowed onto white sheets in a white room, dark in the shadows of the night. Inside big eyes, now under withered lids, her colorful past reflected on her consciousness. As a girl, as a Lucinda Matlock, she had dallied away with Mikes and Spikes and the likes of which her children might not imagine. And then she was a Mom to two, a friend to a few, and a servant to many, so many that she could be great. The rollercoaster of parenthood was bolstered by her confidantes, her Sylvia Sextons, Edna St. Vicious Parkers, and the teacher job she’d had that kept her close to a quasi-peligroso edge, to the seasons of social movements, at least close to the zone of proximal development, to the young at heart, to the ever new, ever old, ideas of life among the living.

She’d been a good wife, up to a point. The point when she realized that her lover had become just a provider of meals and mortgages and not of new ideas, she decided to take their marital drift further. When his prepared mind no longer favored chance, she decided to take one and left him. The girls had made it to college, so she decided to make it in New York, or Europe, or on many an exotic beach. It was natural that there were no more lovers in meadows, so she had had some likes in restaurants and museums, conferences and conversations, but it became apparent that there were very few new ideas for one who’d contemplated so many – existential, reverential, monumental.

Of course how many new ideas can you have in a kitchen or a laundry room or a mommy mobile. Had she been a good mother? She had done her duty, her girls loved her, and each in her own way was reliving a different set of their mother’s mistakes. Ah, the sins of the mothers are visited upon their grandchildren, or the lack thereof. One was trying to emulate the free spirit, the libertina pursuing a new idea of happiness. The other is trying to emulate the dutiful wife and community member with that old idea of happiness. At least it has been interesting to see how words and deeds translated through generations – from her grandmothers, mother, herself, her children, and even the echo of ancestors uttered from the mouths of babes. That old idea made her grateful.

At least she had a lot of gratitude. That was how Clare eventually went back to her husband, and she had stepped into the old shoe of their marriage with thanks. Of course he soon died and she became a serial old person moving from porch to porch, from the nostalgia of others to her own. Not only was she grateful for her long, happy life, she was very grateful for her mind, still vibrant it was, even as her body deteriorated. Her inside had grown more beautiful, as her outside – not so much. In the creaking now, she had spent several years living in her and others’ pasts as the present became more unbearable.

As these thoughts drifted through her consciousness, she began to feel a welling satisfaction, a contentedness tinged with a gray lining. She saw order in the world, a kind of old world order, and her decaying condition was just part of a full life. Although she had sometimes been a religious woman, a Christian for awhile, a dabber, a default Buddhist, the promises of heaven or reincarnation seemed dubious, wishful, unscientific. And she was afraid to die. Sermons on the afterlife or the next life were not convincing to one who had also juxtaposed physics and biology with no-more-existentialism and was facing an inevitable eternity of nothingness. In the next moment however, she experienced a feeling of completion, transcendent of religion. Everything was all right. Like all things in the universe, her anguish – as herself, would pass.

Or should it? She remembered her. Another bit of her, or another herself? The shivering shadow crossed her consciousness. Her dead baby, and the art of forgetting was gone again. The idea of philosophy and lofty purposes shriveled once more by that momentary reality. That once forever. Her abortion. This time it came back to her differently. All the explanations, rationalizations, confabulations of logic didn’t matter. Her own abortion was upon her and that idea of a person bobbing along the river of time, that little flame of life in its common moment of termination, it – she, became a kindred spirit. It was time to abort herself. It time for justice. An eye for an I must die, a heartbeat for a heart attack, a reckoning with recklessness, oh these oh so many years later. She had kept her secret, but now she wanted to know the secret.

It was with this seemingly sudden revelation that Clare felt strength invade her decrepitude. She did not want to be a slave to fate, chance, kings, things, or desperation. She was prouder than death. Her fear abandoned her, and she began to assess the reality of her situation. She decided to turn this newest idea into action. Her vision no longer blurred, she examined the machinery connected to her body, keeping it alive. Then, with a conviction to move she had not felt for months, she struggled to sit up in her bed. Gnarled hands clutched at the side railings and she pulled with all her might.

Finally somewhat upright, she looked more critically at the tangle of tubes strewn between her and the rack of medical equipment. It seemed so foreign to her, all the buttons and dials, screens and meters. Yet, these gadgets had become part of her, they had taken over her body, the octopus had its tentacles in her. She became more resolute in her desire to wrest control of her being back from these newfangled contraptions, from this inhuman use of human beings, this technological crutch, this lie. For a moment, she turned to look at the moon shining on her face as it was through the little window, and she knew that moonlight was really sunlight.

Then, she turned back and reached for the many tubes and wires. Grabbing ahold of all she could, she began to pull. At first, nothing happened. Clare however, was determined now, so she took them in turn, and as she continued to yank, one by one they started to pop loose. The tubes and wires came free both from the machines and from herself. One of the black boxes on top of the stack of machinery came crashing down pushing the tangle of tubes and wires to the floor. She felt sudden jolts and pains as they were torn from her chest and her face. She felt sudden stings as IV’s were ripped from her arm, but she was finally able to raise it free and clear, and she did so with a defiant fist. The blip on the screen stopped moving.

Clare now sat still, recovering from her strenuous feat, the noise, the chaos. She took a long, rasping yet unaided breath, looked around, and realized she had done the job, she was released. Liberty was truth, now there’s an idea she thought. Then, she lay back down on her pillow and began again to relax. She felt freed, she felt calm, she felt relieved. The drone of the machines was no longer audible. Clare closed her eyes and issued a long, ashen sigh. The dust settled, as it always does. Slowly, she drifted back into sleep, back to her dreams, back to her lover in the meadow. And as she lay in the meadow of her dreams, those memories, those spirits, and the sun came out from behind a cloud, and as she gazed up, it became brighter and brighter and brighter.

There was a soft knocking on the door before it opened. “Good morning ma’am,” Corazon said gently as she backed into Elaine’s room carrying a tray. The room was dark, but some light came through the sheer, lacy curtains revealing some paintings and clusters of photographs on the walls.

“I’m sorry you are not feeling well Miss Elaine, I have brought you some breakfast,” she almost sang in a tender low voice.

Elaine’s eyelids flittered open. She had been alternatively reading and dozing through the wee hours, and she discontinued the latter activity by lifting the book in her hand to her bedside table. It seemed heavy, and she pushed herself up with difficulty. She was surrounded by lacy pillows and covered with a plush satin blanket. Her long hair, normally worn up in an elegant bun, fell around her shoulders.

“Oooh, well, yes, good morning my dear. Sweet Corazon, what have you done?” Elaine said in a whispery voice, and she cleared her throat with a dainty cough.

Corazon set down the tray and came over to Elaine to help her sit up in bed. “Have you been sleeping ma’am?” She said as she adjusted the mattress with her hip, propping up pillows with one hand and bringing her into a somewhat more upright position with the other. She turned and moved across the room to pull back curtains from windows to let in some more light.

“Well, I must have been darling, because it seems I had a dream about my first husband, the politician…” Elaine paused, then turned to look out the window. “…he was the dreamer really. Nightmares of guilt I suppose, was that what I just had? Hmmm, in any case he always seems so kind through the mist. Maybe he was…” Elaine looked down, then through the window on the side of the room that was partly open revealing the autumn leaves. “You know he, that first husband, was much inspired by and somewhat acquainted actually with another dreamer, Henry Wallace, the man who would not be king, the hope lost to mystery. Every now and then, when I’m watching some ridiculous politician on the news, I think of him.”

“Didn’t he run for President?” said Corazon who had placed a cup of coffee from the tray next to the book on Elaine’s bedside table.

“Well yes, but he’s not be be confused with another Wallace from Alabama who came along a bit later. That heathen stood in the doorway of a university to prevent black students from entering, can you believe it? He was a disgrace to the name, to his state, to our country, but he did repent of his sins eventually, perhaps under some duress? Anyway, my Wallace, I mean our Wallace, I mean that dreamer Henry Wallace, he was FDR’s Vice-President, and if FDR had died three months earlier he would have been President. It was that fourth election, the convention I believe, that did him in, he and Roosevelt. Anyway, poor Henry was replaced by an unknown Truman who he then watched from the wings become President, and yet, and yet he carried on.” Elaine looked out the window.

“Here is some toast for you Miss Elaine. Would you like me to put something on it? Maybe some butter, some jam, or I could go fetch you some peanut butter?” Corazon leaned forward smiling with a hand on her capable hip.

Elaine turned and looked at Corazon. “Peanut butter? Peanut butter!” she exclaimed. “That’s it, that is the irony, even the meaning in the mystery of the history,” and she paused to take a sip of coffee. “Corazon dear, you don’t have to fetch me any peanut butter, but do you mind if I tell you a story? Please sit down my darling, and eat some of this lovely toast with me.”

The wrist connected to the hand on the hip had a watch, and it swung up to Corazon’s face as she contemplated the request. “Well, I suppose you need some listening to go with that coffee, eh, Miss Elaine?” With that, she looked at the door, then sat down on the chair near the bed and leaned back. “Tell me a story. But you’ve only got about seven minutes.”

Elaine took another sip of coffee, scooched herself up a bit more, and cleared her throat again. “Well, you’ve heard of the man they call ‘the peanut man, or the peanut butter guy’ haven’t you?”

“Perhaps,” said Corazon. “You speaking about George Washington Carver of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, right? He was a famous botanist.”

“Oh Cory, you never cease to amaze me. You should be a teacher of the young, not a caretaker of the old.” said Elaine. “Yes, and he was the one who discovered many wonderful uses for the lowly peanut and helped many southern farmers recover from the problems wrought by cotton and tobacco.”

“Anyway, some people know the story of how, when he was a little boy, Wallace’s grandfather, who at the time was the Secretary of Agriculture, brought little Henry to Dr. Carver’s laboratory when visiting the Tuskegee Institute. Carver liked young Henry, they would take walks in the woods and Carver would tell Wallace about the spirits of the forest and that God was in everything.”

Corazon shifted in the chair and raised an eyebrow.

“It must have been fascinating, insightful, and weirdly inspiring for that boy. Little Henry heard from Carver himself about his ideas on communicating with plants, talking with flowers, mysticism of a Christian sort I believe, but it was not your basic scientific skepticism. It wasn’t about proof, it was about belief, it was about love. And Carver was wildly successful. He’d been born of slaves into poverty and rose up to become one of the greatest scientists of his time. He was world famous, and his work was not just scientific, it was practical, applicable, economically and commercially valuable – and it still is. But he was an odd one, and eventually Wallace became known as an odd one too. I even heard somewhere he was referred to as ‘the mystic of the New Deal.’ It cost him the presidency. And maybe, just maybe, cost the world something more.” Elaine paused, having worked herself up into a bit of a tiff.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t just peanuts was it, Miss Elaine?” Corazon shifted in her seat and seemed to be ready to stand up.

Elaine put her hand out as if to heighten the gravitas of what she was about to say, and to keep Corazon in her seat. “The story, the lesson here, is about how one person can influence another, over years, over a lifetime, and how even though that influence might be good, positive, helpful, it may not seem so to others, and how they can twist truth into something negative. Or maybe it’s about how a flaw can ruin the flow, I don’t know.”

With a breath, she continued. “You see, there’s another story about Wallace’s relationship with another mystic from Russia, a fellow named Roerich, an artist, a spiritualist, and also a kind of philosophical politician. Wallace wrote him letters, referred to him as his ‘guru,’ and that was used against him. In fact, Roosevelt might have been as intrigued by such mysticism as Wallace, but he was Roosevelt, and the champion, and well, if it had been Wallace who had inherited the Roosevelt’s presidency when he died, the world might be a different place today. We might not have had the cold war, a nuclear arms race, Korea, Vietnam, and so on. We might have had more international good will, global cooperation perhaps, peace even, I don’t know. Henry was not like Harry. Sometimes it’s exciting to consider, sometimes it’s just depressing.”

“Well ma’am, I need to consider doing my job, and maybe you should consider eating more breakfast?” Corazon rose to her feet, stepped to Elaine’s bedside, and took ahold of her hand.

“You should write that story down, about the peanut man and the Vice President. What he learned, what he could have taught, and what we should all do, or think, or be. Give your gifts Elaine, share some peanuts of wisdom.” And with that they both chuckled.

Elaine looked out the window at the autumn leaves now floating in the breeze. Corazon set the plate from the tray on the bedside table and walked out of the room. She turned to look back in as she closed the door.

As the street lights came on and a wind swept up some newly fallen leaves, Larry lifted his eyes and gazed into the gathering darkness. The screen door creaked as if on cue, and Barry ambled slowly out on to the patio. They were two old men, variations on gray, bald, and roundish, both residents of the Swansong.

“Hello porch light! I see you’ve been waiting for me,” said Barry in a wheezy voice.

Larry looked around as if waking up and said, “Ah hell, you made it. I thought I was gonna get some peace and quiet so I could have me a nap before bedtime.”

“Well porch light, I can’t let that happen. I gotta give you some juice to stew in,” Barry muttered as he came around behind Larry’s wheelchair and collapsed into the old rocking chair next to him.

“That sounds wrong pal,” Larry growled. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, tho’ I’ve been a-wondering about young whippersnappers the likes of you.”

“I think we’ve established you’re not my type.” Barry adjusted himself in the rocking chair which seemed to be in tune with the screen door.

The two old men, with their baggy pants, raggedy shirts, and old soft shoes, looked like they shopped at the same thrift store. Likely, they had the same stains on the front of their droopy sweaters. But the street lights and porch lights left their rough edges in the shadows of another fresh nightfall.

Larry set about lighting an old stoagy, short and not too big around, that had been setting in a dish on a pile of newspapers on the card table between them. Ashes on dust.

Barry started in, “My grandson told me the other day that one of his buddy’s had a grandmother who died. So the kid’s family was cleaning out the old lady’s apartment, they found granny’s diary, and the kid’s Mom let the kid have it. So the kid’s reading it, apparently to my grandson, and they come across a page where the old lady wrote: “No justice, no peace,” over and over in big letters. And then apparently, there’s all this stuff about race and racism and equality, or the lack thereof.”

“Yeah,” said Larry with a wheeze.

“So the kid asks me, he says, ‘Gramps, what’s that all about? You should know, you’re old like the granny was!’ And I say, ‘well, she musta been some kind of radical. Then I told him, ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ explained that and said that we’re about equality and freedom and the United States is a big melting pot. Aren’t you proud of me?” Barry turned with a shrug and upturned hands. He seemed to be waiting for a hug.

Larry looked out into the night and asked, “Was the kid or his grandmother black?”

“Heck, how should I know? Kevin didn’t say,” said Barry, continuing with the shrug.

“Well did you ask? Wouldn’t that explain a few things to you?”

“I didn’t think about it.”

“Figures. You probably think your kid is just buddies with other white kids. White kids with, God forbid, hippy grandparents. But maybe his friend is black. What about that?”

“What about that. I don’t care. It’s been a long time since the civil rights movement, even longer since the Civil War. They’ve had a black president. There’s still affirmative action. Maybe the granny was just some old socialist freak and she was writing about all her protest slogans, or after she got thrown in the slammer for some sit-in. I don’t know, who cares?” And Barry made a noise his grandson would have found amusing.

“I care about what you don’t know. Otherwise we’d have nothing to talk about,” said Larry. “I’ll bet you your ice cream that your grandson’s friend is black and that his grandmother, or more likely her Dad, husband, or son, was the victim of police brutality. Or maybe they were just from the south. And don’t say anything about chocolate ice cream or I’ll have to use your face for an ashtray.”

“Schwid. I thought you’d like me saying something positive, you know liberal, Kumbaya kind of stuff. I didn’t think you’d get all bent out of shape about this mumbo jumbo,” Barry muttered.

“It’s gumbo dumbo, and as the twig is bent so grows the tree. Just don’t you be the one bending Kevin,” said Larry.

“Now who’s sounding wrong? said Barry.

“You know what I mean. And I’m not wrong, I’m left. And there ain’t no Unum, it’s all about the Pluribus. So get on the bus. Or, get up and push me into the dining room. I don’t wanna get so cold that I don’t want to eat the ice cream you owe me – even if it is oh so vanilla.” Larry pushed his cigar stub into the dish and said, “Let’s go.”

“Alright, I mean all left, you crazy commie.” With that, Barry pushed himself out of his rocker, leaned heavily on the handles of Larry’s wheelchair, backed him up, then off the porch, through the squeaky screen door and down the hall to the dining room.

Elaine laughed as she finished putting on make up at the bathroom mirror. “Oh my, I’d go broke buying all the cosmetics I’d need to repair this old face. There was a time, Corazon, when I was a pearl and the world was my oyster, but alas. Now it’s just ‘oy’!”

Elaine turned from the mirror and walked to a lounge chair in her bedroom. She was wearing an elegant dressing gown and had her gray hair swept up behind her head. The manicured fingers of her veined and splotched hands now gracefully laced themselves on a knee.

Corazon was changing the linens as Elaine watched. “I had another idea last night for a story Corazon. I really must tell it. Are you familiar with Che Guevara?”

“Revolutionary wasn’t he?” replied Corazon as she pulled off a pillow case.

“Yes, and a handsome one, very dashing and dangerous.” said Elaine. “My second husband and I met him one day shortly after he and Fidel and Camilo and the others threw out Bautista. We’d met Bautista too once, but he lacked the charm of those crazy revolutionaries. Once upon a time, Havana was the Las Vegas of the Caribbean, wild and fun, and we used to vacation there in the winters. That husband was sort of wild and fun too, although when it came to business, he was quite serious. Anyway, he loved to go fishing down there, and that’s when we met Papa too. You’ve read Hemingway haven’t you Corazon?”

“No ma’am, but didn’t he kill himself?”

“Yes, and that’s part of the story. It’s going to be called ‘The Importance of Being Ernesto.’ Have you read Oscar Wilde?”

“No ma’am, but wasn’t he a homosexual?”

“Yes, but that’s not part of the story. In Wilde’s play neither man is actually earnest or named Ernest, but in mine they both are and both are famous. The story takes place on the day of the big sport fishing contest that Hemingway used to put on down there. He was like my husband you know, he wasn’t afraid of the revolution, in fact, we were kind of swept up in the romance of it all. Anyway, in the play each of the fake Earnests gets a girl, but in my story, it’s a love triangle, there’s only one girl and neither Ernesto gets her. Perhaps because they are not earnest, but they were you know, both very serious. Wait, that’s it, you’ve got it. Maybe they were like Oscar Wilde – gay!” Elaine exclaimed. She paused thoughtfully, putting a finger on her lips.

“Well, maybe, we’ll make it ambiguous, you know, to add that aura of mystery. In any case, they were distracted, and of course they both had wives and children and all. Anyway, the young woman, a revolutionary herself, tough, but gorgeous in a dangerous way – sort of like Che – she is drawn to them both. They both had swagger, charisma, machismo. I’ve got to figure out how to get Che to speak Spanish the way Hemingway wrote English. Anyway, they’re all at the marina in Havana on the morning of the fishing contest and she can’t decide whose yacht to get on. At the last minute, instead of considering the importance of being earnest, she’s drawn to the importance of loyalty, and she stays on the dock with Fidel, fidelity, get it?”

“I’m not sure I do Miss Elaine, but I’m sure it will be a wonderful story,” Corazon replied as she tucked in the sheet and threw on a blanket.

“Actually, it’s a tragedy, but it’s calm and there’s a young man and an old man and the sea. Che hops over onto Papa’s boat when they are way out on the water. It could have happened, nobody knows it didn’t, who’s the wiser? So they have a conversation about fishing and politics, about writing and adventure. They argue about socialism and capitalism, was Jesus a communist, and who is the hero – the bull or the bullfighter? We hear about Hemingway’s driving through Europe and Che’s driving through South America. We hear about lying and truth, life and death, dirty motorcycles and clean, well-lighted places. Terse dialogue, cucumber sandwiches, the real and the imaginary. They would discuss Bumby and Bunburying; Hadley and Haydee, or was it Hilda?, their respective exploits in Africa, and how to be cruel. They would compare notes on the time Guevara invited Hemingway to see executions of Cubans who allegedly did not support the revolution, a kind of Cuban version of Death in the Afternoon. It would be a hypothetical meeting of minds – that might have actually happened – and who’s to say it didn’t?

So they’re out there on the water, they’re having this conversation, and then one Ernest asks the other Ernesto for a diagnosis. You know Che was a medical doctor, and Papa had lot of health problems. He’d been punctured and burned, battered and bruised, had crashed in cars and airplanes, and was probably getting way too much sun that day. So they compare their scars, Che advises Papa on his myriad ailments, and then they talk about how to die and how to die a good death. Papa talks about killing animals, Che talks about killing people. They talk about friends and enemies they know who have died, who died well, and who did not.

Neither of them catches a marlin, then Papa goes back to Idaho to shoot himself, and Che eventually goes to Bolivia to get shot by someone else, and Fidel remains loyal only to his men – so maybe he is the homosexual? And our heroine, let’s call her Consuelo, I love that name. She, she marries several men in not-so-rapid succession and winds up in an old folks home regaling the help with tales of her adventures. What do you think mi Corazon, my heart?”

“Another masterpiece ma’am. I need to go change another bed. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Yes, a facelift, or maybe a gun. Is it too early for cocktails my dear?”

“Perhaps you should have lunch first.” Corazon smiled, and walked out of the room.

Iris, pronounced “ear-is,” Aunt Iris that is, pronounced “ain’t,” as she preferred to be called, was from Mississippi. By happenstance, the whims of fate, and a distant relative, after living her long life of over 90 years there in Mississippi, she wound up in the Swansong. One day she had some visitors, the daughter of a second cousin once removed and the new husband. Even though the young lady had met Aunt Iris only once before, she was greeted like long lost royalty. When introduced to the husband, Aunt Iris said, “You come over here and hug my neck, you kin now.” Such was her warmth and kindness.

They sat for a chat, and after basic pleasantries on health and the weather, the new husband – a curious sort – asked Aunt Iris some questions. “ Aunt Iris, you ever do much traveling?”

Aunt Iris looked up as if watching a bird fly across the sky and said, “Well, let me see…” She paused long enough to watch the imaginary bird fly into the trees. “I went to Arkansas one time. Another time I went to Alabama, but that was just for a spell to get a chair from my great uncle’s cousin’s child who wanted to give me that chair. So, we went and got it, but it broke. Once, we were gonna go to Florida, but I don’t think we did.” She paused to watch the imaginary bird fly back in another direction.

Before she could go on, the new husband, one of them native Californians asked, “Aunt Iris, what’s your favorite food?”

“Well,” said Iris, her eyes now looking at the imaginary banquet table before her, “I likes fish. Catfish. Yessir, fried catfish. Mmm’.” As if an after thought, “I could have me some of that right about now.”

The couple stayed for about an hour chatting about this and that, this and that person who was related to such and so. What happened here and there, when and where. Eventually there was more neck hugging, well wishing, and they went on their way.

After they’d left, Jesse came in and said, “Aunt Iris, what can I get you? Do you need anything?”

Aunt Iris said, “Darlin’ I don’t need a thing, but a nice glass of water would be an absolute pleasure.”

When Jesse came back with the water, Iris thanked him profusely, took him by the arm and said, “Jesse honey, I’ve got to tell you something. You know that nice young man who was just here?”

“Yes,” said Jesse as he leaned over Iris’s bed.

“I neglected to tell that boy that I’d been to Louisiana one time. It was to pay a visit to my friend’s cousin’s grammy to fetch another chair, and for the life of me I can’t remember why, but it was delightful. I’ll never forget being in her kitchen,” she paused, “except that I forgot to tell that young man about it so I guess I cain’t say never. Anyway, that woman was just making some gumbo, but she told me something I’ve been realizing was more important than when she said it. But even then I reckoned it was pretty important.”

“What was that?” asked Jesse.

“So she’s cuttin’ an onion there in the kitchen, and she says to me, “sweetie, did you know that if you whistle while you work, whistle while you cut onions, then you won’t cry.”

“That’s some nice advice,” said Jesse.

“But then she said that she don’t whistle, that she likes to cry, that the tears she cries while she’s cuttin’ onions cleansed her soul. She said that onions was sympathy, that peppers was excitement, and that celery was most of the time. She said that what made a good gumbo was the diversity. She said that if all you had was potatoes, you might live, but it’d be borin’. She said ‘flavor ain’t one thing. Spice is nice, but spicy is better and it’s more than one spice, more than one flavor, that makes for good eatin’. An’ most important is that just one tongue can taste it all!’”

“Sounds like a wise woman,” said Jesse.

“Well, she was wise with her pies, but her gumbo philosophy was unreal. She said that some people was like okra, sticky. Some people was like garlic, stinky. And some people was like tomatoes – and there’s lotsa kindsa tomatoes, but the ones that have a hard life taste better. She said some people was like bay leaves and some people – like her – was like sassafras, kinda sassy like. But if she cut some onions she’d be less sassy and more sympathetic. Lotsa folks was like rice or grits, but most important, if you didn’t have ‘em all, if you didn’t have that diversity, you wouldn’t have no good gumbo.”

“Well, as Mississippi people might say, that sounds like it tastes mighty good,” said Jesse with a smile.

“Yessir, she knew a thing or two,” said Iris, happy that Jesse seemed to like her story. “I’ll tell you another funny little thing about that woman. You know I said she was my friend’s cousin’s granny?”

“Yes,” said Jesse.

“Well, that friend of mine was black. Her cousin was black. But that woman, that granny, she kinda looked white. At leastwise, you couldn’t really tell. I mean, I figured she’d be black, but when I saw her, she looked white. When she talked, sometimes she sounded black, sometimes she sounded white.

“Well, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying, sometimes southern accents confuse me. I think of them as black or white. Is there a difference?” Jesse asked.

“Oh my yes,” said Iris. “There’s a difference betwixt Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and ‘tween city folks and country folks, left of here, right of there, and most definitely between whites and blacks. But,” and she paused, watching that imaginary bird fly once again across the ceiling, “I reckon ya’ll from hereabouts might not know some of all that. I mean some comes from accents, you know, the deflections of voice. And others come from their colloquialisms. Or as Daddy Bob used to say, ‘their localisms.’”

Jesse just nodded.

“Anyway, I reckon that woman was both, black and white, and really lots of us are. Those racist people talk about keeping folks apart, but we weren’t, aren’t, never were. It’s hard to live around that, the bane of my existence really. I just saw people, just people, some’s good, some’s bad, and that ain’t about what they look like, it’s about who they are, how they act, what they do, what they say, or leastwise what they really mean – what they’re about, you know?” The bird flew back across the ceiling. “Folks is folks, and if you’re even just a little bit patient you can tell that. But some of those garlicy people just get up and say this or that all loud. Too much of that spoils the gumbo.”

“Hmm,” said Jesse.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t like my food too spicy,” said Iris. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t gone too far from where I’m from, ’til now that is? Maybe I’m too patient? You know Jesse, I think I’m gonna start writing some letters, you know, to politicians and such. Help ‘em out with all their confusionisms.”

Jesse looked confused, “What do you mean?”

Iris looked at Jesse, then out the window. “Well, it’s too late for me to wander around. It’s too late for me to start eatin’ too much spicy food. But it’s not too late to let these young whippersnappers, what’s runnin’ everything, know what’s important.”

“And what is important,” said Jesse.

“Love,” said Iris. “We all just have to love each other, don’t you know, like how you feel when a good gumbo tastes good.”

Larry had a newspaper in his lap as he rolled his wheelchair up to where Barry was dozing on the porch. He backed in next to the rocking chair, set his brake and set to reading.

Maybe it was the rustling of paper in wrestling the pages, or maybe it was the rumbling in his grumbling about what he was reading, but Barry stirred in the chair, it creaked, and rocked him awake. But he only opened one eye and rolled it toward Larry who sputtered some low grade profanities in response to what purported to be the news.

“What’s wrong now,” Barry asked, opening both eyes.

“More war crap. Makes me sick,” Larry announced. “The specific vaguaries are a lie.

Barry paused, stretched a bit and looked at his watch, “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“Buried at the end of a little nothing story on page four, they finally give some numbers about the financial cost and American body count in the last decade of bloodshed, and the Pentagon wants more, more money, more kids. And they’re probably gonna get it,” Larry said.

Barry paused again, stopped rocking, and said, “Don’t you want to be safe sitting here on the porch? Like they say, ‘Freedom isn’t Free.'”

“Bullpucky,” Larry spit. It’s a scam, a racket – to quote a Marine Corps General who knew – the rich get richer, and schmucks like us pay, and pay with our children. Don’t you see that after all these years?”

“It’s voluntary now. Those kids want to go. But even when there was a draft, military service is a good thing. It teaches ’em discipline, love of country, and maybe it’s just a necessary evil in a hostile world,” Barry replied. “I wasn’t old enough for Korea like you, but I did my time in the National Guard and I’m proud of it.”

“Pride schmride. More balderstash,” Larry said. “Did I ever tell you what my Uncle Howard said about war, about all American wars?”

“Nope, but don’t make a career out of it, lunch is in 20 minutes,” said Barry.

“These were your kind of people, straight shootin’ Pennsylvania farmers, proud Americans, muy conservative!” Larry paused. “In fact, maybe it’s being a farmer that gives you the long view. In any case, one time when I was back east, Howard told me that the United States should not have fought in any war. Not one. He referred to Canada, they didn’t fight for independence, but they eventually got it, without a Revolutionary War. If we had still been part of the UK, slavery would have been banished and we would not have had to fight the Civil War.”

Barry just nodded.

“World War I was a mess, and if we hadn’t gotten into it, Europe would not have had the taste for Hitler 20 years later. It’s never good to fight other people’s battles,” Larry said.

Now shaking his head, Barry said, “I don’t know about that. Hitler might have been inevitable.”

“Not if we provided moral leadership. Or followed the leadership offered, like Wilson and his fourteenth point. Hitler might have been restrained by a League of Nations. Then Korea, Vietnam, both police actions, both losses…”

Barry cut in, “Korea wasn’t a loss.”

“It mighta been proof that quitting is a good thing. ‘Nam, definitely a loss. People finally recognise that. It was a schtoit schtorm on schteroids.”

“You can get involved in other peoples business, but it doesn’t have to be violent. People respond to incentives, they can be bribed. Unfortunately we’re bribing them to fight back. ‘Course, I’m not necessarily a pacifist. Sometimes ya gotta kick some ass, but it’s usually only one ass. Sock the bully in the face, and everyone takes a deep breath. But that’s not the American way, that’s not the military-industrial-complex-way.” Larry coughed. “War is a business, war is a racket, and just killing one guy is not enough for the old profit margin. They require an economy of scale.”

Barry jumped in, “Sometimes war is inevitable. The history of the world is all about combat.”

Larry paused, took a deep breath, and changing his tone he said, “Maybe you’re right. Civilization must have its discontents. People are violent, and more articulate with their fists. Kids fight, and sometimes heroically. My beef is the business part. The innocence lost so corporations can make money. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“I’m a proud American and the business of America is business.” Barry paused, hearing what he had said. They both stared into a blurring distance. “But that could be a bunch of bovine manure, I don’t know.”

“Smells like victory to me.” Larry’s frown morphed into a smile. “Time to eat your lunch.”

So, I’ve been nursing a novel for years. In Spain, I finished a first draft. Later, I couldn’t do the rewrite. Then, I offered up fragments for the Wallace Stegner writing fellowship at Stanford. I did not make the cut. Alas.

Here are some of those fragments serialized in reverse chronological order. I know, that messes it all up, but blogs are about reverse chronology, so when I get to the first bit, I’ll encourage readers to start there and go X posts…

However, there’s a non-linear concept here. The novel was about an old folks home in which a nurse and an orderly hear the stories of several residents. Thus, it was a frame story, consequently the chapters could stand alone.

Except there were breaks, interludes that followed a linear sequence – so that bit may get messed up. Anyway, groove to it as broken artifacts, palimpsests, or – all together now – randomness…

Corazon was watching Elaine sleep. Rather, she was watching her breathe, as stillness it was, expecting that any one of her slow breaths could be her last. She was fading, but not too fast. As she was always full of surprises, again her eyes fluttered open. Without moving, they looked at Corazon and smiled.

In a whisper of voice she said, “Corazon dear, I see you are sitting down. Good, well, here’s another story, but bless me, it’s not related to any husbands, though it could be. It was sort of the unfinished idea of an old boyfriend, who by the way was very sympathetic to women, and perhaps even wanted to be one? Anyway, it’s science fiction and I just now dreamt of how it ends.”

“You see, once upon a long time ago in the future there were a couple of couples, four scientists, perhaps swingers don’t you know. They were sitting around bemoaning an imminent, disastrous fate for poor old earth, what with climate change, overpopulation, pollution, looming doom and what not, when they hatched a little plan. They would hijack a spacecraft and relocate life on a new planet. Two of them were astrophysicists, and had access and ability to hijack the space ship. The other two were biologists, and had the DNA of thousands of lifeforms tucked away into a suitcase, maybe two suitcases. Sort of a mobile seed library for life on earth – don’t you, well, I don’t know.”

Sitting up in bed, Elaine continued, “Their problem was, because of the cruising speed of their spaceship, they’d have to go into cryogenic suspended animation for what would be around two thousand years, 20 centuries of stony sleep, in order to reach the appropriate planet that they’d determined would sustain life. In order to operate their spaceship, which was quite large, more a space station, and required a crew of hundreds, they needed people, special people.”

“So really, the story is about them, the special people, the ‘Numans’ – that’s what they’ll be called. You see, you had to have a group of people, a new race, that would not overpopulate the finite space of the spacecraft, who could run it effectively, and then eventually die out like an old plastic bag once they reached the ‘New Earth.’ So, our biologists create a new kind of human, a numan, and how they live – in comparison to us – therein lie the morals of this story. The battles of the second sexes, the Looking Backward metaphors. The old plastic that doesn’t evolve, the social hierarchy that dissolves. And here’s where it takes a turn for the weird. Numans, in spite of their differences, copulate like humans, but at the climax of the act, instead of ejaculate from the man’s penis, a small bean pops out of the woman’s mouth – with all the same turgid drama and gravitas as that nutty clit gravy gets. The fruit of their orgasm, if you will.”

“Oh my,” said Corazon, “I would if I could, but this has become quite strange. Miss Elaine!”

With a reflective animation, Elaine said, “If the couple wish to create a child, they simply put the bean in the man’s bellybutton, it is absorbed in a kind of space-lapsed horizontal gene transfer and he becomes pregnant.”

“Ha ha ha,” Corazon laughed, startled at the thought. “I didn’t realize this was a comedy.”

“Yes, I suppose it’s kind of funny, but there are practical applications to this arrangement, and some of the biology is not unknown in the animal kingdom, so please bear with me. Once the man – the ‘numan’ man – becomes pregnant, during gestation he undergoes a metamorphosis and turns into a woman. Transgenderization if you will. During this process his genitalia – package, I’ve heard tell – wither and fall off and he develops a vagina and grows breasts. He, now she, then delivers the baby as women do. But when the baby is born, it is always and only a manchild.” “She” always begets a “he,” whatever pronouns those numans might use…

“Oh my goodness Elaine, you are hysterical,” said Corazon, “such an imagination.”

“No hysterectomies here thank you,” said Elaine. “Please consider the advantages of this arrangement. Each couple can only have one child, or rather each person can only have one pregnancy. And every person gets to have the experience being both sexes during their lifetime. The nature of sexuality has completely evolved, perhaps revolved, older women having sex with younger men, then becoming lesbians. Of course, one has to decide what is to become of marriage, monogamy, and the nature of the family. But you also have advantages in managing only boy children in a society run only by women. All Oedipus, no Electra. There is a natural order and natural stability. Not the kind of chaos we have amongst humans, especially nowadays.”

Corazon thought about it, “I suppose you may be onto something, but what is the point?”

“Darling! The point of the scientists in this story is to have these numans run the spacecraft for thirty or so generations during which time their population will remain the same. I suppose there might be the occasional fatal accident, or the occasional set of twins, but the numan population remains constant. Then, when they all arrive at New Earth, the scientists will awaken from their cryogenic suspended animation and activate their suitcases, which are kind of like little technological Noah’s Arks. They will repopulate the new planet with species from Earth. The numans may continue, but likely will die out over time.”

“Ah,” said Corazon, still intrigued and contemplative, and just getting it.

“So here is the twist. Of course things don’t go as planned. The Gods laugh and chaos brings reason, in the form of happenstance, to this new world order. The black swans appear.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of them. Jesse says that we are all black swans, but especially him.” Corazon exclaimed and chucked.

“During the voyage there are mutations biologically, mutinies politically, rebellions among the crew, anomaly analogies, unanticipated events. The sets of twins and the fatal accidents throw off the balance of their planned community. Then there are young numen who refuse to get pregnant and don’t become nuwomen, and older nuwomen who don’t want to have anything to do with the young numen. And there is jealousy, ” said Elaine with gravitas.

“Ah ha,” said Corazon.

“Yes, all those human foibles, those vices, that march of folly that led to the havoc from which the scientists think they are escaping. They are happening again right there on the spaceship while they sleep. The bad dream is new reality. The numans are different, but not so different. They are like all of us who think we are unique, special, one-of-a-kind, thus unkind to others. We are the same, whither race, class, species, we just want to feel ourselves.”

“Ah,” said Corazon.

Elaine paused for effect, then continued forcefully, “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the new world. And this rough beast of a spaceship slouches toward a brave, new world to be born.” Elaine paused. “Or it would if I could write the book, but I shan’t. If I could, it would reflect how we could be, but are. I’d show the worst part of our best selves and the best part of our worst selves. I’d try to give the reader an out-of-body experience, so they can perhaps look back and see themselves as they are, and perhaps love themselves, and our lonely planet, a bit more.”

“Ah that is a beautiful idea Miss Elaine,” said Corazon, “so how does it end?”

“Well, maybe it’s a dream and the scientists wake up realizing that they need to take care of this planet. That we can’t just leave it like so much rubbish. Maybe they are not awakened from their stony sleep and the numans go on to successfully inhabit the new earth, the terra recognita. Or maybe the scientists, once they awaken, see what has become of their creation, and it changes how they restart life on new earth. Or maybe they question whether or not they should restart life as we have known it at all.”

“But you said you had figured out how to finish the story,” said Corazon, “which one is it?”

“Well darling, why don’t you decide? My ending is just an ending. People, humans, numans, we all want happy endings. I’ve realized that sometimes some things are just over, everybody dies. Its just the end, my beautiful friend.”

“Oh my,” said Corazon, “that’s no fun. I want to go have some beans.”

And both ladies laughed out loud, looked at each other, and laughed out loud again.

“Oh thank you for listening to that foolishness, my dear heart, Corazon. Once again I’ve worn myself out telling you a story. I want to elaborate on that ending, my ending. It is coming soon and I need your help. I’ve written you a note that I’d like you to read and think about. Let’s not talk about it until tomorrow, or as Twain might suggest, the day after tomorrow, but I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I’d be honored if you would accept my proposal. Here you go dear.” Elaine reached into the drawer of her bedside table and withdrew an envelope which she handed to Corazon.

“Open that when you get home, or perhaps when you’re with Jesse, he’s a part of it too.”

Corazon raised her eyebrows and looked at the envelope. “Well Otay, Miss Elaine,” she said, realizing that Elaine had transitioned, in a flicker, from a fanciful tale to a serious request.

“Now I need to get some rest dear,” and with that, Elaine closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

In March of 2016, our family stayed at the Good Shepard Agricultural Mission in Banbasa, India. It was perhaps the highlight of our big trip, and you can check my GSAM posts in the Contents to learn more.

While I have rejected most religion as superstition, their particular brand of Christianity was appealing, not too fundamentalist, very friendly, even fun. After a couple of Sunday services there, it occurred to be that the sermon was a literary form of importance. Preachin’ is a lot like teachin’. So I took a stab at the genre. (I mean, why not, my middle name sake, Frank Fagerburg, wrote more than a few!)

Even tho’ I was not invited to deliver it there and then, I thought I might deliver it here and now. I mean, it is Sunday. And it is my Dad’s birthday. So, in honor of him, my grandfather, GSAM, and mother nature herself, here goes…

**********************************

Good morning and thank you! My family & I are so grateful to be here, our experience at the Mission has been more wonderful than we imagined. The love, kindness, and joie de vivre here at the farm is an inspiration. (joy of life)

Its the beginning, so let me start there, Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” And then in the next few verses come light and water and sky and vegetation, and God saw that it was good. And then came stars and living creatures and mankind, and God saw that they were good too.

Further on: Genesis 1:29-31 – “Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life it – I give every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…”

So, moving quite a bit forward in time, let me tell you a little about myself. I’ve been a teacher in various capacities since 1984, and even before that I realised there are many causes one can stand for: social justice, equal rights, fair treatment, healthy living, etc. But one, damage to our environment, global climate change, could make all the others irrelevant.

Thus, it seems to me – especially with the global population well over 7 billion – wise and gentle stewardship of nature is the key. So, for 12 of the 15 years I worked at North Hollywood High School my classroom was in the Agriculture Area where we had many organic gardens, vineyard, orchard, greenhouse, nursery, and various projects like aquaculture, vermiculture, and helping other schools start their own gardens.

During that time, I would take students on senior trips to Yosemite National Park, camping trips to the Channel Islands, and even an ecotour of Costa Rica. Then, almost 10 years ago, wanting to raise our children in the countryside, Mary Lynn & I moved to the little town of La Honda in northern California. We love the rolling hills, the redwood trees, the Pacific ocean, the Pescadero Marsh, and we go hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking whenever we can. And we are often inspired by the educational farm, Pie Ranch, that my sister Nancy and her husband Jered have created nearby along the California coast. (Come visit and check it out.)

Whether gardening, being out nature, or observing its beauty from afar, that interaction is always a blessing. Nature is the work and even the hand of God. Understand the mysteries of nature and you are looking into the mind of God. Wonder at the beauty of a tree, a sunset, the cardiovascular system, the way the water, wind, earth, and the life therein all work together, the stars in sky, the atoms in a grain of sand, and you are praying to the God who made it all.

Parenthetically, we have something in common – the US and India both had to win our independence from Great Britain. The US Declaration of Independence starts with a preamble that talks about the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. (quote?) But we used violence and you used non-violence, and that same wisdom can be applied to my message this morning, that stewardship of nature is not just being responsible citizens of the earth, it is honouring the God who made this wonderful creation, revelling in his manifestations of love, and preserving a world that allows us to share his grace for generations to come.

Consider… Job 12:7-9 – “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food? Is not wisdom found among the aged?

Now consider the miracle of Photosynthesis. Beautiful plants use their chlorophyl to make our food from the light of the sun. Amazing no? And the molecules of Chlorophyl and Hemoglobin that have a similar structure differ by one atom. Chorophyl magnesium, Hemoglobin iron. That green chlorophyl and our red blood are in a symbiotic union, and strangely, direct opposites on the color wheel. Is that not intelligent design?

Consider Chaos Theory. OK, I’ve considered it and I still don’t understand it, but part of it has to do with the fact that nothing is perfect in nature, not perfectly flat, not perfectly round, not perfectly rhythmic, always a little off. But underneath that variability, hidden in the chaos, there is order. I could have googled more info, but check it out, it is fascinating, and how can that not be another of God’s miracles?

Consider the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle, the idea that we cannot know everything about the location of an electron moving around the nucleus of an atom. But miraculously, quantum physicists have found that an electron will appear wherever a scientist is looking for it. It seems to know we are watching. Does it knows because God knows?

I consider the words of my brother Ron, a medical doctor who now lives with his family in New Zealand. When he was in medical school learning anatomy and dissecting corpses, he would be amazed at how the body is put together, and he felt that it was the hand of God.

So, studying nature scientifically is good, but working with nature, like farming, is also like working with God. There are many Bible verses about farming. Here are just a few…

Genesis 2:15 – “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”

Isaiah 28:24-29 – “Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed? Does he continually turn and harrow the ground? Does he not level its surface And sow dill and scatter cummin And plant wheat in rows, Barley in its place and rye within its area? For his God instructs and teaches him properly”

Proverbs 27:23-27 – “Know well the condition of your flocks, And pay attention to your herds; For riches are not forever, Nor does a crown endure to all generations. When the grass disappears, the new growth is seen, And the herbs of the mountains are gathered.
The lambs will be for your clothing, And the goats will bring the price of a field, And there will be goats’ milk enough for your food, For the food of your household, And sustenance for your servants.”

2 Corinthians 9:6-11 – “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed…”

James 5:7 – “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the autumn and spring rains.”

…there are many more. But there are fewer about pollution as we know it today. When the Bible was written, pollution often referred to blood spilled, or to spiritual pollution. There were not substances or things that pollute the air, water, and land like there are today. Now we have chemicals, toxins, and products that do not break down or biodegrade. It’s a problem around the world.

Once upon a nearby time, chai, Indian tea, was served in earthenware cups. When a person finished their tea, they just threw it on the ground and it biodegraded, it went back to the clay it came from. And so it was with lots of items considered rubbish or garbage: bones, stones, shells, leftover food, things made of wood and paper and cloth. But now we have plastic, styrofoam, and other synthetics that do not decay or breakdown and they pollute the earth, the water, and even the air.

So another message this morning, in addition to appreciating nature, is to not litter, to pick up trash, and to “give a hoot – don’t pollute.” It is as blasphemy, a slight against God, a sin against nature. When we disrespect the earth, we disrespect God. I could evoke a verse from Revelations about the “destroyers of the earth being destroyed,” but the Earth is not yet destroyed. It can be cleansed, swept up, tidied up, and brought back to a more natural, a more God-like state.

Here at the Mission you have a wonderful opportunity to be an example of righteousness – you already are: your dairy, your crops, your methane production, your school, your neighborliness, your sustainability, your caring, and your wonderful kids. In many things, including this kind of respect for nature, you can be an example for your community, your state, your country, and the world. You can show others how to live, how to enjoy the beauty and abundance of nature, and to respect God’s creation. Kindly – do not litter. Stash your trash. Pick it up. Set that example.

As I’m sure you know, Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Be that change, even in small ways, it’s easy. And Martin Luther King said something like, “we can all be great because we can all serve.” And sometimes that service is looking out for the negligence of others and picking up their trash.

So, consider Proverbs 6:6 – “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet is stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?”

Hopefully I haven’t put you to sleep. Thank you again for this opportunity, and for already being a change in the world, for already serving, for already showing us so much love. It has been an honour to be here and to get to know you. I’ll close with a few verse from Psalms about nature, agriculture, and the environment. Consider…

Psalm 104:10-14 – “He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the air next by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate – bring forth food from the earth.”

Now here’s a little prayer I wrote when I was a small boy: “Dear God, Thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the songs we sing, thank you God for everything.”

Amen!

A Grant Proposal/Short Story Hybrid (2012ish?)

Once upon a time, there was an idea.  You see, in looking backward you can often see the future, see how the scattered points of light came together in one glowing screen.  You can follow the fiber optic thread connecting a head in the clouds – the collective consciousness.  Or was it that all roads led to “roam”?

School, as we knew it, was a product of the agricultural revolution with its summer vacations; and the model fit well with an industrial revolution – warehousing kids while their parents paid taxes, training them to be good factory workers, mall zombies, widgets, fiddling with gadgets, cogs in the wheel of progress.  Political polarity froze that model for a long time…

When, one day in the Agriculture Area at North Hollywood High, Jonah Lehrer, the now fallen neuroscience writer, said to me, “high school is obsolete,” I somehow knew he was right.  That was sort of a bummer since it was my career, but if it were the truth, it was time to be set free.  ‘Course that wouldn’t happen for another decade and a half, when experience, circumstance, and opportunity finally created the perfect storm…

Do more hiking, you can walk into insight.  It takes a few hours though, strolling through whatever epiphany garden you’re in before they go off.  For me, it was the Purissima Redwoods one weekend when the idea came to me: the school bus, the schooling bus, the bus as the school.  Field trips everyday!  No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks.  School starts when you get on the bus.   And, are you on the bus or not?  Choice is key!

If so, you sit down, plug in, boot up, log on, and on the way to the museum, park, business, open space, theater, exhibit hall, etc. myriad lessons are being taught. There’d be a website, a portal, a dashboard.  The students logs in and go to the lesson, custom designed for individual learning style and ability level – every kid has an IEP.  Even though there’d be particular presentations each day, the student would control the input by clicking when ready.  The system would monitor the students’ attention with periodic checks, questions, and interactive decision points that would keep them engaged.  

Most of the hardware and much software already exist.  Tip of the iceberg: Wikipedia, Blackboard, iTunesU, Khan Academy, Rosetta Stone, Discovery Education, Freerice, Smithsonian Institute, Amgen, NY Times, BBC, TED, Dreambox, Mind Lab, 10 Marks, Edmodo, Equatia, Accerated Reader, Geocube, Compass Learning, Yolink, Exploritorium, NASA, PBS, Power School, CoolMathGames, etc., etc., etc. The portal would allow the teacher to monitor all this from afar and asynchronously.

Years ago, BF Skinner had envisioned programmed instruction, and many tried to realize that notion with TV and other educational technology.  It was not until the internet and online instructional tools became so pervasive that the education system, like travel agencies, the music industry, and going to the store, could be replaced with a gizmo.  Every textbook is on your phone!  But rather than replace the reality of the classroom with a virtual experience, I wanted to replace the classroom with the real world…

Imagine a hybrid biodiesel school bus with nicer seats, cupholders, tablet/laptop holders, ceiling screens, and jacks/plugins for all kinds of gadgets.  In the cargo hold there would an array of equipment: camping gear, field biology instruments, water/soil testing kits, first aid kits & rescue equipment, hand, power, & garden tools, paint, and a complete package of all sports essentials.  We even created “bibliocaching.”

Imagine a kid’s backpack, no longer stuffed with huge textbooks and notebooks, but one laptop or tablet, maybe just a smart phone.  The other stuff would be a “leatherman,” survival gear, food & water, binoculars, supplemental cameras, GPS devices, surveying equipment, camping equipment, and perhaps a folding chair.

There would need to be a base camp, which could be a school, church, or camp, but every week would bring field trips to various museums or theaters, college campuses or other schools, state & county parks, big corporations & small businesses, old folks homes & homeless shelters, and so on.  

For a long time I grappled with what form the program would take.  Is it a school or an add-on, the whole deal or a supplement?  After awhile, I decided that it’s not about the what, but about the how and why.  Guiding principles would guide us to the what.  

The guiding principles start with a discussion about the meaning of life, humanity, and the goals of education. The program would emphasize intellectual curiosity, community service, disaster preparedness, soft v. hard skills (manners), a classical education for a renaissance person, a healthy and active lifestyle, business fundamentals, and of course a deep understanding of the state-of-the-art technology.  Purpose, kindness, respect, responsibility, intrinsic motivation, ethics, effort, and love are included in the guiding principles.

In fact, those hows and whys were easy and obvious.  What was more difficult was the who.  Who would be on the bus?  The answer involved choice.  Students and their families would have choose to do the work to buy the ticket to get on the bus.  There’d be an application and an agreement, and at first the program would look something like a Charter School.  In fact, that’s how it almost started the first year.

Rather than approve the charter proposal however, the Board of Education opted to create alternative school that required a choice – a rigorous application, and a contractual agreement about participation.  That public education has adopted this process is the only thing that has saved it.  Ya gotta want it or you’re not gonna get it.  And we created something that the kids wanted so they paid the price of the ticket.

Starting with LHPUSD students, we eventually offered seats to other students in neighboring districts, but all students were required to complete the application process.  There was a prep course in etiquette and morality, study skills, and physical training, but students could start at any academic level, they just had to have the desire and commitment to succeed in the program.

But it was small, that first year – one bus, 30 kids, and a lot of fits and starts and stops.  The logistical problems were many, and there were some perilous moments: kids left in bathrooms, event cancellations, parental consternation, one trip to the hospital for a twisted ankle, even a traffic violation for the bus driver, and not everyone was as courteous and academically dutiful as I might have hoped.  However, no one died, a lot of great moments were shared, and the documented learning was exemplary – in fact we eventually gained some notoriety.  Our educational experiment had a butterfly effect…

In the second year, there was the reality TV show.  We did our own with hat cams and phones on YouTube, but then we leased the concept to a Hollywood production company and they replicated our experiences with slightly better looking, but no more curious “students.”   Instead of the Bay Area, they went to sites in Southern California, not more fun and more arguments, and didn’t seem to have much homework.  However, to the producers’ credit, they did emphasize our curricular content, and even encouraged their viewing audience to interact with the shows academic content on a show-related website.  Reversing a trend, they even swayed the public agenda toward public education.

After that, the concept went viral.  Biofuels, hybrid systems, burly batteries, hydrogen, and other green transportation technology allowed for the retrofitting of school buses across the country.  The fact that school buses were ubiquitous and more or less cheap, not only made the notion palatable to school districts, but salvaged struggling school transportation programs.  In turn, there were renewed efforts to repair the infrastructure of roads and highways across the country.  Because the idea of field trips emphasized adventure and excitement and getting out of school, kids flocked to upstart programs, and American education was transformed.  

The nature of school changed from being a kid warehouse, often resented by its clientele, to a fun opportunity to evolve – for everyone.  Teachers and administrators abandoned some of their antiquated pedagogy and arcane methodologies and became entrepreneurs.  Some schools turned into businesses generating their own incomes, some schools turned into community centers providing social services to entire towns, some schools were repurposed as apartments or group homes, many schools expanded their scope to educate various age groups, parents, and subjects they had not dabbled in before, and most schools learned to entice kids with fun and relevance to encourage their curiosity.  

Then the concept went international, but instead of school buses, people in other countries used public transportation.  They used the internet to share their experiences, recognizing however, that virtual learning was incomplete and that students required interaction with the real world.  From this emphasis on real world, the environmental movement, which had languished in the back wash of the profit motive, became substantive.  Nature was no longer secondary to business, and constant economic growth was finally accepted as unsustainable.  

By leaving school, people returned to learning, realizing that a large part of their human nature was exercising their brains, consuming ideas rather than things, and a new renaissance, golden, aquarian age reigned on earth.  And students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members lived happily ever after.

The Beginning…

The Friends of Marty R. wasn’t like the other support groups I’d been to. I almost didn’t go. But it was like my cancer was feeding on anger and angst and I needed to vent to strangers, not my family. In fact I hadn’t told them yet, wanting to handle it myself first, and well, not really knowing how to break the news.  

I’d been reconciled to death for a couple decades even though for a long, long time it had scared the schtoit out of me. When I was a kid, even a young adult, I’d let my mind go to the moment of death, I’d try to imagine nothingness for eternity, and I’d freak out, screaming “no, no, no.” Even after I got married (and since I’d been in no rush to so, I was in my forties) I’d wake up screaming “noooooooo,” like a psycho (then had to explain it wasn’t about her). I’d even thought that people who were not afraid of death just hadn’t thought about it hard enough. They lacked imagination, or they were in denial, or they just didn’t get the gravitas of the grave. 

And while I’d not gone full atheist like a lot of my friends and relatives, I had no faith in religion. Photosynthesis, chaos theory, Heisenburg’s uncertainty might have something to do with intelligent design, but they weren’t going to save my soul. Einstein’s observation that the individual likely did not survive the death of the body seemed tragically accurate. I was like Woody Allen purported to be, afraid of death, morbidly so, whether proud or not, and not willing to go gentle into that good night…

But you see your parents die, you see your friends die, you wander through a bunch of cemeteries, you read just about any history book, and you gotta come to the conclusion that it’s just not going to work out so well – immortality that is. As a teenager, I’d had this boss at a camp cafeteria one summer who sat me under the awning of his trailer with a high ball and said anything after 65 was borrowed time, and he seemed pretty happy borrowing it.

I figured, what with medical progress and my semi-healthy existence, that I could go for 80 years and anything after that would be my borrowed time. So that’s why I was more than a little discombobulated when the doctor told me that lump was malignant and that I wasn’t going to get the 20 more years I was counting on. A 25% discount sucked. That was going to be a lot of sunny days, cool breezes, ice cream, cocktails, movies, maybe a little TV, frolicking hither and thither, and craploads of just breathing that I was going to miss out on. 

Anybody who’s ever been diagnosed with a fatal disease knows what I’m talking about. It’s messed up, but it’s a process. I was forced to think about the death thing in a way that I’d avoided since I’d had kids – and that morbid fear came back – for a while. But you live with it for a while – and I’m only talking about minutes – and the panic goes away. Inevitability calms you down, or at least it should. Don’t blink, or flutter away. 

My affairs were already pretty much in order, but I had some bucket list items to take care of. I jumped out of a plane, did a little traveling, scheduled more time with the family, and rationalized my way out of the sailing trip in the South Pacific. During that time, I went to a couple support groups that my doctor had recommended, but they were kind of depressing. It was all that stuff about getting your affairs in order, hitting the bucket list, rationalizing everything, and all that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross process crap. 

One guy that I’d met in one of the cancer support groups mentioned the Friends of Marty R., but said he hadn’t actually been to a meeting. You had to be screened first, and apparently he hadn’t made the cut. He’d said he had too much to do anyway. The idea of being selected seemed weird, but intriguing, so I called the number he gave me and another guy agreed to meet me at the public library one afternoon.

Dressed in a business suit, he didn’t look like he was dying at all. In fact, he looked like a venture capitalist squeezing in another entrepreneur’s pitch. And he seemed younger than I, maybe his late 50’s, tanned and fit. We shook hands and he said we should take a walk. Strolling around the adjacent park, he asked me a series of questions: My diagnosis and prognosis, family and financial situation, and if I had done everything I wanted to do before I died – as a yes or no question. This took about three minutes.

Then he asked if I was religious, what causes I believed in, and what was important – not for myself, but for humanity. He asked what were the components of character, who I admired, about turning points in history, and if I thought I’d made a difference in the world. This took longer, my answers were more detailed, but there was a crisp efficiency about the man that I modelled in my responses.

I can’t remember what I said, but it was lofty and must have been the right thing because he seemed satisfied. Then he asked a question that I don’t think he asked the guy who gave me his number. He asked if I knew what the Friends of Marty R. was about or could I guess, and I said I’d figured it was some other version of a cancer support group, and I told him about the guy who’d given me his number. 

He told me that he didn’t think that guy was a good candidate for their group because he did not have a good grasp of history, that he was necessarily or understandably selfish, but that he wasn’t sufficiently selfless. He said that he felt I did have a grasp of a bigger picture and that if I was interested I could come to a meeting. But he wanted me to figure it out, what did it mean?

Up to that point, I hadn’t thought about it that much. I’d figured Friends of Marty R. was like Friends of Bill W. except instead of a bunch of alcoholics, they were a bunch of doomed cancer victims fixing to die – and that’s what I said to him. He said no, that wasn’t it, but if I thought about it it would be obvious – so I did. I said “Marty R.” out loud and thought about the words and realized it spelled “martyr.” He smiled.

“You’ve been given a gift,” he said, “the gift of knowing more or less when you’re going to die and being able to plan something special. To make it meaningful. Everyone dies and most don’t do it for any good reason. We have the chance to die for a purpose. You’ll need to come to a meeting to understand more of what we’re about, but don’t come unless you’re willing to die for a cause. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘If you haven’t found something you are willing to die for, you aren’t fit to live.”

He handed me a card and told me to bring some ideas. With that, he shook my hand firmly and slowly and gave me a long look with a friendly smile. He started to walk away then turned and said “may the force be with you” and gave me a laughing wink. With a brisk step he crossed the boulevard and went up the next street. I didn’t think about it until later of course, but I never saw him again.

On the card it read, Marty R. with an address that I guessed was not in a great part of town. No number, no email, no website. On the back was another quote by Martin Luther King Jr., “We can all be great because we can all serve.”

After my encounter with the businessman – who hadn’t given his name – I wasn’t particularly surprised because it sort of made sense. Gradually however, I would be surprised, but in the meantime I was just more intrigued. Since I had no way of learning more about the businessman, I researched Martin Luther King. I had known a lot of what everybody knew, but I read more about his troubles, his doubts, the many threats against his life. I realized that his cancer was racism and it had been a lethal epidemic. Was his death a kind of cure? Not yet, for sure.

At the first meeting I learned a lot more. Sure enough, on a small wayward street in an industrial part of town there was a simple number on a door in a wall. It was like a side room to a long-closed shop of some kind. While the exterior was harsh, gray and gritty, the interior was nice, warm and woody. But instead of a bunch of chairs a la group therapy, it was a conference table, and when I arrived there were four men and one woman sitting on one end chatting. One of the men got up and greeted me, showed me to a seat next to him and asked me if I’d like something to drink. 

Apparently, scotch killed germs and what the hell, we’re all gonna die anyway, so I had what they were having. I was the first of the new people which included two more guys and a woman. We seemed somewhat younger than the first five, but there was a common theme of just beyond middle age and just above middle class. The diversity of the group was not obvious at first. 

When the last new guy arrived, Scott, who had greeted us all and provided the scotch, brought the meeting to order. He explained that he and the older members had started an hour before and had discussed their particular issues and plans, and that this session was an introduction for new members, that the group was still relatively new

The history of the Friends of Marty (the R apparently dropped in their common parlance for the purposes of efficiency and discretion.) began when two friends who were both diagnosed around the same time started the conversation of how best to die. They had recruited four others and had discussed the concept weekly for about six months, until one went into remission, one died suddenly, and one made a failed attempt at martyrdom. He had succeeded in dying, but had not garnered any press for his hunger strike against nuclear proliferation. There’d been one article in a local newspaper, and the group had photo-documented his demise, but the journalist they’d contacted seemed to believe it was more a case of euthanasia – since he’d been told about the terminal cancer – than actually starving for the cause. 

After that, the remaining three, with one of the original two, decided to recruit more members to their group, but it had been a slow process. The group that evening was somewhat better heeled and older than a line at the DMV, perhaps a tonier subway platform or a nice general practitioner’s office, but it was an eclectic diversity of people who all seemed to have weathered their tragic announcement and screening interview with aplomb.

Scott and the others were committed to the idea of dying for a cause, but it had proven complicated. One related concomitant of imminent demise was what to do with one’s money, and Scott had decided to spend some of his on contracting with a discreet screener to vet new members. The uncoded algorithm for picking members had to do with a level of intelligence, worldliness, emotional stability, and the potential desire to add something substantive to one’s bucket list, legacy, or personal meaningfulness. 

Scott was down to a couple months to go and the others were all within a couple years to go depending on treatment, although another had recently passed away prematurely. So the issues that were presented to the group to discuss were the time sensitivity of one’s mortality and other personal issues, the importance of the causes for which one was willing to die, and the controversies surrounding such a suicide. 

There was a definite emphasis put on not wanting kamikazes, suicide bombers, or martyrs who would do any damage to their fellow humanity or the earth itself. While anger might be a motivation, it should not be a part of any decisions. Not only should no one else be killed in the process of one of us dying for a cause, but we must minimise the adverse psychological damage to those we leave behind. No blowback.

While Martin Luther King was considered a hero, along with Gandhi and certain others who’d been assassinated, the role model was Thich Quang Durc, the Buddhist monk who had committed self-immolation during the Vietnam War. He had died for a cause, hurt no one else, and made an impact on society. Of course, burning to death was right up there on the worst ways to die list, so that presented another problem.

There was a brief presentation on martyrdom. Socrates had been a martyr for a cause and there had been many religious martyrs. Jesus was a martyr as were many Christians before Constantine and then during the Protestant Reformation. Siddhartha Gautama sacrificed much to become the Buddha and there were monks who’d sacrificed themselves for many causes. There were Jewish and Muslim martyrs. And there were Sikh gurus who’d sacrificed themselves, not for their religion, but for Hindus to be able to practice Hinduism. And of course, there was a long history of military martyrdom, thousands of men and women who had died for their countries. 

In most of these cases, including King, Gandhi, and various religious and political assassinees, such martyrs were killed by others. They were living for a cause which had caused them to be killed. Those who purposefully killed themselves for a cause didn’t seem to have as much credibility. The Japanese fighter pilots or Islamic fanatics who killed themselves in the process of killing others were seen, not only as pathetically misguided, but essentially evil. Even Bobby Sands, who had died in a hunger strike for the IRA, was supporting an organization that had perpetrated terrorist activities. Thus his cause of freedom for Northern Ireland and his valiant death were tainted by the mayhem of others. 

Suicide is by definition selfish, so how could one make it selfless? And is there not a lot of hubris involved in thinking that your own pathetic little life is worthy of the political, social, or cultural change you seek? How can you take yourself out and take yourself out of the equation, and isn’t that contradictory? And, once the world knows that you are doomed to die anyway from whatever disease has made you terminal, expendable, doesn’t that mitigate your sacrifice? Isn’t your euthanasia explainable, and thus is not your cause potentially undermined? 

At this point, what had been a presentation by two of the original members of the group evolved into a discussion. Several comments addressed the question: While the idea of dying for a cause seems attractive to people like us who wanted to give meaning to what was left of our lives and to make a difference in the world, were the chances of failure, or misunderstanding, or the whole thing backfiring worth it? Several responses addressed the answer: We’re going to die anyway, why not make an attempt, however feeble. The discussion got rather heated over the influence one might have. Perhaps only a precious few might be influenced by your action. Or perhaps thousands – who are not diagnosed with a fatal disease – would seek to emulate you much to the heartbreak of their friends and family. This question, of whether such a suicide was just, noble, or effective, continued until it was replaced with the question of what causes were worth dying for.

There were a few in the group whose ancestors had died in war, but only some of those were willing to die for their country. Most of the group were willing to die for their children or their family members, but dying for others depended on who and how and why.  Some believed that they would only want to die for a huge cause, not to save a tree or a whale or to simply protest government actions, as some had put their lives in danger for. Others were willing to die for just one person, even a stranger, and even for just one aspect of that person’s life. 

Sydney Carton, who does a “far, far better thing” and goes to a “far, far better rest” for saving Charles Darnay so that he can have Lucie was given as such an example, then dismissed as fiction. The imperfect nature of the people Will Smith saves in “Seven Pounds” were discussed, but his sacrifice was dismissed as atonement and not the same as dying for a cause. Nevertheless, the idea of organ donation was agreed to be worthy, and perhaps donating one’s body to science, especially in the cause of curing the diseases which were killing the group, was a way of achieving a kinder and gentler martyrdom? The conversation about books and movies led to acknowledgements of songs, Prince’s “I would die 4U” and the Smiths “There is a light that never goes out,” both led the group to believe that this kind of sacrifice, like Che Guevara’s spirit of revolution, were motivated by love.

Going to help people who were suffering from infectious diseases was considered. There were still leper colonies and if there were people suffering from ebola or other insidious epidemics. Being ready to fling oneself into the breach of rescues: fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, or nuclear accidents were considered, but health problems, transportation, and that time sensitivity thing ended that line of discussion. 

Dying to stop war seemed antithetical, although issues of world peace were considered important. The group agreed that overpopulation was a big issue, but one death wasn’t going to make that big a difference. Nuclear weapons were bad, but some in the group were in favour of nuclear power so it was hard to agree on that as an issue worth dying for. While most agreed that global climate change represented one of the biggest problems for humanity, how one dies for that cause was difficult. Could you expose a corporate polluter by dying from their toxins? Could you monkey wrench the loggers in the Amazon rainforest with your body? Could you drown in glacier melt or from a rising sea level? 

At some point the discussion turned to concepts: truth, justice, equality, human rights, and so on. And while some believed that dying for some aspect of truth or for the equality of even a very few was worth it, how you do it was difficult. One person suggested that if all of us, and a bunch more, died en masse for an ideal then we could make an impact. Not long after that someone brought up cults who died en masse, Jim Jones in Guyana, the wackos in Waco, or the complete nut jobs in California who died together trying to hook up with aliens trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.

After some shaking of heads and an awkward silence, Scott chimed in by saying that he was not some kind of bizarro, his friends were not weirdos, and this group had nothing to do with crazy cults that committed mass suicide. He’d rather die at home alone, and have the rest of us do whatever we want to, than to be thought of as someone encouraging outlandish theories, cult behavior, or any kind of destructiveness. He thought the discussion had been good, especially in exposing how the simple idea of dying for a cause could be distorted – by one of us doing something inappropriate or by the interpretation of our actions by the media. Even though some of us did not have a lot of time, it was worth taking the time to think long and hard about doing the right thing, and what that was. The plan was to meet again in a month to share our reflections on this discussion and consider new ideas. 

At the next meeting, the reflections were about message control and really having a defined goal. Several of us agreed that we would write a statement of purpose explaining what we were trying to achieve. While much of what we would think and do would come before hand, before actually dying, all of what it would mean would come after we were gone. Our actions would be borne by our loved ones and those we touched. Anticipating all of that was an impossibility, but considering all the implications and possible outcomes was necessary. 

One of the group had been into journalism and marketing and had several ideas about prior restraint, spin doctoring, and viral videos. Another was a history teacher and had ideas about symbolism, how certain actions would be perceived in other cultures, and how certain actions regarding certain causes might change in a different historical or cultural context. Yet another was a psychologist and had ideas about the impact on our family and friends, and that maybe considering them was more important than the rest of the world.  Others chimed in with all kinds of perspectives, but the general agreement was that, if done well, dying for a cause was still a good idea. 

There were more comments about the pros and cons of the act, many more about the cause or causes, but eventually the conversation turned to how, how to die for your cause. It was generally agreed that it might be preferable to live for a cause that caused someone else to kill us, but getting shot or blown up could be a bummer. While there was admiration for Quang Durc, it was also generally agreed that burning to death was not desirable. Then ensued a discussion about preferred ways to die.

There were wisecracks about dying in one’s sleep after an all night party, skydiving accidents, and coitus interruptus post orgasm. Aldous Huxley was applauded for having a potentially fun death by going out on psychedelics, and for potentially dying for the cause of normalizing drug laws, not to mention euthanasia. This line of discussion led to lots of talk about opiates and other pharmaceuticals. It was surprising how much the group knew about these chemicals and how many had been potheads or cokeheads or just plain alcoholics. And there were many jokes about the Darwin Awards and possibly winning one in a new category. 

This joviality led to a discussion of famous last words: George Eastman who wrote “Why wait?” on his suicide note. Oscar Wilde who, even in ignominy, quipped, “Its the wallpaper or me, one of us has to go.” Humphrey Bogart said something about not switching from scotch to martinis which was entertaining. And we speculated happily on “Oh wow oh wow oh wow,” as alleged said by Steve Jobs. 

Eventually the discussion came back to the idea of dying dramatically for a cause by jumping from buildings or bridges, well timed crashes or explosions, or well publicized suicides at big events, or on TV. Various guns were analysed for their effectiveness. Knives and swords were touched upon. A number of poisons used in history were compared to drugs and pondered. And the contexts of a variety of forms of asphyxiation were contrasted for their relative painfulness and media appeal. 

You’d think that this part of the discussion would be gruesome and most unpalatable for most of the group, but since we’d already crossed far past the threshold of what might be a too-sensitive topic, even the most reserved among us were jumping in with lurid details of people they knew who’d committed suicide and how, murders they’d heard of, and the most gory details of accidental deaths. When the oldest and kindest of us suggested torturing himself to death on YouTube in the name of peace, love, and understanding, we collectively agreed it was time to call it a night. 

Again, Scott provided some closing sentiments saying that again, we may have come up with some more ideas about what not to do, but that was again progress. However, we had explored the subjects well by being both serious and humorous, and that it was a big topic too important not to explore in depth. He said that he hoped most of us would come back with some definite suggestions for what one might do so that the group could provide a critique and develop some ideas on how to proceed.  With that, this strange – but not sad – little group went back to our lives, or what was left of them.

When I got back to my life, or what was left of it, I realized that the loving families I’d been a part of were gone. My childhood home with a mom and dad, a brother and sister, a dog and cat, and lots of love was gone. My parents and the pets had died and my brother and sister were off to their other families on the other side of the world. The family home I’d made with my wife, our kids, the dog (no cat) was also gone. The dog (no cat) had died, the kids were off to college and careers, and my wife and I had run out of things to say. Occasionally, I had the thought that you can’t whip cheese, if you know what I mean.

I contemplated all the ideas that had been discussed amongst the Friends of Marty R. and I came to the conclusion that if there was a profound one in there amongst the persiflage it was to be splashy, bold, and put your panache on steroids. I decided that to die for a cause, as had been discussed, maximum drama was required. Thich Quang Durc had succeeded, and I would too. History required histrionics, so I made a plan.

First, I wrote letters to my wife telling her how much I loved her, how proud I was of her, and a few comments about the good old days. I wrote letters to my kids telling them how much I loved them, how proud I was of them, and a few comments about the good old days and the better new days to come. Next, I wrote a letter to all my friends and family about my cancer, the terminal diagnosis, and my decision to do something, if not with my life, then with my death. Then, I wrote a statement for the media, really for the world, about what I thought was important and that I was dying for that cause in the hope that others would look at their own lives, share my concerns, and do something about it. Finally, I wrote a note to the friends of Marty R., thanking them for the inspiration and hoping that they would all succeed in their endeavours to make a difference.

What was important? Kindness. If people could just be kind, and think about the fact that we are all of the same kind, then so many of the world’s troubles might be solved. But in my statement, it wasn’t that simple. I went on about the looming doom of climate change, the scourge of hatred, fundamentalism, and inequality. I railed against corporatocracy, warfare, pollution, and all your basic global disasters-in-the-making. And if kindness tempered glamor, greed, and getting ahead, then people would slow down, want less, and curb their enthusiasm for spewing waste into the void. It was a manifesto for the ages, and it exploded out of me like a love bomb of rationality. When I sent it to all the various news agencies, I said that I wasn’t some Unabomber, terrorist, or misanthrope, but would do what I did for humanity. Ah humanity…

Getting a hang glider and a can of gasoline up to the top of the Eiffel Tower was tricky. It took a couple trips, lots of subterfuge, and some ingenious gadgetry. I had some confederates and lots of luck. What really rocked was blocking the access of security personnel so I had time to stand at the very top for a while to gather the attention of the world. 

I’d primed news companies with threats of an incident in some world capital, and at the right moment revealed Paris and the Eiffel Tower as the site of my coup de grace. I’d succeeded in getting set up completely before triggering almost instant viral attention with a few posts, tweets, and the live stream from my own GoPro. I stood up there for a half an hour and suddenly was surrounded by camera drones with news helicopters closing in.

At 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon with the world watching from the ground, on TV, and throughout the internet, I spread the folded wings of my precision hang glider and took one giant leap for mankind. At first I dove, then I soared out toward the large lawn next to the Eiffel Tower. I floated for ten seconds, then pushed the button which ignited my gasoline saturated flight suit. As I erupted in flames I thought I could hear the gasp of the crowd. The pain was immediate and excruciating and glorious, but all I could do was become a bright fireball of love and kindness plummeting to earth. 

Then I woke up. I put on my slippers, waddled into the bathroom to take a pee, then into the kitchen where my wife had made me a cup of coffee. Did I see a fireball splashing into it? I said, “Sweetie, now that the kids are gone, if I get cancer or something, can we go start an orphanage in Africa, or something like that?”

She smiled and said, “OK.”