They call it Mabon in the Old Religion, aka Autumnal Equinox in the Latin updated postpagan cooptation, or the First Day of Fall in good old Amerikan. Whichever way you slice it, something is Turning. I'm told that Yom Kippur, at least in part, is about turning away from something and toward toward something else. People ritually look at what is left behind and what is ahead. So I'm told.
At this point in my life, it's important for me to take stock, assess the damage, and prepare to move forward and make the same mistakes all over again. I figure you can either have the life you want (cake) or share it with someone (eat it). It's at times like this that I like to stop and take a moment to defoliate the roses.
To celebrate the Turning of the Seasons, Gven Golly and I floated the blue canoe out on Hoover Reservoir for the last couple of hours of daylight, paddled across to the east shore, up to the Sunbury Road bridge, and back down the west shore. Almost no wind and not much boat activity, a couple of pontoon boats, a small sailboat, and a few little motorboats making a mild wake. When it got dark, we went to Old Bag of Nails for a Guinness and some fish and chips.
Up to that point, it was a cloudless late summer day in the back yard working with terra cotta tiles, re-doing the walkway that leads from the gate to the patio. The patio itself is finished, at least for this year, but the walkway was in bad shape.
It was the day of the Michigan game in ought-three that I bent the formerly straight walkway to angle in toward the middle of the patio so it would be more like entering a room. My craftsmanship was somewhat less than permanent, so here I am again, shoring up the sides, smoothing out the sand and gravel, placing earthen pavers about the size of a brick but thinner a little tighter and a little flatter - for a while.
We didn't have the bonfire I'd had in mind, and we didn't drink mead and dance and drum. I did remember to plant four bulbs in a little planter box to see if they bloom. Then I planted several tiny garlic cloves in the garden under the moonlight, hoping some kind of magic happens and plants come up next spring. It's all pretty unsystematic, so who knows.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Winterizing
It's not a rational thing at all, like checking things off a to-do list. It's more like a Jack London tribal wheel turning in the base of my skull and making me put on wool socks. Like a goose flying south, all it takes is a little nip in the air for me to hunker down, prepare my cave for winter, and start laying in the firewood. That's not quite true. It takes a village, or at least a neighbor who has a tree service come and take down a big silver maple in their back yard so I can pick up the pieces.
We woke up to the sound of chainsaws on Labor Day, and their giant chipper was right there, and I didn't want to see good firewood turned into mulch, so I asked the boss, and he said, "Take what you want," so I made several trips across the street with the wheelbarrow with whatever I could lift. I figure it's around a cord. Now, will it dry in time to burn this winter, or will it have to wait until next year?
A few days later, my friend Jim spotted a pile of cut-down trees while running in the the woods near the Sanctified Brethren campus. Being a stand-up guy, Jim went to the source and asked the college grounds crew if those trees were spoken for, and they said, "Take what you want," so Jim led me to the spot and we loaded whatever we could lift in the truck. I figure it's another cord or so.
One thing leads to another. I didn't take the truck to Michigan, because Gven's car gets better mileage, and I saved about a tank of gas by driving her Accord. But as luck would have it, the truck got a flat right-front tire my first day back, and long story short, I went tire shopping the following Saturday. Discount Tire on route 23 had a good deal, so I had them replace both front tires in time to go home and listen to the football game on the radio.
In the meantime, I had an hour to kill, so I walked across route 23 to Meijer, where I'd heard they have Converse All-Stars, and my old ones are falling apart. To my surprise, they had black high-tops in my size (25 percent off!), so I decided to replace both shoes at once. I know, last of the big spenders.
That little episode made me think about the fall of 1975, when I was living in the Upper Peninsula and my beloved, neglected 1966 Mustang was breaking down. I drove it to the shop in Marquette, but because I was short on cash, I decided not to have the work done and bought a new pair of Chuck Taylors instead. Watershed moment. The Mustang sat outside the cabin in Deerton all winter while I hitched rides to and from Marquette. I sold the Mustang to a student the following spring just before hitching to Georgia.
But I digress. I've been breaking in the new Chucks this weekend, but this morning's primitive sense memory said, "Wear boots," so I put on the old brown Rockports I got at Galyan's (50 percent off!) with a gift certificate given me by a group of dear students. They looked pretty sad this morning - the boots, not the students - so I cleaned them up with saddle soap and rubbed neatsfoot oil into every crease, crack, and seam. Now they're as good as new - better in fact - and I have no doubt they will get me through another winter.
We woke up to the sound of chainsaws on Labor Day, and their giant chipper was right there, and I didn't want to see good firewood turned into mulch, so I asked the boss, and he said, "Take what you want," so I made several trips across the street with the wheelbarrow with whatever I could lift. I figure it's around a cord. Now, will it dry in time to burn this winter, or will it have to wait until next year?
A few days later, my friend Jim spotted a pile of cut-down trees while running in the the woods near the Sanctified Brethren campus. Being a stand-up guy, Jim went to the source and asked the college grounds crew if those trees were spoken for, and they said, "Take what you want," so Jim led me to the spot and we loaded whatever we could lift in the truck. I figure it's another cord or so.
One thing leads to another. I didn't take the truck to Michigan, because Gven's car gets better mileage, and I saved about a tank of gas by driving her Accord. But as luck would have it, the truck got a flat right-front tire my first day back, and long story short, I went tire shopping the following Saturday. Discount Tire on route 23 had a good deal, so I had them replace both front tires in time to go home and listen to the football game on the radio.
In the meantime, I had an hour to kill, so I walked across route 23 to Meijer, where I'd heard they have Converse All-Stars, and my old ones are falling apart. To my surprise, they had black high-tops in my size (25 percent off!), so I decided to replace both shoes at once. I know, last of the big spenders.
That little episode made me think about the fall of 1975, when I was living in the Upper Peninsula and my beloved, neglected 1966 Mustang was breaking down. I drove it to the shop in Marquette, but because I was short on cash, I decided not to have the work done and bought a new pair of Chuck Taylors instead. Watershed moment. The Mustang sat outside the cabin in Deerton all winter while I hitched rides to and from Marquette. I sold the Mustang to a student the following spring just before hitching to Georgia.
But I digress. I've been breaking in the new Chucks this weekend, but this morning's primitive sense memory said, "Wear boots," so I put on the old brown Rockports I got at Galyan's (50 percent off!) with a gift certificate given me by a group of dear students. They looked pretty sad this morning - the boots, not the students - so I cleaned them up with saddle soap and rubbed neatsfoot oil into every crease, crack, and seam. Now they're as good as new - better in fact - and I have no doubt they will get me through another winter.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
That's the subtitle. The title is The Diamond Age. It's my first exposure to Neal Stephenson's work. I think it was the dialog that first hooked me in this book.
The violence didn't shock me too much, although it wasn't what I'd expected. The nanotechnological future, like any good science fiction, seemed plausible enough to at least see where it was leading. But I need character(s), and Stephenson is very good with character(s). The engineer Hackworth and his boss, the Equity Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, seem to hit it off despite their different stations in life, and they develop a quasi-business relationship that sets in motion some far-reaching effects having to do with a new kind of book.
The new kind of book Hackworth has designed is stolen by street thugs who don't know the value of such things, so it falls into the hands of the younger sister of one of the abused urchins, a girl named Nell. And a couple hundred pages went by without marking any particularly illuminating passages, probably because I was getting to know Nell and her unfortunate brother Harv, her school friends Fiona and Elizabeth, their sadistic teacher Miss Stricken, the workings of Castle Turing, the professional ractor and narrative catalyst Miranda, and her brilliant agent Carl Hollywood, not to mention the venerable Judge Chang and his adversary Dr. X!
Touche. If this novel has a weakness (and it does), it is that too many of the characters appear and disappear, never to be heard from again. Too much like real life. I'd like to know what became of them after they served their narrative purpose in helping propel the heroine Nell forward in her quest, but that's because I'm an old-fashioned romantic in the postmodern landscape of the Coastal Territories under seige by the Harmonious Fists of the Celestial Kingdom. So there are discontinuities, but it's worth it for the ride.
Needless to say, the wild comic adventure story is also thought-provoking and worrisome, if you think about the shifting economic powers that are jockeying for dominance in Asia, Europe, and Anglo-America. I think I'll read either Snow Crash or The Big U next and see how they compare.
"Well done, Hackworth! But must know that the model to which you allude did not long survive the first Victoria."
"We have outgrown much of the ignorance and resolved many of the internal contradictions that characterised that era."
"Have we, then? How reassuring. And have we resolved them in a way that will ensure that all of those children down there live intresting lives?"
"I must confess that I am too slow to follow you."
"You yourself said that the engineers in the Bespoke department - the very best - had led interesting lives, rather than coming from the straight and narrow. Which implies a correlation, does it not?"
"Clearly."
"This implies, does it not, that in order to raise a generation of children who can reach their full potential, we must find a way to make their lives interesting. And the question I have for you, Mr. Hackworth, is this: Do you think that our schools accomplish that? (Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, NY: Bantam, 1995, p. 20)
The violence didn't shock me too much, although it wasn't what I'd expected. The nanotechnological future, like any good science fiction, seemed plausible enough to at least see where it was leading. But I need character(s), and Stephenson is very good with character(s). The engineer Hackworth and his boss, the Equity Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, seem to hit it off despite their different stations in life, and they develop a quasi-business relationship that sets in motion some far-reaching effects having to do with a new kind of book.
The new kind of book Hackworth has designed is stolen by street thugs who don't know the value of such things, so it falls into the hands of the younger sister of one of the abused urchins, a girl named Nell. And a couple hundred pages went by without marking any particularly illuminating passages, probably because I was getting to know Nell and her unfortunate brother Harv, her school friends Fiona and Elizabeth, their sadistic teacher Miss Stricken, the workings of Castle Turing, the professional ractor and narrative catalyst Miranda, and her brilliant agent Carl Hollywood, not to mention the venerable Judge Chang and his adversary Dr. X!
"The Vickys have an elaborate code of morals and conduct. It grew out of the moral squalor of an earlier generation, just as the original Victorians were preceded by the Georgians and the Regency. The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code - but their children believe it for entirely different reasons."
"They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it."
"Yes. Some of them never challenge it - they grow up to be small-minded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillussioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel - as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw."
"Which path do you intend to take, Nell?" said the Constable, sounding very interested. "Conformity of rebellion?"
"Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity."
(Stephenson, p. 323)
Touche. If this novel has a weakness (and it does), it is that too many of the characters appear and disappear, never to be heard from again. Too much like real life. I'd like to know what became of them after they served their narrative purpose in helping propel the heroine Nell forward in her quest, but that's because I'm an old-fashioned romantic in the postmodern landscape of the Coastal Territories under seige by the Harmonious Fists of the Celestial Kingdom. So there are discontinuities, but it's worth it for the ride.
"Are you of it? Or just in it?" the Clown said, and looked at Hackworth expectantly.
As soon as Hackworth had realized, quite some time ago, that this Dramatis Personae thing was going to be some kind of participatory theatre, he had been dreading this moment: his first cue. "Please excuse me," he said in a tense and not altogether steady voice, "this is not my milieu."
"That's for damn fucking sure," said the Clown. "Put these on," he continued, taking something out of his pocket.... Hackworth realized that the clown was mechanical. "Put 'em on and be yourself, mister alienated loner steppernwolf bemused distant meta-izing technocrat rationalist fucking shithead."
(Stephenson, p. 379)
Needless to say, the wild comic adventure story is also thought-provoking and worrisome, if you think about the shifting economic powers that are jockeying for dominance in Asia, Europe, and Anglo-America. I think I'll read either Snow Crash or The Big U next and see how they compare.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Michigan seems like a dream to me now
"It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, I've gone to look for America." (Paul Simon, Bookends) Whatever you picture ahead of time, it will turn out to be something different, so I'm not sure what to expect. My friend Jonathan used to say it's best to expect the worst, then you won't be disappointed. Yet somehow the mind conjures images of what it wants to happen.
My parents bought a small lot in a kind of recreational/residential development in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. This was back in the early eighties, when they still lived in Detroit. We went up there with them to go cross-country skiing once before we had kids. Mom and Dad like it where they are in Tennessee and haven't looked back. So there's this plot of land that might be useful to someone, and I'm curious.
I loaded a backpack, a tent, a sleeping bag, a bike, and a bag of food in Gven Golly's Honda and drove north on Friday morning. Past Delaware, Marion, Findlay, Perrysburg, Toledo, Blissfield, Milan, Ypsilanti, South Lyon, Brighton. It started to rain as I ate lunch at the rest stop off US-23 outside Fenton. Past Flint, Saginaw, the Zilwaukee Bridge, Pinconning, West Branch, Houghton Lake, Higgins Lake, Roscommon, Grayling, and off I-75 at Waters.
The weather changes drastically en route, from warm to hot to overcast to wind to rain to downpour to clear to cool and back to warm. The landscape changes from flat farmland to rolling hills to industrial cities to wooded marsh to pine forest to swamp to wooded hills to sandy ridges with lots of smooth stones.
I find the development and go directly to Lot 1000. It has grown up some since I was last here, with bigger trees and more groundcover. There are a few maples, some wild cherry, and lots of poplars. There is a neighbor on the left with a house, garage, driveway, and toolshed. On the way in I saw a few log cabins, A-frames, ranch houses, and faux chalets widely spaced along the three or four paved main roads and branching gravel roads. I threaded my way up to the campground and picked a site under some trees. The forecast called for storms and high winds, and it started to rain while I was setting up the tent, but nothing much got wet. I ate some rice and beans, read a little, and slept reasonably well on the ground.
"Pass me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat. We smoked the last one an hour ago."
Saturday morning I looked at some maps and planned my itinerary: check out Lake Harold, the clubhouse, the riding stable, the sales office; find out about property lines and building restrictions; get the lay of the land. The folks at the sales office/airstrip were friendly and helpful. A small plane took off while I was there. Armed with more maps, I settled in at the golf course restaurant with a veggie omelet and coffee to fortify me for a day of exploring. Golfers coming in for lunch watched the Michigan State game on the tube. I'm hearing the Michigan accent and feeling the temperature change on a cool, clear day. I'm taking in the landscape of logged-over plains where you can see hundreds of stump remains from turn-of-the-century giants.
"So we bought a pack of cigarettes, she read her magazine, and the moon rose over an open field."
Pencil Lake was a major bright spot. Completely surrounded by woods, it has a few houses near it but none right on it. There is a tiny beach, and no one was there, so I went for a swim. The water was clean, the bottom was sandy, and there's a little raft you can swim out to. Nice. Off to the side is a little cove with a boat launch, but no motors, only rowboats and canoes. I like this place, but it's two miles from Lot 1000, so I wonder: would we use it?
Feeling refreshed, I return to the campground and go for a bike ride while it's still light out. The hills are moderate enough for easy cycling, and if you go out Pencil Lake Road and take a left, you go up a hill to the Winter Sports place, where they have cross-country ski trails and an ice skating rink. But would we go there in the winter?
This time I built a fire at my campsite, so I had something to do in the evening besides eat and read. No rain tonight, but I happened to look up between the trees and saw about a million stars. No kidding, the sky was full of stars. Okay, I probably don't get out of town enough, so the night sky up north was really amazing, and just looking up for half an hour, seeing the Milky Way encircle the Earth, was worth the trip.
The ride back to Ohio on Sunday was an emotional roller-coaster. I'd accomplished about all I could for the time being, but I hadn't reached any conclusions. I found a great spot for a workout, however, under a beautiful scotch pine at a rest stop off I-75. I took the M-14 exit into Ann Arbor on a lark and meandered down State Street until I found a parking place by Pizza Bob's. (It's still there!) Fearing my bike would be stolen if I left it on the car, I decided to ride around instead of walk around: east on Hill, north on Forest, east on South University, north on Walnut, and east on Geddes to the Arboretum, where I locked it and walked a little. Then north on Observtory, west on Ann, north on Ingalls, and west on Kingsley, where I found my old house (which is now a coop), south on Thayer to the Bell Tower Hotel, where I used to work (still there but now very upscale), and around the corner to Moe's Sport Shop, where I also worked for a while. (Bud Sr. wasn't there, but Bud Jr. was, and I bought a baseball cap.)
I probably should have gotten coffee before leaving town, because the next hundred miles took me through the melancholy of missed opportunities and things left undone in the distant past before I left Ann Arbor for the UP and left the UP for Georgia, when everything changed. So I stopped for some really really bad coffee in Findlay, and things (that is, my attitude) got better as soon as I turned off the main highway to go south on route 68 through Dunkirk, Kenton, and Bellefontaine, listening to Jessi's mix tape, including "Frozen Lake" and other songs of hope and possibility through shared action.
It only took two tanks of gas, and I saw a lot in a couple of days, but I still don't know if it makes rational sense to maintain a place in Michigan. At least now I have some firsthand data and a bunch of smooth stones on which to base my indecision.
My parents bought a small lot in a kind of recreational/residential development in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. This was back in the early eighties, when they still lived in Detroit. We went up there with them to go cross-country skiing once before we had kids. Mom and Dad like it where they are in Tennessee and haven't looked back. So there's this plot of land that might be useful to someone, and I'm curious.
I loaded a backpack, a tent, a sleeping bag, a bike, and a bag of food in Gven Golly's Honda and drove north on Friday morning. Past Delaware, Marion, Findlay, Perrysburg, Toledo, Blissfield, Milan, Ypsilanti, South Lyon, Brighton. It started to rain as I ate lunch at the rest stop off US-23 outside Fenton. Past Flint, Saginaw, the Zilwaukee Bridge, Pinconning, West Branch, Houghton Lake, Higgins Lake, Roscommon, Grayling, and off I-75 at Waters.
The weather changes drastically en route, from warm to hot to overcast to wind to rain to downpour to clear to cool and back to warm. The landscape changes from flat farmland to rolling hills to industrial cities to wooded marsh to pine forest to swamp to wooded hills to sandy ridges with lots of smooth stones.
I find the development and go directly to Lot 1000. It has grown up some since I was last here, with bigger trees and more groundcover. There are a few maples, some wild cherry, and lots of poplars. There is a neighbor on the left with a house, garage, driveway, and toolshed. On the way in I saw a few log cabins, A-frames, ranch houses, and faux chalets widely spaced along the three or four paved main roads and branching gravel roads. I threaded my way up to the campground and picked a site under some trees. The forecast called for storms and high winds, and it started to rain while I was setting up the tent, but nothing much got wet. I ate some rice and beans, read a little, and slept reasonably well on the ground.
"Pass me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat. We smoked the last one an hour ago."
Saturday morning I looked at some maps and planned my itinerary: check out Lake Harold, the clubhouse, the riding stable, the sales office; find out about property lines and building restrictions; get the lay of the land. The folks at the sales office/airstrip were friendly and helpful. A small plane took off while I was there. Armed with more maps, I settled in at the golf course restaurant with a veggie omelet and coffee to fortify me for a day of exploring. Golfers coming in for lunch watched the Michigan State game on the tube. I'm hearing the Michigan accent and feeling the temperature change on a cool, clear day. I'm taking in the landscape of logged-over plains where you can see hundreds of stump remains from turn-of-the-century giants.
"So we bought a pack of cigarettes, she read her magazine, and the moon rose over an open field."
Pencil Lake was a major bright spot. Completely surrounded by woods, it has a few houses near it but none right on it. There is a tiny beach, and no one was there, so I went for a swim. The water was clean, the bottom was sandy, and there's a little raft you can swim out to. Nice. Off to the side is a little cove with a boat launch, but no motors, only rowboats and canoes. I like this place, but it's two miles from Lot 1000, so I wonder: would we use it?
Feeling refreshed, I return to the campground and go for a bike ride while it's still light out. The hills are moderate enough for easy cycling, and if you go out Pencil Lake Road and take a left, you go up a hill to the Winter Sports place, where they have cross-country ski trails and an ice skating rink. But would we go there in the winter?
This time I built a fire at my campsite, so I had something to do in the evening besides eat and read. No rain tonight, but I happened to look up between the trees and saw about a million stars. No kidding, the sky was full of stars. Okay, I probably don't get out of town enough, so the night sky up north was really amazing, and just looking up for half an hour, seeing the Milky Way encircle the Earth, was worth the trip.
The ride back to Ohio on Sunday was an emotional roller-coaster. I'd accomplished about all I could for the time being, but I hadn't reached any conclusions. I found a great spot for a workout, however, under a beautiful scotch pine at a rest stop off I-75. I took the M-14 exit into Ann Arbor on a lark and meandered down State Street until I found a parking place by Pizza Bob's. (It's still there!) Fearing my bike would be stolen if I left it on the car, I decided to ride around instead of walk around: east on Hill, north on Forest, east on South University, north on Walnut, and east on Geddes to the Arboretum, where I locked it and walked a little. Then north on Observtory, west on Ann, north on Ingalls, and west on Kingsley, where I found my old house (which is now a coop), south on Thayer to the Bell Tower Hotel, where I used to work (still there but now very upscale), and around the corner to Moe's Sport Shop, where I also worked for a while. (Bud Sr. wasn't there, but Bud Jr. was, and I bought a baseball cap.)
I probably should have gotten coffee before leaving town, because the next hundred miles took me through the melancholy of missed opportunities and things left undone in the distant past before I left Ann Arbor for the UP and left the UP for Georgia, when everything changed. So I stopped for some really really bad coffee in Findlay, and things (that is, my attitude) got better as soon as I turned off the main highway to go south on route 68 through Dunkirk, Kenton, and Bellefontaine, listening to Jessi's mix tape, including "Frozen Lake" and other songs of hope and possibility through shared action.
It only took two tanks of gas, and I saw a lot in a couple of days, but I still don't know if it makes rational sense to maintain a place in Michigan. At least now I have some firsthand data and a bunch of smooth stones on which to base my indecision.
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