What I Wish For

·   World peace.  Sure.  Why not?
·   The effect of whiskey without the cost.
·   That Rush would write good songs again.
·   A year’s supply of Mexican Coke.
·   The Second Coming of Jesus or the Mahdi.
·   The return of the guillotine.
·   The  violent, excruciating death of Mullah Omar, Robert Mugabe, and Kim Jong Il.
·   A completely wireless society...I'm talking no wires whatsoever for any electrical devices.
·   A final battle royale between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil (the victor pending which side I happen to be on).
·   Another Neil Sedaka comeback.
·   The cessation of movies about vampires.
·   More movies about zombies.
·   An additional October each year.
·   A different word for "peanuts."

The Big Trees

I took a trip to the coastal area of Northern California with two friends to see Redwood giants.  Johannes and I arrived at the San Francisco Airport on a Saturday, briefly awaited Marcus who was coming in on a different airline, jumped into a white Dodge Charger, and headed across the Golden Gate Bridge for an adventure.  The bulk of our ten-day trip involved exploration of the virescent landscapes between Crescent City and Eureka—a region, I might add, that was once the stuff of my boyhood dreams.  I hate cliché phrases, but the photos we’ve seen of the redwoods do not capture the awe they inspire when you're actually standing in their presence.

We didn’t  waste much time on our first full day looking for the famed Grove of Titans, a location that redwood enthusiasts have tried to keep a secret through deception and misleading information.  I won’t reveal the spot out of respect for Johannes's source who graciously sent us vital information about the Grove and other tips as well.  However, I must admit that while I understand the desire to protect these august creatures from rapacious tourists, I think this secrecy is a bit silly and elitist.  When you come across these quiescent towers, you're instantly struck not only by the wall of wood and your diminution but the expanse of time.  The grove consists of five titans: the Lost Monarch, the Screaming Titan, El Viello Del Norte, the Fused Titan, and what became our favorite, Del Norte.

We'd end up seeing plenty of other titans and almost-titans in places like Tall Trees Grove and Rockefeller Grove at the Upper Bull Creek Flat.  The redwoods, I should add, formed only a part of our overall experience, but they were clearly the main attraction and are principal reason for the trip.  We also took trails along the coastline, visited Calveras Big Tree State Park about 400 miles to the southeast, and, on the penultimate day of our trip, walked through Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.  I hope to write about our adventures in Northern California at great length when time permits.  I've only skimmed the surface.  It's a tale not only of unsurpassed beauty and serenity, but one of scandal and mischief as well.  :)

Summer Activities

As we approach the official start of summer in a few days, I should explain that my attention to this blog will be rather hit and miss throughout the season.  I hate to disappoint the tens of thousands of devoted readers, but I’ll be back in full force in the fall.  Why am I taking some time off from blogging, you ask?  I’ll be embarking on a ten-day trip to Northern California to see the Redwoods and Sequoias with a couple of friends, Johannes and Marcus. On the heels of this pleasant junket I’ll have my two-week annual training for the military, which for this year happens to be at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.  I'll be teaching an online course somehow throughout these trips.   Meanwhile, I have to write a couple of book reviews for a scholarly journal, one on the origins of the Thirty Years War and the other on the 16th-century Protestant reformer Martin Bucer.  A number of changes will be occurring this fall for me, so I hope to get a head start in preparing for them later this summer.  For instance, I’ll be juggling a few classes for Hexington College and the University of Mantua and plan to finalize my syllabi by the middle of August. (The reader will again note that these colleges are pseudonyms.)

Finally, I will be undergoing rigorous and sustained therapy—emotional, mental, spiritual, and telepathic—this August at the Melchior Center for Relaxation and Healing in Green Gate, Minneapolis.  Of all my summer activities I’m probably looking most forward to this experience. They say that you leave Melchior a different person than the poor wretch who showed up three weeks earlier. You basically get a mental makeover.  They return you to your family with a vastly improved personality, a brand new temperament, and a completely different worldview.  I’m already enrolled in a full “semester” of courses: Anger Management 101, Coping Mechanisms 130, and Road Rage Decision and Risk Analysis 310.  I was able to get into the last one, an upper-division class, because I’ve repeatedly taken the basic survey course elsewhere.  Also, lest I forget, I’m enrolled in an elective course entitled “I Like Me.”  Throughout the three weeks, the inmates take plenty of nature hikes and get sufficient nap time. I’m told there’s a coffee shop on the second floor of the impressive facilities.   An interesting detail that I gleaned from Melchoir's promotional brochure is that the headquarters building was originally greyish blue, but the management had  it painted brown because some of their more disturbed patients, upon arrival, have the habit of splattering their feces on the walls.  I won't do this, for my issues are relatively mild.  Anyway, put all of these things together, including the free bag of Cheetos you get just for signing up, and you can see why I’m looking forward to August.

Man in a House

The man lived alone in a house at the end of the street.  Nobody knows why he no longer left his residence after one summer day—nobody except for him perhaps.  He seemed to be like everyone else, going to work in the morning and returning home by the late afternoon.  Years ago, he had a flower garden along the stone walkway leading from the side yard to his front door.  Now it’s an embankment of dirt and weeds.  On occasion one might have seen him fetching the paper in the front yard or loading up his car in the driveway, but he would never fail to water his petunias and marigolds.  In more recent times the man appeared to barricade himself inside his house.  That’s how it seemed to outside observers at least.  Really, he was slowly suffocating himself, though he didn’t intend his actions to lead to his demise.  First, he simply closed his doors and windows and never opened them again.  After weeks of looking out his windows, staring into nothingness, he closed the curtains and dropped the blinds.  He used sealant to block out the world beyond his porch.  The mail stacked up, his oatmeal ran out, the air became stale, the sun no longer broke through, and one day he died.

Days

Today marks yet another day of life. These 24-hour segments of time seem to fall in upon the other in linear fashion, as if they they’re ultimately leading to a climax, a denouement, an “end of days.” My ultimate demise, I suspect, will be rather anticlimactic, just another drop in the bucket.  In the meantime, I try to fill these aforementioned days with interesting activities: sleeping, eating, raising progeny, working the body, and making money.  Homo sapiens have a sweet gig, no?

While autumn is my favorite season of the year, spring of course has much to recommend it.  In my neck of the woods, though, there’s a small window of opportunity to enjoy the season before humidity and insects ruin it.  Today I went for a six-mile run at a park.  Whereas in the previous week I delighted in the visual feast of bright yellow dandelions adorning a virescent carpet of verdure, I now see overgrown, unkempt weeds on ugly, fading grass.  How quickly things can change.  Life is so ephemeral, and the days seem to flitter away like those white clusters of dandelion seeds searching for a home.

My Uncle Zak

My uncle Zak taught me how to fish and tie knots when I was a boy.  He always had a gleam in his eye and never failed to bring toys or candy for me and my sisters whenever he visited.  I suppose his "small town" background had much to do with my uncle's warm heart and generous spirit.  You might say that I had the good fortune of growing up in a "Mayberry" type  of environment.  Just good folk living in rural simplicity.  I remember seeing photos of my dad and his siblings as teenagers at the local malt shop and longing for those more innocent times.  Unfortunately, Uncle Zak died accidentally a few months ago during an elaborate attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong.  They found him in women's panties dangling from the ceiling by an intricate series of leather straps, like a denuded marionette discarded in a closet.  I don't know all the details, and I don't care to know them.   Yet I was surprised that good ole Uncle Zak had the strength and wherewithal to rig himself up in this way given his severely scarred arm, the result of an injury he incurred when the meth lab in his garage accidentally blew up.  We never know when our time's gonna come.

Black Beret from Hell

As a soldier boy, I have good news to report. Really, really good news. No, we’re not withdrawing from Iraq or winding down in Afghanistan. No, we have not dissolved the “military-industrial complex” and thus freed up our economy for less taxes and more social programs. No, the War on Terror hasn’t ceased.  Stop it!  None of that crap.  Even better.  I’m here to report that as of today, June 11, the Army has discontinued the black felt beret as the required headgear for the Army combat uniform. Instead, we can wear the patrol cap, which heretofore had been restricted to combat and training operations. As of three months ago we have a new sergeant major of the Army, Raymond Chandler III, who took to heart the voice of the common soldier and made the recommendation to the Army Chief of Staff.  I must say, I was ahead of my time, for last week during what we in the Army Reserve call Battle Assembly I was the only soldier wearing the patrol cap during the company formation.  As an officer I was trying to lead by example.  Didn’t want to brag, but….

I hated that frickin’ thing when they issued it to me in the later stage of basic training. We had to shave the fuzz off it, cut out the cardboard part, make the proper crease, wear it in the shower, sleep in it, talk to it, et alia. I even saw confused soldiers have sex with it during field training exercises. I gave serious thought to it, but in the end I kept things platonic. I found the beret less useful as a lover and better spent as a puke bag whenever I'd find myself drunk out of my gourd from too much Army whiskey at house parties.

The Army says the new policy will save money, because they had been issuing two berets to new soldiers. Now they issue only one, for a beret is still required for the dress uniform. But how about the saving of time, huh? I bet that if you added up all of the minutes that soldiers took to straighten their beret when stepping outside (for headgear is required outside when in uniform), it would equal…let’s see. Let me do the math. The black beret was required for every soldier for the last ten years (not coincidentally around the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal) and there has been zillions of soldiers. I’m calculating… So, basically we would have saved about 25 years of time. 25 years! Imagine that! That’s a frickin’ generation! We could have fought some good wars during that time, squeezing one in with, say, Iran and maybe China too.  Damn.  Now that I think about it, the discontinuance of the black beret might usher in World War III sooner than later.  Hopefully, the military will find other ways to use all of this extra time that soldiers had previously spent in adjusting their frickin' beret.  My two cents?  They should introduce black felt underwear, for it would offer better stealth for nighttime operations.