Miner Indiscretions

The image suggested by the following words from a novel I'm  reading underscores a theory that a good writer is similar to a painter.  The author wrote in part, 

"He searches for indiscretions like a miner panning for gold." 

I haven't heard from Rollo in years.  The last I'd talked to him is on the front lawn at my Amish friends farm. He's picking up chicken's he ordered from the Amish.  The conversation is polite.  It goes nowhere. I'm appalled when he previously  mentioned flirting with one of the Patriarch's daughters as he sat in their kitchen enjoying conversation and coffee.  I apologize to the Patriarch for introducing Rollo to the Amish.  Ever one to be networking,  I introduce him to the Patriarch. Rollo is looking for a source for organic meat.  He considers himself to be a gourmet chef. 

Actually, Rollo is a musician.  He plays gigs with his wife in small town bars and local dives.  He drinks too much, has an inflated view of himself and is often lonely and depressed.  When you talk to him , you notice his head  visibly trembles either from excessive drinking or an early onset of Parkinson's disease.  He's not that old.

Always one to latch on to oddball people, I accompany him on a journey to a forgotten destination.  As we pass by a farm on County Highway P, he points out a sign in the front yard.  The owner of the farm has copied the ten commandments on a signboard, hoping to impress passers-by with her piety. Rollo recounts  stopping at the farm. He walks up to the woman who owns the place.  She's raking leaves.  He goes on a diatribe hollering at her,

"If you really believed in the ten commandments you'd be better off putting up a sign to end the war in Iraq."

The sign remains.  No sign to end the war in Iraq or Afghanistan follows.  Rollo succeeded in impressing someone, like myself, of his terminal craziness.

Mountain Man Johann used to live in a cabin on the property adjacent to Rollo.  MMJ tells me Rollo came over on the weekend instructing him,

"It is Sunday. I want it quiet.  Do not play loud music, entertain noisy friends or disturb my peace."

Rollo told me that when he saw a carload of Jehovah's Witnesses drive down his road, he forced them to turn around and hurriedly exit when he ran toward them cursing and shouting in a loud voice. Opinionated, loud, brash and egotistical are his better qualities.

As I write this I wonder who's the miner, myself or Rollo?      

Madison Briefs

Yesterday, we drove down highway 14 to the state capitol.  The hour and a half trip winds through a number of small towns like Spring Green , near Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin home called Taliesin, a Welsh word for shining brow.  FLW is best known for his Prairie style of architecture. If you live in a ranch style home, thank or curse  FLW . Arena, Black Earth, Mazomanie and Cross Plains are the other whistle stop towns with two stop lights, a cheese factory or bait and liquor stores, car dealerships and farm implement dealers.My youngest came for a visit from Phoenix and brought her husband.  It's been years since I've seen them.  We lunched at the Great Dane on Fish Hatchery Road and went to my favorite Asian grocery store.  It's called Yue-Wah. They specialize in  food from the Middle East, all over Asia and Mexico.  Five pounds of Jasmine brown rice sells for $2.69, for example.  It's the only place I can find Thai coffee.  This morning, I doubled the amount of water so that the coffee laced with sugar( I use honey) didn't pour like molasses. My daughter's husband stuck a pound can of Arabic coffee in my paw as we stood outside the grocery store rummaging around in our bags like kids with Halloween candy.

That's my son reflected in the window of a store on State street. He's the one who had heart surgery three, maybe four weeks ago. It's something I'm trying to forget, but great to see him with his new main squeeze, a terrific woman and friend of my daughter.  She's a night duty nurse in a Phoenix hospital working brutal 12-14 hour shifts.  They seem well suited for each other and as a Dad, I'm hoping she doesn't break his heart ( no humor in that statement).

State Street is partially closed to vehicular traffic and runs from the capitol rotunda to Bascom Hill on the opposite end.  The street is packed with pedestrians. The woman staffing the information booth tells me this is normal when the Saturday football game is out of town.  If you put a dime in a meter off State Street, it buys your four minutes.  Across from our parking space on a side street, there's a restaurant called Fugu. My daughter's husband who's Hispanic says, "We won't be eating there if the place is true to it's name." I don't ask how he knows that Fugu is the art of preparing and cooking a poisonous blow fish.

Traveling to Madison reminds me how culturally deprived I am living in this area.  I live for the peace, serenity and natural beauty, but sometimes I dearly miss being able to eat breakfast upstairs at the Sunroom where I first was introduced to a Depth Charge (coffee with a shot of espresso). It's mid-November in Wisconsin, mind you, and the outdoor seating area of the UW Brat house is packed.  It's a relatively mild day but the wind chill factor forces us'n to put on jean jackets over sweatshirts and in my case, an L.L. Bean chamois shirt I bought myself for Christmas last year.

Brat-Boy's on the sidewalk drumming up business for the Brat Haus. Behind him people are checking out his buns. The woman is asking him if he's hot.  He's giving her the "two thumbs up" .  I didn't stop to ask him what he meant.  I am in search of colorful pictures, of which there are plenty.

My banana bread is due to come out of the oven.  Dawn wants to go to town to find a shoe caddy.  Me, I already got a Chevy and just need to get out of Dodge. I already hauled some wood from the woodshed to the basement, ran over mole tunnels on the front lawn just to piss them off, took out the garbage from my garage workshop because the dead mice I dropped in the white plastic trash can were starting to smell and uncovered the oregano cold frame. That was today's excitement.  It's almost four pm and it'll be dark soon.  Happy Sunday to y'all. Hope the sun is shining in your neck of the woods. Oh gosh. I left off the briefs.

I couldn't convince Dawn to show her support for Bucky Badger by buying  the red pair.Who couldn't love a store that has a book called, I Love Bacon and another dedicated to the art of kissing. I'm going back soon.  Too bad the farmer's market around the state capitol is over for the season.

Paco

Paco and Julie at the MIA

I'm really fond of this blurred picture of Paco and his friend Julie.It was taken in an elevator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  The MIA is an amazing place with a variety of exhibits ranging from Chihuly glass sculpture in the main lobby to an antique automobile. I'd show you the auto, however, every attempt to download pictures from my file is met with an error message. Frustration looms large when this computer balks.It affects what and how I write.  Outside, it's snowing again. More of the same and it's only November.  Last night's full moon will remain unseen as it, too, was blocked by a faulty phone line or some other glitch.  It cannot be the size of the file because I tried a variety of pictures.  No matter. Screw the effing computer, there's always glue, paper and pencil.  Send me a dollar and I'll give you a copy.  Reminds me of the bumper sticker I spot on a passing pick up truck years ago. Left side- I NEED MONEY BAD.  Right side- SHOW ME YOUR BOOBS.  The driver was of the 100 hits school of thought. It goes like this.  If you walk down a long, white sand beach, or any beach for that matter, asking  women to go out with you, an imperfect stranger, 99 will tell you to take a hike.  One per cent will say, "Oh, sure. Why not?"  You can just show me the money, Thank you.

When we crossed a Minneapolis street on our way to a crowded liquor store, a man slumped against the wall of a storefront does a double take as Julie walks by in designer jeans. A cartoon double-take.  Look once, Jerk your head to the left, and again, slowly gawk with open mouth.  In England they'd call her a stunner. It is Saturday and Minneapolis bans the sale of liquor on Sunday.  Like an all-you-can-eat buffet people  overindulge. They purchase more liquor on Saturday perceiving a shortage of booze the next day.  The city fathers encourage hording with a ridiculous law.  Inside the store, reps from wine makers are giving out smaples.  The correct spelling is samples but I rather prefer smaples.  The festive atmosphere and a dry Sunday work wonders for their sales.

Alas, Paco and Julie are no more.  

Paco works nights. Julie works the day shift at a chicken processing facility.  Julie wants Paco to quit his job as night auditor.  They argue.  Next door to their second floor flat on the artsy-fartsy side of town not far from Eat Street, a guy is renovating a single family house.  Julie, lonely at night, turns to the neighbor for aid and comfort. Paco moves out.  The next time he hears from Julie, she's calling because she was arrested for DWI. The relationship is finalized when Paco learns she's caught herpes from her lover next door. Sad. It doesn't end there. Julie gets what she wanted all along.  She marries. 

I amazed at how well Paco takes the news.  He's neither resentful, angry or upset. At last word he's avoiding his favorite pub because of a woman he dated tends bar at the same.  He breaks it off for reasons he doesn't explain.  The bartender begins stalking him at work and at home.

This could have been a full moon shot between the Norway pines on the east fence line. I would have written about the full moon antics of seniors at the retirement home or Dawn's recipe for Chipolte Chex Mix with dark chocolate.  She left some for me to sample during my day.  Sneaky Pete knows I can't resist semi-sweet dark chocolate.  It's the only chocolate with some health benefits according to Jorge. Remember ladies, the way to a man's heart... I'm being sarcastic and telling you this because tonal inflections are notoriously absent from e-mail and short blog pieces.  Besides, I'd never use the word "lady"  since it comes from Old English Lede which means loaf kneader.  The expression is so ingrained in our culture that it's similar to a well known landmark in Phoenix called Squaw Peak.  Both are slurs.  The biker guy who calls his wife, "The old lady"  is referring to her as his loaf kneader.  Is it the same when a speaker addresses his audience as ladies and gentlemen?

 

Before , After and Now

At the front end of the grocery store the bubbly cashier asks, "Did you find everything."  I know better than to ask where they keep thus and such because she'll never know.  I'll get the blank stare.  If she asks for help from one of the front end supervisors, it will be Phyllis, a middle aged woman who walks with stoop and shuffling gait. Phyllis does nothing but shuffle-back and forth between the cashiers. That and a saunter to the break room is the sum total of her experience of the store.  Ask for phyllo dough and the response is, " Fee-Lo dough? What's that?"

I didn't see Marion in any of the lanes.My first encounter with Marion, a former schoolteacher and 16 year veteran of retail groceries is her comment about the out-of-season tomatoes I am purchasing.  "Two thirty four a pound is pretty steep for cardboard tomatoes," she proclaims.  I'm astonished at her frankness. Marion and I banter, a lot.  "Howyre doin' ?" I ask.  "Well, OK, I guess," she says. "OK is better than the alternate," I declare. "At least you're not dead." Hardly stimulating conversation but better than bubbly. I hate bubbly. 

Her face has a reddish tinge.The color of her nose would qualify her to lead  Santa's sleigh It's an unusual medical condition, but not roseacea.She dyes her hair a shade below blond with a tinge of auburn.  She's  anywhere between 50 and 75 years old.  Marion is a pip.I like pips. In a store I'll always choose the cashier in the lane immediately to the right of the prettiest cashier. It's my proven system to get out of the store quickly, except if I choose a pip lane.  Then, I'll forget to take all my groceries because of the banter. 

On this day, Dawn is behind me, which tempers Marion's wit, somewhat.  Dawn doesn't understand Marion's reference to getting laundry done in Lacrosse. From previous conversations, I know that Marion drives to the big city to clean her grandson's place and wash his clothes.  Later when I explain to Dawn she asks, "Where's his mother?"  I answer with two statements. "He's twenty years old. He may be paralyzed and in a wheelchair?" I know the next question from Dawn.  "You didn't ask?" she wonders.  I do not like to pry into people's lives.  Most of the time I just don't care.

The above photo is the start of today's weather. White flashes appearing on the right are thick, heavy snowflakes.  The kind that down power lines and break off tree limbs.

The preceding picture was taken after breakfast.  I know I was going somewhere with this train of thought, but a phone call from Mountain Man Johann interrupts my creative genius, derailing the train.  The road from Johann's cabin to the main road is a  muddy half mile, two track path, deep with ruts, like roads at the turn of the century.  A friend's grandfather once explained that tires on the old model T wore out quicker on the sides than on the tread bottom.  Johann's road lies on the edge of a cornfield, unpaved, without any gravel. He likes it that way.  Says, it keeps the Riff-Raff away. He's not going anywhere today, except by phone call. I'm first on his list.

 
Presently cars on the highway pass by very slowly because of the wet slush.  A single county truck spreads something on the highway.  I can't tell if it's salt or liquid calcium carbonate. The phone rings again.  Jorge wants to know the weather conditions in our area. He's going to drive to Door County from Milwaukee.  I tell him about the snow and slush,warning him to drive carefully.  I don't envy his drive across the upper half of the state. His information about upcoming weather is that we may see sixty degrees in a few days.

I call a friend in Arizona. His birthday is today.  I want to tease him about joining the "Over The Hill Gang."   His wife answers the phone. She drives daily between Sedona and Flagstaff.  Yesterday she didn't have to work because interstate highway 17 between Sedona and Flag is closed.  Snow.  Harvey isn't home.  He's in Colorado.  He doesn't own a cell phone, she tells me. When he retired, he tossed the cell phone.  He's not a recluse, however,a cell phone to him is like wearing a watch in my opinion..  I don't want a time monkey on my arm.  I'd ditch the cell phone monkey in my pocket, but then I'd not be able to call Dawn for free and tell her to bring home bananas.  Most people I know will run to answer a phone.  It's Pavlovian. Not me.  When I was single and carefree looking for trouble in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, a local mon demonstrated another truism.  "Watch this," he says.  He curls his index finger in a waggling motion.  There's a young woman in the near distance.  She see the gesture and begins to saunter over.  "It happens 100% of the time, here," he proclaims.  I decide that the next time I'm in Wal-Mart I'll try the gesture on various strange women.  I don't mean weird women, just ones who are unknown to me.  I'll give you a full report. Later. I may need bail money. With Wisconsin 's new concealed carry law and a recent amendment that decreases the length of instruction and training  in use of a weapon, I could be looking down the barrel of a Glock.  These mid-western ladies have lots of room for hiding  a pistol. 

Kangaroo Skin Drums

The Hiker copyright 2011-Seven Roads Gallery

The Makah tribe of Native Americans live as far west and north as one can travel in the United States.  I travel across the country to Neah Bay, the main settlement of the Makah.  I'm looking for a drum maker named Greg Colfax.  My ex-wife and I  are staying at the only motel in town.  The floor sags. Walking across the room is like walking on a piece of plywood too thin for my weight.  It's like walking on water. Given the proximity to the ocean and the Northwest Coast rain forest climate where moss hangs in huge conifers lining the road, I am most likely walking on water under the floor.  After a warning from a tribal elder to avoid so and so, because he wasn't honest, I thank this person for the advice. I've been given directions to Greg's home.  Colfax is carving something in his living room.He's well known as a carver, drum maker and canoe maker  There are wood shavings strewn over the carpet. He's trying to light a fire in the wood stove with a propane torch.  I make a note of this trick the next time I need to start a fire in a wood stove.

There's a large biker type man sitting in an easy chair adjacent to the wood stove.  He's wearing a leather brimmed hat like the ones that golfers wear.  Colfax introduces him as, my "friend Tiny".  I note the size disparity and wonder after previous warnings about avoiding certain tribal members.  Greg mentions that he has a source for kangaroo skins.  I commission him to make and paint drums sell at my trading post.  He makes two sets of drums. The paintings are executed in traditional Northwest Coast style colors.

The nature of kangaroo skin is that it's light weight and extremely durable.  The hand drums I make from deer, elk and cowhide are laced together with 8 laces across the frame connected to a perimeter lace woven through the edge of the rawhide stretched across a 9 or 12 ply laminate wood frame.  Colfax uses only two laces.  

The rule of rawhide drums is the thinner the skin the higher the pitch.  Goatskin bohrans(Irish drums) have the highest pitch save for some odd thing out of Africa made from squirrel or muskrat-some strange critter. Playing bodhrans in a group produces overtones that sound like angels singing  with the drummers.  It is a stunning effect.  When I played my own Lightning Bolt painted elk hide drum from Thunder Studio from California at a memorial service for Aids victims, people were moved to tears because of the resonant deep throaty sound bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the church where the service was held.  The kangaroo skin drums are the exception to the rule. Light weight, thin skin and deep resonant voice. 

The story of the painting on the three drums is as follows.

Colfax is in Colorado. I have forgotten the nature of his visit.  He is performing in front of an audience.  A man comes out of the audience after the show and relates a story I have named "The Hiker".  

The hiker is walking through a national forest.  On his sojourn he spots a wolf. The first drum pictures that the wolves spotted him long before he noticed he was being followed.  The hiker attempts to follow the wolf.  Both hiker and wolf have pained expressions ( my interpretation)  regarding the encounter.  After a considerable walk the man finds himself in a large open clearing.  He notices wolves encircle him at all points of the compass.  In relating this story to Colfax, the man who experienced the encounter with the wolves says that for the period of time he was surrounded-he doesn't detail the exact amount of time-he experienced a trove of emotions from abject fear to extreme elation. Then without a visible signal, the wolves trot off.  The hiker man is deeply humbled from the experience. 

Boomtown Follies

Mandy, my dog, props a leg on the back pillow of the couch.No, not that. She's lying on the couch.  She looks up at me with flattened ears. "Oh, no. He's gonna do something weird."  When one is bored there's no end to weird. I cannot explain nor illustrate because my wife reads this blog.  Imagination is a good thing. 

All that's left of the 2011 garden is oregano, kale and celery.  I should dump the oregano out of the pots, shake off the dirt from their roots and hang them to dry in the summer kitchen.  I can't harvest the rest of the celery because 1). We'd have no fresh celery and 2). I'm researching the cold tolerance of celery. The kale just won't quit. After a recent slush storm it's fairly obvious that really cold weather is hiding around the corner.  When that happens, the row cover will freeze to the ground.  I have to decide. To uncover or not.  Harvest all or lose it to winter's icy grip.  There's always dry beans to shell..

I ask Mandy, "What do ya wanna do today?"  Her ears perk.  Visions of riding shotgun loom large. If we head to Dent and Bent, Mandy gets to watch their viscous miniature chihuahua barking at my car.  It's not big enough to pee on the tires.  At the Amish lumber yard, the black, brown and white mutt there is minuscule.  I back away from the yard carefully because I can't see the little rat.

To illustrate that I once had a life, I bring you an excerpt from  Clever Words Bring Forth No Buttered Turnips. There's no date on the cover. Just a picture of a stuffed rattlesnake. A clue about the time frame is that Roger Gavrillo ( pen name) is doing the writing.  Bert Bubnick is narrating.  Bert ( a fictional character) is part of the Witness Protection Program. One last note.

The photograph is second generation taken from a scanned shot.  The old Epson printer was dying, hence the yellow lines across the document.  I found it in one of my late mother's books. Back in the thirties it was apropos. It still is.  An ass and an fat thing with big ears who can only agree on a single thing- an antacid. I have no idea why it is included in Boomtown Follies. 

Since I began this tale, I have lost my desire to recreate the past.  Suffice to say that living in Arizona had one benefit.  Compared to the rest of the population in my small town, I was young.  Just a kid by comparison.  Here, I'm old.  Besides, there are no nightclubs, just farmer bars.  One either has to hire Mountain Man Johann as a bodyguard or prepare for the Elton John's song, "Saturday Night is All Right For Fightin'.

In Boomtown Follies I recount the story of a night out with my neighbors, Tuck Bartlett and his wife Windy.  We drove into town to hear a band called Grateful Fred.  Fred is the drummer for the band and lives with a woman I call Cinderella. She worked for the art gallery/co-op with me.  Cinderella eventually gets fired for theft. Fred eventually dies from alcohol related causes and cancer.  The lead guitarist is the manager for the furniture store on the main drag.  He and his wife fight nightly over his many indiscretions.  It's plenty entertaining for us'n.Here's short snort from my description of the action.

Don plays keyboards and sax. He drives in weekly from Vegas.  Paul plays sax with a wireless pick-up so that he can wander through the club.  Billy and Nancy are bumping and grinding on the dance floor. Lenny walks into the men's room and tries to pick a fight with Marty- a friend of the band who sits behind us.  

Lenny snarls at Marty, "I don't like your T-shirt."  

Marty replies, "Sorry. It's all I had to wear tonight." 

Lenny says to Marty, "Let's step outside. You bumped into me and didn't say 'scuse  me."

Marty isn't drunk enough to rise to the bait.  Lenny waits until Marty goes outside for some "snoose", whatever that is. I know it isn't snuff.   Lenny grabs Marty around the throat. I watch the action through the front window. With all the hair and beards, it appears that two bear cubs are wrestling in the parking lot.  Lenny and Marty room together along with a guy named Shmitty.  In their absence Shmitty slides next to Durla. She's married to the bass player in the band.  She used to be married to someone else but he was killed in a drug bust.  Durla used to be friends with Debbie who tends bar at the Laughing Coyote.   66 year old Shmitty wants Durla to put in a good word for him with Debbie. He doesn't know that Durla is furious with Debbie for a one night stand with her husband.  It's not pretty.

 

Lest We Forget

Mandy in deep snow 12/12/2010

I'm in the basement throwing a log or two in the wood furnace when the phone rings.  That is an amazing feat in itself, since the basement could double as a fallout shelter. The walls are deep and made of poured concrete.  Earlier when the Santero called from AZ, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch.  The phone never rang.  Several minutes after he called, my phone does it's voicemail alert.


Jorge is on the line asking, "Have you looked outside?"  I told him I'd just returned from the liberry.  "It's snowing," he says.  I took my wet windbreaker off the clothesline for the second time and trudged to the woodpile in the backyard.  Looks like I'll need more heat tonight.  I'm kinda tired of three layers inside the house.  When I'm not moving around, it seems chilly watching TV.

The Week magazine says coffee is a cure for depression.  It's too late in the day for coffee, although caffeine has no effect on my wife. It's also too late to take a photo of the greenhouse.  Before the rain/slush/snow started Jorge and I put four, fourteen foot 4'X 4's in the ground.  They serve as end beams supporting the roof.  It only took a half hour to drop the beams into the holes, add concrete and level the posts. Elmo previously dug the four foot  holes.  The really hard part is trying to ignore the constant stream of whistling, humming and grunting noises that come out of Jorge's mouth. 

I have no experience with post and beam construction. I'm at the mercy of Elmo and his Amish crew to get back here. My phone call to his message taker and a quick trip to his house( " Is Elmo here? I ask a kid in the yard. No.  " Is he working?"  No. "Will he be back soon?"  No.) is unsuccessful. Dawn  says she noticed the darker beams ( green treated lumber immediately as she drove down our road.If'n I'm lucky this greenhouse will be up and running by spring. I hope.  In the meantime, all you people who live up here near the arctic circle, brace yourself. I'ts only a matter of time. Put on yer snowshoes.