The Power Of Laughter

     Without doubt, the funniest thing I've ever personally witnessed happened in the middle of Lincoln, Nebraska's "O" Street back in the winter of '72 or so.  We were in the back of schoolmate Doug Wilken's parents covered pickup when my other schoolmate Jerry Scott decided to moon the car behind us.  The sight of him alternately looking forward to see if Doug's parents were looking back while looking back to see if the driver of the car behind us was looking forward (certainly hope he was) while at the same time trying to yank his pants down in a moving car that was stopping all too inconveniently often while trying to negotiate

weekend "O" Street traffic still brings me to laughter if I think about it a little.  It was quite the sight.  Know how sometimes you get to laughing so hard all that comes out is a series of silent AH AH AH's?  It was like that.
     See, the ability to make one a laugh is an amazingly powerful thing.  Guys in school who weren't that good looking could almost always get a weekend date if they could create laughter in girls who under normal circumstances wouldn't give them a second glance.  The guys who were good looking, popular, or played sports could of had the IQ of a house plant - and most did - and the humor quotient to match and still got dates. Some guys - like me - had neither.  But over time I learned to adapt by developing a nasty albeit off-centered sense of humor.  Had to.  Because my looks weren't improving.
     I can still remember watching Jackie Gleason on my parent's old black and white television ending his monologue with "And....Away We Goooooo!!"  That was probably my first comedic influence, but not my last.  I progressed not soon after to Monty Python (the Albatross sketch is brilliant), and eventually to Robin Williams who is one of only a very few human beings who can make me laugh right out loud.  And Don Rickles too, now that I think about it.
     See, laughter is a great tonic for the masses.  It breaks ice between people who have little to nothing in common, between people of divergent nations, crossing socio-economic boundaries with the leap of a single pratfall, and melts even the coldest stares from any in-law anywhere.  It binds us all.  People instinctively seek it out in others, seeing it as a desirable quality that often times trumps all others.  Music does that too:  Ever wonder how Lyle Lovett was actually at one time married to Julia Roberts?  I'm convinced that Nature put two things in people and on Earth so that average to poor-looking guys still had the chance to procreate:  A sense of humor and musical ability.  As the years go by, I become more and more convinced of that theory.  Think Eddie Van Halen would have got with Valerie Bertinelli had he boxed straws for a living?  Not a chance.
     I've always had another theory and it is about squirrels.  It would seem that over time the ones that are

stupid enough to go out in traffic and get run over would be obviously removed from the gene pool, leaving only the smart surviving ones to send their genes onward.  Which would then lead - over time - to less and less dead squirrels.  And yet, you still see nut-chasing roadkill all over the nation's roads at about the same frequency. Why?  Because the humor they possess piques the interest of the female squirrels long enough for them to mate and then - and only then - do they get a little too close to the road in search of a laugh before mailing it in to the great seltzer bottle in the sky.  It makes sense if you think about it a little.
     So take heart, those of little physical gifts!  Can't lift 100 pounds?  Does your face scare old women to the other side of the street?  Have a habit of getting run over?  Have a lot of body hair?  There is hope.  Instinctively look for the funny in everything, and do it first before all else.  When you hear something, immediately think this:  What's funny about that?  If it doesn't come to you right away, don't say anything because chances are it's probably not all that funny.  But if it does seem funny, share it.  Let it out to others.  Give yourself a chance to pass on the genes of the disadvantaged, yet funny.  I don't want to be the only one left when it's all over.
        
     
    

Literary Hell And The Power And Difficulty Of Creation

     I've been working on composing a novel for some time now.  It's taking forever mostly because pesky little things like earning a living keep getting in the way of writing.  I'm guessing the most successful writers already have written great money-making novels, which gives them a big enough nest egg which then allows them to sit at home in their underwear tap tap tapping away using million dollar words to form sentences into paragraphs and then using them end to end to write something that someone - anyone - might pay money to read.  It's a vicious cycle.
     I've shared the idea for my novel with enough people and received enough positive feedback - and to be honest, a couple blank stares - to be pretty sure I'm on the right track

with it.  Without giving away the plot line, it involves the power and vulnerability of one person who uses the best and worst of both of those qualities in an attempt to change the world.  Of course there's complications and roadblocks that get in his way like the mundane minutiae of domestic life, an eccentric neighbor, an underworld puppeteer who calls the shots from afar, an unrewarding job, and, oft times to the story's protagonist, a defective television satellite system who drives him ten sheets to the wind crazy.  
     However, the hero is not alone.  A beautiful and previously lost soul comes out of the ether to his side serving a dual purpose:  A much-needed aide for him while at the same time giving long-awaited and deserving justice to her.  Of course there are complications and plot twists and a triple-unseen never-saw-that-coming ending times three but what good story doesn't?  
     Not all have a triple-unseen ending?  Well, mine does.
     What I've found the most interesting about "the process" is that over time you begin to immerse yourself in the "lives" of your characters.  You begin to care about them.  You begin to sense their wants and needs.  They become real.  They transcend being the figments of your imagination.  You want things to turn out well for them.  You find yourself thinking of them like lost and/or current loves at random times of the day when you are nowhere near a keyboard.  They are simply alive.  And for that reason, you hesitate to initiate a plot line

where one of them would meet an untimely demise.  Not that I would let that literary form of puppy love get in the way of a good story, but I'm just saying.
     So for now the characters live vicariously through me and my whims, surviving in a petri dish of imagination under the protection of a steadily balding dome, all the while beginning to feel the power they have over me to control things, and to shape the story and their lives.  I kind of fear the moment of the tipping point where the outcome is no longer in my hands, and where the story will then begin to write itself.  The story will then turn out much better than it would have been had I maintained control, and allowing that to happen will once and for all prove that one's knees are not in fact the first thing to go.
     It's your ego.  

Coach Ed

     If you grew up in Northeast Lincoln, Nebraska during the 1960's and 70's - and were male - you more than likely had one goal in life:  To grow up real tall and end up somehow playing basketball at Lincoln Northeast High School for the legendary Ed Johnson.  
     Oh, there were tons of rumors that filtered down to the elementary school level - most notably that one had to get a crew cut in order to make his squad (which was never substantiated, save for a blurry picture of LNE baller legend Terry Novak sporting same in

the newspaper)  but that never deterred anyone.  We all spent hours out on our oil-stained driveways - after our parents' moved automobiles out the way - mimicking the skills of our local high school heroes.  The starting five of the local high school received our imaginary passes, faked out the likes of the Links, Knights, eventually the hated Spartans, and Omaha's Central High Eagles with quick moves, and never failed to hit the winning shot.  Why?  Because that's what they did.  
     The five players with ghost-like qualities were Tom Novak (Terry's older brother), Danny Cook (a dark-haired fireplug of a player), Greg Wright (who actually lived just down the street from me, and was kind of like living next to Bob Devaney but only on a much smaller scale, celebrity-wise), Maury Damkroger (who ended up playing football for the U of N and got a couple years with the NFL's Patriots, and....and....in a nod to passing years and faded memory I've forgotten the fifth player.  John Strain, maybe?  Not sure.  I think it was Strain now that I think about it a little.
     Of course very few of us ever had enough athletic ability to play for Ed; certainly none of my close friends ever did.  The most we did was sit high in Pershing Auditorium with our homemade scorecards and mark off made free throws and rebounds from players wearing the black and white such as Tom Westover and Bruce Maske.  They were larger than life god-like figures to kids like us who were around ten years old.  And they seemed impossibly old and mature, those boys who were all of seventeen probably.  Seventeen.  But that's how they seemed.  
     And Coach Ed.  He would roam the sideline in front of the Rocket bench, trademark rolled

up program in his hand and would generally try to intimidate every living thing within a square mile or so with his intense facial expressions.  Those expressions ranged from relatively intense to downright nuclear whenever one of his players would take a bad shot or deviate any smidgen from the Rocket Way.  Then he would slide step down the line, wave his program at the next one in - substituting for the on-court offender - and then move slightly as the new substitute would jump off the bench, tear open his snapped-shut white top and head to the scorer's table to check in.  
     The closest I ever got to playing for Coach Johnson was a tryout for the sophomore team when he came in to watch us.  I know my reaction was - and I think I can speak for the other kids there - was:  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  It's.  Him.  That's Coach Johnson.  Right.  Over.  There.
     This was the person we had all loved/feared all those years and he was watching us take our first steps towards possibly having the distinct honor of shedding sweat for him and for the "Glory Of Our Team."  I don't remember much of that "tryout" except that I retrieved a tipped pass from going out of bounds.  Otherwise I don't think I touched the ball, and certainly didn't score.  Not that it mattered much.  I didn't even make my junior high 9th grade team, so the chance of doing that at a higher level with three times the competition to beat out wasn't likely.  I was the last person cut off the sophomore squad by the aforementioned legendary Tom Novak who, on a spring day two years in the future would also cut me off the reserve baseball team.  I have no doubt both deletions were deserved - the former more than the latter, probably - but it earned Tom a place on my "list" for years to come.  
     Years have passed and I've not played basketball anywhere - let alone a memory-filled

driveway - for years and years and Coach Ed has long since passed away.  But his memory for me has remained pristine, having never got on my "list."  He still roams the sideline in my mind, his program spun into an impossibly tight cylinder, his gaze still eliciting fear and respect from all who failed to seek basement refuge from its radar-like sweep.  If St. Peter has a starting five, they're probably running "lines" right now and executing to perfection that drill where the man with the ball heads to the basket, pivots, and hands off to the trailing man for an easy off-the-backboard layup.  I saw that 1,000 times growing up and remember it still.
     Coach Ed wouldn't have it any other way.  
     

If I Had Another Half Hour: A Second Eulogy For My Father

     Just short of three months ago, I eulogized my father.  It consisted mostly of relating to his mourners an event that had happened to me several years ago, with my intent being that hopefully it would bring comfort to them in that time as it did for me in mine.  I do not know how successful I was in that endeavor.  But in a form of psychological torture and self-examination that would fascinate a roomful or two of amateur Freudians, I find myself to this day at random times repeating over and over in my mind portions of that eulogy in - I'm guessing - some sort of weird attempt either to improve upon it or try to understand the event and my place in it.
     Would I do it differently?  Parts of it, sure. 

It was composed within a span of two or three days, and for the most part memorized in about half that time.  I do feel though that I spent too much time on myself and not nearly enough on the type of person Dad was.  Relating more memories of him would have shed more light on who he was and how his spirit tried to dance between  - and sometimes straight on through - the raindrops over the course of a lifetime.  So if I had another chance, this is what I'd say about him.
     My earliest memory of my father happened on his work mornings.  He and mom would be having breakfast in the illuminated kitchen, while I would be snuggled up in the living room chair, impossibly warm and safe, and alone with my deeply imprinting memories in the darkened room.  I would lay there, hearing their muffled conversations and the sounds of the radio, and smelling toasting bread and crisp cooked bacon.  All was well and safe and normal.  Eventually, he would get up and leave.  He and Mom would share a kiss at the front door and he'd be off.  I'd pretend to be asleep, but I saw and noticed it all.  And to this day I remember the smells, the chair, and their light making the darkness of the morning seem less deep.
     I remember the time that I came home crying from being bullied by one of the local toughs over something or some such, and after hearing about it off he went in socks and without shoes on my sisters green bike riding around the neighborhood looking for.....someone.  I don't remember even telling him who had done it, but I can still see him heading down the hill looking like he did and riding what he was on and showing the family flag in a comically protective way.
     I remember summer nights when - after a shower which made him smell so clean - he'd camp out in his recliner, one leg up and over the armrest with TV on and holding a bowl of soda crackers and milk.  I assume that strange combination is something he picked up while in the Army, but I never asked him that in order to find out.  I've never had the courage to try it to see what all the fuss was about, but it was a fairly regular snack of his so he must have found it palatable.  Soon the bowl would be empty, the show he was watching would be over, and ten o'clock would come.  He would get up, leaving an empty chair and head off to bed.  That chair sat in the exact spot where years later he would leave this earth, and I think of that often:  How time and locales and events and segments of lives intersect and overlap on each other, as if they were meant to do so.
     Once, after a very heavy rain, Dad went out to his garden to check the volume of rain that had been received in his new rain gauge.  This happened in the later years when his eyesight had begun to fail, and he misread how full the gauge was.  He excitedly came back in the house and announced that "We got ten inches!"  He then proceeded to call the local TV station with the news, which was then dutifully noted on the evening broadcast with the forecaster's disclaimer that went something like, "Although it is possible to have isolated local very heavy amounts of rain, ten inches is somewhat unlikely...."  I then asked Dad to show me on the gauge where the level he saw was and in reality it turned out to be about two inches if I remember right.  He felt awful and wanted to immediately call up the station and correct what he had said, but I told him just to let it go.  It was a much better story left as it was.  And I've no doubt the mischievous side of him liked the chaos that got created with his mistake!
     Towards the end of his life and well after he had started his journey home, Dad was sleeping in a bed in the living room that sat directly on the spot of his old chair where he rested and ate his crackers and milk so many years ago.  I was in a nearby chair, trying to get some rest myself while at the same time trying to keep an eye on Dad to make sure he didn't try to get up and move about without help.  I nodded off and awoke to see him standing by the bed.  "Woah, woah!  Where you going?" I said.  "To the bathroom," he replied.  I went over to him and explained that he didn't need to and that he was fine where he was.  "I'm going," he said determinedly.  "Fine" I said, relenting.  He was in his house that he paid for and he was entitled to try it one last time.   
     I held his arm as he tried to move.  An inch at a time, we moved about two feet in total when his legs gave out and he fell slowly to the ground with me holding and bracing his fall.  It took all of my physical and emotional strength to lift him up and back into bed.  I got him back under the covers, kissed him on the head and watched him go off to sleep.  It was the last meaningful interaction I would have with him; the next day he was raspy and unconscious and unresponsive and had gone on to a misty mid-point place where peace and suffering fight for equal footing and equal control.  We had taken our last walk together.
     The passage of time has helped me gain some control over my own misty place, but I can feel my own grief deepening as the days pass.  And I don't know where it is going to bottom out, or even if it will.  I am now left with a newer chair sitting on the same spot where his old one was years ago and his bed was recently.  I sit there and think of moments in the past and try to hear his voice as it sounded in that illuminated kitchen years ago; I think of that old bike which still sits in the garage and fight the urge to go out in the cold night and touch it; I want to find that old rain gauge, run my fingers over the marks and try to figure out how he misread it.  I want, I want, I want....
     But these words are about you Dad, not me.  You are there in each sentence and you dance and jump when I try to turn a phrase over and over in my mind.  You make me pause and erase and re-do what I thought was perfect and find that it was a lot less so.  You are still there in these words and our lives and in my misery.  And you shall never, ever leave.   
      
     
        
          

    
     

Of Porch Lights And Moon Beams: A Tale Of Two Worlds

     A great many plans devised by humans end up well, not perfect because, well, they're designed by humans.  Burnside at Fredericksburg, Custer at Little Big Horn, the introduction of New Coke, the Edsel, and the famous missing hyphen in the programming code for NASA's 1962 launch of Mariner 1 are all great examples of well-meaning people who excelled in something that humans try their darndest to avoid but never completely can:  Royally Screwing Up.
     Forty-four years ago tonight, my mother hatched her own plan.  On that summer night and just under 250,000 miles away, three brave Americans were preparing to make history.  The LEM containing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was preparing to land on the surface of the moon, while Mike Collins orbited - and waited above - in the service module Columbia.  The whole nation was watching on television.  The whole nation.  Except me.  Where was I?  Across the street over at the schoolyard playing baseball with my friends.
     Mom could not understand why I would miss out on a chance to see this momentous and historic occasion.  So she had an idea:  She told me she would turn on the front porch light when they were about to

land, and since I could see the light from the field where we were playing I was supposed to drop what I was doing and head to the television.  Give up baseball and summertime?
     Fat chance, Mom.  Priorities are priorities.
     Now, later on - after it got dark, naturally, which rendered further baseball impossible - I found myself planted in front of our living room black and white television watching history unfold along with my parents, sister, and maternal grandparents.  I understood that it was a BIG thing, as much as an eight-year old who had baseball on the brain could, I suppose.  Did I appreciate it as much as an adult would have?  No.  But to this day I consider myself very lucky to have been alive and old enough to have understood what has happening.
     Except for the sound of screaming mid-summer locusts outside and the hum/rattle of our window unit air conditioner, the house was silent.  In a kind of reverent awe - as if a sudden noise or a random uttered

phrase might somehow cause a celestial lunar problem - we watched in silence the grainy movements of a human being doing heroic things at an impossible, incomprehensible distance.
     At a few minutes before 10:00 Central Time, pictures were beamed back from the moon showing the ghostly picture of a man standing on what looked like a huge metallic leg; in the background, there showed a semi-circle sliver of moon surface.  Neil Armstrong paused before making history and commented on the physical consistency of the ground upon which he was about to stand.
     "I'm going to step off the LEM now."
     There is some historical debate as to whether in the excitement of the moment Armstrong misspoke his first words, leaving out the "a" after the "for" and before the "man" making it "One small step for man" instead of "One small step for a man", rendering it sort of redundant.  A subsequent NASA examination of the audio tape showed there had been garbling of the signal due to storms over certain portions of the Earth in the right

location and at the right time that caused the "a" to not be heard.  Armstrong claims he said it as he wanted to, and who is to disbelieve him?  Does it matter much?  No.  The sentiment was there and the words were eloquent, timeless, and eternal.
     (Click on this link to hear Neil Armstrong's famous words.)  "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
     And with that, our world changed.  We went back a few times - all successfully, except for the cinematically-documented Apollo 13 mission - but eventually as a species we went scurrying back to safety under the wide and protective skirt of Mother Earth, save for a ton of circular orbits of the planet doing experiments and such.  Conspiracy theorists say that somewhere along the line, aliens got a hold of us and basically said:  "You're not welcome out here."  And that's why we've not gone back, or onward to Mars.  More than likely though we just lack the political will that was once fueled by nationalistic pride and competition, and we're also missing the copious amounts of money that would be needed for the endeavor.
     In July of 1969, however, it seemed as if it would be a given:  In the years to come, we would routinely travel to the moon and beyond.  We didn't, of course.  But for that time period, we all dropped what we were doing and simply watched, absorbed, took it all in, and tried to remember.  Housework was put away, parties paused, work was stopped, and baseballs were placed safely in worn and sun-bleached gloves to await another day.
     I'm just glad that Neil decided to make his first step when it was too dark to see a ground ball coming my way.  Because if he had stepped out during a glorious summer mid-afternoon?  Decisions, decisions....
    
    

An Early Morning Search

    Lincoln's Wyuka Cemetery in the morning is a stunningly beautiful place.  It is filled with gentle rolling hills, winding roads, dew-covered grass, weather-worn stones marking the resting places of both the common and celebrated, and powerful and wise trees in such great number that they keep the hallowed ground insulated and silent in spite it being located essentially in the exact heart of a city.  It is a place where saints and sinners fight for elbow room and salvation; where history seeps from the ground with the footstep of each visitor; and where one can feel nature steadily and stealthily with each passing season and each passing moment reclaiming what was once hers.  
     It also has a sizable contingent of veterans buried there; I thought of them - and of all veterans - this past Memorial Day.  I don't personally know any vets buried there - my father will be one day - so for me in a way they're all "Unknown Soldiers."  I have visited the Tomb Of The Unknowns in Washington, D.C., and found the changing of the guard there powerful, moving, and filled with devotion and purpose.  So I thought I would visit Wyuka, pick a random place to stop and then get out and walk until I came across the first veteran's grave I saw.
     At a low spot in roughly the cemetery's center at Section 15, I pulled the car over; with the rising sun directly in my eyes, I stepped out and looked around.  On my left, a craggy tree (elm?)

stood guard at the convergence of two roads and to my right was a grave whose top had basically been swallowed up by a peony plant.  Stones of all types and sizes and of all conditions - both straight-standing and wobbly - stretched in every direction.  Behind me was the old "Soldier's Circle" where veterans of the Civil War are buried, many of their grave markers reading simply "Union" or "CSA."  In front of me off in the distance is where my sister is and parents will be; to my right over by "O" Street was the final resting place of "Oklahoma" and "Carousel" star Gordon MacRae; beyond that over in the old Potter's Field marks the final stop for mass murderer Charles Starkweather.  I was surrounded by history, both past and future.

    I stepped to the right, dodging a huge puddle, a foraging sparrow, and the grave-eating peony.  Almost immediately I spied a small American flag stuck in the ground near a flat, rectangular stone.  Five steps - including two avoiding another mini-swamp - and I was there.
     Ben Schroeder.
     A WWII veteran, Ben died in 1999 and was joined on this spot by his wife Lorene several years later.  Off to Lorene's left was the stone of an infant boy named Ivan Dale - I assumed their son - who lived only a week in September of 1951.  All of the graves were well-kept and smartly decorated with flowers.  They were not forgotten.  
     Other than a circular marker showing "WWII Veteran" there was no clue as to what theater of operations Ben served in.  Pacific?  Europe?  Which branch?  Maybe he served at home in some capacity.  Lorene, for her part, probably "served" in America on the home front, sacrificing and doing without material things and perhaps even without her beloved Ben as she waited for him to come home.  While their ending was certain and at my feet, their lives were mysteries to me: the stranger, the intruder, the interloper.  
    As I stood, I paid my respects silently and as best I could.  How do you thank a total stranger for

sacrificing in ways that a member of a future totally-spoiled-in-comparison generation couldn't possibly understand?  I can't even find the words to thank my own father for doing the same during his time in hell during the early 40's.  How would Ben ever hear me?  Feel my thoughts?  Could he feel the weight of my inadequacy through my shoes?  Was I worthy?  Are any of us?  And what's worse is that I could have in my search stumbled upon the grave of a Korean Vet, one from Vietnam, Iraq, or any other war and felt the same.  They gave so that we'd not have to.  
     I reached down and touched Ben and Lorene's stone, my touch perhaps helping to perpetuate a

bond between the generations.  I was here; we all are; America still survives.  Veterans for the most part naturally deflect praise or thanks, it seems.  I could hear Ben say something like this:  "I was just doing my duty as I was called to do."
     Finally, I had an idea.
     Reaching over, I leaned down and tapped little Ivan's stone.  "I'm just a stranger to your Daddy, Ivan.  But you can talk to him in ways I can't.  Tell him I'm - we're all - grateful, OK?" 
     The marker felt rough and pebbly and slightly electric.  He only lived a week, but his soul had and still does have worth.  I knew the message would get through and that Ivan and his innocence "got" what I was trying to say.
     The little ones always do. 

The Psychology Of Junk

     The visitor strolled up the driveway leading to the house that I grew up in and announced this without even the smallest amount of pretentiousness.
     "I'm a Bundler."
     Now, I didn't even know what that meant.  My sister - who was expertly running our garage sale in, as it turns out, a pretty successful fashion to get rid of stuff in an All-American way - was able to see through the gentleman's lingo and understood that he was there to buy numerous items.  At a discount, naturally.  Which was fine with us.
     The term "bundling" apparently comes from one of those reality shoes like "American Pickers".  Or so I'm told.  I've seen re-runs of it but don't watch it on a regular basis.  I

find it a lot more realistic than something like "Pawn Stars" which, to me, is sort of a reverse-engineered garage sale in that stuff still trades hands but the ones getting fleeced also have to bear the indignity of having to physically carry their unwanted things to the sacrificial altar, as in:  Customer:  I'll not take less than $1,000 for it.  Rick:  I'll give you $150.  Customer:  (Thinks, and multitasking while at rolling over at the same time)...Well, OK.  Too much trouble to haul it back home, I guess.
     And so forth.
    See, garage sales back in the day used to be a lot less....something.  Less competitive, maybe.  You just sat stuff out and whomever showed up showed up.  There was no Craiglist, only newspaper ads; no mega-neighborhood groupings, just a card table or two and one humble abode; no disrespectful cutthroat early buyers but instead socially acceptable mid-morning arrivals.  Like the junk is going anywhere, people.
     See, what has happened is this:  Television shows like American Pickers have turned

the turning over of all things Great Unwashed into some sort of quest to be the first to spend seventy-five cents for one of those old liquid-filled birds that you used to be able to find in gag shops alongside the plastic globs of fake vomit.  One guy walked up to me at our sale and wanted to know what my "bottom line" was on an old Coke clock that I literally got out of the trash at an old job.  Before I could barely knock 30% off, he had me down 50% and I was agreeing faster than a high school boy would if Jennifer Aniston had asked him to prom.  
     I had caught the fever.
     I still think that people get star-struck when they see two average guys turned television stars riding around the country, crawling and getting immeasurably dusty looking for whatever they can find and turn over for a profit.  It's caused even more average people to stroll onto someone's home turf and practically demand that they give up something that's been in their household for as long as they can remember for $2.00 and thank them for the privilege.  Now, I'm all for being entertained but the marriage of television and junk finding has set back the cause of garage sales much in the same way as the movie "Deliverance" set back the cause of Hillbillyism by oh, a couple centuries or so.
     I don't recall if Mr. Bundler bought anything but if he was expecting to find some great lost artifact that he could flip over for retirement money, I know he got disappointed.  The closest thing I had to an artifact but which I couldn't bear to sell was my old Rock'em Sock'em robot game which I nearly put out - sans plastic composite ropes - but I still have too many good memories of receiving it one Christmas and I can

still hear the "cccccccccckkkkkkdddooosh" sound that gets made whenever one of the noggins goes a-flyin'.
     So for now, the little red and blue "Dragos" will continue to sit down in the basement gathering dust.  They're forever frozen in their stances, dancing on a platform with no borders and nothing to keep them there except for their inertia which, come to think of it, describes the lives and problems of a vast majority of people.  "Dancing on a platform with no borders and nothing to keep them there except for their own inertia."  I like that.  And if I had to construct a diatribe and trash such an All-American and simple event like a garage sale to come up with such a particular turn of a phrase, so be it.
     I can be cruel that way.
     Hmmmm.  You never know what little nuggets of wisdom like that are out there waiting for you to find.  But you gotta swing a punch or two, jump off the platform and start searching.  Because chances are it won't come strolling up your drive looking for a bargain.
          
     

The Power Of Music

     The first documented piece of music was the Seikilos Epitaph.  It is a complete musical composition - including lyrics - written in the ancient Greek musical style and found engraved upon a tombstone near Aidin, Turkey.  The find has been dated anywhere from 200 BC to around AD 100, with the first century following the birth of Christ to be the most likely guess.  The last two words on the tombstone are "Seikilos Euter{pei}" meaning "(from) Seikilos to (presumably his wife) Euterpe", thus creating the world's first long distance dedication and thus beating Casey Kasem to the punch by roughly 2,000 years.
     Translated into English, the words on the tombstone read:
   
     While you live, shine,
     have no grief at all;
     life exists only for a short while,
     and time demands its toll.

     Seikilos found his voice in the safe harbor of music, and through it gave an eternal voice to his love for his wife.  In it, she assuredly found comfort.
     Throughout the many years since Seikilos walked the earth, human beings have created music for their own enjoyment, as a means of expression, and as a way to pass and create mental and personal milestones through their lives.

     Today, music is everywhere.  It is found playing as a calming influence in baby nurseries; serving the same purpose for patients in dentist chairs; pumping up crowds at sporting events; providing peace and comfort at funerals.  Schools teach it, radio stations perpetuate it, motor vehicles have it, homes are filled with it.  It is portable and permanent, recorded in all forms and styles by all the world's people, and is now even found - only by perspective and lucky extraterrestrials, NASA hopes - aboard our little ambassador the Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 including the form of recordings of Mozart, Beethoven, and, of all things, Chuck Berry.  The record sent on the Voyager also had the words "To the makers of music - all worlds, all times." handwritten on it. 

     Music also has the ability to stop war.  In one famous incident on Christmas Eve 1914 along Europe's World War I Western Front, exhausted German and British troops stopped the slogging and the slaughter for a brief truce in which gifts and family photos were shared, handshakes given, and each side understood the others common humanity.  Both sides sang the words to "Stille nacht, heilige nacht," which the British troops knew as "Silent Night."  Soon, both sides retreated to their frozen bunkers and the carnage was to begin anew.  But for a while, peace reigned with the help of a musical creation.
     Not all of us are given the gift of musical talent.  My father's family is rife with that gift from top to bottom, including my grandfather's involvement with the Franklin, Nebraska town Clown Band, the many musical talents of my aunts and uncles (and father), and the creation of, and participation in, by my uncle Don in a musical group quartet with the best name ever thought of for such a numerically-specific venture:  The Uncalled Four.  Unfortunately, the gene of the musical gift stopped with me.
     I tried trombone for two years but never "got" it or liked it much.  Oh, I can sing a bit and can carry a note fairly well but that's hardly the same.  The best I can do as far as understanding music is that in my mind I can "hear" chord progression and change, whatever that's worth.  I think it's this instinctive gift that my now-passed ancestors are still trying to shove down my throat despite my inadequacies.  All I can say is God Bless them for trying.

     The musical klutzes among us can still love it for what it is worth, though.  We can still marvel at the power of Bach, the fire of a Jerry Lee Lewis, the passion of a Roberta Flack, or the simple pop schmaltz of a Christopher Cross or an Olivia Newton-John in spite of our inability to ever even remotely personally create something as good.  We can still feel the weight of the darkness when driving down a nighttime highway with Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" blaring at full volume, or seeing the sky brighten to the notes of Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken" or The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun."  Through our senses and our collective DNA we are able to love what we cannot personally create, to appreciate what we cannot concoct.  One day we will carry our love of music to the stars with us, and it will sooth the strain of our long journey, the loneliness for what we have left behind, and will help make smooth the rough edges of a new creation and a new civilization that will most likely need all the civility it can get.       
   
     

     
   






     

This Ain't Your Momma's Haymarket

     The Haymarket District of Lincoln, Nebraska - so named for a "Market Square" area being designated between 9th and 10th, "O" and "P" Streets for exchange of livestock and produce in the original plan of the city - has undergone many changes since the inception in 1867 of the now capitol city of the state.
     For those of my time frame growing up in Lincoln, The Haymarket was where places like The Tubbery, Andy Pasto's, and Starship/Stooges were located, bums hung out (I distinctly remember one peering out at me from a containment area under the front of one of the old warehouses there), the monolithic main Post Office lorded over all, and where Amtrak made their daily stop.  It was also a place of a self mortar-lobbed empty gallon bottle of wine out of a moving car about a block east of the aforementioned Post Office back in about 1979 or so.  No, we were not drinking and driving but the truth is what the truth is.

     Approximately six months from now, the Haymarket District will undergo another major change with the opening of the Pinnacle Bank Arena.  A gargantuan structure to the eye, "The Pin" will be home of the University of Nebraska men's and women's basketball teams.  (Note:  Lincoln's hockey team plays in a structure called "The Ice Box" and I started an unofficial campaign to have the new Pinnacle Bank Arena called "The Deposit Box" as sort of a companion structure but the idea never took flight, genius never being properly rewarded.)  It will also host concerts of major acts, most likely the state high school basketball championships, and other civic events.
     I recently visited the site for the first time since construction began, and the change in the area is striking and profound.  The arena appears to be so closely built to the old Main Post Office that one could jump from the roof of one structure to the other, although it would be a James Bond-like feat to try it.  It seems to be all circular shape, windows, and ramps and it has a big-time feel to it.

     Off to the south of the site, construction also looms large and in progress.  Parking garages, hotel construction, and development of something called Canopy Street are underway.  Canopy Street is a commercial and residential development that is being billed as a place to play and permanently stay to experience the new Haymarket.  One, two, three, and four bedroom lofts will be available in the area and, although I'm guessing the prices will not be cheap, I'm thinking that at least initially they will be snatched up by the eager.  On paper, it all looks very impressive.  For nearly a half a billion dollars of public and private investment, it had better be.
     The "Pin" will fill Lincoln's need for a concert venue, the Devaney Center having outlived its usefulness in that regard and the aging Pershing Center for the same reasons times 100.  Devaney's roof structure couldn't hold the weight of the setups of today's modern concerts, and Pershing for the longest time has only held concerts of used-to-bes and up and comers.  The new arena will bid for and host major acts.  One problem:  In researching this blog post, I found on one arena promotional site an informal poll asking respondents to vote on who should be the first act to play there.  Among the choices were Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon, The Zac Brown Band, and Kenny Chesney.  Chesney is the only one of the bunch that I'd even remotely want to see, and that's not by much.  But to all of the blogosphere, this I swear:  If Lady Gaga christens that thing?  I'm personally grabbing the torches and pitchforks and leading the charge to barricade the doors.

     But this is a sports-driven venture.  Lincoln is all about the University of Nebraska, and if you don't believe that ask those who tried to save the old state fairgrounds from the clutches of the uppity-ups at the "U" who wanted that land for the new Innovation Campus.  They never stood a chance, although the preservers of history did manage to save at least in some form the trapezoidal Industrial Arts building from the wrecking ball.  It will remain at least in part, to be connected up with the old 4-H Building in some sort of "modern" (read:  improved) structure, the future use of which is to be determined.
     The arena when finished will form the third point of a sort of sports triangle, the other two anchors being Haymarket Park (the baseball venue used by the professional Lincoln Saltdogs and the U of N's team) and the venerable and historic Memorial Stadium where football reigns in the fall.  It is quite the sight driving into Lincoln from the north on I-180 at night (see a virtual look at the drive along with views from the finished Haymarket here), with Memorial Stadium to the left and Haymarket Park and the nearly-done arena to the west and south, respectively.  But I'm prejudiced:  A lifelong Nebraskan, university alum, and sports fan in general would feel no other way.
     I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished "Pin" for the first time.  I'm guessing that I'll feel the same way about it as I felt the first time I walked into Haymarket Park for the Husker's NCAA baseball tournament game that Shane Komine started, completed, and won.  My thought was this:  This is too good a facility for Lincoln to have.  We don't deserve something this good.  Of course, we did.   But that's how I felt.
     I've no doubt that the new arena will make me feel the same way.  Winston Churchill said this once in regards to rebuilding the House of Commons after it had been destroyed in The Blitz:   "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us."  Talented workers have formed and continue to form the new venue on the edge of west Lincoln, but in the end the building will form and shape us and our lives through memories and experiences.
     I can't wait.
    

Who's Snoping Snopes?

     I fully admit that when I succumb to assorted bits of total naivete that I've been known to forward internet emails and photos without thinking about whether I should or not, and, as a result, I'm sure I've propagated along the way certain ideas.  To wit:  Three daily slices of burnt toast as a cure to male pattern baldness?  Automatic forward.  Joe Biden's teeth secretly harbor alien life?  Ditto.  GOP budget stubbornness to blame for Florida sinkhole?  Click.
     I mean, I did this all the time.  Something looked interesting and it was my interest - nay, my duty - to let others know.  An awful habit.  But then one day the clouds parted and I saw the light.
     Enter snopes.com.
     Oh, I had heard of snopes but had never visited that particular site so I didn't know what it was "for."  It always sounded "funny" to me, reminding me so much of the Scopes Monkey Trial which involved the Tennessee public school's prohibited teaching of evolution and the prosecutorial skills of Lincoln, Nebraska's own William Jennings Bryan.  But being the responsible person that I hope I am, I checked it out.

     It turns out that snopes.com is a website dedicated to either stopping from spreading or otherwise confirming popular urban myths.  Started in 1995 by Barbara and David Mikkelson, it now records at least 300,000 visits a day, and has apparently garnered enough respect to have become the go-to place when people wonder about stuff including usage by media outlets such has CNN and Fox News.  Snopes covers a lot of potential misinformation bases, including pop culture, media, sports, history, language, and many other categories.  In one famous debunking, snopes dispelled the rumor that the nursery rhyme "Sing A Song Of Sixpence" was actually a coded tune used by pirates to help recruit members.  Important work.  Probably.
     But eventually if I walk down a certain path the inevitable cynic in me rears its head, and in this case I think:
     Who's Snoping Snopes?
     In one delicious orgy of misguided optimism, a Wikipedia post on snopes states, " In an attempt to demonstrate the perils of over-reliance on the internet as authority, the Mikkelsons assembled..."  So they promote their authoritative internet site as a definitive place to go to protect against reliance on all things internet.  Is anyone hearing this?  Seeing the irony?  Who died and made snopes the point and click god?  Is it because there was a vacuum that needed to be filled and snopes - to their credit in that regard, I admit - filled it?  Just because they say something is so, we're to believe it without checking their checking?  I just don't do and never will do the blind loyalty thing.  I trust two things completely and totally:  God and my family.  Snopes is neither.
     Snopes has received  more complaints of liberal than conservative bias but insists - again, IN SNOPES WE TRUST - that they use the same methods in researching all potential myths.  FactCheck, in another example of the fox guarding the hen house, found that according to their research snopes was by and large on the up and up in re political bias.   They further state that Barbara was a Canadian citizen unable to vote in American elections and David was once a registered Republican, going out of their way to take both of the Mikkelsons off the hook and with "once" being the operative word.  Again, with age comes cynicism.  I've got both.

     In an article in the February 1, 2013, edition of National Geographic, a story appeared concerning a red-footed tortoise who had somehow survived thirty years trapped in a wooden box that had been stored away in a shed.  When I heard of that story, my heart warmed.  The animal lover in me was doing numerous low-fives with the little reptile for making it through.  Then I thought:  This sounds too good to be true.  I bet it's fake.  I bet snopes has already gotten their self-righteous claws in this one and....
     But I don't care if it's fake.  Not this time.  I don't care if I'm believing in something false.  It's a great story, this little poor soul put away and forgotten with only its shell, the darkness and quiet for company and only termites to eat and condensation to lick for water.  For thirty years.  30.  It's a great story.  And snopes is not going to ruin this one for me.
     Although I bet it probably would love to try. 

        
    

Of Meteors, Mariachi, And Machiavelli: Why Rampant Chaos Is A Good Thing

     Human beings always act surprised when things out of the ordinary happen saying, "Gee.  Who saw that coming?" 

     

The Mystery Of Karl Hohr

     It sat reluctantly in my hand, held together by equal parts air, brittle paper, and pure, unadulterated sass from knowing that it had simply survived the journey from Wherever "There" Was To The Here And The Now.  What remained of the black cover formed the general shape of a very thick and wide number seven and where it had fallen away, brittle strips of parchment showed.  I have a strange habit that when I find and pick up a new book, I flip through the pages from back to front instead of vice versa and I started to turn this small notepad over to do the same.  For some reason, I stopped.  This was not a common bestseller, and it demanded respect.

     I opened the front cover.
     Mom found this in going through "boxes" and inside of it was a note with my father's name on it, which she said signified that he found it - apparently over in Germany during the war - and had brought it back over with him.  Looking through it, I saw no note with his name and when asked, Dad couldn't remember finding it.  But here it was, and the fact that it even existed and was in this place and in this time required some basic accountability.
     Just inside the front cover was a helpful calendar of the year 1917; on the reverse page, 1918.  Along the side ran the printing of a simple ruler, the numbers and lines faded through the years to the point where the accuracy of measurement would be questionable at best.  The small, pocket-sized booklet began to take on the feel of a simple and practical souvenir that a vacationer would find in a roadside truck stop, with a picture of the local attraction or tourist site embossed on the outside.  (Seeing the year of 1917 made me wonder that perhaps it was my paternal grandfather who may have found it during his time with the Doughboys "Over There" during the first War To End All Wars and that it was he that brought it back home.)
     The days were dutifully crossed off much as someone would do who was marking the days until an event; eerily, the crossing off ended on June 21, 1917.  Why?  Was the owner killed during trench warfare near Ypres?  Another mystery.  And I'm not discounting the possibility that this book belonged to a simple civilian, although parts of the book that I would read later would lead me to believe that it was in fact a soldier who owned it.

     Gingerly flipping through the pages led to other discoveries, such as:  Three or four whole pages were devoted to what appeared to be names of towns that the owner visited, the number eventually reaching - and stopping - at 270.  Another page showed some sort of diagram that you might find in a 10th grade Geometry or higher-level statistics class, a rounded mesa-type lump on which were scratched upon numbers and lines.  Yet another page yielded what appeared to be the kept score of a game between two people.  A game of dice, maybe?  Wonderfully human, it was much like doodled graffiti spoken across the ages.
     Eventually I came to two pages that were much easier to read, almost as if the person had retraced the lines a second time to ensure their survival.  With the help of my fading memory of high school German and a website that allowed for German to English translation, I was able to decipher a few words and phrases from what appeared to be some kind of oath or pledge taken by the owner.  The transcript appears to stop and start and make little sense, mostly because of the hit and miss translation, my inability to read this person's writing, the faded words, and the nasty habit of German - and most languages, probably - to combine one word with the succeeding one to form a phrase with a slightly different meaning than the two words would mean separately. 

     It began:  "I, Karl Hohr, swears to God to him...in all and everybody...serve...and to me given before writings and orders...and me wants to carry how it to one to upright ones, duty, and...
     "So true helps me God and Jesus Christ and bless...in the flag and refreshed ones...loyal ones...is that the good and the fair...hold back...honor sticks...companions..."
     And with that, and his signature, the apparent oath ends.
     So who was Karl Hohr?  Soldier?  Was this written oath some sort of carried insurance against being stopped by the authorities when asked for appropriate loyalty?  Was this relic from even the era of The Great War, or did it survive somehow the maelstrom to come to somehow fall into my father's hands?  Again, mystery.
     As a final curve ball from the past, just inside the back cover was the name "Matt Garretson" with an address on 6th Street in Brooklyn, New York, USA.  Who Matt Garretson was and how he came to be in possession of this notebook - albeit briefly - is another layer  upon which to lay our wonder.
     I do know this, though:  The words of Karl Hohr have now found a permanent home here, with my family, with me.  No longer will his script wander the world, literally leaving bits and pieces of it behind like so much literary flotsam and jetsam floating upon the wind.  Here he will stay along with the mystery he created and the memories only he would understand. 
       

Concentric Circles, A Darkening Sky

     Back in the 1990's - two jobs ago and at least one lifetime - I got hooked on a late-night radio talk show hosted by the eminently odd and interesting Art Bell.  "Coast to Coast AM" brought out into the conscience of its listeners such diverse topics as UFOs, remote viewing, shadow people, Area 51, and something I've forgotten the name of but had to do with playing the actual words of people backwards and "hearing" their true feelings which were hidden in the garble and invariably contrary to what the person really said.  It was a diverse collection of topics that fascinated me.
     The now-retired Art had this way of using voice inflection to add weight to phrases and topics in sort of this off-handed unintentional manner.  When a guest would drop a bombshell or say something really profound, Art would many times make a slow, measured outing of breath that sounded to the ear like a mixture of "ah" and "oh."  When he did that, I knew he was telling the audience - probably subliminally - that whatever it was was a big whoop.  With Art, you kind of had to learn to read between the lines in order to get all that was going on.

     He eventually wrote several books, one of which was called "The Quickening."  The basic premise of the book was that the severity and frequency of events - including weather, the economy, politics, war, basically everything - were speeding up at a rate to the point where society and civilization would be unable to keep up with them.  It was a nice theory and one that sold a bunch of books for him.
     You see, Art had this way of making a living off of disaster and especially of the impending kind.  It was always about "six months from now" some comet would hit, or the aliens would come back via some prophecy, or some such other thing.  The idea of "The Quickening" was no different.  It spoke of the future and of our fate in being unable to cope with it.  For the most part - although he was very entertaining - I always thought deep down Art was kind of full of it.
     I'm not so sure anymore.
     The weather?  Does anyone think that winters are as they used to be?  Back in the day, the winter season would set in with cold and snow and it would not stop until it was good and ready.  Nowadays, Midwest winters are pretty mild with little to almost no snow.  Sydney, Australia, recently baked in a heat wave that reached into the 110's; sea levels are rising; the ice caps are apparently melting.
     The economy?  Does anyone think that we have a realistic chance to EVER pay off 16 Trillion dollars? 
     Politics?  We struggle and strain along party lines, so deeply entrenched as to make any kind of problem-solving nearly impossible.  Split along socio-economic and social issue divides, we fight and fight while the structure on which we stand slowly burns.
     War?  We continue to randomly kill each other in the name of...who knows?  Greed?  Land?  Religion?  Can anyone ever see an end to this?  Other than from divine intervention, is there some great era of enlightenment that will come to envelop us like sunshine and bubblegum and set us straight towards our fellow man?  Not likely.
     As a Christian, I've believed for a long time that the only thing that will save us will be some sort of divine intervention and we probably will have to take it right to the brink for that to happen.  I just don't see any other way out of this mess we've made.  Being humans, there was probably no other destiny for us.  

     Like concentric circles, we radiate outwards both individually and as groups all the while sharing a common center, and like it or not we're all in it together.  Maybe "The Quickening" is inevitable, given the huge number of humans who are alive and have access to ever-growing means of simply doing "things."  Modern humans have access to amazing technology and travel, while at the same time consuming more and more.  It's more than likely all inevitable, this speeding up of It All.  Meanwhile, the sky darkens.
     Whatever Art is doing now, he's probably smiling.  Maybe he fills his day with stacking sandbags outside his compound or checking on his emergency food supply.  I don't know.  But the man who I thought was a nut all those years ago probably had it right.  We're ever more rapidly moving towards an end and there's really nothing we can do about it except hold on and try to mitigate the impact once it comes.
     But Art?  Before the flares go up, can you do one thing?  Can you explain to me how remote viewing REALLY works?
     
      

Floating Above The Footprint Of History

     I was there once.
     As part of a family vacation to Texas in 1968 to see the World's Fair (HemisFair) in San Antonio, we made a stop in Dallas to see where it happened.  I remember seeing it but not much more than that.   They told me something important happened there, probably in a few simple words that flew past the short attention span of a seven year old.

      Dealey Plaza was immaculate as I recall, bright and green with lawn sprinklers at the ready and running to keep "The Site" civic-wise as palatable as possible to visitors and residents alike.  And I'm sure it was and is a difficult task for Dallas:  Part of their city is a world-famous place of infamy, and it's not like they can plow the thing under and start over.  The best they can do is keep it neat and dignified, and let it be what it is.
     I don't know if that visit started my life-long obsession with the Kennedy assassination (The Elder) but it probably kick-started it, or at the very least planted a seed.  The whole thing has always fascinated me, from the characters involved to the momentous turn of history that resulted from it.  And then I bought my first book on the subject, "Six Seconds In Dallas" by Josiah Thompson at the old supermarket just south from the old Lincoln General Hospital.
     From then on, I was truly hooked.

     I purchased an abridged copy of the Warren Report and got most of the way through it, along with almost every kind of literature related to the assassination from books on the Secret Service being involved to one about Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, Marguerite, - and the completely unique world she inhabited -  which I devoured while riding Amtrack back from Denver one summer.  You name it, I've probably read it.
     The problem with all that information is this:  It's almost completely contradictory.  One seemingly credible source has Oswald (you can see a 24/7 view here from the alleged sniper's window) as somehow alone planning and pulling the whole thing off; the next has conspirators behind every bush and under every street drain.  One has Lyndon Johnson involved while the next brings in the Mafia, the FBI and some hybrid combination of intelligence agencies led by the CIA.  It's almost intentionally maddening and designed to throw people off the track of the truth.
     I've kind of gone back and forth on what I think happened so long ago in Dealey Plaza.  At first I got caught up in the flurry of conspiratorial media and believed that Oswald was completely and totally framed.  Now, however, I think that while certainly not alone in the act, Oswald was in some way totally up to his neck in the whole thing.  Did he actually pull one of the triggers?  That I'm not sure of.  But did he know and was he part of it?  Yes.

     Now Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has come out and said that his father told him that he believed that while at the same time publicly supporting it he thought others were involved and that the report issued by the Warren Commission was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship."  Shoddy and quick, I think.  They started with a conclusion (Oswald) and wrote from back to start with that ending already in hand.  But does any of this make any difference nearly fifty years down the road?  Probably not.
     I'd love to one day again visit Dealey Plaza, this time carrying the weight of adulthood and the accompanying sense of history and of things important.  The 50th Anniversary of the murder will happen this fall, and how I'd love to be there along with masses filling the plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum on the site of the former Texas School Book Depository.  We'll see.  I know it's a place I've always wanted to see again, although were I to go back I know instead of revisiting an old haunt it would be more like seeing it for the first time.