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.