Salt & Pepper

The Space In Between


Black & White, Mustard and Ketchup, Ying & Yang....you get the idea. Everything has its counterpart.

On my recent day off from work (I take a lot of them, seniority has it's perks) I took my car into the shop to have some work done on it. If you have read enough of my ramblings, you know that my car is not a practical thing; it is more of a hobby. It is also more of an expensive hobby. I guess it is considered one of those mid-life crisis toys that men get when they turn 50. It is also one of those things that every 18 year old dreams of having. Let me tell all you young'uns one thing, the reality isn't quite what you dreamed it would be.

So on my day off I am driving the "Red Rocket" to the other side of town for some $150/hour TLC. I am passing folks left and right and turning a few heads as I go, which is basically what this car is designed to do. More than once, I have driven down the interstate and thought to myself that "I am living the dream", while at the same time calculating in my head how much it is costing me to traverse each mile of asphalt.

I ended up at the dealer and droped off my toy, handed over the keys, chit-chated for a while and left. The dealer has never worked on the car for less than 10 days and I knew I wouldn't be seeing the Red Rocket again for a while. That is just part of owning an expensive adult toy. There are long periods of separation.

Since my wife was home sleeping off some anesthesia from a recent dentist visit and in no shape to drive a car, I hopped on the local bus system for the 2 hour bus ride back to our house. This was the other side of the coin.

Phoenix is a driving town. It is built on the assumption that everyone has an automobile. Although, Phoenix has improved its bus system over the past few years. They had to, with the shifting economy and the influx of immigrants that need to ride it. This city is really spread out and you can't walk anywhere, especially when it is 110 degrees in the summer.

I boarded the west bound bus at its terminus and grabbed a prime seat. What I got to see over the next 2 hours was a succession of folks getting on and off the bus at almost every stop. There were construction workers with tools, office workers, students, elder folks in wheelchairs, some transients, and a whole mess of young Hispanic woman with several toddlers in tow. After a few stops, the bus was standing room only.

As I sat in my chair with my sunglasses over my eyes and my iPod plugged into my ears, I got to watch this whole inner-city opera of characters come and go to the strains of Nino Rota's music composed for Federico Fellini's early films of the 1950s and 60s. It was all a bit surreal.

I mused how each of them would react to driving the rocket to their destination. I wasn't being smug or condesencding. I just wondered if they thought they would ever be living their dream and what it might be.

I as I stared into their faces, I saw the cross section of America that many people don't see while commuting to work in their Chevrolets and Lexus. Some of these bus riders had aspirations and hopes that hadn't been crushed by corruption or bad luck. Some had lived hard lives and it showed in the lines around their eyes and on their foreheads. Some didn't seem to have a clue and were just going through the motions.
This was the 'melting pot' that we all hear about in history books and in social studies. It is a real thing, not just a cliché.

If the politicians that are spending mountains of money to get themselves elected president really want to get my vote, they need to ride this bus for a week. They need to give up their seat for an elderly woman; they need to stand next to the foul smelling drunk. They need to contemplate the 15 year old rapper with the tattoos and the pierced lip. They need to stand holding on to a strap for 50 minutes until their anlkes swell and their feet hurt. They need to become one with the 'melting pot'.

This is one of the little things that the Red Rocket has taught me. It is just one end of a spectrum. Seeing the spectrum from both ends has given me a much better view of all the things that lay in between. Strength isn't found at the ends, it springs from somewhere in the middle.



Sleeping Bus Rider

Three Coins

R.I.F. (Reduction In Flow)
[Federal Building, Phoenix, AZ]


If you live in a big city there are a lot of distractions. Noise made by helicopters, airliners, traffic and pedestrians is everywhere. It is enough to drive you insane sometimes.

When I was young man, fresh out of college and looking for my first job in the Pacific Northwest, I lived in Portland, Oregon. I really loved this city. During those lean years, I had a copy of War and Peace. Every day (when it wasn't raining) I would walk downtown to a huge fountain complex, climb up on one of the high perches in the middle of it, sit down and read Tolstoy for about an hour each day. It was a wonderful experience, because even though I was in the heart of a modern metropolis, I could be totally alone and at peace with all the water falling around me.





Ira Keller Fountain, Portland OR


But now I live in the Desert Southwest. They have fountains here, but they aren't the same. The State Motto of Arizona is "Ditat Deus" (God Enriches). A reference to the bounty of land. This may have been true back in the 1950s, but with the influx of millions of people (many of them illegal from south of the border), the land can't provide as much as it used to.





Wesley Bolin Plaza, State Capital, Phoenix, AZ


When it comes to public works in Arizona (building, roads, bridges, etc...) they don't tend to fund things for the long haul. They build it, and when a fiscal crisis hits, they tend to yank back funding. The end result is that the public works fall into disrepair, and are often times never revived. The end result is money wasted.





City Hall, Phoenix, AZ


Such is the case with the fountains of Phoenix. They were once pretty common. Places where the madding roar of the city could be hushed by the sound of falling water and the cool mist from their spray would comfort the citizens passing by in 100 degree heat. But not anymore. They are tomb stones to miss-management and the shrinking water resources of a society that is unchecked in its growth. There are no more refuges where you can find solitude to read a book or get lost in your thoughts here.





Public Library (Main Branch), Phoenix, AZ


Although, I haven't noticed any brown golf courses around Phoenix, and the fountains in front of huge planned communities in the suburbs still seem to flow. If you have money and influence, the water still bubbles. If you just pay your taxes here, the well ran dry a long time ago.

Cubes

Wake Up Gary.....


A short work of fiction in 4 parts.

Chapter - 1, Pelicans


Chapter - 2, Pirates


Chapter - 3, Sentinals


Chapter - 4, Cubes



Gary had the chills. A storm front had moved in during the night and it had been raining all morning. He was already frustrated from the drive into work. When it rained in this town all the drivers slowed to a crawl, which made his 45 minute commute to the office twice as long. To top it all off, the office air conditioning was on which made the damp air seem even colder.

For a Monday, it was pretty quiet in the ‘cube farm’. Most of his fellow co-workers hadn’t shown up for work yet, even though it was almost 8:30am. Gary had been busying himself with some left over work from Friday. He e-mailed another copy of the spreadsheet to Ralph in accounting and had pulled up his favorite news websites to find out what had been going on for the past two days.

Gary’s co-worker Bob poked his head over the cube wall.

“What’s Up, G-man? Have a productive weekend?”

“Somewhat. Can’t say that it was too enjoyable, but I suppose you could say I got some stuff accomplished. How about yourself, Bobster?” Gary replied.

“Lawn mowing, car shopping, laundry…you know, the usual manly stuff. Aint’ this weather a bitch? Betcha half the staff call in sick just to avoid commuting in this shit.”

“No doubt, should make for a quiet Monday….I hope.”

“Speaking of which, Der Furher won’t be in today either. I guess Rick had something pop up unexpectedly. His secretary said he won’t be in today.” Bob added.

“Really?” Gary responded.

Gary downed the last of his second cup of coffee and stood up from his chair. “Nature calls big guy, back in five.”

“Hope they restocked the toilet paper, they were out on Friday.” Bob responded as he disappeared back into his cube.

As Gary walked down the hall to the men’s room, he wondered why Rick wouldn’t be in. He rarely missed a day of work. Rick broke his arm once playing flag football with his kids and still showed up on Monday with his arm in a cast.

He had returned Fran's call on Sunday but all he got was her voice mail. He wanted to talk to her about a lot of things but hadn't heard back from her.

Gary entered the men’s room and found an empty stall. He closed the door and sat down. This was his second office. This was the place where he could sit in relative isolation and think things through without interruption. He had a lot of things to think about at this point.

Soon after he closed the stall door, he heard two co-workers enter the bathroom. From the sound of their voices it was one of the company vice-presidents and someone else from the finance division.

“So what do you think the scoop is? Was it just an accident or do you think there is something fishy about it?” the voice from finance asked.

“Something sounds funny. From what he knew, she was supposed to be in San Diego visiting her sister, not driving back from Mexico. I am sure there are a lot of questions he'll be asking. At times like this, he'll have to juggle a bunch of things; telling the kids, making arrangements, calling relatives, friends, whatever. I don’t envy him the task. He won’t be back in the office anytime soon.” was the V-P’s response.

Gary sat in silence as he heard the V-P wash his hands.

“Sometimes you never know what’s going on in life until……..” the voice of the finance worker trailed off as both men left the bathroom and the door closed behind them.

Gary got up from the seat, left the stall and headed back to his desk. He sat down and started browsing the internet news stories for his local area. In the archived section, buried in the stories from 2 days ago, it showed a young women killed in a roll over accident south of town.

Gary sat frozen as a wave of doubt, grief, sadness and anger rolled over him like a torrent. He lost track of the time until his cell phone rang and jolted him back to reality.

He looked at the number on his phone’s caller ID. It was an incoming call from Fran!

Gary opened the phone and put the receiver to his ear….”Fran?”

"Hello Gary, this is Rick……we need to talk."

Biarritz

Newer Isn't Always Better


I am sitting here lamenting the end of something. It has actually been gone for quite a while.

I keep coming across the notion that newer isn't always better. There are things that I used to buy or wanted that I can't get anymore at any price. The stuff of my dreams really aren't obtainable anymore, unless I want to manufacture them myself, which just isn't practical.

I don't drive much anymore. Don't need to. When I do, I have a toy car to move around in. It is more of an ego machine than anything else. It is hardly practical and pretty expensive to run. It is 16 years old. The ones they make today are much more expensive and not as well made.

I suppose it is a loss of innocence. We used to dream big and the American Capitalist Dream Machine was there to fill those fantasies, because the machine dreamed big as well.

But those dreams all got lost somewhere between the Summer of Love, the Vietnam War and Watergate. I suppose the Apollo Moon Landing was the last time we really dreamed big and lived large. It has been a slow decent into mediocrity since then.

Pictured above is the 1958 Cadillac Biarritz Convertible. They only made them for about 3 years. Lord knows how many are left and what they might go for at Pebble Beach or the Barrett-Jackson Auction. I am sure they would be worth more than our house.

It isn't that they were great cars (they were). But their real value is they stand as a monument to what our dreams were. And you can't buy those dreams anymore. The Cadillac’s of today pale in comparison. And besides, most folks want Hummers these days anyway.

I have to struggle to remember that there was a time when I looked forward to going for a drive. Back when the roads were empty, I didn't have to pay taxes and my parents owned a car like the one pictured above.

I feel for the kids that get piled into the mini-van to be shuttled through traffic to spend the afternoon at the mall. We lost something in getting from there to here. We lost a lot more than we realize.

(Clicking on the picture, takes you to the website where more of the hand made behemoths are viewable.)

Sentinals

Fran & Gary ...continued


A short work of fiction in 4 parts.

Chapter - 1, Pelicans


Chapter - 2, Pirates


Chapter - 3, Sentinals


Chapter - 4, Cubes



Gary kept his eye on the temperature gauge. It kept inching upward toward the redline and it made him nervous. He had been sitting in line for what seemed like an hour. His Corvette sat at idle in the 105 degree heat as he waited for traffic to inch forward.

This was the unbearable part of returning home. First the wait at the border, then the secondary check by INS several miles into the country, and now this. He had no idea what the delay was, but it had lasted over 30 minutes and he was getting frustrated.

The line of cars in front of him snaked over the hill a half mile away and disappeared. He had no idea how long the line was or how long before his car would start to melt in the desert heat.

As the line of cars slowly crept forward, one car length at a time, he noticed a turnout by the side of the road. It was a rest area with some covered picnic tables. Gary turned his car into the rest area and shut off the engine. "Better to wait here and save some gas than to just sit waiting in traffic." he thought.

The blast of desert heat overwhelmed him as he left the air conditioned cockpit of his mid-life crisis toy. "Dry heat my ass!" he muttered to himself as he walked over to the covered picnic tables Gary sat down and contemplated the barren scenery around him.

This was where reality started to set in. No more cold beer and warm ocean. He was smack dab in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. This was the road back to real life. The trek was seldom pleasant. All around him, tall saguaros stood guard at the entrance to the American dream. Gary pulled out his cell phone to see if he was back in range of the network. "Might as well face the music." he said to himself. He pushed the series of buttons that logged him back into the electronic grid that ruled his world.

“You have 5 new messages and 12 old messages. You are at the main menu. Press….”, Gary cut the automated phone voice off by pushing the #1 button.

“First Message, Sent Friday at 5:32pm......Gary, this is June. I was wondering if we could get together sometime this weekend, maybe have dinner. I want to go over the shared portfolio to see if we want to keep it joint or cash out and cut the final ties. I am going out this evening, but will be…..” Gary hit the save button and sent his ex-wife’s message to voice mail.

Next Message, Sent Friday at 6:41pm……”Yo, Gary! It’s Ralph. Hey, I need a favor. I think I deleted the Excel file that contained the revised annual report with the new numbers from Wednesday. Can you resend the workbook to me before Monday so I can have it ready for the…..” once again, Gary hit the save button. He sort of wondered if the world actually stopped functioning when he wasn’t around. Did everyone just stand around and ask where Gary was until he returned?

Next Message, Sent Friday at 7:05pm…….”Yo Gary! Ralph. Where are you man? I need to get the presentation updated before the boss shows up and…..” click, Gary simply deleted Ralph’s follow up message. He had been riding his coat tails ever since he started the damn job.

Next Message, Sent Saturday at 4:30pm……”Hi Gary. This is Brenda. We met at Rick and Fran’s house warming last month. You had mentioned that if we could find a good wine bar that served a decent Pinot Noir we should check it out. Well I just found a new place that might fit the bill and was wondering if you were available this evening. Its been a long week and I could use the diversion and some good company. If you are interested, give me a call before 6pm. Hope to hear from you! Bye.” Gary smiled for a moment. He remembered what Brenda looked like. She was pretty easy on the eyes and they had flirted quite a bit at the party. To bad he had missed the call. He would have to call her back and see if there were still some possibilities there.

Next Message, Sent Sunday at 11:35am…….Gary, its Fran. Look, I know this past weekend wasn’t any easier on you than it was on me. I…...I wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a bitch. This wasn’t your fault….and…..and I sort of feel that I may have been a bit insensitive. My insides are jumbled up right now, in more ways than one (she laughed) and I have had a lot on my mind……”

There was a long pause and Gary wondered if he had lost the connection. “I just wanted to tell you……”

As Gary listened, the wail of a siren and a revving engine raced past the rest area as a police squad car roared up the side of the road past the stopped traffic. Gary couldn’t hear what Fran was saying even though he pushed the cell phone close to his hear.

“……I don’t know if we can work this out. I suppose we should think about things. Things like this change a relationship. I hope it doesn’t change ours. You mean a lot to me and sure there are times when I have my doubts. But Gary, there are times when I think I would be lost without you...........”

There wasn’t any goodbye, just a pause and the sound of the connection ending. The dust from the squad car drifted over the picnic tables and Gary hit the repeat button combination on the cell phone. He listened to the message once more to hear it uninterrupted.

Gary listened intently and could hear a slight quivering in Fran’s voice. She was usually always calm and collected and rarely got emotional. But this was a different Fran than the one he had known for the past six months.

After the long pause, he listened…….”I just wanted to tell you that I love you……..” she said.

Gary closed the cell phone and brushed the sweat from his forehead. “Damn”, he thought out loud.

Falling

I wish I could have taken a picture. It would have defined the wonderment of life. But I knew there wasn't enough light and the time exposure would have required a tripod and a lot of luck which I did not have. I just had to burn the image into my mind so I wouldn't forget it.

This was the last trip. I had made the journey three times before, but had been thwarted by circumstance short of my goal. The goal was to hike to the Tall Trees Grove. This is where the largest trees in the world grow. They are located deep within the Redwood Forest. In my past attempts, rivers had been too high, bridges had been washed out, or the trail had been closed. But I loved the Redwoods. I felt at home there among the sheltering giants. I wanted to take one more crack at it.

As I drove up Highway 1 in California, I decided to camp for the night at the Andrew Molera Walk-In camp ground. This was a camp ground on the coast near the Big Sur River. You had to leave your car at a parking area and hike to the camping ground about a half mile toward the shore. I found a place to park and packed in my tent and sleeping bag.

The Andrew Molera Campground was a large open area about a half mile from the shore. It was late in the afternoon as I set up my tent and made camp. As the sun slowly set, I decided to walk the trail to the shore and catch a glimpse of the ocean. It was a beautiful summers evening, and the smell of the sea and the coastal flora was like an intoxicating perfume.

As I walked the path through the coastal vegetation, I passed an old one room school house that had been marked as an historic site. It hadn’t been restored and seemed old as the land it sat upon. In the cool moist air of the coast, I couldn’t imagine a time that it had actually been used. My mind wandered to the 1930s and the children that may have lived in the area and walked here to learn their lessons next to the Pacific surf. It seemed so far removed from the school buses and concrete classrooms that I had known as a child.

Past the school house the path followed a meandering stream that was Big Sur river as it trickled toward the ocean, taking water from the coastal mountains down toward the sea.

The path then made its way through a tunnel of ferns and shrubs and eventually ended on a cliff overlooking the ocean. High on the cliff was a bench where I sat and watched the sun disappear below the horizon. It was a scene of absolute tranquility with the sound of the surf and the smell of the sea mixing with the greenery of the California coast.

As the sun disappeared and the sky darkened, I witnessed something that I had never seen before. As the veil of night descended and the stars slowly made their appearance, they were reflected in the ocean as I looked to the west. The thousand points of light above my head ran down to the horizon where they slowly faded into the coastal mist and then re-appeared at my feet in the placid ocean as it rolled toward the shore and broke over the rocks.

At that point, I could have not been further away from civilization. I could not have been more at peace or appreciated more beauty. These were the moments that I took the trips for. Each time I went, I found something unexpected, something magical.

It eventually dawned on me that I had to make it back to camp and that the way would be dark and unknown. I had the foresight to bring a flashlight and headed back down the vine covered trail to the camping area.

As I walked under and through the bushes I once again came upon the stream that flowed to the ocean. While I had been on the bench taking in nature’s light show, the tide had come in and backed up the stream to its headwaters.

The babbling brook had been transformed into a mirror smooth pond and as the trail skirted along its banks I stopped in awe.

The stars that burned so brightly overhead where reflected like a mirror in the water at my feet. I paused and turned off my flashlight. There, in the coastal darkness, with only the sound of the distant surf and the evening frogs, the stars surrounded me. There was no moon. There was no other light. For that moment, I stood on the edge of the infinte.

There are times when your mind plays tricks on you and you have to rely on logic to show you the way. As I gazed around me, my eyes told me that if I stepped off that bank, I would fall into infinity. There was no ground, there was no water, there were only stars in a vast sea of emptiness. But logic told me if I took that step, I would get wet. My mind wrestled with the thought, and logic won out. It usually does.

I turned the flash light back on, illuminated the path once more, and headed back to the campground. The campground was teaming with life when I returned. There were fires raging in dozens of fire pits, with groups standing around singing, laughing and drinking. It appeared as though some medieval carnival had sprung to life when the sun went down.

I made some dinner and went to bed with the strains of guitars and laughter outside my tent. My mind returned to the dark bank of the stream and continued to question whether or not I would have fallen into those stars.

I knew I could never go back and find out. It was a door that opened for just one moment in time. A door that showed me something not visible in the ‘real’ world. I hope I get another chance to open that door. Maybe next time I will step off the bank. I will always be curious.

(clicking the picture shows an aireal view of the Andrew Molera State Park, with the cliffs and Big Sur river visible. The web site for the park can be found here )

Mother Knows Best

The Power of Baking


I have a step-daughter. She has a son. I suppose that makes him my step-grandson, but all these step designations get confusing after a while.

Let’s just call him 'Munchkin'. He is all of 4 years old, and when he runs into walls, he just falls down, gets back up and keeps on running. He has boundless energy without a lot of sense. Childhood, don't you miss it?

One day when he was all of two years old, Munchkin was visiting us and playing with one of his toy trucks. It was a big truck and he was standing over it as he pushed it around the floor of our home. Without a keen sense of the difference between tile and carpet, Munchkin ran his truck into the tile barrier between the living room and the dining room. The truck abruptly stopped. Munchkin did not.

He went head over truck and did a very proper face-plant onto the hard tile floor. You could feel the thud all through the house. It was painful just to watch, much less feel through your feet.

After he got up and wondered exactly what happened, he inevitably started to cry. He cried really loud. No one could blame him. We all rushed over to him to make sure there was no major damage. Other than the red knot that was swelling up on his forehead, he seemed fine. At least his lungs sure lead us to that assumption.

Without loosing a beat, his mother (my step-daughter) quickly ordered me to, "Get a Brownie" from the kitchen. My wife (munchkins grandmother....see how confusing this gets?) had made a batch of brownies that afternoon and they were cooling in the kitchen.

Considering that her son was screaming and looked like he had just been beaned by a line drive, I thought her request for a Brownie was a bit on the odd side, if not a bit selfish. "Your son is crying and you want to eat a brownie?" I thought.

I complied since there wasn't a lot else I could do. I went to the kitchen, sliced off a piece of the moist, warm baked goodness and returned to my step-daughter.

She promptly handed it to Munchkin and within a split second, there was golden silence. Munchkin was devouring the brownie and the swelling lump on his head was already receding into distant memory.

I stood there in amused amazement. Never underestimate the power of a brownie. Never question the wisdom of a mother. It is something men have a real hard time understanding.

A warm brownie heals all wounds.