Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Road to 65, Miles 173 and 174: Preparations

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May 20 & 21, 2015, Prescott

My final day of the academic year was spent again overseeing reading programs and computerized math tests.  it’s been, all in all, a fine year.  Next year won’t be as punctuated by my travel, as I have nothing out-of-region that would impede my work- except possibly  a few days for my brother’s 60th, in September.

In the meantime, there is the matter of making sure my car is roadworthy.  It went through five stress tests and two road tests today, courtesy of the automotive shop I use. I will stop by the transmission specialists, first thing tomorrow morning, and ask their opinion about the stalling out.  Three mechanics pronounced the matter solved, though, so I am not sure the transmission folks will be any different.  Still, I have to ask, before heading out on Friday morning.

All of my former client’s stuff is out of storage, and at his new agency.  He seems to be adjusting well.  He tried to get the new agency to reimburse me for last weekend, but that is not in their budget.  I wasn’t expecting it, in any event.

My friends in Reno are expecting me, sometime on Saturday, so I will get there, one way or another.  Most likely, it’ll be by Nissan. I will be traveling lighter than on previous occasions, and hope to get the most essential stuff into my backpack, with the items only needed for “town” visits in a spare bag.

The heat will be off in the house.  My landline will be turned off, as will my printer.  The DISH account will be suspended for the summer.  Who needs re-runs?  My dinosaur TV is ready to go to the parts collector, anyway.  I will deal with that at the end of June.

Now, I will lay me down to sleep, and knowing that my dear friends are praying on my behalf, adds extra heft to the spirituality that underlies my impending journey northwestward.  Stay tuned.

The Road to 65, Mile 172: Scattered Forces Get Magnetized

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May 19, 2015, Chino Valley- I had an uneventful drive to/ from Chino, today, in a rented Ford Focus.  My Nissan, which will shortly be my vehicle on a Pacific Northwest sojourn, was repaired this afternoon, in short order.  The electrical mechanic had no trouble putting in a new alternator pulley- which is crucial to proper charging of any motor vehicle.  While he was working on it, he found a rather expensive hand tool, which belongs to my regular auto maintenance person.  I, in turn, found a voided photo ID from Michigan, for a chauffeur, in the rental car.

A lot of little things thus came together.  It’s amazing how unity of thought and purpose can resolve many, seemingly unconnected matters.  The rental agency placed the photo ID in a file; the mechanic to whom the tool belonged was ecstatic at getting it back and the owner of the Nissan (me) feels affirmed in my placing trust in a total stranger, who is now a preferred vendor.

I am a bit concerned about three boys in one family, at the school where I worked today and will work tomorrow.  All three were in and out of trouble today, which hasn’t happened all that often.  Another friend has to chronically face her four sons getting ill, simultaneously and with great flourish.  The energy needed to keep a family functioning together, is indeed a thing of wonder.

Scattered forces can come together, for both good and ill.  As I learn more about quantum mechanics, I see how positive forces need to be brought in focus, to avoid harm and despair.  A commenter on another site bemoaned the “lack of anguish” in today’s religious gatherings.  I believe such hand-wringing shows a dearth of understanding.  Christ told us not to despair, but to work hard at relieving the misery of the sick and the poor.  Baha’u’llah wrote:  “Wert thou to scan the pages of the Book of Life, thou wouldst, most certainly, discover that which would dissipate thy sorrows and dissolve thine anguish.” – “Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 133.

The Road to 65, Mile 171: Alternators

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May 18, 2015, Prescott- My Nissan has a slight headache.  It turns out that the issue is a defective pulley that helps drive the car’s alternator.  The new pulley will arrive tomorrow noon, at our area’s only auto electric shop. Then I will have my car back, in time for a Pacific Northwest sojourn.

The devices that keep a car running smoothly, and help the battery maintain consistent current, are impressive and solid little boxes, full of brushes, wires and bearings.  The devices that keep us on track are also solid, yet are not always box-like in nature.  Brushes, wires and bearings, of a sort, are in our brains, and in our minds.  The brushes are the cleansings we do each day, in the face of new information and insights.  The wires are our connections, from one part of the brain to another, and from one part of our life to the next.  The bearings are the abilities we have, which keep us flexible, and allow our adaptation to change to go smoothly.  We must keep them lubricated, with an open mind and loving heart.

It is the view of some, that Mechanism will be the lord of the future world.  Mankind, in the view of extreme roboticists, will simply have no purpose.  I disagree. The semi-human beings seen in the Terminator and Avengers movie series each claim to be Pro-Life.  That, to me, means maintaining, lubricating and refining our working parts.  This, only the flexible intelligence that is human will be able to do, ever.

The Road to 65, Mile 170: Power

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May 17, 2015, Prescott- I admit it, I get cheap thrills from watching tv shows where people who abuse their power get a good, hard comeuppance- usually after they try every trick known to man and beast to hold on to that ironclad control.  Two shows now current, “A.D.” and “American Odyssey”, focus on criminal geniuses who have amassed great wealth, through nefarious means and the grassroots, loosely tied groups who are working to bring them down.

My guilty pleasure aside, we know what happened with the dastardly Roman elite and its backers in the Jewish Sanhedrin; so, “A.D.”, dramatized as it is, only reinforces the conceptions people have on the persecution of early Christians.

The problem with merely fighting the powerful, without having a clear-cut, well-conceived plan about what comes next, is that we become the powerful, and fall back on the very systems and methods against which we were previously trying to upend.   Pete Townshend, in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, offers a cautionary tale:  “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

So it goes, and we have the spiritual descendants of the early Christians, trying their level best to persecute critics of their school policies, in places like Waco, TX- where people trying to implement anti-bullying codes in Christian schools are being even more humiliated by the church establishment, which is working to cover up the incidents.  To be fair, there is plenty of blame to go around, among all faiths, in the misuse of power.  The depredations of Muslim and Buddhist reactionaries are too many to recount, and atheists, led by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, wrote several volumes on how not to meet the needs of common people.

Power corrupts, and absolute power….. Truth be told, power can only be absolute for a brief period of time.  The common folk always find ways to get around it, to erode its base, and, eventually, to show just how illusory the concept actually is.    The only true, lasting power is that of love.  “Love gives life to the lifeless; hope to the hopeless.  In the world of existence, there is no greater power than the power of love.”- ‘Abdu’l-Baha, speaking in London, 1911.

I don’t know how “American Odyssey” will end, but I do know that the end result of a lust for power is, sooner or later, a total loss of power.

The Road to 65, Miles 168 & 169: Barriers

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May 15 & 16, 2015, Prescott to Flagstaff, and back-

The past two days are combined into one post, as they featured three things in common:  The weather, which is unusual for Arizona in May; my disabled client’s move to Flagstaff and my car getting serviced, yesterday and then doing worse on the last part of my return to Prescott, this evening.

Having grown up in New England, seen forty degree temps in Boston, the first week of June, 1970, and seen snow in Colorado, on July 31, 2013, I am actually okay with snow in the high country and torrential rain here.  It did make for an interesting 1 1/2 days.

Client was not doing well in his last shelter- the manager was too much concerned with the business aspect of the operation, and put him out in the rain Friday night, until manager’s wife took him to a safe place, away from that house.  Screaming at people that “THIS IS A BUSINESSSSS!!” is hardly the way to run such.

It took most of the day today (Saturday), but we got client’s belongings packed and into my car, then I drove him to Flagstaff.  We checked out the men’s shelter (chaotic, and rather a long wait in the cold), then I was able to get him into one of my favourite motels, for the weekend.  Monday will find him in the new mentor’s office, and he will move on.

My car was serviced on Friday.  Regular maintenance and a cleaning of the upper manifold were meant to guarantee better performance.  The Nissan worked well, until the return trip showed a couple of ancillary dashboard lights on and off (not the “check engine” light, though).  The car stalled at several red lights, but I got home okay.  it being the weekend, I will return to the shop on Monday, and will leave the car until it is fixed.  Perhaps a rental car, or a bus ticket, will be needed for my journey north, next Thursday.  Time will tell.

The common denominators for me, in all this, are detachment and perseverance.  So far, I’m no worse for the wear.

The Road to 65, Mile 167: Safe/Unsafe

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May 14, 2015, Chino Valley- I spent today supervising graduating high school seniors, who chose not to join their Class Trip to Orange County, but were in school to do- nothing.  Their tests finished, their year’s work accomplished, the kids sat and quietly either socialized or played cards, while I read more about building a natural diet, in a largely ersatz economy.  There was to be a semi-instructional video shown, but it was not at the school.  The saving grace was that their parents could rest assured that they were in a safe environment.

Anyone who has raised teenagers knows the feeling, that these people who look like adults and, in the best of circumstances, carry themselves as adults, are still our babies.  I was as likely to fret over our son when he was in high school, or for that matter, when he was in college, as I was when he was younger.

Imagine then, the horror felt by the mother of a 16-year-old boy, an honour student, a self-starter who took the initiative both around home and at his part-time job, when he was killed-at a bus stop- by a wayward pickup truck trailer.  The facts are still being gathered, but there was a collision between the truck that was hauling the trailer and another vehicle.  One was turning left and the other was going straight.  It’s still not known for certain, who had the right of way.

Some things ARE certain, though: The student had the right to feel safe at his bus stop.  His mother, who is visually-impaired, had the right to reasonably expect that her son would come home after school, and help her around the house, as he had done for several years.  His sister, and cousins, had the right to expect, all other things being equal, that he would continue to make them proud, with his consistent achievements.

We never know when the “bell will toll”.  Many of us have heard this, week in and week out- at our places of worship, at  school and at the neighbourhood gathering spot.  I’ve had my own brushes with death- and so far, so good.  Having seen my youngest brother, then my wife, go through gradual declines just underscored my understanding of this concept.

I am not sure I will ever really comprehend what almost seems a capricious taking of life, however.  The life of a child, or of a teen, seems almost sacrosanct- and yet…..

The Road to 65, Mile 166: Comfort Zones

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May 13, 2015, Prescott- I was wakened this morning by a job call for a middle school science classroom.  Normally, I turn down anything where I would be figuring the material out, as I went along.  Not knowing math and science cold has been a deterrent, in such posts.  This morning’s job description was mainly caretaking, while the students read and answered questions about the text, so I took the job, and will have four days, at least, this week, plus two days next week, to end the academic year.

I’ve thought alot about comfort zones, of late.  Something has removed anxieties that I used to feel about moving into territory from which I have shied away, in the past.  The academic scene is an example.  Yesterday, I worked a math class, albeit at fifth grade level.  I was at least as smart as the fifth graders.

On the trail, I used to not do handholds up rock faces.  On Sunday, I din’t give it a second thought, going up the cliff. I don’t think I will take on rock-climbing, mind you, but the moderately difficult hand over hand is no longer a barrier.

Facing myself, when I ponder what, exactly, I am doing that is of value, is a periodic challenge.  Today, I just looked in the mirror, after actually getting along with a person with whom I’ve had sharp differences in the past, and decided it’s worth every minute, of each day, to walk up to a challenge and face it.  There is nothing that says I am not at least as worthwhile, not at least as capable, of stretching the comfort zone.

The Road to 65, Mile 165: Seeds

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May 12, 2015, Prescott-  I planted seeds of confidence in a young girl’s mind, this morning, and she guided the lot of us to revisiting a small detail, which made all the difference in a key part of the lesson.  This evening, the concept of seed banks and libraries was shared with thirty of us, who were gathered at a Slow Food chapter meeting.

I am into the sowing of seeds- of vegetables, fruit, grasses and ideas.  Sowing friendship seeds is the best such activity, and I am getting better at that.  The physical seeds will most likely wait until next Spring, but I will check the planting calendar, and see if an early July planting will work for this mountain climate. The seeds of amity can be planted anytime, and are well worth watering.  The seeds of ideas must be planted, and watered daily.

A gentleman at tonight’s meeting offered the opinion that individual seed banks are critical to preventing a USDA/Monsanto joint takeover of our food supply.  While the Feds are big on Genetically-Modified anything, I don’t see that ending well, for anyone.  Any given individual has a hundred places to hide seeds, and after all, the “success rate” of the war on drugs is not exactly earthshaking.  We who seek to grow our own food will be just fine.

This brings me to the bad seeds:  Suspicion, closed-mindedness and power-craving.  The first grows out of, and feeds, the second.  Both are a natural reaction to the the third.  The more those in authority overreach, even with the best of ill-informed intentions, the more those on the ground will push back, overreact and invite more overreach.  See the tiger, the dog, the snake chasing their tails?

Monsanto is responding to a reasonable request from the State of Vermont, to label Genetically Modified Organisms in foods sold there, by dispatching an army of attorneys, to sue, appeal and obfuscate- thus wasting millions of dollars and months of man-hours, while complaining about the cost of such labeling.  Then, there is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade Trojan horse, by which the President, and at least two of his predecessors, hope to use to force the GMO-free nations of east Asia to buckle under and get with the Monsanto program.  Go figure.

I am not against science.  The research ought to go on, move beyond monocultures and poisoning of the soil and water, and get over the idea that revenue, the building of fortunes, alone, should be the be-all and end-all of the accumulated knowledge.  We ought not eat what we can’t digest, no matter whose children are being put through college, with the generated profit.

I digress.  The seeds of knowledge, as well as those of sustenance, belong to all mankind.

The Road to 65, Mile 164: Base Camps

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May 11, 2015, Prescott- I often get to thinking, especially this time of year, about the base camps I’ve known, in my all-too-peripatetic life.  Saugus really didn’t count, as most of my wandering in the early days was around town, or over to Lynn, a long walk, or short bus ride, away.  Fort Myer, VA- I took a bus, then walked from Georgetown or Capitol Hill, all over Washington, and into Prince George’s or Montgomery Counties.  Bangor, ME was the first real such launchpad, and I hitched rides all over Maine, as well as  into New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec.

Then came Arizona, and not a weekend went by that I didn’t leave the Villa-Oasis School and head for any part of the state that could comfortably be visited in forty-eight hours.  Bear in mind that I was without a car, from 1978-1982.  So hitchhiking and bus rides were my ways of getting around.  It was something of a different time, though hitchhiking was a risk then, also.  I made my first visits to  Canada and several Western states, back in 1972, on a two-week dash from Montreal to Edmonton and Calgary, then back, through Montana, Salt Lake City and Denver, to Baltimore and Boston.  The West unfolded in greater detail, during my two summers with Toltec, then Flagstaff, as my bases. I made wide-eyed visits to Lake Tahoe and Portland, as well as southwest Colorado and southern California.

Penny and I were a bit more settled, especially while raising our son and later, in the years of her moving towards the Spirit Realm.  Still, we were off and running every summer, and some winters, either around the Navajo Nation and Hopiland, or to places like Israel, Guyana, Taiwan and South Korea (Aram’s birthplace, where we lived and worked for 5 1/2 grand years.)

Prescott has been the place where I have lived the longest, on my own.  It is an excellent base from which to head out and experience the combination of visits, service, and exploratory learning to which I have become accustomed.  Once in a while, like today, I wonder whether I might be wearing out my welcome here, but I know some people’s snippy dispositions and standoffish manners have more to do with them, than with anything I may have done or said.  I will hang on here, for at least two more years, coming and going, and coming back, to and from places like Reno, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria and Juneau, this year; and other, more distant spots, in November, 2016.

Base camps are no less valuable to the wanderer than they are to the settled soul.  All the preparation and heavy lifting of life go on at one’s chosen abode.  Without home, there is no true journey.  Without the journey, there is no  true home.

The Road to 65, Mile 163: Mom

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May 10, 2015, Prescott- She is the eighth of nine children, born to a German-American shoemaker/farmer and a proper English-American country wife.  She loved and married a gregarious, gentle man, of French, Irish and Penobscot descent, and together they raised five of us. My youngest brother and I, the eldest, had our mental health challenges, his being complicated by other health issues, which took his life, when he was just shy of 30.  Our third brother, following Mom’s example of dealing with adversity, has toughed his health issues out, as I have my mental health issues, in my latest years.  Our sister rose above a life-threatening injury and has raised an exemplary family.  Our second brother has worked tirelessly, all his life, and shown the way to success, on many levels, seeking no one’s approval more than that of our mother.

She has said, time and again, that the time to pay homage to a person is while they are still alive.  My late wife used to echo those words.  In honour of both, I pay as much to my mom.  Having overcome her own health issues, which came late in life, she still drives, socializes actively and gets her exercise.  While Mom shies away from any technology more complex than a flat-screen television, she keeps current in other ways.  Always a progressive, politically, she speaks favourably of marriage equality and hopes to see Hillary in the White House. That she raised three Republicans and a political gadfly (me) doesn’t faze her a bit.  She loves golf, preferring these days to watch it on TV, and no one is more loyal to the Red Sox and the Patriots.  Her flower gardens used to be the toast of the neighbourhood.  They’ve pretty much gone away, but the lawn is still kept up- with local kids taking up the slack.  Above all, Mother’s mind is still a steel trap, and her eyes are eagle-sharp, after Lasik about five years ago.

I was raised lovingly and well, as were my siblings.  Mom set the example, in her single-minded care of my youngest brother, even in her darkest hour, following Dad’s sudden death in 1986.  ONLY because of her, and for her, did Brian hang on as long as he did, another eight years.  When I had the responsibility of caring for my slowly-dying wife, from 2003 to 2011, all Mom had done on his behalf was mine to follow.  It couldn’t have been any other way.

So, with all that she has given us, to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I  love and thank her, eternally.