Category Archives: collaborating

Sixty-Six for Sixty Six, Part XX: Genuineness and Imposture

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, Personal Values, Striving, Travel

April 1, 2017, Superior, AZ-  I returned, briefly, to this roughly beautiful little town, at the edge of central Arizona’s Queen Creek Gorge, to partake of the Gorge’s eastern flank, popularly known as Devil’s Canyon, (I prefer “Spirit Canyon”), and a sandwich, coffee and butterscotch brownie prepared by a friend, Kathy, at Sun Flour Market.

She and the market’s owner, Willa, are prime examples of people who make everyone entering their enterprise feel genuinely welcome, like royalty.  They work hard, as well, and their efforts show: The place was hopping, despite the relatively quiet Main Street.

I don’t take photographs of people at work, or of random customers, but these are scenes from Sun Flour’s interior, including Willa’s Easter Tree.SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

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I have spoken before, of places where I feel safe.  This establishment is another such place.  I consider the ladies as friends, who love their spouses, AND have intensely caring hearts, when it comes to people in general.  The Easter Tree is a nod to the children, whose parents bring them in, regularly, on Saturdays.  You might note some Easter dresses, to the left of the tree.  While I was there, a little girl talked her parents into buying one of the dresses.  Needless to say, Sun Flour Market will see me, whenever I’m in the area.

I mention imposture, in the title, as well.  I pondered, a great deal, whilst hiking in the canyon, after lunch, as to my own state of being.  Friends will say that I am a genuine soul, and I am honoured by that.  There are plenty of others, including several family members, who would say otherwise, and I have to live with that.  My own personal jury is still out, on the matter.

Most such self-ambivalence stems from work.  Going back to when I first entered the workforce, there were supervisors, like Phil Mitchell, Bob Powers and Sgt. Dave Cummings (United States Army), who saw my rough edges and used whatever sand paper they had available, to turn me into a fairly decent worker.  Fast forward to the late seventies and early eighties, men like Peter Webb, Dr. Mike Duff, and the late Patrick Giovanditto also helped me hone my skills, often ignoring objections from less compassionate supervisors.  My colleagues at Jeju National University, in Korea, were uniformly supportive of my work, during the five years I served as a trainer of English teachers.  Back in the States, in the 1990’s, I got support and encouragement from Eugene Charley and A.T. Sinquah, whilst serving as a school counselor.  Truth be known, many students, teachers and parents also believed in my abilities- far more than I believed in myself.  The people with whom I worked last Spring, at Prescott High School, remain advocates, as well.  These were the people who could see inside my heart.

The people I mentioned above are counteracted, to a great degree, by the majority of those under whom I have worked, including my current supervisors.  Their negative opinions, unfortunately, only bring me back to a state of doubt.  None of them have been able to see inside my heart.  My own vision, often cloudy, requires constant cleansing and refocusing.  All I know is that the safe zones in my world are what make such recovery possible.  Perhaps some day, my work place will be a similar place.  For the next eight weeks, though, I do the best I can, with six of my eight students as beacons of light.

 

Always Regal

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 8, 2017, Prescott- 
Some thoughts on the occasion of International Women’s Day:

Women, at least from what I can see, want what men want-

Respect, dignity, appreciation, the right to strive, the right to achieve, the chance to succeed, avoidance of typecasting.

I would not be anywhere near the man I am, were it not for Mother’s diligence in her job.

I would be far lesser a person, had it not been for my wife’s undying love and encouragement.

I would not be as loyal a friend, had my sister not been the true and loyal friend she has been, for 64 years.

My world would be bleaker, without many female friends, ranging in age from ten to eighty.

Much is still made of beauty- but it is the kind of beauty radiating from within, that sustains any person, in perpetuity.

Comely women need to be viewed as humans, with the same needs and wants as anyone else, or the viewer is missing a variety of points.

When a task requiring many hands presents itself, a full crew of both genders is the most productive.

I shudder at a world, in which women are barred from exercising their talents and faculties.

Blessed International Women’s Day!

Sixty Six for Sixty-Six, Part IV: Raise the Bar

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Social, Striving

January 16, 2017, Prescott-  I spent most of today just being here for my son and a friend of his, so that they got a good breakfast into themselves and didn’t forget any of their gear, from last night’s camp-out.  The other act of service was a visit to my surrogate uncle, Henry “Hank” Alcott, whom I’ve mentioned here before.  He told me I needed to cook for myself more, and so I have a sheet with some of his favourite New England recipes.  He also reinforced my commitment to service, by telling me, again, about his daily regimen of getting up at dawn, making his own bed and going around the VA Hospital, and visiting those who are alone.  Henry is 93, and regards everyone he knows as his family.  I can’t think of a finer way to live fully.

This leads me to the next order of business:  We hit rock bottom, during the last election cycle, in a variety of ways.  Elections often produce winners who seem to be the opposite of what a country needs.  There are eras, as with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, when the elected grows, marvelously, into the position and stands firm, in meeting the needs of the times.

Society could well stand a make-over or, at least, a cleansing.  Here are some suggestions:

  1.  Learning should not be limited to a prescribed pedagogy.  I have a personal dedication to raising the bar for my students, to see knowledge as a tool for personal success- and for myself to not rely so much on cognitive material.  People are embracing the process of learning, and its mastery, a lot more.  Let’s place more stress on analysis, synthesis and application.
  2. Family, as Uncle Hank says, is unlimited.  The possibilities of what can be achieved are limitless, when one does not constrict his/her circle of contacts and sources of ideas.  I said, yesterday, on another medium, that people can be estimable, regardless of their personal politics.  I have not restricted my “family” to the realms of close genealogy, regional neighbourship or even shared pigmentation, national origin or nationality at birth. It would be more than grand, if we were to value the lives of others, as if there were no “Other”.
  3. God is not a four-letter word.  Most of the satisfaction I have had from life has come from a belief system.  I believe each of us has to find our own spiritual center, and that, in doing so, we don’t cast aspersions on the beliefs of others.  I speak of Baha’u’llah and study His Teachings.  That does not mean I hold it against Christians, Muslims or followers of other Faiths, who wish to share their beliefs. Fullness of spiritual knowledge can only make us stronger.
  4. These are three areas, in which I believe the “bar” can be raised.

Mother Miguel Mountain

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, Inspiration, Service Activities, Striving

January 3, 2017, Chula Vista-   Whenever I look out the window, from my son’s apartment, the curious sight of Mount San Miguel, in the Otay Range, looms to the southeast. I took advantage of Aram’s being back to work, got up before dawn, and headed over to Mount San Miguel Park, on Chula Vista’s east side.  There was a short wait, of about twenty minutes, as the city park opens at 6 A.M., with decent light about 6:30.

My choice of trails led up Mother Miguel Mountain, to a military commemorative, called Rock House.  Two explanations are in order:  “Mother Miguel” is a mash-up of Madre Grande, which some early settlers from the eastern U.S. took to pronouncing “Mother Grundy”, and San Miguel, the name given to the area by earlier Spanish ranchers;  Rock House is the name given to a rock arrangement which houses two, rather tattered, flags-our national flag and the banner honouring Prisoners-of-War and those Missing-in-Action.  The latter is to be flown, or displayed at meetings of veterans’ service organizations, until the day comes when all such persons, or their identified remains, are honourably interred or cremated on U.S. soil.

My leisurely up and back lasted about three hours, over a round trip of 6.2 miles.  The photos, taken with my phone camera, are not as clear as those taken with the digital, but you will get the idea.20170103_0651391

Here is the trailhead for Mother Miguel, from the east end of Mt. San Miguel Park.20170103_0701591

Above, is a view of the destination, for which I used a series of 22 non-taxing switchbacks.

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Occasional limestone boulder piles provide a place to sit and contemplate, along the way.

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Others just dominate their area,  as does this castle-like outcropping.

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Once atop the modest-sized peak, Mexico looms, to the south, with the San Ysidro district of San Diego, in the foreground.

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Here is Rock House, with its resident banners.

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A second stone arrangement, intended as a circle for contemplation, is found just south of the Rock House.  Sweetwater Reservoir is seen in the distance.

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A third, circular, stone arrangement is a bit more to the south, still, and seems to invite a holistic view of the repatriation process.

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Off to the east is Mount San Miguel, whose owners SAY they don’t want hikers going to its summit, but do nothing to prevent those few intrepid people,usually military members doing personal training, who make the steep hike up its western slope.

Speaking of which, there were about six others on Mother Miguel Trail, while I was there.  One, a young lady, passed by, as I was taking in the rock arrangements, and went to the southernmost point on the summit.  After she had returned from her moments of solitude, and headed on down the mountain, I went to that point, and found a commemorative bench.

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There is, indeed, nothing that replaces a sense of home.  I hope that she felt comforted, and reassured, by this message.

The way down had me thinking, somehow, of just how vital the two youngest generations are, and will continue to be, to the well-being of our nation, and of our planet, as a host of problems, heretofore unfaced, will present themselves, over the next decade or so.  I guess the energy of the young runners and hikers, along with the industrial views of the area to the west and north of the park, set this thought in motion.  Like all previous such times of challenge, humanity will prevail, by working together.  There is no other choice.

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The rocks remain, and patiently look upon us.

 

Relections on Noel, 2016

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Spiritual

December 25, 2016, Phoenix-  I had thought I might be getting out of snow-shoveling this year, but it didn’t turn out that way. No matter- I made do with four hours of sleep, before heading back down here for the final day of Grand Canyon Baha’i Conference.

There was a rather intense seminar on communication between us and those who have gone on.  I have had plenty of messages from Penny, and from other relatives, over the past several years, and was visited by my maternal grandmother, not long after she passed away.  Dabbling in the psychic, which is discouraged by Baha’u’llah, in His Writings, is quite another matter. This presentation was quite informative, however, with regard to the power of concentrated energy.

I also attended a presentation on children in community life, and was confirmed in my own position:  People of all ages deserve to be included in the life of the community, and encouraged in their pro-social dreams and aspirations.  Noting that traditional societies, most familiar to me being Native Americans, have long practiced the full involvement of children in community life, the group concluded this was key to rebuilding society.

I went to the west side of town, to visit some friends.  A couple and their granddaughter were home, so I gave the girl a copy of Abby Wize:  AWAKE”, by Lisa Bradley.  She is very loving to animals, and the story is about a girl who loves horses, so I think it will go well with her.  My other friend was still at a church service, so I rescheduled to see him next week.  Dinner was at a customary place- Mandarin Super Buffet, in the heart of Phoenix.  It was packed, as Chinese restaurants often are, on Christmas night.  The food was fresh and hot, so I was again delighted by Mandarin’s varied and hearty fare.

I had intended to attend a concert, back at the Conference site.  Concert time, however, found me in an intense and wide-ranging conversation with a much-admired mentor, of many years.  As he remarked, when it was time for us to leave:  “There will be other concerts.”

Lastly, it was much easier to get onto my street, and in the house, this evening.  Hope you each had a joyous Christmas.

A Progressive Rogue

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving

December 17, 2016, Prescott- 

I regard myself as a progressive.  There is only one way to real progress, though, in my view.  That is, for everyone to roll up their sleeves, get a given job done, and not be concerned with WHO ELSE is on the team, or in the relay line, so long as each person is carrying his or her weight.

I was on a team, this morning, whose collective task was to empty a storage yard of holiday wreaths.  We had about a thousand wreaths, most of which were in boxes of six.  Our team, of ten men and one woman, loaded the boxes and loose wreaths onto any of three trucks.  The trucks then brought their loads up to a staging area, in Prescott Memorial Cemetery, where others took the wreaths and placed them at each of a thousand or so gravesites, as part of Wreaths Across America, which honours our departed veterans, each Christmas season.  The team members did not stop for a minute, until the job was done.  Yes, it was cold(18-25 F), but so was shoveling snow, back in Saugus, Deerfield and Bangor, in my earlier days.  As the project director said, when we first gathered for assignments, the men and women whose graves we honoured did not flinch, for convenience’s sake.

I left the site, after our job was finished, and went over to another place, where 45 women, men and children were putting Christmas baskets and backpacks together, for homeless veterans and disadvantaged families.  My jobs were to sort donated groceries into food types, sort empty backpacks into piles, by colour and size, and then help fill twenty backpacks, with donated clothing, safety implements, toiletries and stationery. Once again, each of us worked with the others, across lines of ideology, gender and age, with no regard for differences.

These two events, no doubt, had their counterparts, by the thousands, across the country, and around the world.  We do them, as part of our community loves, on a daily basis, some of us more than others, but each according to his/her own talents and time allowances.

I  went to see “Rogue One:  A Star Wars Story”, last night, in our very comfortable, and inexpensive, Picture Show Theater.  The plot told of a young woman who grows up, a de facto orphan, learning the self-reliance and self-discipline that such a state of affairs imparts.  She trusts few, having been abandoned by her father, and betrayed by two competing groups of tyrants.  The rest is up to anyone, wishing to see the film, to find out for themselves.

I have had to go it alone, several times, in life and I’m sure this will happen again.  Being “rogue”, however, doesn’t mean that one should lose sight of the greater challenge facing humanity.  We are here, I believe, to care for one another with enormous passion.  My opus, gladly engaged, is caring for others with an ever-decreasing regard for my own comfort.  Yes, my “job”, in the eyes of family members, is to take care of myself, and I have that one down, pretty well.  That said, people and their chronic issues will not go away by themselves.  Progress means that the problems of society are to be remediated systematically, or not at all.  It means we do this together, and get over our differences.

Crowds

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Social, Striving

December 3, 2016, Prescott-  I am pinching my pennies, for the next two weeks, as it is both high bill time and a cause for continuing severance of expenditures that no longer make sense.  Satellite TV and landline telephone have gone by the boards, as a result.  Even my essential oils purchases are cut, since I’m the only one buying from me.  There also won’t be many meals out, if I’m dining alone.  It doesn’t take much to make me happy, anyway.

Watching this evening’s lighting of Courthouse Square, including the Christmas tree, was a free delight, though.  The melodic voices of children of all ages added sonic luster to the event.  I was a needle in a humongous crowd- I’d estimate 2,000 people on the lawn, and another 500 or so, walking the streets and patronizing every restaurant, cafe and shop within a half-mile radius of the Square.   I found a small deli, a bit off the beaten track, and contented myself with a cheap, delicious bowl of meatball,kale and white bean soup.

Although I am perfectly happy being alone, I like crowds.  They bring prosperity to my otherwise struggling friends and neighbours in the downtown shops and restaurants. I learn from listening to different people talking, as we all stand and watch the festivities, or while  walking along the sidewalks. Although, they can try people’s   patience, they also bring a chance to think outside the box and to develop networks of co-operation, that otherwise would not have a chance to be established.  One never knows when such networks will be imperative.

Last Sunday, at a gas station just this side of the Colorado River, I happened upon the usual chaotic, end-of-holiday scene.  I took my place in a pump queue, moved up in amazingly short order, and filled the Hyundai’s tank.  As I was preparing to drive out, after paying, another driver backed into the spot in front of me, boxing me in and keeping the person behind me from pulling up to the tank.  The driver behind me got out and started yelling at the miscreant, who, as it happened, did not speak English, but  looked determined not to co-operate, in any event.  Fortunately, there was an attendant on scene, who directed me around the car and carefully past the store front, which was also insanely busy.

Thinking outside the box seems to be the only way, as we move through a most unsettled and chaotic time.

Functional

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Posted by on in collaborating, Historical, Poetry

November 15, 2016, Prescott-

The longest week of November is nearly halfway gone.

I take one day at a time, on this gig,

so it does not phase me,

that this is the most quotidian segment

of a season that features a plethora

of holidays.

A colleague was unaware of some functional facts,

regarding our planet’s geography.

She is no longer so much in the dark.

It seems, in this day and age,

that some would prefer

the Dark Ages.

Thinking, and being functional,

were so much easier then,

or so they suppose.

 

It Has Come To This

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Personal Values, Service Activities, Spiritual, Striving

November 11, 2016, Prescott-  I had an exemplary Veteran’s Day.  Marching with a small group of humanitarians, known as Yavapai County Angels, I helped to send the message that, as I wrote yesterday, conservatives are not monsters and reaching out to those in need is a universal calling.

At a lunch afterward, the vocal women in our group excoriated anyone whose politics were not in line with the most ultraconservative viewpoint.   Yet, in the next breath, they extolled the estimable Dr. Ben Carson- hardly a dead ringer for Attila the Hun.  This tells me that Tea Party members are as fearful and confused as their “opposite numbers”, who have spent the past few days protesting and causing moderate mayhem, in several cities, large and small, from Flagstaff, AZ and Portland, to Dublin and Tokyo.

In my humble view, Donald  J.Trump, Sr. has 180 days to establish that he has a keen sense of right and wrong, and the ability to rein in both his own impulses and those of the most vulgar among us.  Barack Obama had to coach his own Vice President to not use profanity in any situation where words could POSSIBLY be overheard, then or later, by impressionable children.  Mr. Trump’s position may be somewhat reversed- it may fall to the devout Michael Pence to coach his boss, in the finer points of the Lord’s English.

Then, there is policy- and law.  My table mates want to see the recently ousted sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, as Secretary of Homeland Security.  I do not, if only for the simple reason that the stress would likely kill the man- he is 84.  There are more cogent reasons why I would not be in favour of such an appointment- but why quibble?  Suffice it to say, wanting to see people in high office, just because those people are loud and agree with one’s fear-based thinking, is exactly what gets nations in dire trouble.  Those on the Left need to remember this, just as much as those on the Right.

I want to see a Million Woman March take place- not to stop the inauguration of Mr. Trump, but to inform it, nonviolently, civilly and clearly.  It has come to this:  We are an organic whole.  The right hand cannot slap, stab, pester, annoy or bullyrag the left hand- or vice versa.

Rust Removal

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 9, 2016, Prescott-  This past summer, en route to visiting my family in Massachusetts, I stopped to visit a progressive friend, in Indianapolis, on July 5.  We caught up on events of the past few years, and agreed that life was taking a turn for the better, for a good many people who had previously been living on the edge of society, though there was lots of work still to be done.

Five hours later, I stopped for dinner, in Zanesville, OH, in the foothills east of Columbus.  As I took a drive through the town, my heart was breaking.  There is much about the “Rust Belt”, from Pittsburgh and Buffalo to St. Louis and Milwaukee, that deserves this nation’s gratitude and support.  This is an area which once kept our country moving, during the years of war, and in times of past economic despair, the Midwest was where our national economy got a reboot.

Zanesville presented a picture of a crumbling, somewhat boarded-up mini-version of Detroit, or of Buffalo at the turn of this century.  Its plight is, no doubt, replicated throughout the region.  The place needs believers.

In the past few weeks, the election cycle, just ended, featured one candidate insulting a wide variety of target groups.  Another candidate used the word “deplorable” to identify a large group of other people.  Both candidates claimed to care for those left behind by the nascent economic recovery.  Now, one of them has to make good on his rhetoric.

Human beings are not deplorable.  Behaviors and attitudes can be.  One such attitude is the view that people of colour are less than fully human.  Another holds that people who live in gender confusion, or are oriented differently, in terms of sexuality, need to be converted to a more conventional sexual identity.   A third, equally unfortunate, attitude holds that it is perfectly okay to leave uneducated, conservative people of European descent, in the rubbish heap of history.

My answer is :  None of the above is okay.  We saw what happened, twice, when the first two mindsets were challenged by a vocal electorate.  Last night, we saw what happened when the third mindset got its comeuppance.  There is, simply put, one overall solution:  Re-establishing community.    The White people of small towns and farms are not, inherently, the enemies of African-Americans, LGBT people, or Latinos.  The disconnect comes from not getting to know each other, and from relying on third parties to make each other’s acquaintance, and resume the practice of active listening.

I have friends across the political spectrum, and have made a point of traveling widely in the Midwest and South, for the very reason that every community is worthy of at least acquaintance.  Ignorance of others only leads to bloodshed.  History bears this out.

Make no mistake:  I will not abide an American Kristelnacht, or Jacobin tyranny, without speaking out and acting forcefully, if nonviolently.  The American Legion, to which I belong, vows to oppose tyranny of “both the classes and the masses.”  The first is outmoded and unnecessary.  The second needs to know that all its members are important.  “The People” refers to all human beings.

It’s time to scrape the rust off our souls, as well as off the factory towns of the North.