May 25, 2015, Reno- Yesterday, for us here, was a day of reflection, of gratitude towards the fallen, and of intense discussion about spiritual matters. I will need to invest a fair amount in my vehicle, this week, and I will be okay; it will be okay.
I am terrified for our country’s fourth-largest city. I haven’t spent much time in Houston, over the years. I have a few friends there, and will be in touch with them by private message, tomorrow. I appreciate, to this day, the assistance given us by some Space City residents in 1984, when my wife was deathly ill, after our return from Guyana. They sacrificed greatly on our behalf, and set the mold for our own welcoming of people into our home, over the years- some for weeks, others for months.
Now is time for everyone’s thoughts, prayers and actions to be focused on Houston, on Texas, and on the south central part of the country. Water, everywhere, is our sustenance, and yet our threat. Across the globe, India has a different issue: Extreme heat. I’ve not been there, but those who have, have told me that the intense heat throughout most of the subcontinent nearly exceeds anything habitable- yet people make do. It falls to those of us who are doing relatively well, by comparison, to also focus positive energy in their direction.
I’ve had a fair share of difficulty and challenge in my life. Yet, the old saw about missing my shoes, until I met a man with no legs. always resonates- especially in times like these. God bless the fallen. God bless the displaced.
May 24, 2015, Carson City- When I have been rendered less mobile by circumstance, and it is a weekend, my tendency has been to go with whatever flow that presents itself. Memorial Day weekend is not time for automotive shops, or many other business establishments, to carry on business as usual. Besides, the weather, almost nationwide, is pretty horrific right now.
We had a beautiful morning in the Reno area. The plan for today was to visit with other friends in Carson City, Nevada’s capital, some twenty-eight miles south of Reno. It was not a heavy schedule, but a picnic lunch and some playtime for a three-year-old, at a park on Carson’s north side. Here are two scenes of the park, with children and families left to their own devices.
Our little friend had a great time, going up and down a couple of slides, and around other parts of the playground. She was very much interested in the mushrooms which were growing near our picnic table, though not to the extent that lunch was ignored, especially with the doughnut dessert waiting after bites of cold cuts and cheese.
As an afternoon storm began rolling in, we went back to Carson friends’ house, kibbitzed a little about a cheesy, semi-adult cable TV show featuring robots trading barbs with a guy in a Starship Troopers get-up, and headed back towards Reno, using Hwy. 395.
The route took us past Beagle Rock.
We checked out Big and Little Washoe Lakes. The former was little more than a puddle and in fact, Little Washoe is, at present, the larger of the two.
“Big” Washoe Lake Little Washoe LakeLittle Washoe Lake
May 23, 2015, Reno- I ended up here, exactly where I wanted to be this evening. It was the way I ended up here that is one for the books.
The morning dawned, grey, cold and gloomy in Tonopah. I had a light breakfast, then headed up the street a bit, to downtown, to take in the Jim Butler Days Parade. This is Tonopah’s Founder’s Day event, so all the area converged on Hwy. 95, and thereabouts.
Tonopah, NV on a grey Saturday morning (May 23, 2015).
There is an urgency, with respect to the protection of children here, as in many communities. These pinwheels serve as a reminder that this is everyone’s responsibility.
At 10 A.M. sharp, the parade started.
As is always the case, local service organizations provided clown cars and other motor vehicles.
A hobby horse took center stage, atop a local car dealer’s entry.Young ladies performed a belly dance,with dignity and grace.I passed by the venerable Mizpah Hotel, centerpiece of downtown.
My attention was then drawn to Tonopah Mining Park. Similar to Arizona’s Jerome State Park, the expansive spot celebrates Nevada’s rich history in extracting gems and minerals. No serious study of mining can ignore the Silver State.
The entrance to Tonopah Mining Park.Ore wagons and drilling bores are on display, with visitors asked to keep a respectful distance.This is an example of where miners lived, here in Tonopah.Here is what is called a Grizzly, where the ore and mineral were separated.
In the Park’s museum, I paid attention to the many examples of gems and minerals offered by the soil and rock of Nevada.
Note, in particular, the azurite (bright blue stone).Malachite is also important here, as it is in Arizona.
Finally, I caught the view of downtown Tonopah, from the hillside.
I walked back to my Nissan, and had little trouble heading northward, until I got to the small city of Hawthorne, just shy of Walker Lake. There, the same issue which landed the old warhorse in a shop in Prescott, recurred. I waited ninety minutes here, enjoying a tasty calzone, from Pizza Factory, and writing in my journal. I received a message in my head, saying “We’re going to get you to Reno.” Trusting this, I started the car up again, and voila! On we went, along the shore of scenic Walker Lake, past the towns of Yerington, Silver Spring and Fernley, and a tripped railroad gate, which was not an issue for me, as I kept the car in park, then was able to go around, with help from a sheriff’s deputy, who was engaged in traffic control at the errant gate. (There was no train.)
I got to Sparks, and called my friend from Sierra Sid’s Casino parking lot. Then, it happened again, no power when shifting into gear. Considering the four stop lights and two left turns that lay between Sid’s and my friend’s house, I got a tow. No one else was inconvenienced and the mechanic saw what my problem was. I have a safe place to stay, the car is parked securely here, and on Tuesday, I will get the vehicle to a transmission shop. We will get to the bottom of the issue, this coming week, and then the journey will go on. In the meantime, I will get to see more of Reno and the surrounding area.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…..
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 a lot 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 didn’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.
