The Road to 65, Mile 165: Seeds

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Slow Food Prescott, Social

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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Posted by on in Personal goals, Travel

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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Posted by on in Social

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.

The Road to 65, Mile 162: Illuminate

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

May 9, 2015, Granite Dells- Today was an unusually busy, productive day, for a Saturday. The large Prescott Farmer’s Market opened today, at Yavapai College. It’s several booths larger than last year. I spent about forty minutes there, with a couple of friends, buying one a half-dozen poppies that were poised to open, after she admired them.

The afternoon featured a two-hour organizational meeting for Hope Fest 2015, a faith-based effort to help the homeless, the victims of domestic violence, and those in recovery from addiction. We will have the event here on October 3. I won a T-shirt and sat for a five-minute videotaped interview, which I haven’t done before. My role on festival day will most likely be running errands (handling emergencies) and taking displays down, after it’s over.

I bought a new camera. My Samsung 5X gave up the ghost, after four years and over 3,000 photographs. My new camera is also a Samsung Digital, and is a 21X. I have enough time to learn its features, before heading northwest. Tomorrow may be a Sedona day, unless service calls.

The evening was spent again at Heaven On Earth, with new friends Happy and Johnny hosting a preview of the Illuminate Film Festival. The Festival features thought-provoking films and will be in Sedona, May 27-31. I’ll be in the Seattle area then, so tonight was a fine substitute for the actual event. There was a fairly large crowd, about forty people, and after we enjoyed vegan hors d’oeuvres, the organizers of the Festival presented eight movie trailers, each with a rather deep theme.

We are told, in several sacred texts, and oral traditions of indigenous peoples, that in the “last days, all that is dark shall be made light”. Illuminate does not just deal with the wretched acts of the rich and powerful, but those of the less well-to-do, also. It addresses matters of altered states of consciousness and of expanded spiritual and cognitive awareness The evening was time well-spent, among many inquiring minds. If anyone reading this is interested, check: http://www.illuminatefilmfestival.com.

The Road to 65, Mile 161: Weather

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Posted by on in Hiking and Nature

May 8, 2015, Prescott- We had the odd experience here today, of being colder than parts of Canada. Snow swirled here, outside the classroom window, for about twenty minutes, and stuck on the ground, in the surrounding mountains. It’s supposed to be twenty degrees warmer by Monday, so the moisture will be useful in staving off wildfires- at least for a month or so. It was also gratifying to see that the mountains of southern California also got precipitation.

It will be an unusual May, in this regard. I am quite sure we will see more rain, between now and Memorial Day. It remains to be seen what this means for our “monsoon” cycle, though I’d be happy to see it be wetter than normal as well.

Weather has been weird, worldwide, and for several years now. Some blame carbon dioxide, and I’m certain that excess gas emissions of all kinds, from CO2 to methane, don’t help. There is also the shifting of the Earth’s magnetic poles, which I am convinced is happening, little by little, so that by the time my yet-potential grandchildren are seniors, say, in 2080, they will be in a rather different world.

It seems already happening, though. Another friend mentioned that the populace of Maldives are fleeing their island homeland, in droves. People in Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands are eyeing property in more spacious, less-threatened places, like Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The shifting may be affecting the world’s fault lines, thus adding to the dynamic stress that brings about earthquakes-great and slight.

We are surely in for more excitement than some would like, and can expect feast and famine, precipitation-wise, to alternate, with more volatility than the New York Stock Exchange, over the next half century. Don’t put away the longjohns, or the summer wear. Get used to layering; it’s the new normal.

The Road to 65, Mile 160: Soldiers

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Posted by on in Personal goals

May 7, 2015, Prescott- A year ago today, a painfully brief text message brought me out of my early-morning fog: “Dad’s gone”. The Dad in question was my father-in-law, ninety years of age, a former Prisoner-of-War, who had been rescued from Juden Kamp Berga right after Hitler’s suicide. In his subsequent life, he had been a traveling shoe salesman, owned a boot and shoe shop, ridden horse and motorcycle, avidly, and been a licensed pilot. Norman David Fellman and his wife had raised three daughters from infancy and seen them become strong, successful professional women. They had been to various parts of the Caribbean and Asia. They were the bulwark of my little family’s life, for over twenty-five years, and their legacy was to lend me strength in so many hours of darkness. Norm was a true soldier.

The day before my father-in-law passed, unbeknownst to me until a bit later, a young man died of complications from a medical procedure. He was one of my son’s childhood friends. Though they were very different in personality and interests, and went on separate paths, they reconnected a few years ago, and maintained correspondence. The young man was a talented musician, with a deep well of consciousness, and its attendant well of pain. Brooke Bohner was a true soldier, in the spiritual sense.

We all carry on our battles, day to day. I, too, struggle: With anger at those who manipulate others, for the sake of amassing power and wealth- telling anyone who will listen to them that “This is the way of the world.”; with doubts about myself, for not following through on my promises to so many people, over the years; with the suspicion of so many people whom I encounter, almost daily; with injustice, in general.

I still stand, though, and keep on going, because for the sincere, for the dedicated, there is no other choice.

The Road to 65, Mile 159: Process

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Posted by on in Personal goals

May 6, 2015, Prescott- I took this morning to set up a delivery system for leftover hotel breakfast buffet items to go to a feeding station for the destitute, here in town. This had been giving me fits for a few days, but it’s all worked out now. Each end of school year sees projects come up, and get arranged, funds for the summer be put aside, and any advance arrangements that need to be made for a journey get accomplished.

The most critical thing about all this is that, in the past, I have formed grandiose ideas in my head, made long lists of things that will happen, in the course of a project- and then, very little has been accomplished. I am doing better at finishing what I start, though that would be cold comfort for all who have been disappointed in the duds of yesteryear.

Process is done one step at a time, and now that I am more clear about who I am, in the scheme of things, it’s all easier to follow through, to the end. Funny, but this may be the first school year, since 1997-98, that I feel a real sense of accomplishment, as the year draws to an end.

The Road to 65, Mile 158: El Cinco

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Posted by on in Social

May 5, 2015, Chino Valley-  A restaurant on the south end of town burned today. I’m not about to speculate, as to the cause. I just know that the few times I ate there, the meal was satisfying and the service folksy and prompt. My work here was on the north side, and consisted of four hours with a group of fourth-graders, who had been left behind from a reading reward field trip. They bought the story that their teacher was at a long meeting, rather than at the field trip that was attended by some of their classmates.

This is Teacher Appreciation Day, so community members supervised the kids in the lunchroom, and at recess. We enjoyed a vegetarian Mexican lunch, provided by other community members, and cupcakes prepared by an office worker. All was magnifico!

I checked on the status of my hapless acquaintance, who had been jailed on Friday, and was told he had been released today. So far, he has not contacted me, and I will leave it at that. The sheriff’s clerk said I am under no obligation to seek him out, in any event.

We did make headway, in a plan I am helping to establish, to connect a local hotel food service with a kitchen that serves meals to homeless people, four days a week. Someone made the astute observation that the kitchen has a staff member who could pick up the food from the hotel. I will work that detail out, tomorrow, either after, or in lieu of, going to my day job. Another person has also stepped forward to help with this.

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the routing of French soldiers in Mexico, on May 5, 1862. It is a minor holiday in Mexico, but is widely celebrated in the Southwestern U.S. I note that it is also an excuse for people to indulge in midweek partying. Camaraderie, though, is a good thing.

These random notes on the day may be tied together with a neat word bow: Love is a productive struggle. This is a message written on the bulletin board of the teacher whose classroom I covered today.

The Road to 65, Mile 157: Chasing Away the Night

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

May 4, 2015, Prescott- I made another visit to Miller Valley School today. Being with rambunctious six- and seven-year-olds, and actually getting them to accomplish a day’s learning, is among the finest of days spent.

Kids carry their inner selves so openly, and this is a superb thing. Those who love, can draw the pain out, and elevate their loved ones. It’s said that the child who needs love the most is the one who presents the most unlovable persona. This, I have taken as an article of faith since my own childhood.

By that, I don’t mean to imply that I was a difficult person, as a child. Rather, I found that the bullies, the disquiet ones, the recluses, all had a feature that made me want to work harder to understand them, just as I, an autistic, before such a label was in use, wanted to be understood.

We all want someone to chase away our night. The boys whom I had to list for the regular teacher to make parent contact are very bright and, in many ways, delightful people. They don’t fit easily with others in a class setting, and a sense of darkness is a good part of their life experience. They clamour for an externally imposed discipline, and mine is a rather gentle, firm approach, directly addressing the underlying.

I felt that, at the end of the day, no one felt demeaned or diminished, but knew the security of limits.

The Road to 65, Mile 156: Failure to Thrive

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

May 3, 2015, Prescott- So much debate has taken place these days, regarding various issues: Black youth, same-sex marriage, helping people in other countries vs. taking care of “our own”. I believe the majority of people, on all points along the spectrum of thought, want to see the best for humanity. Where the matter goes haywire comes when money, power, excessive fear and callous ignorance take the fore.

We are at a turning point in the affairs of mankind. Those who seem to be causing so much of the mayhem and devastation in the civic affairs of the world are often those on the margins of society. We have seen the violence in Baltimore, and last year in Ferguson, MO, stem largely from the PERCEPTION of those on the outskirts of the American Dream that there is no hope of any advancement on their part. The frequent stodginess and inflexibility of those in positions of power in many communities doesn’t help.

We in Prescott have seen a lengthy, and thankfully successful fight by lower middle class people whose heads of household were killed in the firestorm of June 30, 2013, as they battled a wildfire. The powers that be were largely against paying compensation to the survivor families, adhering to an outmoded frontier dictum that “One should know what one is getting into”, and deal independently with whatever life tosses at you. The families have received just compensation.

The major effort, as I see it, has to lie in encouraging and preserving one’s own dignity and sense of value to a community. I’ve worked with thousands of children, teenagers and adults, over the past five decades. To a one, the people causing the most disruption and heartache to those around them, from my first disquiet students, in my hometown, to the recently incarcerated homeless veteran who I was encouraging to re-enter society, have been the emotionally and spiritually dispossessed. Economics sometimes plays a secondary role, as well. With the first two bases covered, however, most economically disadvantaged people can overcome their living circumstances.

Failure to thrive comes from a chronic lack of love. This we have seen in numerous psychological studies of people and animals, and in our daily lives, as abused people of all ages present themselves to the rest of us, as both harbingers of crisis and opportunities for service.