Ironically, Sonora Smart Dodd can be rightly credited as the Mother of Father’s Day. From her home in Spokane, Washington it was she who made the call to remember fathers – on a special day. The holiday she successfully promoted was celebrated by the entire State of Washington on 6/19/1910. From her perspective and time – early in the new century – she could not have foreseen the positive effect she would have on the marketing of cheap cologne, gaudy ties and soap on a rope. As children, we all experienced the doubt and confusion that arose with the question: what should we get for Dad?

We all had a working list of gifts to thank Dad for all he did for us. From golf balls to driving gloves, the list was considered and reconsidered before we gave up and bought soap on a rope. What was easy to understand was the fact that Dad deserved some swag for all that he’d done. Dad was a figure of power and if he was a “good dad,” he was a source of caring that we often visited in times of doubt and fear.

Sigmund Freud understood the role of Dad very well when he wrote, ” I can not think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.” Whether one’s father was a saint or a reprobate most of us received some form of protection. The best fathers protected us emotionally, physically and spiritually. They protected us economically, as well. Many were not so lucky. Their fathers were absentees or, frankly, unknown but for those of us blessed by a father’s presence a natural sense of debt arises. What gift is great enough to recompense the man who killed the monsters under your bed? He paid for the Cheerios and helped you with the bullies and it is not likely that you can forget that.

As a father, I can say that the greatest day in a man’s life is the day children are born. It is an opportunity to be a hero, a playmate, a tutor and a host of other wonderful things that has miraculously appeared in you life. It changes everything. Did you ever think that soap on a rope would be your favorite possession? When your son or daughter proudly presents you with whatever absurd Fathers Day gift they have chosen, your idea of what is rare and precious will change forever.

Life will cause some of us to miss our own fathers on this important day. Yet, we carry on in our own fatherhood – for better or worse – with what they showed and taught us. There is a day when you find yourself using a line or a joke that came directly from Dad and you hope that someday your greatest hits will come from the lips of your own kids. Just the good stuff, of course.

So I wonder what I will get this time…perhaps a new belt or a money clip or a few kind words. Whatever it is I know it will be a pearl beyond price.

Happy Fathers Day.

Today’s Covid project was a sweep and purge of our overstuffed garage and a meditation on collecting became inevitable as we rifled through boxes of plastic silverware, Christmas decorations and amassed trinkets. Exploring the idea began with a consideration of motivation and proceeded to a thought or two about what satisfactions a collector seeks. One powerful motive is the search for prestige…I have more and better that anyone else. One thinks of the libraries of Jefferson, Pepys and a host of others. The ability to say that ones acquirings are definitive in their scope is heady stuff. Fame is in the offing if you simply have MORE.

Others collect as an investment. I am often asked what my signed baseballs are worth. Possessors of original Guttenburg items have certainly acquired wealth. The melomaniac is buried in stacks of LPs, cds and sheet music that represent potential wealth and distinction. These are the folks that store memories against a rainy day that may-or may not-ensue.

There are collectors of experiences like the gallivanter who has a collection of small bottles filled with soils from far flung sites. A certain fame is built in to the traveller’s collection, one can safely say that he or she as been to more places than many of their fellows.

There are collectors that are simply expressing themselves…they have eclectic troves that may include concert posters, anime or bottle caps. The resulting hoard is full of seemingly unrelated items that are essential to the collector. Relatives of the eclectic acquirers are the spiritual gatherers. This is where we find the Buddhist who has dedicated himself to non-attachment but has a staggering number of Buddha statues.

Let’s not forget the compilers. These are the folks who love to arrange and re-arrange. These folks often collect art or books and then devise various shelving or display systems that change regularly. They often wonder if they should organize by type, size, period or color. Melvil Dewey is a hero in this group.

My favorite type of collector is the one who indulges in what theorists call “luxury consumption.” They buy Picassos, illuminated manuscripts from the twelfth century or Fabrege Eggs because they CAN…and that’s all you need to know.

As I piled through the chaos of my garage it became clear to me that I have been all of these types in my lifetime. Is it possible that we are all merely gleaners in the rich fields of life?

I better cut this short…I have a lot of garbage to dispose of.

We are blessed with an acutely capable sensorium and our five senses are designed to serve us in the battle for survival. Four of our five senses are in direct control of what we will react to and each of the four can be directly moderated by us. If we don’t want to see, we close our eyes; taste is controlled by our diet choice to consume or not consume. If we reject touching, we avoid. Smell can be curtailed by holding one’s breath. One sense is a bit different. Our hearing is -by nature non-discriminating…if we don’t employ external, mechanical devices such as ear plugs or our index fingers the sounds of the world will come to us in a continuous flow.

Many tales are told by the soldiers of the American Civil war about the phenomena of acoustic shadows. The stories include the reports of soldiers stationed in close proximity to massive artillery barrages who heard… nothing. This physical conundrum can best be described as, ” sound waves that fail to propagate.” The play of the land and other obstructions cause us to miss what would otherwise be a cacophony of sound. It seems we are experiencing a societal acoustic shadow today, with many of us unable to hear the cries of truth that roil all around us.

The sound waves of pain and loss often fail to propagate. In order to restore our hearing we must change position and clear obstructions.

Other forces are at play that limit our otherwise vital ability to hear the ambient sounds in our environment. Noise is artificially created by some to muddle the message that should be clear. News organizations bombard us with sound (sound bytes) and voices are raised on both sides of the barricades. This is how the king was killed in Hamlet: “and in the porches of my ears he did pour the leprous distillment.” Leprous distillments are everywhere in the form of counter-narratives, alternative facts and outright prevarication. No wonder our most reliable sense is compromised.

When Custer was killed at the Little Big Horn battle he was not mutilated… other than the fact that his ear drums were pierced to improve his hearing.

Acoustic shadows and willful non-hearing must be corrected for our own survival. We must change our positions, clear obstructions and LISTEN. This will go a long way to save us. Our acoustic shadows must be corrected, as Marlee Matlin once observed, ” the handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind.”

Black Lives Matter.

At six AM today in 92128, a mourning dove was cooing on a roof peak across from my house. As we are deafened by the people on both sides of the barricades this incongruous and melancholy tune seemed particularly apt. Soon, this lone, sad voice was joined by the music of scrub jays, finches and California towhees… an absolute symphony.

We are living now in a world of pain and we will do almost anything for the pain to stop. Some will simply suppress the sounds and images that are so uncomfortable. They will not see or hear in the hope that the pain will dissipate if one refuses to feel it. Others will go to absurd lengths to find relief. Fear and anger will make it easy to pick up a brick and frustration and hate will help them throw it. Others will fire tear gas canisters, scream slogans and measure their effectiveness by the magnitude of the destruction they have created. Cops need rioters as much as rioters need cops.

Looking for relief from the agonies of bereavement, injustice and learned animosity is curiously, understandable. The state of pain is a geography we all want to traverse as soon as possible. Hope comes to this horrible landscape when we see action that is neither homicidal or suicidal, but human. The protester hugging a cop, a white man taking a knee at a spot where a grave injustice was the cause of a black man’s death and those who are simply present, abiding in the pain in search of the greater good. These small things ease our pain somewhat, they give us hope.

Odd, how such small things are so important to our future and our need for what is right. They give hope. I want to embrace the small things that give us hope. I do not deny the vastness of our collective pain, in fact, small things are as valid as the largest actions. Acts of real protest are often small… like a black woman telling a white teenager to stop tagging buildings or a cop taking a knee to show her values. These acts may seem peripheral to the conflict at hand but they are stunning statements of value.

So I listen to the mourning doves and their sad song but I know that other voices will soon join in a chorus that is really beautiful. This song is timeless and we will enjoy a dawn chorus as soon as it is quiet enough to hear it.

Let us all listen intently…the song will begin soon.

My never ending effort to thin out the mass of books and articles I have accumulated led me to a copy of National Geographic Magazine ( November 2017) that sported this interesting title: “The Search for Happiness.” The premise of the piece was that certain nations had pretty much solved the ageless problem of happiness in life and how to discover it. A two page spread showed a map of the world festooned with happy faces of different sizes and colors meant to graphically depict the level of happiness one could find in various corners of the earth.

In the geography of the soul, peace and joy are the Far Tortugas…sites that are difficult to find, haphazardly charted and minuscule in the vastness of being alive. These states are hard to get to but I assume that things are idyllic upon arrival. Certainly the voyage to those edenic places is fraught with hazards to navigation. There are shoal waters everywhere and reefs of despair are all around. It is hard to feel safe and even harder to set a true course.

But there are some navigational aids. Among the lighthouses, beacons and buoys, is the very reliable direction finder known as pain. For many, happiness is the absence of pain…a complete impossibility in the human condition. For others, it is the vision of the way things should be. The oppression of “should” drives us on the rocks faster than any other error as we set a course. We should have had that promotion, that girlfriend, that house on the hill; if it weren’t for dark forces beyond our control, we would get what we deserve. We cannot – will not – accept life on life’s terms. Ironically, the shoulds do not motivate us to greater efforts or to excellence, more often they lead us to anger, hatred and resentment.

Pain can remind us of our our exact position in the storm. In fact, pain is the price of our passage on our life’s voyage. We learn to endure in the horse latitudes, in the hope that we will arrive on a welcoming shore. Our disappointments can send us racing to an analgesic or inspire us to a course correction. There are pains so great that they can defeat us but the pains we have experienced can also build empathy, compassion and lasting joy if we listen, abide with the discomfort and sail on.

All the finest people I know have become fine because of their reaction to the pains they have experienced. Loss of the beloved, sickness, diminishment have not stopped them. They have given them depth and a curious type of honor. As Keats once asked, “Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and trouble is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

For those who have experienced great pain in these trying times I wish bon voyage and a true course. Happiness is not in Costa Rica or Denmark, it is within you. I SEE YOUR COURAGE.

Sail on.

“Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes but they are mistakes that it is useful to make because they lead, little by little, to the truth.” Jules Verne

The experimental method is a wonderful process, indeed, but it takes time. Running a series of trials about most anything, does not fit into a busy life. Social distancing has, ironically, gifted us with that time. We are now able to check a few things out because we are not commuting, working dark to dark or caught upon in the social whirl. We can pursue a few things scientifically. We can, as Sir Francis Bacon actually did, stake a chicken out in the snow to see how long it takes to freeze to death.

Early discoveries in the age of corona virus are wide ranging and basic to the enjoyment of life. I now know beyond doubt which frozen pizza is the best. I have considered – and compared these delicious offerings exhaustively and I possess an informed opinion. I also know the best jigsaw puzzles in the marketplace. I filtered for graphics, price, deliverability and packaging. While my wife is not too happy that the dining table is no longer available, I make no apology for knowledge honestly acquired.

Scanning various media services has made me an expert in documentaries and I can hold forth on subjects ranging from tomato gardening to the history of ZZ Top. My plant identification skills are off the charts. From arbutus to zinnia, I am expert. Cinnamon gums, running shoes and men’s hair products have not escaped my attention.

Frankly, I’m a bit amazed at those who complain about our current isolation. The Curies aside, lab work is often a solo exercise, a lonely pondering – and ponderous exercise – that is not for the social butterfly. The spirit of enquiry requires a certain degree of solitude. We should all be grateful for this chance to do science.

Today I will turn the microscope to screwdrivers. The standard blade, star driver and Phillips variations will be analyzed with attention paid to length and grip. I will discover what is – and what is not – properly screwed.

This time is precious and we should see it that way. This is a gift from heaven. As the great sage Wavy Gravy once said, “there is always a little bit of heaven in a disaster area.”

Hope you find your heaven soon.

As I get older, there is an ever-increasing number of things that truly piss me off. Things that are intolerable include clam shell fruit packaging, potholes, frayed spots on blue jeans and knives that have inexplicably dulled. I persisted in the state of mind that finds what is wrong until last week when something happened that truly made me crazy.

I found myself chatting with an acquaintance and the conversation has – hopefully – changed me forever.

The man was a newly retired, middle class, white man that did noting but complain of life’s inequity and unfairness. His sense of his personal victimization and his list of grievances was endless…nothing in his life had ever been fair and his opportunities had been consistently undermined by forces that were sinister and targeted directly at him. People of unknown origin wanted to steal his wife, his job and his self respect.

As the conversation progressed some facts about the guy became clear. He was raised in suburbia, went to college, had a career and now lived on a pension and a monthly social security check. He was completely unaware of his privileged status and completely oblivious to the cornucopia of opportunity that spilled out in front of him because he was a white, middle class, American man. His rant shocked me out of my own tendency to carp. I realized that I was a man who drove a newer car and complained about traffic; a man who was never really hungry but complained about the size of the grocery bill and a man who was educated but complained about the cost of education. What I had become was entitled.

Social scientist, Brene Brown once said, “what separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.’ I started to see just how privileged I was and how grateful I was not. Looking beyond myself, I clearly see a society that has a significant group of entitled persons fighting every day to keep their privilege. MLK was right when he observed that, “privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” All around us, we see certain folks who will fight to retain their privileged status. Their is no Geneva Convention that governs their war making… anything goes.

This is a war I refuse to fight anymore.

I will count my blessings every day and do what I can to share the rich opportunities that were given to me. This, I believe, will transform my life. I hope so.

I am grateful for the opportunity.

I think the first record I bought with my own money was Surfin Safari by the Beach Boys. Prior to that purchase the Four Seasons, The Everly Brothers and Willie Dixon were heard ( among others) but I owe Brian Wilson for the first interest in what became the music of the sixties. Motown helped it along until the world changed in 1967 and 1968. In 1967 the Box Tops, the Beatles, James Brown and the Doors made the charts and Jefferson Airplane took off. In ’68 Jack Flash was Jumping and I was deep into Disraeli Gears and Donovan. The earliest and most long lasting influence were the Rolling Stones.

My first real concert was in 1967 at the Filmore in San Francisco where I caught Quicksiver, Spooky Tooth and Cold Blood for the outrageous price of three dollars. John Phillips organized the world’s first outdoor festival in the same year and Monterey was on the map. Things were happening, to be sure.

Rock festivals had a quality that was unprecedented. Very hairy pushers would weave among the crowd mumbling “speed.., mescaline.., grass” low enough to keep the fuzz from hearing. You ate other people’s food and kissed other people’s girlfriends. You were warned to avoid the Blue Dot Ousley or the Orange Sunshine. Finally, there was Woodstock.

I must have played Soul Sacrifice more than five hundred times when the Woodstock Sound Track album came out.

Imagine my interest when I read on the neighborhood social platform the following warning. If you’re out strolling tomorrow evening, you might hear music coming from Felice Drive. Naturally, a quick trip to Felice Drive was in order and what transpired there was a perfect window on 92128 and our generation in general. A group of graying musicians had gathered a twelve string and a Karaoke machine and a couple of stand mikes. The show was on.

Unlike every other festival, social distancing was firmly in place. Apparently -at our age- the sexual revolution was long over and ten feet of space between persons seemed just about right. Masks were worn and none were tie dyed. The young man who walked up to me did not offer a consciousness raising experience, instead he said, “there are a couple of chairs over there if you want to sit down.” Time had caught up to us and comfort had trumped experience. The music was also the music of the gently aged …. there were no songs by Santana, The Who, Ten Years After or Joe Cocker… the tunes were by Linda Ronstad, John Denver and Jim Croce…pleasant songs that didn’t raise the heart rate. They even played The Last Waltz and it was the original, nothing to do with The Band.

We had gotten old but not so old that we wouldn’t travel to hear some music. Our toes still tapped and our backsides still swayed, though at a much slower pace. What was best, was all the memories that these garage troubadours evoked. We have plenty of memories in 92128.

It was a pleasant thing and I will not feel bad that I needed a seat more than a mind expansion. I agree with Keith Richards, ” I’m not gettin old..I’m evolving.”

Alexa. Play Monkey Man.

Recently two very important events occurred that made me recommit to the act of observation that Sherlock Holmes advised me to pursue when I was a youngster.. .” never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself on details.” The two events were random but, oddly, related. My wife bought new furniture for the front porch and the weather dramatically improved from biblical rains to bright sunny days. This created a perfect perch to spy on the activities of the denizens of 92128.

I iced a sparkling water and settled into my post.

As it happens our across the street neighbor, had recently passed away and the surviving son hired an estate sale company to manage the liquidation of his long accumulated effects. On a Monday, I observed a worker do a most interesting thing. First a folding chair was arranged near the right rear tire of an aging mini-van. In short order, a card table was placed and adorned with a thermos and a bottle of cleaner. For the next 45 minutes (by the clock), the man washed and polished this single wheel until it was bright as the newly returned sun. Most of his polishing swipes were clockwise with the occasional reversal adding a randomness that was quite alarming because of its unexpected deviance from the established rhythm.

For the next three days the cleaning station and the resultant polishing was relocated to each tire in turn. The remarkable tenacity and thoroughness of this four day odyssey was not lost on me. Yes, I was aware of the fact that my watching the dance was as inane and as time wasting as the act I observed but I convinced myself that watching the details would somehow lead to an insight. A small one occurred to me and it was that a closer observation of 92128 was warranted.

With this motivation I opened the on-line platform known as NextDoor to further explore the activities of my neighborhood. Immediately the top activities became clear.

1. Bartering had returned with a vengeance. Many offers of flour for yeast and masks for sanitizer were evident. As barter is at the heart of all economies, 92128 showed itself to be a mature civilization where exchange could occur easily and without undue grasping. Einstein was a fan because he was brave enough to state, ‘I think barter is a noble thing. “
2. 92128 is full of noble people.
3. The animal census was boiling along. Coyotes, rabbits, rats and hawks were being counted with an eye to extreme accuracy. Few animal passings went unnoticed.
4. Sourdough bread had made a come back. Pleas for sourdough starter were numerous and baking in general was uniquely popular. ( see above reference to flour and yeast).
5. Sidewalk Chalking was being promoted as a creative outlet.
6. Drinking is increasing in both volume and frequency.

These facts, while clear, did not seem to lead to a comprehensive theory that explained 92128 quirkiness. Added to the increasing number of persons who are walking out on their driveways in their pajamas ( to get the paper ?) these facts only served to deepen one’s confusion. I will gather more evidence from my perch tomorrow and hope to detect a pattern. After all none of us have a hell of a lot to do these days.

Or do we ?

This time we share allows us to exhale and think without too many distractions. Lately I have been thinking about the complex machine that is America and Americanism. A complex machine is defined as, “an apparatus consisting of interrelated parts with separate functions, used in the performance of some kind of work.” The specific cogs, power sources, rods and pistons that interest me are those of the self loathing system that is so essential to the performance of the greater American engine.

We are bombarded with self loathing messages to ensure that consumerism hums. On the most basic level, the messages are endless…your body smells, you are too hairy, your car is too old and your high heels are just not high enough. How can you live like that? A brief visit to any pharmacy makes this function clear. We can lengthen your eyelashes, ease your pain and bathe your sinuses in salt water; in short, we can make you better. The wheels and levers of mindless capitalism are oiled by dissatisfaction – dissatisfaction with who you are in your current state.

Style gurus and their mandates add power to the economic drivers of the mechanism. You are too fat…or too thin. Isn’t better to be something that you are currently NOT.? There are products for that. With all of this negative input a descent to self annihilation is almost inevitable. The nation’s horrifying suicide rate is no doubt swelled by those who can not make the grade.

Morality revs the engine. Asceticism is valued. The message here is do not be “too” anything. Connect with others but not sexually, eat food but not “too” much.” Often this message is mixed… drink all the wine you can …but not too much. Crazy.

Recently , Mother Nature has clarified a few things. As a tragic number of people die, air around the planet is clearing. Our relationships have deepened by distancing. Our hair is getting longer and grayer but, perhaps our vision is clearing. We are learning that exhaling – limiting our consumerism and questioning our motives- is a very good thing. We have been given the time to reflect. We may be more tolerant of the smells, hairiness, mistakes, and disorders that come with being human.

We can build joy because we are not building our reputations or our bank accounts. Ram Das once reminded us that, ” you can’t build joy on a feeling of self loathing. ” Let’s throw a sock in the flywheel of the self loathing machine and become happy with who we are.

I wish you joy.