Un Poco Triste

Sweet daughters in the park below their former home

This past weekend my Sweet Daughters and I spent our final day all together before the move to Mexico: tasty breakfast at a boutique bakery, round of miniature golf in the spring sunshine, improv comedy matinee show, ice cream cones, and, finally, a visit to the funky school-turned-art studio where Daughter 1 grew up and Daughter 2 was born--a place where our three lives were intimately connected for a decade.

It was a fun day except for the ending which left us feeling a little sad--this place of many memories is now overgrown or being slowly torn asunder.

Heavy equipment is digging through the overgrown garden;
piles of building materials are stacked and strewn around the
property. Some murals we don't remember remain below the
roof, on which pyramids once lit up to represent the Pleiades.

After nearly 30 years of sheltering poor people with artistic intentions, its residents have been evicted, the site has been reclaimed by the school district and is currently surrounded by a nearly quarter-mile long, chainlink rent-a-fence enclosing a deserted-looking worksite, completion date unknown.

It was a place of comfortable gardens, idiosyncratic rooms and installation-art hallways, huge stone busts of obscure scientists and poets, a heritage apple orchard, vast graffiti murals and bumpy relationships. Now, the colorful rooms are no longer visible. A wall of gray concrete blocks has replaced the generous many-paned windows of this early Baby Boom building.

"Non-significance" of existing use as
an art studio is the school district's
justification for its costly plan to turn
the building into a temporary school.

We walked along the perimeter looking, futilely, for a way past the high fence so we could explore and identify some remains. We read the Land Use billboard and Daughter 1 scoffed at the School District's justification for its takeover--"non-significance" of its previous use as art studios. Her attitude had been hardened by an us-versus-them struggle during our long tenancy.

For Daughter 2, this was not only the place where she was raised from infancy into childhood; it was also the site of her mom's workshop for nearly 20 years.

For me, this was where I acted--half the time or more--as their single parent. Il Teatro Pescatore was born here, and I'm equally as happy with the shipping crate bamboo cottage I built for my daughters, the flat rooftop sculpture that lit up every night to represent a cluster of stars, and the annual Halloween Haunted Hallway where we each posed, for the neighborhood, as staff member of a scarily demented school. All gone.

Part of all that has already been told, here or here, or is a longer story for another time, if at all. The memories will conflate and fade as we grow older, but the old school was a special place for the three of us, and many others.

Slender Foot

A Packing Stress-induced hallucination:

I look past our bed to the luggage and mostly clothes--all in an organized heap next to the wall, under the window, just now.

The corner of a bedsheet falls in a soft fold over the carpet. For an instant I mistake this shape for my wife's slender foot.

Overheard

Overheard today on the sidewalk just past Main in our little town. They were two women of a certain age, one walking an old beagle.

     Beagle Woman: ...past tense--

     Other: You mean he's dead?

     BW: Blew his brains out.

Now that's something you want to distance yourself from.

Tulip Magic Land

On the way down Dayton Street to the shore this afternoon, I stopped to take a picture of this tulip. A little further on, seeing it was low low tide, I went for a walk and run along the beach

A gray blustery day, the current strong with whitecaps out in the channel.

Playing Stick and Rock as usual.

According to my nature-loving spouse, looking into a tulip is like looking into a magic land.

Red Cod Island Village

Approaching the shore of this little
island, you could still see a pathway
created by removing rocks to allow the
large canoes to be more easily beached.

About forty years ago I was fortunate to be working for the U.S. Forest Service with an accomplished and adventurous kayaker. He invited me along on a trip in his two-man folding kayak to Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands, ancestral home of the Haida people.

The cutout at the top of the pole would
have held a grave box full of bones of a
deceased leader of this clan. The front
pole appears to be Raven, the back one--
Bear.

They're the ones who lived in longhouses
fronted by these awesome totem poles, and who traveled across hundreds of miles of open water in thirty-foot long cedar canoes on slave raids.

Their abandoned villages are now a World Heritage Site, with no camping, visits limited to reservations, and then only if you have a native guide. Back in our day, however, all it took was the money to hire a float plane to drop us off fifty miles by sea from the nearest small town.

Possibly a wolf crest being aggressively colonized
by local salal. The area around the poles has been
cleared since we were there, but they are still
exposed to weather. Red Cedar is naturally rot
resistant, but its man-made aspects are slowly
 succumbing to nature.

Randy and I spent most of a week, just the two of us, camping on the beach at this site whose Haida name means "Red Cod Island Village". We knew it as Ninstints, the Anglicized name of its last powerful chief.

By 1880 the incidence of smallpox deaths had become so great that the village was abandoned.


I recently found these pictures in a box of memorabilia I was organizing. I took a digital photo of each picture and processed them in Adobe Lightroom using a preset I had created for its dramatic qualities.

Waiter With Distinctive Hair

Walking past Demetri's Taverna a few minutes ago, right next to the train tracks just before you get to the pier, I saw they'd closed its side porch to acknowledge the blustery weather. I remembered a few days ago it had been bustling with diners on a calm and sunny afternoon. That reminded me of their Waiter with Distinctive Hair.

From coloring and appearance he looks Mediterranean. His swarthy skull is shaved and waxed except for a coal black pyramid of hair that rises to crest--glistening--two inches above the skin, like the prow of a ship whose aft is sinking at a 45 degree angle into what had been his fontanelle.

Plus the thin and geometric Van Dyke.

Stick and Rock

I’ve been walking and running at the beach lately, in the late afternoon during low tide. Along the water line I always stop to throw a piece of driftwood thirty or forty feet into the surf. Then I pick up some larger-than-thumb-sized rocks off the sand to throw at the stick as it slowly recedes from shore.

I do this for awhile, stopping only when I get close enough to the stick to call it a hit. I call the game Stick and Rock.

Most people we see who determinedly toss rocks into water are trying to skip the rock with a sidearm throw, seeing how many “skips” they can get. It's a common thing to do, but that trick’s no longer for me, although I have fine memories of skipping rocks with my granddad--and even once with my uncle--on the rocky bend of a creek in rural Missouri.

For months now, when I go down to the shore at the end of the street, I’ve been playing Stick and Rock exclusively. In all that time I’ve seen lots of skippers, but never seen anyone else play my game. Until today.

It was a man in his thirties with his son about five, right behind me as we made our way down the beach, to just beyond a swath of perfectly-sized rocks laid parallel with the waterline by the last rising tide.

I was searching for a suitable stick--if you find one too close to the surf it'll be waterlogged and won't float--when I heard the man tell his young son to “pick up a piece of wood to be your battleship". I sensed what was going on, so grabbed one of my own and hurried down to the water, feeling--for some reason--that it was important to get established in my own game before they began theirs.

Unaccountably I had begun to feel competitive about how my aim would compare with the dad's. Not his son's.

Anyway, my hunch about what they were up to was confirmed a few minutes later when I heard the man urging his boy, as he demonstrated by throwing a rock, to “see if you can sink the battleship with your bomb.” By this time I'd drifted down the beach a bit, and my stick had been going out with the tide. My rock had come within a foot a few times, but no direct hits.

Glancing over, I saw that the boy's aim wasn't bad, and the man's was dead-on. I heaved a couple more rocks near the limit of my range that--generously judged--landed not "too far" from the stick, which, by this time, was bobbing maybe eighty feet from shore. Their "battleship"--barely eight, I noted.

Three generations of us were out there on the beach, amusing ourselves in a fine way by just throwing rocks into the water, trying to hit a piece of wood, whether you called it a stick, or more metaphorical battleship. 

What Would Groucho Do?

This 5'X6' frame used to be attached to the side of a tarted-up panel van;
Now it's on my office wall.

In preparation for this move to Mexico that's not many months away, I've been sorting my belongings—starting in the office—trying to figure out what to do with everything. 

A lot of the stuff is remembrances of my family—spouse and daughters, parents and grandparents.

I have the snappy old hat my dad used to wear, my mother’s favorite coffee mug, the original 1961 flyer advertising the going-out-of-business sale for granddad’s general store, medals from both World Wars, trinkets, the photo of my wife I call MBPITW (Most Beautiful Picture In The World), Father’s Day and ID cards, and such—many years’ worth. I'll keep most all of these odds and ends—maybe make a trunk's worth to remind me of my place and where I come from.

A picture of Mom, in a familiar pose, behind a kachina doll
I purchased on the Hopi reservation a long time ago.

Aside from these heritage displays, the office is also festooned with a variety of odd creations.

The biggest piece, occupying one whole wall, is the proscenium frame for a traveling theater. It weighs about 20 pounds, and is four by five feet in size. It’s sculpted to depict the mermaid, seaweed, and sea monster-guarded, golden portal to a succession of scenes from my imagination. 

What to do with the frame? I'll never get rid of it, but where should it go? I imagine it'd be pretty difficult to pack and get safely to Mexico.

And what to do with a wooden-faced Kwakiutl boy in the body of a silver salmon that hangs from the ceiling?

What would Groucho do?

Or the four foot-long flying fish with the face of Groucho Marx, leaping across the wall and puffing a cigar? A hand puppet of Homer Simpson in the black-caped garb of Alberich—evil dwarf—from an unproduced version of Wagner’s Ring?

On the filing cabinet sits a goldfish head swollen larger than the size of a human’s. Quo vadis?

There are a lot of other things, too—in drawers or on shelves, or in the closet in boxes and tubs. Most of them have to do with a dozen or so theater projects created during a two decade-long period that ended twelve years ago, when I began teaching.

For now, I think I'll just get rid of the few pieces to which I'm not attached, pack and store the rest. Maybe later I'll have an idea how some of the items can still be used; I hope so, because it's hard to say a final goodbye to that time in my life when creative visions seemed to come and be actualized like magic.

The best solution would probably be to pass them on to my daughters, or even the school at which I taught—somewhere they would be appreciated.

Any takers?

In It To Win It

After the hiatus for a rare visit from Sis and Bro, I returned to work this evening on a long range and improbable goal of winning the 100m dash—age 95 and over—at the 2042 Senior Games. 

Merrell Men's Ascend Glove Minimal Running Shoe. Sweet!

Two days ago the crucial order arrived from Amazon—a great deal on Merrell running shoes in dove grey and slate, neon lemon and lime. Vibram. They were waiting on the front porch when we returned from Portland. At first I wasn’t sure I would keep them—the arch felt too high—but I did. 

This calm but overcast afternoon, I wore them on my Power Walk and they fit like a glove. They also subtly changed my gait. I stick my butt out a bit more and push harder with my thighs. 

Power Walk leaves our apartment and heads south on 3rd Avenue, up a steady rise past the many seniors’ condos, and big trees in City Park, to turn left at Pine, which climbs steeply east six long blocks to the ridge. 

It’s a vertiginous view down Pine, past solidly sedate and middle class blocks to the marsh and Puget Sound. At 5PM I looked back and saw either a huge yacht or small cruise ship unusually close to shore, heading north.

I paralleled its course down along the ridge on 9th, then west to Main, turning right on 7th a block south of the grandstand, and finally—let’s call it fifty minutes; that will be my baseline—jogged, ran, sprinted and dashed around the quarter mile track. Matt, my trusty trainer, says I can decrease the time of my Power Walk by no more than five percent each day, as I increase the distance I run. 

Onward.

The Church of Nature Gives...and It Takes Away

Holding the sun

What a glorious morning! The rising sun is peekabooing through fluffy clouds and there are promises of afternoon temps in the high sixties. This fine weather is especially welcome after last month’s record rainfall that led to a calamitous mudslide nearby, killing so many, and devastating a small community.

This brooding thought lingers for a few minutes until I come back to the itch that’s been teasing me lately: this time next week my wife and I will be on a plane returning home from a long weekend in Tulsa--my hometown--where a week from today our fiftieth high school reunion will be history. It's much easier to imagine it in the past tense, rather than what it will actually be. 

I’ve never gone to a reunion before. It’s been 25 years since I was last in Tulsa. Many of my classmates, especially those who stayed in Oklahoma, have kept in touch with a circle of friends, but me--not so much. It’s not the yearning for reestablishing connections that’s brought me back, although in a few instances that is the case; it’s more the symbolism of the occasion. 

Our high school graduation marked entry into an adulthood that’s led us in myriad directions. From that common point, over the past half century we have each forged lives that are unimaginably varied. We've  gone through a marriage or two or more, raised our kids, established an identity that’s rooted in where we came from but is mostly our own invention. Now we’re entering retirement, no longer bound to our wage-earning lives, and looking forward to God knows what. 

This seems a propitious time to not only mark a long passage, but to think about what’s next. For some reason, for me, entering this new stage means going back to the place where my parents raised me, to gather among former classmates who have opted to make the same journey. On this trip, I’m blessed to have my sparkly-eyed wife for company. 

We got our inexpensive tickets online through Cheap-O Air. We'll leave for Tulsa way early Friday morning, and don’t have assigned seats yet on Monday's leg home from Dallas. I’m hoping for a free upgrade, but prepared for the two of us to have scattered seats in the rear. 

Unbidden, in my mind’s eye, an image of those airplane “seats” morphs into a newsreel shot of sodden muddy cushions, splintered timbers sticking out of the sludge, and much worse--that deadly slide again. At least the friendly weather will make it easier for recovery crews, and hopefully cast a bit of warmth and light on the affected families’ futures.

For me, today is a good day for a walk down to the beach, and up to the ridge overlooking the Sound. The water will be calm, the sun glittering off its surface, and I'll be thankful for the moment just to be, and let the future take care of itself.

And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses—
something not known to anyone at all
But wild in our breast for centuries.

--Anna Akhmatnova

Church of Nature

Bugling Spring's arrival

The Church of Nature had just thrown open its doors, and the sidewalk was thronged last Sunday morning with fellow worshippers. I was gob-smacked by this stand of buttery daffodils showing off at the corner across the street from our post office.

Then I crossed the street to discover, in one of the flower beds there, a cluster of hand-sized rocks curving around the historic plaque, inspired no doubt by the dry streambeds of a classic Japanese garden. Fittingly, nearby is a recently planted laceleaf maple with its finely etched leaves just beginning to unfurl--a long-range promise for a vibrant Fall. Newly installed azaleas anchor the other two corners.

All in all, a big upgrade at 2nd and Main. Thanks go, I’m sure, to Debra and her inspired, committed colleagues at Edmonds Parks who create and maintain our city's beautiful flower gardens. Good on y'all!

During the rest of the morning’s pilgrimage, similar new rock arrangements were spotted on the way to the roundabout's flower corners, well sited next to crossed bamboo stakes placed to protect the garden's edge. 

Sweet-scented Daphne blossoms

Around the fountain there was also the sweet scent of previously unnoticed Daphne odoras--three of them, if memory serves. This was one of the rare occasions when I recognized the Daphne’s blossom before I registered its fragrance; my nose has been too occupied with allergens lately to smell much of anything. Even so, as I leaned close to the tiny creamy fuchsia blooms, my olfactory senses rejoiced. 

The Daphne is a tetchy plant; give it well-drained soil and just the right amount of water in filtered sun, and it might--just might--reward you with a few good years of its sweet, early Spring scent.

Hallelujah! 

Way Late Life Hack

Don't start at this end, instead...

No intention to defame--they’re long gone anyway--but that well-intentioned couple who brought me up failed to clue me in to the best way of peeling a banana. The upshot is that I’ve been flaunting my pig ignorance at tropical gatherings over the past sixty-five years.

Nunh-unh

After carefully studying internet images of cartoon banana peels, I've also concluded that our popular culture has been abetting this mistake. I offer instructions in this post as a public service. 

Begin here.

You do not begin peeling at the end where the fruit connects to the stalk. You could--sure--but unless you use, and thus dirty, a potentially dangerous knife, you will nearly always risk smushed-up pulp.

Or--before peeling you could bite, instead of slice, the same spot on that perky-looking fruit, but then you have the bitter taste and unpleasant texture of the skin.

Pinch, and peel with natural flair!

Now I know a better way; thanks to recently received wisdom from my knowledgeable spouse, I start at the butt end. Pinch the nipple, peel those cunning flaps back with ease, and look at how securely they gather at the stalk. Top off your accomplishment by tossing that flaccid peel away with a flair and grace that confirms you're finally right with nature!

Call me, “Just Enlightened.”

Nehi Orange and Pheremonal Funk

Our fiftieth high school reunion is in Tulsa next month, and that’s got me to thinking about an inspiring teacher I had by the name of John Haynes. He taught Social Studies at Wright Junior High and moved on to Edison to teach Freshman English. 

Mr. Haynes was a young guy then, but even with those odd glasses, his bullet-headed buzz cut and sarcastic lips gave him a not-to-be-fucked-with demeanor. I don’t remember much book learning from American History, but stories he told about living depressed, in a New York City walkup, are still around the edges of my mind. 

That such inchoate feelings could be shared and even named, that such a concrete bin of grime and glamor actually exists, and that teachers might have the same tics and appetites as me--these were all revelations that pretty much exploded my pubescent world view.

Mr. Haynes’ class rated high in student involvement. We aped his demonstrations of how to drink Nehi Orange and eat ‘Bama pies like the people he’d met in Georgia. As we eagerly--even if a bit mockingly--acted out its distinctive behaviors, we were learning empathy for an unfamiliar culture.  Mr. Haynes became an exemplar for my own teaching style.

We had other good English teachers at Edison, too, like Ruth Wells. I was a precocious brat and Mrs. Wells indulged me, but she must have done it with good authority, because I still have, and appreciate, some of the perversely obscure work I did for her.

That was the class where a comely blonde sat sweetly in the desk right behind my own, making scholarly concentration impossible. Though never spoken, the feeling I had for her surely oozed from my follicles, joining the rest of the room’s pheromonal funk. 

Even through the wiggling horniness, and my obsessive contemplation of the mysterious reappearing red mark high on our female classmates’ achingly alluring calves, Mrs. Wells persevered. She gave us encouragement to fly with our words, or at least to try. When I study her yearbook picture now, with these 67-year-old eyes--no disrespect intended--but I see serious GILF material. Click on the pic and check out the sensuous mouth, and smoldering gaze behind those cat's-eye glasses. Call the class to attention, Mrs. Wells!

Mrs. Martha Cole appears to be in her late thirties when we were at Edison; she passed on four years ago. I remember meeting with other students at her house--a first for me to go to the home of a teacher! We were working together on a school literary magazine--something right up my pretentious alley. She kept me focused and involved though--a warm, good person and teacher.

I think it must have been Mrs. Cole who encouraged me and Lee Hoevel (AKA Diogenes Brown) to write a play--a political satire--and perform it, if memory serves, in the lunchroom. That kind of tomfoolery kept me engaged for many years in the then-distant future.

If you Google “John Haynes Tulsa,” you’ll find a link to an autobiography you can download from Scribd. His people moved to Oklahoma when it was still Indian Territory and, like my own dad, his father was an elementary school principal for many years in Tulsa. Further search suggests he might still live, or at least own a home, on South Trenton Avenue. 

Good health, Mr. Haynes! What a trip it would be to see you again.

CASE NO. 12-X-XX588-X, Part 4

As Artist smiled goodbye, the rest of us were in a bit of a tizzy. It was four o'clock;  it was Friday--Valentines Eve, fer crissake. Make love, not verdicts! No one, though, wanted to come back to this decision after the three day weekend. But it was either/or, so over Cellphone’s fluttery disclaimers, she was scrummed into leadership with seemly reluctance.

Forbidden to speak about the substance of the trial until this moment, I was shocked that not everyone shared my opinion: even with prior conditions and inconsistencies, Plaintiff’s lower back had clearly been damaged or “lit up” by the accident. She deserved some major compensation. I imagined her using the award for therapeutic guidance, materials and treatment, down--and way down--the line. 

Pretty clear...on the the third or fourth reading

So, it was a surprise to hear Cellphone jump in with her nurse-ly opinion that Plaintiff’s problems were clearly either pre-existing or degenerative. "And besides that, she didn't follow doctors' orders!"

In the confusion of pent-up emotion that followed I was taken aback to hear Banker, Dog Trainer, Stiff, and Chaplain--especially Chaplain--give Cellphone their support.

Plaintiff's posse was back on its heels until Seldom Talked, introducing herself as I-am-also-a-nurse, pushed back with contradictory clinical insight. Fireplug, speaking from a yogic-body awareness perspective likewise supported Plaintiff’s claim. I offered my own dimly illuminating tale of lumbar woe, and Curly Blonde plus Shy Woman skirted a little behind Plaintiff as well, enough so that everyone pretty much agreed that at least the low back pain was a result of the crash.

Clear as mud...Short shrift was given to clarifying many pages of
instructions

But, could we agree on a sum for the non-economic damages of this pain before six o'clock? What should that figure be? After several false starts we each threw out a number in the thousands: a cluster of 50s, a scattering up to 100, with a leap to two of us at 150. 

Since it only took ten to agree, we eliminated the outliers and our initial “average” turned out to be 74K. Not long after this revelation, Mario the Bailiff checked in to ask if we’d be able to reach our verdict tonight. Yes, we confidently replied. What followed, though, was a period of venting to which, with hindsight, I wish I’d given more respect. But I was looking forward to lobster dinner and a romantic evening, so pushed us to get back to a mathematical task that had become disconnected from the gritty of the case.

Could ten of us could agree on 75? No, too low. Ninety was too high. At this point, in an aside to me, Seldom Talked said her first thought had been 200K. One more poll, though, gave us our sum. At 5:10PM we twelve jurors filed back into the courtroom. Cellphone handed our verdict to the clerk. Because we felt it was too low, Fireplug and I were the only ones not joining in the opinion, which was “Damages for the plaintiff in the sum of $85,000.”

It was quick and it was dirty, and this glib recounting offers little more than lip service to justice. The heart of the case will always lie in the body and mind of Marilee, our Plaintiff. I wonder how, after this long, expensive, disappointing, and ultimately sad chapter, she can continue the story of her recovery.

CASE NO. 12-X-XX588-X, Part 3

I'm middle background, the rest are male impersonators.

Our thirteenth juror was a sweet, doll-like woman. She was always well-dressed in a nice figure, with a skirt over leggings tucked into low boots that had a bit of flash. Well-cut platinum hair. Before deliberations could begin, though, she--as alternate--had to leave. I was sorry to see her go. 

During jury selection she'd mentioned she was an Artist. I’d asked about her work, and enjoyed our conversation. Always occupying the jury room chair to my right, she’d been a quiet, friendly presence all week, and would only return if one of us was unable to continue.

Another juror I’d chatted up was the Dog Trainer from Arizona. We’d shared, and shared again, our affection for border collies and the Grand Canyon. The Chaplain and I discussed elder care and good places to go for lunch. With the Renegade--the only other man in the group--I’d exchanged knowing nods and nonsensical small talk.

Renegade dressed down, like a biker but more raggedy. Born in Viet Nam, he grew up in Texas, and was now an unemployed Boeing engineer. He had a scruffier beard than my own and bad teeth. Renegade liked to joke around, but his English was so iffy you couldn't be sure you were catching his drift.

By odd coincidence one of the jurors was this same court’s regular Reporter. Her butchness was well turned-out, but her demeanor was initially so forbidding, I was put off. After a couple of days, though, she warmed up, and during our deliberations would become the soul of good-natured calmness. On the very end of the table, lanky Banker’s droll humor and easy-to-listen-to laugh were another plus.  

Good Times

One expensively coiffed woman spoke e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y clearly on her Cellphone during each of our jury room respites. In the midst of arranging care for her elderly father, she dutifully kept us apprised as the situation evolved. I occasionally retreated to the tiny men’s room to escape her self-assured loquacity.

On the other hand, the woman next to me Seldom Talked while playing a game on her phone. A short red-faced woman--call her Fireplug--had once owned a yoga studio and, like me, used our breaks to stretch. Curly Blonde and the former dental hygienist with a Stiff walk sat together down at the other end of the table usually engaged in some casual slander of their husbands.  

Shy Woman rounded out our baker’s dozen. As soon as Artist left, someone asked if any of us had ever been on a jury before and Cellphone raised her hand. 

[To be continued.]

CASE NO. 12-X-XX588-X, Part 2

Jury room window, second floor, far right. Imagine the trees
have no leaves, sky is dark grey, rain whipped by wind.

After we saw and heard all the evidence and testimony, our jury was asked to determine how much Defendant owed Plaintiff for non-economic damages suffered as result of head, neck, and lower back injuries caused nearly five years ago by the accident.

Plaintiff was a small, prettier-than-plain woman, seemingly fit but with an unhappy face. We were introduced to her through testimony from:

• her husband--an inarticulate man preyed upon by defendant’s counsel, 
• her neighbor and friend--who really hadn’t seen too much of P lately,
• her mother-in-law--who lamented the loss of P’s former dynamism.

Each agreed that Plaintiff was stoic about pain, had a bad memory and fear of needles. For years she and her husband had worked long hours to build a small-town roofing and recycling business. They had two teenage boys.

Defense made much of Plaintiff’s:

• visit to a doctor three years before the accident for bad headaches.
• surgery on a herniated disc six months before the crash.

Plaintiff’s English-chinned counsel countered that these should be seen as small “islands of pain” not connected to the “continent of pain” following the crash, as evidenced by:

• six pain-free months after the sciatic surgery and before the crash,
• numerous visits over the four and a half years since the crash to doctors, neurologists, physical and occupational therapists, and chiropractors seeking relief from often excruciating head, neck and/or lower back pain.

“If that is so,” responded Defendant’s lawyer, who looked like a well-dressed jockey, “how do you explain”:

• a half dozen or so full-range-of-motion tests on her neck during the period since the crash,
• several many-months-long gaps between treatments,
• spotty adherence to exercise regimens and use of prescribed medication,
• varying self-reports of pain, as low as 2 on a scale of 1-10,
• and the fact that Plaintiff refused emergency room treatment at the time of the accident?

Pretty much.

There were no knockouts in the bout between expert neurologists, though Gravitas for the defense, seemed to have it on points over Earnestness out of Plaintiff’s corner. 

In closing argument, Plaintiff’s counsel helpfully suggested recompense of 80K for past, and 280K for future, pain, distress, inconvenience, quality of life lost, etc. The defense opined 5-30K should cover it. At the same time we were advised that the “law has not furnished us with any fixed standards by which to measure non-economic damages.”

We had a little less than two hours to come up with a verdict, or return after the long weekend for another day at court.

[To be continued.]

CASE NO. 12-X-XX588-X, Part 1

The past couple of nights I’ve had 3AM mental wrestling matches about the trial that just concluded, feeling that I should have been a better advocate for a more fair resolution than the one our jury reached. It's a feeling I can dismiss in the cold light of day, but it's been stealing into my dreams, waking me up, and keeping me awake.

Nobody said we had to, but we each clipped this badge
over our breast/chest whenever we were in the courtroom.

The opposing sides rested, and we began deliberations two days ago, on Friday--Valentines Day in an unfortunate twist of fate--a little after 4PM. We were told that if we didn’t reach a decision by six we’d need to return next Tuesday. Even though it was the end of a long, trying week, once our discussion began there was a general sense of “let’s try to get it over with now, if we can.” 

The issue was how much money the plaintiff would receive for injuries that may have resulted, in whole or part, when her SUV was hit by defendant’s on-coming car as he was admittedly distracted, and it drifted across the center lane. The accident took place out where suburbs are becoming rural as both parties were performing errands for their children. Good conditions, neither speeding.

For four mind-numbing  days we heard this sad story told in excruciating and conflicting detail. We listened to the parsing and re-parsing of voluminous, inconclusive medical records. For elusive reasons, the two opposing expert witnesses, not surprisingly, disagreed. 

There were long moments during the trial when the only sound was the rustling of pages as one of the lawyers searched through his notes. Defense counsel made numerous objections and highlighted every report that might possibly--possibly!--cast doubt on any aspect of the plaintiff’s claims. Her counsel bloviated shamelessly, casting himself as a plain-spoken advocate for all of us regular folk, whom he vastly misunderstood.

In the courtroom we were the audience, expected to behave, of course, with decorum. Stifle sneezes and yawns. Don’t talk, even whisper, barely move. Morning and afternoon breaks, and many waiting minutes before, and a little after, were spent crowded in the narrow jury room. There wasn't much opportunity to cut loose there, either.

Forbidden to talk about the drama that most obviously united us, we shared hobbies and vocations, mild family dramas, told how tall our kids are, any topic--really--for good natured small talk that ignored an immense elephant in the room. We were a pretty congenial bunch. Ten women and two men. Mario the Bailiff was our lifeline to the court, and we took his irony for comic relief.

[To be continued.]

Peyote Desert

Yarn fixed on resin applied to foot-square board

Showing off our recently hung print from a local artist made me think of the art we have acquired in Mexico. My favorite works are by Huichol Indian artists from mountainous areas of Jalisco and Nayarit. Their art has a profoundly religious base. 

Huichol return annually to central Mexico to collect peyote for their ceremonies. This yarn "painting" by Cecilio Canillo Bonilla likely represents that mountainous desert region of origin--peyote cactus in foreground. Above and in the background are two shaman’s healing wands, each hung with a pair of eagle feathers. Corn silk rises in the center, just below the sun, centered in what--incongruously--appears to be a night sky.

There is a holy trinity in the Huichol faith. Corn is sustenance, and represents “meaningful work or activity in the present”*. Peyote is revered as “a means of release or escape into a world beyond time and space”*. The trio is complete with Deer, not only Lord of the Animals, but the one who brought farming to the people. Deer is shown in the middle of the gourd bowl, below. 

Nowadays, most Huichol art in Yelapa is sold at Cafe Bahia. The artist/vendor humps down every couple of weeks or so from his mountain village by bus to Puerto Vallarta, and then water taxi to Yelapa. He is a small golden-brown man, immaculately--strikingly--dressed in white cotton, camisa and pantalones both beautifully and amply embroidered. What is most notable, though, is a broad-brimmed hat adorned with hanging feathers, more embroidery, a woven beadwork band, red fabric puffballs. 

A sleeping deer with peyote buttons

To show this amazing finery, a few weeks ago I took a picture of the artist, Alesandro, from whom I had purchased this beaded calabasa bowl. Still in Yelapa, while editing on iPhoto, I noticed he was not looking into the lens. I thought of the allegedly primitive people who are said to believe that a camera will steal your soul. Back at my desk in the States, I can no longer find his three images. Now they're some pixel specks lost in an almost infinite digital abyss. 

Stay strong, Huichol man!

Two Farmers

Shapes of differently colored or patterned pieces of
paper are printed and appear to be assembled like a
collage into a seamless whole

To soften our recent landing seventy degrees of coldness away from Mexico, we are pleased to have just hung a multicolored linoleum block print by local artist Mimi Williams. This is an expensive--for our budget--acquisition, but it gives a lot of joy. 

We saw Mimi's fall show at the local library, and every visit were drawn to its two dozen prints. As it came time for the show to end, we agreed to Christmas gift ourselves the one we liked best. Deciding was difficult. We chose this one, entitled “Two Farmers Hit the High Notes.” 

This is what I like and how I feel about the work: First, I see the harmony of shapes, lines and colors. When someone says, "Farmer," I think of a man, but these are both women. Their hands are either raised in praise, or sunk into bringing music from that rock of a piano. A long line of canning jars connects earth to industry. A windmill--its powering vanes are like sunrays. There is a constancy of hillside cows, and a periwinkle streak opens to the heavens. Outdoor spaciousness abounds.

For us, the piece has a wholesome, uplifting, expansive quality. My ears can almost imagine the farmers' high notes carrying over the Palouse hills of eastern Washington. 

Thank you, Mimi, for this fine work of art!

Adios a Paraíso

Gracie, ready to roll

10 AM. Three hours ago I told Ronco, “This moment, fishing with you in the panga, is a memory for me like a treasure; in my city, in the next  week, I think of this moment--the sun, the bay, the fish, and you--my boss.” He laughed, with pleasure, I think. Who wouldn’t?

Two days left and it's already like we're not completely here. Our idyl has become metered--more choices than time. Rather than brood on this scarcity, I'll take my favorite dog for a run over stumps and stones along the path to the point and up to entrada privada of a boutique resort. 

Turkey vulture practicing his moon walk

12 PM. Nothing like popping endorphins in paradise. Add to that an avocado salad and you’ve got something with legs. I'll haul Corona empties up to Tencia’s for the bottle deposit, last shop and village ramble. But no hurry, stop downstairs for a chat with Solana, see if she needs anything from the store.

Pterodactyl-esque Frigate Birds

3 PM. On the balcony, watching the easy pace of Nelson’s work on Siete Trucha project, and adopting the lazy manner of a turkey vulture when my wife harkens to the tweeting call of a black hawk. We trace its location above our near ridge, among aforementioned vultures and similarly sized frigate birds, all wheeling black angles distinct against a baby blue sky.

Unloading river sand from
pack horses 

The frigate bird’s silhouette is scary--resembles a refugee from Jurassic Park. Another distinction: greatest wingspan to body-length ratio of any bird in the world. Nonpareil gliders, but lack the ability to gain altitude from takeoff, so imagine the consequences of that...Breaking news: A two foot skate is caught just off the pier; young boys gather to gingerly release the hook, engage in some experimental cruelty, poke and prod the fish back into surf.

6 PM. Balcony, now in the shade. News flash: two federales in navy blue uniforms, guns holstered and back-slung, stride over little bridge just below us. It’s been several weeks since we last saw them--the only organized law enforcement in our pueblo, must be their biweekly round. Nelson and helper have mixed concrete, fashioned rebar, moved rocks and dug base for Siete Trucha steps. Still working. Time to ready ourselves for taking Ana Rosa and Ronco out to Ray’s for dinner. 

Ray

9 PM. Balcony, after dinner, pangas below at their moorings, bobbing in the surf, night-lit by La Lampa. It's seldom, in my experience, that five more good-natured and fun-loving people have been gathered together, even if we don't all speak the same language. What a fine ending, with the clip-clopping of a late-working pack train adding a distinctive Yelapanese touch to our dinner. Thanks, Ray, for the bacon-wrapped shrimp and cheese-stuffed steak, and Ana Rosa loved your mango margarita.