Everyone knows that the funeral industry takes advantage of people when they are grieving and clearly vulnerable. In most states the laws regulating funerals have been written by lobbyists for the organizations of funeral directors, and they stipulate processes and products designed protect the monopoly and guarantee profits. A careful consumer might wonder why funerals are so expensive and why there are so few options. In most cases about the only decision the family gets to make is which casket (coffin) to purchase, and even the least expensive are still obscenely over-priced. Everything in the funeral extravaganza has a hefty price tag.
Embalming is an unnecessary expense. Why, in this age of refrigeration, does a corpse need to be embalmed? It’s necessary because the funeral industry says its necessary, and their paid lackeys, our legislators, made it a law. In many states there is a requirement to have a cement box to place the casket in? Why? It’s just one more way that funeral directors can pick pockets – and hide behind the law while they do it. And remember, the “law” came from them because most legislators don’t have the foggiest notion about what should comprise a proper burial or why.
Missouri recently had a court case in which funeral directors were forced to agree to allow individuals not licensed as funeral directors to sell caskets. They had a sweet monopoly going until they hit that speed bump!
But the funeral industry is about to face a significant threat to its monopolistic posture and greed. The concept of “Green Funerals” has gotten a foothold in several states, and the movement appears to be spreading. Green Funerals will not only save grief-stricken consumers money, they also offer the benefit of helping the environment.
Green Funerals are eco-friendly events that basically offer the dearly departed up as compost. The corpse is not embalmed, and the burial container might be a homemade casket, or, in some cases, biodegradable containers made out of recycled newspaper. The family might even choose to plant a tree over the grave so that the deceased might feed life into a growing monument.
When my time comes, I hope that my children honor my wishes and plant me in a green manner. I don’t care where I am buried, but I want the peace of mind of knowing that, even in death, I am providing an on-going benefit to others.
Anonymous said it best:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Blood, Glorious Blood!
The film version of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway classic, Sweeney Todd: The Demon of Fleet Street, opened this month to great reviews and sparse attendance. It is the sixth collaborative effort between director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp, both of whom tend to see the world from and a uniquely skewed perspective. (Their previous projects have included Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Corpse Bride.)
Sweeney Todd is the fictional account of a barber (Johnny Depp) whose life is ruined by a conniving judge. The judge had designs on the barber’s wife and young daughter. He shipped the barber overseas to a penal colony for some undisclosed crime, but the ever-resilient barber made his way back to London, years later, as the film begins. There he sets about exacting his revenge by giving “the closest shave you ever had.” The barber very quickly forms a partnership with his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a pie maker, and together they are able to create the tastiest meat pies in the city.
The 19th century London of Tim Burton is a visual feast of dark blues and grays liberally punctuated with brilliant blood red bouquets of arterial spray. It is alive with rats, cockroaches, and street urchins scurrying through the fog and hazy illumination of gas street lamps. It is the London of Charles Dickens, only more sinister and macabre.
Johnny Depp gives life to the title character with his usual brilliance, and, in the process, proves to be a surprisingly good singer. Helena Bonham Carter is as cheery and cunning as Depp is diabolical and tragic. Together they infuse dreary London with a twisted sense that any wrong can be set right with a sharp barber’s razor and a good meat grinder. And, if you can turn a nice profit along the way, well, that’s all the better!
Stephen Sondheim is a taste that I have never acquired, but it was well worth sitting through a Sondheim musical to watch Depp and Bonham Carter romp about Burton’s London. Serial killing and inadvertent cannibalism add such a nice touch to the holiday season! Now that the world knows Johnny Depp can sing, perhaps he and Tim Burton will resurrect some other old chestnut next year – Oklahoma!, anyone?
Sweeney Todd is the fictional account of a barber (Johnny Depp) whose life is ruined by a conniving judge. The judge had designs on the barber’s wife and young daughter. He shipped the barber overseas to a penal colony for some undisclosed crime, but the ever-resilient barber made his way back to London, years later, as the film begins. There he sets about exacting his revenge by giving “the closest shave you ever had.” The barber very quickly forms a partnership with his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a pie maker, and together they are able to create the tastiest meat pies in the city.
The 19th century London of Tim Burton is a visual feast of dark blues and grays liberally punctuated with brilliant blood red bouquets of arterial spray. It is alive with rats, cockroaches, and street urchins scurrying through the fog and hazy illumination of gas street lamps. It is the London of Charles Dickens, only more sinister and macabre.
Johnny Depp gives life to the title character with his usual brilliance, and, in the process, proves to be a surprisingly good singer. Helena Bonham Carter is as cheery and cunning as Depp is diabolical and tragic. Together they infuse dreary London with a twisted sense that any wrong can be set right with a sharp barber’s razor and a good meat grinder. And, if you can turn a nice profit along the way, well, that’s all the better!
Stephen Sondheim is a taste that I have never acquired, but it was well worth sitting through a Sondheim musical to watch Depp and Bonham Carter romp about Burton’s London. Serial killing and inadvertent cannibalism add such a nice touch to the holiday season! Now that the world knows Johnny Depp can sing, perhaps he and Tim Burton will resurrect some other old chestnut next year – Oklahoma!, anyone?
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Road to Arizona
Each Christmas over the past four years has found me residing in a different state.
Christmas 2004: I was living in Missouri and finishing out a nearly eleven-year-run with the Missouri Division of Family Services, later renamed the Missouri Children’s Division. I joined the Division in April of 1994 as a Children’s Services Worker. My main duties included conducting child abuse investigations and working with children in foster care.
After being with that state agency just a few years, I was selected to attend the University of Missouri on a Title 4-E Scholarship where I obtained a Master’s in Social Work. In return for accepting a wonderful 2-year education, with pay and benefits, I had to promise to work for the state an additional four years. That wasn’t a problem to me because I loved my job and intended to keep doing it forever.
I completed the graduate program and returned to work at the Division. There I was promptly promoted to the position of Social Work Specialist where I handled “special” cases in seven counties throughout southwest Missouri. Fortunately, I loved that job as well, and things were good. I made many great friends in my travels and was able to do a lot of positive work for the children and families of that corner of Missouri.
My love affair with state employment ended after I became the Circuit Director over two of those seven counties. I had quite a lot of unhappy experience as a school administrator, and somehow I had forgotten how truly miserable life could be for the boss. But, even with that background I managed to maintain a cheerful attitude for several months until my boss was replaced by someone who was not known for her people skills.
During my last, very unhappy, year with the Missouri Children’s Division I was able to complete my social work licensure and finish my payback time to the state for the scholarship. It was time to move on, and I was surprised at how readily employable I was as a newly licensed clinical social worker. I was soon able to line up a position as a social work therapist with the U.S. Army at Ft. Leavenworth. As I was preparing to move at the end of December, 2004, the Great Tsunami hit Indonesia and George Bush was busy shuffling cabinet members and writing his 2nd inaugural address.
Christmas 2005: I was just completing my year at Ft. Leavenworth and preparing to move to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, within the next couple of days. My pay as a new therapist had been more that I made as an administrator in Missouri, and it suddenly increased again by 17% in November of 2005 to counteract the flight of social workers into the private sector. Unfortunately for me, the raise was funded by a deletion of some positions, including mine at Ft. Leavenworth. My contracting agency came to the rescue and found a placement for me at Ft. Campbell.
Leavenworth had been a great place to work, so much better than my previous position. Our caseloads at Leavenworth were small (which is the main reason that my position was deleted), and it was an excellent place to learn clinical skills as well as the operation of the Army’s Family Advocacy Program. Our mission was to work with victims and perpetrators of family violence, something for which my background with the Missouri Children’s Division had prepared me well.
Leavenworth was also good from a family perspective. I was able to get back to the Ozarks to check on my Dad and my little farm, Rock’s Roost, every other weekend, and I was able to see my son Tim, who lived just down the road in Topeka, on a fairly regular basis. Up until that time it had been several years since I was able to reside in the vicinity of any of my children. It was poor Tim who had to help me pack up my apartment and drive the U-Haul to Kentucky.
Christmas 2006: I was well rooted in Kentucky by the holiday season of 2006, having already been there for nearly a year. Ft. Campbell is home of the 101st Airborne Division, most of whose members were fighting in Iraq at the time I arrived. The majority of my duties there involved working with family members who were left at the base during the deployment, and then helping with family reintegration as the soldiers returned. My most emotional experiences working at Ft. Campbell centered on meeting returning troops as their planes arrived at the base airfield – the bands, the speeches, the joyous family reunions! Those memories will be with me forever.
The first couple of years that I worked with the military were as a civilian contractor. The pay was great, but contracted employees receive less time off than federal employees and have no retirement system other than a 401-K plan. I applied for several federal social worker positions, but wasn’t experiencing much luck in that department. Then in July of this year I found an Air Force opening at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix. I wasn’t overly anxious to move to the desert, but my daughter and new grandson were living there, so I threw my name into the hat. Much to my surprise, I was hired through a telephone interview and was on station at Luke on October 1st. Now, at long last, I was an official federal employee.
My oldest son, Nick, flew to Kentucky and helped me pack and move to Arizona. He and his brother both say that their sister, Molly, has to help move Dad next time!
Christmas 2007: I am at Luke preparing to start a new year. I like my job and have wonderful co-workers (as was the case at Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Campbell), and I hope that I will be able to drop anchor here and stay for several years. It is also fun getting to know my little grandson and watch him grow.
Christmas 2004: I was living in Missouri and finishing out a nearly eleven-year-run with the Missouri Division of Family Services, later renamed the Missouri Children’s Division. I joined the Division in April of 1994 as a Children’s Services Worker. My main duties included conducting child abuse investigations and working with children in foster care.
After being with that state agency just a few years, I was selected to attend the University of Missouri on a Title 4-E Scholarship where I obtained a Master’s in Social Work. In return for accepting a wonderful 2-year education, with pay and benefits, I had to promise to work for the state an additional four years. That wasn’t a problem to me because I loved my job and intended to keep doing it forever.
I completed the graduate program and returned to work at the Division. There I was promptly promoted to the position of Social Work Specialist where I handled “special” cases in seven counties throughout southwest Missouri. Fortunately, I loved that job as well, and things were good. I made many great friends in my travels and was able to do a lot of positive work for the children and families of that corner of Missouri.
My love affair with state employment ended after I became the Circuit Director over two of those seven counties. I had quite a lot of unhappy experience as a school administrator, and somehow I had forgotten how truly miserable life could be for the boss. But, even with that background I managed to maintain a cheerful attitude for several months until my boss was replaced by someone who was not known for her people skills.
During my last, very unhappy, year with the Missouri Children’s Division I was able to complete my social work licensure and finish my payback time to the state for the scholarship. It was time to move on, and I was surprised at how readily employable I was as a newly licensed clinical social worker. I was soon able to line up a position as a social work therapist with the U.S. Army at Ft. Leavenworth. As I was preparing to move at the end of December, 2004, the Great Tsunami hit Indonesia and George Bush was busy shuffling cabinet members and writing his 2nd inaugural address.
Christmas 2005: I was just completing my year at Ft. Leavenworth and preparing to move to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, within the next couple of days. My pay as a new therapist had been more that I made as an administrator in Missouri, and it suddenly increased again by 17% in November of 2005 to counteract the flight of social workers into the private sector. Unfortunately for me, the raise was funded by a deletion of some positions, including mine at Ft. Leavenworth. My contracting agency came to the rescue and found a placement for me at Ft. Campbell.
Leavenworth had been a great place to work, so much better than my previous position. Our caseloads at Leavenworth were small (which is the main reason that my position was deleted), and it was an excellent place to learn clinical skills as well as the operation of the Army’s Family Advocacy Program. Our mission was to work with victims and perpetrators of family violence, something for which my background with the Missouri Children’s Division had prepared me well.
Leavenworth was also good from a family perspective. I was able to get back to the Ozarks to check on my Dad and my little farm, Rock’s Roost, every other weekend, and I was able to see my son Tim, who lived just down the road in Topeka, on a fairly regular basis. Up until that time it had been several years since I was able to reside in the vicinity of any of my children. It was poor Tim who had to help me pack up my apartment and drive the U-Haul to Kentucky.
Christmas 2006: I was well rooted in Kentucky by the holiday season of 2006, having already been there for nearly a year. Ft. Campbell is home of the 101st Airborne Division, most of whose members were fighting in Iraq at the time I arrived. The majority of my duties there involved working with family members who were left at the base during the deployment, and then helping with family reintegration as the soldiers returned. My most emotional experiences working at Ft. Campbell centered on meeting returning troops as their planes arrived at the base airfield – the bands, the speeches, the joyous family reunions! Those memories will be with me forever.
The first couple of years that I worked with the military were as a civilian contractor. The pay was great, but contracted employees receive less time off than federal employees and have no retirement system other than a 401-K plan. I applied for several federal social worker positions, but wasn’t experiencing much luck in that department. Then in July of this year I found an Air Force opening at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix. I wasn’t overly anxious to move to the desert, but my daughter and new grandson were living there, so I threw my name into the hat. Much to my surprise, I was hired through a telephone interview and was on station at Luke on October 1st. Now, at long last, I was an official federal employee.
My oldest son, Nick, flew to Kentucky and helped me pack and move to Arizona. He and his brother both say that their sister, Molly, has to help move Dad next time!
Christmas 2007: I am at Luke preparing to start a new year. I like my job and have wonderful co-workers (as was the case at Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Campbell), and I hope that I will be able to drop anchor here and stay for several years. It is also fun getting to know my little grandson and watch him grow.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Holiday Highlights
Feliz Navidad Amigos,
I have been in Missouri for the past few days celebrating the holidays with family and friends. There was no snow in the Ozarks this holiday season, so I will have to be content with watching it snow on television or in the movies this winter. It definitely won’t happen in Phoenix!
This year’s holiday adventure began as I was trying to get cleared to catch my flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport on the 19th. The good folks at TSA managed to find a reason to collect my shaving cream and toothpaste, even though I thought that I had met all of their insufferable criteria. (The plastic baggie that I had them in was too big, as were the containers. And, for all of you future travelers out of Phoenix, it’s not the amount of toothpaste in the tube; it is the amount that the tube was designed to carry.) Sky Harbor is one place where you do not want to argue with authority figures. Last September their airport security caused the death of a woman when they handcuffed her and left her alone in a locked room. The lady was inebriated, supposedly, and spoke impolitely to the airport cops. After they left her alone, she choked to death trying to squirm out of the handcuffs. Turns out she was a wealthy, well-connected socialite from New York. Whoops! That’s gonna cost them an airplane or two!
My second holiday adventure occurred at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a former cow pasture located just outside of Bentonville, Arkansas, near the little crossroads of Highfill. Highfill International, as it is lovingly referred to by the locals, is a relatively new airport that was put together about a decade ago by the Walton’s, Tyson’s, Hunt’s, and other assorted aristocrats of the area. My Dad arrived there on the 19th to pick me up. There was a parking space right in front of the terminal, which he thought was great, so he parked there and went inside. (My Dad is eighty-three. It takes a great deal of effort for him to walk, and he can hardly hear at all.) When I met him in the airport I heard an overhead announcement describing his truck and saying that the owner needed to get out there immediately. I put on my best smile and went out to resolve the situation. The lady with the ticket pad was already writing and refused to show any holiday spirit. I had her bring her supervisor outside and proceeded to give them some of my holiday spirit. Total price: $20.00 - and I don't regret a single peso! There is no doubt in my mind that Santa Claus will leave chicken poop in her stocking this year!
Adventure number three happened the next day after I had torn apart my Dad’s house searching for my car keys. I had left my car at a park and fly (The Parking Spot) in Phoenix, so I didn’t need them; I just wanted to know where they were. After a long, futile search, I telephoned the Parking Spot and asked Stephanie, the sweetest lady in all of Phoenix, if she would check my car and see if I had left the keys in the ignition. I gave her time to check and then called back. Stephanie replied that my keys were in the ignition, and that my car was still running – thirty hours after I had left it there! A Parking Spot driver was eventually able to get into the car, turn off the engine, and retrieve my keys. I will be nominating myself for the Darwin Award this year!
My final adventure occurred on the night of the 22nd as I was trying to leave. Winter storms were flirting with the Ozarks, and I made a decision to go to the airport the night before my 5:30 a.m. scheduled departure. I didn’t want to take the chance of having my Dad get out in bad weather. A friend took me to Highfill and I spent the entire night listening to taped TSA warnings about all kinds of ways those sneaky terrorists might bring their evil to Arkansas.
Three of my New Year’s resolutions are to always use the Parking Spot in Phoenix when I fly, always be polite to the Gestapo at Sky Harbor, and never fly into or out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Of course, there is a good chance that my next trip home will be by Greyhound, or in my amazing little car that can idle for thirty hours!
There were many happy times woven into this holiday. I saw all three of my children and both of my grandchildren. Tim, my youngest, informed us that he is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Erin, which is great because we all love Erin! Boone, my oldest grandson, announced that he had given two girls diamond rings for Christmas. He bought them at the dollar store. I saw my sister, Gail, and two of her kids, Tiffany and Justin, and Justin’s wife, Lisa. I had lunch with some of my old co-workers, and ran into some others at the county courthouse. And I was able to visit with old friends Mertie Harmon and James and Patti Carroll. A lot happened in just a few short days! Now I will relax and spend the rest of the holidays with a few other good friends - both paperback and hardbound!
May '08 bring Peace to us all!
Pa Rock
I have been in Missouri for the past few days celebrating the holidays with family and friends. There was no snow in the Ozarks this holiday season, so I will have to be content with watching it snow on television or in the movies this winter. It definitely won’t happen in Phoenix!
This year’s holiday adventure began as I was trying to get cleared to catch my flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport on the 19th. The good folks at TSA managed to find a reason to collect my shaving cream and toothpaste, even though I thought that I had met all of their insufferable criteria. (The plastic baggie that I had them in was too big, as were the containers. And, for all of you future travelers out of Phoenix, it’s not the amount of toothpaste in the tube; it is the amount that the tube was designed to carry.) Sky Harbor is one place where you do not want to argue with authority figures. Last September their airport security caused the death of a woman when they handcuffed her and left her alone in a locked room. The lady was inebriated, supposedly, and spoke impolitely to the airport cops. After they left her alone, she choked to death trying to squirm out of the handcuffs. Turns out she was a wealthy, well-connected socialite from New York. Whoops! That’s gonna cost them an airplane or two!
My second holiday adventure occurred at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a former cow pasture located just outside of Bentonville, Arkansas, near the little crossroads of Highfill. Highfill International, as it is lovingly referred to by the locals, is a relatively new airport that was put together about a decade ago by the Walton’s, Tyson’s, Hunt’s, and other assorted aristocrats of the area. My Dad arrived there on the 19th to pick me up. There was a parking space right in front of the terminal, which he thought was great, so he parked there and went inside. (My Dad is eighty-three. It takes a great deal of effort for him to walk, and he can hardly hear at all.) When I met him in the airport I heard an overhead announcement describing his truck and saying that the owner needed to get out there immediately. I put on my best smile and went out to resolve the situation. The lady with the ticket pad was already writing and refused to show any holiday spirit. I had her bring her supervisor outside and proceeded to give them some of my holiday spirit. Total price: $20.00 - and I don't regret a single peso! There is no doubt in my mind that Santa Claus will leave chicken poop in her stocking this year!
Adventure number three happened the next day after I had torn apart my Dad’s house searching for my car keys. I had left my car at a park and fly (The Parking Spot) in Phoenix, so I didn’t need them; I just wanted to know where they were. After a long, futile search, I telephoned the Parking Spot and asked Stephanie, the sweetest lady in all of Phoenix, if she would check my car and see if I had left the keys in the ignition. I gave her time to check and then called back. Stephanie replied that my keys were in the ignition, and that my car was still running – thirty hours after I had left it there! A Parking Spot driver was eventually able to get into the car, turn off the engine, and retrieve my keys. I will be nominating myself for the Darwin Award this year!
My final adventure occurred on the night of the 22nd as I was trying to leave. Winter storms were flirting with the Ozarks, and I made a decision to go to the airport the night before my 5:30 a.m. scheduled departure. I didn’t want to take the chance of having my Dad get out in bad weather. A friend took me to Highfill and I spent the entire night listening to taped TSA warnings about all kinds of ways those sneaky terrorists might bring their evil to Arkansas.
Three of my New Year’s resolutions are to always use the Parking Spot in Phoenix when I fly, always be polite to the Gestapo at Sky Harbor, and never fly into or out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Of course, there is a good chance that my next trip home will be by Greyhound, or in my amazing little car that can idle for thirty hours!
There were many happy times woven into this holiday. I saw all three of my children and both of my grandchildren. Tim, my youngest, informed us that he is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Erin, which is great because we all love Erin! Boone, my oldest grandson, announced that he had given two girls diamond rings for Christmas. He bought them at the dollar store. I saw my sister, Gail, and two of her kids, Tiffany and Justin, and Justin’s wife, Lisa. I had lunch with some of my old co-workers, and ran into some others at the county courthouse. And I was able to visit with old friends Mertie Harmon and James and Patti Carroll. A lot happened in just a few short days! Now I will relax and spend the rest of the holidays with a few other good friends - both paperback and hardbound!
May '08 bring Peace to us all!
Pa Rock
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Taser Tag, Anyone?
The other night as I was channel surfing, I came across a clip of a guy selling personal tasers. “Whoa!” I thought. “Saturday Night Live. I’ll watch that!” Of course, the joke was on me (as it often is), because it was a real advertisement. For less than $400, the average homeowner, or criminal, can add a taser to their personal arsenal.
I should be shocked; we all should be shocked. This is us at the beginning of the 21st century - America on steroids! We have to be bigger, tougher, and meaner than any other nation on earth, and our citizens need to be soulless killing machines willing to take the life of every jihadist, atheist, environmentalist, hippie, or other miscreant who tries to get between us and our God-given, constitutionally-guaranteed, right to bear enough arms to equip a moderately sized army. Shocking, but true.
Guns and tasers may not be enough to keep us completely safe, but it looks like they will have to do until the arms merchants roll out tactical nukes for public consumption. Then we'll be safe, by golly!
I don’t own any guns because I don’t want people breaking into my apartment to steal them. Nor do I have any plans to order a personal taser, but should I receive one as a gift, I will give it a place of honor in my living room – right next to my Bass-O-Matic.
I should be shocked; we all should be shocked. This is us at the beginning of the 21st century - America on steroids! We have to be bigger, tougher, and meaner than any other nation on earth, and our citizens need to be soulless killing machines willing to take the life of every jihadist, atheist, environmentalist, hippie, or other miscreant who tries to get between us and our God-given, constitutionally-guaranteed, right to bear enough arms to equip a moderately sized army. Shocking, but true.
Guns and tasers may not be enough to keep us completely safe, but it looks like they will have to do until the arms merchants roll out tactical nukes for public consumption. Then we'll be safe, by golly!
I don’t own any guns because I don’t want people breaking into my apartment to steal them. Nor do I have any plans to order a personal taser, but should I receive one as a gift, I will give it a place of honor in my living room – right next to my Bass-O-Matic.
Peace isn’t about me controlling my neighbors, it’s about me controlling myself.
--Pa Rock
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Molly Miranda Macy
My daughter, Molly, was born thirty-one years ago today in Joplin, Missouri. I was in the delivery room the day that Molly was born, but once labor was induced she came so quickly that I almost missed the big event. She was a beautiful baby, with tiny, wet, red curls. My mother and father came to the hospital that night to see her. There were about thirty babies in the nursery viewing room, and Molly was on the front row. I will never forget my mother pointing her out from among all of the others, and saying, “There she is. There is our baby!” The following day Molly’s maternal grandmother and great-grandmother showed up to introduce themselves to their new granddaughter. They brought the largest poinsettia that I had ever seen.
And then life hit like a slide show running way too fast, and now Molly has her own baby, my grandson Sebastian.
Seize the day, Molly, seize every day! Love that baby and enjoy each minute because he will grow up so very fast – just like you did. And when he grows into a happy and healthy young adult, I know that you will be very, very proud of him, as I am of you.
Happy birthday - I love you!
Dad
And then life hit like a slide show running way too fast, and now Molly has her own baby, my grandson Sebastian.
Seize the day, Molly, seize every day! Love that baby and enjoy each minute because he will grow up so very fast – just like you did. And when he grows into a happy and healthy young adult, I know that you will be very, very proud of him, as I am of you.
Happy birthday - I love you!
Dad
Monday, December 17, 2007
Fall from Grace
by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
The God that Fred Phelps worships is one mean bastard – and that’s the way old Fred likes Him! Fred isn’t one of those “kissy-poo” preachers. He wants you to know that if you don’t follow the literal word of the Bible, as interpreted by Fred, God is going to kill you and send you to hell. Religion is a true comfort to Fred Phelps.
This week I had the disquieting experience of seeing a documentary on the Phelps Cult (a.k.a. Westboro Baptist Church) of Topeka. The film is titled Fall from Grace and it was put together by K. Ryan Jones, a film student at the University of Kansas.
On one level it should be a simple task to do a documentary on Reverend (sic) Phelps and his family of believers - just turn on the cameras and let them roll. Get those shots of him and his genetic residue carrying signs and shouting about hating “fags” and dead soldiers. (If there's a mourning family in the background trying to bury a loved one, that's all the better.) Make certain to include footage of the ragtag protesters stepping all over the American flag or using it as a football. Get a long shot of the flagpole in front of the Westboro Baptist Church flying the American and Canadian flags upside down. Zoom in on his web site, godhatesfags.com, and see how many days Matthew Shephard has been burning in hell, and then get some interviews with people who show up to be appalled by the Phelps circus.
Jones covered those Phelps’ basics. The strength of his documentary, however comes from his access to the Phelps’ family. The film contains several extended clips of old Fred (and boy, does he ever look old!) preaching (more like yelling and screaming) to his followers, as well as interviews with some of his children, both inside and outside of the cult. Jones even talks with some of the very young grandchildren who tell him that “god hates fags” and “fags are going to burn in hell.” Nice talk, kiddos!
Almost all of the members of the Westboro Cult are members of the Phelps family. Four of Fred’s children are major voices in the film. Shirley Phelps-Roper stated that she is the attorney for the church, and she lamented ad nauseum about how people refuse to recognize god’s word and live by it. Timothy, her brother, wanted the world to know that when his father dies, the church will live on – and it will be more active than ever because he and his siblings are “battle-hardened.” He also defended taking young children to protest at funerals as comparable to others taking their children to Easter and Christmas observances. It’s all religion, don’t you know! Those who try to limit the Phelps practice of their religion in their manner can “go to hell,” sayeth Timothy.
The film’s counterbalance to all of this sickness comes through interviews with some of the more conventional local clergy and public officials from Topeka, as well as telephone interviews with two of the Phelps’ adult children who escaped their father’s wrath and control. Phelps’ son, Nate, who fled the compound on the evening of his eighteenth birthday, talked of being beaten on a regular basis with a razor strap to the point of bleeding, and of his father hitting him unmercifully with a long, wooden implement handle. He said that the kids went to public schools but were not allowed to dress out for physical education because of the bruises that would be revealed. Nate also listed a precise set of reasons why he considers the Westboro Baptist Church to be a cult and his father to be a cult leader.
The other former family member to talk to the filmmaker was Fred’s daughter, Dortha. She described life in her father’s home as being “loveless” and “scary.” She depicted Fred as having “the emotional maturity of a fourth grader – on a good day,” and said that he was “addicted to anger – a rageaholic.” Dortha said that Fred wanted to control her every move, and her primary focus growing up was survival. The saddest part of Dortha’s story was her relationship with God. She was constantly told that her father spoke for God, and she knew that her father hated her, so therefore God hated her also.
While the film’s content was strong and strident throughout, it became absolutely riveting with the interview of Kelly Frantz, a young war widow from Tonganoxie, Kansas. Kelly’s husband, Corporal Lucas Frantz, was killed in Iraq in October of 2005. Lucas had been a high school football player and was loved and admired by the community. Kelly told the interviewer of the emotional pain and grief that she went through on learning of her husband’s death. Before that shock could even begin to subside, she was stunned to learn that members of the Phelps’ cult were coming to Tonganoxie to protest at Lucas’s funeral. Her parents and a local motorcycle club managed to keep the desecration squad away from Kelly, but her emotional farewell to the love of her life was sadly marred by the mean-spirited crazies from Topeka.
This student documentary was solid enough to be picked up and presented by the Showtime Network. It grabbed my interest and held it, and, perhaps as important, it left me wanting to know more about these people. For instance, how are they funded? How do they pay for their continuing nationwide travel? Do they maintain solvency through Internet begging? The compound is a set of mediocre houses and a church (of sorts) on a nice parcel of land. Has the city of Topeka ever considered removing this cancer through the process of eminent domain and turning the property into some sort of Tolerance Park? That might be a bit radical and not overly fair to the residents of the compound, but, hey, when have they ever been known for fairness?
But I digress. Fall from Grace will be rebroadcast by Showtime on December 26th at 8:00 eastern. It’s worth checking out, but keep your hand on the remote because this film could have a sudden, negative impact on your blood pressure!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Whimsey
by Rocky Macy
Hillary, dillary, dock
Barack ran up the clock
Where he spoke with a passion
(As was his fashion)
Of ending the war in Iraq.
Hillary, dillary, bump
Oprah's on the stump
She's extolling the masses
To get off their asses
And make Barack's numbers jump.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Hereafter (5)
by Rocky Macy
(Part 5 of 5)
“What the hell!” The exclamation came from Bud as he sat up and found Thomas sitting squarely in his lap. “Get off me you little pervert!” Bud slung Thomas to his feet, and the frightened child ran screaming to his mother. Jeremiah jumped from the loft to protect his brother, but before he could act Comfort stormed forth and knocked him aside. Then, behaving in a manner that neither of her sons had ever seen before, the newly widowed farm wife grabbed their visitor by the hair of his head and pulled him upright. The startled young man started to say something, but before he could utter a sound, Comfort slapped him smartly across the face. A thin stream of blood began to trickle from the corner of his mouth.
Bud touched his lip and stared in disbelief at the blood on his finger. Enraged, he began to move toward Comfort. “You stupid cow! What the hell was that for?” Instead of offering an explanation that she considered completely unnecessary, Comfort backhanded the youth across the face causing the other corner of his mouth to also begin bleeding.
“That,” she advised, “is what comes from staining the Sabbath with your foul mouth.”
“Jeez!”
Comfort raised her hand to commence a discussion on blaspheming, but Bud stumbled backward out of her reach. He turned to bolt for the door and hesitated as he caught sight of himself and Jessie lying naked on the floor. “Oh, God, no.” Bud was still mumbling as his knees hit the dirt floor beside the young couple. “Wake up, Jessie!” He shouted as he tried in futility to shake the girl awake. “Wake up, Jessie! I’m having an awful dream!” Each time he reached to shake the sleeping girl his trembling hand slipped through her body as though it was only smoke. “Jessie! Jessie, please get up!”
Jeremiah came up and knelt beside the terrified youth. He put his hand on Bud’s bare should and tried to give some manly comfort. “It will be alright. I was scared for weeks when we crossed over.”
Bud turned and looked the boy in the face. Much to his astonishment he found himself staring at a slightly younger version of himself. “You’re saying I’m dead?”
“We all are,” Jeremiah replied, “except for her.”
“Oh, Jessie.” The boy turned back to the sleeping girl and lamented to the heavens, “What have I done?”
* * *
Jessie wasn’t surprised to wake up and find that Bud had died. She had felt him leaving her even as she slept. Jessie had her own ideas on God. Her vision of a just and loving God provided her with a sweet solace on this cold morning when she found herself alone and naked on the forest floor. Bud had said that he killed the old man for his car keys, but even with the awfulness of that sin, Jessie knew somehow that he was now safely in the Lord’s hands being remade into His image. The Lord would have His work cut out for Him with Bud, but Jessie knew that her God would see it through.
Jessie knew something else on that cold November morning. She knew instinctively that she was pregnant, or “with child” as they said in the Good Book. She was fourteen-years-old, unmarried, pregnant, and maybe heading to jail, but her spirit was in flight! She was carrying Bud’s child, and while the Lord concentrated on the redemption of the father, she would see to it that the child walked the path of the righteous and rebuilt the family’s good name. It would be her life.
* * *
It was late afternoon by the time Jessie had placed the last stone over Bud’s dead body. She had found a rusty pickaxe in a long forgotten cave at the base of the hill and used it to scrape out a shallow grave and uproot a hickory sapling. The little tree now stood timidly at the head of the new grave, aligned perfectly with the five giant timbers. As she knelt and said a final good-bye, Comfort and her three boys stood silently to on side. Jeremiah and Thomas were deep in grief over the loss of their father and sister, and Bud was in the throes of a weepy shock as he contemplated his loss of everything. Why, he wondered, had he allowed his life to come to this?
Jessie rose and looked around. She sensed the presence of the other mourners. As much to them as to the grave she said, “ Bud, I want you to know that you’re going to be fine. Just be calm and take what the Lord gives you.” Jessie wiped her tears away with a dirty hand before continuing. “I’ve got your baby, Bud, and I’m going to do right by him. He will be a wonderful child, and he’ll carry your name – Ephram Samuel Miller the Sixth. And if it’s a girl, I think I’ll call her Abiah. I’ve always thought that was such a pretty name.” Jessie turned to leave, but looked around one last time to the grave and softly whispered, “Good-bye, Bud.”
The mourners parted out of respect rather than necessity as Jessie left the gravesite and headed out of the valley. Jeremiah and Bud followed her as far as the highway. They stopped at the pavement’s edge and watched as she disappeared into the evening shadows. Bud wanted to follow, wanted with all of his heart to run after the girl who was carrying his child out of the valley, but his feet stayed firmly planted at the road’s edge. They were both so young in years, and he had already corrupted her life almost beyond repair. Bud knew in his core – or was it his soul? – that she could only grow into a wonderful woman and mother if he remained behind. He had to let her go.
“There’s nothing out there for us.” Jeremiah turned and began walking down the old trail toward home. “Come on, Samuel. We’ve got chores to do.”
“I’m right behind you,” the boy said as he turned his back on one life and headed off into another. “But you’re going to have to stay close and show me the way.”
“I will, brother. You’ve been a lost sheep long enough.”
Friday, December 14, 2007
The Hereafter (4)
by Rocky Macy
(Part 4 of 5)
Ephram was fully awake and had Comfort and the baby gathered at his side on the old bed. They were staring in disbelief at the scrawny boy standing before the hearth, and his sobbing young mate nestled in their doorway. Ephram had often spoken of the “strangeness” that the Lord had chosen to visit upon them, but this night was clearly the strangest that they had encountered since they had stood silently watching their eldest, Samuel, bury their butchered remains.
“Oh, dear husband, whatever is happening?” Comfort, always the family rock, was as near to being in a panic as Ephram had ever seen her. “That child is hungry, but he can’t see the stew pot.”
“Perhaps the Lord has used the aromas of your wonderful cooking to lead His lost lambs to us.” Ephram rose from the bed and walked over next to the boy. “Look at this lad, dear wife. He is so like our Jeremiah.”
“Mama, who are they?” It was Thomas peering over the edge of the loft. “Can I come down.”
“No!” Comfort snapped. “Stay where you are until we know what is going on.”
“But I need to pee.”
Ephram reached up and pulled his youngest son from the loft. “Come here, then. Our guests seem to be more bewildered that we are.” He stepped through the apparition in the doorway and out into the night where his son could relieve himself. When father and son came back into the cabin, the boy had settled himself on the floor next to his mate. The young couple looked as if they, too, had spent a week hunting in the woods with no luck and few provisions. Ephram found himself feeling at one with them. He lifted Thomas back up to the loft and then crawled into his own bed. “It would seem, dear wife, that there is little we can do in this situation other than to wait until the Lord calls us to act.”
* * *
“We’ve got to go back, Bud. You need a doctor.”
“We ain’t going back. We can’t, not now.” The boy leaned his head onto her shoulder and clutched at his stomach with a trembling fist. “I think maybe I tore something loose inside when we hit that deer.”
“I’m going to walk back out to the highway and try to stop somebody. We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
“No, Jessie! Leave me be. If I go to a hospital, they’ll send me to jail. I’ll be alright in a bit.”
“We just stole a car, Bud. We’ll get us a lawyer and pay for the car.” Jessie was crying softly as she ran her fingers through Bud’s stringy and bloody hair. “We’ll both work and pay for the car.”
The boy raised his head and stared into her teary eyes. “It won’t work that way, Jessie.”
“Yes it will. I’ll work real hard. We can make it the right way, Bud. I know we can.”
The boy curled up almost placing himself entirely within the girl’s embrace. “I ain’t been honest with you, Jessie.” The tears that were flowing freely now were his, leaving the girl to hold tight and give him what physical comfort she could. “I’m going to die, Jessie, and I’m going to Hell.”
“Oh, Bud, don’t talk like that! We stole a car and…”
“I stole the car, Jessie. You told me not to do it.”
“We stole it. We did it, Bud, and we’re going to make things right with that old man.”
“It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not.”
“The old man is dead.”
“No!” She pushed him away. “He ain’t dead, Bud. He wasn’t even home. You said he wasn’t home!”
“He was there, Jessie. He was there and I killed him.”
“No! No! You didn’t kill no one!”
“He was there, Jessie. I told him to give me the keys and he just laughed in my face. The stupid old shit laughed at me, you know, like he was something special and I was just some dog turd who was only good for washing his damned car and mowing his stupid grass!”
“I don’t believe any of this, Bud!”
“The old bastard laughed at me. He laughed and he laughed until I picked up a table knife and jammed it into his throat. And you know what, Jessie? The look on his face when he knew he was a dead man was worth every minute that I’ll spend in Hell.”
“Oh, Bud.” She quietly took him back into her arms and they slowly laid down and sobbed as one on the dirt floor.
* * *
Jeremiah and Thomas were both sitting on the edge of the loft watching the scene below. Comfort was up tending to Abiah’s needs, and Ephram was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed close to where the young couple lay. He was obviously deeply troubled about the scene that was unfolding on the floor of their cabin. Jeremiah chose that moment to break his father’s concentration. “He’s a killer, Pa. He’s a killer just like them soldiers that killed us.”
“No, son. He’s a boy not much older than you.”
“The soldiers weren’t much more than boys either,” Comfort reminded her husband. “Foolish boys drunk on liquor and the power of guns. Boys that should have still been at home chopping wood and milking, not off being corrupted by a war.”
“What do you suppose has corrupted this lad, dear wife.”
“Husband, I know not. But corrupted he is. Perhaps the Lord has chosen to leave us in this world so that we will not be tainted by what lies beyond our lovely valley.”
The couple on the floor began to quietly move to the rhythm of a music that the cabin’s inhabitants could not hear. Very slowly the boy brought his hand up beneath the girl’s shirt and started to knead her breasts. As soon as Comfort saw what was about to happen, she sharply told Jeremiah and Thomas to return to their blankets.
“But, Ma!” Jeremiah wailed. “This is the first time we’ve seen anybody else in almost forever.”
“Back by the wall and cover up. Things may happen that you don’t need to be seeing.” Even as Comfort spoke Bud was validating her concerns as he slowly began to unbutton Jessie’s shirt. “And you, my curious husband, kindly turn your back on this matter as well.”
“But, Ma!” Ephram said, mischievously mocking the plea of his son.
“Turn around now!” She snapped – and turn he did.
* * *
“No, Bud.”
“Please, Jessie.”
“It just don’t feel right. Not here, not now.”
“I’m going to die, Jessie. I think that I’m dying now, but if I don’t die here, the state is going to hang me dead.”
“Oh, Bud.”
Her shirt was completely open now and the boy was slowly massaging her bare breasts. “This will be my last time, our last time. Jessie, please.”
And knowing from somewhere deep within her soul that the words he spoke were true, the girl relented.
* * *
As the ragged edge of morning’s first light crept into the cabin, Comfort was stirring her stew pot and gazing in bewilderment at the sleeping couple lying naked on her floor. Somehow she would have to work around this new challenge while still managing to have a respectable Sabbath. Of all of the times that the Lord had seen fit to test her, this, she knew, had to be His best effort.
“Wife, come here!” Ephram’s sudden demand shook her from her deliberations and woke Thomas who immediately kicked his older brother awake. Comfort threw her stew paddle aside and rushed to the bedside.
“What’s the matter? Have you been dreaming?” In all of their years and decades of marriage she had only heard Ephram cry out in alarm one other time – and that was the night of their deaths.
“I’m disappearing!”
“Ephram, show some patience and don’t pester me by playing the fool. We have had a very hard night.”
“Something is happening! Look!” He placed her hand on the blanket covering his barrel of a thigh and slowly guided it toward his knee. All at once, just above where the knee should be, her hand dropped flat against their straw mattress. As Comfort screamed, Thomas and Jeremiah bolted to the edge of the loft. Thomas, unable to control his forward motion, tumbled out of the loft and onto the floor where he found himself lying among the naked couple who had invaded their world earlier the night. Jessie jerked and gave a soft moan, as if acknowledging his entry into their union.
Ephram, sweaty and frantic, held tightly to the hand of his loving wife. “My legs are almost gone. I’m leaving, dear wife. The Lord must be taking me.”
“What’ happening, Ma?” Jeremiah was as frantic as his father. “What’s happening to Pa?”
Abiah began screaming, and Thomas, taking stock of his surroundings, began to cry as well. Comfort, the stout farm wife who could normally be counted on to handle any number of catastrophes while still doing the work of two healthy women and a mule, found herself crying as well. Her husband of more than a century was now just a head, and chest, and two arms. He would soon be no more.
And with the baby screaming, one son yelling and the other crying, and her husband frozen in panic, Comfort Miller had a startling revelation. “She’s conceived!”
“What?” Ephram stammered.
“The girl on the floor. She’s conceived and the Lord has chosen you to go onward through her.” Abiah was screaming more loudly now than she ever had in her long little life. In less time than it would take to catch a breath, Comfort ran to the cradle and plucked the baby from its haven. Rushing back to the bed, Comfort handed her youngest, the eternally sickly Abiah, to Ephram. “Take the baby, my loving husband, and watch over her always.”
“Always, my love.”
Comfort kissed her husband and daughter gently, and then, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, they were gone.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Hereafter (3)
by Rocky Macy
(Part 3 of 5)
“Bud, you’re bleeding, bleeding bad. We’ve got to stop.” The girl fell to her knees at the foot of an ancient hickory. “And I can’t go no more. Let them catch us.”
“Come on, Jessie.” The boy grabbed the girl by the shoulder and jerked her upright. “There’s food up ahead. Someone’s making stew. Goddamn but that smells good!”
“I can’t smell nothing. Let’s rest a minute.” She tried to stop again but Bud dragged her forward.
“A little further…over this way…past this thicket and…oh, shit!”
“What now, Bud?”
“Shit fire, Jessie! There ain’t nothing here.” Bud pulled Jessie out into the clearing. “Christ Almighty, I’m hungry!”
“Bud, don’t blaspheme. We’ve got troubles enough without you bringing the Lord down on us.”
“If he ain’t smoked us for stealing that car, chances are God ain’t gonna get his dick in a knot over the way I talk.”
“We wrecked that car, Bud.”
The boy walked to the center of the clearing and turned slowly, absorbing his surroundings. Something was out there, some presence far more powerful than the tantalizing aromas of the phantom stewpot, and more dangerous than the police who would soon be stomping through the hills looking for him and Jessie. When his line of sight came to Jessie, Bud stopped. “Behind you,” he muttered.
Jessie wheeled about in fright. “What, Bud? What is it?”
“Graves.”
“Graves? What graves?” Jessie’s fright was quickly turning into hysteria. “I can’t see no graves, Bud. There ain’t nothing there but them trees.”
“Five big hickories strung out there in a straight line.”
“So?’
“And look at how tall they are. These trees were planted at the same time.” Bud walked over to the nearest hickory and placed his hands flat upon it, as if he were trying to push the giant over. “These trees were planted to mark graves. People died here, Jessie.”
“Oh!”
Bud pulled his hands from the tree and turned to face the frightened girl. “Some of the old farts who play dominoes in the pool hall all day like to talk about ghosts and haints. I’ve heard them say that if you plant a tree at the head of a grave, the person who died gets to live on through that tree. Five people died here. That must be who’s cooking.”
“Bud, I’m so scared that I think I’m going to get sick. Please don’t try to make me feel worse with some dumb ghost story.”
“It ain’t no damned story, Jessie. Smell that stew!”
“Nobody’s cooking. You hit your head awfully hard on the steering wheel.” Jessie reached a hand to his forehead, but Bud jerked back as if he had been bitten. “Bud, your eye is almost swollen shut, and there’s blood coming out of your ear.”
“I’m fine, damn it!” Bud spun around and began weaving toward the hillside. There’s a spring over here somewhere. I just need some water and a little rest.” The youth suddenly dropped to his knees and crawled into a bramble. “Here it is! Get in here, Jessie. This is the best water I’ve ever tasted.”
“I’m not going to go crawling around in no bushes, Bud. There might be snakes in there.”
“If I find one we’re going to eat him.” Bud backed out of the bramble and stood up. “Here,” he said offering his cupped hand to her lips. “Drink this.”
Jessie let the cool liquid run down her throat. “It is good. How did you know where that spring was, Bud?”
“I don’t know. I guess maybe I heard it, or smelled it. I just…I just knew it was there, that’s all.” The boy was beginning to shake badly as he put his arm across Jessie’s shoulder for support.
“Oh, Bud, you’re hurt bad.” She led the way over to a group of stones at the base of the hill. “Let’s sit for a minute while I try to figure out what to do. I just wish it weren’t so wet and cold.”
Bud stood up and began walking around inside of the old foundation. “It’s not cold, Jessie, not here.”
“You’ve got a fever.”
“No, it’s not that. There are ghosts here, they’re cooking and it’s warm. The food is over here somewhere.” He took a few paces and stopped in front of where the ancient cooking hearth once stood. “Here it is, Jessie. Smell that wonderful stew.”
“Bud, you’re scaring the fool out of me. No one is cooking, and there ain’t any ghosts.”
“You’re wrong. Look at the hickories.”
Jessie turned back toward the clearing and saw that the mighty guards of the clearing were beginning to sway back and forth in the cold, damp, and very calm night.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The Hereafter (2)
by Rocky Macy
(Part 2 of 5)
Jeremiah was carrying water from the spring when he saw his father approaching the cabin. The son set down his buckets and rushed to greet the returning hunter. “You’re back, Pa! And just look at that fine doe! Can I help skin her out, Pa?”
Ephram carefully laid the dead animal on the flat rock that had served as a butcher’s stone for as long as the Millers had been on Chance Creek. “I gutted her in the woods, son. The skinning and carving I’ll leave to you. But be quick about it. Your mother will want to have some venison for the kettle so that we might wake to a hearty stew.” Ephram drew his knife from its sheath and handed it to his eldest. “Quickly now, but with care.”
“Yes, Pa.” The boy accepted the knife with an almost reverential attitude. He had often helped in skinning out the game that his father brought back from the hunts, but this was the first time that the entire task of skinning and butchering a large animal had been left to him alone, an honor made even grander by the magnificence of the doe. Jeremiah fell eagerly into this rite of his approaching manhood.
“Jeremiah, where is the water?” Comfort emerged from the cabin in search of one wanderer and found another. “Oh, husband, you have returned!” She ran into Ephram’s waiting arms, and backed away almost as quickly. “You’re cold and your clothes are drenched. Get into the cabin and make ready for your bath.”
“Not so fast, good wife,” Ephram scolded. “Aren’t you even curious about the hunt? The Lord has seen fit to share His bounty with us once again.”
“See, Ma”, Jeremiah said. “Pa has brought home this fine doe, and he asked me to skin her out and carve her up.” He was intently pulling the animal’s skin back from the slash that his father had tendered in order to disembowel the creature. “Isn’t she a beauty!”
“Treat the skin with care, Jeremiah. It will make a respectable shirt for you or Thomas.” Comfort’s remark fooled neither father nor son, for both knew that skinning and butchering the doe brought with it the solemn right of being clad in her skin. Thomas could wait for his shirt. As the farm wife turned and started to pick up the buckets of water that Jeremiah had abandoned, Ephram stepped forward and assumed her burden. “Thank you, husband. I’ll warm this water for your bath.”
Ephram laughed and said softly, for her ears alone, “So that I might be made proper to share the bed of a woman as lovely and pleasing as you?”
“Mister Miller!” Comfort snapped with mock alarm. “I do believe that you have been too long in the woods alone.”
Inside the cabin Ephram silently looked upon his other two children. Young Thomas was in the loft, wrapped in a blanket and asleep on the old straw tick that he and Jeremiah shared as a bed. Abiah, the baby, was nestled in her cradle near the fire, and though the child was lost in slumber, Ephram could tell by her labored breathing that she was still ill. “Always the same,” he said absently to Comfort who was pouring water into the kettle over the fire. “It doesn’t seem right. Death would be a mercy.”
Comfort took her husband by the arm and led him to the tub that sat at the foot of their bed. “She has died, husband, and it was no mercy.”
The weary hunter fell back into the soft embrace of the bed and stared at the loft where Thomas was beginning to toss about in search of the missing warmth of his older brother. Ephram could feel Comfort’s hands as they struggled to free the boots from his wet and swollen feet. “What is this all about?” he asked softly. “Why has God chosen to visit this strangeness upon us?”
“No one can know the mind of God, husband. It is sinful to even try.” As she gently ran her hand across the damp and dirty cotton shirt that covered her man’s hard chest, Comfort thought of the countless times that they had had this conversation before.
* * *
Ephram awoke with a start as Comfort was pouring the first kettle of hot water into the tub. Everyone in the Miller family bathed on the eve of the Sabbath, and the father, as the head of the household, was always last. Ephram raised himself onto one elbow and watched his able wife carry the empty kettle back to the fire where it would be refilled with stew fixings. The tub, he knew, still contained the water from the earlier baths, water that had now been made warm again by the labors of the farm wife. Next to the tub was another bucket of hot water that the hunter would use to rinse off the residue of his wife’s strong lye soap.
Comfort scooped up Ephram’s shirt and breeches as he stepped into the tub and eased himself down into the soapy, warm, relaxing water. She sat the bundle of dirty clothes by the door and then went to her cedar trunk where she found a nightshirt for her husband to wear when he had finished his bath. After laying the nightshirt and an old pair of woolen socks out onto the bed, Comfort pulled a footstool up to the tub and took the soap from Ephram. “Let’s get your hair wet,” she said bringing a bowl of soapy water onto his head. As Comfort started to pour the water onto his head, Ephram surprised her by sliding playfully beneath the water. When he arose she began to lather his head without comment. Sometimes Comfort felt as if she had three sons, each one a rascal.
Ephram awoke, still in the tub, to find his wife hanging his washed breeches and shirt in front of the fire to dry. “It’s too cold to be out at the creek washing clothes,” he protested, obviously too late. “You’ll catch your death.”
“It would appear, dear husband, that we die but once, and I have already crossed that threshold.”
“As have we all.”
“As have we all, indeed.”
“Wife, do you ever wonder if there is something beyond all of this, some other threshold that awaits our crossing?”
The wife registered mild surprise at his question. Their conversations had settled into familiar paths over the years, and comments that strayed afield of the expected needed to be explored. “The will of God cannot be known, dear husband. Is something troubling you?”
“Just a skittish feeling. Perhaps some wayward spirit has been waltzing on my grave.”
Comfort laughed as she walked over to the tub and lifted the oak bucket of rinse water with an ease and grace that belied the decades of hardship that the poor farm wife had endured. “Arise, good sir, and let me rinse you of your worries.”
“Yes, good lady.” Ephram stood in silence savoring the feel of the clean water as it gently removed the last of the soap and filth from his body. The hunt had been hard, but he was home now, home and clean and warm in the love of his family. After drying himself and dressing in the cotton nightshirt that Comfort had set out, Ephram began to slide the tub of bath water to the door.
“No, sir. Leave that be,” Comfort admonished. “Jeremiah will need to wash up when he finishes with the deer. He and I will dump it later.”
Ephram sat on the edge of the bed and watched as his wife busied herself at the hearth. The aromas wafting through their ancient cabin inflamed Ephram’s senses and left him consumed by the hunger that he had forced out of his consciousness while on the hunt. Suddenly he was ravenous.
Comfort rose and brought two plates to the table. “Join me, husband. I have waited so that I might sup with you.”
“Rabbit?” Ephram’s exclamation as he seated himself at the small table was one of pleasant surprise.
“’Tis but the most meager scraps of a rabbit who was himself as poor and hungry as we.” Comfort offered the unnecessary apology as she spooned a watery brown broth onto Ephram’s biscuits. “The children supped on the best portions.”
“That is as it should be, good wife. Believe me when I say that scraps of a rabbit and your wonderful biscuits are a bountiful wonder to one who has eaten only jerky and hardtack the past week, and blessed little of that. Let us give thanks for what is before us.” The couple bowed their heads in supplication as Ephram asked God’s blessing.
It occurred to Ephram that he did not know the source of the meat that graced his plate. This entire year game of the first life had been unusually abundant, but game of the second life, the only type that God had seen fit to provide to his children of the second life, was scarce. Indeed, the surest way to find game of the second life was to be on hand when it arose into the hereafter. It was that knowledge that continually led Ephram back to his lookout by the road, a place where life tended to end and begin, and by the grace of God, end again.
“The rabbit was provided by Jeremiah,” Comfort said in response to the unasked question. After nearly a century and a half of marriage, both husband and wife were able to wander through the other’s thoughts as effortlessly as if they were their own. “He was at the creek this afternoon watching the rabbit drink when a hawk swooped down and attacked the poor creature. When the rabbit died and came back, Jeremiah got it with a rock.”
“I know that he hasn’t grown since…in size…but still…” Ephram could seldom speak of the night, that bloody, terrible night when the band of deserters from the Union Army, emboldened by whiskey and spurred on by Satan, had slaughtered the Miller family for their mules and few possessions. “Our son is…”
“Yes, husband, I know. He is changing. In many ways our Jeremiah is wiser and more able than he was when we crossed over.” Comfort got up and began clearing the table. “I too wish that we could see him step into manhood, take a wife, give us grandchildren.”
“Wife, I know that it is wrong to question God’s will.”
“It surely is.”
“But in my heart,” Ephram said, “in my heart I can never believe that He meant for our family, our Christian family who lived by His Word, to be butchered for sport by drunken heathen.”
“We died at the same time, Ephram. That is a blessing in itself. We are all together and we are happy.”
“All but Samuel.”
“The Lord spared Samuel.”
“A blessing, I reckon. He was so proud that we trusted him to take the calves to market by himself."
“Samuel was a fine son, dear husband.”
“He was gone at the right time. He lived and we died, though often it seems that it was Samuel who died and we live on. I miss that boy so much sometimes that I find myself angry at him for leaving us.”
“He didn’t leave us. God chose Samuel to take the Miller name beyond the Shedd, and we both know that he made us proud, even if we weren’t alive to admire him as an adult.” Comfort reached across the table with a hand cloth and dabbed some broth from Ephram’s wiry beard. “It was Samuel that came back and dug our graves. Remember that, husband. He was the one who set the hickory saplings over our remains, trees that have grown as tall and proud as the dreams we had for our children. Don’t be angry with our eldest, for anger tarnishes his memory and takes him further from us. Just be happy in knowing that God spared Samuel for a reason.”
“It seems that with each passing year anger comes more easily. I pray that you will indulge my chronic temperament, dear wife, and know that it comes from being away from your side for too many cold and dreary days.”
“God has a plan, Ephram. We must be patient.” Comfort removed herself from the table and returned with the last of the rabbit broth that she spooned onto the portion of the biscuit that Ephram had left on his plate. “Finish your meal, my tired husband. I have much left to do this night, and you must get some sleep.”
* * *
Ephram stayed up and helped Comfort and Jeremiah prepare the ingredients for the stewpot, but soon afterward he succumbed to the incessant demands of his tired body for sleep and renewal. He awoke to the wonderful smells of the simmering stew when his wife came to bed. Sometime later, as if in a dream, he heard the baby crying and stirred awake once more as Comfort brought fragile Abiah to their bed. It was later when the night was at its darkest, that Ephram awoke for the final time.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Hereafter (1)
by Rocky Macy
(Part 1 of 5)
Ephram Miller stood silently among the pines that bordered the lonely stretch of the old highway. The slow November rains had long since soaked through the horse blanket that served as both his bedroll and hunting cloak, and his cotton shirt and buckskin breeches were sodden as well. Ephram was miserable in his wet clothing, so bone-bitingly wretched and cold that he could no longer feel the hunger that had been clenching his bowels since the last of the jerky and hardtack had disappeared from his poke two days before. Somewhere, Ephram knew, one of the Lord’s creatures had eaten well that day.
But the hunter was plagued by more than hunger and cold. There was a fear seeping though his bones that he could not understand. Nothing changed in his world except the weather, yet Ephram had been stricken all afternoon with a foreboding that change was coming. He could endure any burden that the Lord saw fit to place upon his haggard back, any save one – change. Ephram needed to return home, to nestle with his hardy wife, to feast upon her warmth and draw upon her strength.
It had been almost a week since Ephram left the little cabin that had been home to the Miller’s for more years than he could count. On Monday morning long before the sunlight spilled into Shedd Valley, Ephram crept from Comfort’s warm bed and climbed the piney crags up to the ridge that bounded the valley. The ridge ran more than thirty miles, completely bounding the Shedd and forever holding the Miller’s in its flinty grasp.
He had headed south that morning, walking slowly, eyes ever watchful for signs of game. Ephram had traipsed the Shedd so many times that he knew every burrow, nest, and watering hole from one rim of the valley to the other. The terrain was as familiar to him as the eternal worry lines that were etched across the brow of his gentle wife.
Sometimes game was so plentiful that Ephram could shoot and snare an abundance in just a day or two. This time he had not been so fortunate. After six days of slowly circling the Shedd, Ephram was nearing home with nothing to show for the hunt save for his wet clothing and missing vittles.
The hunt would end tonight for good or ill. Tomorrow was the Sabbath, a day on which Ephram must be at home to minister to his family and join with them in worshipping the Lord. Comfort would have the children scrubbed up, and she would set a sparse but respectable table from the provisions that remained in the cave at the back of their cabin. Their stocks were low, that was a fact, but God would provide. He always did.
The road before Ephram was a mystery. At one time there had been a world beyond the Shedd. People crossed into the valley along ancient trails that clung to menacing ravines, an unsparing ruggedness that shaped their lives and steeled their faith. They raised their families, lived their lives, and said their good-byes as children and neighbors moved beyond the valley’s ridge and into lives of their own. Tinkers and pilgrims passed through bringing news from the outside that flowed to-and-fro as freely as the rippling waters of the Chance.
But that was before the soldiers came. In the brief interlude of one awful night the Shedd Valley had become a world unto itself, devoid of the stream of humanity that had once been its lifeblood, isolated within impenetrable darkness. The only crack in the invisible wall that shielded the people of the valley from the world beyond was the road, a hardened pathway that had been torn through the underbrush and wilderness many years after the night of the soldiers by men riding strange machines and blaspheming like true minions of Satan. The road touched the rim of the valley for only a few feet, a feeble portal to what lay beyond, an unyielding temptation to those of waning faith.
Ephram had stepped out onto the hard road only a few times, feats of daring that he would never mention to Comfort. The road was certainly the work of Satan, built to hasten the journey of godless souls as they rushed willfully into the flames of damnation. Yet Ephram was curious. There were days when Satan’s powers of temptation were so strong and convincing that even a good man like him could be lulled into imaging that maybe there was more to life than his family and their little cabin on the banks of the Chance. The wicked road that meandered up against their world like the serpent approaching the Garden had pulled Ephram to the rim of the valley more than once, but the love of his family always led him back home.
Ephram’s lack of courage regarding the hard road was not shared by all of God’s creatures. It was this knowledge that had brought the backwoodsman to this spot in the pines, the place he often sought out when the hunt was bad. Satan’s road had occasionally provided meat for the table, and Comfort did not have to know the source of every morsel that went into her stew pot.
Even through the dismal wet grayness Ephram could tell that dusk was starting to creep in on his lonesome lookout. This night he would not have to burrow beneath some rocky overhang like a frightened animal. He would stand his post until the day’s last light had faded beyond the misty hills and taken with it his hopes for a successful hunt, and then the weary hunter would wend his way homeward burdened only with his old rifle and an empty poke. Ephram could hunt again after the Sabbath.
It was a gentle movement in the brush on the far side of the road that pulled Ephram from thoughts of home. There, carefully stepping from the shadows, was a young doe, beautiful and solid, a creature of the first life. Ephram slipped his rifle from beneath the soaked horse blanket, leveled it across a small pine bough, and took aim. As the deer obligingly stepped forward onto the road and into Ephram’s sights, the hunter brought his finger to the trigger and silently said a prayer for help from above.
The whine of the sports car careening along the rim of the valley was all but lost to the cold winds as they carried their sorrowful hymn of the coming winter through the pines, but Ephram could hear and he knew that the Lord had answered his prayer. The deer also sensed the intrusion and turned to run. However, no sooner had she started to bolt away than a large limb tore itself from the forest ceiling and plummeted to the ground in front of the startled animal. The doe instinctively turned again and leaped out onto the highway directly into the path of the shiny little car.
The crash was a wonderment to Ephram. He watched as the doe, frozen in panic, was swept up and over the car in a frenzy of tearing metal, breaking glass, and terrified screaming. The regal animal landed on the valley side of the road, neck broken, and with her soft dead eyes staring up toward Ephram’s rifle barrel and through his everlasting soul. The car skidded across the road and rolled down into the gully. In the quiet, Ephram waited, his eyes intent upon the carnage below. He knew hunting as well as he knew the Lord. Patience is a virtue, good things come to those who wait, blessed are the meek…reassurances for the righteous. God would provide.
There it was. A stirring, cautious at first, tentative, disbelieving. Ever so slowly one who had been dead arose through the cold mists of redemption and stood before the hunter. Ephram smiled. “Praise God, “ he whispered. “Praise God Almighty!” And then he fired.
Comfort would set a fine table this Sabbath.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Holy Parasites
A couple of weeks ago I waxed bitter about Catholicism for several paragraphs, and now I am inspired to give the same attention to the Protestant arm of Christianity. Both groups appear to be fueled by the same inspiration, greed, but while Catholicism takes from the poor and needy to gild its cathedrals and stack gold in the Church’s vaults, Protestant thievery is often more personal. A few cases in point:
A televangelist in Georgia, Creflo Dollar, made the news last week by refusing to turn over financial documents from his World Changers Church to the US Senate Finance Committee. That committee is investigating several megachurches to see if they are violating their tax-exempt status by purchasing luxury items for their clergy. The Reverend Dollar lives in a 2.5 million dollar mansion in Georgia, has the use of an expensive Manhattan apartment, and drives a Rolls Royce that is owned by his church. It’s a small wonder that he doesn’t want the Feds nosing around in the accounts of his church.
A few weeks ago Oral Roberts University, an educational arm of Oral Roberts Ministries, was back in the news with allegations of university funds being misspent by ORU President Richard Roberts (Oral’s son) and his family. The allegations ranged from family members accepting expensive gifts from ministry members, to misusing their power to have university and ministry employees come to their home to do their daughter’s homework on a fairly regular basis. Roberts’ wife spent nearly forty thousand dollars at one store in a year on her personal wardrobe, and the family spent almost thirty thousand dollars to fly their daughter and some of her friends to the Bahamas for a senior trip. That trip was billed to the university as an “evangelistic function of the president.” Richard’s wife, a member of the University’s Board of Regents, had a penchant for texting male students late at night, and reportedly had cell phone bills in excess of $800 per month. (She is guilty, at the very least, of not shopping around for a better phone plan!) There was also an allegation that Mrs. Roberts had a senior maintenance employee fired so that he could be replaced by one of her young male friends. And then there was an allegation that Richard and the Missus had their home remodeled eleven times in fourteen years. Are you getting the picture?
Twenty years ago, Oral Roberts, the founder of ORU who has conversations with God, holed up in his Prayer Tower at ORU to extort cash from his followers. Roberts said that God told him to raise eight million dollars for ORU or he, God, would take Oral home, presumably to Heaven. Oral finally got his cash and was able to leave the Tower victorious, but not before Chicago columnist, Mike Royko, filleted and barbecued him almost daily. Royko noted that it was a wonderful opportunity for God to prove his existence by taking Oral. God didn’t pony up, but the suckers did.
Or how about Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? They built Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries into a multi-million dollar operation by religiously begging to the not-so-bright who write checks in the hope of eternal salvation. The Bakkers were in the process of building a religious theme park when Jim got caught with his pants down. In addition to being involved with in an extra-marital affair with a church employee, Jim was also found guilty of twenty-four counts of fraud and conspiracy. My favorite remembrance of this couple was when a reporter asked Tammy Faye why she wore such expensive jewelry, and the heavily painted muse replied, “God wouldn’t want me to wear junk.” No indeed.
But the religious charlatans that I enjoy most of all are the greedhead ministers who are also flamingly hypocritical. Jimmy Swaggart, Assemblies of God minister from backwater Louisiana, had the unbelievable gall to expose Jim Bakker for his sexual indiscretions. Swaggart referred to Bakker as a “cancer in the body of Christ.” Within months of that statement, photos surfaced showing Swaggart in a tryst with a prostitute. A few years later, Swaggart was caught in the company of another prostitute. Instead of confessing to his flock, he told them in flat terms that God had told him it was none of their business. His salary at the time was in the neighborhood of $350,000 per annum.
Another favorite of mine is Ted Haggard, a married father of five, who was head of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals. Haggard, who had been a strong proponent of anti-gay legislation, was exposed as a meth user who regularly purchased the services of a male prostitute.
What’s it’s all about? Are they in it for the money, or the sex, or the power? Does anyone believe these con men speak for God? Are they the way and the light, or just road hazards on the path to salvation?
God doesn’t want your cash. He and/or She wants your commitment to your family, your neighbors, and your planet. It makes far more sense to kneel by a tree to pray than to dress to the teeth and worship in a megachurch. The tree, after all, is a work of God.
A televangelist in Georgia, Creflo Dollar, made the news last week by refusing to turn over financial documents from his World Changers Church to the US Senate Finance Committee. That committee is investigating several megachurches to see if they are violating their tax-exempt status by purchasing luxury items for their clergy. The Reverend Dollar lives in a 2.5 million dollar mansion in Georgia, has the use of an expensive Manhattan apartment, and drives a Rolls Royce that is owned by his church. It’s a small wonder that he doesn’t want the Feds nosing around in the accounts of his church.
A few weeks ago Oral Roberts University, an educational arm of Oral Roberts Ministries, was back in the news with allegations of university funds being misspent by ORU President Richard Roberts (Oral’s son) and his family. The allegations ranged from family members accepting expensive gifts from ministry members, to misusing their power to have university and ministry employees come to their home to do their daughter’s homework on a fairly regular basis. Roberts’ wife spent nearly forty thousand dollars at one store in a year on her personal wardrobe, and the family spent almost thirty thousand dollars to fly their daughter and some of her friends to the Bahamas for a senior trip. That trip was billed to the university as an “evangelistic function of the president.” Richard’s wife, a member of the University’s Board of Regents, had a penchant for texting male students late at night, and reportedly had cell phone bills in excess of $800 per month. (She is guilty, at the very least, of not shopping around for a better phone plan!) There was also an allegation that Mrs. Roberts had a senior maintenance employee fired so that he could be replaced by one of her young male friends. And then there was an allegation that Richard and the Missus had their home remodeled eleven times in fourteen years. Are you getting the picture?
Twenty years ago, Oral Roberts, the founder of ORU who has conversations with God, holed up in his Prayer Tower at ORU to extort cash from his followers. Roberts said that God told him to raise eight million dollars for ORU or he, God, would take Oral home, presumably to Heaven. Oral finally got his cash and was able to leave the Tower victorious, but not before Chicago columnist, Mike Royko, filleted and barbecued him almost daily. Royko noted that it was a wonderful opportunity for God to prove his existence by taking Oral. God didn’t pony up, but the suckers did.
Or how about Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? They built Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries into a multi-million dollar operation by religiously begging to the not-so-bright who write checks in the hope of eternal salvation. The Bakkers were in the process of building a religious theme park when Jim got caught with his pants down. In addition to being involved with in an extra-marital affair with a church employee, Jim was also found guilty of twenty-four counts of fraud and conspiracy. My favorite remembrance of this couple was when a reporter asked Tammy Faye why she wore such expensive jewelry, and the heavily painted muse replied, “God wouldn’t want me to wear junk.” No indeed.
But the religious charlatans that I enjoy most of all are the greedhead ministers who are also flamingly hypocritical. Jimmy Swaggart, Assemblies of God minister from backwater Louisiana, had the unbelievable gall to expose Jim Bakker for his sexual indiscretions. Swaggart referred to Bakker as a “cancer in the body of Christ.” Within months of that statement, photos surfaced showing Swaggart in a tryst with a prostitute. A few years later, Swaggart was caught in the company of another prostitute. Instead of confessing to his flock, he told them in flat terms that God had told him it was none of their business. His salary at the time was in the neighborhood of $350,000 per annum.
Another favorite of mine is Ted Haggard, a married father of five, who was head of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals. Haggard, who had been a strong proponent of anti-gay legislation, was exposed as a meth user who regularly purchased the services of a male prostitute.
What’s it’s all about? Are they in it for the money, or the sex, or the power? Does anyone believe these con men speak for God? Are they the way and the light, or just road hazards on the path to salvation?
God doesn’t want your cash. He and/or She wants your commitment to your family, your neighbors, and your planet. It makes far more sense to kneel by a tree to pray than to dress to the teeth and worship in a megachurch. The tree, after all, is a work of God.
"There are few things in this life more evil than a 'good' Christian." --Pa Rock
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Boone
Boone is my older grandson. He is eight-years-old and in the third grade. He is a bright lad who can talk on almost any subject, and he is a spelling machine! He has become a regular at the county spelling bee.
Boone lives in West Plains, Missouri, where he has four adults who love and guide him: his mother and father (who are divorced but keep their difficulties off of him), and his maternal grandparents. All four are dedicated to making certain that he grows up healthy and happy.
Boone’s dad (my son, Nick) is a wonderful parent. He always has time for his son and truly enjoys being with him. They fish, camp, and rollick in the outdoors. Nick and Boone are the best of friends.
Boone calls his other grandfather “Pa,” so I became “Pa Rock,” a moniker that I wear with a great deal of pride. I wish that I lived closer to Boone so that I could be a bigger part of his life, and maybe someday that will happen. But for now I am very happy to know that he has so many good adults close by who are dedicated to helping him grow into a fine adult.
Hey Boone, if you are reading this, here are a couple of words for you to learn to spell. I will check you out on them over Christmas: Albuquerque (where we got off of the train and had the Cold Stone ice cream) and Chihuahua (a state in Mexico and the name of a small dog breed that comes from there). Big words, big guy! Much love – Pa Rock
Boone lives in West Plains, Missouri, where he has four adults who love and guide him: his mother and father (who are divorced but keep their difficulties off of him), and his maternal grandparents. All four are dedicated to making certain that he grows up healthy and happy.
Boone’s dad (my son, Nick) is a wonderful parent. He always has time for his son and truly enjoys being with him. They fish, camp, and rollick in the outdoors. Nick and Boone are the best of friends.
Boone calls his other grandfather “Pa,” so I became “Pa Rock,” a moniker that I wear with a great deal of pride. I wish that I lived closer to Boone so that I could be a bigger part of his life, and maybe someday that will happen. But for now I am very happy to know that he has so many good adults close by who are dedicated to helping him grow into a fine adult.
Hey Boone, if you are reading this, here are a couple of words for you to learn to spell. I will check you out on them over Christmas: Albuquerque (where we got off of the train and had the Cold Stone ice cream) and Chihuahua (a state in Mexico and the name of a small dog breed that comes from there). Big words, big guy! Much love – Pa Rock
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Sebastian
My youngest grandson turned five months old this week. He is just leaving the infant stage and beginning to observe and grapple with the world around him. Soon he will be walking, and pulling things out of the cabinets, and mastering his universe. He is smart. All grandchildren are smart and beautiful. And he knows that I am somebody who plays a role in his life. There’s that twinkle of recognition in his eyes whenever I suddenly appear in his field of vision.
Tonight I was his babysitter for a few hours. He did his obligatory crying thing in an attempt to guilt his parents for not including him in their outing. After they were out of the door and out of earshot, however, he settled down for an evening of intermittent napping and listening to his Grandpa sing silly songs. When Mom and Dad came home a couple of hours later they found their little man asleep on the old man’s shoulder. We were bonding in slumber.
The little man is called Sebastian, and I am a very lucky Grandpa for getting to live so close to him.
Tonight I was his babysitter for a few hours. He did his obligatory crying thing in an attempt to guilt his parents for not including him in their outing. After they were out of the door and out of earshot, however, he settled down for an evening of intermittent napping and listening to his Grandpa sing silly songs. When Mom and Dad came home a couple of hours later they found their little man asleep on the old man’s shoulder. We were bonding in slumber.
The little man is called Sebastian, and I am a very lucky Grandpa for getting to live so close to him.
Friday, December 7, 2007
The News Marketplace
A friend of mine recently suggested in response to one of my blog entries that my political views were developed from watching the three major networks. I readily admit to being an avid news consumer, but hardly any of the news that I take in comes from ABC, NBC, or CBS.
My primary source of news is NPR – National Public Radio. The radios in my apartment, car, and office are all tuned to the Phoenix NPR Affiliate, KJZZ. I like public radio because their newscasts cover a wide variety of topics that are given an in-depth analysis by the correspondents. The big three networks spend a very limited time on any news story, and those stories are filtered through the interests and prerogatives of corporate America. National Public Radio gives a much clearer perspective on what is happening in the world around us. And I am a good consumer of Public Radio – I donate.
When I do turn to the television for news, I have a strong preference for the newscasts on BBC America. BBC News is also carried on some National Public Radio Stations. Comparing same day news on BBC America with the news of a major American network is somewhat surreal. BBC will do in-depth journalism on stories with a worldwide impact (droughts, famines, and genocide) while their American cousins focus on crime, politics, and human interest pabulum.
My third choice for news is the Internet. No matter what a person’s preferences are in the news marketplace, the Internet has a site for everyone. I like Google News, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, and the New York Times. And if I want to check out the action back in Missouri where my Dad lives, their newspapers are on-line also. News on the Internet is immediate, and it is easy to track a story from a variety of sources.
While my presidential choice, Barack Obama, may appear to be a bit mainstream to my friend, I didn’t arrive at that selection through listening to the corporate bullhorns of ABC, NBC, and CBS. The big boys in the corporate newsrooms don’t have the captive audiences that they once had. America is moving toward being able to truly choose among candidates, because we can now truly choose how we learn about them. The news monopoly is quickly going the way of the dinosaur and eight-track tapes.
My primary source of news is NPR – National Public Radio. The radios in my apartment, car, and office are all tuned to the Phoenix NPR Affiliate, KJZZ. I like public radio because their newscasts cover a wide variety of topics that are given an in-depth analysis by the correspondents. The big three networks spend a very limited time on any news story, and those stories are filtered through the interests and prerogatives of corporate America. National Public Radio gives a much clearer perspective on what is happening in the world around us. And I am a good consumer of Public Radio – I donate.
When I do turn to the television for news, I have a strong preference for the newscasts on BBC America. BBC News is also carried on some National Public Radio Stations. Comparing same day news on BBC America with the news of a major American network is somewhat surreal. BBC will do in-depth journalism on stories with a worldwide impact (droughts, famines, and genocide) while their American cousins focus on crime, politics, and human interest pabulum.
My third choice for news is the Internet. No matter what a person’s preferences are in the news marketplace, the Internet has a site for everyone. I like Google News, Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, and the New York Times. And if I want to check out the action back in Missouri where my Dad lives, their newspapers are on-line also. News on the Internet is immediate, and it is easy to track a story from a variety of sources.
While my presidential choice, Barack Obama, may appear to be a bit mainstream to my friend, I didn’t arrive at that selection through listening to the corporate bullhorns of ABC, NBC, and CBS. The big boys in the corporate newsrooms don’t have the captive audiences that they once had. America is moving toward being able to truly choose among candidates, because we can now truly choose how we learn about them. The news monopoly is quickly going the way of the dinosaur and eight-track tapes.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The Transfer
by Rocky Macy
The shiny little BMW was weaving its way across the warehouse district like a mouse scuttling through a maze, unmindful of danger and hopeful that the cheese was only a few turns away. The driver, angry and overbearing even in the dark silence, slowed at each cross street to read the signs. The evening mist, Eleanor realized, was quickly swallowing the few landmarks that she had been able to commit to memory during her trial run the weekend before. She was not one to frequent the seamier edges of the city, particularly not at night. This night, however, Eleanor was on a mission, and she would not be deterred by fog, felons, or the hostile indifference of her chain-smoking passenger.
The boy, a belligerent youth of fifteen, was focused on seeing how much smoke he could generate inside of the small car and how oblivious he could be toward his downshifting parent. Eleanor finally conceded this contest of wills and rolled her window down a few inches to ventilate their close quarters. Ethan, satisfied with the minor victory, rolled down his window and flipped the glowing cigarette butt at a couple of vagrants who were sitting on the curb nursing a bottle of rotgut.
“That’s class – sharing with the unwashed masses.”
“Shut up, Eleanor.”
“You are such a thoughtless bastard.”
“A tribute to truly bad breeding.”
“Or truly bad timing.”
“Kiss my pretty white ass, Eleanor.”
“Apparently that’s why we’re paying Consuela, your hooker in training.”
“Paying crap wages to an undocumented domestic doesn’t exactly make you Mother Teresa. At least when I screw her she gets to lie on a soft mattress and enjoy it.” Ethan scanned left out of the corner of his eye. As usual, there was no reaction. The verbal incendiaries that mother and son lobbed with routine abandon had long since lost their ability to inflame.
Eleanor Windham settled back into her search for Oriental Avenue. While jumping the Beemer from block to block, she ruminated silently on how her son had constantly endeavored to ruin her. A lifetime ago she had been a beautiful college coed with a glittering future. She married wealth and power in the personage of Baxter Windham, heir to a national furniture chain and twenty years her senior. After several years of expensive pampering, she had finally relented to Bax’s incessant whining to produce an heir. That momentary lapse in judgment resulted in nine months of nausea and vomiting, twenty-five hours unforgivable physical torture, and fifteen years of hell. Well, perhaps not hell exactly. Eleanor felt that parenting Ethan was more comparable to being hopelessly mired in the putrid sewage pit that boils just beneath the diseased and perpetually defecating bowels of hell!
Bax had lost interest in the boy years ago, and Eleanor had given it her best, more or less, for awhile longer. Her resolve to be an effective parent was eventually eroded by a never-ending stream of governesses and tutors fleeing the house in fear for their lives (or sanity), and private schools that didn’t need their exorbitant tuitions badly enough to put up with Ethan. She had suffered tattooed and pierced strangers strolling casually through her home in varying states of sobriety and undress, throngs of therapists, police-a-plenty, and the occasional odd reporter. Life’s greatest truth, according to the martyr behind the wheel, was this: Motherhood Sucks. Eleanor had decided long ago to have those words engraved on her tombstone.
Ethan, of course, was equally certain that life had crapped on him from the get-go. He had entered the game by being expelled from the womb of a self-absorbed hyena, and was greeted with less motherly love than she would have shown to an eight-pound kidney stone. Ethan had spent his whole life feeling alone and betrayed, as if some understood contract at the time of his birth had been discarded or sold to a management firm. Every time that he needed a parent, some underpaid flunky was trotted out to deal with him and clean up the mess. Living in a state of lavish abandonment, it had been fairly easy for Ethan to construct life on his own terms.
Eleanor had driven to Figueroa Brothers Warehouse the previous Sunday just to be sure that she could find it when the time came to bring Ethan. But the sun had been out on Sunday. Sunday it had all been clear – the sky, the problem, the solution, everything. Tonight, with the fog rolling in off of the bay and mixing with the yellow haze of the ancient street lamps, everything was swimming in distortion and creating an illusory world of misty peril.
“Shit!” Eleanor cursed as she hit the brakes and swung the car into a sudden ninety-degree turn and onto Oriental Avenue. “You could be helping, you know!”
“Yeah. And I could be laid back in the sauna smoking some fine ganja.” Ethan pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit another one. “Thanks for making this evening so special.”
“Five hundred dollars should be enough keep you brain dead for weeks. Not a bad wage for a couple of hours work.”
“Stuff it, Eleanor. You need me, you pay me – plain and simple. And when the job is some cloak-and-dagger shit in an old warehouse after dark, you pay me well.”
Eleanor let the subject drop and refocused her attention on finding Figueroa Brothers Warehouse. Arguing with Ethan was as pointless as cooking – hunger and disrespectful children were among many things that could be taken care of with a phone call and the right amount of cash. Of course with Ethan the amount always seemed to be escalating.
Moments later the mouse found the cheese. “Here we are,” she said, whipping the Beemer into an alley that bordered the north side of Figueroa Brothers. As she shut off the car engine, Eleanor turned to her hostile son. “You’re going to be unloading antiques off of one truck and onto another. They have been purchased legally and are headed to our stores in Canada for resale. There is nothing shady or dishonest going on, so you can just leave your attitude in the car and get the hell in there and do what I’m paying you to do!”
“Whatever,” the gangly youth said as he climbed out of the car.
“And if you have any pot, leave it in the car. The Port Authority will be coming through with dogs.”
“Bloody fucking hell!” Ethan pulled a fat number out of his cigarette pack and tossed in onto the passenger seat. “That better be here when I get back.”
Eleanor Windham stood beneath the bare bulb that lit the area around the side door to Figueroa Brothers. She checked her face in a compact mirror and ran a hand through her hair. “Expecting to run into one of your old johns?” Ethan asked as he stepped up to the door and knocked loudly.
“Presentation is everything,” she replied smugly. As Eleanor prepared to try her own hand at knocking, the rusty door opened. A tall man who appeared to be dressed for a day at the office rather than a night at the warehouse stepped out to greet them.
“Mrs. Windham, you’re right on time.”
“Promptness is everything.” Ethan interjected before his mother could reply.
“Good evening, Mr. Hendershot. This is my son, Ethan. He is here for the transfer.”
Hendershot extended his hand to Ethan, but the boy stepped by him and into the dark warehouse. “Get the lights. I can’t see dick in here.” Ethan flicked open his lighter and struck up a flame. Directly in front of him stood a massive trailer with the words “Hendershot Collections” painted on the side. “Jesus, you could fit the mall into that thing! We’re going to have to renegotiate my pay.”
Hendershot came up behind Ethan. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long.” He blew out the light. “No open flames allowed in this building. Put your hand on my shoulder and follow me.” Hendershot led the youth to the back of the trailer. He lifted a heavy latch and opened the right panel. The blackness within the trailer was total, leaving Ethan with the sense of staring into the mouth of a cave on a moonless night. “Pull yourself up in there. You’ll find a light bar two feet down on your left.”
Ethan turned toward the warehouse side door where he could still see his mother silhouetted in the light. Was she smiling, or was the dim light screwing with his brain? “This bullshit is going to cost you plenty, Eleanor.” He placed the palms of his hands on the trailer bed and gracefully boosted himself into the dark chamber. “Left wall?” Ethan asked.
“Two feet back on the left, up high.” Hendershot replied. As Ethan stepped in to the trailer, Hendershot swiftly closed the door and dropped the latch back into place. His evening’s work was done.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later as Eleanor Windham left the warehouse district and slid the little Beemer onto the expressway, she fired up the torpedo that Ethan had so graciously left behind. The herb was exquisite, its smoke lacing through the petals of her flowering mind and out into the warm sea breeze that would carry it off to a better place, a lovely land where adults could congregate peacefully on lazy evenings and exchange clever pleasantries over rum drinks and designer beers, an idyllic world beyond the ferocity and stench of untamed youth. Eleanor took another freedom toke and then unleashed a mighty howl, a primal proclamation to the world that life, once again, belonged to her!
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
A Tale of Two Movies
Two notable movies were being shown at the same time in Springfield, MO, in the fall of 1966. Mike Nichols’ directorial debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was playing at the Gillioz Theatre, while the Swedish art film, Dear John, was being featured at the Tower Theatre. Both of these movies raised eyebrows due to their explicit content, yet one created a community firestorm and the other played out its engagement with hardly any public comment at all.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? portrayed an older couple (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) who were hosting a younger couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) for drinks and conversation. The drinks were plentiful, and the conversation, especially between Burton and Taylor, contained some of the strongest and most obscene language ever presented on an American movie screen up until that time. (Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis went on to win Oscars for their roles in the movie.)
Dear John was about a sailor and his brief affair with a local girl. Most of the film occurred in bed, and the nudity was gratuitous and ubiquitous. There was, however, no bad language in the movie.
So, given the choice between raunchy language or complete, rollicking nudity, which raised the hackles of conservative Springfieldians?
Surprisingly, at least to me, the community railed against Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and said nary a thing about Dear John. Springfield is home to several religiously oriented colleges, including one that graduated Jerry Falwell and another that was headed by John Ashcroft’s father for many years. Those schools and some local churches managed to get a picket line going outside of the Gillioz Theatre that stayed active the entire time that the film was playing. The picket line had a real impact on the theatre, drawing free attention to the film that brought the crowds scurrying in to buy tickets and see what all of the hullabaloo was about.
When that was happening I had just started working at the Tower. My boss, “Mac” MacDonald was furious at all of the attention that the protesters were garnering for the Gillioz, and he angrily claimed that their manager had struck a deal with some of the local religious leaders. But regardless of how much he fumed and flared, Mac was not able to get anyone fired up about Dear John. “It just wasn’t fair.” I remember him lamenting, “It just wasn’t fair at all.”
(For those who have ever pondered the question of when American cinema came of age, I heartily recommend the first two films that Mike Nichols directed: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Their power, clarity, and relevance haven’t faded in the ensuing forty years.)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? portrayed an older couple (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) who were hosting a younger couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) for drinks and conversation. The drinks were plentiful, and the conversation, especially between Burton and Taylor, contained some of the strongest and most obscene language ever presented on an American movie screen up until that time. (Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis went on to win Oscars for their roles in the movie.)
Dear John was about a sailor and his brief affair with a local girl. Most of the film occurred in bed, and the nudity was gratuitous and ubiquitous. There was, however, no bad language in the movie.
So, given the choice between raunchy language or complete, rollicking nudity, which raised the hackles of conservative Springfieldians?
Surprisingly, at least to me, the community railed against Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and said nary a thing about Dear John. Springfield is home to several religiously oriented colleges, including one that graduated Jerry Falwell and another that was headed by John Ashcroft’s father for many years. Those schools and some local churches managed to get a picket line going outside of the Gillioz Theatre that stayed active the entire time that the film was playing. The picket line had a real impact on the theatre, drawing free attention to the film that brought the crowds scurrying in to buy tickets and see what all of the hullabaloo was about.
When that was happening I had just started working at the Tower. My boss, “Mac” MacDonald was furious at all of the attention that the protesters were garnering for the Gillioz, and he angrily claimed that their manager had struck a deal with some of the local religious leaders. But regardless of how much he fumed and flared, Mac was not able to get anyone fired up about Dear John. “It just wasn’t fair.” I remember him lamenting, “It just wasn’t fair at all.”
(For those who have ever pondered the question of when American cinema came of age, I heartily recommend the first two films that Mike Nichols directed: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Their power, clarity, and relevance haven’t faded in the ensuing forty years.)
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Ozark Theatre
My first “regular” job was as the projectionist the Ozark Theatre in my hometown of Noel, Missouri. The job consisted of five shows each weekend (Friday night, Saturday afternoon and night, and Sunday afternoon and night), and if I remember correctly I made two dollars and fifty cents for each showing. I started doing that about the time I began high school and managed to hang onto that job until I left town to attend college.
The Ozark Theatre was a great place to work. I helped out at the concession stand before the show started and got to see who all of the couples were for that week. There was an outside balcony on the projection booth that allowed for monitoring everyone who was cruising Main Street. One of my predecessors had been thrown off of that balcony by an irate customer, but the reason for that ejection now escapes me.
One plus to working at the theatre was that I got to see all of the movies. A negative was that I got to see them all five times, whether I really wanted to or not! One time that the multiple showings had a serious impact on me was when we ran a movie on the life of Hank Williams, Sr, called Your Cheating Heart. When the movie started, I had no love at all for country music, but by the end of the fifth showing I had developed a real appreciation for Hank Williams unique songs and style. (Years later when I was introduced to Sheldon Williams – Hank III – at a political picnic in which his maternal grandfather was running for county office and working the crowd, I told the 11-year-old how much I liked his paternal grandfather’s music. That picnic was was on the banks of the Elk River in Noel.)
The projection booth was always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The summer heat could be alleviated somewhat by keeping the door to the balcony open, and even stepping out onto the balcony from time to time. My boss, Mildred “Ma” Cash always made sure that I had a soda and a box of popcorn at the ready during every show.
Friday evening I would haul the film cases upstairs to the projection booth. Each case contained three or four reels of 35 mm film. A normal movie would run around six reels, but some weeks we might be running a double feature which could mean lugging four heavy cases upstairs. Most weekends the presentation would also include a one-reel cartoon – a good one like those made by Walt Disney and Walter Lantz. If previews were included, I would have to splice them onto the cartoon or first reel of the film, and then remove them after the last showing on Sunday night. I would drag the film cases back downstairs after the Sunday night show, and sometime during the week a freight company would pick up the old movie and replace it with the new one.
The two projectors were World War II vintage. They got their light from a carbon arc reflecting off of a concave mirror. A full reel would last about eighteen minutes and it was necessary to constantly monitor the long carbon rods and the light on the screen, making adjustments as necessary. At the end of each reel cue marks would appear in the upper left corner of the film, alerting me to start the other projector and be ready to make a smooth transition. As soon as the next projector took over, I would have to rush around and drop the shutter on the machine that had just run out of film. The next step was to thread the upcoming reel in the projector that had just been turned off, and to replace its carbon rods if they had burned too low. One machine was always running and the other was always being prepared to run. It was a fairly complicated process that became second nature as the months and years rolled by.
My friend, Tom Anderson, and I acquired a recipe for homemade beer when I was a junior or senior in high school. The recipe called for the concoction to be placed under a heat lamp for several days. The main problem that we had to deal with was where to make this brew. Being bright lads, we hatched a plan to mix it in the projection booth one Sunday night after the show closed, and leave it there underneath a jerry-rigged heat lamp. We would then come in the following Friday before the show and bottle our beverage. What could be simpler than that? When we got there on Friday the boss’s daughter and her best friend were already there, and they were madder than the proverbial wet hens. The entire theatre smelled of our brew, and, although it proved to be essentially undrinkable, we had the smell right! We hauled the beer out, and opened every door trying desperately to air the building out before show time!
In the fall of 1966 I moved to Springfield, Missouri, to go to college, and I left the Ozark projectors in the capable hands of my best friend, James Carroll. Needing a part-time job to support myself in college, the first place that I looked for work was at the local theatres. There were four theatres in Springfield at that time. The Fox, Gillioz, and Landers theatres were downtown close to the square and were all owned by Fox. The Tower Theatre, closer to the edge of the city, was owned by Dickinson Company out of Kansas. Dickinson also owned the Ozark Theatre in Noel, so it wasn’t hard for me to get a job in their concession stand earning sixty-five cents an hour. Later I was promoted to the projection booth and a much healthier salary of ninety cents an hour.
James Carroll joined me as a projectionist at the Tower when he came to Springfield for college a couple of years later. The most significant difference between running projectors in Noel versus running them in Springfield, was the number of showings to which a projectionist might be subjected. In Springfield a movie could be held over indefinitely if it was drawing good crowds. James and I saw some movies way too many times!
James eventually went back to Noel and bought the Ozark Theatre. He and his wife, Patti, ran it for several years until it tragically burned to the ground one afternoon. My son, Nick, had the privilege of working the concession stand at that old theatre on its last night of operation.
There wasn’t much money in the theatre business, but to this day those job memories are some of my best and most satisfying.
The Ozark Theatre was a great place to work. I helped out at the concession stand before the show started and got to see who all of the couples were for that week. There was an outside balcony on the projection booth that allowed for monitoring everyone who was cruising Main Street. One of my predecessors had been thrown off of that balcony by an irate customer, but the reason for that ejection now escapes me.
One plus to working at the theatre was that I got to see all of the movies. A negative was that I got to see them all five times, whether I really wanted to or not! One time that the multiple showings had a serious impact on me was when we ran a movie on the life of Hank Williams, Sr, called Your Cheating Heart. When the movie started, I had no love at all for country music, but by the end of the fifth showing I had developed a real appreciation for Hank Williams unique songs and style. (Years later when I was introduced to Sheldon Williams – Hank III – at a political picnic in which his maternal grandfather was running for county office and working the crowd, I told the 11-year-old how much I liked his paternal grandfather’s music. That picnic was was on the banks of the Elk River in Noel.)
The projection booth was always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The summer heat could be alleviated somewhat by keeping the door to the balcony open, and even stepping out onto the balcony from time to time. My boss, Mildred “Ma” Cash always made sure that I had a soda and a box of popcorn at the ready during every show.
Friday evening I would haul the film cases upstairs to the projection booth. Each case contained three or four reels of 35 mm film. A normal movie would run around six reels, but some weeks we might be running a double feature which could mean lugging four heavy cases upstairs. Most weekends the presentation would also include a one-reel cartoon – a good one like those made by Walt Disney and Walter Lantz. If previews were included, I would have to splice them onto the cartoon or first reel of the film, and then remove them after the last showing on Sunday night. I would drag the film cases back downstairs after the Sunday night show, and sometime during the week a freight company would pick up the old movie and replace it with the new one.
The two projectors were World War II vintage. They got their light from a carbon arc reflecting off of a concave mirror. A full reel would last about eighteen minutes and it was necessary to constantly monitor the long carbon rods and the light on the screen, making adjustments as necessary. At the end of each reel cue marks would appear in the upper left corner of the film, alerting me to start the other projector and be ready to make a smooth transition. As soon as the next projector took over, I would have to rush around and drop the shutter on the machine that had just run out of film. The next step was to thread the upcoming reel in the projector that had just been turned off, and to replace its carbon rods if they had burned too low. One machine was always running and the other was always being prepared to run. It was a fairly complicated process that became second nature as the months and years rolled by.
My friend, Tom Anderson, and I acquired a recipe for homemade beer when I was a junior or senior in high school. The recipe called for the concoction to be placed under a heat lamp for several days. The main problem that we had to deal with was where to make this brew. Being bright lads, we hatched a plan to mix it in the projection booth one Sunday night after the show closed, and leave it there underneath a jerry-rigged heat lamp. We would then come in the following Friday before the show and bottle our beverage. What could be simpler than that? When we got there on Friday the boss’s daughter and her best friend were already there, and they were madder than the proverbial wet hens. The entire theatre smelled of our brew, and, although it proved to be essentially undrinkable, we had the smell right! We hauled the beer out, and opened every door trying desperately to air the building out before show time!
In the fall of 1966 I moved to Springfield, Missouri, to go to college, and I left the Ozark projectors in the capable hands of my best friend, James Carroll. Needing a part-time job to support myself in college, the first place that I looked for work was at the local theatres. There were four theatres in Springfield at that time. The Fox, Gillioz, and Landers theatres were downtown close to the square and were all owned by Fox. The Tower Theatre, closer to the edge of the city, was owned by Dickinson Company out of Kansas. Dickinson also owned the Ozark Theatre in Noel, so it wasn’t hard for me to get a job in their concession stand earning sixty-five cents an hour. Later I was promoted to the projection booth and a much healthier salary of ninety cents an hour.
James Carroll joined me as a projectionist at the Tower when he came to Springfield for college a couple of years later. The most significant difference between running projectors in Noel versus running them in Springfield, was the number of showings to which a projectionist might be subjected. In Springfield a movie could be held over indefinitely if it was drawing good crowds. James and I saw some movies way too many times!
James eventually went back to Noel and bought the Ozark Theatre. He and his wife, Patti, ran it for several years until it tragically burned to the ground one afternoon. My son, Nick, had the privilege of working the concession stand at that old theatre on its last night of operation.
There wasn’t much money in the theatre business, but to this day those job memories are some of my best and most satisfying.
Monday, December 3, 2007
To the Swine
To the swine who sat next to me at the theatre yesterday:
When I pay seven dollars to see a film and four dollars and twenty-five cents for an accompanying drink, I expect to be seated in relative comfort and have all of the drama confined to the screen. Imagine my disappointment when you rushed in as the movie was starting and plopped down almost in my lap. There I was, trapped next to you when the theatre was ninety percent empty.
The first thing I noticed was that you are a smoker. Your stink wafted over me from the first frame of the film through the closing credits. Buy a clue! Anytime you feel the urge to visit civilization, take a walk through a full service car wash first – and use the wax cycle! Don’t think that just because you like the odor of stale smoke that everyone else does too.
As I was finally beginning to focus on the movie, the seven-dollar movie, your wife came in with the eats. It was so considerate of her to discuss each and every item on her tray. And then there was all of that scintillating conversation that they two of you engaged in each time the scene changed on the screen. “Yep, that’s a dog all right. Yep, that dog’s dead. He sure is.” I don’t know how the Coen brothers managed to make that film without your insights.
Now for the issue of your wife’s cell phone. True, she came in too late to see the friendly reminder on the screen about being polite and turning off all electronic gizmos, and true, she may be short of common sense because she did, after all, marry you. But did she really have to sit there and answer the damned thing when it rang? Granted, she did get up and walk to the exit to talk, but she never stepped through the exit, and everyone in the theatre was treated to the details of her converstaion. And in the unlikely event that we didn’t hear it all, she came back to her seat and recited the entire call to you!
Do you remember that deranged serial killer in the movie? You might want to keep an eye out for him because we are in negotiations!
When I pay seven dollars to see a film and four dollars and twenty-five cents for an accompanying drink, I expect to be seated in relative comfort and have all of the drama confined to the screen. Imagine my disappointment when you rushed in as the movie was starting and plopped down almost in my lap. There I was, trapped next to you when the theatre was ninety percent empty.
The first thing I noticed was that you are a smoker. Your stink wafted over me from the first frame of the film through the closing credits. Buy a clue! Anytime you feel the urge to visit civilization, take a walk through a full service car wash first – and use the wax cycle! Don’t think that just because you like the odor of stale smoke that everyone else does too.
As I was finally beginning to focus on the movie, the seven-dollar movie, your wife came in with the eats. It was so considerate of her to discuss each and every item on her tray. And then there was all of that scintillating conversation that they two of you engaged in each time the scene changed on the screen. “Yep, that’s a dog all right. Yep, that dog’s dead. He sure is.” I don’t know how the Coen brothers managed to make that film without your insights.
Now for the issue of your wife’s cell phone. True, she came in too late to see the friendly reminder on the screen about being polite and turning off all electronic gizmos, and true, she may be short of common sense because she did, after all, marry you. But did she really have to sit there and answer the damned thing when it rang? Granted, she did get up and walk to the exit to talk, but she never stepped through the exit, and everyone in the theatre was treated to the details of her converstaion. And in the unlikely event that we didn’t hear it all, she came back to her seat and recited the entire call to you!
Do you remember that deranged serial killer in the movie? You might want to keep an eye out for him because we are in negotiations!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy’s book, No Country for Old Men, is a tough, gritty, blood-soaked tale of violent encounters and slow death in the hard land of southwest Texas. The time is 1980 and the old days of individual crimes are being swept aside by corporate, high tech drug dealers and big money flowing across the Mexican border. An aging sheriff gets drawn into this paradigm shift when his deputy is brutally murdered by a psychopath who is pursuing a suitcase of drug money. It is not a happy book, but it is a very, very absorbing read.
I read No Country for Old Men last year and was kicked in the gut by its brutality and power. This afternoon I took a chance and went to see the movie, knowing that its full impact could not be readily translated to film. The movie, after all, is never as good as the book. Well, not usually.
The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, wrote the screenplay and directed the film version of McCarthy’s book. They were true to his story, page for page, with film shots that were so suspenseful one might suspect that they were channeling Hitchcock. The actors, especially Tommy Lee Jones, the sheriff, and Tess Harper, his wife, were as hard and coarse as the land that defined their lives. If there was any make-up used in this movie, it wasn’t applied to them. Javier Barden was a soulless killer who pursued his prey for money or principle, and might decide whether to take a life on the flip of a coin. Josh Brolin found a suitcase full of money at a drug deal gone bad, and had just enough machismo to think that he could get away with keeping it. Woody Harrelson also had a few good scenes in the movie as he tried to neutralize the psychopath and reclaim the drug money. All of these characters inter-played deftly and with a shifting perspective that kept the intensity and punch of the novel and brought it seamlessly to the screen.
Cormac McCarthy’s book is given life by the Coen’s vision. It is not a happy book, and not a happy movie – just an unvarnished view of warm blood oozing into a hard land. No Country for Old Men is worth a visit in either medium.
I read No Country for Old Men last year and was kicked in the gut by its brutality and power. This afternoon I took a chance and went to see the movie, knowing that its full impact could not be readily translated to film. The movie, after all, is never as good as the book. Well, not usually.
The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, wrote the screenplay and directed the film version of McCarthy’s book. They were true to his story, page for page, with film shots that were so suspenseful one might suspect that they were channeling Hitchcock. The actors, especially Tommy Lee Jones, the sheriff, and Tess Harper, his wife, were as hard and coarse as the land that defined their lives. If there was any make-up used in this movie, it wasn’t applied to them. Javier Barden was a soulless killer who pursued his prey for money or principle, and might decide whether to take a life on the flip of a coin. Josh Brolin found a suitcase full of money at a drug deal gone bad, and had just enough machismo to think that he could get away with keeping it. Woody Harrelson also had a few good scenes in the movie as he tried to neutralize the psychopath and reclaim the drug money. All of these characters inter-played deftly and with a shifting perspective that kept the intensity and punch of the novel and brought it seamlessly to the screen.
Cormac McCarthy’s book is given life by the Coen’s vision. It is not a happy book, and not a happy movie – just an unvarnished view of warm blood oozing into a hard land. No Country for Old Men is worth a visit in either medium.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)