Monday's Poetry: "Autumn Rain"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

It has been raining the past several days here in the Ozarks, and much of it has been a steady, heavy rainfall.    The farmers know that rain is a good thing, and it is a comfort of sorts to face the end of the year will full to overflowing ponds and streams.

But enough already!

A couple of days ago we had nearly four inches of rain in a twenty-four hour period, and with the rain came a startling taste of cold weather.  Yesterday evening the sun came out for about an hour, and I was so hopeful for a nice day today.  Rosie and I were up before dawn taking out the trash, and the air was warm.   My anticipation for a nice day was soaring!

But the rains came.  Oh my, did they come!  My rain gauge rose 2 inches in just a couple of hours - and that warm air is, of course, meteorological history.  And just to rub salt in the wound, the trash man is off celebrating Columbus Day, and I will have to be up before daylight again tomorrow carting my refuse to the road - and it will probably be raining!

Here is what 19th century poet Mary T. Lathrap thought of the rains in autumn:

Autumn Rain

by Mary T. Lathrap

There’s a sad, sad voice in the autumn rain,

Mournful rain;

As it beateth slowly down against the pane,

And the wind sings by with a conscious breath,

And seems like a messenger whispering death,

As the flowers bend with a drooping eye –

Bend and die.

What gives such a sadness unto the rain?

Autumn rain;

For it sobs like a human heart in pain,

Does it know its drops with a chilly tread

Lie cold on the beauty that now is dead?

Does it know the beautiful must decay?

Passing away.

Sure the summer rain had a merry tone,

A laughing tone;

Its patter made a melody all its own,

Yes, all its own;

The flowers looked up when it came from the skies,

And the drops for mischief fell right in their eyes,

And sparkled in brightness like mimic tears,

Joyful tears.

Then tell me, why is it this autumn rain,

Mournful rain,

Chills my very heart as it sweeps the pane?

Dripping pane.

Is it that its sighs o’er a summer fled,

O’er the graves where more than flowers lie dead;

Is it that memory lendeth a strain

To the sobbing rain?

O where are the hopes of the bright spring tide?

Sweet spring tide.

With the summer blossoms they too have died,

Yes, they have died.

They have fled away;  will their bloom come back?

Will they bless again as I tread life’s track?

Or, by and by on some other shore

Bloom evermore?

Sob on, - it is well, -  O passionate rain;

“Tis well, O rain,

Tho’ the flowers now faded may bloom again,

Will bloom again;

Some things that have died with the summer’s light,

Some things that have fled with the summer’s flight,

Will never, no, never, come back again,

Sob on, O rain!

Glenda the Good Witch Turns Three!

by Pa Rock
Proud Grandpa

My lovely granddaughter, Olive Noel Macy, turns three today at her home in Roeland Park, Kansas - a suburb of Kansas City.  I wasn't able to go this year, but I was in Kansas City three years ago on the day she was born and got to meet Sweet Olive when she was just a few minutes old.

(When Olive turned six-months-old she was visiting me at my home on Okinawa.  She has been quite the world traveler!)

Olive had her birthday party yesterday -  a costume affair with dinner for the guests.  Olive, like her grand-aunt, Gail, is a big fan of The Wizard of Oz, so she chose to be Glenda (the good witch) for her party.  Her mother, Erin, was dressed as Dorothy.  Tim sent me a beautiful email photo of the two of them in costume, and I have already picked up a couple of prints of it at our local Walgreen's.

Olive, I know you had a wonderful party yesterday and that your parents worked very hard to make your day special.  I hope that you are having a really great day today as you turn three.  Live it up - you only turn three once!

Watch out for falling houses!

Much love to you!

Pa Rock

The Boxcar Children: Charles Dickens Meets Dick, Jane, and Sally

by Pa Rock
Reader

An acquaintance (I won't say friend, because friends don't force books on friends) who knows that I like to read pushed her copy of a favorite book from her childhood on me recently - The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  Fortunately (for my crowded reading schedule) it was a quick read and I liked it.

This is very basic tale of childhood in which four orphaned children, brothers and sisters, have been inexplicably left to fend for themselves in World War II era America.   The older two, Jessie (a girl) and Henry, appear to be somewhere around the age of ten and are essentially the caretakers of the younger two, Violet and Benny.  The children are trying to make a life for themselves while avoiding their estranged grandfather whom they don't know and mistakenly believe does not like them.

There is one bit of drama at the beginning of the tale where the kids have an encounter with a baker and his evil wife who make plans to keep the older three to work in the bakery and place poor Benny in a children's home.  The older children overhear the dastardly plan and manage to escape and hit the road during the night.  Eventually they find an abandoned railroad boxcar in the woods which they proceed to turn into a makeshift home.

And from there on the story just gets sweeter and happier.  It is a story that if one were to initially read it at a young age, it would stay with them as a warm memory of childhood.  Except for the Dickens' moment with the baker and his wife, it is essentially a tale of children loving one another learning to take care of themselves.

I would not hesitate to share this charming tale with my grandchildren.

The Pursuit of the Houseboat

by Pa Rock
Reader

The novel, The Pursuit of the Houseboat, was written by American author and satirist John Kendrick Bangs in 1897.   It is a very simple tale whose primary purpose seems to be to satirize  quite a few prominent historical figures.

The story focuses on a houseboat which has been anchored on the River Styx in Hades.  It is the property of the Associated Shades (ghosts), and more specifically, of the male Associated Shades, a group that uses the boat to relax and get away from the female shades from time to time.

One day the boat is stolen by Captain Kidd who intends to use it to sail to London where he can procure some of his favorite cigars and treat his crew to a few weeks on the town.  Unfortunately for the captain, he picks a very bad day to hijack the pleasure barge because many female shades, the wives, fiancees, and mistresses of the males who own the houseboat, have chosen that very day to steal aboard the vessel and enjoy it themselves.  The ladies, unbeknownst to Captain Kidd and his pirates, are below decks when he commandeers the vessel.  Once Captain Kidd realizes that he has inadvertently kidnapped many prominent women of Hades, his task becomes to figure out a way to get rid of them while he and his men make their way to London.

Meanwhile back in Hades, the male shades discover the loss of their boat and their women.  There is some thought at first that the women have stolen the boat and are out on some sort of pleasure cruise - but then a new shade arrives and assesses the situation with startling accuracy.  The new shade is Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, who has just been killed off by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Holmes, with just the barest of clues, is able to tell the males - including Socrates, Dr. Livingston, Shakespeare, Hamlet, Noah, and many others - who has stolen the boat, his intended destination, and the fact that the women had simply sneaked aboard the houseboat to have a little fun and had no hand in stealing it.  An expedition is launched to pursue the houseboat and get the women back - and Holmes is put in charge.

The women are also of a mind to rescue themselves, ladies such as Queen Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, Ophelia, Mrs. Noah, and Delilah, and begin making plans accordingly.  Everybody, it would seem, wants a piece of Captain Kidd!

There is not a lot of plot involved in The Pursuit of the Houseboat.  It is primarily a vehicle that the author uses to poke fun at an assortment of historical figures, and to suppose the interactions that many of these diverse characters would have should they encounter one another - or be trapped on a vessel together.

Despite the simplicity of the tale, The Pursuit of the Houseboat is a pleasant cruise along the River Styx.

"Do you know who I am?"

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There was a party last month in Anchorage at a private home to celebrate the 50th birthday of former Alaska First Dude, Todd Palin.  The booze was flowing and the mouths were mouthing as the gathering eventually spilled out into the front yard for a good old fashioned drunken brawl.  Apparently Bristol managed to get in a few good licks with her impressive right hook, while Todd and his oldest son, Trapp - or Tripp - or Track - or - Trigger - or one of those "T" words - stood on the sidelines thumping their chests and yelling with indignation.  Not to be outdone by the men in the family, Sarah Palin was also yelling.  "Do you know who I am?" the Mama Grizzly roared.

A year or so ago NRA poster-boy George Zimmerman was involved in an incident of road rage in which he directly confronted a (presumably) terrified motorist by yelling, "Do you know who I am?"

Alice Walton, Sam and Helen's only daughter, was arrested in Arkansas, in 1998 on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.  (She was apprehended motoring down a ditch.)  The second richest woman in America was not amused at being treated like a common drunk and snapped at the arresting officers, "Do you know who I am?"

The answer in all three cases was "yes," people did indeed know who they were pitted against - and that question, "Do you know who I am?", was not really a question.  It was an intimidating remark intended to establish one person's dominance over others and to bully a path through a situation.  It implies that in America there is a two-tiered system of justice - one for the privileged or well-known, and another for the rest of us.

Yes, Sarah, we all know who you are - and the fact that your drunken brawl happened at a private home in Alaska instead of out on the front lawn of the White House is proof-positive there is a God and that She does indeed look out for the best interests of the United States!

Joyous Janis Joplin!

by Pa Rock
Music Lover

Don Mclean in his classic American Pie implied that the music died the night that Buddy Holly was killed in the plane crash (along with Richie Valens and and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson).  Perhaps he was right, to a point, because that plane crash almost certainly deprived America and the world of some wonderful music.  But there was also a short span in late 1970 in which the lives of two American music icons were lost - both due to drugs.

Jimi Hendrix, singer-songwriter-guitar magician, died in London on the 18th day of September, 1970.  Just sixteen days later on October 4th, 1970, Janis Joplin, singer-musician-songwriter, passed away in Los Angeles.  Both of these super-talents were just twenty-seven years old at the time of their deaths.

I was a senior in college and at home in my no-bedroom apartment in the historic Kingsbarde apartment house next door to Southwest Missouri State University when I learned of each death.  Both deaths had a big impact on certain elements of the campus, and particularly on the people who lived in and frequented Kingsbarde.  I remember one of my neighbors playing Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner at full volume the afternoon that the news broke of the guitarist's death.

Richard Nixon was the President in 1970, and the country was still hopelessly mired in the death throes of the Vietnam War.  It was a less than joyful time - but the music was very, very special.  The deaths of Hendrix and Joplin were duly reported in the national media,     Not surprisingly, President Nixon had no public comment on their passing.    Tricky Dick was not the type of individual to waste his breath glorifying the counter-culture - or to comment on the deaths of a couple of druggies who didn't sing like Bing Crosby.

But what a difference a few decades can make.   This year the United States Postal Service (a part of the same federal government that used to be headed by Nixon) has issued beautiful, and very colorful, postage stamps commemorating the lives of Hendrix and Joplin.   The Hendrix stamp, 49-cents - "forever," came out in March, and Joplin's, also a 49-cent  "forever," was issued in August.

I don't loiter around the post office much, so I didn't get a chance to see the Joplin stamp until today - when I immediately bought a sheet.  The front of the sheet - which contains the sixteen stamps - is designed to resemble a record jacket for a 45 r.p.m. record.  The reverse had a photo of the legendary singer holding a microphone and joyously belting out a song - probably one that she or Kris Kristofferson wrote.

Everything, in fact, about this stamp is joyful.  The photo used for the image on the stamp would bring a smile to almost anyone's face - though probably not Nixon.  Joplin's face is printed in blue tones.  She is smiling infectiously as she adjusts her rose-tinted glasses.  Around her image are the words "Forever Janis Joplin USA."  Somewhere Richard Nixon is raging out of control!

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,

    So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?    

Forever Janis Joplin USA - and Jimi Hendrix, too!

"I like your gun. Give it to me."

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Contrary to what the National Rifle Association (NRA) would like for us to believe, guns have been known to cause crime.   Several years ago my father, who was by then a frail little old man, was away from his home for several days when, during his absence, someone tried unsuccessfully to break in.   "What in the world do you have that anyone would want to steal?"  I asked, incredulous that the thieves had targeted his home.  "My guns."  he stammered in reply.

I knew another old fellow in the same town who kept guns for "protection."  One evening an intruder actually entered his home - a disoriented and lost drunk - and the old codger pulled one of his guns on the man.  The drunk, being fearless, quickly snatched it away from the guy, and fortunately, instead of shooting the old fool with his own gun, took the weapon and headed out into the night.

Today there was a story on National Public Radio (NPR) and other news outlets about a young man with a gun - actually a couple of young men with guns - out in the state of Oregon, an "open-carry" state.  William Coleman, aged twenty-one, was out one evening this past week openly carrying his brand new Walther P22 handgun which he had purchased that day.  William may have felt like he was one tough hombre, what with his new nearly $400 gun and all, right up until the minute he was approached by another young man asking for a cigarette.  The smoke-bumming stranger told William, "I like your gun.  Give it to me."   With that he pulled his own gun to forswear any argument on the matter - and proceeded to relieve William of his weapon.

There was no word on whether he also managed to get the cigarette.

Guns can and do cause crime, and they also bring unnecessary risk of harm to their owners.

Send in the Clowns

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

While there seem to be several political prognosticators predicting doom and gloom for Democrats in 2014 - particularly with regard to congressional and senate races - those same nattering nabobs of negativism (who said that?) haven't been nearly as vocal about the looming big political kahuna - the 2016 presidential race.  I haven't given up on the 2014 midterms - and feel that several good things could yet come to pass - and that's just in Kansas!  But the 2016 presidential race will  definitely soothe any Democratic hurts that come out of this November's elections.

The Republicans have been trying to get themselves in better order this time around.  The national party has made moves to limit the number of debates that their candidates will engage in during the primaries - as well as limit the amount of time between the close of primary season and the opening of their convention.  All that is in response to their awful debacle of 2012 in which Mitt Romney could never break free of the guppies that continued to feed on him as he was desperately trying to claim his crown and go after President Obama.  The Republican Party of 2012 literally ate itself on the way to the general election.  What a damned shame that was!

But despite all of the planning to limit the in-house brawls, it looks very much like things in 2016 will not be any better for the venerable old white man's party.  The party may have drafted a new message with new safeguards - but most of the potential candidates appear to have not read the memo.  It looks like another slug fest is in the making - one that will not be the least bit presidential.

Politico ran a front page story this morning discussing the wild and woolly Republican presidential field of candidates.  The story featured pictures of twelve contenders - and said their might be as many as fifteen serious candidates.  Those pictured in the Politico piece were:  Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, perennial candidate Mitt Romney, Governor Bobbie Jindal of Louisiana, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, and Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.

A few others who failed to get their pictures in the Politico article but are likely to wade into the race are retiring Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota,  former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, pizza czar Herman Cain, brain surgeon Ben Carson, Fox commentator and former Arknasas governor Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Ambassador to China John Huntsman, reality television personality Donald Trump, and Little Ricky Santorum, formerly a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.   Over the past few days there has also been a smattering of talk that John MCCain's BFF in the senate, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, might also offer his services to save the republic.

The odds of the Grand Old Party managing to make it through that minefield of candidates without inflicting serious or even mortal damage onto itself along the way are almost non-existent - particularly since the Democrats seem to be focused on only one serious candidate for their party's nomination.

The election of 2016 will be Mrs. Bill Clinton's to lose - and with several clown cars full of Republican candidates crashing into each other and causing ribald mayhem under the Big Top, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Hillary doesn't win - handily!

But first we have 2014 to deal with.  Vote early and vote often!

Monday's Poetry: "Among All Cities"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

While serving in the United States Army in 1971 I had the unique opportunity to take part in a NATO exercise called Operation Reforger III.  The exercise involved most of the 1st Infantry Division (the famous "Big Red One") being flown out of Ft. Riley, Kansas (Topeka, actually) on short notice and joining other NATO forces in Germany.  There we convoyed across much of southern Germany while playing war games and enjoying as much German culture as time permitted.

My first free weekend in Germany was spent with friends in Munich - or "Munchen" as the Germans call it.   We rode the trolley's, hobnobbed with the locals, and ate some fine German food.  Of course, we also tried the world famous German beer, and the watering hole that I remember best was the historic "Hofbrauhaus."  There we sat at long wooden tables drinking enormous mugs of beer served by beautiful ladies in Bavarian dress, listened to music played by traditional German bands, and dined on the largest pretzels that I had ever seen.

It was October, we were all singing and having a wonderful time, and Oktoberfest was in full swing!

The Hofbrauhaus and brewery were founded by Wilhelm V, the Duke of Bavaria, in 1589.  It later evolved from the Duke's brewery to an establishment that served all classes of people.

I recently came across a little poem by Mozart, the composer, which honors the time that he spent at the Hofbrauhaus in the late 1700's drinking beer and writing music.  He had an apartment across the street from the famous beer hall.  The poem is short and a bit rough, due in part, no doubt, to difficulties encountered in translation.

Here in celebration of Oktoberfest - and oh how I wish I was in Germany in the fall! - is today's poem, "Among All Cities" by Mozart:


Among All Cities
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Of all the cities that I stayed
made much music and my instruments played
I once took up residence in Munich.
I gave a fine concert there at the court,
the opera 'Idomeneo' in 1780 there I wrote,
and often sought refreshment in the Dukes brew house.
The beer there really pleased me
and the guests never ceased to amuse me
Anyone who's been there will agree with me!

I've been there, and I certainly agree with the fun-loving, beer-chugging, old composer!

Rusty Pails #54: The Special Delivery

by Rocky G. Macy

I awoke from a session of resting my eyes the other afternoon with quite a start.  Somebody had let out a fierce scream, and before I could get myself free of the recliner to go investigate, a second scream ripped through the air.    I stumbled out the front door just in time to see our new mail carrier, Raquel Rainwater, putting off down the lane as she made her deliveries. 

What in the name of Heck Frye had she been screaming about?

Then there was another scream – up close – definitely not from Raquel’s skee-daddlin’ mail wagon.   The last time I heard a shriek that loud was when Gramma Pinkins got her bloomers caught in the wringer of her ol’ washer – and she was still wearing ‘em!  

I followed the angry sound to a large package sitting near my mailbox.  Well, it wasn’t actually a package – but appeared to be some sort of cage with a couple of colorful throw pillows stuffed inside.   As I was edging closer to investigate, one of the throw pillows screamed again. 

I adjusted my spectacles and bent over to see just what the devil was making all of that danged commotion.  There, cramped securely into a tight wire cage was not one, but two peacocks.  More accurately, a peacock and a peahen. – and they looked like they were  about ready to fight their way out of the cage.  (I’d heard tell of cage fighting, but somehow I didn’t think that this was what it was all about!)

As I was carrying the cage out to the middle of the yard to get it away from the road, the cavalry arrived.  Heck pulled up in his pickup truck with Shadetree Mike beside him in the front seat and Truman Treetopper bouncing along in the back.    Truman was usually a bit too ripe to ride up front with the big boys, especially on a warm day, and this particular day was gettin' warmer by the minute - just like me!

“What’s up, Rusty?”  Heck asked as the trio of misfits began climbing out of the truck. 

“Are you sure you don’t already know?”   The shipping label on the cage had a Sprung Hinge postmark with no return address.   My kettle was just beginning to simmer, and it wouldn’t take long to reach a full boil.

“Why Rusty has himself a pair of pea fowl,” said Shadetree Mike, noting the obvious.   “If that male drops any of his tail feathers, my Ermine might like to have them to make herself a new Sunday hat.”

“Or maybe we could give both of these noisy varmints to your other sweetie, Gladys Clench, and she could make some peacock pies.”  I shot back.   “Which one of you birds thought I needed these birds anyway?”

“I’m shocked you would think it was us,” Heck protested, a bit too piously.

“At least make yourselves useful and help me get this danged cage open.”  I fumbled with what I figured was the latch, but wasn’t having any luck.   Heck reached to the back of the cage and released a couple of hooks that I hadn’t noticed.    “You seem to know a lot about this contraption,” I said, with suspicion dripping from my voice.

“Just a lucky guess,” he replied.  “And I suspect that the door opens like this,” he said as he pulled the door wide and both birds began to fight their way to freedom.

We all stood back and watched as the peacocks unfolded themselves onto my lawn and began to strut their stuff.    The male displayed his beautiful fan as he walked a couple of laps around the yard.     Both birds appeared surprisingly peaceful and content – for about a minute – and then it all broke loose!

The big male stretched his wings and took flight – straight at Heck’s head – where he grabbed Heck’s expensive toupee (with the permanent wave) in his claw and made a beeline straight for the peak of my old barn where he sat perched like a vulture clutching a rat.

And the other rat, the big one still on the ground, was hoppin’ mad and hairless!   Papa Peacock had just gotten his revenge on the guy who had stuffed him into the cage – and if that fool wanted his hair back, he would just have to fly up there and get it!

The peacock on the roof of my barn let out a scream that could have been heard halfway across the county, only this time it sounded more like a laugh!

Major Employer Abandons West Plains

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The front page headline in our local newspaper yesterday was devastating.   A major employer in this rural community, Robertshaw (until recently called "Invensys"), will be closing the doors of its West Plains manufacturing plant in March of 2016 and moving nearly four hundred jobs to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.   According to the article by Terry Hampton in the West Plains Daily Quill, Robertshaw has 5,400 employees in twelve countries.  It currently operates thirteen factories, two distribution centers, and four engineering centers.  The company's headquarters is in Carol Stream, Illinois.

The local factory manufactures gas valves and gas products for the cooking and heating markets.

Robertshaw will also be closing a factory in Hanover, Illinois.

The local Robertshaw workforce is equal to over three percent of the total population of West Plains.  Granted, not all of the employees live within the city, but all do live close enough to allow for a daily commute - and many have families who work, shop, and go to school in West Plains.

The effects of this closing as they ripple across families and the entire local community will be devastating.   Entire families will be forced to move - either to Robertshaw jobs in other locations (and there are no other Robertshaw plants in Missouri), or as they seek jobs in other areas of the state or country.   Some may step down to local jobs for which they are over-qualified just to stay in the area - thereby taking opportunities from other less qualified job seekers.  And, the demand for services will necessarily decrease as people are driven from the community.

A spokesman for Robertshaw said that the closing of their factory here in West Plains was "purely a business decision."  What a sorry, greedy business it is!

Brownback's XXX Revenue Plan

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas is probably not the kind of person that ordinary people would want to get stuck listening to at a cocktail party.    Of course that should not be of concern to most of us, because it is unlikely that the rigid Republican and Christian fundamentalist ever attends events where alcohol is consumed or where people might be having a good time.  Now that Fred Phelps is gone, Sam is undoubtedly God's main man in Topeka.

After serving a couple of terms in the United States Senate, Brownback rushed home to Kansas in 2011 to serve as governor.   He was steeped in conservative economic myths and was going to use his expertise to show the rest of the nation how cutting taxes would actually cause an increase in state revenue.  Corporations would have more money to invest in jobs, and people would have more money to make purchases.

Unfortunately for Sam, his plans for a Kansas utopia never materialized, and the state has seen a revenue shortfall that has resulted in draconian cuts to necessary programs - especially education.  Not only do Sam's presidential ambitions seem to be derailed, but he also now finds himself in a very tough race for re-election.

In a bid to make up the embarrassing revenue shortfall, Kansas is aggressively going after people who owe back taxes.  One method of collection of those delinquent taxes is to seize assets of the deadbeats and sell them at auction.  Larry Minkoff, a Kansas businessman who owes $163,986 in state taxes recently had a bunch of his personal property seized by the state.

Minkhoff is the owner of Bang Sex Stores which had several shops in Kansas and Missouri before going belly-up.  The state of Kansas seized thousands of sex toys, pornographic magazines and movies, and erotic undergarments from Minkhoff's defunct stores and auctioned them off in four hundred lots over the internet this past week - an event that probably raised as many eyebrows as it did dollars!

The auction certainly did not end the state's revenue shortfall, but perhaps it served to arouse encourage the people of Kansas into paying those pesky state taxes.   Sam will get your toys if you don't watch out!

Another Roadside Attraction

by Pa Rock
Reader

I have just finished reading the 1971 counter-culture classic, Another Roadside Attraction, by Tom Robbins.  It is a philosophical treatise on life, culture, nature, and religion told in a bemusing and often downright funny manner.

The main characters in this story are Amanda, a young mother and flower child - and a bit of an herbalist, her toddler, little Thor, and her new husband, John Paul Ziller, a professional drummer, artist, and magician.  The other two primary characters populating this tale are Plucky Purcell, a drug dealer who accidentally gets entangled with an order of malicious monks and goes on to become a karate instructor to the Swiss Guard at the Vatican, and Marx Marvelous, a scientist who is in hiding from an ex-wife seeking child support.

As the story opens, the Zillers purchase an old restaurant property in the woods north of Seattle where they gradually open a gigantic hot dog stand and a roadside zoo.  The zoo, their "roadside attraction," features such such exhibits as a flea circus, a dead tse-tse fly stuck in amber, and a bow-legged chicken that reportedly had once lead 50,000 of his fellow chickens on a march across much of the United States.  It does not feature Mon Cul, John Paul Ziller's pet baboon who helps out with household chores and taking care of little Thor.  The Zillers are eventually joined in their idyllic hideaway by Marx Marvelous who has heard about them through a mutual friend.  Marvelous becomes their employee and confidant.

The tale begins to heat up when an earthquake hits Rome and Vatican City.   As parts of the papal city crumble, Plucky Purcell rushes down into the catacombs and tunnels beneath St. Peter's hoping to find some of the Church's gold - which he does - during the post-quake confusion.  Plucky also comes across an artifact that is destined to change his life and the lives of his friends at the glorified hot dog stand back in Washington.  He enters a secret room where a sarcophagus has toppled over revealing the mummified body of Jesus Christ!

Plucky Purcell, with an able assist from an artist friend in Rome who makes plaster figures of humans, manages to get his find back to the Ziller's hot dog stand and zoo.  The issue then becomes what to do with their 2,000-year-old corpse - and how best to do it.

Tom Robbins was himself a student of art and religion, two areas from which he draws deeply for this very fine novel.  While much of the premise of his book dabbles in the absurd, his philosophical ponderings are a substantive quest for the meaning of life - or as he terms it, "The meaning of meaning."

Below is an example of how Robbins feels about life, with and without religion.  It is in the form of a dream that Marx Marvelous has while spending a night in close proximity to the corpse of Christ.  In the dream Jesus is sitting on a rock (and fasting) out in the desert when Tarzan rides up to him on a nanny goat.  Tarzan quickly engages Jesus on how religion has impacted life on earth.    His words are, in essence, Tom Robbins' genesis of formalized religion.

"In the old days," Tarzan began, "folks were more concrete.  I mean they didn't have much truck with abstractions and spiritualism.  They knew that when a body decomposed, it made the crops grow.  They could see with their own eyes that manure helped the plants along, too.  And they didn't need Adelle Davis to figure out that eating plants helped them grow and sustained their own lives.  So they picked up that there were connective links between blood and shit and vegetation.  Between animal and vegetable and man.  When they sacrificed an animal to the corn crop, it was a concession to the obvious relation between death and fertility.  What could be less mystical?  Sure, it was hoked up with ceremony, but a little show biz is good for anyone's morale.  We were linked to vegetation.  Nothing in the vegetable world succumbs.  It simply drops away and then returns.  Energy is never destroyed.  We planted our dead the way we planted our seeds.  After a period of rest, the energy of corpse or seed returned in one form or another.  From death came more life.  We loved the earth because of the joy and good times and peace of mind to be had in loving it.  We didn't have to be 'saved' from it.  We never plotted escapes to Heaven.  We weren't afraid of death because we adhered to nature - and its cycles.  In nature we observed that death is an inseparable part of life.  It was only when some men - the original tribes of Judah  - quit tilling the soil and became alienated from vegetation cycles that they lost faith in the material resurrection of the body.  They planted their dead bull or their dead ewe and they didn't notice anything sprout from the grave:  no new bull, no new sheep.   So they became alarmed, forgot the lesson of vegetation, and in desperation developed the concept of spiritual rebirth."

And so was bent the cycle of life.

Another Roadside Attraction is light, funny, deep, and foreboding.   The book is a trip - a trip nearly as epic as the one that Christ took from Rome to Seattle!

I recommend it highly. 

Worked to Death, Literally

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

As the wealth disparity grows in the United States, and growing it is, more and more people have to struggle harder and harder just to survive.  Good jobs are going overseas while companies and even some states connive to keep wages low and benefits almost non-existent.   States controlled by Republicans, in particular, seem hellbent on not raising the minimum wage, or, worse yet, trying to reduce or eliminate it.  The focus is all too often the health and survival of the company - and not the individual worker.

There was a story in the September 28th edition of The New York Times about a 32-year-old woman named Maria Fernandes who died while napping in her car.  Maria had been working three shifts (days, nights, and weekends) at three different Dunkin' Donuts in three different New Jersey communities for the past eighteen months, and she often slept in her SUV between shifts.  Maria would normally sleep with the motor running, and she kept a can of gas in the car in case it ran out of gas during her sleep.  She had to make it to work on time and could not chance being late due to an empty tank.  During her last nap Maria accidentally kicked the gas can over and died inhaling the fumes.

Dunkin' Donuts  told the Times reporter that Maria was a "model employee," but they declined to say how much they were paying their model employee or how many hours she worked.

Minimum wage in New Jersey is $8.25 an hour.

It's a sad day in America when CEOs are making more than they can spend, while others have to work three jobs just to make it up onto the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

For those who would like a more in-depth look at the slimy underbelly of America's service industry, may I suggest the modern classic on the subject, Nickel and Dimed:  On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.  The author, a well known journalist and muckraker, went undercover for three extended periods of time:  first as a waitress, then as a house-cleaner with a professional "maid" company, and finally as a Walmart "associate."   Ehrenreich takes the reader right into America's corporate heart of darkness, and she pulls no punches.

Don't expect to sleep peacefully when you've finished reading Nickel and Dimed.