A Work Progressing

I live in earthquake country, but I don’t have a lot of earthquake stories. Maybe that’s a good thing. Nothing gory, or heartbreaking. Just a lot of dish rattling, and a few pictures bouncing off the walls. The television always has a number of the worst case scenarios, broken wine bottles at stores, collapsed ceiling tiles, and a few chimneys toppled in the neighborhood. Fortunately it is very rare that lives are lost.

I do have one earthquake story that I would like to tell before it is lost forever. For a time I lived in Point Richmond, which is a small residential area in the low hills directly across the bay from San Francisco. Nearly every home has a wonderful view of the evening sunset across the Bay, and the lights of the City.

Many of the homes were built in the early 1900s when the first population boom encouraged lots to be purchased, and individualized homes built. It continues today, with any open lot that has been left. The effect is that there is a range of architectural styles, and age, throughout the neighborhood. Stately Victorians, next to 1950s, next to Post Modern homes.

I think it was 1990, on Crest Street where I walked, there was an older, one story Victorian, facing the setting sun with no houses on the other side of the street. This was a ridge road that led to a popular vista point. Well, popular to the locals who knew how to get through the maze of streets.

On my way walking to the vista point I noticed an older gentleman sitting in a chair, taking in the afternoon sun. He was still there when I came back, so I stopped to say hello. After a few pleasantries, we began talking about the view that he had everyday, and how special it was.

He related that he was ninety-two years old and had been born in this house, so he had seen quite a few remarkable sunsets. I asked him if there was one that stood out in his memory, and he quickly replied that there was one.

He was about eight years old and it was a day after the big quake. Nothing much happened in the neighborhood, some bookshelves fell over, and some dishes broke. It shook for a long time, but the house just flexed a bit. Across the bay the brick buildings had broke, and some fires had started. That evening he stayed up and watched San Francisco burn. It was April 18, 1906.

As horrible as it was to see, the thing that struck him was what he saw the next morning. He got up early and walked across the street to still see some fires burning, and billowing clouds of smoke. There on the grass all around him were some of the ashes that had traveled all the way across the Bay, riding the prevailing winds.

Something caught his eye, it was the front page of one of the City’s newspapers, laying draped on a rose bush. The thing about it was, that the paper was completely burnt a dark black, but the ink was white! It was like a negative, but still very readable. The fact that it stayed in one piece all the way across the Bay, and then was so readable, draped on the bush, was amazing. He tried to pick it up to show his parents, or perhaps save it in some way, but it crumbled in his hand.

All he had was the story of the wind delivering the morning paper, as readable ash. And he told it for eighty years.

She had her morning coffee on her balcony, and I walked underneath on my way to school. She had unnaturally black hair, or maybe it was just her pale face. I tried to walk without moving up and down, conscious that the wind was moving my hair over my face.

She was going to work in a few minutes, but took the time to come out on her second floor balcony, to watch the world go by. I had a thirty minute walk to my senior year in high school, so I was like clockwork.

After a month, I noticed that she watched me, not noticed me, she watched me pass. I started to watch back. She had probably just graduated, got her first apartment, her first real job, and she was not used to being alone.

After two months she said “Hello!”. I was stunned, but managed a smooth reply, “Hello!” After that we just nodded knowingly.

Three months, she asked if I liked music, I nodded. She suggested that I stop by sometime to listen. I hadn’t stopped walking so I turned my head backwards and nodded.

A few days later she said that she would be home in the afternoon, if I want to stop by. It was less awkward that she didn’t say, “stop by after school.” At this point I had only vocalized one “Hello!”, and dozens of knowing nods. I wondered what a conversation would be like with a woman, alone, in her own apartment. So I replied, “I’ll see you then.”

Later that day, after finding my way to her front door (a guess), I knocked, instead of ringing the bell. It seemed more manly, but I intentionally didn’t apply any rhythm.

She answered the door, dressed in black, holding a wine glass, wine matching the red of her lipstick. The impact of her blue eyes, dark eye-shadow, black pageboy hair, black blouse, and turquoise stone necklace was startling. I was way out of my comfort zone, with my Madras shirt, brown baggy cords, and Thom McCann sandals. She said come in.

It was a one bedroom apartment, with the bedroom hidden somewhere, but I saw the bathroom, kitchen, living room, and the door to the balcony. There was a small sofa with pillows, and a plush chair. She said have a seat. With my brain working fast enough to create some beads of sweat, I chose the plush chair. Best not to assume anything.

She had a record player on a small table. It wasn’t part of a stereo system, it wasn’t even a stereo. I had one like it for about four years. I got a subscription from Columbia records, and my mother bought me a “Hifi”, short for “high fidelity”. Apparently her salary didn’t allow her to purchase the newly available stereos.

I looked at the small stack of albums, I didn’t see any 45s. We called the albums LPs because they were “long playing”. The one on top looked like it was used a lot. It was Sam the Sham. and the Pharaohs. All of the albums were by Sam the Sham, and the Pharraohs. I wasn’t aware that they had that many albums.

“Do you like Sam the Sham? I really love them!” And the first record went on the record player. “Would you like a glass of wine?” “Ahm, sure!” Man, woman, music and wine. It was almost a script to a movie, except I missed rehearsals, and didn’t know what to say. I did bring my notebooks, with my rants, scribbles, and bad haikus. I was terrified that I would have to share them, considering that I was mostly mute.

The first song was finished, we had said nothing beyond the greeting at the door. So I told her my name, she smiled, and replied with her name. And the second song finished.

I figured a natural break would come when the sixth song was done, and the record was turned over to play the B-side. Then another break would occur when the album was changed. I did the math, it looks like we have about three hours of listening, and about 12 breaks. I could be home by dinner.

Unfortunately she was very practiced with the album flip to the backside. Not enough time to ask a question, or to make a statement. She did ask if it was loud enough, and I nodded.

Someone was in charge of what was happening, and it wasn’t me. My wine was untouched, and hers was half done. I studied the room, and when she was intent on the music, her eyes shut, and I studied her. She had clear skin, with fine lines around her eyes, she didn’t blend the makeup onto her throat, so her face was several shades lighter than her neck. Her lipstick was left on the wineglass, and slightly removed from her upper and lower lips, making it almost two-toned.

There was a brass camel on her bookshelf. The books were few, and looked to be from the Reader’s Digest collection. Kitchen counters clean, and stark. Everything in their space, and hidden behind doors, and in drawers. A small B&W TV with rabbit ears next to a rack of TV trays. It could have been my mother’s house.

Then things got ugly. If her flipping the album was fast, the changing of albums was just slightly slower. The new album was pulled from the cover, the old album was popped off, and for a moment there were two disks being juggled (only touching the labels of each record. The new album was on, with the record arm placed on the first song. Then old album was momentarily placed in the wrong cover.

Frustrated, she shook the record out, and it took flight directly at my wine glass. The glass tipped over on the table, splashing my cords, her couch, and the rug below. Oh yeah, the red lake on the table also soaked my notebooks.

It took less than 15 seconds, but we stared without saying anything for at least 30 more seconds. She took several hops to get paper towels, and a wet dishrag. All the while, she was muttering something. I could only hear part, “at least he could have drunk some of it.”

She blotted and wiped everything, but my cords and my notebooks. I wrapped the notebooks in paper towels, but decided not to blot my pants. I left her standing there with red stained hands, saying that I had better get home to change clothes.

When I got home I opened my notebooks, there were places where the ink ran, and wine left blots, like psychology tests. All in all, the notebooks had more physical character than content character.

The next morning, she was not on her balcony. I never saw her again. For some reason, I remembered 56 years ago, and wrote the following

I once knew the killer of poems,

She lay on pillows of satin red,

Because they didn’t show the stains of words.

I was young and foolish,

I thought that smoke didn’t mean fire,

I thought whispers made mysteries.

I was lost in a desert of comfort,

The ghost that was me, pale and silent,

Looking at notebooks soaked in wine,

Ink swirling in burgundy.

.

I dunno, a little wine could improve it.

I was thinking about my parents recently. I was thinking about the depth of our relationships, and the trials and tribulations of growing up in their household. Make no mistake, it was their household. It wasn’t as if it was declared every morning, but it was implied frequently.

I had a great childhood, a few bits of drama here and there. And my experience was quite different than my brothers, as they were seven and seventeen years older. That makes a difference, but we were different people as well, and buttons that were pushed were different. I can only state what I felt by the relationship, based upon the events of my life.

From my father I think I got intense focus, a love of reading, independence, a love for the outdoors…he introduced me to archery, sailing, camping, many things that remained most of my life. We didn’t talk much about deeper things. He never tried, and when I did, he just nodded, and blinked. I think he was uncomfortable.

My mother was the perfect example of motherly love, always supportive, always quick with a smile, hug, kiss. She was independent as well, and had a variety of interests, good with her hands, loved pets, plants, and the care of the same.

The point is that the core of my being was shaped by these people, like it or not. Yes, certain teachers had an impact, a favorite relative or two, my brothers for example. Also, the books that I read, they had a final shaping.

And later on my marriage had shaping and polish! For me, my family had much more impact on the person that I am. I realize that this is not true for many people. But is it usually true? Or are we mostly raised by ourselves, and perhaps wolves?

I think this might be a question worthy to ponder for most people, because it can have a huge impact on cascading influences. Is there generational impact? A popular thought is that each generation is slightly better than the previous one. I think this is skewed by increased technology. If you believe this principle, then going back dozens of generations would reveal that we had the practice of eating our children, and that would have ended the line.

Some genealogists have talked about cycles, or waves. Some have postulated that we are pretty much fixed to our DNA, and we have been the same, plus or minus, for eons.

I don’t know about the long term effects, but I’m fairly certain that my short term effects are cascading. In other words, what I feel is what my parents felt about their parents. I did not know any of my grandparents as an adult, and only one was alive when I was very young, but the possibility is that a pattern was fairly consistent for at least three generations. What about the next three generations? And the next three generations after that?

There is no proof, I haven’t found a detailed written document that wrote about this concept. I know their names, dates of birth, and places of birth, but I don’t know how they thought. History can be accurate about some facts, less so on meaning and content.

The point of this thread is that I feel something unique when I discover a brand new great grandfather, or pair of great grandparents. It’s the factual unbroken line of DNA, close or far. The possibility that my 30th great grandfather thought pretty the same as I do now. I find that important, particularly if there are stories written about that individual.

So that partly explains my passion about genealogy. The next reason is not as clear, or even reasonable. I got the sense that they have been forgotten. I know this because they have been forgotten! Their children didn’t forget, and maybe even their grandchildren, but eventually their descendants became completely unaware that they have lived. Well, I suppose we all know they must be back there somewhere, but not as individuals. When I look through the various lines, I pause my finger on the names, and I try to pronounce them aloud. After generations of silence, I speak their names. They are once again remembered.

I haven’t written about my great great grandparents for a while. I would like to tell about the common stories told around their dinner table, but no one recorded them, so they ate lost to history. I know that some of them lived in challenging times, in challenging places. But without recorded history it’s just a good guess. So I suppose I will have to settle for those ancestors that actually made the history books, or a combination of history books and Wikipedia.

So let me tell you about my 52nd great grandfather. Kind of an interesting guy, lots written about him from widely different sources, so you can parse together a certain truth. There have even been a few movies! My 52nd great grandmother has also found history kindly, and portrayed by an accomplished actor. She even gets a great quote to remember her by… “Come back with your shield, or on it!”.

Yes, my 52nd great grandfather is none other than Leonidas, King of Sparta.

Well, why not! He had kids, and his kids had kids. Someone gets to be related eventually.

I don’t think we get to know the Queen’s name in the movie, but apparently it was Gorgo, and they had one son, his name was Pleistarchus, not a name that rolls off your tongue. By the way, he grew up to be no slouch himself. He was very active in Greek politics and wars, and found himself on the winning side due to his skills.

Eventually he met a young lady from the island of Thera, the famous one that blew-up in pre-history. Removed from the mainland they were on the edge of civilization for centuries. They eventually embraced the Roman culture, even while Alexander was making his run for history. For the most part they stay rooted on Thera and kept their family records like good Roman citizens.

I’ve alway said that genealogy can really be trusted if you can get into royal records. They were fanatics about accurate family history and employed court scribes to write it all down. The other fanatic group was the Romans. So if you are lucky to find a lowly count or Duke, then ride the information until some barbarian royalty marries into a Roman family, then you have decades of records. In this case a Greek family that embraced the practice of Roman culture.

So Pleistarchus’s son lived on Thera and took a Greek/Roman name, Aulus Plotius Leonides. Kind of a nod to his grandfather.

The big improvement is when they married into the House of Burgundy around 1000. Everybody wanted to marry into the Burgundian’s, the Mauvoisins, the Bethencourts, the Bracquemont, the Grainvilles, the Meluns, and the Hammersteins.

They apparently stayed on the island for about seven generations, then moved to Rome itself for a couple of generations, finally they moved to the edges of the Roman Empire in France. They became a minor royal family in Brittany for seven of eight generations, and began moving up in power and wealth, though talent and marriages.

The Hammersteins are important because it was a family going in the wrong direction, not richer and more powerful, but poorer and not “land owners”. Sometime in the 1400s there was a great movement to trim the royal families. There were too many of them, seeking privileges without the ability to pay taxes. The wiser families married into the richer commoners. Ha! Some of my German peasants married ex-royalty… So I get to claim a micro connection to Leonidas!

Do I trust the information? The Roman and European lines have been checked and triple checked for generations. The poor German fathers have had records digitized by Ancestry.com and that is vastly improved from a few years ago when the data was barely on microfilm. I still don’t know where my grandfather died, he left and just disappeared, so nothing is absolutely known, just a pretty good guess for recent history, but better when it got written down.

So, back to Leonidas, what do we know? Well, he appears to be a badass. He led a core group of personally chosen Spartans, he gathered 300 men for the battle. Not necessarily the best fighters, but older and courageous. He made it attractive for other men from other cities to join him at Thermopylae, “the Hot Gates”. At the start of the battle he had maybe 5 or 6 thousand Greeks, fighting against 200 to 300 thousand Persians. The battlefield was narrow so very few men fought at one time. The Greeks created mounds of dead Persians. He delayed the Persian army for maybe a week, giving the main Greek army time to organize. He didn’t come back from the battle, not even on his shield. It is written that the survivors tried to bring his body back, but the Persians wouldn’t allow it, and then mutilated Leonidas. His head was put on a stake, and his body was crucified at the battle site.

In 1955 a statue was erected at Thermopylae with the words: “ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ” (“Come and take them”). This was Leonidas’ answer to the Persian demand to drop your weapons. Yep, badass, was my 52nd great grandfather.

Leonidas, King of Sparta

First, as an instructor, I would always remind the class, “There are no silly questions, there are just questions.”

I just watched a rented Google movie, “Emily, @ the Edge of Chaos”. It was a remarkable movie, perhaps touching at the edges of the most important parts of the known universe. How’s that for a recommendation? It introduced me to Emily Levine.

And quite appropriately, as this is the source of the title for this rant. I’m sorry to say that if this movie is the first you have known about Emily Levine, then you will be sad to know that within a few short years, she died of cancer. There is a hint of her lack of the fear of death in this movie, and in a TedTalk video, she announced her Stage Four prognosis, which came to the conclusion within a year.

So, the question still is, how much do dead people know? The answer is blunt, and perhaps obvious. How much did they know when they were alive? The secondary qualifier is, what was the measuring technology of his/her life?

Did they live in a small tribal community that was mostly preliterate, primarily oral? In that case, the dead person’s knowledge lasted as long as the collective survivor’s memory. The accuracy of that knowledge is highly subjective.

Did the dead person write things down, or did someone with personal knowledge write things down for them? In that case the knowledge is passed through the decades, as long as the transmission medium survives, or is copied for another cycle. The accuracy is again subjective, but can be more accurate with multiple copies to use as comparison.

What about Emily Levine’s knowledge? We have her books, blogs, and videos. And we have her film. The knowledge is fixed, her death stops any new knowledge that can be fixed to her life. But knowledge that is based upon ideas that she proposed… well! , that might fall in the joint ownership category. The Great Shared Knowledge of the universe. That place is filled with the knowledge of dead people. Unfortunately all of it is dependent upon some sort of successful storage medium. I do not mistrust oral history as a medium, although there is a difference depending upon decades. Older appears to be more accurate than newer. And of course copies can be edited. Video and film can also be modified but it is much more difficult. Talk to any professional editor of film and you will find out that context can still be changed dramatically.

Emily Levine died, she reminded us that we shall also die. How can we live with death? Because life is death, Emily said this. I think she was/is right. I few years ago I had a significant heart attack. I learned a few things. I did not have pain in my right arm. It turns out that women do not generally have a right arm pain either.

I had a golf ball knot in my back, like a pulled muscle. Good to know, I could sit or sleep wrong, or I could be having a heart attack. I could clean the garage, and later feel muscle tension, or I could be hours from major heart failure. I love the dilemma.

It does generate some thought to some sort of existence after death. On a spiritual level I’m pretty good, on a worldly level I ponder how it works out. I’m not famous, nor am I widely published. I have some parts of my existence saved in the digital world, and less recorded on canvas or paper. How much will be seen or read? Will there be knowledge shared? Will someone, at sometime, find anything important in my participation of “shared knowledge”?

I’m not even sure that I will know about it, even if my existence changes in the future. Clearly I’m investing in the possibility that I might contribute, less clearly that it matters. I will say this, I’m very glad that Emily Levine took the time to save bits of herself on a medium that I could access. I an better for it.

According to the biblical story, Pharoah had a dream that no one could interpret for him. His chief cupbearer then remembered that Joseph had interpreted a dream for him when he was in prison two years earlier. So, Joseph was “brought from the dungeon” and shaved and changed his clothes. He then came before Pharoah and told him that his dream meant there would be seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt followed by seven years of famine. Joseph recommended that “a discerning and wise man” be put in charge and that food should be collected in the good years and stored for use during the famine. This seemed like a good idea to Pharaoh and Joseph ended up with the job (Genesis 41).

Okay, so let us look at the actual verses. I’m using the Hebrew translation as it is probably closer to the original.

1 It happened at the end of two full years, that Pharoah dreamed: and behold, he stood by the river. 2 Behold, there came up out of the river seven cattle, sleek and fat, and they fed in the marsh grass. 3 Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ugly and thin, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river. 4 The ugly and thin cattle ate up the seven sleek and fat cattle. So Paroh awoke. 5 He slept and dreamed a second time: and behold, seven heads of grain came up on one stalk, healthy and good. 6 Behold, seven heads of grain, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. 7 The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy and full ears. Pharoah awoke, and behold, it was a dream.

I want to pay particular attention to the central premise of the verses, and it isn’t about cows of ears of corn. “a dream that no one could interpret for him”. What? Let us be perfectly clear, the government of Pharoah was extremely well organized, with thousands of specialized jobs. All kinds of job, people watching the calendar, teams of people for each god (and they had hundreds of gods}, cupbearers (wine tasters), chefs, secretaries, poet laureates, musicians, I could go on and on, the point being is that Pharoah had well paid “dream interpreters” whose job it was to tell Pharoah the meaning of the dreams that he had.

Now, I do believe that sometimes God creeps in and gives a dream that is more of a prophecy, and maybe it doesn’t come from Pharoah’s subconscious. Given that this can be true, would God go through all that trouble to make it a total mystery that no one can interpret?

Let’s look at the two separate dreams using common logic. Both use a common number 7. Seven cows, seven ears of corn, both are food items. In fact, the lean cows eat the fat cows, and the lean ears of corn eat the fat corn. I’m not sure that follows logic, but you can get the idea that we are left with hungry cows, and hungry corn. Even if they had just eaten their friends.

So, what does the seven mean. The common choices are seven days, seven weeks, seven months, or seven years. Growing cycles for planted food is usually marked in years to get the full seasonal impact. Even cattle are measured in years in order to accommodate the birth cycles.

So logic tells us there will be seven good years for food, and then seven bad years of famine. Joseph tells Pharoah to prepare for the coming famine by forming a storage facility, and most importantly to convince the people to put work twice as hard, once for the normal good times, then once again the store for the bad times.

That really wasn’t that hard. If God gave the Pharoah that dream, he made it very easy to work it out. If Pharoah made up that dream it was that hard either. Using logic it is obvious that the most intense dream a Pharoah could have is one that would negatively impact his people. Realistically, the Pharoah would never suffer a famine.

So the real question is why did the “dream interpreters” say they couldn’t figure it out. Indeed, why did Pharoah say to himself, “I can’t understand this. Let’s listen to the cupbearer (who will probably get poisoned soon), and let him bring that slave up from the dungeon, in order to see what he says.

Someone has to take the blame for the plan. Certainly if it doesn’t work, but more importantly if it does work. Convincing people in the midst of prosperity to work twice as hard will not make anyone popular. The Pharoah wanted no part of this, he punted. And the Dream Interpreters also saw the dilemma, so they agreed, get the slave from the dungeon to enforce the plan. And until the famine hit, the people probably griped a great deal.

This is part plan of an overall plan to take all of the miracles out of the Bible. I know this is popular for some people. This was never in the “miracle bag”, but it has been glossed over without looking at why everyone feigned ignorance, when the answer was obvious. To me, this is evidence that the Bible relates events that were true!

I’m a believer in three. Two times, well that’s not quite the same as three. It you are driving down the road and you see a parked yellow Volkswagen with a flat tire, you might notice it. If another mile goes by and you see another Volkswagen with a flat tire, you may grip the wheel a little tighter, but you still drive on.

If another mile goes by, and another Volkswagen is stopped with a flat tire, I will do more than just notice. I will stop my car and check to see if my tires are okay. I’m a believer in threes.

So today, my pastor called me to see if I could find the time to come to the church and pray for an hour or so, in preparation for the coming Easter. I had already said that I thought it was a good idea. So I told him I could do a Mondays from 9-10. He said that would be great, and he said he would send me a guide.

My first thought is that i’m pretty sure I know where the church is… I’ve been going there for more than thirty years.

Ten minutes later im checking Facebook and see a message from I friend that tells me about their upcoming birthday on Sunday, and that they are now old enough not to care about anybody’s ideas or bucket list suggestions. My first thought was to be helpful as I can.

My suggestion was to not have birthdays anymore because while it is nice to have one day where people are nice to you, and there might be presents, and maybe a celebratory dinner. Look at the cost! You are older, and you will just keep getting older. I thought I was addressing the problem logically.

The finally there is the Jeep, the third thing of my trilogy. My daughter had borrowed my Jeep for about a month while she was in the area. I wasn’t using it and she is very familiar with the weight and size of the vehicle. Being the person she is, she returned it cleaned up, oil changed and filled with gas. But she couldn’t fix one of the problems she noticed. According to her the fabric top had shrunk and now the top was letting the wind whistle through the cabin and soon the rain would follow.

I went outside to verify, and I could immediately see what she meant. Either the top had shrunk, or the Jeep had gotten fat, and a little muffin top was showing. I had to make a choice. Shrunk or Fat?

I’ve had the vehicle for more than ten years, what would cause it to do either thing in the last month?

My solution was obvious, I bought a brand new fabric top. If it fit perfectly then the Jeep didn’t get fat, the roof shrunk. If it didn’t fit, then the Jeep somehow expanded in the last month when I wasn’t driving it.

I brought the fabric top and tried to replace the old one. It didn’t fit. I thought about returning it and getting one size larger. I got it through Amazon, so I could return it like the pants I mistakenly purchased.

The problem was that I didn’t use the handout that came with the replacement top. So I read that, and watched a few YouTube tutorials. In the afternoon I backed up to the point of removing 32 screws for the header. It took three hours and I actually had the roof on all the way to the back. Unfortunately there were several inches right next to the windschield that would let wind and rain come flooding in. Apparently the Jeep was fat.

I slept on it. There was someone wrong with my logic. In the morning I again went backwards removing 32 screws, laying the roof upside down on the hood, tightening the screws and folding the fabric the header. This time, three hours later, the rooftop was tightly stretched, and it fit perfectly. The Jeep was not fat. It’s a good thing because tomorrow it is expected to rain.

It took the third instance to point out the fallacy of my logic. Perhaps birthdays don’t create age, it just marks the time.

Perhaps there won’t be someone in a raccoon cap and buckskins that will guide me to the church.

A warning… the power of three is for all of you!

I’ve tried organizing some of my work. I haven’t removed anything that is already here, but most of the latest stuff needed a home, so I created a new blog, with a new address.

Www.Divinesarah.art.blog

If you are interested in seeing the artwork I’ve done for the “Sarah” musical project then go to this new blog… I don’t know how to make it active, so copy/paste or type.

I have a daughter that will soon undergo a little brain surgery. What am I saying?!? How little can brain surgery be???

I mean, she was walking by a local health care facility, so she walked in to inquire about a possible elective brain surgery. After all, she had a few weeks open in her calendar.

Obviously that didn’t happen, and the complex formula of “cost analysis” is not the point here. She, and the doctors, agree that this “little brain surgery” is important.

So two things come to mind right away. One, we live in remarkable times. Developments in medicine are remarkable. Things unheard of just a few years ago are now commonplace with great success. But that reality is slow in our collective minds. A “little brain surgery” is more accurate than we know.

Two. Still, for those of us that fear root canals, this is a big deal.

It does take faith, confidence, and tons of bravery. I remember as a child watching TVs Ben Casey, neuro-surgeon. I remember the end of the introduction, when the older doctor draws the chalk symbol of infinity. It was so graphic and mysterious.

We challenge the small definition of infinity when we are brave. There is a longer view, not only for the immediate success, but the longer success of adding knowledge for future success.

Sure, I worry. Sure, I cover in prayer. But I applaud in the selfless commitment to the future. I love you Nikki.

The are a few family legends, most of them about our family characters. Some of them are about our family characters that are not alive and never had been.

I’m speaking of our brown Chevy van. I can’t remember the year, but it had that 350hp engine that ran forever. It was an automatic, but somehow the lug that put it in reverse had sheared off, so technically it was Park, Neutral and Drive only.

I drove it to work daily, the kids called it the “kidnap van” because it had no windows in back. On one rainy Halloween night, I had all the kids in the back, driving very slow in the street with the sliding door wide open. There were no seats in the back, just some side benches. The kids just jumped out at every stop to beg for candy, and then jumped back in the van. They still talk about that Halloween.

It was brown, a very soft brown, a very “oxidized” soft brown, kind of mottled in parts. I once drove to a vendor friend of mine, and we spoke for a few minutes in the parking lot while he leaned on the van. The next day he called me and asked why I had poisoned him. He developed a very bad rash where his skin had contact with the van.

So now I had two issues, I never drove into a spot that required me to use reverse to get out, and I tried not to park where someone would touch the paint.

Actually, I did keep a large screwdriver in the glove compartment. When I absolutely needed reverse, I would put it in neutral, set the emergency brake, them pop the hood. With the hood up I could use the screwdriver to pry the transmission into reverse. It would take a minute to overpower the emergency brake so I had time to shut the hood and get into the drivers seat. Most times… eventually it was moving while I was swinging my but into the seat. Fortunately I still used the reverse to get out of the position, the van was too heavy to push. My best trick was to use gravity to back myself out of danger.

It had character, that brown van. It ran forever, but the rest of the vehicle just fell apart. I gave it to my son and he tried to clean it up, but too much was wrong, so for safety sake we got rid of it. It’s engine is probably still running.

It joins the list of other vehicle characters, like the Jeep Wagoneer that never backfired unless we were in a underpass. This was where the sound was magnified. There were dozens of Vietnam veterans that had hit the sidewalk with PTSD. I waved an apology but it was hard for them to see me from the ground.