MEMORY WEAVES

      It's a fascinating riddle, how memories are seeded. Mike,  native citizen blood coursing through his body, is an accomplished flute player and basket weaver. Here he is a weaver of memories. This little one is mesmerized.

remembering

      All of us were captivated by the Cal Poly Lion Dance team. 

    They came to Cambria's East Village to help dedicate the Greenspace Chinese Temple, an historic site paying homage to an historic village presence. The Lion Dance Team has been part of the Cal Poly culture for 70 years. 

 the bad memory scrapbook

   The nincompoop is back from his first international tour. He's telling people it was a home run. Right! Did you see the faces of the NATO and G-7 leaders? Trump is toxic but he is due credit for telling NATO that all members of the alliance need to carry their weight, financially. He is correct and other Presidents have said likewise. The flip side of the trump role is that NATO and G-7 nations say they can no longer count on the US. More damaging is the assessment that trump's attitude has weakened the alliance. 

     My biggest bone to pick with the bone head is his refusal to support the Paris accords in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 195 nations have studied and determined the accords are necessary. The US is backing out because our still unfit, unqualified and increasingly idiot bully boy president ignores science, the pope's encyclical and most of the civilized world. In his world "climate changes is fake news." In a better world he would be tarred and feathered. 

woven from youth

       There is something especially civilized about a pause to remember, those who have served and those who have passed. My grandmother and her sisters called it "decoration day."  My parents and my brothers and I made annual trips of respect. I remember those days and visits that that now seem long ago.

 Karl and Mary Helen
dad and mom

 John
brother

Jim

brother

bring on summer

 There was a time when Memorial day signaled a time to move to white dinner jackets on formal occasions. Khaki or seersucker was permitted and the pools were opened. All that was a long time ago. It is comforting to reach the Holiday that marks clicking into a summer mind set...even an endless summer.

time for our annual visit from another world

    See you down the trail.

THE REMEMBERING TIME-AS GOOD AS DICKENS-DO YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE?

DECORATE AND THEN PLAY

     Summer slips in on us, behind a time of remembering and there is a reassurance in that somehow. 

     While we are bout Memorials, paying respect and remembering, we find ourselves smack in the middle of summer diversions.  Picnics, parties, pool or lake time, firing up the grill, breaking out summer gear and wardrobe all seem to get started over this stretch when May morphs into June. As a kid we seemed to slide from what we called "Decoration Day" into full tilt summer. I wonder how many modern families visit a cemetery, or pay homage to ancestors in some formal way. For those of a certain age it was as though we transitioned by reflecting in a manner that linked finality and perpetuity with the full scale pleasure of life, captured in that special zest that is a kid's summer vacation. It was a nice rhythm.

                                          

A PIECE OF DICKENS

A MOMENT OF PERSPECTIVE

   Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling future, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well-thousands of acres of land-a whole province of France-all France itself-lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line.  So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star.  And as mere human knowledge can split and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue of every responsible creature on it."

                From A TALE OF TWO CITIES-Charles Dickens

    

THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PIECES

  No, nothing wrong with your eyes or the photograph.  The 
pixalated look is a product of the the way it is, Legos.

   We harvested these images during a recent trip to the Naples Bontanical garden.  As many as 40-50 thousand pieces are used in the creations.

  See you down the trail.

THE HEROES

REMEMBERING

     My father, Karl, was what they called a Top Kick, a Sergeant Major when he began his tour of duty in the South Pacific during WWII. He's the man in the middle.  On this day when we remember those who are gone and honor those who sacrificed I've been thinking about dad and how he never wanted to talk of his war experiences.

      He was more candid about his time as a Drill Instructor, especially as he meted out "training" and discipline to my brother and me. It wasn't until he was dying that he spoke of some of what he did and saw in the theater of combat.

   He was part of an effort that took heavy losses and

engaged in tough jungle war fare.  This is an article that reached home, dispatched by the Army communications office.

    Toward the end of his duty in New Guinea and the islands of the south Pacific he was made a Chief Warrant Officer.  He always said it was an inducement to stay in the Army and go to Officer's Candidate School, though in those days the designation was ordered by either the Secretary of the Army or the President and went to men with particular skills  and talents.  

    After he returned home, he continued to work for a special branch of the government.  He was coy and tight lipped, but It was a type of investigative agency. I have memories of his colleagues, "uncles", late night visits, meetings in old box cars and odd coming and goings.  

   One of the keep sakes in his Army locker was this autographed copy of a playbill. He always maintained a sense of camaraderie and concern for those with whom he served.

   I remember visiting the Ernie Pyle memorial at the Pyle Post of the VFW in Indianapolis.  Dad, in the middle, was active in the organization in the early days.  It was during this part of my early kid hood that he and my mom encouraged me to read Pyle's work and that of other war correspondents and journalists. From Indiana, Pyle was killed as he covered the war. Pyle's work and the memorial to him had a remarkable impact on me.  

    My dad and I were always friends, even during the teen years. There never was a "generation gap" in our home.

     I respected his political leanings, he was an active participant in election campaigns as a manager or strategist, never as a candidate.  

     During the Viet Nam era, he cared about the well being of the troops and often was critical of politicians willing to commit young men and women to war.

      He had a great sense of justice and was a true patriot. I continue to miss him. He remains my hero. So this evening I will lift a glass to Karl and the men and women like him, who served. And I will toast some of those "uncles," those who also served, though not always in uniform. Indeed we are in debt to many.

WALKING THE BLUFF

A FAMILY AT THE BEACH

  See you down the trail.