Respite

    Gentle ripples on a little pond in the flow of San Simeon Creek offer a respite from the madness and sickness of  2020.
     Remember the kind of world you imagined for 2020, back when we were filled with dreams and when most of life, including the distant 21st century was far in the future.
     For health and for a kind detox I've been visiting the past. 

   Farmers and ranchers on the California central coast have been "putting up hay."
   That leads me back to the early 1960s in central Indiana.
    US Highway 40 east of Indianapolis was dotted with villages and crossroads that were once part of the National Road. Places like Cumberland, Gem, Philadelphia, and Charlotte were little clusters of a life that passed by when the Interstate system was built. A few still had grain elevators and the expanse between was farmland.
    My father rented an historic and drafty large farmhouse in Cumberland, as we awaited the construction of new home near a golf course. I got to know the local lads, the Hills, and their cousins the Hilkene's and Sharpe's. They were farm kids and their families "put up hay" every summer and needed manpower.

      We'd start early in the morning, as soon as the field was dry. There were usually two of us on a wagon, pulled by tractor hooked up to a baler. 
      Blades would gather the cut hay and it was fed into a kind of conveyor.

         The baler shaped the hay and then wrapped it with a line or wire to keep it in a block. My job was to stand on the front of the wagon with a hook

  and grab the wrapped bale off the conveyor, turn and hoist it to Bobby, Chip, Jack, or who ever was on that wagon. He'd then stack it on the growing pile. We rarely had three on our wagons, so the "boy-power" could be spread to another wagon working the same field.
        The farms were large, the fields were massive, and the bales kept coming at you without stop.

           Hay is "put up" in the summer. The sun is scorching,  the hay or straw is scratchy and there were days when I thought the field was an ocean. But we'd always stop at noon. If there was a tree line with shade we'd settle there or get a ride to an area that was out of the sun. The farmer's wife would bring us picnic baskets full of relief. There were gallons of lemonade, iced tea, either a mountain of sandwiches or fried chicken. And usually there was a pie or fresh baked cookies.  15 and 16 year olds can devour more food than you can imagine.

          After lunch, and a moment to answer "nature's call," it was back to the wagon, field and hay. After a field had been cleared, or when the stacks were at a proper height, we'd jostle along to the barn, where the bales had to be off loaded and stored.

         I got stuck in the loft one day and thought I'd die from not being able to breath. A barn hayloft in the heat of summer is a miserable place. After that I was the guy who hauled the hay off the wagon and threw it on to a conveyor where the rest of the guys would go about filling the loft. They'd handle only every third for fourth bale, but tossing each one was worth not being in the loft.

   When ever I see hay in a field, I go back to those couple of years of learning to work. 

    Back then the future was unlimited. I want it to be that way for my grandchildren as well.

       We've got to get better at solving problems and working around or through differences.

      Lana took these shots the other day. She said it looked like I was talking to the cow. I was. 
       We'd been hiking for a while in the sun and I needed a moment in the shade, a shade being shared. I told the cow she didn't need to bolt, or charge me, that there was plenty of shade for the two of us. We made peace.

     There's been a lot of recent attention to the fact so many are depressed, or ill, full of the toxic nature of the news.   
      There is the unrelenting worry about Covid and this nation's failure to handle it as well as most of the world.    
      Then this age of reckoning brings us to painful truths and difficult decisions. I hope they are growing pains, but pains none-the-less.
      Remember when we used to say, as mad and as incompetent as Trump is, at least there is no crisis. Almost seems like the good old days doesn't it. Another mile marker on the descent of this nation.

             If I may suggest, a great antidote is to spend a few minutes viewing Lincoln Project videos and/or the videos  of Republican's Against Trump. They are short and cathartic. The truth is always alternative to the sick fantasy world the sick man weaves. Seeing it all told so well may help this nation with it's first political exorcism.
         I've been gratified by the early response of college leaders who say the administration's recent ICE crackdown on foreign students is just more evil and meanness. I hope they fight it. 

           We are fortunate to have the timeless shore, help with our emotional respite. We enjoy being able to share a few moments.

       Another respite moment came the other day when friends Jacque and Griff arranged for this. The talented Brynn Albanese and Eric Williams entertained a socially distanced block gathering within view of the Pacific.

  They are renowned and have superb credits and resumes, but like all musicians, have been sidelined. It was pure pleasure to see and hear them back in action.

   Everyone seemed to enjoy the respite. 

   I apologize to my friends abroad. This is not the America that nations could once trust. This is not the America that was recognized as a leader on important issues, as a beacon of light. We did it to ourselves, but I'm gaining a sense we will fix this. I suspect there is a hard rain coming, and it will be a time of rumble. 
    We seem on a path to address our racist and genocidal proclivities. Honest acknowledgement is forthcoming, even now. Fixing it will take time, but it will be good work for a nation.
     I think most have been shaken into a state of awareness. The prevailing cultural attitudes of celebrity, wealth and entertainment are not lodestones for a serious nation, nor the values by which to measure women and men for the fitness of work on the public's behalf. 
     These are hard truths. We ate the poison. It made us sick. It is killing us, but we know the cure, and the power resides within.

          Stay safe and well. Take care of each other. That is our destiny.

    See you down the trail.

AND SO IT BEGINS....

 Winter has come to the California central coast.

  Christmas season has come to the Cochrun home, the creche is on the mantle.

    Since the girls were young the tree comes soon after Thanksgiving and this year we were fortunate to get an early gift of rain.

   And we commence our dreams of a green Christmas,

   Back in Indiana a rainy, misty day was not always a source of joy. We value those things that are rare.

    We used to make a journey over the river and through the woods to the magical twinkle shop at Watts Christmas Tree Farm. Grand daughter Addie finds the magic at the Christmas shop at the Cambria Nursery

   We'll see more from here in the days ahead. In the meantime we watch the forecast and the promise of more rain-a seasonal blessing here in the Republic.

    These are storm clouds in which we delight. The clouds over Washington bring a storm of another sort. 

rousting the rogue

   Mandated by Congress, the White House was forced to release a report issued by 13 federal agencies and because it flies in the face of the bogus claims of the rogue President, they tried to bury it. 

    Once citizens sober up from the shopping and feasting binge they will face the chilling the facts that were released the day after Thanksgiving. The findings are directly at odds with Trump administrations program of environmental deregulation. 

     The American economy will also suffer, unless steps are taken quickly to deal with global climate change. The 16 hundred pages lay out the devastation that will come to human health, the environment and the economy. 

      I doubt that Donald Trump or any of his ardent supporters will take the time to read the report. As we have seen in the last two years they live in a world of lies and fantasy and vented anger. I am angry too because my grand children will live in a world made worse by the stupidity of Trump and his supporters. 

      I agree with Tusli Gabbard, the veteran and congresswoman from Hawaii who called him a "Saudi bitch," and with those in the intelligence and military community who called him a "traitor." From before the election he has functioned as a "Russian stooge." Now he is a killer of children yet unborn who will likely inherit a damaged world. I am also angry that his legion of angry followers have no trouble with him undertaking the unprecedented action of challenging the legitimacy of the federal judiciary and a robust free press.

       He is not just stupid, unfit, unqualified, he is increasingly dangerous. Every day he remains in office he threatens the future. 

    Now we'll watch the Fox News Channel propagandists

and his angry, no-mind-of-their-own cult of followers try to talk back to 13 Federal agencies who are trying to warn the world. In Trumpland their own opinions are more important than facts or science. The lies and empty promises of their malignant leader are all they need. And that's all they get, lies and empty blather from an unsound and evil man.

    Storm clouds indeed!

     See you down the trail.

CORRECTIONS

 night work in Morro Bay

resembling the freeway

a light in the darkness

   The moment I saw this photo by Jim Wilson of the New York Times, I wanted to share it. Christmas season has come to even Santa Rosa California where normal is a word without relevance this season. 

twilight hopes

    There was a time when people were sure dreams could become real, that visions were visited upon souls and that spirits could roam. It was in the gloaming, in the twilight, that narrowing distance between day and night, thought to be a time of magic. Hope and fear nestling together, dependent on the other.

after the prelude

     Who could expect a tech dependent culture, a society risen on the muscle of science and fed on commerce would find itself stumbling into a wilderness, shredding itself by means of an inner, bipolar war, voluntarily blinding itself by a refusal to see, ignoring truths and exercising meanness while celebrating venality.

in the time before

    Those of old could never know what would come with the morning, nor how might they survive the mysteries in the dark. How weakened would they be by the fear that built in the night.

who shall we be?

      Women and men who deserve our respect tell us we are divided and in a cultural war-rural against urban, those with higher educations and those without, fractured by economic class, riven by ideologies, splintering into enclaves, separated by expectations.

      Indeed, we are like those ancient hopes and fears, nestled together on the fulcrum. 

      We watch as an executive branch and federal establishment implodes and disintegrates, departments being dissembled, with no skilled hand on the tiller and scores of important positions unfilled. The legislative branch is locked in an insular world though in a free fall decomposition. 
     Integrity and decorum are abandoned. It is dangerous and foolish to ignore the lessons of 240 years.
      Perhaps you read the remarks of General Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA

      "If this is who we are or who we are becoming, I have wasted 40 years of my life. Until now it was not possible for me to conceive of an American President capable of such an outrageous assault on truth, a free press or the first amendment."

      It is the fair axiom of politics to ask, are we better than we were? Are we better off, are we a more united United States after a year of trump than we were at the end of Obama? Is anything better than it was?
       Here's a link to good and brief assessment of the trump year from Foreign Policy Magazine.

       Are we living into Shakespeare's Richard III lament-

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."

      Who shall we be when the sun returns to its fullness? Who shall emerge in the primaries of the spring and who will lead the challenge or defense in the campaigns of fall? Who will have the power to turn the votes-rural or urban, the educated or those who are not, those who carry tiki torches and spew or those who invite diversity? 

       Some hope for candidates of vision, compassion, integrity, pragmatism and strength to clean, correct, make right and restore. Others see no fault nor sins nor madness in the regime. We are divided. We enter this winter on the throes of fear, discord and anger. 
       The older I get the more I am convinced it was ever such. We can destroy or we can heal. I am of the camp that looks for light, a peace out of the chaos. Be alert. Watch with hope and live that way.

        See you down the trail.