June's
Happening...

Remember that photo back in April of me straddling a rail belonging to the old interurban rail system?

They are now fast at work, dismantling those pieces of history, so Jay & I once again (are we boring?) headed down to see the happenings, took photos and later realized that one of the old street bricks under the ripped up pavement found its way to our house...

The history of local transit waxing and waning is interesting- click here for some info and scroll down to the 1928 entry...

Will get a page of pictures posted that you can link to by clicking my newest straddle picture tomorrow- adios, amigos! Yes! Click on my picture for 2 pages of a railroad's passing.

"Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man by necessity uncertain."- Erich Fromm

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT KAPELA!!!

Pat has been quite secretive about her birthday over the years... but word has it that the big day is June 3rd.

Deb Appelman, Kent Brown and I worked as a foursome in Seattle for several months in the year 2000. We did good work and had a good time together. Pat retired last year but found time in her schedule to make it to a surprise luncheon meeting earlier this year with Carol, Deb, Kent and I- along with our new governor. It is always great to see Pat and enjoy her company.

Best wishes for a profitable year Pat...

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. - H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

What if the interests of the self were expanded to ... a God's eye view of the human scene ... accepting failure as being as natural an occurrence as success in the stupendous human drama... as little cause for worry and concern as having to play the role of a loser
in a summer theater performance.- Huston Smith

As the stories of prisoner abuse in Iraq wound down, I was struck by the fact that they two main "fall guys" were women- surprising given how few, even today, are in the military. Despite men also being in the photos that were aired, it was the woman who paid the biggest price. Despite all of the men in charge, it was a higher level woman who had complained about some military practices who was branded.

Now, as rampant "Christian" intolerance and abuse is exposed at the Air Force Academy, it is the woman who spoke out who again pays the price...

Let this be a lesson to women everywhere who wish to compete with men on equal footing: the game is not played fairly- no big news there. The military is a bastion of manliness and has never been seen as soft or kind, but we had been left with at least a teeny bit of hope that our country's agents of war were guided by truth, justice and the American way. So much for truth or justice. The American way? That is morphing as I write, being re-defined by people who claim to worhip God and will kill you to prove that they are right- about everything. Right being the operative word.

"The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing."- William James

Jay regularly donates money to Habitat for Humanity and so we get their magazine in the mail. It is a surprisingly interesting read.

The magazine, Habitat World, has had a series of three articles by an American woman, a Habitat staff member, writing about the experiences of herself and her husband in South Africa. They went there to develop land for researching sustainable farming, moving into the same substandard housing as the poor working families in the area. "The weather became our constant source of worry as the rains fell and continued to fall throughout the summer rainy season... Day after day we would have to clear up the mess left by the rains... No child deserves to be raised in a shack. No child should have to... sleep in beds soaked by a leaking roof. No father should have to lie awake at night wondering if his home will be washed away from beneath him. No mother should have to walk for mile after mile to collect water to feed and wash her children. It is not acceptable!... The things we take for granted must never cloud our understanding of the reality of substandard housing."

Another article talks about a woman in Knoxville, Tennessee whose family will be moving into Habitat's 200,000 home. She had grown up in the projects, got married at 16, had kids, got divorced at 28 and moved back in with her mother. She then met a wonderful man from the Ivory Coast- they have been married 10years, with three kids of their own. They lived with her mom initially so that they could pay off debts, moved out on their own, but again could not manage their money and ended up in a Salvation Army shelter, and later found herself back in the projects. Then she found Habitat and says that it has changed their lives. Not only are they getting a home but they have been given the support and information they need to be successful there. To qualify for the Habitat home they have attended classes for the last year to learn about budgeting, saving, how to plant a yard and how to handle minor maintenance issues. Her husband works two jobs, with only Sunday off and she works full time as a receptionist and takes care of their six children. "Neither of us is afraid of hard work; we just needed a bit of help planning and managing our money and time. Without Habitat, I'm not sure we'd have ever gotten there."

Yes, a surprisingly interesting magazine...

Almost anything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.- Mohandas Gandhi

One day at work I was standing outside the lunch room, in the hallway, and Mary was standing there too. Julie was coming out of the room, having done something with one of her plants. She remarked about how pitiful it had been doing because they do better in smaller pots, they don't like big pots. Oh yes, I knew about that, how these house plants that originally came from the wild do better when put in small pots- in fact they often simply will not grow in large pots. I told her that it was something I puzzled about because, well, how could this be when they originally came from the biggest pot of all- the earth, and thrived there. Mary was smiling in a chuckling sort of way. I never thought of that! Julie said, giving me a weird look. Gawd!! I explained, my mind is always full of such things... Mary continued to chuckle.

I cannot keep up with reading... People at work have books to share and I have to decline- the line is long waiting for my reading attention. Books stacked on the coffee table, next to our bed, in my bookcase- waiting. We went to the local used bookstore yesterday. I usually make it out unscathed, but not yesterday. Like sirens, three books called out to me in such a way that I could not ignore them lest I be beset by fear of a lost opportunity- my mind is not only full, but dramatic too. For the tidy sum of only $16, I secured for posterity signed copies of three books that up until that moment I had no idea I was looking for! So now I have autographed copies of: "Booming and Panicking on Puget Sound" by George H. Bacon, published by the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in 1970 but originally written in 1933 for a Harper's magazine "Life in America" contest- rejected as being too regional in interest; Sophie Tucker's autobiography printed in 1945 with cover jacket endorsements by Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, and Walter Winchell; and "At the Forest's Edge" a memoir by David Tirrell Hellyer, the physician naturalist who created Northwest Trek wildlife sanctuary.

I have plenty of reading to do, yes, but life is busy and there are also plenty of other things to do, in addition to figuring out the puzzles of life- like the potted plant thing. Life is consumed by working for a living, and exercising, laughing, cooking, piddling around, worrying about my children, driving, gardening, watching, fixing things, writing on web pages, regret for the past and anxiety about the future, shopping, talking, and, yes, reading. All of these things fill my life, and being present with Jay wraps around all of these and me.

Jay is a voracious reader and seeker of knowledge. He has told me, perhaps more than once, that I do not need to read every word- yeah, right. Jay brings home books and magazines galore from the library every week, and I fumble with them, searching for bits and pieces of the puzzle. And so we come to the subject of this entry- a lovely and interesting poem found in The New Yorker this weekend. Click on the first picture in this section- the animated gal up on the left- to read it. All the other pictures here link to sites about the poet, Sharon Olds. She is fascinated with life and the physical body, and writes about some of the last times she spent with her mother in this poem.

I've spent my life searching for where I belonged, the perfect place in which to feel whole- an optimal fit, an unbroken tie. It's weird to suppose that this longing began with the memory of my mother's body, with this soft helpless shape curled on the bed beside me. Is it possible that the longing that haunts us throughout our lives, and drives us to seek what we seem to be missing, should begin so simply? That just as the soul thrown into creation struggles to find its way back to God, a child struggles to find its way home, in parallel movements of spirit and flesh? Plato called this anamnesis- the effort of the soul to remember its source after being thrust into a body- but surely the child mirrors the soul and hungers for a kind of perfection. I think of the golden ball in the fairy tale, lost by the boy who strives to retrieve it- the radiant symbol of past connection hidden just outside his reach, and wonder where this loss begins.- Mark Matousek in "The Boy He Left Behind"

Ok, this idea is stolen from The New Yorker- from a cartoon by Lewis that I could not find on the net, so I pieced together this version of his Cat Kung Fu cartoon...

Speaking of reading...

I finally finished a book that I had been reading for some time in bits and pieces, fits and starts. It is called The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons- Vol 1, by Napoleon Hill, first published in 1928. Volume 1 is approximately one million pages long so I am going to wait a bit before tackling Volume 2. Despite this, it is actually a very interesting read.

Jay was familiar with Mr. Hill's best seller, "Think and Grow Rich", and bought these two volumes, which had been out of print for a while, when they were reprinted. It's interesting to see that his ideas for personal development, published so long ago, seem to be the basis for current personal development books and gurus too. Napoleon Hill developed his ideas and philosophy with the help of information gleaned from interviewing the big business and industry tycoons of his era. He focused on positive thinking, planning and honesty, but also throws in interesting ideas about human brains being broadcasting and receiving sets for thought frequencies- thus the importance of honesty and positive thinking. This particular idea of Mr. Hill's is not one that is focused on by Jay or most other people more rational than myself.

I hold it true that thoughts are things;
They're endowed with bodies and breath and wings;
And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results or ill.
That which we call our secret thought
Speeds forth to earth's remotest spot,
Leaving its blessing or its woes,
Like tracks behind it as it goes.
We build our future, thought by thought,
For good or ill, yet know it not,
Yet so the universe was wrought.
Thought is another name for fate:
Choose, then, thy destiny and wait,
For love brings love and hate brings hate

"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."- Napoleon Hill

A couple of interesting pictures...
Click on either or both of them for evil, liberal, badness...

"Compassion is ... a spirituality and a way of living and walking through life. It is the way we treat all there is in life, ourselves, our bodies, our imaginations and dreams, our neighbors, our enemies.... Compassion is a spirituality as if creation mattered. It is treating all creation as holy and as divine..., which is what it is."- Matthew Fox

We finally made it to see the movie "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". I ran across something about the movie months ago and waited for it to come to a local venue, but when we went to see it in Bellingham a month or so ago it was sold out. Then, viola, it appeared again at our local Mount Vernon historic Lincoln Theatre- what luck!

The picture at right links to a site about the movie... We liked it very much. Mark Bittner is filmed talking about and taking care of the wild parrots in San Francisco- how that came about, what he has learned about them, about animals and about himself. He relays an interesting odyssey.

Mark names the birds and comes to know them and their habits and personalities. At first it seems like he is anthropomorphizing, attributing human emotions and feelings to the birds, but as he talked it began to seem clear that he was not. He described taking the birds into his home when they were sick and releasing them when/if they got well. He said he regretted not having said good-bye to one bird who became so debilitated he had to feed her with a syringe. Because he knew the birds love the warmth of the sun, he would carry her outdoors and show her the flowers, making sure to take her over to the fuschia she loved so much. One evening he picked her up to put her on the couch and said he felt love and gratitude flow to him from the bird- he noted it but did not know what to make of it. Later, when he went to sleep, he put her on the floor and felt a wave of emotions again from the bird, I think it was resignation and regret or something else, and again did not know what to make of it. He woke the next morning to find her dead near the heater and now so much wished he had held her that night so that she would not have died alone.

Mark rejects the concept of anthropomorphizing, feeling that idea negates our part in this world, keeping us separate and different, and allowing us to deny the feelings of animals and excuse all name of things we do to them, and to each other. I recommend this movie- the filming is nicely done and the message is one that cannot hurt, and might help heal, our world.

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.- Chief Seattle

INTOLERANCE

If you must give expression to prejudice and hatred and intolerance, do not speak it, but write it; write it in the sand, near the water's edge.

When the dawn of Intelligence shall spread over the eastern horizon of human progress, and Ignorance and Superstition shall have left their last footprints on the sands of time, it will be recorded in the last chapter of the book of man's crimes that his most grievous sin was that of Intolerance.

The bitterest intolerance grows out of religious, racial and economic prejudices and differences of opinion. How long, O God, until we poor mortals will understand the folly of trying to destroy one another because we are of different religious beliefs and racial tendencies?

Our allotted time on this earth is but a fleeting moment. Like a candle, we are lighted, shine for a moment, and flicker out...

Remember, as you read this article, that sowing the seed of INTOLERANCE is the sole and exclusive business of some men. All wars and all strikes and all other forms of human suffering bring profit to SOME. If this were not true there would be no wars or strikes or other similar forms of hostility.- written by Napoleon Hill, 1928

Joke, courtesy of Jay:

Did you know 97% of Fords ever made are still on the road?
Really?
Yeah, and the other 3% made it home.

My family liked GM vehicles- although my dad did have a Ford Ranchero he cherished for quite a while... I'm thinking it was a 1959, but my memory can be faulty.

I remember FORDs being referred to as "Fix or Repair Daily", I guess now they could be "Found On Road Dead".

Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.- Lou Erickson

Not to be outdone, Grappler submits a joke too:


Redneck Martha Stewart

A woman walks into the downtown welfare office, trailed by 15 kids...

"WOW," the social worker exclaims,"are they ALL YOURS???"

"Yep they are all mine," the flustered momma sighs, having heard that question a thousand times before. She says, "Sit down Leroy."

All the children rush to find seats.

"Well," says the social worker, "then you must be here to sign up. I'll need all your children's names."

"This one's my oldest - he is Leroy."

"OK, and who's next?"

"Well, this one he is Leroy, also."

The social worker raises an eyebrow but continues. One by one, through the oldest four, all boys, all named Leroy. Then she is introduced to the eldest girl, named Leighroy!

"All right," says the caseworker. "I'm seeing a pattern here. Are they ALL named Leroy?"

Their Momma replied, "Well, yes-it makes it easier. When it is time to get them out of bed and ready for school, I yell, 'Leroy!' An' when it's time for dinner, I just yell 'Leroy!' an' they all comes arunnin.' An' if I need to stop the kid who's running into the street, I just yell 'Leroy' and all of them stop. It's the smartest idea I ever had, namin' them all Leroy."

The social worker thinks this over for a bit, then wrinkles her forehead and says tentatively, "But what if you just want ONE kid to come, and not the whole bunch?"

"I call them by their last names."


I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself. How then would you have me judge the deeds of others?- Maurice Maeterlinck

Jay was pointing out to me the deja vu quality of a bunch of the movies this summer: Bewitched, The Dukes of Hazard, The Honeymooners, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Herbie, The Longest Yard, War of the Worlds, Land of the Dead and Batman.

I told Jay that I had also heard about another movie that sounded better than all of them- The Dukes of Herbie. It is a heart-warming tale about a couple of cold hearted, cool dudes who pick on a little VW bug, often leaving him in a cloud of dust as they tear off in their old but fast car. Alas, later, as they tear around the countryside like the hoodlums that they are, they find themselves sliding off the gravel road and hanging from a small, leafless branch in the middle of nowhere.

Have no fear! A little "beep, beep" is heard and this time they are glad to see the object of their earlier scorn peering at them from the top edge of the cliff. Herbie, the VW bug, works his magic and saves their lives- and kind of snickers as their now beat up car rolls down into the ravine. But the young fellows are happy to be alive, now recognizing the evil of their past ways. The movie fades out with the now reformed hoodlums kissing Herbie's dash and singing a Karen Carpenter song as they ride with Herbie, on down the road...

I do like this line from the Dukes of Hazard trailer: "I think something bounced up into my undercarriage."

Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've done a permanent job.- Erwin T. Randall

"THE NIGGER WAS FOUND ON TOP"- headline of the Meridian Star, August 5, 1964.

I heard Ben Chaney talking on NPR this morning about his brother, James Earl Chaney, who was killed in 1964 when he himself was 12. He was supposed to go with his brother that fateful day to help United States citizens whose skin was black register to vote. His mother insisted he go to Sunday school instead. Now, over forty years later, Edgar Ray Killen has finally been sentenced for killing James Earl Chaney and two young white men. Voter registration had been pursued for some time by blacks and came to fruition when young whites joined in the cause. During the search for James Earl Chaney and his two white companions the bodies of 19 young black men were found- none were of interest, presumably because none were accompanied by whites... Mr. Killen used his Bible to preach hatred, James Earl Chaney worked for freedom and opportunity for all- his brother still does. Clicking the picture above will take you to the James Earl Chaney Foundation site.

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965), Speech in Detroit, 7 Oct. 1952

At the top of this page is a early 1900s photo of the Skagit County Courthouse. The building is still here in downtown Mount Vernon, but it has seen some changes.

As you can see from the photo at left, taken 6/26/05, they chopped off the third story sometime last century. The building's function was superceded by a new courthouse in the 1940s; the remaining old courthouse is now called the Matheson Building. The street next to the old courthouse has been turned into a courtyard- the shops are mostly restaurants, antique stores and law offices.

If you look closely at the photo above, left, you can see someone sitting on the steps of the side entrance... Yes, at the top, right, you can see it is Jay waiting for Cindy and at bottom, right, is the doorway without Jay.

Cindy and Jay, documenting history, one photograph at a time...

"Turning one hundred was the worst birthday of my life. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Turning 101 was not so bad. Once you're past that century mark, it's just not as shocking."- Annie Elizabeth Delany (1891 - 1995)

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