i really don't think we thought this through ahead of time, reacting to an internet panic. yes, i see this as an internet virus more than a medical one. after all, what makes Americans? 1. Freedom of movement 2. Limited interference of government in public and private life 3. The formation of small groups 4. Eating out 5. The denial of death 6. A lack of fear 7. Individual identity take number 7. masks erase identity and make us all bandits. more than once i've been unable to recognize someone i know, even after talking. masks also make communication difficult, voices muffled, hearing impeded. and after all the talk of covid being so transmitable (now CDC, months later, says it's very difficult to pick the virus up from surfaces), couldn't it infect the eyes? i feel like we've all been in a form of Islamic purdah. as for the denial of death, this is the very foundation of the American psyche. i always think the most dangerous thing i can do is climb in my car. 50,000 Americans die on the highways every year! the line down of the middle of the road is no protection, especially if the trucker coming your way falls asleep, or you do. we live with death on the road every day, yet how little this impinges on me if i answer my cell phone. people die out of sight, in hospitals, immediately shunted off to funeral homes. and so i live most of the time with a lack of fear. foolish of me, i know. having been hit by a sedan in a crosswalk and thrown over the top of it, i no longer trust traffic signs to protect me. okay, that does contradict what i've said. i am afraid of cars making right turns at a stop signal, and i look both ways when crossing a one-way street. once in Berkeley i was hit by a bicyclist going the wrong way and landed on me back in the middle of a busy blvd. stupidly i stood up and walked away. eating out, forming small groups. i am actually very social. at least i like sitting in coffee shops and meeting friends. we hug, pat each other on the back, shake hands. we breath on each other as we converse, keeping the normal American distance, which is probably 2 feet. at 6 feet i might as well be alone. avoiding people doesn't come naturally and i really feel sorry for the kids learning to do so. and was this really necessary, since kids don't get covid 19, with a few exceptions? the biggest anti-American attributes of the situation: freedom of movement and lack of government interference in private life. commanded to stay home (which i still believe to be illegal), i lost my right to freedom of movement. and forced to wear masks, not meet friends, or go to church, i feel the basic rights of American life taken from me. even a European country like Sweden, where there are more rules, did not take this route. at this point i feel like i've been bamboozled.
i wonder how many people are feeling the like myself, as the lockdowns around the world continue? to be trapped in your own house must feel like death itself. no theaters, no bookstores, cafes, churches open, means we're afraid to breathe. even where i am, high in a mountain tower, isolated as always on the job, i feel anxious before my days off. i have watched a lot of youtube videos. adventurous travelers keep on trucking, where ever there's a crack in the system: snorkling off naples, moving to a new home in portugal, flying to the coast of mexico, taking precautions and accepting the risks. since i can't do any of those things while working, i feel the presence of the end being too close. the question is: how do i keep going while in prison? i remember george jackson in solitary confinement practiced yoga all day. it certainly helps to have a cause. i don't really have one. the worship of beauty, the magic of poetry and art seem irrelevant in this time. true, i know that's not true. many folks surviving watching movies, studying art online, visiting with folks in the backyard, yet i have always been haunted by the sense of the transitory... that's part of the problem. feeling nothing i do will survive or have meaning. the truth is any life is finite. as i looked up at the magnificent passing comet a couple of weeks ago i felt awe and at the same time very small. the irony is all of us made of stardust, the right hand from a different star than the left. i'll be recycled in water and air. any breath i have will be breathed by almost everyone on earth as long as humanity survives. how long that will be should be no concern of mine. yet the present crisis masking the real thing: global warming. the spread of the virus nothing compared to the melting ice-caps and rising seas. i keep wondering if the antarctic will crack in half, the whole earth wobbling, or meteors fall from the sky. to find the whole earth engulfed by an epidemic leaves me facing my own mortality. i think the best option not always clear.
i hate to see the older generation of forest service folks retire. they joined up from a certain idealism and love of the woods. they had favorite spots, they felt protective, it wasn't just a job. alas, the newer people simply see it as a job to perform, a salary to get, a ladder to climb. a good example is the washington people now in charge. in their last public proposal they urged the selling off of the public lands to the timber industry and mining interests. hard to blame them, since this is the general direction and attitude of the present administration. but do they really have to go with the flow? in the past resistance would have risen from within the service itself, those who didn't think of expediency and profit. true, not everything in the past ideal. clear-cutting in the sierra, for example. when i joined up, the mountains here had not been desecrated. the head honchos said, 'we'll leave rows of trees along the road to hide what we're doing.' alas, thousands of people fly across these mountains every day. the scabs not hidden. and often they won't grow back, the soil unable to hold the moisture. i remember one boss saying how great this program would be. yes, one of the yes-men who approved everything out of the head office. and i could find many examples of bad practices. still, as one forestry teacher at chico state said, ' the forest service divided into 1. those who care about the forest, 2. those clawing their way up, and 3. those who simply go with the flow for a job. unfortunately, the first group growing smaller. this reflects the change in the country. at first it was seen as god's creation, fully of mystery, to be preserved. luckily, teddy roosevelt jumped in and created public lands, even as much of it was being sold off to the railroads in a great scam, right-of ways never used. the forest service created to care for what was left. despite mis-steps, this did happen, along with national parks and monuments. and the country went along with it, enjoying the natural spaces. this lasted for a hundred years. what has changed? probably the growth of cities. citizens no longer need the visions of the wilderness to sustain the american myth. in the 1960's the preservationists created the sierra club, friends of the earth, and an environmental movement arose from the university of california, santa cruz. their influence did wonderful work. of course, now everybody blames them for blocking the greed of miners and loggers. they say the conditions of the forest lousy because of them, when the truth is in the reagan era budgets slashed. this leaves almost no people in the field whose job it is to further the health and growth of the forest. and this is my point, only lookouts go back to work with a love of the land, deeply appreciative of the beauty they enjoy. as the season has begun, they post photos of the first days at work. this is one reason i would like to see many more lookouts built and staffed. at least there would be someone watching the store. of course, this is a thorn in the side of those who see only with the bottom line. the concern for the public trust fadse into history. only those on towers see what is worth preserving.
i always find myself trying to correct a public error. there's no profit in it. in fact it makes me miserable when nothing happens. i keep expecting to create a life-changing blog, one shaking up the world, making it come to its senses. fat chance. crying in the wilderness, that's what it feels like. the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear! ok, enough weeping. i'll soon be gone to a better world, leaving this one behind. let's say it again: FIRE PREVENTION IS NO LONGER THE NAME OF THE GAME. and why is that? in 1962 when i started looking out for the forest service, plenty of patrols were out there checking on campfires and logging. lookouts dotted the landscape to give early warning. alas, most of the patrols disappeared and a huge number of lookouts were closed, especially the california system. the reason given always financial. we don't have the funds. lookouts too expensive, even with their staffers supplying their own vehicles and working for minimum wage, which i still am after 56 years and no benefits. "the upkeep, the maintenance, it's all too much!" other than a paint job and new appliances, my lookout has had nothing new in twenty years. "patrols have to take care of you!" i started taking out my garbage and bringing up my own drinking water so that didn't have to happen. what is really going on here? i've heard the forest service now spends half its budget on fire. and it used to be if a forest had big fires, the next year they would get more funds. now, if they have big fires, they get less the next year. this happened on plumas national forest the year after one of the worst disasters in fire history: the burning of paradise california. were we being punished? i don't think so. we were encouraged to have bigger and better conflagrations. then we would get huge amounts of money to fight a particular fire, without any increase in next year's budget. yes, money comes to big fires. people celebrate the firefighters: thank you, thank you. if the crews extinguish small fires nobody says boo. the organizations become heroes. opposed to the forest service in california, calfire, the state organization, has been flooded with money: new planes, helicopters, engines, cameras, on and on. they have benefited tremendously from the increase in homes and lives lost, from the immense growth in acreage. i have answered my own question. prevention keeps fires small. if the aim were to do so, THERE WOULD BE MANY MORE LOOKOUTS FOR EARLY WARNING. unfortunately, lookouts work too well. they have reported themselves out of job. expensive technology costing much more than tower maintenance feeds the ego. of course, no one in any organization would tell the truth, they might not even think it. when will legislatures and voters wise up? i suspect not any time soon.
I'm not the best person to organize this post. having been suicidal most of my adult life, i should be an expert in saying goodbyes. trouble is, i want to choose my own time and place - to jump off a cliff. i don't particularly like the idea of a virus suffocating me. still i am preparing, and i have a few recommendations. WRITE YOUR OWN OBITUARY even my best friends and family knew very little about me. and especially when familiar faces around town depart, i'm astounded by their stories. i decided to make a preemptive strike. why let others make up things, or deliver platitudes. why not tell them the good, the bad, and the ugly? at least you will be real to them. the more you reveal, the more unforgettable you will be. if you're afraid of being a character and pass as a normal citizen, the less your image will live on. here's my own example: https://smokysunsheaven.blogspot.com/2020/02/obituary.html
WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR PASSWORDS give them to family and friends. don't forget your facebook password so everybody can be notified. as for banks, be sure and give them to whoever you deam responsible. if you don't do this, it will play havoc with those who would like to help clean up your act. this is also a way of letting them know who you are (were). COLLECT ALL YOUR DOCUMENTS that's what i've been doing today, making sure everything on an external hard-drive. these have gotten incredibly cheap. make sure you get one with enough space. i have thousand of pictures, drawings, digital artworks, personal documents and records. i spend 40 years as a writer and 15 as a photographer/artist. as usual, if you don't have an advocate, all your precious creations will go in the garbage. recently i've seen this happen to half a dozen fine artists in town. CREATE A FEW BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS i have fifty books on amazon. anyone who has amazon prime can download them for free. i have failed to find a audience, so this may have been a futile endeavor. i encourage you to try. a least write your life story for your children. forever after they will be full of questions that can never be answered. i've thought of dozens of questions for my mother. alas, those can never be cleared up. she did make four and a hours on tape about my childhood, plus several other manuscripts. they make feel i have an identity. KEEP YOURSELF HEALTHY i know this seems odd. my feeling is: the healthier you are when you die, the better you will feel about letting go. for example, i've doing everything to boost my immune system, faced with this crude and stupid virus. here's a list: sleep exercise reduce stress (avoid the news if possible) vitamin C zinc probiotics vitamin A garlic black elderberry l-phenylalanine quercetin citrus bioflavonoids vitamin D3 echinacea beta glucan unlike many people, i'm an absolute believer in using supplements with a shotgun. true, my doctor once said, "you have very expensive pee." i would rather have that than missing the one small item my body absolutely needs. best of luck to you.
Wayne finally discovered the key to his life, and he wasn’t exactly happy with it. The answer should have been obvious. His family moved 32 times by the time he graduated high school. Restless came naturally to him, as did impatience. He could get annoyed over the slightest things. And being upset, he could make snap decisions, travel about the world looking for romance and material as a poet. This last did drive him for many years. In the 60’s to New York, a Greek island, Berlin, Oxford, and eventually to Asia: India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand. Luckily, his addictions didn’t include drugs. Brief experiences with magic mushrooms and pot were enough. He did have to worry about alcohol and around age fifty fell off the wagon for a couple years. Fortunately, the desire to live overcame it. On the other hand, a fear of suicide and a desire for it arose too often, part of the impatience pattern, aroused on cliffs and bridges. In the end he made a list of all the things he wouldn’t have to do when dead. Here’s a sample. Tying my shoes Wearing a hat Washing my clothes Taking a shower Cooking breakfast Starting my car Driving to coffee My heart My kidneys My teeth My bank account Rent Catching a bus Global warming Aging And so on, for six pages! So even simple things like making his bed could become a chore. For better or worse, his mother taught him how to tie his shoes and encouraged him to be a great man. For starters, she thought he might be genius engineer. Even quite young, he took things like hoses and telephone boxes apart. He did try engineering his first year in college, but couldn’t cut the mechanical drawing. In high school he’d been sports editor on the paper. Alas, he became bored with journalism and turned to his first love, literature. Luckily, he found a job made romantic by Beat poets, by whom at seventeen in San Francisco he was surrounded by. Wandering in and out of the Co-existence Bagel Shop and Mike’s Place, he often walked the city where his father stationed as a chaplain on The Presidio. A very young Allen Ginsburg read from Kaddish in a UC Berkeley writing class. He studied with Josephine Miles who encouraged him. A reading by all the Beats at Columbus Hall in North Beach rather bizarre. The audience occupied the ground floor, while the poets read from a balcony, a odd group of bedraggled angels. Only in the recent days, did Wayne realize how this set the tone for his life. Yes, he did have a facebook page called The Youngest Beatnik. So even a couple years ago he did take this as his public role. True, he did get sidetracked by theater. Again, his mother’s influence. She acted in small productions and suggested he write for it, since there were so few great playwrights. Now, he always competed with his father’s sermons, basically saying , “Look at me!” And for many years he had he urge to stand up in the middle of a forum or lecture, “Hey, I’m the great one here.” He did return to New York for acting classes at The New School, a play done off-off broadway, GRANDMA, later plays done in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Chico. Alas, he didn’t have the self-promotion gene. And his mother (again) said he played so much alone as a kid she never thought he’d have any friends. His adventures in drama an attempt of join with he world. It never worked the way it needed too. Eventually, he turned to photography and sent 15 years taking pictures of landscapes, parades, theater productions, and dancers. He felt bereft when the photographing wore off. The best he could do was travel - Australia and Mexico twice - and take photos to post on Facebook. The travels did help, as they had in the past, to give him a sense of seven-league boots, something new every day. That said, after seven years in Santa Cruz, he floated for five years - New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Tokyo - and he realized he needed a community. That lead to forty years in Chico, California, a logical choice since grandfather and grandmother were married here. His earliest memories are from Chico, he spent a year here as a three year old, when his father worked for the USO during WWII. He remembered, for example, cutting off his younger sister’s hair. Her curls were getting too much attention! And he was fit to be tied when his sister was born, deposing him from parental regard. Evidently, by hear-say, he became a little devil. Though he regarded childhood highly, evidently his own had kinks. He berated himself for never overcoming childish responses. He sends good wishes from beyond the grave. In truth a few good friends are a treasure. The last time his mother visited Chico she was surprised he had any. She often controlled her children through sarcasm, so along with the positive comments she mixed some rather dangerous emotional cocktails. His father existed in the background with a preference for his sister. He could recall very few instances with is father alone. That said, they provided for his upbringing, which probably not the worst. He first visited a lookout at age 11, impressed by the view and the lookout’s amateur radio. It stuck in his romantically inclined mind. He first applied at 17, and at 22 fell into one called Bunker Hill. The die was set. Never wanting children or a house, his family in debt their whole life, he made the choice for having most of his time for himself, Coast Guard boot camp the worst experience he ever had. At least he didn’t end dead in Vietnam. He ended his life amazed at his luck. Three psychics said the had so much responsibility in past lives, he’d be free to play in this one. Creative projects, though always time limited, certainly gave him the feeling this prognostication true. True, the memories and adventures of the past did make for a painful nostalgia, and he missed those times. He couldn’t believe they could be matched, no matter how he tried, and he wrote a note for himself, “Don’t outlive your life.” In the end he felt he had. Turning 80 an unexpected transition. He never expected to live so long and wondered how it had happened.
Coming back to California after two and a half months in Mexico, i keep wondering what makes Americans so different! What makes me what i am? Compared to any other country the US has an enormous amount of variety in people. How can it all hold together despite eras of tremendous conflict? How can i not go completely nuts making so many changes, living in different cities, different countries. Yes, sometimes i do feel crazy. I’m going to a history of American music. I realized in mexico our music is everywhere, either in its original form or transmuted through another language. It has a variety and sprightliness which keeps the whole world dancing to our tune. And out of that Jazz obviously our national music. Not because everybody everywhere listens to it. Pop music much more the call. However listening to a history of jazz and how it works, i see it reflects all our lives. Basically, there’s a ground structure over which the tune is improvised. And it may be polyphonic, several tunes playing against each other. This is how we learn to live. Even the most stable of occupations demands it. New problems arise and we have to roll with the punches. We could say “life is an emergency room.” Everybody in a hospital faced with a crisis every day, some more intense than others. As a firelookout, i have to keep myself alert as the days roll on. Suddenly there’s a smoke and all hell breaks loose. I keep wondering why college students required to take history courses, politics, and so on. There’s two years worth which they pay through the nose for. I mean, thousands of dollars to learn about the culture! Why not study a trade for much less and get on with it. No, the students must learn to improvise on a whole range of topics. And when they ultimately leave the classroom, they have to flounder for ten years, until they come up with a way to earn a living and pay back their loans, which may mean a job they hate. Why do kids get thrown out of the house at twenty? Sink or swim, that’s the American way. It’s a free fall society. If the economy goes south, everybody’s in trouble. Many people end up sleeping under park benches and bridges. Here’s where the structure, the ground over which the tunes normally played disrupted and the players have to accommodate to the new conditions. Those who improvise the best come out eventually on top. Even though i change places a lot, i manage to keep my feet on the ground. In large part that’s a matter of luck.
