Christopher Hooton is a Senior Reporter for Independent.co.uk
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A Mewling Lament
All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?
Fort Logan National Cemetary
Situated in Denver, Colorado
There are some 73,000 plus headstones are here, arraigned row upon row in several sections. Meandering roads lead you from one section to the next, and there are several kiosks for memorial services. Some days all the kiosks are in use throughout the day.
My parents headstone is one of the 73,000 headstones. My fathers inscription is on the front side of the stone, my mother is inscribed on the back.
The last Memorial Day I visited the grave, grief had run its course, and I stood there, empty. A small group of aged Viet-Nam veterans wended itself through the cemetery, going unerringly to the resting spot of fallen comrades, and standing each one for a few minutes with heads bowed before moving on.
The futility of it all fell on me. The world is a graveyard of spent lives. We spout. We grow in fertile ground, or we barely thrive in the meanest of soil. We wither. We die. And in one generation we are forgotten.
It is good to stand in the place of the dead when we are young. However, it is a bitter goodness. I am a long way from Fort Logan National Cemetery now. Others will need to stand silently before that headstone now, silently bowing their head before moving on to the next one. And so the sun rises, and the sun sets in my little corner of the universe. Day follows day, and year follows year. And my bones too will slowly crumble as the æons slowly grind by, forgotten and unheralded.
Yet I have hope. Curious, no?
Tuesday Seven and a Half
Dawn. Clamber out of my new hospital style bed. I still awake groggy and stupid, but it is a pain free groggy and stupid. Good, I think. The bed is working.
Snooks rose before me, so coffee maker is sounding like an asthmatic, wheezing and gurgling. No coffee yet. So stagger down to studio, open blinds for stupid bird, flip on local channel to see if anything new happened overnight in Waco. Nope. Turned off TV, which pisses off the bird. Kippur needs noise like I need coffee, but I need silence.
What day is this. Lessee. Monday? Tuesday? Must be Tuesday because Snookums went to the grocery store yesterday. The week is getting away from me already.
The kitchen erupts in stomping, thumping and barking. Snooks must be getting ready to go outside with the dogs for a few minutes of throw the ball. But first she comes in with coffee for me, and birdseed for Kippur. Good. Rusty needs coffee. Then off she goes with the dogs. They all have to go thru the doors at the same time. Each doorway is cause for a wrestling match, first dog though wins.
*sip*
Waco PD is towing off the bikes from the parking lot. About 200 of them. Then the cars and pickups go later in the day. Not everyone is in jail, dead or in the hospital. Don’t know why they just can’t take their car there. But then, it causes all them bikers more grief as they got to get their vehicle from the pound. I bet their will be hefty towing and storage fees. Towing is one aspect of city greed that pisses me off. Towing and impound doesn’t hurt the wealthy … just the poor working stiff …
*sip*
Gotta call the AC man. It started limping last fall, but I decided to let it go the winter without repairs to stretch out the cash flow. I don’t have to dip into my reserves to pay for it that way. But hot weather will soon be here, and I suspect there will be a six or seven day lag right now. But first I’ll pressure wash the condenser and evaporator coils in preparation. Damn. More work this week.
*sip*
[refill]
Got the plants potted … started training the tomato already, now today need to pick up and put away the gardening tools … ‘cept for the rake. I discovered that the fireflies put their eggs on the fallen leaves from the previous year, so I quit raking the leaves. This year I got a bountiful crop of fireflies outside my window. Just love sitting out on the deck at night at the glooming, and watch them soar higher and higher in their love dance.
*sip!*
Well, I am not going to make ten, this morning … just too cotton headed.
Good morning!
My Gawd! What happened to me??
My god, what happened to me?! I sure don’t look like this now.
I don’t have any old pictures of me, so I had to go online to find one. I had just finished my enlistment in the Army, Haight Ashbury was a happening, the fall of Saigon was yet to be. A brief four line walk-on on a low budget but well known movie, and a very quick retreat from Hollywood.
Hollywood was no place for a country rube.
Morning, coffee, Arbatel, and lazy gardening.
Whosoever would know Secrets, let him know how to keep secret things secretly; and to reveal those things that are to be revealed, and to seal those things which are to be sealed: and not to give holy things to dogs, nor cast pearls before swine. Observe this Law, and the eyes of thy understanding shall be opened, to understand secret things; and thou shalt have whatsoever thy minde desireth to be divinely revealed unto thee. Thou shalt have also the Angels and Spirits of God prompt and ready in their nature to minister unto thee, as much as any humane minde can desire.
Shabbat dawns a mild but humid 70° this morning. I arose before Snookums so it is my job to make the coffee. In this house, it consists of hitting the brew button because Snooks makes it up ahead of time. The coffee pot seems to wheeze and gurgle forever, sounding like an old man having an asthma attack, but eventually, it delivers up the thick black brew that I crave.
I have been reading a translation of an old mystical book; Arbatel De magia veterum (Arbatel: Of the Magic of the Ancients) that first appeared in 1575. It was written to be read as aphorisms to an illiterate populace, and used the gospels extensively, but I still do not recommend the book to those without a strong grounding in scripture. It is a deceptive extra-biblical treatise.
But I do find the early methods of teaching scripture a refreshing departure from todays method. One could just sit back and listen to the expositor and not fact-check every word with every translation ever written. I am not so convinced that the wisdom produced by today’s scholars match the wisdom of the ancient sages when it comes to spiritual matters.
Today is my cooking day, and I have no idea of what we will have. Pecan waffles sound good, but then so does eggs, ersatz bacon and hash browns. But we haven’t had pancakes in awhile, so maybe ….
I still have several planters that I need to fill and repot. Some of my plants are still in the shipping pots. My lone tomato plant is growing like a weed in its new pot, and the plants I did get into the planters are growing twice as fast as the ones I have yet to do. Still, it is Shabbat, and one must cease from their labors, so I apologize to the unspotted plants for being a slacker, but inform them they will have to wait ‘til Sunday.
And later today the long schlep to the synagogue in the next county. I really hope to find a congregation a bit closer to home, some day. But I sure do like the late afternoon services at this one. I can have an unhurried breakfast and awakening, time to ruminate, and more time to come up with a good excuse for not attending …
Good morning!
OK. Just this once …
Humans have become so obsessed with portable devices and overwhelmed by content that we now have attention spans shorter than that of the previously jokingly juxtaposed goldfish.Joanne Carson. A true heroine to me
Joanne Carson. A true heroine to me
Just read that Joanne Carson died. She was notable as Johnny Carson’s ex-wife, but to me one winter night in Colorado as I lay on the floor trying to calm my two year old Dalmatian, Roscoe, during grand mal seizures.
The internet was a new thing back then, but a search for treatment landed me on a small bulletin board of women who also had dogs with canine epilepsy. Joanne had written the book on the treatment of canine epilepsy. I was panic stricken with Roscoe’s seizures and had received almost no help from local vets.
They put me in touch with Joanne, who downloaded a voluminous treatment regimen that she had worked out with her own medical doctor that included keeping a large amount of liquid valium on hand to be given to Roscoe with a catheter, and a phone number to call her. She promised would personally take my call and walk me through inserting the catheter and administering the valium.
I went to the vet with the sheets. At first, he did not want to give me the medicine, but after calling his professor at the University he graduated from, wrote out the prescription. It also sent the pharmacist into overload, because he did not know it was for a dog instead of a human and was taken aback by the dosage. It likely would have killed a human.
One bitter winters night Roscoe went into grand mal seizures again, and also began the ragged breathing that usually signifies the death rattle is near. I frantically retrieved the Valium, syringe and catheter, and called her. True to her word, she walked me through it all, and waited patiently on the phone until Roscoe began breathing normally again.
Working with the vet, we got Roscoe medicated to the point that the seizures were not so frightening, and though I kept the Valium at the ready, I never had to use it again. Roscoe live with us another eleven years before passing. I still miss him.
And I mourn the passing of Joanne, who also comforted another dying acquaintance, Truman Capote, that I chronicled on earlier.
Epicurean Mother’s Day
Mothers Day.
I sit and ponder the meaning. If my mother were still alive, it would make sense to have a special day for her. However, a special day for mothers that have passed seems a bit odd. I mourn her passing on her birthday. I mourn her passing on the day she passed. Hardly a day goes by but what a thought of her passes through my mind and I grieve.
For the present, though, I toast mothers that be. I am not a total Grinch. You had a child once. Mazel Tov! Still, it also seems a bit odd to me to celebrate a woman’s ability to become pregnant. At least in the secular world we live in today. Women become gravid when they want to, and they become gravid when they don’t want to, and in a few unusual cases, have even become with child while in a persistent coma.
The sages tell me that getting pregnant is one of the few things in life that both God and (wo)man cooperate in to create a soul. Yeah. I can live with that idea. And at some point that soul leaves its mother and father, and join with another souls to create yet another soul, and so on.
I would like to believe that I would meet my mother again in some new sphere, and even speak hopefully of such a time. Nevertheless, whether I will or whether I won’t really won’t matter. NFFNSNC as it is written on epicurean tombstones. Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo in Latin. “I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care” is one translation that I like.
I can do nothing to change that. I will not know until the breath of life flees the body. So, like a fool, I hope for an afterlife, where I will once again see my mother and my father. I hope that like they, I have an incorruptible soul. However, there is little in nature tells me that is so.
… tock …
Today was one of those days. I have taken to sleeping in a reclining chair to breathe properly. Congestive heart failure now dogs my steps and steals my joy in simple tasks. I broke down today and ordered a hospital type bed so that I can sleep upright at night. Now we must to figure out how to arrange things.
I have always felt that twin beds contribute to divorce, and I have grown so fond of Snookums over the years that I just don’t want to give her up. Even when the problem of individual comfort came up and twin beds were ordered, we pushed them together where we can listen to each other breathe at night. I’ll do the same with the hospital bed, though it is going to cause my white cur some grief. Her spot was the crack between the two beds.
It should also be amusing to watch two gimpy oldsters trundling the five packages the bed will come in into the house, and the comedy assembling everything. I’ll swap my little studio day bed with the existing bedroom twin, move Snooks bed into that spot, and assemble the hospital bed in her old spot.
But I wonder if in my addled old age if I don’t wander into the walk-in closet to pee …
I am ditching shul today, I am just too sore and grumpy to enjoy the services and the long drive. But then, I have long wanted to belong to a group where I wasn’t so driven to be there, one that I could just decide some mornings to just stay home and enjoy the Shabbat alone. I still feel a twinge of irresponsibility for missing the assembly, though.
We have lots of rain, which has turned the sere Texas landscape into a green garden of flowers and vines. I am always amazed at this rugged lands ability to survive. We had four continuous years of severe drought, so the rains are a hugely welcome happening. The land springs back just like nothing had happened to it.
So goes the days here in my rustic haven in rural Texas. The sun rises, the sun sets. Shabbat arrives, Shabbat leaves. Another three or four hundred words chronical the passage of time. The coffee pot is drained, and prepared for the morrow. Snookums retires to her studio to catch up on her days activities, and I to mine to chronicle them. In four hours the Shabbat ends with the dousing of the Havdalah candles, and the first of the week returns and so does our labors.
Shabbat Shalom!
A diversion
This started out as a comment on a fellow bloggers home page, but took a bunny trail that I think I will post on mine instead. To those of you reading this on my WordPress page, substitute WordPress® for blogster®, though I don’t seem to get into many flame wars on WordPress.
I have two nom-de-plumes in addition to my real name, and a few other identities that I use on infrequent occasions to muddy my tracks.
However, I am on blogster under just one. Yeah, Rusty is a pseudonym and nom-de-plume to distract the fine people here and on a few other sites from firebombing my house. Some people confuse the internet for the real world and I can be very crappy when I really put my mind to it.
Rusty Armor has been around for almost 30 years now after CompuServe® assigned me that username in 1986, and I also think of him as a real person. Snookums is always getting snail mail and telephone calls for Rusty, so she thinks of herself as Mrs. Armor as well.
Frankly, I really do not live and breathe blogster. It is a diversion. I can rile someone, and then walk away while they are still fuming at me, and blithely pass their pages by until they cool off. Usually I forget that I was even offensive to them and I am a little shocked when I get a cool reception from them when I stop by later.
But other than accidently clicking on a link from my tablet to blogster, I am always Rusty Armor to all, or Gus writing under Rusty Armor to a few.
One caution to all, however. If you change your name, you become a new person to me and your history with me starts then. I do not connect you with your old ID and your old posts. It is sometimes a little embarrassing, but such are the traits of a narcissist. The whole world is a stage, and the character that stands on it is the one I remember, not the fool actor who portrays him.
They don’t make Jews like Jesus anymore.
I don’t know how I got off on this today. I was listening to Toby Keith singing I’ll never smoke weed with Willy again! I don’t have much in the way of tact. My old drinking buddies once took up a collection to send me to charm school, but it was just about the same amount of mony it took to buy a round of drinks, so …
Anyway, this sort of cheered up my morbibity today …
Well, a redneck nerd in a bowling shirt was a-guzzlin’ Lone Star beer
Talking religion and-uh politics for all the world to hear.
“They oughta send you back to Russia, boy, or New York City one
You just want to doodle a Christian girl and you killed God’s only son.”
I said, “Has it occurred to you, you nerd, that that’s not very nice,
We Jews believe it was Santa Claus that killed Jesus Christ.”
“You know, you don’t look Jewish,” he said, “near as I could figger
I had you lamped for a slightly anemic, well-dressed country nigger.“
No, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore,
They don’t turn the other cheek the way they done before.
He started in to shoutin’ and a-spittin’ on the floor,
“Lord, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore.”
He says, “I ain’t a racist but Aristitle Onassis is one Greek we don’t need
And them niggers, Jews and Sigma Nus, all they ever do is breed.
And wops ‘n micks ‘n slopes ‘n spics ‘n spooks are on my list
And there’s one little hebe from the heart of Texas — is there anyone I missed?”
Well, I hits him with everything I had right square between the eyes.
I says, “I’m gonna gitcha, you son of a bitch ya, for spoutin’ that pack of lies.
If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s an ethnocentric racist;
Now you take back that thing you said ‘bout Aristitle Onassis.”
No, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don’t turn the other cheek the way we done before.
You could hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
“Lord, they sho’ ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore!”
All right!
No, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don’t turn the other cheek the way they done before.
You hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
Lord, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore.
Everybody!
They ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore,
They ain’t makin’ carpenters who know what nails are for.
Well, the whole damn place was singin’ as I strolled right out the door
“Lord, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore!”
No, we ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don’t turn the other cheek the way they done before.
Well, the whole damn place was singin’ as I strolled right out the door
“Lord, they ain’t makin’ Jews like Jesus anymore!”
Rusty's Armory 