CLOSE KNIT (part 1)

   2:33 A.M., this morning. The farm was settled into sleep when a ruckus erupted out on the highway. Since our property borders a particularly deceiving bend of the road, we are accustomed to hearing the occasional skid and crunch of vehicles launching into the Front Forty where they may be introduced to any one of an assortment of stationary objects.

   (Except in winter when Grandpa puts Steve, his prized bull in the front 'yard'. Steve is possessed with deceptionaly quick movement)

   Our barbed-wire fence is usually the first member of the family that these errant individuals say howdy to and are considered lucky if the introductions stop there. Asphalt astronauts who insist of getting a closer look at Grandpa's tractor or Grandma's apple orchard (or Steve the bull, in winter), are more than likely to require some sort of assistance with various consequences which might include extraction from twisted metal, reconnaissance of eyes, teeth or limbs, and or relationship issues with a 2000 pound ill-tempered bull. (in the winter months).

   Dubbed the Drunk Catcher, or The Tourist Teaser, this piece of the highway is often the last conscience part of an individual's trip before making their aquaintence with Grandma and her first-aid kit, Grandpa and his welder or chain saw, or me with a pair of handcuffs from my bounty-hunting days. (I've no tolerance for drunk drivers)

   So this morning, with the din of destruction ringing in our waking ears, the adult folks of the household jumped from their respective beds in readiness. Then, something stopped us all in our tracks. Something different. Upon hesitation, we heard the sound of the catastrophe continue. And not only were these hideous crash sounds not coming to an end, it sounded as if they were moving up our driveway!

   Grandpa headed for the front door and the porch beyond, Grandma right behind with her first-aid kit and her newest piece of equipment, the Pulse Paddles.(Clear!) I grabbed my shotgun and followed them both.

  "What in tarnation are you gonna do with that scatter gun?" Grandpa asked me.

  "I'm going to put whatever is crawling up our driveway out of it's misery," I said.

  "Just put it away for now," Grandpa advised, "I doubt anything that loud and ugly sounding will require firearms to subdue. Whatever it is, it sounds like it's dyin' already."

   From the front porch we saw come, from out of the darkness at the end of the driveway, in a sickening cloud of smoke and screaming metal, one of the most blasphemous of contraptions - a 1973 Urine Yellow Plymouth station wagon.

  "Who the hell is that and why are they coming here?" I wondered.

  "Fetch back that scatter gun," said Grandpa.

   The beast of a machine smoked, screamed, retched and hiccuped it's way up the driveway toward the steps of the porch where it died thus, farting out a plume of smoke, the color of which I'd not experienced before.

  "Why, that's Susie Sharon and the family," Grandma exclaimed, heading for the car.

  "Hi, ya'll," Susie Sharon said, waving her arm out of the passenger window, apparently oblivious to the chaos unfolding around her. "We've come for the weekend!"

   Grandma, already at the car, bent through the window to hug Aunt Susie. Susie Sharon's husband, Henry, merely sat behind the steering wheel of the vehicle, grinning through the windshield like an insurance salesman. In the backseat slept Carol Alice, Aunt Susie's twenty year old daughter, and Camry, Carol Alice's baby and the newest edition to our clan.

  "It's going to be a long weekend," I said to Grandpa.

  "Let's hope that it's just a weekend," Says Grandpa. "Come on. We better get them kids out the backseat before that car catches fire."

SASQUATCH SPRINGS

   Just a wide spot on the highway. The forest has left enough room at the edge to fit a market and a couple of fuel pumps. About 'round are the farms and fences of folks and the lives they carry in this world.

   It's Cascade foothill country. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer and close enough to the city for a visit, just a sliver too far to commute.  The mail man can always find us, the pizza dude doesn't even try, but we don't care because Grandma cooks every night.

   People usually pass through here on their way to somewhere else. A stop lasts as long as a tank of fuel and a snack. We'll lend first aid, directions, advice or a hand. If we don't have it here, just follow the river and more than likely, you'll find what you're looking for. We're almost certain you'll find what you need.

   Country don't mean trash. Simple don't mean stupid. (That time cousin Donnie Daryll shaved his head, put on his dirtiest cover-all's and sat on the front porch playin' Grandpa's banjo was just a joke for you weekend highway tourists) - (p.s. if one of ya'all got a picture of Donnie Daryll that day, could you maybe send a copy our way). We mind our manners when treated with such. Just remember, if you're not from here, odds are, it's a long walk home. And that old codger in that beat-up pickup you cut-off on the highway last weekend? Well, Grandpa can draw his scatter gun as quickly as that finger.   Rural that.

   The name that stuck was a 70's thing. Neighbor Nielsen thought it would be hoot to have his name in the news. But back in 1974, if you weren't Elton John or Evel Knievel, the only way to make headlines was to spot Bigfoot. Some footprints behind the barn. Mister Nielsen surmised a little publicity could generate some tourist revenue. Snacks and Souvenirs. No lines at the fuel pumps here.

  And like the icons mentioned above, Neighbor Nielsen caught a moment in time. About two minutes of it. The great Bigfoot scare of '74 faded to myth but the name of the spectacle stuck to these hills. 34 years later and you still need a magnifying glass to find us on the map.

   So if you happen to be in Oregon looking for perfection (Perfection is 12 miles south of Boring off of highway 214), you're probably lost if you're standing in The 'Springs. We'll wave if we see you passing by.

BOO BOO & THE BOOGER MAN

   My son was only four years old when my wife and I divorced. For financial reasons my son and I moved 2000 miles away to San Antonio where I had family. Needless to say that at such a young age this was a drastic change for the little booger. Not only would he rarely see his mother, but he was leaving behind his friends from day care and thrown into a completely different environment. 

   Oregon to San Antonio is a long drive. After saying goodbye to his mother, my son cried his tears and fears into the embrace of his stuffed bear, Boo Boo. During the three days it took to drive to Texas, Boo Boo made our family a threesome and rarely left the grasp of my son. 

   Boo Boo became a surrogate that filled the void of transition and I will admit to a bit of jealousy over this, but Boo Boo weathered with us that tough year, through feast and famine- and, a day care director who thought that Boo Boo shouldn't be such a large part of my son's life.

   (NOTE: don't ever mess with Papa Bear's cubs!)

   After a year life grew better for us. Boo Boo had stood fast as friend and comforter. It was then a new member of the family joined us. A Gray and white kitten named Simba.

   My son instantly fell in love and ran head first into his new role and responsibility as caretaker of an actual living creature. And, slowly but surely, Boo Boo kinda fell by the wayside.
It struck me one day as we were heading for the grocery store. Unlocking the pickup I proclaimed our usual cheer of "buckle-up the bear!".

   My son looked at me then lowered his eyes as if he had done something wrong. "I left Boo Boo in the house, Daddy," he said, still looking down at his feet.
   "Well, that's okay, Booga' man, " I assure him, "he will be fine alone."
   "Do you want me to go get him, Daddy?"
   "Only if you want to." My son looked from me to the house, then back to me again. "Naw," he tells me, "lets buckle up and go by ourselves."

   I guess Boo Boo the bear's job was done. He kept a place of honor atop our television set for the next six months where he could still watch over us.

   After six months, Boo Boo the bear met his fate at the hands- er, claws of Simba the cat. We came home one day to find poor Boo Boo's innards fluffed about the living room. It had been a massacre. Seeing the carnage, my son attempted to heal the bear, but the damage was too great. I think I was more upset than my son.

   He cursed the silly cat in boy language for having to pick up the mess.  Eleven years later, my son and I still reminisce about that bear.
   And to this day, Simba the cat has never had to share his affections for the Booga' man with anyone else.
I will say, though, I was always a little jealous of that bear.

 JG8D69D

PITCHIN' (part 2 )

   Grandpa kept himself busy in the barn, finding little chores - the ones that always need doing but mostly aren't important enough to hem and haw about. But a stir in his worry over Grandma has brought the barn's atmosphere to a sticky weight, and he lost his patience for inventing time killing reasons for not doing these things.

   Unable to bare the anxiety further against his concern, he surrenders what he thought was better judgment to the distraction of his heart. He finds Grandma in her kitchen, apparently busy with the same inventions as his in the barn. He watches her quietly from the doorway, a wonderful habit of his that she loves because he knows that she knows he's there.

   'Did you finish up your business out there?" She doesn't need to turn around from the sink where she had been keeping herself busy, and it was still too light outside to see his reflection inside the window but she looks for him there when she asks him.

   "Oh, you know - a bunch of nothing special things to forget, I guess. I thought you might need some help cutting vegetables or something."

   "No sir," she says, taking a sponge to the counter top tiles, " I just heated up some left-over soup."

   He sat himself down at the kitchen table not knowing exactly what to do. Hearing her Husband's chair drag across the linoleum, she tossed her sponge into the cleanest sink in the county and took her own seat at the table.

   He saw that she had been crying. They reached for each other at the same time. Their hands came together at the middle of the table. She squeezed and he squeezed back.

   "I'm sorry about your truck," she said.

   "Oh, hell. I got more miles with you than I do with that old truck."

   "A lot of good miles, old man."

   "More than not," he agreed.

    Her smile brought him back a little bit, back from the shadows of life that he had hoped would dissipate over the course of time.    But living never seemed to get any easier with age, a tragic mis-conception among twilighters expecting smooth seas and cotton underwear.

   "Let's lay our cards on the table, Orval. You and I have been dancing around the elephant in the room and the music stopped a long time ago."

   "I reckon you beat hell out of the elephant earlier this evening," he said.

   She chuckled through the seriousness of the day and said, "I admit that it's been awhile since I've done any pitchin'. But I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'm sick of the doctor's and their needles and pills. But I'm mostly sick of the bills."

   "You can't worry about the bills. You just have to concentrate on getting better, Ruby."

   "Life has gotten too expensive, Orval. And the pills aren't making me any better, they're just giving me a little bit more time."

   "Isn't that what life is all about? More time?"

   "Not if it's more of the sickness. Not if it means hocking the farm to pay for medicine."

   "The farm isn't anything to me without you here, Ruby."

   "This farm was here a hundred years before I was born and it will be here a hundred years after I'm buried."

   "There's too many ghosts 'round here anyways," he quibbled.

   "This family needs a home place, especially in times like these, Orval. And one more ghost might cheer the place up," she said, playfully giving her husband a kick underneath the table. She's finally able to pull a smile across her husband's face.

   "I don't mind dyin', Orval, but I do mind leaving you."

   "Well, I mind you dyin'!" I've got sixty-some years put into you, Ruby."

   "I hope you aren't expecting sixty more! I'm near worn out by now and you're a sight south of the Prom King I took home to meet the folks, Orval."

    Outside, the darkness of the evening found the kitchen. The breeze brought it's coolness through the screen door.

   "Almost another day done, eh?"

   "Just two crazy old coots sittin' in the dark," she says, leaving the kitchen table for the stove where the cook pot waited. "How about some soup, Orval?"

   "Soup sounds good."

    Three copies of the same picture hang in three different homes across the States. Taken from the end of the driveway looking south up a gentle slope, it is a moment in time that was caught in the younger years of a little Oregon farmhouse. Dominating the front section of the home is a Victorian style porch that Great-Grandpa 'Swede' had built himself with lumber milled from a patch of pine that stood down the holler.

     If you grab a closer look, you can see the porch swing where Grandma usually sits, Grandpa next to her when no-one else is about, but his rocker just a step or two near when folks are spellin'. Grandpa's rocking chair, handcrafted by his father's father, creaks along with the floor boards of the porch - and Grandpa's bones when the winter throws cold.

    Grandma and Grandpa raised three children here and worked hard doing so. The parents didn't want the farm to be their limitation and the soil and the seasons, the blood, sweat and tears of then and previous generations, allowed them their choices.

    So from the farm, three other homes were born and from those others still, beyond the fields and fences, all the children of these pictures whose roots reign here, are remembered.

    Some have strayed, some have stayed. Some live in the difference, and some have found their way back home.

PITCHIN' (part 1)

   It takes alot to piss-off Grandma.

   "You hitch up the wagon to an ornery mule, well after you ride to town a time or two, the orneyness just becomes a fact of life."

   Grandma had her 'usual' doctor's visit yesterday, a requirement when you live with cancer. We knew something was amiss when Grandpa drove up the driveway after picking up Grandma in town. My cousin and I watched from the front porch as Gramps parked his pickup (still 4 sale) hopped out, then made a beeline for the barn, leaving Grandma inside the truck to fend for herself.

   "Did that old bastard just leave Granny in the truck?" This is my cousin, after the fact and obvious as he usually is. And no, we don't talk that way when the old people are near, but it makes us feel important when they ain't around.

   "Well, she's still just sittin' there. Maybe we should go fetch her?" I wasn't sure what fetchin' her would involve, bit I knew that if Grandma was in a temper, I wasn't about to get within striking range of her.

   "I don't want to rile her any more than that old man already has," says cousin Henry, " and it's to hot a day for more chorin'." When provoked, either by your own transgression, or Grandpa's, or God's or whatever the heck is happening in Outer Mongolia, Grandma can throw a chore list at you quicker than a chicken chasin' fox.

   "Let's wait her out," I suggested.

   "This afternoon heat will do her in before long."

   "Then I'm goin' in," I announce bravely, stepping down from the porch, heading for the pickup.

   Grandma had her window down, but was just staring straight ahead through the front windshield. She held some paperwork in her hands, and if I wasn't mistaken at the time, I know the difference now, I believed her to be humming a hymnal.

   "You all right, Grandma?"

   Grandma slowly turned her head until her eyes met mine.  

   "Goddamn doctors," she hissed, and I don't mind sayin', even in front of Grandma, that her manner raised the short hairs.

   "Y -y- yo -you got the cancer bad, Grandma?" But she didn't hear me. I saw it in her eyes. Grandma had gone over to the other place.

   She said then, "God knows I love you, Duane, but if you don't clear away, I'm going to do something that'll leave a scar on your great-grandchildren."

   "Yes mam, I'll be right up there on the porch." I don't now, recall walking, or running back to the front porch, but I remember this - the fear across cousin Henry's face as we stood together at the porch railing, both of us with an eye toward's Granny.

   "Good news for Grandpa," I said.

   "What?"

   "She's mad at the doctor for some reason."

   "Scary mad?"

   "John Henry, I'm not to big of a man to admit that during my talk with Grandma, a little bit of pee ran down my leg." I confessed right there.

   "Just a little's too much for me, cousin," he said, hopping the railing and taken to a run across the ten acre pasture between our place and his.

   "You're a coward, John Henry," I yelled after him, "you and yer daddy!"

   By this time Grandma had stepped from the pickup, stood a moment on the driveway, it seemed, to consider her options. Then she picked up a dead oak branch that she had been asking me to pick up and throw in the wood pile for nearly a month past.    That wasn't a good sign. I waited a moment. Then a moment more. Then it happened. Right out there in the front yard.    Grandma pitched a fit.

   She proceeded to take that hunk of wood to Grandpa's pickup in a surly manner, denting and dinging and raising a ruckus to rival the fourth of July fireworks. So much so, that Grandpa ran up from his haven in the barn to see about the commotion. I jumped from the porch to stand by Grandpa, both of us feeling powerless.

   "Least she's only knocking one side of that old truck," Grandpa mused.

   It ended as quickly and as quietly as it began. We waited there, my Grandfather and I, as Grandma took in a deep breath and approached us where we stood.

   "Life's just a race," she began, telling us, " a body starts dyin' as soon as it's born. It's all about how much a soul can accomplish before the end of the race." There were almost tears in her eyes, but I knew she wouldn't let herself spill over in front of me. Tears weren't for the children, or the children's children to see. She would hold them for herself - and for Grandpa, when they were alone with each other.

   "Orval." she said to Grandpa, " I'm going to need a little while before you come in for the night."

   "I guess I can find some chores to do," he told her, giving her a smile. She gave me a smile and went inside the house.

   Grandpa walked over to his truck to inspect the damage. Grabbing the '4 sale' from the windshield, he found his grease pencil in his cover-all's pocket and crossed out the $2500 part of the post. Finishing his chore, he put the sign back in the window with a shrug and asked me to park the rig back down at the end of the driveway where folks could see it better. Then he took a long moment to look at the house before wandering back to the barn.

   I parked the truck where Grandpa preferred it to be parked and walked back up to the front porch trying to remember if I knew of anyone who wanted a Chevy pickup for $1500.00 . . . . .

Love is Holding Hands

   It wasn't until mid-life that our lives finally found each other.

   Suddenly, it seemed, we discovered this giddy, adolescent butterflies-in-the-stomach kind of thing. Thick and sappy. God, it wrapped itself around our worlds and accelerated into one gigantic collision that touched everyone and everything we knew.

   Both of us, Carrie and I, were standing in our early 40s and could look back on a long road full of hard miles. Nothing really spectacular, I guess, just the normal single parent bumps that at the time felt like tragedies. But we survived. And then this fairy tale thing - our love was tangible. We could hold it in our hands. We were lucky. We both had stopped believing in forever a long time ago.

   The doctor says - what did the doctor just say?! He continues to speak (his lips are still moving), though I'm not hearing any words. He is sitting behind a huge desk, wearing his sad face. Carrie and I are sitting together on a couch, opposite the desk. We've been here before, too many times, it seems, over the past month. The doctor is younger than we are. Why does this suddenly piss me off?

  I begin to catch words here and there. Metastasized ... inoperable ... three months.

   No. No. We've been together three years! I realize that I'm standing. I look down at Carrie and see tears pouring out of the love of my life.

   "I'll be go-to-hell if I'm gonna change your diapers," I tell her through my own tears. She nods, smiling. "I love you, too."

   Carrie tells me she is more worried about me than anything.   "What about the kids," I say. "Mostly grown. They're young and strong. You," she says, "need a soul to squeeze." "I never needed anything before I met you," I tell her.

   Carrie believed that she and I had been dancing around each other's destinies through several past lives, our souls never being able to connect on the human level for one reason or another. "The cancer is just taking my body. My soul will always belong to you. Just to you."

   "Then why is fate taking you away from me just when we finally found each other?"

   I'm angry. Again. I'm yelling. Again. She is at the computer, e-mailing friends, trying to keep the connection to this life alive. I'm standing next to her, trying to understand everything at once. I'm not getting it. The only thing I am getting is pissed off, once again. Plus, she said the 'C' word. I never say that word. I'm determined not to let it rule our life. Carrie giggles into her hands like a school girl would, listening to a secret.

   Looking at her then, I realize that I've loved her my whole life. For her whole life. I feel cheated and I have to start believing in God again because I need something real to throw my hate against. She giggles some more. I'm standing there with my pain, wearing nothing but an old cowboy hat. "You make me laugh," she tells me. "I love you most for that."

   "OK," I say. "Don't make me cry when I'm naked."

   Two months after getting the news from Doctor Sad Face, Carrie tells me that after things settle down I shouldn't close myself off to meeting someone else. She is tired and in a lot of pain all the time. Tears again - mine.

   "You're my medicine," she says.

   "Just shut up, Carrie!"

    She giggles - my medicine.

   "I've had enough of this love crap. I'm done with it," I tell her. She is laughing now.

   "You're too horny to give up on love, Duane."

   "Sex has nothing to do with love and you know it!" I'm laughing, too.

   "Love is holding hands," she says. Our definition.

   "No, no more love for me. Maybe I'll just be a big 'ol man-whore."

   "Hmmm," she purrs. "Remember, I'll be watching you!"

    I'm keeping Carrie's last words. They are only for me.

    When we say goodbye to each other, we are holding hands.

HOPE

We fell to sleep, our last night as normal people, in the house that had been our home for three years, listening to the difference of it's emptiness. Barren of the things of life within, even against the wind and the rain, the sound was un-familiar . . . .

   This morning brought a blue sky beginning, the rain having followed the wind, left with the night to roam other places, leaving us behind also, for the rest of the day and it's contentions. No-one hears the noise of the crash, the sound of a family slipping away. The commotion of other lives still seems to find purpose beyond our tragedy. We are alone in this wreck.

   I am no longer entitled to appreciate the beauty of the Oregon landscape nor the smells of a Cascade Spring. My reasons can only settle upon the concept of punishment, a retaliation of the Gods for my past sins. I thought surely my debt with Karma had been paid. I've lived life through times that seemed bent on my destruction and I have persevered. Venomous habits were put to pasture, standing in the past to remind me that a man's reflection is only as noble as the shadow he leaves behind.

   "Dad, are you okay?" This is my son. The light of my shadow, stepping out of which to cast his own.

   "I'm good," I lie. Above all else now, I feel that my mission is to ease his worry. Our lives have become a clearinghouse, a mass liquidation of our possessions and his main concern is for me and my waning health. I am humbled by his capacity to look beyond this disaster that has befallen us.

   Everyday things of a fifteen year old's life are lost to the storm and still he stands in battle against his own despair, a soldier ready, to lighten my load. How much does the world weigh?

   We had spent the weekend placing price tags on belongings once coveted, desired only for their second-hand value now. A sign at the end of our driveway told our story to the strangers of the highway and they came, seeking the cheapest deals that they could procure against our desperation.

   I spent some sixteen years being Superman. I raised my son alone and I stood proud in the happiness he found in life. In his happiness, I found my own. But I am defined by this illness now.

   An un-named alien that stole my power, my desire and my meaning. It's Kriptonite, poisoning the bottom line of my existence, disregarding the rules and boundaries of normalcy. I face a bitter landscape riddled with a stigma that I, myself, once subscribed to. I am dealt with indifference by my own government which spends billions on overseas aid and to bomb other countries into democracy but ignores it's own citizens living in poverty.

   My son and I are haunted statistics of a myth that has been perpetrated upon our society. Pictures of the downtrodden on the evening news show the vagabonds, but don't tell the stories behind the reasons. 

   Our middle class has turned into the working poor. I was able to pay my bills but I couldn't afford health care. If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

   "Well, I guess we better be hittin' the road, buddy," I say. We shoulder our backpacks.

   A son sees his Father's tears.

   "There's always hope, Dad," he tells me, slapping me on the back, man style. Tomorrow is his sixteenth birthday. "Cheer up."

   We close the door.

   Our driveway runs downhill to the highway and is just long enough to allow a short slide show of memories to stroll across my eyes. A dusty montage of my Grandmother's things, treasures from a long life past handed down to me, sold in dire straits to the highest bidder. My son's computer, a financial milestone for education - and happiness, became an investment in camping gear for our new journey. How many seasons circled on the calender of this home? It is left, for another family maybe, where dust gathers, on forgotten dreams and words that are prayed.

We left our home like criminals leaving the scene of a crime.     Broken pieces of a machine.

Ghosts on the side of the road.

[please note that this story appeared in another site that is now no longer in use.  I hope it says something to you - again. Thanks - d.o.]

THE FOURTH

   Grandpa was forced to quit his job pumping gas ( in Oregon, motorists are not allowed to pump their own fuel ) because could not afford the gasoline to get to work. His pickup - not too old, not that new - sits in the gravel at the end of the driveway with a big 'ol For Sale sign in the window. Folks 'round these parts don't have any money for fuel either, let alone the cash for a purple pickup driven by the grumpiest man in the county.

   Uncle Donnie Daryll stopped by yesterday and sat a spell on the front porch with the old people. He broke his wrist over the weekend as he was moving furniture, but can't afford to get it fixed up proper. The health insurence he gets through work has a $1000.00 deductible. Uncle Donnie makes $12.00 an hour at his job.

   A neighbor of ours, and yours too I believe, lost her young son to the war in Iraq. Rich people making the rules. Rich people making the decisions. "I remember his first day of school. I don't know why, exactly, that picture of all my memories of him pops itself up, but that's what I see in my mind's eye. I had to tell his father the news over the phone. We couldn't afford two vehicles anymore, so we sold my car. Carl couldn't leave work, so I had to tell him over the phone that his son was killed. After I told him he went on and finished his shift at the mill. We couldn't afford him to miss any work."

  No Fourth of July barbeque this year. We could barely afford any food, let alone the briquettes.

   Here's the news, people. We've already lost the war. We've lost the lives to reasons that were never there to begin with, and we've lost our way of life. When that Son-of-a-Bitch took down the towers he accomplished what he set out to do. He ruined us, and his biggest partner was our own President.

   With the war in afghanistan raging on ( I'm not going to say the real war , as some people do. I would never dis-respect our troops fighting and dying in Iraq) nearly all the Blue Collars I've spoken with say the same thing. What is the use of having nuclear weapons if we are not going to use them? Didn't the attacks on September 11, 2001 warrant a nuclear response once the perpetrators where known to be sheltered in Afghanistan?

    The fourth is just another excuse to get liquored up and get a day off from work. Drownd out our apathy and indifference for a day because we're all prayed out. Our President is a war criminal and the rest of the world compares us to Nazi Germany - and I'm the crazy one for wondering why we don't push the button.

  Can you hear me now?

CONCERNING TED

"Wake up, Ted. You wanna go for a helicopter ride? Come on, get up! "Ted? . . . . . Ted?!"

   Ted Kulongoski, the Governor of Oregon, the great 'Trailer Park' of the United States, is only awakened for parades and funerals. There is even a rumor circulating 'round Blue Collar Corner that good 'ol Ted has moved to Idaho.

   Maybe you might, just might, remember Ted from last summer when he announced that he would live, for a week, on a Food stamp allotment to show his empathy and draw attention to the plight of the 'common' man. There were other Governors from various states, even a few Senators who jumped on this bandwagon to show that they really do care about us poverty STRICKEN folks.

   It took less than a week for the 'Guvna to proclaim that he couldn't understand how people survived on this system. So what happened? Wait! Wait for it . . . . . . . . . ? Hear it? Yep, that's what happened. Wanna hear it again? Okay. In our household, our Food stamp allotment was reduced by $40.00.

   Anyways - where was I ? Last night we watched the news blurb about Ted going under the knife for Gallbladder removal and it kinda struck a nerve. I recently underwent Gallbladder surgery, after 18 months of misery and two episodes where I nearly died. 

   Yep, the state health plan in action. In theory, I was put on the state health plan because I asked my government for help. But, the Oregon State health plan is closed, and has been for a few years, to adults. They enroll children and old folks, but no-one in between.

   I was able to receive this benefit because I am a single father and the sole support for my son. The problem is, there are very few, very few doctors who accept the Oregon Health Plan, and the reason for a closed enrollment is because then state doesn't pay it's bills because it has no money for these services. They have all their money tied up in grants for wineries, distilleries and housing where only Hispanic people are allowed to live.

   A year ago I was told by an emergency room doctor that he could do an ultra-sound, but He knew there wouldn't be anything wrong. So they didn't do the procedure. This was after he asked me who my insurer was. "Fill him full of morphine and send him home," the doctor said, waving my file over his head.

   Realizing that the county clinic 'doctors' were not helping, I finally found a good doc who ordered an ultra-sound. (That order took almost a month to be okayed by the state health plan). Guess what? Bad Gallbladder. Bad. Ordered surgery. This took another month for the state insurance to 'okay'. (bad, bad Gallbladder).

   All the while, public assistance was breathing down my back wondering why it was taking so long for me to get 'well'. 18 months.

All I needed was some help. To get back to work. To get back to paying taxes.

I'VE GOT A GUN

    I have decided to be One of those People . There are two choices. 1. You will see me on the evening news, (pictures at 11), just another crazy, screaming about our corrupted government, waiting for SWAT to take me out. 2. I use my words instead of my gun, and subject myself to the humiliation, stigma and outright violent condemnation of the apathetic, broken society in which I live in.

<u>These are the facts:</u> I am an American citizen. Born and bred. I've paid a fortune out of my paychecks in the name of Social Security and whatever taxes 'they' can dream up to lay in my lap. We were trying to build a business. I put a roof over my family's head, food on the table and put back into the operation whatever I could to keep it running. I couldn't afford health care. But we were surviving.

   When you're 41 years old and think you are Superman, you don't think about getting sick. But I did get sick. We lost the business. We lived on our savings for as long as we could, then we lost our home.

   I asked my government for help. They said that D.C. cut all the money out of the budget for folks like me, but they would do all they could do. First though, I had to prove that I was an American citizen. This from a state who issued me a drivers license. Of course, I gave them money for that. It took me two months of drowning in red tape and the incompetence of indifferent social workers to prove that I was and am a citizen. Two months, during which time my family and I became homeless. A citizen can't receive help if they don't have an address. Hmmm .. ?

   When inquiring about resources and programs on my own, I have been called a liar, a cheat and a swindler. Apparently, 'normal' people don't realize that homeless folks can access the Internet at the public library. For asking questions, I have been called a nigger, a spic, white trash, drug addict, and worthless by people who have never met me. The same people who told me to get a job, then called me a racist. Hey, I'm sorry if I asked a few questions pertaining to a HUD housing apartment complex in Molalla, Oregon when I was told that I couldn't apply to live there because I wasn't a Hispanic migrant worker. Isn't there a federal law or something about . . . . . ? Hmmm?

   I thought about all that money taken from my paychecks - the price for living in America, the day we drove down our driveway for the last time, wondering where we were going to sleep that night.

   I guess I've got a decision to make. Believe me, I've got a clear shot here, from the front porch. Stay tuned.

WINDED

   From the coast it runs, a hundred miles - probably a little more, until it brushes up against an eighty acre piece of Clackamas County that has been home to my family name for some hundred years or so. Sometimes it carries the turning taste of the Willamette, sometimes it brings the rain. Mostly though, it seems to hold a promise of change.

   "When the wind whispers your name, for bad or for better, there's a change in store for you," said an ancestor of mine one day, moments before a Westerly pushed an old pine on top of him. I've been told the kin folk scattered his ashes up a' yonder, overlooking the home place where the rest of our ghosts rustle up their haints and dance with the storms. They say it's him that taps the window glass, a sound I hear sometimes after the wind awakens me from a stir.

   Life of late walks heavy, creaking the porch boards across the afternoon's laziness. When I reach for my reasons it is often enough that I find nothing but gravity within my grasp, pulling down at the shadows where the Hoo Doo's dart from the corners of my vision.

   Summer has finally found us here in Oregon. It was still snowing at the two-thousand foot level just three weeks ago. Now the grass is green and the air is warm. Evening Post pictures of summer dreams I've never been able to catch. Do people really live lives like that? "You want me to answer that with a story?" He asks me.

   "Come on, Gramps. I've heard it all before. The snow never gets that deep 'round here, and why would you walk to school buck naked in the first place?"

   He chuckles some, then says, "thought we was talking 'bout the American Dream, not my illustrious childhood."

   "Seems most your stories end up in the snow, Grandpa."

   He scritches his stubly chin, his eyes falling to the wanderings of an old man's memories through a long life. When he finally speaks, his eyes are far away with the pictures in his head. "I'm looking for some swimmin' time in the pond," he says, "a bucket of coals and cornfed beef cookin'. Your Grandma's apple pie. Watching the day turn into night, maybe a pull or three on the jug while we argue some politics." His eyes focus on me when he asks, "what you lookin' for, boy?"

   I chuckle now. I guess being forty-two years old is still a boy when it's stood against his eighty-one years.  "I'm looking for some change, Gramps."

   He jumps up from his rocker and stuffs a calloused hand into his pocket. Extracting some coin, he begins a count.

   "Not that kind of change, Grandpa," I explain.

   "Do you see me on straws and diapers? I know what the hell you meant!" Gramps gets a little grumpy when senility is insinuated. "I want you to run down to the fillin' station and get me a Doctor Pepper," he growls, handing me the change. "When I start running around naked in the snow again, then you can question my sanity!"

   I regard the change in my hand. "I guess I'll walk," I say, "can't afford the gas for a soda. It'll give me some time to think."

   "You wanna think about something, think about taking a sack and picking up some cans on the side of the highway while you're walkin'. My prescription is due tomorrow."

   The first sweet breeze of summer rushes by us suddenly. It smells of Summer promises. Grandpa sees me smile.

   "I don't pay attention to the wind anymore. Afraid it might be sayin' my name." He heads for the front door of the house.      "Why you going in the house on such a nice day, Gramps?"

   "I don't want no damn tree fallin' on me."

PONDERIN'

   Four generations under one roof. We're not talking family reunion here. We're talking necessity borne of tough times.

   We took advantage of the Spring weather last night and sat a spell with the old folks, discovering that I've been taking these far too few moments for granted. Grandpa talks his treasons and we all willingly indulge in Grandma's reminiscence. We are lucky people to still have the grandparents with us - Grandma says we are, with a twinkle and a chuckle, and well, she 's right. Because it's her house we are all living in - and, you know, you just don't argue with Grandma.

   We have our lives going on here. And in regards to our family, it has never really been about the politics or the religion, it's about something you just can't explain - but can't do without. Maybe like Grandpa's tales.

   "Not tall tales," says Grandma. "Grandpa's stories are too crooked to stand tall. They're more a fishing stories, I'd say." And she does say. "The young'uns love them yarns, but you can't believe a damn thing that old man says."

   Grandma is from the old country - Arkansas to be exact. Her family migrated to Oregon when she was just three years old. Grandpa and his were from Utah, arriving in the Northwest at just about the same time as Grandma and her kin. They met as teenagers at the Grange Hall Dance, way back when they still had Grange Halls around here. Apparently they were quite the combination. Grandpa rode rough and raised hell, Grandma always at his side, always holding his hand through the vastness of the decades.

   I believe that pride is a privilege. We all eat and argue under one roof now, just regular folks trying to get through the tough times. We didn't plant up a holler of weed, and we aren't cooking up any chemistry out in the barn. We stick together, through fame and failure and sit a judge of our own selves. If we have to fight, we'll fight for our rights, not for a cause.

Our family's name has never been cursed upon and I am proud of that. I hope my country can find it's pride again.

   Last night Grandma told me that the trick is to not let the hard times define who you are. So, as the sun sank lower behind the hills I listened, and I learned and I didn't say a word because that's what you do it when you're on the front porch, lucky enough to still have the old folks and hear their voices. I'll always have their spirits, to embrace and behold, but I won't have their sound in my ears forever.

   Grandma said, " knowledge is of the world. It's weather, and whatever crop you plant there. It must grow quickly in order to survive. Wisdom is from the soul."

   She said no more. She merely walked over by the steps where Grandpa was standing. They still hold hands and watch the sun go down from the front porch whenever the rain allows.

   Wisdom takes time to cultivate. Just ask Grandma.

pictures at eleven

"Anger is the rawest, most common form of insanity." - Bounty-Hunter, Author, Preston Law

"Be the change you want." - Gandhi

   Walter has been our neighbor since the days of the Vietnam War, says Grandma. Bought the old McHenry place after his Honorable Discharge from the Military. Walter spent the weekdays working for a big company up in Portland and his weekends fixin' up his home place. Even when the trees between our two properties fill with the Spring leaves, we can still see Walter's house from our front porch.

   As kids growing up, we often exchanged pleasantries over the fence with Walter. He mainly kept to a solitary existence as a lot of folks do when taking up the rural life in Oregon. But Walter was never one to shy away from offering a helping hand when a neighbor needed one, and was often the first on the scene when barn smoke was spotted rising through the pines.

  "But sometimes a life can't keep up when the world starts spinnin' in a different direction," says Grandma - Grandma says a lot of things and you would do yourself some good to listen to most of it, " 'specially when folks don't keep promises made."

   The government promised to take care of Walter for his service. After all, he spent a lot of time filling those planes with Agent Orange. The company where he spent most of the hours of his life working hard like a good man does said they would honor a retirement benefit when they gave his job to someone else overseas. Last year when they broke that promise so that they could continue to pay the wages of their current employees, Walter attempted to get by on his Social Security.

  Walter was being eaten up from the inside out by the cancer. The only physical task he could perform was to tend the garden that he had to plant to help supplement his meager food stamp allotment. Getting another job was out of the question when the question was asked about making his mortgage payment. He decided to get his many medications instead of putting fuel in his old pickup and paying his utility bills. And Walter had another decision to make. He knew that the Sheriff would be coming soon.

   There are always options, right? Walter did put his property on the market for a spell, but no-one 'round these parts seems to have the money to buy a broken down two acres that sits out in the sticks. He was never one for a hand-out - Walter was never seen walking tall again after being talked into getting 'The Stamps' so he wouldn't starve. The state health plan wouldn't pay for his cancer medication, or for medication that would ease his pain, but they would pay for doctor assisted suicide, which is legal in Oregon. All of us who lived around Walter thought we were doing all we could.

   We just didn't stand up with him when the time came to do so.

   After it was all over, me and the folks sat a spell on the porch and pondered it all. The manager of the bank that held Walter's note came a'callin' - with a deputy sheriff. They didn't want to, God knows they didn't want to, but they had no choice but to foreclose on Walter. Apparently, he was to have vacated the property three days prior. Mr. Bank Manager was later quoted that Walter "seemed confused as to what day it was and said that he wasn't quite ready to leave yet." The deputy sheriff said that Walter seemed confused and possibly under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.

   I can't sit here and castigate the 'authorities' - namely, the police. It would just make me appear as one of the lunatic fringe. Right? But if you carry a badge in the state of Oregon, you can pretty much do whatever you want to anyone who doesn't carry a badge. And get away with it.

   More police arrived and after some time, they brought Walter down his own driveway in handcuffs. He had tears in his eyes and was mumbling "help me," over and over again. What most people saw in the news was just another a crazy Vietnam Vet in a another crazy stand-off with police. He was taken away in the back seat of a police cruiser. We've heard that he's some sort of state home, but who knows. We haven't seen Walter since.

   Where is the line drawn? When does standing up against oppression stop being the act of lunacy and signal a new beginning, the change that a corrupted system needs? Are we talking about a presidential election? Or are we talking about a revolution? Or a civil war?

   A 'for sale' sign still stands at the end of Walter's driveway. Walter didn't have any family. Just us neighbors.

Walter was an American.