The Blog I Didn't Write & The Blog I Wish I Didn't Write

The Blog I Did Not Write

I was going to get around to posting a blog, maybe titled, "The Fall of the House of Crack".

We live on a quiet street.  Tucked in an out-of-the-way quadrant of a middle class subdivision.  We have neighbors that are Indian, Vietnamese, Hispanic, black and of European descent.  This is America.  The house next door we referred to as 'the crack house' - though in all honesty I can only vouch for the use of cannabis on the premises.  It was a Section 8 house, rent subsidized by the tax payer so low income people can live in places they otherwise could not afford.  The landlords are Nigerian and I only saw them once when they bought the house.  The house was not physically maintained. People came and went at all hours. If I could feel the bass of a car stereo on the street, it was always a car going to the crack house.  At some point felonious Robert moved into the house.  It was at about this time that the place slid into our reference as "the crack house".  I was never really certain of who else was supposed to be there, as I could never keep track of who actually lived there and who was just staying "for awhile".  I called 911 one time when I heard the sound of kicking and breaking glass.  The 911 operator told me they had already had a call from that address, and police were on the way.  Felonious Robert was drunk/high and a teenage girl alone in the house called for help when Robert decided he did not cotton to being being locked out.  There were numerous times when police appeared at the crack house.  Mrs. Phillips who lived at the crack house seemed to have a job - no one else there seemed to be employed.  Thus allowing people to pull up at 1:20 AM and continuously honk the horn waiting for Kendrick to come out.  I'd sometimes get out of bed and go out and confront these indecent noise makers and tell them that sounding the horn at this hour in this neighborhood was not acceptable.  They shouted back at me, "Don't touch my car!"  Their ghetto sensibilities did not belong in our neighborhood.  

For awhile, I frequently found empty hard cider and liquor bottles sitting on my back lawn as I would go out to mow the lawn.  For awhile I would dutifully recycle these empties.  But I got tired of cleaning up trash tossed onto my property from the back porch of the crack house; so one Saturday, I picked up yet another bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade and tossed it back onto the patio from whence it came.  It landed with a satisfying shattering whomp.  I did not ever clean up another empty from the crack house.

Steve, who lives behind me, says that felonious Robert broke into an house that was between owners at the end of the block and did about $10,000 worth of damage to get $15 worth of copper pipes for salvage.  Felonious Robert would be seen pedaling his bike up the alley mid-morning with one hand on the handle bars and other gripping a brown paper bag containing a cylindrical object that would hold maybe 8 to 12 fluid oz.  He'd see me and say "Hey neighbor".  I'd way wave him on as he peddled on by me.

On several occasions my heart would lift as I'd seen a large delivery type truck parked in the driveway of the crack house.  I hoped they were moving out.  But the truck would eventually leave and the smell of weed and the loud visitors would remain.

Early this year the lights of the crack house went dark.  Were they gone at last?  Alas, no. Felonious Robert and others were spotted at times coming or going from the crack house.  I learned that the power had been shut off for non-payment, but some were still living there without power or water.  Sue went out front one late winter's evening to fetch the mail and thought that the crack house was on fire.  Thick noxious greasy smoke billowed from the side of the house, but upon closer examination, she saw it was coming from the chimney.  Felonious Robert was standing in the shadows and noticed her staring at the house, so he explained it was his fire.  When she reported what she had seen to me, I figured felonious Robert had gathered some trash and lit it on fire in order to provide some heat.

At some point in the Spring, the Nigerian landlords changed the locks and moved felonious Robert out of Camp Crack House.  They repainted the exterior, gutted the interior, including appliances, and put the refurbished crack house on the market.  As of late August, despite a red hot real estate market in North Texas, the house remains unsold.  At least the sketchy characters and small hour visitors have been moved out of our neighborhood --- or so I had believed... (to be continued)

The Blog I Wish I Didn't Write

Over there is the refurbished 'crack house'.  For Sale.
Here is the defurbished 'cracked house'.  Forsaken. 

July 22, 2014.  Sue was off on her roadtrip, somewhere between LA freeways and Brother Mike's Phoenix place refuge from scorched earth of the Sonoran Desert.  I stayed home a bit late in the morning, wrapping up a few household business items.  I walked into the garage and gave Strider a solid look as he laid splayed out on the cool wood floor between kitchen and living room, and reminded him, "I'll see you tonight.  Hold down the fort while I'm gone big fuzzy guy."  With a solid slam of the tight-fitting door into the garage, I backed out of the garage and drove to work.  I thought about coming home for lunch, but decided to work through lunch instead and have an early dinner.

About six I gave the usual hard right turn out of the alley while simultaneously hitting the automatic garage door button.  As I coasted into the garage, I was embarrassed to see that I had left the iron gate between driveway and backyard ajar.  With two adventurous tortoises dwelling in our backyard, I have a second level of security to prevent escapes; I have a couple of "tort boards" secured across the base of the two gates with access to backyard just in case I happened to leave a gate unlatched.  I was thinking, "how could I have left that gate open?  I am always very mindful making sure the gates are latched, I'd hate for a tortoise or two to wander away.  Despite the gate being open, the tort boards were in place and a quick checked showed so were the reptiles.

I began to walk through the garage to enter the house when I noticed the door into the house was not closed tightly.  I knew I had slammed it completely shut around 10 that morning.  My mind then clicked and released a 50 pound weight that fell right to the pit of my loins.  I then knew what I would see when I pushed open the door.  

The back patio door had been kicked hard enough to force the double deadbolt through the interior side of door jamb.  Allowing access to $4000 worth of mostly small and sentimental items of moderate monetary value but irreplaceable heirlooms.

Split door frame on back patio door.
Thieves kicked double dead bolt door
until they forced the bolt through
the back of the wood door frame

A sickening feeling enveloped me as I looked around the inside of the house.  
The flatscreen TV gone.  
Sound system gone.  
Our master bedroom, trashed.
He/They had taken a pillow case off the bed pillow in our room and used it to stuff Sue's two jewelry boxes from her dresser top into the sack.  They emptied her dresser drawers onto the floor and taken a few other items.  The same for my dresser top boxes of tie tacs and treasured sentimental items plus my passport.  They also got Inga's jewelry box (inherited from Sue's mother) and a guitar amplifier from Grant's room.  I called the police and they came by in about 50 minutes to write the report and call out the forensics unit to dust for prints.  They got some good ones from a DVD case that had been thrown to the floor while stealing the TV.  

Officer May said that bad guys will continue to do bad things until they are caught.  Then if the prints match, they can be tied to this crime.  Or, maybe they'll find a match on record (or maybe those prints belong to me and we have no link to who did this).  I did a check of the nearest pawn shop the next day and found nothing.  Others searched Craig's List and ebay on our behalf for some of the distinctive jewelry that had been passed down to Sue from her great grandfather.  Just despicable.

I removed the shattered door jamb and grabbed a scrap 2x4 and nailed it to the stud framing the patio door, drilling two holes and remounting the strike plates so that the door could be closed and secured (minimally) until full repairs could be made.

I know many of the neighbors around me, and of course the PD squad car and forensics van was noted by many that evening.  So, I told my story of woe to Jane, Michael and Donna, Steve, Angie and her son Jayden, Jim and Shea, Dorothy and Sam, the Scotts and the Bishops.  Many of these folks are around most of the day, so I am surprised and sorry that no one noticed the nefarious intruders.  But perhaps my greatest disappointment is with Strider.

Strider is 70 lbs and not all that friendly.  In May the UPS delivery guy delivered a package and to the doorstep, rang the bell and beat a retreat back to his doorless truck.  I opened my door and picked up my package just before he got inside his brown machine and he smiled at me and said, "I remember this house and your dog from a few years ago!" as he sped away.  That was then - this is now.  Strider in his younger days would hear something at the front door and he would hurl his body into the door, rearing on his back legs to show his fanged face out the door window as he barked vociferously.  That was then - this is now.  Now his back legs are atrophied and feeble and more often than not, he is not roused by noises around his premises. I trusted him as the ultimate line of defense.

So, I had to sit down to have a hard talk with old Strider amid the jetsam of our strewn-about possessions that were dumped by the thieve(s) onto his doggy bed next to Sue's dresser.  He looked back at me and said, "Well you would not believe the kind of of unsettling day I had today - some guys threw a bunch of people stuff onto my bed".  Though he was inwardly quite chagrined to admit that he had not really done his job as a trusted watch dog with a mean countenance. Yes, I had counted on him to scare away anybody that rang the bell or showed up with black hearts at our back door.  I am hurt and disappointed that he was not such a deterrent after all.  I have to ask what is he good for, other than shedding copious amounts of "Strider down" - fine black fur onto floor and furnishings.  Well, I told him, "I am afraid after this big let-down, I am going to have to award the 'Good Pet' ribbon to the tortoises".  He was sad, but understood.

Steve and Michael both told me that they had seen felonious Robert still hanging around in the neighborhood.  They said he was now driving a small red pickup truck.  He no longer has a place to stay since he was removed from the 'crack house' in early March.  So why was he hanging around the neighborhood.  Michael is adamant that it was felonious Robert who knew the rhythm of the block and he was waiting for an opportunity to steal from us.  Steve and Michael could be wrong - but they are not.  

I would rather rejoice that the 'crack house' was filled with good neighbors, but instead I write that the crack house remains empty and the lawless and debauchery that I thought had left the block was only waiting for the opportunity to do what they had probably contemplated for a long time.

This is the blog post I wish I did not have to write.

Ironic Trajectery

There is a time in one's life when you ride in the car and then there is a time when you drive the car.  Decisions and choices made from the driver's seat are not always readily apparent or appreciated from those in the back seat.  What goes around... comes around.

And so it was the sad circumstance of a certain young man growing up in our family that the rule is:  The drive controls the radio and all other instruments on the dashboard.  Both parents were almost exclusively accompanied on trips to soccer practice, after-school jaunts and family errands by the disembodied voices of Noah Adams, Linda Worthheimer, Robert Segal and a host of other Nation Public Radio luminaries.  With a disapproving huff, "Can we please listen to something else?" pled the embodied voice from the backseat.  No, NPR is good an informative stuff [in my heart-of-hearts, I hope that one day you will grow to appreciate being informed].

Fast forward.  The young man in the back seat now posses the technology to plug in his earbuds while riding in the front passenger's seat and listen to tunes of his own choosing.  And so he did last summer as dad and son rushed back across the country after his sister's graduation in Oregon to get him off to Summer Term at the University of Missouri.  He had an internship at the Missourian as a cub reporter for his print/digital emphasis of his Journalism major.  That internship at the newspaper convinced him that he'd rather focus on a career in broadcast, so he switched over to Broadcast courses.  The mid-college career change put him out of synch with the required coarse work to graduate in four years.  

The new plan was to take the needed Broadcast 2 and 3 in back-to-back summer sessions this year to place him back on track to finish in four.  It'll be a grueling summer, but it will then set him up for a relatively pressure-free Senior year to enjoy.

Broadcast 1 emphasized TV, but included radio skill development as well.  A renown broadcast professor with three decades of experience in the field, told Grant, "you have a great radio voice", affirming his choice to move from print to broadcast.  However, as part of B1 last semester, the students were required to do 'stand-ups'; the introductory part of a broadcast story where the reporter holds the microphone, looks into the lens and with poise delivers the memorized introduction to the story.  Grant's first attempt was flawless, poised and delivered strongly; he noted his two professors on the sideline shoot one another a glance and a nod of approval, both thinking this kid has what it takes.  After B1, the students select whether they will work at the local TV or radio studio for their B2 course.  Grant chose to go the radio route.  However, on two separate occasions, the head of the department remarked to Grant, "Too bad you're not going into television broadcast".

Now the self-acknowledged irony is that the radio station Grant has been working at this summer is the local NPR affiliate: KBIA, Columbia, Missouri. LOL :-)  Grant pitches story ideas to his editors, writes the story, splices in audio from interviews, edits the content to fit the specified time allowed and then reads it on air.  How cool is that?

We long-time listeners of NPR can now audio stream on our computer, KBIA on Wednesday afternoons and hear the flagship news program, All Things Considered, and after Robert Segal finishes his interview on unraveling Iraq or IRS Scandal, they then break for the local affiliate to cover some of their stories, and then we hear the news from Central Missouri with the sign off, "For KBIA, I'm Grant Suneson". Yes, right there on the very same radio dial as Linda Worthheimer et al.

I just hope that the kid in the back seat on his way to soccer practice at the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, appreciates what good parents he has to allow him to become a broadminded and informed citizen by listening to NPR. 

"You can't fool me!  I listen to Public Radio" - Squidward

College Bowl Flush

I was more than a contender.
I was a champion.  I was THE National Champion.
I was on TV.
I was in the papers.
I was on CBS National Radio with Art Fleming.
Yeah, they even did one of those TV News magazine stories with me.

Mark Suneson.  Captain, California State University at Fresno, 1980 College Bowl National Champions.  My three teammate and I brought glory, fame and respect to Fresno State that summer of '80.
But where are they now? huh?

We won our Regionals at UCLA.  We punched our ticket to St. Louis, MO to face 14 other regional schools in College Bowl, the erstwhile TV quiz show that pitted university teams against one another, scoring by "buzzing in" on a lock out system and being the first to correctly answer questions spanning undergraduate subjects found in a liberal arts curriculum, current and historical events and some cultural oddities.  We dressed in western hats - which befuddled those teams from Texas and Oklahoma.  We Californians ate pancakes and bacon for breakfast, astonishing many a competitor who assumed we left coast types subsisted on alfalfa sprouts and yak yogurt.  We brought along a few boxes of Fresno State's own grown and packaged raisins from the campus vineyard and freely tossed the small boxes into the crowd of vanquished competitors before we sat to play our next match.  The crowd loved us and the treats.  Art Fleming (Original host of TV's Jeopardy!), our moderator, had to on several occasions quiet the audience who were gleefully chanting; "Raisins! Raisins! Raisins!" as we took the stage. 

We won it all.  We beat the hosting institution, Washington University (proclaiming the highest amount of per capita National Merit Scholars in the country).

I have not returned to walk the Fresno State campus since I left for grad school in Texas in 1981.  But, I was in Fresno early this June, and I prevailed upon my hosting sister to take me back to Fresno State.  It was 107 degrees and though I remember it being hot in summers past, I do not ever recall feeling the searing intensity of the hot air I felt on this afternoon.  It was blistering.  Of course I bought a souvenir T-shirt.

I found the Geology Department relocated to a new building that was not there when I matriculated.  I talked with a professor and gave my business card to the department's executive assistant - just in case any Bakersfield oil companies were looking for Fresno State grads to work in the oilfields down there.  I just might relocate.

Smiling with the Smilodon
Fresno State Geology Department

My two sisters and I winced as we left the a/c and returned to the air as crisp as baked parchment and ducked into the Student Union building.  I went upstairs where the Director of Student Activities officed.  I nonchalantly asked "Where is the 1980 College Bowl National Championship trophy now displayed?"  
The coed working there told me, "I don't know, but I'll bet they probably threw it away if it was that old."  
I let it slip that I had brought that trophy and all of the prestige it represents back to Fresno State myself.  She then suggested that "maybe it was in the old field house with some other trophies - but, I don't really know.  Maybe you should talk to the activities director down the hall."

I did find the director even at that late hour in the afternoon.  She spent some time with me and my sisters and said that College Bowl as an event has long been supplanted.  Though she still had the buzzer lock-out system in a closet and a few packets of questions somewhere as well.  I inquired about Bob Lundahl, the Act Dir in my time.  She though she had heard that he died a few years back.  No surprise, the little man smoked more than anybody I ever knew, and he was always very nervous.  He could not bear to watch to our final matches.  He was fun, but as I feared, not long for this world with his constitution and bad habits. 

That giant sucking sound your hear is the 'glorious past' being flushed away down the ol' College Bowl.
Glory days.  As the Boss say, they'll pass you by in a wink of a young man's eye.  Glory days.
Now all of that is in the dust bin.  No surprise really.  Who would be expected to care about that?  Do not rest on past laurels, those glory days will fade.  Just as I expected I'd find on my return.  No tears shed.  The journey continues...

Alexander the Great wept for lack of new empires to conquer (that'd be a great College Bowl question!).  Not me, I still have lots to conquer.  I'll get right on that...

Meanwhile, back at Valhalla:

Art Fleming:  Here's your next question.  "In what year did Fresno State win the College Bowl National Championship?"
[buzz]

Earthman, San Francisco State, what is your answer.

Earthman:  "Trick question!  Fresno State could never win.  Nothing good could ever come from Fresno.

Art Flemming: I am sorry, that is so incorrect - and minus 5 points for being so snide.  
No takers on the otherside?  The correct answer is 1980.

Now for your next question; "What three academic majors did the captain of the 1980 National Champion College Bowl team claim to have been studying?"
[buzz]

Suneson, Fresno State, what is your answer?

Suneson:  That's easy; Nuclear Philanthropy, Holistic Calculus and Subaqueous Cestoweaviumology.

Art Flemming:  "That is correct for 30 points!" 

In Valhalla, I still am the Champion.

The Spoils of the Victorious
Long ago relegated to the Dust Bin 

Golden State Travels; Kitsch to Kitchen

No John Steinbeck here.  Never-the-less, a blog entry regarding family and travels during a rare return to my natal state.  I joined with my sisters and parents at the home of my sister Wendy in Fresno, ostensibly gathered for the scheduled memorial for my Aunt June in Aptos, south of Santa Cruz on the central coast.

Brother-in-law Barth rented a van to carry the six of us.  The van turned out to be heavily dowsed in noxious 'car freshener' to the point of making us feel our olfactory lobe had been violated.  We dubbed our ride, "The Stinkmobile".  In the morning we cut west across the Valley, quickly crossing the San Joaquin River, then following a two-lane Madera County road surveyed and paved true and straight in Cartesian grid fashion of all the surrounding agriculture land.  Patchwork sections of 40, 160, 320 acres; peach orchards, almond and pistachio orchards, alfalfa, onions, vineyards and fallow dusty land in drought and lacking sufficient irrigation water.  Interstate 5 North, cutting over the velvet folds of the Coast Range past the severely drawn-down San Louis Reservoir.  Over Pacheco Pass, there off to the side of the road, across the creek is crag of rock jutting conspicuously upward maybe 200 feet from the otherwise rounded topography.  I, somewhat unimaginatively, always thought of it a 'Castle Rock' and dreamed of conquering it one day.  My dad remembered as we passed by, "that's where you found $5".  Indeed, in 1976 in the springtime with a tank of gas and a newly minted driver's license of my own, I did indeed scale 'Castle Rock' with Blake and Steve.  The creek and hillside was thick with orange bellied California Newts, and at the top of that crag, Blake found a $5 bill in amongst the Mountain Laurel in a cleft in the rocks.  No worry of Alzheimers with Dad.

Cresting the pass' summit and down the other side, the fields were no longer neatly sectioned in Jeffersonian townships, but followed the fertile contours that tucked and stretched around the winding valleys where all flat terrain was cultivated in fields of strawberries, lettuce and other vegetables that are good for you, or in level orchards of apricot and plum.  Above the Maher house where we gathered for an afternoon remembrance of Aunt June, the cool marine air with its pewter sky was thin, allowing intermittent sunlight.  My Aunt June had died in April, just days before my mom was scheduled to visit her sister - as she had expressed to me, "for perhaps the last time".  My cousins, Carolyn and Grant and their spouses had worked hard to put together a fine and fitting event, with stories, song, and wondrous food.  We said our good byes to assembled kin not seen for some decades and set to return via Los Banos.

Casa de Fruita
Pit Stop - and so much more

First we needed a pit stop.  An institution outside of Holister, California is the long-time-ago fruit stand, known as Casa de Fruita.  It has now morphed into

a caricature of its former self and is an over-the-top den of kitsch.  Every department of this decadent tourist trap is labeled in self mocking, "Casa de ..."  For the coffee shop, it is Casa de Coffee, for the kiddie train ride, Casa de Choo-Choo" ad naseum. We had to stop - not only for the bathrooms, but for the chance to buy something.

  I once had a favorite mug, with the Casa de Fruita logo emblazoned opposite the handle PLUS my name "Mark" below the label.  Never leave a long-handled spoon sitting inside your favorite mug while it sits on the counter top, otherwise, your arm will swing wide, hit the protruding spoon handle and dash your favorite mug to the floor.  Shattered.  So sad.  Now, a chance to recoup my loss after all these years.  We parked and I headed for Casa de Redemption to find a ceramic mug with the colorful logo, and hoped against hope that I could select from an assortment of pre-painted mugs bearing common names.  
What?  
Among all of this merchandise, not a single ceramic mug?
Not a one with a Casa de Fruita logo? 
Nothing with common names of Michael, John, Sarah, Robert, Cindy or Mark!  
I found a glass coffee cup with a subdued logo on it, and as I mulled the reality of no redemption of the shattered bygone favorite beverage holder; my sister said, "You know, that could be your Christmas gift - why don't you let me pay for that."  So, I did.  Maybe a small amount of redemption with a bubble-wrapped piece of kitsch.

Meanwhile, sister Sheri, always lured by kitchen sundries and baked goods, found fertile ground for her credit card at Casa de Pies.  A berry pie was placed carefully in the rear cargo space as we all loaded into the van and headed for dinner in Los Banos.

Dad was buying, and I, being the eldest had the responsibility to make a decision for dinner.  I suggested we dine at the Wool Growers Hotel, a noted Basque restaurant on the edge of town.  

In jagged contrast to the marine fog in Aptos during lunch, now back in the San Joaquin Valley we found it to be 102 degrees hot in the setting sun.  Barth of Basque descent, had never been to the Wool Growers, Dad who had travel up and down the Valley during his long career had heard of the Wool Growers - but had never been there.  Only I, a long tall Texan out of Scandinavia had been before.  Inside the waitress beckoned us to come down and fill in the chairs along table row #3.  This is family style, we only take cash.  A carafe of red wine is set before us and then the choices begin, for the main course you can have: lamb, roast chicken, prime rib, new york steak, pork chops or ham.  Everybody gets bread and butter, a soup, a salad, french fries, mac & cheese before the entree arrives.  For dessert, chocolate or vanilla cups of ice cream.  A massive meal.  I figure it was a special occasion for all of to be gathered together, so let's make it a memorable meal.  Done - maybe over done.

Suneson Family Dines Family Style
at Wool Growers Basque Restaurant

We waddled back to the Stinkmobile sitting in the evening heat, Sheri's berry pie in the cargo hold was discovered to be again bubbling and baking.  Twice baked pie. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing twice.  Right?  I'd do it all again - except I'd prefer to ride in a less pungent vehicle.

Free Spirit Passing

I made it out to California in early June for a rite which I do grudgingly acknowledge must come upon us all.  It is a rite that comes unbidden and passes over the generation that was there before I was.  In their appointed courses these seasons and moons around and above us roll on, and I feel these tides know nothing of we mere mortals beneath them and the heavens.  But then there comes a season and a moon and when they pass they leave me and my generation now standing in a new place as we now become the ones who were before.  I know am mindful those before me, and I treasure the space they hold in my soul, like the space where a cloud once was.  Yet I know of these mortals who were before I was and I remember and hold dearly what I know once was in earlier seasons beneath the moon.

Aunt June spent many of her days of late in her "sacred cave", the home built by Uncle Al south of Santa Cruz, set back on the cliffs above the Pacific and a short walk down the street to the surf.  Aunt June was the freest of free spirits; infusing her life with whimsy, travel and subjects metaphysical and stuffed with the full enjoyment of garden variety adventures.  She knew people who could read your aura, she traveled to India and lived in the Auraville Ashram steeped in eastern though and mysticism.  I remember Aunt June as one intently interested in hearing about your own passion and eager to suggest exploring deeper topics of interest.   Visiting my four cousins at Aunt June's house for Thanksgiving, or just driving over as a family for a day at the beach was always for me an experience for which I looked forward.  There were always stories of interest and/or humorous misadventure shared by everyone in the household.  Aunt June the presiding quintessential free spirit filled the air with welcoming warmth and an unperplexed assessment of what the day brought before her.  Aunt Junes passing is a great loss, for she was a great spirit, one I am fortunate to have know and experienced.

Aunt June's passing came just two day ahead of my parents scheduled visit in April.  Both my parents and my two sisters and I returned in June for the remembrance of my mom's oldest sister.  June's daughter, Carolyn had put together a well done event at the house, with a great sharing of stories from many friends and family, including grandson Daniel's story recounting his grandmother's fairy box that seemed to prove the existence of ephemeral fairies by the footprints left overnight in the sandy bottom - until he got wise to his grandmother's hijinx. But still, when confronted, June insisted that her planting evidence of fairies inside the box did not at all prove that those fairies don't really exist.  She told young Daniel that when he got older, he would appreciate the mystery and truth of the unseen.  Many people with connections to the Auraville Ashram came to remember and speak of June's spirit, counsel and support.  Her son Grant played and sang for his mother and Carolyn released a box of Painted Lady butterflies and the end of all being said and done.  
Aunt June, now and always, a Free Spirit.

Vaya con Dios Aunt June.

Grant plays and sings a song
in memory of his mother

My mother says a few words in
memory of her sister June

After all is said and done
Carolyn releases Painted Lady Butterflies
in memory of June - A Free Spirit

Celebrating the Spontaneous - A Wing-it Wedding

"So... I'd say that was interesting."
So says my extremely diplomatic and non-judgmental wife after we retire to our motel room after the wedding of John and Ashley that evening. 

I confirmed, "I've never seen anything quite like it I'll have to admit.  I felt the effort to keep it unpretentious and light kind of left it unsupported in the end."  I was thinking along with Peggy Lee, Is that all there is?  This wedding was definitely a celebration of the casual and spontaneous - though a bit of forethought and even a smidge of it rehearsal would have done wonders.  At least in my opinion.  But I'm no wedding planner. 

We arrived mid-afternoon to the Unitarian Church to help set up, as promised.  I felt called to arrange tables and chairs in the reception hall.  
First Q: (to the groom) How many should we set up for?
First A: We planned all of this out in a few days ago, I think we can get everyone to fit if we arrange the tables in an interlocking-Z pattern.  We have a diagram as to how it shold be set up.
Second Q: Great.  Where's the diagram?
Second A: Oh.  I think it is at home by the computer.

If this were fiction, this scene would be called "fore shadowing".

We managed to count chairs and haul in every last table on the premises to get very close to 150 places shoe-horned into the room.

Ashley the Bride
Directs the Post Nuptial Festivities

Meanwhile, the bride's sister was supposed to be on hand to make the flower arrangements.  Boy is she going to be in big trouble - she never showed up.  So Sue and Carol rode to the rescue, cutting, taping, filling and arranging.  The were working like fiends.  Sue brought a pile of floral mess over to where I and Bruce (best man) were seated and said that we needed to save the wedding for the bride and help with the flowers.  Bruce told me that these bridal flowers were work for the women folk and we were not going to be doing any such floral arrangements.  So he went on detailing the lives of lost brothers and conspiracy theories that were of no consequence to him and his view on life.

With the tables set up with all the flowers and doves beautifully arranged by the women folk; it was getting time to fill the sanctuary.  The groom's men all had Hawaiian shirts and shuffled up to the chancel as a blue grass band played.  I circled back to get the printed order of service.  It was of some help in following the events to come. 

There was no one officiating for the wedding, so it was kind of an eclectic gathering of consciousness more-or-less related to a matrimonial theme.  One of the early items was expected to be a sing-along to James Taylor's How Sweet It is.  However, the band did not know they were expected to play the tune, so they declined to accompany what was a leaderless attempt to 

Blue Grass Band
Plays before the Wedding

muddle through the words printed in the order of service.  Most people gave up after a few lines and the whole effort imploded.  Well, that was interesting, how about we go onto the next item.  There was then a few quotes of Groucho Marx, "Marriage is wonderful institution, but who wants to spend the rest of their life in an institution?" [rim shot]
Then a reading of I Corinthians Chapter 13 (the love passage).  Time for the 7th inning stretch, and we were all to sing the Beatles Her Majesty is a Pretty Nice Girl.  No printed lyrics for this, because we all know this little ditty.

Time for vow - or promises or something.  The Groom went first.  Time for the bride, but she had not got around to writing/memorizing anything for her counter part.  So she apologized, said I love you and promised to just wing it the best she could for the rest of their time together.  I can't help but feel, a big oops moment.

Onto the big moment, where the best man re-enacted the famous wedding scene from the movie The princess Bride.  The groom playing the part of Prince Humperdink, demanded that the best man skip to the end and say "man and wife".  So brother Bruce did.  At so it was.

That being said (or not really said), it was time for the heavily inked Tina Tarmac (minus her backup band, the Burn) to play Clare de lune as we headed for the dinner line.

Ashley is a large-eyed beauty, a talented writer and teacher and clearly well beloved of by her husband John.  She and John appear to all the world to make a blessed pair.  We enjoyed their hospitality to the utmost and were pleased to join in celebrating this wedding - all the more because it was "interesting".  We wish them abundant happiness all the rest of their years.  Even as we celebrate the spontaneity displayed, we have to wonder what is going on with kids these days - only these kids are our age.   Marriage is what brings us together.  And so we were glad to be a part of the scene.

Tourist of the Nashville Skyline

One of my early favorite albums was Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline released in 1969.  It has taken me awhile, but I finally made out to the idyllic country landscape of the Nashville Skyline.  Reaching back to circa 1969, I'll put into play a common word from that era, "vibe".  As in, 'sometimes a particular city will give you a good vibe'.  So it is with San Antonio, San Diego, Fort Worth and now Nashville.  I drove into town to meet my wife who was flying in that afternoon for her cousin's wedding.  I coasted down the western escarpment of Tennessee's capitol city, folded charmingly into rolling limestone bluffs enveloped in late Spring greens easily navigated with wide, sweeping braids of the interstate highway system [thank you President Eisenhower].

Later in the evening we picked up Sue's cousin Carol flying in from Denver as part of cousin John Mott's and bride Ashley's wedding guests.  A scheduled IHOP breakfast with bride and groom started the following day, and for Carol and Sue it allowed time to get reacquaint with the Tennessee Mott's after 30+ years.  After breakfast the schedule diplomatically invited all of us out-of-towners to "play tourist" for the remainder of the Friday afternoon.   Given many options, we choose to visit the heart of Music City.

After returning to brush our teeth at the motel, were were decked out as camera toting touri and headed for the action in the heart of Nashville.

Carol and Sue check the Nashville
Attractions on the tourist map

Sue and Carol
Ready to see the sites!

This being "Music City", I quickly throw together a band and audition for a record contract.  The band, Sune and his Chesapeake Baying Beauties, is short-lived, we were not signed, but it was fun while it lasted.

My Music City Debut as Band Leader: 
Sune and  his Chesapeake Baying Beauties
A hastily gathered all-girl band from Maryland

Closing duet with me and lead vocalist
We left 'em wanting no more.

Sue & Carol
Main Street, Nashville

Well, I 'm all shook up. Posing with the King
Deep inside I think my wife may really be enjoying herself (?)

We order the largest Ice Cream Cone in the South

There was music coming out of every 4th door along the avenue, several solo acts playing on the street corners, one with a cat perched on top of his guitar.  I make the comment that the cat will come in handy if the soloist breaks a string -- a moment later Carol understands the implication of my joke.  My wife just says, "ignore him while we're in public".

We see lots of leather shops, boots and cowboy stuff, but wait, were down South.  This is Texas stuff, how many cowboys come from Tennessee?  Not many, but really this is about perception, tourists and show biz.  WE make it down to the Tennessee River, see historic warehouses and historical founding buildings and then walk back up the other side of the street.

We pull up to the capitol building and wander the grounds looking for the Al Gore (inventor of the internet) statue - but we are disappointed not to locate it.  We see Ol' Hickory [Andy Jackson] and some rebel spy who was justly hanged during the Civil War and then ring the bell from the USS Tennessee. 

We walk all over town in the late May heat, which I figure makes us Tennessee Walkers; that being the case, I lead our group to water and end up making everybody drink (who said it can't be done?)

We part from all of the action and go get ready for the evening's prenuptial dinner.

Tennessee State Capitol
-we can't find a statue of Al Gore anywhere

That's a Mott Trait!

We all settled easily into some drinking and swapping of stories and sifting through the last generation's peccadilloes and reflections on the lives and choices of all of us - the present generation.  Specifically as related to the Mott Family. We were all way too old for pinching of cheeks and tousling of hair atop the young'uns' head, while exclaiming, "My how you've grown!".  No, this family reunion avoided those theatrics typically witnessed at a myriad of multi-generation family reunions assembled across the land on Memorial Day.  No, instead this Memorial Day weekend the constant refrain was, "That's a Mott trait!".  Answered by, "Oh yeah, that's definitely a Mott trait."

Cousin John Mott (Sue's cousin on her mother's side, son of Uncle Larry & Aunt Katie Mott) was getting married to Ashley at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee. Sue had occasion to have dinner with long-lost cousin John last year while in Nashville for a conference.  The family relations were renewed and through Facebook, they were now not only cousins, but "friends", enjoying one another's postings.  Finding the renewal of kindred ties very much to her liking, Sue was pleased to get an invitation to the wedding of John and Ashley and quickly connected via Facebook to cousin Carol (daughter of Uncle Ben & Aunt Donna Mott) in Denver.  With a big push and flurry of imploring texts, tweet and posts,  Sue send the message to Carol, "We should do this Wedding together!" - that's a Mott trait.

I threw in with the Mott rumpus as well.  I got up early and drove our 2009 Camry to Nashville (10 hrs) while Sue booked a flight and landed at 4 PM.  She got in ahead of me by 50 minutes, I scooped her up and we checked in to the motel.  We had a Turkish dinner and then went to fetch Cousin Carol at the airport at 8 PM and we all came back to the motel.  I excused myself and soon settled on top of my pillows after a long drive, while the girl cousins set up shop on the lobby sofa and talked into the wee hours.  Cousin Carol was our good and constant traveling companion as we all traipsed across Middle Tennessee in our car.

The next moring was a scheduled breakfast at IHOP with Ashley and John, bride and groom.  Everybody gets acquainted and gets hopped up on caffeine. We three will play tourist in Nashville and then we will all meet again that night at the prenuptial dinner 50 miles east of Nashville in Watertown.

In Watertown, Bruce (eldest of the five Mott boys) and wife Cathy, are hosting a dinner and music at his Walker Creek Toffee factory.

Sue & Carol
Wedding Rehearsal at
Bruce's Walker Creek Toffee HQ

Bruce and Cathy make high quality, superior tasting, pure and natural toffee varieties in a 19th Century building with a recently installed industrial kitchen. As the three of us showed up to the party, I was gratified to be treated immediately as family; as Cousin Chris found me at the beer and wine table and said to me, "Looking for a drink? Come with me." We walked back deep into Bruce's candy kitchen and he pulled out the local moonshine and and poured a generous glass and said, "This is the real Tennessee stuff.  Drink up!"  That's a Mott trait!


The music was provided by up and coming country music singer, the lovely Lillie Syracuse, early in the evening, followed by a blue grass band from Eastern Tennessee State University featuring Ashley's daughter.  

Sue and Aunt Katie
Meet again after decades
Prenuptial Dinner

As the tunes wound down, the toffee was long gone and a fabulous dinner of tenderloin and shrimp was cleared, Bruce and his wife Cathy insisted we not drive all the way back to Nashville, but come on out to the farm and crash there.  Cousin Carol asked Cathy how to get to the farm: Cathy tried to remember, and did her best to give directions, but little of what that had been imbibed that night in Watertown was actually water.  I told my two fair ladies who were traveling with me, that we will not be staying at the farm, we will be back at the motel - trust me this is the right decision.

Carol and John
Gather in the Kitchen

Lillie Syracuse & Buzzy Orange
Offer prenuptial melodious songs
during dinner

As a fair compromise, we got some good sleep at the motel and then headed east again to try and find Bruce and Cathy's farm, in the daylight.  Google map was of as much help as the infamous 'drunken directions' provided the night before.  As the Mott farm on Walker Creek Road was really on a road by another name - even though it was the same road [this actually makes sense if you're in rural Tennessee].  Though cell phones navigation features were of little help, actually the phone applications were of some use in calling Bruce and saying we were lost outside of DeKalb County.  He eventually gave us some sober directions and Cathy flagged us down as we drove past the farm.  We found out that the entire blue grass band had taken up the invitation to crash at the farm last night, so had we also come to hang out at Walker Creek farm, it would have been 8 of us in two beds [this actually makes sense if you're in rural Tennessee].  We were well received, Bruce cooked breakfast and poured whatever anybody requested while Carol and Sue shared family photos and talked further of family connections.  There was plenty of agreement, "Oh yeah, that's definitely a Mott trait."

A check of the sun's angle and we all knew we had to get back to Nashville for the wedding.  We had offered our services to help set up, and they were kindly accepted.  Please be here by 2:00 said the bride.  And so we were.

Bruce on back deck of
Walker Creek Farm
-where friends & family are always welcome,
the kitchen is always warm
and the bar is always open
The Good Life

Cathy, Carol and Bruce
Swapping family stories and herding dogs
Is that a Mott trait?

Mammoth Trip

As road trips go, for distance and endurance this was pygmy size.
As for destination, it was mammoth - literally (and I don't mean figuratively).

We recently acquired a very low-mileage 2006 Hyundai Azera from a widow neighbor of my parents in Montana.  Dad of course can not resist a deal, so when Jennie approached for advice on how to pare down to a single car and sell the Hyundai, Dad offered a fair price with no hassle.  I flew up north to pick up the new (used) vehicle and drive back to Dallas.

The plan was have A) Sue either keep the Hyundai and upgrade Grant with the 2009 Camry, which Sue was currently driving, or B) give the Hyundai to Grant.  How to decide?  No better way than a road trip! Let's take the Hyundai on the road and see which one you prefer.  Sue drives, I pick the destination.  I choose a 100 mile trip (1-way) to Waco to see the Pleistocene Mammoth Site.

The site has been excavated since 1978 and opened to the public a few years back.  The excavation area is covered by a roof and walls to protect the exposed mammoth bones.  We sign up for the 2 PM tour, and while waiting I get to talking with the young guide who will lead us from the Visitors Center down the trail to the covered excavation.  He tells me that if I went by myself, I probably wouldn't be able to figure out what I was looking at.  I call his bluff and tell him I have a Masters Degree in Paleontology.  It turns out he was a student at Fresno State (as was I), in the geology department (as was I); but he got side tracked by competitive downhill skateboarding (unlike me), and did not finish his degree (unlike me).  We are going on in this vein of coincidence and connections, when a lady butts into our conversation and says, "That's all very nice you two, but [pointing at her watch] it is past 2, time to start the tour."  Agreed.

Mammoth tusk
At Waco Mammoth Site Excavation

What the paleontologist have found so far is nursery herd of 7 cow mammoths and 9 juveniles which perished about 65,000 years ago.  It is now believed a separate event at the same location about 50,000 years ago accounted for 6 additional mammoth skeletons, including a large bull mammoth.  We are told no human connection to the mammoth deaths has been found, and it is postulated that they were either stuck in gumbo mud and died or were drown in a flash flood inside a steep channel of the Bosque River.  I have my doubts about both of these explanations, but that is what I enjoyed about the trip; a presentation of the bones and paleontological evidence (habeous corpus) and then a discussion of the pro and cons to explain the evidence at the site.  
Great scientific fun.  
The official verdict at the Waco Columbian Mammoth Site - "how they died is still a mystery."

Looking down upon in situ bones including finds of
22 mammoths, a camel and a saber tooth tiger tooth

On the way home we stopped off at a Czech bakery in the recently partially destroyed town of West and bought Kolachkes, skunk eggs and pastries for dinner upon our return.

However, after driving 200 miles in the Azera, Sue was still undecided as to what vehicle she will be driving in the future.  She has yet to make that mammoth decision.  What will she do?  It is still a mystery.

Columbian Mammoth painted life size
Wife for scale

We stop along the trail for a Pleistocene PB&J
The rustling in the bushes turns out to be a herd of Armadillos
(not mammoths as we had hoped)

Dream Come True

Sweet Dreams are made of...?
Contented home?
Fulfilling work?
Hard work that pays off just like you planned?
Successfully raised children?
or, in my case, sometimes I just dream of chocolate covered strawberries.

Our eldest left home in 2009.  She said she dreamed of going somewhere where there are real trees and real mountains.  She found her way to Eugene, Oregon and began her studies at the University of Oregon ["Once a Duck, Always a Duck" they say].  Her plan was to pick a place to go live where she would enjoy it for four years and once there, then figure out what she wanted to do.  For Inga, this was a good plan; she has always known decisively what she wants and what she does not want, and most often how to get it.  She makes things happen.  Her dreams come true.

I blogged last summer on her graduation and celebration.  Her roommates, one a brilliant neuroscience researcher received a fellowship for graduate work at Stanford, one an English major actually found a job as an editor as well.  Our one, graduated from the honors college with a degree in Public Policy, Planning and Management (3PM), yet no immediate future career prospects. Her boyfriend's mother, Annie, generously offered to allow Inga to room at her place in Salem, an hour up the road until she found her footing.

Six months in Salem with a cell phone and a laptop she searched for job leads in Portland, made contacts and sent follow up emails looking for something in the field of public health management, her desired career.  

With the help of a contact she had made at the Multanomah County (Portland, OR) Health Department, she was advised to apply for an AmeriCore position.  AmeriCore, is a federally funded program that places college graduates in jobs that meet the needs of impoverished communities.  In this instance, AmeriCore was looking to staff positions with Multanomah County to administer a program that is intended to improve the diets of poor communities within the county.  AmeriCore had about 5 days of phone interviews scheduled for all of the candidates, and Inga was set for one of the very last interviews of a Tuesday.  AmeriCore was going to make the final cut on Thursday of Friday - not much waiting time.

While Sue and I were driving through East Texas to visit friends on a fine February Friday afternoon, Inga had tried calling each of our phones several times, but we did not pick up.  Then Sue checked her phone outside of Athens, Texas and saw several missed calls from our daughter.  Once connected, it was great news.  She was told that she was the most qualified applicant for the position. She was offered a job.  Would she like to wait until next week to confirm AmeriCore's offer? the director asked.  Inga replied, "No, that will not be necessary, I am ready for this!"  Well, then, the paper work will be emailed to you.  Done.  She has a job!

After officially signing on the bottom line, Inga was scheduled to have an orientation conference in Denver in early April (expenses paid), then would report to the Multanomah County Health Department where she would work on several projects, including improving health through diet within the community, working on a process for the County Health Department to be accredited by the Federal Health and Human Services Dept which should then allow them to receive more federal grant money and also help out with a 'smoking cessation' effort, which is her passion and the subject of her honors thesis.

In the meantime, she and Sean rented an apartment in the quirkiest quadrant of Portland, the NE Albert Street area, gathered furniture and prepared to move in.  She absolutely loves the area and ambiance.  On a clear day, she can see from her window two Cascade Range volcanoes, Hood and St. Helens. And on every other day she can see a variety of hipsters, petition purveyors and characters moving on two and four legs.  Somewhere in town is a bagpipe playing man in a Darth Vader mask.  She often takes the bus to work, which allows her to avoid running over the numerous cyclist darting about on the wet streets and to collect daily stories of what types of characters rode with her on a particular day.  One day a gal boarded the bus with a pitbull on a ratty rope.  The bus drives says only service animals can ride, she say, "Yeah, 'Strangler' here is a service animal", and takes her seat.

The AmeriCore position is for only 1 year, but Inga is hoping that with her inside position and display of her enthusiastic energy and multiple talents, that she will be able to slide from her AmeriCore job into any openings that comes available within the Health Department.  

Now, she is so excited about going to fulfilling work every day and so contented to be living where she does.  I have to say, Inga makes things happen her dream has come true.  And that makes us all so proud and pleased, it seems our first was successfully raised and launched and landed safely.

For Inga, life is but a chocolate covered strawberry. Take a big bite!