THE LONG DRIVE HOME
There are reasons for everything, as you long-suffering readers must know by now. The particular form that these disjointed narratives take was spawned in a sort of roman a clef format, through the simple necessity that once upon a time (code for “sea story”) there was an implacable Agency that determined it had the authority to review all writings of its employees.
As a practical matter, that was impossible to countenance. It would take too much time, and once, in an attempt to comply, had a reviewer opine that some of my contentions were incompatible with those of a serving officer, and that was about the time I determined that I was done with them, and done with censorship as a condition of service.
So, as many of you know, that is when I legally went down to the Courthouse in Fairfax and changed my name. I likewise vowed not to disclose sources and methods in The Daily.
The deceased are fair game, of course, and public figures, and with a little practice you can generally track who’s who in the zoo without specific attribution. The key is plausible deniability by Socotra House Publications, but that is slightly problematic for others.
For example, here is the conversation in the car as my sister Annook laid out the situation on the Petoskey Project, of which our literary collaboration is based. Imagine yourself for a moment, hurtling down I-72 or something like it, trying to figure things out:
“You can’t call it Petoskey.”
“What?”
“You can’t call it Petoskey. Project Petoskey.”
“Why, not?”
“Everything has to have a code name.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know – but there are rules.”
“Well, that’s just wrong.”
“Read the contract, you want to be a Socotra, do the Socotra network, be one with the Socotra – ya gotta be in code.”
“You really think this is necessary?”
“I do, Bunny.”
“Oh, great.”
“What?”
“First off, I am not a Socotra – I married a Socotra who also is not a Socotra – only a Socotra by code name…”
“Yes?”
“But now you’re calling me Bunny?”
“Bunny Socotra, Mr. Annook (not to be confused with Anook) Socotra of Project Little Town by the Bluff.”
“I will not be Bunny.”
“Whatever. Oh, look here comes Salmon.”
“You’re calling your daughter Salmon?”
“What?”
“Your Mother is calling you Salmon in the stories about Project Little Town by the Bluff.”
“Petoskey.”
“Ah, ah, ah…..”
“Bluff.”
“I am no Salmon. Jesus, Mom.”
“Annook.”
“I thought it was Anook.”
“Not when I became Annook, Annook of the North.”
“What the hell is a Socotra anyway?”
“Vic Socotra? I don’t know – Michigan Mafia.”
“Hey, now – Bad Guys Group of the 5 Great Lakes.”
“What?”
“Your Uncle. He thinks Grandma is a Magpie.”
“The camp robber?”
“Uncle Vic thinks Grandma is a camp robber?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, she was an irritant yesterday in the long car drive to Bellaire, her home town.”
“Graveyard on the hill.”
“What?”
“Graveyard on the Hill – Code for…
“Bellaire – got it.”
“It must be tough to grow up in the little town of Graveyard on the Hill to end up your final days in the Little town by the Bluff.”
“Salmon!”
“I am not Salmon.”
“Let it be, Bunny.”
“You’re calling him Bunny? I’m Bunny. You’re no Bunny ‘til some Bunny loves you.”
“She’s Bunny?”
“Now, now family, there can be all kinds of bunnies in the world.”
“Well, I never.”
“We were talking about Big Mama.”
“Magpie.”
“Terrible name. Horrible bird.”
“Exactly. Once she saw a sign for Massillon and once we refused to take the exit she was one angry Grandma.”
“Turn aound. She kept yelling at –
“Bear? You want to call me Bear?”
“No, I don’t think so – don’t worry – we’ll find you a name.”
“Grandma kept yelling at the male family member driving the car – turn around. Turn around. There are secrets and you said you were taking me home. You promised you were taking me home.”
“And we were taking her home. To Bellaire.”
“Graveyard on the Hill.”
“It was just two more hours southeast.”
“She was OK when she saw her town.”
“Remembered the bridge, the football field, the way to the massive graveyard at the top of the hill.”
“Salmon…”
“Mother!”
“Bunny!”
“Thank you”
“Found the Foley graves.”
“Potato famine immigrant-related relative-final-resting places.”
“That’s code for Foley?”
“Located at the Graveyard on the Hill.”
“Enough. Get your bags – let’s get to Canada.”
“You mean – “
“You tell your brother I am having no more of this code shit.”
“Certainly, Camp Squirrel.”
“Camp Squirrel? You think I am gonna put up with Camp Squirrel? Where’s my phone, where’s your brother’s number… Socotra my ass.”
“Come on Big Mama, Bunny – let’s get to the car.”
Copyright 2011 Annook and Vic
www.vicsocotra.com
Decoration Day
(The rows of 9/11 graves at Arlington Cemetery, 29 May, 2011. The 9/11 Memorial to their loss is on the left. Photo Socotra.)
This first warm holiday of this strange year had a lot of co-workers sliding early to the door last week. There is a tempest coming in the business space where we work, but the government was unable to get its act together, and with nothing critical impending over the long weekend I think people just wanted to get away.
The wars are winding down. You rarely hear of Iraq in the news anymore, though we still have thousands serving there. The Taliban is desperately bombing in Afghanistan to demonstrate their vitality, but there is an air of desperation in the start of this new fighting season, and with that asshole bin Laden finally in his watery grave, I have no doubt that the Administration will be looking seriously at an exit.
With a son in the military pipeline, I certainly am praying for peace- though a sustainable one, not like the cut-and-run from the aftermath of the Russian war in Afghanistan that landed us in this mess.
I have skin in the game now that is, for the first time, not my own.
There will be a shuffling in the Pentagon line-up to manage the transition to “peace” and the inevitable budget cuts that are going to come to the arena where I make my post-military living.
“Hoss” Cartwright, the scrappy Marine Vice Chairman and favorite of the President has been passed over to be the new Chairman, and so has Jim Stavridis, the Sufi-minded Admiral and big-thinker who I admire a great deal. Instead, outgoing SECDEF Bob Gates has tapped the Chief of Staff of the Army, Martin Dempsey, to be the next Chairman.
DoD is going to have a conspicuously Green tinge as the budget comes down. Some cynics are saying that Hoss got shot because Army is the Service most at risk to the slashing of its force structure, and maybe because he was too influential with the President. Certainly they will be in a position to protect itself in the Joint world: Dempsey as Chairman, Dave Patraeus at CIA and Ray Odierno as the new Army CoS.
Of course, it has been so long since I heard of anyone in the Air Force that I wonder who is minding the store there. It is all subject to confirmation by the Senate, of course, so there are still plenty of thrills and chills to come if anyone gets a wild hair.
It is sort of curious, since Dempsey only took over his post as Service Chief a short month ago. All the new guys have superb combat credentials that go back to the awful year of 2006 and the surge that worked in Iraq. Dempsey had the 1st Armored Division, Odierno had the 4th Infantry Division, and Petraeus had the 101st Airborne Division.
The Vice Chairman will reportedly be Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, currently the NORTHCOM commander in Colorado Springs.
I wonder about his relationship with the new leaders of DoD, the IC and the Green Machine, all of whom were engaged in the Surge. PACOM Chief Fox Fallon had dispatched Sandy on a mission to Iraq in 2007 to trim forces in the field.
I thought about that and the consequences of how we are going to screw up the inevitable budget cuts as I found some respectable shorts and a conservative shirt after a refreshing hour-long swim with Jiggs in the pool. There was an entertaining interlude happening over on Tony’s patio that helped to pass the time.
The new people from Arkansas and Kentucky had managed to lock themselves out of the second floor unit, and were attempting to scale the balcony. Eventually the mom from Kentucky who is a Med Tech at Walter Reed made it, and there was hooping and hollering in celebration of the feat.
I am sorry that Mardy 2 sold the place- the new crowd has several wild children and have considerably changed the tone around the pool.
Change is difficult, and as I searched for the keys to the Hubrismobile in the late afternoon light, I wondered about what is to come. Smart people have been thinking about it. I served in a minor role on a panel of formerly important people to make recommendations about how to transition to a smaller force without breaking the personnel system as we did so spectacularly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Grown Ups came up with some solid and tough recommendations that involve getting rid of the dead wood and lopping off whole mission areas to preserve the vitality and health of the larger force, rather than salami-slicing the budget and rendering everything equally broken.
Of course, none of it will happen since that requires discipline and courage, none of which are in good supply here in Washington.
I put the top down as I drove over to get flowers, and fished in the glove compartment for the Arlington Cemetery pass. It is the time I decorate the graves of my friends who died on the day when the endless wars began almost ten years ago. I try to avoid the actual Memorial Day, and go the afternoon before the enhanced security locks the place down to accommodate the VIPs.
I drove in through the public gate, displaying the pass and driver’s license to gain access to the grounds in the shiny German car, pleased to not be on foot with the tourists, since it is a pretty good hike to the southeast corner of the sprawling garden of stone. The further from the gate, the less foot traffic there was. Near the 9/11 Memorial, there was a posse of Rolling Thunder Harley-Davidsons motoring around aimlessly, but otherwise the sector was quiet and serene under blue skies and puffy white clouds the colors of the stones below.
There are a lot more headstones in the corner of the cemetery closest to the Pentagon than there were that sad fall day when we followed the caisson on foot down from the old Chapel at Fort Myer. The fresh-turned red dirt of Virginia was raw then, and muddy.
(Marker of LCDR Otis Vincent Tolbert, USN, 29 May 2011. Photo Socotra.)
The turf has grown back rich and green. I noticed the coloring on Vince’s stone has bleached out a bit, though Dan’s is still vibrant and dark against the cool white stone. Both had fresh roses, and Dan’s family had sent a nice arrangement, and the Old Guard of the Army’s 3rd ID has ensured that little American flags were properly positioned in front.
(Marker of CDR Dan Frederick Shanower, USN, 29 May 2011. Photo Socotra.)
I put the flowers on the graves, and straightened myself up to give as crisp a salute as I can these days. Then I walked back to the car, and drove up the hill on the Navy Annex side of the cemetery, alone except for a few solitary walkers.
The Army has apparently purchased the Annex, and is going to start ripping it down this coming September, ten years to the day that the world lurched on its axis.
I tried to picture the bluff behind the soaring spires of the Air Force Memorial without the mustard-brick eight wings of the Depression-era building. It will be replaced, in time, by green turf and decorated with white stones. I hope it will not fill too rapidly.
Pray for peace, and pray for those who have earned it for us.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
On Foreign Soil
(The Canadian Side of Niagara Falls. Photo Niagara Vacations.)
The roar of V-twin engines woke me before dawn. Normally.
I waded pensively through the lead story in the NY Times this morning on the challenge of the kids returning from Afghanistan. I remember painfully well what it was like. The first couple times were extraordinarily weird- we got back from deployments to the Indian Ocean that were timeless in their quality of boredom, punctuated by frenetic activity. We tanned because sometimes there was nothing else to do.
We were black, and layers of skin would peel off all at once like we were reptiles molting.
That was the first deployment, while the second one had the capture of the American Embassy in Tehran in the middle of it, and a lot of adrenaline and then hurry-up-and-wait and real planning for things that were very scary indeed.
Anyway, the guys with families were absolutely beside themselves as the miles between them and Home Port diminished. Seeing the gals and the kids all dressed up- there were no women on combat ships then- was a trip. But since the Home Port we were returning to was Yokosuka, Japan, and foreign soil a world away from the Land of the Big PX, the bachelors just shrugged and walked to the O Club to get hammered and wonder what all the fuss was about, and when the next at-sea period would be.
Completely different than ground combat, of course, though the coolest homecoming was from the cruise to the Med during which the Wall fell in Berlin. The Airwing staff got to fly off with the squadrons, a full day and a half before the dreadnaught would steam up the placid waters of the St. John’s river to moor pier-side at NAVSTA Mayport.
Anyhow, the recollections of deployments gone by, and the period of readjustment to normal non-adrenal life, powerfully resonated this morning along with the roar of engines celebrating the sacrifice of a now long-ago war.
I don’t know what to do today. I should take flowers over to our people at Arlington, whose murders set off all this madness. I need to swim for an hour, now that the pool is open. I should finish editing this edition of the Quarterly, and finish my research on the parent’s taxes for last year, and complete the package requesting duplicate titles for the cars…and go down to the farm, where have chores waiting.
I finished scanning the Times and opened the e-mail and was surprised to see that my Sister Anook had not been sleeping, and was on foreign soil with Big Mama. I read her update with growing agitation:
“She smells.”
Anook gazed across the hotel room her Mother and daughter were sharing. Big Mama looked small and fierce in the corner chair squeezed between the window and the double bed.
“She smells old. I opened a window.”
“Where’s whatzhiz name?”
Big Mama was asking about Raven- her husband of 64 years.
“Whatzhiz’s name is in Michigan. We left him home.”
“Really?”
Raven was at the people kennel. Anook, Anook’s family and Big Mama were on vacation. The vacation had changed when Annook could not find Big Mama’s passport. There was no time to get a new one, but with a birth certificate and a driver’s license, crossing the international border would be possible.
Of course, Anook could not find that document either. The birth certificate for Big Mama could be obtained from her birth county in Ohio, and so instead of driving to Canada from Detroit, the merry band headed south to the most Southern county seat for Bellaire, Ohio.
It was Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend. They got to the Department of Records ½ hour before it closed.
“That will be $25.00.”
Anook pulled out her debit card.
“Cash.”
After driving back down the rolling hill to the ATM at the crowded holiday gas station and back again, Anook was handed an official birth certificate with a raised seal from the great state of Ohio.
“You all certainly did not have to come all the way here to get this. You could have gone to any of the county seats in Ohio, as long as she was originally born here.”
“That’s not what the website said. It said original county seat of birth for same day or 6 weeks delay.”
“Old news, sir.”
Damn Buckeyes. Damn their lies.
Anook’s husband turned to her.
“A famous person once said, when a journey changes that is God’s way of making you learn how to dance.”
Anook would rather not have learned they did not have to go all the way downstate, and only slightly growled at her husband when she told him she could learn to dance.
“Remember what you said, dear – Big Mama wanted to go home, so this was Divine intervention. Remember?”
Anook accepted that there were greater hands at play.
Now, if Anook had a large marker and a map she would mark a series of dots with a picture of a car going south to Bellaire, North to Pittsburgh, East to Erie, North to Niagara Falls, and would have added a picture with a green light blinking “GO” over the bridge from New York to Canada.
“Yippee!!!!!”
In three days they had been to 5 states and two countries and had yet to see their first play. Anook’s daughter saw Niagara Falls from the Canadian side for the first time.
“Awesome. USA sure got ripped off on the view.”
(The Colonel Butler Best Western in Niagra-by-the-Lake. Photo Best Western.)
The car headed North to Niagara on the Lake, home of the Shaw Play Festival. They checked into the Best Western. They had two hotel rooms on the second floor – no elevator.
“Do you have something on the first floor? My mother is having a hard time walking and climbing stairs.”
“We are full. You should have said something before getting here.”
“Sorry.”
When Anook and her husband had walked up to the counter to register, the woman had said “hello,” and then asked them what name their reservation was under. As Anook and her husband have two different last names they said “Notsocotra” and “Socotra.”
The woman pulled out the reservation for Notsocotra. It was for 2 people, 2 nights. Anook’s husband said they needed 2 rooms for 4 people 2 nights. The woman became quite distressed. She most certainly did not have an extra room and there was no possibility that there was an error on their part. Anook asked her to look for another reservation for Socotra. There was one. She told the two of them she would deal with the second reservation when she was done with the first one. Annook asked whether she could not be filling out the form, while the woman dealt with her husband on room number one, which really upset the clerk. The clerk said she didn’t want to mess up the credit cards –
“Same credit card, thanks.”
– the billing address, car info –
“Same billing address, car info”
– who was in the rooms –
“All family, 2 rooms 2 people each.”
– but they had to track each room by individual key –
“Three keys each room.”
The clerk got to the end. It almost seemed like she resented the husband and wife for taking one of the hotel rooms together.
“Here. Welcome. Bye.”
The family made the long walk down the hall with baggage to the staircase.
Big Mama had been breathy over anything physically assertive. Anook made a note to take her to the doctor as well as Raven next week.
The town is adorable with old houses and beautiful flowers and rustic stores and eateries and small streets packed with theatergoers. It was a busman’s holiday for this group. Anook’s daughter took off on a well-deserved walk. Knowing they could not walk Big Mama up and down the stairs, Anook and her husband stocked up on food and drink and parked Big Mama in the room with the TV on and plenty of things for Big Mama to read. Big Mama got on her teal nightgown.
Anook went downstairs to use the hotel Internet. Anook’s husband went on his own well-deserved walk. Anook was immersed in returning correspondence when Big Mama burst barefoot and angry into the lobby.
“Where’s my key!”
“What?”
“You all deserted me without a key.”
“Come on, Big Mama. Your key is in your room. Come with me.”
Anook started down the hall forcing Big Mama to follow. Big Mama stopped in front of the hotel room 102. Big Mama’s room was 202.
“This is my room and I don’t have a key.”
“That is not your room.”
“This is my room and I don’t have a key.”
Big Mama started to pull up her fist to pound on the door.
“Big Mama, that is not your room. You put that hand down and you follow me.”
Annook and Big Mama went to the stairwell and made it back up to the second floor with Big Mama huffing and puffing. Annook opened Big Mama’s door and escorted her back into the room.
“I still don’t have a key.”
Anook picked up Big Mama’s key from the light stand between the beds.
“Your key is right here. Right where it has always been.”
“How was I supposed to know that.”
The night before, while in Pittsburgh, Anook’s daughter said Big Mama had gotten up and gone out to the hall at 4am insisting it was 4pm and time for dinner. Big Mama would look at her watch and more often than not, assume it was day instead of night or night instead of day. It didn’t matter if it was light or dark out.
“I’m pretty sure Mom that Grandma hauls Raven around everywhere 12 hours early or late always claiming it to be at the wrong time of day and demanding that someone was making them miss some kind of meal.”
And all these months we had blamed Raven for all the late night mischievous activities in the elder’s ongoing routines. No wonder they were both exhausted.
Big Mama really cannot hear and long ago swore off the possibility of hearing aids. But when she isn’t just angry Big Mama, she is really quite funny and charming in the way she navigates through her changing elderly world. We knew after last year Raven could no longer travel. We will have to reevaluate after this trip if that is true for Big Mama as well.
“Where’s watzis name?”
“Not here, Grandma.”
‘Really?”
“Yes, Big Mama.”
Copyright 2011 Anook and Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
On Alert
I was as alert as a Magpie this morning, up early, getting prepared.
The big Harleys are in town for Rolling Thunder. Some are camped out at the assembly of God/Iglisia de Luz Verderada across Pershing Street. The morning air is punctuated with the roar of twin V engines.
It is The Day, the unofficial but quite real Beginning of Summer. The Pool opens at ten sharp this morning. There is already a crowd on Tony’s patio four floors below. There could be competition this year for the coveted “First In” trophy.
My pool bag is ready. I charged the Kindle, loaded some e-thrillers on it. Dug out the waterproof iPod Nano, rigged the ball cap properly so that it mostly stays out of the water, found a thick pool towel, flip flops, and pulled on a pair of swim trunks and looked at the clock.
Then I thought, “Say, I could do this the legal way, but someone said the key to the pool gate is the same as the one to the community grill…maybe I could just go and get this out of the way?”
The butterflies of the challenge are fluttering in my mid-section. The prospective nine year steak is on the line here. No, I can’t do that.
I need to do this the honorable way and follow the rules as directed by the as-yet unknown Eastern European life guard who will determine how this summer goes.
I need to man-up.
More later.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Lobster Appetizer
(Willow butter-poached lobster tail and lobster ravioli with creamy fennel gratin, savory & sherry sauce. Photo Socotra.)
I was walking in the late afternoon sun and thinking I might just start sweating. The conflict between the pleasant diversions of Willow and the allure of the sparkling blue waters of the Big Pink Pool is going to intensify, starting Saturday morning and lasting right through September.
I don’t know how to balance that: fitness versus company and crisp Happy Hour White. I suppose it will work out on its own, just like Raven and Magpie’s situation.
I went into the welcome darkness of the bar, and took the stool next to Old Jim. I was delighted to see Elisabeth-with-an-S on duty. It is not that Aimee is not a fine bartender, but she and Old Jim have been going at it over their approach to managing the flow of wine and beer from her side to ours, and I dislike discord.
Jim has been on the other side, on and off, for half a century, so he has some distinct and hard-earned principles about commercial alcohol sales, and naturally I defer.
“Hello, Jim,” I said as he disconnected himself from his MP3 player.
“Hello, Vic.” He said. I did not have to gesture to Elisabeth. She appeared before me with a bottle of something cold and pale and crisp and poured the tulip glass to a precise level of about 40% to ensure optimal dispersion of the flavor molecules.
“You are wonderful,” I said. “Truly the best thing that has happened in a long hot afternoon.”
She smiled that mysterious smile of hers and flipped a strand of chestnut hair over her ear. “Anything to eat?” she asked. “Jim ordered something that was not on the 5$ Neighborhood Bar Menu.”
“Really?” I said. “Will wonders never cease.” Sure enough, Julio appeared momentarily with a square plate adorned with a square biscuit topped with a mound of steaming lobster capped with some sort of edible top-sail that was connected by a swirl of rich cream sauce to some vegetables and an appealing mount of picked Chesapeake Bay crabmeat.
“Jeeze, Jim, the presentation is magnificent!”
“Indeed,” he said. “I liked the description in the menu. Sometimes you have to get off the second page and indulge yourself. “
Indulgence, I thought. There is a whole holiday weekend ahead for that. I had no more fumbled in my pocket for the camera to capture the image of the lobster than the phone chimed to indicate I had an incoming message. I documented the fleeting image of the food and then clicked into the e-mail tab on the smart phone.
Anook had written to my brother Spike to summarize the day. I frowned. I was going to have to engage on the taxes and the car titles and look at the bank statement to see if we could actually pay for the work that was being done to renovate the house in the little city by the bay.
“He is so skinny,” she started. “Magpie gets out of breath so easily. She is congnicent but loony tunes.”
“I talked with the RA staff at Potemkin Village about Raven’s state. They said it was worsening, but we were not at the end of time. I made an appointment for June 1st to have Doctor B check him over and see if it is time for hospice.”
I scrolled down on the little phone as Jim began to destroy the presentation of the appetizer with his fork.
“When I first got here, literally all he did was sleep and pee. Wednesday was a good day, and I am sure it was about getting a shower, new shoes, 2 ensures, nails clipped and being shaved. God bless Lovely Rita. Today, I put him in the people-kennel in Traverse City. He seemed to know I was letting him go for a bit. I promised I would be back. He said “Thank you.”
They were nice people there in a small locked facility. The guests seemed clean, happy and fed. There was a nice community room for all of them to share with a large TV. He has a room and bath to himself and can safely wander the building at will.”
“This is great,” said Jim. “They really do a fabulous job here. Glad Tracy O’Grady is back from the restaurant convention in Chicago. The personal touch shows.”
I nodded and looked back down at the phone.
“Mom keeps asking about “that guy” she stays with. We are all trying to figure out what the best course of action is tomorrow. Mother has asked me several times to take her to visit the graveyard down in Ohio. She told me she had no intention of being put to rest with all those people she doesn’t know (the Socotra plot in Shippensburg, PA). I talked with Vic today and said we should cremate Raven and then wait until Magpie goes before a service at Shippensburg. If we need to split the ashes and have some in Ohio, so be it.”
Anook went on to describe an evolving plan that would still get magpie across the international frontier at Niagra and still meet the stringent Customs and Border Protection program to detect and deter elderly women who have lost their passports.
“We can get her birth certificate on the spot if we are in the County she was born. We could then drive to Niagra Falls and cross over to see the last two days of our scheduled theater tour at the Shaw festival at Stratford.”
That was the fun part, and Raven was not the sea-anchor to Magpie that he is normally. But the problems with the house still loom. Jim smiled next to me over a forkload of lobster.
“There is a lot of elbow grease needed at home. I lost six pounds Tuesday hauling junk. The work on the kitchen and laundry room should be done by the 16th (and the painting). Then we should be able to clear out the house garage. Magpie’s paperwork needs to be shredded (or saved) – and most of that is in the new garage. Raven’s office is a train-wreck and needs someone that cares about it to go through it. I think he collected office organizers and that most of what is there is nothing.
You and Vic should talk about dates to be up here. I am all about the projects that need to be addressed at the house/new garage and the care and feeding of our beloved parents. We (they) are blessed by the people that do care for them and their happiness.”
Elisabeth came by with a beer for Jim and looked at the level of the crisp white wine in my glass. It had not changed appreciably since I began reading the note.
“Bad news?” She asked.
I shook my head. “No, just a process update. Everything is working out just fine.”
She flipped her pony-tail in that winsome manner she has and went out the tall dark doors and into the brilliant sunshine to take drink orders on the patio. I put the phone back in my pocket and looked on as Jim tucked the last of the lobster appetizer into his mouth.
Then I started to work on my glass of wine in earnest.
Copyright 2011 Vic and Anook
www.vicsocotra.com
Sigh
(Anook’s day. Lucy image courtesy ABC and Charles Schultz.)
Anook tried to find the birth certificate and/or the passport for Magpie – but failed. The house is in chaos with the remodeling activity. Things that a year ago were in one place are now in new ones, locations of specific items requiring a geologist’s knowledge of stratigraphy to determined and there are none around.
Magpie has a garage full of files and folders dating meticulously by subject from 1947, then commencing at the turn of the century, filed by season.
Anook will head to Traverse City tomorrow and drop off Raven at the “people kennel” and head to Detroit with Magpie. Anook’s rental car has to be returned and the family (daughter & husband) have to regroup and figure out Memorial Day week-end vacation. Anook can sing O, Canada, but doubts it is in the vacation picture anymore.
Anook is guessing her husband will drive the merry group to Ohio to get a birth certificate for Magpie and then head for Niagara Falls and cross over to Canada to see the Shaw Festival plays originally on the agenda. At least the four will be together.
Anook went to the Independence Village at lunchtime. Big Mama bragged they were already done with lunch. This was a full half hour before lunch began. Anook excused herself and went down to the cafeteria. The staff informed her Big Mama had indeed come down early and they gave Big Mama and Raven soup and coffee and let them go back to the room.
Big Mama complained that meal times changed daily.
Sigh.
Anook made an appointment with Doc B to look over Raven. The children wish to know if he needs to go into Hospice care.
There were only 11 calls to Son #1 today. One of them was about the reported mouse problem in the BIG TOP apartment. Anook agreed to call RAT MAN aka Bug Guy to get him to add the other building to his diligent watch.
Bug Guy – er, Rat Man- made his way to the house. Anook loves Bug Guy. This guy is all business in the wacky weird disgusting business of vermin, pest and bugs. Son #1 says he was a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol in Vietnam, long ago, a hunter-killer, and in a way he still is.
Anook gave him two keys and took him up to the apartment. Anook complained that Son #1 always locked the interior door and Bug Guy laughed. Bug Guy said Son #1 complained about Anook’s obsessiveness over jimmying the house doors so they cannot be opened with a key.
Anook is all about the garage door openers being the key to access on the property.
Buy Guy had an accident over the winter. A neighbor dog got loose in the bitter cold and he went out to find him. Bug Guy did not cover his face and ended up with a bad case of winter burn – frost bite- or so he thought.
Anook’s heart went thump when he said life was good except for his face. Anook asked him what was wrong with his face – as Anook did not really see there was anything wrong with his face – but it apparently was very upsetting to him. This week he got a new wrinkle with a blister under his eye and he had a red ruddy complexion.
Anook’s heart went thump again when he blew it off by saying it was no big deal -he wasn’t in the game anymore. He was 56 – who cares? He said he didn’t care about his looks. Anook’s heart thumped again.
Anook is 56.
Bug Guy said he would add the other building to his watch – no additional charge. Bug Guy wanted to make sure Son #1 was in full knowledge of the key exchange. Anook assured him he was. Anook talked with him about the neighbors and their parking in the driveway. Anook told him it was good for the family to have them parking at the house. His problem was the way they parked – blocking the driveway. Anook told him she would straighten that out with them as they helped keep the family informed of what was going on with the property.
Bug Guy said he felt responsible for the property. Anook thanked him profusely for being a friend to the family.
When Anook arrived at Potemkin Village, Lovely Rita was at the apartment. She comes periodically to force Raven into the shower. The woman has taken Raven and Big Mama under her Nordic care. She is fierce and protective of Raven, a man essentially long gone – but also of the befuddled Magpie who can no longer even pretend to take care of her husband of 64 years and has given up on that.
Lovely Rita told Anook she had called the home phone to hear the terse message Son #1 had left for all political machines, charities and other unwanteds calls who got the answering machine.
Lovely Rita got everyone from the senior Friendship center to call and listen to it. That was when she decided if things were not good enough for Raven and his care, then she was going straight to the top. She figured no one at Independence Village would dare to defy Son #1.
Lovely Rita showered, primped, cut nails, made sure two cans of Ensure made it into Raven. She then monitored Raven while he shaved. Raven looked good and alert.
At dinner, Raven finished every last thing. Anook bullied Big Mama to eat. Big Mama had the gall to tell Anook she didn’t care for ice-cream.
LIAR!
The poor people at Potemkin Village only hear from Big Mama that she refuses to fill out the menu choices and that she “hates” everything. This week I saw the weirdest things on her plate. Apparently because Big Mama “hates” everything, they give her only vegetables. Big Mama hates vegetables.
Sigh.
God Bless our neighbors.
God Bless Lovely Rita.
God Bless Bug Man.
Copyright 2011 Anook and Vic
www.vicsocotra.com
Dumpster Diving & the Kindness of Strangers
I don’t mind telling you that I am a little shell-shocked this morning, Campadres. I have been in a blur of emotional travel, as you have probably observed, and have been a little in denial about what I saw in Michigan.
The trip to Commencement at Mt. Holyoke was a positive affirmation of the value of life and the beauty and grace of youth. Michigan was not.
I am not the only one traveling. My sainted Sister Anook is stage-managing the circus back in the little Village by the Bay. I had meant to complete the damage inventory of what was compromised in the North Korean capture of the USS Pueblo, but we will get to that. Life interfered, and for reasons that will become apparent, I had to occupy my morning some other way.
To frame this account, of chaos, I need you envision along with me, the chaos in the handsome compound on the bluff above the Bay in far-away Michigan. There is a painting crew in the main house; plastic tarps and displaced furniture. A piano is pulled out from its hulking place by the wall.
The one-car garage attached to the main house was filled to the top with crap from the crawl-space downstairs. Since Raven and Magpie are the last of their generation alive, they were magnets for ancestral crap that had to be cleaned out of other abodes, and now is one large aggregation of useless objects, a trove of plastic superseded technology.
My sister Anook is up there dealing with it, and attempting to take Magpie on a little vacation to get her away from Raven and give her a break. Magpie asked me a couple weeks ago if we had a name for the man she was staying with, so this is unraveling in every direction.
Anook wrote about what was going on up there, in the third-person, to help save her sanity. Here it is:
“Anook had put out 30 large garbage bags to the driveway of useless items before the Moving Company came to the house. Today was curb day.
The Little City by the Bay offers the citizens 4 days a year to unload useless items and today was one of them. The painting crew had plastic-wrapped most of the first floor, readying the house for a painting facelift. Anook had already taken 24 bags of endless closet items to the Good Will. Anook wasn’t fast enough to get everything before it became encircled by plastic – but she did well.
Anook had the movers bring up the contents of the unfinished basement two months ago up to the house garage. Anook went through all the contents with the movers as to what went to the curb and what went to the other garage for sorting.
The Moving Company had done well with every other call Anook had placed with them the past year – but today – the “foreman” was extra nice to Anook. Apparently he took a shine to Son #1 the last go-around. Son #1 was military and should be shown respect.
Anook came out at one point to witness a man and his son inventorying the contents of the house garage. Anook was not pleased. The man asked to see a painter “Bob.” Anook went back to the crew and asked “Bob” to come out. The man called her “honey” several times. Anook did not like the man calling her “honey.”
The only one to call her “honey” was her “bunny”, David.
Anook’s goal was to have everything ready for the renovation of the kitchen, laundry room and the painting of the upstairs – less the library. She is thinking this might just happen.
The Petoskey Moving Company moved to the curb as directed. As the afternoon closed to the evening, a large dumpster diving crowd showed up. It was disconcerting to Anook – but she also had to deal with the moving company placing “first dibs” on things being put to the curb.
There were no less than twenty people digging through the “dumpster” in front of our home. When Anook tried to drive out – there was ¼ ton truck blocking her way.
The dumpster-divers took at least half of what was put out. They ripped through the trash bags and left the area trashed. The washing machine and dryer were gone.
One lady came to the door and asked if anything else was coming out for them to pick over.
Anook is creeped out.
On the other level of life – the one at Potemkin Village- Raven mostly sleeps, and when he sleeps he has no control over his bladder.
Raven sleeps and then wakes in a pool of his pee.
Anook has scheduled the couch (mostly inhibited by mice the last 20 years) to be removed as well as the matching chair to be replaced by “wet resistant” new option for the oldsters.
Anook bought an additional “cover” to the bed, as well as an additional blanket as well as additional Sheets.
Today’s goal was cleaning the apartment above the new garage also known as the BIG TOP. Anook also stored all irrelevant pieces/parts from the basement to Raven’s office so the cleaning crew could sweep the downstairs. These cleaning gals were terrific. It was so nice to go downstairs and not deal with dust bunnies and hanging webs. One of the cleaner’s daughters was there on the call. Mother/Daughter was really interested in renting BIG TOP.
Anook said she would bring this up with her brothers.
The reality outside was something al together different. While Anook and the movers had put out a clean assemblage of useless things to the curb – overnight the front yard had become a disaster area of torn bags, emptied boxes, added junk, and crap strewn across the yard. The dumpster-divers had ravaged the inventory for city pick up.
While Anook was with her parents during lunch, the city left a notice saying they would not pick up because the area was a mess. Anook called the city and they told her she was responsible for the area as she was the property owner. Anook had to clean out the area or be fined.
Anook having spent too many hours the day before – in addition to the moving guys – was distraught. Anook did not count on having to repackage the disarray; much less pull it back to the house. Anook could not believe this was her Village By the Bay.
In her hour of despair, one of the cleaning women came out and starting bagging the mess. The next-door neighbor came out and started bagging the mess. Anook told them they did not need to do this, but they kept working. Anook had to leave to have dinner with the parents. Anook told the good people who were working, that the movers would be back to take care of the chaos. The crew and neighbors continued. Anook drove away to Potemkin Village.
Raven was full out on the pee-stained couch. Magpie was buried in a book. Anook received several calls from Alaska that needed her attention. Anook was unable to get the right phone numbers without having access to her computer. Anook ordered trays up to the room as Raven was out cold.
Anook filled the tank for the vacation trip planned for tomorrow. As Anook went through her inventory of needed things, she realized she did not have Big Mama’s passport. As the majority of the vacation was to be in Canada, this was a problem. For the 8th call of the day to her brother, Anook expressed her concern over not being able to take Big Mama to Canada. 1st Son thought he had her passport and could Fed-X to Detroit.
Anook drove home and found the whole curb cleared. THIS WAS NOT AN EASY TASK Anook went next door to ask if they were responsible for taking on project Petoskey. While Anook was gone, friends of Raven & Magpie, the Movers, and the beloved neighbors had taken on the task.
Anook was offered a glass of wine and she accepted.
The good neighbors chatted with Anook. Like Anook, they were Alaskans for several years. Mike-the-neighbor said he was working on the roof of his house. Anook asked him if he was a roofer – he said no – but they had a contact for a professional roofer. Anook told them there was a problem with the new garage roof. They knew all about it as Raven and Big Mama had a problem with raccoons three years before.
Anook said she would share this with her brothers. Raccoons could have ruined the roof.
Anook is tired. Anook is somewhat sure Raven is dying – soon. His eyes are clouded and he would rather sleep and pee than anything else.
What next for Magpie?”
I closed the note on the computer and hit “reply” and began to type.
“Anook,
Mom’s passport is not here. I ransacked my place last night and then did a thorough square-search again this morning. I found all my records going back two years in various places, along with all of my passports for the last forty years.
Nothing for the folks except the records I went through for two hours yesterday for the house and bills, Raven’s revoked Driver’s license, and the two cards of Mom’s credit you scotch-taped to that sheet of paper.
By chance, and with the hunt to gain valid titles to the cars and file the taxes for 2010, I had gone through all their records in my possession yesterday before the passport alert. I do not recall bringing them here, and they were not in the milk-crate I records I have sorted and filed here.
Maybe in safe deposit box- but I have seen them since we have been to the bank and think it is likely that when sited they were in the assorted records in the laundry room that I plowed through trying to find the auto documentation to get the titles. I do not think they are in the safe deposit box, but if you would like I can Fedex what I think is one of two keys I have.
Sorry.
Vic”
Crap. Why didn’t I get more done when I was up there?
If the passports don’t turn up, Magpie will not be able to travel to Canada, or rather, if she gets in, she won’t be able to come back. It is another mystery, and another crisis. And I knew the roof had to be replaced on the Big Top, but damn, the building is only eight years old. WTF?
And since this experience does not come with an instruction manual, what if Raven is dying? It struck me when I was there two week ago, that he was shutting down and leaving us. But what if he is on the way out like right now? What do we do?
Crap.
Copyright Anook and Vic 2011
www.vicsocotra.com
The Rapture
(Rapture in South Hadley, MA, 22 May 2011. Photo Socotra.)
Apparently the Powers That Be miscalculated The Rapture. Simple mistake- the World will end on October 21st now, so we will get the whole pool season in without incident. I marked it on my Microsoft Outlook calendar so I won’t forget and tried to plow through the Times and the papers strewn around the desk left over from the trip to the other Rapture, the real one.
It was impressive, and the best Commencement I have attended. Maybe it was the nature of the institution. I confess to a little ambivalence about my feminism. Not in commitment to equality, mind you, or the realization that there are plenty of women smarter than I will ever be, and more than a bunch who could kick my ass if it came to that. Plus, anyone who had a maternal example of brilliance and beauty in the person of my mother could plausibly deny the fundamental equality of the genders.
Still, as you know, there were some awkward moments in the Great Change that came along with the integration of women in society, and they are not done yet. A friend of mine said with more than a trace of bitterness that it was still easier for a woman in US to get things done with some large Doof at her side.
So there is work still to be done, and I am evolving along with the nation. I came to my personal version of feminism with an epiphany that followed 9/11. I was attempting to re-invent my job of the moment in a manner that might contribute to squashing the jihadi cockroaches, and eventually came to the realization that there was not a great deal I could do to instigate a Reformation in Islam akin to that in the West that permitted a civil social society to evolve over time.
I was horrified by what some regions of the world do to half their number, from slavery and mutilation through simple brutal and relentless subjugation.
The one thought I had, and have today, is that the empowerment of women is the key to any social change. As we watch in bewilderment the collision of technology with social change in the Arab Spring, I find both hope and despair.
The President’s big speech last week to re-boot US policy is a case in point. Mr. Obama did not mention the House of Saudi even in passing. Oil politics has its own imperative, of course, and I still bridle at the image of the American President bowing to Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, King of Saudi and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
I read with interest this morning that the King’s men detained a woman named Manal al-Sharif for up to five days for the crime of “disturbing public order and inciting public opinion by twice driving and automobile.” Ms. Sharif is running a Facebook and Twitter campaign to encourage women across the kingdom to join a mass protest in June.
I wish her well, and applaud her courage. We ought to do something to show support, though I am not completely sure what that might be except to have Hillary use the bully pulpit of the State Department.
I mean, it is not like this isn’t all going to fall apart anyway, and we ought to go out with our heads up.
But the lingering effects of sexism are still pervasive here in the land of the Free, and my associate thought long and hard about what sort of college she wanted to attend and worked hard to meet the standards at Mt. Holyoke. There she would be free of the lingering shadow of the Patriarchy and compete on an equal basis with her peers. I was lucky enough to be able to look in on how she was doing over the last four years, and the moment of triumph and celebration arrived last weekend.
Calibrated by the Bright Lights of Northampton and Lake Wyloa, and buffeted by the cheerful anarchy on campus, the Sunday Commencement arrived under cotton wool clouds with the prospect of drizzle on the open Gettell Amphitheater on Pageant Green, where the legendary May Day celebrations and graduations are celebrated.
There were contingency plans for a switch to an indoor ceremony, though should that be required it would clearly be an ugly transition and I was prepared to be wet. I was there a little early. Like an hour and a half early, but I had my Kindle and curled up in one of the green Adirondack chairs conveniently scattered on the stately grounds. I wore a light suit, and was on the verge of feeling a chill.
It all worked, though. By the time my associate’s fan club had assembled and found our assigned seats, the clouds first thinned and then opened to blue skies.
(Entrance. Photo Socotra.)
I put the Kindle and the smart phone down when the procession arrived: six hundred women in black gowns and mortarboards, clutching bright sunflowers, marched in line and at the designated moment, began to file into the amphitheater from both sides of the back row.
They were followed by the faculty in their formal academic robes, multi-colored and brilliantly adorned with cowls of achievement draped down their backs. It is medieval enough in aspect to convince the casual observer that the place was actually Hogwarts.
I skipped my own college graduation- that was part of whatever was in the air back in the early ‘70s, but consider the ritual extremely important for the kids. I have sat in the vastness of Big Ten stadiums to watch my sons achieve their Baccalaureate, but this was something quite unique. Intimate.
Mary Graham Davis, ’65, Chair of the Board of Trustees, made the opening remarks, and President Lynn Pasuerella ’80, gave the welcome before things really started to rock.
Zehra Nabi, ’11, gave the student address that served to set the tone for the ceremony. Zehra was utterly self-possessed before the amphitheater throng, and was by turns witty and insightful about life on campus, the antics of the security force, and the friendly but barbed rivalry with the other Four Colleges that make up The Five of the Pioneer Valley.
I got a kick out of it. My sister Anook went to Hampshire College, one of the first classes enrolled at the iconoclastic free-spirit school. Zehra was riffing in Latin, a neat verbal slight of hand, and attempted to translate the motto of the “organic hemp-oriented enviro retro-hippy” institution into Latin (after skewering Amherst and arch rival Smith). U-Mass got the throw-away line adapted from Caesar: “Veni, Vidi, Vodka.”
It was literate, smooth and archly funny, right down to the campus patois that seemed like gentle rap.
Then they gave away some doctorates. I was steeling myself for an endless drone, but the honorees were impressive and their remarks brief and thoroughly on target to the graduates.
(Judge Marshall. Photo Supreme Court of Massachusetts.)
First up was Judge Margaret Marshall, a woman who started out as the South African daughter of a steel executive under the iron rule of Apartheid. Her remarks were pointed. “There was no access to justice in South Africa…There were a few courageous barristers who agreed to represent people charged with political crimes, but, by and large, if you were a black South African, you had no justice. The death penalty was imposed in vastly disproportionate numbers. Many of the offenses were applicable to black South Africans only.” I was impressed by what she did after moving to Boston. After Harvard and Yale, she rose in the legal trade to become the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the oldest appellate court in the hemisphere and the first woman to serve as such in the three full centuries of the court’s history.
I was sensing a trend, and it was a good one. Next up was Nancy Ahlberg Mellor, a Holyoke grad who got married the day after graduation and was fired from her first teaching job a year later for the offense of getting pregnant. She devoted her professional life to teaching, as my Mom did after her kids were old enough to shift for themselves. Ms Mellor specialized in mathematics, teaching famously the children of migrant farm workers in California. While juggling lesson plans, counseling students, and grading papers, she also earned a master’s degree and then her PhD in education. Noting that there were few Latino students in the advanced courses, she founded the Advanced Talent Development Program at the U-C Berkeley and established the Coalinga-Huron-Avenal House to nurture minority kids.
Third honorary degree was presented to the Mangrove Man, a curiosity in this world of women, but there was a reason for his selection as an honoree. The featured speaker was a Dr. Nancy Craven Nussbaum, a philosopher of note who was born into the privileged family of a Philadelphia lawyer father and a mother who specialized in “interior design and homemaker.” Like her fellow speakers, she was very much a product of the Seven Sisters and Ivy system, attending Bryn Mawr and Harvard as she moved to reject her WASP world. She converted to Judaism along the way, during her graduate studies encountered “a tremendous amount of discrimination,” including “sexual harassment,” and “problems getting childcare” for her daughter.
Despite the travail, she became the first women to hold a Harvard Junior Fellowship, though she was denied tenure by the Classics department and elected to strike out in a new direction at Brown, and based on the strength of her writing, became a highly regarded theorist of global justice.
I was getting the theme, and it was pretty cool. She gripped the podium as she spoke, leaning into her message about unequal freedoms. Her distinctive brand of feminism fuses liberal tradition with a radical rethinking of gender relations and relations within the family and the larger society.
She was crisp and professional, and her message was tight and well-crafted. There had been concern that she might have a tendency to expound at length, and there were six-hundred names to be read and six hundred diplomas to be presented.
(Dr. Gordon Sato. Photo Socotra.)
Dr. Gordon Hisashi Sato was the third to be honored and his speech was the shortest, but it was the one that struck me most directly. It was not because he was a guy; it was the content of his message. We talked about it afterward, and I think it might be because he took his mission to where it might be needed most. Dr. Sato is popularly known as the Mangrove Man for his work in Africa. He is a cell biologist by training, a detainee of the United States Government as a child in the internment camp of Manzanar, a solider and a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He gained his reputation for the discover that “polypeptide factors required for the culture of mammalian cells outside the body are also important regulators of differentiated cell functions and of utility in culture of new types of cells for use in research.”
That would be impressive enough, but he started The Manzanar Project, which attacked poverty, hunger, environmental pollution, and global warming through low tech biotechnological methods applied to salt water deserts, with skills and methodologies that can be transferred to the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia, developing self-sufficiency, village by village.
The base of the support system centers on development of mangrove forests along the Red Sea coastline. The trees perform multiple functions, and taken with Dr. Sato’s earlier developments in food chain generation for aquaculture, the mangrove forests provide a land and sea based economy to meet local needs and an seafood export market.
Remarkable stuff, akin to the micro-lending that could, in time, change the role of women in the third world. Mangrove Man is providing jobs for both men and women, and thus he is beginning the slow process of changing a world in which half the population has no rights whatsoever.
That was the thrust of his brief remarks, and maybe why the coincidence with my earlier epiphany made it so powerful.
Anyway, the speeches out of the way, the parade of graduates across the podium commenced. We calculated that four graduates per minute crossed the stage, and coincidentally, with the cost of tuition, each minute represented a million dollars of education, and with a “seven inning stretch” the procession took two and a half hours.
It was actually pretty cool, what with the opportunity to cheer for the Summa Cum Laudes and the bewildering diversity of the names and faces, and of course, the opportunity to go nuts for The Girl.
Gladys Moore closed the ceremony out, as is appropriate for the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, and Director of Diversity and Inclusion.
(Alma Mater. Photo Socotra.)
Then, from the ranks of the mort boarded and freshly minted alumna, Emilie Coakley, Gerlisa Garrett and Samantha Martin rose to advance to the podium. With pitch-pipe precision, they launched into the alma mater. It is a pretty song, but later, our graduate informed us there is an anti-alma mater that is even more fun:
Oh, Mount Holyoke, we pay thee tuition,
In the fervour of youth that’s gone wrong,
Each year it gets higher and higher,
My God, alma mater, how long?
So from barroom to bedroom we stagger,
And united in free love for all,
Our drinks are too strong and our morals gone,
Mount Holyoke what’s happening to me?
Mount Holyoke what’s happening to me?
Through the heart of a new night of papers
Breathes the scent of a dinner that died
For what we have written we’re thankful
But we wish that our brains were not fried
So when soft in the east the sun rises
And we realize that we’re out of time
To classes we run swearing once again
Earlier, next time you’ll see,
Yes earlier, next time you’ll see.
There was a box lunch afterward on the lawn as everyone recovered from the rapture with a lot of posing and laughing.
Then it was time for me to commence a journey. I found myself eventually turning-in back the piece of crap Camry to the Hertz people in Hartford, passing through security without event, and back in a little jet headed for the capital out of Bradley International.
TSA searched my bag when they had it in their custody, but I didn’t care. I don’t think they took anything. Jiggs and Milla called to invite me to dinner as I motored in the Hubrismobile back to the city, and damned if a home-cooked dinner out wasn’t a bad way to finish the weekend.
The Big Pink pool opens this Saturday. Onward, to summer!
Editor’s Note: I got calls from my Ivy-League pals about daring to call Mt. Holyoke an “Ivy League school.” The Ivies are sensitive about that, and they specifically referenced Mary Lyon’s institution as being one of the “Seven Sisters,” the sorority circuit of ultra-exclusive schools.
They are, of course, smart guys, and quite correct. But as a land-grant sort of guy, I think it is ivy that is on the buildings in South Hadley, and that is close enough for government work.
The Sister Colleges were all founded between 1837 and 1889. Four are in Massachusetts, two in New York and one in Pennsylvania, roughly mirroring the Northeastern orientation of a younger America. In alphabetical order, they were Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley. In recent times, the Seven have become Five. Quirky and independent Vassar went co-ed in 1969, and Radcliffe elected to merge with the Harvard system and is now a Department of Women’s Studies in the Cambridge complex.
Thus, it is as accurate to describe the Sisters as “ivy” as it is for the graduates of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Penn and Yale. Annapolis, West Point and Rutgers have credentials and lineage that at one time or another made them candidates for the inclusion in the select group, all of which were at one time exclusively male, and all of which are now coed.
Tomorrow: Damage Assessment continues
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Hello, Bill
(The former General Store at Lake Wyloa, MA.)
You are going to just have to bear with me as I sort out the events of the last few days. I cannot believe it is the beginning of the working week again, and so many miles have fled under the wheels of the piece-of-crap rental Camry, and so many events sublime and other have occurred.
I do vividly recall checking my Rolex on Saturday around the time for the dawn of the day of Rapture on Guam, where America’s day begins, to seek reports of people being seized by The Rapture, and floating up to glory.
It did not appear to happen, or if it did, in such small numbers that the rest of us did not notice. So, I am not discounting the possibility that the next five months are going to be filled with increasing pandemonium, but what the hell.
The End of the World was just one of the complicating factors in attending the 135th Commencement exercise at Mt. Holyoke College in south Hadley, MA, to honor my associate.
Mt Holyoke is the premier Women’s college of the Ivy League (sorry, Smith!). This weekend marked the culmination of four years of hard work for a very good friend of mine.
Wait, not four years. That covers just the course work. I remember what we had to go through in building the resumes for all the kids to get them into institutions they eventually were admitted to, the places we had to live and all the activities. Commencement is the culmination of a whole lifetime of preparation and execution.
Anyway, that is why I had to be there to celebrate the event, though there were some minor complications. Rooms at a premium, was going to stay with Bonds and Donna at their lovely home in Springfield, MA, but they were committed to opening the Wyloa Lake cottage, which is pristine in it’s state of innocence: no internet and no cell phone coverage.
Donna was working, and consequently, I turned up to be underfoot and allegedly help open the cottage with Bonds, hauling boats and grills and hammocks out of the Florida room and out onto the lake, and then rolling back south to have a meeting with my associate.
In between, Bonds took me touring around the lake, past the mysterious stone cottage with the enigmatic motto carved into a stone on the fireplace: “Hello, Bill.”
“It used to be the general store,” said Bonds. “Dunno what it means. Donna might, since she used to come here. Her Dad built the cabin himself.”
Then we rolled on south to the coolest bookstore in the world, or at least one of them, the Montague Book Mill, a literary and restaurant complex housed in an 1842 gristmill with a roaring stream, fed by the recent rains, in the back.
Their motto is as sublime as the sun that burst out for the first time in weeks: “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.”
People have been around these parts since the early 1700’s, and you can see their history in the little burial plots in the woods along the twisting roads and the little crossroads villages. When the sun is out, the effervescent lime of the new foliage is glorious.
When we got back to the lake we had a cocktail outside and looked at the water and listened to the cherry tree buzz with an astonishing accumulation of bees.
I took my leave as he got out salmon to grill outside.
I was headed for South Hadley and Northhampton, respectively, for dinner at Osaka, the sushi place right next door to Lucky’s tattoo parlor where I got myself inked the afternoon that my younger son went into the Navy.
Actually, I saw the artist smoking out on the street in front of the parlor- he did the magnificent horse that adorns my associate’s flank.
Then the Tunnel Bar a fabulous martini-oriented facility for stupid drinks (a tradition between the kid since we discovered the Molotov Cocktail bar in Berlin’s Kruezburg district)
And there is no place better for stupid alcohol than a bomb-proof tunnel.
(Tunnel Bar, Northampton).
The linear curved space currently occupied by the bar were used to allow travelers to exit and enter the station from street level and the tracks that lead to Canada and New York. The area behind the bar to the left in this photo was once a stairwell used to access the station platform for boarding the trains.
As I looked around, I noted the tile and granite stone, both original construction. Magnificent architecture and craftsmanship in this century-old building, the old Depot piled on upstairs.
Then the windy roads back to South Hadley, and the trusty GPS to drive the 24 miles back up to Lake Wyola, and adventures galore in the piece-of-crap-rental-Camry as the coverage faded and the little phone died in the pitch blackness. One wrong fork on the old Colonial-era roads and a dead phone (forgot the car charger and I was the dumb guy connected to the available power outlets in a series of convenience stores and motels along the way) made for rising panic in the darkness as I fell off the cell universe.
But all was well that ended well, including the next morning’s adventures at the Co-op store in the village (rich coffee and thick bacon) and then blackberry pancakes back at the Lake.
Bond’s put together his custom recipe, fluffy egg whites being the key and only some minor difficulties in the cooking process.
Oh, I didn’t mention that the cabin had the usual early-season glitches. The water was out at the lake. And the new septic system? (“Yellow is mellow, but brown must go down”) so as I pushed the piece-of-crap rental Camry down the two lane towards Holyoke, I was looking for showers and power outlets and a restroom where things flushed without having to worry about color-coding like the TSA. But that is a story that will have to wait till the ‘morrow.
It has everything, no kidding, including a version of The Rapture, and some sublime remarks on what is up with the world, and the state of Liberal Arts higher education.
What a weekend. Let the summer begin.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Program and Budget
(Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam. This twelve year old ARVN Airborne trooper with M-79 grenade launcher accompanied the Airborne Task Force Unit on a sweep through the devastated area surrounding the French National Cemetery on Plantation Road after a day long battle there. The young soldier has been “adopted” by the Airborne Division. Photo US Army Signal Corps.)
“I hated program and budget,” declared Mac firmly. “It was dry and complex and the meetings were mind-numbing.”
“We share that experience, Admiral,” I said taking a sip of wine. “The longest three and a half years of my life were spent in charge of the same organization you led. I got out of there just before we were supposed to submit the 2003 President’s Budget, which immediately became irrelevant when 9/11 happened.”
I looked toward the end of the bar where it appeared Lauren was in the process of quitting, if I read the body language properly. That would mark a new record- she did not even make the end of Happy Hour.
Elisabeth-with-an-S came by on the way to getting Old Jim another Budweiser and I asked what was going on.
She flipped a lock of chestnut hair over her ear and shook her ponytail. “Eight-month-old baby at home,” she said. “The idea of double shifts isn’t appealing.”
“Sorry to hear that. She seemed nice.” I wondered about the story behind it all- single mother? Broken relationship? Elisabeth has survived these periodic tectonic shifts in the bar personnel line-up, and is hanging on until a real job that can harness her formidable talents in public health policy.
We all have stories at the Willow Bar, fueled by excellent Happy Hour prices and a certain incurable optimism that the bottom of the next glass will provide the answer to life’s persistent questions.
“I hated the budget, too.” I said mildly. “But it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Jake was my Detailer, and he warned me that insisting on going to the Industrial College instead of the Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot was going to mean I had to go to a Joint billet on graduation, and it would finish me in the Navy.”
Mac nodded. “I managed to stay clear of the Joint World and DIA right up until I was selected for Flag at PACFLT. I went from the junior Assistant Chief of Staff when I arrived to being the senior one.”
“I remember being a Commander ACOS at THIRD Fleet,” I said with a scowl. “All the other ones were Captains and it sucked.”
“The Intelligence Division enjoyed being senior to Ops,” said Mac. “It was a good time, and the best tour I had.”
I thought about what was going on when Mac left the Pacific for the last time. “The War was going pretty well at the time, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. I left in 1967. General Westmoreland was giving glowing accounts of our progress against the VC. The Light at the End of the Tunnel was still gleaming. The troop build-up seemed to be working, the White House was optimistic, President Johnson said he was trying to win the war as fast as he could in every way he knew how. The word on the waterfront was that if we allowed South Vietnam to fall, we would be fighting in Hawaii in 1968.”
“I guess it was just as crazy overseas as it was back home,” I said. “I just was reliving the madness that happened in Detroit that year.”
Mac nodded and took a sip of his Virgin Mary. “The War had our complete attention, but remember, the Six Day War happened in the Middle East in June of 1967. It was the height of the Cold War and Brinksmanship was the way things worked.”
“So they ordered you to be Plans and Programs at DIA? That seems sort of strange.”
“Well, I had to go Joint, since that is where the Flag authorization was. VADM Rufe Taylor wanted me be the Current Intelligence Officer at DIA, but General Carroll wasn’t having any of that. He gave all the decent jobs to the Air Force.”
“Carroll was the first Director of DIA, right? Didn’t he serve, like, forever?”
“Oh yes. He was there almost seven years. He was an odd duck. In addition to being fiercely parochial to his Service, he was not very communicative to his Staff. He would go to the US Intelligence Board meetings by himself and never say what went on unless he was tagged with an action by the Director of Central Intelligence.”
“Who was that then?” I asked. “Was it still Dick Helms?”
“Yes. He was a real old hand- he came up through the OSS, the first director to have done so, and the first career civilian to be DCI. He had good credentials about the war. He engineered the coup that overthrew President Diem.” Mac smiled thinly.
“That would seem to have mixed results,” I said.
“You are looking at it in the rear-view,” said Mac. “Back then, he was a guy who knew everybody that counted. One thing he hated was his community role as the DCI. His view was to keep his oversight staff as small as possible and concentrate on being the Director of CIA.”
“But he still chaired the USIB, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Some things he could not duck. So when General Carroll came back from the meeting at Langley and called me down to the office, he told me he had a job for me.”
“Was that right after the Pueblo was captured?”
“Yes, within the week. You have to imagine what was going on. We had finished our work on our part of the President’s budget submission, which was going to be rolled out at the end of January. It was controversial, since Johnson was gong to ask for $26 billion to continue the war and increase in taxes to do it. Mr. Bush never had the inclination to do that for Iraq.”
“That was our slack time in the Program,” I said. After we got the Congressional Budget Justification Books done for the coming fiscal year and would get ready for all those stupid Questions For The Record from the Committees on the Hill.”
“There wasn’t any slack time in January of 1968,” declared Mac. “I was itching to get my teeth into something real. The North Koreans launched their attack on the Blue House in Seoul right before the Pueblo business started. The Ship was never informed.”
“They still talked about that when I was assigned to USFK,” I said. “Special Unit 124 of the North Korean Army infiltrated the ROK through the 2nd ID sector of the DMZ and tried to attack the presidential residence and kill Park Chung-hee.”
“And three days later the North captured the Pueblo and her crew.”
“God, that must have been strange. It was weird enough watching network news back in Grabbingham while I was going to high school. We all assumed we would be headed for Vietnam in the draft when we graduated, but then it seemed like there might be war with Korea.”
“Only for a minute,” said Mac softly. “The day after President Johnson made his budget speech the North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive.”
“Crap,” I said. “That is when everything changed.”
“Yep. A massive defeat for the Viet Cong, and a massive victory for the North Vietnamese in the New York Times.”
“What a month that must have been.”
“Yes. General Carroll looked at me in his office and said DCI Helms wants to know what the hell the North Koreans got along with the Pueblo and her crew.”
“Damn.”
“You can say that again,” Mac said, and finished his Virgin Mary.
(USS Pueblo crew in captivity. Photo courtesy DPRK.)
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com