Response to a query regarding my existence

A query reached me on 12-8-25, seemingly having to do with whether or not I was still alive.  I am indeed as far as I know but we older folk are never sure about our states of being from one day to the next, so take that with a grain of salt.

In any case, whatever I am, I have been off-line for Internet, Amazon (Kindle) and literary reasons.  

As everyone knows, I read a lot, shifting, typically from one subject or interest to another.  Since this sort of thing increased since Susan died I acquired some annoyances, among other things, when I decided to download a novel from Kindle (for example) I often discovered that I’d already downloaded it but apparently hadn’t read it all, sometimes I saw no evidence that I had read any of it. [as to why, I didn’t remember, I recently checked and am reading, an average of two books every three days.] So why didn’t I read this particular book? I would wonder and try to access it on my Kindle and thereby enter into a world that would (I often thought), qualify as one of Dante’s regions of Hell.  Nevertheless, I persevered and finally learned how to see in a usable manner all the Kindle books I had purchased on Kindle. 

Often, I would notice something about a novel, or series of novels and want to record some comments.  Doing it in my main journal was cumbersome.  Also, I couldn’t readily find what I had written in a reasonable amount of time, the journals being numerous and the writing voluminous as well as being hard to read.

So, I decided to create notebooks devoted just to book matters.  Amazon sells “packs” of notebooks convenient to this purpose, hard-backs, 5.5 by 8 inches in size and in different colors. Since I typically read several hours a day, the using of one of these notebooks say on non-serious (meaning nonliterary and not the sort of novel that wins the Booker or Pulitzer or Nobel prizes, but very popular in the actual reading world – novels that Amazon rates very high in terms of popularity, e.g., detective, detective thriller, detective cozy.

And, since my background is in legitimate literature, the sort that does win literary prizes, the sort critics like to think will live on (be popular) for years, if not centuries, to come.  I’ve another notebook for these (although I find that I usually enjoy the non-serious books more than the legitimate).

Then too I also read factual works.  I recently read a vivid account of the largest battle during the Korean War, fought by Marines.  It was mostly over when I was still in High School.  But I didn’t know that, and it wasn’t officially over, because truce talks were going on.  I tried to enlist when I was 16, but they found out how old I was and sent me home.  My parents held me hostage from the Marine Corps until I graduated from High School; so that is what happened.  I was 17.  The war was still technically going on but this just meant that the U.S., the South Koreans, the North Koreans and the Chinese were conducting truce talks.  We might exchange a few shots over the truce line, but that wasn’t combat in the proper sense.  Even though I was entitled to two stars on my Koran ribbon.  They just meant that I was in Korea when that war was technically active, and before the truce was actually signed.  I was on Cheju Island when the truce was signed.  An officer flew a corsair onto our air strip to officially notify us that the truce had been signed.  There was a prison camp on Cheju Island and North Koreans were released during the truce talks in order to make their way back north if they chose to go back – at least that is what we were told, but I had never before read a history that provided the details of that war, and especially the Battle the Marines fought (Chosin Reservoir) in which the Chinese offered our General Smith the chance to surrender because the Chinese had his force surrounded.  He responded with words like “surrender Hell, we’ve got you right where we want you, all around us; so any time we feel like shooting one of you we look up and there you are.”  That might sound like bravado, but it was actually the case. according to On Desperate Ground, the epic story of Chosin Reservoir -- the greatest battle of the Korean War by Hampton Sides pretty much agrees with general Smith.  The Marines were better trained, better shots, and had better equipment.  The Army asked the Marines to come to their aid at one point, but, despite General Smith’s bravado, the Marines were being hard pressed their whole time adjacent to the Chosin Reservoir and couldn’t go to the Army’s aid. [The Army troops were on the other side of the Chosin Reservoir and did get some Army aid.]  While the Marines didn’t get additional troops, they did get supply drops of additional ammunition, because they used a lot of it.  The Chinese commanders believed that if they kept sending troops, wave after wave at us, that we would eventually be overwhelmed.  Some of the Chinese sent in that fashion were not even issued guns.  They were told to pick up the weapons of the Chinese soldiers we had killed and who lying in their path, dead, with loaded weapons. 

The Battle of Chosin Reservoir took place between 27 November and 13 December 1950.  I finally made it into the Marine Corps when I graduated in July 1952 at age 17.  I did try to enlist after the eleventh grade, in 1951 when I would have been 16.  The history book I read told me that even if I hurried my way to Korea, the battle of Chosin Reservoir would already have been over.

I knew the truce talks were going on, but a lot of us assumed the war would resume.  Everyone in my graduating class knew I intended to enlist in the Marine Corps so many of them made such comments as “bullet-stopper” in my year books.  Enlisting in the Marine Corps in July of 1952 seemed like a risky (foolish) thing to do (according to my fellow students in July of 1952), but in retrospect it wasn’t.

Nevertheless, one didn’t know that when I enlisted in July 1952.  My first duty station was at the Marine air base at El Toro in Santa Ana, something like 16 miles from my home.  When I found that out, I decided that was intolerable.  I didn’t join the Marines to have easy duty 16 miles from home, so I went to my administration and asked if they could find a way to send me to Korea, and they did. There was a fellow who was being sent to Korea that didn’t want to go.  He turned out to be happy to change places with me.

I don’t recall the precise date I got to Korea, but I was there for the (technically) last two battle seasons, but when I inquired about being sent to the line where we were shooting at each other, I was told that volunteers to go up there were no longer being accepted.

My reading answered some questions I had but I had never pursued reading about my time over there.  Why should I, I thought at the time, I had been there.  When my term was up, I met with a recruiting sergeant, who told me that if I would reenlist.  I had only been made a buck (three stripe) sergeant a few months earlier so that sounded strange.  They also offered me any duty station I wanted and suggested sea-duty.  

As to the immediate rank increase, I worked (later, one the C17 program) with a retired Marine Corps captain who said that would have been a very good deal for me.  The ranks had been depleted by all the Marines who had been killed at Chosin Reservoir so for a short time rank increases were offered to anyone who reenlisted.  

I told the retired captain that I didn’t appreciate the “peace time” Marines and so gave up all thought of staying in based on my time served after the truce was signed.  It wasn’t until I read the aforementioned history of the Chosin Reservoir battle that I seriously thought about the fact that I wouldn’t strictly have been joining the “peace-time Marines.” I would have been reenlisting in a Marine Corps training for their next war (which would have been in Vietnam, but I didn’t know that when I got out).

I did exceptionally well at my last duty, which was being a rifle coach.  I was the only one of the young coaches who had been to Korea.  Also, I didn’t drop any of my shooters.  We coaches were assigned a group of shooters each couple of weeks, some of whom had previously qualified and some had not.  Our job was to get them all qualified.  Time after time I got all my shooters, even the ones that had never qualified, qualified.  After a while, the old-time tech and master sergeants who ran the re-qualification situation, let me run things and spent their time in the slop chute.  

I enjoyed all that quite a lot, plus I had a lot of things to say about shooting.   Then too I had a unique coaching method which I was rather proud of, and none of the other coaches could (or even wanted to) do what I did.  It amounted to hanging over the shoulder of each of my shooters and hypnotically, convince them that they just needed to listen to my voice as they acquired a sight picture and very gently always keeping the front sight in the black, as they squeezed the trigger.  And if they listened, and believed what I was telling them, and did it, then they would become qualified if they had never been qualified or would improve their scores if they hadn’t.  I was rather pleased with my approach and the senior coaches, concerned with results, were as well.    I have told that story more than once.  Susan, upon hearing it, objected.  She asked, what happens when your shooters go into combat and you aren’t there to whisper in their ears?   

I took the test for buck sergeant when I was a coach, so the approval of the tech-sergeants was important.  Also, by the time I was getting ready to get out of the Marine Corps, I’m sure 1) the fact that I had volunteered to go to Korea during that war counted in the minds of those deciding whether to offer me as much as they could in hopes of getting me to stay in was concerned.  And 2) the fact that I had been so successful as a rifle coach had to count for a lot.  The senior sergeants I had freed up to spend their days at the slop chute had obviously been grateful and had given me a good report.  

But frankly I had decided to go to college and not to reenlist; and while I enjoyed my life as a coach, the coaching days were limited.  Once every one had been through re-qualification we had come from, we coaches were obligated to return to the duty stations we came from when we became coaches.  In my case that was in the 2nd 90s at 29 Palms and I hated that place for various reasons.

And, I didn’t have a clear understanding of the training required of “peacetime Marines.”  So, an increase in rank to Staff Sergeant and the choice of duty stations wasn’t a serious incentive for me.

In regard to what I was looking toward.  My grandmother influenced my quite a lot.  As a girl, she lost her hearing and couldn’t attend school for a while, during which she became convinced that a knowledge of and appreciation for books could more than compensate (in life) for the lack of a formal education.  My military experience entitled me to a college education; so, I took classes for the joy of them and without respect to a particular job later on. [Rather foolish it seemed to many, including my stepfather who wanted me to get an engineering degree.]

I could have gotten a master’s degree and indeed took half of the classes necessary for one, but by that time I was rather firmly ensconced at Douglas Aircraft company, doing well (and paying my bills) in an arena I had never planned to enter, engineering.  

What I have done undoubtedly sounds strange to some, and entering into engineering with any sort of Liberal Arts degree put a lot of the college graduates hired during that time (when the Air Force complained about the shoddy incomprehensible documentation and communication sent to them by Douglas engineers) in engineering.  Engineers were not going to get better at it; so, Douglas needed Liberal Arts-type graduates who were smart enough to understand engineering matters and persuasive enough to get cooperation from salty old-time engineers.  My Marine Corps experience helped me with the latter.  There was not an engineer so salty or forbidding enough to cow a Marine Corps sergeant.

And, bringing things forward into the era of my retirement, over the years I knew many legitimate (meaning they had engineering degrees) engineers who were not equipped to retire.  They had no legitimate or useful skills or plans for spending time during retirement.  A friend who was the senior engineer over the interior designs of DC10 aircraft, retired.  His big plan, full of interior design experience, was to build himself a perfect house.  And he indeed work away at that, happily as far as I could tell, but before he finished, he had a heart attack and died.

Another engineer was held up to the rest of us as the perfect engineering employee.  Anything management wanted us to do; someone would find occasion to point at this guy and tell us how wonderful he was.  Back in those days everyone had to retire at age 65.  The week after this guy retired, he was in a coffee shop, had a heart attack, keeled over and died.  

Since I became an engineer under false pretenses, that is, I could do the work and was qualified in that sense, but deep down I felt I was largely a fraud because I didn’t have an engineering degree and while no one ever criticized me during my 39 years in engineering, someone could have challenged me in some respect for not having an engineering degree.  I was once offered the job as head of Advance Design and turned it down.  I was a program engineer at the time working on the KC-10 program, but I also delivered the last two DC-10s, one to Nigeria and the other to Pakistan.   I also handled some activity for Advance Design and so was qualified (in terms of being able to do the work).  But I knew a lot of those engineers, stuck up for some of them during some difficult times and maybe they wouldn’t have minded that I was their boss, but they didn’t know I didn’t have an engineering degree.  Beyond that I didn’t have respect for the higher-level director who offered me the job.

12-10-25, 11:00.  I got only that far in regard to answering someone who asked what I had been up to in the last several weeks in as much as I had not posted any general note to that effect.  Well (in my defense), I thought about it but it, but never stopped doing the above in order to write about it.  Besides, what I was doing to organize what I was reading didn’t seem very interesting, and I wasn’t sure how consistent I would be in doing what I set out to do

In regard to watching things on TV etc., I don’t have a TV I watch but I have been watching on Youtube videos on the discoveries being made in regard to DNA analyses of older skeletons, revising many of the theories about our ancestral histories.  I did actually have my DNA checked and found that my mother’s belief that she (and consequently her kids) was part Indian.  Her reasoning was that she saw her great grandmother squatting down in the back yard smoking a corn-cob pipe, “and who would do that other than an Indian.”  It’s been a while since I looked at the results from Ancestry.com, but I thought at the time her great-grandmother was a German.  She had no Indian in her ancestry.  

BTW, her mistake did influence my time in the Marine Corps.  I’d only been on the Marine base in Kunsan a short time when a full-blooded Indian, Emhoolah, stopped me and asked me if I was part Indian.  I said that I was, and he said that since he was the only full-blooded Indian on the base and he is ordering me to show up at the slop chute every day after work and drink beer with the rest of the Indians.  So that’s where I learned to drink beer and do all the other things that “drunken Indians” did, one of which was to be body guard for Bill Salois, one-quarter Blackfoot, who liked to fight every time he was drunk, and he wasn’t very good at it, so my job was to make sure he wasn’t hurt very badly; so I would stop the fights as soon as he was getting a beating, declare them a draw and haul him off.  Bill was good at holding a grudge.  Once, when everyone was off doing something else, he went into the barracks took the M1 rifle of someone he hated and fired 8 rounds through the overhead figuring to get this guy in trouble, but it turned out no one noticed, to his disappointment.  

I did like being an Indian.  Bill tried to talk me into joining him in Montana once we got out.  He said we could start a ranch together.  I objected, "we don't have any money."  He said, "that's no big deal.  We can earn all we need at the rodeo."  Doing what, I asked?   Riding horses and bulls, that sort of thing.  I told him I had never done that sort of thing.  He said, "no big deal.  It's easy."   In a couple of novels, I've read recently the author describing the dangerousness of something as being equivalent to riding bucking horses and bulls.   Well, as much as I liked Bill, I was never inspired by his plan. 

Now In November, a reconsideration

 

I just finished reading Now in November, the winner of the 1935 Pulitzer Prize written by Josephine W. Johnson.  It seems to be in the vein of Thomas Hardy’s heavier novels, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the Mayor of Casterbridge.  But Hardy was much more heavy-handed than Johnson seems to be.  She was a young girl writing about young girls to a large extent.

Also Johnson seems to have inherited some of the motivation that drove the Muckrakers.  The most egregious offenses they addressed have been corrected.  The farms of Josephine Johnson’s day are not utterly immune to the hazards the farmers of Now In November endured, or rather succumbed to – most of them, but it is possible to have a successful farm nowadays; I had a friend, Bill Cave who went in with someone else on the development of a vineyard.  But like most of these successful small farms, there is an outside income available.  Most of these small farmers are not relying solely upon the income from their farms. Nevertheless, in their day, Marget, Merle and Kettrin grew up on their farm and had no wish to leave it.  Even though their mother and father and Kettrin are dead by the end of the novel, Marget and Merle intend to continue working their family farm.  

In the days prior to Johnson’s novel, the understanding of life outside the family farm increased.  Some of this enlarged understanding was due to World War One.  There was a popular song in those days: “How you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?”  Exposure to life outside the family farm opened up other possibilities.  

Also, in order to keep a family farm viable, the eldest son, assuming he was reasonably competent usually inherited the family farm.  The other possible heirs did something else.  My grandfather Troy Matthews (my mother’s father) was not the eldest son.  His brother inherited the farm.  I met Troy in the 1940's shortly before he died of tuberculosis.  He was known for being clever and earned money in different ways, included the development of photographs.  I inherited his lightroom equipment.

Victor Davis Hanson is very concerned about protecting farming interests in the California Central Valley.  Since Hanson is a successful professor and has published several popular books, maybe he doesn’t need any of his family-farm income, but I read some biographical information about him several years ago and he was at the time enmeshed in that milieu.  

Thus, in one sense Now in November is dealing with dated issues. The small farmer makes up 87% of the farming industry but produces only 17% of the value.  Apparently most small farmers have an additional source of income and are doing it for the life style rather than a desire to become wealthy.  And that seems to be the intention of the girls’ father.

The more popular Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles are also dealing with dated issues.  I didn’t read these as part of any class but simply to find out how good they really were.  I wouldn’t put Now in November in their class, but they share a history.  Social offenses described in these three novels have been largely dealt with.  When they still exist, they don’t exist at the level dealt with in these novels. . . IMHO.

The complicated world of DNA surprises

 Regarding the article "Missed Connections, Inside the world of DNA surprises," written by Jennifer Wilson and published in the August 25, 2025 edition of the New Yorker:

Those of us interested in genealogy have always known that there was an element of doubt in the matter of paternity in our genealogical ancestry.  We were not able to quantify that doubt, but we knew it existed.  Thus, it seemed fruitless to trace one's ancestry back too far because there were bound to be some cases of paternal ancestors which weren't our biological ancestors, even though they appear in research and documentation as such.  Our present ability to scientifically determine who our nearest paternal ancestors are, has created a number of other concerns which the article and Wikipedia references.   There is now an acceptable term to describe the phenomenon, N.P.E., which stands for "Non-Paternity-Event."  Some notable experiences developed once it became easy to check one's genealogy are referenced in the article, for example, 

Kara Rubinstein Deyerin, Kara Rubinstein Deyerin – Speaker | Advocate | Storyteller , has made a name for herself in this arena:   "She was raised in Seattle as the daughter of a white mother and an African American father.  As she grew up, Rubenstein Deyerin, like many Black Americans, became curious about her African origins, a history lost in the slave trade.  "I said, 'Dad, let's take one of those tests.'  But when she opened her DNA pie chart, her sample didn't cluster with any part of the African continent.  Instead, a large portion was labelled 'Ashkenazi.'"  'I had never heard of it, Rubinstein Deyerin told me'.  She called her mother:  Her mother said, 'But I don't know anyone Jewish.'  I was , like, well, you knew at least one."

There is a potential for lawsuits.  For example, if a person discovers she is the result of an N.P.E and that her hitherto unknown biological father had an inheritable disease that her mother and her biological father kept secret from her, for example, from Wikipedia:  Ashkenazi Jews have a higher risk of certain inherited genetic conditions, including Tay-Sachs disease, Gaucher disease, Canavan disease, cystic fibrosis, and familial dysautonomia. These are autosomal recessive disorders, meaning an individual must inherit two copies of the altered gene, one from each parent, to develop the condition. Carrier screening is recommended for all Ashkenazi Jewish individuals and their partners, especially before or during pregnancy, to identify carriers and inform family planning decisions."  

When Rubenstein Deyerin contacted her wealthy biological family. it didn't go well.  Her mother was 18 at the time, and her biological father was Sam Rubinstein, a 50 year old wealthy philanthropist.  Rubenstein Deyerin obviously had her named changed, since she didn't know about the Rubenstein connection until she got her DNA results and questioned her mother.  

The article states, "In regard to how much an individual's ancestral records can be considered to be compromised by N.P.E.'s, "A few years ago, a research team at Baylor college of Medicine surveyed more than twenty-three thousand customers of these kits and learned that three per cent of them had discovered that a person whom they'd believed to be their biological parent wasn't.  (That number is in line with a 2005 study from a university in Liverpool which found a 3.7-per-cent median rate of misattributed paternity in the general population.)  If the ratio holds, that means around two million Americans who have taken one of these tests are N.P.E.s".

And also, I wonder, since the Mormon church uses assumed genealogies in their theological concerns, whether they have issued a papal-like statement in regard to how such matters as N.P.E.'s are to be viewed by the church.

After the buffalo went away

 

In this morning's news letter from The New Yorker is an article on "loss."

"When the Princeton classicist Dan-el Padilla Peralta was going up for a promotion to full professor, in early 2023, it occurred to him that one of the central preoccupations of his career was loss. Being a scholar of the preservation of knowledge, he realized, also made him an expert on its destruction."

The New Yorker writer Jonathan Lear condenses Padilla Peralta's comments about some books, one of them is Radical Hope by Jonathan Lear:  "The book is organized around a statement by Plenty Coups, who was a longtime chief of the Crow Nation. Shortly before he died, he gave an interview where he said, “When the buffalo went away, the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this, nothing happened.” One of Lear’s goals is to tease out the significance of those last words, “nothing happened.”

I doubt I'll order the Padilla Peralta book, but the Plenty Coups' comment has been something to think about.   I have given a lot of thought recently to the matter of leaving the Marine Corps back in 1955 when I had the rank of "buck" Sergeant.  I was interviewed by a not-very-articulate sergeant who offered me some incentives if I would stay in.  My current duty, was rifle instructing at Camp Pendleton.  I did extremely well, never failing to get any of my charges qualified.  Thus, I was offered an immediate increase in rank to Staff Sergeant.  That was definitely not a common occurrence by the time that someone's three-year enlistment was over.  No doubt I was appreciated, but also the Marine Corps needed to replenish the Staff Sergeant ranks because they lost so many during the Korean War (I had been given an increase while I was in Korea, to corporal, for the same reason).  When I enlisted, the war was still going on and my first assignment was to the El Toro Lighter than Air base, an easy drive from my home in Wilmington California.  I enlisted to get away from home; so I immediately asked to be sent to Korea.  It wasn't hard to find someone who didn't want to go, so I went in his place.  That also was considered an admirable trait in a Marine; however I wasn't thinking in those terms when my enlistment was up.  I had been sent to Twenty Tine Palms after I got back from Korea, the most unpleasant, boring place I had ever lived in.  I spent my free time at the base library resolving to leave the boring Marine Corps as soon as possible.  Shortly thereafter a request was sent around for Marines who had fired Expert who wanted to become rifle coaches at Camp Pendleton (where the weather was much better) I signed up at once, packed up my sea bag, and a short bus ride took me to my new duty station.

Now, in relation to the Plenty Coups' comment, I "thought" all the buffalo had gone away when I left Korea.  There were some stressful moments over there, but I never saw actual combat.  I did check out the chances of being sent to the front -- not the only Marine who had done that -- but was told they weren't accepting any more such transfers inasmuch as there were truce talks going on; so I settled into being there for the full 13 months.  I was there for the last two battle seasons.  My very first job was to guard three prisoners who had gotten drunk and drove to a town over-seen by the Air Force Police from the much more populous Air Force Base a mile or so from our base.  They ordered the Marines away.  There was a confrontation and all the Air Police were killed.  

There were about 130 of us there where the Yellow sea came up through our barbed-wire fence and then withdrew so far we could no longer see it.  I soon made a lot of friends who taught me to drink beer, smoke, and a number of other things.  They didn't twist my arm, I was happy to fit in and be one of them, and I was.  Each month a "draft" would have completed its thirteen months over there and be sent home.  Each month there was a party for those going home.  No one I was stationed with at Kunsan and Cheju Island was sent to the same duty station I was at Twenty Nine Palms.  I believed the buffalo had gone away.

After a few months I became a rifle coach at Camp Pendleton and enjoyed that duty even more than duty at Kunsan and as much as at Cheju Island, but I wasn't sophisticated enough being only 19 to evaluate the disappearance of the buffalo.  Even though I enjoyed duty as a rifle coach at Camp Pendleton, I had previously done some boring time with peace-time Marines at Twenty-Nine Palms.  I don't recall how long I was there, but it was long enough to decide I didn't like the peace-time Marines and with no new wars on the horizon, I resolved to leave after my enlistment was up and go to college.   Had I gone straight from Korea to Camp Pendleton perhaps I would have decided to stay in, but I had the negative experience of Twenty-Nine Palms and wanted out.   I never reevaluated matters at Camp Pendleton.  I simply set aside thinking about getting out.  It was never a matter for discussion until I was called in and asked if I was going to "ship over" (the Marine Corps term for reenlisting), and by that time I realized that after we had gotten everyone requalified, I would be sent back to my duty station at 29 Palms.  Although if I knew of some other place I'd like to go, perhaps I could have told the reenlistment sergeant I wanted to go there and see if that was possible, but I didn't know of any such place other than Embassy duty.  The reenlistment sergeant said the waiting list for that was very long.     

I started work at Douglas Aircraft Company because I had bills to pay, not because I thought of it as beginning a career.  Had the Buffalo gone?  Well, maybe so, but I was probably more versatile than Plenty Coups.  I did well in Douglas Aircraft Engineering, and was working on my Master's Degree at night, but after some unpleasant experiences with a college professor who gave me what I thought was a view into what my life would be like if I entered that field.  I had a good excuse for dropping out of the Master's program.  A number of college graduates went to work at Douglas in order to pay bills and earn enough money to return to college.  Douglas frowned on that and took a hard look at people who were working on advance degrees at night; so I gave that up, and reconciled myself to a life in engineering.  Had the buffalo gone or not?

Perhaps I need a new analogy.  Perhaps at some point I abandoned hunting the buffalo.   But, I would contend, the buffalo were not what they used to be and I had lived so long that the buffalo I knew had grown old and died.  The days are dusty now.  It's hard to breathe when I spend too much time outside listening for hoof beats.  I can no longer mount a horse; so when I am honest with myself I must admit that it makes no difference whether the buffalo come back or not, but if they do, I must assert in my own defense, they won't look anything like the buffalo I was familiar with back in the Corps and I most certainly won't want to hunt them.  But that doesn't, at least for me, eliminate a sense of loss.  

Sometimes, late at night drinking a cup of espresso, I wonder how my life would have turned out if I'd told that reenlistment sergeant, "Okay, make me a staff sergeant but leave me at Camp Pendleton as a rifle instructor."  He would have agreed to that, but in thinking about that reconstruction, I would have been at Camp Pendleton when Lee Harvey Oswald went there to re-qualify.  He had not qualified before and as head of the "unqualified" detail I would almost certainly have improved his ability to shoot (but probably not more than the coach, whoever he was, who actually trained him).   I have never given any thought to how I would feel if I were the one to have qualified Oswald.  I have though often wondered how the coach who did qualify him felt afterwards  Maybe the buffalo that I longed for would have stampeded right over me if I had reenlisted.  Also, after I had been in for four or five years of my reenlistment, Vietnam would have been warming up, and the person I became subsequent to the life as a Marine was not happy with the way our leaders fought that war.  Would it have been enough for me to simply suck it up and do my best; which I would certainly have done, or would something else have happened which I wouldn't have been happy with if I had managed to survive and return home?  When I go on one of these memory trips, I do sometimes wish I'd stayed in the Corps, but the wishing fizzles quite a bit when I travel into subsequent years . . . sitting here, for example, two months shy of my ninety-first birthday, in better health than most people who become this age, drinking espresso, while the cleaning lady is downstairs cleaning, finishing up this email and getting ready to return to the book I'm currently reading, "Maddy's Floor," by Dale Mayer, probably not a work of great literature, but entertaining.  Sometimes I feel a bit guilty because I am not concentrating on writing or reading something "worth while."  On the other hand, when I do bear-down mentally and work on something serious, i discover that my blood pressure goes up, and high blood pressure is the only ailment my doctors are concerned about controlling.  I have never discussed poetry with any of my doctors and probably never will.  I'm quite convinced that nothing I have to do is going to bring a single buffalo clumping down the street I live on.  There is a saying to the effect that if you hear hoofbeats, think Horses and not Zebras.  Maybe one shouldn't think about buffalo either.  Maybe I should read the Jonathan Lear book.

 

 

My fist

The concept was just a bit ago

Clear; then in its midst I lost

The ability to move.  I must

It seems, be able to clench

My fist and then my mind in that

Order.  Without that I merely dream,

Drifting like a slow moving cloud

Whose outline seems fixed until

Measured against another. 

Even if I think out loud and in

The brief time past look down, 

I can watch my fist unfurl.

On a sunny Friday nearby

 

“Just swallow the sunshine”

Pressed the Shadow.  Well

For him to say in his hiding.

I’ve lost substance by his

Side these passed few years,

Cloven from shielded eyes.

The last of us trudged up

Here to set our baskets down

Saying one to the other,

“This much is good” and

Began to weep.  There

Was music pulsating 

Behind.  Urging inexorably

Our staying here in this

Place till we

Who can still stand

Crane our necks and stare

At the sun till we go blind.

Marching, Marching

 

Pushing open the wrought-iron gate

I’d had enough of just looking in –

Needing to be there on the other

Side.  I let it slam behind me.

The clang introduced an

Element of doubt.  I had skills

My history proved them,

But no evidence of this,

Clicking through to a place

I’d neither studied for

Nor imagined.  Looking 

About I saw they neither

Dressed nor looked like me

Their hair hung in tatters.

Their homework was rolled up

Under their arms.  Up on the

Walls, well armed guards

Walked to and fro; yet

No one challenged me for

Being there.  It wasn’t long

Before I learned my place.

Life moved swiftly then.

My dreams of Susan

Faded.  My doubts

About being there when

She was not diminished.

The cripple-ness in my knee

Began to spread.

Outside in the morning

Walking across the front lawn

Early in this chirping-crisp brisk

Morning – the sun blinking its

Bright light through the trees,

Breezes meandering, spread

Widely enough to stir the leaves,

And grasses and flowers beneath them.

How often did I wake here

Trousers cinched with a broad

Belt, my ancient Ninety-two

Pulling them further down than

They did when we were new?

I might know if I were thinking

Clearly, the way to the top.

There was a time I wouldn’t stop

On such a morning until I stood 

Up there, drinking espresso

From my thermos’ cup, but I

Can’t make it beyond here, this

Morning, being too old and feeble

For anything more than this.

Sailing back from some place else

 

We were often there, taking 

The stairs two at a time

While the chance of falling

Wasn’t a consideration, and

A helping hand being there

Was for touch and not

Really for help.  I recall

The touch.  I thought I could

Handle losing it, but failed

To understand the breaking

Down of her understanding,

That withdrawing

Touch of consequence, 

Memory loss, loss of most

Of what she was.  I would

Have stayed at sea if she could

Have stayed, but she was

Slowly leaving in her mind,

Me hearing her go in every

Conversation, time trickling away

Like sand through my fingers.

My Old Pen

 

There was a blaring 

Back up beyond the hill we’d 

Just come down.  Someone 

Pursued us.   A bull horn

Voice strengthened and

Threatened.  Unable

To think, I stumbled

Away as well as I could. 

I had been writing and

Raised my hand with a pen

There clinging.  My other 

Held a walking stick

And at my feet Jessica bared

Her few remaining teeth.

My pen was knocked away

And my poor hearing

Turned their sounds into

Raucous screeching.  They

Shook their heads at

My conspicuous ineptness

In this now-righteous domain.

Going back again

 

Brooding at my desk

From an open book

Resisting a hand full

Of sleep from time

To time, recalling

As I drift forward

Or aft the soft sail

Boat sway on a calm 

Day, Susan brilliantly

Smiling into a morning’s

Rising sun – time stilling,

Watching my main

Sail flutter, and never 

Caring until that time

Ran out and runs out still

Sitting here snapping awake

From my palm-perch which

I flex and flex until I have

The feeling back – the

Rest of me though loses all

That is back there once again

Death application

If you wish to die, strike one on 

Your keyboard.  When the next

Screen appears, select your 

Reason from the ten provided.

After this you will need to strike

Your signature key.  If you 

Do not have such a key,

Go to the “create your signature”

Screen and create one.  You will

First need to answer the questions 

Listed.  You will be notified within

Two weeks if your signature has 

Been approved.  If your yearly

IRS Tax bill has been under ten

Thousand dollars a year, expect

Near-term approval.  If higher

You will be directed to a Grief

Counselor.  If after two years, and

With your counselor’s approval

You still wish to die, your request

Will be reassessed and you will

Be directed to a new Grief Counselor

Setting out on a new spring day

 

Hobbling along a cobblestone

Road, it won’t take long

To run me down.  How far

Can I get?  I’m sure they

Wish I were not out here 

Ahead of them again, but at

Least I’m no one urgent.

My existence anywhere being 

Merely overdue.  There were

Calculations, slide rules

At first and adding machines,

But now its smart phones and

Artificial intelligence.  It knows

Each step I take and where

I’m likely to go.  When I don’t

Go there, an algorithm files

Another complaint of the sort

I’m tired of responding to,  

Searching down this road

For a better place to hide. 

Concluding strains

 

In the last act, viva voce,

The soprano softly sighed

Gasping the words of her

Remaining song.  They were,

She sang, of her love and how

I’d vowed to care for her

Until this our end now

Being portrayed.  I could   

Not then sing. I tried

Instead to smile.  Her wan

Look faded with each

Uttered word sung softly 

In diminishing refrains.

We heard the approaching

End. I sang the anguishing 

Solo as the lights dimmed.  The

Ushers jangled the doors wanting

Us gone.  With my hand in hers

I turned to the emptying chairs

And bowed -- one – last – time.

Working in the Dark

 

     Having been given the murder
    I quickly scanned all the
    Previous detective had, the
    Rusty knife, the empty shells,
    The blood-soaked room, the
    Body stretched upon the floor.

    My old mind feared I wasn’t
    Up to the task; yet I’d always
    Managed once I focused upon
    The crime.  I stood in
    The dark and conjured
    The man who killed the woman
    Upon the floor.  The door began

    To open.  I drew my Glock and
    Moved against the wall.
    The killer had returned to
    View his crime.  He came
    In nimbly, firing, but I
    Was the quickest into his
    Darkness and into mine.

No New Messages

  One more silence to add

To all the rest, resting in

Peace perhaps, he surmises

Leaning back into his agitation.

It’s hard to sort the maybe

From the inevitability of

Dissolution.  Words swirl

Perhaps, thinking thoughts

Being in nine decades

Past what most think

Convenient, too old to

Learn the new procedures,

Too set in his ways to

Accept the urging down

The stairs, the bucket

At the bottom, the crutches

And alarm clock chanting

Electronically with no way

To shut it off, the instructions

Being too small to read with

The weak eyes of such a man.

REJOICING THUNDER

 

I am running again, faster

Than before, with phantoms

Thrusting larger, slavering

Jaws joyful under smiling eyes.

Street after street we pass

Beyond the critics who can’t

Accept her as she is nor me,

Never having studied the wall

Nor seen its etchings, “snap,”

The whip flicks out.  I don’t

Feel it as it does.  My dog would

Field the insult if I did, caring

At its peak, and I’ve no

Wish to create more.

We come back up the canyon.

Careening cars flick by, whistling,

Honking.  There is a flutter of rain.

Nothing slows.  We’re again as we

Were earlier in the day.  She doesn’t

Pause to judge me nor I her – nails

Sparking on the road as we run by.

Further thoughts on the Dire Wolf

I went to Youtube to see what else was being said about the Dire Wolf.  The consensus seemed to be to take what the scientists said about how they made up the Dire Wolf, i.e., using as much actual Dire Wolf genetic material as they had, and then using a similar species, the wolf to make up what was missing.

I suppose I made some mental jumps.  I went past such quibbles without pausing.  But, now, moving back and looking at them, I ask, why would we want to bring back into existence a species that precisely uses a habitat that we destroyed ages ago?  Look out!  The way to the La Brea Tar Pits is thoroughly clogged with people nowadays.  

We don’t, but if we had the capability, we should modify the genetics of any species which was once solely dependent upon a habitat that no longer exists.  I’m not arguing that the scientists who created the animal that they are terming the Dire Wolf should have done that.  From what they described they don’t have the capability.  They don’t have the genetic material to accurately create the Dire Wolf.  As an acceptable alternative, they used as much Dire Wolf genetic material as they had and supplemented it with the genetic material of the closest species genetically available.

So, rather than celebrate the great achievement of Colossal, some are choosing to quibble about terms, criticizing the logic of calling something by the task designation: Dire Wolf, when they didn’t achieve it 100%.  The scientists were undoubtedly proud of their achievement.  Not us though, we’d rather quibble about what to call it.

I read someplace else that we are attempting to modify the genetics of some individuals so that they can endure the radiation they would be exposed to in travel to other planets.  Wonderful! Now let the scientists alone who want to enable the species they are calling Dire Wolf to have genetics sufficient to permit them to live on this one.

Some thoughts on the Dire Wolf

 

There will be an article in the 4-17-25 issue of the New Yorker on the Dire Wolf.  I am a subscriber and they also send me their news letter which also has this article.  

Much of the information contained in the article I had already encountered elsewhere, but I was shocked to learn at the end that the scientists do not intend to let their Dire Wolves, two males and one female, breed.   So I sat still for a long time thinking about it.

The Dire Wolf, they tell us some place doesn’t derive from the wolf but from the dog, Canis Familiaris.  Perhaps this breed of Canis Familiaris was never domesticated, but it could have been, as all dogs after them, that we know about have been. 

The article is full of how much the science costs, but there is also mention of application, which when it happens is a way to get paid for their work.  I suspect more than a few wealthy dog lovers would pay for a breeding pair of Dire Wolves.  The idea of the Dire Wolf as a pet was in this article dismissed, but the wealthy dog-lovers I imagine could spend a lot of time with them and verify that they are as safe, for example, as safe as any of the ferocious dogs you can see on Youtube being described as the best protection you can own.  The Dire Wolf, never trained to be a ferocious guard dog might very well be less dangerous than some of our ferocious breeds, some of which are larger than the Dire Wolf.

The tenor of the article prepares us to understand that an important impetus in the science is in getting the presently extinct breed back into nature in order to bring nature back into balance.  The Woolly Mammoth is described in that regard.  If they get this animal de-extincted, they can get herds of them shipped to Siberia where they can stomp and poop about and reestablish a balance of nature – make Siberia habitable once again – perhaps double the population of Russia, create more soldiers.  Putin should be delighted.

There doesn’t appear to be an equivalent niche for the Dire Wolf.   Some areas have been rehabilitated by the ordinary wolf, the wolf which had been part of nature before we killed them off.  They have been reestablished to good effect.  No one is likely, I wouldn’t think, to suggest that the Dire Wolf could replace them and do a better job.

But just being looked at by this dog-lover in the midst of his outrage, consider all the jobs we’ve given to the ordinary dog.  There is a very strong argument to the effect that we humans did not evolve all by ourselves.  We evolved in symbiosis with the dog.  For example, we could never have raised sheep that need the dog to herd and guard them.  We could never have established villages which needed dogs to guard and warn us of danger.  The list is long.  Everyone knows it. 

But, the scientist might object, just because the Dire Wolf is genetically a dog doesn’t mean it could ever be pet quality.  Look at the African Hunting Dog.  Can anyone imagine trying to make a pet out of one of those?  Well, maybe not.  And perhaps the Dire Wolf may turn out to be no more safe to cohabit with people than the African Wild Dog, but note that the scientists, without even raising the question has determined to let this revivification of the Dire Wolf die out.

The Dire Wolf went extinct just after humans during the last ice age came across the Bering Straits and south into the North American continent.  Many other species went extinct at the same time.  Maybe there were other reasons for the cataclysmic North American loss of species.  Never lost, were smaller canids that were less harmful and more useful and agreeable to humans.  

There is no evidence that the Dire Wolf was ever domesticated, and I’m not suggesting that they ever were, but what boots that?  Any day on Youtube you can watch videos of species such as the cheetah and panther that have been domesticated and are living uncaged in someone’s home.  Surely a form of Canis Familiaris wiped out during the taking of the Americas by prehistoric man should not be excluded because it once hunted violently in order to make its living.  We are all part of the species that once did the same thing.

Before posting this note, I read some other articles.  There are some who argue that too little has been changed from the present-day wolf for the now-being-touted Dire Wolf to legitimately be entitled to that designation.  Ah me, anyone exposed to the sort of breeding that exists in dog-show circuits might with the same justification deny that any breed is truly entitled to its name.  Whatever it is that is lying near me on the floor as I type, I have great affection for it, her in this case, Jessica, and whomever they are that are on 200 acres somewhere hidden and intended to live their lives as a scientific experiment, but prohibited from breeding and intended to die once again as a species, despite the vaunted term they bandy about, “de-extincted”

A cold spring day

  You know how when you walk

Through mud each up-step

Involves a suction-pop telling

You you’ve left the earth

One step at a time, she being

Unwilling to let you go?

You might try dying

And break loose, but

She’ll hold you fast to

What she needs, and if

God lets you watch your

Remains, you’ll be 

Appalled.  The mud you

Slid through becomes you.

In all the earth there is a

Great coming back to what

Will be whistled out of 

The wind, and in that 

Bristling sound all of us

Will sense the force before

Which all of us answer. 

Not Breathing

        In past times swimming

I was determined in

Ways untested.  Far

Enough away to be

Able to say I’d given up

Thinking of being there,

Failing in being despite

The old confidence

I had back when melded

To my current state of mind

Which while blended

To each conscious step, left

When I dreamed of being

Beneath the kelp drifting,

Dreaming like a bass in

The sun which shined down 

Between the leaves bright

In the world where no

One breathes.  Small fish

Swirl away leaving large

Ones like me breathless.

Paradise Lost

Flying too close to the sun

Then lying panting as I now

Am with broken wing, all

Thoughts of vaunting my

Gladiatorial pretensions have

Faded beneath his causing,

As though He never noticed

Me, scrunched up in 

My room reading what

Ever is left.  He may not

Notice this reconciliation

As if it stands for all the 

Flying I’ve done and 

Thinking still to do in

These inept times, and there

Is no one left to compare

Them with.  What ever boast

I might think hasn’t wind

Enough in it to be heard

Beyond the room I’ve dithered

To.  There is still some

Barking to be done, but not

By me and squawking with 

McCaws who voice their own

Version of these times as I descend

And ascend the stairs beyond

My room, as I once approached the

Sun till He wearied and sent me here.

 

Days of sand and high dreaming

        I hopped from rock to rock

Not fearing what a misstep

Might bring.  I could dance

Away from any such thought

Or eventuality.  My days

In those leaps and landings

Were the words later heard

In a daze sitting at a

Desk dreaming I might

Hold my breath forever,

Phrasing the swirls and

Surges down here

Where one must belong

To a toiling or if not

To be a fleeing,

Days pinned down by

Circumstances and books

And well toned high

Heels not suited to

Sand but well trod anyway

Keening with seabirds’ swearing.

Around campfires dancing

What inklings rise up

Round about like worms

From moist soil look

Askance as I, have 

Their work to do

And I may have mine

It sometimes seems 

Late in the day torn

Bleeding from the 

Pushing and shoves of

Medieval medicine’s 

Demands, I have hand

Cuffs some place, 

Lost, perhaps, a sign

That I’ve been and

Then forgotten save

For regular visits

Not to be missed

Lest I fall from grace

And am erased 

Before my time.

On the seeking of literary immortality

 David Pryce Jones in an article on Evelyn Waugh wrote, "About the best that most writers can expect from posterity is cultural embalming, probably in the form of a monograph written by some academic paid to read books nobody else is reading."  The prospective writer might take note of this as he evaluates, as much as he can, his future.  We learn from history that the term "immortal" was applied to a number of writers and poets, but if we examine those writers and poets we in almost all cases observe that their immortality has expired. 

Is the work of any modern writer or poet likely to be less transient than the tunes the modern teen-ager listens to?  I was once enamored of Chinese poetry before China transitioned into Maoist Communism.   I read poems about old men boating down to picturesque meeting places where they would drink wine and read recently written poetry to each other, poetry that they had written. They pretty much all seemed to write poetry.  It was enough for them if their friends liked it.  There was no thought of achieving immortality as poets.  They wrote for the joy of it and listened to each other read it in the same fashion. 

I wonder if in modern day China the poets I read (in translation) are still being read today -- perhaps only by "academics paid to read books nobody else is reading."

So if today a young person discovers he or she has writing ability, there is a great market in fiction of various genres, but perhaps, the the number of people who make a financial success of this approach isn't high.  There are several other fields that seek good writers.  In my own case, I was hired by the Chief Engineer of the Skybolt program back in 1959.  The Air Force complained that Douglas engineers couldn't write well enough to be readily understood by Air Force personnel.  I had a wife by this time who regularly spent more than I made, and since the realm of workers (not managers) at Douglas Aircraft was a meritocracy, I learned a variety of other skills and thus managed to work there as Douglas merged with McDonnell Douglas which was eventually bought out by Boeing. 

Now at age 90 I can sit in my second-story study and look out my window through the trees at mountains that were within walking distance when I retired here 25 years ago.  Now because of a damaged knee I wouldn't try to walk that far.  In any case I don't wish to.  I do still write a lot.  I keep journals, write a lot of letters, and a few articles and poems I might post on a simple blog that was set up for me by a nephew many years ago.  The stats tell me that 1,783,486 have looked at various of the articles and poetry since it was first set up. It's been convenient.  For example, I had always planned to study the American Civil War and so several years ago, did that.  I ordered probably most of the authoritative literature on that war from eBay and Amazon and joined forums discussing various matters, strategies, battles, theories about the merits of various generals, etc.  Tempers can run high on these subjects.   For many, I found, these Civil War discussions were overriding.  I was invited to stick with it and make everlasting friends with those I agreed with, but after I had enough, had written enough articles, I stopped, gave most of my Civil War books to my brother-in-law and went on to other subjects.

Another reason it does not seem wise to seek literary immortality is that our language is rapidly changing, and has been for a great many years.  No one will understand what we write in a thousand years.  Anthropologists and geneticists estimate that our species has existed for about 200,000 years.  We have had written languages of any sophistication for less than 12,000 years. 

One of our "immortal" authors, Geoffrey Chaucer lived from 1342 to 1400.  His famous work is the Canterbury Tales.  I've read them several times and took an upper division (elective) course in Chaucer where we were given to read him in the original to get the rhythm of his poetry correctly, but we weren't required to read him in the original for understanding.  And, unless one becomes a scholar and specializes in Chaucer and Middle English literature, one isn't going to be able to read this literature in the original with any degree of confidence.  Was Chaucer concerned about his "immortality?"  It has been only 625 years since Chaucer died and no one today is reading him in the original except for academics paid to read authors no one else is reading.  Even if we count translations, I wonder how many read Chaucer in translation today.