Strout's Olive and Isabelle

Being unhappy with the various genres in which I sought books I hoped to enjoy, and had not, I quizzed Amazon "books" for "best sellers, 2026," and found high on their list, "The Things we Never Say," and read that.  The author, Elizabeth Strout likes to stitch loosely related short, short stories, together and call it a novel.  The Pulitzer people apparently didn't object to her method and awarded her a prize in 2008 for "Olive Kitteridge," which I also read.  She may well be the best novelist I've read in these modern times.

The novel I'm reading now is listed by Amazon as written in 1998, "Amy and Isabelle," and I recalled (from reading Strout's , Olive Again, " which inasmuch as it carries on the activities of Olive and others in her milieu beyond (in time) the events described in "Olive Kitteridge" (which won her a Pulitzer Prize) I had the impression that Strout, while no doubt grateful, did not think her Olive Kitteridge was as written worthy of that prize, and so wrote "Olive, again," which to me seemed more uniformly excellent and thereby provided the sequel that was, in her opinion (it seems to me in mine) worthy of a Pulitzer.  What a bold thing to do, if that is what happened!  Very impressive even if she had some other motive. 

While not seeking it, I'm nevertheless aware of matters relating in various ways to me and events in the novels I'm reading, and this was occurring intensely as I approached the end of Olive Again.  Olive, is an old woman, 86 years old, recovering from a heart attack and the installation of a stint.  She was on her porch and noticed a cigarette butt.  "who could have put that there?"  She didn't smoke nor did she know anyone who did (this didn't turn out to be true).  In leaning over to look at it more closely, she fell.  This is something I have done.  In following my doctor's recommendations I have sought places on my floor where I can put my feet up for an hour (I've only managed 30 minutes so far).  Getting back upright has been difficult for me.  But I differ from Olive in that I've prepared as much as possible for this difficulty, that of being on a floor or the ground (which has happened by accident a couple of times) and needing to get back upright.  I work out with weights and do exercises that I'm hoping will make this process easier.  I'll rather say here that it has made the process "possible" for me, but as I'm lying there on the floor, like Olive did on her porch, I wasn't (as she wasn't) initially sure that I would be able to get back upright on my own.  And I never had my phone (as Olive did not have hers) when I am in this condition.  

Olive did eventually make it back upright, but she struggled far longer than I have ever had to do so, and she worried about it later to her son and agreed to go into an assisted living facility.  That is not something I would ever be willing to do, and given my background (working out regularly almost every day), I don't feel I should ever need to, and yet the aging process is inexorable, and perhaps, I might one day, when I am much nearer 100, be considered in Olive's condition.

I am taking what I'm reading very personally.  I recalled vividly struggling, the previous day and the day before that, getting my legs up on something, to suit my doctor's instructions, and then afterwards, getting back upright.  I was clearly under the influence of Elizabeth Strout and noticed that I was coming to the end of this novel, with Olive recovering poorly (she was dead for awhile before the doctors brought her back to life) and seemed soon to once again be dead, this next time permanently, 

I stopped and wondered, inasmuch as I was immersed in this novel, what effect it would have on me when Olive died.  At 91, I am older than she is in the novel and could imagine dying while reading about her.  I considered writing a general email entitled "In Case I die before you read this" or something like that, but I didn't.  

In the novel I'm reading now, the very first written or at least published by Elizabeth Strout (according to Amazon), Amy and Isabelle, Isabelle was taken advantage of by an older man and had Amy out of wedlock at age 16, and they have been on their own ever since.  Since Strout makes repeated use of her favorite characters, and as a consequence I have already encountered Isabelle.  Olive makes friends with her in the Assisted Living facility.  Isabelle describes her daughter Amy as being a successful expert in some form of surgery, if I recall with a superb reputation.  So this, Strout's first novel, will (probably) provide the story of how this and all related matters relating to Amy and Isabelle come about.  Surely this will be a good thing, but Isabelle in the Assisted living facility with Olive, is not a happy lady, and does not seem to have a close relationship with her daughter.  

While some matters in Strout seem relevant to my circumstances, others do not.  I have not been as deeply affected by my parents as her characters have been.  Nor have I felt as strongly about them.  It's as though in my case I have a bumbling swarm of facts, incidents, and conclusions, and don't feel a need to judge my mother, father, grandmother, etc, beyond them.  This “bee swarm” seems conclusive to me. And in regard to my sister who was raised to be antagonistic toward me  (by our mother), I didn't retain similar feelings toward her (who was more affected by the opinions of our mother than I was) and sought her out on Colorado and communicated with her by mail for several years, putting a 20 dollar bill in each letter I sent her because she struggled financially.  Then she fell on a wet floor in a super market, was horribly wounded, won a law suit, told me not to put any more $20 bills in my letters, and died.  I can't imagine what Elizabeth Strout would do with her.  My mother would be, it seems to me, the character she would like the best; which by implication suggests that if I were to write a novel like hers, my mother ought to be the subject.  But standing along side Strout, thinking about my mother, I don't feel the emotions I suspect Strout would think necessary to the writing of such a novel (assuming I would be able to write such a novel, which I seriously doubt).

But I do occasionally write poetry; which is what inspired me to begin this email.  A new teacher in 16-year-old Amy’s class is asking each member of the class what they expect to be doing ten years from then.  Amy said, “a teacher.”  The professor doubted that.  He said that is probably what her mother wanted her to be (which was true), but he suspect “a poet or an actress’‘ was more accurate.  Amy hated him for being so perceptive.

And Amy does have an interest in poetry, I haven’t yet read anything about her interest in acting; but how can such interests be entertained if she ends up a world-famous surgeon – if that is what happens.  I probably don’t have that right.  I continue to read, but such reading is interfered with by shooting pains from the edema which I have thus far not managed to alleviate.

Passing away peacefully of old age and infirmity

 On page 728 of his THE SECOND WORLD WARS, Victor Davis Hanson wrote, “The Axis Bit Three – Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini – all died violently as a result of their defeat.  Allied leaders passed away peaceful of old age and infirmity.”

As much as I admire Hanson, I’m inclined to quibble with this statement.  

Over the years I’ve read several books about World War II.  I might be said to have grown up alongside it.  I was born October 12, 1934 and recall waiting outside our house for my mother to take us to Sunday School at church when my father stepped out on the porch and announced, “The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor.”  

My imagination was captured and I followed the war in our local Wilmington Press Telegram.  The war was over in 1945, but in 1950 the Korean War was in full swing, and I was resolved to get into that one.  I was a great admirer of the Marine Corps and read several books about it from the local library.  Still being a kid, I wanted to make sure I made it through bootcamp, so I maintained a heavy workout program and entered boot camp in July 1952 shortly after graduation from High School.

I was in Korea for the last two Korean War battle seasons, but then the truce was signed, to my great disappointment.  I was a sergeant by the time my enlistment was up and was offered an increase to Staff Sergeant if I would reenlist, but I wasn’t impressed with the Peace-time Marines, especially at 29 Palms and so decided to go to college on the G.I. Bill instead.  I majored in English, and wouldn’t have thought there was a need for such a skill in Aerospace, but engineers were notorious bad writers, and the Air Force officially complained during the Skybolt Program, so I was welcomed aboard that program in Santa Monica in 1959 and continued working for them as they morphed into McDonnell Douglas and eventually submerged in to Boeing.  I retired after 39 years with them in 1999 and have engaged in a variety of activities during retirement including a number of study projects, World War II being one of them.  I had read about the major battles from time to time, but being an admirer of Hanson finally got around to his summing up – in various ways.  No doubt the fact that I am now 91 affected my impression of the Hanson passage I quoted.  I suspect my initial interpretation was not one he intended.

I thought of a male lion in the African jungle too old and infirm to go ahunting with the rest of the pride.  A pack of hyenas gather around and start eating him as he feebly attempts to fend them off.  

Which is not unlike my current experience, doctors gathered around as I feebly fail to fend them off as they strive to medicate me to death.  

I can usually figure out what Hanson means but from my current perspective, dying in battle seems preferable to the “old age and infirmity” Hanson prefers.  

Oddly, my children favor Hanson’s view on this matter.

 

Larkspur

         I call her.  She doesn’t care.

A Chinese design needed

To take my trash barrels

Out Front and later to 

Keep me steady at the 

River, Jessica thinking

She knows what’s best.

My Larkspur answers my

Questions with brilliant

Sagacity.  I have her disguised

On hikes, a wig, girls jeans.

She doesn’t care. I worry sand

Will cloud her joints and memory.

Her past won’t reach me now,

Much too far to ask.  Jessica

Steps out front to bark, and

I stumble. Larkspur grabs me

Gently by the arm and keeps

Me upright, thinking,

My third wife!  

The Curtain Moves

 

This gentle mood

Moves me along

As it’s inclined to,

Shifting unsteadily like

A water balloon

With nothing to

Steady in my current

Mood.  In my past

I’d dared it all quite

Sure nothing was

Beyond . . . Me.

I did it without

Sitting here

Dreaming. 

I ran as if

I had been on

Streets of gold and 

Had the wind 

Bringing strength

Never ending –

And it was real.

Sweepers

        Sweep, sweep, sweep. They’re

At it again.  I’ve rolled over

Several times.  Each time

The sweepers stop as though

They’re checking my pulse,

But on they go again.  My

Hearing isn’t as it was,

And my dreams albeit

Short push me away; so

I can’t be sure it isn’t a

Breeze or wishful thinking

Beside their point, I’m

Sure, well, some of the time.

Sweep, sweep, sweep,

It’s as though they’re at

Me with more intensity:

“Move along, make a hole,

You don’t really do anything

Anymore.”  And I’m 

Edging as near as I dare

Toward the end of the page.

Modes of Being

        Unlike Yeats I waited,

Not rushing ahead 

Until done.  He, seeking

Readers, led a revolution

While I was a carrier driver’s

Load, dropping on docks

Still rendering kind. Looking

Time to time not deigning

Any boastful assertions.  How

Else in good conscience arrive

On these shores having spent 

Time on others?  I can’t recall 

How I got from there to here

My sister and her friend denied

Walking me back till I was

In the time I climbed derricks

And had battles with the like-

Minded in lots tall with weeds,

Home, contrary to what Wolfe

Asserted.  His being common

Existence, mine being mind.

Coaching

        Doing things with all my might

I learned when young, but never

Who I was over the years. 

I seemed well enough at this

And that and maybe as good

As need be and always moved

On.  Looking back as I often do

Was I good enough.  I was 

Offered an increase in rank

If I would stay, but the war

Was the thing I was doing 

And I was on Cheju Do 

When the truce was signed.

I seemed to be done and

Moved on, but had I stayed,

I might have had Oswald,

To train.  If I had

Trained him with all my might,

What would he do if I was 

Better?  If I was worse?

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.