nifty guy

I am a nifty guy. The kind of nifty guy who demands a superb handheld communication device.

Yep, I must admit, those shiny treos and blackberries have been catching my eye for quite some time. Now they are nifty. They don't just make calls, they have calendars, they have sotware, they've got a whole bunch of stuff. Some of it, I don't even care about -- like maybe I can do without sending emails. I need a calendar, though. Carrying around a thick dateminder is fine, but why have both a phone and a calendar? Why not be nifty?

I'm not one to be caught paying too much for something like that, though. I prefer to spot a value. I found just such a value, on a blackberry 6710, on ebay. I think I paid $19.

Now, unfortunately, it is hard to set up a blackberry. You have to attach your serial port connector to the scsi device, and then attach a series of chargers, before establishing your pop3 connection. Ugh, I hate it. So when my blackberry came, i let it sit there.

I am going on a trip tomorrow, though, so I need my phone. I had to get down to business. I open up the box. Its been up in my office/smelly workout clothes room for quite some time. Its in a box, next to my We are the World Live Aid album. (You have one, too, right? With Lionel Richie and Kenny Rogers?) I open it, and immediately I see that this is going to be harder than I wanted. It has battery chargers for the handheld port and for travel, and the chargers have four different outlet choices -- US, UK, European, and, I don't know. The only one I can figure out is the handheld port charger. I install it in my computer. It has to go through the serial port connector, pretty fancy.

It powers up. There's a little lcd picture of an hourglass. That's a good sign. My blackberry is that it has an amazing keyborad. It has the entire qwerty set up. Deluxe. Funny, I bet there is going to have to be some strange method for dialing numbers. Or that I have to enter the numbers and then save them as names. That is going to be a real hassle with no numbers. Back to the manual.

Whoever wrote this manual, they deserve to read their own dreck. Yech. "A wireless email solution", what is that? Right, I know its got email, that's nice, but it does a hundred other things. Like make phone calls. Where is that section? I page through. Gee you can send emails or recieve them or set up forwarding. Great, but I want to make phone calls. Oh here it is--list of applications, page 21.

The blackberry 6710 provides a variety of email choices.

Er, no phone.

If you ever find a value like this, with your own nifty guy instincts, tell me.

what a son

John punches in the numbers on the phone. He's calling a cousin -- not only dialing himself but pretty much handling the conversation.

"Blake -- This is John Rust. Maybe I can come over to your house, or we could go to the beach. No, not today. Maybe this summer."

---

At dinner lately, we've been praying for a few people. Emma is one of them. Tonight John led the prayer:

Thank you God, for good things, for all you do.
And for good food.
I love what you do.

Thank you for the buildings, and the telephone wires, and the choirs.
Thank you for the parking lots, and astronauts, and the car.

Help me to be a good boy.

I've been misquoted

"Help me. Anyone will do," says the reporter. He is definitely desperate: "You'll do fine. I just need a comment about this proposal from the banking commissioner."

Its 4:10 pm on a Friday. I can believe that anyone will do.

"Its a guideline, not a law. Do you think this will stop a predatory broker?"

Hmmm...I guess I can answer that.

"Well, I suppose its not going to stop brokers so much as other people, who are less incentived by volume. Right, it might influence investors holding the mortgages long-term, it might influence perception of these products. Definitely, it makes sense for the commissioner to be worried about this, because there's a safety and soundness issue."

So in the paper, it runs:

A critic at the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina says, "Its not going to stop brokers."

---

I was upset. I found myself seeking empathy from some prisoners during a conversation at Orange County Prison later that night.

I asked Alvin and Alexander if they ever got made to look bad for something that they really didn't mean.

"Nope, not me," says Alexander. "Just got to keep your head down," added Alvin.

Great. Not even prisoners are willing to think that they ever get a bad rap.

An onrushing car

When Susie and I sought to adopt, the agency required us to go to several training sessions for new parents. The content focused on basic skills that everyone should know. We learned how to resuscitate an infant, how to remove food from a choking baby's mouth, even how to change diapers. Some of it was laughably redundant with common sense.

During one of those sessions, we listened to the words of a mother who had adopted her son about two years ago. She was playing an important role in encouraging us. Many parents carry a lot of fear and self-doubt into adoption, having been conditions by other setbacks. It does not help when foreign countries put up a warren of regulations.

"There is nothing I wouldn't do for my baby," she said to us. "I know you will be like me. It takes time, but I know I would jump in front of an onrushing car to save him. I know it more than I know anything else."

"Uh," I thought, "I'll wait to see that!" I really did not feel that way.

You have to realize that at the time, I had never met John. Any parent who hears this would have to do a doubletake. But, remember, I was not a parent. I had not yet fallen for his bravado, his endless chatter and his earnest goodness.

Think about what she is saying. This is not just any test of parental duty. It is about the depth of parental love. She is talking about a split second reaction. She is talking about maybe dying for your child. Maybe dying for a cause that might not even save anyone. See the danger, step out and stop it, damn the risks. It is an attitude that says, 'Any cost is worth my child.' It is why no one believed Susan Smith.

I heard what that parent said in Greensboro at the adoption agency. I did not really believe it. That is what she was saying, and on that day in the late fall of 2003. I just was not feeling it. What I thought was that, yes, there was a lot I would do, but dying for an uncertain result? I doubted that she would do it, like the way I doubt it when people tell you that they loved the place setting or that they will call more often.

I am glad to say that time has given me some new perspective. I think my children have taught me a lot. This is one of those things.

This morning, I woke up late. It was almost eight. The sun was out. The day was starting. It was time to 'get with the program!' But I couldn't get going, because it was too special. As I awakened, I realized that there were four of us in our bed. John, myself, Rosie, Susie. Its a king size bed now, but with Rosie sprawled out perpendicular to the rest of us, there's not a lot of room. I guess she does that so that she can simultaneosly keep me at a distance from Susie.

I love these kind of mornings. Maybe it goes back to my own childhood. When I was John's age, I remember the radiant heat from my parent's soft sheets. More radiant than anything. More radiant than even the furnace vent at the landing of our home. In those memories, my dad is always grumbling as he gets up on the other side of the bed. My mom would stroke my earlobes. So now, I pass on that love. And it radiates back, warmly.

--

My brother jumped into the shore line of a lake in Missouri, wanting to save my son, who had fallen from a dock to the water. It was maybe 18 inches deep. John had on a life jacket. He was ok. But Tyler felt that fear, and he didn't doubt what he had to do. It was the feeling that John was in danger.

I would jump in front of that car. More and more, I realize the smallness of my life, the insignificance of any of my particular accomplishments. When I am gone, some things will find new life and a lot of things will just slip away. My children will stay. My career, will that really create a legacy? No, I don't think so.

--

But now I have another thought about that onrushing car. I feel the pull that send to jam your shoulder into the corner of those headlights. Anything that gives them the chance to survive. But what if a big hurt was rushing on to your child, and you could do nothing to stop him from being hit? No matter how much you wanted to? What then? What would it feel like to have that mission embedded in your spirit, and be unable to respond?

halloween

This is where I stand on Halloween candy. Get a lot. Save most of it. Eat it judiciously.

I collected and stored candy in a pillowcase with a draw string. The pillowcase had blue and red stripes. I think this is a tradition that has fed away. Now people use plastic jack-o-lantern tubs. Anyway, my pillowcase stayed under my bed. That was for security. I would triage my candy. I ate the jawbreakers right away. They were of no consequence. So too with the pez, an incredibly overrated candy. The baby ruth mattered. A bed of nougat laden with peanuts in a bath of chocolate. The baby ruth was eaten last. Often it was never consumed, but thrown out in a fit of parental oversight. "you cannot eat that, it will make you sick." And so it was never eaten, but truly savored.

My sister was able to save her candy as well. She kept hers somewhere in her room. I do not know where. It was the princess room and I was a foreigner there, given only an occasional visa to its environs.

I know Gretchen saved her candy well, though, because it was still in the house on one fateful Thanksgiving dinner with The Binghams. The Binghams lived about two miles away. We went to church with them. I think their son, Tyler, went to school with my brother. Tyler Bingham was perfect. Well, not as perfect as Bruce Balastier. Obviously. But still, pretty close to that standard and certainly a more ideal expression of the good son than myself or my brother. I think he had an acolyte collar on him that day, actually. Did I mention he was a great alto in the choir? I am sure you already heard that from my mother. Anyway, so Tyler is perfect but he had a sister, much older, who I had never met before but who came to dinner that year. I think she was somewhere between 17 and 30. Being about 10, it was hard to tell.

In our house, Thanksgiving dinner was as much about method as about content. The point was to eat in as long and drawn out a fashion as posssible. Dinner might last about 150 minutes. You were not supposed to get up the whole time. There would be a short break before dessert, and then another 60 minutes at least of eating and talking. Even the food was formal: There was no banana pudding with nilla wafer dessert. No sweet potato with marshmallows and pecans. No cheerwine. There were dishes like succotash, waldorf salad. Cranberry dressing without rings. Anyway, I am going on too long. The point is that this was part fun and part work, especially if you were impatient.

Tyler's sister was impatient. She got up from the table early in the meal. That was apparently ok. We didn't hear from her until dessert. Or, her mother didn't find her until dessert. Tyler's sister was upstairs, though, in the princess room, eating candy. All of Gretchen's candy.

surprise

Samson Doggie would like everyone to check out a link. Sometime back, I spent a few days pasting some photos on to an online publishing site. I was making a hand out for one of CRA-NC's conferences, a calendar of abandoned mobile homes. It is a pain to make those calendar's at Kinko's, so instead we made them through an online publisher.

Lo and behold, the free press found it. Today the little calendar that I made up for fun is reaching 23 million readers. It's the fifth one down.

In another great moment for the free press, three of my all-time favorite authors, some of whom only publish books once every eight years, have all managed to have new novels/works of nonfiction ready for the fall. Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, and Jonathan Franzen all have new books out. How wonderful.

Where do you get organic fertilizer for your yard?

property

I open the front door and let Samson bound out into the yard. He leaps down the stairs, spurts along the dirty brick path, and hops over the second set of stairs. He dips into a spot between the brick wall that faces Urban Avenue and the planter box near the mailbox. He stares right at a pair of golden mutts across the street, lifting his leg, as if to assert that he lives here. He does not just show up in a dented up 1982 Volkswagen Fox, like some other dogs.

I want to talk to the two men across the street working on our gas lines. I approach. They are wearing bright orange overalls. One sits at the controls of a large digger. Dale, let's call him.

"Don't worry about my dog," I offer. "What's with the ditch? Will there be room for bulbs?"

I mean will there be room for narcissisum, amaryliss, and other beautiful bulbs.

A brown orb of spit, about the size of a blow pop, slips from Dale's mouth. Dale must be one of those types who lived in North Carolina before it was invaded by people ferreting boxes of samosas back and forth in their all wheel drive Samosa, before Duke found out how to raise money properly, before Governor Martin invented the research park.

"Sir?"

"Right," I turn and ask more specifically, "so where's the gas line?"

He walks me back across the street. The line extends on roughly the boundary between my yard and that owned by my neighbor. Except, of course, I don't really have a neighbor. I have a property flipper Said flipper is currently not home, because a realtor and an older lady are coming out of the home as I make my way up the embankment.

Samson barks to announce himself.

The realtor fiddles at the door with the keys. The other lady, I presume she is the homebuyer, folds her arms and stares back at Samson.

"He has an electric fence," I tell her. Sometimes I think it is possible to be to outwardly kind to people. Why go the extra step of bending over backwards to comfort a stranger? She might be a dog lover. She is certainly in no danger. Samson's not crossing that line.

I was right to wish I hadn't been so kind. She folds her arms and turns to me.

"I am not worried about him," she says, her tone indicating that were she worried, I would know. "But if he barks, that will be unacceptable."

Er, excuse me mam, but you are what, a prospective neighbor? Fine, you are so smart, so go ahead and pay $220 per square foot for a home that is on a block that was pricing out at $75 per square foot in January 2003. I guess you really have one up on me!

"Er," I offer, "I believe he is a dog. Dogs bark." Then I am just silent. I stare.

She crosses, again, tighter. She looks away.

I hear the sound of a heavy dollop of tobacco juice hitting the ground.

"Sh...Yankees," says Dale.

It takes a village to exchange this propane

A lot of people have said, "Gee I like this blog!" But some others have said, "It tells me nothing about industrial management theory." I have been thinking about that. I believe that my experience on Thursday evening can resolve that dilemma.

Let me set the scene:
I am home from my afternoon swim. Susie wants me to grill. Tonight is David Post's birthday. We are serving ribs. This is odd to begin with, because David and virtually all of the guests are Jewish. But don't worry about that. The important thing is that it is 82 degrees, humid, and I am eviscerating some beautiful ribs. To help me with my objective, I have carefully selected a handcrafted beverage.

Then....my propane runs out. We have a big tank. Even so, this happens about once every eight months. And it threatens a perfect afternoon. Not to mention these ribs.

I have lost face.

There is an exchange place nearby. The ribs still need another fifteen minutes. I could put the ribs in the oven. That, to me, strikes of a disastrous choice. Like buying a Porsche, and then getting it with an automatic transmission. I will get more propane.

I put the propane in the passenger seat and head over to the neighborhood exchange at Handee-Hugo's. This is a Carolina institution. They sell cheap gas. They sell money orders. "We love our troops,' says their sign in the window. They keep fresh barrels of propane outside on the sidewalk in a locked cage.

I lug the tank into the store. Empty of gas, it weighs 20 pounds. Three employees stand up behind the counter. Two flank a set of registers to the right, while the third sweeps in the back.

I look at the man on the right, lift the propane with my right shoulder.

"I need to exchange," I say. Its obvious, right?

He looks at me for a second. "I do not have the key," he mumbles. Then he looks back out the window. Maybe he is scouting for a more preferable customer -- one that will busy his register without asking him to lift heavy tanks.

The other one behind the register continues staring past the Bud Light Display. The sweeper has moved on to shuffling napkins at the hot dog rotissiserie. Its just the four of us. Looking four different ways. Like U2's cover art on the Joshua Tree album.

"So," I feel I have to mention it, "I was hoping to get more propane."

I believe that each one of these clerks hopes the other will fall for the dreaded propane job. I am just caught in their little war.

"But if you don't have it," I continue, "now would be a good time to speak up."

This drives me nuts. Back home, I am losing more face. Yet, we are talking about propane here. I set down the tank in the middle of their store. Let them go about their business of selling cigarettes, lighters, and 40 ouncers. Deal with me. Or my propane tank will just wait.

I guess my gambit was rooted in the right logic. A whirlwind of boxes, clip boards, cell phones and keys crosses the room. Its the manager.

He knows what's up.

"Like I said," he says to the man at the first register, "any register key will work the propane. You got a register, you can do the propane."

I can barely say anything before they are ringing me up.

So the answer is -- it takes four workers from two different management levels in order to exchange one tank of propane.


So there are two sides to everything.

Grand Opening

People often ask, "where do you work?" It is one of those questions that everyone wants to know, maybe because they can think of little else that would prefer to know instead, or because maybe they sense from my presence that I am a Guy with a Story.

Say, for example, that I am at a dinner party. There's a tv on in another room. Susie is in the kitchen with a friend. And I'm out in the living room. Sprawled out like a tamale in the sun.

"Where do you work?" says the Other Husband.

I am not sure if he actually wants to know. He is not looking at me. He sits way back in his soft couch, a finger lingering on a remote. He is waiting for dinner.

We are two lame non-cookers. Kind of like those pirates who don't do anything. Except we watch kids.

"Oh, I work at CRA-NC."

His eyes continue to follow his son. The toddler, about 3 as far as I can tell, nears a lamp. This furrows his brow. He looks back at me for a second. His lips open, but no words come out. As if my words have failed to spark a signal synapse of interest.

"You know," I say, "The Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina. CRA-NC."

This does not advance his understanding. It does shorten whatever window of interest existed. If my answer led to dinner, now that would be interesting.

But I go on, because now that I am married, I have grown accustomed to droning on when no one is listening.

"We work on housing policy. We work on manufactured housing. I have a book on manufactured housing. We think manufactured housing can lead to opportunities for asset building. We organize. We have alternative media products. I work on HMDA data. We just got a loan from the FHLB. CRA-NC works with CFED."

I have totally blinded him. Maybe I can clear it up for him:

"CRA-NC," I say, is not unlike ACORN."
----
But...CRA-NC did have some big news the other day. We opened our new building officially. Last year we bought a ransacked 1920 brick building in the otherwise disinvested streets of North Central Durham. Since then, we've been fixing it up. On Friday, we opened it to the public.

It was a great day, with jazz music and karaoke. I have some pictures of the day. Notice who is sitting in with the band.

Father's Day

We had two driveways, separated by a long row of hedges that flowered in late May. In the fall, brown leaves slid across the shiny blacktop that sloped down and left near the basketball. We had a two car garage. That was once the standard. Now I suppose it designates the property as a fixer-upper. Nevertheless, with all of that black top we always kept one car outside. My dad used most of his side for tools. He had a tool box with wheels, Snap-On Tools calenders. Bosch and Castrol -- Sebring 94! The works.

Dad had a wooden board with wheels that he used to slide underneath our cars with when he fixed things. I'd stand there. Mainly, I did nothing useful. It looked like the scene in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy lands on the Wicked Witch of the East. Just a pair of feet. Except there were no ruby slippers. More likely, it was a pair of Bass Weejuns and some paint stained khakis. No socks, so that you could really see his skinny pale legs.

Dad's hand would jut out. Get the 3/18ths Lassiter!!! Don't just stand there! Its next to the ratchets, by the Hanover Set."

Then his figures would snap. And snap. And then his wrist would rotate while his finger jutted out to the back of the garage.

"Uh," I'd say, "where do you mean, specifically?" Because basically there were hundreds of tools in that garage. Each one was soddered with his code number. They all looked like they were in the Hanover Set.

The feet would pull a body out from under the car about now.

My father would emerge, his fingers dripping with oil, his white t-shirt so worn as to resemble gauze, and look puzzled. I think he wondered how someone could be smart in school, and never bother to find out how an engine works.

He would hold an oil filter gently, considering its manufacture more as an effort at art than as an example of blind reproduction. Did it have a good seal? Would that gasket last? He'd pour a few drops of oil on the seal. Those fingers, already oiled, spread the viscous clear liquid evenly across the circumference.

Pretty much I was quiet at this time. I could hear his breath. Always heavy. And the fresh scent of Speed Stick.

He would set that filter down in the crook of the hood. He'd take his glasses off, blow his nose like a fog horn, wipe his forehead with a cloth diaper, and expound.

It could pretty much be anything from the canon of Awesome Pieces of Fatherly Knowledge. They rotated. The effect was something akin to classic records in a juke box. Few new ones were ever invented.

Here are ten all time Faves:

1) Shift down, stay off the brakes, accelerate through the curve.
2) Get with the program
3) Order the adult donut
4) Don't smoke those damn cigarettes
5) Just make sure its from my store. And, get your gig line straight.
6) One Day at a Time
7) The job expands to fill the available time.
8) Adoption would be a good thing for you to think about. It is nothing to be afraid of.
9) We have more than some, less than others.
10) Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.

Yard Sale

The smell of a baker's dozen of chocolate bagels hangs in the cabin of the Sienna. It is 8:40 am on Saturday morning. I am out with my buddy, cruising. If we find something to extend the trip back from Brueggers, then Susie will have more peace.

And there it is...a yard filled with junk.

"John" I say,"this is called a garage sale. Or, in some cases, a tag sale. It is where people sell stuff for nothing. Don't touch."

The sale fronts a smallish brick ranch. I can see crock pots, golf clubs, records, books, latin american weavings, Yankee candles.

"Are you the host-ess?" I ask. "How much are cd's?"

"They are a quarter," she says. She appears to be about my age. All of her junk is here, but I can't make any demographic analyses. Lots of books about sermons, but then it is too disparate after that: Etonic golf spikes?

"We just want to keep it from the landfill," she adds.

I think, how nice. I think Dick Cheney would say that you have a wonderful ethic there.

I see that she will not be offering me "grandfather's mysterious German travel camera" with the Zeiss lens.

But the compact discs are a bargain. Behold, not just any songs, but the ones that bring back high school in full technicolor. My parents sent me to one fancy prep school, but it didn't help to change the music that I heard while I was there.

"Rock'N the 80s, eh?" I say, giving her a glance that suggests that I too share her guilty pleasure.

She is a quick one, too, because she knows that acquisition of an 80s disc, or mere possession, could need an explanation among strangers.

"We get XM Radio," she says, "you know?"

I do know. But for now, I leave her to explain. Let her twist in the wind. I had XM for a week last month in California. It was great. All the baseball that I wanted to hear. Plus, times for bluegrass. I succumbed to the 80s channel at the end of a long day of talking/shooting/talking.

But she doesn't need to say anymore. I know she knows. I know she knows about so much else, too. 80s music, before it all happened.

It would be too much, but I know that:

She remembered when Coke Classic was not, and when New Coke was.
She watched music videos
She wore "leggings" and wanted to look like Cyndi Lauper
Her husband probably has one of those thin shiny ties. Also one of those square woven jobs.

The cd collection tells more of her narrative. Right next to it are some of the things that came next. I'd say what came next was better, too. We were the same people, but the world let us grow up.

There's Tracy Chapman. The whole UnPlugged Genre that is represented here by 10,000 Maniacs and Eric Clapton.

So I also know that:

She knows what ACT UP stands for.
She remembers PETA
She thought Clinton was a little to the right.

We got a lot of stuff. But all of those days carrying shoes from Payless and not eating for Oxfam, where did that go?
Its time to go. I have her music now. She's got my five bucks.

What will he say next

John: "Why do cars hit people? Why is it bad? Why?"
Always he ends with that same rejoinder. I kneel to face him eye to eye. His face is slightly bent, like a Japanese in a moment of dishonor. John might hear me now.
"You can't run in the road because cars do not see you." Using words like dangerous is lost, I suppose, because they rely on Telling when he needs Showing. I can't show what happens when a car hits a little boy, of course.
I am feeling like I am stuck in a battle that will only be waged with time and patience.
He speaks again.
"Why did Jesus die? Who killed him? Did Daniel help?"

----

911 Urban Avenue welcomes Joan, member of Bruderhof and new family friend, to our cast of family and friends. Joan will be with us for about two months. She grew up in England and has the accent to show for it. Like Kathy, she likes marmite, gardens, and walks. She brings a new openness to dogs and adds to our appetite for watercoloring. Joan has worked as a 5th and 6th grade teacher in Catskill. Her favorite newspaper section is the International page. She likes tea. 'Nuff said.

grandmother rules

Now in Connecticut visiting my mother.

Everything is a bit different with kids on the road. We could not bring all of our kid property with us. We do not have a stroller. We do not have a full changing station. And, there is never a familiar place for either child to unwind. But there are some things that are better to the kids. Rosie loves the attention from Katie-Baba.

We had lunch yesterday, while trying to get away to Brooklyn. Watermelon (yellow) and peanut butter on bread. Some ham and cheese. But then Katie-baba moves in with a chocolate chip cookie. And then she adds a popsicle. Rosie eats the popsicle in her left hand. Then moves to the right for a draw on the cook. Sort of like Ralph Macchio -- popsicle on, cookie off. repeat.

-----

"Susie! Look at that cemetery!" I shout. We are driving across the whitestone bridge. This is a large bridge that leads into New York City. There is a bit of water and then a large cemetery. It is an overcast day. The skyline of New York hangs behind a curtain of white mist. The layering is quite an effect. Rectangular graves in the foreground, rectangular skyscrapers in the rear.

"Take a picture!" I continue. Susie picks up the camera. The camera is conveniently in the passenger seat foot area. I continue my instructions.

"See, there's the cemetery..." I am motioning with my fingers at the composition of choice.

WHAMM!

Yep. You could have imagined what came next. Bumper to the Sienna in front of us. Bam.

We stop. I turn off the car. I can tell that the car ahead is not damaged, but there is a custom here.

I get out.

A woman emerges from the car in front. She is asian, about 40, with a ponytail. She looks exhausted and confused. Maybe sleepy.

"Do you want to exchange information?" I ask. It is the normal thing to ask. There is no damage to my car. Everything seems straight. She grabs her neck.

"You hit me."

The words spill out slowly. You......hit......me...

Yes, it is true.

"Yes," I say. "I did."

Cars are backing up in our lane. Do I need to mention that this is the Whitestone Bridge at 5 pm on Thursday afternoon?

"Do you want to say, exchange cards?" I continue.

"Forget it."

----

Back in the car:

"Damn," says Susie.

"No," I assure her, "its ok. No damage. And I definitely hit her."

"I couldn't get that window to open," says Susie. "I totally missed the picture."

Farewell Kathy: You are our Best

We returned Kathy to her home at Catskill community yesterday. After 14 months, the time finally came for Kathy to be back with her family. As our minivan pulled out of the lower circle, even Rosie realized that a moment of gravity was taking place. John understood exactly the implication of the event.

"I am very disappointed," says John. "Why does Kathy want to stay at Catskill?"

I think John would like to stay at Catskill. It is a lot of fun to be there. Let's see -- in three days -- we went fishing, took a pony ride, swam in waterfalls, and sang guitar songs. I ran to a mountain lake every morning.

On Monday morning two days ago, I looked at my watch to check the time. It was 8:15 am. I had just finished weeding a blueberry patch for an hour. I had already gone running and swam in a lake. I had eaten breakfast with about fifteen other people. And soon, I would be fastening Rifton equipment in the factory shop. Quite a morning!

Kathy shepherded us through the birth of Rosie and the death of Zeddie. She has shared late night chocolates and tea with us for many evenings. We introduced her to email, computers, the mall, and religion with liturgy. She went to prison ministry. She got to know Rose and Phyllis and even put up with Samson. She is the godparent to Rosie.

We drove down aptly named Danger Road (Route 16) and off into the horizon. Joan will join us in Brooklyn shortly.

Growing Season

Rosie has made use of daddy and mommy. She has not learned a verbal "no," although she does have a "yeah." She shakes her head. Her new word is "Samson." I think that we are about to witness a lot of growth out of her. She eats more than John these days. Yesterday they both picked strawberries. Rosie ate a lot of them.

Right now I cannot spend enough time in my garden. We made a raised bed for tomatoes on Saturday. It is eight by four. We put in two better boys and a lemon boy. Susie will put in the rest soon. The soil is a special blend -- almost forty percent manures -- to appeal to those plants. I put in some monster hostas as well.

Poll: What do you say to someone who grew up in the 80s, and yet cannot recognize a bitchin' camaro?

A Heroine for Planners

I want to use this space to mourn the passing of someone who helped me decide to change careers. There are not many heroes in the field of urban planning. I have wondered why for a while. What heroes there are tend to be on the margins of the field. They are authors, or iconoclasts. Few work for a county devising zoning regs. One of those authors was Jane Jacobs, who passed away this week. She lived in New York and Toronto. She believed in density, but she argued that everything was best in moderation. She believed in functional cities with a tolerance for messiness. She liked alleys. She thought delivery trucks were the enzyme of skyscrapers. She hated the Vietnam War. She felt the same about our follies in Iraq.

Jane Jacobs never used regression. She never made maps or any kind of regulation. But she put into words the feelings that people had about their favorite places that were otherwise left unsaid. Why is it so pleasing to watch pedestrians? Why is it so lonely driving around at night in a suburb? If it takes a person to commit crime, why do we feel more safe in places with lots of people?

This reminds me about the degree to which planning reflects a belief in the power of environment. Planners see the will of nurture above the ability nature. They think that a person is very much a chameleon, capable of changing depending upon place.

Jury Duty

Seat three, Adam Rust.
The bailiff pulls a low hinged door open and motions for me to sit in the rear. The judge continues.
"We have decided to excuse three jurors."
Of course, because one said that she could not convict a 17 year old, another is a Ph.D. in blood pathology, and another said he cannot trust any Durham police officers. The judge tells us that this case could last more than three weeks. I do not doubt the sincerity of these stories. But they could be motivated for alterior reasons.
"Let's move on," says the judge.
Good, I think. There were originally 224 jurors. Now I remain among 26. A sign on the wall mocks us: unlawful for occupany of more than 82 persons.
"Does anyone know the defendant?" asks the judge.
"Yes, I do, maybe not personally, but I know him," says a lady in seat One. "I know him from when he came into the bank at CCB. He was always writing bad checks."
"I think we will take a recess," says the judge.
-----
In the jury room, we talk about missing persons in Aruba and if blind people like to go on cruises. But then juror number 8 mentions the big topic on our minds:
"That was Mrs. Too Much Information!"
True on that. Of course, CCB is hardly just any bank. They have quite a record for behavior in the community.
-----
Only 11 of us remain when we return.

"That was untrue, what the lady said before recess," says Judge Stephens. "Nevertheless, it could bias what you think about the defendant. And because this is such a serious crime, I am going to have to excuse all of you. Now I know that two days is a long time. It is for us, as well, to have to start over.

Birthday Par-tee

John hosts 11 children and their parents today. We have a bounce house. We have chips. We have salsa. Not too hot. We have napkins. We have it ready to go. Then it rains. Not a little rain. Buckets. Gutters full. Maybe four or five inches in an hour. No problem, just bring all those little feet indoors.

Today John had some intriguing questions:

"Daddy, what did your daddy, named John, ask you about?"

I had to think. I suppose that he asks me something most days, if I listen.

John is perched on his new Tonka bicycle. Red flames and stiff training wheels. The rain has paused. Only paused. More buckets come later.

"He told me to pay attention to what is unsaid, John," I said. I remembered him as I searched the toolshed for a trowel. Something about craftsman tools, damp air, cement and wd-40. Our shed just seems like his kind of place.

"Daddy, what did he do in the morning?"

This was John's question all day about me, about Susie, and about Lisa Davidson, who was visiting.

"He used to read a book, the same book, while sitting in his bed. He did it every morning."

John thought about that.

"Daddy, what is your status?"

I love that.

Get back to work

This is a lot of mail to have sitting on your desk after a few days out of the office.

Easter is here

John and Kathy dyed eggs on Sunday.

I have returned from California. John has taken to imagining that he owns a helicopter. With it, he can fly on his to California as well. I have a lot of thoughts about California. It was so hot (--How hot was it?) I drank six pints of water one evening. I drove north for thirty miles, lost on 405, and never left Los Angeles. I ate refried beans three times per day. I need better clothes.

That is what I was saying

I have always hated the way those students park large black pickup trucks across the sidewalk on Buchanan. I have never understood why it was ok to leave trash out beginning on Sunday morning, when pickup day is Thursday. And how is it appropriate to leave a couch you no longer want in the street, or hung up in some creeky tree branches?

Kvetch...Kvetch...Kvetch.

But no! I feel sooooooo validated. Yes! This week has been great. My personal peeve, the Duke students who leave trash all over our neighborhood, are now the subject of national disdain.

Just check out the story in the Voice of Authority.

You will also see links to the four other stories online this week about our neighborhood.

That is our neighborhood -- Trinity Park. I wish the Times would get it straight. This not a seedy run down neighborhood. At least, except for the part full of BMW's and SUV's with New York and Florida plates.

We have had this problem for a long time. Last year, it was the affair de baby oil. So while we do not know if the charges are true, now at least the whole world will shine its light on the habits of these undergrads.

Of course it is tragic that the light comes only because someone has been hurt. It stirs up a lot of other anger.

The additional point that I want to make with this blog, though, is the degree to which it is absolutely undue and thrilling to have your long term seething pet peeve turn into national news.

Titular implications

Language matters. Not to sound like Allan Bloom, because what bothers me has nothing with the cultural implications.

The catalog from a Christian bookseller in Tennessee does not sell Bibles. It sells "biblical solutions."

Time for playing in the dirt

This is the time of the year for resurrecting some great past times.

Baseball will soon return. I admit that I care. I am not alone. Kathy likes baseball. John is going to like baseball. I believe that baseball fans should be loyal. If your team won the World Series in 1985, no amount of misery should be reason to make you change your mind.

Gardening is here, too. Ever seen an aqualegia? How about a really great astible? Maybe you settle for a hosta.

I think hosta lovers are probably like Yankees fans. Everyone doesn't have to like hostas. You know, Cardinals fans are a bit like pussy willows. I built a four foot by eight foot planter in my front yard. Right now, it looks like an unfinished tomb. I suppose the neighbors are chuckling. But they are just cutting their liropi, right?

While we are at it, no one has to plant another azalea, either.

Peter Sellers starred in a movie about gardening and politics. The two are a lot alike, on a very simple level. That was his device for humor.

Dan Nicholas Park

John sits perched upon my shoulders. He pulls my hair. He puts a finger in my left ear. He leans hard into my neck. He wants to grab a wooden automobile on the table below us, in line at Hurley Station in Dan Nicholas Park. We, as well as about 2000 other people, are waiting in line in Rowan County, North Carolina.

"You inhale, you pay," says the sign next to the kazoos for sale. I will have to resist.

I pay for two tickets. But that is the line for buying tickets. There is another line for getting on to the train.

I like democracy. Everyone does, right?

Waiting in line represents the implementation of the democratic ideal. First come, first served. That's the only rule. No matter how much the richest banker might derive more utility (as an economist would say) from free time, that banker has to wait in line behind the guy with three tattoos.

I see plenty of free speech in line, emblazoned on the t-shirts of my fellow line waiters.
"I love Rock 92."
"Don't drive your truck when U are Jacked Up!"
"It's Bubba Time"
The antidote to all of this democracy: a strong cup of British tea.
But I realize, as I walk through a knoll littered with screaming children and smoking parents, there is a difference between these people and myself.
They are Republicans. Or, more than 70 percent of the people in this county voted Republican. The only ward that votes for Democrats is the one downtown -- where Elizabeth Dole grew up. Out here, in the country, its full of anti-tax voters. My county, with the geneticists on the left and the pharmaceutical salesman across the street - that is where you get people who cannot say no to a bond referendum.

Enough demos.

hungry bachelors say no to yogurt

I can see spring on my walk home from work. People are outside. Kids push bicycles on sidewalks. Daffodils push through the soil. The sun heats the earth. The earth smells damp. Not withstanding all of this life, I feel so tired from staring at rows of cells. But the walk helps.

The process of mourning continues. Susie has been staying in Salisbury for the past week. Having all of the 911 urban gang in Salisbury changes things. Our home is silent. I get the mail, but I can't think of why to stick around in an empty house.

People who know me will perhaps recognize a lack of domestic skills in my background. Or maybe, they might say I have an imperative for entropy.

I have tried the sa-cha chicken, the hunan chicken, and the kung pao chicken at the Hunan Gourmet. The Hunan Gourmet holds a spot between the Nationwide Insurance and the Boston Chicken in the adjunct wing of the Northgate Mall. These storefronts are engines for entrepreneurs.

What strikes me about the Hunan Gourmet is the clientele. It's a men's club. There is a fifty something guy eating in the aisle on the other side of me. There's a thirty something guy across from me. Instead of saying "open", the sign out front should say "hungry bachelor kitchen." It's a pathetic sight.

"Women would stay at home and eat yogurt," says my sister in law.

A box of puppies

RBC Centura has a new advertisement. The ad shows still lifes of things that cost something, even though they are free. A box of puppies. Chocolate on your pillow in a motel room.

Then it has some other still lifes that don't make any sense at all: blocks of cheese laid out for sample consumption at a grocery store. What does that cost? Chiclets. Hmmm.

The ad borrows from the cool blue hues, created by natural morning light, that characterized many pictures in DoubleTake. That was a hip magazine that had its day in the mid to late 90s.

I couldn't enjoy those kind of pictures when they were in DoubleTake. Somehow, it strikes me differently in video. I do not know why.

Rosie crawls

Rosie scaled the quarter length stairwell between Rose's downstairs living room and her upstairs sitting room on Saturday. You can see the focus in her eyes. Rosie takes the cautious path. She grasped the stair rail and stood up. She shifts her weight forward. Then removes her outside hand and finds a place on the next tier. There is no risk, no climbing with feet and hands all at once. How different than her brother.

About Edward Post, 1921-2006

I walked out of Memorial Hall with Erik and Mani after hearing Joan Didion give a reading on the first year of her life after the passing of her husband. Didion's experiences became the contents of The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir that the New York Times characterized as one of the ten most memorable books of 2005.

It gave me a lot to think about.

"I felt grief in waves,' she read. She described a kind of grief that comes and goes, that constrict ed her throat and sates hunger.

I thought about that as we walked in the early spring air. Upon departing, I opened up my cell phone to call Susie. Susie took off for Salisbury after lunch to spend the day with her father.

She answered without a greeting. "I think he is gone," were her only words.

Susie cried. I told her that she loved him and he knew it. She cried some more. Then I heard commotion in the background. Susie hung up. Eddie died before he arrived at Rowan Regional Hospital.
--

I am rocking on a porch swing out back of 125 E. Corriher. There is a foos ball table and a ping pong board on the deck. Eddie made the deck treated wood. He carved a spot in the wood to give a spot for a large tree. Now that tree holds grilling tools.

The early evening light casts a blue light on the dark shadows. Andrew Eton interviews Rose, Jonny, Phyllis, Susie and David. The room glows in yellow warmth. Pictures of two Pliskens stare directly out through the glass of the sliding doors.

It is not my place to suggest the interpretation of his life for his funeral. But if I had the opportunity, I would say that his legacy comes from his ability to teach, and to teach with love. Eddie had a lot of loves. He loved tennis, skiing, and bridge. The games near me are further testimony of his search for avocation.

I remember our last conversation. Eddie was lying in bed. Eddie spent most of every day of his last months in bed. We made a bet. Forty cents -- I pick any four teams, he gets the rest, for the winner of the NCAA tournament.

He played a lot. He always said "bend your knees."

He ran Zimmerman's Department Store. He had several storefronts in downtown Salisbury, as well as branches in a few other communities.

"If someone wants to see one pair of shoes," he said, "don't bring back fewer than three pairs."

You can see the results in his family. It is not just that they all play tennis well. Although they do all play it well. Today Jonny played racquetball. His comment about the game was that he let a player who was equal in skill to him win the match. That is not normal for Jonny. Normally, Jonny works hard enough to win that match.

People never really cease to exist if they remain alive in the minds of others. I'll take Duke, UConn, George Washington, and West Virginia. You can have the rest. Have a tic-tac, while you are at it.

Joan Didion makes a peanut butter sandwich

A ray of hunger rankled my stomach. Hunger evokes an imperative of inner unrest sobering my mind. I open the door to cabinet in my apartment kitchenette. The door squeaks. Like my stomach. And I begin to scan for what some might term a solution, or a quick fix, or whatever pastile might answer my ailment. I read that food is medicine. I read that the first thing a sick person wants is a bowl of soup. When I was interviewing people in California about their childhoods, without fail, each one associated their past with food.

I think to myself that a lesser god in a lower celestial invented peanut butter. I plough my plate knife through lead clouds.

Wonder.Bread. Together, the words form less than the parts. Alpha and Omega, God and Mammon, Wonder and Bread. I read that children cannot recognize the taste of peanuts without the cue of the white spongy milled grain accompanying it across their palate for some many years. The bread absorbs the oils. Once cut, the bread seals at the edge.

These peanuts come from Georgia. The bread comes from mills in Minnesota. Did Carter and Mondale personify a sandwich?

The end is near

John made us proud this morning. I will write as opaquely as possible, but let's just say that he made the Giant Step. No more diapers.

I was on the phone with Susie to hear a report on the details:

"You are going to be so proud of John," she says. "He has a Big Announcement. John, tell us what you did..."

John stands up. He is ready to grab the phone. Like the rest of us, he walks while he talks. But first, he points at his product. Whereupon, he drops his matchbox car into the pot.

"Hold on," Susie says."
"Oh no! Oh no..." line goes dead.

What I have since learned is that a series of accidents followed. John picked up his car. Susie grabbed the car with a wipe. The wipe and the car went away. But Samson picked up a wipe from the pot. He dropped it on the floor. I think it spiraled from there.

-----
Did you ever go to a dinner party that turned into eight people listening to one person provide their medical narrative?

Mennonites strike oil

What a just world it would be, if only Mennonites discovered oil more frequently. That is what happened over the weekend, though. Imagine how differently our political allegiances would shift. Instead of overlooking fundamentalist beheadings, we would be straining to demonstrate how to live simply.

----

Susie was going over some of the portraits made by Annie Liebovitz. Some thoughts:
Her portraits show beautiful celebrities, but they also show their humanity. Carly Simon has a bruise on her leg in her portrait with James Taylor. Robert Penn Warren's chest sags. Linda Rondstadt, caught in an unglamourous moment in her California home, is less a star than just one of us. In fact, the relative absence of flaws in the appearance of Calvin Klein seems to reflect some shortage of character.
She spent a lot of time developing picture ideas. She conceived elaborate photo costumes for Mariel Hemingway, Whoopi Goldberg and Bette Midler.

Interdependent

Susie and I watched Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore on Friday. This is a 1972 movie starring Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, and Harvey Keitel. I don't want to write about the movie or its significance or its stars, but instead to think about some passing reactions to seeing a film in a distinctly different time.
First, maybe it was the sun soaked views of a far more empty American West or the highly saturated film stocks shot for interiors in the movie -- I don't know what specifically, but images can evoke memories like few other things. I suppose the important aspect of the film is the landscape shots of their small station wagon wandering across a limitless horizon. The image is of small people in a world that seems very big.
People make fun of the 70s. Mainly, that fun pokes at clothes or music or other fashions. Alice, the character whose name makes up the subject for the title, wears clothes that would fit better with a little lycra and drinks beer from cans with peel-top lids.
But say what you will, the 70s had a lot going for it. After the chill of Silent Springand the OPEC embargo, people really shared a sense that they could do something about this big world, if they just got together and did something about it. And they did. They got together and did some things. You can see it in the laws they passed - like the Environmental Protection Act or the creation of a Department of Energy. You can see it in the President they chose -- Carter -- Or, you can see it in the light filled landscape sensitive housing that was popular back then.
It wasn't all great -- I think Generation Y will best them for public service and certainly people coming of age in the 70s consumed some products that are best left not emulated.
Thirty four years later, Alice and her son have finished their journey. We have, too. The world is no longer limitless. In fact, every day it feels as if it is growing smaller. You can choose to forget about it, wall up in an SUV and turn on your IPod, but can you really run from bird flu or President Bush's surveillance? Nope! Globalization and its partner, digitalization, are the things that define this decade.

Rosie stands!

Rosie stood. She released her arms from a nearby rail and held a standing position. It was for the first time Monday, February 13th.

She kept her balance for almost 30 seconds, so this is something that she's been ready to do for a while, apparently.

She does not bend her knees. They are stiff. She lifts her arms up high. She wavers between elated and terrified. Then she claps and smiles.

These pages will hopefully have art to come of the moment. It was recorded.

Rain on Diane

Why doesn't it just turn to snow? It must be 38 degrees and drizzling today. My least favorite kind of weather. Today we need to get out. How and where? How about Hecht's!

Good weather for bean soup. Good weather for chai.

Today would be a good day to go to a matinee on Connecticut Avenue.

Diane Arbus probably liked rainy days. She was that kind of person. You might see Diane at a county fair, but you had better hope that she did not want to take your picture. I can hear it now, "your momma's so...., Diane Arbus took her picture."

We have one of her books. I notice that Diane Arbus didn't start taking photography classes until her late 30s, and didn't have any assignments until she was 42. She only lived into her early 50s. When MOMA put on a retrospective of her work, it was sold out in various traveling exhibitions for seven years.

She is well explained by her criticism -- "her photos are not about pushing the button," to paraphrase Hilton Kramer, "but about the human process that took place prior to the shutter's release." The human process is one way of putting it.

But I wonder what actually transpired. Her subjects don't look radiant. They don't laugh. They look like they're asking to have something repeated one more time. "What did you say, Diane?" The people in her pictures look uniformly taken aback -- as if Diane had said something that made them stop, shudder, stare, or gasp. Her pictures have little to do with where they are taken. Some of her best portraits are in hotel rooms.

Clif Edom would not be pleased. I imagine some big crossed arms on Clif. That's how Diane would photograph Clif. Looking unsatisfied.

Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday is poorly named. Maybe Super Big Blowhard Deal Sunday. Or maybe, Not My Kansas City Team again the year Sunday. Or maybe, What Patriotic Theme can we Adopt to Sell Beer and Gas Guzzling SUVs with Sunday.

But if you had to explain it to a person from the community formerly known as the Bruderhof, how would you describe it? (It deserves better than those descriptions.) And the hype needs to be explained as well. I have tried today to make a case for how this event is some kind of thing that unites us, that we all have in common, at a time when we are otherwise fragmented as a society. Also, that the advertisements are great.

What was Super today?

• roly polies down the hill at Overton School.
• Annie's apple crisp
• Getting an A1 Sunday article in the Salisbury Post on CRA-NC
• new pictures of Rosie
• Dark Beer Advertisement: players playing pickup football the way that drink their beer; darkly.
• Sharpie click-pen Advertisement with Captain Hook.

Was your day Super?

First Words

Rosie uttered her first words yesterday. I know what you are thinging -- but yesterday was Groundhog Day! True. On the same day that Punxsatawney Phil called for six more weeks of winter, Rosie said "MaMa."

Now, I was hoping for a different outcome, but the result is promising and encouraging. Also she is up to just south of 15 pounds. She crawls everywhere.

Now that Susie is teaching at Duke, Rosie has a lot to say whenever she's left in the room with Kathy or myself. Most of it is not positive. Rosie loves peas. Also, Rosie can make her way through a lot of cheerios, even ones filled with cream cheese.

the trajectory of organizing

Did you ever notice: organizing communities matches with the trajectory of documentary photography. Maybe you have noticed that, but people like the organizer Reuben Warshovsky in Norma Rae are a lot like W. Eugene Smith or Eugene Richards. They spend a lot of time in people's living rooms, sharing afternoons with people on their owns terms as they gain the trust needed to ply their craft. I think that Robert Coles is one of the people who manages to straddle the top of two careers, and those careers happen to be the fields of organizing and documentarianism. Then again, before Richards was a photographer, he was a VISTA worker in the Arkansas Delta region.

Samson Doggie

Big Heads

"You will notice," Jenny said, "that the serval differs from the caracal by the head size. Head size is a good indicator of where a carnivore stands in the food chain -- either in terms of being a predator, or being prey."

Rain had already drenched my leather coat. This was surely the worst kind of weather -- 35 degrees and very wet. Why not snow? But no matter, I was feeling confirmed. Because, you see, Jenny, a tour guide at the Carnivore Preservation Trust, confirmed an existing theory of mine: that big heads matter. Big heads are not random. Big Heads are as much a blessing for their possessors as are those with height or with beautiful faces. You can pretend that they do not influence human perception. Your head is in the sand. In reality, people respond to them.

My favorite set of big heads are those people most like predators in human zoology -- corporate executives. I can think of very few CEOs with small heads. I spend a lot of time looking at 10-Ks. All of those pictures of Ken Lewis, of Sanford Weill, of Richard Kovaciech -- those are some big heads.

Even politicians have big heads. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Lyndon Johnson -- some large brains. The club is not exclusive to women. Margaret Thatcher. Nevertheless, neither W nor some of his cabinet members (Michael Chertoff) have large brains. But look at the heads on Cheney and Rumsfeld!

Actually, a place where small heads seem to do alright is professional sports. But sports differ from most things in the extent to which they put people in level playing fields. Perceptions matter less in basketball. What matters is speed and agility.

Of the three greatest basketball players of my generation (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan), only Magic had a big cranium. In baseball, head size is possibly altered by the presence of steroids. Barry Bonds has a huge skull. But it grew as he got older, and that growth is one of the things that makes people think he took performance enhancing drugs.

It is not that a big head makes you more threatening. Only that a big head gives a person some kind of unsaid edge. Its a matter of perception.