Biff's Story -- Rise 'n Shine

 Part 1 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I suppose all of us know there’s something inexorable about the passing of time and how it relates to our lives. We live in a huge system that itself is a singularity of which we’re also from. The sun appears to wander through its daily course, rising and shining, sinking and vanishing. The mountains are happy or sad. The cattle get a four-way mechanical rub and tug, so we have the opportunistic milk man pulling down a living at their expense. The birds desperately sing for a mate instead of just crawling in the nest and taking care of the problem themselves and getting on with their day. Life is a vast conspiracy that keeps you guessing, “What will today bring?”

Then you add up enough of those days -- at this point constituting the past -- and you and your history are the consummation, the conclusion, the happy or sad verdict of what those days and years meant. A tale told by an idiot? The arc of life skewing toward good? Or just another day, another whack at self-abuse, much more likely and a truth ever at hand. Is there a meaning to life? You wonder as you drink your coffee, maybe the coffee itself is the meaning! A few horny people in South America got together, grew some coffee (like the milkman did his thing), sold it, etc., etc. And they’d be flat broke if your own parents had self-abused you out of existence. Is there anything to learn from this?

One thing you can learn is that no matter how beautiful it is out the picture window, everyday life is at your mercy. You and millions of selfish bastards like you. Will there be workers to till the soil? Will there be farmers to raise the cattle? Will there be milkmen to gather the milk, disinfect it, put it in containers -- thus enriching the container industry -- and stores to profit by selling it? Will there even be birds and bees learning about themselves and thereby having the knowledge to do it? Giving trees the joy of life when they sit on their branches and sing a beautiful good morning song? By your example would you yourself even be here? No, of course not, but you also wouldn’t have known about it. Everyone’s potentially a sad mistake or the next self-abused emission without a trace of rugrats, no regrets.

Biff, Jr. -- this isn’t Biff but his son -- has arisen and shone. Happy to face another day. Being alone isn’t so sad. No one should feel sorry for him. He potentially could’ve put down roots and found someone to love -- it wasn’t in the cards. But no matter, as long as he lasts there’s still one way to go. Exactly what he forgot as he got up to look on this beautiful different day. It’s Self-Abuse month again, at long last. How long can he be, how long can he last? The longer the better, within reason. Every great musician respects his instrument, and this gets mussier than that.

The Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow

Ho, boyd! You’ll never guess what I saw today! In a flighting moment, there it was, The Illusive Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow, up from the ditch, as big as life! Meaning — purple as in the color of kings! — I’m in for great treasure, a kingly reward, or, since king’s also mete out harsh punishments, maybe I’m just in for it... A bounteous wind lifts the Swallow, but could I swallow a harsh fate?

This lovely bird flies freely, without a thought, but I have to remain grounded and testify of the significance of such a sight. Because you never can tell in these modern times, there’s many a youngster without the lore, know-nothings unfamiliar with the facts of life beyond their own narrow rutting habitat. As I think back, yes, there was a time when I myself, callow and barely cowled, was unfamiliar with basic life facts. Then my nearest of kin stepped in and brought me up to speed.

When your eyes are opened, that’s when you can see. As I did that gladsome day when I saw my first Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow. They filled me in on the significance, which I never fore got till then. But till today I hadn’t seen one in so many years, I haven’t even been thinking of it. Of course sometimes I wish for it, but hoping isn’t happening, till, up it jumps, it dashes, it turns tail and impresses me deeply. You know I’m forever a seeker, seeking omens, checking my Tarot, watching the chakras in spin, and even looking at life cross-eyed — or with one eye closed — I buy reading glasses and immediately take one lens out — I’ve found it the best way to narrow my gaze to truly see. Then it happens and I have to wonder, are Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallows everywhere, but I only see them when they’re definitely out of mind?

Like today! I wasn’t thinking of them, and there it was, jumping up from the ditch, managing to keep its place on the driver’s side, where I could see it so clearly. Indicating 100 percent, the vision was for me! The beauty of this omniscient little creature waiting till just that precise second to bound out, when I was a mere 20 feet from it, is significant beyond anything else that’s happened lately. My heart’s racing, my breath is elevated. I haven’t had my innards tickled so dramatically since my first taste of Mountain Dew, then later when losing my virginity. I’ve seen the promised land in this brief flight of the spirit bird, being gypped thus phar but no more.

Watch for them! They’re always there when a major life change is coming! That’s what I’ve heard. I remember seeing one when I was a kid, without the faintest idea of any of this, and we later moved. So hard, but it led to good things. I was a third grade dropout! True. But when we moved I joined a different third grade. In that case, though, the Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow sighting was just a few months before.

The next time I saw the Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow was about the time of puberty, when it’s supposed to start. I was a late bloomer, OK? I’m not ashamed to admit it now, but back then I tried my best to shrink from sight around other boys and girls in the dressing room. O for those days of innocence now! I would’ve proudly strutted my stuff, but till the Swallow reappeared, I felt shame. Then I saw it and POOF! Just that fast, I had the pubic bush like everyone else! Not overnight, folks, the same damned day! My dad was glad, but said to be careful not to catch that tangle in a zipper. Man to man, he said it hurts like hell.

I mentioned losing my virginity. Please understand, my prospects weren’t great. I looked at the girlie magazines they had back then like everyone else. My cousins informed me of the various goings-on down there, I clipped photos, etc. I got in major trouble in 9th grade when I had some of the innocent girlie pictures — back then you didn’t know if they’d experienced a POOF like me; those things couldn’t be shown. I asked my cousins why that was, and the true answer we came up with was, “Must be something wrong with ‘em down there.” Anyway, I had the pictures and this nasty teacher came up behind me and busted me. My mother had to come in the next day and vouch for me, “He’s a growing boy, has a natural curiosity,” etc. The only thing she was mad about was I didn’t tell her about seeing the bird the day before. I never wanted to disappoint her, so her words were a bitter pill to swallow.

Then came the virginity thing a while later; sorry I got ahead of myself. Up popped the Purple-Breasted Yellow-Eyed Split-Tailed Swallow, and that same day I was in the hardware store and told the guy I needed a good screw. He fixed me up with his sister, also. She had one of the local shabby apartments, top floor. The floors were weak, the walls were mildewed, parts of the ceiling were literally hanging down. I looked pretty good to her and she to me. I didn’t tell her what we owed the tryst to — having read the bird’s omen — she just laid back and enjoyed that beautiful minute of paradise, once I became fully aware of the geography of the female physique. It reminded me of the slip n’ slide mat the other kids had, very smooth. My mom wouldn’t let me have one because of her fear of discarded razor blades possibly on the lawn. The rest of my time with Monique was without dreadful consequences, despite the Freudian possibilities of her haven of best becoming life’s worst gaping maw.

Those were such major times, I’ll leave it at that. The other times can be summarized by various moves, job changes, and starting this blog.

Now, though, today — literally within the last 20 minutes — the Purple-Breasted, Yellow-Eyed Split-Tail Swallow jumped up again, one of the closest I’ve ever seen. Meaning....? What DID it mean? I’m 65, in excellent health... Do you suppose — I hate to think about it — that I’m going to die? What else comes next? I don’t know what comes next for me. The other times I saw the birds it was generally for good. But there’s no telling what it could be, except it’ll be something. It could be I’ll be leaving soon, although I’m supposed to live till 85...

But whether 65 or 85, there’s no real difference. I was perfectly content not being present for the first 15 billion years of the Universe, I’ll probably be fine whatever the afterlife is or isn’t. I’ll just enjoy my days here, however many there are. Which might be the message of the bird for me this time. Nothing major happening till I see the off ramp. And there it’ll be, The Purple-Breasted, Yellow-Eyed Split-Tail Swallow, jumping up from the weeds! So enjoy yourself, read, write, listen to music, walk, talk, go half-crazy now and then. Be happy and die with contentment.

9/11 -- The Dirty Bird of Days

Nobody knows what to do with this day. The usual rules don't apply. You go to the diner and Trixie isn't herself. She's muted her usual boisterousness, her usual lust for life. The past comes rushing in on us. However long ago it was -- perhaps we could look it up -- doesn't matter. The same somber tone, the same unwelcome sobriety descends upon us, one and all, and once again we're beside ourselves.

Once we were beside ourselves with terror -- utterly perplexed, finding devils in the smoke -- and now it's with reflection and a shaking fist, at the sky, at somebody, as we chant, "Never again!" I remember the first time I heard that familiar chant. We adults were stoic, standing stolid in complete silence. I remember my own stolid stance, the evil wind of that day moving my hair, that's it. I didn't know what to say, no adult did. The chant started then, wonderfully enough, with a little kid, maybe not more than four or eight, something like that. He or she raised his or her little fist, and with an angelic voice, as if from the clouds, he or she started in: "Never again! Never again!"

Other than that, does anyone really remember what they did? I don't. I remember my first day of kindergarten, my first Valentine, my first kiss on the playground, my first school lunch, my first (and second) Cub Scouts pins -- Fox and Bear, actually the only ones I ever earned, the day LBJ had his surgery, and the day I lost my virginity to myself. But that day, that terrible day, so long ago and yet as fresh as today to so many, is a weird blur, a distant nightmare that I mostly remember only because others remind me.

I know this much about it, though, the world hushes itself in its presence. Every lip is sealed, every voice struggles, every eye sheds a tear. There is no laughter. The decree goes forth, binding on one and all, "Let laughter subside!" Give it up, let it be, a pall falls, and that same dread we faced, and have pretty much repressed, returns to the fore, and what seemed so proper just yesterday -- Ha! Ha! Ha! -- is at once set aside, perhaps never to be heard again ... We just don't know. Can we make it? Will anything ever be the same? I don't think so...

This is now the dirty bird of days. You know the dirty bird. The dirty bird emits droppings on everything in its path. Straight below it, around the yard, around the block, then the town, and finally the world. Joy and happiness are far from its path. It may be the most joyous occasion of all, a picnic, a birthday celebration, the day of your first marriage. But when the dirty bird gets hold of it, it's nothing anymore, a waste, a void, something to be buried and forgotten. Your happiness that seemed permanent and set to endure, in the twinkling of an eye, is turned to despair.

Have you washed your hair? The dirty bird passes, or lands, and again it's a mess, as though it were never washed. Were you proud of your car, the sheen, the shine, the glint of the day's noonday sun beaming on it? Passing is the dirty bird, doing what the dirty bird does, and your car's just as crappy as ever. Or you have a brand new set of shingles on your house. You're showing it to your priest, but even he has to turn away -- he's who's heard every squalid confession there is -- as the dirty bird passes, emitting, dropping, and bombarding everything in its filthy path.

Let introspection reign, then, on this day of days, the day of the dirty bird. May each heart be gripped with moroseness, completely seized up and bound. As for me and my house, we're staying in today. And now ... to silence.

Possessing and Consuming Eagle Jerky

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an imaginary post, located in a more perfect world, where we are free to feast on eagles. In our current non-imaginary world, of course, at least in countries where the eagle is the national bird, such freedom does not exist, although it should. It stands to reason. I've heard it said, "The freedom of your fist ends where my face begins." Meaning, if an eagle is clenched by the neck in my fist, I'm free to do what I will as long as neither my fingernails or its talons scratch your face.

I love eagle jerky. I just love it! Most people do, even if they're not good at making it. In fact, most of the eagle, like the hog, is good for something. Like with hogs, you use everything but the squeal, so with the eagle, you use everything but the squawk.

I watched my dear old Dad make eagle jerky many times. The whole process has a delicious fragrance, from the first gutting of the bird, to the delight of dogs eating the innards, right up to the cooking. I remember Dad carefully separating out the talons, the skin, the meat, the feathers, and even the beak. Then he went through all the steps and made the world's best jerky. Or, depending on how close it was to Thanksgiving, we'd roast a few birds for the meal.

Now Dad's gone ... and Mom ... both to the scourge of cancer, giving me something to think about as to my own physical disposition ... which is neither here nor there ... although I had the opportunity to buy cancer insurance when I was 30 and didn't. I could probably be cashing in in a few years.

Now Dad's gone ... and when I want an eagle I have to go over to the lake and get one myself. Sometimes with other guys, hunting by the old "storming the tree" method and filling them full of buckshot. We split up the haul and discard any eaglets that may have been hit. Even the dogs are repulsed at eating an eaglet.

Is it sad to kill an eaglet? Yeah, sure, a little, because that's one that won't grow up to be harvested later. Still, we rationalize it away like this, that the eagle is a big bird, a bully in the wild, so if we kill a few young it helps the other species. It's the same rationale for not allowing too many big people to live, giving the rest of us more wiggle room.

As for me, when I get my fill of eagle meat -- and mostly I dream about the jerky around a roaring fireplace in the winter, a big blanket on my legs -- I like to fool around with the rest of the bird. Especially the feathers. I arrange them in my own religious ceremonies and pray. I also make hand fans and dreamcatchers for craft sales. There's a lot of little old ladies who are unable to hunt eagles, but that doesn't mean they don't crave them as much as anyone.

I'd love to raise the little boogers, for fun and profit. I still have Grandpa's old chinchilla cages from the '60s. How hard could it be?

I Raised My Own Thanksgiving Turkey

I did something a little different this year. I was with a friend at a farm sale and bought a baby turkey, just the cutest little thing, not nearly as big as a full grown bird. The idea, of course, was that I would raise it for my Thanksgiving meal.

After I got it, then, I realized there was lots of stuff I needed, actually making my meal this year more expensive than if I'd simply gone to the store. You need a good cage, a bunch of feed, fresh water, etc., right down to shots and an occasional visit to the vet.

Anyway, I don't want to dwell on the downside. Because having a baby turkey is actually a lot of fun. A rewarding experience. I had a good time petting his little feathers when he was young. And I named him, Sammy. My little Sammy! But he wasn't little for long. Sammy got some real girth on his bones, a good display of white meat and dark, all covered with some pretty cool feathers. One of which is going in my scrapbook. That is my vow.

Most of you might recall this wasn't exactly a great year for me. My mom died in August. And there were a couple days around that time when I didn't have a single friend in the world to share my feelings with. Except Sammy. Who patiently listened to me, and even seemed to reach out a drumstick as a gesture of comfort. It was about that time that I gave him a middle name, calling him Sammy Dale, and even sang him to sleep a few times: "Go to your sleep, O Sammy Dale..." Thinking about it now still makes me emotional.

But, you know how it goes, time stops for no man. Thanksgiving has been drawing near for the last month, and there's been no stopping it, no matter what. Sammy Dale was raised for this purpose, and so he couldn't be spared, no matter how much anguish it caused me to lift that damned hatchet and bring it down. One thing I was careful to do was to make it swift and sure. No rust on the blade, the thing completely sharp, nothing that would cause suffering and prolong it.

That was all yesterday, Tuesday, because I wanted it to be far enough in advance of Thursday to get rid of the emotions, allowing me to detach as much as I could from the bond we shared.

So tomorrow, then, Thanksgiving Day, it will be into the oven with what's-his-name, and he will be a beautiful spread of meat on my table. Carving him will be an experience, I hope not too sad. Because of course he's already passed on. There's no time for regrets when it's too late to go back. And honestly, he isn't really any different than any other turkey I might've gotten at the store.

Plus -- and I know you'll think this is pretty cool -- I will have one extra thing to be thankful for this year, that we had that quality time through the year. I bet most of the birds at the store didn't have that luxury. 

Hez Heck: "Someday Doad'll Be a Dad"

Today, we get a rare glimpse into the life of rustic funnyman, Hez Heck, much deeper than we've been allowed before. Taking us well beyond the quips and jokes he's so famous for. The man is more like a philosopher, at least that's what he is in the way he thinks. But he always keeps us laughing with his suspenders-snapping routine. And yet, sometimes even funnymen cry; sometimes even philosophers are stymied, both in their understanding of life overall and in the common, everyday things that all of us know.

But we're going to keep this on the up and up, with no crying. Because that's not what we're here for. We seek only the joy of laughter. But we know -- we have to know -- there are those times when a good old fashioned cry does a body some good. You're convulsing, basically, your body involuntarily taking over, with a big old knot in your throat at times, and there's a kind of pain in your chest, like something's trying to bust out, claw its way out. It shakes you up something fierce. You think, "Am I dying?" When, no, the answer is, you're just bummed out.

Hez Heck thinks about the future ... at times, with all that means. The big, vast, immense, looming future. But he's not always thinking only about himself, because he gets by, he's done all right. Instead, Hez thinks of the future coming for his nephew Doad, whom he's partly half-raising, since he was half-raised already when Hez took him in, and "partly" because Doad'll never be----- ... Doad is Doad. The boy's ... something ... of a glum specimen, in certain ways. That loose board in the chicken shed's hit him a time or two too many. And yet he is growing up before Hez's eyes. Soon Doad'll be a man, soon Doad'll be a dad, and soon Doad'll be everything else Doad'll be ... like it or not.

When Doad's a man, he's going have to face the same kinds of challenges Hez has faced. Like being the one to put a new screen in the door when the kids rip it open. It'll be Doad that'll have to kiss his son's or daughter's mosquito bites away. It'll be Doad that'll have to chase 'em over the hills, bringing them home. And it'll be Doad that'll have to keep the old truck going. The thing's been in the family for generations. They treat trucks here like Cubans treat cars, lots of maintenance for decades of reliability. They pass them down. And if there's a generation when there's no sons, the trucks stay in the barn, and they wait till they get one.

Hez thinks, "Someday, by cracky, it'll be Doad that'll be wearin' one of these beards, and shirts, and suspenders." In every respect, Doad'll be a man. So -- and this is embarrassing -- Hez thinks maybe it really is the right time to tell Doad about the birds and the bees. That's Ma's idea, and Hez said he'd get around to it. After all, it's mostly natural, and the parts that are confusing, if you just feel around, finally you get it.

Hez pulls Doad aside, and launches right into the main attack. "Doad, someday you'll be a man." Doad answers, "Yeah." They pause. "Someday you'll be a dad." "Yeah." Hez lets that sink in. "And that old truck'll be yours." "Yeah." Hez waits to see how that registers. "And you'll be the man in charge." "Yeah."

The older uncle wonders about Doad's understanding. Doad seemed to take it all in without flinching in the slightest. "You understand everything I said, Doad?" "Yeah." But Hez is wondering, so he runs a little test. "You think you need to hear it all again?" "Yeah." "Is all this going out one ear and in the other?" turning around the phrase as only a funnyman like Hez can do. "Yeah," says Doad, blithely.

"OK, son," Hez says, "Go play." Doad answers, "Yeah." Hez sees it's an interesting case. Doad's glazed over. Hez leads him to the door and points outside. Then helps him out the door and down the stairs. Hez withdraws and watches Doad finally catch a whiff of country air. His head seems to be clearing. Then, in an instant, Doad is gone like a shot up the hills and down the other holler. Hez thinks, "He'll just have to get it the natural way, whatever he hears behind the barn, and the rest, feelin' his way. It's never hurt no one yet."

Ma comes in, thinking she heard voices, and that their time together was very short, especially if they'd been talking about what she figured they ought to be talking about, looking back on it being her idea about the birds and bees. Where is that boy? "You been talkin' to Doad." Hez says, "Yeah." "Think he's got it?" she wonders. "Yeah." "Is he gone?" "Yeah." "Are you all right?" "Yeah."

Ma wonders, "Can't you just spit it out and tell me more 'n that? What's that boy up to, anyway?" Hez's answer, "No good."

The Pit Version Of Everything Else

I'm bustin', I have to get it out of my system. I'm putting out another virulent, heartfelt condemnation of pit bulls everywhere. When God created the pit bull, let's face it, He was in a bad mood. He threw the damned thing out there and said, "Yes, it sucks, but I bet you can't make one better." To which we said, "True, but if you think this is good, you're insane!"

I wrote about pit bulls earlier, getting me an insane amount of publicity from pit bull lovers. Yes, there's such a thing! Just like there's lovers of women sitting on men's faces and lovers of snuff films. There's lovers of every crazy ass thing, including pit bulls.

Anyway, what has got me in this freaky snit about pit bulls all of a sudden? I'd let the fervor die down for quite a while. Well, it seems, I had a terrible experience with a pit bull downtown just today. We were walking up the sidewalk and a couple was walking three dogs, none of them a pit bull. Just then, here comes another couple the other way, with a pit bull. The pit bull took one look at the three dogs and went ballistic, struggling to get to them, making all kinds of fearsome noises, tugging with all its might, etc. And I'm right there! This berserk dog might've gotten me as collateral damage. The owner cussed a bit about it and kept going. The stinking dog was tugging hard, like a marlin on a rod and reel!

We got where we were going, a restaurant, where I was finally able to catch my breath. Naturally, that was the topic of conversation, how anyone could take one of these vicious monsters out in public, especially when we all know people bring their normal dogs downtown all the time. What? Are they willing to let their dog maul other dogs, just for the excitement of it? There's also little kids. Who knows how long it'd take to maul them if it took a mind to? Five seconds?

After a while, having survived, and having not lost my appetite to the sight of three dogs being eaten on the sidewalk, we started laughing about it. That's a great way to deal with trauma: Horray, we survived! But of course the dog is out there somewhere ... so maybe we won't be so lucky next time.

Our conversation veered off to a discussion of, What if everything else had a "pit bull" version, a "pit version"? Like cats. I guess the pit version of the cat has to be the lion or tiger. So cats are covered. But how about birds? There aren't that many vicious, berserk birds. They're extinct if they ever existed. You see a bird and it can't wait to get away from you. They're basically not attacking each other either. The ones at my bird feeder definitely coexist. I was thinking maybe an owl would be a good pit version, since they always seem like they're waiting, waiting, waiting, sitting and waiting. They could swoop in and go nuts.

And it's obvious we have the pit version of human beings. They're the disgusting creatures who show up and shoot 70 people in a theater or temple or military base or political gathering. I saw an article about the guy who shot Gabby Giffords, just a picture of him, and I forgot what tragedy he was part of. Then I was reminded, "Oh yeah, that guy." He looks something like a pit bull. And the suspect in the theater shooting, shave his head and he'd resemble a pretty good pit version of a human being.

How frightening, these pit specimens! Fortunately, we still love dogs, not lumping them together with their weird pit relation. Not too many intrinsically pit versions in other species. Snakes. I don't care for snakes at all, but some are worse than others. Elephants. Once in a while one goes rogue. Etc., etc., etc.

But for all that, the pit bull stands alone. As much as pit bull owners want us to think they're loveable and great, the evidence is as close as the sidewalk today ... what a crap dog.

It's A Bird!

Must has been written about birds, everything from what they have in the encyclopedia to whole books exclusively about them. One of our most famous bird experts was Audubon, who wouldn't have had anything to do if it weren't for birds. We have birdwatchers, bird cameras, and birdbaths. I personally own a birdbath, and it might actually have water in it.

Even with so much being written about birds, I sincerely believe the world can stand one more article. And so this is it.

My interest in birds today has to do with the famous opening to the "Adventures of Superman" show from the '50s, starring George Reeves. A crowd is gathered below, all looking up, and a kid yells, "It's a bird!" It strikes me as funny that he would be so excited about seeing a bird that he would yell out in a crowd and point at it with so much urgency. Hadn't he ever personally seen a bird before?

It could be that Superman was flying by so fast, so the kid thought he saw a very fast flying bird. Or that Superman, being the size of a man, would have made a spectacularly large bird. And instead of describing the possible bird as large or fast, which would have required some time, he just yelled out the shorter version, "It's a bird!"

But is it reasonable that there would be a bird the size of a man flying above, or a bird flying that fast? It could be that they hadn't seen Superman that much, except the last voice gets it right, "It's Superman!" So Superman isn't a stranger to these people over the skies of Metropolis. Making the original bird comment sound kind of dumb.

What other times was he mistaken? At Christmas when he had a package holding a wristwatch and he thought it might be a bicycle? "It's a bike!" "No, Billy, it's a watch, it's a little small to be a bike."

Birds. I see them everyday and it's not that exciting. Yet, think of it, these are flying creatures, without a flying machine! They just know how to fly. It's amazing. And it's really amazing when you consider where birds came from, according to what scientists say. DINOSAURS! That's some pretty tough genes birds have.

The dinosaurs, some of them anyway, started flapping whatever appendages they had. Maybe they were near a cliff and some of them actually glided to safety. These ones kept reproducing, showing their young by example how to jump off a cliff, with the very adaptable ones landing, meaning these would be the ones to reproduce. And guess what? It was the smaller dinosaurs that generally landed, meaning birds would progressively be smaller than their dinosaur ancestors. Once they took to the sky, there were no rules to hold them back. So that is exciting.

Naturally, the whole business with dinosaurs and this progression from dinosaur to bird took ages to be accomplished. By the time we got to Bible times, then, relatively not that long ago, birds were already old enough to be considered a particularly created species. So they fooled everybody, even Moses, perhaps. Maybe Moses knew; I don't want to dis Moses. If he wasn't ignorant of the whole matter, maybe he simply felt the time wasn't right to spring it on the world that birds came from dinosaurs.

Superman turned out definitely to not be a bird. Let's look back way before the TV show and earlier serial films. If you go way back, Superman didn't even fly, he just made big leaps. He was subject to gravity. This fact of leaping carried over to the phrase, "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

All Things Being Equal

I want to write my morning post about the phrase and concept of "all things being equal."

All things being equal, it's as good an idea as any. All things being equal, what's the difference? All things being equal, my blog's the same as others. All things being equal, whether I have two readers or 40,000, who cares?

There's plenty of scurrilous knaves out there, like Charles Grassley, Glenn Beck, and Kim Jong Il who are doing their thing and I'm doing mine. All things being equal, that makes me pretty bad. Which is not the way I want to say it. How about this? All things being equal, these evil guys are out there doing their thing, and I, being a good guy am here doing my thing.

Just because all things are equal doesn't mean life's an indistinguishable stew. And stew would be the perfect analogy. All things being equal, you don't have stew without all the ingredients together. The potatoes, meat, carrots, gravy are what make the stew. Every two bit hobo in a train jungle could tell you that. And all things being equal, his word on the subject is the same as mine. Take his word for it.

All things being equal, I should have more patience and confidence than I have. But all things being equal, whether I do or don't doesn't make much difference. I should have more patience and confidence because, all things being equal, I should live in this moment in a singular way. Doing so means not looking ahead. And doing so means trusting my abilities in the moment. But all things being equal, of course I'm going to look ahead. So the thing to do is to be patient and confident while looking ahead because what's ahead is just more of what's now. All things being equal, it's crazy to say I'm going to be patient and confidence now but I'm not going to be 10 minutes from now.

I've always had egalitarian ideals, all things being egal, I guess. That's how we got the Eagle as our American symbol, because of our eagalitarian ideals. They cast about, looking for just the perfect bird to be the symbol, and, all things being equal, thought, what about the sparrow? The sparrow would be a great American symbol, in my opinion, because it's lowly, uncolorful, yet a hard worker. What could symbolize our hard scrabble immigrant forebears better than that? Pecking at the ground to eek out an existence, living in an unheralded yet persistent way, flying high, flying quickly, but not offering flash or seeking vainglory.

But all things being equal, they said, Yes, the sparrow is great. But what's so great about being lowly? What's wrong with some color and size? And hard scrabbling may be our way of life but it's not our ambition. And to peck at the ground to eek out an existence, we want to do better. And as far as being unheralded, we'd prefer heralded, of course, all things being equal. And a little bit of flash -- a lotta bit of flash -- is cool. And what bird is more pimped out than the eagle? (The ostrich and peacock come to mind.)

All things being equal, I think I'll quit now.

Thus Spake Hiatus

The lone figure pulls his mantle up over his face, the lower bits, leaving his eyes free to roam over the world and see his path. These are the days of his going up and leaving behind.

He passes the trail to Zoar and turns up an unmarked path. The ascent will be difficult, but any hiatus worth taking brings its challenges.

I can't convert the dog-bloggers and their fans. I can only withdraw and find my peace among the falcons and the raggedy mountain goats.

I turn back to look over the world I leave behind. Bogs, fens, sloughs, muddy puddles. Off in the distance are the smoldering ruins of my town, set ablaze by the people running riot. Halfway between is a priapic figure frozen in salt, all that remains of my one-time friend, Garrett Al.

The figure pulls his mantle up again, and, because it keeps slipping down, takes an extra moment to pick the lint out of the Velcro fasteners so it will stay up. There's also a drawstring around the hood that he cinches. This is a foul land, full of bubbling pitch, acrid sulfuric smoke, wasting decay, and saltpeter. He must ascend. I'll repeat that, he must!

Ascending, I rise above it all, and finally the sense of peace dawns on me. This hiatus is more than time off; it's a time for awakening, above the din and roar of those on the wide road leading to destruction. Perhaps I shall return one day to look for survivors. Perhaps they will have found a cure for the disappointment of glory. Perhaps I will be named Blogger of the Year by someone with credibility in that field.

For these moments he sits alone, alone except for a falcon and a raggedy mountain goat. The falcon soars over head and brings back a piece of fish for him to eat. This goes on for many a day. Finally he has enough dried fish skeletons he's able to fashion a comb with which he can groom the raggedy mountain goat. He does groom it and now it may be termed simply a mountain goat.

Two of them share an oversize sleeping bag, he and the mountain goat keeping each other warm at night -- just warm, nothing untoward or scandalous whatsoever. In part this is because he's strict about not letting him eat any horny goat weed. The worst that happens is the goat makes some unconscious pelvic thrusts while dreaming. Eventually the man will see if UPS delivers up there and get another sleeping bag.

The falcon takes his perch at the crest of my pillow, a beautiful figure, like The Maltese Falcon.

Up here in the mountainous regions, I am at a high peak, too high for mortals. So I must go down somewhat, and look for a cave with internet access. There the three of us will live, where we can spend our hiatus in comfort, eating fish, grooming the goat, sleeping in our sleeping bag -- plural "bags," hopefully very soon -- going to the bathroom in our three very different ways*, and, of course, blogging the deeper matters of life.

*I need to train the falcon to face forward on my pillow, and the goat needs to learn the value of clean, dry bedding.

My Hiatus Comes Into Its Own

When a thing has been around for a while, give or take on the time depending on what it is, it's no longer wobbling around, hobbling about, feeling its way or feeling unsure of itself. If it can bounce off this wall, careen toward that one, feel the pushing of many hands toward that extreme, then shove off from this one, it develops a certain independence through the scrapes and trials, and finds itself seeking a clearing, a place of light, a path without hindrance.

I think of the way it is with little baby birds, unsure of themselves. But look at the time frame they're working with! Three weeks ago they were an egg. Now they're hatched, pretty well grown, and expected to fly. I think of the power of flight as something I can only dream of. It'd be nice to be able to fly. Maybe it would. Although, you know, if human beings could fly it'd just give us more ways to get in trouble. All the ne'er do wells would misuse the power to run drugs. The police would be shooting down innocent fliers by mistake. You'd have to buy a license. The rates would go up. It'd be a mess.

But when you're innocent like a bird, it's all in your power to get out there and flap 'em with the best of 'em. They're very unsure of themselves at first, though, but pretty soon they swoop, dive, dodge, bob, and weave with a great deal of expertise, to the point that you start to think they're just showing off. For them it's no longer special, and they're no longer happy to just fly around here. They get bored and decide maybe they need to fly south for the winter. And next thing you know everyone's doing it, like with geese. They're up there in big wedges, honking like a car alarm. And you know they're really cursing their ability to fly, since it now wastes so much time they have very little time left for other things.

Ever since I went on hiatus, I've been feeling my way along -- slower and less sure at first, but little by little I've been getting my sea legs, my wings have developed some muscle at the sockets, I've lost my baby teeth, and I've gotten my adult eyebrows. If you think of it in terms of maturing, little tufts of body hair have sprouted, first like a nucleus exactly centered, like in the center of an arm pit. Then it's been ringed by a new growth of hair. Then that has been ringed. And other rings have been added. It'd be interesting to see it happen with a fast motion camera slowed down. I can even picture a beard coming in one hair at a time, then being ringed multiple times to the point that there's all these circular patterns. I don't know. It's an image worth documenting.

The early days are past. And when I look back I smile at my early thoughts about permanent retirement. How fast I was thinking! It's interesting to dream in such big terms when the thing was barely off to a start. Now that I've had some weeks to think it over, to stew, to examine it in detail, some of the same dreams and same thoughts are there, but I also can see the pitfalls. I'm not rushing a thing at this point. Just taking my time and letting things go where they feel most naturally like going.

My hiatus has broken into the clear. I can look back at all the clamoring, but all that gets smaller as I advance on. And soon I won't be looking back as much, then not at all. To the left and to the right, there's very little obstruction being offered. The path ahead looks rosy and bright. There's some very interesting natural colors ahead. Blue sky, yellow sun, green trees, and an occasional bit of red just to break up the monotony, like a cherry in a can of fruit cocktail.

More About 9/11

I was rereading my post about 9/11, some of the interesting things I had to say about birds and dogs, and it put me in a nostalgic frame of mind, making me test my knowledge of my own past, specifically what dogs and birds I've owned, or have been in the family.

I had my first dog when I was around 5 years old, and his name was Eggard. Other dogs in my family included Poohie (collie), Peanuts (beagle), Spoochie (collie), Bozo (beagle), Cinnamon (like a terrier), Frankie (collie), Fritz (sort of like a German shepherd), Zoi (Pomeranian mix). I'm probably leaving out a dog or two. Fritz only lived a week after we got him. We got him at a dog pound, then it turned out he had worms, and he crawled under the stairs outside and died. I cried like a baby carrying his big old body over to his grave.

I remember when Eggard died, too, and basically where we buried him, down by the fence, actually less than a quarter mile from the Slump residence here. (There was another family dog at that same time, my brother's, named Rats, and he ran away.) There were several dogs, then, that Grandpa and Grandma had, but they were mostly around when I was just a small kid, and I don't remember them ever having a dog after I was over 5 or 6. So I don't know their names.

As for birds, well, there were several birds that Grandma had, always parakeets, with names I can't recall. Kind of like "Perty Boy" kinds of names. I had a few birds over the years, a parakeet that was named Morgan Featherchild (ha ha). Then there was a finch family, a couple named Man and Woman, who hatched out two babies, Cakes and Wilson. Man, Woman, and Cakes all perished in the course of things, then Wilson lived for quite a while longer. He must have lived three or four years, because I know he was hatched out in 1988 or 1989, and he died on the 30th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death, November 22, 1993.

Wilson was a fairly smart bird. I could take the lid of his cage across the room, stand up on the couch, hold the lid near the ceiling and call to him and he'd fly over and land on it. I don't know German, but we sometimes called him Der Vilsonfleiger, and one of the calls to him to come to the lid was, "Vilshy Mission!" He was friendly, would land on your shoulder, would play with a wooden egg I had, fight with pencil erasers being poked at him, bite at a piece of floss, try to stand on the floss, and that's about it. I said he died in 1993, and I still have (2008) some of his poop. I had a cassette shelf that was hooked on the wall, and he'd land up there. One day I was looking at it and there his poop still was, just spots of it! So I covered it with some paper so it wouldn't get wiped away, and there it is still to this day.

It's amazing how important national and international anniversaries (9/11) make you remember lots of other interesting things, too!

This is a stereo picture of Wilson in 1989. If you look at Wilson kind of crosseyed, and let the pictures drift together you can see a fuzzy 3D view of him.

Local Man Thinks of 9/11

It's something to think about, when anniversaries roll around, whatever the anniversary is of. Like if you got married, that is your wedding anniversary -- whether it's your silver or golden anniversary or one of the others in between those or one below. Our birthday is called our birthday, but that's just a fancy way of saying it's the anniversary of your birth. If you're one year old in our country, you have been alive for a year, although in some countries, I've heard, they consider you one when you're born.

Scholars tell us that anniversaries are arbitrary, in the sense that to commemorate a particular date is only the result of a convention, i.e., our contrived way of marking time. On some other planet, or country, depending on the conditions there, were we to be there, we might choose to mark time in some other way. Then our equivalent of one year here might be a hundred years there. This is what scholars say. Scholars of course have many opinions, some quite treasured, some not worth the paper they're written on. One thing seems certain. The way we do it is the way it's done and likely will continue to be the way it's done, no matter how the intellectual class may buck and belittle the idea.

There are other ways of looking at time -- one of which engages my thought processes on certain occasions, such as when I'm out in the wild, studying nature, which is the effects of the passage of time on other creatures. From childhood we've known a curious fact of life for the canine (dog) family, which is that for them one year is equivalent to seven of our years. To break this down even further, a day for them is like a week for us. The key to this understanding is that everything is a multiple of seven, a fact not contradicted by the equally curious fact that they eat in a day more or less the equivalent of what we would eat in a day. This leads me to muse that a week's worth of time, if it only requires a day's worth of food, means the dog is eating relatively little food. We have the phrase, "to eat like a bird," meaning a small amount, but pound for pound, the dog may be eating much less, simply because of the passage of time as it relates to them and their size compared to birds.

I have had dogs and I have had birds. It does seem like dogs eat quite a bit more, until you factor in their size, as I said, compared to the typical housebird. Dogs are typically in the 10-30 pound range, so they eat 12 ounces to a pound of food on a typical day. Birds weigh around three or four ounces, sticking for the sake of argument with the finch or budgie (parakeet), and they essentially peck at their food and consume very little of it. I've seen enough seeds on the bottom of a cage, and scattered around the floor -- unless there's a very good cage skirt -- to tell me that they're wasting more than they're eating. If it's scattered on the floor, it's hard to separate and reuse. I feel it's best to just let it lay and they'll find it if they get hungry. After all, in nature, observation will attest, they do a lot of pecking at the ground. The housebird hasn't lost that instinct, it's only somewhat stunted because we favor them (spoil them) by too much unnecessary assistance. I was raised on this idea: An animal will eat if it gets hungry.

Really, in addition to birds, and getting back to dogs, I think people pamper their dogs too much. I really do. Things have changed, and we can attribute a lot of it to television advertisements, a transference or attribution of human desires to animals, and the babying that comes from too much attachment or sentimentality in our relations with animals in the home. I could go on. Whether it's allowing them in our beds, on our other furniture, feeding them from the table, or tolerating their many messes, you can plainly go overboard, and people do! This is not necessarily doing them any favors.

When I was growing up it was quite a bit different. The dog was a dumb brute animal in those days. Maybe it knew how to hunt but that was it. The rest of the time it was tied to a tree, and might just as well choke itself to death by being tangled up in a chain. Nobody paid much attention to it, even though it'd be yipping and begging for a minute of your time. We used the dog like a garbage disposal, taking our table scraps out, all mixed together in a kind of soppy bread slop and just dumped it in an old dirty dish. The thing is we got very few complaints because the average brute dog in those days would wolf it down practically in mid air.

I saw enough sickening dog antics to turn me off forever, but I've softened up quite a bit in later years and now have a great deal of compassion for dogs. This is something I've come to, dogs are intelligent, sensitive creatures -- I could almost say beings. They know how to love and they truly are man's best friend, no question about it.

Today is the seventh anniversary of the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001. Our nation observes the anniversary. We will not forget, but also we must not dwell on it.