Best to be under the pavilion in a rain storm.  This day, the clouds without hardly moving at all, stacked themselves on top of us.  The vibrancy of the colors changed with how the sun hit the stacks.  Then it plop, plopped into wind-driven from one direction, and came back at us from another.  You could really feel how it was tornado-esque if the rotation had been faster and more complete.

  But yeah, I guess so, October 7th, 2023 was for many similar to 9112001.  That morning I was deep into a mix of music, Streisand on Broadway, Bernhardt (sp?), new lyric-less music to see where people were at, creatively.  And also, for myself to wade back into some creative discipline.  It was just a normal day.  Like I'd been housepainting on Sept. 11th.

  Both attacks brought saying goodbye (again) to loved ones.

  And both beg questions about civilians being all caught up in defense and other military activities.

  All along the courses of response there has been a lot of work done that parallels the military field action.  Though in the fanning out from impact zones the ways to conversate get diluted.  Popular-speak is not diplomacy etc.  In that space there can be a lot of activity too.  Everybody trying to be heard and to effect outcome.  As it is, technically, warring has only select decision-makers.

  We were still very young when we found ourselves in a world transition between hot wars and calming down.  On a camping trip we met up as people, just people, some older, some younger.  The internationals taught us a lot of stuff about survival.  We had pitched a borrowed tarp, traded clothing for cups of rice and oil, bartered skill for skill to jumpstart a move forward from forest.  As young people we were also allowed to pick up some first hand experiences with Forest Service and Field Hospital.  Plus we were with opportunities to hone dream-work skills...I got to put high school learned AP-style writing into practice; someone got to sing as if they were traveling the world with the USO; people got to cook for bunches of training millies; all of us maintained campground with, like, real appreciation for the experience.

  Some young people had already met the loves of their lives.  And the real world calling us into career meant we had heavy decisions to make beyond who's cutest?!  Who would make the most money??

  We called him "the muscle".  He would come back to camp later than dinner.  He'd lift the top of the mini BBQ to see if she'd left him something.  A bundle of burrito in aluminum foil so it could be warmed in the campfire.  It was with a profound quiet he would see.  And then he would comment to whoever was around studying, staring at the flames, arguing procedure on fire line ops...Yes, she does.

  Each person had or didn't have care.  But nobody bailed on the our-agers that couldn't give a shit anymore.  Already burnt out by such an aggressive world was something we all had felt personally and when we talked about it as a group.  It was like we'd learned coping skills about this because of life and we shared this knowledge because it's part of survival.

  One night she got back later than late night.  "One meatball?" He said to her.

  "Not like they grow on the trees."

  Someone had lodged a hardwood stick up near the rope centering the tarp as tent.  This replaced the pine stick that had gotten a "broke back" as more and more people were washing and drying work pants.  "I heard, all I heard, was that you are pissed."

  "Moi?"

  "Yeah one of the girls, on a ride between campgrounds, said you, pissy about something."

  "Not at you." He added a piece of a log to the fire.

  "What then?  Work?"

  "Sort of."

  "Ah, the girl trucker?"

  "Ah, you heard more than you've said."

  "I put two and two together.  My question is: Is it because she's a girl?"

  "Not at all.  God made her that way.  But she got the job.  I did not."

  "Oh."

  The push to winterize was quickening even summery mountain people.  Extra work could be had pulling trailers into place.  Insulating the underneaths.  Repairing house and vehicle parts that had crapped out.  Diamond Lisa convinced herself that she could do it.  Not only the bidding, but the actual moving of heavy stuff.  She'd eaten only veggies at a girl dinner because too much fast food.  In fact, she'd had an extra hamburger, untouched, that she was able to make a meatball out of.  She also showed us some kind of secret weapon that helped her apply torque to anything.  That made her grin.

"Your dog smells"

   We'd been walkrunning, weaving a black peoples hair, through the park's people.  The boys were leading the weave until one who'd closed his eyes to better imagine California ran smack into a tall, slender lady with a skinny dog leash and diamonds on the small dogs collar.

 "Rooood," she declared.

  "Your dog smells."

  "Very rude," she judged.

  "Your dog smells.  That means something." He wheeled his hand and arm like he was moving cars stuck at a toll booth, motioning come up here.  We looked at each other like all of us?  When he spied the one he wanted, he pointed, You, here.  The girl pointed at herself in an overly dramatic display of Me?!  He picked me!  

  "Smell this dog!"

  "Do I have to?"

  "Yes."

  The woman looked down a particularly planed nose.

  The girl looked up and asked, "Does it bite?"

  "It may at this point."

  The girl swallowed hard, kind of a gulp.  But moved a foot forward like we were on our iceskates.  The dog's mouth wouldn't stop grinning.  She sort of leaned forward and did a dip just close enough to affirm, "DOG SMELLS!" She said it pretty loud.

  The other boy came over.  "Did your smelly dog hurt my friend here?"

  The lady's eyes literally had to lift up about a foot and a half because he was tall.

  "Not that I am aware of."

  "You hurt?"

  "Naw man."

  A person with a boom box on shoulder was coming closer.  Black Sabbath, someone said.

  "Her dog smells."

  "So you've said.  And Lisa here confirmed it." Lisa did a curtsey.

  "That means something."

  "That the dog smells."

  "Means something else too and I want her," an arm reached out and pulled on the back of her coat because she'd started to walk away.  

  "Her?"

  "Your Dad's girlfriend knows what stuff means, correct?"

  "Possibly.  But I'm NOT her."

  "What could it mean?"

  The lady in the camel hair coat jostled the leash like the dog was going to pull the sled of her.

  "I think it means SHE doesn't really care about the dog!" Lisa determined.  "And, look at her, you think she actually gives dog baths?"

  "Prolly not.  That's what it was.  I sensed something."

  The lady started to move off.

  "It should have a ribbon!" T came close and said.

  "What?"

  A quiet because the what may have been rude.  The boy changed it to, What should have a ribbon?  The dog?

  "Naw man, the

  "I bet that lady's hair smelled too.  Like five hundred pounds of hairspray!"

  "The WEAVE!"

  "Right then. More weave."

  "What color would the ribbon be T?" Lisa asked.

  "Um, like black and red and tan."

  "Cool." We were purposefully not saying coolio like the jerks.

  "YOU, YOU, AND ME," He pointed at himself, "On ribbon."

  "Now let's weave!" The other boy said.

  Well, most stuff is like that...eye sees a mountain far away, not the same as getting to the mt, foot to mountain, encountering mountain, climbing, falling on the mountain.

  It was like that for us as a nation when decisions were made to counter-attack.  D.C. had forged from all the damage, all the feelings about 9112001, all the historical precedent, all the strategic thinking and theory the molten-poured.  And then a lot of things happened.  Big things.  War things.  Whole being change.

  If our nation was a person, the person was attacked.  Then there was bodily and mentally and spiritually--change(s).

  We see this in fighting down the line in human history.  There is loss and there is gain.  There is crushing blow.  There is irrefutable victory.  There is wear and tear, sustaining, maintaining.  In some ways warring became over time just like any other work--selling pizzas, tending sheep, fjording piles of garbage.  In other ways warring can never totally be just like any other work or there would be no humanity left.  That would be job well done if we consider warring as destroying.  

  The U.S. and the Allies went through a profound process in WWII where it met the enemy on the terms of beating away but then reclamating purpose of the fight.  The U.S. also went through similar process in subsequent fighting action.  By the time of Iraq, the broad debate had become to nation-build or what?  We'd made the point, nobody can just attack us and not get punished for that.  But we'd never been able to neatly leave behind a functioning democracy.  Many reasons.

  Part of where the world is now with widespread communications and weapons-capability and technology and a very different social-infrastructure means that we really are, all, in unfolding action all the time.  It's quite different from olden days when it took planning and time to wheel the canons uphill to field.  And breakdown of traditional nation has aided the becoming-reality that the whole world is the "theater of war".

  This is really why there are stalwarts who stay out of political transition and who warn of potential escalation and unintended consequences.  It is why world monitors and think tanks put forth jolting information--which has to be parsed from disinformation and "enemy action"; has to be synthesized with all the other data; has to be keeping up with and maybe staying ahead of.

  We are in a more mysterious phase than solid: this is what we are doing phase.  People like General Milly (sp?) are confirming that there's a heap of happening and some news also ratifies...what is happening...without too much "opinion" on this...unpleasant at best.

  Of course we did.  As teens and young adults we felt and were more like one.  That's part of why addiction was so catchy.  But it went the other way too.  Someone could afford therapy, got some coping tools and stuck a stick in the wheel if us running away or sliding over some edge.

  A strong American personhood, too, was contender to socialism or all those tendencies to just go with the group.  In the late 1970's the Catholics especially found themselves in sticky spots of the world and having to define being a body not a communism.  There were also periods of time (a lot) when a group's advances were pulled back into limbo because the rest of the group was having inner turmoil, being hounded by some other groups, etc.

  It's one of the ways in which a world peace is ultimately ideal, but seemingly always wrecked.

  Dunno.  I was speaking with someone yesterday and some sort of comparison to the past popped out in everybody and Aunt Sally getting appliances.  Suddenly not washing our skivvies for five hours a day.  Invention has often spurred a temporary adjustment period.  I know I've watched people being consumed with the stress of adjusting the belt of AI around their humanity.  We went through it upgrading from landlines to wireless, selling stock (investment) in almost imaginary product, convincing people that computers can do everything better.

  But they can't LOVE YOU like I do, some artists and sitcom heroes wrote into the script.  Even by the end of the movie The Electric Grandmother the characters were embracing the technology that extended the love.  And not everybody has to.  We go through this cycle every year, every decade, every generation convocating...maybe you're more of a non-profit person, or can "see" something about future planet earth life that develops you with specific focus, maybe you never know.  Contrary to chaos-theory there is a common ground that's called bare soil.

  At the moment here in Tsee we have a bizillion floating/flying teenies that seem like lice eggs in the air, or maybe some kind of seed.  They cling.  Can't photgraph well but I'll try.

  Whoa blogger cool.  Didn't know how.

  Nature day, sorry.  Back to grind in less than 24, so

  We sat looking back at them.

  We came to apologize, did you hear us?

  DON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE!  The new man barked.

  Some of us blinked.  It hadn't been us totally out of control.  Totally rude.  Totally violating innocence and development as own people.  One or two took it as a staring contest and were better at that too.  Slender, anxiety-ridden, pale, sweaty statues.

  It's over.

  Yeah it is.

  So.

  No, I mean

  You is mean.

  The new man smacked the table, broad palm snuffing this out.

  Thought the carnival left town Davey.  First one big brother stepped out from behind a clothing donation binbox, and then another.

  A kid kept staring but turned whole self on the picnic table bench towards the other boy.  We'd been making necklaces and pins.  The boys helping us wasn't cheating against the Brownies and it didn't make them sissies.  How'd you get the warriors to come?

  I, I ju, jusht, jusht went to, to a MAH, MAH, MEETING.

  They both started blinking so dry eye wouldn't cling.  Tearing up was a'cuz that, fighting dry eye.

  Big peels of 1976's red, white, and blue firehydrant were balling up beside it two years later.  But the eyes must've been a different kind of paint since they stayed googly and looking out at other 2and one half tall creatures.

  A meeting like she does?  The big handed new man thumbed at our friend's mama.  It was then I realized her tee shirt, cut into a half tee had not perfectly ironed on lettering that said, I'M WITH STUPID.  This was positioned center stage between the sides of a jean jacket.

  The boy held up both hands like he was carrying a big tray, Dunno.

  You been on the wagon Ees?

  Mebbe.  She pursed her lips together against answering questions about anything since everybody knew, you can't talk about nothing.  Who's he?  She tossed a question back since the grenade hadn't exploded and head shoved towards the black Big Brother.

  He's mine, a little black girl said, I requested a black one since it's supposed to be like family right?!

  I don't need one, I have a big sister, another kid said and kept beading.

  Is that a group too?  The black Big Brother asked.

  I'd like to meet those.

  Ain't a dating service bro.

  The black man's face got unslack.  Name's Ray.

  Not bro.  Okay.  Ray.  Bro goes with fro too often in their rhyming.  He didn't head shove but looked back at us.  The us at the picnic table.  So the other Big Brother stopped talking and looked at us too.  A girl waved nonchalantly.  Yup, still here was the general feeling before people got organized and we all got stuff going on.

  The little black girl who was some of ours friend got up and brought Ray a bead pin.  Don't leeeeave, someone pleaded.

  Thankya T, Ray said as he held it up near a gigantic smile and showed it around.  The other Big Brother said, I see it.  He didn't smile.  He took like seven giant steps towards the picnic table.  The new man sat down.  Another girl stood up.  Then a boy stood up bracing himself between the picnic table and bench.  His sneakers were already sloping un-new and then they were half off and boney ankles and heels were ready to launch into fight.

  The Big Brother put both hands out and shook them like trying to get something off them.  No.  No fight.  No fight.  I'm soooooooo tired of fighting.  No fight.  He tried to shove the boy back down into his seat but the boy didn't budge.  The breath came out full red lips calm and could.

  Let's just tawk.

  Let's not and say we did.

  The sound of beads being scooped out of a styrofoam egg dozen box was louder than any talking.  Then the Big Brother said, All these people and nobody's got nothin' to say?

  Ya, yooooo START.

  OK, I will.  It's a lovely day.  I woke up today.  Had no breakfast, no coffee, no OJ.  Went outside to find my tires slashed.  Had to walk to the store.  Almost got run over.  And I've been late all day.  THAT really pisses me off.

  Everyone just looked at him.  Then the boy braced to get in the fight made his voice really loud and said in three plain syllables HA HA HA.

  Welcome to my world, the new man said.  A girl dropped beads back into the egg tray.  Another hand reached out to scavage through for yellows.

  Is that why this?  The big brother grabbed the boy's hands and the smaller hands draped over big.  Knuckles all red grapes.  But the boy didn't fall over, didn't move from his foxhole.

  Who'd you hit?  The big brother asked without letting go of hands.  The boy didn't answer, not even the fifth time of the same question.  When the Big Brother didn't ask again, the boy grinned.  Pumpkin smile.  Let's take a walk shall we?  The boy's head shaking no seemed to not start happening until the Big Brother had stood and started pulling.  The boy looked like a piece of taffy.  They wrestled like this and no one else moved, didn't even pick up the beads jumping with the pull and sink.  At some point the man pretended to look at his watch, really just a lighter shade of tan, and he let go as he said, Look at the time.  The boy sat back down and pulled his tee-shirt over his exposed back.  He started pushing beads into little piles.  The girls each reached for a pile.  One girl gave him and the Big Brother matching pins.

  I guess we pick each other?

  Mebee, the boy said.

  I can let the org know.  And that we need more Big Brothers out here.

  The boy shrugged.

 

Piecing History Together

 

Springplace Greenway

  At the Springplace Greenway in East Knoxville, Tennessee, Thursday morning, the park was abuzz with the excitement of getting ready for something special.  Leaf blowing put the finishing touches on the walkways.  A covered object had been placed on the brick platform created a week or so ago.  The colorful Parks and Rec truck was pulled up close to the pavilion and event supplies were being offloaded.  That's where I caught up with Whitney. 

Knox County Parks & Rec

She is big smile and energetic when I ask her,

 "What's happening today?"

  "Well, today we are having a Dedication Ceremony!"

  "A Dedication Ceremony?" I ask as I jot down what she's telling me.  Whitney works for Knox County Parks and Recreation.

Whitney getting ready

"Yes!  A Dedication Ceremony for a sister millstone." A man moves a podium into place in front of the covered object.  Whitney continues to tell me, "This is the sister stone to the stone at the bottom of the hill.  And now it will be part of our parks system."

She also tells me that there were a lot of stones from the old mill and that there have been books about Buffat Mill written and are at the local library. Today is the remaining sister's, Miss Polly, 91st birthday! It is Miss Polly who is representing the local family who has given the sister stone to the park.

Miss Polly's gift of the stone, Whitney explains, "Keeps that part of the history together which is what the family wanted and what we're really excited about."

The ceremony starts at 10:30 a.m. with cake to follow. At the library a librarian is interested to hear about Miss Polly and the sister stone. She says she's also heard about rennovations taking place in "Daisy Town" which is apparently similar to Elkmont...one of the temperature-cooler places in Knoxville where people had summer homes. Speaking of summer, this is our third or fourth day of full-on summer day. Up in the 90's, a full sun for whole day. A gentleman at the Burlington library in East Knoxville has been taking extra care of the flowers out front. Inside I am directed to a little online reading for more information on the Buffat Mill. One photograph from the source: Knox County Two Centuries Photograph Project gives a "circa" date of 1870. Circa (abbreviated ca.) means at or around a certain date. That would put the Buffat Mill operating in an overlapping time period of when Thomas Hughes started Rugby, TN.

A book called Knoxville Heritage, Knoxville Fifty Landmarks (copyright 1976 Junior League of Knoxville) sports photgraphy by Ron Childress. The forward written by Wm. J. MacArthur, Jr. tells us that "Knoxville was in its earliest days a center of government, commerce, and culture in an agricultural land" (5). And that it was never part of the plantation South. The original Buffat Mills was a complex of buildings including the main house (which the family called "The Maples"), a miller's cottage, smokehouses, a wash house, barns, and a utility building. There is a Diary of Elisa Buffat digitalized, online in the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection. Elisa wrote, "I was married to Alfred Buffat on September 14th 1865 [the year the Civil War ended]. We lived with his parents for two years and nine months, then moved to Spring Place Mills where he had built us a home. Ed was born at his grandparents' old home August 13th, 1866. We moved in our new home in June 1868. It was more convenient for Alfred to be near the Mill where he had to manage everything. He was doing so much business right after the war, grinding day and night. He had two men to run the mill, sent a big load of flour to town everyday. Also ran the sawmill, he had several hired men living on the place and kept them working at the Mill and on the farm. I enjoyed keeping house, everything new, and plenty to live on" (103, Mss, Some Recollections of My Childhood Days and Incidents of My Life During the Civil War, written and copied in the year 1916).

The opposite of everything that sucks in the world.  My camping trip this summer included an informative visit to Tellico Plains Visitor Center.

   

  I do, I remember that cartoon I drew in an election time...a State Department person putting up a flyer announcing a shift in groupage.  Then Trump's first time in office brought different working methods, different people.  All working on nation, all being the government, leading by being administration.

  Sometimes when we come together for work, school, church, creative endeavor we seem to carry theme to the table.  Sometimes we seem clueless and it takes work to let it surface, to dig, to harvest.  Sometimes it's not happening.

  Some interesting times (although not always productive past the personal) involve an expansion on self- authoring.  Sometimes people show up in actor-mode and costume.

  My mask was in the way!

  But you promised me you'd read the new piece!

  The couple was almost fighting under the auroraborealis sky smearing with neon greens and flashing yellows and lime.  It can seem like one of God's cradles or "rooms" maybe like a studio when the sky does that.  Maybe it's souls coming and going I thought to myself.  All over campus people had been grouping, isolating, navigating.  A residency brings people in from all over the world.  And like a campsite people bring, well, a lot of different stuff.  Not everyone is inclined to see semester as table, so appeals (such as addresses) really don't automatically inspire and rally.

  That semester there was a lividness.  I'd say a general lividness but lividness itself never doesn't involve people; people being livid.

  How can you NOT be outraged?  A woman in mellow, soft clothing had walked up to a guy in the cafeteria and asked.  He didn't respond.  Didn't even look up from his sketch book.  What are you?  Stoned or something?  Don't answer that.  He seemed not going to answer any question anyway so maybe the woman was a nag.  She glared at him.  He did not take eyes from page but slowly outlined the figure he'd been drawing.  Are you going to talk to any of us ever again?  The pen slowed to a crawl but lingered on a hip.  The woman sighed and frowned and looked out a window.  Somebody of the maybe ten others at the table forced a conversation.

  I find it dis BUUuuuRrrrp gushting.  Barf.  I'm.  Choking.  On.  My.  Outrage.  Head dropped to a shoulder then and the wandering triage person put a bottle of water and papertowels next to the person.

  I'm just saying.

  ^=£√✓%¢×÷™®©°^]`

  Just saying.

#+)@=π\£×•~&!!!

  Still just saying.

¥π✓%{=£|~\^¥[°(:?

  That is all.

  It's like I can't, can't

  Or won't

  Might not be able to

  Maybe

  Not sure

  Very few people were even close to re-membering the pulverized.  Before a conversation or a class there was no way to know what all might be evoked by talking about anything.  And a thing of it was, we'd been here before.  Blank stares, vicious eye-sticking STAY AWAY, a thousand I'm sorries at the starts of sentences, run-on-thoughts, even scripted speeches with halts and double-backs...

  There's no guidebook, the artist Beulah Gordon uttered.  We were sitting on a floor, holding up the wall, and people were coming and going in a limbo space outside an office where we were supposed to turn in "study plans".

  There never was Gordon.

  That said, she hoisted her back from the wall which had me press against it more, hooked an arm around one knee and didn't get up.  I started in with a barage of questions.  To stall.  To longlive the moment.  She uh-huh'd and yes mam'd and said Noooo, fucking no.  Another student seemed to be yelling above our heads, I worried about spit getting on me, Then I'll see you online???  Someone who hadn't crested the stairwell replied, They tell me that's where it's all happening.

  Right then, good luck.  Footsteps on thin, worn carpeting loud against the subfloor.

Sort of

  Are you in or are you out?  The question seems to be asked by a perpetually plaincloths person.  That electronics geek in blown out sweatpants.  Or the no wedding ring cottonflannel shirted girl seen in the ray of light that crosses the coffee shop everyday but only at a certain time.  It's not really about sex or sexuality.  It's not only being asked of specific people.  The question comes up at certain points in American history.  And it certainly comes up for people in creative cycle, chains of command and production, and in any kind of planning.

  It's come up again in the article in Foreign Affairs ("Why the U.S. May Not...") by Milly and Schmidt.  Ahead of field firming and category organizing, it prompts.  Even to people holding out on dipping into anything political, paying attention to anything military, the article asks deeply and profoundly...Are you American?  If so, no matter your state of mind or favorite flavors, you do know where your loyalties must go, correct?

  Even progressives of the past brought it back to defending nation: loyalties must go there.  If not by themselves, as part of fundamental change to balance of power not just because of personal and social innovation, but because nation as definition is what we are working with.  One world, floaty ephemeral world, idealistically perfect world...cha, that's nice but...

  Milly and Schmidt's article goes far and wide as a sports ball and reminds there is a game going on.  Other nations are doing all sorts of stuff with radio and airplanes; energy and cheap tools.  It's a sort of general invite to think of country always as having a military, one which inevitably does the heavy lifting when it comes to defense.

  It sparked a memory of grad school for me.  One of those free-for-all writers reading their works nights.  There hadn't been a theme pronounced.  And it occurred before the keynote address.  People were a little startled and amazed to realize that most of the disparate readings were about cyborgs and armeggedon.  Who are we?  An older student looked outward from beneath a combed moo of white hair and asked.  Whoever we were we'd picked up on changes, some so historic there was no way to shake it off.  This stuff was touching everyone's lives.  The turn of century was happening two decades before and after the calendar marked the actual date.

  While the militaries of the world are their own breed of entity they do not exist in isolation.  What are we gonna do?  is broadly asked.  The thinking around the question comes from anywhere and everywhere.  That is strength-building, not weakness, by the way.

  In both of the books I'm reading--From Pearl Harbor Into Tokyo and The Fire Line--the study of such action-writing includes elements and forces being as much character as the people.

  A couple years before September 11th, 2001 I was writing for a newspaper in Massachussets (which I'm not sure I'm spelling correctly in the bright sun today).  It was pre-1999 too, the mythology of Y2K was reaching a crescendo.  So was a D.C. rubbing itself in suntan oil for their own bonfire, really heating up.  The overall meter reading on end of the world because computers may or may not know the date, at that time, in that place was barely registering.  Really?  All of civilization lost? was the tongue-in-cheek from most of the office workers.  People who'd been working two, three jobs to make up for savings just gone, to support the one of three kids who really wanted to go to college, to eat out once a month and cook a goddamn, goshdarn dear steak on the grill they'd been paying on for 32 months.  The same people who'd hang back getting on an elevator and mumble-communicate, had it up to here, the hand would indicate over the head.  Can't really sufficiently explain what I'm feeling right now.

  As if a lasting legacy other than what people had proven themselves to be was possible a lot of lame duck suggestions came down.  Did you know one aspect of my job is also cleaning lady?  An office ham would yawn, stretch, and knock political drivel off a desk into a recycling bin.  It was like spring fever had taken hold and though not everybody liked Prince, anyone anywhere might break into some emotive version of party like it's 1999.

  The Mayor, Gary, kind of like TV"s Commish, would take the papers out of the bin and pop it into the closest binder.  He might quip about auxilary help which could be even more part time and he'd go back to his office and straighten up the pens.  He kept a routine and would make sure the file cabinets were locked and outer labels straight too, and then read the postmail.  He kept the piles separate...advertising; real person; and to be re-read later in the afternoon.  One morning he was deep into a serious stack of like nine pieces of mail, his brow furrowing then relaxing, when he stood up and said, *This is something.*

  Being there like in a principal"s office, ready to cover updates from the departments and Selectmen's meetings, it wasn't my place to ask, "What is it?". And it was another couple days, maybe even into the next week, before somebody had to get off sitting on the copy machine because here came Gary.  He had this way of like continuing a conversation from somewhere else when he'd come into a room full of people (nervous habit) and that day he was saying is interesting.  Not sure how it will work.

  "Looking to make something function?" A Planning & Zoning person asked.  "You've come to the right, uh, correct department!"

  "Awfully cheery Bob, but yeah, I want people to put their heads together on something."  Gary had put the received mail in a big binder, and made two replicas.  He delivered the two other binders to two other departments.  On the way back to his office after a trip to straighten maps of the town, Bob was standing in the hallway with the piece of mail on two palms.  You could tell he didn't really want to say but did, "Not sure what to do with this Sir."

  "Then put it back in the binder and give it to the next guy, person."

  At the next Selectmen's meeting all three binders were there on the group desk.  Gary sighed and shrugged when he spied the binders before the meeting.  He leaned back against the hallway wall and said, *We'll see."

  Motions and tablings.  Agreements and no's.  Timelines.  Verdicts on procedural? It was towards the end if the meeting that a Selectman who'd aspired to be on the Supreme Court moved the binders from table corner to, an elbowing of the sitting-next-to pass this, front and center. 

  "Gary."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "We've looked at this document, and there are some notes here from Department People 

  "Such as?"

  "We'll let you keep the notes.  I don't think we even need a copy.  Do we?" Heads shook no not necessary and someone slid the pile of binders closer to the front edge.

  "Do you need anything from us to proceed?"

  "Should be good, but thank you."

  Over the next couple months Gary worked with a broad diversity of people to develop statewide safety measures especially around communications.  One of those projects that aren't in the spotlight, until they are.  A "topic" that should not be dropped despite political transition.

Competitive v cooperative

  A lot of business really says both.

  It's the both in both that sees through economic stagnation and political nowhereville.  It's the business part of the equation that makes free market enterprise different than you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours "governance".  It was innovative and big change when larger retail and the food industry not only said the word wellness but opened the paths to such a state to all workers.  It took a sort of activism.  Some call that working from within.  There were executives who'd never really taught before but rose to the challenges of talking about business model; explaining how happier teammates made customers happier; how caring figures into profitability.  And there were exhausted workers who'd somehow hung on without "sea change".

  Like an oasis, people would report of having checked out other options and come back.  Even having dodged bullet, storms, and toxicity to work in other places, same outfit,  people would talk with deep appreciation of the new realism.  Some bosses knew, trend-setting doesn't always happen overnight.  And, in fact, stocks and trending-nows are more seismograph of the long haul than insta-hooplah about "new".

  The changes to function and investment weren't always mind-blowing.  And the language around entity and staff was usually more flexible and fresh than old employee handbooks.  It was good timing for business and culture learning to use the more digital tools, produce works to facilitate getting to a common ground...even though companies are a flavorful bunch of individuals working on shared goal.

  A political impasse, a beefing up of business solution.  It didn't require a ton of youth to be draughted in, there were plenty of middle agers who'd economically remained "children" and that was the real sticking point at hiring time and in retention.  Very few needed more schooling to achieve at least economic step above cart people and cray crays.  Not that America was a class system or caste system, but there became opportunity to mind the lines, put foot down about decency.

  In some places the visible grown ups were not going to let the lurking evil win.  People worked and people worked at....

  Better that than drugs, was a scathing response to the critical of anyone not just submitting to hoarde boss and modern master.  The old dictatoring had turned into the major ideologies locking people into this OR that.  Me OR them.

  Fooding was a last bastion of okay to be me?!  I don't enjoy onions.  I will eat them though if they're already in there.

  

"How you gonna do good like that?"

   The table of university was a bit of a banquet.  I'd been raised to be modest and mindful of moderation.  There were moments when I was neither.

  Once I was stinking of alcohol still and definitely crumple-clothes'd when a professor who'd been reading all our intellectual journals dialed it down.  She rifled through every excuse I had for messing up and named each as what it was and short-listed the I get thats.  But she also didn't psychoanalze me or lecture.  I babbled for almost the whole twenty-minutes of check in time.  Was embarassed that I'd not kept up with the readings and ashamed of myself for spending the weekend in a Gen X version of pop culture, at that time: anything goes and you can't kill us.  My actual brain was refusing to pick up the shelving of my education.  It was screaming fuck excellence.  

  It'd be easier, she said like she'd read my mind.

  Why can't good be good enough?

  That's complicated for six minutes.

  A welcome silence.  I looked at my grungy hands and shook my head.  The screaming turned into a slow and gross-smelling exhale.  She picked up a stack of papers to grade and started reading.

  Am I free to go?

  Quite.  But let me ask you a question.

  Okay.

  How are you going to be good like that?

  I met Beth at the Reader's Feast book and food joint.  The hot sauce was crusted in a hard drip on the outside of a bottle.  After assessing whether or not I'd blown anything major ("damage control") we ate quietly.  She was remembering titles of books and checking to see if the place had these.  She settled on a book of poetry, bought it and gave it to me.

  Why this one?

  Why not? No, not that, but if I get it, the poetry, there's a blend of compensating for not being perfect in an imperfect world, and, really beautiful, what you people call imagery.

  Us people?

  Writing, thinking types.

  You're my people too.

  Not so much as a vegetable-peeler and knitter 

  Oh, you've been hanging with your Mom's older friends.

  She drank half a cup of coffee in one long sip while nodding her head.  Of course she dribbled, laughed it off, and said, See, turning into one already.

  They don't actually drool?

  I didn't drool, it just dribbled out.  Did you see any of these bands?  She took an entertainment section of newspaper out from inside her cardigan that had been tucked into her skirt waistband.  I looked at the list and shook my head.  I wasn't looking for them.

  Listening, so I fell in with an older crowd myself.  Well, not old but like Middle Age and getting older.

  Aren't we all?!

  Did you know they already did all this social justice stuff?

  Really?!

  A double-look to register, sarcasm.

  And who are they?

  Well, they just have regular names now, but they used to come up with interesting names depending on which war they were fighting.

  War?

  Yeah, most of them, especially as we talked longer and longer, felt like, feel like stuff like poverty isn't just endemic, it's a war.

  Which is how we've felt about drugs and alcohol.

  Ah, yeah.  I lost a battle with the bottle.

  You still look like shit.

  I'm sure I do.

  Customers started coming in more steadily.  Outside the weather was like wet cement, the rain and the traffic's lights blurred.  It made the inside feel more like a home.  And the smells of soup and sandwiches blended with coffee.  I'm okay, I acknowledged.  I didn't say, I wish this now could last forever.

  You are.  The world is not in a lot of ways.

  Not sure I can or want to try and change it.

  A lot of headbanging.

  Yeah.  I opened the book of poetry and found someone had died.  The author confessed to death really being beyond our ability to academize human response.  The author told story in lines and meter, bursting paragraphs packed into droplets of literature.  In the story a woman brings a neighbor lasagna.

  Thanks for the lasagna, I said as I put money on the table for my coffee.

  It wasn't too long afterwards that I got to spend time with a writing mentor.  One of the first things Fallaci did was have us go back to the hipster dive where I'd been somewhat entranced with the small crowd of fossilizing activists.  I declined the chance to drink choosing bitters on ice instead.  She busied herself with tying and untying a bag strap.  And we worked through not writing like each other or anyone else really.  It being a fairly truly lonely occupation/vocation.  And where the world was heading in terms of "truth".  She always almost spit on that word, truth.  But it would take me years and years to understand why.

  She waited until we were outside in the almost frigid cold that had come down from farther north and then said, "Those are not activists.  Those were revolutionaries and now they are common international criminals."

  My usual sardonic response was all I could muster, "Great."

  Really?  Beth asked.

  I blinked a few times and frowned and considered how someone might react to what was coming out of my mouth.  And realized in split seconds of thought, I should've thought of that before.  But this was Beth.  Long time confidante.  Is it okay that I told you?

  She lifted elbows off the table and turned her arms looking at fronts ans backs and said, No Revolutionary germs here.

  I didn't know.

  And now you do.

  Indeed.

  She also suggested I read Allende and Traba in the catching up.  Did you know I've read one hundred and seventy two books this year?

  She blew out the smoke of the Parliament and put lines through some of the bands and venues coming soon.

"12,000 LATINOS, what could go wrong?"

   Some coursework went from a focus on diversity into very specialized per flavor.  Visiting professors and seminars brought the world to university.  I even got to take a course on South Africa!  The professor was kind in explaining, This is really different, so don't beat yourselves up if you struggle.  Through lecture and literature we were able to see from afar both another nation and culture plus begin to understand how a culture authors a person.  It was a form of immersion though not the same as learning the language and living some place else.  The professor was really hungry to learn too and this led to all of us being superengaged.  Our discussions often led us into the waters of critcal thinking about self in the world.  And thinking about un-named topics like...Relating to a character in the book The Life and Times of Michael K; is it empathy?  Is empathy different than sympathy?  Are we relating to just parts of the character?  Is that what makes the story literature?  How can a culture so clashing and contentious still be unified?  The questions would mount up and over meals people would realize no matter the specialized look at humankind there were universal themes, universal issues.  That much liberality in acknowledging "other" made some people excited.

  Although there was job shortage and stiff competition for "good jobs"(work with meaning, we called it), there was also a consistent pulse to workstudy.  Might be internships, maybe foreign exchange, possibly a route via grad work, more-advocates-than-recruiters would explain about work less defined than the dwindling supply in the newspaper's Classifieds.  Travel was becoming more regular after hot war and cultural moshes.  

  My own parents heard me out on some ideas, but my mom was astute on each one of her kids' true readiness for big undertaking.  Not sure if you're ready became her way of urging no without an outright no that might make someone, ah maybe rebel against a no.  But you have no idea how much I have been learning.  That's true, I'm sure it's a lot.  But you are also only ten years past being ten years old Missy.  And the world is big.  I guess so.

  Others started to get assignments and posts.  Even as there were several people congratulating a favorite student (brains and charm) on really going to teach, overseas I couldn't keep my own mind from cut-to-the-quick questioning.  She had some elevator-speech-like answers for some questions.  There's no way to know everything ahead of time, she insisted to others.  She was tall and just gorgeous or that's how my eyes were seeing her that day (along with myself as little and not much older than a ten year old), and she searched my face.  Any more questions?  It was hard to ask the one I'd wanted to ask.  But before she put the last item back into her briefcase I asked quickly, Are you scared?

  12,000 Latinos, what could go wrong?  

  The school has 12,000 people?

  Fortunately I don't have to teach all of them at once.  At least, not at the start.  I think.

  We hate to lose you.

  I really wouldn't have thought so.  I can be really loud and tudey when necessary.

  We'd laughed about the new word "tudey" along the way.  And she'd fashioned a sort of poem in the air about feeling, sometimes, the women of her family and flavor speaking through her.

  Sometimes it is necessary.

  Will you come back and visit?

  Maybe, but you won't be here!  You will graduate and go onto different projects!

  Thanks.  You'll do so good!

  Take care.

  After classes, after work I caught up with Beth.  She called it mining the day.  She was at a different school and the City was the journal between us.  I was very on-campus-oriented so most of my stories about the day seemed just homebody.  But relaying news and events and pulling bits out for potential lyrics made it seem like anything might be important.  We came up with part of a song called Tudey but the working on it kinda fell apart in overtired laughter.  

  Yeah, she was the one who got us to dance like chickens!

  Like chickens?  Explain.

  We'd gone to help youth at a center or something.  I'm sure I wrote down where we were.  The day started with food and exercise.  But one guy in a suit, no tie, got all arms crossed and standoffish.

  About what?

  Said something like, I'm not eating THAT that's chicken food.

  Just listening so the story had to play out.

  You know how you can make a blunder funny?  Like with kids, you can turn it funny?

  Cha.

  Well, he didn't.  And what he said just laid there like a dead soccer ball.  And, she went over to the table, all tall, and was really dramatic about how lovely what we had was.  She didn't talk, but made a plate and ate it with her hands and licked her fingers one at a time like Deliciosah!  Then she threw out the paper plate and started to act like she was turning into a chicken!

  She did?

  Cha.  At first it looked like she was choking or poisoned, but she got it going on until she really looked like a chicken.  And then people started laughing.  Some got food and did the same.  Some just started flopping around, all of us dancing around like chickens.

  Did it help?

  It did, it broke the ice and limbered us up for the activity.  And nobody even fought with that guy.

   Ah, let's see.  The semesters after. In my university experience....

  An almost total reserve followed.  There wasn't a person who didn't feel some measure of involvement even though, overall, it was the "radicals" who took the fall and who were ousted from the hallowed halls.  There was a lot of unresolved that got placed in the stacks.  Faces had doured somewhat.  Activism had made a lot of noise, but like academia alone, not much had changed politically because of it.

  People developed better senses of self and self-control.  And a mutual sense of place as not really owned by any one group.  Professors seemed to revert to a more research-based learning rather than allow cracks into which an out-of-hand might slip and develop.  Some (with feelings hard to read) were clearly distancing their romantic notions of teaching from "job".  It became a dance again.  Very straightforward introductions like My name is Tim and I teach history.  At most people wished out loud that all the ground covered in confidence hadn't been lost to a stuffy-shirted generic, but group-wise, it had.

  A thoughtful professor started saying, My name is Belinda and this is what I bring to the table....

  Literalists didn't see any table, but remembered the woman's name.

  Deans made it a point to be heard by students, warnings with and without winks, Don't jazz it up too much.  Under a microscope turns shirts stuffy.  But it also shores up parameters on a notion like "Academia".  And that creates the need for speakeasies and alternate venues.  The need of humans to express themselves has often prompted communications and art.  That kind of work may not be welcome at a Board Meeting or even earn one enough money for beans with pork, but it saves lives and prevents flatlining in culture.

  Good, glad you found yourself, now go be that!  Certainly there were members of Congress who breathed easier when the Hill should be more like a campus.  Others with a more critical eye towards how America truly functions knew it would be harder than ever to refresh a liberal art bunch in there than a diversity of representatives who do the job as the job needs doing and step away from policy as schooling everyone.  The commentators droned on.

  Have YOU ever been in a prison?  A student asked the teaching a Social Justice class to get further in law school professor.  The professor didn't answer at first.  We watched as she eyed the student and didn't ask, Have you?  Or is it a relative?  Literally cleared throat.  Well, no, but

  A lot of conversations were started and left suspended.  Outside in the City guns in waistbands and drug paraphenalia all over the place spoke volumes about theories v realism.  Lawyering is as liberal as it gets, a parent said to a crying worn out Christian kid.  Really? Sucking back sniffles.  I'm tired.  Yeah, think about it.  Squiggling up, around, over, through any truth to prove point.  Did you guys fight with the teacher?  No.  Good.  You've only got a little time left and you, you don't have anything to prove to anyone but yourself.

  Okay.

  Self-authoring a life, I thought back to camping and how brave it was of an overworked mother to schlepp to the woods and prove love and care not just to her own son, but to more than a dozen she'd written a song for and sang without crying.  Ganging up to protect tenures and pensions, I thought of the hundreds of people I'd met in retail and food service, workers and customers alike, who agree: We're only as "good" as our next meal.  Hard to know about what to pursue for self exactly.  But I knew we didn't need to be afraid of an America that doesn't squiggle from the basics of Constitution.

  Not your playground, we made tee-shirts for the crossing guards at an elementary school nearby.  "Well, thank you." Eyes watered.

  "What's wrong?" One asked another.

  "Touched."

  The silence then stuffed with, with all of the things professors know and don't know in the spotlight of a question.

  A third ran a weathered hand over the folded tee-shirt and pressed it further into the tissue paper cocoon.  "Somebody might take it the wrong way," she said diplomatically.

  "Like how?"

  "Like it's a threat."

  "Oh my God," I watched my hands squish the lid back on the box.  Eyes just looking at each other.

  "I'll save them," the oldest crossing guard unsquished the corners of the box.

  "The kids too," another of the three assured.

  A closet door was opened and revealed totally neat.  "What else you got in there?" The youngest asked the oldest.

  "Oh, some different things."

  Up above uniforms and Sunday clothes, tee shirts in hangers, and shoe boxes with only a few pair of casual work shoes on top, other gift boxes on a shelf.  "Mostly things that came at Christmas." The smells of chili were starting to reach the sitting area of the apartment.  "You'll both stay to dinner," she said as she dragged a tablechair over to the closet.

  "Uh-uh, no, have to get back to campus before dark," heads shaking no.  "We'll stay," the other crossing guards offered.

  "You're not invited," the oldest one moved boxes around on the shelf and made a slot for our deposit.  "'Sides if nobody stays, I'll have lunches for the rest of the week."

  Outside the four of us lit cigarettes and made sure okay.  I shook my own head, stupid, "I shoulda thought of that, so stupid."

  A cloud of cigarette smoke said, "Not stupid."

  "Maybe too kind?" The youngest crossing guard asked.

  "Pretty vanilla," the next oldest crossing guard said.

  "Like we're just dumb white people?  Vanilla?"

  "Nobody's talking about smarts smartypants."

  "What are we talking about?"

  "Or not talking about?"

  She didn't answer.  She shook her own head, eyes narrowing.  After a while she said, "My father knew Biko."

  "The guy in the song?"

  "The guy in the song.  It took a long time to do what he's been doing."

  "Are you South African?"

  "Your daddy knew the Bishop?"

  "Meaning one failed tee shirt does not activist make?"

  "No, just black.  As black as black gets.  Yes, my father worked with him more than once.  And you, Mrs. T appreciated, appreciates people at the College thinking of the younger ones, but the crime problem here is not going to be solved by tee shirts.  It's endemic."

  I put that word on the running list to ponder in my dictionary.  She took a tube sock rolled up out of a pocket and got her keys out of the sock.  "A flavor that's all.  We're all just humans with flavoring Vanilla."

  "Should I call you Licorice?  Or Just Black?  Or As Black As It Gets?  Or Chocolate?  Or

  "It's Gina, that's my given name."

  "Cool.  I'm Lara and my schoolmate here is," on the phone, so often on the phone.  "Starting to make it as a musician."

  "Really?"

  "Beth, hey sorry," she put her hand out and both crossing guards shook it.  One asked, "What kind of music?"

  "Uh, not defining it on purpose."

  "Well, maybe we'll get to hear it sometime."

  "This semester's been crazy busy."

  "And now we can take act of activism off the list."

  "Or re-do, maybe it should go on the re-do list," the younger crossing guard suggested.

  "I'm so over other peoples' lists and wasn't even aware that activism was a thing separate from life," Beth took a pack of smokes out and offered to share.  No takers.  "I never heard of that kind," someone said.

  "Well, I've got to get ready for work, early," Gina said.

  "Thanks.  For not being mean or anything about the tee shirts," I said.  

  Gina passed the younger crossing guard a bus pass and told all of us, "If I was going to waste time being mean, it would be at the bad guys.  But we just can't right now."

  Endemic, the word was one I knew and didn't know I knew.  Like "flavors" it stuck in the gristmill of my mind.

  Back in the class Lincoln who was calling himself Moomaduke chewed on one corner of his inner lip.  How'd it go?

  How'd it go for you?

  Neither of us seemed to want to answer the question.

  I learned the word endemic.

  Ah yes, erndemic.

  And I met someone who knew someone who worked with Bishop Biko.

  Beeekoh, Beeeekohoh oh Beekoh he humsang.

  And, got named Vanilla as a flavor as in we're all humans, different flavors.

  Least you didn't get spit on.

  You got spit on Moomaduke?

  He responded with an older lady eah-hmmmmm.  Then said, Yep, big old clump of spit right here, he pointed to his breastplate.

  Did you spit back?

  Hell no.

  My tee shirts were a flop, now stowed away like ugly sweaters and reindeer socks.

  I could add my picket sign to that pile.

  The professor came in just then.  A tiny lady with a high squeaky voice.  She put her drink with a reusable straw on the edge of the desk and asked, How is everyone?

  Groans and mutters mostly.  Then someone ventured that was hard.  

  What was hardest about it?  Let's use that as a starting point.

  Turned into an honest discussion about levels of comfortableness with doing activism.  Some people felt such work shouldn't be about personal comfort.  Other students felt strongly about sacrifice and activism not really being service so, How is the greater good served?

  Is it?

  More conversation brought people to definitively not agreeing about activism's purpose and we got into asking each other if it has a role?

  Like life's a movie?

  Lincoln slipped me a note.  Tutu was the Bishop.

  Is your life like a movie?  A student asked another student.

  Yeah, a horror flick.

  The professor said, Let's switch gears.  What was easy about the projects you undertook?  And let's write that down.  What is written down can be the start of the due "process papers".  Eyebrows went up and people sighed.  But all of us started writing.

  After class Moomaduke said, Thought you were more of a journalist White Bread.

  White Bread?  That's not a flavor.  And, the conversation about Biko was just people talking.

  Still.  It was a lie.

  Maybe a stretch Linc, Pastrami and Swiss on Rye, but not a lie.  And I really wouldn't know about South African history.

  So, White Bread just takes it all in?  

  What's your point?  Why are you

  All up in your grill

  About something, I don't even know what.

  Have you considered actually using journalism to achieve the goals you say are the same for everyone?

  Like activism journalism?  The two things don't go together for me.

  Think about it.  He was gone to cross campus before I could give him the stink eye.  How dare he even suggest someone should combine journalism with anything else.

  Towards think tanks, kingmakers, and an invisible but seemingly omniscient and prescient corporate-owned version of America we went.  And like the more staunch black-owned and christian-owned a professionalism was used to fortify clubhouses (hip-ly called campuses) and cloak thuggish.  In reality we were no less like Italy before the Renaissance than what a new America would've become without the Constitution.  Most people griped and moaned, some cautioned hate the corporations not the people, and it became really difficult to not bite the hand that feeds.

  The particular blend of private/public that commandeered charted the course for 21st century although some people have sallied alternative language.  The death knell had sounded for Jimmy Carter type digging deep to bridge color and party-flavor and sport the red, white, and blue, 'til death do us part, amen.  God bless us everyone.  

  All issues were filtered and parsed through the hands off, surveillance and closed circuit TV mode.  This went way beyond isolationism.  And the world spun on.  Benghazi?  Blame it on "the witch".

  During World War II it was't even possible to call it WWII, the killings and occupations and actions associated with that mode of "big business" amounted to what was dictating even more than the ugly personalities being cartooned and cajoled as "the dictators".  In public there wasn't much to talk about so magazines repackaged principles in disjointed chunks of American Word.

  The baby boomers didn't just seem to be pretending all's well, they were some of the first survivors past capability to decimate.  Anxiety, shellfish living, desperation to model not just survival in suburban pods but a thriving nation, that uh

  They'd been born innocents like everyone else.  Born into ceaseless games of hide the flag while the molten chemicals waft this way.  Paste up that victory story about the gal who never gave up and finally got those fake eyelashes in place.  Consider it a win for the team!  Sell more of those particular eyelashes!

  Human nature v disjointed chunks

  On the Plains, daylight stayed hidden from the people under a sod roof until shards of light worried a knife left unwashed, a bit of corner not exactly square for the windblown soil smoothing edges.

Thirty years later...

   Everywhere I've gone in North Carolina and Tennessee the people I met then are mostly still around.  And most still have that spark in the eye, a smile even though working hurts, and they/we are still dedicated to that blend of living that is more American than political party--taking care of self, teams, and place.  It's been amazing to see we've existed, not fought to death in most cases, even slowly but surely thrived family and project. 

  So much sweet tea and sticking to guns.  There's a determination to see things through.  Fads come and go, but grit and being authentic has brought this area of Old Glory to an almost miraculous blend of nature and industry; culture and values.  This isn't some old stereotype.  Like the Smokies have been maintained despite good times, bad times, there is a strong sense of caring about State down here, and so being supportive of Nation too.

  Thirty years ago I took a drive on a day off from work with a daily goal to understand the next state over by photographing some reality.  The first photograph I took was the old, wearing away coffee sign.  The sight of it as dislocated from a coffee mill or factory struck me as symbolic.  In that way we'd come along as the next generation and inherited so much America much bigger than ourselves.  We were finding the remnants of a post-WWII world.  We were a different kind of human.  And our generation was miniscule compared to that of the baby boomers!

  It was and wasn't acknowledged that we'd have to spread out.  You're joking right? A person asked to some of us who'd met up a few years after college.  Nope, a real stubbornly independent person said.  Even as creatives the grouping-together thing wasn't the most effective way to read situation and make moves.  There was chance for meeting and talking about the state of things where we'd come from, and what we'd heard about where we were trying to go.  But there was also a steady unclear.

  The unclear often had to do with change happening as we'd arrive and/or settle into something.  Some of us couldn't escape the sense of being just out of step, or a moment too late.  And, that was how it was.  But the company was gone, or the management had shifted into another part of companies ever-changing.  There'd been ladders.  But we'd arrive to find even the ropes had been taken away.  Whole places must've been something.

  Just missed it.

  Late night talks over Cuban sweet AND sour food wouldn't yield argument as much as awakening.  The whole neighborhood had changed.  Oh, it has? A local writer didn't look up from reading Obits.  Are these people invisible to you???

  I AM listening.

  The pulse had changed.  While there was solid-block-suburbia, cities were being brought back to life in a mix of melodrama and bill-paying.  There'd been gravitation to strong baby boomers who'd survived the crazy eighties (somehow) and were overall the most practical people going.  Business people all.  Open to ideas of how to freshen up what works, maybe even trying to let go of what wasn't working.  They encouraged--Go for it, but be careful.  

  "Everybody knows that!" A thirty-something yelled dramatically.  At some points the information-letting got ahead of "release" and/or new deal in the works.  People would be steaming hot and pissed off.  A balance between privacy and hip-hooplah wasn't always easy to achieve.  A lot of people were learning how to be professionals as time marched on.  

  There was a difference between making mistakes and attitude though.  Old schoolers had different reasons for having had enough with some people, and many didn't walk away but would let you know, You're letting you attitude get in the way.

  Yeah?!?  But what was attitude?  What was holding on to self and not being knocked down into the cookie cutter machine?  Our-agers had come of age in a world where it was ALL happening.  You could be your parents or you could do something different.  You could stay in poverty or you could make a million bucks.  What attitude is prescribed for that kind of inheritance?

  Knock it down or I'll do it for you, a boss would say to just about any new person.  The person would have to weigh threat vs. worth of job.  Someone who'd been there might explain, that's just so and so's way.  To assume somebody else has the attitude, or to be jealous of someone else's brightness.  Some companies seemed more slave-holder than business.  Some workers mitigated.  Change in company culture was called for in many cases.  And it was often the gave a damn people who tried to explain to unknowing youth, this pretty much sucks but it can be REALLY bad, out there.

  There was more anger at out there than demand for more pay or including some kind of dignity clause in workplace policy.  Similar to now, thirty years ago, there were druggies that would never give that up; there were people who needed health care; there were "cart people".  And like understanding what changes in science could mean for disease or progress, there was unclear.

  The unclear would press its face to the window every morning, not exactly asking a person to step up, nor saying go away.  And most "issues" were slow-turning like a pig on a spit.  The majority, vague as it was without delineation, managed to get on same page largely because someone brought a bigger sheet of paper.

  Inside academia and all kinds of meetings thinking and re-thinking added to taking action was making stuff happen.  Some longtime "militants" still barked no, you listen to me at the start of every sentence, even when everyone was, but some things had been such embittered battling it was just automatic response.  And, when asked, people admitted to feelings of it could get taken away.

  Taking ownership was bittersweet for many.  It went along with lack of confidence.  Most humans would prefer to still have their other humans around, more so than finding self suddenly struggling with mantel.  The opportunities appeared out of foggy unclears, were earned by putting time in, happened despite some amount of end of the world.

  And a grassroots confidence-building movement was afoot.  To some, all along the way, it was cause to cry favoritism, cry kindness as breaching racial barrier.  And there was some amount of religious likemindedness mentality that made for a healthy separating of business and so, competition.  An overarching question became more about what is generic? than personal attitude.

  Of course, overall economy e/affects both questions.  And that was liberal-thinking applied...get the others caught up.  But like space travel, "catching up" doesn't really happen without specific factors being manipulated.  Many times since the birth of democracy nations and intellectuals come to the same wall...free market or.  And the or is not free market.  And the or has more and more "players".

  There is shift in unclear.

  To some extent we were hounding the middle agers.  We wanted to know what was going to happen to us.  Unsettled both by the violences of the 80's and early nineties (the turning of decade did not bring automatic difference) and not yet landed, or owning much of anything, we wanted someone to tell us okay.  To some extent too we could tell that the more things change the more they stay the same.  Between amassing political chants for change and having been a social bunch in schools and malls and fast food places, we were perhaps more shocked by the loneliness of most middle agers than by hearing that body parts wear out, real ownership is hard to achieve, and very few people can really claim "happy".

  What no one predicted was the terrorism lashing out of stranded well-being-wise.  And the unclear of technology turning people into isolated weapons also lashing out.  It was happening fast...technology dominating mind and heart.  Even calling out what might happen mostly brought blank stares.  For a long time before everyone was married and going in direction of family-first there was often someone to say I'll always care.

  That was part of the crusade--to keep caring.  As individuals and as professionals, to keep caring.  Not to let older people suffer at end of life, or children to have nobody, not let the planet be only a toxic waste dump, not to look away from cancers and madness, not to abuse people with personal choice...there were a lot of things not to do even when that meant contention with the obvious bulk of people not caring, or meant walking away.  In fact, a lot of young adulthood was defining ourselves.  Our parents assured, we did that too.

  Don't you care? We plead-asked about what got distilled to "cause".  Can't you see it's all connected?  Jesus.  Don't use the Lord's name in vain!  I'm NOT, I'm praying.

  The corporate boogeymen and irrepressible people catching up kept pressing in as unclear but there, for sure.  The formulas of clearcut "American" didn't seem to be working.  Or a loudspeaker such as they have in the DMZ of the Koreas kept blaring the ideas of it, America, USA, USA boiled down and blanched but without substance to superficial.  Like, just put on this Chinese-made hoodie that reads USA in tie-dye and you've got this.

  In reality, of course, it's so much more.  But between feld swoop policy that unmakes, remakes, reverbs, and rewinds policy and the machinery we've made of existence, well

  Here we are.  Mostly museumified and quotes about love and caring in country music songs.  We passed through agreeing to disagree.  Ticked off can't really get along like it was on a To Do list and we're mostly ignoring each other until an election cycle brings up that we are not even a branded USA, we are two complete opposites.  Complete opposites vying for not much of a prize.  Yet, most will agree we shouldn't let ourselves be Constantinople'd, or sluiced into a wasteland space between nations and peoples unifying, at least enough to be one nation.

  Politically depressing.  But, I look around me and most people are not fighting.  Most people are holding on to a red, white, and blue in an advertising sign--even if the sign is saying "food" in a food desert.  Even when there is only Chinese crap to buy, we steam the economy.  Or only low wage jobs to share, we don't discard our work ethic.  Even when an admistration in governance puts forth generic and all-over the place appeasing lip service, we hold on to an American dignity that we've not always owned, but have come to know through doing.

  

Sure, some did

   Some people my age (not exactly continent) did lose the fighting spirit.  Like the Bible says many will fall away from church, traditional values, belief-support in a functioning America.  But MOST--all races and creeds--put their time and energy into raising a capable generation!  There's no doubt about who's holding down the fort now and that's not going to change no matter which political party takes the lead next round.

  No worries.

 Found through a website-newspaper-like called The Daily Trek an awesome blog post:

https://thetrek.co/continental-divide-trail/hiking-when-there-is-no-trail-at-all/?mc_cid=165650ff39&mc_eid=54a1bcf483

  I really like the author's writing.  It's natural and not show-offy.  Makes one feel as if we are along for the hike.  And it's okay not to know everything about everything.  That better describes my own curiousity in life.  An example is that on my camptrip this summer I was amused by a visiting pair of ravens.  Each day around early brunch time the two would arrive while the group of crows (very differently behaviored) was not near the campsite.  The ravens seemed to arrive with the rotating winds of the sea storm passing through from Florida.  And they visited for three days.  That campsite has long been a traditional fishing spot, and where native Americans have gathered to do sweat lodge.  

  The rocks and matada and natural "tools" record usage for fishing and food preparation.  So maybe the ravens live nearby and check for traditional wayfarers at the camp, I thought.  The fishing that was happening at the creek at that time wasn't even pole fishing.  Mostly it involved "snappers", some sort of stun gun apparatus that shocks a fish to death.  Faster and easier I guess.  Modern way to club food over the head.  And people who use the method generally don't want to be judged as not being traditional.  Just another topic not to bring up unless you want to get into someone's mood.  Anyway, the ravens plucked at some discarded burnt pancakes but they didn't want those either so off they went.  North on the creek like the also-visiting Osprey.

  It wasn't until I was perusing magazines at my local library and found an article about ravens in a conservancy mag that I learned that there aren't many ravens left in that area of the Smokies.  The visiting felt like such an apt marker of species survival in the climes of what we have become.

  It was exciting to just experience the outdoors without a lot of mental baggage or intellectualism applied to the experience.  Like a refresh on learning.

   So get excited about dog parks.  There's a new one here in Knoxville.  Or, working on Christmas gifts before the Twelve Days.  Or, that other person getting a smile about something.

  Sometimes when the big picture seems not matching up to reality; or, it's gorging on its own reality we have to realize that even doing our best on a day isn't a whole life of days.  Sometimes everything being mediocre works to the advantage of long haul.

  On long hikes a lot of it is boring, focus is on sore feet, a nub in the backpack, how there doesn't seem a point...then you get to a waterfall, or surpass your goal of five hundred miles.  Most of life is realistically not overly exciting, and not all war.  Even in politics the glory of conquest and campaigning fades into steady beat of just getting the damn job done.

  Economically, most people I know are re-cooking the same beans we've been cooking for the past four years.  Everybody's a bit cardboardy, not real excited about much.  Conserving energy for a change up to come.  Focusing on making self solid...taking care of family and an Americanism that will be freed from a lockdown on success.  Grinding through the last of tied to sinking ship mentality.  Not afraid.