One thing we did....

   The impetus was in a fight with the deadweight and the vacuum.  

  Don't make it personal, someone snarled. 

  We were keeping the lines moving. 

  Bitterness about politics turned into sour stomach and stifled gripes about aches and pains.  There was a cooling of fever to belong.  Institutions reconsidered how we "onboard" and based on "data" how should we hire for this season? 

  The season was Let Us Americans Impose Some Sanity.  The wildest in fashion and flagrance groaned boring.  Be that as it may a practical person held up the towline, We'd be more efficient without so many temper tantrums.  Nobody alive in the earliest 1990s was or wanted to be considered "a child".  Innocence itself was under hardcore fire.  It being so brought out the reserves of kindness and where it didn't group grouped to form assessment and intervention if necessary.  A whole category of humanizing words and concepts had to be merged with (and sometimes flung at) machinery.  

  Amongst tradespeople there was concerted effort to bring in younger people--not to be slaves--to fight vanishing tradition.  An incredible loss of knowledge was accruing much faster than profits and that paired in a doomsday way with a lack of capital amongst the masses.  Keep doing this 'til we're there was an impromptu motto that stuck in the mind near having been shown once or twice.  All age groups   

For his mercy endures forever

   Growing up there was no shortage of world stuff to become aware of and daily decisions to be made.  It was such a profound relief to drag all the stress and worry to Catholic Church on Sunday.  Just reaching the goal of one hour with God, no interruptions, was accomplishment.  The fact that others too came from all around to worship, praise, give thanks, and participate in the Sacraments made what could be curious very okay and even more interesting.  Learning the whys of church ways lifted the mindheart out of a state of boredom and humdrum.  Knowing that hundreds of people had been sheltering faith and strengthening the ways of the church made history feel alive.  And even when there were issues and tensions between people, there was the chance to lay all that down at the altar or leave it in a back pew.  The church being itself was a steady to peoples' warp.  And as we went through stuff alone and as groups getting back to church was proof that God is a constant.

Dig deep

   Sometimes the disappointment and bitterness of life is like a weight dragging a group to the bottom.  Sometimes it's just an anchor of reality. 

  Political fighting to the death of some things (spend, spend, spend) always brings people through phases of teamwork-able.  And we've gotten through some extremes in terms of my way or.... 

  Sometimes a third party resolution really works to everyone's advantage and sometimes no reslution is the only way out of a death grip.  Very often some alternative to an absolute end is possible.

I've seen stranger outfits.

   Must be gear that was in the medieval closet.

  But seriously, there is criticism because the Pope gets accused of participating in other religions for his necessary diplomacy role.  People similarly accused anthropologists of doing witchcraft when observing, um, hard to describe ceremony and ritual.  It is a primary commandment for the Judeo-Christian God/people...no worshipping other gods like buddhas and money.  It's central to the agreement.

  What I thought of today is how Jesus intervened on further violence in the garden where he got arrested.  A disciple tried to physically stop that.  A sword was drawn, an ear cut off, then Jesus knelt and healed the wound.  Forgiveness. Not a simple definition but a key.

  Key to God's message--Love.  Forgiveness is key to love. Jesus performed forgiving humanity for all that was happening even as he was mired in all of humanity's misunderstanding and chaos. 

  None of us is Jesus.  Or an Apostle.  And all "church" has struggled with the poetry of religion, but not the commitment/devotion to God and the Way.

"You called her

   Kids of their own now.  Kids with kids even.  Our basic survival impulses put us in good stead.  Somebody turned on the dimmer-controlled light fixture and lowered the lights as the last of the dinner plates were put in the sink.  

  Young peoples' favorite topic-- love, and how it happened.

  Lifelong friends "roast" the couples that stuck with each other.  Somehow the boundaries of what's okay to say and what pushes buttons and is not okay to say, somehow these things have been worked out over time. 

  A sip of wine.  A sip of mocktail.  "Gee, not sure why.  Remember when you called her an egg basket?"  Eyerolls.  "I did?" 

  "Called her an egg basket.  And when I asked her if that was, you know, offensive, she was like, Should it be?" Quiet laughs.

  "All of us...getting to know each other.  And so different." The gray hair looks like spray paint on a twenty-something. 

  "I wonder how those wealthy elites in Japan reminisce about their AI airquote"women"?" 

  "Egg baskets?" 

  "That was an association.  My understanding of English and America wasn't great yet." 

  "I don't know about eggs or chips but real-feeling skin and insides."

  "So much for talking about love." 

  "It'll come around." 

  "I think quickly; and I'll tie in love of country." 

  "Professor lecture?" 

  "Never." 

  "Did I really call her an egg basket?" 

  "Yeah, Muscle, ya did." 

  "So, communism right?"

  "Cha, gotta love it.  But that was when she and I got to know each other better." 

  "And?" 

  "I realized how, totally, oppressive the world was being ON love." 

  "That's right!  You were like a love mid-wife for a while." 

  "In communism, there's no freewill." 

  "Because there we were like ships in the night, all of us, now I see you, now I don't, but there's still something there." 

  "No freewill.  No soul." 

  "The mothers and grandmothers were the counterweight to full tilt." 

  Glasses raised.  "Because they knew.  They KNEW." 

  "No soul, so it's a perfect match for AI." 

  "And, ours knew about war.  And love.  And love and war." 

  A few people left drinks on table and moved into the sitting area.  Nobody with shoes on so feet everywhere okay. 

  "How did people know?  They were in love?" 

  "I'll do the dishes." 

  "You know, there's in love and finding out you love." 

  "And divorce." 

  "And just being loving." 

  "And walls." 

  "And,

  "I went through this whole process 

  "With everyone?" 

  "Ah, no, yes, sort of, not the whole process with everyone, no." 

  "Whole process tied to caring for people professionally." 

  "Did people your age wonder about soul?" 

  "Fer sure." 

  "There was a period for us when, like, whenever somebody got shot 

  "With guns?" 

  Nodding.  "Yeah, like, well okay, like as we were getting more passionate about our service work that was so much like love 

  "Except for the money." 

  "So much like, like our lives were turning into a novel." 

  "Then you knew you were at war?" 

  "We knew in degrees and fronts colliding." 

  "Cha.  I often knew by not being able to write." 

  "Because of writer's block?" 

  "Flummuxed?" 

  "Because 

  "Dishes done.  Whataye miss?" 

  "Some of us stayed peace warriors." 

  A dish towel being folded and placed on top of a coffee table book.  Entre vous? 

  "Who got shot?" 

  "War wounds?" 

  "Frame it up for me." 

  "Volleyball anyone?" 

  We slide in and out of old formations.  Sans names of course.  

  

  "It was a camp day.  There was "no money to pay anyone".

  "I'd had one meatball to eat for three days." 

  "People were gnoshing on leather and wooing the few mountain plants." 

  "That was when an ambulance partner stumble walked into a neutral zone site."

For quite a while....

   For quite a while the effects of a formidable communism were felt in world-related economies and cultures.  The bitterness towards a government that could let that happen (insert any number of "that"s) and amongst fellow citizens who are self-governing was acerbic.  

  "It took every bone in my body not to shoot him," more than one person who'd survived some "rape" or another and kept themselves out of the crosshairs of the law (by simply not committing a crime) swore of the burden of responsibility with gun ownership.  Community meetings turned into careful agendas, recording, and more slow digestion of what was happening than bulldozing.  Afterall, besides for laws, it's real people performing business practice and inventing all these, dare I say, I do, sick, policies.

  Or not.  Plenty of loopholes and turning a blind eye and just neighbors being nasty. 

  It was real people, too, that talked many away from reckless and suicidal.  "Because of money?!" The most proudly self-reliant often couldn't answer for themselves.  "Facts is the facts," was as close to personal therapy talk as they was willing to go.  The news had a run of explaining things generally (such and such a county has more than 35% of itself 

  Can't pay the taxes 

  Daddy didn't leave nothing in the barn 

  FOR SALE).  Couples and people close to people diverted prying eyes and wandering thieves and just an assholes.  "It's PRIVATE.  AND you DON'T OWN my, our SOULS!" 

  Breaking open or X-raying the mail, the vultures were using all their technology to stay ahead of who might survive.

  Had any fun lately? 

  It's been years.

  You need, if I may suggest, a fun intervention. 

  I do?

  Oh yes.  And I think these yard sprinklers will do.

  Real friends don't give a crap how ugly things got.  That was yesterday!  Today is a new day.  God help us all.

The man moved a number figure in a column

   The minutes might have such a notation.  Emptying the bathtub.  One man literally lifted a realistic-baby babydoll off the accounting sheets.  "It's not wet is it?" Another man asked. 

  Behind the fat tire mark rolled and baked into the red clay dirt were four confounding tiny wheel scrapes.  "It had to have been wet at the time," the reluctantly retiring man said.

  "One pencil mark?" The real Rhonda asked.  Robert stood nearby, tall and standing up straight as if in uniform, with the realistic-baby babydoll on his chest and shoulder.  His breathing slow and measured.  "That's more than I make in six months," Rhonda blew out a breath and patted and rubbed the babydoll's back.  "Yeah, but...." Robert let out a little bit of a can't make this up chuckle, but then apologized to the baby for startling it.  He took over rubbing it's back. 

  "Explain it again." 

  "Because it's funny?" 

  "It's so not funny." 

  "Tit for tat, the tariffs were like nukes on the books.  And with government more like corporation than communism, well

  "Nobody talk NDA, NGO, PITA, OR ABOUT THE RHOMBA," a person sliding into a neutral zone tent ordered. 

  "Yeah, so the weather in Latin America had changed

  "Point?

  "Point, no point, but it was like 

  "Simile or metaphor?"

  "Let me just say, um, because people are services and services are assets, as in a workforce is a vital chunk of the GDP, insurance having written off so many people as "liabilities" put most of the American population as "collateral damage" and

  "I hear you!  Take a hike will you?!" 

  "When YOU CALL THE MONEY STUFF WAR...."

  We took a hike.  All over the place to get out-takes.  Like we asked the guy in charge of confiscating the ice cream, What was in the freezer? 

  "What wasn't?" Was his response.  The ten sheets of inventory included everything from mascara to sperm! 

  We visited people still waiting for the gas to get to Tennessee.  A "fringe site"-- Not militia right?  

  "Do we look like militia?" A girl asked a close by person decked out in newly crafted leather gear. 

  "You look like you been here a while." 

  "And, maybe like pirates.  Who knocked off an iron forge." 

  "Or maybe a cast iron outlet store."  

  "Oh my God! Are those real eggs?" 

  "Where have you people been?" 

  "Hard to explain." 

  The woodsmoke veiled the sun on another day in America .

  

"We're braving it,"

   One business woman said to another.  They were hanging out in the woods for a few days as tariff wars raged.  There were those who insisted, no side except American.  So, political causes were being disguised and subsumed.  The political cause, my dear, becomes survival.  Even Northener/Southerner heritages were being packed into trunks and other compartments in exchange for civilized enough. 

  The business women traded recipes and while I can't tell you what brand you have to use, I can tell you, well, frankly they were better pancakes with a higher quality of ingredients.  Of course, we were months behind everybody else in acquiring, you know, better goods. 

  Everybody else shmelse.  Everybody is in deep shidoodoo. 

  Young people just launching; older people already half-starved and with care dissipating; married, unmarried, self-titled, and loners feeling the contractions.  People with a stitch of kindness left somewhere beyond last nerve tried at every turn, rise, and dip on the rollercoaster ride to soothe situation and walk it back. 

  "It's ALL ABOUT MONEY!" 

  "BIG SURPRISE boy genius.  And you're too tall to sit on your mother's lap." 

  Because whole swaths of money can disappear in a flash in money-wars people suggested "diversifying" but the in-debt system (black hole money suck) kept creating more and more "guard rails" and regulations and boxing to eek out livelihood and "life".  Those who'd cautioned, We're out of tricks very often could not talk about impending and what that'll mean--see-saw tipping.  And, breaking everyone's hearts....we failed here. 

  The woods were alive with people seeking solace.  And for as much as there was anger in the streets, there were people who went to great efforts to be as fair as possible with not enough.  Not enough interest, not enough working hours, not enough physical labor, not enough capital, not enough, not enough.  Even previously steady-jobbed people were like wearing mis-matched shoes with no arch support and hole-y clothing.  The entire consumer landscape kept changing but because it was a war, stay positive! 

  Victory or death? 

  Yep!  Cut up these coupons.

  Get honest. 

  Use what you have. 

  Pay down the debt, pay down the debt. 

  Most of the middle age men were mumbling these things as heavy lids were shutting against can't do this anymore.  That, and hurry up and graduate to little kids.  Give it a rest little kids sounded like grownups quelling. 

  The last thing we need to do is fight about it.

  Let's skip that part. 

  Couples quietly agreed to disagree.  The enormity of violence in the world-at-large shocked people into alternatives.  Some people were getting quite inventive.  Then you'd see people months later and the reality of alternative and seemed like a good idea at the time, well, a whole grassroots movement developed around the toll the war was taking.  Take care of you, my own mama warned against spinning wheels, out-thinking myself, exhaustion.  Can't hurry an old oak tree, we thought of dozens of variations on the same old truths.

For us

   For us as young people....

  Peacetime and the Cold War had allowed for a compartmentalizing.  And then nations disagreeing and fighting heatedly forced change.  There had to be some kind of unification around.  We're always approaching things as individuals who...with previous context and background; with baggage; with ideas; with ambition and ignorance.  We rally around cause and issue and goal.  As Americans we have the hardwon rights and responsibilities to do so.  That was also the burden of the first Christians.

  I can imagine the disruption and chaos that Jesus' human death caused.  The people who loved him and had been caring about humanity and soul-stuff in the ways they'd developed with Jesus were suddenly bereft of him, were left on their own, had terror and fear thrust upon them, were almost drown by confusion and terrible failure.  God the Father was demanding faith over fear.  Requiring disciples of the Way to believe in the face of total adversity.  And, being a merciful and loving God, He didn't abandon.  Even for those with shaky faith and feelings of unworthiness, He didn't abandon. 

  Right away He sent Jesus back in a glorified body as proof that faith in the awesomeness of God is also "real".  That unifying around Jesus and the Way makes way through grief and strife.  That, yeah, human life is hard and has it's bitterness and misery, but.

  Most days are not Easter.  Most days are not Passover.  Most days are little wins and losses.  But as Americans we survive the American way.  And as people of God we survive the faith.

a very talented pool of people

   In the on again, off again war mode, us people (having made great efforts to declare all of humanity, people) with "our whole lives ahead of us" couldn't really find one mood.  Our nation was stretching in the directions of lifestyle and resources faster than our hearts and minds could evolve unified sentiment.  "But that's what voting is for!" Aging citizens assured and reassured that our generation--post-baby boomer, pre-millenial--would survive.  

  We seemed to be waffling between extremes.  Total apathy and anger to "joining" on our terms.  And we were somehow blessed with older-than-us encouragement to at least not run from the professions.  On sites and in situations there was often some early middle ager to say stuff like that's not stupidity, that's learning!  And we're learning too.

  The staunchest among us Americans were often stiff as boards about principle and procedure, and after growth spurts as teams and individuals were only begrudingly thankful for ideas and prods "to change." Because of the heft involved in towing a nation out of danger and into the headwinds of world turmoil, we often talked in terms of wound and recovery, impact zones and R&R. 

  "Such tensions, such tensions," boobahlas and poppies said of us and the world.  As problem solvers we often dialed down on the whys and developed ways to navigate.  Since, broadly, more of the issues had to do with religion and racism some people monitored every situation to remind: think generic American. 

  "Universal human?" 

  "Sort of...."

FAITH OVER FEAR

   The woman had handcuffed herself to the wall of shelving.  While the other people were trying to get her off the floor, unscathed but upset because it took her five months to un-hoard and now, it's ruined; the groom clamored out of the tank and came in through the front door.  He took his place in the line in the hallway and when the wife-to-be turned around in her baseball cap both the bride and the groom looked shocked.  "We're not supposed to see each other!" She said through the people.  He covered his eyes.  "We've done soooooo good," he said.  "On everything!" 

  She backed up against the hallway wall and looked both ways and said, "Keep 'em covered Mr." But as she brushed tummies with him he put his hands out and took the cap.  Then he read it out loud, Faith Over Fear, put the cap over his face and explained, "The chariot awaits." 

  In the barn the unicorn had followed Bigfoot in but pushed his shoulder from behind.  He stopped and turned towards her.  She one leg jumped up and more smooching.  He held her leg like it was a fire extinguisher and kissing, kissing until he started talking, saying, "I gotta go." 

  "Nooooo," the Unicorn said back.  A goose horn blew outside.  "Yes," he pushed her away strong but gentle.  "Here," he fished out a piece of paper from his pocket, "On the back, help me find those things." The Unicorn tried to blink away tears but they plopped onto the paper.  "SHEETS!" She balled up the paper and threw it in his face.  "Whadda ya need sheets for????" 

"Oooow!  My eye!" His hands went to his eye and he bent forward but they bumped heads because she'd bent to pick up the wadded paper.  "Ow!" Laughing and crying at the same time.  "Ow!"

  "Kiss it," she demanded.

  "There's no time," he whirled and threw tools and glued electronics from the workbench to get to his boots and knife. 

  "Trash sheets." 

  "Off the list?!"

  "No.  White.  Not the good ones." 

  The Unicorn hugged his back.  "I can't tell you," Bigfoot said and pulled her around him and they kissed until she said while biting his tongue, "There's no secrets." 

  He blew out his frustration at paradox and she got a little more of his tongue and he said, "Othay, Othay, leggo."

  He kept her pinned to the workbench and slowly sparsely explained.  Trapped, gas only comes from one or two places, militia OR SOMETHING, trapping fellow you know.

  "Oh my God." 

  Bigfoot moved her with his leg and pulled the books away from his hidden backpack.  "It's just an idea.  But a top guy liked it." She moved to the pile of sheets.

  By the time the bride and groom got to the front door they couldn't stop kissing.  He smushed the cap back on her head sideways.  Pushed her away from the door, opened it behind him, and she pushed him towards out but his back hit the tank gun.  "Ow?" He asked.  They stopped kissing.  The goose horn blew again.  A little British convertible was backing up from being directly behind the tank. 

  A home improvement store worker poked up out of the tank in a helmet as the couple ducked and holding hands scrambled past.  "Their calling up carpenters real soon," he said and disappeared back into the tank.  "I'm READY!" The tank top was pulled shut.  The goose horn blew and blew.  Bigfoot dropped a boot as he loped after the convertible down the mountain road.

  "Look out Hollywood!" The tank's PA said as neighbors came walking over. 

  "What's the message?" 

  A chin shove, too late Superman, they were told to get the ice cream, so they did.  "Sorry your friend got handcuffed." 

  Huuuh.  "She's not my friend." 

  He handed over the key, "Tell that one to stay off the fat tire bike."

  All afternoon girls straggled in and out of the barn.  The older lady's friend, who'd been given a commendation for kindness to animals but had been written up for below standard air in motorcycle tire, finally asked a couple of them what they were looking for. 

  "Nothing," one blushed and answered.

  "There was freezer somewhere here, no?" 

  "So you're looking for ice cream?" 

  "Oui." 

"I would say

   the Gteat Satan will kill us all if we don't, hmmmmm, start warring properly."  The man had wrapped a bathrobe over his casual Speedo self.  He'd taken the precision ruler from his aides as carefully as one might receive a newborn.  "Did you give the message?" 

  "Yes.  What did it mean?" She clapped a hand over her mouth then whispered, Is it okay to ask? 

  "It's okay to ask princess, but I don't have to answer." He put the ruler into a carpenter's belt on the glass table. 

  "Why so much secrecy now?" 

  A tiny sigh but the man's frustration lost to a patience with young people. 

  "It means the seasons are changing.  The birds must be eating and so, shitting." 

  A breeze moved the air but there were no clouds. 

  'That's all?" 

  "Yes, all.  I wanted to make sure you can handle that piece if I need you too." 

  The breeze kicked sawdust up out of the grass. 

  "Why don't you people take the afternoon off.  Have some fun." 

  "Nothing's fun anymore." 

  "So, work.  Make some money for a rainy day or your cousin's wedding." 

  "The old broad's getting married is she?" 

  "So they say." He nodded in the direction of bathrobed women.

"Don't speed! Don't speed!"

   "Why not?  It's anything goes." 

  "No!  It isn't." 

  "Look, there's another one.  Their just shooting them and not eating them." 

  "That's a sin in our culture," the Cherokee young person said. 

  "Yah, speaking of culture, what was that ceremony last night?" 

  "Were you scared?" 

  "Probably that someone would declare a lasting peace." 

  Spit on you gesture.  "Yah, scared that there would be no interest in any other culture." 

  "Grieving." 

  "I didn't get that." 

  "Do you really consider the Guard to be a culture?" 

  "Why was the woman sctream-moaning?" 

  "She was like representing the All-Mother.  War is killing her children." 

  "It's definitely finished off our childhoods.  Fast.  I'll give you that." 

  "In our culture everybody joins.  War or no." 

  "Yah." 

  "She did the ceremony last night because she knew recruiters wete there." 

  "Just to see if there's interest." 

  "What is the message?" One asked a flip phone. 

  "The birds are shitting," she told her partner.

  Whoa.

Back at the party

    the bride-to-be was handling the strange array of guests with as much "Southern charm" as she could muster.  Until....

  The official had what looked like mug shots.  "They're for passports!!!!!" A kid yelled. 

  "It just feels like it's a war on our children," one mother was saying to another. 

  "Unholing," came a voice on a CB. 

  "I know that one!" A neighbor pointed at a photo.  "That must've bren the 'party'," she made emphatic air quotes. 

  "That's MY son." 

  A rumbling could be felt through the floor.  The mom who'd just seen her son in the photograph looked at the clock and then out the window.  "We're supposed to be getting married today." 

  "Today?!" Asked one of the other mothers.  The official rattled the photographs in hand, "I assure you this is more important." 

  "I doubt that," said an older woman.

Unpleasant people

  "Why would I want to 'hang out' with unpleasant people?" 

  "Fit right in." 

  "Maybe you'll meet someone."  

  "Your wealth depends on it." 

  The man in barefeet and tuxedo pants from the night before stood statue-still as a woman put a fresh shirt on him.

  Across the city professors gathered at a bookstore under the pretense of reading the same book in a book club that would continue to meet over the summer.

  "Did they really say that on the news?" 

  "Whadda ya live under a rock?" 

  "Suspended?" 

  "For pushing too hard." 

  "It's like Hollywood: Hurry up and wait." 

  "Well, it's a vicious cycle.  My students who usually paint crew over the summer are saying no one can afford wood and wall." 

  "Mine are

  "There's a real man in there.  I know," the woman said softly into the man's ear as he stared at himself in the mirror.  He didn't say anything quickly.  And turned towards a wall as he reflected, "Why?  Why did they phrase it that way?" 

  "Who?" 

  The man hadn't known anyone per say in the practice-run community meeting.  And he felt frozen from his actual feelings.  "Them.  They.  Some of them.  Asked me, I, me, who gave me the gorillas?" 

  The woman's head and face moved in a circular shape as she made almost a neighing sound.  "Round and round they go.  I don't care who they are." 

  The man turned back to the mirror and looked at the woman.  She pushed her breath out and continued

  "Does my hair look that bad?" The food server had played off the insult out loud.  Then she mumbled, I am going to kill Moses.

  A woman with a very Southern accent spoke loudly, "So I combined the cabbage rolls with cornbread." 

  "And it was good?" 

  "I guess so." 

  "It was delicious!" A man sitting at a nearby table said. 

  The magazine writer shot over a question.  "This was where?" But was engrossed in a conversation about how a famous comedian put out an ad campaign about people who don't look like me but how on TV the getting beyond racism message wasn't carrying. "Can you imagine anyone accusing Robin of racism?" 

  "What goes with cornbread?" 

  "Darling, everything goes with cornbread!" 

  "Oh wow!  Like wow to the max!"

  "He just woke up." 

  "Look at all these gay people." 

  A chair scraped away from a table.  A hulk of a man stood and asked, "What did you just say?"

  "Take it easy son," the man's father stood up slowly, stiffly and put a hand on his son's shoulder.  "Sit down Dennis," his mother said.  Without looking at her the man said, "No." Then he announced to the room, "In case, you haven't heard, the WHOLE WORLD is not gay.  It's something like 10% THEY SAY, SO, probably means 4.5 percemt." 

  "It's just soooo colorful in here." 

  People looked at eavh other.  The father and son and mother were in matching pastel salmon-coloref polos.  The mother explained, "We're breaking them in for Easter.  We still habe no washer and dryer." 

  "Where:d you get those?" A woman asked.  "I need some for Passover.". A teenage boy put his head in his hands. 

  "Did you..." The woman with the thick Southern accent started to ask.  The Jewish mother turnrf herself in thr chair and looked at her.  "Did you make the cabbage rolls?" 

  "Sourwood camp?" 

  "I'm still not sure where we were but it was not far from Gatlinburg.  Not terribly far." 

  A crowd of people formed a queue at the door.  "Coming to the community meeting?" 

  "Huh?  I'm here for tea." 

  "What's the wait mate?" 

  "We don't belong here." 

  "Sure ya do, y'all are as welcome as any'n us." 

  "We're going to a group function for Easter," said the woman in the pastel-colored shirt.  "I don't want to lose my boys." The woman's smile didn't quite make it to happy. 

  "So are we," the Jewish woman called out through the now crowding dining room.  The teenage boy said, 'Ma...nooooo...mother, that's a Boy Scout weekend." 

   "Not this year, not for you." 

  'Mind if I sit mate?" 

  "She might." 

  A tall man in khakis asked for hot coffee.  The man who'd called everyone gay stepped up next to him.  "You wanted to see me Sir.". The tall man looked him up and down and pondered out loud in a hmmmmmm way.  Then he asked, "How far did you drive?" 

  "Well, I didn't drive Sir but rode from Tennessee, I think, it was dark when we left." 

  A man's voice rose above the din, "Mr. George, am I going to be able to get you back on the submarine?" 

  "Not if they keep me on the food tour!"

Around that time

   us young people started to have a lot going on. And along those steps in our journies we weren't always confident that we were "fully prepared".  In tense moments we were relying as much on faith and no fear as on book-learning and field gleanings.

  Usually even when we'd accomplished something we got into assessment.  Call it constructive criticism we coached managers and team leaders about talking to us.  Many of us were turning "unsettled" into even better.  It was a way to balance high energy and drive with the stalwart of people ahead of us in careers and experience.  Practice so you CAN step up, step in.

  We were also in a twist culturally.  Peace, love, and freedom had to be parsed with "real enemy".  The enemy might be a Cold War leftover, an unexplained, a competitor, or even self.  There were multiple tries at some things (I drank again) and exciting overlaps in learning and discipline.

  "Would you look at these long faces?!  Take their credit cards away and it's like they deflate." The room full of women groaned. 

  "Flummuxed," was the grievance.  The deemed-Moses said, "You too, huh?!" 

  Finding work, finding peace of mind, finding ways, it was a searching time in between.

  Up in the Kilmer Forest a woman was sitting guard outside of a man's tent. 

  "OH. MY. GOD.  HE'S STILL IN THERE?????"

  The woman nodded but couldn't say anything for the flood of emotion starting and stopping.  His mangled leg had stiffened at wrong angles.  They'd been cleaning his wounds with fabric and boiled creek water.  The woman was down to a third of her once long skirt.

"Haven't seen you in a hot minute."

  "Yah, time flies!" 

  "It's been real and it's been fun, but it sho as hail ain't been real fun." 

  "What would be real fun darling?" 

  "Not listening to underclassmen screeching and all abuzz." 

  "They're trendy!  Remember when you were?!"

  "Naw.  What year is this?"

  A this-side-of-middle-ager was off-loading surplus medical equipment and supplies from a van with a flat.  "Where's it gotta go chief?" 

  Bit of a huff and puff, "Not a chief." 

  "Yet." 

  "If I could get it down to one job or career or whatever this is.  Match these tags boo." 

  "Holy whazham!" More people walked up.

  People had saved and "saved" since the storm back then and being before "organizer" was a real job, thete were people with the natural tendency.  Because a lot of the storm recovery had phases and stages many of us "jacks and jills of all trades" almost seemed to be taking turns at what needed doing.  We felt behind the rest of the country in terms of jumpstarting the economy.  But it turned out, there was so much debt to pay down, and mis-management disasters to recover from we were in good shape as the states of TN and NC. 

  Even as prices fluctuated in mass retail while US retailers adjusted to world changes in making, buying, and selling, locals and locales became really more community-minded.  Country people were in their "element" with helping each other and using ingenuity and creativity to work around and save our livelihoods and homesteads.  

 "All in a day," a young mother running the "office" of multiple landscapers and carpenters said as she unloaded a minivan of people needing a "ride up the hill."  I asked her how it went with all the shoes that had been donated.  Their area had had some musicians stalled like a lot of people on their way to somewhere else and they all had macaroni salad, music, and a "Boot Shuffle" in which nobody left without footwear. 

  A medical student had been with us for the drop off and had one of those germ-lights to show why so important to wear non-holey footwear.  The pastor's wife from a church in Candler, NC pinched Bigfoot's working arms muscle and said, "See Bigfoot, the germ thing is real." 

  "Yes, sister, but Jesus himself often went barefoot.  Just saying." 

  The WNC and TN churches were working hard to maintain a peaceful commonground even as warring in the world included money stuff and violence.

The boy with the "job" of taking care

   of his grandmother was holed up in the boys' found RV. 

  Bigfoot stealthily crossed the creek and didn't knock when he entered.  "Gimme those," the Unicorn said of the binoculars. 

  "Another part?" 

  "Expecting one?" 

  "Well, the transmission's not going to fix itself." 

  Bigfoot turned out his pockets and random screws fell out onto the countertop.  One long one rolled in front of the chair where a stack of hats were piled beside the boy.  "Pick that up. will ya?"

  "Can't get up." 

  "Your back still out dude?" 

  "Yep." 

  "I'm gonna find a can or something." 

  "Might be a flower p, sssssshh

  "What?" 

  "Come over here." 

  "Duck down." 

  "Am I gonna get butt fucked?" 

  "Noooo.  My God.  This is all the same as when you grew up." 

  "Long time ago.  Moving away

  "Tell me that's not my imagination." 

  "About moving away and then back?" 

  "Noooooo, those."  He pointed out the window at a pair of girls. 

  "Whoose are those?" 

  "Haven't seen any fellow males." 

  "Does your mother know?" 

  "That I'm girl watching?" 

  "Nooooo, who the girls are." 

  "Those are different." 

  "Than?" 

  "Than yesterday." 

  "Different girls?" 

  "Different than yesterday.  Reach the binoculars." 

  Bigfoot did and the boys took turns alooking.  There was a comfortable silence between the old friends until Bigfoot sucked in his oooooooph. 

  "What?" 

  "There's someone else with binoculars!" 

  "Put 'em down.  Put them, under here!"  The boy parted the stack of hats.

"He thought the person's leg was still in there."

   That is what the group psychologist wrote on her part of the report.  

  It was rubber melded to rubber.  But in the thick of the burning fire it had looked like a person standing there and the human chain was frozen in place. 

  "Frozen in place?" 

  "Not everybody had insulated boots!" 

  Oh my God. 

  Yeah.  So, dry mouth swallow, when the electricity came back on....

  It had been a couple weeks of downtime while the piles and smoldering were being investigated.

"Put it on ice?"

   "Like it's a lightswitch." 

  "But 

  "But I'm in love 

  "With him?" 

  "Who else? 'Fess up." 

  Slowly but surely eight girls revealed nine-tenths of "their problem."

  Robert Rhonda stsred at his toes in flip flops from a bag of stuff someone had left on the hood of his car.  "I really can't remember if I am." 

  "I hope so." 

  "This sucks." 

  The fan blowing over lunchbox ice packs wasn't making more air. 

  "I gotta go to work." 

  "We took those promise vows at Church." 

  "Mine chose to go back to Israel." 

  "One of mine is headed to training first." 

  "Hers 

  "You don't have to speak for me 

  "Was mine." 

  "Seriously?!  And we wonder why we get called

  "HEY!

  "What? 

  "Let's not fight." 

  Out of the sounds of crayons and markers coloring the conversations started and stopped.

  In some ways it was like being at Ground Zero in an impact zone, some tensions happening in slow motion, some emotions happening fast.  A layer of everything stayed "normal" but as a group of carefree people....well, awkward angles and a sudden strangeness.  What rippled out was like something in nature....something like when Spring happens and romance dominates. 

  So in the movie script....

  "Hey, where's the third quarter section?" 

  "Oh.  Didn't I tell you the boys raided the art supplies?" 

  Shock

  "Um.  Maybe it was in there."

  "Maybe?!!"

  The unicorn took a step backwatds. 

  "Good thing I put the rest of the writing in the file cabinet." 

  Yeah.  I guess so.  I told you about the art supply raid like two days ago." 

  "You did?  Was that the day before yesterday?" 

  "Typically." 

  "I should've slept." 

  "Who am I to judge you on that?" 

  "But we got a lot done." 

  "Did I mention

  "You should've seen Mr. NuLima trying to stay one step ahead of Mrs. NuLima.  She's having a hurricane baby!"

  "Oh, she is?" 

  "That a woman came and got the file cabinet?!" 

  "She got a baby.  Hurricane took away everything.  But she got a baby?" 

  "THE file cabinet?" 

  "Holy shit." 

  "What was 

  "A baby.  Did they find it in the storm?" 

  "They found something alright.  How old are you hon?" 

  "Started with an "R" but not Reba.  Ralphina.  Or Ruth.  No."

  A ziplock bag of muddy, wet, mulchy forms was where the file cabinet had been.

  Outside across the road in a field untrampled people were pitching tents and waving picket signs.  A leader called out through hands formed into a megaphone.  The chanting started:

  Down with Judy!  Down with Judy! 

  "Who's Judy?" A middle aged man in recycled rubber sandals asked. 

  "She's the dictator.  In control of the ice cream." 

  "And whose are these?" 

  "Professor Donaghon's." 

  "How long?" 

  "Should've been the weekend but we can't get on to Kentucky just now." 

  A woman in shorts and a fishing shirt joined the people in the road.  "Ah, Professor Donaghon.  Are some of your students in RVs?" 

  "Not sure but I'll find out." 

  She walked over to the lead RV with it's front half buried up to the bumper in mud.  "Must be a sinkhole," a woman called over her shoulder as she kept re-righting knocked-over stuff in the small space.  "It's the edge of the leechfield," Everybody's Dad coughed and said.  "We can't have people parking here." 

  "We're not.  Somebody told us there's a FEMA court out this way and I got stuck." 

  "What's that?" 

  "Deadline came and went." 

  "Shit, it did?" 

  "Yesiree son." 

  "I guess some places got designated like little "courtyards" for RV's." 

  "Not here." 

  "We've got help on the way Sir."

  

  One pressed a broken and muddy--under finger nail into the other's arm.  "See!  Stays tan." 

  I smacked her hand away before she could press on my sunburn. She put her thumbs in her tank top straps like it was her overalls.  "Still mad?" 

  Pursed lips and squinting eye. 

  The other one just stood thete.

  "Try that thing where you start with a question 'steada runnin' away." 

  "How in the world or hell does somebody run over yonder to the creek and wind up missing for four months?"

  The other one crossed her arms. 

  The cardboard door swung outward.  'i DID IT! I, OH, hello, finished a paragraph." 

  "Who"s that?" 

  "This is uh, Robert." 

  "Glaf you ask.  That was why I couldn't finish my piece." 

  Both girls plucked tall grass and stuck it in there mouths.  "We quit smoking." 

  'See, my friend here helped me get out of Knoxville and create a, what do you call it?" 

  "A Jesus bubble.  Personal space." 

  "Right, enough of that to overcome my amnesia.' 

  "You had amnesia?" 

  "Did you?" 

  "It was due to stress.  I think it happens so I won't snap.  Although," all five dogs came out of the porch area and peed everywhere, "Some claim I did snap by walking away."  The girls took the grass out of their mouths. 

  "I literally got hit in the head with a house." 

  "Lying?" 

  "I was too angry to be a therapist anymore, but not physically fit enough to stay in the services, so I," 

  "A whole house?" 

  "Like half, disintegrating, as we got the rafting company to North Carolina." 

  "Did the news ever decide if the dam broke or"

  "The news doesn't decide that or anything else." 

  "So I was convinced that I was Rhonda.  I was like who the hell is Robert?!' 

"This is your mother"

   We were in the barn having a musical argument that entailed almost yelling the lyrics, 

  Don:t rock the jukebox

  PLAY ME A COUNTRY SONG 

  PLAY ME THE ROLLING STONES 

  When I was summoned to the landline.  "This is your mother." 

  "What's wrong?" 

  "Why does something have to be wrong?" 

  "Nothing's wrong."

  "For once."

  "Is something wrong?" 

  "Well a lot of things about the world are wrong Mom, but I'm alright."

  "How about you?"

  "Mostly okay.  There's black mold at work." 

  "Eeewwww.  What's that?" 

  "Worse than mildew."

  "Oh.  Don't let it get on you." 

  "Shelby and I are working up front.  But the boss can't afford to fix it.  And," eating a Snickers, "So Shelby put every crate in the place in the doorway." 

  "Probably a fire hazard." 

  "Better than black mold.  Bad for breathing." 

  "Oh." 

  "That's not why I'm calling."

  "Oh?"

  "What is it?"

  "Your Dad is down about something." 

  "What's wrong?"

  "He thinks, well, he feels like you might love Everybody's Dad more than you love him."

  "What?!  That's out there."

  Chewing.  "Not even possible." 

  "Let me talk to him." 

  "He's sleeping." 

  "But it's like dinner time." 

  "The boys wore him out." 

  "Sports?" 

  "No.  You're funny.  Everyone was stressing about tariffs and stocks." 

  "Here too.  But, just don't spend and well, I can tell you that retailers did like pre-planning." 

  "Even for the holidays?" 

  "Especially for that.  Watch on the TV.  The media is keeping up with the non-chaos part of everything too." 

  She'd brought the phone up to Dad.  "Here's Daddy." 

  "I'm awake." 

  "Hey Dad.  It's Lara." 

  "How's things?" 

  "Okay I guess for a bunch of random people trying to make the best of nothing."

  "Sounds like fun wherever you are." 

  "It's okay.  Mom had told me not to wtite about our family, so, I'm learning some different family stuff.  But you guys are still the best family." 

  "Ok." 

  "He smiled!"

  "I love you guys the most!" 

  "He smiled bigger." 

  "And really soon I'll be traveling again and writing about other stuff." 

  "That's the good news," Everybody's Dad poured the last of the coffee into his cup and turned off the pot. 

  "Where too?" 

  "Back into the flood zone." 

  "Well be careful." 

  "Of course."

  "And, Dad!" 

  "Spaghetti and meatballs?"

  "Yeah?!" 

  "I love you the most." 

  "I love you too." 

  "K I T" 

  "Will do."

  Of course I started crying in hanging up so got an Everybody's Dad hug that worked its way out the door before too dark to see or the old bat croaks he winked at his mother, and the hug merged into a unicorn and bigfoot and mama hug happy that we'll all keep working on it.

  The footage from various video cameras kept coming in. 

  "Note says: This proves it."

  "I think the lingering political stuff kind of got swept into the same rubbish pile as real grievances," the insurance adjuster off the clock said softly. 

  "None of it's garbage," said the start-up recycling group over for beans without taco shells. 

  "I blame it on...." Another round.

   We wouldn't have believed that "trade wars" could rip apart social structure the same way as "hot war" but it kept rearing it's head in precious moments.

"Liberation Day" because

   it's been long enough that it's all been a tangled mangled mess of paperpushing, stat zapping, and left of center on true reading of where we're at.

  Next

   "Well, compared to...." 

  "The speaker had some good points." 

  "Does seem kind of true." 

  "And not really conspiracy theory." 

  "Brain computing."

  There was plenty to think about.  But out of thin air, not a lot of connection between competition and communism.  We trapsed through mud and tarps to bookshelves. 

  "That's what I'm talking about." 

  "The perfect haven." 

  "Did you bring the coffee?"

  "Where's the list of stuff to ask about?"

  "Remember, it's volunteer work." 

  "No pay?  I'm leavin'."

  "He's just being funny." 

  "Can I just live here?  I don't ever want to leave." 

  "Is that sarcasm?"

  "Nope." 

  Remember the mudbath had become something tossed between us like a trophy we'd won.  In that part of the yard that had collapsed because of a garbage retaining wall, we'd let go.  Fortunately for our feelings we'd already let loose.  Totally different with God involved. 

  We'd purposefully not eaten the same things we'd been eating for six months.  And we remembered stuff.  Like, I used to have a personality, and, that old goat that lived where we used to. 

  "Let the mud pull all the toxicity away." 

  "Fuck you.  That's part of my personality." 

  "Fuck you then for asking me to marry you." 

  Laughs

  "Oh hey new neighbor.  What are you doing here?""

  A sigh and an almost cry, then lips screwed into resolution.  "Well, I'd say it has to do with being a Jew but that leaves the field wide open for hmmmm I dunno the something stinks and sinister going on somehow being connected to the Jewish PEOPLE." 

  "Did you know they don't call each other Hebrews?" 

  "Really?' 

  'Who's there Martha?" 

  None of us knew what they were saying.  'Did you just call us dumb goyas?" 

  "No m"am.  That was a Hebtew quote about strangers being welcomed as friends

   "Until they prove otherwise

  "Which; they do often do.". 

  In the mudbath we'd taken turns at one point not getting out until resolution.  One day it had led to a heated debate about forgiveness.  We got deep on the topic of debt.  Then the unicorn, holding up her broken bikini top, came over sternly saying, Oh my God, Oh my God.

  "What is it?". Everybody's Dad sat up and mud slide down his chest.  He tried to catch it and patch it back into place.  "She just coated me." 

  "Not like there's a shortage." 

  'I need you." 

  "Well, that's better than I hate you.  It's a start." 

  "No, I really need you." 

  A paint stick stirred a pat of dried mudcake.  'Sure you do.  Like you ever need anybody." 

  "Knock it off." A pitcher of water was thrown in that direction.

  "What is it baby girl?"

  "Um.  Bigfoot is asleep.  But.  He's covered in wasps." 

  People jumped up in the mudpit.  The unicorn pushed people back.  "We shouldn't wake him up!' 

  Clumps of mud being brushed off splatted. 

  "He"ll panic." 

  "Bigfoot panic?  Never." 

  "She's right.  You don't know my son." 

  Everybody's dad sank into sitting on the muddybank.  His wife to be looked at him to gauge how he'd taken that.  Then her eyes grew wide and she pointed.  "Look at the holes!" 

  "In my bathing suit?" He crossed his legs quickly and his arms over those.  "No honey.  In the mud."