A Lost Moment in time: Reduced to Pixels

By Craig: Life is short. So says the old maxim. We are lucky to live our three score and ten before passing into eternity. This can't be so bad since millions of people have passed before us, some go out kicking and screaming, while others choose to go out with very little fan fare. I suppose it doesn't matter how it ends with you for we all must one day cross that lonely threshold. I often contemplate what life really means. What is the substance of life? Why are we here? Why do we choose to live a certain way? I never really come up with any substantial answer to these questions. I suppose it is the way we are programed through our natural disposition, and the things that we have experienced during the linear path of our existence. Sometimes I become obsessed with an old photograph that gives me pause for further reflection about life and time.

The photo under inspection was taken in Maine during the summer of 1976 when I was eight years old. It is a closely cropped image of a man standing in profile on a beach. A silhouette, curved and shadowy from a time slowly disappearing from living memory. He is observing the sand pyramid that my father is building. My brother and I can be seen playing in the sand around the pyramid, perhaps digging trenches that will connect to my father's sand art.  The identity of the man is unknown. It was taken from such a distance that the facial features and other possible identifying marks have been permanently eradicated. The only thing that we can infer from the man's profile is the fact that, perhaps, he is not fond of exercise. He appears to be of middle age, and since 39 years have elapsed since this photograph was snapped it is almost a certainty that the man, whoever he was, has succumbed to time. For a few minutes...or perhaps seconds of his life he is engrossed in my father's artwork...Artwork, that has long since disappeared under countless high tides. At the top of the image the ocean can be seen lurking, stalking unconsciously, the temporary action that is happening on the beach. The top of the photograph has begun to deteriorate. It gives the illusion of a giant city rising from the ocean.  Other figures can be seen in the background, mute witnesses of an event now lost in time and threatened by an eroding oblivion of what it has been reduced to, and what we are reduced to for the succeeding generations...Pixels.

William Goldman's Magic and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

William Goldman’s Magic and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

         By Jay:   For as long as I can remember I’ve always been a fan of horror fiction as well as horror films, not the gruesome ax wielding maniacs killing unsuspecting teenagers at a summer camp type stories, but rather stories with a subtle supernatural gothic theme – ghost stories in the realm of a Washington Irving tale.  Some of Irving’s supernatural stories are among the best in American Literature: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, “Rip Van Winkle”, “The Adventure of the German Student” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” to name a few.  They are tales told in his matchless beautiful prose.  I am generally not a fan of (for lack of a better term) psychological “horror” though there have been some great examples of these types of stories.  I think the very best of these is Magic by William Goldman, which was first published in 1976.  The story revolves around a magician / ventriloquist named Corky Withers who seems to be afraid of success.  He flees from his agent in New York City, and seeks peace of mind at a remote lake in the Catskills (the setting for many of Irving’s supernatural tales) where an old crush named Peggy Ann Snow and her husband Duke lets out cabins during the vacation season.  As the novel progresses, the relationship between Corky and Peggy grows, for Peggy is having marital problems with Duke.  Without giving away the rest of the plot, Corky is quickly becoming consumed by his dummy, which he calls Fats.  His agent eventually tracks him down, and from there on out, the “horror” begins.  The novel is elegantly crafted with a lot of dialogue mixed with vivid descriptions.  Goldman later adapted it into a screenplay, and it was made into a movie in 1978.  Magic is a vastly underrated novel that needs wider exposure so that it can be appreciated by modern audiences.  It is not the typical ventriloquist / dummy story of a split personality, though on the surface, the plot may seem so.  There is much more to Corky’s personality.  His insecurities, fears, and sense of loss as time passes in a cold and distant world are feelings that everyone can connect with.

            However, I knew nothing of Goldman or his writing in December, 1977 as a nine year old while watching the Rankin and Bass Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  In those far off days before cable, home video and the internet, it was extremely important for a kid to catch the holiday specials when they aired, which was usually at 8:00 p.m. EST about three weeks before Christmas.  They only played it once, so if you missed it, you were out of luck until next year.  And by then, you might be too old to care.  My brother and I were very diligent in getting our Rudolph fix.  We knew that when it came on, it would only be a matter of weeks before our greedy little hands would be tearing open presents under the Christmas tree.  It got us in the so-called spirit of the holidays, and we were not going to let that pass.

            And so it was that Rudolph aired, and we sat glued to the tiny black and white television with our five year old brother probably enjoying the special for the first time.  As it neared the end, we were somewhat disappointed because we knew that it would be another long year before we would get to see it again; however, there were plenty of other Christmas specials that would be airing in the days to come.  As the final credits rolled, my brothers left the room, and I was all alone sitting on my bed curled up under my blanket.  I mildly wondered what was coming on next though I knew that it was almost bedtime, for it was a school night, and nine or nine-thirty was usually the limit. 

            I kept my eyes glued to the television as a few commercials played followed by a brief fuzz out as the t.v. did in those distant days.  And then…

           

“Abracadabra I sit on his knee!

Presto!  Chango!

And now here’s me!

Hocus pocus we take her to bed!

Magic is fun!

We’re dead!”

It was Fats speaking bathed in a dark background – the creepy dummy promoting the upcoming film “Magic” with Anthony Hopkins!  I wasn’t scared.  Horror films have never scared me even at the age of nine.  However, I was intrigued and deeply fascinated.  I had to know about this story.  Who was the dummy?  What was the dummy?  Had it taken on a life of its own?  Was the ventriloquist a raving madman?  These and other questions obsessed me for weeks.  I asked my parents if I could see the movie.  Of course, this request was struck down due to the ‘R’ rating and my father’s chronic aversion to anything that has to do with the macabre.  Though I was a nine year old anomaly, I’ve often wondered how many other kids had the living bejesus scared out of them when a creepy and sinister looking dummy talking about death suddenly appeared on the screen right after the showing of Rudolph! 

            Anyway, after a few weeks I forgot about the trailer, and it was not until I was sixteen years old that I actually picked up a copy of Magic in a bookstore and read it for the first time.  Shortly thereafter, I was fortunate enough to catch the movie on television.  You can no longer find the book at Barnes and Noble or any retailers that I know of (at least where I live).  You’ll be lucky to find a dog-eared copy in a used bookstore.  However, fortunately there is the World Wide Web right at your fingertips, and there are plenty of copies available for pennies from various dealers worldwide.  I find it strange how watching a kid’s Christmas special back in 1977 led to a lifelong appreciation of a work (both novel and screenplay by Goldman are outstanding) that I believe is one of the best psychological “horror” stories of the latter part of the twentieth century.  

A Lost Moment in Time: Hubbardston 1974

By Craig: We had moved from the city the previous summer to the town of Hubbardston, a small quiet New England town. I was six and like all six year old boys I was curious. Every noise, every rock, every tree, every critter in the forest had the same effect on my juvenile brain. I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to understand. I wanted to comprehend the nature of my surroundings. It was all new...but at the same time familiar. I cannot explain this feeling, but it was a feeling that I remember having. It was as if I had experienced it all before, but that was impossible...I was only six.  I was an explorer and would sometimes venture forth into the woods to have a look. There were a couple of large boulders with mica on them. I was fascinated by this and would peel the mica off in sheets. My twin brother would do the same and it became a contest to see who could peel off the largest sheet. My father had bulldozed a trail up a hill, pushing a massive amount of rocks and boulders into what amounted to a large earthwork. It would have been a good defensible position against attack if we were living in the 17th century, but alas, it was 1974 and an attack by Nipmuck warriors or the French was probably not going to happen anytime soon. It was nothing but a pile of unwanted dirt and rocks that my brother and I called "the ruble." Why we called it that I cannot recall. I only knew that if we went beyond the ruble we were in uncharted territory. What lurked behind the ruble? There was a forest that much was certain. We could see the white pines and hemlocks, and could hear the trunks of the trees straining and creaking in the wind which we imagined were monsters and giants. Eventually we gathered up the courage to venture past this landmark into the forbidden zone, but never too far to where we could not see the ruble. This was where the mica was, and the white birch trees. We would later peel the bark and appallingly carve our names and other things into the trunks of these trees, but that was a few years in the future. Sometimes a noise would spook us back into the safety zone.

One day it was different. I was all alone. I believe that it was on the weekend because there was a party going on outside. The men were pitching horseshoes while the women sat outside in lawn chairs smoking and chatting. Everyone smoked in those days. It wasn't the evil thing that it has become these days. It was a different time...a different era. People were less suspicious, or so it seemed at the time. There were hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and the scent of charcoal and beef wafted through the air. I walked past the ruble and into the forest. For some reason I was not afraid. Perhaps it was knowing that there were a lot of people at the house gave me a sense of false security. I don't know, nor do I remember why my brother was not with me since he usually always was. He was with me the day we emerged from the womb, and usually wherever I was he was not far away. I was an explorer. I can still remember my thoughts from that day. I was going to venture farther into the forest than I had ever gone. I walked on, climbing over fallen branches and the rotted trunks of trees that had probably fallen during the great hurricane of 1938. The leaves were crunching under my feet. I came to a stone wall...An ancient wall which are ubiquitous in New England. Farmers used them in the 18th and 19th centuries as property boundaries and a means to keep livestock from straying too far away. I did not know this at the time of course. It was just another puzzle that I would eventually sort out in time. At the moment it stopped me in my tracks. What was beyond the wall I could not even fathom. I turned around and looked for the landmark, it was not there!! The ruble was nowhere to be seen!! I panicked. I was lost. I had walked so far that I did not even think to look back! I could no longer hear the voices of the men playing horseshoes, or the women laughing to the long forgotten and now irrelevant gossip of the day. I could see the sun through the trees. It was low in the sky. I attempted to retrace my steps. The ruble had seemingly been swallowed up. I was doomed! A giant or a monster of some kind would surely get me. I ran this way! and then that way!, and then the other way! looking desperately for the ruble. The wind whistled through the trees adding to the confusion and it was getting colder. Surely they were looking for me! Then I saw him. An Indian. A Nipmuck warrior. He was looking at me. A stoic expression on a hard but compassionate countenance. It was not real. It was my imagination, but he pointed at the solar disk in the sky and I went that way. I stumbled and fell but instinctively followed the sun. My imagination was taking hold of me. I began to hear things. A humming sound in the distance which I imagined to be some large prehistoric bird that would swoop down from the trees and carry me away to its nest. Then I heard a familiar sound.  It was the sound of metal striking metal. Horseshoes! I followed the sound and the sun. I heard voices...familiar voices that got louder as I approached. I could see the outline of a house through the trees! A man in a blue tee shirt had just scored a ringer! I emerged into the clearing. I was home. My first expedition into the unknown was finished on that day long ago...two score and some in the past... in a time now so remote that I scarcely know whether it happened, or I merely imagined it.

Trees of the World

By Craig: I can remember the first book that I ever bought with my own money. It was a Bantam Nature guide book called Trees of the World. I was in 2nd grade at the time so it was probably sometime around 1975 or 1976. The book contains colourful photographs of trees and a brief description of each of them. The world, I thought, was a very BIG place to be able to contain all the tree species mentioned in this book. I was fascinated by the various types, most of which I had never seen before. There were trees with strange names like "Monkey Puzzle" and "Witch Hazel." I soon became pretty adept at being able to identify the types of trees in the woods around my house. I can remember gathering leaves of the different tree species and pressing them together in wax paper, labeling each of them and filing them in a notebook. For a while I could imagine myself becoming a great botanist that traveled the world and categorized the different genus and species of plants and trees. A modern day Linnaeus! I soon began immersing myself in history books, and the daring adventures of the European explorers who traversed the oceans in the search for something unattainable. I was fascinated by these adventures and something in the background of my mind told me that I too would one day experience a similar challenge. Perhaps a taxonomist on a great expedition to the Amazon! The years, however, swiftly passed me by and I find myself now at age 47 reflecting on the promise that youth once told me. It had whispered in my ear..."Craig, everything is attainable. Life is a storybook. You are part of it!"
Somewhere along the line I came to realize that LIFE was not a storybook. I also came to realize that LIFE also meant removing yourself from an egocentric viewpoint and attempt to immerse yourself into the collective good. LIFE was not just about YOU. Admittedly this is the hardest concept for most people to grasp. This is why there are wars. If I were to spend my existence trying to attain the highest degree of self, and everyone else followed that same path then the world would be not just hard to live in, but impossible, for the species would drown in their own egotistical cesspool. Should I have gone on to study the Trees of the World as "youth" suggested to me so long ago? Something had changed...The storybook was gone. There was a sort of futility to the dream along with the rest of my dreams. It was confusion...chaos...Who was I to be master of the trees!

So what was it about the trees that held me spellbound in my youth? The great outdoors? The open space? The fresh air? When I was six or seven I can remember standing in my backyard looking out at the forest. A large white pine tree stood tall on the periphery of my father's property line at the edge of the forest. To me this pine tree was the tallest tree on earth. I was fascinated by it. I wondered how long it took for a tree to grow that tall. I can remember thinking that it must have taken millions of years to grow that big. I was afraid to go near it. What if it should fall? Sometimes I could hear the creaking branches and trunk when the wind was blowing. It was so old and sage-like that I could almost hear it speaking to me.
" I was around when your grandfather was your age" It said to me.
That must have been at the beginning of time...nobody was as old as my grandfather.
Then there were the numerous tree stumps that dotted the landscape around my father's property. Trees that had recently fallen to make room for the new house that my father had built. I counted the rings, 47, 32, 28, 112, 76, 38 etc...etc... Each tree had a history to tell. The stumps had started to rot which made grand homes for lizards, insects and small mammals. I soon realized that trees eventually died just like humans...There was something depressing about this. They lived a lonely life, not even being aware of their Existence. I thought about this and also thought about how fortunate that I was to have a consciousness. To know that I existed!
Somewhere along the line my dream of becoming a botanist vanished, just as my other pipe dreams of becoming a paleontologist, or a major league baseball player. It just wasn't in the cards. In fact, I am not that much removed from that ancient dream of becoming the next Linnaeus. Even my knowledge of trees has not advanced much since my 2nd grade understanding of the different types of "trees of the world." I simply lost interest, just as I lose interest in most things except for the concept of "time" which lingers around me like a plague. I still have the book that first prompted this hopeful ambition four decades ago. It's glued binding has brittled (is that a word?) and snapped. At some remote time I must have taped the cover to the front page, but even the tape has yellowed and is pealing back as if the book is groaning and trying to tell me..."Nice try buddy, but like your dream, I too am getting old and want only to transform back into the elements from which I was made...Yes...that's right...a tree!"
I open up to page 31 and start reading..."Monkey Puzzle, family: Araucariaceae Araucaria araucana, In many temperate countries this bizarre conifer from Chile is planted as a curiosity remarkable for its unusual branching system..."

World War I:The Skeleton of My Youth

By Craig: I became fascinated by books at an early age. History books and adventure books were my favorite. I also enjoyed books dealing with the natural world. As a boy I was enraptured by the Time-Life and the American Heritage books that were chock full of photographs. These books helped my developing mind and in some ways shocked it. One of the books published by American Heritage was The History of World War I by Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall.  I believe that I was in the third grade when I first found this book in the Hubbardston Massachusetts town library. The book was full of maps and illustrations and I can remember perusing its contents on many occasions. I was particularly drawn to one image...a disturbing image that probably first gave me pause, and time to reflect as to the brutal nature of WAR.
The image is black and white, grotesque in its finality. It is a skeleton of a man, a German soldier still in tattered uniform. The corpse is mangled, distorted and revolting. A broken arm folded across the neck. The hollow skull stares at the camera as if it knows that it is the subject of the cameraman's fancy. "Here" It says, "Come closer and get a better look for I have a story to tell!"
The shattered right arm lays casually at its side, the hand seems to want to beckon the viewer, but at the same time the left arm contradicts the right. "No! Stay away! War is Hell!" It is confused..."What has happened? What have I done to deserve this wretched fate?"




The caption below the image quotes a young French officer who was fighting on the line at Verdun. "Humanity...must be mad to do what it is doing, What scenes of horror and carnage!...Hell cannot be so terrible."




As an impressionable eight year old the image was disturbing and haunting. I kept going back to it, and would often think about it. Years after I first saw this image I found myself in the Marine Corps, and sometimes I would think about it. Would fate deliver me a similar hand? That skeleton had once been a living, breathing human being just like myself. He had dreams, ambition, and a desire for a fruitful productive life. I wondered about his past. Did he have a mother and father? A wife waiting for him to return? What were his dreams that had been snuffed out capriciously without another thought. The world did not seem to care. He was a rotting shell, but the sun still came up in the eastern sky the next morning after his death. The Earth continued to spin on its axis without him...and one day it will do the same without me... and you who reads this.

Sarge and Pringles

SARGE AND PRINGLES by Jay

I’ve worked many jobs over the years.  For a time back in the late 90’s I used to work in a janitorial position.  It wasn’t the most illustrious job I ever had, but it was money in my pocket and helped me pay for graduate school with little responsibility.  Of course, there was the everyday drudgery of cleaning toilets, vacuuming, sweeping, buffing, wiping down windows, and of course, pulling trash. 

I did my rounds at night mechanically with absolutely no stress.  There were hardly any people in the buildings I cleaned except for other cleaners and an occasional stray overachiever who just didn’t know when it was time for him to go home.  It was usually deathly quiet.  Sometimes, I would just stand in a certain spot and look up at the stars or listen to the distant traffic on the street.  I could hear crickets and the peaceful sounds other critters made, and the whole atmosphere was perfectly suited to one who was more or less an introvert such as myself.

Every night, the security guard would come on the grounds around 11:00 p.m. just as we cleaners were about to leave.  He was an overweight man of about 60 years of age with a drawn, ashen looking face and gray, thinning hair greased back and combed neatly off his forehead.  He had probably been much heavier when he was younger and healthier, but then he just looked old, tired, and worn out.  He always wore a thick blue jacket with the white letters SECURITY emblazoned across his back, and when he came in, he always had a lunch pail and a thermos of coffee with him.

I never knew his name.  Everyone called him Sarge.  I don’t know why.  Maybe he was an ex-police sergeant or had been in the military in some capacity.  I never did find out.  Or maybe he just looked like a sarge.  In hindsight, it doesn’t really matter.  Whenever I think of a sarge, an image of him pops into my mind. 

He wasn’t particularly friendly, but neither was he unfriendly.  He was just quiet – a guy who had seen the world and who just wanted to do his job and mind his own business. 

Every night it was the same.  I’d lock up the building in which Sarge would set up for the night and cordially greet him.  Occasionally, a few hollow remarks would pass between us such as, “Looks like there might be some storms” or “It’s a quiet one tonight.”  Usually, it was me who spoke.  Sarge generally seemed too withdrawn into himself to offer any kind of banal conversation, as if some inner demons were tormenting him.  Sometimes, I would just see him in profile, sitting in his tiny cubicle, staring at nothing in particular or reading a magazine or a newspaper – anything to pass the long hours he would have to while away between making his hourly rounds.  Others times, I would see him sitting on his golf cart staring up at the stars through the trees.  What was he thinking about as his gaze lifted skywards?  Perhaps he was thinking that there had to be something better than the mundane routine of this dull existence.  Or perhaps he was thinking about the unfathomable mysteries of the universe.  Or maybe I was the one thinking these things.  For all I know, Sarge was thinking of nothing at all.  In any event, what I’ve related above summed up my sole communication with this individual for over a year, and I knew absolutely nothing more about him on the last night that I saw him than on the first. 

All except one thing.  He liked Pringles.

Yes, if there was one thing in the world that Sarge liked it was a tall can of Pringles.  For every night when I would go in and take up his garbage, there was a can of pringles to be seen in the basket.  Usually, this was the only object in there.  Occasionally, there would be other items as well including napkins or tissues.  But usually, it was just a single, solitary empty can of pringles.  Yes, indeed, Sarge liked his potato chips.

And then one night, I went to lock up the building and there was another security guard in Sarge’s booth.  He appeared to be an unwelcome intruder.  After all, this was Sarge’s domain.  It was as if this other guard was a blemish who had appeared in the night, corrupting the peaceful world of Sarge and his long hours of thoughtful, introspective solace.  I casually asked this invader where Sarge was…  Why wasn’t he at his post?  It was as if some unnatural corruption in the universe had violated the sacred sanctuary of this quiet individual.  I was told with an intrusive flash that Sarge had died of a massive heart attack after his shift had ended.  His wife had found him sometime in the morning lying peacefully in his bed.  

Though I did not know Sarge, not even his name, I felt sad.  And as I stooped to remove the bag of trash in the wastebasket, I was met with the familiar sight of the long, red can of Pringles for the final time.  I stepped outside into the night and gazed up at the stars right where Sarge used to sit in his golf cart doing the same, pouring a hot cup of steaming coffee from his thermos and putting it to his lips or munching a Pringle or two. 

       

Elements of Time: The Chimney

By Craig: Sometimes it is the simple things in life that are remembered. They might exist in the distant past... hazy, foggy images, perhaps distorted somewhat by the passage of time that sit on the periphery of a persons mind. They are impressed there like stone...or in one of my cases, bricks. It is a chimney, perhaps 70 feet tall. I am 7 years old, and I am lying on my back on the grass looking up at the blue sky. I am at my grandfather's house. My brother is with me and we roll down the hill like logs until we get to the bottom of the hill. There are grass stains on my knees, but I don't care and neither does my brother. We climb back to the top of the small hill and repeat the process, until we are tired and merely lie there looking up at the clouds. I see a face with a bulbous nose, and a pursed mouth and watch it become distorted so that it resembles something else entirely. Why does it change? Why do things have to go away never to return? I see a great castle with a knight and a raised sword. It too eventually dissipates into nothingness. I tilt my head back and see the world upside down including the giant smokestack across the street that was built for the boilers that operated the hospital. It stands there towering up into the sky and seems to reach for heaven. Indeed, nothing on the planet could be taller than this chimney. If I could somehow get to the top I would be high enough to see God...If I stare at it long enough in relation to the clouds I can see it moving...falling! I get dizzy and sit up. My mother is calling from the house. She will not be pleased with the grass stains. My uncle leaps down from the steps on the front porch...A porch that no longer exists...he snaps his fingers at us as he hops in his car...a car that no longer exists...except in the guise of a distant memory...from a time that continues to recede farther and farther into the past.

The Dream of Bartolomeu de Gusmao

By Craig: For as long as I can remember I  have always had the same dream. I am flying over a field. Below me I can see the roof tops of houses, and the lush green foliage of tree tops. It is a serene, quiet dream with no elements of surprise, or abrupt deviations that turn and twist a dream from one location to another by means of the minds fragile and whimsical ability to skim the periphery of varying thoughts. No, it is always the same; the dark green grass, the tree tops and roofs of the houses with their open chimneys looking like dark cavities. I might have the dream once or twice a year, perhaps more, but the mind is a very forgetful instrument. In fact, I believe that I have written about this dream in a previous post on this blog. But anyway... I want to fly like the birds, and so too have others throughout the history of the world. Daedalus and his son Icarus created wings like a bird which were held together by wax. Their flight from the labyrinth, however, came with a warning. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun or the wax of his wings would melt. Needless to say the warning went unheeded as the impetuous youth soared into the heavens and met his fate. The story of Daedalus and Icarus has been relegated to mythology, but needless to say it is proof that people were thinking about manned flight in ancient times.



In the early 18th century an inventive Portuguese priest named Bartolomeu de Gusmao appeared at the court of King John V in Lisbon. He had a startling proposal to make which, in 1709, seemed preposterous. Gusmao claimed that he could invent an airship that could take to the heavens and fly. He presented the king and his court with a sketch of the craft along with a detailed description. It would be shaped like a boat, with a massive sail to catch the wind. The ship would be held aloft by tubes from which air would be pumped through by way of a bellows. Powerful magnets inserted into hollow metal balls would move the craft through the sky. To today's readers this seems like something from the pages of a 19th century Jules Verne novel. However, Gusmao was totally serious.  It is not known for certain whether a model of his lighter than air craft was ever constructed. According to one account published by a London newspaper decades after the alleged event there is evidence that at least one of his experiments was attempted. Sometime around the year 1720 it is written:



A Brazilian Jesuit, named Bartholomew Gusmao, possessed of abilities, imagination, and address, by permission of John V. fabricated a balloon in a place contiguous to the Royal Palace, and one day, in presence of their Majesties, and an immense crowd of spectators, raised himself, by means of a fire lighted in the machine, as high as the cornice of the building; but through the negligence and want of experience of those who held the cords, the machine took an oblique direction, and, touching the cornice, burst and fell.

It is said that the Inquisition got wind of Gusmao's experiments, and believed that he might have been experimenting in a sort of wizardry.  He fled to Spain where he died at a relatively young age in 1724. Gusmao had a dream that one day mankind would take to the skies and soar through the clouds like birds. These days the dream of Gusmao is realized and people have even been into space. There has even been talk of a manned mission to Mars in the near future. What might Gusmao think of this? It is hard to say. The Inquisition is no more, but there is still the age old threat that keeps science and progress from attaining the evolution of Gusmao's dream ,and that is the inability of people to get along. There is a cultural divide that slows the advancement of technology due to the distractions and resources that are needed to fight them. Maybe one day reason will prevail over the petty squabbles of nations that inhibit the growth of Gusmao's dream.



I find myself standing in an open court. There is a slight breeze as I mingle with the crowd that has gathered in front of Ribeira Palace in Lisbon. I gaze to my left and see the harbor filled with merchantman and caravels. A large man-o-war with 56 guns sits idle, its crew also mingling with the throng of people that are here to witness a marvel never before seen in the annals of time. A raised platform covered by a large canvas canopy holds the young king and his courtiers who are here to witness this unprecedented event. In the center of the court is the magician himself, wearing a chocolate brown robe made of the finest eastern silk. He stands next to his machine that is bedecked in a material known only to the inventor. It is shaped like a large bird the bow carved into the likeness of a hawk. He salutes the crowd and then the king, and climbs aboard with two assistants who are similarly clothed. Gusmao bends down and does something to the large magnets that causes a humming sound to burst forth from the craft. There is a startled emanation from the crowd as fingers point to the object of interest. Suddenly it is aloft! The two assistants work the bellows as the unfurled sail catches a northerly breeze from the harbor and the airship is soon moving slowly higher up over the palace and into the sky. The inventor can be seen working the sail, his soft hat askew. The crowd is shouting with mixed emotion, some of them cheering, others laughing and crying, while the most pious of the lot are on their knees praying to their savior for the wizardry that they have just been witness to. A man screams and flees the palace yard in terror taking a horde of the superstitious rabble with him. I watch in silence until the mighty airship disappears behind a cloud. When it emerges again it is but a speck in the sky...drifting...sailing into the dreams of an unknown future.

Classics Ilustrated # 141: Castle Dangerous

By Craig: There are three types of people. There are those who live for the present, while others live for their future. The ones who live for the present are usually of the hedonistic variety. They live for  pleasure, and for the most part do not think of the future or ever reflect about the past. They typically are the television watchers, bar patrons, and fine dining epicureans who attempt to find ways to make their lives more agreeable in the here and now with superficial tendencies. The people who live for the future are more apt to live an ascetic lifestyle, or at least one that consists of being economically sound. They shun the extravagant lifestyle and engage in frugality with the hope of a more comfortable and secure retirement. Finally there are the people who are always looking behind them. They may also belong to one of the former types, but are different in the sense of sentimentality. I could give a flying leap about climbing the so-called ladder of success that is typically associated with the first group. I also do not care to live a life that abstains from life's simple pleasures. This removes me from the second group. After all, life may end tomorrow or the day after. There are no guarantees. This leaves me with the unenviable position of being cast into the third group. A group that consists of poets, dreamers, procrastinators and people who would rather watch the world from a vantage point far from the center of activity, or the hub of popularity.

I first became acquainted with the works of Sir Walter Scott when I was a young boy. At sometime my brother and I  acquired a tattered copy of the Classics Illustrated comic book Castle Dangerous. I have forgotten where and how we managed to obtain it but it was probably at the flea market that we would frequent every Sunday. The comic was 20 years old when it came into our possession and had not been taken care of. Not that this mattered to us. We were intrigued by the story that was told inside. The cover shows a fierce looking knight in black armor standing on a siege ladder. His sword is raised behind him as he is getting ready to slash at his adversaries while attempting to break over the castle walls. The story takes place during the English-Scottish border wars in the early 14th century. The black knight depicted on the cover is the Scottish Douglas. Sir James Douglas (1286-1330) also known as the "Black Douglas" because of the colour of his armor was one of Robert The Bruce's chief allies in the Scottish war of Independence. The story in the comic book is of course semi-fictional. It takes real historical personalities and mixes them with fictitious ones to create a fluid tale that culminates in a small battle between the English and the Scots outside of a church. This eventually leads to a single combat between Douglas and his English counterpart Sir John De Walton which ends in a mutual truce.

Every few years or so I pick up this comic book and read it. It is the epitome of the days of chivalry. Knights defending the honour of a lady... single combat between knights, and the solid walls of an impregnable castle. It takes place during a time of adventure and romance. Of course, in reality, it is all hogwash. The reality of the times that this romantic adventure took place were quite different than what most folks see in books and movies. It was for most people a time rife with disease and pestilence. Life was short and harsh. The only solace coming from the monks and priests who spoke of another life in the hereafter. But I don't give a damn about the reality. I deal with reality everyday. Sometimes I choose to live in the land of illusion...the land of the distant past. For a short time I become the all powerful Black Douglas possessing the strength of 10 men climbing to the top of the castles ramparts and delivering mortal blows with my broadsword to usurpers that have stolen my ancestral home. A damsel locked in a tower beckons from an airy window for my protection which of course is forthcoming. When I first read this comic book nearly 40 years ago I imagined that the future held an unimaginable amount of goals and achievements none of which were insuperable. There was a castle waiting for me, an army of knights in my employ that would do my bidding, and a lady love that was provided with all the finery of life. Today, the illusion is gone, but somehow remotely persists in the inner chamber of my mind where it resurfaces time and time again amidst the insipid  reality of what is now.

Danny's Sunset

By Craig: The other day a good friend of mine passed away. It was a shock because he was in such good shape physically for a man who was nearing 70 years old. We were in the same running club, and he was the type of person who would give you the shirt off his back. When I was attempting to qualify for the Boston Marathon a few years ago, he gave me some good advice that helped me to succeed in my endeavor. We ran an Ultra-Marathon together in South Carolina back in December. It was a 24 hour race that turned into a mud fest on slippery rain soaked trails. The course was along a narrow path that crossed creeks, and it seemed that every lap around the trail I would encounter a new root that seemed to have sprung up like some target in an arcade game. It was a mess! My goal had initially been to finish 100k, but after assessing the conditions I quickly adjusted that. About mid-afternoon I was seriously beginning to think about quitting. Because I was 20 years younger, and faster than Danny I turned a bend in the trail and saw him in front of me. I had lapped him, but he was plugging along with his head down,  and I came up beside him. He had a big grin on his face, and was thoroughly enjoying himself! We had a lengthy discussion and after giving me encouragement my attitude quickly changed. I no longer felt like quitting, and ended up finishing 40 miles that day! That was the type of person he was.

I found a photograph that Danny had taken a few months back, and because I really like it I saved it on my phone. It is the sunset over a lake. A simple image. There it is... a leafless tree with its outstretched arms that seems to beckon the sun as it disappears on the horizon in the western sky. The serenity of the lake is captivating and surreal. The image is poignant because it captures the truth that we will all one day face. A sunset...A simple sunset... This sunset belonged to my friend.

Elements of Time: The Last WheelWright

By Craig: The sun was setting in old Halifax when the lonely, forgotten man brushed off his apron, hung it on an iron hook, and emerged from the wheelwright shop. There was a slight breeze, and although it was July, he felt the cool New England evening air hit his leathery bronzed neck. It had been an unseasonably cold day with an overcast sky, but 64 year old Isaac Barker was use to the fickle weather of the region. He had spent his whole existence here. It was his land. His forbears had come over on the Mayflower seeking a new beginning. They chose this cold, barren land and over the 250 years since their arrival little had changed...but change was coming, it was in the wind and the old bachelor could sense it. He sat down on a wooden bench outside of his shop and lit his pipe.



His thoughts began to ramble and he went back to the beginning. He had been born with little fanfare in Lynn a few miles to the north. He spent his early years here living with his parents and siblings, but when he was 12 his father; Ephraim, passed away. This left his mother; Lucy, with the care of the 8 children. His mother was pregnant with her last child at the time of his father's death, and a month later child # 9 arrived, a boy. She naturally named him Ephraim. She needed help and it was decided that she would return to her hometown of Halifax where she knew people. Since he was the oldest boy he took charge of the move. He packed the families personal belongings into a wagon and the 40 mile journey began.


It was 1830. The family passed through Chelsea and into Boston where they stopped to look at the magnificent Tremont Hotel which had just been built. It was like nothing that the family had ever seen. The four story granite faced structure, with it's large spacious lobby, and its indoor plumbing was a marvel of engineering by mid 19th century standards. The family moved on and found themselves in the marketplace outside of Faneuil Hall. Here they loaded up their stock of provisions. Isaac found a small confectionary shop and without conferring with his mother bolted into it. He came out with a large pastry which his sisters Ruth and Emma hungrily attacked with much energy and dedication, saving a morsel for him and his mother who chided her son for his impetuous act all the while savoring the taste of it! The wagon rolled out of Boston and made it to Braintree where they stopped for the night at an inn. After a good nights rest they made it to their new home in Halifax that afternoon. Isaac took a good look at his new surroundings. He would never journey so far again...



Over the next few years most of his siblings married and moved on with their lives. Not him, however, he was loyal to his mother. She had her hands full. Ephraim was known as the village "idiot," and her deaf nephew Isaac Waterman came to live with them. Only his older sister Mary, remained. Every day was the same. He would get up before dawn and tend to the fields and work them until mid morning. He would then spend the rest of the day...until dusk...mending wheels. Eventually he gained a sort of reputation for his handiwork and method. Orders came in and he spent more and more time fitting the wooden spokes into the wooden hub than he did in the fields. In 1852,when he was 34, his brother Ephraim took ill. They rushed him to Boston where the doctors diagnosed him with "brain fever." He died within hours. Their once large family now consisted of himself, his mother, and his sister Mary. Eventually Mary went to live in Chelsea, and Isaac was now the sole caregiver to his elderly mother. In 1877, at the age of 89, she too, gave up her mortal cares finally joining her long dead husband in the grave. The years went by...Isaac was now alone.



He sat on the bench puffing on his pipe. The sun finally poked its head from behind the clouds. It was low in the western sky, and he smiled. It was his last sunset, and he was all alone. He must have often wondered how life could have been different. What if he had married? Had children of his own? He would never know. He was, however, aware of the change. People had stopped buying wooden hubs...and wooden spokes. It was iron now. The old village wheelwright was becoming obsolete. He sat there contemplating the vastness of the world, and the cognitive dissonance of his mind was working. Change was good...Or was it? His was a small world. A mere molecule in the cosmic entirety of space and time. He had occupied but a fragment of the lineal line of time...a dot...a pebble on the beach. He knew nothing of mankind's illusion of their superiority and greatness as it related to the natural world, and the culture from which they sprung, whether it be a revolution...a Civil War...Temperance societies...Masonic rituals...religious conformity...He was ignorant of this ostensible arrogance created out of a false sense of importance. A trillion years hence it would be a moot point! If he had been a philosopher he might have agreed with Sartre..."Nothingness, lies coiled in the heart of being, like a worm." What does it all mean? There were the wooden hubs, and the wooden spokes, the lathe, and the chisels. He looked at his once strong weathered, arthritic hands. This was his life... He thought of his mother, his sisters and brothers...The pastry in Boston, oh so long ago! all gone now...And now he too would die in a house fire on this very night, but he did not yet know it. Not that it mattered, for He was enjoying the sunset, and the melodious sound of a distant mourning dove.  He was a lonely man... a forgotten man... My uncle...The last Wheelwright of Halifax.

William McKinley In My Grandfather's Attic

By Craig: I think that I first developed an interest in history before I was 5 years old. some of my earliest memories were of the staircase leading up to the large attic in my grandfather's house. It creaked with every step, even for a young, curious boy like myself who probably only weighed 30-40 pounds. The house was built in the late 19th century, and the attic was filled with stuff from my great-grandparents day. Old newspapers and magazines decaying with age were littered across the floor. Most of the magazines had dates pre-dating the Great War. Edwardian attire with old shoes, hats and other garments still waited for their owners to dust them off and don them. I could almost imagine a late 19th century dandy with outlandish looking whiskers hastily coming through the door to gather his top hat. He would look at me and wink.
"I've been looking for this bloody thing for 80 years!" He would say, before tilting his hat and disappearing in a ghostly mist through the wall.




Indeed, This part of the house was so isolated and remote from the living that it reeked of age and the long ago dead. I was too much of a coward to venture into this time tunnel without my twin brother at my side. Together we would investigate this room of historical mystery. We would play with the hand painted toy soldiers, and look through the crooked window that overlooked the Worcester skyline. But the window was high, and being only a child I could see nothing but the blue sky and clouds where I would sometimes believe that I saw biplanes from another time performing acrobatic feats that the Red Baron himself would have found astonishing. When I was a little older and able to read I recall going through the old newspapers and magazines and reading about events that had long since been forgotten, or had at least dimmed in the consciousness of the living. For some unexplainable reason when I think of my grandfather's attic today, an image of William McKinley pops into my head. One of the books in my grandfather's bookcase was a memorial tribute to the 25th President which was published shortly after he was assassinated in 1901. I do not know how my grandfather acquired the book. He was born in 1907. Perhaps it was his father's book, or perhaps it was in the house when he bought it. I do not know. Some of the newspapers in the attic were updates on the Spanish-American war. It was as if McKinley's ghost inhabited part of this house.


A few years ago I found a copy of the McKinley Tribute in a bookstore for a relatively cheap price. They must have made tons of them after his death so that it was still relatively easy to find. Like most biographies of that time period, the subject is portrayed as having no faults. In fact he is treated as an almost divine figure. He is referred to as "Our Martyred President."

William McKinley (1843-1901)

William McKinley was born in Trumbull County Ohio on January 29, 1843. He was the son of a manager of a blast furnace. His family was middle class and he therefore was afforded the opportunity of attending college. Shortly after enrolling, however, the Civil War broke out and McKinley enlisted in the 23rd Ohio Infantry Regiment. He saw action at Antietam and shortly thereafter his leadership skills were recognized and he was given an officers commission. He served in various capacities throughout the war and was recognized by Abraham Lincoln for "gallant and meritorious services at the battle of the Opiquan, Cedar Creek, and Fisher's Hill,."

After the war McKinley attended law school in Albany and worked as a lawyer before entering politics. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Governor of Ohio before being elected President in the 1896 election. McKinley was perhaps best known for his support of the gold Standard, and the Spanish-American War which was the first large scale conflict in the United States since the Civil War. Six months after McKinley's reelection he decided to attend the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo New York. Inside of a building known as "The Temple of Music" he shook hands with a number of people before an assassin named Leon Czolgosz fired two .32 caliber bullets into him. One of the bullets lodged in his abdomen and was never found. McKinley died of an infection eight days after the shooting. Czolgosz was an anarchist who believed that the American economic system was flawed, and the disparity in income between the rich and the poor needed to be addressed. He was executed in the electric chair less than two months after the assassination.

The years have rolled by and it has now been 114 years since McKinley's assassination. There are only a handful of people alive on the planet today that saw the same sunrise as President McKinley, and they were too young then to remember it now.

I find myself going back in time. It is the 1970s and I am about 8 years old. I am with my brother sitting on the wooden floor in my grandfather's musty attic. I look at an old chaise covered with white linen when suddenly a gust of wind blowing through the open window sweeps the linen from the chair. There is a noise coming from below...it is the stairs!...they are creaking. Someone is slowly coming up. Soon I see what is making the noise. It is a gentleman in a late 19th century black coat wearing a top hat. The gentleman is holding his abdomen and it is all too obvious who it is. He is black and white, for it is a black and white world from which he has come. He pays no heed to us as he sits in the chaise and crosses his legs. His baggy eyes look weary as if he has been traveling for some time and looking for a place to rest. He looks up toward the crooked window and suddenly his countenance changes. A hint of a smile perhaps? Or maybe it is curiosity?

"An aeroplane" He says softly, finally looking at us. "I knew it would come to fruition."

I did not quite understand him. I only knew that it was a changing of the guard...an old world...which was his...and the new world...which was mine. This attic belonged to him...not me. It was his world...not mine. My brother and I stood up as another gust of wind blew through the window and turned some fragile yellowed pages of the Boston Post to dust. The generations come and go, and one day, I too will outlive my time, and someone will be searching the remnants of it left behind for the living. We left President McKinley, who was smiling, and no longer in pain. He had finally found his peace...in his own time...in my grandfather's attic.

 

World War I: Walter Hipkins, A Letter From the Western Front

By Craig: It has been a century since the Great War which was supposed to have been the war that ended all wars. I have been reading a lot about it over the last few months and decided to do an article for this blog. On June 15, 1915 the Boston Post  published an article which I will post here in its entirety. The article relates details of a letter that my Uncle, Walter Hipkins, wrote to his brother, (my Great-Grandfather) Frederick T Hipkins who had been invalided out of the Royal Navy, and was at this time working as President of the United States Match Plate Company. Walter was serving in the South Staffordshire Regiment in France at the time.

He Writes From The Trenches

________

Boston Man Tells of "Gas" War, German "Snipers," Etc.

____________

Fred T. Hipkins who lives in the Forest Hills district has just received a letter from his brother, Walter, who is fighting with the allied troops in the trenches in France. The letter is one of the most interesting yet received in this country.

____________



Praises German Soldiers

It praises the Germans as soldiers and says the Germans have the best equipment of any army in the world. Notwithstanding this he says, the English will go on fighting until they win. He says that the efficiency of the German "snipers" is so great that it is a 10 to one shot if a soldier on the side of the allies should put his head over the parapet of his trench in the daytime, he would be hit.

The letter also gives great praise to the Canadian contingent on the firing line and bids the Germans beware of them. The letter says:

"We have been in this country three months, and two of these we have spent on the firing line, so you can guess I know a little about it now, and am also getting used to it. Bullets and shells, my boy, are not snowballs, but I am hoping they will give me a miss, as I can't say I am anxious to become a property owner in this country; but I am sorry to say we have already lost a good few of our fellows. But are we downhearted? No. We shall stick to it until we win. They can kick an Englishman if he is on the floor, but he will get up smiling. What say you, brother? I must say this. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. The German soldiers are brave men. their equipment is the best in the world. Their snipers command your respect, for if you put your head above the parapet of your trench in the daytime, it is 10 to one you are among the empties. But when we shine and beat them, it is because we never know when we are beaten. And if all our officers were shot down, and the N.C.O said keep on firing, we should do so. They (meaning the Germans) would not. And there is the difference between the two greatest nations in the world.

"I have met some of the Canadians and they are a smart looking lot of men. They will do some mischief. Thank God for our colonies and for what makes them come from all over the world when the old flag is in danger. This question takes some answering. Is there any other country in the world, or nation, that could do what we are doing? I say no. And what is the cause of it all? I for myself put it in two words-"freedom" and "justice."

Denounces "Gas" War

"To die by a bullet or shell is war, but by gas it is murder. It is impossible for me to describe the horrors of it all. To see all these villages and towns in ruins. Thousands upon thousands of lives lost and what for? Just for the vanity of one man who talks about God more than he believes in him. I do not know how long it will be before you get this letter. Lots of things might happen in the meantime. Even while writing this letter, our artillery are firing and kicking up a nice row. Someone looks like getting hurt. We go into the trenches tonight just to send a few more rounds at them.

That reminds me of a dirty incident they did in the trenches when the Lusitania was sunk. They stuck up a piece of board over the trench with these words on it "What about the Lusitania?" Our reply was the Union Jack from the top of our trench, but thank God they did not hit it."



2nd Lt. Walter Hipkins

Worcestershire Regiment

Walter Hipkins was born in Coseley Staffordshire in 1888. He enlisted in the South Staffordshire Regiment in March 1915 and served with this regiment until he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on  27 June 1917 at which time he was transferred to the Worcestershire Regiment. He was posted to the 5th Special Reserve Battalion at Fort Tregantle, Cornwall. Apparently he was taking a break from the front line action that he had seen with the South Staffordshire Regiment, but it was to be short lived. He was soon back in France posted to the 1st Battalion. The 1st Worcestershire was commanded by Major F. C. Roberts. During the afternoon of March 22, 1918 the 1st Worcestershire boarded a troop train for the front lines and by that night had reached Amiens on the Somme. After a delay the journey resumed and by 0230 on the morning of March 23 the Battalion reached Nesle. The troops detrained and the 1st Worcestershire marched to Pargny where they took up defensive positions along the slopes of the river bank. The Germans had pushed the 5th army back and they were now in retreat. The 1st Worcestershire began to see the retreating troops come through their lines at around 1400. The pursuing Germans were right behind them, but the 1st Worcestershire stopped their advance. Sometime that evening Major Roberts found out that the Germans had taken the village of Pargny and he decided that a counter-attack was necessary to retake the village. That evening he led two companies of the Battalion into the village and pushed the Germans back across the river. 2nd Lt. Hipkins was wounded during this fighting which took place along a few country lanes, and around a churchyard. Sometime the following day the English realized that they were about to be encircled and therefore retreated to a stronger position along a railway embankment.

Officers and NCO's 1st Worcestershire, March 1918



2nd Lt. Walter Hipkins survived the horrors of the Great War and was awarded the 1915 Star Medal along with the British and Victory Medals for his service. Ironically, and sadly he would meet his death during another war. On February 28, 1941 he was killed by shrapnel falling down his chimney during a German air raid.

Man & Time, J.B. Priestley

By Craig: I have recently been reading an old book by the mid twentieth century writer J.B. Priestley called Man and Time. In the first chapter there is an old 19th century illustration that was borrowed from The Ingoldsby Legends. It depicts a man being chased by a grandfather clock with legs and arms. His hat has blown off of his head as he flees down a hill from this thing that seems almost certain to catch him. The look on the man's face is one of sheer terror. For the most part we are all running from time. This old illustration sums up the unambiguous future that we will all one day face. We will all one day cease to be.

Most people seek a sort of permanence in their lives. It is a comfort zone of sorts that we strive for, although it varies with the nature of the individual. We get use to functioning in a sort of rhythm that becomes a part of who we are. Most of us wake up and immediately start performing the same ritual that we have become accustomed to day after day. The permanence, however, which is sought...can never be attained. Outside influences along with slight deviations in our game plan coupled with the passage of time render this nirvana impossible. We are always looking behind us...and ahead of us, and there it lurks...that grandfather clock ticking away the seconds that will eventually make all thought and actions moot and pointless.   

Bruce Jenner's Face

By Craig: Sometime during the summer of 1976 I can remember sitting in my parents living room watching the Olympics on a small black and white television. The Olympics were held in Montreal that year, and because I was only eight years old it was my first memory of them. I was only four when the Munich Olympics were held in 1972 so I have no memory of those events. I do remember thinking that four years was a very, very, very long time. Indeed, to an eight year old it may as well have been another lifetime. As far as my eight year old self was concerned the Montreal Olympics were the first games that were ever held. There was the 13 year old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci who won three gold medals. Then there was the American Sugar Ray Leonard who won a gold medal in boxing. However, it was the American Decathlon champion Bruce Jenner who stole the limelight. In the months following the Olympics he was everywhere. The news outlets of the day couldn't get enough of him. He was on the cover of magazines that had nothing to do with Track and Field. There was a Decathlon board game sporting his likeness. He even ended up at my breakfast table. His manly image with his long hair and powerful physique seeming to burst forth from the orange Wheaties box on the kitchen table. "Here I am Craig! Eat Wheaties! You can be a badass just like me! He was ubiquitous. His face everywhere.






Sometime during those Olympics as we sat in the living room, perhaps while watching Jenner throw a discus into the heavens, we heard a faint scratching sound on the screen door coming from outside. Investigating, we found a cat sitting there and when we opened the door it merely bounded into the house as if it lived there. The cat took an instant liking to my mother, and if anyone else tried to give it any attention they might get a scratch from its paw. It had a feral side to it and would sometimes leave the house for days and even weeks before returning, but it would always return. Then, one day in 1979 we moved from the house where we had watched the Montreal Olympics, and the cat went with us. It became immediately apparent that the cat did not like its new dwelling and within a few days it disappeared. A few weeks later we were shocked to get a call from our former neighbor saying that the cat had found its way back to our old residence which happened to be miles away across town. The cat, like most people was averse to change. It had become comfortable with its surroundings and when moved decided that it could not abide the change. We humans, like cats, also abhor change. We tend to stick to things that are familiar to us. A few years ago my son graduated from first grade and had a party on his last day of school. That evening  I found him crying on his bed and when I asked him what he was crying for he told me that he did not want to go into second grade, he wanted to go back to first grade. I chuckled at this and told him that things constantly change in life. I could see him reflecting on what I was telling him, and he then made a remark that I will never forget until the day I die. He said "daddy, when I grow up and get a job, are you going to drive me to work and pick me up? I don't think I can drive a car." I laughed and assured him that I would drive him to work!




Change is constant. My son is now in fifth grade and no longer concerns himself with worrying whether I will one day have to drive him to work. The feral cat is long dead...its fate unknown. The 1976 Olympics are now 39 years in the past. Looking at old images from those games invoke old memories of a time that no longer is. The participants are all past middle age, and have gone on to other things in their lives. There have been nine games held since that summer when I was eight. Then there is the ghostly image of Bruce Jenner on the Wheaties box. His arms raised in triumph...The youthful, athletic portrait of the champion sprinting into an unknown future full of change as the wheels of time continue to roll...

New Book: An Ocean Of Stories

By Craig: Jay has published a book of sketches and short stories that he has written over the years. Here is the link to purchase it from Amazon.


http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-Stories-Tales-Sketches/dp/061597760X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422498139&sr=8-1&keywords=jay+hipkins

Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977?

Did Sasquatch Really Exist in 1977? by Jay

Of course he did!  At least to an eight year old kid who went to the cinema to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977)...  For several Saturday mornings before its release in theaters, tantalizing previews were aired to promote the film.  As an impressionable eight year old, anything about mythical monsters and extraterrestrials purporting to be real was food for digestion.  One of the previews I distinctly remembered was a kneeling trapper named Jessup in a campground with his back turned to the camera.  As the camera panned in on him (obviously the eyes of Bigfoot), this ominous music was playing.  Jessup began to turn just as the camera (Bigfoot) cast a shadow over him, and I was left to wonder about the poor trapper's fate.  I had to see this movie!  Several weeks went by as I anticipated the premiere.

I don't know what I expected, but when I finally went to the theater to see it, I left feeling somewhat disappointed.  The basic plot was told in an obviously fictitious docu-drama format concerning an expedition to find the legendary, hairy beast.  Maybe it was the fact that Bigfoot didn't come thumping down the aisles during the showing?  Or perhaps it was because much of the climax was filmed in the dark, and all I could see was a bunch of paper mache rocks being hurled by a guy in a gorilla suit?  Whatever the reason, I left wanting more.  But what? 

Looking back, I think it was the historical mystery itself that gripped my imagination.  The stories of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot if you will, are ultimately something that can't be told successfully on screen.  These are legends that are meant to be told on a crisp, fall evening around a campfire or scribbled about in a collection of stories by a competent and colorful writer.  Myths and legends are meant to have gaps that only one's imaginative thoughts can fill.  Visually, however, Bigfoot is a major disappointment. At least, so it proved to me.  Legends are only meant to seen in the mind of each individual.  Anything else is setting up the creative imagination for failure. 

This afternoon, my brother and I, for lack of anything better to do, decided to watch the film for the first time in nearly thirty eight years.  Someone had downloaded it on YouTube.  Decades after first watching it, the old film was crackly and skipped in various spots, only to be expected from a low budget production made in the mid-1970's.  The flowery music that was played in the background sounded as if it were being piped from a psychedelic, multi-colored love van, and the actors' voices (including a wise old trapper named Josh and a wannabe Indian named Techka Blackhawk) were indistinct and muted, burping forth from shadowy or etiolated faces.  The rugged scenery, with virgin forest and snow capped peaks would have been visually appealing if it were not for the fact that the ancient, forty year old film almost appeared as if it were folding in on itself.  I almost got the impression that I were viewing ghostly glimpses of the dead stiffly moving through the woods on phantom horses in a dim, colorless world which had drifted away long ago.  Even the animals presented, including a mountain lion, seemed to have stepped right out of a taxidermist's workshop.  All seemed dead.  The film seemed to be groaning as if to say, "Please, stop...  no mystery here...  the past is in the past...  no more...  let me settle in upon time and close my eyes... forever..." 

Some of the last words spoken in the film were by the actor who played the pseudo Indian, Techkna Blackhawk.  After failing to capture the ever elusive Bigfoot, Techkna said, "It is done.  We can go home now."

And so it should be said to allow all great legends to continue to grow, and until all time should forever pass into that collective space of forgotten nothing.


   



        

A Brief Moment In Time: Washington D.C. 1975

By Craig: The other day I was going through some boxes in the attic when I happened to find one that contained numerous boxes of old slides and photographs. The slides were in their original boxes and I was intrigued as to what might be on them. A few of the boxes were labeled but most of them were unmarked. Turning on the bright overhead light in my library I held each of them up so that I could see what was on them. I was immediately taken back in time. The images on the slides were taken by my father from the mid 1960s up until the early 1980s. Some of the images were taken before I was born, but most of them were from my early childhood in the early to mid 70s. I was immediately captivated by a series from a trip that we took to Washington D.C. in April of 1975. I was 6 years old at the time but have fond memories of this trip which I previously wrote about in a post a few years back.

Lincoln Memorial 1975

     I had the slides converted with the help of my brother Jay's wife, Tina. As I was going through them one of them caught my attention. I don't know why, but I kept being drawn back to it. It is an image of the Lincoln Memorial. It sits there in all its marble glory, its stairs sprinkled with people dressed in a fashion that today's society would consider alien. It is a brief moment captured in time and hidden in a box for nearly two generations. There is something about the image that captivates my senses. It might have something to do with bright sky that illuminates the scene, almost hidden by the gargantuan monument, or the black recess of the inner chamber which looms menacingly in the center of the photograph. It is dark and mysterious, and the people climb the steps toward it as if they were about to enter into the unknown. And what of the people? Who are they? Where are they from? Where are they now?

Craig & Jay Washington 1975

    About halfway up the first flight of stairs ascends a solitary dreamer. He is wearing a white shirt and a white hat and has sloppily thrown his coat over his right shoulder. He takes it all in. There is something white in his back pocket...a tour guide perhaps? A lady dressed in yellow reminding me of a sunflower stands with her pocket book slung over her shoulder. Her arms are both up, and hidden as if she might be holding something up to her face. Is it a camera? Is there perhaps another image out there sitting in a dusty album, forgotten in a closet that captures the same instant in time from a different angle! In front of the sunflower lady is another woman dressed in sea blue who seems to be running in quick step as if she cannot wait to enter the black hole that awaits her in a few more steps. Why is she in such a hurry? Perhaps she is only in Washington for the day and wants to see more than just the Lincoln Memorial. Now gaze downward to the left and you can see a middle age couple locked arm in arm. The bald man with ear to ear carpet is helping his plump wife who seems to be struggling with the stairs. What might he be thinking as she clings on to him for dear life? Three lazy men sit at the base of one of the massive Doric columns. One of them has his hand up to his mouth as if he were smoking a Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike man seems to be in a heated conversation with a man wearing a red shirt. It is a long lost and forgotten, unimportant conversation that none of the parties involved would ever remember. It might have gone something like this:

Lucky Strike Man: "So you think the Oakland A's will win the World Series again this year?"

Red Shirt Man: "Naw, Hell no! I'd say Pete Rose and his boys will take it."

Lucky Strike Man: "You're crazy! Rose is washed up!"

Whatever the conversation was about along with the identity of the three men and anyone else in the image will never be known. The faces of the people are mere blurs. None of them exist anymore. At least in the form that they took when this image was captured. At least half of them have almost certainly given up their mortal cares and passed into oblivion. The ones who remain alive on this distant day in the future in no way resemble the human creatures that they once were. 40 Springs have now passed... At one point in their lives all of them converged at this singular place, and then quickly separated never to merge again. They lived their lives not knowing that they ever did merge together, or that 4 decades in the future someone would be writing about their dim and shadowy figures on the steps of a monument that will one day crumble to dust as did the Greek and Roman temples of yore.

    
       I take one last look at the image and notice 4 people standing in front of one of the marble columns. It is as if they are posing for a photograph from a distant photographer. A woman in a beige coloured leisure suit with three young boys. One of the boys is holding his mother's hand...I smile.