A Lost Moment in Time: Grizzly Adams (1977)

By Craig: "My name is Mad Jack and if anyone knows the story of James Adams that would be me." So says the character Mad Jack played by grizzled actor Denver Pyle at the start of every episode of the 1970s classic The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. I can remember watching this TV show when I was a kid and it was one of my favorite programs. They were simple stories that usually contained a lesson in morality. The main character of course, was Grizzly Adams himself, played by the late Dan Haggerty. He was a big man with a big heart who was accused of a murder that he did not commit. Fleeing his home he left for the mountains where he adopted a bear cub named Ben and built a cabin with the help of the trapper Mad Jack. Adams also had a native American friend Nakoma. In an early episode Adams tells a young boy how he became blood brothers with Nakoma after saving his life one day. The boy wants a blood brother of his own, and at the end of the episode is introduced to Nakoma's nephew. It is symbolic of peace and friendship and how easy it is to get along with people of another culture without the judgmental and preconceived notions that surround it.

I have started to watch these episodes again nearly 40 years after I first saw them. The first thing that I thought about was how this series would never make it on television today. The episodes are too slow moving. There is not enough violence to entertain a modern audience. People today require action and a fast pace. The attention span of today's Ritalin induced audience would be gone in the first five minutes. "Where are the guns? the ass kicking tough guys (and girls) and the cars crashing through police barricades?"  As if this vapid nonsense isn't enough, today's audience also requires there to be shows where certain people have their lives minutely examined and filmed so people can judge them. Who gives a damn about what the Kardashian's are doing? I don't. Oh well...I guess that is what our constricted, fear induced world has come to...watching bad guys with guns fight good guys with guns, and celebrating the arrogant pampered existence of reality TV stars that do nothing but engage in unfettered consumption. For my part, I'll go back to 1977, a time when I was nine years old...watching the adventures of a quiet, unassuming mountain man living among the wild animals and the peaceful forest of a an age that has long since passed.

The Quest for Universal Stability

By Craig: I try not to pay attention to the news. It is wrought with violence and mayhem. Every day the headline has to do with some mass shooting or murder. There is always a war going on at some place on the globe where thousands, if not millions of people are victimized by mankind's inability to get along. This is nothing new. There have always been wars caused mainly by greed, differences of religion, jealousy, or simply lust for power. People also engage in violent acts out of desperation and a longing for some sort of recognition or notoriety. "I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED" some desperate character might think before engaging in some dastardly act. Sometimes the news is hard to ignore. These days, technology makes it easy for people to find out about some disaster only moments after it has occurred no matter where it is on the earth. This instantaneous access to news and what is happening on the other side of the globe, or outside of a persons own neighborhood has created a certain type of individual that is paranoid about their own fragile situation in life. These type of people tend to overreact and create environments that really have nothing to do with their own reality. This environment attaches itself to the persons persona and sticks to it like a parasite. People naturally break up into camps with people of similar thinking. I like to think of myself as a lone wolf. Unfortunately, however, I tend to migrate toward one of the prevailing camps. I am no different than anyone else no matter how hard I try to be. I am human and therefore clannish.

Recently, France was attacked by a rabble of cowards that had, or have no conscience. Human life to these savages means no more to them than if they were squashing fruit flies. I cannot fathom how people like this can exist. Is it some kind of genetic trait carried on from generation to generation? Is the human race evolving at different rates within itself? Environment surely has something to do with this aberration, but there are people brought up in the same environment as these terrorists and they do not randomly attack people in the name of some god? Why can't people just get along with one another? Why must some people try to impose their radical views and beliefs on people with differing opinions or beliefs? I guess these are the age old questions which might never be answered. Realities are the sums of a persons experiences and what that person is exposed to. Plato talked about dancing shadows on the cave of a wall. A fire burns deep inside a cave where a prisoner is chained facing a wall. The fire is behind the prisoner, and he is chained so that he cannot see the fire or the things happening behind the fire. He can only see the wall in front of him and the shadows of objects that are behind him. To this person his reality is the shadows on the wall. If he is released and turns around he will be shocked at what he sees. He might be afraid of this new reality and return to his comfortable shadow world. As Thomas Paine once said "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Perhaps it is so with these savage people? Their philosophy of what is right is a pestilence...it is a plague on the rest of society. Most people go about their daily lives trying to live a comfortable existence the best way that they can in a world where ethics and morality varies with the individual. Historically there is no difference in what is going on in the world today than what was happening 200, 500, and 1000 years ago. What is it exactly that human beings seek more than anything else? Is it power? profit? love? lust? I say nay to any of these. I believe that most humans seek a sort of tranquil state of stability, or a satiation of sorts. Isn't that what the rest of the cosmos seek? I don't know.

The universe is chaotic and unstable. One just has to look at the stars to see this. A star is composed of elements that act in a constant state of  violent interactions with one another. Hydrogen atoms collide with terrific force generating fusion which splits them apart. Heavier elements follow suit until the star eventually either burns itself out or explodes in a cataclysmic final burst called a supernova. Gases from these dead stars eventually collect together and it is thought that they form stellar nurseries which create new stars. Comets and asteroids composed of heavier elements also play their respective roles in randomly colliding with embryonic planets as well as ones already in the state of formation. What force is it that causes these transient particles to interact the way they do? We know about fusion, gravity and inertia, but what is the natural state that these particles unconsciously seek? Is it the state of stability? They interact with each other because they have to interact with each other. It is the universal way. When all elements no longer have to interact with each other this is called Universal Stability. It is a term I will use to describe the ultimate attainment of cosmic harmony. It remains to be seen if this harmony can possibly exist when the natural order of things seems to be one of change and flux.

So, this being said, I gravitate toward how humans and other conscious and sentient beings and organic organisms relate to this. If we are composed of the same star material than we should be no different in how we behave and act than the inorganic elements found in nature. The natural state of things seems to be the eternal  quest to find a perfect balance. It is perpetual and never-ending because the universe is infinite. There has to be something beyond that something. Little cosmic bubbles that interact with each other on a grand scale, some contracting, some expanding. As I sit here and write this in a sort of stream of consciousness I can't help but feel how irrelevant I am in relation to the cosmos, but at the same time relevant because I occupy a minuscule part of it.

The Miami Dolphins, Wonder Bread, and Space
By Jay

I have never been a fan of football though I enjoyed playing pickup games of the flag variation when I was younger.  However, as a child I did collect cards of all types, and some of the very first cards I remember having were football cards.  My father used to deliver bread for a company called Genest Bakery up in New England, and back in the early 1970’s Wonder Bread released a set of football cards with many of the star players of the day.  He would bring us piles of these cards.  Two of them I remembered the most were Bob Griese and Larry Csonka.  Both cards had a red border, and both players were stars for the Miami Dolphins – at the time, the best team in professional football.  Growing up in Massachusetts where it is cold and snowy for a good portion of the year, Miami Florida seemed a world away. In my mind, it was a hot, sunny tropical paradise totally remote from the climate I was used to.  It seemed so far away.  At the time I thought I would have just as much of a chance taking a trip to the moon as to ever seeing Miami.  I remember looking at the Bob Griese card.  He was smiling broadly into the camera with a blue sky and clouds in the background.  Because I knew very little about the sport at that age, I thought he looked more like an astronaut than a football player – as if he had just descended from the upper reaches of the atmosphere.  Larry Csonka was squinting as if he were melting under the heat of the hot Miami sun.  Oddly enough, I associated these cards more with the sky and space than I did with football.  My imagination saw the sky as a major component in both pictures though you are unable to really see it in the Csonka photo.  However, Its presence is still distinctly felt.  The entire background is nothing more than a bleary brightness.  It is probably the stands filled with fans from over four decades ago, but the camera and light have obscured them into a blob of blurred bubbles.  Whoever was there or whatever was there will never be known, not that this fact holds any relevance to what is intended to be captured in the photo, which is simply Csonka’s face for the purpose of the card.  As he gazes slightly upwards, he almost seems to be searching for something.  Is he witnessing Griese’s capsule as it descends from the stratosphere?  Perhaps he’s contemplating the first manned mission to the crushing furnace of Venus?  Childish silly thoughts, really.  In reality, he was probably on the sidelines studying the plays on the field. 

It would be nearly forty years before I would begin regular visits to Miami for cancer treatments.  Little did I know in 1974 that my fate would be linked with that bright and hopeful city – so distant to a child of six who lived in an area where the sky seemed perpetually gray over a landscape blanketed in snow.  I suppose Miami still holds the same mystical element it held to me all those years ago, but in a much different way.  

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..."