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           Lately I’ve been leaving the front door open, mostly for a summer breeze to blow on my face, itchy with rash from rapid shaving strokes. A beard was contemplated back in the 60’s, 70,s and 80’s but each attempt highlighted by early stubble, suggested a bluish future and having to endure endless bullying and mocking; said notion was finally abandoned on the eve of Ronald Reagan’s election. I’m smooth faced now much like Joe Namath was in one of those dated shaving cream commercials. Last week or was it earlier this week, when the front door was open, a tractable elephant strolled into the vestibule (great word brought all the way from Newark, NJ) and when my back was turned, her trunk gently, affectionately rubbed the back of my neck. I was busy in one of my drifting states, a long way from home, on a mountain top (like where Davy Crockett was born); this one in Sedona. As luck would have it, we had a jar of unsalted, nutritious peanuts. I thanked my new life long friend and with a soft swoosh, the nuts on a plate, disappeared. After the elephant left, my neck tingled and for whatever reason I drifted back to the 1920’s. I recalled a letter I found at my late Uncle Joe’s house. He was a young boy away for the summer in the Catskill Mountains. He wrote to his father back in Plainfield, New Jersey that he was having a wonderful time, swimming, hiking and eating and could his father write him back as soon as possible to let him know if Babe Ruth hit any home runs. I’ve been watching attentively myself to see AROD hit his 600th. And a buddy told me last night, the IRS will jump right in and assesses a huge tax on that ball as income. I raised my voice, “Why did we throw tea in the harbor?”

            More of curious 1920’s vision: At 11 AM this morning that same breeze made me think about George Gershwin and ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ composed in 1924, a time between wars, before depressions and prohibitions; perhaps in the calendar middle of innocence and hope. Wondering what Gershwin was thinking, feeling, sensing when he composed it, I listened to the Rhapsody for an hour straight; each nine minutes a different emotion. In 1937 George Gershwin died; the same day as my precious Grandfather; both passing long before the horrors of the war. I asked myself could Gershwin have composed the Rhapsody in 1943 during the horrors of that war. Then I thought about 1970 and Vietnam, about getting drafted, winding up amidst rice fields and napalm aroma. It was a different world in 1970. A different war. My generation was looking for ways to get out of going to war. A young soldier interviewed today liked the thrill and high feeling of combat. I thought to myself that he might’ve played a lot of combat video games. As for me, a long story about the draft in 1970; mostly not for now. But I was petrified of jungle wars and being an easy target at 6′ 5 1/2.”  Coupled with that there were pacifist beliefs and a six month bakery and ice cream binge through most of Jersey’s northern counties. At the end of the binge, I gained 100 pounds, hopeful of getting a 4F health rejection.

            It’s a different world war today as well. For most of my formative years (approaching middle ages) I surmised if Communism ever disappeared, the world would be rid of a two super power contentious existence and we’d all wind up eating grapes in white sarongs. Not.  I think about Vietnam casualties and those amazingly brave soldiers back then, how they survived and what they’ve lived with. Then I think about how modern and efficient war making is today. What a technological paradise. Machines do all the work. Not. July was the worst casualty month in the nine year long war (our longest war) in Afghanistan. Today I also learned that 1/3 of our soldiers take prescription drugs (anti-depressants. (I’m depressed now) anxiety and pain meds). Amphetamine (speed) use has doubled since 2006. Sexual offences tripled since 2003. Domestic abuse is up 177% the past 6 years. Last year more soldiers died from non combat injuries than war (suicides, murders, drunk driving) I wondered what kind of soldier is the army attracting today. Oh and 80% of Army suicides take place in the United States. It is a different world now. It is a different war. I would’ve thought these stats applied to our Vietnam soldiers. They probably did. So I just asked myself, is it really a different war and world now? Has anything changed?  Killing Fields geography changed. The species just goes rolling along like the Columbia River. July was the hottest in history. C02 levels around the good ole earth are the highest in 15 million years. The FDA did not ban that diabetes drug. Some magical new diet drug is coming. The cruise I was on last week allowed smoking. It’s 10:45PM Friday night. I just went to the front door and opened it wide. There wasn’t a breeze to slap my face or an elephant to tickle my neck. So I’m sad about a lot of things.

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            Being away from New Jersey for a week, cruising on the Atlantic (to St. John, New Brunswick, Bay of Fundy and Halifax, Nova Scotia) some nautical miles away from where that ‘Perfect Storm’ boat sank, was still soulful rejuvenation. I imagined that killer wave would’ve still reached my balcony on 8th level of ship; therefore I held tightly to the railing each late afternoon as I stared out, wondering how such vastness could be devoid of fish in 30 years. One afternoon, calm seas, fog lifting, I saw six small birds descend and rest weary wings, floating for a few minutes (Couldn’t tell where they were heading. Maybe New York City; due west. Summer in the city is always fun, quiet, with everybody at the Hamptons or even the nouveau chic Jersey Shore)

            Out of nowhere this morning, driving home from the dentist, who refuses to let it be, I saw an image of a girl, twelve years old and so was I. A long time ago (Eisenhower was President), there was a clothing store on Route 22 in New Jersey; shaped like a Flagship (it was called just that). So I became introspective. Why the hell an image of the girl and me? Perhaps easy; I just got off a ship a few days before. That girl has haunted. My mother kept nudging me to try on pants (I was in the follicular stage of a growth spurt). That blonde girl, my age, kept on smiling, staring, and disappearing behind racks of big people’s clothes. I wanted to run over and talk to her but that kind of nerve would take another ten years to develop. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and she obviously liked me. But there was something else about her, which endures to this day; deeply seeded, dormant and every so often, surfaces with wonderment. It begins to define. All of a sudden, she was just a rack of men’s suits away; her face was glowing; the smile overwhelmed; perhaps a first love?  Before I could be sure, a woman wearing strange boot-like shoes; grabbed and pulled her right out of the store. The pit of my stomach reacted. I ran away from my mother, who was holding up a pair of pants to my waist and went for one last glimpse. She was gone but not forgotten. Maybe I know what she meant to me; a spiritual pathway to seek life’s platform. By the next traffic light, another image: A Conestoga wagon(my favorite way to get around if I’m wearing a Davy Crockett hat) a red setting sun, maybe a campfire, Frank Sinatra singing “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and an Ostrich sitting on a red rock nearby. The light was now green. I headed home to a warm bowl of oatmeal with dried blueberries.

            Now cruise thoughts. Our ship allowed smoking in a lot of places. Stop. The first few moments on the lunch buffet (key word) line, I heard a thunderous noise and ran to a deserted table by a window and saw a herd of hungry buffalo on the Serengeti Plain. Art forms emerged from observations; plate piling and designs; human hunger in exaggerated, convoluted expressions; notions of how high you can go; broccoli and cauliflower mixed with strange colored meats and macaroni and cheese. My goodness, everywhere you look; macaroni and cheese, some even laden with warm chocolate sauce. Food is everywhere; obsessed and compulsive. I think I shall never see a tree like that or eat from a buffet line again.

            But Canada’s Maritime Provinces are magnificent. First stop; St. John, New Brunswick. For so many years I dreamt about the Bay of Fundy (I wrote about it in my novel). I saw low tide(26 feet and six hours later the tide came in, quietly and efficiently, not like a herd of buffalo) and also saw rapids in a river that would completely reverse flow in those same six hours. Then in St. Martins, a dock( I love my dock sitting as you all know); the boats resting in mud; two wooden covered bridges over mud were in the background. In the same six hours water would touch the bottom of the covered bridges (I loved the movie about Madison County’s). Air was cool, seventy degrees. Life was pristine, simple and remarkable. I marveled. I thought back to New Jersey, with my eight million neighbors; most close enough to easily see into my kitchen at awkward times. Here in St. Martins there’s a thirty minute drive for a container of milk. Many settlers of the Maritime provinces came from America after the British lost. While at St. Martins I did walk across the bay floor to this vast cave which would be submerged in those six hours and thirteen minutes and found a magic rock, destined for Reckless Ostrich. The next day we docked in Halifax and promptly hiked to the first brewery (with free samples) we could find (that’s what happens when you travel with three 20 somethings).

            As the ship left the dock(for home), I sat on my balcony, a little less worried about perfect storm waves, and marveled at the peaceful waterscapes. In the distance I saw a whale come up and go down. It was a brief sighting, but thrilling. I inhaled the air hanging over Halifax harbor. I also knew that the last time CO2 levels in the atmosphere were this high was 15 million years ago. A plus to being at sea (I love saying that, almost feeling I’ve been impressed by Captain Bligh) was no cell phones. I felt cool all over, less radiated if you must know and still sitting on the balcony(not on my dock) wondered what San Francisco’s new cell phone radiation law means for all of us in twenty years. Then I gently slapped myself in the face; still on vacation. I dreamt of dancing at my high school senior prom with Margaret Hamilton(wearing really high heels)(good dream. bad dream), meaning I’m not in Kansas but still on vacation and knowing that tomorrow is another day(thanks Scarlet) and there’s really no place like home.

            And yes. Please  check novel website.  http://vichywater.net

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         Did you ever feel like you’re swimming in soil? Scraped arms. Tired. Going nowhere. Dust in nostrils and throat. Much in the news about companies and perverse greed. Lest we forget. BP. Glaxo and Avandia(diabetes drug). Being a denizen of social media, I often wonder about protest on the landscape. I don’t see many posts inciting. I can’t be in Kansas during the sixties anymore?  Protest sounds infiltrated air vents in Middle American buildings. No avoidance. It was everywhere about everything. I tell my son how wonderful it was being a twenty something back then. There is no protest anymore. Why do I visualize cattle cars in Chicago hauling their load to slaughter? Sure, a couple of hundred people in downtown New York City got together and threw some black gook on themselves and a BP gas station sign during the first weeks of the gulf oil apocalypse. And people linked hands on beaches all over America to stop offshore drilling. Millions in the Gulf State’s lives have been disrupted/ruined, maybe forever. Trickle down goes up to all of us. As of this writing, they’re waiting to see if the well stays capped. Would love new chapter devoted to massive cleanup. Maybe when Christmas shopping in a mall, meeting friends we’ll talk about the well that’s still capped and off shore drilling being curtailed. And now, what’s this I hear about Britain releasing the convicted Pan Am plane bomber to Libya because he was dying and now that he hasn’t died in Libya, all of a sudden BP gets this lucrative oil deal with Libya. I don’t know. Expectations these days drop me at the bottom of a canyon; buzzards circling overhead while holding an un-strung broken tennis racket to ward them off.

            The Avandia diabetes drug by Glaxo. A million Americans should be marching/protesting at their headquarters. The Senate revealed an internal email from Glaxo. “Per Senior Management request, these data should not see the light of day to anyone outside of GlaxoSmithKline.”  Then their sales analysis. “If cardio-vascular safety issues intensifies” company would lose $600 million in sales. However the FDA just decided to leave it on the market. I shook my head (a disbelief motion). People died. I remember my mother had a lawyer acquaintance named Atticus (something). He once said, “Speed no longer kills, greed does.” But there is no protest. Smart folks reside inside that marble edifice with columns and a statue of a Roman God. They know people forget and go about their business; don’t want to get involved. It doesn’t concern them; maybe just the relatives of those poor souls who took the diabetes drug to live and died will protest. I have to say it. My novel foretold drug companies not recalling.

            On the theme of people not getting involved. I’ve been reading the novel ‘Sarah’s Key’ which begins on July 16, 1942, coincidentally the date of this blog, in Paris, France and how the French police and civil servants (no Germans) brutally rounded up (took pleasure. Who was worse?) over 13,000 French Jews, many women and children, held them at the Velodrome D’Hiver and internment camps before shipping them to Auschwitz. Of course not many survived. The pain of mothers and children ripped, beaten and separated. Unbearable reading. Not many French citizens protested or got involved. French police did a thorough job. History books are filled with non-involvement going back 2010 years. We must have a shared non-involvement gene in our constitution.  A strange dizziness and nauseous headache arrives every time I pick up the book; the same symptoms as I watch gulf BP news every day. I’ve stopped taking ibuprofen for headaches; worried about the cleanliness of the manufacturing facilities of the drug (contemporary news).  And I just learned that most of the billions of dollars pledged to Haiti(earthquake 6 months ago, lest ye forget)  from countries all over, ‘it’s a small world after all,’ never arrived and there are warehouses filled with food that needy Haitians never get because of all the red tape. Where have all the protests gone?

            Introspection time. I wonder where my sense of right, protest, individuality and fair play developed. Perhaps when Eisenhower was President. Day camp in Newark, New Jersey. I was eleven, slight, skinny and shadow fearful. Each morning we played bombardment. The camp split in two. I was one of the younger campers and a wonderful ball dodger, meaning I ruined many a game by artfully dodging the ball, allowing a team mate to come back each time the bad guys missed me; a never ending game. A few weeks of Calvin ruining the game by dodging (it was called dodge ball by some) prompted the head counselor to warn me. If I didn’t make an effort to catch the ball, then at the end of swimming that day I would have to fight/box Sam Jax, the oldest, biggest, meanest and toughest kid in camp. Three times my size. Fear like never before paralyzed me. Everyone heard the warning. The noisy game became silent. Everyone watched the next ball. I was a dodger (and a Brooklyn Dodger fan as well) so my eleven years of life experience told me to dodge the ball; a difficult decision as Sam Jax, out of the corner of my eye, was punching his palm. I dodged the ball. The head counselor announced the boxing mismatch for later that day. My camp friends knew it was unfair. A funny (curious) thing; no one said anything or protested, not even my counselor. I guess the campers were glad they didn’t have to fight Sam Jax. Next, we walked down to Weequahic Park to play softball. A few kids asked what I was going to do (much like a strategy question) After softball, the bus came to take us to swim. I slipped into the dense shrubbery. No one saw. I was alone, crying and walked miles by myself to get home. Good strategy; never fought Sam Jax. My mother almost did. But looking back, I drew the first of many lines in the sand; a first protest of sorts. I love post scripts. So does Reckless Ostrich. Many years later, I bumped into Sam Jax. I was twice his size now with a few ICBMs in my garage. Of course he didn’t remember anything. I wish now for the art of protest to overspread. So much is going on. A little fantasy before a milestone birthday: Grow my hair long, get a Captain America leather coat, take a trip to Haight- Ashbury and Sedona and try to get home to my mother one more time.

         As always, an invitation to novel website.  http://vichywater.net

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           Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, summers were spent in Tom Sawyer pursuits. We had a picket fence in our backyard separating a meager lawn (width measured with several of my father’s sneakers end to end) from our next door neighbor whose backyard was used for Harley-Davidson repair work. My mother, who would’ve preferred a small replica of the Great Wall separating backyards, hands me a can of white paint and brush. The picket fence needs fresh paint. The sun is hot. I’ve got a punk in my mouth (precursor to cigarettes? It did keep mosquitoes away); painstakingly several hours go by.  Too young to think about Becky (Thatcher), I wait for carnival music on the loud speaker of the whip ride- a plastered down urban contraption on a flat bed truck which travelled around the Weequahic section giving city kids a taste of excitement and anticipation. Painting was done for the day. Ten cents from discarded soda glass bottles returned to Decker’s candy store got me two rides. It was an Abbott and Costello kind of ride; slowly it moved until 12 and 6 PM; then it whipped you at centrifugal speed around only to slow down again. Once I thought about a whip ride never slowing down. Lately I’ve been on that vision of the ultimate whip ride. Nothing in modern Earth life is slowing down. I ask my mother often to make me paint the fence again. Picket fences like ours are probably worth a lot of money; don’t make them like that anymore; wood from a domestic forest, paint brush from a factory in Newark. But my mother doesn’t answer.

            As metaphors go, the whip is adequate. Lately I say to myself, “Blog about the Knicks or the Nets with a new Russian connection or about the Bay of Fundy with dramatic tidal changes or the star of ‘The Office’ leaving the show. Popeye said, “I am what I am.” In a dreamy wonderful corner of my world, with Reckless Ostrich so close to me, I thought about a modern day Olive appearing at a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, looking for breast enhancement. He disapproves. She goes ahead with it anyway. The surgeon is a zealot and leaves her in a prodigious state. They fight and split. Guess who. The big guy. They can be seen off the California coast in a brand new row boat. Freshly painted on the side, the name…….. Oh, it’s too foggy. Can’t make it out.

            So the news whips me. A never ending story. Or there is an end. Modern life. Western Civilization 101. I always liked when we got past 1941. More relevant. ‘Mr. Roberts’ again. So what’s this I hear about drug store chains who sell health items, RXs, vitamins, blood pressure cuffs and cigarettes? Two of the chains are on the top 10 of retailers. Madness. Money. Mercury is the number one chemical problem in the world. There are more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico going back to the early 1940’s. Are they leaking? Is anybody checking them? A white dove just flew past me, heading towards the Atlantic. I yelled to it, “Hurry up and enjoy the flight over water. Your white feathers are doomed.” That crazy dove never turned around. In the meantime, breaking news, the Crestview Swim Club defeated the Berkeley Swim Club in a swim meet.

            More whip news. Wondering, should BP give clean-up workers (like fishermen) respirators instead of hard hats? Did Exxon cover-up ‘Valdez’ symptoms, calling it ‘colds and flu?’ Deja vu a bit?  Eighty percent of all our consumed fish in America is imported. FDA inspects less than 1% of them. In Vietnam there are fish farms using raw sewage. And when the fish being farmed are in close quarters they load them up with antibiotics (I remember back in the late 60’s a drug store I worked in charged $2.00 a capsule for tetracycline. Cost a few pennies. The fish in Vietnam get it cheaper.) Now I know why some of the fish we eat keeps acne away. Orange Ruffi(one of my favorites) comes from China. Being a whipped guy, I remember, before Christmas, toys coming from there with an abundance of lead in the paint. Whipped mashed potatoes. ‘Close Encounters’ had a great scene with mashed potatoes. But I was never sure whether from a box or the real thing. More breaking news. Cocoa Beach, on the east coast of Florida reported oil tar balls so I yelled to that white dove to be careful.   All in a days worth of news. Oh, the United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the imprisoned population. I just feel whipped. Texas now reports oil washing up on beaches. That’s about 550 miles of our gulf coast. News coverage is less. Is good old BP counting on people to start the out of sight, mind process? Keep using those poisonous dispersants to keep oil out of OUR sight.  I was dreaming of Galveston Bay, kicking off my sneaks, splashing my Jersey toes in the warm water under the most perfect Texas sky, near that wonderful creature, an Ostrich, head buried unusually deep in the sand.

            Please check new book review on website. http://vichywater.net

            Be well and un-whipped.

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       One of my favorite holiday weekend approaches. Long range forecast calls for ninety degrees and sunny here in New Jersey. Although I’ve developed this allergy to melanoma, I’ll find a corner of a Jersey shore beach; pretend I’m on the summit of Kilimanjaro, plant a beach umbrella (not flag) near the virginal Atlantic ocean (no oil tar balls yet), open a beach chair, plop, smear exposed body parts with copious lotions and oils, cover toes with a beach towel and press play on walk man, filling auditory senses with sixties folk music. “How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand.” (without oil now added)

            A restless mind keeps me awake at night. Eyes close for a few token hours. Perhaps 100 minutes on the exercise bike-in addition to endorphin release-stimulates cerebral intelligence telomeres to lengthen on the spot. The last few weeks have been moderately tortuous. Issues not of the self but of the earth, force pillow hostility; keep pounding the source of pretend discomfort. Actually it’s the gulf tragedy. “Leave the pillows alone,” I whisper sitting alone in the den, my dock at the bay. And it’s much more. An energy rising. Soulful. On a clear day, I can see forever. That’s bothersome in my solitude and insomnia.

            People have favorite causes, hobbies, NFL teams and places for cheese steak. I like IKE (some might remember this was Eisenhower’s campaign slogan) and environmental causes. Why IKE? I don’t know. Every time I see a picture of the capital rotunda, I think of him. I also don’t like Bad Santa Clauses and Bad Companies. A long time ago I was a pharmacist; means drug companies are close to heart. I have a dream. Drug companies really care. Sequencing of the genome back in 2000 was supposed to lead to an unprecedented amount of new medicines. Not. Old drugs seem to get in trouble. Vioxx in 2004 caused increased rate of heart attacks. Don’t we all love when the company downplays heart issues until evidence undeniable? I’m a warm fuzzy sixties guy wanting to believe in the goodness of American companies. Avandia(a diabetes drug) is in the news. One study said 1 out of 37 people died from a heart attack. Our Senate said the company knew about possible risks for years; failed to sufficiently warn FDA. Pfizer makes Lipitor for cholesterol. It did $11 billion last year (more $ than people going to movies. Not bad). They also made Exubera(10 years of testing)( a new inhaled form of insulin in 2006). Nobody used it so they paid $2.8 billion to rid itself. Does all this cause my pillow pounding? Symptoms and patterns do. By the way I love pharmacies that cell (spelled wrong on purpose) cigarettes.

            Some nights instead of pounding pillows, I listen to the soothing wonderful sounds of Coyote Oldman, ‘Tear of the Moon,’  Native American flute music. There’s also a Native American prophecy I think about. America will come and go. We forget how to live on earth. We’re at crossroads. Hopi spirit is called Konkachila, meaning Grandfather. Spirit is also my grandfather; a little synchronicity. They believe the first World War was when Columbus came. Ninety-five percent of our bodies is water. Back when Columbus arrived, you could drink from any body of water. Now small mouth bass male fish (71 to 100%) in our fresh water have eggs in them. Hopi prophecy: more storms and floods. We are one family. We are the children. I just sighed.

            I spent the day today listening to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole(IZ) singing Hawai-i Aloha, gently being transported to a world of peace and love. Thankful I re-discovered him; a voice of an angel, beautiful and gentle. Culture and diversity is beauty. They say in 2050 there’ll be 9 billion of us here on earth. I say,” if.” I worry and lament.  If becomes “if only.” More pillow pounding notions. Droughts. Floods. Hurricanes. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions. Global warming. Disease. Suffering. Terrorism. Nuclear proliferation. Hopi say earth will be purified. Nostradamus wrote about an asteroid. Chinese I-Ching talks about end of history. Bible talks about apocalypse. The Prophecy of Malachy predicts only one more pope. Cayce talked about another Atlantis. So I pound pillows. So I watch the world let Iran mess around with nukes. So I remember Darfur. So there won’t be any more fish in the ocean in a few decades. Technology to the rescue. Grow everything we need. Imagined myself going to a store of petri dishes and ordering tuna for next spring.

            Sometimes you see things. I’ve been seeing since I started writing novels. And all of a sudden I see Sally, where ever I may find her. Beyond the drizzle of the rain. Now with a need to go out and buy new pillows, I decided to re-invent before milestones play havoc with gravity. One day we’ll live forever, grow extra hearts if needed. Archie Bunker turned fifty; he resigned himself to a chair, the Post, a beer and bowling with the ‘Cannonballers.’ A call came in last week from a Rutgers buddy. Do I want to go whitewater rafting? Of course I didn’t. That’s dangerous stuff. Two seconds later I did. I rapidly thought about Hopi Indians and Hawaii Aloha and BP and drug companies and my feathery new pillows and my grandfather. I said yes. Two dozen times, right up to sitting in the raft before shoving off for four hours of rapids and pure nature, I thought of heading back to the snack bar and waiting. But I belonged and will continue to belong to “now.” Now is wonder and relevant. Next perhaps, Galveston, Texas; the bay and saying “now” again. Or perhaps following in Woody Guthrie’s footsteps and hopping a freight train all the way to Anchorage, Alaska. Hopping off if I see a group of men huddled by a fire. You ask why? Because.

            Have a wonderful Fourth of July. Please check website http://vichywater.net for updates.

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