FollowGratitude at holiday time is good; so is the sun on your face. People are antennas; send out frequencies to the universe and you get back. One morning a few years ago, at Christmas time, I broadcasted the need to find a parking space in Metuchen, NJ. For twenty years I never found a parking spot. I did(right in front of the optical store I needed) and am constantly grateful for the gift of thought, awareness and responsiveness. Along those lines, need to report a few things. Drug filled(poison) mice were air dropped into Guam’s(I’d love to go there one day. And Guadalcanal) dense jungle to kill the invasive brown tree snake. And now hear this(feel like I’m in Schofield barracks in Oahu on December 7th, 1941): When competition for females is fierce, it makes some species like male field mice evolve bigger testes to trounce their rivals(from National Geographic).(alas I’m too old for that bigger stuff, borrowing a line from Scrooge). Finally, the non-profit group Partners in Health is expanding its use of solar power in Haiti. This is simply brilliant; a gift that keeps on giving as long as the sun shines. You folks ought to Google them. Meanwhile, Google is working on a service using “contextual discovery” for pushing information out to people before they’ve started to look for it, based on factors such as their web browsing history or current location. Big Brother stuff. My wife just yelled, “It’s scary.” One more thought since the essence of my blogs are streams of consciousness: I suddenly wonder how many of the newly elected House of Representatives have passports.
speaking of big brother.
One of my favorite movies is ‘From Here to Eternity’ starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr and of course Frank Sinatra(movie finally made him a star. Ask Mario Puzo). Black and white, somber; the movie starts out 6 months or so before Pearl Harbor at Schofield barracks. Beginning of movie; my favorite character, Robert E Lee Pruitt walks into an officer’s pool hall. The screen door closes behind him and you hear that lonely echo of wood bouncing around an empty surreal room. Pruitt had just finished telling Maggio(Sinatra) and Warden(Lancaster), “a man don’t go his own way is nothing.” Here’s my stream of thought. Last Friday I had to drive to eternity; the longest black and white drive I ever took in New Jersey. For the whole 244,111 miles, I was Robert E Lee Pruitt (Mongomery Clift) Why? I thought for a long time driving across the state, south and west. Pruitt was a rugged individualist. Didn’t want to box for his army company; personal reasons. He never backed down. I’m just like Pruitt (so I’m thinking while driving last week) Believe in righteous things and you stand up for them. I got fired once from a job; sticking up for a young girl who was harassed by the store manager because she was in an inter-racial relationship. I was fired from yet another job because I was told by the boss(and steadfastly refused) to cheat Medicaid by submitting fraudulent claims on prescriptions (1981. Store and old boss ‘Long Gone.’ A great baseball movie, by the way) Long lonely car trips driving to eternity make me think streams.
Last Friday was cloudy, gray and cold; almost like the movie “Last Picture Show.” New Jersey’s mid section was endless. I was fulfilling a commitment to a friend because loyalty is a wonderful concept. Sometimes I think it’s gone the way of my favorite transportation modem, the Conestoga wagon. I was rugged driving across the state. I thought I was in Texas; farms, forests, and flat surfaces everywhere. I was scared driving to eternity; my first time exposed. I wavered about this day, suddenly feeling not rugged anymore. Maybe I speed up and get a ticket, turn around and go home with an explanation and email to my friend. Now I was in Alaska looking at a moose at the side of the road; its horns shook up and down as if a salutation to me. Alaska is 5000 miles away; the mileage is adding up. Schofield barracks another 5000 miles away. I saw a little farm house; a pond with a dock that looked like the one they used in the movie ‘Key Largo’ with Bogart and Bacall(2000 miles away). What if I run out of gas? I’d have to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police(Sergeant Preston) I was lost in thought but still in central Jersey.
The road didn’t want to end. Garmin, in a British accent, kept telling me to turn left. Each time the road was blocked by a big fence and occasional barbed wire and ‘no trespassing’ signs. Finally a check point in a pre-fab trailer. Window rolled down and papers handed over along with a picture ID. He told me to roll down the back window too and asked which place I was going to. I said, “The camp.” He said gruffly, “This ain’t no camp.” He pointed to the left at a beige building way down the road. The point was like the ‘spirit of Christmas yet to be’ pointing to Scrooge’s gravestone. I parked and voided myself of all life form wallet things just taking a plastic bag filled with singles and fives for the vending machines and my driver’s license. I walked in the wrong door and almost into eternity. Back outside, an arrow, like the spirit’s finger, pointed to a visitor’s door which opened to a large room with a variety of vending machines along the side wall (first thing I noticed). To the right was an obscene mural of a tropical beach with palm trees. I signed in while my ID was processed. There were metal seats and small benches; men in dark green jump suits sitting, talking and eating. My friend was paged. A door opened. In three months, he lost 25 pounds and looked wonderful. Eternity will do that. We hugged. I love hugs; mankind’s greatest communicative invention. After an hour of talk, some half-whispers, I offered to buy my friend a Tasty-Cake apple pie and hot chocolate. He walked with me near the machines but couldn’t touch the money or machines. We talked for four hours. As a writer, I kept observing faces and listening to stories and descriptions. I saw no holsters. Everybody was so well behaved. I guess no one wants the buildings across the street with more barbed wire than that island off of San Francisco that Clint Eastwood escaped from in a movie. I emoted; sadness, withdrawal, resignation and helplessness. Too many whispers. Time for more hugs and goodbyes. I’ll be back. I miss him. Friendship is the best kind of ship; not like the cruise ships that have been tossed all over the oceans lately. I re-traced my steps and exited. A huge dark green jet was taking off overhead. I sensed it was going to Afghanistan. By the time I get to Phoenix and home the mileage read 244,111. Eternity was a long memorable bloggable day.
Switching gears. Back to the Jersey shore. No place like it. The shore in the abandon of the winter is pure solitude and thought. Find a restaurant in Red Bank, Rumson or the Highlands, have some pasta, merlot or cabernet from a brown bag, drive to Sandy Hook, pull up to a beach and walk in the sand preferably barefoot; absorb energy and spirit from Native Americans who lived here a long time ago. That’s really living and a kind of eternity as well. Don’t do it alone. You need the holding hand stuff on the beach. Jersey shore beaches are perfect for winter hand holding and seagull chats. Now to serious thoughts about my/our Jersey shore. Liberty Natural Gas has applied for a federal permit to build an ocean pipeline and connect it to a proposed gas storage facility 16 miles off the coast of Asbury Park which of course is near Bruce Springsteen’s old haunt, ‘The Stone Pony.’ Those that care need to learn more and protest while you can. We don’t need any more industrialization of our oceans. I wrote an interesting editorial for an organization trying to stop the building of a coal firing plant in Linden with ramifications for our ocean off the Jersey Shore. Here’s the link for editorial.
Holiday time. It’s 4:44 am as I write this; awash in sentimentality and gratitude for the gift of words, thought and readers. Thinking also about Reckless Ostrich on my shoulder with the sunshine. Now all good things. Always. In all ways. Happy 2011. Maybe I won’t watch the ball come down this year. I say that every year since Guy Lombardo stopped playing “Auld Lang Syne.” Does anybody know what that song means?
I do get commercial occasionally. Commercial is good. So is sunshine. Check out the novel website. A great gift idea, stocking stuffer and all year around gift to give a wrapped autographed novel, ‘Vichy Water.’
Book Trailer on You Tube. 65 seconds long:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj2ko9gcC_M
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Comment by crazyupload.net — December 22, 2010 @ 5:46 am