2019, June:
Spring-Summer — Greetings Virtual Travellers and Pen
Friends:
Where's Hazel? Pet Hazel. Scratch Hazel behind her ears.
|
| Mother/Daughter,
[c.1995], Barbara (a.k.a. Peabody) Because I said good bye a year ago when the stroke took her mind It wasn't like she died when the nursing home woman said, "Who shall we call to pick up your mother?" And I didn't cry as I tried to remember the name of the mortuary that Mr. Hoge had been buried from years before because it was close and logical to send the body there. It wasn't like she died when I stood in the nursing home lounge thinking who to call first with the news while the television blared out The Dating Game because so many residents were hard of hearing. Stood there with sweat still trickling between my breasts because my sister had run up to me in the middle of a volley and told me the news Stood there in a tennis dress feeling like a gangly school girl in a too-short dress from three grades before. It wasn't like she died when I walked down the grey tile corridor to her room one last time smelling church altar flowers put to final use on bedside stands, stale urine, institution food, and old-people clothes, musty smelling like moth balls for disintegrating bodies. It wasn't like she died even when I saw the almost bald head propped up against a pillow for one last spoon feeding of Cream of Wheat and ice cream supper, mouth still open in surprise, or to say good bye, or for just one last mouthful before leaving. And so I sat in the wheel chair next to the bed where she had wet once right through the chair splashing onto the gray tile while I watched and thought how we'd have to diaper her now as she once diapered us, and held her weightless sparrow-claw hand already ice-hard like a winter twig stripped of leaves and sap. Sat there and accepted the body like a communion wafer-- dry and tasteless-- saved on the roof of my mouth while trying to remember if I had done anything pleasurable enough to warrant forgiveness. And tried to feel bad, but felt only the coolness of drying sweat. Barbara, a.k.a (Peabody) |
Monday-Monday..., 20 May Did I tell you about how a backfire blew out TinyTruck's
muffler? Sounded burbley mellow for a week or so then took
an infu$ion of copiou$ ca$h at the muffler shop where I
also discovered a very soft left rear tyre. Visited the
tyre store on my way back to Tonopah and inspection
revealed the spare was also flat and all the running
rubber is a few thirty-seconds away from overdue for
replacement. New tyres will have to wait for november at
least. All my cash is tied up in that plaque for Bill P.
The bronze plaque will be placed at El Dorado Hot Spring
in Tonopah where Bill, along with his partner Camilla Van
Sickle, founded the hot spring in 1997. To be a part of
this celebration write me for details. Eddress in the
footer. You can also still donate to the cost of
this plaque.
My three biopsy results are positive. I have three
new spots on my back that must be excised, burned off with
liquid nitrogen... Appointment for that treatment made for
3rd June so my departure from Tonopah is delayed for at
least another fortnight.
Although it will be years before the first humans set
foot on Mars, NASA
is giving the public an opportunity to send their names
— stenciled on chips (micro chips, not taco chips) — to
the Red Planet with NASA's Mars 2020 rover, which
represents the initial leg of humanity’s first round trip
to another planet. The rover is scheduled to launch as
early as July 2020, with the spacecraft expected to touch
down on Mars in February 2021. Contact
NASA to have your name recorded for delivery to Mars.
I've
got a window seat.
“The United States has been at war [even though many of
those conflicts were never declared as such] every day
since its founding, often covertly and often in several
parts of the world at once.” (Utne
Reader Spring 2019, pp31)
IMHO it is one thing to be conscripted into such
immorality and quite another thing to volunteer for the
gory glory and financial reward provided by a greedy
government on behalf of a brainwashed citizenry—providing
you survive of course. By the time my sister-son finished
high school he was already the property of the U.S.Army.
Went from graduation ceremony to induction ceremony with
not much time for second guessing. His rational: If he
survived being "over there" his education was paid for; if
he didn't survive being "over there" then the education of
his kids was paid for. He figured he had a better chance
of coming out ahead in the army than if he stayed home,
worked two jobs, and commuted to night school. So far he's
winning. But I still feel: If we really supported the
troops we wouldn't send them to far-away places to
fight other peoples' meaningless wars based on lies;
especially when there is so much need right here at home
for that money and agency. I feel that honouring and
memorializing those who were conscripted into
participating in a so-called “just war” is a right thing
to do, however honouring and memorializing those who
volunteer to take part in the lies and the killing
denigrates and debases the sacrifice of the conscripted.
How do I tell one from the other?
Almost time for the Summer Solstice edition of Oso con
Migo's Travails Letter. We: Oso, Zachary, Hurricane
Hazel-Rah, and me, correspond with a cohort of some 80
Humans who live on the other side of The Wall. That's one
of the reasons I don't have much time to wash the dishes
and go for walks. Another issue sweeping this cohort is a
ban on mailing labels. TeXas is leading the way. Some
places just RTS my letters with no explanation:
“Refused—Unable To Forward”. Others rubber stamp the
unopened envelope:
| Refused—All envelopes must be white
in color. No labels, No stickers. No stains. No lipstick. No Crayon. No glitter. No marker. No Homemade Greeting Cards. |
I can see them disallowing Homemade Greeting Cards. Who
knows which among the greeting card companies is a
corporate sponsor of the commercial for profit prison
system; but I don't understand why No Labels. Why no
labels—not even address labels—but self-stick U.S. Postage
Stamps are O.K.? So I've been teaching my printer to print
database addy info directly on the #10 envelopes. And I've
been folding Zachary's B'Day Cards in thirds rather than
in quarters. And writing across the top: “This Is A
Letter”. His 2020 edition will likely formalise that
somehow. B'day Letter rather than B'day Card. Perhaps with
dotted lines labeled reFold Here to create your own card.
My early saturday morning departure from Tonopah to Pie
Town (...finally...) was late as usual with forgets and
do-overs. At least this time I remembered to stow the
sugar bowl. By then the traffic was piling up, even for a
saturday morning, so I took the 101 loop around Phoenix.
Parts of that drive were new to me so that was nice.
Hectic drive tho not as bad as the Construction Zone
downtown. Navigational debate between Mr Magellan and Ms
Android. Mr Magellan does not know 101 has been completed
from i17 east and south to Mesa. He was very confused when
The Cat Drag'd Inn barreled along through fences
and across fields on roads only Ms Android knew about.
As the morning wore on the temperature rose. Every little
hill-climb on the road to Payson on the Mogollon Rim the
temperature would drop a few degrees but just as fast the
heat would chase up behind me. Somewhere along the way I
turned on the radiator water spray. Eventually the
altitude won out over the valley and the last few hours
along the Rim to Show Low were an easy drive. The ambient
temperature decreases by about three Fahrenheit Degrees
and the barometric pressure decreases by about one inch of
mercury per thousand feet of altitude gained. The 15-20f
degree lower ambient temperature between Mesa and Payson
makes the difference between main engine overheat or
running cool. My tea water at Tonopah's 1100ft MSL boils
at 210 ºF. At Pie Town's 7500ft MSL that same water boils
at 198 ºF.
On to Pie Town. About 50 miles to second breakfast at the
Pie Town Café. Driving through the notch in the dike,
round the last bend before the short climb to the center
of town, a totally new sight surprised my eyes. A tripod!
Four hundred and some feet tall, right across from the Pie
Town Café. The
three books of the Tripods series,
immediately came to mind. Written by John Christopher in
the late 1960's, tell of an Earth conquered by
three-legged beings which according one then current
theory were once machines made by men.... the Tripods
reduce mankind to a state of servitude. See more of this
storey in
my letter ajo01c.htm near the bottom and 25 episodes
of the BBC
scifi drama based on the books. I learned later this
tripod, newly arrived in Pie Town, is called the "Pieffel
Tower".
Arrived Pie Town via the middle way. Escaped the first of
the Excessive Heat Warnings just in time for the last of
the Winter Storm Warnings of the higher elevations.
Usually this migration takes me a fortnight of climbing
slowly through 6,500 feet of elevation. Acclimatise is the
keyword. Ample time is required to open and close more
than once the various containers of condiments and
comestibles to avoid surprises of rapid decompression.
Sol has turned south. Already the days are getting
shorter. The Lost Package of Books has yet to be found.
Love, ajo
I do not know what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on
the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
—Sir Isaac Newton
Back to Oso
Back to ajo
Copyright © 2019, A.J.Oxton, The Cat Drag'd Inn
, Tonopah AridZona 85354-0313.
