SECTION SIX ON THE ROAD, less traveled

 

 SECTION SIX 

ON THE ROAD, less traveled

 by   Mr. Phyllode Pinnate

GREENHAMMER: COMPENDIUM SECTION ONE UNITED SCAPES

GREENHAMMER: SECTION TWO HISTORY OF THE PAGANS

GREENHAMMER: SECTION THREE THE FINAL SLAUGHTER

GREENHAMMER: SECTION FOUR DRUDDOCCITAN INDEX BIBLIOGRAPHY

GREENHAMMER: SECTION 5 A BRACING DOSE OF HERESY

            GREENHAMMER: SECTION SIX ON THE ROAD, less traveled

 

      SECTION SIX

ON THE ROAD, less travelled.

 "Greenhammer appears to refer to a small, independently run Blogspot site that mixes commentary on American history, politics, culture, and occasionally speculative or conspiratorial interpretations. The blog isn’t a mainstream academic history source, but it does touch on themes related to U.S. history and civic identity. The most relevant pieces connected to American history fall into a few clusters.

 How Greenhammer connects to American history

The blog’s American‑history‑related posts tend to blend historical reflection with political commentary, often framed around themes of national identity, constitutional legacy, and civic renewal.

• US 250 (America’s 250th anniversary) — A post from January 2025 frames the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States as a moment for civic reflection and reform. It emphasizes the Constitution’s evolution, the idea of expanding freedom over time, and a call for political unity and activism.
• Historical reinterpretation and cultural narratives — Some posts critique what the author sees as omissions or distortions in mainstream historical narratives, including discussions of African history, migration, and speculative claims about ancient contact with extraterrestrial beings. These are presented as challenges to conventional historiography rather than academic analysis.
• Infrastructure, environment, and American development — Another post reflects on interstate construction, wildlife corridors, and the environmental consequences of U.S. infrastructure—framed partly as a commentary on American progress and its costs.

 

A good listener and an anarchist for 50 years. Now I tell my story. This section is about the more personal memories and interpretive corrections I need to make in peoples perceptions. I think I end up with a good look at the true independent majority. We understand freedom and "we'un dint need no internet."  I

I tried to read on the road by Jack Kerouac. I was finally ready to read the Great American Novel. Got a big comfy chair recently, and a reading lamp and I read 20 pages or so. I kept trying to read it. 10 pages here, five pages there. It's supposed to be about America, but it seems to be about ne'er do wells, egomaniacs, irresponsible breeders, living side effects of drugs, alcoholics with their excuses and regrets and ... not the America I spent my life in. 

   1   Framing your own narrative.

  2   From 1973   My musical career

  3   MYSTORY OF METAL   

    4   Amazighing

 5   II 26

    6   JOHNNY HUCKSTER

   7   TUCSON TO THOMPSONVILLE

    8   ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION DESTROYED MY FIRST CAREER

9     STRIKE THREE

10     TABOOS EXPOSED

11  BIOREGIONS

12 TAROT IN THE PARK

13  PAGAN MILLENIUM

 1 framing your own narrative

    WRITING    PROMPT

Writing prompt,      I am from ... 

Framing my own narrative

This started as a 300 word writing prompt to practice writing, but it triggered memories from a previous century. 

I am from flooded rivers at my fence and fallout from nuclear bomb tests. I am from black and white TV and a bigotry banned home. 

 I am from the Great Elm and the Nathaniel Foote statue at the foot of the Town Green. Fourth of July horses running up the steps and Thanksgiving smells at Grandmas house.

 I am From Kitt Peak and Cat Mountain. Hiding from hailstones behind a Saguaro and looking uphill at a herd of Peccary's.     

Peaches in the desert and Peaches at Cape Cod. Peaches in Central Florida where they never grew before. Dead squirrels and live snakes falling out of trees.

 Confidentiality agreements and bankrupt developers. Eucalyptus became Simpson Stopper.

I am from hobos at the train station and hopping the train to get to Mickeys Restaurant.

I am from outhouses that became Condominiums. Skating under the interstate highway during the coldest winters. Ice bombs on trains and rocks in my eye and head.  Running from the police and almost losing a bicycle in the Connecticut River. 

         

Tommy's friend drowned at Mill Woods and ten years later we toasted him in the park nearby.  It was "hoot hoot" when a patrol car turned into the park.

I am from vodka blackouts and dragging gasoline station signs in the road and driving the wrong way on highway 84 and picking up a confused hitchhiker. We turned around and drove him to his exit. He nervously eyed our baseball bats.

I am from ill-fitting poor people skates and rutted driveways. Film tricks with 8MM movies and monster movies shown in school. I am from (censored) and drinking stolen priest wine.

Sunsets in three corners and interrupted acid mowing. Illusions of prosperity and the Independent Majority Party. Pagan Space, Yahoo Answers, Witchvox, Treebord and Greenhammer.

Dogs gone mad with diabetes and jumping through windows. Razor blade fights with cats. I am from appreciating boy scouts only as an adult.

 

Driving a bicycle drunk through downtown to get home,  and cycling 60 miles to the Connecticut Shore. Rain or shine 12-15 miles to the food co-op and the same back with the goods. I am from Black Mountain, Beaver Brook and Cotton Hollow.  Bums at dawn and executives on break. Shiny city slicker elevators and flatbeds.  

I am from the Marian Cult and French slang. Smoking in church and looking out the cellar window as Bridey walked by and the snow piled in drifts. Manly florists and feminine truck drivers.

Pulling the magic down from the air and thrill bumps at the end of Close To the Edge. Druids and Witches and unbridled cultural appropriation. 
         Chills in the graveyard and a mason by trade, born 1666. Finding a bloody ancient dagger with my cousin and leaving it there. Falling in unfinished houses and wheelies on an unbuilt interstate. Gripping girders, hitting one over the fence. 

I am from running right through people and looking past others. Jumping off the roof and climbing 60 feet up the Greer's Pine Trees. Richie slapping frogs on concrete, and I was praying when the bad boys tried to drown a cat.

Planting trees for uncertain futures and promoting fruiting shrubs and bird gardens. Butterflies as food and Indigo Snakes in my arms. Dead snakes and diapers at the mall.

         I am from Roger Maris and Fran Tarkenton. Concussions and crawling home with an injury. Rainbow spokes and Jupiter with my dad. Jupiter much later from Holst. I am from Hail to the Hammer and Tarkus. The Blue Beats and Cry for a Shadow. Elegy and energy. Snow boarding with art class easels and fireworks with cigars.

       My own brown scapula and blessed throats. A John Paul confirmation and Uncle Joe jettisoning bigotry after church. Forceful conversion was slapped upside the head by me, and refusing to work during the blizzard of ’78 was a blessed day. They needed a fourth for cards since it was certain there was not going to be any school any time soon as the blizzard of 78 rampaged. I would have been stuck with three idiots for three days with three feet of snow outside.

       I have skied from a rope tied to a car on snow covered roads. Drove a go kart with no brakes. Reached 47 MPH on a bicycle. Hopped the train regularly to go get a clam roll at Mickeys. Threw dirt bombs but didn’t play “Army” with the boys. Used unsafe bicycle jumps at Kevins and Carlin. Three on a bicycle, and an accident at Mill Woods. Trying to make swings flip over. Found a boat and took it out to the trestle in flood waters. Broke windows at the Foundry and the abandoned Railway station.

         Jumped off the elementary school roof to run from Mrs. Walters. After kicking about 25 balls off the roof. Played in abandoned buildings. Walked across Middletown Avenue on the Rt 91 girders and almost fell off laughing at how shocked people were. Threw chunky ice balls on the train and got chased by the police and ended up in Juvenile Court.

         Tried to cook blackberries on the railroad tracks and burnt all the dry grass around the distribution center and ended up with the fire chief talking to my parents. Crawled halfway across the Connecticut River catwalk and spit on the Dolly Madison. When Bruce moved, I became the wheelie king.

             Stole bowling shoes on the Bicentennial and got arrested for 4^th degree larceny. Got cleared after something they called accelerated rehabilitation. Yesterday was dads birthday, he would have been 92 and pretty feeble. Hope him and Mom are okay. Heaven to him would be to join a good combo. Or maybe a gang of ukulele players.

 At 13, Pete introduced me to Time Magazine which expanded my view out into the world. The rules of the church were hysterically irrelevant. The real world was merely silly. How were women second class citizens; they were the smart ones?

Weights, baseballs, insecurities, forced and boring education, midget football, rainy Saturdays and afternoon movies. Laughing at the boy scouts and their silly para-military uniforms while we were throwing chestnuts at each other’s heads. Jumping on the hay wagon for a gag and found ourselves going 30 MPH down Middletown Avenue … too scared to jump off.

Riding our bicycles behind the annual Paul Reveres ride or whatever it was on or near the fourth of July. First time this boy saw a large animal other than a cow take a shit. Lifted its tail and it’s a visual I can’t unsee many years later. We had no pets, and I never saw nothing like that at the Bronx Zoo. The horse kept on down to Broad St and the amazing thing was when the post rider and the horse climbed up the steps of a house, went in, and had a beer. Wow! The Horse too!

That was a pretty cool tradition. I reminisced about that on a remember Wethersfield page and no one seemed to remember. Next time I will tell them about how the picture of the horse was in the newspaper the next day. Just remembered that. It was the time I ALMOST got in the newspaper.

Then over to the Historical Museum and corny as it may have seemed, the Fife and Drum were kicking.

I don’t think I saw a gun till I was out of school. We broke our necks every day in one way or another, but Wethersfield was a damn safe city. I saw the conversion of the farming community into a suburb. There was Ollie, smelling like shit all the time, except when I went collecting on Friday night after he’d had his weekly shower, his hair all combed 'n shit. He had about six cows and near the end, his barn began leaning pretty bad.

When Bruce the wheelie king became an adult, he lived in Freddys barn and we’d party our ass off. Freddys parents were blind and nearly deaf and never knew we were going there at 1:00 in the morning to bring Bruce a buzz and get loud. I worked second shift. 3 to 11. Years later Freddy's blind dad got plowed into a Popular Market snowbank. It made us cringe with sadness, God really threw the book at that family. 😢

The next year I lived myself on the weekends in a barn. I agreed to clean out the barn so I could live there on weekends. Steve the boy was too busy with his slut girlfriend to hang out, and I got some authentic Polish breakfasts to partake in with his mother. He would be hungover with four hours of sleep under his belt,  and I’d be all perky from sleeping on hay and hiking 5 miles down the railroad tracks to Cromwell, the day before. It was like a house from 1825 or something, one of the newer historical houses. The barn I’m guessing was 75 years old at least. There was like, 6 farms on our street and 12 barns. What a lot of us saw. Americas population doubling in our lifetime, and ecosystems treated like garbage.

 I was recalling Ollie and his barn. Another indelible image is when Ollie paid me one freezing Saturday afternoon and a globous frozen snot looking like a stalactite, hung off his nose that I noticed as he was digging for change.. He must have been 80 and someone finally got him to quit. Maybe he worked off the books and had no social security. With his barn leaning dangerously, he disappeared from the scene.

To the north of us on Middletown Avenue, the Clarks had cows. They retired them a few years before Ollie did and we played baseball in their field there. Me and the Middletown Avenue Gang (MTAG) also played at the Green and mostly Adams field. The games in the Clarks cow pasture included the girls. Never a fight, no boy girl tension because from us quiet guys, the girls get total respect, and they are kind in return. Not much toxic masculinity in our direct neighborhood. Found out years later, many of the boys in other parts of town (and down the street) were coercive creeps. 

Maybe I was a nerd. Super Geek George was one of the few other people who were making movies and showing them at school. He was on the AV squad and was far more technical than us, but when he went to make a big movie project about the Battle of Tours, this mini neighborhood congealed. We were honored someone recruited us for their big movie. It was a big deal because we had three real horses in the movie, which made the battle scene epic. REAL horses and wouldn’t I love to see that flick again. George Odell. Matt Mason was his cultural inspiration. Text me bro.

The Clarks had one cow left because there would occasionally be a cow pie that had to be avoided “it can be second base...ewww,” and there were some old hard ones from previous months still in the field we DID use as bases. There you go Xer’s. Ya got nothin’ on some of us boomers if you read the previous 1635 words. No shit, cow pies for bases. lol.

The area in the pictures above are of the six-mile wide Connecticut River flood of 1955 was also a cow pasture and was owned by Red Schumann. He gave up his cows before Ollie and The Clarks did and cashed in on the building boom. Then he built an incredible Colonial Replica that looked like it was built in 1785. Very cool but everyone who stopped at the stop sign at night nearby shone their lights on his house. 

The picture near the top of the page shows how the field behind my house began as a grassland in 1955 after Red sold his cows, and by 1965, the field was a mass of large shrubs and small trees when I became old enough to play in the woods. When ecosystems were strong and full of native plants.

There was a Pear Tree I remember most of all. Tough hard Pears that never seemed to ripen till one day in August. A natural fruiting Pear. There were rip for about two days  then fell to the ground. A native fruit tree. Where have they all gone? Most of the United States has been over run by development.

They were Wild Pears and part of the ancient lost American ethnobotany. Now Pears from subsidized mega farms are all looking and tasting the same. The basis of my, “what have we lost” theme.

I hadn’t thought about the field behind the house in a big way for a long time. Suddenly tonight I was 12 again and standing around looking at the various plants. Almost tears in my eyes. What else was there: blackberries, Dogwoods and oh yeah 12 Yellow Jacket stings. Learned to watch where I walked.

My working life. Ten years old and we lived on our bicycles. It was 1964 and the Greatest Generation thought nothing of throwing their garbage out the window. You literally saw napkins and other shit thrown out of car windows as people drove by. In this accumulation, however, there were 2 and 5 cent returnables.  So off we’d go with our 42 cents to buy some soda and candy at Dougherty Drugs.

But I wanted more. I wanted to accumulate assets. So when I was 11, I got a Hartford Times paper route. The afternoon paper which I delivered for a year. Then after missing out on playing football and baseball with the boys after school, I decided to get a morning paper route and called the Hartford Courant. (est. 1764 “older than the nation, newer than the news”.)

#406 on the Wethersfield Green was available and Gorski trained me for 3 days and I was on my way. Had a small business at 12. When I was 16, I added #420 which was the route on my street, Middletown Avenue.

With both, I had about 70 daily customers and over a hundred Sunday papers in total. I ended up with Dads Caprice Station wagon in 1970 and this enabled me to go to Dunkin Donuts after work after delivering 800 pounds of newspapers. Two of us would eat a dozen donuts.

I graduated high school and we moved shortly afterwards to Bloomfield. I respect my mom and dad, in retrospect, for trusting my judgement the summer after graduation when I wanted to get a motorcycle. I tried Community College and appreciated how much more interesting it was. Especially Sociology Class.I often drove my Suzuki 250 for two hours before class to explore the back roads and the October foliage before class. Every day. For hours.

Then I realized that a career in bookkeeping and accounting wasn’t what I wanted to do with my adult life. Rich Carling, our buddy, was killed riding his motorcycle, and when it came time to renew the insurance and do some repairs, I quit the motorcycle and converted to a ten speed after putting 16,000 miles on My Suzuki named Wally.

I would routinely ride from North Bloomfield to the Wethersfield Green on the ten speed. Taking the shortest route possible, it was 15 miles in about and hour and a quarter whereas it was 30 minutes and 25 miles by car.

Back in 12th grade, there was 15 year old sophomore Joe Valvo. who had a full beard and looked 25, so he bought us beer during Senior year which was my first year with intoxicants. Then when we graduated there was the perfect storm. The voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972 when I turned 18. Connecticut thought that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 and that was passed. The Blue State realizing that if you go to war and you vote, and are out of school, why the hell not have a toddy now and then.

,

Alice Coopers “I’m 18” was out in 1972 and really, we had had enough of school by the end of senior year and we sang Schools Out as we fled the scene of that unspeakable brainwashing and stultifying education. The Rockefeller School of Oligarchy.

Me and other Wethersfielders would plow through the corn fields in the meadow (fuck their monocultural F1 hybrids.) Wally The Suzuki had highway speed but a thick metal shield under the motor for dirt bike purposes, and it had raised pipes for sharp turns and mud bogging. I loved it and loved those times of unexpected blessings. Rude boys of the Corn. As October began, I did two hour loops in northern Connecticut first and southern Massachusetts as the fall colors came on and then followed that with more southerly loops as color peaks moved southward. Fall of '72 and '73     .

But then Ritch Carling died on his motorcycle and I converted to the ten speed. Thank goodness  I gave up the motorcycle because as a reckless 18-year-old I would take my classes at Manchester Community then get on the interstate to get back to Bloomfield. Someone told me that if I followed in the wake of tractor trailers, it was much warmer. Not too smart. It takes them a lot longer to stop than a motorcycle, so I figured I was safe. The lowest temperature I drove in was 14 degrees. Then.

1973 “How are you going to get to school when it starts up again next semester in January?”

“I quit.” They respected the decision. "I can't wear a suit, ma."

My Uncle Gid had gotten my dad a job when we moved to Bloomfield and dad got me a part time job at Vincent School. Cold, snowy, it didn’t matter, I got there on the bicycle. There was often ice and snow, but the road was always paved. Then I applied for a full-time job that came up at the new Bloomfield Middle School. I cleaned up the fifth-grade wing and was not disillusioned that I was a janitor while my friends went to Boston to get the piece of paper. That document that claimed they were smarter and more qualified as workers and therefore entitled to more money. I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t need anybody to tell me how to think.

 Broke today because I thought the system would have crashed by now and that's why I never bought into it. Societal collapse was my retirement plan. How do like that X'ers? I don’t regret it and came to the conclusion that this myriad mix of experiences would never have happened unless I was free of the capitalist system. I had to do it. It's all fake debt money. It could collapse easily, I was sure of it. 

The summer of ’73 and school was out. The big cleanup for the janitors, but at least we could work the daytime shift for a couple of months. Strip and re-wax the floors. I was “the mouse” because I was the only one thin and agile enough to clean out under the giant gym bleachers. Also, I was the one who climbed the 24 foot ladder to clean all the asbestos dust off the top of the fluorescent lights in the large Shop Class room. Yeah asbestos, you read that right. "The safe kind. don't worry."

I worked with skinny white Larry who had his own part of the Middle School Complex. I was in the 500 wing and Bob Jones was in the 600 Wing. He would scratch his back on the door frame like a Bear and I got to hear every joke from the previous 30 years. Black Larry was in 700 and he had a handicapped daughter. He got mad at me one day when I made a dumb comment about cripples. Mario was the boss and a total guinea. He talked about his weiner like it was a cartoon character or something. I also learned that during WW2 "the milkman was getting laid."

After work I went to visit the other young man I worked with during the summer of ‘73. Forget his name but he was a cool guy from New Jersey and it was a second-floor room. He didn’t seem worried about the cannabis smell, “‘ol Mr Lynch don’t care as long as you pay the rent. Use some incense.” In August, he told me that he had to get back to Jersey and I got the notion that 75 bucks for rent was easily handled since I made 400 a month. The minimum wage was $2.35 at that time. So I moved out on my own at 19. 

Well, tell you what, I'm so old people were still sewing and repairing clothes when I was young. After three or four patches on my jeans, my mom thought it would be a good idea for me to learn how to sew. Buttons, patches. lift the cuff. Hiking biking and a dirty worksite that I cleaned for 40 hours a week left me with some repair work. 

The folks saw I wasn't doing much homework my senior year, so I learned a bunch of the kitchen skills. Cooking the basics 'n shit. "find your own little beatnik pad if you want to be a chef." She showed me about ten cookbooks when I moved out. "Take two that you like." Had them for a while too. 

I didn't realize how important their canning skills were, at the time, at the end of the Victory Garden Era. I'm old enough to have helped with a squeeze dry washing machine. Fucking ancient. I remember when the trolley tracks were paved over. Where'd the pay phones go? 

So hell yeah. I was right on Cottage Grove Road and the laundry was bicycle distance the other way from work. I had it knocked.  The food co-op near Hartford Hospital was a good 8 or 10 miles but, was a good excuse to visit the many book stores down near the Atheneum.

Then, conveniently, I got switched to the second shift Junior High job which was right down the street from Mr. Lynch’s house. Though I had gotten my new black Econoline Van that I named Molly, I rode the bicycle since it was barely a mile away. After nearly five years with the Bloomfield Board of Education a cream puff day shift job came up at a nearby elementary school. I lost it to Frank Adinolfi and though I technically had more time, I was assured, he had a family and needed the cushy job more than I did.  I still have the letter in my “scrapbook” which indicated I had more seniority ... but...

Honestly, as I thought about it, I can’t remember the sequence of which schools I was a janitor from 1973-1978. High School 75-76? I met Lori with an I and used to get high with yellow eyed Dewitt. “You got?” I think it was the Middle School that was last. 

At the Middle School I would put a card or something in the door so I could get back into the building and would sneak over to Cliff’s house down the street to get high. Neighbors across the way Norm and JoAnne were hip New Yorkers and I met their friend Sherry in 1977, and after a 6 month stint back with my parents I moved to East Granby with her and Cheryl and Eddie and Carl’s sister.

We had an epic band with Paula the flute player and Bernie on drums and Cliff on folk guitar, me on bass and an amazing vocalist who sounded just like Lee Morse. We played a gig at Trinity College, but that band broke up after the gig we practiced three months for and so Carl joined Bernie and I and we became a bit more metal doing songs like Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath. Bernie saved a recording of it.

So losing the plum job to Adinolfi nudged me into thinking more seriously about the vacation in Tucson. Maybe there was opportunity there. The union fracas with the town of Bloomfield was interesting but when new guys got hired, they started at 132 dollars a week, and there I was still making only 125 a week after like two years.

Just so much bullshit, I had enough. Connecticut’s economy was clotted with hierarchy, nepotism and entrenched favoritism, and I had had enough of how crowded the state was.  

Ten years later I was back in Connecticut. Developers held an iron grip in Enfield when I tried to suggest a hiking trail. No public right of ways around these farmers fields that connect the forested areas of Hazardville (Enfield) Connecticut? "Aren't there no trespassing signs?" they question trying to make me back off.

There was a White Birch area that was magical and Pitch Pines were plentiful and the rarely seen Shagbark Hickory. My favorite spot was an abandoned Evergreen nursery. Beautiful Hemlocks in another area and some 100-foot Sycamores and Maples at the edge of farmers' fields. 

But enough. So off we went to Tucson, the Three Musketeers. My first job was third shift at the Triple T Truck stop on Interstate 10. Like a diner, I don’t have many memories of that other than observing some skeevy nightlife: the strange road people, mopping the floors, and the Scorpion I found behind the paper box and mopping the floors.  

Look at me I’m at an old style diner on RT 10 in the middle of the night! This is why you have to let it go sometimes and try something new. Moving to the west side of Tucson brought something new every day.  Later on, Sherry got robbed at UTotems!

The truck stop reminded me of the diners on the Berlin Turnpike back home, but more oriented to long distance truck travel.

Then I got hired on with Larry Sadowski doing third shift janitorial work at Kings Tables and Village Pizza. He was a mean bastard to his kids and wife but respected my effort, while keeping me productive and on my toes. One day we had a bit of a philosophical talk and he said I was not on a career path and asked what did I want to do with myself. Tom and I did a lot of gardening on our patch at Flying A on the west side of town, and suddenly I found myself recalling my dads influence with gardening via osmosis.

I’d like to do gardening I told him in 1980 and a month or two later he got me the garden maintenance work at the Kings Table we were working at. I learned about how Barrel Cactus’ grew towards the Sun and I had to replant a bunch of them so they could be better seen out of the window of the restaurant.

Larry lost the Village Pizza account and laid me off, but with that gardening experience on my resume, I parleyed a job with a landscape company. Not sure if I qualified for unemployment at that point but the state unemployment service had a most excellent way of listing jobs, and soon I got on with Casa Verde Landscaping. That was a great crew with Rick and some others and John Bloom the blonde surfer dude boss from California.  He found his little niche of profit in Tucson. We all got high and also did the very best accounts in town as it turned out.

Meanwhile Sherry got laid off and while looking for a job we came across the caretaker positions at the Kingston Ranch. We applied, what did we have to lose? Beating 125 other applicants we moved to a 40 acre ranch and lived in a converted tack room which was quite luxurious. At Casa Verde my gardening skills had served me well and I was promoted to my own gig at Park Mall as the indoor and outdoor gardener. No more singing “Tube Steak Boogie” with the boys as we went to the next job, but some work I could really sink my teeth into. 520 sprinklers heads in an area so vast I had to use a bicycle to get to the stations I turned on.

 

My only photo of Park Mall. Bodacious view.

So in 81-83 I had the Park Mall gig and the outdoor work at the Kingston Ranch working about 50 hours a week total, wearing overalls in the desert sun and life couldn’t be sweeter. The only thing between us and the 8000 ft plus Catalina Mountains was Paul McCartneys house at the end of Speedway. We were the last house of Broadway. A 40 foot by 24 by 8 foot pool kept us cool in the summer. Then the Mall job was underbid, and I was looking for work and got hired on by Jeff as an electricians helper. 

When I say I talked to a lot of people in my life, I mean to say we mingled with other contractors and ate lunch together as just one example. At the mall I had talked to nearly every employee at one point between the indoor and outdoor work. The people who opened the stores.

Electrical work was interesting; running wire in a bunch of different kind of buildings and I really got to understand how houses and housing complexes are built. We even rewired a college dorm which I remember well.

Alas, girlfriend and I became bored with Arizona, despite having seen and experienced a whole new world in those six years, but we yearned to be New Englanders again. I was once again the scout looking for a place to live while living at Norm and Joannes in Enfield. They had gone off for a month to Cape Cod and it was just me and Freddy the dog for three weeks, then the cats came in on an airplane two weeks later. 

Looking for a New Englandy place to live, I went to the Boston area first. I got pulled over by a cop trying to find my way around a tight little neighborhood in Boston in my search for a home to rent, and the only way out was going the wrong way on a one-way street… and there’s a cop. I talked my way out of it and went on for a quieter town between there and Salem.

Then I realized that maybe Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were far from the people we knew, and Enfield Connecticut where I was house sitting was quite New Englandy in its own way ,with its old houses and farm stands. Six of them between Hazardville and Somers the next town. At the end of April I had been at Norms for two weeks. They spent a month or something in Cape Cod and I was house sitting which, all in all, was a pretty cool transition to New England. Taking care of Freddy, the dog and shepherding the arrival of Dickens and Rocky, our cats.

 

My Thompsonville garden.

I applied at Tarnow Nursery which was down the road about a half a mile and got a job. Minimum wage had risen to $3.35 an hour and despite a pretty good horticultural resume by this point, I started at $3.50. Owner John was a well-known skinflint as I found out from his nieces Nancy and Susan.  They had organized setting up the nursery the previous fall, and then ran the place. He barely paid them 4 an hour to run the place, and they were kin. 

There’s that pattern emerging that I noticed. Most adult men wanted to be millionaires. The nursery owner probably became a millionaire eventually, on the backs of 100, mostly dedicated young people of course. As did Tom Collins in Florida, in later years. Lots of turnover and probably 1000 unhappy employees at Captain Hirams. As did the owners of Rock City leaving 500 disgruntled employees in their wake at least. But guess who's rich? Indian River County employers take advantage of its workers. People want to work to the best of their ability, but not for shit-ass pay.

Joe from Springfield came along at Tarnow Nursery and he was a young, but old looking, college grad and he became the boss. Susan and Nancy went back to the main store to work, except weekends when Joe was off, and they were the bosses. We spent a lot of time talking on the weekends and there was quite a bunch of interesting kids that came through that summer. That was a good crew.

At 32, I was the oldest at the jobsite and should have been well on my way to a capitalist career and accumulating assets and investing for retirement, but I wasn’t buying into this system. I had learned quite a bit about plants the previous four years with the mall and caretaker job, and I quickly learned about Connecticut’s favorite plants.

I thought I had quite a good sales approach and we were taught to handle two customers and go between them while, you know, keeping the elbows and ankles flying when Joe was there. I started by being a loader and met many of the Enfield people who frequented the store who lauded the variety of the plants. This was no vegetable stand with plants, it was a slick professionalism that mostly people like, and Tarnows quickly became Enfields favorite nursery.

The end of the summer came, and it was pumpkins and fall decorations and selling the fall planting concept. The kids went back to college and I became the main sales person (except when the college edumacated Joe and that lazy guinea schlub from the Main store worked there). He was lazy as fuck and immediately had an effect on productivity. By November Michelle ran the Christmas shop and I was the everything else person. She was very smart and knew how to please the little old ladies who came in buying the Christmas fluff.

So my first winter since 1977-8 was set to arrive. We came back to experience the seasons, right? Me and the old lady had moved to the Thompsonville section of Enfield and it was like a slice of Boston, a dose of “Southy” that had dropped down in the Connecticut River Valley. There was Ragnos where they served the Italian food I had missed out in Arizona. A little further away was the best Polish Deli I had ever hoid.

 Our daughter was born and then baptized at the very old church (1887) church down the street. A little further down the road, a Norman Rockwell Christmas emerged at Freshwater Pond when the ice froze. There was talk of the giant mill being converted into condos and there was Tiny’s Little criminal enterprise next door in a pool hall, and a host of outrageous characters living in 8 rentals in two large houses. Add loose soap opera here.

It was exciting and I realized at this point that I had truly created my own path. My peers were buying houses and working in cubicles but I decided to carve my own path. I was creating my own horticultural experience in a pull up your bootstraps way.

I bought some really choice little evergreens and had planted them on the side of the house. Rocky and Dickens would run up the steps to come in because the back steps were missing. I was planting in this grey dust they called soil and people were digging it. “Looks good” local murderer Wilmer Paradise told me.

My partner was working downtown, and I went to the local employment agency to find another job when I got laid off after Christmas. When you make peanuts, the unemployment was very minimal and a couple weeks before Valentines day I got a job with a wholesale Greenhouse.

Former Ball Seed Vice President Peter Stanley was one of the most manic people I’d ever met. He had reconstructed two 440-foot greenhouses and was striking out on his own with his patented concept called Jet Plugs. Instead of the usual 75 cent plugs these were much smaller and only cost about 35 cents if I recall, so that was 40 cents per plant pure profit. I learned the long road from producer to purchaser. 

One day running between greenhouses I caught the top of my head on a round eyehook. Shouldn’t have torn my head open since it wasn’t sharp in any way but that was a trip to the emergency clinic and 13 stitches. My nickname was Zipperhead for a while.

So there I was off to a new job in early February with the temperature around 10 degrees. A dry wicked wind was blowing so it felt like it was well below zero and I was reminded of one of the reasons I moved to Arizona. It was COLD! Everything was frozen that first of February and the loading dock area looked to be abandoned with 4’x4’ flattened boxes blowing around and other litter was being blown around. I was looking for a job here? It looked like a disaster area.

Peter was short on employees and this was his problem. So he hired me on at $4.25 an hour which was 20% more than I was making at Tarnow Nursery. An employee was walkie talkied to come and give me an orientation. She was one of those fantasy Nordic women who cursed very fluently. We got on pretty good, I was always monogamous, so there was never sexual tension with female co-workers.

,

In the world of capitalism, men are sheltered from the minorities, and they were the bosses of the women, and this is why so much sexism remains. At the Mall job in Tucson, I had lunch on the regular with the three prettiest women in the whole place. You treat a woman like a dude and they respond in kind. Where dishing the T meets shooting the breeze. A janitor, the information booth greeter and the dress shop lady.

At the mall I also talked with dozens of the employees from every demographic. I reject the notion that I “don’t know how to communicate.” That rankles my cankles.

At Tarnow Nursery I met practically everyone in town who came to check out the place. I had the gift of gab when I was younger. At this point though, I’ve heard enough. Honestly, very likely, I don't care.

I don’t remember the flaxen haired Valkyries name but she walked me to the first Greenhouse and it was a moment like no other. People with glasses know how they fog up in changing conditions. Ten below zero with the wicked wind chill and it was like Dorothy opening the door to the colors of Oz.

Tropical plants as far as the eye could see and a temperature to match. Plants poised for the Valentines Day sales. Here was a new experience to jump into, fer sure. Many tales I will relate later and just one to keep the flow. Bosses such as Jim the asshole came along and Dwight from out of state, was a hired gun and a spectacular dude. No college for him either and he was older than me and was also into a wide variety of job experiences. He and his friend from Pittsburgh completely refurbished the greenhouses.

When all was said and done, our little family moved to the field office of Consolidated Cigar that Dwight and Marion the driver, had lived in. There was always a boss over me, and they all got fired or quit but I was a constant for Stanley Greenhouses. Now I lived across the street in the cutest little white house you ever saw.

Summer of 87 with my first biological child.  A fun little baby and it was an exciting time. I believe the wife quit her job to be a mommy since I was putting in 60 hours a week and making enough. A typical day would have me at 7:00 walking over to begin venting around 15,000 sq. ft. of greenhouse.

By then the Weather Channel had become the bomb, and I would vent accordingly, depending on that days conditions. Rolling carts waited on the very large loading dock and sometimes I took a smaller truck and loaded from the greenhouse. Then I would drive and deliver for ten hours going to Mattapan or Poughkeepsie or over Mt Adams. I’d come back and close the vents to keep the greenhouses at 75 degrees, then walk home after a 13 hour day. But it was interesting, you know. I set up plant displays at BJ’s Wholesale and delivered to every Paperama from Mattapan Mass to the Albany in New York.

Work hard and be rewarded was the message of my youth, but then I learned from a friend that I had to work smart. That made sense. But did it mean conniving to scratch and claw my way above other employees? Yes it did. The secret to the American Dream, if you wanted financial security, you needed to be the boss. To be able to manipulate people to work harder than they should because, we aren’t machines, but bosses expect us to be. Squeezing productivity from underpaid employees was never a lure for me. Still chopping wood and carrying water.

The bosses at Walmart these days all making sure no one talks to each other. The Amazon warehouse manager not caring about workers injuries. The head nurse that all the CNA’s hate. My anarchist philosophy is that I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like BEING the boss.  

So here I was with caretaking experience, had a difficult mall gardening job that included irrigation work, and then some electrical work. A nursery job and greenhouse experience. I was training myself in Horticulture and Botany. I got your bootstraps right here. So, by 1987 Peter Staanley ratcheted down his business because his mercurial bossmanship just wasn’t making the money he expected, although of course he blamed the employees.

He even had me set up a retail shop the spring after Dwight left and people recognized me from Tarnows and that was a fun. social time. There were six roadside stands stand s or nurseries that sold plants between Hazardville and Stafford Springs.Then there were the BJ Wholesale sites where I set up the indoor displays and returned weekly to replace plants in ‘86. I even drove to Syracuse a couple of times.

I reckon it was the summer of 87 and I decided I needed indoor plant experience on my resume. The good thing about interior plantwork was that it was a way to keep employment through a New England winter. I spent nine months at Plantations who gave some very professional training. I forgot how I left that job.

Then there was the Plantscape job where I was the only dude. When they went big on a pink and black theme with uniforms and stickers and what all else. I found it amusing and they found a way to frame and fire me since I was reluctant to play along.

In spring of ’88 I got a job with probably one of the best crews ever. There was the boss, another Lori with an I, who was a dairy farmers daughter. She had grown up with machines and tractors and got the notion to start a landscaping business. Dwarf Evergreens were trending and the plant selection was minty and the boss was calm and organized.

There was Bob the biker. A big bear of a guy with a big beard that the boss described as more a Teddy Bear than a Grizzly. There was Randy the Redneck and there were many interesting discussions altogether between all of us. A big gun enthusiast and one of the first Preppers I ever met. He had enough food for a year at least and even an underground gasoline tank. Randy and his Super Swampers were such a caricature.

Armageddon happens and people are hungry, roaming the land for food and shelter. We asked him what he would do if dozens of hungry people and their children were walking up his driveway looking for assistance. His answer was that he would “mow them down like zombies.” Then there was Mike Two Hawks, who said he was derided as “only” a quarter blood Mohawk by his peers, but seemed to be fully authentic.

I’d been studying Indigenous culture for 15 years and he was very knowledgeable. I had a book Ethnobotany of the Hopi I read cover to cover and knew a great deal about the sacredness of corn. He taught me ceremony and quite a bit else, though he was younger.

There were always side jobs such as Tony and “big boobs” Barbara who often wore a sweatshirt that asked, where did you get those tomatoes with two big tomatoes on the front. There was Dat Shenoy and his family. He was a tech dude who quit the biz and wanted to be a landlord so he would be buying houses and I would renovate the landscaping and help him clean and paint the indoors. I’ve liked Painting ever since.

I don’t know what years those were with Dat and his lovely family and where they fit in with all those other Connecticut jobs I had, but it was certain that no one could cite my lack of hustle. A 50-hour week was quite normal for me in the 80’s. I had packed in quite a bit of training in horticulture and with Lori I had the classic experience of driving a 1949 Ford tractor down the state road creating a traffic jam.

With my greenhouse experience I stayed on with the landscaper when it got too cold to plant Junipers in the frozen ground. There was Joe Gidvelas with his mafioso persona. He cursed all the time and was very gruff, except when he was planting tissue culture jet plugs that he treated like newborn babies.

In ’89 we got an offer to come to Florida to be managed by my in-laws who felt a need to manipulate our life when we got there. My dad drove my rusted pickup, and I drove a Hertz rental truck like the ones Stanleys had, and my dad drove my Datsun King Cab. Without cell phones and global positioning satellites, we always had a place where we would meet if we got separated. This was important going on the six lane I-295 around Washington DC. We had angels guiding us or something.

I felt pretty confident and adaptable in a new state and got a job within two weeks while wifey got depressed after not finding weed or a job after two and a half months. Then she met my soon to be ex second wife and they ran a group home for retarded people and we were finally acclimated.

I got a job at Atlantic View, a seven-story condo with ocean views. Well one day the boss was caught smoking crack on the fifth floor. He got fired and my New Age bonded buddy Dave was suddenly boss. Turnover such as it is in Arizona and Florida, Dave was funny and smart but definitely suffered from IED. Intermittent Explosive Disorder. He ended up getting fired too and there I was two months in Florida and I became the boss.

South American investors with alleged old school drug gang connections, were behind the project, it was reputed they were laundering money. Fred Stresau had done the landscape design, and I learned he was a bestselling author. He wrote “Florida, My Eden” which remained the landscape bible through the nineties for many in Florida. He had died before the project was finished and I never met him, but Fred Stresau Jr. visited the site and was such a dick.

  The project manager was also a dick. A developer's hired gun, he fucked with everybody but respected me for some reason. On December 24^th, one of the worst freezes in decades was predicted for all of Florida. Even though I had a difficult time whipping the boys to be 100% productive during the regular hours, this total freeze presented us with a challenge.

There was nothing we could do to protect the 70 Coconut Palms out by the street, but we had many plants in pots that weren’t going to get planted and were bound to be frozen and killed by this freeze. This was one of those worker moments when the workers grabbed the initiative. Paul the pot dealer and a seriously redneck dude from West Virginia and the guy that looked like Jesus were the bulk of the crew. A 6’4” Jesus. All great sincere men who respected each other and they got the notion to build a greenhouse.

 “Are you kidding” the developer said but we didn’t need to buy a thing. They made a 15 by 10 foot greenhouse to house the more rare, expensive material.  I planted tree seeds I had ordered from catalogs in 89 I had hoped to grow in Florida. I forgot how we heated it but they built the entire thing from what was in the dumpsters. Plastic and wood, it was a work of genius with this incredible cold front headed our way. Clamps and nails from home, everything survived, and my seeds even germinated. Mesquite Palo Verde Acacias and Rosewood, Poinciana, and others. What didn’t fit in the greenhouse we placed next to it where it was warmer.  Our fifth guy, a young troublemaker, but a good egg, didn’t have anything to do at xmas, so he came in checked on the heater.

By February, I got tired of the fancy condo landscaping and so I quit and got hired by Biogreen. He had an interesting pamphlet on his methods that I still have. Feather and Blood Meal. Natural fertilizing materials I’ll discuss later. Azalea Lane Apts with his much older but foxy girlfriend. His scattershot methods became scatterbrained but it was the Organic experience I needed to get back to my roots.  I went into full research mode about Florida plants though I ended up getting laid off by Biogreen.   

 

On May 30 1990 I got hired on to Orchid Island and worked there till June 2001. More horticultural things than I can encapsulate happened, and these issues will blow up this story  and other stories later.

By the spring of ’01 my ankles and arms were on the verge of total spasm after five years of mowing greens and heavy landscaping with a chain saw and my tractor and trailer. The knee problem had healed in large part to Doctor Dave who lived in Orchid Island. But then one day after 5 years of professional greens mowing, I was going to mow the practice putting green and when I brought the gate down from the trailer my back went into total breakdown. So much pain I had to sit on the ground and wait for help. My strong back was ready to snap. I had had enough precision mowing for one lifetime.

I had been in discussion with Rick about my pending departure at Orchid Island and he promised me 15 hours. So I was paid for like six more weeks and after six weeks of physical therapy I quit. Take this job and recycle it elsewhere. With my ten years I had just qualified for three weeks vacation and was making almost 11 an hour which only long term help earned. 22,600 a year. Kind of a lot for me and … why would I risk all this wifey asked?

I already had Delval and three other side jobs and Ricks 15 hours and the Flower Girl started getting me work and I ended up making 22,600 in ’01 and ’02 and like to feel I didn’t miss a beat going to self-employment and that is something rarely done by a person with 5 children.. Support instead of doubts would have helped, but I persisted.

I picked up Crawfords at Orchid and Reynolds too and then the funny dude who lived between them. I golfed during nearly three years of foreclosure at this Arnold Palmer designed course. I could talk greens or fairways and the short holes on #8 and #15. I explained to them some of the environmental issues I’d failed to get implemented in my discussions with management.

I said that the invasive pest plant Brazilian Pepper needed to be removed and native plants put in their place. I tried to promote these mainstream environmental standards but couldn’t make a dent with the profit machine. The place was swarming with real estate agents

Meanwhile the children are 19, 18, 16, 12, and 6 in 2002. Three teens, Master Gardener volunteer and Tree Board Advisor, while planting small plants for future growth in the yard. The ones from the rare fruit council seemed to be doing great at that point.  

Needless to say, maintaining a customer base for twenty years leads to a lot of communicating. More so than working with the grumpy nurse demographic, I would speculate.

I AM FROM Hartford Hospital and Pepe’s Lincoln and learning how to go to school in miserable conditions and how there had to be something better than wet galoshes for the foul weather. Taking naps in first grade and peeing my pants in second grade. Staying in class through lunch that day and I was driven home by the principal since mom had no license.

Another day that I got driven home was when I fell flat into a big puddle at lunch break outside in our play area on the pavement. Completely wet, but not embarrassed, they called my mother who was one of the few people in town that didn’t drive. Colleen and Paula in fifth grade made me realize love was in the air. Mr. Domino was a male influence, finally, as my sixth-grade teacher. Dad seemed great, both parents were always busy, but a boy needs various positive male influences. Girls need mentors too; I am so sure. Like totally.

Adult world stuff I remember, was the trouble Auntie had with Uncle Eddie who beat her with a phone in one cruel incident and was finally forced out. This was racist Joe’s son and my cousin Dennis’ dad.  Two cousins near my age, they showed me different things like abandoned buildings and driving a go-karts on the sidewalk along route 3. With no brakes. Thrills that parents would find unsafe today.

Favorite hiking places. Back yard Meadows. Bloomfield tracks and Pennwood. Eagle Cloud Mountain. Somewhere southwest Of Tucson. Coronado National Forest. Rt 5, Hazardville Freshwater Creek watershed. Sebastian Greens and the Stormwater Park.

The Portuguese side always had good suppers and a bathroom with all the fairies wallpapered with an aqua blue background. Another younger cousin was retarded but he ended up working at Tony’s corner market. He died at 18 from complications with his brain problem that sounded like encephalitis. He greatly benefitted with Governor Dempseys programs that came along just in time..

I like to say I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like being the boss. So, by the age of twenty I was done with mom controlling me and she told me I was going to be a pall bearer for Daves funeral. Not really feeling grief for my dead cousin or even knowing what a pall bearer was, so I said no. Tired of being told what to do. Maybe if Tony asked me or something. Another mistake I made from immaturity.

Junior High was like 1966 and the spring and summer before was filled with tales of horror. “Ninth graders, like, knock your books out of your hand ‘n shit.” “You gotta be naked after gym”. Oh no, everyone was going to know about my hairy legs that I had managed to keep hidden.

Somehow, I shaved them where they could be seen between socks and thigh pads in midget football. That naked bullshit was downright weird. Suddenly, a class full of boys were naked with each other, after being taught modesty at home? Then what was REALLY creepy was high school where the coachs office was like, 15 feet from the showers where they could see anyone who went in the showers. Torture. Like going to communion.

“So they can make sure no hanky panky is going on.” I’m told. Another what the hell moment that only crystalizes after adult awareness. Now I look at the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the abuse in the boy scouts class action lawsuit and now I wonder if there is some sort of homo-erotic thing with men. When Randazzo the neighbor saw a huge stump one day he goes “bicep contest”. Everyone put their elbows on the stump and flexed and I’m like WTH is this? Male bonding things always seemed kind of weird.

Luckily, I was bereft of any sort of toxic male influence regarding guns and sex and being told killing things is OK. Like I said, Ritchie with his beating frogs on cement was beyond my comprehension. He done kilt a rabbit and chopped its foot off and showed me one Saturday. I was like what in the fuck is this? This is why I assumed he was in jail as I got older. Or dead. My psycho friend. Had to deny friend request.

The disaster with Janis did yield some insights. The boys were all about coercing the girls for sex she told me. You know the upstanding citizens of Wethersfield High School like Mike B. She mentioned other names, but I forgot them. Then there was Ed Duggan, the King of coercive assholes. I read his comments on facebook, and I’m like how do these women tolerate this misogyny and even find him endearing?

Now he’s dead and people are like what an adorable guy, and bought him, like, a park bench or something. A memorial plaque. More like a royal plague.

There was 10^th grade football and the Charleys’ and Jims of our 1-7 season in 1969 were being hyper jocks. Yet, they always had lots of excuses for missing practice. One thing I distinctly remember is that I didn’t miss a single practice. Smallest dude on the team at 5’6” 140, I certainly took my lumps but did the running up and down the bleachers with a uniform on …barely.

 One day the coach got the message that Charley and Jim wouldn’t make it to practice again, and he said to me. “You’re always here, aren’t you?” I told him I hadn’t missed a practice. Then rode my Roddy one speed 4 miles home. These pussy ass men with guns and patriarchal bravado may look down on me as a manual laborer or whatever, but when I'm looking back like this, I see I was more of a rugged individualist than the whole lot of them. 

So this is a pattern I like to think I created. Tough everything out. I was blinded by Jimmy Pierces rock, and the doctor said no football or baseball for a year, so I sat out 9^th grade Jayvee football and when I could play baseball again it was with all the neighborhood kids in Clarks cow field. I realized I’d never be a baseball player at that point; the pitching was just too fast. Another form of bullying. One year of senior league in 8^th grade and I was 9 for 39 with a strikeout in the world series. Got the participation trophy, however. Still got the letter from 10^th grade football. Going to get a sweater I can stitch it on.

I could nail a runner at home from center field, but when a 14-year-old pitcher is throwing 85 MPH from 40 feet away (66 feet in the major leagues), it was downright scary. I couldn’t swing fast enough. I also learned about branding when I found out the name of my team was Wethersfield Optical. We were The Opticals? That was like Shaun playing soccer for Riverside Lawns. “Go Lawns” I’d shout at the games. “Get psyched”.

 

Back to 2026, I see these male creatures with their “I just broke a beer bottle and I’m going to kill you in a barfight” attitude, and the dudes with their gym muscles and I am not getting it. They need a constant reassurance of their manhood or something, but now I realize it’s a show. Everybody working on their brand, marketing their masculinity. Everyone craving fame and greatness in their social circles. I don't like to perform I like to create.

So to me it’s your actions that make you a man. While the boys were talking tough with their pints in Beantown, I was riding my bicycle through the poor part of Hartford to get to the Green quickly and then further out in West Hartford on the way back, when I was tipsy from downing my six pack of Pabst at the Green. A 30-mile round trip easily.

  In my 30’s I doggedly created a two-mile trail that connected all the patches of forest that remained in Hazardville during the 80’s. Looking back on all my efforts, I am so thankful to be still standing all these years. Truly grateful I had the sturdy legs to do these things like hiking and biking. Didn’t like that weird leg hair though, then disappointment when I never developed beard hair.

Twenty years of teenagers and 30 years of (guiding raising?) 5 children. 40 years a gardener and 60 years of work/ Fuckall! I’m worn out.

Now at 72 comes a dilemma of not buying into the system. Leaving 25 years of blood sweat and fears in a house that was never mine and not even getting a pittance for my effort. I took our tax refund one year and got a loan for the rest to buy the lot next door for $6400. What do we need it for the wife asked? Only you need it she complained. And complained.  An investment, maybe, dear sweet wise queen of mine? 800% profit, but "we should have waited.

All these expectations about being a man, but I feel that, at least to myself, I proved it.  In 2026 all these boomer dudes seem to talk about is how many people they bossed or how much property they accumulated. Endlessly gossiping and bragging and bearing false witness against others. Mowing people down like zombies with their verbal guns, I absolutely cannot bear to hear another boomer life story.

The women are a different story. More varied in their conversations and adjusting to lifes circumstances. The first generation of women who had the opportunity to be free, and many have and many are.

As an aside here, I know somebody who is particularly annoying with the bragging about themselves and how they are loved wherever they go he tells me (unlike me, it’s assumed I am a grumpy old fuck). Come to find out they stroll down the boardwalk repeating their life stories to five people a day. Every day. The same old schtick is wearying. People always virtue signaling to me that they are either a better person or a good businessperson (unlike me who doesn’t even return phone calls) or beat me at things that don’t make me feel I want to be competitive at.

It's time to toughen up again and endure. September 12^th 2020 and the cool weather is within reach. Five months of glorious weather and perhaps my last year in business. November 12^th and night time temperatures are still 10 to 15 degrees above normal in the high 70’s. Florida is finally getting old and I am shaking it up in 2021. I know I sound defensive in my stories here, but that’s why I call this FRAMING MY OWN NARRATIVE. Other people think they understand me. All this writing is to clear up misunderstandings. 

I only tell stories once and I don’t remember who I told what stories to, but just the same, no one knows more than 10%  of me so imma write this in case someone wants to read it. I will when I'm done.

I’m leaving myself open to anything, but I am telling myself this is my last summer outdoors. Anything can happen but opportunity only knocks when you’re out there doing it and immersing oneself in the world and … well… networking. Looking like I will give up my three Orchid customers on January 1^st and that will be 30 years. There. Thirty years going to Busy Bee and Moody Tire. I sense a change coming on but I need to mingle with people again, but I am so not into meeting people. I’ve literally had enough of people. Conundrum or imbroglio?

But I probably still have a lot to learn about relationships. Started with Joyce. On a paperboy trip a dude named Paul picked up a “chick” at the amusement park. A long story short, we double dated a couple times but Paul and the girl broke up, but I dated Joyce for a bit and I’d take the bus to Windsor and go to the movies. Then there was a pressure about getting her a ring and I was chastised on the phone by one of her friends. I didn’t have a clue. One awkward kiss was a relationship?  Nobody needs this.

 

       We lived on our bicycles till we got our licenses. Going to places like under 91 near the dump. Best of all was the Meadows. Woods and Corn fields and then the Connecticut river. Eventually we got to crossing on the Rocky Hill Ferry and over to Cotton Hollow. I often came back even after I moved to Bloomfield.

           Perfect place, a peaceful running stream you could walk across. Lots of rocks to jump from. As good as the Rockies without the mountain views of course.

    In Bloomfield, Pennwood is very similar to a knob in the Appalachians. I could ride my bike there. Then my motorcycle, then my bike again and finally the black van. Young man with lots of energy. Lots of sports and paper routes gave me some sturdy legs. No gym muscles here. So I went for long hikes at Pennwood.

       Going to Arizona and living on a street called Flying A, I felt like I was in the middle of the desert, another kind of wilderness.

           I’ll put that picture of Mary Lou walking in view of Cat Mountain right here. One day I was sitting on a rock doing a number and looking at all the views of different mountain ranges and saw a cloud that looked like a classic eagle shape and I had some sort of revelation that day.

           We moved into town after a year and a half and lived there for a year and a half. Not much hiking but some amazing walks with Mary Lou, Dickens and our new cat Rocky. Walking distance to see Squeeze and then Steppenwolf and a few others.

  

         Rocky was a stray we fed. Skinny with very long legs he went missing for a couple days just after we decided to adopt him. It became five days and we thought we had lost him. Went back to his owner or something.

           Then there was the day we heard a muted mewing at the back door. It was him. His fur was all matted and oily and he seemed abused and beaten or run over by a car. If only animals could talk, he could have told us what a degrading experience he had. His fur was scraped off if I remember correctly. 

           So my cat buddies and I walked all over the neighborhood. Seriously really far, we were truly a pack. I remember the cats darting from one concealed spot to the next as we went further and further each time. Mary Lou would do what I told her and we had hiked before and drove cross country. Dickens always had a knack for running and hiding and Rocky was the boy from the streets. He'd walk tail up beside me. Truly one of the greatest memories for my mind.

     Then we got the job as caretakers at a 40 acre ranch. One of 125 applicants but we seemed like the right fit.   250,000? 170,000? acres in the Coronado National Forest to explore and the next town was called Gammon Gulch and is 43 miles away as the crow flies or 60 miles as the old van chugs.

Interesting were the dry stream beds where the occasional roaring torrent went through. One favorite memory was when me Sally and Sammy went through a mini valley. Forty-foot cliffs on both sides and one day coyotes started yippin’ and yappin’ from up above. I knew they would never attack an adult human and two large dogs so we continued without fear.

           Of course, there was my most exciting nature moment ever and that was when I was alone one day, kind of lost and I looked up at a small hill and saw about five Peccaries. I stood there and they stood there. This could be a problem.

           They decided to keep on doing what they were doing and that was looking for food. Insects roots fruits prickly pear.

          On another dayI came across a little oasis in the middle of the desert with some really green soft grass. A magical place and I found some antlers there that day and I still have them. Another exciting day I was in the Sahuaro Monument east of where we lived. A real black cloud crept over the horizon. I was too far out to run back to the house I figured I’d tough out whatever it was. Heavy rain became hail and I crouched behind a Sahuaro.

           Sometimes I only took Sammy out for a hike and left Sally back at the compound. Sammy was tough as nails, Sally not so much. Sammy had a docked tail and an awesome moment was when I saw Sammy rear up on his hind legs with three coyotes challenging him. He really looked just like a Bear, a shaggy Black Bear. That was cool.

           Moving to Enfield Connecticut in 1984, I was 30 and was doing a lot of yoga and running 3 miles. Along with working outdoors as a gardener, that was my health regimen for a long time. I’ve been working outdoors for forty years. Minus the year and a half with Plantations and Plantscapes, the indoor plant companies.

            So in Thompsonville my big thing was jogging down route 5 and looking at all the big houses. There was a tiny library there too and I belonged to a workout club for a year called The Sporting House just off route 5.

           Then moving to Hazardville brought me to one of my favorite ecosystems. Freshwater brook, stream, river, who knows? Swamps and bogs and white Birch pioneer stands and Pitch Pine. Very nice Hemlocks and an occasional Shagbark Hickory.

           Giant 100 foot Sycamores at the edge of farmers fields.

RIGHT HERE WOULD BE THE PLACE TO PUT MY STORY CALLED DESOTO POND. THE STORY OF CREATING THAT TRAIL IN ENFIELD.

    We start the writing prompt editing again right here with the question ... do you have a favorite year you would go back and live again without changing it?

    Well I was writing about the music released and 1973 and it seemed astounding. Then I started thinking about what I was doing that year and I thought of another writing prompt  

 1973

Sleeping under a big tree at the college on the corner near West Hartford and Hartford. Somewhere along the way in '73 I switched from Wally the 250 Suzuki to a pair of ten speeds. I rode them to the food co-op downtown and to Wethersfield to sink a six pack of Pabst with the boys. What luck the drinking age was lowered to my age and it was suddenly completely legal. Not on the motorcycle, but I did feel safe drinking a six pack, and riding a bicycle.

     I was free to do as I please the year after school ended. Joined book of the month club and there were some great old book stores near the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Research wise I became interested in corn and life of the Indian tribes in the Connecticut River Valley. So I went downtown to the state library and started searching for the culture of the native Americans, and corn seemed to be the key. Copy machines were becoming more common. Top ten thrill was when I realized anything in that vast library could me mine for a dime a page. 

    This while the boys went to college in Boston.    I joined the book of the month club that year and moved into my own place and the first that I had to pay rent for. I'll run down a list of my fave albums from '73 and I swear, it's the shit. The stuff that will last forever. Lost on a desert island … yeh that kind of year.

    If I recall, I got Wally in like, June of '72, ostensibly for Manchester Community College. I do remember exactly how many miles I drove on all Wally with the raised pipes. I went down every state road in Connecticut to see what there was to see.

   Wally was a sturdy old cuss, a '68 I think, and I put 16,000 more miles on him. Went to school and drove down every road in Connecticut and Central Massachusetts looking at the foliage that fall '72 and the next '73. 

       Quit school after one semester, the bike went away in the cold, for less than three months and I was still living at home. I had the dough so I spent a lot of time reading and not working that winter. 

    As soon as it was warm enough, I was back on the motorcycle. That shit was fun. Drove everywhere that spring and went to the ten speed in July. Mary Lou and Suzie from Bristol were girlfriends to visit. 13 months and 16,000 miles. I felt like I had a real motorcycle experience. Thank you, Jesus for getting me over Avon Mountain so many times, and not letting me get killed on those rainy nights. 

                        I remember taking Anne Austin home in a heavy rain when her car broke down at her college and she called me to help. Drove that motorcycle in the rain and she returned the favor by driving me to the Pink Floyd, "Dark side of the Moon" tour in March 1973.

   So seriously what an exhilarating year I had. Re-educating myself, travelling thoroughly in my own bioregion, the *Connecticut River" Valley. I would have missed so much if I had gone out of state to colletge.

 

 I was a river rat from the west side  of the Connecticut River. Wethersfield and Bloomfield, then on the east side in Enfield Hazardville and Thompsonville.

 Pink Floyd and the first quadrophonic concert in March. Bill Bruford left Yes and he brought out the best in King Crimson on the "Larks Tongue in Aspic" album later in '73. Carl Palmer, John Bonham Ian Paice and Billy Cobham round out the best five drummers in 1973

    I rode my bicycle during the summer of 1974. Drove it all the way to the Hammonasset Beach and did some ten speeding to the Wethersfield Green or up hills like at Pennwood Park over near Avon Mountain be looking like the Appalachians.

      It was like 60 miles from Bloomfield to Hammonasset Beach and 22 more miles up to Higganum where a friend lived. 82 miles in one day. Physical challenge.

      You know, so bizarre, all these Indian names of everything but where did they go? My parents favorite lake with a tough to pronounce Indian name. I'll look it up in a minute, my computer is doing weird stuff with tabs.

       My head was going to explode from the programmed learning in the highly inadequate educational system. Training the brain for the mundane, I can't count the thousands of hours wasted on what passes for learning.

     So I bought a camera and began photography as a hobby after I graduated. The Enfield Falls the Travelers Tower, the zombie three tier abandoned overpass in West Hartford. I put hundreds of miles on my ten speed every month and got a few pictures as a memory.

           

       I researched The Charter Oak at the state library near the Capitol building. Just locked my bicycle out front and hewed away at the Dewey Decimal System.

       The Book of the Month Club had gone radical with all these occult books, and I bought a bunch of them. I got a Tarot Deck at a used book store, which were also proliferating, and were comfortable hangouts. Of that Tarot deck, I only have seven cards left. I slept with the deck near me for 15 years. By the end of the eighties, I became an atheist again.

      In 1973, I was re-educating myself in a hurry with Drucker and Hofstadter and H G Wells' Outline of History, where I learned about the Reindeer People. The indigenous Europeans.

         In August I moved into Mr. Lynchs flop house. I rode my ten speed to work, probably a mile and a half, but I remember one day I went to hop a curb like you would with a solid one speed bike. Needless to say there was a bloody mess all over my arm.

    Revelation pasty white guy and his Mercedes. One of my best moments was when I decided not to be a bookkeeper and to not go back to college. 

   It must have been in April or May of '73. The motorcycle wasn't any real kind of exercise so I drove the ten speed back to Wethersfield to hang out. Maybe I was overnight at Steves and with a Polish breakfast in my belly, I was riding back home. I often ended up on Windsor Street and I think it was near a bridge, but not 84. Trumbull Street maybe.

There were innumerable routes to get to Blue Hills Avenue which I needed to use to get to Hampton Lane or Emerson Avenue. Unless I was taking the longer route through West Hartford.

I remember it being like 9 in the morning and I stopped the bike to get a sip of water. Standing on the sidewalk I saw a car drive into a teeny parking area and I noted an extremely small building. Less than 500 square feet and it was for like, bookkeeping services. The  smallest office building I'd ever seen, stting atwixt highway off ramps and over passes. 

  A young adult spends a lot of time trying to figure out what the fuck kind of career to pursue for the Almighty Dollar.  I was perplexed and bewildered.

    First off, I vowed to never ever wear a tie for work. Felt like coercion to me and as a young anarchist I was too aware of this.

    So here's Ronald Rotunda stepping out of his minty yellow Mercedes and it was like I was tripping, you know, those moments when you are transcending time and space? It was an incredibly run down part of a run-down city and this tiny island of prosperity seemed to hold no joy. He was driving the car I was aspiring to get. A yellow BMW.

     He had a gloomy countenance, looking like he was on the Bridge of Sighs at Attica, headed for execution. It all seemed like slow motion; you know. My spirit guide needed me to stop thinking about going into the business world and this scenario was like a wrecking ball to my future.  I quit school and the desire to be a bookkeeper or accountant. People will say they had no choice but to try and make as much money as they could with their career choices. But the corporate stranglehole was birthed by the Powell Memorandum and I wasn't going to work for a large corporation and I don't think I ever did.  

   I had $4000 in the bank for my future. Higher education I decided against and thought of getting a used Mercedes as I said. As my revelation unfolded, I realized I was looking at myself 20 years from now. Did I want to be this person? A pasty white, under exercised cipher drone for some company or another?

   For days I pondered the mystery. I was going to let a career choice flow. Do what I like and let the Universe be my guide. I was going to let it flow from there. It would be another five years before I decided on a career in horticulture and proceeded with my career path and self-education from there in 1980. 

   Sports was so important to my youth. Greatly attracted to baseball and football. Baseball ended up as difficult as the boys had growth spurts while my growth stopped at 5'6".  I managed to get a letter in Football in tenth grade, that was cool. The reward for doing difficult things in your youth is rewards in memories later. Glad that's over kind of thing.

    So there I was one early morning in 11th grade at the Wethersfield Town Green. I've always loved when the darkness of the night had given way to a very gray reality of dawn.  Sometimes I would take a book on my paper route and would sit at a bench that was near the Nathanial Foote landmark. This was before the bus shelter was put in. I was a geek hippie jock. 

    I was reading a book by Jim Kicx or something and it was a ground breaking book on Jogging. Nope. Google shows me Kixx' book came out in '77 He's the dumbass that thought he could run marathons with an enlarged heart and a father who died of one at 43.

    I was probably reading the Roby Davis book "jogging for fitness and weight control". I was also reading Hittlemans guide to Yoga.

     I remember formulating the plan that day. Yoga, jogging and bicycling. Running would lead to injuries I was reading. Long term.  So jogging seemed like a more natural choice. Walk the more scenic areas and run past unpleasant people. Jogging. What you abuse as a youth, you'll pay for it when you're 50. Rough sports like rugby .... well....I didn’t need any more concussions, so I avoided adult football. 

     I remember jogging around the Green. I read that running on the street was more stressful on the knees, so I always tried to stay on the grass or dirt. In retrospect I think my attitude was to do what I wanted instead of needing people to share the experience? I think its more about control and the human need for it. I abhor control and I don't like to be bossed and I don't like being the boss, so I've done just what I wanted to do. No one knows my stories so I put them all in here instead of talking with people and their endlessly droning life stories. I'm done listening but one point I'm trying to make is we can return to simpler things and simpler times. You'll see.

The college edumacated characters I've met usually lack the overall skills needed to get the job done. 

Working for a greenhouse, the owner was the inventor of the Jet Plug and vice president of Ball Seed and a college grad with a business degree. He was manic and emotional and clueless regarding the employees. The only boss I ever had that wore a suit.He hired Dwight who could repair the trucks and then rebuild an old greenhouse and spot plant problems with the best of them. He was a leader, not a boss. Then he hired Vicky touting her degree, but she knew too much of what wasn't needed and also had no people skills. 

On another job I was the first person to take care of an elaborate $300,000 garden at the ten million dollar beach club. A year later the installer won an award for his design and he told me personally; that the only reason he won it in the first year was because I got the plants to fill in so quickly. Didn't need no boss to tell me what to do but then after three years in receivership, the staff expanded and I got me a freshly minted college grad as a boss. I could ignore him pretty much, but one day a patch of grass got yellow, and he took it upon himself to fertilize it. He also got iron stains all over the place that I had to remove with Muriatic Acid. 

Then there have been all the overpaid "landscape architects" whose flawed designs were the bane of workers existence on many jobs at Orchid Island and John's Island. Then there was Joe the college grad nursery boss. "It doesn't matter what you say to a customer just say it authoritatively" I could go on and on with examples but in conclusion, Donna you are a botanist, and you don't need a piece of paper from the city hall making you one. This guy too Tony Santoro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVmSy5bsuMk  I am so glad I wrote this.

 

     2     💚💞❤

💚💞❤           FROM 1973

non existent career ends

 Today, I feel like recalling and recording my "musical career"

I must have been 19 when I wrote this and couldn't admit my chops were not good enough for steady playing in a metal band.  Just never quite fast enough either. This never discusses the Fusion years with Frank Marzano or Gigolos Dream with Steve Merski or the Robot City Years in the 80's with Bernie and Cliff.  Haven't been in a band in 40 years though, and I am going to put something together with the songs I like to play.  "BEATRX" is in section 7 with the songs I am playing,  

Back to 73. 

        “My Musical Career …"

1973. The best year of all time for music and I was ready to give up.

Today, I feel like recalling and recording my "musical career". The reason is because this is the end of it. I don't regret the fact of course. It enriched my life at many different points.

I'll never play an instrument again, unless tinkering around, or if one last project comes up such as playing with Anne Austin in the studio.  That will be the end of playing music as far as I can see.

Music first entered my life when I was around 8 years old. Of course there was music before that, but when I was 8 music had its first impact. One day visiting a friend, a song blasted out the small kitchen window. The song was the one by that Australian guy in 1962 about tie me kangaroo down. I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard.

"Tan me hide when I'm dead Fred. Tan me hide when I'm dead." Richie asked what radio station we listened to at home. It was WTIC  and they were determinably Squaresville.  IN  1962 there was a rivalry between WDRC and WPOP as they converted to pop rock formats. He told me to listen to WDRC and I did and I liked it.

What was popular then? The Shirelles, The Orlons, The Martian Hop. The Twist was dying, surf music being born with The Beach Boys popularity. Sugar Shack by Jimmy Gilmer was metal to me with my 8 year old ears. Dat bass. The Four Seasons had a big year in 1963 and they spoke for a lot of us. Puppy Love by the Essex had come and gone as we tried to define real love.

Then the Beatles got into everyone’s life. What was my personal reaction to the Beatles? It was November and I want to hold your hand was out and I had bought it without my parents’ permission or they bought it at Kings or Topps or something. I like the Beatles in a less frantic way than most people did with the much-discussed hysteria. Beatlemania.

I remember when I saw them on television in February and was then awe-struck. They were just boppin' around but I was awe-struck. Clearly there was an energy here to contend with.

I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND b/w I SAW HER STANDING THERE WAS THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT. We had a 4 string Tenor Guitar. I tried playing along with “I want to hold your hand” and that was my first instrument. Then came an unsuccessful attempt at the Bass violin. I couldn't press down the big fat strings good enough. He was testing to see if I had some musical talent because playing bass was always his second job.

Then my dad tried me with the harmonica and maracas which were some other instruments he had.  The harmonica was fun because it always made noise and sometimes what sounded like music. Never much for maracas and Southe Americano musica.

Throughout sixth grade, me and Rich and Lavallee and some other people wanted to start a group.  We figured we could all take up an instrument and start a band. How hard could it be to play the drums? We had fun thinking about how famous we could be. It was nice to have imagination.

We made up names for the group. The Fleetfoots since we was all good runners, an adaption of a band name known as the Fleetwoods.  Then on my 12th birthday I got a 40 dollar Kay guitar. Every year I would learn a little from the Mel Bay books but I only learned to read a few notes. That was it.

          Finally when I was 16, I started again in earnest.  MTAG was making movies and we had finished "The Snorff" at that time.  We filmed it at Wakefields house since we needed The Snorff to jump out of an oven and run out of the front door. Our parents would think we were too crazy, but Peter Thorsells older friend had a house.  I was interested in the amp they had there. 20 bucks. Practically new! It cost 40. That nice sky blue that I also chose for my bass amp. I remember distinctly that I learned my first chord (C) in June.

          It was the summer of 1970 and Maury and Ayers created a group and wanted Steve Merski on bass. He had never played before, except piano. He was really bad, but then there is Maury McCarhy who had his unique version of bad.  They recruited Rich Carling to be the drummer, and off they went.  Steve always told me not to learn chords but just play lead like Maury, all lead.

          By that time I knew 25 chords or so near the end of the year. Then I started going out with Anne Austin who was an influential person in my life. A fun naughty girlfriend, she was good enough on some blues guitar. It was a musical adventure playing songs out in the back yard, both of us plugged into a completely inadequate amp. Gary Smith got us a drummer named Mark Privetera, who died young at age 40.

          Anne and I played with Drew Kendrick who had learned a few things but was in a lower level like us. Sometimes we had Steve to play bass because he started making sense of it. He had a lean rockers stance and this was important in Maurys band.

          The party was fairly big, Ralph Arenas 18th birthday at Marks house. Got some pictures I should scan. We were beginners; we shouldn't have played a party. We did alright, considering, and Bob Geiser helped us out with his professional style of playing on a couple songs. I remember Marks mom loved the song Sunrise , Sunset so we played it 3 times. It was a trade for the use of the house.

          Bob Geiser was in Freedom Train at the time and we were offered a chance to play Incarnation Church with them which meant a certain level of expertise was expected. We didn't have it.  I objected and so did Steve. Anne and Dippo thought we were ready and we weren't so we didn’t.

          We kept arguing about this issue and soon our practices started sounding worse than better. We kind of made Anne quit and then Steve went to play exclusively with Maury. Suddenly me and Dippo were alone and Gary Smith got us to play with Jeff Gedutis and that worked out fairly badly.  I just wasn't that good and had a good rhythm, but sloppy and slow otherwise. I couldn’t remember songs for shit.

            As the summer of 71 came along Bob Geiser jammed with us when he was available. We played at Dippos sisters party at his house with Tony Delisio.  There was a Three Arts Festival I was heavily involved in. The sabotage night I think. Greg Hall and now Larry Tamiso. He ended up taking my gal, Donna Franklin, who was dismayed at my ignorance of relationships.   Then came Ralphs 18th birthday Party. That was kind of big and was a really great show with pictures.

          So Dippo, Larry and various guest guitarists, like the albino dude would play in my back yard or meet us at Marks house. When I started 12th grade in September, I became better friends with Steve Merski and I joined the band with Maury Rich and Steve.  We played New Years Eve at a party at Rich's house. When we practiced beforehand, I remember trying to learn Funk #49 by the James Gang. Fitz was friends with Rich the drummer and had started practicing guitar and he had a knack for funky rhythm guitar.

          In February, there was the historic Battle of the Bands where we played as Dr. West's  Delight. We smashed a dummy amp, I broke a crappy old guitar and we threw Yodels and squirted shaving cream. Some of the greatest mayhem I was ever involved in. Maury Steve and Rich. A year later Rich was dead.

          We almost broke the good PA system we borrowed while we screamed and fell in the audience. We wore suits (before anybody in metal) and had prominent carnations thanks to Rich Carlings stepmom Mrs. Morton as she sent us off to the show. "You sure you don't want another brownie?"

          "Thanks Mrs. Morton, no one knows how metal I am with my short hair and Poindexter glasses but I am ready for the show." By April we had muscled Maury out of the group. Seriously what fucking planet did he live on? His guitar playing never sounds good except in that freaky space music way of Sun Ra or someone from another planet.

          We played a bit with Dave Jacques but that didn't work out.  Fitz had practiced a lot while he was away at school and joined up with us in late May. It was a fun summer of playing. I had graduated. The drinking age was lowered to 18 and the song by Alice Cooper "18" was a big hit early in the year. The draft for war ended the year before so I was clear for takeoff. Time to start adulting.

          As I said it was a fun summer and we practiced a lot with Fitz but he became a senior and Steve was a senior at Wethersfield High. I had college at 4:00. Rich did get us a job at High Meadow for 120 bucks, I think, in October. We had become an extended family of musicians. Bruce Gorman (Dusty Roads) was always in on a jam or a gig. Pete Thorsell lived nearby when I lived in the barn with Bruce a couple of weekends.  Later in the spring I lived in Steves Merskis barn on and off.

          When I wrote most of this, it was 1973, and I was feeling like groups didn't seem to work and maybe I was wasting my time. I really wasn’t that good. Some songs were really hard to memorize and my chops were imprecise and my riffs were trash.

           I was done with it all. Except if I do something with Anne Austin.  Maybe when I'm 30 or something I'll pick up the piano but never another guitar.

POSTSCRIPT:  Emotional youth. I had another burst of reading and research as I took jazz lessons for guitar and went back to the guitar but switched back to bass in a year or so. In 1974 I did three things. Face to face with young phenom, Pat Methany, and then up to Greenfield to spend $1200 on an Acoustic 371 for playing bass. One owner still have it. I also bought an imitation Strat from Japan at Integrity n Music in 1974 and I still have that. Make that 4 things. One last time with Anne Austin when she called me up and asked if I wanted to go see Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” tour? We both loved them but we couldn’t find a joint to bring with us. Then in a 4000 seat venue Mark Turley sat next to us and got us buzzed. That show is a story for another day. Best show I ever saw. 

1975 was about mayhem on the highways and a jazz band with Fluteman Frank Marzano young Bobby Dest. Then me and Frank jammed with a bunch of guitarists in town. Abbruzee I think Gedutis again. Then I moved to East Granby with Sherry. Before that there was Cliff and Flutegirl and the female blues singer who sounded like the 20’ssinger. Me and Bernie. And to wrap it up there was some nice metal with me Bernie and Carl. Then I moved to Tucson and me and Merski jammed and there was lance but I just didn’t know what I was doing. Now I do and it’s easy to learn songs so I’m starting a rockabilly band. With my arthritis I play songs amenable to playing 5ths or power chords more commonly.

 

 -6-3-   💚💞❤

   MYSTORY OF METAL   

From thee the river flows

What hath Ozzy wrought?

Heavy Metal, like the ice breaker, continues tearing across the ice, and opens the road to new innovations; always pushing hard, sometimes over the edge and never standing still for too long. Pop music remains content to use traditional and popular structure, dwelling on the ubiquitous love song and derivative riffs stolen from rock and roll. Mainstream rock music cops metal riffs and the crushing beats from previous years metal, and this keeps rock and roll alive.

            We are the metalloids, magnetized by the metal.   I wanted to point out we are all going to have our favorites and my metal may be a little PG for most metal snobs who love brutal 24/7.  How can you have a Top 100 with all brutal compositions that most people can barely understand?  I am not going to consider Cannibal Corpse or Rotting Christ as worthy of my Top 100. Just gross, that’s why. I aspire to nuanced metal song construction and won’t tolerate violent lyrics. Except like, Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil album.

            Going back in time and sifting through my memories of heavy guitar rock, I remember holding my breath the first time I heard "Cry for a Shadow" by the Beatles. There was such a perfect guitar sound. This was what I was looking for, listening for, that is. 

 

In 1964, the Beatles entire catalog was being played on the radio and the Instrumental “Cry for a Shadow” broke out of the Pop Music formula as a Beatles instrumental. It was the sound my core was looking for and it was all about the guitar. 

       The song managed to make the top forty briefly and I would listen to the radio every hour I could, to hear it again. Then it dropped out of the survey like a courtesy flush, and I couldn't believe it.  Listening to it these days, it seems like a prototype Blue Oyster Cult song. It was the first song with elements of metal.  Convince me I’m wrong. 

            The Kinks were proto-metal as far as I am concerned and these days, so do many music experts. It was in the guitar, the sonic siren leading to a lifetime of metal addiction. Fifth chords to the center of the earth.   The Avant Garde scene was noodling around the boundaries of what was possible, thereby opening the door to psychedelic rock. Pop songs such as Hot Smoke and Sassafras and Journey to the Center of the Mind condensed the power of proto metal into a 3 minute pop song.    

   Garage Rock has always been the birthing ground for metal, poor-ass motherfuckers out to create a noise louder than there’s ever been before.  The garage is our cave, I guess, as I see it, in retrospect. The 4 dudes of Black Sabbath emerged from their caves on the gritty end of industrial Birmingham England and woke the world up with a new genre. They weren’t Prog guys, all college grads ‘n shit. SO, they must top my list of top 100 METAL MASTERPIZZAS and so I asked myself a very important Black Sabbath fan question, and that is … what was their best tune, ever? 

"Warning" from the first album is #1 on my list is my #1, the Rosetta Stone of how metal was created, illustrating the link that separated rock and roll from the blues that created the dark sound we were craving and with more complex musical configurations. It had to start somehow and had to start somewhere. There is a mystery to the Locrian mode that has eluded most. I’ll keep it a secret.

 #2 favorite song of all time is "Cities on Flame" by Blue oyster Cult.  In 1971, East Coast Garage rock met English Heavy Metal in Blue Oyster Cults first album. Cities on Flame was a wakeup call to Americans to have a counter revolution as another British Invasion began, led by Black Sabbath.

I went to very few concerts as a youth but managed to see Blue Oyster Cult early in their career when they were still billed as ‘formerly known as the "Soft White Underbelly”; because the New Jersey band had regularly toured Connecticut in previous years. 

Alice Cooper, MC5, Blue Cheer, the Stooges, were some of the notable American bands that were active when Sabbath came on the scene, and there was a genre busting fray in the early seventies. Cream Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix certainly have metal songs, but Sabbath took their machete to find new lands.  

   When I first started this Mystory of Metal chapter, it was 2003 and Napster was great fun at the time.  I finally found every song I had ever wanted to hear, and we engaged in (file sharing) finding one interesting song after another. From “London Bridge” for my 7-year-old, to “London Calling” that we both enjoyed. As a sidenote, I bought more music during the Napster period that I had in the previous ten years. Support your keepers and support the system that allows file sharing. I don’t even know if people do that anymore. They stream now and music is getting steamed, homogenized and packaged.

My boys didn’t listen to the cornball nonsense they make kids listen to, the oldest gravitating to various hardcores and the youngest discovering Rage Against The Machine and others in 2004 when he was 8.  Eight-year-olds don't get depressed. You can be Emo when you're older, you're only young and innocent once. He learned the difference between Iron Fist and Iron Maiden. Then Guitar Hero came out in November 2005(7?) featuring all the great metal works of the past. Probably the best game ever invented.

These eight-year-olds grow up and become dudes and get obsessed with one interest or another. I let my boys flow where they wanted though made it known my disgust for some bands such as (I can't say. Misogyny and Violence suck out loud. Enough already.) Skate boards, slot car racing, lifting weights and I guess playing games for the younger folks.  In olden days, 14-year-olds got married and became apprentices for 7 years as was the habit back then, and it seemed a grim time. No IPod to cut the boredom as you worked long hours. They’re young now, but they are the first generation to be complexly computer immersed and as elders will grumpily note, “it wasn’t like that back in my day.”

As it says in “Working in a Coal Mine”,  “when night time comes I’m too tired for having fun.” Then dudes are told in their 20’s, 'A happy wife is a happy life!' and as young adults they think "Oh my fucking God, it's over."  

            Metal is the acid in the face of bullshit.

            I find the dead (all dead all dead Queen) thank you little buddy. Find your power and use it. Groniger Rikku and Cosmo. Went right to ‘em.

             We are irresistibly drawn to Metal by some primitive gene that is deeply embedded in our behavior. The link between our head and our heart. Drawn together by chanting and insistent drumming throughout the centuries, human expression is now drawn together by the guitar. Nazis switched the something or other to 440 after it had been inexact previously but primarily 432.  Now after 45 years of metal, the guitar reigns as the greatest INSTRUMENT of all time and Metal is the greatest art form of all time. Or maybe it's just the creative part of Rock and Roll. We can discuss the future of 432 and the metal revolution that will sweep the world in the near future. Make our own metal, fenenre, where we play in 432. See if it makes a difference.

       The older ones of us remember the British Invasion. Ears were opened to the hard guitar of The Kinks and the Sonic explosions of The Who and the psychedelic birth of hard rock in 1966.  One truth most will agree to is that the album Black Sabbath 1 is the birth of actual metal in 1970. Though I may discuss "The Dude Culture" and 'dudes will be dudes', I am of the opinion that the more women that become dudes, the better we all will be.

          Some dude hears a womans voice singing and goes, "that's not metal" making that wing of the Heavy Metal Movement as misogynist as any Republican Country Club. I hope by now with Arch Enemy and Battle Beast and Jinger and many other combos led by women, these snobs can get over themselves. That same dude hears an organ and says, “that’s not metal”, so I want you to know metal is what you make it. For many of us Deep Purple is metal. Their music holding up so well and they are finally getting their due.

Dudes gather in their caves(garages) and light our amps on fire, creating warmth and making sense of an obviously fucked up world. 

A world where the future was to be a faceless fiduciary or a toiling miner and it didn’t look good either way. Dudes grow and learn and there are many stages. A vibrant and active thread in the fabric of our culture. Actually, it’s our culture, the dude culture.

 An ancient and insistent beat, there has been a return to chanting and drumming and grooving as we tune into the hum of the earth.  I've got my eye out for the next big phase of metal and looking for bigger outfits with more percussion and chanting and singing. The Solfeggio Frequencies is something to look into. Punk energy and Metal chops continue to propel rock and roll into the future.  Rockabilly is the beating heart of rock and roll and is  prepared to meld with metal. Sixth generation rockabilly and six decades of metal.

 

 California garage rock was reaching an apex of innovation and was spinning off sub genres and gave us glimpses of genres to come back in the early and mid-60’s for those of us infected with the hard guitar bug. You can still hear the influences of California garage rock today. 

The Monterrey Jazz Festival of 1967 was an explosion of inventive music from many categories. It created the cauldron of creativity from 1967-1973 for American Music. This era also signaled an American dominance of the charts by people who had been enthralled with the British Invasion 64-66. East Coast garage rock was never derivative of West Coast and tended towards punk and a stripped-down versions of Rock like the Ramones.

            In tiny little England, they tended not to have garages and garage bands, but they did have sheds, old metal buildings and The Yardbirds. The second wave of the British Invasion began in ‘67. Rock and Roll dropped its Blues base and evolved the next three years into Heavy Metal, Black Sabbaths first album marked where a new important branch began to grow on the Rock and Roll Tree of Life. 

        The song "Warning" on Black Sabbath 1 showed all the ingredients Tony Iommi used to forge this new weapon against Conformity.  Please go and give a listen to my #1 song on my Top 100 Metal Masterpizzas on YouTube.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-T_6IdXFuw&list=PLB17282A8A544C863&index=10

            Controversies. Progressive Rock is not metal.  To other snobs, a keyboard also disqualifies the metal designation.  Good musicianship is discounted as self indulgent excess.  Drummers can make a band metal. Carl Palmer(ELP) and Bill Bruford(Yes) and Billy Cobham(Mahavishnu) John Bonham (Zeppelin) all influenced by jazz but created the big beat bass drum sound at the bottom of the metal.

          

            Unlike the former #1 instrument, the piano, guitars have more harmonics and scales, and you can beeeend the notes.  Metal is always artistically inspired, unlike pop music which is profit inspired. Pop Music is weighed down with a preponderance of love songs which gets quite tiring for a dude looking for raw energy. How many times can you fall in love and have your heart broken?  Pop music sucks.

We are the Metalloids, magnetized by the Metal and the searing melodic screaming guitar is our siren call. Avoid the rock and sail into the Unknown. Joints, beers, torn clothing and the Blue Jeans Army emerged in the seventies and the concert hardcore was born. Punks came along with their slam dancing, and the mosh pit was born.

Iron Butterfly had emerged in '68 and it was like, "dude, listen to this."   Seemingly stripped of the Blues, it was in the Psychedelic Metal category, as was Hendrix. This is the reason them and Led Zeppelin are not considered the first metal bands. Metal is stripped of the Blues, despite Blues being located in our metal genome. Garage Rock continued to churn out innovation, and sub genres littered the sonic sphere. East Coast Garage rock was never as big as west coast, but was never derivative.  The English hardly had room for garages and soon a third British invasion began.

The etymology of Dude goes back to the Wild West and also became ghetto slang for friend, compadre, buddy or brother. Mocking the “King of the Dudes”. When the brothers adopted 'brother' and dropped dude, honky dudes began using the word.  We called each other dude, and we refined hanging out into an art form. "Dude, you suck". "You suck."  "No way, you suck" "and you suck until infinity" which trumped all other sucks. Today, Bubba is buddy and brother and it’s been shortened to Buh. So the secret green cult passwords are “what’s up Buh?”

 And so it began in the primitive years and our habits became embedded in the culture.  Phrases becoming much more complex in the eighties till the phrase "that doesn't suck" became the definitive phrase for something that is " cool " or "neat". Entrusted with the sacred seals of the dude language.

Most hardcore dudes abandoned the word dude in 1974 when the lyrics "let's get it on dudes" appeared in the Grand Funk Railroad Song 'We're an American band’ on Pop radio.  The eye roll heard around the world. We simply called each other asshole after that.  The word dude disappeared, buried by disco, one might suspect. At the end of the Vietnam War we didn't need jingoistic patriotic crap.  We wanted to tear down this predatory capitalist military christian complex. It is such a phony morality, but most Americans love to perch on their pretentious branch and decry our morality with their moral high ground hypocrisy. It's been decided by the dude council that after the traitors have been dispatched, we will turn that ballroom In DC at the White House into the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame.

The dude language continued to evolve as fuckwad and jackbag and other creative terms were used in our friendly interactions.  Touchhole is a western New England colloquialism, and it is a contraction of touchy asshole. Not long after, we grew up and kept jobs and left our words behind and became responsible members of society.  Lol.

Usually, I liked Jazz and Classical and still do, but once favorite songs became classic rock and were played too often, I lose interest. I never really considered myself a hippie and I identified more with the dude culture created by the sons of the working poor. and I was influenced by the Beatniks of the 50's and the Be Boppers of the 40's. My dad seemed to be on the edge of the Be Bop with a strong interest in Hard Bop and I viewed this radical jazz through his eyes.  In retrospect it turned out to be melodic and thoughtful stuff and not gruff and dissonant as it’s portrayed.

Dad didn't like the Beatniks though.  I remember our trip to Quebec in 1966 when I saw a herd of Beatniks walking across a town square. "Who are those people?" I asked before I knew their anti-social activity and protests were the fore runners of the protest folk movement. The first and last herd of beatniks I have ever seen. "Nothing nothing at all."

 Hippies were soon to become the scapegoat for an alleged decaying society after the Beatniks were gone. Black people were finally getting to vote and racists had their whisper campaigns in full swing. It was a primitive time and the Beatniks were thinkers and philosophers from 1955 to 1965 and they lived outside of proper society as they tried to usher in the dawn of civilization. Birthing the ban the bomb movement.

This is why I considered myself a Blue Collar Progressive and unable to be categorized otherwise.  Pagan Anarchist Beatnik Hillbilly is my final form, and writing this book “ON THE ROAD, less travelled,” is one of the most important things I can do at this point. I don't want to die with my book in me, so thanks if you have gotten this far. We weren't the dumb ass dudes of let's say, the Midwest or we weren’t eastern CITY dudes who didn't really get most shit. or rural dudes too far outside of town to experience much. More style than substance. 

 East coast suburbia invented the dude culture which went through Americana and came out in the Valley Girls of California. “Duuuudddee.” Was back.

               Progressive dudes have intellectual obsessions, mine was and is still is that corporations are taking over the world. Monsanto is practically its own country and certainly more powerful than many small counties.  Chevron has its own system of justice as it can't seem to get out of the way of itself in South America. Walmart heirs make more than a million of their employees combined. It happened on our watch dude! Boome3rs all scared of the rich 'n shit.

              Libertarian Anarchists, we thought the Vietnam War was the greatest lunacy of all time. We understood the Hippie Culture protests, but weren’t really part of it. We were the vanguard of Generation Jones. We collectively decided war was over, because that is what we wanted. Who could have known warmeisters Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and Wolfowitz and other chicken hawks, who never served, would direct American foreign policy some day and give us two wars at once in the 2000's. We could have been restructuring this country instead of destroying others. Much of metal is anti-war.  

Dudes were more of a powder keg demographic coming down the pipe, but the killings at Kent State chilled the hippies fervor and that apathy reached down into us younger dudes. Reagans go go jingo go America attitude was a bitch slap to Green Anarchists in the 80's that many of us became. All protest groups were investigated and infiltrated by the FBI in the late sixties and seventies and ethnic cleansing of the Black Panthers and AIM is the horrifuc legacy of the FBI, and a brutal reminder of the police state America has been for non-whites.

The police state headed by J Edgar Hoover, the notorious cross-dressing hypocrite. These leaders didn't follow the Constitution, but their own authoritarian right wing fascist leanings.

Not hippies, not beatniks, dudes are something else entirely and we persist in every generation now unlike beatniks and hippies.  It was 1971 and an element of synergy was bubbling around the genre defining Black Sabbath album.  Metals Golden Age began with an explosion of music the world had never experienced. As disco would influence rock years later, metal would rock the music scene from 1971 to 1973, and Pop music really began to suck. Then it all went bad.

With todays corporate control of the world, boys grow up to be dudes, and we are all subjected to the numbing sameness and boring minutiae of what educators think we need.  Education must still be in infancy because it is virtually useless and can be taught in 2 years when the child is ready, not programmed into children before they are ready. Not dragged out for 10 years forcing children to learn things before they are really ready.  I remember being in school and thinking what a load of crap most of it was. The crushing boredom of homework directly stole our fun time.

We know it's all about conditioning minds, the liberal commie plot to make us knuckle under to the state, and dudes know this. Trained rats running to their next cage, I mean class, summoned by the bell. Making sure you become a kiss ass and toady for the monied elite who are treated with reverence. Conditioned to be callous of other people. “till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all” – John Lennon.

Dudes, then guys, then men. Many females have grown up in this mold, and this makes them more well-rounded, questioning anarchists.  Among the women I have gotten to know, there are no gender barriers. No men no women, it's just people from now on. Women get it but the men don't. Women have the additional tool of empathy to understand the emotional roller coaster of youth and would make some righteous dudes.  Calling a girl or woman a dude, is a compliment of the highest order, and trust me you are welcome, and we need you to help drag the misogynists in metal and rockabilly into the 21st century.

So how does one qualify for a dude card? First, you need a hangout and these days straight or not, stoned or straight, the Dude Enlightenment is open minded in a Buddhist Way.  Zone out and feel the groove. "Shut up dude and enjoy the music!"  It's really not about drugs and alcohol, and it shouldn't be. It’s about a chill vibe. But it can also be a support group of party enablers, though really, most dudes like to hang out……some call it hang out and party. The partiers are the ones who end up as alcoholics. Hang out and grind up the Yak Horn with the dudes. With legalization, the sale of alcohol is beginning to decline.

The Love Generation of hippies found out that what they really loved, and that was money. Security and happiness as you build your nest somewhere in the inner workings of the machine. But some of us ended up as misfits, going against the grain of our training and brainwashing and walking outside of the civilized circle.

Vietnam was about manufacturing weapons and tanks and jet fighters and machines. Imagine the empty soul that sends someone's son to a war without end. The dark specter of Vietnam cast a shadowy pall over my life. In 68 I was 14 and suddenly with Tricky Dick Nixon as President, things suddenly were not going well.  "Why do good in school, just to get shot in Vietnam?" I questioned my parents who only said authority must be right.

   We are irresistibly drawn to by some primitive gene that is deeply embedded in our behavior. Drawn together by chanting and driving, insistent drumming, human expression is now drawn by guitar.  

      At first, I was going to call this the History of Heavy Metal but then I thought that would be a little presumptuous.  Like, I would know the definitive history of anything, it is all about choice.  I wanted to point out we are all going to have our favorites. My metal may be a little PG for most. Probably old school too.    The Solfeggio Frequencies. Punk energy and Metal chops continue to propel rock and roll into the future, an enduring genre and perhaps the greatest art form ever created.

Heavy Metal, like the Icebreaker tearing across the ice, leading the pack with innovations. Just passin' by. Later.

Amazighing 

 

The Groove? A bit pretentious I thought. So here it is and it seems to be a good groove. Some of these videos are interesting, give 'em a listen. 

This is an article about the cover art for Crossings by Herbie Hancock. (above) Not discussed in any reviews I've seen are the two "aliens". Those two dudes with the cone heads. They may be the fabled people from Sirius. Siriusans visited the ancient Dogons of Northwestern Africa. For now, I'm extrapolating on the conspiracy theory that aliens visited the ancient Dogons tens of thousands of years ago. As a fervent history buff, I'm also trying to invalidate the lies of omission that the crumpet munching white historians haven't told. The story of the western migration in Africa.

        On the album cover, they are crossing into Europe near Gibraltar, a swim or a boat ride during low tide. Or a couple logs tied together. The Western migration that has been discredited, is about Africans migrating north into Europe via Gibraltar.  Discredited because, why? Because white historians don't want to acknowledge Africans as the first Homo sapiens to traverse Europe.

 In this era of stolen narratives, one of the biggest thefts has been by christian nationalist malcontents and their idea about who white people are.  Well, I got me a passel of facts to hassle these asshats with, so back atcha, you betcha.

People be acting like all this anglo-saxon-germanic-scandinavian motif is what Europeans are all about. But these folks are relative newcomers compared to us Southern Europeans.  We got some history. We got the paleolithic patent. 

 The Neanderthal is part of who Europeans are, and what no one will tell you is that we are also the Grimaldi People.     Why Black Irish DNA Is The Strangest In The World

Plot twist here, who are the Grimaldi People? The proto-Grimaldi’s began their ancient journey after Toba erupted 75 thousand years ago, as the migrating Sans People from Southern Africa. Migrating north, they were dosed with the ancient alien Dogon spirituality in Northwestern Africa. The aliens must have taught them some shit and this video alleges some of that. And the aliens were probably Androids. Over 9 light years away? 

 They then morphed into the non-Pygmy,  Grimaldi People, who would eventually be crossing the straights of Gibraltar 65-70,000 years ago and migraping south of the Alps and north of the Black Sea. The Grimaldi People eventually caught up with the eastern migration of Africans with Zulu's 'n shit who were like, 7 feet tall. 

                    Black hobbits they were, and the reason Mediterranean men are so short. What people are unable to accept is that the Grimaldi People were the first modern homo sapiens to traverse the entirety of Iberia and southern Europe. Black people were the first modern humans to inhabit Europe, and they taught rock art to the Neanderthals as evidenced by recent findings in caves. You can look it up, I'll explain in a bit.

             I'm a pretentious research geek, and I found an article about some of my favorite bands. When I was younger, I had a guitar teacher who was into Booker Little & Eric Dolphy and other be boppers and one day he led me to Sun Ra. Interesting modes and scales and a futuristic look at life. A cosmic path. I went out and bought the cassette immediately.

 

The story. Aliens captured him for a mission.

Jazz from the fifties

         Sun Ra was not afraid to be weird. Neither did Jimi Hendrix. I've logically concluded that Jimi Hendrix was a god or a sub-diety who came back to have an earthly life. So, here is the song Hendrix wrote about coming back to Earth from "the age of ice" to "a world that has burned." 

 I'm reading this article and they mention Sun Ra and George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic and Herbie Hancock and Gil-Scott Heron and Public Enemy. All bands in my top 25 favorite bands, with Funkadelic as the favorite of these. 

remix; not sure if I like it enough

These bands are in my top 25 favorite bands or artists of all time and are just a bit better than everyone else. Turns out there is actually a music genre that encompasses these bands. A unifying connection in my mind.

The category is called Afro-Futurism. 

                      So we go way way back in time to one of the unique cultures near prehistoric Egypt that developed. The so-called Khormoussan culture, named for the site of Khor Musa, near the later famed Egyptian site of Wadi Halfa. (I nicked a bit of this from somewhere) These people appeared around 45,000 years BC around Maghreb.  One thing that is notable for the peoples of this culture is the slow abandonment of the desert regions, and a migration nearer to the fertile valleys of the Nile and to Morrocco Mali and the Atlas Mountains. 

They were nomadic, following wild herds and making temporary camps in river valleys.

So here I am studying about my people living in the caves of Portugal and hunting out near Solutre, France at a giant gathering place. The bones of hundreds of thousands of animals were found there. Mostly Horses as she notes in the video below and also Reindeer. The Reindeer People.

           So anyways, there weren't even any white people at that point 60,000 years ago when the Grimaldi-Gravettian's have been documented as having taught Neanderthals how to make cave paintings. This is recent archaeology news that you can look up. They were found in Italy or somewhere. Cave paintings by Neanderthals that match cave paintings deep in Africa dated to 65,000 BC.  

The first religion of the world is dated back to that time and that area in Africa also. 

                     Maybe there were some white people in the Caucasion Mountains. They were the people who eventually migrated northwest as the Ice Age ebbed. When did people start becoming white and developing thin skin (just kidding), has been a controversial topic as of late.

     There had been people in Greece and Romania south of the Carpathian Mountains 35,000 years ago, long before the last great ice Age began but they seem to have disappeared. I think those were the Proto-Celts who fled to the Iberian Peninsula when the Ice Age settled in.

              The Stone People of the Mediterranean.  The actual cave painters. The ancestors of white nationalists was a whole different batch of migrations much further north and much later in time. Yet they'll talk like they were the cave painters. One guy, Jacques Laroach or something like that, calls himself the White Rock of Solutre, but he's like a white nationalist from Norway or something. A total fraud.

          Sorry Sven and Franz, you was fighting the frost giants and tsunamis in the fjords, while we was chillin' for a couple of ten thousand years. Clean flowing water was easy to find and I imagine the weather on both sides of the Mediterranean was like San Diego or Port Orford. Never too hot or cold. They had dozens of hangouts. Plenty of wild fruit. Dates 'n shit. Chew on that Salix to get rid of the tooth pain.  Salix transect of Europe: latitudinal patterns in willow diversity from Greece to arctic Norway - PMC

           The people on both sides of the Mediterranean spent their time netting fish and harvesting fruits and collecting and saving nuts and seeds as they came into season.     My ancestors, the Iberian-Solutreans had it going on with a good climate, but we have been ignored because we had no warrior culture and didn't build walled cities like the "civilized" people.

       We were hunting Reindeer, sewing together clothes with sinew, and drawing lots of groovy shit in caves, you betcha.  Clueless, stuffed museum characters staring at their naughty bits. I don’t think so.  

        

Eventually, insecure patriarchal religions encouraged the slicing off of vital man parts while the other crazy desert religion chopped off women’s parts. Then insist they are civilized in their Holy Rampage of Conquest. Not funny, I know, considering all the suffering.

As I was mentioning, there were many tribes north of the Sahara. It's why desertification became suddenly worse. Too many goddam goats eating every goddam thing in sight and the Sahara desert began spreading northward. Streams and rivers dried up. The Malian Empire faded and reappeared in Eygpt. No more mud huts, time for some masonry.

         My ancestors, the Iberian-Solutreans had it going on with a good climate, but we have been ignored.

            I had integrated the western out of Africa theory because it seemed plausible. I knew there was an 800 ship Navy that belong to the Malians in the 1300's and so many stories of ancient Mali. Buried under Sahara sands, you know? There were riverbeds detected by satellite in northwestern Africa that had existed a long time ago. 

funkadelic starchild

"we have come to reclaim the pyramids"

                     What I am getting to is this: before the Egyptians came along, the original settlers of Northern Africa were the Malians or whatever they called themselves back then. People also lived on Sardinia and many other islands and they thrived at the many river outflows into the Mediterranean, where you could catch fish with your hands or kick them up onto the shore. 

              But ask yourself who built the structures at Goblekii Tepe? 12,000 years ago. Much has been going on more than ten thousand years ago that has been ignored by white historians.  I'm speculating that the first truly advanced people were a hybrid fusion of Neanderthal, the Grimaldi of the western migration and the Cro-Magnons began settling Europe 50,000+ years ago. There's that pesky racism again in academia. Hiding the story of the first advanced people. They were centered in the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco, the Atlas Mountains and the now-dried rivers and of present-day Mali. 

Can you spot the cone headed aliens?

                       Cro-magnons were among the first Homo sapiens but the People of northwestern Africa became the modern-day Homo sapiens sapiens that brought us to our current level of intellectual development. I half-jokingly say that the Aliens did visit the Dogons. 9 light years away, they were very likely androids. The Grimaldis evolved suddenly and migrated into Europe near Gibraltar. Eventually traveling east, they helped the rest of the world evolve when they reached Anatolia (Turkey). Here's a black nationalist's opinion of the migration.

"many Anthropologists, Researchers and Academics, still refuse to acknowledge that Africans were the first Human colonizers of Europe. To hide this fact, they prefer to use the terms Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures; which is fine, it still means Grimaldi. However, the current fad of attributing Grimaldi artifacts to the Humanoid Cro-Magnon is in all ways, mystifying. After all, though different, Cro-Magnon like Grimaldi, was a Black African."

          So this dude above in yellow is obviously afro-centric and you know: their overcompensating schtick. Africans invented everything. As bad as the white nationalists I'm trying to invalidate. The Stone People. My People. Not genetic freaks. The Copper Culture. The writer above is correct on many points in his article however, and it's true that western migration theorists are often discounted. That hidden racism in academia again.

GREENHAMMER: Search results for stone people

SUN RA his story is interesting

The people of the Mediterranean mingled together for tens of thousands of years until the Holy Rampage of Conquest by Islam and Christianity disrupted the diversity of the Mediterranean cultures and the ancient Pagan traditions. Amazigh are what the pre-Islamic people call themselves in North Africa. 

 Everybody worked in the Iberian culture. In the summer, we rested mid-day. You were part of something, everyone had skin in the game, and this was an early form of market socialism. These markets worked. Compassionate villages took care of the general welfare of those around them. Don't rely on Hollywood market scenes with their beggars and pickpockets for a history on this.

45 thousand years ago we drove those sorry ass Neanderthals out of their caves, god bless ‘em, they was some dumb motherfuckers, yet they had some bodacious disease fighting genetics. 

I get some stern looks when I say Neanderthals are the reason Italians have hair on their back. (I’ll edit these rude bits out later, but Italians do have 4% Neanderthal compared to the European average of 1-2%. Just sayin’.)

fight the power

 In this era of stolen narratives, one of the biggest thefts has been by christian nationalist malcontents and their idea about who white people are.  Well, I got me a passel of facts to hassle these asshats with, so back atcha, you betcha.

People be acting like all this anglo-saxon-germanic-scandinavian motif is what Europeans are all about. But these folks are relative newcomers compared to us Southern Europeans.  We got the paleolithic patent. 

 They then morphed into the non-Pygmy,  Grimaldi People, who would eventually be crossing the straights of Gibraltar 65-70,000 years ago.

                    Black hobbits they were, and the reason Mediterranean men are so short. What people are unable to accept is that the Grimaldi People were the first modern homo sapiens to traverse the entirety of Iberia and southern Europe. Black people were the first modern humans to inhabit Europe, and they taught rock art to the Neanderthals as evidenced by recent findings in caves and dating Cro-Magnon babes and hunks. You can look it up, I'm sure.

    

           There was probably intense cooling for a few years after Tobas volcanic explosion 74 thousand years ago with the ash cloud that circled the earth for many, many moons. There was a rapid regrowth of the ice caps and the glaciers which caused the ocean to lower for a time after Toba, exposing land and land bridges. Crossing Gibraltar could be done with a sturdy raft and swam, if Gibraltar could be seen from the Moroccan shore.

         I’m speculating that Solstice traditions may have begun with the ancient memory of Toba and the trauma that ensued during the aftermath, and how people did anything that they could to get the sun to return. The survivors embossed the traditions with ceremony and reverence. Greeting the sun as it returned.

Nubian Sundance (Live)

 

 

                  White academic elitists pretend to speak for the ancient people? Everything is about gods and Booga Booga, but most people chopped wood and carried water.  Could give a fuck about whatever god the preacher, priest, pastor or shaman talked about. Lifeless recreations in museums belie the fierce nature and inquisitive initiatives of our ancestors. And I do mean OUR ancestors. We are all in this together in the future. No more color or genders.  Drive the xians and xlamics back to the middle east so we can live in peace. Leave us be. And keep those mentally ill Not Sees out of our government.

   

The Dogon People and Sirius B: Unveiling the Mali Tribe's Alleged Extraterrestrial Connections - Universe Unriddled

GREENHAMMER: WHO ARE THE WHITE PEOPLE?

sun 

              Colonialism by rich white people proceeded once the European Commons was absconded with, (it takes money to make money). We had a Commons concept that provided free space for people to sell their goods from farming and household industry in the center of town. That was the tradition. The part of community that corporations don't understand.

           Industrial Capitalism came along next, and that destructive system has disrupted virtually every culture in the world. Pulling the rug out from peaceful villages around the world that had already been battered by the wars of religious beliefs and other power mad criminals.               

     Capitalism consumed the Market Socialism that had controlled commerce since like, forever. And capitalists won't stop until every corner store is closed. 

        Common area street markets were free to use, and mom and pop shops that knew their customers was the standard.

      There was household industry producing the necessities of life in every community. Towns and counties, unincorporated areas. People down at the market getting their daily bread. This market socialism had worked with varying degrees of success since time immemorial and provided what was needed without filling our dumps and oceans with plastic trash and rusted heaps of cars and white goods. People ate fresh or canned local produce.
           Going back many centuries, most white people had been tyrannized and victimized by a local despot such as a Prince Pastor Priest or Duke. "Authority" figures that parasitized off the industrious labor of the working class (poor) while keeping their fingernails clean.   
        It's always been this sick strain of dogmatic religiosity. The notorious implementation of Manifest Destiny fueled this global empire. Manifest Destiny was the belief white people should own and run everything. 

        The gleeful clergy worm tonguing their way to power and influence till the industrial tyrants emerged after 1913 to control our cultures to the present day. 

          Poor people inventing things, and the already rich making the profits. The workers revolution is a long time coming. But it's coming and this time we win.


       Europe was Pagan and White and Africa was Pagan and black for 30,000 years. Historians need to write a book called "LIES OF OMISSION" to tell the whole story.

        Between these two continents, Mecca became a great Pagan meeting place for polytheists of all colors to commingle in trade, products, and services. There was no religion in that marketplace because Pagans didn't have wars over the gods and goddesses. 

         The Pagan custom was to have signs who the local gods and goddesses were. Al lah was the phrase used. Who's your Allah? 

          islam stole that idea and made it for their god exclusively. Sneaky. Snarky & full of milarkey, just like the other two patriarchal pustillades.    

        Religious people say the Pagans were corrupt and lawless during that period in Mecca before Mohammad. Read that as, having fun.  Remember that Islam and Christianity basically started in the same neighborhood and they are some serious Debby Downers. Burn in Hell? No shit, that sounds awful? What grade were we taught that?

     . These were crazy brown people from desert regions getting all violent with the heat 'n shit. These 3 Abrahamic religions became established near Jerusalem,  Mecca and Constantinople.     From thee the blood flows.   

      THEN those crazy brown bastards invaded White Pagan Europe and Black Pagan Africa and most viciously, the Mediterranean Stone People in the middle. We'd all been civilized for 30,000 years before the people from the horribly misnamed "cradle of civilization," began their Holy Rampage of Conquest.

           In Africa, going back to a tribe 60,000 years ago, and to the Reindeer People who were the indigenous Europeans 15 to 40 thousand years ago, these Pagans lived with their triple gods and goddesses and people of Europe and Africa had very similar lifestyles for many thousands of years.  Tens of thousands of years. 

          Eventually migrants from western Africa met up with the eastern migration and they went to India and probably had some Denisovan/Homo sapiens marriages and yada yada yada. 

        Recent archaeological finds have been interesting. I traced my ancient lineage to the Lusitanians of Portugal. The Tagus River empties into the Atlantic at Almada Portugal. The copper culture 8000 years ago was at the mouth of the 500+ mile long Tagus River closer to current day Spain. Curiously, indigenous Americans had a copper culture at that time also. Startlingly, a cave in this area in Portugal has shown evidence of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens sharing a cave. At the same time. 45,000 years ago!  This was big news only a few years ago.

 

         What happened was that the so-called civilized people of the Middle Eastern area created capitalism with their overproduction of wheat, and began building walled cities and arsenals of weapons while invading the lands of the indigenous Europeans and indigenous Africans; stealing their gold 'n other dick moves. These crazy brown people invaded the villages of black and white tribes as they spread northwards, westwards, and southwards. Thousands of years later, Islam and Christianity (those crazy desert people) have settled into their illegitimacy with fear and lies. 

GREENHAMMER: WHO ARE THE WHITE PEOPLE?

GREENHAMMER: Search results for stone people

  

 -6-5-💚💞❤

 

   II26  INTERSTATE INITIATIVE

#girdthegrid

intro

a)  Put them Behind a Wheelbarrow

b) the road to everywhere

c) 55 MPH ahead

d) Pavement Ends

e)    GPS signal lost

f) 

a) Put them Behind a Wheelbarrow

In 1969 I picked up a second paper route and have been working hard ever since. 1970 to 2020. This year (2021) I celebrated a life of working too hard for too little by taking two well deserved, out of state vacations. I saw 29 states in 40 days during May and October, and the priority was to find peaceful places and not spend money, other than gas and lodging. Remember this was the Covid year where city people were all about masks and merely surviving.

      I was a notorious "staycationer" for thirty years in Florida although my spirit belonged TO THE MOUNTAINS.  I grew up a river rat in Wethersfield, Bloomfield and Enfield Connecticut in the Connecticut River Valley (field rat lol), and places such as Pennwood Park in Bloomfield or Cotton Hollow in Glastonbury were remnants of the Appalachian Mountains that I could visit. Mount Greylock was something I wanted to see for the first time.

    The interstate highway system had always seemed like a good idea to me. As an American who believes that the Constitution is the law of the land, the interstate highway system fulfilled the constitutional protocol of providing for the common defense. Emergency equipment could be moved to any part of the country without worrying about the height of bridges or washed-out, muddy roads. Military equipment too, if someone was foolish enough to invade us.

         Long ago when I was seven and sitting in my sandbox, I could see Interstate 91 being built.  Loaders, graders, dump trucks. They were far off in the distance but within view. Such an inspiration for the highways I was building in my big red sandbox! 

       A couple years later when I was ten, me and the boys took our bikes up on that nearly finished interstate highway where it crossed over our street down near the Rocky Hill town line. It was like the Bonneville Salt flats. A huge expanse of concrete, the likes of which we had never seen before, and we delighted in seeing who could make the fattest or longest skid with our bicycles.

      We'd practice wheelies without worrying about oncoming traffic. Do endless circle 8’s and play chicken. Crazy fun. Every day for a couple of weeks. "Hey Joe. I'm seeing a lot of bicycle tire marks on the highway, We better check it out."

     We'uns dint need no theme parks back in the olde days.

    The work was done on this part of I 91 and it was quite a while before they finally came along to tell us to skedaddle, "..get outta here you kids, this isn't a playground." A summer vacation to brag about. 

       Now that the rich have saved trillions of dollars in hidden off-shore accounts for us, we can use this stolen labor (profit) to create the Infrastructure Initiative of 2026.   (II26) Envision something great for every one to use in the next 60 years in an expanded and expansive safety net, and a beautiful and enduring hardscape.   

One way to save money would be to sell half of our military bases, particularly the ones furthest away from American ports, keep it closer to home, right? The Constitutional mandate is for “a common defence”, not an international death star. Too late, many bases have been bombed by Iran and we took a half a trillion in losses.

Prove me wrong, but the cost of keeping one soldier with all the attendant weapons, housing and logistical support could provide ten jobs domestically. 

Take all those paper tigers at the Pentagon coasting to retirement, and put them to work.  Put them behind a wheelbarrow, we got an infrastructure to build.

         The interstate highway system had seemed like a good idea to me, but a closer examination many years later exhibits its flaws. The reason we were compelled to test the highway before the public did, was because our baseball/football field was at the edge of it and it crossed over our street. Who could resist?  

I’d guess it was an early spring day when we went to play our first baseball game and a fence was there, about 75 feet from this new highway and 200 feet from our home plate. About twenty feet shorter that the right field line at Yankee Stadium. We were like okay, a home run fence. It was pretty far away and there would be a handful of home runs, if any. That stretch of I 91 was getting ready to open but it would take Carl Yastrzemski to get one on the highway.

Today, I realize these fences not only kept wildlife from running across the highway and getting run over, but also kept them from migrating as they had done since the Ice Age. All those fences for the interstate highways were responsible for trillions of animal deaths as they were no longer able to follow their simple migrations. On top of that, I can’t imagine how many thousands of dead animals I have seen on the side of the road in my lifetime.

         There was a tunnel under the interstate for Beaver Brooks ebb and flow and this benefitted the turtles, polliwogs and other aquatic creatures, but mostly I 91 blocked migrations of rabbits, foxes and all the rest of the animals who weren’t keen on walking in two feet of water through a 500-foot tunnel under an interstate, or becoming pavement pelts on the road. When it froze during cold spells we would skate all the way to the other side. The tunnel was not for the claustrophobic.

       Twelve years before I was in my sandbox playing with trucks, my mothers neighborhood was disrupted by the planning for Interstate 91. Eminent domain came a-callin’ and knocked down 10 houses for the interstate highway. Mom’s River Road no longer was a way to get to the river. River Road, Wethersfield Connecticut RFD #3, was a stones throw from the Wethersfield Cove, which had been a port of note since the latter half of the 1600's. A 300+ year old town at that point.

      Back then the plans for the interstate involved buying around ten properties on or near River Road and nearby. Buying them to be demolished for the new highway.

     They got a good price, my mom said, but people were not happy about it, and she always said, the neighborhood was never the same. 

       I was there recently and there is a house within 50 feet of the Interstate today, and I imagined this 20 foot wall of a highway was quite disturbing in the midst of a once quaint area with a nice green space in the middle.  Who wanted to live with the constant drone of highway noise?

What then of future highway building? I drove 13,000+ miles and went through 29 states in 2021, and I want to share my experiences and suggest improvements. II26 is the Infrastructure Initiative for 2026.  I want to tell you about the state of our highways in 2021, and also that there is a whole lot more to infrastructure than roads. On the other hand, I’m kind of wondering what this Infrastructure Bill that is trying to get passed here in 2021, is about. I hear about child care and other social band aids in the bill, but nothing about bridges being fortified for strong storms and an ocean rise. #girdthegrid

             A plan that would include plans for evacuating the elderly before a hurricane, as one example. Tornado shelters in every vulnerable town. After a pretty strong hurricane, and the roads were somewhat cleared of trees, I went to see my 90+ year old customer first, after a dangerous hurricane. She was traumatized and frightened and "never wanted to go through that again."

b) THE ROAD TO EVERYWHERE 

             So yeah, 40 days, 13,000+ miles and 29 states later I have some opinions on the state of American roads, and I would estimate only 5,000 of those miles were on the interstate. My GPS guide, Bubbles, took me on back roads and state highways everywhere and I saw how America really lives.  Even going out west in May, she found all the cool state roads and the only place I was in a traffic jam was in California (3 times). She took us to Rt 50 in Colorado and it was probably the most beautiful spring ride we could have ever had. 

              On the trip to New England in September, I got off RT 81 and asked Bubbles for the scenic route to Deposit New York, where there was an alleged Motel 6. From Old Forge Pennsylvania, where I slept on the side of the road, and then driving to Deposit New York, I went on the most scenic 9-hour drive of the year. Six dead deer, unfortunately, (how many were picked up fresh for the deer processing facilities?)   Saw six of those too.

I went on Route 11 then 220 then 17 to Deposit. I saw SO MANY rural homes and noted how many people live. Too many planned communities and uniformity and HOA rules in my central Florida locale and I forgot how interesting the rest of the country is. Every house and property was different.

           I needed to get gas because I started the day at less than half a tank after the I 81 highway driving. Stayed by the side of the road in a really dark area. I didn’t need to be hassled. I went through two tiny towns without any gas stations and finally in Millersburg there was a bodacious rest area with lots of local handicrafts.

            Something new I noticed are self-regulating, one-way roads. Instead of two people on walkie talkies standing there with their stop and slow signs, there were timed lights. Timed out to 5 to 10 minutes, it was a bit of a wait but work crews were busy tending to rock fall areas among other improvements. All those police officers with their lights going and doing nothing at construction sites costs the public, at least, 80 dollars an hour per car and officer, so maybe some money is being saved.

          Well, the bill passed but I must say that it seems like there is already too much construction and repair going on. There is certainly the need for repair and for one thing, I crossed many bridges that were built 80 or more years ago.   #girdthegrid  

                  c) 55 MPH AHEAD

          There were too many construction zones whose cement mini walls were disconcerting and scary to me. In construction areas I would be part of the traffic funneled into one or two extremely thin lanes and those cement abutments are two feet from the car on the right side and even less when driving on the left. The scariest moments of both trips were driving through these areas IN THE RAIN. 

        Good Lorby Lobster, I could hardly see! People high beaming and beeping with me because I was going a very cautious 30 MPH through these dangerous construction zones in the pouring rain. And don't say I could have just pulled over because that is a whole 'nother problem. There are so few places to pull over.

 On the trip to New England, I had a wonderful ride on Vermont Route 7a. Simply beautiful as early patches of red and orange leaves began to appear. I left Pittsfield Massachusetts a little after noontime, (420 in the 413), enjoying the slowly setting sun to my left and taking the gently undulating scenic route, 7/7a, well up into Vermont to check on the progress of the fall foliage colors. 

          

                When it got dark and there was no more scenery to enjoy, I asked Bubbles to put me on the quickest route to Interstate 89. I didn't know at this point about the dearth of facilities. I assumed I'd find a rest area on the interstates, no problem, though I'd been fooled before on the previous trip in May driving in New Mexico. I had driven 100 miles in a state of extreme tiredness waiting for a place to pull over and had a nightmarish near collision with a tractor trailer.

        

 So I get on I 89 and la la la. Nothing, well surely when I connect with I 91 there should be a large rest area so I could at least sit in my seat to get three or four hours of sleep.

         Parking area ahead I see on a sign, but it was completely full of trucks and no facilities. I figure I'll just keep going till I find a rest area with a bathroom. La la la nothing ... another parking area full of trucks. Finally, I made it, the Vermont Welcome Center was a relief to see. Lots of parking ... but ... the ... place was closed. Open 7 to 7. 

, Surely, they would make the rest rooms available? The doors were locked. This is all you got Vermont? As it turned out there are virtually no rest areas till Middletown Connecticut. I must have missed the one in Massachusetts. This is a seriously important issue.

     After driving on dozens of state roads, I got the idea that the II26 infrastructure plan would create rural hubs away from the interstates.  Large parking areas where people can stay and rest and local people can sell their wares. Where the free national bus company goes where people can go and pick up their friends and relatives.

      I drove into the far corner of the Vermont Welcome Center and went to Whee behind some evergreens in the dog walking area. Every 15 minutes or so someone would park and check the door of the building in order to use the facilities and would walk away disappointed. I was kind of wired and couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep.

     A cop pulled in as I was trying to figure where I would go if he/she kicked me out and I tried to rest in my seat, but I really wanted to go in the back of the car where I had a cushioned space I made for a bed. 100 parking spots and I was the only one there and luckily the officer left, so I finally laid out in the back. Florida plates in Vermont, let me rest FFS.

        On the average, I can get a comfortable 3 hour nap in the seat of my car, but in the back of the car I could get 6 hours of good solid sleep with the six layers of various cushions and blankets and one of those, rated -20, sleeping bags for the top. The coldest temperature was 42.

d) PAVEMENT ENDS

            Sticks and stones will break my bones but not if I use a cane. I was a bit early to see peak fall foliage, but I observed the early stages, which was interesting in its own way.  It was Moss and Mushroom season. Beautiful. Mushrooms abound and moss is thick and green. Every path I went on had tree roots sticking up and I had to be careful of tripping hazards.

Back to the drawing board. A new infrastructure plan should be a given, but the obfuscation of "yachtboy" Manchin and cynical Simena kept it from totally happening. Even a 3.5 Trillion dollar plan is nowhere near a big enough plan, I'm sure.

                   I'm envisioning lots of engineers leaving their petrochemical jobs in the near future, for jobs with II26  as the fossil fuel industry prepares to collapse. Make more highways and less pipelines. smaller military and bigger transportation alternatives.

All these on and off ramps on the interstates are not easy to design and every aspect of a plan will need people that understand we have to consider Mother Nature and all her little creatures this time.

The planning alone will cost a trillion dollars to get it done properly. Some real work lay ahead. Challenging, fulfilling work involved in building an infrastructure to last 60 to 80 years. Fortified for the rise in all bodies of water in the near future. 

    Prioritizing, designing in many new ways and creating many more wildlife tunnels and overpasses. Forests saved from development and rural hubs built in junk areas that can be restored, renovated and nearby towns renewed. There is going to be a population shift and it will be a good thing. Who is going to work on the wind farms in the Midwest where most of them will be located? I saw so many abandoned houses that were still restorable today, but won't be ten years from now.

              Jobs will be moving around as we begin to take back the Commons and Millennials take charge of the economy.

Seriously do you want a soldier in some distant continent pretending to preserve your rights, or ten people working as Road Rangers or bridge builders getting our shiny new infrastructure built? 

        I've been on some entrance ramps that are more fun than an amusement park. We need planners and designers. It all needs to be worked on, and what this decade should be about. Let the designers design  with modern environmental sensibilities. It's the politicians that screw things up. 

                Sadly, there will be cases of eminent domain as I described before and so I propose a triple indemnity. Pay those relocated, three times the value of their property and long-time renters could also be compensated in this manner.

         Concurrently, large areas of forest need to be preserved around these proposed rural hubs and MANY MORE rest areas getting built should be a priority. We need to start a de-corporatization of America and realize the innovation and invention we need in the future will come from our barns, garages, and she-sheds.

         One feature at a typical rural hub, could be trail cams in forested areas nearby so travelers at the rural hub could watch live cameras. A nice feature next to the soda machine and fresh ground coffee. People can observe the local wildlife as they take a break from traveling.

       I drove on over a hundred lightly trafficked state roads, and a federal program needs to make sure these stay in good shape. My gas mileage was still very good on these state highways. Too many people are shoehorned into these incredibly crowded cities and Americans can be more evenly distributed throughout this country. A new Homestead Act has been proposed.

 

Rural Service Hubs | Rural Urban (rural-urban.eu) .

 

      Rural hubs. 500 acres of preserved forest and wetlands along with lots of parking areas. Generally, at least ten miles from the interstates with an abundance of free space for local people to bring their food trucks or locally sourced products. Lots of people cleaning the facility. #jobsnottanks

        Make these areas (rural hubs) in run down abandoned towns near nice forests or swamp habitats. Habitats that can be preserved for all time. Buying private land for the commons and eminent domain for the highways.

 

       Also, large darker areas to park overnight for people living out of their cars who are needing some sleep. With enough room so adjoing cars can both open their doors. Ain't no sin to be between situations.  Someone in a tank in Africa or Asia ...  or ten jobs back at home providing much more security for travelers, visitors and vacationers? The choice is yours. Here are the jobs for those laid off by the much smaller military I mentioned previously.  Rural hubs. You heard it here first.

Most interstate rest areas are corporate traps with overly lit, parking areas that discourage long distance travelers. In Florida there are three hour limits at these important rest areas. Florida the corporate bootlicker.

 

  e)GPS SIGNAL LOST

              I was in Pennsylvania and was losing my GPS signal and getting low on gas. I had no idea Pennsylvania was so deeply forested and mountainous. I'll get the name and location later but, like a mirage, a gas station appeared in Millersburg. I had been worried of running out of gas and suddenly there was no cell phone coverage. I was greatly relieved I didn't run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.  Icing on the cake, my cigarette lighter charger stopped working and I didn’t know it and suddenly I was out of charge.

I could have taken I 81 to I 84 and got to New England much quicker, but my phone had a no interstate protocol. I went with the flow of the no interstate directive and consequently saw so much more of America.

           Back to the mirage in the middle of Pennsylvania's Appalachians, this store had truly impressive displays of locally sourced products. From furniture to smoking blends to Cinnamon Pear Jelly. It was literally in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania's aptly named endless forest and was a fair sight better than most of the other farmstands I saw.

        With these rural hubs we can create economic activity away from the already busy highways. Driving 13,000+ miles from coast to coast, I noticed something significant. Americas highways are oriented from the north and northeast to the west and southwest.

Chicago to Vegas. New York to LA. Everyone was moving out west back in the 50's and 60's when many of these roads were built. Florida to Oregon, Fageddabout it. Georgia to Washington State? South Carolina to Idaho. Not gonna happen. Discrimination against southerners in my opinion. 

This is going to be important in future planning.

After 50 years of ,“nose to the grindstone”, I gave my nose a rest and had a grand adventure.  My travelogue is in the “DOWNLOAD FILE” ON MY Greenhammer blogspot blog. GREENHAMMER: Download File (thegrimoireofgreenhammer.blogspot.com)

    Certainly not the preppy Grand Tour, I wanted to see the United States without getting into covid clusters and waiting in line anywhere. I wanted to see America but not necessarily talk to Americans. I've paid my dues being a good listener to those over talkers, with all their lines of shit these last 50 years. But I learned a lot. Most people are liars.

 I want to also show a new way to vacation and propose that we build an infrastructure to last till 2100. There are more people living out of their vehicles, and why not have places where we can rest? The nature of work these days is transitory and temporary.  The RV life can be fun and fulfilling to some. That’s the reality of the United States today. Another reality is the proliferation of really fast bicycles. We need alternative traveling lanes and some of these can be built on interstates. I remember

    It was March 2021 when I got the idea to go to Oregon finally. My gypsy friend was going back to the PNW for good and needed a ride. She was done with Florida, and I needed to get away myself for a while, and I had always wanted to check out an isolated warm zone in southwestern Oregon. USDA Zone 9 located from Port Orford down the coast to California. There hasn’t been a freeze in years and I think they can consider year-round crops. 

 

          We used to be zone 9 in Central Florida. Zone 10 is steadily moving northward in Florida, today its 50 miles north of where it was when I first came to Florida. The USDA  has confirmed this with updated maps.

            Several configurations of the trip developed and then almost came to a halt with a bad EKG on April 27th. “You’re not having chest pains?” my doctor seemed alarmed. He was ready to drive me to the hospital! Himself! This is shortly before I was to leave on my 7200-mile journey. 

     Weirdly, I thought I had two new skin tags, but they turned out to be ticks. I am getting older, and it seemed that skin tags and age spots began appearing more frequently, so I try to ignore them. The skin tag under my arm began getting really irritated and I needed to find a way to get rid of it. Imagine my shock when I realized I could pull it off and though almost unrecognizable, it was a dead deflated tick. Died of a garlic overdose, still hooked into my vascular system.

The bite near my bicep still itched and red six months later.

 So four days before we were to leave for the cross-country trip, my friend seemed alarmed that I could have a heart attack at any time and we both became panicky and anxious about the trip we had been planning.

         Suddenly I had a heart condition, and my extremities were steadily getting numb from nerve damage and on top of it all, what if I had Lyme disease from the tick? What if I became diabetic and slipped into a coma, having just been confirmed pre-diabetic? “ROAD TRIP”

  I had gotten a seven-week rental because my electronic nightmare of a van finally shit the bed and I needed to keep working as I prepped for this big vacation. I couldn't get a loan for another vehicle so I took a chance with a long term rental. I’m glad I didn’t get a loan because it was for a Chevy pickup with a lot more miles than what I ended up. 60,000 more miles and 2000 more dollars. Dealers taking advantage of people.

As a super bonus of this big trip, I loved seeing my five children in 3 different states. I just missed getting the rental for a trip to Tampa to my oldests’ house with his 4 children.  Then the first weekend with the rental, I went to my firstborns new condo, helping her on the weekend of a 5K she had organized, and adding a couple plants to her garden.

       The next Thursday I picked up a rescue Pug named Jack in Vero Beach and brought him to Raleigh. Saw my grand dog Louie and son in law Mitauex. Bonz the Cat does the best he can in a house with rescues and foster dogs.

My youngest had left the nest last year and also moved to NC and I visited him and his internet girlfriend who seemed to be doing nicely in Four Oaks.  A heavenly country atmosphere, it was out in the sticks, and it was gratifying to see him out in the boonies. I spent the remainder of this 6-day weekend exploring the foothills of the Appalachians. A scenic Route 50 in Georgia seemed just as beautiful as the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 A couple years back it seemed that everyone was talking about a bucket list and so I thought about it, and I figured I had 5 things left. I wanted to get over to Austin and see Little M, and I had also wanted to see the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Blue Ridge Mountains since I was like, twenty. I heard it was beautiful. I had no idea.

 #3 was to visit Amish country. I wanted to meet a few of them and learn about their culture. That was a practice vacation for what was to come.

This trip sounded like something I needed to do. Secondly, I’ve always had the feeling that Oregon was where I needed to go and that was #2 on the list and seeing the Redwoods was #1.

  Sure, I’d like to see Solutre, France and the Niobrara River in Nebraska (the least populated part of the continental US) and visit Hudson Bay from the St. James Road, but I would be pretty satisfied to finish these five items.

     Glacier National Park sounds like, potentially, the most interesting national park to visit, and it would be really swell to see Katahdin in Maine, but, speaking bucket list, I had five to go.

Glacier opened its Sun Road into the park a week after  I had gotten back from going to Oregon in May. We’re glad we didn’t drive an extra thousand miles to find it was closed.

 The Blue Ridge Mountains was first on my bucket list since Austin was too far, the wrong way, to go this time. I vowed to go there on the next vacation.

In October 2018 I planned out a vacation to Connecticut, to Amish country and the Blue Ridge Mountains, but Hurricane Florence had just torn through North Carolina and closed many parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway for a week. Luckily the beautiful Blue Ridge had just opened back up a few days before I got there. Interstate 95 was washed out in South Carolina and the GPS had me on all small country roads to get to the Blue Ridge.

Hurricane Florence pretty much followed my proposed vacation drive through the mountains a week before I was to go, but the damage wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. News always exaggerates.

I went to spot #77 in Section C at the Doughton Campground near Sparta North Carolina, and I had the place to myself for six days. Strong fairy spirits up there on the knob. 

So, the Amish visit and exploring the Appalachians knocked a couple things off the bucket list in 2019.

     2021 comes along and finally a chance to go to that isolated area in Oregon I had wanted to see and finally feel the majesty of the Redwoods. The pandemic was winding down, but we weren’t in the clear yet. Vaccines were available in May 2021, but we hadn't indulged. 

Commitments, logistics and complications changed the plan 10 times over the next two months and how do I justify a 7-week, 1500 dollar rental? I rented three extra days and with all the charges it came to $1800.

     Was this a $1800-dollar gamble? How did I possibly think my back would hold up driving 7200 miles after just driving 1800 miles for the Pug rescue in North Carolina and then to the Georgia Guiding Stones and the Holy Mary site in Conyers Georgia?

 Luckily, I didn’t overthink this one, or how crazy the whole notion was.

     It seemed a bit of money was on its way, though not yet a sure thing, and that vacation out west to Oregon was finally within reach.

No point in going to any Covid clusters and the only two places I went in was the gift shop at Monarch Pass and the gift shop at Crater Lake. 

I saw lots of America and very few Americans, except at rest areas and it was good to see people were all masking up as I was, but I was also yet to be vaccinated. I did in August because three customers said I had to, but never got the boosters.

Everyone in the world was supposed to get the shots and I couldn't help being suspicious, so I waited, as did my client. This turned out to be a good thing because our hosts in Oregon were anti-vax preppers who would not have welcomed vaccinated people and their shedding proteins. 

    Gas was easily $600 for the May trip. Motels $500 more. Food $300 easily. No income from work for three weeks. The plan seemed precarious at best.

For sure, there were at least 15 rest stops I slept at. AND, I also had three residences to stay at and that worked out great.  I actually did more socializing than I am used to doing as a guest , with those seven days in normal housing.

   Most excellent hosts in all three cases and with three different groups of people. Slept well and had fun with my people and the one thing this disparate group had in common, though, is “Freecycle.” Freecycle: Front Door

    Disconcertedly at the start, it took 22 hours to get out of Florida. A strong storm had passed over us and our trip to Oregon almost ended before it got started. I left the impression I was heading for “the mountains”, implying the Appalachians, knowing I was setting out to see the Rockies for the first time in 37 years. Less than a handful of trusted people knew my plans.

Too many buttinskis out there, intent on telling me how to enjoy my first long distance ride in a long time. I don’t need the endless advice, or the Tour books, or the 'go see so and so'. I no longer need any advice or interference.

  I’d never done much more than drive through Colorado three times in my youth back and forth from Arizona, but this time I saw some deep Colorado.

    Rugged Route 50 in Colorado was dangerous with its descents but there was breathtaking non-stop scenery. By planning a Mid-May ride, there were snow covered mountains the entire way. Afterwards I read Rt 50 is called the “loneliest road in Colorado.” My passenger/friend/client and I hardly talked as we watched the scenery unfold for the next 800 miles into Utah, Nevada and Oregon. No movie in a big theatre could compare.

 I remembered the ride through Nevada and Utah seemed a bit boring a long time ago when I was young, but now I knew so much more about rocks, wild grasses, tectonics and shit, and it became absolutely fascinating. I love the western mountains so much again, but I have come to realize the Appalachians feel like home.

 Anyways, here I am with my client (friend actually, but hereafter known as the client as I was creating the prototype for my “driver for hire” side hustle.)  

     I have been telling people the last five years that the economy is going to reassemble itself and opportunity will abound and everybody in every field needs to be playing some heads-up ball. Plumbers and mechanics will find work. Your kids with their hard earned MBA’s who wanted to be white collar functionaries for the capitalist takeover of the world, can now use their degrees as artwork on the wall or something. 

The world of 2034 will be different than what we can imagine. America needs to shed its white-collar parasitical economy and learn to work again. Class War. The workers vs. the parasites. Plot twist: AI is going to wipe them out.

    We need networks to connect. In the past, Americans unionized to create a giant middle class. and now we can enable a revived middle class in our modern computer era. Easy to connect with fellow quilters and amateur astronomers and those creating Pollinator friendly yards and join the latest groups created, such as ‘freecycle’.  Or get that carburetor for a '62 MG.         

It's all happening so fast, and I don't know how I would deal with it if I was younger. I'm out to create something brand new at this late stage of life because, why not? Give it a go. Like traveling before I get too old, imma see what I can do to connect people. 

Connecting food communities, organic growers and fighting for migrant workers that many of us will be. One area I'm focusing on. Frankliniana. Franklin Tennessee to Franklin Georgia to Franklin North Carolina. This is where the big population explosion will occur the next ten years. Meat Eaters, Vegans and intentional communities all trading together.

 

People need to add a balance to the overwhelming influence of governments and corporations and religions.  I really believe the American people are going to see themselves through all this. We can go back in the past to bring back the good ideas we abandoned. One would be to make rural hubs and large rest areas so we can have a partial return of the commons that were stolen from us. Rich people stealing land to sell to other rich people.

Tax the largest landowners and purchase the properties for organic farm initiatives. The rich have become lazy, and the working poor have always been industrious. We will have a new Homestead Act and we will tax the illegitimate wealth of the rich.

    We can make the connections that will create the networks of the future. We can create our own economy as if the old one doesn’t matter is my battle cry. The old one best being described as crony capitalism.

Getting out of Florida

    Driving Interstate 10 west, we were six hours out of Boynton Beach. A windstorm and downpour had just finished. The road was misted, and it was difficult to see even twenty-five feet. We were going about 40 MPH

 A TREE appeared out of the mist across at least two lanes of traffic and we hit it direct ...dead on. Like, I don’t even tell people cause I’m not a drama queen like that. It nearly broke through the windshield in three places and I shit you not we could have been impaled by huge branches if I skidded and swerved and went into it sideways.  National News “two people impaled on I 10 last night in a bizarre act of misfortune.” Luckily there was not even time to put on the brakes to stop completely. Best I could guess, it was a dead tree blown onto the road by a tornado on to the middle of the highway.

 

    It hadn’t fallen off a truck and it was a large thirty foot tree stripped of its branches. Or so I thought. But there were fresh needles everywhere when we pulled over a short time later. A Pine Tree you see, we found needles on the top of the engine when we looked and it did impale the radiator area. Somehow live trees had also blown onto the interstate.

  

We were 7 hours into the trip, and we drove a mile more into the rest area that was our destination. Miraculously, our battered steed made it, and we got 6 hours of sleep. Enough of that day.

When I saw a dead pine tree walking in the woods, one day recently, I noted its ghostly white color, and it looked exactly like the tree we hit. I cant explain the needles though.  

There must have been a tornado. Pine needles covered the slow lane and shoulder for the mile leading up to the rest area, so it was all very strange with the policeman who said he hadn't heard about it.

 The next day when we left there were many trees that were in the road but were cut.

 

   We called the police and Budget rental Car very early in the morning, and to make a long story short, we had the originally rented Rav 4 replaced with a Jeep Compass by eleven. Might have to pay a fee for not being able to go pick up the Jeep at the airport 39 miles away. It MIGHT be as much as $425. We’ll find that out later.

So, from 1 o’clock the previous afternoon when we drove a car to Boynton Beach to drop it off, till we then finally reached the Alabama border, we were finally, 22 hours later, leaving Florida for day 2. So, we nearly got impaled by a 30-foot tree that was laying across Interstate 10, but we ended up getting a nice vehicle upgrade, and were finally on our way to Oregon.  (JEEP COMPASS PICTURES HERE)

That afternoon we drove through some scenic state roads in Alabama (231?) and stopped at a quaint farm stand/eatery for the big healthy meal of the day. There were chickens loose in the store and everything, and we ate some excellent vegetarian fare inside a gigantic barn.

 We had a fabulous healthy late lunch there and drove on. Night fell and I white knuckled it through Memphis and drove through Arkansas in the dark. “Slow down Memphis” the sign pleaded as motorcyclists and cars passed us going 100 mph. I seemed to be having some trouble with city-based, busy highways and traffic seemed too intense.

    We parked in what turned out to be a motel parking lot and were told to leave and then an empty lot nearby but got gently thrown out. We finally slept for three or four hours at Walmart. Daytime came and we spent much of that day driving through Nebraska.

    The Cherokee had two bodacious gas stations. Large clean areas with lots of choices for travelers and the highways appeared to be freshly paved. The GPS Guide, Bubbles, seemed to be keeping us off the interstates and on much more scenic state roads.  I learned that too many roads out west are oriented for mid-westerners going to California and not the south to the Northwest. 

 

     There was a Route 412 in Oklahoma that traversed that really thin part (handle) of Oklahoma that I found interesting. Driving those many roads  I had really begun to notice that people living in rural areas had really trashy yards. Now this coming from a guy who had a yard full of stuff once upon a time. My hillbilly yard filled with things “I might need someday.”

 I couldn't believe how much stuff people had but later learning most of the stuff is useful. With cheap ass government garbage or white goods, pickup is rare. There's nowhere to take that shit. So people dump on their own property.

     It was puzzling to see 10 or 12 cars but then I  started seeing yards with 50 or 100 cars. Too many 55 gallon barrels from farm chemicals like the Vorlex barrels I found in Hazardville. Rusting leaking? Of course Tractor attachments, PVC stacks, etc.’ People in the fly over states don’t throw anything out.

      But you know, it seemed that in all these “hick” towns the American people had gone back to work. Businesses had trucks that were busy being used and metal building doors were open. I had yet to see a shuttered-up business while the people on the coasts were bathing in hand sanitizer.

          So I was racking up some miles driving and there were no aches or pains yet. We finally arrived in Pueblo Colorado at 6:00 and checked into a motel. Seedy thought my client but I could care less. I slept in a sleeping bag on top of the bedding and used my own pillow.

          In Pueblo that night, we bought legal and had a smoking room so, voila. First time I could administer my medicine in a hotel room without Ozium and incense.

          Then we got on Route 50 in Colorado, and it was non-stop, breathtaking scenery from there out. The Jeep Compass was climbing and climbing, getting half the gas mileage it should. The gas pedal was hardly responding, and I figured we must had gotten pretty high. The altitude I mean. Then we got to Monarch Pass which sits on the Continental Divide at 11,312 feet. Honestly didn't see that coming.

            The mountain forced me to breathe deeply, and it felt good though I could tell it would take some getting used to. Then down we went and eventually I would tire of the 7% inclines and giant tractor trailers passing me out in the passing lanes, but at first it WAS exciting and dangerous. I read later that Route 50 is called “the loneliest road in Colorado.” It was a trip.

 The goal was to reach Telluride for a second motel rest on this six-day trip. At 7950 feet, my breathing was labored here also, but deep breathing that Clean Colorado air also seemed to do a lot of good.

          The client went to a hot spring up the road and I took a nap in the Jeep. The next stop was Crater Lake. Following that was the rugged scenery of Colorado and at night we drove through Utah and then Nevada’s stark beauty became apparent as dawn approached.

          Truthfully, by the time we got to the Oregon border, we had had about enough sagebrush country. Took the Oregon Redwood trail and saw and touched my first Redwoods. So, there I was with an empty bucket list and a motel within view of the Pacific Ocean. 👴

          The next day we got to our destination in Port Orford, Oregon and I was finally going to experience this anomalous warm area that was in southwest Oregon. At the motel near the beach, I noticed the largest Geranium I remember seeing in my entire life. I lived in Tucson for six years and people had their Geraniums for three years and they weren’t half this size. I estimated it to be six to eight years old.

  I would later come to learn the Port Orford area rarely freezes and rarely gets too hot. It seems I had found a place that doesn’t freeze and doesn’t burn, and I have to consider a move to this area. 

                  I think it would be fun to escape there to trim buds for a month or two during the outdoor harvest in August and September when Florida is at its hottest. It seems almost too cool. Every time I check the Port Orford ten-day forecast, the average high and low seemed to be 65 and 52 and it was pretty cool the three days we were there. When those western heat waves happen with 100 Degrees +, it might get over 70. No more heat.

          The folks in Oregon were busy with their garden, but took us to a very nice path near the Pacific Ocean.

No one shedding proteins, and wonderful home schooled children.

Redwood puppies, the soft bark. I just about fit in the Jeep Compass and spent two nights in it. The first morning I opened the door to the sun coming up and there was a huge Crested Jay, right there. I had some distinct experiences with Magpies in Telluride I have to remember. They seemed to follow me around.

No one is really interested in my stories and I’m like oh well. I want to share and swap stories, but boomer men are all about what they’ve accumulated in the rat race. There's a niche audience out there.

 

When I left the trailer park in Oregon, I should have turned right to get back to 101. I went left figuring the first right turn would get me on Rt101 again. I drove down an increasingly narrow road for 19 miles that had no right turns. I knew that because I came upon a sign when the road forked finally and both ways became dirt roads. “To 101 -19 miles” Four numbers on the sign. I think I had wandered into Californias deep forest with only one way out.

      I got a clue when I saw grass growing in the road. You can tell there had been some landslides looking down on the cliffside and up at the higher elevations, everything was sliding down to the river below and there were cracks in the road where there were visible rockslides. The road kept getting thinner and thinner and I didn’t see any other vehicles and I got to wondering why. Nothing seemed familiar. I thought I shoud stop and go in reverse for two miles as it might be the only way out. It didn't occur to me to turn around probably because of the thin road and the cliffs on both sides. There actually wasn’t room to turn and often there are good results from getting lost when fate grabs the wheel but not this time. 

  A rule of driving is not to get lost on a lonely dirt road and so when I came to a fork in the road and both choices were dirt roads I hoped there was a way out. I finally turned the Jeep around and saw the sign. 19 miles to Rt 101. The other way. I was nearly in Humboldt County in California. 

Murder Mountain | Netflix

 Well, I was two days behind schedule and decided I was just going to drive right through California and get past Kingman Arizona by the next sunrise, 20 hours away. Sometimes I had to settle into long hours of driving. California could be a vacation by itself but not this time. Time to hoof it to Austin.

 I had slept in the car for two nights and was feeling good. I had about five layers of different materials such as yoga mats and sleeping bags and an outdoor lounge chair cushion laid across the back.

    Arizona and New Mexico, though boarded up, were much more starkly beautiful than I remember. The entirety of New Mexico seemed to be in dire economic ruin unfortunately. In the previous 15 states it appeared to be that America was back to work.  Not in New Mexico, though I didn’t visit Albuquerque or Santa Fe or Taos.

Unnecessary cattle GRAZING is an issue for another day.

After the visit to Shiprock I got on 481 South and figured I could sleep at the first rest area I come across on Interstate 40 east. So, I get on the interstate and thirty miles go by and I am thoroughly tired and I really need to stop. I drove quickly to get through California but it took 14 hours with three traffic jams on the day that started with me almost getting lost in Humboldt County California.

#girdthegrid

 

Sixty miles go by and I’m like “what in the hell!” There always seemed to be a rest area just in time, but not this time. Here comes the fatigue driving. I count backwards from 100 to 1 and then start again with 99 to one then 98 to one backwards. Out loud to keep as many facilities working as possible. There are other tricks to keep the mind alert but I’d driven 20 of the last 30 hours and seriously needed a break.

There was an exit with lots of trucks but nowhere for cars to park. Then I did a big circle for about 8 miles following an apparently drunk GPS lady and there was nothing anywhere that was safe from thieves and highwaymen. Finally, I saw an area between exits and entrances that was 200 by 150 feet with several trucks that were parked. Aiming straight for it, I nearly got hit by a tractor trailer while I was going left toward this wide open space while the truck was signaling to go right on the 40 East entrance ramp. We crisscrossed each other by like, inches, and I saw the corner of the truck a few feet from the windshield. I never want to be that tired while I was driving again. A regrettable risk, but a good lesson.

I slept 5 hours there and took off raggedy without coffee. Ten or twenty miles later there was relief though I did wee when no one was driving by at 3 in the morning.

I must have spent ten hours driving in Texas before I got to Little M’s house. So much ugliness coming out of Texas, it seems, but they definitely won the wildflower award. Vast areas of flowers and diversity spread throughout the Texas highway side. The hill country was impressively scenic and I thanked my luck with all these fabulous roads I drove on. The, NW to SE state routes, ignored by the interstates.

I was tired, having driven 35 of the last 55 hours so I was thankful to be able to stay in Austin for 2 and a half days to rest.  M and her beau listen to the most interesting mix of music. New stuff to entertain my ears.

I was mirthful to discover that Austin has so many wildflowers and a Central Park of its own and a world-famous natural spring. We walked to the largest bat roosting area in an American city and I didn’t hear it though my companions did.

Trying to capture the parts of America you don't see on TV. New roads, new lands, new people.

   May and October tours. Cannabis friendly stops. Colorado can’t be beat and Massachusetts is all that’s good, cannabis-wise in New England.

 

       The nine hour ride from Old Forge to Deposit included the only clusterfuck of the trip. My cigarette lighter charger went out. I had 1% charge suddenly, so I had to pull over and test the other plug-thing behind me.

      Shortly after that I lost the GPS in a remote area and drove down some dead end roads, by trying to guess the route. But it was all scenery you know? My goal was to get to Deposit by 1 and after this delay, 3 o’clock became the goal.

Enough 7% inclines for a while. Where were the cannabis dispensaries in New York? Turns out they hadn’t gotten it together yet. Now imagine people selling bud at the local rural hub? 

Signs said “women only” I noticed on my two trips this year. I hate to say it, but the smaller the town the bigger the ignorance. In an enhanced infrastructure program, there would be MANY more bathrooms to be built. Areas with bigger stalls for anyone to use Men Women Babies Anyone.

 State road 11 and local road 111 meet in the middle of Pixville. 20 million is spent purchasing nearby pristine forests and swamps. Up north of town, hub road #54 is going to be built connecting state road 11 and state road 22 that winds its way northwest to the river.

Build it and they will come. Pixvilles population booms and soon Lakeside, six miles away has began developing bed and breakfast and Second Breakfast facilities. RV parks opening up everywhere. People vacationing to the caves 20 miles south begin staying for a while, driving through this area.

We have to encourage working from home to relieve traffic everywhere else.

RV parks and yards with many cars and debris and what looks like a mess as observed from the highway.

Trucks that are running, are busy, though. America is back to work. Flyover country for you jet setters. Got a plan for that shit too.

 

E PAVEMENT ENDS

            How do you pay for it? You fund this by taxing accumulated wealth, not current income. The people doing well don’t need to be bashed in the back of the knee with taxes. The individuals and companies that have accumulated billions have saved enough money for us to completely rebuild the American infrastructure. Rebuilt with compassion built into it this time. For the animals cut off from their migration routes and for the humans abandoned by a compassionless economic system dominated by long distance trucking. Mass production undercut all the local economies.

            II26 You absolutely have to have a nationwide bus system. Free for all so all that paperwork and government mumbo jumbo can be avoided, and all the red tape about who qualifies for what discount is eliminated. People visiting sick friends and relatives? Why does everyone have to have a car?

        The goal is to cut down the cost of living. Anyone who runs away screaming about socialism or Marxism isn’t getting how I am talking about the self-governing goal of the future.

    Primary to this is to set up a solid infrastructure. An infrastructure to have what we and those unborn will need till   2100.

             Interstate 250. will be highways built exclusively for trucks. We need shipping and those truckers are a menace with their tailgating and spiked hubcaps.

18’8” could be the minimum height for bridges on truck highways on anything newly built.

           Think Big. No kill shelters is infrastructure. Tornado shelters is infrastructure.  Costing peanuts compared to this bloated sow of a military and State Department with it's "ambassador palaces". 

        The USPS acting as a non profit banking system is infrastructure. Hey, I’m not convinced this global trading order is working out. Worser things are coming after Covid, this global supply chain is completely full of weak links. Do you realize how many people will own their homes in a non profit banking system?

Finally in Connecticut. Hiking Rugged Mountain and road rage behind me in in New Britsky. I took very few notes, I needed to be 100% alert, but I noted this one. The most pock holed Main Street of 2021 was New Britain. So here I am, I just scored at Dunkin Donuts headed for Rugged Mountain. Kind of an early morning traffic tie up and I’m like hyper aware and suddenly two cars ahead of me stopped dead. I had time to stop though things fell on the floor.

Behind me I hear a crash about three cars back. Then yelling. Nobody needs that shit but we are risen apes and we do the best we can. Don’t pay attention for a couple fucking seconds and you get in an accident. I got in an accident with a rental that way. 

It was an amazing 6 months. 13,500 miles and 29 states. Not knowing where the next place to sleep would be and seeing how many across this country live. There are more homeless than is realized and the dearth of facilities will be the death of many in the future. Shelter is infrastructure.

Smoking wrench.

 

-6-6-JOHNNY HUCKSTER

💚💞❤December 30, 2023

I had started 2023 with the vague notion to create the Johnny Huckster persona which was going to be within the Community Product and Service Exchange concept. CPSE.

 

    We need to get behind something. People are using thrift stores much more, spontaneous markets have begun to pop up, and in my travels, I see gas stations selling goods that are obviously homemade and locally sourced.

 When there is a major conference somewhere in the world, who goes? The G-20? Certainly not the People. NAFTA? Wasn't that about crushing small business on both sides of the border? 

What have we got to get behind, then?

 We set up a series of Community Exchanges is what we do. 

        What we do is trade amongst each other. Zoom or actual meetings. No more third Thursday of the month meetings to connect unless you want to. 

Community Product and Service Exchange. Let THEM worry about cargo ships stuck in the Suez Canal and the Somali pirates. How does only Facebook have a marketplace? Though I have noticed it works well for regular folks selling their surplus stuff. Create a new market as if the old one doesn’t matter.

Much like the Grange of Old, at the CPSE, we store surplus, shelf-stable goods. There are days we are open and staffed by volunteers. Like Mondays and Fridays.

People inheriting lots of useful junk. Bring it on down to the CPSE. But no clothes. 

We can set up 250 CPSE's as a start. They connect with each other. Mangos ripening here in Indian River County. Drive them up to Bremen Georgia. 

Need some interesting properties to place our facilities. Need gifts. Any abandoned Taco Bells? Ask them to donate it to a CPSE. A large abandoned house on a good state road. Fix it up. Compost in the back for stuff that goes bad. 3 tumblers and everyone cranks it.

Bring Sysco and its food like products to its knees. I saw amazing growth in the farm to table initiatives as Covid progressed and corporate shelves were getting empty. Many people in Florida connected. The CPSE would be a hub for like 20 to 200 people.

                      Imagine a Community Exchange (CE) in any form you like. These abandoned malls and closed Burger Kings and those nice country homes on the verge of being too expensive to repair. People buying a community space together. You know, Turkey threatens to close US bases in 2019? Fangool to them ...imagine the savings if we did close the bases and Ambassador palaces from Turkey to Thailand. Update: Now with Stupid Bigly’s war, it has become more obvious to quite a few people.

We could close 200 bases in Turkey Japan and Germany. We could fund 250 No-kill animal shelters across the country with 20,000 employees if we start abandoning the Middle East. Or a free intercontinental bus system. The military is a money pit and you accuse the Post Office of being a money loss.

 

Once upon a time every town had a Grange but they all closed up in my young years. Some had 125 years of farmers selling their wares, and the furniture makers marketing their wares, and wool garmenters, their home made wears. It’s time to regenerate small farm markets. By giving advantages to small farmers. #taxchurchesnotfarmers. I discuss methods in section 7 that would build a small business free market and a heavily regulated big business regimen.

  I belonged to a food co-op in '73 and '74, and to get the wholesale prices, you needed to volunteer two hours a month. I'd have a backpack full of peanuts and potatoes and carrots to bike home with, and was even a vegetarian for a while with so much produce available. It was about that time when I learned how Veal Loaf was made.

 

 

Art or Furniture or anything else that used to be made in this country, can be sold at these Community Product and Service Exchanges CPSE. 

You're going to see BUY USA initiatives get serious this year.

A focus on locally sourced products that local people are looking for. 

Community Exchanges would trade with each other, exchanging surpluses. Sending Mangoes up in June and sending peanuts down in September.

      The Johnny or Jenny Huckster, is the person that drives and delivers between the Community Product and Service Exchanges. This is what I was trying to put into action in 2023.

                               I try to have as low a carbon footprint as possible with my 2009 HHR. At 52 MPH on a smooth road, I get 39 MPG. I lived AND worked in and out of that car for 125 days in 2023. I visited ZERO tourist destinations and used a single burner propane burner to cook when outdoors. 

I made Chicago Dogs at Mill Woods in Wethersfield. I was completely contained in my relatively small vehicle. That was the goal. The senior population was 20% of the homeless population, but that is over 40% now. I know this is going to be a big problem the next ten years.

There will be tens of millions like me, barely enough money to get by. But they got good cars and are still comfortable driving. They could be Johnny Hucksters. 

An improvement on that delivery carbon footprint would be Bio-diesel. Using restaurant oil to deliver to restaurants. Some delicious irony there.

      Or deliver to Food Trucks, which is another trend that will be big in the next five years. Not just farm to plate, but farm to food trucks. Putting the chain restaurants out of business and enact low taxation for small diners and gathering establishments such as social clubs.

       .Their greed is going to drive them out of business. Pricing themselves right out of the market and the working class is finally engaged. 

 

So to create Johnny Huckster I had to be Johnny Huckster. The spokes that support the hub that the Community Exchange would be.

 I had to live it and also, I have to do what I can ... while I still can, as I approached 70.

 

        #Houselessness is trending. It was an adventure for me. I could have borrowed a few hundred bucks to get a roof over my head, but I wanted to do this. One last ride. Well ... a couple last rides.

Like I mentioned, our American economy is about to change dramatically but, I'm hopeful it will be mostly good changes for the people who do work not the paperwork parasites. 

              The people who save the seed, grow the food, ship the food, process all the agricultural products; the people who cook your food and clean up the mess you make at Cracker Barrel. 

     We'uns are going to create our own economy and by doing that we will resolve our left/right differences without the parasitical white collar class getting between growers and shoppers and we will all make more money.

 

I'm imagining people living out of their food trucks. I see these electric bicycles popping up everywhere. The whole economy is ready to do a transposition into Market Socialism. We need to claim free spaces across the entire country.

The hapless, feckless fools in Washington are all about enabling corporate control of all markets. They don't even know we exist anymore. So we're going to create a new economy as if the old one doesn't even matter. 

        We need food trucks at work sites. We need work sites so we can get food. Let the buyer beware. Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) is also CE. We are not the rubes of 1950 who bought into every corporate ensnarement they could get their hands on. I recall the Tabacco industry going to Saturday movies back in the 30's and 40's and give away free cigarettes so the kids would get hooked.
       Gonna be A LOT of bridges getting repaired and rebuilt in the near future. Water pipes collapsing and rotten in big cities that are needing to be replaced. Everyone trying to be millionaires with the overlapping pyramid schemes in the last 40 years fueled development to create the illusion of prosperity.  Ecosystems are compromised and government appears to be completely sold out to money and blackmailers.

 

Alachua, Tallapoosa, and Tallahoma would all have exchanges and would trade with each other. Add Durham and Four Oaks and I am looking into the Franklin North Carolina / Asheville corridor for opportunity.

My target area is; Franklin Georgia to Franklin Tennessee to the, oh so beautiful, Franklin North Carolina. 

Look that up and within that triangle is where the best "climate change --- work at home" place to be is going to be. Learned that from a strange visitor at a campground, and from some real estate insiders. In ten years most of North Carolina will be too expensive to live in for the workers, as Florida is now.

 

At the Community Exchange (CE) we would co-incidentally keep Caveat Emptor (CE) as the underlying theme. "Let the buyer beware". The motto of the marketplace for thousands of years will return.

CPSE because we can all connect with our own particular services. Community Product and Service Exchange. We hire each other. We don't buy from companies that have stockholders.

People should be able to sell tinctures and potions out of their house. Or have a Raw Milk delivery route. We need some serious small business legislation to help family businesses small farms food trucks and Mom and Pop operations again.

Here's the rub. Without government regulation or interference.

So much STUFF out there that needs to be fixed. And seriously, do you go to thrift stores? The world can stop making clothes for ten years and we would still have most of it ending up in the dumpsters. 

 

    We create our own network of Community Exchanges. Running between them are the Johnny or Jenny Hucksters.

I haven't told my stories to anyone yet and I didn't even write down any notes in 2023, so I have to flashback. 

I remember driving away from Tennessee headed for Durham and getting in a three hour traffic jam to go just 40 miles outside of Chattanooga. That was going to have me coming in late to Asheville. After sunset.

I wanted to check out the Asheville alternative scene, and I needed a place to spend the night. I ended up getting there at 8 that evening and finally staying at an RV friendly Cracker Barrel after a visit to the Waffle House. 

            After five hours of sleep, I needed a rest room. 3 am there were none, just a parking lot with ten RV’s and no real privacy. Wait, there's a Waffle House. I ate and figured I could just pullover on the Blue Ridge somewhere and get a couple more hours of sleep, so that's what I did. Houselessness's main problem is finding a proper bathroom in the morning. I drove out of town then slowly up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mt. Mitchell which was my #1 goal. 

It was raining up on the Blue Ridge but not foggy, which was a great relief, and I found a pullover that no one was going to bother me at 4 in the morning. Well, there was the big heavy storm at that time, closing roads and whatnot. Headline news. It was the 18th of June 2023 and I was catching up to the storm as I drove eastwards. 

I woke up two hours later to three inches of water in the parking area.  I must have slept through a downpour. Lucky to have my Crocs on. But it was all good, 6 o'clock and I was a half hour from Mt Mitchell.

 

I was up to the parking area at 6:45, even before the employees. Too foggy for the big view, but dry enough to hike the moss-covered trails.

            Hiking comfortably amidst massive moss at 6300 feet, I noted on FB some people on Mt Washington at 6288 feet were probably cold with big winter coats on and icicles hanging from the sign. And that was after the harrowing drive up the thin laned and precariously curved mountain road. 

They posted pictures of them and some friends in their Parkas with piles of snow in the background. All smiling after not sliding off that dangerous icy road to the summit. It was late June and 60 degrees on Mt. Mitchell to start the day. Extremely recommended if you're down that way, Mt. Mitchell has an easy drive up, and a spacious parking area.

Johnny Hucksterism is a lifestyle and I lived it in 2023. 125 days on the road. No notes so I'm going to indulge my memories. This is a manual for laying out your future. "van life," as some call, it is now congealing into communities.    

Car camping #Houselessness is trending and I never considered myself homeless. I was building a business model. It was also one last adventure perhaps, as I approach 70 but still enjoying sleeping in a cot and looking up at the stars from my tent, or the HHR Moon Roof. 

One theme. I go where the good weather is. Or I been hella lucky. If you're free to choose your location, choose to head for the good weather.

 

GREENHAMMER: Download File

            First of January in 2023 I went to practice my camping at Fort Drum for five days. Trying the patience of my calves and triceps as I dragged everything I needed to set up for 5 days. A long six tenths of a mile to the campsite. I counted the steps. 2500. So in a five day stay I walked back to the car 12 times, let's say. Mostly to charge the phone back at the car. 14.4 miles in total and my back never felt better sleeping on my borrowed cot. Legs and arms felt strong when it was over.

glad I saw the Georgia Guidestones before they were blown up by the local snowflakes. Illuminati boogie man you know.

 

In April, I went to Georgia to paint a house. A twelve day, all expenses paid, cannabis friendly, biscuit-fest. I also began tearing up a sidewalk of interlocking pallets. They were slippery and dangerous but kept the walkway above water. We made a plan for finishing in July and making the walkway navigable. 

             Twelve days deep in the forest in Georgia within sight of the Alabama border and then back to work in Florida. No one was even aware I was gone. Going to Carolina for a week I told a few people since I am expected weekly at most of my jobs. "Might miss a week"

           At the time K was done renting a room from B and she wanted to get the heck out of Florida before it got too hot. So we shared a camping spot at Donald McDonald Campground for 8 days in April 2023. Ten dollars a piece per day. Then I went to site #14 by myself for four days. Beautifully managed and a foresty place. 

With all that, I was literally in the forest for the entire month of April with the combinations of jobs and situations I found myself in. This felt like what I was trying to accomplish but it was very tiring. 

And you bet your bippy I was wore out from camping, cars and couches for an entire month. 

It hurts. Sometimes everything hurts. But I'll tell you what, there are going to be many thousands like me looking to avoid the high rents and make an attempt to live and work out of their car. So let me recall as much detail as possible and try to explain the business model I am trying to create.

 

             Stayed with ex and son till June 14th and then a planned house and dog sitting gig was on deck in Durham. Another month on the road.

Streamside in Lynchburg Tennessee 

Sturdy inside. Has electric. This is what I’M talking about. Be a nice site for a 

COMMUNITY PRODUCT AND SERVICE FACILITY. We can do it folks. Create a new small business economy as if the old one doesn't even matter. renew recycle repair. Everbody got a side hustle or three.

 

Back at the crisis center, there was a brouhaha about some Fathers day slippers I was supposed to deliver, but I already had plans.  I had three hundred pounds of some very fine, rich people paver rocks to deliver. Some medicine to deliver to Tennessee. Great weather in Georgia again last June, and then in Tennessee. Summer hadn't hit yet. In Lynchburg, Tennessee I stayed in a newly purchased plantation home that was getting renovated. Asked about a painting gig there but they got it all done themselves I reckon.

            Two barns on site and fencing for Sheep. Some really fine hundred year old trees. A creek was nearby and giant slabs of rock appeared to have been moved by the currents during extreme washouts. (see photo above).  So much Birdlife it seemed; like I hadn't seen since my childhood when birds were always flying in and out of the brush all day long.

And fireflies. So many and a family of Cardinals were feasting on them. Fireflies is bird food with lights on, so it was moonlight madness sittin' on that porch. I realized how perfect it was. Smokin' with a buddy looking at a slight downhill at some cows grazing far off. A light breeze then the fireflies and a breezy cool evening at a Tennesse plantation house that was getting renovated.

       So far, staying in the forests in June and July also. 

In Durham North Carolina, I had a dog/cat/house sitting gig in a nice 60's style house in the Parkwood Section. Close to downtown. Importantly, one of the most nicely designed neighborhoods I've ever seen. Most houses were off the main road but close enough for easy access and in fact my kids house is right near the very nice trail of large trees. So much safer and every house looked different quite unlike Indian River County and its ticky tacky gated communities. There was a really swell Mideast Market with some unique selections to create recipes that was near the community garden.

     Amazingly, there was an Ancient Forest trail that started within view near the back yard. So me and Baloo, the lovable Pittie, would hang out in the back yard. Anyone walked by and he'd be off barking. Don't need a no trespassing sign with Baloo on duty. 

The picture above doesn't do the Ancient Forest trail any justice. Very nice hiking trail that started next door and a community garden that was flowering prolifically at the other end of the trail about 3,000 feet away. 

The weather continued to stay cool till about the 4th of July. At the same time, I saw the smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires roll in. My streak of staying in the good weather was over. It got HOT and people were warned to stay indoors with the wildfire smoke.

       Two days we stayed indoors. Hot and Smoky. Summer of 2023 finally caught up with me. In Florida, where I normally would have been, it was fully summer with its debilitating humidity. It was also Mango season, and I had brought a bunch with me. People going ewww when I posted a picture of my Spam l'mangue. Organic Mango, locally sourced peppers from the volunteer neighborhood garden and Spam. I think it was the Spam people objected to. 

btw there is a Maple Spam I noticed today. But it was $4.97! We are experiencing some alarming price increases and the vicissitudes of the capitalist markets is now evident. 

I managed to stay out of state for a month and check off the last thing on my bucket list which was seeing the Rhododendrons in bloom in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

    So, another month on the road. 2.5 weeks in Durham and a week in Georgia finishing the walkway project. Sixty five days so far. I didn't go back either time to re-supply at my storage space. I was totally contained in the car for the entire time in both months.

I then switched back to a working vehicle on July 15th and stayed with the ex and my youngest till October 15th. 

Customers seemed all right with me being gone for a month and it was a most triumphant moment to have finished a second full month as Johnny Huckster. There were plenty days of work at my customers. Hose shower. Keep the hair right. A motel stay here and there. to totally rest. But I succeded at working and living out of the car.

Finding ways to kill time during the day. A secret spot at Fort Drum outside of town if I couldn't get a campsite there.I finshed out April there. The new 7-ll had the best coffee in town and even indoor tables for eating. You have to connect with the people that see you a lot like the 3rd shifter at the TA truck stop.

You don't see the homeless till you are homeless or houseless yourself. I stayed at truck stops for $5.35 a night and saw the homeless on their bicycles and some with their young children. I listened to stories about conflicts while standing in line at T&A Truck stops. 

I stayed at a location that will remain a secret for now. Cost $0.00. A little outside of town but nice dark sky to watch the moonrise or see the stars. Listen to the distant sounds of large bird life. Big hooty Owls. Trying to figure out what noises were alligator noises, and did I just hear a pig getting caught by a Panther or Coyote? 

          Another thing about memory. What do you do as you see your own facilities decline? Being old is hard enough even with a roof over your head. Many elderly will be homeless or already are as the economic squeeze continues to bleed the middle class, and the long- time essential workers of the lower middle class. Houselessness means toiletlessness. Just briefly imagine your elderly neighbor being homeless. Or don't. There’s desperation out there and we have half asleep idiots in congress the last 30 years and outright corruption and shenanigans in the last ten years. 

This is the core of my business model. How are people going to move around? Where will we live? It's concerning that predatory male creeps are everywhere and the safety of women trying to be Jenny Huckster is in jeopardy. #MeToo2 is rapidly developing. The Grape Academy is too much to bear so a Lorena Bobbitt Society has formed.

And where are all the Black People? They have to be overly cautious with all these crazy, heaven-bound, gun crazed White nationalists around. 

In St. Lucie County there is a gigantic rest area, but you are only allowed to stay there 3 hours. THREE. Florida state law.

But I felt I was an advantaged homeless. I had a car. And money for gas and I had work commitments. But I was running out of places to be discreet. My luck that this area in Florida has been noted for its notoriously over priced rentals. The third leg of the effort was to spend as little as possible in the pursuit of getting a roof over my head.

October 15th to December 19th 65 days living out of the car with no places to stay. Refreshed at a motel twice for two days. Christmas tips got me into an overpriced rental. 

So I lived it. Johnny Huckster and the Community Product and Service Exchange.

💚💞❤-6-7-TUCSON TO THOMPSONVILLE

After a thousand miles my hands were numb from the noise of my engine and my mind blank from the ceaseless revolutions of my tires. The yellow lined road points to some distant towers and spring grasses of early April, freshly greened the Texas and Oklahoma countryside. The rivers in Missouri were running high with snowmelt caused by recent rains.

            Riding the great open spaces between Midwestern cities, structures loomed far off down the road as if the road would end when entering this great palace. I continued to head straight for them. They were glistening and futuristic----with a touch of grey, reminding me of the Hollywood backdrop for the Land of Oz. What Dorothy saw off in the distance at the end of the yellow brick road and all that stood between her and the Wizards castle was a field of corn, I mean poppies.

            The Towers. Who cared that they looked a little fake. They lured Dorothy and the others and drew me in too. Even when I drove by the massive grain towers it was not a disappointment…because seeing America was mysterious and magical.

                 ****************************************************

            As many people know America is divided into ten growing zones. Zone 10 being Miami and Zone 2 the Boreal Forest in Canada.  Some configurations gauge their results from the lowest winter temperatures and some use the date of the last frost. Either way, there is a general agreement as to where these zones are.

            Zone 10 includes Miami and Sand Diego that are frost free. Zone 9 runs up the Pacific coast out to the Mojave Desert and into the Sonoran Desert where Tucson and Phoenix are located. Zone 9 also includes the Texas town of Corpus Cristi and areas north of Miami and up to Orlando, higher along the coasts. Averaging less than five days of frost with minimums of 20 degrees.

            My trip from Tucson to Thompsonville begins in zone 9. I entered zone 8 only five hours into the trip. Zone 8 is north of Phoenix and through the mountains of New Mexico and goes through lower central Texas and across the south to South Carolina. As I headed north of Alamagordo in New Mexico I hopped over zone 7 quickly. Alamagordo is 4300 feet above sea level and lies at the western edge of the mountains.

I maintained a path through zone 6 as I got to 6,000 feet in Northeast New Mexico. I continued in a northeasterly direction to Amarillo Texas, central Oklahoma, and the beautiful mid western state of Missouri. Zone 6 covers a wide band, including Kentucky Tennessee, northern Virginia New York City and Newport Rhode Island.

Zone 6 had just been waking up from the winter. I suspected zone 5, which had seen a snowstorm of epic proportions that early April winter day, was still frozen and asleep. In Missouri I skirted the line between 5 and 6, and up till that point had seen no precipitation. Up ahead on the drive across country was Illinois Indiana and Ohio at the lower edge of the heavy snow areas. After leaving Tucson when it was 75 degrees, I wouldn’t feel any temperatures above 40 degrees. Had I left too soon? In Illinois it was 38 degrees when the rain started.

      ******************************************************

November in Tucson is not always pleasant. November is when the coldest temperatures hit Tucson. It was the month I saw the only snowfall over one inch. It was the month of the coldest temperature I experienced in Tucson---18 degrees. November ’83 was no exception. From upper 80’s at the beginning of the month to frost and 35 and frost or 45 degrees and rain. On my job as an electricians helper I was digging 10 foot wide ditches 3 feet deep. These would fill up with rain and collapse.

My friend and boss Jeff Schombert was letting his friend, Jesus, run a job by himself for the first time. The illustrious dumb-fuck macho queen, Jesus (Hey Zeus) Romero made many mistakes. It was a job with 160 apartments led by the primary contractors---the Valley Carpentry crew. I was stuck in the ditch while other beginners were shown how to do electrical installation.

However, as the Motorhead song says, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” as I never let them. As time went by, I had to grit my teeth and survive with my principles and convictions intact. There was six months to go before we moved back to New England and many times our trip back could have been halted or delayed. The plan was to leave Tucson just before the summer started and in New England as the spring was at its flowerful best. I had a month long house sitting job in Enfield waiting.

Many people who move to Tucson miss the four seasons. It’s hot for 5 months and moderate for 7 months, but on the other hand many Tucsonans would be happy with a year round summer. “Don’t like the cold. No sir, I don’t.” When the temperatures turn from moderate to looking into the  hot oven warm, there are collective groans and cheers across the valley.

Where would we end up? Boston was a good idea, a return to tradition and intensity. Boston---culture, history, and activity. I was ready to move but my bank account wasn’t. Unlike many Tucsonans who empty their bank accounts to take yearly trips  back “home,”I had no desire to visit Connecticut. Living in Arizona gave me the opportunity to see America and meet people from fifty states. Native people, Pacicific coast people, disgruntled Floridians looking to flee the humidity and arthritis. Mexicans Guatamalans, Detroiters, Minnesota people, Vermonters Texans.

I became a global citizen there and now I live in New England not because I was born here but because I choose to. In fact we almost become Marylanders. My girlfriends brother was a muffin executive at Thomas English Muffins. He could hire me for 12 an hour which was a lot for me never making more than 5 an hour. We would be rich and all I have to do is poke the muffins with toothpicks.

The factory was in the beautiful Maryland countryside, 35 miles from D.C. My potential boss ended up getting a promotion and moving to the god-awful cold city of Chicago.

After five years in Tucson it felt like the city was a bit of an island. Isolated and out of touch, but beautiful, young and strong with hints of class. Yet somehow boring. Or was it just the people? So there I was in November of 1983 with a dream about getting back to New England. It kept raining like a Connecticut spring, and some weeks I only worked 20 hours, at 4 dollars an hour. 

Through December we never got out of the 200-400 dollar range with savings. I had decided not to tell anyone in town about the plan till we had 500 dollars solidly in the savings.

There is an old movie called the seven trials of Hercules. To escape the beasties, Hercules had to endure seven major tribulations before he could be set free. That’s how I saw myself once again, nose to the grindstone trying to endure. The first trial was the chronically small savings account but still knowing this was going to get done. The February plan was scrapped and then the March date of escape. Then I picked April 11^th as the day of departure.

January progressed and we were solidly above 500 and we told people about our plans. Why? They all asked. When I left Connecticut in 1978 I got the same question---why?

At that point the van was 92% repaired. Engine overhaul, carburetor overhaul, fuel pump front end and much more. Then Memere Bellemare pledged 500 dollars for our effort.

Then came the second trial. Since I was concentrating so much effort raising cash---getting a raise, selling and trading our extraneous possessions, I neglected my work on my, work for rent situation. The Kingstons, our landlord and boss demanded a major effort. They suggested I was complacent and said we should leave if we can’t do the job right.

It seemed like they wanted to fire us but we squeaked by knowing we weren’t ready to tell them we were leaving in two months anyways. Moving into an apartment at this point would cost us too much in deposits, first and last months rent.

Ah but Tucson. How COULD we leave? January 10^th was the last day it rained till at least March 10^th. High temperatures ranged from 64 to 82 degrees which is ideal for most people. When I left with my whole life packed into an Econoline Van on April 11^th I knew that for three months I had experienced the most beautiful weather on the planet. I found out later from a weather buddy that Tucson had its warmest May on record.

Jesus, the macho turdball, returns to the story to present the fourth trial. He had finished the Valley Carpentry Crew job and joined us at the Mission Road Apartments. I had gotten a raise to $4.50 while I was there working with Jeff the owner and boss. My nemesis blandly stated upon our first meeting that his intention was to fire me. But I prevailed.

As Jesus tried to provoke arguments that would lead to a fight and the inevitable deceptive descriptions of events, so I approached my boss and friend about this problem. But Jesus was his business partner. If Jesus could direct a lot of people, Jeff could expand the business. A good business partner is hard to find.

Calmly I discussed the problem. Unbeknownst to me, Jeff had suspected a problem and was aware of the loss he took at the Valley Carpentry job. Jesus Wormtongue was one of those gossiping sorts, saying bad shit about a lot of people frequently. Jeff concluded from the mountains of paperwork that it was more than lazy workers that ballooned his expenses. A lot was spent on supplies and fuel and miscellaneous.

The worm became a mouse and I became the Cheshire Cat, by doing nothing more than telling the truth. Motherfucker never said shit to me after that, and Jeff didn’t scapegoat me in any way, he told Jesus that he was inefficient and should spend more time watching himself instead of the workers. Jesus was demoted back to the crew for more “seasoning”. Patience is rewarded.

The fifth trial arrived about two or three weeks after the Jesus fiasco. It appeared this time as the flu. We were struggling to save, and I needed every paycheck. Stumbling around the job site, I tried not to fall off the second floor. It was a killer flu, and it took an extreme effort to work.

Not even a week or two later came the fifth trial. At 10 o’clock one evening my tooth inflamed and massive pain became my bane. My girlfriend said to call the hospital for pain killers. Mouth pain I could have survived but the tooth needed work, over 500 dollars worth---a punch in the stomach for our savings effort. The grimmest outlook had us leaving for New England at the onset of this coming winter,

Memere sent another 500 and my parents had sent a 300 dollar birthday present. People were eager to have the Prodigal Son back. The only one they knew in recent memory to move out of Connecticut. The Vagabond, the wanderer.

I really got to know the weather of the desert and it’s imprinted on my mind like childhood memories in Wethersfield. The flooding arroyos, the random dust devils spinning nearby, the baking hot dryness, and the sacred rain, never repeating a pattern and always different. The Robins arrived in their flocks much earlier than usual and this indicated to a weather watcher that an early spring would commence.

The weather was more boring in Connecticut and New England with it’s tedious, never ending light rain.  But there was the big trees and the fine old homes, the beaches and small quaint towns, rude people and every extreme of individuality and conformity.

Three weeks before the trip I organized a weekend outing to New Mexico. Why would I take a long drive three weeks before a cross country trip? There were logical reasons like checking out if there were any places to get gas and food. From Tucson to Las Cruces (275 miles), there were sporadic stops for travelers. No phones that I could see and very small towns like Bowie and Deming. These towns roll up the sidewalks at six o clock, I’m sure. No phones. 275 miles.

There was a gas stop only 75 miles outside of Tucson in Willcox. Belly up to the pump with the engine running to get every teaspoon I could in there. I could make it to las Cruces but what about Alamogordo (375 miles) and Roswell (525). No one wants to run out of gas in the desolate mountains of New Mexico. I’m sure. There were two 24 hour stores in Alamogordo as it turns out as I asked around more.

Hopefully the mountains would have gradual grades and I wouldn’t waste gas. So the little weekend in New Mexico allowed me to listen to the van carefully to see if there were any sort of problems. I hadn’t taken any strenuous trips in the aging van in the last two years.

Her performance was sluggish at best and became downright dreadful on the little trip. I went to Tuneup Masters where they did a lot of replacing. A complete tuneup was needed. I DID NOT want to break down in the middle of the country with everything I owned. Well, it ran better and was solid with the recent front end work I got done on it.

The New Mexico getaway psyched me for being on the road again and this time, to another new place. I took the trip with Steve who was the one who was responsible for me moving out of Connecticut in the first place. I stayed at his place when I first moved out there and my two room mates joined me later in the month.

I hadn’t seen much of Steve the last two years because of his chaotic marital situation. We played in bands together back in Wethersfield and wrote songs together. We made up some pretty complicated jazz rock fusion progressive music. At the White Sands National Monument we let our imaginations run free and pretended to be filming different movies from that location.

After that weekend I was ready and resolute. Chance of snow at 5500 to 7000 feet where much of the road lay. Once I got to Amarillo there would be plenty of places to gas up and gobble down.

The sixth trial was of course another surprise. The girlfriend was going to stay behind and leave on the 27^th and fly to meet her brother in Chicago. Well on April 5^th, which was 10 days after we’d given our notice, we suddenly had to move by the 11th. She couldn’t wait to bring in the new people even though she originally liked our plan which gave her time to screen a lot of people. Mrs. Kingston said there were 125 people that applied for the job that we got and we thought it would take a while.

We had to super pack since I was going to leave between the 12 and 16^th as per the plan and casually pack. So the girlfriend scrambled staying mostly with Cheryl who was Jeff the bosses wife. The last picture of me in Tucson is with my arm around Cheryl standing by the black van. I set sail from there at 4 in the afternoon and drove the 18 hours to Amarillo without sleeping.

Our packing was rushed and so were our farewells. The 40  acre ranch we were caretakers of was a great place for friends to hang out. Nearby looming in the eastern sky was 8400 foot Mt. Rincon. The Catalinas, topping out at 9200 feet were due north. The pool was like 40 feet long and 8 foot deep and many enjoyed the scene. People would visit with their pet tarantulas among other memorable creatures. Pregnant friends relaxing in the pool because it made their joyous burden less heavy to carry.

I was leaving a career in electrical construction and leaving a very desirable living situation. These moves have to be made and I lost out, took one for the team. Actually, electrician work was boring and the Kingstons and us had had enough of each other. Like pruning back a rose to watch it grow. We made the break from the comfort zone.

I patted and hugged Sally and Sammy, our most wonderful dogs. We would miss each other. The long hikes in the foothills of the Rincon Mountains. The time we were in a small canyon and coyotes were on both cliffs. I had a beating stick and Sammy regularly chased coyotes out of the yard. The times the Javelinas tried to dig under the stone wall to get at the dog food. “bye you guys”.

The Kingstons took pictures of us and the heavily weighted down Ford Van and we said good bye. No tears or regrets we would spend the night at the Holiday Inn about 8 miles away. It was hot enough at 85 degrees and the black van attracted the sunny heat. The van swayed as it picked up speed going down Broadway, I was completely over loaded.

The starting mileage was 160,353. It was hot enough with a reminder of the summer to come at 85 degrees. It had yet to hit 90 that spring but it was hot in that van when the 7^th trial reared its ugly head. As I approached the intersection of Pantano and Broadway and the…..van……..died! Holy fuck, it wouldn’t start for anything. I know the battery is good so what was wrong. We were now officially homeless waifs all our belonging stuffed into one vehicle.. A dead vehicle. Luckily I had AAA road service and the driver dude discovered a thin wire that had worked itself loose. Phew!!

At the motel I was still organizing the truck that night and the next morning. The girlfriend would stay at our friends home and  they helped prepare my launch. I had fixed heater hoses, ignition switch, gotten gas shocks and new tires all in the last week. I only had one more thing on my list to get and that was a couple of flares because of the desolate area I was going to drive through.

                    >>>>STATE OF THE INTERSTATE<<<<

I WAS TRAVELLING ON Grant road to catch I-10 from there. Too many things on my mind and I drove right past Checker Auto  Parts. I cursed because I couldn’t just turn around. Tucson has a No Crossing Rule between 4:00 to 6:00 and I drove down a bunch of back roads to get back to Grant. Grant Rd. goes under I-10 and goes further west of town.

Five o’clock and I was finally getting on the Interstate after going to get flares then getting caught in a traffic jam. I inched my way up, then finally I was on the entrance ramp with its smooth concrete sides. Vehicular conveyance merges and brain unit relaxes and I am plugged into the Interstate Zone. Happily, I thrust my elbow out the window as the warm day began to cool off. I drove by the power company and I drove by the new IBM headquarters and was soon on the quiet stretch of highway to Vail Arizona. 

On my journey to Arizona on August 18-25 1978, my favorite cat of all time, Mary Lou, accompanied me on the trip. She made the journey enjoyable and the memories golden. She died in a coyote attack living free as she wanted but now, I am missing her a lot. As the Catalina Mountains faded in the distance that April 12^th 1984, I reminisced. I would look at a spot on Mt Rincon and say a prayer to her and now I was passing that spot but closer than usual from the southern angle.

I always hoped she could hear my messages, so I concentrated them in one spot to give me better odds. Losing her to the desert ways was one of the saddest days in my life because we interacted so much, we were close friends. I looked at the spot one last time and yelled out, “Come on Mary Lou, let’s go. Let’s get back to New England, you can be my travelling companion again on these lonely interstates. I’m leaving Tucson, let’s go.

Sixty miles later I pulled into Willcox. One last fuel stop before the long empty ride to Las Cruces. One thing I was looking forward to doing was keeping track of the gas mileage. It has to be wild estimates at first till more mileage data rolls in. At the 250 mile mark I took my first estimate. Which was 15.5 MPG.  I had a tape recorder to play cassettes to relieve boredom but also was recoding my own tape of the journey.

Just as I was talking into the tape recorder about 15 and a half MPG I went under a bridge that said 15’6”. Just one of those good luck coincidences I told myself.  I’m getting ahead of myself here. I went by Bowie Arizona and then San Simon then Lordsburg New Mexico. After that came the most desolate 125 mile stretch of road you ever want to see. For you New Englanders that would be like driving from Danbury Connecticut to Cape Cod without seeing any people. Well…except for Deming New Mexico which couldn’t be seen from the highway but the signs assured us it was there.

No phones no services and truckers and travelers knew they would get gas somewhere, but Deming was in the muddle of nowhere. A nearly full moon rose and its luminescence lit up my dashboard and I could see the things I needed to keep me entertained. There’s boredom and a disease called white line fever. I paced myself, a little music then I’d turn that off and have some snacks. I saw some deer and this truck with 10,000 lights on it coming towards me and flashed his killer beams before and after he passed me.

Then I would smoke something and then check my thermos. Coffee was still hot and it was good. Some time later and 313 miles into the trip I came up on Las Cruces. I filled up my thermos at the McDonalds in Willcox and stretched. Four pumps outside a food oriented 24 hour fast food place. I got back on the highway and started the revolving stimuli again. A little of this, a little of that.

Now I have put in 34.1 gallons and that is divided into 313 miles or about 9 MPG. I can estimate safely that I will get 250 miles from this tank which would bring me to 563 miles or about 19 MPG. Three or four cops drove by slowly because you know….black van.  Don’t need to get arrested either with bud 6 Units.

I was glad to be back on the highway and I was one alert dude with my mission fully actualized.  No clouds and a nearly full moon was traversing the sky at about 1 P.M. The I got to Alamogordo and stopped to top off the tank for the ride through the mountains. A couple of guys yelled out some indecipherable comment. You can bet I didn’t blithely give the finger. You don’t fuck around like that when you’re traveling by yourself. Just like the way you don’t drive 50 MPH in a 30 MPH zone in these small western towns. Even after driving for an hour at 80 you obeyed speed limits because small town cops don’t got much to do but pull over tourists and travelers.

Let’s leave the details behind and get rolling here. The second phase on this leg of the trip. I’d be over 6,000 feet in elevation for over 75 miles and a storm could pop up anytime though unlikely in that arid climate. It seemed very cold when I stopped to pee. Probably 25 to 35 degrees. But I saw 6 deer hopping across the road. This highway was nicely surfaced but there were no towns or cars or trucks or people.

My thermos had broken so I had two giant 85 cent coffees. One I drank right away and one I insulated with a towel and it was still hot two hours later.  The night was clear and I was very awake considering it was 3 in the morning.  Everything was going okay but I could completely trust the ten year old, 160,ooo mile veteran of the party wars.

Could I stay awake? I was on the way to Portales New Mexico. 590 miles into the trip and 46 gallons purchased. It was about 5 in the morning and you know you get a little tired and sleepy. You tell yourself you won’t accidently fall asleep and hit a bridge, but you never know. I was closing in on a new time zone and calculated I was averaging 47 MPH even with the brakes and the overloaded truck I didn’t dare drive over 60.

At 6:00 I jumped ahead an hour and was being kept awake by a beautiful sunrise. Slowly, the sunrise took an hour and a half before the sun came over the mountain. Then it stayed really low at the bottom of the sky for an hour. No clouds but this mysterious weak sunrise managed to make me feel like I had just woken up and a new day was upon us.

A time and temperature clock in Portales said 36 degrees at 7:32. And then I got back on 70 with only 125 miles to get to Amarillo.

Lost in Texas green, cold, corn, lotta silos. Zone 7 grass is up. The ride from Lariet to Bovina was gorgeous reminding me to take a trip someday on the back roads like I did on other trips Farm roads 3333 and 1731 which I took are basically lush Midwestern farm roads. Active fertile pump engines running for the 300-foot irrigation devices and the only trees are the ones near houses.

All kinds of machinery many water tanks fields turned over ready for planting. Warm looking brown dirt. Tractors plows and pick ups. All new all vital all outdoors unlike the south and north this flat Midwestern area has only 10 to 20 inches of rain a year. Machines left outdoors won’t rust as readily though.

Canyon Texas headed for Amarillo. 721 miles into the trip 15 hours later. Seeing the sun rise woke me up all over again. Not tired just a little spaced out. Rt 60 ended and I got on Interstate 27. It was one of the most absolutely beautiful exits I’ve ever seen. Masters of motion. A 270 degree turn so graceful it puts Connecticut’s exits in a clearly inferior category. A marvel of engineering. Sweeping and guiding me with no defects. Purple flowers on the side of the road.

In Amarillo I searched for a pizza place, I had a desire for pizza. An insatiable desire. No luck at 1030 they were all closed. I ate at Wendys and got back on the highway. 50 miles outside Amarillo I finally took a nap. I went 805 miles in 18 hours at 44 MPH. A half ton van with ¾ ton of shit. Mostly my musical equipment. I rarely went over 55.

A three hour stop in Amarillo. Till this point I don’t recall seeing any roadside pullovers. At 3:00 I was on the road again. At 4:30 I called Sherry and she was surprised I was in Oklahoma. After 26 hours on the road with 2 hours of sleep I began getting tired again. And since I was in safe pullover country I took a 3 hour stop outside of Oklahoma City.

There was a knock on the window. I didn’t feel threatened with so much life and activity nearby so I rolled down the window. Two young dudes. They needed a hanger, they locked themselves out of their car.  Two Okies, and they were also ‘riggers’. They worked on an oil rig. They drove three hours to work and three hours back. It was a job.

On through Oklahoma and Missouri. Full tank of gas in Joplin and 1200 miles into the trip. Some reflections half way through the trip. Where else n this world can you travel 2700 miles unfettered and unmolested on safe fast dry roads? Places to pull over to tighten the straps of the two bicycles on the back check tire pressure, stretch and all that? No hairy eyeballs from KGB spies or Libyan terrorist police. How are the roads in China, impassable during rainy periods? People in Moscow need a permit to travel outside the city.

I ate ¼ pounder and grapefruit juice. Las Cruces—ham and cheese. Shaklee energy bars throughout. Amarillo bacon cheeseburger Okla pecan maple candies and Stuckeys coffee (yuck). Unlike Europes inconsistent food and South Americas bug ridden fare, Americas corporate feeding is an advantage for travelers. Did need some Tums however. Throat burn with all that coffee, Stuckeys candy and sesame chips.

Too many trucks going by and they blow me around. With my excessive weightm I weave in all kinda directions when they roar by. Always something to see or think about. I’m reminded of the trip to Tucson. Totally joyful and totally awesome. I love this country.

Headed to St. Louis with a full tank of gas. 5:00 Wednesday the 11^th of April. Friday afternoon. Rolling down the interstate I was thinking about Oklahoma. Red dirt red and green from early spring grass. The barns and farms were bigger and older than the ones in Texas. Oklahomas rivers erwe as big as Missouris streams.  Many billboards in Missouri like darlenes antiques and needlecraft, insuranc, advertising doesn’t cost it pays says the empty one. Roads are quick and steep.

Three shits in two days. No problems with THAT. Ah yes St louis. Stopped at the information bureau. Noted food spots so I didn’t drive two hours looking for one. Closest call for smoking came shortly before St. Louis. I was pulling on a number and around the corner a cop had someone pulled over. As I drove by, he was just getting back on the highway and so I extinguished the stick and slowed down. He was going agonizingly slow behind me 6 miles at 52 MPH. Keep in mind I had 6 ounces in one of my suitcases and driving I noted the gas was $1.05 on the average. Many caves, caverns, and historic sites. I can see where a person would be proud of their state and at the very end was the Mississippi River.

The big muddy. Big big. Standing next to it was like looking at a lake. Slate blue, serge blue? Blue brown yellow? Metallic light blue black. Hard to describe the color and I pulled over and noted many black people fishing. I clambered out of the van to stretch my road weary body. With an eye on the truck, I jogged along the river to get fresh air in my lungs. I drove around Bellefontaine and found a Steak and Shake.

I was about needing a dose of vegetables and got a big salad and read the Time magazine I had brought with me.  Shortly before dinner arrived, I noticed people gathering around a dead guy in the street. Too many bacon cheeseburgers I suppose.

THIS IS NOT FINISHED WHERE IS THE REST OF IT?????

 

💚💞❤-6-8-

“ENVIROMENTAL LEGISLATION

 DESTROYED MY FIRST CAREER”

 

The paperboy of yesteryear was a wonderous option for boys in the 60's. Girls broke in during the seventies. It was a skill building, freedom loving occupation; with the obvious benefits that came from learning about small business at a young age. If you were never a paperboy, there was also a social component involved with this job that was critically important.   

       When I had to go collecting for the weekly bill, I went to nearly everybody’s house, exchanging pleasantries then, talking with the many different kinds of people and listening to what they had to say and always adding my youthful two cents. Now it’s funny to look back and realize I had my own small business with 40 customers such a long time ago, one of the last of the door-to-door peddlers.                                                  

By 1971, I was 17 years old and getting many questions; derisive questions from my peers wondering when I would get a real job. You see, being a 17-year-old paperboy was so uncool to them, just arrived from the misery of South Hartford. The minimum wage back then was $1.25 an hour and when I got the second paper route in tenth grade, I made 40 dollars in about 13 hours a week. Over three dollars an hour! It would be like making 22 dollars an hour today, in 10^th grade! I thought I had it going on, because work and school were over at 3:10, and when that school bell rang; I was free! “Tell me when you’re making forty dollars a week” I told my peers, “From your real job.” They spent 20 hours a week in the hot Connecticut sun, working shade tobacco, to make 22 dollars.

 I spent three hours of the thirteen total collecting what was due, but that turned into 6 hours a week, with all the diversions and wanderings I pursued, but fun didn't count as work hours. I was a young teen running loose in the morning and in the dark delivering papers. On Friday and Saturday evening I didn’t have to account for any of my time with my parents. Nice to be trusted. Now it’s like, “why were you at the store so long?”                    

Eventually, I did get curious to see what a “real job” was like. You know, a first step towards that corner office. Remember my work was done by 7 in the morning. So, I had time to be a “soda jerk” at Dougherty Drugs after school. I only made 20 dollars a week there, in about 16 hours from 4 to 8, 4 days a week. Who needed that, not even half of what I made as a paperboy?  I’m glad I didn’t give up my morning job.                    

Back even further to 1965 when I was 11, my very first paper route was for the afternoon paper. Back in those days there was a competition in all the cities between the morning and afternoon paper and the paperboys were active selling the product, and there was no advertising needed. My parents approved of this activity, and thought if this worked out, I could start my own college fund. I just wanted to make ten dollars a week and ended up having more fun than I expected.

   Back in those days, banks gave between 5 and 6% interest. Today most “banks” don’t deal with savings accounts that are small, and they get away with the legal corruption of eliminating many savings accounts for young people. They did this by instituting the "Inactive Account" scam throughout the nineties.

    People thought they had put aside 400 dollars, for instance, for a newborn child’s future, only to go back 10 years later to see that there was nothing left in the account! Inactivity fees. Banksters!

Today, banks never pay more than 1% interest in savings, stifling the teen entrepreneur at the very least. In fact, if you do not have a minimum of $400 in the account these days, there is a penalty. Remember this when banking reform comes along.

   In the old days, you could put money in the bank and every quarter you would check how much interest accrued, so my mother set aside 8 dollars every week to go in the bank and I kept the rest. I got a few new customers and got my income up to 11 or 12 dollars a week which gave me some jingle jangle in my pocket. I had 3 dollars a week to spend as I chose from the time I was 11 onwards and 7 dollars a week by the time I was 16. Usually for bicycle parts or sports equipment that wasn’t available in the paperboy contests, but I can say I’ve been buying my own shit since then.

   My bundle of papers was dropped off for the afternoon paper at the apartments where half of the customers lived. Sure enough, I was up and down those elevators thousands of times.  Friends seemed to like to help deliver the papers if they got to mess around with the elevator. "Dude, that's the last time" I'd tell them as the elevator opened up to a generally friendly old person.  "How are you fellas doing today?" “Great Sir, we forgot a paper on the third floor and we’re going back. Rodney Kolodny here (pointing to a friend) still doesn’t know how to operate an elevator.”

I had businesses on the Silas Deane Highway; along with a couple remaining residences on the Silas Deane that refused to sell to developers. Customers included the gas station at the light, Western Auto (where I got tires, spokes, and ball bearings for the bicycle) and a wide variety of other customers. A place called Carlin Inc. had the WORLDS MOST PERFECT BIKE JUMP.

    I had a stretch of customers down the other side of the light including a hardware store.  Burger Chef, the first fast food to arrive in Wethersfield, was where I would give 25 cents now and then to the teen age panhandlers Tony and Tommy.   Every day I cruised through the Carlin INC. loading dock, setting up for the jump. I only had to fall once at the beginning, to be much more careful. 

Back when we could have unsupervised rough play.

   Then I'd drive over the tracks and over to Mill St.  A wooded swampy area with some very dilapidated housing.  They were very poor families, much like you’d see in Appalachia; people that still had outhouses. One generation removed from potato sack clothes, they were former mill workers and it was a stark atmosphere that was hard to forget. The mill had been closed more than ten years and these families were impoverished by the paltry pay from those predatory capitalist fat cats, no doubt, and became desperate minimum wage workers. 

  The Mill Street Appalachia was demolished a year or two later and there was a rumor something different was coming to that site. Something we’d never seen before. During the summer of ‘66 I was 12 and decided I couldn’t go another school year working the afternoon paper and miss all those baseball and football games after school. I made the phone call to sign up with the morning newspaper, The Hartford Courant, which was established in 1764. Their motto was and still is, “Older than the nation, newer than the news.”

  Two weeks later came the phone call; route #406 was available, was I interested? “Yeh!”  Dude named Gorski was giving up his route, being 14, a big kid who was going to get a “real job” working tobacco. In Connecticut we know about “working tobacco”.  Shade grown for cigar wrappers, it was hot and horrible work, but what a pile of cash at the end of the week and 14-year-olds were allowed to work it though you had to be 16 for the full-time work. 50 dollars! In one week! All you had to do was resign yourself to exhaustion, sunburn and summer fun only on the weekends.

                 

                

     Gorski told me about the customers he liked on the route and made sure I treated them right and they WERE great people. I went with him for three mornings and that was it. He passed on the collection book and told me I’d make 14 a week from it. This route was in historic Old Wethersfield and I did make 14 a week and built it up a little bit to 16, and then something big happened at the former Appalachia site.

     Eventually, there were sixteen buildings and 64 living units on the site. What a bonanza, so many potential customers in such a small area. I could drop five papers in a minute. This is how I made 40 a week in only 13 hours,

Mill St. Appalachia gave way to something I’d never seen before.  It looked like the Jordan Lane Nursing Home, but everyone grew to love it despite its bricky nothingness for architecture. These homes were called “condos”.  Short for condominiums.

 I had been like any other fierce, territorial CEO. As they were being built, I hovered around them territorially while letting Izard and Joe, the two closest paperboys, that this uncharted Hartford Courant territory was mine, because, after all, I had customers on both side of the project.The Nelsons and the Italian family  I once had on the Hartford Times afternoon paper route, I strategically converted to the morning paper, the Hartford Courant.

So, Gorski went off to work tobacco in the blazing sun and humid summer heat. 50 bucks! 44 after taxes… he had big dreams.    For the full timers. Under 16 was limited to 25 hours a week.  Saving up his pennies saving up his dimes to buy him a 409.     

  The Hartford Courant morning route had good contests for getting new customers, and I often won basketballs and gloves and bats and newfangled collecting books. With these condos; I got enough new customers to qualify for numerous day trips to New York City. In the winter, the Courant took us to a ski lodge in Massachusetts and when I had gotten enough new customer points; there were the three-day trips to D.C. or Cape Cod.  

 When things go well and sales are up, everybody prospers. That was the old way. I call it Market Socialism.

    

       Customers were all pretty nice, and everyone had their own little gig to talk about, and it was fun getting a peek into other people’s lives, and there were lots of people to talk about the issues of the day. It was a time of great transition and we thought it was just another day. 

        “We buy our milk from the store now," I remember people telling me things like this as we were transitioning into the modern age. The local dairies began having trouble competing with the avaricious new dairy corporations bent on excessive profits and converting the family farm into the factory farm.

          “The fruit peddler used to stop here," was another comment I remember.  He had a rolling fruit stand, and when I was about 12   He had 10 or 15 customers on our street and I would wave to him, though he was a grumpy sort.  He’d about had enough of punk ass kids. A couple years previous he even had a horse that pulled his cart, for real, with horse poop (road apples) in the road and everything. Nobody cared; you went around road apples in those days. Today you sue the horses’ owner.

                  Business was bad since the A&P opened up in 1964 and by 1970 he was gone. Mrs. Gangi, who was handicapped, was his last steady customer and one or two others. A & P became the place to shop.  Then Popular Market in 1967 across the other side of the Silas Deane Highway opened up and all the small stores in town be closing down.

 Now instead of fresh market produce and locally sourced goods, we would all drive to the store instead of walking to the corner store or common market.

        So those are two small business institutions I saw fade away in my youth; the milkman and the fruitman, and eventually the paperboy also disappeared. It didn't have to change and it didn't have to change so fast.

But I was thriving by 1969, making about 20 to 24 dollars a week and I think my mother was making me save a minimum of 16 dollars per week at this point. She’d show me the passbook now and then. Astonishing, approaching 2,000 dollars when I was 15! The 5.5% interest helped the savings build faster, getting back to that point. In this world of 2026, you need to save thousands of dollars in long term notes, to barely get 1%. 

                                                                                                    Did I hear someone say

 ‘pit of vipers?’                                                                                                                              

     What then of the milkman and fruit peddler now? Our local dairy was probably 8 miles away in Rocky Hill. Every 20 miles or so, there was a dairy, I’m sure. Locally grown eggs and milk from cows you could wave to as you drove by. "John-get your head back in the car!" “Hi Cows!”

One of my jobs was leaving out the milk bottles to be picked up; then bringing in what the milkman left, since I was the first one to wake up in the morning. Looking back, what was the greatest generation thinking when they let progress trample over this and other old fashioned but useful traditions? Predatory capitalism has torn apart the social fabric with the greatest generation as willing dupes. The small market economy was crushed as Boomers languidly tried to halt the corporatization of America but were too busy calling their broker.

          How old are our eggs now and how far have they traveled? What chemicals have been applied to feed? How crowded are conditions with the chickens? Our modern food production kept food prices artificially low, but at what social and moral cost? 

 Too much lost…landmarks, wetlands, ancient forests, and the fine network of small brooks and streams are mostly             compromised or destroyed as the greatest generation ravaged resources such as Southern Forests for cheap homes in the fifties and sixties, and the Atlantic Ocean for fish on Friday.

       That white Cadillac, so many aspired to, symbolized purity and wealth and the façade of prosperity. Corporations tore apart the family farm and the self-sufficient homestead during the alleged post war prosperity. Much of what makes a community tighter was destroyed by the Greatest “can’t do anything about it” Generation. “Can’t stop progress” the cathode ray instructed them.

         Where are the paperboys now? I don’t think I’ve seen a real paperboy for 20 years. What a great way for children to learn about profits, and loss, productivity, and efficiency along with customer relations. Something has most definitely been lost with starting a small business any time we want,

 Now our pollution spewing death wagons are used in paper delivery. I could always throw a newspaper within two feet of the door. No one wants to get dressed to go get their paper at the end of the driveway like we do today. The death wagons spew carbon monoxide in the early morning stillness.  Some customers demanded I put the paper inside the screen door, and usually these people tipped pretty well.

       I was deadly accurate, even at 15 MPH on the bike, so my customers opened the door just a crack to get their news instead of walking down to the street in their jammies. A lot of youngsters like me had an income and my money circulated through the economy via Western Auto and Mad Magazine and Nestles chocolate, while saving 4,000 dollars by my senior year in 1972.  Take that …  real job.

 

 

       Before being a paperboy. I had my first career picking up soda bottles. It was 1964 and littering had gotten out of control. People thought nothing of just throwing out garbage of any sort as they drove, the Greatest Generation, right? The privileged 'we defeated Hitler' generation. Unbelievable now to think how our roadsides used to look like garbage at the dump. Most frequently littered were soda bottles. Some were worth 2 cents, bigger ones were 5 cents.... America was discovering soda in a big way and we brought in bottles frequently.

       Business got really slow in ’65 because of the littering laws that were being passed and ironically; environmental legislation drove me out of my first business. It was worth it though; a new consciousness was arriving, questioning the strictures of the Old Throwaway Society.  The Greatest Generation felt they deserved anything they could get, and the resources of this country and planet was theirs to use: seven generations worth of consumption in one. Consume they did and dumps became landfills.                        

        One day, to make some money, me n' Richie got the notion of picking blackberries and selling them to the produce manager at Popular Market. With a spaghetti saucepot half filled with berries, we walked into the store figuring we could possibly make 75 cents. It would be like finding more than 20 bottles, all at once.   

    The produce manager looked at our fruit and for perhaps for a second, a bemused smile crept over his face as he thought about tasty local fruit…………………..but then he looked at our crud encrusted fingernails and said, “I appreciate this fellas……….but uh, I'd need to see a business license.”  What hath the corporate world wrought?

                  *****************

 

 

 

        STRIKE THREE    

                            💚💞❤

-6-9-

 Vida Blue stared him down and was eager to end this game.  Campaneris, Rudi and Reggie Jackson were slated to go to the plate at the top of the 22nd inning, but he had to get this freckle faced phenom out, and finish the inning.  Kevin was not about to be intimidated and he stepped out of the batters box and started pulling out some nose hairs to try and unnerve his opponent.

      

 -6-9-

STRIKE THREE

 .

Tuesday August 4th 1970

      Fourteen-year-old Kevin Gallivan had been sleeping peacefully, when suddenly,,, there was a loud crash!

     He woke up startled and thought to himself, (‘must be that stupid paperboy John Almada’).  He ran outside and sure enough it was, and he shook his fist at John who rode away throwing papers erratically all the way down the street.

     "Oh well, my day is ruined ... waking up at this atrocious hour on my summer vacation. I guess I'll stay up and read the paper.” He immediately turned to the sports page.  “I wonder how did my Senators did? Hmmm. lost again 6-2.       

 

FRANK HOWARD HITS TWO HOME RUNS TO NO AVAIL  read the headline.

      As it turns out the Washington Senators would soon change their name, but not their hapless last place status. Frank Howard went on to hit 44 homeruns and drive in 126 runs that year and had a career high slugging percentage of .519 along with 132 walks, yet they only managed 70-92 and another year in their well-worn, last place standing.

He flipped the page, and something caught his eye, "KANSAS CITY ROYALS HOLD TRYOUT AT COLTS PARK IN HARTFORD TODAY." Everyone welcome to attend.

     "This is cool," he said aloud to his mom. "I'm going to try out for a professional baseball team."

"But Kevin dear, you stink at baseball."

     "I know, but maybe I'll get a lucky break. Think positive and you are what you eat."

"What do you mean by a lucky break," his mom asked skeptically.

     "You know, like the way a Hollywood producer discovered Jane Russell in a bookstore."

"I'll make you a sandwich," she said tuning him out.

 She needed to figure out if she should go to the store, or just stay home and make meatloaf.

     Kevin grabbed his best glove and rode his bike to Colts Park. Thousands were there for this unprecedented opportunity and sadly he felt his energy drain at the size of the crowd, and then he remembered. BE POSITIVE !

                                                                 HOMER KING OF DOGS 

    After a dizzying sign up procedure, he heard a scout loudly proclaim. "Okay, half of you take the field and the other half I want up to bat." Kevin trotted to the infield behind the pitchers mound and the scout pointed to him and said "YOU! Pitch!"

     Kevin said sheepishly. "Uh me…… duh"

     "Yes YOU, you ninny" Kevin put three balls in his glove and stood on the mound. He faced down the batter in a pose he had been practicing; the ball in his hand behind his back arching his eyebrows in a menacing stare. 

He hoped he could reach the plate.     

Surprisingly the first batter missed every swing and then a giant muscle freak strode ahead of the others and stood in the box, "You better duck twinkie, I’m aiming right for your head".

     "Let him hit it" coach Eddie Stankey joked to Kevin. He was ready to get a real pitcher up there and wanted "Home Run Wagner" to crack one out of the park.  "Go easy on him junior, and let him hit it." People laughed because in their cigar butt minds Kevin was a scrawny pretzel-headed kid who needed to go home.

Kev lobbed in the first one in and the wind was heard almost to second base.  He swung hard only to miss again, and then a third time.  "He's got a knuckleball … or somethin", Home Run said, “he’s cheatin.”

     "Poser" Kevin said confidently.  One of the coaches cocked an eye sideways and began to watch him to scan if this misfit had some secret to reveal.  The next batter chewed gum intently and that drove Kevin insane. 'god I hate that' he thought to himself.' He visualized a hole in the bat and wiped his finger in the compartment behind his belt. Three more pitches and three misses. The outfielders started getting bored and began loudly talking to each other. “Come on, we getting’ rigor mortis standin’ out heah.”

     "Get someone up here who can hit!" said the batting coach waving his clipboard fitfully.

     Another hulking beast, barely human, carried two huge bats and he was swinging them in wild arcs as he walked to the plate. The batters deadly gaze almost made Kevin nervous. and Mr. Hulk said aloud to everyone. "I hit 65 homers in 26 professional softball games." He tapped his cleats lightly and locked into position. Kevin gave him his "are you quite ready?" look and went into a windup and the pitch slid low and the batter stood still.

     The pitching coach said, "IF IT'S IN THE STRIKE ZONE. SWING! We don't have time for this, we need some hitting to get this going!"" The crowd grew quiet as five pitches in a row missed the bat.

     The next batter went into his Ernie Banks stance and prepared to hit. Kevin struck him out too. Everyone started to notice and gather around "He's dumb looking, but he's got something."

     "He's a doggy face all right, but he seems like a nice kid.”  He struck out the next 10 batters and they pulled him off the mound. The scouts had a conference behind the backstop.

     "Say. We could use him in the big game tonight" noted Frank Malzone former Red Sox great, now scouting for the Royals.

     "Say. We could use him in the big game tonight" noted Frank Malzone former Red Sox great, now scouting for the Royals.

     "He would give us an edge going against Vida Blue  and those Athletics," the others agreed.

     "Right" Eddie said, "We'll send him on a plane within the hour.” They beckoned Kevin over and told him about the plan. "Any reason you can't pitch against Vida Blue tonight? " Kevin nodded side to side and Eddie continued. We're sendin' you to Kansas City son, hokay?"

     "Meeeeee…To Kansas City ….g…g…g.g.g……….gos….gos….go…………-oh my!" Kevin replied initially dumbfounded.  "I'll have to call my mom first" He ran and found a phone to call her.

     "Allo?"

     "It's me mom,  I'm going to Kansas City. Kansas City here I come. I'm going to be a baseball pitcher and be on baseball cards and shaving commercials."

     "But Kevin, you don't even have peach fuzz yet."

     "You're right, maybe I can do orange juice commercials."

     "All right baby, don't hurt yourself."

     He trotted back to the scouts, "OK, I'm ready."

 

             

         ********************************************                              **********************************************

     It was 6 o'clock Kansas City time as the plane hit the landing strip, two hours from game time.  "Well kid, are you ready for the big leagues?"
     "Of course, I'll beat him easily. No sweat."

     Two players met them at the gate and they loaded into a black Econoline Van and drove to the private entrance of the stadium. "Before we take you to your private room we need to greet the press."  In the lobby flashbulbs exploded as photographers tried to capture the moment. The noise of the crowd was overwhelming and the coach yelled, "If you reporters could shut up for a minute we could start the interview."
     Kansas City is a sports town hungry for news and the questions started. "Have you ever pitched before?"

"No."

     "Do you think Blue will beat you tonight?"

 "Of course not"

     "Do you think you're too young?"

     "Of course not."
     "Aren't you nervous? The Twins are 66-37 and Kansas City is almost 10 games out of first place, is there any chance we could win the Division?"

"No and yes."

     A coach stepped up to the mike.  "That will be all gentlemen, Mr. Gallivan must retire to his suite and get some rest before the pitching duel with Vida Blue."

 

At the hotel he took a short nap as his uniform was getting tailored.  At 7:40 he went to the clubhouse but was stopped by a mob of reporters and autograph seekers. Kevin pleaded with the crowd, "All right peasants … back in your huts."  
    He eyed the grass of the infield as he walked in to the dugout. “Tight mow,” he was thinking as he jogged onto the field. "Spongy... 3/10ths of an inch. Not bad." Just to add excitement to the event, Kevin threw his warm up pitches underhand and backwards using a mirror.     

 

 The game started and Kevin and the Kansas City Royals took the field. Kevins first opposing batter was Bert Campaneris and he threw three strikes right past him. His strange pitch appeared to be outside the strike zone but ended up just inside. The next two batters went down swinging and the crowd was getting excited. By the end of the third inning, neither team had gotten a hit and it was becoming a tense pitching duel.

     With two out in the eighth inning, Kevin had tied the major league record with 19 strikeouts and his opposing batter was the limp bat of the Athletics batting rotation, Vida Blue. His first pitch was  a change-up knuckler for a called strike one. The next pitch was just outside, ball 1. Two sliding curve balls were swung on and missed by the Oakland pitching ace for another strikeout and a new major league record.

     The no hit pitching duel endured till the 21st inning. At the bottom of the inning, the now famous Kevin Gallivan faced Vida Blue. Hitless like everyone else, Kevin had hit some fly balls deep down the right field line to no avail.
He gripped his bat and Mr. Blue threw and then Kevin closed his eyes and swung.  The sound was that of a long game finally ending as the ball went deep over the 450 foot center field fence for a home run.

      The long hard road to a league title had begun. Ten games out with less than 60 games to go, but now the Royals had a chance of catching the Athletics.  As Kevin was rounding third base he yelled out to a dejected Vida Blue, "you're not so good" and "you should have thrown a change up."
     He was slapped and patted on the back thousands of times as the fans stormed the field, finally crawling into the dugout when he was put on a stretcher and driven away in an ambulance.  Newsmen and cameramen were there after he was released from the hospital. The questions were flying, "Weren't you tired?"

     "After 21 innings? Of course not."
     "Do you expect to break many records in the major leagues?"

     "I don't like to think of records, but … Cy Young and his 511 lifetime wins would be fun to break."
     "When did you realize you had a no hitter going?"

     "A no-hitter?" he was surprised. "Did I pitch a no hitter?"
     Later that night on Johnny Carson Kevin was congenial but he had cut himself while shaving some ear hair and the story he told about it had the audience laughing so hard they had to change all the seats the next day.  

THE END IS NEAR

     Kevin and I figured our baseball careers were over but we made up this boys fantasy to express our lament. He was 14 and probably the worst baseball player ever, I even took a film of him swinging the bat so we could study it, but it didn't help. Super slow motion showed his swing really sucked.

       By the age of 16 I had been hit in the head with rocks on two separate occasions and had trouble focusing for more than a few minutes at a time. Probably had ten concussions under my belt. A chronic, oily skin and sweating problem had my glasses sliding off my nose constantly during the summer.

 I had a good arm but was a lifetime .239 hitter in the Little and Babe Ruth leagues. So humor was all we had left and of course the Red Sox. 

    

  

  

 

💚💞❤ -6-10-  TABOOS EXPOSED

               In the 70’s when I entered the work force full time, unions were very controversial. In 1975 a union was voted in where I worked, much to the consternation of the chief influence peddler, I mean, department head. To everyones astonishment the bosses assistant ran for president of our local…and won!  The union reps were tearing their hair out. No, no, no, don’t vote in a member of management as president of your local!

 It took a few years to dismantle this lackey system, but the union raised a lot of standards and brought the pay scale more in line with neighboring towns and eviscerated the small town corruption. New equipment stopped disappearing and town workers stopped going to the boss’s house to clean windows and paint.  My dad was in the union and I got updates from him because I had moved out of state. I had moved to a “right to work” state, which is Republican Party code for NO Unions Allowed. In America, unions had always been there to show profit gobbling industrialists that workers rights would always be part of the equation.

  Unions were a polarizing force back then and I would hear people ask, “What does my union do for me anyways?” and in many cases they did nothing. Union money was going into political campaigns?  How can an organization speak for an individual voter, but on the other hand, there was always the old timer regaling us with stories of the old days, “Unions fought for the rights you have today you lazy ass kid!” Historically, unions tempered the horrors of the disgusting dehumanizing factories of the Industrial Age. 

 Some remembered the bloody strikes of yore or heard tales from parent’s, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately, union wages far outstripped national averages during the 70’s, and unions priced American goods beyond what people in other countries could afford, yet historically, unions tempered the horrors of disgusting dehumanizing factories of the Industrial Age.                                                                        

   The question to ask is how best to represent workers on a planet wide basis because corporations just wander the globe looking for the least costly and most servile workers. A great fear amongst predatory capitalists is the day when all the workers hold the line together.  As it’s asked in a song by hair metal band Poison, “It just makes me wonder why the poor eat hand to mouth while the rich drink from the golden cup. Why do so many lose and so few win?”

     Unions are needed badly in many countries and have not outlived their usefulness. Many unions had become bloated and complacent and corrupt in the United States and need to be modernized for the 21^st century. They need to be modified without the taint communism, representing workers during the rise of Enlightened and Sustainable Capitalism as we abandon Predatory Capitalism and the chalkboard Utopia of Communism.

      So, I agree, if a union has helped you reach equitable comparative pay and you can manage to negotiate within management then by all means, vote the union out. There are progressive companies such as Whole Foods Market that have many clever and generous ways for employees to get better pay through incentives, productivity and smooth operations without the intervention and bureaucracy of unions.  

             Ideally it should be easy to vote in unions and easy to vote them out. Many modern industries are fair to their workers but there are also many that are not and there IS too often corporate tyranny on the jobsite. An American should have the right to allow a union to step in. Individuals should not fear corporate reprisals as workers at McDonalds and Wal mart know only too well in their attempts to unionize these low wage, no benefit, highly profitable corporations.                                                                   

            How about a worldwide minimum wage of one dollar an hour? There’d be so much chaos. “Cancel the order for the Rolls Royce and the quarter million dollars of furniture for the guest house, things are going to get tight with this global union nonsense taking hold.”  Something economists don’t see is that if that worker in the sneaker factory in Thailand or Bangladesh made a dollar an hour instead of 25 cents an hour the price of the sneaker would only go up from seventy dollars to seventy five dollars because as we now know, most of the cost goes to the corpulent export executives.

                 The global sweatshop has proven to have inhumane conditions, so why not pay 7% more for those sneakers so workers can have a livable wage and a life worth living?  A dollar an hour minimum wage for the world, would finally make a better life for many millions, perhaps even a billion people and slightly higher prices for those of us that can afford it.

         If foreign goods began to go up in price because of higher labor costs then guess who benefits? We do! Get it? This is when inflation is a good thing; American goods still cost the same while those sneakers from Thailand will cost more and the more these Corporate Slaves in other countries get paid, the more competitive American products become. We can’t lose! It’s in our best interest to promote safety and good pay in all jobsites around the world no matter what the grumpy neocons may tell you. This is the secret corporate taboo no one is to speak of. Union is the word we dare not speak. Striketober inspiring the needed change.

         taboo numero 2

 

                       I’ve always thought it was unusual that in this country we find glory and patriotism in the killing of people. Yet one thing that makes America unique is the fact that more people from more different countries have arrived on these shores. So why kill people that are potential Americans? 

It’s unfortunate that patriotism requires us to enthusiastically hate our enemies, “Huns”, “krauts”, “nips”, “gooks” and now “Sand monkeys.”   Then we’re told the United States is slipping into third world conditions with our liberal educational system. Well, the truth is, thanks to unions, we have only emerged from our own third world working conditions since 1945. We started slipping back in the 80’s because most Republican jobs are low paying service industry jobs.                                                                     

                    Civil rights advocates were abused and hassled and murdered.  I’m not seeing how going back to that era, the golden age of the 50’s, would be good. Those who fought for civil rights were brave patriots who were directly fighting for equality and their constitutional rights in their own country, and there was no lifetime military pension as incentive either. They fought for equality and what was right and they did it right here in this country.  Why are they not considered patriots?

            Boomers, stand up to this claim that we are a lazy and immoral generation. We have discarded a lot of unfair traditions of racism and sexism. It was the “greatest generation’ that left us with 10,000 years of nuclear contamination to store and 160 toxic nuclear sites and aging nuclear power plants that will need to be decommissioned at a zillion dollars apiece. It was the greatest generation that told black people to stand up and get out of “their” seat and supported segregation as it persisted through the sixties, mostly in the south, and they wistfully want to return to those days when men could beat their children and wives and there was nowhere for these victims to go.

 The boomers managed to change these cultural nightmares, and it was the parents of the greatest generation that did the lion’s share of risky strikes, labor reform and unionization which shook the corporate world and finally gave American workers a good living and lifted us out of third world conditions.  Look up the Ludlow Massacre to get a feel for that era

 

In 1918, my grandmother was twelve years old and working 12 hours a day in a factory while the company big wigs were at the country club clipping fat cigars and drinking martinis. They laugh at the workers who have to beg to take a bathroom break. I remember the pain in her face as she recounted some of this type of corporate cruelty.  Imagine that a long time ago, in 1834, one of the first organized labor strikes occurred. What I read is that child laborers went on strike to lower the work week to six days and limiting the workday to 12 hours. You wonder how they got away with this.

                    Factories and many other large companies really treated workers poorly. Our American ancestors, endured difficult, torturous working conditions. Still today, so many employees are pushed beyond their endurance, but they keep going and going. Have you ever seen a 7-11 at lunch hour when there is only one employee? This cannot be the life the Creator intended and it’s very sad that so many people freely give their lives to enrich the few unworthy ones.                                 

         There’s no denying the extreme bravery of those in a war zone. But I ask myself, was it our victory in World War 1 (1914-1919) over the “Huns” that improved working conditions for my grandmother? NO! The child labor laws enacted during the Progressive Era and their enforcement as years went on was how her life improved; these labor reformers are the patriots to me. Fighting the corporations and eventually all this reform paid off with the prosperity of the 50’s and 60’s which the “greatest generation” primarily enjoyed!  

               Other examples of true patriots…..how about the suffragettes? For over fifty years they endured the criticisms and efforts to thwart them. But of course they were right; half the countries population was finally given a voice in 1920. Till then women were not allowed to vote. Talk about third world conditions!

           Of course, we have advanced a lot further than many countries, like China, whose tyrannical communists have conceded only one reform to labor activists.  Women are now allowed a 15 minute break to give birth. Then it’s back to work making “happy meal” toys for McDonalds.      

               I’m saying military service shouldn’t be the keystone to patriotism. What about the 300 million Americans that have never been in the military? Why do veterans have a lock on patriotism and now they are SUPER CITIZENS!?  

        This is the military taboo we are not to speak of.  Taboo Numero 2. The working people of the world need to find dignity and fair pay on a planet wide basis as the main priority of our societies and dismantle the system that supports the warrior elite, corporate fascists and weapon manufacturers that continue to steer us away  from the peaceful and sustainable world that is our birthright. Making us all enemies of each other. Make a world council with the 203 countries and one truck driver representing for each country. The most vocally representative. Find our way onto global forums such as G7 and other super creepy gatherings of billionaires.  Working people are going to lead the way.  You'll see.

💚💞❤-6-11- 

BIOREGIONS

 

     Here is the world broken up into         

Bio-regions. How will this help us to 
rule ourselves, employ ourselves?

 

      The natural health of the soil in the United States has been stolen so a couple generations of Americans could overeat.  

The GOP has the beating heart of America in their hand. Or do they? I took a long vacation to see if I could find the heart of America and for the first time, I discovered the Blue Ridge Parkway. 
 I also discovered it isn’t the people, it is the land that is the heart of the United States. The land that has been sliced and sold like cheap luncheon meat.  
We have to seriously protect our wild areas and Appalachia is a great place to start. 
The Blue Ridge Parkway campground I stayed at, was flourishing with life, arachnids in particular were abounding. If you don’t like spiders crawling everywhere, this is not the place for you. 
          Ten minutes after parking and looking around, I went to take the Superbrella out of the back of the Jeep to set up camp, and there were spiders everywhere.  The first Daddy Long Legs I'd seen in many years was crawling on the back hatch. Somehow in ten minutes it had crawled up the tire and the side of the vehicle to meet me at eye level on the back door. It reminded me of the early days in my life, and the abundant insect life I remembered. 
A Tussock Moth spent one rainy night on my hat under the Superbrella. A Beetle sat next to me on a towel I had laid on the wet stone bench the next day.    For hours I kept looking next to me at this unknown Beetle as I read a book and there it was, for like, four hours.  Then the insect below hung around with me the next night.

In the 1920’s, when the environmental zeal of the older generation at that time had ebbed, there was still an effort to open up as many places as possible for recreation. 
The National Park System kept growing, preserving the best of the best. Preservationists continued to battle with the Oil and Gas Industry, the logging conglomerates and the ranchers raising cattle on arid lands because they were thinking about the next one thousand generations.

             When everyone makes more, there is more everywhere.   “United we stand together we rule,” and all goods are valued for what they are worth, not what they could be worth. Food is like a gambling chip to capitalists, speculating like Wall Street with its gambling and its Pork and Soybean futures. 

 

      The River Trout alone ...  are more important to the permanence of the land than any dam or human manipulation of nature for short term profit.  Much more important than the Wall Streeters anyways. People are temporary, nature not so much and now people are waking up to the fact that the rich got theirs by stealing from the resources needed in the future. They will also see the need to tax this illegitimate wealth.  

                   Nature has been ravaged and despoiled for far too long and Rednecks curse the environmentalists and call them environmental wackos because the golden microphone repeats that phrase ad nauseum and had even claimed that there are more trees now than when the Europeans invaded this continent. More conservative sleight of hand that fools most people most of the time and they go "yeah, there are more trees now than ever before, stupid environmentalists."

The problem is that the great Prairies which covered one-third of the country five hundred years ago, are now filled with suburbia and its non-native trees.  Invasive Bradford Pears and many other exotics with no wildlife value. The Short and Tallgrass Prairies were two important bioregions for hundreds of thousands of years and unfortunately, less than 5% of it remains.  Where did all those birds go?
You know the narrative. We are taught about ingenious new plows and "sodbusters". "Chemicals lead the way" "to feed the world."

          The golden microphone also equated one 8 inch sapling in a Georgia Pacific tree farm to a 200 foot Sitka Spruce in the Tongass National Forest. Put a lock on that shit. Safety first. Forgotten are all the great trees sawn down a long time ago when all the forests were ancient forests. The forests in the entire state of Connecticut were cut down by the charcoal industry in the mid-1800’s.

The mountain people were great hunters and Phil Robertson claimed to own their allegiance. The cocksure ignorance of  the uniformed. 

The gentle giant of the south, the Indigo snake, was portrayed as a dangerous monster. To a rattlesnake nestling perhaps, as the Indigo Snake is one of the few snakes that will go into a rattlesnake nest for its breakfast. Now that’s badass.  Shooting Squirrels out of trees not so much.
       I remember a book on reptiles I was reading as a kid, and the Indigo Snake was depicted as this scary, black, eight-foot colossus you might find hiding in the shed one day! Quite prepared to eat you alive. 

 

          All these NGO’s ( non-governmental organizations) are nice, but there is a lot to consider with NGB’s.  (Non-governmental bioregions). Farmers and growers would become important again and they will regain the voice they lost during the Industrial Revolution.  Voices united within a bioregion. There are myths and mistruths there to subtly fool you.  “Small farms could never feed the world” people are told over and over in trade magazines.  

You can reply with “Agribusiness has stripped 50% of the topsoil in the United States, how do you plan to grow anything when there is none left? "  Wooosh we become the Moon.

 

 

The Appalachians were created by the first great tectonic disruption several hundred million years ago. What I discovered this year, was that they are still full of life 400 million years later. Sitting at my stone table a tiny bird started feeding nearby and soon ten others joined her and I got to thinking about climate change and still wondering how will the birds survive? They surely didn't in the Midwest. They need remote areas like this, but development is coming to North Carolina.

I try to make people comprehend how fragile the existence of the small birds is. When I’m trying to convince someone to use native plants in their yard, I tell the story of the little four-ounce bird that has already flown from South America and arrives in Indian River County, Florida. She flits here and there and finds no fruit or seeds in one yard and goes to the next---same thing.  It starves in this totally fake landscape that overpaid landscape architect’s design.

The heart of America isn’t the people because our lives are short compared to a giant watershed or a forest.  People 1000 years from now will still need an intact environment, they’ll want clean and clear running streams to catch trout.  Clean aquifers below ground. 
Then one day Jeb was shootin’ at some food and up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude. Southerners like to hunt for their food as did the Native Americans, but with a paucity of wildlife these days, they end up shooting squirrels or whatever else is left in damaged ecosystems.

This is when I wonder if the heat and humidity of the south affects their brains. They vote for the people who have profited from destroying the streams and forests. The carpetbaggers today trying to steal the one thing they have left --- their vote. The Native Americans were forcefully moved to the driest, most desolate western lands. Lands the ranchers didn’t want. Return their eastern hunting grounds and let them steward some new National Parks in the Appalachians.

Keep in mind that it’s the birds that will carry seeds and moss and fish eggs northward in a rapidly warming world.

                     The Prairies contained many dozens of different plants that flowered at different times. In school we were taught about the "sod-busters" and "amber waves of grain" but there was an incalculable loss of species. The Prairies were pollinating bee magnets for all the wild apple trees while making honey for the bears.

 This is why bees are shipped 1000 miles to pollinate the mega farm monocultures. The entire biosphere of the middle of the United States is nearly gone!  All the wild fruit trees and shrubs were pollinated by the now imperiled 4000 species of native bees. It wasn't all grass but a tight weave of native plants and the Buffaloes role was to break up the tough sod to refresh the areas they ran through. Later.   Look up Buffalo Commons.

                           

-6-12- TAROT IN THE Park                                 A fictionalized account of a pagan holy war                                  

       As a pagan there are no angry patriarchal Gods ready to baste us with His special angry sauce and send us into the eternal fire. The idea of going to hell for an eternity has been repudiated by most thinking people and this begs the question, how long is an eternity anyways? It used to be believed an eternity was 363,000 years or 3 eons of 121,000 years. Modern researchers are more inclined to think an eon is 85,000 years and an eternity is 425,000 years or 5 eons, either way that's a long time to burn in hell, eh?                       

   So here I am the other day at the local park and I'm working a Celtic cross spread with my Tarot cards and a Christian woman holds her two index fingers into a cross as if she were performing an exorcism while she looked at me. An Islamic dude lifted his skirt thing and ran away and a Jewish rabbi stopped his walk and looked up into the sky as if God were right above him to hear his beseeching "God, why must you allow the Pagans to be so brazen?"

           I stood up, gathered my cards and began walking with the Jewish fellow. I said "Dude, what country do we live in?                                                                                                                                                                                   "United States of course." He said as he began walking faster. He believes Pagans are demon possessed and I eventually caught up with the Islamic guy who had tripped over his robe. Then I hollered out to the Christian woman, "Hey! He's hurt why did you walk right past him?"
           She came back sheepishly and I asked the three of them. "Okay we all agree this is the United States, correct?" They nodded. "But I believe that I have freedoms that you don’t because of your religion." They commented that they were free American citizens and asked what was my point anyhow. I pulled out my Tarot deck and said "My religion says liberty and justice for all and freedom of expression and association are the basics for what this country is about. Do as I will as long as it harms none."

        "Divination is sorcery and evil" said the Christian.
        "Evil dwells within my hands" Said the Dervish.
        "I can tell you are a lost soul and I will pray for you," declared the Levite.

           "All right everybody" I said, " history lesson: Thomas Jefferson believed in a god of nature. George Washington was a mason and so was Paul Revere. They embraced the Greek Goddesses and many ancient beliefs. Sam Adams was a brewer and roustabout who organized Bostons wharf rats into the Sons of Liberty. Other American Revolutionary heroes were Unitarians and atheists or Deists that did not allow religious bugaboo to cloud their clarity of thought.

“Freedom of expression, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the ideas that propelled our American Revolutionary Heroes, the actual greatest generation, to separate Church and State. To me this means my pagan religion is more in tune with our liberty seeking ancestors while you allow religion to run your life."

 I paused and gave them a plaintive look. "Yet at the same time, many pagans are harassed or secretive about their nature loving beliefs because of you people and your harassments, misjudgments and prejudice." 

Stand up Pagans because we need to teach these benighted blockheads that American Freedoms are more in tune with pagan expression. and not hackneyed hysterical fundamentalism.  Back to your cave fundamentalists, till you stop hallucinating on goat droppings

The Middle Eastern people haven't stopped killing each other since 4000 BC. Leave them be. Let them have their blood as high as a donkey’s shoulder and send them all back.

-6-13-  PAGAN MILLENIUM 💚💞❤

Pagan Millenium

Author: Zone 9 Pagan
Posted: July 18th. 2010

The influence of paganism is everywhere and yet this word stirs up the ancient hatred, a brainwashing that has been going on for many hundreds of years, by as an illegitimate authority as there has ever been. My intention is not to preach to the pagan choir but to grab the attention of those who are seeking new answers. I want to explain to them that it is okay to be a pagan and to accept others that call themselves pagan. If you are, then have confidence in what you believe and "worship with exuberance" as Julian the last Pagan emperor of Rome told the population, Christians and Pagans all. Go right in the yard and do a sun salutation. Instead of saying ‘thank god’, thank the Goddess. Fuck 'em, they're toxic.

Masons and Rosicrucian’s and all the other secret societies need to come forward and peel away the Christian facade of their organizations and let it be a secret no longer. There are many ways to seek the Creator or search for a truth to guide you and being force fed imaginary beings is a little too much for some people. The Inquisition is over and the tolerance of the American people is beyond reproach. We cling to our freedom of speech as if it were life itself.

Paganism is just below the radar of the media and there are so many issues regarding our freedom of religion that it will be like the 50's when the concept of race equality was a wildfire in the shag carpeting of the day, or like in 1919 when the American Congress actually had to debate the merits of allowing women to vote, or like in 1834 one of the first organized strikes was started by child workers who went on strike to lower the workday to 11 hours.

Paganism suffers from so many glaring misconceptions in the folklore of our society that your average American will be shocked to realize that pagans are not evil after all and witches especially can be considered do-gooders. We need to act and pile on as the emergence of paganism begins to happen because people will see the vigorous opposition pagans get from that outspoken minority as we begin to surface. Open-minded tolerant Americans would be more supportive than we can imagine… and they are the actual majority. The snowflake ethno-statists will make plenty of noise, so remember they are the peanut gallery.

Back in 1774 when Israel Putnam heard about the first battle of our revolutionary war, he unhitched his horse from his plow and with the soil of his homeland still on his boots and hands, he rode off to join the fight for independence. Freedom of association, expression and the pursuit of happiness are compatible with pagan lifestyles whereas followers of patriarchal religions are not allowed to even use Tarot cards as one simple example. Writers such as Phyllis Orcutt in 'The Book of Shadows' and Alan Butler in 'The Goddess, the Grail and the Lodge' make a strong case that America was founded by masons, deists and free thinkers of every stripe who were decidedly against Christianity.

Thomas Jefferson’s ‘God of Nature’, Washington's and others ‘Providence’, and the Masons’ deepest mysteries reflect the Goddess at Adelphi. There was an acceptance of the god and the goddess together by the free thinking "riotous revolutionaries." The phrase ‘under God’ was only added in 1954 to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and ‘In God We Trust, all others pay cash’ was added to money in the mid 1800's. 

If a religion was involved in the founding of the country, it was decidedly not the Christian religion. Considering the American freedoms, xianity doesn’t seem compatible. xslam is even worse. 

Allow me to add some early American History to show pagans that we have a stake in American freedoms:

With not a bishop in sight, George Washington took the oath of office in full Mason regalia. Thomas Paine echoed the sentiments of Edward Gibbon denouncing the attempt of religion to usurp the power that freedom brings. Edward Gibbon noting how Christianity usurped the power of Rome in a book he wrote at the time of the American Revolution. Thomas Paine, in his part of the world, denounced the steady insinuation of religious strictures that contrasted with the freedoms American colonists were seeking. Mr. Common Sense.

The Inquisition was still fresh in his 18th century mind. Among the first people of America, the Iroquois and Mohawk had governing charters that codified individual freedom. Women’s gifts were honored and women made certain important tribal decisions. It was a different scene, man.

There was a lot of friendliness and trade between the natives and the roughneck pioneers. It was the ‘elitists’ who actively promoted their slaughter. The Native Americans were seen as far too pagan to be managed and assimilated and, being extremely earth centered, they could never really be Christians. 

It was natural to trade and barter with the indigenous people by the people who were out there first, breaking their necks to survive. Those crazy ass preachers that came along later promoted their slaughter. Real estate parasites encouraged their removal. Trappers shot them. So America was enthusiastically engaging in genocide while enslaving another demographic in the mid 1800's.

The natives helped the Mayflower gang with their sissy preachers who were unprepared for life in the wilderness. Earlier than that in Jamestown, indentured servants helped the rich preppies in an attempt to settle Virginia. After the rich dudes left for England one cold winter, the workers fled to purportedly live with the Croatans, a nearby Indian tribe, and were never seen again.

The arriving black slaves were forcibly converted (Yemaya and Voodoo went underground or mixed with Christianity in some cases) and the red genocide was instrumental in bringing down the Great Spirit who ruled our continent. Today, pagan expression of the black and red people needs to be free to flourish once again, as guaranteed by our constitution.

There are thirteen stars on our flag in a circle, thirteen stars and stripes. This despite “13” being considered an unlucky number. It is well known Lady Liberty represents a goddess and Washington D.C. is laid out as an outdoor Mason Lodge or goddess temple. Educated people like our first four presidents were downright antagonistic to the pesky preachers pontificating their pernicious platitudes.

Our American mythology carefully sidesteps the pagan aspects of what actually happened. But there is a clue in the Bible: The meek shall inherit the earth. Well, guess who the meek are? The conquered people, the people whose cultures included many goddesses, and yes.... when I say the pledge of allegiance I say ‘one nation under the goddess’. The people once pushed aside are today on the rise.

Plymouth Massachusetts became the first permanent European town in 1620 and other settlements began on the nearby east coast. The Puritans were a dominant force and despite escaping the clutches of tyrannical royalty they proceeded to impose a ridiculously restrictive theocracy on themselves when they got here. If you said a curse word and you were found out, you might get your tongue nailed to a board in the center of town.

It wasn't long before people grew tired of this religious extreme and the tally-ho of English elitists became the westward-ho of those disenchanted with the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thus began the westward movement in this country. Many pioneers were handier with an ax than a Bible and these unsung heroes never wrote down their history. These non-Puritans were agriculturally independent and self-sufficient working slobs who were ruled by good spirits and generally mingled with the natives and the peaceful woodland tribes were welcoming. 

Then there is the case of Thomas Morton. He was a rich dude, yet spirited and fun loving. He and his mates wanted to grow their town after they started it in 1624. He often mocked Miles Standish and his Puritan Stormtroopers, but when he erected America’s first Maypole to show the local maidens how to party in 1626, he was finally banished and deported. Exuberant pagan joy needed to be crushed at every turn. The war had begun, the war to banish paganism in the New World. The friendly Native pagans unfortunately were not aware that the war was already over a thousand years old and that faith-based genocide and deforestation had landed on their shores.

Encouraged by a Podunk Chief whose tribe were settled on the east side of the Connecticut River, settlers explored the west side and founded a Dutch trading post in 1632 at the future site of Wethersfield. In 1633, the first permanent settlement was built in Windsor. In 1634, Wethersfield became the first incorporated town and in 1635, an area between the two towns, Hartford was founded. Wethersfield, Windsor and Hartford commingled in trade and held town meetings and in 1639 banded together into what they called, "One Publick state or Commonwealth".

Inspired by Thomas Hookers iconoclastic sermons, Roger Ludlow drew up a document for governing this new organization and called it The Fundamental Orders and he created what has been praised as the first practical constitution to declare, "The foundation of authority rests with the free consent of the people." Also at that time in 1636 Roger Williams said the king had no right claim native lands and was banished for his efforts and went south to Rhode Island where he started his town through legal means, purchasing land from the Narragansetts at fair value.

By 1662, the Connecticut Colony was a proud and thriving region. The locally appointed governor sailed across the pond to visit the King Of England and they discussed commerce and other logical things. Meanwhile, most of the population paid lip service to the preachers who were whipping up an anti-native frenzy. To Christians, the New World was filled with pagans, and a popular T-shirt back then would have been, "So little time, so many pagans to smite."

These moral high ground hypocrites saw the native population as troublesome and ungovernable and sought their extinction from the start. Yet, the population began drifting away from this religious extreme and according to Richard Hofstadter, a famous old-style conservative historian," by 1750 only one in seven had a religious affiliation. "

 (An important statistic to those seeking to counter the urban legend that this country was founded by Christians.)  

Justice for all had to begin somewhere, it had to begin somehow, and these pioneers left us an enduring structure that has led to freedom for all, till our current constitutional crisis.

In 1687 a new king, James the second, threw a fit when he heard about the Fundamental Orders and stated thusly, "Authority is created from the free consent of the People!! This is an outrage!!" He appointed a new governor, Sir Edmund Andros, to sail to the Connecticut Colony and demand they give up their precious charter, the now controversial Fundamental Orders. Upon arriving, Andros endured a town meeting and listened to people rant and rave about his appointment and authority.

Meeting day fell on Halloween and as evening wore on candles were lit at the center of a large table. Apparently either some magic happened or the town narcoleptic fell asleep at the main table and knocked the candles over and the room went dark and the original copy of the Fundamental Orders that was in plain view had disappeared even though no one left the meeting. Tradition states that the charter was thrown out the window to someone on horseback and hidden in a giant oak tree. As years went by, the hidden charter was a source of pride and mystery and an important part of the fuel that eventually built our 1776 revolutionary machine.  

That hiding place, that infamous tree, became known as the Charter Oak. The state of Connecticut chose this symbol for its state quarter as representative of its ideals. As a pagan whose path is influenced by Europeans who venerated the oak and often built shrines nearby or had eternal fires near them, this was a triumphant moment. Then further research showed that the local native people used this very same oak as their guide to planting corn.

As land was being cleared near the tree, in 1646, the local natives pleaded with the farmer not to cut this tree because the tree was their guide. When the leaves were the size of mouse ears on the consecrated tree, they did their planting so he obliged them and kept the tree. This famous symbol of defiance, the Charter Oak, already an old tree, should also be a pagan symbol of the America we need for the future.

Sacred sites desecrated, statues and altars destroyed; shrines and wells and caves defiled and ancient trees and sacred groves incinerated: everywhere in the world that pagans prayed and loved and appreciated the goddesses and gods has been under attack. While the free consent of the people to express themselves as a witch or druid is denied anywhere in this country, then the full flowering of the Constitution has not occurred. Pagans are the inheritors of Liberty. 

Yes, it may take some time but the millennium of patriarchy, war and slavery has begun to shift into our peaceful spiritual future of the 

            Pagan Millennium.