to be a Demublican

I was raised down in Louisiana, way back in the 1960’s. At that time in the Bayou state it seemed like everybody and their brother was a Democrat.
In 1969, I was Student Council President at our high school, and my buddy Doug Lambert was President of the Key Club.
When I moved across town to LSU, Doug and I were roomies for awhile and there was a lot going on on at LSU at the time.
There were, in fact some deep changes taking place on campuses all across the nation; students were getting more and more involved with politics.

I recently wrote a novel, King of Soul, about all of what was going on during those turbulent times. Take a look at it  my website below, or on Amazon.

In 1972, George McGovern was organizing his campaign to challenge Nixon’s presidency. Doug suggested that he and I stand for election in a precinct caucus to represent McGovern as delegates at a state convention, leading up to the the Democrats’ national convention.
Well there wasn’t much of nothin' that I can remember about that, except that McGovern did later get the nomination, but I wasn’t there.  He ran against Nixon and lost big-time
. . . which was kinda odd because a couple years later the American people ran Nixon out of the White House because of his shady dealings pertaining to the Watergate break-in and other quasi-illegal activities.
The groundswell of opposition to Nixon that resulted in his exit from office was a little bit like what’s happening to Trump now. However, a lot of the bad feeling about Nixon was probably directly related to his procrastination in getting us out of the war after he promised during the campaign to get us out of it.

Well somewhere in all that hullabaloo I got registered as a Democrat.
I stayed that way for more than a few years, although I was not into politics and voting during the period of my spousal search and subsequent raising of a young family.
Somewhere in the ’80’s, Ronald Reagan went over to Berlin and told Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. It was a great follow-up to Kennedy’s Ich bin Ein Berliner  stroke of genius, so I registered as a Republican, and I stuck with that affiliation for a quite a while.

We used to have a Republican party in this country; it stood for Constitutional law, free enterprise, freedom of religion, low taxes, and a respect for the right of every person and every family to make the best (s)he can out of what (s)he can get without a lot of interference from the government.
But nowadays I get the feeling that the Republican party has disappeared; it has been superceded by a bunch of yessir this and yessir that yes-men who form all their strategies around what the Donald says and what he approves of or does not approve of.

But hey. True leadership requires speaking to all the people all the time, invoking the traditions of this already great nation to inspire citizens to work actively in cross-the-aisle cooperation to solve our problems.
Leadership is not about evaluating policy decisions based upon whether the advisor, inquisitor or reporter is for you or against you based on some vague theory of fake news.
The only good thing that sticks in my mind about this current president is that he ordered our embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem. I have always wanted a President to do that. Good move, there, Mr. President.
Nevertheless . . .
What we need now is a President who will not be distracted by useless judgements re: who is for him or who is against him.
In this present time of covid-crisis, we need a President who can truthfully say, as Gerald Ford did in 1975:

“Our long national nightmare is over.” 

Oh! if our current President could only manage to  make such a declaration legitimately, after actually inspiring us and  leading us into paths of healing instead of quibbling over who’s on his side or who’s on Nancy’s side.
We need a President who can say, as Roosevelt did in 1933:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

So I am declaring my affiliation now as a Demublican.
Maybe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate, as I did last time, or maybe I’’ll find a reason to support the Donald if he’ll straighten up and fly right, or maybe I’ll vote for Joe.
I don’t know.
Donald, see if you can get yourself settled down to actually lead this nation out of the Covid threat, instead of fretting over whether you’ll be re-elected or not, because your paranoid pugnacious politicism is screwing up everybody’s confidence that we can actually defeat this iinvisible monster.
Get your act together.
You too Joe! You might find yourself in the hot seat, come next January.
As Uncle Walter would say, if he were here:

“And that’s the way it is, May 10, 2020.” 

King of Soul 

Spring in my Step

Spring rolled down into the blue ridge today
blastin all our covid cares away;
she rolled in like a queen
with corona crown of royal green.



I be strollin’ now out in the sunshine
glad to leave them Febs ’n March behind
out walkin on the greenway trail
these bloomin’ good vibes cannot fail
cuz aint no covid ’strictions now gonna crimp my gait
no not today my April blues were worth the wait.
With my pocket miracle transistor radio
I be striding in sunshine and sayin' hello.

But lemme tell you ‘bout this tune that really makes me lose
them covid crimps and those wintry blues:
the wonder of wonders is that Motown sound
bustin outa deep dark Detroit as I walk around
keepin’ perfect time with my springtime stride;
Yea! now it’s time to take a ride!
down memory lane with my lifeline bride
cuz she was surely My Girl back in the day;
yet she’s my lifetime woman still today,
and though she be now in ICU as a nurse
her love strolls beside me just like at first.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCcNcHx2DpY

Glass half-Full

Get Satisfaction

In 1964, I turned 13 years old.

Like most kids in those days, I was listening to a lot of popular music on a transistor radio.
My first hearing of the Beatles happened  one night while laying sleepily in the dark, in bed.
I’ll never forget that moment. Perhaps you have had one like it.
Their sound was absolutely unique, new, and fresh. Paul and John’s two-voiced harmony rang so clearly through my juvenile brain:

Well, she was just seventeen;
You know what I mean, 
and the way she looked 
was way beyond compare. 
Now I’ll never dance with another
since I saw her standing there. . .
My heart went boom
when I crossed that room 
and held her hand in mine!

Along about that time, there were some other groups knocking out their raucous vibes over the airwaves. I remember one joker came along ranting:

I can’t get no I can’t get no I can’t get no satisfaction!
When I’m traveling ‘round the world
and I’’m trying to make some girl . . .
who tells me baby you better come back next week
cuz cant you see I’m on a losing streak.
I can’t get no I can’t get no I can’t no satisfaction!

Yeah, yeah, whatever, man.
Not my cup of tea.

Years later, I began wondering just what kind of trip the music industry was trying to put on me and my g-g-generation. Well, that’s a profound question, and it goes much deeper than just “the music industry.”
As years passed by, I had a lot of great experiences, and  of course a few bad ones.
Now it’s 2020 and I’m sitting around the house wondering where the Covid is going to take us before it plays out its invisible death scenario among us. And I have some time to reflect on the meaning of life and all that . . .

Today, while strolling in the sunshine on a park trail, social distancing,  I realized that—looking back on it all— I have discovered, thank God, what satisfaction truly is. I'm not kidding.
Forty years ago, I met the love of my life, married her; she gave birth to our three children who are now grown and living productive, happy lives.

And we have managed to get through that very long “gotta make a living” phase of life—forty years of it. Well, she’s still working . . . ICU Nurse in this time of Covid, while I have made it to that classic, gold-tinted “retirement” state of mythical bliss.
And it will not be so very long before I pass on . . . into that eternal life with the Lord who created us and guided us through these paths of fulfillment.
So I’m approaching that great, big open door that will be like nothing else this life has shown me so far.
They say . . . as one approaches that final  stage, one may become feeble, losing a few neurons along the way and finding some of those ole dependable body parts unable to do what they used to do.
And . . . and yet . . .

this person who is beside me as we approach this unfamiliar juncture . . . this person who has been with me since . . . forty years . . . this woman who has made my house a home, guided my children through better paths than I could have done alone . . . this woman who is still with me as we draw near to that last sunset, whenever it comes . . .



I have found it! The Satisfaction! . . . the meaning of life:
To have one person who does this long journey with you all the way through, and is there—so familiar and comfortable and caring— all the way to the end, when the sparks start to fall short.
That's what it's all about! Whoever thought up this plan—my hat’s off to Him!

Now I realize this personal revelation that I have described may not be your cup of tea. I get that. It takes all kinds to make a world. But I do want to leave you with this little piece of advice.
If you have one person to love—and who loves you—stay with that person. The sacrifice of loving one mate all the way through the journey is definitely worth all the .  . . whatever it takes.

Chances are,  you don’t fully appreciate the full significance of faithful love until you approach the final stages. That's when the deepest reward is realized. Today is the day I have understood this most clearly.

Glass half-Full

A Story from LSU

I grew up with LSU. My daddy went there in the late '40's; my mama did too.
Growing up in Baton Rouge was all about LSU, and so I moved across town to enter the University as a freshman in 1969. My freshman dorm room was in North Stadium, which was--you guessed it--Tiger Stadium. And I don't mean Clemson Tiger.
From a south-facing window in Death Valley, I had an excellent view of Mike the Tiger's cage. At that time, our mascot was called Mike the Third, or Mike III.

LSU always had a great football program, and it was a big deal in Baton Rouge. Back in my junior high days, my friend Johnny Lambert got me a job selling concessions at the Saturday night games in Tiger Stadium (known to our opponents as Death Valley.)
By December 1973, I had somehow managed to graduate, in spite of being a useless sometimes-PoliSci, sometimes-English major.  Very near Mike the Tiger's cage (mentioned above), the University had built a new indoor stadium for the basketball team. My graduating class was the first to walk the aisle in the Pete Maravich Center, better known as Pete's Palace.

Years went by. In 1975, I relocated to North Carolina, where I have lived ever since. Since that new beginning I have lived, married and raised three young'uns in the state where Press Maravich coached NCState basketball before he coached the Tiger basketball team, which included his son, incredible phenom  "Pistol" Pete.
For many, many years since leaving Louisiana, I have followed the Tigers. I have to say it has mostly been a frustrating experience.
Until now. Oh, there was a victorious flash-in-the-pan or two. We won a national championship in 2003, but had to share it with Southern Cal, because the AP writers couldn't make up their minds, or some such. In 2007, we had another NCAA title when we beat the Buckeyes.
Before that, the way-back-in-the-day championship was in 1958, when beat that other so-called tiger team-the one from somewhere in South Carolina--the same team that we will beat this coming Monday night.

To commemorate our immanent victory, I'll share a scene with you, from my recent novel, King of Soul, that takes place at LSU during 1969-70. This turn of events came as I was reflecting on my life, recalling those college years at LSU. The story revolves largely around what was happening to our nation during the Vietnam War.
As I mentioned above, I was an English major, which is why I spent most of my adult life banging nails, building houses in North Carolina. But I have managed to get four novels written and published out of the English major deal.

In  chapter 11 of the fourth novel, King of Soul, we find the main character, Donnie Evans conversing with Marcy Charters, while they are getting to know each other. In the scene, Donnie asks her:

           “You live in Savannah?”
         “I did. Now I’m living in Baton Rouge.”
         “Glad you’re here.”
         “Thank you. There I was, the middle of July and I still didn’t know where to go to school.”
         “Did your boyfriend want you to go to Georgia?”
         “He did.”
         “But you didn’t want to.”
         “That’s right. I wanted something different. Or. . .some place different, and it wasn’t going to be France, and there I was sitting on a park bench in Savannah, by the waterfront. . .not knowing what was going to happen but knowing that I had to do something. This is not me, you understand. I’m usually right on top of things—“
         “Sittin’ on a dock of the bay,” Donnie inserted, “watchin’ the tide roll away.”
          Marcy stopped in her tracks. They were beneath the crepe myrtles now, near the entrance to the Union building. “That’s it,” she said, eyeing him surprisedly as if to say who are you and how did you get here ? “It was just like that—like Otis sang it,” she exclaimed.
         “Otis Redding. I hear ya, babe.” Donnie snapped his fingers, started crooning the tune. . .”watchin’ the ships roll in, and I watch ‘em roll away again. . .” Yeah, Otis knew all about it; he was the King of Soul.”
         “King of Soul? I thought  James Brown was the King of Soul.” she said.
         Donnie laughed. “He might have been at one time.”
         Up the stone staircase, into the palatial student Union building, breezing through high, grand hallway, and then they turned into the cafeteria line where she got salad, he got a sandwich and of course the two coffees. Then they were out in the grand dining room, sunshine streaming in through the high glass, the buzz of multi-voiced cacophonic conversation rising into the high ceiling, contributing to the wisdom of the universe, or the serendipity of Friday afternoons with someone who just transported from a crunch time decision while sitting on a dock of the bay, in some place far, far, away. . .
          When they sat down, she sang:
      “I can’t do what ten people tell me, so I guess I’ll just stay the same.”       Then she spoke: “And the best way for me to do that was to come here.”
       “And they just let you in? Are you so special?”
       “Well, I had already been accepted, in April. But at that point, this whole LSU idea was just a kind of a lark thing.

Glass half-Full

Update: A day in the Life

I read a tweet today oh boy

  about a cocky man with a rant parade.

And though the news was really bad

  well I just had to laugh one more time.

I saw the comment thread online.

He blew our minds out with a rant:

  he hadn’t noticed that the Climate Changed.

A crowd of people seethed and stared

  they’d seen the bee ess before

Nobody was really sure if it was from the 1% core.

I saw a video oh boy

  the 1%ers have just scored some more;

A crowd of trollers  were abhorred;

  but I just stole some looks,

  having once read books.

We’d love to lead you o. . . . n.

 

I woke up, gotta outa bed,

  found a mem, inside my head,

  made my way downstairs and tweeted it,

  and twittering, knew I was a twit.

I made this up, but grabbed my phone;

I posted face,  still felt alone,

Found my way upstairs and caught a streaming;

  somebody spoke and I went into a dreaming, ohhhhhh……

   etcetera etcetera, etcetera, you've read the news

I read the web today oh boy:

  four million holes inside our atmosphere.

And though the holes were rather small,

  they had to stop them all.

  Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the global ball.

We’d love to lead you o. . . . on.

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCbZ15JpxPg   

Glass Chimera

Appalachian Spring

We are reminded that life is good when bright sunshine lifts the  slumber out of these old brown hillsides.

We know life is good when ten-month-old granddaughter contributes smiles to our quiet enjoyment.

Then she leaps with joy in her jumperoo.

Just outside the glass door, Appalachian Spring bursts forth in sunshine, warmth, and quiet celebration of a winter that is gone, gone, gone, and again I say unto thee, gone!

Gone with the snow, gone with the tragi-tales of our human's wintr'ous struggle . . . at least for a season, at least for today, at least for a few moments. . . while spring tumbles in outside . . .

And lo, what is this amazing sound on the  inside?. . .  here in the inside of our mountain home . . . Harken: Violins, clarinets! cellos, flutes, even trumpets sending out yon first tender shoots of sonorous celebration, as first strains of mountainside spring penetrate the forest floor outdoors, accompanied orchestrally by vibrant  woodwinds and reeds. They agree to ascend  in jubilant rondos, ultimately trotting toward some old Shaker praise.

Life abounds with simple gifts if you wait for them, and even more sweetly if you have worked for them.  Now we pause to appreiate their arrival as the shoots come burstin' out all over! 

Yes, Life is good when bright sunshine lifts the slumber out of these old brown hillsides.

And reflections unfold in memory of springs long ago. . . a different time, a different place. . .

Many and many a year ago I was a clueless college student way down south, down in the bayou country where the coming of spring was too soon overtaken by the fierce heat of summer.

I would escape the routinous sweating of  academic chores. Slipping into the cool music listening room at LSU Student Union, I’d request a big vinyl platter whereon was somehow wondrously tracked the sedate, celebratory strains of Aaron Copland’s masterpiece orchestral work—Appalachian Spring. At that time I listened to Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. This morning, however, the quick search lands us on:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMaAe2aH6pw   

While listening, I am remembering . . . escaping through miracle of sound-tracked vinyl, that early-'70's sweltering Southern day. I would dream, it would seem, of days ahead when I would experience Appalachian Spring, the real thing!

And now that I have seen, oh, forty-or-so of these Springs, as an inhabitant, I find myself once again sacramentally satisfied with the blooming outcome.

I was pleased when, 39-years ago, my chosen bride of Appalachia (a New Jersey transplant)  bloomed forth in her wonderful hips and delivered the beginnings of our family. 

According to that first child’s  January birthday, it must have been about this time of year—early spring—when we conceived him.

Sap’s rising, yes indeed . . . was then, is now.

'Tis true. Life is good when again you celebrate Appalachian spring's crawling-in. The season sneaks in through splashing outside sunshine. While tiny granddaughter babbles here on the floor,  we revisit our  old musical companion once more: Appalachian Spring.

King of Soul

Puff and Jackie Paper

For many, many years I have wondered about Peter Yarrow’s mention of “a land called Honah Lee,” in that silly old song he wrote about a dragon named Puff.

Just yesterday I was wondering as I wandered along the shoreline of Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.

While vacationing on the north shore of Kauai I had been feeling a little constricted by the touristy setup there. It was obstructing my sense of adventure.

So, busting out of conventionality, so stealthily did I violate the boundaries of tourist propriety by launching into an unauthorized jungle trek.

Past the condos and the pool and the shuffleboard court and the boats-for-rent and the obligatory paraphenalia of predictable recreation, I stepped stealthily into a kapu area of overgrown, untended wild Hawaiian hoohah! 

Through broadleaf wild flora damp with recent rain I did venture, stooping beneath gangly trees, tromping around some ancient black volcanic boulders and fearlessly bounding over others, I hazarded the uncharted course I had serendipitously set for myself, plodding along the secret shore, and footprinting wet brown sand, I splashed forth  through shallow wavelets along the neglected eastern edge of Hanalei Bay.  This untamed pocket of Hawaiian paradise has somehow proliferated between two resortified developments of American flimflam.

’T’was then the dragon entered my mind:

"Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea,

and frolicked in the autumn mists of a land called Honah Lee."

Here was I, perchance, sauntering adventurously through the last wild boundary of Hanalei Bay, maybe a little like the legendary Puff in that old classic Peter, Paul and Mary song:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z15pxWUXvLY

Within the deep recesses of Baby Boomer recall, Puff the Magic Dragon still yet  blows through, across an ocean of imagination. Can you hear the tale?

"Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff

and brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail;

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff's gigantic tail."

Once upon a time, when there was as yet no jet-plane, no cruise-boat, no trans-Pacific ocean liner. . . long, long ago while approaching an island far, far away, during an age in which the only transport to these remote islands of Hawaii was by sailing ship. . .

"Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff,

and brought him (from highly developed, civilized countries far, far away) "strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff."

Do kids these days even know about strings and sealing wax? This is ancient legend stuff. I mean, who uses strings and ceiling wax these days? Who folds an envelope and closes it and then affixes the back flap with a buttoned string and a blob of richly-colored wax impressed with a regal insignia?

Nobody I know of. You?

These were communicative implements of a by-gone age, when persons of certain authority or rank used strings and ceiling wax to assure a remote recipient that the letter or parcel being hand-delivered had originated with the accredited sender.

Such strings and sealing wax were used in centuries long gone, when mighty sailing ships voyaged halfway around the globe from London or Lisbon or Boston or some such port of great commerce.

Those majestic ocean-going vessels would arrive with pomp and fanfare at many  an exotic destination along the way, where fabled creatures inhabited magical shores, places where a fast-industrializing world had only recently managed to  impose  its rigid demands of productivity, efficiency and conformity on clueless, unsuspecting noble savages such as Hawaiians were when all this commercializing globalization had only just begun. 

Puff the Dragon was the quintessential  wild uncivilized creature of old; he held sway over that formerly vast, untamed region where primeval legends prevailed, as yet unspoiled by modern mediocrity, a time and place where magic and myth, not capitalizing pragmatism, still reigned supreme.

So, in the 1950’s-60’s televised commercialized USA where young Baby Boomer imaginations ran wild with the likes of Mickey and Minnie and Davy Crockett and the Jetsons and the Flintstones . . .

Little Jackie Paper, the nascent civilized child, found Puff among his privileged playthings. And letting his imagination run wild, he frolicked with Puff in the autumn mists of a land called Honah Lee.

For a few years, he made play of Puff— until young Jackie decided to move on to bigger and better pursuits . . . baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet, Elvis and the Beatles, Mustangs and Volkswagens,  Lost in Space and lost in purple haze,  caught up in fantasy and privileged college days, gathered up in protests and rockfests and counterculture forays, and eventually outgrowing even all that stuff and finally picking up the better “toys” of governments and companies and  corporations . . .

"A dragon lives forever; not so little boys.

painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys.

One grey night it happened; Jackie Paper came no more,

and Puff that magic dragon ceased his fearless roar."

Surely we now understand this about Peter Yarrow’s classic song of forsaken childhood innocence: In the end, Puff ceased his roar because . . .

Jackie ceased his playing. The roaring voice that had bellowed was not Puff's at all; it was young Jackie's intonation of Puff’s imagined roar.

Remembering this old tune while trudging along Hanalei bay. . . dredges up old memories.  My feeling is that the quaint longevity of this simple song slips up from beneath the surface of a sea deeper  than mere child's play.

It is a longing for the past; it is a vague recollection from our collective vault of  wishes and dreams; it is a pining away for a former age of mankind, a time when the people who were in charge of things were benevolent and empathetic, a Camelot time before the brouhaha of democracy, a Shangri-La time before the anarchy of revolutions, before the abuses of communism. . . a simpler, Arcadia time before everything got so complicated and leaders were not so self-infatuated, a time when . . .

"Noble kings and princes would bow whenever they came;

pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name."

 

  King of Soul

Boomers' Choice (reprise)

Is this world screwed up or what?

Tell me about it.

Nevertheless, there may be reason enough to find happiness,

contentment fulfillment and all that stuff

in the silver lining that highlights those dark clouds.

We baby boomers do have a choice, you know,

about whether to cry in our beer

or find cause enough to rejoice while

we’re here on planet earth.

Have a listen:

Boomers’ Choice:

Well, the boys came marching home from Germany and France

and the bomb had made a blast in in Hiroshima.

We were driving brand new cars; we were waving

stars and bars

and everywhere was another factory.

Back in 1953,

cruising with Dwight E.,

Elvis sang the whiteboy blues,

McCarthy looking under every bush.

In the home of the brave and the free

rolling on prosperity

and all the kids were going off to school.

 

Ten years down the road

another dream had come and gone

and the power of one gun had made itself known.

Back in 1964

big Lyndon opened the door

for civil rights and a bloody Asian war—

young men on porkchop hill

young women on the pill.

At home they said don’t kill;

get a psychedelic thrill.

But the dreams of a woodstock nation

were just an imagination

when the boys came trudging home in ’73.

 

So it’s hey hey ho is there anybody home

and its hie hie hey, seeking light in the night of day:

the dreams of a woodstock nation

were just an imagination

when the boys came trudging home in ’73.

 

Well, it just don’t pay to sob;

guess I’ll get myself a job

selling leisure suits, maybe real estate.

I’m not moving very fast,

just waiting in line for gas

and Johnny Carson gives me all my news.

Back in 1976,

overcoming dirty tricks,

some were moving back to the sticks;

some were looking for a fix.

Ayatollahs on the rise

sulfur dioxide in the skies

and the system makes the man that’s got his own.

 

They say an elephant won’t forget;

let’s play another set.

There’s always another ghost on pac-man’s tail.

Don’t let this boom go stale.

Let’s find an airline for sale

or pop another tape in the VCR.

Back in 1989,

we’re living on borrowed time

getting lost in subtle sin

eating oat bran at the gym.

But there’s an empty place inside

and I was wondering why

these vanities don’t suit.

I’m going back to the gospel truth.

 

And it’s hey hey ho is there anybody home

and it’s hie hie hey, seeking light in the night of day;

There’s an empty place inside and I was wondering why.

These vanities don’t suit;

I’m going back to the gospel truth.

 

Put on your Sarejevo, Mogadishu, Kalishnikov and Columbine shoes,

for the way is treacherous with ruts and rocks.

Yeah, we figured out digits out

before that Y2K could spoil our rout,

but that 9/11 call was in the cards.

Did you consider the question of heaven

before the wreck of ’07?

Will you hear the trumpet call

from the Ancient of Days.

Our way is littered with freaks and fads

from Baghdad through our mouse pads

as the reaper swings his steely scythe

across our wicked ways.

And it’s hey hey ho is there anybody home?

And it’s hie hie hey, seeking light of day.

It’s a dangerous place outside

and I was wondering why.

This world don’t give a hoot;

I’m going back to the gospel truth.

 

  King of Soul

On the Rails of Old Memory

Memories linger mysteriously in our minds, sometimes like precious old photographs, sometimes like skeletons in the closet; they can hang around being stubbornly unpleasant and fearful, or they can shine happy and hopeful like a walk in the park in springtime.

I suppose most memories are intimately personal, but not all of them.

I feel we have collective memories, especially in this modern atmosphere of media saturation, where public events pry deeply into our private imaginations.

My g-generation, the baby boomers—we were the first to grow up with this thing called TV. Now our kids are the first to grow up with this thing called the worldwide web. These media—TV, Internet, radio, cellphones etc. fortify and intensify our memories, especially the collective ones.

Most of us American boomers remember, for instance, where we were and what we were doing on the day that President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

And we and our children remember, most of us, where we were and what we were doing on that fateful day in 2001—9/11 when the twin towers came down.

These collective memories are potent; they latch on to us; and while they do recede into dark tunnels they can be easily brought to the surface at the mention of those circumstances.

And we have, of course, powerful  personal memories from our own youth. Most vivid perhaps, are those that surround a first love or romance. These vague vestiges of the past are capitalized upon by our songwriters and movie-makers. Here’s an excellent example of a very special song about the mysterious aspect of memories.  It was popular when I was a teenager, Dusty Springfield’s Windmills of Your Mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKV9bK-CBXo

But there is another kind of collective memory that goes back even further than modern pop-music or movies. It is tucked away in the crevices of history itself. And I find that certain settings or objects can serve as talismans through which human memories are passed from generation to generation and possibly from age to age, even from century to century.

You’ve heard of deja vu, haven’t you? That’s the feeling you can suddenly experience sometimes in a situation that you could not have been in because it took place before you were born.

This deja vu, which is French for “already seen”  is a feeling I get whenever I’m near or in an old train.

So yesterday I was uncovering some serious deja vu when I toured the North Carolina Transportation Museum which is located at an old, obsolete railroad service yard in Spencer, NC, near Salisbury.

http://www.nctrans.org/

There is, for me, something very special about these old trains . . . something that stirs intensely in my soul pertaining to days long ago, in past centuries, when these steaming iron beasts roared across the vast landscapes of that hastily-industrializing age. The feeling that I get has something to do with retrieving past memories that I myself could never have experienced, almost as if the locomotives themselves were mnemonic repositories of 19th-century passengers who embarked to ride in those ancient passenger cars.

In the 2014 novel I wrote, Smoke, I attempted to capture this feeling in the story I was composing at that time. The collective memory, mentioned at the end of the scene described below, is implanted in Philip's mind when he grabs a brass handrail on a French train passenger car. The scene takes place in 1937, in Paris.  It depicts the beginning of a journey being taken by a young American and an old Frenchman who are about to travel from Paris to Lille, in northern France:

Half a morning later they were boarding the northbound train. By that time, whatever it was that had brought together this aged Frenchman and  his young, attentive American charge had been uncorked to its full expression.  The old fellow was intermittently pouring out his life’s vintage in a slow trickle of memory;  its balmy flow had begun to endow their embarkation with a kind of therapeutic anointing, the beneficiary of which was neither the young man nor the old, but that Man of the ages whose fermented wisdom percolated through deepened souls of both men.

Now they were walking beside the train, small luggage in hand. Pausing in mid-stride, Mel managed to recap, in the midst of crowd and bustle, a simple advisement that he had begun last night and had already landed upon this morning. “Half the battle in this life, I think, is deciding what to keep and what to let go. You have got to know when to hold them.”      

They arrived at the railcar to which they had been billeted. Philip appropriated Mel’s briefcase, collecting it with his own, both in his left hand. Placing his right gently hand on Mel’s lower back for support, he waited patiently as the old fellow carefully climbed  onto the steps to ascend into their coach. As Mel’s bony, spotted hand grasped a vertical brass handrail inside the little stair, it seemed to Philip that the ghosts of ten thousand French souls were lingering there. The rail’s brass patina had been worn to a dullish sheen as ten thousand reaching hands had, in the beginnings of their ten thousand journeys on this train, taken hold of it.

I felt like I, or somebody, had grabbed this rail before. The worn brass summons up a kind of  old, collective memory from days gone by.

I guess you'd have to be there . . . Maybe I was, in a sense, there, yesterday when I visited the Railroad museum.

Smoke

Peering through windows

Whether through windows of time

or a window of glass

we peer through,

maybe through the windowed pane

eyes of the artist who is

long gone yet

lives on

displaying legacy image for us

to view

through our window of time

into his memory of love

through her yielding to the pangs

of love

the pain of love

Yeah, windows golden with memory

they are

moments of love so

dear to him and her and now

to us

golden memories they are

images of what carried them forward

into future or carry us

backward into reflection

backward into history

where precious intricacies of the human mind and hand were

crafted for us or 

assembled for us

to see,

to view

through a glass darkly

through barriers of time

or glass

or gates of iron or the

gates

of Vienna

when the invaders had been turned away

and later where

the artist lived and breathed and

loved

and left a gift, their moment of prescious love

which came to be their

golden moment,  and later his gilded

memorial of love for us to

peer into,

before the gates could close again.

 

Smoke

Your mother would know

Well goll-ee.

Let's all get up and wave to a tune that was a hit soon after your mother was born;

though she was born a long long time ago,

your mother would know;

your mother would know.

And your grandmother

and your father and your grandfather.

Uncle Albert would know it too-- Uncle Albert Schram, who conducted the orchestra last night.

You see him here in the background of this alternative-fact unauthorized photo.

In fact, Albert knows those old Beatles tunes so very thoroughly. He conducted the Charlotte Pops through an incredibly rousing symphonic accompaniment last night. I could hardly believe it.

Take the infamous John Lennon composition Day in the Life piece, for instance. It's on Sergeant Pepper's.

When I first heard that strange finale in 1967, my sixteen-year-old mind didn't know what to make of it.

Whatever it meant or did not mean (we were all wondering), it signaled that the Beatles had turned a huge corner in their musical development, from pop-music fab-four phenom to . . . ???

". . . found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Somebody spoke and I went into a dream, Ohhhh, oh oh ohhhh. . ."

Now in 2017, it means. . .hell, I don't know what it means.

That such a cacophonic cadence as that Day in the Life finale could actually be orchestrally performed was amazing to me last night. All these years, I thought it was just Brian Epstein's or George Martin's studio tricks.

Tony Kishman, the musician who fulfills the Paul McCartney role, pointed out that John, Paul, George and Ringo had never done this with a live symphony back in the day when they were in their heyday. Pretty interesting, I thought. Now their aged Sgt. Pepper's studio wizardry has morphed into this phenomenal "tribute" event performed by an incredibly talented Beatles-tribute band. And however many hundreds or thousands of us geezers were enthusiastically waving our lit-up phones while singing.

"Naa naa naa, na na na naa, na na na nah, Hey Jude!"

"Take a sad song and make it better. . ."

Take an old song, and make it rock again . . . is what these guys do, the Classical Mystery Tour (they call themselves) along with our jubilant audience-participle thronging of us when-I-get-older-losing-my-hair baby boomers. I mean it was, like, so far out man.

Just how many 64-year-olds there were waving their devices and singing Hey Jude in that theatre last night, I do not know. But I can tell you this. A rocking good time was had by all, including the band. Just some good clean fun, y'all.

Tony also said something to us that, as he so poignantly pointed out, Paul had never said to a Beatles audience. "Visit our website."

Haha! Ain't it the truth. Who'd have thunk it, that all this stuff would happen since those halcyon smoky days of yore.

http://www.classicalmysterytour.com/

But hey, life goes on. Times change, and most of us get a little stuck in our minds back in that time of unsure discovery when we passed through teendom while wearing bell-bottoms, wondering who Lucy in the Sky was. And if you're have trouble remembering the '60's, it's probably because. . .

Never mind. Beneath the surface, something very special was always going on.

Underneath it all, such a time as that had never happened before, nor would ever again.

But this is true even now; its part of the mystery tour of this life. Our kids will never view it, nor comprehend it, the same way we did. Nor could we see it the way our parents did.

Our parents had grown up in the 1930's with Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, Louie Armstrong and George Gershwin, and that was all well and good and they did their thing.

That greatest generation--who then grew up to fight the Nazis back into their holes back in the 1940's--that generation came back from the Big War, started generating us boomers like there's no tomorrow. And at some point in the '60's, there was indeed some serious question about whether there would BE a tomorrow, because Khruschev and Kennedy almost blew the whole damn world up over those alternative-fact nukes down in Cuba.

When we boomers came along, the old War--the one they call WWII--was so intense, and still fresh in our parents' memory and experience. But it was just history-book stuff for us. As John had sung:

"I read the news today, oh boy, the English army had just won the war.

A crowd of people turned away, but I just had to look,

having read the book."

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read a newspaper, or a book, or hazard a listen.



Smoke

Tan Son Nhut 1970

When Johnny came marching home again it was in 1971, although really, there was no parade.

He wasn't actually marching, anyway, but rather flying commercial out of Vietnam on a PanAm from Cam Ranh Bay. The jet featured American stewardesses, and this was a very favorable detail that our exiting guys did not fail to notice as they soared off to Pacific destinations and ultimately all the way back over here to the good ole USA. It was a long flight from the war, and a long time to have to watch stewardesses traipsing up and down the carpeted aisles, serving food and drink; but our guys managed to get through it.

My old friend Johnny's departing flight from Vietnam was a reversal of his arrival there, a year earlier, on a commercial US aircraft.

But here's a curious fact that he confided to me. The "scaredest" he ever got while in Vietnam was on that first day, during the jet's approach into Cam Ranh, because the descending plane was drawing enemy fire!

Welcome to Vietnam! Haha!

Last week, during the first days of October 2016, my old neighborhood friend Johnny told me about his one year tour in Vietnam. He lives in Louisiana, where we both started life; now I live in North Carolina. We brought our wives and had a Florida panhandle reunion at the beach.

We were chums in high school, but after our graduation in 1969 he went his way and I went mine. I went to college; he went to Vietnam.

I was protesting the war; he was over there in the middle of it.

Before last week, I had not seen Johnny since about 1975.

Now I'm writing a novel about that period of time, and about some of the differences--and reconciliation-- between those two diverging groups--"them that went" and "them that didn't."

As it turned out, Johnny's year of duty at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, just north of Saigon, was, he admits, easier than the brutal combat some of our guys had to endure out in the jungles while they were on patrol being relentlessly pursued by the silently stalking Viet Cong.

During our time of defending the former Republic of Vietnam, tons and tons of weaponry, machinery, and supplies had to be delivered into the country to supply our people there. Tan Son Nhut was a busy location for transport and communications, and we needed a lot of guys on the ground to keep systems oiled, protected and combat-ready. My friend Johnny was one of those men.

During high school, Johnny had acquired some work experience in appliances and refrigeration. After our high school graduation he was not inclined, as I was, toward college. He worked for a while. Then he saw, you might say, "the handwriting on the wall" about how career choices were shaping up in 1969-70. So he volunteered for the Army. After boot camp at Fort Polk (Louisiana) and some duty-specific training at Fort Belvoir (Virginia), he shipped out, which is to say, he was put on a flight path that landed him at the Cam Ranh Air Base where they almost got shot down before setting foot in the infamous theater of Vietnam.

When my friend arrived at his post on the perimeter of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, he spent a year on guard duty, keeping watch over the rice paddies and distant jungles beyond the fence, and reporting whenever mortar fire or any other unfriendly thing was approaching the air base.

Inside the base, there were moments when our guys could take a little time off. Here's a pic that Johnny snapped; it depicts a recreational session of high-stakes card-sharking, with maybe a little bluffing and probably some bravado bullcrap thrown in to keep the game interesting.

Here's a pic of Johnny, taken when he had only been in Vietnam a few days.

Last week, after Johnny showed me a few hundred photos that had been stored away at his home, I thanked him for taking the time to meet me in Florida so we could talk about Vietnam.

Because I can't write a book about what was happ'nin' in the USA in 1969 without talking about Vietnam. I also thanked my friend for his service to our nation.

And I thanked God that he survived it. There were 58,000 of "them that went" who did not.

If you were a college kid like me in the 1960's-'70's, you will find it well worth your time to visit a few of the men and women who did not do college at that time, but who served--by choice or by draft--in the military. Right or wrong, won or lost, however you call it, they did what our country called them to do.

We may need many more like them before it's all over with.



King of Soul

Woke up with the Angels

Our first twelve hours in Los Angeles has already included a trip down memory lane.

It's not that I ever spent much time here; I only breezed through back in the early '70s. But rather, this immediate reminiscence is triggered by a deeply insistent behind-the-scenes presence of this fabled city in my g-generation's memory.

Not personal memory. Collective memory. LA was all over our baby boomer adolescence and young adult misadventures: Hollywood is here, with all its celluloid-manufactured dreams, along with the Dodgers, the surfers, the cop shows on network TV, even the Beverly Hillbillies.

I suppose I'm a 2016 hillbilly, blowing in last nigh from my back-east Blue Ridge mountain home. But I'm here to tell ya this megalopolis has made such an immense impact on my 64-year consciousness, I hardly know how to mention all the influences.

Our son and his bride-to-be fetched us at LAX last night, about eight o'clock. After the tension of negotiating our airport pickup--"negotiating" with all the other hundred passing vehicles and passengers at the curb of the A terminal, and "negotiating" with an irate neon-vested traffic controller about our hazardous rendezvous tactics in the midst of their managed confusion--after that little eye-of-the-needle thing, next thing I know we're out on the freeway at night in a river of whizzing lights and gleaming glass, metal and speed.

On one heightened stretch of this highly energized raceway I caught a glimpse in the distance of this glistening mega-city into which we were fast propelling. Then out of nowhere a phrase from some old song was jangly in my head:

"but I couldn't let go of L A, city of the fallen angels"

Not literally true of course. There are plenty of good people here, millions of them. But that phrase is a cleverly cynical play on the name itself: Los Angeles, Spanish for "The angels."

I knew the phrase was from an old Joni Mitchell song; I could hear the line sung in my head, but didn't remember which song.

This morning when we woke up, this was the AirBnB view from our window:

After a couple of cups of coffee, and a time-warp discovery in our apartment of an ancient artifact:

This must be what an MP33rpm looks like.

With that old turntable spinning snippets of misspent youth around in my brain, I decided to take a chance on writing this blog, as a vehicle for summoning up whatever memories are zinging around in my mind just now, while sipping coffee in eL A in the morning. Look at this old phonograph; grok its significance in the history of communication technology; cherish its unique position in the collective consciousness stream of my g-generation. You can perhaps imagine within its groovy vinyl-etched peaks and canyons, the adventurous wanderings of our g-generation as we sought far and wide for something we know not what nor where we might find it. Through those pathways of memory you may recall earlier mention, back in the first paragraph, of: reminiscence . . . triggered by a deeply insistent behind-the-scenes presence of this fabled city in my g-generation's memory.

Joni Mitchell, back in the day, wrote a beautiful, piano-based song, Court and Spark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHEDdecvLpU&nohtml5=False

Her crooning imagery, describing in this song some encountered street-singing man, captures well the wandering spirit of those times--the obsession with freedom in all things--love, travels, thoughts, romantic interludes that did or did not happen.

And it was in that song, Court and Spark, that the jangly phrase ". . . couldn't let go of L A, city of the fallen angels" is found, in the very last line.

The flights of flirtatious fancy therein are a prospect that a man or woman could spend a lifetime pursuing.

But I do believe that, while the prospect of such a life of romantic rendezvous seems quite attractive and very compelling, the actual living of it, long term, is probably very problematical, perhaps traumatic, maybe even tragic. Tragic romanticism--I knew it well. For a while. And I associate it with the stuff of our dreams, my g-generation's dreams that floated from Hollywood and eL A and the city by the bay and all that groovy stuff.

I imagine the lovely genius woman who composed that musical phrase about the city of the fallen angels; she must have lived a life in adventurous pursuit of such exciting moments and passionate encounters, one after another for a whole lifetime.

Me, I did not. I settled down, got a hold of the Christian faith, became a one-woman man. After 36 years of shared adventure, including the present one of visiting Micah and Kyong-Jin in this great city of Los Angeles, Pat and I sit here contentedly this morning with our coffee and our leftovers from last night's Korean feast for breakfast. And nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina California in the morning.

What a great ride!



Glass half-Full

One fine sparkl'n morn

I suggest listening to this tune from Jay Ungar while reading my poem below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaCazf36D3k

This sparkl'n morn
my mind got shorn
of modern stuff when
snowy fluff
flew in my head
instead:
I know I know
what memories these are I think I know
Pull out me ole buckboard wagon
while routine tasks be laggin'
n sun-bright winter morn
of crisp cold sparkles leapin'
beneath them high-steppin' hooves
it sho' behooves
me here somehow in long gone valleys' Appalachian
long lost memories a-hatchin'
buckboard dreams n
bak'n beans o'er the fire
n some long gone shire
I know I know
what flashes these be I think I see
me n thee trav'lin time and time agin
don' know how don' know when
but I know this I somehow know
Pull out me ole fiddle n
fiddle awhile sling out me ole singsong
n singalong tagalong we go
behind horse drawn in the snow
then sway'n 'cross the kitchen flo'
while the ole fiddles wail
n horse's whishin' tail
where it come from I don' know
yet I do know I know
I think I hear I hear it in the wind
same ole tune from long ago
maybe waltz
from mem'ries toss'd
them gran'pas have send
or gran'mas somehow do lend
to tune our imaginary ears
n sway away our twenty-first fears
how it was in that day n time
front porch boards whistlin' in
winter wind while kickin'
snowy shoes at the door
before all this other stuff
come along I see
me an thee
when pony heals kick up fluff
cold n white n spark'n fine
n snowy valleys froze in time
in someone's mind
I know it mine.
It sho' do shine.

Glass half-Full

Behind it all . . .

Each one of us is born into this world as an impressionable infant.

We are, each one of us waiting like a blank slate, to be written upon, each one crying to be filled with identity, each yearning to become a unique personality.

Who you and I become is shaped, in the early home environment, by parents, by families, genetics and, should you choose to believe it . . .God. Those influences combine as the nature and the nurture that make us who we are.

Beyond that immediate nurture, the wide world itself also forms who you and I become. We are formed by our inherited religion (or the absence of it), by our culture, nationality, institutions, the times we live in.

Now you and I are different from each other, but If you were, let's say, a kid who was raised, like me, in USA of the 1950s-60s, we would share some cultural influences that contribute not only to our personal memories (and hence influences), but also to our collective baby-boomer memories, such as:

Walter Cronkite, Chevy and Ford, Elvis, what happened in Dallas on November 22 1963, Civil Rights, Beatles, hippies, Dr. King, Vietnam, Coca-Cola, man on the moon. . .M&Ms . . . the Macy's Parade.

All of this blogstream started this morning when I had a Boomer moment in San Francisco.

Pat and I were enjoying a sidewalk brunch in the heart of that city when I looked up above a passing streetcar and noticed:

What seemed to me odd about this sight was the obscurity of the "Macy's" logo, which had been painted long ago on the top edge of their once-impressive brick n' mortar edifice.

For a kid who grew up watching the Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving Day, Macy's was, certainly, not some faded logo in the background, but rather an authentically commercial presence looming large in the foreground. Macy's was, on Thanksgiving morn, a grandly exotic parade with, among other larger-than-life characters: Snoopy swaying in the breeze, Cat in the Hat standing tall, or Popeye with his ego inflated.

And this morning I thought . . . you know what, Macy's was behind it all, at the root of our Great American Mercantile venture. Before Neiman-Marcus, before Nordstrom, before K-Mart and Walmart, there was . . . Macy's.

Before all this commercialism we see around us, before the wide, wide suburban boulevards stacked with (boring) big box stores, before retail chains that look the same from city to city, before Walgreens and CVS, before Mcdonald's and Shoney's, there was Macy's.

Before the present web of mega-retailers, before the clinking links that have us chained to consumer acquisitions, before all the noise and haste of this present corporate-driven culture, there was . . .

the family business that managed to, by hard work, perseverance, quality assurance and smart business, hit the big time!

And this morning on Powell Street in San Francisco I thought . . . can such a thing still happen?

I hope so. I hope authentic Main Street capitalism is still alive and well, capable of revitalizing our great American enterprise, not decomposing beneath a Walmart parking lot.

Glass half-Full

Garrisoning the best of Americana

Garrison Keillor's unique retrospective is really about what America was; but somehow, it doesn't end there. His profound entertainment does not get hung up in the past. It always seems to cultivate, in the back of our minds, an appreciation of Americana that is timeless, enduring.

You see, there is something deeply therapeutic about elaborating on a precious national heritage that we share together. And I declare that there is nothing morose or counterproductive about looking back, even though Mr. Keillor's Brand-New Retrospective road show is tinged with a note of vintage melancholy.

Last Tuesday night here in Boone, North Carolina, he demonstrated to us that it is healthy, and helpful, to find inspiration for the future in recollecting the best of what has gone before-- remembering the way things used to be when we were young and foolish. Back in the day.

Nothing wrong with identifying what it was that characterized our baby-boom g-generation, then celebrating it with an evening of poetry, prose and singalong, orchestrated by the bard of the Prairie Home. At one point, Garrison started singing:

"Oh, she was just seventeen, you know what I mean."

And the way she looked was way beyond compare. . ."

We boomers in the arena instinctively joined along. He knew we would, because, together, we remember. . . I clearly remember the first time I heard those lines sung, laying in bed one night listening to my transistor radio, probably about 1963 or so. The Beatles sailed into our young collective consciousness, via the airwaves, during that rarified time of our youth.

My g-generation remembers that moment of the Fab Four's arrival from England, shaking their hairy heads on Ed Sullivan and all that, My generation-- who grew up under the strong leadership of Ike and the dubious example of Elvis--my g-generation, mourning JFK and Dallas, and believing in Walter Cronkite and Annette Funicello. All these personality vectors framed our shared experience as the first-ever TV generation.

Oh what a time it was! Never be another like it.

But the first singalong we did with Mr. Keillor on Tuesday night was not that Beatles' tune; it was an anthem much more sacred than anything the irreverent Liverpudlians would ever compose. All of us gray heads remembered, from school, the refrain:

"America, America, God shed his grace on thee.

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea."

Then the bard of the Prairie Home crooned us into Home on the Range. The words just come back, you know, like riding a bicycle. Most every boomer remembers the tune, accompanied by memories of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Howdy Doody, Dan'l Boone, Woody in Toy Story. Say what? Woody?

Anyway, after those two national hymns, somewhere in there was when Garrison evoked the Beatles contribution to our collective Boomer memory:

"Well, my heart went boom, when I crossed that room,

and I held her hand in mine. . ."

This is what it's all about! But hey, it seems this kind of thing doesn't happen any more.

A decade or so before the Beatles, when Garrison Keillor was about the age that I was when I first heard Lennon-McCartney, there was Buddy Holly. He was a little before my time. But Buddy was not before Garrison Keillor's time; Buddy was right square in the middle of Garrison Keillor's sensitive prairie-home experience, which had been birthed about nine years before mine had popped out down in Louisiana, but on the same River, the Mississippi.

At his retrospective concert last Tuesday night, Garrison mentioned Buddy as he spun his web of preciously memorable treasures. I had a feeling he might mention Buddy Holly, because I knew the importance of the deceased singer's legacy in Mr. Keillor's mind.

I knew, because many years ago, it was Garrison Keillor's tenderly shared recollection of Buddy's small-plane-crash death that first drew my attention to the rare, provocative experience of listening, on Saturday nights, to a Prairie Home Companion radio show. 'T'was then I heard the Minnesota bard's poignant, homespun yarns about Lake Wobegone, which is a quintessential small-town somewhere out there in the mythical, archetypical, Prairie Home that we all seem to remember, even if we didn't grow up in Minnesota.

There is so much I could say about our tender evening with Garrison Keillor, but I will not dwell on it, because you are, after all, reading this online, with the attendant post-Boomer short attention span and so forth. You would. . .ah. . .you'd have to be there. But I will say this: just to hear Rich Dworsky's piano playin' was better than nirvana.

And know this: America's resilient character lives on and on, despite what soulless fanatics may do to maim and kill innocent bystanders in Boston, or in Texas or in Oklahoma or New York, or in any other place in these United States.

Garrison Keillor's shared music and monologue continues to reinforce preservation of our precious Americana cultural legacy in every venue he addresses. He is a man garrisoning the best of what America has been, is, and will be.

Boomer's Choice

In Atlanta, cool fizzies and fuzzy worries

A surprise emotion bubbled up inside of me yesterday at the World of Coke: Joy.

There I was, sitting in the crowded theatre in Atlanta. There, at the epicenter of Coca-Cola's worldwide advertising mastery, whilst I least expected it, the tears rolled. Their fuzzy video trip down memory lane worked its fizzy wonders on me.

But then again anything done in excellence has always moved me to tears.

All the cool retro images of droplet-laden green bottles being lifted to luscious lips on smiling faces had softened my jaded mind. That's how it started. Then somewhere in all the carbonated imagery flow, angel choirs of diverse singers appear, gathered on a mountaintop somewhere in our hopeful world. Their universal brother-sisterhood effervesces as a song: I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. That's when I felt the little drop of Coke rolling down my cheek.

I mean, this whole thing surprised me from the start. I went into it with a curiosity about the history of Coca-Cola, which had started here in Atlanta back in 1865. Dr. John Pemberton had concocted the magic formula back in the day, in his drug store that had existed just a few blocks from where we now stood with this myriad of happy Coke imbibers.

Moving steadily through long (though quite speedy) lines of happy consumers, we had entered the huge pavilion. Disneyesque, it was. And large. Big space, bright, colorful, lots of people, children, and fluidic middle-class abundance at sixteen bucks a pop, maybe less for the kids, I don't know. Ours our grown. Katie was with us.

The cool fuzzies exuberance had gotten to me by the time I had gone through the four or five movies adventures inside. All about the fizzy drink, of course. The last phase of your World of Coke experience comes in the samples corral, where those hundreds of excitable drinkers, me among them, get rounded up for some sweet diversities of tasting. The folks are all spiriting around like bubbles, drawing samples into little clear plastic cups, through a multitude of soda fountains with all cokish drinks of the world.

That's when it got to me. These people are having a great time! Its beautiful! Peace and love, man. And hey--it's Coke, not cocaine. American as mom's McD apple turnover and Chevy Volt. Let us teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

And it burst my bubble of environmental worry that had built up a few days ago while listening to a radio show on recycling. The law of unintended consequences is universally at work here, and throughout the world, wherever you see soft-drink bottles laying in the gutter or on some neglected hillside or roadway, not to mention all the unseen containers in landfills. PET plastic, polyethylene terephthalate, everywhere you go in the world, after I have enjoyed the pause that so refreshes.

It didn't used to be that way.

I mean, when I was a kid-- like, about the age of most of those young'uns we saw at the World of Coke yesterday-- we'd pay bottle deposts at the store when we bought the Cokes. After slurping the drinks down, we'd get the deposits back when we returned the bottles.

Whatever happened to that? One of my best memories was thinking that those much-loved little green glass bottles were being washed and refilled in a Coke plant somewhere, for other smiling drinkers to enjoy.

Glass half-Full