"Shit Happens" & "Whatever" decades

I was in the Uptown area, going to the hardware store, and had been listening to a program on President Reagan's advice not to be concerned about being out of work. Just take whatever money you have and go into business, the great American way ... free enterprise, the American dream of working for yourself. The week before he and the Congress had succeeded in doing away with some anti-capitalist legislation enacted in the thirties, to enable business to succeed better it was assumed.

As I parked I saw an old, beat up pickup truck with a bumpersticker which read "Shit Happens" (the first of many sightings over the years), and it brought up the political situation real quick. I greeted the father and daughters who ran the hardware store and they quickly gave me the news. Seems their lease was not being renewed, they were soon to be out of business, and a boutique would soon take their place. Their years of experience and huge knowledge was pushed aside for the shit happens decade. The boutique didn't last of course, nor did the trendy furniture store which replaced it. Now that whole end of the building is gone, and another series of businesses are on the horizon.

"Whatever." a close relative to "Shit Happens" is now the reining word, and is undoubtedly on bumpers as well. I think of the word when Bill Clinton comes up, but the "Gitmo" ethos of Bush and Cheney bring the shit happens ethic back with a vengence now and again. Obama is embroiled in an Orwellian word of war and peace and high finance & unemployment, duking it out with generals and the Pentagon, the Tea Party, Wall Street and the banks. What his primary bumper sticker will be is anyone's guess, whatever.

Mrs. B

I met Mrs. B. in the neighborhood, at my Father's automotive garage. She was a person with authority, which I was later to find out about, both in and out of class. It took me a few years to catch up with her at the local high school, both in physiology class and around the school grounds and buildings. She was highly respected, tough but fair and intensly human. The most unusual thing she did was to invite athletes to offer her the opportunity to wear their letterman's sweater on Thursdays, the usual (but not for teachers, of course) practice between boys and girls. And, she taught an elective course for senior boys called "Boys Foods," which ultimately I was priviledged to take part in. Also, boys would offer to wash her black, classic car, a Lincoln as I recall; & I did that one time.

The most ibiding memory was the day in class when she lectured on germs, and then had us look through a microscope at flies and maggots. It was the big eye opener of the decade in a sense, a memory now that comes back to haunt me, expecially when I am at an outside (farm) dinner and there are flies crawling all over the food. She did things like dissolve metal in Coca Cola as well, with the accompanying talk about the hazards of soft drinks, sugar. She was no evangelist, no prude, but there were some health issues which she delivered on with no mercy. I can see her as clear as day walking down the hall with an enormous letterman's sweater on, way big, her hands doing their best to push out of the cuffs. I hope that students now and in the future will have at least one Mrs. B in their lives.

Haus Mann

By the time you get through a work day it is well nigh impossible to write in the BLOG, the combination of farm work and house tasks remind me of the dilemmas described by feminists decades ago. Haus Mann is a name heard on the media some time ago, perhaps described by Werner Herzog (of a character he was to have filmed, I don't know)? This mythical man was born filling new post feminist shoes, taking on tasks at home and abroad because the woman had shifted to the public sector, and he was left with her other pair of shoes. Am I making this up, did I really hear this, or could it be a comic strip, attributed to German culture?

An older haus mann, such as myself, has still another dilemma. He has to "pick up the pieces" because he is no longer employable, can only fill in as he can, and if he doesn't do the minimum required might find himself in a retirement home (?).
For me the paradoxes are compounded because I have farm chores outside to contribute, and must followup with teenage and other help to make sure things get done. Not only that, but because my partner, Joni, is working and studying off the place so much, I must still act as if I am managing most of it, anticipating problems, fixing and cleaning, a lot of it. And why not?

A couple of decades back I visited my old neighborhood in California, stood in a local gas station watching one of my former class mates working in the office, Alan R. Meanwhile an old, big Detroit station wagon rolled in with two women, half a dozen children and another classmate, Jimmy R. My interest went up and I identified myself and asked about his life. While he pumped the gas he described living with the two sisters, having children with both of them and taking care of the house, car and yard. He saw no reason to imagine things would change much. He was a version of haus mann in a prefeminist time, and I suspect that the aggregation still exists, although perhaps feminized some, and some of the children would have undoubtedly departed by now. Jimmy may have worked his way into a retirement complex by now, and perhaps he has managed to shift his job description to that facility. I wish him all the best, as I try to improvise in my different roles.

Phantom Pain

Pain is one of the hardest things in life, and thus the prevalence of "pain killers." entertainments and self forgetfullnesses which are so dominant in our culture. When I was taking physical risks to deal with libido and perhaps boredom, I also took on some abrasions, concussions, etc. (luckily never broke a bone) and the like. And at that time, especially the fifties, these were referred to as phantom pain when they came back later as "memory" in the bones and muscles. It was only later that I found out that this popular culture term was really to be thought of in terms of amputations, and undoubtedly my dear Uncle Joe, who lost a leg in Leyte in the Second World War, probably had phantom pain for the rest of his life (although we never spoke about it).

Denial is as prevalent as pain, and they are very often intertwined. Fear is also a driver in this venue, and part of the risks I took in surfing, car and motorcycle racing were undoubtedly driven by these crazy mixtures. I liked to be "on the edge," and my favorite color, orange, is, in part because of the caution light, neither stop or go, but ... The only traffic ticket I have ever gone to court to beat was because of a ticket given to me for running the caution light. I lost, but the judge did not fine me because of the philosophical discussion we had. Just a warning,

It was strange to feel sometimes in the past a dull pain in the side of my face where I took a punch from an unknown assailant in a Bremerhaven bar. Or a pain in the femur where another hit occurred at one time or another, and others too. And I can well remember ship mates and others recalling events in their lives because a pain had returned in their bodies and brought back a memory that they had thought was forgotten. Most of these pains are gone for me at this age, but once in awhile something shows up and as age progresses it is harder and harder to have an "a ha" about it.

I have asked a couple of doctor acquaintances to let me know if there is a proper word for this phenomena ... as opposed to the improper phantom pain or just plain pain. Why? Because it is something different than just a memory of pain, deeper & a little more mysterious. The other day my arthritic (right) hand took on another pain, deeper, and I had to look way into the past and see if that might be the phantom of a punch I had thrown way back then.

Regrets

Age seems to bring with it regrets. Reading an astonishing book by Diane Aphill on her aging experience, it was fascinating to read her thoughts on the subject. Her two main regrets were: a tough central core of her character ("a nub of coldness at the center"), and laziness (cowardice). I think I share her regret about the coldness, my second would be impatience (which brought about some indecision and procrastination). Regrets are largely futile, but important none-the-less. I highly recommend her "Somewhere Towards the End' a memoir," a very deep and pervasive book.

Japanese-Americans

My first encounter with an American of Japanese ancestry was at the local Silvermart as a child. Sent to the store to pickup things for my Mother, I noticed the beauty of the fruits and vegetables in the produce dept. The man who arranged and maintained this was Japanese-American, called a "greengrocer" at that time, as I recall. Unfortunately he would vanish at the same time as the Japanese orphans who lived over the hill and attended the local elementary school.

One traumatic event that happened when all these children were taken to an interment camp was that one of the children had to leave his dog behind, and this became one of the dramatic happenings of my youth. My family couldn't take the animal for him, and thus we became part of the search group to place him. Meanwhile I was able to get to know the boy through his grief. We did find someone and my hope is that the dog was reunited with the boy after the war (but that would be highly unlikely).

The last time I had the pleasure of knowing someone of Japanese ancestry was at sea. Turns out that one of my shipmates had been in an internment camp and was willing to share stories with me about this (stories which, for the most part, had not been told here-to-fore in the media.) And so we would sit in mess hall late at night and he would open up to me, the unbelievable heat and cold in the desert barracks they lived in, how barren and uncomfortable it was, how exceedingly difficult for his parents, siblings and neighbors.

After I got back to L.A. I looked him up. We had talked about small boats earlier and he was interested in a sail. I was crewing on a double ender which had a smaller version available to me for day sailing. We went down to Yacht Haven in San Pedro, hoisted the sails and made our way toward the main channel. Problem was that I didn't notice that storm flags were flying and when we sailed out beyond the shelter of a wharf we took a knock down ... very close to one of the California Bear freighters which was coming down the channel. It was embarrassing to have to accept a tow by a stinkpot Chris Craft in order to get back to the slip. Unfortunately the ill fated sail concluded our communication with each other. Too bad. I hope he and my schoolmate from earlier on have had a better time of their lives.

Story - Korean underground railroad

The earlier night we were anchored out and my M-1 seemed to weigh fifty pounds on that frozen deck. My watch was to look out for frogmen who would attach plastic explosives to the bottom and sink us in that terrible, cold harbor. But tonight was more comfortable, moving up and down the dock with that heavy piece, presumeably to prevent the theft of cargo we were unloading. The Korean winter cold was terrible, but at least you could find some minimal cover from the buildings along the dock. If the apparitions had been daunting at anchor, they were equally strange along the pier.

Some of those were the Korean police and soldiers, also patroling around; and they made me worried because we were smuggling in aid for the orphanages run by Catholic nuns. It seems that the Korean hiearchy, including the dictator/president, Sigmund Rhee, had a bad habit on confuscating aid and then sellng it as they could. We were never caught, but it was fearful, scary business bringing in drugs, blankets and clothes and some food right under their eyes and noses.

We went to the orphanages to visit a couple of times, and the nuns gave us Suntory Whisky (Japanese) and pickled radishes for our trouble. Their situation with orphans was dire and we were humbled by what little they had, and how little we were able to smuggle in. One of the "unknown" stories of the Korean War, and one that has not played well with people I've tried to share it with. One of the "inconvenient truths" of war, that the women and children are hurt the most, and are seldom mentioned.