The Refectory Manager

Christmas Tape

2011-12-01T01:44:00.004-05:00

"Christmas is a time to believe in things you can't see." So goes the slogan of a certain Minnesota company that makes an "invisible" kind of cellophane tape.

Her voice had that aura of ominousness about it.

"You better watch out, you better not cry."

My activity of the hour would be impeded. Halted.

"Better not pout, I'm telling you why."

That voice. That song. That angst of near five-year-old little boy.

"He knows if you've been bad or good."

There it is again . . . Christmas is a time to believe in things you can't see.

Jesus already knows if I am bad or good. Santa must be Jesus. Maybe Jesus is Santa in a bathrobe.

I can't imagine the mischief I was doing to illicit that song. She would start singing it shortly after Halloween, after my getting over the tummy aches from too much candy.

Maybe I was, again, unwinding the toilet paper, sticking in an extra cardboard tube that I had secretly saved, inserting it down about toilet seat level, then winding the toilet paper up and over the top of the existing roll. All to make it unroll like a block and tackle system on a big crane. Sometimes there were two additional pulleys added. Mother had no appreciation for things mechanical.

Or taking all of the cans and boxes out of the cupboard and setting up a store in the living room. Using the silverware insert from the kitchen drawer as a cash register to hold and separate the cut out and colored play money.

"Oh, you better watch out!"

Salvation by works. Christmas presents being the tangible manifestation of perfection. To complicate the anxiety, my birthday was Christmas Eve.

"He's making a list, and checking it twice."

Or hoping I wouldn't be caught, again, hiding in the closet with a spoon and the package of brown sugar, rationalizing that if I ate the sugar fast enough, then the worms wouldn't have time to grow in my teeth.

"So be good, for goodness sake!"

Or pulling out the old Filter Queen vacuum cleaner with its hose attached to the top. It was so much better than Brian's Electrolux vacuum cleaner because the Filter Queen was on four wheels and made the perfect fire engine. Racing up and down the hall going to a fire would prompt "Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice," which added to the confusion about fire fighters and being nice.

The modus operandi of both Jesus and Santa was indistinguishable. Omniscient. Omnipresent. Omnipotent. The aura of Santa Claus was being in the here and now. The aura of Jesus was standing off somewhere in heaven, holding a lamb in his arms with a lion lying at his feet. Little children with wings playing nearby. Christmas is a time to believe in things you can't see.

As the winter coldness and darkness settled in, sometime in mid-December, the ride to down town Calgary on the trolley bus was couched in wonderment and suspense. Just the thrill of being a part of the big old trolley bus was enough, but there were still adventures to be relished ahead. We would go first to The Bay between 7th and 8th Ave and 2nd Street S.W. Of course, there was the obligatory trip to the toy department. Past the counters of perfume and ladies purses to the bank of elevators on the far wall. Watching for the light at the top of the sliding door, and waiting for the 'ding' when the elevator arrived. Entering and absorbing the details of how the uniformed young lady would slide the brass gate with all of its unfolding hinge components to secure us safely inside, then push the big wheel with the handle forward to make the elevator go up, and call out the floor number and departments at each stop. We arrived at the toy floor with its sprawling lot of pedal cars, a working Lionel train set, boxes of Meccano sets, Slinky's, sets of Laurentian colored pencils, and racks of color books. The assortment of Golden Books, teddy bears, police cars with friction motors and sparking red lights, Snakes and Ladders, and balsa wood airplane kits with instructions that had big unknowable words like fuselage. Cap guns with rhinestone holsters, doctor's bag kits, hockey sticks, tobaggons, and Dinky Toys. Oh! The Dinky Toys, with their exquisitely detailed little embodiments for vivid little-boy role-playing imagination. Of course, the wish book had come way back in the summer, and I had devoted hours and hours to imagining the rewards of both heaven and earth. I had made my list, and checked it many more times than just twice. Somehow, my mother's singing confused me as to which list was actually involved. Santa's list, or Jesus' list, or my list. They were the same, weren't they? Or maybe not.

"He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!

I had never seen a Jesus in a department store. But there, at the far end of the toy department was the manifestation of the earthly temple of god. The god who knew. The god who could deliver. There he was, sitting there, high on his throne. Accolades of angels dressed as elves ministering to his every need. Santa Claus was already in town.

Still, the torment of not knowing if Santa would come to my house. My mother's singing seemingly never far away to reinforce the doubt. We didn't have a chimney but plausible work-arounds had satisfied me. Would his checked list for me have checks beside the naughty or the nice? Would I have been good enough? Would I be found worthy? Would there be any reward for me?

We walked out from The Bay into the frigid air to notice the clouds of near frozen water vapor erupting from tailpipes of cars squeaking down the snowdrift-lined main street. We shuffled down 8th Avenue, past Henry Birk's and Sons jewelry store with their little blue lights ringing the bullet-proof glass of their display windows.

We side-stepped the lady in the long black coat ringing a bell beside a red hanging pot at the entrance of Woolworth's, and entered into the store to get an egg salad sandwich on white with tomato juice at their lunch counter. Finding two seats together, mother wedged little sister's stroller between. My examining the waitress in her white uniform, the little pointed apron, her hairnet in place and her cap on her head holding her up-trussed hair in place. Her little order pad of green paper, how I wanted a supply of little order pads of green lined paper just like that. Then to watch her compose the sandwiches. Extract the bread from a bread box. Lay out the slices. Use a little scoop to dip the egg salad mixture from a row of containers with stainless steel lids. Cut the sandwiches in diagonal quarters and arrange them on the plates with two quarters sticking upright, anchored on each side by a quarter lying on it's side. A little sprig of parsley for decoration, fresh parsley no less, even in that bitter cold of winter. Watching her pouring the tomato juice into tall, thin glasses. And to observe in amazement her dexterity in delivering our order to our spot at the linoleum-topped counter. Gingerly I picked up one of the little sandwiches. The bread was soft and gooy. The egg salad moist and cold and delectably sweet, and almost pure white like there were no yolks at all in the mix. Sometimes, there would be a piece of lettuce incorporated.

Then to Zeller's. There for me to find and to then point to the display bin of bulk candy and order 10 cents worth from the old lady dressed in her starched white uniform, her hairnet in place, her coiffed hair crowned with her little elf cap. I listened to the swosh of the scoop as she thrust it into the bin of Smarties*, then the cascading rattle of candies being dumped on the big scale equipped with the sweep hand referencing a dozen price/per ounce combinations. I watched her titrate out the 10 cents worth . . . and with a motherly wink, a tiny bit more. With dexterity, she transferred the little colored candies into a little white paper sack and my exchange of dime for treat was completed.

Ten cents worth of Smarties was far to much for me to eat at one time, so it was only the taste of a treat, to be finished over the next couple of days. But for now, it was off to look at mittens and hats and scarves in Newberrys.

Even in the early 1950's, there was the onset of the ravages of consumermas with the silly little Christmas songs of reindeer and snowmen crooned by Bing Crosby and Perry Como and Gene Autry, interspersed with the godly standbys of Little Town of Bethlehem and Oh Holy Night and We Three Kings and Hark! Let the Heralds Sing! Those festive sounds rounded out the sights of flashing lights and garlands of holly and twinkling tinsel and clerks sporting caps snitched from elves. The essence of cinnamon and cloves and spruce unblocking stuffed up noses.

We finally got to the other anchor store two full blocks west of The Bay, that being The T. Eaton Company. There! Proof of the omnipresence and therefore the omniscience of Santa Claus. He was everywhere. No wonder he could know if I was sleeping, or if I was awake, or if I was being bad or good, or being good for goodness sake.

It was the lap of the Eaton's Santa Clause that I climbed up into to recite my little list of things expected from him, him being the tangible surrogate of Jesus.

Christmas is a time to believe in things you can't see. So goes the slogan of a certain Minnesota company that makes an "invisible" kind of cellophane tape.

With a hardy "HO! HO! HO! You be a good little boy now," I descended from the throne of the all mighty, questioning, for the first time in my life.

It was then, with the innocence only a little boy can muster, I dared ask the question that is never to be asked or answered.

Why was Santa's beard held on by Scotch tape?

The Refectory Manager

* Smarties is the Canadian equivalent of M&M's.

Examined

2011-11-19T11:51:00.001-05:00

Filled with the angst of uncertainty, shifting from foot to foot, consumed by the pregnant anticipation on that afternoon of a late 1966 spring day, I waited to be ingested by the old Greyhound bus parked at the old Walla Walla bus terminal. In the moments before boarding, four other motleys moseyed up, having exchanged their government issued vouchers for tickets like I had just done. Small talk was sparse. This trip could end in death. The Selective Service Board upstairs in the old Denny Building on 2nd and Alder had made their selections, at least for 4 of us. I was not drafted, yet, just trying to beat the rap by enlisting in a student program sponsored by the U.S. Army Medical Department.

At least I had the wherewithal to find a seat on the right side of the bus, that way, I wouldn't have to have the setting sun blind my eyes. The belching bus rolled out from the terminal, heading west and north on US 12 with stops at all the jerk-water-holes between Walla Walla and Clarkston. Pee stop at Lewiston, then up the old Lewiston Grade to roll out onto the Palouse Hills. We stop at GEN-e-SEE, or is it GE-NES-EE, or what the hell, then Moscow, what kind of an Un-American name of all places is Moscow for this country. When you ask somebody where it is at you get a smart-assed answer ‘it’s out in the field beside pa’s cow’. How in the hell was I ever to guess that someday I would live there. Back in reality of the present, we then cross back over the state-line from Idaho and head for Pullman. I had heard of Washington State University, but had never seen it. I got a glimpse or two on the approach, then again from the west side as we rounded that steep road-cut-cliff shielding the southwest corner of the campus. The idea was so absolutely incomprehensible and absurb that fourteen years later the U.S. Army would be sending me to WSU to earn a PhD in Nutrition that all I thought about on that trip was how to deal with stomach curdling present-tense uncertainty.

It was dark when we pulled in to the bus terminal in the seedy part of Spokane. Clear sky and a lingering nip in the air. Dirty, littered streets, rows of newspaper boxes sequestering their shadows from omniscient street lights, parking meters sprouted up between cracked sidewalks and curbs, creepy looking men crawling back into door jams. Whiffs of urine, muffled honking, somewhere in the distance the siren wail of something in trouble. We each had a voucher for lodging at the YMCA, and two more vouchers for some nearby restaurant for supper tonight and breakfast on the morrow. The four of them decided to go off and find a bar or at least a source of liquor. It would be easier to flunk a physical if they were plastered the next morning, at least that is what they surmised. I started my hunt for that restaurant.

I found it. The essence of dingy grunge enhanced by flickering neon sign on the outside, a disheveled dimness on the inside.

"You alone?" the harried waiter with filthy apron yells over his shoulder at me. "Sit wherever you want."

So I do. There is already a menu at the table, along with pressed glass salt and pepper shakers, rack of saltine crackers, tiny vase of toothpicks, bottles of requisite condiments and silverware wrapped in a paper napkin.

The menu is individually typewritten with its uneven mono-spaced serif font. A single page of meat-and-three selections ranked in price from cheapest to most expensive. I made my selection, from near the bottom. Roast beef with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, side salad and dinner roll with butter. Actually, it was margarine but truth-in-menu laws hadn't been invented yet. The meal was so typically stereotypical of institutional food as evidenced by that powdered fake brown gravy taste, but who in their clientele was cognizant enough to critique that.

At the end of the meal, I presented my voucher with the meal-check at the counter.

"Why the hell didn't you say you were one of them! There is a government meal for you. You don't order from the menu." I had to break my one and only bill, a five dollar bill, to make up the difference. I take it that most inductees arrive in squad formation and are not mistaken for a singular gentlemen seeking a quality dining experience. This, my first exposure with the nuances of government procurement.

The YMCA was boisterous. Apparently a whole bunch of them arrived on the east-bound train from Seattle earlier in the afternoon. Apparently it was common knowledge to get as drunk as possible for this rite of passage.

The AFEES facility (Armed Forces Examination and Entrance Station) was spread across the upstairs in some old downtown building. Signs inside everywhere identifying station numbers. Corpsman in hospital whites scurrying around. Some 120 of us corralled in a holding room. Hippies, preppies, geeks, goons, fems, fats, bean-poles, intelligent, bewildered, stoned, sober, nervous, docile, stupid, and to a man, apprehensive. One-by-one, we are checked in with the documents we had already been given, either by the Draft Board or a recruiter. My first exposure to hurry up and wait.

Eventually we are moved into a huge room with rows of tables with the chairs lined up on each side. At the end of the tables, is a platform from which this big burly medic with both stripes and rockers on his rank insignia is making certain he is not there to take shit from anybody. He proceeds with the continuation of the paper work drill and it gets earnest. There is this long, folded DD Form some-number that is a medical history form. The usual identification stuff at the top, and then lists of question after question about diseases and injuries and deformities and abnormalities and coughs and colds and sore bung holes and pimples on the dinkus and what works and what doesn't and how you feel about all kinds of psychological stuff.

Burly sergeant medic yells out, "Look at question what-ever-the-number-it-was, it is near the bottom of the second page. If ANYBODY here checks YES on that box, by gawd, you're gonna havta come up here and PROVE it ta me!"

The question what-ever-the-number-it-was: Are you homosexual? Yes No

His implication was that if anyone did come forward to "prove it," and use that to beat the draft, he would beat the pulp out of them.

There were some gasps of horror, some snide snickers, and a 120 potential inductees furiously filling in the 'no' box.

I blanched. I had never been confronted before. Hell, I hardly knew what that was. This, for certain, was not the time or place to find out. I quickly checked 'No.' It would be years before I would concede that that was but the first lie about that that I told. It would be years before I realized that that blustery burly sergeant was typical of a deeply conflicted closet gay simply trying, in his overt homophobic way, to survive in a bigoted homophobic society.

A few more forms later, the group was split into two cohorts. The orders now were to go into this locker room, strip down to shorts and leave your socks on. Put your stuff in a locker, it would be safe. Then the lining up for blood draws, anthropometrics of height and weight measured, blood pressure taken, chests thumped, throats peered down, tongues depressed with awes expressed, ears looked into, and color vision ability ascertained. All this taking a couple of hours more of hurry-up and wait-your-turn to get the now 60 of us all processed.

There is something inherently efficient about 'processing' in the military. Especially when it comes to 'examining' the acceptability of the fitness of an individual to become a ward of the government. This initial physical examination served as a legal benchmark. Injuries or illness subsequent to this examination while enlisted (or commissioned) in the military could be deemed service-connected and thus treatment the responsibility of the government. To avoid these claims, it was imperative this benchmark legal document be as complete and as thorough as possible.

Thus, it was.

The sixty of us were herded into yet another room and lined up in four rows, fifteen guys in a row. Our medical forms placed on the floor by our left foot. Rows of butts. Tighty-whities taut on bubble butts. Blousing boxers on bloated butts. Jock straps flanking a few bare butts.

The burly sergeant making his presence known again with a Spec-4 at his side. The order was given to the first row and only to the first row to "drop your shorts". Rows two, three and four emitting the sounds of snickering. Sergeant starts at one end. Spec-4 bends down to pick up the first guy's records and the sergeant proceeds with the inguinal hernia check. "Stand up straight. Cough." Then "Cough" again as the sergeant gropes on the other side of the pendulous package. Since no abnormality is barked out by the sergeant, Spec-4 checks the "normal" box on that guy's medical history form, drops it to floor, and the process repeated with the next guy in line.

They get to the end of the line and another boisterous command given for the first row only.

"Bend over, reach back and pull your cheeks apart."

It was no longer just snickering from the peering gallery. It is overt hoots of laughter. Being hung over with a hang-over or not, the tension crackled for relief.

Fifteen pink arse holes squinting at the incandescent light of day. All of them exposing the south end pose of the Wall Street bull market bulls with their heads lowered into the feed trough.

A PFC has joined them and holds a tray containing a box of latex gloves and a paper sack for the disposables and a jar of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. The Spec-4 reaches down again to pick up the medical record. The Sergeant jams his finger into a glove, then into the Vaseline jar, and proceeds to twist and thrust his digit bluntly into the resistant orifice with the intent of sensuously probing the assessment of the size of the owner's manhood. For a closeted homo, duty like this in the service of one's country simply doesn't get any better. One wonders of the wording of the Army Commendation Medal citation as it is read at his subsequent Awards Ceremony.

First row is completed.

The room is getting thick with the musty earthy dankness of pits and groins and sweaty feet, amalgamated with essence of Brylcreem and gawd awful Aqua-Velva, being overwhelmed by the all-ready expert skills of chemical warfare warriors with their secret, silent, but deadly dispersement of toxic intestinal gas.

Second row, same story.

We in the fourth row are thanking the warriors of yore for our fortuitous placement.

Humiliation in the second row is complete. Repeat story for the third row.

Now the view is totally unimpeded! Some guy's Bernoulli-compliant pucker lets rip with the vibrating call of Gabrielle's trumpet on the resurrection morning. A couple sets of buns blushing to keep up with the color of their owner's bent over face. Some butts massively hairy. Some pale and smooth as the scotch whiskey the owner had guzzled down the night before. Analyzing the mean and standard deviation in the length of dangling participles is enough to make a statistically inclined grammarian blush.

Third row completed.

Then. So unexpectedly.

"ABOUT face!" An emphatic command. Now what was safely the fourth and back row is the new and humiliating front row. The already debased get their turn for lustful sneering revenge. At this point, there is no more personal dignity left to be lost.

There were still two parts of the examination to complete. The urinalysis and the one-on-one interview with the doctor.

We each are given a plastic cup for the urine catch and given instructions as to where to place it when it is filled.

Our group was now divided again with those with the greetings from the President lined up first for their doctor's visit. There were about 10 of us that were purposefully enlisting and we were held to the end.

I had quickly provided my urine sample, but in the process of the long wait, I needed to go again and so headed back toward the latrine.

A big guy trying to get into the Navy jumped up and followed me. When we got into the latrine with its long trough for shoulder-to-shoulder group water works, he thrust his cup toward me and begged me to fill it for him. Seems he was having an acute case of shy bladder and was terrified that he wasn't going to be able to give his sample. Of course I complied, and assured him that I did not have any known diseases. I wonder to this day if he ever became an admiral commanding some missile launching cruiser supporting Desert Storm and if it was my little cup of pee that is now responsible for winning that war effort.

My turn next for the young Captain, fresh out of medical school. The listener to hundreds of reasons why this patient should be classified F-4 and deemed unfit for military duty. And then to reasons why other patients wanted medical problems ignored so that they could be deemed fit. The doc listened to me opine about how my knees would swell up and have tubes of Mt Dew sucked out of them with big needles, but how that shouldn’t impede me in any way for the professional program I aspired to. He scanned over the forms, looking for the sentinel “no’s” and “yes’s” flagging abnormalities. With no other comment, he stamped the form, signed his name and wished me good luck.

I had been examined. My paper work stamped ACCEPTABLE.

It was a contemplative ride back to Walla Walla later that afternoon. I was filled, still, with the angst of uncertainty.

The Refectory Manager

Warmth of a Saturday Night

2011-11-04T22:04:00.001-04:00

Air crackled with cold sucking my warmth out through jaw-pounding shivering. Snow squeaking from boot scrunch. Cloud of frozen breath hovering beyond ice-stiffened scarf. All of that before crawling into the back seat of the old black-green '49 Chev. My place is behind my father who is driving, who keeps his window down so he can make the requisite hand signals in turning traffic. Doesn't matter if you are English or French, 40 below is 40 below either way, and wind chill from open window is the bite of the hawk.

It is Saturday night. A bitterly cold night in January of 1952. Darkness comes early at 51° N latitude, so the Sabbath ended early on that day. The marked time of sacredness flipped to its reciprocal time of secular at the precise moment of sunset. Tonight, a church social in the rented old Odd Fellows Hall located somewhere down in the Bridgeland environ on the eastern side of Calgary. An eclectic neighborhood, presumably named after the big truss bridge spanning the Bow River, of rows and rows of Chinese-run greenhouses and the little post-WWII bungalows occupied by newly immigrated Germans. The Bow River, in the eventual spring breakup, will jam with boulders of ice and then flood. Hell to freeze over this working stiff neighborhood.

The wind from my father's open car window whips my face. Eyelashes freezing. Pain flashes across my forehead. My cheeks become paralyzed. My breath short, the burning cold in my chest. Before leaving the house, my father had placed the battery back into the car. It had been taken out and kept inside the backdoor of the house to keep it from freezing solid. He unplugged the flimsy extension cord emanating from the front-door light that powered the block-heater that was supposed to keep the anti-freeze solution in the engine block and radiator in a liquid state to avoid an ice-busting breakdown. There was no hope on earth that the car heater would ever warm up enough to take the chill out of the interior of that old car. Even with the piece of cardboard wired to the front of the radiator to impede the flow of frozen air.

Arrival at the old run-down hall was a rush to warmth. From the outside it had the look of a place of the haunts. If one was inclined to care. So what. I jumped out the back door of the car, stumbled through piles of snow, made it through a frozen-stiff door to the inside, then to be slammed by a blast of hot air in my face. Ditching my coat, mitts, scarf and boots in the pile in the corner of the main room I survey the scene to see which of my friends are already here. The inside of the hall is enclosed with pasty chartreuse green walls and held up with square banged-up support columns. Tinged and cracked linoleum covered floor offset by a low-slung ceiling with stained fiber-board tiles. Even in its drabness it was a-buzz with social interaction. Tonight though, another highlight in a third-grade boy's sheltered existence and a scintillating experience of social development.

Tommy Mabley, Dalles Redgrove, Buddy Triebauser, Willy Siebal, Larry Fox, Freddy How, Bobby Miller, all boys from his world of church school and church were already making nuisances of themselves. We are accumulating in strength, yet all looking the part of orphans in our faded plaid flannel shirts and flannel-lined corduroy pants clinging to the long white underwear clinging to pale white skin beneath. We take off our shoes to better be able to run and slide. Linoleum floor tinges and cracks not impeding any coefficient of friction with hole-infused wool socks.

The fury of frenzy in the formation of festivities. The 'ladies' setting out the platters of sandwiches, dishes of olives, glazed crocks of macaroni and cheese, baskets of potato chips, bowls of macaroni salad, boxes of cookies, plates of pie, sheets of cake. A big bowl of punch. Piles of napkins. Little wooden flat forks and spoons. Plastic to show up a few years later.

Old men in drab shirts with pants held up by braces hovering in one corner, ruminating of the good old days. Young men decked out in a little splash of color hanging out together in another corner, yearning for better days to come. The old women sitting along the wall, covered mostly in plain black, or gray. The row of monotony broken by the two or three in tattered poke-a-doted dress . Each old soul encased within a tightly drawn shawl. Each sitting manly, with knees apart, hose rolled down to ankles, gout swollen joints forced into scruffed-up old granny shoes. The little girls. They simply didn't exist.

Some of us boys had heard a good one in church earlier in the day, and we were simply dying to try it out on one of the elders of the church. You know, those guys who were omniscient with all things Holy Book. Tommy Mabley's father was cornered and the inquisition begun.

"How come Moses didn't take any bees into the ark?" I excitedly challenged him. We had him circled, and we were all dancing back and forth from one foot to the other like we all had to pee or something.

"Well, I'm certain Moses did take bees into the ark," Tommy's father explained patiently to this obviously misguided bunch of prepubescents.

"No, no. He didn't. He really, really didn't," another piped in.

"Well, of course he did. We wouldn't have any bees today if he hadn't taken them into the ark to keep them from being destroyed in the flood." His patience was enduring. He had so much to teach. He had 5 kids.

The giggling. "No he didn't! It was Noah that took the bees into the ark." More giggling.

And Mr. Mabley, with his short hair and wire-rim glasses knew that he had just been had. And giggled too.

Somebody would be roped into being the master of ceremonies. The cold bitterness of January was rebuffed with the warmth of shared fellowship in a congregation of peculiar people. The self-made entertainment commenced. Action games. A blindfolded woman with a heavy stuffed pillow trying to knock off the man straddling the saw horse. Crowd yelling to her where and when to swing. Then the musical chairs with Tom Smith pounding out old melodies from "Everybody's Favorites" on the honky-tonk piano . The parlor game Jacob and Rachel where everybody but blindfolded "Jacob" and his object of desire "Rachel" form a circle, and poor Jacob repeatedly calls out "Rachel, where art thou?" and in ventriloquist disguise she answers back "Here I am Jacob" and he then gropes to find her. A few rounds of that is followed by the pseudo sinning. That being, of course, the marching. Lots and lots of marching. The lines and columns, the weaving back and forth, the arches, the uniformity interspersed with individuality. The singularity of form and pattern punctuated with the abrupt perpendicular. Dancing, even though done in the Bible, was but the vertical manifestation of horizontal evil and so was totally forbidden. Marching was the sanitized surrogate for sin. One wonders how any of us were conceived.

An interlude for eating. Someone pontificated with the blessing. Little boys scrambling to be first in line. A smorgasbord of foods he would never get at home. Foods from other little boy's mothers. Like Tommy Mabley and the simple awesomeness of his mother's salmon sandwiches. On white bread no less. I never would get white bread at home. Only brown bread, which years later he would discover was "wheat" bread as if white bread was made from methyl-cellulose or something . . . aka wood fiber, an additive to Wonderbread to boost its fiber content that simply swelled into a public relations nightmare for the baking company. And of course, that salmon being the only "flesh" there, a mother who dared to defy the hypocrisy of the vegetarian dogma of the church. Eating salmon meant that one had to die before Jesus would come. Only those who had never tasted flesh could be translated at the second coming. No one in that room that night was in any danger of being translated. Roasted flesh of turkey and vulcanized flesh of beef graced the tables of at least the ceremonial feasts of the annual cycle of seasons.

Potato salad, hot baked beans, cottage cheese, some of which was homemade and damn good, deviled eggs. Oh! The deviled eggs. And olives. Pitted olives. One for each digit of a little boy's hands. Cup cakes, apple cobbler, crumbly cookies. Punch with ice cream and gingerale. Hot chocolate made with real Fry's cocoa and sugar and canned milk and hot water. With luck, some little marshmallows, although it was firmly believed that they contained pig fat. Forbidden.

Chairs were now scooted out from the periphery and the focus now on the little stage. The regulars of local talent succumbing to the begging and pleading for their pitiful renditions. Buddy Triebauser and Willy Siebal with their trombone duet. A trumpet trio with Lloyd Fisher and his gang. Melvena Hill interrupting the festivities with her version of "Rock of Ages." then followed by, with horrors for everyone, my father, crooning , "The Strawberry Roan." Some old lady recited a reading about a soldier lost in love. Henry Welch, who was at least 7 feet tall, pantomimed a man with fleas at the bus stop. A half-dozen little boys sitting on the floor in front of the first row of chairs started to itch.

Jim Dalke always played his home-made Hawaiian electric guitar, the preacher's wife her marimba. Mr. Selslie his cello, Glenn Anderson the saw, to be joined by Harry Rembolt with his wash-tub bass to add a sense of rhythm.

When he had had enough, old Tom Smith, the head elder of the church and a lawyer of some dubious repute for an oil company, would mount the platform, swirl the seat of the piano stool that was supported by four greenish-glass eagle claws , so as to get the height just right. He perched himself on it, raised his arms, and then crashed into "God Save the King." Where upon we all rose to attention and rendered our loyalty to the head of our secular government, but not of our church. The evening was now officially over.

Tired little boys, stumbling through a pile of coats and hats and muffins and mittens and shoes and boots and scarves. Mothers bundling up babies. Old ladies struggling with tattered coats. Middle-aged ladies packing away the refuse from the victual table. Young men out in the parking lot trying to coax frozen batteries back into life and thereby infuse the inky frozen night with exhausted particles of frozen internal-combusted metabolic water.

I was back into the back seat of the car. Now, it was very late on a Saturday night. Streets nearly deserted. No need to keep the window down to allow for hand signals. Sitting there, staring through the little oval glued to the outside of the car window to supposedly keep Jack Frost from painting those gorgeous patterns across the entire window, my teeth chattering like a battery of compressed-air hammers.

The drive home was silent. Mother is mad about the Strawberry Roan. The outside was crisp and still. The sky punctuated as a pin cushion peeping into a brilliant vastness beyond the dome covering the earth. Some place up there beyond Orion, he would go to heaven. That is, if he had no sin. But he could hardly even find Orion, or the Big Dipper, or Cassiopeia, or the Pleiades, all things he learned about in 3rd grade science. Couldn't find them because they were hiding in plain sight. That was the problem. There was so many billions of other things strutting their brilliance out there that those ancient formations were simply obscured. Then to say nothing of the intermittent waves of green and purple and blue of the Northern Lights, dancing clear across the panorama of the northern sky ahead, as they headed northward back home.

The house was frigid. Even when the old gas-fired furnace worked, all of the heat vents were at ceiling height. The floor was glacial. My bed was frozen. Long-johns exchanged for flannel pajamas. No bed-time story tonight. I force myself to crack apart the flannel sheets. I know in time, I will produce a small pocket of heat. For now, my feet throb with cold. The warmth in my heart, eventually, will change that.

The Refectory Manager

A Picture Worth 719 Words

2011-10-19T14:41:00.002-04:00

I saw the tweet . . .

Tweet from MoveOn.org(@MoveOn)

What's Wrong With Wall Street And Today's GOP In One Picture
#OccupyWallStreet http://t.co/H5JCXjet

and mildly curious as to what graphic would be used to depict the odiousness of Wall Street this time.

It is not the picture I was expecting . . . but I would affirm is very much appropriate.

I looked at that man. As a human being. As a man. Except for differences in physical condition, he could be me, I could be him.

He too longs to be wanted. To be needed. To be loved. To receive, the love of another.

To give of himself, of his love. Too. To know how that matters to another. That he matters to another.

I look at his eyes. So piercing. So intent. So wanting. The expression of grit determination pursed on his lips. His determination as a fighter, flaunted for anyone to perceive who dares to look.

His hands. Emaciated. None the less, functional. And the tips of his fingers. Sensitive? Sensuous?

Is there someone in his life who is exhilarated to feel the tips of his fingers. A woman? A man? Is there someone who holds his hands. Warms them. Massages, so very carefully and gently, fragrant moisturizing cream into his hands. His arms. His back. His buns. His legs.

Those little blue canvas shoes. What do they conceal? The stretched tautness of pale naked sensuous skin. Who last massaged those feet? Who last pressed them close to their face? Let him feel the warmth of a face through the coldness, dryness, of the soles of his feet.

I look at the tautness of denim-covered butt up over his right shoulder. Who has massaged the tautness of those amply confined cheeks? And the hands above the young man's head. What? Who? How? Have they touched. With an expression of love. And compare them to the gauntness of this man's butt. Possible with the makings of ulcers when bone wares holes in skin because of butt cheek padding emaciated away.

I glance back at the young man.

Can he maneuver the transfer from chair to toilet himself? Is there any way near the strength in his upper body to do that. When he hugs, surely he hugs, can the person he hugs feel strength in that hug?

Can he transfer himself from out of and into his bed? If he needs assistance, is this with the coordination of the one he loves and who loves him, or some custodial obligation contractually performed by the hourly on duty.

Does he sleep alone? Not only physically by himself, but alone in his dreams. Is he very alone sans soul-mate sharing? Does someone, is there someone, to hold him in the night when he feels the most vulnerable?

Who replaces that swathe of neck support with a face of wet lips to cuddle and to nuzzle the sensuousness of his neck, and that little special place behind his ear?

Who is there that receives that reciprocal intimacy from him? To feel the sadness in his face.

Has he experienced the sharing of his penis with another? Had his testicles cradled and fondled with warm hands. Had a finger make little swirls and curls in the pubic hair encircling his manhood. Let the tip of a tongue tantalize the tip of a nipple. Bury a face into his pits. Lick him. Kiss him. Taste him. Eat him. Bring his frail body to a peak of fulfillment. And receive the sharing with the taking of turns. Did he experience wholeness? Fulfillment? Did he realize his own joy of being fully capable to fulfill the requisite sexual need of another? And complete his sense of value and dignity as a person by melding in these primal ways.

Of course. How stupid, how delusional of me.

He has mutual reciprocity in everything in life that matters with his partner. It is so fulfilling. So rewarding. The touch is pervasive and overwhelming. The intimacy is beyond imagination. His very existence is testimony of the benevolence of their love.

For his partner is Wall Street.

It is, after all, a person now.

A person that is the best our fascist government money can buy.

Why would he think he needs to carry a sign like that?

The Refectory Manager

Purpose-Driven Sound

2011-10-04T13:13:00.000-04:00

The sound of The Silence granted permission to listen.

Not the damn ringing in my ears. That is just white noise vouching for old circuitry in the head. Or like how the random snowflakes, sparking on the screen of the old Motorola, vouch for the old circuitry of the Big Bang.

But to listen.

To the burbling emitting from the living gut of the woman sitting next to me in The Friends (Quaker) Meeting.

To the rumble kurplunk from the hallway behind where John Pemberton's automated dispenser-contraption for his ubiquitous carbon dioxide infused coca elixir resides.

To the Silence of the Light that I can never hear.

To the punctuated ejaculations of emotional amplitude responding to the rise and fall of the strategies and tactics of the crucial war of football.

I listen.

My eyes open.

I see.

At eye level, just across from me, out through the glass wall, on the brick retainer holding back a bed of low-crawling junipers . . .the squirrel.

No move is without a purpose-driven cause.

Jerk. Look. Listen. Chew. Freeze. Drop down. Reach. Pick it. Sit up. Roll it in his hands. Bite. Chew. Spit. Bite. Chew. Spit. Stop. Wait. Listen. Drop down. Reach. Pick up. Sit up. Roll it in his hands. Bite. Chew. Spit. Bite. Chew. Chew. Spit. Chew. Stop. Wait. Listen. Drop down. Dart. Stop. Repeat.

Purpose-driven.

An action by him for the every needed action of his doing.

The sound from The Commons is both filtered and amplified by the wall of glass.

The Commons is a tumult of a rainbow of jerseys, sheltering rolling dark thunder clouds of loins with their flashes of red and yellow depicting allegiance to the rivaling herd , all supported by a forest of hirsute power poles ambulating in chaotic orchestration. Just the manifestation of the manliness requisite to the spontaneous folly of fall flag football on the college campus.

It is purpose-driven.

Every instinctively purpose-driven choreographed motion so involved with the sheer randomness in the movement of an elliptical pigskin.

The squeals. Of delight. Of disappointment. The interlude of the sound of Silence. The squeals. Of delight. Of disappointment. And the dance moves a few yards hither.

To hear. Sounds.

Permission accepted.

To be purpose-driven.

To listen.

To The Sound of Silence.

The Refectory Manager

The Note

2011-09-23T02:03:00.002-04:00

That killer smile. Oh so embellished with that little dimple on the olive-tinged left cheek. That grin that simply radiated through the near blackness of his eyes. There was even the tinge of the soul-mate fire that was fueling his very being. He read the note one more time. Held it tightly against himself. Then folded it, and carefully stuffed it into the right pocket of his antelope-shade cargo pants. As he looked down, fumbling with the Velcro® pocket flap, he could see his antelope-tanned shapely toes each tipped with a mocha-milk nail, embedded in the so-well-worn Panama Jack leather thong sandals all peeking out from under the cuffs of his long-legged pants. It felt so damn good to mercifully, accept one's self. He thought of the content of the note again. Yes, he had waited a long, long time for this meeting. It had to go well.

Two years ago, the meeting could never, ever have happened. But something had changed. He wasn’t certain as to what, but the shifted placement on the Continuum of Affirmation was perceptible.

Throughout his high school years, it was the taunting of his perceived lack of manliness. The cajoling criticism. His fashions. The way he held his legs when seated. The way he walked. The piling-on of expectations. The resultant mountain of things impossible. Oh, he listened to the sermons. He observed the nattering disgust of his aunts. He felt the distance between himself and his father. He sensed that his mother tried to understand. But for him, it was the anguish of inevitable failure and the resultant rejection. Even worse, he was adopted.

Secretly, he had scoured the Internet looking for acceptance. He entered into chats he later regretted. He discovered a plethora of view points, rabid on both sides of the issue. Through all of that, with all of that, besides all of that, he slowly began to accept himself as the man with compassion and integrity that he couldn't help but be.

When he “graduated” from his home-school high school, his family's point of reference on the Affirmation Continuum was planted firmly in the negative on the x-axis. Denial of Recognition. Yes, his family had perceived something was different with him. But whatever it was, he would simply grow out of it.

His Freshman year at Whitman was his awakening. For the first time he was immersed with other students. Being home-schooled, he grew up in relative social isolation except for the small church group in his rural community. Now, he was living in the midst of open sin.

That bashful smile, the preppy clip of his hair, the natural gracefulness of his under-developed gymnastic prowess, the innocence and perceived vulnerability of his persona … all placed him under the protective wings of well-meaning functional mothering hens.

He remembers precisely the situation of meeting Jordan. But little did he realize the subsequent impact of that meeting on the unfolding of his life. Jordan was to be his godsend. As evidenced by the note.

As difficult as it was for him, he did his best to keep his family informed of his school life and the things he was learning. He discovered, and shared, viewpoints in science, in sociology, in history, in literature, that were antithetical to the text books of his preparatory school years. He tried to keep a healthful relationship with his family, sharing with them his new understandings and the reasons behind them. The feedback resistance was palpable. For it was threatening to his parent's understanding of salvation. Yet, it was his parents that were supporting him in this respected liberal arts college.

He shared with his parents about his experiences and observations about diversity. Discovering students, like himself, from religiously fundamental homes, to students who were dogmatic atheists, and the realization that most of the students were some benign point in-between. He discovered that there were openly gay men and lesbian woman on campus, in his classes, living in his dormitory, and nothing made of it. He listened to the bragging about the sexual conquests and who the chicks were that would and wouldn't, who was hot and who was not. He was titillated with liberation listening to Dan Savage answer questions one night in Maxey Auditorium, and astounded at the nature of the questions submitted on those 4x6 inch cards. Matters he hardly dared to even envision.

Gradually it spilled over in his conversations with home, unintentionally, but nevertheless, it did. He would make off-hand remarks about his social activities. Names were never mentioned. Gender was ignored.

But what had happened, by destiny, happened.

The bond had no defined beginning. It never amounted to a date, per se. Gravitation being more apropos. The sharing of a class, the invite to the study group. Routine meeting in Prentiss Dining Hall or Cafe 66 to commiserate over victuals. The increasing frequency of texting. Trust. Building. The "I'll tell you if you'll tell me." The walks to the Coffee Perk and back. Over the course of two years, the evolution of something Thomas Moore in his book Soul Mates called, “conversation is the sex act of the soul."1

By the end of his Freshman year, his understanding of himself was coalescing. His family had moved from the point of negative Denial to the small positive step of “Recognition” on that Affirmation continuum. Fortunately, his parents were not like some, who would rip up their child’s birth certificate and mail it to them in a plain white envelope.

By the end of his Sophomore year, he knew who he was. The progression of his family had moved further into the positive. Now past the point of "Recognition" to that of "Toleration." There was the hope they would find “Acceptance.” Unbeknownst to the son, something his parents had heard at a PFLAG meeting in Salem was sinking in. "You might love someone you hate." The parents were now in that liberating struggle from "We hate him in our loving Christian way" to the realization that their son was still going to be their son, no matter what he was destined to be.

Now, this, the start of his Junior year. His parents making a trip from their small farm west of Salem, OR to Minneapolis, MN. Their route could take them through Walla Walla, over to Lewiston, up and over Lolo Pass into Montana and out onto the vastness of the prairies. His parents had been on the Whitman College campus before. This time, it was to be different. They were forewarned there would be a surprise for them.

He told his parents he wanted them to meet someone. Someone experienced in the nuance of Thomas Moore’s book. Someone with whom the attachment meant bonding. Someone central in his life. Someone so significant as to think in terms of "significant other."

He took strength from those hours and hours shared with Jordan. Those conversations. The intimacies of their soul-matter talk. The back rubs. The massaging of feet. The warmth of the hugs. The reassurance of worth and value.

He was confident now in his anticipation for this meeting of introduction with his parents. Above all, he wanted his family’s affirmation. The meeting would happen over dinner at Jacobi's Cafe. He would meet his parents there and bring the excited love of his life with him. Somehow, the security of an old railroad dining car promoted his nostalgia for things that might be. He couldn’t imagine that anything now would or could go wrong. He just knew that his parents would be able, now, finally, to understand, to recognize, to tolerate, to accept him with the love of his life, and to affirm the two of them with their blessing.

His astronomy class met late in the afternoon on Thursday. He rushed down the corridor in the Hall of Science to avoid being late. One more time he reached into those antelope cargo pants and pulled out the note. He simply had to read it again. It re-fueled him with the passion of his so anticipated imminent meeting where he felt he could now safely reveal his reason for living. While still pacing quickly, he fumbled with the Velcro® flap to stuff the note back into the cargo pants pocket for safe keeping. At least that is what he thought he had done. The note fell to the floor.

* * * * *

The arthritis, in his feet, was killin’ him. And it was so damn hard to bend over to pick something up from off the floor. Nevertheless, there it was. A folded up piece of paper, smack in the middle of the manicured hallway in the Hall of Science, sticking itself up from the reddish carpet as some one's inconsiderate slap-down in disrespect of the environment. Kids. Damn ungrateful, snotty-nosed rich kids, thinking the world owes them everything and "the help" or somebody else can pick up their trash.

The moment of debate raged within his conscience. Just look up, keep walking, nobody around, nobody will notice, nobody to think it was him, for heaven’s sake, who was the flagrant litterer. Now maybe a hundred and fifty years ago when Whitman was established as a Congregational Church seminary, there would be a notion that Jesus was watching or something. But not now. Listening to the rhetoric of certain Tea Partiers, the Jews will convert to be Christians, there will be a mushroom cloud over Jerusalem, the saints will be raptured and the dominionized planet let loose to burn. So what the hell with a measly piece of trash.

To hell with the Tea Party.

He sucked in his gut, creaked his knees, and hauled up the unsightly debris.

The old man made a cursory glance to make certain there was nothing toxic or sticky on it, and noticed that it was a note of some kind. He wanted to stop and to read it. Curious. Kind of that titillating voyeurism thing. Instead, he stuffed it into his shirt pocket deciding he would read it in the privacy of the auditorium where he was headed for a lecture on predatory wolves and climate change.

1 Soul Mates, Thomas Moore. "Conversation is the sex act of the soul, and as such it is supremely conducive to the cultivation of intimacy." Page 124.

The Refectory Manager

(His first attempt at writing fiction)

Love you- Jordan

2011-09-16T02:44:00.000-04:00

The arthritis in his feet were killing him. And it was so damn hard to bend over to pick something up off the floor. Nevertheless, there it was. A folded up piece of paper, smack in the middle of the hallway in Science Hall, presenting itself as someone's inconsiderate slap-down in disrespect of the environment.

The moment of debate raged within his head. Just look up, keep walking, nobody around, nobody will notice, nobody to think it was him, for heaven's sake, who was the flagrant litterer. One hundred fifty two years ago when Whitman College was founded as a seminary affiliated with the Congregational Church, and if he had found this same trash at that time, he would have worried that Jesus was seeing him and that would have been incentive enough to pick up the trash. But now, what the hell. The planet's going to burn anyway. So he sucked in his gut, creaked his knees, and hauled up the unsightly debris.

A cursory glance to make certain there was nothing toxic or sticky on it revealed that it was a note of some kind. He wanted to stop and read it. Curious. Kind of that titillating voyeuring thing. Instead, he stuffed it into his shirt pocket deciding he would read it in the privacy of the auditorium he was headed to for a lecture on predatory wolves and climate change.

Your BEST Qualities

LOYAL

COMPASSIONATE

and most of all, a man of

INTEGRITY.

I love you to the moon

and back. Good luck

today and I know

you'll do a great job!

love you -

Jordan

A love note written with bold strokes on a strip of old-fashioned adding machine tape.

Those are the facts.

A note of love. A note of encouragement. A note of reinforcement. A note to a man.

But what of this 'Jordan'?

The Refectory Manager

Fin...

2011-09-15T20:56:00.000-04:00

I was just about to write my thoughts on your previous two letters when
I saw a somber subject line.

Life is so full of disappointments and shattered expectations. Moments
in time that tear at your soul and destroy a fragile part of you that
you placed so much joy and hope in.

That stinging, raw pain. Like a scraped knee that screams at you every
day, reminding you of the disaster from whence it came.

Lost companionship and the hurt hearts of man and animal..

It is a truly saddening thing. I am sorry, my friend.

Maybe these turns of events will lead to a greater outcome still, one
filled with happiness and love after all.

Keep your furry friend in your prayers. He has a lot ahead of him.

Hugs,

Equator

If you don't want to break a friend's heart . . .

2011-09-15T20:53:00.001-04:00

I feel as retched as a pile of horse shit. I knew last night I would have to do it.

Return the little dog to the shelter.

Yet even last night, he was starting to warm to me. This morning, he would come running to me, tail wagging high in the air. Demanding to be touched. And I couldn't rub him, massage him, scratch him enough.

But there are others in my world.

My mother. Last night she was raising all the reasons he could not live here. It was more about the cat. And the lack of access through the pet door for the cat. And the inability to have a fenced, secure, outside area where the dog could have ad hoc access.

This is her house. I am a guest here.

Rusty let me pick him up and cradle him in my arms. He sensed that something was amiss. When I set him on the car seat, he started to panic.

Eventually we arrived at the Animal Shelter. I explained what had happened. I had prepared a page of observations of his behavior, his fear of men, his acceptance of elderly woman, his lack of bad habits.

We went back to the cacophonous room. I was choking the tears as I placed him back into a cage.

Rusty didn't bark.

He just looked at me.

Those eyes.

Did I ever say that he stares?

"I trusted you."

Those rejected eyes. "Why?"

I had to turn and to leave quickly.

**********

I had gone to the shelter in the first place, seeking a companion. Something to love. To hold. To touch. To be touched by.

As is so frequently the case. Now two hearts are broken.

The Refectory Manager

If you don't want to break a friend's heart...

2011-09-13T01:06:00.001-04:00

I feel as retched as a pile of horse shit. I knew last night I would have to do it.

Return the little dog to the shelter.

But there are others in my world.

This is her house. I am a guest here.

Rusty let me pick him up and cradle him in my arms. He sensed that something was amiss. When I set him on the car seat, he started to panic.

We went back to the cacophonous room. I was choking the tears as I placed him back into a cage.

Rusty didn't bark.

He just looked at me.

Those eyes.

Did I ever say that he stares?

"I trusted you."

Those rejected eyes. "Why?"

I had to turn and to leave quickly.

**********

I had gone to the shelter in the first place, seeking a companion. Something to love. To hold. To touch. To be touched by.

As is so frequently the case. Now two hearts are broken.

The Refectory Manager

If you want a friend, get a dog.

2011-09-13T01:01:00.000-04:00

There was a moment of quiet in the horrible room. Just us. The caged. Why bother to bark. No one there to bark at.

What nonsense of that old statement attributed to Who Knows Who, "If you want a friend, get a man."

But the door opened. And another one of those gawkers made a hesitating entrance.

The cacophony immediately erupted. Even for me it was deafening. I just wanted to die.

The gawker gawked. Then moved on, somewhere behind where I could see. I could hear the ruckus in that other area.

I am still haunted by what happened. I try to forget. And I do. Until that gawker showed up.

The escape. Mercifully. The escape.

The running. And running. Running in places I had never been. Yet it all still looked so familiar. Rows of big things. Doors. And shinny things arranged outside.

I could hear my kind. But I ignored them. I needed to get away.

I don't know how it happened. Trapped I guess, because I didn't know the terrain. Scooped up. I didn't bite. That is not me. He didn't hurt me. Biting him would only make it worse.

"Drop Off." I suppose that is what it said on the door. I was carried through it. The smells. The sounds. The bright lights. The confusion. I had no inkling as to what was happening. I was incapable of thinking of what would come next.

These past two weeks were horrible. Yes. I was "safe." I had chow. I had water. Somebody took me out on a leash. I peed on bushes. What was I supposed to do.

Then that day. I have no idea what happened. But when I groggily awakened, I ached and felt sick. I squirreled around to lick where it hurt. Stiff pieces of something sticking out of me. Going through me. And a pain I have never felt before. Somehow I sensed that I had been changed.

Dogs arrived.

Dogs left.

I am alone in a maze of confusion.

I have no expectations. That is something beyond my capability. I have only fears. I don't want to be hurt again.

It is quiet again where I am. Yet I hear the barking from somewhere behind me. I try to forget the past. To forget the present. The future I know nothing about.

The gawker returns. The yapping starts all over again. I can't see any of them. Just hear them. Hear their frustration. I understand their language.

And then.

The gawker stares at me. That stare. Those eyes.

Why does he look at me like that.

I have seen that image before. I was hurt by that image.

Don't look at me.

Don't come to me.

I must ignore him. Make myself invisible to him. No matter what, I can't deal with that part of my past all over again.

The gawker leaves. The quiet returns.

In a few minutes, a volunteer returns. Opens my cage. Pulls me out. Takes me down a hallway. Sets my on a counter.

The gawker is there. He stares at me. Leans over and whispers to me.

I fear him. But not enough to bite. He hasn't hurt me. Yet.

He holds me. Rubs my jowls with the back of his hand. It doesn't hurt.

In a few minutes he picks me up and takes me outside. Places me in this hot confined space. I make a dash for the back, to get as far from him as possible.

I have been in a car before. It has always involved anguish.

When it stops, the gawker opens the rear door. I cower away from him, but he reaches me and picks me up. But he touches that sensitive place with the stiff things sticking out. I yelp, squirrel around to get his hand away from me. I don't want to hurt him. But I don't want to be hurt either.

The gawker realizes for the first time, the incision from his loss of doghood.

He sets me on the ground. I start to run. But there is a rose bush right there. I stop. Lift my leg. Mark the spot. And soak it.

The next thing I know I am taken into a room. I want to hide. There is a chair. I cower there. Must survey the area. What all is there that will hurt me.

Then the old lady sees me. Loud words about something. But her voice is one I can trust. I have heard that kind of voice before. I felt safe with that voice.

In time the old lady sat down. In desperation for security I run, climb into her lap. She holds me. Her hands are cold, but soft.

The next hours are chaotic. I escape. Want to run as far and as fast as I can. But three people are cornering me. The old woman stomps on my trailing leash.

The chow is good. I had heard stories about that Beneful stuff...how good it was, and good for me. The water was good too. The cat just stared at me, then ignored me. I have had my run-ins with cats. I know my place.

I spend the night curled up in what smells like the cat's bed on the old woman's bed. I feel safe.

But the gawker, I still don't trust. Yes, he touches me. He whispers to me. He holds me. I don't fight him, but I run from him if he gets up. He calls for me, but I refuse to go to him. I have been hurt before.

The old woman left this afternoon. I was left alone with the gawker. He gave me a rawhide chew. And a little snuggly toy. I know what to do with those.

I jumped up on the end of the sofa to see out the window. Where did the old woman go? And the gawker came and sat beside me.

He coaxed me into his lap. I let him.

He touched me. Firm, soft, gentle, soothing. And he whispered to me. Asked me about what had happened. I can't tell him. How could he understand? But he didn't hurt me. Maybe...he won't hurt me.

We both dropped off into a nap.

Then some time together outside. They have a nice creek beside the house. It seems safe. I lie in the grass.

After awhile he leads me back into the house. I now readily follow. There is slack in the leash.

The gawker sits at his desk. I hear repetitive noises . I have no idea what a keyboard is.

But I do lie down in the well of his desk. I can stare up at him. He reaches down and massages my ears. Then my neck. Then my shoulders.

I don't run from him with my tail between my legs like yesterday.

His touch. His voice. He is not going to hurt me.

I will let him believe that old statement attributed to Who Knows Who, "If you want a friend, get a dog."

The Refectory Manager's Dog

"If you want a friend, get a man."

2011-09-10T11:27:00.000-04:00

I knew that I should have never let the notion even enter into my head. But I did. I couldn't help it.

Something about connection. That old statement attributed to Who Knows Who, "If you want a friend, get a dog."

The rate I'm goin', a dog it will have to be.

The Native Plant Society has a demonstration garden on the grounds of the Walla Walla Humane Society. I am a member of the NPS, but have never visited the demonstration garden. I found myself in that part of town.

I take it that it is a common frailty of mankind. Purposefully doing something you know you should not do. Not because it is wrong, or anything like that. But the interconnectedness that results in obligations. In responsibilities. In commitment. In sacrifice. In why in the hell am I doing this. Perhaps it is like having sex without protection. No way. Not me. It will never happen.

There are two doors on the front of the Shelter. The door on the right for "Drop Offs." The door on the left for "Adoptions." Into Adoptions I entered. I swore under my breath that I should not be doing this. I have never entered the door of a gay bar. I suspect I would have the exact same feelings.

Inside, a front counter. Computer monitors protruding upward like a row of Stonehenge relics. People perched behind monitors. People standing at the counter. I notice a rack, on an adjacent wall, full of pamphlets. Dog-eared pamphlets at that. There was another door down a little hall. I interrupted the computer person and asked if I could just go in. "Certainly," was her response.

So I did.

First room on the right had two cages. Rabbits. Quiet.

Room on the left, lots of cages. Cats. Quiet.

Down the passage, into a small room, a dozen or so small cages. Small dogs.

Instantly the room came alive with ruckus animation. I suppose dancing captives were all quick to learn from the old-timers, get the sucker's attention, hold it, if you expect to be adopted.

So I was targeted. Radiated by pleading eyes. Deafened by ear-splitting, attention-grabbing barking. Begging to sniff a finger by the wet little nose peeking through a wire mesh. Why didn't the architect think about sound-absorbing material on the cinderblock walls. Eight little dogs. Why were they there? What bad things had they done to deserve the "Drop Off" fate? Did they know it was inevitably either adoption or doggie heaven? Had the old-timers told the newcomers that? Or was this more like the Holocaust. Innocent of their fate. Had these dogs learned, by the school of hard knocks, how to present their resume, how to put their best paw forward, how to melt the heart of some gawking sucker? And what it also meant to them if they didn't? Couldn't? Wouldn't?

I observed them all. Wondered? Why for? How come? What about those soft brown eyes? What about the touch? Their warmth? Their trust? Their devotion? Their faithfulness? Their ability to be a partner? Their inevitable history? Their nature? Their nurture? Or lack thereof? What about the baggage they inevitably bring with them?

In the back of my mind, I was thinking along the lines of Labrador, or Golden Retriever. A big, gentle, dog. More like a man. Thinking of those surrogate situations of three-dog-night intimacy. (Cold enough it takes three dogs in bed with you to keep from freezing to death.)

I passed through the door marked "Large Dogs."

Big room. Big kennels. Lower in frequency but markedly louder in decibels.

Big dogs. Scruffy dogs. The resume of one big black Heinz 57 stating he was a "prison trained dog, ask about this." Another missing his front right leg.

I simply had to concede my nights would never be three-dog cold. I returned to the small dog room.

Bottom row, far right cage.

Those eyes. Unblinking. Staring.

No barking. None. Whatsoever. Wouldn't even stand up. No extending the nose to sniff. Just staring.

A larger Chihuahua. Rusty red, reasonably short hair.

That coconut face. Perfect equilateral triangle of dark eyes and dark nose. And that stare. Did I mention that stare? So different from the yappers in the other cages. But why? Just a well behaved, loveable little dog, or was his mind racing, "But for the love of Dog, don't pick me."

I returned to the front desk, asked if someone could tell me the story of the little dog in the bottom right cage.

Of course they could.

He was found as a stray in one of the city parks two weeks ago by a police officer. Brought in. Just getting ready to be registered it in the computer system as a for-adoption dog. Male. Approximately three years old. Known history negative. Now neutered, vaccinated. Ready for adoption. There is a three-day trial period. I can bring him back, no problem, if he doesn't work out.

It is Friday. The trial-period agreement gives me until 5 P.M. Monday. What the hell. Those eyes. That unflappable manner in the midst of cacophony. And did I mention that intensely penetrating stare? My heart is tearing itself out.

A volunteer brings the dog out to me. Sets it on the counter. I sign the papers. They loan me a leash. The lady behind the computer places a Humane Society tag on his collar, just in case it escapes from me. I cradle his head in my hands. Place my nose next to his. Stare into his eyes. Whisper.

The lady is holding his leash. I say that she can lay it down.

I rub the dog's face. He makes no move. At all. Why is he so passive? Is he ill? They assure me he is a healthy dog. For several minutes I attempt to establish "the bond."

In time, I take him to the minivan. Immediately he jumps into the back seats. He cowers away from me. Simply will not come to me.

We get home. I have to physically lift him from the car, and as soon as he is set on the ground, he wants to run. But stops to pee first.

I enter the kitchen door. The dog immediately hides under my office chair. My mother doesn't notice. At first. Then. "What. Have. You. Done!"

I recite the facts as I know them.

"What about the cat?"

What about the cat?

The cat has been around dogs before. The cat is the boss. The cat knows that. A far cry from the stereotype of things worldly when I was but a little boy . . . families were of the kind where the dog was the father and the cat was the mother. That is the way my Dick and Jane primer learned me.

After standing around, observing the behavior of this new intrusion into the household, his trying to hide himself under the table-cloth draped dining room table, my mother went to her big chair in the living room to sit down. The dog made a bee-line for her and snuggled in her lap.

The dog is afraid of me. Afraid of old scruffy-looking men. Perhaps there is a reason he was caught as a stray . . . running for his life. Perhaps there is a reason no one inquired of the Shelter for a specific missing dog.

Perhaps the reason for that stare, for the no barking, for the total lack of his sales pitch to entice me to select him over all others in that small dual purpose shelter-marketing room...the fear. That angst that he would be hurt again.

The cat. The cat door. We had closed it to what we thought the cat could still get through but the dog couldn't. We were wrong. Like a shot, that dog was out the door. Leash, fortunately, still attached and trailing behind.

The dog runs from me. I can't get anywhere near him. The man in the single-wide behind us had a letter to the editor published last Sunday about his hatred for dogs. His last sentence was that people should put a cork up the dog's behind before they take their dog out for a walk. How often I have wanted to tell him to stuff his own cigarette butts up his own butt as instead of flicking them onto the ground and the ambient wind then blowing them into our yard.

And of course, the dog runs into his yard.

I make a cut, the dog turns, runs back into our yard. Around the house. Again. My mother is now out there. He makes a shot for the street over to Wal-Mart. Some kind soul intercedes and heads him back our way. I yell at Mom to step on his leash. The dog lets her do it. I pick him up. Cuddle him. Rub his cheek with the back of my fingers. Massage his shoulders. Press my face against his. Whisper to him. Assure him he doesn't need to be afraid. I won't hurt him. He doesn't fight me. Just freezes motionless. Back in the house I set him down. He runs away from me. Takes refuge with my Mother.

After awhile, I intercede again. Hold him. Cradle him. Cuddle him. Touch him. There is no resistance. No response. I whisper to him again. Over and over and over. "Can I be your friend? Will you let me?" I think of a puppy my daughter found in the dumpster out behind the Subway store she was closing one night so many years ago now. Of course she brought that dog home. It was terrified of men wearing a baseball cap. Terrified of anything that looked like a broom. That dog bonded with my daughter. I wondered who could beat a dog with a broom? Why?

And now this one. The Shelter people were calling him "Reginald," but of course, they assured me, I could call him anything I wanted. "Rusty" was the name that was now sticking.

I held Rusty for a long time. He didn't fight me. I whispered to him. Asked him over and over again what had happened. For him to tell me what had happened. I want to make it right with him. He should not know that kind of fear.

Rusty is asleep now on my Mother's bed. I will rouse him just before I retire. Take him out for his business. Put him back on his makeshift bed where he seems to recognize it as a place of safety.

I knew that I should have never let the notion even enter into my head. But I did. I couldn't help it.

Something about connection. That old statement attributed to Who Knows Who, "If you want a friend, get a dog."

Monday, 5 P.M. It is still more than two days off.

Is there time for Rusty? "If you want a friend, get a man."

The Refectory Manager

Asphalt

2011-05-27T22:40:00.001-04:00

It is a path. Obviously. A denuded meandering of an indentation of spongy forest floor flanked with shimmering droplet-covered shades of chlorophyll green. On the left, on the right, rising steeply, yet another ubiquitous margin of the undulations of the Blues. The air is filled with the unvarying purring of Tiger Creek. Little birds, frantically distraught with the infringement on their nesting territory, scold with ferociousness. It is a path. I follow steps that have gone before.

The knee is painful. That damn Lipitor. Side effects of gout. Toes. Feet. Ankles. All vigorously protesting the repetitive thudding down on that narrow trail. The weakness. The vertigo. The inherent instability on uneven, cliff-clinging stretches. The realization that any redemption of the ambience of this experience can be a self-imposed cemetery rest.

Thoughts in my head, bouncing around like gumdrops in a lotto machine. Why did I choose to come on this hike. I fell once before. Bad fall. Because I didn't actually break a leg, I staggered out of that ravine rather than being hoisted between heaven and hell on the end of helicopter tether. But alas, I did choose, and now trudging behind three botanists on a Native Plant Society hike.

When the botanists stop, bend over, peer at the loveliness of golden blobs of pollen clinging tenaciously on wavering stamens, or assess the chartreuseness of sepals shyly hiding beneath the florescence of showy blooms, and they then fumble through the pocket wild-flower guide-book looking for confirmation of their discovery, I would catch up. For some specimens, the leader would ask me to document the flower with a photograph. My then fumbling with exposure to get the light source just right. Manually setting the aperture to control the depth of field. Adjusting the ISO temperature to quicken the shutter speed to freeze a flower's swaying in the very gentle breeze. The bending and contorting of my screaming joints to get a fresh perspective. The anticipative listening for the fake shutter click on the digital single-lens reflex camera to confirm the image had been captured. The recording of twelve million plus pixels of magnetic spots rendering the stark physics of color, texture, pattern, shape. Some images to be later Photoshopped into minimalist gray-scale monochrome representations of the beauty of line and shadow infused with a texture that only The Council of the Matrons of Nature could devise.

The botanists left the trail. A "bridal-veil falls" of a very hidden tributary to Tiger Creek was two- three hundred feet off to the left. I could not follow. The route simply too unstable for me. But through the swirl of random foliage I did manage a discrete peek of the flowing veil of a bashful bride.

The gumdrops were ricocheting again. Epiphany. Not the religious connotation of old camel-driven magic men and their recognition of swaddled babies in borrowed mangers. Rather, the secular rendition of a sudden leap in new understanding. Or perhaps simply the recognition, maybe even the concession, that things have changed.

Deep within the morning shadows of a late spring forest. That dampness. The flourishing mosses. The monocots spiking forth, swelling on the tips of slender leaves. The prepubescent period of life marked by increased growth and associated with purity, innocence, and simplicity of life. Immergence of life endemic. An expectation of life renewal. To thrust forth the flaunting of vacillating blooms of yellow, purple, pink, lavender, red, white, blue and the infinite subtleties of the amalgamation of colors between. To disperse the perfumes of enticement compelling insects to unknowingly consummate the intimate act of sex of an immobile plant.

Deep within the morning shadows of a late spring forest. The dankness. Decay. Rot. What to the casual observer would be deemed to be death. Broken dreams of trees now prostrating as lush condos for bugs and slugs and creepy-crawlies that boogie in the night.

I tell the group I cannot proceed on.

Return. I must.

Then to go back over and to feel again the resilience of that old dead growth denuded path. Sense the snap, crackle pop of old twigs underfoot. Release the snag to the britches by insistent briars. Sooth the scratch made by thorns still relentlessly shielding old vines. To realize this path is but a circular metaphor of the cycle of life.

The epiphany.

My acceptance that I shall not pass this way again.

The realization that other paths are markers too in yet other manifestations of life. Paths of a different nature. Paths were feeble old men can frolic with walkers. Paths where young men push their babies in buggies.

Now, a denuded meandering path of asphalt. Sometimes flanked with shimmering droplet -covered shades of chlorophyll green. Sometimes sullied with the shards of throw-awayness egocentricity.

Asphalt too is a path.

Obviously.

The Refectory Manager

On Entering a Casino

2011-03-05T02:24:00.001-05:00

So I am sauntering up to the front door of "Wildhorse Casino." Trying to be discrete. This snappy woman passes me on the left. I can see her smirk out of the corner of my eye. The thoughts oscillating behind her rolled-back eyes ooze out at me, "Another math-challenged dumb ass thinkin' he's gona get rich at this place!"

But about then I sense this presence coming up behind me, on my right. And then a very slight tap on my shoulder.

An instantaneous wave of panic: It's the guardian angel. About to whisper to me that it is against her religion to go in there with me . . . but if I insist, I simply must wing it on my own. She'll fly back to heaven, but return if I subsequently repent and insist. . . .

But the whisper was the soft voice of a man.

"You have a sticker on your back."

I stop. Turn.

An incredible manly face, week-old beard, soft brown eyes, grin from ear to ear.

"Sticker?"

"Yea, a sticker."

I attempt to reach to my back, try and find it.

"It is lower down."

Still can't find it.

"Would you take it off?"

"Sure."

And he peels off that garish adhesive strip! W50 L29! Blaring out, three times. Prominent enough for a smirking woman to see.

He hands it to me.

"Thank you, so very much."

He laughs. "My daughters caught me like that once!"

Damn!

The Refectory Manager

[My objective was to visit the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute located at the resort, but in another building about 2 miles from the casino. The less-than-one-minute it took for the security guard, just inside the door, to give me directions was enough to erupt a splitting headache . . . massive frontal assault of second-hand cigarette smoke.]

Reflections on Palliative Care

2011-01-27T15:45:00.001-05:00

Expectations.

We all have our expectations. They channel our relationships, our very lives. They are what we anticipate. Our doing. Our very being.

But they remain sequestered deep within, unless acknowledged. And of course . . . the requisite expression.

And so enters communication. That first time. The awkwardness of exposing expectations.

Our expectation of the other. The other's assumed expectation of us.

Perhaps it is a well thought out, well constructed phrase or question or statement of presumed fact. Perhaps it is some spontaneous stupid utterance that fails in every expected way. Perhaps it is simply a smile, the expression of openness, the signaling that that first expression will be welcomed by the other. No matter. That first pregnant exchange will subsequently be remembered with a smile, perhaps even with a laugh.

Quickly, the expectations are focused.

And as quickly, tuned, as that initial exchange is initiated.

The tone of voice. The voice itself. The nuance of simultaneous non-vocal signals. It instantly changes the expectations. The dialog becomes easier . . . flows . . . becomes the continuation of some long-lost conversation from another world.

Or.

An awkward silence ensues.

Expectations are in rapid flux.

A try again.

The sensed barrier is breached. A sense of relative comfort is established.

The expectations become realistic.

The points of shared-common are explored. Amplified. The connection is reinforced. The boundaries of the sensitive are ascertained . . . and breached so very gently if they in fact must be breached. Safety must be secured. The expectation of trust enhanced.

That initial conversation. The transition from the unknown to the known.

To learn of the sojourner's expectations.

The expectation of living. Of dying. To be understood. Respected.

Ascertaining the progress of the journey. The denial. The frustration. Perhaps anger. But then, the sojourner may have transversed that valley and has come to a vista point of acceptance. But still with guilt. Resignation. Defeat. Despair. Or perhaps, now, has the expectation and longing of that blessed reward.

This conversation is different.

It is not the conversation of the parent kissing the scraped knee of the little one and assuring that it is "All better now."

It is not. For this knee will not get better.

Rather, the kissing of the scraped knee is expressed in different ways. Mutually acceptable ways that bring a sense of worth and value and respect and love and empathy. And validation of the sojourner's spot on his or her own sauntering trail.

For certain, that kissing of the bruised knee is to break the bane of loneliness.

To give care to the spirit when there is no cure for the spirit's bruised knee.

To share that understanding with those others, if there are others, that also love the spirit of that unfixable knee.

It is then, that expectations are fulfilled.

The Refectory Manager

Weathered old-looking crevasses in a radiating face . . .

2011-01-14T18:16:00.001-05:00

His face had the look of oldness. Embellished in time weathered creases. Separated by contours of résistance to weathering.

I would look up. Look into his face. And feel the warmth of his radiance.

He had heard I was a dietitian. Somehow he sensed I could be trusted.

So we were seated at a round, wooden table. Four chairs. Two of them had cushions on the wooden seats.

We gathered to plan a meal. The next Group Dinner.

I discovered he was a chef.

His first act was to bring out a leather embossed folder. I opened it. His graduation certificate from a culinary arts program. The physical manifestation of his sense of personal value and worth.

But it was the book he laid before me. Green plastic ring binder. Tabs. Lots of tabs. And plastic document protectors protecting his work of several years.

The business plan for his restaurant.

Quite frankly, I was stunned! And told him how I wished my former students in their assignments would have been as comprehensive in their work as he is in his.

I gawked. Marveled. Turning pages revealed more incredible detail.

I would look up.

His face.

Beaming.

Radiant.

He has plans. He, along with another at that table. Another chef.

Plans.

And those plans transcend the history of why they are now planning a Group Dinner for recently released convicted felons.

But his face. Those crevices. Knurled and weathered they would seem to be.

But deep within those facial creases the emission of the radiance of hope. Of value. Of meaning.

Weathered old-looking crevasses in a radiating face . . .

The Refectory Manager

Bearing Gifts

2010-12-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

The peri-pubescent 13 year old standing in a bathrobe. Head draped in a towel. A stringy piece of rope trying its best to hold it all together. The side of the refrigerator carton was horizontal, transformed into the silhouette of a camel. The Christmas Concert parents crammed into the darkened church-school basement hall, gawking with admiration at their precious little performing royalties. One third of the traveling kings was over-whelmed with freaking-out panic. Throat in paralysis. The solo of the king was so low it didn’t even exist. That king was incapable of bearing a gift. Be it gold. Be it frankincense. Be it myrrh. Or be it an emerging mystery deep within his very being.

The memories of “… over the bridge and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go …” The near insanity of the bearing of the gifts of commerce. Gifts of big toys. Gifts of puppy dog tails. Gifts to warm the body. Sometimes gifts to warm the soul. Gifts to tickle the sweet tooth. Gifts to weight the anchor-legacy of the hips. Gifts gaily wrapped with impeccable precision by the Martha’s of the world. Gifts haphazardly encased with the bulging paper and sticky tape of the gift-wrapping-challenged yet spiritually-astute Mary’s of the world. And the memory of a gift that was slowly becoming unwrapped.

The memories of a massive sanctuary. The combined choirs. The stressed soloists. The brilliance of the Casavant pipe organ. The thunderous dynamics of “Wonderful.” “Counselor,” “Prince of Peace,” “Like Sheep,” “Gone Astray,” Hallelujah,” “Trumpets Raging,” and that antiphonal chorus of “Hallelujah Amen.” The feeling of the vibrations of the sounds of the gifts, of the glory, of the inspiration, of the orgasmic power of the gift of “The Messiah” in whatever dimension one may be able to recognize and comprehend. And the bearing of a gift to humanity. And the gift to a college student that was terrible to bear.

And like the little child, angry with Santa Clause, because the expected gift did not make it down the chimney, the recipients of another special gift can be angry, frustrated, hurt, exasperated, bitter. The gift received was denied, stomped on, buried, hidden, cursed, shamed, damned, jammed into the closet with the crazy aunt – but unlike the crazy aunt that everyone knows is there and just ignores, this gift becomes brilliantly invisible. And for some, a gift impossible to bear.

But in time, what was brilliantly invisible becomes brilliant. Something changes. Be it space, or time, or circumstances, or society, or religions, or family or the laws of the institutions of the land. The spiritual and life journey moves on. And a gift becomes more bearable.

And for some, in the stillness of the season, the gift can be truly received. It no longer is bearing to bear the gift. Not only bearable, but recognizable for the value it truly is. No gold. No frankincense. No myrrh. But to be chosen by the Soul-Maker to be the fiduciary of a rare and special gift indeed.

And the ability to pray the words – “Thank You, for selecting me as a custodian of this precious gift.”

And hark to you angels and herald it to the world! “The gift given to me is the gift of gay.”

The Refectory Manager