Black and white gloves... and one red and one yellow rose... on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s and Zelda Sayer’s grave: Somebody who obviously knows Fitzgerald’s use of color in The Great Gatsby, especially black and white, and his roses visited the gravesite at Old St. Mary’s Graveyard in Rockville, Maryland, at least a couple of days before I got there. The gloves are wet from rain and the roses are wilted, which makes the symbolism perfect.

Quoting the late President Reagan in my response to the Tea Party mouse roaring in the Washington halls of power, “There you go again.” ...Same song, second verse, could be better, but it’s likely to be worse. The folks who swept into Washington claiming they were bringing a mandate from THE PEOPLE are saying now that THE PEOPLE want fundamental (a favorite word of religious conservatives) changes in health care, the environment, and abortion rights... meaning, of course, THEY, THE PEOPLE, want to do away with all of the health benefits to the poor and needy assured by legislation passed when there was a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress; THEY, THE PEOPLE, want to continue to corrupt the environment by eliminating regulations and controls which limit what companies and individuals are permitted to do to degrade the natural world if those regulations affect the bottom line in corporate budgets; and THEY, THE PEOPLE, want to go back to a time when there was no such thing as a “legal” abortion and government regulations drove women, even in cases of rape, to seek remedy in illegal back room abortion operations. I am confident that americans are better than that; no mandate of that kind exists. And about government regulations prohibiting women from exerting control over their own bodies. Isn’t it time to say something about blatant inconsistency in the Tea Party’s litany of demands. Isn’t their goal to stop government from regulating what Americans may do and may not do. Obviously, they want it both ways: “government control” in matters consistent with tenents of their religion; no regulations when it comes to the environment and the economy.

I don’t live in a cave. I spend my days out in the world with intelligent, responsible people, most of whom are citizens of the United States of America. I rarely come across anyone who would seriously like to deprive anyone of appropriate health care and other basic human needs. Most of the people I know don’t keep company with rich and famous sports people and entertainers who earn obscenely large salaries, and I don’t have regular conversations with corporate executives or with people who have regular conversations with corporate executives who enjoy multimillion dollar salaries; so I don’t hear much about protecting the salaries of really rich people from having to pay taxes at a higher rate than I pay. So where are THE PEOPLE of the mandate? Don’t my waste time quoting Palin, Bachman, Limbaugh, and Trump. They don’t represent the people of the United States of America. Sarah Palin quit her job as the elected governor of Alaska, and she has not been elected to a legislative position in Washington. Her use of the word mandate is typical of intellectual silliness that infuses her conservative political rhetoric. Michele Bachman was elected by a majority of the citizens of the 6th district in the state of Minnesota. She may say her election in the 6th District implies “mandate” from THE PEOPLE of the United States, but even she knows that isn’t true.

The Tea Party agenda is clear and has little to do with the security and welfare of American people or with strengthening government of the United States of America, which were the major goals of framers of our extraordinary Constitution almost two-and-a-half centuries ago. Not all of the Tea Party politicians are religious people, but they definitely know what they must say to get elected and reelected to public office. They must say what the voters who identify with mainline conservative Christian denominations in America want to hear. Even if they are not personally religious, to get elected and reelected they must imply commitment to tenents of conservative religious groups. Because the United Methodists Book of Discipline contains explicit language that says God doesn’t approve of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender folks, the Tea Party platform must stand against giving GLBT citizens the same rights other people enjoy. Because the Southern Baptist Denomination stands against abortion under any circumstances, the Tea Party must rail against Planned Parenthood even if it means lying blatantly about the services provided to Americans by that organization. The Bible says God, who controls everything, has given man dominion over all the earth; so Tea Party candidates can say we shouldn’t worry about the environment. We can leave that responsibility with God. Mike Huckabee probably wouldn’t do well in a run for office in Japan.

Most Americans are basically good people. Even with our peculiar individual flaws and foibles, we are generally in favor of good health and security for all Americans. In the months ahead we Americans who are eligible to vote and who actually do vote are going to try to figure out which candidates for national offices honestly, intelligently, and consistently represent us so we can know for whom we should vote in the next election cycle. Americans enjoy being entertained by silliness. How else can we explain the reality of Donald Trump and the Washington Post report that polls show him with a 17% approval rating among Republicans. In some quarters 17% is considered mandate. We relish the humor of a television programs like “Laugh In,” but that doesn’t mean most of us would be in favor of electing Goldie Hawn to represent us in congress because her staged silliness in a television program thirty years ago amused us. On the other hand, we probably shouldn’t ignore that old adage about history having a way of repeating itself.

You may want to click on some of these images to see them larger...

Nancy's Kitchen Table...

Nancy and Scooby

REMEMBERING “the way it used to be” is a favorite pastime of the people in my tribe. We are the retired, the old people, the people who don’t have to get up in the morning anymore to go to work. Whenever I’m in the Washington Area as I have been this week, the remembering becomes more than a pastime. I am driven by some unseen but keenly felt impulse to go see the places where I once worked and played to know if the paths I once walked are the same today as they were three and four decades ago and if the houses are still there that once guided me to the driveway that led to my own house. Our house in those days was the headmaster’s residence on the campus of Potomac School where I worked. I went back there today by myself just to see how it felt to walk around where people who are now old enough to be members of AARP were once children and adolescents playing and studying all around me when I was a man in middle age. Neither they nor I dreamed a world that is the one we know today. They were the children of government bureaucrats and elected and appointed government representatives from both parties. The children of Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy, both now dead, seemed not to know or care that their fathers were stalwarts in different political parties. When the Watergate Scandal rocked Washington and the nation, the children of principal players on both sides of the political divide studied and played happily together as if it didn’t matter that some of their parents were known as Democrats and some were known as Republicans. When Republican President Richard Nixon ordered his Secretary of State Eliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox because Cox was demanding that certain incriminating tapes be handed over to his office, I remember how the Republican Secretary of State sat in his car all afternoon at a picnic hosted by a family of Democrats and attended by a dozen or so of us who were both Democrats and Republicans and composed his resignation from his high office rather than comply with the President’s order. All of us knew that what was happening was shaking the very foundations of our Republic, but we didn’t know exactly what it was; nevertheless, everybody, Republicans and Democrats, remained cordial at picnics and luncheons and dinner parties and school programs. Republicans and Democrats ate together in the Senate Dining Room while across town at Potomac School and at other schools in the area their children grew up through the childhood years believing that their parents were committed to making our government of the people work for all the people.

We got through those difficult times. We will get through this present unsettled period and will be a stronger nation on the other side of it because we are blessed with a good system that makes compromise possible. Compromise is something we have rediscovered several times since the nation was founded around a remarkable constitution.

A few days ago I began a BLOG post with “It’s true! There is definitely something different about Washington... Actually, not just something, almost everything.” I was hoping I wouldn’t be misunderstood. Washington is one of the most beautiful capitals in the world. I like it. Once upon a time I lived here for a decade, one of the best of many good periods of my life. Coming back for a visit with Daughter Nancy and other friends and family is always a special treat.

This morning I wandered around the National Cathedral Close and took some pictures of the “other” buildings there. I’ll probably go back tomorrow and take some more photographs of the Cathedral itself, inside and out. I thought about Paul Cesanne and my friend Tom Fagan as I peered through a profusion of flowers and branches of some blooming magnolia tulip trees (I think that’s what they are) and tried to imagine what artists would do with the cottage that sits a couple of hundred yards northwest of the big cathedral. After the last few days of fierce wrangling over the budget, coming right down to the last hour before reaching an agreement not to shut down the government, the most peaceful place in Washington must have been the Cathedral Close, with its scattering of quiet buildings and blooming gardens. I wish the peace here could flow down the hill from this highest place in the city and permeate the meetings that will take place as the Administration and Congress continue to try to find a way to make our government work as it was designed to work for all of us.

This is Andrew.
This is what intelligence looks like at age two-and-a-half.

FAMILY AT NANCY'S HOUSE: Margaret, Jerral, Nancy; Jim, Jerral; Joe, Braithe; Joe, Braithe, Margaret, Nancy, Jim

NATURE, (The Robin)
by Emily Dickinson

I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I’m accustomed to him grown,--
He hurts a little, though.

I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.

I wished the grass would hurry,
So when ‘t was time to see,
He’d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me.

My Country..

'Tis of Thee...

...of thee I sing.... and worry... and worry... and worry...

In spite of crazy weather last week and this week in Washington, the cherry blossoms were hanging on today even in a cold wind. The duck isn't standing in snow flakes. Those are cherry blossom petals.

It’s true! There is definitely something different about Washington... Actually, not just something, almost everything. Last night Margaret and I flew into Baltimore-Washington Airport instead of Dulles or that other one with the name that used to be “National” but has been officially changed to honor an American President who had been a California politician... no, not Nixon... the one who was an actor before he became governor of the Golden State. No, not the Gubernator, who hasn’t actually achieved the distinction of being elected president... yet. That one is said to be working on it, but he is reported to be getting ready to make a couple of movies first.

It’s not a new thing... this difference between Washington and the rest of the country. It must be acknowledged that this area has been different right from the beginning it was decided to turn a swamp into the nation’s capital. And I say, Vive la difference... Well, sometimes vive la difference. The lead story in the Washington Post this morning, complete with photograph of a blank wall at the National Gallery and the story about a “visitor” (Does anybody know where Fred Phelps or Pastor Jones was on Friday?) who tried to dislodge a Paul Gauguin masterpiece depicting partial nudity, while screaming that it is “evil.” The picture was found to be undamaged. The condition of the “visitor...” You can fill in that blank depending on your religious, political, socioeconomic, etc., etc., etc., frame of mind. This is Washington, and that’s allowed.

The plane landed at 11.40 p.m.; we made it to the car rental lot by half-past-midnight, and a woman speaking a decidedly British dialect of English, who might have once been a British Airways flight attendant back in the days when they were called stewardesses... who perhaps got disoriented on one of her layovers in Washington and wound up peddling Budget cars at BWI... a Dantesque assignment at any time of day, but at midnight hell for sure.

She never once looked at me, except for what she could see of me on my California driver’s license. That’s the way it’s done in Washington. Reality is a paper thing. She could relate to me by way of my driver’s license the way the folks down at the Internal Revenue Service relate to me every year around this time when my friend and tax man Dave Yoshida sends them an accounting of my financial life for the year just ended... but she did say, the Budget lady, “What can I do for you... sir... which she added when she saw that I had been born before WWII. I expected her to look up at that point to see if I am really fit enough to be trusted with a Budget car, but she didn’t. She got my reservation off the paper I handed across to her with my credit card and driver’s license... quickly and efficiently, still without looking up, asked if I could be happy with a Mercury Grand Marquis... I had requested... actually, to be honest, requested a small economy car... a cheap car... a BUDGET car. The Budget lady didn’t wait for my answer, assuring me that I was getting the Mercury Grand Marqis at the economy, cheap car price... and asked me to punch accept in a couple of places on a computer screen bigger than the ones at the grocery store out where I live... told me to sign at the bottom with the electronic pen... handed me a bundle of papers... and said I should go out the door, take a right and then another right and find B-5 where I would find the Mercury Grand Marquis waiting for me with the keys in it.

She was right. The Mercury Grand Marquis was there. It is the biggest car I’ve seen in a long time. It’s bigger than those SUVs and supersized, high-up-off-the-pavement pickups that hog California freeways and most of the parking spaces in the San Diego condo community where I live. I got the picture the minute I saw the car. That Budget woman had been trying to get that car off the lot all day long, and she finally found a sucker who was too weary and eager to get to his daughter’s house in Rockville to argue. To give her credit, she probably assumed I could actually drive the car because she probably assumed I had chased Rommel across North Africa in a tank about that size.

Margaret and I could have spent the night in the trunk of that car. I take back all my complaining about Margaret’s taking too much luggage on a short trip. After I’d loaded it into the cavernous trunk, I was apprehensive... a little afraid we’d misplace some of the luggage in this car. Margaret put her foot down and refused to ride back there to make sure we didn’t lose anything.

I considered going back in and demanding the small car that I’d been digitally promised when I made the reservation, but I didn’t think the Budget woman would recognize me; so we got in and headed for Rockville... after I tried to figure out how to get the seat, the big-wide-soft leather seat, to move up toward the steering wheel... after a couple of minutes of trying several combinations of buttons and levers on the dash display, I decided I could lean forward and maneuver the car to Nancy’s house. I’d figure out the controls in the morning in broad daylight.

ROCK HARD SILENCE

Rock hard silence sits in cathedra.
Mute pipes rise above the choir.
The congregation waits
afraid to ask the obvious questions
about why truth is too uncomfortable
to speak, so keep it down
except to say ain’t it a hell of a note
when reality strides boldly from the closet
wrapped in the flag of Jesus
whistling Dixie in the wrong key.

Eric Johnson is a poet living and working in San Diego. He teaches English at Scripps Ranch High School. Eric is a graduate of SDSU. He received his MFA from Warren Wilson College in Ashville, North Carolina. Because Eric is now and has been for many years one of my closest friends, “One Door (An Invitation) is the poem of his that I like best. The poem, the second of two that should be read together, is a perfect blend of the specific and the ambiguous, of individuality and universality, something that isn’t easy to accomplish in a short poem.

ONE WINDOW (NAILED SHUT)
by Eric Johnson

I draw a cabin in the woods,
a place I can be alone. The likelihood
of intruders would be remote
had I not made it impossible.
The terrain’s rugged with thistles and wolves.
Dense foliage hangs overhead.
This place, more like a stronghold,
has one window which is nailed shut
and draped in thatched burlap. I am afraid
i cannot invite you in,
for an invitation would contradict my desire
for introspection. Even at this moment
I betray that purpose--
directing my thoughts to someone
other than myself, the one person
I have come here to understand.
It surprises me you have made it this far,
found the one path I left unmarred.
Forgive me if I erase the cabin door....
picture a ravine between us,
an old rope bridge, an unraveling hitch.

One Door (An Invitation)
Eric Johnson

I want you to know my cabin in the woods
is near, and I’ve cleared a path for you.
For you I slung an axe, hacked back the brush
I once planned to hinder intruders.
Can you believe a hundred snares (or more)
awaited you and the other distractions
who might come with conversations,
questions, jugs of wine? You should know
I tripped those traps I’d set between us.
And now I am rendering a new door,
one whose lock’s unlatched, the wood cracked
slightly from the jamb, craving the unexpected
nudge of your hand. If you cross
the threshold, if you do, walk to the west wall
where, above the hearth, I have hung your portrait,
drawn from memory. Do you see
that small box, the one beside the vase, exploding
with roses? A map is hidden there.
Unfold it and follow the arrows to where
I am composing this poem, imagining
the door, the box, the vase, the map with arrows--
that you would even want to find me.

i thank you God for most this amazing day
by e.e. cummings


i thank you God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)