Grandpa Jones was a simple man. He was good at math. His teacher said he “showed promise.” At a time when hot dogs were ten for a dollar, Grandpa always charmed the vendor into selling eleven for the same price – one for each member of his family.
His daddy died when Grandpa was in eighth grade. Like many young men of his time, he quit school to work and support his mother and younger siblings. Grandpa was a Native American manual laborer in an Irish-Italian-Polish community. He sweated through sweltering fourteen-hour days in a bakery. Laid bricks. Supported his alcohol intake with winnings earned as a ham-fisted street fighter.
He viewed life in concrete terms: A person was good, or bad. Any unfamiliar situation was potentially dangerous until proven otherwise. His momma became a bad woman a year after his daddy passed away. She’d developed a taste for whiskey and the way it blurred her pain. She’d been married half her life, widowed since she was twenty-six, and her lonely flesh ached to feel a man’s touch. Between her carousing and her drinking, Grandpa slid the bead on his momma’s moral abacas to the bad column just a year after his daddy died.
There was no turning back once Grandpa labeled something as bad -- no forgiveness possible, no redemption achievable. He handled his loved ones with caution, knowing at any time they might turn bad and break his heart. Grandpa loved with intensity -- and fear. Unwilling to make such a painful choice again, he suspected men and protected women.
He met and wooed a woman with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. The simple man and his well-educated woman married in 1929. After a heart-rending series of miscarriages and stillbirths, Laura gave birth to my mother Martha by caesarian section.
The doctors told Laura she would bear no more children. Grandma and Grandpa sheltered Martha from every possible danger. She wasn’t allowed to play with other children because she might contract polio or tuberculosis or some other dreaded disease for which there was no cure. She wasn’t permitted to play on the river’s edge – she might slip in and drown. Grandpa and Grandma couldn’t stand to lose Martha. They couldn’t bear for Martha to become “bad.” She was never allowed to walk anywhere alone. Her purity and chastity was unquestionable. This girl born by caesarian section enjoyed a reputation above reproach like that of Caesar’s wife.
Martha was allowed to date once she turned sixteen. A boy wanting to court her first had to pass a grueling interview with her parents. One young man passed the gauntlet. He must have thought himself clever when he drove Martha to an isolated area and tried to force himself on her. Martha escaped. She remained a virgin, yet her innocent view of life was gone.
Martha arrived home, shocked and terrified, and told Grandma what the man had done. She was sent to bed. Through the thin wall of their tiny rented house she heard a few murmurs exchanged between her parents. Then Grandpa left the house.
Grandpa somehow found the offender and invited him into the nearby woods for a man-to-man talk. The story goes that Grandpa used his pocketknife and slit the boy’s scrotum – just a little. As the young man blubbered and begged to go to the hospital, Grandpa evenly explained Martha’s value to Grandpa. How she could never be replaced. How important it was to him that she remain a virgin until she married. His wife’s heart would break if anything bad happened to Martha. How Grandpa wouldn’t allow it to. If the sobbing youth uttered a negative word about Martha to anyone or even tried to speak to her again, he’d receive a final visit from Grandpa. No one would ever see or hear from the boy again. His body would never be found.
Grandpa wrung a devil’s pact from the teenager. The stipulations were unambiguous: If you don’t agree to these terms, I won’t leave you to die alone; that wouldn’t be human. I’ll stay till you draw your last breath. If you do agree, I’ll drive you to the hospital and take care of your bill. No one need ever know.
The sixteen-year-old chose to live. Grandpa drove him to the same hospital where Grandma worked. One of the doctors there stitched him up. This was a simpler time in history. No questions were asked, no bill was presented.
The simple man returned home, satisfied that the sanctity of his family was intact and all was well in his simple world.
* * *
Years after Martha met and married my Dad and I’d been born, Grandpa worked as a security guard for the local Catholic hospital. It was located in a section of town populated by the shadier citizens – prostitutes, gamblers, drug users. The good sisters found homes for unwanted babies and promised treatment for anyone who asked. The hospital’s doors remained unlocked at night.
One time while making his rounds in the early morning hours, Grandpa heard a strange noise and looked in a rarely used room. A large black man with his slacks down at his knees held a knife to the throat of a nun he had pinned to the tiled floor. The rumor passed by the Director of Nursing was the nun heard the door open and instantly her attacker fell away, as if God Himself had struck him down. The sister said a muffled voice assured her she was safe and that no one knew. Before she could straighten her habit or even sit up, her attacker was dragged from the room and the door closed.
That same night, the doctor on call treated a large black man for a fractured skull. The man said he’d been jumped in the alley outside the hospital and didn’t know who was responsible. He recovered from his injuries but died a year later when he lost a knife fight with two other men.
The nuns regarded Grandpa differently after that night. He was the best-treated security guard at St. Francis Hospital until his retirement. Grandpa said he didn’t know which sister it had been, and it didn’t matter. She represented Laura, or Martha, or me. She was a woman in trouble and he was there at the right time to help. It was his duty. He was a simple man.
When Grandpa died, I inherited his blackjack. Barely eight inches long, it weighed about two pounds. Just a handle and a lead-filled spring bound in braided black leather. It was a simple weapon for a simple man.
© 2004-5 Ginger Hamilton Caudill
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Unfinished Stories
Unfinished Stories
I won’t find peace when I die. It’ll be just like when I lay down at night and images of unfinished business swirl through my head. I meant to find the heart-shaped cookie cutter but got distracted; I forgot to put the straight-edged screwdriver back in the toolbox. Only when I die, it’ll be incomplete writing projects that haunt me.
Ole Joe with the eye patch and crutches sits on the sidewalk, bumming spare change and wondering when he can go home. A woman stands endlessly at a kitchen sink washing dishes and wondering if that’s all there is to life. Two children ride their bikes in a blistering New Mexico sun, wondering if night will ever arrive. A broken man weeps in a forgotten document file, waiting to learn if his woman will ever return.
Maybe lost souls in our real world are characters in Someone’s incomplete stories. The characters are mired in conflict until the Author writes His resolution. He moves from story to story writing a thousand words here, revising a paragraph there, and we each progress. Some folks move forward by leaps and bounds when the Muse stirs the Author and He pounds out two inspired chapters.
So I beg you, Dear Writer, seek out your abandoned characters. Resolve their conflicts. Even lovemaking can be an endless Hell.
(c) January 22, 2005 Clara Chandler
I won’t find peace when I die. It’ll be just like when I lay down at night and images of unfinished business swirl through my head. I meant to find the heart-shaped cookie cutter but got distracted; I forgot to put the straight-edged screwdriver back in the toolbox. Only when I die, it’ll be incomplete writing projects that haunt me.
Ole Joe with the eye patch and crutches sits on the sidewalk, bumming spare change and wondering when he can go home. A woman stands endlessly at a kitchen sink washing dishes and wondering if that’s all there is to life. Two children ride their bikes in a blistering New Mexico sun, wondering if night will ever arrive. A broken man weeps in a forgotten document file, waiting to learn if his woman will ever return.
Maybe lost souls in our real world are characters in Someone’s incomplete stories. The characters are mired in conflict until the Author writes His resolution. He moves from story to story writing a thousand words here, revising a paragraph there, and we each progress. Some folks move forward by leaps and bounds when the Muse stirs the Author and He pounds out two inspired chapters.
So I beg you, Dear Writer, seek out your abandoned characters. Resolve their conflicts. Even lovemaking can be an endless Hell.
(c) January 22, 2005 Clara Chandler
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Kudzu City
Synopsis of Kudzu City:
The Little family has 11 members, not including Grandma Little and the animals, and they are amazingly self-sufficient. They never shop in town, keep to themselves, and are annoyingly happy. Kudzu City folks are inquisitive and find it unacceptable that the Littles stay to themselves. The townspeople hold a town meeting and decide to send someone up the hollow to find out how the Littles get along so well. Then the fun begins!
Introduction:
Sitting on the sweltering pavement of the state road bridge, Jay was watchful for signs. He slurped loudly on a grape sno-cone. The soggy paper wrapper was nearly as melted as the ice. Jay was patient. He believed in signs. Grandma Fitzgerald always said, "John, the Lord gives us signs. Watch for them; they will always steer you right." Mother Fitzgerald admired President Kennedy and named him -- her first-born son -- John Kennedy Fitzgerald. Jay's full name was the cause of much teasing in school, that and his avid attention to signs. Nowadays everyone called him Jay, except Mother and Grandma Fitzgerald.
He knew signs were real but they came true in their own time. He hoped the sign he was watching now, "Watch for ice on bridge" would come true soon because he was about to faint from the heat. The only place to see the sign was right on the bridge and there was no shade to shelter him. It didn't really matter; it was sweltering in the shade too.
It seemed to Jay some things happen so fast or slow we just can't see them. Falling Rock sign, for instance -- maybe rocks fall as leisurely as they form so humans can't see them when they fall. And maybe the ice on the bridge formed and melted so quickly he couldn't see it. That would explain the humidity.
Satisfied with his rationalization, Jay settled back against the bridge's retaining wall in hopes the ice would cool him off before it evaporated. He finished the last soupy remains of his sno-cone and chewed on the mushy wrapper as his mind wandered.
Mother never went out these days. She sat in her room and scribbled in her journals. Doc Lowe said she had something called schizophrenia, but Jay figured Mother was the same as she'd always been. He couldn't tell any difference. Jay figured Mother wrote nonsense in those journals to play tricks on anybody who sneaked and read them. He’d snuck into her room one day a few years back when Mother was feeling better and had gone to the store. He’d found a journal with roses on the front under her mattress, and he’d tried to read a few pages. None of it made any sense. It was written in the same language Mother used to speak when she was wound up.
Jay knew somewhere in all that nonsense was wisdom. Some say it’s nonsense, but Jay knew better. People don’t understand anything until they’re shown how to, Grandmother always said. Not the alphabet, not math, nothing. So he waited and watched for a sign that he’d learned what he needed in order to understand the rambling in Mother’s journals.
(c) 2005 Clara Chandler
The Little family has 11 members, not including Grandma Little and the animals, and they are amazingly self-sufficient. They never shop in town, keep to themselves, and are annoyingly happy. Kudzu City folks are inquisitive and find it unacceptable that the Littles stay to themselves. The townspeople hold a town meeting and decide to send someone up the hollow to find out how the Littles get along so well. Then the fun begins!
Introduction:
Sitting on the sweltering pavement of the state road bridge, Jay was watchful for signs. He slurped loudly on a grape sno-cone. The soggy paper wrapper was nearly as melted as the ice. Jay was patient. He believed in signs. Grandma Fitzgerald always said, "John, the Lord gives us signs. Watch for them; they will always steer you right." Mother Fitzgerald admired President Kennedy and named him -- her first-born son -- John Kennedy Fitzgerald. Jay's full name was the cause of much teasing in school, that and his avid attention to signs. Nowadays everyone called him Jay, except Mother and Grandma Fitzgerald.
He knew signs were real but they came true in their own time. He hoped the sign he was watching now, "Watch for ice on bridge" would come true soon because he was about to faint from the heat. The only place to see the sign was right on the bridge and there was no shade to shelter him. It didn't really matter; it was sweltering in the shade too.
It seemed to Jay some things happen so fast or slow we just can't see them. Falling Rock sign, for instance -- maybe rocks fall as leisurely as they form so humans can't see them when they fall. And maybe the ice on the bridge formed and melted so quickly he couldn't see it. That would explain the humidity.
Satisfied with his rationalization, Jay settled back against the bridge's retaining wall in hopes the ice would cool him off before it evaporated. He finished the last soupy remains of his sno-cone and chewed on the mushy wrapper as his mind wandered.
Mother never went out these days. She sat in her room and scribbled in her journals. Doc Lowe said she had something called schizophrenia, but Jay figured Mother was the same as she'd always been. He couldn't tell any difference. Jay figured Mother wrote nonsense in those journals to play tricks on anybody who sneaked and read them. He’d snuck into her room one day a few years back when Mother was feeling better and had gone to the store. He’d found a journal with roses on the front under her mattress, and he’d tried to read a few pages. None of it made any sense. It was written in the same language Mother used to speak when she was wound up.
Jay knew somewhere in all that nonsense was wisdom. Some say it’s nonsense, but Jay knew better. People don’t understand anything until they’re shown how to, Grandmother always said. Not the alphabet, not math, nothing. So he waited and watched for a sign that he’d learned what he needed in order to understand the rambling in Mother’s journals.
(c) 2005 Clara Chandler
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Meanwhile, They Suffer
We sit in ivory towers and examine why three men in Hawaii didn’t warn the world soon enough. Outrage doesn’t clothe the women or quench the children’s thirst. Tongue-clucking won’t suppress infections or succor hunger. There will be time for outrage and questions.
Meanwhile, they suffer.
Meanwhile, they suffer.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Communication, Time, and the Physical Body
Communication, Time, and the Physical Body – Introduction ©2005 Clara Chandler
Set of assumptions: Our real “self” exists in spiritual form. Eternally, the essence of who we are is spiritual and not physical.
We have a physical body in this dispensation as a tool for our spirit to progress in some manner.
Time is not “real” but a communication tool. Ideas can be explained sequentially and built upon using time.
Once we gain a physical body certain tools are available for our spirit’s use. Physical communication enables us to learn tools such as language, writing, math – forms of more advanced communication. Written communication enables an individual to record and explain concepts one time, i.e., in a book. Multiple copies of the book are then simultaneously available to numerous individuals. Many have access to the concepts without having access to the individual.
Think about this blog: I post concepts here once. These concepts are available to anyone who wanders in without my having to stay here and repeat them each time. The blog may be viewed by thousands of people at one time.
The concept of Time allows for sequential thought and a method of ordering data. Being in a physical form, we can take communication (book) and use Time to sequence the concept or information. Because the information is also in a physical form, it can be rearranged and sequenced, examined thoroughly, and put back in its original order. This enables individuals to manipulate segments of information into an order that makes sense for them. Once they grasp the concept, the information can be restored to its original sequence and processed as a whole.
Think about DNA – only four nucleotides. Let’s say the nucleotides are beads. One individual has a complicated string of beads. If that precise string is duplicated, another individual of the same kind is created. If the string breaks and the beads re-strung in a different sequence, an entirely difference being is created. The beads can be restrung endlessly in many combinations and sequences until the beader has an understanding of how DNA sequencing works.
Time is not a string of beads with knots on both ends. There is no beginning. There is no end. Time is a tool that enables us to move the beads around and communicate with others.
I strung the red bead. (I graduated from high school.)
I added two blue beads. (I got married and had a family.)
I added one yellow. (I went back to school.)
The sequence is important only to communicate information so the person reading it can grasp the concept. The above sequence has a different meaning than:
I added one yellow. (I went back to school.)
I strung the red bead. (I graduated from high school.)
I added two blue beads. (I got married and had a family.)
I’ve used Time as a tool to label the three actions above. By re-arranging the order of those actions, I can Communicate different concepts.
The concept of Time is also useful to identify progression in an eternal being. It’s immaterial what day you learned how to multiply, but it’s significant that you learned to multiply before you graduated from high school. In this example, the sequence of Time is what’s important, not identifying the precise instant in Time.
Time can be used as a yardstick to measure eternal progression:
In my eternal progression, have I lingered too long at Point C? Do I feel an urging to move to Point D? The longing for progression beyond current experience can mark the end of one stage and/or the beginning of the next. In this example, Time is not an hour or minute tool but an application of a sequential timeline or yardstick.
-----------------|-----------------------------------
Here is the point that I decided to go back to college
The tool of Physical Being provides a way to compare much data at once. Data can be categorized, laid out, rearranged, organized and reorganized (like index cards). Having a Physical Body and living in a physical world in this dispensation allows cutting and pasting of information. It also allows the information to be restored in its original form. If we existed solely in spiritual form I believe we’d have to hold all these concepts at once and try to work them out “in our head,” so to speak.
Example: The difference between doing math in your head and being able to do a large problem on paper or even using a calculator. You are able to process more complex information using paper and pencil, and even more using a calculator, than you can with only your mind.
Well, if you’re still reading you probably have a headache by now. Take some Time to reward your Physical Body for the work it’s done over this Communication.
Set of assumptions: Our real “self” exists in spiritual form. Eternally, the essence of who we are is spiritual and not physical.
We have a physical body in this dispensation as a tool for our spirit to progress in some manner.
Time is not “real” but a communication tool. Ideas can be explained sequentially and built upon using time.
Once we gain a physical body certain tools are available for our spirit’s use. Physical communication enables us to learn tools such as language, writing, math – forms of more advanced communication. Written communication enables an individual to record and explain concepts one time, i.e., in a book. Multiple copies of the book are then simultaneously available to numerous individuals. Many have access to the concepts without having access to the individual.
Think about this blog: I post concepts here once. These concepts are available to anyone who wanders in without my having to stay here and repeat them each time. The blog may be viewed by thousands of people at one time.
The concept of Time allows for sequential thought and a method of ordering data. Being in a physical form, we can take communication (book) and use Time to sequence the concept or information. Because the information is also in a physical form, it can be rearranged and sequenced, examined thoroughly, and put back in its original order. This enables individuals to manipulate segments of information into an order that makes sense for them. Once they grasp the concept, the information can be restored to its original sequence and processed as a whole.
Think about DNA – only four nucleotides. Let’s say the nucleotides are beads. One individual has a complicated string of beads. If that precise string is duplicated, another individual of the same kind is created. If the string breaks and the beads re-strung in a different sequence, an entirely difference being is created. The beads can be restrung endlessly in many combinations and sequences until the beader has an understanding of how DNA sequencing works.
Time is not a string of beads with knots on both ends. There is no beginning. There is no end. Time is a tool that enables us to move the beads around and communicate with others.
I strung the red bead. (I graduated from high school.)
I added two blue beads. (I got married and had a family.)
I added one yellow. (I went back to school.)
The sequence is important only to communicate information so the person reading it can grasp the concept. The above sequence has a different meaning than:
I added one yellow. (I went back to school.)
I strung the red bead. (I graduated from high school.)
I added two blue beads. (I got married and had a family.)
I’ve used Time as a tool to label the three actions above. By re-arranging the order of those actions, I can Communicate different concepts.
The concept of Time is also useful to identify progression in an eternal being. It’s immaterial what day you learned how to multiply, but it’s significant that you learned to multiply before you graduated from high school. In this example, the sequence of Time is what’s important, not identifying the precise instant in Time.
Time can be used as a yardstick to measure eternal progression:
In my eternal progression, have I lingered too long at Point C? Do I feel an urging to move to Point D? The longing for progression beyond current experience can mark the end of one stage and/or the beginning of the next. In this example, Time is not an hour or minute tool but an application of a sequential timeline or yardstick.
-----------------|-----------------------------------
Here is the point that I decided to go back to college
The tool of Physical Being provides a way to compare much data at once. Data can be categorized, laid out, rearranged, organized and reorganized (like index cards). Having a Physical Body and living in a physical world in this dispensation allows cutting and pasting of information. It also allows the information to be restored in its original form. If we existed solely in spiritual form I believe we’d have to hold all these concepts at once and try to work them out “in our head,” so to speak.
Example: The difference between doing math in your head and being able to do a large problem on paper or even using a calculator. You are able to process more complex information using paper and pencil, and even more using a calculator, than you can with only your mind.
Well, if you’re still reading you probably have a headache by now. Take some Time to reward your Physical Body for the work it’s done over this Communication.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Resolutions (c) 2005 Clara Chandler
My spiritual self
I resolve to continue my spiritual journey, receptive to gifts along the path. I will welcome gifts with open arms.
My creative self
I resolve to allow my creative expression the freedom and space it asks in order to fully articulate itself. I will indulge the muse.
My physical self
I resolve to respect my physical being and treat it at least as well as I do my other antiques. I will care for my body.
My relationship self
I resolve to remain true to myself while considering others’ feelings and desires. I will respect myself and be treated with respect.
I resolve to continue my spiritual journey, receptive to gifts along the path. I will welcome gifts with open arms.
My creative self
I resolve to allow my creative expression the freedom and space it asks in order to fully articulate itself. I will indulge the muse.
My physical self
I resolve to respect my physical being and treat it at least as well as I do my other antiques. I will care for my body.
My relationship self
I resolve to remain true to myself while considering others’ feelings and desires. I will respect myself and be treated with respect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)