15,897. IN THOSE ANTIQUATED HALLS

IN THOSE ANTIQUATED HALLS 

The phone wires were covered in fabric

and on the earpiece hung on a wire. To

speak, you had to talk right to the wall!

You held the earpiece to your ear, and

flailed. I remember how people were

always frenzied, looking all around,

while talking : Picture Jimmy Stewart

with a hot poker up his butt.

-

I missed so much, growing up, I might

not have needed being present. Thinks 

grow funny in the distant past. A lot of

the officials interiors were often green;

two tones of green, actually, and broken

with a horizontal seam along the walls.

-

Police stations, schools, town offices; they

all had a certain look, and those odd, round

men that sauntered about, in their colorful

wide 1940s' ties, all resembled Andy Devine.

15,896. FLOWERS, GONE?

FLOWERS, GONE?

The dainty Westboro vase that 

I never liked anyway is now 

somewhere and cannot be found.

It was packed away in a move, 

and that's the end of that. I'll

find it someday when the weather 

gets better than I am. Who wants

flowers now  -  at the dead of the

year  -  anyway?

-

One time, In Yellow Springs, Ohio,

I watching a guy cut trees. It was

November 4th or so, then. They 

were fir trees, with fairly large

limbs. There was a bonfire field,

at Antioch University right there,

and it turned out that was what he

was preparing for. Some football

rave or fest.

-

It's funny the kinds of things all

people do having somehow to do 

with plants and trees and things that

grow. (Makes me wonder though).

15,895. POST-OPS NINE

POST-OPS NINE

It was the ending that had to come, and even now I hesitate to write this in fear of jinxing my own days, for even now it is still the very last day of a very last year. Doctor meeting after doctor meeting, one after the other, always ended conditionally with, 'If all stays well you should be out of here by Monday or Tuesday.' That was five days, for a major heart surgery. If it came to be, I'd be OK with that. Leaving the hospital was fine with me; as much as I liked the room and situation I'd somehow created. But the sneaking suspicion (as well) with me was ''If you're not dead by Tuesday, we'll let you go home.' I've always been manic-depressive, and a complete downer regarding myself. (After all, as a child, who or what teaches you self-esteem? I had none. Whatever I may have had, was eventually scolded or beaten out of me by systems, parents, and rules with regulations  - an entire bullshit ball of wax that every adult I ever knew was intent on proving, and/or improving. I couldn't lower the ante, because there was no ante. (Look it up; it's then entry-price you must pay to enter a game  -  usually cards or gambling. Maybe even Bridge, but who knows? Who the heck plays Bridge now anyway. It's up there with Pinochle, to me, in the list of long-lost, goofball, adult games). So the day dawned, for my leaving, Monday, I think it was, December 19. It was one of those days too close to Christmas for my taste : people scurrying about with small, ribboned boxes, or flower-pots entwined with Christmas messages, etc. The nurse-station kept getting gift-food deliveries; noisy bustles and chatter, Everyone was happy and content, as if some supply ship had just rolled in and docked in a Shanghai harbor of the mind. Maria had the overnight off, so I never saw here again; but good old Rochelle, my cool bluster-mate of sarcasm, cynicism and activity, took me over. I had some 5 hours for departure. Breakfast came first, and I cancelled any future meals; lunch and dinner were over for me. She eventually, after one last visit from the doctor team, disconnected me from all those wires and tubes and relays which had been tethering me. I was given a squeeze bottle, again, of disinfectant soap  -  told to shower and coat myself in this soap, by squeezing it and covering my body and patting myself down. Did, and done. I had an old bag of clothes  - the ones I'd come in with  -  in my little locker, and it seemed a shame to put all that old crud right back on, but I said nothing and didn't care anyway. If it killed my disinfected skin tone, whatever. I cleaned up, trying to remember what few items I'd brought; rounded everything up, and plastic bagged it. Then I just sat there, in the chair they used to move me to so as to get me out of the horizontal bed position. I gazed out the large window. I sat still. The entire world before me redefining itself. A lot of the attendants and nurse-people had always seemed amazed (annoyed?) that I never had the TV on. So, big-deal me, I flipped on the flat screen. The remote was complicated for me, and annoying too. I'm not a TV guy, so it as new to me. Some soccer thing has just ended, or was in its last flings, and a million talking dictators were going on and on about that. To me, soccer is like a big blood-splatter; people running for miles to kick a ball into a huge net. Sorry, I passed on that too. The commercials on each channel were for idiots, and often the same  -  so many medical commercials for pills and potions and diabetes levels and diets and weird new diseases, I thought it was hospital-sponsored special TV at first. It does seem, at first blush, that the American people take no offense at being made fun of and/or portrayed as medical pin-cushion endlessly portrayed as zombies to be medicated and 'cured' or something/whatever, only so that they can apparently return to the fold as active, shining, moronic and dancing consumers. The old ones, with grandkids. The younger ones as avid sexpots always with their new 'come-on' look. If there was ONE days of real crisis or need in their lives, these idiots would not be able to handle it. (Which is, of course, the idea  -  compliance and passivity, and the Government will do all). So I switched over, past the news and babble shows, mostly all about nothing, and ended up at an old favorite, CNBC, I think it was, a financial news network show where they anxiously and with great trepidation and anxiety, go on about every absolute little overnight and current market activity for the stock-market's morning opening. I got to see Maria Bartiromo in action; David Faber; even Sue Herrera was on screen somewhere for a moment (I thought she'd been pastured for old age a while ago); Erin Burnett, and  -  let's never forget  -  the absolutely crazed madman named Jim Cramer. An absolute speed-freak of fast-talk and illogic. The stock market is one thing, and I guess American business is another, but the gents and ladies are nothing less that speculators, gamblers and swindlers, in the guise of financial wizards. I'm sure they're all crooks, trading their minds way with every tip and advanced notifications about the stocks they then 'report' upon. By that, they can create their own market conditions merely by commenting, and they can but the resultant dip (price drop) or sell at the rise, they've just created. It's a national swindlers' hall of fame convention, everyday. So, I turned all that off too. Like Jesus said, 'Let the dead bury the dead.' I was alive, and out of there. My ride was arranged; my family had arrived; Rochelle wheeled me down to the large and happy hospital lobby, with all its Christmas and holiday hoopla; we turned to each other, said our goodbyes as I was loaded into a warmed vehicle, and driven away. Goodbye to all that!

15,894. SOMEWHERE NEAR DAWN

SOMEWHERE NEAR DAWN

As I remember, somewhere near dawn, if

it was nice enough night, someone would 

say 'Happy New Year' again! January, NYC, 

maybe 46 degrees. Colder than that, and 

with any Hudson wind at all, the westside 

piers were just too cold. Places were all 

closing up, and there weren't too many

other joints to sit in. So  -  for fun - we'd

walk over to Henrietta Hudson. It was

always barely still open. So was the White

Horse, usually, if a brawl hadn't broken out

and screwed that one up. Henrietta Hudson

was a lesbian bar, yep, at the corner of

Henrietta Street, and Hudson Street. Real

time, and real place, on that one.

-

The lesbian factor was cool, and sometimes,

yeah, we'd get bitched at for coming in. But

you buy the bar a drink, pass the word around,

leave it all alone, tell them you're tired and cold,

and let them look over your wives or girlfriends,

and it all went away.

-

No rough stuff, but some real rough girls. I

don't know what it's like there now, but this

was like 1984.

15,893. MR. SPACECRAFT, AM I YOU?

MR. SPACECRAFT, AM I YOU?

I come from the same stars as Jesus;

I am made of the same gentle stuff

as Muhammad? Stardust and cosmic

wind become my very first breath.

-

I've  learned religious tongues; I can

speak with angels and wings; I spend

time in distant centuries. It's a pleasant

enough life here, and I've somehow

gotten this far, and I've seen a million

things. If these are the riches of a poorly

planned life, I take them; for they've all

been good enough for me.

15,892. BRAVE MEN WHO MAKE MONEY

BRAVE MEN WHO MAKE MONEY

It's a simple matter of accumulation.

Brave men who make money don't

do anything for the common good but

take. Intentions are elsewhere, really,

and are they not? Otherwise every

bar mitzvah boy would become a

rabbi, and every Catholic Communion

kid would operate an orphanage. There's 

something that happens within that transforms.

Education and religion make them think of

self and money instead? I don't know.

-

I do know that Delmore Schwartz had it all

more right than wrong. The world has to be

abandoned, and walked away from : 'Stop!

Don't do it! Don't open the door to such

ill-wealth and misery!'

15,891. POST-OPS EIGHT

POST-OPS EIGHT 

It was in the dead of the night, in that hospital room, when my half-consciousness would take over. Trying to sleep in place, sometimes awkwardly, with the adjustable bed squishing me and having somehow gotten out of my control. The overnight nurse, a wonderful young girl, perhaps 22 or 23, named Maria, would make her deep-night rounds, sometimes quietly awakening me, shyly, for taking blood, blood-pressure, or inserting my nightly groin needle injection. Three or four times a night, and also usually awakening me at daybreak for whatever other reason. It was petty endless, and by daybreak each morning, I was usually so scrunched up that she'd have to level the bed and straighten me out for the next day. I can recall the daybreak, and the sounds of the awakening hum of another hospital day. Glancing to that large window, I'd see out at the awakening sky, the new light, and, occasionally, even hear, yet never see, the roar of what I guessed were a few jets in or out of the Scranton Airport  -  which was somewhere out there. It made me feel a little vulnerable; like a sitting duck for an unseen plane to come crashing in. Truthfully, though, that was the only trepidation I had. Maria left at 8am; Rochelle's day-shift began at 7:15 -  the first half-hour was follow-up, overlap, and record-keeping, each day being pretty much the same. Out my window, Scranton arose  -  light in the east, soon spreading. The shapes and shaded forms of the hills stretched out from here gradually changed their tones, shadings, and colorations. Easy to say it was all the same, but it wasn't.

      Another funny thing (about Scranton, the burgh) was how 'politicians' always suckered Scranton. Back in the 1970's, those were the days of Gov. Bill Scranton, and the old-line 'Scranton' family held real power and grip over the politics of the place. Now one would be hard-pressed to locate a 'Scranton' person in Scranton. Times change, and things fade away. Three or four universities in the city make it a goldmine for that sort of thing  -  books, and intellectual pursuits, I'd guess. I'd dare to say that without the colleges and universities within Scranton  -  even Marywood out at the highway  -  Scranton would be, or could be, just another run-down leftover coal town. And there are plenty of them. But the colleges and universities here, in addition to the exactitude and the precision of the downtown area with its still present railroad vintages, along with the historic and present respect for all that old industrial past (ballistics, trains and engines, ammo, guns and missiles). I haven't scoured the 'bookstore' offerings yet, but hope to in due order someday. Problem is, my 'new books a month' limit needs now to be tightly controlled and probably limited to 2 or 3. In Honesdale, I've been thriving on the 1 and 2 dollar books they sell at the library  -  all sorts of topics, and often of interest to me. History, Memoirs, bios, etc. It's a deal and it's a steal. In Scranton now, you still get the scumbag politicians who blow into town, (I'll name two) and make a claim to this rugged, tough and earnest burgh to be their 'hometown'  -  trying to steal some authenticity, Hillary 'Rodham' Clinton used to do it all the time, tracing her 'Rodham' lineage to those tough, early days. Joe Biden is another one, currently, and often enough bumping into town to take claim of that same tough lineage. In both cases, their infant youth days probably consumed 15 minutes of their time as 'Scrantonites' or 'Scrantonians' or whatever they'd purport to call themselves. (By the way, there's nothing to distinguish a Scranton/Pennsylvanian politician from any other politician anywhere else, by it Joe Vas, McMormac, Eric Adams, or Penelope Potsteamer. They all cut from the same vain mold).

      It's a gruff way to lie, but they do it. These are the same sorts of politicians who do things like make that expressway wraparound by which to AVOID Scranton, and who then go about proclaiming the death of downtown and the need for restorative monies and all that  -  as if they'd had nothing to do with the disaster they themselves created. Dispossessed poor, run down housing stock, suburban flight with loss of jobs. They even have the audacity of renaming Washington Street as 'Joe Biden Expressway.' Washington Street was where his baby-hood house was. I tell my friends that if they turn onto Biden Expressway, don't buy gas there. It instantly rises in price from $4.80 a gallon to $7.35!!

         In those long deads of nights, trying to gain the effort of sleep, I would stare out the window off to my side. Sometimes at first still half in and half out of full and ready consciousness, my mind would need a minute to register where it was, or where it had last been. One foot in each of two consciousness levels got to be strange but normal, and I think the compensatory effort of my own spirit and body kept me from dwelling on all I'd just been through. Pain was pain, yes, and all those monitors and things sticking out of my body, managed to be overlooked  -  in the way that you don't dwell nor are aware of your own blinking or breathing. I had some small transformer unit attached to my chest, and that was the most annoying. The backless hospital gown I had on had one front pocket, and they had managed to put that small unit somehow in there, but with all the wires intact it was still pesky. There was another large insert into my neck beneath my right ear, and between the weight of it itself, and the fact that they'd not shaved my neck area beard there, it kept flopping down  -  which became annoying for me and eventually for them too. They finally sent some nurse-guy in who re-did the entire set-up, but still without shaving my neck. Then, the next day a man came in, a workman, with a long grabber-type pole. He said hi and all that, and said he had to test all sensors, alarms, lights, and batteries  -  which he went ahead to do. He had NO trouble with anything, except the fixture DIRECTLY above my head and bed. He slid my bed aside for access, and replaced something, and put everything back. I said thanks, and then asked if he had to do the entire place? He said, "Yes, the whole floor." I didn't  tell him, but my 'paranoid Gary' alarms were way high. 'Right above my head! Right above my bed?' What was that all about? He came and went, and I just forgot about it all.

        I'm not going to belabor this next point, but it's conjecture and I am going to run with it, at the expense of those of you who may not travel this path with me. In the deep, dark of a night, trailing through the Scranton skies, I got to thinking, or these 'thoughts' got to running through me. What if all this really was illusion. Is that what solipsism would be? As I looked out this great window, it suddenly hit me that I was NOT so much an inmate looking down, but what if, as a recurring experience, I was the outsider, in my craft, looking out through a great, large window sight-glass, to re-enter the immersive and strange atmosphere of this stop-action Earthscape of Scranton. All those bowls and valleys and great circles of land holding all those coals and gases and strata and ores - not to forget to mention the most important thing of all (earlier days, another set-up), water, waterpower, connecting rivers, lakes and ponds and the confluences of falls and cliffs and great rocks and boulders. There was, after all, a time when 'water' was all there was.

        I felt, yes, as if I was driving my craft, back again, inward -  towards a time and place I already had been, and knew. Enough said, and I won't step on toes. It was 3:10 am. I thought of Rochelle, and I thought of all that New Age stuff she detested. I though of those who claimed to 'Actualize' their thoughts and events, and tried to think of ALL  I had just been through. I was still picking picking through the smoking boneyard of my own fears and perceptions, and all the imaginings of the horrible things I'd conjured and faced. In this black molasses of doubt, what did I know, really?  All those people who sent me love and prayers, good wishes and best hopes  -  and there had been, literally, multi-hundreds of them, and I saved them all  -  what really were the differences between theirs hopes and prayers, and the other sense of 'actualizing' things through prayer and attitude? Was it now  -  really  -  all the same in the end?

           I looked above my bed. Straight up. Where that guy had been, earlier, installing something in my ceiling unit, there was now, and not there before, a solitary, lone, blue light on a fixture that looked like 'something' though I knew not what. I closed my eyes, and decided to sleep.

       

15,890. POST-OPS SEVEN

POST-OPS SEVEN   

I got to my 'Aerie' on the eighth floor, and loved it. I even loved calling it that. (An 'aerie' is an elevated eagle's nest. The national Government protects them, and the great comeback of eagles is the result). I grant you, it was a hospital room, and if I close my eyes I mostly can recreate everything about it. I'd absorbed everything about it, and I'm just going to ramble on, abstractedly, about where I was, about Scranton and my personal history, and about the 50 years which have intervened since Kathy and I and our infant son Jay first passed by here. In 1971, our first passage here, actually mine, alone, was in scouting around in Bradford County, some 70 miles yet west of Scranton. I weas alone in a 1962 VW Beetle. It was to be my scouting car for these missions, and I'd bought it from some genial fellow in Rahway, NJ, and his girlfriend, for 800 bucks. That was a ton of money for me and this car, therefore, was considered by me posh and magnificent. Yes, you may laugh. American car people never did get the VW idea  -  air cooled, horizontally opposed 4 cyl., easy-access for repairs and removal, and even for replacing engines. They were plentiful, seemingly everywhere. The stopping power of the brakes, and the spindly and cheesy feel of the pedals did not build confidence. The accelerator quickly went to the floor and could bring you to 70mph+ in a useful enough time. The heat sucked (I found out only later). But, anyway, I loved it. It was Winter when I set out. No ideas of moving yet, just scouting missions for somewhere to hideout. I used to take old Route Six, straight across PA, from Milford. Back then Route 6 was simple, plain, and direct, as much of it still is although now there are bypasses and larger roadways flipping and flopping over, and past, things. Along the way were farmlands, barns, farm animal, and tractors. It's a lot the same now, yes, but the incessant creep of American business had taken its toll  -  gasoline and convenience stores, liquor stores, eateries all now dot the places where

before there was little of that. Along the way to Scranton, one passed Hawley, Honesdale, Carbondale, and oddball places like Jermyn, and Archbald. There were road markers too, for weird things  -  the first

'First Aid' operation and organization, silk mills, factories, and even baseball fields where those later famous played (Christy Mathewson). Lots of things abounded, and danger too  -  a car breakdown could cause great hardship  -  in the days before cellphones and relays for AAA and all that rather 'adult' motoring stuff. Approaching Scranton and area, one weird thing I noticed, very scary t night too, weas how all the roadways had weird names. I never got to the bottom of his, but it's all still the same. Of course, Rt. 6 was know as Grand Army Of the Republic Highway  -  in honor of the Union victory, and for Lincoln too. Every roadway had a weird secondary naming, and they all sounded distant and far away, and I couldn't figure any of it out : Oregon Turnpike; Texas-Palmyra Highway; Wyoming County; and Wyoming County Conservation District, and other things. See all that stuff zooming by, in weak headlights at11pm on the far-way to somewhere else, was disconcerting. Where the hell was I? I was running solo, remember, with no rider, no reference, and no helper if things got bad. They always did, but somehow I managed always to find help - a fried battery, a brake fluid reservoir leak, etc. I was in a small, cash, universe, and all I could do was represent myself to others in goodwill and faith, for their help. Car-shops, gas stations, and auto parts stores were always OK, after some first ridicule about 'what the hell was I driving!' stuff. For some reason too, out in those wilds, people called it a 'punch buggy'  -  not a Volkswagen, nor a VW. I skipped a lot of eateries and meals, just to not have to be asked a hundred inane country-questions about my 'Ve-Hic-el'. It was all as strange to them as it was for me to be in Pennsylvania and see signs for Wyoming, Texas, or Palmyra (some early Mormon place out this way, I think?).

       My hospital room, amazingly, and some 50 years on, had a floor to ceiling, massive window, which opened out for in the vistas of all these things I somehow remembered. Both night, and day. If you can picture, perhaps, what I'm describing, from eight floors up, it's a strange sight to be looking out from a tall building into a distance which is, once you get past the straight-down aspects of city and urban, nothing but the raw land and cuts and fissures of a rural landscape. Scranton is essentially, for miles in all directions, a huge bowl in the ground, as if the hold from a massive meteor hit or some weird cosmic or astronomical event. Its early American factors were the massive and useful coal-seams, and the iron-ore opportunities for foundries and the like. This led to railroads, and cartage, over and around all these hills and valleys. It's a staid and very old place, with a lot of its own mysteries and plenty of weird graces too. There are homes and settlements, small towns with the odd names I've mentioned (more than I've mentioned, for sure). One of the things that's been done now, which was NOT there in my old days, was that they've built a bypass, named after some Congressman, Bob McDade Expressway, or some crap, that will allow you to freely pass, at 80mph if you choose, right around Scranton, zooming by all that old glory as if you'd not a care in the world. Which is foolish, unless you're truly in a hurry to get to my hospital (just off this roadway, at Moosic), or catch Rt. 81, or get up to Binghamton, or Rt. 380/ n-s. Plenty of choices abound, but the cool thing about it is that the off-ramp exists to avoid all this expressway-speedball carp and still take old Rt. 6  -  which I remember well  -  and see all the old buildings and fearsome relics from those older days. It's a true pleasure if one has the time. Carbondale, and the entire row of small places that bring you to smaller highways and lower-grade neighborhoods and small towns.

      As I gazed out at all this daily, it all came flooding back to me like a glorious sunlit dream  -  both of the suddenly restorative idea that I'd perhaps survived this horrible operation, and maybe had some life left in me, and the idea that 'where' I was held some special meaning for me, from way back when. It was both significant and eerie, as if I'd crawled up from a dark hole, and was finally reaching out! There are anthracite museums, coal-mining museums, railroad stuff, and Steamtown and the old Iron Furnaces and their holes in the ground  -  up and down the lines here, from Scranton to Pittstown to Wilkes barre itself. How cosmic or magical is all this? An ancient and still present Being of time and place. I've always loved ruins and old things, broken structures and the haphazard runarounds of America's past; this here is like a history sandwich, packed with meat and vitals. Most people are hungry, and they don't even know it.

15,889. A MIGHTY SMALL MAN

A MIGHTY SMALL MAN 

Over at the Edgemere Cemetery by the

ends of Hidden Valley Lane, I remember 

sitting down to think. This used to be called

'Gallow's Hill Road' in Westfield or Mountainside,

or wherever it is. Then, over time, they began to

build a few series of higher-toned suburban homes.

and people began to think the name was a liability.

Oh Well. So now they call it Edgemere and Hidden

Valley, for whatever that is worth.

-

The really used to hang people there, in the late

1700's and after. And before. Remember early 

colonial  justice had its many adherents. Now 

we just look away. I remember going once to a 

Wychwood Historical Society meeting out there

once, in maybe 1984. They had some collected

photos of later-day sightings and people's 

memorabilia too.

-

Down at the bottom, by a small grove of trees,

there was a stone that read. 'Jason Flake. 1711-1771.

Here was a mighty small man, who made too many

men dead!'

15,888. POST-OPS SIX

POST-OPS SIX

This new room was mine, for sure, yet it had seemed, in addition, to have always been mine, and custom-made for my very situation, as when, say, someone slides into home-base, feet first, and then when the dust clears the slider realizes all he's done is slide into a 'future' he'd already prepared. It's a very weird scene. And difficult too. If that was true, in any way, I thought to myself 'what a waste of effort.' I'd certainly never wanted to end up there. Certain things remain foreign to the human experience, yes, and creating spaces and environments beforehand should be one of them. I'd met many 'actualists' and new agers over the years who'd always claimed we 'create' our own reality. I never fell for that, and each time I set out to prove that I could create a world where hitting one's thumb sharply with a hammer doesn't hurt, I'd failed miserably  -  even though that could have been a pretty nice world. There are, or seem to be, certain 'laws of reality' that prevail. The only reason I bring this up is because my room nurse 'Rochelle' had started telling me some of her life story, which I found fascinating. And it overlapped precisely with this new-agey thing : I figured tying them together would make some sense. She was a gruff and tough type, from Philadelphia, where she attended nursing school at Temple University  -  a nice place and sort of right downtown. I figured her for, perhaps, 48 years old, maybe. One marriage gone. One grown daughter, and a grandkid or two, living with her. She'd been a bartender, working through school, biker bars, and rough Philly crowds. She didn't take much guff, and she seemed fairly wise and smart. The divorce , whatever it was, was a long time ago. She'd had one or two other postings to hospitals, and settled in here at Scranton. The really weird thing was that she owned a house there, she said 'about 200 miles away, (Philly) in which her daughter and kids lived with her  -  when she was there. In Scranton, she kept a motel room in which she lived, Monday-Friday. She'd drive home each weekend, to stay there, and check on things, etc., and drive back for Monday mornings. Sounded grueling to me. Her ex-husband's newest girlfriend was, Rochelle said, a new-agey witchy woman, with spells and incense and lights and magic fairies and all that. Rochelle said when she found this out the first thing she did was to make sure her ex knew that under no circumstances was there to be any influences or evidences of that sort of stuff in her daughter's or her grandkids' lives  -  or whatever right and condition he had to those kids would quickly be challenged and gone! That was pretty cool, and it was something I'd never thought about in those terms before. Things like that happen more than you'd think, I guess, as issues and ideas collide. In her presence it got me to thinking about what all this 'nursing' was anyway. I'd not met one yet, in either of my two hospitals, that I'd not liked  -  even the war-vet guy. I got over him and realized he was way about larger things  -  caring, giving, nursing; as were they all. Everyone seemed to go about it differently, maybe, but each knew well their stuff, and their routines. Pleasant and comforting. Each person I met was a talkable pleasure. Even the food service kids and the room maintenance people; commendable adjuncts, all. Life itself, if looked at in one way, is just a dull breadboard of the same old chippings and dried crusts. Somehow the Good Lord thought to make scavengers and other crawly things that clean up these messes for us. Yes, at the same instant, 'we' as the exalted humans, seem to take precedence and claim the top spot. A real juggling act is going on, at all times, somewhere. In the 'bookstore' industry  -  those superstore things, mainly, but also in most every book outlet, etc., you can find sections labeled 'Self-Help' or 'New Age' or 'Spiritualism' in with the usual stupidities of games, toys, branded merchandise and book tie-ins for movies, films, kids, etc. Rows of rock and roll bios are now all the rage too, as if what comes of the mouth of any entertainment creation today is any better or different than what comes out of their anus. Who want to read that anyway, except a dark-side witch. I was thinking about Rochelle's plight, with those grandkids, and her daughter, and the ex with his new tra-la-la fairy-twinkle incense and peppermint girlfriend. I'm pretty sure that one of those intrinsic-knowledge, self-help books (they really ought just call it the 'Ego' section), you can find one that instructs on commanding your life; on taking control of your moment to the extent that standing in front of a speeding train will NOT harm you, if you think it through correctly first. It's all a miserable, and stupid, conundrum, but, as usual, in the category of Freedom of the Press, etc., the 'now-voyagers' on all their ways to La-La Lands of their making, have won out; have altered the arguments, and have slanted the terms now, to the point that the sensible mechanics of real life, whatever they once may be been (no one knows any longer, because 'ignorance' too has now shuttered all the doors and windows of thought, knowledge, study, and investigation). 'Good luck, Rochelle, on that one. Good Luck!'

15,887. HOMING IN ON

HOMING IN ON

The books are arrayed in varied forms of

shelving. Since 1969, most of them have I

had, and all those after that have now grown

as well, as grew my interests broader. Ten

thousand volumes, short- counting. They

are everywhere, and have moved with

me thrice.

-

I warm to their touch and I buckle to their

memory : each one from a place and time 

of my life that I can recall: Those two 

bookstores in Ithaca, up at Cornell, as 

early time for bookstore/cafes but they

did it pretty well. And then, of course, all

those college bookstores over the years:

havens for the mind, and playthings for

the torch : Columbia, Labyrinth, Alfred,

Lehigh, Yale, Boston and wherever else

such magics hung. Moe's in Berkeley, City

Lights, and it all goes on.

-

Now, everything else is all passe, and these

 things come and go: Webinars, and Zoom?

Who really wants to see only a face looking 

in. I don't get it, but you look OK! I'd rather

be reading in my carriage of health, roaming

far and wide to see the results. Being stuck

in one place is a bore.

15,886. THE DEAD-BOTTOM OF THE YEAR

THE DEAD-BOTTOM OF THE YEAR

Let me tell you things: I no longer care

about shirts and patterns; or clothing and

decoration; nor whether the lampshade is 

straight. I live my life now like a deviant

invalid, struggling for travel and air. If I

see another Springtime arrive, I'll be the

most happy man in the world.

-

Now, at this dreaded-dead-bottom of the

calendar year, it all wilts and breaks. Don't

tear off that calendar page. Please no! 

Nor lessen the light that comes in. That 

trickle-down theory is working; I'll take

any tiny bit that comes in.

15,885. POST-OPS FIVE

POST OPS FIVE

That second night was the last I saw of Dave. I wished him well. John came over to me and said  'Hey, Buddy. We're getting you out of here today. I'm going to be transporting you later on, up to your private

suite on Cardiac, Room 210. Eight floor. They're cleaning for you now.' That was cool.  Two things transpired on that ICU cardiac floor that  -  first  -  need to be reported.  One was unfortunate  -  an old guy, probably early 80's in age, came in from Post Op. He got bedded into place, and situated. Hi wife also came after him. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes passed and there was sudden flurry of activity, Code This Code That! A little group of medic team Cardiac came in. The wife starting wailing!! The old guy had gone into Stroke mode, and all bets were off and all conditions were troubled. I was not witness, nor privy, to anything what went on. In a little bit, what I figure, to be his son and daughter-in-law, and a little kid, came in, and the whole group went back out, with the medic teams and the guy's bed (with him in it). That was a tough one; I was gone and never got to the conclusion of what happened.  The last thing, for whatever reason, (and I won't dwell) took place alongside me and I merely watched from a distance. As I'd mentioned, Dave, and John, each had their army days behind them, and spoke reluctantly of that, keeping it away from their present pursuits.  There was another fellow there, also a monitor-screen watcher-nurse. I'd not seen him before, but after the stroke episode he stayed, also within my eye-range, at the monitor table next to John. He had all the swagger and military-high-toned ego which the other two guys lacked. All he ever talked of were his pursuits. Battles. Firefights, etc. I know nothing about any of that stuff, and I'm not exactly sure we even have troops in Afghanistan any more, but it all seems to have supplanted the Vietnam-era guys' preoccupations of old. I could see this all bothered John a bit, but he kept his cool  -  the most annoying thing was that, on staff and in the room  -  there was also a female nurse. She was totally enamored of this fellow, and his stories, and goaded him on, in rapt attention for more. He fed off it too. It annoyed me too, but only for the wearisome stupidity of having to witness the quaint and pathetic adulation that women give to men in uniform, and why  -  even in these late days of a supposedly equal society (even more not than just 'equal! A person can chose-  'select' - to be whatever IT chooses). This female here in question, I found to be a complete, broken-down, hulk of a representative of womanhood. She should have thrown that bragger out the window, rather than kissing his ass.

     In due time it was time for me to leave that immediate post-op cardiac section. My wife and my sister were allowed to accompany me. My friend had left already, wanting to drove home (200 miles), before darkness really set in; hoping against his usual night-blindness. John came and gathered up my things, tubes, hook-ups, connections, etc. It involved a few corridors, elevator connections, and a trip up to Eight. The elevator door opened onto an expansive nurse-station and command-center. I met the nurse manager-supervisor, who quickly took over. John and I said our goodbyes; to me, with some, sadness. I had really liked the guy. The new nurse's name, she told us as we entered my new room, was Rachelle. It was written on the board as Rachelle, yes, but people were calling her Rochelle. I asked about that   -  she said that was her 'Other' name for when she entered her stern and managerial mode  -  people called her Rochelle  -  from some Seinfeld character or movie-hooker or something. She was funny, good-natured, and remained busy. I saw both sides of her over 5 days, but it mostly concerned nurses cursing, when she'd holler out 'Hey! I heard that.' She and I, once I got settled in, went over my meds, and worked up a routine, got on swimmingly and I liked her. (She's in that photo of me being wheeled out of the hospital. That's Rachelle/Rochelle pushing the wheelchair).

     I loved my new room immediately. Besides the fact that I'd be alone  -  not needing to share the ward/room with any other with person  -  it was expansive, and nice  -  in all respects. The floor to ceiling one-large window, from eight floors up, afforded me a great view out, facing east. I could see Steamtown, and its little-jaunt trains, puffing smoke for their large stacks. Nay Aug Park and its fine neighborhoods was quite nearby too. In ways I've mentioned, it was all a bit hallucinatory as well; decompressing yet from the operation and anesthetics, space and distance and depth, from some reason up here more than anywhere else, were playing tricks with me with me. I had trouble determining depth and distance. Three-dimensional illusions continued to catch my eyes  -  things would seem out of place, or fit, and they wouldn't appear to fit where they should, yet would fit in elsewhere quite nicely....and then I'd see it was all an illusion. Everything was as if it had all been boxed up in orderly fashion, and then maybe the box had fallen and everything a askew, or a'jumble.

15,884. POST-OPS FOUR

POST-OPS FOUR

Spiritually lonely people like me most often are standoffish. I think that anyway; nothing much else to go by except myself, and I think that stands. This new situation was, for me, like a sledgehammer to the head. Not a person who ever lived did NOT die; mostly in short, brutal, and grotesque manners of death   -  disease, slaughter, starvation, poison, or some mishap too difficult sometimes to even believe a retelling. What was I looking at? Death in a comfortable situation, uninsured; not running from creditors but paying out now huge sums of money in increments agreed upon to forestall crisis. My doctors were all finely educated and exuded a bright confidence. Bethesda Naval one week, Honesdale, the next. 267 miles; a 4-hour ride. What medievalist would understand that? The 'overlay' of our lives now, currently, has altered and re-routed even the very ideas of the manners by which we live. 7-hours of operation, heart and lung machines, transfusions, the handling and cradling of hearts? I was told I would be receiving a 25 mill. cow valve. 25 millimeters, when I looked it up, showed a .94 inches? Almost an inch, I guess. Made no sense to me. First they used mechanical valves; then, for many years, pig valves; now  - in today's use  -  they use cow valves. What do they mean?

-

The worst day of my life, I suppose, was Weds., the 18th of Dec. I figured it to be my last day on Earth. My tears were running. I watched the day go by; saw people's faces, watched the clock, checked my schedules. I saw everyone, and felt as if I knew them all  -  though of course I knew no one. The Moosic Mountain ski resort, just out behind our motel, was having opening day; in the distance I could see some snow-making operation blowing snow into the sky; plus it was snowing out, Little figures could be seen on the lifts and slopes; serious, the ski-season was barging down its own doors. I was distant from all that, being fixated merely on my own fate  -  or destiny? Whichever it's called. I had pre-op tasks to do  -  I had to take a medical disinfectant shower at 11pm, and then another one, same thing (they had supplied me two little jugs of the soap to use).  After that final shower, by 4, I had to be at the hospital, (10 minutes away), for pre-op registration, final instructions, getting my body shaved, (I'd already cut off all my hair, and my long, scraggly beard, and then gone to a Honesdale barber to have it properly cleaned up. It was a big nothing to me, and I was glad to be rid of all that dated, bothersome, and doughty-mountain-man look BS. Now when I see those guys, I chuckle, and do not wish to go back). The people I was with (wife-Kathy; sister-Donna; and friend-Donald), wished to 'dine'  -  so Weds. night, about 6, I splurged (figuring dead-men maybe don't need to sorry about incurring debt). We dined. They had pleasure, while it was all difficult for me; I kept falling back into lethargy of last moments : I watched lights, and cars. I watched how people moved, and all the inane

motions of the Christmas season and all the rest. 

-

      There was to be no fine-tuning of this episode. It was about to happen, and I was headed right for it: 4am at the hospital; one or two other people also entering. I left everyone (temporarily) so I could be processed and admitted; it took about 20 minutes. I was told to say my goodbyes to my compatriots, and I'd see them again in maybe a half-hour. The nicest nurse in the entire world, about age 50, and swept me away; completely well-versed in the earliest-morning heart-patient rituals. Completely, somehow, managing to put me at ease, we walked the corridor to the prep room and she informed me of everything about to happen. As twisted and averse to all this as I was, she brought me through as if she was a guiding angle. Commands: 'Strip down, catalogue my pockets, bag my belongings, count my cash. Put on the hospital robe. Lay down.' Another nurse came in with one of those little shaver things  -  arms, chest, groin. I thought they'd remove the rest of my beard, and later was told by medics that they wished it have been done; but no one did it. It later proved an obstacle to adhering sticky-backers and such to tubes and hoses. I received a first, slow, dose of 'something.' Sedative, I figured. My 'companions' were let back in for the final 'see Ya's!' It was painful and sad, but I was already zoning out. Thankfully. 

         Life as I knew it was about to be over. An anesthesiologist came in, introduced himself, said HI to everyone, and set to work on me. In a few minutes, all was a blur. Just before total blur, my surgeon entered. Greeting me, he squeezed my toes, pushed on my feet, and introduced himself to everyone. As I was wheeled away he stayed with them, to explain, they said, wonderfully and clearly, what he was about to be doing to me. Pretty much that's all I remember, until much, much later re-awakening post-operation, and with the shakes and no means of speaking coherently, I was told.

        What happened next was the beginning of another episode  -  5 days duration. I can't say I 'recall' coming back to, but I'm told it happened gradually and I was awake. In the immediate cardiac post-op area, there are rooms for ten or so beds; monitors everywhere, and attendants monitoring screens and attachments. I had been wheeled into an isolated though central section; I was still all hooked up and being watched and cared for through re-entry. Two male attendants, it appeared, had been assigned to me. They were each totally capable and fastidious in their work. When I 'awoke'  -  finally and clearly  -  it was deep into the first night, maybe 10 or 11pm, when I came fully to. The overnight attendant's name was Dave. Short and stocky, bald (a crack or two also, he made, about hair). We got on well; Dave, that first night, began telling me of things that had happened, my operation, the room we were in, how I was doing, etc. My biggest concern, was thirst. I was famished and in a drought  -  Dave said that was the anesthesia making me thirsty. He kept shoveling cracked ice into my mouth from a deep ice-cream type spoon, but also said that the feeling of thirst would not leave me, no matter how much I drank or chewed water or ice. He kept up with me, for the two days of demands anyway. Dave then went over his work and his life, telling me things about himself, and he reviewed the recent snowfall and road conditions, etc. It was all an overnight sort of nice banter, near to the bed. When he wasn't near, or at another area, it all stopped because it was too painful for me to talk loudly for the distance.

       Sometime about 7am each day, it seemed (2 days), that shift changed and the daytime guy, John, came in. John was a different kind of guy, entirely  -  much more eagle-eyed, onto everything, and - it seemed - able to take the scope of the entire area and room. The first thing he did, after meeting and greeting me, was to move the position of the bed I was in, with all its tubes and connections, into a different configuration  -  out of the hidden corner I had been in with Dave, and into a more visible and centralized location in the room. That allowed for two things: I could now see out, and out, as well, to John's monitoring station  -  from which vantage point, in addition to all his monitoring work, he had a

constant and steady in, of me and where I was and of my activities and needs. One of the first things he did was to come in, about mid-morning of our first day, to tell me he had ordered me a lunch tray. I hadn't thought about food at all. Nor did I care or know what he had ordered for me. That tray arrived about 12:30, and it was OK. John came over, and we talked a little as I ate. He was tall  -  regular tall, not overwhelming. He wore an odd, gray-patterned head cap. Each of these fellows, as well, wore masks (Covid). John removed his mask, for the duration of our conversation, and getting to see his full face was nice. I never saw Dave, nor any of the others, without a mask. John and I got on well. He talked to me often  -  and it was funny how, in a few instances, our lives sort of intersected. I forget how it started, but he asked about me, what sorts of work I'd done, etc. When the subject crossed over to books, and the Princeton University bookstore,etc. he asked about my book interests. Medieval history came up, and he said his brother was a Professor of same at UPenn, or Villanova, or somewhere I forget. He asked why I was interested in that, and I said that it was because I found the underpinnings of much of today's society and civilization(s) to be erroneously based on old Chruch takeovers of early society in the most secular of fashions, and how I viewed nation-building and Society to have gotten off wrongly and by basing itself on church and religious assumptions, while totally denying it had been done like that, both the church, and the developing secularization of society, were left with no choice except betraying themselves. It was all downhill from there : duplicity, greed, exploitation, capitalism rapaciously done, etc. John seemed very interested in our talk, and said I really ought to meet his brother someday. Impossible to forecast, of course, I said yes, that would be nice. Then John said he'd had plans to be a priest; but it didn't work out and he joined the Army instead, and did his Afghanistan tours. Early 90's, from where he'd picked hp his nursing and medical training and took it back stateside with him, ending up here. I told him I'd had some priest-time intentions once too, but it was long ago, 1963-era. He was surprised.

15,883. POST-OPS THREE

POST-OPS THREE

It was November 1st, 2022, when they told me I had 6-months to live. It sure was a surprise to me - as well as being the absolutely last thing I'd wanted to hear at age 73. I'd always been the sort to blow off any of that 'medical' stuff. It had been my opinion that the rest and rehabilitation of the human body was one of life's lesser concerns and that the body could heal and reclaim itself nicely if just let to work. My big surprise was - therefore - made more stunning. My heart was about done. And it wasn't through diet, or any lack of exercise, nor obesity, etc. It was through a family line, genetic, flaw; which resulted, apparently, in males of the line, on my mother's and her sisters' sides, being born with a bicuspid (two flaps), instead of 'tricuspid' valve [three flaps]. That lack of a 'third' flap, in me, was proving fatal - it lessened the blood flow and the oxygen exchange necessary for breathing. My 'valve' was calcified near to a frozen-death, the doc said, as if two rocks had been slammed into place next to each other. They allowed little blood flow, and only a 'pinhole' through I could draw oxygen. That was the reason for my lack of air. Literally, I was suffocating, and in cardiac distress. In addition, above this valve, and because of this calcification, my aorta had seriously ballooned, like when you 'twist' a balloon and it forms a bubble. That 'bubble' could explode at any moment or under any stress, and I'd be on the ground and done. That meant 'dead' before I hit the ground! I'd been admitted 3 times, to Honesdale Hospital (Wayne County Memorial), because of what I called 'suffocation' - an inability to walk more than 20 paces without suffocation. The first time, the diagnosed a Panic Attack, and sedated me. The second time, they said I had pneumonia. The third time, the last, they brought me to their cardiology - which is when, after electro-cardio gram, and echo-grams, and a CAT SCAN, the 6-month's conversation took place. I had asked the nurse how things looked, saying 'OK?' - She wouldn't commit, and just said, 'No, I think the doctor's going to want to talk you you about this.' So, there I was; stuck in hospital bed, awaiting a cardiologist I'd never met before, to address me.

In spite of my dangerous fear and trepidation, I was trapped and there he was! His name - not important here - will be left out, as will my other doctors and nurses, though they were all engaging and quite companionable. In spite of that, I could feel the rush of terror trailing my neck. My 'heart' was about to become a hostage to a situation I'd never before experienced, knew little about, and was in total 'last-night-on Earth' denial of.

He was, maybe, 45 years old, tops. He sat down next to me, in a close-bedside manner, and said I was in trouble. I said, 'Is this true? How much trouble?' He said, 'Serious.' He had charts, illustrations, and the general references to talk. He was the Honesdale Hospital cardiologist, and he and one other fellow shared the practice. (I met the other guy too). Then, to allay my doubts and questions, he said he'd been a Navy Doctor; Middle East hospital ships, doing operations on the roiling seas in old and rickety re-purposed tankers that were shaky and often unreliable. For his work the Navy had paid for his medical training. He and his partner - the other guy - alternated: one week one of them in Honesdale (as cardiologists, not surgeons), and the other at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he had a wife, family and house. Here in Honesdale, the two docs kept a simple apt. lodgings, where they switched off. I liked this man very much, right off, as a sort of bearer of bad tidings, but done correctly. He said I had little choice, if I wished to live; otherwise, go get my affairs on order and go wait it out. He said " don't know if you're a betting man, but if you are, this would be a very bad bet.' He explained the process, what I was up against, how it would work, etc. He was confident, and I didn't think it was merely a front. Then he said, 'This operation will be too much an undertaking for this hospital. We will have you transported to Geisinger Cardiac, in Scranton. You'll meet your team there, and the surgeons will brief you fully.'

By the time I got to Scranton, after having thought things over, consulted family and a few friends. and gotten over the electric-shock reality of the sting, it was about Nov. 12. In Scranton; Geisinger is a pretty great facility. They had treated my nearly-dead cancer-wife for 15 days, and actually brought her back from death. Her 'cancer ward' was on the same floor, and down the hall some, from, from where my Cardio would be. I knew the layout.

-

The surgeon was the coolest guy I'd met, medically. That wasn't off-putting to me, just comforting. We talked really well together, kicking around options and dates. One never exactly looks to medical dudes for people to hang out with. I said, 'Doc, how's about you being my second opinion? Is that six month thing really true?' He said, 'Yeah, I'd say; But I'd also say it's probably a bit too optimistic.' He looked at his calendar, and seemed concerned when he saw the nearness of Thanksgiving, around which weekend he didn't want to arrange the operation. He and his assistant looked at me and he said...'I'd like to do it on the 13th of December, early ay daybreak, first op. of the day.' I replied, 'The Thirteenth? Really?' He said, It's OK. Be glad it's a Tuesday and not a Friday.' (By the way, that 13th date was also later changed, due to a 'clinical' which he had to attend, to Dec. 15; - which is when it occurred. There was like a five week period here, for me to reflect, muse over, and try to 'sneak' around. But, I knew my time was running out, and as each day kicked by, I settled in; fearful and depressed, but with some good family and friends to boost me.

-

Sometimes the body can coax bad things out of good. Often, it's the other way around too : As in this case, the most horrid waiting period of my life began controlling me and taking over : Superstition, omens, angst - each of them combined to make me see. BUT, for the first time in a long time I, I saw people, and the world, and Nature and the cosmos and even the most ordinary things, as beautiful. The broad and deep night sky high over my head twinkled its timeless message:

Be Here Now!

-

The next two weeks kept Kathy and I very busy, between catherizations, blood-tests, scans, pulmonary tests, and assorted other vein and Coratid artery probes and hook-ups. We finally just took a motel room; the traveling back and forth had become so annoying. If it turned out to be the cheapest and crummiest of Scranton's dung-heap motel offerings, (The EconoLodge, now re-named the Palace on Kane Street. A real doghouse). We were chap and at least this shithole offered a bed, and pillows. A night later, someone at the Hospital told us where to go - a preferred lodging, for 'seniors' and people with hospital business. That was much nicer. I then had to face, in the 'final' two weeks, a complete dental review. Starting from scratch - I had no dentist - and the new dentist had to sign off on NO mouth infections, and fax to Geisinger a very serious, filled-out form. I thought sure I'd fail - failure would have meant a postponement of the operation while dental work was done. 'Hey, the clock is ticking here!!!!! Help!' - fortunately, I passed. And finally, two days before the operation, I had to get a clinical Covid test, with good results; otherwise, yes, more delay!!!!!

-

I was sure feeling squeezed. Not sure how, but those last days leading out to the 19th became manageable : prayer, well-wishers, concentration and observation. I hardly ate; everything made me sad and morose. The worst was Dec. 18. A friend had come down to help, and my sister too was with us. She's far more grounded than us, and knows how to handle all this.

15,882. MERCHANDISE MART

MERCHANDISE MART

The chandelier fell from the ceiling 

and crushed two little kids. They

survived, but from every register 

line 5 lawyers emerged in an instant

It was like that line in the Rudolph

story  -  'On Donder, and Blitzen,' 

and all the rest. Christmas comes

early to the bar.

-

The lights went out on Broadway.

All the ladies had survived. We

watched the accolades on TV;

one or two mothers needed

to be revived.

15,881. AT THE SEIZURE OF THE WATER

AT THE SEIZURE OF THE WATER

Cleopatra, was it, had her boats and

entourage, and she had Mark Anthony

too. Anthony was dead and her own 

suicide followed? Taken down by

that snake called an Asp. The only

thing that remains today? A crossword

clue about a vital and lethal snake

that no one understands. Ancient

Egypt was like that. Things weren't so

bad until the Israelites complained?

Then 'God said: "You only complain

again? No now more straw! To make these

pyramid bricks you also now have to

make and add your own straw! Now

SHUT UP!" (or whatever words such

a G-d revered would utter.

-

Sometimes  -  even when you learn 

things early  -   you can let them go;

as useless information has no place 

to live.

-

I'm sitting up here late again, and

with phone calls to return. Manana 

and manana on all that.

15,880. COMMANDER CALIENTE

COMMANDER CALIENTE

He raised Cain with his other hand,

and finally slew the Commander, in

the name of Goodness and Mercy.

Some saw him as ruthless, but I

always thought him true. A force

field to be reckoned with; like a

candle, burning twice. 

Night after night.

15,879. POST-OPS TWO

POST-OPS TWO

So then, good luck with any entertainment future. Just think, most people alive today at 30 could still be around in 50 years for what truly could become a real eye-opener. They'd be 80!

I wonder what people then will think of it all. What confuses me, first-off, is how people will need to be stopped from confusing this with 'God.' These are not God folk; they came after that fact, even with their claim of having 'made' us. That's nothing but scientific genetics, and we ourselves, now, are fairly much on that same path - cloning Dolly the sheep, and etc. What was said was that 'we' were Earthly-creatures, plopping around on all fours, and seen as easily advanceable - to mine gold and other ores and minerals for 'their 'planet, their home, which was running out of all those things. So their own science crews space-traveled to our planet, and made the needed adjustments. One result are the 'mythological' creatures of myth and lore, which were real things, and not myths at all - experimental tries at genetics. Man/beasts, half animal/half man. Bird creatures, and all those weird things seen on cave-walls, etc. Interesting? 'Weird beasts are wired beasts'. Will this 'revealing' process be peaceful? Was it peaceful the first time around? Who or what was it then that taught these people all that they know? I wondered; had someone done this same process to them, bringing them to this position of, in turn, now doing it upon us? Is it all circular? What are the current values of any of this? Gold and minerals, still needed? Is that why we value diamonds and gold? A waste of 'value' if I've ever seen one. Will it ever end? It's complex, and confusing. I wonder how it will all be explained and presented.

One last point - and science has validated this - the ancient maps we see of the Heavens, etc., are all drawn backwards. Why? Not because the people were too stupid to know better - they knew the heavens and the stars far better than we ever will - but because they were coming 'IN', not just looking out. These are 'entryway' maps on the way 'in' to entering our astronomical space; the great landing-strip buildings and entry-ports. They were NOT made from the perspective of someone looking up and out from our planet but from exactly the opposite - someone one or some thing APPROACHING us, with reversed coordinates, etc. Makes pluperfect sense (see Zechariah Sitchin's books; it's ALL illustrated and explained. There are like 12 or so of his books, all available, all cheap and easy to access). You don't need to believe this, I suppose; and I don't frankly care; but you'll suspend your disbelief and instead have faith in a baby born in a manger, come to save everyone, to somehow repair and save a 'damaged' world made by a supposedly perfect God - whose regrets had that God to have to destroy and flood and wipe out the 'world' he'd made. ? ...What sense has any of that? Also, Noah did NOT collect two of each species for a post-flood world. The Noah family were alien scientists who built the gambits and lines of the 'arc' and merely filled it with the selective DNA and genetics of what would be needed to 're-introduce animal lines to Earth, after the flood. Makes simplicitude a charm, instead of the curious and tedious burden the 'stories' make it out to be. It's all so simple, and clear.

It made me start to wonder: Our concepts of God and worship absolutely would preclude all of this. Our God - or mine anyway - has not one iota of the impetus put forward by these charlatans of pose. No needed 'story' to cover the human-sentimental falsities proposed. Secular-driftings have long ago taken over, smothering any of this with a pure and a raw overlay of rapacious greed, and twisting the meanings so that the sirens of lies, sleuth, and mendacity take over. The primitive and tribal elements of earlier desert nomads woven into stories and God-claims.

I wondered how Humankind would take all this, 50 years on or right now. Is that why - for the last 100 years - people have been trained to be zombies? Blindly following accepted opinions, listening to the benumber musings of idiot people in the employ of others, and peddling the same intergenerational crap everywhere? Good God, I hoped not!!

15,878. BRAVE MEN FORESTALL THE ENDINGS OF LESS-BRAVE THINGS

BRAVE MEN & WOMEN FORESTALL 

THE ENDINGS OF LESS-BRAVE THINGS

It's a brain-bomb for sure; headed right for

where you live. The spiritualism of space/time

will bring you home. There's no dicing the red

tomato you hold.

-

On 17th street, I once saw a jackal. Not a real

one, no, just some creep I knew from a band

called the Jackals. Half-junkies, and the other

half loud criminals with a penchant for assuming

they knew how to sing, and play guitars. Like

boxing, without a ring. 'I don't need to know

the ways and means; I just want to box.'

-

If you remove all the rules and the lessons

for learning, the fools that be just always

assume they can do whatever they want.

-

They used to linger like dust down by the

14th street westside piers. Just sacking around,

to see what they could steal or take from

others.

15,877. IMAGINATION LIVES WITH EXCELLENCE

IMAGINATION LIVES 

WITH EXCELLAECE

Love moves in with a parlance; a quick moment 

of talk between equals. One nods, and the other

ducks. It's a dance; it's a jubilation.

-

Here we are together at two. It's nearly the middle

of night? How far back did it get this way? Adoramus,

and with a fortune of good!

-

This new land is a voyager of itself. As Moses said,

and then Martin Luther...." I won't get there with you.'

15,876. POST-OPS ONE

POST-OPS: 1. One weird thing was, two-three days after surgery, when the doctor, on his morning rounds,  and with a second doc-trainee in tow, sat down in my hospital room to review progress and

discuss my case. It was all cool and made good sense, etc. - until he advanced to the point of asking

me if I'd 'returned to the point of having ordinary dreams again'.. I was perplexed, both medically 

and otherwise. 'Ordinary dreams?', I asked, 'What do you mean? Aren't dreams themselves always

out-of-the-ordinary, thus fulfilling their potential as 'dreams'? With coiled ropes and hoses coming

alive as snakes, small rivers turning into sweep-you-away torrents that you cannot escape from and

with dogs and cats turning into malevolent creatures chasing us down, with hills and rocks that that 

talk and cars that won't idle and begin sliding backwards.? Actually, for the last five weeks, my dreams have been dark and brooding, almost evil, to me, fillings me with portents and fears of death, etc. By

those tokens, yes, I guess I could say at least THAT has stopped and then I have gone back to 'normal'.

He smiled, genially, and said something to the effect that yes, that was what he meant. The heavy dose of anesthesia sometimes gets into the system and changes such things, and that if I'd now 'plateaued' things were getting better. (If he only knew. The so-called and open-ended 'dream state' is where I live. No license plates needed). The use of the word 'plateaued' also threw me off; it was such an insecure word for that usage - almost geological, in a place where there wasn't even any land. Dreams have no geography. I began wondering if it had been, on his part, perhaps just an odd foray into another line

of medical work  -  seeking to and trying to mesh together a form of cardiac medicine with the psycho-chemistry of the subconscious. It suddenly again seemed pretty apparent to me  -  after weeks of being told by others that a key to surviving this was mixing outlook, optimism, prayer and positivism all together. Sort of like a 'Star Wars VS. The Militiamen,' if such a thing were to exist. The two of them together then sort of reminded me of a tandem duo of a Sigmund Freud and a Carl Jung off their reservation and out slumming. Back when I studied those subjects, it always struck me that  -  among 

the turfs and conflicts within the psychological community  -  Karen Horney was left out of the mix (you can look her up). Her, and Freud's, entire side of things was the 'sexual' slant, whereas to me the Carl Jung side was far richer, less critically contrived with case-histories that seemed suspect and incorrect, and  -  most importantly, richer and deeper with archetypes and underpinnings of the very ancient, in a manner of, say, the glibness of The Hallmark Channel going up against an 'educational TV channel portrayal of fact, not just glib and stupid drama. And anyway, Karen Horney's work, whatever it was, got all screwed up and simply ignored because of the overlap of here last name with the fact of the word 'horny', with which 'Horney' had nothing in common  -  but try and tell that to any local schlub.... I just awoke again from another two-hour late afternoon nap. So unlike me. I used to think of naps as non-productive, but these now are not. I think through them. Thy help alleviate pain. Then even seem to aid digestion  -  which these days has been so tampered with as to warrant observation. The pain too  -  sometimes now simply shredding me at the rear-shoulders and high back - a combined feeling of bursitis and sore-shoulders. But, unknown to the doctors are the 'weird' things that do come through. For me, there in the hospital room, and now at home, I've dizzying spells of what I call 'contact dreams  -  which I'll get into in a bit. First though, let me explain that they seemed to break time, each time; stopping it and holding me in place.  (I no longer have a scanner/printer, which most simple as it was, has died), so a few of the drawings of what's been happening are not yet 'showable.' But my very simple renderings would have helped. One, for-instance, is the first one - which seems to be a sort of insertable-for-readout, digital info card. I drew what was flashed before my eyes, with some of the type

and info shown. I do not know what that writing or info was, BUT, in other scenes entire rafts of text were floated before me  -  quite retrievable if I scribble fast. In other scenes, within bowl-shaped collections, are piles of text. They too remain for retrieval  -  I do NOT know what this is or means, but, while in the hospital what happened to me was as follows: In one of these, I was somehow visited by an 'ancient'. An ancient of time, as it was phrased. I'll call it a He, because I don't know anything else. HE told me that Males of the species were merely built as breeders, so it hardly mattered. The heart of Humankind was the Feminine. He spun me one of those disc things and said to watch. It was disorientating, and my focus and vision was off for the duration. He told me that WE are primitives, a Human slave-race that had been created long, long ago, in deep space; every microbe, DNA pattern, means of hearing and vision, motoring skills, etc. I guess like the entire Adam and Eve gamut. We were taught by them, as they seeded us here  -  fire, agricultural, shelter, sex and procreation, etc. etc. It's all recorded on such discs. His folk are still among us; we read them as great Elders, and Giants among men (see Genesis 6). They are our (active) Gods and Genii's, keeping us alive, and maintaining our planet. Underground, and beneath the poles, where their civilization still flourishes, though kept hidden. (Probably for the good). He then said, in 50 years perhaps, in the same way that there are political talking heads shows, Oprah and Martha Stewart shows, and panel discussion shows on TV, Kate Hudson, etc. (I think he mentioned that one), these 'ancients' will have emerged and identified themselves and their 'shows' will all be of one of them each, sitting at the center of a table, explication to Humankind their histories, and how things have come to me, the treasures of space and time-travel. We are not there yet, and it is still far too early. I asked about the 'curved bowl' idea of 'space' I'd seen, filled with words, and he said that was, for now, for me. No one else has seen it. It's a resource for me to mine, however and in any way I wish....Now, how would I ever broach this to my heart doctor? Normal dreaming yet again?

15,875. INCENDIARY PUSH

INCENDIARY PUSH

Brooklyn had its Naval Yard and

Manhattan Beach once had its 

piers. Oh suddenly I long for

both. I have empty hands but

my gloves won't fit. Nothing

I clasp stays put. It is a mystery

to me how all things changed.

-

There was a time I clambered. 

I traveled anywhere I chose, to

look at old buildings and towers

and those things which, by today's

new standards, don't amount to

anything at all. I am appalled.

-

It's as if an incendiary push has

driven me, now, to the edge and

over. Free-fall is not such a delight

as I once expected it would be.