It was a bright frosty urban morning and I walked to the post office to mail some of my books to new readers. Somehow they keep finding me and I express my highest gratitude for their support. It keeps Nestucca Spit Press in business and 2021 promises to be our most ambitious year yet.

So there I was sporting my trusty corduroy coat and Fort George stocking cap when I heard music, what vaguely sounded like soul music, coming from across the block. I looked that direction and spotted a rotund masked man carrying a backpack strapped over his shoulders. Dangling from the backpack was a tiny speaker that was blasting—if blasting is the word—out the music.

I heard horns and the unmistakable swagger of instrumental soul music. I couldn’t place it, but then I did. It was a tune from the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full of Blues. I could not believe my ears! What in name of a cocaine-addled John Belushi was this man broadcasting this classic album through a tiny speaker dangling from his backpack during the middle of a pandemic and not long after a thwarted government coup?

Hot damn! I love this album and used to own it. Jake and Elwood and the all-star band backing them! Play it Steve! The suits! The blow! The harmonica riffs! The mad dancing on the SNL skits! Oh to listen to this CD again. I can’t download it because I have never downloaded a single music track in my life and never will. A man can only buy Exile on Main Street so many times!

What the hell! I thought. No need to find the CD. I’d just follow the man and listen to the entire album this fine morning and then mail the books later.

I was positively giddy at the prospect!

On Thursday morning under gray skies and splashed with a sprinkle or two, the remains of my beloved step mother of almost 30 years, Pauline, were interred at Willamette National Veteran’s Cemetery. One day my father will rest beside her after a Marine color guard performs its ceremony and a report of a rifle volley resounds across the grounds.

I was struck by the somber beauty of the cemetery, dotted with Oregon oaks and all manner of conifers. I was struck by a crew cutting up a downed maple and a lone man with a shovel digging a grave. I didn’t think people still dug graves with shovels and for some reason it brought me comfort.

My family gathered in front of the niche and members placed treasured items inside. I left a sea shell, others left photographs, my dad left his wedding ring.

As we stood together and grieved, my mind turned to the remarkable woman who was my step mother and the three incredible children she raised, the incredible help offered me over the years, and the incredible influence she had on my father. It was her love and resilience and patience with him that marked the turning point in making him a great man. I will forever be in her debt.

My father and I will continue her tremendous generosity toward a number of charities. She particularly loved supporting those organizations that served the homeless. My father and I will continue to maintain the wonderful back yard she created, a true oasis in the city that attracts all manner of wildlife. I will work hard to maintain my father’s body and spirit and continue to laugh when he corrects my grammar. Pauline would love that, as she would want me to begin every weekday morning with my father by watching Perry Mason.

As a side note: This was the first funeral/graveside/interment service of my life.

Today is the inauguration, but I don’t feel like writing about that or the departing President. It is possible I will never write about him again after this post and that feels like a good thing. As for his followers, they will still remain a subject. I find them much more interesting as a topic.

Today I will write about football and I am writing this in the post-presidency concussion protocol that mysteriously many Americans don’t seem to suffer from.

So on with the kickoff…

It was early in the game and the cliches were rolling in with regularity and whenever I heard one, I longed for Howard Cosell and his use of “scintillating” to describe a pass reception. Or “moribund” to describe an offense’s production.

What I heard:

Lean on the ground game.

They’ve got to score to win the game.

Ground and pound.

He’s really good in space.

He has great pocket presence.

They’ve got to establish the running game.

Defense travels.

He’s got great football IQ.

At least the commentators didn’t say frozen tundra!

Early second quarter…as the commercials for beer, trucks and crap never seemed to end, I conceived of an existentialist play called Waiting for the Kickoff. Here’s the premise: two Trumpians sit on a couch drinking beer, eating a nacho, shooting the shit, while waiting for an NFL playoff game to begin. Endless commercials play during their conversation, which covers topics ranging from Trump (he’s a God), the existence of God (stone cold truth) and the Tooth Fairy (she’s hot and horny).

Of course, the kickoff never comes but the Trumpians don’t seem to mind or even notice. (Note to self: brush up on Sartre’s play.)

Late second quarter: I turned it off.

While serving as a combat Marine in Korea, my father told me there were two main meals on the line: pork and beans and beans and pork and there were two different labels for the same identical meal. You could write a novel in that insanity and Joseph Heller already did.

It was with this Catch 22-styled military anecdote in mind that I served him one of his favorite meals, pork and beans or beans and pork by slicing up some Vienna sausages into a pot of baked beans. I also added some onions and sprinkled it lightly with black pepper.

Now I must say it was a first for me to “cook” with Vienna sausages and my hands trembled a bit as I handled the pink, greasy tubes. MY GOD! Was I actually helping kill my 90-year old father? Would DHS report me if the word got out, like in this post?

After a time, I laughed as I heated the concoction and bubbled and boiled its toil and cauldron. I doubt even Macbeth’s witches would have brewed up something so evil.

But, the Old Man wanted a favorite dish and I would prepare it the best I could and hope the headlines wouldn’t report a terrible death by methane asphyxiation or explosion. We had some concern about that.

A bearded and elderly transient wearing a safety vest directed traffic at the McDonald’s drive-thru. Am I supposed to tip him? He reminded me of that line from the Stones’ immortal song “Shattered,” which probably should be the American national anthem of the Pandemic.

People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered

A man wearing a kilt bought scotch in a liquor store.

A teenager pulls a u-turn with his sedan in the middle of a busy street outside the liquor store to pick up his buddies in the parking lot of a convenience store. When he rolls up to his crew, one of them says to him, “That was gigging shit.” Wait, gigging is my word! I don’t want it to become part of teenager slang!

A squirrel on a fence looked like he might attack me.

A tent was pitched mere inches from a railroad track.

A man read the contents of his energy drink as he walked his dog.

A very large woman wore practically no clothes while walking down the sidewalk.

A homeless man growled at me when I passed him splayed on the sidewalk.

Mt. Hood looked damn fine this morning.

The Willamette River is running incredibly high. There will be choice cuts of beaverwood washed ashore soon. Joy!

The vehicle I am driving could have given me a real-time stock report as I drove by a homeless encampment.

It’s raining and dark outside this morning. I drink coffee at my improvised desk. I will warm up with some declarative sentences, although I have nothing in mind to write later except perhaps a short story that involves the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and who wants to read about that autocrat.

A couple of crow perch in a swaying deciduous tree.

I hear geese somewhere in the distance.

A Tri-Met bus rolls past.

Another bus goes by.

People walk their dogs.

Someone is rifling through the bottle bin on the street.

My coffee is weak.

I saw a kind of fort in a wooded city park yesterday.

I also saw two homeless men sitting on the concrete having a conversation.

I’m not sure what day it is.

I have to drive downtown today.

Perry Mason is on in an hour.