A New Thanksgiving Tradition

NSP Meditations

All your holiday traditions burned to ashes. It was an instant conflagration. Indeed, every tradition you had associated with your personal, professional and creative lives vanished in the fire. You really miss the dog-related ones.

So what to do you do? You do not cling to the past. You do not pull a Gatsby. You do not wallow. You do not deny yourself joy.

You invent new traditions, for yourself, by yourself, with others, for others. They come to you on walks. They just pop into your mind and land in a cauldron of creativity. There, they stew and simmer until they bring a smile to your face because you know you are onto something new and good and that will you pull them off.

You reach out. You rally others. You invite. You knock on doors. You moved forward. You spend very little money because new traditions don’t have to cost all that much. In fact, many can cost nothing at all except the price of caring.

You whip up a Thanksgiving crock pot of zesty potato soup and share it with the shut-ins and the shut-outs. While you eat, you watch the Cowboys’ game streaming on your tablet, on a picnic table, near a fire. You say a little secular grace before the meal, deliver a brief invocation in the spirit of the holiday, and toast with some red wine from a jug or box. You also cook up a steak on the fire for your new friend’s dog.

The game will play, but no one will really watch it, because talk will fill the air, good talk. And everyone around fire will know something new is happening. All it took was effort, but really, not all that much.

Rain, November, 21

NSP Meditations, Of Walking in Rain , , , , , , ,

A sizable rain is falling as I write this in the early morning. No light yet. I say sizable, because that means we’ll talk about it later today as we adjust ourselves to rain and more rain.

I have new rain shoes, magnificent Clark’s Wave Walkers, waterproof, brown, with suede, a perfect fit. Brand new and found in a thrift store for $15. They must have originally cost $150. I rank them well up there as one of my greatest Oregon Coast store finds. I’ll walk them in rain until they disintegrate.

The sound of rain on the roof of my new domicile sounds like a little man is raking the roof with a metal rake. It is an entirely new sound. I like it.

I haven’t lived a good rain story in a long time.

I haven’t read a good rain line in a long time.

I have a new job: An Oregon foundation contracted with me to call up prospective coastal home buyers from certain zip codes in California and leave them long voice mails that warn about the depressing effects of rain on their potential investments and relationships. I like the work.

This is a read-two-books-rain day. I’ve got Henry Miller, a historical novel set in the Napoleonic War and some needle-craft magazines ready to go.

Would I give up rain for love in the sun? Sounds like an interesting premise for a Hallmark Channel romance movie that will never be made. About the snow, yes, but never the rain.

Could I write anything interesting where it barely rains?

A reader of the rain book sent me a link to his band’s unreleased song about rain. I liked it.

Only a few rain books left. They have put me in touch with some truly incredible people.

I’d like to teach my rain writing workshop to an incarcerated population.

I met an old man on a hike who said he was a “feet man” when it came to rain, not inches. Oh, I loved that line.

Light is coming up. Time to get out and walk in rain. Join me. Write me of your experience.

A Novel in a Roadside Attraction

NSP Meditations , ,

I drove a winding rural road along a remote river and passed abandoned homes, RVs, boats and pastures gone to seed. I hadn’t seen another vehicle for miles in both directions on a weekday morning.

Then I saw a person walking toward me in the narrow gravel shoulder. Perhaps walking is the wrong word. Sashaying is better. I slowed down and veered a bit toward the middle stripe. It was a woman with long blonde curly hair. She wore a green skirt, orange blouse, yellow rubber boots and was carrying a white bucket full of red apples. It was an astonishing array of colors and seared itself instantly into my mind. There was a novel in this woman of color walking a rural road while carrying apples. Was she homeless? Had she gathered windfall for cider or applejack? Pies for the Elks Club fundraiser? How far did she have to walk? There was no possible way she could be there, but there she was, and as I passed, I noticed she was smiling and singing. The journalist in me wanted to know the tune. The novelist in me would make it something sung by Al Green.

I begin writing the novel in my head right then and there. It was finished by the time I reached the sea.

A Morning Stroll

NSP Meditations , ,

Smoke layered with clouds to form a strange tan morning sky. I walked along a lonely road, actually right down the middle, and took in the sights of my stroll.

A black-haired woman dressed in a black bathrobe emerged from a storage facility and twirled bird seed into the air. Within seconds, 20 to 30 crows swarmed on the ground and around the woman. She kept on dancing, and then she was gone.

A red van with white racing stripes parked in a derelict parking lot caught my eye. It was for sale. $3500/OBO…a 2000 Starcraft, with bitchin wood accents highlighting the interior. The mileage was absurdly low. Tires great. A little rust here and there but this was the Oregon Coast. I wanted that van in the worst way. I wanted to take it somewhere and let it take me somewhere.

My new driftwood fort, Fort Otter, stood tall in the tan sky. I had found some charcoal from a recent beach fire and marked up the fort here and there and wrote: “Fort Otter. Leave a message.” So far, no one had had written a word. They may not have wanted to get their hands dirty, but sometimes writing requires that.

I noticed a woman on the beach holding the leash to a small dog and standing still, expect for the obvious gestures of text messaging. She was angled to the ocean and the waves were dull green and barely made a peep. We waved to each other. I went on my walk, for a mile or so, then returned and there she stood in the same exact position, Same for the dog.

I approached her because that was the way home. She turned to me and came over. We said hello and she struck up a conversation. In short order I learned that she suffered from paralyzing migraines and rarely made it to the beach, even though she lived 300 yards away. She was on the run from a physically abusive ex-husband, and living in total anonymity and secrecy. She found this place by sheer accident, rented a room in the basement of an elderly couple’s home and was trying to start over. It felt like she hadn’t talked to anyone for a long time. I listened and we talked about the healing properties of the ocean. She said she wanted to walk on the beach more often. I told her about the fort and the charcoal. I suggested she might want to write a message. She smiled and I moved on after saying goodbye.

On Football (Part 7)

NSP Meditations, Pioneer Pride, Sports , , ,

I will close this meandering stream of consciousness on football, with a heartbreaking story of getting my teenage heart broken while attending a high school football game. It was the last game I ever attended as a student. The story goes like this:

It was my junior year. I’d retired from football the previous season after the injury and intellectual exhaustion with arrogant coaches (in plaid polyester shorts) who breathed bromides with every scream. I had a Super Bowl crush on a fellow junior, easily the most exotic female on campus: clothes, hair, makeup, moves, foreign born but not a foreign exchange student. Her signature look was matching or clashing headbands and leg warmers. She was utterly self-exiled from the popular crowd. I suspected they feared her. No one could fathom her. I no longer recall how we met or what established and eventually deepened our mutual attraction. We might have had a class together that first semester. I do remember our first and last date together—if date is the word. It transpired at a football game! We arranged to meet at halftime of the Homecoming game. Why halftime? Why not opening kickoff? She made the call. She was quarterbacking. We met near the concession stand. A light rain fell. As she approached, I saw she was wearing a red headband and red and white-striped legwarmers. Our school colors were red and white. We got close. Her face was flushed, crimson, and sported a crooked smile. She slurred a little hello and teetered. She gave me a big hug and I breathed in deep: hair, body, soul. It was all booze. She reeked of alcohol. I had never smelled it up close on a person like that, evaporating, damn near visible, but I knew what it was, even thought I didn’t drink in high school and had never been drunk. She told me she’d been drinking rum and produced a half pint out of her purse that was almost empty. She didn’t offer me a belt. In the background, I heard the marching band. I saw the glare from the lights. I smelled hotdogs and hamburgers sizzling on the grills. The PA was announcing some raffle or car wash. She took my hand and led me away from the concession stand, into the darkness of the nearby side streets. She asked where my car was parked. My 74 blue VW Dasher was a few blocks away. We found it and slid onto the back seat. She took a final belt of rum and the bottle somehow got stowed. We started making out. I think I got drunk on rum from kissing her. A rum makeout fog clouded the windows. We were probably in there until the fourth quarter. All we did was kiss. The makeout session concluded. I walked her back to the stadium. She disappeared into the crowd. She’d invited me to come along, wherever she was going, but I declined. I have no idea why. It might have been the dumbest decision of my life up that point and for the next 20 years. I never told a single person about this “date.” I recorded it in my journal where no one has ever read of it. We never had another date. We never spoke of what happened. There was never a look from her in the halls. Every time I see a Dasher, I wince. Luckily, Dashers are almost vanished from Oregon.

I am writing this on a Sunday morning. The NFL games are underway and the religious services connected to them are in full fervor. I won’t be watching because I don’t have television.

On Football (Part 6)

NSP Meditations, Sports

The greatest of all my football memories was a family affair. I’ve published multiple versions of this story before but I now realize it fits into a larger context of my life. Thus, it makes perfect sense to include it here.

On Thanksgiving day 1979, my family played the last of its “Turkey Bowl” football games. It was a generational affair pitting the male cousins (Matt, Darin, and Kirt) versus the uncles (Karl, Dan and Dale) as Grandfather watched. The tradition began in the early 1970s as a diversion from the boring half-time show of the Dallas Cowboys game broadcast on Thanksgiving afternoon.

The routine was: watch Detroit lose in the morning, gorge on a feast prepared by the women, watch Dallas play most of the first half, then at the two-minute warning, change clothes, toss the football around (the weather never mattered), play our 45-minute game on a muddy field, come back in, not change clothes, feast again, and settle into a game that invariably saw Cowboys’ quarterback Roger Staubach pull it out at the end.

As the years passed, the game evolved from a friendly Kennedy family photo op to an intense rivalry. Grandfather kept score as he prowled the sidelines, never cheering, thinking about pie for dessert, shooting bad photographs, and proud to see his brood on the field.

I played quarterback for the cousins and we lost every game, usually as a result of gimmick special teams plays or trick touchdown passes. We came close a few times, and after an especially aching defeat in 1978 when we lost on a Hail Mary with the score tied, we pledged right there on the field to go all out and win the next year.

That meant ratcheting up the seriousness of the game so that’s exactly what we did. We repeatedly talked strategy on the phone in September. In October, I recall at some family gathering Darin gave Dale, the younger uncle, a tube of Ben-Gay, saying “You’re going to need this when the next game over.” Dale didn’t think it was funny.

About a week before Thanksgiving, the cousins met and an incident occurred that made me realize just how serious we’d become in pursuit of victory. In a discussion on how to thwart Dale’s big-play capability, Darin set up a wooden folding chair, coiled into a perfect three-point stance, and announced, “This is what I’m going to do to Dale.” He then exploded into the chair, sent it flying into a wall ten feet away where it shattered into a half dozen pieces. We were in a church at the time.

It would almost be literature if I could write the game was close, hinged on a final play. I cannot. We blitzed the uncles from the opening kickoff and won 49-14 on a dry field at Ainsworth Park in Northeast Portland. We scored on every possession. We seemed faster, more into it. We never let up on the uncles as they had on us in the earlier games of the rivalry. When the rout concluded, we all shook hands, and I remember feeling great in a way that I had never felt before.

We headed back inside, I think the women might of asked “who won?” and the two teams gathered up a second big meal, and caught the rest of the Cowboys’ game.

In six months Grandfather would be dead from a heart attack, Darin off to college, my dad no longer part of this family’s holidays because of divorce, and I would get my driver’s license. We never played football as a family again.

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