KFC Non-kindness

NSP Meditations ,

I stood at the edge of a big river. The sun was out and the river flowed green with flourishes of white. A dozen boats with salmon fishermen aboard plied the water.

This was a city park, a well-kept one, with visitor amenities and rows of rock work that suggested artistic intent.

Something moved in the rock work. I turned around and saw a young man resting inside a sleeping bag on the grass. Our eyes met and we nodded hello. He had a dirty and sallow face, a face of homeless hunger. It was two in the afternoon.

A shiny rig rolled up in the parking lot. A family of five, all impeccably dressed and coiffed, jumped out: husband, wife, three kids. One kid carried a KFC bucket, almost the size of his torso. It looked big enough to feed ten people and a murder of crows.

The family headed toward to the rock work for their late lunch on the river. I moved away, toward a path, and headed for home. I walked a few seconds and then turned around. The Dad told the sleeping bag man to beat it. The man arose, said nothing, gathered up the bag, and skulked away. The family took over the area and dug into the KFC. I saw a kid eating a drumstick while standing on the rock work.

Think of the lesson the Dad taught his children. Think of the lesson in kindness he could have taught them had they shared their lunch with the man. That lesson would have never left the children and reverberated through the years to inspire innumerable and unimaginable acts of kindness. One of these future acts might well have changed the course of a neighborhood, community, country, or a single person or dog’s life.

One wonders where the actual lesson the Dad taught at the river might lead. Actually, it’s where we are now as a nation.

Tangerine Kindness

NSP Meditations ,

I fed crackers to ducks in the eddy of a big river. Away from shore, the current ran green and swift. A sea lion undulated here and there. Geese flew downriver. Driftwood floated by. Three boats formed a hog line at the mouth of a nearby smaller river to fish for salmon. One fisherman had his shirt off. An old woman walked her old dog and they never walked in a straight line.

A long-haired man emerged from the big rocks and massive cottonwood stumps. He was smoking and drinking an iced coffee and talking to himself aloud. He had the appearance of a homeless man. I tried to discern the meaning of his words but failed. Perhaps it was a failure of my imagination.

I found a tangerine in my sack lunch and extracted it. I went over to the man and offered him the tangerine. He accepted and thanked me. There was recognition in his face. I left the river and plotted my way to home because I had one. I turned around for a final look at the man. He was eating the tangerine and smoking and talking aloud, all three at once, a fascinating combination to observe. I dearly wanted to comprehend his words. I felt certain they presented an important story and I wanted to know it.

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Kindness and Gratitude Sent Out

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Several months ago, the writing group I lead in Astoria put our heads together to form a new literary organization and produce a print publication. The details of this project are below. If anyone is interested in reading or distributing this unique publication, please make a $10 donation to the Meditations blog and I will mail you five copies. I derive no profit whatsoever from this transaction, as is the case with all my writing since I began writing. I urge anyone out there reading this to contact The League via email and join us for a workshop.

The League of Intertidal Writers announces the release of its debut publication, Kindness and Gratitude. The publication is free and has been distributed around Clatsop and Pacific Counties for the public to read, keep, pass on, mail to friends and family. It features poems, short essays and memoirs that explore the theme of kindness and gratitude.

The League of Intertidal Writers, is a group of writers (and one dog) from around the Pacific Northwest that meets on a monthly basis in Astoria to write, talk, laugh, think, drink, eat and listen in a private Astoria home with a magnificent view of Youngs Bay.

Kindness and Gratitude was the outcome of a kindness and gratitude-themed writing workshop and the culmination of ten other workshops on various themes. Approximately 10-12 writers meet for each workshop from a total membership of about 20 writers. Participants in the workshops feel the presence and contributions of other writers adds originality and richness to the experience of creation.

The group plans to release other publications and invites other area writers to join The League. All writers from poets, songwriters, essayists, novelists, greeting card writers, bloggers, journalists and historians to teachers of writing are welcome. For more information about gatherings and workshops, email leagueofintertidalwriters@gmail.com

Kindness and Gratitude can be picked up at the following locations: libraries, liquor stores, bakeries, driftwood forts, bookstores, coffee shops, Gulley’s Meats and Fort George Brewery in Astoria. The publication is also available as a PDF download to read on a digital device or be printed at home.

Operation Oregon Beach Deflowering

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches , , ,

The sun materialized on the North Oregon coast and the temperature pushed 75 degrees. Preposterous! I loathe everything connected to the sun except relishing its inevitable super nova and subsequent black hole. There are no black holes with rain—only light, clarity.

I placed my items on the counter of a convenience store in Warrenton. The Indian clerk smiled and asked how it was going. He loved my last name and always punned on it. Love Man! His command of the English language astounded me; it was easily more refined than half the English teaching colleagues I worked with in my career.

I told him I had just visited the beach and walked and played for an hour. His face went blank. I knew the look. Most of my coastal principals had it etched on their countenance.

“When was the last time you went to the beach?” I said.

He hesitated. “I haven’t been yet. I work a lot.”

That I already knew. He probably worked 60 hours a week and slept on a cot in the utility closet. He was always there when I patronized the store. He had Indian music cranked and smiled non-stop.

“How long have you lived here?” I said.

“Six months.”

“You mean you’ve lived here for six months, ten minutes from the beach, and you’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean?”

“I haven’t.”

I walked to the front window and found the open/closed sign. I closed the store.

“Were going to beach—right now,” I said.

“I can’t. I have to work. My family.”

“You want me to call ICE?”

It would have been the only humane threat of deploying ICE in recent memory but the situation called for it. This was Oregon dammit! I had a Tom McCall duty to help this newcomer.

I told the customers the store was closed; there was an Oregon existential emergency in progress. I was the Doctor of Love in charge. Scram! They scrammed.

I wrote Oregon existential emergency; store closed. on a napkin, dabbed it nacho cheese goo and stuck it on the front door.

“You used the semicolon accurately,” the clerk said.

“Thank you,” I said.

The clerk came out from around the counter. He was ready to go.

“You ever built a driftwood fort?” I said.

“What’s that?”

We were about to leave when I turned around, sprinted to the cooler, and hauled out a 12-pack of Rainier.

“You ever drank a Rainier?” I said.

“No.”

He looked at me. I sensed fear and distrust.

“Am I with the right person?” he said.

“You’re with the right Oregonian. Let’s go.”

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Notes From Non-Corporate Coffee

NSP Meditations ,

A copy of Jim Harrison’s The Women Lit by Fireflies found in the cafe library. I borrow it for a friend.

I stash my books in the library’s handcrafted book case built by a deceased patron. My books rest between Danielle Steele and Clive Cussler.

Another white cup, but no logo. I taste the difference.

Stevie Ray Vaughn plays.

No new products advertised.

People are conversing. Someone in here is thinking of a good idea that might improve the world, I can just feel it. I can almost smell it.

Across the street, decades ago, I began my life as a writer. It began in an old brick building paid for by a Robber Baron. No one is ever going to write that about the new digital Robber Barons. They are ten times more heinous than Mellon, Carnegie and Rockefeller and wear fitted t-shirts wile doing the robbing.

I smell baked goods.

A woman with purple hair meets a man with gray hair.

People are talking about the sun.

A huge man comes in wearing yellow suspenders to hold up his gut.

Do I write differently while drinking coffee in a corporate atmosphere? Someone should conduct a study.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Notes From Corporate Coffee

NSP Meditations

Soft rockless rock plays. Hello, who are you, let me know your name? The Doors aren’t playing.

Always something new being advertised: the newest thing in coffee (that will change your life). I’ve been drinking Cold Brew for years. Stagnant, three-day Yuban leftover in the pot. Sometimes I even ice it up.

The to and fro of a weekday morning in America is underway. They are strange movements to me.

A mother drops $22 on herself and two toddlers.

I await another client. She’s writing her incredible story of educational service in a remote American wilderness. I feel like I am gaining new energy from working with all these aspiring writers, one not even alive. I get to lose myself in their stories and somehow it enhances my storytelling.

My coffee cup is all white, even the embossed corporate logo. I remember when tennis players wore nothing but white in the Grand Slam tournaments. The balls were all white, too. The players however, were not all white. The white apparel was all so classy and probably the last thing in American history where all white was classy. I am dying to start playing tennis again. I can feel it’s going to be a major part of the new life I am forging. Is forging the right metaphor for what is happening? Constructing? Fashioning? Winging? Coaxing? Conjuring? Kneading? Jury rigging?

Planning for the new life is over. It will simply unfold. I have no expectations anymore. But people continue to reach out and begin rapprochement.

Customers stream in. The ubiquity of phones. There are more laptops in use than human beings. That’s a first in my observations and portends something I don’t want to contemplate at the moment.

I have many meeting with friends today. We are gaining strength together in our meetings and moving along with purposeful, strong and good work, mostly done in stealth. Join me.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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