The Call of the Sea

Tall Ship Hawaiian Chieftain in Salmon Bay

I have always wanted to live at the ocean. When I was a child, every summertime Wednesday we would pack the station wagon with beach gear and my father and mother would drive us (Robby, Randy, Ricky, and Rusty) to Ship Bottom, New Jersey.  This is where I discovered body-surfing and Yoo Hoo chocolate drink.

When I was in my mid-twenties I worked for a ship reporting service in Philadelphia as a dispatcher and later held a similar job with a tugboat company. As nearly every sailor will tell you, there is something about the sea that draws you in and never releases you.  You are as hooked as a marlin on the end of a fishing line. 

Tall Ship Lady Washington

 

 The magnificent beauty of the Puget Sound is a tonic for a damaged soul, a vibrant combination of sight, sounds, and smells that will stay strong in your memory for many years. I fell in love with the sweet Pacific Ocean breezes that poured in through open windows. 

In the photographs above and the the right,  the steamship paddle boat Queen of Seattle was turning around in Salmon Bay near the Ballard locks.  Suddenly out of the locks appeared two tall ships.  Lady Washington arrived first. She starred  in the first Pirates of Caribbean movie. Following her out of the locks was the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain.  The Lady Washington actually circled our ship and our Captain jokingly exclaimed  "We're surrounded by pirates!"

From July through October of 2012, I  spent most of my working days on the steamship paddle boat "Queen of Seattle".  Once owned by Alaska Travel Adventures, a company that lost its way with this purchase,  she was built in a Sacramento  backyard by a wealthy Californian obsessed with steam engines.

The Queen of Seattle is a 149 foot long steam-powered paddle boat- the largest such vessel west of the Mississippi River. Her capacity is 243 people.  She was built to reflect an earlier time in history. She is a combination of old and new construction.

She is a lovely ship, built from decommissioned World War 2 Navy ships that were struck from the Navy register and sold for scrap. She may be haunted by the ghost of her builder, or of the men who fought and died on the decks of the ships she was built from....

According to public records, some of the Queen's windows are from the USS Calvert (APA-32),  a Crescent City- Class Attack Transport  whose superior service to the U.S. Navy won her ten battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.  In Word War II, the USS Calvert landed troops in North Africa, Sicily, Philippine Islands, Gilbert Islands, Kwajalein, Marianas, Saipan, and the occupation of Japan. She was commissioned again for the Korean war and for a final service in the Vietnam war.  The builder of the Queen was transported home from the Pacific theater on the USS Calvert.

I washed those windows every week and often thought about our passengers looking through at the city of Seattle, not knowing that our soldiers and sailors once looked through those same windows on a journey a very different, and often deadly reality.  I owed it to those soldiers, many who never  returned, to keep that glass clean for the folks who rode the Queen in leisure in the summer of 2012.

Her controls were from the USS Interpreter, a radar picket ship that was part of our early warning defense system and would sail for weeks at a time on the Pacific Ocean.  Originally a private freighter, the USS Interpreter was purchased by the US Navy and outfitted for her mission at the Philadelphia Naval Yard- on the same Delaware River where I dispatched tugboats, including a few times to the navy yard itself.

I stood at the helm several times that summer and piloted the Queen of Seattle using the controls from the USS Interpreter.  "Keep her mid-ship  Mr. Fisher" the Captain would growl in that salty Captain voice after we passed under the Fremont bridge and entered "The Cut", a man-made canal that joins Lake Union to the Puget Sound.

Naval Personnel aboard the USS Calvert

The Queen of Seattle was originally christened the Elizabeth Louise. She was built over a ten-year span between 1975 and 1985 on a vacant scrapyard lot by 63-year old crane operator Hal Wilmunder.

Her paddle engines were built in 1884 and were installed on at least 5 different ships, finally ending up on the tugboat Detroiter, which worked on the Ohio River. The engines were later sold for scrap.  Capt. Wilmunder found them and then built a boat to fit them.  He launched the Elizabeth Louise on the Sacramento River in September of 1985.

USS Interpreter

Hal Wilmunder died tragically after he fell off the stern of the paddle boat and drowned in the Sacramento River on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2003.  That isn't something that was mentioned on the tour narration and probably for good reason.  According to published reports, the ship's door alarm had gone off and Hal went to investigate. At that time Alaska Travel Adventures (ATA) had offered Hal Wilmunder 1-million dollars for the Queen but he refused, his seller price at 3-million.  After his death, his widow sold the ship to ATA...for one million dollars.  They took it to Alaska and renamed it Alaskan Queen.  The venture failed and they moved her to Seattle and renamed her Seattle Queen but didn't bother to change the large AQ they installed between the steam stacks above the wheelhouse.

On the day he disappeared, Hal had placed his a wallet and watch on the upstairs bar of the Queen. Then he took his final swim.  His body was recovered 3 days later, a few miles downriver from the ship.  There were questions about how someone who built and knew every square inch of that ship could fall and hit his head on the paddle wheel. What does the paddle wheel have to do with the door alarm?  After a short investigation his death was ruled accidental.  But he was known to have enemies and there were rumors he may have caught a thief, or his death was arranged- that it was no accident- but if that were true, the  evidence died with Mr. Wilmunder,   Some say his ghost haunts the vessel and many of the mechanical issues that ultimately ended the Queen's daily cruises were of suspicious nature.

For some, questions remain:  Why was Hal Wilmunder on board the Elizabeth Louise on Easter Sunday?  Why do some of us believe his spirit may still be aboard the Queen?  Why did the ship constantly have major mechanical problems?  

We will never have the answers but here is my truth - Hal Wilmunder built a paddle boat masterpiece out of scrap iron from decommissioned naval vessels.  The Elizabeth Louise is a beautiful ship deserving better than the junk tours she barely endured.

I will never forget the  Queen of Seattle. I loved those few short months I rode her, and she will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Crazy Billy & Rafter Kat (Waiting for You)

Time to Write New Stories

I have decided to place music on the back burner. Let it simmer.  Stir occasionally.  Add a few seasonings from time to time.   While I am passionate about creating new songs, there comes a point where it feels rather absurd, self-centric, and maybe childish too.  It can be very cathartic and relaxing. There is fun in the creation, but there is also so much work to perfect it and that takes time.   I don't have an endless supply of time.  

Stories from Diffle County, The Adventures of Nikolast, and The Ice Bridge will be my focus for the next year.  The click click click of the keyboard will be my music.  There will be no political commentary of any kind, at least not in a real world setting- I can't guarantee that my stories won't reflect the changing political playground we call a Democracy.

I also am aware that some people believe that all the birds on the planet have been replaced by bird-like drones and they are watching us.  That explains why my bird feeder isn't that popular.  Drones don't need to eat. 

Also, would someone tell the U.S. Bird Drone Replacement Agency to move the mockingbird away from my bedroom window.  He/she is talented and also very obnoxious at 4:30 a.m., so please re-station him/her to another street, closer to the guy in my neighborhood who hates squirrels. 

Have squirrels been replaced by drones as well?

A quick shout out to my 4 loyal followers.   Wow.  Are you also drones?   

RDF

The Failure of Our Home Healthcare System

There are clear choices that have to be made in a pandemic on who gets a hospital bed and who gets an IV and sent home to work on recovery from there.  

Then there is the support system for both choices. The first is following an established regimen for treatment of a virus that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  The support for this is strong and effective.

But what about the latter of the two?  If a person is sent home, the follow up with a home health care professional would be a critical component to maintaining bed space in the hospital while also treating patients just below that level of care, but needing an elevated care as well.  This level of care doesn't exist

The health service companies and most assuredly the insurance companies would like you to believe that a system of aftercare does exist and there is an after care available- weeks afterwards where the crisis is over and you don't need one more retired nurse to remind you to take your meds. 

What is missing in this pandemic is clear, multi tiered approach to fight the virus at all levels in in every patient in an immediate manner.

Why is it missing ?  I don't know because there could have been community outreach training, identification and allocation of required essential equipment personnel just for this purpose.

When the Secretary of the Treasury takes back 500 billion in COVID 19 because it went unspent, then one can only conclude it was never designed to be spent.

I don't place the blame on our elected officials who failed us and yes, they did fail us in dramatic and deadly ways.   I blame us.  This is our country and we have allowed fringe players with conspiracy theories to join in our national conversations, we have chosen popularity over passion, power over prudence, and our own beliefs over the beliefs of others. 

We supported banks making money off college loans and dragging down our brilliant students into a service economy geared for corporate profit. Binding them like serfs to an unfair, monetary system that rewards the top one percent at the expense of the 99 percent is a disgraceful act.  So the banks and quasi govt. Lending organizations can make a little side money  as well on interest and penalties.

I blame us for giving selfish and greedy false prophets  the power over us, to lie to us, to encourage our baser instincts, and to divide and conquer our shared American experience. 

Problems require solutions from level headed people. We don't need to fly flags on  our trucks as if we are the American Isis or to wear our prejudices on our sleeves as if that gives them a value they do not deserve and will never be worthy of. 

We have a constitution that protects our Right to bear arms so why do we argue on known facts?  We also know that mentally ill people shouldn't be able to purchase  automatic rifles. Front line workers in health care need PPE and  our support and there is no legitimate reason we cannot support that request.  There are solutions to these types of problems.

There needs to be a new area of health care where professionals and patients have a third choice, not just Doctor office or the emergency room. In one newspaper article after another we read of an elderly couple who waited too long to get treatment because one did not want to leave the other behind.  They both get too sick and die within minutes of each other and we think how romantic that they had one last kiss. I'm betting they would have wanted more than that if they had a choice, if our nationwide healthcare system had a treatment regimen for them.  They get the kiss of death from a broken system, designed to work in sunny weather and to the benefit of the insurance adjustors who want everything just perfect for their bottom line. 

 It's woeful and it forces older couples to stay home together for fear of leaving the other partner home alone with Covid19.  It's not sweet, it's cold, heartless, and terribly inhuman and cruel and we must demand that a third tier of treatment be established  and bring permanent change to this wholly inadequate pandemic threatened health care system.

Richard Fisher. COVID PATIENT , ICU , EMMC, BANGOR, ME

 

The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2

 The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2  - The Ladybug Compact

By Richard Dean Fisher

The dying embers of the fire cracked and crackled as Nikolast slept.  The air cooled and a cold draft blew from under the Thomas Cottage front door. Nikolast woke up, stood on all fours and shook and ruffled his short fur.  A ladybug who had been sleeping on his tail catapulted into the air and only due to a furious beating of her wings did she avoid the hot fireplace.  The Ladybug landed on the tip of  Nikolast's ear. He took a white paw swipe at her and missed as she floated above him, then landed again in a tuft of fur just inside Niko's ear.

  "Hello?"  said a very tiny voice. Nikolast froze.  "Hello, can you hear me?"  said the very tiny voice in Niko's ear. Niko nodded.

"Who are you?" the minuscule voice asked.

"I'm Nikolast or Niko. Who are you?  I can't see you. I can barely hear you." Niko replied as he slowly turned his head to look around the room.    

Ladybug giggled and tickled Niko's ear.  "I'm in here. Miss Tennelope Ladybug at your service and pleased to meet you.  Nikolast walked over rubbed along side the couch, making certain to turn his head to try to stop that tiny itch in his ear.  Tennelope flew out of his ear and landed on his nose.  "Can you see me now, Nikolast?   You haven't answered my question who are you?" Tennelope Ladybug shouted as loud as she could,  "I wasn't asking your name, I was asking WHO are you that  crows would place you under their protection?  They only do that by prophecy."

Nikolast  tilted his head slightly.   "First, Miss Ladybug, I don't know anything about a crow prophecy or that I am under their protection.  I spoke with a crow today and we became friends."  Niko shook his head but the ladybug was faster and floated above and then gently landed on top of Niko's head.  She landed so lightly Niko didn't even know she landed at all! 

" That is a problem for you indoor animals.  You spend all your time with humans inside their homes and get no outside education at all.  I will let the crows explain their customs to you but I am going to  be tagging along.   You probably don't know this but ladybugs are good luck and it is very bad luck to kill a ladybug.  Once the crows placed you under their protection, the ladybug nation, in accordance with the agreement forged at the Great Circle join in the protection. We provide a good luck shield for you. And so I am here."   She busily fussed with her dotted wings.  "I just don't understand how an indoor cat can be this important,."  

Nikolast shook his head several times to ride himself of this insulting little bug, but every time she was faster and landed on him again.  "Are you going you be in my fur the entire time?  He was exasperated.

"Not all the time,  I have ladybug business to attend to. I will tell you when I am leaving and when I will return."  shouted the tiny voice from on top of Niko's head.

Niko shrugged, " Miss Tennelope I am not certain how this is necessary or how one ladybug will protect a cat 50,000 times her size, but you are welcome to 'tag along'."  

"Nikolast, I am not the only ladybug here." As she spoke thousands of ladybugs emerged from every crack and corner in the walls, flying up to cover the entire ceiling of the room. Miss Tennelope Ladybug then flew three circles above Niko's head and just as quickly as they had arrived, they disappeared back into their hiding places. Then she landed on Niko's nose and smiled at him.

Nikolast was impressed but also curious, "Miss Ladybug, that was something to see. But how will that protect me?"

Ladybug smiled.  "We can create a screen that repels bat radar and blocks the keenest of night vision, say from owls or nighthawks. There are other uses too, but those are highly secret.  It is not a good day for you should we have to use our advanced skills to protect you."

" I don't know why I would need protection,"  Nikolast replied,  frustrated with all this nonsense, he jumped up onto the sofa and curled up on top of a decorative pillow of hand-stitched daisies and ladybugs.

Outside the window, the Watcher's Net had expanded one hundred miles to the North, into The County, as it is referred to by humans, and the great last wilderness in the Eastern United States.   Red Winged  blackbirds had now joined in to cover the farmland areas, to avoid confrontations with humans who love red-winged blackbirds but would shoot Crows sitting on cornstalks without hesitation.

Soon reports were carried back through the net to Johnny Crow.   Hawks in the North had begun flying in crossing patterns above the net,  canvassing the land from above.  Johnny Crow, King of the Eastern  Sunrise Nation, was stunned,  This was told and retold for generations that a great  war of the wild animals would arrive soon after the birth of a kitten named Niko, last of its litter.   Johnny Crow sent a message back through the net- send in the sparrows to disrupt the hawks and chase them off.

~end Chapter 2 

 

 

  

The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

 

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

By Richard Dean Fisher

Nikolast is a cat.  He started out in life  (like all cats do)  as a kitten.   And he wasn't an extraordinary kitten either.. He was the runt of the litter,  a  calico kitten with flecks of tabby orange around his face and a thin, black stripe on each ear, from base to tip, right up the center.  He looked like a baby bobcat.  Basically, Nikolast was very much a normal kitten with a few unusual markings.  I forgot to mention his paws.  One was completely white. The other three were black as a crow's feather.

Johnny is a crow.  Big and black, with a black beak, and marble-black eyes, and dark gray claws. He enjoys talking to humans and following them around with his cousins, brothers and sisters.  'Hey Jim, you're 5 minutes late for work."  "Hey Jeanie, did you forget your phone again?"  "Travis, Travis, you better hurry and get out of there, you'll be late to your wedding."   "Kevin, drop the french fries, you know you can't eat them all.  Hurry before those pesky sparrows show up."  

 Johnny Crow and Nikolast had never met before Sunday, March 7th in the 1300th year of the crow revival or the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  Yet they had something in common that is rare in the animal world.  They both had deciphered the verbal  English language. No, they weren't bit by a radioactive spider. This isn't a super hero story.

It was a foggy March  morning in Fortune Oaks, Maine.  Nikolast was outside Thomas family cottage, laying low, silently watching blue-jays at the feeder.  He was 12 weeks old and had learned to walk between Bert Basset's paws to get  through the doggy- door, although the rubber door smacked him back several times before he found his balance and timing. To Niko's benefit, Bert Basset is an old hound dog, with a slow gait and the door does stay open a long time.  Sill, Nikolast was proud of his accomplishment, now for a nice plump blue-jay.

Johnny landed on a thick pine branch near the feeder, behind the cottage.  The taunting was about to begin.  

   "Hey big blue, how many of those seeds you need to eat to fill that big blue belly?"   Hey, big blue, the sky called. He wants his color back. Hey, how come ya'll have the same last name? That's all kind of seedy. "   

Johnny flew down to the wooden lighthouse feeder and landed on top.  The Blue Jays scattered.  Nearby the cawing of several crows could be heard as the flock of blue jays flew through the  neighborhood.  Then he flew down to the ground, looking for a french fry or piece of cheese.

Nikolast pounced and it was a good pounce, but perhaps a tad too high and maybe a second too fast, which he realized as he flew over the back of the black-feathered bird and tumbled across the lawn.  Johnny Crow noticed the breeze as Nikolast flew past.  

   "Do you want to try that again?  It was an elegant attempt.  I feel bad you missed. Of course, grabbing you in my talons and dropping you thirty feet will not result in an elegant landing at all."

Nikolast, looking suddenly disinterested, sat and groomed his paws before replying,

   "I wasn't trying to catch YOU for dinner, I was after a big, plump blue-jay.  YOU are all skin and bones," said Nikolast in a dismissive tone.  Besides, I'm too heavy for a bird to carry."  

 Johnny found a piece of old bread and poked at it with his beak, while keeping one eye on Nikolast.

   "You're a cute kitten, ya look like a baby bobcat, and I could fly with my talons dug into your soft, furry back.  I might just do that too and drop you off outside a Chinese restaurant, then dumpster dive tomorrow for  kitty-cat lo-mein.  Yum.  I'm getting hungry thinking of it."

Nikolast laid down facing Johnny Crow.  A lady bug landed on his ear.  

   "My name is Nikolast Octavio Leggier, 8th of my litter, born on the first moon of the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  I am owned and cared for by humans named Thomas.  They kept me because I was the runt of the litter, I have very few friends.   Would you like to be my friend?"  

 The words burst out of Niko's mouth in a series of tiny meows.  Johnny tilted his head and observed Nikolast very carefully.  

   "You talk more than I do and that is saying a lot," said the young crow, "How do you know the name of your owners?  Is this a trick?   Do not pounce me again, you won't like the result.  OK, we can be friends on one or more conditions.  I do not accept fair weather friends, friends of convenience, or transactional friends.  I am free, un-owned and living dangerously in the outside world."   Johnny ruffled his feathers, stuck out his chest, and crowed or cawed but of crowing variety.

Nikolast replied with short laugh, 

  "Wow, you're kind of random, I don't know all those big words you spoke, we can just be friends.   Oh, and I know their name because they speak it all the time.  Nikolast stood up on his rear hind legs and bowed,  

'Hello Mr. Thomas, dinner is almost ready. Has your day gone well?" Nikolast pecked the air imaginatively, "Mrs. Thomas you are so good to me.  Leftovers are fine,  now where's our son Maxwell hiding today? And where's that playful kitten Nikolast hiding?"   Nikolast sat back down and smiled at Johnny Crow.

Johnny looked up into the trees.  He heard a hawk screech high in the blue-jay colored sky.

 "Buddy, there are only a few of us who can understand their words. That is a rare gift.  Now did you hear that screech?  A hawk is up in the sky circling.  He sees lunch and that's you.  He is twice my size and he doesn't like chit chat, just a dive bomb with talons first for his prey.  Get inside right away.  We'll talk again later."    Johnny waved his wings as he spoke, shooing the kitten onto the back porch where an old basset hound was patiently waiting (sleeping) to help Nikolast get back inside the house.

Johnny flew up into the higher branches of  the pine tree, one eye on the Thomas Cottage and one eye on the sky. Johnny thought ' I had better not be wrong but I think I need to establish a watch. Nikolast is completely unaware of the danger that is near this house.  The hawk screeched again.   Johnny began to call out to his cousins, sisters, and brothers.

"Set up a watcher's net, set up a watcher's net for a five long-flight radius, five long-flight radius," cried the crow over and over. Within minutes the call was  repeated and within a few hours  hundreds upon hundreds of crows took up positions in trees and rooftops, on poles and wires, extended for several miles. The crows repeatedly called out back and forth, standing as sentries into and throughout the day and long into nightfall.  

Nikolast was curled up asleep by the fireplace, the red flames of the fire licking at the seasoned red oak wood. Outside the Thomas cottage, for the first time since year 698 in the crow calendar, a watcher's net was in full force, and growing wider by the hour.

 End Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

New Song- Walk Along Your Jagged Line

Diffle County Report - Jack Taylor and the Civil War Inheritance - Chapter 2

Rabbit Run 

 
When he turned twenty, Jack Taylor married  his high school sweetheart Bonnie Weatenly and it wasn't very long before they had children,  Brandon and Marigold.  Jack built a modest 4-bedroom ranch house, dark green siding with white trim, with an attached two car garage, 200 feet back from Rabbit Mountain Road.  He snuggled the house as close to the gentle stream called Rabbit Run as possible,  He used a dirt road built by the previous owner as a driveway and that road follows Rabbit Run all the way to the bridge at the rear of the property where, according to local press, John Shenk of Shenk Auto died when he fell off the bridge while intoxicated and fracture his skull on a rock.  

Of course John Shenk's family found empty beer cans that were pierced all over and his pistol had been fired, and a tuft of black bear fur was lodged between his teeth.  Did he bite a black bear before he died?  Why was the gun empty of bullets?  Besides, John needed a case of beer to get drunk enough to fall off the bridge he built himself, his family concluded.  Some questions never get answered.

Behind the house, Jack built a 4 bay garage with a loft- man cave perpendicular to the house- with identical siding and trim.  He bought  4 ATV's, 4 Snowmobiles, several rifles and pistols. He built an inground swimming pool in the backyard of the house and built a small bathhouse in the corner of the detached garage with a doorway to the pool area.  He added 6' high privacy fence between the house and the garage.  Then he hired landscapers to to tie everything together with mulch, trees, rocks, and plants.

The Taylors were proud of their homestead and careful with their money.   They decided that it was no one's business where the money came from. They made modest donations to their Church and their favorite charities, placed their children in public school, and Bonnie got her Bachelor's Degree in Art Design online while Jack opened a gun and tackle shop at the old Batchelor Market, a few hundred feet south on the State highway from the Grinold Township building.

Of course, people talk in small towns and Jack's sudden purchase of  a large tract of land, a dilapidated Storefront property in the center of a rural township,  a new house built to spec, several adult recreation toys, a new Ford F-350, a complete remodeling of the Batchelor building, an all new inventory of guns and fishing gear, jackets and ammunition, hats, boots and hunting knives, and a year later, the addition of an indoor gun range, as well as a diamond ring on Bonnie's finger the size of a Kansas cow, and a modest donation to the Diffle County Food Pantry of $75,000 so they could afford commercial refrigerators- well that raised a few eyebrows and soon enough the gossip train left the station.

Jack didn't build his empire overnight.  Jack Taylor was 29 years old when stopped by the Township office to talk to Big Don about the State highway permit he needed for the shop that was painfully slow in arriving, holding up Jack's Grand Opening. It had been 11 years since he received his first inheritance check. Without fuel, even the gossip train slows back down over time. Jack Taylor didn't talk much and Bonnie was alrighty fine with that.  Still, Big Don had to ask,

" Jack, I'll call the State and see what I can do, but they aren't a friendly bunch,  Mind if I ask you a personal question?"

Jack smiled,  "Sure, go ahead. I may not answer if its too personal."

Don smiled back, "Did you rob a bank?  You may be the wealthiest young man in Diffle County!  I saw your dad last night at the Willow Inn, he was his usual self, a bit tired and muttering about a stolen inheritance. I'm told he's been drowning himself nightly in beer and whiskey, always talking to himself  and others.  I know that can be hard on family.  If there is anything you need..."  Jack interrupted him.

"Don, I never stole a penny in my life.  My dad needs help but until he admits he needs it, there isn't much I can do for him.  Yeah it's sad and at times I get angry but mostly I miss the dad I remember.  That isn't the guy drinking himself to death at the bar. I don't know that man. "  Jack paused for a moment before speaking in a quieter tone,

"As for the money, and I tell you this confidentially,  I was blessed with an ancestor from long ago who chose me without knowing who I am, on the chance that the alcoholism in his family wouldn't carry through more than three generations.  He held his fortune from civil war in trust on a prayer that one day our family would have an heir worthy of his fortunes. Don, I don't drink or smoke, I don't do drugs.  I never will and we will do great things with the money."  

For moment Big Don was speechless. He nodded his head as Jack's words sunk in.  "Jack, that sounds like a lot of money." 

Jack picked up his coffee and sipped after blowing on it to cool it down. He stood up and smiled at Don,

"The gesture is greater than the result.  My responsibility is to make the result greater than the gesture. We are blessed for it."  With that Jack readied himself to leave, but leaned in close to Big Don and whispered " Billions, not Millions"  and then Jack Taylor looked at Big Don with concern,

"If this gets back to me I will know it was you.  But if you can keep this to yourself,  there's a chance that Grinold Township will receive a blessing as well."   Jack winked at Big Don, who laughed, a merry smile on his face.

"Jack, I don't know how you do it."  Big Don stood up and stretched and the two men nodded to each other.  "See ya 'round Mr. Taylor."  

"Don't forget my driveway permit, Don."  Said Jack as he walked out the door,

A few months later Big Don was sitting , well.... where he pretty much sits every day, behind the big desk in the meeting room when town secretary Julie Winters walked in and handed him the mail.  Big Don opened the mail, as he had done the past 15 years. Inside one envelope with no return address was a check from the Taylor Foundation and a deed to the old Hasker farm, directly behind the Township building.

Don stared at the check for several minutes then, chuckled softly to himself, saying to no one in particular,  "I don't know how he does it."   The check was made out to Grinold Township in the amount of $250,000.  On the memo line there were instructions that read...

     Build a park with a playground. -Jack and  Bonnie

Diffle County Report - The Current History of the John Shenk Property - Chapter 1

Jack Taylor was the luckiest son of a gun in Diffle County.  He grew up poor because his daddy was Billy Taylor. Billy drank from job to job and often when the rent was due,  Billy wasn't ready to pay it.  By the time Jack was fifteen, he, his mom and his sister had made several midnight moves to new rentals just ahead of the County Sheriff.  They often kept their belongings in trash bags, piled in the closets at the ready for the next moving adventure.  Folks around town would often remark that Jack  will one day be drinking whiskey "from the same bar stool his father sits on". You know how that runs in the family.

If history was the only judge, those town gossips would be right.  Johnathan "Jack" Taylor's grandfather Buck T. Taylor died in a freak accident when he drove while intoxicated into the town square and his head and heart were pierced by General Grant's sword.  Buck's F-150 hit the statue base with such force, General Grant and his horse were both knocked backwards off the pedestal  (which was concreted in just a week prior by Mallard Brothers Contracting  "Why hire a quack when you can hire a Mallard").  Grant's sword once held high against the Southern advance penetrated the black truck's roof, then the sword roughly ran through Buck T. Taylor, and  lodged into the  seat underneath him. It took the fire company 4 hours to remove both sides of his body. The sword was replaced with a dull stainless blade with the words inscribed in fine print:  Zero Tolerance.   

Buck T. Taylor's death wasn't without irony.  Buck's great grandfather William S. Taylor was a Captain in the 23rd Calvary and fought under Grant and even once drank the old General under the table.   That was at The Grand Hotel Gettysburg where both were staying just before the big battle.  Grant later became President.   William S.Taylor died at Gettysburg on the first day of battle. That is how fate accomplishes its mission in our lives- some have cream with their coffee while others get creamed after their coffee.  

 Captain William S. Taylor had made a fortune before the war betting on tobacco futures. He and his wife, unable to bear children, created a trust for the money and that trust grew and grew.  After he died his wife Anne opened a women's clothing shop on Main Street. Anne had strong religious beliefs and could not tolerate drunkenness and addictions of the flesh, and she knew her husband's brother would squander the family fortune on booze and women if the trust went to him. She revised the Trust to skip two generations of Taylors and if there were no Taylors left by then, the trust would be donated to the Methodist Church.

On his Eighteenth birthday, Jack Taylor received a letter from "The Estate of William S. and Anne R.Taylor" requesting he meet with Estate's Executor, Attorney Ralph Handover.  He ignored it.   A month later,  the doorbell rang and twenty minutes later Jack Taylor signed the legal papers and was handed a very large check which represented 5 percent of his total fortune.   He kept the remaining monies invested and hired Attorney Ralph Handover to manage the portfolio.  He also stopped drinking.  After his meeting with Attorney Handover Jack Taylor poured a case of  beer down the toilet and never again touched another drop of alcoholic beverage.

One month later Jack moved his mother and sister into a home he bought for them.  The house was fully furnished. Each bedroom had its own walk-in closet, private bathroom, and a dresser, of course.  

"No more plastic bags."  Jack said to his mother.

He also paid the rent for one year for his father.  That was the last time he helped his dad.  

For himself?  Jack Taylor bought two hundred and fifty four acres of mostly prime wooded upland in Grinold Township, Diffle County, PA. from Johnathan Shenk  Et. Al.  The land was bordered by Rabbit Mountain Road to the North,  Diffle County Parkland to the South, Lester and Kathy Holmes to the West, and the  Red Rodeo Subdivision to the East. A small stream, Rabbit Run, follows the Red Rodeo Subdivision running North to South. Here is a basic map:

John Shenk owned a car dealership in Nutter County.  It was a dumpy looking dealership. John Shenk didn't care. He loved his cars, his beer, and his loyal customers. If your kid needed a dependable car to get through college and you asked John Shenk and he would go to the next auction, find a cheap, dependable car and then sell it to you at cost. 300 bucks, 400 bucks and your kid had a car you could trust. So when it was time to buy a new car, you went to Shenks Auto and you paid more for your car. You didn't haggle, you didn't do comparison shopping.  Shenk took care of you so when it was time,  you took care of John Shenk.

John owned a large property on Rabbit Mountain Road. It was where he went to hunt, to drink, to hide, to cry, to laugh, to escape the garage, the sales, and his sister Betty who co-owned the dealership.  He loved the woods, the stream, and he built dirt roads along the entire boundary so he could drive all the way around.  it's easy to get lost on two hundred and fifty four acres.  John Shenk got more lost every day.  One day, John, a short, stocky man with a broad nose and a kind smile, drove into the woods with a six pack of  Reading Premium  and a 22 caliber snake pistol.   He parked near the Southern boundary at a wooden bridge crossing over Rabbit Run.  He walked onto the bridge which was nothing more than 4 telephone poles from bank to bank with 2' x 12' planks nailed on top.  

John Shenk sat with his six-pack and hung his feet over the side and just relaxed.  He didn't notice Momma  black bear with her cubs walking to the bridge. He downed his last beer.   He didn't notice the cubs until they walked up and sniffed and batted his empty beer cans off the bridge.  Then he jumped up quick with alarm, and being beer balance-challenged, he fell forward on top of one of the cubs. The screaming cub ran back to his Momma  who stood up and roared with rage.  

John Shenk pulled his snake pistol  and shot Momma with every bullet in the gun as she charged him.  He backed up to the edge of  the bridge as he fired his tiny gun , then he tripped, falling backwards into the stream where the back of his head hit a large rock. John laid there, not moving.  Momma bear leaped off the bridge and  landed on top of him. She pressed her nose into his face, teeth bared, and then she paused.  She sniffed.  She nudged. Then she walked away. John Shenk averted a bear attack.  He played dead.  and he did it better than most because he was already dead when Momma bear landed on him. 

The very last time John Shenk saw the world, he witnessed this:  Tree branches reaching right up to bright blue, white puffy-clouded sky and in the foreground: a giant black bear, completely airborne, her arms and legs spread wide with her claws extended and her teeth bared, no more than five feet directly above him.  John Shenk's last thought?   I wish I had a camera.  No one will ever believe this.  He smiled and drew in his last sweet breath on Earth.

Two months after his death, John's sister sold half the property to Red Rodeo Land Consulting.  The other half she kept for another ten years until Jack Taylor made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

What Country Did They Fight and Die For?

 I was watching the movie 12th Man, a Norwegian film about a saboteur, the only one of twelve to escape the Germans alive. The story is as much about the citizens who shepherd him to the Swedish border as it is about his will to survive under the most extreme conditions.  After 59 days and constant pursuit by the Gestapo, he makes it back to freedom. It is a true story and it was a reminder for me that  sacrifice for country is not an American ideal.   We don't own it.  Our elite universities don't own it  and our flag-waving, rifle-backed militias don't own it.  That sacrifice comes from our soldiers, their families, and through our support for them.  It comes from common people who fight for our freedom.

I did not serve our country.  I grew up in the final years of Vietnam and the national embarrassment that followed. We lost our first war in  Vietnam and our soldiers returned home not as heroes, but as something else  that stained us as a nation. It took a long time and the reality of what we lost, of who we lost when the names of every soldier killed in Vietnam was chiseled into the dark granite wall at their memorial in Washington DC.  We watched as brothers in war, families, friends, loved ones came to the wall, to remember who they lost- to honor their fallen. Our Nation finally rose from the fog of war, from the dark politics of our leaders, and we mourned, and we finally honored those who served.  Their sacrifice, those injured and those killed, will never be forgotten by their Countrymen.

What Country did they fight for?  

There are rows upon rows of white crosses at Arlington National Cemetery.  Have you ever been there?  Do you know someone interred there?  These brave souls, rows upon rows, thousands upon thousands, gave their lives for a cause- liberty as written as a promise in the documents of our founders- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States that as long as we sacrificed for our cause, as long as we defended our liberty with our lives if necessary- the promise of freedom, the promise of liberty, the promise of the power that is vested in the people would never die. 

What Country do those crosses represent?

This isn't a game.  We have elections and we choose our leaders.  Some rise to the occasion and become great leaders and others do not.  But all of them, the best and the worst of them concede and allow the transfer of power when the election is lost.  It is precisely because we have a responsibility to honor every white cross, every name chiseled into granite, every grave of every solider, whether entombed in a ship at Pearl Harbor, or on Flanders fields- we the people and that means all of us, not red states or blue states, not right wing or left wing, not Christian or Muslim - ALL OF US AMERICANS have a responsibility to keep the promise to those who fought, those who fight, and those who have sacrificed for our Country.

No one is above our Constitution, above our Declaration, our Bill of Rights,  above our promise to those who gave their lives for a  freedom forged in the documents we hold dear.  On this day, on this Veterans Day, our President must keep that promise and the party leaders who support his false narrative need to keep that promise.  He must concede and allow for the peaceful transfer of power.

What Country keeps their promise to their soldiers that their sacrifice is not in vain?

The people have voted in a fair  election in accordance with our laws. The orderly transfer of power is needed and necessary or all those lives, all those buried  or lost or missing in action have died in vain for a cause that will soon end, a freedom that has no future, and the death of a great experiment where the people who were once invested in the power have instead chosen to be governed by a populist leader.  The American flag has stars and stipes and no names.  TRUMP is not a real flag and his Presidency, like all that have served before him must come to an end on January 20th.  It's a honor to serve, not a right.  His time now must draw to a close.

We made a promise and the eyes of the world are upon us. If we truly want to honor Veterans Day, then we should hold our leaders  accountable to that promise and honor our soldiers not with wreaths but with their timely actions in support of our promise.   

The orderly transfer of power peacefully from one administration to another keeps that promise alive and is the greatest honor we can bestow upon our Veterans- to defend the constitution as they do, with righteousness, with honor and respect for the words that are written and preserved for all time.  We must treat that promise with the same resolve as our brave men and women of our military keep their promise to defend our country.

What country honors the peaceful transfer of power as resolutely as we honor our fallen, as we honor our promise to remain a free nation as our founders envisioned it, as our soldiers, God bless them all, fought and died to to keep that promise alive, to keep Democracy shining bright, to be a beacon for all?

What Country? The United States of America.  God bless our leaders that they would choose to keep our promise and honor our Veterans by preserving liberty for all Americans. God give them the strength to be resolute, righteous, against all who would drive us to fascism for vanity's sake, who would destroy our institutions, threaten our rights, and undermine our freedoms and dishonor our soldiers, in order to retain a power that is no longer theirs to wield. The people have chosen.

 God Bless our Veterans.  

My Quiet Hours

My father passed away on July 30th.  There are dates we all remember as a society- 911, D-Day, July 4, December 25th are examples of those kind of dates.  Then there are the personal dates that stay with each of us, filling our hearts or burning our souls- the day we met, the day we were married, the day the divorce was final, the day our child was born,  then our second child, the day I met Randi, the night we danced to Crash at a Dave Mathews Concert and fell in love, and the day my father died- July 30, 2020.

The internal change from this is staggering, from the sense of loss, to the terms of our life relationship and where it fell short, where I fell short of his expectations, and where he fell short of mine, and where he exceeded mine and I excelled beyond his best hopes for me.   

We were estranged for a time when I was much younger or rather- I was estranged from him by my personal choice- I don't think he gave my silence a thought - they were just my quiet hours. He would wait them out for he knew I would be back, and hopefully more mature.  That was not always the case.  but I did come back and as time flew on  I drew closer to him and came to understand the dynamics of our love.

He was the man who knew how to love without a giving a hug. He was a fierce defender of his wife- for as much as he loved his sons and their families he loved her a thousand times more.  We love her too..but we understood and I think deep down we hoped we could live up to that standard in our own lives. 

Life has become serious, the colors are darker, the depth of perception increased and I do not know for how long this new view will last, and in keeping with that mood I really do not  care how long it lasts.  

The tacky cliché response is that my father has died and now I have become a man.  Or that my father's spirit is now within me or all around me.   Are there levels of consciousness we cannot see but upon which our souls can travel?   Is this just another stage of mourning? 

My mother lost her husband of 68 years on July 30th. Three days later she is in the basement riding out a tornado warning without him.  His office is down there, that place where he paid bills, added numbers on scrap paper or used a cheap calculator.  I imagine his starter pistol is in one of the drawers and empty AVON figurines of zero financial value still sitting on his desk- like the blue jalopy. I would burst into tears if  I had to look at his desk right now.  My mother is braver than I.

When I was hired to be a township manager it was the culmination of 25 years of hard work in government.  I didn't have the coveted college degree, the pedigree of the other candidates some who had advanced degrees.   What I had to offer was what my mother and father taught me by their example,  not just through their words: 

1.    Work harder than the next guy.  

2.     Practice what you preach.

2.    Be fair to all  and treat everyone equally.  Be respectful.  

3.    Passion. Preparation. Practice. Patience. Perseverance, Pride.

4.    Sir and Ma'am are required words in conversation. 

5.     Don't put on airs, don't act superior to others.

6.     In competition,  be honorable in your losses and humble in your victories.

7.     There is no such thing as a fair fight in the street- end it fast, be decisive

8.     Don't fight unless you are cornered.

9.     If you throw mud, you will get mud on yourself too.  Throw compliments.

10.   You get more bees with honey.  

11.    Never lose your temper.  

12.    Learn from your mistakes or be doomed to repeat them

13.    Take responsibility for your actions.

14.    When an apology is required- you apologize.

15.     Be on time.  There is nothing more selfish or rude than to make people wait for you.

Then there are a few life lessons I learned from the love of my life, Randi Thompson Fisher:

16.     It's none of your business what other people think of you.  

17.     Be genuine. 

18.     Love more than you are loved and you will be loved more than you love. 

19.     Rickilliums are actually lupine- you cant name it just because it's the first time you've seen it.

20.     You can't record music while sleeping in your studio chair.  Either wake up or go to bed.

I don't always succeed at these life goals, but not for a lack of trying. 

I mostly stopped writing when I was hired as Township and now Town Manager.  Your words can be used against you in a public forum.  I don't need to lose a position I worked so hard to obtain because I flamed the Internet. I am employed to run the day to day operations of a local government and I take that responsibility very seriously.  My opinions can speak through my characters, through my stories, and through my songwriting.

So Ive been in my quiet hours at Mutant Mouse Chronicles and the world has gotten darker and colder and our democracy is showing all its fragilities.  However brave it may appear for me to blast out editorial content, there are very good writers at prestigious publications who are already doing that kind of heavy lifting.   I can make my voice heard through other methods- short stories, poetry, and especially through my music.

One year ago, my father told me I was running out of time.  He was speaking from experience.  I get that now.  It's time to lose weight. Its time to write the stories.  It's time to love my family with a quiet intensity and fierce pride.

21. It's OK to cry over someone you love and dearly miss. 

Rest in Peace Sir. You were a great man and you made this world a better place. Shalom.