I sit here in the last pew at the funeral home. Neighbor Jim sits next to me.

We are all facing the blond brick walls and deep red flowers that flank a small, beautiful pine box that contains the ashes of our neighbor, Randy.

His widow and four children sit in the front row. His daughter is crying uncontrollably. Her loss is intense and so sorrowful that I find tears welling up in my eyes as I hear her mourning the loss of her daddy. I know how she feels because it happened to me, too. I know how scared she is about how the family will survive and how much pain there is when you know you will never, ever see him again. She is drenched in tears. She is inconsolable.

Her mother cries, too. They hold each other in their arms. The boys are stalwart, no tears there.

Neighbor Jim tells me that he made that beautiful box and did I want to see it? I feel shy and hesitate. He asks if I want him to go up with me. I say yes. So the two of us go up to the front of the room and there is the box. There is a small brass plaque on it. Jim made the box with his usual woodworking perfection. He says it took practically no time at all.

Neighbor Jim is the same person who helped to clean up Randy’s house and pulled the bloody mattress out. He does what needs to be done.

We go to a huge picture frame on an easel. There are pictures of the family and Randy. He looks happy. His family is in almost every shot. He holds his children, he watches his wife in labor, he poses, with his sleeves rolled up, for his official portrait for the grocery store he worked for. He’s a man who looks like life has been good to him.

But we know that he had pain that was insurmountable for him and that made him take his own life. That makes all the pictures deeply touching.

Neighbor Jim and I return to our seats and then our other neighbors join us. There are now four of us from our little community sitting in the back pew. These neighbors have had sorrow crushing them, too. They had just come from a memorial for their best friends, a husband and a wife, who had been murdered by an escaped prisoner and his cousin/girlfriend. You may have seen it on the news. These best friends had all retired at the same time and they had spent time hunting and fishing together. Best, best friends.

But not only that sorrow is with us. My neighbors are the owners of the trailer where Randy and his family lived across the street. And, agonizingly, they had lost their own dear and beautiful son there in that same trailer a few years back. One of my first conversations with my neighbor was about how we had both lost our sons. He told me then how his son had died in his wife’s arms.

Tangled, painful experiences wash over us as we sit in that pew.

We sit as music wells up. It is a country western song, with the fiddles playing as mournfully as any bagpipe. I love country western music. It is like rap – the poetry of the people. Don’t get me wrong, I do not subscribe to some of the sentiments, but most of it is about the common thread that binds us humans together. And heartache is one of those experiences that country music does really, really well.

We sit quietly. The young woman on my right, holding a sweet little toddler on her lap, begins to cry. I wonder if she’s thinking of someone she loved who has died or if she is thinking of “Randy.”

The song ends and the reverend, a big and kind man, walks up to the lectern and begins his talk.

It’s about God. And being saved. And pain. This is a subtle reference to Randy’s suicide. And then he quotes the Bible about “judging not.”

Three rows up I see a man nodding his head, just slightly, as those words are spoken. Has he been judged? Has he had things happen that caused people to point fingers at him, talk about him, shun him, look at him with a judgmental eye? Or does he know “Randy” well enough to realize that life’s problems were just too much for him to handle and that we all break sometimes from the weight of the pain and we should not feel superior in any way to someone who does.

I see a chubby preteen boy, two rows up, who cries, and whose mother wraps her arms around him and draws him close.

The reverend goes on. He tells us that Randy had accepted the Lord, Jesus Christ, and that he was saved. He quotes the Bible, saying that if the Lord is with us, who can be against us? He knows that Randy is in heaven now. And he again makes reference to the fact that we cannot know what was in Randy’s heart. And we must not judge.

The reverend is a gentle man. He never raises his voice. It’s a talk that is meant to be consoling but also thought provoking. It’s meant to apply balm to the wounds that the family is feeling. It’s meant to keep Randy from being put outside the flock.

He talks about not analyzing, and that analyzing leads to paralyzing. I find myself shaking my head no. It smacks too much of having faith which requires belief without proof or questioning.

The reverend, in his loving way, is trying to convert us all to Christianity and its rewards…like eternal heaven with God the Father and his Son. Most people in the room are already convinced but there are a few of us who don’t go for it.

He steps from the lectern and two more songs play. Both are mournful and speak of heaven and life after death.

The reverend returns and cannot seem to wind up his sermon. Four times he says that he’ll say just one more thing before he closes. It’s like the ending of a classical piece of music that has an ending that goes on for a long, long time.

But finish he does.

He invites us to come forward to show our love and respect to the family.

I go up with my neighbor’s wife, the woman who held her son in her arms as he died. The men hang back. This is women’s work I guess. We two women join the rest of the mourners. I hug the sorrowful widow and say nothing, just hug her, and then I lean in to the inconsolable daughter and tell her I know how she feels and I say to the older son who isn’t showing any emotion that I hope he comes to my pond to fish.

And then it’s over.

We congregate in the foyer. Randy’s pictures play on a video in the corner. People stop to watch for a while. We neighbors stand together, a community of four.

Nothing left to do or say, so we walk out of the building, into the 104 degree parking lot. Neighbor Jim walks me to my car. He tells me how he resents being preached to. I tell him I don’t resent it because I know the reverend does it out of love and concern for our souls, but that I, personally, had lost my belief in a loving God who protects me.

We agree that our funerals won’t have any of that.

Our conversation leads me to tell him that after my son died I thought about why it happened. I thought about it for three years, reaching back and back through causes and effects until finally I got back to the beginning of the Universe and the Big Bang. I realized that everything was like an infinite set of dominoes, toppling each other in patterns that ran in all directions, affecting one thing and then another, and that my son’s death, had been coming with those particular circumstances, since the beginning of time.

Neighbor Jim nods and agrees. It’s just the way it is. And there’s nothing you can do about it. The luck of the draw.

And as I climb into the smothering furnace of my car, I think to myself that maybe I would like a country western song at my funeral, like the one that played today. That song had helped us cry. We sat together in that room and bid a fond farewell to our dearly departed and cried.

It was real purdy.

How does one tell you about Henri?

One can’t.

One can only show you Henri, in his pure form.

You’re welcome.

I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

But I did.

After Che streaked out of the house and disappeared for the second time in as many days because of his nervousness over house guests, I began to think about what was going on with him.

He wasn’t well. His eyes were almost completely covered by the third eyelids – you know, those weird inner lids that emerge from the inside corners of cats’ eyes. And his muscles were rigid. He moved as though his whole body hurt. I was worried. The only other time Che had disappeared was when he had a broken leg. That time I had found him after a week and a half, in terrible pain in the underbrush of Orval’s forest and had heard his sweet little meow in response to my calling, but I couldn’t see him until he moved. He walked toward me in a strange and horrible way. Painfully. I thought he had become entangled in fishing line, but that was not to be the case.

I picked him up, saw that there was no fish line but there was something awful about his hind leg, so I hurried him to the vet’s who told me his leg was broken and that a severe infection had set in and that he’d probably end up as a three legged cat and that no, cats can’t climb trees when they are three legged, but that yes, he himself had had a cat with three legs who managed to live happily for two years before a hawk got him.

That, as I’ve said, was the only time he stayed away from home for any length of time. So I was worried now. Dead? Hurt?

Guests left the next morning. I went out into the yard, puttering around, worried about him. When you live alone, out in the country, with not much interaction with other human beings, your animals become your family.

I think I’ll give a little history of Che Guevarra, my wonderful cat, at this point.

Che succeeded Fidel, and I mention this because of why I had such a strong attachment to Che.

Several years ago I found Fidel in the parking lot at my school in the inner city of Los Angeles. He was an orange tabby about three months old, ill, covered with oil and fleas, starving. He keeled over when I bent to pet his sad little head. I took him to the pound and asked them to call me if no one took him. No one took him, of course.

They called.

When I picked him up from the pound, I found out that they had given him vitamins and fed him and bathed him and the woman who had looked after him told me that he loved his cage and food and vitamins and was a happy, happy little kitten.

And he was. He loved me intensely. (I think baby animals bond with their rescuers with all their heart.)

Fidel and I had several really happy years together.

But Fidel died somewhere, somehow, soon after I moved to Chigger Lake. I suspect the neighbor’s dogs. There was a lot of barking outside one night and Fidel never came home.

I was heartbroken. After a few months I decided to adopt another kitten and found an ad in the paper and went to see.

There he was. A miserable little thing.

He was covered with fleas. His eyes were infected. He definitely wasn’t weaned. And he was an orange tabby, just like Fidel.

Yes, I took him home and no, I don’t blame the woman for his miserable condition. (She was the out-of-state daughter who had come back to Oklahoma to straighten up her dotty old mother’s affairs, among which was trying to de-cat mom’s house. Daughter had covered the kitten with Avon Skin So Soft before I got there. She said it got rid of fleas and ticks. Hah.)

I took him home and through trial and error got him healthy again and, of course, he loved me with all his heart and I loved him back.

He grew into a great big friendly sweet tom cat. I had him neutered because he would NOT leave Rosie the Cat alone. Wrestled her, pestered her, drove her nuts. But neutering didn’t help. Even though he never actually tried to perpetrate sexy moves on her, he would jump on her, throw her on the ground, grab her around the neck. Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle.

His life was happy. He climbed trees, especially my cottonwood which had flocks of hummingbirds in it one year, much to his delight. He ate bugs. Followed Rosie into the forest for adventures. Ate like a king. Slept on my bed. He got scolded now and then for messing with Rosie and when I hollered, “STOP!” at him, he would scurry under the bed, like a bad boy.

He had no remorse whatsoever.

(Back to the morning I was puttering around outside after my house guests had left.)

I expected Che to return shortly after the coast was clear. And sure enough, I turned around and there was Che. Sitting on the ground looking at me, just as he had in the woods two days before.

He looked awful. I picked him up and brought him in and put out food, delicious food, leftover salmon! But he would have none of it. Just drank a little water.

I knew he was sick, but I didn’t know how bad it was and I had a brand new baby nephew to see in Oklahoma City and had promised to drive in, so I left him there in the air conditioned house to sleep and off I went.

When I got back three hours later, I found him asleep on the couch. And really, really hot. His eyes were almost completely covered by that third eyelid. His muscles were rigid.

I ran to the shed and pulled out the cat carrier, put him in it, and drove straight to the vet’s.

I didn’t have an appointment so I waited while others went before me, shots for puppies, boarders being picked up, old dogs panting. I was sick with dread.

Our turn at last.

I carried the pet carrier into the room and took Che out. The vet gently picked him up to look at him and immediately said, “He’s burning up.” He took his temperature, 105 degrees, pulled Che’s eye lids up to look at his eyes and said, “I think he has bobcat fever. In fact, I’m one hundred percent sure he has bobcat fever.”

I had never heard of such a thing. So I asked about it and this is what I found out from him and later, from the Internet.

Bobcat Fever

 Some bobcats carry a disease in their blood that doesn’t affect them at all. But when a tick bites them that disease is transferred to the tick and then to the next tick host. The disease is completely harmless to all animals, save one — the domestic cat. For cats, it is one hundred percent fatal. There is no cure.

 The domestic cat is known as the “end host,” meaning once the tick bites the cat, the infection ends there, never to be passed on by cat or tick.

 It’s a horrible disease. Within a week after having been bitten, a cat is dead. The disease invades white blood cells and attacks all the organs of the body. The cat will have no appetite and will have a high fever, the third eyelid phenomenon occurs, the cat’s muscles become rigid. It is an agonizing death.

 And my Che, my sweet boy, the animal who loved me the most of all my animals, had it.

 I asked the doctor how common it was, as I had never heard of it before, and he said that at least two or three infected cats a MONTH came into the clinic. I asked him how long it would be before he died and the doctor replied, “Two or three days.”

 TWO OR THREE DAYS!! I was stunned.

 Right then I told the doctor that I wanted to put Che to sleep. I have seen the process of death many times, the breathing, the struggle to die, the final exhale, and I wanted to shorten the whole process which is hard and painful and serves no purpose.

 The vet said, “Well, I guess I’m not one hundred percent because I would like to give him a really powerful antibiotic which will clear up anything EXCEPT bobcat fever and if he’s okay in the morning, he’ll recover.

 I said yes.

 I had doubts about that being the best thing to do. But I had to choose and that is hard for me. My list of pros and cons keeps cycling and recycling in my head and I swing back and forth, back and forth.

 I had only a tiny bit of time to decide, so I let the doctor ‘s decision be my own. I knew that part of my decision-making process was about not wanting to seem impolite, which seems to guide a lot of my decisions, coward that I am.

He gave Che a massive dose of antibiotic and a shot to make him comfortable and I put him into the cat carrier and went home.

I laid him on my bed. His favorite place. I laid down beside him. He was still burning up so I got up to get his little kitten syringe that I had kept all this time in a drawer with other pet stuff. I had used it to feed him when he was sick with diarrhea as a kitten.

I filled the syringe with water, wedged it gently between his back teeth, and slowly pushed the plunger down. He let the water flow into his mouth.

We lay on the bed. I turned on the television. His tail was the only thing that moved. The tip of it moved over the blanket, an occasional thump. It was the only part of him that could still move with fluidity. He had always been very expressive with his tail. It was his language and his sense of the world around him.

Have you ever really watched a cat’s tail? It’s like a finger. It touches everything around the cat when it goes from place to place. I think it gives a cat a real sense of EXACTLY where everything is so they can make a quick getaway in case of danger.

Just a theory.

But I digress.

He vomited the water. There was undigested food in his vomit, too. He hadn’t eaten in at least three days.

After he vomited, we laid there, his body stretched out, lying alongside me. He liked resting his head on my hand.

I had to get up a couple of times, and blind and fevered as he was, he jumped/fell of the bed to follow me. The first time he did, I hadn’t noticed until I heard a loud howl from the bathroom and found him wedged into a narrow bottom shelf under a table. The second time he fell, he just fell to the floor and laid there. Both times I put him back on the bed and laid there with him.

Time passed.

His temperature fell but he was still rigid and his eyes were a mess. He lay, stretched out against me, all night, barely breathing. I watched him closely, loving him deeply. I wondered if the injection was still helping him with the pain and fear.

I turned off the television and the light and went to sleep, cradling him. I was very, very glad I had taken him home for his final night with me.

I awoke with a start in the middle of the night. His body was rigid against mine and I realized I hadn’t felt him move at all for a while. I thought he was dead. I felt him. He was warm and there was light breathing.

Relief flooded me.

I went back to sleep.

In the morning he was better. The antibiotic had relieved his fever. But everything else was the same.

It was bobcat fever.

I got up and looked down at him and saw a large, very dark urine stain on the bed.

My first thought was to never wash the blanket that he had peed on. I wanted to preserve that stain to keep him with me, like a lock of hair. But then I said out loud, “Do not be crazy, Donna. You may not sleep in cat pee no matter how much you want to hold onto him.”

I put a fresh blanket in his basket and put it in the car – something to carry him home in after he died. Then I put him gently in the cat carrier and brought him back to the vet’s.

I told the doctor his fever was down, but everything else was the same. He said that the antibiotics had arrested the fever. He looked at Che’s eyes, pulled the lids up to see what was going on with his eyes and showed me the yellow of jaundice. He called a young man, a trainee (?) to see it too. On site training, I guess.

The doctor said he would give him a general anesthetic and then a “heart stick”, a direct injection into the heart, to put him to sleep. He would do it that way because it is very difficult to find veins in cats.

I said yes. I watched Che go to sleep and then told the vet I wanted to go outside and not watch the heart stick and his last breath. I could tell the doctor preferred it that way.

So I sat for a few minutes in that waiting room with the puppies and old dogs and people. The doctor came out and nodded and we went in the room together.

And there was Che, in his basket, his dear body in his sleep position, his tail curled around his body. He looked alive as alive can be.

But he wasn’t.

An avalanche of tears and love and loss came over me. The doctor asked me if I wanted to go out the back way and I said yes and as I walked down the hallway to the back door I saw him MOVE! And I thought he was alive, but it was only the loosening of his rigid muscles, rocking gently as I walked.

I took Che home and got the shovel and all the geodes that my house guests had found a few days before and lots of heavy big rocks so the damn dogs wouldn’t dig him up and I dug a hole in the rain-softened clay right outside my bedroom sliding glass door so he could be near me and wrapped him in his soft blanket and put him, curled in his sleeping position, into that hole and covered it with clay clods and heavy rocks and plumeria flowers and succulents and wrote his name on a granite rock and put it on top of everything and cried and cried.

UNIONS GAVE US THE WEEKEND!

UNIONS GAVE US THE 8 HOUR DAY!

UNIONS GAVE US SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS!

UNIONS GAVE US THE RIGHT TO BARGAIN!

UNIONS STAND FOR JUSTICE!

UNIONS STAND FOR WORKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!

UNIONS ARE OUR STRENGTH!

UNIONS CURB THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY CORPORATION!

UNIONS PROTECT THE DOWNTRODDEN!

LONG LIVE UNIONS!!!!!!

Edmund Burke! Yikes!

You’d think they would be embarrassed to admit that he is the father of their political philosophy. But they’re NOT!

Let’s stroll back to 1961, shall we? It was at the very beginning of the 60s, a revolutionary time. I was nineteen and in my first Philosophy class taught by Dr. Pritchard. When you say the name Dr. Pritchard around here, fifty years later, the people who knew him get a gentle, sweet look on their faces.

Dr. Pritchard was thin, kinda short, glasses, dark hair. He always had a gentle, sweet look on his face. (I just Google-imaged Dr. Pritchard, Oklahoma Baptist University, and I got two obituaries of him – one with a picture of him that I saw in my mind when I thought of him back in 1961 – and the other a picture of him when he was much older. The older picture shows the gentle smile I saw when I was in his Philosophy 101 class. The obituary said that up until he died he taught Philosophy101 to people who lived in his retirement community. It must have been his favorite class to teach. Boy. Were they lucky.)

 Our text book was Great Political Thinkers – Plato to the Present written by William Ebenstein. Ebenstein would preface each political thinker’s treatise with a description of the time and place of each man (yes, no women included in this book,) what other political ideas had preceded the one he was about to discuss, and his brilliant analysis of each writer.

I learned about Aristotle warning the people about tyrants. “Tyrants will say, ‘Give people the games.’”

I learned of Hobbes’ “state of nature” which described his view of human beings as being basically bad and that unless the sovereign had control, our lives would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

I learned that Locke’s “state of nature” was more optimistic and that humans intrinsically realize they ought not to harm one another in “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” Golden Rule, right? All societies have that concept, right?

I met Rousseau in The Social Contract in which he says a deal is made between the sovereign and the people in which the people obey the laws and rules of the sovereign and pay their taxes but MUST get something back in exchange – protection against the invading hordes, protection against the abuse of power, a decent way to earn a living, an environment that is healthy and alive. In other words, a good life.

That book was so important to me that I have carried it from house to house over the many moves of my lifetime. I finally gave away almost all the books I lugged (and lugged and lugged) in the back of my car, in the back of pickups borrowed from friends, in the back of U Hauls, because I realized that it was my ego that propped those books up on book shelves so that everyone could see that I was a book lover, smart, an intellectual, not because I was ever going to read them again. I also saw, every time I pulled them down to move, that they collected ENORMOUS amounts of dust and old spider webs and stuff like that.

But Great Political Thinkers was different. I knew I would read it again. I knew I would open pages to recollect principles and ideas. It’s on a shelf here in my house in Oklahoma, the pages thin and crisp and yellow, the spine’s covering torn. And even though I’ve only occasionally opened it, I did this past month. Edmund Burke made me do it.

So here, Gentle Readers, is the basic Edmund Burke tutorial, the founder of Conservatism.

Back in the 1700s as revolutions were blossoming in Europe and here on the North American continent, there was quite a lot of discussion about what revolutions meant. Edmund Burke was on the anti-democratic side of the debate. He wrote about the impracticability of the democratic ideal saying democracy degenerates into chaos and anarchy.

He believed in hierarchy in all aspects of society, saying that those at the top knew better than the masses because that’s why they were at the top in the first place. He hated revolutions and wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France as an argument against those who saw the Revolution as the dawn of a new society.

Burke’s piece gave legitimacy to the enemies of the Revolution. Kings and the upper class loved him. Ebenstein wrote in his preface that King George III excitedly tells everyone who visits him, “It will do you good – do you good! Every gentleman should read it,” referring to Burke’s Reflections piece. His piece, Vindication, says speaking ill against the rulers and the rules was wrong because that would destroy the society.

Our own Thomas Paine wrote his Rights of Man as an impassioned response to Burke. Yeah, that Thomas Paine. The Thomas Paine who essentially put into words what the people of America were thinking and feeling and wanting.

Burke was a pessimist and doubted whether God even intended for Man to be happy and sees, like Hobbes, the need for laws and rules so that we wouldn’t all just run around killing and eating each other.

Burke loved the aristocracy and saw it as part of the Divine Plan and saw democratic revolution as part of the evil ambitions of people who had a lust for power. He called for a European movement to crush all revolutions by force.

He didn’t resist all change, though. He thought change had to come very slowly, incrementally, and to be thought out and handed down to the masses from on high.

(Do you see the same connection I do with Trickle Down Economics and Burke’s ideas of the powerful elite trickling the Truth down to us poor dumb souls?)

He didn’t think democracy was a valid philosophy and didn’t endorse individual rights but instead thought human beings should be considered, not as individuals, but just as one big entity. (Fascism grew out of that idea. Yeah, that fascism.)

Although Burke didn’t approve of people in the lower classes actually being abused, he still thought they had no right to vote. “He saw wealth and aristocracy as the repositories of wisdom and experience,” according to William Ebenstein. Burke thought property is, and should be, always unequal.

And here is the part that gets me. Burke cared not a fig for the laboring man.

According to Burke, labor is a commodity and is subject to the fluctuations of the marketplace and there is no obligation on the part of anyone to give consideration to a living wage as part of the deal. Nice, huh?

He saw the poverty of the masses as the result of there being too many of their kind. Even though Burke rejected the concept of the Rights of Man, he had a different opinion on the Rights of Commerce. He considered the laws of commerce equivalent to the laws of nature.

No wonder Republicans love him.

Okay. So. What does he think about liberty?

Well, he doesn’t believe there are certain inalienable rights – as in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He thinks the Powers That Be should establish rights for us underlings and that all rights are dependent on whether the people are good enough to handle them. He never saw revolution as the result of long suffering of ordinary people. He always saw the monarchy, church, and aristocracy as having all the answers.

For modern day Republicans to proudly point to him as their mentor, their guide, their founder, is to reveal themselves for what they are – defenders of the rich, proponents of Supply Side/Trickle Down economics, advocators of a hierarchical system that protects itself from intrusion by the middle and lower classes, a class system that has no concern for the welfare of those beneath the top cats.

One final thought. Conservatism is pessimistic. It sees people as basically bad and that without stern laws and punishments and powerful leaders our world would dissolve into total chaos. Liberals are basically optimistic and see human nature as good and that The System is to blame for what goes wrong between people and it must be changed to benefit the most people possible.

I am glad to have been of service to you, Dear Reader, in the whole matter of Edmund Burke. It was great fun cracking open that old philosophy book. It reactivated old synapses and let me look one more time at the sweet and gentle face of Dr. Pritchard and to think about Edmund Burke.

That son-of-a-bitch.

It is 1965.

I am in Norman, Oklahoma working in a college bar on the outskirts of town to keep body and soul together while I go to school at OU.

There are no tips.

Literally.

But I do get paid minimum wage and it’s at night and it’s kinda fun.

I am newly divorced. I am 22 years old.

It is the 1960s and I am free. Free of the constricting 1950s where everyone looked exactly alike, free of my bra, free of the crap that passed for being nice, free of a crazy stepfather, free of all obligations.

I am able to go anywhere, do anything, be whatever I want to be.

It is late. Lots of tables in that big room and now only a scattering of drinkers. The owner of the place is ready to close. He comes up to me with a kind of short, skinny guy and says he wants to introduce me to . . . Levon Helm, his friend and buddy.

I am instantly smitten. There is something so sexy about him that I can hardly breathe. We all go back to the office and sit around and Levon talks and talks and talks to me. Me. About music. About Mississippi music, and Muddy Waters, and the song Louie, Louie. About how he’s just come back from Upstate New York and had been playing there in a back up band for Bob Dylan.

(That collaboration became The Band’s first album Music From Big Pink.  The Weight is on it.)

*   *   *

 We are lovers for a few days. He is the second man I’ve had sex with. He’s a good lover. He says he’ll be back in a few months to see me. I tell him I’m moving to New York City.

We part ways.

* * *

 It is 1974. Bob Dylan has come to L.A. He’s got The Band playing with him. Levon will be there. We have seats three rows back from the stage, dead center. I watch him the whole time. He is magnificent. I tell my girlfriends we were lovers.

* * *

 It is (maybe) 1989. Levon Helm is playing in Ventura, California. My daughter, Commie Girl, tells me that we have to go see him. She is convinced he’ll remember me. I very, very reluctantly agree.

We sit in the audience and there he is. Older. Just as wonderful. My daughter, INSISTS we go backstage. I finally consent.

I am looking pretty good. Have my long, black coat on. I am in my mid-forties.

We wend our way around the backstage area and find ourselves outside the stage door. There’s Levon. My daughter walks up to him to say hello. He likes her. A lot.

I am embarrassed. I want to hide.

Then my daughter says, “This is my mother. She knew you in Oklahoma when you visited the Sundown Club.”

He totally doesn’t remember/recognize me but says, “Well, you’re looking real good.”

And that is that.

* * *

 Today I learn that he’s dying. I remember it all — those few days, how breathlessly in love with him I was, how he didn’t know who I was years later, how we’d gotten old.

I look at his daughter’s and wife’s pictures on his website. They are lovely.

His wife says that their marriage stayed strong because she makes good cornbread and vichyssoise.

It makes me love her.  And him, for picking her.

Come a little bit closer. Hear what I have to say,” Neil Young sings. I am in heaven.

 The day moves gently.

It is perfect. The sounds – birds, leaves rustling, Neil singing – caress me.

 The world outside this house is Eden. Glowing green, pulsing yellow, a flash of red, purple peeks out. Light bounces everywhere – off the seed tassels of the grasses, from the fluttering leaves of the cottonwood, from the glassy surface of the pond.

 Mother Nature’s Merry Little Breezes are dancing.

It’s a Sunday afternoon here at Chigger Lake.

I eat a pear, juicy and sweet.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Today I shall work in the yard. Or rather, hang out and look at the yard. If the spirit moves me I might move a rock or plant something in the dirt or trim something. But probably not.

I fight with my Puritan Self. It wants to be working and busy and putting things straight. It is powerful and nags. It is aware of what other people say and think and wants to fit in. It has rules and regulations and feels guilt.

Not today, Puritan Self. Today you shall be put away in the back bedroom to simmer and kvetch.

Today my Child Self shall play. She is seven years old. She is lazy. She wanders around looking at stuff. She is interested in everything.

Ohhhh. A hawk just flew so close to the house, I saw its tail feathers in detail. Swoooosh, gone. It’s looking for cats to eat. Hah! Not today, hawk.

I think I’ll cook an artichoke. When I bought it the boy who was bagging my groceries didn’t know what it was. He was mighty suspicious of it.

An artichoke with lemon mayonnaise. Yes. That’ll be nice.

I go out on the deck, under the shade of the cottonwood tree and lie down. I close my eyes and listen to everything. I feel everything. I sense the light and shadow on my eyelids.

I hear a meow and look over and see Rosie the Cat through the screen of the sliding glass door. She’s looking at me and I can tell she wants food. I ignore her. She’s getting fat, losing her waistline. She’ll have to wait until Che the Cat comes out from under the abandoned guinea coop to come in for his supper.

But my reverie has been disturbed and I feel Puritan Self stirring. It’s saying that I must get up and get going and DO SOMETHING, NOW.

So I rouse myself, sit up painfully, look around and see a million things that should be done. At least a million. I have GOT to learn to ignore that Puritan Self before it kills me.

But I get up. Rosie comes outside and follows me. This is uncommon. She loves me more each day since I rescued her from Orval’s house. Four months of living on the lam from the dogs has taught her that I am her very, very, VERY best friend. Ever. And I feed her.

We walk around the outside of the house and I realize that I have to water everything. Just because we had a rainstorm two days ago doesn’t let me off the hook. And of all the outside work I do, watering is the most fruitful and the most gratifying.

Water is life.

So I pull out the long, long hose, turn on the pump water and start on my side “yard”. It is a desolate stretch of red clay with clumps of scraggly clover here and there, sprigs of some kind of grass sparsely dotting the clay, two tenacious apple trees which seem to be making it, although they aren’t the most luscious apple trees I’ve ever seen. I thought I had lost them for sure last year, but here they are, struggling in the clay, with me trying to amend the soil after the fact. There have been some blossoms and will eventually have some fruit. I hope.

Who knows?

I water, water, water everything, including the bare clay and the now defunct fig tree. Something…a deer?…has snapped off every leaf for the two years since I’ve put it in the ground and I guess that has killed it. Or maybe it was our very intense winter this past year.

I water my compost pile, melons spreading, tomatoes popping, sunflowers reaching toward the sun. God knows what else is finding its way out of the ground, but there is a LOT of plant life coming up. The mound itself sits about ten feet from the door of my shed and last year, when the gigantic sunflowers came up, the whole shed was hidden. That mound has to be unbelievably fertile. I’ve thrown eggs shells, coffee grounds, every kind of peeling and seed, leaf and root, you can imagine. When it began to look so horrible that even I couldn’t stand it, I began grinding up all my raw vegetable kitchen waste in my blender, added water and dumped it wherever the spirit told me to.

It’s amazing how much vegetable compost a single person makes in a day.

I drag my hose back to the pump, turn off the water, unfasten the sprinkler head, drag it across my driveway to the OTHER hose, fasten it, walked back to the pump, and turn it on.

There are a lot of steps in this watering business when you don’t (or can’t afford) a sprinkling system.

I walk to the east side of the house and start watering. That side of the house has a hill sloping down to the forest and volunteer bermuda grass has begun growing and spreading up the hill. But today it doesn’t look all that healthy.

Could it be the gray water from my washing machine is making it sick? I thought gray water was supposed to be good for plants. I don’t use bleach. Is it the boron in the 20 Mule Team Borax? Too much boron? I know plants must have SOME boron.

The boron question. Perplexing.

I water the lilac bushes and the shrubs and daydream about putting in morning glories around my outdoor shower. I have been trying to figure out a way to install some kind of lattice work so the morning glories could climb it and make a pretty screen there. I seem to not be able to think of anything that doesn’t require digging in that horrible cement-like clay.

I notice clumps of white froth at the bases of clover and wildflower stalks. Caterpillar eggs? Frog eggs?

I realize I’ve got three different kinds of clover growing. This gets me excited. Clover is great for soil. I’ve got clover that grows waist high and has yellow flowers, I’ve got clover that has beautiful leaves and a lovely round white blossom and I’ve got groundcover clover, again with yellow flowers.

Good.

I water the basil and Italian parsley and cherry tomatoes in pots on the deck, and the succulents, too.

I water my huge plumeria, looking elegantly Hawaiian in its pot.

I water all the baby cottonwoods and the cedars and the red and green shrubs. I water the skunk weed, the prettiest yellow flowers ever, I water the tiny purple violets hiding in the tall grass, I water the ash seedlings and the hemlock seedlings, I water the buffalo grass and the willow tree, I water the verbena and the pretty white flowers that look like trumpets, I water the nettles which will have huge gorgeous purple flowers soon, I water the potted junipers and the aloe vera.

All watered.

I turn off the sprinkler head, walk to the water pump, turn off the water, walk back to the house.

I leave the hose stretched across the driveway. “Hah!” Child Self says, impishly.

Rosie follows. Wants to EAT!  I feed her.

And now I’m back at my computer, writing this day down for you. The sun is getting lower in the sky. The shadows are beginning to lengthen from west to east. I haven’t done much but I sure am happy.

Everybody’s fed. Now it’s my turn.

Artichoke, here I come.

 I am struggling with writing an assignment. Nothing is working. Too many words swirling, memories poking through the mists of time, chores I must do.

I push open the sliding glass door and step out onto the deck.

I am on top of the world out here.

The hill slopes down to the pond which is reflecting the surrounding newly greened trees. I breathe in and out. I mosey over to the cottonwood bench Neighbor Jim built and sit down.

I take a sip from my delicious coffee. And sit very, very still.

A bird over my left shoulder in my eastern forest is singing its four note song loudly. Somewhere off in my western forest a bird of the same species answers, sometimes rudely cutting off the first bird’s song before he’s finished.

I stop and listen some more. There are four different bird songs out here. There’s the funny and annoying doodle, doodle, doodle, doop song, the cawing of a jay, a pretty piping song, and a lovely warbling song.

Years ago I read that bird song is really about birds setting boundaries on their territory. It isn’t the spirit of joy cascading from their beaky lips. Nope. It’s about “Get off my property!”

I look down at my feet. They are nestled in the clover that’s sprouted under my colorful table. I threw clover seed helter-skelter last year because Masanobu Fukuoka, master of Natural Farming, said to do this to make your soil rich. Clover is everywhere now, putting down nitrogen for all the little seedlings that have sprouted.

There are going to be millions of wildflowers here on Easter Sunday.

I look at my feet a little longer to see if I can see any ticks on them or on my unshaven legs. Nope. All clear.

Gee, I wish I could raise some guinea hens out here to eat ticks. Sigh. But the dogs would get ‘em in no time. And even if the dogs didn’t get ‘em the coyotes would. And even if the coyotes didn’t get ‘em, the hawks and owls would. And even if THEY didn’t get ‘em the snakes would.

Everything eats everything else in the country.

I look down at the pond and see the splash of a frog that has just jumped into the water. I watch the ripples widen and disappear.

The birds keep on with their chattering and warbling.

The dogs show up and lie down next to my feet. Their backs are slick from the canola oil I poured on them earlier this morning. Abby lovingly licks it off of Joe Biden’s back. By lovingly I mean she loves canola oil, not particularly Joe Biden. Her tongue makes long, langorous licks down his back. Very sensuous. For both of them.

They have canola oil on their backs because I didn’t know what to do with the canola oil in my plastic spray bottle. I use it to keep the critters from eating all the leaves off of the apple trees and cottonwoods. I’ve seen my trees stripped by grasshoppers and caterpillars and found the canola oil solution to the problem. (I read the ingredients list of the natural insecticide bottle. . . main ingredient: canola oil (99%). This year I decided to thin out the canola oil with water because it was so thick it didn’t spray easily.

But the best laid plans, dontcha know. The oil rose to the top and wouldn’t stay mixed with the water and consequently the only thing that was being sprayed on the leaves was water because the sprayer tube rests on the bottom of the container.

Nothing is ever simple, is it.

So I needed to start over but didn’t want to pour all that oil down my sink and since Abby had been rolling in the dead armadillo carcass every day for the past three days, I thought, “Why not pour this on the dog’s backs and they can lick it off each other and I won’t have to shampoo Abby for the third time this week?”

I realize I will have to shampoo them both now. They have already tired of licking each other.

Sigh.

I think about what else I have to do and cringe inside.

I have to put the junk in the shed back into plastic storage tubs. They are emptied out because I’ve been trying to find some old drawings my students drew back in 1992.

To no avail.

And now I’ve got junk strewn from one end of the shed to the other. And a pile of it on the floor of my Housie.

Crap.

I think I’ll just sit here for a while and not do anything at all.

I love April.

I sit down at my computer and scroll along reading emails or deleting them on sight.

For some strange reason I don’t delete the OK Democrat email. It looks like a solicitation and I’m tapped out so there’s no reason to click on it.

But I do. And there before me is this:

President Obama to Travel to Oklahoma

WASHINGTON, DC – On Wednesday, the President will travel to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On Thursday, he will visit the Cushing, Oklahoma area to discuss blah, blah, blah, etc.

The President’s remarks are open to pre-credentialed members of the press but closed to the public.

My eyes reread the last sentence.

I don’t have a press credential.

Do I?

I continue reading. It says if I want to be part of the press I have to respond by 5:00 pm this very night. Just click here, here, and here.

Uhhh.

I have no idea what to do.

So I call my daughter. She’ll know. She’s a longtime member of the press. And she loves her mama.

“Click all three places, Mom.“

“But I don’t have press credentials, Becca.”

“You can get them, Mom.”

“Where?”

“Hmmm. Try the Tecumseh Police Department. You have to contact a governmental agency. They might not be able to get you the credentials in time. Call now!”

So I call the Tecumseh Police Department. A man answers.

“Tecumseh Police Department.”

“Hello, can I speak to someone about getting press credentials?”

“Uh. What do you mean press credentials?”

After being put on hold so he can find out what to do, he comes back to tell me that they had never done that before and sorry but no can do.

So I call the Shawnee Police Department.

A nice lady answers and when I ask her about press credentials she says, “I have worked here for many, many, many years and we have never gotten a request like that. Try the News-Star.”

So I call the editor at the News-Star and he says, “Sorry. We’ve never done that. Can’t help you.”

Now I am desperate. Time is marching along.

Then I think of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Hey. I wrote a couple of stories for them! Maybe that will work.

So I call Michael Dodson and YES! He’ll set me up with credentials, but, he reminds me, he already gave me a press pass for the story I wrote last May.

Ooops. I had thrown that away, thinking it was a one-time thing.

No matter, he’ll print up another one and he wants to go too!

So everything is hunky dory.

I click on all the tabs with a big, fat smile on my face.

The next morning I zip over to my computer and see that I HAVE BEEN APPROVED TO COVER PRESIDENT OBAMA’S VISIT TO OKLAHOMA. All three events.

Zowie.

I zoom over to Michael’s office and pick up the credential and go home.

I reread the instructions on when and where to go.

Okay. I can do this.

I check the weather. It’s pretty hairy. Lots of rain in the last couple of days, and we’re talkin’ floods. Thunder and lightning abound. I begin to worry about the President’s flight.

I decide to leave earlier than I need to because the traffic reports say there are a bunch of accidents, two along my route.

I drive through the downpour, windshield wipers flashing. The radio is telling me that another accident has occurred. Jeez.

I get to my destination, find the parking lot, pull in and see … two cars. Both with big men in them.

I park. I get out. I go up to one car. He gets out.

Yes, I’m in the right place. The other guy gets out. He’s wearing cammies. It turns out he’s some kind of higher up soldier. They are both very friendly and smile and we all joke around.

The first guy is Brian, a big, gregarious African American. I look up at his face and he looks just like my dearly departed brother, Billy. I tell him this.

For an instant a puzzled look comes over his face (he is black, I am white) and he cocks his head. But just as quickly he smiles a great big smile and we are bonded.

We talk about the weather. Turns out that just a little while before I got there a twister had poked it head out of the clouds and snaked down out of the sky, “just over there, if you look between those light poles,” Brian says.

It was a cold funnel twister and they never reach the ground, he tells me. This makes me nervous about the safety of the President.

Cars start arriving, filled with press folks. Some of them ask me who I represent. When I tell them the Potawatomi tribe, they smile, and are happy to have me. I am like their kid sister. Their 68-year-old kid sister.

I find out that Governor Mary Fallin, Republican, won’t be there to greet the President. She’s too busy in Puerto Rico. Nor will her Lieutenant Governor be there. He’s too busy, too. And the mayor of Oklahoma City? He’s out of town, will be going to the Thunder’s basketball game and maybe we’ll see him.

Jeez. Sometimes I just … never mind.

Eventually, another Brian arrives with the shuttle.

Brian gives us a lot of info about the base. When it was built (before WWII), how long the two runways are (2 miles long,) and other such tidbits.

We wait out in the parking lot while the inspectors get their act together giving us time to bond more closely. The rain has ceased. The sun is beginning to go down. Someone says, “Look a rainbow!”

And there it is, arching through the gray, cloudy sky, over the whole Air Force Base. Tornado gone. Rainbow here. Just in time for Obama.

Perfect.

Eventually we are shuffled inside, checked out, and walk in single file down long corridors to a holding room which is dark and bare except for one chair.

We hang out.

Not too much time goes by when we are told to line up we’re heading outside.

As we step out into the cold, damp air, we see that it’s dark now. Most of the press has already put up their tripods on risers facing the tarmac. I have my little Sony still camera that my dear son has given me and my video camera FourStory has given me. I am worried about my technological abilities. I’m pretty lame with any kind of machine.

We hang out some more.

Then Samantha, White House coordinator, walks up and tells us the the President will be early! About twenty minutes early.

There is a rustle of excitement.

A few minutes later a whole bunch-o-soldiers come out and stand along the tarmac.

I talk to Tuscany, a handsome soldier with a beret who is officially guarding us. He smiles now and then when I joke with him. He’s very cool.

Two female soldiers are there, too, in the same capacity. I talk to the first one, Campbell. I ask her how to spell her name and say, “Like the soup?” She kinda smiles and says, “They call me Soup here on the base.”

So I call her Soup, too. Cute. I ask her how she got this particular job. She must have been very, very good, I say. She kinda smiles and says, “I don’t get in trouble.”

Then someone says, “Here comes the plane!” I search the sky. I see lots of lights but they are low. “There! Two o’clock.”

Nothing.

No matter how hard I try I cannot see that plane.

But then I do. And no wonder I didn’t see it.

It is very, very, very low, just feet above the ground. And it’s flying so slowly that I can’t believe it’s still airborne. It’s moving like silk through the air. It is the single most beautiful landing I have ever seen in my life.

(I have to take a moment here to just savor that picture in my mind… Sigh… Okay, I’m done.)

The plane gently lands, not a ripple in the air, and taxis slowly around so that the doorway and stairs are RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Boy. Do I have a good position. And I’m ready with my still camera and my video camera. Sorta.

But then the Presidential limosine pulls in front of the stairs as I watch in horror. Oh no! The whole lower half of the staircase is now blocked from sight.

Damn!

Various folks come down out of the plane from the back. A couple of people come out of the front door. And then the President steps out.

Whooping and hollering by everybody, including the press. Including me!

Then Obama does something wild. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs he sprints across the tarmac! Cheers go up! I yell as loud as I can, “ALOHA!” and his head snaps around and he looks directly at me and smiles and waves.

Heh.

He goes up to the soldiers. I can’t see a thing. I am craning and finagling around trying to see …anything.

Obama spends a long time with the soldiers. Eventually he turns to get into the limo and runs around the back to climb in and again I yell, “ALOHA!” and again he instantly turns my way, smiles and waves.

Yep. It’s true.

I get home late after a long, dark drive through the night. The dogs are hippity hopping around me. We all crowd into the house. I climb into my pajamas, then into bed, set my alarm for 5:00 am and head to Dreamland.

Thursday, March 22, 2012. 5:00 am.

I dress, coffee up, climb into my car and head toward Cushing.

It’s raining. It’s really, really dark. I am driving down Killer Highway 177, a long, skinny road in total blackness. People are driving to work so their headlights are constantly smacking me in the face. The rain pours. My hands grip the wheel. The radio cheerily talks on.

On and on I drive. For 56.6 miles. The sun starts to come up. The land is glorious. Because of the rain, there is new green everywhere. The countryside rolls gently to the horizon. The air is luminescent with green. The ponds are full. Little new leaves are covering all the trees. It is a beautiful morning.

I turn right on Highway 33, head east to Highway 108, turn north and a few minutes later arrive in Ripley, Oklahoma, a pretty little town. It has curving streets and beautiful mature trees everywhere. There are little hills and valleys and modest homes. I lose my way. I’m supposed to turn on 1st Street but the street signs are all rusted out and illegible. A nice lady at the gas station directs me.

I arrive at Ripley High School where we are supposed to be transported by shuttle to the pipeline site which is down the road a piece. The parking lot is full of media and Oklahoma Democratic dignitaries. Everybody is happy. Lots of joking and stories. All the reporters and cameramen are buddies of mine by now. No sign of Michael. It turns out he has already been transported to the site of the President’s speech because he got there really, really early. He wants to cover the protesters after the President’s speech for the Potawatomi’s radio station. He is as big an admirer of the President as I am. We are on the same wavelength. I am filled with gratitude thinking about how he came through for me.

Eventually the shuttle bus arrives. We clamber on board and drive the six or so miles to the site. Our credentials are checked, we are wanded by security, and we move on. There are large sheets of something like plywood lying on the ground as a make shift sidewalk because the ground is sodden and I don’t need to tell you what happens when you step into wet clay. Okay. I’ll tell you. The clay sucks the shoes off your feet.. But if you do manage to keep your shoes on, you will end up with 3 to 4 inches of mud caked to your soles.

On we walk until we reach the site. The risers are already set up. Tripods in place. Podium stands in front of the semicircle of dignitaries’ seats. We are surrounded by thousands of huge, green oil pipes, laid neatly in symmetrical piles all around us. It’s like a modern art painting. Very geometrical. Circles and lines. Circles and lines.

We hang out.

Talking, messing around, being kid-like. I ask how the President is going to arrive. Is he coming all that way by car? Someone tells me he’s coming by helicopter. A special helicopter carried by cargo plane, that follows his plane.

I look up at the sky. It sure is full of clouds. Gray ones. Billowing gray ones. Beautiful, but worrisome.

We hang out some more.

And then everyone’s chattering. He’s coming!

Around those giant piles of green pipes come some Secret Service guys and then the PRESIDENT!

He’s tall and skinny. And smiling that great big smile. And waving. He’s wearing a dark casual zip up jacket, some casual pants, some weird two-tone tennis shoes. He looks fabulous.

I look around and every single person has a smile on their face.

He walks directly to the podium and begins speaking.

Now here’s the part that amazes me.

I have heard Republicans talk about how President Obama can’t do a speech without a teleprompter. I am expecting teleprompters. But there aren’t any. There is just a written paper speech anchored on the podium.

???

He looks down at his speech and begins reading it, gracefully. Conversationally. (He really is a great reader. His mom made him get up early in the morning when they lived in Indonesia when he was a little kid. Four o’clock in the morning. So he wouldn’t lose his English.)

But then he stops reading. And speaks from his heart. He don’t need no stinking speech.

The President tells us that we don’t have to choose between energy sources. That actually we have to choose them all as long as they’re safe. It’s a great speech. It makes everyone happy.

I realize that at the end of the speech he has done easily half of it extemporaneously. It just flows out of him. It’s magic.

He steps away from the podium and starts walking toward the line of folks who are eagerly waiting to shake his hand and tell him something special. He’s coming closer to the press side. I am the last person on the fence and I am part of the press. Michael is standing beside me, taking the most exquisite pictures of everything. I am a complete failure at recording anything at this point.

The President gets closer. As he shakes the hand of the woman next to me and looks my way, I say, “I was born in Kapiolani Hospital where you were born!”

He smiles a huge smile and says, “Really? You Hawaiian? You and me?” and I say, “Yes!” and he says, “You have your birth certificate?” and the place erupts with laughter.

He turns and waves good-bye to us and walks back around that giant pile of pipes.

After I get home that afternoon I begin to hear about the little encounter between President Obama and me. One person after another calls or emails to tell me they had seen me with the President. Our little conversation about Hawaii and birth certificates was the quotable moment of his visit to Oklahoma.

Even the Drudge Report mentioned it.

Heh.

President Obama and Me

 I have been bothered by a piece I wrote for FourStory. I wrote it when I was drunk. I’m not normally drunk but the circumstances were dire. I thought my darling daughter, Commie Girl, had inflammatory breast cancer and I was trying to get my ducks in a row to go back to California to nurse her back to health, but the odds were not good. I was in a really horrible state of mind. So I made a martini and went out to my bench made from my deceased cottonwood tree and drank it down.

My tongue (via my fingers on the keyboard) was loosened. I wrote the FourStory piece, a slovenly effort, but it still had its own little smidgeon of truth.

So, as I’ve said already, I’ve been bothered by that piece. It’s because I really haven’t made my case. There were a couple of comments, both unsympathetic to my love of swearing, and both by men. (In all fairness they didn’t know why I was so upset.) Both guys said they used plenty of profanity but were ashamed of themselves for it. One said that his mother started using a lot of profanity when she got old and was a little senile (my words) and it bothered him because it was just not like her. My immediate reaction was that that was his REAL mom, the mom who held her tongue and was too polite to cuss was the fake mom. The REAL mom spoke truth to power, Baby.

Anyway, I’m sober now and ready to take on the non-cussers out there.

I looked up the definition of “profanity.” It comes from a Latin word that means “outside the temple.” All non-temple buildings were called profane buildings, back in the day. It doesn’t mean anything nasty. It just means it’s not the temple. It’s the everyday normal place.

I thought about that. I liked that meaning. Profane language was secular, concerned with the day-to-day aspects of life. Blasphemy, on the other hand, was an attack on religion or its personnel and that was a SIN. But not profanity. Heh.

Yeah. Read your Bible, Bible-toters. Nothing in there about cussing. However, if you use the name of the Lord in vain, whooooo hooooo, Hell-time, bruddah. All day long God-fearing folks say things like, “God, what a hot day!” or “Oh, my God, that was a close call.” And they think nothing of it.

But say, “Fuck! That was a close call!” and they’re all offended.

Jesus Christ.

And guess where profane blasphemy started? With ancient comedians! (At least that’s what Wikipedia says.) I LOVE THAT! They were the ones who bravely went where no man dared to go. They stuck a finger in the eye of the powerful and said, “FUCK YOU!”

I also found out that swearing and cursing occurs in all human languages and have specific neurological and linguistic characteristics and may even exist in chimpanzees. I have no idea how anybody found that out. A certain wave of the forefinger? A jutting out of the chin?

The oldest existing writing contains swear words. Germans swear the most, Brits come in second, and we are third. AND did you know there is profane language in the Bible? The quote in Wikipedia goes like this: “men who eat their own dung, and drink their own piss.” Heh.

Say that in a polite conversation.

But I swear because I absolutely LOVE to swear.

I swear because it sets me free. I swear because swearing exercises my freedom of speech and I exercise my freedom of speech because if I don’t I will become fearful of upsetting the status quo. If I don’t swear, little by little I will curb my tongue. Little by little I will let things go that should be spoken to.  Little by little I will become afraid to speak up.  Little by little I will gradually become silent and acquiescent. Little by little I will cease to exist as a person who makes a difference in the world when it needs to change.

All you guys who live in California or New York or other such sophisticated places already use cussing and swearing on a daily basis and it is no big deal using a “fuck” or “motherfucker” in your common discourse. Ahhhh, the Land of Freedom. But here in Oklahoma, there is nothing quite so bad as “bad language.” It is the same as spitting in someone’s face.

And this lack of cussing creates a culture in which everyone is polite (to your face) and no one expresses an opposing opinion (just thinks it) and everyone is locked up tight.

I will now erase the words “everyone” and “no one.” Because OF COURSE there are the brave and noble folks whose tongues will not be tied and whose words will not be squelched and whose ideas come pouring out of their mouths in torrents. They can no more curb their language than fly. Well. . . they DO fly. They fly in freedom.

Finally, Dear Readers, I am going to leave you with this. It is Mario Savio, the leader of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in the 60s, my hero, the man who turned my life around, the man who set me free with that grand old German word FUCK.

Here he is. He’s fuckin’ great!