Late apology

I can't let this month slip by without at least one post.  I apologise to any who have been coming here lately, looking for a post of some kind.
There have been days when an idea came to me and I began a post only to abandon it.  Why and wherefor should I do this, I would ask myself, and got no answer. 
I live with disorientation.  America today is changed so much from the America I knew that I feel like a stranger in my own land.  How do you defend something that no longer exists?  How can you love a vanished world?

The picture on the left was taken in winter of 1943-1944 when I was ten years old.  On the back of the photo, my older brother wrote: "Here are the ten little porkies (some on other side) enjoying their meal.  I took this when they were  6 weeks old.  The pen in background is the one I built for her of the lumber from camp.  Notice the 'runt' in the back end after her meal."   This photo and note were for my father who was working on the Al-Can Highway in Yukon territory, Canada.
The photo on the right was taken in early summer of 1944.  My brother Alan and I were feeding the kids.  Notice the patches on the knees of my pants.
The 'camp' that my older brother referred to was built by the government on my grandmother's dairy farm during the Great Depression.  The building lacked insulation, electricity and plumbing.  It served as living quarters for a crew from the Civilian Conservation Corps  sent there to clear brush from Seely Creek and build wooden bridges at each farm to provide access to the Goose Pond mountain range which ran along the north side of the valley.

From 1948 to 1950 (sophmore & junior high school years) I ran a trapline during the winter to catch wild animal pelts to sell for extra money.  Every morning before school, I dressed for winter and walked the trapline regardless of weather.  Trapping is one part of my youth which I would not repeat but these examples show how markedly different life is today.
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Born 76 years ago today

This photograph of my brother Alan was taken two or three years ago.  He is beginning one of his favorite hikes: a walk through Goose Pond State Park between Chester and Monroe, New York.
Once upon a time this road was called Lazy Hill Road.  It ran a few miles from Route 17 (now 17M) to Laroe Road.  It was populated only by dairy farms.   I have forgotten some of the names now but all the farms were located on the right side of the road with their backs to Goose Pond mountian and the creek that ran through the fields along the mountain's base.
At the top of the rise shown in the photo was the Tom Roe farm.  A mile farther was the Joe Piekara farm and then a farm called Sunnyvale which was the home of our maternal grandmother and step-grandfather, Maude and Thaddeus Mapes.  Alan and I spent a lot of our boyhood there.
Alan died last June so this is the first of his birthdays that I will observe without him.  I wrote about his death here last year.

Alan C. Hunter, 1935-2010. In Memoriam.

The poet and sermon-giver, John Donne, wrote that "no man is an island" and "any man's death diminishes me."  That's true, no doubt, but sometimes a particular death does more than diminish one's being or soul.
The death of my brother Alan leaves me bereft, hollow, empty.  Everything seems changed and altered forever.  I sense consequences that remain unseen, unknown.  Never before have I awakened to  the day without knowing he was alive somewhere and ready to answer my questions.  No more. 
A few years ago I mailed Alan a VHS tape of the movie The Straight Story, a film about two brothers.  He wrote back that he liked the movie very much.  He also said that he loved me and always had.  Those words made my heart sing.  I immediately wrote back saying "Please don't die before I do!"  Alas.


I have written about my brother before, a tale of how he was part of the most perfect day of my life.
  There was so much more.  We fought World War II together.  We dug our foxholes in the side hill west of the house.  I had my submachine gun made of 1/2" galvanized pipe, tees, ells, and nipples.  He had some kind of homemade wooden rifle.  We collected metal and paper for the scrap drives, had a Victory Garden, bought Defense stamps for War Bonds.  We met the troop trains to beg for shoulder patches.  We saw all the war movies and we loved them all.  Patriots to the core.  Our own little band of brothers.
We were cowboys too.  We built our own corral.  Rounded up cattle.  Had bar room fights.  Gunfights in the street.  We fought only bad guys, not Indians.  We liked Indians.  We had read the books of Ernest Thompson Seton and knew well the Indian ways.
We often discussed which movie was the best Western ever made.  Was it Red River?  My Darling Clementine?  The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck?  Or High Noon?  Then, one summer evening in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1953,  as I came out of the base movie theater, having just seen Shane, I said to myself  I have got to tell Alan about this movie.  He must see it, I thought, it is the best.  Of course, he did see it, and he did agree.  Shane was the best Western ever made.  Young men, now, we both realized how much better if we could have seen it as boys.

And that reminds me of what I will miss the most.  So many times over the years there was a news event, a book published, a movie shown, a TV program, a magazine article, or something personal, and I would think, I have got to tell Alan about this.  I desired and respected his opinion.  I needed to know what he thought.
Although I was sixteen months older than Alan, he was more an older brother to me than I was to him.  For whatever reasons there were, I was reclusive, an emotional cripple.  Alan was not without his problems but he was more normal than I was.  He made friends easily;  I did not.   He engaged with girls easily;  I did not.  He explored the outside world sooner and more boldly.  I hung back.
When I did make the move, I went with him and his friends since I had none of my own.  He accepted me as he always had.


I spent a few days with Alan in May.  There was great physical change and there were periods of mental drifting.  Sleep was sporadic and short term.  On two occasions, Alan, his wife Jerian, and I sat outside on the front porch of his home.  He spoke of the enjoyment that gave him, pointing out the game trails for the deer who crossed the road.  A bluebird flitted between a powerline and the gravel driveway.  A Maryland yellowthroat could be heard singing in the brush off the lawn.
At different times, we conversed about our childhood, people we knew, some politics.  Once he expounded on an article he had read about narcissism and how it is infecting our social and political life.  His voice strengthened as he showed how thoroughly he had read and understood the article.  I was impressed, as always.

On the morning of my departure, I stood before him as he lay propped by pillows on the couch.  What now, I wondered, does he know I'm leaving?  Then he raised himself slightly and held his arms open wide.  I knelt on the floor beside him and wrapped my arms around him.  I love you, he said.  I love you, I said.  A moment more, and then I broke to stand up.  I stood there unable to move. He looked at me and then, gesturing with a hand, he looked at my face and gave me my last advice from him:  "Just go," he said, "just get in the car and drive away."  Firmly, gently, the words bathed me.  I was released.

Alan died a few weeks later, much sooner than I had expected.  I'm told his last four days were ugly and painful.  Then the sooner the better, I thought, for him.
What now, I wonder.  Like the boy in Shane, I want to cry out "Come Back!"  But there is no going back. 
The rider rides on.

"Taking us where we would not go -

Into the boundless dark.

When what was made has been unmade

The Maker comes to his work."

by Wendell Berry

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Memorial Day May 30 1960

Besides my self, there is only one other person alive today who knows the significant association of this date with the song.
The video, by the way,  is a clever blend of Sinatra singing mixed with a scene from the 1956 film High Society.
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The Most Perfect Day In The World

In his autobiography "All The Strange Hours",   Loren Eiseley has a chapter called The Most Perfect Day In The World.  When he was riding the rails in the early 1930's, he found himself sitting on an empty loading platform by a water tower on a warm autumn afternoon with three other men whom he did not know.  He notes that the situation was ordinary but the experience, in a subjective form, was totally his, "severed from time and reality". 
"Every man", he writes, "must treasure such a day into which he can retreat when the years grow desperate."
Fortunately, I had such a day and, now that the years grow more and more desperate, I have a special place to go.  I relate it here.

In 1944, my brother, Alan, and I lived on a small rural homestead in southeastern New York State.  In the late Spring of that year, when he was 9 and I was 10, we were exploring fields and woods near out home.  Alan's dog, Gus, was with us.  Gus was a fine non-neutered male dog of the American Staffordshire Terrier breed.
After a time, we came upon a lowland expanse of thick brush about six or seven feet high.  It was completely covered with green leaves and appeared impassable.  But Gus disappeared into this forbidding looking small forest so we followed.  To our surprise, we found that we could see for some distance.  Thin black woody stems rose about five or six feet with a thick crown of leaves that formed a canopy.   The ground was damp and spongy and littered with sticks.  We looked around, pleased with what we saw.  We were inside the envelope of a separate place, unseen by the world outside.  We were in a magical place.
One of us picked up a stick and threw it.  Gus chased it down and picked it up, then stood there looking at us.  Bring it here, Gus, but the dog didn't move.  My brother went toward the dog who began to trot away.  Alan gave chase and I headed away at an angle to drive Gus back to my brother.  It worked.  Alan got the stick and threw it again and, again, the dog retrieved the stick and moved away.  And again we gave chase and repeated the game.
And so it went.  Two boys and a dog playing a running game.  Throw.  Chase.  Yelp.  Bark.  Laughter.  Shout.  Throw. Catch. Chase.  Over and over, on and on it seemed forever.
There was release of animal spirits, complete unfettered freedom of joy and play.  We seemed  to reach a state where there were not two species. 
Probably Gus tired first.  He stopped to sit and rest, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.
Alan and I had stopped.  We looked at each other, eyes bright with excitement.
Boy, that was fun.  Yeah, and Gus, he was perfect.  And so he was.  And so were we.  And so was the day.
I recognize that this experience, on the surface, is very ordinary and not uncommon.  But we, the three of us, transcended that.  This was, as I say, magical.  There was special connection of brain waves and heart rhythm that made us glow.
Nothing that I have ever seen, felt, or done has matched the perfect happiness of that day. 

On the back of this photo, in our grandmother's handwriting is written:
"Alan
Lin
taken July 1944"
My brother is on the right.
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Another Opportunity for Another Chance

New Years Day and time to make resolutions, they say.
I can only renew (re-resolve?) my resolution of several years standing: 


to try to be more approachable to overtures from strangers.


For example, while moving through the checkout line at the supermarket a few weeks ago, I heard a woman's voice ask "Excuse me, sir, are those pomegranates?"  (I had two pomegranates on the conveyor in the middle of other supplies.)  I turned to see a woman of my generation (my age?) and I said "Yes, they are."
"I haven't seen a pomegranate tree in 70 years", she said looking straight at me.  The word 'tree' opened  a curious tangent but I didn't follow. 
"The fruits  appear only at Christmas", I said.  "I'll have to get some", she replied.  "Don't wait too long", I said, "They are starting to go soft."  "Well", she said,  "I don't have time to go back today."
Driving home, I realized that, after checking out, I should have handed one of the pomegrantes to this woman and bid her enjoy it.  Twas the season, after all, and it might have made both of us feel good.  Instead I berated my self for being a self-absorbed ass.
Perhaps I can't change.   For almost as long as I can remember, when a stranger approaches me to speak, my first reaction is either What does this person want? or What is this person going to do?
Apprehension always short circuits my responses and my thinking, and so I fail either to address the needs of the other or to leave the moment satisfied with my conduct.
There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of such failed connections.  One that has been haunting me lately occured in the Fifties on the campus of the University I was attending.  A girl who often seemed to be alone (I had noticed her before) approached me on the sidewalk and, clutching her books to her chest, asked me if I would like to have coffee with her.  (She may have asked me because I was alone on campus, always.)
No, no", I said, "No thanks", and started to turn away.
"Oh, please", she said, "Please.  Have a coffee with me."  I felt her air of desperation, I saw the rising fear of rejection in her eyes, but I was unable to respond like a normal human.  "I'm sorry", I said, "but I can't." and I turned away.
I am not absolved from guilt when I report that I was an emotional vacuum at that time.  Nature, we know, doesn't like a vacuum, and two or three days later I had a breakdown, followed by a second one the following week.  Subsequently, I abandoned the University a day or two later, never to return to Mount Oread.
So, here I am, an old man on a rainy night regretting this sin against life and hope. 
There are methods other than the physical that can injure or kill a person.
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On The Good Ship Breckenridge

In a recent post I mentioned the naval troop ship U.S.S. John C. Breckenridge and, my personal memory thus aroused, I began to recall the experience and realized I was looking back fondly at a few weeks loaded with discomfort.
We (a thousand other military personnel and I) boarded the ship in Tokyo Bay for the return home after service in the Far East.  I spent the first night vomiting in the ship's toilets (or 'heads" as the Navy calls them).
This happened with the ship at anchor.  We were not underway yet!  Not a good sign.
I spent the next few days vomiting and trying to complete the cleaning details assigned to us to keep us busy.  A sailor in the boiler room advised me to eat saltine crackers until I couldn't eat anymore.  He said it helped fight stomach acids and reduced throwing up.  I waited in line for an hour at the ship's store to buy a box of crackers and learned I had been given good advice.
Our 'quarters' were the ship's hold with row after row of hammocks stacked 5 or 6 high with ladders to gain the high beds.  Hot, sweltering, smelly.  Meanwhile, each morning, a one or two page info sheet was distributed with weather information, a couple of news headlines, and a handrawn map of the Pacific with a tiny representation of our ship showing our progress across the great ocean.  It looked like we hadn't moved. Depressing.
Free movies on deck each night it didn't rain.  Calamity Jane, which most of us had already seen.  But I stayed to watch it again.  I remember Doris Day riding a horse on a trail telling us that she used to have a secret love but now she was shouting about it from the highest hill, she was even telling the golden daffodills that her secret love wasn't secret anymore.   
While at ships' store, I had bought a paperback novel, The Royal Way by Andre Malraux.  I read some of it on deck but most of my reading time was spent in my hammock.  The atmosphere of that hold augmented the atmosphere of the book which is the story of two men searching for treasures from royal ruins in the jungles of Cambodia.  The themes were the usual Malraux interests of death, individual quest, and adventurism with side trips on art and sculpture.  I enjoyed the book, admired Perken (I think that was the main character's name) even when he was not being nice at all.  A good read, but I know the book is rarely mentioned in any critique of Malraux.
To enhance the malaise of the trip even more,  I got a severe toothache.  Fortunately the ship had a dentist, and he pulled the tooth.  So when the ship flowed into the bay of San Francisco, I was  better able to enjoy seeing the Golden Gate bridge, the prison of Alcatraz, and the shoreline of California, the USA.
After two years absence, it looked very good.

Unni and the Melmac plate

In October 2001 I attended the funeral of my older brother. After the funeral I joined family and friends at his home for food, chat and commiseration.
The wife of my brother's oldest friend, a Norwegian girl named Unni, related a reminiscence about meeting my brother for the first time.
Newly arrived from Norway in 1958, and newly married besides, Unni was brought to my brother's house by her husband, John, to be introduced to his best friend.
She told about her nervousness meeting new people, also remarking that, in Norway, one didn't go to someone's house uninvited so she was uncomfortable with that feeling too.
Imagine, she said, how I felt when we were asked to stay for dinner and John accepted. This is NEVER, I mean NEVER, done in Norway. Too impolite. Not proper.
Sitting at the table while it was being set, she remarked upon the dinnerware being placed in front of her. It was Melmac, a plastic dinnerware that was popular in the fifties. I gathered she found it hard to believe that it was used for dining.
My brother, never a shrinking violet, began to expound upon the virtues of Melmac, its low cost, its durability, its ease of cleaning, etc. "Besides all that", my brother said, "it's unbreakable." And saying that, he picked up a dinner plate and tossed it on the tiled kitchen floor to prove his point, only to see the plate shatter in pieces.
Everyone broke into laughter. Including Unni. She ended the story by saying she had felt welcome there ever since that day.
Unni died last Friday, June 5.
I want to retell her story here as a gesture, a blow against the End, the diminishment of Time. And as a thank you for giving another memory of my brother to me.

On Looking Through Ruins

Many years ago, while driving through a rural area of New York state, I espied an old abandoned farmhouse set back a few hundred feet from the road. Since I have always been attracted to things ruined and abandoned, I stopped to take a look.
The house was open to the elements, its doors and windows having been broken some time back. The usual litter of rags, wornout shoes, and such lay here and there in the rooms. I climbed the stairs to find three empty bedrooms and there was even less detritus there. But one bedroom had a spot of color in a corner holding a pile of leaves. I walked over to see what it might be and picked up an old Valentine's Day card. It had the usual boy and girl holding hands drawing on the front with a verse inside that I can't recall.
But what I do remember, as clear as the water in my glass, is the inscription.

In a boy's scrawl, it said: To Kathleen, from the Lone Ranger.

And I felt again the worm of longing that feasts on our starveling hearts