HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK, LIZA AND JAMES

American writer Jack Kerouac

Hi again and happy March 12. According to my astrologer, today was an interesting one to be born on. Some really famous people came into the world on that date; including Sir John Abbott, third prime minister of Canada; the writer Jack Kerouac; singers Marlon Jackson, Al Jarreau, Liza Minelli and James Taylor; American gangster Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, actor Ron Jeremy; actress Barbara Feldon; me.

So thank you for all the emails and e-birthday cards. And to the several of you who wanted to know how old I am, sorry, but I’m a holdover from the administration of President Bill Clinton. I don’t ask and I don’t tell.

According to my health care provider, there are two ages; the one on the birth certificate and the one at the doctor’s office. The first, of course, is based on when your parents did their part. The second is your health age and that’s determined, all other factors being equal, on how healthy a lifestyle you lead.

My life expectancy is about 98 or so and I’m pushing for the century mark, if nothing else but to totally piss off all those folks who were hoping I’d crossed over at one of the several points in my life when that was more a likelihood than surviving long enough to elevate sarcasm to high art.

Happiness is the best revenge but longevity is right up there with dying in bed with a beautiful woman a third my age and finally figuring out what one hand clapping sounds like.

If attitude is all, I’m well motivated toward longevity. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in this life, most of it centered around providing for my family and community.

I want to live long enough to see a black single gay woman in the White House; the Hamas get into the bar mitzvah catering business; both American political parties to find symbols which don’t slander the animal kingdom; my home, native land and beloved Canada to stop clubbing baby harp seals; and the human colonization of Mars.

I want to be around long enough to drive an electric car from Vancouver, British Columbia to Halifax, Nova Scotia without needing a 15,400,000 foot extension cord. BC Hydro is moving on putting the whole province on that kind of power grid and what’s also cool is that they’re subcontracting some of the work to an American outfit in Arizona.

I’d like to see the day when one in 50 American children does NOT experience homelessness. To me, in a nation as rich as this, that is absolutely unconscionable and the only excuse for it is the kind of greed that mocks compassion and totally trashes any concept of human decency.

I also want to see just how high the tides of the oceans of the world will rise before we get global warming under control. I’ve been having these weird (pizza before bedtime inspired) dreams of being in Denver and seeing a woody full of blond beach people driving by yelling, "Surf’s up."

And I’m curious about how many more Washington State public servants President Obama is going to recruit for duty along the Potomac. The latest is Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, who has been tapped to be the new Drug Czar. So far, we’ve sent a former governor and a King County executive "east of the mountains".

And as far as this old aging thing? American humorist Mark Twain suggested that if a person couldn’t reach old age by their own road, they shouldn’t go. I’ve observed that some of us get older, some of us get better; and some of us get better as we get older. The choice seems pretty much up to us.

Until next time, then, take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

SOMETIMES POLITICAL FACTIONS ACT LIKE OUTLAW MOTORCYCLE GANGS

Hi again and welcome to The Northstar Journal Theatre of the Absurd. Despite my pledge to swear off stupid news until at least after the Easter/Passover holidays, I had a relapse or, as several of my not-too-quaint “associates” put it, a brain fart.

After watching the Wall Street Journal slide into the “Defeat Obama At All Costs Camp” that Rush Limbaugh started earlier this month, I’m convinced that sometimes political factions act a lot like outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Outfits like the Hells Angels comprise about thirteen percent of those clubs who share a common love of two-wheeled motorized transportation. Though small in numbers, they’re a boisterous and vocal lot who also tend to generate press that gives every other Harley Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Triumph or BMW, et al aficionado a bad name.

I can relate. I’ve taken a 350 cc Honda round trip three times from Los Angeles to Sacramento, including one memorable trip over the Grapevine Pass in December on the same bike that almost made me a double amputee below the knees several months before.

If there had been a club for idiots like me, I might possibly have joined. Had I, I imagine that to this day, I’d be making annual runs to such well-publicized tourist destinations as Placerville, Grants Pass or Puyallup to drink wine coolers and pine for the days when motorcycles kick started and had suicide switches.

I wonder, though, if I’d have joined an outlaw Honda gang dedicated to Americanizing the import motorcycle industry and fiercely opposed to the notion that without Yankee engineering and parts, no other country could build a better bike. And probably at half the cost. I wonder if I’d have remembered transistor radios and pocket calculators.

Well, possibly but not probably on the joining part. Plain fact is, I’m not much for membership cards. In the sixth grade, I got involved in the Cub Scouts for the same reason I volunteered to be a school crossing guard. Yep, to impress chicks.

A couple of real rainy weeks in front of Hollywood Park Elementary shepherding kids so bundled up that gender was difficult at best to determine dampened my ardor some. And a snowy dead-of-winter weekend in the High Sierras wrapped up in a soggy sleeping bag on a pine bough mattress in this Boy Scout instruction manual built igloo with an adult and six other guys as wet and cold as I was, on top of a granite mountain, with nary a skirt in sight sort’ve put a permanent kibosh on the whole Fraternal Order of Anything trip. It also explains why I don’t go camping in the winter. You couldn’t pay me enough. Trust me. Not for all the snow bunnies in… Nevermind.

I had the same kind of experiences with several religious denominations I’ve tried. The pastor of one of them was my best friend for quite awhile. We got together at my place on Sunday afternoons for some pretty good theological discussions.

He got to take his collar off, drink beer on Sunday in an 8-1/2’ x 10’ travel trailer parked by a beautiful lake, and have the forbidden pleasure of associating with someone his congregation would have considered a heathen at best and a heretic, most likely. He also got to spend time with a friend who respected his priorities and didn’t take it personally that the congregation was not as hospitable.

Larry was softspoken but tough and in his life had been a mountain climber, an anti-war/human rights activist and a Christian minister in South America. He also authored three books which critically examined the viability of the faith he served to serve the larger humanity in return.

Sophisticated, articulate and incredibly perceptive, he was an essentially humble man devoted passionately to his wife and family, to his small community and to the members of a simple church in a rural community in the Pacific Northwest. He needed someone to talk to and I’m glad I was there for him. And even though I was never invited to his home, he was always welcome in mine and I’m proud that we were friends.

I suspect that I have been a profound disappointment to a lot of good and well-intentioned people who tried to dissuade me from my dissolute ways and set me on the path of righteousness.

Funny, though. For all of that, I do not feel eagle/eagle scout, elk, kiwani (somebody knows what a kiwani is, right?), lion, moose or son of anything I haven’t already been called -- impaired.

I’m a member of a lot of stuff, including a species I mostly share with you yahoos.
I’m one ten trillionth of the population of planet earth. I’m what, one five-billionth of the human part of that. I’m an American, so there’s 330-million or so. Take it on down to the region, state, city and neighborhood I live in and into the house I share with 17 other people.

So no, I don’t think I’d have joined an outlaw Honda motorcycle gang to lobby against free trade. I’d have been more likely to push for a better bike and hope that Harley and Honda got together behind it.

Until next time, then, folks, and thanks for the ear. Take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

HE’S NOT BIG BROTHER, BUT HE IS LISTENING

The Masada

Well, I guess I should have said this blog will be out at least once a week. So hi again, this week, and thanks again as well, for the ear.

I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to those of you who responded so positively to my last blog. As my good friends here in Seattle, Ed and Sallie (also NSJ readers), remind me ~ it feels good when you pass it along and even better when it comes back to you.

Ed’s from the Bronx and played six years with the New York Yankees. Sallie’s a former Hollywood dancer whose credentials include the original Music Man. They’ve been married to one another 30 years or so and have been around some, so when they speak, I shut my shamrock Yiddish yap and listen. Mostly. When the stars are in appropriate alignment and my bio-rhythms are in harmony. And after the cat’s been fed.

However, I digress…(NOT front page news)…

I liked what President Obama had to say the other day about not paying too close attention to what’s going on with the stock market. He described it as a rollercoaster ride and even though nobody I know has much invested, I could see where it sure could be to somebody whose wealth is mostly on certificates.

I don’t imagine what he said is having much impact on Wall Street but it’s made me and mine rest some easier. He’s reminding us that even though we might not have a lot to spend, especially these days, how we spend it still matters.

He’s also doing his job in another way. He’s got a website which shows just how this economic stimulus is being distributed. My state, Washington, has a link to how what we receive is being spent here.

A few years back, in a small rural county in Oregon, on a snowy winter night, a very independent grandmother who ran a big timber family died when the homestead cabin she lived in alone as a widow, burned down because the fire department arrived too late.

By the time, a year or so later, that all the investigations of this were finished, it was determined that bad county roads were responsible.

I was working as the county’s public relations person at the time but I know the story I’ve just told you about because I covered it as a newspaper reporter. I was the first media on the scene and the last to leave the funeral. When I went to my new bosses and proposed a road improvement levy, I was told that several had been tried in the last 75 years and none had passed.

I did some historical research, got an idea of what else was also going on when these past levees were proposed and how they were promoted. I talked to the commissioners about what I’d learned and suggested a real direct approach.

They got to make a spreadsheet and pie chart breakdown of it. I got to drive out and take pictures of some of the worst of those roads. In all kinds of weather and in that part of the Willamette Valley, it changes just as fast and as often as it does in meteorologically schizoid Seattle and the Greater Puget Sound.

We put together a media kit with photos, graphics and a narrative explanation. We also created a display for the lobby of the courthouse. The levee was also an open agenda item at county council meetings. We kept it simple and informational. We let folks know how much we figured it was going to cost and how it was to be spent.

Yep, it passed. Our elected officials decided to talk to their constituency about this the same way they talked to them about life in general as neighbors and friends they met on Main Street, in the Yamhill Café, over pool at the Evergreen Tavern or at the park after church on Sunday. It was a bad thing that happened to Mrs. Swenson. We need to make sure it doesn’t happen to someone else.

I was not real pleased to learn that apparently, now, the Republican Party only speaks for 26% of Americans. I do applaud and support the Party of Abraham Lincoln’s acceptance of that and the need to re-examine and restructure.

Few things in this world disgust and anger me more than political gloating and/or bashing. As President Obama is also saying and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has affirmed with regards to China, this is not about competition but about cooperation.

To contend that the Republican Party is solely and totally responsible for this present situation is not only dangerous thinking but, to me, stone stupid and historically insupportable. To further infer that they do not have valid concerns and positive options is also to me an extremely toxic and incredibly self-destructive perspective, especially right now.

No single entity, individual, political party, etc. et al got us into this seemingly monumental mess. We’re all, in however small or large a way, responsible. Since it took all of us to get here, it’s going to take all of us to get out of here. That’s not rocket science and that’s a good thing because I’m not a rocket scientist.

President Obama seems to understand the differences between Athens and America. In this country, we’re not a privileged democracy. And in America, anyone eligible to vote is expected to participate in the process.

We have public meetings. We have access to the media and their polls. We have emails to our elected officials. We certainly have blogs, homepages, chatrooms and every other form of expression, including the arts, that a reasonable specifies could ask for. And now we have a president who is essentially saying,

"Okay, the channels are open. Talk to me."

If anything else, this President has a strong stomach and chutzpah probably unparalleled since the Masada. He’s asking us to behave like the Americans he’s been elected to serve.

We’re a wild bunch at best, Mr. President, so good luck with that. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to lend a hand.

Until next time then, folks, take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

TEMPERING BAD NEWS WITH GOOD

June 1979

Leaving Southern Oregon after a federal judge closed old growth logging to protect the spotted owl.

Hi, again, folks, from the Bastion on the (Puget) Sound. As I’m writing this, it’s about an hour before sunrise. The house is quiet, as it usually is, and there’s a light rain falling through the evergreens in the front yard. I’ve been sitting here with a cup of coffee and contemplation. It’s a kind of Zen way to start the week; raveled before things start becoming a little unraveled. And it works great as long as I don’t have a stupid attack.

The news media in Seattle is the mellowest on the West Coast. They reflect their audience/listenership/readership. Nobody shouts here. We’re not an angry community, mostly. A fair portion of us come from regions considerably less civilized than ours and we’re not much into reminding one another of what we came here to escape. We’re extremely interactive and we have a reputation for looking after our own and helping those of our neighbors beyond our region, we can.

Some mornings, though, it’s just not a good idea for me to start the day by watching the morning news. I’m starting to get real tired of the vitriolic criticism of a president who has been in office just over one month and who inherited a legacy of some 96 months.

To me, this kind of whining just reflects the same "quick fix/immediate gratification" attitude that got us into this monumental mess in the first place. And when people like Rush Limbaugh initiate a campaign designed to make this economic stimulus package fail, I find myself wondering just how in touch with the rest of us individuals like him really are. It makes me angry and at a time when a cool head is really needed, Rush baby is NOT helping.

And who are "the rest of us"? Well, I’m one of them, so are a lot of you and everyone knows someone like "us". I’ve been out of work for several months now and I spend 12 hours a day, six days a week looking for it. My unemployment is running out soon and I’m hoping that the relief that will extend it and provide more jobs comes in time to keep me and thousands like me from going homeless.

I hope this relief effort is better orchestrated than Katrina and that rather than waiting until all the funds are available, the respective government entities start phasing it in immediately.

I’ll be 60 this month and like so many here in the Puget Sound and across the nation, I’m a seasoned professional with a good secondary employment battery of data entry, word processing and office administration skills. In a healthy economy, employment would not be an issue.

In a transitional one, it should not be either. As these funds commence to flow and projects start up, there’s going to be a real need for people who can step into managerial/ admin and clerical positions quickly, confidently, and with very low maintenance.

They’re going need to be problem-solvers, capable of working both within the system and outside the box; who believe, as JFK did, that any human problem ~ since it was created by human beings ~ is capable of being solved by same. Since I believe attitude is all, perhaps most importantly, they’re going to need to be those who approach a "problem" as a challenge, a growth opportunity, or simply something which needs to get taken care of and off the To Do List.

To me that would also create at least three job options and variations thereof; onsite, part time onsite, and totally telecommuting. I would also hope that it would produce part-time employment, as well. It might just be that as new companies get going and older ones adapt, it would be easier for them to parcel work out in smaller packages.

If enough of those kinds of jobs show up, it will be possible for a lot of us to survive and make a reasonable living. Even with controlled spending in the retail sector, that segment would benefit, as well.

Our media here in Seattle is responding to the concerns of people like me by keeping us informed of who is hiring; where to look for jobs; how best to present; how to enjoyably reduce the cost of living and best utilize both the resources at hand and those evolving. They also keep us abreast of how federal and state funds are progressing through the system.

They also let us know where we can go for the basics, if, God forbid and the relief doesn’t arrive in time, we need them. Seattle is not without its homeless and the community’s never been proud of that. It’s a lesson we’re learning now, though, and with some chagrin. We were a little slow on the uptake with this one and that’s going to stay with us for awhile.

As things roll along, we’re going to see a lot of creative options coming to or originating from the Puget Sound. You’ll be reading about them here and hopefully sharing with the rest of us what your community, region or state is doing to insure that we come out of this all much better than we went into it.

Until next week, then, take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

A GOOD PEFORMANCE, FULL OF PROMISE, THUNDER AND HOPE; AND ANOTHER EVERGREEN STATER GOES TO THE WASHINGTON ON THE POTOMAC

Former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke

Well, as I’m writing this, I’m also waiting for Barack to say something that will break his rolling chain of golden eloquence. (a few minutes later) Well, turns out he didn’t and I’m some relieved. Seems to me there’s a rusty old saw someplace that says that the longer the speech, the greater the chance of blowing it big time. This president is perhaps the greatest orator we’ve ever had and likely the most closely scrutinized. No pressure there, eh? Max dropped by to watch it with me and at one point, we looked at each other and he grinned.

"The President is pissed."

"Big time."

We figured Barak had been saving some of this up, the way he rolled out with it. He’s been slammed a lot lately for his poor cabinet choices, "his failure" to generate more bipartisan support for his economic stimulus package; his implicit insistence that education and the arts were also part of the recovery process and his consistent tendency to read the American public and respond to them, rather than the media. He doesn’t wait for the input of his constituency, he goes out looking for it.

At one point, Max mimed reaching for a fourth of July sparkler, lighting it, and waving it. I was hearing Kate Smith singing "God Bless America," and getting teary-eyed before Max took a swig of his root beer, belched and observed,

"Good staging."

I enjoyed it, both as good television and for the performances. Now, though, it seems like the time for talking about this is over. It’s filtering down to the state level and even though Seattle’s Viaduct project didn’t get funded, Governor Christine got ahold of Mayor Greg and said she’d work to get other federal funding for it. She’ll contact Senator Patti and the Representatives involved and eventually, it’ll get done. He tells that to his constituency, then gets on with the other business at hand.

I hope that happens soon. According to our local NBC affiliate, KING 5 News, Seattle now ranks as the 10th most congested metropolitan area in the United States. That Viaduct project, like the proposed light rail system, isn’t just necessary. It’s long overdue.

Where it’s possible, I still favor a minimum reliance on federal support. I’m also a proponent of regional economic independence. I think that if the Northwest is handling the current fiscal downturn any better than other parts of the country, it’s because we’ve learned the hard way what happens with an over-dependence on the international market place.

Now that green’s been proven profitable, there’s a stampede in that direction and the industrial processes themselves are environmentally viable. They’re ideal for a small community or co-op approach, as well.

The same "revolution" has taken place in organic farming in North America. Europe’s decades ahead of us and so are other parts of the world, including Japan. Now, community gardens and small farms employing more human beings and fewer machines are not only viable, but extremely appropriate. Here in Seattle, there are low cost housing units for seniors going up which offer rooftop garden plots.

We were headed down this road before this latest economic down turn and I think it’s a real plus that we’ve blended the two priorities. Considering it was over-industrialization driven by unrealistic expectations that contributed so substantially to planetary pollution and global warning in the first place, this looks like one solution derived directly from the problem. That kind of straight-line thinking is encouraging to me.

It’s also validating to see another Evergreen State native headed for the "other Washington". Former Governor Gary Locke, the first Chinese American elected to that office, has been tapped by President Obama as Commerce Secretary. Gary’s well-qualified for the position and he’s honest. The White House seems to be making more appropriate choices in these regards and yep, that’s another reason to be guardedly optimistic.

Until next week, then, take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

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LINKS TO RELEVANT SITES:
The PCC Sounder Consumer
Sightline Daily

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ECONOMIC STIMULUS

Mt. Rainier, from the U of Washington

Photo by MS(R)M

Hi again, Folks. Well, as I’m putting this together, it’s still President’s Day. I understand Abraham Lincoln’s been voted the best national chief executive we’ve ever had and George Washington, the second. I notice that George is on the one-dollar bill and Lincoln’s a little higher up but not by much. Grover Cleveland and William McKinley are waaay up there.

I’m sorry but that seems to me just a little out there, even for Americans. It’s like we’ve got this weird inverted pyramid going for us. I’m thinking, albeit real generously right now, that it just goes to show that in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, you don’t have to be first or even historically important to have value in this country. At least not on our money, eh?

However, I digress…(front page news, right?)
One of you sent The Northstar Journal a letter he wrote to his elected officials, with permission to publish. He’s from Michigan, where his governor is making some history of her own. Her name’s Jennifer Granholm and it looks like she’s proving that both cleaning up and producing industrial products that address the root causes can pay off for her constituency. I caught her on the news the other night in a story about the solar panels being produced in Michigan and being used to provide energy to a variety of structures and enterprises in the States and abroad. The author of this letter has books on a wide variety of topics, is an avid golfer, has a radio show and is a cancer survivor.

Dear Senator,

Regarding this economic crisis I would recommend you and congress explore putting a 9 month stay on home foreclosures with a mandatory provision for face to face renegotiation; 10% reduction in payroll taxes; suspend issuing new personal credit cards and a freeze on renewal of existing credit cards for a period sufficient to facilitate a balancing of personal credit system.

These actions are cost effective and quick to implement. Should you have any questions let me know.

Kindest regards,
Michael Cortson
Attorney at law (retired)
Writesit@aol.com

I need to share with you folks a real nice email I got from Senator Patti Murray (D) Washington.

Subj:
Response from Senator Murray
Date:
2/12/2009 1:34:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
Senator@murray.senate.gov
To:
mailto:minstrel312@aol.comminstrel312@aol.com

Dear Mr. Miller:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Northstar Journal blog. I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter.
The views of Washingtonians are very important to my work. I will keep your thoughts in mind, and I encourage you to stay in touch. Please do not hesitate to call on me whenever I may be of assistance.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I hope that you will continue to let me know about this and other matters of interest to you.

I hope all is well in Seattle.

I also had a real nice phone chat with Maria Cantwell’s press secretary and they’re reading us as well. Maria’s our other U.S. Senator and coincidentally also a Democrat. Both of these people have served Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, America and, by the resonance of what they do on these levels, the international community as well.. Neither was born into money, power or politics. The term "bootstrapping" comes to mind. They have, I suspect, a lot in common with us and with Barack.

At the risk of offending those of you from other political persuasions, they didn’t have much in common with their immediate predecessor. We don’t do the dynasty riff very well out here. The Pacific Northwest is, among other things, a land of volcanoes, earthquakes, deep lakes, swiftly moving streams, mountains which reach up to touch the face of the Creator, the North Pacific in all her moods, schizophrenic weather and all-year around Birkenstocks.

My best friend of 30 years, Dennis W. "Denny" Steussy, a farm boy from Minnesota and a mover and shaker in the arts community in greater Seattle, is also sending the NSJ along to our legislators in Olympia. Denny and I have been saddle bums for some while now, like Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. He’s a good man, this one, and he knows stuff.

What it basically means for the readers of this blog is that what you share with The Northstar Journal is shared with people positions to act on it. I don’t want to get into a "we are the world riff, but one of the reasons I started this blog was to also provide a reader forum or perhaps, more simply expressed, an opportunity to share ideas, experiences, feelings and resources with one another.

As this blog goes to press, President Obama’s in Denver, signing that $787-billion economic stimulus package into law. Only three Republican Senators voted for it but at a recent annual meeting of American governors, 22 Conservative state chief executives endorsed it. Congress still seems a little slow in waking up and smelling the coffee.

Maybe we should fund a round-trip to Seattle on a warm sunny day; Seattle, aka Land of Starbucks and Seattle’s Best. We wake up to the aroma of coffee. We go to sleep and dream by it. We buy stock in small Brazilian plantations which produce it. If it wasn’t also on the expensive side, we would very likely bathe in it. There’s even been some talk about making it the State Beverage.

I also noted a new study out of Duke University which says that angry men don’t live as long as their mellower counterparts. I got to thinking about all the angry people I’ve encountered and most of them have also been bigoted, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, jingoistic or in some other way, extremely humanity impaired.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was glad to learn that obnoxious people don’t live as long as the rest of us. I just also wish they wouldn’t keep procreating and polluting the global gene pool. Do me a favor? The next rude person you run into? Promote celibacy. And solitude. Total solitude.

Until next week, then, take care, try to relax and keep communicating with one another. We’re going to get through these hard times and this time, yep, we’re going to learn from them.

Rusty

FROM MY OWN BOOK OF LOVE, WAR AND OTHER REMEMBRANCES

USS Blue (DD 744) off Hawaii

Hi again, folks. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, this a love in war story, It’s true, except for her real name and a condensing of some events. It’s also a chapter from my own Book of Love, War and Remembrances. (With appropriate acknowledgement to Herman Wouk for the title.)

We need to go back a few years, to the Fall of 1968. The Vietnam War was raging furiously and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. High school classmates were returning, sometimes walking and sometimes in body bags. The voting and drinking age was 21. A small matchbox of pot could get you hard time at Folsom, a 45 minute drive from where I lived.

There was a Draft on and I was holding a student deferment while attending Sacramento City College behind a busted home, two jobs and a devout attempt to keep the small dance and show combo which had been sustaining me in several ways, alive. My generation was fighting for its life and in my world, those who were not preparing to do duty for God, country and whatever were protesting the war and suffering their own casualties. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground.

Autumn is a lonely time in Sacramento. The harvest is over and the seemingly endless delta, with its network of rivers, levees and vast barren fields stretches to all horizons under grey skies that mark the flights of southbound Canada geese.

In some ways, I was a lot older at 19 than I am at 59. For the last three years, I’d been leading six other teenagers into a career union musicians twice our age envied. We played everything from the USO and high school proms and balls, to military base service clubs and for private parties at such Class A houses as the Sacramento Inn and the Mansion Inn. We had one motto that served us real well. Don’t play for the money, play for the people.

With all that was going on around us, we figured we’d be lucky to see 21. So we broke some rules and assumed a few of the rights of the adults we actually were. We worked hard and we played hard. We were tough, prematurely cynical and had less than no patience with anyone who tried to suggest a different way of living. It was like, if you can’t handle it, fine. Just don’t (expletive deleted) with it.

Kirsten was about the last person I should have met back then. She was slim, lithe, doe-eyed shy, and her thick ash blonde hung in long, loose natural waves, draping her slim shoulders and brushing them, like angel wings. She was from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east, and she reminded me, in a lot of ways, of Heidi. She was down in Sacramento, living with her sister and family and going for an AA degree in art.

I worked for the school newspaper and she helped print it. There was a glass partition between the newsroom and the print shop and I one morning, I looked up from my typewriter to see this Hallmark and Campbell Soup young mother holding a baby in her arms. (It was the print shop teacher’s daughter but I didn’t know that at the time.) I was just blown away by this incredible wave of gentleness that was suddenly washing over me. I felt vulnerable and that’s not always appropriate. I was tough because I needed to be and there was room for sex but there was not room for romance.

So I turned away and made it a point not to look at her working on a layout table about a foot and a pine wainscoted and glass wall away. I "heard" her humming softly to herself and remembered my own time in her mountains. Half of me needed and enjoyed it. The other half of me was telling me to focus on the tasks at hand. I was running on about 12 cups of coffee and a pack of Winstons a day and about the only time I had to myself was lunch.

Sacramento City College is situated across Freeport Boulevard from one of the most understatedly beautiful parks I’ve ever been in. Back then, it includes the Sacramento Zoo and a duck and boating pond. Trees all over. An amphitheater, some baseball diamond and tennis courts. I liked to go over to the duck pond, dine on peanut butter and/or baloney sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, and a half pint of milk. I brought old bread for the ducks and we had some interesting conversations. I always ate alone, except for the ducks.

So when noon came, I shoved Kirsten to the back of my mind and made a beeline to the duck pond. I remember that day as particularly Canada goose lonely, with an east wind blowing off her mountains. I’d just found out two of the guys in the band had been reclassified 1A, which meant "first available". We had weekend gigs through New Years. After that, my job was pretty much over and my outfit and way of life scattered to the winds.

Her shadow flickered across me before I actually saw her. She was dressed in a nice Weinstocks car coat with a mock fur collar and I remembered she’s been in a man’s workshirt and levis under that. She had a khaki knapsack that I later learned her grandfather had worn in Belleau Wood and the Argonne. She glanced at me and the only bench available, which was also the one I was sitting on, in the middle, with my own kit spread out on both sides. She arched a delicately feathered eyebrow and I stared back at her, without moving.

I read loneliness in her eyes and half of me wanted to tell her to just truck on because I had enough on my own plate, including a girlfriend with whom I was also having a real interesting time. The wind off her mountains rose a bit and scattered the bag of bread, the waxed paper open with the sandwiches, and the partially consumed bag of potato chips. By the time I recovered what didn’t land in the duck pond, she was comfortably ensconced on one end of the bench, drinking vegetable soup out of a plaid thermos and feeding the ducks from her own bag of stale bread.

Kirsten and I got to be friends after that. It turned out that we lived just a half mile apart so we were together most of the walk home from school we managed to make every late afternoon. It gave us a chance to talk and to get to know one another.

I learned that the war hadn’t left Kirsten untouched. On her right wrist was a bracelet with the name of her high school sweetheart, by then a Marine Missing In Action in Vietnam. She talked about the plans they’d made for him to come back and get a good job in the woods, while she found work in Placerville, the county seat. There was some land they could save for and he’d build the cabin. And together, they’d raise a son who would be, like their father, a football hero, and their daughter, like her mother, good with animals and art.

Kirsten tried to get me to talk about my life but since there wasn’t a lot of good news to report, she didn’t have a lot of luck with that. Instead, I listened to her and her dreams. They were modest and they were wholesome. And they depended on a Marine missing in action.

When grades came out in December, I found out, not to my total surprise, that I’d flunked most of my classes and was no longer eligible for a student deferment. By then, it was a lot colder and it got darker a lot earlier so Kirsten and I met in the cafeteria before starting home. That night, when everybody else was comparing report cards, she read the look on my face and tears gathered in her eyes.

She held my hand when we walked across the street to the bus stop. She hugged me tightly with her face buried in my chest on the ride home. We got off at her stop and I walked her the half mile in the thick tule fog to her sister’s front door. She held me even tighter and before putting the key in the lock turned and faced me.

"Please don’t do this to me, Please don’t leave."

Neither of us had a lot of choice and I did, by enlisting in the Navy and volunteering for Vietnam. The first time I returned to Sacramento, a some two years later, she was living with a hippie musician and sharing his needle. The second time, seven years or so later, she was running a flower shop in a real mellow part of downtown, near Sutters Fort. She said she wasn’t in love with anyone and hadn’t been in a long time. She was just as lovely then as she was the first time I met her. But when I went to cup her cheek and tell her that gently, she withdrew and shook her head.

"Nor do I ever intend to love again. It hurts too much."

It’s been some thirty years now and several other wars. I wonder how many other Kirstens there are out there. I suspect there’s a few.

On Valentine’s Day, I dream of a time when there won’t be quite so many.