Archive for the ‘Claverack’ Category
September 12, 2017
Living disjointedly in time, apparently, I woke up thinking yesterday was September 10th and, as I read the morning paper, realized I was out of step with time. Yesterday was the sixteenth anniversary of 9/11 and I had a deep heaviness fall on me as I listened to a young woman on NPR who had been born after that day and for whom it is an event heard about in history classes, not something she can return to in her mind as so many of us can, particularly if you were in New York City, Washington, or Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
It’s not often I go there in my mind and today, for the first time, I haven’t felt an emotional ouch of the kind I have every other year. Much of that is that I am monitoring Irma as friends and family are enduring her as she moves up the peninsula. My sister and brother-in-law are without power but seem okay while I have friends not yet heard from in Jacksonville which is suffering “historic” flooding.
Yesterday was not dissimilar to that day sixteen years ago; bright sun, hardly a cloud in the sky, warm, waking on a day that seemed God had made to put smiles on our faces.
So, it is I ended my day with a moment of silence, thinking on the thousands that died that day and all the many, many thousands more that have died since in the ripple of effects of 9/11.
For perhaps the eighth or ninth time, I re-read the last few pages of “Call Me by Your Name,” a novel by Andre Aciman, a brilliant and, for me, painful read. It is the story of seventeen-year-old Elio, son of a professor, living on the Italian Riviera who has an affair with Oliver, a twenty-five-year-old graduate assistant to his father.
Andre Aciman’s writing is so exquisite it is hard for anyone who works with words to read because that kind of beauty is so hard to achieve and I know I will never achieve that kind of beauty in my own work.
It was also hard for me to read because during my 17th year I had my own Oliver, though we never consummated our affair. On a sunny, spectacular Minnesota fall day I walked into my first Spanish class of my freshman year and there was Marvin, my T.A., a man slightly taller than I, exotically handsome. He looked Latin, as if he walked out of Andean village.
He was from Queens, who had been in the Peace Corps in Chile. As I came into the room, he greeted me with “Hola, rubio!” “Blonde one” and that is what he called me during the year. And I am not sure how it was I became friends with Marvin but I did as well as his two closest friends, Maryam and Caroline.
We had dinner together at the old Nankin restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, a palace of Chinese deco and good food. Marvin and I talked through the night on many nights, wrapping each other in words when we probably wanted to wrap our arms around each other. Maryam lived in Mexico when she was not in school and was addicted to Coca-Cola and we made a hysterical search for a real coke one winter night, tearing around in my Acapulco Blue Mustang. Place after place served Pepsi and that was no alternative for a Maryam in need of a fix.
Early on, Caroline and I sat drinking coffee in Coffman Union and she suddenly looked at me and said: why am I telling all of this to a seventeen-year old? But we told most things to each other and I loved them all and Marvin most of all.
Not seducing me was his way of loving me. And I remember the last summer, drinking Cuba Libres and hearing how he was not coming back to work on his Doctorate but leaving for New York to become a rent boy, which shocked the other three of us.
He left one day, leaving me with a sadness that still can be called up in my heart. Caroline went on to more grad school; Maryam back to Mexico and that magical year slipped into the wake of my days, coming back to bittersweet life as I read the story of Elio and Oliver, remembering a time when I had an Oliver.
Tags:9/11 Anniversary, Andre Aciman, Call me by your name, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, General, Media, Political, Politics
Posted in 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hudson Pride, Iran, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Social Commnentary, Taliban, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 4, 2017
It is an excruciatingly beautiful day at the cottage, the sun is warm, a wind blows to temper it, the only sound is soft jazz in the other room. I have just finished a late lunch of eggs, sunny side up, steak and toast, eaten on the deck. The first leaves have begun to fall, scattered on the table top, reminding me of the fleetingness of time.
Soon we will be in another season, fall, which I love and loathe, as I always seem so alive in the fall and, at the same time, so painfully aware life is short and death is long. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid, walking down the leaf strewn streets of south Minneapolis, knowing winter was coming and being entranced by the magic in the air.
It is Labor Day, 2017.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is ‘a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.’ Labor Day is a ‘yearly national tribute’ to the “contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and wellbeing of our country. Newsweek, 9/04/2017
And it is a holiday with a bloody history. “Labor” wasn’t always celebrated. Suggested reading: Walter Lord’s “The Good Years.”
The summer is unofficially ending when this day becomes part of history. When I was a kid, it meant school was starting the next day so this was a day I always endured fearfully. Today, I am not fearful about returning to school. There are other things…
Kim Jong-Un has me a little fearful as does having Trump be the president who is facing him. There was some analysis this morning that the timing of Kim’s tests of bombs and missiles has more to do with tweaking President Xi of China than with President Trump. The latest bomb test came just as Xi was greeting officials from the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Took the wind out of Xi’s sails in terms of making news. Kim does these things lately just as Xi is set to make some news. Hey, I’m HERE, President Xi! Got it? I’m here and I’ve got some pretty big toys!
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said North Korea “is begging for war.” President Trump is saying, “All options are on the table.” This might not end well.
Down in the Caribbean sits the Dutch island of Saba, part of the Leeward Islands, which I visited in February. Friends have retired there and are sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Irma, now a category 4 storm. An email today said they will be in the eye of the hurricane tomorrow and were busily preparing, friends helping friends prepare for what could be a very nasty ride. If you pray, think of them.
Michael Eros, son of my longtime friends, Mary Clare and Jim Eros, is returning to Houston today after the Burning Man Festival. He left Houston before Harvey hit and he will now find out what it has done to his city. He and friends built a giant figure which they burned, leaving behind the metal shell.
Harvey will likely be the most expensive storm in history; it is believed 180 billion dollars of damage has been done. Ted Cruz is having a hard time now explaining why he voted against Sandy help now that he is asking for Harvey help. The phrase, “people who live in glass houses,” comes to mind.
There are joyful things happening in the world. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child. Peggy Whitson has returned from the International Space Station, having notched more time in space than any other American. There will be another Indiana Jones film, without Shia LeBeouf’s character. A young girl in Harvey’s floodwaters got herself and her family rescued by asking Siri to call the Coast Guard, which rescued her as she was slipping into a sickle cell anemia crisis.
Bad things will happen. Good things will happen. All we need to do, to keep moving forward, is not to blow ourselves up. I’ll pray for that.
Tags:Angelina Jolie, Begging for war, Burning Man, China, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Indiana Jones, Kim Jong - Un, Labor Day, Leeward Islands, Michael Eros, Nikki Haley, Peggy Whitson, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, Saba, Shia LeBeouf, Siri, Xi
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
September 3, 2017
Earlier today, I went to pick up the mail at the Post Office and as I was about to turn off the car, an interview started on NPR with Andrew White who, along with hundreds of other volunteer Texans, formed what is known as the “Texas Navy” and went out into the flooded streets of Houston. With a sixteen-foot boat and a twenty-horsepower motor and the help of friends, he rescued at least a hundred people, including a man with cerebral palsy and a man who was being treated for cancer and was having a bad reaction to his treatment and needed to get to his hospital. They got him within two blocks of where he needed to go; later the water in the neighborhood of the man with cerebral palsy rose another five feet after the rescue.
Sitting there, tears began flowing down my cheeks. Andrew White’s story was replicated by others all over Harris County which holds the city of Houston, citizen volunteers taking care of other citizens in need. It was the story of what is so often wonderful about this country.
Writing about it causing tears to build in my eyes and I am sniffling.
These are the stories, replicated in all kinds of tragedies around this country, that are the reasons we are great. Oh, we’re miserable S.O.B.’s sometimes but when it comes to disaster, we rise to the challenge in an incredible way and that makes me proud.
From Louisiana came the “Cajun Navy” that formed after Katrina, men and women who knew firsthand what was happening on the ground in Texas and they brought in their bayou boats and lent a hand, calling it “paying it forward.” Just as Texans had come to help them in Katrina.
Houston is home to thousands of refugees from Katrina, people who have found it hard to believe they are living through this twice in their lives.
J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans has raised over $12 million between practices for the coming season, coming off the field to work the phones.
Watt’s hometown is Pewaukee, WI and semis are traveling from there loaded with food and water and supplies. He started out with a goal of raising $200,000 and he just kept on going. Texas billionaire, Michael Dell, has pledged $36 million.
A group of “monster trucks,” organized by a group called Rednecks with Paychecks, is roaming the area, rescuing people and vehicles.
440,000 people have registered for aid from FEMA, as the Mayor of Houston is appealing for an “army” of FEMA officials to help with the claims.
The area that was water covered was larger than the state of Rhode Island. As the water recedes, it leaves behind contaminated water unfit for human consumption, filled with pathogens. Shelters, sometimes islands in a sea of water, are running low or out of food and water.
The damaged Arkema chemical plant can no longer cool the dangerous materials stored there and authorities have evacuated everyone within a mile and a half of the facility. There have been “pops” and plumes of smoke from the plant with no one knowing whether that’s all there is going to be or if it is just the beginning. “Brock” Long, head of FEMA, called the situation there incredibly dangerous.
Bowling alleys are filled with people; Walmart parking lots have been helipads.
And what is amazing and so wonderful and so DAMN great, is that so much of what is happening is unorganized. It is just people getting out to help other people. One man observed that no one was really organizing anything. People seemed to have an instinct for what needed to be done.
Like the “Texas Navy” and Andrew White, who it turns out is the son of a former Texas governor who passed away last month, and the people in the “Cajun Navy.”
People helping other people in a way that moves me to tears, far away, in the soft safety of my cottage.
Tags:Brock Long, Cajun Navy, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, FEMA, Houston Texas, Hurricane Harvey, JJ Watt, Politics, Texas Navy
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Flood Insurance, Greene County New York, Homelessness, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 29, 2017
There are days we take to catch up and today was one of them for me. Once it had warmed enough [and yes, we are reaching that part of the year], I went out to the deck and set up shop, sipping my morning coffee while Amazon’s “Sarah Vaughn Station” played [and plays] in the background.
A backlog of work got done today; some of it in preparation for “Prison Alley Tales” which will broadcast live from the Red Dot Restaurant and Bar on Warren Street in Hudson at 7:00 PM tonight. If you’re in the listening area, that’s 90.7 on your FM dial and, if you’re not, it’s available at www.wgxc.org/listen.
It’s the umbrella title for a collection of stories, recollections, monologues and performance pieces from the WGXC Diamond Street Radio Players, an ad hoc group of local artists and performers. It appears to be shaping up as a fun night and I’m really glad; I like fun nights.
The day resulted in my recycling about three pounds of paper that had piled on my desk and now, at the end of the day, I am on deck, working on one of my “letters.”
It has been a day of calm and music and fun work.
Every hour or so, I checked on Houston and it’s not good. At last count, 2,000 rescues had been performed and another 185 were waiting to be performed. Ten are dead which seems a blessing after Katrina and its hundreds.
My friend, Janice McDonald, is in Houston, reporting on it. Look her up on Facebook for her first-hand reports.
There is some irony here. Texas is experiencing one of the most horrific of natural events and its Federal legislators voted against help to Hurricane Sandy victims. Let us hope that legislators in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy aren’t as mean spirited when Texas asks for help, as it will.
It will be years before this is undone.
Mark me in the column of glad I have a hybrid car as Hurricane Harvey may cause gas prices to rise by a dollar or more as 15% of the refinery resources in the country are being pummeled by this storm.
Also, mark me glad I quit smoking. The price of cigarettes in New York City are now at $13.00 a pack, highest in the nation. I feel better and I’m not as cash strapped as I would be if I were smoking. It’s now been at least 15 years and only once in a great while do I feel the pull to a smoke; usually in a bar, martini in hand while having some deeply intellectual conversation that probably won’t be remembered in the morning.
That was another day. Not today.
Today the creek is astoundingly clear; water rippling in the soft wind that has arrived.
While I was sitting on the deck, in the quiet of my life, the pudgy little dictator in North Korea sent a missile flying over Japan which is just inflaming those regional tensions.
Oh, yikes. He needs a lot of attention that boy.
As does our President. And that is part of what makes me creepily uncomfortable with him – the amount of attention he needs. And demands. And gets.
The Washington Post is reporting that while seeking the presidency, Mr. Trump was also seeking a deal in Russia to build a Trump Tower there. Felix Sater, a Trump associate, was running around bragging the deal would get The Donald elected. This one hasn’t/can’t be completely parsed out yet but the Russia thing is not going away and I wonder what is happening in Robert Mueller’s office at this very minute.
As I go to bed tonight, I will pray for Houston and be grateful I have not had to experience anything like what they are going through. My whole life, for the most part, has been lucky. I’ve not had any Sandy’s or Harvey’s in my life. Irene went through here a few years ago and spared me; around me there was catastrophe but in my sweet spot of the earth, not much.
Let’s think of Houston. Pray for them.
Tags:Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Felix Sater, Houston, Janice McDonald, Kim Jong - Un, Prison Alley Tales, Robert Mueller, Trump, WGXC
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, gas prices, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 15, 2017
Staring out my brother’s kitchen, the day is beautiful after a series of grey and gloomy ones. After prevaricating for days, I have finally determined I will return home on Friday and am now looking forward to returning to the comforts of the cottage. My kitchen is freshly painted and I will do a re-org of it upon my return.
This afternoon, I am going over to St. Paul to visit my cousin’s ex-wife at the home where she works with her mother, caring for developmentally challenged adults.
And then, this evening, I will be dining with Christine Olson, a friend from college days. She dated one of my roommates; we have stayed close. He and I have not.
Being in Minneapolis is always a time of sorting memories. Yesterday, I had breakfast with my ex-sister-in-law, which is hard for me to say as she is still, in my mind, my sister-in-law, even if she and my brother are no longer married. We, as we always do, laughed and giggled and had fun.
Last night, I dined with my nieces, Kristin and Theresa, Theresa’s son Emile, his girlfriend, Irene, and we, too, laughed and giggled and reminisced about some good things and some hard things.
And so there is a sorting of thoughts. The rocking horse was my brother’s and I inherited it and rode it in our “rumpus room” in the basement long after he had last touched it. Now it sits in his bedroom, a reminder of the past.
My best friend from high school came up from Chicago to see me this weekend and as we sat on Friday afternoon, working at this kitchen table, I looked up at him and laughed. We both settle back in to being with each other in minutes and it is a comfort from knowing him a lifetime.
It was important for me that he knew how much I loved him and how important it has been that he has been in my life. I hope I succeeded. We have reached the part of our lives where we definitely can’t see around the corners.
As usual, jazz plays as I write. I care for jazz the way Sidney does in “Grantchester.” It has become a thread in my life.
And it captures the melancholy that comes from sorting thoughts, working to put the pieces of the puzzle together, a never-ending process in life.
At dinner last night, we talked of my mother and one of my nieces shook her head. Her grandmother was a complicated individual who sometimes delighted us and often vexed us. Always kind to strangers, that kindness did not always extend to her kin. As she aged and as dementia set in, her granddaughters occasionally saw her rage and it shook them.
As the rage of the White Supremacist movement shook me this weekend when one of them, barely an adult, drove his car into a group of counter protesters and killed a woman and injured nineteen in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Our president’s tepid “many sides” response to the incident has resulted in a series of resignations from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council.
The first to leave was Ken Frazier, CEO of pharmaceutical company, Merck. Trump viciously attacked him for doing so. Critics of Trump have pointed out that Frazier is black.
The others who have left are white and, so far, have not been targeted by the kind of ire that hit Frazier. They have also not mentioned Charlottesville.
FORTUNE, a magazine I do not think of as a bastion of liberal thought, has praised Frazier’s resignation as an act of courage.
The others have only been called “grand-standers” by Trump. The latest to go is Scott Paul, head of the American Manufacturing Alliance. And Mr. Trump knows “plenty” who will replace these “grand-standers.”
As I begin to wind down my time in Minneapolis, I continue sorting my thoughts, fitting the past into my present. As I must sort and parse the actions of a president whose reactions and words defy my understanding of his position and the kind of deportment it requires.
Here is a link to what Jimmy Fallon had to say and it was well said.
Tags:American Manufacturing Council, Charlottesville, Christine Olson, Devonna Tombers, Grandstanders, Jimmy Fallon, Ken Frazier, life, Media, Minneapolis, Minnesota, St. Paul, Tom Fudali
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2017
As is not unusual, jazz is playing in the background as I am sitting at the kitchen table of my brother and sister-in-law’s home in Bloomington, MN. Last night, after my arrival, a magnificent thunderstorm slashed across the sky and I sat for a while, watching out the window. In a strange way, it felt warm and comfortable, evoking some good childhood memory.
Sleeping in later than usual, I found myself feeling plastered to the mattress from a heavy sleep that had wrapped itself around me. Morpheus kept blowing tenderly on my face.
The weather today promised more thunderstorms though none arrived, though the sky is mostly leaden and threatening. Soon a friend from high school will pick me up and we’ll go off to see other friends.
When and how I return to the cottage is undecided. I arrived by train and maybe I will train back, maybe fly or drive or…
For reasons I don’t understand but which I accept, I am wanting not to feel boxed in by a defined schedule even though I am scheduling lots of time with family and friends.
Ah, I looked up and a soft rain has started. Best I take my umbrella this evening.
This morning, I deleted every email that contained news. I didn’t want to know until after a couple of cups of coffee because our world does seem more and more unsettled. A few minutes ago, I opened Google News and the top story was “Meet Kim Jung Un, A Moody Man with a Nuclear Arsenal” from the New York Times.
Well, as I pondered whether I was going to click on the link, I thought of our president, who I think of a as a moody man and he has a bigger nuclear arsenal than Kim Jung Un and I just don’t know what to think any more about much of anything.
As I am away from my home as I write this, I jokingly [but not totally] said to a colleague, I want to be back home before the apocalypse.
The president has raised the verbal ante and has declared we are “locked and loaded,” which, according to reports from retired generals, we are not anywhere near.
China has declared it will remain neutral if North Korea strikes first and not if we do. Russia is saying we are both being belligerent and they’re right. We are. Well, President Trump is being belligerent; everyone else is trying to keep things calm. I feel sorry for John Kelly, now Chief of Staff. What a job he has! And not one I would want.
The president is taking on Mitch McConnell, which pundits are saying is not a wise move.
And do we expect wisdom from this president?
Not now, not ever, I am sad to say.
Tags:Bloomington MN, General, Jazz, John Kelly, Kim Jung-un, life, Locked and loaded, Mitch McConnell, Morpheus, North Korea
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 9, 2017
As I begin this, I am rolling through the lush green country of eastern Virginia; we will cross shortly into West Virginia and then begin moving leisurely north through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and then to Chicago for I am on Train #29, the Capitol Limited from Washington, DC to Chicago.
The sun is still high in the west, the side of the train on which I am riding, ensconced in a bedroom compartment, about the size of my bathroom at the cottage; very amenities complete. Dinner is at 6:45 and I am eager to find out who my dining companions will be. Everyone in the past has been a memorable character and I see no reason why this time should be different.
For reasons that have eluded me, yesterday and today, I have been on the cranky side. Yesterday was full of errands to be done before I left and every one of them took more time than allotted. Racing up to Albany, I made a doctor’s appointment exactly on time when I was sure I was going to be late. There was a delicious moment when I felt I had caught up with my day.
Then I was told I had arrived forty-five minutes too early. Stunned, I decided to go get a cup of coffee as I had yet to have any. Returning, there were different receptionists who chided me for being late. Disbelieving of me telling them I had been on time, I finally convinced them. The first receptionist had apparently misread the calendar. Discovering they were all upset because I was to have tests I had not been told I was going to have, I did something very uncharacteristic of me: I was not a good boy.
Taking the forms, I put them down on the counter and said I was upset and would call them when I returned from my trip.
Today was much better and still, though, a little on the cranky side until I rode out to the train with a woman from Greenville, SC. She wanted to see a picture of my creek and when I showed it to her, she said: you’re blessed.
And I am. How quickly we get caught up in the shoelaces of our lives and forget the bigger picture. Taking a very deep breath, I have now settled into my compartment and am enjoying the view out my window: trees in the full flush of green, a river and a bridge crossing it with the sound of clacking train wheels. It is a good moment.
Not so good is the news flash that North Korea, with its pudgy, petulant and unpredictable little dictator has probably miniaturized nuclear warheads to go on top of those ICBMS he has been testing.
Our president has warned him in no uncertain terms that if he uses them he will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
So, we have an unpredictable barely man dictator with nuclear weapons facing an unpredictable aging man boy petulant president who has the nuclear codes to the biggest arsenal on earth. Could this end badly?
Unfortunately, yes.
If it does, I want to be home. At the cottage, with jazz playing and a good martini in front of me because I will absolutely need it.
There are two very huge egos at play here and no one knows how the China card will play. Probably, hopefully, pray God it is, this will all be okay.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, even more than my parents did, I knew, as a child, we were in a dangerous place. We are again and don’t have a John Kennedy and his team, for all his crazy faults, to pull us out.
We have Donald Trump, with all his crazy faults and few strengths I can find, and a team that seems more like The Three Stooges.
Tags:Amtrak, Capitol Limited, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Cuban Missile Crisis, Donald Trump, John Kennedy, Kim Jung-un, life, Media, Politics, The Three Stooges
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 8, 2017
It is a quiet night; the creek is crystal clear and a squirrel has just paraded down the deck, padding along, obviously unafraid of me.
This morning I did coffee hour at church, bringing, as I frequently do, too much food though everyone was appreciative and there should be almost enough for coffee hour next week, when I am in Minneapolis.
Returning home, I put the extra food I had in the refrigerator and then returned to have a late lunch with my friends, Larry and Alicia. Arriving early, I wrote a poem while waiting.
Sun and shadow dapple road,
curving toward town where
friends await.
A different life now,
slow, time for noticing
the dappled road;
for clasping close
all kind of friends.
To stretch my brain a bit, I am working to write a poem a day. Most days I do, not always, but most days.
Looking up, there is a canopy of green above me and nature is humming around me. It’s amazing that in the peace of my deck there is so much noise. Insects and birds, soft sound of water, far off the sound of trucks now and again, traversing the highway almost half a mile away.
It’s been a day when I have not listened to news or read anything until just a bit ago. There is, you know, only so much one can take.
It is interesting that Vice President Pence is going to great lengths to deny he is making “campaign style” visits to places. Governor Kasich is, I think. However, it is not possible to deny that even at this early stage Republicans are beginning to look to take the place of The Donald on the stage he now holds.
The Donald is in New Jersey at one of his golf clubs in a retreat from the White House will three million dollars plus in renovations are being made. It was just last week that President Trump is reputed to have said the place was “a dump.”
Really, I hope not too much gold is being added.
Venezuela is tottering toward dictatorship and economic collapse which will not be good for gas prices, I keep reading.
Tuesday, I am heading to Minnesota where, to my dismay, a mosque was bombed in Bloomington, the suburb in which my brother lives. That was not “Minnesota nice.”
The world is a very strange place. I mean really, really, strange and, you know, this has gone on forever but it just seems like somehow we should have moved beyond so many of these things and, hopefully, we will in generations to come.
It is there I must place hope.
In this time of my life, I am being as active as I can and, at the same time, treasuring more than I ever have the wonders of my life: an interesting life now and in my past, a creek that flows quietly by a home I think I imagined once and made reality, good friends, good dinners, times of good conversation, some travel for good reasons, a sense I have been luckier than most in keeping alive friendships from my past and carrying than into my present.
There is a tree along the creek that is always the first harbinger of fall and it is beginning to tell me fall is coming.
I’m not ready for it. Though I will accept it as one must.
Tags:Alicia Vergara, Bloomington MN, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Friends, Kasich, Larry Divney, Media, Mike Pence, poetry, Politics, The Donald, Venezuela
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 2, 2017
The last several days, my deck has been my living room, my office and my dining room. It’s here I have spent the daylight hours. As I type now, a storm threatens with distant thunderclaps.
The water in the creek is so clear I can see stones that line its bottom. The day is cooling as I sit here; having been warm and humid.
On August 8th, I am departing Hudson and journeying by train to Minneapolis for a reunion of old friends. Whenever I tell people I am making a trip by train they ask me if I am afraid to fly? No, says the man who, for a time in his life, flew at least a hundred thousand miles a year.
Trains are interesting because there is a sense of a journey when taking them. It’s not a magic carpet ride from place to place [though these days rarely is flying a magic carpet ride]. It is a journey, as you pass places and towns, sit for meals, read, look up and see surprising things and meet surprising people. You have an incredible sense of going from place to place and I love it.
It will give me a chance to think, contemplate, speculate, dream, postulate and hopefully not pontificate.
And then, when I am ready, I will fly home from Minneapolis. My trip is a bit open ended, a reflection of the joys of my life right now.
While the water in the creek is clear, so very little else is clear.We have lived through the extraordinary and extraordinarily short tenure of the foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director. In that brief time, he missed the birth of his son and was served with divorce papers by his wife.
He texted his congratulations to her on the birth of their son. Might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back…
Seth Rich was a young man working for the DNC. He was murdered. Fox News suggested he was murdered because he had leaked emails from the DNC. A lawsuit has been filed by a Fox contributor that claims Fox colluded with the White House on the story that Mr. Rich was the leaker when he was not.
How convoluted this all is.
Politics has always been a dirty business and it seems dirtier than ever right now. Or, at least in my memory.
As “any father would,” Donald Trump helped craft the statement Donald Trump, Jr. made about his meeting with some Russians, who promised him dirt on Hillary. That’s the story from the White House. Other, less kind versions, have him dictating the statement his son gave.
It’s another JDLR – just doesn’t look right.
After six months, I am worn out.
Really, I am. Every day when I wake up, I wonder what new roil I am going to encounter in the news. There is no shortage of them.
General John Kelly has been named Chief of Staff at the White House. Is there a more painful job in the world right now? I mean, really!? Kelly kicked Scaramucci’s butt out which shows he is exercising control and has demanded the President pay attention.
Good luck with that. Trump’s tweets early this morning goaded his new Chief of Staff about not promoting the stock market heights it has achieved may indicate his attention span lasted the night. It’s not your Chief of Staff’s job, Mr. Trump, to spend his second day in his job telling people how great the market under you is. That, arguably, is for your Communications Director.
Oh, yes, you don’t have one right now, do you, Mr. Trump?
And, as several friends remind me, we will survive Trump.
Thank goodness. At times, I think of the Roman Empire which survived a hundred bad Emperors, carried along by the bureaucracy that supported it. As we will be, by the bureaucracy we have built but we may have lost the dream, I’m afraid.
John F. Kennedy was one of our most flawed presidents and yet he inspired us.
And, while there have been monsters enough in human history, we now have ones with nuclear weapons, like the North Korean dictator who is testing ICMB’s, an acronym whose meaning had almost slipped from my mind since the Cold War.
Yikes!
Every Sunday since January 20th, I have lit a candle for us, the people of the United States, as well as all the other people out there who are living on this crazy planet. And for solutions to the craziness…
Tags:Chief of Staff Kelly, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News, General Kelly, Hudson NY, ICBM, JDLR, John Kelly, Minneapolis, North Korea missiles, Roman Empire, Scaramucci, Seth Rich, technology
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 28, 2017
A gray, foggy morning yielded to a fairly sunny, rather cool afternoon; whenever the sun slipped behind a cloud I was tempted to come into the house from my perch on the deck while the cleaning crew spiffed the house.
Now, with cottage clean, I am sitting at the dining room table, sliders open to the deck. Birds are singing and music from the 1940’s is playing on my Echo.
Returning from the Vineyard Tuesday, I made myself a martini, wrote a poem, and found myself purchasing Christmas presents from a site that emails regularly, from which I buy irregularly and, yesterday, had some things I wanted. Saying there were only four available, I pounced. I think they were being clever as the number available never went below four.
Insane for Christmas shopping in July? No. It saves so much stress come November. In January, I saw something I thought would be perfect for my friends, Nick and Lisa, and thought: if not now, when? And, you know, I have been back to that store several times and not seen the item again.
All this, the creek and future Christmas shopping, visiting my friends on Martha’s Vineyard, is very hygge. And I need all the hygge I can get.
Monday or Tuesday I received a scree from a relative who supports Trump that was filled with things that made me flinch, a repudiation of most of the things I think are advancements. Should we go back to the days of a segregated America?
And while I look out at my sun kissed creek, I read that Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has published a 252-page pamphlet on how to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack. That was something I needed to read a couple of times. Hawaii is also preparing for such an event and I am holding my head to keep it from exploding.
Somewhere along the line in my now longish life, I read that one of the contributing factors in the fall of Rome was lead poisoning. Romans lined their wine amphorae with lead which leached into the wine they drank and we all know lead poisoning isn’t good.
Sperm count has dropped by 50% in the western world in the last forty years. Gives me pause to wonder what historians will say about the cause. Pesticide poisoning? Another reason?
President Trump addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree this week. What you thought of his speech probably depends on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Speaking of our President, his relentless attacks on Attorney General Sessions seem to have many Republicans up in arms, particularly in the Senate where Sessions was a member for a lot of years and it’s a tight club.
Republican Senator John McCain, with whom I have often not agreed [particularly in his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice], made a speech for bipartisanship after returning from surgery for a brain tumor. If you want to both hear and read what he said, click here. It reminded me of the times I have liked him.
Our president is not going to allow transgender individuals to serve in the Armed Forces. It’s not necessary for me to elucidate the storm that has created, not the least of which happened in the Pentagon, caught off guard by a Twitter announcement of a policy change.
The president made mention of medical costs for transgendered individuals which turns out to be less than what the Army spends on Viagra each year.
The cynic in me feels it was announced to please his base and divert attention from all the White House chaos.
Hello, Anthony Scaramucci!
The world in which I live seems so mad on so many levels that I am grateful I have the ability to sit here and look out at my canopy of green, look down into my creek and see the bottom of it through the clear, clear water, that I can listen to music and celebrate it, that I have had the chance to stare out at Edgartown harbor thanks to the kindness of my friends who invite me to visit them, that, even though I think the world right now more mad than it has been since my adolescence, I have places and moments of refuge.
Tags:Anthony Scaramucci, Brad Pitt, Christmas in July, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Echo, Edgartown, Fall of Rome, General, Jeff Sessions, John McCain, Martha's Vineyard, North Korea bombing, Obamacare, Sperm Count, technology, Transgender military ban, Trumpcare, Ventura County
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 09 04 2017
September 4, 2017It is an excruciatingly beautiful day at the cottage, the sun is warm, a wind blows to temper it, the only sound is soft jazz in the other room. I have just finished a late lunch of eggs, sunny side up, steak and toast, eaten on the deck. The first leaves have begun to fall, scattered on the table top, reminding me of the fleetingness of time.
Soon we will be in another season, fall, which I love and loathe, as I always seem so alive in the fall and, at the same time, so painfully aware life is short and death is long. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid, walking down the leaf strewn streets of south Minneapolis, knowing winter was coming and being entranced by the magic in the air.
It is Labor Day, 2017.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is ‘a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.’ Labor Day is a ‘yearly national tribute’ to the “contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and wellbeing of our country. Newsweek, 9/04/2017
And it is a holiday with a bloody history. “Labor” wasn’t always celebrated. Suggested reading: Walter Lord’s “The Good Years.”
The summer is unofficially ending when this day becomes part of history. When I was a kid, it meant school was starting the next day so this was a day I always endured fearfully. Today, I am not fearful about returning to school. There are other things…
Kim Jong-Un has me a little fearful as does having Trump be the president who is facing him. There was some analysis this morning that the timing of Kim’s tests of bombs and missiles has more to do with tweaking President Xi of China than with President Trump. The latest bomb test came just as Xi was greeting officials from the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Took the wind out of Xi’s sails in terms of making news. Kim does these things lately just as Xi is set to make some news. Hey, I’m HERE, President Xi! Got it? I’m here and I’ve got some pretty big toys!
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said North Korea “is begging for war.” President Trump is saying, “All options are on the table.” This might not end well.
Down in the Caribbean sits the Dutch island of Saba, part of the Leeward Islands, which I visited in February. Friends have retired there and are sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Irma, now a category 4 storm. An email today said they will be in the eye of the hurricane tomorrow and were busily preparing, friends helping friends prepare for what could be a very nasty ride. If you pray, think of them.
Michael Eros, son of my longtime friends, Mary Clare and Jim Eros, is returning to Houston today after the Burning Man Festival. He left Houston before Harvey hit and he will now find out what it has done to his city. He and friends built a giant figure which they burned, leaving behind the metal shell.
Harvey will likely be the most expensive storm in history; it is believed 180 billion dollars of damage has been done. Ted Cruz is having a hard time now explaining why he voted against Sandy help now that he is asking for Harvey help. The phrase, “people who live in glass houses,” comes to mind.
There are joyful things happening in the world. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child. Peggy Whitson has returned from the International Space Station, having notched more time in space than any other American. There will be another Indiana Jones film, without Shia LeBeouf’s character. A young girl in Harvey’s floodwaters got herself and her family rescued by asking Siri to call the Coast Guard, which rescued her as she was slipping into a sickle cell anemia crisis.
Bad things will happen. Good things will happen. All we need to do, to keep moving forward, is not to blow ourselves up. I’ll pray for that.
Tags:Angelina Jolie, Begging for war, Burning Man, China, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Indiana Jones, Kim Jong - Un, Labor Day, Leeward Islands, Michael Eros, Nikki Haley, Peggy Whitson, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, Saba, Shia LeBeouf, Siri, Xi
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »