Thursday, January 29th, 2004

Wise Words for Today --
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."-- Thomas Paine, born on this day in 1737, author of the little book that changed the world, Common Sense, the man who also said, "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

I wrote about OMF (our mutual friend, I'm sure) Thomas Paine at some length a year past – you can read about the thinker responsible for galvanizing American colonists to revolt from England by choosing 1/29/03 from the archive date selector above. What I didn't mention a year ago is that beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where the temperatures have already soared to the teens below zero some four hours 'ere rosy-fingered dawn does his daily routine, along with all of the Great Plains, owes a fellow who hails from Nebraska and now suffers the chills and misery of a Maryland winter as much as America is indebted to Thomas Paine. Going' a couple of decades past, I first met among the most kindred souls I know, Carrol Peterson, who was teaching English at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, when he responded to a call for a humanities scholar to interpret Thomas Paine in a chautauqua featuring Henry Adams, Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as well for the annual tour of five states from the Red River of the South to the Red River of the North – Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the two Dakotas. Carrol and I share a love of pie – which both of us have considerably curtailed of late; a childhood and youth on a family subsistence farm on the Great Plains; and an eclectic taste in literature, music, and all human expression. I digress, of course, but 'tis mightily difficult not to wax the weest bit nostalgic when I think of my friend, Carrol – who spent many more summers on the chautauqua trail, presenting Walt Whitman, Jack London – and most recently that great American humorist, James Thurber, for an east-coast group formed by Great Plains Chautauqua's moderator for so many years, George Frein who moved from balmy Grand Forks near the Canadian border on the Red River of the North to the harsh inclemency of South Carolina clime a few years back. We keep in touch through email, Carrol and I – we last saw each other some months back when he and his lovin' spouse, Lois, came down to Washington, D.C. on a rainy, miserable Sunday morning to meet me and my friend Dave Solheim of Dickinson.

Carrol was on the stage the night the Great Plains Chautauqua Society's effort to bring the passionate principles of some of America's writers and thinkers to all the people of the plains so impressed a young man traveling through Bismarck that he discussed it with his boss, the editor at Harper's Magazine, no slouch at turning a phrase that pleases and gets one to ponder himself, Lewis Lapham, to write up what the humanities can do for the public if presented by scholar of Carrol's ilk. On the great lawn in front of the Capitol Building in Bismarck on a warm sunny night, Carrol Peterson – dressed in tights and the traditional dress of the 1770s in Great Britain and America – spoke as Thomas Paine and explained his agnosticism and deep misgivings about the role of religion in a rational social compact. In the front row beneath the big blue and white tent of the Great Plains Chautauqua Society sat a large family of Dakota folk of deep fundamental Christian persuasion, a family who schooled their children at home because of their mistrust of the public school system and what they perceived as a an attempt to undermine their children's values with a version with a philosophy they named humanism (which often is, but should not be, confused with the humanities). Carrol as Thomas Paine and this passionate family exchanged views without rancor or anger, without anyone raising their voices. 'Twas as though the Dakota family had time-traveled to the soul-trying times of the 1770s to ask Thomas Paine a few questions. The young reporter told the story of his experience in Bismarck to Lapham, who told it to the nation and concluded, "America needs more of this." (Don't know, I must admit, kola, if that's the exact phrase, for I don't have that article at hand at the moment – need to find it one of these days, or perhaps Carrol has it and will remind me.) We certainly do need more Carrol Peterson's and such nights on the plains and throughout the nation, my kola. Chautauqua continues to thrive, by the way. 'Twas Paine who also said, "It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." And Lapham continues to illuminate our understanding of who we humans and from whence we came with light, not heat, in a way few can come close matching for its clarity. This past year, for example, he gave what I consider to be among the five greatest commencement addresses of all time – one titled "Merlin's Owl" which he gave to St. John's College at Annapolis on May 11, 2003. Said Lapham in the opening minutes of that address,

Begin Lapham Quote
If I bear in mind the syllabus with which the class of 2003 has been engaged over the last four years, I don’t know how else to think of your invitation to deliver a commencement speech except as the proverbial praise from Caesar. I count it both as an honor and as a piece of luck because I’m always glad of the chance to try for an answer to the question, “What in God’s name are the humanities, and why are they of any use to us here in the bright blue, technological wonder of the 21st Century?”

The standard set of answers read like funeral orations—newspaper columnists mourning the death of western civilization, editors of alumni magazines likening the humanities to a suite of virgins set upon by Philistines or dogs, college deans talking about the precious ornaments of ancient art and modern literature buried in the tomb of a medieval library. The sanctimony is traditional, and invariably reminds me of a poem by Archibald MacLeish, “Freedom that was a thing to use, they’ve made a thing to save, and dug round and fenced it in, like a dead man’s grave.”

A mistake to think of the humanities as luxuries, or as a decent appearance that must be kept up, like the country club membership or the house in Palm Beach. Necessities. I can think of no other set of studies more relevant to our present circumstance. Our technologists bear comparison to the sorcerer’s apprentice, producing continuously improved means toward increasingly ill-defined ends. Unless we look to the humanities to clean up the mess, we stand a better than even chance of killing ourselves with our new toys.
End Lapham Quote

Aye, a mistake indeed. And 'tis the greatest of mistakes to dismiss as unworthy down-home cultural expression – such as the music of the man who introduced the blues to the white Americans, the great "Leadbelly," Huddie Ledbetter, born on this day in 1885. He's the guy who switched from six-string to twelve-string guitar, who picked up his signature song (Leadbelly could render some 500 different blues songs), "Good Night, Irene" sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, and who learned at the feet of Blind Lemon Jefferson in the mid-1910s. Jefferson had to leave Leadbelly behind when Huddie went afoul of the law – in 1917, Leadbelly went to prison for a thirty-year sentence for shooting a man in Texas – and from Shaw State Prison Farm, he continued to sing – he was pardoned on his last day in office by Pat Neff, the Texas governor who visited the prison and heard Leadbelly play in 1925. Leadbelly suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease – and he died in December 1949 at the height of international fame, about two months short of his sixty-fifth birthday. His last concert was at the University of Texas in June of that year – 'twas taped – and 'tis among the finest of sounds you'll ever hear.

Just proves for me, kola, that, all right, it may be true that if you don't like Beethoven, your soul is scabbed – but, kola, if you don't dig Leadbelly, you have a hole in soul that you ought to repair. You can follow his version with the lyrics below:

I asked your mother for you
She told me you were too young
I wish to god I'd never seen your face
I wish that 'eed never been born

CHO:
Good night Irene, good night
Good night Irene
Good night Irene
Good night Irene
I'll get you in my dream

Sometimes I lives in the Country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I has a great notion
To jump into the river and drown

Cho

Stop ramblin' and stop gamblin
Stop stayin' out late at night
Go home to your wife and your family
Sit down by the fireside bright

Cho

I love my Irene
Love 'er till the sea runs dry
An' if Irene turns her back on me
I gonna take morphine and die

Cho

Obviously, Leadbelly didn't live by the sentiments of his famous "Good Night, Irene" – he always had hope, and kept on singing the blues until he died – and 'twasn't by taking morphine in grief over Irene scorning him. To the end, he had hope that his singing might begin the world anew, would heal even as his blues recognized the enormous pain we humans sometimes endure – and often at our own hands.

Hope. That's the subject of great book I'll be reading this weekend – at the recommendation of my good friend, Carrol Peterson, who wrote and told me about it yesterday. 'Tis Dr. Jerome Groopman's The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness. For some of us -- as characters in the great Russian dramatist Chekov's play, Uncle Vanya, advise -- the answer is work – but "work" of a special kind – the meaningful, soul-salving work in the humanities and a search for social justice or in singing the blues – "work" of the kind done by the ilk of Thomas Paine, Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter, Jerome Groopman, and Carrol Peterson. We salute the memory of Chekov, born on this day in 1860. Chekov completed his passage in the middle world in 1904, when Leadbelly was singing the blues as a nineteen-year-old and making a name for himself throughout his native Louisiana and the South among folks who knew what the blues are, baby. There's more than the weest bit of truth in Chekov's observation that "The more refined one is, the more unhappy." Chekov also said, "The only difference between doctors and lawyers is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you, too."

That too, methinks, is partly true – especially those physicians who presume to deny any human facing a grave illness her/his greatest weapon in fighting the invader – and that, my kola, is hope. Groopman is a New Yorker staff writer and a Harvard Medical School professor. Both humanities scholar and oncologist, he insists in his new book, which I'll report to you on in more detail later, that medical professionals, especially physicians, have enormous power to instill or kill hope. 'Tis, after all, one of the big three, 'tis is not – "Faith, hope and charity." I'm of the passionate opinion, based on considerable personal experience, that those who offer tough love and think they are doing their patients a great favor by telling them they'll be dead in a matter of months ought to be publicly whipped and pilloried, disgraced as traitors to humanity, plagued by whatever gods may be by boils, hourly-alternating diarrhea and constipation, completed by the worst case of hemorrhoids imaginable. I would wish them less than well, but I'm a fellow who curbs his passionate outrage. "We are just beginning to appreciate hope’s reach," Groopman writes, "and have not defined its limits. I see hope as the very heart of healing." And the heart of damnable quackery of the worst ilk are those oh-so-proper medical professionals who kill hope. They are far, far worse than all those who perpetrate the scams on desperately ill folk in search of keeping such as the insidious invader, the Big C, at bay – from vitamin hucksters to Polynesian juice peddlers.

Ah, but 'tis too fine a day, too great a day to be alive to dwell too much on such loathsome self-appointed predictors of one's destiny. I've been salved from such by the folk at the Midwestern Regional Medical Center at Zion, Illinois, one of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, where I've been treated with the best the scientific medical community has to offer for a full year – since January 2003. I arrived at Zion in search of some hope after being given a six-month death sentence by the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. All I have to say is that those pompous physicians who deal out death sentences there ought to be sat down and read some Groopman.

'Tis time for the weest bit of nourishment – a caramel roll ala my friend Idell Albers, some Welch's grape juice – perhaps a bit of Malt O Meal – and then to work, to life – 'tis a day that will not come my way again. Do take care of yourselves kola – may your lives be blessed with such caring friends as Carrol Peterson – and may you find time to take care of each other the way those caring medical professionals at Zion do unto all those who walk through the doors of the Midwestern Regional Medical Center. We're here to offer each other hope – let us begin the word anew – and say with our actions the conviction of Thomas Paine: "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." Of course, he meant to say, "all humans are my sisters and brothers" – but he wrote before no few the world recognized women as complete human beings – as well as African Americans, Jews, and anyone else noticeably different than themselves. That insanity continues, and we ought to be doing something about it. I'm taking a hard look at our national leaders with Paine's observation that "Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." Methinks we have one or two who are being the weest bit unfaithful to themselves and us in terms of Paine's "infidelity." Fact is, some might be tempted to say whatever necessary, whether they believe it or not, just to be reelected or elected to office. Believe it or not. Damn it all, they ought not.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004

Wise Words for Today --
"Most people in this society
who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics."-- Susan Sontag, who celebrates her seventy-first birthday on this very crisp and comfortably seasonable day in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota. Sontag also said, "The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.," and "Sanity is a cozy lie."

Aye, methinks you're right, Susan Sontag. You can find the biography of this remarkable thinker on the World Wide Web here. She has summarized my own interest in the humanities and the way the humanities in general and literature in particular can inform and illuminate what my passage here in the middle world means: "If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader and then as a writer, it is an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other words, other territories." We simply don't have the time to experience all that humans might experience or have harbored in their hearts – literature is a way for us to connect to all of our relatives, for with share with all who ever passed through this middle world certain ideals and values that are the birthright of humans – what Carl Jung called the "collective unconscious." That is, we are born not with a mind that is a clean slate, an unchalked blackboard, but with images and dreams that are common with those who first made the borning cry millennia upon millennia ago. Among the dozen or more books she has in print is the classic Against Interpretation, which came out in the 60s, and her wondrously crafted Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. In these essays, she explores the way in which our attitude toward particular illnesses has everything to do with how they affect our lives and the passage in the middle world of those we love --

Begin Sontag excerpt
Two diseases have been spectacularly, and similarly, encumbered by the trappings of metaphor: tuberculosis and cancer.

The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious -- that is, a disease not understood -- in an era in which medicine's central premise is that all diseases can be cured. Such a disease is, by definition, mysterious. For as long as its cause was not understood and the ministrations of doctors remained so ineffective, TB was thought to be an insidious, implacable theft of a life. Now it is cancer's turn to be the disease that doesn't knock before it enters, cancer that fills the role of an illness experienced as a ruthless, secret invasion -- a role it will keep until, one day, its etiology becomes as clear and its treatment as effective as those of TB have become.
. . . .
When, not so many decades ago, learning that one had TB was tantamount to hearing a sentence of death -- as today, in the popular imagination, cancer equals death -- it was common to conceal the identity of their disease from tuberculars and, after they died, from their children. Even with patients informed about their disease, doctors and family were reluctant to talk freely. "Verbally I don't learn anything definite," Kafka wrote to a friend in April 1924 from the sanatorium where he died two months later, "since in discussing tuberculosis . . . everybody drops into a shy, evasive, glassy-eyed manner of speech." Conventions of concealment with cancer are even more strenuous. In France and Italy it is still the rule for doctors to communicate a cancer diagnosis to the patient's family but not to the patient; doctors consider that the truth will be intolerable to all but exceptionally mature and intelligent patients. (A leading French oncologist, has told me that fewer than a tenth of his patients 'know they have cancer.) In America -- in part because of the doctors' fear of malpractice suits -- there is now much more candor with patients, but the country's largest cancer hospital mails routine communications and bills to outpatients in envelopes that do not reveal the sender, on the assumption that the illness may be a secret from their families. Since getting cancer can be a scandal that jeopardizes one's love life, one's chance of promotion, even one's job, patients who know what they have tend to be extremely prudish, if not outright secretive, about their disease. And a federal law, the 1966 Freedom of Information Act, cites "treatment for cancer" in a clause exempting from disclosure matters whose disclosure "would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." It is the only disease mentioned.
End Sontag excerpt

Indeed, life style and bad choices do have something to do with being invaded by cancer – smoking does, in fact, cause lung cancer. But there are people who have lung cancer who never smoked and didn't live with smokers. Yet most are tarred with the suspicion that they caused the disease, that God singled them out for punishment. I've found great comfort in Sontag over the last year – and highly recommend this book in particular to all those who are either living with the Big C or have loved ones who are – Susan Sontag cuts through the crap.

This isn't Crapper Day in America – that was yesterday – but 'tis National Kazoo Day and Rattlesnake Round-Up Day here in the U.S.A. – damned near every human activity has a day. 'Tis a gloriously brisk day with the cleanest of air anywhere humans congregate here in Dakota – where the temperature last night did dip down toward 40 below or so – but 'tis the tropical air properly chilled that makes it the very best. I'm as cozy as anyone who pretends to sanity anywhere here in my recliner before the gas fire, my Janet blanket around me, already fortified with a bit of Malt O Meal, and feeling no discomfort worth mentioning – aye, 'tis a grand day to be alive, a grand day to reinvent the world in the never ending quest for a bit of social justice. 'Tis a day of continuation of the oldest of rivalries, the same old business -–the Israelis killed eight Palestinians – but the Palestinians are doing all they might to kill as many Israelis as they can. The Taliban is still managing to kill the occupying forces in Afghanistan – somewhere in the world at this very minute, scores of people are dying violent deaths. Back in 1973, 'twas the day the Ceasefire began in Vietnam – the beginning of the end of a war that claimed hundreds of American lives a week – there's hope, kola, there's hope. What is needed in the Middle East is a little blast of brisk Dakota air – might force folks indoors for the weest bit of reflection and search for common values instead of the never-ending cycle of violence and revenge. We're too busy helping each other stay warm here in Dakota to fight on an invigorating today like this one. In New York, Martha Stewart's trial is postponed for the day – too cold and blustery for those folk. Here, we get on with life – 'tis too precious to put everything on hold every time there's a bit of nip in the air.

You may not need to know this – although 'tis an amazing story of the human will to survive: 'twas on this day in 1962, forty-two years ago, that Johanne Relleke was stung by bees 2,443 times in Rhodesia and survived. I'm still asking – after forty-two years, who counted? Did Johanne? 'Tis a great mystery, kola, a great mystery. This 28 January also marks the day that Elvis Presley made his national television debut – forty-eight years ago, in 1956. He sang tunes we can all hum now – "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Blue Suede Shoes" – but 'twas on the Dorsey Brothers Show -- and he as backed by the full orchestra. Strange and wonderful – would like to hear that.

All things considered – this day in history belongs to the memory of the those adventurers on the spaceship Challenger, which most of us remember with horror, blew up as school children through the nation watched from their classrooms – instantly killing, course, the astronauts, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe. The forty-one-year-old McAuliffe said shortly before she boarded the spacecraft, "I have a box of papers at home of [my own press coverage]. When I'm sixty, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, 'What really happened that year?" We just don't know, kola – how long our passage here in the middle world will be, how much time we have to be about the major reason we're here – looking out for each other. We'd do well indeed to be about that business – and let us not allow "neither snow nor sleet keep us from our appointed rounds."

May your day be as crisply invigorating as is ours in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota – take care of yourselves – you have important work to do . . .

Ev Albers

Tuesday, January 27th, 2004

Wise Words for Today --
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right."

​-- Judge Learned Hand, who also said in a commencement address at Bryn Mawr College in 1927, "Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers."

Aye, 'tis a wondrously brisk, perfect Dakota day here near the banks of the Missouri in the most beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful place the great goddess of Serendip ever smiled upon. What could be grander than awakening in one's warm bed when 'tis well below zero outside one's window in an absolutely gorgeously back yard where the snow has been sculpted by a weest wind this past week whilst my lovin' spouse and I were out and about. I awoke humming dum, dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum DUM, the opening of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik. 'Tis, after all, the birthday of the composer who has brought me and hundreds of millions others great joy through the sheer exuberance and love of life of some of his works - and the heart-rendering, yet always controlled, exploration of the sadness of human mortality in others. Mozart was born on this day in 1756, and he had a brief but brilliant passage here in the middle world - he died a couple months before his thirty-sixth birthday in 1791. I wrote about my friend - I would suspect our mutual friend - Wolfgang Amadeus - at some length a year ago - you can check it out by selecting 1/27/03 from the date archive option above. His 1778 letter to his mother, a poem about his flatulence and exercises in excreting can be found in the English translation in my journal entry for a year ago.

A year ago! How amazing the grace that has brought me to the completion of my thirteenth session at the Cancer Treatment Center of America at Zion, Illinois - and being alive at least nine months beyond what the medical gurus at the famed Mayo Clinic thought I could be. Of course, the monthly chemotherapy is part of why I'm here - but, much more, is the gift of friendship and love from kola like all of you. I can only say, thank you.

I'm honored to have so many respond with additional information and follow-ups to what I post here. For example, following my Sunday rant on 1/25/04, my good friend Warren Henke sent me a great little opinion titled "With Apologies to Aeosup" by Nicholas Stephen Poluhoff that he found in The Washington Monthly for Jan/Feb 2004:

Begin Poluhoff Quote
Once upon a time in the ancient city of Jerusalem, three sons were born: one a Jew, one a Christian and one a Moslem. The old woman in charge of the nursery could not see well and, alas, the three babies were mixed up.

So it came to pass that when the three boys grew to manhood, there was bad blood and much hate among Jew, Christian and Moslem, so that the Jew raised as a Moslem slew the Moslem of Christian birth. The Christian, son of Islam, put to sword the Jew born of Christ Birth, and the Moslem, sired by a Jew, strangled the Christian born of Islam.

In the name of all merciful God-Allah-Jehovah--amid great misery and loud lament---the land was drenched with blood.

Moral: Life without religion is better, much better.
End Poluhoff Quote

I'm not sure about the moral - but I am indeed convinced that invoking our particular relationship with those higher supernatural powers into civic life has proved absolutely contrary to human happiness and fatal to someone's personal freedom of expression and conscience. Let us keep our religion to ourselves and to the fellowship of those who share our beliefs and allow our fellow citizens to enjoy the same freedom - this is "doing unto others as we would done to ourselves."

Today's Did I really need to know that? item is that this is the very day in 1910 that Thomas Crapper, the guy that supposedly invented the flush toilet, completed his passage here in the middle world. The man Thomas Crapper did exist, and he was a plumber in England - but there's no evidence that he in fact invented the flusher or that the slang word for the place where such as flush toilets are found comes from his name - you can learn all about the myth and reality of Thomas Crapper by checking out this site.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Judge Learned Hand (1872), the federal judge who served on the bench for fifty-two years - from 1909 until his death in 1961. 'Twas he who said, I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. . . ." Learned Hand was a deeply religious man, a Christian - but he didn't force his Christianity on his fellow citizens. He did indeed look forward to the possibility of a life hereafter, but he insisted on our respecting each other's values here in the middle world. At a speech in Central Park in New York City on May 21, 1944, Learned Hand said:

Begin Learned Hand Quote
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.
End Learned Hand Quote

Today we salute the memory of Lewis Carroll - Charles Dodson, born on 27 January in 1832. He completed his passage here in the middle world a couple of weeks short of his seventy-seventh birthday. I didn't realize 'twas the anniversary of his birth this A.M. as that great classic ran through my mind even while Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik earwormed me:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Who doesn't marvel at the "Jabberwocky"? What does it mean? Don't know, but don't you love it?

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws tht bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Today is one I want to shout, "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" I must be about getting ready to get to my office - to work, to life! Be well, dear kola - take care of yourselves - and look out for each other -- and let's not be so sure that we're so right about how people ought to act that we try to make our ways their for no good purpose that serves our common welfare.

Ev Albers

Monday, January 26th, 2004

Aye, and there's but the weest bit of snow here in fabulous Roseville, where one will find the grand Meyers/Kubik Manor - the fine center of hospitality and generosity where Joy and Don dwell - arrived here last evening about 6:00 P.M. or so from Zion - I was in a state of high shivers, so I went directly to the warmest of beds and continued a sleep that I began nearly as soon as we left the Midwestern Regional Medical Center - another eighteen-hour sleep. Let that be the end for a while - feeling pretty damned chipper this morning, cause I've been fortified by a Joy Meyers custard - ah, 'twas grand indeed - and I get to take some along with me for the trip, just in case my lovin', hard drivin' spouse and I are waylaid along the trail home to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota where the land is graced with a big blanket of snow.

Methinks I pushed the limits of my spouse's patience near the breaking point late yesterday afternoon, for she was sweating profusely with the heat on high in the Subaru - trying to accommodate me and my shivers - I'm gonna dress pretty damned warmly today - perhaps two pair of long johns and an extra shirt - and, of course, I'll have my double-sided tied blanket made for me by Leslie's sister Janet. That and the power of positive thinking shall keep the shakes at bay and provide for general domestic tranquillity on our trip westward. You gotta believe. And believe I do . . . all will be better by and by - in a few hours when we hit the North Dakota border, for this little squall which dumped a foot of snow on beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Bismarck has passed. I'm eager to see it.

Rosy-fingered dawn has just pierced the cloud cover here at the Meyers/Kubik Manor - and the view of the snow-covered back yard approaches the tranquillity of a Japanese print - 'tis gorgeous. Joy just went out to fill the bath for the birds in case they need a bit of a drink. 'Tis a morn of new beginnings, a time to begin the world anew - which is exactly what I intend to do. With the help of kola like you, all things are possible - with the kind of love and generosity extended by Joy and Don, most everything good is probable.

Today's the birthday of Douglas MacArthur, the guy that just faded away on April 4, 1964 - after a passage of more than eighty-four years. MacArthur said as well as anyone what's worth remembering every morning we rise: "I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul." Ain't gonna let anything wrinkle my soul, kola. Don't let anything wrinkle yours - take care of yourselves - and remember, nothing wrinkles a soul more swiftly than ignoring your neighbor and her/his need for your attention and concern.

Ev Albers

Sunday, January 25th, 2004

'Tis Sunday, and the last day of infusion of poison to keep the insidious invader at bay without too much pay in terms of wondering whether or not you really want to live that much. Ah, I do, even though the cumulative treatments are wearing me down just the weest. But enough palaver about symptoms and the trials and tribulations of taking on the insidious invader. Atimes, I feel that I grow just a bit wearisome, a poor imitation of Pliny the Younger writing at length about what constitutes life worth living and when one's life becomes so compromised with illness or other problems that suicide - an honorable alternative in the heyday of the Roman Empire that Pliny writes about - is the way to go. The latter isn't for me - unless things get a whole lot more uncomfortable with no succor from any source, and that's not gonna happen, I've been told. But enough such palaver.

I would address another topic this fine Sunday morning, one that is absolutely perfect in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota from all accounts, and not all that bad here in Lake County, Illinois from whence we shall sally forth in a matter of hours - Minneapolis or bust - and on to Bismarck and some work! Rudely awakened this morning at about 12:30 A.M. with the most piercing of fire alarms a false one set off by someone in their cups, but we all went downstairs in our nightwear - my loving spouse grabbed my pills -- I've been rather mostly-awake since (of course, I retired at 4:30 P.M. - so I've been thinking.

Today, my dear kola, I'm on a bit of a rant, I suppose - but I really do think that, from president to pope, the politicians and priests and ministers of all stripes have taken to a totally unacceptable level the invasion of our private lives, especially the bedrooms of adults; we suffer big brotherism of the worst ilk. I'm not Roman Catholic, but I like the current pope - he seems like a mighty nice fellow who spends his every waking moment working for the general welfare of all of humankind - but he absolutely cannot conceive of sex without the possibility of procreation or entertain any possibility that priests be allowed to marry and thus recognize an essential part of their humanity, their sexuality (yah, I know; they recognize it but are able to suppress it in order to serve god and humankind more effectively). As for the current U.S. president - well, let us say he's pulled out all stops in his appeal to the Christian right with State of the Union references to the sanctity of marriage and the commitment of the government to restrict marriage to a union between a woman and a man. Won't be long before we're prohibiting the export of condoms abroad (I don't know for sure if, indeed, we aren't still doing it) at the same time we support export of cigarettes - and there's going to be many a brouhaha in the next year about any reference to sexual health and safer practice in schools - there's going to be a greater insistence upon teaching abstinence as the only moral healthy choice. Let there be no mistake, the agenda is clear - beware any who would object to the way these folks think things ought to be. For the pope, 'tis a matter of principle, an adherence to millennia of tradition and firm belief that the clergy must be celibate and that all artificial methods of birth control are grave sins against nature and God's law as interpreted by past popes. Let us set aside entirely the problems inherent in celibacy and the obvious way in which the shadow generated by suppressed sexuality finds its way out in such forms as the sexual abuse of innocent children - and the way that this has almost brought down diocese after diocese. But let us not ignore the total hypocrisy demanded of some of the most fervent believers who simply find it impossible to accept either sex with the possibility of procreation or no sex at all - I would guess far over 90 percent of Americans who are practicing Roman Catholics quietly ignore the church's position on this matter. Nonetheless, I would defend with all my powers of persuasion and considerable passion the rights of Roman Catholics to practice any social mores they wish, to follow any custom - as long as they do not expect me to do likewise or expect that governments adopt official policies which enforce their religious convictions. The pressure will be enormous in the next few years, especially if we continue with the current situation of one political party controlling both houses of Congress and the Oval Office, to reverse the right of a woman to decide whether or not she shall have an abortion. Similarly, a large element of the American Roman Catholic Church as well as the ever-growing Protestant Christian right will demand direct government oversight of sexual education in the schools to make sure that abstinence is taught as both the ideal - and if they have their way, the only safe sex; and push for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and woman (and, in essence preclude governmental recognition of any same-sex partnerships).

Pope John Paul II is indeed a man of principle - and President George W. Bush a leader who wears his born-again Christianity on his sleeve and makes no secret of the fact that his religious convictions do indeed inform his decision-making. To the degree that that admitted influence does not infringe upon my right to differing views and religious practice, may President Bush continue to find inspiration and help in his religion and particular relationship with a God he fervently believes in. However, when others' rights are compromised because the president is convinced he knows what is the proper conduct of our private lives, he has breached the separation of church and state so necessary to the continuation of the social compact of a society as diverse as our own, and citizens should loudly protest.

Nothing in the Constitution supports any sort of ban on gay unions or in any way restricts basic "family" structure to the marriage of a woman and man. In essence, most of those who marry enter into two contracts - one that registers their union with the state, another that binds them through some sort of religious ceremony. The civil union establishes certain responsibilities and rights - the responsibility to offer adequate care for children, mutual financial obligation, and the right to enjoy certain financial benefits, from tax advantages for filing a joint return to family health rates - and the possibility of greater Social Security benefits as the survivor one's partner. That these civil benefits are denied life-long partners of the same sex - even those who have demonstrated a commitment to a union much deeper than the some 50 percent of traditional marriages that end in divorce. Why the United States leads the world in divorce is an interesting question - but there's an obvious tension between the civil marriage and the the religious one.

Why some among us are so bent on civil recognition of their narrow religious bespeaks a kind of projection of insecurity and a will to power over others -- usually because they find they have so little power over their own lives. As my lovin' spouse points out to me so often, the most fervent of the anti-abortionists, the leaders of the band seeking ban of gay marriages, the most strident and unreasonable voices in sex education in this country are male - more white than not - and most probably not in a satisfying relationship with a lovin' woman. I think she's right.

What our social compact desperately needs is a divorce between the common law marriage that has evolved between state and church - one that would appall the framers of our constitution and bring great disappointment to those who envisioned a government that would brook no influence of religion on government. Presidents publicly praying to a Christian god and inviting priests and ministers to help the nation in time of great distress is nothing new: evangelist Billy Graham was at the side of more than one president in times of crisis - and presidents have also turned to occultists and fortune tellers. Once invited and recognized, religious leaders have a difficult time not making their convictions a political agenda. At times, their statements approach the ridiculous - the Reverend Pat Robertson announcing that God told him George W. Bush would be re-elected as president - with the strong innuendo that God was definitely a Republican. I would expect that Vice-President Cheney, in his visits with Pope Paul II coming up, will indeed be discussing same-sex civil marriages and other matters on which Americans are deeply divided because of their differing religious views.

The lure of enlisting supernatural aid by officially recognizing a God - the more specific, the better - is especially tempting during such uncertain times as these, when we live with the threat of terrorists suddenly disrupting our lives and attacking our comfortable existence the way they were able to do on September 11, 2001. Not unlike the quiet hysteria of the peak of the Cold War and the imminent threat of world destruction, nuclear holocaust, the United States government took to God in a big way - 'twas then that we put his name on coins and slipped the phrase into the Pledge of Allegiance - one nation, under God -- with direct advice from such as Billy Graham that, unless we recognized God's authority as a nation, the Soviet Union would likely prevail. Any union between church and state seems to thrive during trying times - but always at great cost to civil liberty, the right of dissent, the right to invoke a quit different power in our relationship with supernatural than those in power hold. When that happens, 'tis but a step away from the pillories and stocks of Salem, Massachusetts - by way of mental coercion if not physical punishment.

So, what's the answer? Do we do away with prayer breakfasts and opening sessions of Congress with prayer, remove God from our coinage and take him out of the Pledge? Do we start systematically taking down all those granite statues of the Ten Commandments that the Eagles Club erected across the nation during the height of the Cold War - with considerable persuasion for a Minnesotan with a good bit of granite to sell and moviemaker Cecil B. DeMilles and his star of the Ten Commandments seeing it as a great promotional gimmick? I, for one, would say a resounding "yes" to all of the above.

Unless we Americans in our role as citizens - regardless of our deep-held religious convictions that are our business and no one else's - unless we the people of the United Staes divorce ourselves from the Judeo-Christians who would impose their limited, narrow view on so many private social issues, our social compact is compromised - perhaps beyond repair.

Finally, 'tis most difficult to separate certain troublesome questions of grave importance to both church and to the government - chief among them, remains abortion. The right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy rests upon general acceptance that a fetus is not human being, especially during the first two trimesters. Others say that humanness comes only with consciousness. For the Greeks of the Golden Age, humanness didn't start until sometime after birth, after the infant had proved it could survive - hence the ease with which the Greeks practiced infanticide. Because so many infants died before their first birthday, early Americans did not treat their infants with any particular fondness, but lavished love and attention on children once they were quite sure they would survive.

No father or mother wants their child to face the decision of whether or not to abort a grandchild, and many of those decisions will be made with the help and comfort of a religious faith. But until such time as society agrees about what constitutes full life as a human being, that decision belongs to the individual, just as the decision about whether or not to engage in consensual sex belongs with our without birth control belongs solely to the individuals involved.

Just as we should expect greater respect from popes and presidents and all the priests and politicians who would invade the space of our personal freedom without contributing to the public good, they should expect a return of the favor, have done to them what they do to us. Their sexual history, the current state of their libido, or their peculiar peccadilloes should be no business of the general public unless the information indicates the possibility that the person will conduct such reprehensible acts which violate all codes, civil and religious, as sexual abuse of children. Most of the rest of the world was totally astonished with our nation's preoccupation with President Clinton's personal sexual life. A civilly sane United States Society would do the following:

1. Acknowledge the right of all citizens to enter into a civil union, a civil "marriage," including same-sex couples, with the continuation of the requirement that the such unions be between two people.

2. Recognize those who present themselves to society as gays and lesbians as full citizens in all aspects of civil life, including military service, civil service, and the full range of rights and responsibilities as citizens - with full understanding of the nature of being born gay or lesbian and acknowledgement that this aspect of human sexuality is not, according to the best science available, a matter of choice.

3. Allow no effort to admit denominational religious groups to positions of influence of government policy or to award any with public money for any purpose, including those which well may benefit society in general, but will also be tainted with the possibility that public money will be employed for the propagation of a particular religious position. Do not allow, under any circumstances, "faith-based organizations" to apply for federal funds.

4. By way of polite respect for politicians' privacy and politicians' refusing to continue to participate in any questioning or scrutiny which delves into their personal lives for no other reason than "test of character" or other excuses for prurient rummaging, end that aspect of running for public office which has kept too many potentially excellent public servants from entering public life.

5. Examine the government's role in education for religious and quasi-religious requirements created by local, state, and the federal government - and do away with them.

Enough rant for a fine Sunday morning. There's more than just the weest bit of snow, and it looks as though 'twill snow for most of our trip from this place to that most beauuuuuuuuuutiful of places, my beloved Dakota. Early start of the chemo this morning --early attention to getting ready. No black limo this morning (no drivers on Sundays), so my lovin' spouse will have to arise and get the Subaru fired up for the trip to the Midwestern Regional Medical Center from here at the Hawthorne, where 'twas a night of excitement with the false fire alarm, fights in the parking lot, sirens and whistles. But 'tis a quieter 6:30 A.M. - time to pack up. Be well my dear kola - I hope I offended none with my rant this A.M. - and I trust that you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers

Saturday, January 24th, 2004

A glorious day to be alive, kola - a grand day. There's a nice cover of white snow here in Zion, and the temperatures are rising. Aye, and I just know that it's an absolutely beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day in Dakota, where the air may be crisp and the weest wind brisk - but 'tis a tropical cool that caresses in Dakota - body and soul. There's an event goin' on tonight down south a bit from Dakota that I sure wish I had arranged my life to attend - my good friend and colleague, Marion Cott, though a woman of tender years, holds the distinction of being the executive director of a state humanities council who has served the longest - she has some six months more of service to the Kansas Humanities Council than my thirty years and six months of working with the North Dakota Humanities Council. But what's happening tonight is even more remarkable than her long and productive career with the Kansas Humanities Council, for tonight on the stage of a renovated Orpheum Theater, Marion will be there when Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys are inducted into the Kansas Western Swing Hall of Fame in Witchita. The boys, including Hank and a board member of the Kansas Humanities Council, Morey Sullivan, and the rest will be inducted. But here's the thriller -- Marion Cott has been elected a member of the board of that Hall of Fame. My very best wishes, Marion - and perhaps just the weest, tiniest, bit of envy - what a great place to be on a Saturday night in January, and what a great honor! Dance one for me Marion.

Hank Thompson was doin' western swing before Marion and I were walking - Marion might tell you that 'twas long, long before she was even conceived that Hank first stepped up to a microphone. He and the Brazos Boys do a very limited number of engagements these days, but, hey, they're still goin'! As am I, dear kola - in fact, 'tis a most lazy morning, for I must soon be ready to a ride in that long black limo for some more chemo - two more days. Returned last night to a bout of the old chills sans temperature - 'twas a two-pair-of-underwear-all-the-blankets-I-could-find hour or two - but rosy-fingered dawn finds all of that gone and I'm ready for another round.

You probably will ask What the hell do I need to know that for, anyway? to learn that it was on this very day in 1983 that Hulk Hogan fought a valiant match against the Iron Sheik, pinned him, and won the World Wrestling Federation heavyweight championship. You might want to contemplate that 'twas on this day in 1935 that beer was served up in cans for the first time - in Richmond Virginia. Don't know if Krueger is still brewing, but they sure started something. Nor do I know if they sold 'em by the six-pack back then - I think that came later. I'm thinking of stocking up on a great-tasting Kaliber nonalcoholic made by Guiness or the Wurtzburger Haufbrau made by the German house - something other than O'Doul's. Strange how the appetite changes - or disappears all together. Right now, I'm keeping up with a great product call ProSure - I just ordered up a couple of cans to swig whilst the sit here in the old infusion chair. Developed specifically for those fighting the insidious invader, the Big C of the pancreas, these eight-ounce cans of 300 calories and cost about the same as a premium beer at a good restaurant - and for now, come in banana and vanilla flavors. But in three weeks, the stuff helped me stop dwindling away, and I've gained about ten pounds back. I can't believe it - I opened the refrigerator in the fabulous Hawthorne Suites this morning and reached immediately for the ProSure - I looked and and finally threw out two great pieces of pie that have been there - the yen for the ilk of coconut crème and lemon meringue is still there in my mind and soul, but confronted with the slice itself, right now, I cannot eat it. Strange stuff - thought I would always be able to have some pie - and I'm sure that the I'll be having at a slice again with gusto one of these days after the current chemo and readjustment following the great repair on the stent in my bile duct. As I dwell on it, I think that I could still do sour-cream raisin without a hitch - maybe tomorrow. I've become the cheapest of fast-food consumers - my current treat I can get down most anytime is the little container of pinto beans and cheese - a mere $0.85 at Taco Johns, $1,05 at Taco Bells.

I'm to raise the level of my albumen - which means eating eggs, lots of them. At this point, no health professional I speak with is particularly concerned about my cholesterol level. The fabulous Hawthorne Suites, which accommodates us folk from the Cancer Treatment Center of America with great rates - and has that marvelous black limo that I could get accustomed to riding on a regular basis to give a ride to treatment on occasion - also features a free, full breakfast every morning - from cereals to scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, French toast, bagels, toast, juices - etc., etc., etc. I cannot tolerate the smell of the marvelous food - the entire lower level of that great place smells like bacon and sausage beginning about 7:00 A.M. - and I do not like their scrambled eggs, Sam I am - some of you know my preference in eggs, but getting someone to serve them up in such fashion is no easy task. My lovin' spouse does well - of course, she absolutely refuses to use the huge iron skillet and damn near render the butter before dropping in the eggs - butter-burning the whites and encasing the liquid yolk, which sizzles like molten lava. My druthers would be to stip into those eggs ("stip" is German for "dip") with a really fresh danish - raspberry, methinks. Now that would be the way to raise the old albumen count. Anyone know off hand which pies take more eggs than any other? Hmm. Maybe some custards.

Still just the weest worried about not wanting those pieces of pie - but that's one little skirmish in this War with the Insidious Invader - as Luther said when asked to recant, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise." I'll win this war - at least the battle of pie/denied. Here I stand, and here'll I stay - damned if I won't have a piece of sour-cream raisin pie on the day I die - and I don't plan on a last piece for a good long while.

The tranquillity of this day, as I look westward over a quiet, snow-covered pond in front of tall trees - whilst Canadian geese glide past - begs at least a bit of attention to soul food, make that soul for the food, 'cause one can can chitlins and the works around these parts. I wonder if Hank Thompson will sing what I think is one of the great country-western metaphors - his song, "Blackboard of my Heart":

BLACKBOARD OF MY HEART Written by Lyle Gaston and Hank Thompson

When I was young and went to school
They taught me how to write
To take the chalk and make a mark
And hope it turns out right
Well that's the way it is with love
And what you did to me
I wrote it so you'd know
That I was yours eternally
(Chorus)
But my tears have washed I love you
From the blackboard of my heart
It's too late to clean the slate
And make another start
I'm satisfied the way things are
Although we're far apart
My tears have washed I love you from
The blackboard of my heart

If you'd been true the way you should
And not have gone astray
These tears would not have fallen down
And washed the words away
No need to talk, 'cause if the chalk
Should write those words again
It will be for someone else
Not things that might have been
(Chorus)

But my all-time Hank Thompson-penned tune is a true piece of pathos - a real tear-jerking, how-in-the-hell-could-that-have-possibly-happened little life story called "I Saw My Mother's Name:":

Your daddy was a gambling man
My mother said to me
He left me when you were a child
But he was all this world to me

I know your daddy loved me too
For tattooed on his arm
Was a heart of love that bore my name
And was his good luck charm

I didn't heed my mother's words
To leave the cards alone
I took to gambling just like dad
And left my mother's home

One night a gang was gathered 'round
We dealt a hand of draw
An old man sat across from me
And this is what I saw

From out his sleeve he pulled a card
And I pulled out my gun
I shot him dead not knowing then
What evil I had done

He fell across the table
His hands reached out in vain
His sleeve slid back and upon his arm
I could see so plain

I gazed down at his lifeless form
And I hung my head in shame
For upon his arm was a tattooed heart
And I saw my mother's name

So, dear kola, if you're feeling like life's taken a bit of a wrong turn - or that the great goddess of Serendip has failed you mightily, consider the poor fellow who unwittingly shot his pappy in a poker game. Things could be worse - and they can be a lot better if you take care of yourselves and look out for each other - probably wouldn't be a bad idea to check the tattoos on the arms of a man you're playing poker with before you up and shoot him dead.

Ev Albers

Friday, January 23rd, 2004

Aye, a beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day back home in beloved Dakota, and not a bad one here on the shores of Lake Michigan in the fine facility, the Hawthorne Suites, where I've been abed and dreaming for some twelve hours. Time for a bit of conscious attention to where I am and just what the hell I'm doing here, anyway - in all senses from a quick physical scrutiny to contemplation of life here in the middle world and beyond.

Today's poem is such a contemplation - 'twas sent to me by a dear kola who works with the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. - Karen Mittleman. Karen once came out to Dakota for a visit to encourage folks to do the humanities at local museums - we had many applications. When Karen's father found himself with the Big C and endured an operation on his esophagus and larynx two years ago, Karen went with her father and his wife and five-year-old son to the famed Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Karen has given me permission to share her poem with you:

In domed obsidian blackness
stars whirl past,
suggesting vast universes
fragile and finite
like our own,
yet each one rushing
on a particular
precious course

Beside me,
my small son and his
grandfather touch elbows,
tip their
heads back in awe

For weeks we have known only
one hospital room,
a life's single moment,
the crazed immersion
that illness brings,
the ache to encircle
what shimmers before us.

Now,
the sky alive all around,
distant moons blaze and blink,
roar to us in their infinitude
how intensely one life matters,
how much huger than one
we are.

What a wonderfully transcendent moment Karen gives us, what a grand twist on OMF's poem, the one by Dakota's gift to the Millennium, Thomas Matthew McGrath, who asked the question, "You out there, so secret, what makes you think you're alone?" We are indeed "huger than one," but for many, one human matters as much as the the continued fragility of the universe that brought that human to us. When a fellow traveler writes of one she loves so intensely, we are left with the silent vow - let me be to others so they think such of me!

One such we Albers love so deeply is our friend Rose Marie Fiechtner Henke, born on this day back in - well, let us say that we're not so sure dear Rose Marie should be collecting social security. Our feelings for this remarkable woman have not changed in a year - or in the decades we have known here. As I said last year, "Rose Marie is among our dearest friends - she and husband Warren are the godparents of our son. Albert - they adopted our daughter, Gretchen, as a goddaughter as well. No one will ever know how much Rose Marie Henke, who retired early from teaching a few years back, has done for every human she has ever met. Dear Rose Marie, may you live well and prosper for decades to come, sustained by that love you extend to all the lives you touch. The coldest day is warm when you are around."

'Tis indeed, 'tis indeed - 'tis in fact a tropical paradise when Rose Marie is around. But 'twasn't paradise for the the peaceful band of Blackfeet camped on the Marias in northern Montana on this day in 1870, when Colonel Eugene Baker rode down on a group that was supposed to include Owl Child, who had murdered a rancher named Clarke and his son after the rancher publicly whipped Owl Child for supposedly stealing horses. Owl Child wasn't at the camp. Colonel Baker gave his version of "You've seen one Indian, you've seen them all" when informed by his scout, Joe Kipp, that the group was that of Heavy Runner. Baker was reported by many of his soldiers that he was drunk during the entire time they rode with him to the Marias, and still drunk on the morning he ordered this men to fire - Baker's soldiers killed 37 men, 90 women, and 50 children. Baker had warned his sergeant to kill Kipp if he tried to warn the sleeping Indians. He then took 140 prisoners, but when he found out some had small pox, he abandoned them to the elements after destroying all of their supplies and housing.

When word reached the East, many were outraged; some called for Baker being called to task; and one congressman even said, "civilization shudders at horrors like this." But not many complained in Montana, who citizens considered those who criticized the drunken Baker's massacre "namby-pampy, sniffling old maid sentimentalists." Baker didn't even receive a reprimand. Perhaps Montanans of the time agreed with birthday boy for today, Humphrey Bogart (born 1899, dead before his fifty-eighth birthday), who said, "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

'Twas on this day in 1941, some ten and one-half months before the plan already being worked on in Japan would result in the attack on Pearl Harbor, that America's hero, Luck Lindy, Charles A. Lindberg, who didn't drink much, appeared before Congress to urge a pact with peace pact with Hitler. Eventually, he was publicly denounced by President Roosevelt for his opposition to helping the Allies, and resigned for a time from the Air Corps before rejoining and flying over fifty missions in the Pacific.

On this day, one of the great zany writers who penned in English finished his passage in the middle world - Thomas Love Peacock died in 1866 (born 10/18/1785). Peacock wrote that great summary of the human penchant for taking the easiest way:

"The mountain sheep are sweeter,
but the valley sheep are fatter;
we therefore deem it meeter
to carry off the latter."

'Tis crisp, brisk, and the weest bit snowy here today - third day - two days of chemo left after today, and then 'twill be on the road back to beauuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota Sunday noon. Do trust that you are taking care of yourselves, kola - and that you are looking out for each other, even if it means taking the more difficult path.

Ev Albers

Thursday, January 22nd, 2004

Aye, and 'tis indeed today that is the 22 January, not yesterday I thought when I wrote - and reused up some of what I had to say about the two Britains of such renown born on this day, Bacon & Lord Byron - plus Strindberg of Sweden. Not that it made all that much difference, because I doubt anyone could have gotten through the first paragraph and its tortured, misspelled syntax. If you were one and I haven't lost you as reading kola - take a look at 1/21/04 - or for the details about those marvelous writers, lousy men who didn't like women much, you can recheck 1/22/03. Or check out Garrison Keillor's daily poetry reading and literary notes on birthdays and such at at his Minnesota Public Radio site - you can also sign up to get his daily reading and musing.

Just a note on that part of my lovin' spouse and my visit to Zion - the reason that brings us here. All goes well, no great change detected; the sleeving of steel stent in the bile duct was successful up in Milwaukee; we arrived back in Zion in time for a first treatment; so it's four to go and on our way back to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota on Sunday next - where 'tis as brisk and crisp as 'it here on the shores of Lake Michigan, but, as you know -- those of you who have managed to get into North Dakota with those huge traffic jams backing up folks who want a taste of paradise - as you know, ours is a tropical brisk and crisp wind and temperature and humidity - the simple numbers do not account for the special blessing all the goddesses and gods give our breezes. Ah, 'tis wonderful to these little nagging problems addressed at this fine facility, but 'twill be grand indeed to awake to watch rosy-fingered dawn creep over our southwestern sky in the capital city, Bismarck. I'm ready to bring on the best this great day has to offer, in the meantime -- you can "bet your bippy" on that as they said in that mostly-great television show, Laugh-In, which premiered on this day in 1968 (the producers had run a successful pilot in 1967). My favorite was Arte Johnson in his wacky helmet - and what was supposed to be a Nazi uniform - always with a lit cigarette, peering intently through his wire-rimmed glasses saying "Verrrrrrrrrrrrry Interestink!" (Or maybe it should "Vedddddddddy Interestink!" Among the hundreds of guest was President Richard Nixon who came on to repeat another of the lines used over and over in the show - "Sock It To Me."

Today is indeed (I double-checked) the day Queen Victoria completed her passage in the middle world and her sixty-three-year-old reign - the postal authorities didn't waste any time - they had the King Edward series of stamps ready to go. The sale of the last of the Victoria series stopped and King Edward's face on the stamps went on sale - some transitions are nearly instantaneous - but that's the nature of the transition from the middle world as well.

What's to be said the start of the transition of power in the United States, where 'tis not necessary for the queen to die in order to change? (Yes, I know, it's not necessary in Britain, either, for the monarchy doesn't have that much power - just money and privilege). The royals can pretty much buy anything they wish - don't know if they have a hankering for cheese, but 'twas on very day in Wisconsin in 1964 that the world's largest cheese was made - over seventeen tons. There's a replica of the big cheese that toured the country and went to world fairs at the town of Neillsville, a sight I'm longing to see. It's not far off I-94 - and it also features the world's largest talking cow - 'tis a Holstein, like the real WORLD'S LARGEST COW which found just nineteen miles south of the center of the center of the universe, Hannover Township. Salem Sue is at New Salem, which is on I-94 just thirty miles or so west of Bismarck-Mandan. She made of a bullet-proof material - and she doesn't really say anything. She's on top of "school hill," the big hill just above a cemetery and the radio grounds where high school students used to go and park and spark. I went to New Salem High for a year - that was before Salem Sue was erected - but I didn't park on school hill. Durn. you can read all about Salem Sue in New Salem as well as some of Dakota's other big attractions, like the world's largest buffalo at Jamestown. If I knew, I had forgotten - there's even a song to Salem Sue - but I don't know the tune --

Her presence shows that New Salem grows
With milk-producers' yields;
We've got the cow, world's largest cow
That looks across our fields.

Brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it? What does bring tears to my eyes and the fit of moral indignation is the proposal to open up federal coffers and United States grants made by official federal units to what President Bush called his "State of the Union" address last night, "Faith-Based Organizations." Short of requiring the president and all federal officials to swear their faith in Christianity or at least their whole-hearted commitment to that great catch-all, "Judeo-Christian" values, this proposal is the greatest threat to the best principle that has ever evolved from interpretation of our U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights over the years - strict adherence to the separation of church and state for the sake of both. Come to think on it a bit - we do not require an oath of faith from our candidates, but woe to him or her who would be president or town auditor who doesn't publicly confess something like "a deep religious faith." 'Twill be an interesting year, kola, "Vedddddddddddddy Interestink!" I'm gonna do all I can to stay around in reasonably alert fashion to see what happens. I do hope that you are taking care of yourselves, dear kola - and looking out for each other - I'm on the receiving end of the latter to a degree unfathomable to me - from the continued patience of my lovin' spouse Leslie to all those I met yesterday at St. Luke's in Milwaukee to our many friends here at the Midwestern Regional Medical Center. Time I start spreading some of this around, methinks.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, January 21st, 2004

The weest bit warmer her in Lake County, Illinois, home of that bastion of hope against the odds for those of us others have said the Big C would get us sooner instead of later. To a person, those of us who gather here periodically - at different times, so our paths don't always cross on every trip - are happy as hell to see each other and a pretty jolly group in general, because almost to the person, we've proved some doomsaying "Go get your affairs in order" judge of our condition wrong. 'Twas a long day in the waiting room, so my lovin' spouse (she does a good deal of visiting with folks while I'm snoozing) and I met a few old folks and new - an 8-4:30 P.M. day, 'twas, with a brief half hour visit with one physician and then a short talk with another. My oncologist, Dr. Robert Levin, and I agreed that I may be outliving the effectiveness of the steel stent in my bile duct - and hence everything from a high fever now and again to to the chills and shakes we all hate because of a bit of infection down there. When the marvelous gastroenterologist in Bismarck placed the stent, which is permanent, over a year ago, neither he nor I expected to have a problem for it was to last for year. Well, thank whatever god and goddesses may be, for I'm alive longer than a year for it to be a problem - a session of high fever and chill on Monday afternoon, and general discomfort yesterday brought the decision to have the fellow here who had bee roter-rootering my bile ducts arrange for a procedure by his friend and an expert on duct stents. I'll have the work done about 7:30 after an hour or so of forms and preparation. If all goes well, I'll be turning a bit more red than my present yellowish cast, find it easier to digest food, and then resume treatment - either now or after a vacation from it of a few weeks. We'll know later today. With the instruction to eat or drink nothing past midnight, I've just finished the weest bite of a fruit cake sent along by dear Joy Meyers and drunk a chocolate Ensure - and 'tis almost midnight. The good news is that I won't have to force myself to eat some more yogurt - I tried some of the disgusting stuff this morning and got down about half a small container. If folks really like this stuff, must be a lot of masochists out there - and perhaps 'tis further evidence that we can learn to eat anything.

What I didn't touch last night was a gorgeous piece of banana crème pie awaiting in the fridge - after the return from Milwaukee, which will be a ride of about an hour and fifteen-minutes by a limo provided by the folks here at Midwestern Regional Medical Center. What took so long yesterday was arranging for the master stent guy in these parts, Dr. Michael Schamalz - and he headquarters with a team he trusts in Milwaukee - so thence we go.

Few are concerns - one is the hospital gown that covers next to nothin' and the embarrassment of it al all - but 'tis small matter. Ah, 'twill be grand to wake up with those good drugs that send one to a land of dreams - not that I need any.

My lovin' spouse says that I've been out of it, with little awareness of my surroundings, for the last day - and that I speak nonsense upon awakened. I agree that I probably do, indeed. Even when awake, I do and 'twill not probably go any better after a few drugs to be under while they run the roter-rooter down my throat this morning. I've told her to listen carefully - there may be a real gem of a story in their somewhere.

And I ain't gonna be quiet, for, as Sir Francis Bacon said ('twill be birthday today, born in 1562), "Silence is the virtue of fools." If I stop talking, I admit that I'm a fool - which may not be so bad, because there's good fools and bad fools. I wrote at some length last year (check 1-22-03) on Bacon and fellow tomorrow birthday boys Lord Byron (1788) and August Strindberg (1849). All of them had trouble relating to women - as I said a year ago, and it's never been more true, without out our wives and daughters and the women of the middle passage, 'twould be a pretty sorry place. Never have I been more convinced of the natural superiority of women.

This is the day before Queen Victoria finally left the middle world, on January 22, 1904. She had been around since 1819. Victoria didn't think much about women and their rights, except for hers. She once said,The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent..." But then, I suspect her problem was more with the poor than women - she didn't like the poor whining and complaining, muking and puling, either. I think we should all toast Queen Victoria this morning - I've saved my two sips of water to down my antibiotic, the single exception to no food or water past midnight - to join you - and let's say to her, "Shove it up your nose, wherever you are?" How's that for a little shadow project ala Jung for a 4:15 on a fine Wednesday morning - beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful in Dakota, I know, and I hope grand wherever you are, dear kola. Take care of yourselves and look out for each other.

Ev Albers

Tuesday, January 20th, 2004

'Tis the weest bit nippy here near the shores of Lake Michigan just across the border from Wisconsin - Zion, Illinois where I go in today to try to continue to keep the insidious invader of Big C at bay. Just had my Prosure (super supplemental drink) for the day, a bit of Cranapple juice to toast all of you, and ready to prepare myself for a few needles, probes, specimen containers, and perhaps more. I'm happy to be here for not the happiest of reasons today - yesterday, after a fine morning, I did my high temp, chills and shakes routine a couple of times - so perhaps 'twill get at least a reason for it and possible remedies - at least for the short term.

We're all short-termers, of course - with passages here in the middle world so unpredictable in terms of time - but always not quite long enough for most of us - and we're all looking for an extension on our short-term leases on life under the best possible conditions. Among the best I can think of is to have that degree of tranquillity in body and soul that will allow me to write and work right up until the lease is up. I get help securing both here at Zion, where that bastion of hope and help for such as I - told by others to just go home and prepare to die - the Cancer Treatment Center of America here, the Midwestern Regional Medical Center. They been doing it for a full year - I first came here in January 2002 - with expectations of perhaps gaining a few months --of course, I want to be the exception to reasonable expectations - I want more, I have things to do.

This one, for this day back in 1952, perhaps falls into the category Why in the hell do I need to know that for anyway? Well, it is rather interesting. Patricia McCormick became the first professional bullfighter when she appeared in bout with two bulls in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from San Diego. I have no idea what happened to Patricia, but I assume she fought more. In 1958, Elvis Presley got his draft notice - and in 1964, the very first Beatles album -- Meet the Beatles went on sale - by mid-February, the Beatles' album was number one - and Elvis was finishing up basic training.

On this day in 1930, the guy who will be eligible for full social security next January when he turns sixty-five, Buzz Alderin, was born. Buzz was an Edward Alderin, Jr. - but we all called him Buzz, and the buzz name of the year was his, for on July 16, 1969, he was part of the the first manned space flight to the moon, and he walked on its surface. Buzz is apparently doing all right these days - he had quite a bout with depression and alcoholism after his return - after all, when you've been to the moon, what's next? I'd like to know what he thinks of the revival of manned space travel to the moon and beyond - getting to Mars, for example. Unless there is technology out there that no one is telling us about, a human landing on Mars is damned near impossible - contrary to the rather optimistic pronouncement of George W. Bush, who says we're going. I really don't know enough to give anything more than an informed reader's opinion - but there are those who know Mars, who call Mars a friend, and who would dearly love to get there - but they all say that Mars ain't no little trip to the moon and back, baby. Sure hope they go to the bathroom before they leave --

That's a version, by the by, of the best advice Britain's King George V had for a reporter wanting to know what he had to pass on to his subjects and to the world (doubt that such was the occasion for his casual remark, but makes a great story) - King George, who died on this day in 1936 (he was born in 1865), said, "Always go to the bathroom when you have the chance." Another Englishman born who completed his passage in the middle world on this day - John Ruskin, who had journeyed here from 1819 until January 20, 1900, was chary of the results of the industrial revolution and the mechanization of the production of goods - Ruskin bemoaned, "There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper." He was right - still right. Few and far in between are the exceptions of something made better and offered for less - but notable exceptions.

For example, 'tis mechanization that makes it possible to print books in Canada for around half of what it costs in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, and just a fraction of what thousands of copies of full-color, gorgeously-printed books cost to print in the People's Republic of China. In both instances, the product is highly superior - and in the case of China, their cost of raw materials is much, much higher. Canada uses a far less labor-intensive process - one printer does the work of three or four in Dakota - but, China, I suspect, can afford to use many more technicians who are along the production line making sure everything goes all right.

Many have proclaimed that the days of the word printed on paper are numbered, that it will be replaced with electronic media. Poppycock! With every explosion in the use of electronic media, the number of books printed each year goes up - we will always, methinks, wish to have a permanent book in our hands, one that falls on our face when we drift off reading at night (or falls on our lower chest, demanding on the degree of near-sightedness and the vanity of the reader). I appreciate mightily the ability to search classical texts and books for a phrase I'm trying to find - I can't read a book on my computer, though. I'll listen to one on audio - but no reading a complete book on computer for me. I design and set up books on my computer - but I've not really read even those books on the screen - I make a mock-up and read the printed version before sending it off to the printer.

My current passion is Annie Proulix - and I'm loving Accordion Crimes -- it will be my companion this morning as I wait to see the doctor and find out whether I'm going to be doing another round of chemo this visit - if I do, 'twill begin this afternoon, I think, on this day of momentous happenings around the world - and I'm not talking about the State of the Union message by President Bush tonight or the win in Iowa by John Kerry announced this morning - I'm talking about such as Jimmy Dean no longer speaking for the sausage that carries his name (Jimmy Dean sausage is owned by Sara Lee - go figure); as the man in Indian who hid diamonds in a haystack and now is following his cow around to see in hopes of retrieving them when she "gets a chance to go to the bathroom"; and of the chimp at the Los Angeles Zoo who took a vacation - he went berserk, climbed the wall, and roamed where he would - and then voluntarily came home about an hour later; or of the flamingo found in a rustic shack with a wood stove in Siberia by railroad workers - there's no report about whether or not the lost flamingo started a fire - but I think the shack was being occupied by the railroad workers and they had the fire going.

Well, the fire's goin' here - heaters working overtime here at the fabulous Hawthorne - and 'tis dry heat - but that's not a problem for long, for I must hie meself to prepare for the day. Hope you find a shack with a fire goin' if your cold, kola - do take care of yourselves - and, of course, look out for each other. the reason we're here.

Ev Albers