FINDING LEO TOLSTOY

 

henry miller

 

Driving home from seeing the race Sunday, the history of my life as an employee came forward and I followed a thread that runs through all the work life that started a long time before I started working for pay. It started in childhood seeing daddy laid off during Eisenhower recessions, and during union strikes. He worked for GM in Kansas City as a "ding man," he smoothed the bumps on car bodies in the assembly line. Every recession, every strike he found whatever work he could, driving a milk truck, this and that, awful jobs that paid little and frustrated him along with everybody in the house. The guy he worked for driving the milk truck loaned him money to buy a used 51 Oldsmobile, a beautiful car, yellow and white, and repoed it when daddy couldn't keep up with the payments. That really was a frustration. Next was a big Nash tank that had a similar "modernistic" body style. It was parked in the street in front of the house one night during a storm, an electric wire fell onto the car and toasted it. I swore to myself for the rest of my life that I will never work for a big corporation. I set as my life purpose to only work for individuals or very small businesses. This meant a lifetime of minimum wage inspiring me to determine that I will always live on very little. I must learn frugality. It's not that frugal is in my nature, so I taught self over a long period of years. A guideline I carry in my head from artist Marcel Duchamp, "It's not what you earn ; it's what you spend." I've learned along the way that desires are expensive, wanting is expensive. I've trimmed my desire for a new black Ferrari down to wanting what I have, a 93 Buick Century that runs perfectly with a classic motor that doesn't even burn oil 21 years later. Things go wrong, I take it to the mechanic over something rusted away almost regularly. That's ok. It's better than payments. It helps keep a man working for a living in his own business at home where he wants to live, and each repair improves the car. Win-win. I drive on the interstate and see thousands of new cars with the unconscious thought: everybody has a  new car but me, weep weep. Next thought: everybody is making payments but me, tee hee.

 

alberto giacometti

 

Even though the Kansas Fundamentalist church I lived in throughout childhood filled the child's mind with so much contradiction and general obvious falsehood called dogma, I did get a spiritual education. It took fifteen years to reason it all out of my head. I had to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It took fifteen years to find the baby. I've spent my life reasoning away the nonsense. What I found fifteen years later was I had actually exempted the words of Jesus from everything else I'd thrown out, because they bore out. As was said of him in his day, he spoke with authority. He knew what he was saying. It wasn't just that he was smart; he was way beyond smart, in another league. I didn't know I was testing what he'd said, holding it up to the light of experience, but the whole process ran its course and left me with the words of Jesus. I don't' recall a time I did not question in child's mind why the preacher was always talking about Jesus and love, but nobody in the church liked anybody else in the church. And they sure didn't like anybody outside the church. I asked somebody once about love your neighbor and was told it has a spiritual meaning that doesn't apply to this earth. I thought: What? And left it there. All the kid's real questions were passed off with equally vacant knee-jerk nothingisms to the point I quit asking adults anything that mattered. The people in the church didn't get it. The people outside the church didn't get it. Teachers didn't get it. Parents of friends didn't get it. Parents didn't get it. If we're bowing down to Jesus to pray, and avoid each other, and control each other, what's the use of going to church or bowing down to Jesus if you aren't going to get your heads and hearts out of the Old Testament? The moment I left parents' house I ran as fast as Usain Bolt from church mind. It was slow in receding. I find that in the subconscious I carry a moral code for my life: always do work that benefits humanity, not takes away. I saw GM and the other mass corporations taking from us, depleting us, spoiling our planet of its minerals and gold so a few can live in uber-luxury and the many can work for the very least allowable by law, and that struggled for by labor unions. 

 

alberto giacometti

 

A friend told me about a job opening at a shoe store. He got the name of the store wrong, but I didn't know it. I went where he told me and they, too, had an opening. I felt like shoes are a necessary item for us in civilization. Selling shoes gives rather than takes away. I wanted to experience face-to-face with strangers, people I'd never seen before all day every day. I was the shyest kid in school all the way along. I was shy of everything and everybody. I wanted to learn to speak freely with people I did not know as with people I knew. It made a difference; I look back in gratitude to the man who gave me the job in good faith that a kid just out of high school could do the job. It was a great learning at the beginning of my life. From there on, I could enter the world "out there," anywhere, a passport. The high school graduate was in a state of confusion that could have broke-out of a straightjacket like the Hulk. All kinds of shit that happens to the ignorant jumped on me like fleas on a stray dog. I jumped in a bucket of shit way up over the top of my head and did like the frog dropped into boiling water, got outta that shit right now. Thank you, God, for the US Navy. It rescued the clueless kid of my tailspin life for two years. I hated it for that. But, it took me out of my life at a time an escape hatch was necessary. I went into it knowing I needed an education. The reason I wasn't able to get going with advanced education was I could not read with comprehension. I used every minute of free time reading, remembered the titles of the books taught in Senior English, a class I didn't dare take. It involved a lot of reading I couldn't handle. The day before leaving for the airport to go away for two years, a few years after high school, a kid, a senior in high school, a friend of somebody I knew, handed me a copy of Albert Camus' The Stranger to read on the plane. By this time in the life I can see that kid as an angel unawares. One of many I suddenly see, now that I've noticed the pattern. I don't know his name, couldn't pick him out in a lineup.

 

alberto giacometti

 

The Navy was good practice in doing what I did not want to do. Going by my anti-authoritarian interpretation, it was not to the good of humanity. It was to the worst. I had a hard time committing to a role in a death machine. Couldn't do it; never advanced, never took it seriously, only wanted to read. Every port we stopped, up and down the East Coast and the southern Europe, northern side of the Mediterranean, the others looked for bars, I looked for bookstores. The very last thing in the world I wanted was to be carried back onto the ship. I wanted peace, not mayhem. Found Henry Miller's Colossus of Maroussi in Athens, Greece, 1963, so glad now I wrote the place and date in it. Colossus, like The Stranger, was one of the great books of my life, great in that they spoke to my soul like Ralph Stanley's music. Like Camus, Miller woke me up a step further. I'd read a fair amount in those two years, mostly French Existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone deBeauvoir, Camus, French underground resistance fiction and plays I felt at home in, resistance the key word. Even crawled my way through Heidegger, even getting some of it, a spot here and there, but followed it. His appearance was toward the end, a kind of graduation test given self upon entering the college phase of  my new life making my own decisions. Again, an angel unawares had confidence I could work in his bookstore. The years in the bookstore, side-by-side, interwoven with the years in school educated a major dummkopf to satisfaction of what I wanted from college, a further understanding of how to get along in this world. Every summer I dove into a stack of books. In the summer I read way beyond what we were reading in school. Like Great Gatsby didn't impress me at all, still doesn't. Even movies of it don't. It was good writing. There is a lot of good writing. A whole lot that I Iike better, like Patrick White, Tolstoy and a great long list. I read War and Peace while school was going on. Couldn't stop. He held me like Stephen King holds his readers. Once I found Tolstoy, this was what I was looking for. Have read several biographies, one by a daughter, one by a son. In this house I can actually put my hands on two volumes of his letters. Henri Troyat's biography brought Leo to life. Why am I not reading Tolstoy now? I'm reading Henry Miller now. Like when reading Tolstoy or Patrick White, Naguib Mahfouz, I don't want to read anything else until I feel like a change. These four are people who illustrate an interpretation of great minds. They were benefits to humanity in their time, and in all time, like Sophocles and Harold Pinter. Nelson Mandela comes to mind.

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alberto giacometti

 

 

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PASSING GEAR

animal by jaap mooy, 1915-1987

This morning the local branch of Hospice put on a talk by Amy Douglas Green on dementia. This was what happened to Jr Maxwell. I was wide awake to everything she had to say. She gave the science behind it, dying brain cells, something on the order of hardening of the arteries, plaque. It happens in brain too. Seems like with all the tiny blood vessels running through the brain they'd plug up easily with plaque. There are several kinds of dementia, Alzheimer's one of them, and there are several kinds of Alzheimer's. I guess that comes down to it's individual like everything else about us. It brought back my experience with Jr, brought it back happily. Happily in that it was such a precious time. He had become the same as a baby, everything strange and new, nothing familiar. I saw when his mind went away that it was only the surface mind that fell away. The subconscious was still there, which is to say I never felt like anything happened to who Jr Maxwell was. He was still very much present. He was enough not present that I was glad it was me and not someone else taking care of him who would not know him well enough to see his self there. I wanted him to have someone with him who understood him, who would allow him to stay in his own home when he was unable to take care of himself.


I talked today about as much as Amy did. Several of us talked. We were a vocal bunch. It was all interesting. Everything Amy talked about was familiar to me, the stages along the way. Somehow having explanations of the particulars of what is happening in the brain to cause certain behaviors makes it easier for me to think about; therefore, deal with.mind loss. I've known older people all my life and I've seen the processes they go through, collectively, in the aging process. Like now I forget a lot, to the point I don't even attempt to remember anything anymore. I've seen it happen so regularly in older people I take it for perfectly natural when it happens to me. A lot of my peers resist it, get mad and hate forgetting, but I see no point in that. Fingers get arthritis. I wear a medal around my neck, an alloy of 4 metals, one of them copper, no arthritis stiffness or pain. Leave it off for two weeks and the finger joints start stiffening and hurt. Rather than become debilitated by arthritis, I wear copper. Easy. With forgetting I can make notes. I see a need for making notes rather overwhelmingly. A few days ago I thought of 4 things I needed to do in town the next day. I didn't make a note, thought I'd remember them. Next day, time to go to town, I couldn't remember any of them.


Rather than get mad at myself and blow a gasket, I laugh. It's funny. I'm doing old age stuff and it's the same me as was 15, 10, 5. Teens have their difficulties, twenties have their difficulties, as do 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s. Each phase of our development and degeneration is common to most of us. I've seen old age symptoms all my life. Every person goes into and through old age differently. It depends on the individual's attitude toward life how we get through, as in the other phases of our lives. Since I turned 70 everyone around me says, "you don't look 70." That's not what I see when I look in a mirror. I see 70 loud and clear, as much as on anybody else. I think it's that I'm not a grandparent and don't have grandkids graduating from college making me feel old. As it is, I don't feel an age. I feel a phase in a process of my own biological development and undevelopment. What I feel like more than I feel like 70 is I don't have a lot of time to go. That's what I identify with inside more than 70. There are a few things I'd like to do before I go, none of them urgent, and I have a bunch of friends I really don't want to leave. But, everything changes. Stop one thing from changing in a tapestry in continual change and you've got a flaw, a broken thread, a still point in a pattern of perpetual motion.


I feel like I'm flowing in this time of the life with my own rhythm. This is what Social Security allows. I like it not only for myself, but for everyone who gets its assistance. I'm grateful with every moment of every day for Social Security. It is allowing me a life as I want it for myself, time to paint, time to write, time not to worry about it, time to visit friends, time. Early in my life, while still in school, I reasoned that living a life is a matter of time or money. If I want money, I give up time. If I want time, I give up money. I chose time. Money is something I don't need beyond necessities. I don't want luxuries. A 93 Buick century suits me as good as a 2012 BMW sports car. Better. Takes less gas. Costs lest to insure. Costs less. Makes nobody envy me. Makes nobody jealous. Makes nobody look up to me for the wrong reasons. Makes nobody want to steal it. My old Buick says it's owner is not between anyone and what they want. Not a stepping stone nor a rung on a ladder. No conscious inclination to impress. I like a car that says this is nobody to suck up to socially, nobody you want to notice. The owner of this car can get you nowhere.


Working in Winston-Salem on a job in the late 80s, a woman I knew there who drove a Mercedes said of my blue 78 Toyota pickup with red driver's side door, "You still driving that old trap?" I said, Yeah. I was thinking, Let's race up 21 mountain and see who gets to the top first. If you do, I won't be far behind, might be pushing you. That thing was a go-kart. I loved it. It handled like an expensive car, took curves good. This 93 Buick is everything I need for get-up-and-go. First time I pushed pedal to the metal, passing gear, it threw me back in the seat and jerked the steering wheel out of my hand. I was ready the second time. Now it's like, let's go! I imagine gas consumption in that moment about 1mpg. It takes off like a rocket. It's front wheel drive and the back end drops like the bumper is going to drag, front end goes up in the air like a minor wheelie and I'm a-gettin it down the road. None of my pickups before had that "passing gear." It's not like something I'd miss if the Buick didn't have it. But it is handy when I need to get around somebody in a hurry. Once on hwy 21 between Twin Oaks and the state line, I passed a couple of college age guys in an open Jeep. They sped up like they wanted to race. I laughed at them in the rear view mirror. First car I've ever owned that would do that. It handles well in curves too. If I needed to I could drive the wheels off the thing.


The Buick has good center of gravity and good power. On the highway with a car wanting to ride up close behind me, I separate myself from it in the curves. I will take a curve faster than I know the other is able to handle it, give it gas in the curve, drive through the curve picking up speed while the car behind is fading back in the curve. It catches up to me in the straightaway and I open the gap between us through the curves. I really dislike somebody on my bumper at night with headlights. My eyes are getting psychedelic. Headlights approaching and in the rearview mirror now have rays of light going out from them in all directions. Sometimes it's a light show on hwy18 going toward Sparta, heading down the hill toward the Napco road at the bottom. The yellow reflectors in the centerline of the road, the white reflectors in the guardrails on both sides of the road, signs beside the road activated by  headlights, headlights coming the other way and in the rear view mirror make a psychedelic experience. Then it's a nice glide up the hill and around the gradual curve to the left, then to the right and we're headed into Spartaritaville 35mph.


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THE OLD MAN CAR

      autumn sky

Took the car for an oil change today. I told Chuck the mechanic about the smell of burning anti-freeze coming from the motor for a period of about 10 days, then it was over. It came on a little at a time and went away a little at a time. No traces on the engine block of any trickles. Inexplicable. I'm wondering if it might have been a connection with the heater I hadn't turned on in a long time. Maybe the connection dried, a pinhole opening occurred maybe, and it dripped until the connection became wet and hot again, swelling it to seal the tiny space. It seemed to be connected with the heater as it came on after I'd started using the heater. I like a self-healing car. I'm thinking a car is something like a cat or a dog or a person in many ways. I treat this car like it's as precious as a million dollar BMW sports car that runs like a motorcycle. I love it and treat it with love, keep its parts in good shape, keep the oil fresh, anti-freeze current. That's about all it takes, until a water pump bearing goes out.

I'd like to take about 3 thousand dollars and turn it over to a body shop, take all the chrome off except grille and around windows, fix rust spots and paint it a nice gun metal blue. The car has beautiful lines. The design of the car itself without ornaments, the look of the original model made in the designer's studio is what I want it to look like. This 93 Buick Century is a beautiful car in its design. I like the taillight all the way across the back. It's expensive and a big bother to replace bulbs, but I like it. It looks like a design I might have come up with as a car designer. In my teen years putting together model cars, customizing them, imagining designs for cars, drawing my designs, looking at custom car magazines, I thought a career designing cars would be good work. Engineering degrees. Not me. Like wanting to be an Air Force fighter pilot. Engineering degrees. Not me. I've enjoyed a beautifully designed car all my adult life, appreciating its designer same as I'd appreciate an artist like maybe Robert Rauschenberg. I've no idea what his/her/their names would be or anything about them, same as I know nothing about Rauschenberg.

     93 buick century new

I have a good mechanic, Chuck Billings, in Glade Valley. He's like the guys on Cartalk. I can tell him a symptom and he tells me exactly what it is or a list of possibilities. He likes what he does and he's good at it. I tell him every little change I notice. Today I told him about how it will idle a little bit rough sometimes. I had to add it's not a problem yet, I just want him to know. I'm hyper-sensitive to any changes in its behavior. I pay such close attention to the sound of the motor that the least little change catches my attention. If I'd been of the mind to support a family, have a house and a garage, I'd be one of the guys that keeps a car in the garage that's being taken apart down to the frame and rebuilt to go into custom car shows. People fixing up old cars or customizing them are doing it less these days. There was a period of time, like the last 30 years when having a new car was necessary for everybody. Now that we're going back to having used cars, I'd like to see customizing start up again.

Chuck plays rhythm guitar with a gospel band, Covered By The Blood. He's a fan of the Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley. He plays WPAQ on the radio in his shop all day. I never fail to hear good music when I go in there where he's working. I don't like to bother him. Sometimes I'll go back there and watch, staying out of the way, not bothering him with conversation unless he's doing something like waiting for the oil to drain. I like having a mechanic I can count on to know what he's doing. Chuck knows a 93 Buick v6 inside out. The only problem is parts are not so easy to find anymore. It's almost 20 years old. We have half a dozen in the county like it. I think there are 2 exactly like it. One looks almost new, probably kept in a garage. One looks about as bad as mine. Mine is one or two of the worst looking ones. The clear-coat peeled off the hood, trunk and roof. I've never driven anything new looking anyway. I've never played the status by appearance game. 

It's my old man car, probably my last car. It was what came to me from Jr Maxwell after taking care of him in his vulnerable time. It was his old man car. He bought it for $500 from his friend Jerry Edwards, whose brother found him a deal he couldn't refuse on an almost new Buick. Jerry drove it mostly on the highway between here and Winston-Salem taking his wife up and down the mountain for hospital trips and chemo treatments. It was his highway car. When it was becoming mine, Jerry advised me not to take it on a long trip. I didn't know what he meant until the right front wheel bearing went out. Later, when I told Jerry about it, he said that was the problem. It's a good car on the highway. It loves the road and handles beautifully. I'd had nothing but Toyotas for so long, I'd forgotten how good American cars are. My only objection is the heavy doors. American car doors have serious weight. Parked on a slant, pushing one uphill, holding it open and squeezing out is serious exercise. But that's a very small matter. Happens maybe once a year.

The title has been in my name two years. Still, it's Jr's car. He's letting me use it. I want to keep it running well, keep the interior clean like he would do. The arm rest between the front seats is the perfect size to hold a fire extinguisher. It's like the compartment was made for the particular one I found at Farmer's Hardware. It's for the extinguisher and nothing else. I watched my previous friend, the Toyota pickup, Swift Round Feet, burn and die. It was rusted so bad underneath, like the frame, I could have only sold it for the running parts. The burning meant I didn't have to sell it, and insurance gave me enough to bring Jr's car up to running like new, so I just switched from the pickup to the car without missing a beat. One of the firemen gave me a ride to Jr's house, and the next day I drove his car. A day or two after I told him what happened and that I'll be looking for something. He told me during a time between long periods of sleep, Don't be in a hurry to find something. The right one will come along. And it did. I call it the Catfish.  

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