MY FRIEND JOHN WHO LIVED TO 103

william halsey

I think every day of my friend John who left the body a week ago at 103, in sound mind and body until the last few months when he needed hospice. I know he went out in good hands. John stands out for me for his attitude toward life. He had the coolest bookstore in the South, the Book Basement, in Charleston. I worked with him every working day for five years. He was such an essential encouragement for my education, I may not have finished without his sound counsel. After a certain point, I lost confidence in American education and its value. I went into school wanting to be a teacher. Left school wanting no more to do with the education system from either side of the desk. I would have liked to go to graduate school in something like Existential Theater or Egyptology. Couldn't have afforded it if I'd wanted to. So I read about those subjects and others. Bookstore was the only kind of work I wanted to do, though these were the last years of the small bookstores before the gigantic corporate bookstores and amazon, which is so easy I don't even miss bookstores.

 

william halsey

 

A small bookstore custom fit to its customers seems to me a major cultural loss across the land. So much of the interpersonal business as it was in another time is gone over to the anti-personal corporate bookstore that does drone deliveries by GPS. It's a new age. Rents are out of range now for a small, personal business, and have been for a long time. John was fortunate to be able to keep the store going well unto retirement age. He was the WW2 generation, was a radioman in the Navy stationed in Alaska. He also went to the Citadel before the war. It was the time of the Depression (economic downturn) and he could not afford college. He went to the Citadel for free. He hated it, but it got him an education. To his last years he had nightmares of being late to some lineup drill they did. He was reading Dickens before first grade.

 

william halsey

 

John grew up Catholic and had intense reaction to it similar to my reaction to fundamentalism. We were in theological agreement: no to all that. He had thrown off supposed-to morality and followed his guiding light of lines from Shakespeare, To thine own self be true.... It was the scripture he lived by. It had no organization around it, no church, no authorities, no supposed-to. I can't say that I ever saw or heard of John engaging in deception. He was inhibited, though not deceptive. He was one of many Southern liberals. Through my decade in Charleston, I only knew liberals. The reactionaries outnumbered the liberals. The divide then, late sixties, was like it is now, though without the influence of Rupert Murdoch and Karl Rove, to name a few instrumental in making the right wingnuts socially aggressive.

 

william halsey

 

John was good to the people around him. In his retirement, he gave several annual scholarships to foreign students in the music department at the College of Charleston, scholarships that made it possible for them to study there. He contributed to his community in his own personal ways, ways he believed important. His career was distributing books to readers. Looking back over my own path from perhaps its last chapter, from this perspective I have come to see John a gift from God in my educational transition from Kansas through the Deep South to the North Carolina Blue Ridge. I did not know it then, but I knew something was ahead, a reason not to commit to Charleston. I had no idea what it was, but intuited I'd be going someplace else. The day the door opened for the possibility to relocate to Waterfall Road, then Road 1131, I knew this was it, knew I was going to the mountains, no turning back. Only a handful of my friends took the chance to go to the mountains a great opportunity. John was one. The ones who said I'd be back, I don't even remember most of their names. The five who saw the mountains my next step continue to be my friends. Though John has left the body, he continues.   

 

william halsey himself

 

 

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HANGING AN EXHIBITION

 

circles inside circles

 

This morning I packed art objects made over the last year into the car to take to the library and hang on the walls in their exhibition / meeting room, Sherry's office space, for the month of October. Took two hours hanging them, got plenty of stair-step exercise stepping onto a wooden chair often and back down. I get them up on the walls and they look so puny in a big room. That's neither here nor there. It's hard for me to say if it looks good or not. I know them each one, individually, intimately unto conception. I know the why behind them. I need to write this out in a kind of artist's statement for anyone who is curious. First and only rule for every piece was Simple, simplest possible. When something became complex visualizing it in mind's eye, I'd stop and say, no complex---simple only. Each one is about getting the max out of the least. I decided to call the show Punk Art. Had a good time in there. Hung the pictures as low as the hanging chains allowed. I wanted them down where kids can see them easily. I've asked the people working in the library to suggest to kids who come in to go have a look.

 

the foot of somebody's bed

 

First of the month, had some cash, decided to treat self to a good meal while in town. Went to a small restaurant called La Mexicana. The spirit is the best in there since Consuelo, of Bogota, Columbia, opened it. She served Venezuelan, Mexican and Columbian cuisine for lunch. Her cooking had the quality of a chef. Her personality was vibrant, a woman who likes to dance on weekends. She's moved to Charlotte, last I heard, the restaurant has been through I think two owners between Consuelo and the people who have recently taken it over. I saw an article about the new owner in the paper a few weeks ago. He is from Spain and his wife from Bolivia, La Paz. She does the cooking. Several Mexicans came in while I was there. The food is real Mexican. The Mexican restaurant in town for years, Mis Arados, is Tex-Mex. La Mexicana is the food they eat in Mexico. I love Latin cooking. Flavor is important. I will return to this place often, already feel at home there. Good meal, good vibrations.

 

hanging line

 

Walking from the car to the house told me I was worn out from hours of physical activity, not strenuous, but motion. Emptied pockets right away, shed shoes and socks and fell down on the bed, covered up and slept a few hours. Did not want to get up. Did not want to write. Wanted to be still. Could not get back to sleep. Thought I'd watch the movie in today's mail, Love & Mercy, Brian Wilson's story of the Beach Boys. Set it in motion, sitting back with Sophia, feet up, in for a couple hours. Phone rang. It rang a long time for me taking so long to rise from my nest and get to the phone. My friend Billy Potter from forty-five to fifty years ago. I knew when I heard his voice, my friend, his uncle, John Zeigler had left the body at 103. So when he told me, it was already redundant. John was the owner of the bookstore I worked in part-time during the years at College of Charleston, the Old South College of a student body of five hundred. Now it is ten thousand, a state university, has a big art department, big music department, big science department.

 

 

eclipse

 

When I went there, the main building and the old library were it. The plaster walls were cracked and patches gone. Old, old maps hanging in some of the classrooms, plaster busts of Greek and Roman generals lying about. Tall windows. Old wooden floors, old desks. Some of the professors were present day people, several of them were from the Old South past. It was fascinating for me, a culture, the South, after growing up in a world without culture. I loved being in a culture and learning the ways of the culture. Throughout my sentence of involuntary servitude, every port the ship stopped in, the other guys went looking for the bars. I went looking for the bookstore. I became acquainted with several bookstores along our southeastern coast and the different ports in the Mediterranean. I bought paperbacks every place the ship pulled into port. I fell in love with bookstores and wanted with all my heart to work in one. I became acquainted with the Book Basement in Charleston and bought several books there, quite a lot.

four quartets: the universe

 

When I started at the College, I asked John about working there. He always kept a college student part-time. The guy working there had one more semester to go. If I could find something to get me through til then, I'll get the job. I made do and got the only job I ever wanted. I believe I learned twice as much by way of the bookstore as I did in school. It was a hyper-learning time. I was learning the ways of the Old South. The New South had yet a decade before it reached Charleston. I loved the Old South. I loved the massive live oak trees that made a forest canopy for the quadrangle. I loved the College's neo-classical architecture. While talking with Billy, I told him John taught me authentic morality. The morality I grew up in was you-better-not. John's morality had to do with practical everyday life, the morality of "To thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." Shakespeare. He kept a small calligraphy copy of this sentence framed on the wall in the store. I saw it every day multiple times. It was the core of John's morality and became the core of my own.

 

e f g

all ouvres by tj worthington

 

 

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IT'S ALL ILLUSION ANYWAY

john sloan

 

It has been with me all day today that I have lived my life poor by choice. Went to further education with ambition to make more money, have a nice car, a few really nice suits, a nice place with a good sound system. The Fifties American teenage dream. By the time I'd finished schooling, I didn't want any of it, mostly on moral grounds. Those were the years of developing my morality to live by. Continuous church from age six to eighteen, I was in flight from religion through the college years, wanted no more to do with it. I'd learned no  morality to live by, only No, Don't, and You Better Not. I wanted to break the rules, commit taboo, and, at the same time, look for a real morality to live by. The morality of you-better-not was a coffin. For somebody growing up into his unknown life, I did not want to live my life in the grave. Much as I resent, still, the overkill browbeating of a dead religion throughout my early years, I see in retrospect it set me on my spiritual path as a natural consequence of recognizing what I had was fake, inspiring a search for what is real. Then the question, what makes something real and something else fake?

 

john sloan

 

I looked for a lot of years at that one. In illusion, what's the difference? Start over with collectively agreed upon reality, the reality of the scientific method, physical reality. Kick a table leg barefoot, it hurts. Duality: pain and pleasure, right and wrong, high and low, in and out, to and from, the wedding of heaven and hell. In this reality I attempt to distinguish real from fake with no guidelines or rule book or discourses to go by. I have to go by intuition, by feeling. I recall my friend John, whose bookstore I worked in through the college years, who grew up Catholic, and had the same allergic reaction I had to Fundamentalism, threw the baby out with the bathwater. He called himself an atheist and I understood his reasoning. He was, at once, the most moral human being I have known, along with a few others I've known in the mountains. He kept a quotation from Shakespeare on the wall in the store that I saw a hundred times a day, To thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. I found it to be so in John, and over the years found it to be true in myself. In a real sense, this is the foundation of the morality I live by. More has grown on top of this, though more or less subtle versions of same. The morality I've come into on my own is not restrictive. It expands.

 

john sloan

 

 

In the dark is the seed of the light---in the light is the seed of the dark. In my time of agnostic thinking and atheist thinking, this quotation from Shakespeare of being true to self was an everyday point in the life, the core of my moral thinking. I didn't need any more verses to memorize of God sez. I needed something to live with that had practical application, something that was not a s'posed-to, but made sense, something I could see applying it in everyday life would, indeed, improve the quality of one's life. I believed God in the early part of the life, but such a twisted version I could not live with it as a rational, or even semi-rational human being, but in denial of my humanity. In the time I was seeking my humanity. Early part of the life, God was Fear. Later part of the life, God is Love. The seeking part in between had in it the seed, To thine own self be true. It is the mountain ethic, be who you are. John has been true to himself all the way along, is now 103, still has a clear mind. When it comes to truly honest people I've known, I'd say more than you'd think, because sometimes I think of a liar as true, true to who he is. Sometimes the lies are self-defense by vulnerable people, and there are an awful lot of different vulnerabilities going around.

 

john sloan

 

What does this have to do with why I live poor? It has everything to do with it. I live below the poverty level and the taxes due from my labor is no support to American military rule of the world and the American people. I do not support it morally, and I do not support it with the fruits of my labor. It's not about politics. It's about morality. Like a conscientious objector. I live simply in order not to pay into the military machine that kills poor people all around the globe and at home. I don't support it morally, and cannot contribute to it with my labor. Patti Smith sings in my head, Outside of society, that's where I wanna be. I live in a self-titled Christian society that hates the poor, the vulnerable, the down and out. How can I live with a moral conscience  in this society and not be one of the poor? I live simply by choice, and in one way of looking at it, by empathy. It's different from being put out of your work and your home. Thanks to Social Security, it bypasses the desolation. I can look the truly poor people I know and come in contact with straight in the eye with understanding, them not feeling like I think I'm coming from a higher place than they are. A few weeks ago I saw someone I know who is the poorest of the poor in every way, we talked awhile and my heart glowed with love for this guy I've known since he was a child, who was born with everything against him, keeps on going with another woman taking care of him, and all I could think was, There but for the grace of God go I. It was a powerful moment. I made myself leave before falling into weeping. I don't want to pay taxes to my government that will not help people unable to help themselves. It's that simple.  

 

 

john sloan by john sloan

 

 

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