It's Just How You Look At Things

Sway the Limit isn't the easiest horse in the world to own. Today was another day in handling his strangely-wired brain.

It was time to get his and Ginger's toes trimmed, and I brought the pair up from their new four-acre pasture they were awarded after a couple of other pasture mates tried to turn them into hamburger. We love the new spot, but it's not the easiest place to reach, especially during California winter rains. So, rather than have the farrier haul all her supplies the long road to their paddock, I led Sway and Ginger up to a round pen to await their manicure.

Sway was unnerved when the horses in the adjacent pasture raced to greet them - well, to greet Ginger, who welcomed their attention. Sway was furious, so I put him in a pipe stall next to the round pen, and while I left Ginger in the round pen, I tied her near to Sway.

Sway seemed to calm down after that, and behaved as usual when I cleaned their feet in preparation for the trim. But when the farrier arrived, Sway began to melt down. He wouldn't hold still. He tried to rear. He tried to sit down. He resisted everything, and we were about to leave his feet alone - except he's been dealing with a quarter-crack, and really needed my repairs examined, and the hooves reshaped and beveled.

The last time he reacted this badly was 2002, when I was trying to redirect his behavior after he attacked me. But we've come a long way since then, and I could tell by one of his actions that he meant me no harm.

I asked the farrier to give me a few minutes alone. She wisely backed off. Another boarder came by, and I told her, "Now's not a good time," and returned my focus to Sway. He needed quiet, without interruption.

And, I could tell he wanted help in regaining his composure - he dropped his nose to the ground periodically.

Getting him to lower his head was our first breakthrough on the long road to giving him a veneer of normalcy. Some days, early on, the only good thing he would do was to drop his head on command. A technique I learned from Bill Dorrence's book, it makes sense. A horse throws his head up when he's nervous, and lowers it when he's calm.

But Sway was nowhere near calm - in fact, he was on the verge of one of his increasingly-rare breakdowns, when he loses any contact he may have with reality. Lowering his head was his cry for help.

So, I got everything and everyone stopped. And Sway and I talked. We walked a bit, then stopped. He finally began breathing normally, and his heart, pounding so wildly I could feel his pulse on every inch of his body, finally started to slow. I got him to focus on me.

And, finally, he stood calmly, and the farrier could finish her job. He let me pick up his feet - even handed them to me - and once I knew he would tolerate it, I would let the farrier hold the hoof so she could continue her work. She even liked how his quarter-crack hoof was healing, and told me to continue the cotton ball and glue treatment that has prevented the crack from spreading and allowed his hoof to heal. "Keep up the good work," she said.

Ginger's trim was nowhere near exciting, even when she flinched because of arthritis in her 30-ear-old back legs.

I paid their bill, praised the farrier for her patience, and got an atta-girl from her for handling Sway so well. And I led the horses back to their four-acre spot, and they behaved as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

I know not everyone would be able to see today's adventure as a success story. And it certainly could have ended badly. But then, not everyone would understand what this fractious horse was saying when he lowered his head.

Fortunately, my precious Sway and I have learned to see eye-to-eye.

It's Nice To Be Back

Some time ago, Harlan Ellison called me a writer. Actually, he did more than that. He announced that I was a writer. He proclaimed that I was a writer. He pointed his finger at me, one of many in his audience at his talk at a World Science Fiction Convention, and made sure the rest of the folks in the room knew I was a writer.

I'd prefaced a question to him by saying unlike many science fiction readers who all seem to be working on novels, I wrote stories for a daily newspaper and had no aspirations to write a book. I never got to the question - Harlan took that point and expounded on it. He reminded all the others whose "books" were still rambling thoughts not yet fastened to paper that writers actually write. And pointed out I wrote on a daily basis.

I wrote for newspapers for 23 years, until one office where I worked made life so peculiar I switched to managing Kenny's cartoon studio. And you know things must be peculiar if working in a cartoon studio felt better than working in a career I had loved.

Then Kenny got hired at Pixar. Then we moved to California. Then I needed a job and figured, hey, with all these papers in the Bay Area, getting hired as a reporter should be a cinch.

Instead, it was a bust.

Folks think newspapers have recently run into problems. I got my heads-up on the matter in 1997.

Ever hopeful, I filled the time between applications with office temp jobs, a short-term bartending gig, telling folks about Hawai`i, trying and failing to be a travel agent, and becoming a top-notch cashier until a nasty fall made them send me home for good.

I turned to teaching ukulele and Hawaiian language in Texas, and started my own halau after we returned to California. Love the teaching, won't give up the halau and other students, but realized at last I couldn't survive solely on that pay.

Thanks to Roger Colton, whose keen eye spotted the ad, I applied to the Benicia Herald for a part-time reporting job. Didn't make it on the first round, but when they posted another opening, I got hired. (Thanks Marc! - He's my new boss!) And this is the door I walk through five days a week.

Working at this paper reminds me of working in the bureaus for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Orlando Sentinel. Bureaus are office outposts, satellites operating away from the main office, usually in suburbs of the main office's home metropolis. Sometimes the downtown folks look down on the bureaus as not being as prestigious as working at the main office. But for some of us, it's appealing to get away from the big building, compete with the local papers and other papers' bureaus, and meet killer deadlines that make scooping the competition so much sweeter.

As a bureau brat, I got to know more townsfolks a lot better, which can work both for and against you. But, sometimes the residents would remind me that the bureau belongs to a big metro paper, and I wasn't working for the "local" paper - even if none of their staff was born or grew up in the home town.

Now, I do work for the local paper.

The Herald publishes five days a week. It's the home town paper in Benicia, just a short bridge ride from my home in Martinez. It's not on line, and they've ended subscriptions by mail. You get your paper the old fashioned way, by delivery carrier or by slipping a couple of quarters in the paper machine.


Snagging this job wouldn't have happened if it weren't for many friends, because my clips collection had been ruined. Kenny found a few of my surviving clips, some of which were so damaged they couldn't be scanned - I typed them into the computer and printed them out as if they were raw copy. Gerri Bauer, who worked with me in the News-Journal's DeLand office, located some of my stories about Stetson University, where she works now. That included my scoop on Barbara Bush. T. C. Wilder found some of my historic pieces on Eldora, an unincorporated community within the Canaveral National Seashore. Countless folks offered to be references.

I found other co-workers through Facebook who gave me sad news - most of my work has been dumped.

I had written copiously about the Central Florida Zoological Park, where I met Jack Hanna and Stan Brock. Among my stories was one about employees who learned sign language on their own and taught it to the chimpanzees on display. They did it simply to entertain the animals and stimulate their minds, not to make history. But they noticed the chimps were signing to communicate to each other, and were putting signs together to make new words to ask the employees for things. Scientists who had been working with chimpanzees and other great apes were astonished to read the article, which published worldwide by the Associated Press. It had never occurred to those working in labs that apes on display could learn sign language, or that they could learn outside of isolated, one-on-one lessons.

I wrote many stories about the nation's Bicentennial. I did a series on folksinger Barbara Muller's trek up the east coast, gathering obscure songs along the way. I rode along for a day so I could file a story on the Bicentennial Horse Ride that gathered horseback riders from all over the nation. I chronicled older residents' memories of their lives, written at the prompting of another senior, Nikki Wahl, whose story we always had hoped to tell, but who, instead, sent us to others who, like her, had lived in fascinating times.

I'm sorry those stories are gone, but as I now say, I'm writing new clips. God willing, I will never need to use them. The owner and publisher has told my boss that this paper is a survivor, and I would like to think I'll be a reporter here for a long time.





That's me at my desk, at the end of the week. I've got a story up on the screen, and my steno pad ready for notes.

Best feature on the desk is a photo that Kenny got for me, with the help of his buddy John Field, who may know more about "The Adventures of Superman" television show than anyone who wasn't part of the production. They both knew that when I watched the show, I focused on Lois Lane, played by Noel Neill. Lois wasn't stuck writing for the Society Section, the only opening for many woman reporters when this show was airing. Lois in all her incarnations - tv, movie, and original comic book - wrote hard news, and I found that exciting.

So, when I landed this job, after trying for so many years to get back into the industry, John helped Kenny surprise me with this photo of Noel Neill (posing with Clark Kent doing his side job as a superhero), which she signed "From one reporter to another."

My beats include the city of Benicia, and I'm in the middle of covering election campaigns. I've interviewed the first woman brigadier general in the California Army National Guard. I've written about how our carelessness with trash has caused a floating island the size of Texas, made of plastic garbage, to form in the Pacific. I've filed a story about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's refusal to sign several hundred bills until the legislature addresses water problems, and I interviewed our assembly member and county and city representatives about how this affects the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta - Benicia is a Delta town.

Unlike Lois, I've also written about a recent style show, but this is because the event was organized by Main Street Benicia, which promotes downtown business - I cover business, too.

The important thing is I've been writing. My by-line is back on Page One.

And, yes, sir, Mr. Ellison - I am a writer!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Kenny and I love trains. And one of our favorite rides is on AMTRAK's Capital Corridor from our home, Martinez, to Sacramento, California's capital. It's a ride we like to make for our anniversary. This year, we marked Number 26 in our usual way.

One of our first views came as we crossed the stretch of the Sacramento River at its Carquinez Straits. Beyond the glimmering water are the hills on which our horses, Sway the Limit and Ginger, roam. We had just left the Martinez station, off to the left. Our celebration had begun.




Train rides soothe us. Kenny is working in Southern California. He's working with folks who love having him around. He's getting a chance to direct, and soon may get some voice assignments. Many of the characters he is drawing are those he designed while he worked at DNA Productions in Texas, so like his co-workers, these are old friends. But it's still stressful for him to be so far from home.

I've been dealing with up and down attendance in classes, a quest for more employment, a crisis at my church, and a nasty crack in one of Sway's hooves.

And the last one has stressed me the most. A quarter crack isn't as life-threatening as other situations in which horses can find themselves, but it's ominous enough. This crack, running from the coronet band to the hoof sole, is something like a fingernail that breaks from the cuticle to the tip - except that a horse stands on this "fingernail," and if complications occur, the crack won't heal. That's an ominous spectre.

Fortunately, like Kenny, I have good support - Mrs. Pamela Woods, my first instructor and constant trainer; Eric and Margaret Redmond, breeders of Arabian and Quarter horses who take better care of horses than nearly anyone I know; and a stack of horse care books and updated internet information to guide me. By the time I found a farrier to examine the hoof, initial healing was well on its way.

Kenny and I both needed a relaxing break, and it started with the train.




Our "anniversary suite" was aboard the Delta King. This old paddle-wheeler, along with its sister, the Delta Queen, used to take passengers from Sacramento to San Francisco. It had a rough life afterwards, but was rescued and restored. Docked permanently in Old Sacramento, it is a hotel, restaurant, night club and entertainment venue. It's also a great romantic get-away.




Kenny and I arrived early enough to take in some Old Sac sights before dinner. We stopped by the "Garden of Enchantment," a little emporium of crystals, books, bath salts and incense - definitely one of the best-smelling stores in the district. Three anniversaries ago, we decided to buy some raffia and bead friendship rings as souvenirs. They almost lasted the year. Last year, our 25th anniversary, we bought silver rings with shell inlay that, again, almost lasted the year. This year, we selected heavy-duty wooden rings. Kenny's is a deep brown with lovely grain. Mine is pale with swirls of terra-cotta, decorated with carved lines, circles and holes that remind me of Hawaiian kapa watermarks.

And as we wandered near the Delta King the next morning, we saw these birds. Mynah-kin, perhaps? I love the wild mynahs of Hawai`i; I love Warner Bros.' cartoon mynah. And these characters caught my affection as well.



While I was busy snapping shots of the Delta King and the birds, Kenny was focusing on the yard of the National Train Museum. He's piloted locomotives similar to the one he is photographing.

During our getaway, we also sat on the Delta King's deck to watch the trains cross the bridge above the Sacramento River, and smaller boats pass along the river below. The nightclub band provided just enough background music. So relaxing - just what the doctor ordered!

As a tribute to our honeymoon, we spent a little time watching the NASA channel. Our honeymoon included the first night launch of the Space Shuttle - the late Columbia. Discovery's night launch had taken place shortly before Kenny came home, so it seemed right that in Columbia's memory, we included this mission in our anniversary celebration.




We came home to a pleasant surprise. The Tioga Pass, a private rail car, came into the Martinez station shortly after we disembarked. This is one of my favorite types of rail cars, because its platform allows passengers to sit outside to enjoy the view. Originally part of the Canadian National, it primarily served in Alberta. Like the Delta King, it was sold, neglected and rescued, and like the Delta King, it has a new life entertaining tourists.

We extended our celebration with meals at two of our favorite restaurants, Mangia Bene, an astonishingly excellent Italian restaurant between the Petco and the KFC, and Hanabi, the Japanese restaurant that substitutes for Ebisu, the long-gone, kneel-down Japanese restaurant where Kenny and I got engaged and had our wedding reception.

The rest of our celebration was spent doing the usual household things. "Our house knows when I come home," Kenny joked as he re-shimmed the front door and repaired a spontaneous leak in the bath tub. We went out to the Pasture at the Top of the World to re-bandage Sway's hoof. We fed horses and cats and did laundry - mundane things couples do when they're together.

Then it was time for one more train trip. I took Kenny to the BART station for his trip to Oakland Airport. "It was tough leaving the Coliseum to take the BART bus to the airport, because the A's were playing, and I could hear the game!" Kenny said.

He arrived safely in San Diego, and is back at work at Omation. I'm back on the job search, preparing for the next round of classes, feeding cats, doing laundry and bandaging a split hoof. And so it'll go until Kenny heads home again.

We've noticed one thing that's changed - we're both looking at our new rings. A lot.

Sorry - You'll just have to use your imagination for this one

"Picture this--" as Estelle Getty in her "Golden Girls" role as Sophia, used as a prelude to one of her stories. No, not The Monkey lounging on the arm of the sofa the way large cats lounge on the larger branches of trees. He's doing that here, and you don't need much imagination to see The Monkey dozing this way.

Instead, you'll have to imagine the blue curtains we've put in our empty doorways to keep our small air conditioner's cold air in the living room. Imagine the cat-claw snags partway up one panel.

I missed a great shot while talking to Kenny on the phone. I saw the curtain was moving, and I presumed either The Monkey or India the Dog-Cat - or both - would emerge under the blue fabric.

Instead, one panel swung out unexpectedly, and dangling along for the ride was The Monkey. Riding the fabric the way Tarzan swung out on jungle vines, The Monkey took himself for a brief ride.

He swung out several times, causing me to howl with laughter. I was too helpless to explain to Kenny what had interrupted our call. Nor could I get to the camera in time. Before I could unpack my new Nikon and turn it on, The Monkey worked his way down the curtain and was off to other adventures.

San Francisco's Aloha Festival 2009

When I first moved to California in 1997, the first Hawaiian event I attended was San Francisco's Aloha Festival. I didn't know anyone in the Bay Area's Hawaiian community, and the only one I knew personally was a co-worker of Aunty Kau`i Brandt who had flown out from Florida to help a friend who was a vendor at that event.


I knew some of the performers and some of the kumu hula who entertained that day - I had their CDs, or had watched their Merrie Monarch performances. The two day festival was a wonder, and a preview of things to come.


Cautioned not to jump into any specific hula situation until I had time to look them over, I chose to join Hollis Baker's ukulele class in Hayward. They played during the festival, and I loved their sound and the look of the women who danced during their songs.


During my first class, I sat next to a Hawaiian woman who had a lovely voice and beautiful posture. She urged me to stay after class for hula taught by Aunty Harriet Spalding.


The singer is Pearl Ho`omalu Lopez, and LaDania is her daughter. We've been friends ever since. I ended up singing and playing for Uncle Hollis for many years. Through this class, I met Uncle John Ogao, who made the 8-string ukulele I play. And, I was Aunty Harriet's hula student until a stroke ended her career.






So, it's no wonder that I consider the Aloha Festival an anniversary. It's also memorable to regular attendees: The 1997 edition was its last appearance at Chrissy Field - it moved to the Presidio Parade Grounds the next year.



This year was special in another way. Not since my first Aloha Festival have I not been a participant. When I went to the 1998 Aloha Festival, I performed with two bands - Uncle Hollis's Kaleponi Strings and Uncle Kem Tung-Loong's Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band - but I also danced with Aunty Harriet's Kaleponi Dancers.



When I returned to California from Texas in 2007, I rejoined Uncle Kem's band, which meets at his restaurant in Berkeley, just in time to perform with the band that year at the festival. However, earlier this year I was graduated from the band, and got to sit this performance out.

It had been a long time since I could attend the festival without bringing Uncle John's 8-string, a music stand and a book of songs. On the other hand, it also meant I didn't have to miss any performances at the festival!




Among the performers were Faith Ako and Kumu Shawna Ngum Alapa`i. Ms. Ako sang for hula presented by Kumu Shawna's halau, Na Pua o ka La`akea. Ms. Ako and her band also had a segment during the festival, during which Kumu Shawna danced "E Waianae," which was composed by the hula instructor's brother, Randy Ngum.



The Aloha Festival is more than a song and dance show. Organized by the Pacific Islanders Cultural Association 15 years ago when the recreated Polynesian ocean-voyaging canoe came through the Golden Gate from Hawai`i, this festival educates the public about Polynesian culture and raises money for scholarships. Each student this year - and four received PICA scholarships - gets $1,000 annually for four years to spend as needed during his or her college career.

The festival has a keiki (children's) tent for fun and educational activities, workshops for adults (including ukulele and slack key guitar classes this year,) and informational booths.

Other booths, of course, give attendees plenty of opportunities to shop - and eat! It wouldn't be a Hawaiian festival without food!



Everyone loves when the hula dancers take the stage - or stages, since there are two of them at the festival. Dressed in lovely red and tan dresses, these dancers of Kumu Blaine Kia's combined halau beautifully illustrate the hallmark synchronized motions of the dance. From the earliest writings by Westerners of hula, observers were fascinated that so many dancers would move in perfect unity.



Frequently the final performer at the Aloha Festival is Kumu Mark Keali`i Ho`omalu's Academy of Hawaiian Arts. Kumu Mark has been called the chanter of his generation, and is known throughout the hula world for his pounding drumbeats and controversial, distinctive chanting style.

He's known in mainstream entertainment fans for his composition, "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" and for chanting the medley called "He Mele No Lilo" for the Walt Disney animated movie, "Lilo and Stitch."

His halau's hula are marked by strong movements that reflect his firm style. Even the keiki (children) dance in precise, businesslike formation - these aren't adorable little kids who get distracted by the thousands in the audience, or watch each other to remember what motion comes next. The tiniest of Kumu Mark's dancers need no motherly "aunty" to help place them on stage. These are dancers performing far beyond their years.

Most Hawaiian events conclude with everyone standing, holding hands and singing "Hawai`i Aloha," and this festival was no exception. The crowd then drifts through the vendors' booths for those last purchases or to buy some take-home food.

But that's not the last gasp for me. Since my first Aloha Festival, I've volunteered for after-show cleanup. They call us "Pau Hana Volunteers" [pau hana means after work or after activity], and we are particularly loved. Up till then, the rest of PICA and other volunteers have worked hard to pull off this two-day celebration. And they're exhausted. The Pau Hana crew is the second wind of volunteerism.

With the help of the 60,000 to 70,000 attendees, who do a pretty good job of picking up after themselves, and the Conservation Corps, we sweep through, lugging black plastic bags we fill with whatever litter that got left behind or blew under shrubbery or fell out of overflowing rubbish bins. We separate the recyclables. And we do such a good job that the folks in charge of the parade grounds say you'd never know that anyone had been there.

But we were there. We sang along with the bands, and we cheered the dancers. Some of us also danced when we heard a song we knew - I danced "Waikiki" for one band, and when the musical duet Moana called up all hula dancers for "Ka Uluwehi o ke Kai," I got brought up on stage. We saw friends and shared a great time.

And, as I dropped off my last bag of trash and packed away my gloves, I smiled, knowing I'll never again attend a San Francisco Aloha Festival and not know anyone there except someone who happened to have flown across the country to help a friend in a vending booth.

Where's my air car? When's the next Mars shuttle?

Back in 1969, I stayed late at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, along with many fellow staffers. The night dragged on till early morning, but nobody was leaving. News was breaking, but we weren't covering it ourselves. We were watching it unfold on the office television. Men finally were walking on the moon.

My Godparents, Thelma and Robert Ross, had bought me astronomy books when I was a child. When I was 9, I'd read all the horse books in the library three times over, and started to explore science fiction. Put the two together, then ship me to Florida, and it's no surprise I was a fan of the space program.

When America began launching manned rockets into space, I was watching the skies at every opportunity I could see a launch. I found High Bridge in Oak Hill when I couldn't get to the Titusville Pier. Other times, my folks and I would walk to the ocean where Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach meet.

I loved the old Saturns. When European rockets raced into the sky like scatted dogs, the Saturns gave us a show. Steam plumes billowed out to each side of the rocket, setting the stage for the slow climb away from the launching pad. The Saturn would gather speed as it rose, and finally began to streak into the sky. We'd wait to see if we could see the stages separate, and to feel the accompanying rumble roll under our feet.

That late-night-to-early-morning in July, we watched as Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and touch his feet onto the surface of the moon. We'd made it.

It would be, we believed, the first of many steps onto the surfaces of other worlds. At least it was the first of several such adventures, including Alan Shepard's famous golf swing. For the last of the moon launches, my family and I, including my German shepherd, Athene, gathered at Titusville Pier to watch a great Saturn rise for one last time.

The movie "2001" came and went. The book "2010," like its predecessor 2001, was published and likewise was turned into a movie. And went.

Walt Disney's preview of the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow, with "people movers" and other futuristic devices, was shown to us on tv, but as a concept, it went, too....replaced by a theme park of the same name, EPCOT, that has nothing to do with experimental cities that had been planned to house Disney employees.

We've stopped making the great Saturns. The Space Shuttle, which had no dreams of extending us into deeper space, has taken its turn in our space program, and soon will be retired. We've remotely explored our neighboring planets, but we have yet to go. We're helping to build a space station, but it's even closer to Earth than is the moon - so much for building a station in the area of space called "L-5."

Even as late as the 1960s, we thought by 2009 we'd have air cars and a station on the moon, if not a regular landing spot on Mars or one of Jupiter's moons. But then, back in the '60s, we all thought that peace, love and flowers in our hair would win the day, and people would be a lot nicer to each other, too.

The dreams aren't ended...they're just taking longer to accomplish.

On the other hand, when I was watching our first lunar landing take place, I remembered that my father had ridden his paint mare, Trixie, to school. And in his lifetime, he saw us break many barriers. He saw the first atomic bomb. He saw planes that broke the sound barrier. He joined his family in watching little Telstar travel unblinking across the sky. He saw the end of the poll tax and the integration of schools and lunch counters. He saw our country criss-crossed with interstate highways, the growth of hotel chains, the rise and fall of train and luxury liner travel, replaced by jets. And he saw men walk on the moon.

My Administrative Assistant

The Monkey thinks I need help in my office. If I get more Monkey Help in the office, I'm never going to get anything done. Here The Monkey is watching a Kenneth Patchen poem emerge from the printer.

If only watching were all The Monkey did. The topmost photo shows that the printer has its green light on. That means everything's fine. But The Monkey never believes the printer is capable of working on its own. So Monkey peers into its inner workings, and offers it a "helpful" paw.

Figuring that there must be more to this poem than just one page, The Monkey has decided to dig out the rest for himself. Notice that the green light has turned to yellow. The printer is protesting Monkey's helpfulness, but very little deters my "administrative assistant."

The printer should be back from the repair shop any day now.