The Tale of the Plucky Little Nuthatch

My room is outdoors, in a sense, and when I go there all my secrets come with.  Fortunately, it’s a comfortable room, standing on posts six feet above the patio, with stairs off the back side from a landing.  I built it myself, and was pleased to discover that many of the lessons I had thought did not set in, as my father continually remodeled his house for fifteen years while his family expanded to seven kids, did.  Having two brothers whose carpentry skills greatly exceeded mine was a bonus.

I built it right, too, with a good ledger board well anchored to the wall, and the right kind of concrete supports under the main beams spaced appropriately, so it feels solid, even after fourteen years.  I just replaced the stair treads down to the patio this year after the sun got to them.  The Deckmaster stainless brackets and screws are hidden under the deck boards, which gives it a smooth finish that needs little maintenance.  My brother taught me that one, after he built a similar deck on his house.  Of course, he made his floor out of teak, but he’s just that way, always looking for perfection.

Our deck has an excessively pleasant view, looking out through the five Douglas firs in our back yard to what is now a permanent green belt to the east behind us and our neighbors, crowded with cedars, hemlocks, Doug firs, cottonwood, alders, and the undergrowth featuring a trackless tangle of Himalayan blackberries and Salal, Oregon Grape, ferns and Indian Plum, among others.  There is a trail through there that is kept open by the pounding feet of the Lindbergh Eagles, whose every passage is accompanied by a baying chorus of dogs from all the back yards.  Our yard is filled with impressive green and growing plants, as my wife slowly achieves her gardening vision upon retirement, heavily weighted towards plants that are also edible, as well as enhancing the view.

Among her many interests are the birds that flock to the fuchsia baskets suspended under the rain gutter, not to mention the seed feeder hanging from an ornamental bit of ironwork around the corner where the Doug fir next to the chimney dominates a shady haven created by fencing designed to keep the dogs out.  Hanging from both ends in the center are two hummingbird feeders, which you may remember having heard about in the past.  Nothing to report on that front, but the research continues, and hope dies hard in the faithful breast.  We see flickers, downy woodpeckers, hummingbirds, nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, finches and grosbeaks, and jays, who clamor for peanuts, which she tosses up on the translucent roof over the deck.

Hanging from the extended main roof support beam on the north end is a dragonfly welded out of nuts, bolts and wire by one of her co-workers many years ago, large enough to carry in its arms (feet?) a wire mesh suet cake holder to complete the smorgasbord of attractions for the avian visitors in our back yard.

When I am reclined in one of the Adirondack chairs we got from the kids in the Wood Shop program at Lindbergh, with her shabby chic table finished with a leftover piece of tile from her bathroom project holding up a good microbrew in a glass at my elbow, gazing out over the panorama, a feeling of ineffable peace washes over me.  One of the cottonwoods off in the distance even had a couple of branches that somehow formed a heart shape against the background of the sky last year, which I took to be an omen of sorts.  The noise of the invisible highway is a murmur in the background, as eagles, crows and hawks match the more distant jets in size as they pass overhead.  The clouds paint pictures on my retinae. 

So one day, I’m sitting out on the deck, idly watching the birds peck away at the suet cake while waiting for the hummingbird to strike, and I notice a small bird, a nuthatch, hanging from the bottom of the suet cake basket by his left foot.  His right leg was broken somehow, and projected off to the side.  The poor little guy could barely reach up from his upside-down perch on the bottom of the basket, hanging on for dear life with one foot while he desperately sought another beak full of the concentrated suet/seed mix that was his only hope.  When he fluttered away, I was sure he was a goner.  Mother Nature doesn’t take prisoners.

But, to my surprise, he made it through the night, and was back the next day.  This went on for several weeks, and I began to look forward to the first sighting of the day, as the fledgling somehow continued to gain weight and strength, no doubt largely because of the food supply we provided.  The broken leg bothered him less over time, as the left side got stronger to make up for the loss.

Now, in the middle of the season, he seems to have made it to adulthood.  We’ve started to root for him as a symbol of can-do, our mascot of the underdogs, and hope he makes it through the coming winter.

So, too, he becomes a metaphor for our own struggles against problems large and small, health issues, money problems, accidents, and injuries, with a simple message that says, “Don’t give up!  Keep flying as high as you can, and eat lots of suet cake!”  I’m sure we humans can substitute donuts for the suet cake, if we wish, but the thought remains the same.  :-{)}

Old Man Dewey

Old Man Dewey

Al “Sugar Bear” McKay was a mechanic at the Seattle Fire Garage when I was in the Machine Shop there, and I got to know him in the normal course of work.  He was the motorcycle specialist for Seattle Police Department, assigned to keep the fleet of Harley Davidsons running through the hazards of police work, and he pretty much knew those old Shovelheads inside and out.  He taught me how to assemble transmissions, which he could do blindfolded, and lots of other things over the years.  But he also turned out to be good for a story every now and then, one of which I will relate to you now.

Al started out working for Dewey’s Cycle as the equivalent of a lot boy, running parts on his Cushman scooter (and popping wheelies in the front and out the back when the old man was not looking), general cleanup and whatever else needed doing at the time.  This was probably in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, Al is no longer around to get it any closer than that.

Now, old man Dewey shared a personality trait with many of his competitors and compadres in the motorcycle business in Seattle at the time, like Pat Patereau at Pat’s Top Hat Cycle, in that he tended to be a bit cranky at times, especially when asked for the hundredth time if that Triumph part was ever going to be off Back Order or some such foolishness.  He didn’t necessarily get along with everyone, and didn’t seem to mind much.  It’s an understandable attitude that would be reasonable in a man who spent his entire life in the motorcycle business, with a focus on European brands, only to see everything upended by the relentless onslaught of faster, more dependable and cheaper Japanese bikes, to the point where the idea that a guy could sell the business and retire someday just fell right off the table.  Guys tended to work till they couldn’t work no more, because that was all they had anyway, which explains why we look up to them today.  We just learned when to tiptoe at the time.

I had my old ’60 Thunderbird at Dewey’s once, for example, for a top end job, and the project was hung up because intake valves were suddenly unobtanium in the early ‘70s as Triumph went through one of their many crises at the factory level and couldn’t keep up with parts demand.  One day, as I was walking around the corner from Dewey’s shop on Capitol Hill after checking in for the third time about my bike, and hearing the same story, I got interrupted by one of the mechanics, who popped out of the side door and said, “Hey!”  I stopped to listen.  “That’s your bike waiting on valves, right”, he asked?  “Yeah, they’re still on back order.”  I replied.  “Well, here’s the deal”, he said.  “You can get those valves any time you want from Carmen Tom at Tom’s Cycle down on Empire Way.  The Old Man hates Carmen for some reason, and won’t let us deal with him for anything.  All you gotta do is go down there and buy the valves and bring them back, and I’ll have your bike back on the road tomorrow.  Just don’t say a word about who told you, or my ass is grass!”  “Thanks, Man, I’ll go do that right now!” I replied, and off I went, and that’s how it worked out in that case.

But the story that still makes me shake my head is the one Sugar Bear told me one time.  It seems Dewey’s had also been an Indian dealer back in the day before that company bit the bullet in 1953, and as of sometime in the ‘60s, was still sitting on a pretty good pile of NOS Indian parts in the back room.  As the story goes, a guy came in and made what Dewey considered an insultingly low offer for all the leftover Indian parts, after which the old man ran the guy out of the shop and requested that he never darken his door further.  On the way back to his office he grabbed Al and took him back to the Indian parts section and said, “I want you to take everything that says Indian on it off these shelves and take them out back and throw them in the dumpster!”

So that’s what Al did, supposedly.  I remember when I heard the story many years later, I speculated that a person in the know could have possibly wandered by that dumpster later in the day, after the old man went home, and rescued those bits of unobtanium, but Al didn’t know if that happened or not.

Like so many other urban legends, we’ll probably never know, unless somebody comes up with the rest of the story.  :-{)}

To Ride, or To Trailer... that is the question

Well, funny you should mention that, but it does bring on a story, so I’m glad you did.

It was back in ’03, it was, and a group of us were on the road headed for Milwaukee.  The Harley Davidson Motor Company had somehow stayed in business for a hundred years, and they were promising a big ol’ party for anyone who showed up.  Now this is a company whose customers have a tendency to get the corporate logo tattooed on various parts of their bodies, so that gives you a hint at the depth of their affection for the brand, and at the wildness of the parties that develop when enough of them get together in one place.

I was riding with Rachel and her gang.  She was the escort rider on her cop bike, which gained us some respect from the locals, when she didn’t run off and leave us, which she occasionally did.

I had looked at the map and realized that good old Highway 2 ran right across the top of five states between Seattle and Green Bay, which was just a hop and a skip north of Milwaukee, so that was our route, over the mountains and across the rivers and the wide open spaces with the great big skies.  I wouldn’t recommend that route today, the parts through North Dakota are pretty fracked up. We traveled light, and stayed on the cheap, mostly at KOAs or one of the many little clapped-out resorts that grew up along the highway in the ‘50s that would put up a biker for $10 a night, but the communal shower had floors that sagged under my weight.  It was at one of those where we saw the essence of the old biker question:  “Should I ride, or should I trailer?”

This little resort in upstate Minnesota had been carved out of an old quarry on the riverbank, so you drove down a steep entry to get to the campsites, one of which was enough to fit 4 motorcycles and their tents.  Up top, by the highway, was a strip mall that contained the restaurant and the gas station that completed the roadside oasis.

So we’re down at our site, sitting around the table, when we witness the arrival of a motorhome the size of a Greyhound Bus, which pulled into one of the full-service sites towing the largest Wells Cargo enclosed trailer you can buy.  Two guys get out, wearing biker leather vests and bandannas on their heads.  They’re, ahem, experienced, been around, shall we say, not young bucks anymore, but who among us is, either?  They fold down the ramp that closes off the back of the trailer and proceed to back out two brand new looking Harley Baggers, one a Softail Heritage and the other an Ultra Classic, which they fired up and rode on up the hill to the restaurant for dinner, just like we did.  After dinner, they rode back down to camp and went in the motor home to watch tv or something, while we sat outside and watched the stars come out.

Next morning, while we were packing to leave, they climbed back on their bikes and rode back up to the restaurant for breakfast, just like we did, too.  As we gassed up and hit the road East, they went back to tie their bikes up in the dark inside that trailer before they followed us out of the quarry.  I later saw that same motorhome and trailer parked on a back road outside the Milwaukee Town Center.  There were so many of them there it looked like a convention of Good Sams had hit town with all the bikers.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if you ride or drive, as long as you get there in one piece and have a good time.  And it’s perfectly understandable that everyone gets to a point where the pleasure of the long ride is not enough to make up for not being able to do it with the same attitude you used to have, the knowledge that your skills were at their peak, and you were prepared and ready to handle anything the road put in front of you.  And, of course, if time is a factor it’s better to dash in, drink deep, and dash out again than to have stayed home.

But the ones who drove deserve a certain amount of pity from the ones who rode, and they know it.  Here’s a little experiment you can do on your way back from Sturgis this year that illustrates my point:  As you ride by a pickup with one or two perfectly capable motorcycles tied up in the back, glance over at the driver and give him a nod.  Nine times out of ten, I have observed, he will not meet your glance, but will look away.  He knows he’s depriving himself of the authentic experience of being on the road on a motorcycle by being belted into that cage, for whatever reason, time, health, whatever.  He knows that when you’re out there leaning into that nasty side wind outside of Caspar, Wyoming, or powering into a set of dark clouds forming outside of Bozeman, that’s when you’re fully alive.  Just you and your bike taking on Mother Nature, and winning.  It’s something not everyone can do, and it’s what sets us apart from them.  Ride on.      :-{)}

Hydroplanes

It was the summer of 1970, and the shores of Lake Washington were swarmed, as they were every summer during Seafair.  I had just graduated from high school, and the summer was one long party.

Back in the day, we used to be able to drive our cars around the point in Seward Park, and park in lines that stretched all the way around.  We would show up in the morning and party into the night.  Many a baby was conceived in the bushes along the high banks, and the beer bottles disappeared whenever a Seattle cop car went cruising by on the rare occasions we saw them.

When race day came, we filled our coolers with food and beer and headed out early, knowing which back streets were most likely to still have a few parking spots left, after all the friends and relatives of the folks who lived along the race course filled up the parking lots days early.  We would carry our stuff down to the shore, and stake out our spots with blankets, the advance crew being forced to sit tight and hold the spots till enough bodies showed up to secure the claim.  Then we were free to wander, from one end to the other of the steep banks below the walking trail, now crowded with thousands of families from the log boom to the pits.  The shallow waters swarmed with flotation devices and swimmers ducking the hot sun as the occasional patrol boat cruised by to shoo the adventurous types back from the buoys that marked the race course.  Transistor radios blared their tinny coverage from every blanket as KJR and KOL competed with KOMO for the passing ears.  The smart ones came prepared with foul weather gear and tarps in case it rained, and everyone was down there together, kids, parents, grandmas, neighbors, all smiling and having a good time.

This was towards the end of the era of piston-engine-driven unlimited hydroplanes, and the Pay n Pak was attempting to start a new conversation with a boat powered by twin Chrysler Hemi blown drag race motors against the prevailing Rolls Merlin and Allison aircraft engines left over from WWII that were starting to get hard to find, and harder to get any more power out of without blowing them up in the middle of a race, not an unusual sight.

There was a moment that occurred, in the middle of heat 1B, that was seared into my memory forever.  As the boats came around the third turn, with the Pay n Pak in the lead, and those two American drag race engines at full song together made a noise that brought all of us on the shore to our feet spontaneously, this one girl, seated about 5 rows directly below me, clad in a cute little blue polka-dot bikini, well, when she leaped to her feet, her bikini bottom stayed behind, and all the young men above and behind her went into hysterics.  I forget who won the race.  It was a classic moment in the historical event that was hydroplane race day in Seattle.

So today we hear that the last local television station that had always broadcast the event live was dropping out.  Not enough people watch it anymore, and ain’t that a shame.

I think I know why it happened.  Some years back, somebody decided to monetize the event.  Drunken fools had always been a problem down on the beach, and the neighbors had been complaining for years about parking and traffic hassles, but I think mostly some entrepreneurial types looked at all those people and started wondering how much money could be extracted from an event of this size.  The same thing that happened to the rock festivals happened to large public gatherings all over the country, and always for reasons that boiled down to two things:  money and control.

I think it is another lesson in unintended consequences.  If you look at short term goals only, you may miss out on the long term consequences of decisions made to support those goals.  The police and the neighbors got tired of all the partying and the messes around the Seward Park Loop, and closed off the road to vehicles, so nobody goes there anymore.  The former destination for young people from all over the region has drifted back into being a local park mostly visited by local people, which I’m sure makes them happy.  Just like the locals will be glad to see the inevitable end of hydroplane racing, and the disruption and noise that comes withit.

But if you really want to know why it’s all grinding to a halt, look back at that decision to fence off the shores of the public park, and charge the citizens whose taxes paid for that park to come there.  Look at the beer garden, with their ridiculous prices and their groups of people standing around like dogs in a pen with nowhere to go, while the cops at the gates make sure nobody smuggles in their own.  Look at the executive suites in all the prime viewing locations, where the privileged elite saunter past the guards to eat delicacies and imbibe high class drinks while the hoi polloi shuffle by outside, or line up at the sani-kans.

When the decision was made to cut off the public from their own park, the unintended consequence was to raise a generation of kids for whom that annual party was no longer an important part of their lives.  Why would it be any wonder that that is exactly what happened?  :-{)}

Yakama River Canyon, 2007

With the road on one side

And the train tracks on the other,

This timeless dance

Of slowly falling water

Is captured by the works of Man.

Until the skies open

And the deluge falls

And lays to ruin all we’ve done,

Like Tinker toys and Lincoln logs.

Who will look on us

From the other side

And judge us by our works?

Who will weep,

And who will say

We had it coming?

How to get big money out of politics

Here is another in my series of public policy discussions that I submit to you to stimulate discussion and get people thinking about stuff, maybe in unconventional ways.

Many of us agree that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was a blow to American Democracy.  It may have somehow stuffed itself into a nook afforded by a group of Founding Fathers for whom $1,000 was a princely sum, and the printing press was the only form of long distance communication available at the time, but the effect in today’s world is obvious:  A small group of oligarchs have assumed their rightful places in control of the world’s economy, and in turn, its political processes.  It so easily explains why pipeline profits are more important than clean water for indigenous tribes, and why the global arms market is approaching the $100 bn mark, with the U.S. leading the way.

Bernie Sanders has been the most effective communicator of this reality, and his approach to fundraising, with extensive online fulfillment of all those $27 donations, made history, and almost pulled off the upset against a Democratic Party leadership whose minds were made up in advance.

More important than the money, though, is the way Bernie could rouse the citizenry in support of his ideas, and use the public airwaves on Facebook, Twitter and the like to raise and continue that support.  This process, the Bernie revolution you could call it, continues today, and is making a huge difference in politics in America.  Everyone realizes now that it is our duty as citizens to get involved in local politics, show our faces and take stands for ideas in which we believe.

But I am here to point out that we have, with the fundraising success of all the online efforts, become our own worst enemy, and perpetuated the problem in so doing.  The proof of this is in your inbox.

Look there, and what do you see?  Email after email, always ending with an opportunity for you to donate a small amount of money.  Check your facebook page, and the process is the same.  Always another chance to put your money where your mouth is, be it Planned Parenthood, Women’s Rights, Immigrants, or, above all, this wonderful person who is running for office somewhere other than where you live.

I filled out a few surveys in the past offered by the Republican Party, and they must not have liked my answers, not to mention the nonexistent donations I included, so I don’t hear from them much these days, but I assume for those who are still on their list the feel is the same, and that is the basis of my concern.

With the exception of the occasional George Soros, there’s no way the Democrats could match the Republicans dollar for big dollar, so Bernie showed them how to go small, and overwhelm them with numbers.

The basic Idea is this:  We should limit our donations, just like we limit our activism, to jurisdictions in which we have a stake in the game.  That is, in our local City government, County administration, State politics, and national races or contests.

We should deny donations to any other than those, no matter how worthy they may be.  Much as I like Elizabeth Warren, she’s not getting any money from me until she runs for President or I move to Massachusetts, whichever comes first.

This idea allows me to donate to the anti-DAPL folks, for example, and any other national issue group like the NRA or Voting rights, but it keeps my money out of places where it doesn’t belong, like other state races.  There’s a basic politeness we extend to our neighbors, an unspoken promise to keep our nose out of their business, as long as they don’t cause problems for us, with an understanding we will be there for them if they need us.  That concept applies across state lines, and helps explain the defensiveness you might experience when you complain to someone in North Carolina about their governor.

What does big money in politics buy?  Well, ad time for one, TV commercials aimed at a particular audience.  But, is anyone listening?  A Facebook post or a tweet is free, and reaches all your friends and followers, so who needs the expensive TV ad? The big money also pays for thousands of political flacks spewing negative garbage that does nothing beyond raising blood pressure on all sides.

My contention is that if you remove anyone who is making a living from politics, on any side of any issue, the content generators, the book writers, the talking heads and bloviators, if you could take down all their stuff, you would quickly realize we don’t need any of it!  Not only that, but you could maybe even clear the board so we could, as a people, have reasoned, rational discourse about decisions that need to be made, ideas that should be shared, and policies that need to be implemented.

So my message to the Democrats is this:  I am going to do what you should also be doing, if you are serious about getting big money out of politics.  You need to keep any money raised on any decision, race or campaign limited to donations only from those who are directly affected by that campaign, and have a legitimate voice in that campaign.  That means you should refuse any donation received from out-of-state on any statewide race.  In fact, you should not be soliciting donations from anyone who does not live in that state, county or city.  No national Democratic Party donations should be used to push any statewide issues, or target any statewide races with out-of-state money. Think of the effect of just one part of this idea.  Suppose no more commercials on TV or radio leading up to the election?  You were just paying the ad agencies, production teams and network staff to do all that work, anyway, only for the audience to change the channel or go take a piss or get another beer.  Save the money.

The Republicans, of course, should also do the same, but that’s a joke, and we all know it.  My point is, Bernie has shown us how to use the Internet to spread the word most effectively without spending all that money, and that people power trumps big bucks every time, so you can beat the big money if you just work with the grass roots of the country, county by county, state by state.

So if anyone tells you the Democrats are forced to raise big money because the Republicans are going to do it anyway, you ask, “So the answer to big ol’ Hogs rooting around in the public trough is to get some Hogs of our own?  I don’t think so.  Why don’t we make bacon out of those Hogs and stop throwing money down that particular rathole?”  Maybe we’d all be better off, and have something to eat as well.  :-{)}

The meaning of Valentine’s Day

We went out this morning,

My wife and I,

To do a little job.

A post in the fence on the greenbelt,

Where the coyotes howl in the moonlight

And nature pushes at our back gate,

Was rotted off at the base.

It was typical of that sort of job –

Cut the nails with a sawzall,

Push the fence out of the way,

Then grunt and sweat the lump of concrete

That failed to protect the treated post

Out of the ground into the light of day.

I could tell her knee was bothering her,

Just not enough to slow her down,

As she matched me, grunt for sweat

To put the new post in the ground,

Then join the sundered sections

That keep the wild world at bay.

We make a good team.

She moved the vegetation

I set out the tools.

I mixed the concrete

And poured it where she said.

She did the finish work

While I screwed the boards back on.

After all the work was done,

I put the tools away,

Then staggered off to take a nap

For the rest of the day; I was done.

While she went on to her next job -

Making an apple tree stand at attention

With the help of a stake, and some rope.

I can’t keep up with this woman.

Honey, I can’t believe my luck,

That joined me to you along the way.

I don’t know what I did to deserve you,

But I’m sure glad I did it.

Happy Valentine’s Day.