Getting Rich, Explained.

In the digital world of the 21st century adjustments need to be made. Old ways of helping each other through hard times are no longer valued. When was the last time your neighbors participated in a barn raising? How often have you had to help the guy at the end of the block drive his cattle to market? Speaking personally, I can’t remember the last time I had to help the townspeople repel Visigoths or Saracens at the town walls. These are the things that used to bring communities together. No we drift into the seduction of streaming television or the magic of short videos on the internet.

Community might be the wrong word for the loose assemblies we live in today. It might be more accurate to call the knots of people that drive home from work, park in their garage, close all the doors, windows, and drapes, and relax in front of an electronic umbilical cords that keep us attached to the things we find important. We live in hundreds of tiny villages containing one to five people. Tiny, self contained municipalities scattered along the streets of our cities and towns. Our doorbells are the modern version of Pavlov’s bells. When it rings we run frantically to retrieve our dinner, packed neatly in disposable plastic. 

How do we help each other, what steps can we take to enrich the inhabitants of the tiny towns surrounding our little village?

We can give our neighbors, the sovereign citizens surrounding us, cryptocurrency. The perfect gift for the modern recluse. Buy enough for everybody in all the tiny, self contained hamlets surrounding your kingdom. We recommend putting them in Amazon boxes or packs to make sure they bring them inside. 

If you don’t understand bitcoin, that’s fine, nobody does. It’s a modern alchemy transforming small amounts of cash into dreams of untold, decadent wealth. It’s like the Powerball only everybody wins.

 

We, here at Life Explained, want to help you. We want to make it easy for you to spread the joy. 

Introducing the LifeExplained Forever Coin.© A beautiful, hand crafted monetary unit suitable for framing. Not only is it attractive, its value increases exponentially with every breath. Soon you and the people, whose names you don’t know, will be raking in money so fast your arms will begin to ache, and your house will be too full to carry in an order of beef lo mien, with a side of crab rangoons.

 

Here’s the secret, and what a secret it is, when you buy some, the value goes up. When you buy more, the value climbs higher, when you buy all you can afford the money will start pouring in. You can never have enough, even though a little is more than enough. 

If you order now, we’ll throw in a LifeExplained Bit Coin Wallet, like your grandfather, or your dad, depending on how old you are, used to carry. A perfect companion for your LifeExplained Forever Coin.©

Act fast, or wallow in regret, it’s up to you.

Living, Now and Then

 

Mankind wasn’t really made to live in the steel, concrete,  cages of the cities. It was convenience and security that brought the beasts into existence. Early man wandered and gathered his food, he lived off the land, with the land. They, we, our ancestors, anyway, developed an intricate knowledge of plant life and refined early “technology” for hunting and domestic purposes.  

Eventually, man moved into a more tightly clustered group of farm. They had become agriculturists with crops and livestock, primitive structures, they had something to protect.

 

Settlements got larger, more elaborate, packed in tighter, often behind walls. Cities provided benefits, but the call of the wild never abated. Look at the irresistible opportunity provided by “the new world.” People risked an ocean voyage and wilderness, loaded up in sturdy, wooden wagons pulled by oxen and sat off across an unchartered, unknown expanses, hoping to find a small patch of land they could call their own. 

 

Hunter/gatherers, as a group, lasted approximately 199,000 years, and did pretty well for themselves, they made slow, but consistent progress evolving along the inconsistent scale of evolution. While, by comparison, in our, by short run of about 100,000 years we’ve managed to get to the glorious choice of freezing under the dusty clouds of nuclear winter or baking under the depleted ozone of climate change, fire or ice. How’s that for progress?

 

The advantages of living in a city are myriad and undeniable, occasionally, though people need to get away. City walls close in, compacting and crushing, the streets constrict, traffic snarls and twists, the urban symptom of pathological indecision. Everybody wants to be somewhere else, and nobody is going anywhere. 

 

Being off the grid is important, but it means a lot of things. Most widely it’s used to mean being electronically disconnected, putting away cell phones, tablets, laptops, leaving newsfeeds and streaming videos behind. I prefer to think of it more holistically, leaving behind the freeways, controlled access service roads, strip malls and quick oil change shops that pop up everywhere. 

 

We’re going “off the grid” this week, a small cabin in a small state park, on a lake that exists in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Nestled into the coniferous forests of the area.

 

Native Americans of the northeastern United States, particularly around the Great Lakes region, had tales of the Pukwudgie. A race of small people who lived in the forests and played tricks on unsuspecting humans. Legends varied by tribe and region, from harmless pranksters who would, on occasion, offering assistance or in some cases stealing children or committing acts of deadly sabotage.

 

Early settlers from Europe crossed through these places, dark forests, carrying all the demons that had followed them across the Atlantic Ocean. All the puritan anguish and guilt, all the fears of being unworthy and repressive ethos plodded along with them, through forests across mountains. What did they see when they looked out at the forests in the middle of the night? What did they think when someone went for more firewood, or water, or to answer the call of nature and didn’t come back? How long would they look before they wrote them off to something unspeakable, and decided to move along? Destiny was waiting, after all.

 

We like to set out around the firepit after dark, surrounded by the forest, watching, listening, nature never sleeps, the noise is raucous and demanding.
I like to get up early, set out on the patio, and watch the world change from night to day, watch the shadows crawl back into woods, the sun chasing away the darkness.

 

Lights in the other cabins start to blink on, a thinly veiled threat to nature, Man is here, and he brought electricity and internal combustion engines, air conditioning and forced air furnaces. There are roads, and shops that sell camping supplies, charcoal and bags of ice, soft drinks and bundles of firewood. We’ve managed to tame the wilds, at least incorporate them into our neatly ordered world. 

 

I can’t help thinking, in the night, there are still things that move through the primordial forests, things ancient, and infinitely patient, and when we’re gone, when we finally push things too far, they will still be there. At least I hope so.

 

“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”

 

H. P. Lovecraft.

Horoscopes r' us

 

Astrology for Dummies        

Today's birthday belongs to Pisces, ruling planet, Neptune, ruling house 12th. If you are a Pisces you are smart, creative and deeply intuitive. You have an inherent understanding of the feelings and situations, to many people you almost seem psychic. 

If today is your birthday, that's too bad, Mercury is in retrograde. This has caused many of your co-workers to be abnormally hostile, suspicious, and walking close to the edge.

They are secretly talking about how nosy you are, always snooping around in their private affairs. How you almost seem to know personal things. Many of them believe you know intimate, embarrassing things about their private lives. And it's really starting to piss them off.

Janet, that new girl in accounting, is worried you might know about the affair she has been having with Phil, the lead person in the maintenance shed. She is talking to Phil, right now, about cutting the brakelines on your car. In a way, you're lucky Phil is so incompetent. He will end up cutting the lines on your windshield wiper fluid, and you'll have dirty windows, but at least your car will stop.

Bobby, from the art department is sure you know about the candy bar he took from the honor box in the breakroom, He's going to put his dollar in as soon as he can afford it, but those new vaporizer cartridges cost a fortune, so much so he actually considered going back to cigarettes. That's not cheap, either, though. Besides, everybody looks down on cigarette smokers, vapers still have some time before they are ostracized, timing is everything. Besides, the apple pie, whipped cream, caramel canister is so good. His guilt has become so unendurable he will put two dollars in the box, at lunch time. He will blame you, and his anger will turn to rage, eventually growing into bitter hate. He will steal your lunch to exact his revenge, and today you had left over enchiladas with green sauce. People in the art department will be so impressed many of your future lunches will almost certainly vanish. You should probably stop writing your name on your lunch bag.

Everybody is angry, a lot of them blame you. Now would be a good time to ask for a raise. You won't get it but, it will make your sense of self-doubt and insignificance complete. Your calcium level is at an all-time low, and your bone density is... well let's just say it's not a good time to take up sky diving. 

Don't worry, though, tomorrow is looking better, it couldn't get any worse.

The Year in Review, 2023

 2023 The Year in Review

This year I had to get a new coffee grinder. I was forced to do this when the old coffee grinder
disappeared. There were no pieces, no fractured plastic shards from an unfortunate tumble to the floor, no ashes from a freak electrical surge, no ransom note. Here today, gone today, almost as if it never existed. It was a year like that. All year.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy for president. He has been a vocal opponent of vaccines, an active Covid denier, and generally opposed to any sort of attachment to reality. He launched, initially, as a democrat, not surprising, for a Kennedy. A wave of resentment and hostility persuaded him to switch to independent, which seemed to irritate Republicans. He just can’t get along with anyone. We, here at Life Explained, would like to wish him the best of luck in whatever he decides to pursue after losing the election.

 

International war made a big comeback. Russia invaded Ukraine, and Hamas and Israel have once again resorted to armed conflict (though, Israel may feel this is more of an internal security issue than a war with a sovereign neighboring state). These are both potential catastrophes, exacerbated by the American governments inability to make any progress on almost any issue. 

 

In a shocking acknowledgement of the law a candidate for president was removed from the ballot in two states. Donald Trump, facing numerous felony charges, was stricken from the rolls in Colorado, and Maine. It’s a safe bet other states will follow, but not this year. It’s a safe bet that Trump will threaten both states with expulsion from the union, invasion, nuclear strikes, mass incarceration, and anything else his fevered mind, and rabid advisors, can dream up. Still, it makes for a nice thought. Politics without Trump. Religion without Trump. News without Trump.

 

In much the same way as video killed the radio star, streaming programming has taken over television. Technically, this may have happened before this year. I just didn’t notice it. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it this year if I hadn’t seen every episode of Wagon Train, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, several times. Now, my reruns are reruns. I probably should think about subscribing to one of the many, similar, expensive services, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’d pay for something I wouldn’t understand and couldn’t use. I have a computer and a smart phone for that. 

 

It does make for some interesting conversations at work, when one of my co-workers ask about the latest episode of some modern, streaming, high tech program and I say “no, but did you see ‘Perry Mason and The Case of the Deadly Verdict’? Perry Mason actually lost a case.” The conversation died right there.

 

In China it was the year of the Rabbit (lucky numbers 3, 4 and 6). In Chinese culture the rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace and prosperity. While that seems a bit of a stretch, the American economy churned along, unemployment fell, and the standard of living has crawled up from the rubble of the Trump presidency. So, it might be closer to the truth than it appeared. 

 

The state of Florida is investigating the NCAA for not selecting Florida State to participate in the Championship Playoffs. It cost the university several million dollars and a possible trip to the White House. College football has had a long history of pissing people off. Selecting teams that over other teams, in many ways it was a beauty contest, a lot of it had to do with pedigree, and the determination of the athletic director, possibly the connections established, it never hurts to have a history of membership on committees and panels. It’s who you know, and looking at the teams that were chosen this year,it still is.

 

2024 (the Year of the Dragon, confident, intelligent, enthusiastic, lucky numbers 1, 6 and 7) is closing in fast. The presidential election looms large and forbidding. The climate is warming and may have reached the point of no return. College selection committees are going to choose who they choose, and people are going to complain. I’m not sure it will be that much different, but I have a new coffee grinder.

 

 

 

It Comes From The Light

Light comes in layers. Bright, revealing, glare that cast shadows. Shadows that seem even darker because of the light. Shadows that hide everything we ever imagined, or were afraid to imagine.

 

Loud, yellow, light, the kind that reveals flaws. The kind of light that makes you think about your choices. It magnifies defects, it shines on the imperfections, making small imperfections seem enormous. Light can show us things we don’t want to see, and we never want to share.

 

There is the smaller, distant light that hints at a direction. It offers a thin ray of hope when times are tough. Light at the end of the tunnel kind of light. It comes from the manufactured hope of a lost generation. It could have been any generation. They’ve all been left at the alter in one way or another. “Surely,” they can all say to themselves, “things haven’t always been this bad.” And they are right, and they are wrong. Things have always been this bad, and things have always been better.

 

The old adage, “don’t go toward the light,” rips at our most ancient shame, fear of the darkness. We’re afraid of the dark because there are too many questions, maybe even worse, too many answers. Questions may haunt you but, it’s the answers that terrify you. 

 

It’s never a clear line between dark and light, lines of gray, murky, indistinct pockets of dread. There is an old belief that fear has an odor, pungent and raw. 

 

Once, when I was young, for a reason I can’t remember, I walked across an old cemetery at night. It was one of those you see on the side of county roads. Surrounded by a barbed wire fence, cornfields on three sides, with a swinging aluminum gate. I was driving, just trying to remember what life was really about. I was stoned. I decided to walk through. I hadn’t seen a car for hours.

 

It was almost quiet, even the bugs paid their respects.  I remember thinking it was easy, no problem. I walked from the gate, around the left side to the back, and when I reached the back fence, directly across from the gate I turned to look out at the corn. It was right next to the fence. It rustled softly, quiet murmurs, centuries of regret, whispering, I stood there listening, trying to pick out voices, words, until I thought I heard my name, I decided to leave. I walked, with more purpose than I want to admit, across the short breadth of the graveyard. More than I remember anything, I remember the shadows, they moved, and grew, and were black, they were more than black, they emanated blackness, they swallowed the light. And I remember the smell, fear, and dread, mixed with decay and death. Sometimes, on bad nights, when sleep won’t come, I can still smell it. 

 

I never know which is worse, light or dark. They both have shadows. They both reveal things we might not want to see. Worse than that, though, they both make us look at ourselves in a way we aren’t always comfortable with. Either way we have to keep going, from light to dark and back again, and we call it life.

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving. The ugly truth.

In today’s episode of Finding the Truth we explain the origins of the holiday, Thanksgiving.

 

In a year, reported to be 1620 puritans, looking to escape religious persecution booked passage on ships bound for the new world. Technically it wasn’t new, it was as old as the world they were leaving. And in the end, religious persecution followed them, they were just the persecutors, which seemed to be ok with them. Funny how that always works out.

 

Anyway, they got here, and rumor has it, it was cold and wet, and they were hungry, and lost and really didn’t know what to do. 

 

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “They said, let’s set up a fort and start buying the place with beads.” 

But it was lonely, and they didn’t know what to do. Unlike the established world they left there were no shops to go buy a goose, or vegetables or ale, mead, wine, rum. It was just this big, empty place. Except for all the trees.

 

Fortunately for our hardy settlers some Native Americans, who had been around for centuries, took pity on them and showed them how to grow and harvest the local crops, corn, which they called maize, made into cornbread and porridge. There was deer, cod, bass, and assorted wild fowl. It turned out to be a generous spread. 

 

There are rumors that the pilgrims, unaccustomed to such delicacies after months of hard tack, (which is not really made from tacks at all, but is a kind of biscuit, that could be stored for a long time) and salted meat, became violently ill, and blamed the natives for all the discomfort. 

 

“We should kick their asses.” The mayor said, several days later, when he could stand up without dizziness and, well you don’t need the details. You can trust me on this, there was an employee where I work, and when he called in sick, he would give me all the disgusting symptoms, the colors and smells, the appearance. 

 

It was terrible, I told him I didn’t need any of the details, he could tell me he felt too good to come to work, it was fine with me. Ah, the trials of a minor, insignificant supervisory functionary. 

 

Anyway, the pilgrims decided to form into loose, ill organized and poorly armed militias, and go out and put foot to bottom, if you get my drift. They weren’t sure what to call their former friends, now mortal enemies, native Americans wasn’t really available, because America was probably copyrighted and there would be legal ramifications.

 

“Hey, let’s call them Indians.” One guy said, he was cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife and didn’t look up.

 

“It’s not India,” Someone interjected. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

 

“Doesn’t matter. Besides, it might be India. We don’t know.”

 

“Ok, Indians, it is.”

Meanwhile, the native Americans were suffering from some sort of European flu, or just a malaise of some sort. They had no immunity to the viruses and bacteria crawling all over the Europeans. A lot of them probably came from Hard Tack and salted pork. Refrigeration was years away and sanitary practices involved prayer and a little extra sodium, imagine the hypertension and thirst. Anyway the native Americans were convinced it was the tourists and they were furious.

 

“Let’s go toss their sorry, sick butts back into the water.” Said, Thundering Cloud, the chief.

 

“Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it’s just a seasonal illness, and we would have had it anyway.” 

 

“Oh sure, leave it to Vacillating Rabbit to suggest that.” 

 

And, with that, the fight was on.

 

Remember this with your feast, it was the sacrifice of our ancient ancestors, that made it all possible.

 

 

 

From a Deadbeat to an Old Greaser

 There was a tow truck in the parking lot when I got to work this morning. 

 

Since I’m the first one to show up, the lot was empty, except for the tow truck. It sat, idling, in the middle of the lot. 

 

When I parked, it made a long, graceful looping turn and started toward me. Its headlights were bright, even in the early morning sun. 

 

“Hey, buddy. Is this 417 Fifth Street?” He asked, through his open window. Cigarette smoke rolled out the window and up into the morning sky. He had a huge travel mug sitting on the dashboard.

 

“No, this is 23 Israel Street. Fifth Street is over that way, somewhere.” I said motioning toward the north. I knew my way to work, and back home, I could get to the grocery store, the liquor store, the bank and a few places to eat, but streets names and directions never really meant anything to me.

 

“I guess I should get one of them GPS things.” He said, looking at a folded map. He took the travel mug, worn and stained, off the dash board and took a long drink. “Mountain Dew, all the breakfast anybody ever needs.”

 

He burped, loud, a small amount of smoke followed the sound.

 

“I guess your car doesn’t need towing.” He looked at my car, a beat up Chevette, with mismatched tires, and fading, blue paint, rust spots bloomed in random places. “It could be a candidate for the repair shop.”

 

“Or the junkyard.” I added and we both laughed, an awkward chuckle, hollow and pointless, mostly just a formality.

 

He offered me a cigarette, and I took it, it was a Marlboro, I only bought the bargain brands. I really couldn’t tell much difference. It went well with my gas station coffee, though. 

 

“What do you guys do here?” He asked, looking at the old building, long, windowless, cream colored, dumpy and squat. It could have looked secretive, mysterious, menacing, if you didn’t know there was a women’s wear warehouse stacked in odd, messy piles inside. It was owned by clothes designers, young people, almost children, they had no idea about warehousing. They loved fashion, and clothing. 

 

There was no method to the madness, it was chaos, mixed with mindless neglect. One saving grace was everybody seemed to understand. If counts were off, nobody ever lost their temper. They just corrected the inventory until another pile was uncovered, and the missing skirts or jackets, or sweaters were found, when they would correct inventory again. All the customers were used to the on again, off again nature of ordering. It was one big happy, dysfunctional family.

 

“It’s a warehouse, or distribution center. I guess that’s the word we use know. Warehouse is old and out of fashion.” I said, inhaling the smoke, enjoying the burn, in my lungs, in my eyes. It was crazy how I enjoyed the pain. Hot coffee, smoke, touching all the right buttons.

 

“Yeah, I guess we’re dinosaurs. Hanging on to the edges. You know the other day I went a picked up a car, one of them hybrid things, down by the waterfront, some kid, really dressed, suit and tie, hair locked in place, was waiting. I was having a cigarette, and he asked me if it was hard to smoke when it was so hot. I told him it was still worth it, even offered him one. He was pissed.” He laughed, smoke coming from his nose. 

 

“We’ll, I’d better go find the car, it’s a 2012 Ford, Fiesta. Won’t start.” He said, looking at his map, his rheumy eyes looked tired and slightly out of focus. 

I pulled my phone from my pocket, found the address on the maps app. I showed him how to get there from our lot, tracing it with my finger on his map. 

 

“Hey, thanks, that’s pretty nice.” He said, putting his truck into reverse, and driving away. I went to work feeling better about life.

 

“From a deadbeat to an old greaser, here’s thinking of you.” Funny how little things are big things to a deadbeat.

Demons In The Elevator

This week they came to perform an exorcism on our elevator.  

It probably wasn’t a classic exorcism, with a Vatican trained practitioner. Eighteen months ago the elevator stopped working. One day it moaned and shook, shuddering to a pained stop on the third floor, and then stopped lifting, it would still lower, but it wouldn’t elevate. Once it got to the basement it stayed there. 

Twelve months ago, several men came. “We’re from Cartledge/Bobbins elevator service.” They said when I let them in. They were short and solid, serious, saturnine, dour and grimly determined. There were deep wrinkles around their eyes, and you could tell it wasn’t from smiling. Their fingers were short and beefy and could have been made of rebar. You could imagine those fingers crushing a cement brick, the fine gray powder sifting to the floor. 

A relentless, intense aura surrounded them, a power that didn’t come from hours in the gym, pressing and lifting and honing a physique. It was a strength that came from physical labor. It was the power needed to wrestle machinery and equipment into submission. 

These were men who worked on their cars or pickups not because the cars, or pickups needed repaired but because it was a hobby. It gave them pleasure.

Over the course of five days, they tore out the mechanism, a hydraulic pump and a series of long, shiny metal cylinders that would rise and lift when fluid flowed into the chamber below. An odd combination of chemistry, engineering, and magic. Everything was replaced with new machinery. We were upwardly mobile again.

Trouble started a few days later. There was an odd bounce at the 2^nd floor, almost like it jumped a couple of inches to the side. It made a sickening thud, the same sound you hear when you drop a whole roasted turkey on the kitchen floor. At odd intervals it would make the same old shudder, and shake, a ghostly moan rose from the depths, and it would need repaired. They would come and fix, and fuss and check, and then leave, and it would be stable, for a while.

Nobody could escape the conclusion that something more permanent was necessary.

The bell rang, and I answered the door. 

“We’re from Cartledge/Bobbins elevator service.” I took them down to the basement. There were three of them. Their hair varied from close cropped to shaved. They wore heavy duty boots, and sturdy, close fit canvas trousers. They had an air of increased gravity; you could feel the intensity of their purpose. They were there to do a job, and nothing was going to stand in the way.

“I wouldn’t plan on using it for a while.” One of them said, he seemed to be in charge. He looked to be slightly older. Though, it was impossible to gauge the age of these men, they could have been chiseled from rock, or molded from clay, and fired in a furnace until they were hardened and indestructible. Prometheus would have been proud.

 “If you need anything let me know. My name’s Tim.”

They all turned to look at me. Their faces were blank, and their eyes were bright, pointed and alert. At first, I thought they didn’t understand what I said. I realized they were thinking, running through various scenarios, trying to imagine a situation where they might need something from me. They couldn’t. Neither could I.

“OK, thank you,” the leader said.

For two days there was a low, hissing sound, odd flashes of light coming through the gaps around the closed elevator doors. Occasionally, a loud bang would echo through the building. Sulfur and whiffs of smoke, a fetid, foul sense of decay, older than mankind and darker than night, and an occasional curse, would climb the empty shaft, and leak out onto the solitary confines of the mostly empty building.

Throughout the day history stumbled across the warehouse. I turned on all the lights, everywhere, the minute I got to work. The shadows were alive, and I wanted them as far away as possible. Weird things happened. Or almost happened.

Images would flash across walls, and there was a heaviness that seemed to dim the light, like a cloud covers the sun. A brief tear, and a slight chill, and then it was gone. 

“Did you see that?” Jimmy asked. 

“I hope not.” Was the only answer.

One of our co-workers went to use the restroom on the first floor, and never came back. And then there were two. Nobody wants to go look for him. A graven image was burned into the wood of the first floor, right next to the fire exit, in the stairwell by the elevator shaft.

At the end of the second day the men came up to the third floor, and said the elevator was “fixed.” The assumed leader had a piece of gauze taped to his head, slightly above the temple, almost straight above his left eye. 

They looked weary and seemed to be slightly smaller than they were 29 hours before when they turned to look at me in the basement.

It was disconcerting when they used the stairs. I watched as they carried buckets and bags of tools back to their vans. It was slow, and methodical, stooped and pained, their feet shuffled, dragging slightly. Each step seemed to be more work than the one before, leaving little trails in the dust that seemed to settle on every surface over the previous day. I decided not to offer any help next time they came.

 

Life Explains Religion

 

Over Labor Day weekend we attended the Greek Festival at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. It’s a beautiful building. I’ve walked past it several times and always been fascinated by the logical sequence of gradual size inherent in the appearance, one thing leads to another, from the smaller offices and classrooms surrounding and attached to the exterior, climbing in orderly steps to the arched dome over the cathedral. It carries the weight of awesome symmetry from every angle. There is an order and structure to the shapes, they seem almost independent of each other, but so interconnected and mutually reliant it gives me an odd sense of being a mirage, a dream in the middle of a busy intersection, in a trendy, fashionable area. I had never been inside, so this was my chance to visit.

 

I’m not a religious person, but sometimes I wish I was. Life would be so much easier if I had something to hold onto when the discomforts of existence begin to grind away at my ability to resist. Inside a church you can almost sense the majesty of the almighty. 

 

We attended a tour of the nave while we were there. It was gorgeous. Stained glass diluting, refracting, and cooling the suns rays, taming the vicious nuclear fusion that powers the stars, refracting it into rainbows. There are depictions of the Saints, the Apostles, the Virgin Mother, the Savior. All looking beatifically from the upper walls, the vaulted ceiling. You can feel the strength of the unknown, the unknowable. 

 

Everything was spotless, as if the process that creates and distributes dust is unwelcome in churches. There was a shine and polish, a sparkle that was almost hypnotic. Churches must be some of the cleanest places on earth. They don’t smell of disinfectant, or cleanser, it’s almost as if they just don’t get dirty.

 

There is a solemn quiet, a hush that offers strength. It seems peaceful, serene.  Until two women bumbled in through the large doors below the balcony and sat behind us. They seemed to be playing video games on their phones and whispering insulting contradictions to almost every point the guide made. It was constant, beeping, blathering and completely distracting.

 

I listened, as best as I could, to the gentle, kind voice of the guide as he told us about the saints, and the spiritual reasons for the features, and depictions. There was a pattern and uniformity, across the Orthodox religion. It was surprisingly technical. I’ve always assumed religion was just interpreting the scripture. But there is an order, a method, a reason approaching scientific, maybe astrological. 

 

“Any questions?” He asked. 

 

After a few questions from around the pews I raised my hand.

 

“When did Christianity come to Greece?” I asked. He answered, politely and thoroughly.

 

I really wanted to ask, “Why did the ancient Greeks turn their back on such a rich, complete polytheism, developed over a millennium, a system of beliefs that could find a somewhat implausible, sometimes fantastic reason for almost anything and adopt a religion whose main explanation for any kind of suffering is ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’” I was mad at myself for not having the courage to ask. It was probably the last chance I’ll ever get.

 

Ancient Greece has the most fascinating history. In many ways it resembles “The Readers Digest Condensed Version” of world history. Everything that ever happened in the world happened on a smaller scale on the mountainous peninsula, wars, prosperity, desolation, revolution. And their mythology had everything covered. They had a god, or goddess for every occasion, it was a thorough, complete list of responsibility covering everything from hunting to the cultivation of crops. They had an explanation for disasters, unusual good fortune, even run of the mill, everyday life. It must have taken centuries to devise and record. And they abandoned it. For a relatively new phenomenon. An upstart religion based on a single messiah. I’m not sure how long the conversion took, but it had to be a tough sell. 

 

I was interested in the schism, too. What caused the western and eastern patriarchates of the oldest Christian religion to split apart so completely. I’ve taken a little time to look it up, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer for such a radical dissolution. It seemed to have been a slow process, that simmered over centuries, and involved fragile human egos, and petty political rivalries. 

 

As I read about ancient Greek mythology, and the schism behind the split a realization came to me, the only peace you find in a church you have to bring in with you, the only comfort you ever found you had to invent. Every church was complete with the mean little people who sat behind me. They were a part of the act. I remembered the services I had attended, Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, all with the same message, conform, convert, or else. I remembered the evangelicals throwing themselves at Trump, acolytes before the one true grifter. 

 

Churches are ancient institutions; they’ve learned how to present themselves as islands in a sea of madness, sanctuaries against the unclean, the unholy. It’s a foolproof plan. But it’s an illusion, they are organizations designed to prosper, and grow. They sell salvation, it is their only product, and they are the only ones who can define it, and they have the only outlet. 

 

I love the beauty of churches. The majesty. And I wish I could find some comfort, more than a temporary feeling of escape. In many ways it probably comes from my unhealthy need to be an outsider, or it might come from the self-interest that seems to drive churches to indulge in shameless political promotion. Also, it could be the wealth, the enormous treasure churches seem to acquire and hoard. Still, religion seems a wholesome thing, in many ways, like politics, and business administration, it’s always the people who corrupt the process, turn it to personal gain. 

I went, paid my ticket, bought some food, and a few pins featuring saints of Greek Orthodoxy for my newest treasure, so I donated. I don’t mind pitching in occasionally, but that’s as far as it goes.

Backpacks Across the Ages.

 

In my youth I was impulsive, irresponsible, not very bright, some things haven’t changed much.

 

Working as a construction laborer allowed me to travel to different places. Never any place very interesting, at least not to somebody with my quirks and personality flaws. Everything had the unique color provided by the filter of my self-doubt. I couldn’t imagine a place where I could be happy. It just couldn’t exist. 

 

We were working in a town slightly less than a hundred miles from our home. I was almost broke, hungover, and out of pot. It was hot, and a thunderstorm with torrential rain late the night before had fueled an inhuman humidity and covered the job site with a thick layer of sticky mud. It would cling to your boots, work its way up your pants until you looked as though you were in a science fiction B movie from the 60s, “Attack of the Endless Mud.” By lunch I was miserable, so I quit.

 

I went back to the motel, showered, and packed my clothes in my shore bag, a heavy-duty canvas bag used in the army. It had a sturdy hasp for a lock and was almost indestructible. I bought if for a few dollars at an army surplus store. It had been with me a long time. I also had a small plastic trash bag with my muddy clothes from work that day. I didn’t want to put them in with all my other clothes, some clean, some dirty, but not dirty like that.

 On my way to the bus depot, I passed a small sporting goods store. They specialized in fishing gear, guns, clothing with a strong anti-Middle Eastern sentiment. It was during the Iranian hostage crisis and people were enraged by a sense of national impotence. I found a small orange backpack I could afford, stuck my trash bag of muddy clothes into it and left. 

 

It had been relatively cheap, but when I got to the bus stop, I found out it had taken enough money I couldn’t afford the fare. My plan was falling apart faster than it had hatched. 

 I had two choices, two reasonable choices, anyway, I could go back and ask for my job back, and face the humiliation that I deserved, or I could hitchhike. I grabbed a cold bottled drink and headed for the interstate.

 

It wasn’t long before a beat up, rusted red, pickup truck with dual tires in the back stopped and asked me where I was going. 

 

“North Platte.” 

 

“We’re going to Gothenburg. Want a lift?” 

 

Gothenburg was about 35 miles from where I wanted to go. It was a small town a couple of miles from the interstate. it seemed as if it might be hard to catch a ride there.

 

“Can you drop me in Lexington?” It was fifteen miles before Gothenburg, and the largest town between where I was and where I was going. Plus it was right on the freeway.

 

“Sure, you’ll have to ride in the back.” He nodded to the woman and child sitting next to him.

“That’s cool.” I rode in the back of a pickup with an overly friendly, panting, slobbering Labrador retriever named Oscar, we became good friends, and he sat on my legs for about twenty miles. Bits of straw floated through the air, and things seemed to be looking up. I was making progress.

 

He dropped me off, offered me a baggie of homemade cookies and left. I waved and thanked him.

I sat there for a couple of hours. Cars drove by kicking up little clouds of stinging dust and sand. The sun was a bright, merciless, an obscene ball of malignant energy, and the pavement of the ramp had little shimmering devils dancing in celebration. The sun pushed down, and the earth pushed back and my whole world was condensed into that little box, that space in time, and I was certain I was going to die setting on the shoulder of that endless road. 

I walked over to the truck stop and had a cup of coffee that tasted like it was leftover from breakfast and a donut that was probably from the Korean War. I bought a pack of cigarettes and went back to the highway. I still had almost twelve dollars and a small bag of cookies. I went and waited. In those days the worst part of hitchhiking was waiting, and I waited, melting in the sun, and filled with doubt and regret. 

 

A dented old Pontiac sedan pulled up. It was so faded it was hard to tell what color it was originally. It was now several shades of pale gray. I told him where I was going. 

"I'm only going to Brady, interested?" He said.

Everything seemed hopeless, and I was willing to do almost anything to get out of there. I thanked him and climbed him.

“Do you want a cigarette?” He asked, over the sounds coming from the Aerosmith eight track tape, the open windows, and the repetitive thunk-ka-chunk of the engine.

 

“No, thanks, I have some.”

 

“Can I have one?” He asked. It was odd, but it was cheap for 40 miles worth of gasoline and 40 minutes of Toys in the Attic.

 

We smoked without saying much. Then he reached over and opened the glove box and pulled out two joints. 

 

“Do you want to get high?”

 

“Sure,” we rolled up the windows and he turned on the air conditioning, more of a polite imagination tied to a button and sliding lever, than it actual refrigeration. It didn’t seem cold, but it seemed cool and after the day I had it was heaven, and blissfully quiet. 

 

He drove past Brady. 

 

“I think I’ll go to Maxwell, instead. Do you mind?”

 

I didn’t. It was only ten miles, and I could call somebody to come get me. If that didn’t work I could walk, I would be home before dark. 

 

He dropped me off, I had a cookie, picked up my bags and started walking into the small town. I was trying to decide who I should call. 

 

As I walked into the gas station parking lot, toward the pay phone, the Pontiac came back, honking and waving. 

 

“I can take you to North Platte. What I was going to do kind of fell through, and I’m in the clear.” 

 

“That would be nice.” We smoked a joint, ate the rest of my cookies and he dropped me off at the house of friend. I never saw him again, even though I will never forget the day, or that car, and even though I’m not an Aerosmith fan I smiled every time I heard that album.

 

My friend had just gotten some mushrooms and I spent two days in a hazy, gauzy, happy fog. There is no more efficient method of convincing yourself you did the right thing than a couple of days of low level hallucinations, cold beer and snack food, even when you know it was unfair to your employer, your coworkers and an act of short sighted stupidity. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be my last.  

 

When it was over, I had to go get a job. I moved back in with my mother, one more thing I will apologize for if I am lucky enough to run into her in the hereafter. 

 

I kept that bag, the one that cost me a bus ticket. It became my travel bag, my bicycle bag, my walk to the grocery store and bring home some food bag. When I traveled I would buy a patch to commemorate. “Estes Park” “Memorial Stadium” “Worlds of Fun” and sew it in slow, painful, amateur stitches onto my backpack. I started buying patches of places I wanted to visit. I started adding concert patches, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Grateful Dead. It was getting to be quite a sight. 

 

I bought a patch while I was traveling through Garden City, and the counter person was impressed by the number of patches on my bag. 

 

“Sewed ‘em all on by hand.” I boasted.

 

“Oh, you don’t have to sew them on, they have an aggressive heat activated adhesive. You can just use a hot iron and they should last forever.” She explained, looking at me with skepticism over her glasses, I think she wondered 

 

There were a lot of memories fastened randomly to that bag. Then, one day, I went to look for it and I couldn’t find it. Nor could I find my shore bag. They are probably in a box, in the basement, behind or under something. C’est la vie, I guess. The end of an era.

 

My wife and I went to a county wide yard sale last summer. We didn’t find much, but there was an estate sale in an old, clean, well-maintained house. As we wandered through the rooms, we came across a shore bag, of the same type I had. It brought back many memories. It was a little frayed, and had a name stenciled in fading letters across the side. He was only asking five dollars. Pay the man. Surplus used to be cheap, but now it’s fashion. No well-dressed prepper, or paramilitary militiaman would be caught dead in civilian garb. 

 

 It sits atop my chest of drawers waiting for our next big trip. 

 

I was doom scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a website that would sell you a backpack complete with patches. You just pick the color and the patches and give them your credit card number, and they would send you a bag adorned with memories. Tempting, but not the same.

 

Over dinner I told my wife about the site, she asked where my bag was. 

 

“Who knows.” I was surprised when she told me how much she liked the looks of the bag, how she felt it was such an expression of who I was. It made me love her even more.

 

We went to see Dead and Company in Cincinnati. We walked through Shakedown Street, enjoying a cold beer, the sights and smells and sounds, I bought a couple of bandanas. We came across a stand with some boonie hats, beaded bracelets and stickers, pins, and an amazing assortment of patches. 

 

“You should buy some. Maybe you could start a new backpack. There is no surer way to find your old pack than to make a new one.” My wife told me, grabbing my elbow in that way she has of telling me she had made up her mind.

 

“That’s a great idea.” I was surprised at how pleased I was by the idea. I wasn’t surprised she had thought of it. That’s who she is, how she operates, her mind is always working, calculating, wheels turning. Once she has an idea, it’s locked in. She will track it down across the empty landscape of time. She is relentless.

 

I found three I really liked, snapped them up, and felt pretty good about myself, mostly about my wife, though. After all these years she still surprises me, always a little ambush, walking through a flea market, or a thrift store, supermarkets, bodegas, or garage sales. Seemingly out of the blue, she will access a memory, a dream, and the kaleidoscope begins.

 

In an odd turn of events, several weeks later, we ended up at a head shop in a small city in Southeastern Ohio. We didn’t know it was a head shop, we just saw a store with some colorful t-shirts, Baja jackets, walking sticks, posters and bumper stickers. On the shelf behind the counter was a Dia de los Muertos backpack. The bag had a “made in Nepal” tag and a small note thanking me. It had a black front and back panel with two maroon pockets, the larger pocket on the bottom had a calavera skull embroidered on the large pouch on the bottom. Wrapped around the sides was an orange, red, white and grey Dhaka patterned cloth. It was a little soft, and baggy, with an endearing fragility. It was perfect.

 

Its softness was a bonus. If it became frayed or worn, I would just add another patch. It could be a masterpiece. An evolving piece of art, a growing pattern of places and things. It made me think of the Cat Stevens song, Oh Very Young:

 

“And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your dads best jeans
Denim blue, faded up to the sky
And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will 
You know they never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still”

 

It has plenty of room for all my essentials, and even a few extras. I don’t have many essentials. It is perfect for patches and pins, and personalization. It is the perfect thing for this point in my life. 

I’m coming to the end. The end of this marathon story, the end of my career as a paid employee (we are so close to retiring, but that’s another story), and eventually the end of my time “in this place of wrath and tears,” though I’m in no hurry for that. 

 

My first bag ended up being the balm I needed, then. I was confused, alone and searching for something solid, sturdy, a blank canvas for a life that needed to be filled in, defined. This bag is already colorful and garish, rounded and soft, it will need to be reinforced and require extra attention. It has a small, simple personality, a unique sense of identity. Kind of like the one I always wanted.