Dove Tailed Christmas Greetings.

 

I am reminded of the lyrics of an old song that goes, 'If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.' You see, there's a little blue marble of a planet out in space, in a fairly ordinary galaxy, where something unusual happened: A Jewish carpenter tried to build up our faith and show us the way to Heaven. I expect a lot of people this time of year look up and say, "Lord, please save me from Christmas!"

My move to Pensacola has separated me from my relatives in the Pacific Northwest. In theory, the best Christmas is enjoyed with family, but strangely, no one disappoints us more than family. We can't all have Norman Rockwell worthy Christmas dinners. I'm emotionally ready to spend Christmas in an Airbnb. I'm not the only one in the world who will be alone eating a Subway sandwich on Christmas. It's just one day; I can handle it. There's Skype, email, and cell phones to shorten the distance. 

Christmas should be a time of quiet celebration, not migraines. There's a lot of pressure to shop for gifts and mail them in time for Christmas. I've violate this gift giving timeline every year because I mail gifts whenever the spirit moves me. I mailed Christmas cards to a dozen people this year, so I had better not find a lump of coal in my stocking. As of this writing, Christmas is only a week away. Soon it will arrive and quickly it will be forgotten. Christmas trees probably wish Christmas was abolished. About twenty-seven million live Christmas trees will be harvested this year. Twenty-two million fake trees will be sold. Wouldn't it be great if all the live trees were left to grow? We'd all have a lot more oxygen.

I am flummoxed by the timetable of stores transitioning to the next holiday months before it arrives. Halloween displays were up in Home Depot in August. Christmas displays go up in September. I imagine every holiday blending together. I have found Christmas stores that are open year round. I expect Valentine's Day displays are already being set up nationwide. This is why Jerry Springer in the Seinfeld show, invented Festivus, which afterwards was taken up by the masses and celebrated on December 23rd.

When I was a boy, Christmas mornings meant finding my expected present under a tree festooned with gaudy lights, tinsel, strings of popcorn, and ornaments. At the top of the tree was either a star or an angel figurine. An hour after Christmas morning began, the living room floor looked like a tornado had touched down, festooned with torn packaging, shards of ribbons that held the packages, and name tags that once were held in place with Scotch tape. 

My family's usual Christmas breakfast consisted of eggs, sausage, pancakes, waffles, glasses of orange juice, toast with jam or biscuits, and coffee for mom and dad. Bowls  of overly sugary cereals, adorned with berries, were a part of the bacchanalia. Then it was time to lounge around in pajamas watching Christmas themed cartoons and movies. Mom would order us to brush our teeth, and go outside to play in the snow while she cleaned up the mess. It was a simpler time, but most American families carry on this Christmas morning tradition. Nowadays, it's rare for families to stop and talk about the real meaning of Christmas as a family. 

I suggest there should be a time where everyone stops whatever they are doing, on Christmas Day, to contemplate the meaning of the holiday. The mistletoe reminds us to show a little more love to one another. Now that 2020, a year which will live in infamy, is coming to a close we have a lot to ponder. What will 2021 bring? How long before life returns to normal?

There are 7.8 billion people on Planet Earth; not everyone is a Christian. I imagine the extreme capitalism  of Christmas shopping must seem like temporary insanity to non-Christians. Surely the end goal is not in acquiring a huge treasure trove of presents. From December 10th to December 18th, Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah. It's a festival of light, remembering when a day's supply of lamp oil in the temple in Jerusalem lasted eight days. As a boy I was ignorant of their holiday, and the parish priest never talked about it. 

At the top of the entrance steps of the church my family attended, was a grand nativity scene with large ceramic figurines of Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus in his wood cradle, the three Wise Men, and a couple of shepherds. There was real hay for the holy family and their friends, and animal figures, to rest on. It was gloriously lit with floodlights. The animals and figures were turned towards the baby Jesus, who had a happy look on his rosy-cheeked face, and his chubby arms extended to bless the gathering. The figures of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had gold hued halos around their heads. The manger enclosing this scene was made of real wood, about ten feet wide and six feet tall. 

For many years I have reflected on Jesus, the real historical figure. I've read the prophesies in the Old Testament of the bible. Christians say they are proof and Jews say it proves nothing about Jesus. His life has a lot of gaps that are lost to history. As far as anyone knows, he never wrote a book. His Sermon on a Mount could have been a bestseller. And like most historical people, the real Jesus has been embellished to the point that it's rather confusing. Who can say with certainty what Jesus was really like? Was he like Brian, in the 1979 Monty Python film, Life of Brian? Was Jesus a man, like Brian, and simply misunderstood? What would Jesus say about Christmas, and how we celebrate it?

Christmas, the birth of Jesus, celebrated on December 25th, is made up. In ancient times it was a pagan holiday. The evergreen was a Druid thing. There is no Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. He could have been born in April. And his real name wasn't Jesus. It was Yeshua, or Yahushua, a form of the name, Joshua, that means 'to deliver; to rescue.' Sounds like Messiah, right? So we got his name wrong, and his birth date, and probably even the way he looked. The Catholic church can be blamed for a lot of the misinformation. I was raised Catholic. They had a lot of reasons to dumb down Christmas for the commoners. Most of the reasons had to do with making money, and making sure their version of the story was the official version. I was brainwashed like everyone else until I was in my late teens, when I began searching for the truth. It's like playing detective at a crime scene that is over 2,000 years old. There's not a lot of reliable evidence to go on.

The story of Christmas makes no sense if it's not true. There are biblical scriptures that describe what the Messiah would be like. But like in the movie, Miracle on 34th Street everyone has to discover the true meaning of Christmas on their own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE9M7a4wAZ0 

Like the little girl in the film, Susan, we don't believe in Santa until we see the miracle happen. Most people don't know that the story of Santa Claus was based on a generous monk named St. Nicholas, who was born around 280 A.D., in Patara, near modern-day Turkey. I often see miracles. I am grateful for the miracle that I never had Covid-19 symptoms, and drove thousands of miles, eventually to Pensacola, and never had an accident.

The bottom line of Christmas is Y'shua. Either he was a fraud or he was the promised Messiah. Some would say he never existed, but the Roman historian, Josephus, did make a notation about him, so he was a real Jewish man. As Jesus once said to his followers, "Who do you say I am?"

In filmmaking there's a saying that a movie works because it persuades a rational movie viewer to "suspend their disbelief." The Christmas story asks us to suspend our disbelief, and accept that once upon a time, God took the form of a human being living in a little backwater part of the world, for the purpose of saying, "Hey, you're forgiven for your sins. I want you to believe in me; listen to my words." Many people would say that God has used a lot of enlightened human beings to help us find our way. That is probably true. Have you ever had a person show up to help you in an hour of need? I have no doubts that some of the people we interact with in our lives are agents sent by God to help us. 

The idea behind the 1977 film, Oh God! is that God wants to get to know us, and wants us to believe and quit doubting. In the film, God, (played by George Burns), reveals himself to an ordinary grocery store manager, Jerry, (played by John Denver). It addresses questions and misconceptions people have about God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVvKuI8oK3c   

Ask most five-year-old children if Santa Claus is real, and they will enthusiastically say, "YES!" Ask them if Jesus was a real person, and they will likely say, "I don't know." If you are seeking the truth, then you already have a good foundation to begin to believe in the important things about Jesus, the reason for the season. God doesn't live in churches, or synagogues, temples, or mosques. That's architecture. Look for God's artwork in snowflakes, rainbows, flowers, and in everything that exists. Whether you call him by his real Hebrew name, (Yeshua, or Yahushua), or the wrong, transliterated form (Latinized) - name of Jesus, isn't important. 

I will plan to stop whatever I'm doing this Christmas and imagine, as John Denver did in that film, that there is still magic in the world, and God, who lives outside of time, can always do whatever it is (he, she, or it) wants to do. There are no obstacles; nothing is impossible for the Creator of everything. 

Welcome to Pensacola!

I've become accustomed to life in an Airbnb since my arrival in Pensacola, Florida, and generally I have no complaints. Who could object to this view of their backyard in December?

I feel lucky to be here in Gulf Breeze, with its proximity to some of the most beautiful beaches I've experienced in my life. I'm hopeful staying in various Airbnb's is not a permanent way of life. How, you may wonder, did I end up in Pensacola? It's a long story. My epiphany occurred after driving the coastlines of California, Oregon, and the far southwest corner of Washington state, to find a house I could afford. The Australian aborigines had a tradition of a young man doing a walkabout to find themselves. That's as close as I've come to being an Australian. I'm not a young man anymore; the mirror reminds me daily. But this was my walkabout. Fifty days camping out on my land, and thirty driving around three states would have been enough for most people. But not me. I turned right around and drove through five or six states to arrive here, and I still have my things in storage in Saint George, Utah. One day I will get my things out of storage in Utah and make the 1,800 mile drive to Pensacola. No sense in thinking about that now; I think I may still be burned out from the last 2,000 miles on the road. My life is up in the air at Airbnb's until I buy a house, or give up and lease an apartment. I'm okay with whatever the future holds.

After having my eyes opened to the reality that lenders were not going to give me a $350,000 loan, regardless of my excellent credit score, unless I landed a very well paying position, I decided to shop elsewhere for a house. Some would call this an insane idea. Maybe so. One of my brothers encouraged me to buy a house in Idaho. Unfortunately, Idaho has no beaches, and fish tacos are looked upon with suspicion. However, in inquiring, I found a lender in Idaho, with affliliate offices in states with beaches. That is a summary of how I started looking in Pensacola, Florida. 

To my surprise, the prices of houses in this area are quite varied. On the West Coast a house listed for $150,000 would have to be a trailer in a trailer court or a condo. Neither were options for me because the HOA fees are very high. But in Pensacola, a $150,000 house is comparable to a $500,000 house in Oregon and Washington. In most of California, south of San Francisco, the $150,000 house would cost close to a million dollars. But buying a house in Pensacola is like falling in and out of love. What happens is you find a house you like, and you begin to think you might be falling in love with it, and just when you are about to "marry" the house, it turns out to have problems. 

Three times I found houses I loved, and I was about to say "I do" when the inspectors found wood rot, a bad roof, a lack of wind mitigation (metal strapping to hold the roof to the structure in the event of a hurricane), and bad wiring, (aluminum instead of copper). Several okay houses were in rather dicey neighborhoods. A lady real estate agent said the reason for the plethora of houses with repair issues is because of Hurricanes Ivan and Sally. Wood frame houses do not fare well in Pensacola. But hurricanes are fickle beasts; they will leave some houses unscathed in their Caribbean samba dance along the coastline. Hurricanes are also spooky. Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Sally made landfalls in Pensacola on September 16, 2004, and September 16, 2020, exactly sixteen years apart to the day. Based on this, maybe I suppose I would be wise to plan a holiday in Europe on September 16, 2036. 

The trick is lucking out and finding a house that has no repair issues; a house which will have a favorable four point inspection. The viability of a VA Loan depends on a good inspection. They are rare as marigolds on the moon. I found a lovely house, built in 1935, that had blue labradorite-black granite countertops, marble window and door sills, hardwood floors, and terracotta tile. I envisioned growing wildflowers on the large lot. I was in love again. But the roof, and wood rot repair costs ruined the  romance. As of this writing, I've found a quirky former real estate office as a possible home. I have yet to learn why it has a French motif. I jokingly suggested to Norm, my real estate agent, that it could be a creperie. it has a nuance of a cafe in Casablanca. Of course it has a few problems; all the houses I've seen in Pensacola have problems. But let's talk about Pensacola, a city which has been a possession of England, France, Spain, the Confederacy, and Florida. As a result, it has an eclectic charm. 

Access to beautiful beaches abound. I was elated to discover Pensacola Beach, the most southernly beach community south of Pensacola. Somehow, most of the pretty two and three story houses, and twenty-story resort hotels, are still standing intact after two major hurricanes. The white beaches are pristine, the gentle surf warm as tepid bathwater. What's not to love? The sand squeeked beneath my feet. I felt the endorphins being released in my brain. I stopped at Flounders, one of a many quirky beach restaurants, and had a fish taco. Not as good as my fish tacos, but few are.

                                            

No visit to Pensacola Beach is complete without visiting the iconic UFO house on Via de Luna Drive.

UFOs were once a big topic of conversation in Pensacola Beach. Opinions vary as to whether there was a hoax or an extraterrestrial encounter, in November of 1987. The newstory was published by The Gulf Breeze Sentinel, and featured photos of the alleged UFO. Ed Walters, a contractor in Pensacola Beach, claimed to have taken the photos.

    

When Walters moved from the area, he left a styrofoam model of a UFO in his attic. Pensacola News Journal reporter, Craig Myers, investigated Walters' claims a few years later, criticizing the Sentinel's coverage of the story as "uncritical" and "sensationalist." Myers was able to duplicate Walters’s UFO photos using that styrofoam model. Maybe there really was a UFO, maybe not. Welcome to Pensacola, a strange mix of fruits, nuts, history, and hurricanes. A place I've decided to call home.

Finding Happiness!

 

Happiness isn't a common word nowadays.

I have some ideas about how to find happiness in this Covid world. You will have to find your own. For one, I avoid talk about human beings whose evictions and foreclosures have been delayed due to the intervention of the government. I don't want to discuss the day in the near future when these people are going to have to cough up (a bad joke), a lot of money. Everybody knows somebody who has lost a job. What will the net result be? Riots, and general mayhem. If you hated the riots in major cities thus far, hold onto the arms of your rocking chair. Sorry, I don't mean to ruin your day. 

Maybe I'm wrong; maybe it won't get worse in America and the world. Vaccines are on their way. Some people think that a new president will solve everything. Sorry, it won't. But back to my point. Somehow, with all the bad news in America, we need to stay positive. I'm not suggesting we all put on a happy cartoon smiling face on our masks that says, "Have a nice day!" There's no doubt sad news can be depressing, and then we are no good to anyone, including ourselves.

Here's what I did recently: I sold my Utah land and left Everett, Washington with some truly idealist notions about living on my Utah land. I had a big new tent, a big solar kit, and a sleeping bag that could withstand freezing temperatures. But Utah is the driest state in the union. It is illegal to dig a well without water rights. And in the four years since I acquired my land, those costs have tripled. I blame Santa Barbara for why I love the beach and fish tacos. It it was a song it would be titled: Blame it on the guacamole. I've had a wake up call the past few months. I can't afford to buy a house anywhere on the West Coast of the USA., anywhere near a beach. If you don't already know, there is a feeding frenzy going on in the real estate market. The greediness of real estate agents and sellers have no bounds. As a sort of social experiment, I communicated with many real estate agents and three lenders. They virtually said the same thing: It all comes down to money coming in every month. The hypocrisy is that freelance income, unless it is guaranteed in writing for three years, doesn't count when you go looking to buy a house. However, if I land another position with an agency, suddenly the lenders will love me again. Even though this is illogical, because people are regularly permanently laid off in this pandemic situation.

What we are looking at is a world further divided between the haves and the have-nots. All the bullets in the world won't fix that. All the plywood nailed to protect windows and doors won't fix it. We may be in for a Zombie Apocalypse. It's like that novel (and film), The Road. I met several people who sleep in their cars in California. A lady from Iran, who came here six years ago, sleeps in her car near California beaches. Why aren't these people's stories on the front pages of every newspaper? The bottom line is: We all need to be a little less judgmental of others, and try a little more love. I try, but I can't afford to help everyone I've met. I couldn't help the Iranian lady. It's a heartbreaking thing to realize you can't help everybody you meet. I brought her breakfast once, on Pismo Beach, and gave her a pair of earrings I'd bought in Utah. It put a smile on her face. That smile was worth a million dollars. It was a good day for both of us.

There is still beauty of the world. Sunshine through fall colored maple leaves, a bird hovering on the wind, the ocean gently lapping a beach, elk that let you take photos from a short distance away. Despite the fires in California, Oregon, and Washington, the West Coast has some truly awe-inspiring natural beauty. Having spent two months in southwest Utah in order to sell my property, I was physically and emotionally in need of the moistness of the Pacific NW. For over fifty days, the temperatures in Saint George, Utah were over 100F. Too hot for this amphibian.

A buck in a herd of twenty-two elk I found by a harbor near Fort Stevens, in Oregon.

In my recent travels I found a few cool motels. Many motels are not being maintained, so when you find any joy at staying at a motel, you should fill out the surveys and let people know some happiness can still be found on The Road.

I stayed in motels as I drove north along the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. Weekends are the priciest time to stay in a motel. One motel lady said I should just pick one and go there to get a room and not bother with Booking, Priceline, Expedia, or any other service online. You often get the same rate. Three times Booking.com messed up my booking and I had to cancel reservations and get a refund. This involves having the motel proprietor reply to the booking company to let them know they would waive the penalty for cancelling. The last motel I stayed in was in Astoria, Oregon. The Atomic Motel. It's a kitschy motel; a bit funky too. 

The Atomic Motel's decor was 1950s Rat Pack. The lobby was also way kitschy.

The bottom line is: Have fun; remember that life is supposed be happy. Help people if you can. We must get through this, there is no other option. Do nice things for yourself. Buy that special creme for your face. Eat organic, and often. Drink lots of water. Avoid cane sugar. If the world seems too gloomy to go on, try making your own happiness wherever you are. Buy a lamp like this, and it may get you through the day with a smile on your face.

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma.

I'm selling my eighty acres in southwest Utah, which is located about fifty miles north of St. George, and forty-one miles from Cedar City. I spent a few nights on my land before the most recent heat wave drove me to a hotel room. I'd been living in a suburb of Seattle; triple digit temperatures are anathema there. A few days ago it was 109F in St. George. It's like climbing in a hot dryer

and shutting the door. Combined with low humidity, summertime weather in southwest Utah sucked the life out of me. I don't think I could ever get used to weather in Utah. I need humidity; I'm not from a land inhabited by reptiles.

Yesterday morning, as I dressed in the tent, a flock of about twenty blackbirds landed on the tent. I paid attention; I've heard of bird omens; perhaps this was one of those things. Or maybe strange things happen in desert lands, like a dry wind that comes out of nowhere. Most of the flock flew off after a few minutes, but one lingered and alighted on a tent tether by a screened window and watched me. It was as if she were telling me everything's going to be okay now that I've made a deal to sell the land. The second time I visited the property I spoke aloud to the sky and complained about the land. As I walked to my Nissan Pathfinder I found a Native American arrowhead. The artifact appeared from nowhere, as if the ghosts of Native Americans had heard my disappointment. 

Water rights are not cheap in Utah. It has one of the lowest rainfalls in the United States. Water is like gold. Only eleven inches of rainfall falls on this area of Iron County. More rain falls in Seattle in one month than falls all year long in Utah. But there is water beneath the ground in Utah. On my land there is an aquifer, as evidenced by the many farms south of me who regularly irrigate their crops. In Utah, if a landowner digs their own well without owning water rights, they are fined. It's even illegal to construct a water catchment system. The selling of bad water rights is an ongoing problem in Utah. It's up to the buyer to make sure the rights are still legitimate. I only knew this because I'd investigated two listings and found one had lapsed due to lack of use. This sounded illegal to me, but the water rights office told me that no one is being arrested for selling bad water rights.

In Utah, a land owner can buy water rights from anyone within a certain distance from their property within the same county. The cost of rights were in the five-thousand dollar range. After acquiring water rights I would have to hire someone to dig a well, at the cost of around ten-thousand dollars. It is illegal for a well digger in Utah to dig on anyone's land who doesn't own water rights. In other words, I would have to invest fifteen thousand dollars to have what most property owners in America take for granted.

Dale Melbourne, a theatrical actress, in the 1950s.

I'm relieved to be selling my land, but the mysteries remain. The one person who could tell me why the land was purchased, died nearly twenty years ago. I was given the land by my employer; John Herklotz, of American Happenings in Orange County, CA. It was his wife, Dale Melbourne, (nee - Mary Huleyard); a theatrical actress from Melbourne, Australia, who'd bought the property, and owned it since the late 1960s. Why, is the big question. It is within two miles of vast circular fields of alfalfa, in a remote area of southwest Utah. Herklotz had no reliable information about the land, which Dale bought before they met in Los Angeles, in the1980s. By that time, Dale was thrice widowed, and she and her sister had long retired from being actresses. When I worked for Herklotz he once had me organize files in the office closet. I came upon a stash of CDs that included footage of Dale when she was married to a cattle rancher in Illinois. I only know this because Herklotz mentioned it. The strangest part of the footage showed Dale doing various things. In one clip she is outside combing her long blonde hair. She is very Nordic looking, in her late 40s or early 50s. Then the footage segues to showing Dale in a leopard print bathing suit inside a grassy pasture surrounded by a white fence. She leads a 3,000 lb. Black Angus bull by a rope into the frame, ties the rope to the fence, and begins washing the enormous bull with a garden hose and what looks like a bottle of dish soap. The bull is nonplused by the attention. Maybe Dale raised that monster, and it isn't aware of its enormous size. After she lathers the bull on this strange summer day she kisses it on the nose, and proceeds to wash her own hair with the hose and dish soap. She has a towel hanging on the fence, and she squeezes the water from her hair as she bends over and wraps it in the towel and stands. Then she unties the bull's rope and leads it, stopping once to kiss it again on the nose. It is the tamest, most gigantic bull in the world. This is the woman that bought my land. Why? No one knows. She was only married to Herklotz for seven years. At most they'd known each other for a decade. I showed that footage to Herklotz and he said he'd never seen it before. This was when he told me Dale had once been married to a cattle rancher in Illinois. Herklotz had a number of fanciful ideas about the land. He said he thought it had been leased out to a farmer who raised alfalfa, and presumed it had geothermal potential. He never explained where he got his information. He sent me to investigate the land in early 2016, because he'd never seen it. He'd been paying property taxes for years. It was a bleak place, without obvious value. He seemed surprised by that news. I made a video titled My Utah Land, while a Utah surveyor named Doug Grimshaw and his young assistant did the first survey since 1910. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLe9vHEhHUo

I let John know what the land was like and he shrugged. He said he'd assumed some things about the land; if I didn't want it he said I could give it back to him. He was a mercurial man, well versed in the arts of business double dealings. Maybe he simply gave me the worthless land as a way to play with my head; to elicit gratitude and get me to do more work for him, promoting his various interests in film. I was already doing a lot of work for his associate in Maryland, who ran America's Mock Elections.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9wjf54XlAc

Fires were everywhere this past week in southern Utah.

Perhaps Herklotz gave his wife's actual land to someone else, and had one of his many lawyers do the switch. Perhaps he honestly didn't know someone in Utah had swindled him. Maybe no one swindled anyone. Maybe there is something buried on the land, like Dale's last husband, or a trunk full of cash. It's like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive storyline fused with that of The Big Lebowski. John was ninety-four in 2016, and not the business tycoon he once was, when he wheeled and dealed in telecommunications when it was in its infancy, and broadcast towers were popping up everywhere. He owned broadcast towers on Tesuque Peak near Santa Fe, New Mexico, which sold for about five million dollars in 2017. He'd retired from the Chicago Tribune, as a CPA. Herklotz died in December of 2018. Though the world remembers him as a great philanthropist who had a habit of suing people over entertainment issues, I knew him as a partially disabled old man who liked Svedka vodka, which he often asked me to buy for him behind the back of Lucy, his crazy, domineering, bipolar Mexican housekeeper. It was the love of vodka that resulted in my finding him on the floor of his bedroom one morning in 2016. He'd passed out and spent the night there, and was too obese to get back into bed. He gave me the land because I called the EMTs, worked hard on every project he gave me, took him to lavish charity events in L.A. and Orange County, such as the Gary Sinise party, and visited him while he was in the hospital in Irvine, and the care center in Lake Forest. One day when I'd brought his mail and reported about business matters, he said he'd decided to give me the Utah land. I said thank you.

Herklotz died broke. He gave away all his money to universities, and many noteworthy causes. So kudos to him. Most people don't make in their lifetimes what he gave away. He was a complicated man. Many rich people are; many philanthropists are. He promised me fifty-thousand for helping him sell Tesuque Peak., and twice that to a longtime mutual friend, Dan Wilkins, with whom he'd had some battles. We never got our promised monies. Herklotz funded Wilkins' film, Have You Seen Clem. It's the quirky story of a man who loses a chain of restaurants and seeks to wreak revenge on a banker, only to discover in his travels across America in an RV that there are many hurting people in this country, and so he decides to forgive the banker. The story is mostly true by the way, because Wilkins lost a lot of money and a chain of Duff's restaurants in Tennessee due to foreclosure.

Now that I'm selling the land, I regret never having the truth told to me about it. I'm not ungrateful, I just wish I knew more about it. If it is the land his wife bought, I suppose there are only a few explanations. One - she was exhibiting the first signs of Alzheimer's, the disease that eventually killed her in 1999. Or two - she buried something on the land she didn't want anyone to find, like her third husband, or a chest of money. But these are just the writer in me trying to develop the plot. Some secrets can never be told, and mysteries will always remain about my Utah land.

"You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes." - Forrest Gump

Some shoes seem like they were meant for my feet. Such is the case with these Nike Hyperfeel training shoes, that made me feel as if I could run 100 miles an hour.

There they were, in new condition, smiling at me from a shelf in a used clothing store in Portland, Oregon. It had been a hard year for me but things were picking up. These shoes brought a smile to my face, as if the universe were saying, "Hey, lighten up, dude, life is supposed to be fun!"

I bought them on the spot. They probably came directly from someone who worked at Nike, whose headquarters in Beaverton  were within ten miles of the store. I loved these shoes and wore them cautiously at first, afraid to tarnish their day glow lime color. But eventually I wore them everyday for six years. The soles showed signs of wear, but the shoes held up until that fateful day I overdid it on a rocky ledge, and gouged a small hole in one of them while fleeing a hornet. Ah well. It took another two years before they said to me, "We've had a good run, mate. It's time to find another pair."

The price and availability of this retro style surprised me. Even if they could be found, they were quickly purchased, and sold for almost $180. Then they disappeared altogether.

I had a backup pair of casual shoes I'd owned even longer, but wore less frequently. I forget where I bought these SWIMS. They took a long time to break in. Then one day they felt nice. They whispered, "You know, orange is just as lovable as lime green. How about taking us with you on your next trip to Santa Barbara?" 

My trip to Santa Barbara has become my tradition near the end of every September. I went three times while working in Orange County. My unpretentious SWIMS make me look like a local, as if I've just taken my sailboat around the postcard perfect Santa Barbara coastline. The SWIMS lack the form fit of the Nike Hyperfeel shoes, but they make up for it with their laid back attitude. They look good while eating fish tacos, or shopping on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara.

I suppose a lot of people have friendships with their shoes. Clothes may not make the man, as the saying goes, but shoes do say a lot about a person. Forest Gump reminded us of that. They tell a story of the places we've been. Every time I look at a certain pair of Italian dress shoes I think of the outfit I wore at my son's wedding. Maybe that's why some people have so many pairs of shoes. They have a lot of memories they want to keep.

This graphic came with the Capital Fund notification.

The Capital Fund email arrived early on the 4th of July, and my first reaction was one of doubt. 

I am not alone in my skepticism. Nobody I know wants to be disappointed. We live in an age where it's wise to mull over any news, big or small. We tell ourselves to take a little breath, and we try to be more logical and analytical, to protect ourselves. But yesterday I didn't want to be Nordic or Vulcan. It's human nature to doubt. But I'm trying to stay positive in 2020, and honestly, it's in my nature to be an optimist. Optimism can be a disappointing point of view, but maybe it's the right point of view. Let me summarize my feelings: YAHOO!

Allow me to explain. I recently left a suburb of Seattle, the land where weather forecasters often use the phrase: WE CAN EXPECT RAIN SHOWERS TOMORROW. At the time of my departure, riots had ravaged downtown businesses. An eight block section of downtown was being ruined by a lot of crazy young people. Arson and thief had become acceptable forms of behavior, on the pretext of Black Lives Matter. Fear was ruling the lives of everyone I knew. I don't buy that justification. Could the death of George Floyd, a black man with a prison record for armed robbery, who was killed by a brutal policeman for allegedly foisting counterfeit bills in Minneapolis, MN, ever be an excuse for ruining an innocent business owner's livelihood, or setting someone's car on fire? Could it ever justify hurling rocks and bottles at policemen who have nothing whatsoever to do with the death of Mr. Floyd? Isn't living in one of the hotspots of the Covid-19 pandemic a reason to be kind to one another, and considerate? No, apparently not. It wore me out. As a writer, artist, and musician, I wanted peace to be my way of life, and being loving my modus operandi.

In summary, I grew weary of the social distancing, the proscribed wearing of masks, and the general malaise that settled like a dark cloud over the Seattle area. Has the world gone mad? Perhaps; or perhaps it had always been on its way there. People carry a lot of anger inside. I can only imagine what will ensue when Trump is reelected. I expect that will not be a pretty picture in America. People in the Pacific NW have wanted a zombie apocalypse for at least a decade; this is their dream come true.

But I digress. I am here to mention this little victory; my having been amongst the Hot 100 in the Capital Fund Screenplay Competition. As I recall, I believe I entered two screenplays, but I could be wrong. I was distracted by the other news, the news that I tried hard to ignore. For brevity, let's say I entered one: 21 Days in Paris. I have high hopes for this screenplay. The email mentioned that it's certainly in the realm of possibilities that a financier, producer, director, or agent may reach out to me, even though I didn't win. There are some things we just can't control. I'm believing in a happy ever after ending to that development. One day I will get that call, or email, with someone eager to buy or option my scripts, or novels. We need little affirmations along the way, bread crumbs to lead us out of the dark woods.

So celebrate with me. Maybe you have had similar happy moments where that little voice in your head, like an aeolian wind, whispered 'Do a happy Snoopy dance.' It was a nice gift on the 4th of July. Maybe those little moments, when the rockets are launched and a myriad starburst of colors festoon the night sky, are symbolic of all our hopes for surprising happiness in life. We all need a little joy, and I had mine yesterday. It's been scribed in the history books now. I have proof I am still on the right track. If we pay attention, we'll see the universe winking at us, giving us hugs to carry on despite the pandemic.

Oh the joys of social distancing!

The organic grocery I shop at installed big sneeze guard cages around the checkout counters. They're well constructed, with metal frames around plexiglass panels. Still, it's surreal. The store has a notice on their deli section floor instructing customers to remain outside the taped zone. Today was the first day I wore a mask. I didn't enjoy it much, but I will try to get used to it. My social life, which was already in decline, is nonexistent.

There came a point, not that long ago, when Covid-19 became more than just a subject of mockery, and was termed a pandemic. In the beginning, not quite two months ago, very few people took it seriously. Then they did. Literally, it was a matter of days when the virus dominated the news. Toilet paper disappeared from grocery stores. People fought over it. Why toilet paper? Why did shoppers leave entire aisles of water, juice, and citrus fruits untouched?

There were many rumors flying around the Census office. A woman said she thought it was a deliberate act of terrorism by the Chinese. Then the lockdowns began. Italy was the first country. Others followed. International flights were cancelled. San Francisco was locked down, and then all of California. Schools, libraries, restaurants, a host of various businesses were closed. Boeing temporarily closed, with no date set for a reopening. On the news last night, it was reported 30,000 Boeing employees are now laid off.

I have worked at a Census office since the first of the year. As the weeks progressed I noticed more of my coworkers coughing and sneezing. At least four Census field supervisors, and several enumerators resigned. Every Friday we had a group meeting, and the head honcho at first said the Coronavirus was nothing to worry about. In two weeks he said the opposite. We began wiping down everything: phones, keyboards, headsets, doorknobs. The handwriting on the wall; I knew it was a matter of a week or two and we'd all be sent home. My conversations with people I was hiring as enumerators followed a certain thread. People were progressively getting less interested in working for the 2020 Census, in any capacity. Staff were resigning. The places I'd booked for training enumerators began bowing out. Finally, three weeks ago, we were all sent home. Our weekly pay continues.

The post office by me has a long "shower curtain" between postal workers and customers. One of the clerks, who knows me by name, gave me a mask today. I just tried it out. I don't like it much, but maybe it will keep me safe. There is a lot of pollen in the air, so perhaps that's a reason to wear it. The Coronavirus is most likely going to be with us until June, maybe longer. Some suggest the onset of summer may stop the virus, or at least slow it down, because the virus doesn't do well in warm, humid conditions. Here's an article about the Coronavirus/Covid-19 with virologist David Ho:
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/tip-iceberg-virologist-david-ho-bs-74-speaks-about-covid-19

There is good news amidst all the bad news. Once a person recovers from Covid-19 they are unlikely to be reinfected. Studies have shown that a vaccine for Covid-19 might happen sooner than later. The aforementioned article mentions a fifteen minute test was developed for the HIV-AIDS test. According to the latest news, a test for Covid-19 might provide results in five minutes. An actual vaccine probably won't be approved until next year.

During the plague (and there were at least four that hit Europe), two thirds of the people were immune and survived. Ninety-five percent of the people exposed to the Coronavirus recover. But that still amounts to an estimated 2.2 million people in the United States dying from the virus.

I've bought a bottle of organic merlot wine to celebrate the end of the Covid-19 this year. I may have to drink it alone. A friend in Australia, which is about to experience the troubles of the northern hemisphere, as they enter the winter months (and we the summer months), suggested we toast in a Skype conversation. It's still too early to celebrate. That celebration might not even happen this year. It's a gloomy, but realistic thought.


I'd planned on going to do some work on my land in southwest Utah, and felt bad I'd put it off last summer. I have to get out of this city. Living on my land is about the safest place I can be right now. It's off the grid, and six miles from a small store.

I've put off buying solar panels and materials for a small shack on my land. I don't like being cautious, but everyone says now is the time for caution. Many people in the Pacific Northwest have wanted a zombie apocalypse. Well, now we may have one, and the aliens will probably not show up to save us.

We're on our own in this part of the Milky Way. I'm going to try to get plenty of sleep, eat lots of chicken soup, and keep enough supplies handy to make it through this. In the grocery today I saw a woman whose cart was packed to the gills. She had ten cartons of eggs. Maybe she's going to bake a lot of cakes. Maybe she's an optimist, and expects this thing to blow over pretty soon. I hope she's right. If not, please keep six feet away from me. I need my space.