"...pole star"

So the holidays. For our very lives this year we must be separate. Such is life in a Plague Year. America is a good land,…we are a good people.  We will care for each other, and more than survive this.

America is a strange land.

The Holiday season is a pole star to be looked to. I remember back when cars had fins milk was delivered in bottles children could wander safely, and you could have TV in any color as long as it was black, and white.

In that faraway time before we crammed near space with debris, and online meant either jump rope or waiting to get into a movie. I remember Uncles, and Aunts tons of cousins, and family friends pouring into each other’s houses.

I remember our house.

All done up as best we could. Our traditional six foot tree. Decorations some going back to the late 1800’s mixed with flashy electric geegaws of the 50’s. Dad, and the Uncles all gathered in the daddy spots yacking about guy stuff work the Army…WW2 recently won. What routes they took to get here. They all came on the new Interstates that Eisenhower just built.

My Ma, and the Aunts in the mommy space…the kitchen. Going on about how them uncles drove them crazy how the kids were just as nuts. Who was graduating college soon…a bunch of aunts did. Also who was having a baby. Babies. I remember babies showing up all the time. Endless new cousins,…even a new sister.

Meanwhile our dog Brownie was under the table listening. That’s what dogs do for kids. They listen to what’s really going on. Then tell all good girls, and boys what’s coming their way. Good Dog!

Presents.

Besides tearing the house apart all me my siblings, and the cousins. We dreamed about the neat stuff coming our way. I mean Santa never let us down,…mostly. Yeah I was still into the guy then. Still am somewhat.

There was the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalogue that the mailman would slip us every year. Yep the instruction manual for materialist yule heaven. The thought was that Santa ran Sears. At least at Christmas,…made sense at the time.

Then Thanksgiving part two.

I would have gone on about part one, but my fingers are tired…com'on I’m an old guy now. Anyway it was mostly the same stuff, but with a Turkey, and family incidents. Christmas on the whole just had the Turkey.

Christmas Turkey.

As I sez part two. Before the age of fast food gluttony. Folks only pigged out once or twice a year. The Holidays. As had been traditional for over a 1000 years.

Now we stay up all night eat constantly. Obliviously use tech that would seem magic to our folks, and us. But back then we just had each other. …and it mattered.

The aroma of cooking filled our house. Near every house. We sat said grace then the passing of food all manner of wonders. Laughing stories the tree bright blinking it’s soul to heaven in the background.  We were family we were friends we were together.

Remember these were Depression, and WW2 folks. They were making up for lost time. Those that could made sure the kids had at least a taste of security.

As my ma told me years later. She dad, and our aunts, and uncles. They gave us good memories on purpose. They knew what desperation want was, and what it did.

They deliberately created a sense of harmony despite everything. I was told years later we nearly lost our house…more than once. I found out in my thirties. They so loved us.

There was also music.

My family both sides played instruments. This was a common thing before mass entertainment. In the days when radio was cutting edge. Folks made their own music. Having instruments, and sheet music was common in every house.

We sang carols. We actually sang.  My dad played the piano assorted uncles or aunts accompanied on violin,…even viola. Everyone sang. Even me shy as I was. We sang, and meant it because we really believed in things. Each other,…even a G-d.

Yule gatherings have been with us for 1000 years, and more. Beginning as folk solstice rituals. It’s been passed on to many peoples each adding their touch to it.  Family friends gather at certain points in the year for a reason. A Blessed one.

Sometimes in war or like now in plague it must be put off. But it stays in our hearts. That, and as many are already planning. Next years gathering after the vaccine will be as is being said, “A Fucking Blow Out”.

I have every intention of being around that that.

Bless you all. Be brave be safe be wise be kind.  

 

My Brooklyn 'Hood fed up with the passage of events as they are.

Declares an "End of Time!"

My building has appointed me Temporal Administrator,...acting, of the Peoples Commune of Eastern Parkway.

At a socially distanced meeting in the courtyard we decided the demented mayhem of 2020 has gone on long enough. The masses of these six square blocks declare Time Ended or at least frozen."

Frozen is our amended position since ending time might be like stopping the rotation of the planet. It could get windy.

In any case things being what they are we have canceled the balance 2020, and the movement of time in general. It shall remain timeless until things improve or at least get funnier."

Proposals that we reset to last New Years Eve, and stay there have been tabled. Watch your zoom bulletins, and emails for updates.

(Below Franklyn Avenue Clock. The western boundary of the Brooklyn Timeless Zone.) ..."BTZ", they'll be hats, and t-shirts soon.

"...tubes"

"...tubes"

A little story about my first radio set. It was a 1942 small "Zenith". 'Made of plywood which was really new, and cool in the 40's. They made patrol boats out if it so it had to be cool. Anyway this was about 1963 or so I'm around 12. My Aunt Sybil,...aka Mum gave me her old set. Being a model kit fan,...thanks cousin Jimmy. I'm gluing crap for 60+ years, and still at it. Anyway I went at it like it was a model Spitfire. I cleaned the set. Scrapped the housing. Put a fresh varnish coat on it. Cleaned the electrics rack replaced the old tubes. They still sold radio tubes then. That, and she was in business,...with some of her 1940's tubes still working, and playing Motown, and the Beatles. 
Above is a near spitting image. Thanks Aunt Sybil.

"...la luna"

"...la luna"

This evening's Moon.

From my Kitchen Observatory.

This at 6:57pm, 1-09-20~CE

"...actually"

"...actually"

I just read a piece about the internet how it went all evil nuts, and the tool of Satan. That, and what could be done now. All that useless digital introspection crap. My solution?
Scrap the whole evil mess, and go back to writing letters or ranting on the street. 
That, and mimeographing broadsides. Hand them out. It's good honest work. 
It was not only more fun, but people actually read you demented crap, and thought about it.

Video below:
Here's folks handing out Emergency Food Center leaflets during the latest republican government shut-down. This works better than any website rant. Now there's civil ordinances about this. Look them up before doing this. 
Mostly about littering...clean up any copies people drop, and you're okay.

"...mostly"

"...mostly"

One of the neat things about being a for real elder is not giving a fuck. That, and everyone being mostly okay with it...within reason. I mean I ain't climbing the damned Chrysler Building with my underwear on my head with a Roman candle sticking out of my butt shooting fire balls, and me singing the Oscar Myer Hot Dog song. That's something we've come to expect any day from our head of state...also an old bleep.
Being older is to begin the process of stop worrying. There I feel better already.

"...Set"

"...Set"

A TV set,...a radio set stereo-set. The term lived for over a century. They began with mid-19th century telegraph sets as in set ups. There were no 1970's 8-Track sets no Cassette sets certainly no VCR sets. Although early home computers came as sets to be built. They were not called Computer sets.
I wonder though if the term hadn't vanished somewhere in the late 1960's.
What would things be now?
Would you buy an iPhone Set a new App Set a Flat screen Set a Computer Set or a Virtual Reality-Set? 
See 1940's table radio set above,...which I remember using. I played with a Scrabble Set too

"...project"

"...project"

Long term project.

I just looked at my still unfinished HMS Warspite kit,...or if you will. "...Set". The image is from near two years ago. This happens now. Like that cathedral model I'm still sometimes working on,...remember that one?
Anyway like the real things battleships, and cathedrals take years. 

Mind you when I was a kid I'd have knocked out both in a few days week tops.

 These days one considers the nuances of the project. The morality, and values of the time the original existed in. Which is bullshit for me just never getting around to finishing stuff. So I'm working on His Majesties' Ship Warspite again...or thinking about it at least. 
I painted a few more bits. ...and it was "His" back then. Stand by for future signals.

Above,...click, is what the deal is supposed to be at launching. Eh,...no. I'm not like demented modelers that do every insane tiny detail. I'm just glad I put the pieces in mostly the right places. 
Forget the rigging or camo painting. Gimme a break.

"...pointers"

"...pointers"

Speaking of time travel.
I wish we had Temporal Shifting TV's. They'd be done in the 50's style as above. However when you change channels,...with a knob. You could shift through the last 70 years or so. Channel 2 would be 1949 programs, and on up through the decades which each channel. 

You'd see everything. 

It would be live. You be looking into the past as it really happened. Local news weather commercials local, and network shows everything. I'd watch the NYC 50's kid's shows. Sandy Becker Sonny Fox Chuck McCann. Besides selling you candy tooth paste Rice Krispies, and 1957 Pontiacs. They were a source of morality pointers. 
"...Now kids if you see someone lost or hurt help them." It mattered.

"Ophelia"

This is how I want to go.

Drunk stoned all dolled up.

In a pretty outfit with flowers.

That, and just floating away.

"...event"

"...event"

The Iranian Event 2020.

"...our errors"

"...our errors"

I was reading on another site a flame war over race Southern identity, and the facts of history. We're in a Cold Civil War. This because the last one was never really resolved.

I cautiously Commented: "Well regional Southern pride tends to over look things or explain them down to manageable proportions. The Civil War was a Northern invasion. Slavery was mostly humane, and such.
A large portion of older Southerners sincerely believe this. Just as we believe our version. And here we are with two opposed deeply held "truths".

I always thought some sort of Truth, and Reconciliation process should be used to end our cultures wars. It's more or less worked in a few countries. South Africa the prime example. They were on the verge of a genocidal race war,...but pulled back. We might consider the same.
Neither side will get all they want. However we will tell our stories admit our errors explain our truths, and avoid national suicide.

"...3-D"

"...3-D"

A FB Comment, and an answer.

Claude Horvath: Calvin and Hobbes had a cartoon in which Calvin puzzles about how all the old photos show a black and white scene, while artwork shows color. His father explains it as being because of craziness back then. Or, something like that.

Sidney Smith: Exactly. They had 3-D stuff back then, but thought it was a potential tool of the devil,...that, and bad taste so tossed it. Took another 100 years to figure it out again digitally. They used strawberry jam honey ground copper, and steam to make their color holograms. We went another way as you know. Below a reproduction of the long lost 3-D Carnegie Strawberry Honey Copper powered 1906 camera.

"...back yard"

"...back yard"

(This is a story I wrote some years ago. I used to read it now, and then on the air. Like all my stories it's true. Though as I always say my works are docudramas. Some elements shortened moved around or evaporated. However it would all be very recognizable to the parties that took part.)

A while back I was remembering a childhood event. I told the story on the air of how my Aunt Sybil "Knighted" my brother,cousins, and me.

"Knights of the Garden"

Long, long ago when Kennedy was our young, noble King, and Woodstock was an unknown farm town. I was a kid. In this instance I was a kid playing in my aunt Sybil's back yard. I was happily raise'n hell with my brother John, and my cousins Jimmy, and Henry.

We were happy, secure, innocent, and playing in our aunt Sybil's house in Hollis Queens. Btw, we called auntie, "Mum",...can't remember why. Just as none of us remembers why we call my little sister "Cookie." All lost in the mists of kidhood.

Well there we were screaming, and jumping up down! When out comes "Mum" to the grassy yard. She set up the big lawn chair, and put a pillow in front of it. She also brought out our Grandma's colorful winter quilt.

You guys ever read "Prince Valiant?" My auntie did. In fact it was her favorite story book from childhood. So it's no surprise that we all got "Prince Valiant" sets at Christmas. Well we got sox, books, and other useless stuff too, but Mum always came through with the neat presents.

She once gave me a flying model airplane! One summer I was flying it in Prospect Park, and the cord snapped. It flew away. I never in all these years found the wreckage. I like to think it's still flying somewhere in the world,..China maybe.

'But the Prince Valiant set, oh my, it was so beautifully made! Bright painted tin shield, golden sword, and plumed "flower pot" helmet! This stuff would be worth a fortune today on eBay if you could find it! (...and I've looked) Well Mum brings these out with her to the yard, and performs magic.

We got in line shortest to tallest, and before we knew it we were Knighted! Me, Henry, Johnny, then Jimmy. Each in our turn would don Grandma's quilt as we knelt before Mum.

She held the golden sword above us while saying grownup words then gently touched one shoulder then the other with the Prince's glinting blade. I can't remember all that she said, but I do know that it felt serious. Not play.

Our Aunt was giving us something important. Something that was real. Very real. Was that the moment when we all became men? That so long ago summer day when we knelt before she who would later become the "Matriarch" of all our families.

The years passed our innocence slipping away. My brother, and cousins grew up to be paratroopers, and fought in the Indochina wars. They were the "Knights", that's what they called themselves. My cousin Henry even painted a winged "Excalibur" on the side of his helicopter.

I have often wondered if the magic that Auntie gave us that day helped them to survive over there. I think it did. I think Mum knew exactly what she was doing.

There is only one Knight left now...me. Time, and the world have taken the others. Still that warm day lives on in me. That gift from our dear Auntie has seen me into a new century, and a grateful near old-age.

God Bless You Mum.

Whereas I said I don't remember all the words that were said over us I always meant to compose something to fill in the gaps. Here it is. I pinched most of it from books, or movies though a few words are mine. I hope it may come in handy for you if you ever have to Knight a worthy person. Be they old or very, very young no matter, one size fits all.

"The Oath of a Knight"

Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave, be honest, be generous, and kind. Oppose evil in all of it's forms. Have the wisdom to do not what is easy, but what is right. Respect Women. Safeguard the helpless, respect all faiths. But beware of "Pride" the source of all error.

Now in the name of G-d the founder of Dreams. She who filled the "Well of Forever" with souls, and put smiles on the lip of the yet born. In the Name of She who painted the void with fire. In that Name!, and in the names of Saint Michael, and Saint George the slayers of Dragons,...You are Consecrated,...now rise, a Knight, and assume your responsibilities.