I reply to an e-mail from one of my mother's best high school girl friends.

Hi Joye,

This is Mark replying to your so very thoughtful e-mail.  Let us just say that Ralph has not yet embraced 20th century computer e-mail technology.  I cut and pasted your e-mail and will leave it on the kitchen table for him to read in the morning.  I know he will be pleased to hear from you and grateful for the Howie Selke update.

We are very sorry to hear about your Aunt Wanda.  She sounds like a very thoughtful lady, what with having made provisions for the books and things.  After Anne died, the job of being the archivist and curator of "stuff" here at 1004 S Grove Avenue either fell unto me, onto me, or I embraced it.  Have found many treasures.  Gave away about 200 books to the Lake Zurich Lions Club for the book sale, at the end of last April.  That cleared up SOME book shelf space.  Opened a couple of very old blanket chests and found a treasure trove of stuffed animals (very high end creatures) that Marianne had accumulated from her childhood days.  Boxed them, wrapped them, and then put them under the Christmas tree as presents from each of her family members (me, dad, Gay, Gay's husband Mike, my son Adam, Gay and Mike's son Scott).  Marianne took them back to Providence, RI, where she now resides.  Looked about her smallish place of residence, and said, "hmm, have no room for MOST of these adorable guys.  Let me go on-line to see if I can find someone who can repair them, clean them up, and then maybe give them away?"  

This she did, and a most beautiful series of e-mail correspondence followed, in which the stuffed animal cleaner / repair craftsperson readily agreed to fix 'em up, AND to find them loving homes, and also agreed to clean up and fix up the THREE (and only three) that were too important for Marianne to part with, all pro bono, of course.  My parents failed to raise any materialists.  We love to give away our good stuff, that we no longer have room for (literal room, and room in our hearts); knowing that they will be placed in excellent, loving homes is more than enough of a reward.

Around September 1, Ralph got sick.  He lost 33 (we debate this, he claims 30) pounds, and shrunk 4" (he refuses to admit this; I can tell the difference).  He had to lose 15 pounds in two weeks before his primary care guy, an internist started to take his situation seriously.  Although Gay suggested to him that many of the symptoms he was enduring were also side affects of the "sleeping pill" perscription the doctor had written for him, Ralph has never been any good at listening to what blood relatives lacking the necessary credentials has to say.  BUT, when his golfing buddy Drew Fletcher sent him an e-mail, saying, "Hey, Ralph, about that sleeping pill you're taking, you exhibit about 75% of the symptoms that are side affects.  Think about stopping that medication."  Which Ralph indeed did do (he gives great credence to the opinions of his golfing buddies, no matter what their credentials are) at which point in time he began to regain his lost weight.  He was so delighted to get to 185.  Not so delighted now to be over 200 (slightly), which is about 5 more pounds than he started from, back when he began to lose the weight.

He also said, and this was within the last 10 days, that, for the first time since his horrifying bout with persistent nagging illness began (basically, he had never been sick a day in his life, except for when he had to have his appendix removed, circa 1970)!  And the absence of illness is a blessing, indeed.

He and I have played golf, since about 15, November, 2011, oh, I'd guess, something like 160 times.  The owner of the course and all the people that worked there were so worried about dad, not having seen him during the month of August, after mom died (there is much paperwork and nonsense that needs to be performed in the aftermath), and then after his 2 1/2 months of illness, that they simply said, "come out and play golf with Mark any time."  The head golf professional at the course, Donny Habjan was the assistant golf pro at Midlothian Country club and used to play with Floyd Ganzer every Saturday morning, so, there is a Blue Island connection.

For me, the opportunity to play golf almost every day with my father for the last 6 1/2 months has been the blessing of a lifetime.  I had forgotten how much I love him, and how much fun we've always had playing golf together.  Of course, I usually beat him now, BUT NOT ALWAYS.  IN January, we were playing, and at the end of nine holes, he had shot 39.  But, it was very cold and windy.  But, I am thinking, "hmm, if he can make 8 bogies and one par on the back nine, he will shoot his age," so I make with him a Faustian bargain:

"Dad, if you will only play the back nine with me, I will NEVER again ask you for anything to do with golf."

Oh, he was so reluctant, but, he loves me, has basically never been able to say "no" to me, about anything to do with playing more golf, and agreed.  Things went pretty much as scripted, EXCEPT, that he had to make 8-foot long snaky putts on each of the last two holes to shoot 44 on the back nine, for, a total of 83.

MY FATHER SHOT HIS AGE!  Ta da!  And then I explained it to him, and went and bragged in the golf shop all about him.

We played the next day, he started with 44 on the front nine.  I was playing brilliantly, and not paying attention to him.  He shot 39 on the back nine.  Shot his age, two days running.  A couple of days later, he shot 41-41, BEAT his age!!!!

And then, about a month ago, he shot 79!!!

AND, he can still drive it past me (when I hit it solid, but very high, into a left to right crossing wind).

I've been seeing a social worker on a regular basis since early February.  She wanted to talk with dad, to make sure (or to see if) his perception of the story of my life and mine seemed to be in consonance.  So I made an appointment for him to talk with her on the phone.

Now, as a medicaid recipient, I can get free transportation (free to me, the state of Illinois medicaid fund pays a LOT of money to transport me) to the mental health site, which is in Berwyn.  SOMEHOW or another, the transportation got messed up (I have to phone in the request at least 48 hours in advance) and Ralph ended up driving me to the site.  I invited him to join me and Diane in the session.  He mostly talked (I was merely a GREEK CHORUS) for about 45 minutes before I shooed him out of the room, and then I looked at Diane, and damn near broke down into tears:  "That's the closest thing he's had to grief counseling since mom died."

It has been my contention that he SHOULD have grief counseling; who in the world is prepared to lose a spouse of 61 1/2 years, who was in good health on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, and then dead on Sunday?

Well, the transportation got screwed up again last week (could easily be my fault, I am SO doubtful as to be certain I did not) when I was going to have a buddy of mine come in, and have him tell her about the last 12 or so years that we have known each other (I lived with him at his mom and her husband's home in McHenry last July, before mom died, for about 15 days).  My buddy Steve's step father, however, flew back into Chicago and needed a ride home from O'Hare, so Steve couldn't make it.

And I didn't have a ride, so, the Ralph express was called into action.  And he was good enough (and comfortable enough) to go into Diane's office with me, and THIS time, she didn't talk to him about ME, she talked to him about mom, asking those brutally honest questions that really need to be addressed before you can begin to heal from the loss, but, she does it in such a non-threatening way, that dad, I have no doubt, was entirely unaware that he was having a therapy session.  I did kick him out after 35 minutes, this time (sheesh, I have my own issues) but I also did cry, from gratitude to this wonderful woman who has assessed the needs of our (perhaps perpetually, but only mildly) dysfunctional household most accurately, judges not, but gives us the opportunity to talk about our lives, to get stuff out of our chests, out of our guts, out of our minds, and bring them to the light of day, and the purification of fresh air.

She managed to ask "the big one" about the decision to pull mom from life support.  Dad replied, "when all the doctors and all the nurses tell you the same thing, that EVEN if she should live, she will never have the same quality of life, it is an easy decision to make."

Well, I was with mom when she had the stroke.  I dialed 9-1-1.  I administered mouth-to-mouth resuccitation.  I waited after the paramedics arrived, and it took them 25 minutes to spark her sufficiently back to life.  And while she was in the hospital, although her vital signs were good, she never regained consciousness.  Also, she had double pneumonia, and I knew that her lungs were not getting any air into them.  So, she was with VERY limited oxygen for 31 minutes.   Her brain had virtually no oxygen for 31 minutes.  She would never have regained her faculties for speech, for thought, for writing, for enjoying anything; she would have been vegetative, a thing both mom and dad had decided 20 years ago they did not want to have happen to them.

So, yes, it WAS an easy decision.  One they had addressed before.  Does dad miss mom?  Of course, every day.  But we both keep her alive in our hearts and in our minds.  We talk about her, we tell stories, we reminisce.

Marianne came back to Barrington to work on "Anne's Garden," the memorial garden to Anne (Mike Magliola donated $500 and another good family friend also donated the same amount, to be used for the creation of "Anne's Garden," which sits along the south side of the house, right across from "John's Garden" which mom so lovingly tended from 1988 until 2011).

It was an interesting project.  Dad got all nervous about it (what with his brother-in-law having donated a lot of money, what with Marianne having been tasked with the job of designing / redesigning it, what with it is another thing on a never ending series of check lists that needs to be done, what with dad not knowing jack or squat about gardens, and so, in the three week run up to Marianne's arrival, dad developed a new habit of distracting himself from watching the on-coming traffic on the roads, streets, and highways:  garden scoping).  It used to be that the only time we had to worry about a head on colission with Ralph driving was when we'd pass a golf course,  He'd invariably crane his neck to check the course out, steering ever so predictably into either the right hand lane, if the course was on the left, or the left hand lane if the course was on the right.l  But, there aren't THAT many golf courses around.

THERE ARE, however, many gardens around.  Most everybody has one, and some of them are simply magnificent, some are endearingly subtle, so, now dad, who has tasked the garden's creation out to Marianne is starting to think about what might be done, speculate on how much it might cost to do it, and begin worrying about a new unstarted project, over which he had virtually no control, no expertise, and a whole lot of uncertainty.  His golf game died and descended into hell.  It was painful to play with him.  He was so distracted.  And it took me a LONG time to figure out just what the issue was.  ACTUALLY, since I started out-driving him by lots of yards, I made the more convenient and satisfying assumption that now I was hitting the ball 60 yards father (it was actually more like 15-40 yards farther, mostly 15).  But, in retrospect, it was the garden; another unfinished project, hanging over his head, like the sword of Damascles.

So, Marianne's first day here, dad took her all over, showing her the gardens he admired the most.

Second day, they broke soil.  It was fairly brutal.  Mom had these yucca plants that she loved (and dad hated).  Yucca plants will over take your garden, and these had succeeded in taking over the spot.  It was all weeds and over growth.  But, for ripping up over growth, and turning soil, well, Ralph has some skills in this arena, having done so for mom for many years.  The yucca had strong, thick, resistant root, about a foot below land level.  So, they dug, and the macheted, and cut.

Mom, watching all this from heaven above, decides to send a reminder to Marianne about how much she loved the yuccas, and so, Marianne gets attacked by tiny biting black ants (their bigger counterparts have been invading the home for the last 3 months; we squish, they continue to breed and conquer), and then comes into contact with the sole strand of poison ivy in the yard.  She is VERY much sensitive to poison ivy.  She gets it.  "Right mom, I know.  You love the yuccas.  We will leave the six on the ends, but these middle guys HAD to go!"

Marianne then goes to visit Gay and Mike (and my son Adam, who lives with his aunt and uncle).  Stays over night, then goes to a plant place.  Calls dad, tells him she is at the plant place.  Dad suggests she buy some plants.  "I already have, dad," she replies.

And then Marianne simply took over, a veritable force of nature.  She had no time to do itern training and supervise.  She just kicked Ralph out of the garden, relieved him of all digging, pulling, plant-learning responsibilities.  And she stuck at it, about 10 hours a day for the last 4 days.  We didn't rebuild the garden.  It was quite enough of a project to clean out and dig up and put down the peat and new top soil, plant the sun plants (Marianne had never had a sun garden before; having one now changed all her pre-conceived notions about which flowers should be planted), show off the garden to three of my best and dearest friends (one of them, a green thumb, and, while not quite a golfing buddy of dad's, at least a peer male, who also is THEIR household's DG (designated gardener) to give dad the advice, "Water the hell out of it."  And this dad doth do (or at least has been doing, most regularly).

I've lost (misplaced here in the computer room) our digital camera, but my sister Gay came out the other day and took some photos of the garden. When (and or if) these are made available to me (she DID promise to send me an e-mail), I will pass the photos along to you.

Marianne's efforts were well worth it.  We ended up with a much smaller scoped projected than original thoughts had indicated.  Everything always takes longer than you think.  It was the perfect plan; the perfect garden.  It is the perfect plan; it is the perfect garden.  And now I've had it re-inforced, that, LESS IS MORE!

We are blessed; blessed to have such wonderful friends, blessed to have our health (back, finally); blessed to have things which hold our interest; blessed by people who find the time to give of themselves; blessed with long time friends, who remember a lot of things, and know a lot about us.

Thank you for having been the blessing in Anne's life that you were; for being her good and very dear friend.  Thank you for making the time to take the time to write.  It is in those small (but oh so large) things that we do, to let those we know know how much we love them, and still care, and still carry them in our hearts, that we most delight the Lord.

May good health, peace, and blessings be upon you, and also upon all of them that you love, and also upon all of them that love you.

Mark (& Ralph) Ganzer

My Face Book Friend Michelle wants five children (she has three) and she is debating when to bring the 4th and 5th into the world. Not everyone is encouraging of her in this regards. Several people cite "money - the expense of raising children" as the reason for not having more children, or, for cutting off at 3, or 4 at most. PSAW, says I. You want 'em, you go make 'em kid. Beucase I already KNOW you are one hell of a mother, you have one hell of a husband, and you WILL make it work!

LONG time ago, my youngest sister Marianne and I were talking, and we both agreed, we wanted no kids.  Marianne's reason was that the world is such a harsh, cruel place.  My reason was more selfish; I didn't want to foul up a kid as badly as my folks fouled up their kids, doing nothing particularly wrong (except for the part about willful ignorance).  

WELL, it turns out, that both Marianne and I have some parenting chops.  

After learning how to make unanticipated babies just a month shy of my 33rd birthday (and, trust me, I stopped doing it), my ex-wife and I were blessed with a son, Adam James, who literally SAVED BOTH OF OUR LIVES.  He gave her something to love and care for that needed her nurturing ways; he gave me healing - he's been reaching out and touching old, bedraggled, boozer, homeless, stinking old men ever since he was one year, two weeks, and one day old.   

Marianne's wife brought into their marriage a daughter, and so it was given unto Marianne, almost 20 years ago, the great joys and delights of being the disciplinarian mother to a precocious 7 year old, who is a minor internet phenom for having written, at her charter school, in response to the question: "What is a family?"  this answer:  "A family, I think, is a lot of people, or maybe not so many, that love each other."  

One son was more than enough for me (didn't hurt that he had 3 cousins who all used to come over to our house on Saturdays, where, we literally, did NOTHING, EXCEPT, talk, play cards, play video games, eat, drink, engage in free speech, watch incredibly poorly chosen movies (all the way through, dammit, if they were gonna have night mares, they were gonna have night mares about what really happened in the movie, and not about why they imagined might have happened, had I pulled the plug) ... and THOSE GLORIOUS DAYS, those were the best days of my life:  just the five of us boys, hangin' out, the four of them total engaged and invested in one another, and me, room service, and privy to each and every conversation, each and every swear, each and every drop of blood leaking from the video game slaughters.  THOSE GLORIOUS DAYS (and I knew they one day would end, but, what a friggin' run I had!).

Dedicated to the Equestirenne - My Beloved and Sainted Sister Gay Linda Ganzer Offutt

My siblings are all very cool people, who have at one time or another inspired my muse.  This is my tribute to my oldest sister, Gay Linda Ganzer-Offutt, who, I believe was practicing horse riding in her mother's womb from the moment to the moment of her entry onto planet earth.  I'd not thought too much about it, but my Grandfather Harry Ganzer, just LOVED horses (the trotters), maybe even more than he loved to go through the charts on the weeked (typically 12-16 hours of research, poring over the racing charts on the dining room table, his mother-in-law, my Grandma Lachel snorting, derisively each time she passed the table, "Einstein never spent so much time with numbers."  I had never before made the horse connection from Harry to Gay, although, I made the whittling connection from my maternal grandfather Raymond Dale Hockett to my youngest sister Marianne a LONG, LONG, time ago.  This is one of the great catharctic benefits of writing (and re-writing); taking the time to make the time to remember, to touch your words, view your words, hear your words, speak your words, and to sometimes glimmer just where your words came from, and what lessons you had missed for so long, that suddenly seem so obvious now.  Thanks, dear Lord, for giving me parents who imbued in me early the love of the writeen word.  AMEN.

You, from the moment of your conception

Deamt' only to be an equiestrienne -

Those ponies, stallions, palaminos – they were all

Pal 'o youro-ohs – ho, ho, ho, HOR-SEE HO!

And you did and do ride, ride, ride, did and do ride, ride, ride,

From the moment the first you spotted that saw horse

“This is for me,” you said with glee while that horse

upon the floor, reflected magic in your eyes,

perhaps magic and something more – a calling

And you did and do ride, ride, ride, did and do ride, ride, ride,

Delighting next-door Bud and Lou-eeze Stevens too,

So long and far back in time, and yet so near and dear

to our hearts and memories, so near and dear to you,

And you did and do ride, ride, ride, did and do ride, ride, ride,

In that almost safe, not quite small, but emminently sincere

Community where you, John, and Marianne were born

and we did play each day away as best we could

In Summer, or in Shadow, you were riding, riding, riding,

you did and do ride, ride, ride, did and do ride, ride, ride,

Gliding, gliding, gliding, and oh how you so loved

When Bud Stevens would call you and Marianne over to ride

On the buggy that their beloved horse pulled aournd the

Outskirts of our fair Streator town, delighting children from

Neighborhoods far and near, oh such joy, oh my dear

What kind of sainted sinner was that man who worked

with hands always grit-dirt black, although he gloved them,

And face always smiling, so kind, so soft, so warm, so gentle,

So kind, so sharing, so caring,

And rides he gave, to every one in that town fiar,

where we all were Lower-middle class folk, just trying to make our way

While our fathers worked and our mothers stayed and made

our homes, safe, comfy, and warm happy places.

Fearing not to send us along on our way, out the front door

even before making those oh-so-huge 2,500+ calorie breakfasts

for the men folk who worked the bone hard strong back requiring jobs

which were available to any man, even boys, who wished to shoulder a load,

but, oh, the enormous breakfasts, where the workers would sit

thoughtfully sipping coffee, luxiriantly smoking a non-filtered ciagrette,

and, OH, those breakfasts, which ALWAYS taste so sinfully good:

you will eat flap jacks, biscuits, gravy, taters, bacon, sausage, and then, they were all set to go out and face another dreary factory day,

or day in the fields of harvest, or day at the office, or day teaching school

to be followed by night coaching sports, and week-ends coaching or officiating, collecting money at the gate for the sports teams events,

parking cars, anything, to bring in that extra five dollars for three hours

that stretched so mirculously far, back in the day, when a working man's pay

got a house overhead, warm blankets on bed, good food in the belly and more,

while the wife could stay home to make sure the children did not roam,

or hang with the wrong kind of kid, that the kids would not do stupid,

and then try to escape punishment playing Cupid,

no, the law was laid down: three hard smacks

on the behinds, and this was enough.

You meanwhile were all the day riding, riding your did ride, did ride,

riding you did ride; gliding riding deciding, this riding was your purpose

the reason the Good Lord put you here on earth, first, and foremost,

you would never bluff, or do anything to hurt your horse;

and your gentleness to him, and his to you, were so perfectly reflected

in the gentle way you treated all who crossed your path, even the ones

who could say the most unkind things, in the most unkind ways,

you pined not for happier days, because you could ride, could ride,

could glide, could fly, could sail beyond it all, and dream that

horsey riding, dream that horsey flying, dream that horsey riding,

ride, ride, ride, you did ride, ride, ride, you did ride.

Your voice he obeyed, always doing what you what you said,

But wordlessly too, the two of you, oh, you two, so perfectly in mind-tandem

naught would do of random, oh so disciplined you were, and how so much

did that grand horse adore you for the discipline you bore, for the discipline

was what compelled you to feed him on time, to groom him in time,

to shoe him so he need not climb nor clamber round inappropriately shod,

oh those bonds between you tied so close, that even today I can see his ghost

nuzzling up behind your honey-haired head, with the softest snort he whispers,

You loved me so well, my beloved sister, and I miss you though in

heaven here I rest. Of all the ones who loved me, you were first on that

saddle above me, riding, riding, riding, gliding, gliding, gliding, oh my fair one,

oh my wan one, oh my gentle one, oh my small one, you my master, you my fate, you to take me through the gate, and if you but have say the word I jump

so close to the heavenly, with so much love aplenty

rider and me, with but saddle between, we were one, I swear

The two of us would run, when the long day was done,

and it was time for you to return – your heart a'fire its glowing embers warming

heart on fire with the love, the desire, hope and dreamn'ere to leave

my charmed stallion's back – though the time, come it must

Your Sputnik you can always trust trust, to be loving you when you

left as much love as I returned. It was I your favored hourse,

Who let you run me on the course, and in our harmonios song,

You came along, and blossomed into woman

Love's light is reflected, love's light n'ere rejected

Love's light shown as a halo surrounding you

In the pictures the family sees it – when you were here I did feel it

Love's light reflected, resplendant, warming radiant and shining from you.

I loved you Gay Linda G – and all you are you were to me and from this

Heavenly pasture I do watch – do watch as you and Jake, that sometimes

Perilous trail partake, and I make sure the angel horse's guard your way.

You were my favorite love, and as I watch from here above,

I'm as happy apart as even when I was with you,

For although you've grown and changed, at heart you are still the same,

That eager young girl who dreamt' me in her mother's womb;

One day again we will go riding, riding, gliding, flying,

And no order will your have to give; It's enough for you to think it,

In a blink I will obey, every thought or word you say,

You own me, my love, and my love, I own you.

You, from the moment of your conception

Deamt' only to be an equiestrienne -

Those ponies, stallions, palaminos – they were all

Pal 'o youro-ohs – ho, ho, ho, HOR-SEE HO!

And forever you will ride, with that love that burns inside,

And the world's a lot better just having known you.

With Love and undying Admiration, to you

for all you are, for all you've been, and for all the new surprises

you give us again and again.

Freré Marcos

My youngest sister Marianne is a way cool person. I wrote this tribute to her early last November.

A Tribute to the Iron-Maid as She Prepares

For Yet Another Singular Act of Love

and Remembrance; Another RiverRun

Of course it should have been obvious when you were but three,

and could shimmy up the door wells with your hands and feet,

we, all of us, Mark, Gay, and John, too, of course. could and did

although you were so much younger than us all, but it fazed you not.

Yet, if not the shimmying, then when you climbed the gymnasium rope

to the top of the roof, bare-handed in kindergarten

then, surely, we ought, all of us, to have known

that one day you would BE a world-class athlete

and take it upon yourself to endure the many long, many lonely hours

(even with friends to escort you along the way,

(it is still many long, and many lonely hours

(that 120-mile, or is it even slightly longer?

(that trip, that journey, that pilgrimage, that fund-raising act of remembrance

(of our too soon gone but n'ere forgotten beloved Freré Jacques

(that RiverRun, RiverCrew, RiverRide along the Charles

(that you so faithfully perform, year-in and year-out

(that act of remembrance, that act of dedication

(that act of love, that act of purification

(that act of single-minded dedication

(that act of perfection, yes that one,

(that lonely run, that lonely crew, that lonely ride

(that forever and ever binds and bonds you

(unto he to whom you, virtually alone,

(ministered in his hours of sickness and recovery

(and eventually his final minutes of life

(when he told you he was afraid

(and you finally thought to ask. “what are you afraid of, John?”

(and he told you, the most blessed and beautiful of words

(that I will have carved upon the marker of the place in Livingston, Iowa

(where I ask you now, you as witness, that my ashes be scattered,

(to be returned to the universe, like dust in the wind;

(“I am afraid they will never know how much I loved them.”)

So, how exactly do you prepare for this ritual RunCrewRide?

It can't be year-round, like it ought to be, or even would be

If you had but the time for year-round training.

You would, of course, train year-round, and probably

Crew an international crewing contest or two,

But you are at the pinnacle now of your craft,

Of your art, of your administrative talents and gifts,

And, what with the gardening (for yourself- what a lovely gift you give),

and the cooking for your beloved and oh so many dear close friends,

well, with the 24 hours in a day serving to limit rather severely

that which you can accomplish from one sun-up to the next,

well, something's got to give, and thus, for you,

it clearly must be the rigorous daily athletic training you once

engaged, delighted, meditated, and reveled in.

Ah, so sadly, in one sense, and so grandly in another sense,

Life intervenes, and we must make limiting choices.

And our choices define us, so that when we make conscious choices,

we are assured that we have made the right ones

provided (as always is provisional) our intentions are good

and our motives are (reasonably) pure.

Will you have a day of glorious sunshine?

For this, for you, I shall pray.

Or will it be gray, cloudy, foggy, wet and chilled?

That too, I know, you can handle, and it will be even

more spiritual, and more fulfilling, the completeness of

that RiverRun that you have so faithfully fulfilled

All these years, in loving memory,

As a tribute to Freré Jacques,

In loving living tribute to we, your most ardent of supporters

Who so often have disappointed you, and not given you the fullness of credit

For your single-mindedness, grit and determination

For your strength of character and your strength of will

And your inner strength, yeah, even your Faith,

for Your God doth watch over you, and sends His angels

To guard and guide you along the RiverRun

And thus you doth please the Lord, and give him glory praise and honor,

And leave us not merely slightly awestruck

but, almost dumbfounded, by you, and what you have shown us

We too might be able to do were we but to take our love,

too 'oft hidden under a bushel, and let it shine,

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine,

Let your love shine down on we.

We are with you, Iron-Maid, so fair, so brilliant, so soft, so gentle,

so kind, so forgiving, so understanding, so compassionate,

so empathetic, so loving, so loving, sow loving

sow loving, sow loving, like Johnny Appleseed

Planting apple trees along his way,

Sow your Loving,

Sow your Joy,

Sow your Caring,

Sow your Music,

Sow your Craft,

Sew your Memories

Fore and aft,

From near to afar

And at all points in between

You, our Iron-Maid, you our Angel

You, the RiverRun Queen.

As always,

with Love to you,

and ALL You LOVE,

Freré Marcos

This, day the first,

November, 2011.

In celebration of your run;

In celebration of your birth;

In celebration of knowing you on earth.

Maybe I am one of the poor slobs who was predestined to perdition because I couldn't believe God wasn't really something better than a vindictive hard ass.

(This is me writing to a former little league team mate, Jack, after having caught up with his auto-biographical notes for the graduating class of 1969 which included so many of my grade school classmates from the town in which I grew up and was raised):

I started out at WIU as a music major, but music majors (with vocal emphasis) had to take 24 more credit hours to graduate than did any other major at any of the departments. And anyway, all I wanted to with my music was to play it. So I took the easy way out and switced my major to math, told everyone I would become an actuary upon graduating, and did. Made a lot of money, too, by most peoples' stamdards. Then one day, it hit my like a ton of bricks - I was counting the sick, counting the dead, raising premiums on the aged and the infirm, and helping to design and price manipulative products to be sold by the unscrouplous to the unwary. And now, I am about to begin another iteration of my career, merging my love of making music with fund-raising for 1st responders, village & park district employees, and public education.s AND I SLEEP very well at night. Mark Jack writes back: I am back into playing music too. I have memories of great emotional connection with audiences and really taking people to places they could not otherwise go. So far I have not had that kind of experience. Maybe it was all in my own head, or maybe I lost it or just have not recaptured it. I will keep at it and see what happens. After my message to you I remembered that your father had been a much admired teacher (Math as I recall), but that he had left Streator High a year or two before I started in 1964. So that meant you would have left town before you went to high school and never attended SHS or were in the SHS band. I have a few strong recollections of you, and I recall that you were a really nice guy. Do you remember that Dave Raymond and I used to call you "Walkee" because, as a batter, you would avoid swinging, hoping to get a walk so you could get on base. I wasn't much of a hitter and the only time I ever got on base was on an error or fielder's choice. I have a recollection of you hitting grounders to me once in the infield. So you would have been eleven years old and I was twelve when we played on the same team. I have a twelve year old and it struck me that you were a lot more mature, as I remember you, than he seems to me to be, and I suppose I remember myself as more mature as well. It may be that I don't appreciate the full depth and complexity of my son's inner life, and the interaction he has with his peers may be pretty much what I experienced. What sort of music are you doing? Do you play alone? I play guitar, electric and acoustic, and sing songs from the fifties, and sometimes earlier up to the ninties or so.  It is good that you can make some money doing it. I don't really make much money--just enough to help pay for equipment, gas, strings, my wife's dinner tab if she shows up.  As a judge I felt some ambivalence about being part of some of the injustice that has become law. I justified it because I was acting as a professional, and I felt a certain humility about it that prevented me from substituting my own personal views, rather than professionally determining what the law was and following it. I wasn't certain enough that I was right that I was prepared to nullify the law established by the people, pathetic as the results of democracy sometimes are, and make my own law. Of course I may have just been rationalizing, because there was always plenty of pressure to be a right wing ass hole. If you sentence a guy to a long term in prison, everybody, including the clerks, bailiffs, and the janitors come up and tell you "Good Job!" If you give somebody a break and give him probation nobody says a thing to your face, but you find out people are running your ass down behind your back, and even distoring the facts to make you look even worse. So, all in all, I am glad to be out of the business of dispensing retribution on behalf of an unforgiving and Draconian society. AS I was doing it every day, I didn't even consciously feel any stress or conflict, but after I was out of it I experienced a delayed reaction, and realized I had been internally in dissonance with myself. I had a family to support and five kids to put through college and being a judge provided nicely for those needs. I had lots of free time to spend with the family, and it was well worth the price I paid, but I am relieved to be out of it. From your remarks, it appears that God is something very real to you. I have never had much faith. I have studied a lot about religion and the history of Christianity. I have been trying to sort out those portions of it that are clearly of human origin, as opposed to the things that might actually come from and relate to God. Of course all of it, other than what one might experience in the form of revelation or internal communication from the Holy Spirit,comes from another person, whether it be the Gospels or the letters of Paul, who was a murdering persecuting religious fanatic, before he supposedly was spoken to by the Lord on the road the Damascus. As a Criminal Defense attorney I met a few people over the years to whom the Lord had supposedly spoken, so I am sceptical of the breed, particularly when, like Paul, they have a history of violence for the honor and glory of God. So far the best I can do is to conceive of God as the most perfect idea and entity I can imagine, without the traditional human flaws projected upon him, such as wanting people to bow down and worship him, and punishing people for eternity because they can't believe in him. Maybe I have faith that God isn't just the great feudal baron in the sky, imagined by a midieval society, and coincidentally demanding of his creatures, the same duties owed by vassal to Lord: fealty and obedience. Anyway, that is what my defense will be, if there really is an afterlife and one is judged by the standards of the Reverand Jerry Fallwell. Maybe I am one of the poor slobs who was predestined to perdition because I couldn't believe God wasn't really something better than a vindictive hard ass.  As I am so oft' wont to do, I replied, totally lacking in originality, with the song lyrics from Jethro Tull's Aqua Lung Album (Wind Up): When I was younger and they packed me off to school And they taught me how not to play the game I didn't mind it if they groomed me for success Or if they said that I was just a fool So to my old head master, and to any who cares Before I'm through I'd like to say my prayers I don't believe you,  you've got the whole damned thing all wrong, He's not the kind that you had to wind up on Sundays. So I left there in the morning, with their god tucked underneath my arm, their half-assed smiles, and the book of rules So I asked this God a question,  and by way of firm reply, He said, "I'm not the kind that you have to wind up on Sundays." So you can excommunicate me On my way to Sunday school, let all the preachers harmonize these lines: How can you tell me that I am my father's son When that was just an accident of birth I'd rather look around me, compose a better song 'Cuz that's the honest measure of my worth In your pomp and all your glory You're a poorer man than me as you lick the boots of death born our of fear. When I was younger and they packed me off to school And they taught me how not to play the game I didn't mind it if they groomed me for success Or if they said that I was just a fool So to my old head master, and to any who cares Before I'm through I'd like to say my prayers I don't believe you,  you've got the whole damned thing all wrong, He's not the kind that you had to wind up on Sundays. So I left there in the morning, with their god tucked underneath my arm, their half-assed smiles, and the book of rules So I asked this God a question,  and by way of firm reply, He said, "I'm not the kind that you have to wind up on Sundays." So you can excommunicate me On my way to Sunday school, let all the preachers harmonize these lines: How can you tell me that I am my father's son When that was just an accident of birth I'd rather look around me, compose a better song 'Cuz that's the honest measure of my worth In your pomp and all your glory You're a poorer man than me as you lick the boots of death born our of fear. I don't believe you, you've got the whole damned thing all wrong! He's not the kind, that you have to wind up on Sundays. Jack replies, almost immediately.  Aha!, Thinks I. A KINDRED SPIRIT! I recall hearing Ian Anderson sing that song at the University of Illinois Assembly Hall in the winter of 1971-72. I can understand a person getting angry at the religion and social and political dogmas that have permeated his consciousness. The reason we get angry is that even though we think it through, those ideas are still there working and affecting our emotions, in spite of our efforts to reject them. But the fact is, we humans are social animals and there is very little of us that does not involve interacting with others. Most of what we do, we do to try to impress somebody, and sometimes the people we try to impress are our parents, even a quarter century after their deaths, or some peers we remember from high school, whom we haven't seen in decades. But those folks are there in our imaginations, watching and judging us, and we are still trying to prove we are worthy of their respect and admiration. A person has to make the best of it, and try to get along with the burden of culture that he must carry through life, and perhaps carve some sort of identity and meaning out of the material reality and all the social bullshit. I would like to believe that God, if it exists, is not the personification of all the worst human traits- vindictive, authoritarian, and the greatest imaginable ego tripper. But it is hard to cast off six thousand years of Western Culture, create my own alternative culture, and really believe in it. I think it most likely that when we die our consciousness stops, the molecules in our body are recycled through the biosphere, and that is the end of us. If I am right, I will never know I was right. If I am wrong I will, according to the rules of the wind up God of our culture, be tortured forever for not arriving at a required state of belief. Conventional Wisdom is almost always wrong, so it is probably wrong about the nature of God, and I think it unlikely I will be tortured forever. I try not to feel angry about the disturbing notions my culture has infused into my consciousness. This is the way it has always been in human history. That is just the way we people are. We have to have religion to satisfy our need for cause and effect, and also as a means of social control, to justify the positions of the ruling class and to con the serf class into working their asses off and getting those same asses shot off fighting to protect and expand the holdings of the rulers. We also need the promise of pie in the sky to compensate us for having to eat shit on the earth. Actually, we in this particular time and place in history, have it better than any working serf class has ever had it and we don't have to eat too much shit. So the sensible thing to do is to enjoy this great opportunity we have to experience what life has to offer. I have a nice wife, wonderful kids, access to lots of books, fairly good health for an old fart, and I am retired and will probably never have to work again. My turn to exist and be conscious is about three fourths done, but I still have that one fourth left, and so I will try to savor it before the merry-go-round stops and they haul me off in a box. I think what I am describing here is something like Epicureanism.