celtic_writer

The Craft Lady, Mrs. Claus and a Celtic Poem

B. Last Saturday morning marked your time to go.

How it shocked us all.

You had pneumonia, but had waited too long to go to the hospital, and there was nothing that could be done to make you better.

You were The Craft Lady. You sold kits online that made people happy, as creative as they could possibly be. It helped so many forget their troubles. And it gave women and men alike something to do with children and grandkids. It is not easy growing up these days. And it is not easy growing older either.

Age is the amount of memories we have of each other. Otherwise, why does living count? I remember your laugh, how you loved to dress up at Christmas as Mrs. Claus. How Emma clapped her hands to see you ring the bell and walk down the main hallway as Santa's wife. You bought such joy to children.

There is a Celtic poem that has helped me in the past, and I hope, can bring a small amount of comfort to all of us who are feeling your loss.

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

I will miss you, my dear friend.

PHOTO OF BARBARA LA BRIE: Courtesy of Ms. Jo Soard. Thanks, Jo.

The IOP

When asked, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I reply, "Two brothers and a sister." But that is not true. My parents had another little one: the eldest. He is called The Infant of Prague.

Seems way back in the 50s, when an Irish Catholic couple married, they could look on the gift table at their reception and be sure to find a holy relic: a three-foot tall statue of the Infant of Prague.

To be gifted with such a statue meant you would always have money. I guess it goes along the same lines of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the dirt of your front yard so your house will sell. Religion and money...always intertwined.

So this statue of the Infant of Prague went with us on all major moves. From NYC to PA, then on to NJ, CT, MA, MD, and finally to the north shore of Long Island, where he sat on the top shelf of the main foyer coat closet, keeping an eye on all who wished to hang up a coat. When you ventured there to retrieve your wrap, you felt someone was always looking at you. And it startled you to look up and discover the little fellah still on patrol, red crown on head and holy blue ball in hand, monitoring the comings and goings of the household. By that time he had a nickname: The IOP.

After my parents passed, and we all gathered to clean out the house, there existed a huge dilemna: what to do with The IOP. It was an inherited hot potato: you take him; no, you take him...round and round and round. Finally it was decided that, after the house was cleared and sold, sister Kathy would be the transporter of The IOP to the environs of Virginia. Once there, a new home would be determined for the little guy.

It was a rough trip. Somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike, my sister had to stop short in the little red Sundance she was driving, a defense against the actions of an imbecilic driver. Due to physics, The IOP was thrown from its resting place on the back seat and crashed to the car floor, chipping off a chest part of his royal robe. I remember Kathy driving in to my driveway, The IOP sitting in the passenger seat, the seatbelt securely fastened around his little holy waist. "It's a long story," Kathy said wearily. The IOP still looked regal, despite the treacherous journey.

A long story indeed. Somehow I ended up with The IOP. He is with me, sitting on the shelf of one of my bedroom closets. When I open the door to take out clothes to wear, I look up at him and say, "How ya doin', brother." And he, with the bright blue Zen Dude eyes, seems to say, "Just fine."

The Taoist, God's Debris, and The Big White Dog

Early Sunday morning in SC. Doug was on waffle-cooking duty, so Walt and I went for a walk around the lake. It started as an opaque journey, with spots of sunlight peeking through. The day had not yet made up its mind to be cloudy or light.

Through the mist came a man in a green coat. He was walking a large white dog.

Walt and The Big White Dog sniffed each other, wagging tails. The man pointed down through the woods to Doug's front door. "I like your prayer flags." he said. "I am a Taoist." He pronounced the word as "dow-ist," an indication the fellah knew something about it.

The prayer flags that caught his attention are called lung ta, meaning "wind horse" in Tibetan. They are horizontal squares of color, sewn along their top edges to a heavy-duty string. They come in five colors, each representing a natural element: blue/white symbolizing sky/space, white/blue symbolizing water, red symbolizing fire, green symbolizing wind/air, and yellow symbolizing earth.

Traditionally, prayer flags are used to pass blessings, such as happiness and good health, to all beings. The "wind horse" carries the blessings high into the sky as an offering to the gods, and then blows them to the people who hang the flags, their families, loved ones, neighbors, and enemies throughout the world.

The man and I talked about the gift of silence and the importance of centering self. He told me he tries to meditate at night, when he can't sleep. How his father died recently, and that he can't stop thinking about it.

"We are all energy," I told him. "We continue to come back, in some form, to participate in the world." And I talked about how each life we have gives us one chance to be who we are this time around. And that next time life's energy will rearrange for us to be someone, and somewhere, else. So we should enjoy this bunch of energy while we can.

His eyes brightened. "I have always thought that too," he said. And then he told me about a book called God's Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon series. The book's message: God created the universe and everything in it. After this was done, God was no longer challenged, so he blew himself up (The Big Bang), ensuring his particles, his energy, went everywhere to land on, and become part of, everything.

The Wind Horse story, revisited once more.

We walked on, parting company where the geese gather for handouts of bread, and the ducks stand in the middle of the road to quack their displeasure at cars just trying to get by.

Ichabod Crane, McCarthy's Bar, and Life's Enduring Mysteries

When you wish, or need, to laugh these days, pick up Pete McCarthy's book McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland.

He's a hoot and three-quarters. You know you are in for some fun while perusing the book's cover: McCarthy tipping his hat, an affable smart ass standing in the doorway of a pub, accompanied by a pug dog and a nun drinking Guinness.

What makes McCarthy a great storyteller is he writes about everyday inexplicable things, like two Americans he meets:

"They looked in reasonable shape; yet the blanket refusal of most Americans to walk anywhere that has a purpose, like a shop or a bar or a castle, remains one of life's enduring mysteries. Put them in expensive jogging clothes, though, with headphones on and silly little weights in their hands, and they are happy to strut up and down main roads in toxic fumes for hours without going anywhere, because it's Exercise. But walk to the shop? 'No way. Not me.'"

That got me thinking about the mysterious things one experiences in life, so I thought of some:

1) Why do people take stuffed animals for rides in their cars? You see them: hundreds of Beanie Babies and little tigers and curly poodles and fuzzy creatures, stuck on the shelf near the back window of a sedan whose driver is talking on a cellphone while driving his or her stuffed animals in his or her car in the fast lane going almost 30 miles an hour, backing up traffic to kingdom come. They should be pulled over and charged with DWI: Driving While Imbecilic.

2) Why do so many people who shop in health food stores look ill? My mother Dottie M. had a saying when she passed a person on the street who looked poorly: "That guy needs a good shot of vitamins." That phrase swims through my head when I shop at a local organic food store for vegetables. Half of the people look grey, washed up, worn out, unable to pick up a stalk of celery without calling for shopper assistance. It's probably because they haven't consumed a decent piece of protein since the Eisenhower Administration.

3) Why was the bow tie ever invented?

4) Why do people think spandex makes them look good? Ichabod Crane would look fat in spandex.

5) Why do people drink diet soda with their french fries? Ichabod Crane would drink a real Coke with his french fries.

And not wear a bow tie.

What's on your list of Life's Enduring Mysteries? Comment, please.

Not Yet in the Third Person

Earl.

I cannot yet speak of you in the third person, as if you are not here. When are any of us really ready to do that, with the people we love?

But I know I must. And I know you will understand.

You know what I liked about you? You, a writer, born in NYC, had the humor and storytelling gifts to prove it. And you married one of my best friends, Phyll, as you knew she would always keep you laughing.

You loved your wife, and your kids. And their kids. You also liked your work, and your dog. You had the courage and smarts to take on The New York Times Crossword Puzzle in INK.

I am not worthy.

You, a New Yawk-ah, were a man with a job that brought you status, but that is not who you were. I will remember you as song. There was a dinner at my apartment way back when, and, as usual, I bought out the guitar after we had all eaten, and you sat on a stark wooden piano bench next to me, and we sang:

"Does your mother know you're out, Cecilia?
And does she know that I'm about to steal ya ..."

I liked your simplicity. People with natural class don't need stuff or status or things that are unimportant.

You sat on that bench, and sang. I watched you, and knew you were happy in your life.

I think of your sons, Brian and Richard. I know they miss you terribly. And you know why they do? It is because they enjoyed your company. That is a fact. They liked their father, as well as loved him.

Good for you, Earl.

Sound

Went to DC tonight, to the auditorium at National Geographic, to hear young musicians play traditional Irish music in a presentation called "An Irish Christmas in America."

There were photos of Ireland splashed upon the wall behind the players as they performed. It was wonderful and mysterious, haunting and joyous. A gift. A whistle of old performed by the new.

The Irish recognize sound as their heredity. Proust said memory is in taste, but for the Celts, it is the pulse of the drum, the scream of the pipes, the shrill of a thin penny whistle. All a celebration of good, as well as what is painful. Notes contributing to the recognition of being.

This sound is in the blood, passed on through the genes. Music is story. And story is life.

Years ago, I read an explanation about people who live on islands. They feel they have no escape, so they take on the world as a chip on their shoulder, double-dog daring anyone to knock the block off.

And then they head west, towards heaven, a direction the Celts professed the unknown to be. And the journey brings knowledge. And softening.

It is past midnight here in Mason Neck. The sound is quiet. The crescent moon is gold.

They forecast freezing rain and sleet for tomorrow. I will wait it out.

Chatwin's Folded Pages

Saturday night, soon to be Sunday. Adjusted a Web app for a client today, then ate a steak with salad. Labbie Walt and I went for a walk. Leaves have finally fallen from trees, and the wind in Mason Neck blows them about.

Before I fall asleep these nights, I pick up a book, as always. And lately it's been the re-reading of nomad Bruce Chatwin, a Brit who left the society of Sotheby's so he could wander around the world to see what was really going on.

I originally found Bruce Chatwin in a bookstore, his tome on a table marked "for $2.00 or less." It was a book about Welsh brothers called On the Black Hill. It was his only work officially marked "fiction." I didn't want it to end.

There may be better writers in this world, but this man tells great stories. When he was a child, he discovered "a piece of brontosaurus" on display in his grandmother's "glass-fronted dining room cabinet." This treasure was "thick and leathery, with strands of course, reddish hair." It was a creature that "lived in Patagonia." His grandmother's cousin, "Charley Milward the Sailor, found it." Eventually the experience sparked a book called In Patagonia. I hope some day you get the chance to read it.

What I like about Chatwin is that he makes me fold the page corners of his books. An action spawned by a phrase I want to remember, wish I had written, a few words I can return to that make me think. While reading "Among the Ruins" last night, he wrote about a man named Axel Munthe, a Swedish physician descended from Scandinavian "bishops and burgomasters" who made an escape to the island of Capri. There he bought a villa, and made it into his own. Chatwin quotes Munthe:

"The place is small. It was built by me on the principle that the soul needs more room than the body..."

The soul needs more room than the body. When taking that sentence to heart, how can anyone on this planet need to be kept hostage, in business, or in life?

Genius in Pearls

Thanksgiving. It was an eight-dishwasher-load feast to clean up, a multitude of children running through the house, playing games in the stark attic, all reappearing to ask politely for glasses of milk to accompany third-desserts of pumpkin pie or brownies or something else totally sweet, and not normally allowed.

When you are at Aunt Mary's, you can have whatever you want. No parents are asked for permission. I am happy to report all went home fat, full and foolish.

My sister Kathy also brought a gift, clothed in a Hefty sandwich bag. Our mother's pearls, scooped from the cleansing of a now-retired safety deposit box. The ones our mother left to me.

I am not a pearl person. But I remember when my mother bought this necklace, soon after my father Frank J. passed. She loved this band of jewels. And I know she bought them with a bit of the money Frank J. bequeathed to her, the stash he put away to make sure she was protected.

And I know she bought them because she missed him. She had spent 3/4 of her life with the man.

"You should have pearls, Mary," she told me before she left, fully assured I would get the message.

I hold their roundness in my palm, and, gently closing my fingers upon them, think of her.

There is genius in pearls. They take a long time to form, and men dive to great depths to retrieve them. And you can hold them in your hand, or wear them around your neck, a talisman to remind you from where you have come, a place you realize was safe and good and fine.

Full moon tonight here in Mason Neck, and elsewhere. Dear Doug left this morning to drag the trailer down south, to attend to some business scheduled for Monday. Labbie Walt sleeps on Marg's bed in my office, and he is dreaming, paws moving in pursuit of bunnies and duckies, or children who gleefully toss the Kong for him across the yard.

Marg, the Marine and a Barbie Wading Pool

Ms. Marg.

You were a short-nosed Lab, one with deep-barrelled chest, spun to life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, from a mother named Stella and a father called Gus.

You were the runt of the litter. You lived to be 13.

You hated thunderstorms. When one would arrive in Mason Neck, you would go to the bedroom closet, pull most of my clothes off the hangers to make a nest, and bury yourself in the smell of Mary, until the danger passed.

Today, there was no part of Mary that could comfort you. Despite medication, you were in pain. You visited the vet today...and went to sleep. I held you in my arms, as was always done when you needed it, and you sighed as your spirit flew away. And as I held you, your gub came to rest on the top of my foot as you went to sleep. Just like it did when you would lay under my desk while I was working, or playing scales on the guitar in the living room. You liked music.

You were smart, my dear Marg. Sweet. A happy dog. Your tail wagged, even in your sleep. I would be working in the office, and hear you slide off the couch in the living room, to walk down the hall to check on me. I would lay the side of my face on your soft black head and rub your stomach, and you would smile with your soft pink tongue.

A memory: Ken wanted water for you, so he, a big strong ex-Marine, went to the nearest Toys 'R Us and bought you a kiddie pool, one with a picture of Barbie on it, one that could be filled with water, which it was, in the corner of the yard. He was not embarrassed. At the counter he told the cashier, "This is for Margaret. She likes to swim."

And you loved it. A black pup, running across the yard, leaping into the pool's shallow depth. You would bite at the even more shallow depiction of the bottle-blond Barbie painted on the pool floor. You loved puddles and biting at water and burrowing your head against the leg of someone you loved.

So tomorrow morning Walt and I will walk to the Potomac. I will drop a Milkbone in the water. And the ripples of treat will spread in circles, a goodness to be shared with Shaman and Casey, baby Henry, and Barb, the lady who will gently scold you while fixing you something good to eat.

To the Top of Things

It is fall finally. The squirrel is gone from the house, and the droves of blackbirds have flown through Mason Neck, signaling the spawn of cold.

What is the old saying? You simply put one foot in front of the other.

Off to New England tomorrow, climbing trails to the tops of mountains, a journey that smells of pine.

Doug drove his truck and trailer to my home in northern VA, and said, "Hey, let's go. We can develop and hike and listen to whatever happens along the way." And he will visit a surgeon in Bahstin, to have a growth removed from his ear, a remnant of his experience in Vietnam. Agent Orange. It is cancer, but not melanoma. He will survive. It is a time when I will wait for him. Read a book...perhaps Henry Miller or Herman Melville...in a cold waiting room at a VA hospital in Bean Town, where my nurse friend K has an "in", where he will get the best treatment for a bad experience from the top surgeon.

Marg coughs now. Yet she can still climb to the tops of mountains, smiling the entire way. She just wants to be with the pack. Until she can't take another step. She is the sweetest of Labs. And Walt becomes Rin Tin-Tin, galloping through streams.

Leaves change color. So does life. And all move on.

It is the Celtic New Year in a day or so. I like the newness. The Celts believed in life, and that all comes around again.

Something worth believing.

Slacker Squirrel

In 1903 Beatrix Potter wrote a story about a squirrel named Nutkin. The story starts: "This is a Tale about a tail—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin."

And one of his clan is now living somewhere in my home.

Aunt Pittypat Hamilton had a great statement in the movie Gone With the Wind about Yankees in Georgia. She declared, Southern-belle hand placed melodramatically upon her forehead: "However did they get in?" It works for squirrels too. How did he get in? Perhaps through the front door, left open when I was out on the drive, gathering grocery bags from the Bug to restock the pantry. Or maybe he came down through the chimney. Perhaps Santa showed him the way.

The Black Labbies are very concerned about this intruder. I walked through the living room the other day to find the little varmint sitting right next to Marg's head as she lay snoozing on the couch. I was surprised he didn't have his little squirrelly feet up on the coffee table, using the cable remote to catch the latest doings on Animal Planet. Just my luck. A slacker squirrel. Get a job!

This isn't the first time Mason Neck's wild creatures have paid a visit to this humble abode. A few springs ago I was cleaning up the kitchen, and had some sundries to add to the infamous junk drawer. As I put the stuff in, I noticed a snake, and closed the drawer.

SNAKE!

It was a small black snake, slithering among the coupons and rubber bands, matchboxes and emergency candles. I slowly pulled the drawer out of the cabinet and, grimacing the whole time, straight arms holding the drawer as far away from me as possible, walked down the back wooden stairs to place the container on the ground so the little snake could twirl its way out of the drawer to go eat some bugs or something else FAR AWAY.

This squirrel is a juvenile (delinquent...probably tries my clothes on when I am not home) and is quick, not willing to be caught. Have been researching tips on how to catch him so I can release him out where he belongs. I have read that squirrels don't like mothballs. My mother tried that with a skunk in the garage, and the skunk slept through the whole undignified ordeal. So it looks like it has to be a safe trap cage with some peanuts in it. Or maybe the lure is a year's subscription to Ranger Rick. I wonder if they have gift certificates.

PHOTO: Squirrel Nutley, illustration from the book by Beatrix Potter, from Gutenberg.org

Rough Pastel

Big storm tonight in northern VA. Need the rain. Have been purging this dry house of paper and nonsense lately, and re-reading Hemingway before falling asleep.

From The Sun Also Rises:

"Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you have to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on."

I think women should read Hemingway. He tells us about men who fight bulls and other males, the ones who want women who are happy, not pure; women who are content in their puzzle, if that is who they are. He describes the men we know, detest, treasure, seek, lose, meet again at a different time, another place. And he lets us know about himself, how he feels about things behind the shield of masculinity, remorse, rememberance.

Fiction writers from way back were the first psychologists, using the rough pastels of words to scrape some lesson across the page, to tell the story of another human, to give us a glimpse of who we are. It delivers more meaning than being spoon-fed while laying upon some couch.

An acquaintance of mine told me something the other day: she went through thirty (30) years of therapy -- countless hours and dollars -- to only realize that if she had just been honest with herself from the get-go, she would have been all right.

PHOTO: Ernest Hemingway, from FingerLakesPhoto, filtered in Photoshop with -- you guessed it -- the Rough Pastel filter.

A Skate, A Fish, and Mr. G.

The state of North Carolina issued me a fishing license.

Seems you can spend 10 bucks and take your chances for ten days to try your luck at creating a great fish story.

Doug got a license to fish too, and we went halfsies on a long fishing pole, two hooks and a weight, purchased from a swarmy fellah at the local Ocracoke Island tackle shop. When asked what one should use for bait when fishing from the shore in ocean environs, the fish store chap said, "Squid." He reached into a nearby cooler and pulled out a frozen box that contained creatures that looked like the appetizer we had at dinner the night before: calamari.

So off we went, over the dunes and down to the shore, carrying our fold-up chairs, chilled bait and fishing pole, ready for action. As we positioned ourselves at the water's edge, I noticed a man in a yellow baseball cap fishing at a place not far away. You could tell he knew what he was doing. He stood stoicly in the water, casting his line way out into the waves, and patiently waiting.

The ocean is rough around Ocracoke Island. Doug strode down into the water and cast the line out. A few minutes later a wave came along and knocked him so hard that he almost lost his bathing costume. He recovered enough to maintain position while keeping his composure, but eventually the line came in empty.

Fish: 1. Us: 0.

My turn. With new squid on the line, I walked into the water, and with my softball-throwing arm, cast the line out as far as I could. Then a rogue wave hit me and I sat down hard on my butt, like babies do when they are learning how to walk. The fellow fishing nearby must've thought the Village Idiots Convention was meeting in town, and had given its members the afternoon off to fish.

Doug got the first bite. It was a skate, those beautiful flat black fish, round as an apple pie pan, with a thin whip tail. It had beautiful eyes. It blinked. It was nabbed, and looked scared. Doug unhooked it, and with the help of a piece of wood found of the beach, coaxed it back in the water. It skimmed happily back into the deep. I swear that fish smiled.

After a few more casts, I felt two sharp tugs on the line, and knew I had hooked something big. Hoping it wasn't an old boot, or a toilet seat that had been hanging around Davey Jones' Locker since WWII, the catch was the smallest, feistiest fish I had ever seen, clinging greedily to the calimari, which was bigger than it. This fish was white, and had a yellow head, and did not want to let go of the bait. Finally it was coaxed to release its treasure, and was soon back in the water, swimming with the skate, both probably slapping their fish knees in glee, laughing at us.

Have always thought fishing to be great fun, but have to say I am used to fishing in fresh, quiet waters. When I was a child, my father would take my brothers and I to numerous "fishing derby" events, usually hosted by the Boy Scouts, an organization that accepted my brothers as members. 'Cept I was the one who caught all the fish. I think that is because the fish knew I always throw them back.

When I was 16, I went with a high school friend, Zena, and her family, to a place called Six-Mile Lake, north of Toronto. You could only get there by boat. It was so remote you had to make noises when you walked to the outhouse in the middle of the night to scare the rattlers away. Zena's father (known as "Mr. G", 'cause "Grot-Zakzrewski" was a bit long on the tongue for most people) and I were great pals, and we would go fishing. He was originally from Poland, had been from a wealthy family in the old country, lost it all in the war, made it through the concentration camps, came here with nothing, dug potatoes in Maine to exist, even though he was a skilled metallurgist. He and his wife made their way in the U.S., did well, adopted my friend Zena and built a good life.

He and I were like Mutt and Jeff...my 5'10" to his 5' 2". "A-Mare-ica," he'd call. "Come. We go fish." Off we'd wander at 6 a.m., to sit on a smooth, rocked shoreline, catching bass after bass (throwing them all back) as we talked about life and Poland and America and school and his '57 Roadmaster Buick and music and Johnny Cash. He loved Johnny Cash. Eventually we'd sit side-by-side, our feet in the cold, cold water and just be quiet.

Campground

It takes almost eight hours via highway and ferry to reach the campground at Ocracoke Island, part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Run by the National Park Service, it costs a pittance a day to rent a camping spot. This sum also gives one access to wooden rest rooms, potable aqua, stunning beach, the ever-present sound of water, and a parade of human characters served up fresh every day.

The campground is its own society. If you want electricity, bring it with you, but don't run that generator after 10 p.m. There is no shade here. Bring your own shadows. The beach has been voted one of the best in the U.S. and I am happy to tell you that you will not find miniature golf here. There is not even a washateria on the island. You have to get on the ferry with your dirty laundry and head north to Kitty Hawk to commercially clean your clothes. Ocracoke wants to keep the crowds away by not changing itself very much. A local artist, David Freed, writes about the island, "...one still senses that the area has been loaned to its residents and that anytime, nature can foreclose."

Doug pulled his trailer here, to camping spot B3, right along the dunes, so near the water. After living on the beach in Mexico for so many years, he knows the right of ways, the memories such a life can bring. I drive to the place in a rented van, and Walt yelps and fusses to be let out when he sees Doug's truck. Walt thinks Doug is the kind of person one should hang around. Marg presses her big soft head against Doug's leg when she greets him.

Just before sunrise, I walk Marg and Walt along the beach, and then the campground road. Walt is on Greenhead Patrol, trying to snap the flies that bite at him. There is a family camping at the other end of the compound that has seven Jack Russell Terriers in tow. They are all walked together morning and evening, and are a leashed, yappy mess of sound.

In the spot next to ours, there is a retired gent from New Jersey named Ed who is proud to tell you -- first thing -- that he has fathered 14 children, and raised them all on his electrician's salary. ("And my wife never had to work," he said.) Ed has brought along a Labradoodle named Doogie who swims with great strides in the ocean, and an African Grey Parrot that can imitate over 300 sounds, including the sound R2-D2 makes in the movie Star Wars. One of Ed's sons is an opera singer. Through cedar trees that separate one camp site from the next, one can hear a beautiful male voice singing scales, and a certain parrot whistling a perfect imitation of a phone ringing.

There's a woman in the spot across the way who is camping alone, and limping around on a broken foot. She chain smokes. There is a priesthood of young guys from New Jersey who hang around outside the restrooms, hoping to strike up conversations with young tattooed Dead Head women who camp in different spots along this circle of ground. One youthful lady dresses in black in the 95 degree heat, long hair and skirts flowing. She proclaims herself a witch. The Jersey Boys stay clear.

And around the corner, one sees a woman in the soft morning light, drinking a bottle of Bud at a picnic table just before 6:45 a.m., her husband visible through the screen door of their camper, brushing his shoulder-length hair, using long languid strokes.

PHOTO: Ocracoke Island Campground, Ocracoke NC. Filtered with Photoshop.

Ships

Off on another adventure tomorrow, with two Black Labbies along for the gallop. Destination: Ocracoke Island, a silent place on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a place accessible only by ferry, where the pirate Blackbeard hid his ships in not-easy-to-navigate inlets so he could count his dough and figure out his next move. It is said that a visit to the island brings on the "OcraComa," a disease where one forgets the day and time.

It's been a busy few months. Lots of programming and consulting going on. I am looking forward to camping next to a dune of sand, a quiet place where one only has to walk a short way to be on the beach. Labbie Marg has recovered for now, and Walt is still Jerry Lewis in a Dog Suit, and they will swim in the Atlantic and bark at seagulls and sandpipers, and use their Labbie charms to weasel snacks from fellow campers.

My friend Phyll gave me a quote the other day:

"A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for." - Shedd

It has been a time of not much travel and too little writing, a week where The Mighty Bug was rear-ended by a GMC Jimmy, and is soon to go to The Beetle Hospital for repairs. In the last few days I helped place the ashes of a dear friend in the Potomac River after her very long bout with cancer. A reminder comes through loud and clear: Adventures are life blood. You are still here. Don't wait.

So off we go tomorrow, the canines and I, to see what is south, and to remember what is real.

PHOTO: Wall Mural, Coffee Shop, Asheville, North Carolina

Dangers of Babysitting

Came across a statistic the other day concerning the average rate paid for a babysitter in the Year 2007 in this northern VA zip code: a cool $10.50 an hour for tracking one child.

Such numbers bring back memories of youth, when the most the market could spare was 50 cents an hour for being the temporary guardian of an unlimited number of kinder, hopefully a brood that wouldn't tie you up in a closet and steal your car keys, soon after their parents joyfully roared off to a few hours of freedom.

That is...unless you were raised Irish Catholic. Within family walls, childcare offered no compensation. And in terms of babysitting, it could be downright dangerous.

One Sunday morning, when I was around eight or so, the family conducted the normal holy ritual of attending 9 o'clock Mass, then returned home for the all- important Sunday Breakfast. My mother, Dottie M., gave my brother Kevin, age nine at the time, and I strict marching orders so the repast could be prepared.

"Watch your sister so I can finish making breakfast in peace," she commanded.

OK, Maw.

Our sister Kathy was about three years old when this story unfolded. We liked Kathy, but we would rather be reading the Sunday funnies than watching a toddler. So Kev and I came up with a plan. We would put Kathy in her crib, give her something to play with, and then we could pass the time catching up on the exploits of Prince Valiant, Mark Trail, Winnie Winkle and the other colorful comic characters in the New York Daily News.

The three of us went upstairs to the room Kathy and I shared. Kev swung the little one over the ribs of her crib. I found the Number 10 mayonnaise jar that had found a second career housing crayons for the creation of great art, and gave it to Kathy to play with. My brother and I then settled on our stomachs on the floor, with the unexplored wilderness of the funny papers expanded before us.

Kathy knew she was being ignored, and began jumping up and down in the crib, trying to get our attention. When this didn't work, she got busy dumping the crayons out of the jar and played with them for a while. Like many three-year-olds, she had the attention span of a gnat, and after about 30 seconds, she was looking for new adventure. If Kev or I had bothered to spend one second glancing in her direction to check on the welfare of our baby sister, we would have quickly ascertained that she had that boo-boo look on her face that always meant trouble.

So Kathy did what any attention-starved child would do. She turned to violence.

She picked up the crayon jar, and holding it like a depth charge over her head, chucked the monster at her unsuspecting siblings on the floor, cracking my brother on the head, knocking him out cold. The jar did not break, thanks to Kevin's head, but bounced on the rug a time or two, and rolled to rest against the room's far wall. Dottie M., despite the noise of sizzling bacon and the cracking of eggs far away in the kitchen, automatically knew something else was cooking.

"What's going on up there?" she called.

I looked at my brother. He had little stars and planets circling above his head. I glanced at my sister, who was laughing and jumping, and who thought this was so much fun that she would like to do it again.

I simply said,

"Kevin's sleeping."

Kevin did come to, just in time to share the parental reprimand. And he still, to this day, has the lump on his head to prove it.

Everything About Anyone

On this late Saturday afternoon, the windows are open in this abode, and the Labbies are lounging in a yard filled with dandelions, globes of silky filaments destined to sail away through the air.

What a week it has been in Virginia.

Late Sunday night there were strong winds and much rain. A tree came crashing down along a road not far from here, taking with it access to the juice supplied by overhead power lines. At 4:13 a.m. I woke with a start. It was the day I was to launch a Web site I'd been working on since July 2006. My kingdom for a computer that could power up to the Internet.

I cleaned up as best I could, powered up the Mighty Bug, and with a bad case of bed hair, motored to the main road outta here toward the state of Maryland. There were lots of flooded sections along the way, and the Mighty Bug hydroplaned through the streams flowing across the road by the wildlife refuge. We made it to the 7-11 where there was light, and at least one 20 oz. cup of coffee for sale.

The site did go online that day, and on the way out of the client's office, someone said, "A bunch of people have been shot and killed at Virginia Tech." On the way home, I stopped at the Shopper's Food Warehouse where the scene was full of rumor and relief. "75 people have been murdered at a local high school," one man announced to another, back in the bakery section. I pushed my cart down the soda/water aisle, past a woman on a cellphone, her teenaged daughter by her side. "She's OK," the woman told the young lady as the cell call ended. The older woman put her head down on the handle of the cart and sobbed. Her daughter's eyes filled with tears. She touched her mother's arm.

At home here in the woods, there were Labbies and no electricity. Got out the candles and flashlight and battery-powered phone. I listened to the transistor radio for a while. There was mention of a Virginia Tech professor who sacrificed himself for his students. This man was Romanian, and had survived the Holocaust. The end came for him when he used his body to stall the gunman's entry into the classroom so his students could escape. As most teachers know, there is usually only one way in or out of a classroom.

In the fading gray light that evening, I simply sat on the living room couch, and thought how impossible it is to know everything about anyone. I think it is because we all have a place inside us where we hold what we have come to know. This includes the goodness of action that occurs without need of notice, as well as the darkness that is either tamed, or released.

Cuz's Needlepoint, Derek's Joke, The Best Way to Cook Corned Beef and More

Once again, it's the national holiday.

My cousin Maryann spent many long hours creating this needlepoint piece for me. Cead Mile Failte is Gaelic for "One Hundred Thousand Welcomes." Thanks, Cuz.

There is a corned beef cooking in this kitchen where I sit writing. I was 16 before I realized that beef brisket does not have to taste like shoe leather in honor of St. Patrick. Here's a secret: boil the corned beef as you normally would, but an hour before it is due to be done, take it out of the water, dry it, coat it with peanut oil, mustard, and brown sugar. Then put it on the bbq grill for 60 minutes. Nectah from the Celtic gawds.

There's an Irish fellow named Frankie Quinn singing right now on XM Radio. I think the only singer in his family is the sewing machine. Soda bread will soon be in the oven.

Friend Derek from Mason Neck also emailed this Irish joke:

Jacques Chirac, The French President, is sitting in his office when his telephone rings.

"Hallo, Mr. Chirac!" a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Clare, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!"

"Well, Paddy," Chirac replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?"

"Right now," says Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is meself, me Cousin Sean, me next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire darts team from the pub. That makes eight!"

Chirac paused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100,000 men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" says Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back.

Sure enough, the next day, Paddy calls again. "Mr. Chirac, the war is still on. We have managed to get us some infantry equipment!"

"And what equipment would that be Paddy?" Chirac asks.

"Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy’s farm tractor."

Chirac sighs amused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I have increased my army to 150,000 since we last spoke."

"Saints preserve us!" says Paddy. "I'll have to get back to you."

Sure enough, Paddy rings again the next day. "Mr. Chirac, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We have modified Jackie McLaughlin's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Bar have joined us as well!"

Chirac was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military bases are surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites and since we last spoke, I have increased my army to 200,000!"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" says Paddy, "I will have to ring you back."

Sure enough, Paddy calls again the next day. "Top o' the mornin', Mr. Chirac! I am sorry to inform you that we have had to call off the war."

"Really? I am sorry to hear that," says Chirac. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," says Paddy, "we had a long chat over a few pints of Guinness and decided there is no fookin' way we can feed 200,000 French prisoners."

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Otherworld of the Eternal Hobo

Am in rebel country, writing a book.

Came down this way two weeks ago, in a rented van carrying two Black Labs, Celtic music, a computer, some books and the excitement, as always, of getting gone.

Am in a wooden home with my friend Doug once more, near a South Carolina lake, where the geese are laying eggs and ducks waddle away from their nests in the woods, to cross quiet roads in pairs, down the bank, to freshen themselves in water.

The Celts believed in the Otherworld. The place you don't belong, but that is special and silent enough to awaken the antennae of the spirit.

About an hour away is another house, called Connemara Farms, in a place called Flat Rock, NC. It was the last home of American writer Carl Sandburg. His last location surprised me. How did that Illinois lad end up in the South?

Carl Sandburg was married to a woman who raised goats, and needed lots of land to do so. By the point in his life when he settled in North Carolina, Sandburg had the Pulitzer for his many words about Lincoln, so he wrote about honey and salt, and even more about breathing tokens, some of his best work. And he penned poems for children, and played his guitar for anyone who would listen, and would shake your hand, so one is told, no matter your nationality or color. And he was one of the first poets I ever read as a child. And I liked visiting his home, as his words helped inspire me so many years ago, as he suggested was his lot in life, to "dirty paper:"

Give me a quiet garret alone
Where I may sit for a few casual callers
And tell them ceaselessly, offhandedly,
'This is where I dirty paper.'
Thus each poet prays and dreams.
The eternal hobo asks for a quiet room
with a little paper he can dirty,
with birds who sit where he tells 'em.

Carl Sandburg, Breathing Tokens, 1978

Language, Travolta and Emma's Research

Have decided to put the trip Down Under off until next year. Leaving now would mean I would miss a month of Labbie Ms. Margaret's life.

Can't do.

So, I delay.

Have been working on a big Web project since last July. It will go "live" soon. Been coding a bunch.

Last night, I decided I could not look at another query, or wonder why this function wasn't working, or have the heart to understand why it looks slightly different in IE vs. Firefox, so I flopped on the couch, turned on the tube, and clicked the remote through all movie possibilities.

Stop.

Saturday Night Fever.

Omigawd, this movie is like a car wreck. You can't help but watch it.

Never mind that Travolta looks like he weighs 15 lbs., or that there is so much shmaltzy glitter, it makes your teeth rot.

I think it is fascinating because of the language.

Example:

When one character in the movie inquires as to the emotional health of another character, he states:

"Whazza mattah wid chew, man?"

And they called Ronald Reagan the Great Communicator.

Tonight, there is a different discussion.

My sister Kathy called, to relay a story about one of my favorite people on this planet, niece Emma.

Emma is fascinated lately by research.

For Christmas, I found a set of World Book encyclopedias at a decent price. Her father Dave and I snuck 'em into her room while she was at school, when she wasn't looking.

That afternoon, I got a call from Emma. "Aunt Mare, you left 50 books in my room!"

Amen, sistah. Read to your heart's delight.

And she is.

Seems Emma, fascinated with maps and the wonders of the world these days, is pondering some bigger questions.

While sitting at the dining room table, studying a world map, Emma stopped, and with a confused look on her face, asked her mother,

"Where is heaven?"

My sister, taking a deep breath, had to think a minute about spiritual latitude and longitude.

And she smartly answered, as a good mother should:

"It is a place some people think about. It is also a place where mommies go so they won't be sick anymore."

And Emma, the human researcher that she is, answered,

"OK."

And went on to study something else.