loafing

Yesterday,

stretched out on my couch

I looked through the window to see

20 birds

perched like leaves on the bare thin limbs of a tree

hunkered against a cold wind

facing into the breeze and riding the branches.

as one

they  launched

leaving the tree bare.

shortly after, I slipped into a sweet mid-day nap.

An old man blogging simple observational free verse when he should be working

No fool like an old fool?

A survivor spending time to let the optimistic candle of mindfulness generate images on virtual paper?

Still thinking in verse after all these years.

Is it enough to briefly set aside the mundane demands of the day to save some words?

Enough?   Not really, but something at least.

thoughts while waiting for the bagels to toast

I imagined the trajectory of my grandson's life

ranging beyond where I'll ever see.

What richochet of chance, desire and opportunity

will push his orbit to the stars?

Listening to Joni Mitchel recalls my youth.

I imagine the life of my grandson while the bagels toast.

Being in love again, without reserve,

makes an old man,

young!

Mad Rock Climbing

As a young man I overcame a fear of heights by learning to rock climb and mountain climb.  I spent many of my best days out in the wilderness (long before cell phones).

My last big climb was Mt. Ritter in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I did some free climbing in Canada that took me right up to the edge where life was one breath at a time.  (Experiences I never shared with my parents!)

This is a shot taken in the Selkirk Ranges of Central British Columbia summer 1974. In the background are the peaks surrounding Glacier Circle.

It took a long trek across a glacier to get to this spot, on the flanks of Mt. Sir Donald.  We climbed until midnight, but ran out of energy.  Spent another tough windy night high up before descending to the little valley of Glacier Circle. There we found a Canadian Mountain Club hut stocked with survival provisions for climbers.  Just 23 visitors had signed the register in the past two decades. We Spent a few days re-cooping in comfort.

My climbing partner Rico and I spent as much time as we had climbing in this area.  Most of the first ascents were made by Norman Clyde back in the 1930s.

We'd lugged 100 pound backs up the trail.  Too much weight in climbing gear and not enough food.

When the time came to leave we ended up making a 20 mile cross country hike on empty bellies.  about half way back to the main trail we came across a glacier swollen river.  The swirling muddy white water boomed with big boulders swept down river.  A fall into the river meant death.  We found a steel cable slung bank to bank and use it to cross.

I got vertigo as I hung upside down pulling hand over hand along the steel cable.  I went over first. On the far side I noticed the carabiner that held me on the line was hot to the touch. The friction of the cable cut half way through it.  Then Rico rigged our backs and I brought them over. Finally Rico made the crossing.  It was good to be alive and on the other side of the creek.

Crossing this river was one of the crazier things I've done with my life.  I remember hiking another 5-6 miles with an empty belly.  We came across an empty Canadian forest service cabin. The crew were on the job, but had left the remnants of breakfast stacked on the sideboard.  We found a pound of prime bacon!  I recall some plums in syrup as well.  It was one of the best scavenged meals of my life! 

Later on the same trip I was solo hiking near Banff.  I'd heard of a great fishing lake 25 miles in.  The rumors were true.   

This was in August of 1974.  While I was in the back country Nixon resigned and Ford took over.  I heard the news from other hikers as I trekked out  (filled with fish and the calm resolve of a week of solitude).  It was a good time to be out of the country and deep in the wilderness. 

The following year I returned to British Columbia to climb in the Bugaboo Range.  I went out alone, hoping to find a climbing partner on the mountain.  As it turned out no one would climb with me so I set about climbing solo.  It was the most challenging climbing of my life.  It meant the world to me to be able to climb up the face of the Hound's Tooth free of ropes and worries about the world at large.

This shot was taken by a member of a Polish climbing team that followed me up the Pigeon Spire. They were training for a climb on  Aconcagua  in Peru and invited me along.  

As it happened, I was in the Bugaboos as a consolation prize.  I'd been hired to cook as part of a climbing team going to Aconcagua that summer, but was replaced at the last minute by a Spanish speaker.   The irony of getting another invite to Peru on a mountain top in British Columbia was not lost on me.  Unhappily the Polish team was useless. They were under-skilled and downright dangerous. No way I'd climb with them. 

Crossing the glacier to get to the approach and climbing route up Pigeon Spire was exciting.  I crossed solo several times that week.   

The Canadian Mountain Club maintained a climbers hut on the edge of the Glacier.  For a few bucks a day you could lay down your sleeping bag in the big Quonset hut at the base of the climbs.  It was an international spot filled with climbers from around the world. I was part of the brotherhood for several weeks of literal high times. 

All of the above was recalled spontaneously after viewing a rock climbing movie.  Friday, March 2, 2012.  (37 years after all this wildness.) ~ Dennis

grandson number one

after so many years

rocking a baby to sleep again

grandson number one

this is why I breathe

see it now

don't miss it

grandson

Stories from Heaven

This morning, while preparing breakfast, the name Paul Portuges came to mind.

Paul and I knew each other at UC Berkeley.

He was a mentor and inspiration to me.

His words and determination to write a place for himself in the world impressed me.

I thought of a time in Bolinas.  Driving fast, a passenger wedged into a seat next to Paul as he raced down the dark road.  I braced my feet against the firewall to keep from banging around in the seat. In doing so I somehow distorted the metal and caused the car to accelerate.  We skidded to a terrifying breathless stop just short of a phone pole.

Same weekend.  A foggy beach.  On the hill above the sand a young woman, dressed gypsy, came up through the mist trailing a billy goat.  Subtle smile and not a word as she passed.

Later walking alone on the beach I saw a tall figure in the distance.  Two huge dogs zig-zagged in front of her.  Bernese Mountain Hounds.  We passed and nodded.  Julia Child?  Indeed.

Bolinas makes for good memories.

Addicted to search, I found Paul on the net.

This work of his is memorable.  I enjoyed the video and the evoked images of another time.
 
Stones from Heaven from Paul Portuges on Vimeo.

One student, One classroom, One day at a time

This question has been on my mind for a few days. "Share  one or two stories about stuff  YOU’VE done to “disturb the force.”

I could use this as an icebreaker discussion prompt.  I'd change it to "Share  one or two stories about what YOU’VE done to change the world."

Snap shots:

A young woman calling my name in the Las Vegas airport years ago.  She ran up to me, "Mr. O'Connor do you remember me?"  

I did. Her name was Crystal.  If you look at a person's eyes the name sometimes pops up. 

"I'm the only one in my freshman class at UNLV who knows how to write!  Thank you for teaching me."


A knock on my classroom door after school.  I open the door and see a huge man standing there.  I had to look up to see his face (and I'm 6'4").  

In a deep voice, "Hello Mr. O'Connor remember me?"  I looked at his eyes and remembered the little 5th grader.

"Merlin, is that you in there?  I treated you good in the 5th grade right?"  

He smiled and we talked.  He was just back from Pakistan where he was on embassy guard duty with the Marines. 

Teaching a young kindergarten teacher how to start and use an Apple //. Watching her learn more in a two day workshop than anyone I've ever meant since.  Two years later she hired me as the Training Director for a computer company where she was the Sales Manager.  She went on to be a silicon valley multi-millionaire.  I turned down her offer of a fast track job in San Jose and returned to classroom teaching a few months later. 

Over the years this random validation has happened often enough to assure me the 25 years I spent teaching kids was time well spent.   Public school in Northern Nevada  left me burned out and broke, but I wouldn't change it.  It was the good work. No regrets.

Snap shots of the dark side:

Sitting in a little room with the personnel superintendent being grilled and threatened with termination. (This particular guy was a typical bully. He enjoyed making kindergarten teachers cry. We locked horns many times and I usually won. This was the same guy who later asked me to become a principal.)

Having a school board member yell at me in an open meeting "If you don't like it around here why don't you just leave?"  (My nickname at the time was "The Tom Hayden of Douglas County". 8-)

(This one's a personal favorite.) An outraged parent sitting opposite from me in the principal's office saying, "How dare you teach my child to question authority!" (How dare you teach her to write, to think!)

Carrying a picket sign at a school board meeting and being reminded by a fellow picket. " I don't know how this is going to go for us.  There's plenty of holes in the desert. " I taught in rural Nevada for most of my career.  Within three years all who carried a picket sign, were gone from the district.

Online

Online early 80's:  Getting a poem from a boy in Idaho that I published on my BBS kids writing site.

Online early 80's: Saving my school district 30k on a computer purchase because I could use e-mail.

Online turn of the century:  teaching someone deep in Alaska how to create a capital letter using a keyboard.

I could go on, and probably will, since this is a sweet writing prompt.  But I notice the pattern here. I'm talking about one to one interactions that had a ripple effect in my life and the lives of others.   This ripple effect is something I believe in.  For most of my teaching life my focus has been one student, one classroom, one day at a time.

Mantra: Repeat daily for 20 years:

Show up and give the best you've got on any given day.  

Accept that some days will be much better than others.

Over the years I've taught at least a 1000 teachers from around the world in my online classes.  

I know that for most, I opened doors for them. 

I know by helping teachers I've influence hundreds of thousands of kids by helping their teachers.

Ripples, Ripples, Ripples

logan connor lawrence july 25, 2011

first grandson:  a continual series of occasions for hope

mindful morning September 27, 2011

fuzzy and frustrated

no way to live a morning as special as this

outside the sky is one to envy

all the growing things are working well

The cats stagger and slink always in the moment

I tell Jan how Mr. Mike stood on my chest, and stared me awake with one paw firmly planted on my chin

fresh squeezed lemonaide made with San Marcos lemons and aged in the refrigerator for a week

discovering how to properly slice round seedless, mutant but delicious watermelon into shapes of proper thickness, then plate the melon with a touch of focus and surprise

I'd left last night's chicken out and on the stove top

no cat gnaws

still I sliced feathermeat thin and delivered it for the cat's consideration

this morning I faced a sloppy kitchen filled with depression possibilities

Now I'm simply mindful of another beautiful morning where most of it is going my way

enjoy it while you have it
enjoy it while you have it
enjoy it as it changes and slips away

Kyle, Brenna, Erin

I'm feeling lucky too be a dad and a pending first time grandpa.

Dad and Erin in Maui 2005

Dennis & Erin in Maui 2005

Bar-b-que Marbles

The big flagstone bar-b-que at the Petit Street house comes up to my chin. John and I have worked some of the mortar loose and have punched a hole through to the interior. It's black in there. You can't see anything. It smells musty. I poke a finger or three into it, then think "Black Widow" and pull my hand out. The hole is big enough to drop marbles into. I drop a marble in. A marble that seemed huge in my small hand. I hear a distant sharp clank--the big, round glass beast has landed in its tomb-- the marble rolls awhile, collides with something there in the dark, and is finally still. Only then do I realize that I can't get it back. The marble is gone forever.

I want to believe my marble is still there, inside the bar-b-que you built on the patio at the Petit Street house. The adult in me knows the bar-b-que marble mausoleum was broken into dust years ago by its new owners. My marble, along with buckets of stone and cement, was hauled to the dump and buried. The marble is there now hidden in a landfill, incorruptible, waiting for some archeologist in the mid-thirtieth century.

"A remarkable example of mid 20th century marble technology, a purie or a cat's eye I suspect" (Ah ego. Of course my marble will be found again! I guess that explains why folks discover they are reincarnated kings, rather than peasants.)

But the kid in me says jump a plane for L. A., go to Encino, find our old house, sledgehammer that great bar-b-que open, crack the flagstones and sift the rubble finding my marble, a dusty, smooth, round, perfect vault of memories. And it would still seem big in my hand.

Yeah, Dennis has lost his marbles.

-------------

Dad, I hope this correspondence helps me find 'em again. This burst of writing I'm sharing with you should heft all the marbles I've won up to now, all the memories, the seeds that grow into clear surprising images. By writing this, I'm rediscovering the 'puries' of my life, and sharing them with you.

Keeping an old dog alive

This morning I found a stone path under my own back yard.

A dinosaur spine hidden just below the dirt, waiting for me

Lomi the dog is ranging the gully
alive to the moment
he helps me slow down and just be

I channeled my dad and had to work the rock a bit

scraping away the first layer of sticks and dead weeds
seeing a staircase under the soil to the gully bottom
knowing that I will make these steps appear

one
by
one

if I just give myself the time

Lomi limps up the hill peeing and grinning.

We're both old dogs

lots of juice left
aware that time is a trick

waiting in the morning mist
pee scrape stone from the earth

Memorial for Sergeant Dennis Kenneth O'Connor

I got an email today that set me to remembering a special day so long ago.

Dear Mr O'Connor,

My name is Logan Leedham and I am a junior at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. All the AP English 3 classes are doing a project in remembrance of soldiers who died in the Vietnam war. I am making a memorial for Dennis Kenneth O'Connor. The project is to make a slideshow or movie in honor of their life and service. The school has been doing this project for about 4 years and there's been quite a database collected. You can see it at http://www4.eanesisd.net/~vietnam/. I read what you posted on www.virtualwall.org and if you knew him or his family I was wondering if you would mind sharing with me any pictures or information about  Sergeant Dennis O'Connor. I would really appreciate it. Please know that I want to respect and honor this brave man, and I'm going to do the best I can for his tribute.

Sincerely, Logan Leedham

Here's what I wrote back to Logan:

Logan,

You are doing a fine thing.  I didn't know Sergeant O'Connor, but I remember when he died.  I was a young college kid, about 20 or 21.  I got a call from my mom.  She was crying.  She'd heard a radio report about Dennis O'Connor dying in Viet Nam.  She couldn't help but feel, for a moment, what a mother feels a son had been killed.  

Mom and I had a good talk that day.

Later after the wall had been constructed,  I found his spot on the memorial.  I remember running my fingertips over my name... his name, and being  thankful for the life I had and so sad for the life lost to the war.

Now, every time I go to Washington DC I visit the wall and remember my namesake. 

I hope this little story helps you.  I hope your slide show is done with Powerpoint!  If so, I'd love to see a copy.  I'll post it on one of my blogs.  Regardless, I'll link to your project online!

Good luck with your work!

Dennis

Dogs in the backyard @ Stardust

The big backyard of our new home in the country is a great place for dogs. Recently the our terrific young landscape architect, Mark Southern, came by with his Boston Terrier puppy, Clive.

Clive and Brindle played nip and chase for several hours. Then they just relaxed and got weird with some very odd humpy dog games. It's great that they can wear each other out. 

I posted this on YouTube:  Keywords "dufus bulldog".  At the moment we own the top spot for that term on Google. 8-)

Here's the video:

A history subject to invention

I had the habit of working until I could save a thousand dollars then hitting the trail.

One summer I hitch-hiked up to Canada to go climbing in the central ranges of British Columbia.  I traveled under an alias.  That summer I was Big Jake. Having a new name and a history subject to invention was as freeing as hanging my life on any number of mountain ledges.

It's hard to imagine now the gift of time I gave myself. An entire summer on the road, wondering and wandering into whatever the road delivered.  The time spent well off the road was the most memorable.

I was doing some craft work then too. Making leather belts and carving hash pipes out of deer antler. Up in a barn in Ashland Oregon I got to work over a 50 gallon drum of deer heads. The buzzing flies, blank eyes and protruding black tongues made it real. Hauling the heads out of the drums, cutting the horns down close to the skull to save the crenellated buttons that made such good pipe bowls took some sawing and carving skills.

A few days later I was fishing for hallucinatory salmon on the Rogue River. Casting from the shore into the swift midstream waters hoping that the fish were there. I imagined the huge fish struggling upstream getting angry enough to hit my lure.

The sun worked on my forehead and built a thirst kindled by vague desire and sunburn.  After an afternoon of nothing but casting, a 50 pound king salmon broke the water right in front of me. Perseverating through the swift air above the roaring river, four, five, six leaps and disappearing below the water for ever. Did I really seen what I remember?

.....

I can remember wondering if I'd ever regret all the time spent solo in the mountains.  I can answer that question now.  I'm glad for every second spent with a pack on my back and the open trail waiting.

The days I spent reading Russian novels by the campfire are still with me.

The hours spent singing in the canons still resonate.

Night sky pressed galaxies into my eyes. Home was a ledge at 12000 feet. 

Recalling these moments let's me to change the now just enough to make life sweet.

Henri Hillinck: Art from the 1940's

Scan of Henri's work from the 1940's.  Scan & Color manipulation by Erin Geneva O'Connor (Henri's Great-Grand Daughter.)

 

Henri Hillinck - Art

Born in France on Nov. 14, 1900. Hillinck came to the U.S. as a child and was educated at the Conar School in Boston. In 1923 he settled in Los Angeles where he was active as a muralist, designer, and scene painter for MGM Studios. He died in Los Angeles on April 2, 1959. Exh: Calif. WC Society, 1934-35; Riviera Beach Club (Hollywood), 1936; Painters & Sculptors Club (LA), 1944.

Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Ferdinand Perret Files; Death record.

hiram-access

Erin and Jack at Brenna's wedding

Happy!

Berkeley 1971

http://tinyurl.com/berkeley-1971

My son Kyle just turned 23. I thought about where and what I was at 23. Struggled to do the mental math with my early morning pre-caffine sluggish 61 year old brain and came up with 1971.

I did a search or two on Google to zero in on what I was doing and and where. 

Hence the link to Berkeley in 1971.

The keywords are sloppy but effective: 1971 berkeley telegraph avenue history

I stumbled upon a Google Timeline search feature that was new to me.

Talk about combining the 2009 nerd with the memories of a 23 year old young man richocheting around the visual circus of Telegraph Avenue.

Scanning the snippets of articles about that time in the Bay Area triggers my memory nodes and gives me a brain buzz.

(Or is it just the coffee, and the desire not to start work that's sent me to Tube City?)