Getting the Grandparents in the Ground

Getting the Grandparents in the Ground

It should have been a straightforward route to the cemetery, finally.  But Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Tex had a different path in mind.  They wanted a trip through the old neighborhood and a traffic jam and Waze obliged.

I had been to the cemetery many times in my quest to get my grandparents ashes interred. Each time I took the same route.  The 605 South to the 91 West, exit at Downey Road and take it down straight nearly to what I call Sunnyside Cemetery, because that is what it was called when I was a kid.  But this day, the day after so many years, so much consternation on the part of my mom and so many weird push-me-pull-you unargued arguments and what-to-do- with-the-ashes-conversations I was going to get them interred.  They were on their way to their final resting place.  They just wanted to visit the neighborhood one more time.

My Grandmother, Peggy, died shortly after I got married. That was about 18 years ago.  My Grandfather, known as Tex, lived for about another five years.  They had made no plans for burial.  They had only decided to be cremated but made no specific requests for their ashes. I remember something about scattering their ashes in the High Sierra’s – but maybe I’m making that up. Both of their parents were buried in Sunnyside Cemetery in Long Beach, but my Grandmother was unhappy with her mother’s burial, actually she was unhappy with the cost of adding her mom’s name to the plaque that her parent’s grave shared.  Grandma Peggy believed the addition of her mom’s name had been paid for at the time the plot was purchased and she didn’t have the heart, or maybe the breath, to fight the cemetery over the issue. Subsequently, my great-grandmother’s name had never been added to her grave, until this year when I added it as part of the great “get the grandparents in the ground” initiative of 2016.  It would have been so much easier if they had made the plans themselves but they didn’t. They left that to their wishy-washy family. 

Back to Tex and Peggy… they married when my mom was about five years old. Both had previous impetuous war-time marriages.  My grandfather had two boys that were being raised on the East Coast that he didn’t get to see. He adored my mother, who had looks like Shirley Temple, missed his own children, and was happy to be a father again. My grandmother was happy to find a stable family- oriented man unlike my biological grandfather who was a good-time Charlie in her book (he was a sweet wonderful man – they were just ill-suited).  So Tex and Peggy had a great post-war marriage, a Southern California stucco box of a house and one more child together that came five years later, my Uncle Blair.  Blair was one of the cogs in the problem of finding a place for the ashes.  Blair was a 50s kid.   Red haired, sweet, and close to his parents.  He was the second impediment to the wandering ashes. The first impediment was my grandfather’s cheapness and then his attachment to my grandmother’s ashes.  Everyone wanted the ashes near them, except my mom and her Aunt Juanita who wanted them in the cemetery.

My grandmother’s ashes first lived on my grandfather’s dresser. They sat in a plain metal box, with a little doily on top. My grandpa would kiss his fingers and then touch them to the box. He would talk to the box.  He wasn’t ready to let them her go and so he wasn’t ready to let her ashes go either.

When Tex passed, his ashes were placed in a similar metal box with the one exception of having a dollar bill taped to the top so we knew “who was who”. Now the metal boxes sat on my Uncle Blair’s dresser. My mother was very upset about this. She is the eldest child and believed she should have had some say in the matter, but as with most disagreements with her brother, she could not directly tell him this upset her.  She instead internalized it, told me about it, acted passive-aggressive about it, and was generally disagreeable on the subject. 

Uncle Blair’s time with the ashes wasn’t really that long. He became ill too and passed away. For some reason, instead of my mom then getting the ashes they went to my Aunt Sharon, Blair’s ex-wife who was always very close with my grandmother.  This further bothered my mom, although no one  knew this.  There is no judgement passed on my aunt, I’m quite sure my mom never said “I want them back”.  It took me telling my cousin so she could tell her mom. And in all fairness I wanted my mom to be able to make a decision about this.  Eventually the ashes got passed back to mom at a family picnic.  There were those metal boxes again and this time they only made it as far as my mom’s car. They sat on the floor of my mom’s old Honda CRV, driving where she drove, along with all the other crap that my mom never took out of the car. For some reason one day I looked down and saw them, I wasn’t driving in the car, probably just retrieving something and said “what are those boxes?” and she said “those are Mom and Dad”.    More wishy-washy family stuff.  She finally got them and she couldn’t deal with it either – she couldn’t even take them out of her car.

Now comes 2016. The year my Grandpa Tex’s sister, my great-aunt Juanita, passed away. The year we moved my mom to Colorado to an apartment near my sister and the year of dealing with all the crap undealt with in more than 20 years of family indecision. While making arrangements with Sunnyside for my great aunt’s Juanita’s grave my mom reminded me that her grandmother Opal’s (Grandpa Peggy’s mom) name had never been added to her grave marker.  I talked to a person there about fixing this and while I was at it I asked my sister if she would share the cost of placing the grandparents to rest.  Bless my wonderful sister, she was in for the whole program. It wasn’t easy. The State of California doesn’t let you stick a plain metal box in a grave and call it a person. They want proof of the stuff in the box, like death certificates and notarized documents by next of kin. Hence the many trips to the cemetery. I had the route down after so many Saturdays of meeting a very kind woman to sign this or that, turn in this or that, or look at this or that, that when I hit traffic on my way to actually getting the grandparents in their grave, that I had to check with Waze for route that would get me there on time so I could witness this thing finally happening.

I felt, and I believe rightly so, that after being incredibly patient, after experiencing the cemetery telling me that my great grandparents were not buried there (they weren’t in the database transfer from Sunnyside to Forest Lawn), of paying for two graves in one year, of paying to fix the cement slab that my great grandparents plaque lay on in order to get Opal’s name added to her plaque and paying for a new plaque that I deserved to be present when my grandparent’s boxes where actually placed in their vault without paying yet another fee.  I fought and cajoled and got my way to witnessing this without having to pay an extra $500 dollars for the privilege. And that is why I needed to be there on time. I think Tex and Peggy created the traffic jam that made me search out another route with Waze which directed me on the nostalgic tour.

This is how Waze told me to go:

1)     exit the 91 freeway at Bellflower Boulevard. This is the street on which my Grandma Peggy’s parents had a dry-cleaning store - “Bellflower Cleaners” – the same store that she lived in the back of as a kid until they found a house a few blocks away.  We had spent countless hours together on this street shopping at the western store, eating at the Woolworth’s counter, visiting my great-grand parents.  The old store and house were about a mile from the freeway exit.

2)      Next Waze sent me down Bellflower Boulevard, past the giant donut-in-the-sky donut shop (like Randy’s Donuts by LAX) we went to when I was a kid and the fabric store we frequented pouring over pattern books and material.

3)      Waze then had me turn right on South Street which ran on the south side of their old neighborhood – the neighborhood my mom and Uncle Blair grew up in. 

4)      Waze then told me to turn left at Lakewood Boulevard -  this was the corner that housed Bob’s Big Boy – my favorite childhood restaurant. The corner of many chocolate shakes with my Grandmother.  It also sent us down past the laundromat my grandmother went to weekly, past the Lakewood Mall where we ate Sunday night suppers at Clifton’s Cafeteria before church and bought special occasion clothes at the Bullocks department store. 

          Waze took me past their entire California lives.  I was kind of cry-laughing the entire trip. I felt touched beyond the grave, mischievously guided on one last ride.  I felt them both with me there and not just as ashes in metal boxes moved from dresser to house to car and beyond.  But as incredibly special people to me that were saying goodbye to their earthly lives and to their eldest grandchild.   

2016 has been a challenging year but a great year. A year for saying goodbye and putting old issues to rest. Of honoring my ancestors and putting things right. I placed those plain metal boxes in the vault and on each one I sat little statues that were the likeness of my grandparents – Peggy is at her sewing machine and Tex is reading in his chair. I put a young picture of them together and a later life picture of them together. And there is even room left in that vault for my mom for when her time comes so I don’t have to face this decision again.  The grandparents are finally in the grave and it’s a good thing.  It’s a really good thing.  And I am so thankful that I felt such love from them for my childhood and young adult life and that now we all know where they are for now and for the future.  Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Tex are at their place of rest, finally.

Fiddle-Dee-Dee, Gone with the Wind goes Reality

After reading (OK, listening to) as much of Gone with the Wind as I could stand, I have been inspired by those classically selfish and manipulative Southern sociopaths Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler to create a bunch of Reality Shows. Let’s take a look at a few of them and hope that a network development maven is reading this!



Damned Yankees

This is an obstacle-course style show featuring contestant families competing against other families in a series of obstacles with increasing difficulty as the season progresses. Watch as loose networks of masters and servants try to overcome impediments in the form of low food stocks, pillaged live stock, fire, drought, sickness, old horses with broken-down carts, taxes, laziness, disease and finally irascible Damned Yankees to reach the finish line and claim the prize, a full belly and warm bed.


Belles and Beaus

This is a reverse Bachelor or Rock of Love type of thing wherein lovely teen aged Belles attempt to gather as many Beaus as possible at a series of balls and barbecues before they reach 19 years of age and are thus declared spinsters. The Belle who is able to string along the most beaus while eating as little as possible, wearing impossibly tight undergarments and withstanding withering humidity and vicious tongues will be crowned Belle of the County! Extra points will be given for stealing beaus from family members, life-long friends and the less fortunate.


You Rascal You

This is based on Captain Rhett Butler, the impossibly handsome and roguish, man-about-town. This bit will feature a crazed all-out race for fabulous prizes and foreign bank accounts. Each Rascal will be given a boat, a ragtag crew and a map (of sorts). The goal is to run medical supplies, ammunition and luxury items through blockades and unfriendly ports. Greasing of palms and underhanded methods will be encouraged and ultimately rewarded. Just watch out for patriotic stumbling blocks, the occasional jolt of conscience and jeering yokels. Extra points will be awarded for the successful delivery of satin, lace, bonnets, candies and useless trinkets.

Down Home Cooking

This cooking show will feature teams combining amateur chefs and professional survivalists creating something edible and lovely with limited ingredients, particularly dried peas, hominy and smallish fish. Any meat used must be gathered from the wild, or a near by burnt-out plantation. The wilder and smaller the game the better. Think squirrels and chipmunks. Creating passable substitutes for coffee and digging up hidden whiskey barrels is highly encouraged. Plundering of neighbors abandoned gardens will be mandatory as well as liberating chickens, catching loose piglets and milking goats.

Tara – Nothing Else Matters, or There’s No Place Like Home

This is a home improvement/decorating-themed show in which contestants must create some semblance of order after yet more Damned Yankees and lice-infested Confederates tromp through their “plantations” and bust up the place like an old, unused chiffarobe. A feature of this production will be Revenuers and Carpetbaggers thrown in as hosts to evaluate progress, create undue anxiety and show needless replays of scenes shown before the commercial breaks. Extra points will be given for inventiveness, resourcefulness, stick-to-it-iveness as well as the reuse of drapery and rooster feathers.

Glorious Dead Hunters

This is an "investigating the paranormal" type of show featuring a regular cast of characters, their gadgets, vehicles and a few hot chicks to draw the male viewer. These Glorious Dead Hunters will visit antebellum plantations, civil war battlefields and the oldest cemeteries the South has to offer hunting for the ghosts of the glorious confederate soldiers. Occasional forays into the North may be Incorporated into the show mix as hunting sites are run through faster than you can say Goober Peas. No prizes will be given. This is science, damn it!

May the games begin!

The Gila Monster in the Bathtub

I am trying to get inspired to write, so I'm re-posting some of my stories... Maybe it will work.


The gila monster in the bathtub was not only scary to look at, but as it turns out, was also a highly venomous endangered species. A gila monster is a big lizard. I think of it as a small monitor lizard rather than like the cute little lizards I would catch and play with outside my house in Phoenix as they innocently did their little push-ups in the sun. Monster is a good description for this particular bathtub critter and I have always thought of the monster as a “he” so I will refer to him as such.


His skin was a series of little black, brown and white bumps forming dramatic bands and splotches. He was held up by squat legs that jutted out sideways at roughly 90 degrees ending in funny little fingers. Held up is probably not the right term because the belly seemed to rest directly on the bottom of the bath tub. The gila monster moved by wriggling and twisting its middle from side to side in a slithery, snake-like way. He had a black tongue that flicked in and out of his mouth. And as I remember, this gila monster was big. He took up more than half the length of the bathtub.

How, you might ask, did the gila monster get into the tub? It wasn’t for a bath and that is for sure. As it would happen, a knucklehead put him there. One of the many knuckleheads my dad surrounded himself with during my childhood. And this was an Arizona knucklehead. This means the fella had a pickup truck and a gun. It was with this gun that the Arizona knucklehead shot something he saw moving in the desert. Shot his eye out he did. The knucklehead blinded that poor old Gila Monster.

My first contact with the bathtub Gila Monster was when he was thrashing wildly in the back of a pickup with a lowered tailgate. It was early evening and we were going to dinner at one of my parent’s friend’s homes. I remember walking up the dark driveway, the truck under the circle of amber from the street light above, and seeing quite a few people standing around the truck bed. I immediately tried to join them, but my dad, being taller, saw what was in the truck and put his hand on my shoulder to pull me back. I didn’t really get to look in the truck that night. But I did listen to a kind of thrashing. I heard my dad scoff as he pulled me away. He was probably muttering, “knucklehead”, or “idiot”, or something more choice and less suitable for my six year old ears.

The gila monster stayed in the back of the pickup until the next day when he was somehow transferred to the bathtub at my dad and grandpa’s shop. The shop was actually a house in Mesa, Arizona where my family tried to run an aluminum siding business. Western Living was the name on the building. I remember the logo was very nice and professional. My dad liked to point it out whenever we drove past. He was very proud of the logo and the sign.

Somehow the knucklehead had convinced my father to allow the gila monster to be placed in the tub. I think he may have done it without my dad’s knowledge. Because really, who would want a blind gila monster in the only bathroom in his place of business. My dad didn’t even like dogs.

The monster remained in the tub, for at least two weeks, when someone decided to make up a story and call Animal Services. This resulted in a description of the animal and the realization that this was both a dangerous, poisonous lizard, something a kin to the venom of a rattlesnake and also an endangered and protected species. What impressed both my dad and the knucklehead was the large fine levied for injuring or killing an endangered species.

The threatened fine and the knowledge that the monster in the bathtub was venomous spurred my dad and the knucklehead into action. This is what I heard happened. After two weeks of indecision, someone put the gila monster in a metal tool box with a gas-soaked rag. They killed that poor, giant, bumpy, blind gila monster.

And I wonder, all these many years later, why I still think about that gila monster in the truck, then in bathtub, then finally in the tool box. I still somehow feel bad about him trapped in that metal coffin because the knucklehead was shooting in the desert.

The Gila Monster in the Bathtub

The gila monster in the bathtub was not only scary to look at, but as it turns out, was also a highly venomous endangered species. A gila monster is a big lizard. I think of it as a small monitor lizard rather than like the cute little lizards I would catch and play with outside my house in Phoenix as they innocently did their little push-ups in the sun. Monster is a good description for this particular bathtub critter and I have always thought of the monster as a “he” so I will refer to him as such.

His skin was a series of little black, brown and white bumps forming dramatic bands and splotches. He was held up by squat legs that jutted out sideways at roughly 90 degrees ending in funny little fingers. Held up is probably not the right term because the belly seemed to rest directly on the bottom of the bath tub. The gila monster moved by wriggling and twisting its middle from side to side in a slithery, snake-like way. He had a black tongue that flicked in and out of his mouth. And as I remember, this gila monster was big. He took up more than half the length of the bathtub.

How, you might ask, did the gila monster get into the tub? It wasn’t for a bath and that is for sure. As it would happen, a knucklehead put him there. One of the many knuckleheads my dad surrounded himself with during my childhood. And this was an Arizona knucklehead. This means the fella had a pickup truck and a gun. It was with this gun that the Arizona knucklehead shot something he saw moving in the desert. Shot his eye out he did. The knucklehead blinded that poor old Gila Monster.

My first contact with the bathtub Gila Monster was when he was thrashing wildly in the back of a pickup with a lowered tailgate. It was early evening and we were going to dinner at one of my parent’s friend’s homes. I remember walking up the dark driveway, the truck under the circle of amber from the street light above, and seeing quite a few people standing around the truck bed. I immediately tried to join them, but my dad, being taller, saw what was in the truck and put his hand on my shoulder to pull me back. I didn’t really get to look in the truck that night. But I did listen to a kind of thrashing. I heard my dad scoff as he pulled me away. He was probably muttering, “knucklehead”, or “idiot”, or something more choice and less suitable for my six year old ears.

The gila monster stayed in the back of the pickup until the next day when he was somehow transferred to the bathtub at my dad and grandpa’s shop. The shop was actually a house in Mesa, Arizona where my family tried to run an aluminum siding business. Western Living was the name on the building. I remember the logo was very nice and professional. My dad liked to point it out whenever we drove past. He was very proud of the logo and the sign.

Somehow the knucklehead had convinced my father to allow the gila monster to be placed in the tub. I think he may have done it without my dad’s knowledge. Because really, who would want a blind gila monster in the only bathroom in his place of business. My dad didn’t even like dogs.

The monster remained in the tub, for at least two weeks, when someone decided to make up a story and call Animal Services. This resulted in a description of the animal and the realization that this was both a dangerous, poisonous lizard, something a kin to the venom of a rattlesnake and also an endangered and protected species. What impressed both my dad and the knucklehead was the large fine levied for injuring or killing an endangered species.

The threatened fine and the knowledge that the monster in the bathtub was venomous spurred my dad and the knucklehead into action. This is what I heard happened. After two weeks of indecision, someone put the gila monster in a metal tool box with a gas-soaked rag. They killed that poor, giant, bumpy, blind gila monster.

And I wonder, all these many years later, why I still think about that gila monster in the truck, then in bathtub, then finally in the tool box. I still somehow feel bad about him trapped in that metal coffin because the knucklehead was shooting in the desert.

Gone with the Wind goes Reality, Oh Fiddle-Dee-Dee

After reading (OK, listening to) as much of Gone with the Wind as I could stand, I have been inspired by those classically selfish and manipulative Southern sociopaths Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler to create a bunch of Reality Shows.  Let’s take a look at a few of them and hope that a network development maven is reading this!

Damned Yankees

This is an obstacle-course style show featuring contestant families competing against other families in a series of obstacles with increasing difficulty as the season progresses. Watch as loose networks of masters and servants try to overcome impediments in the form of low food stocks, pillaged live stock, fire, drought, sickness, old horses with broken-down carts, taxes, laziness, disease and finally irascible Damned Yankees to reach the finish line and claim the prize, a full belly and warm bed. 

Belles and Beaus
This is a reverse Bachelor or Rock of Love type of thing wherein lovely teen aged Belles attempt to gather as many Beaus as possible at a series of balls and barbecues before they reach 19 years of age and are thus declared spinsters. The Belle who is able to string along the most beaus while eating as little as possible, wearing impossibly tight undergarments and withstanding withering humidity and vicious tongues will be crowned Belle of the County! Extra points will be given for stealing beaus from family members, life-long friends and the less fortunate.

You Rascal You
This is based on Captain Rhett Butler, the impossibly handsome and roguish, man-about-town. This bit will feature a crazed all-out race for fabulous prizes and foreign bank accounts. Each Rascal will be given a boat, a ragtag crew and a map (of sorts). The goal is to run medical supplies, ammunition and luxury items through blockades and unfriendly ports. Greasing of palms and underhanded methods will be encouraged and ultimately rewarded. Just watch out for patriotic stumbling blocks, the occasional jolt of conscience and jeering yokels. Extra points will be awarded for the successful delivery of satin, lace, bonnets, candies and useless trinkets.

Down Home Cooking
This cooking show will feature teams combining amateur chefs and professional survivalists creating something edible and lovely with limited ingredients, particularly dried peas, hominy and smallish fish. Any meat used must be gathered from the wild, or a near by burnt-out plantation. The wilder and smaller the game the better. Think squirrels and chipmunks. Creating passable substitutes for coffee and digging up hidden whiskey barrels is highly encouraged. Plundering of neighbors abandoned gardens will be mandatory as well as liberating chickens, catching loose piglets and milking goats.

Tara – Nothing Else Matters, or There’s No Place Like Home
This is a home improvement/decorating-themed show in which contestants must create some semblance of order after yet more Damned Yankees and lice-infested Confederates tromp through their “plantations” and bust up the place like an old, unused chiffarobe.  A feature of this production will be Revenuers and Carpetbaggers thrown in as hosts to evaluate progress, create undue anxiety and show needless replays of scenes shown before the commercial breaks.  Extra points will be given for inventiveness, resourcefulness, stick-to-it-iveness as well as the reuse of drapery and rooster feathers. 

Glorious Dead Hunters
This is an "investigating the paranormal" type of show featuring a regular cast of characters, their gadgets, vehicles and a few hot chicks to draw the male viewer. These Glorious Dead Hunters will visit antebellum plantations, civil war battlefields and the oldest cemeteries the South has to offer hunting for the ghosts of the glorious confederate soldiers.  Occasional forays into the North may be Incorporated into the show mix as hunting sites are run through faster than you can say Goober Peas.  No prizes will be given.  This is science, damn it!

May the games begin!

Where the Wild Things Are - Childhood Hostility Illustrated

This was written for a Children's Literature class, focusing on how the illustrations drove the introduction of the story:

Maurice Sendak's illustrated children's book , Where the Wild Things Are, features a wolf-suited boy named Max.  The first few illustrations of this book reveal Max to be on a rambunctious rampage. The first illustration introduces the reader to Max who is nailing a rope of tied sheets to the wall to create a tent. He has a determined and devilish look on his face.  Max's sole companion is his hapless teddy bear, which Max has apparently strung up on the sheet-rope, tied by the arm, helpless and dangling. The next illustration features Max airborne, fork in hand, flying down the stairs after the fleeing and frightened family dog.  Between the two figures, a drawing of a monster signed "by Max", glares ahead.  But it is the third illustration that is most telling of this boy's behavior.  This illustration is significant because it openly displays Max's anger and resentment, which is focused solely on his mother and furthermore, this illustration sets the stage for Max's imaginative adventures which begin to take shape on the very next page.

In this illustration Max is standing in the foreground, off-center, angrily glaring to his left at this closed door.  His hands are on his hips. He is the sulking lone wolf, angry with his mother.  To Max's left is a closed door.  His mother lies somewhere on the other side.  Max is standing half on a rug and half on the floor.  He stands between his earlier mischief-making fun and his later imaginings.  Max is in a state of transition, just as his illustration offers a transition from the established mischievous behavior to the fantastical adventures that lie later in the book.

Max's bedroom is subtly colored and sharply angled; it is being pulled away from the viewer's eye.  Behind Max is a clothed table with a single plant perched on its' surface.  Above the table, slightly off-center is an unscreened, open window.  Revealed are a grayish nighttime sky and a low moon ambiguously crescent or full.  The most dominant feature in the background of this illustration is Max's four-poster bed. Its' very size dwarfs Max. The bed juts into the center of the room, angled from the rear-right corner.  Its headboard nearly touches the ceiling. One can clearly see the dark space underneath the bed. With the exception of Max, all the other items in this illustration are in the background.

That as previously mentioned Max is physically  placed at the foreground of this illustration.  This physical placement is significant because Max (along with this hostility) is the focus of this book.  In other illustrations Max shares the foreground, occupies the middle ground, is part of a complicated cast of characters, or is not present at all (as in the last page). This illustration draws the reader's attention to Max and emphasizes his facial expression.  And it is this facial expression of hostility that is so evident, considering the rest of his body is covered in a white wolf suit, for he alone occupies the foreground.  Max is the focal point: Max and his attitude. He is the very embodiment of hostility and willfulness.  He stands apart (as he will be from his 'wild things' of which he will be king). He is what children are not supposed to be: hostile, resentful and alone.

Max is resentful because his mother has rebuked him.  He is undergoing punishment due to his hostile behavior opposed to his mother's expectations.  As a result, he is alone and confined to his room. For all of these reasons Max is angry and his facial express illustrates his feelings for his mother.  None of this behavior is ideal, indeed it is considered bad.  This illustration is significant in its overt hostility aimed at the Mother Figure.

Max is not exactly on even footing, even though his feet are planted firmly on the ground.  He stands partially on the rug, and partially on the floor. Each foot is on a different surface.  This placement reveals the transitional significance of this illustration.  Although Max's thoughts are focused on his Mother who is on the side of the door, his feet are literally in two different places.  This stance helps indicate leaving one state and entering another.

The room is angled away from the reader's eye.  It is already being pulled away from the story.  The muted, natural tones of Max's bedroom help it to morph into the jungle it will soon become. On the next page, Max's bedroom will begin its ultimate imaginary transition into a wild, natural place.  The browns, greens and yellows will soon become trees, bushes and grasses.  These colors also help to offset Max as someone who stands out against the muted, natural background.  He will interact with this background, but ultimately, he will return back to his normal life.  The atmosphere he creates will never fully absorb him.

Max stands in front of a single plant placed upon a table. With the help of Max's imagination, these few leaves will blossom into an entire forest. This plant foreshadows the vegetation that will quickly be overtaking Max's entire mental environs.  These leaves reach up and toward the moon and night sky, helping the eye move up and out of the room, just as Max's imagination will shortly do.

Everything about this illustration is confined with the exception of the open window.  The outer vista reveals the night, and a soon-to-be inspirational full moon.  This most ardently shows the reader that it is night, the time for dreams and sleep. The moon also offers a wolf something to bay at.  It suggests wild abandon and mystery under the cover of darkness.  Much mayhem may ensue in the night.  This also suggests that Max may be sleepy.  It helps draw the reader's attention the the huge bed and the idea that Max may soon be upon it dreaming his wild dreams.

The large bed is the dominating object of the background of this illustration. Naturally, given that it is night time, and the facet that there appears nothing to play with in this room, it seems that sleep is where Max is headed.  Sleep filled with dreams that will let his hostility-filled imagination run free and eventually bring him back to a state  that is calm and controllable.  This bed may also signify Max' mother. It is comparatively huge, dominating the room as Max's mother no doubt dominates his life.  It appears comfortable yet Max has not come to it of his own accord, rather it is something he is forced to. Yet, when Max's imagination lets go, this bed along with everything but the outside sky and moon, melts into jungle-stuff.  All fade away so that he can adventure to "where the wild things are".

This illustration's chief significance is the open emotional hostility aimed at the parental figure coupled with transitional clues which indicate to the reader that this hostility will be be allowed to play out while dreaming.  All of the elements of this illustration help to identify Max as the main character.  His physical placement signifies transition.  His facial expressions and body language identify him as a child with a bad attitude: an angry and hostile boy.  The spare furnishing focus the readers' attention toward the bed: the physical location of dreams. The room's angles and natural hues, the plant, the moon and the nighttime sky all set the stage for the imaginary changes about to take place. This illustration provides vast insight into both Max, the protagonist's mental state and the direction that the story will take.

FEEDBACK FROM PROFESSOR SHIN, ENGLISH 430:  A thorough and convincing discussion of illustration three.  I agree that the drawing subtly suggests Max's "in-betweeness", caught as he is between parental authority and the desire to seize that authority imaginatively.  I would only encourage you to link some of your specific observations more substantively to larger thematic issues.  Very your sentence structure (which I tried to do a little here). Great work. 

The Night of the Punch

I almost never try to punch anyone in the face anymore; although I have to admit the desire to do so has reared its ugly head more than once. Actually, it’s been more than 20 years since I indulged the feeling, and it was against my sister, so it’s at least kind of understandable. If you had known my sister then, you might have wanted to punch her also, particularly if she disturbed your sleep as much as she did mine. The punching occurred in the middle of the night because she wouldn’t shut the hell up. Did I mention I think I also had a fever so I believe I had less than usual self-control?

Let’s back up. I lived with a boyfriend when I was about 20 to 21 years old. That year taught me a lot. It taught me about self worth. It taught me about my demons. It taught me that I had no place with that man and he had no future with me. It was a year-long complete waste of my life that culminated with a light bulb moment. The bulb said that my life was worth so much more than I had realized and when that light bulb went off, I luckily had a place to go. I went to my dad and my sister’s place. They had moved from our suburban teenaged hometown of Cerritos to the swingingest pad a man and his kid ever thought to go. It was a round high-rise apartment in Downtown Long Beach. Jill and dad had moved to the 2nd to the top floor of about a 30 story, round building that still reminds me of the Capitol Records building I pass daily on the Hollywood Freeway. At the time we lived there its address was 666 Ocean Boulevard, but that got changed to 700 Ocean Boulevard later when the building went condo. I thought the address was part of its charm and I was sorry to see the change.

You may have seen the building. It was featured in the beginning of the first scene of the first Lethal Weapon film. It is the building that the woman gets thrown off of at the beginning of the movie. Of course she really got “thrown off” of the 2nd story onto a huge pad that was just feet below her. In the movie, it looks like she gets thrown off the apartment directly above mine, the penthouse. When the scene pans out to the surrounding city, it looks just as it did when I stood on my balcony. I was completely used to it then and was amazed to see my “view” on the big screen, but now when I see the movie I just think it looks terrifying. During the filming I stood next to Danny Glover during a break in our front drive area. I had no idea who he was at the time when I asked him, “Have you seen Mel Gibson? I hear he is in this movie”. Mr. Glover looked at me with surprise and said, “Are you kidding, no I haven’t, man that is cool”.

I’m moving off topic. I’ll get back to the punch. I moved into my sister’s room and that wasn’t fair to her. We had shared rooms off and on for most of our lives, but Jill was used to having her own room at that point. She had also obtained a driver’s license that had her face and my 21-year-old information. This meant that she was 18, but could go out and drink if she so chose.  Did I ever mention my sweet sister has a mean side? It only comes out on occasion. You know other people like this, I’m sure. First they are sweet and funny and then the horns pop out. I’m sure I’m the same way.

Anyway, Jill, Dad and I lived in the “round building” as I called it for about a year together. For the most part it was a fun time. Dad spent most of his time getting over a broken heart. Jill and I didn’t have very much direction. I think at this time Jill was working as a waitress and attending trade school for the travel industry. I was working as a waitress with her and attending Long Beach City College where I was heavily involved in a student-run radio station.

Then we three had to vacate our groovy round high-rise because of a condo-conversion and so we moved next door to a less groovy, rectangular less high-rise apartment. It was on the other side of the empty lot that spanned the two buildings. It was in this apartment that Jill and I had bought ourselves two futons which we slept on and technically could fold up into seating. Futons are the devil’s furniture as far as I’m concerned. God those corners are hell on ankles. Mine were constantly colliding with their sharp wooden angles.

It was in this apartment that Jill’s best friend Judy came to live with us for a while. Judy had stayed with us on-and-off during her teen years. Judy has been sober, upstanding citizen for a long, long time but at 18, she and Jill were a force for partying. They were connected hipsters that were either on the hunt for a party or show, on their way to one, on their way to pick up someone who knew where one was supposed to happen or they were passed out in the car in front of where the show or the party was either over or still going on. They were young. I know there are other young people that don’t behave this way, but those people weren’t in my immediate family.

The punch happened on one of these late weekend nights that Jill and Judy came home in the wee small hours. Judy was quiet, as always, and Jill was mouthy, as usual. I’m sure I spurred Jill’s mouthiness by saying something thoughtful like

“SHUT THAT F*****G LIGHT OFF AND SHUT UP”.

These kinds of statements have never gotten me anywhere. At least I know that now. Then I just let them flow out of my sweet mouth.

Well, this exchange ranged on while Jill and Judy’s got changed and got into bed and went on for a while after the light had gone out.

It went something like this

Me -  Would you shut the hell up!
Her - You can’t tell me to shut up
Me -  I sure can, shut the hell up you idiot
Her -  F**k you, you’re the idiot
Me -  F**k you
Her - F**k you, you moved into my room.
Her – mumble mumble
Her – I had my own room and you moved into it.
Me – seething silence
Her – Yeah, F**k you, mumble mumble mumble yeah see
Me – more seething silence
Her - mumble mumble you mumble mumble
Her - mumble mumble you mumble mumble
Her - mumble mumble you mumble mumble
Her - mumble mumble you mumble mumble.......

I might explain the layout of our room at this point. I remember that we had a relatively small room with two full-size futons with about two feet between them. Jill’s futon was in one corner of the room against a wall, then there was a space of about two feet and then my futon was there and then about a foot on the other side of mine was a closet. I don’t remember the rest of the room but I assume there was a dresser at the bottom of our futons with just a little space between. Jill always, and I mean always, slept on the wall side of her futon and Judy slept next to her closer to my futon. I slept alone on my futon, except the night of the punch. The night of the punch they had switched places. Of course they had. I didn’t realize this until I was on top of Judy with my fist pulled up ready to smash into her face. I realized I was on top of Judy and not on top of Jill when Judy’s huge Basque eyes opened wide staring into mine in a silent scream. I might add at this point Jill was still mumbling and didn’t realize I was there.

It was Judy’s wide-eyed silent scream that warned my fist away from her. It came down and then moved awkwardly to the left, catching Jill across the face instead of straight down on it. It is a testament to her drunkenness that she didn’t react to me flying over her onto Judy. She didn’t realize I was there until I hit her. She may contradict me on this. But honestly, I don’t think she would remember the “before” part as I do.

This initial punch turned into a two-person brawl that ranged all over our room, bumping into the closet, against the futon, into the dresser. We were yelling and cussing and frankly she was kicking my ass. Judy was cowering in the corner during this whole thing and somehow my father amazingly slept through it. The fight went on until we were done, spent and panting. I’m sure I was crying. I grabbed my feminine cabbage rose-covered pink comforter and slunk into the living room, muttering and bleeding, pissed off and full of hate and deflated fury.

I was sore and bruised the next day, just as I deserved. I could barely move without pain as I recall. Jill strode out of the room as if nothing had happened. She may have even been smiling. She acted as if nothing had happened and everything was normal. Except for the glaring at me part. I was miserable until I caught her in the bathroom, examining the inside of her lower lip. It was cut and looked painful and swollen. This filled me with glee.

With my Dad’s help I moved out shortly thereafter. I found a single unit on 4th Street. I think it was $350 a month, which was a stretch, but it was better than sharing a room with my sister and an apartment with the swingingest father a girl ever had. He had somehow transformed into one of the Rat Pack in the period we lived in the two apartments and the “Pack” drove me crazy.

I had the new apartment to myself for about 2 glorious months until Jill called me to ask me if she could move in. Dad wanted her out. I think he had threatened to throw her stuff off of the balcony. He had thrown other things like chairs off the balcony. Jill didn’t doubt that he would. I said, sure she could move in, why not.

Cedar Avenue, Long Beach

I have lived in a lot of different places. As a kid, I attended six different elementary schools and swore as an adult I would not live like that, not live such a vagabond life. As a young person, on my own or with my sister, I didn’t live up to my own promises. I moved constantly, always looking for something better or cheaper. I lived in a very small studio when my sister had to move in with me, our father tired of her being there, just the way he had gotten tired of me being there. Once Jill moved in, my tiny studio was too tiny. I found a larger studio for less money, the catch was that it was in a pretty crappy part of town. It was downtown. Jill and I moved in and got to know our neighbors, sort of.

I called our downstairs neighbors Punch and Judy. This was really a kindness on my part. These people were trash of the highest caliber – alcoholic brawlers. We all lived in an apartment building behind a house on Cedar Avenue in Downtown Long Beach. The building was on the only nice block of a bad street in a worse neighborhood. There was probably 8 units spread over two stories in the place. The building looked like a plain stucco box from the outside, but the interior was well-preserved 20’s Spanish glamour. It was a little oasis of urban renewal that didn’t seem so renewed when the sun set, or when the homeless raged, or when I looked into the back alley and saw the super quick transactions at our neighborhood drive-thru crack window.

Punch and Judy lived downstairs. At the time they were probably both about 60 years old. Their transportation was a moped, not a scooter, but a moped, which they drove up directly below the apartments north side and let rumble a while before either locking up or driving off. Punch was retired military and Judy wore the uniform of a nurse’s aide. They lived with several foul-smelling cats with fouler smelling cat boxes. Judy liked to air dry her very large delicate garments by hanging them in the lemon tree in front of our building, or over the banister of our front steps. Punch liked to get drunk and throw Judy against the wall directly below my kitchen. Neither appreciated my big cowboy boots stomping around the hardwood floors as they beat the crap out of each other. Judy however did like to tell at me to “mind your own fucking business” when I slammed my fist against their lovely Spanish-style front door as I yelled at them to “come out and talk to me like that”. Punch and Judy didn’t like me apparently, nor I them.

Across from Punch and Judy lived Jane. Jane was divorced and depressed, but a very nice person. She had an off-again on-again boyfriend. This boyfriend merited special apartment cleanings and sweeping off of the sheets to remove flea eggs. I swear, she went through a ritual for this specific purpose and yelled at me when I was there and tried to help her make the bed because he was on the way. I hadn’t ‘swept’ the sheets. I knew nothing of romance. Jane is the person who taught me that if you call a suicide helpline someone comes and takes you away for 48 hour observation, regardless of your professed sudden happy attitude and mental health. Jane eventually married a man that had the same last name as her first husband. She didn’t have to change her name. It was highly convenient. Once engaged she moved away from Cedar Avenue.

My next-door neighbor was Phillip. He was English, slight and very sweet. He was about my age I think. His father had a house-cleaning business and his stepmother ran a nurse registry. They were entrepreneurial and hard-working people. Phillip liked to hang out and he helped me clean my apartment so thoroughly when I prepared to move out that I got my entire cleaning deposit and an amazed head-scratch from my landlord. Phillip took me to an Italian restaurant once in which a cockroach decided to climb up my leg and jump from me straight on to my plate. The host had believed us on a date and had put is in a tiny booth in a corner that only had one seat. I was on the inside, next to a wall and Phillip was on the outside. I screamed and shoved him off the seat as the cockroach jumped from me to my lasagne. Poor Philip. I may have even stepped on him as I tore screaming from the booth.

I call the apartment “our apartment” because I shared it with my sister Jill. I think we moved there because it was a slightly larger studio apartment than our previous place. It was also slightly cheaper. Something like $310 per month rather than $325. It had a Murphy bed so we could each have our own bed with a couch counting as one of the beds. It had a built-in bureau, a built-in ironing board and lovely tiled bathroom. It had wool rose-patterned rugs that covered the long hallway between the kitchen and the bath. It had French doors that closed the kitchen off from the main room which created a modicum of privacy. It also had no heat, or such bad heat, that we froze in the winter and had to share a bed and wear every sweater, glove, sock and hat we possessed. We thought we had it made.

Right around the corner from our apartment was a liquor store that bums and homeless frequented. They would beg out front, go inside and buy NightTrain or some other fortified wine and then lie on the sidewalk as they drank it. They would then stick out their hands as we walked past until one of them bothered to opened an eye, saw it was Jill and I and pronounced to his fellows, “oh, it’s them, don’t bother”. These were the same men that would also come and bang on the outside of our building screaming for money. Punch and Judy remained silent then, I’ll tell you that. Punch and Judy could scream at each other and scream at us, but never scream at the bums. My sister responded to these absurd demands for money by standing next to the window, saying “forget it, get lost, get out of here”. She meant it.  She would have thrown slops on them if there weren't screens in the way, and if we had slops.

Jill hated the bums that stalked us. Heaven forbid we had to get gas for our cars anywhere near our home. It was Night of the Living Bums as we called it. They would stumble around, hands outstretched, mumbling “spare change, come on man, spare change”. Jill and I were waitresses at the time and there was literally no spare change. We also had lots of pent-up aggression that was awaiting an outlet other than our own customers. Jill would get all hot under the collar and storm at these men, “spare change, spare change, you think I got spare change, there is no such thing as spare change buddy”. They always backed down. She was all of 21 years old in her little green waitress uniform and these men would always back down.

Punch, Judy, Jane, Phillip, and the bums are all gone from my life now. Only my sister Jill remains, as always, my closest friend. The time we spent on Cedar Avenue was probably 20 years ago. I don’t constantly move around anymore. I live a relatively stable life. There is no drive-thru crack window behind my house, at least that I am aware of. My sister has her own stable life. She doesn’t shake her fists at bums on a regular basis, maybe only occasionally these days.

Roller Derby Trailer Park Queen, Oh Yeah That Was Me

Some girls love ballet, some loved playing with their dolls, but for me, it was always roller derby. As a kid my greatest ambition was to join the Los Angeles T-Birds. The T-Birds were the local team and I felt like they were my roller derby team. My T-Birds were pure 70’s cool. The girls often had feathered hair or gigantic fros. The men wore their hair on the longish side and I remember many a bushy mustache. Their uniforms, as I remember them, were first red white and blue, but were later changed to green, gold and white. My early roller derby queens cruised the track, their satin shorts wrinkling at their legs with stripes riding up the side of their shorts to their waists. And all of this over tights, knee pads and a team shirt that said T-Birds in slanting script moving up and over their chests. The later teams moved to a kind if stretchy pants with a solid stripe running up the side of their legs.  Either way, they were awesome.

I watched the games on TV at home but I think I started my roller derby obsession at my grandparents place. Gramdpa Jim, or Gramps as we called him liked what I remember as “fake stuff”. By “fake” I mean things like wrestling and HeeHaw. When I was very little, my grandparents lived in a house in North Long Beach. There they had a yard, an empty lot next door and my Great Uncle John who played with me. But at some point, they moved to a trailer park and there was much less for a kid to do outside. So TV it was, and TV at least distracted from the “scary picture” that followed me around the spare bedroom. The “scary picture” was a very old portrait of my grandmother’s parents that had eyes that seemed to move. I did anything to avoid looking at that photo, including watching TV. HeeHaw never piqued my interest, but roller derby sure did. It was here that I came to love watching all- girl T-Birds games. I know there were all-male games also, but there just weren’t as much fun to me.

And I wasn’t alone in my love of the T-Birds. My cousin Nancy liked them enough to “play T-Birds” with me outside in front of the trailer. At least she acted enough like she liked it to make me happy. Nancy may have been humoring me. I am three years her junior and I think she humored me a lot.

When we played T-Birds our uniforms consisted of Gramps’ giant wife beaters worn over our clothes. The wife beaters came to our knees and billowed around us. Our Gramps wasn’t a very tall man but he cut a striking figure all the same. He had a huge hard gut that jutted out over polyester western-style slacks. Gramps wore cowboy boots (except to church) and always had a wife beater under his plaid button-up shirt. Nancy and I thought the wife beaters were distinctive enough to make us look like a team and my favorite maneuver was “shooting the whip”. This consisted of us holding hands, trying to skate as quickly as we could and one of us flinging the other ahead while trying to remain upright.

Nancy and I tried all the moves we saw on TV and being as it was a different era, our grandparents completely ignore us. They ignored the jamming, they ignored the blocking and they especially ignored the flinging. I’m sure they were just glad that we weren’t underfoot. I wonder if Nancy would still be up for a game of T-Birds? I am.

http://liquidbluetour.com/photos/bandmembers/scott/T-BirdHistoryHome.htm

http://liquidbluetour.com/photos/bandmembers/scott/T-BirdsTeamPhotos.htm

An Argument for Kindness, Fallaciously Speaking

I am making an argument for the practice kindness. It seems counterintuitive to have to make an argument for kindness, but what the heck, I’m doing it anyway.  Does arguing have any place in a discussion about kindness you might ask?  I say look around you. Kindness is often in short supply and so appreciated when it makes an appearance. So how do we talk about something that seems so fundamental, so seemingly obvious?  How about fallaciously? Fallacies are fun. I enjoy looking at different ways we offer lame arguments and fallacies are number one in that department as far as I’m concerned.  There are so many fallacious ways we humans try to sabotage discussion that they have been given names.  I won't get very far, but I'll start at the letter A.  So, let’s make a fallacious argument for kindness.

Ad Hominem – Ad Hominem is a Latin phrase meaning ”against the man”. Ad Hominem shows itself as a personal attack that sidetracks a persuasive argument. It is a favorite among siblings and co-workers. Take the following example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2.  You are an idiot, and as such anything you say is pointless.

3. Therefore your point about kindness is wrong.

In reality, even an idiot can make a valid point every so often and in this instance, the argument is being sidestepped by the Ad Hominem fallacy. Idiocy has nothing to do with kindness, although certainly idiots can be kind, so too can evildoers be idiots. Neither have anything to do with my argument.

Ad Hominem Tu Quoque – This is again “against the man” but with “because you are inconsistent or your argument is inconsistent with your actions” thrown in for good measure. For example I say:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. You respond by saying, Last month you said you wanted to punish all bad drivers by flinging rotten eggs at their cars. That isn’t very consistent with kindness.

3. Therefore, your point about kindness is wrong.

Certainly, we as human beings are inconsistent by nature.  With this in mind,  I can say that more than anything I strive to be a consistent parent. By this example I mean consistency is a goal and one worth pursuing. However, because I may have tried to rally the troupes to fling eggs, this has nothing to do with a valid point, and that point is this: kindness is important and we should value and practice it.

Appeal to Authority – This is a personal favorite. Most have had this fallacy used by their parents and teachers. This is a fallacy that denotes an arguments’ support in the authority of the argument maker. Think of “because I said so” or “because I am your mother therefore what I say goes” and you have the general idea of Appeal to Authority. Here’s an example:

1. I say, I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. Next I say, I am an authority on kindness therefore I know what I’m talking about.

3. I summarize by stating, therefore you should believe what I say without question.

You should be asking, but where is the support honey? Why should I believe you just because you say you are an authority? What do you know about it anyway? Where are your kindness credentials? Give me some facts, man.

Appeal to Belief – Oh, this is a good one. This is a fallacy grounded in the group rather than the individual. It is something that many people believe and so should you also. Think your parent’s religion or lack thereof. For example:

1. I say, I am making an argument for the value of kindness.

2. Most people believe that kindness is good and important.

3. Therefore you should also believe kindness is important too. Come on, that’s what everyone else thinks.

I could start a religion. I’ll call it “The Religion of Kindness”.   I’ll open Kindness Centers. I’ll recruit celebrities and sports figures. I’ll tweet and virally spread the gospel of kindness. So many people will buy into my crap that I won’t have to come up with any valid reasons for kindness. It will be like a middle school power drive. You will be sucked in because so many others are. But I know you know that just because a celebrity says it’s so, or lots of celebrity say it’s so, or every 7th grade girl in New Jersey says it so, that don’t make it so.

Appeal to Emotion – This is “Appeal to Beliefs” dirty cousin. This one goes straight for your emotions. Think advertising. Think images of happiness that have nothing to do with the product being shown, such as a group of ridiculously happy people at a party and a soda is on the table in front of a particularly beautiful woman with her hair gently blowing behind her.   In our discussion of kindness, this example shows emotional manipulation of the argument.


1. I am making an argument for the value of kindness.

2. Kindness has made me happy, desirable, emotionally stable and filthy rich.

3. Therefore you should adopt an argument for kindness as well.

Kindness is a state of mind, a state of being. A kind environment may produce positive benefits, but someone else’s perceived happiness or professed wealth has nothing to do with the argument.  They exist outside of the argument as a juicy carrot dangling there to distract you away from thought. Don’t bite that carrot.


Appeal to Fear – Another all time favorite, and not just of mine, but of many of the Christians I have known is Appeal to Fear.   I am not picking on Christians.  I just grew up with them and they are my religious group of experience so to say.  This fallacy tries to merit persuasion by the use of fear. I had a boyfriend once who tried to convince me that Jews didn’t believe in heaven and are good for goods sake. “Then why are people good”, I asked, honestly stumped, "if there is no threat of hell?".   I told him many Christians are good because they fear hell. They believe in God because if they don’t, they will face eternal damnation, which is supposed to hurt really bad. He couldn’t believe I could say such a thing. He had obviously never been around many Christians. Here is an example that relates to kindness:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. If you are not kind, no one will like you.

3. Therefore you will be miserable so you have to agree that kindness is important.


It seems really silly, I know, but I swear, this one makes the world go round. The great deterrent of society, think of jail. Isn’t that an appeal to fear. And a darn good one!

Appeal to Flattery – Oh, the appeals just keep on coming, don’t they! You know appeal to flattery. I think of this as malarkey, charm, B.S.  A has nothing to do with B, but A, you look fabulous today! For example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. My gosh, have you been working out?  You look incredible!

3. End of story

If you are reading this, you are obviously smart and considerate and already understand the merits of my argument. So I don’t have to make one.

Appeal to Pity – Feel sorry for A and as such go along with whatever A says, regardless if it has anything to do with anything. This can be thought of as the classic homework argument. The dog ate my homework, therefore I deserve credit for the work. For example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. I was struck by lightning a half an hour ago.

3. Therefore you should agree with me because I am addled, I am having difficulty hearing you and all of my body hair has been singed off.

You feel sorry for me don’t you. So just suck it up and buy my line of crap already.

Appeal to Tradition – This should be obvious and it is. Tradition dictates that something is true, and therefore it is. Sing “TRADITION” as if you playing Tevye in a dinner theatre rendition of “Fiddler on the Roof” as you think about this one. For example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. Traditionally, kindness has been held as an ideal in all civilized society.

3. Therefore everyone should be kind.

This argument may or may not be true. Think of slavery. It was practiced for a long time and as such accepted at some level by some people. But does any rational person really think it is OK because at one time it was generally held as a reasonable institution?  Duh.

Bandwagon –  Finally, a letter other than A.  I like that fallacies have a name like bandwagon as in “join in, everybody is doing it”. "Come on, have a cigarette, everyone smokes them." Again, this is a common theme in advertising and middle school. When you think of kindness, think of all your friends and your friend’s friends and even your enemies. For example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. The rest of the kids in Ms. Valentine’s class are making an argument for the practice of kindness. They all say they will be kind to everyone.

3. Therefore you should make an argument for kindness too.

Just because Johnny is going to jump off the kind bridge, are you?

Begging the Question – Wow, we really have left the As. This is also referred to as Circular Reasoning. The conclusion is present in the premise hence the dog chasing it’s tail kind of argument. This is one big circle going round and round.  For example:

1. I am making an argument for the practice of kindness.

2. I think therefore I am kind.

3. Therefore you should be kind too.

This is really a riff on Descartes famous argument for the existence of God. He is really the king of Begging the Question in my book. I think therefore I am. I know God exists because I have the idea of God, blah, blah, blah. Kindness is valuable because I have the idea that the practice of kindness is important. This goes on and on and maybe I am not making myself clear. Maybe I am, but I will confuse you with my circular reasoning and you’ll forget the point.

 I have really not made any arguments for kindness, rather I have talked about fallacies and used kindness as a theme. I have plagiarized horribly from a few websites because I am lazy. That aside, I do have some decent reasons for the practice of kindness and I tell you this; like consistency as a parent, I strive for practicing kindness in my daily life. I appreciate when others show me kindness, particularly those I am closest too. And I would appreciate you thinking about the ways kindness makes you feel good and happy, and how the absence of it makes you angry or uncaring.

Here are my reasons for practicing kindness

Kindness is infectious. It is like a good disease.

Kindness makes you feel good.

Kindness doesn’t make your blood pressure rise like aggression does, unless of course someone is masking aggression with a kind face, which is not kindness, just jackassery (my new word, you can use it too).

If I am consciously being kind, I am not likely to try to kill someone.

Being kind shows an example to others and they in turn learn the value of kindness.

An atmosphere of kindness is inclusive, not exclusive.

Kindness is empathetic. People that don’t learn empathy are sociopaths.

Because this is a blog, and not say, a term paper, I really haven’t sourced my documentation properly. I could be accused of plagiarism. I borrowed heavily from the following websites.  Fallacies are fun.  Check these out:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

http://www.goodart.org/fallazoo.htm

It's a different place now

I am thinking of Artesia.

Artesia, California, which is now known as “Little India” was quite a different place when I was younger. I moved to Artesia when I was 18 to kind of reconnect with my mom after a forced absence of two years. At 18, I was no longer a minor and as such was finally allowed that choice. I hadn’t lived in Artesia before then, but I had lived near by for quite a while, at least since I was 11 or 12. I had to move in with my Dad when I was 16 and he lived in Cerritos. My Mom moved to Artesia shortly after I had to move in with my Dad. I’m sure it was to be near my sister and I as well as her job at the mall. I was always in one of the two cities, Artesia and Cerritos. My junior high and high school friends lived in Artesia. I went to school in Cerritos at Juarez, Whitney and then Gahr (Go Gladiators!). I had covered every sidewalk and street in the area either on foot, on my skateboard, on my bike and later in my car. My Grandpa Jim also had a little retail shop there. My Great Uncle John lived there also in a residential facility.


Artesia is a little town in southeast L.A. County. It is surrounded on all side by the city of Cerritos, famous in my mind for the place my parent’s marriage finally dissolved, Samoan baby showers that require police intervention and the Cerritos Mall. Artesia is just another city in the suburban flatlands of the San Gabriel Valley. I detested the place as a kid, saw nothing special or interesting about it. I think I projected my personal unhappiness onto it and blamed the place. Much like the Orange County punks I knew who talked about Cypress, Buena Park and Anaheim as if the cities themselves were the source of their discontent, as if their families and personalities weren’t the reason they were miserable malcontents.


Artesia and Cerritos combined had been known as “Dairy Valley”, for very obvious reasons. Cows were everywhere I looked. And I smelled them before I saw them. Big stinking pastures full of cows, cow pies and the flies that loved them. You could get incredibly delicious milk there, but other than that, it was a little bit of country in L.A. County. L.A. County had a lot of pockets of country at one time, not so much anymore.


Artesia’s main north-south drag is Pioneer Boulevard and in particular the stretch from the 91 freeway to South Street is a city transformed from the city of my childhood. When I was younger, the Filipinos and Portuguese ruled the area closer to the freeway. By this I mean there was a Filipino restaurant, bakery and perhaps a tailor. There was also Portuguese Hall if you were in the mood for a tame bullfight, and the area I thought of as “The Portuguese Estates”; ostentatious homes plopped in the middle of a mediocre flat expanse was just off of Pioneer (as we called the Boulevard).


Further south on Pioneer, between 183rd and South streets, the Dutch presence took over. This area had yet a different kind of bakery, the Dutch bakery. It also had a feed store and furniture store. The bakery had the most delicious almond cakes I ever tasted. Thick little discs filled with almond paste and an almond half on top. My mom used to get them for my grandparents at Christmas. The feed store was the feed store, what can I say. I still have one near my home in Whittier (I think). There was also a great big feed store down the street from my Grandparent’s home in Lakewood with a giant, free-standing white rabbit on the façade of the building just beckoning passersby come and fulfill their feedy shopping needs.


Nice people that sold solid, no-nonsense stuff ran the furniture store. I remember a lot of colonial style fabrics and wood accents. You know this furniture. It lasts and lasts and your grandparents probably had some of it. You may have a green padded rocking chair inherited from one of them that is darned ugly but just too comfy to get rid of. Locals were granted credit the furniture store, even kids like me. Well not me but a high school mate. Ruben Cabrera, a boy remarkable for his decency, told the class after one of our Christmas breaks that he had bought his parents a bedroom set for Christmas. The teacher had asked us what we got for Christmas, and Ruben didn’t tell us what he got, which is all the rest of us cared about, but what he had done for his family. The teacher said, “did you get the furniture from Postma’s and when he said yes, our teacher just nodded knowingly. It was really a small community. I think Postma’s may be the last remaining Dutch business there.


Although the businesses were in pockets, the residential neighborhoods were more mixed. My mom’s neighborhood contained the cities Catholic Church. I loved to see the little Portuguese ladies waking to mass every morning, their heads covered in a lace shawls. The Dutch were most notable for their bumper stickers that said “If You Ain’t Dutch, You Ain’t Much”. Apparently they saw nothing wrong with this, much liked the “Real Men Love Jesus” stickers I was seeing a few years ago. They always made me think, so no Buddists are “real men”, no Hindus are “real men”, no Jews…, no Agnostics… you get it. The “If You Ain’t…” stickers struck me the same way. The Dutch kids went to Valley Christian; the Portuguese kids went to Artesia high school. The Dutch homes were clean and spartan. There were no nonsense affairs, no extraneous bushes or flowers, with the exception of a few bulbs. The Portuguese were much the same except that they usually had fava beans - great long things - growning in the front yard and grape arbors along the side or back of the house. For some reason, every Portuguese man I met was named Manuel. It was like the scene in Goodfellas where everyone at a wedding is introduced and there are three names used by 300 people. Oh you know what I mean.


The Artesia of my youth also housed my Grandpa Jim’s shop. We called it a shop because supposedly he was selling stuff. It was among the Dutch businesses and near by Red’s Barbershop. Grandpa bought damaged goods “off the docs”, whatever that means. He explained it to me that maybe the box was damaged, or had gotten wet in a corner, but most of the items in the lot were OK. He sold a weird assortment of things; china dolls, wall clocks and bicycles. He would take the clocks apart and try to put them back together. I really doubt that he sold anything. It may have all been a ruse to get away from my grandmother.


As I said, my Uncle John also lived there. John was the giant of my childhood. He was a huge man, retarded either since birth or from an early childhood disease. He was 6’8” and kind of scary looking. When I was a kid he lived with my Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jeanne in North Long Beach. He had a room in the garage and a visit there usually included John placing me on his shoulders and walking me around the yard. It was something, being lifted up to being 8 feet off the ground and paraded around like a float. When I think of John I mostly remember his voice, like the character in John Steinbeck’s novel made into a movie “Of Mice and Men”. John had a kind of dopey, but deep voice. And he would say,

Come on Jennifer, go for a ride

and I would say,

OK John, but don’t walk into the house, because you’ll knock my head on the door frame.

Then he would walk me into the house and knock me into the doorframe and leave me dazed, but happy.


The last time I saw Uncle John I hadn’t seen him for years. I knew he lived near by my Mom’s place, very near by, in the residential home. John took daily walks through the neighborhood that bordered his facility. I remember thinking he must have scared the neighborhood kids because he looked a little bit like Frankenstein. The last time I saw John, I was riding my skateboard through the neighborhood behind his home and he walked by me. I had probably last seen him face-to-face when I was 10 or 11; definitely when he lived with my Grandparents and at least a span of 5 years which is a long time in a kids life. And one day, I just skated by and he looked up and said, “Hi Jennifer”, and he kept walking. It was as if he saw me every day and not five years before.


I occasionally go to Artesia now, for Indian food or to get my eyebrows threaded. I have to honestly say I feel a fondness for it know that the town hardly seems to merit. It is a place I spent time. I place I spent time when I still had so many things I don’t have now – my childhood, my father, my grandparents, Uncle John, and so much time.