Whirl

Thanks to my neighbors, I can say I was a farm boy.

Mr. and Mrs. Ray worked a small subsistence farm in what my dad called “the bottoms” (by that he meant the wide, flat, and once fertile expanses of land which surround the Red River in southwest Arkansas). The couple scratched out a life on that farm for more than 50 years. In the mid 1960’s, their children bought them the little home on a five acre plot next to ours. Their intention was to give their parents some well deserved rest—but the Rays weren’t having any of that. They worked that patch of land as though it were a 1000 acre ranch. At one time they had seven cows, a mule, what seemed like a billion chickens, at least a dozen hogs and even a dozen or so guineahens.

Dad thought they were crazy. But I loved it. It was like having a petting zoo right next door. And as I got older, it got even cooler. I went from milking cows (for a quarter) to trapping and killing rats in the stockyard (this I did for free—who wouldn’t?).

Today I can only remember bits and fragments about them…that bothers me. I can’t even remember their first names. The small things I can remember are priceless to me.

Mrs. Ray was the classic nosey neighbor. We were on the same party line, and she often listened in on our calls—which drove my mother nuts! But then she and mom would spend hours talking in her kitchen—where she churned butter every morning. In the fall, when they butchered the hogs, she would build a fire in her yard and render lard and pork rinds in a large black cast iron kettle. I’ve seen her ring a chickens neck with about as much emotion as a brick. I also watched as she calmly tended to her grandson’s big toe, after he managed to nearly cut it off with an axe.

I know less about Mr. Ray. I can tell you that he worked a quarter acre garden with a mule and plow—well into the 1970’s. From our air conditioned living room, I remember seeing him pause in the midday sun for a drink of water. Every year, he let his pasture renew by grazing his cows in the neighbor’s field; herding them across the road in the morning and back to the barn every evening.

The division of labor was pretty typical. Both of them did the milking, and Mr. Ray did the outside heavy work—while she took care of him and pretty much everything else. She raised the chickens, but he would scout the nearby countryside for guinea eggs.

They owned the meanest dog in the neighborhood: Teddy, a scalded, half mad chow who he slept in the middle of the road. His right hind quarter was a lunar landscape of welded pink and blue skin. The scar tissue started about an inch below his tail and ran down the entire length of his leg—including the poor dog’s undercarriage. It’s no wonder he had a death wish.

And I can infer a little more. They probably married very young—she was likely in her teens. The two of them had a few rituals. Mr. Ray would read the paper to his unschooled wife every day. They drove to church every Sunday, and to town for what few supplies they needed, every other week. To me at least, they seemed to be much more in love than my parents were. Most summer evenings, I would see them holding hands on their porch, and—in younger days—the two of them procreated merrily. They raised several children and had (seemingly) thousands of Grandchildren. Christmas at the Ray’s was a huge homecoming event. Cars filled the lawn, the tree took up half their tiny living room, and gas ceramic heaters kept the tiny house very cozy.

For mom and I they were a temporary refuge.

For me they were also a source of knowledge. Through them I had a small window into a rapidly fading way of life. It was the same hard life my grandparents lived. The life that killed my paternal grandfather when my father was only 14—forcing dad to leave school to help his mother with exactly the same activities.

World War Two rescued him from that farm, but in the Rays he saw the life that almost trapped him.

He never forgave them for it.

© 2007, by Rodney Gleghorn. All rights Reserved

In 1985, I was assigned to a remote island in Alaska. This island, Shemya, is near the very end of the Aleutian chain. It is a narrow windswept tongue of land, constantly bombarded by the elements.

Most of my free time on Shemya was spent in solitude; hiking the beaches; exploring the remnants of World War II encampments; and watching the wildlife. I jumped and climbed over gorgeous tide pools; each packed with life and presenting brilliant, seemingly pulsating colors: pinks, cobalt blues, violent reds. I watched puffins nesting and witnessed ravens somersaulting in the updrafts from the cliffs.

Of all the rocky crags and beaches, my favorite place to linger was the Northern beach, which faced the Bering Sea. I would spend hours just sitting there, watching the ravens and listening to the giant waves as they pounded ashore. The beach was not made of sand. Instead it consisted of rocks, large rocks—all bigger than a softball, many as large as a football. And each and every one of them was worn as round as a pebble you might find in a mountain stream. They served as a testament to the power of the Bering’s surf. When the huge waves would roll in and out, they would carry these hefty stones with them as easily you or I might brush the snow off our windshield. You could hear a deep rumble as the rocks pounded against each other. It was at once a beautiful and frightening expression of nature’s force.

I believe the majesty of nature adds scale to our lives. Something by which we can measure the sheer fragility of our existence, and thus gain an appreciation for the gift this life really is. I also believe most of us spend too little time doing exactly that.

Instead, the brute force of nature has been taken as a challenge to mankind’s ego. We’ve spent centuries trying to bend it to our will. Unfortunately, with much success.

We’ve straightened and damned our rivers, and then used the water to build artificial and unsustainable desert cities. We rip the tops off of our mountains to get at a dwindling resource. And then we pump the deconstructed remnants of that resource into our air; thus destroying our atmosphere—the fragile blanket that makes us safe and makes life on earth possible.

All so that we can win the race—be the next one on the block to own the bigger car, the flatter television, the best fake boobs.

We measure our worth in the eyes of others instead of seeking out that which fills our hearts with wonder—be it a waterfall, the smile of a child, or the smell of a summer storm.

Kurt Vonnegut once said:

“We’re terrible animals. I think that the Earth’s immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.”

Source: interview with Jon Stewart, The Daily Show (14 September 2005)

In this sense, I find the force of nature very reassuring—it points to the gaian like ability of our planet to remedy itself from the hurt we inflict upon it. I’m not just speaking brute force: the power of hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or other natural phenomena. This force of nature also exist in the micro. I’m referring our atmosphere’s ability to decompose and re-order the leavings of our society. You can see it in our streets, our buildings, any manmade object we cast aside. Give nature enough time without interference, and it will be gone.

So this is the up side of global warming: thanks to our own stubbornness and short term thinking, we may all die. But the earth will go on. It will recover.

Pity not the planet, pity the fools who think they control it.

© 2007 by Rodney Gleghorn, all rights reserved.

One of my earliest memories is of two giant fluffy creatures loping across the yard towards me. Candy and Rex were German Shepherd puppies. Rex would grow to be the classic black and tan, while Candy was black and silver. Both would be part of our lives for many, many years. Candy with us and Rex with our maternal grandmother, Maudie.

In our society today dogs are literally part of the family, living inside, sharing the furniture, going to daycare, and shopping—I can even bring my dog to work. We spend billions on them annually.

But in the 1960’s, at least in the south, at least to a country farmer, dogs were simply domesticated property. My parents were both raised on a farm during the depression. Thus they wholly subscribed to this model. And so they didn’t cut our pets very much slack—especially dad. Our grandmother held to the same view, but personally, I think she was just mean.

Grandma still lived on the family farm, or what was left of it, just a few miles northeast of Fulton, Arkansas. Her dog Rex lived a fairly long life for a country dog, which was absolutely astonishing because Maude was constantly shooting at him.

She used a 22 caliber rifle to call Rex home (and to shoot mockingbirds…another story entirely). If he was out of sight, she’d shoot in the air three times. But if she could see him she’d shoot just over his head “to get his attention”. Either Rex was good at dodging bullets or Maude was a very good shot—I strongly favor the latter theory.

But I digress. This essay started as a simple attempt to list every dog I’ve ever known. That proved too unwieldy so I tried to narrow it to a list of all the dogs that were part of my family, either as an adult or a child.

Eventually, I had a list of 14 dogs including Parker, our current dog. But I had difficulty putting the list in chronological order. I’m 48, and it’s hard to remember where my glasses are, much less a set of abstracted dates from forty years ago. So I did the most sensible thing I could think of at the time and called my mother. Though she is 84, she can recall every single transgression I ever embarked on during my childhood, so I felt it was a prudent move. She would be able to help me sort all of this out.

I was wrong. She began by instantly muddying the waters. “What about that hound of yours that had puppies?”

“Mom, I had two beagles, and both of them were male. This must have happened after I left home.”

“Those puppies were your fault.”

“How could it be my fault Mom? Are you suggesting I impregnated the hound myself? ”

“Don’t be disgusting. You begged us to bring the puppies in because the mother died.”

An inkling of recognition began to raise its head—I could remember that we (by “we”, of course I mean mom) hand raised a litter of puppies, but I couldn’t back down now. Besides, I also remember an exploding jug of homemade wine—and being sworn to secrecy lest my father find out. My mother could not always be trusted.

“Maybe it was one of dad’s bird dogs?”

“It was not one of those damn smelly birddogs! If it had been, I would have left the damn things to die!”

This was just posturing of course, she would never have ignored a helpless animal.

We went on for a few more minutes and she did remember some of the dates, not to mention a few more transgressions (some of which were clearly my brother’s). Plus, in addition to the mysterious pregnant hound, mom also recalled a collie puppy I’d completely forgotten—though neither of her could remember her name.

So, not including smelly bird dogs, this is the most complete and accurate list I can attest to, in chronological order—including my mother’s somewhat dubious testimony:

In our society today dogs are literally part of the family, living inside, sharing the furniture, going to daycare, and shopping—I can even bring my dog to work. We spend billions on them annually. But in the 1960’s, at least in the south, at least to a country farmer, dogs were simply domesticated property. My parents were both raised on a farm during the depression. Thus they wholly subscribed to this model and didn’t cut our pets very much slack.

It’s hard to be a dog in any environment. Primarily because they are utterly dependent on humans and it seems, more often than not, we’re real bastards. But it isn’t all our fault. Dogs tend to make some really bad decisions. Here’s a randomized list of true behaviors from various dogs I’ve known:

• Poor Dietary Choices:
  • Frequently eating paper towels, thus leading to extreme discomfort (for all of us) a day or so later.
  • Eating through drywall.

• Poor Spatial Acuity:
  • Trying to squeeze through of the narrow window of a transport cage—and getting stuck in the process.
  • Running head first into a wall with a sharp stick in his mouth—thus jamming it through the roof of his mouth and almost into his, apparently empty, cranium.

• Unwarranted Risk Taking:
  • Sleeping in the middle of the road.
  • Chasing cars.
  • Jumping out of a moving car.
  • Rushing into a burning house.
  • Catching and eating bees.
  • Taking a dump on the front seat of my brother’s truck. My brother actually deserved this one, but the dog was taking a huge risk. You should never mess (no pun intended) with a southern man’s truck.

• Poor Hunting Ability:
  • Chasing a skunk into the crawlway beneath our home.
  • Retrieving a tortoise instead of a rabbit(tortoises are not really dangerous, but pissed off redneck hunters are).

But none of this excuses any of us from our responsibility. It is our job to provide our pets with an environment that shields them from harm, and even from their own stupidity. When I look at the dogs in my life, I can see we (my parents and I) failed miserably.

Our failure is such a disservice because every one of our dogs gave us something very real—much more than just a few laughs. The puppies gave me untold hours of joy and play—a daily respite from the confusing cruelties of a master I did not get to choose. For ten years Candy was my closest friend and bodyguard—roaming the woods and fields with me, never more than a few yards away.

Mom would somehow manage to complain about the dogs and yet still fret over them. Little Bo Diddley was the first animal she allowed to live inside her house, and I know she took shelter within his enormous love. We were on vacation on the night of the fire. Our neighbor actually took Bo Diddley from the house and set him down safely in the yard. But he ran back in. To this day mom believes he was looking for us.

As I became an adult, I withdrew and hardened. As a teenager, I didn’t have time for dogs. I focused on escape; joining the Air force as soon as I finished high school. It took me a great many years to shake off the callous attitude I inherited.

When I first became a family man, I insisted our pets be kept outside. Eventually, I softened enough to allow them inside. But even then, as my children were growing, I was inconsistent. I brought them into our family just so that my children could have the same experiences as I. Yet I did so without regard to consequences, and I was too quick to toss them aside for the sake of convenience: selling them instead of taking them with us when we moved; euthanizing them instead of helping them through their final years.

This set a horrible example for my children, who both had (and still have), so much more capacity for love than I could muster. And it denied me the opportunity to open up and allow our dogs to guide me forward; to once again take refuge in their simple devotion and trust.

Today I have managed to return to a near human state. Parker is doted over to the point of making our grown children jealous. His transgressions are forgiven and his poor judgment is buffered. I owe him so much more. He lives for many who went before.

© 2007 by Rodney Gleghorn, all rights reserved.

She was but a girl—maybe not in body, but certainly in heart and spirit. Her name was Cora and she’d only been in Angeles a few weeks. She said she was 16 (the age of consent in the Philippines), but I sensed a little younger. She still carried the innocence of the province with her: astonished eyes, bashful smile and a strong sense of optimism. In every respect she was the classic old world definition of virginal: very young, very pretty, very catholic, and probably fertile enough to conceive from a bed stain.

Doc’s was a new bar just outside the main gate. I’d been hanging around mainly because of the hamburgers. It was hard to get a good hamburger in the PI and somehow, Doc (and American expat) had managed to do the trick. Cora would serve me hamburgers and beer on quiet Saturday afternoons and we’d talk. I enjoyed her company. It was good to talk with a girl without falling into the usual bargirl script. Though she was young, she was smart, plus (this is probably the part I liked best) she seemed to be enthralled with anything I had to say.

Maybe she saw me as a safe alternative to the other GI’s (especially the Marines)—quiet and non-threatening. I’d been kind to her and clearly liked her. But who knows the psychology at work in the brain of a 16 year old girl? In suburban America, she might have been pining away for some high school senior or college freshman. Mom and dad would have been there, standing watch at the gates with both a sense of responsibility and the law to protect them.

But Cora was enamored with a 22 year old airman with a growing substance abuse problem and a tendency towards hedonistic pursuits. She was totally vulnerable and headed for harm’s way. Her mom was certainly nowhere to be seen, and it’s even possible that dad had sold her into this life in the first place (it’s also just as likely that she ran away). The law here did not serve to protect young girls, it was simply Marcos‘ instrument of revenue.

Here in the Philippines, fifteen year old bar girls were not planning trips to the malls. They were working seven days a week to pay off a debt designed to drive them in one direction. So for Cora, her virginity was a growing financial liability. Every day she remained behind the bar, she built more debt to the owner—all to allegedly cover her room and board. She was trapped.

I knew that, but she didn’t. Cora believed she could earn her way out of the bar—maybe all the way to the USA–by crossing to the other side of it. She believed in a fairy tale (the ever popular, marital rescue scenario) and in it, I was Prince Charming.

But at that moment, in the light of a fading afternoon, I couldn’t see any of this. I was just enjoying her company.

She asked me to take her to a movie. A matinee of course because she was not allowed to leave the bar at night. She bugged me about this for several weeks before I agreed. So on the appointed day, at the appointed time, I picked her up and took her to the only theater in town. Ironically, the movie was The Ten Commandments (why they were showing this movie in 1982, I’ll never know). So for the next three hours the atheist and the virgin watched Charlton Hesston, Cecil B. DeMille, and God do very manly things.

It was close to four when we left the theater. She had to be back at the bar by six and I had food on the brain. “I’m hungry” I said, “were would you like to go?”, thinking she would name a restaurant.

But she didn’t. She looked at me, and in the most hesitant of voices, her lips actually shaking and her eyes down said, “to your house?”

This was my moment of realization. Now I understood what she really wanted. A better, more thoughtful man might have taken her to a quiet restaurant and talked to her. A genuine bastard might have taken her to his bed. I was neither, I hailed a tricycle and dropped her straight back at the bar with hardly a word.

I didn’t return to Doc’s for a couple of weeks. Nature had taken its course. Another young GI (probably several by that juncture) had interceded where I had failed. The resultant transformation was startling. Little Cora had become a whore.

She and a friend greeted me with derision and peppered me with insults to my manhood. I had, after all, rejected her advances—and just look what I had missed out on! She was a woman now! She didn’t need me!

Cora stood on my side of the bar, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and spoke to me in a gravelly voice. She yelled out crude comments in crude english to her fellow bar girls. Eventually, she drifted off to wrap herself around the body of another wiry airman. Leaving me in peace.

Everything I saw convinced me I had done the right thing. Let some other guy live with the guilt—I had a clear conscious.

It was a bullshit rationalization. My conscious was a lot more muddied than the asshole who had actually done the deed. And behind him there would have been a hundred more, lining up for the privilege, with the full support and backing of the United States Government. It felt good to tell myself that I was the noble one in all of this. I said no when others guys couldn’t. This moral superiority bullshit was just a way of covering my guilt for how I treated her.

For years after, I kept telling myself that to survive in the Philippines I had to grow a skin. I let myself think that though I could see the misery, I could not fix it; not with a few coins in a childs hand, or by trying to talk one young girl into going home. And I also rationalized away the damage I was doing as a willing consumer of the corruption and smut.

We airmen were living on an economic island of suffering—fueled by our paychecks, our hormones, our addictions, and our arrogance.

Just a few miles away from that base you would have found a set of values that are were pretty much the same as our own. For Cora, losing her virginity was the ticket to a short life of dancing, drugs, and disease.

I believe she lived, got out, made it to America and is now wrapped in peace, respect, dignity, and compassion. I have to believe that, it’s how I live with myself.

© 2007 by Rodney Gleghorn, all rights reserved.