Hope can be contagious

Hope can be contagious . . .

Neal A. Maxwell

Hope can be contagious if you are infected right;

symptoms are a peaceful joy and walking in the light.

The devil will inoculate you with a dose of sin,

turning hope into despair -- replacing gold with tin.

I want to be a carrier of hope consistently;

Oh Lord, make me thine vessel of the true expectancy!

The Mortgage Lingers On

"Home is where you hang your head" is the memorable phrase coined by James Thurber. I wish I could have spent more time hanging the old noggin in a shanty of my own. But now it's too late -- I've grown lax and prodigal in my old age -- my current apartment has the advantage of being both rent-subsidized and easy for my daughters to clean and fumigate once a year when I offer to take them and their kids out to Chick-fil-A. 
Although I spent a goodly portion of my productive working life on an extended sawdust wanderjahr, I have always had a soft spot for hearth and home. Whenever I hear John Howard Payne's paean to domesticity, "Home Sweet Home," my lachrymose instincts kick in and I mewl like a sucking babe deprived of its mother's bazoombas.

I basically grew up in just one home. My parents did not believe in mobility of any kind -- upward or sideways or any other way you want to slice it. 900 -19th Avenue Southeast, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only abode I ever knew. My parents moved us there in 1954 and my widowed mother did not leave the place until 1996. 
Alas, my own perambulating star led me to drag my family from pillar to post for fifteen years -- and so we spent most of our lives together in rented digs. 

But I did manage to briefly acquire mortgages on three different homes during our married outing.

Our first home was in Bottineau, North Dakota, in the midst of the rather disingenuously named Turtle Mountains -- rolling pine covered hills in the center of the state near the Canadian border. We were renting a ramshackle hovel that was in the chill shadow of grain elevators for most of the day, and that was slowly being consumed by black fungus. We had already closed off the main bedroom and were unhappily preparing to evacuate the living room when a lucky stroke put us in touch with a local FHA official who needed to unload a small house on a large lot just outside of town. It only had one bedroom, but a huge attic, so we snapped it up for a song -- which turned out to be "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" as I vainly tried to patch up the cistern in the basement. Each time it rained the cistern would fill a few inches and then let the water seep out onto the basement floor -- creating a disturbing damp and decayed odor akin to used gym socks unearthed from an ancient Egyptian tomb after millennia. 

But it was a happy house, for the most part. The mortgage payment, if I remember aright, was a mere $125.00 a month -- and that included the mandatory home owners insurance and escrow for property taxes. And our first daughter Madeleine was born while we lived there. 

I have no regrets, no apologies to make, for leaving that rustic idyll to go work as a clown at Circus World, in Haines City, Florida, just a few months later. It was an opportunity of a lifetime -- just not MY lifetime. For reasons that need not concern us here I was shortly ejected from the park and took my family on a sightseeing trip to several fascinating trailer parks across the United States. 

We ended up back in North Dakota, living with Amy's parents, when I was offered the position of Ronald McDonald for the state of Kansas. The salary was generous and the hours required were few and far between. So Amy and I spent many hours looking for a home of our own on those windswept plains. After a few months in a Wichita apartment building that featured an outdoor swimming pool filled with man-eating algae and a colorful assortment of hungover teenagers rehearsing to be derelicts, we found a cozy three-bedroom place next to the railroad yard. With money from a sitcom script I sold to an actor friend in Chicago (who promptly frosted the manuscript with concrete and sunk it in Lake Michigan) we made a down payment and moved in on a mild spring day -- only to be cowering in the bathtub a few hours later when the entire town came under a tornado alert. The house, you see, lacked a basement. We spent many pleasant evenings huddled in the bathtub like sardines while the Kansas zephyrs howled around us like banshees.

When I lost THAT job a year later (an undocumented payaso took the job away from me, de verdad!) we rented out the house and went back to North Dakota so Amy could pursue a Masters in Special Education at Minot State University. Our tenants had an allergic reaction to all the copper plumbing in the house, ripping it out and prudently selling it for seed money to start a meth lab. By the time the police had frog-marched them off to the hoosegow our home was a gutted shell, not worth the peel of an onion. We let it go for back taxes. 

I vowed to never again be lulled into a financial debacle by dreams of home ownership. But Dame Fortune, that cunning termagant, placed us back in my birthplace, Minneapolis, for a telemarketing job with Fingerhut (during a hiatus from the circus, due to an unfounded rumor that I had once described cotton candy as 'pink kapok' in a magazine article -- what I actually wrote was that cotton candy was a 'dentists' delight,' a huge difference: am I right?)

And wouldn't you know it, there was a home for sale directly across the street from my old stomping grounds, Van Cleve Park. We went to look at the house one Sunday after church -- merely to pass the time until our slow cooker tripe and trotters had cooled off. There was a stained glass window illuminating the staircase and regal oak wainscotting in the parlor -- but I remained adamant that we were better off in our current rented townhouse, even if our next door neighbors liked to turn their living room into a bowling alley after midnight.

The realtor, a direct descendent of Machiavelli, cornered me, and, with a devious smile worthy of Old Scratch himself, mentioned in an off-hand manner that the place could be had with absolutely no money down -- to a family with more than three children; the city council had started an initiative to bring more families into the inner city, and they were willing to fund all down payment expenses if the right phylum could be found. Panting like the hart after the waterbrooks, I signed on the dotted line, testifying that Amy and I were the proud and harried possessors of rugrats galore. We moved in two weeks later.

And discovered a tribe of squirrels in the attic, who apparently had squatter's rights dating back to the Spanish-American War. A month after we moved in the bathtub upstairs emitted a gentle sigh and gave up the sudsy ghost, sending a slurry of Mr. Bubble into the floor joists just above the dining room. The wooden garage was infested with so many carpenter ants that the only thing holding it up was a coat of paint. 

I could go on, but why bother? That haunted house sucked up money as fast as I could make it. And so we decided to pull up stakes (before the carpenter ants got 'em) and move out to Utah, where a shining opportunity awaited me as a writer . . . 

And THAT particular literary Waterloo will be fully explicated in future episodes of this folie a deux -- for now, suffice it to say that never again did we own our own home -- nor did I own my own home when I was cast adrift and went back, first to the circus, and then to Thailand. And then back to the circus . . . 

No siree bob -- owning property is just not my cup of Pero. Today I'm a happy man, with no mortgage hanging over my head. Only cobwebs.    

Postcard to a Friend in San Francisco

Some find it easier to bend their knees than their minds.

Neal A. Maxwell. 1926 - 2004,

(Some) find it easier to bend their knees than their minds. 

Neal A. Maxwell

The older I become in years

the more I'm governed by my fears;

inflexible when new things come,

my spirit of adventure's numb.

Oh Lord more pliable I'd be

to find fresh ways to worship thee!

Have mercy on my stubborn heart,

so from stale rote I may depart.

Choir Class with Mr. Sandusky: Memories of Marshall-University High School

Marshall-University High School, c.1969. Minneapolis, MN.

Like most Minneapolis teenagers, I spent a longish six years in high school back in the late 60's and early 70's. I can't speak to the architecture of high schools today in the Mini-Apple, but fifty years ago they were all built along the lines of Sing Sing and Alcatraz as seen in old Warner Brothers movies -- grim and battleship grey, exuding a repressive effluvium that extinguished joie de vivre like mustard gas. 

I entered the halls of Marshall-University High School each dreary morning, underneath a portal that read "ABANDON ALL HOPE AND CHEWING GUM YE WHO ENTER HERE." Hunkering down, I slogged from class to class in a miserable fug, dodging bullies and furtively ogling Nordic blondes. What was the purpose of attending algebra or print shop, when all I wanted to do in life was create spasms of nonsense like Jerry Lewis? 

I resented the pushy hormones that transformed my pudgy child's body into an adolescent automaton, subject to imperative chemical innuendos over which I could exercise little, if any, control. I was a shambling sitcom cliche.

There were very few classes, or teachers, that I enjoyed during that time. Certainly one of the least prepossessing teachers I came in contact with was the choir teacher Mr. Sandusky.

For reasons that remain as mysterious as Dr. Watson's Giant Rat of Sumatra, I had to take either band or choir. Since my efforts on the violin were a farcical disaster while in grade school, I elected to try out my pipes instead. 

The choir room reflected the faded glory of the Minneapolis Public Schools System. It was a large and airy space, with a knotty pine floor polished to a tacky glow; scuffing it with sneakers produced a piercing squeak akin to cartoon mice having their tails pulled off. The florescent lights high above on the stamped tin ceiling flickered dolefully, fitfully illuminating red plush folding choir seats that were faded to a tired pink and speckled with fossilized chewing gum.

Mr. Sandusky, a rolypoly specimen who looked like a Toby jug and nursed an incipient goiter on his neck, was known at as an "easy pass." One year away from retirement, he frankly no longer cared about teaching anything or attempted any sort of classroom discipline. He served out his time with the absolute minimum of effort by arbitrarily changing the emphasis from actual singing to mere 'music appreciation.' He put on choral records, something by Mozart or Gilbert & Sullivan, and then cradled his chin in his hands, elbows on his desk, with a faraway, dreamy look that slowly turned to catatonia as the hour proceeded and the students became more obstreperous by the minute. 

Displaying their Slavic upbringing, many of the boys from 'Nordeast' Minneapolis played uproarious rounds of durak -- the Russian version of 'Go Fish.' Others used the janitor's tall wooden rod capped with a black iron hook to unlock and open the cathedral-like windows behind the choir seats for a smoke break. Still others were plugged in by earphone to KDWB on their transistor radios, listening to endless repetitions of 'Black is Black.'

I actually attempted to listen to the records Mr. Sandusky listlessly played. Despite his stultifying efforts to ruin my appreciation of vocal music, it was in his class that I fell in love with such heavenly whimsy as H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado. I gave my parents the screaming meemies by constantly strolling around the house singing "My Object All Sublime"   

Not that I purposely tried to brown nose the man, but at the end of the school year I fully expected a good grade from him. Imagine, then, my chagrin when he gave me a measly B-minus! Deciding to beard the jackal in his den on the very last day of school, I strode into the choir room on that balmy June day -- only to find him gleefully shredding a yellowing copy of Carl Sandburg's "The American Songbag." His yellow face, fully animated for the first time in my experience, had the ghastly sheen of a pyromaniac let loose in a match factory. Luckily he never noticed my entrance, so I simply backed silently out of the choir room and fled down the hall.

I still have the feeling he spent his retirement as a creepy mime in Paris. 

Grounded, Rooted, Established, and Settled

Neal A. Maxwell. 1926 - 2004.

Events and circumstances in the last days make it imperative for us as members of the Church to become more grounded, rooted, established, and settled.

Neal A. Maxwell

Settled in my mind that Christ is Savior of all flesh,

I look to Him alone my damaged spirit to refresh.

Established in eternity before the world was built,

His redemptive love defeats a world sunk far in guilt.

The roots of Christian testimony, watered by good deeds,

protect me from the choking tangle of the devil's weeds.

I need to be more grounded and less prone to loose designs,

to take delight more fully in the Lamb of God's guidelines.

The last days as foretold by prophets shortly will appear;

I hope to face them with God's love and not dark worldly fear!

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The Perfect Breakfast

I was a pretty tough customer as a child when it came to eating. I did not enjoy most of the ordinary viands a home in the Midwest during the middle years of the Twentieth Century provided. Anything in a can was suspect. Elbow macaroni was made of arsenic. And my own overheated imagination populated every head of iceberg lettuce with silent green grubs, awaiting the opportunity to bore into my brain pan from the roof of my mouth.

The only food fit for an eight year old boy to eat was french fries doused in ketchup and hamburgers sans any hint of mustard but smothered in dill pickle chips. And a glass of milk. Anything else was slop.

My sainted mother made sure I got a lot of slop. We fought over her culinary child abuse hammer and tongs for many a long year, but her overbearing manner made it difficult for me to put her under my hypnotic sway with the Svengali-like passes I practiced so frequently in front of the bathroom mirror. She was immune to both reason and mesmerism.

Take, for example, her rude attempt at breakfast. Everyone and their iguana knows that little boys need waffles drenched in syrup for their morning meal. My mother only made them on Sunday mornings, and she spoiled the pleasure of the whole shebang by limiting the amount of Log Cabin syrup I could drown my waffle in to a trifling quart. The rest of the week I was stuck with cracked porcelain bowls of Malt-O-Meal in the winter and Kellogg's cornflakes in the summer. Flaccid stodge of the worst kind. I eventually swore on a white and red checkered copy of Better Homes Cook Book that when I was finally emancipated from my mother's doleful attempts at nutrition I would run riot, especially when it came to breakfast. 

And so I did. At age 17 I miraculously escaped to the Ringling Brothers Circus Winter Quarters in Venice, Florida, as a First of May -- a new clown. As my slender means allowed, I began patronizing the nearest IHOP up in Sarasota. Fondly do I recall glutting myself on Swedish pancakes with lingonberry syrup until it began slowly dribbling down my earlobes like pahoehoe. I haunted the innumerable greasy spoons that lined U.S. Highway 41, to sample their biscuits with sausage gravy; an oleaginous achievement guaranteed to clot the arteries of a bull moose. 

And then, once the show hit the road and my finances became even more parlous, I discovered sardines in Louisiana hot sauce. A can of those babies cost a mere thirty-five cents, and there was no need for a plate or bowl -- just a cheap white plastic fork. While my fellow clowns looked on askance I would tear into at least two cans each morning, wiping the greasy chum off my chin with my sleeve. 

Once the circus hit the metropolitan East Coast I became a slave to bagels, cream cheese, and gravlax. Eaten with slices of raw cucumber, it quickly became an addictive ritual that depleted my pocketbook so efficiently that I began cadging pizza crusts left over from clown alley blowouts just for sustenance. When the show moved west into the Corn Belt I had to go cold turkey in Des Moines, settling for an Iowa chop with scrambled eggs to assuage my hunger pangs. 

Huevos rancheros in Texas. Avocado toast in California. Wheatgerm with goat's milk in Oregon. Cheddar bratwurst nestling on a bed of hard boiled eggs in Milwaukee. My impervious stomach welcomed them all with equanimity. 

Then I married Amy, and we had her whole wheat pancakes, rain or shine, for the next fifteen years. They were good and stuck to my ribs, but as I grew older my innards relaxed their hold on the means of egress -- and whole wheat became too cathartic for me. So I switched to ramen noodles in the morning, which Amy took as a personal insult to her cooking . . . 

When I was single again I relapsed back into sardines, until I moved to Thailand, where I rejoiced over their tangy rice porridge each sunrise. It's chock-a-block with chicken broth, tamarind paste, galangal root, cilantro, and a host of other exotic botanicals, with a salted duck egg diced into it. Fortified with malt vinegar, crushed peanuts, fish sauce, fermented soybeans, and a soupcon of mouse dropping chili paste, it seemed a tropical ambrosia to me -- until I developed a severe case of Bangkok belly and was restricted to a diet of rice crackers and soda water by my doctor. By the time I had recovered, my visa was permanently expired so I left the country -- never to return.

The next several years were a sorry mixture of supermarket pastries or yogurt smoothies to greet the dewy morn. My taste buds attenuated until I couldn't tell the difference between a can of Hormel's corned beef hash and a bowl of Quaker Five-Minute grits. Breakfast, it seemed, had become a lost cause.

But then, five years ago, I moved into my present abode -- Valley Villas Senior Housing, in Provo, Utah. And cater-corner to me is the Fresh Market, an independent grocery store. They sell, among other things, pig's ears, fresh tripe, pickled okra, and fresh baked jalapeno/cheddar bagels. After some trial and error I have settled on a jalapeno/cheddar bagel, toasted, with cream cheese, and a slice of gravlax -- with whole scallions on the side -- as the perfect breakfast for my declining years. It's pungent, convenient, and goes down well with a cold bottle of chocolate whole milk. The gravlax at Fresh Market is hellishly expensive, and so I don't treat myself to this perfect morning repast more than three times a week. But on the days I do indulge in this delight I find the world is a better place for a certain pudgy, flat-footed, and dreamy Norwegian scion and Siamese refugee to live in.

My Flabby Faith

Just as reading and learning about muscles is not enough to build muscle, reading and learning about faith without adding action is insufficient to build faith.
Juan Pablo Villar

My flabby faith has troubled me for many laggard years;

as I have pondered on my lack I almost have shed tears.

Some day I must be up and doing what the Lord intends,

no matter what the sacrifice -- of course, that all depends

on Netflix shows I'm watching and the bunions on my feet,

plus whether I am on a roll while happily I tweet.

So if it is convenient I will faith so exercise

that angels will rejoice (or maybe drop dead of surprise.)

I think that humor is a very essential part of rich and radiant living.

Hugh B. Brown. 1883 - 1975.

 I think that humor is a very essential part of rich and radiant living.

Hugh B. Brown

The humorist provides a way

to help us face our trials each day.

To cause a smile or laugh instead

of crying over what we dread

is work that God esteems, I trow,

to keep his children safe from woe.

 And so a jester I would be,

to serve with angels (possibly . . . )