Author: whoisfenton

We have this centuries old relationship with animals.  They are our friends, our companions, our workmates, and more recently our YouTube™ stars.  We treat them as equals — except for the cats who are clearly our feline overlords.  We often receive pets from what we used to call “the pound” — now animal shelter — and these saved beings we refer to as rescue animals.

Depending on their age at being cast out and placed in the shelter, the rescue animal’s world view may be driven by instinct, survival and suspicion.  The new two-legged attendants will seem tenuous and strange and have an untrustworthy scent.  We simply don’t know where these animals have been or how they have been treated before arriving in our homes.

My daughter took in a rescue cat recently and is finding that its behavior is not as “personal” as she expected.  It is a nice cat and not a ball of hissing meanness, but it seems to lack certain personality traits that would make it more endearing, not to mention a future YouTube™ star.  Its style may also be a result of having been named Goose, but that is pure speculation on my part.

I think Goose just needs time to adjust to his new surroundings.  This may take awhile but before you know it Goose will be chasing shadows across the floor and leaping high over invisible rats, much to the delight of millions of adoring fans.

Taking in rescue animals is one of those things that we do that gives hope.  Despite our flaws and foibles, our ego and petty greed,  maybe we really are OK.  And when we save an animal, I wonder in turn if the animal saves us?

In the end we are all rescue animals, filled with doubt and history, learning to trust again down in the dirt where life happens.  When we reach up to touch our better angels, sometimes the angels reach back.

“The knowledge of all things is possible”

                                     ― Leonardo da Vinci

It is in the asking
Wondering what secrets
Make the wheel spin
And green crops grow.

How can it be this way
And not another?
Some dark mechanism
Awaits the dazzling light
Of understanding.

Through it all we watch
Quietly doing nothing
Or so it seems;
Yet in the silence
A most important text
Grows insistent and certain.

We are at once compelled
To place our hand
Where new words appear
Etched in primal stone;
Questions echo inside
To fill the book
Of the hollow world.

Case #3:  After the Game.

Baseball has always been my game and I even played a bit of organized ball back in my youth, going up as high as American Legion Ball, age 17.  Our team from Princeton, West Virginia would travel around to play the local teams on tired-looking baseball fields nestled amongst the mountains and woods of the region — true sandlot baseball.

We would take turns driving our personal cars if we had them, and I can remember one particular trip to play a team down in Roanoke, Va, about 90 minutes from Princeton.  I was one of three designated drivers that day, taking 5 guys in the old Plymouth.  One of the guys was our coach, a ne’er-do-well who eventually ran off with the team’s assets never to be heard from again.

Anyway, we made the trip to Roanoke and I believe won the game.  Like many things in baseball the outcome of the game is sometimes secondary to the story about the game.  Journey, destination, etc.

On the way back we stopped at a fast food place, had burgers and fries and of course giant sodas — in my case a giant cup of lemonade — which I couldn’t finish so I brought it with me in the car.  We do things at 17 that embarrass us later in life, and I am ashamed to say that I got caught up in the whole macho group-think behavior of young men headed back home after a road win in Roanoke.  I finished most of my drink and to prove how “edgy” I was, proceeded to thrown my giant half full cup of lemonade out the window — after first checking for cops.  Yes dear reader I LITTERED, OMG.

Or I would have littered if I had remembered to roll down the driver-side window before said throwing occurred.  The resultant explosion of ice and lemonade against the window left us momentarily stunned, followed by a kind of crazed laughter that one of us could be so, well, stupid.  Thus ended my venture into counterintuitive teenage  behavior, or perhaps that was the beginning, I can’t remember.

Case #4:  After the Sand.

I wrote earlier about my favorite body-surfing spot, Makapu’u Beach Park on the island of Oahu.  Every once in a while Neptune would smile upon Makapu’u and we would be blessed with perfect curling waves just right for riding.

After one such day in the surf and sand the gang decided to have lunch in the park’s  restaurant, not a five-star place but reasonably nice for a beachside restaurant.  We are sitting around and describing the waves, the rides, the wipeouts, and I decide to practice my nascent smalltalk skills with my fellow humans.  I describe my encounter with one particular wave, perhaps embellished by an excess of hubris.

I say, “…this one wave caught me by surprise and came right down on top of my head…”, and I use hand gestures to accompany the description of this wave crashing over me. 

Unfortunately I forgot that I was holding my glass in one hand and this traitorous hand proceeded to empty the contents of my glass upon me.  Yes, I actually did that.  What was I drinking you ask?  Vodka?  Moonshine?  I merely point to the title of this post and nod in weary resignation.

Over the years my attempts at smalltalk have continued their steep and rather alarming decline.  I would like to show you this decline visually, but I might stab myself with the pen I am holding.

A few years ago we went to one of the largest malls in the area, Crabtree Mall in Raleigh. While Young went into a store with the kids, I decided to wait outside, standing innocently near one of those empty booths, you know, the ones that are used to sell jewelry or watches. Judging from the garish sign on the front, this one was destined to become a car rental boutique.

I’m lounging near the booth with my back to the railing when a lady with three kids approaches me and asks, “Do you have any convertibles?”

I hold up my hands in a kind of fending off gesture and say, “No, I’m not here”.

I’m not here? What the hell does that mean?

In retrospect I suppose I could have done better than that — after all these sales opportunities don’t come along everyday — but there’s hindsight for you.  I turned and walked quickly away; fled, according to eyewitness accounts. As for the unfortunate woman with visions of convertible madness dancing in her head, I have to believe that her life was forever divided into the time before the weird sign guy, and the time after.

It is possible that I am here, however.

I  sometimes wonder about myself, and my ability to take the simplest event and twist it into a Gordian knot of unnecessary perplexity.

Case number 1: The Pictures.

Way, way (did I mention “way”?) back in the day, pictures were taken with something called a “camera” using a light sensitive material called “film”.  This film was then given to the local pharmacy who would ship it off to some mysterious lab deep in the Carpathian mountains on the Isle of Carpa.  These would then be developed and shipped back to the pharmacy in the form of photos (‘prints’) or small transparencies (‘slides’).  This whole process would take three or four days and it was always fun to view the blurry results of the Pulitzer Prize winning pictures taken sometime last week.  Occasionally, there would be a nice one.

Hawaii’s natural beauty begs to be photographed, and in my youth I would often take pictures of the ocean, sky and mountains; scenes of remarkable beauty and color.  I would drop off the roll of film, they would give me the receipt and I would make a note to return in a few days.  One fine day I did this and anxiously stood before the counter to receive my pictures. 

The lady working there says, “Hi,  prints?”  I didn’t expect this question so early in our social interaction, and I distinctly heard her say “Prince”?  To which I answer brightly, “No, Fenton.”  She sighs and says, “prints or slides?”  I say, “Oh, prints”, followed by a nervous and slightly hysterical giggle whilst looking down at my rubber slippers.

Many years have passed and I cannot tell you anything about the “prints” I received from the bemused clerk, but I remember with laser clarity the look she gave me and the odd way my mind works.

In legend, the Gordian knot has been described by Roman historians as “comprising several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened.”  Yeah, that’s about right.  And also, Prince.

The other night I happened upon an owl, sitting on a fence near our house.  Watching him watching me, I felt the momentary dread of the hunted as if this unusual apex predator had the necessary tools and desire to take me down like a water buffalo that has strayed too far from the herd.

The owl in flight is nearly silent, almost as silent as the owl standing there measuring you for dinner.   The only time you hear the owl is the ghostly hoot that emanates from deep in the forest just past the mounds of glistening water buffalo skeletons.

Owl eyes are very large in relation to the size of its head, and are more flat than spherical.  The eyes are fixed in the orbital socket, and to compensate the owl needs to turn its head to move its eyes.  Some species can rotate their heads an Exorcist-like 270 degrees.  Yikes.

From its unique behavior and preternatural stillness the owl has developed an extensive and rich cultural mythology.  These oral traditions have been passed down through the generations and often depict an owl sighting as a sign of impending death or a harbinger of doom. 

In the gathering darkness I can barely make out the owl, there on the fence, and I sense no real threat from this remarkable being.  I can only hope that we share a momentary curiosity, and acknowledgement of our place on the planet.  He turns and is gone, returning to the wind and the dark; silent, wise and free.

We like to believe that we can manage our own lives and make choices that bring order to random events.  For the most part this is true.  We learn that doing this is a bad idea, doing that is a better idea and so on.  But at some level there are circumstances simply beyond our control, events that happen outside our sphere of influence or problems that we inflict upon ourselves, flawed creatures that we are.

When we are in the throes of such episodes we ride the riptide of causality and place our fate in the hands of chaos.   The other day I did a pretty stupid thing and within the fabric of its telling you will sense a cautionary tale about Fate or Karma or Destiny interceding in one small way.

Leaving the office in Raleigh on the way back to Chapel Hill is something I have done hundreds of times.  On a day last week my hands were full of briefcase, water bottle, jacket, phone so I temporary put some things on the hood of the car, got out my keys, threw the briefcase, jacket and water bottle in the backseat and headed out.

Darn, almost out of gas so I head over to the trusty Exxon station before tackling the freeway.  Roads are busy in Raleigh and I am driving along a crowded street, when I hear a loud THUMP from the back of the car.  I have several thoughts at once; what was that sound?  Did someone hit me?  and WHERE IS MY PHONE??  I begin frantically searching my pockets and then I  distinctly remember putting the phone on the roof of the car.  OMG I left the phone on the roof of the car and drove off!  The sound I heard was the phone sliding down the rear window, bouncing off the trunk and onto the pavement where it was crushed into millions of tiny phone-like particles.  This is a very busy 4-lane highway, so no way can I circle back, race out into traffic and retrieve what is left of the phone — unless I want MY pieces scattered with the phone’s.  This was a brand spanking new iPhone X and very expensive.  It is to weep.

I am literally cursing myself in the car.  People next to me probably wonder what is wrong with that old dude?  Who is he talking too?  How could I be so stupid?  And I still need gas so I pull into the nearest station.  As I open the gas cap I spot,  impossibly, lodged in a space between the rear window and the trunk, MY PHONE.  It had somehow slide off the roof, down the window and gotten stuck in this unlikely crevice.  I quickly grab it to make sure it is not a mirage, not broken, still works.  I actually consider dancing a little jig next to the gas pump, but still have enough animal cunning to realize that such behavior is not within the acceptable guidelines of gasoline station etiquette.

A random bounce converted a total disaster into this story.  You might have heard the phrase, “Luck favors the bold”.  To that quote you may also add , “Luck sometimes favors the Bozo”.  

Signed,

“Bozo”

Alert to patterns
Our curious minds
Glance at starry nights
Translate galactic code;
Our personal language
Within the keening hum
Of life on Earth.

The things we know
Projected as thoughts
Upon the great sky canopy;
Of celestial stories
And legends revealed
Under a cloistered moon.

Who writes the book
Our upturned faces see?
Infinite spaces joined
With lines and dreams
Woven like a tapestry
Of shadows and kings.

Vagabond is one of those words that I just find cool, even without knowing what it means.  It could be a type of shoe, a car, a bicycle — heck it might be a rare form of marmoset living high in the Himalayas, known only to the most experienced Sherpa guides.  What is that strange little creature over there?  It’s a vagabond.

Back in the real world, a vagabond is an itinerant person, a wandering soul.  Earlier definitions, around 1400 A.D., also made this person a kind of criminal, although later this was lessened to simply “bum”.  The word vagabond comes to us from the Late Latin vagabundus meaning “wandering, strolling about”.  I digress in noting that Vaga Bundus would be a good name for a rock band, if they would stop wandering off the stage.

Latin vagari is also the root word for “vague”, although I am not certain about that.

Bada Bing.

Since I spoke about juggling and boomerangs, I thought I would mention kites to complete the trifecta of toys that guided my early years on the planet.

The Spring days of March and April bring not just showers but wind.  I can remember building our kites from these assemblies of lightweight sticks and paper, and fighting with my brothers over who had the “best” one.  Then it was out into the sun and wind where we would run to get the dad-blamed things off the ground, and then using a series of tugs and pulls gradually feed the string out until the kite obtained incredible heights.  I remember once we got a kite to stay up all the way until the end of the string, making it little more than a red dot against the blue sky.  They let me hold it then, and I could feel the power in the wind and childish joy at being part of such a distant and miraculous thing.

Years later, in Hawaii, a friend of mine was into sports kites, the kind that use two lines to control the kite and make it do tricks and loops.  These are great fun and and he let me handle the two control lines.  Easy to use but hard to master.  The pull against my arms and hands brought me back to those very early days out in the fields of my youth; a kind of wind-memory.

The kite is also a European bird of prey, sometimes called an “inferior hawk”, a name which makes any self-respecting kite flounce from the room in indignation.  Inferior indeed!  The word kite comes to us from the old English word cyta, which is likely an imitation of the sound a kite makes, still smarting over the “inferior” hawk meme.

Finally it is possible to kite someone, meaning knowingly write a bad check.  No connection to the wind or the birds as far as we know.