Fleeting Memories

Sometimes a memory comes zipping through my mind for no apparent reason, some good, some not so. Yesterday one that I have carried around for sixty years or so visited me, and I smiled at remembering it. I once saw a man riding a fast horse that would not stop until it got inside the barn; it forced the rider to almost crawl inside the critter’s skin to get low enough so as not to get knocked off its back. The rider was my uncle Robert whom I have known forever as Buddy. Health issues have caused him to alter his life style, and I thought a phone call to him to reminisce about this scene would be welcomed. I think it was. “Stubby was his name, a pretty good horse. Dad got him for me from A. C. Weig.”

We visited for quite some time, and I enjoyed talking with him again. Other topics got discussed. I’ve always enjoyed listening to army veteran’s tales of service. His was in Korea as an artilleryman. He told me of once coming under such a heavy mortar barrage that they had to stay hunkered down so much that they couldn’t shoot back. It seems like some of the most enjoyable moments in life are unplanned, as was this spontaneous phone call to him. The brief e-mails or message texting so prevalent now do not replace a pleasant visit on the phone. To take it further, personal letter writing has declined; it is a rare occasion to receive one in this present day of immediate electronic communication.

Back to the topic of memories, I took enough psychology courses in my liberal arts education to learn just how complicated the brain is and that memory recall varies from person to person. A book on my shelf titled Man’s Unconquerable Mind contains a passage I have returned to many times: “Day and night, from childhood to old age, sick or well, asleep or awake, men and women think. The brain works like the heart, ceaselessly pulsing. In its three pounds’ weight of tissue are recorded and stored billions upon billions of memories, habits, instincts, abilities, desires and hopes and fears, patterns and tinctures and sounds and inconceivably delicate calculations and brutishly crude urgencies, the sound of a whisper heard thirty years ago, the resolution impressed by daily practice for fifteen thousand days, the hatred cherished since childhood, the delight never experienced but incessantly imagined, the complex structure of stresses in a bridge, the exact pressure of a single finger on a single string, the development of ten thousand different games of chess, the precise curve of a lip, a hill, an equation, or a flying ball, tones and shades and glooms and raptures, the faces of countless strangers, the scent of one garden, prayers, inventions, crimes, poems, jokes, tunes, sums, problems unsolved, victories long past, the fear of Hell and the love of God, the vision of a blade of grass and the vision of the sky filled with stars.”

Weather, Politics, and Old News

Saturday’s weather came off lousy with wind, snow, heavy roads, limited visibility, yet still the turnout for my parents’ birthday celebration was gratifying. Dad will be 95 on the 20th of February and Ma reached 90 today, the 17th, this date also marking their 69th anniversary. Years keep piling on; I guess I should know since my 68th occurred on the 15th. As long as we can keep counting all is well. Of that generation of Buelings only Dad remains of the family and two of the wives with that surname remain living, my mother, and the wife of Leslie, Kathy, whose birthday was the 16th.
…
A headline in today’s paper: Where did the moderates go? The first sentence in the article reads “The moderate middle is disappearing from Congress.” The story is often told about President Reagan and Tip O’Neill of how they’d fight over political issues but would join each other for jokes and drinks after hours. Apparently that doesn’t happen much with the present bunch of polarized politicians. I can’t help but refer to a W. B. Yeats poem “The Second Coming.” The first few lines say:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

While the poem does not speak to political issues, it has been said that it is open to differing levels of interpretation. I think it fits well with the situation in Washington.

…
I wondered how things were going one hundred years ago during the month of February in the old home town so I went to the well again and hauled up a bucket full of items. My great-grandfather made this news: “We noticed an item in the Progress a few weeks ago stating that coyotes were very thick out in Owego. Well, I guess they must be. A few weeks ago Tom Anderson, with the aid of his two dogs and a pitchfork, killed one. Keep the good work going, Tom.”

The Ransom County Immigration Association have just completed the overhauling of their three big cars, the Marmon and two Maxwells. Chauffeur Blanchard has carefully inspected the mechanism of the machines and pronounced them to be in perfect working order. The land company is expecting a heavy influx of land seekers this spring, and their three cars are now in readiness to show the hungry seekers a good share of their land within a short time.

Confusing Place

This world is a mighty confusing place, and what is true one year becomes untrue the next. For instance, the new Time magazine carries an article titled “The Survivor” and is in regards to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. A passage in it surprised the devil out of me. First off, there is a picture of him sitting at the controls of a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter in Kabul, Afghanistan. That in itself didn’t call much attention to itself because prior to our being in that country Russia’s military had occupied the country. Maybe that helicopter was a left-over. No! Gates wants to buy some from Russia because they’re very dependable and are considered the Kalishnikovs of the sky. That reference to the rifle carried by many fighting men in the world means they are simple and very dependable, and they’re said to be easier to fly than Black Hawks with their engines working better at the higher Afghan altitudes. Why I’m surprised is that it wasn’t all that many years ago Russia and the U. S. considered each other to be their bitter enemy.

I crave a simpler world and have enrolled in an adult class: “The Iron Horse’s Gallop Across North Dakota.” It’s offered by the University of North Dakota on the campus of Bismarck State College and has no tests, no homework, no grades. The only requirement is to attend and learn in a high-interest environment. Of course, there is a small fee but it is really minimal, so I registered for this six week course. I’ve always been interested in early statehood history and the railroads played a large part in that.

And then, as if I needed more to do, I ordered another course, “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft.” In this class I will be sent DVD’s that cover different topics. It’s taught by a professor from Iowa State U, a well-thought-of school for teaching writing. Again, no tests, no homework, no grades. I’ll just listen and learn.

Rebel

I’ve taken a small bedroom in our home’s lower level and claimed it for my study, office, man-cave, or escape hatch; whatever, it is a room forever in need of cleaning or straightening. Its condition is such that it drives wife-Mary crazy, but I can’t help it, I was born this way. In the mess and jumble I house my modest library collection which in large part consists of favorite books of poetry. While I rummaged through those many volumes a couple of days ago I ran across a slim
one I’d forgotten about that gives me a theme on which to write this little essay. That volume, much the same size as the little chapbooks that I write, bears the title Open Songs: Sixty Short Poems by Thomas McGrath.

McGrath, an internationally recognized poet, came from Sheldon, and since Sheldon is my hometown, I’ve developed a strong interest in his work. He earned the reputation as a left-wing rebel who continually fought against the system. Several parts of his long book-length poem Letter to an Imaginary Friend center on locations or people I have known, and the magic of his writing draws me in every time I open that volume. Back to the little Open Songs, … book, a faded Fargo Forum news clipping fell out as I riffled through the pages. Dated October 1, 1978, the article clarified a couple things: # 1 - a shooting he was involved with, but more interesting to me # 2 - his near-participation in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s. A misdirected University of North Dakota student, he at first sided with the Spanish leader Franco, but after learning about Franco’s Fascism and Franco being supported by both Hitler and Mussolini, he changed his allegiance to the International Brigades and volunteered to fight with them in Spain; however they came home before he could ship over.

Ernest Hemingway set his famous novel For Whom the Bell Tolls in this Spanish Civil War, and that book also sits on my shelf near the top of the “must-read-again” pile. Hemingway took the title from the 17th century poet John Donne who wrote “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; … any man’s death diminishes me, and I am involved in mankind therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Donne’s intention may have either been that when one person dies we all die a little or when we hear a funeral bell it is a reminder that we are a bit nearer death ourselves each day. Hemingway’s use of it was to show he was in concert with the groups fighting the fascists, and if he could be considered an intellectual he was really one with many intellectuals around the world who feared fascism might take root world-wide if unchecked. It is with this philosophy that McGrath aligned himself.