Tales From Europa, Maine

CHAPTER 1


Winston Appleby’s Tale








 Winston sat in the chair he called the perch. It was a bitterly cold February night in the Western Mountains of Maine. The sky was brilliant and clear. The near-absolute darkness at night allowed him to look out at what seemed to be the entire universe. He looked around WiredWalden as he called his home with a degree of satisfaction. He had built this house smack in the middle of the wilderness. His house was a source of pride. Back in the early 1980s, he had come upon this unique swatch of property. 6,000 acres of land in really rural Maine. It was bordered on the top by the Appalachian Trail and stretched down the mountain to Connolly Lake. There had been 3 houses and 5 camps on the property in varying stages of repair. The only way in or out was an old logging trail and two steel bridges across a river and a stream. Once Winston locked the gates on his bridges he was completely isolated and alone. He felt free on his small piece of what he called ‘Free America’. A name he found increasingly ironic. It was near-pristine forest and he enjoyed the fact that over time he had built a home with all the comforts of civilisation without all those damn annoying people. The nearest phone and electric poles were 11 miles away. His Neighbour was almost 20 miles away. He had learned in his trade the various emerging energy technologies while setting up remote outposts in Africa, Southern Asia, and Latin America. He had combined these technologies, wind, solar, thermal, and hydro, and created his own power system for his home. He developed a method of composting not only organic materials but turned discarded cans and bottles into energy – a simple process that involved a naturally occurring chemical reaction. His home was warm in the winter cool in the summer, even those few August days where the humidity and heat made even the mountain air uncomfortable. He built computer chips into the roof. The settling of the house on the foundation provided enough movement to power the connected chips into a self-powered computer which managed all aspects of the heating-cooling for WiredWalden. He had an endless source of water from two deep wells and a glacier-fed stream. There were vegetable gardens at each one of his places, and at his home, he also had a sizable herb garden. He bought meat from two nearby organic farmers. Fresh milk and cream from another who also supplied eggs and poultry. He had a surprisingly well-stocked wine cave partially carved out of the mountain which provided a nearly year-round stable temperature inside. The only visible sign from afar that there was any kind of dwelling was the 80-foot high solar array. Winston had taken great care in designing it that it be aesthetically appealing as well as optimised for maximum capture in a year-round environment. The various components of WiredWalden’s sources of energy were efficiently managed and excess power was sent to a series of three banks of storage batteries. Two were set up to act in case of unforeseen disaster if components of his power were affected by wear or weather. The third banks of batteries were a collection of portable power units that could be taken up or down the mountain when he went to his 3 camps and two houses. He had not yet gotten around to providing them with more than basic solar power. He now doubted he would ever get around to providing them individually with their own power. The solar provided enough energy to heat the water and assist the gravity pumps that brought spring water in and wastewater out. For his purposes or if he had guests that stayed for a longer period he would simply bring in his surplus batteries. It all worked now. It had taken a good deal of trial and error and some fairly unpleasant experiences, but over time he learned to compensate and eventually fine-tuned his systems. He had set up multiple satellite links to provide his ultra-high-speed internet connection. He had full video, TV, radio, and telecommunication capability. Guests from New York and Washington would marvel that they had the power they were used to and the conveniences they found essential but no poles or wires. It was from this observation, that Winston first called his home WiredWalden. A not so clever play on Walden Pond - Thoreau’s rustic ideal. The entrance to the Main House had a place with his favourite Thoreau quote on a plaque above the inside door: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. Winston was justifiably proud of his home in the wilderness. The attention the detail and his painstaking refusal to settle for less or compromise had resulted in a comfortable and eminently liveable place that was architecturally near perfect and was pleasing to the eye, beautiful in fact. It did not intrude on the natural beauty; it looked it belonged. The sign of good design and thoughtful placement. The last mile and a half of the entrance road were carved from a forest of spruce and tall pine. It was almost magical. A quarter-mile from the Main House, it passed through an abundant apple orchard. In short, it was an ideal spot with a view of the surrounding mountains that was breathtaking during the day. And at night was Winston’s window on the universe. It was Winston’s home. He was very much at home in it. As Winston surveyed his private world and admired some of the endless small and clever aspects of contrasting woods, colours art, and design, he began to think of the world beyond his domain.

The Aberration of Capitalism

Global Warming; The Aberration Of Capitalism;

The Advent of Information Society:

How Truth became America’s First Casualty on the so-call War on Terror

The Beginning of Change | The Beginning of The End

Indeed. The article is accurate in many respects, and I have long predicted the problems associated with bio-fuels. There are sustainable solutions which utilise natural resources, including trees, but it requires the will and decision to make some fundamental changes. We certainly in what I call the era of process as we go from a carbon fuel economy to a sustainable energy based economic system. Ironically, it could be ultimately beneficial to the many and only adversely affect a few. Transitions on a global scale such as we are witnessing at the end of the production economy which began with the industrial revolution, produce upheaval during the periods of transition. This need not necessarily be. It is a curious truth that those who do not know history will be doomed to repeat the errors of the past. We have evolved to a new level of ignorance called denial. We pretend we don’t know or hope that activities we know are bad, wrong or deceptive with our actions today with experience of the correlation of wrong actions and there cumulative effect. As Ben Franklin so aptly put it, “Doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of different results is the definition of insanity.” We are as a collective global society on a collision course with the laws of physics, biology and collective experience.

The people behind the corporations behind the absolute corruption that is the result of relentless exploitation of carbon based fuels with complete disregard for the consequences are indeed encouraging and initiating these bio-fuel solutions. I have already bored you with the facts on this subject. The problem though does have some bearing on my preachy note to you the other day. We are both the problem and the solution.

In order for the transformation of global economic models to succeed the most elemental and essential elements must be knowledge, shared information, trust and an understanding of the fact that what all humans have in common far outweighs what we do not have in common by an extraordinary mathematical factor. We share our globe which is biologically linked and interconnected and has never recognised man made lines and political borders. Whether we have the strength the will and the collective wisdom to avert global catastrophe is debatable.

America is both the hope of the world and the map of the dangers of any society based on a need for consumption for growth and prosperity. This form of an economic policy based on Ponzi scheme requires both consumption and a willingness fuelled by greed, avarice and laziness that is contrary to our stated raison d’être. The corporate models that evolved in the 1950’s are based on endless expansion and a need for an ever growing base of new consumers. McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Starbucks are all examples of corporations whose very existence requires an ever expanding base of consumers. It is part of what I consider the Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine fame philosophy, “What me worry?” If I can make out well for myself today why worry about tomorrow.

Beginning in the 1920’s we began a subtle but dangerous divergence from pure capitalism to the aberrant version we mistakenly consider capitalism today. The Consumerist Society is based on making people want things they do not need and often are not even good or useful or beneficial. It also requires that ultimately the many will benefit a small and select few. Because of the epic battle between so-called Communism and Capitalism many believe that what has emerged with the demise of the Soviet Union is a capitalist society. Communism was always doomed to fail; it never took into account the most fundamental element known as human nature. In order to bring forth the ‘new socialist man’ unspeakable horrors and violence were perpetrated. The difference between the two great ideological societies with global power was the power of one came from the barrel of a gun, the power in the other came from who held the economic power. As President Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address, we risked losing everything we had fought and died for if we were not wary and attuned to what he termed the Military-Industrial Complex. This was the over-lord of Consumerist Philosophy.

Another integral aspect of a Consumerist Society is a need for both an enemy and fear to drive consumption. In the past this fear was dispensed with the use of massive force and threat of violence. Feudal, medieval and monarchic societies were founded and enforced by ruthless violence and the fear of further violence to keep populations in check. In our over-glorified worship of a misunderstood natural often referred to as nature, we lose touch with the realities of unfettered natural societies. A few will always rule the many. Ferocity insures the natural order. Anyone who does not believe or understand this has simply not experienced the ferocity, violence and ruthlessness of animals in the wild. There is no room for gentle debate.

The reason why the idea of america (with a small a, this is now a definition in the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language) continues when the reality of America is so obviously flawed to all but Americans is simple. Our nation was created on ideals, principles and shared goals. A unique experiment in the world’s history. It was based on equality of all individuals who were equally bound together under the social concept being enforced by the rule of law, rather than nature. If everyone was equal under the law and subject to the same laws, a just society could emerge. Based on not just the will of the majority but equally respectful of any minority group, view or philosophy. Revolutionary, indeed. We all shared in one great shared destiny and all were equally free to live and achieve with a unique and historic elevation of the rights of an individual to a status unimaginable. An individual citizen had as much right as an entire nation. Equal access and equal judgement under the law. This concept also allowed for special protections against abuse of power. With clear and distinct solutions and resolutions for abuse.

The key ingredient to this concept and the basis for our entire society was mutual respect and tolerance, acceptance of different ways, differing views bound together in a common understanding. Only one aspect of subservience was required. Respect and acceptance of the rule of law. The rule of law coming from the collective will of the people balanced with methods of protection from any group, individual or the military gaining undue influence or amassing too much power. Simple and elegant in both concept and execution. Flawed of course, far from perfect; it produced the first society on earth based primarily on merit and individual liberty with freedom from fear being a primary difference from all other societies in history.

This experiment fuelled the most amazing phenomenon. Any one, from any background could by dint of innovation; hard work and creativity create new ways of doing old laborious, unpleasant or simply complicated things. The transformation of a society from agrarian to industrial had great labour pains. The Civil War is but the most egregious example of how we evolved. Though there were times when too much power or money accumulated and for a time individuals or groups were able to wield their power unscrupulously, ultimately the rule of law and will of the people restored the delicate balance. The first wave of the industrial revolution created a new caste of super-wealth and power and unfair or monopolistic and other unacceptable centralised accumulation of power, which was undone by Theodore Roosevelt, an accidental President. This was how the founders envisioned abuse and excess from becoming the norm. Overall in our society wealth was dependent on creating or adding value. The hackneyed concept of ‘building a better mouse-trap.’ We had strong societal concepts and shared values. We were the first nation built with a sense of National Identity that was based on citizenship over place of birth. An American could come from anywhere on Earth. The only requirement was acceptance of the rule of law. At no time in human history has more innovation and elevation of an entire society from relative poverty to a shared basic economic security. The flaws such as the Great Depression and ensuing shared hardships taught us important lessons. We were good, but certainly far from perfect. The concept of an ever evolving society constantly learning from past mistakes willing to join together to overcome any challenge to our beliefs and rights as free men. There was a balance and excesses were eventually corrected or eliminated.

In the background from our beginning as a society there was something else elemental and fundamental to our successes and ability to adapt and change to ever changing circumstances. The concept of an informed citizenry was inherent along with individual rights and equality under the law. The power of an independent and free press was also enshrined with inalienable rights giving birth to a free press. As with any business there were abuses and outrages perpetrated by individuals who held control over the source of news and information of many. But again there were checks and balances and consolidation was frowned on and when excessive, laws and restrictions could be produced to protect the source of our informed consent.

As the Commercialist Society took root in the late 1920’s. Innovation in the form of Radio broadcasts changed the way our society spend our free time and also offered completion with newspapers for informing as well as entertaining our citizenry. This new technology required some regulation to allow for specific frequencies to be used and prevented interference and provided for the public airwaves to be used for the public good. The concept of making people want things they did not need, or want was now taken to a whole new level. The Age of Advertising allowed for the eventual rise of the Consumerist Society. The public airwaves were sold off, and the power of the message now could trump the truth and the first wave of attack on an informed citizenry began.

When you allow the method of information to be controlled or purchased to the highest bidder, there is always a danger. But economics also played a part. For if you sold something to enough people that was shoddy no good or simply did not work, people would stop buying the product. Something happened though, as the method of delivery and the message got jumbled with the advent of the Television Age. The messenger and message also began to blur. An era of celebrity a rare commodity in history now became more common place. If you were seen on TV, you were instantly familiar to millions. Fame for fame's sake was an entirely new phenomenon on this level and scale. The use of the broadcast media was also instantly adopted and cooped by totalitarian societies and dictatorships. Its power to sway millions instantly understood by those with a need to restrict information. Just as the consolidation of the collective written words and experiences of human history was restricted in earlier times to those who could read and write and only information that the rulers or governing forces wanted people to know was allowed. The printing press broke that monopoly and was part of how the American Revolution was made possible. Freedom of Information, freedom of access to information. All part of the informed citizenry.

The checks and balances and foundations of our democracy began to become imperilled with the first Great Wave of Disinformation when a junior senator from Wisconsin discovered the power of the airwaves, and how lies, half truths and insinuation could sway an entire population of supposedly free people. There were men of conscience and a President with the courage to stop what was a rapid decline of individual liberty and the power of the airwaves to misinform and spread fear. A whole new tool, which was in a dangerous dance with commercial and financial interests. The 1960 election was the first in history where the debates between the two contenders was broadcast live to an entire nation, live. It was a unique opportunity for informing the citizenry but it was also the beginning of the end for what we call the Free Press. The cost of broadcasting freely was prohibitive, so it became possible for a corporation or anyone of great wealth to buy time and influence content. It was relatively benign originally, then tobacco used this forum to dispense disease for a number of years until the correlation between the product and illness was impossible to ignore. Still the process had begun. What began with great hope and optimism as a way to inform and entertain millions became a way to influence how people thought. Politics became part of the Consumerist Message. It was no longer about providing information to the populace; it was packaging how the information was delivered. Men of wisdom and with broad education, who were able in an hour to explain complex problems or educate people about issues in an hour, were not conducive to the new methods. The sound bite became more important than the delivery of information. Manipulation and deception went mainstream at this point. Truth and unbiased information were now open to interpretation, manipulation and politics, corporations and the public airwaves were slowly but steadily co-opted by a steadily declining few. Politics became more about the cost of delivering the message than the message.

There have always been willing servants to tyrants and power. The ultimate irony of the demise of an informed public so essential to a free society came as a result of too much information. The amount of information and the methods became more and more ubiquitous and as the demands on people’s attention for information reached a point where the citizenry became desensitised and information began to become noise.

The unthinkable became possible then became the norm. In the Post-911 era, the first casualty of the so-called war on terror was truth. Fear and manipulation and what was news and what was not became relative. After the people who initiated and were determined to continue the war discovered the power of television to bring the consequences of war into people’s living room and how the informed citizenry ultimately demanded an end to an unjust war. The images and horror could not be countered with rhetoric. This lesson was learned and well learned by those who do not trust or countenance the rule of law. When the Iraq war was being marketed an early decision was to prohibit broadcasting or photographing of caskets arriving back from the war. This has become even more astonishing over time. At a time when young Americans are fighting and dying a war that is unprecedented in the opposition of the majority of the citizenry, it is possible to watch major network news without even mention of Iraq, Afghanistan or the fact we are officially a nation at war.

The issues and discussions are no longer about informing the citizenry. It is about distracting the citizenry. Historical events are colliding, our economy dependent of commercialism has finally run out of ways to provide the means to provide and create new wealth, has redistributed wealth, inflated the sense of prosperity providing people with a false sense of wealth and prosperity. The cost of an endless war which became by necessity a way to propagate fear and lies by making those who questioned authority or the so-called war on terror and turned them into internal enemies subject to abuse and innuendo. As our economy has been pillaged, our national treasury wiped out, those who will ultimately be our real enemy in the next world war have become our financial backers and bankers. It is a shell game which any con artist will tell you, there can only be one winner and there will be one loser.

Facts are no longer reported, they are suppressed. We learn of grand deceptions, lies. Find out we were deceived into going into a war we had no business starting. As we learn the truth, slowly eventually dripping out, people are in a daze. Like a huge collective hang-over experienced slowly as people wake up at different times discovering, their way of life, and the sense of security in their home ever increasing in value was too good to be true. The collective shock is still unfolding. The questions now are quite basic. Will the origins and values of Revolutionary America survive and energise the citizenry? Can even the idea of America be fuelled into a new common shared future or will the idea of america become a faded dream, as everyone tries to survive?

The collective few who have manipulated and deceived to achieve their goals and accumulated untold wealth and exercised almost unlimited power are betting that the dream of America is dead and the idea of america irrelevant. Keeping people preoccupied with more urgent matters like economic survival is their goal. Forgetting the fundamental principles of equality and respect of the rule of law and forgetting that the power of the people is absolute is the only thing the fear-mongers fear.

The issues of Global Warming have been dismissed and discounted by the very people who are the financial beneficiaries of the carbon economy. Their distraction has produced a further insult to our intelligence and sadly our planet the creation and promulgation of bio-fuel. Taking farmland out of food production and turning it into a way to continue our dependence on oil. We see the consequences already at the grocery store. Prices doubling and more for basic products made from corn and corn products. The combined rise of prices with the increasing demand for the bounty of our farmland is only going to get exponentially worse.

The consequences are now critical. Time is short. The sleight of hand and magician’s distractions are continuing. The powers-that-be are not willingly going to surrender power. They have nothing but scorn for we-the-people. Hillary Clinton can get caught in an absolute bold faced lie, and say she mis-spoke. Truth is relative and lies and innuendos the new norm. The facts about hunger and starvation and the link between that the manipulation and denial of Global Warming and the coming global disruption are lost somehow. The Patriots are called liars and the Liars are called Patriots. Truth is relative. Unfortunately nature does not care about the greedy games of humankind. The only question is will America Wake Up in time? Can truth prevail now that the rule of law has been subverted, the rights of citizens eliminated?

Over twenty years ago, I saw the effects of massive draughts and the loss of millions of lives, and predicted what would certainly happen if we did not make some significant decisions and change the way we think about our planet and our inter-dependent relationship to one-another and common critical problems. The idea of the Global Village became instead the new Global Economy. Consumerists and their aberrant creation the Consumerist Society have demonstrated the flaws in making people buy things they did not need, or want but the effect on our society and our citizens is deep rooted. Like the citizens of the former Soviet Union after the collapse, many are too dazed, confused and seem almost resigned. I know the fire and the enthusiasm is still there. I know so many people who are unhappy. Who know change must come. But do not know how. They have forgotten that they are the power; they have the power to stop the desecration of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Obama campaign and resultant movement is proof that people care and will stand up if given the option. There is confusion and fear though. And Clinton is now using the same consultants and advisers who managed to allow a Coup D’état, the rule of law subverted and the will of the people over-ruled by a majority of five.

In that short time America as a society of freemen equal under the law has been shredded, the concept of equal under the law mocked ignored and changed not by the will of the people but by executive fiat. Our children are fighting and dying for a war we cannot even explain anymore. We understand that lies and deceptions were used and everyone was lied to and manipulated. But now discussion that is no longer subject to discussion. It is too late to go back, we are there now. So we must win. This twisted logic would make even George Orwell head spin.

What is at stake now, is more than the deceptions that created the bogus bio-fuel programmes and persuaded farmers to trade in their land – the most productive source of foods ever – and turn them into what they believed were going to be part of the solution to our oil addiction. They got swept up in the frenzy of quick and easy money. There are new bio-fuel plants opening up on the average of one every two weeks.

So, the question is simple. There is no doubt about Global Warming. There is no doubt we can still take action. There is no doubt we can convert to renewable and sustainable sources of energy and Project 2020 will allow for a sensible conversion from a carbon based economy to a clean and sustainable economy. What is not clear is whether or not we have the will and courage to join together in a common goal and with commitment hard work innovation and leaving behind The Consumerist Society and becoming one founded on the Principles of Social Capitalism, as outlined in the “Social-Capitalist Manifesto” which outlines how by restoring innovation, encouraging Individual Freedoms and returning to Equality under the law and working together on a shared national goal the will help up individually and be a part of the greater common good.

I Hate: Hypocrites and liars...

Unless I Am Either Being Hypocritical Or Lying.

Musings About A Life…

So, I find myself at home, the decisive distinctive crisp sharp cold is unavoidable and can no longer be ignored। It smells like snow as we say।My thoughts turn to women, and the various lust-mances that are going on in my head and out of it as well.

My school work and the horror of regular tests, quizzes and the looming exams are a tremendous impediment to a life of lollygagging leisure masqueraded as hard busy work। Accountable all over the bloody place, with commitments made that some are just waiting for you to not meet. No in this new era of life in really rural Maine, I must keep showing up, doing what I say or close to it, and slowly trying to build a credible life of sorts.

The majority of my time is spent wasting time। I procrastinate and stumble around doing surprisingly not much of anything but looking or seeming to be extraordinarily busy. Not sure when or how or even why I learned the traits of the penultimate bureaucrat, but I am a pro at looking busy while I am in fact doing and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

It is not as if I am trading work pretence while I pursue some project or cause of worth or interest to others। No, I have lofty dreams like we all do, but I just don't want to do any heavy lifting, in fact if I could manage it, I'd prefer not to do any lifting or for that matter any tiresome chores. I want and aspire to and sometimes feel I am a writer. But after a paragraph or two, well I know where this is going sort of. But I really don't have the inclination or interest or drive to follow through. It is as if work as defined by tasks compiled and consistently built up in a general direction for a general result for the benefit of myself for which someone is willing to pay cold hard cash; well it's an anathema to me.

I wouldn't pay me, hell I am a lazy f^*k. I always fall short of the mark, whether mine or others, so naturally anyone who counts on me for anything will ultimately be disappointed.

My only innovation of late is to tell people in advance especially people just met, that I will indubitably fail them sooner or later. In other words stick around at your own risk. Can't blame me when I do f^*k up. Rather an ingenious twist this one.

Like saying no to a woman, near revolutionary in the day to day goings on of my ho-hum existence.

Most ex's hate me because I deceived them somehow one way or another. I made out-rage-ous claims.
“I'll love you forever. I will never lie to you. I will never fail you. I will always do everything I said I would. I'll be faithful to you no matter what. My love is unconditional.” And many, too many other ridiculous promises, protestations and false misleading statements and outright lies, many about who I was or what I was capable of doing; for them.

Sort of like huge fluffs of bull-shit made to look like spun sugar or cotton candy. Brown and stinky for sure but somehow not disgusting like the raw product. The artful packaging of nothing but the mundane and ugly into something at best intriguing at worse seemingly interesting and promising.

This is a skill for which though done with massive élan and fanfare, actually is doomed repeatedly to produce nothing of substance and certainly nothing enduring. A stage front in real life can only have the intended effect for the duration one can suspend the belief in a sort of faith like hope that things will somehow turn out all right.

This barker skill and sleight of mind will sooner or later fail and then in the cold hard light of day or even the dimness of a long dark night, will cause others to become aware slowly or suddenly, that they have been fooled and lied to. The results are uniformly predictable.
For whatever reason I have always found it easier to make up a grand and convoluted story about who I was, what I did than actually be someone who cumulatively created by slow steady plodding a life that was made by one's consistent attention to the non-flashy details of daily life in these United States in the post-democratic era.
The era of “Irrational Rationality”.

Some people can lie about and to themselves and untold others and seemingly get away with it। The key words are ‘get away’. Anything you are getting away with is obviously not real or made substantial. Others will get caught and repeatedly so. The difference is I believe awareness. It’s one thing to lie if deception is all you know. Quite another if you are lying and you know lying is not good or right no matter what the reason. If you decided to terrorise the terrorist and do so no matter what the cost. And you are aware, then you cannot. If you have even an inkling that something is wrong yet you do it, well this is the difference. Awareness is a tricky thing and it changes everything. I do know the difference though I have spent most my life denying it or hiding from it. Damn it!

So just being myself and not hiding or pretending to be anything else or more or different or whatever, well it makes sense. Albeit belatedly. I am soon to be fifty seven years old, and only in the past year have I actually held down anything remotely what many would call a job. Something for which you must make a real effort from time to time at; the end result of which causes someone or some entity to pay out with cold hard cash. The further arrival of which is dependent on more work and effort to do that which is required. I understand the rhythm and logic of it all now.

I still find though that being a procrastinators and fantasist and creating who you are and pretending to be something and someone both interesting and creative is far more enjoyable than actually doing something interesting and creating. For not having anything to show for one’s efforts has two benefits:
One is that is hard for someone to criticise nothing than something.
The second; well you can change direction, method or even type on the fly.

Today’s hard working technician can become tomorrow’s theoretical physicist. Next week, one can become the sole photographer for the spring edition of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. And a month later, one can become Victoria’s Secret oneself. The secret of course wryly enjoyed by oneself and one’s own mind, is that of course one is not Victoria, but in the ‘it’s sort of true vein of thought’ I do have a secret.

So, inevitably when the annoying unfriendly arrival of truth and fact and reality honed into whatever the gossamer lacy bullshitty fantasy well it is to be expected that disillusionment followed. As night into day, and day into night.

But telling someone that you are nothing more than a poseur and novice at life, that everything you do you do because you don’t really know what you are doing, and further telling them you will fail them, you will let them down, you will lie to them and deceive them, and saying this all upfront, well it’s almost like discovering the emotional version of polio or small pox vaccine. What used to destroy and disappoint, well it is now been forthrightly stated. Like the cigarette pack warnings. You are warning them and protecting yourself from blow back.

If you don’t lie or mislead or state that you will lie and mislead in the future you are making your future self immune from blame and consequence.
The added benefit is that with such low expectations when on that odd rare occasion you actually do something accomplish something or achieve something, well it is a miracle and praise descends from one and all.
So now on the cusp of my 57th year, I am preparing to continue with my slow low expectation programme for life and living. If no one expects you to even know how to play baseball, imaging how surprised and delighted they are if you actually even hit a ball.

In my old life management programme, I pretended to be a home-run hitter. Never just a player but a home-run hitter. Well unless you hit a home run every time at bat, well you are just another ball player who on occasion has been known to hit one out of the park.
Doomed to failure and disappointment this particular life programme of mine.

My solution to the obvious flaws in the basic fundamental plan was to bolt whenever anyone noticed or made comment or stated the obvious truth. ‘Hey you don’t even play ball and no one has ever seen you hit one out of the park.’ And once one calls out the truth, well it is but a matter of time before the entire programme and whatever have been attached to or built on the deception du jour comes crashing in on itself.
So your wife and/or family or lover or whatever who have bought into whatever it was you were selling, once there is someone crying out and stating the obvious, well they cannot afford to look any more foolish than they already do. So even if they were willing or complicit. No one likes to look like a fool. Easier to deny, ditch and depart to admit you might have been a co-captain of the good ship la-la.

See, I used to believe that if someone was a thief or simply wanted too much for too little or nothing, if they were culpable by dint of being equally lazy and dishonest well, then I was not such a bad person.

I was just delivering what was desired. In fact it does not work that way. For anyone being susceptible to a poseur, a con man, or a time-thief is of course at the core the same kind of lazy; but it is in fact worse.


For people such as that are not capable of maintaining let alone conjuring up and maintaining some form of elaborate ruse for life-doing, they are mere spectators.

This is why they will hate you the most and the strongest and with the heartless degree of cold-hearted scorn and loathing.
Now, I am not at all sure my new discovery of pre-emptive truth telling and going about dealing with people on a one-to-one basis delivering on small or tiny expectations, but doing so on an ongoing regular fashion is the complete antidote to my prior art form.

There are strange side effects of this sort of thing. Being truthful and consistent in the tiny does not require like physics a whole new vocabulary and methodology to explain or function. No, if you simply do something bone dull and in no-way thrilling or amazing; say show up on a regular basis at a time mutually agreed upon in similar place and continue to do so, you will develop in another the belief you can be counted on.
And the less you make a point of this fact, the more appreciated your simply showing up becomes.

You are now being truthfully portrayed for doing something positive yet for the most part quite painless, show up and do nothing in particular as opposed to not show and do nothing in particular.
You see the diabolical cleverness. It is not so much you are being a different person or becoming something other that who and what you always were.

By making the slight alteration to a life programme that has been a consistent massive failure across-the-board, costing pain and causing suffering for just about everyone involved. Whole lives filled only with the rancid taste of deception and the horrid pain of betrayal for every participant.

Looking back at a long and endless line of bodies made less because they wanted so desperately to believe. And taking advantage seemed such a harmless thing to do. It was never malicious or planned with malice of aforethought. All those tasty rationalisations that made ‘doing the easy’ and taking the lazy path was well so easy. Or so it seemed.
So, I wonder if starting with simply not doing what one used to can really bring on such extraordinary changes?

If one starts by saying, I will no doubt fail and disappoint and otherwise seem less than what you perceive right this moment. Is telling the truth not speaking with fake humility, but rather reporting a known fact based on long experience. Can this actually prevent people being hurt, upset or angry? Is saying what you know is almost certain to occur but saying it beforehand, does this really have an alchemy that can turn the gold of expectation into the mundane steel of everyday reality? Is telling a lover that you need time to clean up old messes the right honourable thing to do, even if she is unhappy with this right now?
Could it really be? The secret to life is truth. About one-self. One’s true self. One’s inner self. That who you are, as your are, is in fact what you should be?

Well, how bloody ironic. Fifty-seven years on this planet, traveled the majority every corner and many of the nooks and most crannies few ever see, a decent large single slice of what exists of the blue globe I live on.

Spent most of my precious time capital and others cash capital, trying to pretend I was not me.
Infuriating almost everyone along the way, because I could promise the stars and make them – and I might add myself – believe in some impossible dream or glittering fantasy or unbridled glorious future time where it would all be ever so much better.

Eventually when they either realised the dream would not, could not, come true; that their glorious future was not to be, could not be. Or sometimes when I just lost interest in keeping everyone happy in the dream, growing weary from pretending about something I knew would never become true or real, life collapsed or so it seemed.

How many times has my world collapsed in on itself? I can only say that it has been one-hundred percent consistent for my entire life. It has never failed. I have never failed to disappoint those for whom I cared or was addicted to for whatever the reason.

I cannot imagine myself of 20-years ago being able to understand this simple concept of delivering value to others in the form of unvarnished simple acts. People do not expect miracles unless you proclaim you will deliver miracles.

The myself of 20-years ago would have been horrified by what would be perceived as being dull living a bland existence devoid of ‘so-called’ action. Because the me of 20-years ago did not know the difference between chaos and rhythm and that even chaos has a rhythm. BO-RING!

I mistook allowing life to happen to me as living an exciting life.
I missed the true beauty because I was only looking for the spectacular. Ironic that I see my strengths today not as any grand delusion or fantastic wish about tomorrow; no today my strength is deriving from what is.
Not what may or could possibly be.

So finally to my belief as an 11-year old. “I am a writer I am going to be a writer”. Greeted with hilarity. I have spent a life-time trying to escape that moment of humiliation. I thought that it was telling the truth reporting the truth was why I was being laughed at. The irony of it all is not lost on me today.

A writer is someone who in advance tells people, I am now going to tell you a story. Some of it may in fact be true some may not. It is story-telling an ancient art form. Do not confuse the story-telling with the story-teller.
That is exactly what I did though. Since I thought it was what I wanted to do people were laughing at. I was supposed to follow a script. I also was supposed to be better and more because of an obscure number attached to the letters IQ. My attempts to overwhelm the feeling of humiliation instead drove me to turning my dream into a progressive night-mare. In retrospect all I wanted was someone to say, “he you. You are ok. Just the way you are. If that is your dream well go for it. We love you no matter what.” And the people, who truly loved me, pushed me and held back praise for fear of spoiling me. From this terrible misunderstanding I carved out my direction for endless years to come. I believed only stunning achievement could ever result in an ‘atta-boy’. I could not feel the silent support and thought love could only be purchased with currency or sudden fame. Because everyone thought I knew more than I did and I sure was never going to admit how little I actually did understand and know, the dynamic was launched and the propellant was ignited. Don’t ever show how much you really need others and admit how scared you are, just keep-on keeping pretending.

I saw no difference between the planks of the Anti-war podium in Washington Square in the spring on ’68 and the stage of the Rising Star. Both gave me a ‘high’ – an audience applause and approval. I could not distinguish between the two. Swaying a crowd made me feel alive. I’d say whatever it took, to get the applause, the laughter. There was no difference for me. Life however is not made from brief interludes on stage. I never knew this and if someone did explain it to me, I suppose I just did not understand.

To be interesting and different and stand out required the extensive effort of travel. I traveled to be interesting not because I was interested. I explored the world from the safety spot of the observer. Occasionally someone would perceive the truth. A wife told me once, ‘to be a writer does not mean you have to go everywhere do everything’. A stunning observation and one that almost crashed through my ‘running self’.

The other aspect is that writing like everything else of value is the result of small steps taken regularly in unspectacular setting with unremarkable moments collecting themselves by effort and revision into a well-done finished product. In retrospect it was the fear I could not write at all that insured I never tried. The idea I could be good at anything other than something to be laughed at or pitied simply never entered my mind. So, I pretended and quite truthfully I was a good pretender. I looked the part and acted it as well.

And when I found myself in real-life situations I found I could be both heroic and a coward. This discovery was to remain a deep secret. Somehow I missed in all my beloved reading the fact I had more in common with other people than I had not in common with them. Everyone is capable of both moments of seeming heroics and other moments of seeming cowardice. Then I tried to pretend to be rather than just be. I maintained this arrogant hubris in the face of endless failure. Afraid of life but more afraid that anyone might discover and uncover I was just like everyone else. This fear of similarity was connected to my desperation to not feel the feelings associated with humiliation. To be laughed at was the only compass point on the map, I knew I did not want to be at near or close to. So my life was a re-action to the fear of the fear of being laughed at. Like the awkward child who by dint of being new, and because he arrived at school not in a bus like all the others but alone in the huge limousine was treated different and differently. Dodge ball would be a horror, to be the only one not chosen by the ‘winners’ or the ‘losers’. Anything that meant judgment or acceptance or approval of others was to be avoided. Most of all feeling what I was feeling was something that had to be altered by whatever means. Booze, drugs and lust-mances masquerading as heroic love stories. I never went after the women I really wanted; I only went after the women I knew would no say no.

See the theme. Risk little or nothing. Avoid anything that might cause pain. Stand apart. And always no matter how crowded the room or intense the romance, ‘alone again, naturally’. And oh so lonely.

The extraordinary thing belatedly discovered – I have ample experiences to fill endless books and narrations. Most recent of my awareness is that writing is work and humdrum work at that. And I am extraordinarily lazy. I have learned recently how to trick myself into working by doing something that I do not regard as work. I enjoy corresponding with my many correspondents. My letters are reports from the front lines of my life. Increasingly honest and occasionally quite accurate. In this way, I am compiling a collection of writings that I can winnow down into tales that are becoming a part of a book within a book about the person writing the book. There are three concurrent levels. Three different styles. Three different kinds of writing – all under one roof. Tales from Europa, Maine.

It is exquisitely painful to work at my writing. Only the happenstance of serendipity that finds me a writer of a monthly tech tip column has taught me the benefit of collected works. If you try to write a book from scratch with no plan, no goal and without thought, what you get is what you deserve. Endless unending thoughts and beginnings without any pattern rhyme or reason. Learning when I see a simple monthly collection. That the body of work is growing. I have something to show. And transferring that into eMail story telling is my sneaky way of tricking myself to a weekly commitment of writing and building a story from beginning to end. It has hard difficult and at times when I think about it scary as hell. But this sleight of mind trick is allowing me 46 years from when I was aware of my truth to actually follow through.

The things I care about and ‘work at’ regularly and with some consistency are things I would like to accomplish. Not thing I must accomplish in order to be.

I have realised I may not be a writer, at least not the writer of my youthful fantasy. I may never be.

I am no longer tied to this as a definition of who I am.

The reason I loath liars and hypocrites today is because they remind me of what I used to be.

Ouch. Truth hurts. It also releases me and as the saying goes, ‘sets me free’. Neither as good as or and bad as – portrayed by myself or others. Just another tiny part of humanity. Going through life at the shared pace, day to day. A part of something.

I have family and friend’s who loved me when I did not even like myself, providing me the ultimate ‘atta-boy’. They inspire me to do just a little bit more. Not to earn their approval or love, but because it is the right thing to do.

Life is the small collected collection of small steps and tiny completed tasks. Helping others by helping myself first.
And while people may go oooh, ahhh at some single spectacular event or activity. That is not what really matters. What people want from me is exactly what I want from them. Consistency and trying to be little by slowly better more today than yesterday.

I thought being a star a home run hitter was what life was about. How wrong I was. Unrealistic expectations endlessly unmet. Betraying everyone, including myself.

Life is today, now what needs to be done, the only question: what is the next right thing?

You cannot be humiliated if you are comfortable with yourself.

So, I stopped running from the fear of the fear of being humiliated। And now I am as a dear friend would say ‘a plodder’ steady slow but moving in the right direction. No idea of a destination.

Am I a writer? Stay tuned; we can find out together...

In Memorandum Of A Great Man

Kurt Vonnegut vs. the !&#*!@

In November, Kurt Vonnegut turned 80. He published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952 at the age of 29. Since then he has written 13 others, including Slaughterhouse Five, which stands as one of the pre-eminent anti-war novels of the 20th century.As war against Iraq looms, I asked Vonnegut, a reader and supporter of this magazine, to weigh in. Vonnegut is an American socialist in the tradition of Eugene Victor Debs, a fellow Hoosier whom he likes to quote: “As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”—Joel BleifussYou have lived through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Reagan wars, Desert Storm, the Balkan wars and now this coming war in Iraq. What has changed, and what has remained the same?One thing which has not changed is that none of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here. There were already all these games going on when I got here. … An apt motto for any polity anywhere, to put on its state seal or currency or whatever, might be this quotation from the late baseball manager Casey Stengel, who was addressing a team of losing professional athletes: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”My daughter Lily, for an example close to home, who has just turned 20, finds herself—as does George W. Bush, himself a kid—an heir to a shockingly recent history of human slavery, to an AIDS epidemic and to nuclear submarines slumbering on the floors of fjords in Iceland and elsewhere, crews prepared at a moment’s notice to turn industrial quantities of men, women and children into radioactive soot and bone meal by means of rockets and H-bomb warheads. And to the choice between liberalism or conservatism and on and on.What is radically new in 2003 is that my daughter, along with our president and Saddam Hussein and on and on, has inherited technologies whose byproducts, whether in war or peace, are rapidly destroying the whole planet as a breathable, drinkable system for supporting life of any kind. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.Based on what you’ve read and seen in the media, what is not being said in the mainstream press about President Bush’s policies and the impending war in Iraq?That they are nonsense.My feeling from talking to readers and friends is that many people are beginning to despair. Do you think that we’ve lost reason to hope?I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!How have you gotten involved in the anti-war movement? And how would you compare the movement against a war in Iraq with the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era?When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high.And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, “ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,” as the saying goes.As a writer and artist, have you noticed any difference between how the cultural leaders of the past and the cultural leaders of today view their responsibility to society?Responsibility to which society? To Nazi Germany? To the Stalinist Soviet Union? What about responsibility to humanity in general? And leaders in what particular cultural activity? I guess you mean the fine arts. I hope you mean the fine arts. ... Anybody practicing the fine art of composing music, no matter how cynical or greedy or scared, still can’t help serving all humanity. Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up.But that is the power of ear candy. The creation of such a universal confection for the eye, by means of printed poetry or fiction or history or essays or memoirs and so on, isn’t possible. Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author. Any ink-on-paper author can only hope at best to seem responsible to small groups or like-minded people somewhere. He or she might as well have given an interview to the editor of a small-circulation publication.Maybe we can talk about the responsibilities to their societies of architects and sculptors and painters another time. And I will say this: TV drama, although not yet classified as fine art, has on occasion performed marvelous services for Americans who want us to be less paranoid, to be fairer and more merciful. M.A.S.H. and Law and Order, to name only two shows, have been stunning masterpieces in that regard.That said, do you have any ideas for a really scary reality TV show?“C students from Yale.” It would stand your hair on end.What targets would you consider fair game for a satirist today?Assholes.

Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as an investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. Bleifuss has had more stories on Project Censored's annual list of the “10 Most Censored Stories” than any other journalist.
Link to the original article: In These Times: http://www.inthesetimes.com/print.php?id=38_0_4_0

Good Questions

When did America become a nation of frightened wimps?
April 13th, 2007

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority – Benjamin Franklin

When did America become a nation of frightened wimps? When did we cross the line from courage to cowardice? Was it sometime in the 1990s? After the Oklahoma City bombing? After the Columbine shootings? After 911?
When did we decide to allow the police to smash into private homes without knocking and identifying themselves? Recently, a special police force dressed in black Nazi style uniforms busted into a suburban home without warning and dragged a school teacher out of her house with an automatic weapon at the back of her head. They forced her to the ground, handcuffed her, and hauled her away while her neighbors watched. They did it without a warrant and without consequence. Why? A misunderstanding. That is precisely why we need checks in place, to avoid misunderstandings and abuses. The police chief said, “When we realized it was a mistake, we all had a good laugh.” If a group of unidentified men dragged his wife away at gunpoint, I wonder if he would still think it was funny.
When did we decide it was okay to strip search an old lady at the airport because the pin in her hip set off the metal detector? When did we decide it was too risky to take a cup of coffee on an airplane? When did we decide it was reasonable to make a nursing mother drink her own breast milk to prove she wasn’t a terrorist? When we impose such extreme levels of security, haven’t the terrorists already won? Haven’t we willingly given our freedom to the government and the terrorists in the name of security?
When did we decide it was okay for policemen in combat boots with German Shepherds to patrol High School hallways?
When did we decide to allow routine police roadblocks? Why weren’t we outraged?
When did we decide it was too dangerous for our children to ride their bikes to school?
When did we decide it was okay for the government to seize property without a trial, without due process, at the whim of a government agency?
When did we decide that our government had a right to the fluids inside our own bodies? Or a right to the very breath in our lungs? When did we decide that it was the accused’s responsibility to prove they hadn’t been breaking the law? When did we decide that drug testing High School students was reasonable? Hell, why is it reasonable to drug test anyone – ever? Why would anybody, for any reason, have the right to invade your body without your permission?
When did we decide to give 10 year prison sentences to adolescents for having sex? Was it before or after we decided to put them in jail for smoking cigarettes and drinking beer? If my memory serves me correctly, when I was a teenager, almost everyone I knew either was doing it or wanted to do it. Why did we make what is biological and natural, criminal?
When did we decide it is too risky for 20-year-olds to drink but reasonable for them to kill and die overseas? Does that make sense to anyone?
We’ve justified every one of these injustices by claiming that it was necessary to preserve health and safety. I say bullsh!t. What is the point in being a safe slave?
I think we crossed the line somewhere between 1984 and 1988, around the time we outlawed lawn darts and every mini van in America had a ‘baby-on-board’ sign. While lawn darts and baby on board signs may seem trivial, they were warning signs of a mass shift in American values – a shift away from freedom and liberty as predominant values to health and safety as predominant values. There will be no end to the loss of freedom if we believe being healthy and safe trumps all else.
I believe there was day when most Americans accepted that life was risky. They accepted that bad things can happen to good people. They accepted that risk was an inherent part being free. They didn’t need a new law or government program every time something bad happened.
It is sad to watch our freedom slowly disappear in front of our eyes with so few people taking action.
But I have hope. I sense a shift. Something is blowing in the wind. I can smell it. I can feel it. I can see it in young people.

He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither – Benjamin Franklin

"SapHouse Party Woes"

Maine Maple Sunday
25th of March, 2007

CAN’T GET THERE, FROM HERE. REALLY! Definitely From “Away”

SAP HOUSE PARTY

A nice Saturday, the early warm days that tell you, spring is here. In rural North-west Maine where I live, when the temperature breaks through 50° degrees, the number of layers of clothes that one has grown accustomed to (in my case never less than 3, usually 4) during the winter months, you notice this difference. It is not just a physical transformation but spiritual one.

The long lingering ache, a sort of all-the-time slight depression, is lifted. You feel a bit younger than when just a few weeks ago it was -17° degrees. What seemed bleak, or impossible now is so clearly possible.

I give you this background as the foundation or more likely to ease the pain and embarrassment of what surely will be my ‘Stupid Bowl’ entry for 2007.It was in the kind of silly, light-hearted state of mind that I dashed back from a day trip to the ‘big city’, which for those of us in North Franklin County, Maine; means Augusta. An easy drive both ways, I had lingered too long at the techie stores in the Market Place Mall. I was on my way to a real treat for me. A social outing and the chance to see maple syrup in the works.

My new friends Steve and Christi Mitman’s who have in addition to two delightful children and jobs as teachers, also are the owner-operators of a bone fide Maple syrup company, Maine Sugar Works (http://www.mainesugarworks.com/ for the digerati). They tap, collect the sap and boil to produce ‘the best tasting hardwood-fired pure maple syrup, ever!’

Now, as one of the few human beings actually born smack in the middle of Manhattan, New York, NY, maple syrup has long been an exotic treat. And like coffee in Kenya or bananas in Costa Rica most of Maine’s maple syrup gets exported elsewhere, and sure we can get it locally, but it is expensive. Like so many things I have learned about life in general and food in particular since I moved to Maine a few years ago, maple syrup is more than just the sum of its parts. There are many grades and types. It may be the stuff of breakfast dreams, past and present but there is a great deal that goes into this delicacy that the average user may not be aware of.

The best of the best is the result of a perfect blend of nature and man’s hard labour and ingenuity. Of course it is organic in the deepest and profoundest definition of that word. And here I was about to attend a “Sap House Party”. The celebration of the culmination of patience, hard work and cooking skills way beyond the ordinary. This is kind of outing that makes where I now live so special. People gathering in a social event, a get-together with some real meaning. Parties on a Saturday night are of course nothing special. But in a rural community where distances are great and terrain demanding (in my case at least) a gathering of more than 4 or 5 for dinner at our respective homes qualifies as the norm for a social outing. To gather with ten or twenty friends and neighbours at one time is unusual, except for school-house gatherings and the odd Church Supper; it is a real event.

Perhaps some background for those who have never visited the beautiful country-side here in Franklin County, Maine would be in order. We have the Rangeley Lakes, and resort Mountains of Sugarloaf and Saddleback and views of Mt. Abram and endless vistas, trails, streams and rivers. The area was carved by the receding ice of the last ‘Ice Age’. It is rural and rustic. We have in my town no chain stores or McDonalds. It is a community where most everyone knows everyone else or at least knows of them. The people who are born and bred in this kind of setting are a large part of what drew me here. This is a place where families cannot imagine not sitting at the table each night and sharing the intricate details of life along with sustenance.

Take out and order-in are not useful phrases around here for the most part. The nearest Police station is 20 miles away, as the crow flies. For the most part crime is minimal and almost always fueled by either alcohol or drugs. When I go to town, I not only leave my door unlocked but often leave the key in the ignition. And I am not alone in this. To me where I live represents the absolute very best of both the idea and reality of America. We have town meetings that are the very definition of democracy. When you vote, or as we do before a big election, caucus; it is a community activity. To be sure there can be profound disputes and disagreements that can arise.

For the most part, when you live in a community such as mine, well people will disagree and have strong feelings, but there is an underlying courtesy in almost all activities. People, who feud, do so in a respectful way for the most part. Civility is the word I am looking for. There is sense of family, community and shared responsibility. It is an unspoken truth that rights and freedoms of the individual are to be respected. What has become to me at least an increasing rare and unique in these United States. We can live in rural isolation; appreciate the awesome solitude of the natural nature of life but there is an underlying social cohesion.

When your closest neighbours are most likely moose or bear or coyotes, it gives you a firm appreciation of human cooperation. The winters are harsh, and can be dangerous even life-threatening. If you break down in your car or get stuck in a surprise blizzard, you must be able to call on your neighbour. I am not saying that people are nice just because they realise they need one-another, because it is more than that; there is a decency aspect where I live that belies that simple explanation. Perhaps it is just the awareness that people need people in general, not just to survive but thrive.

What I am talking about is not just the basic social needs and desires. It is an appreciation of life and the little gestures that combine to bring out a sense of security in the old meaning of the word. Security is the knowledge and comfort in knowing that when you are in a jam you are not alone. Add decency and respect and the awareness that to live so close to nature is a real treat and you have something that I call civility with a sense of belonging.

In the world where information moves closer and closer to the speed of life, and an economy where everyone must work to make enough to scrounge for a bit of the ‘dream’, owned homes and opportunities for the coming generations, social fabric gets frayed, tattered and delicate. Economic ‘security’ is tenuous. This is a world apart from a society where consuming for the sake of consumption, shopping not for needs but for distraction and rationed time is increasingly allotted as part of endless multi-tasking.

Increasingly I find in 'other America', you never really get more than a slice of someone. Social interaction is done with a weird combination of inattention and lacking the depth and understanding thus relegated to a series of second places and almost there’s. There is a price of course to be paid to live in a community such as mine. Even as the cherished fundamental rights of individuals and freedom for the most part to do as one pleases within clear yet loose boundaries, are respected and accepted, privacy of the unimportant kind can be lost a bit. Gossip, after all is part of the glue of any society. Not always welcome if you had too much to drink or did something just plain stupid.

In fact, the fundamental aspect of shared lives and shared responsibility combined with the privilege or the rights of the individual and the meaning of freedom and liberty have the effect of checks and balances that our Constitution holds so dear. But to me increasingly in our society at large, freedom has lost the meaning I originally intuitively knew growing up. Any society must have some rules and regulations. There is no right to cry “Fire” in a crowded theatre and causing chaos and harm unnecessarily. Perhaps it is because in a rural community we need one another in the best sense of the word there is a shared cohesion.

Our security is the knowledge that we can depend on one-another if things get out of hand or if we find we made some simple error that may have serious or profound consequences it will not be fatal. Or take for example when you just did something stupid like I did tonight. So, now back to what got this all started. I was on my way to the “Sap house Party”. I had received an email reminder from Steve a day or two ago. He mentioned that his driveway was not wide, and asked us invitees to park on the road rather than create a jam up by the house.

A quarter mile stroll up the drive, unless one was handicapped or otherwise unable to make such a walk. He mentioned as well that if you had a snowmobile or ATV to go ahead and use them. He was specific about there being a snowmobile access road just before the Ivy Road turn around. All this, mind you was in my brain, not necessarily in an ordered part of my mind. He mentioned mud, and the need for boots.

Now, I had never been to the Mitman homestead before and as such was only vaguely aware of exactly where they were. I had a rough idea. I had intended to call and get specific directions but as I was now running late, I decided to ask along the way when I got near-by. So, depending on Google Maps on my Blackberry, I plotted a course. You can see the inherent danger at this crucial point. Maps in this part of the world particularly computer-generated maps, are often inaccurate, and frequently will list a path as a road. It would have taken me ten minutes to go by my house and pick up the Delorme Maine Guide (as essential guide to how to go from here to there in rural Maine - our local Guide Michelin) and retrieve the Mitman phone number, just in case.

Also, it was getting colder and I thought ‘you should have your parka’. But I decided I would be late for the party and miss some of the fun, it should not be a problem. Well, I asked someone walking beside the road where I ‘sort of knew’ where the Mitman homestead was near. It was near where my Google Maps told me I should be. I asked if they knew where Ivy Road was and the best way to get there. They gave me directions, but in retrospect they did look somewhat askance when I said “Thank you.” And drove off.

Diligently I went up the designated road, followed to the left. “Church Hill will turn into Dickey and Ivy is just at the end.” The road names were right, but then the road became less and less a road, more and more like a path turning into a trail. I know better, but.. Muddy as all get out, then narrowing more and more, no longer the classic definition of road. I felt unsure, but thought ‘ah, well this is sort of what I remember from Steve’s note. And he had indicated snow-mobile or ATV would be OK.

The path then turned into a trail of sorts of well packed snow. Now, the next major distraction; my cell phone rang. Always thrilled and astonished when it works, I was concentrating on the conversation not where I was going. It was a call from dear friends in Florida. Distracted by my conversation, I remember thinking to myself, “this looks like a snowmobile trail. Gosh those Mitman’s are really off the beaten path.” It was about this point; I became aware that my brother’s trusty all-wheel drive Honda was bogging down. That unique combination in near perfect balance of being distracted, in a hurry, not really thinking or paying attention had resulted in my plight for the night. Then, I was suddenly not bogged down, I was completely stuck.

OK, I know. For those who might like me be from ‘away’, I will explain. With my carelessness and hurry, I had driven full speed ahead onto a snowmobile trail. What I had fancied a few minutes before was a snow-covered ‘back road’ was not a road at all. Meant for snowmobiles or cross-country skiers not cars, groomed beautifully in fact for specific use, driving a car on it was never an intended use. The rough equivalent of trying to drive down a stream. Worse, there was no where I could possibly turn around. Now stopped I tried to reverse. The car was struggling. I now fully realised the danger my idiocy, laziness and my naïve ways had wrought.

I was hopelessly stuck. I got out and look around; I could see this was not some small problem. The car was up to the axle in snow. Remember, my glee earlier at the 50° degree temperature? Melting snow, a groomed snowmobile trail and the weight of a car are not a good combination. I was stuck in the wilderness, and night was falling fast. It was at this point my phone rang, again. Now, mobile phones are handy in emergencies. In Franklin County it certainly has few places it actually works and as noted above is always something of a pleasant surprise.

There is something about receiving a phone call when you are in a dead hopeless situation. It was a call from my brother, Lloyd. A sensible man not given to emotional hysteria. He listened as I told him my woes. He wished me luck, suggesting perhaps this was not a time for idle chat. We hung up. I was keenly aware that I was unbelievably fortunate to have a phone that was working. I called my friend Terry. A real man, real Mainer someone who could no doubt provide some solution perhaps even affect a rescue.

He listened and said, “My god, I know where you are, that’s a snowmobile trail, chief, how’d you get on that, where were you going?” Unsaid but I could hear in the silence a “what were you thinking”? Well, with a series of calls, the fellow who owns the local garage was located, at home ready to sit down with his wife for a quiet dinner. This is what I mean about the people around where I live. Many places, you might be told what an idiot you were and either drawn into a not so transparent extortion plot or simply left to fend for yourself. He did give me some not so good news. Apparently where I was, in addition to not being a road, was smack in the middle of a huge legal battle.

One of those ‘local’ disputes that was neither neighbourly nor civil. Effie Toothaker is something of a local legend. He owns the local Main Street Garage, in Strong, Maine. An inspired mechanic. He even has the Sheriffs Department as a customer. Well-connected, born local, respected, in fact and in reputation. Then the not-so-good news. He might have a problem even getting somewhat near-by. Between the land dispute, and my location, he was not very optimistic. He would have to make calls get permission (on top of everything else, I had stayed on to private land – one of the real no-no’s in this part of the world).

In the end he came. I was sitting inside my car, in full comprehension of the serious nature of my ‘situation’. With growing discomfort, heading in the direction of near-panic I was damning my stupidity and with limited resources to resolve my plight on my own. An “Oh, My God, moment”. The snow was so deep when I got out of the car that I kept ‘falling in up to my waist’. Then I saw in the rear-view mirror, of the car, a bobbing light. I got out and would have run, had the ground not been so squishy and the fact that every 3rd or 4th step, I would sink down into the ever abundant snow.

Effie Toothaker had found me. He looked at my over-all plight and told me the facts. He could not get his truck, a large 4x4, anywhere near my car. The only chance was to try and use a snowmobile to see if ”we can move you enough to get rolling”. "But then you will have to back up (for almost a mile) through your own tracks." So, off he walked into the night to get a snowmobile. Again the alone time. It gives one pause. I had been in a hurry; too busy rushing to do the prudent or smart thing. And now, I had all this free time. I was absolutely furious with myself. I had moved here to this beautiful place over 2-years ago; that I have come to call home. I have learned so many things about life and living here; from friends and my brother Lloyd and his wife Hope.

It is the combination of little things that make up life. Now, I found myself in the type of predicament that was dangerous, serious and perhaps most galling totally preventable. Had I followed what I have learned and been taught rather than relapsing into a ‘city rush-rush’ mentality, well I would not be stuck. It is one thing when you are ignorant, quite another when you know better. I was stuck in a very precarious place, and I had only myself to blame. Then a hopeful thought popped into my head. “How providential my phone worked. How lucky I was able to connect with Effie.” I realised that under other circumstances, I could have been in a much more serious dangerous situation. My car might be stuck a long way away from anything resembling a road. It would probably have to over-night it where it lay. But, I would not freeze to death trying to walk out alone in the dark along a difficult and dangerous path.

As I sat in the car, waiting for what I knew would be a long time, I suddenly was aware I felt secure. That knowledge that a man I barely knew would be coming back for me. As certain as the sun will rise in the morning. The adventure continued, at one point Effie’s snow-mobile and the Honda were inextricably intertwined. We both almost had to walk out. But after some diligent shoveling, hard lifting, grunting and those words that seem to flow at times like these, we broke free. Muddied to my knees from shoving, lifting falling and walking; I got a thrilling snow-mobile ride home.

My image as “Maine-Mountain Man” shattered and for sure the butt of local humour, I entered into local legend and not for reasons I might have hoped. The key though, is I am humbled not humiliated. I missed my “Sap Party”, maybe next year. But I got important gift; I was given the chance to slow down. To appreciate and be grateful for all that I have. How many people could say that; when they are miles from the nearest road in a truly rural area.

Knowing that they could count on a near stranger with such a degree of absolute certainty. I guess I needed this reminder to realise how lucky I am. How truly fortunate. To live near where sap gets turned into delicious syrup, and where there are people, who when they say they will do something, you feel it in your soul. That is my idea of security. The combination of nature, hard work, strong values and where doing the right thing is done for all the right reasons…

By Guy A. Griscom ©2007