Marooned on Moloka'i: Coconuts, Dreams & Death (Book) - 2/5/2019 11:10:37 AM
The exact accounting of living in this portion of Hawaii tell the story of one person's journey--the good, the bad, and the ugly--as it were. It is certainly an eye-opening tale of what one person's observations, trials, and tribulations if trying to live in this perceived paradise.
Journaling day by day gives the reader an intimate look into the author's psyche. As events unfold we are taken on a journey of what a newcomer might experience in any place that has such old traditions.
While this publication is daunting in its slow and steady daily remembrances--the author writes in a compelling manner. The author does a riveting job of bringing us to the end of this chapter in his and his wife's life in a heartfelt way.
Accounts of previous experiences and how they impact current actions helped the reader to understand the decisions made.
The title of this book is appropriate given the content and the beautiful black book cover will stand out in any library.
Coruscated Confabulations: Oh! The Humanity! (Book) - 10/6/2017 4:09:35 AM
While I have no idea what “finctional embellishments” are, I have a feeling that your highly interesting and varied experience and resolved within some very unique stories here.
I found the second professional review somewhat revealing that you have written something about physical maladies in one or more of the stories. I guess I could gather that from the title. I come from German stock, but I know very little and German even though my Thai friend thought I did when I was able to somehow determine what food to buy (sauerkraut, wienerschnitzel...) from menus when we are in Germany. ;-)
I was about to chide you about getting the slant of the sun wrong on the beach in China when I realized you were writing about California and Monterey Bay. Yes, the water is very cold and so is the air after sundown. Like John Steinbeck, the California coast is full of stories just waiting to be written.
Speaking of stories… I love to to have read a couple more excerpts from some of the other stories. This one was very intriguing. Squid fishing at night. Some of my friends were abalone enthusiasts. One Chinese engineer (can't remember his name) that I worked with was a champion striped bass fishing… inland, not in the Pacific.
Ron
Marooned on Moloka'i: Coconuts, Dreams & Death (Book) - 9/1/2017 4:16:55 AM
Marooned on Moloka'i does sound like a dream destination for someone who wants to leave the rat race of life and settle in where all carers have disappeared. It is a kind of “Garden of Eden,” syndrome that affects many who read of exotic, far off places, largely from a colonial point of view.
I wouldn't want to end up in a place where the culture is centuries old and so unlike my own that I can't fit in. What you describe as a “haole,” is typically the Ugly American who comes to a culture and wants to immediately change to his or her liking. I recall my Thai friend telling me that I was being “insulting” by some of my normal behavior like not wanting to drink the expensive bottled water he bought for me, thinking that all Americans had to have bottled water.
I much prefer going to a place where the only culture I would insult would be the animals. Watching a reality show, Naked and Afraid, I've learned that basic survival, even in areas where there is abundant supply of food, is very, very difficult. Without a rich social culture, survival does not exist.
Thanks for a peek into the Hawaiian culture that most people ignore when they go to the Hawaiian Islands on vacation.
Ron
Santa Cruz Sargasso, Berkeley Fog (poems) (Book) - 8/18/2017 5:17:35 AM
Congrats on your two poetry books. I wrote poetry during that era as well and some of them were published in anthologies and newsletters. Unfortunately, I kept none of them.
Twenty years ago I thought about publishing a poetry book, but never could find anyone to illustrate my poems, something I thought necessary. Poetry books don't sell. Hell, books don't sell. So I'm going to pass on creating a poetry book unless someone crowns me "poet laureate," something that is highly unlikely.
Your poem on love as a street is spot on.
Back in 1968, my girlfriend was a nurse in Stanford Hospital's heart surgery ward. I don't know if she was working on heart transplants are not, but the job was very stressful. She soon quit, took a trip around the world taking a year, and then returned to her native Saskatchewan and married a schoolteacher.
Ron
Doktor Porsche's Frankenstein Monster (Short Story) - 8/2/2026 11:18:25 PM
Excellent story with engaging narration and a meaningful message. I really enjoyed the way the ideas were presented. We also work on solutions that help authors, publishers, and creative professionals strengthen their online presence and reach a wider audience. Wishing you continued success with your writing!
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The Jade Compass (Short Story) - 7/8/2026 1:42:14 PM
Hello, I just finished reading your story, and I absolutely adored it! Your writing is incredible, and I couldn’t stop imagining how fantastic it would look as a comic. I’m a professional commissioned artist, and I’d be thrilled to adapt your story into a comic format. No pressure, of course. I just think your work would shine in that medium. If you’re interested, feel free to reach out to me on Discord (laurendoesitall) Instagram (elsaa.uwu). Let me know your thoughts!
Best,
lauren
The Jade Compass (Short Story) - 7/6/2026 3:04:23 PM
Wow, that was intense and so true. Only in the Bay Area can such kinds of drama take place. I can sense there remains from that faux pas that only someone with strong German roots and admiration for German technology would make a deep regret.
One of the best confessions I've ever read. Where are the other commentators?
Ron
A Plethora of Papas (Short Story) - 3/9/2026 11:15:09 AM
This is hilarious. Hemingway was a prisoner of his hyper-masculine tough guy, stoic persona. You captured it well.
Catenary Roe, a tail (sic) of Old Monterey (Short Story) - 2/21/2026 11:47:14 AM
Sad that I entirely missed the saga while carefully parking at Monterey to get a few rays and to avoid the parking line police and signs that said…"No shirt, no shoes, no service."
The place that totally lost the flavor that you describe for it back in the good old 30s when everything was real.
My grandfather was part of the demise of the sardines. His favorite snack and highly processed, food that led to his early diabetes and strokes. Rest his soul. I guess I'll have to crank open a tin for him and Monterey. That old roe was caviar by any other name. More Russian than French on the California coast.
Ron
The Great Venuezuelan Beaver Cheese OODA Loop (Short Story) - 2/21/2026 10:32:58 AM
Wow! That's quite a story. The American Dream. The dream of a suburbanite caught in the loop of repetitive rat race. Complete with the absurdity of it all.
Unfortunately, one would have to live as long as you and I to understand all of the references to the pop culture of our era. Most long forgotten references. But I believe the Three Stooges have made a comeback on social media. And Mickey Mouse refuses to go away as Disney continues to build its empire worldwide.
Great stuff to consume…kudos!
Ron
Everything you know is wrong...(part1) (Short Story) - 1/31/2026 12:56:40 PM
It's a great start. And a great concept. My first novel was along those lines, but you have taken it much further.
Can't wait to read the next installment.
Ron
An Arrow for Amaterasu (Short Story) - 1/10/2026 10:41:20 AM
As I read, I wondered why you didn't complete the project until you gave me the reason. From what I read, people are very interested in Nazism and the power of Hitler's Germany to create new technology of war at a rapid pace and will buy your book. They like diabolical possibilities.
But your love affair strikes home. Making me wish that I had received the subtle marriage hints from that master's degree student from Taiwan who's doctor father owned a city block residence. And her private seamstress who sewed her ravishing silk outfits. Alas, I missed the boat in 1969.
Ron
E. B. White's famed 1935 dystopian short story (IRTNOG) (Short Story) - 9/22/2025 12:25:42 PM
Thanks for bringing up this very interesting and likely very true at the time, tongue in cheek tale of great significance. And as you pointed out, even more relevant today.
I have especially noticed that all the major television news sources have time for is to give a news story headline, and rarely go into any detail after that.
I think my grandmother was one of those affected. Mom told me that she read everything in three small libraries and received subscriptions to several magazines and the book of the month club. It was there at the farm that I first read Readers Digest issues from covered to cover.
Ron
Stoopid Bowel Sunday or... (Short Story) - 7/21/2025 8:24:53 AM
Really enjoyed your story “Nia’s Fame (Warning Erotic)” loved the character work and smooth flow It even sparked an idea while reading." Let’s connect on socials.
Stoopid Bowel Sunday or... (Short Story) - 2/16/2025 6:55:26 AM
Tee-hee...loved your commentary on sports, Ron. Most amusingly (and enjoyably) eloquent (as usual!). Cheers, -K2
Stoopid Bowel Sunday or... (Short Story) - 2/15/2025 2:48:59 PM
First, her highness with her new makeover looks suspiciously like a fellow who dressed up like an old woman and popped into shows with his/her motherly advice. You can recall who he/she was better than I.
I’m with you with degenerative sports. They are now paying high school and college kids who get in the pipeline of money and fame until they are badly injured and never play or taste that money again.
And it’s all about gambling. Americans are hooked on gambling in many forms. Taking risk like conspicuously consuming everything expensive. I just read the American debt is now 18T, up 3T from the last count. All asking loan forgiveness for their transgressions and greed.
At 10, Roger and I went down to play Little League. But only the rich kids got to get those uniforms and equipment. We had to wait until we were 13 to play on another city’s free for all teams.
It was strange they didn’t talk about the mas consumption of Buffalo wings this time. And I don’t think it was because Buffalo wasn’t playing, but that the lowly chicken had inflated wings.
I watched the whole game while on the computer doing something else. Like looking for a gem of a commercial and finding none. Another halftime show without the excitement of a wardrobe mishap.
It’s interesting that the star quarterbacks had those names… Inhome found himself home on his butt rather than either throwing a flashy pass or running for glory as he as he is want to do for more fame and moolah. Why I wanted KC to lose and the Swifties to cry. Hurts doing just that. Putting the hurt to them when he would run through a crowd like a fullback instead of a quarterback and make it all the way to the first down.
I have a theory about names in football. If you grow up with the name like Bakowski or Peevy you find yourself being the brunt of jokes until you get strong enough and big enough to beat them all up, join the football team and become rich and famous but still fat and ugly.
Our high school football team had a 350 pound farm boy named Garth Barth (not to be confused with the overweight Garth Brooks). After Garth steamrolled Roger and I had my own clobber from the all conference linebacker, we both quit for kinder, gentler pursuits.
Ron
A Winter's Tale (Short Story) - 1/27/2025 3:37:51 PM
I am reminded, Ron, that beautiful dysfunctional Shocktongue is not far from the quaint little Californica town of Turdblock. Love that place...the name 'Turdblock' really fits, too, as it regularly makes the news competing for the Californica title of 'Most stabbings and through-and-throughs' each evening, on the Five O'Clock Gnus. Fortunately, ski accidents are far & few between in Turdblock, the closest to that being slips and falls while on ice (thanks to the friendly neighborhood pusher man). I think another term for that is 'Meth-Odd Acting', by the way....
You sound like you've definitely paid your doos and do-nots on the slopes. I recall a scimitar event such as you describe at Heavilly Valued. Mine was on a particularly vicious Black Diamond route called 'Kick-Ass 22'. Another was called 'Give-head Wall. Of cores, I never made it to the bottom; Doobie-damaged, causing a spectacular 'Crash & Burn', I had to be ski-toboggan'd down the slope by those cheery chaps in the red ski-parkas (Natural Scree Padrones). Much later at Sucker Bowel (Donner), I had a similar experience. I was a whiz at Cross & Crabby County Skiing but my Downfall Skiing technique left something to be undesired... At the nearby Clare Tappan (Sierra Clutch) Lodge, I was voted 'Person most unwanted to be snowed in with' by several lush lovelies I had the lusts for. Ah, those were good tymes, Tea-hee!
A Winter's Tale (Short Story) - 1/27/2025 2:53:27 PM
We recently had a Polar Vortex here. Similar to yours in Suckatomato. From my winter and summer ventures to the cow town, Shocktongue just down the road 99 from where you abide.
And from the Midwest we call them Porches in our vernacular as we sit on our porches and watch the youngins who came back from Californica with their tails between their legs but with those furin contraptions.
During my summer in Madison at the university our church group was crazy for canoeing. Went on three trips. One on a docile stretch of the Wisconsin River. One on the Little Wolf River, and one I orchestrated where I bought “too much food.” And the only stimulant we had was a Half gallon of Gallo Rhine Wine. I had to drink most of the wine to get rid of it. But I noticed that they gobbled up all of the food anyway by the time we headed for home. Unfortunately, the Flambeau River was not the raging torrent I recalled when I was 15 but languished in the dog days of summer that visit Wisconsin some years.
When my group was more interested in weaving I did a sole walk up Agua looming over Antigua in Guatemala. I was told to get a guide, but I followed the trails and road, making it easy except for losing my legs every couple steps above 11,000 feet. My only encounter with danger was drinking from a moss covered rain barrel from a roof of a shelter for mountaineers from the violence storms that might’ve had me sliding down the muddy trails like in the movie, Romancing the Stone.
I took a winter trip to Tahoe with a singles club one weekend in 1968. The only danger was getting hooked on gambling or hooking up with the wrong girl. We both were left out of that game so a Dutch expert skier joined me with my short skis and no poles on my attempt to ski while paralyzed.
The lower slopes of Heavily Valley were ice and very dangerous so we had to go all the way to the top to find an intermediate slope. Every few yards, 3 feet of new snow with me flying head long and yelling, “Watch out!” to those crossing by path I would find a 5 foot drop and lose my skis. The Dutch fellow dutifully clamped my skis back on and asked me to join him on the advanced slopes where I saw many being carted off the mountain by the ski patrol below before I launched off the ski lift in my own dangerous fall.
I suffered only a painful pressure sore from an ill-fitting ski boot while I learned later that congressman Sonny Bono died on that same slope.
So there was danger on that warm Mountain top where I had my one of a kind ski jacket I bought in JC Pennys in Minneapolis open to the wind and the sweater I wore keeping me from getting overheated. Never saw another ski jacket like it. It must’ve been a prototype model that I got… Black with red arm decorations. Really liked it and wore it many years when I was in the cold.
Ron
Healthcare in America: CATCH-22 (Short Story) - 1/12/2025 10:38:29 AM
As an insider in the healthcare system of the United States, I scanned with interest yor very detailed article on what is wrong with healthcare here today. I must agree 100% with your assessment. The focus has shifted from personal care with a trusted doctor to a very complicated and efficiency driven effort to make money while providing a semblance of high level care.
Certainly the attempt at leveling the playing field by progressive advocates has caused healthcare cost to increase. For example, my recent radiology experience in an ultra modern X-ray laboratory where seven young ladies appeared to help me get on the table, they had a very expensive Hoyer-type electric lift now mandated for people in wheelchairs with Medicare. Where before, one or two individuals would physically lift me on the table or doctors’ chair for examination or procedures. Fortunately, my dentist has so far been able to do all procedures from my wheelchair.
Your history of HM0s reminds me of my cousin’s wife, a top CPA who with others started an HMO back in those days from a small Northwestern Wisconsin town. Apparently it failed. But I don’t know why. From what my sister tells me about our hometown with a renowned hospital and clinic, rivaling even the Mayo clinic in Central Wisconsin where I was paralyzed in surgery, she had a devil of a time getting insurance before reaching 65 and trying to get a reasonable advantage program after 65. Her husband has VA benefits.
Throughout my 30 years of employment at a state university in Texas, I have the best Insurance with 20% co-pay that the State could offer. But occasional re-bidding of the services took me away from the locally based Kelsey Seybold clinic in Houston affiliated with a top level Presbyterian hospital since purchased by Arab interests. Before I turned 65, Kelsey Seabold no longer took Medicare, probably because of the difficulty in getting reimbursed and the delay.
However, before I turned 65, Kelsey Seybold formed their own five star Medicare advantage program and I continued to get top care until three years ago when the state rebid end United Healthcare got the contract. I had to change primary care physicians. Fortunately, unlike you stated, I have been able to send messages to my primary care physician through their website, similar to email. However, low paid nursing and physician assistants often carry out my request… Sometimes badly that requires the doctor to correct.
As always, the wealthy and the government connected like me, always get the best care while everyone else gets cut off just when they need it.
The thrust towards privatizing healthcare which has always been a personal thing between a patient and their doctor without profit involved, now focused on high paid executives and stockholders (I own some healthcare stock) rather than patient’s benefit is the sad result. The Hippocratic oath has been misused when I find that cheers to paid executives insist on hiding their medical histories to keep their jobs. When we all have medical histories and it shouldn’t affect our employment unless it actually affects our ability to do the job.
I’m curious to find what the efficiency experts will do during the next administration. Will they make the healthcare system run more smoothly or will they take away healthcare that is sorely needed by the lower 1/3 of society that goes to pain relievers like opiates for their many healthcare problems rather than having good counselors and physicians available to keep them away from addictions.
Ron
Swan Dreams-4 (Porsche 'Ugly Duckling' syndrome) (Short Story) - 11/18/2024 1:59:39 PM
There is always been a class separation in the United States that has shifted with the waves of immigration that have a way of changing the picture of the wanted and unwanted.
There is a difference between today's youth and those of us old dodgers infatuated with our cars––"Car guys."
With your guys at the helm you should very quickly reach that status where you can buy what you've always wanted rather than something you can afford.
Have you heard that voiced sound of car exhaust from various countries as they accelerate up through the gears? The way that Indian cars sound at the end is really hilarious!
Ron
An old familiar URGE... (Short Story) - 9/22/2024 9:46:08 AM
I love the way you use dramatic/Germanic terms so well in your writing. And your description of German automobiles is encyclopedic. Arriving at Berkeley certainly was a climate change compared to your Air Force duties in Minot icebox USA.
Your understanding of the Bay Area during the hippie invasion and your work at the hospital while at school is reminiscent of Ken Kesey's time in the nuthouse that landed him a bestseller. Did I send you my picture taken in September 1966 of his psychedelic painted Morris Minor, and possibly, the van he and the Merry Pranksters (?) crossed the country in?
Your renovation of your '55 VW delivery van is commendable the way you described it.
Catholic hospitals are very uptight. The one in my hometown where I was paralyzed in surgery, St. Joseph, was like that. Fortunately, my primary nurse during the day, Mrs. Hall, was a ravishing blonde in her early 20s and the light of my miserable existence as I went through the withdrawal process of morphine and my feeling coming back in my arms like biting ants by the millions. On Christmas day, she let her blonde locks down to my amazement. What a waste having her blonde beauty tucked up underneath that whitecap under the strict Catholic rules.
My Sis Vickie was the nun who was the head of nurses. As I was waiting out a cold before surgery, I blew my nose so many times that I had one of my usual winter nosebleeds. She was passing the door and saw me dabbing at it with a tissue until it stopped bleeding. She came in, sat down next to me and squeezed my nose so hard that she almost broke it while the blood flowed upward into my sinuses instead of out and away that it always did until clotting. She was angry that I was occupying a hospital bed with only a cold. After I was paralyzed I never saw her in my room again. Probably ashamed with the way she treated me. Mrs. Hall was my lifesaver… I was in love and wished she would leave her husband for me.
That use of laxative on Sis Vickie and Dr. EAR was a classic teenage prank that I don't recall happening to anyone even at camp. But you got your jollies or revenge or whatever. Your buddies sound like that movie, The Interns from back in the 70s.
Once again, I find your characterization of the youth of day somewhat similar to how you described the genteel, conservative older gent in the Cadillac like you today in your Porsche. From my experience, millennials are intelligent, hard-working and resourceful. At least from all of my grand nieces and nephews from the millennium generation. Graduating from college without debt like I did.
Finally, your encounter with Offkisser Doright is reminiscent of the many times I was stopped while riding/driving with colored in the car. As you know, appearances aren't always what they seem. One time on the south side of downtown Austin, we were stopped with our university president and future ambassador to Rwanda during the trouble there in the car, Dr. Spearman. Never received any citations except the one that my partner (Vietnamese) got railroaded into for doing 85 when she was probably doing about 70 driving past a well-known speed trap created by a small, revenue starved black community using a white officer with a convincing smile.
Very enjoyable reading your memoirs. Please continue…
Ron
On the Trail of the LOST Kafoozalum... (Short Story) - 8/27/2024 4:22:49 PM
[Responding to Ron, here, I can sympathise! One of my roomies in college was a rather fiery, Prima-Donnaish Scots-American, whose taste in 'good music' was, unfortunately abysmal! Case in point (and echoing your dislike of the roommate who interrupted your peaceful cognitations with his classical music), Rob (his real name was Robert Pattison and I don't mind stating this openly!) had the singularly infuriating habit of playing Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies' over...and over...and OVER, throughout each day until I near ready to brain him and trow his stereo player out the dorm window! To this day, although I am a huge fan of that composer, even the slightest refrain of that particular piece gives me a bloodshot visage that would make a nutcracker jealous! Fortunately for both of us, he relocated his residence before I murdered him in his sleep...
On the Trail of the LOST Kafoozalum... (Short Story) - 8/27/2024 8:56:26 AM
You are never boring, but certainly on the fringe of the one per centers out there. And very interesting to read.
While I appreciate the power and the sound of a Symphony Orchestra. They were created before the loudspeaker and could reach the people in the distant crowd. Except for a few aficionados like you, their number, as a percentage of society, declines every year. But there are always high school bands. Football teams seem to require them.
While studying for my master's degree in engineering and trying to do difficult problems in a small apartment, two of my fellow roommates in the arts insisted on playing classical music. Of that dramatic music makes solving those difficult engineering problems all the more difficult. I was much better working in absolute silence with no distraction from loud sounds.
My father played the trumpet in high school and later, in the CCC camp–was the bugler. I still have that beat up old bugle. My cousin's son played the flugelhorn in the Marine band. But I never aspired to be in the band or play any instrument, for that matter… Having failed the piano at 7 and gave up on the piano accordion at 13 for baseball.
It is interesting that there are so many brass instruments that I didn't know existed.
Ron
A 70s flashback: Coming of age in Berzerkeley (Short Story) - 7/24/2024 3:22:33 PM
Love reading your detailed memories. Please write more.
So many of your memories coincide with mine during my three years under the California sun 1966-69.
Ron
Let's be Franc with each other... (Short Story) - 6/22/2024 12:02:17 PM
As I read, you seem to wander from the original theme of trying to find a screw and happening on a wahine that expired into a jaunt in Germany with a French woman of considerable self-respect and good taste until consulted by your gift.
Once again I am overwhelmed with your use of both language and powerful ways of describing things that make reading you so interesting. And your encounters with women that are not just he ordinary, American settle down type, so interesting to read about.
I have not written about my encounter with the German girl by way of Paris where she escaped mediocrity and met an American draft dodger from El Paso, only to come to the Bay Area, totally homesick and bored. I met her at a time when all single women seemed to be totally crazy and the only down-to-earth women I could fin were already married.
Ron
Sportscar 'menopause?' Nope! (Short Story) - 2/3/2024 3:38:27 PM
Hi Ron and thanks for sharing the pain, as t'were. Things are getting so very complicated these days that we're all potential 'victims' of the combined effects of aging and modern-day tech complexities, I think.
I am reasonably sure that the H20/oil emulsion situation in my 914's sump was precipitated (how's that for an amusing choice of words, eh?) by someone using a water pressure-sprayer to clean the engine compartment, since the car's OEM engine grill water-drip panel was removed, thereby enabling rain to enter and seep into the carb filters. given that the seller swears that the car was kept indoors and not EVER exposed to rain, the answer to the sump oil situation has to be the pressure-washer theory.
I am continuing to work on this and will add another postscript if and when I finally figure all this out and resolve things. CAVEAT EMPTOR, to be sure....always, always!
PS: In the wheel department, I myself bought a set of Porsche Fuchs '2 liter' alloy (options on the 914 when new) clones, thinking they were congruent with the FUCHS OEM originals...and they were, except that they lacked the unpainted wheel rim featured on the originals. This bit of detail failed to catch my eye, resulting in my getting perfectly good, functional wheels that are just slightly different in appearance from the Porsche Fuchs originals to bother the OCD aspect of my personality to distraction! Sigh! I feel your pain, LoL.
Sportscar 'menopause?' Nope! (Short Story) - 2/3/2024 1:08:43 PM
Buyer beware. I surely hope that the correct spark plug wires cure the problem. I'm still puzzling over the apparent water in the motor oil.
I have found that as I age and am unable to put my hands on things, I have been making mistakes with buying and selling. When I had an original aluminum wheel replaced on my van with a steel wheel and a chrome façade during extensive repairs in 2014 after an off-road altercation in a swamp, I was none the wiser.
Last spring on the way down to park the van to go on a cruise, the glued on façade finally had fallen off on the way. Attempting to find that particular wheel for my modified, lowered floor, 2006 Ford Freestar Limited proved daunting and I had to buy an entire set of factory wheels to get one replacement. I had the right wheel, so I took it to a local wheel place and had them put all the wheels on, only to lose my air pressure sensors on the 3 original aluminum wheels that didn't need replacing… Damn! Still wonder why I did it. Still haven't found the proper centerpiece wheel hub and cap. and may never find one.
About a month ago, I sold the last of the 3 wheels to buyers that were satisfied with the scratches on them. I hope you are somewhat redeemed like I was for all the trouble your seller gave you by not disclosing fully what was wrong with the engine.
It is my partner who is hinting that I need to buy her a luxury replacement to make short trips to stores and gym matching her middle-age crazy. Even certified two-year old machines are outrageously expensive.
At Barrett Jackson last week a 2024 Dodge Demon went for $260,000. Buying one new is about $101,000… Go figure… Both prices are out of my meager buying range.
Ron
When Porsche Comes to Shove! (Short Story) - 12/23/2023 12:09:59 PM
You write with a passion and fervor about Porsches that even Ferdinand would admire! I doubt if my twin brother, Porsche fan, could write anything better, although he has written his Auto Biography, mostly about the sports cars that he has owned and driven, restored and kept in pristine condition.
The only Porsche he ever owned was a 1967 (I believe) 912 that he picked me up at the Philadelphia airport in on or about February 3, 1978 in 8 inches of new snow as I returned from my only trip around the world. My traveling partner, from Thailand, had planned to buy a VW Shirocco (Desert Wind) in Germany and drive it to Bombay were it would be shipped to Bangkok because we couldn't drive through Burma. Glad that didn't happen… We would've been robbed in the Balkans.
In 1979, I befriended a married couple from Bombay, Danny and Bina both finishing their MBAs in 1980 and wanting to buy a car because they were tired of having to live on bus routes to get to school. Near my new home on the Bankhead Highway, it was automobile row, so I drove them up and down all the used car lots looking for something practical for them.
When the used car lots petered out, there was a tattered 914 in green sitting by the side of the road with a for sale sign. Danny was immediately in love. We didn't get a check on what it cost, but knowing the reputation of Porsches for being rusted out, Bina and I talked him out of it. Maybe I shouldn't have, reading your article.
Anyway, I found a pristine light blue 1970 Pinto that seemed to fit their needs very well. And because of its exploding gas tank reputation, only $600. They were happy after driving it and it lasted them at least six months until Bina's salary from Microsoft enabled them to buy better cars and a house in North Atlanta that ended them in divorce while Danny went on to a doctorate at Georgia State. And Bina's mother came to my house, empty from my divorce, sizing me up as a potential future husband for her daughter.
After having brunch with my girlfriend and Bina on a trip from Houston in 1989, that possibility ended. Thank goodness. She was too smart and too bossy for me.
Ron
The most beautiful curve on a woman's body is her smile... (Short Story) - 11/18/2023 1:52:19 PM
It's been a long time since I encountered people while out walking, but when I did, I always smiled at people while passing, merely as a kind gesture. But I noticed back in the day when mobile telephone became common in college student's hands that they always seemed concentrated on who they were talking to and walked right by without any gesture at all. So, like you, I missed that.
You made me recall that when my partner's sister-in-law comes within sight of me, she lights up like an angel! Her smile is incredible and precedes her personality as a very kind and generous individual.
Thanks for your sharing your encounters in the park.
Ron
The feminisation of America, revisited, revisited... (Article) - 5/8/2026 3:18:33 PM
Thanks for that comment, Alex. I fully realise that voicing such an opinion (like mine, appearing here) in our present age is much like wearing a goatskin with hair on the inside and preaching Christian doctrine to the desert scrub brush like John the Baptist did. Still, It serves a useful therapeutic purpose (keeps me off the street barricades and armed with a pike, good half-Irishman that I am). Sláinte, -K2
The feminisation of America, revisited, revisited... (Article) - 5/4/2026 8:15:49 PM
Great article. I saw a great interview with Helen Andrews. A feminized society places greater value on feelings over facts, critical thinking and rational analysis. If it feels right, let the facts be damned. If you feel like you are a woman, then you are a woman.
The Problem With Feminising Society - Helen Andrews
https://youtu.be/pfbilhs5dt4?si=tKnL6VwJj6s2sWMy
Field Notes on the Species 'Homo sapien' (Article) - 4/10/2026 2:02:39 PM
As I rummaged, and sometimes, scanned through this lengthy treatise on what it means to be human and/or intelligent if the two can be equated at all, I came upon numerous reconsiderations or repeats.
But as I neared the end, I came to the conclusion that man cannot live alone (although some have tried) for fear of not pulling the strings of survival well enough. Therefore, 99.9% of us are followers. Out of danger except collateral damage, we choose a leader who has no fear. What leader is like that? God in all his or ramifications.
However, in the presence of some sociopathic, narcissistic, lying, flatterer, we figure, "What the heck, I'll go along with him if he gets me all that stuff he claims."
Just one more way to keep out of the fray and not make any decisions.
Ron
Obesity: To be or not to be? (Article) - 4/8/2026 12:54:57 PM
Well, Ron, I hate to deflate your academically-trained balloon, but the first part of that article is NOT AI generated. The second part, clearly delineated as "an AI assessment...etc." IS. You seem to have a rather unhealthy obsession with AI, as evidenced by your "reviews", that invariably begin with accusations of the use of AI in a particular piece. My advice? To avoid needlessly bursting a brain cell with an apoplectic cerebral aneurysm, I would suggest you give this reflexive 'attack dog' attitude a long and peaceful rest, eh? Pitbull onslaughts are not pleasant things to encounter, in either canine or human form. That said, have a blissful Large Language Model day! -K2
Obesity: To be or not to be? (Article) - 4/8/2026 12:01:50 PM
I sensed the AI nature of this article early because of the relative repetition and milk toast approach to a lot in life many consider worth stronger language.
In primitive tribes, the tribal leader often exhibited obesity. Just like the followers of Buddha, have admired his happy disposition and shape as a sign of being healthy, wealthy and wise.
Even without the discourse in this article, maintaining an ideal body weight ratio by eating the right kind of food and having plenty of vigorous exercise has always been an indicator of a long and healthy life.
I prided myself, after I started cooking my own meals, with eating right and maintaining a 30.5 inch waist for 30 years from 20 to 50. At that point, I had to cut back even though my physical stress from creeping paralysis made even walking strenuous exercise.
But for the past 30 years, my exercise has declined, year by year and my provider/cook, while feeding me excellent food, tends to want to give me more than I should eat and I have gained some weight.
By contrast, my younger sister, only 5 feet tall, a few years back lost 80 pounds by fasting every other day. She needed to in order to continue living.
I am alarmed by all of the drugs now available for weight loss. I observed many following weight loss programs sold to them that didn't work and they died early. Like those weight loss programs, the drugs are very expensive. Long-term side effects are unknown and I'm afraid that only starting young with the right diet and exercise will people escape the perils of weight of life dealt with too late.
Ron
And now a word from Our Heavenly Host... (Article) - 3/2/2026 12:40:05 PM
You took your good time getting around to describe what happened to your beloved Jezebel. Thankfully, it was a good thing, a narrow miss rather than a horrendous scraping sound like I heard when a wild driving 18 wheeler ran me off a narrow city street and trapped me up against the curb while raking my rear quarter panel.
When the driver came after me, I stepped up on the nearest house porch and asked the woman at the door to call the police. He backed off, and convinced the policeman that I was at fault and ran him off the road. I got a ticket. But after examining the damage where the rear trailer wheel ground a circular pattern in my rear quarter panel, I went to the police department, brought the officer out and showed him the evidence that I was up against the curb with my front wheel and it was the truck that was moving. He removed my ticket and ticket at the truck driver.
I called the trucking company and they sent compensation. Telling me that the driver had a reputation for driving like that. Taking a city street rather than the highway as a shortcut like I did.
But back to your sidetrack to holy intervention. Your description did not provide enough information to suggest that Bob may have fully understand what that loud Whoosh was. Rather unconvincing. Like your dreams. Mine are also filled with rather weird strangeness. The way dreams go.
The other day, I was sitting at this computer composing something when I heard a very loud, Crash! that nearly shook the building. I feared that a car had come off the street (some cars and motorcycles have actually hit 100 mph on our short street used as a shortcut in the neighborhood). So, I wheeled my wheelchair to the front of the house and even went out in front of the garage to see if it had been hit. I found nothing.
Unfortunately, our resident white wing doves, when startled by cats or thinking they are flying with a buddy that is their reflection, routinely hit my large rear windows on the back of the house. It is quite a Bang! Fortunately, they tend to shake it off and continue on their way rather than die like some birds have.
Kids tend to play soccer over my rear fence in the parking lot. Occasionally, their balls come over the fence and hit the house with a loud Bang! Even louder than the bird collisions. But what I heard was much louder with no evidence that anything happened, except maybe the next-door neighbor hit the wall with something where I didn't look. But I don't think God had anything to do with it.
I’m really glad that Jezebel is unscarred and still exercising on the I-5 without being singled out by the CHP, except in admiration.
Ron
NorCal Coastal Cold Water Reflections, 1989/2007 (Article) - 2/27/2026 12:12:29 PM
That was a whole lot of son, surf, sand, and especially, women. Something you have pondered for a long time. I like the Hawaiian version of surfing the best. Unencumbered by the machismo and subdued Christian sexual overtones of beautiful California girls in bikinis.
Ron
Welcome to Californication, suckers! (Article) - 2/5/2026 3:25:09 PM
As for the decline of Californication, it's been a long time in coming.
I'm sure the native tribes that lived there for thousands of years were a bit upset when the Spaniards came in in the 1500s and enslaved them. And the Spaniards probably didn't like those damn Russians settling in the north. But what really got the Spaniards upset, was all those land grabbing immigrants from the east who never stopped coming until there was a huge flood in 1849 that transformed bucolic San Francisco into a hot bed of thievery and debauchery. Things settled down a bit until the 1930s when the Okies invaded California and the damn liberals wrote books like Grapes of Wrath and vagrant like Woody Guthrie wrote un-American songs like This Land. And then those drugged out, pot smoking hippies descended upon San Francisco in the 1960s and brought more ruin to it. San Francisco became too expensive for most to live in and trickle down economics fired by Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, has created San Francisco only for the ultrarich, like you described.
When I revisited Redwood City a few times, it remained very much the same. People refused to leave there and to drive newer cars because cars lasted so long without the middle western rust belt. But when I interviewed in 1978 in Long Beach I stayed in a rather new Holiday Inn down by the waterfront with oil pumping donkeys in view and the skies definitely orange looking from stagnant air and chemicals. Another interview at Northridge brought me to the San Fernando Valley. What a depressing looking place that was even in the 1970s. Probably more so today.
Back in 1968, I bought a 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado with 53,000 miles on it. It was equipped with a special smog reduction air pump system that was unique to California at that time. I really think that if California had not placed those restrictions, some parts of the state, particularly the LA area and some parts of the Bay Area would have air that was literally unbreathable. It made the car under powered, but I still got around about 20 to 30 miles or more over the speed limit. It was a great drag car. Surprised some hopped up hot rods on El Camino with the grip of those front wheels and the power of that 425 cid engine.
I feel your pain. While I didn't have that problem as my 1973 Chevy Monte Carlo was continuing to be fixable and passing state emissions, going from lead gas to lead free gas by overhaul of hardened valves until I send it packing with my nephew in 2007. But my 2006 modified Ford Freestar is reaching the point where parts may not be available to keep it running like it has been. Texas stopped inspecting cars, but reinstated the emissions test this year. But they didn't hook up the tailpipe guzzler like they used to with the Monte. They just checked it on my computer and I passed, for now.
But Waymos are driving around the city and pretty soon, we won't have a gasoline car problem anymore just a lot of hopped up electrics with zero to infinity acceleration for the kids to wreck.
Ron
Confessions of a 'Yellow Fever' afflictee... (Article) - 1/27/2026 12:49:42 PM
Well, Ron. There's a very old and tradition-bound Asian custom that one's personal immediate family affairs are strictly personal and not subject to air or discussion in public. "Private" means exactly that, "private." Hence nothing will appear about my immediate marital situation. That, in answer to your query about your puzzlement over a lack of discussion along that line. Previous and past liaisons are also theoretically personal and private, but I feel the need to expiate an accumulation of things that have weighed me down for quite a while, so I've stepped over that line herein. I have been an ardent student of traditional Asian culture/civililisation/history for many years and find that it is a life-long and ongoing process, unlike your relatively indirect involvement in this subject. I do not pretend to know everything and never shall, but that doesn't mean I can't continue to search for answers to questions I may have that I have never fully plumbed the depths of. And as regards "sexual, compliant and/or desired," that's not my own opinion; that's the general attitude of others who are drawn to Asian women. I'm just an astute observer of cross-cultural matters and draw conclusion of my own accordingly. Still, it's always useful to find my pet (if "educated") opinions questioned, examined and perhaps challenged. Isn't that what useful colloquies are all about? Your meeting Beh was, after all, merely a matter of "Lady Luck" electing to smile upon you, eh! Don't forget to light a joss stick or two to the Eight Immortals for this bestowal of good fortune as the New Lunar Year dawns... PS: You may be a good engineer but you'd have made a lousy psychiatrist, I think.
Confessions of a 'Yellow Fever' afflictee... (Article) - 1/27/2026 12:08:54 PM
In spite of your obsession with your lost Asian partners with such detail and assurance for what happened, I found your confession to be quite interesting to read, comparing it with my experience with women leaving me in a similar fashion.
I am perplexed why you didn't mention your wife in this detailed discussion of a book by Kaila Yu that you deeply personalized and then used some of her language to explain two of your earlier paramores that didn't work out. Perhaps, you are afraid that you could raise her ire if you wrote about her. Especially in such pseudo technical language that is both interesting but sometimes irritating.
Unlike most white male men that I've known, including you, I never had this fixation with Asian women as being sexual, compliant, and desired. Perhaps resulting in a missed opportunity for me. And, none of my girlfriends had any problems with their breasts. None were over endowed, and none were under endowed. My initial preference was for blue eyed northern European blonde archtype. But that changed as I traveled through higher education institutions and found women from all over the world that were, beautiful, intelligent, and interesting…not because they were someone I could dominate, but because they were so self-reliant and could take on Americanization while remaining loyal to wherever they came from.
I was in my 40s when I visited an old friend and college roommate from Bombay and his wife. He came from Zoroastrian culture and welcomed Americanization to the point of not eating Indian food anymore. His wife, with a master’s degree in English literature and an actor father who became Christian, had some good advice for me. "Ron, get an Asian woman to marry you." That was easier said than done because I didn't know any Asian women at that time to court.
Among several others, 33 years ago I hired a 35 year-old Vietnamese woman to be my caregiver. Since then, she has become my partner in life in many ways. We share similar philosophical and political views, and she has made my life much better than when I was alone. I hope that I have helped her half as much. She's a good writer in English and I can't wait for her to write, in detail, her adventures as she tried to escape from Vietnam after 1975 six times and failed.
Ron
Submerged Shadows: WW2 submarine crew psychodynamics (Article) - 1/26/2026 4:24:53 PM
Interesting anecdote about Bowfin, Ron. Yes, after the war a number of VA psych studies were done on US submarine crews, as well as some by other agencies of the Govt. The mention of adverse hypercapnic effects on WW2 sub crews is apt, as 'submersible' diesel boats had definitive limits on submergence time imposed upon them (prior to use of "schnorkels") and often suffered from excessive PPCo2 in situations when they were forced to remain submerged and unable to surface safely. The air on submersible boats was often QUITE unhealthy, although the German Kriegsmarine submersible DBs (such as the Typ VIIC and IXC) suffered most from these effects, given their slightly lessened limits of underwater operation. American 'Fleet boats', like the Bowfin were somewhat better equipped to deal with hypercapnic cabin effects. The Bowfin is a great museum boat, well-cared-for in Pearl today, across from the old 'Battleship Row' where the Arizona lies. It should be visited & toured by all visitors to Peal, IMO, to convey a small bit of the submariner's experience in that war. PS: The 'notes' you refer to are always available on request.
Submerged Shadows: WW2 submarine crew psychodynamics (Article) - 1/26/2026 11:37:58 AM
At first, I thought I wouldn't enjoy another World War II story. But you put a spin on this one that had me eager to read the next paragraph. Unfortunately, there was some repetition. But this time not as much as AI usually brings to the fore. I don't see the notes that you referred to throughout, but I guess you decided not to add them for this presentation.
The psychological pressures on the crews of these crapped underwater tin cans cannot be understated. And I wonder if any after service studies were done of submarine crews after the war. I'm sure that PTSD prevailed for many. Especially those subject depth charges bringing high anxiety with every quick and explosion.
In 1967–69 I became a friend of Jack Swanson, a man in his 40s, my father's age at the time. He briefly told me that he was on the crew of a intelligence submarine in the Pacific during the war. Told me only one war story. They were in port in a Southeast Asian country when a Japanese destroyer came into the harbor. They were tied with ropes to the pier. He told me that he cut one of the ropes while another guy on the other end cut the other so they could leave the pier and submerge in the bay. They were depth charged, but survived.
I told his story here…
https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=41960&authorid=3918
Unfortunately, shortly after Jack retired, at 66, he developed an arthritic back and died within a very short time with many fractures in his spine. Your article would be to believe that perhaps, his time in the tin can had led to some kind of deprivation like the loss of CO2 (?) in his bones that eventually lead to early death. He was a heavy smoker and had bad teeth as a result. I could also send that he was psychologically disturbed, primarily by his hyperactivity. Trying to live up to his father's reputation.
Dilatation of Closed Phrenix Confabulational Paradoxes (Article) - 12/19/2025 6:56:48 PM
This pretty much describes the state of affairs in modern sciences. There is so much jargon and specialization, that only experts in that particular specialization in that narrow field can comprehend the topic. This invites manipulated data and shoddy research that can fool the general public. We live in the world run by the so-called "experts", which is no different from religious authorities of the past. The Renaissance man has been replaced by technocratic specialists, who flaunt their degrees, authority, and numerous publications in "peer-reviewed" publications.
Dilatation of Closed Phrenix Confabulational Paradoxes (Article) - 12/19/2025 1:56:27 PM
You are the master of gibberish. And even counted for it an item 2.2, but not repeated in the repeated 2.2s that follow, paradoxically in the appendicitisly written extensively here, there, and everywhere.
How you do it I don't know. But you certainly are pulling the legs of highfalutin scientific authors that I have read in journals like Science. Shysters who have gotten away with writing what looks to be scientific but is merely balderdash.
So continue to proliferate your punditry and maybe you will become an influencer of the greater unknown. I will follow, amazed that your vocabulary impossibility.
Ron
You even beat the other bullshitter who writes articles that no one cares to read more than once.
Mid-engine or rear-engine? Porsche's quandary... (Article) - 12/14/2025 2:23:27 PM
Some very good justification for why Porsche has been building their cars the way they have. The fallacy of the mid-engine is that it is primarily for performance like you state. But very bad for passengers and maintenance when located in the middle of the car.
When I arrived from around the world to the Philadelphia airport and 8 inches of new snow, I was grateful that Roger's 912 had a backseat where his daughter sat sideways to accompany us back to the house.
I was about to say that NASCAR cars seem very capable on road races to handle the curves, until I read about the horsepower fallacy. On distance races like the 24 hour at Lemans, the need for gasoline stops alone makes the horsepower fallacy unworkable.
Ron
And now a word from our sponsor, Scrooge & Marley inc. (Article) - 12/11/2025 2:49:20 PM
I'm with you. But my wifey was a decorating do-gooder to accent her colonial pine furniture and tall tree in the tall corner of the living room while the stockings hung by the fireplace with care…cookies coming off the hot plate. Spiced cider in the cup.
That went when she's gone. My family even quit giving gifts after that got old except for the children. Fortunately, my neighbors are too poor or to transient to put up very elaborate decorations. It seems like it's the ones south of the border that feel they have to do that before they are ICEd out of here by masked men in Santa Claus clothes.
But my sister tells me that her son who ironically does respiratory therapy, can't stop his innate urge to dress up upon every holy day, just after holy wiener, and is in big demand as Santa even though he doesn't have a beard and not a white hair on his head, no belly…just pillows for kids to sit on. In that little town in the Midwestern north, nestled in snow 50 years behind the times.
Baja humming bug to the whole ritual. Haven't watched a Christmas show in years.
Ron
Thermodynamic augmentation of engine cooling using the Coanda Effect (Article) - 12/5/2025 1:52:25 PM
I didn't read the entire analysis. It probably could be much shorter. But it appears that you have created a unique solution to a common problem. And that's why you wrote the article.
Is it unique enough that it could be patented?
Ron
Two diverging takes on Veteran's Day, 2025 (Article) - 11/17/2025 11:55:48 AM
Both of your essays were exceptional. While I never would shirk the opportunity to defend our great country I already possessed much of those disciplined behaviors that's so many of my contemporary went to boot camp to get, enabling me to breeze through college and perhaps get a commission had I gone to Nam.
You and I possessed the same mixed feelings at the time and were desirous of speed, whether it be flying a jet plane or riding a spaceship to the moon. You got much closer to your wish. I got there from a wheelchair flying my vans like an airplane 3 feet above the road.
Not being close to veterans, I don't think much of Veterans Day when it comes along. But I saw a movie called Devotion. It chronicled the story of the first black pilot in the Marine Corps after being a veteran pilot in a black squadron WW II.
I channeled his courageous (liberal?) white wing man as I watched him deal with the innate discrimination the Navy had for blacks being allowed to fly and fight.
A great story of heroism and friendship.
Ron
Two diverging takes on Veteran's Day, 2025 (Article) - 11/13/2025 10:48:44 AM
KK. This is quite a summary, and one that I can affirm from top to bottom having lived a parallel life at approximately the same time. My brother (just 2 years my senior) did 26 consecutive months in Vietnam as a medic who flew some 800 medevac missions, often landing in the thick of a battle and needing to kill those who were trying to kill him. 30 air medals with valor tell only a small part of his tale. Thanks for an honest appraisal filled with lots of facts and immense skill. Ed
The Poisoned Parables (Article) - 11/5/2025 12:34:49 PM
Your article appears to be an entire course in How to Get Ahead by Advertising.
You are commended for all of the fine references and the way the article is structured, unless AI did it for you.
Your two primary biases are: all media, including ads, are not representative of the population but are stereotypical and young people cannot deal effectively with the power of social media and deceptive ads.
I find myself completely ignoring most advertising and don't find that I am influenced by any subliminal messages in it. Never have been one to try to, "Keep up with the Joneses."
Since I have no children, I cannot comment on what young people are like today, except this past weekend I saw many of them having a lot of fun during Halloween at both our expensive hotel and on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.
From my growing up, I found that most young people tended to follow fads created by others and major companies. My brother and I didn't and we saved a lot of money for college.
My twin brother recently watched three of his granddaughters go through college. They all finished without debt and I recall the eldest was driving a used Mercedes. So it is possible for young people to avoid the massive debt caused by credit cards and student loans if they have the right upbringing by their parents.
Ron
A Brief History of Convair F-106A 59-0010 (Article) - 10/14/2025 2:38:39 PM
That was amazing how 59-0010 escaped to become part of the museum in 2007. Based on that I think you wrote this article back then.
Any self respecting fighter plane that lost its nose would crash, instead of showboating its way to antiquity. Wouldn't it?
Very interesting and informational.
Ron
Where, oh where, has my Porsche dream fled? (Article) - 9/27/2025 1:34:42 PM
One of the thoughtful design touches of the 914 is the fact that it has a built-in rollbar, of course. Mine always have an additional transverse rollbar added, as well, along with a 5-point 3" racing-type seatbelt system. That said, as only 48 inches height off the ground, I avoid being in the immediate vicinity of late model pick-up trucks like the macho plague they are (reflective of "tiny peepee" syndrome, as someone recently observed), since I'd hate to have to be buried in my 914!
And yes, anyone who owns and drives a 50+ year old car has to have an interest in and passion for classic/antique automobiles and drives it purely for the pleasure it gives them in participating in a form of automotive 'living history', IMHO. Ask me why automobiles are otherwise another plague on humanity, some time if you have about three or four odd extra hours...
Where, oh where, has my Porsche dream fled? (Article) - 9/27/2025 12:39:56 PM
All cars these days have accumulated technology from all the others so that regardless of the marque are basically the same with a few more unnecessary whizz bang accessories and advertising continuing long-held traditions like Porsche's with a price tag to match. Mostly overpowered and made over safe in the same technology.
You are right, the simple, elegantly engineered and enjoyably drivable cars are only part of history. I would advise people who are interested in that kind of vehicle to buy a classic or even antique vehicle to drive for fun like you have. But don't get caught without a seatbelt. You probably will be without a roll bar, too.
Besides, even though Porsche and Cadillac are still racing their guts out against Ferrari in F1, drivable cars are obsolete already. Before long, people won't even learn how to drive and just take advantage of self driving cars and services taking them where they want to go safely and expediently without any fun of the open road anymore.
Ron
A history of Soviet Project 651 (Juliett Class) submarine K-77 (Article) - 9/2/2025 7:39:33 PM
A note for Ron: When the USSR finally collapsed (in 1989/90), dispersed Soviet military assets remained in the hands of the former Soviet Socialist Republics they were last based in (or last operated from). Although both K-77 and K-24 were by then in "Inactive Reserve", they were docked in Latvia, so that country therefore claimed them and maintained the authority to dispose of them, due to the fact they were by that time obsolesced and surplus to modern naval operational needs. Thus they were offered up for sale and the Finn you mentioned, a wealthy business man, tendered an offer for both that was accepted. The German Naval Museum in Peenemunde indicated a interest in obtaining one of the two, so K-24 was sold to that museum for inclusion in the Peenemunde 'museum fleet.' K-77, by far the most storied and interesting of all the Julietts, was kept by that (wealthy) Finn, who wanted to created a public entertainment/attraction in Helsinki's Harbor. To say K-77 was of little consequence or importance is not accurate, given the Juliett Class's significance in helping the USSR maintain its balance naval of power equity with the USA's naval forces, and given the fascinating history of the boat's operations and subsequent 'life' in the USA as a museum boat in America. On a separate note, restoring and rennovating any large ship, whether a naval surface vessel or a sub-surface boat, is a potentially ast ronomically expensive undertaking (i.e. the USS Teaxs you mentioned). This includes modern ships as well as historic sailing vessels of the 1800/1900s. These days, with money as tight as it is, few except the die-hard history buffs and historians feel the need to preserve these splendid old 'war horses' and this is the main reason (aside from a near-total lack of interest by younger people in history of any sort...particularly military history) that so many museums are closing and or failing to thrive. The present scholastic emphasis on "STEAM" training and education typically excludes any sort of appreciation for important relics of past eras (such as aircraft and ships/boats). Unfortunately, history doesn't seem to be your strong suite, Ron... PS: Finland and Russia have had an extremely complex and interactive relationship for many years. Postwar Finland bought and operated used Russian military hardware (their 1990s era air force flew several squadrons of MiGs, along with their Swedish Drakens, for example, etc., etc) and there's still an interesting relationship between Russia and Finland today. If you're interested, I would suggest reading a modern history of Finland for important 'backstory' that provides better information and understanding of this unique state of affairs. PSS: There are TWO articles on my AD website on the K-77; I would suggest reading both of them. Most of your questions will be satsfactorily answered therein, I believe.
America's 'sick' and dysfunctional health care system (Article) - 9/2/2025 1:08:06 PM
While I found the article to be basically true to the concept that whenever something intrinsically good becomes monetized, tends to decline in quality of service. I liked the philosophy of Ivan Illićh’s approach to healthcare, but found the article extremely repetitive indicating the use of AI to compose it.
Personally, I can relate a few things regarding my healthcare. I have always been, since I entered college, under very good insurance and I have never had to pay excessive amounts for my care. Although some of my care has been excessively expensive because of the way it was carried out. For example, when I was about 23, a dentist pulled a tooth that was infected and unable to be fixed for five dollars. About 15 years ago, my dentist pulled a wisdom tooth with the cost of something like $300. Recently, I had a wisdom tooth pulled and the dentist/surgeon required me to go under anesthetic at an additional cost with additional personnel and the cost, out of pocket, was around $600 and the amount to my dental insurance probably exceeded that amount.
I was paralyzed in surgery in 1963 and suspected that the anesthesiologist had given me an improper dose of anesthetic, covered up by my neurosurgeon. However, I had signed, before the surgery that there was a 10% possibility of death and a 50% chance of some paralysis. So I had no legal grounds to challenge the surgeon or the hospital. In 1970 when it was obvious that I was growing more paralyzed with each year, my original neurosurgeon suggested that he go back in to the original surgery site and I refused.
Instead, I went to Mayo Clinic for another a diagnosis. Not only did the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota have ancient X-ray machines giving lower resolution, they spend a great deal of time with psychiatrists examining me as though my creeping paralysis was all in my head! Fortunately, I worked at a state university and had good State of Wisconsin Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance. All of my costs for those examinations were fully covered and I never paid a cent. Even for my initial surgery in 1963 that I was told cost $2000… More like $100,000 today.
I had only one problem with a primary caregiver being promoted, ending up with a better primary caregiver like your article suggested. My largest problem after 30 years at a Texas state university was the periodic bidding for who would manage employee insurance. Three times up-ending my whole care and forcing me to go to another group of HMO style caregivers and clinics. I recently started over when Texas turned to infamous United Healthcare to manage its, otherwise excellent, Insurance program where I’ve never had to pay for any insurance premiums because as an employee I was covered, even into my retirement. Only having to pay for dental insurance.
Finally, at my April check up I was worried about what my blood test data showed. A lot more elements/compounds out of line with normality I’d never seen before. When I questioned, my primary care physician told me that he looked at me holistically rather than what that data showed, contrary to what your article states about the ability of primary care physicians to do anything other than prescribe palliatives.
Following the advice of my partner and what I heard online about dehydration, I was drinking way too much water every day and it was depleting some of my basic elements like potassium and sodium. Resulting in my ending up in the emergency room and two days in the hospital.
Hopefully, the future of healthcare will be, not one size fits all, like it is today but strictly individualized so that doctors will immediately know what health issues each individual has before they ever come into the office. But it seems like every new innovation complicates things more, creates more cost and more profits for doctors who go into side businesses. I’m beginning to think that hospice will not be a good thing for me.
Ron
Solar fire of the Heavens... (Poetry) - 6/10/2026 11:03:22 AM
Great description. It must be the influence of the Year of the Horse. Even as we age, our passions and desires never die. Or as Franco Battiato expressed it:
"La stagione dell'amore viene e va,
I desideri non invecchiano
quasi mai con l'età..."
Solar fire of the Heavens... (Poetry) - 6/5/2026 9:40:55 AM
It is incredibly amazing that from that initial explosion 15 billion years ago, we have new heavenly bodies in the form of intelligent and beautiful female born every year on this planet carrying with them the heat of exploding stars.
I dig it, the ladies sure are hot.
Ron
Find her in everything... (Poetry) - 6/4/2026 12:58:40 PM
The Girl From Ipanema comes to mind.
Yes, lasting love, in this case, for the opposite sex, crates great poetry that never goes out of style.
Makes me wonder if poetry targeted towards a beautiful man in a swimsuit would be greeted with such wonder? Just the gay crowd, even if it was written by a woman?
Ron
Find her in everything... (Poetry) - 6/3/2026 12:10:31 PM
I enjoyed your romantic side. Beautifully expressed. Love elevates us amidst all the darkness, corruption, banality and recycled platitudes.
Merely a turn of the wheel... (Poetry) - 4/16/2026 10:24:53 PM
Turn of the wheel is divided by eight
equinox and solstice are equal weight
The winter solstice of the Yule tide
Imbolc is next to effect the divide
Oestara marks the equinox of spring
Beltane in May gets the bells to ring
Summer Solstice arrives as mid summer
Lughasah is set by the inner transformer
Autumn equinox is Mabon for harvesting
Samhain harvests last as new year beginning
There is no room in America for a Marxist Revolution
that virus not a pandemic, quarantining Left's solution
Not all are on that wave length of totalitarians control
Not welcome as exporting this ideology is our goal.
The starward path: A tribute to Laika and Gagarin (Poetry) - 4/14/2026 12:40:15 PM
Laika was the first Earth creature to enter space "...and "ORBIT THE EARTH", Ron. She SURVIVED for an estimated four orbits before succumbing to heat and exhaustion. There's big difference between Albert II taking an 83 mile jaunt into space on a parabolic ballistic trajectory (and not surviving) and actually surviving long enough to complete four full Earth orbits, Ron.
Laika well-deserved FULL credit for her tragic accomplishment. Apparently you didn't read the comments carefully made at the beginning of this poem in which this distinction should have been crystal clear. Haste makes waste, my cavil friend. As for 'Miss Baker's' 15 minute, suborbital flight: she flew in 1959...full two years after Laika's orbital mission.
I fail to understand why you always feel compelled to quibble so and nitpick after the fact, Ron. Relax and stay cool; try to remain in context. Ukraine's woes and the current American effort to return to the moon are largely irrelevant in this specific context, which is SOLELY to commemorate the courageous achievements of Laika and Gagarin.
On second thought, why do I even waste my time saying all this to a chronic naysayer like yourself?! Good grief!
Petrushka's Remorseful 5-Year Plan... (Poetry) - 4/14/2026 11:53:10 AM
The Russian people at the time of the revolution were very widespread across a huge land base nearly a continent. They were used to autocratic warlords as leaders. Especially the Czars, ruthless tyrants.
The communist ideal, attempted after the Revolution, quickly fell into the series of dictatorships that last until today with Putin.
Why I prefer regulated free enterprise and our representative democracy. Full democracy requires that every citizen get involved in government. Similar to the attempts of communism. Always failing to strength and violence.
Ron
The starward path: A tribute to Laika and Gagarin (Poetry) - 4/14/2026 11:41:12 AM
Yes, a very good and fitting tribute to these Russian pioneers. But, Sputnik awakened a sleeping giant and the US beat the Russians to the Moon until they gave up the chase. Today the Russians are wasting resources trying to take Ukraine and the US is back going to the Moon and Mars.
I just checked. A Rhesus monkey, Albert II, was launched into space in 1948, but died upon a parachute failure returning to earth. When I visited Huntsville in 1977 I was fortunate to see Miss Baker, a Squirrel monkey. Alive and well…she lived 25 years after being launched and returned from space.
Ron
Petrushka's Remorseful 5-Year Plan... (Poetry) - 4/13/2026 6:40:14 PM
"The paradise promised is nothing but chain". Dostoevsky foresaw the major problem with socialism, that humans would sacrifice whatever little freedom they have in exchange for an authoritarian regime (be it the church or the state) that promises them material security and end of poverty. The "Grand Inquisitor" prose poem from The Brothers Karamazov captures it perfectly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxhvTAevdU8
The starward path: A tribute to Laika and Gagarin (Poetry) - 4/13/2026 12:09:02 PM
"No longer to the shadows bound,
But masters of the eternal night. "
Great tribute to Laika an Yuri Gagarin to commemorate the International Day of Human Space Flight on April 12. Well done. Gagarin was born in 1934, the Year of the Dog in Chinese astrology.
Merely a turn of the wheel... (Poetry) - 4/13/2026 9:57:00 AM
Communism has always led to the use of force and totalitarianism every time it has been tried. Great poem by Herr Maus.
Hair today, groan tomorrow...comrade (Poetry) - 4/13/2026 8:35:47 AM
Your friend seems stuck in the last century… Particularly, the Russian one. Even the current generalissimo is clean-shaven, right down to his bare chest.
But I must give him credit for humor. It was a rather quaint and corny piece. But the real guys in history were all about very serious life and death matters. Shaving was a luxury that they did not partake in. Too busy throwing insults and in the case of Stalin, killing all of his adversaries.
Ron
Merely a turn of the wheel... (Poetry) - 4/13/2026 8:26:59 AM
I can't see why he would want to remain anonymous. It is interesting that the current whip yielder has promised all the miners and factory workers more jobs and higher pay when the opposite has happened.
Automation followed by AI has literally made the proletariat of hard-working factory workers obsolete. What we have now is wealthy and poor. Everyone still has something to contribute to society, even if it is only poetry or art that does not sell.
The wheel is often referred to as the pendulum. Eventually it will, and has been since the first democracy in practice beginning in 1776 as proven that equality, fraternity and inclusion is far better than aristocracy.
BTW that's a cool website with no followers.
The Doorway, twixt Heaven and Hell... (Poetry) - 3/22/2026 1:02:31 PM
I can almost see a devilish smile on your face after penning this jewel. The rhyming and meter is so perfect, you could probably turn this into a song--if there are singers with enough talent to sing it. --ed
Crush depth (Poetry) - 3/22/2026 12:30:29 PM
Incredibly told tales that held me spellbound from beginning to end.
I marvel at the poetry that filters through such a mind. --ed
Crush depth (Poetry) - 3/20/2026 11:44:17 AM
A finely crafted love story from two points of view: the lost and the loser. Set in such a nostalgic setting that one sees both grandeur and horror within the lines. Lines like…
"While I am pulled away from life and youth and spring.."
Among many more lines equally as creative. I hope there was no AI at work in this poem. Just your talented mind.
Ron
Crush depth (Poetry) - 3/18/2026 12:32:00 PM
Well done description of the tragedy of war. I'm reminded of First World War poetry by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), where he describes horrors of trenches and gas warfare. Here's a stanza from "Dulce et Decorum Est":
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
You remind me that there is real poetry out there.
The Doorway, twixt Heaven and Hell... (Poetry) - 3/18/2026 8:34:19 AM
I understand perfectly the allure of the tale. Where the lush reward awaits twix the pillars galore. Forever more no more.
Sounded Irish to me and very very well crafted. Enjoyable to read.
Ron
Puddle Worms (Poetry) - 2/18/2026 9:38:07 AM
I must admit, after a storm, I cry when I see a poor earthworm all dried out on the kitchen floor.(Caution: lie alert)
On the other hand, I always enjoyed taking an earthworm and skewering it on a hook. Then throwing it violently out into the water so that a hungry bass would get hooked and die by thinking another traveling earthworm was going to be a meal.
But I do hate it when people get trained work animals that they can't really take care of, simply for the emotional unconditional love that animals seem to have for humans.
Ron
Bird of the Ukraine! (Poetry) - 2/4/2026 12:47:45 PM
And still going on four years later. What a S Storm. Will the evil Putin never die?
A Warm Puppy Pome (sic) (Poetry) - 2/4/2026 12:43:51 PM
A puppy poo poem. Never thought I'd see another. I can see you are a 'real' author, unlike my wanna be self. You can trust a person who loves animals. Thank you for this funny.
Here's to Twenny-Twenny-Six, replete with all its pending tricks... (Poetry) - 1/7/2026 2:05:10 PM
A lot of truth in your words. The image is clearly the Russian bear, largely the ego of a single man, using the power of office to do his bidding. Sound familiar?
I think it's time that we actually reinforce the punishment of war crimes wherever they occur, with friend or foe.
I would like to see "all is fair in love and war" recognized for what it really is. Preying on the weaker because one can and get away with it. The classic example of the under achieving bully.
Ron
Buster's Lament (in the Land of the Midnight Sun) (Poetry) - 11/29/2025 8:11:31 AM
That was an epic pome if I ever read one! And the subject was so profound that it deserves five sniffs without a sound. For nothing is worse than a silent fart burst.
Back when I was in Californica, I overstayed the holidays at my very kind dad's cousin in Livermore (where you liver less?) They had a friendly midsized dog in the house that was quite old from the gray hairs around his muzzle.
That dog gave off the most horrendous farts I ever smelled from dogdom. He seemed annoyed with them too as he would get up and walk around. After the mean old man of the house rode me out on a rail to go get my blown piston fixed by making an engine swap, they told me that he died. Finally relieved from whatever his G.I. was going through.
Shouldddaa, woulda kept those two hemis. Would be worth a small fortune today.
Ron
A Cynic's Ode to Thanksgiving... (Poetry) - 11/28/2025 10:45:38 AM
Lots of wit, charm, sarcasm, and lessons of the heart and mind. What else might we expect from someone who has his own getaway from a lite that he seems to live (and love) quite well? Wordology at its best.
DeGaussing Sevrin (Poetry) - 5/20/2025 8:49:35 AM
I remember when I was young at a local college in early 1980s, there was a poetry coffee house. This guy named Ed read a poem about a dog that was run over by a train. He was trying to get the audience to feel sad for the dog. I felt the poem was phony and I started laughing. I learned afterwards that he made up the whole thing.
Sevrin the pote reminds me of that guy. :)
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 9/1/2024 7:59:45 PM
Your poem reminds me of my training days in the Air Force. I cannot forget all those icy cold days at Chanute AFB, Illinois. Our flight commander marched us to school in the bitter cold. I still recall the cadence, "Go, go 55th, go mighty 55th..." It was undoubtedly the armpit of the Air Force for me since I favor the tropics. Anyway, despite the faded memory, I still enjoyed your poem. Well done!
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 3/31/2023 5:40:56 PM
You have recreated and shared the sharp contrast between nature and the pursuits of man and his war "toys" which are deadly. Well done, Kalikiano. All the best to you,
Regis (Reg) 🙏😎🌎🌳🐬
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 12/9/2022 6:30:30 AM
K^2: We have shared memories, almost. I never got farther north than the hills outside of Duluth, but that was cold enough. But the temp dipped to -40, or so, nonetheless. I could never translate the coldness, parkas, and muc-lucs into poetic charm as you have. The memories alone chill my bones down to the marrow. The bite and the fight are still there. Sensational write. Ed
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 11/6/2022 4:02:40 AM
This is such a vivid sensory description
Of this “intoxicating Heavenly scented
Winter Wilderness,”
both chilling and beautiful…
You have captured the atmosphere
with such skill…
Peace,
Diana…🍃
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 11/4/2022 10:42:33 AM
You captured the scene with stark realism right down to the creosote used to make railroad ties and bridge structures made of wood impervious to insects and rot. I was there with you and have experienced nearly the same. There is something pristine and lonely about bitter cold in the dead of winter when sound seems to carry miles further.
I would have liked to see more of the starkness of the landscape away from the river where the endless land meets the endless sky, unbroken by even a tree.
Ron
Winter is Coming... (Poetry) - 11/4/2022 10:20:18 AM
I love this! You have captured the beauty of winter in this poem.
Kalikiano reads a selection of poems, written from 1967-1974 (Poetry) - 6/11/2022 8:10:06 AM
I listened to a couple of your entries. Even with my poor hearing, your voice came through strong and clear. As though you had training on the stage with only your voice to carry to the back row. And you were dramatic while reading emphasizing and using your voice to put action to your words.
I could see someone interested in listening to music, an audiobook, or, in your case, poems read to them in a time of quiet reflection.
Unfortunately, my engineering, slow way of absorbing material, made it hard for me to follow your poems. Since it is a video format you could present the text of the poems as well while they were being recited. Or, dressed for the occasion, you could have a video over your shoulder of you reading your poems one at a time. With iMovie, I found it easy to take a video and add music and my voice to it without being a professional sound mixer.
I am amazed that you have kept in good order all of those poems. Most of mine during that time were sent with letters, posted on newsletters and added to anthologies. But if I kept the originals, I don't know. I threw away so many papers in 1992. And I don't have the physical capability to find any of them again.
Ron
Oh, Obloquy! (Poetry) - 5/27/2022 1:35:13 PM
PS: Whatever it was that I was enjoying when I put this together has long since been used up, so no...regret to say that whatever it was, you can't have some (hence no worries!).
Cheers, K2
A Declaration of Interdependence (Poetry) - 5/25/2022 9:20:51 AM
Better than the first version. We certainly get attached to our dogs. And what a handsome husky he was! In an ideal setting for northern dogs in the picture with you.
Ron
Like Ducks in Paper Trousers (Poetry) - 5/19/2022 7:53:08 PM
Duck the ducks! A duck nightmare for sure. I guess the moral here is to be careful that what you eat doesn't eat you!
Like Ducks in Paper Trousers (Poetry) - 5/16/2022 9:09:35 AM
I got a hearty laugh out of the effect of that pizza on your dream! Certainly was bizarre like my dreams can be. Thought about writing a poem about the homeless boy with his pet electric eel. And then, thought better of it. ;-)
I recall walking the streets of San Francisco and passing Chinese butcher shops with pressed duck hanging in the window. Sometimes, like with the sausage shops, the aroma from inside drifted out onto the street.
The Mormon fellow and his wife, the boss, who I roomed with in their small two bedroom apartment after his lucrative pool cleaning business failed, told me of his moneymaking adventures like trying to mine bat guana in caves in Baja until he was driven out at gunpoint by the locals and shooting ducks for Chinese restaurants illegally along the northern California coast.
My mother always had a subscription to Donald Duck at their lake retirement home for the grandkids, but I enjoyed reading those wacky stories, too. And I believe Donald Duck never wore any pants.
Ron
Like Ducks in Paper Trousers (Poetry) - 5/16/2022 8:40:44 AM
I SO enjoyed this tale…and
Cleverly written too…!
Something lighthearted and fun to keep those
blues away…
Diana…🍃
Like Ducks in Paper Trousers (Poetry) - 5/16/2022 12:50:34 AM
I love Peking Duck! It's so tasty! A delightful poem to read and I enjoyed it.
Hah! But If Stephen King were to write this he would turn the poem into a horror story.
Sandie
I'm sick of Schroedinger's cat! (Poetry) - 4/10/2022 11:17:28 AM
Isn't it amazing that what people of each generation know is often proved wrong by the scientists of the next generation? Yet somehow the human race continues to survive. Then of course there are the people who say that everything we know is wrong but you have to have faith in what can't be proved. Best to keep plugging along doing what seems to be working for us. Food for thought.
I'm sick of Schroedinger's cat! (Poetry) - 4/2/2022 1:18:38 PM
Most of astrophysics is interesting mathematical possibilities that only a very few can really get into and come up with any possible conclusions. What I find interesting is that something like black holes that supposedly live not only at the center of each galaxy but also occasionally in space caused by exceedingly massive objects that do not let light escape that alone anything that gets anywhere near.
And of course dark matter, something that theoretically occupies more space than all mass and energy we see. But just like new vision and technologies have made black holes real. So too will they find dark matter.
Parallel universes, on the other hand, are something altogether different. Provide for great writing in science fiction, but it may take Homo sapiens II to figure out how to reach them other than creative people seem to while dreaming.
Ron
The date we do not want! (Poetry) - 3/16/2022 9:27:50 AM
Thank you for posting. A poignant view from the front. We all die. These men are willing to give their lives using personal hunting guns against tanks. They have memories of resisting the Nazis in World War II and the Soviet Union after.
It is poems like this that are the rallying cry… The songs… That allow soldiers to face horrendous odds and somehow, prevail. Thankfully, most of the children have escaped to countries in NATO where the Bear would face reverse odds. If their fathers die, their mothers will help them become men of the courage of their fathers if and when that time ever comes again.
Ron
Soup for the Cesspool (Poetry) - 1/16/2022 2:15:09 PM
We are a self-destructive race bent on our own eventual self-destruction as your poem clearly describes. A subject most poets avoid except when they refer to some glorious leaving of it all behind. I am hoping for a turnaround on the "right to life" so that I can just have euthanasia and get it all over with before I get to that point if I'm not already there. Too many of us anyway on this earth taking up space and using resources with no pleasure anymore from any of them except good food.
I may have, once again, misread your poem but I enjoyed your courage in delving into a subject like this with such ferocity.
Ron
Soup for the Cesspool (Poetry) - 1/14/2022 8:07:04 AM
Effluently correct and erudite in all its inglorious gory.
That Crap-Crap-Crappiest Time of the Year! (Poetry) - 1/11/2022 3:33:35 PM
Christmas is what you make it. We can isolate our hearts from the commercial foolishness and celebrate our own way.
That Crap-Crap-Crappiest Time of the Year! (Poetry) - 12/30/2021 7:02:53 AM
Try as you might, you're not the grinch that stole Christmas.
You rescued him with your final stanza. Clever and fun!
That Crap-Crap-Crappiest Time of the Year! (Poetry) - 12/25/2021 11:30:59 AM
"Do they really know it's Christmas at all…" From this quote I'm thinking of the animals. At this time of year, if they are gatherers, they have a healthy stock of food stored somewhere nearby and are snuggled in their beds, either in aboveground dens or below ground dens content in their own body heat. But if they are herbivores, they are out there searching and scratching for food and water while they occasionally have to outrun predators keen on picking off the slowest and weakest. Not a bad thing, culling the species of the weak to make it stronger and more healthy.
You are right. Our species, supposedly the brightest, is busy making sure that predators like Coronaviruses don't do the proper culling and right to life babies suffer both physically and psychologically for being born in the first place. But baby Jesus looks down on them, blesses them and cures them, at least by myth, 2000 years ago, but not today.
In our guilt for neglecting the less fortunate throughout the year, we shower them with food and gifts, but save the most expensive ones for the people less appreciative and greedy.
Thanks for a healthy dose of what Christmas really has become under wealth and commercialism.
Ron
Too many ancestors (Poetry) - 12/8/2021 8:38:43 PM
Very sad when you witness someone dies alone, especially when you were a young child.
One of my well-to-do aunties was surrounded by children and grandchildren. I was very young when I visited her in her large mansion, but for some reason later some relative told me that she had died alone. I guess life is only worth something when you're alive, when you get old and sick then your life won't be worth the same. She was wealthy, but unless we know what goes on in her family we would not know why she had died alone.
Another one whom I can tell you about is one of my friends who is in his 80s whose children would not come to see him. He does not have any friends either, except me, who would call him once in a while to check if he's okay. He seemed happy every time I called. But that's all I can do now with the pandemic that is going on. I am always afraid that he is going to die alone. But then again, he is not my relative, and I've only known briefly. I do NOT understand how his children can be so heartless, leaving him all alone at his old age. I think eventually he will end up like that old man in your poem, who died alone and no one would even know about it.
Both his first wife and second wife have died. His children were from his first wife, he's got children and grandchildren in the U.S. and Canada, they are well-to-do, but not one of them would take on this old man. Very sad indeed!
Sandie
For J. (V) (Poetry) - 10/25/2021 5:09:53 PM
Indeed, the heart is a lonely hunter and I love your images, which, it is safe to say, haven't been seen together in any other poem. Writing poetry is what makes us unique, and answers the question, "What have you done that nobody else has done?" So keep on writing and your words will be forever etched somewhere in the universe.
Too many ancestors (Poetry) - 8/27/2021 6:36:41 AM
Your narrative reminds me...
Of a musty old rooming house
with a creaky floor, one water spigot
for 8 residents
and no bathroom
A doorway with a 1900s transom
2 pieces of old linoleum
on the floor
one window covered with newspapers
and cardboard
a saggy old piss-stained bed
and a one-burner open flame
for heat
4 or 5 suits hanging from nails
40 years out of date
that had never seen a cleaners.
That was my father's estate.
Too many ancestors (Poetry) - 8/23/2021 9:08:29 AM
Amazing that this piece was written in 1989. Or you just dated the time of your father-in-law's death?
In story form, I love the way you laid out first your task with your father-in-law's heritage, your own thoughts about your heritage, and your grown-up attitude towards that neighbor whose heritage was literally destroyed by childish hooligans with no conscience at all.
The father of my partner, and the father of 16 children (or more) accepted me willingly when he came in 1993. He was a learned man like some of his ancestors in Hanoi who had reached the pinnacle of higher education for their time. But he had little left as a refugee twice, burning his papers in 1975 when the Vietcong moved into Saigon and changed everything. He was buried by his loving family in an upscale cemetery here in Houston while his wife remains buried back in Saigon. None have his children will be buried beside him. Most have opted for cremation. Traditions change.
I hope you have someone other than your wife to handle all of those books and papers you have gathered. I am trusting in my younger brother as my executor, to keep what he thinks is valuable enough to keep and what is worth becoming recycled. Just the other day my partner said, "Why don't you throw out all of those boxes of papers?" There really aren't that many.
When I finally got them to this house in 1991, I started sorting through my years of teaching and researching. First with my mother, uncovering my collection of Playboy and other sexy magazines. And then, with my first hired caregivers, a Chinese-Canadian-American senior at Rice University who may have been gay for his affection for me, and a plastic surgeon from Ecuador who helped me finish the onerous task with her steadfast perseverance, hauling out bag after bag of student papers, rough drafts and other extraneous paperwork. What I have left, aside from a bookshelf of books that I inherited from a cottage I bought in West Virginia in 1975… Mostly religious works… Some very old. I have read very little and probably won't read anymore. Those boxes represent the best of my work that I do hope are passed down to my family. If not, so be it.
Another parallel I have with you is about a grade school neighbor across the alley with a wheelchair ramp to his door. We never saw him, but his lot was a jungle compared to the other houses on the block. No one to take care of it. When we peered through the dirty windows in the shed on the alley, we saw an old car that was intriguing. When he died, they practically had to tear the side of the shed away to get the car out. It was licensed to about 1931, but was much older with, as I recall, gas lamps on either side of the carriage. Someone bought a gem of an antique. My father said he couldn't afford it. Fortunately, we kids were not allowed to ransack that place that we considered haunted and verboten anyway.
Ron
For J. (V) (Poetry) - 8/22/2021 1:29:16 PM
Falling in love is easy, but falling out of love is hard, especially for those who are in love for the first time in their lives. Nothing could more devastating.
Sandie
Shuffle Off to Buffalo... (Poetry) - 5/18/2021 7:45:13 AM
I saw somewhere in the literature that the wild prairie where the Buffalo roamed produced more protein than the current way that the farmers manage the region. Using water from aquifers that is not being replaced. There are also Eastern wood bison that are being restored and European bison that are also being restored.
I never was downwind of a bison to catch that smell. But one time at our little town zoo, my cousin and I were petting a calf that got close to the open wire fence. Suddenly, the big bull got wild eyed and ran into the 5 inch in diameter wood post that supported the fence and it broke off right at the ground level right were my cousin was standing! It's a good thing that the fence continued to hold the post up, for if it had fallen, we would've been in big trouble.
Buffalo robes came in mighty handy when it dropped below zero on the northern plains. When the buffalo meat ran out, they ate the dogs until spring. Hardy people, those Lakota Sioux.
Missed an opportunity for buffalo at Mesa Verde, but later, when we stopped at the hangout of the heirs to Sam Wall's fortune, the restaurant there served buffalo steak and I will have to agree that it was some of the best tasting steak I've ever eaten.
Ron
Shuffle Off to Buffalo... (Poetry) - 5/18/2021 3:25:45 AM
I agree with the opinion of Dennis Lid. Peace and light! Fakhre
Shuffle Off to Buffalo... (Poetry) - 5/17/2021 3:45:59 PM
Review of "Shuffle Off to Buffalo..." by Kalikiano Kalei.
It's a worthy topic from out of the old west; a royal subject, indeed.
And, Kalikiano Kalei rides it with humorous rhetoric and poetic phrases deftly tucked within couplets of rhyme attesting to the creature's assets of fur, meat and pungent aroma, all of which satisfied those wisest of "injins," the mighty Lakota Sioux and the other buffalo contender and fan . . . the Gray Wolf.
Nice job on this poem Kalikiano Kalei - but, then, what else should one expect from a perfectionist and a professional poet and author?
By Dennis Lid
Ode to High-G Flight (Poetry) - 4/5/2021 11:37:05 PM
love it Kali - boy you sure covered it just perfect Very good job. I've worked with some of the best at Edwards AFB
So much fur, so little time! (Poetry) - 3/30/2021 9:40:31 PM
A+ for originality and humor. Dropping you back to an A
for pilfering a photo without the canine's consent.
So much fur, so little time! (Poetry) - 3/30/2021 8:53:29 AM
Dogs certainly have massage down pat. They love it when we scratch them in the right place and we love that soft fur that we lost when we decided to start wearing clothes. But why on the top of our heads? Right where we need it the most?
Only encountered a husky once about 1977 at my West Virginia cottage. What I remember about that dog was not his beautiful fur. There was no petting going on, but his piercing blue eyes that seemed to look into my soul to see what kind of a person I was.
But my encounter with a neighbor's malamute was as you describe. She was huge. But if you shaved off all that winter fur she might have been actually skinny underneath. All I remember was putting my arms around her great body and feeling like I had landed on the deepest carpet in the world, so luxurious and soft that I sunk right in. I think she would have been enough alone for a three dog night. ;-)
Ron
Donner Summit Snow Sheds (Poetry) - 3/28/2021 10:38:12 AM
Your story foray through the heights of Donner Pass take me back some 50 years looking down and seeing those labored railroad tracks snaking along the rivers and canyons far below shielded in places by what appeared to be wooden sheds keep the tracks clear and the trains moving whenever a snowstorm, avalanche, both of snow or rocks, came tumbling down to block the passage no more.
The last three lines though, are very telling of your motive for writing this piece… Peace!
Ron
Roundhouse rafters (Poetry) - 3/27/2021 9:45:39 AM
That old locomotive sure looks neglected. Probably on restorable in that condition already.
If entropy is still working, everything is winding down in the universe, including our penchant for the fiery beasts of the past. For some, fanatically so.
Ron
The Last Winter Rose at Solstice (Poetry) - 12/23/2020 7:23:09 AM
You have written a beautiful poem full of devotion and remembrance dear Kalikiano. I remember Genie my dog and all that she brought into my life for 15 years. Merry Christmas, from my heart to yours and your pack,
The Last Winter Rose at Solstice (Poetry) - 12/22/2020 9:53:44 AM
How fitting to use the winter solstice as a time to honor your with their winter coats so beautiful and their breeding for being a work dog and midwinter as the best means of transportation. And the Rose beautifully signifies the blood they gave for their masters.
Ron
The Last Winter Rose at Solstice (Poetry) - 12/21/2020 12:04:13 PM
We need to do just that - light a candle and to have quiet moments with our loved ones, so they would comfort us at times we need as this world has become not one that I can remember.
Sandie
The Last Winter Rose at Solstice (Poetry) - 12/21/2020 10:10:21 AM
A note from K2: Please excuse the use of this charming image of 'Grumpy Husky', taken by and belonging to an unknown person! It so perfectly fits this piece that I HAD to use it. I hope you'll understand!
Illuminata (Poetry) - 10/31/2020 3:36:40 PM
Thank you, Ian, Ron & Ed, for your comments. As several of my readers have gently reminded me (that they don't nohow speak that froggie tongue), below is a translation of the poem. I was astounded and perturbed to learn today, that one of my oldest and dearest friends from the late 60s passed into eternity the very same night that this poem came to be in the course of a rather turbulent dream. I recall awakening from disquieted sleep and putting the essence of this down at about 11 PM; I am told my friend exited his worldly identity at about 10PM. Spooky? Perhaps, but more reinforcement of Hamlet's famed soliloquy ("There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio...etc.")!
----------------------------------
Out of nowhere
Into out-there,
Through the smallest
Hours of the night,
The central question
Yet persists, uncaring,
As we struggle on,
Ever worse for wear.
Whatever Gods are
Laughing now,
Their mirth transcends
Us, why should they care?
Out of the night
That shuts out reason,
Out of the dark
That knows no season,
We blunder on
Unto the dawn.
Illuminata (Poetry) - 10/31/2020 2:44:25 PM
Luckily I've always been a sound sleeper and rarely remember my dreams or the creatures that populate them. But my late wife, a very light sleeper, would often instigate some very weird conversations as she sought my help in trying to make sense of her dreams.Perhaps when thinking about "such stuff as dreams are made on," the opposite of Shakespeare's words is the truth. Rather than their little lives being ended with a sleep, they are actually ended by an awakening.
Reference:
We are such stuff ss dreams are made on;
and our little life is rounded with a sleep.(The Tempest Act 4 Scene 1)
Illuminata (Poetry) - 10/30/2020 11:44:30 AM
Wish I could read French. Flunked it during my doctoral engineering studies and never pursued again. The Illuminati is not you are writing about, thank goodness.
Enough of that virus going around these days.
Ron
Illuminata (Poetry) - 10/30/2020 8:13:32 AM
If I could understand it I would write of it, but being intellectually unsound in the vein of other languages, I won't, but it looks pretty...-e-
A Head That One-Size-Fits-All, Doesn't... (Poetry) - 1/31/2020 4:00:14 PM
Popping zits is one thing, but I draw the line at girls who insist on sucking them out (yum!). Thanks, Ron!
PS: A Pome by Henry Gibson
I usta too be muscle hung,
But now I'm just a trifle sprung,
My biceps have a negative slump
And are fallen down into my sump.
Ah, cruel youth you've flown the coop
And now life's all a bunch of poop.
A Head That One-Size-Fits-All, Doesn't... (Poetry) - 1/31/2020 3:08:56 PM
I have a face eternally young. Unfortunately, a body not muscle hung. So all the girls just want my mind. But there are some, thankfully, that like my behind.
A nice way of picking away at yourself before the bullies get to you. But just ask yourself, would you really want all of Robert's zits? Come to think of it, all of my girlfriends seemed to relish popping them. Still do.
Ron
A Head That One-Size-Fits-All, Doesn't... (Poetry) - 1/30/2020 9:38:17 AM
My head is bare and comes to a point.
My nose is certifiably flat.
I too despise wearing a cap,
So I'll go bald and be a cool cat.
I enjoyed your humorous write. We need to be able to make fun of ourselves. Write on.
A bad pome for Sevrin, on his birthday (Poetry) - 11/18/2019 4:16:16 AM
I have enjoyed your sense of humor and your creative birthday wish Kali . Have a great day
A bad pome for Sevrin, on his birthday (Poetry) - 11/17/2019 7:06:01 PM
No immaculate conception, Ron...more like 'emasculate contraception', nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!
A bad pome for Sevrin, on his birthday (Poetry) - 11/17/2019 4:40:20 PM
Weird enough for me, my poetical friend . . . But written well enough to be called a pome . .. er . . . poem by me.
A bad pome for Sevrin, on his birthday (Poetry) - 11/17/2019 12:50:03 PM
What was that! An 'mmaculate conception! Or is he just a Buddhist Priest (rhymes with Judas Priest). Thus ends this pome.
Runny
My father's guns (Poetry) - 1/29/2019 9:31:02 PM
Powerfully expressive. "Each sinister steel shape, Reaches out, With talons of rapacious, Metallurgical terror." Chilling.
For a departed friend (Poetry) - 1/25/2019 11:30:41 AM
Wow! This word isn't one I usually use but it's all I could think to say upon reading this. You're a master craftsman. Please do not read the rest of my poetry. It pales in comparison. While I dabble, you create art. Great work Kalikiano!
Breaking Wind With Margaret Mitchell (Poetry) - 1/25/2019 11:29:21 AM
This had me laughing out loud. My hound's name is Maggie and she has the same problem but without the beans. You are definitely wacky but I so enjoy creative minds and you have a great one. :)
My father's guns (Poetry) - 12/28/2018 8:18:56 PM
There could have been a cross on the wall, a spiritual reminder of pain, guilt and mortality. Instead, you tell us about a different paradigm, with its symbols made of cold steel. 68 years, time stands still and the last lines can only be a prayer. Fascinating.
For a departed friend (Poetry) - 11/21/2018 9:46:17 AM
What a beautiful, poignant poem you have written for your friend. Better late than never. As I read it reminded me of that poem that I heard once related by Ronald Reagan with lines like… "Reach up and touch the face of God." You have similar lines like, "The ancient solar sea."
Reminded me of Paul Derby, a classmate of mine at college who rode home with me a couple of times the 100 miles because he didn't have a car. But immediately after graduating, as an ROTC student, was commissioned as a Marine pilot. He lost his life flying over North Vietnam leaving a wife and two children. I was dismayed when I tried to find his name on the Vietnam Memorial Wall (online search) and couldn't. But I did find a webpage that described his life and short military career very well. I didn't know him well enough to write such a stirring poem as you have. I didn't know Paul in high school because he went to the Catholic high school in town. And I didn't have any classes with him in college.
Finally your photo shows what our technology can do that is scary good. I understand that the troubled F-35 flies so fast and maneuvers so quickly that it can endanger its pilots by the physical stress it's G forces present. The plane's cost has also come under criticism because it overran in development many times.
Ron
For a departed friend (Poetry) - 11/21/2018 12:05:13 AM
Nice tribute to a good friend. Bravo!
I lost a fighter pilot friend who flew the F-117. He was used to flying F-16's at the time. One day in New Mexico bad weather hit on his way back to base. He told his wingman to land ahead of him. Then he pulled up above the clouds and he continued until he pancaked in the desert. Apparently, he traveled on a circular path and was not watching his instruments. He was a great pilot and a super guy. His name was Ken. He used to visit orphans on his days off. He never told anyone but he grew up an orphan as well. A great man. That was over 20 years ago and I still miss the guy! His wife was a sweetheart and a very gracious lady. Your poem would suit him very well. Thank you for sharing!
John Michael
My father's guns (Poetry) - 11/19/2018 9:30:55 AM
Although I don't own a gun, I'm with John On taking care of the mentally ill. But I also think we need a system that keeps guns out of their hands in the first place. Getting a gun is far to easy, and the NRA has far to much power and sway over politicians.
My father's guns (Poetry) - 11/18/2018 11:47:20 PM
We have had knives in our family for thousands of years.
Just like your dad's guns, we have not killed anyone.
My wife packs a 38 but that's just for protection.
I have many lethal weapons in our home in various places.
They are put there to protect and defend ourselves. Period!
I think the problem in America is we don't have a place to
contain many of our countries mentally ill citizens.
They get angry and pop out of nowhere and if they can get
a gun, they will start shooting like crazy and mad persons.
Chicago has the toughest gun control laws and they boast more crime!
So gun control is not the solution. It's people who kill not guns!
So what do we do with the thousands of mentally ill citizens?
That's a start. If we just recognize the problem.
The solution may be to have mental institutions that really help.
Suggestions are very welcome. Something MUST be done! Amen!
PS: Very informative poem. Well done!
My father's guns (Poetry) - 11/18/2018 9:23:46 AM
Wow! What a confessional poem that is! To think that your father appeared to worship guns of death that he taught how to shoot to so many, and yet then, never shot anything with. I have shot and killed wild game for food. I saw the value of the gun for that, but I never had any thought of shooting anyone with my guns.
Ron
Breaking Wind With Margaret Mitchell (Poetry) - 10/11/2018 11:45:58 PM
Your wit and sense of humor are off the charts wacky, crazy, and downright funny! Being situated somewhat downwind from Maggie's tales, I can testify that there are still whiffs of dastardly leguminous scents that pass this way.
Breaking Wind With Margaret Mitchell (Poetry) - 10/4/2018 7:08:05 PM
You turned her into an antihero, the character of a picaresque novel that allows the reader to take a disrespectful look and feel free to reconsider clichés. I like this freedom.
Breaking Wind With Margaret Mitchell (Poetry) - 10/2/2018 11:13:40 AM
Loved the movie. Never read the book. But it certainly is nice to know that Rhett was her butler. From first hand anecdotal evidence (mine), I have found that eating beans does not cause any more gas than any other food… In my case, less. I think the idea that beans have got a bad rap is totally false. Just try to prove me wrong.
I have known several ladies with the first name Margaret. They all use the nickname, Peggy. Mitchell might have been different, but I wasn't in the know about her like you. ;-)
Drove by her house just north of downtown Atlanta many times, but never stopped. It would've been nice to see that old typewriter she pounded on.
Another story. On one of my excursions from the Bay Area, I arrived in Reno on a gray day after they had a big windstorm. There was a drive-in theater on the highway I was driving on. The large replaceable letter billboard at the entrance read something like, G ne wi h th Wi d. When I got back to the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle had a picture of that sign.
Ron
Breaking Wind With Margaret Mitchell (Poetry) - 10/1/2018 8:16:50 PM
I have tried watching "Gone With The Wind" several times, but each time I have not finished watching it and then flipped the channel to something else. I shall give this movie another shot some time later.
Interesting poem, Kalikiano!
Sandie
The Spendthrift (Poetry) - 9/23/2018 8:04:36 PM
Surely you jest! I doubt if the beautiful young lady in the picture would ever give your friend, Sev, a second's thought. The line of men behind her likely extended from Mane to Montana, so he would do well to buy a one-way ticket to Montana and just stay there. He could also take his dime's worth of writing skills and bury them out there under the Big Sky and do us all a favor. But of course this posting is just allegorical. No one could be as big a Klutz as Sev. Miss
what's-her-name indeed!
The Spendthrift (Poetry) - 9/23/2018 6:24:13 PM
Thank you for sharing your friend's poem Kalikiano. I find it delightful and I can relate in many ways. Love and peace,
Regis
The Spendthrift (Poetry) - 9/21/2018 7:44:31 AM
An interesting story poem that immediately reminded me of a strikingly beautiful woman with six kids that I first saw standing in line at McDonald's. I did have one date with her to the exciting movie, The French Connection. When we arrived back in my apartment, she whispered to me… "I'm old enough to be your mother." ;-)
And then, this morning a letter dropped in from an Indian poet. She described me as being "hot" in those pictures I sent her (in jeans and jacket, building my house) and describing herself as "hot" way back then… Hinting that I was still "hot" today.
It is scenarios like your friend's poem that keep us going as we get older. And we probably shouldn't "spend" those thoughts by breaking into our fantasies.
Ron
The Spendthrift (Poetry) - 9/20/2018 4:20:05 PM
Sandie has point of the poem. His just right. Yep, he did the right thing.
The Spendthrift (Poetry) - 9/20/2018 1:43:09 PM
Some good memories are hard to erase and should be treasured. He's done the right thing of not standing behind her in line now as it would be a big risk to erase the good memories.
Good poem, Kalikiano!!!
Sandie
The Ballad of Wernher von Braun (Poetry) - 9/5/2018 7:53:01 PM
Interesting and a nice tribute too, KK. Love and peace to you,
Regis
The Ballad of Wernher von Braun (Poetry) - 9/2/2018 8:53:23 AM
I think we owe a lot to the German effort to build rockets that would reach England and beyond. While we credit Goddard with liquid fueled rockets it was von Braun and others, under the pressure of war that really got things going. I recently saw a documentary showing that von Braun was not given the money and manpower right away to develop his rockets here in the States. It was only when the administration began to fear that we would lose out to the Russians that he was given what he needed to do what he did.
I do recall all the early failures of the Vanguard project. And then taking a proven Redstone rocket used by the military, we were able to launch our first satellite. I also recall von Braun and Walt Disney teaming up with grand plans for going to the moon and beyond. The Saturn rocket performed almost exactly as he described it in those early television shows--amazing. I was fortunate to go to the Downey facility in 1968 and see the Saturn IVB being assembled as well as view the clean room where a long line of Apollo modules, including Apollo 11, were being assembled to go to the moon.
Nine years later in 1977, I attended the 20/20 conference in Huntsville. Members of von Braun's team were there, bemoaning the fact that we hadn't gone back to the moon.
Ron
The Ballad of Wernher von Braun (Poetry) - 9/1/2018 6:23:05 PM
I've often wondered how a brain of scientist functions, but to this date, I still don't know. They must have been born with the "know how" to accomplish what they did. Interesting article/poem!
Sandie
The Sinkiang Diaries (work in progress) (Poetry) - 8/30/2018 6:42:13 PM
What is a path? As soon as the comparison with the physical reality is gone, it becomes almost impossible to define. You mention emptiness. Maybe it's exactly what we're looking for. A path to serene emptiness from where we can create meaning. From metaphysical consideration to the real presence of nature... I like those "four legged, furry sopranos" that suddenly become so tangible.
Bushido Lessons for Skilled Nursing Facility inmates (Poetry) - 8/16/2018 4:10:03 AM
smile, I have enjoyed your smart witty poem that reveals the humoristic side of aging. Thank God for aging and hail to the Samurai sword, thank you for sharing dear poet, loved your creativity. Hope you have a wonderful day. Blessings,
Bushido Lessons for Skilled Nursing Facility inmates (Poetry) - 8/12/2018 9:33:03 AM
I broke down laughing. But as I age and encounter problems related to my spinal cord injury as well, I should sympathize with the poor old samurai. At least he is ready to fend off all attackers, regardless.
Someday we will see Tom Cruise portraying these haikus in The Last Stand Harakiri where he finally gets to cut it all out. ;-)
Ron
When Pavers Last in the Dooryard Loom'd (Poetry) - 6/17/2018 3:17:00 PM
I do not see or read of any "bad" poet here & as I know very little of Whitman (other than the fact he makes good chocolates :), I have to say I know of your poetry and that is all that is needed for me to have a good opinion of you...-e-
When Pavers Last in the Dooryard Loom'd (Poetry) - 6/17/2018 9:14:45 AM
I'm surprised no one else has commented! You did Walt Whitman proud with this "little bit of doggerel." And finally, showing me that poets, even bad ones, can be worth something, sometimes.
Ron
More from The Sinkiang Diaries (work in progress) (Poetry) - 6/14/2018 4:45:22 PM
The last few lines tell it all. Cats can be great therapy. Dogs as well. They are finding that providing quality time with these creatures helps calm the nerves and helps folks relax. A few strokes of that fur is one thousand times better than any pill or psychotherapy. God provides the best cures. Amen!
More from The Sinkiang Diaries (work in progress) (Poetry) - 6/14/2018 9:41:37 AM
I like the primal quality to the wilderness and alpha, lead dog aspect of your affection. Your poem proves that canines are our best friend.
Ron
More from The Sinkiang Diaries (work in progress) (Poetry) - 6/13/2018 7:52:40 PM
When those fur babies flip over to their bellies and demand a belly rub, you just have to give it to them. My daughter's kitty does that to me all the time. She even tries to wake me up to give her the belly rub.
An interesting excerpt from your story.
Sandie
Sumarian odors, lingering... (Poetry) - 7/11/2017 9:27:04 AM
Beautiful word pictures painted here. And of course to my paganistic view of nature, slipping into the darkness is a necessary step towards the renewal that eventually comes to all things.
Sumarian odors, lingering... (Poetry) - 7/11/2017 6:09:28 AM
A rather somber piece, reminding us that we are of little importance in the scheme of things. And yes, the Rogue will continue to flow to the sea with fishes being trapped in the eddies like they have long before we came and long after we are gone.
On my first trip west in September, 1966 to go to school in California with my grandmother as a traveling companion (a story I thought I would tell here soon with pictures that I/she took) we came into California from the north, from Oregon.
At lunchtime, as was our custom, I pulled off to a roadside stop along the Rogue to eat our bologna sandwiches and whatever fruit we had picked up along the way. As I looked into the clear water flowing by I saw several large fish, at least 20 inches long, gliding in formation, stationary in the current. As an avid fisherman in Wisconsin, I had never seen such a sight. I can only surmise that they were salmon. Without any fishing gear or license, I just watched them as we ate and were soon on our way again.
Ron
Selbstmord or something like it... (Poetry) - 6/18/2017 8:08:00 AM
Both creative and refreshing. Shows that even suicide can be invigorating for those of us that peek in on it without going along.
Ron
A Warm Puppy Pome (sic) (Poetry) - 6/16/2017 12:18:05 AM
chuckle, after many pups, kitties and kids in my house; it is hard at times to say which I might like the best,
enjoyed the read
m
Sexy East Coast Al Lewis (Poetry) - 6/16/2017 12:13:23 AM
thought provoking read
holds reader interest
m
Doc Boink hits a CAT (1967) (Poetry) - 6/13/2017 9:42:28 AM
Very descriptive story poem. Gut wrenching down to the last stanza where you lost it? In those days I had fairly good equilibrium. I'd be in the front seat.
Ron
Baggy pants (Poetry) - 6/10/2017 8:19:54 PM
enjoyed the read, believe only cat enthusiasts will really get the fullness of the thought
Husband and I are allowed to serve and share the home of a number of cats
never stop writing!
m
Baggy pants (Poetry) - 6/10/2017 7:56:28 AM
I've got twp cats (actually, they have me).
More support for your great thinker/cat lover claim.
Never made the connection before, but you easily convinced me.
For Eva (reflections on McKinley) 1972 (Poetry) - 6/9/2017 9:53:16 AM
Oh, Ron! You're SO literal! If you must know, we were near the summit of Mt. Mineral King (not McKinley) and the storm was V..E..R..Y real (just about blew our tent down the slope). It wasn't just ordinary GLOP, either (it was ramen & tuna), and 'the beard' had a small mouth opening just below his mustache (that was frosted over). Before he woke up he released a HUGE fart (no, not from his mouth) that didn't help things one bit! There! Now you have all my little secrets from that climb! -K2
Baggy pants (Poetry) - 6/9/2017 9:46:02 AM
Ah! The great enigma of cats in nuns' habits and non-swimmer Moggies! It's a rich broth of mystery right out of the cat box! K2
Baggy pants (Poetry) - 6/9/2017 9:06:20 AM
That's a strange juxtaposition. I understand cats in the backyard garden… I have my neighbors' all the time. But I have never seen a cat wear clothes except perhaps in some silly Broadway Play. So I'm not sure what the column with his unwillingness to leave the house (swim too far from the shore) has to do with these cats. But that I'm not in your backyard seeing cats wearing baggy pants.
Ron
Baggy pants (Poetry) - 6/9/2017 7:33:18 AM
I love cats
For Eva (reflections on McKinley) 1972 (Poetry) - 6/9/2017 7:07:54 AM
Certainly, she loved (or will love) this one. As I read, I couldn't help thinking that you were actually there, climbing in the footsteps of RFK and others who had made the summit. Surely with words like these, you had actually experienced… And then I was struck by the last line as though it were only a dream?
Ron
Of Rose, as sunset floods the room at dusk (Poetry) - 12/30/2016 5:20:33 PM
Staggering ruminations, often exquisitely expressed. Your mind is a wonder. Though this rambles far too long and aimlessly like a shotgun blast, it has the piercings of a .22 well targeted, dropping the victim to an instant huddle of something ragged and overly expended.
You do give one a surge to read more, hopefully in an abbreviated form.
More loose poems from the 70s/80s (Poetry) - 10/2/2016 7:15:29 AM
A lot to swallow in a single reading. Some nicely invented words in the first few poems. A bit of discourse on gays that I didn't quite get. Actually, I've found that some of the “WTFs” were more coherent. ;-)
Having lived in the Bay Area associated with the other school, Stanford, in the late 60s, I was able to garner some of your wine driven muse perhaps better than others. Near the end of the long list of poems I began to understand more, perhaps getting used to your style. A style I have difficulty interpreting and don't adhere to, wanting to communicate clearly, rather than win a Pulitzer for poetry.
Ron
Mendocino Coastal Headlands Duet (1977) (Poetry) - 9/2/2015 1:15:24 PM
Both so descriptive that I REALLY want to someday see the coastal area you speak of...a big difference they are to my normal haunts on the eastern shores...-e-
Mendocino Coastal Headlands Duet (1977) (Poetry) - 9/2/2015 9:20:20 AM
You have described the Northern California coast so very well in these few words.
I especially liked the sensual connotation in the last line.
Ron
Mendocino Coastal Headlands Duet (1977) (Poetry) - 9/1/2015 8:32:21 AM
Love, Love, Love "Listen to the quiet!" And this . . .
"Gray shapes of dampness darting
with joyful, silent quietude,
like the ghost of a faithful dog"
sealed inside my heart forever.
More dirty climbing limericks (Poetry) - 7/15/2014 7:16:41 AM
Thank you for making my day. It feels so good to laugh. Very clever wording.
Ingeborg
If women had udders...! (Poetry) - 3/27/2014 6:59:13 AM
hmmmmmmmmm.. a most UNIQUE view of um..er..ya know... LOL!
you have a great sense of HUMOUR obviously!!!!
Keep it up kiddo!
Vesna :)
If women had udders...! (Poetry) - 12/4/2011 3:36:29 PM
You sir, are a sick man...but a damn funny one...e
If women had udders...! (Poetry) - 12/2/2011 3:37:45 AM
lol again!
to err is human
to moo bovine
If women had udders...! (Poetry) - 12/1/2011 2:27:55 PM
Hahahahahahaha! The title is hilarious...and the poem had me in stitches....the picture is awesome! Tooooo funny! Thanks for the laughter!
Anna
If women had udders...! (Poetry) - 12/1/2011 1:56:39 PM
This is rather hilarious and most memorable!
Five Up, One Down... (Poetry) - 8/5/2011 12:01:46 PM
Rode my dads 59'(?) softtail once & only once as it got totally destroyed in an over the cliff ballet with me at its helm...I held on for dear life, hoping to keep it in one piece, fat chance, ripped from my hands, almost taking me with it to its final demise & permanent resting place in a very large & deep river in western Pennsylvania...okay, so it was snowing & I was doing about a hundred, but hey I had to wring her out...and then there was this cop that was chasing me...but thats another story...dad never let me forget that, & every time I looked at another bike, even one that I could have pedaled, he looked the other way & growled...Ed
Sainted Mother Teresa (Poetry) - 7/19/2011 7:45:59 AM
If you ever read MNother Theresa's swtory, you'll know that she herself knew in herself that she was not all she was cracked up to be. Everyone does what one can. Sainthood, either canonized or in fact, consists in our somehow transcending what we can do and going into the realm of the impossibnle-to-us.
In any case God's calling, I believe, is unique toi each person. Motjher Theresa's was to care for the dying in Calcutta. Yours may be to put up with the crap you face on a day to day basis. Who's to say she did a better job than you, or you her? When callings are unique, comparisons are meaningless.
Chip Bergeron
Sawtooth Haiku (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 4:14:49 PM
Haiku is another of my favourite poetry genres. Thank you for sharing these, Kalikiano. Love and peace,
Regis
First ascent of Broad Peak! (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 4:12:46 PM
Your "limericks" use a unique style, Kalikiano. I appreciate your wit and humor. Thank you for sharing. Love and peace,
Regis
More dirty climbing limericks (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 4:11:12 PM
I enjoy writing (and reading) limericks and I have posted quite a number here at AD. Thank you for the smiles, Kalikiano. Love and peace to you,
Regis
On the wisdom of ancient grandmothers (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 10:13:09 AM
I sometimes wish I knew my grandmother better...she died when I was around 13, though I do remember she could make from scratch, Tapioca pudding that I have not had any as good since...I now really enjoy talking to older people, I being 56, doesn't leave too many "older" people around...so much to be learned from other generations...I hate seeing kids, whatever age under say 30, do the same thing I did and not learn from their elders...the world will never change till we all learn from the past...e
Poet for rent (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 10:08:30 AM
"bleakest Winter"...you have apparently NOT spent any winters in NJ, where I am forced to live being too poor to move elsewhere...the last few winters have gotten progessively worse...but we all survive & then curse the summer heat...e
More dirty climbing limericks (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 9:46:07 AM
I may not know climbing, nor do I know of Yosemite, but these are all damn funny, especially the last one...e
First ascent of Broad Peak! (Poetry) - 6/9/2011 6:51:44 AM
Isn't it fun to just let your mind "scatter" every now and then? That picture doesn't depict what I imagined "Broad Peak" would be...giggle....thanks for the smiles..
Anna
Sainted Mother Teresa (Poetry) - 3/7/2011 3:08:32 PM
Attention is directed to an excellent interview by 'Free Inquiry' with Christopher Hitchens (pursuant to his book: 'The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice', Verso, 1995). The article may be viewed here:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.html
Somewhere in my sleep (Poetry) - 2/28/2011 8:56:27 PM
Sounds like you are truly one with nature. I admire you!
rege
Sawtooth Haiku (Poetry) - 1/27/2011 9:13:02 AM
Excellent work.
Sawtooth Haiku (Poetry) - 1/26/2011 4:40:07 AM
Wonderful writing sweet man..sure have missed you and your wonderful poems.....stay safe and well..Hugss
Sawtooth Haiku (Poetry) - 1/23/2011 10:08:14 PM
You can say so much in haiku, and you did. -gene.
Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Poetry) - 1/22/2011 3:36:50 PM
This is an excellent reflection from the faithful day. However despite all of the killings of war our nations grew in friendship. Thank You for sharing this excellent writing.
Peace and Love
Tony
The Almost Baby (Poetry) - 1/22/2011 1:57:51 PM
some sparks never go out but live on as embers in our hearts..Sue
Of Rose, as sunset floods the room at dusk (Poetry) - 1/22/2011 11:22:48 AM
An incredibly crafted personal poetic memoir...with real wisdom and love.
Be well,
Christine
Of Rose, as sunset floods the room at dusk (Poetry) - 1/22/2011 10:33:31 AM
If you wrote that well in 1979...in the description of Rose. Imagine now, if you can, what she looks like now. Excellent work, I must add.
Raw Meat (Poetry) - 1/22/2011 9:12:48 AM
I felt as if I was at the crash site with you. Well done with masterful imagery.
An Encounter with Cycle Grrrrryl! (Poetry) - 1/15/2011 12:54:57 PM
Sadly, no names passed between us and I’ve never seen her again.
Don't ya just hate when that happens?
But you did get to watch her backside for a minute, getting smaller and smaller all the time........LOL
Walt
The Perfect Wave (Poetry) - 11/21/2010 4:50:22 PM
Awesome. This is my favorite of all your works.
The Perfect Wave (Poetry) - 10/8/2010 12:07:24 PM
Just in case anyone is wondering about the use of the term 'shore break' in this piece, the beach in reference is Makaha. One other point to clarify: Finally found out that the radiantly smiling wahine shown in the image I chose to accompany this is none other than Pamela Clark, whom I hope will (continue to) allow me to grace this with her he'e nalu presence! Aloha mai e; e malhalo, Pam!
-Kalikiano
A Warm Puppy Pome (sic) (Poetry) - 9/5/2010 7:38:28 PM
W o n d e r f u l, aren't they ?
Nothing like a dog to make you feel special. Their love is
totally without condition, their lust for life, unashamed greed,
and capacity for affection and unflagging curiosity are
but a few of the reasons why they get by with being unprincipled
rascals.
Probably cutest when they're little, but not a day passes when
I don't marvel at our 9+-year-old Nicky's ability to make me laugh...
just walking down the hall! Got this sassy sway goin' for 'im, y'know? Macho Dog. Just as every one of us is different, every dog is. I can still see tiny, l3-year-old Rosie dancing like a snaggle-toothed whirling dirvish by way of greeting. Nick tickles me by making himself small and heavy as bath time approaches. He has a sixth sense for when the nail clippers come out! Take a multi-volume tome to cover all the shenanigans & pecadillos of the dogs who have owned me! My husband feels the same.
Thank you for this.
G R E A T P O E M.
Real tail-wagger!!
xOx Phyllis xOx
Centurion (Poetry) - 9/2/2010 9:20:13 AM
Beautiful piece, excellently delivered. Great discipline with maintaining the metaphors throughout. Deeply moving message. Nicely done.
Requiem for a Departed Friend (Poetry) - 4/17/2010 4:08:29 PM
The ultimate adrenaline rush...Sent me soaring.Awesome write, whoa afterburners
Love With Bilge-Pump (Poetry) - 9/30/2009 12:06:37 AM
Love your choice of words...original, as always...it's nice to read you again.
Love With Bilge-Pump (Poetry) - 9/23/2009 4:50:07 PM
Kalikiano,
Excellent word choice, interesting and different approach, original in thought.
John
Love With Bilge-Pump (Poetry) - 9/22/2009 8:40:48 PM
Have missed seeing you, Kalikiano.
Clever wordage: love how you end each line. Well done!
(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.
Ode to High-G Flight (Poetry) - 7/16/2009 6:17:43 AM
Awesome, I could feel the G forces all the way downunder :)
The Perfect Wave (Poetry) - 5/26/2009 3:52:43 AM
Wow! Awesome write....You took me there..exhilarating,exciting, like I imagine surfing must feel.
Anna
A Warm Puppy Pome (sic) (Poetry) - 3/7/2009 2:23:16 PM
My good man how the hell have I missed you, I will have to take up reading from now on, a treasure of a poem, even a sweet pooch would agree with, as I do wholeheartedly, just wonderful warm piddely truth.
Thank you for sharing Kalikiano Kalei.
The Perfect Wave (Poetry) - 1/17/2009 6:42:15 AM
I like the sustained central metaphor and vivid images. Good poem.
The Perfect Wave (Poetry) - 1/3/2009 3:55:21 PM
Sounds like an ode to body surfing shore break to me. Next time get outside where the surf is designed to bring you in contact with the universe feel its power in the belly of a monstrous wave at Pipe or back side Halawa Valley, a big right at Honoloa Bay or backdoors at Honolii in Hilo. Got wax?
Requiem for a Departed Friend (Poetry) - 11/24/2008 10:41:02 AM
I love to fly, but have never flown in a high powered jet blasting through the stratosphere: this comes close. Wheeee, what a ride! Thank God for restraining straps: this kicks into hyperspeed from the opening sentance and doesn't relent until we are left quivering with gratitude on landing, thankful to have experienced real flight. Well done, Kalikiano.
(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.
A Chinaman's Chance (Poetry) - 11/12/2008 7:20:59 PM
Well done mate, one also only has to look at what the English did to (& still are) to the Irish.
Dave.
The Man in the Gray Suit (Poetry) - 11/12/2008 7:17:26 PM
You are so right, when my mates & I were out there this topic was never discussed, but sometimes at night over a couple of beers it was.
I really enjoy your writing mate.
Dave.
The Celtic Knot (Poetry) - 11/12/2008 7:12:33 PM
Love this piece of poetry, being of Irish decent it caught my eye straight away, adore the visuals & era it represents, wonderful writing.
Dave.
A Warm Puppy Pome (sic) (Poetry) - 9/2/2008 1:23:34 PM
You nailed it! Unconditional Love like no other!
Bravo!
JMD
A Chinaman's Chance (Poetry) - 8/15/2008 2:38:43 PM
It would seem to me that the shooting was intentional. I taught for thirty years in schools surrounded by barrios and filled with Latino gangsters and these violent gang members are prejudiced to their eyeballs. Hezekiah and the girl were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I recall a girl in LA (not a gang member) dating a gang member. When a rival gang came hunting for him and he pulled a vanishing act, this girl was found on a street corner. The rival gang made her kneel and beg for her life before they shoved the shotgun into her mouth and blew off the back of her head as a message to her boyfriend. She made a bad choice and was also at the wrong place at the wrong time. We live in a cruel, capricious world where nothing is guaranteed and life doesn't give a shit. It seems that more people care for the criminal on death row than the victims he murdered.
The Man in the Gray Suit (Poetry) - 8/15/2008 2:31:32 PM
The description was so vivid, I was there--something I doubt I'll ever experience in reality. I wonder what it was like for those crewmembers from the cruiser Indianapolis (I think it was called) that was sunk after delivering the two bombs that ended WWII--imagine the fear, the adrenaline rush for the hundreds of crew members in the water as the sharks attacked again and again taking hundreds.
Falling Off the Mountain (Poetry) - 8/15/2008 2:26:37 PM
I've hiked/climbed to the top of many mountains--breathless; heart beating at over ten thousand feet above sea level. Yes, I see from your poem that we can't fall off a mountain. We can fall or drop or roll to another part ofthe mountain. What happens if we fell toward the moon from a mountain--impossible but metaphorically maybe not?
