Emmanuel

            Could there be a more inauspicious beginning?  A poor married couple, living under an oppressive and brutal dictatorship, is ordered to travel miles from home only a few days before she is to give birth.  When she goes into labor, they take refuge in someone’s cave-like living place, and she delivers a son in a portion of the house usually reserved for the livestock.
           
           This, we are told, is the story of Emmanuel – how God came to live among us for a time.  It’s a story of hope amid despair, renewal amid devastation, love amid pervasive hate.
           
            I didn’t become a Christian until I was 52 years old.  I had rejected religion as harsh and judgmental, guided by rules and mythology made up by angry old men who claimed some kind of divine right.  About as believable as a fat guy in a red suit coming down my chimney with a bag of presents.  Bah, humbug!
           
           As I got older, however, and began to think about the enormity of the idea – God dwelling among us, taking our human form – I began to understand the power of the story.  The innocence of childhood.  The power of love to conquer hate.  The immediacy of reality over abstraction.  And it hit me.  A child is always meant to lead us, to show us the way.  How else will we ever know God?
 
           Flash forward to December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut.  Twenty children murdered for no reason.  Twenty young faces flashed endlessly on television screens.  Twenty stories about dreaming to be an astronaut or a painter, or helping others, or always smiling, or loving peace, or being the “light of our family.”  And it struck me.  Every child is Emmanuel – fresh from the arms of God, full energy and passion and innocence, effortlessly showing us how things are meant to be. 
           
           It seems so futile.  Every child brings hope for a better world.  Then we snuff out that hope, over and over again.  Darkness falls.  Hopelessness returns. With what, then, are we left?  I guess it’s just this:  No matter how evil we become, no matter how selfish, blind, dishonest, greedy and murderous, hope does spring eternal with every birth of a child.

           O come, O come, Emmanuel!  And ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here.
           
          

Married

Lotte Lenya and Jack Gilford as forbidden lovers in "Cabaret," 1966

          A subplot in the 1966 Broadway musical “Cabaret” concerns the doomed romance of an elderly Jewish fruit vendor and his non-Jewish landlady in early-1930s Berlin.  Their love was taboo in the anti-Semitic German culture of the day, and their marriage was against the law – even before the Nazis made it a capital crime.  At one point, the man sings these words to his forbidden lover: 

How the world can change.
It can change like that-
Due to one little word:
"Married."
See a palace rise
From a two-room flat
Due to one little word:
"Married."

And the old despair
That was often there
Suddenly ceases to be.
For you wake one day,
Look around and say:
Somebody wonderful married me.

            I have thought about that a lot since Referendum 74 was approved by the voters in Washington, and same-sex marriage became legal in the state this month.  My partner Terry Bible and I have been together for 37 years.  We met in 1975.  Our relationship was still against the law in many states.  Those old laws were rarely enforced by then, but everybody knew they were on the books.  Even living in a big city like Los Angeles, we were cautious whom we told about having a “roommate.”  Our official status was always checked “single/never married,” our public lives were quite separate, and only those we chose to tell knew who we really were.  Prejudice, if it happened, wasn’t overt.  Just whispered.

            It has gotten so much better through the years.  The “stigma” that my mother worried so much about has pretty much disappeared.  We have lived in diverse communities in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Dallas, and have shared our lives openly with everyone.  It’s amazing how many straight couples these days tell us how much they admire the longevity of our relationship.

On our 30^th anniversary in 2005, we had a church wedding at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, before 200 friends and family members.  And since we moved to Coupeville in 2009, we have enjoyed a warm reception by this very friendly, close-knit community that we love so much.  This is where we intend to spend the rest of our lives.  On Dec. 6, the first day it was possible, we got a “legal” marriage license at the Island County Auditor’s office in Coupeville.  At least 10 other same-sex couples, most of whom had been together for many years just like us, were lined up, waiting for the office to open.  After the required three-day waiting period, we had a civil marriage service on Dec. 9, officiated by Coupeville Mayor Nancy Conard.

So, after 37 years together, with every aspect of our lives already enter-twined, and every human being we know already aware of who we are, what difference does “legal” marriage make?  A lot.  It feels good knowing that Terry has all the legal protections and benefits of any other spouse in Washington.  It feels good knowing that when I am introduced as his spouse, people will automatically know we’re married.  And it feels good knowing that all the young gay men and women who come after us won’t have to share their love in the shadows or pretend to be something they’re not or tell lies about the person they love.  They’ll be able to marry that person, just like anybody else can.

Most of all, it feels complete.  Somebody wonderful married me.  Thank you, Washington voters.  Thank you very much.

Thoughts and Deeds

 

Here is a piece I wrote for the newsletter of St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Dallas, just before Thanksgiving, 2007:

 

Thanksgiving is always a time to reflect on the Pilgrims and Squanto. I’m sure you remember the story we all learned in grammar school. Squanto was a member of the Patuxet tribe in what is now Maine. In 1608, he was kidnapped and taken to England as a slave/servant. When he was freed and returned to America a decade later, he found that his entire tribe had been wiped out by diseases the English had brought with them. He had every reason to hate his captors, but he didn’t. Instead, he helped save the Pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay – who by the spring of 1621 were sick and starving – by teaching them how to plant and fertilize native crops like corn. If there had been no Squanto, there likely would have been no first Thanksgiving.

I thought about that story the other day as I was reflecting on all the good things that have happened since we began the Saint Thomas Community Garden earlier this year. And I reflected on angels – like Squanto – and miracles – like the first Thanksgiving. In college, long before I professed my Christian faith, I took a philosophy course from a rumpled professor who looked like Einstein. A devoted agnostic, he nonetheless offered these definitions that have stuck with me for more than 40 years: Angels are God’s thoughts, he said, and miracles are deeds inspired by God’s thoughts.

Now I suppose any number of learned theologians might quibble or disagree with those definitions. But as I have watched our community garden take shape over the past six months, I’ve seen too much evidence to doubt my old professor. Consider this:

• Our garden committee knew we needed a shed to store tools and hoses before we could even get started. But we had no money to buy one. One night, Lynn Armstrong, a friend from Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, mentioned she had a shed on her rental property. Thought: “If you want, you can have it,” she said. Deed: Harold Spiegel had his crew moved it to Saint Thomas.
• We looked at the enormous size of our proposed garden and asked ourselves, how will we ever get this weed patch ready to grow vegetables for the hungry? Our parishioner Harold Spiegel owns Preservation Tree Service, the best-respected tree company in Dallas. Thought: “My crews have some down time and we can help,” he said. Deed: Harold and his crews tilled our soil, trimmed our trees, and gave us mulch and compost – all at no expense.
• There was no water in the garden space, and we had been warned that it might cost $5,000 or more to install a water meter and run a pipe to the garden. Our Senior Warden Kathy Carson has worked with the city water department in her real estate profession, and Harold Spiegel’s crews know how to install landscape watering systems. Thought: “Let me see what I can do,” Kathy said. “I think we can handle it once we have a meter,” Harold said. Deed: The city installed a water meter without charge and Harold’s crews ran the pipe to the garden at no cost.
• I created a sign to promote the garden but I had only some flimsy stakes to put it up near Inwood Road. It looked pathetic. Saint Thomas’s neighbor to the north, George Hendricks, noticed the forlorn sign. Thought: “I want to make that look better,” Mr. Hendricks told Stephen Waller in a phone call. Deed: At his own expense, Mr. Hendricks bought plastic piping and tie-backs. He straightened up our sign and made it look great.
• We had no tools or hoses to use in the garden. John and Kris Braddock are new members of our parish who moved here from New York last year. They used to have a country house with a big garden north of Manhattan. Thought: “We have lots of garden tools, hoses and garden furniture just sitting in storage,” John and Kris said. “Do you want them?” Deed: Our shed is now filled with the Braddocks’ tools and hoses, and their beautiful Adirondack-style garden furniture is arrayed under our spreading oak tree.
• As we contemplated how much work it would be to keep tilling the soil by hand to make sure it would be ready to plant next spring, we thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a power roto-tiller to use in the Saint Thomas Garden? But we can’t afford one.” Our parishioners Bruce Davis and Wayne Palmer have a beautiful home and garden in Oak Cliff. Thought: Bruce emailed Stephen Waller to say that he and Wayne had a Toro power roto-tiller they weren’t using much. Would we want to use it in our community garden? Deed: I had the pleasure of using Bruce and Wayne’s power roto-tiller to break up the soil before we planted the seven varieties of winter vegetables you now see growing in our community garden.

Thanks to all the angels who brought God’s thoughts to our community garden. And Thanks Be to God for the miracles those thoughts have created. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

(P.S.:  Another miracle occurred in April, 2008.  The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, accepted our invitation to come to St. Thomas the Apostle and bless our community garden, in an amazing celebration.  The garden has now been helping to feed the hungry in Dallas for almost five years.)



Honorable

My Mom visits me during Army basic training, Fort Lewis, October 1968

 

As I get older, I find myself ruminating on things.  I think it's a privilege of being a "senior" and I love it. 

 

Today is Veteran's Day, 2012.  I was drafted into the U.S. Army in September, 1968.  I spent most of 1969 in Vietnam, all expenses paid.  When I was discharged from the Army, the letter I got thanked me for honorably serving my country.  Truth is, however, I wondered then if I had done the honorable thing.  And even today I am still ruminating on that question.

 

In the 1960s, I thought the Vietnam war was a misadventure and I thought the draft was unfair.  Fifty years later, I still do.  Several million of us went there but 50,000 of us didn't come back.  Did we win anything?  Did we make the world safer?  I tear up when I visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.  I agree with those who call it an angry black gash on the National Mall.

 

How would my life have turned out if I had gone to Canada in September 5, 1968, instead of the Army induction center, as I had considered?  How would I feel about that decision today?  Would I consider myself "honorable?"  I wonder.

 

But I didn't go to Canada.  In the end, it wasn't for any big, Save-The-World reason.  It was because I was too worried about how it would affect my mother.  How would she explain to her friends that her son had skipped the draft and fled to Vancouver?  She was a woman of the 1950s, always concerned about What The Neighbors Might Think.  I knew she'd be embarrassed some, but I also knew she'd be even more out-of-her-mind worried about me.  I'd be a fugitive from U.S. justice and could be arrested if I cam home to visit.  How would I make a living?  Have a family? I always suffered when I knew she was in pain.  I just couldn't hurt her that way.  

 

So I did what I was asked to do,  and I managed to come home.  And I resumed my life and I made a good living and I built my own family and now I'm retired, happy and content.  But I still wonder.  What does "honorable" really mean?

 

Today, as I see tens of thousands of our beautiful young people returning from two wars since 2001, many of them mangled but still alive, I feel a deep hurt.  I imagine another angry, black gash on the National Mall to recognize them.  But I am amazed at their spirit.  So many of them are getting on with their lives, as best they can, not letting their horrific war experiences hold them back.  I suspect that many of them may feel better about "their" wars than I do about "mine."  After all, we were attacked and we had to defend ourselves.  Isn't doing that an "honorable" act?  

 

In my rumination, I haven't found an answer.  I suppose I never will.  I get angry when I see some folks wave flags and put "support our troops" stickers on their cars, and criticize those who don't.  That's so easy.  It's harder to help military families stay off food stamps or hire a veteran or be willing to pay higher taxes so we can give veterans the right benefits.

 

It's Veterans' Day.  It started out as Armistice Day in 1918, celebrating The War To End All Wars.  We've had at least six wars since then.  So,  The War to End All Wars wasn't.  Is anybody surprised?  Do you suppose that, when we're finally out of Afghanistan in 2014, we won't be involve in some new war?  To me, that would be honorable. Let's hope.  It's the best we can do.

 

                       

 

 

Living on a Rock Is Scary

Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk that I performed this weekend (Oct. 27-28) at the Postcards from Whidbey Island variety show at the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.

            BOO!  Did I scare you?  I thought not . . . except maybe for those folks over there, who were dozing off.  I saw you jump!

You see, it’s not easy to scare people here on the Rock.  We’re scared out of our wits just living here.   And not just at Halloween, although that is a scary time.  What with Dale Sherman flinging pumpkins across Ebey’s Prairie from his catapult, and Cindy Van Dyk selling all manner of horrifying stuff in her Far From Normal shop on Front Street. 

            But what I want to talk about are the EVERYDAY things that scare us on this Rock. 

            For instance, turning left from Broadway onto Highway 20.  How scary is that?  I was in my car the other day, making my way down the highway toward the Coupeville stoplight, minding my own business.  Out pops a beat-up station wagon turning left at Broadway. . . right in front of me!  Terrifying!

“Idiot!” I yelled, while stomping on the brakes.  Well, actually, I used a less polite word with an adjective I won’t repeat here.  Couldn’t you have turned left at the light?  Would that have been too much trouble?  All I remember is the driver looked like Freddy Krueger from the “Halloween” movies.  And either he had spent too much time at Toby’s Tavern that afternoon . . . or he was in a hurry to go murder somebody.  For a while, I was afraid it was going to be me.

            See what I mean?  The Rock is a scary place to live!

            And while we’re talking about scary moments in the car, how about the worst one of all . . . of course, that’s driving after dark.  For all those years I lived in America, driving after dark was no big deal.  Lots of big mercury vapor lamps all over the place made it bright as day everywhere I went.  But as soon as I moved to the Rock, I heard people say, “Oh my no, I never drive after dark.  It just scares me to death.”  Of course, like any newcomer, I thought they were all just a bunch of wimps.  Who’s afraid of the dark?  Come on!

            Then I ventured out one evening.  And I quickly learned why everybody here makes dinner reservations no later than 5:30. Yikes!  It’s really dark!  And the few lights you see along the roads seem to have 25-watt bulbs in them.

            And, can we talk about high-beam headlights?  The ones that the drivers coming toward you never dim until they’re blinding you?  Everybody is so small-town polite and civil here on the Rock.  So why is it that some of us become rude, inconsiderate Big City jerks when it comes to high beams?

The other night I was rounding the curve by the Navy’s Outlying Field and was caught in a pair of high beams so bright I thought it was a Close Encounter of the Third  Kind and I was about to be abducted by aliens.

            Then I thought maybe it was a tractor trailer driven by some thoughtless off-island teamster.  Imagine my shock when I saw it was a Prius.  Shouldn’t high beams be illegal on a Prius?  I’m just sayin’.

Of course, not all the scary things on the Rock are concerned with driving.  It’s also plain scary when it gets dark here at 4:30 in wintertime.  Ever forgot to turn on the porch light before you wander out to the garage?  Good luck with that!  Have a nice trip!

Or tried to get your dog or cat to come in at dinnertime when it’s pitch black outside, and you have no idea what kind of wild critter is making that horrifying noise?  Can you spell s-c-a-r-y, boys and girls?

            And of course, that pitch-blackness is even scarier when we get one of those power outages this Rock is famous for.  When we first experienced one, it was kind of nice and cozy.  Candles everywhere.  Fire in the fireplace.  Reading to each other.  No background noise.  Actually having a conversation.  Sweet.  Unfortunately, we found out that the magic wears off as the temperature plummets, the furnace doesn’t work and you’re almost out of firewood.  Going to bed and quickly crawling under the quilt is the best option to reduce your fright – and warm up your toes.

            I’ve saved a couple of the scariest things about the Rock for last. Here’s one.  You discover you need milk and a loaf of bread.  You head to the Red Apple at Prairie Center.

It’s a little after 3 p.m.  A sudden fear grabs you.  Damn!  You forgot!  School just got out!  Backpacks block the entrance.  Two girls, one with purple streaked hair, the other with green streaks, guzzle Red Bulls as you try to grab a cart.

Frightened but undeterred you push forward into the store.  Lines of school kids back up into the aisles, impatiently waiting to pay for armloads of Doritos, Ho-Ho’s, Donettes, Twinkies, Fried Pork Rinds, Teriyaki Jerky and other junk specialties your cholesterol count forced you to give up years ago.

They’re wearing t-shirts with skulls and cross bones, and pants that somehow hang below the part of the body that normally holds them up.  Their tattoos celebrate music and celebrities you never heard of.  Strange objects fill their pierced ear lobes, nostrils and other body parts.

How old you feel standing there with milk and a loaf of bread!  How out of touch!  Maybe you really were abducted by aliens!  How scary!

And, finally, here’s the really scary thing about living on this Rock.  Everything is so historic here!

The glaciers and woolly mammoths were around a little while, then high-tailed it – leaving behind their rocks and bones.  Then the First Nations people arrived.  Not sure who they were, but it must’ve been pretty cold because they quickly left, leaving just a few petrified camas bulbs. 

Then the Swinomish, Skagit and Snohomish people moved in and ate a lot of deer, oysters and salmon and built a lot of fires.  Then Captain Vancouver came around and named everything after the sailors on his ship.  Then Captain Ebey and Captain Coupe built some really cold and drafty Victorian houses and got scalped.  And through it all farmers just kept on trying to find something they could grow and sell on this Rock.

            See what I mean?  It’s his-tor-ick  here.  You never know when you’re going to step onto or into something really important around here.  You walk across a field and maybe step on a prehistoric clam shell dropped by a Pleistocene-era bird.  Yikes!  Or disturb the remains of a campfire built several thousand years ago.  Or find an  unidentified bone that may be human . . .or maybe it’s just a squirrel remnant that somebody or something ate in the fourth century B.C.

            Don’t get me wrong.  I love the historic heritage we have on the Rock.  We are the stewards of what we’ve inherited and our job is to preserve it for those who come next.  Most of us want to keep the Rock just like it is. 

Although don’t you wonder what archaeologists four thousand years from now will think of – oh, I don’t know – maybe all those septic tanks they’ll dig up?  I hope they’ll understand they were a big reason the Rock was always so green while we were here.    

            Any way.  I need to get home.  It’s dark and you know how scary it is around here!

            See ya!

Rock Garden

Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk that I performed last weekend at the Postcards from Whidbey Island show in Coupeville, USA. Enjoy!  

Greetings, mystery lovers!  Have you enjoyed this wonderful show?  All of this murder and mayhem and dark secrets, and all those other good things we love?  Me too!

So . . . what am I doing here, dressed like this, in a show about such mysterious things?  Well, I’m here to talk about the biggest mystery of all, the one most of us try to solve every day.  I speak, of course, about how we manage to get anything to grow in our gardens on this Rock.  

How many of you have been outside in the last few weeks, putting your hands in the dirt?  Go ahead, admit it.  Confession is good for the soul.  I thought so!  We all claim to be gardeners here on the Rock.  A lot of us moved here just to fulfill the fantasy of growing our own fruits and vegetables . . . and roses and azaleas . . . and every other flowering or edible plant.  All those years of reading Sunset magazine created this fantasy.  And, by God, we’re going to make it a reality here on Whidbey or die trying, aren’t we?

This is the time of year we get out there, rain or shine.  Re-arranging our rocks and hard-pan clay.  Putting in our seeds and starts.  And praying, “Lord, please make this the year our garden looks like one of those Miracle Gro commercials.”  Trouble is, the Lord takes Her own sweet time in responding to most of those prayers.

You see, nature played a dirty trick on us here on the Rock.  About ten thousand years ago, give or take a few thousand, the last of the Ice Age glaciers decided to pick up stakes and move to Alaska.

But, like a bunch of thoughtless overnight campers at Fort Ebey State Park, they didn’t haul out what they hauled in.  They left a lot of garbage behind.  Mostly rocks.  Buried in clay.  And, today, that’s what we spend all that money at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware and Bayview Nursery trying to correct. 

Mulch.  Compost.  Potting soil.  Sand for drainage.  Fertilizer.  Diatomaceous earth. . . whatever that is.  And need I mention all the trowels, forks, shovels, tillers, cultivators, gloves, knee pads, sunbonnets . . . and blister remedies?

This is the time of year on the Rock when we try to fool Mother Nature.  We pretend that plants we admire can actually thrive here.  But, truth be told, those that seem to do best are thistles, nettles, dandelions and black caps, to name a few.  Not to mention the several million firs, hemlocks, alders and sea willows with which we share this space.

Nonetheless, we soldier on.  Believing that we have tamed the soil here on the Rock.  We continue planting when we ought to know it’s too wet or too cold or too shady.  And kidding ourselves that we might finally have a nice warm summer.   

And, talking about kidding ourselves, can we talk about tomatoes?  The most common question I hear among gardeners on the Rock is simply this:  “Have you had any luck with tomatoes?”  Well, after all, are there any greater bragging rights for a home gardener than to show off some big, beautiful tomatoes on their very own vines?  You know.  The kind that actually have some flavor . . . instead of the cardboard type we buy at the market?  Of course not!

The reason most of us keeping asking if anybody’s had any luck with tomatoes is because most of us have not.  Sorry to be the bearer of that sad truth, but there it is.  Tomatoes like warm soil and sun all day . . . places like California and Mexico.  On our Rock, about the only places that qualify are inside a greenhouse with a sun lamp or indoors on a windowsill with a southern exposure.

There are those, of course, who do have luck with tomatoes . . . and my hat’s definitely off to them.  I am not one of them.  I planted some cherry tomatoes last summer.  I harvested a total of five.  I figure they cost me about ten bucks each.  Then there were those two surviving pumpkins that cost about twenty bucks apiece.  The baby artichokes probably cost six or seven bucks each.  And, oh yes, the scrawny corn was about two bucks an ear.

I will not talk about my eggplants and radishes, which were noble failures.  I will try again, however.  I will not let the rocks and the slugs and the bugs defeat me!

However, I am proud to say that my squash and potatoes and onions did very well.  Why it took me three years to figure that out remains a mystery!  Squash and root vegetables have always done well in our rocky soil and cool climate.  A lot of farmers on the island used to make a good living growing squash until recent years.  That’s when the fast pace of our modern life made it too much trouble to chop up a big Hubbard squash and wait for it to bake.

 A couple months ago, I wrote in the Whidbey Examiner about Dale and Liz Sherman.  They’re long-time squash growers on Ebey’s Prairie who are bringing back the big, homely Hubbard by cutting it up into small cubes we can nuke in the microwave and selling them in little plastic containers.  You go, Dale and Liz!  Making squash from the Rock relevant to the microwave generation!

Here’s my proudest gardening achievement last year.  I harvested almost fifty pounds of potatoes from my little patch of the Rock.  There was something very soul-satisfying when I put my hands into the potato mounds and pulled out dozens of Yukon Golds and California Whites.  The potato vines had actually thrived in my lousy soil!  They didn’t die!  They were beautiful when they were flowering!  And my harvest was so bountiful that we ate potatoes all winter without buying any at the market!  Yippee!  I did it!

The other night we enjoyed the last of those potatoes . . . baked in their jackets and served with a little butter, sour cream, salt and pepper.  Delicious!  They may just have been the best-tasting potatoes I have ever eaten.  No kidding!  I think. 

Oh, I could on for an hour.  We gardeners do like to ramble on about our gardens.  But I know all of you have some planting to do, and so do I.  I’m going to try beets and Brussels sprouts this year.  Anybody had any luck with them?

Any way.  Pray for sun.  See ya!

Rock-Solid Romance

    

Here is my "Rockin' A Hard Place" Blogtalk for Valentine's Day Weekend, which I delivered at the the "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show Feb. 11-12 in Coupeville.       

          Ah, yes.  It’s a great, big love fest here on the Rock on the eve of Valentine’s Day.   You notice it everywhere.  Grown women giggling over some slightly naughty Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards while picking up their prescriptions at Linds.  Grown men awkwardly whispering “They’re for the wife!” while paying for a bouquet at the Red Apple.  Coupeville High students complaining there’s no privacy for their hormonally overheated love life in this small town.  Coupeville Elementary students on a sugar-induced tear from eating too many of those disgusting, heart-shaped “I Love You” candies.

Indeed, from Deception Pass to Clinton, an unmistakable scent of romance is in the air all over the Rock . . . or is that just low tide I smell?  Sometimes I can’t quite tell.

            A year ago when I talked about love on the Rock at the Postcards show, I mentioned that we don’t go in much for gushy, sweetie-pie stuff around here.  We’re not the kissy-kissy type.  Too cold.  Too damp.  Too Scandinavian.  Too much trouble.   When you see a couple walking slowly down Front Street, holding hands and resting a head tenderly on a shoulder.  Well, you just know they’re tourists.  The kind that spend the weekend.  The daytrippers just buy an ice cream cone and a latte, then leave.  But something about spending a night on the Rock just gets ‘em goin’.

            The other evening we had dinner at Christopher’s.  We were celebrating Terry’s birthday.  And, like any good Rock-dwelling couple out for an evening, we ordered . . . we ate . .  we talked about gardening, our chickens and dogs, and the rain . . . we paid with cash . . . which is SO yesterday . . .and we left.  Home comfortably by eight thirty in robe and slippers.  A perfect night out.  No muss.  No fuss.  No gush.

While we were there, however, I couldn’t help studying the young couple at the next table.  She wore a knit cap, a wool scarf around her neck, calf-length leather boots and VERY tight stone-washed jeans.  He wore a knit cap, a wool scarf around his neck, calf-length leather boots and VERY tight stone-washed jeans.  She listened intently and smiled as he read her something from his iPad.  Obviously not from these parts, I could tell. 

They exchanged loving glances as they ate an appetizer plate of Penn Cove mussels.  Terry and I, being good Rock dwellers, had skipped the appetizer because we knew the entrée came with a salad.  The young man slowly poured her some wine from the expensive bottle they ordered.  It sparkled in the candlight.  Terry and I, on the other hand, had ordered house wine by the glass . . . which was cheap . . . but fine, just fine.  The young couple had many questions for the server about where items on the menu came from.  Free-range?  Line-caught?  Grass-fed?  Pesticide-free? Non ovo-lacto vegan?  Terry and I, of course, were more concerned with how long it would take to cook.  Well, c’mon.  You know how we all hate driving on the Rock after dark.    

As we left, the young woman was cradling her wine glass in both hands and staring into his eyes.  He leaned forward to whisper something that made her laugh.  I don’t think their entrees had even arrived yet.  I knew they’d be the last ones out the door.   And I remember thinking it could not have looked better if Island County Tourism had staged it for a glossy tourist brochure on the Mukilteo Ferry.

We do know how to sell romance here on the Rock, don’t we?  Even if we don’t buy it much ourselves.

Part of what sets us apart in the romance department here is how we use words like “love.”  I spent most of my adult life in big cities like Los Angeles and Dallas, so I know a bit about how people back in America talk.  But I’ve had to get used to Rock-speak since I moved to Whidbey Island.  Let me give you a couple examples.

A man in Dallas might give a good friend a hug and say, “Dawg, I love you!”  That’s spelled D-A-W-G.  On the Rock, a man might give his best friend a hug and say, “Dog, I love you!”  That’s spelled D-O-G.   A woman in America might gush to her neighbor, “I just adore you, Rose!”  On the Rock, a woman might simply gush, “I just adore you, rose.”  Referring, of course, to the bareroot Queen Elizabeth she just bought at Bayview Nursery.

And songs about love can take on quite a different meaning here.  That Cole Porter classic, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” might refer to being stung by nettles while walking in the woods.  “When Your Lover Has Gone” may be about getting up to catch the five a.m. ferry.  “In the Midnight Hour” can be a reference to the power going out during a windstorm.  And, on the Rock, “The Man That Got Away” can only refer to the Barefoot Bandit.

We are a lovely bunch here on Whidbey . . . and maybe that’s because we have so much to love.

Last weekend, when the weather was so clear and so beautiful, we took our dogs for a walk from the Prairie Overlook to the Jacob Ebey House.  At the Overlook, we turned to our left and saw Mount Baker.  Serene and majestic in its regal robe of winter snow.  We turned to our right and saw the Olympics.  Their jagged icy fingers pointing skyward in praise of the sun.  We looked down on Ebey’s Prairie.  That tranquil farm space that looks remarkably as I imagine it looked a hundred years ago.  And we looked up at a winter sky so incandescently blue we could see it even with our eyes closed.

“Amazing” is all I could say.  “We are so lucky to live here” is all Terry could respond.  And Charlotte and Addie, our Basset hounds, simply wagged their tails in agreement.

Not poetry, I realize.  Certainly not gushy.  And it would never make it as a verse in a Valentine’s Day card.  But, with all we have to love here on the Rock, who needs Hallmark?

Anyway, I promised Charlotte and Addie we’d go for a walk along the beach so they could catch the scent of low tide.  I better not keep ‘em waiting.  See ya!

Retired on a Rock

Here is my "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk for January, which I performed this weekend at the monthly Postcards from Whidbey Island variety show here in beautiful Coupeville, Washington. 

This is my sixth Rockin a Hard Place blogtalk about the peculiarities of life on Whidbey Island. And to think some folks doubted I’d find enough material!

This month I have decided to talk about retirement living here on the Rock. I know that doesn’t sound like it’s related to this show’s theme about families and feuds. Believe me, it is. But let’s start with a show of hands. How many here are retired like me? About as I expected . . .since the average age here on the Rock seems to be somewhere between 50 and death.

There are a whole lot of advantages to being retired on Whidbey. Among the very best is the stress-reducing distance you keep from your family back in America. Don’t get me wrong. I love my relatives. I’m just glad it’s not easy for them to drop by. When I retired here, I made a point of warning them that the Mukilteo ferry might sink or the Deception Pass bridge could collapse. And, thanks to caller ID, I can ignore their calls and blame it on our terrible cell service on the island. If contact must be had, I can always call up their faces on Skype . . . then discretely disconnect whenever I wish and blame it on the Rock’s poor Internet connections.

My relatives do come to visit us, and we are glad to see them. It’s just that we require advance reservations. And we frequently tell them we’re already booked . . . isn’t that a shame. When they do come over, we enjoy showing them around the island . . . and pretending not to hear their occasional awkward comments. My seven-year-old great niece was here before Christmas. Sweet little girl. Just love her, even though she talks AND sings ALL the time. Said to me as we ate lunch at the Knead and Feed, “Uncle Harry, when you die can I have your house?” Everybody wants to live on Whidbey Island. Get in line, girl, with the rest of the nieces and nephews.

A friend told me to expect that my first year of retirement would be a little confusing . . . as if my life were one big Google search on the Internet. Once you’re free from the straitjacket of work, you begin each day intending to do one thing but quickly get distracted. Start to clean the closet . . .and discover your old high school photo album. . . then wonder whatever happened to so-and-so. . .and spend an hour searching for them on Yahoo and Facebook. . .but give up and instead respond to the hundred or so emails you received overnight. . .then realize the morning’s shot so you might as well go get a decaf, nonfat latte and forget it. And so it goes.

One thing I did not expect when I retired on the Rock was that I would be working more hours than ever…..but, of course, not getting paid. You arrive on the Rock having had some success doing something or other somewhere else, and you expect to spend your Golden Years admiring Mount Baker while walking the dog. Then somebody finds out you know how to do something and – kaboom! – you are on a committee! And another! Then you wake up one morning and you’re in charge of a committee! No wonder I don’t talk to my relatives. I don’t have time!

Here’s the bottom line about retired life on the Rock. You volunteer. You take a nap. You volunteer. You take a nap. You volunteer. You take a nap. And before you know it, it’s time for bed.

You do have to make a few adjustments when you retire on Rock. In America, you went out for dinner at eight o’clock. Here, the restaurants close at eight o’clock. You rushed to the supermarket in the evenings after work. Here, you hurry to Red Apple before the high school lets out. You used to enjoy the Tonight Show before falling asleep. Here, you fall asleep watching Jeopardy. In America, old folks hang out at McDonald’s and nurse one cup of coffee for hours as they watch the traffic go by. All afternoon. Here, old folks hang out at places like William Bell’s on the wharf and nurse one cup of coffee for hours as they watch the kayaks go by. All morning.

There are other retirement oddities on the Rock. After wearing a business suit almost everyday for 40 years, I haven’t put one on since I moved here. I’ve been told reliably that it’s against the law in Island County. I tried to donate my old suits and ties to a thrift shop but they just chuckled. Who’d want ‘em here? So they still hang in my closet, forlorn and lonely. . . food for the moths. We call that organic recycling on the Rock.

As I think about what I’ve just been saying, it dawns on me that I have become my grandfather. He got up at six and had cereal and juice. So do I. He complained about the sad state of modern society. So do I. He fell asleep in his chair in the evening. So do I. He tinkered his way through retirement. So do I. Except I use Google.
Then again, my grandfather always kept himself busy, never got bored, had a twinkle in his eye even when his eyesight failed, and died in his own bed at the age of 87. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Any way, thanks for listening. Now I have to go. It’s way past my bedtime and I have two committee meetings in the morning. See ya!