The Priest and the Tanuki

This week, a Japanese folk tale of the unlikely friendship between an old priest and an aging trickster.

In case you missed Ed Henry (CNN) at the press conference:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. You spoke again at the top about your anger about AIG. You've been saying that for days now. But why is it that it seems Andrew Cuomo seems to be in New York getting more actual action on it? And when you and Secretary Geithner first learned about this 10 days, two weeks ago, you didn't go public immediately with that that outrage -- you waited a few days, and then you went public after you realized Secretary Geithner really had no legal avenue to stop it.

And more broadly -- I just want to follow up on Chip and Jake -- you've been very critical of President Bush doubling the national debt. And to be fair, it's not just Republicans hitting you -- Democrat Kent Conrad, as you know, said, "When I look at this budget, I see the debt doubling again." You keep saying that you've inherited a big fiscal mess. Do you worry, though, that your daughters -- not to mention the next President -- will be inheriting an even bigger fiscal mess if the spending goes out of control?

OBAMA: Of course I do, Ed, which is why we're doing everything we can to reduce that deficit. Look, if this were easy, then we would have already had it done, and the budget would have been voted on and everybody could go home. This is hard. And the reason it's hard is because we've accumulated a structural deficit that's going to take a long time, and we're not going to be able to do it next year or the year after or three years from now. What we have to do is bend the curve on these deficit projections. And the best way for us to do that is to reduce health care costs. That's not just my opinion; that's the opinion of almost every single person who has looked at our long-term fiscal situation.

Now, how do we -- how are we going to reduce health care costs -- because the problem is not just in government-run programs; the problem is in the private sector, as well. It's experienced by families, it's experienced by businesses. And so what we've said is, look, let's invest in health information technologies; let's invest in preventive care; let's invest in mechanisms that look at who's doing a better job controlling costs while producing good quality outcomes in various states, and let's reimburse on the basis of improved quality, as opposed to simply how many procedures you're doing. Let's do a whole host of things, some of which cost money on the front end but offer the prospect of reducing costs on the back end.

Now, the alternative is to stand pat and to simply say we are just going to not invest in health care, we're not going to take on energy; we'll wait until the next time that gas gets to $4 a gallon; we will not improve our schools, and we'll allow China or India or other countries to lap our young people in terms of their performance; we will settle on lower growth rates; and we will continue to contract, both as an economy and our ability to provide a better life for our kids.

That I don't think is the better option. Now, have -- am I completely satisfied with all the work that needs to be done on deficits? No. That's why I convened a fiscal responsibility summit, started in this room, to start looking at entitlements and to start looking at the big drivers of costs over the long term. Not all of those are reflected in our budget, partly because the savings we anticipate would be coming in years outside of the 10-year budget cycle that we're talking about. Okay?

Q: On AIG, why did you wait -- why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage? It seems like the action is coming out of New York and the Attorney General's Office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, look, we're outraged. Why did it take so long?

OBAMA: It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak, you know? (Laughter.)

Ed, apparently, missed it himself:

(and Gene Robinson gets the "Euphemism of the Month" award)

Here's a wonderful way to make up for the fact that the Bogsiders never released an album. Ruth has created a "play all" list that will allow you to enjoy, in album format, the songs I suggested would have been on our never-recorded-never-released album. It's a joy. Bless you, girl.

My Hero (no joke)

Having an emergency responder in the family, I'm used to tales of quick and creative response in an emergency. But this Thai firefighter is absolutely my hero.

Here's the story.

The Water Dance

This week's story comes from the Bantu of Southern Africa, but features a very familiar character to anyone who has read or heard the folk tales collected by Joel Chandler Harris in the American South from among former slaves.

Had dinner with my main man Tobias this evening.

Also his sister, his parents, his uncle and two of his cousins. But they're old news.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

from the Ladies Auxiliary of the Little Men's Marching and Chowder Society
J. Jackeen O'Malley, proprietor and spiritual advisor

The Kildare Pooka

This week's story at The Weekly Storybook is, not coincidentally, adapted from an Irish folktale collected by James Stephens.

The Bogsiders

This Irish pub band played in the Colorado Springs-Denver-Boulder corridor from about 1980 to 1983. The carefully chosen name was intended to forewarn Irish ex-pats that we sang a fair number of nationalist songs, without attracting a lot of American wannabes. Irish to this day laugh over the notion that this choice of names was in any way subtle, but it was, and, though they snicker at any suggestion of subtlety, they respect our desire to keep the dialogue in the family.

It was a painful time, but the choice of songs was as political as the songs themselves -- if you didn't sing them, it was as blatant a political statement as if you did. And we were geared to the Irish ex-pat crowd, though, in this picture, only the fellow in the middle, John, is Irish-born.

He was a Limerickman who was a truly brilliant whistle- and flute-player and had a very nice tenor voice. He had organized the band and booked our gigs, and he and I switched back and forth on introducing songs, though I usually sang lead, having a decent voice and a prodigious memory for lyrics. There were songs that were "his" however, and I would also step out while the other fellas played instrumentals -- It gave me a break and helped cover the fact that I played "Johnny Cash guitar" which is to say that my Gibson was more of a prop than a musical instrument and barely qualified as rhythm guitar. It was not miked and for good reason, begob.

The blonde fellow here, Paul, was an American with a blues background but who quickly learned our material and was a very good sessions-type musician. We went through three strings players over the course of the group -- one a violinist who needed sheet music and didn't last, then a fiddler/mandolin player who was brilliant, won Colorado state fiddling championships several years and left us after a year or so for better things, and this guy, who was not only a shy and gentle soul but a wonderful musical director for the group, having a keen knowledge of how this stuff actually worked. And between the latter two, we had three or four people sit in on jobs, trying to find the right chemistry, an experience that occasionally bordered on the surreal. I had to fire one of them in the middle of a gig because he got drunk and threw a beer on one of the barmaids. See the "Commitments" reference a few grafs down.

We also had a second Limerickman, Sean, who played bodhran and sang, but never got in the pictures because he was on disability (smashed his knee in a loading dock accident) and didn't want it publicly suggested that he could stand for long periods of time. As we started gaining more and more attention, he eventually dropped out, though the truth is, he really couldn't have stood up there with us if we'd been playing more than one gig a week. But tell that to someone who wants to stop your checks. He was a good, sweet man from whom I learned a great deal about Ireland, and life, and who acted as a bit of an anchor among what could be a fractious and undisciplined lot.

We broke up before recording was cheap and ubiquitous, and I'm sorry for that because I believe we were quite good and might have made a living at it if we'd been in a place with a larger Irish community, though all it really takes to dispel the allure of that notion is another viewing of "The Commitments" which makes me laugh but also gives me the heebie-jeebies.

In any case, in the absence of actual recordings of our own music, here's a typical playlist that we might have put on an album. You might want to right-click on these links and choose "open link in new tab" rather than keep trying to pop back and forth.

(2012 Update: They're linked on this YouTube playlist. Hit it and then you can read along as you like.)

1. Follow Me Up To Carlow
Revolution in the Elizabethan Age. We didn't like'em then, either. The other day I interviewed a jeweler from Carlow and mentioned the song, which got things off to a good start -- I think they're rather proud of their town being memorialized in such a gritty little song. Incidentally, songs of 16th and 17th century rebellion were not written at the time of the events memorialized. They were written in the 19th century as part of a movement to create a national, and nationalist, identity. And well written indeed.

2. MacAlpine's Fusiliers
A song of the construction workers who sent money home from England during WWII. MacAlpine was (and I think still is) one of the largest construction firms in England and a lot of remittance men put in their time there. Sean worked for them briefly before he emigrated to America in the 1950s.
"I come from County Kerry, the land of eggs and bacon And if you think I'll eat your fish and chips, By jazuz, you're mistaken!"
We were probably more like the Dubliners (heard here) than any other of the Irish groups -- grittier than the Clancies and a whole lot more fun than the Chieftains, not as musically adept as the Boys of the Lough but moreso than the Wolfe Tones.

3. The Spanish Lady
A lovely ballad of no known significance. Fun to play and sing, and people loved it.

4. The Black Velvet Band
This is a type of song known as a "come-all-ye" (from the phrase common to each) and a huge favorite with audiences, much covered by other bands. Not sure this live shot is the best presentation of the song ever, but it might be the closest you'll get to our style of entertainment, since the Dubliners are really just playing in a pub setting here. John, our whistleplayer, ran into them in Perth, Australia, when he was living there and they played a pub gig at the end of which the publican announced he wasn't going to pay them, whereupon Luke Kelly, the fellow singing lead here, hoisted him up against the wall and explained that paying the band would be cheaper than reassembling his pub. John then returned to Ireland from his multi-year sojourn in Australia on the same plane with them, during which trip the instruments came out and the passengers got a nice long concert that nobody had to pay for except maybe with lost sleep and hangovers. Significant hangovers. And well worth it.

5. The Foggy Dew
Everyone in Ireland grew up with this song -- even this young girl and the old men playing their instruments for her. When I met the Cardinal, we didn't talk about this one, who hadn't emerged on the scene yet, but we spoke about Bernadette Devlin and the woman who ran her Dungannon school, Mother Benignus. Ireland is a bit like Canada in that it's small enough in population that, while they don't all know each other, they do tend to all know the people with any significant public profile. Mother Benignus Kelly was apparently a bit like Miss Jean Brodie in the way she inspired her girr-ulls, albeit with an Ulster accent rather than a Scottish burr. It was clear that the Cardinal had a great deal of respect and affection for her, but wished that perhaps she could ratchet it back just a bit. And they both of them, cardinal and nun, probably sang this song in school, not just in the streets or pubs.

6. The Old Orange Flute
A Protestant song and a favorite as well. A little self-mockery is a healthy thing, and a lot of Catholics have gotten a huge laugh out of this old song. Come to think of it, I've never heard a Protestant sing it. Mind you, the Unionists are known for their instrumental music, particularly their piping, rather than "songs" which in Ireland means sung music. Another of the little cultural differences between the two communities.

7. The Juice of the Barley
Speaking of an appetite for self-mockery, this is a classic of the genre. Drinking songs were only about 10 or 15 percent of our playlist, but it was a rare night we didn't sing this one.

8. The Donegal Reel/Longford Collector
We didn't actually play this particular medley -- and pub bands play medleys, because with nobody up and dancing, it's repetitive to just cycle through the same song over and over -- but this is the sort of instrumental we would feature. This is the Dubliners again. Like I said, we were more like them than anyone else, at least in our dreams.

9. The Man from the Daily Mail
Whatever the merits of a cause, there's nothing like a hysterical tabloid to turn it into something else entirely. A salute to media distortion.

10. The Limerick Rake
Sean, our bodhran player, liked this song because it's the only Irish song in the world that mentions his hometown of Ardagh, where his father had been a thatcher back in the 20s and 30s. I liked it because it was naughty and obscure.

11. The Men Behind the Wire
We had people in our audience who had been burned out of their homes by hate groups and who could hand you a rubber bullet so you could see what it looked like and imagine what it felt like. This song wasn't in the least extreme to them. H-Block, or Long Kesh, was Guantanamo 20 years before Guantanamo -- no habeas corpus, no right to see the evidence against you, and you're stuck in a nether world, neither a common criminal nor a POW. A travesty of human rights, and this song was more about that than about merits of the nationalist movement itself.

12. The Rebel
A poem by Padraig Pearse. This sort of performance piece, well done, has as great a place in the hooley as a stepdance or song, and a person known for good recitation would be called upon to give a poem in the general go-round of contributions to the evening. This would be a common choice, though others might go for something sentimental or comic instead. This certainly isn't particularly comic.

13: Over the Wall
This is based on a real event, presumably before they really locked down the internment jails. My boys, who were very young in those days, loved this song, probably for its repetitive chorus. We adapted the lyrics a bit for American audiences, changing "they'd all got tranferred" to "they'd played out their options" and "I'll appoint Edmond Compton" to "I'll appoint a commission." It remains a very silly song, but the populist sense of "whatever they've done, they're still our lads" is unmistakable.

14. The Broad Black Brimmer
There are any number of videos for this selection, but I chose this one because this chilling little song is a good example of the mundane way in which rebel songs become part of the zeitgeist. Two-thirds of the video is shots of Hibernian FC, an ex-pat football team in Scotland. Then it suddenly shifts into IRA scenes, then ends up back at the football pitch. This demonstrates more than anything else on this list why you can't simply leave these songs out of your repertoire without being as engaged in politics as you would be if you included them. They are bred in the bone.  (2012 update -- that video is gone. Oh well. Perhaps that's a good sign. Here's another version closer to what we sang anyway.)

15. Sean South of Garryowen
John used to play at hooleys in Limerick when he was a young soldier in the '50s, despite his sergeant's orders to avoid those musical gatherings because they were so closely associated with nationalists. One of the people who used to come to those parties was a lad named Sean South, who seemed nothing special at the moment but chatted him up about his work, which involved radios, and even came out to the army base to see what John did for a living. Friendly fellow. Young Sean became rather famous shortly thereafter.

16. The Patriot Game
Two people were killed in that raid. This is the other fellow, a young man named O'Hanlon who was from Monaghan, near where my cousins lived. A generation later, it was they who slipped on the berets and went off to meetings in the middle of the night. A good movie about real life in that area known in the 80s as "bandit country" is "Run of the Country." This is Domenic Behan's original version of the song ... most singers make adjustments to be more gentle and politically correct; we made it a practice to vary our choice of versions by the audience before us.

17. Roddy McCorley
Because the march tempo made it easy to walk a fussy baby to this tune, it somehow became part of the bedtime routine in our family. An odd lullaby, certainly, but a lovely rebel song, and one that was sung with the group in the pub and with my boys in our home.

18. A Nation Once Again
We used to end every night with this song. It's not the Irish national anthem, but it might as well be.

19. The Rocky Road To Dublin
(You may want to turn your volume down a bit before clicking on this one.) When I was in high school, I used to sing this song while walking home, the trick being to get each verse out in one breath. I've heard it sung by a lot of Irish groups, some of whom sing it as if it mattered in the great scope of national identity, and others who sing it with the sense of fun inherent. I like the Dropkick Murphys' take on it because I think, first of all, that they represent the fact that the authentic "tradition" in Irish music is to enjoy the music and have some fun, and also because I suspect that they really would get off the boat in Liverpool and get into a brawl with the first person to insult them.

And win, by jayzuz.

Good night. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

Then again ...

Sigh. Some of them just can't get over it.

It pays to behave well

It's nice when an ex-girlfriend is willing to step in and help with the release of your new CD, but it doesn't just happen. It's the result of both of you showing a little class on the break-up. Which we did, including neither of us running to the tabloids. I'm pretty sure Jennifer wouldn't do this for Brad.

(Thanks, babe -- you're still the best!)

The Official Launch

The Weekly Storybook just got its official launch this week and not a moment too soon. Two good friends from my Newspapers-in-Education years have left, one voluntarily, from a rapidly sinking ship, the other in a frog-march that didn't even allow her to collect her personal effects, after 20 years of revenue-positive work for the company. In fact, both had programs that were revenue-positive and well-respected around the country, but we're not doing that sort of thing anymore.

With the shifts in the industry, the concept of selling kids' stories to newspapers is over and done. My gross sales in 2008 were a third of what they had been in past years, and many of the people who made those recent purchases are gone. Heck, one of my client papers has folded its tent and another is on the brink of closing down. Two others, come to think of it.

So Friday I made the announcement that any newspaper wanting to link to weeklystorybook.com was free to do so, and that they could post the teacher's guides on their web site and even spoof the url to their own so they could retain the return visits week to week. A couple have already indicated interest in doing so, as a means of adding a little extra traffic to their web sites.

The beta phase has thus ended and I've kicked off a new series of folk tales I did with an artist familiar to this page, Marina "Rinacat" Tay, who also designed the Newshound and Nellie Bly, among other things. Her work is top-drawer and the series is entirely made up of single episodes, so newcomers to the site won't have missed anything. Later, when we build a little audience, I'll do some of the multi-part serials.

And, in addition to the Amazon widget, I've set up a CafePress shop. My practical prediction? It will generate zilch. But you never know, and this could at least become self-sustaining at some point. And, yes, the artists will get a cut of that zilch, bless their hearts!

The bottom line is that I like telling these stories and I hope to reach some kind of audience with them, because they are fun and worth reading.

And, really, I've become fatalistic enough about the economy that whether or not something pays for itself doesn't much matter anymore. If you enjoy it, do it, and if you don't enjoy it, well, life is short and you need to make decisions accordingly.

So tell your friends and neighbors and I hope you enjoy the site yourselves.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Why is this comedian the only guy who gets it?

Really, I'll get back to actually writing posts myself. But this is sadly important and right on. Take a few minutes and get furious. It won't help the economy, but it might make you feel better.

Slant it right, but get it right

Tucker Carlson tries to explain to a roomful of conservatives that getting the facts doesn't always mean pleasing them, but that getting it wrong leads to failure, and that failure to gather news at all is pointless. By the end, they seem to be getting it.

Nast never apologized for his monkeys

(And why this guy needs to)

I've been asked what I think about the current cartoon controversy, which I'm not going to describe here for fear of attracting a lot of Googlers. It has become a magnet for some really unacceptable and unproductive trollery.

Here's what I think: It was unintentional. And it was racist, not in the intent of the cartoonist, but in his utter cloth-eared insensitivity to the symbols he used. A sin of omission, not of commission. But a sin of omission still calls for a real apology, not a half-hearted pro forma statement, and certainly not one that ends with a self-promoting stab at one's critics.

If I back into your car, it may have been because I hate foreign cars and wanted to smash the fender on one, or it may have been because I didn't look in my rearview mirror.

If the former, no apology is needed. I did as I intended.

Thomas Nast routinely depicted the Irish as ape-like creatures. In the cartoon above, an "Irish Catholic Invader," complete with hobnailed boots, revolutionary lapel pin, gun in belt and bottle in back pocket, dictates terms to (Democratic) candidate Horace Greeley, while the priest listens in to make sure he gets it right and a proud Saxon lad stands fast to protect (Protestant) religion in the schools. And in the Nast cartoon here, an Irish monkey girl clings to her rosary beads and waves a nationalist flag while she and her little monkey-children friends kick the (King James) Bible around the school playground.

Despicable, but boy-jayzus, didn't Thomas Nast say what he meant and then stick to his guns? I can hate his work and still admire both his artistry and his tenacity.

But this fellow in New York didn't mean to be offensive. He's like the driver who didn't look in his rearview mirror.

Only the fellow in the car likely understands that drivers are supposed to look in their rearview mirrors. He's going to apologize, not for his bad intentions, but for his mistake. He's not likely to say, "I'm sorry if you feel I damaged your car. Except that I'd like to add, to all the people who have criticized my driving in the past, that I don't care what any of you think of it now."

Professional commentators have an obligation to understand the tools of their work, and, for a political cartoonist, symbols matter. And symbols can take on different connotations depending on the factors surrounding them.

Example: You could draw a cartoon showing the governors lining up outside the White House to get stimulus money for their states, and hang a pawnbroker's three-ball symbol over the portico, suggesting that the governors were desperate enough to give up things or ... however you felt it captured the issue. And whatever the merit of that commentary, there would be nothing offensive about it.

Unless, instead of Barack Obama, the president were Joe Lieberman, in which case you or one of your editors should be bright enough to say, "Oh, wait, no, let's re-think this ..."

And you need to do that because people will misinterpret your intentions and because they will be offended and distracted by something you didn't mean. If your intention is to make a statement, then you don't want that statement derailed by what people will see instead. This applies any time you put something in a cartoon or an editorial that could make it misfire, even if it were only a matter of confusing readers rather than offending them. But especially if it were a matter of offending them for no good reason.

When the internal system fails, when something like this gets through the checks-and-balances and is published and draws fire, you need to man-up and take your licks. You don't apologize for your intentions, because they weren't evil.

You apologize for your carelessness. You don't apologize for the fact that the guy values his car. You apologize for not looking in the rearview mirror, or for misjudging the distance. You apologize because you screwed up.

Here's how a man handles unintentional offense, from Joe Klein's 1980 biography, "Woody Guthrie: A Life." It's about Woody's early career hosting and performing on a radio show in Los Angeles:

On October 20, 1937, Woody received a letter from a listener that read in part, "You were getting along quite well in your program this evening until you announced your 'Nigger Blues.' I am a Negro, a young Negro in college, and I certainly resented your remark. No person ... of any intelligence uses that word over the radio today." Woody was mortified. It was a word he'd used casually all his life. It was a word he'd used lightly, jokingly, without ever quite realizing its full implications. He took to the air immediately with an apology. He read the letter aloud, promised not to use the word again, and ripped all the "nigger" songs out of his book.

By the way, I often counsel people who are thinking about writing letters to the editor (or to anyone else for that matter) that a soft, hurt tone is more effective than harsh anger. But those of us with words like "editor" in our titles are supposed to be able to stick our egos in our back pockets and deal with people even when they are too angry to address us in that soft, hurt tone.

We're paid to exercise good judgment, both in what we put in the paper and in how we handle the response to it.

A previously unpublished memoir
(1990)

``I am mortal,'' Scrooge remonstrated, ``and liable to fall.''
``Bear but a touch of my hand there,'' said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart,
``and you shall be upheld in more than this!''

I was only there by the merest of chances. I had been back to campus many times, but rarely while school was in session, and never for a football game. The Air Force game was hardly the most crucial game of the season, but I had lived in Colorado Springs for more than a decade, so I chose the Air Force game.

And I still would not have known to be there, but, because we have several college interns in our newsroom, I picked up a copy of The Observer to bring them an example of another college's newspaper.

Then, as I sat in my motel room Friday night, I leafed through it and came across an article: First Friday would be playing at the Senior Bar Saturday night, the reunion of a band that hadn't played in public in 20 years.

I called my friend Mike, who lives in La Porte. There was no question about whether we would go. First Friday was playing. We had to be there.

And so, Saturday night, we stood, Mike and me and Chuck and Lou and John and the people who had come back with the band, and there was our music again, there was our band again. There we were again, like old times.

It is not enough to say that First Friday was our band. It was our band, playing our music. This was not the cotton-candy golden oldies that have taken over the airwaves, certainly not the Top 40 ersatz-R&B they dragged back for "The Big Chill."

This was Cream and Spirit and the Yardbirds, music with depth and challenge, with screaming guitar solos and hammering organ riffs and driving percussion, demanding songs no lounge lizard or garage band would dare touch. This was Sixties music the way Artie Shaw is like Kay Kyser, the way Ella Fitzgerald is like the Andrews Sisters. This was the music that mattered.

It was music and it was more. It was the singular sound of a particular band that existed at a particular time and vanished with only the vaguest traces: One test album, pressed in limited quantities, my copy now so scratched and worn it barely plays at all. Nothing else: A recording contract fell through, the band broke up, the members graduated and were scattered across the country, 20 years ago.

So were we all, scattered across the country, leading our adult lives, until this October night when we were in the new Senior Bar, and there was First Friday, and it could have been the upstairs of the old Student Center, or the Coffeehouse at St. Mary's or even the front lobby of O'Shaugnessy, where I first heard them play.

There they were, and we were 19 and 20 again, rocking and flailing our air-guitars, frantically grabbing for notes while Norm stood impassively picking them out for real, fast and clean and like 20 years had never happened. It wasn't just nostalgia, either: First Friday really was that good, even now.

They really were: Out on the floor, the students who had filtered in out of curiosity, to see the old folks' funky old band, had become believers and were exuberantly dancing, alive and with the energy of 19 and 20.

I stood and watched them and it was 1969 again and my waist was thin and my hair was thick, I was full of dreams and visions of life. I was in love with almost everyone, I was free of wisdom and caution and strings and weights. The music was playing and I was young and there was no time, no space, no world but the music, and life stretched out before my young eyes in all its infinite promise.

And out on the floor, I saw one tall, dark, lovely girl dancing, smiling a smile that could only be smiled by a face unlined with years and unwrinkled by disappointment, and, as she danced, I thought of other girls, other times.

I thought of a beautiful blonde friend, twisting and swimming and hitchhiking the old dances on the sidewalk in front of Sorin Hall to the music of First Friday, laughing and twirling and flying across the concrete, dancing for sheer joy , her long, straight yellow hair and the brown fringe on her leather coat spinning out in the sunlight of a football Saturday, and nothing more than her joy was needed for that moment to stay forever in my mind.

And I thought of an evening before Christmas break, the snow falling on the steps outside LeMans, and a friend with her dark hair tied back with a hank of thick, red yarn, the collar of her wool navy jacket turned up, a single flake of snow on her eyelashes, our breath steaming in the cold air under the porch light as we exchanged a kiss not for love but for friendship and for the holidays.

And I thought of an almost-lover one summer, who could hold me but could not love me, and whom I could not keep, because she had to help the farm workers and had no time for love. I called her my Maud Gonne and told her I would be her silly Willie Yeats and would write for her and keep a candle, but she disappeared into the scene, the ever-present scene, and she never turned up again, leaving only a memory of her intense caring, and of her eyes, a light amber I have never seen since and would die to see again.

And as I watched and dreamt and traveled in my heart, the girl turned and gestured in my direction to join her on the dance floor.

Forgive me, spirits. Forgive me.

I looked behind me.

Before I even turned back, I knew I had just betrayed all those young girls, all those young dreams. I had forgotten youth and joy and music. I had lost my faith.

I had looked behind me.

In that fatal moment, I was again 40 and graying and balding and paunchy and standing flat-footed among a group of middle-aged men and women, watching children dance. And I saw a girl, a young, beautiful girl, her dark eyes still locked on mine, pointing at me, "Yes, you!" and pointing again at the dance floor in front of her, and I could not join her.

I feared she would tell me she was some friend's daughter. I feared that I would sweat and strain and look foolish. I feared that she would say to her friends, "You should have been there! All these really old people were dancing and everything!"

And so I stood, like poor, sad, frightened Ebenezer Scrooge watching Fezziwig's party, seeing the shadows of what I had once had, and what I had let slip away.

And the beautiful young girl, who only wanted to dance, finally gave up and turned away, and went on dancing alone, to the music, to our music, to the music that was mine.

I took my coat from the back of a chair and walked out into the night. I was 800 miles from home, and had to be back by Monday morning.

Don't play the cords of fame

It's supposed to be flattering and fun when "your" breed wins at Westminster, but I can't summon much enthusiasm over the Best of Group award that went to Ch. Cordmaker Field of Dreams this week. I had pulis (Yeah, yeah, the Hungarian plural is "pulik." That's how these problems get started.) before the dog show snots got hold of them.

It was 1971, and we'd been married about five months when Kathy's dog, Mordechai, ran out into traffic and was hit. We still had the dog I'd brought to the marriage, but decided we liked having two. Besides, my dog, Taylor, a small, black beagle mix, had done a nice job of training Morty and we knew he'd train a new pup, too.

We found Szabo in southwestern Michigan. I'd heard of pulis but had never seen one. The mother was on hand and was a delightful dog, a first-generation American. Most pulis in those days weren't long off the boat, imported for the most part by homesick Hungarians.

The puli is a small sheepherding dog that was apparently brought into Eastern Europe by the Magyars and is believed to be related to the Tibetan Terrier. I am told that the word "puli"comes from a Sanskrit word applied to any herding dog. They are extremely bright, nimble dogs whose signature move is to cross the herd on the backs of the sheep like a lumberjack going log-to-log across the river during a drive. They also are known for leaping on the back of a runaway, riding him until he's tired and then getting off and bringing him back to the flock.

As soon as we had a puli, we started hearing stories about them.

A construction worker acquaintance went looking for work in Ann Arbor, but his puli disappeared almost as soon as they arrived. He spent his time up there looking for Happy and returned to South Bend broken-hearted. A few days later, Happy showed up on the doorstep, having traveled the 175 miles to a place they'd only lived a few months.

A couple told of going to pick out their puppy in a pen behind a shed. The old Hungarian farmer warned that the mother was protective, so he went in first, put a ladder up against the shed and said something in Hungarian upon which the dog ran up the ladder, which he then removed so they could play with the pups while Mom watched from above. When they had made their choice, they left the pen, he replaced the ladder and she ran back down it.

The first thing we found with Szabo was that Taylor wasn't going to do a lot of training with him. Taylor started giving him the lecture -- "This is where we pee. This is my bowl." -- and it was clear that Szabo was blowing him off. For one thing, when Taylor would play tug-of-war with us, the puppy would come up and join in from the other end, jerking on his tail, which was really disconcerting since you can't bite a puppy -- especially one you can't catch -- and it's tough to lose your dignity when you are supposed to be Lead Dog.

But they worked out a good relationship where Taylor got to be Lead Dog and Szabo let him be, because he didn't really much care, until the day about two years later when an irritable Taylor growled at toddler Jed and then snapped at Kathy, whereupon Szabo delivered a beatdown that was frightening not because he was furious but just the opposite: For the coldness of it. It was clearly a punishment, a lesson and an establishment of how dogs were to behave and who was now in charge. And, no, Taylor never repeated his folly.

That episode aside, Szabo was the jolliest dog I've ever known, and had a sense of humor that Taylor couldn't fathom. Not only would he allow himself to be dressed up, but he seemed to get the joke. We added a second, then a third, puli to the family, but Szabo was the legendary presence, and, years later, Jed observed, "The thing about Szabo was, when we played monkeys? Szabo was a monkey!"

He was also willing to follow the boys up the ladder and down the slide at the park, and pretend to be a baby going to sleep so that Jed could be the Daddy playing his guitar at cribside. He played football with them and they had to keep a soccer ball on the ground when playing with him because he would "head" an airborne ball and we were afraid he'd damage his nose.

Szabo was the finest, brightest, best dog I've ever known, and I've known some good dogs.

So what about Westminster?

Well, when we got Szabo, there were two types of coats acceptable in the breed: The wavy and the curly. Either one was going to mat if you didn't keep them brushed, and we never did, assuming that the Hungarian shepherds of old did not spend their evenings brushing their dogs but, rather, lined them up once a year with the sheep and sheared them.


The book we bought, "How To Raise And Train Your Puli," even happened to have a pair of wavy-haired pulis on the cover, champions who would never make champion today.

Here's what the breed standard says:
The dense, weather resistant coat is profuse on all parts of the body. The outer coat is wavy or curly, but never silky. The undercoat is soft, woolly and dense. The coat clumps together easily, and if allowed to develop naturally, will form cords in the adult. The cords are woolly, varying in shape and thickness, either flat or round, depending on the texture of the coat and the balance of undercoat to outer coat. The Puli may be shown either corded or brushed. It is essential that the proper double coat with correct texture always be apparent. With age the coat can become quite long, even reaching to the ground; however, only enough length to properly evaluate quality and texture is considered necessary so as not to penalize the younger or working specimens.

And here's what wins in the show ring -- nice long cords to the floor. And, as the owner of Ch. Cordmaker Field of Dreams told reporters this week, the cords do not form naturally but must be trained.

Meanwhile, the pulis I've known have often been overprotective. We had to be very vigilant at the park because they would not tolerate strange dogs approaching us, and, while Szabo played cheerfully with the boys and their friends, we had another male they had to put inside during rough games because he wouldn't have understood. The fact is, the dogs aren't many generations away from their days among the sheep, and they still have a strong impulse to guard their flock.

With a good, stable dog, you can socialize and train to a point where that instinct is not a distraction. But that's assuming you've bred for temperament and not for some odd, irrelevant feature like the ability to produce a corded coat.

The lovely corded handbags I've run into since Szabo's days have been snappish and unpleasant, and I'm sorry to see a modern puli win anything, since it only encourages irresponsible breeding.

Maybe if I didn't still miss Szabo so much, some 25 years later, I wouldn't feel so strongly about it.

Diplomacy

I'm next up in the express lane at the grocery store, when this fellow comes up and places on the belt behind my things some celery, a few apples, something in a can and a plastic tray with a nice piece of salmon under plastic wrap. The guy at the head of the line had asked for cigarettes, so there's a pause while the cashier calls for a manager to get the packet out of the lockup.

For a moment, I think the fellow behind me is starting to strike up a conversation, but quickly realize he's on his cell phone. "Hi. They have some good salmon. Should I pick some up?" Pause. "I thought we could have it tonight."

Just as I'm wondering (A) why he has to ask permission to buy a $6 piece of fish? (he's not dressed like it's going to kill the family budget) and (B) why he's asking now?, the cigarettes come and the cashier begins scanning my stuff.

I swipe my card, we complete the transaction, and, as she's handing me my receipt, I see her give that slightly annoyed, "Where'd he go?" cashier glance.

Sure enough, the guy behind me has disappeared. The celery, the fruit, the stuff in a can, still there. No salmon.

I suppose we all have our ways of keeping the peace at home, but I am left wondering how long you have to be married before the "gee, I'd better ask the little lady" reflex kicks in while you're at the fish counter rather than just as you're about to seal your doom.

Points of Interest

I was poking around and found a site with the photographs of Larry Keenan, who did a lot of work in the San Francisco area during the Sixties, when the Beats were active and during the Haight-Ashbury period. And after, as well, which is worth saying because, even after looking through the galleries that captured a moment in history with particular resonance for me and moving into his later work, I continued to find myself enjoying some really remarkable photos.

Really, if there were only one picture there, this photo of Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsburg would still be awfully cool.

But Keenan's portfolio is full of many other faces with names -- Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Judy Collins and Peter Coyote and Wavy Gravy and Stewart Brand and on and on, and he also captured a lot of anonymous people who were there at the right moment.

I've always felt that I arrived at the party late, after the right moment had come and gone and things were beginning to wind down, the energy beginning to dissipate. It was a lot of fun, but I knew that, if I'd just been there a little bit earlier, I'd have really seen some amazing things and talked to some amazing people. Of course, arriving late was better than not getting there at all and I did see some pretty amazing things and talk to some pretty amazing people.

And, in any case, you really couldn't have seen everything anyway, no matter when you got there.

Except that Larry Keenan seems to have seen -- and photographed -- an awful lot of it.

Wander through and enjoy.

Eyes on the prize in the skies

(Darrin Bell's poster brought to mind this recruiting poster from World War I, "True Sons of Freedom," which was (obviously) intended to encourage African-Americans to enlist. I originally found this to illustrate an oral history from the WPA that I found very educational for me, never mind the schoolchildren for whose edification I created the piece. And speaking of schoolchildren, the teens in the other pic here are from 1942 and are contemplating the memorial in Chicago to black veterans of WWI. I believe that, if there was a crowd watching yesterday's ceremonies from above, Mr. Andrew Johnson was certainly among them. Here is his story, collected in 1938.)

The news came that every male between the ages of 21-31 was to go to one of the numerous Local Draft Boards set up in every part of the country.

I registered with the Local Draft Board, Swarthmore, Pa. on June 5, 1917 and was given a card with the number 1493. If this number were drawn out of a large glass bowl in the Quarter-master General's Office in Washington, then I was told to report. This was the beginning of nearly a year-long period of reporting to one place or another, both in America and France.

All summer I anxiously scanned the daily papers for the list of numbers as published by the War Department. In September I accepted a teaching job in Virginia, but had been there hardly a month when 1493 appeared, so back I came to report to the Local Draft Board and claimed exemption because I was the sole support of my aged widowed mother and two sisters and a brother. Then, too, all teachers were supposed to be exempt from military service.

But my claims for exemption were denied. I found out later, that the chairman of the Local Draft Board had placed my name on the list of men to go to war because he had exhausted the exemptions allowed and was compelled to fill out the quota.

A special train came through one day in October and I said good-bye to my family and climbed aboard, with eight other colored men from my town. Every town the train passed through contributed its quota of young men, so that when we reached Admiral, Maryland, the train was crowded with wildly cheering, excited heroes-to-be.

Alighting from the train, we were told to line up and follow several military-appearing men. The contingent, composed of men dressed in old clothes and carrying suitcases, straggled up the road several miles until we came to Camp Meade, named after a Civil War general.

Here we were lined up again, told to file into a large mess hall where we found that the Army ate other vegetables besides beans. After mess we lined up again for medical inspection, then were marched off to a supply station and issued Army uniforms and equipment. Dress shoes and heavy hob-nailed field shoes, an O. D. tunic, shirt, trousers, underwear, socks, a necktie, handkerchiefs, towels and soap. Also two tightly rolled bundles of wool called spiral puttees.

This last almost made me quit the Army.

We marched back to some dormitories and were assigned a cot, blankets, and told to report to the parade grounds after changing into uniform. The building I was in had about 250 men, and each one of them was struggling with tunics with too-tight collars, or complaining about too-large shoes, hardly any one had been lucky enough to get a perfect fit. But every one was troubled by the spiral puttees.

How to get what looked like a roll of bandage wrapped around one's leg! That was the question.

While we were engaged in typing, lacing, and buttoning these strange garments which go to make up a U. S. Army uniform, an orderly told us to fall in at the parade grounds. We did. And such a sight. Imagine a thousand men, unused to Army life, gathered together on a parade ground and told to stand at attention when coat-collars were threatening to choke half of them into insensibility and the other half were entangled in spiral puttees improperly wrapped.

A group of 60 Negro officers stood to one side, each one of whom stood erect in freshly-pressed serge uniforms, Sam Browne belt shining to match leather boots.

One officer advanced toward us several paces and read from a paper. "General Order. You men will comprise the 368th Infantry Regiment of the Ninety-Second Division, U. S. National Army, composed of drafted men from Eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. You will now enter upon a training period which will fit you for duty overseas."

So in October, 1917, the 368th was formed and I stayed with that outfit throughout the war. The men in my barracks became Company "G" of the 368th, and we had three second lieutenants, three first lieutenants and our company Commander was Captain Queen.

Captain Queen sent for me the next day. The orderly who gave me the order told me to report to company headquarters. As I came up the walk, I passed an armed guard standing in front of a large flag, and he brought his gun to the ready and asked, "Hey, buddy, where's your manners? Don't you know better'n walk past the colors without saluting?"

He patted his gun suggestively so I turned toward the colors, as he called it, and gave the only salute I knew, a Boy Scout salute learned as a child. The guard looked at me rather disgustedly, and commented, "You're in the army now and we'll make a soldier out of you yet."

I reported at the door and was sent to Captain Queen. "You wanted to see me?" I inquired.

The captain cut in on me. "Soldier. When you are told to report to an officer, always salute until recognized, saying 'Corporal Johnson reporting, sir.' then stand at attention."

"Yes sir."

"I see by your draft board that you can use a typewriter. I'm making you a company clerk, with rank of corporal. You'll report to Lieut. Hinkson, in charge of headquarters platoon. Dismissed."

I managed a credible salute, turned on my heel and marched out. In the Army one day and already a corporal. I went over to the supply sergeant, drew my chevrons, and walked over to the barracks where I commenced sewing them on. Then, feeling very proud of my new rank, I reported to headquarters platoon.

This time I had everything right. I saluted as I passed the colors, had a soldier point out Lieut. Hinkson, walked over to him, saluted and said, "Corporal Johnson reporting for duty as ordered by Captain Queen, sir."

The Lieutenant gravely returned my salute, glanced at my sleeve and said "Corporal, your chevrons are quite new."

I answered proudly, "Yes sir, Lieutenant."

"Well, they're sewn on upside down," he snapped, "Go to the company tailor and have them adjusted properly."

Our officer, Captain Queen, had just completed a course of instruction at a fort at Des Moines, Iowa, along with a thousand other colored men, all of whom were given commissions as captain, or lieutenant, signed by the President, Woodrow Wilson, and which said that they were 'officers and gentlemen.'

Capt. Queen had been a top sergeant in the 24th Regular Army Regiment when they were stationed in Arizona and chased the Indians. His brother had graduated from the Officers' Training School at the same time, but was commissioned a lieutenant in the machine gun detachment of our regiment.

Captain Queen was younger than his brother, the Lieutenant, but now outranked him. So the older brother, the machine gunner, was compelled to salute his baby brother, the captain.

I soon learned the distinction between an officer and myself. I studied the Army Manual, The School of the Soldier, learned how to clean and care for a rifle, how to execute "order arms" without smashing my toes. I learned the difference between a canteen and a latrine. Being in the headquarters platoon, I was able to find out news of impending troop movements. In fact, I typed the order cancelling all leaves and ordering the men to report to the parade grounds with packs and in full marching order.

We were reviewed and inspected and then marched direct to a waiting train. Once on the train we were issued cards on which we wrote, "Am leaving for somewhere in France. Goodbye."

We detrained at Hoboken. When we arrived darkness had fallen and it was raining a little. In the drizzle we were marched up the gang-plank of a transport and told to stay below decks until we were well out to sea.

The next morning Captain Queen sent for me. I had on a life preserver, as did everyone else. The captain wanted the company roster as he was going to put us through Abandon Ship Drill. When I came on deck I was able to see other troopships, camouflaged with vertical stripes and pursuing a zigzag course, convoyed by eight or ten destroyers.

The North Atlantic was cold and dismal. In fact, the whole business was rather grim and uninspiring, but we reached Brest without incident, didn't even have one submarine scare on the way over.

It was in Brest that I saw some colored soldiers wearing red fezzes and tan uniforms, standing on one of the street corners. One of the men from my company, who came originally from a small town, crossed over the street toward them and inquired. "Where can I get some cigarettes?"

The red-fezzed soldiers glanced at him, spoke among themselves, then turned to him and shrugged complete incomprehension.

I saw that my friend was becoming angry so I crossed over. "What's
the trouble, bud?" I asked.

"These big boys act like they don't want to have anything to do with me. They're talking a lot of gibberish, won't answer my questions."

I had a little trouble convincing him that "those big boys" were FRENCH Africans, couldn't understand English and weren't trying to be high hat.

We went into intensive training and after six weeks we marched up to the town of Nancy in the Department of Douliard. We marched at night, rested in fields by day and noticed the almost solid lines of trucks headed toward the Front, and passed troops returning from a tour of duty in the front line trenches.

In each squad, in addition to the riflemen there were grenadiers who carried hand grenades. While we were marching we had the first casualty in our company. A grenadier, a belt of hand grenades strapped around his middle, stumbled and fell, the grenades exploded, everybody who could, jumped into ditches or flattened themselves on the ground. Total score, three dead and eight wounded. Of the dead we buried two, but the third, the grenadier was blown to bits, nothing left but a hole in the road.

We were in the Argonne Forest when the big push started on September 26, 1918 and we stayed in there five days, part of the time we were shelled by our own artillery in support, the 349th Field Artillery Regiment. We had no battle flags, no shears to cut barbed wire entaglements, our liaison men (runners with messengers) were all killed or wounded trying to get through with messages.

Lieut. Hinkson, dressed in a private's uniform and carrying a rifle as well as a sidearm (automatic) had stood up and shouted, "As skirmishers, guide center. Deploy" when a machine gun, hidden in the woods, cut him down.

Enemy airplanes flew over us several times, dropping pamphlets addressed to us. "Colored Americans. We have no quarrel with you. We are your friends. Throw down your arms and come over to our side. We will treat you better than you are treated in the South."

But I don't remember a single case of desertion.

After the Argonne, we went up into the Vosgen Mountains, where it was rather quiet. We needed it for we had been cut up pretty badly. Replacements were sent us, and I was promoted to Sergeant. The replacements were creoles from Louisiana. They spoke French and one became our company interpreter. So soon every soldier picked up a few words of French.

Armistice Day found us before Metz. We were waiting to storm a great walled city which would have cost us many men, as we would have to cross a level plain about two miles long.

In December 1918 we were marched to Le Mona, the central delousing plant of the A. E. F. Here we had our clothes taken from us, and I lost my sweater which had been knitted for me by my girl friend, we were plunged into baths, and when we came out the other end we were given clean clothes, and that was the end of the big gray cooties which had been our constant companions.

Back to the mud of Brest and here we embarked for home near the end of February, 1919, and after staying in Camp Upton a few days we were sent to Camp Meade, Maryland where on March 5, 1919 we were given a bonus of $60, an honorable discharge, and the 368th Infantry regiment became a part of history.