Do you think you
could beat me up?
The Letter Parade
For the family and friends of Bonnie Jo
Summer 2006
The Week in Birds Contact Bonnie about this essay.
Notes and News Autumn 2005 - Summer 2006
Darling Christopher cannot believe I wrote the above essay without mentioning the new (old) truck onto which George and Darcy and I loaded 71 bales of hay. Well, we removed the bed of my 1984 Chevy truck, intending to fortify or replace the bed, and discovered that the frame was nearly rusted through in several critical places below. After determining it was not repairable, we parked it and bought a new truck, one that had been totaled-out by an insurance company, a 1984 Ford 350 with double wheels, low-mount toolboxes and a twelve-foot-long stake bed. It said "Tree Monkeys" on the side. It's big enough that I could park my VW Rabbit pick-up truck inside it, and I intend to do that as soon as I find the right loading ramp. Kellee and I got six yards of mulch into it. Christopher replaced the U-joints and now it doesn't even clunk when you shift gears.
Carolyn Chute wrote last fall about her vehicle situation: "We were in a bad car wreck this summer. Tarsal tunnel slowed me down and made me fat, but a hip smashed into smitherines & kneecap bonked so I can't even crawl from danger is a new improved bad scene. Seatbelt cut one breast in ½ . Seatbelts save lives but they can't make car wrecks safe. Only slowing down and paying attention can prevent wrecks. Like 25 mph. The end of fossil fuel will put everyone back on donkeys... Friends gave us an old truck and $1000 to fix it up but since summer the work is slow as there aren't enough mechanics and they are all too busy and overwhelmed. Our biggest remaining problem is the LEAKS. Water/rain etc. leak into truck cab. Gasoline leaks onto the ground. Fumes leak into the air. Highly flammable fumes. A tossed cigg in a parking lot and BOOM!!"
Jesse Green of Michigan wrote this tribute to his father, who died this March:
My Dad was a leather-tough old hillbilly, stubborn as a tree root, naturally and unselfconsciously generous, and one of the only no-strings-attached honest people I've ever known.Even though he raised us hardscrabble poor—often without running water and indoor plumbing, and occasionally homeless—we were never so poor that Dad could not spare a few dollars or a bag of groceries to help a friend. I recall Dad selling a utility trailer or a parts car or other valued resource to help a neighbor pay the electric bill or a relative scrounge up the down payment for a place to live. He'd say something dismissive about how the car or trailer was "jes' sittin' in the way, a' killin' the grass," and that it was past time to get rid of it. Such things were common sense for Dad, others' problems became his problems.
I grew up thinking Dad was a bit too generous, too honest for the post-Nixon, post-modern world, too worried about principles and the welfare of others, and not worried enough about getting ahead. Dad was always worried about the "why" and not concerned enough about the things, and the comfort we lacked. I was a poor kind and didn't understand why others had more than we did. I wanted a shinier bike, more expensive shoes, a new car. At 41 with two kids and a law degree, I'm beginning to understand.
Dad wasn't any kind of crusader. I still picture him sitting contentedly up on a fence post, eating a raw potato with a penknife and a saltshaker, a pack of Winstons rolled up in his white T-shirt sleeve, one behind his ear against that Vitalis-slick James Dean haircut, battered old wingtips on his feet, talking to me quietly about planting and carburetors and the sound of his Daddy's sawmill echoing against the wooded Kentucky hills. Dad didn't preach "simple living," he just lived simply. That homegrown potato and that saltshaker and sitting in the sunshine talking with his boy, that was it. That's what he wanted from life.
He walked away hungry from good paying jobs because he would not cross a picket line and refused much-needed help because he did not like the strings attached. I watched him work twice as hard as others his entire life to get half as much, but on his terms. Most astounding to me in my shades-of-grey world of political deal making and the creative redrafting of compromises, I watched Dad always refuse to tell the necessary lie, the easy lie, the one most of us would rationalize away, and then watched him strum his guitar and sing "Red River Valley" off key and live with the consequences. The quiet example he set--not the things that our family had, or lacked--is what taught me integrity and the value of hard work and standing up for what you know is right instead of trading your values for pieces of silver, one at a time.
His childhood was plagued by car wrecks, mining disasters, shootings, and death from now-innocuous illnesses. Only six of his twelve siblings lived to adulthood in the roughneck coal mining mountains of eastern Kentucky. Dad dropped out of school in the eighth grade to haul coal, farm, and tend the livestock. Yet he and Mom somehow raised four kids, an attorney and an engineer among them, in those abandoned buildings without indoor plumbing.
He never had any formal technical training, but there was nothing––nothing--Dad could not repair and improve. I watched him cobble together cement mixers, oscilloscopes, hydraulic dump beds and neglected rifles. We used to joke that if the Space Shuttle crash-landed in the back yard Dad would have it repaired in an hour with some duct tape and a few parts from a 1965 Impala. He happily pieced together rows of for-free cars to make something mobile that would carry us all safely to the store, and scratch-built about half the sheds, shacks and shelters we lived in growing up; abandoned gas stations turned into housing, Dad pecking away at them with a bent nail held in his teeth. One damp cold Michigan spring evening my younger brother worked with Dad to replace a wall missing from a derelict house Dad had acquired in trade for god knows what. They were burning daylight and desperately needed to finish so the family could move in. My brother made the mistake of asking Dad about stopping work to go retrieve a bubble level out of the pile of second-hand tools stored in what had once been a garage. Dad's now-famous (in our family) reply was, "Huh! Well boy. I ain't got no time for no level!"
Of course, the wall went up fine with no level and in the years our family lived in that little house I don't recall anyone complaining about how plumb that wall was, or was not.
Funny how you don't recognize the importance of the map until it is gone, or the value of the anchor until the rope is broken. I'm not sure I know how to be me without my father.
I guess now I'll have to do it without a level.
Norma VanRheenen, who is still in the process of moving from a large house to a small house, generously donated to the cause a bunch of canning jars. If any of you live near me and want some, let me know.
Cousin Mimi Lipson sent word from Turkey this summer: "Mom and I took the train to Denizli—famous for a certain kind of rooster which crows for 3 minutes straight, then passes out cold. Then we took a bus ride through the 18th century to the coastal town of Fethiye. From there we got on a gulet (a small yacht-like thing) with the Kolod family and another couple. It took all those New Yorkers a few days to settle into a rather passive form of holiday but it's unbelievably beautiful here on the Mediterranean. I met a lonely skipper who asked if I'd sail to Madagascar with him, working as a hostess." Upon returning home, she reports: "I tried a bit of fact-checking on the Denizli rooster and came across this from the Ministry of Culture: http://www.kultur.gov.tr/EN/BelgeGoster.aspx It doesn't say anything about passing out, but it does say: ‘ Denizli rooster was originated automatically upon great care shown by the people living in Denizli to long crowing rooster for centuries.'"
Wayne Beebe also wrote from the 50th state: "We're visiting Hawaii in lieu of taking a cruise and finding it very much to our liking. It's about as close to paradise as you can get. We rented bikes one day and expect to bring our own next year. Actually it's very tempting to just move here. We're staying one block from Waikiki."
Laleli L. Lopez sent a postcard from Paris this spring, then one from Costa Rica (Isla Tortuga): "¡Yoga y Surfing with my cousin Estuvo Bien! Om Shanti Dude." Last October, Laleli sent a postcard from the Ironman Triathalon in Kona, Hawaii: "Swim patrol was my event at this year's Iron Man Hawaii. Basically you sit on a surfboard and watch the swimmers as a safety precaution, then lay on top of the board and paddle alongside the 2.4 mile swim. I had raced ½ the distance in this same pacific waters a couple of times and remember how safe it felt to know the board volunteers were all around if I needed any help. This was my way to give thanks back to the sport of Triathalon! That is the spirit of the people in Kona. That is their way of sharing Aloha, Mahalo!
Writing news: Buy Alicia Conroy's book, Lives of Mapmakers (visit http://aliciaconroy.efoliomn2.com) and Read Melissa Fraterrigo's book, The Longest Pregnancy (http://www.melissafraterrigo.com) Alicia and Melissa, who graduated from BGSU's MFA program together, read together from their books at Prairie Lights Book Store in Iowa City--apparently much fun was had by all. Alicia writes: "I can't believe it's early August and I didn't do half the things I wanted to this summer (like read at least 6 more books). I am trying to psych up for school--at least I get to teach creative writing again. And after a trip to the farmer's market on Saturday, I've been making gazpacho, BLTs, pesto . . . wondering if I have room in our meager fridge to freeze green beans (there's always the Jolly Green Giant, after all). I wake up early in the morning worrying about global warming. Seriously. Thank god for the distractions of the all-too-brief tomato season. I found a recipe for watermelon pudding, but I'm not much for sweets." Melissa writes, "It's been quite a whirlwind of a summer and I can honestly say I am looking forward to things slowing down with the change of season. Pete planted a beautiful garden this summer and we have been munching on lettuce, zucchini and carrots to our hearts content! The tomatoes are just beginning to come in and next year we should have asparagus. Our darling pooch, Cooper, is no longer little. At one point he tipped the scales at 90 pounds, so we figured that rather than letting him join the ranks of Americans with their burgeoning waistlines, we reduced his kibble intake by a cup."
From northern Michigan Donna Deal theorizes about the state of overweight: I, too, have been super-sizing, but don't attribute it to the high moral ground musings connected to yours (in LP essay "Planet Ass"). I think it is more of a follow the leader thing....everyone else, or at least about 75 percent of all Americans are super-sizing, so why not me? I am nearly to the side of the women's clothing store category now referred to as "Woman". It means anyone over size 18. Used to be that Lane Bryant was the only place to buy tents....generally black or navy tents. Now the area overflows with lovely and large items, more and prettier than the "Misses" or "Juniors" or " Petites" sections. I may have to eat a few more carbs so I can be more fashionable. As it is now, I am still in the long, flowing over blouse stage, covering tight blue jeans and capris that I keep up by attaching a rubber hair band through the button hole and then hooking it to the button. My butt has not caught up to my tummy in size. I have thought seriously about shopping in the Maternity section and trying to pass myself off as a fertility treated 60-something lady in waiting.
Instead of blaming world events for my size, I blame factory farming and my addiction to consuming hormone and antibiotic fed beef, chicken and pork. It makes them grow fast and big, and I assume that the ingredients leach from meat to me on a daily basis, making me want to consume large quantities of fattening grains while maintaining a soft, un-muscled body, like the bodies of the feed lot cattle whose role in life is to grow as big as possible in as short a time as possible with as little exercised muscle as possible. I have thought seriously about becoming a vegetarian, but of course our grains are full of insecticides and are genetically mutated to grow fast and big too. Big cows eat big grains and I eat super sized burgers made from both super sized cows and grains. In many places in the world people eat all they want but of non-genetically engineered grains and vegetables and of livestock fed on non-genetically engineered grains and vegetables while ranging though clean, green pastures, rather than standing knee deep in mud, shoulder to shoulder to consume antibiotic, insecticide, hormone treated genetically engineered corn. Amazingly, those people still fit in tiny, fuel efficient cars and fit in "Junior" sized clothes that have not been super-sized so that former size 10s are now labeled size 2's. I wish I could be getting fat due to high morals having to do with the state world politics and war. It sounds so much better than thinking that Big Agra-business is super-sizing us, knowing well that the more we eat of their genetically engineered, hormone and antibiotic treated food, the more we will crave. But that is the state of the state.
Six Month Update from Donna: I have lost 20lb in 6 months....as a result my skin doesn't fit. I am getting wrinkles everywhere. My mom warned me! Told me skinny old ladies look older than fat old ladies, at least from the front. Skinny old ladies look great in their jeans, from the back but look awful and wrinkly in the front or in swimsuits and shorts. They get shriveled thighs that hang down, and their jowls and boobs hang down like deflated ballons, and their teeny necks are corded and wrinkled and look like braided rope. Yup, that was my Mom's excuse for not dieting and I think maybe she was right. Anyway, look around. Young mammals are lean, middle aged mammals get thick in the middle and old mammals get very thin and then die!
Photos of Mike M., Jim and Ford by Christopher. Send news, notes, rants to Bonnie Jo Enterprises, PO Box 52, Comstock Michigan 49041 or email mailto:bonniejo@iserv.net
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