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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 3, 2012 - 01:50am PT
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Henry Mancini, 1961. Trading spit on the GF's couch.
July 20, 1969. The Sea of Tranquility. There goes the neighborhood.
One for the Nomenclature Hall of Fame. By one of the most famous of the Zappa brothers.
It's right up there with Suzy Creamcheese.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4310065-lunacy-and-the-arrangement-of-books
Witten? Where is it written that witten's more than a skat sound?[Click to View YouTube Video]
Tranquility then, tranquility now. It's Friday night. There was a full moon recently.
I remember the night I sat on the top of Bugaboo with the Rev, the snowy amphitheatre, the full moon, the eclipse.
One hike into the South Fork of hte Merced in July. I went up the jeep road almost to Jerseydale, came down Rattlesnake Gulch on the old CCC trail. So dang hot! No water left.
It's a terrible idea to immerse a heated body in cold water as I found out. Not only did I want to die from the cramps all night, the moon was full and I couldn't get to sleep if you paid me because there was not enough shade underneath the oak trees.
1983, one night at Jim Shirley's place in Box Canyon, SFV, I and my daughter, Bevin, about four, witnessed a partial lunar eclipse to rival the one in the Bugs in '70. The moon has a way of magnifying when the atmosphere's right, and over LA that night it was so clear, yet it was obviously-polluted sky.
This is to help me out, psychologically. I just heard from Lenna that Boomer, our Dad, who always "shoots the moon" (collects no points, distributes 26 to each sucker) at least once when playing Hearts, has acute leukemia and is not expected to be around much longer.
So I'm kind of wasted on pinot noir, appropriately enough.
Logic dictates a response of "oh mys." Don't. I believe in magic, and the magic here is that I seem to have been prepared for something like this by recent events. One is that The Rev's dad, Lem, has been in and out of the hospital so much in the last year or so, mostly pneumonia-related.
Also, reading of the losses suffered by Taco talkers who have had similar losses and seeing how they have been condoled by the rest of the gang Anastasia'a father's passing was the key one. (I am touched deeply by these responses, let no one kid you, they are gratefully accepted by the surviving kin.) It has had more than a little to do with my attitude. (Sip.) It doesn't lessen the sadness, but I know that it will pass and Boomer has his vision of the afterlife with Bobbye to think on besides.
Like I always say, you'd have to be crazy not to be sad.
Stop...Listen...
Look, in August, 1968, Dad was at my bedside in ten minutes after getting the phone call telling him his "Number Two Son" (Charley Chan) was in for some routine surgery, IF YOU ARE A M*A*S*H CUTTER...which Dr. Bever was trained for, fortunately.
Before that, way before that, Dad taught me how to tie the loopy thing I use to attach the leader to the hook. And how to thread a night crawler onto the hook THE WRONG WAY, according to "experts." Tell that to the fish we both have landed.
And when Dad was a father for the second time, in 1948, he got nicknamed "Boomer" on account of me.
I don't share the Francis or the William of his name. My older brother has Francis for a middle name. We loved to go to the Redding theater, The Cascade, and watch Francis the Talking Mule. We probably just saw the one, though. The atmosphere of time enlarges every little detail.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2012 - 02:05am PT
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Thanks, Dwain. My battery's pretty low.
From The Honeymousers.
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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Mouse, sorry to hear about Boomer... ...I hope his transition is not too difficult.....My papa.. just flew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3_UaW7TFZQ
Saludos...
n.t.
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splitter
Trad climber
Cali Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
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Very sorry to hear about your father Brian. I know how close you are to him. Please let me know if there is anything I can do. I will remember him and you in my prayer's everyday. The knot that Boomer taught you how to tie, did more than catch a lot of fish, it tied you closer to him. It is a special knot, between you and him, that will never come untied. Talk to ya later, bro!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2012 - 03:37am PT
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John, we will talk. Not just yet.
nita, I'm shocked. No reason for me not to have know, unless it was "nunya." All the same, my sweetest vibes for you and tt and family.
and thank you
Tony "Litt" Bird's mention of Mikis Theodorakis on our noble syster Lolli's stumbling block of a thread (how'd that get more than a few hits on the Taco?! LoLL) made me want to find something like the world-famous Elegy Number one for Cello and Piano. That sounded nice.
I picked this out of a box of rain.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Thanks, TB. And others.
Joe. You wrote beatiful mems of your mom.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2012 - 05:57am PT
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A good long trance magic godmuse-given balmic love song between BashOH and himself and a girltar. My muse never short-changes, providing I thank her. She is responsible for my crazy and wants you to know long is good and there was something in between "trance music" and this but can't remember, so forget that, but that tis is what was trance BITD, along with Paul Horn, of course.[Click to View YouTube Video]
Boomer would never stand for this, bet on it.[Click to View YouTube Video]You should click the box, as prompted, once this vid loads. The new improved wersion is a surprise, you betcha. Boomer might stand for this message.
I feel like Weej only weejier except that's not true, it's just a glum nordic reaction. My mom's line is part half-Swedish, so...
But why is it that a person says they are Irish, say, when they have a mom that's half-something? Is it that we ID with the, ahem, father's line almost exclusively as a society, or is it something other that I can't see?
I am the example of which I write. Irish on Da's side, but not certain of the great-grandmother, Alezana. And mom's a Larson on her dad's but who knows about that Mrs. Larson? Lenna, my sis does.
And how is it that the technique known as French free is so frowned on by some bee-goes? I just thought I'd toss that in, because Boomer once saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Frenchies are not taking merde from the steenkeeng Eenglisch, etc., cows flying overhead and all, and they are getting down-right scatalogical. He laughed hard at that, for quite a while. He has little tolerance for my humor. His is all gem-quality.
Music-wise, the same. The tyranny of another generation's music, deserves it's own thread.
Dad and mom took dance lessons, ca. 1959, because they loved to dance and they were in love with each other, and they loved to get away from the four brats. There were lots of Tuesday or Wednesday nights they took off for two hours to their group. They learned samba, mambo, rhumba,all the rage dances (but no salsa--it hadn't been imported yet, then, ago) with a Latin angel who inspired them, The Bossa Nova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossa_Nova_(dance); among them. Their favorite: Cha-cha-cha.
I'm going to inflict this on you [Click to View YouTube Video] and hope to go home to mama myself some day. This is an amazing thing, to be able to show the kids what the greats like Wayne were having to listen to and come to terms with. There's no tyranny here in my Middle Earth. Just tranquility.
Peace.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, mouse.... oh my, i am late here...
sending out my prayers and 'backup' to you and your family, as this
hard news has just hit you...
may your dad do well and as strong as he can, on this 'last leg of trail'
and may the good lord's grace 'kick in' and help him along...
today--when i was praying, well, i took time to cry, as i love my daddy, too... i had new phonecard time, so:
i GOT TO CALL HIM!!! :) yep, and ohmy:
the ol' battery died--i had not charged it soon enough...
well--sure enough, later that night, my mom and daddy CALLED me back!
on the first call try, i just gushed over and over on how i loved him
so much and thanked him for being here helping me make a trail
to live on, and for just 'being him' and teaching me to be:
kind, honest, THERE, and whatever kind of anchor, i can be for others...
the second call, which came at night, was a call were we all shared
about a picture i made for mom (late birthday gift) ...
and--where my dad shared more of his 'health' info...
now, too, hard to learn that stuff, but he stuff is not far serious, and i hope it WON'T be fore quite a long time...
i had a thankful cry, as to that... and for having both folks, so long...
NOW:
I WILL have a serious cry and pray for your daddy, too...
and, i will always remember your stories about him, each time that
i try to 'shoot the moon'... I LEARNED of this, when me and the grandkid
tried to play hearts a few times with the ol' pupdog and the cat (one in particular)...
(course, essentially, we are each playing two hands, so i could choose the 'shoot the moon' very easy, a few times, and wouldn't you know it:
it was in the PUPDOG's hand) :O thus, i did not... :)
i will always remember you and your dear dad, mouse, whenever i play this came in the future... i LOVE how daddys are special treats as to things that we have seen or learned, as to 'daddy moments'
here is your quote:
...our Dad, who always "shoots the moon" (collects no points, distributes 26 to each sucker) at least once when playing Hearts, has acute leukemia and is not expected to be around much longer
also, dear nita...
i did not know, (i think?) that your dad had passed on...
love and hugs to you, at this time of remembrance...
well:
hugs to you, mouse... i will get 'right on the job' now,
with some praying... hearts will be more personal, now, knowing that
a climber-buddies dad, loved the challange of the ol' moon-shoot...
will check in with you later, say, after this, i have an idea
to SEND you one more book that i have... will send it soon...
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Hey Mouse you are one of my favorite folks here on the TACO so yer Dad must be something special too.
Keep remembering all the best of times. For any parent to know they left their children great memories is very important. We all have to go someday I suppose. What more can a good man ask for.
Best wishes for peace for you and your family as you move through a deep time in your lives.
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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There are some crappy times to life. The older we get the more we experience these. Even though mom may have told us of these days, experiencing them is a whole nuuder story. There is no preparation really, just going with it as the only choice apparent..Spirit however is an undeniable feature that goes on and on and on and on and~~~
Ron Anderson, I may not agree with your political views...but..The above post^ is really great.
thanks....
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splitter
Trad climber
Cali Hodad, surfing the galactic plane
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TT - As far as "being a very private person" I can relate.
I just lost my mother a few months ago, and told no one. Except a couple people here that i had to thank. Anastasia, because she had sent me an email just a week before my mother suddenly died, thanking me for something i said in regards to losing her father. She told me to go out and hug someone that is close to me before it is to late. I thought of my mother who i hadn't physically seen in a couple of months (talked to her on the phone though) so i did just that, went over and hugged her, etc! A few days later, a friday evening, she developed stomach pains and was feeling ill. My brother and sister took her to the hospital and they said that she had the stomach flu, but kept her for observation anyway. Less than twelve hours later, she was gone. It was sepsis.
I will always be grateful that i got to hug her and see her one last time. Because she was not conscious by the time i did get to the hospital. I went home and was sorta in shock. I was all alone, so i just read threads on supertopo and listened to songs 24/7 on t*r's 'what song are you listening to' thread. The only alternative was running the past 12 hours thru my head over and over (it was pretty intense). I just couldn't go there. And, t*r had also sent me an email thanking me for something i said regarding her losing her father. I was very thankful for having the music on her thread to listen to, and some of the positive comments and antidotes that she posted during that time. To not give up, to stand strong, etc! So i sent her an email thanking her and telling her about just losing my mom.
Those were the only two people on ST that I contacted. Because, I am not very good about letting other people know that i am hurting. I prefer to keep it to myself. Not sure why. Oh well. Regardless, thanks for being there/here taco'ites. You helped a lot more than you will ever know.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Two weeks ago I got the call. "If you want to see him, you'd better come now."
So I flew. And then sat at his bedside for three days, talking to him, marveling that a mind could still burn that brightly in a body that far gone, hoping that I would be that accepting when my own end comes.
Hardest thing I've ever done was getting back on the plane believing that I would never see him again.
The days, like leaves...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 3, 2012 - 02:27pm PT
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Your turn will come my friend, much sooner than you think.--Fossil Climber
Well, it's been a very long night. I had a very good cry about an hour ago. My wall of tran...my well of tranquility over-flowed with especially putrid-smelling prose as I arose and my muses all fled with fingers squeezen nozes.
Duck-talk took over and I was solo climbing the pages of the indices and the Bugaboo Glacier-fed memories helped to fill the dream.
The fact that Boomer and Bobbye dis-approved of my climbing as much as anything I had coming for being such a pain-in-the-ass rebel, led me to embrace the lifestyle and the speed-of-light style of Don vanVliet in the ego-alteing version known as Captain Beefheart. If you read this out loud really quickly but in a controlled, but placid fast-paced manner and enunciate each word secifically in the manner which the man has arranged and painstakingly taught you, no one can possibly mistake you for that genkius...
I looked very closely at the video that came up earlier, Lil Prydes New Version II, I, whatever. The coastline looked like, with the rails, Santa Monica, but there's no cove and the hills are wrong. So who's beach is this? Anyone ecognize it? And nita, it's not Sunset Inn Beach, that's in Santa Cruz-land and easy as three blind mice.
Trying to take my mind elsewhere. OK, I talked to himself and he said he's no different than yesterday. These things are incremental and I can't evern bring myself to rhyme that.
I can name rhyme that in three syllables. Dad never watched any game shows but the tune-naming game, what's it called?
No sports. Just golf.
No beer. Just scotch. Or martinis when he was in his late twenties and early thirties. Then Ballantines but never J & B. Maker's Mark he probably never got that deep. Why settle for single malt when more are cheaper? Why don't you go to St. Mary's instead of USF--it's cheaper and the fare's the same on the bus.
I would have stayed in school.
I never touched your mother.
You're grounded.
Bend over and grab your ankles.
I'll get to you in a minute. Quit cryin', wipe your ass, did you wash your hands.
MOON![Click to View YouTube Video]
Just so we don't get maudlin, my Dad's best memories of late, when we converse in the daily ritual, are of flying in and around the Cote d'Azur and staying in a swank hotel on the beach at Cannes. That idea, naturally, brought to mind the epic video shot on theat beach by Captain Beefheart. That evolved to the quite punishing-to-the-ears-if-you're-like-Boomer Moonlight on Vermont. Which I would download, but no, i can't, out of respect for the man. I have warned parents here not to let children under the age of fifteen listen to the Capt., or Don.
That's the difference in generations, right there,a ballad that can be construed either as a love song or a tribute to a companion, like Moon River, and the types of music I listen to, lrics I tolerate, and generally accept as music now some things I loathed before. Boomer will have nothing to do with anything newer than I Come from a Land Down-Under. He actually took that to heart. Unbelievable! But that's what makes memories. things that stand out. But the hum-drum, as well.
He's all barber-shop and I listen to classical. Or used to do. "Our listening comes and goes in cycles, one could say."--Some obscure physics dude nobody listens to any more.
I can name operas, he's good with crooners and some show tunes, but he's not that type at all.
We used to constantly compare, well, each month we would compare our scores on the Reader's Digest vocabulary quiz. He has the edge, but if we went head-to-head I could nail him with cragnostic or Gulglielmocha.
He hasn't played golf. His last round was up in early May. Orders from the DR. Sit more, play golf on TV from now on. He tells me today he walked to the bedroom from his living room recliner and could barely believe how much effort it had taken. He nearly didn't have the energy to undress. But he did. He's an officer and a gent and a creature of personal habit and routines.
I fondly remember cleaning up for school and listening to Paul Harvey on Dad's portable AM/FM every morning while he was shaving. How I often had to stick around for "the rest of the story." Every day for years.
Dad read the SF Chronicle and Merced Sun-Star during breakfast. He said if Kennedy can read so many papers, it's only because he can afford the subscriptions. He still takes the watered-down hulk of the Chron, and sees fewer obituaries for his dwindling number of friends and acquaintances.
I smell maudlin. I need college football and getting back to normal.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Wow... I am sorry to hear about your father Mouse. It seems you are not alone in your loss...
My condolences also to Nita on the passing of her father.
I am glad that Splitter got a chance to see his mom one last time.
Ghost- I am sorry to hear your news as well.. Loosing people is hard, I am lucky that haven't had to deal with this topic very much, but am sure my time will come..
Those people will be in your hearts forever, and that part of them will never die. Don't forget it....
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Anastasia
climber
InLOVEwithAris.
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I lost my family within two years. The people that were always there, taught me how to be, etc. Grandmother, mother, Aunt, Uncle and lastly my Father. Too many actually. I still don't get it and yeah, you can't make this stuff up.
How do you get over such loss? Simple, you don't. You instead learn to live with it. I myself focus on what I do have, what is still here and try to only glance back and use my time to stare forward. You can't focus on the past because it will drive you insane, put you deep into depression, etc. Now the future, there are so many wonderful things always in the future that you can influence and gain.
I miss them, especially my Dad. Yet... I also know he is happy for me, where I am today and that means a whole lot.
AFS
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Mouse - Nita - Ghost --
I understand your feelings and sympathize completely.
It'll pass and gradually be replaced by fond and painless memories.
Hang in there.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2012 - 07:46pm PT
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Cleared for landing on the moon or wherever.
I just now had word from Lenna. Just that quickly.
One of Boomer's and Bobbye's best favorites.
[Click to View YouTube Video]Perry Como. RIP.
And here's one I been meaning to post for all you fighters and lovers.[Click to View YouTube Video]Amparo Ochoa. RIP.
It's more than a song with a message. It's danceable, too! I'd like to dance because his soul's gone into it's place in the cosmos. I really feel terrible. But I'm gonna plug onwards.
After a visit to the Partisan. Salud, Good Dad. Salud, Beautiful Mom. Salud, Amparo, melodious lady. Perry, como esta?
I'll be thinking of you, John. Keep me in your thoughts & prayes.
Third class blues, let's go get stoned. Fvck the coffee shoppe.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Go easy mouse
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Hey mouse, I just saw this. I'm very sad and blue now.
"i didn't feel so bad until the good Lord's sun went down
I didn't have a soul to throw my arms around.-"
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Hang in there dude.
Enjoy life and all the stuff that comes along with it and whatever comes after.
If something hurts too much, imagine how big you have to make yourself so that the pain is just a small part of who you are.
Actually that last part is the latest life lesson for me, and it seems you are instinctively following it already.
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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Mouse, My friend...
Saludos.
xo
nita
Mouse, Thinking about You ,...Ghost..Splitter...and T Hocking...a little music for you all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8_eFRZP1uQ
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