Anticipation is my forté

 

The fourth and next to last photo in this both long and short series.

Shorter days ahead

DW met me in the driveway. "How did the photographing go?" I made a face.

I wasn't out long, and hoping to see something new,  chose to drive some roads to the west of my usual trek. Different fields, but not all that different. I suppose that makes sense, yet one can hope. I took one photo worth saving.
 

Clearly the field in the foreground has been burned more recently than the one in back. You can see inside the loop that the grass is starting to grow again. The cycle continues.

Autumn is fast approaching and the area's biggest harvest festival is this weekend. We've never been, even though I wouldn't mind seeing some tractor and horse pulls. What keeps us away is the alcohol, for it is widely known that much is consumed on the festival grounds. Fights, puke, those sorts of things. The local cops have their hands full. The State Patrol, County and nearby municipalities' officers patrol the highway. Good.

I imagine there was a time when this festivity provided a vital role for the community. After several months of sweat and toil for 16 hours a day, neighbors gathered to catch up on gossip, share new knowledge and achieve some catharsis from drink and dance. There is a purpose to such ritual. Now, despite a well-advertised "Family Day," I say that if you have to work so hard to sell the positive, there is still going to be an odor to the PortoSans. I'll do without.

The grass seed farmers don't have much to celebrate this year. Their market is glutted; future burning will be severely limited, which will mean more labor and costs; and everywhere around here is evidence that they are making a switch to other crops, so they may not have the free time to tie one one anyway.

Thousands of acres of grapes for wine have been put in just in the past year. And thousands of freshly plowed fields tell me that there is a late crop going in, and that can only be wheat, a crop that had a good price a couple years ago, but no longer. I'm afraid in seven years the same will be said for grapes, and the price of Oregon wines will plummet. Cheap wine with which to celebrate the harvest.

Stand-Up in Stayton

Sometimes it just comes over me, the bug up my butt over some little thing,and to let off a little steam I go blue.

"You know it's not for you." A running joke with Gary at the Post Office regarding the usual addressee of packages delivered to our P.O. Box.

"Yeah, I know. It's got some foreign writing on it."

"It's from China."

"Maybe it's a baby. You know, Chinese babies are all the rage now."

"It's a parcel."

Yes, it is small, so maybe it is a partial.

"A parcel." Nary a smile.

Then it's on to BiMart, kinda like a cross between KMart and CostCo, only smaller and employee owned. Co-owner Linda is awaiting my check-out. We have history.

"Hello beautiful."

"Hey there. How are you today?"

"Fine, thank you."

"You still have that tattoo, I see." She is referring to the 2" x 3/16" black line I have on my left forearm, my ode to minimalism.

"Yeah, not much I can do about that. Funny thing is, my newest one if already fading." I then proceed to pull up the right sleeve of my t-shirt to show her the letter that signifies the first letter of DW's name. "The guy didn't do a very good job."

"Just ink from a pen?'

"And a safety pin, nothing fancy. I suppose I could have protested but he was bigger than me and we were in a confined space for an extended period of time."

Now, she laughed.

Three examples. Maybe four.

The other day I was listening to one of my favorite college radio stations, WNUR.org, and the DJ was hyping some event that the station was sponsoring. In the announcement, he jokingly gave directions to the shindig by telling listeners to “follow the trail of knuckle flesh.” I made a mental note to use this phrase as soon as possible, and given my elitist tendencies, I did not imagine it would take long to find cause.

Thursdays find me in Salem at and for a designated time. I arrive when a high school lets out adjacent to my destination. By the time I get back in my rig, the adolescents have dispersed. Today there was a straggler.

The first thing that came to my mind was that this student had been in detention. Why that and not Chess Club, is worthy of exploration but my mind instead drifted to the one time I was in detention.

I was a sophomore at a rather large school in the western suburbs of Chicago. I was waiting for the school bus to take me home. Why the bus was not waiting for me, I do not recall. As I stood there among familiars, a younger lad, also from my general area but on a different bus route, approached. He and his comrades had a question that urgently required my answer: Why had I drawn on my jeans just above the right knee?

What had I drawn? In dark blue blue ink on a lighter denim, I can only imagine that there was, at the very least, a peace sign. I can also imagine characters from “Mad” magazine, paisleys and such, for those were heady days, pun intended. I was a young Flower Child, as hard as that might be to imagine, and as such, decorated myself accordingly so that others of the same ilk might recognize another. There were a few of us, not many, and we were largely the consumer variety of sheep. Chess King, a division of Kmart provided the accoutrements.

I had bought these pants with my own hard-earned dollars. I was a soda jerk for 20 hours a week, and at $1.10 an hour, I had the pants for less than a week’s wages. I figured that since I bought them, I was free to do what I wanted with them, and in that I knew from the questioner’s posture that he had something else than a discussion about art on his mind, I told him that an answer would not be forthcoming. Yet, he persisted, so eventually the inquiry became to resemble a challenge based upon, I can only presume, a difference in ideals, for his attire and hair style suggested something contrary to mine. He was, in short. a Greaser.

I do not remember how exactly we came to find ourselves entangled on the ground, yet I do know that I had the best of it (I was then, and may be still, someone whom one may assume is passive and therefore an unskilled tussler) until a shop teacher happened by to pull us apart. He cared nothing of a tale for my innocence. Hence, the detention.

Free-associating like the above memory can be enlightening but driving in heavy traffic is neither the time or place for such focus. Eyes and mind on the road, bastin.

Of course, there is an exception to my rule of defensive driving, and that is when I have my camera and see something that screams to be photographed. Sadly, today I forgot the thing, so I am left with words to portray what I would have otherwise captured in two dimensions.

As I neared my town, I caught a glimpse of a bumper sticker on a sizable pickup as it sped past. It read: “Keep Oregon Green/Shoot an ELF. I was confused. I wondered if elves were not green creatures themselves, and if not, say they were Caucasian in skin tone, then what woodland creature might be green and in preference for that truck owner.

In that our town is the last sizable community before entering the Canyon, it was not unlikely that I would again find myself near that truck, close enough to read the sticker more carefully; “Keep Oregon Green/Shoot an E.L.F.

The acronym gave clarity. The Earth Liberation Front, a fringe environmental group given to extreme acts of vandalism designed to protest a variety of concerns, from paving over and building housing tracts on the landscape to, most recently, radio frequencies. As an old hippie, I probably don’t need to point out that I empathize to a degree; however, I must point out that I am not a fan of their methodologies.

Nor am I a proponent of murder in the name of a contrary ideology.

(Now that I have written the above, I will be curious to see if “flowering plum trees” is replaced as my number one google hit, and if so, where that trail might lead.)

How much is your word worth?

As I have mentioned on occasion, I am looking for work. While I near the tipping point of seeking a factory line job, I still hold out hope that I can find a decent writing gig, the elusive teaching position, or, in the words of DW, something that is fulfilling, even if it pays minimum wage.

So, as part of my daily routine, I go to the Oregon State Jobs listings pages, Jobdango, Monster, and Craig's List. On the first three I generally find nothing except reminders that perhaps I should have stayed in the medical field as a youth. Craig's is littered daily with opportunities similar to that below:

This is a part-time position that will give you some extra money and build your portfolio. It should not be a full-time job, though.

Here's the job:

1 - I send you a link to an article.
2 - You read the article.
3 - Then you rewrite/summarize the article, adding a few sentences that are specific to our business. In general, I will expect to get your writing back within 24 hours of my sending the article. If it doesn't happen every time, that's fine. You get to go on vacation once in a while! But the general expectation is speed.
4 - I edit the article and send you the finished version.
5 - You look at it, think about what I've changed, and what you could do differently next time to get it more like I want it.
6 - Repeat
7 - Once a month, I mail you a check. You get $3 for one sort of blog post (3-4 formulaic paragraphs) and $5 for another type (longer, more thoughtful, or a press release). It's $3 unless I say otherwise.

Like I said, it's not a lot of money, but I expect a fast writer will be able to churn them out in about 10 minutes once you get a little practice. The first 5-10 may take longer.

I hope to send you 3-5 links per day. But it's totally dependent on the news cycle. Some days there'll be nothing. Other days there could be 10 or more.

Right now I've got a backlog, so until that gets cleared there could actually be quite a bit of writing to do.

To apply:
-Resume
-Writing samples (in word, pdf, or links)
-An oath of confidentiality: "I promise that I will never reveal whom I am working for. However, I am allowed to use my writing for my portfolio, but I will expunge the name of business and all identifying words out of the writing before adding it to my portfolio."

I just can't think or type that fast. And while I have very specific ideas about why there are so many lowball writing gigs advertised (it has to do with the plethora of blogs and the internet in general), I will leave it to part of a Bukowski poem. I am certain that I do not have it perfectly memorized.

And God looked down on the world
and said
I see I have made a helluva lot of poetry
but damn few poets.

Slipping into darkness

Dear Poker Stars,

First of all, I would like to apologize for removing winnings from my account a couple months ago. While the money was sorely needed here on the home front, I understand now that I was doing both you and I a great disservice. (I use the word “you” intentionally, for while it can at times be used to indicate a plurality, I prefer to think of “you” in the singular, as a person; and I believe laws regarding how a corporation should be viewed will back me up here. No behemoth, you, my friend.)

As I do indeed consider us to be friends, I owe it to you to tell you just how much fun I have using your software. After I made my initial deposit of $150, you gave me quite a thrill, I’ll tell you! Losing half of my roll in a short period only to then take that $75 and build it up to $650 in seemingly just as short a period, and then lose 1/3 of that so quickly that it was almost as if it just disappeared from my account overnight… who could ask for more excitement?! Thank you!

I would also be remiss if I were to fail to compliment you on the many, many software updates. The color-coding of rooms I am in or waiting to sit was pure genius! And while I have not been able to detect just how all of the other updates have improved the site, I want to assure you that your diligence has not gone unnoticed!

I wish other players felt the same way I do. I must tell you that some of the people who I play with have said some mighty nasty things about you. Yet, I want you to know that I came to your defense! One guy even insinuated that when he removed money from his account that you made it so he would consistently lose thereafter. I asked him how that could be so, and why Pokers Stars would want to do such an unthinkable thing when you must surely make a goodly amount of money just from the rake. Of course he could not give me an answer! And you know what? I think he actually likes Poker Stars as much as I do because he didn’t leave either when he got beat time and time again. Why would someone stick around if they thought the game was rigged? Why!?! It makes no sense.

Yet, there must be a reason. Here’s what I think: Poker Stars is a great learning tool. It helps improve one’s poker game in myriad ways. My board and player reading skills have improved immensely in the year or so I have been with you. I can now recognize when I am a 4 to 1 favorite on the turn, and how smart of you to make sure the hand goes to an all-in showdown to see that I can only be beaten by the two, three or four-outer that comes on the river. I cannot think of a better way to show me that I am playing great poker. It may seem like I go kicking and screaming into our future as friends, but now I know that you are only looking out for my best interests. Thank you for driving that home.

And now, my friend, we are nearly back to that magic number 75. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but do you think I could start winning again? I know there aren’t the same well-taught lessons to be learned from success as there are from failure, but here’s a thought: if I started to build a bankroll again, then maybe I could move up from the mini-micro games and begin to learn from some of the better-rolled players. Even if the lesson I learn is how to lose bigger, I think it might be good for my continued education.

I know you already gave me a chance to advance to the next level in my education, and believe me, I am eternally grateful, if somewhat the prodigal son in this matter. If we didn’t need the money at the time, I don’t suppose I would have EVER taken money out of my account. And again, if I would have understood then the insights gained by losing when I should most likely have been winning, cashing out NEVER would have crossed my mind, I just know it.

So, how about it? Can a guy catch a break once in a while?

Sincerely and warmly yours,

bastinptc