Kindling

Our daughter wants access to photos of Mimi from her summer camp; an excellent excuse to cease neglecting this blog …

Back on June 17, just three days before Mom’s heart attack, we adopted this darling gal from Humane Society Silicon Valley. She had lost her home when her family of seven years had moved—another foreclosure? She had spent three months in foster care, with a student at Palmer College of Chiropractic here in San Jose, who did a great job of bringing her weight down, which was particularly important for her, as she suffers from bilateral hip dysplasia.

Mimi is definitely pure mutt, a noble mix of Australian shepherd, maybe blue heeler, and Labrador retriever. She seems to have got her dense, black coat, webbed feet, and love of water from her Labrador pedigree. She also seems to have a rather soft (gentle) mouth. When she first entered our back yard, she plopped right into our little fish pond, which has not been the same since.

She loves to prance, wade, and swim in Uvas Creek. She even jumped from a cascade down into one of the creek’s little pools.

Mimi is our first mammalian family pet. I’ve cared for strays before, and even had strays spayed and put down, but never “owned” either a dog or cat. I’ve always wanted a dog. I like cats, but I love dogs, which is precisely the reason why I’ve avoided ownership, knowing that dogs in particular need activity, attention, and maintenance.

Mimi is no exception. In fact she’s downright bossy when it comes to getting her walk, but she’s worth it. She’s pulling her weight. Besides infusing our lives with affection, play, and loyalty, she’s helping one of us overcome her acute fear of dogs, and teaching our rambunctious little human pup how to be a little more gentle!

Following is a letter that my sister Duska wrote me from Angleton, Texas, back when I was a 15 year old heavy metal fan in Tulare, California. I doubt that I had become a Rush fanatic yet. This was during my rebellion against Top 40 Ad Nauseam, just before Moving Pictures was released. There is an implication that I liked the band KISS in this letter. My response to the allegation is as follows: No FREAKIN Way!!

Duska and Tim (and daughter Alanna) had just got their precious stork delivery, Nicki, only seven weeks before.

---

2/3/81

Dear Danny,

Got your letter today, so I better write back
First tell Dad, Mom & everybody, that Alanna was delighted with the books and tape. She is using “The Magic Garden” for a book Report at school.
Guess I’ll switch to a pen. And the baby book is Really nice.
I am proud of all your A’s Keep it up!!
I love your list of bands.
I don’t know about our favorites but I’ll make you a semi-list-
of the bands whose songs we do (By the way I’ve started to sing again – I mean I’m practicing with the band)

ANYWAY THE LIST —–
AC/DC – “You Shook Me” “Highway to H—” (Glen Sings)
Judas Priest – Living After Midnight I Sing
Pat Benetar – “Hell is for Children” “You’e out of Touch” (Me)
Blondie – “One Way or Another” (Me)
Ted Nugent – “Storm Troopers”, “Cat Scratch Fever” (Tim sings)
ZZ Top – “Francene” (Tim) “Automobile” (Tim)
Black Sabbath – “Neon Knights” (Me)
Sue Saad & the Next – “Prisoner” Me

Well that is part of our list. We listen to almost all the bands you mentioned – and have lots of the albums – EXCEPT KISS – Don’t care for them much. But before our last bass player quit we did “Detroit Rock City” and “I Was Made For Loving You”
Tim is a big RUSH fan.
The[y] are trying to make me one of the only “Heavy Metal Chick Singers” around. It is hard on the old throat.
I like to sing “blues” and I’m trying to work more in.
Don’t worry about not having a cool guitar. Everybody starts somewhere.
Too bad you’re not here so Tim could give you lessons. He’s good.

If you don’t let mom read this tell her Nicki is fine. And her name is spelled Nichole. Easy to mispell.
I got the “CASE” of vitamins. MY GOODNESS!!! I’ll become addicted. I smell like Vitamin B!!
We are going to get GOOD pictures of Nicki taken tomarrow. She [is] so cute, talks and slobbers all the time. And she only messes her pants when we go somewhere – (Doesn’t want to stink up the house)
Alanna is fine too.
Got to go now.

Love,
Duska

P.S. What’s Allen’s address?

When our son gets home, the first thing he does is run next door. He and the boy next door play on the same t-ball team, and spend a lot of time together.

The last time I remember talking to the boy’s father, Jeff, something had happened between our boys—our son had scratched their son’s face during one of their tussles. Jeff walked right up to me before a t-ball game. Was he upset about his son’s face? If he was, he didn’t show it. All he wanted was to make sure that there were no hard feelings. More than anything, I think he just wanted us all to get along.

For Father’s Day, our daughter has been collaborating with other girls on the block to organize a dramatic production for the dads on the block. Just like they did for Mother’s Day. Two of the girls—I think the oldest is eight—are Jeff’s daughters.

The Father’s Day production was dropped a couple days ago. Those three little kids next door have suddenly lost their father. Jeff is no longer part of the world.

That day on the ball field, I was overcome by Jeff’s need to keep the peace. I told him that there was no problem; that everything was fine, and that I was sorry about his son’s face. I wish now that I had done a little more to convince him that everything was good. I wish I’d tried a little harder to reach out to him.

As a realist, I don’t believe in heaven, but when I saw Jeff’s little boy struggling with his sudden loss, I heard myself telling the boy to believe. I could not stand to allow the child to acknowledge his loss.

Jeffrey John Mack

Our daughter took up violin just last summer.

I recently mentioned to her violin instructor that I’d like to take some lessons as well. I’d bought a violin awhile back, and I’d been practicing along with our daughter. I’d played violin and viola as a boy, when I was about as old as she is now. That was a long time ago. I cannot remember when or why I stopped playing. Was it the bully smashing my violin after school? Was it the move to Africa? Perhaps it was that terrible concert: I was so nervous I could barely play.

I love classical violin; well, romantic violin, to be precise. I’ve always regretted giving up on the violin. It doesn’t help to read about Einstein and his violin. What a pair those two made! So when our daughter expressed an interest in violin, there was no delay. A violin was provided, and shortly thereafter, an instructor.

I’d been doing pretty well during our practices. When I finally got my lesson, I had hardly started playing when our instructor noticed the bow bouncing on the strings. She asked me if I’d seen a doctor about it. She wanted to know whether I was certain that I don’t have a real medical problem. I told her that I don’t think I have Parkinson’s. I’ve always had a tremor; as long as I can remember. I remember that concert. Suddenly I feel like I’ve traveled back in time to childhood. I shrink into a corner as the world expands back to its former proportions.

I’ll bet Parkinson’s is a nightmare, but this is no picnic. I slipped into a funk. The next time our daughter and I practiced, I quit after 30 seconds, and we didn’t practice for another week. I would pick it up when she wasn’t around. I got frustrated immediately. I was ashamed.

My father, a chiropractor, describes that slight tremor as a cerebral palsy. I asked an MD once: he told me: “you shake a little.” Yes, I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you call it.

It can be aggravated by stress, but I don’t always know when the stress is there. It can be rather frustrating when I’m trying to cut my kids’ bangs or finger nails, but I don’t let that stop me.

My daughter recently scheduled a duet for us before several ladies. She had been having a little more trouble with the piece than I had, and just before the performance, she began to get agitated. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it. I told her, “hey, let’s just do it, and if we mess up we mess up. No big deal.” When we began to play, I suddenly couldn’t focus on reading the music. It was as though the notes were slipping around the page; not literally, but I could not get a fix on them. I faltered repeatedly. I’d pick up at the next measure, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was disappointed in myself, but I couldn’t be more proud of her. She just kept going. She played the complete piece without a single pause. She was flawless, in spite of all the distraction that I caused.

She’s a performer, and she’s got one very proud father.

Sometimes I stop in Hanford or Tulare on my way to the Sierra Nevada, and look at my old homes, neighborhoods, and schools, trying not to raise the suspicions of the current residents.

Of all the kids I knew during my elementary school years, Chuck and Cora are among those I remember most.

Cora was known as a little sister of several football stars, two of whom went on to play in the National Football League. She wasn’t little, though—even in fourth grade. I remember her principally for her dominant presence wherever she went on campus, and her steely breasts which hovered out before her like two bodyguards. I don’t know whether she had any friends. A person would have to be pretty brave to approach her. I don’t think she was a bully, though.

Chuck was the star athlete at James Monroe Elementary School. He wasn’t quite the fastest runner on campus, but he was skilled in just about everything. His intense competitiveness was frightening, yet he was as fair in his dealings on the playground as any kid I knew. He was an angel to me, but of course it must be noted that I posed no competitive threat to him. There were times that, if it weren’t for intercession from Chuck, I wouldn’t have been permitted to play on either team in a given game. Sometimes, though, even the grace of Chuck wasn’t enough, for though I was put onto a team in say, kickball, I would usually mark the permanent end of every line. As a kid would take his or her turn and either run home or make out, he or she would inevitably consider the end of the line as the spot in front of me.

I didn’t keep in touch with Chuck, or any of my classmates. I remember seeing a two-page spread on Chuck in a sports magazine years later, and then several years later I heard on some late night show while crossing Nevada that he’d been forced out of the NFL after he hurt another player badly. I was surprised to read that Chuck had earned a reputation as an executioner, though I never doubted his competitiveness.

© 2007 Dan J. Jensen

We had moved to South Carolina or South Africa four times by the time I turned fifteen. During those four stints, we lived in seven different towns. The principal motive for all this motion was to participate in mass conversion of Blacks to the Bahá’í Faith.

Mass conversion wasn’t just something that we were drawn to because it meant bringing God’s Word to lots of receptive souls. It was, and remains, an essential component of the Bahá’í “entry by troups” prophecy. It is vitally important to the Bahá’í Faith that it expand. For this reason, Bahá’ís have been pushed continuously to relocate to new places so that they might spread the Faith.

It may be that few Bahá’í families were uprooted as completely as ours, and I’m certain that Dad’s wanderlust played a part, but I have no doubt that our displacement was a direct result of directives of the Bahá’í leadership. We were not just spreading the Good Word; we were fulfilling prophecy.

I think, leaving some room for doubt, that we would have stayed put if we could have afforded it. Our problem was that whenever we would go to these spiritual locales, Mom and Dad could never make a decent living. Either there just wasn’t enough of a market, or segregationists would do what they could to discourage Mom and Dad from running an integrated business. In Walterboro, South Carolina, Mom and Dad caught heat for serving both whites and blacks. After Walterboro, they opened a practice in Easley, which enjoys the dubious distinction of being near to the town of Piedmont, made so infamous by the film “Birth of a Nation” as being the fictional cradle of the Klu Klux Klan. Their luck was no better there.

Though I don’t harbor any sympathies for the whole enterprise of saving souls, I respect the effort that Mom and Dad made to live by their principles. I’ve not known many Bahá’ís who were so willing to dedicate their lives to their Cause, and how many Bahá’ís had the courage to take on the twin demons of segregation and apartheid at the business level?

I say courage, but maybe there was some naiveté as well. Still, courage and foolishness are old bedfellows. What I think may have been unfortunate is the price that my oldest sibling paid for our misadventures. Sometimes kids pay a price for their parents’ ambitions, but it’s not as though Mom and Dad abandoned any of us. Speaking for myself, I was too young to notice. Even when I was a teenager in the South—or in South Africa, I was too displaced to care, even when I found myself between the racist overtures of whites and the fists of blacks.

There is a community just outside of Walterboro, South Carolina, known informally as “Catholic Hill”, with a remarkable history. Back in 1856, well before Emancipation, a Catholic church building burned down. The white membership disbanded, leaving the parish, for all practical purposes, defunct.

Fast forward to 1897, across the closing decade of the Slavery Era, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction. A vibrant Catholic community of former slaves and their descendants are discovered. They had been worshipping for over 40 years without a priest or any support whatsoever. Now, after 180 years, the church of St. James the Greater is still going strong.

I was not raised a Catholic, though it might be said that Dad was. As far as I can recollect, his upbringing as a Catholic amounted to being told by a priest that he was going to Hell. His mother had been raised in a very strict Catholic tradition in a Nova Scotia village where Gaelic was still spoken. She had rebelled after the priest had reported to her father that she had been seeing a Protestant boy. She married a Lutheran years later, but she still appeared to retain some Catholic allegiances. I’m told that she was excommunicated, but ultimately exculpated by the Church.

When we moved to Walterboro from nearby Ruffin, we rented a house on the edge of a black neighborhood, near St. Joseph’s, a relatively new church that had been founded as an outreach effort by the Diocese and the Trinitarian Order about ten years earlier. St. Joseph’s had a school program, so I naturally attended kindergarten there. I remember walking down the bumpy dirt road to the church with the Owens boy who was my friend at the time. I remember all the great wooden toys they had, and I remember the processions of costumed giants occasionally passing by. Perhaps I had been there for mass as well.

As far as I was concerned, it was just a great place to play. Years later, I was told that I was the only white child there. Until that time, I don’t think I had given any thought to the color of the people there.

Unfortunately, St. Joseph’s did not enjoy the longevity exhibited by St. James the Greater. Sometime back in the 1990s, the Trinitarians left town and the Diocese abandoned St. Joseph’s. It seems hard to see it as anything but a lost opportunity for Walterboro and the Diocese to expand on a unique religious heritage.

Genealogy is often a silly pursuit, but it can sometimes tell you something about yourself.

I didn’t think too much about researching my family heritage until I was on the cusp of parenthood. It was at that point that I began to wonder what I would tell my kids about it. That was in late 1997, just as the Internet was beginning to make genealogy research a lot easier.

At the time, I didn’t know my paternal grandfather’s birth name, and I didn’t know much of anything about where either of my paternal grandparents were born. They were both escapees of sorts.

As my folks had begun to suspect, Grandpa had been a bastard (literally), and his father appears to have left Denmark for America soon after Grandpa was born. Grandpa’s paternal grandfather was also a bastard, by the way. I guess it’s a Scandinavian thing.

As for Grandma, she rebelled against her strict, meddlesome Catholic father, and was rumored to have left Nova Scotia and crossed into New York illegally. That’s where Grandma and Grandpa met.

I guess it’s little wonder that they had so little to say about their origins.

For awhile, things were really coming together. They bought a farm up in Oneonta, and there had their second child, my father. Soon after that, there was a fire on the farm, and they had to move back to New York City, where it wasn’t long until diabetes hit Grandpa and diphtheria hit Dad.

Though diabetes continued to deteriorate Grandpa’s health, he managed to find work. Though his vision was quite bad when he moved to California, he still worked as a gardener for awhile, then got work in a cemetery, and then got work as a salesman after losing his vision completely.

Dad was blinded nearly completely by the diphtheria, and grew up attending residential blind schools in the Big Apple. He became an excellent wrestler, getting as far as third in the nation (that’s everybody in his class; not just blind kids). It was a wrestling injury that triggered the glaucoma that took away what remained of his vision. When it came time to get a career, he tried massage and then chiropractic. He stuck with the latter, and got to be a very skilled and successful chiropractor.

I would venture to say there were five principal things that Dad brought from New York to California: blindness, wanderlust, chiropractic, the Baha’i Faith, and the Giants (who moved to California at about that time). Each of these has played a part in the character of our family.

At present I am reading three books: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Jack London’s Martin Eden, and Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I suppose they’re all books about knights-errant, be they holy fools or creatures of fate. Not entirely unlike my friend Mr. Norland. It’s slow going, but each book is holding my attention, as disloyal as it is.

I have also been renovating the Kaweah FBI site of late. FBI is an acronym for Forum for Baha’i Investigations. As might be guessed from this title, the site is a more-or-less light-hearted rant on the Baha’i Faith, my religion of birth. The renovation has been a long time coming, as many of the pages of the site are nearly a decade old now.

Continuing on the Baha’i theme, I have recently become a moderator for the Yahoo! group ex-bahai. Imagine that! Do drop by if you can.