The Working Life

My first real job was after college--Oklahoma University, 1957. I had a BA degree in Journalism, had worked on the school daily newspaper, had not given any real thought to what would come "after".

Hurriedly, in the few months before graduation, I tried to find work, but I really didn't have any idea what to do with myself. Knew I had to earn money, be on my own. Plastics was not an option (reference to movie The Graduate).

I bundled together some clippings from the newspaper: very few serious articles, mostly satire and humor columns I'd done to amuse myself. I didn't really have anything to offer. In fact, some of my work on the paper that year had been suicidally stupid. For instance, I'd headlined a story about the Oklahoma Governor's visit to Hawaii: "Governor Gets Kissed, Lei'd." Not smart in a school that depended for its very life on the politicians a few miles down the road. I had no references from faculty. Hadn't done particularly well academically.

So, to help me, when firms came recruiting, I was given newspaper assignments that got me frontpage bylines. One interviewer, from Gulf States Utilities, was interested and invited me to interview, at which I showed my ignorance by my assumption that they were Gulf Oil, and mentioned my dad's longterm employment by Phillips Petroleum. They forgave me, though, because I had a front page byline that day.

I flew down for an interview in Beaumont, Texas. They hired me and I moved down a week after graduation. Again, I had no longterm plan, just figured I'd work there for awhile and then...and then...

Fortunately I fit in fairly well with the small group in the public relations department. I wrote dull press releases that got used because GSU had a sweetheart deal with the local morning and evening newspapers. But somehow, ambition grew inside me and I started working harder, taught myself photography, took the Famous Artists Course in Illustration and Cartooning, and was finally given the editorship of the monthly magazine published for employees. This was a "house organ" because its only purpose was to enhance the company and keep employees relatively pleased with their lot.

And I sold a short story to a science fiction magazine and thought that made me a professional writer.

In some ways it was possibly the best job I ever had, before or after. I had almost complete control on all editorial material, could do stories and illustrations my own way, and I had enough good sense to play the corporate game. It was intoxicating, seeing my own words in print month after month.

And then ambition grew faster. I started imagining that I was good, a good writer, a good photographer. I read LIFE and LOOK magazines, and tried in my own publication to imitate their styles, imagined that perhaps that was my destiny, to be a photojournalist for the big time.

I set my sights on New York City, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. I figured that, in the words of the song I hadn't heard yet, that if I could make it there I could make it anywhere.

I applied and was rejected because I didn't have the tuition. I got married and applied again, telling them my wife could work to support me and help pay tuition. They let me in.

The rest was downhill, with some bumps that made me think I was going in the opposite direction.

Activity

Many activities are metaphors for other activities.
Book building, for example, is a metaphor for building something else--a house, a boat, a relationship.
Similar things happen.
First we need a plan: an actual blueprint or an outline.
We test the strength of supports in each--can this foundation support the dwelling above it? Can what occurs in the first pages of the book support the conclusion?
And so on.

Excessive Sleepiness

I've been a sleepin-in guy since at least college when I didn't dare sign up for an 8 a.m. class because I'd miss it too often.
I think some of that oversleeping may have been because of watching too much b&w television, though.
And when post-grad I got a job that required me to be at work by 8, I got there, despite watching too much tv/
Now, in forced retirement, living in a new home in a new community, this is my daily routine:
wake between 5 & 6. Exercise a bit. Eat a bowl of cereal while reading online comix... and then, nap. After the nap I wake feeling refreshed especially if there's sunshine.
But why the nap? It's a precious time for me, because by 7:30 my head is buzzing with sleepiness.
This morning I had to be careful going downstairs from the office to the bedroom because I was worried I'd fall asleep in mid-step.

liberal/conservative hate

OK; the hatred issue. Time to put it down.

Liberals are currently acting as if hatred against a sitting president is brand new. They thought they had a Teflon president, but apparently he's not.

The way liberals hated Richard Nixon and George W. Bush helped set the standard for presidential hatred, and now they're reaping the benefits of what they accomplished.

Not that the Republicans are innocent--they're not. But don't pretend there isn't a history here as complex and long-standing as any feud.

Where did it begin? With Lincoln? No, before that even.

And each generation of haters produces the next, each more dedicated than the previous one to roiling the waters, playing havoc with civil peace, challenging the Constitution by stretching "freedom of speech" to its utmost.

As long as people believe that hatred is a positive force, this will go on.

We should teach in schools this truth, as a poet or philosopher has said: "Hatred is a poison that a person consumes in the hope that it will hurt someone else."

Hatred always turns on the hater, and the only defense is to stop hating.

why I love to write

...I realized this the other day as I was writing and a New Thought emerged.
Not one I'd had previously.
New things come out when I just let go and write.
It's like focused thinking and it uncovers secret good thoughts.
Everyone should do it (write). Best way to find out what you're really thinking.

cooking misadventures continued

Because I'm busy writing 2 novels and watching tv, I haven't updated this blog in almost a month. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, at my own apparent disregard of proper protocols, and I resolve to attempt to do better. I have a series of posts in mind.

This happened a few years ago when my wife went with her tai chi group to China. It was too expensive for me to tag along just so she'd have a roommate, so I stayed at home with our dog. Now that I was on my own, I realized that I could cook and eat the wonderful piece of venison we'd been given by a guy we let hunt on our property.

So in the late afternoon I removed the package from the freezer. It was wrapped in clear paper, a long thin strip. I got out the wok and threw in some butter and added the "venison" (those quotes are the first clue that something was wrong...).

A few minutes later I looked inside the wok and saw the sizzling stuff MELTING!. Not spose to happen to venison.

Long story short: I had grabbed instead of the strip of venison a strip of dark chocolate we had gotten from somewhere.

Nice ending, though. After it cooled, I was able to chip away the chocolate and ate it over several days.
Then I cooked the venison properly.

RIP Julia Child! (great movie, by the way)...

My Souper Soup

Back in the Sixties, my wife and I worked for Time-Life Books. I was assigned to the Foods of the World series, a subject about which I knew nothing except which fork to use to eat. I was in charge of assigning photography for certain books.

In the text of one book, about French Provincial cooking, I read a phrase about “...a pot of soup kept on the back of the stove.” It made my mouth water.

I decided just before Christmas and New Year, that I would make a star-kissed bean soup. We bought bags of dry beans and one evening I added them one by one along with a ham bone and chicken stock, to a big pot and cooked them up into a great-smelling pot of super soup. 

And, after cooking to delicious perfection, I pushed the pot to the back of the stove. Of course, as I later realized, the text in the cookbook referred to country stoves, which always had a flame going. 

Next day, Penny’s parents were due in town from New Jersey and I wanted to feed them my great soup so they’d stop believing that I was an idiot.

I rushed in after work and pulled the pot to the front burner, turned on the flame and took off the lid to stir it. But before my wooden spoon entered... there was a burp within the soup; a bubble appeared.

“Hmm,” I said. No idiot I. I mentioned it to Penny, who also said, “Hmm,” and then added that she was going to call an expert, a woman we worked with who worked in the kitchen to test recipes for the books.

The woman, Fifi, was ill with flu and her husband shouted to her from the phone that our bean soup had bubbled before the fire could heat it.

Penny could hear Fifi shout back from her sickbed: “No STOP! IT’S PTOMAINE!”

I flushed the entire pot into the NYC sewer system. I hope I wasn’t responsible for poisoning the fish in the Hudson. Since then I’ve never attempted to cook anything more complex than scrambled eggs.

First Job in NYC

For some reason, this cloudy humid day, I recall my first job in NYC back in 1962. Yes, it's ancient history, kiddies. I had just received my MS diploma from Columbia U's Graduate Journalism School, and was broke and separated from my then-wife. 

She found me in the West Side bar after our graduation ceremony and handed me, with a smile, a telegram. It was from Roberta Ashley, picture editor at This Week magazine, offering me a position as her assistant. I quickly accepted the job, despite the doubts of Penn Kimball, my faculty advisor (he was right, of course). I needed money.

My first day on the job, in midtown at Lexington Avenue, I met the other staff and support personnel. And Mrs. Ashley told me to go to Brooks Brothers and buy a new suit, since my Midwestern attire, which had got me through a year of grad school, was not appropriate for work in this office.  I bought a gray wool 3-season single-breasted that I wore for years until the cuffs frayed.

There were two other guys approximately my age working on the Articles side. They didn't seem friendly. Gradually I found out why: they suspected that I was a homosexual. I retained my southern accent, a quiet slow-speaking voice and wasn't cruelly cynical in the intellectual style. The way I found out was at a party at a columnist's penthouse. My pregnant new wife decided not to appear in her old pregnancy dress, and waited in the car, so I went alone. The two articles guys appeared and introduced me to a good-looking woman... and then they withdrew, stood about 15 feet away and stared at us while whispering to each other. It was a social test. As I did with all social tests, I flunked. I didn't know what to say to the woman and didn't feel emboldened to put the moves on her. 

I started out well at the job: had an article published (I Raided Castro's Cuba, an as-told-to that I wrote in Hemingwayesque style) and some photographs, but the work was not challenging and I wasn't making any new contacts in the photographic world with people who could imagine and photograph and bring in cute picture essays. The job lasted a bit more than a year until I was let go because the weekly magazine was not selling any advertising (it had lost the Herald Tribune, its only NYC outlet). 

Desperate, with a baby coming to my second wife, I took the first job that appeared, with Time-Life Books, a friendlier place to work, yet with sharp class distinctions based on family, birthplace, and university (preferably Ivy League)....

Funny But True

Penny and I had 6 people to dinner last nite, to inaugurate our new dining room table that easily seats 8.

During the meal, all vegetarian and delicious, one guy asked me what movies I like (I'd seen him earlier perusing our DVD shelf) and I responded: "Shooting, things blowing up, guys running after other guys."

They chuckled over that and then he asked me, "What's your favorite movie?"

I responded: "Lassie Come Home."

And that's the truth.

to Christina

Dear Christina:

   I had no idea you have been in such bad shape, but I believe wholeheartedly that you'll come out of it. Everytime I do a crunch or other exercise I'm gonna dedicate it to you.

Love,

-don

Enough.

I woke from my second nap this morning feeling dissatisfied with myself. Because I haven't had a real book published yet after years of writing them. A good old friend kind of pushed me into this because he wants to publish a lifetime bibliography of my work. All that could go into it would be assignments I've performed for others, nothing of myself.

I've wasted two years letting everyone know how miserable I am and now I'm fat and out of shape and I want to change things... profoundly. I intend to pull myself out of this mood and mode.

I've already begun. 

More later, I hope. Let's see if this New Me can make the changes necessary.

Island Chorus

We just finished our Island Chorus commitment for this summer (it begins again in September, when we'll probably have a major, complex, difficult song to sing for Christmas). 

The July 3 concert was easy and more relaxed. I discovered something--even if I don't learn all the right notes, I can still participate.

I do it by opening my mouth but not actually giving voice in those sections where I don't know the notes and my neighbors on each side are singing different notes (as when I'm stuck between First and Second Basses). 

But on the places where I know the notes and feel confident, I blast it out. 

This is probably a formula for Life As We Live It.

Been Inactive but Changing

I've let this blog languish. No change since May 29. 

What's my excuse? Sheer laziness?

No, my ego cannot accept that--madly searching for a Reason, not an excuse.

Nope, can't come up with one.

So we'll leave it at laziness, perhaps exacerbated by the weather.

That's it--the weather; I can blame inaction on the weather.

It's been so rainy, windy, blah...in the middle of June, no less, that somedays I simply did not want to get out of bed.

Soon Summer will come.

I keep telling myself that.

Oh, I did have a good day of work on Saturday, where I concentrated most of the day on my novel, moving it forward after clearing up a tangled patch. That has to count for something.

About Magic

I tend to read (and write) stories about magic. Why is this subject so engrossing?

Because--magic is power over the world and other people.

We all naturally want power...usually, power to do good for ourselves and others. 

We consciously or unconsciously know that our thoughts have power to shape reality. So eventually we realize that if we control our thoughts we can focus their effect on reality.

Of the ways that have been proposed to focus our thoughts, "belief" is the strongest.

Of the ways proposed to focus our beliefs, religion is the strongest. Focused thought comes from focused "prayers". In praying we focus our thoughts on desired outcomes.  

We believe (or understand) that an outcome that is prayed for will be more likely to come to pass that one that is not. Yes, a simple focus of thought can influence the Universe, as one grain of sand dropped on a scale can influence the measure.

I had a simple demonstration of this while writing this post. Looking out the window of the reading room I was sitting in, I saw a policeman checking vehicles. Oh no! "Please don't let me get a ticket!" There's a 2-hour limit on parking in this neighborhood and it's strictly enforced. I hurried toward my car, arriving just as the cop was writing a ticket.

I got in my car just as a woman who had parked her car behind mine approached the cop and asked a question. He stopped writing the ticket to reply. I started my engine and pulled out of the space. No ticket.

American Icons with Guns!

Mickey and Donald, what a team when they were together in the same action-packed adventure. But of course they could have adventures on their own.

But both of them, when in serious trouble, valued the virtues of a GUN!!!!

Being Creative

From an article in the NYT Sunday Mag on scientist Freeman Dyson, quoting his family:  All six Dysons describe eventful childhoods with people like Feynman coming by for meals.  Their father, meanwhile, was always preaching the virtues of boredom: “Being bored is the only time you are creative” was his thinking." 

I've been espousing this theory ever since we moved to the Vineyard, but haven't achieved that delightful and necessary state yet.

Another famous guy, Pascal, always stayed in bed until noon and claimed that was the secret of being creative. I haven't gotten there, either, yet.

Of course, these make marvelous excuses for my not having done anything worthwhile in a long time...

Again, A Crow

  I continue to watch and (mostly) admire crows. There are many of them around our home, especially at the backyard bird feeder. They're too large to sit on one of the feeder's pegs, so they hang around the base of the pole, finding seeds that smaller birds have dropped.

To watch a crow in action, check out this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPHxA8-aaEffeature-related.

If that doesn't work, go to Youtube and type in Crows in the search field. Lots of material there.

Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!

Maltese Falcon

Haven't seen THE MALTESE FALCON in many years, just watched it today and had this thought. The plot is set in motion by The Woman's (Mary Astor) many lies to Sam Spade (H. Bogart), and at the end he turns her in because he can't trust her to be faithful to him. She's a woman used to manipulating and using males.

What if she had told him the truth from the beginning? There wouldn't have been a mystery and no movie and etc.

But what kind of trustworthy lover is Spade? He had an adulterous affair with his partner's wife, and calls every attractive woman endearing names: sweetheart, etc. And his reason for turning in his sometimes lover is "When a man's business partner gets murdered he has to do something."

Treachery for a treacherous time or universal truths? 

River

River is his name. He's just 5 years old. His life before he came to us was (1) sterling Seeing Eye trainee, and (2) in the breeding pen, living the Hugh Hefner lifestyle.

After fathering many great pups, he was neutered and offered to us as a keeper. He is, definitely, a keeper.

Mostly he dogs Penny's steps: whither thou goest, there goest I. But in the morning he comes to my side of the bed, nudges me and encourages me to give him a good ear and back rub. Sometimes if I'm sitting quietly watching tv or reading, he comes to me and asks for some attention. He may be asking to be taken out for a run.

Great dog.

Jews and Christian Science

I think I was a Christian Scientist even before I ever heard of the actual denomination. As a kid, I knew that I could influence "reality" by how I thought/prayed about it.

I practice Christian Science in my daily life. I don't say that I'm great at it; in fact, sometimes I fall far short of the ideal. Often, even. But sometimes I have a mental breakthrough and pray rightly, and healing results in me or someone else.

I'm not gonna try to explain CS here but to tell a brief story that I just read in an e-mail from a friend. It was a testimony recently in the Mother Church in Boston, by a respected member of the CS community:

"I spoke for a few hours last week with a Jewish Rabbi. He told of coming from Israel a couple years ago to see his father here in the US because the doctors said a disease had progressed to the point his dad had only days to live. After visiting with his dad the Rabbi took a walk to clear his thought and he walked by a CS Reading Room. He walked in and had a discussion with the attendant.

"This happened a couple of days in a row and to make a long story short, his dad was healed in those few days. It caused quite a commotion with the doctors and the family.

"The Rabbi is now quietly sharing this revelation he has found in [the book] Science and Health with friends and acquaintances in Israel, feeling CS is the answer for him and his country. A Jewish Rabbi can discover and demonstrate this revelation so decisively in today's world. To him it's a simple matter, spelled out on pages 360-361 of Science and Health, where the book talks of the Jew and Christian finding common ground in divine revelation."

I know some Jews will brush off this story as propaganda from the Jews for Jesus folks. However, I know the man who told the story and trust him. 

Druthers

On the whole, I think this afternoon, I may prefer to be a woman.

Unencumbered by male vanity and arrogance, impossible dreams and missions.

The females I see and read are, on the whole, superior to the males. 

Better authors, for one thing; more readable, more humane, more sensitive and peace-loving.

Women seem to contain this giant unspeakable...SECRET that their quiet subtle smiles leak.

Unknowable by a male such as myself, I can only look at their physical attributes and lust for what is contained within.

Sobbing quietly, I withdraw into myself and find....

DROOD, mystery of

DROOD, a recent novel of immense size by Dan Simmons, purports to tell the story of the relationship between Charles Dickens and fellow author Wilkie Collins (THE MOONSTONE, WOMAN IN WHITE, etc.). Told through Collins' narration, it reveals some biographical details of Dickens (he walked fast, about 4 mph, on daily strolls of 10-20 miles), was somewhat vain, etc. But about Collins the book is savage: according to this, Collins, an opium and morphine addict, hated just about everyone and loved nobody--except, perhaps, Dickens...with whom he had a serious case of competitive envy and ended up plotting to kill Dickens...and did, in an opium dream.

Which reveals the most serious flaw in the book: we cannot believe much of what Collins tells us. In fact, it seems that Dickens had mesmerized Collins (aided by the daily doses of opium) into believing in the existence of a supernatural creature named Drood.

Drood and Collins introduce us to many scenes of horror: rotting corpses, hideous murders, scary things in the dark, etc. But none or all of it may be real. 

I couldn't read the whole book: I read the first 150 pages, then skipped and rambled through the rest until reading the last part, where Collins dies in a horror-filled dream.

Pfui.

Peace I ask of thee, O river

Penny was feeling sad this morning, overcome by too many responsibilities, until she remembered a song she learned at Girl Scout camp in the Fifties. She started to sing it and I started to tear-up. We don't know the source of the song but here are the words and one among many URLs:

http://dragon.sleepdeprived.ca/songbook/songs6/S6_21.htm

Peace I ask of thee, O river, peace, peace, peace.

When I learn to live serenely, cares will cease.

From the hills I gather courage, vision of the day to be,

Strength to lead and faith to follow, all are given unto me.

Peace I ask of thee, O river, peace, peace, peace.

The Dibble and Me

Saturday morning we went to the beach road between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. Many volunteers gathered there to plant beach grass. The beach grass was in clumps as provided from a nursery and it had to be separated and one stalk dropped into a hole punched in the sand.

Punching holes in the sand was the job for Guys like me carrying Dibbles. A dibble is a shovel-sized pole--on its end a fork consisting of two tines, 12 inches apart. I moved along, punching two holes at a time, while my wife and another lady followed and planted beach grass. 

After a couple hours we decided to leave because so many other volunteers showed up. It was a great day to be out working.

What I didn't realize until I got home was how tired I was. It continued this morning, when after church I went to help clean a park of dead sticks. I was able to work for only an hour. Pooped. 

I have to admire all the volunteers on Martha's Vineyard. Intelligent hard-working people. We're happy to be among them.

Who Am I?

Which comic kid best represents the Me of Me?

Charlie Brown or Calvin.

(Both comics are expired, now, but I'm not.) Now approaching the Golden Years, I still contain within myself the young boy I was and am.

A younger friend, Christina Bone, 

seems to be going through a crisis of Selfhood on her Facebook page, and I can only assure her that as far as my experience is authentic, the doubt persists and we may as well enjoy and comment on the adventure. 

So... Calvin? 

or Charlie Brown? (In previous panels he confessed his most secret desire to Lucy, who swore not to laugh: which was for everyone to call him "Flash"...)

I'm in the Comics!

See me in action at

http://tinyurl.com/aq91dt

MY NEW WEBSITE!

At last, after almost a year of hesitation, doubt, whimperings, I've put up a website that contains some funny stuff AND a free download of my novel about Hitler. 

Yes, Adolf Hitler, der fuehrer, der head of the Third Reich. Hitler is dead and my novel purports to explain how he died. Or, Who Killed Adolf HItler? Four kids, using Invisibility Bubblegum and a Lucky Indian Head Penny. 

No more info here, you gotta read it. I think it's fun and interesting. If you think so, please let me know. If you don't think so, I'd appreciate hearing that from you too. But be gentle, please.

Yes, just go to: 

http://web.mac.com/donhinkle/Penny_Crusade-Kill_Hitler/Adolf_Hitler_the_Anti-Hero.html

 or, the shorter version: http://tinyurl.com/3tzap7.

And I'll do the same for you someday.

warning: there's a graphic novel called I Killed Hitler, by a Norwegian artist named Jason. It's interesting too. And gets many more hits on Google than I do.

If you have a website, please consider putting a link to mine because that helps influence Google.

"No Doubt" It's a Lie

My wife used the expression "No doubt" in a statement to me a short while ago.

It's one of the few times when I didn't get a feeling of irritation at the words.

Most of the time, when I read the phrase, it's in a context that I know consciously and unconsciously is false--a deliberate lie.

It's used in politics often to seek to force a response in the reader. 

If the statement is true, there's no reason to use the words "no doubt".

Check it out.

Watching TV

In our home we needed internet service so we booked with Verizon, which also offers Direct TV service and we took that offer too. It included 3 months free of some channels that only show movies. 

Result: I've spent more time in past 8 weeks watching more television than ever before, even when I was depressed. I just turn it on and click until I find a movie that looks fun. I have seen some interesting ones that I never would otherwise see.

But my wife dug out an old poster I drew years ago when our 2 girls came home from school and embedded themselves in front of the TV set. She fastened it to the front of our screen, for me.