Wayward Landlubber

     Many of my friends and acquaintances are by now aware that I am political. For some, too political. That is unfortunate but I subscribe to a political philosophy that politics, like every worthy thing in life, is a struggle. Someone pulls, someone pulls back. Progress is made by keeping up the pressure on those who would pull you through the mud in utter defeat for the shear pleasure of humiliating you. Often in such contests one party or the other will violate any scruples to win. This is particularly true when proximity to power comes into play. It is at this point when the humorist butts in, or becomes a butt. I was born in the year when two notable Senators began serving in the Senate, one from each party. One was Joseph McCarthy who set about investigating the opposite party for commies, fellow traffickers of the Red Chinese, and other people whom he wished to put under a spotlight powerful enough to expose the tiniest blemish of character. This was all happenin...

     August 8, 1974. I was tending day bar at Frank Peter's Habit, an establishment built from the bones of the old O'Connor's Tavern on Skid Road in Portland, Oregon. So named because that was where loggers, sailors, and other rowdy folks hung out in the old days. There was a secret passageway under the old O'conner's that led down to the river where sailing cargo ships were tied up long ago. According to legend a trusting logger would be drinking at the bar, someone would slip him a Mickey Finn and the poor sap would wake up moving westward on the Columbia River towards the Pacific ocean. One legend concerns a logger who received  an overdose. The captain accepted and entered, a dead man on the ships ledger, thinking he was merely dead drunk. No hard-hearted seamen on this ship, this crew preserved the body in a barrel of precious brandy so he could be returned to his family at Astoria.      It was mid-afternoon, I was cleaning up after the lunch bus...

     August 3rd, 2022 is a momentous day. So momentus I thought all day about how I wanted to describe my elation when I heard that voters in Kansas had voted down measure 2, the anti-abortion measure. We knew that when Roe v Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court that there would be a backlash. What we did not know was how strong it would be, especially in a cherry red state.      It turned out to be a thundering message to rightwing extremism. Not in every state that had primaries yesterday, but Kansas was significant. I needed the right description, fitting for this moment that will be remembered into posterity. The right word, according to Mark Twain who knew something about words, was the difference between the lightning bug, and lightning. I wanted lightning. A great flash of streak lightning that cracked loudly and ruffled your shirt with the sheet of air that it pushed before it. An electric charge that raised the hair on the back of your neck. T...