Provisions for Winter, The Red Queen, and Rifle-Plates: A Report from The West

From my journal, in process of developing a magazine piece, dated 2012:

     It's not a twenty-five pound weight vest, but at eight pounds each both plates add to the workout. The sixteen pound vest of armor plates doesn't breath well, and the extra weight of a medical kit and a radio don't help. The plates under the rough Cordura fabric will stop a steel-core 30.06 round, however. It's a hot, heavy, sweaty comfort. After the climb, sitting on the rocky hillside, watching the road below, I wonder how it got to this.

     Last summer, we had a guest we never met. For months my dogs would bark, and be answered by a single dog far out in the pasture. On various nights, we saw a flashlight moving through the uninhabited range, or a campfire. Both would be extinguished as soon as headlights or another light aimed their direction. This gave no comfort. There have always been walkers who came through the country afoot. Some going north for work, or south to take their money home. Others just on the bum, or just unable to handle the urban world, but they all passed on through, and often introduced themselves on the way. They rarely meant harm, they were just going someplace. To take up residence uninvited on someones place, with never a word of contact and an effort to hide, speaks to some illness of intention or nature. The last time that had happened, the man tried to kill my father with a stolen rifle when dad rode up on his camp.
     That had been in the days before cartels, and back-country meth cooks. In the days when a man on the run could still disappear in a different city, before surveillance cameras and facial recognition in every airport. So I spent some days searching, with a rifle over my shoulder and a pistol on my hip, for this person or persons. I laid up on the hills and glassed the country with binoculars, and I scouted waters. My intent was not to solve any question of why they were here, but simply to send them on their way to somewhere else. If that meant gunfire, then it meant what it meant. Who knows what would drive someone to the backside of a place only reachable by thirty-five miles of dirt road, and really, who wants to find out?
     I never did find whoever it was. They moved on rocks, and away from places easy to track, and they laid up hard in the day where they couldn't be seen. Eventually, the far-away dog stopped barking and the light stopped burning in the night. Part of me is glad, and part of me isn't. Both parts of me would have been very happy, then, to have these chunks of bulletproof ceramic I have now.

     A man I've known all my life, one by whose measure I judge others, has begun to travel this country with a gun again. After his war in Vietnam, he parted with the routine carrying or use of firearms, for the over-familiarity. Taking a pistol for companion again was not a decision he made lightly, or one he's not regretted to some extent. But, after finding one too many trespasser on his family's ranch, one too many shake-and-bake meth cook and one too many mobile lab, he couldn't not take responsibility for his own welfare.
     On the border, they have cartels but further norte we have wannabes, with dreams of glory and money. They are less organized, and less trained, than their heroes of Sinaloa, Juarez and others, but no less dangerous to the land-owners, travelers and workers of the backcountry. Anyone who's seen an episode of Breaking Bad is probably familiar with mobile meth labs, vehicles from cars to RV's purposed to contain the workings of a methamphetamine cook. Shake-and-bake cooks, on the other hand, have been far less presented in the media. Combining gourmet ingredients that include camp fuel, lithium from batteries, and crushed allergy pills in a container and shaking it up, aspiring narcos create a one-pot meth cook. If the container doesn't explode, that is. The risk of explosion leads some of them to drive out into the country to run their cook. Sometimes they just leave the cooking mixture on the side of the road and watch from afar. Both mobile and shake-and-bake cooks are perpetrated by the kind of people who will kill you for interfering. Local elements of larger groups, and the desperate, desirous up-and-comers who have dreams of easy highs, quick money, and perhaps greater things akin to the hermanos down south.
So maybe that's how it got to this.


     Then, there is another way to look at it. It has perhaps always been this way, and there was no “getting” involved. My grandfather carried a pistol in the backcountry, because there is often work to be done with one. Injured animals to put down, predators to stop in their depredations of livestock, more often than anything dramatic. But in carrying that pistol, he wasn't unknowing of the tools violent use. Born in 1906, leaving home in 1920 for a job behind a rifle in Arizona, he had killed men in self defense and maybe otherwise. Though his experiences elsewhere never followed him here, that's not to say it couldn't have happened. Not so long after my grandfather passed, my father had to shoot a man out here, in absolute self defense against an aimed thirty-thirty. My body-armor may tell a different story to the observer, but when the schizophrenic man with the stolen rifle raised it at my father, I wonder if dad wouldn't have been glad for some of his own?
     When I am out, either on the ranch or enjoying the wilderness in other places, I always carry a medical kit, and survival kit. Tourniquet, bandages, superglue, moleskin, oral rehydration salts, signaling tools, emergency shelter, parachute cord, a knife, and so on. I've rarely ever had to use any of it, but I still carry it because, as every philosopher worth his robes has said, shit happens. The gun is no different, nor the protection against it.
     As humanity moves forward, so do our technologies, and common tools. I've been told that I have no need for a semi-automatic rifle on the ranch, the erroneously called “assault rifle” being a military tool. My grandfather favored a Colt revolver and Winchester carbine for his ranch guns, just like popular images of the “classic” cowboy. Those tools were once at the cutting edge of military small arms, with extended capacity and much increased rate of fire. The difference? Time. My grandfather eventually switched from his Colt revolver to a war-bring-back German Luger in 9mm, that shot faster from a larger reserve of cartridges. Everything rolls on, and people adapt.
It's possible to create many questions about these things, questions of need, odds, and so on, but what do they achieve? There is a wisdom in this country, that what is, is. Questions become acts of denial, things that feel like action but are actually nothing close. Anyone who has lived out here very long, particularly anyone of second or third or more generation rural living, learns that you can talk yourself out of almost anything. Extra well-pipe costs money, so do spare leathers for the check valve, and do you really need them? Laying in extra tools, parts and supplies for a hard winter might be wasted if the snows never come and the roads never close. You might not need them, it is true, but no one knows what they really need until they need it. Out here, we try to keep as much of everything big and small on hand. More beans in the pantry, coffee can after coffee can of nails, bolts and screws, parts for trucks, and veterinary medicines most of us know how to dose for people too. Because we all know, it's harder out here than forty miles away in the land of paved roads and plenty. When the snows blow in deep, or the clay turns to bog in the monsoons, animals die for want of that extra feed or medication, and so do people. The only preventative? Have what you might need, and have it in spades.
     What is, is, and there's only to do about it what needs done. And that gets done with what is available. Fences get mended, cattle get moved, and we deal with drought, fire, and predation on whatever number of legs it comes on. Once there were no fences in this country, and the only thing that separated one man's stock from another was a brand, and a particular way of whittling an ear. Then barbed-wire got strung taught across miles of cedar fence posts, defining the edges of each man's range. Aermotor windmills started giving way to submersible pumps, and while that generator was running we strung up some electric lights too. Then those who could afford it started flying over their lands and herds in ultralights and helicopters, counting head and killing coyotes and wolves from the air. Numbered ear tags replaced ear marks, and then fencing got done with steel posts. The generators got replaced with power-line drops, or solar panels, and the kerosene lamps put away for emergencies. Now you can run your ranges with drones, and tag your stock with RFID tags that can be scanned on the go. Ranches across the west have motion activated yard lights and security cameras. Trail-cameras are placed as much to watch for people as to track stock and predators. And the bandits that gave rise to the brands and the fences in the first place? They care less about cattle now. Their interests are in the remote places, far from governing eyes, for cooking, weighing, cutting, counting money or butchering their enemies. And those who already live there? We're just in the way. So if we add body armor and AR-15's or AK-47's to the tools of our trade, we're just keeping up. Doing what needs done, with what is available. Like our fathers and grandfathers, laying in what might be needed for a winter that no one could say was going to be easy or hard.  

Meaning in Accident

There is a piece of clay in my house. About the size of a Kiwi fruit, and shaped vaguely like one that's been a bit squashed. It is dingy-white and red, a natural clay found not far from here, and harder than stone. Never having seen a fire, it was age that hardened it. Being worked, at a nearby clay works, it was one day dropped and never again picked up.
In its surface, indented a small depth, is a perfect human thumbprint, its whorls and ridges as hard as the hubs of hell. A thousand years and change, and the thumbprint is perfect to the touch, not mating with my own but rough against it. A human presence, physical, warm if left in the sun, cold if left in the shade. To touch the dead, all I have to do is turn to the cabinets and take down this artifact. To touch the living, all the dead have to do is wait. What meaning exists, must exist in accident. Nothing with purpose could carry so much weight.

The Marks Left on Tools

My girlfriend recently gave me a very nice handmade knife from the 1970's. Made by a small shop in Whitefish Montana, long out of business, the knife is in excellent condition. The near mirror polish on the blade hardly marred by scratches, and the edge was untouched by a stone or use since its final rouged-buffing at the makers bench. For something approaching forty years old, the knife remained essentially new. The design of the knife is simple, a modified drop-point hunting knife, with pinned wood-laminate handle scales. It carries in a hand-stitched leather sheath, of a quality of workmanship not always common to even custom knives. Well made through and through, it is a tool; An object of combined elements of purpose. And yet, it has gone the decades since its making unused.
I am bothered by this newness of things meant to be used. There is no poetry in disuse of fine tools. It is the death of intent and meaning, an act against life to always rest a thing meant to be worked with.

On my workbench there live a few tools of my grandfathers and great-grandfathers, from the L.S. Starrett company. They are not new, in any sense. Most have passed a century. All have been used in the numerous tasks of a machinist, for lifetimes now. As machinists tools, they are exceedingly precise, and still have sharp edges, fine points and little slop or wiggle in their moving parts. These tools were made in a time before computers, when math was done by hand and mind, and the most precise work was that of men who manipulated machines themselves. The precision of these tools was artistry of purpose. Tools finely made, so they might be used in making other things that would be used. They have lasted not because they were put away and never taken down, but rather because they were acted upon and with as intended. A tool used is, of necessity and responsibility, a tool cared for.
The use of tools imbues them with an even greater richness, from the users knowing of them, the oils of his work and himself in their fine knurling, the experience of what he can do with them. The care of tools is a natural result of this. We care more deeply for that which we know, and value through experience, because we wish to preserve that which preserves us. Good tools, like good lovers, make our desires possible, our wills able to be wrought, their touch fuels our engines, and we care for them, or we die alone and empty. It is a lesson we learn, those of us who know it, just in time.

I sharpened the knife she gave me. The buffed factory edge, though shiny and new and perfect to see, was not keen when I took it up to use. Stoning the edge to a shaving sharpness left it uniformly and finely scratched where it had been as mirrored as the blade, and to a collector (those ill preservers) less valuable. Sharpening and using the knife is an act of being alive. Touch and pressure and wear are real and whole, and nothing good exists absent of them. Nothing good is unmarked by the passing of time.
Our tools, the objects in our lives we call valuable and their condition through time, are markers of ourselves in the world. If our tools are given over to rust and devastation, all we leave for the world is brokenness and useless oxidization. Ruined tools are things that perhaps should never have been. Tools that are unmarked, boxed, shelved and protected in perfect newness, never truly were. Only things used, worn, marked by process and care carry any valuable weight. The marks we leave on tools, are the marks we leave on the world.

Faceless Consumption (Being a Tale of Idiots, and Meat)

The other day I tripped over a piece of foolishness online, and haven't been able to shake it. This being the internet, finding foolishness shouldn't come as any surprise, but it did. I was reading in one of the few low-idiocy havens I've found online; A forum which the core membership of is primary military, law enforcement and emergency rescue personnel. So I was relaxed and receptive when I stumbled into the following gem of subintelligent thought, sort of like wandering into a trap. It was not meant for me, like all truly devastating traps it was entirely impersonal and aimed at whomever chanced upon it. A Bouncing Betty of stupidity.
The discussion at hand was on the film “The Cove”, which depicts in horrifying detail the mass slaughter of Dolphins in a particular cove in Japan. The general consensus was that killing something smarter than many people (or any politician) was “not cool”, and killing much of anything in that fashion was equally unacceptable. All of this brought on a small discussion of hunting, and that is where the idiot struck. He said, “The day I have to kill for food is the day i[sic] eat fucking nuts and berries. With all the meat in someones local food superstore, why kill any animals? I am in no way putting anyone down for hunting,it just isn't for me or something I want to do. Terrorists,yep. Animals,No[sic]."

I was flabbergasted by this idiots perspective, quite honestly. Not that I don't believe people think this way. I know that such twits exist, but I remain amazed and disgusted by it. In this case the source also probably has a lot to do with why it continues to bother me. Such a statement coming from someone with a military background, a group of people who commonly refer to themselves as “meat eaters” and take a great pride in the hunting of many things, is particularly surprising. More than that, I find this perspective fairly insulting in a broader fashion. No matter your background, or your particular thoughts on hunting, divorcing yourself so thoroughly from the origins of your food is beyond dishonest.
It is an incredibly spoiled and elitist position; One made possible only by a certain class of living, allowing such a luxury as routine access to a supermarket and little or no exposure to agriculture. Only from there is it possible to have no involvement with the animal, except to get hunks of its meat from the store, all while expecting others to do the killing (and even the thinking about the killing). This total removal of the self from the process of killing what is eaten is to deny that what we eat was ever alive. As an act it reduces life, a heartbeat and a spirit, to nothing more than a commodity. Whole beings become nothing more than their inanimate pieces. People who act this way say the animals death bothers them, as their reason for this denial of it's life, but there is no honor or respect in their actions, no respect for life.
This act also reduces the actor to something less as well; Something which is also denied heartbeat and spirit by the very spirit possessing it. If none of our food has a face, we ourselves become faceless. Such denial of the life of food is, in essence, making a choice to be sub-human. To make that choice, to seek that ignorance, is to say "I am not a human being. I am not a predator. I am some creature that eats the hard work of others, consumes the lives of other animals, without doing any of the mental or physical work or giving recognition to the costs necessary for me to survive." That's akin to being some sort of vaguely sentient mushroom or something, that just soaks in nutrients without awareness of where they come from.
It is incredibly disrespectful to divorce yourself from the process of killing and still want to consume its results. It is disrespectful to those who do that work, and it's disrespectful to the life you're now treating as merely commodified pieces. Such disrespect is also disrespect of the self, and remains so even if the divorce from food carries over to only eating non-animal foods. It is disrespectful to the self, as a human being, a predator; A creature of strong legs, and cunning mind, evolved to hunt and kill.
Some might say they wish to overcome being a predator, but do they have any idea what we would be if were were not predators? Our hunting and meat eating habits are at the root of many of the fundamental attributes of human beings; We are what we are because of eating animals. Theory suggests that the impact of meat consumption on brain development was fundamental to achieving the brains we have today. Who you think you are (to jump from brain to mind for a moment) owes to the mental gymnastics you are capable of thanks to descending from predators. And that's not to say anything about what being predators has done for the body.
Jackson Landers, “The Locavore Hunter”, provides us with this:

“As Christopher McDougall points out in his book, ‘Born to Run,’ we became modern humans in large part because we became predators. We have a lot of anatomical features that don’t make sense any other way. We are unique among living primates in that we have an Achilles tendon. An Achilles tendon is only really good for long-distance running. You don’t need one to walk or to sprint (as other apes demonstrate). Ditto our unusually large gluteus maximus muscles. We are finely tuned to be long-distance runners. And what good is running long distances? We can’t sprint fast enough to escape predators. But over marathon distances we can outrun even a racehorse. As a few indigenous tribes are still demonstrating, our bodies are very good at running down four legged prey until it collapses from exhaustion.
The physiological adaptations that allow us to do this are profoundly complex. Our tendons are especially springy compared to other primates. Our hearts and lungs are capable of amazing efficiency. We can sweat and regulate our bodies temperatures to avoid overheating. That kind of evolution doesn’t happen for nothing.
The title of McDougall’s book, ‘Born to Run,’ tells half of the story. The other half is that we were born to kill.” In Defense of Predation, The Locavore Hunter

These mushroom-people who want to divorce themselves from being predators are not just rejecting meat, they are rejecting essential humanity as well. Refusing to be a predator is a decision to step outside of humanity and be something else. Adherents of such a lifestyle seem to think they have risen above by doing so. They often act as if they've gained some pious state from which to condemn and dictate to others. Such people are so convinced of their superiority as to verge on suggesting tyrannies against real human beings acting in tune with nature (likening meat eaters to pedophiles and cannibals, as people who need to be "corrected"):

“The line of thinking goes like this: Evolution is natural, and what is natural is good; and because humans evolved the capacity to eat and digest meat, the practice of eating meat must also be natural and subsequently good. This is the naturalistic fallacy and it leads to all sorts of problems. Given this line of thinking we should also condone other human traits that came about through evolution, namely rape, murder, pedophilia and cannibalism. Obviously we’re not about to do this any time soon. We know very well that many people cannot be left to their own hard-wired devices; this is why we have self-corrective memes (i.e. ethics, laws, etc.) and why we need to have police and penal systems.
More to the point, however, is the acknowledgment that overriding our evolutionary baggage is part of the human mission. Having Darwinian processes guide our moral compass is sheer lunacy. Where is the morality in ‘survival of the fittest?’ Evolution may have helped us describe how we got here, but it most certainly won’t help us move forward as a compassionate species.” Meat Eaters are Bad People, Sentient Development

The cost of moving forward as a “compassionate species”, to those standards at least, will be not moving forward as a species at all. The nature these types claim to love and want to protect from “bad people”, is actually the very thing they are denying when they go on like this. They seem to see themselves to as smarter than, superior to, the way of the world for millions of years, and in their arrogance think they can override it. In reality, these petty would-be-god's have simply decided to be something less capable and interesting than a human being. Something needs to come along and eat them, if it can palate the taste.

In a certain way, these (anti-)people who either divorce themselves from their food, or refuse to be predators, should make me happy; If a cataclysm were to seriously challenge the survival of the human species, even if these mushrooms survived the initial event, they would be among the first to die or be eaten in the aftermath. That thought might bring a smile to my face, but for the fact that such cataclysm isn't around the corner. Even as things continue on the path they are on, true cataclysm is unlikely. So, we're forced to harbor these mental defectives; Those of us who participate in agriculture are forced to feed them, and the rest are forced to share with them.

(Photo: Original from Beverly & Pack's Flickr stream)

Link Musings

I've been debating starting to do regular link posts... I might. If I do, they may be in the form of thought-streams from my day, or a few days (if some sort of topical, or at least related, lumpet emerges from my reading/thinking/writing for more than a day). This may also be another random post, never to be repeated, in a blog full of them.

Digital Ecology? - This musing from Jacquet is pretty interesting, and reaches beyond the immediate field in which her musings occur. I keep returning to “This is a different type of ecology, one facilitated by the digital universe”, and wondering if there isn't more there. The idea that the digital universe has its own ecology whispers beneath the surface. Not that that is a new idea...just a compelling one.

50 Posts About Cyborgs - This is interesting for the topic/material, but also for the format. I'm increasingly interested in the variety allowed by “blog form” publishing. I like the idea that a stand-alone, non-continuous, digital object can be created as a blog – Particularly in the simple interface delivered by Tumblr. Although I'm not sure I need more inspiration to start new blog projects, as I'm sitting at... half a dozen blogs now, including this one. Most of them I have no idea what to do with... other than I wanted to write about, or create something about, a topic that didn't fit in well on a blog I'd already established. That said, I have some writing/thought projects that would make interesting non-updating blog-form works.
On the Cyborg topic:

Clearly, we are self-made. We are the first technology. We are part inventor and part the invented. We have used our minds to manufacture our selves and thus we humans today are the first cyborgs. We have invented ourselves. And we are not done yet. Kevin Kelly

I like a lot of this (the whole piece), although some of it is just distressing. Distressing in that it gives me visions of fat, iDevicePadObject plugged in, and tuned out, humans; Evolved with our technology, gone slow, dumpy and soft. Slow, soft, dumpy things are food to my mind. Obligate button pushers are a terrifying concept. They are not spear throwers, or rifle shooters; Those dangerous creatures of beautiful and lethal form. I refuse to be a button pusher. I'll go wild, and raise other wild things, if I must.

Newspaper Extinction Timeline- Interesting in the whole new publishing vs. old publishing way. I wonder how true this is for local papers in more remote places? The nearest towns to me are small, and isolated by miles and miles without urban sprawl; They are also not technologically contemporary communities, nor (most importantly) are there electronic media sources to supply them. What of the small town local paper in the Western US, and similar areas of geographic isolation, low population and low support from electronic media? Local media is different when you're in San Francisco, Ca. and San Francisco, NM.

I got notification of an acceptance the other day (on my birthday actually), and it should be getting published soon... If so, you'll get more soon. If not, perhaps more weeks of silence. This is my blogination-machine, and I'll use it as I see fit, after all.

Scorched Bastards

A nut hit the dirt ahead of my boot, its fleshy paleness rivulet with blood and blue veins. Stepping through the dust, I felt it slide and rupture under my heel accidentally. The injection gun in my hand creaked as, bending to the heaving flank, I stuck the needle in and squeezed. I stepped away again quick, as I felt the heat of the iron pass beside me. The denutted bull-calf bawled in pain as the hot iron struck his hip. He strained and twitched. The kid on the calf's neck twisted the foreleg higher, screwing himself down harder to the animal and the earth. Hot iron struck flesh once more, and then everyone pulled back. The calf jumped up, all snot, flying hair and dirt, kicked free of the rope and bolted to the corner of the corral. There, shoulders bumping against the others, the fright passed from his eyes. I spit, flicked a droplet of antibiotic from the needle tip and slid into observation.

The work was more than just putting the old two iron brand to flesh. The calves were roped out, and dragged nearer the cedar fire where the irons rested. Swift in movement, I stepped, gave the shot and withdrew. An ear got notched, and nuts got cut. Then the fiery-irons and scorching. All together the work became a flow. The dust, bawling and smoky smell of blood thickened in the senses, and the rhythm carried us. An easy joking rose among us in moments of panic, and fell to silence in the fluid moments of steady work. We darted with function and purpose, and laughed in disregard to the tastes in the air. We were all scorched bastards there, burnt in the sun and by the irons, but some laughed.

No More Old Men

In darkness and pain he trembled. Unable to walk, to do more than stumble, his right foreleg hung useless and unbearing. In the headlight beams there was little to tell of his injuries, lost to shadow and his own darkness. The pain, still, was obvious. Horses get drawn with pain, an expressive clinging of skin to muscle and muscle to the bone. Nothing is lost in their large eyes, unless they want it to be. Approaching him, slowly, hand out, his eyes told stories I did not want to hear. He reached out with his head, and his lips nibbled at my fingers. He was soft, and sweet. And I had no help, no real comfort for him. It was late, and I was on the road.
That was then. Now in the cool morning, the extent of the shattered shoulder is obvious. The flies have begun to torment him, as he stands too weak to flick his tail. Too drawn and pained to twitch his skin. I approach again with my hand out, and he moves only a little. Brushing his face and neck I talk to him softly, and below his vision I pass the gun from my left hand to my right. I hold it against the back of my thigh, and pull the hammer to the rear where it clicks. He moves away from the metallic, mechanical, noise and I move with him. Stilling him, I touch and stroke with my left hand, as I whisper. The words are for me, their softness for him. I brush the hair of his mane from the top of his head, scratching softly at the fly bites. I can see the white blaze of his forehead clearly now and my fingers linger on it for a moment. He breathes steadily and lowers his head just slightly. There is no time but now, and any greater amount of now will only draw out his agony.
There is a stillness after gunfire as the world comes to life again. The moment after the shot nothing has moved save the hand in recoil. It too is frozen, for an instant in waiting, before sound and motion, like water drawn away from a shore, come rushing back. In that rush of birds cries and fluttering wings, he falls. He goes down straight, legs buckling to lay him into his own dragging tracks, a great weight upon the earth. The body, so many long milliseconds dead, tenses and convulses briefly and stops, then with the stillness comes blood. Everything relaxes and pours out, upon the dust etched with agony.

The strict facts are simple enough, but their meaning depends on things impossible to relate. Experience is the ancient flood, tearing new canyons and river bottoms, and like younger waters we are destined to run the course it shapes. This is no different. This story, as all killing stories do, runs deeper than the killing.
The horse had been ridden at a gallop through a rat den, his leg dropping into the pit, loading his shoulder until it came apart. His rider, a weekender in the backcountry, had left him near the water and gone back to town too much a coward to make it right. Three days the horse had stood, alone and without food, before I drove past and saw him.
The rider is the next generation of a family I've known all my life. The old men of the family, those who were old when I was born, helped raise me. In the silent teaching of action they gave me the gift of an older way. I came up among them tougher and better honed than their own sons and actual grandsons. Those younger man all products of towns and rejection of the old ways.
It is far too late for old men. The world moves on, and they begin to fail. There are only a few left, of all the good ones I've known. Those who are still alive so rarely come to the ranch country, leaving it for their descendants, who take it only for a playground. Those descendants who don't have what it takes. Whose macho falls away to cowardice when it really matters. Who commit evils and sins that their fathers would have found unthinkable. Their fathers who fought and killed, drank and whored, but never once shied away from a thing for the hardness of it.
If there is ever a final judgment, I'll stand with the old men I've known. We'll pass a bottle, and watch as it all goes down.

The Santa Fe Super Chief and Albuquerque Depot, Circa 1943

This is a photo of the Santa Fe line's Super Chief, that ran between Chicago and Los Angeles. It was taken in 1943, at the Albuquerque depot, by Jack Delano.
This was posted on a military forum I hang out on earlier this evening. There are quite a few history buffs, train geeks and Americana junkies there, understandably, but I was still surprised to see something so close to home getting attention. Credit for bringing it to the forum posters attention goes to A Continuous Lean, where the photo is included in a neat look at the Super Chief.

I am kind of a geek for New Mexico rail history. My great-grandfather was the head machinist at the Belen, NM yards when the roundhouse was there. I grew up with pieces of steam locomotives in my backyard. I am not a huge train nut, but there is still something about them. Trains are cool. Trains are industrial, and mechanical and engineering-in-action and magic. The history and stories surrounding the railroad industry are equally magic. If you can't see it in this photo, you're lost and will never understand.
There are so many cool things going on in this picture, I'm sort of overwhelmed by it. It is a collection of some of the most iconic American images, all together as functional elements in a piece of reality. A reality long gone, before my time.
There is, of course, that fantastic engine. Its bright red and yellow preserved in perfect Kodachrome by Mr. Delano. There are men in denim work wear, carrying lunch, pumping diesel - Working and living a hard, earned, life. Men in suits, and hats (what happened to hats?). Those fantastic automobiles when cars really looked like, and were built like, something to be valued and appreciated.
Behind all this, in Mission-Revival glory are the old Albuquerque depot and the Alvarado Hotel, both gone and replaced by a tacky facsimile. Built in 1902, the Alvarado was one of the Harvey House hotels, and among the largest and most beautiful. It was demolished in 1970 and replaced with a parking lot. The rest of the original depot burned in the late Eighties or early Nineties. The reproduction buildings were put up later, a supposed tribute to the original.

A truly great photograph. An ordinary moment, frozen on film, that has in the passage of time become an amazing moment.

Once

Once upon a time they taught interesting things in highschool. Now, you're hard pressed to find a college with such offerings.
Available Here (PDF format).

I've found, or own, several other high school course books on similar things. Things long gone from common knowledge in the first world, but essential everywhere else and soon to be here again as well.
At some point, when I have time and energy, perhaps I should put together a collection of links or find hosting for this library of "Things You Should've Learned in School, but Didn't".

Corb Lund

I think the first reference to Corb Lund I came across was from a forum friend, who had lyrics from Lund's Horse Soldier in his signature line. The lyrics seemed pretty appropriate, this fellow having been an Army Ranger and Special Forces Reservist, as well as being a cowboy up in the sagebrush north of here. Somehow it got filed away as an “I should check that out, sounds up my alley” sort of thing, and not revisited for quite some time. When I finally did, man, I was impressed.

Cormac McCarthy's Horseshit

(Or, an Open "What The Hell?" to One of My Literary Heroes)

I’m a big Cormac McCarthy fan. He is my favorite writer. Living, dead, unborn – My favorite. I’ll go to the mat, or the concrete, in defense of his craft at the drop of a hat and I really enjoy talking about his writing in general. I’m a fan. So, it was with some surprise that I walked away from his latest interview, with the Wall Street Journal, disappointed and pissed off.
I learned a long time ago that artists whose work you like are not necessarily people to get to know. Sometimes there is something lacking. Not always, but often the real person simply fails to live up to their creations. On one hand, I could take or leave being disappointed with McCarthy as it’s his work I truly value and not his person or opinions. On the other, I can’t quite let slide something he said in the otherwise excellent interview.

Human Chauvinist

I've read that people, formerly ordinary everyday mundanes of normal people perspectives, who are experiencing some kind of awakening to the plight of the world move away from anthropocentrism (human chauvinism). As they do, supposedly, they have a moment where their thinking shifts from “I'm saving the planet”, to, “I'm part of the planet fighting to save myself.”
This begs the question, at least to me: What does it mean to be an anthropocentrist and have always held the view of one-self as part of the planet, not apart from it?

I've never seen myself as apart from the planet or the rest of the world. I am still terribly fond of human beings and our accomplishments, and my aim in life is to further my species. Until the day some big bad mother of a species comes along, wipes us out and builds his outhouses on our bones, I plan to continue holding that view. As a part of the world as a whole.

Doesn't mean I undervalue any other species or thing on Earth. I try very hard not to. I just think that, generally, we're wielding the biggest swinging cods this side of the viruses. No reason not to feel at least somewhat accomplished over it and try to keep it so – That's what the whole affair is about, isn't it? Thought so.

What good is a species that isn't wired to think highly of itself?

The Dead Monkey Falling Down-Adobe Forge

Every good blacksmithy has a name. Mine doesn't really, since its been a transient smithy so much and will be again at some point. But, on the old home place there is a small adobe building I'm slowly renovating to be a permanent smithy for the ranch. Right now, not-quite-falling down, three walled, half-roofed and crumbling, but good things will come. There is also some sort of a monkey skull (yes, really) laying on the floor, that I'm debating nailing to a sign above the door. So, the Dead Monkey Falling Down-Adobe Forge is its name for now.

Everything is heat, light and motion. Energy and movement, fluidity and violence and everything on the edge of burning down. There are moments of sudden, zen-like, stillness on the part of the smith, but he is alone, an island in madness. While he is still, the fire will burn, the oil in his quench will smoke, the air will be filled with sound and smell. The light will flicker and dance on the broken walls and into the eternity of energy.

We are strange priests of arcane things. Of our sins we fathered the alchemists and the engineers. For a time, if it was built we had our hand in it, and then our sins outstripped us. As relics we returned to our solitary and smoky chapels. We dance, ancient in our ways and wordless prayers of struck steel.

Making Rounds

My friends come to me with their medical problems. Usually, not the intensely personal. I think I've made it clear that if its crotch related and is dripping, swollen or pustule covered I'll treat it with fire. So they come with coughs, running noses, pains, sleep problems, and, my personal favorite thus far, a gashed open chin.
When someone vaults a railing, catches his foot, and drives all hundred-and-eighty pounds of himself into the concrete on the very point of his chin, you can pull open the gash and see his whisker follicles on the inside. He'd waited an hour and a half in the emergency room before he'd called me. I cleaned it out and closed it with superglue. It scarred just a little. He paid me eighty dollars, which I tried to give back, but only a little. I'm still thrilled at having seen hair follicles on the inside. It's so cool.
This was when I lived in town. Now I'm a desert dweller, forty-miles from a paved road on the family ranch. Now they come to me online, on Facebook or GTalk. I can't close wounds, but I can do about all I ever did otherwise and dispense advice on caring for yourself when ill with the usual crud. Or the crap. Or the ick. You see where this is going.
Why do they come? Because we're friends, primarily. That's the most important part. It may be the only part, really. I'm not a doctor. I was pre-med for a blink, and an EMT for awhile. I'm still very interested in medicine, and keep really current. I can talk shop with doctors, but that doesn't make me one. I'm pretty honest about that too. They joking call me the “mob doctor”, although part of my standard advice is to go see a doctor. At least, go see the university nurse, since a lot of my friends are still students. I try to be honest and only do what I can. Even then, I always wonder if I'm not overstepping some unseen bounds. I feel bad that the cut I closed with superglue scarred. I reassure myself that a century ago people, who couldn't possibly know what I do, were still hanging signs proclaiming to be doctors. For many their only legitimacy the lead paint word on the knotted plank swinging above the door. Third world tribe members who've been through intensive programs provide a higher level of care for hundreds of their fellows than I do. It's okay. I obviously am not a total quack. They keep coming back.
In the spring, when swine flu first came up, I wrote a long piece about it and posted it on my blog, and on Facebook as a note. I added links and for the first week or so that the novel H1N1 virus was emerging kept track of it. I did it for my friends who were either panicking or totally dismissive. I know a little bit about biology and viral behavior, I did go to college for three years. Most people ignored it, at the time. It was just another part of the sensory overload of the initial mad rush of attention for a potential nightmare pandemic. Now that is has, according to plan, reemerged in the northern hemisphere for fall, I've been fielding my friends questions. Most of which have been answered with a simple no. No, your runny nose is probably not swine flu. If you get worse, increasing fever, nausea, and so on, go to the doctor. No, it's not that bad it's just another flu, you'll be okay. No, I'd avoid playing beer pong for awhile, sharing cups right now is a bad idea.
Most everyone I know is actually fine. I do have a few who are sick. Not all with the flu. I call them mine because they are, they're my friends. And in a way, they're my patients. They've trusted me and my advice, and I'm going to do my best. I take care of my friends every way I can, this is another of them. So when I see one of them on Facebook, or GTalk I ask how they are. What temperature they're running. I make sure they're hydrating, taking vitamin C, and any medication they might be on. I suggest over-the-counter medicines that might help. And tea, always tea for almost anything. Talking to one, reminds me of another, so I'll pull up the messenger client and check on them. I'll make my rounds like that. Taking care of my friends, the best I can, because I can.
This is important. It always has been. We need to use the skills we have to take care of those around us, in the communities we've chosen. We're in a pretty big mess, all around, and the only people we have to rely on are ourselves. Are you alone as yourself, or are you among a group of selves who look out for one another with the skills you have? Better figure it out.

Amanda Palmer

I really don't remember how I discovered The Dresden Dolls, but I suspect it was through a friends Facebook status asking for a coin-operated boy. However it was, that's how I heard of Amanda Palmer, the Doll's lead singer (among other talents). Quickly the Doll's albums, and Amanda's solo effort, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, became some of my favorite music, and continue to get a lot of play. Particularly when I'm writing or being otherwise creative.
But it's only recently that I've started following Amanda Fucking Palmer's blog.
I'm not much of a fan boy. If I like someone's work, I'll promote it to my friends who share my tastes, and maybe mention it here, but not much more. I'm a quiet fan. I follow the artists artistic output, invest my money in the output I want to own or participate in, and encourage fellows to do the same, but that's the extent of it. I'm not a gushing, twitter following, fan-art making fan. It just doesn't work for me. If I follow an artist on Twitter, odds are I'll get pissed at narcissistic irreverence and nonsense and stop liking them. Same for a lot of blogs. For me to enjoy engaging with an artist I like in that fashion, something has to be different. I like artists who blog smartly.
I particularly like artists who talk about art, and the processes behind it, and within it. Whatever their art may be. Even better, artists who talk about the future of their art. Best, an artist who can talk about these things in a manner that's as inspiring as their art.
This is why I'm actually reading AFP's blog, and have linked it at right. She's fucking brilliant.
She's thoughtful, and puts a lot of her energy into her words, making the blog both enlightening and inspiring. It's something a lot of artists just can't do – Their blogs end up narcissistic or dry, or narcissisticly dry. AFP is engaging, funny, energetic, and smart. She also regularly displays a firm grasp on current, and emergent, trends and offers insights that more people should really be paying attention to.
Some of her recent blogging in particular has been excellent in terms of trends and things people should pay attention to. Her ideas and comments about how she, as an artist, is making money and the necessity of doing the work, and how others are succeeding, or can succeed, are great.
More artists need to embrace the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded by the current state of technology and communication. More artists need to stop being shy about cultivating a fan base, being involved with that fan base, and making money from that fan base. Making money is not dishonest, it doesn't dirty up the work. Everyone has a right to try to make a living from what they're passionate about. Go read, seriously. AFP is talking from the POV of a performance based artist/act like a musician, but if I find it valuable as a scribbler and metalsmith, other artists should as well. If you're a musician, video artist, writer, pounder of metal, any sort of artist who wants to make a life an an artist, her ideas are worth a look.
I find her commentary very much in keeping with my recent ideas on writing/publishing, markets and marketing there-for, and making use of available technology and the memes they enable to achieve success in genres and as artists.
On top of that, she's awesome and I enjoy her work, and the things she has to say.

(As a note: I'm thinking about putting up something for each of my recommended reads, who I haven't mentioned before at least, but don't know if I'll get to it. My recommended reading, and the blogs I follow (see profile) are all recommended, or they wouldn't be there. You should check them out.)

What's Happened to Fiction?

I grew up among books and writers. The word, and the next one and all the pages full have been elements of my life as long as I can remember. I don't want to say I took this for granted, but I have. In doing so, it seems that I missed something. Or a few somethings. Among them, the following:

• Men don't read good fiction.
• Novels are dead.

These assertions aren't mine, they're things I've come across recently in different places recently.

The first is an issue raised by BULL: Mens Fiction, via Fictionaut. Men buy around 30% of the fiction sold, primarily thrillers and crime fiction. Which leaves literary fiction to the women. I hadn't given this any thought prior to hearing about it, but find it very disquieting.
I don't really mean to say that there is no “good” fiction in the thriller and crime fiction fields. I read a lot of drek, almost anything not religious or romantic, and actually enjoy plenty of that type of fiction. However, on those shelves remain the Dan Brown's and David Morrel's and countless other fairly bad writers. Writers who use one crutch and cliché after another, and who will never be a Steven King, much less a Maclean or a Hemingway.
If men aren't reading good fiction, then it stands to reason that men's fiction isn't getting published. We end up with a chicken, or egg, sort of question. Is it not being published because it won't be read, or is it not being read because it's not being published?
My view of writing and authors is very male centric. I like plenty of female writers, and their work, but the influences on my enjoyment of writing, and being a writer, are primarily male. My father who taught me about poetry. My fifth grade teacher who showed me that poetry was written by real people having real experiences, not recounting mad charges and death in far off lands. Writers I met as a kid, like Steve Bodio, and Joel Bernstein. Writers whose work motivated, changed, or challenged me in my audacious youth when I read far outside my age group, McCarthy, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, and even the baser Heinlein. And whose work does that today, Palahniuk, Frederick Busch, and the above as well. Writers whose work and experiences resonate with my own life, McMurtry in particular at this point. All these influences are masculine. It's something of a shocking wake-up to see that masculinity in good fiction may have suffered a downturn.
It raises a lot of questions. Primarily about the nature of male reading. Why do men read, or perhaps better, why don't men read anything worth a damn? In wondering at the why of this, I have to ask myself why I read. Am I a reader because I write? I've always thought I was a writer because I read, but maybe that's not correct. My own perspective is suspect here, as I'm not just part of the audience.
Part of it is entertainment. I read to be entertained, like I imagine most people do. Some will argue that reading for entertainment alone precludes reading for intellectual stimulation, but I disagree. I am entertained by mental calisthenics and deep thoughts and discoveries and seek it out in music, movies, television and writing of all types. I'm also pretty confident that I'm not unique in this, even among men. Women are not the only people on the planet who want to think deep thoughts and engage in mental stretching. On the opposite side of the coin, I also read as a form of mental escapism – I want to be involved in something very not my immediate life, and let my mind relax. This is where, for me, reading “garbage” comes in. But one type of writing is not exclusive to the other – I do both, and again am pretty sure I'm not alone in at least the right motivations and interests
So, why do men still primarily read non-challenging, unintellectual, formulaic and cliched garbage? The place I feel left to turn to in answer, is society at large. Somewhere the American culture has told men that its not okay to be literary. It's knitting and tatting, not logging and grilling, and just not something that men do. But why?
It's a damn shame. It convicts me even more of the importance of masculine voices in writing. I'd realized it was a needed element when I first found BULL, before I ever planned to submit anything even. There exists western, eastern, southern, GBLT, and woman's writing and writers, but who identifies as a “male writer” or a writer of “mens fiction”? No one who's selling, apparently. And even the distinctly masculine voices in contemporary literature are being co-opted by feminine movements. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, one of the most distinctly masculine novels I think I've read, was brought to the attention of America at large by being placed on Oprah's book list.
There's nothing wrong with women, southerners or GBLT folks, but there is something goddamned wrong with this.

The second among literary issues I missed is the supposed death of the novel. I read this on Tom Russell's blog, and actually called bullshit in the comments. I don't think the novel is dead. I'm seriously out of touch with current novels though, particularly anything highbrow. The most recent literature I've read has been The Road and a Palahniuk or two. I've been rather caught up in the literary past. But, I see a lot of novels that look good being published, and quite a few that I hear are good to read too. I can't really swallow the idea of the novel being dead.
However, the thought nags. Maybe it actually is. If I, as a reader, have been visiting the literary past of ghosts like Maclean, Cheever, Hemingway, and grand old men like McCarthy, for my diet of novels then what does that say about the current state of the things? Without a doubt, 80% of my literary fiction diet comes from short fiction journals, both online and in print. Perhaps a result of this, most of my writing is not on my novel, but on flash, short fiction and poetry. And I don't seem to be alone. I see a lot of good, fundamentally good, fiction being written in the form of flash and short stories. I am even seeing powerfully good poetry out there. It's accessible, it's at the tip of the finger, at the end of the hand placed on the mouse or touchpad.
I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with the shape and form of popular internet media and communications. The majority of America is online, and our creative engagement with words and communication in this medium is short. Blog posts are short. Facebook status updates are short. Tweets are short.
Twitter is the perfect example. One hundred and forty characters, to communicate effectively. And, really, we've gotten good at it. It's become entertaining, effective and, finally, important. Friends bitch and share and plan inside the limits of a Tweet. Businesses advertise, share updates and network. Revolutions, or the attempts there-of, are documented - The best information coming from Iran in recent troubles has been in one hundred and forty character bursts. That is what finally convinced me that Twitter had some actual value. And now, there are literary efforts, such as Nanoism, focused on extremely short fiction that will fit into a Tweet.
The modern face of textual communication is short. Why should anyone be surprised that written art would follow that? Even some of the more successful novels and memoirs of recent years have begun as blogs.
So, maybe I am wrong and the novel is dead. Or I'm half wrong, and the novel is elderly and graying. If that's the case though, it's not because culture is dead. It's not because we've lost something. Exactly the opposite in fact. We've found a way to retain our literary culture, our artistic use of language, in the modern era. There's been no death – Merely a refinement. If anything, it forces writers to be better.
Narrative Magazine recently had a small contest asking for people to contribute six word stories, in the tradition of the supposed original flash fiction piece by Hemingway. Hemingway's six word story, the product of a ten dollar bar bet, was the essence of succinct and powerful fiction: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”
If the internet influenced literary culture is cultivating a standard of writers who can do as much with as little as Hemingway, then we'll be just fine. The novels will happen, and when they do, they'll be magnificent.

Now, if we can just make it okay for men to read them. Maybe the internet will help that as well. If the publishers, and their often female staff focusing on the female 70% of the market, aren't delivering then the internet will.
Let's not lament what's happened to fiction, its still here – Rather lets ask “What's Happening to Fiction”, and what can we as readers and writers contribute.

Armed Bohemian

I have a new project - Armed Bohemian, a blog on some specific ideas about war, culture, warriors and related thoughts, problems and snarky comments.
This will let me leave Rum & Donuts as the personal forum I've created it to be. The ideas and questions that will be shaping Armed Bohemian are rather constant for me, and I'd rather give them their own playground than dominate this space with them.

Stay tuned - More to come, here, there, and elsewhere!

Market Forces

Imagine a world where corporate interests outstrip government. Where executives are celebrities. Where the division between the poor and the rich, the haves and have-nots, is enforced by law, and walls, and an economic standard soaked in blood. A world where executives compete with one another - for promotions, to win contracts, to settle disputes - via murderous road rage in specially designed and armored "battle-wagons". This is the world of Richard K. Morgan's "Market Forces", a character driven science fiction thriller set in the near, and all too believable, future of late 2040's London.
Market Forces protagonist (hero would be the wrong word) Chris Faulkner is an up and coming executive, or "driver" as he is one of the select few who can both afford to drive and are among the ranks of road-rage competing corporate agents. Faulkner, at the book's opening, has just been drafted into the ranks of Shorn Associates, Conflict Investment division. Riding on his work at a previous firm's Emerging Markets division, and the highly controversial yet celebrated kill on the road that won him that position, Faulkner meets immediate challenge. His coworkers and the partners at Shorn are far more bloodthirsty than Faulkner believes necessary, demanding that every roadway dual end in a positive kill. Faulkner is able to deliver extreme violence, as in his celebrated kill in which he ran over his competitor five times, but comes to Shorn with a preference for less bloodthirsty business approaches. This puts him at odds with other Shorn executives; Rivalries which only become worse when he proves successful in the division.
Conflict Investment is no nice thing – It is investment in, and guidance of, small wars for maximum profit. Shorn Associates is as bloodthirsty and greedy here as anywhere, and it pays. Conflict Investment is a money-maker, and success in the field means great gains, recognition and advancement for Faulkner. Being less bloodthirsty still does not give Faulkner clean hands, and as the pressure mounts, he becomes more and more blood-soaked. And he likes it – Every victory, every risk won out, is validation for the way he does business, and the ideals he brings to the game.
At the same time, it is his idealism that runs him aground. Faulkner is no mindless greed driven power player. He's come from the very bottom to get to where he is, and has built the beginnings of a good life. His wife, Carla, is a loving and kind force in his life, always encouraging the best of him. She holds him to be the better man, and not succumb to the sheer greed and immorality of his work.
As Faulkner rises to the top in the most cut-throat area of a cut-throat world, his professional drive and personal conscience conflict more and more. As he struggles with these disparate halves of himself and his life he is forced (or forces himself) into a decision between two paths, one of harmony in his family, and one of unbridled success.

Market Forces channels American Psycho with a Road Warrior ethic and a Dogs of War sensibility. The world created by Richard Morgan for his corporate samurai is one of merciless competition, bloody corporate affairs, unabashed profiteering, riding on a current of warfare and class oppression. In short, Morgan writes a world that, while exaggerated, doesn't seem too impossible or even too far off. In examining this potential future what the reader must ask themselves is if that is a good thing, and what role they want to play. These are the questions that are at the heart of the novel, driving its biting political dialog and fast paced action alike. The choices faced by Faulkner and those surrounding him are more than political, or monetary: Their very lives are at stake on the physical, moral and even human scale.
Market Forces is not an uplifting read. Faulkner is a great anti-hero, and is surrounded by similarly flawed individuals and their mistakes. Very few of these characters are merely two-dimensional, as Morgan is unafraid to delve into the vulgar depths of personality. These are very human people, and will force the reader into uncomfortable territory. At times it is like being in the room while your friend and his wife have a screaming argument. All you can do is watch as people you want to care about debase themselves and one another, screaming themselves into the deafening silence of mutually assured destruction.
Yet while not an uplifting read, it is a fundamentally good read. Morgan's characters resonate with that level of richness throughout, flowing effortlessly with the tautly woven story. Market Force is a book that draws you in, each page pulling you deeper into the quagmire of morality, violence and lust that consumes its characters. It will leave you breathless, and with the sensation that you may be accomplice to something awful, yet wanting more. A unique and masterful work of speculative fiction, Market Forces is a must read.

A Faith of Taps, Hand Dug Graves, and Cold Beer

The mystery that gives Catholic services their captivating effect is ruined, at least a measure, by conducting them in English. I watched, an outsider at the rear of the little church, resting my shoulders on the cool adobe wall. Walls witness to greater than one hundred years of such goings on. My heart rose to the twangs of Spanish guitar, and I rose with others, but never knelt. The priest did his stumbling best, and got us through it.
Bearing his coffin out, at the doors of the church they stopped. A deacon and a pall bearer removed the Catholic raiment from the coffin. Beneath the barely patterned white shroud, stripes of blood red and snow white, cornered with the star bearing field of blue. All holiness supposed of the ceremony just passed, stood miniscule in the face of the flag. Tears welled at the corners of my eyes.
As we followed the procession out the doors of the church, the flag gleamed all the more brightly in the desert sun. I looked across the graveyard of bare earth, at the miles of rocky, dry, hills. Standing in the corner of the graveyard, silver piping glimmering on his dress blues, was an Air Force bugler. Alien to the surrounding dust but mute and still as the native stones. The honor guard stood crisply at grave side. One of them a very pretty young woman, I could see a bead of sweat break on her forehead and roll to her eye with nary a blink.
A strong hand gripped my shoulder, almost painfully, as an old friend came to stand at my side. We watched quietly as the priest finished his graveside services. As before, he stumbled through it. His corpulence shaking beneath his robes as the heat tolled on him, he managed to carry it out. Looking around those gathered, most appeared to be holding their own court and ignoring the man. When he finished, an old man stepped forward. A man I've known all my life, tall and thin, his frame often bent by extreme age, he stood tall and stepped with his chest out. His shoulders back he lead the gathered mourners in prayer for a fallen veteran. His voice carried strong through the churchyard and echoed back from the rocky hillside and adobe walls. His eyes shone with tears, and his voice, thick with pride, broke only once. Finishing, his frame stiffened further, his starkly blue eyes straight ahead. Behind us in the stillness of the empty hot desert, a tongue wet dry lips. The slow strain of Taps filled the air, perfectly played. I stood stiff as hot tears welled to the music, and beside my old friend's eyes glistened. By the time the bugler had finished, and the honor guard had begun folding the flag, tears had flowed freely down both our cheeks.
As the honor guard marched smartly to the edge of the churchyard, the pallbearers lined up and began to slow move to take up the coffin, and then lower it into the earth. The gray box slid slowly down on the ropes, past the rough edges of the hand-dug grave. As the pallbearers pulled up their ropes and moved away, the mourners began to line up. Each taking a handful of earth from the shovel held by the funeral director, we cast it into the gave. Each handful raising a hollow echo to greet the next as it fell. And then everyone moved back, and the shovels came out. A handful of us handed our hats off to the side, and grabbed the shovels. Sweat pouring, each of us threw our backs into it and shovelful by shovelful gave our friend his rest. A lifetime cannot be buried, but a coffin can be covered and a grave mounded in a remarkable hurry. I stood back at the end, when the dirt was so little as to only require a final shovel to move and neaten and handed my shovel to its original owner. Hot and breathing hard, someone stuck a dripping, cold, Budweiser into my hands. Achingly cold from the cooler full of ice, I rolled it between my palms and across the sides of my neck before opening it. The first sip was cold, wet and perfect. The best beer is sometimes the cheapest, when its that cold and hard earned.
After that we just stood in the churchyard – The living among the dead - Shaking hands, clasping shoulders, and drinking beer.

My faith, my religion, is these things - Hard hands, dusty soil, hand dug graves, flag draped coffins, a bugle slowly aching Taps and the community of others who understand the same. If there is holiness, if anything is sacred, it is there.

Beer for my Gravediggers

That first cold sip of beer
grave dust dry on your lips
is a miracle
payment for doing Gods work
Heaving the soil onto the hallowed emptiness
each shovelful echoing dully
around the small shape inside the box
The emptiness that used to be a man
After that work, a cold beer is something holy
The can sweating, you roll it's unopened coldness
between dry hands and across your neck
It's cheap beer, but cold
you welcome that rushing hiss and the following
long drink of chilly wetness washing away
the parched, dust dry, cotton mouth
of grave-digging in the desert sun
Filled, you look at the mound you've made, higher,
the volume of a box, than the surrounding earth
The women place flowers, and the men stand leaning
on shovel handles, and old men on their sons
The honor guard quietly away, silver piping rippling
glittering across their blues in the coming-noon sun
as they slip off, duty done, strangers as they came
Rough hands at your shoulder, grabbing, squeezing
You smile, nod, shake hands and drink your beer
A man, alive, standing among men
in the little desert churchyard, tens of miles from a town
Grave dust on your hands, covering your boots
a promise