Prices and Habits

Gas prices are rising in our country every day. I put gas in my car yesterday at around $4.17 a gallon for regular unleaded. I'm a working musician so I really feel the crunch. Luckily for me I drive a small car that gets close to forty miles per gallon. Here's the thing: We as Americans complain and complain and complain about gas prices going up and how hard it is to get to work and how our household budgets our tightening down because of these outrageous prices for gasoline. But in Europe, people there pay about 8-9 dollars per gallon for fuel.

I drive a lot for work, to and from gigs; sometimes great distances and so I see a lot of cars on the road. And I've started noticing a few things. For one, with all this complaining about prices, people don't seem to be changing their driving habits at all. I still see people screaming down the freeway as fast as they can, 20 plus miles over the limit. Some of the biggest cars drive the fastest. These gigantic SUV's that get 10 miles to the gallon are driving faster than almost anyone else on the road. But it's not just SUV's. Even more compact, fuel efficient cars are zooming by, too. Those cars lose their fuel efficiency when they're taken to speeds that fast. A person shouldn't be driving a car that fast down the freeway anyway. I see people do this all the time, even with kids in the back seats. I read an article where the author asked why people drive some of the bigger cars and usually the answer was that they felt safer and that they wanted their family to feel safe. Let's just hope nothing happens when they're barreling down the road at 85 mph.

So if you're going complain about gas prices, just be sure to start after you've done just about all you can to control your own fuel situation. If not, we can still keep making donations to the church of Chevrotexarco and watch 'em laugh themselves silly all the way to the bank. Or, if we can just hold out long enough, we'll be able to use ethanol to fuel our cars......and eat corn for every meal.

Coyote Congregations & Train Engineers

The summers growing up in my hometown were always hot, still are. The sun baked down at the peak of the afternoon, sending most of the creatures into the shade and softening the asphalt on our street. The yard dogs panted beneath the cover of the broad-leafed mulberry trees while their owners stayed inside seeking cool, humid relief from their swamp coolers. The kids in the neighborhood usually tramped from each other’s houses, barefoot, sprinting across the scorching streets, sharing swimming pools and slip n’ slides. Come to think of it, I believe the only things that didn’t seem bothered by the triple-digit temperature were the “red” ants that jittered about their tiny little hills between the sidewalk cracks and along the dirt roads. We would stomp around their dens or disrupt their food-gathering caravans and soon the whole colony would be pouring out of that sandy mound like lava busting out of a volcano.

We lived on the outskirts of town next to an orange grove, an alfalfa field and farther on down the road, a plum orchard. The heat settled into the dirt and pavement and as soon as the night and moon would allow it, it radiated back up into the evening atmosphere, creating this amazing smell of crops and earth, composting plants and irrigation-ditch water. In the middle of the night the farmer's sprinklers came on in the groves, soaking the soil beneath the trees and giving the possums and jackrabbits something cool to drink. With the evaporating irrigation water this agricultural aroma would linger heavy and low throughout the entire valley floor. I could smell the bitter scent of the waxy citrus leaves and from over across the street, behind our neighbor's house, came the musty smell of the green alfalfa.

The nights are very still during the summer. There is rarely a breeze. I would lie awake in my bed with the windows open sometimes and let that thick summer air drift into my room. A heavy darkness looms through the whole neighborhood at that hour. The black sky would drape itself over the tops of the redwood trees in our yard like a circus tent, dangling its millions of little bright stars down so close, it seemed, that if you jumped high enough you might be able to grab one and pull it down. There is a street light near our house but it doesn’t seem to do any good. It flashes on at dusk every day, but it lost its fight against the night so many years ago that it just hangs its head and shines down only because that’s what the city pays it for.

Two of my favorite sounds in the whole world are the sounds I could hear outside at night while waiting to fall asleep. They are distant sounds, both, and to this day I haven’t heard better. Way off in the middle of the groves I could hear the laughing and crying and carrying-on of coyotes. They would congregate on one of the narrow, dirt, truck roads that divide the rows of orange trees. There may have only been ten, romping out there under the moon, buy they sounded like a hundred. I would sometimes see only one or two of them during the day, lanky and wire-haired, trotting along the side of the road with such indifference. And every so often, while my brother and I would be playing in the groves, we would see one and try to chase it as far as we could. This never went too far, though. The “hunted” coyote would slow it’s gait for just a second to let us catch up then would break from the turnrow, into the trees and disappear. But several hours after sundown it seemed like every one of them had gathered for the coyote social event of the year. They would raise their voices together and bark out an eerie song that sometimes sounded like choruses of children yelping out in the dark.

On other nights, the heavy, metallic boom of train cars being linked together echoed into my room. The freight yard, with it's intersecting tracks of the short-line San Joaquin Valley Railroad and the Union Pacific, was planted right between the big fruit-packing house and Filbert St. It was about a mile from my house and the coupling of those boxcars sounded like the distant report of cannons being fired. During the day the freight yard wasn't much more than a dry, dusty lot to ride our bikes through after school. Occasionally, we would hop up into the idle, graffiti-covered cars and pretend we were hobos. But it wasn't until the middle of the night, that the train yard really came to life, and the blast from the train’s horn as it crept out of the yard, could be heard from miles around. As a kid, I used to imagine myself riding high up in the engine's cab talking with the engineer about the load of oranges and lumber we'd be towing; laughing, telling stories and drinking hot black coffee from thermoses in the dark morning hours (it's funny because at that time I was too young to have been drinking coffee. I just knew that’s something that adults and movie cowboys did. So of course, I wanted to).

Things have changed a lot since those summer nights of my childhood. When I come back home I can't hear the coyotes as much anymore. They stopped hosting their canine parties when the farmer who owned the groves retired. In fact, his son sold much of the land away and the orange trees next to our fence became houses. The plum orchard was turned into another neighborhood and the alfalfa field got plowed under to make way for an elementary school. But nowadays, when I’m visiting, I open the window of my old room at night and just before sleep overtakes me, that same pungent, valley air drifts in through the screen, inducing faded dreams of coyote congregations and train engineers. My breathing slows and as I turn on my side, I can still hear the freight cars rumbling in the distance like thunder.

Memphis Snow

Memphis, TN Feb. 2, 2007 1:34 a.m.
photo by b.h.

The Union Pacific outside of Pixley, Califonia

photo by b.h.

The Real O.C.

Ahhh, Orange County...where all of God's creatures can live together on the roofs of buildings in peace and harmony. And you thought the reality T.V. show was the only cool thing to come out of Laguna Beach. Like, oh my God, look! There's totally some like, animals on that roof!

photo by b.h.

Habitats and Humanity

Every pretty little hill has been
Skinned and cut, scraped and chopped
to the ground,
To make room for a house
That looks the same as the next house
the same as the next house
the same as the next house on down.

Love and Cars

"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity."

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Storage and Literature

I feel like a damn gypsy most of the time. I move a lot and because I’ve had to move so much in the last year most of my stuff has gone into a storage unit. Storage compounds are interesting places. There are hallways that seem to go on endlessly with scores of locked doors to little rooms that just hold people’s stuff. The compound is monitored around the clock; padlocks on the doors, rows and rows of concrete and steel, a prison for stuff that won’t fit in the house. And to top it off, the whole time you’re there you’re forced to listen to smooth jazz blasting over the sound system.

Yep, that’s the kind of thing I’ve had to deal with for the past few months. I would open up the door to my storage unit and sometimes just stare at my junk, thinking about why I even had a storage unit (my girlfriend left me and I had to make room for the new boyfriend). I just stood there staring at my possessions, thinking about her and trying to find a way to get something out of there that I really needed that was probably in the back. I cursed my T.V. for taking up so much space. I cursed the vintage liquor cabinet that balanced up on its side to make room for the golf clubs. I pitied my record collection and I felt ashamed for locking up all my books. I didn’t want to touch anything, though, because it was so beautifully packed away. Once I pulled a stool out and just sat in the corridor by myself for an hour listening to horrible instrumental covers of songs that were horrible to begin with just so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.

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I love books. I read them as often as I can. I love the way they smell. I love the weight of books. When it comes to old books I love the fragile paper jackets and I feel very quiet when I open one. It’s fascinating to me to find writing scribbled inside old books, names and dates of people who gave the book as a gift or notes made in the margins with a fountain pen. Yes, I felt a little ashamed for keeping my books locked up in boxes. So when the time came to move all my stuff out of my storage unit, the first thing I did was go out and buy a bookcase.

I opened up the first box, like a kid at Christmas. Paperbacks. Second Box, educational books. Third and fourth boxes, hardbacks. There they all were, waiting for me to let them out. Waiting to reminisce with me about their stories. The early edition of “The Godfather”, the leather-bound “Lord Of The Rings”, volumes by Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, and William Shakespeare went onto the shelf. I rediscovered Don Quixote and The Count of Monte Cristo as well as Watership Down and To Kill A Mockingbird and finally the prize…my collection of John Steinbeck. I’ve read almost every book ever written by Steinbeck so it felt good to get those out on the shelf.

----

Right now my room is completely cluttered and filled with half-empty boxes of memories. Some, I'm holding on to, some I’d love to forget and so I’ve started the whole process over again. I’m cursing my T.V. because I haven’t even watched television on that thing in over a year and it’s just sitting in the living room on the floor. My liquor cabinet, as cool and hip as I think it is, is really kind of worthless because I don’t drink enough alcohol to warrant having a piece of furniture to store it. I did organize all of my records but my turntable and speakers are still sitting in a corner. I found shelves for all my books, but now that they’re all in the bookcase I’ve realized that I need to move the thing over about 4 more inches so I can make room for my stupid CD rack.

I’m not too worried, though. I’m making some progress. My photographs and paintings will take their places on new walls. My shirts and such will all have their hangers. The vacuum cleaner will sing once more over the entire floor, not just the path of carpet I’ve made that leads to the bed and bathroom. Eventually everything will find its place…just in time for me to move again.

Letter to S.S.(6 Jan. 06, 3:25 p.m.)

I was sitting at a picnic table outside Juanita's Taco Shop in Encinitas, having a carne asada burrito. I was just eating and reading when I saw a female Brewer's blackbird flutter around my feet. She was just hopping here and there snatching up little pieces of grass and twigs with her beak. Some, she held for a few seconds then rejected, others she dragged over to a little pile. She was preparing a nest, I guess.

People walked by from time to time and the traffic at the nearby intersection just clamored; so hectic and hurried and oblivious. And still there foraging was this mama blackbird, not afraid of me or anyone else. She had things to do.

As I watched the delicate animal do her work, I sensed such power in that little moment. I recalled passages in the Bible when Jesus spoke about how we fret and stress about things; that if God provides for the little birds, how much more will he provide for us.

I realized, that for a moment, I was oblivious, too. I had disregarded everything else; cars, asphalt, people, noise and focused on the bird. Soon, other blackbirds had joined her and then, all at once, they flashed away to a nearby power line to congregate with the rest of the flock.

This world would be so much easier to handle if we all just took some time and watched birds.

Ben

Bobcat Hunting On The Hill

It was early in the morning when my brother and I set out for the hill. Our plan was to do a little trail running and I knew how tough it was going to be. I don’t like getting up early to run. I like getting up early to read or look at the mountains with a cup of coffee in my hand, not to shock my body with a lot of aerobic stress. But my brother wanted to and because I was home visiting I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my family and also because I’m older than he is and couldn’t let him think I was a wimp.

The hill was so green, a huge green mound peppered with granite boulders, wild with scrub oaks and brambles. I stepped out of the car at the base of the hill and felt the cold, dry air fill my nostrils. I knew this was going to hurt.

We started out fairly easy, along a flat trail that skirted the northeastern side. The hearty grass was wet with dew and the clay earth of the trail was soft from the previous week’s rain. Almost immediately, water soaked into the toes of my shoes, then into my socks. I hate that.

We turned to follow the trail curling up into the hillside. I pushed myself hard to make the initial ascent and could feel the pressure in my knees. As we neared the top I was losing steam and because of the steep grade of the trail I was walking more than jogging now. I bit off more than I could chew, I thought, as I watched my brother bound up the hill like a deer.

Soon after, I stopped completely, lied down on a flat, mossy boulder and tried to keep myself from vomiting. I think I was done jogging for the day. My brother reached the crest of the hill before coming back to see if I was all right.

“You ok?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I just need to take a little break,” I replied quietly as the blood pounded in my ears.

He waited for a moment at the edge of the rock I had collapsed on and looked out across the quiet valley that lay below.

“Hey, Ben,” he whispered, almost as if he were waking me up from a nap, “check this out”.

I managed to get to my feet; my head swishing like a fish bowl and peered over the edge of the boulder. He pointed to a tiny clearing in a thick briar patch just a few feet down. I didn’t see it at first, but when he made me take his place on the rock to look, I saw it. There, in the clearing, among the rambling arms and thorns of the briar was a little brown cottontail rabbit. Its ears were laid back against its body and it remained completely motionless as if it were convinced that we couldn’t see it if it didn’t move.

How my brother spotted that thing, I’ll never know. But here’s the thing about my brother, he’s always been like that, ever since we were kids. He has a special sense when it comes to natural things. I can remember once, we were walking through this alfalfa field near our house; the dense green plants coming up to our waists, and he stopped in his tracks because something caught his eye. Turning and kneeling down in the alfalfa, he showed me a toad halfway buried in the damp soil.

By now, my strength had returned and we decided to resume our trek over the hill. The sun was warm and clear up on the ridge, a perfect day for being outside. Occasionally, we’d come across some range cattle grazing among the rocks and trees. A couple of them would stand their ground for a moment, out of curiosity, then trot away to join the rest of the herd. We jogged down into shaded gullies then back up following narrow paths winding through the brush. Sometimes we came to barbed wire fences and had to crawl on our bellies or vault over them to pass.

Finally, my brother and I decided that it was about time to start heading back down to the car. We gazed out across the face of the hill to see if we might find another trail to lead us down.

“Hey, what’s that?” he said, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Do you see that?”

He pointed to something perched on a rock near a gathering of trees; about forty yards in the distance.

“It looks like it might be a bobcat,” I answered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one up here before.”

The bobcat probably saw and smelled us long before we ever spotted it. It paused for a second to check us out, then leaped off the rock and out of sight.

“Let’s go after it,” he said, with a grin on his face, heading off in the direction of the bobcat.

We scrambled down a gentle slope and into a quiet, grassy area lined with more scrub oaks and tall, craggy boulders all covered with moss. A perfect place for a bobcat’s den, I thought. The ground was soft with a thick layer of compost from fallen leaves and dark earth, making our steps silent. We had to hunch down low, at times, passing under the great, twisted branches of the trees. We whispered to each other as we explored, wondering where the thing had gone to or if one of us had seen anything resembling a den. We searched for tracks and the bones of prey, but found neither.

My brother and I used to do stuff like this all the time as kids. We caught lizards and built forts. We’d run through the fields and orchards near our house or, with BB guns over our shoulders, trudge through thick sagebrush on “expeditions” out at our grandparents ranch in the hills above Salinas. To this day, I can’t help but think of those times when I catch the scent of sage on a warm summer afternoon.

The bobcat had vanished, it seemed. But it was in those few moments that I was reminded of the relationship I had with my brother. We were always going to be like this, even when we’re old men. We’re always going to be Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, always fascinated by nature, always hunting bobcats.

Sunsets and Transmissions

My clutch wasn't working right so I took it to this little transmission shop that a friend had recommended. My car's always making some kinda' funny noise and I'm not a car person so I don't know what the noises mean.

The shop is small, dark and messy and they may take a little longer getting your car back to you, but I trust the mechanics there for some reason. Sometimes I think that once in awhile you should trust a shop like that because it seems normal. What I mean is, that it reflects real life. Most of the time life is dark and messy and the people that look funky with jail tatoos on their neck and gold chains are actually the ones looking out for you. Once in awhile it's the shop that's perfect, that has all it's individual tools hanging on their assigned hooks and in their drawers, no oil on the floor and a pretty receptionist, that makes me suspicious. Like a televangelist.

So, I was waiting outside this little transmission shop, waiting out on the sidewalk watching the cars go by and I noticed the cememtary across the street. I've passed this cemetary dozens of times; actually my ex-girlfriend used to hold her breath when we would drive by it because it has big old tombstones and she was always afraid of spirits or something entering her body through her mouth and nose.

It was close to five o'clock in the evening and I was watching this cemetary across the street and I noticed that all the tall, ornate, old tombstones all faced west, directly into the setting sun. Into the fading light. That's pretty interesting. I wonder if the folks that first plotted out that little cemetery planned that.

1st entry

I hope everyone will enjoy this journal. The title refers to heaven and earth because those are the things that I think most about, I guess...people, souls, relationships, nature, eternity and everything in between. I'm too tired right now to give a full fledged entry so you'll just have to wait for another day.