The Last One Leaving Tomorrow for Napa

Bye!

More Daydee -Gonna do shorter segments

(She's up to about 120 MSS pages right now.)

Daydee went back to the cemetery on Saturday morning to make sure everything was set-up and in order for the funeral. She misjudged the time and pulled up as the service was under way. It was too late for any last minute fixes now. It didn’t matter, she decided. Jack was nowhere to be seen and she wouldn’t know what to do if there was a problem. The vault must have been installed because it wasn’t sitting where she had left it. The little railing was around the grave and the casket was ready to be lowered.  The aunt and son were in attendance with the grieving widow all in black. There seven old men and a minster and the gun salute squad in ratty uniforms. She stood a little distance away, so she wouldn’t intrude. The widow was visibly upset.  The minster moaned on and on. She had never appreciated church or ministers- this guy was especially sorrowful. She hoped Jack would be better than this tomorrow. Then it occurred to her that there must have been a few times when, he had to dig the hole, set the whole thing up and then return to conduct the service, and then return later to close the grave. Sort of like tucking children in for the night. That must have been the case with her own mother’s funeral.  And he probably didn’t get paid in her case. She would have to ask. It is just like these hayseeds to act noble about it, so you would have to read their minds.  The service was touching. The widow obviously had loved her husband and the aunt and son were just as pained looking. It must be something to be loved for years and grieved for after your life was over. How do you get that, she wondered.  They were lowering the casket and, each in turn, gently spreading a handful of dirt over the over the top. Everyone strolled away, leaving the widow alone beside the grave.  The aunt and son nodded and stood beside to wait on her. Daydee must have missed the salute, for the honor guard was leaving in a car. The widow finally turned and came toward them.

Daydee wasn’t sure of what to say to her. She felt bad about witnessing her grief. She stretched out her hand. It was ignored.

“We are all so sorry for your loss,” Daydee said.

The woman set her jaw.

“And who are you?”

“Ma’am, I represent the cemetery.”

“Oh, you’re the runaway.”

“Not much of one it seems,” Daydee said.

“This is the way you dress for a service?”

Daydee had on slacks and a blouse.

“I’m sorry; I was just here to check that everything was done properly. I wasn’t trying to insinuate myself into the funeral party.”

“Since when does anyone need an invitation to attend a memorial service?” the widow asked.

“I wouldn’t know, I’m new to this. It was a lovely service.”

“Thank you,” the widow said a coldly as she could muster and took her son’s arm and they walked off toward the car.

Daydee wanted to yell ‘Nice hat,’ after her, but bit her tongue.

They were a little late. Most of the congregation was seated in the pews. Jack was up in front in his pastor clothes, looking quite dapper. Winston had appeared, in black suit and tie, as if he were attending a funeral and was very nervous. He asked her three times if he looked all right. They drove over very slowly. The suit was tight and was showing its age, and probably was the only one he owned. He was shaking as they climbed the steps out front. It was the typical white Midwest church with steeple and columns. It was Presbyterian. Daydee didn’t know anything about the differences between the different Christian faiths, other than she thought the Presbyterian and the Methodists were slighter upper middle class and the Baptists and the Penacostals were farmers and stupider.  At first just a few heads turned when they came down the aisle, but there was an odd wave effect and more and more were looking back. Mostly the women. She spotted her realtor and waved. Winston was in shock. He pulled her into a pew and they sat down.   Jack looked very surprised and then smiled at her briefly.  He started the introduction to his sermon. They were asked to bow their heads and pray. Winston put his head over his two hands like a child might do. Daydee never really prayed in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. She watched the others. Everyone was busy bowing their heads, so no one noticed. Jack had his eyes closed.

As she sat there, as the prayer ended and he began preaching, she became aware of all the smells around her from the other people, the colognes, and Winston’s sweat and general stuffiness of the church. The cleaning stuff on the pews- that stupid Liquid Gold. The nausea over took her in a wave. She had to get out of there. She was going to lose it. She got up carefully. Winston had  a panicked look. She patted his hand and quickly walked back down the aisle. There had to be a restroom somewhere up by the front door. She found it and made it inside and into a stall and immediately lost her breakfast.   Usually that would be it, but the nausea didn’t stop and she was dry heaving a bit before she could finally stop. She felt like shit, And she hadn’t even had anything to drink the night before. She found a small window and managed to open it. The fresh air helped.

The restroom door opened and her realtor and another woman came in. There was an awkward moment.

“Are you all right?” the other woman asked.

Daydee nodded and went to the sink. The mirror was old and spotted, it was hard to tell what had happened to her lipstick. She wetted a paper towel and daubed her mouth and her forehead.

“You had it bad,” the women said.

Daydee looked from her to Sarah.

“This is Jack’s wife,” Sarah said, as if that explained it. “She’s the minister’s wife, runs a lot of the church activities…helps the shut-ins… the young mothers…”

“I was just going to the bathroom,” Daydee said.

“The bathroom sort of echoes out into the main hall. No one really uses when there are services. It’s weird, I know. We should put up a sign on the door or something,” the woman said.

“I’m Deidre, Mrs. Jack’s wife. What’s your name?”

“Susan.”

They shook hands. “Pleased to meet you,” Daydee said.

“If you need any help, just holler.” Susan told her. “My morning sickness was horrible with all three. I thought I was going to die.”

They all went outside. The entire church seemed to glancing at her and talking among themselves. Winston got up and walked back to her.

“Can we get out of here?” Daydee asked in a whisper.

He nodded and they left the church. No one followed.

“So the whole fucking congregation heard me barfing?”

“I’m afraid so,” Winston said. He looked a little white.

“You take me home?”

When they pulled up in front of her building, Winston scratched his head.

“Maybe I should come by to help you cover up that graffiti.”

“I’ll take of it,“ she said.

“I mean it, I can help.  So who is the father?”

She got out of the car.

“Wait, would you want to go back to church with me again? We could go to another one. There’s a nice little Lutheran one a mile from here.”

“Let me think about,” she said. She was going to be sick again, so she hurried in.

Listen

What You Find Part Two

Cleaning and rearranging the studio, I ran across a three ring binder I had kept that I forgot I had. When I turned forty, we invited everyone we knew over to our little house in Venice and I told everyone to bring a poem rather than a present. I put them all in a notebook and kept them.There were a lot of home made poems. A giant Cootie Catcher with meaningful secrets to explain life's mysteries. A couple of poems from people that are real poets. Lorraine, who has published over 100 poems, maybe more, who is now in a nursing home back in Indiana, wrote one that I'm trying to incorporate into a song I'm writing about her. In the back were these two. This was '92, so they were about three. The writing is the nanny's. Maybe I'll try scanning some more of it later.

Gone

These were the hash marks that marked the bears' growth. The boy bear almost reached the top of the door sill and me just below it. We painted the room Saturday. They are gone. Another father from the Boy Scout Troop, who I run into occasionally in Thrift Stores looking for books, told me he transferred his family's to a better doorway in better handwriting. We have a photo. They've stopped growing anyhow.

Weekend- What I did and wished I'd done

Let's rewind my week-in. Its about ten, I just finished de-cluttering my studio space. Rearranged my books into the added space (we had emptied a couple of bookshelves by moving all our picture albums into the new found space of my son's not longer occupied bedroom), made a good place to sit and practice the banjo, dusted shelves and got rid of the books sitting atop books look

This was after a 30 mile bike-ride with three guys working on their Boy Scout Cycling Merit Badge. Two of them actually finished today. We rode from Westchester up the bike path on the beach to Vence & Santa Monica and back. Venice and Santa Monica looked and felt like this. It was hot, but the beach was breezy and cool all day, although there were thousands of people out. We stopped on the Santa Monica Pier for Ice Cream and Onion rings. Left at noon, got back at five.

Went to the Red Ribbons Square Dance Saturday night. Did pretty well for being just beginners. Saw everybody we've gotten to be friends with. Left early cause we had been painting all day.

Painted my empty bear son's room most of the day. Had done the prep earlier. About this color.

Friday night, while my last bear at home had a party to celebrate the end of summer, I got sloshed and built Facebook and Myspace pages for the band. Wayne calls me because the event defaulted to Saturday's date for a gig we've booked in October. He wanted to know if we were playing tomorrow.

What I missed is below.

What I wish I'd done

Make it to the Saturday Morning Bluegrass Jam.

Made to a friend's reading of her play

Gone to Yoga

Gone to Dog's Jam Sunday night.

Oh well. I guess I'm felling better

What I do In My Spare Time

Hi Mr. McNay –

I’m researching the artist John La Farge at present, and I ran across your excellent Helena DeKay Gilder Web site. In particular, I noticed your suggestion that the “Infant Bacchus” window by La Farge is based on a photo of Helena Gilder and her son Rodman. I’ve seen the photo, but I didn’t know that was Helena in it! Do you think you could share the documentary source for the identification of Helena in the photo – or for the circumstance surrounding Helena’s posing for the photo in general?

Thanks, and thanks for your very informative Web site,

-katie kresser

Katie,

One of the sources is a book "John La Farge" Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, National Musuen of American Art, Smithsonian, -Abbeville Press 1987- Top of Page 211. There was another source, but I don't recall where. The photograph was taken in the Gilder home, when they were having 'staged motifs' the family and guests would dress up and pose in classical images and they arranged for photos to be taken. There might even be a painting that she modeled her pose from- but I've not gone to look at it. The source above says that the identical photo was found in the Gilder family album. I'd like to know where to find the photo. Is it available on line somewhere?

You know about Winslow Homer's brown and blue painting of the woman being blown by a strong wind on a hillside?

Hope this helps.

Dan

If you haven't visited my site- this is where the traffic is. I'm a nationally known expert on her.

Helena's World

Another Nail In The Coffin of the Little Guy

 

This is Roz & partner. I sent the application in in May with a check. The trouble with being tall, is that people remember you. I was in the self-published area the first year I was there and then they did away with it. I came back the next year because I am a book dealer. They bumped me from a corner with traffic because she's friends with this weird women's coop that took my spot.I didn't go last year. I cannot believe that they didn't get my application way before all the other exhibitors. They also did not respond a month ago when I tried to find out status. Perhaps they didn't remember me. Which is even more angering. Anyone want to protest the book machine that rolls on without a concern about anything that is not chick lit?

Hi Dan,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

We have much less space than normal due to construction in the park, and have had to reduce our number of exhibitors this year. Unfortunately, we will not be able to feature 'Round The Block Books this year.

We should have more space next year, and we hope you'll apply.

Thank you.

Yours,

Roz Helfand

Director

West Hollywood Book Fair

-----Original Message-----

From: Dan McNay [mailto:mcnay@mosis.com]

Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 4:16 PM

To: Roz Helfand

Subject: 'Round The Block Books

I submitted an application with an enclosed several months ago for an table/ booth at the event. I have not heard from anyone there and I am not listed at an exhibitor. Can you tell me the status of my application?

Dan McNay

'Round The Block Books

L.A.C.E.S. Fundraising

All three of my bears went to a school in LA called the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, it was a Magnet College Prep School part of LA Unified Schools. Grades 6 to 12. High quality education- all the kids were driven off to college. Anyway, it didn't look like this when we first got there. What Television did to this School later after I was gone Anyhow, it was run down and very worn out, as was the Principal and the parent organization. A few years before one of the parents was a member of Hiroshima, a jazz fusion groups that had some hit albums in the eighties. They had put on a concert and it earned the parent group big bucks. They tried to it the following year without the band and they lost money. We attended the concert and they had a weak little Silent Auction and I went afterward and offered to do the auction the next year. They said great. So I pumped it up one more time. Passed out thing to parents, did a mailing and actually put a pretty good one together despite the general lack of help from any other parent. So I was ready I went to tell them how I was going to conduct it, and they told me they didn't like it and I wasn't to do it that way. I wanted to set it up outside so the concert goers could wander over and bid on things, and so I could hear the music as well. They refused. I got mad and told them I wasn't going to do it then, I arranged it all, took it to the school and handed it off to the Student Leadership to run and they stuck it in the cafeteria so 'nothing would be stolen' It made five thousand. The event itself lost five thousand. And ass##$ that ran the parent group didn't bat an eye. I tried the following year, to get the parent group to pass a bylaw saying that events that lost money shouldn't be repeated, and needed review and approval of a majority before even a consideration of proceeding. It didn't go anywhere. The chief ass##$ died suddenly a year later. I didn't miss the pompous pa-toot  And you would think I'd be done with all of this.

That the entrance to the Art Room above

Sunday

Rhubarb Meringue Pie missing three, but we sounded ok. Played the Fairfax High Swap Meet from 10- 12:30. Thirty dollars in tips. A lot of people coming to eat and listen. Some of the folks we know from the Square Dance showed up. Even a little applause! I've got video, but it is suffering from music stand itis. I set it on a chair, but it was too low to see Nancy and Craig because of their music stands. We are going back in September and I will try again. Will edit and put up a few anyhow.

This is Ray's wife who we've met at Square Dances. Ray took the picture. Everyone gets a kick out of how tall I really am. That's the Band T-Shirt. That's the big guy having too much fun with all of this. You get the picture.

Worth Reading

The scoop on Old Crow Medicine Show

And The Song Rolls On

Hootenanny for a 25 year old

Half of the band played at a private party in Santa Monica last night. A twenty five year old that like Bluegrass music. We screwed up several times. The mandolin player just can't play if its not in the mechanical time he has written down. We had to start over on a couple of songs with us counting together. The new lady singer wants to emote and sing slow love ballads. They sent someone over to ask us to liven it up. Which we did. Ended with Wagon Wheel which drew everyone over to listen and the the other two decided to do an encore of Summertime which went over like a lead balloon. Interesting experience. We've mostly been playing to our age group. Time to liven up.



Now the real thing:

If You Haven't Heard Part Two

From Her new CD

Well, We're on the road again

Just spent three hours going over all our songs with the potential new band members. Two ladies I picked up from the crowd at The Talking Stick, a local open mic night place in Venice. I was worried about if they were nuts or not, but they are gung ho about the music and both of them play well/ So we're on again. We've lost two members and may be losing our fiddle player. I was worried about it turning negative but it hasn't. I got gigs, one in September, three in October, and more on the way. What a way to spend your old age! I facilitate!

Fundraising Part 3

So, recently so successful at raising money at the school, I foolishly told the Chair of our Cub Scout Troop that I could do one for their annual Blue & Gold Dinner. I used the same mailing list I had already built. Got all sorts of stuff. Meanwhile, as it's getting closer to the day of the thing, I have surgery to remove varicose veins from my right leg. I was having serious circulation problems with open sores on my feet that wouldn't heal, so it had to be done. I came home like this:

And never being one to take it easy, I proceeded to drive around and collect things and got it all to the hall and got it set up and ran the thing that evening. This bandage was getting tighter and tighter and I was running a fever. I called to talk to someone at the doctors who did the surgery and their secretary told me she thought it was just the flu. (I didn't know at the time it was a secretary giving me medical advice.) After the whole thing was over and I think we made 2 or 3 thousand, I began to get sicker. I went to the doctor. He unwrapped the leg- it was agonizing to bend it or walk very far. It turned out that I had developed an abscess under the wrapping and they cleaned the lumpy blood out and put me in the hospital for 2 weeks under forced bed rest and an IV full of antibiotics. The hospital stay is another story unto itself. My first room mate was a guy who had a three organ transplant and slept all day and stayed up all night with his family in attendance even after visiting hours. I was miserable and got no sleep. I finally complained and they gave me another room with an old guy that was comatose and dying. Ir was very quiet there. He died while I was there I think  I did read William Least Heat Moon's "River Horse" and Jim Harrison's "The Road Home" both really good reads- both something to hold on to while you are confined.

Fund Raisers I Have Known- Part 2

I did three years in a row at the Fairburn Elementary Spring Fair and Silent Auction. I described the first year a little. The same group of people did it with me. My Silent Auctions brought in 10K every year for three years. I tried fine tuning the process, worked on my mailing lists (you sent come on letters to known contributors and they mailed you back things) You hit up people you knew, like hairdressers and handymen. You sent out good-looking moms to solicit for you, I said every year, if I had just two or three gorgeous moms out there asking, I could make 20K easy. There were a few. One year a lady just would randomly ask and she had a gift. She'd walk in with a violin, then a CD set, then a fine art print. The school was 5 blocks from Westwood Boulevard, a main street lined with businesses that leads into UCLA. I walked the street and stopped in every store front on both sides of the street for a mile stretch. Really got very little. Just a couple of shops that continued to give every year. I sold the kids' artwork back to their parents. Sold front row seats in the auditorium for school functions. Discovered that I could get $500.00 a pop from big corporations, just by putting the right documents together in a packet. (I suggested, after I discovered this process, that we stop doing the Fair and just write letters with the proper documents to big corporation and earn our yearly budgets that way. No one wanted to try it.) Some of the dads would come and sit with me the day of so they could take credit even though they did very little. One of them volunteered to help me close up the auction and mark all the high bids so that bidders could back and collect what they won to pay for them. I'd circled the high bid with a big red marker and initial it. It turned out he only wanted to do it, so he could put down a higher bid and mark it and buy it himself.
 
There was a school down the street from us that was a Charter School and had much wealthier parents and early on I found out that they had been given a Jeep Cherokee to auction off. I tried for three years to get a car donated but never did. Not even an older clunker.

When my two main partners in the fair retired, I did too. I've been told the school has never seen the likes of my auctions since. But we are all replaceable. 

Where you want to be next Sunday

Fairfax High Swap Meet and Rhubarb Meringue Pie

We'll be playing and singing from 10:00 to 12:30 at the Food Court. Come by. and eat. And cheer us on.

What I was doing yesterday:

Me and Allie singing a silly song from Juno

Odds & Ends

Tim's Memorial Site

Our fiddle player looked out at the crowd from the stage and said that this was really middle america. I realized at the church service that I probably know a hundred adults out here, not to mention their kids.

Jake, the skinny one with the fish, is getting his Eagle next Sunday afternoon from the Boy Scouts. Good guy, he's turned into a gung-ho kid like my bear boy.

Life goes on.

We're off to Square Dance tonight and hang out with 80ish set that go for drinks afterward.

What to Tell You

This wasn't exactly what it looked like, but you get the idea. Tim couldn't play with the band on Sunday mornings because he was an usher and a greeter at the Visitation Church in Westchester. The entire whole congregation knew him. There were 400 people at the memorial service. There were 200 people at the reception at the Knights of Columbus hall afterwards. I met a guy I'm friends with at work there. An actor that I've seen on TV. The entire Boy Scout Troop showed up. Our little band showed and played three songs at the reception. Tim had been bragging about us, about playing with us, it seems. We couldn't even hear ourselves over the noise level in the hall. Its ok. I showed up with Craig, our mandolin and harmonica player at 10:00 am and no one was there. They had set up the hall the day before. The door was open. Tim was the guy that had the key to the door. So we set up and I left him there as I went off to the church. When I came back we were all there. I am continually amazed that these folks show up. We played out 3 little songs we could barely hear each other. My wife said we couldn't even be heard in the back of the hall. But we all felt we had done our duty. The bonds of music are much much stronger than any thing else in the world. I can play for five minutes with a total stranger and be ready to see and meet up with them again, no matter what.
Tim was a little guy- he had little guys reaction to to me- but we connected- we were equal when it came to playing and singing. I wish he was going to be around to see what was to come.
Shit!

What We Don't Know

Mrs. Dalloway- a manuscript page. Hadn't been for Leonard, there probably wouldn't been any published books.

In her last note to her husband she wrote:

“

Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.[26]

”

She put rocks in her pockets and walked off into a river. Mrs Dalloway is worth the read. Nice easy flow of words- easy to read, and a pleasure for the language and stream of consciousness narrative. Wonder if anyone could write like this today and get it published by anyone. I'm about 60 pages in- doing 4-5 pages every day at lunch to savor it. 

What I did all day Saturday

Dryer Sheets

These things drift around our house like dust bunnies. There is no telling where you might find one. One the kitchen table, where my wife folds laundry. On our bed, where I usually fold laundry. But they could be anywhere. When I find one, I try to give to the person whose last load of laundry was the one just folded. Usually they won't accept it from me, so I have to stick it into their pocket or shoe. People run from me and leave the thing lying in the middle of the floor. Guess who gets to throw it away. It's my role in life to capture these things. Somehow its connected with closing half-opened drawers that others seem to leave before completing a simple act of pushing the thing closed. 

Found metaphors at our house

There was a tree out front. I found it growing next to the house- a gardener oversight, transplanted it twice and then let it grow. My neighbor hated it because it did match the other trees on the street. It grew and grew and split into a giant forked tree. I wanted it for shade in the front yard when I sat out there with the kids in the summer time. By the time it was large enough to provide shade, we were no longer sitting out there. The kids had grown to old to play with hoses and such. It had its' ups and downs. We really never trimmed it properly. Finally, one side just fell in a giant thump one afternoon while I was off back packing the Grand Canyon. This was shortly after my boy bear moved completely out of the house. My younger daughter went out to move the car just to make sure and her older sister came running out afraid that she was under the tree somewhere. All are good. The tree only hit the yard and not the house or the cars. The city came and cut the entire thing down- both branches. And left a city placard for the next crew to come remove the trunk. They told my wife that she should not hold her breath waiting for the trunk removal. I put the placard away after a couple of weeks. The gardener says he thinks there were termites in the tree trunk. The tree is growing again. My wife says this time we will keep it trimmed properly. This is not a metaphor. This is not a pipe.

Ouch

Ok, so I didn't crack a rib. I didn't break anything. A scrapped shin and elbow. I thumped my back something fierce. Why wasn't I wearing a helmet? Because I never do. I twisted so I wouldn't hit my head and landed mostly on the lower right part of my back. It been hurting all weekend and Monday I went to the ER to make sure I didn't do anything else besides what I felt. They gave me a prescription for pain meds. I haven't been able to sleep all night without meds. And now the meds are making me bound up. It is getting a little better. I've been driving to work and back. Managed to bring my Banjo in and take it to McCabe's and pick it up from McCabe's the next day. A tuner peg broke and I decided it was time for a new set of strings. (The only time in its little boy life that it's ever had a new set, me thinks.)  The bike survived. It got two new pedals. The reason I crashed was that one pedal snapped off as I was climbing a very big hill. Serves me right- the pedals were the original ones that were as old as the frame (maybe 20 years old). I need a shop to take me to get me a couple of new back muscles. I don't like feeling aches and pains. Mama!

More Snow Shots from Yosemite (and One Action Shot)

I've no idea what was happening, but it looks important, huh?

What to do?

Well, I've finally finished 467 pages of Volumes 1! There are an additional 200 pages of notes, Appendixes, References and assorted other scholarly activities. I looked through it for references to the Gilders and relatives and pretty much found what I already am aware of. The narrative is funny, and touching and sad and well worth doing if you have six months or so.

"Mark Twain dictated much of the book from a big rumpled bed. Reading it is a bit like climbing in there with him," -Roy Blount Jr. (Blurb from the back of the dust jacket) This is very true.

I think I'm done for now. Will not doubt go back to the notes later when I start starting on the Gilder project.

http://helenadekaygilder.org/marktwain/index.htm if you want to know what I know