Monday Memoir, Nov 10, 1967

 Roadblocks, detours and delays. It just kept stretching out. When will the finale come?  The 4th and 5th I went back down, maybe just for one day. My notees were not clear, . Nick did not drive so I rode down with Louie and back with another driver I did not know. I was fighting off depression and it was hard. I still had too many things waiting to see what would happen and it had spread into my regular 'school' hours too. But when I tried to back off trom the family equine stuff, I would think about Dusty and admit how much it hurt to have not heard from him for so long. I knew it would  probably be a long time and maybe never again but I  had to wonder "Why did he have to pull the pin on me now?  At this time? I need something to cling to so much!" But I realized later he did not know. Later I learned a lot more of the why and realized it was not his choice, just fate and reality. So on...

 Nov 8, Wednesday

Here I am just wasting time when I should be doing soemthing useful but I don't have my government book with me and I don't feel like reading Marketing.  I just got a letter from Mom. She is planning to get to Prescott this week. I hope she will make it. The hearing is to be next Tuesday. I do not know yet whether I shall go or stay this weekend.  That remains to be seen and depends on how things work out. I may just stay, study, sew, and watch the rail and then go next weekend if she has not left by then. Perhaps she could come to Flag with me and take the train east then. We'll see.  I wrote to Jim last night; perhaps I shouldn't have but...he has not been in contact at all and with the people he knows and has to work with, the Morgan fiasco has to put a big shade on me. But I do seriously need somebody for a male friend if I cannot quite manage a lover for the time being. I should go todayand have a chest x-ray and a flu shot if the unit is still there when I go to change my sheets after lunch. I really cannot afford to get down sick this year and 50 cents is a small price to pay for an ounce of prevention. My paragraphing is atrocious. I throw together all sorts of unrelated ideas. Let's see. Tonight is Rodeo Club. I must remember to take Coleen's purse. Then ,I need to write Linda and Shirl (pen pals) wash my hair and read some psych or marketing. Tomorrow morning I must finish the Govt reading and study/review on it in the evening after Mom calls. I have been in an awful mood for three days--not unusual when I am due and late. My system is really screwed up. I never know when to expect the monthlies anymore but I used to be pretty regular.  No doubt I should go and have a check-up but I keep putting it off along with getting work on my teeth. It is so easy to get to where you just don't give a hang so long as it is not agonizingly painful.  I am wearing the new red shirt today and just thought if it fades on my pink shell, I will be really ticked.  Had better go as it is almost time for accounting, then an hour of govt and finally lunch and "freedom.'"

The rest of the week passed unwritten. Again my memorywavers and things do not quite seem to match up and make sense. Why would Mom got to Prescott midweek unless Dad insisted to see her? She could not truly leave before the hearing and whatever evolved then, anyway. She had considered going to Phoenix and taking a bus to Kentucky. I was almost admanat she and Alex needed to take the train and was more than willing to make their reservations and get the tickets, paying them myself. I know that Leo, Lyno and Buzzie were gone and I think someone had taken Chief. I must have arranged for Twinkles and Cyn Mas as well but the details were never recorded. Charlie Mike had given Ringo to the landlord so there were no more animals to care for, at least. 

Another forgotten thing--I knew Mom had someone drive the big Green Ford to Prescott with  some stuff they still had in it but then what? The stuff was stored in the warehouse with the part the seizure did not claim, but  I know we/they never got the truck back. Did she sell it? Did they seize it?  Charlie Mike was gone so he may not know. Alex would but I never thought to ask him and now he has been gone twenty years! I did go back down once more I know but that is for the last two November memories. 

Photos: A year or two earlier but memories... Charlie Mike holding Buzzie with the F750 in the background. We did get good use out of that truck after trading for it in about 1960. And Alex on Leo, earlier that 1967 summer. So I honor both my brothers and two of the special horses. All of their lives were changed so drastically in a couple of months' time. Sad.  Someday and some way our male parent will have to answer for that. Perhaps he has but I also want to hear it directly from him. Why? Are you sorry?  

Monday Memoir, Nov 3, 1967

 Things happened in fits and starts. I was alternately trying to get into a "normality" of school and 'stuff' that was still mostly familiar from September 1966 through the latter part of August but also I  was drawn back and near-drowning in worries as the last act of the drama unfolded. I am not sure how I survived but I did. My Goddess and my Guardian Angel, who I had not yet named at this point, were there at my side, steadying hands to comfort and direct me, I think. I barely knew them then but did believe. So I wrote a lot on Oct 28, which I will excerpt some here and then a few more days until the next Friday, November 3.

Aug 28, Saturday

I guess Charlie Mike is enjoying (?) his first  night in California now. He was really excited. He got in on Tommy Knowles' bus yesterday at 2:30. We left his baggage at the depot and then numbered the yard and everything that came through. He went down to campus to have dinner with me and then we hung out until #1, The San Francisco Chief, pulled in about 9:50. I noted the consist and then came back to my room and spent a late  evening writing letters.

Ths morning it was colder than Satan's outhouse and the furnace was off so I about froze. I studied in bed until about 9:30 and then got up. I checked my mail and my Hank Snow record had arrived. I went down to Colleen's and we went to Taco Bell for lunch and returned to my rom. I changed and we went with Ann Pollock to the barbeque in Nick King's Grand Prix.  I really like Ann. I thought her stuck up but she isn't. The BBQ was okay. June Smith, Peggy Watt's esrtwhile roomie is quite a pussycat as is Joann Hoaglund. Those Kingman girls --pretty wild. But I got dinner for a quarter.  I decided to call the bus depot ithe next morning and see who has the Prescott local. If it is Nick I will surprise Mom with a visit. She is probably feeling a little low.  I can show her the timetable data on a rail trip to Kentucky easier than trying to explain on the phone. 

Turned out he was and I did. His eyes were much bluer than I had first thought. We again joked about my jacket.  That evening when I went back, Louie was driving.  But I was glad I had gone down because Mom was pretty blue. And we sold the three Quarter Horses for $100 each--Richie Lewis took Lyno and Leo and a gal who is going to be living near the temporary home  took Buzzie. I had to make a fast decision and I hated to do it but I am sure it was for the best. Mom got the $200 and I kept Buzzie's price.

Monday I was back to Flag  and it was cold again,. Everyone was wondering when the first snow would fall. I went to an honors assembly and got a nice little letler and certificate for "being a good bookworm" as I said sarcastically. No one was there to see or applaud for me. No matter. I am beginning to hope to make a trip for Thanksgiving, either to Tucson to see Mary or to Southern Cal to visit Judy. I have NO wish to be in the dorm for those long several days of the holiday. 

Nov 2, Thursday

I got the second highest in DAPR--101. !02 was the top. I did go and talk to Mrs Johnson (Psych prof)  about her demand that all be in class on Nov 21--an afternoon class that would let out after 2:30. How would that play with my plan to leave for the holiday? She was rather adamant though. I put my check for Buzzie in the bank. That $100 meant a lot despite my deep sadness to let her go. It was for her welfare, really. I could as asily have given her away to a good hoime but I think this will be one. I liked that gal and she seemed sincere.

I did go back down the weekend of the 4th and 5th but that is part of the next week's tale.

No good photos so  my last one with Lyno and Buzzie and the twoof them a few days before.. I did see them again later but they would never more be mine except in memories. There was always a little empty place in my soul. So much of me went away as various animals were taken, sold or died. I will see them in the Green Pastures, though. I count on it. The Rainbow Bridge goes there too.

Lanterns to find myself...

 

This is not a memoir and it is not a diatribe. It may be a strange kind of hybrid of both although that is not really my purpose. The other day I came across a quote from Emily Dickinson. To verify, here it is

The phrase, "I am out with lanterns, looking for myself," is a famous quote by the poet Emily Dickinson. While it has a deep metaphorical meaning about self-discovery, its literal origin was a casual remark in a personal letter.

That really hit me and since I had just written part of this a day or two ago, I continued thinking. Who actually am I and why? How did I get to where and how I am today?

In short I have re-found a person or viewpoint that has been an essential part of me for close to seven decades. I have now relocated a philosophy and belief system that fits, feels right, and may clarify many things I have said in my blog, on my FB page and elsewhere. I have a ‘home’ or a ‘tribe’ again. What did I find? I call myself a Libertarian and I blend fiscal conservatism and liberal social standards. It really isn’t so hard,

Fiscal conservatism means I do not respect or honor throwing gobs of money at anything to allegedly ‘fix’ whatever is wrong. It is foolish to try to bribe a person or group of people, much less other nations or the world at large by pouring a constant stream of aid which assumes no worth because it is free--they do not have to do anything to earn it. It merely breeds contempt and a sense of entitlement. , I abhor the Nanny State and the weird idea government at every level exists to “take care of us” and basically handle every citizen like a small child who must be bundled in bubble wrap and ‘protected’ 

Socially liberal means keep out of my medicine cabinet whether I choose to use Tylenol or THC, stay out of my bedroom since who I choose to be intimate with is not your business (unless it is a minor child of any sex), and  firm belief  my body is my sole property and every aspect of its care or even misuse is NOT anyone’s concern.  Worry about exactly what equipment is contained in anyone’s knickers is also NO concern of any allegedly governing  or quasi-religious entity. In a way this is old conservative but also liberal. 

I am fiercely independent and have always resented authority but with maturity I realize there is a hazy line dividing an individual’s rights to be or do anything and where that infringes on the good of all. We are allegedly civilized and short of living off grid in a very remote place, we are constrained to live and basically get along with other folks, often in close proximity. My freedom to swing my arms vigorously must end just before my fist hits your nose.  It is that simple. Judgment and some empathy is needed.

So how did I get to this point? For my first decade, my male parent was my hero and I almost felt he could do no wrong. He was a paragon of what a male adult should be and had a ‘right’ to demand obedience and set rigid standards of behavior.  That started to crumble as puberty approached and I began to see where his standards and his “do as I say, not as I do” were not working for me. If at about age nine I had suddenly said “I think I want to be a boy,” were it possible at that time, he would have been willing. Then my brother came along when I was 8 1/2. The new child was a brief joy or pride but then seemed to become extraneou,  not even the common spare heir. He already had a ‘son’ though DTBL it happened to be female. Well, no matter; we will just ignore that, and poor Charlie got the short end of the stick from then on.  Then as I grew taller and developed feminine curves, I decided I wanted some other heroes who were not nearly as demanding and strictly patriarchic. Ooops, not in the plan.

About that time, I also realized that the Divine Entity I chose to honor, pray to and follow was not the harsh, demanding and absolute ruler (much more often as portrayed in religious text despite the “loving father’ clap trap) but was instead more of a mother than a father. From then on my “Christianity” essentially died.  I was basically pagan or heathen but in a rather amorphous way for a long time. She had many names over those years but ultimately simply The Mother. The True Mother, perhaps

I expect the changes came gradually and I realize now much later that my father had serious mental health issues but he was also a classic narcissist with the habits and traits typical of that personality disorder. He could be charming and very appealing, but he could never accept blame, fault or admit to an error. He simply could not say “Hey, I fucked up and I am to blame.” Not even “I am sorry” or simply  “this did not go as I intended.” He made up clever but nasty and rude nicknames for people and developed an ‘enemies list’ that grew geometrically as more and more plans, schemes and efforts went bad andt had to be someone’s fault, someone else's. Before long, it was often mine, also.  I watched this and slowly grew bitter, cynical and very rebellious but that mostly quietly because I was afraid. I learned the pain of emotional and verbal abuse when I ceased to be the adoring and obedient child-pet anymore. That was a hideous sin!!

Those memories, so deeply entrenched in my psyche and spirit,have been a burden for all my adult life. Gaining confidence, courage and the strength to create and build my own personal rules and trust them has been a long struggle. Too easily I became a chameleon to blend and fit and get along, especially in my relationships. In the end that was always self-defeating, but I am immensely grateful I never fell into a truly abusive or vicious relationship. My Goddess and Guardian Angel steered me toward basically decent men who may have been flawed or broken in some ways but were never cruel, brutal or even really uncaring. 

To backtrack a bit, I realize now that my father was an “influenccr” long before that term or idea was recognized as modern technology made it possible. He was a writer and a skilled one. The part I most recall was men’s outdoor adventure and sports magazines but then gradually shifted into several political subjects where words approached diatribes. Influenced by famous botanist, L.N. Goodding (**note follows) a contemporary expert on arid land flora, he turned "Green".  Picture Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Upton Sinclair and others of that era melded together and you get a vague idea. While a lot of it  leaned conservative, it also went deep into the developing progressive/environmental ethos and issues.  He was always a Democrat but at odds with the  developing liberalism at times. He especially wanted independence for himself, at least. Responsibility not so much...

 Both my grandfathers were Republicans and mom was too, though quietly. When I married, my husband and father-in-law were Republicans as well,  though all more in the traditional pattern than the new version. I did slide into the conservative agricultural camp and was active in People For the West etc. I admired Wayne Hage and Helen Chenowith Hage, Julie Smithson and many others in that group. This was a way to oppose what I felt was damaging to my family in my father’s peculiar Don Quixote complex that created real and serious enemies. Its time had not yet come.  I even steered my since deceased youngest brother to a unique woman and her law practice (Lana Marcussen ) after he got his degree and license and he did get involved in property rights issues etc.

But then about the turn from the 20^th century to the  21^st, the “New Conservatives” emerged, taking what had begun with the John Birch Society and the rise of the so called Christian Right and suddenly there was a new slogan and a new face behind the Flag and Cross.  This new figurehead gave me major PTSD. Another control freak narcissist who coined ugly names and said mean and vicious things to anyone who opposed him!  This second term is really much worse with Project 2025 and it’s blatant white supremacy, quasi "Christian"Taiban doctrine and clear idolatry of the Nazi and Fascist past and brutal thoritarian methods.  I have said Charles M Morgan, my male parent who wrote mostly as Chuck Morgan, was almost a flawed prototype of DJT, just not rich, though of course he wanted to be!  

Both philosophically and emotionally there was NO WAY I could support and endure what was happening. I still can’t. But I still do not support the extreme progressive path which will never work well either. So where was I going to fit? I went back into my memories and found the tribe, the clan and the party where I had always really belonged. To my view, taking the best of both extremes and tempering the rest with the Libertarian philosophy of personal responsibility, accepting and using the valid parts of actual socialism where they made sense. Should we really do away with the post office,  the interstate highway system, law enforcement at all levels but under control and hunane rules, municipal services such as garbage, often water and sewer connections and even public schools?  Socialism is nta cuss word, deadly curse or a fast toxic slide to actual  Communism! That is such a limited and naïve a view. 

The USA has functioned almost its whole existence as a mixture of capitalist and socialist practice and patterns. As such, it has worked pretty darn well. And as a Libertarian, I not only condone but agree with this mix, not really a dichotomy. I have fought the idea of "working together"' with the current adminsitration which I find almost totally abhorent and actually evil, but realize the chasm between extremes MUST be bridged and mended if the nation is to survivce. I recently came across the Builders Movement and think perhaps that is the way. There are a fws others.  The "Youing Republican"s are NOT one!!

There is much more I could say but I think this is enough. I am who and now what I am, basically what I have always been inside. I am more emotion based than logical but always pragmatic. Will it work? So I value people much more than ideology and 'polytix'  at any level. Empathy and humanity are not sins or stupid!! We truly are all PEOPLE and we truly MUST accept this and never relegate any part of the Human Species to the trash pile for any imagined inferiority or lack of worth! No group/race/gender etc. is inherently better or worse although individuals certainly can be. This I believe. This is my bottom line and the immovable one where I will stand fast if it takes the rest of my life.A rarely mentioned hero is Ulysses Grant with whom I share a birth date despite intervening years. I too will "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." It is a Taurus thing, perhaps.

 NOTE ! Leslie Newton Goodding (1880–1967) was an American botanist who was considered an expert in the flora of the Southwestern United States. | Show results with: LN

Photos are my motehr with L.N. Gooding and one just of him. He was an incrdible man and very wise and sincere but not yet aware of much that has happened since his day.

Memoir Monday, Oct 27, 1967

 Step by step. Progress of a sort. Hard won and no triumph. The toll of going back every weekend was weighing on me, financially and emotionally. Finally I began to play a foolish game, even perhaps a risky one, since I had little choice but to go and do what I could. And during this week I managed to write, letting some pressure off for the most part. 

Monday, Sept 23

Back again. I could kick Paul Babbitt in the shins. The horses were too thin, had little value. Damned old grump, but it was mainly Buck Snoddy's fault. with snarky remarks(A local cop who probably led the old stock dealer to the place,) I have just slammed a door on 'home' and horses for awhile. There is no way I can do more. I'm not going down again--maybe never.

 Just took the DAPR test. It was a doozy. I  hope I got a two. I'm really scared about my grades this time. LIke I mean it's so bad it hurts. I don't maybe hate the Boss as a person but I cannot help hating what he has become and done. The cruelty of it is appalling. I could cry for Charlie Mike. I don't see why he doesn't light a fuse in his rush to get out, to California. And yet, I do in way . Don't I hate to bestir myself to change? The worst routine is familiar, thus safe...

Nick looks like Jim M from the rear and like himself otherwise. Nick, stocky and solid and muy macho.Short cropped light brown hair and smoky colored eyes and an easy voice,  never at a loss for words. I had never seen him before Saturday morning. Old Louis may be my honorary Grandpa but I have a new favorite bus driver. He stuck his head in and called "Give me a call, Tommy." I was the first passenger in line, not on purpose...yet. He took and  punched my ticket. "That's a real pretty jacket you've got there." I sat in the front on the right side. Does he ever hustle that old rig down the road. Fast, but he handles it AOK. He talked over his shoulder to me about the jacket, about Elvis being in Sedona and then we were in Cottonwood. He handed me down and I almost forgot about it until Sunday night. I should know better. Doubtless he is married and has 20 kids in Casa Grande or somewhere. But I had to think of something besides seven horses with their ribs and hipbones showing and my father in the county jail. So I thought about Nick Dawson. About 30-35? What I once thought someone was about a lifetime ago. 

The evening bus pulled in a little late and there was only departing one passenger. Nick handed her down and saw me. "Where are you going this time?" "Back to Flag," I said. He punched the ticket and I climbed up,"Want to sit up front?' He indicated the seat right behind his that held his suitcase, uniform jacket and cap. "I don't want to put you to any trouble," but he moved them and made room.  Josie Almiraz, a more recent Mingus grad, was going up too. She is a quiet little mouse and couldn't respond to Nick's teasing. I picked that skill up when I was sixteen! There is another problem I haven't resolved, It has been a long time since May 15 and even July 11. I seem to recall Dusty said something about six months? . What has he done to me by disappearing? Shall I hunt him down if it takes all winter or let him go in peace? I don't know yet. 

That first bit was written in a fit of temper and pain. No, I was not going to slam any doors and I was still determined to get those horses into good homes and I did just that. I also went back down a few more weekends before everyone was gone. Eldest daughters do what they have to do--even when it is hard, taxing and costly in many ways. Today I am not sorry and feel I was right.  

Nick? Just a passing fancy of sorts. He disappeared in a few weeks. The jacket was quilted with a nylon shell and warmer lining,  tan wth dark brown stitching in a semi fleur-de-lis design. I also got a pair of Wellington style boots, a type I had always loved since having a pair as a small kid, and practical for all but deep snow. A lot of bus drvers wore them too!

Oct 26, Thurs

Damn,, I am not getting anywhere fast tonight. I came down here (libray) at 6:00 and it is 7:30 and all I have done is read some books. I've got the fidgets. Tomorrow night I will see Charlie Mike off to California even as I was once seen off 100,000 years ago. Only two? I doubt he will come on Nick's bus as it would be too tight on the time.  Got to take a test in marketing tomorrow. Can't say I am too enthused about it or really too concerned. I'll study some before I go back to my room. I started to say "home" but I really don't have a home now. I've said that for awhile but is more true than ever now. Damn, I miss Dusty. Still want him. I am crazy for that but it's true. Maybe in time someone else could take his place but I still wear an invisible "Private, no tresspassing" sign that most guys shy off from. With Dusty it was not just physical, as we were as much or more friends as lovers. We always had so much to talk about. It is going to be a long and cold winter. Jim M has ditched me--no surprise given the politics.  I've got to study. My grades will be really bad; I've got to DO something. 

Oct 27, Friday

I'm real rocky this morning and not where it's at. Two No-Doze and cofffee=caffeine shock, I guess. Plus an allergy pill. I'm real woozie. I am pretty confident that I did okay on the marketing exam. There were about eight of the fifty multiple choice that I was doubtful of but I am a fairly good guesser. I am beginning to like Dapr too. Computers are more interesting than the more routine machines. Just two more classes to stagger through and then lunch and up to the bus depot to meet Charlie Mike. If it were not for the Rodeo Club barbeque I'd go as far as Barstow with him just for fun but I really cannot afford to. Maybe I'll go see Judy over Thanksgiving. Have to check the cost and see if it is okay with her. Have to check on the Tucson trip first. I have not heard back from Mary about that yet. I am high and sleepy at the same time; that is a hell of a state to be in. Glad I have my accounting assignment done. Mainly I just have to read govt for the weekend. and then sew. But I must not miss Charlie Mike's bus. It won't be here before 2:30, I don't think, so I've got some leeway. 

Photos?  Two obvious choices from this very day. First me and then Charlie Mike at the Depot, then ATSF, of course, on October 27, 1967.  Just over two months later, I was to board the San Francisco Chief,  once again in the snow, as I headed to Sacramento again. I think the jacket I am holding is the one mentioned. Shirt I had made and jeans were from Goodwill. Charlie Mike was getting tall and his jeans were a little highwater. He had a number book (for railroad car numbers) in his hand, a steno pad like I used so much. That hobby was a major interest of his for many years. He got a lot that afternoon as we walked in the yard. His train was not due until about 9:00. It was on time that evening, though.