Tisandros and Melantha (F)

Only recently fragments attributed to Quintus Smyrnaeus, also known as Quintus Calaber, have led to the previously unknown version of how Sisyphus was released from his eternal punishment when he allowed in one moment a sort of proud man’s confession: I can no longer do this.

The fragments were located nearly within the borders of Shushan, which was named for the lilies that flourished in the surrounding valley. Early on Shushan was part of Babylonia in the time of Daniel, but then Babylon came under the rule of Persia when Cyrus conquered the city.  

With the release of Sisyphus from his torment, according to the translation recently provided by Dr. Willis Woods, Professor of Classical Antiquities and working under the auspices of both Cambridge and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the black rock of Zeus was again put to use.

The tale, not previously mentioned in other sources, is centered on the story of Tisandros, a simple young goatherd, and Melantha, a dark-eyed beauty, whose father is a renowned warrior who lost one arm in battle. How the two meet is uncertain, but several experts have conjectured that Tisandros tends to a herd for Melantha’s father.

In fact, from one fragment, Professor Woods translates the line as “Tisandros would necessarily yield to the command of his master, the general”. In context, the discussion seems to be focused on where the herd should be relocated as winter approaches.

One of the smaller extant fragments details a short conversation between Tisandros and Melantha wherein he proclaims his love for the girl. The two have crossed paths before apparently, and this time the two are at a spring where Melantha has come to cool her feet.

Professor Woods has it that Tisandros, nearly in tears, tells Melantha that “Your black eyes have peered into my heart and nested there as if two eagles”. (Author’s Note: While I am unable to read the fragments myself, I feel certain that experts will challenge how Woods renders the phrase to be “two eagles”.)

Not unexpectedly, Melantha replies “I cannot be your betrothed” and runs from the spring, sandals in hand, a very specific detail that may be more Woods than myth. Shortly after this encounter, young Tisandros is told by a village priest to make his plea to Anteros so that the God of Requited Love should intercede and even take his request to Aphrodite, who would have the ear of the mighty Zeus himself.

And, as it would happen, the goatherd’s cry does touch the god so that “Anteros, his heart moved, implores Aphrodite to take action on behalf of Tisandros and Melantha”. Aphrodite, perhaps as much distracted by her own affairs as out of sympathy for the two young lovers, whispers a request to Zeus that he bring the two young lovers together.

Again, Woods translates: “Zeus, not inclined to trouble himself with circumstances beyond the natural order of relationships between men and women that do not suit his desires, allows Tisandros to be given a task which if done in timely fashion would bring a goatherd together with a general’s daughter”.

As ordered by Aphrodite, Anteros takes Tisandros, who is asleep in a field, to the rock of Sisyphus. “There, Anteros passes on the command from Zeus Almighty that if Tisandros should cleave the rock, he would be united with Melantha” and in that moment hands Tisandros a simple ladle made of applewood, sacred to Aphrodite.

Of course, “Tisandros sees immediately that his ladle would break with the first blow against the rock and it would wear out long before the rock if he would choose to use it as a file”. As he mourned his apparent fate—not recognizing the subtleties of the gods—two girls with baskets of flowers came by. Tisandros asked them where they were headed, and they replied that “for our young mistress, we take these flowers to the spring”.

Professor Woods notes that because of a chip in a fragment, he is unable to ascertain whether the spring is either .4 or 4 kilometers from the rock. What is clear is that Tisandros does follow the girls to the spring and then carefully holding the ladle filled with water, and yet trying to walk at a brisk pace, brings back the serving to pour onto the rock.

In this manner, “Tisandros returns again and again to the spring from which he hopes a power to break open the black rock will be manifested”. On the ninth return trip, Tisandros feels his throat becoming drier and drier—pausing, even desiring the water he carries.

He cries out, “Forgive me, Melantha.”  The fragment then is fractured on the diagonal, but the phrase “and in this fashion did he show himself”, according to Woods, may be read.

The final section details how Anteros binds him with sleep and carries the goatherd back into the field where he was fast asleep before.  Woods reads the final line on what appears to be the last fragment in the sequence as “now for Tisandros, what the gods would allow was clear to him in his mind and so reflected in his heart.” Woods notes that the translation could be “was made clear” or as he chose, “was clear”.

No other fragments have been located to date.

We, however, despite the gods, despite the odds, as we wish, may choose to imagine Tisandros and Melantha happy.  Ladson 2014

  

  

Little Tomato (F)

The land was so flat cattle sometimes stumbled over the tracks of moles hunting worms. But by god the sky was something to see, a canvas of color and cloud, a ceiling of stars and the moon when it came round.

Four-year-old Thomas Franklin Washington was digging in the dirt behind the barn, digging with a spoon he found next to the old well.

A ranch hand called him a poco de tomate when he came home from the Goodland hospital. From that moment, older brothers and sisters each and every day called him Toma. Sometimes his mother would call him Little T, but his father would only pronounce him Thomas, which was his father’s name and his grandfather’s name.

The spoon was just a kitchen spoon, larger than a tablespoon but not a proper serving spoon his mother insisted. Toma would say he was “working the dirt”. When he dug in 3-feet out from the northwest corner of the barn, his scraping made a new sound, somehow different, enough to make him cock his head.

He chipped out a few pieces and looked at them in his hand. He took what he had found to his mother who was chopping onions for the bean soup.

“What do you have there, T?”

“It’s crunchy.”

Oldest brother William who attended the state college had a notion. The following week the expert from Golden drove over after his breakfast. He wanted to see the spot where Thomas made his find. Mother ordained they eat first, and that was that.

After the meal, they marched to the dig. The visitor set down his canvas bag, lowered himself to his knees, took out a 14-ounce rock hammer and with the pointed tip made a strike. Holding the small piece in sunlight, he exhaled. The family, gathered round, except for Mr. Washington who was in town to wrap up a contract, held their breath.

Professor McCleary stood up and stared west as if trying to make a thing visible in the distance. “Shouldn’t be here like this.”

William took the lead. “Is it?”

“It is.”

Mr. Washington signed the contract in Denver. The barn had to go. The fencing for the pasture gone, too, and a wider road built to meet MSHA policy requirements. CNN and FOX and NBC and CBS Sunday Morning covered the story. They all referred to Thomas as “The Golden Kid”, but at home, he was still Little T, Toma, Thomas.

Below the big new house, the property was so steep that in the dry season the children would in their boots slide-slip for a hundred feet before meeting up with the driveway that snaked downhill to the state highway.

At night, before them was the city and so many lights that by god it looked like a fairyland, and further east the empty land, like a great black sea. But still the sky was the sky, and the stars the stars, and the moon, too, when it came round.  Ladson 2013

Sparrow (F)

My name is Tara Li.  I got my nickname when I was 13 from the captain of the varsity soccer team. Her name was Becky Carr and she was the biggest and meanest girl on the field and she liked how I was so fast and could dart in and out and bug the crap out of the other girls with my quick feet. So she called me Sparrow. Besides, she knew I could never hurt her.

My mother picked the name Tara for me after she asked some of my aunts for advice about naming me, me being the first American-born baby and all. They all loved Gone with the Wind, and even my grandmother approved. Turns out that my grandmother didn’t approve much.

I remember one night my 8^th grade composition teacher came into the family take-out and she saw me in bare feet, mopping the kitchen floor. I had bruises all over my shins from playing soccer on the weekends with mostly boys in the park down the street from our trailer. Monday at school Mrs. Tarsey asked me if my parents were beating me with a broom or something. I laughed and that made her mad. But she calmed down and told me to wear my shin guards. But the boys didn’t.

Mrs. Tarsey always came in on Sunday nights and got a quart of wonton soup. I never saw her husband with her.

My mother did chase me with a broom sometimes and she did yell when there were no customers. About doing my homework and staying away from boys. My father didn’t fuss at me. He was more relaxed about everything than my mother. He wanted me to do good in school, but he would let my mother be angry or upset, and then he would make her laugh and it would be okay for a while.

My mother would remind me that my father was not Han like her. I wanted to tell her that didn’t mean anything to me, but she was so serious about it and I didn’t want her to yell at me.

My geography teacher liked the fried rice, the house special one.  He talked to my father about how good the school was and how lucky I was to be in the district and how if I got good grades I might get a better soccer scholarship when I finished high school. Mr. Warmsett didn’t really like kids, but his wife was the assistant principal and he didn’t have anything better to do. 

That’s what we decided. He got all excited when he could take out an old globe and walk it around the class and lean it at us like he was acting out the seasons. He got a pint of fried rice just about every day after school. Not on Fridays.

I messed up my right knee the first day of practice in 9^th grade. When I was on the grass and holding my leg, I didn’t cry. All the other girls except for Becky went over and sat on the bench. Nobody was saying anything. The trainer told me I would have to go to the hospital in an ambulance. They used the siren coming out to the school, but they didn’t taking me to the hospital. I kind of hoped they would.

I broke my right ankle half way through the season my junior year. I missed the rest of the games. I went to the hospital in Coach D’s car. She told me not to worry about it, that I would be okay. Coach D was kind of cool even if she yelled a lot during the game. She never yelled in practice. She called us young ladies all the time. 

We all liked it when her husband would bring their two-year-old out to the home games because he was really cute. Her husband was pretty nice too. I got to babysit for them sometimes. I liked that because then I didn’t have to work in the kitchen that night.

Just before graduation I found out that most of the kids in my honors classes didn’t work at jobs. I did all my homework on a little table next to the coolers in the back of the restaurant. I washed hundreds of big pots, made broths, mopped the floor every hour. I really liked physics and math and how I could get the right answers once I knew what I was doing.

I didn’t play soccer my senior year. Coach D tried to talk me into it every day for weeks. I got a 1420 on my SAT and got good grades, so I decided to quit playing and just study and do some fun stuff.

I knew I would be called a quitter and I was. I was just tired. I was kind of tired of being tired. I was always sore too. I just didn’t want to hurt. I didn’t want to be tired anymore.

Going to college is pretty good. I only have to work on the weekends.

My grandmother said when sparrows are caught and put in cages they will starve themselves to death. Bet Becky didn’t know that.  Ladson 2014

Ned Barton (F)

Ned Barton closed his eyes and touched his forehead just above his eyebrows with his fingertips. Gingerly he massaged the skin, and then he applied a bit more pressure. Damn sinuses. He lifted his head and looked out over the dunes and the beach to where the sun had yet to crack the shimmering line between sea and sky. 

The first taste of coffee was strong and each sip seemed part of a ritual that was necessary to the success of the day. Just as the second mug would both seal and sanctify the promise that he made daily to live in the moment, to dismiss the apprehensions that clouded his mind with no apparent anchor in reality other than misgivings that spun from a vague helplessness. Promises made, promises unfulfilled.

Other than a few fisherman trying the surf that broke on a sandbar now parallel to the shore, the beach was empty and the neighborhood was quiet. Or so Ned would hope. When he leaned forward and rested his arms on the deck rail, he could forget the house he lived in, and he forgot his neighbors to both sides, as he forgot the houses that stretched behind him, street after street to the waterway. In that way, further and further in his mind, beyond the city, the land, the very world dissolved.

Since the accident—could it really be nearly seven months now—Ned knew two things with a very particular sense of certitude. Of course, and the life of that child was not necessary for this lesson, there is never a turning back, not to a year, not to a month, not to a day. Not an hour. Not a second. All the momentum of the world, the entire universe it seemed, was all forward. 

The slow pace, yet a hurtling, ever forward. No undoing a moment, as Ned both felt deep inside in the place where sorrow may never be unwound and knew, knew in his head as surely as all the words of wiser heads than his insisted in the books now in stacks on tables and chairs and on the stairs between the first and second floors.

No, a child’s life could not be necessary for so obvious a lesson.

The second lesson, Ned clung to as if the only piece of driftwood that might keep him alive in the great ocean. Any decision, any action, a sidelong glance, a retracing of steps, always, every moment, and there would repercussions. Unintended consequences. Intentionality, good or bad, be damned. Just a flickering of indecision. A hesitation. A second round of coffee, and a change in routine. Five minutes—five seconds—later than usual to drive down to pick up the Sunday edition.

The sun opened a seam of orange light, and Ned heard the door behind him. 

“Sleep much?” Ellen dragged a chair away from the patio table. 

“Enough.” He turned and managed a half-smile in her direction.

“Thanks for letting me stay last night.” 

“No, that’s okay. It was nice to have someone to hold onto for a bit. Really. Thanks.”

“Need more coffee?”

“No, I have had enough. One pot is enough for me.”

“Should I start breakfast?”

He looked out at the water. “Ellen, you don’t need to take care of me. I’m fine.”

“Need? I want to. I know the difference between want and need.”

He didn’t say anything. He heard her set her cup down on the metal table.  

“I’m going to scramble some eggs. I’ll make enough for you.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Have you thought any more about the semester at Clemson?”

“Nope.”

“You ought to.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Going to be hot today.”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry you have to go through this again.”

“Hotter than hell today.”

“Ned. Talk to me.”

“Nothing to say.”

She circled behind him and leaning forward wrapped her arms around his shoulders and set her chin on top of his head. He did not speak, but she could feel his sigh. She waited, and then they both turned their heads toward the channel at the deep grumble of a trawler headed out.

“It’s every day. Nearly every hour, really. Not every minute, like it was.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“Nothing can be done—nothing to do about it.”

She held him a little tighter. “Oh, Ned. Sooner or later, you know? You should take that teaching position. You need a change of scene.” She let go of him. “I need to go back to the city tonight.”

“That’s okay. I’m fine. I am going to fish a little when the tide turns.”

“Maybe we could take the boat out next weekend? Go down to Bohicket.”

“Maybe.” Ned stood and turned to her. “I can fry up some ham. I have muffins, too.”

“You know I love you.”

“I know.”

“A lot of people love you.”

“Yes. I know.” He glanced back one more time at the water. “Blueberry.”

Ellen turned around. “What?”

“The muffins, they’re blueberry.  I think.”  He closed the door between them and headed to the kitchen.  Ladson 2013

 

The Girl That Would Fly (F)

Many hours to the west of Ulaanbaatar on a morning when the air was stilled even at the top of the crags, the girl braced herself on a rocky outcrop and with both arms lifted the eagle out from her body. In the early light, I could see her eyes close and then the great bird released itself from its human perch.

“She keeps her eyes closed so much of the time.”

“Yes.” Her teacher filled my cup with milky tea. “She follows the bird as it hunts.”

I let the salty flavor sit in my mouth for a moment. “She follows with her eyes closed?”

The sunlight bathed her face so that it seemed even more childlike, and the air was still below freezing, but because of the sun’s warmth and maybe the bird’s soaring, her mouth widened into a broad smile. I smiled too at her joy.

“Yes. She is in flight. She goes where the bird goes. It is her spirit animal.”

“She seems so young.”

“Yes.”

“She seems so small when she cradles the bird.”

“Yes.”

“What do the men, the local boys, think of her?”

He pushed a small platter with half a dozen mutton dumplings toward me. “What is there to think?” He held my gaze. “You like the tea.”

“Yes. Very much. So what does she see?”

“She sees as the bird sees. The bird looks up, and she sees the sky. The bird looks down, and she sees the ground. The bird hunts, she hunts.”

Karl, who flew into Ulaanbaatar from Guangzhou to take the photos, said that each shot was like working in a studio. The morning light, the dry air, the stillness. The girl and the bird, so very still. Shot after shot. And when the bird launched itself, Karl said, even then it was all magical as if in slow motion and perfect. He just clicked the shutter. All he felt was a calm, his breathing steady. Perfect.

“Teacher, I turned to see the bird, but I couldn’t see it.”

“No, the bird was hiding. In the sun perhaps. Or in the rocks.”

“But when she opened her eyes, she was looking right at it and pointed to it for me.”

“Yes.”

“But I couldn’t find it.”

“No. You search, she follows.”

Karl tried to follow the bird out into the sky with his camera but the bird broke off a long glide so abruptly that he nearly fell from what he thought was a secure seat on a boulder. Karl said it was sort of like losing his bearings on a rollercoaster.

The second week a hare scooted out into a patch of flat ground to warm itself, and the eagle came in a long, low flight that brought it behind the target and with a quick flap of its wings, the bird dropped onto the target. The girl whistled a long note and the eagle answered with a screech. Two boys visiting relatives at the camp ran out from a field of great rocks and jostled one another as they tried to be first to claim the prize. The eagle was back in the sky before the boys could get to the kill.

The third week, my instruction continued. Beneath the soft thrum of a horsehide drum, the first command. “Close your eyes.”

I sat still at first, but soon I could feel my body giving in to the steady rhythm of the beat.

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“See her.”

At first there were indistinct images, from the memory of a face I knew so well, from memories of photos that I had seen so many times.

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

Again the command and my response. The cadence picked up a little speed.

Again, “Rachel.” The images flickered, none becoming clear to me, not real as if I could see her face, could see her before me.

“What do you see?”

“Her, but it’s not her.”

“Do not search for her in your mind. You must let her come.”

In the fifth week, after a cold morning in the hills with the young huntress, I was glad to be sitting again with my teacher, sipping a warm cup of tea.

“Close your eyes.” I did so immediately, but he did not pick up his drum and begin the first light taps. “Let her come. Listen for her.”

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“Wait for her. Speak her name.”

“Rachel.” Then, I cocked my head. I thought I heard someone call out to her—“Ms. Cullman!”

“What do you hear?”

“I heard her name called out.”

“What do you see?”

“She’s coming toward me. She is alone.”

I could as easily see her as I could have seen the inside of the teacher’s tent.

“She’s surrounded by white light. Coming through glass doors.”

“Speak her name.”

“Rachel.”

“What do you see?”

“She is closer. She’s wearing a white knit dress. She wears a thin red belt, not too tight at her waist. She is stepping from the light to me, coming closer. She is so close I cannot see her shoes without looking away from her eyes. I smell citrus. She smiles.”

I opened my arms to her even as I kept my eyes shut. She was right there, right there with me, only a few feet away. She smiled, laughed a little, and half-turned away. I stretched my arms toward her. She touched my fingers on one hand with hers. My eyes opened and I blinked a few times to clear my vision.

“She is not here?”

“Yes. No. No, I was not here.” Ladson 2014

Father Aloysius (F)

His daily habit was to come to the Plaza di Anime Perdute and stop for his morning conversation before going on to a 400-year-old bakery around the corner on the way to the university. The scene became part of my daily life when I was away from home during my college-abroad semester in 1974 while a junior at Tennessee.

I saw him one morning, the first time, walk to the middle of the small piazza and settle himself in a manner that seemed very precise. The stones chosen to stand on seemed to be felt through his worn shoes, and as I watched this ritual unfold over the next several months, I began to think that the stones chose him.

He removed his felt fedora and held it in his hands in front of him, and with a few measured breaths, he began to let go of the world. His frame—already showing the signs of his age, a life lived—almost collapsed with the air taken in and then released. And with each breath, his chin dropped lower so that until it was nearly at his chest.

Then, the rocking began. He shifted his weight almost wholly down into his shoes to the balls of his feet and then back to his heels, slowly. Although I was too far from him to hear his words, I could see his lips moving in a way that told of a conversation—often, he stopped to listen—and his face reflected the various turns of concern and even urgency he felt as he spoke. 

No, he prayed. Clearly, the old man prayed.

The rocking forward and back was nearly as steady as a metronome—his end of the conversation mostly was just a word or two, and then at times seemed a full monologue, too. The conversation lasted for more than five minutes. When he stopped, his body straightened up—and yet he was still stooped at the shoulders. He put his hat back on his head, and with unsteady steps shuffled across the square and disappeared into the crowd at the corner.

My landlady Signora Balcone told me the old man was Father Aloysius who was badly beaten by three drunk Black Shirts in 1941. The three thugs were taunting a young Sicilian woman when he tried to intervene. They left him for dead in the street. In 1967, he retired from the Church and never put on his collar again. In a whisper, the Signora’s 12-year-old son Paulo told me that Father was a crazy man who talked to pigeons and stole apples when walking through the market. 

The morning of November 1 that year was even colder than the preceding three or four, and the air was damp and the deep gray clouds hovered just above the hills that surrounded the city. Just as I came into the piazza, Father Aloysius was just settling into his spot, anchoring as if preparing for the winter storm that was forecast to come from the north in the next twenty-four hours.   

Even as the old man took off his hat, snow began to fall. True to his routine, his body began to slump, but that morning it seemed as his knees were even beginning to buckle. And his voice was not so quiet.

His voice began to sound more like a wail than words. A fellow student who had lived in the city his whole life joined me just at the moment Father Aloysius cried out.

“What’s he saying?”

“He has called out to God. He has called out for a shield.”

“Why?”

“I cannot tell you.”

The old man appeared to let his body cave in on itself. One or two other witnesses started toward him, but he drew himself up in a fashion I had never seen before. He seemed taller. Appeared stronger than at any time.

But again, the body began to falter, and the moaning started—I could almost use the word wail, but that would not be quite right. Again he drew himself up, dropped his hat to the stones, and extended his hands. His old fingers stretched out, and he began to beckon as if he were coaxing someone, as if he were leading a person to him. The movements were small at first, but the hands became more insistent.

Now his arms were part of the movement, a bringing in as if to embrace.  His eyes were closed and he leaned forward. He kept urging the someone to him, his voice soft, pleading.

“He is saying to come to the door.”

“What door?  Who’s he talking to?”

“I do not know.”

Aloysius stooped forward as if he would topple onto his face. Nearly everyone in the piazza appeared to be leaning as if with him in a headwind.  Up he stood, and his arms were in front of his chest—did he believe himself holding a child? He shifted the weight into his left arm, and reached out his right hand and made a downward motion like one if stroking the long hair of a woman. 

His voice became soothing and gentle without the rasping we always heard between coughs. He clutched the infant—obviously a small child--close and with each stroke of the woman’s hair, he smiled with great contentment.

“What’s he doing?”

“I have never seen this before.”

The old man straightened up and spread his arms wide. Without opening his eyes, Father Aloysius looked upward. “Dio Dio Dio!” Eyes opened, he smiled, and picked up his hat and put it firmly on his head, and with not a glance left or right, he strode off in the falling snow.  Ladson 2014

The Case of Dr. Warner (F)

This story was passed to us by a niece who lives on James Island. Or at least, the basic details as pieced together by local reporters. But, there is always more to a story, stories within stories. Or so we like to imagine.

The essential facts really are few. One, Dr. Warner received a letter from the state retirement board alerting him to a reduction of $386 in his monthly pension due to the collapse of a huge stake in precious metals futures which state investment advisers strongly recommended. Two, the state’s public service board approved a rate hike that raised Dr. Warner’s monthly power bill—with the rise in temperatures, and so forth—nearly $100 over his monthly average of $145. He, like all of us, received a 60-day notice for the hike.

Of course, Dr. Warner did not use, in fact did not need, much more than a third of the 1700 square feet covered under his roof at his home. Twelve years retired from teaching as a professor in the geography department—our niece took a basic human geography course from him during her sophomore year and then to satisfy a business elective, she sat through his economic geography class. She called his lectures “stultifying” and I recall both her aunt and I praised her for her vocabulary’s obvious depth.

Dr. Warner’s consulting work for CNN during The Great Decline earned him a fair amount of money, which he divided equally among five wives so that they might find their own paths to happiness. He was favorably mentioned by Forbes for his television appearances, his book The Great Decline: Too Far to Turn Back Now earned a mostly positive review in the Wall Street Journal, and Chancellor Tifton awarded him the Medal of Excellence for his academic work and public outreach while at the college.

Perhaps now would be the time for some comment on Dr. Warner and his five wives, but no information is available to us other than their names. They are in reverse chronological order Olivia Edelson Warner, Mary Sara Compton, Diane Wesson, Emily Franklin, and Tabitha Phelps Warner. My niece thought she overheard someone say that Olivia Warner lived in Nuuk.

Apparently, Dr. Warner’s first decision to deal with his new economic reality was to take all the living room furniture—except for a well-worn recliner and a reading lamp—and move the items down to the middle bedroom. Two ladies chairs—that’s what my mother called them—a seven-foot sofa, two end tables of maple veneer, and a small curio cabinet were moved. The mattress and foundation were placed upright against a wall to make room for the additions.

Next, Dr. Warner took 6-foot 1x8s and with books carried in armfuls from the library set up in  the third bedroom began stacking the books horizontally along the outside wall of the living room, leveling a shelf about every two feet or so. Then, after nailing a piece of plywood in front of the double window, across that stretch as well. Then he began again. Another row of books, with the intermittent shelving, to the ceiling. And, a third time, all three walls of books packed tightly as in those used bookstores that once upon a time maximized every nook and cranny of space available.

The queen-sized mattress and foundation were dragged into the living room and set down in the interior corner farthest away from the front door. Plywood was nailed up over the bedroom windows and the window in the master bathroom. Smaller pieces were cut and screwed into the ceilings to close down vent openings.

Just beyond the hall bath, which was an interior room, Dr. Warner framed in a doorway and set a fiberglass two-panel exterior door with therma-seal so he could access the thermostat and the back half of the house. The news report of his demise did say the temperature setting was at 60.

A local utility foreman who maintained anonymity suggested that by extrapolation the power company thought Dr. Warner’s summer setting to be around 86.

So, Dr. Warner for nearly two years mostly moved about in his living room and kitchen with breakfast nook, and of course the bathroom. The breakfast nook window and exterior walls were layered 3-deep in books, and the sliding glass door leading to a smallish patio had been covered by plywood and too had the three-thick packing of books.

The video of the emergency responders going through the front door has been watched 2,456,381,012 times as of February 14^th. Yes, I checked, for the sake of veracity. Clearly audible, the first words spoken by a team member were “What the hell is this guy doing with all these books!”

One of local news channels also saw five or six million hits the first 24 hours on a video of a neighbor holding an armful of books and magazines and what looked like a newspaper or two. She said, “I knew he was in trouble because his stuff—this stuff—was on the ground under his box. He was a quiet man. I didn’t know he was famous, sort of.” Then, she cocked her head while listening to a question off camera. “No, I didn’t never speak to him.”

Now, there is one thing I know firsthand that I heard from a cousin who has a friend who is friends with that woman living across the street from Dr. Warner. He had a dog in there with him. One of those rescue dogs, half cocker and half something or other.

They found Dr. Warner mostly upright in his bed, chin dropped to his chest, reading glasses slightly askew. Several of my acquaintances at work claimed he was reading his own book.

Dr. Warner was 81 when this portion of his story came to an end. Ladson 2014

With Purity and Identity et al

I’m going to fail my personal purity test.

I’m going to fail often and sometimes fail miserably. But then most folks would agree I have brought the failure on myself.

Why? Because I am espousing a code of conduct that simply put calls for doing no harm.

Laugh, guffaw, scoff, scorn, roll eyes, shake head as so moved.

So obviously have I not met this standard in the past, so likely will I stumble in the future, you might wonder if the notion, my presenting such an ideal, is a wasted effort.

Guess that depends on how an ideal is valued. For me, the ideal is a pathway, even a journey of a sort. The existence of an ideal—and maybe especially concerning my behavior—like a lighthouse to guide me forward to a better anchorage.

Now when I betray my code of conduct, surely someone could cry “Hypocrite!” or worse. My question—or the first one—would be, so does the ideal fail because I fail? Or is the ideal valid as a touchstone?

Maybe the proposition appears so unattainable as to be meaningless. Let me suggest the striving is worthy enough. And let me offer another word, unsustainable.

True enough, I suspect, given I sit here, a deeply flawed member of my species Homo sapiens.

In the moment I am reminded of the monk Tenzin Gyatso observing, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” Now that makes me laugh.

Bellow, chide, snicker, heckle, growl, stop reading as so moved.

Of course, in my mind, I can hear the complaints: You’ve got to pick a tribe. You can’t identify only with the group as a whole. Are you with us or against?

Nationality, ethnicity, gender, party, faction, team, neighborhood et al.

Well, let me ask as a starting point in the conversation—and this question the heart of the identity trap to my way of thinking—do I have to violate the principle of doing no harm to be a member of said tribe?

Cackle, roar, protest much, but go in peace until we cross paths again.