The airplane mechanic's father

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The retired airplane mechanic was in a better mood today when Lilith and I ran into him and his dog. The dog is fuzzy, with an almost human face. Not regal like a Portuguese water dog, but mutt regal. I told him about my letter to Arlington National Cemetery and, knowing it couldn't happen, he said he'd like to sit down and talk to my parents for a long time. His father enlisted on December 8, 1942 and was sent to Darwin, Australia in a troop ship that was lucky not to be sunk. In Darwin, they were to protect an airstrip, but the Pacific was so dangerous that no one delivered supplies; they were on their own. Had to drive long distances to find food. "My father said you don't know how completely a person can change until you see someone who is hungry." I said we have a friend who was a Khmer Rouge survivor who had described that state to us. At one point, they were told that the Japanese were coming to take Darwin, which they bombed persistently. His father's group was given weapons, told to hold the airfield as long as possible, and then to scatter. Each one on his own. But the Coral Sea battle ended that, and they remained in Darwin. His father died at 59, before he could retire, and his mother is buried in Punchbowl, because she had all the documents required to prove she'd been married to a veteran. "Gotta go," he said, as ever, and Lilith and I headed to our cemetery to walk.

My letter to Arlington National Cemetery

 

On hearing of the demise of the Wilson Center in Washington, DC

I had an internship with _The Wilson Quarterly_ for a summer after college. Hardly a site of radical activity, it was a place where people gathered to think and do journalism. I ended up writing an essay on Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, which was published in 1989, a year before I moved to Hawai`i. Here: https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/undefined/marianne-moore-and-elizabeth-bishop

This archive is likely to disappear, as the current administration just announced the elimination of the Wilson Center: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/

Today also brings news of websites being "scrubbed" that reflect on American diversity, including those devoted to African Americans, Asian Americans and Women (Americans) at Arlington Cemetery. And elsewhere.

So, I put this long ago essay of mine up to preserve something of my archive. But it, too, will likely disappear.

Lilith balks

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Lilith is a dog of qualities. One of them is not obedience. Truth be told, I don't demand it of her, though I keep her on a leash to avoid mad dashes at chickens, or dashes into traffic after chickens, or lurches toward mongooses. When we walk, one of her "words" is "balk." (Other words are "pirouette," "stare with big dark eyes," "snuggle.") I'll be striding along, when suddenly there's a jolt on the leash. Were I fishing, this would be a good sign. With Lilith, it's evidence that she's smelled something, or wants to pee, or that she simply wants to look me in the eye and announce her volition. A woman was driving by at the cemetery office when Lilith balked today. "Oh he doesn't want to walk!" She had a wide open face and smile, a flower tucked behind her ear, and was going to a funeral. "Oh, she smelled something," I said. She balked several more times before our walk ended.

On the hill, Journey roared toward us on his John Deere vehicle and stopped. Said he was going to his great grandmother's funeral today. When I told him about a woman who'd stopped to comment on Lilith's obstinance, he said, "that's my grandmother! Was she wearing orange?" I had not noticed. "I'm excited," said Journey. "I won't have to be at work."

 

As we left the cemetery I saw a group of people wearing orange gathering outside the main building. "What's it about orange?" I asked Journey. He didn't know but he did say she liked to be flashy.

 

My review of Deborah Meadows's BUMBLEBEES

 Please find the review here. Deborah Meadows is a very fine, very smart, poet. https://www.ronslate.com/on-bumblebees-poems-by-deborah-meadows/

Social Security checks for the dead

I nearly ran over the man and his dog a few weeks back. He started to curse, then saw me, and said "oh, it's you." I was horrified. Today, he yelled across the street from me on Hui Iwa that his side of the street was "spooky." Lilith and I went over to inquire as to why. "The traffic goes so fast down the hill, and the buses make the sidewalk shake," he said. Cosmo liked to go up there (overgrown, choke full of smells) and was pulling in that direction. We chatted a bit, then I asked how the man is handling "the apocalypse." 

 

"Oh it's a bunch of Koreans!" he said. I wondered what Koreans had to do with the apocalypse and indicated that I meant the current political situation. "My wife's Korean, and we're having a large family reunion on Maui. I like her brother-in-law, who's Indian, but the Koreans touch you, put their arms around you." He doesn't like that. "There's nothing to do on Maui, either," he added. "They're all doctors and dentists, lots of moolah."

 

As for Social Security, there are lots of dead people getting checks, he told me. "Urban legend," said I. Not true. "You just don't know what to believe now," he responded. Clearly, he didn't believe me either.

 

The death of the cemetery walker

S lets me in on all the conspiracy theories, not because they're good stories, but because he believes in them. We haven't talked much since the election, and after the inauguration, he's rubbed it in from afar. So, when he descended a cemetery hill in his John Deere vehicle the other day and swept across the road to pull up next to me and Lilith, I wondered. "Remember Renn, who turned out to be Rand?" he asked. Yes, the walker who had recurring cancers and hobbled a lot at the end. "He died. You can find his obituary on the cemetery webpage." The last time I saw Rand on my street, he said things had been rough but he was planning a trip to Paris. 

 

Today, I followed S to his battered green van. He was sitting in the driver's seat, attending to his phone. He wasn't sure he wanted to see me, that much was clear. So I pulled up to his open window and told him that I'd emailed Rand's widow. That she'd emailed back. I read him the message. Yes, they'd gone to Europe ("Yay! He made it!"), enjoyed food and the Alhambra, despite the neuropathy in Rand's feet.

The last time he walked in our area (after 30 years of it!), he and his daughter had gone to the cemetery, but S wasn't there. Must have been his day off. "He was thinking of you," I told S, whose eyes had softened. "That made my day."

 

I never talked much to Rand, who had great purpose in his gait. But I wish I had. His obit is chronicle of a life very well lived. He was a Vietnam vet, an early childhood expert, a psychologist, a tai chi master, devoted poker player. "He was the least judgmental person I ever met," wrote his wife of over 50 years.

 https://www.valley-of-the-temples.com/obituaries/rand-berkline/obituary

Lilith at Tesla, Kalakaua Avenue

 

Lilith and I walked in Waikiki yesterday evening, she with her sandwich sign "DOGE" (with the E crossed out) and I in my Jack Smith fan club shirt (though it was my Cards cap that earned me a fist bump from a deluded tourist, who thinks they'll be good this year). We were mostly older people who remember. In response to a sign welcoming Canadian tourists, a couple stopped to talk about tariffs and to say they feel for us in the USA. An Australian woman who missed her dog, displayed on her phone, said she's sorry for us. 

 

And then: the tall young white man who walked down the line of protesters yelling "pussy" in their faces. 

 

More young men, telling us to clear off the sidewalk as the police came, at least a dozen of them. "How many policemen does it take to change a light bulb in Waikiki? All of them." The young ones, and they were mostly young, look like my son. I want to hug them.

 

A woman who looked at Joe's sign, which included an image of Musk saluting fascistically, and said he'd done that out of love. Her face wrinkled with concern. She'd seen it on tv. (Joe said he had, too.) When we got to her claim that Obama had done it, too, we knew we were in deep--nay, shallow--water, and she wandered off.

 

A man who yelled at us about government fraud and waste. When I told him it was my turn to speak and said, "Musk is just taking our money," he responded, "Musk doesn't need your money." "Oh yes he does," said Joe.

 

A woman with a red-capped husband and small blonde child, dressed in a red wrap of some sort, who chanted "TRUMP" and waved her fist in the air. She tried to get her child to do same, but the little girl did not. I saw her from the back, this confused child, and felt some tenderness toward her (as I do for Musk's small boy).

 

A man who said Trump is wonderful (two shakas worth) and makes America strong in the world. I said "Europe doesn't seem to think so." "I'm European he said; you should try living there. It's turning Muslim." "I live here," I said.

 

The security guard who told A. there should be no cussing, because children were around.

 

A, who at dinner said of the woman who served us burgers, "she didn't vote. She can't. She was a felon."

One sheet to the wind

The retired airplane mechanic leaned against the hill as if the sidewalk were itself a gust of wind. He walks a large dog, fuzzy as his person's legs, whose face looks more human than most. I asked if the man had watched the speech last night. "I had it on until I felt sick to my stomach," he said, gruffly. Rumbled, rather, then sputtered like a bad engine as he spat out that "he's going after social security." As he leaned over to tie his Brooks shoe, he put his foot on the dog's leash. Dog took this as invitation to play. "Goddamn it, STOP!" he yelled at the dog. "Get down!" He was making no eye contact when he said he was sorry, but he was in a very bad mood this morning. (I said I'd noticed.) "The Republicans are nothing but Nazis at this point, and the Democrats . . ." This particular gust took him to imagining a German soldier near the end of WWII, desperately needing ammunition and supplies. But the trains weren't bringing them. The reason, we both knew, was Auschwitz. "They were shipping off Jews to be killed. And those Germans were STILL following Hitler." He leaned over to tell his dog everything was ok, as Lilith and I headed downhill.

 

Only the corrupt departments

1.

Daniel came toward us, his retired military pace not quite a march, but also not a stroll in the park, and pulled out his ear buds. "Do you know what Gene Hackman's very first film was?" he asked. No. "Lilith!" I pulled an envelope out of my pocket to show him; I'd found it near the sign at the entrance. It was closed, but one side had a big heart scrawled on it, and words of love (and "even like") for "Papa." The impress of a boot was over it, but not strong enough to interfere with the sentiment. The other side of the envelope bore strips of post-it notes with asemic writing on them. The envelope was glued shut. Dan said he'd take the envelope to the desk. He ended with a joke about a woman and her carberator.

 

2.

At the Temple, Lilith and I peered around the closed-looking ticket shack, painted maroon like the temple. There were two men in the shack, the one who sits and watches cars (likely to fend off thieves) and another who sat at the desk. "No Uncle John?" I asked. "He's got the day off," said the first man. "Only works here on weekends." I said I know that he has a FEMA job during the week and I worry about his job. "Oh, he works for DoD," said the second man, glaring at me. "No need to worry." "But so many people are getting fired," I said. "Only in the crooked departments," he said. "They're people with families and bills to pay." "They work in the crooked departments," he repeated. "You're wrong," I opined. "OK, if you say so."

 

2.5

Lilith and I marched into the parking lot, between huge buses disgorging tourists and the rental cars that ferried others in. A couple was releasing their two Aussie sheepdogs from a car. "I like your hat!" said the tall man. Cardinals fan.