He's Not One of Us by Constantine Gochis

It is the worst of times.  The Police Department is under severe scrutiny by a special investigating committee and the press.  I am the official Recruiting Officer of our Army Reserve Unit.  The Old Man, Colonel Frank DiGirolamo directs me as follows:

"No more cops!"

This makes me sad since I already approve an application by Bill Houlihan the week before the news breaks in the New York Post about the troubles.  Bill is a sergeant in the Police Department.

"Why do you not get the Old Man to sign the application last week?" says Big Jim Corcoran.

"I am busy writing the ratings of some of the officers," I reply.  "The CO makes me Rating Officer.  What's more he makes me Reviewing Officer.  He likes the way I write."

"Maybe it's because this new guy comes from the "old sod", says the big guy.  He arches an eyebrow and tables his beef.  Perhaps he remembers that his rating is coming due soon. I hope this is not so.  Big Jim and I belt a few short ones many a time in Shorty McKeever's bistro. 

Besides I marry an Irish lass even though her Jersey City relatives consider that I am rather dark complected for full membership in the family.

I learn not to cast stone, a quality that is very handy in today's cosmopolitan world.

Bill Houlihan is a talker.  In fact, he borders on the verbose. Never do I hear a New York accent as legitimate as his.  There is nothing he can say in two or three words that he doesn't use twenty or thirty. He lays a volume or two on me of trials and tribulations that will make the Book Club if he writes it.

He just loses a spot in the Seventy-Seventh Division, the famous New York unit that helps take Okinawa. This gives him a plus in my book. I serve nine months in this division during the war.  In fact, I am fortunate to escape into Officer Candidate School from the Seventy-Seventy which a few months later is shipped to the Pacific Theatre. At the time I do not wish to go there at all.  Frankly, I do not wish to go to the European alternative either, but it's one or the other.  Now that I think of it, I wonder why they refer to these places as "theatres"?  There's nothing entertaining about them.

To resume. Bill anticipates his sixth child.  His house in Long Island contains his wife and the five other children.  He dearly misses the green that peeks out from the envelope we receive, quarterly, a government check.

I determine to con the Old man into reversing his order. To be frank, there is no great con required.  Frank DiGirolamo reverses his ukase when I hand him the rejection papers for signature. I add, "Sir, I am remiss if I do not inform you that this guy is well connected in Washington, and a Bronze Star winner in the last go."

"What should we do," says the rattled CO.

"Leave the matter to me," I suggest.

"Ok," he says, "just this one more time."

Bill is received enthusiastically by the other men, except perhaps for the Executive Officer, Salvador Di Pena, who chides me. "He's not one of us," he says.

I am not flattered by the inclusivenss of this statement. One thing for sure, I do not wish to be "one of him".

Bill becomes as adept as any in pursuing the emoluments offered by the Government.  He takes a whole series of extension courses in Military Government, now called Civil Affairs. Whenever an extension course is offered on an active status, he takes it.  In the period of the Korean War, he takes half a dozen of these "double dippings" with a championship flair. His salary as a Sergeant of Police continues while he is on Active Duty. He is also piling up retirement points at double the rate of the average member.

His grades vary from excellent to superior. He is often called upon to share this expertise as our lecturer, a dreaded event in the unit.  Bill drones on without commas or periods for the hour. He does not even give the traditional ten minute break, which some commanders give, even in combat. There is much unhappiness when he is scheduled.

"I learn to sleep with my eyes open," says Captain McCloud.

He does not lose his composure when he is chastised with barbs.

In one session, he poses the time worn question about policy during a military occupation: "It is three o'clock in the morning," he says. "You are wakened by the sound of a horse drawn cart rolling over the cobblestones, below. There is a curfew on.  You are the Commander. What is your action?"

"I nudge my secretary," says Captain Berkowitz.  There is a full minute of laughter. Bill is unperturbed. 

I get to know Bill very well.  We invite him to join our group for our traditional seances at a local pub. Big Jim, Captain McCloud, even Big John find him to be a regular guy. It becomes very clear that Bill is very tight with a buck.  This is something I learn over the year that he is a member of our unit.  One of my unofficial duties is the arrangement of our semi-annual festivities.  These are not optional.  The CO insists that all officers attend. Worse, they are encouraged to bring the wife or girlfriend.  We have not yet arrived at the "significant other" stage in military festivities.

The ladies love these parties.  I love them also, so I make arrangements in such places as the St. Moritz on the thirty-third floor, overlooking Central Park.  Sometimes, on an off nithgt, a club like the Latin Quarter, or the Alameda Club, when a little Latin Spice is called for.

Getting these guys to loosen up with the wherewithal is a painful process.  When the officers open their wallets, a swarm of moths escape, such is the infrequency with which they loosen the zippers.  

Bill is even more difficult.  I get him to subscribe, but he never brings the wife. Naturally, this intractibility perturbs the Old Man, and especial the boy-girl, boy-girl arrangements of the tables for eight.

"I marry a Japanese lady in Tokoyo," explains Houlihan.  She is very shy and uncomfortable with Americans."

It is a tale he uses over and over again.  In the twenty years I know him, I never see his wife.  Nor does anyone else. 

Of course, in my official capacities, I get to see his 201 file, and other documents.

Also, he forgets that when I interview him for admission into the group, he mentions his wife's name, Katie O'Brien, a moniker not usually found in Japan.

The Executive Officer, Salvador Di Pena, is very wroth with Bill.  He is even more disturbed that I do not find sufficient fault with him.  He takes every opportunity to create dissension with anyone who will listen.

"I catch Houlihan looking through your 201 file," he tells me one day. "How can you trust a guy like that?"

I tell him that I do not care who looks at the file. I remind him that I see HIM pouring over these files.  I do not say "bent over the files", as he is too short to bend over anything but the lowest drawer.

Salvador works in civilian life in the subway system. His job is to ride the rails and look for problems.  His routine for job performance is usual Civil Service.  He calls into Headquarters from a telephone within the subway system itself. He then presumably rides the trains as a trouble shooter. Wrong. He makes the office call, then retires to an office where he assists his mother in running an export business with Ecuador.

Big Jim, whose business is investigating Police applicants for the Academy wises me up.

"I meet him in McKeevers Bar and Grill.  He does not buy a drink, but he eats all the pretzels on the bar. He is happy, so I ask him if he picks a winner at Hialeah or something."

"Jim," he says, "you guys always call me cheap.  No more," he adds joyfully, "mother died."

"You mean he now owns the export business?" I ask.

"What's more," Bill continues, "he has a doll on the side.  I see a large bouquet sitting on an adjoining stool. I read the card sticking out of the wrapper.  I says as follows: 'Dear Carlotta,' and ends, 'con amore, Salvadore.' His wife's name is not Carlotta."

Big Jim's information is always reliable.  The very next day, Big John collars me and says, "Do you hear about the Exec.?"

"Hear what?" I say cautiously. 

"Marrone," which is the way he pronounces the irreverent expletive, 'Madonna'. 

"I see the little guy with a real doll on his arm. They are going into the Copacabana, which takes more than a few bob." 

Big John is proud that his parents come from Genoa, where the proper Italian is spoken.  On the other hand, he does not do too well with English any more than Italian, though he holds a Fordham University diploma.  His most recent gaffe is when he describes an inflammation he has acquired, as a "Prostrate condition."

Our unit is in deep prepatory operations for the coming Summer Camp Exercises.  Houlihan is very anxious to be included in the advance party contingent.  Always astute, Bill covets the three extra days pay that accrues to members of this party.  His police pay will continue concurrently, as he is a patriotic citizen.

Salvador Di Pena traditionally preempts the leadership of this group.  He usually includes those officers whom he feels look kindly on him. It is not likely he will choose Houlihan.

As a matter of fact, I go with him last year, which is a big mistake.  He asks me again this year, but I tell him my boss does not sit still for the extra three days absence.

I wonder how come the Old Man even allows him to go in the first place.  Last summer, instead of making the arrangements for quarters, and chow, and most important, the payroll, he spends most of the three days in an upper barracks sleeping on a pile of mattresses. He is caught by the camp Commandant, who hears snoring as he is inspecting the premises.

The Commandant sends a written report to our CO and makes very ungenerous remarks about our unit, and the Army Reserve program. He is a West Pointer. I know this from the very prominent ring he wears.

Private DiMaggio head the pool on who the chosen will be. Only one guy in the unit picks Houlihan. He cleans up. The tariff is a deuce, and over a hunderd guys buy a ticket.  I do not bet, as I have insider information, though I am sorely tempted, since I never win in a long time. It is five years since I win with a thirteen run pool, when I pick the St. Louis Cardinals over the Giants thirteen to zip.

I find out also that Private DiMaggio is honest.  He does not enter the proceedings. It is he who tells me the story.

If I do not mention it before, DiMaggio is a chauffeur, in addition to being a cop.  He drives the Police Commissioner officially, and frequently on special occasions.

"I drop him off at the Paradise Club," says DiMag, "The Commish has a real looker for a wife.  There is no parking in the area, but the management maks special provisions for the Boss. I park right in front and watch the guys and dolls parade into the Club."

"Get to the point," I say impatiently.  He adds, "I see the Exec, Salvador. He squires what I consider a real winner.  He goes in and is followed nor more than a minute by Big John and Eulalie. You remember, she's the Old Man's daughter.  He almost has a stroke the first time he catches them together."

I wonder about two things.  Where Big John gets the bread to afford the Paradise Club, and what kind of spell does Salvador's broad cast over him to loosen up enough bucks for such a joint.  Also I would like to be a fly on the table when these two couples encounter each other.

"They sit together," says Private DiMaggio. "I hear about it from the bus boy who is my wife's nephew. He says he thinks Big John's eyes will pop out of his head when he gloms the Exec's lady. He smiles so wide it looks like he has sixty-four teeth. Eulalie is greatly displeased with his conduct.

"Do you tell the story to anyone else?" I ask.

"One other person," say DiMaggio. "Bill Houlihan. He slips me a double sawbuck, which I take since I lose money on several enterprises as a bookie. He says there is another twenty if you run another pool as follows: 'Big John makes it with Salvador's girl within the three days he is away on the Advance Party. Pick a day."

The Exec's name does not appear on the special order. Houlihan is named as commander and Big John as his deputy. It if the first time in years that Salvator misses going on the Advance Party. 

"I have many duties here with executive matters.  Besides, Big John can use the experience," Di Pena tells us at a staff meeting. "The Old Man cannot spare me for the three extra days."

Half Century In Memoriam: Rosetta Gochis, My Mother

I had planned to be more attentive to the anniversary of my mother's death on November 25, 1974, fifty full years since the day at Bronx Lebanon Hospital I was quickly ushered out of her room to the realization that she had just passed. But this past week, I managed to get the first real flu I have had in many a year, and so an entire week got away from me while I tried to escape from the misery of stuffed head, stuffed nose, nausea, and wild nighttime coughing instead of reflection and prayer over the enigma that she was, and will always be to me.

I write with a sadness compounded by the fact that one of my few friends who knew my mother well, who in many ways was more like the daughter my mother would have liked to have had, with whom I would have loved to share this day of remembrance, has unfriended and blocked me (along with at least one other friend) because of my expression of my political beliefs. So, in a way, I write of two variations of an experience of death. Much of life is indeed defined by loss and how we handle it. 

I mention my friend, (and she remains my friend, whatever she considers me to be after all these years, since we were about 12), because the last picture I have of my mother, fuzzy and imperfect, 

was taken at the wedding of my friend's sister. It was October, 1974. For most of the years I experienced my mother, she was not particularly interested in gatherings outside her immediate family. She had a distinctly anti-social streak, as far as I could ascertain, along with huge expectations of the world and those in her immediate orbit, in which mostly, it seemed, we all failed. She had dreams that did not include living in a one bedroom apartment in the Mt. Eden Section of the Bronx, and even an improved location near Riverdale. She had married at 18, for reasons that were not clear to any of us, including my father, who often said, after she died, that he had committed a sin in marrying her. She wanted him to provide a Manhattan life on a Bronx salary. He did very well by her and by me, but he never did get her the place with a doorman. My mother was a dreamer, so much so, that I believe she invented a whole other life--though even that is not entirely certain, that it was an invention--full of people with only first names, allegedly in the modelling industry, name Robert (pronounced "Robaire"), Lisa (pronounced "Leeza"), and Evelyn (pronounced "EVE-lyn") with whom she worked as a hand model in some undisclosed location in Manhattan. It was my therapist, of many years ago, who reminded me that I once described her as a "cold volcano" during one of our sessions. The family refrain regarding my mother was "That's just Rosetta". My father and I walked on eggshells. And then she got sick. Very sick, in June 1973. She had not been to any doctor since I was born nearly 20 years before. But it was hard even for her to ignore a rock hard place in torso, and the fact that she was turning yellow from the jaundice that meant it had spread. Metastatic. The first time I think I ever heard the word. Metastatic breast cancer. She was terminal. My father and I never agreed on what were our next instructions, but I know for a fact that for the remaining 14 months of her life, a gift, given the prognosis, no one ever mentioned the word "cancer" to her or to anyone regarding her. The view of doctors "in those days" was that the patient would not fight hard for survival if she knew for certain it was cancer. Of course, as the several articles I found after her death about miracle cures for cancer demonstrated, she knew. 

But something in her changed. The parapets, the walls, the moat that had surrounded her and separated us from her, fell or disappeared. Although religion did not feature in the change (looking back I wish it had, but then even I wasn't practicing anything, well into what would become an over a decade lapse), she did seem to appreciate life in general and her life in a way I had never seen. My father went into overprotection mode. Angry overprotection mode. He and I clashed. My mother had become. . . .well, mother-like, in the emotional sense. But we really couldn't talk about it. She visited relatives that she had ignored for years. She met with my aunt downtown at Schrafts. Despite the treatments and the side effects, which for her in the early days of chemotherapy, were fairly minimal (as such things can be reckoned in a horrible situation), she seemed, well, happy. The picture above was an example of the changed woman--she was enjoying herself, sick as she was, she was enjoying herself. I never sensed before that she enjoyed herself much. It was nice to see. But not to be commented upon, certainly not to her. 

I remember picking out that wig with her, somewhere on Fordham Road. It really did seem like her own hair--although it was the first time in years, in all my knowing her, that I had seen her in other than other than a tight, torturous bun. As a young woman, there were many shots of her with long flowing brown black hair. But not in my childhood or teen years. And then once she got sick, she did indeed, "let her hair down". 

That friend who has blocked me came over to the house and the two of them bonded over fun furs, these little fake fur jackets my mother had bought, the two of them going through the closet and trying them on. My mother was a giddy teenager with my friend. By this time, my relationship with her had become complicated. I couldn't relax with her the way I wanted. But I was glad to see her free in a way that maybe she had never known. And so, even if my friend never unblocks me, as it were, I won't forget that little moment of joy that she gave to my mother, which I couldn't. 

A month later, my mother calmly told my father she needed to go to the hospital. She applied her makeup and they went to the hospital. I left from the college radio station, WFUV, to take the bus to meet them at the hospital. Assigned to her room she got into bed and fell into a coma on November 15, 1974, never recovering consciousness, and dying on Monday, the 25th. Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 28 and it was necessary to hasten the wake and funeral. The wake was on Tuesday. Burial was on Wednesday. 

Today is Monday, the 25th.  Thanksgiving will be the 28th as it was all those years ago. I haven't had the heart for Thanksgiving, the holiday, since then. Maybe, particularly this year, that is true, though happily I will spend it with friends. 

I arranged for a perpetual enrollment (via the Seraphic Mass Association) for my mother, who I hope, I believe, has finally found the happiness life did not afford her in the hands of a loving God. 

Rest in Peace, innocent, sad irish girl, dead at 48. 

Life Matchbook by Matchbook

I have quite a number of elderly friends, mostly from my parish in Los Angeles. We seem to have and had a number of people who have lived to be nonogenarians. 

Pretty much after the death of my father in 2008, himself, briefly, a nonogenarian, it seems that Providence, for I can think of no other cause, has asked that I assist others in that decade. This does not come easy to me, which is, perhaps why God seems to insist on my doing so, until it does become easy to do His apparent Will. The deeply personal aspect of helping an elderly individual is antithetical to my nature, one that seems to rebel against close human interaction. I was raised an only child in a familial triangle in which physical warmth was rare. I never married. I live alone. Or, it's just some nature-nuture thing. Suffice it to say whatever it is that makes me resistant in helping people so personally is being ignored by my Lord God.  I am wondering if He is offering a hint, that He asks me to trust Him that I can do whatever He asks, another of my resistances generated by lifelong anxiety. And add to that some guilt that there are those (slightly younger) that I have not helped as much as I might if I had not had all these years of other elders falling into my orbit. One is my aunt, who is cared for by my cousin. I believe I should be doing more for them, but the anxiety of dealing with those that already are on my schedule (and have been for some time) has made me less active with her than I otherwise would be. 

That's not the crux of today's entry, just an entre, as it were, to it. There are realities to getting old, many realities, practical, emotional and spiritual. I want to focus on one of the practicalities I have observed--the cluttered apartment or house that becomes an especial burden at the end of life. At a time when folks should be letting go of stuff (and as you know I had already been on a so far unsuccessful "get rid of stuff" trend) they seem to bring it in, or, at least there is no doubt it surely seems to grow. I have in the last 16 years, four times had to clean out the space of a person who either needed a care home or died. "Overwhelming" does not begin to describe it. I have already noted in a prior entry that I am terrified that I will be one of those elders, as I am merely one generation behind the nonogenarians, and I do have that clutter tendency. What I already knew and is seared into my head is that none of this material matters, not the expensive nor the cheap. When we are gone, so is that stuff. Oh, someone might keep a memento. But then that person dies and the next in line has no use for it, and it holds no memories for them. Maybe an item or two will have historic value, but the person attached to it years before may or may no longer be remembered. When we leave this earth, what we had is either inherited or its trash, but either way, it's value is transient. Everything in my apartment has a story--for me. But to others, it is ephemera. 

So. Back when most restaurants had matchbooks which advertised the glamor of eating in their particular venues, I was one of those people who took a book as a token of the dining experience, and as a memento of times spent with friends. Long ago restaurants ceased creating and providing matchbooks, often themselves mini pieces of art, but from New York to California and visits to places in between, I ended up with a fair collection.  Quite a number of the books are reminders of restaurants famous and long gone. Some just have a personal connection to me--a favorite that seemed would always be there for breakfast, lunch or dinner, but wasn't. I have twice offered the collection to a local vintage collector who has family connections to old Hollywood. But she has twice asked me to hold onto them until she recontacts me, and the gap between those times has been a couple of years. So I found someone else, from a matchbook collecting society of some sort. 

I went through them again today, kind of a reaction to having had to get another of my elderly friends (the second in three weeks) to the hospital for emergency care. As the paramedics and ambulance personnel checked him out in his bedroom and arranged for transport, I sat on the couch of his living room noticing just how much stuff he clearly could not care for had developed over the years since last I had been in that apartment. I know that some of it is likely valuable, but the valuable and the not valuable all merged into one large disheveled clump of STUFF. I could tell some of it clearly had meaning for him, certain books, certain pictures. When I got home I just wanted to get rid of something, and the matchbooks just beckoned, and of course, as I gathered them into a shopping bag, the memories came tumbling back of several of the places represented. I can get rid of the matchbooks; I should get rid of the matchbooks; the memories are left to me at least until I am a memory. Moments of my life reflected in a matchbook. I met up with a lovely woman, Denise, who is part of a club that collects and trades matchbooks of these sort and I donated my collection of the last 50 or so years. I took photos of the ones that hit my heart. 

Maybe some of these places hold memories for you. 

Peppercorns:  That was a place I went to with college friends quite often in my late college and early law school years. It was on Grey Oaks Avenue, Yonkers, New York right near the Saw Mill Parkway. They often had musicians playing that late 70s folk type music. It was comfortable. Dark. Casual. Cozy. I am trying to remember what my favorite drink there was. Bourbon Sour? Dacquiri? One of my friends who had a crush on a waitress there might remember? It was there I told Len and Andrew (do they remember?) after I had first visited Los Angeles that I wanted to move here. I seem to recall a particular evening pronouncing that intention. I was really set on it. And surprise of surprises in 1981, I did it!

Baci:  This was a little Italian place on Beverly Boulevard, with a small, but natural back patio. It was near my apartment on Spaulding Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, and it was a place that my father, friends and I went for many evening meals. In Los Angeles, if you really wanted to see a celebrity (and best if you are not actually looking for them), the local eateries and shopping venues used to be (and still are a little) places to encounter them, not in the tourist sites. And so this was one of the places in which I early spied a celebrity, Rod Stewart and a wife, though I am not sure which one, along with a little boy in his arms. It was there that my father met up with my friend Susan's father, both men old time New Yorker's which always provides a commonality. I don't recall when that place closed but it is at minium 20 years and almost all of the descendants have opened and closed quickly. 

Mirabelle:  Mirabelle was a discovery early in my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before West Hollywood became a city of its own in the county. It was on the Sunset Strip. My first visit there was with a college friend who had moved back to Los Angeles with her father before she graduated with us from Fordham, her father being in the entertainment industry. I was newly relocated to California and considering a return to the Catholic faith. As we munched, she told me of a little Church around the corner, on Holloway Drive. I was so new to Los Angeles, I did not know that there was a street between Sunset and Santa Monica named Holloway. Not long after I repaired to the little Church where I have been a parishioner for 40 plus years. It turned out, I would find, that the parishioners often went there after Sunday Mass for Brunch. The restaurant was run by a Greek man named George (what else?) and our Greek-Mexican pastor, Monsignor Parnassus, knew him well. It was casual, and bright, and the food was solidly good. Because they knew so many of us, substitutions were never a problem. The restaurant had been there since 1974 or so, and seemed like one of those places that would survive forever. But the 90s came, and the 2000s and the generational interests shifted. George tried to modernize the place, make it "hip" or whatever was the current word for updating. The new furniture was garish. No substitutions were allowed. Business did not increase. It decreased. Again what about 15 or 20 years ago (time is passing so quickly I can't recall really), George gave up the dining ghost, and retired. This space has also been innumerable restaurants that did not survive. Right now, it is again being remodeled by someone who clearly does not know that in the absence of great luck he or she will have none. Although I have no matches from it, there is another place on Holloway Drive, Dialogue, that used to be a sleepy sort of coffee shop type locale, and it was a place that we parishioners also used to go to, if Mirabelle's was not the particular choice. Some years ago, a retired couple bought it, and while it became a bit more upscale, it remained sleepy and always with available tables until one of their sons inherited it. He made it very successful among the z generation. It is always crowded. The old attentiveness is gone. The wait time for a take-out meal (also for which we parishioners liked it) is very long. So, it is alas no longer a favorite place. I am more likely to run to the Subway on Sunset for a quick sandwich. 

Sarno's:  There was a loss. On Vermont Avenue, Los Feliz, it was a place for food and opera by the waiters and waitresses. I can't say that I went there often, but it was authentic Hollywood of golden days opened in the 1940s in a building built in the 1920s initially only as a bakery, but later adding the coffee shop/restaurant.  I am not sure, but I think it was there I saw George Takei of Star Trek fame having a meal. The end of that famed place was of movie vintage.  But just as in a movie, in 1987, Albert Sarno, the progeny of the original owners, was shot to death near his home on Los Feliz Boulevard. Albert's wife kept the place going until 2000.

Yesterday's:  This goes back to before my actual move to Los Angeles. It was 1977 and I was in between semesters at Law School in New York. I had a week to do something and I decided, if I could stay with my father's youngest brother and his family, (whom I hardly knew, so they were very kind indeed) I would make a visit to California. I had a college friend (we still are), Dennis Vellucci, who was a fellow at USC and lived in Santa Monica. I didn't drive then, so he volunteered to show me the town. At that time, a big part of the town was Westwood, the college community by UCLA. It was a hopping place, lots of restaurants, lots of activity (Tower Records, Bullocks, Mario's Restaurant--there's a matchbook pictured here- Stan's Donuts, Monty's Steak House, Flax, Alice's Restaurant, lots of movie theatres).  And the place he took me to was Yesterday's, a two tier restaurant, with live music and great drinks (I loved frozen dacquiris). When I came back as a visitor in 1978, I went back there and a brought a friend or two. And when I moved to Los Angeles, I went there as often as I could. In the 90s, when all of Westwood was seeing a slump and gangs were maurauding and scaring visitors away, it closed, as did so many of the other places I mentioned in the parenthesis). I haven't spent much time in Westwood since then, and still they have a hard time keeping restaurants and businesses. 

Barney's Beanery:  Happily this restaurant is still there at the crossroad of Santa Monica and Holloway. It is, as you may know, the last place that Janis Joplin ate before she overdosed in the 1970s at the age of 27. It was a go to for the rock crowd back in the day with memorabilia galore. To me it's gotten a little seedy over the years, but back in the 90s I fairly well frequented it, including during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that put a curfew on ordinary citizens--something new for me. I was there with my friend Andrew in the daylight hours one day before curfew, when a bunch of firefighters came in for a well deserved meal. Just as their food was served, they got a call. And out they went. The waitress seemed unphased, and the food was kept warm, if I remember, and they came back pretty quickly as another company had already answered the call. 

I could go on and on, but here is one more from the photos, and if you, the reader are inclined, feel free to ask me in the comments about one of the places I haven't mentioned. Not all, but most have some small story attached. So, here's the last for this entry.

Carlos and Charlies:  Here I only have a drink ticket. It was a Mexican Restaurant also on Sunset not far from where I live now. They had the best tuna based dip for tortilla chips. I went there early in my life in Los Angeles, in the early 1980s, with the staff of my then law office boss, and partners, for one of my opportunities to see Joan Rivers. And I brought a friend or two there when a choice of restaurant was sought. They too, in the 90s saw a downturn and ultimately it closed, and so far as I can tell it has never been another restaurant, but some kind of office building.

I loved Los Angeles, when I first visited and for the first 20 or so years I lived here. As time has worn on, as has been true of most major cities, the allegedly progressive politics that promised a better town made it so much worse. Oh, I know, you might not agree, depending on your affiliations. There are, however, only three things that keep me here now.  First, I am too old to leave and start a new life in a more policy attractive state. Second, I have more people here than elsewhere, and I am ensconced in a nice, presently safe home. Third, you still can't beat the weather. 

A Bit of My (College) Stuff

As you know, if you read this blog, and surprisingly, people seem to do so, I have been going through STUFF (the thought of this made me watch the George Carlin bit on this very subject; highly recommended). Some of the sentimental STUFF I have put in photograph form online, just in case somebody, 100 years from now, if we survive as the human race, might find interesting, from a kind of personal and historical point of view.  Just call me Ozymandias.  I believe in eternal immortality, but I also like the idea of an earthly version in memory. Maybe it will work better for me than it did for Ozymandias. I'm not holding my breath, but I have this bug about trying.  Of course, whether or not there is life after death (hint: I think there is), I won't probably care. I digress. 

Some of the STUFF I have placed in a similar form on this blog, like my Dad's short short stories so that he won't be utterly forgotten. A whole lot I have given away to a Veteran's Group, the STUFF that actually can be used, clothes, jewelry, books, small furniture. I should note that the latter seems not to make a dent in my lingering STUFF. The condo still looks chock full of tchotchkes, each of which, upon review, is emotionally indispensable. I know, this reflects all sorts of psychological realities. Hey, we all got them! Take a look around your abode. Bet you are holding onto all sorts of ridiculous things. 

One of those items I present to you today, both in photographic form and textual form. It's Freshman Year at Fordham University, the Bronx, New York, 1973, (that reality causes a groan!). I am in an English class and poetry is the current focus.  We have an assignment to write on John Keats, "Ode on A Grecian Urn", particularly it seems on both the style and the content; no surprise. I was usually pretty good about doing my homework on time, and ahead of time. But if my memory serves, this was one of those flash assignments, like a pop quiz. I tended to do my homework in my room (by then we had been three years in an apartment that had two bedrooms, instead of one for a family of three), but that evening, I took to the galley kitchen and the small round particle board table. What I remember about the exercise was that it was one of those rare times in which something came easy to me, flowed into my head, and just came through the pen (and then my handwriting wasn't as awful), and I found myself actually enjoying the task. I got a good grade, and there was something comforting, even joyful that something I enjoyed doing, was appreciated.

Yes, I feel compelled to put it here, and if you want, just skip over it. 

Djinna Gochis

English 15, Section 9

April 24, 1973

    An understanding of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" requires knowledge that only a classical education could give, or, at least, a little research.  With his allusions, Keats assumes that the reader has some prior conception of Greek life, art, myth and philosophy. An awareness of the extended allusions seems essential to the meaning and greater appreciation of of the ode.

By selecting as his subject, a Grecian urn, representative of a golden age of humanity, Keats effectively establishes his believe in the lasting perfection of human creation.  The urn is symbolic of physical and spiritual beauty, suspended in time. The expressiveness of Greek art is the expressiveness of human kind.  That such a thing was created by man seems proof of man's essentially lofty nature.  Indeed, while he describes the intricacies of the painted figures (descriptive), he allows himself the freedom to tell the story of mankind, the persistence of the spirit and of human ideas (narrative).

The images themselves are remarkably real.  All senses come into play while reading the poem. Once can see the forests and the maidens, chased by the gods in the growth.  One can hear the pipes and smell the sweet flowers.  It is even possible to feel the pulsation of life itself.  The poet chooses his words well--the diction allows the pictures to come alive.  Every detail is meticulously arranged--the picture is clear.  

But what does the poet say? Each stanza has its own significance.  The first tells of the joys of earth-bound living.  There are two mythical stories--one of Daphne, who, scorning Apollo, was turned into a tree at Tempe and the other of the revelries of Pan (half-man, half-horse) and the nymphs at Oready.  All life life to the fullest.  They enjoy physical pleasures (a kind of deification of human pleasure these myths).

There is more than physical joy.  There is the pleasure unbounded by time and space-the mind, the imagination. The youth will never grow old.  The tree will never lose its foliage.  Love will never fade for the young there pictured.

The third stanza is an extension of the second..  It is a development of the concept of the eternity of things beautiful--of art and of the mind. 

The life of Greece will ever be remembered.  Once the priests brought sacrifice to the gods.  Once there existed an ancient town and its sleeping ancient inhabitants.  All these will be preserved forever on the urn.  Their memory lives.  Herein lies the importance of art.

The fifth stanza draws Keat's thoughts through to a conclusion--neither unexpected nor startling.  He merely reiterates that BEAUTY lives when each generation is dead and gone. It provided that (envied) sought after link with eternity, with immortality.  Beauty is forever.

The meter seems to be generally iambic which represents perhaps the smoothness, the gentle flowing of time through eternity.  The rhyme is partial and peculiar (ababcdedce).  The stanzaic form is difficult to determine and required some research.  It is apparently a rather unconventional form, praise as a feat.  It is a combination of the quatrain (the first four lines) and the sestet (the last six lines, generally used in the Italian Sonnet).

The blatant metaphor, and the most famous is "Beaty is truth, truth beauty."  It is difficult to interpret, but perhaps easy to misinterpret.  It recalls the Platonic philosophy, the World of Forms, to which men strive. When a man seizes upon an IDEA, he has found Truth.  When he has found TRUTH, he has also found the Good or Beauty.  In reverse, when a man has found what is BEAUTIFUL, he has come to TRUTH.  Such is the message of Keats. 

This page I've carried around with me, how long--a bit over 51 years represents, essentially, freezes in time the  kid at the kitchen table, age just 19, trying to consider the depths of a poem for a school exercise and who then never would have imagined herself  sitting here, in California. At that point, the idea of leaving New York, or even the Bronx, had not yet really occurred to her. At that time and place, there had not yet been a diagnosis of her mother with a terminal cancer (that came just about two months later). That particular night, I seem to remember a peace as she wrote. Do I remember or do I imagine that my mother was feet from me preparing the dinner for our family triad. I know my father was not yet home. I was no doubt happy because Spring had arrived. I have always loved the arrival of the Spring, and the sense of coming out of an unsafe and dark cave. I know I felt good that night. Able.

And so, I have protected this little piece of paper more than any of the many other college things I maintained (until my recent purges). As I sit here writing, I am not sure I am going to let it go, even now, just now. No, I don't think I will. I will have to leave that to the person who gets rid of my remaining STUFF when that time (which I hope is not soon) comes!

A Long Way to Go

In the last year or two, I have been delving deeply into my Catholic Faith far more than the previous nearly 40 years. I have sought to stop being a perfunctory person in the pew or in assisting ministries. (People I know would say, I think, that I am far from perfunctory. I am often at Mass, and often in Confession, and participating in many parish activities. This is only proof that appearances are deceiving. I am and have been active indeed, but activity is not of itself transformative).

 I have once again explored two approaches to this life:  the Sartre/Camus existentialist "life has no meaning, life is absurd, life is hard and then you die, the end" variety and then "the God created us to be happy, and we were, yet, with our free will, we set off an explosion of sin and suffering and death, but God so loved us and has given us a second chance in the form of following Him who took on our sin, died and transformed death into life" variety. The former makes no sense to me at all, is, pardon the expression "meaningless". In "The Plague", Camus' hero fights a plague despite his fervid assumption that life has no meaning. He seeks meaning in fighting the plague.  Why fight for what does not exist? Why should we long for that which does not exist? How can a human being, thrown into the world randomly, discover meaning where there is none? Fighting for something presupposes there is something discreet out there warranting risk and charity.  Either meaning exists or it does not---and if you seek it, then it must exist, somewhere.  The desire for meaning seems to prove the existence of a universe with ultimate meaning. Ok, I'm not going down that rabbit hole, just leading to my choice of the latter, which posits the meaning that we humans seem to seek in every action we take and every argument we make. I have concluded, hopefully for the inevitably short balance of my life, that Catholicism, provides the fullest source of Meaning, that is God Made Man, who reaches out His physical yet Transcendent Hand to every single one of us, if we would just clear away the pride and its overgrown chaff. He asks us to see that the suffering we caused is transformed if we follow Him through it to Resurrection. 

The wounds of our lives, the result of the tsunami of sin caused (credit for the phrase here is to Fr. Ed Broom of St. Peter Chanel, who calls sin a "moral tsunami"), that we use to justify our rejection of God is the very thing that that can be healed through the Catholic Church, who is Jesus Christ. The people (Peter, the "Rock", the Apostles, the Disciples, Mary, His mother) upon which Jesus, the Church, upon which He joined Himself, upon which He laid His Foundation, are His branches (I am the Vine; You are the Branches). The branches break, some stop bearing leaves or fruit, while others manage to continue, but the Vine, the Church He is and He founded, survives and manages always to feed, to bring health. In the Sacraments we are nurtured and healed. In the teachings, we are led by the hand back to the meaning that we obscure. 

A retreat (through the John Paul II Healing Center held in Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra), I went on a short while ago, was focused on the wounds, inevitably inflicted by other frail humans in our development, and inflicted on ourselves by our own consequent sins, did something being in therapy, studying therapy, and reading endlessly never did.  We all have wounds. All of us. That was the inevitable consequence of the first choice against God. It was four days of about 30 of us looking at wounds in both a psychologically and spiritually integrated way using a video presentation, prayer, Mass, Spiritual Direction, and Confession . I have looked at each dimension over the course of my life, but somehow, I never really joined them into a unity. I had nearly despaired that there was a chasm between me and God that something in me would not bridge. For all my church going, participation, receipt of the Sacraments (since I came back to the faith officially), I have been living parallel to God. I have, implicitly, and mostly unconsciously, even when I thought I was fully aware, been using what I perceive to be my wounds as a fortress to keep God at bay. I say all the time, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief", while telling Him not to get too close. He, of course, could broach the moat and pierce the walls or heavy door, but He won't violate my choices. He reaches to me; and like the model of the greatest saint, Mary, His Mother, he yearns for my unqualified "Yes!" instead of a hedging one.

Wounds can be used as a shield against the rescue operation He successfully mounted on the Cross. "Nope," we/I say, my family of origin, my father, my mother, my brother, my school, the horribly human priest, or nun, "I am too hurt, too injured to reach out to a God even if it means that I separate myself from Him instead of living in joy restored to Heaven".  In Paradise, we had it all, and rejected it. Now, we have a second chance and we spit "I will not Serve" either deliberately or reflexively out of deep hurts and fear and anger. 

I have never said, "I will not serve" and I do seek to do His Will, knowing that ultimately it is not merely out of obedience to the Truth, but, to be truthful, beneficial self-interest. Am I foolish enough to prefer hell, worse than any suffering here, rather than bliss in the Beatific Vision? But those emotional carbuncles distract and confuse. 

The area in which my particular perceived wounds reflect themselves in everyday life, and after the retreat, there was a lightbulb, much brighter than all others which have flashed through my searching was in fear and anger.  For purposes of this entry, it matters not how they were developed, but that they have governed even the smallest interaction where those wounds were touched upon and how often they have been touched and limited me in my relationships and lacks thereof. And how, if I do not address both the psychological and spiritual at once, with the indispensable help of God's penetrating Grace, the last chance, to love the God who loves us, who loves each of us completely and fully, nor accept the love He so obviously offers by the historical fact of His death on the Cross and its Resurrection miracle, will be lost. 

Mostly, I have kept my anger to myself, driven it within; my fear I think has been more visible to those who know me, but a few have seen an outbreak of anger in public places. It has been rare, but it has happened, and seemed triggered by nothing. Oh, but it never has been nothing. It has been something the other cannot see. And when they have laughed,  or dismissed, to the extent they have seen, the determination to drive my heart behind the wall has increased away from everybody, and just in case, from God too, silly as that is. I haven't even realized it. That's what I mean. The retreat helped me see in a way I never have. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who hasn't first tried traditional therapy, and/or spiritual direction. I needed the preliminary insight. And I had insight up the wazoo. But it wasn't translating into a real change.

These days, since the retreat, I have noticed the moments that lead up to the feelings of fear and/or anger and their various components in a way I do not think I have before. I see that they defeat me and keep me from jumping the chasm and to God.  How exactly that happens, well, let's see from an example of yesterday.

I had some business to attend to that required me to mail a significant number of envelopes so that I could have tracking. I have a favorite small post office that is in an equally favorite tourist area. They are more efficient than the main post office nearby, and usually they are not terribly crowded because it is an odd spot for a post office. When I got there, there was just one person ahead and no one behind me. The lovely cashier was patient and kind as she began the painstaking weighing and printing of labels for each envelope, which was complicated by the fact that her new label printer was malfunctioning. Meanwhile, a line behind me had developed and I began to feel the general impatience of the gathering customers, which I certainly understood as I too have had to wait on such lines. My Spidey senses, the ones I developed as a young child, felt the seething annoyance not merely at having to wait, but that this person, me, was in the way. I felt the unfair pressure, but I also felt some guilt, or was it a sense of charity, I don't know. Perhaps it was both, as I have become especially aware of late of the reality of the wounds of others, but guilt in that I have never been sure when I have done something warranting remonstration or something that does not--a legacy of my early life. I asked the cashier if she could help some of the people that had quick needs, and one even was not that quick. At first she said no, because it would interrupt the momentum we had begun and the receipt process, then she said she was able to do it. So I let two individuals break into my task, which also created its own stress as I wanted to be careful and accurate. The context of the fallible labeler and the unhappy stares was an aggravating factor. I did not sense gratefulness from the first youngish woman, and sure enough though she said something to me as she finished, it was not "Thank You". The next was a man who needed to pick up some already paid for postcards. He said nothing as he passed me and left.  A third woman just walked up to the window, and I asked her politely I thought, I hope, whether what she was about to do would be a small task. She wanted to know why that was any of my concern. I explained it to her. She was displeased. Her husband thought that since I had a few envelopes left that this meant it would be fast and so I began to explain the situation, and by now, feeling anger at them, and at myself for having even attempted to be courteous, the woman accused me of raising my voice. Had I? I don't know. But I certainly was by now angry enough to as they huffed off. I had done nothing wrong. Right? So why did I feel like a bad little girl? So, apparently even when I am trying to do the right thing, I am doing the wrong thing? Oh, that is an old psychological ghost. You can imagine what it was like when as a prosecutor the other side inevitably threw out accusations about my doing my job and my motivations for doing it. Oh, in those earth bound situations, I have defended and will defend usually because it was my job to do so. I had an obligation to overcome my fear. I put it aside. I did not overcome it.   But I am never sure that I had a right to do it.  And so there was anger at the not knowing and the sense of potential repercussions. And as to a personal life--- not taking any chances with anyone, and that includes God. Oh, the power of transference and projection even beyond the bounds of the earth? Silly girl. But it limits, at least for me, both love and trust. They tell you in this retreat not to compare your wounds to that of anyone else. But let me tell you, I can't avoid it. My "wounds" are far less than many I have heard in my life's travels, and so there is also a bit of embarrassment that I haven't conquered fear, anxiety and anger that have tied me in knots, and kept me wary of man, and God. All of which implicates a pride that I can do it myself--even as I know God is there to offer His help. To reach out to Him, the God of the Universe, somehow is terrifying. It is a great risk even in the presence of faith, albeit it one that needs constant reinforcement. To trust and love God even in the presence of the very worst I fear. In the presence of the constant ambiguity of life. 

But, on the positive side, this time I saw what I was doing, that my first reaction was to withdraw, to ruminate, to avoid, to rage internally and to add another brick to the fortress (they talk about fortresses in the retreat) of my particular design. And this time, small thing that this was in the scheme of the harms and hurts of the universe, I looked to God. I didn't demand satisfaction from Him. I didn't demand that He answer my small and big questions.  I just asked Him to be with me.  And so, maybe one day, with a lot of prayer, with a lot of resort to the Sacraments, I will stop being parallel to Him. I will stop being afraid of suffering, large and small.  I will run into His open arms. I will see His hands and feet and side pierced and healed and will know I am safe. Resistance will be delightfully futile. 

 

Historical Perspective by Constantine Gochis

 Prescient for such a very short observational story. Dad was warning me about the state of the world for a very long time. I heard him. I even believed him. I didn't think it would come in my lifetime, though he said it would. This was written in June 2005.

   

        Woody Allen has added his insights to the general clamor.  Among other things he advises against putting too much stress on incidents such as the 9-11 attack.  He says that this and all other instances of man killing man must be viewed in historical perspective.  It has always been thus and thus it will alway be.

Of course, many other men have made similar statements. Old Joe Stalin for one. He is credited with the epigram, "the death of a single person is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic."  What consequence is the murder of a few thousand people in the history of human interactions?

I cannot quarrel with Woody.  I like his work.  I agree with him that what we are witnessing is nothing more than a repetition of history. Men do not change nor do the patterns they create. The machinations of governments are the same as they were when Israel sided with Assyria almost three thousand years ago and was wiped out by Babylon for making the "wrong" choice.  To coin a phrase--"Seems like Deja-vu all over again."

The history of empire can be traced to success in commerce and the development of weapons that make those aspects of opposing nations obsolete--the Egyptian and Persian chariots, the Greek Phalanx, the Roman Gladius (short sword), gun powder and now the hydrogen bomb.

Now this together with the suicide bomber forecasts an interesting dilemma.  The MAD doctrine (Mutually Assured Destruction) no longer restrains combatants.  One cannot localize and identify a dangerous enemy.  He can be anywhere among us, armed not only with ultimate weapons but with the mental pathology to use them though he himself dies.

And the world needs only the striking of the match to create a holocaust.  But surely, not all humans will die. And peace will return after the war as it has in the past.  The philosophers, historians and mountebanks will reflect on the millions wiped out, and dismiss the numbers as another phase in the history of mankind.  And as it was in the beginning the soothsayers will look to the future and propound prophesy as it has been before:

"And behold a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death. And hell followed him. And power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with sword, with famine and with death and with the beasts of the earth." (Book of Revelation, chapter 6)

If Dad were alive, he'd be beyond apoplectic (if that is even a thing). He was pretty well already there in 20025, nearly 20 years ago. Today, not only can we not localize and identify a dangerous enemy, we are inviting them in and no one is allowed to object. Iran nearly has the bomb and we attribute logic to a nation that is rageful of the West. That Bible from which he quoted was held in little esteem two decades ago, and now it is considered less than comic book, though it describes us perfectly, and our faithlessness. And when the new worst comes, we will be surprised. Oh, well, I guess. 

They Were Real and Wonderful Days by Constantine Gochis

 We meet up with Dad's writing alter ego, Diogenes.

I am not always surprised to encounter by street bum friend in front of my house, but today I find him, ignoring my arrival, not eagerly solicitous for his periodic stipend, but sitting on an abandoned carton perusing intently a copy of People Magazine. It is held aloft so that I can easily read the headline:  "Journalist Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself".

For those of you who do not know Diogenes, he is a classic bum who has been on my tab for years. His history extends from the heights of affluence to the nadir of penury.  Additionally, his sagacity has always been a source of knowledge fro me, sometimes surcease from the petty trials of life; hence, I always supply him with what he reveres most--spare change.

I interrupt his reverie, somewhat annoyed that he does not greet me. I hail him jovially, disguising my annoyance.

"What ho," I say, "What news from the Rialto?" I am confident in the knowledge that he is sufficiently erudite to know the source of the line from a Shakespeare play. He was--Diogenes I mean--a man of intelligence and education as well as a CEO in industry before his wife abandoned him for the love of a poetess, making a bum out of him, financially, as well as in his incarnate state.

Diogenes does not respond immediately.  He reaches into one of many plastic bags and produces a book and a copy of a newspaper review. I would say the review was annotated, but that is incorrect.  It was lined in black ink throughout.  The book is the late Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in San Francisco".  I am curious as to what distraction would divert Diogenes from his usual purpose of small change or an occasional dollar bill.

"You know," he says without preamble, "I am in San Francisco at the time Hunter writes about, but I never see or feel the glory the reviewer sings about, the Reformation he extols.  It is of course a hymn to a glorious era.  I grieve now that I had no visionary awareness, though there were intimations.  I am not a bum at this time, and whenever one of the faithful hands me a flower, I get the feeling I am somehow at the root of their naked poverty.  My guilt deepens; corporate evil at work. I feel opprobrium in the air.  It is true. The wealthy must do some reflection on the meaning of life, see the visions so talked about, when tripping--albeit in the argot of the gifted enfants du Paradis, loosely children of Paradise--'cool man, make love, not war."

Diogenes reads from the review of the glorious meeting between the author and the reviewer in those halcyon days.

"In March of 1968, armed with two LSD capsules, I got there about 9 p.m. Hunter drank beer crushing the empty cans and throwing them along with cigarette butts into the empty fireplace.  The fierceness with which he hurled the cans and flicked the butts punctuated his non-stop rage about politics and religion and society. . . Hunter's position was, 'get the bastards before they get you!'"

Diogenes continues.

"We went to the men's room and sat in the middle of the floor, facing each other. Delicately, I removed the capsule from my pocket and tried to open it so that the tiny granules would be equally divided.  But things were swimming around. The granules slipped out and fell on my sweater.  Hunter and I looked at each other and shrugged.  And then we started sucking on my sweater.  Hunter stopped for a moment and said, 'What if some stock broker swine comes in now?'"

I said, "Indeed Diogenes, that is poetry," though I felt he was putting me on. I took the page from the Diogenes and read further. The reviewer had a kind of apologetic conclusion.

"And yes, to some degree it does show that anything was possible then. I don't want to minimize our drug fueled epiphanies.  They were real, and they were sometimes wonderful.  It was ignoring that actions have consequences. It was our denigration of the straight.  But it was about betrayal, mine, Hunter's for the sake of protecting our precious trip."

I looked sadly at Diogenes.  Had he been beguiled by the evil one? He had always seemed, despite his travailes, a straight arrow.  I felt that despite my chagrin at his apparently new found liberalism, he should have some reward.  Accordingly I increased my donation.  But I had to know the why of his defection.

"Diogenes," I said to mitigate my sadness, "when you finish the book, may I borrow it?"

"I don't intend to read it," he responded quickly.

"Why then did you buy it, or at least find it?"

"Of course," he concluded, "so that I might burn it."

Terse. Laconic. To the point, as always.