Scattered Thoughts...Tank Update #5...12-21-2012

Things are freaky/weird right now.  I got the feeling something big, not the End of the World, but something, is going to happen.  Terrence McKenna had a theory he called Temporal Resonance that seemed to show a wave pattern in the Time-Space Continuum.  Novelty, or interconnectedness, plotted over the time wave seemed to reveal repetition of the wave over periods of linear time that would resonate.  For instance, the beginning of the Dark Ages had a wave pattern that resonates with the Reagan Administration...

Anyway, according to his calculations, December twenty-first, 2012, the Winter Solstice, the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, is supposed to be where the wave finally reaches Zero, or maximum resonance.

Is it just me, or isn't everything speeding up and transforming?

Or maybe the Earth WILL align with the Sun and the Galactic Axis and some kind of gravitational sling-shot action will propel us into the Sun, then the Sun itself will be pulled into the super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.   Might be fun...

Anyway, the fish tank has been stable for a while now.  There are still five Dace and two of the other kind.  One of the two full-grown Dace has developed some kind of growth on its head.  I thought it was Ich, so I did a treatment, but the growth remains.  It looks like the meat is oozing out of the skin.  Like I said before, the Dace live in a Pediddleville all their own...

River Snorkeling...Communion With The Trout...Big Mamma And The Snapper...The Best Place On Earth...

It is now nearing Thanksgiving, and recent rains have raised the water level in Salmon River, but the drought made it very low all summer.  The drought hadn't been nearly as bad as in other parts of the country, but river snorkeling was pretty uninspiring this past summer.  Why not finally get around to the piece I've been meaning to write since the beginning?

One of the blessings of my life is the fact that I live about one minute away from the best place on Earth.  This one-sixteenth of a mile stretch of Salmon River is one of my favorite places on Earth, undoubtedly. It's been my favorite swimming spot since my teenage years.   Long ago there was a mill dam in this place, stretched across the river at the point where a natural formation of one giant continuous piece of bedrock has about a four foot step.  There must have been quite a pond above the dam, with that big flat rock comprising the bottom.  Now in place of the dam is a cascade that when running strongly is a fabulous back massager.  If you lean back even more while sitting on a rock step, you can make the water stream over you head, creating an air pocket behind the water that you can sit in and breathe underwater indefinitely.

Just below the cascades is a pool with an angled flat rock bottom, here and there pocked with potholes bored out by the endless water flow.  It's a great place to cool off effortlessly.  There are no loose rocks on the bottom like in the rest of the river, so scrapes and bruises and twisted ankles are less likely.  The bedrock then emerges above the water level to form a big open slab.  If you go there after the sun is down, even if the air is cool, you can feel the heat radiating from within the rock, stored up from the day's sun-baking.  I can lay there feeling the warmth and hearing the water, and be relaxed beyond relaxed.  This with the sound of the flowing water is way better than any relaxation tape.  Conversely during heatwaves, this place has been a Godsend.  I work outside, so the heat really depletes my energy.  Often at these times swimming cools you off, but if it's too hot the effect wears off rapidly, even if you retreat to air conditioning.  The river, on the other hand, fixes you up good.  I will go there after work and just submerge myself in the water, letting the current take away the heat, until I reach the point of self-induced hypothermia.  It makes the rest of the evening comfortable.

Just a few yards down river, after a section of rocky rapids, it opens up into a larger, deeper section that is also good for river swimming.  You can swim in parts of this area without knuckle scraping.  Here, with mask and snorkel, you can see the full spectrum of fish life found in the river, including small and largemouth bass, bluegills, sunfish, suckers, salmon parr, eels, and stocked trout--Rainbow, Brown, Brook, and Tiger Trout (a hybrid produced by fertilizing brown trout eggs with brook trout sperm with stunning patterns on its body).  It's a wide section where the water is slower-moving, but it is easy to locate where the current winds through.  I like to dive to the bottom, hold onto a rock, and just hang there in the current, feeling the awesome power of the moving water.  It's like my nervous system is plugged directly into the energy flow of the planet.  In psychophysiological terms, it's my Happy Place...

I wonder why I don't see other people snorkeling in the river.  I sometimes get self-conscious about what others might be thinking--"Who is that lunatic snorkeling in there?"  "What's there to see?"  Some people wouldn't think of snorkeling anywhere but some tropical island with crystal blue clear water and neon-colored fish, but I find it weird that more people are not interested in seeing what's under the water they're swimming in.  There's plenty to see, albeit New England drab, and it's very intersting to me.  On a practical level fishermen could really see where the good holes are, and what lives in them.

All that aside, I suppose many people just lack the kind of spiritual connection that I have with the river.  Sure, I'm aware that there are fly fishermen who are spiritual about their quest for the trout--knowing the water conditions, the feeding habits, the weather influence, Zen and such things, but I'm talking about being IN it.  Last year was the first year my wife and I felt that our sons were old enough to go there safely.  My older son Owen is old enough to be able to go snorkeling, and he likes it, and that just warms my heart.  A couple of times a few years ago I had snorkeled down sections of the river, say from the State forest down to Comstock Covered Bridge, or South of the bridge down to Leesville Dam.  One time last year we were at the river, and I figured we'd go home soon because I was getting a chill, but Ellen suggested Owen and I snorkel down to the bridge and she and  Emmet would drive down and meet us there.  Though I was cold, I jumped at the chance to spend more time in the water, making my way downstream exploring the river with my son.  Sometimes you float on the surface, letting the current propel you as you scan the underwater landscape. Other times your belly scrapes the rocks, and you have to stand up and wade a bit.  We made our way down, his hand grasping my ankle at all times.  I'd stop here and there to point out fish or various holes.  It was great to be sharing that experience with him.  A chip off the old bedrock.

One time we were there and Owen stepped on a rock that moved.  He looked down and got a look at it, then sprang out of the water.  It was a big snapping turtle.  I read on the internets that they are quite vicious on land, but underwater in their element they shy away from humans and rarely bite, unless they are provoked.  We'd see it now and then, parked on the bottom like a prehistoric gargoyle, or at times it would surface for air, and you'd see the bubbles rising all around it on the surface.   One time I was snorkeling and saw it directly in front of me at about two yards away.  I stopped and stood there looking at it, refracted sunlight mottling its bubbly face.  It stayed for a while and looked at me.  I started to move to the right, and as I moved, the turtle also moved so we both moved to the right around the same circle, all the while keeping an eye on each other.  After about 180 degrees the turtle broke from the circle and swam off.

One day I arrived home from work and Owen told me he'd been there earlier and had seen this giant fish in the swimming hole, and couldn't figure out what kind it was.  He had fife and drum corps practice that night, so after dinner I went down there myself.  Sure enough, I saw the fish.  It was about two feet long, and surely the biggest fish I'd ever seen in the river.  It swam around evasively in the pool, with me all the while trying to get a good look at it.   It had a curious-looking rounded-off tail and was very fat.   It would swim and sort of almost tip over when it took a turn, like it's fins were not strong enough to control its mass.  Finally I was able to identify it--it was a trout!  It was so hard to recognize because it was so fat, but the markings, the comparative size of the eyes and shape of the head--it had to be a monster trout.  Must have been brood stock released into the river from the stocking program.  She was probably Mother to most of the trout in the river, grown fat on easy food for years until she stopped producing eggs.  It was really funny to watch how uncoordinated she was in the natural environment of the river. She was used to swimming in a round tank for most of her life.   The varying depths and rock obstacles appeared to be foreign to her.  I named her "Big Mamma".

At times I have been there when no one else was there.  I like that because I don't get concerned about what they might think, and I can really get into the experience.  After work one day I went there and had the place to myself.  I started wading into the swimming hole, put on my mask and bent over to put my face in the water to look around.  I noticed there were a lot of trout in the hole.  They were all lined up near the bottom, hanging in the current facing upstream, letting the water stream through their gills.  There were so many of them, some nice Rainbows about sixteen inches long, Brookies and Browns ten to twelve inches, and a couple of Tiger Trout.  Big Mamma would lumber around on the outskirts of the school.  I noticed the trout really didn't seem to mind me being there if I didn't make any quick moves.  They must have recently stocked these fish--I tried to estimate how many there were, and I figured at least two hundred.  Then I noticed that behind me in the path where I had entered the pool, it had all filled in with fish--I was completely surrounded by hundreds of fish!  It was transcendental!  We were all together in this pool just meditating on the current, going with the flow...

As the summer wore on the number dwindled as they were caught, or moved to other locations in the river.   Big Mamma must have been caught by some surprised angler who took her home to eat, because she was not seen after a certain point.  Neither she nor the Snapping Turtle have been seen this past year at the swimming hole.  The river continues the relentless flow as the year wanes toward winter, and now I watch my little trout-looking Dace in my home aquarium and think of Big Mamma.

Tank Update #4: Aquarium Equilibrium...The Green Slime Abates...Hell Or Pediddleville...State Of The Blog...

I am now again considering getting some new fish, maybe only a few.  After the mass death in the tank, the number of fish has been stable at seven now for weeks.  Ich infected the tank and confounded me because it affected both the older and the newer tank residents.  Did the parasite that causes Ich come in with the new fish, or was it just beginning in the tank before the new ones were introduced?  Of the original batch of Dace, only Queen Dace and one Henchman remain, and he almost died.  Of the newer batch of fish there are three Dace and the two "others", who are growing fast on their goldfish flake diet.  The Ich treatment successfully stopped the deaths, and also seems to have stopped, or even reversed the growth of the blue-green algae bloom that was covering everything.  I still need to do a good cleaning and water change.  The pollywogs have not been seen for a while and I assume they starved or were killed by the Ich treatment.

The last several weeks have seen ramped-up frustration, and it takes a heavy toll on my motivation and attitude. Conditions at my workplace have become almost unbearable due to the evil shit-heads who run it.  If you are familiar with the book "Catch -22" by Joseph Heller, you may be able to understand.  I have always been a reliable, diligent worker, yet bean-counting little shits with MBA's have implemented a measurement/ranking system just inches off from what Hell must be like that somehow makes me look bad.  I never had this problem until this system was implemented, so it's obvious what's going on.  The company's sheer callous disregard for anything other than inflated profits approaches the ridiculous.  At a time when supposedly everybody is hurting, these fuckers are raking it in.  No matter how hard I try, it is a losing battle against a stacked deck.

I mention this because one reason I have this fish tank with fish from my beloved Salmon River is for stress relief, primarily stress from my job.  It is also why I write this Blog.  My creative output has always been something that I have used to measure how successfully I am navigating through life.   The job sucks the energy out of me, and despite the plans I often make to work on this or that after work, family obligations, and just "being there" are easy distractions.  Also I am a champion procrastinator.  Yes, I know I should be doing Yoga or some other theraputic method, but I see the hazard of the methods themselves becoming roadblocks to doing the things I want to get done.  These things take Time I don't have, and Energy I don't have.  I'd really just rather write and play music than work toward being able to do those things, and I know it is imperative that I get my ass out of this debacle that is my occupation or it will simply never happen.  For instance, there is one Blog post that has been languishing in my mind since I started this thing.  In fact, it is one of the first things I wanted to write, but the subject matter has been too big and important for me to ever complete it.  It is now about half-done in draft, and should be the very next post here.

No more writing about writers writing!  

I have been keeping a low profile--I have only told a small handful of people that this Blog exists, but after I publish the next post, I think I will go much more public.  I do get a kick out of seeing that I have had visits from people in Russia (I'm big in Russia!) Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Macedonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and France.

The Beatles And 9-11

I was born six months before he assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jr.  When I was an infant the entire country I was a new citizen of was in deep mourning over it, and though I have no real-time memory of him or that tragic day, this event has affected my life from that point on.  As an infant, I believe, I picked up the vibe of the time, and it has had a definite emotional impact on me throughout my life.

After an extended period of sadness, people are looking for the good times, and lo and behold along came Beatlemania to lift up the spirits of the Nation!  Again, I was too young to remember the Ed Sullivan show or the whole early Beatles thing, but it seems to me that the Kennedy assassination and The Beatles function in my life in the same way that an astrological sign does for many.  More than anyone else, the Beatles taught me how to live my life, and I have always felt that though there was probably no likelihood that I would ever even get a chance to meet them, that they were my friends.

And so it was that in my adult life another national tragedy and The Beatles would again collide in my psyche, this time shaking my foundations in a most disturbing way...

It was about twelve-thirty in the morning on September 12th, 2001.  I was laying on the sofa, as I had been doing all night, distraught, bleary-eyed, watching the TV coverage.  I was trying to convince myself to go to bed, but it didn't matter.  Sleep?  What for?  The phone rang...

"Oh shit! Oh my God, what now?"

It was a good friend of mine.  He lives in New York City, and I had forgotten about him.  I didn't realize that he worked in a building right next to the World Trade Center.  He more or less witnessed the whole event.  He felt the first collision, evacuated his office building, saw the second plane hit. The collapses.  He was one of those people we all saw on TV, running for their lives away from that horrific scene toward a future they would never have imagined.  He lost friends, drinking buddies who were FDNY, in those building collapses.  His building was not damaged, and he had to return to work, so he would see that giant wound in the soul of his country EVERY DAY.  And it changed him, without question.  Though he claims he was starting to lean that way anyway, soon after 9-11 he definitely was staunch right-wing.  Over time he managed to quit drinking heavily, started going to church, and plays a great game of golf.  It works for him now, but it was a long, winding road.

Many of my liberal friends wonder how I could tolerate that change in him.  We had a few small political arguments, usually just via email, but early on I made it clear I just wanted to remain friends, not argue politics, so that's how it went generally, but above all I can really understand where he's coming from--because it almost happened to me...

In times of trauma, things from your past can be a great comfort.  Naturally I turned to Music for strength, and my old friends The Beatles, but something very disturbing happened.  I found it hard to enjoy their music, and had an especially hard time with their excellent 1968 double album called "The Beatles", or "The White Album". On a long car trip I recall once listening to the White Album, track-by-track in order, including "Revolution 9" entirely in my head, and now it was a problem. 1968 was a turbulent year, and the White Album for many seemed to be a kind of soundtrack to the collapse of the sixties (and in fact this was also the early days of the collapse of The Beatles themselves) just as Sgt. Pepper had been dubbed some kind of Summer Of Love soundtrack. There were all the "Paul is dead" clues. The Manson Family murders.  The album had some dark, sometimes violent imagery that had been more or less absent from their music up to that point.  I know now it was the state of shock I was in at the time that made me draw fear-based conclusions.  I was not religious, but I knew enough about end-times theories and the Book Of Revelations for this to fuck me up.

I started thinking that the attack on the country was one of those signs of the Apocalypse.  Very disturbing stuff as it is, but when you add in an event such as this that seems to fit into it like a tee, the juices start flowing.  The Beatles problem made me very uncomfortable.  What was going on there?  It occurred to me that maybe The Beatles represented the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Nowadays I chalk it up to just not knowing enough about the Bible, because I've never heard anybody else say that about them, but at the time, the head trip I was in made it seem plausible.  Maybe those dumb crackers who burned their Beatles records in the sixties were right.  What a horrible, wretched feeling to realize that your heroes, your old friends, were not at all what you thought they were, and that you had been deceived all along.  Looking at the stark cover of the White Album I noticed an anagram of the word "beatles"--le beast.  Fuck, am I doomed?  How could this be?  I started thinking maybe the terrorists are right, that America IS the "Great Satan".  All sorts of paranoia and grieving.  Conspiracy theories.  The whole nine yards.

A few days after the attack my wife and I were driving down the highway with our year and a half old son.  We saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side and people standing there looking at something up in the sky.  We pulled over when we saw what it was.  We got out and looked too.  It was the most vivid, intensely colored rainbow I've ever seen.  The prevailing winds blow Northeast from New York City right up our way, and I knew immediately that this rainbow was so beautiful because of the prismatic effect of the air being full of smoke particulates, toxic chemicals and Fear fuming out of the destruction.  I looked at my baby son and wondered "What have I done, bringing this poor child into this insane world?"  Would this be his Zodiac?  In those days I would drive around during the day on my job listening to the news reports with a rock-hard lump in my throat, quietly weeping.  I grieved for all the loss and Fear this was causing my people, but also perhaps selfishly for myself and the personal predicament I faced regarding my friends The Beatles.  How could I envision the darkness of life that would ensue as the repercussions of the attacks unfolded without having the solace and good feelings of their music?  Was it possible?  How bad would the future be?  What was my fate? It was a creepy, surreal feeling, full of deep anguish.

Such a negative reaction to a rainbow!  At the time I didn't get the beauty-out-of-death-and- destruction point I was supposed to be gleaning. My frenzied imagination was running amok.  When your mind is blown, there is no guarantee it will be pulled back together, and if it is, no guarantee it will be in the same order as before. Eventually, as the country settled down the state of shock subsided and I was able to talk myself out of this lapse of Faith in my heroes. A month and a half later George Harrison passed away, and I was okay with it, though sad that 9-11 was the last World event of the many momentous ones he witnessed.  Of course I knew that over all, the Beatles message was Love and Peace and Friendship.

Tank Update #3: Population Explosion And A New Giorgio...The Green Slime...Aquacalypse Now...

Funny how a fish tank can mimic your life.  Maybe I don't mean that.  I don't know.

There is a blanket of blue-green algae over many of the rocks and on the back panel of the tank that grew back almost immediately after I spent a whole afternoon cleaning it out a few days ago.

One day probably a month and a half ago now my sons and I went to a small pond near our house.  I wanted to add some new fish to the tank, to see what would happen.  We netted what we thought were tiny minnows or fry of some sort, and didn't notice until we put them in the tank that they were pollywogs!  Some of the large Dace went right for them.  I did notice one escape to the bottom, but figured soon enough my Dace would remember their hunting instinct and eat it.  Weeks later I was counting the Dace as I often do, and there were eleven out of a possible ten.  I reached in and moved the rock the eleventh was behind, and it shot out halfway across the tank and then I could see the tadpole tail and bulbous body.  Either the Dace don't like wog, or this guy is a true survivor.  Later my son reported to me that there were TWO pollywogs.  One is a bit smaller than the first.  Maybe they are a tree frog and a green frog, or a toad.  We'll see what they turn into.  They will have to be released into the appropriate environment when the time comes.  I believe they eat algae, and they hide a lot.

But what about fish?

The river has been running very low all summer, and through snorkeling, we know there has been no stocking of trout.  Though the fishing is not good, netting small Dace is made easier by the drought.  I was able to catch fourteen fish one day recently, including a new fish just like the deceased Giorgio, a bottom skulking fish with a very camouflaged body.  In fact I thought the original Giorgio was an accidental catch, but there one was in about five inches of water, and I was quick enough to net it.  I think the original Giorgio starved to death, not being able to find suitable food in the artificial environment, but this new one didn't last long enough to confirm the theory.  The new Giorgio died just two days after entering the tank.  Possibly he was injured in the capture.  I think I will leave this species alone from now on.

A couple of the new fish are not Dace.  They look similar in that they have a stripe down their side, but it is less prominent and their coloration is more silvery and they have more visible scales.  Their head is more blunt and they have a downward-angled mouth.  They are about an inch long and seem at home with the Dace.  They tend to swim in longer straight lines than the Dace, who swim around all willy-nilly. I think they may possibly be fry of a larger fish that I have seen while snorkeling in the river.  If so they could grow to about six inches.  If they survive we will see.  So far they seem to be doing okay despite the debacle I am about to relate.

After adding the new fish it became impossible to count them as they swirled around in the tank, but the ensuing die-off is making it much easier to count them now.  About two weeks ago I found one of the smaller, new-batch Dace sunk to the bottom, then I noticed another dead, stuck to the pump intake.  This was cause for some concern, because it was one of the big, farm-raised "Henchmen"!  This was a healthy strong fish that had lived in the tank for almost a year, so it wasn't just death due to capture and new environment. No, something is killing them off.

I figured I'd better get rid of that blue-green algae bloom and change the water in case it was ammonia build-up.  The stuff can be scooped up easily with a net, so I got as much as I could out, then changed out two-thirds of the water and cleaned the pump.  I looked forward to happier, healthier fish, but they kept on dying.  They begin to float at the surface and gulp air, and they sometimes have kind of a gooey look to them and then they're dead.  One henchman gone, the crooked Dace, Hercules, most of the new batch except the two odd-species ones, all dead.  Last time I checked, there were eight fish, but that was yesterday, so no deaths today.

Hey, why don't you Google "Ich"?

Okay, so maybe what I said about the tank mimicking my life was not far off.  The fish live in their own Pediddleville.  Off to the pet store to get some ich treatment.

Hero The Badge

I am not a frequent flyer. The last time I flew overseas before this recent trip to Switzerland was when cell phones were rare and laptops were even rarer.  Now there are all manner of smart phones, iPads, and laptops, and instead of being at the mercy of whatever the airline chooses for an in-flight movie, you have a big menu of choices of things to watch, individually, on the small screen on the back of the seat in front of you.

Though it was a long flight, I had no interest in watching anything, but my eyes kept being drawn to the screen of the laptop of a woman sitting across the aisle and one row ahead of me.  It was work material she was reviewing, some kind of marketing presentation for a major American beer brand.  It drove me crazy that I would have any interest in bullshit like that, but I must say it was an educational experience.  It was educational not in the sense that I learned interesting facts about the beer, but that I got a glimpse into the mindset of that particular tribe.  My tribe is artists, musicians, writers, creative people.  This woman, who was probably quite creative herself, was from, or was trying to join, the marketing tribe.

The marketing tribe has peculiar ideas about the use of the language my tribe reveres.

My tribe uses the language to create, to inform, sometimes to fight.  The marketing tribe uses it to manipulate, to set up artificial realities that have only one objective.

The gist of the marketing scheme she was studying was that they were trying to establish a market of people who not only were loyal to their product, but who actually believe that an integral aspect of their "lifestyle" was consuming that product.  Fair enough, if that's your job, I guess.  So this lifestyle would consist of certain activities, preferences, and such, with an emphasis on good times--and always present would be this product.  To put it in my terms, these people, this market, would be a tribe.

The really twisted thing they did to my tribe's language was to refer to this whole lifestyle thing as a "badge", and the objective for the marketing tribe was to "hero the badge".  What the fuck?  Last time I checked, the word "hero" was not a verb.  I should talk, I guess.  I mean, "What the fuck" makes no grammatical sense either, but at least it's a recognized phrase, having a dramatic or comic effect.  These marketing people are just corrupting the language for commerce. I have been annoyed at how companies now "partner with" other companies or organizations instead of simply working with them. It's another example of this foolishness.  I guess it's supposed to sound more impressive to the average Joe when you "verb a noun", but I have a degree in English Literature, and it makes me cringe.

At some point she must have closed the laptop and maybe went to sleep, sparing me the eye draw.  Later I saw her, laptop bag in hand, at Baggage Claim.  We had gone from a clean, well designed airport in Europe to an old, oppressively warm one with stinky restrooms just outside New York City.  She may have been thinking Bud Light.  Here we go.  Hero the Badge.  I was still thinking Feldeschlosschen, Euli, Oufi, Warteck, Lowenbrau...We don't need no stinking badges!

Pediddleville's European Vacation

The following is an account, of sorts, of my recent trip with my son to the city of Basel, Switzerland.  He belongs to a junior fife and drum corps that was invited to the musters that were held there at the end of June.  It starts out more like a travelogue, but as it goes on becomes less detail-oriented, and more my own impressions of things. 

Installment #1 Sunday, June 24th, 2012

According to my iPad with cracked glass, it is 3AM in Basel, Switzerland, where we're headed.  Today has been long, and it will be longer yet.  Leaving JFK as the sun sets, we will see sunrise in just a couple of hours.  Compressed Time Travel.

We're on a British Airways 747.  Takeoff was delayed due to a malfunctioning air conditioning system, and it isn't much more comfortable in here now than it was when we got on, though the AC is running.  Maybe high altitude will help.

Hopefully our bus trip to JFK was not an Omen of how the trip will go.  Pediddleville Law, being similar to Murphy's Law, may be at hand here, but hopefully not.  Our group had chartered a school bus, which arrived twenty minutes late for the first dose of anxiety.  The driver never drove over fifty miles an hour all the way down I-95 from our starting point in Deep River, Connecticut.  She stayed mostly in the right lane, and even at this slow speed, certain driving behaviors that might be considered "reckless" or "clueless" were observed.  She kept veering into the rumble strips on the side of the road.  To pass the time and keep our mind off the heat, John, another father of a band member, and I were keeping a running tally of these variances.  If the rumbling lasted more than three seconds we often gave her two, three, or five points.  Then she grazed a Jersey barrier-20 points!  Damaged her side mirror on a toll booth-25 points!  She even asked if we, the passengers, knew the right way to JFK!  Emily, the teenaged Drum Major whipped out her iPhone and saved the day.

Getting cooler, just barely now, and everyone is settling in to movies and reading or sleeping, and oddly I think I smell pizza.  My son Owen has the window seat and is assigned UFO Vigil, but he's playing a game on his iPod.  Sunlight dark red on the horizon.  Soon we'll be in outer space and our truncated, but endless-feeling night will ensue.  Maybe I'll sleep.



Installment #2  Monday, June 25th, 2012

10:25 Greenwich Mean Time.  Stuck at Heathrow Airport for six hours awaiting a rescheduled flight to Basel.  As mentioned earlier, our flight from JFK was delayed for a malfunctioning air conditioner, then was delayed further after we boarded, simmering in our own juices, because of an unruly child who would not put on his seat belt.  His mother seemed unconcerned about this, or seemed to disbelieve that it was possible to belt him in, and so is now despised because we missed our connecting flight...


Installment #3 Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

Jet Lag plus C-Pap withdrawal makes for a hard night sleeping in a strange bed in Switzerland.  It would seem impossible that I could not sleep last night, but it sure did happen.  Actually I did sleep some--I know this because I remember dreaming about my job.  I'm an idiot even in my subconscious!

Earlier last night some of us went out to get a get a bite to eat and get a feel for the city.  We went to a falafel shop called Sam's Take-Away and ate at tables out on the sidewalk.  In my jet-lagged state and with a Feldeschlosschen in me, I remember looking at a passing tram at Claraplatz and thinking to myself "Already I know I love it here."  Owen is really enjoying it too, noticing the differences between here and Pediddleville.

Today we went with most of the group to walk along the Rhine and go to the spot where you can stand in Switzerland, Germany, and France simultaneously.  We then walked into Germany proper, and then crossed the Rhine on a footbridge into France.  Owen was feeling the pain of his ailment, so we left the group to have their lunch in France.  We caught a tram back to our hotel on Klingentalstrasse and went back to that take-away for our lunch.  Tonight we go to a welcome party barbeque outside the city at an old castle, which I'm sure will be a blast of beer and fife and drum jamming.

Installment #4  Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Today toured the Roman ruins at Augusta Raurica outside Basel.  The kids seemed to want to just hang out together at the top of the colosseum for a while, and taking a cue from the obvious feeling of safety here, and knowing that most of them were good kids, responsible and smart, most of the parents went about sightseeing on their own or in small groups.  I got a little taste of a feeling I experienced once before, also in Europe years ago when I was traveling on the coast of Wales.   It was an exhilarating peak experience of realizing that nobody in the world who knew me, nor anybody who didn't, had any idea where in the world I was.  I may tell that story some other time, but not now.  Today was more of a remembrance of that, since there actually were many people close by who would be able to find me if they wanted to.  I was walking along a walkway through a barley field, here and there picking it and eating the raw grains on the way out to see the amphitheater--the place where gladiator fights had been held, when I had that feeling.

After that Owen and I had lunch together-Wienerschnitzel-then met up with others in the group.  In a beautiful island park in the Rhine, we waded in it briefly, then boarded a  river tour boat that took us North-downstream, through two locks, back to Basel.  The kids got a kick out of seeing the nude river bathers and people floating downstream in the strong current.  We saw nesting storks and Rhineland vineyards, and every hundred feet or so these small fishing shacks, each with a swinging boom and a net for trawling the swift current.

Had dinner in a great Pan-Asian restaurant that was reasonably priced, then later hung out drinking beer in the park across the street from the hotel.  Let's put it this way--in New Haven or New York City, just about everything we saw going on in that park would have drawn the Police, but it was a perfectly peaceful, safe scene.  I'm now having a hard time coping with how BACKWARDS the U.S. is, if you can believe that.  No crime here.  Why?  Because if you do the crime, you do the time.  For all offenses there are set penalties.  The people know this, and don't break the law.  They all behave like reasonable human beings.  Justice has nothing to do with how good or how well-paid your lawyer is in Switzerland.  Another example of this is that tipping is not expected, though much appreciated, so you don't have wait staff brown-nosing you for a good tip.  It's better this way, believe me.


Installment #5  Thursday,  June 28th, 2012

Night before last I finally got a good night's sleep.  Last night back to the same insomnia, interspersed with dreams about work again!  Seriously, what is wrong with this picture?  I barely got through my last few days at my job before vacation without going "postal", and here I am dreaming about it, when the sleep I AM getting needs to be restorative...

Italy won against Germany last night and the city was wild with cheers and car horns, and oddly, a man singing in Arabic through a bullhorn.

Yesterday, halfway through our time here we hit kind of a snag-and our first grievance with the Swiss-their supposed propensity to rip off tourists.  The Junior Corps and several others were to appear at what was called a "welcome party" as guests of the Muster organizers and as entertainment.  We were led to believe, or were not told that it was otherwise, that the meal was complimentary, but then found out that it would be eighteen francs for their meal of all-you-can-eat pasta!  Beer was pretty steep, too, at 6.50.  All the corps bagged out of it, leaving early, causing a row of back and forth umbrage.

We ended up getting pizzas and drinks and having a get-together in the park, then went swimming in the Rhine.

Installment #6  Monday, July 2nd, 2012

Lots has been happening.  Two musters, in Basel and Liestal, a suburb of Basel.  The history of Swiss Fife and Drum Corps musters begins in Deep River, Connecticut, where Owen's corps hails from.  Each year the Deep River Junior Ancient Fife And Drum Corps hosts the Deep River Muster.  This type of music originated in Switzerland, was adopted by Colonial America, then took on a life of it's own.  Years ago some Swiss groups came over to Deep River and got the idea to do musters in their homeland.  These kids have been revered like heroes here, except for one little misunderstanding referred to in my last installment, that was really the fault of our travel agent/tour director.  All hatchets have been buried by now, no international incident has occurred, and the corps ROCKED the muster in Liestal.  A giant tent full of beer-drinking Swiss and German people singing along with them two nights ago was a very proud moment!

Tonight we go to a farewell party.

Another thing that has happened quite a bit since the last installment has been the swimming in the Rhine River.  I say swimming, but mostly it's drifting.  The Rhine at Basel is a swift-moving, deep river, full of clean water straight out of the Alps.  Giant shipping barges and tour boats are often seen on it, and Baselers enjoy riding its current for hundreds of meters or even kilometers.  If you try to swim upstream, it's like one of those exercise pools where you swim and swim and stay in the same place.  There has been some very warm weather, and the late sundown here has made for some great end-of-day get-togethers to cool off, mingling with the locals, who sit on the bank drinking and smoking hookahs.  I picked a few choice stones from the bottom for the fish tank at home.

It'll be hard to leave here, but there IS Salmon River...