Summer Fiction Week — "Further Crimes of the Jews"

  

 
     This was written after reading one too many of the anti-Semitic form letters that used to flood the newspaper.  It struck me that, crazy as the various fantasies were, they also betray a dull sameness; always the same handful of old plots and cliche conspiracies—running the banks, puppeteering the government, taking over the world. Exactly what they've been serving up for 50, 100, 500 years. It's just boring. I wondered why haters, when concocting their slanders, couldn't ever stretch their tiny little minds and accuse Jews of something fresh and interesting? As a change of pace. Such people also can exhibit a jarring folksiness at complete odds with their poisonous messages. 

            Further Crimes of the Jews

Dear White Racial Friend:

     Thank you for your continued support of Thundering Liberty magazine. The fall issue was our biggest yet: While I'm sure everyone is busy preparing for the Conference of White Aryan Nations in Demopolis, Alabama (Nov. 6-8. See you there!) it is my solemn duty to present to you this timely new series of compelling pamphlets about important and overlooked subjects. 

     Many friends have asked me: Why a new series now? Well, it has come to my attention that while TruthKrieg Press and other brave publishers have been vigilant in exposing the hidden crime of insidious Jewish control over the U.S. government, the media, banking, all retail trades, telecommunications, the United Nations and such, casting the harsh light of truth on the international plutocrats who dictate the minutest details of our daily lives, the enormity of that conspiracy has only served to mask other equally serious and vital truths and allowed them to escape detection.

     Until now!!!

     This new series, Further Crimes of the Jews, explores the horrifying range and chilling depth of the entrenched lies, exposing bold new truths which every thinking white person will want to know about. It represents the culmination of years of research by myself and my family (Claire and the kids say hello, by the by. Rudy starts the 9th grade this year, and Mike is just finishing forestry school. Where does the time go?) We've been working round the clock to get these pamphlets ready in addition to our many other duties, and of course the web site, but felt the absolute urgency of the material demanded no less of us.

     Hot off the presses are:

     No. 1: The Pity Mongers—How Jews Created Anti-Semitism. Startling facts, disinterred from sealed Soviet archives, illustrate systematic way 19th century Russian Jews invented anti-Semitism to make neighbors "feel bad," then forced it upon a protesting, kind-hearted world. Story of Malyensk, the village that pogrommed itself. With testimony from handwriting experts. 42 pages. $1.75.

     No 2: Strike Three—The Jewish War Against Baseball. Documentary proof that Jewish owners/vendors have systematically tried to destroy national pastime as another way of softening up country for eventual takeover. Details of how the athletic performance of childhood heroes is sapped by diabolical rays disguised as "lights." 70 pages. With diagrams and maps. $1.50.

     No. 3: Louis Farrakhan—Jewish Stooge. Undeniable evidence that Farrakhan, apparent foe of the Jews, is actually in employ of international cosmopoles, who use him as a smokescreen to cover up vast Jew/Black Conspiracy of Blood Unity, where Jewish money funds black efforts to unweave social fabric through drugs/rap music/Oprah. 45 pages. Color cover. $2.50.

     No. 4: Banz-Oy! The Jews and Pearl Harbor. Suppressed historical records show that "Lost Tribe" of Israel settled Japanese islands in year 941 A.D. with express purpose of attacking United States by surprise exactly 1,000 years later. Responsibility for WWII, decline of the American automobile industry, karaoke, Hello Kitty, firmly established. 24 pages. $1.

   

     No. 5: Initials of Death. Scientific data shows that many foodstuffs sold in supermarket chains are contaminated with undetectable traces of poison as set out in Talmud (secret Jewish plan for world control). Jews know to avoid fatal foods marked by "U" or "K" masonic symbols hidden discreetly on labels. 39 pages. With photos. $2.25.

     No. 6: The Other Lies. Convincing sources reveal that much of "history" is fabrication of Jewish textbook cartel, designed to instill guilt, diminish patriotism   and twist national consciousness into Jewish view. Slavery, rumors of poor treatment of American Indians, Vietnam War outcome, Sept. 11 "attacks" exposed as pernicious myths. Depositions of expert witnesses included in appendix. Plus time line. 118 pages. $3.

     I think you will agree that this important information must be understood by all aware Americans. Please help spread the truth. order all six pamphlets today for just $10 (a $12 value!) Organizations ordering in bulk receive a 15 percent volume discount. (Please send request on letterhead). 

     All of these new pamphlets, and of course the previous issues, plus thousands of thought-provoking books, magazines and audiotapes are all available at my Liberty Bell Bookstore in Dearborn, Michigan as well as at the Hammer of Truth Book Store and Coffee house in Cicero, Illinois and the Clarion Call of Liberty's True Duty Gallery in Parma, Ohio.

     On to other news.

    I also will be holding a seminar at November's conference, "Spreading the Truth." In it you will learn how to produce and distribute the truths gleans from your own research —handy tips such as eliminating margins to pack in more truth, creative use of punctuation and underlining and capitalization to convey excitement of dramatic truths, and prime locations such as bus station restrooms to place materials for maximum exposure, plus of course our special friend, the Internet. Cost is $45, and you should sign up now because space is limited.

     The new series, as well as much of the old material, will of course be on sale during the conference as well. Look for me at booth No. 237 on the upper deck of the North Concourse. See you there!

      Best wishes and Sieg Heil,

      Arthur M. Gaynes

Summer Fiction Week #2 — "Regarding My Mother's Photography"

       If you've ever seen a Sally Mann or Jock Sturges photograph, you've perhaps wondered how, in later years, the children depicted in those jarring images came to view their youthful brush with cutting edge art photography. I certainly did, leading to this story. 

      Recent articles in the popular press, written by people who should know better, have tried to create the impression that some sort of terrible rift exists between my mother —the photographer Harriet Jane Gordon—and her two adult sons: myself and my brother David. They interpret our absence from the opening of her retrospective exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art as somehow indicative of a hostility on our part—or otherwise, why would we have not shared in such a crowning event in our mother’s professional career?
     Let me begin by saying that such speculation, particularly Chas Mywald’s piece in ARTnews, is invasive and unwarranted and only serves to heighten the already superheated media frenzy over my mother’s photography. As it happens—not that it is anyone’s business—I sent a card of best wishes to my mother on the eve of the Whitney show, and understand, through channels, that she was pleased to receive it, despite statements to the contrary attributed to her in print and on certain hateful web sites.
     When it comes to David, I will not presume to speak for him, other than to say that he is a private individual, pursuing his particular field of interest, who does not care to enter into enervating public controversies. I am told he tried to visit the Whitney show, anonymously, but had to leave hurriedly when he was recognized. We have talked on the telephone, recently, and I can say with confidence that he was never spoken to Chas Mywald, or anyone else at ARTnews and does not bear our mother any ill will. Nor do I bear our mother any ill will.
     I am not suggesting that our childhood was utterly without difficulty. Growing up under the circumstances which we did was frequently difficult, at times extraordinarily so. Anyone who has seen works such as “Neil Astride Alaskan Moose” or “David Dressed as Harlequin” (and at this point, who hasn’t?) knows that these were not easy sessions to participate in, particularly considering our ages at the time. Many people do no realize that the football team posing with David in “Harlequin” is the very junior high school squad he would later attempt to join. The chasm yawning under me in “Neil in Peril” is not some clever photographic effect, as people often suppose, but the Atchafalaya Gorge in Smokey Mountain National Park. Ever the perfectionist, my mother took 45 exposures, and it was only when the sapling began to slowly pull out of the soft earth of the cliff edge that my entreaties were heeded and I was hastily hauled up. 
     Despite the occasional mishap, we generally enjoyed helping our mother with her work, carrying her large 8 x 10 view camera up mountainsides near our home in a heavily-wooded section of North Carolina, collecting specimens for those montages of animal excreta of which she was particularly fond, playing for hours in the crisp, cold Montavista River while mother tried to get exactly the right combination of dwindling daylight, splashing water and capering, unfettered boyhood.
     Particularly hurtful are the stories that we do not appreciate the artistic merit, or even the financial worth, of my mother’s photographs. I do not dispute that, after college, I permitted my former roommate, Edgar Witherspoon, to take possession of two dozen silver gelatin prints, including the series “Maturation 1-12,” but I did not, as N.K. Kleinfield has suggested in The New York Times, leave them out on the curb. Due to their extraordinary size it became necessary to store the photographs somewhere and whether or not my transfer of the photos to Edgar was a gift or a loan is a legal matter I am not permitted to discuss. The story about David going after our mother’s photographs with a linoleum knife at the Phyllis Kind Gallery is an utter fabrication. He was merely trying to block the door to the exhibit, and left quietly after police were called.  
     The problem, I believe, stems from the singular nature of the photographs, which excite people’s interest—interest that would normally be directly toward my mother, who is after all the creative force at work here. But which is blunted by her frequent, almost daily pronouncements and interviews in the artistic and mainstream press and of course on-line. Because of the paucity of unknown facts or unexpressed opinions related to our mother, curiosity is instead directed toward her subjects, particularly my brother and myself. Our success in avoiding the limelight and managing, despite great odds, to live quiet, private lives, only served to further stoke the fires of public interest, which is why I am writing this, as an attempt to satisfy the legitimate questions raised with growing frequency in the year leading up to the Whitney show.
   I have a job, working in the food preparation industry. I am married, and live in a middle-sized city in the South-Central portion of the United States. My wife has always known about my mother’s photography and been very supportive. I owe her a great deal.
    David, as I state previously, should be allowed to speak for himself, if and when he feels moved to do so. I am not a professional, and do not feel comfortably evaluating the emotional state of others, particularly close relatives.
     Speaking for myself—again, contrary to the lies and distortions already alluded to—I in fact do have several of my mother’s photographs, stored away. I keep them not simply due to financial considerations; I am proud of the artistic legacy these works represent and my central if at times unwilling role in their creation, and would even consider displaying some of the less jarring photographs in my home, were it not for the presence of my own young children, whose welfare must be considered.

                                                                     

Summer Fiction Week -- "Business Trip"

     It's summer. Enough of the news. Time for a little short fiction. Seven brief humorous sketches, one for every day this week, Monday through Sunday. And since this is a change of pace for readers of this blog, let me re-iterate, for those who might be a tad slow on the uptake: it's fiction. The narrator in every case is an imaginary character and not me. Although the little opening snippet was taken verbatim from a real package of biscuits, which inspired the story, I am not a globe trotting biscuit executive.  The biscuit companies mentioned are also real. And I do like a nice tea biscuit. But otherwise, a fictional story about a person other than myself, made up for my amusement and, perhaps, yours too. 

                                       Business Trip

                           Pure, natural ingredients, together with highest quality
                           standards have earned many awards and guarantee 
                           Bahlsen's continuing success in the international world
                          of biscuits.

                                            -- Copy on a box of
                                                chocolate butter biscuits

     The Japanese had been ... difficult, thought Felix, rubbing his left index finger in small, precise circles on the wide, aqua leather armrest in the First Class section of the JAL jet.
      "Difficult" is a weak translation  of the actual word, halsftarrig, which formed in Felix's mind as he assessed his stay in Tokyo. The true meaning is closer to obstinate, ass-like, impossible.
     The trip began cordially—Kimuraya Bakeries had sent a driver in a peaked cap, holding a little white sign with Felix's name spelled out in unpracticed lettering, to meet him at Narita.
     As had been predicted, the biscuit guild was impressed by Felix's presence. Not an underling, not a salesman, but Felix Leibniz himself — fifth generation, great-great grandson of Artur Leibniz, who began baking in Hanover 100 years ago, and whose biscuits now carry the name into every corner of the world.
     Except, of course, Japan.
     Felix had brought a small presentation, consisting of beautiful color photographs, mounted on foam core: Bahlsen biscuits enjoyed by happy, attractive couples at a Paris cafe; biscuits dipped in tea at the Great Wall of China; biscuits aboard the Space Shuttle.
     The message was clear—the world loves our biscuits, why can't you?
     The stewardess hesitated a moment, waiting for Felix's tiny nod of assent, before setting down a flute of champagne, along with a small dish of honey-roasted nuts. As he sucked the honey crust off a peanut, Felix was distracted. A pair of bittersweet chocolate biscuits—25 grams, at most—would make a far better snack aboard an airplane than the over sweet peanuts, he thought. All the airlines in the world wouldn't be much of a market, but the exposure, the publicity would be tremendous. And of course everybody—Collins at Carr's, Packwood at Nabisco, and particularly Montaigne at LU's—would need a lot of champagne to wash down his biscuits, force fed to them every time they flew.
     Felix smiled.
     But the pleasure lasted only a moment ... Montaigne, the villain, what was he doing in Japan? Two days earlier, Felix had been on his way to a meeting with the editorial board of the Asahi Shimbun, whose editorial dismissed foreign biscuits as "impure dog wafers," when he noticed, parked beside a wing chair in a corner of the immense lobby, that Louis Vitton case —a meter long but only as high and wide as a pack of cigarettes. That biscuit case. Felix knew, as he angled around the wing of the chair, who he would see — Montaigne, brushed and powdered and grasping a copy of Le Monde. Felix had momentarily considered rushing by, but curiosity got the better of him.
     "Philippe, quelle surprise! Ca va?" he said, in his schoolboy French. The Norman pig looked up, cool and detached, with a glint of bemusement in his eyes, as if he had been expecting Felix.
    "Ah Felix," he said, a condescending smile playing about his lips. He extended a hoof up to Felix, his body never stirring from the chair. Felix gave it a shake. Montaigne's eyes darted back to the newspaper. Felix could not resist.
    "Mais, mon ami, porquoi vous et ici?" he said, trying to project an uncharacteristic twinkle.
     "What takes anyone anywhere?" Montainge responded, in English, with a philosophical flourish of the hand. "Biscuits. All biscuits." And with that, his eyes returned to the paper. Felix hurried to his meeting, which went badly.
     The memory burned. how could Montaigne be so smug? What did he know? What concessions had he won from the Japanese? A week of running from boardroom to ministry to restaurant and, as far as Felix could tell, no progress. Not a hint that German biscuits, now classified as den-pun—starchy material—falling into the same category as wallpaper paste and wood pulp and slapped with a 400 percent duty, could be reclassified as okashi—snack food products, with a tariff of 13 percent.
     "This is a beautiful thing," Mr. Takayama had said at that last meeting, donning white cotton gloves to pick up the almond butter biscuit prototype, concocted at great expense for the as-yet-nonexistent  Japanese market. He gingerly held the biscuit by its edges, which were gently serrated, like coinage. "But the Japanese palate is not used to eating such a thing. Were you to bring them into the country in quantity, they might, despite their wonderful appeal, not be purchased by anybody, and you would have the hardship and expense of having to ship them back home."
     The stewardess refilled his glass with fresh champagne. Felix snapped his briefcase open and removed a small violet and white rice-paper box, decorated with bold, black kanji declaring, "Truth. Purity. Goodness." Or so he had been told. He opened the box. Nestled inside, within a tissue cocoon, was the prototype biscuit. Delicately brown, a pattern of reeds and birds taken from a 13th century shoji screen baked into the surface. Felix lifted the biscuit from the box, regarded it for a moment, then took a healthy bite. Almond, with a trace of rice. Crunchy. Good sweetness—a brix of 14, maybe 16. The lab had done well. Felix finished the champagne and looked for the stewardess. The Japanese, he thought, are crazy.

                                                                     # # #

Haven't gone fishin'

     Vacations are a good thing. Everybody needs a break, to recharge and refresh.
     But when you title your blog "Every goddamn day," well, there is an implicit promise: no playing hooky. You're going to do the thing every goddamn day. And so far, nearly the past month and a half, I have. To be honest — and other bloggers might hate me for saying this — it's been easy, and fun, something I look forward to. The hardest part is the constant tweeting needed to puff the sails of this little vessel and move it an inch on the vast electronic sea. I'd take a break if I really felt like it, but I really don't. It isn't as if doing this is an eight-hour-a-day job.
    Though when I saw this sign a few days back, "Closed the entire month of August," in a hamburger joint in New Haven, Connecticut, I felt a pang of envy. For the first time I wondered whether perhaps I was making a mistake, whether I was exhibiting what Emerson called "a foolish consistency" by not missing a day on the blog, deliberately, particularly in August, when most normal people take vacations. Nobody ever regrets not working. Even noble Homer dozed.
     And I do reserve that right, should I feel so inclined. In fact, I promise you I will, sooner or later, on general principles. It's bound to happen. I could easily have missed a day this past week, when I've actually been on vacation,  touring Eastern colleges with my older boy. But everywhere we go -- small motels, an oceanside summer home in Massachusetts, a remote mountain cabin in Vermont— has had wi-fi— O brave new world!— and there are always a few moments at the end of the day to prepare a new post. So the streak remains unbroken. Still, it'll happen. Lou Gehrig I am not. I'll miss a day, eventually. Frankly, I'm looking forward to that— not for the day off so much as it will be a relief to get it out of the way, like the first ding in a new car. Otherwise, you're tempted to keep the streak going forever, and then it'll risk becoming a trap. I'd hate to be putting up tired and blunted crap just because I feel compelled, assuming I haven't already.  
     Until then, we plunge forward. In fact, I'd like to shake it up a little, keep it interesting. Starting Monday, I have a special Summer Fiction Week planned—some brief stories I've written, humorous sketches that I've had tucked away for years, and nobody has ever read. Maybe you'll decide that was a good thing. Maybe you'll enjoy reading them. Anyway, I hope you will. I sure enjoyed writing them.  See you tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that, onward toward eternity....

Yellowstone

    The most widely-read item on this blog was posted July 5, when I ran an excerpt from my unpublished book about going out West with the boys in 2009. That vignette involved setting fire to Nevada. This episode reveals a similar moment of dunderhead dadhood. Despite how bad I look, it's perhaps my favorite scene in the whole book: our first hike—or, rather, attempted hike—in Yellowstone. Trust me, I'm generally not as crappy a parent as I seem here. At least I hope I'm not. 

     The boys filled their Camelbaks with water, I loaded my backpack with provisions — Clif bars, a big bag of trail mix, cans of Spam; we’d have a Spam feast atop Avalanche Peak.  Ross insisted on bringing a hardback book.  That seemed unwise to me, and I started to argue with him, then stopped — why not let him suffer the consequences?  I’ve always been a consequences parent — Edie will argue every day, all winter long, over whether it’s cold enough to wear a coat. Me, I tell them, do what you like, but if you’re cold, don’t blame me. I think they learn better that way. If Ross wanted to haul a heavy hardback book up Avalanche Peak, that’s his choice. 

      “I’m not going to carry it for you,” I promised.

      Cody, Wyoming is not actually next to Yellowstone National Park.  I thought they were adjacent.  They look close to each other on the map.  An inch or so. But that inch translates out to 52 miles apart, which is a considerable distance.

    We finally arrived at the entrance of Yellowstone National Park, the mother park of America, founded in 1872 by John Muir, template for Jellystone, beloved home of Yogi and Boo Boo Bear.  We’d made it.  I felt like crying. We were really here.

     Well, I was really here.  The boys were not with me at all.  Oh, they were in the van.  Physically here.  But on a different plane.  Arriving at the park didn’t seem to wow them.  While I searched for the Avalanche Peak trailhead — it was supposed to be just beyond the East Gate — Ross was focused on his socks.  I had brought him a pair of Wigwam thick gray wool socks — hiking socks, since we would be hiking — but he wasn’t about to wear them.  Why had I not brought his white Hanes socks?  He scolded me.  He would not wear socks that weren’t Hanes.  The importance of a specific variety of sock was news to me, and not welcome news.

     While having this discussion, I realized we had missed the trailhead — I drove past the point where it should have been.  Map crumpled between myself and the steering wheel, I threw the van into a three-point turn — worried about somebody zipping around the curve and T-boning us — and tried again.

     “There’s got to be a pair in the back,” I was saying, working the wheel, looking hard over my shoulder.  “I saw them.”

     “I looked and they’re just not here,” Ross was saying, turned around in his seat.

     “If you wanted to take white socks you should have taken them,” Kent chimed in.

     “I can’t wear boots without socks; I’ll hike in my Crocs,” Ross said. We passed where the trail was supposed to be again.       

     “Can’t you boys help me?” I shouted. “I’m looking for this goddamn trailhead and you idiots are fighting over socks.  Can’t you be grown up for a second, shut your mouths and open your eyes and find this goddamn trail?”

      “What did I do wrong?” said Kent, in a small voice.

       That put a chill in the air.  I calmed down, apologized, and we saw the trailhead — marked by a small sign directly across the road from a parking lot; the lot had drawn my attention so that I missed the sign.  We pulled into the lot and parked.

     We got our packs out. Ross found a pair of acceptable white gym socks in his luggage — we hadn’t taken it all into the motel.  I posed the boys next to the small “AVALANCHE PEAK” sign across the road, for documentary purposes, then we headed up a slope of brown dirt, punctuated by broken chunks of stone and sprays of green grass, and into the pine trees that blanketed the hillside.  It was just steep enough to focus our attention.  But not arduous.  We were still hiking, not climbing.

    “The guide books say it’s a challenge, but it leads to the prettiest view in the park,” I announced, by way of encouragement.

     Ross surged ahead, disappearing up the trail. Kent ran into trouble almost immediately.  His knees hurt.  His head hurt.  His stomach hurt.  I goaded him forward.  This was the first hike — an easy two hours to the top.  The most spectacular view in the park.  He can do it.  He took a few steps forward, complaining mightily.

     No, he said, he can’t.  He can’t do it.  Kent stopped, bracing himself against a tree.

     “Ross!” I yelled up the trail. “Ross, wait up! We’re having a problem here.”

    I looked at Kent.  He gave me what I interpreted as an “Is he buying this?” look.  I fished a Clif bar out of my pack — Chocolate Brownie, the n’est plus ultra flavor, the star of the Clif bar family of soft chewy trail food.

    “Here,” I said, soothingly.  “Eat this.  Sit down.  You’ll feel better.”

     Kent sat on a rock and ate the brownie bar.  I watched him.  Putting him in a fireman’s carry and dragging him up the mountainside was not an option.  Ross came clumping back down the trail.

     “How do you feel?” I said.

     Kent looked at me, his face all squinched up.

    “My knees hurt,” he said, massaging them, in my view for dramatic effect.  “I have a headache.  And I’m nauseous.”

     “Rest there a second,” I said.

      “He’s faking,” Ross said.

     “Ross please,” I said.  Ross took off his backpack, dug out his book — Locked Inside by Nancy Werlin — and started to read, sitting on a log at the side of the trail.

     “C’mon Kent,” I said. “You don’t want us to leave you here. You want to go to the top with us, don’t you? You don’t want to have to go back to the van.”

    “I want to go back to the van,” he said, with conviction.

    “We won’t be back for four hours — you want to sit there for four hours?”

    “Yes.”

     I recognized that tone in his voice.  He had dug in.  He really wanted to go back down.  He meant it.  He was bailing out.  I looked at my watch.  Not 10 minutes.  We hadn’t made it 10 minutes up the trail.  Why had I not anticipated this? We looked at each other.

    “Okay fine,” I said, digging the keys out of my belt pack.  “Go back to the car, wait there for us.”

     He looked at me dubiously.  I shook the keys at him.

    “Go on,” I said. “You don’t feel well, okay fine, go back to the car, rest and we’ll be there in four hours.”  I was angry.

    “I can’t do it,” he said.

    “Sure you can.  Just follow the trail back.  Look both ways crossing the road.”

     “Come with me,” he implored. “I don’t want to go by myself.”  The boy had a point.  I looked at Ross, sitting on the trail, lost in his book, not paying attention.

    “You wait right here,” I said. “Do not move from this spot for any reason.  Got it?”

     “See,” he said, not looking up.  “You told me I wouldn’t need this book, and now I do.”

     “Just don’t go anywhere.  I’m taking Kent to the car, and I’m coming right back.”

     We headed down the trail.  I thought my immediate suggestion that he go back would shock him, spur him forward, but it hadn’t.  I meant going back to the van as a threat, not as an option.  We plodded forward in silence.  The trail cut to the left and right.  At places we lost it — it was crossed by small streams, bringing melt-off down from the mountain, and we’d mistakenly follow the path of the water, or follow an open section of woods when the trail was actually under the water.

      “Is this what you want to be? A quitter?" I asked, as we clomped downhill. "You know what this is about. You can’t whine and quit your way through life.  Quitting is not a success strategy.  You can’t quit your way to the top.”

    “I … don’t … feel … well,” he said.  We pushed through branches — the trail was gone.  We doubled back but couldn’t find it.  At time the woods got so thick we couldn’t proceed forward, and had to shift direction, claw our way sideways, perpendicular to the slope, until we found a narrow path so we could push toward the next clearing.  I kept hoping we’d cut back across the trail, but we didn’t.

      “That’s okay,” I said. “All we have to do is go downhill and we’ll end up back at the road eventually.”  We crashed through the trees.  I led, trying not to let the branches snap back into Kent’s face.  Lower branches scoured us as we tried to navigate through to the open spaces.

     “We could still go back,” I said. “You could hike with Ross and me.”

     “No.”

     “This is what we came for — we drove 1,500 miles. We’re in Yellowstone National Park.  What about the other hikes?”

     He didn’t reply.

     It was slow going — I jammed my boot between two tree roots, but luckily didn’t twist it.  Kent uttered a cry — he cut his leg on a branch.

    This was taking longer than it should have.  We hadn’t hiked up 10 minutes and we had already taken longer hiking down.  Unbelievable — not a half hour after setting foot in Yellowstone and we were already lost, off the trail, separated from each other and blundering down a steep, densely-wooded hillside.  Just lovely.  What if we didn’t come out on the road?  What if we had somehow gotten turned around and never hit the road?  What if Ross decided to push on without us?  This was teetering on the brink of being something, not merely inconvenient, but menacing — not just a screw-up or a problem, but a crisis.  I could feel the vague contours of Something Bad forming in the back of my mind. 

    At least I hadn’t sent Kent back down the trail alone.  As we struggled to get back to the parking lot, it dawned on me what a truly stupid impulse that had been.  It frightened me, to realize that I was capable of such folly, that I had even momentarily been ready to send my 12-year-old son off into the vastness of Yellowstone National Park by himself.  As bad as our being lost was, at least we were lost together; he wasn’t lost without me.

     “You know how this would end if this were a story?” I huffed.  “This would end by you getting to the car and deciding to go back up the hill with me.”

      He stopped, and fixed me a look and said, “Sometimes the story doesn’t end the way you want it to.”

     We came out at the road — at last! —100 feet from where we had entered. We walked back to the parking lot. There were picnic tables and a small lake to the left.  This is a bad idea, I thought.  I took my cell phone out of my pocket and looked at it, weighing it in the palm of my hand, wondering whether I should call Edie and … what?  Tell her I was facing a parenting dilemma — one boy wanting to go up, one boy wanting to go back — and didn’t know what to do.  Help me Edie help me.  Should we all get back into the van, go to the hotel and … what?  Watch “SpongeBob?”

     I folded the phone and tucked in into my pocket.  Figure it out, dad.  I sat Kent down by the open door of the van, got the First Aid kid out of the backpack.

     “That doesn’t look too bad,” I said, dabbing his cut with an antiseptic pad while he cringed and twisted away.

    “Hold still,” I said.  “Geez, I’m just cleaning it off.  Don’t be a baby.”

     I put a bandage on his leg.

     “There — you wanna come back up with me and hike with us.  Come back up.  C’mon!”

     “No.”

     “C’mon!”

     “No!”

     “You’re going to sit here for four hours?”

     “Yes.”

     “I don’t want you just eating Clif bars.”

     “I won’t.”

     “Here’s the keys, so you can listen to the radio,” I said. “You can sit and read at that picnic table if you want.”

    “I’m not going to.”

     “Just lock the car if you leave.  And keep it locked, while you’re in it.”

     “I will.”

     “But don’t start it up.  Not for any reason.”

     I looked at him through the tinted glass.  He’d be safe there.  You have to pay a hefty entrance fee to get into a national park, which must cut down significantly on the drifter/lunatic population.  I started back up the hillside, passing the “AVALANCHE PEAK” sign that we all had posed so bravely beside, a half hour earlier. Just before entering the trees I paused, looked back at the van for a moment, then headed up the mountainside. 

        

                                                                              *

Free yourself

    On Aug. 9, 1854, Henry Thoreau noted just two words in his journal: "'Walden' published." Since then, Thoreau's second book, a chronicle of his two years, two months and two days living alone, more or less, on Walden Pond, on land owned by his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a house he hewed himself with a borrowed axe, has been a guide to breaking free from the slavery we so often impose upon ourselves. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" he wrote, famously, before, less famously but in the very next paragraph, providing a ray of hope: "They honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that he sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence pass by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion."
      Mere smoke perhaps, but enough to form a cloud that many, perhaps most, spend their lives wandering around in, utterly lost. Nor do people need a crowd to lead them astray—Thoreau spoke of the man who is "the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself." Another common predicament—those who decide early on what they are or must be, and then force themselves to stay that way. When life offers, as Thoreau reminds us, so many varied ways to be, if we only permit ourselves to choose the one most fitting to our true natures. "This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one center," Thoreau writes. "All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant."

The Illinois State Fair redeems Springfield

     Having been to our state capital several times, I could never in good conscience wholeheartedly encourage anybody to actually travel downstate to the sleepy little slice of perdition known as Springfield. 
     However.
     The Illinois State Fair opens tonight, and if ever there were a reason for someone to trek down to the lower realms without actually being paid to do so, the state fair is that reason, with its honey judging and baton twirling and life size butter cow. There is something pure, noble, sweet and unassailable about the fair. If you ever go—and you must, at least once—all you need to do is see those teens in their white 4-H Club polo shirts solemnly and with great tenderness guiding their goats, or sheep, or pigs, or cows, past the scowling judges to realize there is a whole world of straw and pre-dawn mornings and obscure diseases that we city folk hardly think about. If you hate the fair, you also hate America and likely hate yourself too, though you probably do not know it.
    It's too easy to go to the fair and scoff, just as it has become a cliche to sneer at Disney World. Far more of a challenge—with the greater reward that challenges bring—to go and let yourself appreciate what you find there, even love it. The picking apart has already been done by keener wits than our own—no lesser literary light than the late novelist David Foster Wallace took a scalpel to the Illinois State Fair in Harper's magazine years ago with such bottomless smugness that the entire effort became self-serving and dull. Yes, there are deep fried pickles and funnel cakes and enormous fat families baking in the relentless sun.  Yes, there are bad rock bands and bad hairdos and Pat Quinn, spending the day staggering around, awkward and harried and sweating. But there is also great skill, and pride, and much hard work, with countless gorgeous animals, with many farmers and their families going solemnly about their otherwise unheralded business. Plus, you can milk a cow for a buck, if you are so inclined and, really, who is not inclined to try their hand at milking a cow, at least once? It's fun. Once.