Owned by a Liar

Allegedly, the ocotillo fence surrounding Tombstone’s Boothill Cemetery is 150 years old; however, everything in this town that purports to be fact is suspect.  Even though this cemetery was brought back from ruin in the 1920s (having been abandoned in about 1884,) it turns out that a few of the markers are actually characters from a novel that was popular at the time!!  So, we know that at least some license was taken.

I took a picture of Mrs. Stump’s resting place, because it was one of only a few enclosed by a fence.  Mrs. Stump died during childbirth after being given an overdose of chloroform by the doctor.  For the small fee of $3 (because even corpses must earn their keep in Tombstone) you may enter the famous old cemetery.  The same guy who claims the cactus fence is 150 years old will hand you a brochure describing the more than 250 graves, often including details about lives and deaths of the inhabitants.

The cemetery includes a Chinese section, because even Tombstone had a Chinatown (one block) during its heyday.  I didn't know about the Jewish section, far down at the bottom of the hill and not featured in the guide pamphlet, until after we had left the town far behind.  At Boothill Cemetery, you can check out any time you like, but you can’t never leave unless you first pass through the gift shop, because it’s the only exit.

Below in the town, the municipal parking lot for visitors is across from Schieffelin Hall, which was once the 'high class' opera house in town, the respectable alternative to places such as the Bird Cage, where ladies of the evening were displayed in 'cages,' balconies above the barroom floor where curtains could be drawn when a private customer climbed the back stairway to visit.  It is here that a sneaky storm cloud of foreboding quietly settles.  Crossing Fremont Street and heading down 3rd, you pass in front of what was once the Wells Fargo horse corral, but now hosts a Sarsaparilla stand; on the opposite side of the street, where you walk, is a dusty town park in what was once a blacksmith's yard.  A hysterically-laughing man, alone, swings on a swing to the highest point possible.  

Everything in Tombstone costs money.  10 bucks gets you a ticket to the super weird gunfight, a peek into the Tombstone Epitaph (newspaper) museum and its antique printing presses, and other displays such as the creepy “lifelike figures” in their proper positions standing in the dust of what was once the OK Corral.  Several times a day, on an artificial set just yards away from where it really happened, performers reenact the gunfight at the OK Corral in front of a very vocal audience.  We arrived about 30 minutes before the last fight of the day, when reenactors representing the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday took to Allen Street (still unpaved and lined with wooden sidewalks) where they strolled up and down, yelling last call to any tourists who still wanted tickets.

Also included in your $10 fee is the opportunity to visit the recreated prostitute’s crib. It’s a little more cozy and charming than I would imagine most of the 6^th Street cribs really were back in the day, with rose pink walls, a flowered pitcher and wash bowl, and a rumpled patchwork quilt on the iron bedframe. 

The crib also hosts a display related to chemical/medical use and misuse by these unfortunate women; laudanum, mixed with whiskey, was widely abused by prostitutes, who felt that it made their existence more tolerable.  Laudanum’s popularity in the Victorian era was partly due to the fact that it offered a private alternative to publicly visiting opium dens.  Carbolic acid was used to prevent venereal disease.  These and other ‘medicines’ of the time often led to the deaths of those who used them.  

Reflected in the mirror above the chamber pot is a portrait of Kate, the long-time girlfriend of Doc Holliday.  Although she was well-educated, and (disputably) had a privileged upbringing as the daughter of the personal physician to Mexican emperor Maximilian I, she too had a history as a soiled dove.  Upon the couple's  arrival in Tombstone, Kate became proprietress of a successful saloon; their always-rocky relationship soon worsened and ended for good following the infamous gunfight, which forever changed (or ended) the lives of all involved.

Kate's saloon is still where it has always been.  Outside on the boards, between the saloon and the site of the 1880s barbershop/bathhouse, is a convenient bench for people-watching.  Modern cowboy fantasists walk past, spurs a-jingle.  Across Allen Street, Tombstone's version of an itinerant busker is dressed as a Kachina, fully absorbed in a warbling, drumming, jangling dance of his own sacred composition.

There is supposed to be an Apache curse on the town, ensuring that no two white people can live in peace there.  I only learned this after our visit, while researching possible reasons for all the strange negative energy I felt there.  

Yes. There really is a crazy enormous rose tree in a courtyard behind the corner of Fourth and Toughnut Streets. Buildings/walls have been constructed around this end of the block to hide any view of the tree, but for a mere 10 dollars you can pass through these doors and enter into the presence of the rose tree. I know it's there because you can see it on Google Earth.

Schieffelin Hall, at the corner of Discord and Misery. "You'll find nothing there but your tombstone!"

"A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar." -Mark Twain 

940

Picnic Man

From an old family photo.  Subject/date unknown.

Picture I know nothing about, maybe 1920s.  A bright sunny day in a clearing with trees in the background, looks like a line of trees with another clearing, field, or roadway behind.  A group of people wearing various hats is gathered under the trees, and a child in white sits near an old car parked under the trees.
A man near the edge of the clearing is holding a partly-folded cloth that reflects the sun.
In the foreground, facing sideways/diagonal to the camera, stands a man in a white suit and dark hat.  His entire face is in shadow and his hands are clenched loosely at his sides.  He wears shiny, dark leather shoes.  He stands on thin grass in sandy soil, in a well-trodden part of the clearing.  He's wearing a tie, and something soft is wadded in the pocket of his suit jacket.  A bandana or tobacco pouch, maybe.

My question for the world around me:  Is there something you're not telling me?

FOR SALE

_________

FOR SALE
_________

Make us an offer!

_________

Conveniently and perfectly situated for loafing, lounging, doing nothing, puttering in the garden, fishing, beach combing, and forgetting about work except on Mondays through Fridays when you have to go to it, and on "scary Sunday" afternoons.

Enjoy breeze from all directions:  the salty south, the balmy Atlantic storms of early fall, watered-down winter from the West and tame little nor'easters filtered through the forests of Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, the overpowering perfume of your neighbors ultra-strength laundry detergent, and sometimes all of these at once!

If you like people, you will love the influx of fast-driving Southern Pennsylvanians and day-trippers from the countryside all around that begins on Memorial Day weekend and ends when the kids go back to school.   Emergency response vehicles will scream up and down the street several times a week to attend to drunken or careless beachgoers and boaters.

If you don't like people, you will be happy to know that as fall wears on, transients leave for Florida soon after the geese come back.  Now you can breathe a sigh of relief and take back the beach, streets, and alleyways for twilight dog walks. 

You never know what you might find, see, or hear on each short walk or trip into the yard.

They don't build them like this any more.  Solid wood balloon framing, topped by a pyramid- shaped attic space with dormers facing all directions: north, south, east, west, heaven, and hell.  Crumbly plaster and lathe, coated with ancient wallpaper, coated with paint for extra stability.  On a stormy night, the wind will make ghostly howls as it seeps between the cracks and crevices and tries to get in through the old coal chimney.  An airy covered porch on two sides will roast you only on late summer afternoons and shade you the rest of the time, and is not screened and therefore will not protect you from flies and mosquitoes.  Speaking of coal, you can find it right here in the yard, especially beside the back door and near the garage.  Jackpot!

Don't ask us about the basement, because we don't know.

The fenced yard will allow your dogs and cats unfettered hunting of squirrels and rabbits.  Have unhurried conversations with your dearest, most annoying friends and family members, hateful or suspicious neighbors, and quirky folk, and the various neighborhood cats, squirrels, owls, vultures, and mockingbirds who return to the same nesting places in your yard and neighborhood year after year.  The people who live here are lucky and unlucky, depending upon their outlook day to day.

The Knot

The Knot

You learn that death is inevitable and final.
You learn that death happens after harm to the body, either from illness, trauma, or age.
You learn the importance of care during illness, from close relatives, friends, doctors or nurses.

You are sick a lot as a child, mainly with allergies leading to respiratory illness.

Thinking about infinity too intently causes panic.
Thinking too much about time passing causes anxiety.  (Dust in the wind.)
Fear of illness (and by extension, death) causes anxiety.

Because you realize that it's important (vital!) to have people who care about you around you, you seek security in your relationships with people, starting with your family, but extending to friends and other people outside the home.  You strive to be cooperative, friendly, funny and interesting.  A people-pleaser.
This doesn't always guarantee harmony between you and the world.  These times of disharmony cause anxiety and sometimes panic, so you try to avoid any situation where you risk not fitting in or disappointing someone, or embarrassing yourself.

Find the flaws in this 'logic' and break the spell.

6/20

Schedule

Across-the-street owls began hooting at 6:52 p.m. last night.

Letting Go

Today, I sent one of my essays out to seek its fortune.  The Howard County Tragedy, without its postscript, has been 'given' to Belmont, the house about which it was written.

I feel excited; I feel satisfied that it has gone where it needs to 'live', even if only in the digital and/or paper files of the current administrators of the estate.  Hopefully it will be shared, and others will be reminded of people who have lived and died, and momentous events which have taken place, in the space they now occupy.  Maybe they will experience the awareness of layers of time and events which can inhabit a geographic space.

On the other hand, I am experiencing that annoying feeling that it could have been more effectively written, that it should have had a better ending that brought it full-circle, that the reader will have questions which I didn't fully answer.  I will work on these things.  How do you know when a piece is finished?  How do you, or should you even, resist the urge to tweak and refine a piece of writing every single time you read it over?  I've printed out a copy of the submitted essay, and I'm going to start listing and tweaking and refining anew.  That way, on the off-chance that someone requests its use somewhere in the future, I may have the opportunity to add improvements.

Fare well, little essay.

10/14/15

Discipline

It continues to be a challenge to schedule time for writing, and to stick to that schedule.  I know that if I had the self-discipline to honor the commitments I make to myself, so many things in my life, not just writing, would go much more smoothly.

Growing up, I always had morning and evening routines.  These were fostered and encouraged in my house because, well, it's good parenting!  As soon as I had children of my own, my natural tendency to follow certain routines started to disintegrate as I became almost completely focused on taking care of small children, and establishing routines around their needs.  My own needs, for food, rest, and things like showers came last.  When the kids were older, and I returned to work, it became even more complicated, since they now had school needs and obligations to contend with, and I had to be somewhere else for a huge chunk of each day, performing a whole new set of duties in a timely and efficient way.  You would think that now, when both daughters are in their twenties and haven't even been fully resident at home since 2008, I would have been able to reestablish efficient routines for myself, but that has not been the case.

Somewhere along the line, in those days of raising small children, I necessarily had to take a new attitude about obligations and expectations in general.  I was diagnosed with clinical depression, which forced me to focus not only on my children's needs, but on my own physical and psychological  self-care.  Obligations to others and activities outside the home took their places at the end of the line, to be met or participated in when I was feeling 'up to it.'  It has turned out that the tendency toward depression is chronic, and will require treatment and consideration, most likely, for the rest of my life.  I tend to want to avoid social situations, but on another level I also crave social connection and company.  The tug and tension between these two feelings is something that is always present.

As a result of all of the above, I have become used to thinking of everything as being flexible and malleable, subject to the needs, whims and feelings of the moment.  (to be continued)

Dreams of My Grandparents

Bottles, seashells, artifacts on the beach.  Dark and dusty interiors.  Jumbled and neglected kitchen.  Desks and attic spaces full of old papers and household items.  A cold feeling in the back of my skull, and the shade of my grandfather or grandmother somewhere nearby.

3/14/16

Saga

We barely know it, but every day each one of us is fully engaged in steering the course of the universe. Or swept up in the tide of the universe. Or both.

4/26/16

Dreams

2/19/00

I woke up in the middle of the night and it was light out.  The sun was in the west.  It was very warm and flowers in the garden were sprouting and growing.

Went to the beach (ocean beach, not ours) to look for shells and rocks and stuff.  Instead found books scattered about.  Old books, sandy and some damp, all over the beach.  Browsed through like at a library.  Picked up Ernest Hemingway small green old with gold seashells on the front.

Dreamed that in the woods behind my parents' house there was a steep hill.  When you climbed to the top you were on Kent Street in Chestertown (the street with the pink & purple house.)  Oh, good, now we can walk to the library!

Pulling beech trees out of the ground.



1/14/98

Parked in old historic town - to tour some houses.  History of slavery and cruelty.
Back formal garden.  White flowers.  Torture re-enactment - large swinging crane-like structure.  I am afraid I'm going to get hit by it - "Only a fool would be here."
Back to the house.  Remember descending into lower floor of a side wing of the house, a pale blue room.  Haunted.  The Blue Boy room.  Very strong presence - I am afraid.  There's a door in this room and once you exit you cannot return.  I do not exit.  He is alive - "And who is this?"  Leo. Angelo.

Angelo is the father. Leo is the son - who always gets called by his father's name.

Gnat

The wayward gnat will soon discover that a candle is different than a lightbulb.

7/24/17

Oct. 16

In a gloomy cul-de-sac, wishing for the impossible.

Oscar Chandler

5/13/16  Foxes' Den Near House / Mr. O.M. Chandler, Missing Poultry, Finds Den of Foxes Near His Door. It is not given to every one to have the denizens of the woods come within a few feet of their front door to rear their young, but such was the experience of Mr. O. M. Chandler, who lives on the Peters' farm, on the bay, a few miles from Snow Hill.
Mr. Chandler had frequently missed fowl from his barnyard and poultry house, a setting hen being sometimes taken, sometimes the eggs, and in some instances both hen and eggs would disappear.
At last, one afternoon about two weeks ago he discovered a red fox busily engaged in tearing to pieces and making a meal off of one of his big fat hens.  This gave him a clew to the disappearance of his poultry, and he called on Mr. George Smack, his neighbor, to assist him in hunting down the marauders.  Accordingly, Mr. Smack took his pack of hounds to Peters farm that afternoon.  The hounds easily found the trail, and followed it over devious and winding ways, until it was lost near the house.  They were put on the trail again and again, but on every occasion the dogs lost the trail at or near the same place.  Mr. Smack finally became convinced that the fox had a den somewhere near the barnyard.
A thorough search was made of the premises, with the view to discovering the den of the fox.  With characteristic cunning the foxes had used the ventilator of the old hot bed, crawling through it a distance of nearly 150 feet.  The ventilator, which was boxed, was so narrow that once inside it the fox scarcely had room to turn around, but would have to go forward, or back out.  The end of the ventilator nearest the house was closed, and here, at a distance of about 200 feet from his door, the foxes had burrowed in the ground, and were boldly rearing their young. feeding them on the fat of the land from Mr. Chandler's hen roosts, or from any vantage point they could effect a capture.
The female fox and three cubs were found in the den, and Mr. Smack has them in captivity.  The cubs are thought to be from four to six weeks old.

Notes from Leslie Marmon Silko's Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit

 It is remarkable to sense the presence of those long passed at the locations where their adventures took place.  Spirits range without boundaries of any sort, and spirits may be called back in any number of ways.  The method used in the calling also determines how the spirit manifests itself.  I think a spirit may or may not choose to remain at the site of its passing or death.  I think they might be in a number of places at the same time.  Storytelling can procure fleeting moments to experience who they were and how life felt long ago.  What I enjoyed most as a child was standing at the site of an incident recounted in one of the ancient stories that old Aunt Susie had told us as girls.  What excited me was listening to her tell us an old-time story and then realizing that I was familiar with a certain mesa or cave that figured as the central location of the story she was telling.

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Before the arrival of Christian missionaries, a man could dress as a woman and work with the women and even marry a man without any fanfare.  Likewise, a woman was free to dress like a man, to hunt and go to war with the men, and to marry a woman.  In the old Pueblo worldview, we are all a mixture of male and female, and this sexual identity is changing constantly.  Sexual inhibition did not begin until the Christian missionaries arrived.  For the old-time people, marriage was about teamwork and social relationships, not about sexual excitement.  In the days before the Puritans came, marriage did not mean an end to sex with people other than your spouse.  Women were just as likely as men to have a si’ash, or lover.

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All places and all beings of the earth are sacred.  It is dangerous to designate some places sacred when all are sacred.  Such compromises imply that there is a hierarchy of value, with some places and some living beings not as important as others.  No part of the earth is expendable; the earth is a whole that cannot be fragmented, as it has been by the destroyers’ mentality of the industrial age.  The greedy destroyers of life and bringers of suffering demand that sacred land be sacrificed so that a few designated sacred places may survive; but once any part is deemed expendable, others can easily be redefined to fit the category of expendable.

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…..These cowboys believed in action, not words, certainly not the printed word.

Hundreds of years before, proclamations, letters, and edicts came to the Americas from monarchs and popes admonishing the settlers to obey the laws.  In the Americas, the settlers were to reap the riches they all desired.  If you could not read the king’s or the pope’s edict, then you could not be held accountable.  If you were ignorant of the pope’s edict then you were blameless before God.  So illiteracy and the aversion to books that is found through the Americas descends from colonial times.  Ignorance was blissful and profitable.

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(On Photography)  The origin of waves or particles of light-energy that may give such a sinister cast to a photograph is as yet unexplained.  Fields of electromagnetic force affect light.  Crowds of human beings massed together emanate actual electricity.  Individual perceptions and behavior are altered.  Witnesses report feeling an “electricity” that binds and propels a mob as a single creature.  So the greed and violence of the last century in the United States are palpable; what we have done to one another and to the earth is registered in the very atmosphere and effect, even in the light.  “Murder, murder,” sighs the wind over the rocks in a remote Arizona canyon where they betrayed Geronimo.

Nehemiah Fitzgerald's Death

Nehemiah Fitzgerald is a 3rd great-uncle of mine who was born in Hampton, Virginia in 1841.  The oldest of 10 children, he served in the Civil War with the Richmond Howitzers, finished his education, and left Virginia to seek opportunity elsewhere after the war.  His first stop was Louisiana, which he found "just as bad" as Virginia, so he took a ship to San Francisco in 1867.  He had teaching jobs in Chico and Rio Seco in 1868, Quincy and Live Oak in 1869, Cherokee Flat in 1870, and Gridley's Station in 1871 before arriving in Lake City in 1872, in what is now Modoc County, CA.  At some point, he bought sheep and established a homestead, before becoming the first county clerk of Modoc County in 1874, when he moved to Alturas (then Doris Bridge.)  He married Melissa Garrett, and continued to teach, raised sheep and cattle, and did some merchandizing.  The following letter was written by his daughter Phebe to his youngest sibling, Charles Fitzgerald (in Virginia), after his death.  I have the original letter, which I found in his sister Martha's family Bible (which is actually a salesman's sample Bible, and is full of family memorabilia.)

                                                                                                             

Alturas, Cal.

July 30 – 1905

Dear Uncle Charlie: -

No doubt ‘ere this you have received the card, announcing Bessie’s marriage and we little thought when it started on its way to you that it should so soon be followed by another telling not of a happy union but of a sad parting, but it is so.

Poor papa has gone from us and gone so suddenly that at times it seems it must be some terrible dream.  Bessie was married at noon, leaving for her new home at 4 o’clock, happy of course, but before night had come, all our joy had been turned to sorrow.

The heat had been extreme and papa had suffered from it, complaining of the weakness he felt – still all the week he had kept the store books holding the position for me.  He slept poorly Saturday night – because of the heat and excitement he felt over Bessie’s marriage – but Sunday, save a slight dizziness in the morning he seemed to feel as well as usual and thinking back now I can recall nothing unusual in his talk or manner – there being quite a number of people here.  He talked more than was his custom and largely of his ailments but that was his usual subject of conversation and to us it did not seem strange.

Shortly after five o’clock he ate a dish of ice cream, sat reading a while and then went out to do the evening chores, carried some water and went to the shed to get the grain for the chickens.  In a few moments Baby ran out there for something, saw him, was frightened and came running to me and said there was someone in the wood shed.  I tried to tell her it was some of our folks, for her not to be afraid to go and get what she wanted but she insisted she could not go alone; so I started with her and there I found papa lying cold in death as I knew the instant I saw him.  I ran to him, called him and tried to rouse him and then hurried to the house for help.  But papa was past all help before I reached him the first time.  Dr. said life had gone before he reached the ground, that it was instantaneous and without any suffering.  That is consolation for us and I hope will be for you.

Papa was not under the Dr’s care at the time but he had made a study of the disease and told us we should be prepared for this at any time – but you can know how we felt that it must be, if at all, sometime a long, long way off.  We never suspected the end was so near nor do I think he did tho’ he may have realized it more than we know.

The services were held here at home Monday at 4 o’clock – I wish you could have seen him then, it will always be a pleasant memory to me to know that all the careworn, tired looks pains and suffering had brought was gone and in its place was a faint smile and rest.

I will send you the papers, and try to write more fully another time.  I know you will share our grief with us and may it be lighter to you than it is for us.

Your loving niece

Phebe.