The OC Professor in OZ

A friend of mine is contemplating getting divorced.  She has a young child, and her husband is drinking and angry. Everything she says makes perfect sense to me--I've experienced it all before.  I too was married, and for nearly twenty years oscillated between conviction I would leave, and fear of the unknown. For a good couple of years after I left, I wondered if it was worth the hell I brought on myself and my children, not to mention my ex-wife. 

Through a distant lens I can see it was the right decision for me.  When I look back at how angry I was--at my ex-wife and life in general--I honestly don't recognize the person I had become. One particularly memorable night my ex-wife and I got into it while she was driving our Subaru station wagon on the way to, or from, graduate housing at Caltech.  As the argument escalated, I started pounding the dashboard with my fist. What the hell was THAT about?  WHO the hell was that?

Divorcing my ex-wife set me on a path of self-discovery and growth, which has humbled me, and made me better appreciate the people in my life, most particularly my children, who I love to the moon. But would I recommend it for someone else? On this question I have no advice. My friend talks of making plans to confront her husband, to give him an ultimatum, but when the moment comes she lets it pass. Her instincts protect her, and her young child, from bad things that would certainly come from a divorce--estrangement, fights over custody, fights over money, loss of security--and a hundred other dangers she can't anticipate.

And then there is the matter of counter examples.

When I was in high school my parents were absolutely miserable to each other, and made everyone close to them miserable too. Through my teenage eyes they were the type-locality of everything I would NEVER become (a teenage mantra if there ever was one). But between the time I left for college, and I came back for dad's funeral, a span of 21 years, my parents transformed.  I visited them the Thanksgiving before dad died, and what I remember most is watching he and mom say goodbye.  They would share a tender hug and a kiss, and I'm pretty sure I caught him spanking her on the butt a time or two, before he headed off to work in the morning. He died at work a few months later, and on the morning of he no doubt enjoyed a sweet send off, with a pat on the butt for good measure. 

In the final analysis, the decision to stay or go may turn on an elemental connection that develops between some couples.  A connection that defies explanation and eclipses all evidence to the contrary. That says, despite how bad things are now--drinking, screaming, affairs, or worse--that in the end it will be wonderful again. My parents had that connection.  My ex-wife and I didn't.

Today is Thanksgiving 2012.  My mom is visiting from Alaska, my daughter is back from college for Break, and my son is around and about cavorting with friends (he turns 16 today, and is no doubt presently promising himself--writing in blood on some sacred wall--that he will never, ever, turn out like his parents).  Their arrival has filled my home with laughter and the smells (and smoke!) of dinner cooking, and mom shouting out over the din of fans and TV things like, "honey, can you come here and check to make sure the salmon isn't underdone?"  Or, "honey, you didn't eat that pear did you?  It looked rode hard and put away wet."  And, just in case you're wondering, the last line was delivered without the slightest hint of irony. 

Someone asked me the other day what it was like growing up in Alaska. My initial reaction was, "yeah, not that much different from growing up anywhere else."

But then I got to thinking, maybe that's not quite right.  My parents did a lot of different things; an art we've lost in this age of specialization. When I was 9 to 13, they managed and co-owned a shrimp processing plant located in a remote Russian-Aleut village on a tiny island called Spruce Island off of Kodiak Island, in the middle of the frigid north Pacific Ocean. We lived in an apartment on the second floor of the cannery which was on the end of a dock (oh, did I mention I couldn't swim?).

I attended a two-room school, and learned to play piano from the Baptist missionary there, Mrs. Smith.  I have so many strange memories from that time. Like the time a guy had been stabbed at a party the night before, and was in the mission waiting for a flight out to a hospital. When I showed up for my daily practice (which I did religiously for fear of inciting the wrath of the Baptist God, or more specifically Mr. Smith), the stabbed guy was laying on the couch next to the piano, semi-conscious, groaning. Mrs. Smith, probably eager to teach both him and I a lesson, instructed me to practice as usual, but at full volume. It's a wonder he survived to catch the plane.

Today I was pondering something my father always used to say, typically in moments of crisis.  Such as, when his favorite football team--the Raiders if I'm not mistaken--were losing. He would shout, to no one in particular:  "Don't lose what you have!" 

There was also a more contemplative manifestation.  Occasionally, as an adult, I would muster courage to ask his opinion on some crucial decision in my life.  After a few minutes of follow up questions, and a few minutes spent fiddling with the remote control, he would finally look up and say, simply,  "Son, don't lose what you have." 

I eventually realized my dad's philosophy, like most things for him, was rooted in piloting.  My dad was, first and foremost, a fixed wing pilot.  Flying was in his blood as much anything can ever be.  For the last twenty years of his life he owned a company which rebuilt busted Cessna aircraft;  think body shop for tiny airplanes. For the first ten of those he did something he called, "aircraft retrieval";  think, tow truck for tiny airplanes.  Except, when a tiny airplane breaks, typically while flying, it tends to end up in places that are not easy to access, at least not with a tow truck. So dad and his buddies had this insane business model, which amounted to helicoptering into the Alaskan Bush, piecing together the wrecked airplane as best they could, and then flying it back to Anchorage for salvage. 

During those first ten years dad had at least 21 emergency landings (he said the 13th was the scariest), any one of which would easily have killed a lesser pilot.  The point of all of this, is that I came to understand that dad believed he survived all of these near misses by following one simple rule:  don't lose what you have.  If you have altitude, don't burn it up by deploying flaps.  If you have airspeed, don't squander it by doing unnecessary turns.  In engineering speak, "don't lose what you have" means "don't waste energy".

It's easy to understand how dad's admonition might apply to life in general.  I mean, when we carelessly throw away something we've worked on, give up on a relationship, or don't complete the thought, it is a waste of energy: psychic energy, time, money, you name it.  That's why we're frustrated by people we love who give up on things too early--leave school with out a degree, for example, or abandon a project because of negative feedback.  In dad's philosophy of life, a good pilot never gives up, ever. 

Since coming back from Australia, I've taken up running.  My route takes me out the front door (the hardest part), through a locked gate, past gardeners (mostly Hispanic, probably undocumented, working their hearts out to keep things pretty), across fast moving traffic on Jamboree, and down a little hill to Back Bay drive, a one lane road that snakes along the southeastern flank of the Newport Bay Nature Preserve. 

The Bay is unexpected, out of place in urban sprawl.  Snowy White Egrets stand motionless, hunting on a mudflat so teeming with invertebrates it recoils on approach.  My seven mile loop takes me down Bay to Dunes Resort (where I have my Gatorade), and then back to Jamboree and up a series of long hills--ancient marine terraces, formed by breaking ocean waves when the land was lower and/or the sea was higher.

The last of the marine terraces is a killer.  It takes all my focus to keep going.  All that I am in that moment is about making it to the crest and catching the first distorted glimpse of the traffic light that marks the end of my run. 

A continuation of my mom's story growing up in Alaska...

My parents married, sans family and friends, in a courthouse in Shenandoah, Iowa, on November 23, 1927.  It was the peak of the Roaring Twenties.  Over the next two years the stock market rose 400%, and the mood in the country was one of exuberant optimism.  It was a heady time for my newlywed parents. 

They conceived my sister Joyce in November 1929, just as the stock market crashed and everyone it seemed, including my dad, lost their job.  With a baby on the way and no income, mom and dad reconciled with Grandma Stevens, and moved onto her farm on the outskirts of Shenandoah.  Over the next two years they worked the farm, had Joyce, and planned their next move.  In 1931, as banks were failing all around them, my parents packed their bags, loaded up a Model T, and headed west.  Their journey included multi-year stops in York (Nebraska) and Denver (Colorado) to have Herman and I, but there was clearly a master plan.  The cities where Joyce, Herman, and I were born are evenly spaced along Route 66, headed straight and true to the poppy fields of California. 

When we arrived in California in 1936, dad found work as a supervisor for the Wasco Creamery in Bakersfield--a monumental achievement for that time and place.  My memories are of drinking cool milk fresh off the condensers in the Creamery's bottling plant, the feeling of hot sand on my bare feet, visiting the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and playing with my dog Spotty in the shade of an old oak tree. Meanwhile, just down the road, a very different reality played out. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath is set a few miles south of the Wasco Creamery in Weedpatch Camp, which the Farm Securities Administration opened in 1936 for legions of destitute, and starving, farm workers and their families from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma.  We settled in at the Creamery just as Steinbeck, then a young newspaper reporter, was a few miles away collecting notes for what would become his Nobel prize winning novel.  Oddly, dad never mentioned Steinbeck or Grapes of Wrath or Weedpatch Camp, even though I'm certain he visited the camp, and no doubt had family and friends there.  I suspect dad didn't approve.  He probably lumped Steinbeck together with bankers and lawyers, overly educated ne'er-do-wells living off the misfortunes of others. 

The contrast between worlds inside and outside the Creamery was a constant source of anxiety for my parents.  Dad had no job security, no contract, and talent was in over supply.  My parents lived day-to-day with the possibility of losing everything, including our little house on company land, in a heart beat.  The fragility of our situation rattled mom the most. Dad volunteered up our home to anyone who needed an address, leaving mom to track three young children while supervising a parade of out-of-work men collecting their post.  Mom could never let her guard down.  She asked a family friend, Frank Horvat, to watch us kids for a few minutes so she could have a much needed break.  He took us swimming in a tank used by the Creamery for water supply, and I nearly drown when the piece of wood I was holding flipped in a whirlpool near the drain. 

Despite all of the stress, or perhaps because of it, mom was solid as a rock.  I can remember her getting angry only two times--once when we opened a migrant's mail, and again when we interrupted a conversation between dad and his boss.  Both times the punishment was a slap across the bare legs with a razor strop, but even in this mother was cool as a cucumber.  Bakersfield gave mom a circumspect view of life.  She was quick to laugh, but always thinking five steps ahead, wary and watchful. She knew, more acutely than anyone, the hell that lay just a few short miles from our doorstep.  And once you've had the stench of hell in your nose, it is with you the rest of your life. 

A continuation of my mom's story growing up in Alaska

I was a freshman at Anchorage High School in the fall of 1950.  I hate thinking about those years. I was willfully and deeply stupid, bored most of the time, hanging out with likewise bored kids in town.  Because my parents worked during the week, and were up at the cabin hunting and fishing most weekends, I had too much freedom.  The same was true for most of my friends.  None of us had helicopter parents.  

Times were changing.  Before the war there were clear divisions between men and women, parents and children, white and black.  After the war, the country was prosperous and powerful, and the lines of gender, age, and race were beginning to blur.  For women it was a whole new ball game.  Especially so women married to men, like my dad, not threatened by their wife’s success. By necessity, the war gave women a role in society outside the home.  They were empowered, plain and simple.  After the war they entered the work force in legions, often bringing home paychecks that equaled or rivaled their husband’s.  But along with dual household income came the issue of what to do with the children.  My parent’s generation had to invent a whole new social order without the benefit of blue prints, role models, or (god forbid!) government programs.  It was naturally a messy business.  On the ground it meant a lot of us teens were more-or-less unsupervised.  And unsupervised teens are a universal recipe for trouble.  

I had my first cigarette with Nelly Gunderson when I was 15.  Smoking activated my asthma, but it was an absolutely essential part of being a teenager. The movies were filled with cool sophisticated people puffing on a cigarette.  The country burned, on average, a pack-a-day for every man, woman, and child.    It was a halcyon time for Phillip Morris.  When I started smoking in 1950 cigarettes cost 10 cents a pack.  When I quit ten years later they were up to 33 cents.  Today they are 7 bucks--an inflation of 7000% over 61 years.

Anchorage was then, and perhaps still is, a place of contrasts and contradictions. The main street, Fourth Avenue, was lined with high-end clothing stores, ice cream parlors, movie theatres, all populated by decent folk dressed in their Sunday best. To the east of Fourth Avenue, from Gamble Street and beyond, was an ocean of bars and whore houses where Army and Air Force personnel from the local bases enjoyed a little R and R.  The military bases were filled with young men looking for a good time. Their numbers tilted the male-to-female ratio of Anchorage toward 10 to 1.  I quickly learned never to make eye contact with a man on the street.  To do so invariably earned me a friend for life, who thought I was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, and wanted to take me back to his place to show me something or another. For a pretty young teenager, the attention was intoxicating, and the lights and commotion on the east side of town were mysterious and beckoning.  When I found a man who looked like he might be at home in such a place, I jumped. 

His name was Duke Weed.  He was an Army boy in his early 20s, dark haired, average build, not bad looking, but utterly unmemorable.  I venture to say you would scarcely notice him if he was stark naked and his hair was on fire. My interest had very little to do with Duke Weed—although I liked his name—and everything to do with my sister marrying Howard.  I hate to say it, but Duke was a tool. I did all the talking for him including, I think, the marriage proposal.

Duke was dirt poor, and due to be discharged from the Army in a couple of months with no prospect for a job.  When I announced that Duke and I were to be married, my parents and sister were violently opposed. I begged and pleaded and wore them down, and eventually mom and dad agreed to sign the paperwork.  Under age marriage, which was usually reserved for shotgun weddings, required parent approval.  We married in the same Presbyterian Church my sister graced with her wedding the year before.  I have only one photo from the wedding.  In the photo mom is fussing with my dress, dad is standing by my side, and Howard and Joyce are in the background. Fittingly, Duke is nowhere to be seen.

A continuation of my mom's story growing up in Alaska....

Mom worked as a master chef at the Oysterloaf, Westward Hotel, and Club 25, all solid establishments in the heart of downtown.  Dad would stumble out of bed to drive her to work before 7 so she could start prepping the kitchen, and then come back home for a leisurely morning.  He worked in the railroad yards down in Ship Creek Valley, but was never in a hurry to get to work.  He would settle in to read a little of Will Durant’s A Brief History of Civilization, and after a while set the book down and say, “Well, I guess it’s time to go to work.”  And then, “On second thought, I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and finish this chapter”.   

My parents spent their weekends hunting and fishing at my dad’s cousin Grover’s homestead north of Anchorage, at mile 79 on the Glen Highway.  When Grover put the homestead up for sale, mom and dad snapped it up for $5100.  The price included 160 acres of Alaskan wilderness, a one bedroom log cabin, and an assortment of sheds and barns.

The cabin was located on the side of the homestead fronting the Glen Highway.  A tractor trail led from the cabin, along a small creek, up Coronary Hill, to the beaver dam.  The beaver dam's interlocking branches formed a deep blue lake that echoed with the sounds of Dolly Varden trout jumping at Water Striders and beavers slapping the water with their tails.  The surrounding forest was clear cut.  Dead trees were scattered like tooth picks, abandoned for flaws—diameter, texture, hardness, greenness—only a beaver could discern.  One winter a bear figured out dinner could be had by knocking a hole in the beaver dam, and waiting in the woods until a repair team was dispatched.  By this ruse, the bear picked off all of the beavers one-by-one, and the beaver dam, with all of its Dolly Varden trout, washed downstream.

My dad was a careful observer of nature.  Every year he recorded the first signs of summer:  the cresting of the sun over Sheep Mountain, the arrival of the first robin, the first bloom of the pussy willow, and the first brilliant purple flowers of the shooting star.  Decades later Dad's calendars, odes and almanacs to the seasonal rhythms in southern Alaska, fell victim to casual ignorance of grandchildren, who used them as kindling to start a fire on a cold winter night.  Perhaps, on the other hand, there was no more fitting end.  Like the seasonal cycles of death and rebirth they recorded, his calendars succumbed to generational cycles of learning, forgetting, and re-learning.  A cycle upon cycle that would have solicited, from my naturalist father, a wise nod and broad smile.  

A colleague at UCI, Carl Friehe, passed away this week.  He was fighting prostate cancer, and a stubborn lung infection before that.  Carl retired a couple of years ago, but he and two other retired professors at UCI--the Gang of Three I called them--were a constant fixture around campus, walking to or from coffee, and constantly ribbing us working stiffs about our pre-retirement status. 

The last time I saw Carl he was as cheerful as ever, but emaciated.  He talked frankly about his medical condition, and laughed that he was down to his "Vietnam draft weight".  He was especially interested in my trips to Australia, because he spent time Down Under, and knew a few of the people I work with here.  After a few minutes of banter, Carl invited me to sit down and take a load off.  I wish I had.  I declined because I had some (seemingly) urgent and important thing to do.  So urgent and important, in fact, I can't remember what it was. 

Carl studied how material and energy are transported across the surface of the ocean.  The work is fundamental to predicting global climate change, for example, because a lot of what we emit into the atmosphere on land gets absorbed by the sea. 

That's impressive, no doubt about it. 

But what impressed me most was how Carl did his research.  He had the coolest toys.  In one experiment off the California coast, he used Scripps Institution of Oceanography's FLIP, a freak of marine engineering that looks like an oil tanker as its being towed out to the field site.  Once there, like a sequence in a James Bond movie, the ballast chambers are flooded and the entire ship flips into a vertical position, forming a stable platform from which research experiments can be conducted (or Bond's plane can be launched). I first learned about FLIP in elementary school, and I decided right then and there I wanted to be a marine oceanographer (I was a pretty nerdy 10 year old).

In another experiment, Carl flew through the eye of a hurricane in a prop engine aircraft, recording wind speed and turbulence.

The man had an absolutely bomb life. 

Carl:  I don't know where you are right now.  But I'm sure, where ever that is, you're asking the right questions, playing with the coolest toys, surrounded by good friends, and having a great time.  It was a privilege and honor to have known you.

A continuation of my mom's story growing up on the road to Alaska...

Dad inherited his love for music from the Cotter side of the family who were, to a one, crazy banjo players in the Ozarks and, no doubt in generations before that, crazy bag pipe players in Ireland.  Around the house dad would play dying cowboy music—Gene Autry, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow—on his 78 Halicrafter cabinet record player. He would crank up the volume and we'd all sing: love is like a dying ember, and only memories remain.  Dad said the neighbors did not need a record player, because we played ours loud enough for everyone. It is a wonder the neighbors, or my mom for that matter, never called the police. 

Herman’s baritone voice was as deep and sweet as anything we heard on the radio, every bit as good as Bing Crosby or Perry Como.  I have no doubt if he had had a vocal coach and the right opportunities, my brother would have crooned his way into every living room in the country.  His deep sonorous voice and naturally curly blonde hair made him a favorite with the girls in junior high and high school. Years later I would run into girls from school and they’d invariably ask how Herman was doing.  They were not so interested in me.  But they were definitely interested in him.

Herman married his high school sweetheart, Muriel, in 1952.  They were both 19.  They had their wedding in Minnesota, close to her extended family.  A week before the wedding, in late fall, Herman set out from Anchorage in a 1948 Buick Nash with his best friend and best man Tom Torckelson, who everyone called Torchy.  The 3000 mile trip took Herman and Torchy south and east through Canada, and then into Minnesota from the north.  Along the way Herman came across a Canadian who had a copy of Hank Snow’s latest 78 record, “Golden Rocket”. Herman traded a precious carton of Lucky Strikes for the record. When my brother finally pulled into Princeton, Minnesota, he was anxious to see his young bride, of that I am sure.  I suspect he was also anxious to listen to Hank Snow.  For his sake, I hope he found a way to do both simultaneously.

Herman and Muriel had an abbreviated honeymoon in Niagara Falls, and then high-tailed back to Anchorage so Herman could report for duty. He was drafted into the army for the Korean War, but his marital status kept him off the front and stationed at the local base in Anchorage. He and Muriel purchased a modest home in Fairview, close to base and Muriel’s mom’s house on the east side of town.  With the nest fluffed, they found a way to keep each other warm on those cold Alaskan winter nights. Babies, five in total, quickly followed. 

I head back to southern California in 18 days.

I'll miss Australia. 

I'll miss the sounds that filter through my window in the mornings: dog howling, train whistling, tram clanging, birds singing, church bell ringing, cat hissing.  And the simple ritual of opening the blinds to let in the morning sun.

I'll miss walking through the pulsating Technicolor light show of the CBD at night.  Couples and friends spilling in and out of bars, pubs, and restaurants.  The crush of humanity--in trams, cars and ambulances--rushing to destinations unknown. 

I'll miss being disconnected, in a way, from the stress and strain of every day life in southern California--paying bills, balancing accounts, managing time, meeting deadlines.  I had some of that here.  But by being here such a short time, I tricked stress--it didn't have time to fully catch up with me before I left.

Of course, most of all, I'll miss the people. My larger-than-life flat mate Alice who is strangely disinterested in collecting rent from me. Phoebe who sneaks me in (transients aren't generally allowed) to all the hip cool coffee places in Melbourne and talks passionately about, well, everything.  Mike for indoor climbing (I ALWAYS wanted to do that!), long runs, and scheming to take over the world (we're a little like Pinky and the Brain--I think I'm Pinky).  His cool wife Tamzin for her great sense of humor, and for caring.  Kerry for constantly feeding me ideas of places to go and things to do, and giving me the back story on all things, big and small.  The list goes on and on. To all of you a hearty "Thank you!" from the bottom of my heart.  You've made my time Down Under very special.

And now comes the count down. I picked up laundry detergent at 7-Eleven yesterday, and the box said it was good for 11 washes.  I realized, while standing in line to pay, I can wash no more than 9 loads (3 loads X 3 weeks) between now and when I leave.  This would be my last box of detergent.  It made me sad.

A continuation of my mom's story growing up on the road to Alaska...

The first couple of years in Anchorage, from 1946 to 1948, were a sweet and innocent time for me. My favorite day of the week was Saturday, when Joyce, Herman and I would get dropped off downtown for a movie and ice cream. Dad still had bald tires from the war, so getting up the hill from Ship Creek Valley was a thrill during the winter. He would cue up at the base of the hill, rev the engine, drop it in gear, and let her rip.  The car quickly picked up speed approaching the hill, and then steadily slowed on ascent.  We would make it about halfway up when the tires would start spinning, the old car would go sideways, and us kids would whoop and holler from the back seat.  It was my dad’s version of a roller coaster ride. He would stop the car on the side of the hill and let us out.  We would hike the distance to downtown, while dad backed down the hill and headed home to mom.

For such a small town, Anchorage had wonderful shops, restaurants, candy stores and ice cream parlors. I wish I had pictures from those times.

Joyce had been on her own in Anchorage while we were in Healy, and she’d been the head of the house during the war. Taking orders from mom, or anyone else for that matter, did not sit well with her.  Mom and Joyce argued constantly over how to run the house.  Mom would tell Joyce to do something and how to do it, and Joyce would say, “well, I’ve done it this other way.”  And away they would go. 

In retrospect, I think it was precisely Joyce’s stubborn take-no-prisoners attitude that enabled her superhuman life.  Over the course of 79 years she had 7 children, again as many foster kids, a full-time career as a high school teacher, picked up an undergraduate and two masters degrees (one in Education and one in Alaskan History) on the side from the local college, and was the family's tireless (and sometimes overbearing) central nervous system after mom died.

Joyce was also compassionate to a fault.  A few years ago a guy posing as a store employee carried her groceries out to the car, got in the back seat, and told her to drive to an ATM because he “had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.”  She calmly explained that if he didn’t get out of the car she’d put it in gear and drive through the store’s floor-to-ceiling plate glass window.  Before she could finish the sentence he was gone.  In a classic Joyce twist, she drove straight to an ATM, pulled out $100, and went looking for her would-be assailant.  She was worried he did not have enough money to get through the night.

In the Fall of 1948, Joyce and Howard flew south to the “Lower 48” for college.  For Joyce it must have been like going to the moon.  She was probably one of a handful of Alaskan kids to get admitted to UCLA—a prestigious honor by any standard—and no doubt among the first young women, perhaps the first young woman, from Alaska to get the nod.  I wish I knew more details.  She had been saving for school since Healy days, but I don’t know if she had a scholarship, or even what she planned to major in. 

When she came back the next summer no one spoke of UCLA again.  Joyce had eloped with Howard, and in the summer of 1949 they had their second wedding in the local Presbyterian Church, and the babies came in quick succession.  Joyce and Howard moved into a little log house in Mountain View, and she reveled in her new role as mother bountiful. 

To:       Professor Stanley Grant, University of California, Irvine             Chemical Engineering and Materials Science             Civil and Environmental Engineering

From:    Weinstock-Chang-Yen Relocation and Moving Services 

Re:        Relocation of Furniture, Fixtures, Office Equipment and Supplies 

Dear Professor Grant:

We hope you are enjoying your stay and travels in Australia.  While you are cavorting Down Under, we have been tasked with moving all of your various and sundry office crap, including furniture, fixtures, office equipment and supplies.

Would you be so kind as to forward a credit card number we can charge for the international shipment of:

ONE TOXIC BLUE COUCH 

It is too big to fit into a shipping package, so we are presently cutting it apart with a chain saw.  Once payment is received, the left over bits will be shipped to Australia for reassembly.   

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

With kindest regards,

Your old friends in Southern California 

Sometime ago I waxed poetic about my dream job modeling for magazines.

More precisely, mathematical modeling for research journals. 

Well, as luck would have it, in the latest issue of Environmental Science and Technology, I am, figuratively and literally, the cover model(er). 

(look for the nearly invisible nerdy-looking dude in the life vest) 

Who says dreams can't come true!

I am my potato leek soup

My potato leek soup is me

But you don't like soups, my love

You like steak

Korean barbecue

Marrow in Osso Buco

You take my potato leek soup and toss it in the air

swirl it around

splatter me

You spill my potato leek soup

in a puddle

on the floor

I protest on behalf of my potato leek soup

You laugh, my love

I fight for my potato leek soup

You fight back, my love

When I burn my potato leek soup

You add Tapatio, my love

If I gave you my potato leek soup

would you flush it

when it molds?

My potato leek soup is me

I am my potato leek soup

I am my bright white line

My bright white line is me

But you don't think in lines, my love

You think in curves

In loops and three dimensional spirals

topologies in space

You take my bright white line and toss it in the air

swirl it around

lasso me

You split my bright white line

into parallel universes

neatly stacked

I protest on behalf of my bright white line

you laugh, my love

I fight for my bright white line

you fight back, my love

If I gave you my bright white line

would you lose it

My favorite bear story is the time my ex-wife Lisa and I went to the Chugach Park Ranger Station to check conditions on a trail we were planning to hike north of Anchorage.  The woman behind the counter said the trail was OK, but we should be watchful, because a bear was feeding on a downed moose nearby.  I pulled out the .38 Special my mom had given me, and said, "we have this thing, so we're covered in case of a bear attack." 

The ranger smiled, and said, "yes, that will come in handy.  So here's what you do.  If a bear charges, put the gun in your ear, and pull the trigger."