Woodstock Days

Woodstock Days
By Charles E. Kraus

Late 1960s:

My father, who had voted for Kennedy, then for Goldwater, was experimenting with right wing politics. He was highly intelligent but also impressionable. You might say Dad knew a lot and that some of what he knew conformed to reality. He was one of those shy, soft spoken individuals, good-natured unless and until you pushed a hot button issue. The Vietnam War, for example. That brought on his high voltage outrage. It was difficult to believe his two personalities wore the same pants.

Our country was undergoing a generation gap. The press had proclaimed it; younger folks and their more experienced elders weren't seeing eye to eye.  The media's narrow focus on rebelliousness vs. stodginess, colored by dogmatic phrasiology such as never trust anyone over thirty, widened the schism.   According to television coverage, America seemed to be in a state of near anarchy.  Strangely, out there in day-to-day actual life, things seemed pretty stable.

One evening, I was taking my girlfriend to a movie playing in midtown Manhattan. My father lived in the area and for some foolish reason we had arranged to meet him for dinner. I'm guessing I thought he would be impressed by my choice of girlfriends, and that my date would be impressed with my choice of fathers. Things turned out quite differently. That happened when the conversation moved from menu selections to Hồ Chí Minh.

Like the majority of our cohort, Tracy and I hadn't taken to the streets or burned any flags.  But we identified with the more active members of the youth movement, those whose endeavors qualified for media attention.   Ours was a theoretical rebellion --  rhetorical outrage against war, against inequality,  hypocritical politicians and greedy capitalists.  When asked how to achieve a better world, our answer reflected a popular song, If We Only Have Love. Love was the cure. We were unsure about implementation.

Dad was having none of it. He countered with a diatribe of historical facts, statistics, specifics, names, places, dates, and authorities. We offered no rebuttal. We were sincere, but clueless.

Years later, thinking back on that evening, I realized that much of what my father spouted was gibberish packaged as gospel. He didn't know what he was talking about, but won the round because we were naive and massively under informed. We mistook his authoritative sounding oratory for wisdom when it was just some stuff he had read in Buckley's column.

Over time, most people mature.  A chair caning guy I knew during our bohemian past became an accountant.  His ex-wife evolved, morphing from earth mother to nurse practitioner.  Some people merely adjust.  Ultra conservative David Horowitz, a red diaper baby who considers himself a founding member of the New Left, moved to the far right.  Evidently, he likes extremes.  In the early 60's, radical student Tom Hayden wrote the influential Port Huron manifesto.  Later, he calmed down, married Jane Fonda and settled into his role as state legislator, representing the republic of Santa Monica, California.  A shanty town if there ever was one.

Absorbed into stability, I've attempted to become an informed, reasoning member of society.  It turns out this goal post is not easily reached. Facts are slippery, need context, contradict one another.  Science, with its evolving theories, religions with their competing theologies.  It's enough to make you watch another sitcom.

Forty-nine years ago this week, Trump and I were not at Woodstock.   Though I didn't go, I wished I had.   Trump never identified with the youth movement.  That August he probably spent his evenings visiting exclusive New York night spots.  Not dancing of course; according to his draft deferment, the bone spurs in his feet would have prevented him from taking to the floor.   In any event, he was not the hippie type.  He did not wear tie-dyes; he worn ties.

Having matured, or at least aged, I'm leery of gurus and ethereal solutions. I tend to put my faith in practical wisdom. But I am proud to have been a kid who believed better, idealistic, angels could make a difference.   I still do.  Love, as in All We Need, is rarely practical.  But a touch of altruism is essential.  It's one of the tools.  I now realize that shaping the future also requires coordinates.

Despite current conditions, I have hope. After all, my father did not remain a conservative.  Reagan talked him out of it.

CALL FORWARDING

CALL FORWARDING 
Land Lines                        

By Charles Kraus

I first became aware of the telephone when I was about three-years-old.  Mom and I were in the kitchen.  She was talking and talking, but it didn't sound like her words were for me.   She gripped this sort of black banana shaped thing, holding it up to her face, transferring the device from hand to hand as if prolonged contact caused discomfort.  My mother seemed to be speaking to the wall.  All of a sudden, she lowered the banana and said, "say hello to Aunt Helen."

I was confused by telephones then, and have been ever since.

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Like many but not all of our neighbors, we owned -- that's not correct -- we leased a telephone.  In the 1950s phones were part of the service plan.  The phone company owned them, you used them.  

One telephone per household was the general rule.  Most were located in the kitchen, though you could take the hand set into the hall or another room, as far as the length of wire connecting it to the base would allow you to go.  Such wires were always getting tangled, kinked up, wrapped around pieces of furniture, or becoming so knotted it was impossible to stretch them the full length.  

There was no such thing as "cordless."  The base was connected to wires in the wall.  The hand set was wired to the base.  Holding the handset to your ear and mouth gave you the ability to talk and listen, but only indoors.  Outside phone conversations took place while standing in public phone booths.  These were often messy, smelly enclosures, breeding grounds for germs, filth and graffiti.

Calls were personal and could not be broadcast via the yet to be invented 'speaker phone.'  Privacy was not a certainty.  Some unidentified person might just be listening in. Operators could. Also, neighbors.  This was particularly true if your phone was connected to a party line.  In many cases, ours for example, rather than having an exclusive phone number, members of your "party" had a group number.  Each household associated with the collective shared that phone number with half dozen other families generally located on the same block or in the same apartment building.

Each member was assigned an identifying ring.  Not an individualized tone, nor unique jingle, just a basic ting-a-ling.  All parties heard this alerted.  One ring followed by silence meant the incoming call was for the Smith family.  Two rings, the Jones family, three, your family.  Noting the appropriate signal, you picked up.  If  the call was meant for another family, you did not. 

Or, at least you weren't supposed to.  Party lines were the original unsecured lines.  It was best during telephone conversations to refrain from discussing anything you wouldn't want your neighbors to overhear.

To initiate a call, you lifted the hand set and listened for a dial tone. Perhaps one of your neighbors was in the middle of an interesting chat.  You hung up, but maybe you were slow and stealthy about returning the handset to its cradle.  Eventually, the line was clear. You signaled the operator, provided a number and asked her to connect you.

In the mid 1950's we got a rotary phone.  The base had a rotating disk containing finger holes that hovered above the numbers one through ten.  Printed in minimal font beneath each number was a portion of the alphabet.  Back then, "telephone numbers" were comprised of numbers and letters.  Prefixes, two letters indicating a location, were followed by five numbers.  TE6-0559 (Teaneck), HO4-7221 (Hollywood).  To dial a phone "number," the caller placed a finger into the hole corresponding to a particular digit or letter, then spun the dial clockwise as far as it would go.  Removing the finger, the disk rather slowly and purposefully returned to its original position. The process was repeated until each digit had been entered.  Watching that disk methodically return to neutral again and again, especially if your intention was to make a quick call to your girlfriend, was an excruciating exercise.

Phones were black.  Only black.  There were two styles, wall mount and free standing. Occasionally when attempting to hang up, you mistakenly returned the handset to the cradle at an awkward angle failing to disconnect.   Someone we knew, thinking she had completed a call to her mother, hung up in just such a manner.   Unbeknownst to our friend, the line remained "live" and her mom was still listening. The friend began telling us just how foolish her mother was, explaining the nuts and bolts of the woman's poor life choices!   That was a mistake.

There were hundreds of local telephone companies spread across the country, each with exclusive regional rights to phone service. Area codes for major urban centers had been assigned by the early 1950s, but placing long distance calls to out of the way locations often required operator assistance.  It was helpful to have a professional navigate the maze of regional gateways.  Except for urgent, last minute communications -- "It's a girl!,"  "Uncle Sid just passed away," "Can I borrow five dollars?," a great deal of forethought went into what you'd be saying during a long distance call.  They were charged in three minute intervals so you wanted to make sure you said EVERYTHING in a timely fashion.  Dialing from a pay phone meant the local operator would break into your conversation to warn you that your time was almost up. 

You'd be given the opportunity to continue .  All you had to do was make an additional payment.  Often, you declined.  Lengthy long distance conversations were considered frivolous.  They impacted your budget.  Besides, you probably didn't have the correct change. Instead you kept talking and talking, faster and faster, until the line went dead.

There were tricks that helped avoid paying, especially if the message you wanted to convey was prearranged.  Instead of placing an actual call to your folks to let them know you had arrived safely, you'd tell the operator you wanted to make a collect call.  This reversed the charges; the people you were dialing had to pay for the privilege of speaking to you.  But ..... 

I'd arrive in Chicago and get to a phone.  When the operator came on the line, give her my name and asked to place a collect call. Mom answered.  "Collect call?"  Before refusing, she'd milk the situation, pondering ... pondering.  "Where is this coming from?  Is he in Chicago?  Is everything alright?"  The operator could, if she chose, relay the questions to me in an effort to get mom enough information for her to make her decision.   Of course, by now, Mom had learned I'd arrived.  There was no need to speak with me, the message had been delivered.  My mother, not wanting to be thought of as insensitive, would very reluctantly refuse the call.  

My girlfriend used a more elaborate code system.  If she'd simply arrived safely, she would tell the operate that her name was Robyn. If there was a genuine problem and she actually did want her mother to accept, she'd state her name as Tracy.  At times when the operator asked who the call was from, she'd give her name as Marilyn Monroe.  That was code for something more complex, though I don't quite remember what.

During my freshman college year, I lived in a Boston dorm with a pay phones on every floor.  Students did not have personal phones, not in their pockets and not in their rooms.  Residents took turns using the public hall phones.  If one rang, it was answered by whomever felt like responding. More responsible students made an effort to locate the intended recipient, or to at least take a message and post it on the adjacent message board.  Good luck with that.

There was a trick we used when we placed calls from the first floor phone.  After dialing, an operator would come on the line and request the appropriate coin payment.   Well -- don't tell this to a soul -- it was possible to slide a quarter against the wall of the phone, then push the coin down to a spot where a cable entered the box.  With a little practice, you could hit the exposed wire inside the cable housing.  Each time the quarter touched the wire, the operator thought you'd dropped in a coin.  You could slam that quarter against the wire again and again, receiving more and more credit.  The main problem with this was that practitioners had no financial incentive to keep conversations short. 

Phones did not have display screens letting you know who was on the other end of the line.  It might be something or someone important or in the alternative, a party you were trying to avoid. The only way to find out was to answer.  Often, you wished you hadn't.  We had a cipher ... ring once, hang up.  Ring again.  Hang up.  Immediately call a third time ... bingo, we knew it was ok to pick up the phone, that the caller knew the secret pattern.

The 'who is calling?' dilemma was solved when answering machines became popular.  If it was important, people would leave a message after the beep.  You could review the details  and decide whether or not to response.  But even though answering machines served such a useful function, it took a while for the public to feel comfortable with them.  Many folks were put off by the prospect of being greeted by a mechanical device.  It was considered uncivilized.  Almost rude.

Answering services, on the other hand, employed real live people who took your call when you were not available.  If you failed to grab the phone by the forth or fifth ring, the service grabbed it for you.  "Mr. Kraus isn't home, may I take a message?"  You could even arrange to have the receptionist forward calls to your current location.  How cool was that.

Of course, these services had their down side.  Messages were written by very busy people trying their best to reduce lengthy missives to short abbreviated bullet points.  The results were mixed. You'd check in and be offered garbled nonsensical incomplete summations read by a new shift of operators who were unable to provide context or clarification.  I called once shortly before noon. 

The receptionist started to tell me about an urgent message.  She said, "he wants to meet, but ....." There was a pause.  "Hold please." I waited and waited.   Several minutes went by.  She finally returned, reading me the complete message, which said, "he wants to meet, but you have to contact him by noon or the deal is off."  It was.

Answering Services weren't the only entities adapt at screwing up calls.  The phone company was perfectly capable of being incapable.  In 1973, when I moved to the San Fernando Valley, I wanted to keep my Los Angeles phone number. I'm an entertainer specializing in programs for schools and libraries.  My business was conducted from home. I'd invested a great deal of money in brochures and printed advertising.  Friends and business associates had been using my phone number for years.  Fortunate, for a rather outrageous fee, Pacific Bell was willing to reroute calls dialed to my old number, patch them through 20 miles of the hardwired lines that ran along endless telephone poles, and pipe them directly to my new location.  Terrific.  This was about a month before the Christmas holidays and I anticipated a lot of business.

Unfortunately the patching was more theoretical than actual.  Some patchwork quilts are so random they are called 'crazy quilts.'   The phone company's routing of my calls qualified for such a designation.  My phone rang endlessly, but not with calls from people intending to speak with yours truly.  Folks were calling Ted, or Judy, the cosmetic department or about a plumbing emergency. Who the hell was I, they asked suspiciously.  Potential costumers intentionally dialing my phone number were connected to law offices and lock smiths and bakeries.  Never to me.  I didn't practice law, didn't know the first thing about picking a lock, and the only thing I knew how to bake was my body when I visited the beach.

One Saturday, the following Spring, I was booked to perform at a private party taking place about fifty miles outside of Los Angeles. Knowing the freeways could morph into giant road blocks, I allowed for lots of drive time.  However, lots was too little and I found myself zipping along at over six miles per hour.  I was scheduled to begin my show at 5:00.  Surely there was a little flex in this. 

Five-thirty, even 5:45 would most likely be ok.  But parties only last so long, and if you are going to entertain the guests, you have to arrive before they leave.
 There I was in my car, the clock rotating faster than my wheels.  At certain intervals, mainly when approaching clogged freeway exits and their equally clogged entrances, a choice was offered.  I could leave the freeway and search for a working pay phone -- pay phones were subject to vandalism and poor maintenance, so the term "working" was significant.  Before placing a call to the host of the party, letting him know I was running late, I'd have to get some change.  Pay phones did not accept bills or credit cards, and I hadn't been wise enough to bring along telephone boodle.  All this would take time, making me later than ever, especially since I'd have to fight my way back onto the freeway.  The alternative was to just keep driving, which is what I chose to do, reaching the party shortly after the last guest had departed.

To avoid such mishaps in the future my wife got me one of the world's first mobile phones.  Early cell service was spotty, at best, but she thought the device might be helpful.  These "portable" phones were so big and awkward most people thought of them as strictly car devices.  If you were on foot, their size and weight made transporting one cumbersome at best.   Handsets resembled in-home telephones.  The truly challenging part was the battery. Think something the size of a shoe box, weighing slightly less than a golden retriever.  Having a phone in the car would mean never again hunting for a pay phone. This proved theoretical.   The cellular phone cost around $700, and ended up saving us about $40 before we finally shut it down.  It was too unreliable and extravagant for our budget.  A cost analysis indicated leaving extra extra extra early for distant shows and carrying a roll of quarters in the glove box was more cost effective.

At this stage of telephone-ology, people were still captives of the "land line."  We tried to look on the positive side.  There were benefits to using this old fashioned hardwired tool.

You just had to be creative.  For example, when necessary you could request an emergency interrupt.

Suppose, this is just hypothetical, you'd been trying to call your wife to tell her that instead of watching a rerun of the television show Father Know's Best, you were thinking that after dinner, the two of you should watch The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. But every time you dialed home, you got a busy signal.  A change in the viewing schedule was a really really important idea and you absolutely needed to share your preference.  You couldn't text. 

Texting hadn't been invented.  You couldn't use call interrupt. Phones weren't equipped to do that.  Fortunately,  there was a different available interrupt -- Emergency Interrupt.  You dialed "O" and the operator came on the line.  You told her there was a serious emergency and you had to get in touch with your wife, or your boss, or your bookie, right away.  You'd tried and tried to call, but kept getting a busy signal.  Would she please break into your wife's conversation, have her release the line, then connect your call?  The fee was steep, perhaps three dollars, but some things were important enough to warrant such a procedure.  Your wife and her aunt were chatting and all of a sudden a strange voice joined the conversation.  “This is the operator.  We have an emergency interrupt for Mrs. Kraus.  Will you please release the line and I'll patch Mr. Kraus through?"

Most of the emergency interrupt calls that I made were rather frivolous.  A few were serious enough to truly warrant the procedure.  It was reassuring to know the process was available. On the single occasion when an operator broken into a call I was making, hearing her voice felt powerfully invasive, almost as if I'd been robbed of my privacy.  Yes, I'd relinquish the line.  "Hello Mom, ok, ok, I'll make sure your grand daughter sends you a thank you note."

I have one last telephone experience to share.  It took place in the 1980s during a  transitional period when cell phones were becoming more and more prevalent, but people still thought of them as supplemental equipment.   At home, you had a "regular" phone -- a land-line.  Out in the world, you had a Nokia something-or-other.  Phone companies had reluctantly agreed to allow customers to purchase hard wired phones instead of renting them. Whoopee! This mascaraed as a corporate setback, except of course, that most phones were manufactured and sold by the phone companies, so instead of charging you a few dollars a month to rent, they charged to a fortune to purchase one.

Late in the decade, our family relocated to Seattle.  We leased a house at the north end of the city.  Strangely, upon moving in, we found a telephone on the kitchen counter.  The previous tenant had failed to take it.  Ah, a free phone.  And not only that, it was live!  It didn't bite or require feeding, but it was live enough to roar us a dial tone whenever we lifted the handset.  Amazing.   In those bygone days, telephones generally had their phone numbers printed on small placards fastened to the base. 

Sadly, our new tele had no such identifier.  We could dial out, but had no idea what number to provide to friends wanting to call us.

Obviously, I had to contact the phone company and establish service in my own name.  Fortunately, this could be accomplished by simply picking up the phone in our new kitchen.  

"Hell, phone company, I want to sign up for telephone service."

The fellow on the other end of the line (by then, even men had indoor jobs at the phone company) (the glass floor) ... The fellow on the other end of the line was extremely pleasant and professional.  He took down a brief credit history then spoke with me about a few options.  The QWest Phone Company could rent me a phone or sell me a phone.  He described several models and a choice of six colors.   I could have extensions in every room, or some rooms.  There were a variety of long distance plans.  Lots of possibilities.  Phone service had come a long way.  I made my selection.

"And your address," he asked.  I told him.  

"Sorry?"

I told him again.

"Well, I'm checking and there is no such address."

I glanced at the lease.  There was such an address.

"Sorry, no.  I can't provide service to that location because we don't show it as existing."

He's telling me this while I am standing in a house at that address speaking to him from a working phone.

"Hold on.  I'll go outside and check to make sure of the street number."

I did.  I was right.  That was the number.

I tried to explain that QWest had already recognized the address.  I WAS TALKING TO HIM FROM THE ADDRESS!

My sworn testimony did little to convince him.

Well, to make a long story longer, his supervisor finally admitted the exstence of our rental.  Unfortunately, the reason I had a live phone in my hands was because the line had been inadvertently powered up.  By mistake.  The technician was supposed to provided the new service to another house, down the block.  And, to add confusion to exclusion, "capacity" for the block had been maxed out. 

There were no more lines available for additional hook ups.

"Say what?"

He explained that in a few minutes, he'd be turning off the free service to our house, and could not provide new service until scheduling a crew to run an additional cable.  The supervisor estimated that it would take several weeks.  He was optimistic.

POST SCRIPT

Christmas was fast approaching.  My wife was set to contact our LA venues to see about booking a holiday show tour.  Linda was dedicated, plus we needed the money.  She spent three days -- I swear this is entire true -- stationed at an outdoor pay phone, a bag of quarters in her purse and a note pad in her hand.  It rained.  Off and on, it snowed.  From time to time when a normal person wanted to make a normal phone call, she relinquished her post. 

When someone could only take a show at 7:30 and that meant Linda would have to call the person who'd booked one for 8:30 to ask if they could use me at 9:00, she stood there, in front of Larry's Market, as cars drove through the lot, as kids sang, cried and screamed, as dogs barked, and used her rather expanded set of telephone skills to book the tour.  I borrowed a few of her quarters and bought her cups of hot chocolate.

Obviously, times (and phones) have changed.  Analogue, digital, SIM cards, broadband, wifi, 3G, 4G, ZillionG, I have no idea what this stuff is, but I probably use it or its antecedents every day.  A few weeks ago, my granddaughter -- she's three and a half -- showed me how to FaceTime.  Like I said a while back, telephones confuse me.

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Another Father’s Day -- 1983

Another Father’s Day -- 1983

By Charles E. Kraus
Published in The News & Observer, June 18, 2017 

This is a letter of sorts – to my father. It has been a long time between messages. Dad and I live very different lives, reside in different states, and hold different points of view about the frequency and level of communication required between parents and offspring.

When I was a kid, the Father’s Day presents I purchased were mostly books, because I knew that my dad appreciated ideas. But we rarely got into the “idea” behind Father’s Day. Each of us pretty much considered it a gimmick, a drummed up sales tool designed to market greeting cards and cheap sentiment.

The word love has not been a part of my dad’s vocabulary. He was taught to be stoic, to be a hard worker, a decision maker, and the master of his family. I’m certain he believes that in order to address these roles, he needs to distance himself from matters of the heart. Glimpses of tenderness that might spend a fleeting moment revealed in an unguarded smile or moist eye are quickly camouflaged by a demeanor calling for cool headedness and a rejection of things emotional.

Over the years, we’ve come to understand each other in ways that only best friends are able to do. But dad and I have gone our entire relationship without saying how much we care.

It is because I have my own kids, my father’s only grand children, that I am beginning to learn about celebrating Father’s Day, both as a parent and as a son. My daughters are too young to notice the crass commercialism involved in holiday merchandising. They cook me and make me presents, or buy them at the market, and the little cakes or trinkets turn into treasures and tasty morsels, enhanced by the enthusiasm Becca and Danielle bring to the day. The profit-makers of the world may be “using” my kids, but it turns out, my kids are “using” them right back. The girls see this day as an opportunity to express their love. So be it if they do this by drawing pictures or buying me garage sale rejects. They help me to know just how wonderful it feels to be appreciated. And they make me want to pass along my own expression of love and gratitude to their grandfather.

Dad: When I was 7 you took me to the magic shop and introduced me to a great hobby. When I had a troubled summer, you planned us some long hikes and showed me the beauty of the forests. When I was in the service, at war, you wrote me letters and sent me packages. You’ve helped me to feel good, to feel better, to feel proud. You accomplished these things in silence, with a quiet tenderness that is part of your style.

You taught me to hold back the tears, insisting that they were not an appropriate reaction to anything short of catastrophe. I believe the admonishment that you and most of the dad’s used back when was, “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Yet, when I got sick, and you had to retrieve me from camp, prematurely ending my summer and my summer friendships, I sat curled up in the rear seat of our car, bawling all the way from New Hampshire to New Jersey. As I recall, the only thing you said was, you were sorry. Then you leaned back and gave me a pat on the shoulder. It helped. Sometimes, when things get hard, I recall that gentle touch. It still reassures.

You were taught to express love through actions. That’s a fine way, one I have adapted and incorporated into my own life. Only, I’ve decided it is time to add another technique. Your granddaughters have shown me a method of communicating feelings that is immediate, and extremely effective. They look me in the eye and tell me they love me. I look them right back and say, I love you, too.The News & Observer 

I’m not with you today, but I thought I’d tell you, and anyone who happens to be reading this, that I also love you, dad. Happy Father’s Day.

POST SCRIPT: I wrote the above many years ago. My father died before it could be sent, and the pages were mislaid. I recently came across them and publish this belatedly, thinking I should add an an additional thought:  Hey dad, turns out they created Father’s Day for several reasons: to sell cards, to express love, and to remember.

Trump Apologists, Tomorrow Is Vague

Trump Apologists, Tomorrow Is Vague

By Charles E. Kraus

Ronald Reagan was the original Teflon President.  By any reasonable standard, at least to his core supporters, Trump is Teflon coated in Vaseline then sprayed with Pam.  As far as his followers are concerned, the things our President says, does, or doesn’t do, are beside the point.  

What is the point?

Mainstream pundits have been trying to find it, to explain Trump’s undiminished baseline support.  I get a sense that many who attempt this mission have never actually met a Trump enthusiast.  

Most of the explainers are hung up on the illogic of it all.  The newest latest Trumpism is reported then a contradictory pronouncement from Trumps inexhaustible warehouse of conflicting statements is brought to our attention.  He said yes then he said no, promised this but delivered that.  Surprise.   

Among the persuaded, President Trump’s disregard for the truth has made him a folk hero.  The subject matter is not fact checking, it is believing.  It is faith based.

Many years ago, returned from a Nam stint, I was stationed in Little Creek, Virginia, attached to an outfit the Navy called Inshore Undersea Warfare Group Two.  Trump and I are about the same age.  In those days, he was attached to the New York night life and some assignments his dad gave him.

The country had mixed feelings about conducting a war in Vietnam and this political turmoil was reflected in activity on the streets and college campuses.  LBJ refused to run again.  Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy wanted a shot.   Kennedy got one.  He died on June 6, 1968.  By then, John Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had also been slain.  There was a lot to think about if you wanted to visit your mind.  Many did this, others altered theirs. 

The day after Bobby’s assassination, I overheard an interesting conversation between two of my fellow enlisted men.  They were Southern.  Religious.  Poor.  Reasonably hard workers.  Not well educated, but capable of being practical.  Ordered to complete a chore, they’d figure out how to accomplish it.  The military offered them supervision.  Without assigned tasks, they floundered.

Disheartened by the Senator’s death, one said to the other, “now that he’s gone, I guess I’ll have to vote for Wallace.”   The other agreed.

Some people deal in facts.  Some in gut feelings.

If you have goals you plan to achieve.  If you expect something from the future, not the distant future.  From tomorrow.  Next week.  Next year.  Then you believe in some level of objectivity.  Facts get you to your desires.

If tomorrow is vague and life seems to be filled with obstacles, frustration and unhappiness, you may feel that facts work against you.  That it doesn’t do any good to manipulate them.  You may decide to cast your lot with attitude and hyperbole.  In an indifferent world offering few options, this strategy may be more satisfying than trying to face tomorrow by assessing today. 

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Published by The Oregonian 6/9/17

The Headache

The Headache 

By Charles Kraus  

        You outgrow a lot of things -- shoes, shirts, old friends, philosophies, and in my case, severe headaches.  The migraines left me when I was in my 50s. Until then, I 'managed' them. They were extreme, massive affairs that caused my head to magnify sounds and bright lights so the stimulants pulsated add nauseam, and boy did they add nauseam, plus room spins, motion sickness, eye socket pressure, the distinct feeling that my brain was bulging and about to burst. Hey, if you are going to have a headache, why not go for the gold?

        I’m not certain when I hosted my first migraine, but recall that by the age of four, my parents were regularly secluding me under dad’s old Merchant Marine scarf, one of those black/blue kerchiefs sailors roll into long ties that circle the neck and knot loosely at mid chest.  In my case, they unfurled it and covered my head.  The family made longish night drives to various social and cultural events, and if/when I complained about the relentless, whirling lights, especially those projected by oncoming vehicles directly into my eyeballs, the cloth would be placed over my head to protect me from the enemy and to keep me from vomiting all over the back seat.

         Immediately prior to a full blown episode, I experienced the inkling.  The opening signs, the precursors, which felt almost like intuition, like hints or submerged shadowy indications that no good was coming my way. And then, of course, no good arrived. 

         If my attack occurred at home, I would immediately take to bed, sleeping for hours. Sleep was the only successful remedy. As a youngster, I recall waking late in the evening, many of them, feeling better, and mighty hungry. My mother was on hand to cook up plates of scrambled eggs and toast. “Quiet food,” she called it. 

        As I got older, I began to notice that in addition to random occurrences, headaches materialized when I confronted stressful situations; also, oddly, they seemed to be triggered by Saturday mornings. At least, Saturday mornings appeared to be a proximate cause. During my teen years, I had regularly scheduled “Saturday” attacks. You could count on them. You could bet on them.

        I attributed this to my desire to sleep late, a Saturday ritual for most teens.  If I forced myself to get up at seven or whatever my normal weekday reveille required, I would not be greeted by unbearable pain.  But it was Saturday. The rest of my body wanted a little extra sleep. The rest of my body negotiated with my head. Get up. Stay down. Get up, I tell you. No, we're tired! 

My parents never took me for a medical evaluation. Having headaches was just part of who I was, a kid with a hurting head.

      

        As headaches came and went, a stress component affixed itself to their logarithm. I recall specifically that the day I entered each of the two boarding schools I attended, I had a migraine. My first day of college, I had another. The day I reported for duty on the USS Fulton, I had a doozy, one that was so bad, it took me hours, HOURS!, to find the damn ship.  It was tied up in an unusual location, but a submarine tender is one hell of humungous floating department store, and difficult to hide. 

        In 1964, during my freshman year at Emerson College, I'd registered for a speed reading course. Shortly before the first class, my head happened to explode. Shards of pain marched around inside my mind creating dizzying, stabbing shock waves. Dedicated student that I was, I showed up for Speed Reading 101. The instructor gave us a test to determine our baseline reading speeds. This was not the best use of my time. Reading anything was impossible; testing my speed and/or comprehension was a fool’s errand. I put a few marks on the answer sheet, kept myself from throwing up, and hurried back to my dorm at the end of the hour.

        Many years later, I ran into an Emerson student who told me I was famous, at least in Speed Reading 101. How so? Well, it seems that I attended enough of the class meetings to have picked up the gist of this reading technique, and by the last session, when our words-per-minute were again put to the test, I'd fared reasonably well. I was reading at about the same speed as most of my fellow classmates. But, because I'd done so poorly on the initial test, my improvement appeared to be utterly astounding. And so, the instructor used me as an example of the potential gains a student could make if he put his mind to it, as Kraus had done!

        What helped?  The outside air stabilized.  It seemed to have an effect  similar to what a mentholated throat lozenge did to a sore throat.   Action, particularly walking, kept me one step beyond the stalking pain. By far the most successful elixir, foe to colds, body aches, sadness, and massive migraines, was to take to the stage and perform my little comedy magic show. The headache usually returned after the star turn, but not necessarily. 

        And then there was the mystery cure, a relief so startling and unexpected, I still think of it as my one true religious experience. While studying at school in Chicago, my lodging was the Lawrence Avenue Hotel. I had a small, dark “efficiency” apartment.  Just about everything folded up or was built into the walls; everything except the bed. On schedule each Saturday morning, my “Saturday” headache was there to greet me.  One episode persisted well into the night.  I remained under the covers as long as I could, but eventually my stupor’s protective clout wore thin.  I was done sleeping.  Though I knew walking around in the out of doors reduced the pain, it was a bitter Chicago winter, and subjecting myself to the harsh temperatures and fierce winds was not a pleasant thought.  Still, it was my last best hope. 

        Emerging from the hotel, I felt immediate relief.  Unfortunately, as soon as I stopped walking, the headache resumed.  And so, I walked and walked through the absolute cold. I trudged the snows, consuming miles of Chicago's north end. Hours passed. Again and again, as soon as I halted, the pain reignited. By one in the morning, I'd traveled from Lawrence Avenue all the way into the Loop. Tired, half frozen, and completely upset, I stopped to examine newspapers at an all-night kiosk. What the hell, I requested the Sunday paper. The proprietor folded the rather bulky Tribune in half and without indicating his intent, thrust it skyward, ramming it into my left arm pit. It hit the target with accelerated, high priority delivery.  Wam!  My massive, pounding, migraine vanished.  Disappeared.  Went away.  Evaporated. Tribune received, headache gone. Try as I might, I was never able to replicate the result though I attempted to do so on numerous occasions.  

        Many years later, in 1975 to be specific -- I am absolutely certain of the year -- Linda was pregnant with our first child, Rebecca. It was a difficult pregnancy and the doctors prescribed various concoctions to control her extreme discomfort. One day I found myself experiencing a particularly strong migraine. In desperation, I perused the medicine cabinet, hoping to find something, anything that might bring a touch of relief. There on the self was a bottle of Fiorinal, a drug evidently used to help pregnant women unravel the knots that formed in their heads. If it was safe enough for prenatal use, it was certainly safe enough for me. 

        Bingo. Light the lights. Ring the bells. Within an hour, the catastrophic cluster-bomb war in my head transformed into a casual picnic.  I’d found the cure!  Oh, there was still the occasional stubborn attach that attempted to overpower MY Fiorinal prescription, but that just meant an extra ten minutes of discomfort. 

        And then, the strangest thing happened.  Time passed.  One day, I opened the medicine cabinet looking for some tooth paste. I spotted my bottle of super-duper foolproof God given Fiorinal, a full container.  An unused container.  An unnecessary container.  

       

////

APHANTASIA's EFFECT ON MY LIFE -- IT'S NOT A DISNEY MOVIE

APHANTASIA's EFFECT ON MY LIFE
             IT'S NOT A DISNEY MOVIE
By Charles E. Kraus

Your Mind's Eye is a personalized audio/visual console capable of playing archived memories, fantasies, predictions, pleasant dreams and traumatic nightmares right beneath your eyes.

Try this:  Focus on something or someone situated across the room -- a person, a painting, a pet.   Concentrate for a few seconds.  Close your eyes and recall what you've just been looking at out there in the "real" world.  Reproduce "out there" in your mind.  Now, change the picture.  Ask your memory to take a look at its storehouse of remembered images featuring your family and friends. Hear them conversing.  Flip to your fantasy setting and take a look at your dog using a spoon as he sits at the table eating doggy chow and lapping beer.  Conjure up a rabbit pulling a magician out of a hat.  Imagine a portrait of your very own face growing a beard right before you Mind's Eye.

You've been channel surfing inside your head, reviewing Mind's Eye programming available to you and you alone.  Each of us subscribes to a unique internal audio-video production service.    Sadly, my service is, well ...... out of service.

As far as I know, my Mind's Eye never worked. It isn't even capable of conjuring up intelligible sound.  And so, I cannot quite "see" the  images nor can I recall the voices -- of my co-workers, my friends, my wife, my kids.  What I observe amounts to a dark cloud.  And what I hear is a muffled generic garble rather than the sweet utterances of my children.  Their vocal  quality,  textures, tones and speech patterns, are vague approximation of dialogue,  offered to me not as tone but as noise.

Instead of providing pictures and sounds, my Minds Eye offers concepts and knowledge, ideas.   These are simply delivered to my 'somehow-I-know-zone' -- facts passed along as understandings to be acted upon.  "I can't show them to you," my memory and reasoning say, "you'll have to accept what we tell you, quite literarily, on blind faith."

I recognize words written by others.  But if I'm doing the writing, I know how to spell something or I do not.  The correct arrangement of letters either pops into my know-zone, then onto the screen, or it doesn't.  My fingers type letters.  I'm either looking at the intended word, a different word, or a word that is so unique, so specialized, that it will never appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.  No alphabetical sequence gets displayed in my Mind's Eye.  I've never said to myself, "so that is how it looks," and then reproduced the findings on a keyboard.

Something happens when I attempt to visualize.  A vague sense, a sensation, a cloud, a feeling occurs in my mind.  It is from this mist that I withdraw information.

Ask me to describe a friend.  I'll tell you all the traits I've noticed about him over the years.  He's tall, has a long neck, receding hairline, seemed to have difficulty keeping his shirttail tucked in.  Stammers when upset.  Is a pretty darn good chess player and a terrific father.   I can talk about him, but am not guided by an internal picture of the guy.  If he disappeared and the police wanted me to describe my buddy, I wouldn't be much help.

I dream concepts, stage directions and plot summaries.  I understand what is happening: I sit down. Suddenly I'm in a field.  I am upset and worried that I won't get home in time for something important.  I sense the tension, the setting, the characters, but I don't witness any of it.  I'm merely aware of the situation.

When I was a kid, the term "learning disability" had not yet been invented.  Back then the technical name for children who had difficulty reading and/or spelling was "dumbbell."  "Stupid idiot" was an acceptable alternative.  Being so classified, I was sent to remedial-just-about-everything-classes.  I got to visit the reading specialist for twenty minutes twice a week.  She wanted me to break words into syllables, to 'sound them out."  But I couldn't recall the agreed upon sounds of the letter combinations.

I either knew how to say and/or spell a word or I did not.  Certain words worked.  They were ok.  I could do them, count on them, use them in public without revealing my ignorance.  Others challenged me.  I needed to avoid these.  I could force-learn the "correct" way to spell something, on a temporary basis.  Sadly, within five minutes, the information would begin to evaporate.  Ten minutes after that it would gone.  Added to my hopeless list.

I dreaded certain things. Spelling tests, for sure.  And worse than these, spelling bees.  I saw the bees as an opportunity to display my muddled mind.  To stand up in front of the entire class and embarrass myself yet again, reenforcing for others and for my withering self image, just how ridiculous I was.

Strangely, at least I thought it strange, I could think.  I mean, I was logical.  And I often detected signs of illogic in others.  I couldn't spell, but they couldn't reason.  I discovered that you didn't have to say the words when you read.  You could just absorb them.  No names please, just the facts.  That worked best if a book or story interested me.  The older I grew the more interests I seemed to develop.  I could read humor.  I could read about performing magic tricks, about psychology, about history.  During my teen years, I could read anything suggestive.  My limitations were challenges that I attempted to solve by experimentation.  For example, I figured out that for some reason it was easier for me to read material written in the first person.  That it was hopeless for me to attempt to read comic books, the word bubbles, the captions, the cartoon figures conspired to confuse and distract me.

In a very peculiar way, my deficiencies offered benefits.  I was pretty darn good at knowing which words I could not spell.   During tests and classroom assignments that attempted to assess my writing skills, I'd start a sentence, get to a potential word blunder and instead of allowing the jumbled letters onto the page, I'd spin my mind searching for alternative ways to make my point.  This turned out to be a useful skill.

Dictionaries were not helpful.  Sure, they offered the correct spelling, but only if you had some theory of the word, some reasonable approximation of its lettering.  Often, I couldn't figure out if it was a "b" or a "t," if it used an "i" or an "e,"  began with an "o" or an "a."  Word List books, no definitions, just alphabetized collects of the most popular ten thousand or twenty thousand or forty thousand words in the English language, reduce the time it took to scour prospects.  Better than these were my self created word lists.  I didn't need to search through forty thousand words, just the ones in my working vocabulary.  And even better than personalized collections was Paula Levy.

Paula Levy is not a book or site.  She's a friend, and for several years, those prior to spelling machines and spell check, Paula made herself available to help me during my language crises.  I was out of school by the time she signed on to this ridiculous assignment.  Many were the emergencies during my life as an administrative nothing in particular that I'd whisper into an office phone, 'Hi Paula, how do you spell efficiency, or determine, or consequential," or ... just about any word that a normal person could put on paper without a consultation.  She saved me.  Endlessly.

Details and clues are missing from my world.  Internal puzzle pieces that enhance life and help people get through their days have not been provided to mine.  Instead, I've been encumbered with endless apprehension; with a regularly scheduled set of frustrating questions.  Should I say that word out loud?  Should I write it down for others to read?  Which child, adult, product, flower, was the one in the picture I'd been shown, the one I was supposed to meet, purchase, retrieve, avoid?

During the course of my life, I've held many jobs.  On three occasions, I've taken extensive Civil Service exams.  The first was to compete for an administrative position at a public television station operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District.  Rising to the occasion, I spent four years at KLCS-TV.   When the work became tedious, I took the exam for Information Officer offered by a community college.  The testing involved a great deal of writing, and therefore, lots of opportunities to show off my creative spelling.  Using various tricks to avoid errors, including scouring the test questions for words I could use in my essays, I managed another first place.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, a hiring freeze was implemented just as I was about to come on board.

And finally, having relocated to Seattle, tightly budgeted and looking for a little stability, I took the County's Legal Assistant exam.  I was familiar with courtroom jargon and the procedural aspects of the job.  I could type fast.  If I stuck to my lexicon of the words I was comfortable pronouncing, the interview would be a snap.  But the County snuck in a spelling test.  A SPELLING TEST!   I suffered through the multiple choice, wrote best guesses for the fill in the blanks, and went home.

Amazingly, the next day, I received a call asking me to return for a final interview.  Would they actually hire a legal assistant who didn't know how to spell the word statute?   As instructed, I met with the head of HR.  We were chatting amicably when her associate entered the room carrying a file folder with my name on it.  Together they reviewed my exam results.  It was easy to tell when they got to the spelling test, easy to spot the look of amazement on their faces.  My other test results had been respectable.  How could the spelling be so ....   The score was insanely dismal.   It was too low to be believed.  They looked at me then back to the file.

"I think there is some problem with the test," the interviewer said.  Not with my answers.  She was inferring the methodology was at fault.  "Never mind this," she said, ripping up my spelling responses and throwing the page into the trash.  She seemed desperate to hire someone and it was going to be me.

My preference for self-employment hasn't always been practical, but moving into this phase of my work life, I am please that I no longer have to hide my shortcomings from coworkers and supervisors.

"Aphantasia!" I should have explained to all who pondered my cognitive limitations.   But back then, the term had yet to be coined.  I'm grateful somebody finally gave it a name.

Even as my essay concludes, I've had to scroll back to check the spelling of my disorder.  I'm uncertain of how Aphantasia is spelled, but I know how it feels.

TRUSTING LAUGHTER

TRUSTING LAUGHTER
By Charles Kraus

I was raised by a father who thought ‘buyer beware’ was the eleventh commandment. Lots of folks, he explained, were going to solicit my vote of confidence. Most would mean well, but except in very simple, straightforward situations, when they said they knew, they could, they would, what they really meant was, they thought, they hoped, they’d try. People wanted me to trust their opinions, interpretations, products and their absolute, solid, swear on grandma’s grave, versions of “the facts.” Caveat Emptor.

As time went by, life experience gave me a less skeptical point of view. This transition began at the start of my career as a comic and magician. Without ever mentioning the concept, my mentor, comedian Jay Jason, modeled a kind of faith, a set of positive assumptions offering guarded optimism that the mixing of trust and conviction could be a successful formula.

Jay told jokes and sang a few songs. He’d flirted with stardom but never achieved it, settling instead for a niche as a second tier highly respected professional. During the course of the three summers plus odd school-year weekends that I worked for him back in the 1960s, I served as his driver, apprentice, gopher, and on a few occasions, his opening act. He was my employer, teacher, and friend.

Seventeen is when you got your New Jersey driver’s license. Would you trust a kid who’d recently obtained one to chauffeur you in and around New York City and upstate, late at night, through traffic jams, summer heat and winter snow storms? In your brand new Cadillac convertible? After quizzing me on the rules of the road, Dad would occasionally, and quite reluctantly, dole out the keys to our station-wagon. Jay offered me the Caddy drivers seat with but a single word of caution — “don’t pass if you are driving up hill.”   So, OK, trust can border on naïveté. 

We filled drive-time to the mountain resorts by talking comedy. Why the first two minutes of a routine were so important. What you did if the show was sparsely attended. Taking advantage of the unexpected. I was asked to rate possible jokes, offer feedback as he arranged then rearranged routines. Reaching our destination, I’d pass out band music, take notes, carry luggage and make sure the props were in place.

Many a night, particularly on the weekends, Jay performed in multiple locations . One or two venues would be medium sized hotels, next an eleven o'clock performance at the palatial Concord or maybe the Tamarack Lodge. Later in the evening we’d end up at a bungalow colony – a collection of small summer cottages sharing centralized services such as dining facilities, a pool, recreation equipment and a canteen used for dances and shows.

Bungalow colonies had limited entertainment budgets. They were the “I’m-in-the-neighborhood, might-as-well-do-the-show” stops. Their audiences got what was left of Jay after his earlier appearances. These loosely scheduled post-midnight programs required special skills. Jay was tired. Half the crowd planned to stick around just a little longer, then if he still hadn’t arrived, head off to bed. The other half was steadfast. Guests watched the clock, danced and drank.  

I felt protective of my boss. Folks were boisterous. How was he going to do his act at such boozed up soirees?  My concerns proved unwarranted. Jay Jason had been around and around. He could handle just about any crowd. Trusting himself, his instincts, his talent and the audience, he looked mighty pleased to be there.  

The first time I accompanied Jay to such an appearance, we’d entered the canteen to cheers.  But I could see that the guests had no immediate plans to be seated. Jay joined the party, glad handing ‘old friends’ and fans, telling a story to this group, to that group, getting folks to listen and laugh. This group merged with that group, as the informal jokes and stories continued. Slowly the comedian led everyone toward the stage.  Jay’s voice became a whisper.  People grew quiet and leaned in to hear him.  He mounted the platform, motioning for them to sit down so he could reveal the punch line to a joke he'd begun. Individuals fused into an audience. The show had formally begun.

One Sunday afternoon, as we pulled into the driveway of a small resort, Jay moaned. He was upset because passing the welcome sign, he realized the guests only spoke Yiddish. He nodded, accepting his fate, then started mumbling a variety of Yiddish expressions, dredging them up from wherever he stored his inner resources.

By now, I’d seen my boss enough to know he’d figure out some way of performing. I was more curious than concerned, though the situation did present a dilemma. Thankfully, everyone looked friendly.  Guests were joking among themselves and seemed willing, even anxious, to be entertained.

The MC offered a few of his own stories, told in Yiddish. People chuckled. They were waiting for the genuine article, the actual, authentic comedian.  Finally — “And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls “– probably that’s what he was saying.   Next, a rim shot – evidently this sound effect was the same in all languages – “Jay Jason.” 

In an elevated pitch, a little slower than normal, and maybe just a smidgen tentative, I listened to what I’m guessing was pretty much Jay’s standard routine delivered half in English, forty percent in Yiddish, and ten percent in body language. 

There were a few quiet moments while the kids explained the jokes to their parents and grandparents.  After the initial laugh came a pause, then delayed laughter as the translation kicked in.

Trust your talent.  Trust your instincts.  Trust the audience.  It can be your best friend.  Turns out, if you deliver the goods, they’ll sign the receipt.