The Old Prof

At least a Fair to Middlin one

My wife and I just saw The Great Raid. It’s pretty hard to find a movie we can both sit through. We, one or the other, resulting in both, have walked out on the last three movies we tried to see together.

We sat through this one, if you can count the fifteen minutes my wife missed while she went out and got the medium sized forty-six ounce Pepsi.

A couple of things surprised me.

One, my wife had absolutely no idea as to which were the Americans, which the Japanese and which the Filipinos. Nor did she understand where all this was taking place or really, what was happening. I didn’t know what to make of her confusion. I still don’t. I guess it’s just that I was 11 when the war ended and she was six. While she was wondering who was whom I was identifying the Japanese Namba and remembering carrying and firing, not in anger and at a later date, the M1, the BAR, both the thirty and the fifty caliber machineguns and the rocket launcher (though in a slightly larger model).

(I also used the Springfiled, while hunting deer, but got excited and jammed it. Thats not an easy thing to do but it was bolt action and I think I stovepiped a round)

Two, while there was a pretty thin plot, no memorable performances, ‘no development of character’, and hence, very little interest in who, other than the contingent of prisoners in toto, actually survived, a very powerful emotion was immediately generated and strongly maintained.

I went into the movie with sixty one years of thinking we shouldn’t have used atomic weapons on Japan. In three minutes I was reconsidering my feelings about that. Twenty minutes into the film I was wondering if two was really enough. By the end of the film ten didn’t seem adequate. My pacifistic, war and weapons hating wife, who never figured out what was really going on, asked why we only used two. I assume I will resume rational thought process in a matter of time.

By the way, and in closing, this film looks like a return to all those war time Saturday matinees I remember, featuring movies like American Guerilla in the Philippines. All that was missing was three hundred little kids whistling, clapping and yelling every time the American flag appeared on the screen. At about age ten I got punched during one of those movies cause I suddenly thought, ‘If I don’t whistle and applaud and yell are we really going to lose the war? This is just silly’ and quit all those magical activities. I may have to start again. It would have livened up an audience of six, one of which snored gently through it all. She may be there yet.

A surprised two thumbs up ( in all honesty, I use a ten thumb system. I figure if you are going to use a digit system its better to stay away from fingers) and a yell as soft as any cooing dove.

Posted by at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That sing upon the bough

My wife, not the most discerning bird watcher, but an interested one, called to me the other morning. “What kind of bird is that making those noises in the back yard? Is that a Crow or a Raven?” (I was pretty impressed that she even knew the names) “Well”, I said, judiciously, “the Raven is bigger and…. (I sound much more judicious since I have grown the moustache and goatee)

“Could you tell if you looked?”, she said.

Could I tell? You bet I could! That is one of my best things, looking and telling.

I slipped up to the window and with two fingers parted the slats of the venitian blinds. And looked directly into the inquiring eye of a Turkey Vulture who seemed disquietingly as interested in me as I was in him. He was perched in the Elderberry tree, a few feet from his mate. Dont see that every day. A few feet away, on the fence, a Crow was bouncing around and yelling at them.

“Ok”, I said, “that one on the fence, see, he is a Crow”. “The two in the tree, the ones that are three feet high?” “See, they are Vultures”.

You don’t slip that kind of stuff by me easily.

Did you also notice I had identified the tree? The Elderberry is not endemic to our environment. (don’t bother looking up endemic, I just almost ruptured myself picking up Websters Third New International Dictionary and Checking it Out. Oh there is still the possability I used it wrong(ly)) since I am typing in the semi dark and using a flashlight to read by, but the first sentence seemed clear enough) I am pretty sure about the identiy of the tree. It came into our yard about thirty years ago when my daughter gave me a packet of wild flower seeds to plant on the hill. The Elderberry volunteered out of that packet and is now 45 feet or more high, and a good four feet around. I let it grow because it amused me. The birds love it and flock in to eat the berries. I have no idea what brought the vultures, but there they were, only their red heads poking up out of the verdure. (Hey, endemic and verdure, all in just one paragraph. I think its the influence of the beard and moustache.)

I kind of like odd things growing in the yard. Right in front of my front door (and off to the side a foot) is a common weed one sees growing along the freeway here. They usually get about three feet tall and grow straight as an arrow with little spear shapped leaves completely encirciling the plant at about one inch intervals. Very few of them have been carefully watered and fertilized and reached the height of eight feet with a one inch radius. And how many of them I ask you have large beautifull white silk flowers artfully woven in to their “follage”. Not many I bet. Visitors invariably ask what kind of plant that is. For some reason they don’t recoginize it. My wife who even hates Hollyhocks for their weedy look is not thrilled but seems not to have missed her silk flowers from the Kitchen bouquet. So, anyway… there were the vultures in that tree. It was kind of thrilling.

Posted by at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

part two Somewhere past Potato Bay, about four and a half miles out, we beached in a little boulder paved cove. I’d give a lot for a sandy beach. Trying to get out of the Kayak onto little round rolling bare foot punishing stones and big slick ones about got me a flat on my back or head first into rock. I had both opportunities and several in-between. We sat on large boulders and ate lunch. We decided to take advantage of the isolation and perfect water and snorkel. I eased into the water in a sitting position. It was either that or pitch headfirst into the rocks. When that water poured in through the back placed zipper...Whoa! Shocking! Then I put on the mask, slipped the snorkel tube into my mouth and put my head into and right back out of the water. It looks so simple. It turned out that I felt like I couldn’t possibly breath. I had to just stand there chest deep and get used to breathing and knowing I could continue to do so, thru the tube. Felt like an absolute idiot. I must be a little claustrophobic. That passed however and then it was very cool. Positive delight. We snorkeled the little bay quite a while and then struggled out, bruising our feet again, and back into the kayaks. We paddled back to Scorpion bay, redoing the caves. Steve and I just got out in the bay by the pier and snorkeled again for quite a while. Perfectly at home with it by then, I just drifted among the fish. Little shoals of silvery blue fish, looking vaguely like neon tetras went fearlessly by and around me , followed by much larger gray and blue ones. None of them seemed to think I was much in the way of danger. Finally breast stroked slowly back down the bay, sometimes just rocking in the swells, and then got out. Out on to those little rocks again. Then came the really hard and demanding part. Getting out of the damn wet suit. We hiked back up to the camp and napped. Then Steve cooked supper, a sort of Crab cake cheese tortilla with sour cream, salsa and green chillies. That was an experience worth having too. The pigs were back again in the night. They don’t seem very worried about people and the one that wandered in about daylight had nothing to fear from anything short of a grizzly. I say live and let live. Especially the live part.

Posted by at 02:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Part One We loaded up, forming a human chain and passing all our luggage aboard. On the boat ride over in a double hulled type, we slowed and looked at Dolphins and a migrating whale. Television is one thing. Real is totally another. When we landed on the island, in a light fog, we formed a human chain and unloaded 150 peoples duffle. Then we started the packing of our own stuff to campsite three, no wait, site two. It took three trips. Steve set up camp and Scotty and I mumbled and swore as we dragged the cooler there. Ok, so I mumbled and swore but they should have put bigger wheels on the cooler. I mention that now as a foot note for the next camp. Just a checklist sort of thing. Steve cooked supper: grilled marinated steak and Chicken breasts with glazed onion and peppers, (green and yellow). It looked so good I took a picture of both as sort of an art project. Too bad you can't record the taste. There are wild pig on the Island. They ran through the camp several times. One was as big as the cooler. I Wondered how he would taste grilled. We all went to sleep early. We had walked up to the top of a (two hundred foot) ridge and waited on the cliff to see sunset. I don't want to start using my limited descriptive vocabulary early here so I wont say awesome yet. The walk didn't wear us out but the whole scene was just so soporific that we just sat around a bit and then went to bed. Steve retired to the splendor of a one man tent. Not at all macho I say. Scotty and I, in our simple manly ways, rolled out the sleeping bags right on the hard earth with only a foam like pad under the sleeping bags and the brilliantly stary sky above. Scotty, thoughtlessly, forgetting the pigs, laid his sleeping bag right out in the middle of the camp. I happened to put mine down half under the table with a camp chair forming a v around my head and the other chair sort of near my feet. Always thinking ahead. However, at about 9:15, one hour into the night, the pigs ran thru the camp. I heard them coming. They snort and stomp. I was just sitting up when the baby pig scampered between the table and the less than artfully arranged chair and right over, and on, my legs. I rearranged the chair, in lieu of my very real desire to rearange the pig. The rest of the night, till I remembered the ground softening effects of Tylenol, I spent grooming the ground under me, throwing out the rocks, eucalyptus "nuts", and sticks I had earlier ignored. A couple of times I wondered how many Tylenol could be safely injested. Even with chemical aid it was, sleep till the pain in the right hip woke me, turn to the left side and sleep till that was unbearable and then sleep on my back. You can get quite a lot of sleep in fifteen minute intervals. The pigs returned twice more. You heard them first, and then, every flashlight in the camp went on and swept the ground like a world war two "escape from Colditz" story. Morning finally came. Steve cooked silver Dollar pancakes and scrambled eggs. I ate them. Division of labor is everything on a good camp out. We walked the three quarters of a mile to the first restroom, by the beach, and changed to wet suits. If you are the least bit claustrophobia avoid wet suits. I was so out of breath by the time I got mine on I almost forgot to thank Scotty for the brilliant, he says Australian, idea of putting your foot into a plastic bag to facilitate the transition down the leg and out. I should have worn a whole garbage bag. We paddled out in the Kayaks. I felt better on those ?sit upon? types. Harder to roll over and as I have tried to do before, almost drown trying to get "out" of it. I like the being out of it already thing very much. There was a beautiful gentle glassy swell. No wind. You get to appreciate different things. The almost drowned incident took place in four foot swells. I was following Steve then too. We took the kayaks out, and along the cliffs, about three miles north, as near as we can tell. For the most part there is no place to land. Something like one hundred to two hundred foot cliffs just fall sheer to the water. There was no hurry. You would look around and one or the other of us would be leaning on the paddle and just be sitting there with a sappy smile on his face. The ocean was clear and a sort of glassy green. You could see the great rocks on the bottom in about 10 to 15 feet of water. Garibaldi, those rare and endangered fish were here and there all the way. Well, they weren?t Garibaldi to us, then. It was just, "Hey! There's another of those big orange ones!" We needed poets! It was so beautiful! The cliffs ranged from almost white, with vegetation blooming high up on their sheer sides, then suddenly transitioning to stark, shattered. sluffed rock of chocolate and dark chocolate and coffee. At one point while looking up at the cliffs I saw a large Gull sitting precariously on the edge, way up there, his white and black in stark contrast to the dark brown behind him. It gave me a chill and I thought, "The fool is going to fall" It was a long way. We were just at a loss for words. One after another would say something deep like " Wow! Oh wow!? ?Oh my gosh!". (We are not skilled word smiths. Just simple boys out for a good time) You eventually would just stop paddling and look down at the glassy gorgeous swirling water, the kelp swaying and incredible, then up at the magnificently variegated cliffs and just sit there, feeling filled up, and somehow gratified. Ok, I have used up magnificent and gorgeous and Oh my Gosh. I don't know what to do with the next two days. Well, technically I guess I still have awsome. "We will always have awesome". I hope I will always have Santa Cruz. I consciously tried to imprint it. There were no other people. The place was silent except for the slap of waves against the cliffs. Garibaldi slid through the clear clean water, seals surfaced, looked us over and barked, birds with scarlet beaks just sat unmoving on their black, isolated, jutting rocks as we drifted by. I was just delighted. Oh, note to the committee on the design of birds. I like the black body and the scarlet beak but the pastel blue legs make them look just a little feckless and silly, like they were wearing long blue legged underwear. Then, suddenly, there were tunnels eroded through the cliffs. Rounded, dark and lit by reflected rays through the water. "You mean we can paddle through there?" " Oh yes! "And out of the tunnel and into a high ceilinged grotto of strange shifting reflected refracted light and dark, with the sea below and also visible thru the arch and beyond. Once was not enough. Then through smaller passages where you had to watch where you put the paddle, how you held it and how you judged the swell, and could actually hurt your self if you weren't careful (And, it turned out, even if you were) .But all the best stuff carries a little danger doesn't it. Hah! Nice touch. End of Part One

Posted by at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)