No Promise Except Integrity

Birthday Events
So Dawn and I had a good old fashion date in the city for my birthday. We started off with dinner at the Roma Cafe. I think I had been there years ago with some Catholic Charities folk at Christmas time. Good meal and wine but we ate in the dining room downstairs and it was , really, like eating in someones home dining room. There were maybe ten or twelve other people, tops, and you just felt as if you had to talk in a whisper. What did we talk about? I probably bitched about work, didn't I? how uninspiring. Dawn was, as usual, elegant and beautiful in that calm, unadorned way of hers. Uxorious . . . look it up.

Afterward, we went to see Juanito Pascual at One Longfellow Square , at Dawn's suggestion. Why would she make such an unusual musical choice, you might ask? Well, go to the website. I don't think she was disappointed. You know, I used to have a long, thick mane of hair too . . . Actually, I had had a craving for flamenco over the last few weeks for some reason and it was a perfect night. His playing is superb . . . just perfect! It hearkened back to my brief visit to Spain in '75 as a High School Senior. Pascual played his own compositions, which were traditional in structure, I guess, but sounded very modern to me. The rest of the quartet was great, especially La Conja, in spite of her cold. She sang a bit and danced a mesmerizing flamenco, especially from maybe twelve feet away. How does she beat out a different beat with each foot?

The funny part was the two couples sitting in front of us. About our age, give or take: typical Cumberland Foreside/ Whole Foods/Beaners-but-we-don't-hunt types. You know know who I mean. Well, first they get into trouble because they insisted on setting their drinks on the stage in front of them. (Apparently beer on a stage is against the law in Maine.) Then, when La Conja got up to dance, one of the guys had his feet up on the stage! (the stage area is maybe 10' by 14' - if that, pretty intimate, in other words.) The coupe de grace was when she began to dance. Ever watch a flamenco dancer dance and clap out their rhythm? It is a beat that is beyond you or me. So our friend in front of us began to clap along, you know, to encourage her. Well, she gave him the stink eye and a curt nod pretty quick - while never missing one of a thousand beats a minute, it seemed- and he stopped. Okay, this isn't a Freeport hootenanny and barn raising, dude! (What would we do if we didn't have people to make fun of?)

A great evening of live music, good food and the company of a remarkable woman (in spite of her not being able to dance flamenco.)

Grampie Letter

As a follow on to my birthday, here is a letter my Grandfather wrote me and I have kept:

Nov 30, 67

Dear Mark
I wish I knew how to write a good letter to a ten year old boy, you are learning a lot of things that were unheard of when I was a boy We hope you will be able to take advantage of them. Everything has changed so much since I was a boy, but we did have the opportunity to help change a lot of things and I expect you will too, and I know they will for the most part be better for everyone. My advice to a ten year old in the years ahead to balance, play, work and love in your daily life and one will be happy and prosperous . . . Say hello to Mom and Dad, Kay and Gig - and a happy birthday to you.
Grampie and Gramie

My middle name is Orin and I am named after my maternal grandfather. We all have family talismans and one of ours is about the letter my grandfather wrote me when I was ten and he was 73. Born in Aroostook, he had migrated to Seattle before the First World War. he enlisted there and served in the 110th Infantry Division as a corporal. After the War, he stayed in the West until 1930 when he returned and started a seed potato farm in Westfield. He Served two terms in the the Maine State Legislature, beginning in 1950. I may have more to say on our family later. Mom gave me an album of photos that I'll be scanning and getting up over the next few weeks.

Back to the letter . . . .'For the most part'? I wonder what he meant by that? Of course those years were very different - we were bogged down in a hopeless military quagmire, threat of nuclear annihilation from a rogue country and worried that the environment would not sustain another generation . . . . no wait that would be . . . like . . . now. Then again, for someone who had fought in the Great War and farmed his way out of the Depression, the 60's must have been frightening indeed. Not so much for me (more 'Wonder Years' and less Woodstock). Could he or I even imagine what the next forty years would bring? I don't think so. In some ways, it must have been comforting for him to know that whatever shit was coming down the pike wasn't going to be his problem.

I often think about that myself. I know that Commercial Street and the State Pier will all be under water in a hundred years, of that I have no doubt, but that won't really be MY problem, will it? I am not saying that global warming isn't important and I realize that climate change and America's Imperium are important issues for me as well as my children, but there is some consolation in thinking, "I did my bit and it is time for the next generation to take up the banner." I just wonder if that bit of equivocation on his part might reflect a belief that he had carried the family fortunes forward to this point and was ready to set the burden down.

A piece of family ephemera I keep in the fireproof box is this card from his second term campaign in the Maine State Legislature. ( Breanne, in case you ever wondered where your eyebrows came from). Holy cow! Who proofread this? For years I thought this read 'No Promise Except Integrity' . . . I took that as a watchword - I would have sworn that was what the card said.

But now, it is as if I have read this for the first time, as I type 'No Promises Excepting Intergrity'. Well, maybe he was ahead of his time . . . this reads like a Russian translation of a Google upload of Japanese Anime. Hmmm.

Be that as it may, he served with honor as a citizen soldier and legislator and bought a new Buick when the potato harvest was good. And did, in his own small way, change his world forever.