Curly Neal: Gone at age 77

Curly Neal: Gone at age 77

Curly, Curly. You were more than a clown, that's for sure.

You could handle the rock, and entertain us little ones, making young and old smile and laugh.

You made that leather ball sing! Fpr thousands, millions, and I was one.

My parents took me to see the Harlem Globetrotters in Indianapolis when I was about 8. I loved it. I wrote about in detail in my journal. It was journal worthy. I began chronicling things of interest, like basketball.

That influenced me, and I re-read that report many times since, especially as I grew towards maturity.

I liked reading what I had observed. I liked me as a chronicler of unique things.

Thanks Mom, Dad, Curly, and the Globetrotters.

Curly, you made the show. You made me grow.

Ross Gay: Living the Dream, Writer and Delightsome Dude

Ross Gay: Living the Dream, Writer and Delightsome Dude

We enjoyed the On Living broadcast this Sunday morning. Thanks Ross and Krista, I think the recording was probably done in 2016.

I can fully understand why National Public Radio would choose this segment to air at this time. Most of us are sheltering in place (March 29, 2020), we are locked down in our homes, we are sequestered because of this pandemic that is rocking some worlds. Starting in China, Wuhan, Hubei State, now devastating Italy and Spain and other parts of Europe.

New York and New Jersey and parts of Washington state, and now Louisiana and host of other places are getting hit hard here in the United States.

The developing world will see the worst, I fear.

But back to you, Ross. This is about you. And me. And us.

I hope by writing this, and if you ever read it, that you will derive a delight from it, really.

And others, like me.

Your words, thoughts, actions, and deeds: I would say your whole persona spoke through the broadcast. Thanks for that, for the delights you brought to our morning, into my wife and I's lives, but more importantly, what you have shared with countless others. And how you appreciate life and living it.

Thanks for beautifying my hometown of Bloomington. I can tell you make it a better place. Thanks for doing that. Truly.

My parents still live there. I have three living on the southern side, maybe pretty close to your orchard? My mom's mortal remains are resting in Daviess County, an hour or so outside of town, to the west. She is originally from the East Coast, and I think she would appreciate your relationship with the fruits of trees and plants, and the earth.

This one great earth, where we share our wildernesses, as your student Bethany explained it, the sorrows where our low places may become high. I get it, it makes sense. Perhaps that is why I love the melancholy of Pink Floyd, sometimes. I digress, somewhat.

Back to you, Ross.

I heard you say that you played football, and were expected to hurt people. Yeah, there is some bruising and bloodying that go on in that sport. The unfortunate ones have some permanent damage to their brains or some bones or joints. Life is brutal, especially that sport.

I am glad you have graduated to more peaceful endeavors. I am in the National Guard. I get paid to know how to shoot, plan, communicate, and at the end of the day, defend my side and kill people on the other. Life is brutal, yet precious. A bit like the wilderness of sorrow that we all hold that emanates as sunshine somehow, spontaneously. Consistently, right? Amazing, this world and life that we are in.

The earth and the soil are dirty to some, but clean and life-giving to others.

Anyway, I did not intend to go down this philosophical route...

Back to you.

I wanted to bring up race, because it is affixed to us as humans and Americans.

Good and bad.

I have done some studies on my own, somewhat, mostly informal, but I consider myself a student of culture and cultures.

When I first heard your voice this morning, I suspected that you were African-American. That should not be here or there, but I listen closely to accents, I have lived in all the U.S. time zones and I have lived abroad, studied other languages. I have been paid to ply the linguistical trade.

Not all "black" guys sound "white", and vice versa. Frankly, at a lot of levels, we resent the entire classification or notion of defining speech or accent by a race, or by skin color. But at other levels, which I find important, it matters.

Anyway, black accents and culture, and white accents and culture, and everything in between, and so many others, are all rich, and there is no wrong way to talk or right way. My folks are from New England. They talk "funny", but it is rich to my ear. It is home, it is what I know.

Back to race. You are now an accomplished author, and a gardener, and I find that rich. I have a sister in Utah who has been an urban gardener for years. She should meet you, she has consorted with a former Bloomington friend of mine in the way of vegetables, in Monroe and Greene County.

Like me in the army, I feel like people of the earth, growers, are their own color.

In the U.S. Army we are not black and white and brown at the end of the day, we are Army. Army green. We are Army brown. We are Army black, whatever the uniform of the day is.

I see you as a man of the soil, like my sister, like others I know. You are a grower, which is powerful.

I see you as a man, a person, as we all are, no regard for skin tone. That is how it should be. Thank you.

Have you met Earl Reed in Bloomington? A landscaper who flies around in his beat up pick up, or whatever he may have... A man who loves ballet, a totally friendly man and a friend I have not seen for years. He was baptized in my church, maybe 30 years ago...

Earl is a man of the earth. Coursest hands I have ever shaken.

My hands are not course, like my dads's were. Electrician.

Sometimes after a week or so of Army life, my hands get a bit calloused. Especially the trigger finger.

Anyway, enough about me, and you, and us, but I must say:

I enjoyed the pondering of loitering, and all its other synonyms described by you, and thinking about the laughter and the delights. You are a credit to humanity, and I don't have many other ways of expressing that.

Thanks, Ross.

The Days the Earth Stood Still

The Days the Earth Stood Still

It's the last weekend of March, 2020, and it is an historic time, for some sad and scary reasons.

This Saturday morning I am not going to play basketball at the church up the road with my friends as I usually would. The chapel is closed down, off limits. For the last two Sundays we are not congregating at our local church, either, for regular worship. We have been authorized to conduct our own private services in our homes.

Is it the end of the world? Not quite, but it has been the end of a lot of things. At least for now, for most of us, and in a more terminal sense, for the victims of the Corona respiratory virus.

This morning, before the sun came up and while the damp mists and rains alighted on my home not far from the Potomac River,  I was going through some of the saved Internet pages of my cell phone. I have some URLs set on regular feeds or settings, like sports pages that track scores, other sports pages that follow my teams, news pages, pages that inform about religious or other specialty subjects that I like, my own blog, the emails, the social media pages set for me, and some other apps.

The college game scores ended while my Hoosiers were full throttle in the Big Ten tournament. Worse yet, my BYU Cougars had the best chance to make a run through the NCAA than they had had, in perhaps ever. We will never know. The NBA was in its last 5 weeks or so, preparing for the playoffs that would wind up in June. Lots of fun stories to watch there.

This morning I checked my ESPN.com NBA scores page, the one that shows the daily or nightly scores. I saw what date I had left it on.

March 12. All games that evening: postponed. There were about six or seven games scheduled for that day. 

I saw a good one at the bottom of the list on that page, where the Houston Rockets were playing last, maybe against the Lakers. The Los Angeles Lakers, a team I have rooted against since 1983 or so, who have a couple of the best players in the Association this year, and were favored by many to win the whole thing. The Rockets play this run and gun shoot a ton of threes offense, and they have probably the shortest lineup I have ever seen in the NBA, since I started paying attention in the 1980s... Which can be fascinating to watch. Plus they have a former IU player that I have followed more or less closely the last dozen years, Eric Gordan. I like to check his stats.

Not since March 12. Today is the 28th. 16 days of no Rockets, no Lakers, no Pacers, who happen to have my favorite player, who was my mom's last favorite when she was still alive, no Bucks, who were having a phenomenal season and possibly going to the finals for the first time in forever...

But no. Not since March 12 do we observe.

So no, nothing on that day. Not now, a fortnight later. We are on a sports lock down. Nothing for the foreseeable future for months. I hope we will have some baseball and later American football by the end of the summer.

I am teleworking, my wife and kids are shut out from their schools. Including college.

Despite the shutdown of the basketball seasons, the indefinite postponement of baseball, at the youth, college, and pro levels, the upcoming summer Olympics, I am personally okay.

I have my health, I am gainfully employed, my loved ones are safe and healthy, I have time to write and play and read, I have finished up some good books, I am writing a novel that has me motivated...

My personal life is all right, despite the world crisis. 

The world has electricity and food, the problem is ventilators and transport.

Part of the problem is a Chinese government that seems to be a cool customer on one hand while the other hand has some mighty crazy weapons and threats behind their back. They show you one in public but we know that behind the scenes, China kills people that they are not happy with.

Perhaps it was all an accident, like epidemics and pandemics of the past. Some day we may find out, and maybe the revelations will be innocent and by then irrelevant.

Here in the United States many people are dying, others are suffering economically, and I have put it out there to my family and a few coworkers that I believe the poorer nations will suffer from this virus worse than us, hard to believe after seeing the devastation. And the health care workers who have died to save others! China, Italy, Spain, New York... It will go on and on.

Some think that I am morbid or out of bounds, or off topic for discussing, analyzing, estimating the human tolls of this pandemic. COVID-19.

I think this is how I deal with things. Look at a problem,  observe the trends, watch the results of changes over time, calculate the risks and possibilities, assess the issues, re-assess and estimate, analyze, predict, take in more data, inputs, look at some outputs.

80 million will die from it, I think, but admitting that it will be impossible to know for sure because of places in the developing world that cannot keep the tallies.

The days will stand still for many a human in the next year. And sadder still, many of the loved ones will not even attend their funerals or see the bodies of the loved ones lost.

We will stand still for them and mourn.

We will shed a tear, many tears, for the lives lost, the heroes struck down.

This spring it could have been my BYU Cougars versus Kansas in the Final, we will never know. The Cougs were that good, an ESPN model had them in the championship versus Wisconsin.

The Bucks could have played the Lakers in June.

We will never know.

One of the things that we do know is that we hold on tight to the blessings we are dealt.

Thankful, grateful, that our earth has a chance to take a time out, suspend a season of hope, and live for another day. Count our blessings and remember the high costs.

Stand still and reflect. Pause and take a few deep breaths, as some cannot. Life will take up again. And so will sports. And the economy.

Life will move forward, march on, and we will recollect the days like these when things came to a odd and somber halt.

Hoosier Dreams Rise from the Promised One

Hoosier Dreams Rise from the Promised One

Prophecies and dreams do come true.

Some dreams and visions are grandiose, and awful, portending and auguring of droughts, plagues, wars, and catastrophes. ( Perhaps I started this post when I knew that COVID-19 was pretty bad in China. But things had not spread yet.)

Other dreams and premonitions indicate great blessings, wonderful events, awesome promises fulfilled, messianic figures bringing justice or victory, or peace.

The greater reconciliation of mankind, perhaps.

Maybe a voyage or visitation from another planet or galaxy?

Cosmic euphoria.

Some people have more finite hopes: food, water, electricity, a car, a vacation, a spouse, a nice date. Or a great movie or an entertaining television series or book.

Then there are us sports fans. What do we dream about, research and pray for?

The championship season. The title. The series. The banner. The ring. The gold. The best.

In the modest state of Indiana, some simply wish for Banner Number 6.

It has proven elusive. The last banner raised in Assembly Hall, built about the time of my birth in the early 70s, for the IU basketball team was in 1987, when many of us were still minors and we did not know of the future adult frustrations, drudgeries, heartaches, long lapses of any earthly success for the team, first under the legend Bobby Knight, then his immediate successor Mike Davis, followed by Kelvin Sampson, Tom Crean, and now Archie Miller.

Large shoes to fill, Mr. Knight himself not able to stem the tide of futility after his former proven success, year after year of no more large wins in the Big Dance come March, before ignominiously being fired from the position.

We have needed the hero with the heart of a lion to restore that greatness, like Steve Alford, or Isaih Thomas, or Scotty May, someone like that who could strike fear in the hearts of the opponent and bring the level of the rest of his teammates up to the level of national champion.

Now we are at the end of March, a time when Hoosier fans far and wide wax nostalgic for the halcyon days of winning until the Final Four, only approached in 1992 and 2002 since the days of that Hoosier hero Steve Alford. And the guy who did elevate that game and championship winning shot, Keith Smart.

In 2013 it was thought that Jordan Hulls, under the 3.1st coach since Coach Knight, a local fiery guard, under-sized but fierce, and his more imposing teammates could make its run, but they were devastated by an end of the season malaise and ultimately the zone of long-limbed and hungry Syracuse, the eventual Final Four contender themselves.

Such has been Hoosier fate: no Final Fours since 2002, barely even making it to the Sweet Sixteen, but more often not even qualifying for the tournament!

These are Hoosier nightmares. Since the times of Knight, no pun intended. The night has been long without victories deep into March, the time of glory after the long dark freezing winters of sacrifice and struggle. The 21st century has been bereft and barren for the Hurry'n Hoosiers!

Has this solidly ensconced institution fallen to such meager depths of woe and irrelevance? Purdue regularly outproduces their brothers to the south! Not to mention the neighboring state schools that steal Indiana talent left and right, Michigan State, Michigan, and Ohio State. Don't tell me about Duke, North Carolina, and even Kentucky who exploit the Hoosier heartland for players...

Purdue has been significantly better the last 20 plus years.

But IU still has the national banners! FIVE. (Despite the fact that Purdue claims some national crowns prior to the NCAA tourney of 1939.)

In this time of the banished and mind boggingly prematurely ended un-crowned season, 2020, the Deadly Spring of Corona, COVID-19, the Hoosier drought for multiple decades (decades?!) in the epoch and spring of corona, the hope now lies upon the shoulders of a would-be hero, a kid with more size and hopefully as much heart as Hulls of a decade ago, from my alma mater Bloomington South, Anthony Leal.

Anthony, could you be the one?

Could you be the new Steve Alford, the one that we thought Damon Bailey would be, or after him a host of others, most recently last year's one and done NBA talent Romeo Langford?

You will have some talent beside you, Miller keeps recruiting some good talent, instate guys like Arman Franklin or more importantly, Trayce Jackson-Davis. Coming in now, some talent with Galloway, Geronimo, and maybe the one and done Khristian Lander, the top rated point guard in the whole country.

Promise does have its way as far as talent, and Archie has incrementally gotten better results over the three seasons he has been in Bloomington.

Will Leal be the one?

The promised one? The new Alford, the new Isaih, the new Scott May?

Out of the huge let down of no more high school, or college, or now even professional basketball this season, so promising and the final one for current senior Hoosier Devonte Green and Deron Davis to even play in one single tourney game, the dream is done for now.

Leal could not fight for South's second ever state title.

But he could do something special in Bloomington for the Hoosier faithful.

There are bigger stakes in the world right now: people across the planet are getting infected and dying, the health care workers are succumbing as well.

It is mammoth and Biblical in proportions, and it is serious, real, sobering, and bigger than basketball, a mere sport with a ball and hoops and nets.

But right now, at the end of March, all I need is one more shining moment in the final match of the season, the March Madness of the Big Dance, not the March sadness of failure, or worse yet, the current tragedy.

The elusive red and white banner in the Assembly Hall rafters, mere miles from the home and playgrounds of my youth.

Anthony and the rest, I pray for you. Archie is the mentor. You are probably the heart. Leal means loyal and faithful in Spanish. This will possibly be a prophecy and dream come true.

Bring me home.

Take me away to the place of dreams, to the euphoria of my youth.

Or go down fighting. Overcome and rise from the dust and the heartbreak.

Continue the dream of triumph. Give me four years of Anthony Leal as a Hoosier.

I do believe with him around, the world will move on as it should.

Places Not Seen

Places Not Seen

We get older and older, and perhaps not wiser, every day; in some ways the limits on our time and capabilities will define how we will not see all the marvelous or not so marvelous sights and places around the world. We cannot see and do it all. Some see more than others.

I have a calendar hanging in my office that has a March 2016 page section of Uzbekistan, replete with sumptuous photographs of places in that far off, forgotten country, located in the middle of the world's most massive continent, that is under the rubric of "1,000 Places to See Before you Die".

Even if we were to visit the author's thousand places of her choice and fancy, aren't there another 20,000 places to go, visit, take in, and behold? To wit, see?

It is rather unending. That's good, but it might seem frustrating at the same time.

But that is why we watch movies, and television, and look at pictures and regard momentos of others, and listen to their stories, encounters, and experiences, and read books and share all these places in every medium in order to see more.

We cannot go ourselves, but the rest of humanity allows us to peruse it vicariously.

Those of us with eyes and sight and desires to see more, we take in what we can or what we are interested in.

But did you go there? Did you see it with your own eyes?

There are many, many places where you may never go yourself.

When will you start on the next place?

I recently read a novel involving mostly Cape Cod and a few locations in California, but it alludes to Maine a bit, through memories of the characters and then finally ends on the rocky coastline, more or less.

I have read most of the Lee Child Jack Reacher novels, which also involves a story on the Maine Coast. Some of my family members went there when I attended college in Utah in the 1990s. I heard stories of Maine most of m life, with parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents from nearby Massachusetts. My grandma Nellie, my mother's mother, apparently lived in Maine and was going crazy there until she returned to her native Massachusetts. I think they lived in the interior, maybe Poland Springs, or Polish Springs...

I have seen some of the interior of Maine. I stayed the night in Bangor in 2016 with my family, and the drive up till then was indeed picturesque.

But I have not been to the coast of Maine.

It remains among the places I have not seen in person, like Uzbekistan.

I have seen across the river Amu Darya into Tajikistan, however.

But that is only the edge, only the beginning, and there is only so much time and money in this life.

Trust and Fear: 10 Orders to Recognize at Our Own Peril or Boon

Trust and Fear: 10 Orders to Recognize at Our Own Peril or Boon

They have been around since the time of Moses, about 3 and half thousand years ago.

They number 10.

Most of Western societies, and a great deal of Eastern societies have gone by them as their cultural imperatives and ethics, a reckoning of century after century. Judaism, Christianity, Islam: it comprises the fundamentals of order and morals, rules and mores. Each community and person has their own interpretations of them.

Today there are many who think of them as contrived or optional suggestions, to be thought of as mere ideas, like the theories of political science or some other humanly constructed system of prerogatives.

I ask you to consider their import, and to contemplate your own standing within them. If they are pertinent still, give great heed. If they no longer matter, or never did, and the God of their supposed authorship is a ruse and a fantasy, then dismiss them at your leisure, like the Greek myths or Chinese zodiac or the hundreds of developed lore and tales of thousands of tribal peoples from every corner of the earth and its seas.

However, if they have a modicum of sense and truth, pay heed indeed.

Perhaps they are truly what they purport to be: a mandate from heaven, and the father and mother and creators of all that we are.

 ONE  --  I

1And God spake all these words, saying,

2I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Where do you put your main trust and fear in? Trust and fear are similar. You may trust that a government is one way, or let us reduce it to the great beast, the bear. You trust that a bear is not an animal to be let behave around you and your little ones as any tame, harmless creature. This trust in its nature is also known as fear. The fear and trust work as one, virtually.

Do you trust God? Do you fear him? Do you trust and fear your father on earth? Your mother? The local police? A local judge of the law?

We should trust in and respectfully fear all these people. What about your boss at work? Trust and fear, they are healthy feelings to have when it comes to those in power and authority.

 TWO -- II

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

It can be very hard not to have other priorities other than God, to put Him first, for He is nebulous and unknown to a large degree, a mysterious figure that is hard to understand. Other things and objects and people and causes, more tangible, seem easier to latch on to.

How to love a being that may not even be there, but be a human invention or fabrication, and worse yet, with the underlying purpose to be manipulated by humans in order to control and even abuse the masses by those who invoke His name, and to do evil to others for His alleged purposes, to manipulate them as Karl Marx might or a million other atheists might claim?

This is a heavy thing to ponder.

THREE -- III

 7Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

It can be hard to realize what weight or effect our words that we employ have. Do they offend, do they insult, do they marginalize, do they condemn others and ourselves?

Does taking the name of a being that may or not exist, but is revered and worshiped by millions, have any effect?

Can invoking the name of deity offend?

I find it interesting that in a secular office in 2020 in the United States many people take God's or Jesus Christ's names as epithets, curses, expletives, and exclamations with no thought or recourse, but the same office may frown on a coworker who uses that name to offer a prayer over the food, say on a special lunch or holiday occasion.

Irony? Or worse? 

FOUR -- IV

9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Is this a real thing, to rest and dedicate ourselves to other causes, bigger than our own individual family wants and needs?

To a God unknown, but perhaps more importantly to His people, his children?

FIVE -- V 12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

 This can be hard, assuredly. But there is a specific promised blessing accompanying the command. Will it work? How do honor our parents, especially if we believe that they are in err?

SIX -- VI

13Thou shalt not kill.

There are circumstances that justify this, no?

 SEVEN -- VII

14Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Having sexual relations with only your legally and lawfully wedded spouse. None other. Adultery and fornication are parts of the same misdeed, also known as sin. It is action against God and those that we have committed to in matrimony. It begins long before marriage, this dedication and devotion.

EIGHT -- VIII

15Thou shalt not steal.

Borrowing might be okay, but are we honest with our money and dealings?

NINE -- IX

16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

It can be very hard not to lie a little, or a lot. Let's be honest. Really? Really.

TEN -- X

17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Can't we all just get along and share, and have and not be jealous of other's stuff? 

Hard to do, not want what others have.

PROMISES AND WARNINGS

18And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

19And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

20And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

21And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

22And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

23Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

24An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

25And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

26Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

These ten warnings and blessings are real, if we trust and fear that their portents are real.

Blessings and curses are brought upon humanity by their adherence or lack thereof.

As societies, communities, families, and individuals.

March Again

March Again

The March of Time 

The inexorable March of Time.

With five or so days to go in February of this year (2020), I took a nap and I had a dream that March had already begun. Man! I wanted those last five or six days of February back! I had things to do, I remember thinking as I came back to consciousness! I was glad, upon becoming cognizant, that we had only made it to February 23rd or so when I was fully awake. And alas, those days came and went. I did accomplish many of the things that I wanted to do in those last winter days, including finishing a book that I had checked out last September. Time flies.

But now we are here, March is upon us. Again.

We all come from different places, different times.

March probably means different things to many of us.

If you were born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1970, like me, then March brings some hopeful madness. Fun and memorable things happened in my hometown when I was young, and it involved the sport that the state highly prizes. The state that adopted my parents, or that my parents adopted and endeared to themselves. Indiana.

Baloncesto, a popular sport in Spain I learned later, too. Popular in parts of Chile, I would find, when I went down there years later.

If you were born in San Bernardino, California, like my wife, in 1974, March has other meanings. The last rains of the winter, the temperatures really ascend beyond the Mediterranean coolness; not too much basketball or baseball going on, but other things...

If you were born in 2001, like my eldest daughter, March means a myriad of things...

Dad loves his basketball, even more than normal. Mom does her thing, which recently includes more work, teaching, done with classes that used to be a thing... School has its plays and then comes the plainer spring weather. Now it is college, finishing up a school year at the adult level.

Time marches on.

For my mother, born in a small town south of Boston in 1940, March meant the end of her mortal sojourn. Marches prior, to her, meant many things, including a few exciting months where she enjoyed our basketball Hoosiers in Bloomington, like me, like other Hoosiers, young and old. She would not know even one month prior to that March of 2014, that it would be the time to "March Forth", as her mother, Nellie, had proclaimed in her youth.  My grandmother, the 44 year-old mother of my mom, her fifth born, also born in small town Massachusetts in 1896, had joked about the date being spoken of in the Bible when my mom was small. "March forth", and the "Fourth of March", being puns. That was her day to depart.

Four days into March.

Today we are marching into our sixth day of this month, this month of madness, where my college teams are both primed to make me a little mad, a little excited, a little forlorn. I have two, and they both have a chance to dance on into March, a time of revelry, hopes, and hopes dashed. Thrills, not a big deal to some, unlike those like me where time stops. The shot dropped! Hoosiers win! Madness is sweet...

But the clock keeps ticking, of course.

Time marches on, whether we pay attention or not.

This March is different than all the rest: there are new people around now, like some babies, or new boy friends, or crushes, or colleagues or neighbors, or politicians or restaurants...

There are those no longer with us, through departure or death. Change. Moves.

Life and health and sickness and death.

The cycle continues and we are in it, another march in March. 

In a March when my eldest was turning six and the other two were toddlers, I learned to march the Army way. I practiced a little bit in Leesburg, Virginia, and way down south in far off Nottoway County, but the real marching took place at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Hot or cold, wet or dry, light or dark, tired or energized, we marched and marched, and we chanted and yelled, and our spirits were boosted by the drill sergeants who had been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and we bellowed the cadences, the funny ones, the sad ones, the nostalgic ones, the artistic ones...

We all had our favorites.

In marching in tandem, often from shortest legs to longest, with or without our rifles, with or without our rucks and other gear, we became soldiers, which meant we were brothers and sisters moving forward with a purpose, with a cadence, with a count two, three, four...

We were one: we were all one color, one gender, one team, one fight. One uniform, one nation under God and willing to dedicate ourselves to the flag and the ranks that marched us, from Commander-in-Chief on down.

We marched, and we like it. We marched to chow, to the range, to the running lanes, to the PX for hair cuts, to the laundry for our sheets and linens, we marched everywhere. Form up and march.

March on, we did.

Some marched out, some lost their muscles or legs or bearing. We cannot all march on able legs, there has to be a day to stop.

Let me march on, let me call on the cadence loud and strong...

Let me live to next March, may I see another sunny, wet, cold, wonderful spring.

Oh, yeah, and then there's basketball.

You can reach heaven in March. Basketball or no.

See you there.

Miss you mom. I will march to the beat of the drum that you left...

I'll see the stars in the March night and know that you are there, in March and beyond.

The Quest of the Zorami

The Quest of the Zorami

There are a lot of unknowns about the Zorami; a manuscript of them--these semi-ancient native Americans--it was found by a woman in the early 19th century that was later translated by a combination of forensics, cross-linguistic triangulating, and computer technology.

The following are the things we know, from the manuscript of some who knew about them, while other details are arrived at through the power of imagination and memory.

The Zorami clan numbered about a thousand; they were not good at recording much by hand, so their lives were passed on in oral histories and imperatives. They had a high standard of expectation to live and comply with, especially compared to their neighboring tribes that later became the Mike, the Trique, and the Ixcatec. Scientists would like to be able to determine what centuries that the Zorami lived: the best that the experts can estimate was that their major history occurred between 700 AD and 1300 AD, long after the peak of some Meso-americans and well before the Europeans brought their awful eugenics to the hemisphere.

The thousand of them divided their families as constituted among what we consider in modern times as traditional families. One husband, one wife, as many children as possible, and older grandparents as they survived.

Each family was headed by a man and a woman. A man without a woman "co-leader" was not featured for leadership. Usually the Zorami had a head chief, and between 10 and 20 next chiefs up after him, and his accompanying wife. Single adults were good as special officers and trainers, but were not counted on for direct leadership.

Usually a man, or a woman, could re-marry when their spouse died and the family units continued as normally as possible. These relationships were one to one and monogamous. And notably, the individuals would wait for their partner, like themselves, to begin family creations, or relations conjugally.

In other neighboring tribes, some of them numbering tens of thousands of people, there were men with harems and concubines, there were relationships of men and women more openly, depending on their likes or tastes. Some of the minors experimented with desires and curiosities at young ages and when not committed to another partner, or not being devoted to being a parent and a partner.

The Zorami felt this was strictly taboo. It was not proper to act like a life partner with anyone but the officially recognized one, and the behavior outside of that was not virtuous, and would lead to destruction.

The partnership of the husband and wife was considered fundamental as well. The Zorami noticed in the other tribes that there would be sometimes only the man in charge, and the woman or spouse or concubines acted like property or slaves. Children were also kept in a lower station around much of the non-Zorami. Zorami tried to cultivate their youth to be co-active and co-independent. To be their future leaders and forgers of their destined fate, to be the best people that they could, according to their beliefs and principles.

There were three huge imperatives that they lived by, and these were their creed and their raison de etre. Those three virtues, were actually virtuous in their own definitions:

Dedication to one spouse, and the subsequent family.
Dedication to virtue.
Dedication to modesty.

Each imperative required nuances and practices unique to the Zorami, thus making them unique, peculiar. Sometimes ridiculed, sometimes mocked, oftentimes targeted and persecuted. They felt that they were safer, happier, and that the mysterious purposes of life were being answered by their determination to living these causes and practices.

No one knew all the exact reasons why, though. Some talked about a time long ago when their forefathers spoke to the heavens, or that there were spiritual guides who knew the ways of all existence, of contentment, peace, and prosperity. No one read and therefore no one could recall all the reasons, so they met together often to discuss and recount the ways. Songs and prayers were always shared, too.

Some of them thought that these sessions could be redundant or pointless, but the majority of them knew that to maintain their particular way of living required these get togethers and meetings.

The Mafume Clan

Ataf was a the fifth biggest tribal leader of the thousand strong Zorami. He was well respected, because he seemed to be well grounded at everything. He was very well trusted. While the top kinsman, the Tribal Toki, was strong and brave, and wise, he also sometimes showed weaknesses that Ataf rarely displayed. The top leaders would have moments of indiscretion or impertinence that Ataf never had been known for.
 
Ataf was happy as the fifth highest of the tribe. He was happy with his place, his wife, his children, and what gave him the most pleasure or contentment was that he knew that his people, the small but stable Zorami, were living the best that they could. Ataf's wife was Japhatha; they were stable and happy, and tried to stay vigilant as all parents did. They had multiple children but struggled to help them all feel the importance of the priorities, the reality of them to strive for. Ataf had a single brother named Chinguic who was single and hoping to find a wife. His former wife had died of calamity five years before.

Beesala was the eldest daughter of Ataf and Japhatha. She seemed to be growing in the way of the tribe but then in a season changed her attitude at a later stage of her growth. First the mother and then the father learned that a young man of an outside tribe had deceived them and violated the virtue of Beesala; this caused quite a consternation among them. They brought the issue to Chinguic, who mulled it over and decided to take matters into his own hands when finding out the perfidy of the youth.

After four years of search and verification, Chinguic found the young man who comprised his niece's stature; Chinguic killed him. Chinguic was sending a message to all: do not compromise their values and imperatives. Sometimes, subsequently and later in discussions and other moments of reflection, he thought it might have been out of spite or hate--but he believed it was deeper than that. He believed it was about who they were. If he could not stand up for the law of how they wished to live, how in fact could they go on? Could they continue as a people, or would they devolve into the masses of the others?

What were all the lessons and stories for, if not to preserve and uphold themselves?

Chunguic's action, or retribution, brought more scrutiny and scorn upon the Zorami, perhaps more than ever before.

More tribes wished to do away with them; the Zorami had to learn to be more warrior-like. Existential survival was difficult from day to day. They had to be on guard from marauding neighbors, which made it more difficult to concentrate on other tasks, including food production.

Their continual quest to find some tribal members to learn to read or write went on frustrated, never coming to anything. If one came somewhat close to learning the symbols of the pen or the pencil, they would be captured or killed, or tragically die of a disease.

Life and their struggles were very hard.

Struggle to Remember 

Ataf, like all the loyal Zorami,  knew that they were different from others and other tribes for moons away, even whole seasons away. They had peculiar practices and beliefs that the greater numbers of neighbors did not share. They thought that there were others with their similar values, but they had no idea where. They would love to know where they were.


These three large principles or imperatives that others of the lands did not share as much made them unique:

Dedication to one spouse, hopefully for life. Others, even within their clans, wished to be adulterous and lecherous.
Dedication to virtue. Tying not to be ostentatious and overbearing. Others, even the youth and some older among them, wanted to do things that were low and degrading.
Dedication to modesty. Dress appropriately, speak in honorable ways. Others, and sometimes within the tribe and clans, would adopt ways of wearing less clothing and doing things with less decorum.

The oral traditions of stories and songs, and certain prayers provided ways to propagate the knowledge that they tried to maintain. But, the standards of generations past were being taken away, person by person, couple by couple.

These things that they strove for made them very different from other tribes, which made interacting with others a potentially difficult process. Some more belligerent tribes would take advantage of them as they could, by negotiating unfairly with them, sometimes by means of extortion or kidnapping.

Sometimes the Zorami youth thought their values and mores and practices were too antiquated and stifling, backward, too conservative and restrictive. Occasionally, even the  adult Zorami would be tempted into thinking more open sexual lifestyles were acceptable.

This would make the relationship within the tribe very awkward, and often untenable.

Case after case would crop up over time:  a young man would want to test his oats on other youth, or some foreign tribe member, or a young lady was convinced that her parents, her grandparents, her entire tribe and tribal history for unknown generations had been talking absurdities about virtue till the right time and staying modest, saving oneself for one partner.

Thoroughout the years they tried to maintain and grow their numbers, but attrition worked against them in spiteful ways. It was hard enough to battle the physical elements of drought and pestilence, hunger and diseases. It was another battle or war altogether to lose their mental flocks, the beliefs of their young and old.

The Old Ways Dying Away

The Zorami struggled in physical ways to survive due to drought and pestilence, and disease. They struggled as families and individuals to maintain their familial and conjugal codes because of their unique lifestyle and codes of conduct.

They thrived for periods and tried to grow in number, but the war of attrition was constantly upon them. They tried to have more children and expand, but they seemed to be fighting a losing battle.

Chinguic wanted so much to maintain their way of life, but he struggled to know if killing as he did was part of it being noble, because he had heard stories, and there were constant debates of the "honor killing", to make those who stole virtue or lied and deceived to be made pay with their lives.

Perhaps he was wrong. Beesala grew up and joined another tribe. Would she have softened to their values if he had not been as rash, as bold?

Japhatha was also forever torn by the deception, the betrayal of the outsiders and the loss of her girl. Who was to blame? Was it herself? Her family? Was the tribe mistaken in its goals? Were all these imperatives unrealistic, a fantasy played out by herself and her forefathers and foremothers?

Ataf saw his life and hopes as an existential open ended question, a series of ponderings, serious musings about the purposes of his and the others' lives.

Did his father and mother know what they were doing? Were they happy? (Yes, his parents were happy).

Did their parents, his grandparents, know how to live?

Was being monogamous and celibate until matrimony make for happier living?

Was being chaste and virtuous a better way than joking about dirty and ribald things?

Was it better to know how to read and write?

Was there a God or supreme powers somewhere that guided them, or wanted to guide them?

Were dreams an indicator of reality, or the future, or the past, or what did they mean?

 Were people merely advanced animals, and were nothing too special in the world or the universe?

Did people have a presence or soul after death?

Was Ataf's life meaningful?

Was Araf's goals noble, or simply as common as the next man or woman?

Was it worth aspiring to be better?

Was loyalty and trust the ultimate virtues?

Were his children better off living austere rules in comparison to the youth who grew up with little restriction?

Was his life worth it?

Was it true?

Was it right?

Did it have meaning?

Did he have a right or obligation to impose his views on others?

Were there first parents on earth, or heavenly parents above?

Was there a right and wrong?

Could the soul be cleansed?

Who were the Zorami?

Who were the humans on the earth?

Was this all a fool's errand, a foolish quest for nought?

The night before Ataf died, he dreamed of all of it together. And the planets and the streams and the clouds and the earth, all came together and made sense.

"It is true!" He exclaimed to anyone and no one in particular.

"It is true!"

"It is true!"

And he smiled after many years of hard living, and contented aspirations.