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A Cal Fire helicopter on Thursday crosses Inverness Ridge to drop water on a containment line for the Woodward Fire in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Smoke from back-burns rises through the forest.

The Woodward Fire, which was started by a lightning strike Aug. 18, was 85 percent contained by this evening after having grown to more than 4,800 acres. Part of the containment has included setting back-burns along Limantour Road. Full containment is expected by Tuesday.

Smoke from the fire has at times made the air in much of West Marin unhealthy, and smoke from hot spots may last for months, the Park Service has warned.

Vidas Negras Importan

The Black Lives Matter movement is sometimes getting overshadowed by the chaos at just a very few of the hundreds of protests around the country. In these isolated cases, looters and vandals have taken advantage of there being crowds in downtown areas. On at least one occasion, however, a covert white supremacist damaged property during a protest to discredit the protesters. Despite all this, only 7 percent of all the protests nationwide have had such problems, The Washington Post reported this past week.

In an effort to refocus public attention on what the movement is really all about stopping the unwarranted killing of Black people by overly aggressive police officers in several cities, I came up with a sign in Spanish. Its intent is to show that criticism of the killings transcends the Black and Anglo Saxon communities.

Maddy Sobel, who often sell jams and jellies in front of the Point Reyes Station post office, is also an artist, and she illustrated one of my signs. Her thought is that if I make some copies of her illustration, she can give them to kids to color with crayons. Sounds good to me. I gave another copy to Toby’s Coffee Bar, and you can see it displayed there without illustration.

Bumping elbows but not shaking hands. From left: Phil Jennings, yours truly, and Gordon Jones

Before the pandemic and sheltering in place, I went to the No Name Bar in Sausalito to listen to live jazz every Friday night. Sunday afternoon, two friends from the No Name dropped by for an outdoor visit. I gave them both copies of the sign, and Jones was so enthusiastic he said he may have it imprinted on t-shirts.

My own family’s efforts to get justice for Black people date from before the Civil War. My great-grandfather Luke Parsons was a member of John Brown’s Army but did not take part in the debacle at Harper’s Ferry. Instead he went on to command a Union Army company of Native Americans fighting in the Oklahoma Territory.

My late father was a Republican who supported the NAACP. I formally joined the movement in the spring of 1968 while I was teaching high school in Leesburg, Florida. At the time, Willis V. McCall was the sheriff of Lake County, Florida, where Leesburg is located. He had come to be called the worst sheriff in the US and in private bragged he’d “killed more n-ggers” than any other man.

When McCall came up for reelection in 1968, a well-regarded Leesburg police officer ran against him, and I signed up to canvass voters in Black neighborhoods for the challenger. Unfortunately, McCall again won but was defeated four years later after yet another cruelty: a mentally impaired Black man was kicked to death in the Lake County jail.

Civil rights activist Julian Bond (center) in 1970 with members of an Upper Iowa University group, the Brotherhood, who had invited him to speak on campus. While he was studying at Morehouse College in the early 1960s, Bond had established the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a.k.a. SNCC (pronounced “Snick”).

In the fall of 1968 I began teaching English and journalism at Upper Iowa University and the next semester became a faculty advisor to the new Black student union. As the group explained in a flyer: “The Brotherhood was founded and chartered in February 1969. It is an organized group open to anyone interested in furthering their knowledge of Black culture…

“Under the able leadership of our past president, Rick Weber, and the helpful assistance of our advisors, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. [Robert] Schenck, the Brotherhood has enriched campus life by promoting various social functions, such as the annual Black Night.” Besides that variety show, the Brotherhood has sponsored “an inter-racial forum, and a play, A Raisin in the Sun. Our biggest accomplishment was, of course, acquisition of a Black Cultural House.”

Half a century later, I still recall advising the Brotherhood as one of my most informative experiences.

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Redwing blackbirds waiting for a dinner of birdseed at Mitchell cabin maintain proper social distancing (relative to size).

They say the Covid-19 pandemic is especially bad for older people. As a 76 year old, I can vouch for that. Like a lot of others my age and older, I wear hearing aids. Unfortunately, part of each aid sits outside the ear, and anti-virus masks are usually secured around the ears. As a result, our hearing aids sometimes get pulled off when we remove our safety masks. Goddamn virus.

Jackrabbit behind Mitchell cabin last Saturday.

“Jackrabbits are actually hares, not rabbits,” according to National Geographic. “Hares are larger than rabbits, and they typically have taller hind legs and longer ears. Jackrabbits were named for their ears, which initially caused some people to refer to them as ‘jackass rabbits.’ The writer Mark Twain brought this name to fame by using it in his book of western adventure, Roughing It. The name was later shortened to jackrabbit.”

A fence lizard with part of its tail missing.

Most of us are aware that lizards can lose a big piece of their tails and survive. To quote a Washington State University online explanation: “Lizards have a series of small bones that run down their back… called vertebrae. Along the tail are several weak spots called fracture planes… They are the places the tail can detach.

“The main reason a lizard loses its tail is to defend itself [and not only if a predator has seized its tail. A detached tail can also distract the predator]. When a lizard detaches its tail, the tail whips around and wiggles on the ground… Sometimes the tail will keep moving for upwards of half an hour.”

Lizards can regrow their tails in three to five weeks, but the new tail is usually shorter, has a different pattern of scales, and is made with cartilage rather than bone.

Another fence lizard, also warming itself this week on our railroad-tie front steps, has regrown most of its original tail. The dark section where it broke off can easily be seen. It’s important to male lizards to get their tails back. Female lizards aren’t interested in them until they do.

I’ll close with a couple of my favorite poems, both set in pre-shelter-in-place times. They’re by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Alan Dugan (1923-2003).

On a Seven-Day Diary

Oh, I got up and went to work/ and worked and came back home/ and ate and talked and went to sleep./ Then I got up and went to work/ and worked and came back home/ from work and ate and slept./ Then I got up and went to work/ and worked and came back home/ and ate steak and went to sleep./ They I got up and went to work/ and worked and came back home/ and ate and fucked and went to sleep./ Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!/ Love must be the reason for the week!/ We went shopping! I saw clouds!/ The children explained everything!/ I could talk about the main thing!/ What did I drink on Saturday night/ that lost the first, best half of Sunday?/ The last half wasn’t worth this “word.”/ Then I got up and went to work/ and worked and came back home/ from work and ate and went to sleep,/ refreshed but tired by the weekend.

Tribute to Kafka for Someone Taken

The party is going strong,/ The doorbell rings. It’s/ for someone named me./ I’m coming. I take/ a last drink,/ a last puff on a cigarette,/ a last kiss at a girl,/ and step into the hall,/ bang,/ shutting out the laughter. “Is/ your name you?'” “Yes.”/ “Well come along then.”/ “See here. See here. See here.”

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Artist Billy Hobbs (left) and yours truly on the deck of Mitchell cabin. Billy was homeless for more than five years after his 25-year marriage broke up. For a year he spent his days sketching outside the Point Reyes Station Postoffice, which is where I met him. He had been sleeping outdoors when cold, wet weather set in. This prompted my wife Lynn and me a month ago to invite him to stay with us until the weather clears.

Billy is an intriguing artist, so this week I’m posting a small sampling of his drawings.

The Sacred Tree is Not Dead depicts the chief of the Northern Cheyenne, White Antelope, before he was killed by a U.S. cavalry charge despite having been assured he’d be left alone if he flew an American flag on his tepee.

Lao Tzu, a Sixth Century BC Chinese philosopher. Billy calls Lao Tzu one of his favorite philosophers because of his emphasis on slowing down to smell the roses.

How It Really Went Down. Making his last stand on June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer runs out of bullets and is killed, along with all 200 of his men.

Holding Up a Skull and looking through it was inspired by artist Georgia O’Keefe. 

A Pretty Woman. Billy hasn’t quite finished this drawing, but she’s still haunting.

Donald Trump, one of Billy’s rare political drawings. The president bends over to perform another scene from reality TV.

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Thanksgiving dinner. Lynn (right) and I (left) with Inverness architect Jon Fernandez, his wife Patsy Krebs, and his son Michael enjoying dessert following a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday at Vladimir’s Czech Restaurant in Inverness. Beforehand, a couple of friends at different times expressed surprise that we’d choose Czech food on turkey day, but it turned out to be a good decision. In fact, it was the start of a series of social adventures.

The Michael Aragon Quartet

The next day, Jon and Patsy, Lynn and I headed to Sausalito’s No Name Bar where the Michael Aragon Quartet played its last performance after 36 years of Friday night gigs there. Drummer Michael Aragon, the bandleader, is retiring at 75 for health reasons. Sax player Rob Roth has been there with him 25 years, and keyboardist KC Filson has been there for 10 of them. The regular bass player, Pierre Archain, unfortunately was ill and guitarist Rob Fordyce filled in for him.

Michael is known throughout the Bay Area jazz scene, and the bar was packed with admirers who wanted to catch his last show.

Billy Hobbs

Saturday was wet and cold, which made Lynn and me worry about Billy Hobbs, the homeless man often seen sketching outside the Point Reyes Station postoffice. He sleeps outdoors nearby under an overhang, and periodic gusts of wind can blow the rain in a bit.

So we invited Billy to spend the day with us, and Lynn fixed a second Thanksgiving dinner, this time with turkey. With the storm not abating, we urged Billy to bed down here for the night, and he did.

On Sunday, the storm only got worse. When I drove to the bottom of our fairly long driveway in heavy rain to get our morning Chronicle, I found that the wind had dropped a large, dead limb across our driveway. Thankfully, no car was hit. Several pieces had to be moved, and I got a full baptism doing so.

Lynn, who was fighting a cold, put all of our clothes through the wash while much of my energy was spent carrying armloads of firewood up 50 steps to our house. Now that will get you warm. Billy meanwhile spent most of the day sitting by the fire arranging his sketches, which he hopes to make into greeting cards. 

Another get-together: While we stayed warm indoors, two blacktail bucks with no show of rivalry showed up to dine outside. The deer at left has a deformed right rear leg (probably hit by a motor vehicle) but manages to get around fairly well. And so in the end, it appeared that everyone had a reason to be thankful.

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Gallery Route One’s popular Box Show closed today with a silent auction, drinks, and hors d’oeuvres. A throng of art lovers and curious tourists filled the gallery within an hour after today’s show opened.

A box titled “XXI Century” by Ted Stoeckley, like several boxes in the show, amounted to artistic social-commentary.

“Thinking Outside the Box” by Rich Bolececk and Margaret Boehm.

A visitor studies “Celebrating Their Legacy,” a box by Bruce Burtch.

“Off We Go” by Dennis Ludlow and Prartho Sereno.

“The Bear Valley” by Bernie Schimbke.

“Where Are the Children?” by Suzanne Radcliffe.

More social commentary, “Immigration Policy” by Kieu Lam.

“Sticks and Stones” by Earl Speas.

The annual box show is both an exhibit and a fundraiser for Gallery Route One, and today’s show appeared successful on both fronts. Past Box Shows are archived on GRO’s website.

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Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)

What happens when a priest loses his faith? Spanish writer, philosopher, and political activist Miguel de Unamuno provides an inspiring look at the dilemma in his short novel, San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, which I just re-read. The book fascinated me when I took a Spanish-literature class at Stanford, and this prompted me to take a second look some 55 years later.

Unamuno was an early existentialist, and often at the core of his writing is the tension between intellect and emotion, between faith and reason. In San Manuel Bueno, Martyr, Unamuno tells the story of a priest, Don Manuel, struggling with that tension. He is intelligent, hardworking, provides volunteer labor, and is so kind that he inspires the members of his parish to be good to one another. Yet secretly he doesn’t believe everything he preaches.

“The imperturbable joyousness of Don Manuel,” says the fictional narrator, Angela Carballino, “was merely the temporal, earthly form of an infinite, eternal sadness which the priest concealed from the eyes and ears of the world with heroic saintliness.”

“The marvel of the man was his voice; a divine voice which bought one close to weeping,” the narrator recalls. “How he did love his people! His life consisted in salvaging wrecked marriages, in forcing unruly sons to submit to their parents, or reconciling parents to their sons, and above all, consoling the embittered and the weary in spirit; meanwhile he helped everyone to die well.”

Ironically, Unamuno was known for standing up for his views.

A key section of the novel describes the death of the devout mother of the narrator, Angela, and Angela’s brother, Lazarus, who was a nonbeliever. “The peace in which your mother dies will be her eternal life,” Don Manuel tells Angela. He then explains to Lazarus, “Her heaven is to go on seeing you, and it is at this moment that she must be saved. Tell her you will pray for her.” When the nonbeliever starts to object: “But…”, Don Manuel responds, “But what? … Tell her you will pray for her, to whom you owe your life. And I know that once you promise her, you will pray.”

Lazarus, “his eyes filled with tears, drew near our dying mother and gave his solemn promise to pray for her…. And I, in heaven, will pray for you,” his mother replies. “And then, kissing the crucifix and fixing her eyes on Don Manuel, she gave up her soul to God.”

Lazarus later reveals to his sister that the priest had previously appealed to him “to set a good example, to avoid scandalizing the townspeople, to take part in the religious life of the community, to feign belief even if he did not feel any.” Don Miguel was not trying to convert him, Lazarus explains, “but rather [was feigning his conversion] to protect the peace, the happiness, the illusions perhaps, of his charges. I understood that if he thus deceives them, if it is deceit, it is not for his own advantage…. The people should be allowed to live with their illusion.”

Neither Don Manuel’s deception nor his losing his belief in God ever becomes public, and after he dies, his unsuspecting bishop sets in motion the process for beatifying him, hence the name San Miguel Bueno.

In 1901 Unamuno became rector of the University of Salamanca but lost the post in 1914 for publicly espousing the Allied cause in World War I. His opposition in 1924 to General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s rule in Spain led to his being exiled to the Canary Islands, from which he escaped to France. When Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship fell, Unamuno returned to the University of Salamanca and was reelected rector in 1931, but in October 1936, he denounced the fascism of General Francisco Franco and again lost the post. He was placed under house arrest and within two months died of a heart attack.

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Over the weekend I was looking through my bookshelves when I came upon a volume I didn’t know I had: The Superior Person’s Second Book of Weird & Wondrous Words by Peter Bowler. An inscription revealed it had been left behind for me by the late Marge Piaggio, who with her daughter Rose had been my houseguest for several months two decades ago.

Galeanthropy

The book was a reminder of how many “big” words I don’t understand. For example, galeanthropy. As it turns out, galeanthropy refers to a mental condition in which one believes he’s become a cat. This rare condition can be manifested by adopting feline mannerisms such as purring, affectionate nuzzling, and pouncing.

And then there’s castrophenia, the belief that one’s thoughts are being stolen by enemies. The illusion, however, is not as bad as nastrophenia, the belief that one’s thoughts are not worth stealing.

Metrophobia

My wife Lynn writes poetry and reads it to me. I enjoy listening to her read a few of her poems but not too many in succession. I fear this leads Lynn to suspect I suffer from metrophobia, a morbid dread of poetry, which I don’t have. I’ve read that “many people first develop this phobia in school when overzealous teachers encourage them to rank poems according to artificial scales, break them down, and search for esoteric meanings.” Lynn does not do this. She just wants my opinion as I hear the words.

We seldom use the word succussion, which means shaking, although Jerry Lee Lewis originally wrote his magnum opus as Whole Lot of Succussion Goin’ On. He changed it when the League of American Matrons objected because they mistakenly thought succussion referred to “an indelicate form of sexual congress,” Bowler’s book notes.

And what’s a remontado? It’s someone who flees to the mountains and renounces civilization. I’ve known a couple of those guys.

Of course, sometimes a listener’s confusion results from word order, not inadequate vocabulary. In 1957 singers Johnnie and Joe and in 1963 singer Bobby Vinton had hits with Over the Mountain; Across the Sea (“there’s a girl, she’s waiting for me”). One line, oddly enough, seems to contain an off-color double entendre: “Over the river and beyond every cloud, she’s passed the wind that’s blowing loud.” The singers seem pleased that they can hear her cut the cheese.

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William R. Hobbs, a homeless resident of Point Reyes Station.

Over the past few months I’ve gotten to know a homeless man, Billy Hobbs, 61, who hangs out in downtown Point Reyes Station, often at a table in front of the community peace garden or a table outside Toby’s Coffee Bar. He also frequents benches outside the postoffice, the Palace Market, Cabaline, and the yellow hut at the commons. He sleeps outside at night except when it’s raining. Then he sleeps in the post office. (And, no, he’s not the much-publicized drunk who could not control his bladder and bowels while passed out in there.)

Billy has been homeless for almost five years. He held many jobs in his younger days, in construction, painting, and agriculture among others; now he hopes to find parttime work around town.

Billy these days is primarily an artist, and he often spends his days sketching.

A drawing, which Billy is still finishing, of Jesus on the cross.

Here Billy shows one of his sketches to another artist, Igor Sazevich of Inverness.

Billy’s sketch of a Buddhist deity.

Billy grew up in Marin County, the son of a well-known attorney, Kendall E. Hobbs. As an adult, he spent several years living in Montana and lived for a brief spell in Mexico. At present, he is hoping to convince county government to provide parttime work for homeless people in Marin County.

Here is a letter he wrote this week to Supervisor Dennis Rodoni:

Dear Supervisor Rodoni,

A Point Reyes Station friend a couple of weeks ago encouraged me to write you concerning this particularly thorny issue. I am not professing to be an expert on any of these issues, but I have been involved with them. 

I grew up in Marin but have been homeless in the county for close to five years now, and I think I have met enough of the homeless people living here in Marin to have a pretty good idea as to what they need and want things that would make life easier for all of us.

Myth v. Fact. Homeless people are all drug addicts or alcoholics, or just plain crazy, or too lazy to work. Wrong! There are many different ways to become homeless. Nobody that I have met or talked to wants or chooses to be homeless.

Some just no longer want to be part of a society that can barely recognize their existence. Some are just not willing to admit their problems. Some just don’t know how to ask for help.

Some things that we could come to an agreement on: Do homeless people exist in Marin? Of course, they do. To make things more understandable, here are some steps we can all take. Pay them, like they do in Half Moon Bay, $15 an hour for a part-time garden-growing project, recycling, or cleaning streets.

We just need to give them a chance to feel like they’re part of our community, as well as get more government help. Housing, where is it? Can homeless people get it through the state or federal government? The county needs an aide I can write to inquire about getting on a list.

I know that if we were given the chance, many of us would certainly work in order to get housing or make some money. I previously worked and provided money to my family. Please give us the chance to prove it! Throw us a lifeline, please.

Sincerely, William R. Hobbs, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 

Or leave a message at the Food Bank in West Marin. Thank you very much.

Billy holds up his drawing of Sir Francis Drake landing in Drakes Bay, where the privateer spent 36 days in 1579.

A science fiction fantasy, which Billy calls “Space Jam,” features an other-worldly musician.

Billy’s sketch of himself.

In his letter to Supervisor Rodoni, Billy points out that not all homeless people are “drug addicts or alcoholics, or just plain crazy, or too lazy to work.” Having gotten to know him, I don’t dispute this fact.

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If you like wildlife, state government wants you to kill some of it.

California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced it will try “to recruit new hunters and anglers throughout the state” because hunters provide 60 percent of the funding for fish and wildlife conservation through license fees and taxes on guns and ammunition, The San Francisco Chronicle reported three months ago. 

That funding has been steadily declining. “Only about 5 percent of Americans 16 and older hunt,” a 50-percent decline in just five decades,” The Chronicle explained. “The decline is attributable to urbanization, the rise of media entertainment, restricted access to hunting territory, and a lack of free time. Additionally, hunting declines as the population ages, and as the Baby Boomers grow ever older, the number of hunters will continue to plummet.”

Hunting doesn’t appeal to me. As I see it, the state’s encouraging hunting, accompanied by purchases of guns and ammunition, in order to bolster license fees and taxes makes as much sense as it would to encourage double parking in order to collect more in parking fines.

Solar panels.

The curse of solar panels. Solar panels are becoming popular in Afghanistan, The Economist reported last week, but they’re not being used primarily for homes. They’re mostly used for growing opium to make heroin, which “helps fund the Taliban, as well as pro-government warlords who are scarcely better.” The panels provide the electricity for opium farmers to pump water from deep wells, and that’s lowering the water table, the magazine noted. “Shallow wells have gone completely dry.”

Judaism’s Star of David

Still another, but happier, surprise. In a review of the book Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom, the same Economist also reported that in contrast to historic anti-Semitism, “Jews are now the country’s best-liked religious group but the warm attitudes transcend philo-Semitism.” What’s happened? “By 2010 around half of all Americans had a spouse of a different religious tradition. Neighborhoods, workplaces, and friendships have become more religiously diverse.” It’s clearly counterproductive to be prejudiced against one’s friends and associates.

The Victorian-era poet Robert Browning (1812-1889).

One of the English poet Robert Browning’s most memorable lines is: “God is in His heaven, all’s right with the world,” which is from the poem Pippa Passes. “But,” as the linguist/journalist Bill Bryson points out in his book The Mother Tongue, “it also contains this disconcerting passage: ‘Then owls and bats/ Cowls and twats,/ Monks and nuns in a cloister’s moods,/ Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry.’

“Browning had apparently somewhere come across the word twat, which meant precisely the same then as it does now but pronounced with a flat a” and somehow took it to mean a piece of headgear for nuns. The verse became a source of twittering amusement for generations of schoolboys and a perennial embarrassment to their elders, but the word was never altered, and Browning was allowed to live out his life in wholesome ignorance because no one could think of a suitably delicate way of explaining his mistake to him.”

The rainbow flag of the LGBT movement.

Another racy surprise. Researchers had concluded that gay men tend to have more older brothers than straight men. Harper’s magazine, however, last October reported further research has found that “holds true only for those who are prone to be the receiving partner during anal sex.” Make of that what you will. I won’t hazard a guess.

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Photographer Marna G. Clarke of Inverness (at left) on Saturday opened an exhibit of portraits of older West Marin residents. The display at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station is called Autumn, and Marna explains: “In 2010 I turned 70 and wanted to document that stage of my life. I photographed myself, my partner and both of us in our daily lives…. Surrounded by fascinating, vital and active seniors, I began taking portraits of them as well….

“These portraits are of people I know, some well, others tangentially. They are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, with one in his 60s…. Our youthful ‘Summer’ bloom has moved into ‘Autumn,’ for some more than others. We’re all having to adjust to the changes happening to our faces and bodies. A distillation of our life experiences has been gurgling away for years leaving a wisdom that now informs and guides us.”

Here are a few of the 20 portraits Marna is exhibiting, along with her notes identifying them:

‘ANDREW.  Born 1923 in London. Grew up at Grace & Favor House, Windsor Great Park, England. Came to West Marin in 1974. Photo taken in 2010.’

‘SANDY. 1924-2015. Born in Chicago. Grew up in Evanston, Illinois. Came to West Marin in the 1950s. Photo taken in 2006.’

‘JOE. Born 1935, Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa. Grew up in Johannesburg. Came to Inverness in 1971. MO. Born 1934, Belgian Congo, now Lubumbashi. Grew up in Johannesburg and Belgian Congo. Came to Inverness in 1971. Photo taken in 2019.’

‘PAUL. Born in 1951, London. Grew up in London. Came to West Marin in 1993. Photo taken in 2010.’

‘MURRAY. Born 1942, Cleveland, Ohio. Grew up in Cleveland Heights, Hollywood, Florida, New England. Came to West Marin in 2001. Photo taken in 2006.’

‘NED. Born in 1947, Cincinnati, Ohio. Grew up in Menlo Park, California. Came to West Marin in 1993. Photo taken in 2019.’

‘LAURE. Born in 1931, Paris. Grew up in a small village in the middle of France. Came to West Marin in 1972. Photo taken in 2018.’

‘VAN. Born 1949, New Orleans, Louisiana. Grew up all over (father was a US naval officer). Came to West Marin in 1976. Photo taken in 2019.’

Marna’s photography is straightforward but intense, which makes her portraits quietly dramatic. Visitors this past weekend were fascinated by the exhibition, which will hang in the gallery through June 16.