N'Orleans, 1970

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin. -- Mark Twain

I often think of New Orleans…or N'Orleans or N’Awlins…depending on my remembrances, perspective and perhaps alcohol content. Back in 2013 New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl…it was Super Bowl XLVII, which I think is the 47^th Super Bowl.  I guess we can throw cursive writing out of the schools but have to keep Roman numerals so we can count Super Bowls.

Anyway, I was paying attention to the media hype running up to the Super Bowl game in New Orleans. CBS was broadcasting the game and milking it for all it was worth...this is like the "Black Friday" of television. Jackson Square has become the venue for several broadcasts and there are countless features about the many charms of N’Orleans.

N'Orleans is one of my favorite cities. What surprises me is the large number of grown-up people, seemingly adults and experienced, that are TV personalities who said they had never been to New Orleans and are there for the first time. Good grief people....where have you been?

For people my age (aging boomers) going to New Orleans was almost a rite of passage. You know...get a driver's license, HS diploma, draft card, etc., etc., The Road Trip to New Orleans, etc. We won't go into some of those "etc."s...every generation has a few and mine had a lot. I'm sorry that gas prices have put spontaneous road trips out of reach for most of America's younger generations. They seem to have lost something important. It is something of a bonding experience.

I've been to N’Orleans probably six or seven times and never get tired of it. Some places you can visit once and declare you have seen it and never need to go back. Modern cities are like that for me. Cities designed or developed after the invention of the automobile have always bored me to tears. Kansas City is an automobile town while St. Louis is a pedestrian city (ooops -- full disclosure...I was born in St. Louis and still say I'm "from" there after living elsewhere 38 years). San Francisco is experienced as a pedestrian city while Los Angeles is more of an automobile place. To my mind, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, and Miami missed out on something. There is a stage of development where a city gains a soul and some places jump over that and are just places. But I digress...I'll save that tirade for another time and I'm sure some people will disagree.

I first went to New Orleans on a spontaneous Labor Day weekend trip back in 1970. There were three of us and we were all about twenty-two. I still use that trip as a yard stick on how tired I can be before I collapse. If I get that tired I need to pull over and get off the road. We drove out of St. Louis on Friday night, stopping briefly in Ste. Genevieve to pick up our third traveler, and then headed south through darkness and the Mississippi delta, which starts just a few miles south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. We hit daylight somewhere near Vicksburg and finally made it to New Orleans by mid afternoon. We checked in to the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter and crashed in the beds for about three hours before hitting Bourbon Street around six or seven...still early.  Okay – now this was the Monteleone Hotel before it became "The Hotel Monteleone" that it is today. Our room was sparse and cheap...painted that light institutional green if I remember right. There were drain pipes running up one wall for something. We only slept there so we didn't care...and we could walk all over the French Quarter, which we did.

Labor Day weekend isn't Mardi Gras but it was still very busy and crowded. It was the end of summer and a lot of people were having one last fling. We had a great time. The movie "Easy Rider" had been all the rage the year before so we had that as sort of a mental travel guide. We had Beignets at the old Morning Call by the city market, cruised through the local cemetery, hung out at Jackson Square, saw Preservation Hall, Pat O'Brien's, the Old Absinthe House, plus a half dozen dives. (No parental guidance!!) We didn’t have much cash…but we managed. “Young Intellectuals” can make a beer last a while.

They say New Orleans changes people and in one way it changed me. The place is known for its cuisine. We were too poor (and grubby) to sample anything in a "real" restaurant but we managed to find a few spots back in the alleys or off on a side street where we could find some good food. I was a fairly picky eater up to that time but I learned to enjoy food and realized the fun of trying different things. I never ate a real salad until New Orleans. There were so many different kinds of seafood - a shrimp is not just a shrimp. I think I met my first oyster on that trip. I couldn't identify some of the food but it was good and enjoyable.

We were road-crazy and gas was cheap so we left New Orleans and went to Pensacola and camped out on the beach. We wanted some time in the ocean...or the Gulf…any salt water would do just fine. It wasn't too long before the sand fleas made us regret leaving New Orleans. We managed to get some sleep and headed back home the next morning. That drive home was surreal -- that is the memory I have of being tired. We got home safely and actually made it to work on Tuesday. I suspect our productivity was off a little.

Other trips to New Orleans have been less frantic. There is still a lot I haven't seen so I'll go back again. The food is worth the trip.

(Modified from the original posted on The Red Room in February 2013)

Watercolor Desert

I awoke to rain this morning and it has been raining all day. This has been a steady drizzle coming from a seamless gray sky. My usual landmarks; the Sandia Mountains and the Jemez Mountains those other mountains and mesas farther away, are invisible in the opaque mist. It is a little disorienting. The world seems closed in. The birds have all taken refuge somewhere…wherever birds go.  The only sounds are the dull white-noise of the drizzling rain and the staccato of the water falling off the roof through the canales…those boxy channels that drain water off of flat roofs in the desert southwest.  I have two large rain barrels that produce a low drumming sound…I can tell that they are full to capacity. They say we might have more intense storms this afternoon.

This is our monsoon season, the only wet and cloudy season we have. We have been in serious drought the last few years but this year, thanks to El Nino, we are making up for it. I don’t know how our rainy season will affect the long-term drought but we are closing in on the record for rainy years.  This is my first full experience with the monsoon season. I moved here a year ago and only saw a little of it -- mostly the spectacular lightning storms that put on a big show but didn’t offer up much rain. This year it has been more rain than lightning. Albuquerque, some fifteen miles south of where I live, had a recent urban flash flood that stranded cars and prompted heroic rescues of stranded drivers and pedestrians.  I heard that Phoenix had a similar situation. My only crisis is trying to walk out to the road to retrieve my mail. My road is only partially paved…what actual pavement it once had is mostly a memory.  There is a slight depression that collects about six inches of water and turns my mailbox into an island.  I pull on my rubber boots and galumph out to the mailbox and try not to slip on the wet mud.  Usually the mail isn’t worth collecting and certainly not worth taking a bath.

The one thing that I wish I could convey is how the desert smells in the rain. I am surrounded by sage, chamisa and saltbush that grow wild. In my front walled courtyard I have a small honeysuckle thicket and Pyracantha and Russian Sage along with desert willow and Mexican Bird of Paradise and trumpet vine. Everything puts out its small contribution to the rainy desert smells. There is a Pinyon pine just over the wall that makes a bigger contribution.   Only the Russian Sage and honeysuckle and trumpet vine are showing blooms. Everything else is bloomed out but the plants still have a scent in the rain. There is no wind today so it all just hangs in the air. It is all very subtle and very pleasant.

 

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd...“

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…“   My apologies…I’m no Walt Whitman. He was writing about the death of Abraham Lincoln almost 150 years ago. One hundred fifty years is a long time but some of those lilacs or roses or daffodils are still out there long after the dooryard fell into decay. The folks who lived behind the door and planted the roses were laid to rest many years ago…generations ago. They were pioneers. They moved into a new land and tried to put down roots. Some survived and prospered…or at least made a go of it. Others tried and failed.


If you are a rambler out in the world you sometimes come across what remains of an old homestead. Maybe there will be a stone foundation. Maybe there will only be telltale corner stone blocks. The wood is gone. It might have fallen into decay or carried away by fire or storms or by people who needed an extra couple of of boards because that new baby or grandma needed a room.  Maybe there is a chimney. Often the garden remains.


I am fascinated by these old places. I once stumbled upon a relic of an old homestead totally overgrown in the Missouri woods.  What caught my eye was the large patch of daffodils blooming out where they don’t belong.  On further inspection there was an ancient scrubby lilac budding out nearby. The daffodils had gone back to nature and spread well beyond their original allotted space. The old Lilac was struggling in the shade but this was spring and it was doing its best. Most of it was dead but it had good roots. It was obediently standing guard where it was planted.  There was a rough stone foundation nearby.  A few yards away there was a small pile of logs and boards and rusted parts of a wagon wheel. The wagon was inside the barn when it collapsed. I always wonder what the story was. Maybe it’s a simple tale of boom and bust. People pick up and move to better places. But why leave the wagon in the barn?  Maybe it was disease…like the Spanish Flu or cholera or something else. I wonder how long ago the place was deserted. The nails were square…hand made. That puts it back a long way.  Maybe someone lived here during the Civil War era. Maybe he didn’t come home and she moved away. It is an unknown story.




I’ve hiked a few trails in the Missouri Ozarks and come across other lone chimneys standing out in the forest. Sometimes there are rose bushes overgrown into large thickets nearby. I wonder about the farm wife who took the trouble to plant the roses. Did she bring them with her? My mom would have done that. Whenever she moved she would take cuttings and have the same roses at her new place. It brought a sense of continuity.  Some of those old fireplaces are roughly made but others are made of cut stone and are nicely constructed. Somewhere there was a stone cutter and a stone mason close by.




In Big Bend National Park there is a ruined house sitting in a slope over the Rio Grande River. This was the home of a cotton farmer who chopped out a living in the heat and sand, blessed by the river water. This family had one of the southern-most homes in the country. Mexico literally loomed over them from the cliffs across the river.  They made a living there for a while but eventually they moved away. lt was a long way to market.  Only the ruined walls and some broken glass shards remain.





I’ve seen some others out here in the desert where I live now. Some of these are old tumble down adobe structures. Here they are not overgrown…they just melt away. There are ruins of buildings made of stone. I’m not talking about the Pueblo ruins that are scattered across the southwest. They have their own stories and mysteries. Sometimes you will find something, maybe an old shepherd’s shelter or an abandoned farmstead. I recall seeing stagecoach stations sitting roofless and with gaping windows and doors. Somebody made a life out of those places.



Sometimes you might find something you don’t understand.  Some of those people of past generations left a message behind for someone to find. Maybe we can figure it out, like this one: a religious sign left by a Spanish shepherd.









The Indian stone markings are harder to fathom. The ancient Pueblo people kept Macaws that they obtained through trade with people in Mexico. Sometimes you will see an engraved image of an odd looking bird. Other images are not so easily identifiable.





 
On my most recent ramble, out among the volcanoes just west of Albuquerque, I came across an unusual man-made assembly of stones. These were purposefully collected and laid out in a certain way. It looked like a grave, except it was too small, only about thirty inches long. Maybe it was a grave for a small child or infant. I didn’t disturb it – I didn’t want to know if that was what it was. But it seemed more like a marker for something else: An attempt to mark the spot for some reason. This place is so remote that people don’t often come this way and I was way off the usual trail. This is part of Petroglyph National Monument, a place where local Indians left hundreds of engraved drawings on the volcanic blocks of basalt. There is a long tradition of leaving messages at this place. The stone marker was not recently made; these stones have been here for a long while, maybe centuries. I took a couple pictures and sent them to the local National Park office that has jurisdiction over the volcanoes. They responded that they were unaware of it or what it could be and would have a resource person go out and investigate. I haven’t heard back. I’m still wondering and maybe they won’t have an answer. I’m really hoping it’s not a child’s grave.

 

Let's Hope This Doesn't Get Outta Hand...

“Let’s Hope This Doesn’t Get Outta Hand….” A local resident expressed hope during a time of despair.  I’m reading the news.  I guess most people have heard about the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent rioting and other shootings in and around Ferguson, Missouri. I was raised there but lived just outside Ferguson. My backyard fence was the city limit. We were sort of sandwiched between Ferguson and Dellwood , two of almost 100 municipalities that make up the St. Louis suburbs. Back in the 1950s there were thousands of families moving out from St. Louis into the new suburban subdivisions. We moved in 1953. Sometimes this is called “White Flight” but much of it was actually pent up housing expansion for young families after the return of the soldiers after WW-II. There was a tremendous housing shortage and a baby boom going on so there had to be this explosion of new housing.  At the same time there was an influx of rural Black families coming up from the South looking for the very same things that those young White families wanted: a decent home, good schools and jobs. We had Cub Scouts and little league parades down Chambers Road.  We borrowed a local farmer’s wheat field for ball games.  Our parents were busy with BBQ and PTA and crab grass control. Most of the dads were gone all day, working in St. Louis. Most of the moms stayed home. The new interstate that cut a swath through the neighborhoods of north St. Louis meant that it was an easy commute if you worked downtown.  Those neighborhoods were irreparably damaged but it was all in the name of progress.  The southern Black families were moving in there anyway so the concept of ‘neighborhood’ was pretty much irrelevant to the city planners.  With the new highways, more White families discovered they could live farther out from the city and still commute to work. The city was bruised and hemorrhaging but during the 1960s, when other American cities erupted in riots and racial violence, St. Louis was mostly quiet.

Back up in the northern suburbs things were going along just fine. The baby boom overwhelmed the school system so there were too many kids in the classrooms but new schools were being built. The dads had other job opportunities. McDonnell-Douglas (later Boeing) had a huge facility over by the airport so many dads didn’t even have to go into the city.  More jobs moved out of the city into the suburbs.  Things were just fine….hunky-dory.

I can recall one year I had a birthday party at the Ferguson municipal swimming pool. This was in a nice, well-manicured park with a big fishing lake with ducks swimming around.  We would go there for picnics or to fish but this swimming party was a little odd…it only happened once and I only went to that pool one other time. I recall my mom saying that the pool was for Whites only; Blacks were not allowed at the pool. This was probably around 1958 or so and is the only example I can recall of ever encountering a segregated facility.  I remember feeling awkward about it and perhaps that is one reason why I didn’t spend time in that pool but I wasn’t much of a swimmer either so it wasn’t at the top of my list of things to do.  Ferguson was all White as was Dellwood and my neighborhood and most neighborhoods as far as I could walk. There were no Black kids in my school and no black families at my church.

Over on the other side of Ferguson somewhere was Kinloch, a historically black community that had been there for generations – probably since the Civil War.  Kinloch was a place unto itself – it was as if a southern Black community was picked up by a tornado and dropped in the middle of St. Louis County. It was not an urban Black community by any means.  People had little frame houses. Streets were sort of paved. Everyone had a little garden plot and maybe some chickens. It had a matriarchal social structure and culture. There were a few ladies who seemed like they ran the place. I know that one lady, at least, carried a pistol. That was a different world…almost a different planet from where we were.

Our street and close neighborhood was unincorporated and patrolled by the St. Louis County Police…but we never saw them.  There was seldom any reason for a police presence. We would walk about a mile to the West Florissant and Chambers road intersection where there was a A&P store and some strip malls. That was in Dellwood.  There was a Ben Franklin store where we would go to buy penny candy. I liked those paper strips with the colored sugar dots and you could get a strip for two cents.  They had lik-m-ade, which was sort of like eating Kool-Aid out of the package. Your face and lips would be brightly colored depending on the flavor you got.  They also had some exotic Dutch candy there that we could get sometimes -- Whoa…weren’t we sophisticated.  Candy cigarettes were always popular. The old lady that ran the store was sure we were shoplifters and would follow us around the store and sometimes she had other old ladies who would do the job for her. We never took anything but she was convinced that we were all little thieves.

Dellwood didn’t have police…they had Cops. These guys had a sort of swagger and attitude that the County police didn’t exhibit. I recall one time they brought my brother home after some sort of horseplay got out of hand. They were not bullies but not friendly, either. One time I volunteered as a Boy Scout to help locate a stray dog that people thought was rabid (right…send the kids out). We met at the Dellwood police station and were given walkie-talkies to report back if we saw the dog. While we were waiting, the Cop decided it was a good time to demonstrate to the assembled kids his ability to suppress and overpower an adversary and he selected me as his dummy.  It was not an enjoyable experience.  I had no encounters with Ferguson police.  At the time, Ferguson seemed more civilized than Dellwood…it had that nice park.

I grew up and moved away from my neighborhood in the 1970s. I was a public welfare caseworker for several years and would come back to visit some of the poorest families in the area. That's when I became familiar with Kinloch and the pistol-packing matriarch. I respected her and I was always treated well.  I moved out of St. Louis in 1976 and I really didn’t give the area much thought after that. I knew that it went through a gradual transition to a Black community but that was happening in a lot of “close-in” suburb municipalities. Some White families stayed and are still there. I know some that are still there. Things seemed to be okay on the surface…different but okay.

The police shooting of Michael Brown popped the cork in Ferguson and Dellwood and some other areas close by. So far, I think there have been two or three nights of rioting and looting and at least two other people shot.  Al Sharpton has made an appearance. People are trying to calm things down but there are small armed groups roaming around and causing trouble and the police are reacting with tear gas and SWAT teams. From the news stories, I don’t recognize the area. We never had a Wal-Mart when I was there. I don’t recognize the street names or the apartment complex names.  Some of the churches where meetings are being held sound familiar. If it was a poor neighborhood, riots and looting will make it even poorer. Businesses will move out and other businesses will not move in.

That local resident’s wish…“Let’s Hope This Doesn’t Get Outta Hand….” has blown away on the wind with the tear gas and the smoke from burning stores.  Perhaps things have been “outta hand” for a while.

The Black Box

I'm writing this just a few hours after learning that Robin Williams is dead.  Bear with me...I am stunned -- this is almost unbelievable.. This is such sad news that everyone is stunned...It's almost a national tragedy. There are countless expressions of shock and sorrow. He was a great talent and will be missed -- missed now when he (and his talent) is needed so desperately.


We only knew him through his public life and his performances. In his personal and most private life he was clearly not the same person. It is very early but it is widely assumed and reported that his death was suicide. He suffered from depression and was not able to overcome the darkness that obscured everything else. And yet he had so much talent. It is a mystery to me how the inner demons can inspire and fuel such great talent and artistry. He is not the only one....there are many examples of talented people who were privately (or sometimes publicly) tormented.


Another similar comedian, Jonathan Winters suffered from bipolar disorder and was institutionalized on two occasions. He is quoted as saying:  “These voices are always screaming to get out...They follow me around pretty much all day and night.”


Winters somehow managed to control his demons. The Black Box of depression consumed Robin Williams. We wonder how this could happen. Surely, we think,  if you or me or somebody had gotten to him today during his darkest time we could have made a difference. Sadly, it doesn't seem to work that way. Depression is private space where a person is totally alone....maybe even in a crowd of closest friends. I have never suffered from that kind of depression. I only flirted with it. I've been depressed, especially after my wife died. Profound grief is not the same as depression but I maybe can see some parallels and a person can die from grief. After a while it becomes almost a steady companion...not a friend but a familiar something that is always there, almost like a shadow but with a voice.


People suffer from grief and seem to get over it. Deep depression is not so easy to escape. There are pills and counseling but medication seems to make things different....not always better. Counseling  might work for some but not others. The Black Box is hard to break out of and I wonder if in depression, as in grief, it becomes sort of a companion -- a familiar presence that a person can almost bond with -- in an unhealthy way.  The strength of that bond might determine the outcome.


You know, commercial airplanes have a black box that memorizes and records things that can help explain what goes wrong or how things happen in flight. We hear about them usually in crash investigations but they are there, on the job, in every flight. Wouldn't it be nice if we had an internal black box that would allow us to inspect our own personal and private "flight" to see where things seem to be going wrong and make a course correction?  Sadly, we don't.


I wonder if a Van Gogh or a similarly tormented artist would give up the demons if it meant the end of their talent.  I have an acquaintance who prefers not to take their medication because they like the slightly demonized self better than the medicated one. So many talented people have succumbed to one addiction or another. Would their stars shine less bright if they didn't have the demons? I would not wish that on anyone....I'd gladly take the slightly dimmer world if it meant they could be healthy and break out of the Black Box.

Shelter From the Storm

          

I was burned out from exhaustion buried in the hail

Poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail

Hunted like a crocodile ravaged in the corn

“Come in” she said

“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.

– Bob Dylan

 

 

 

 

“Come in” she said

“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.

 

And that she did…and more...

 

 

 

 

 

And that she did…and more.  Missing you. Loving You.

 

 

July 29, 2014

 

 

 

 

The Pursuit of Happiness

If you ever travelled to Europe in the summer you might have noticed a foreign attitude among the locals. Well, yes -- this is Europe and it should feel foreign to Americans but there is something else. There is a relaxed attitude. I noticed it most in Italy. When I travel abroad I prefer to spend five or six days in a single place. I'll take day trips but I won't travel around the countryside much. By staying in one spot you get to merge into the rhythm of a place and see how local people spend the day. I was sitting in a piazza in an Umbrian hill town having coffee and a tourist bus full of Americans arrived. They all piled out of the bus and sprinted down the street to eyeball the local church and an eleventh century fountain. They were shepherded by a tour guide who was Italian and may have been the only real connection to the people of Italy for that day. I saw them later racing back to the bus. Some of them has acquired small parcels in the local shops to forever remind them of their trip to the hill towns of Umbria. Those Americans had managed to turn a vacation into work.

There was an odd feeling of freedom in the air in Italy and I've found it in other places as well. A  social or cultural freedom. The day begins and the day ends. If you don't get everything done today then tomorrow is another day. People go home for lunch. It is not uncommon for folks to take a month-long vacation. It is absolutely okay to have a five course meal starting at 9 PM. 

This attitude is almost unknown in the US. I blame the Puritans. We would feel guilty taking a month-long vacation (even if we somehow earned that much time) and our employer and our coworkers would make sure we felt bad about it. The Puritan work ethic is almost a genetic building block of life here in the US. We are expected to feel guilty if we do anything that isn't deemed productive. We must always be busy improving or producing something. That's one reason why there is such a bad attitude toward people who need some form of government assistance. Retirees feel bad about collecting social security because it is sometimes perceived as being on "the dole". Some new retirees have a difficult transition because they feel bad about not working. They make lists of things they need to do and race through the list so they can make another list. I was one of those retirees. I made a list that would take me through the first year. I completed it all in ninety days and then went out and got a part-time job.

I often travel by Amtrak or take long solo road trips. I frequently run into tourists from Europe or, most recently, Australia. The folks on Amtrak are most interesting because it is a slow way to travel and because they interact with other American travelers. When an American asks where they have been or where they are going you can see the shock on their face as the foreign tourist lays out their vacation plan.  One family said they were taking a circle tour of the US by Amtrak starting in Los Angeles and heading to the east coast and then up to Boston and then a side trip to Montreal and then finally back to California.  If you drive interstates 40 or 44 you may encounter Europeans tracing the entire course of Historic Route 66 in rented vans or small campers. Sometimes they rent Harleys and make the trip. Sometimes they are lost and have to ask directions but they are doing it...usually on their own armed with a guidebook. They see more of the country than most Americans ever will. My recently-met Australian went from Australia to Brazil to see the Aussies play in the World Cup and then went on to the US where he was going to spend some time in Las Vegas, where I met him, and then head on to California before going home. The tremendous weight of self-guilt would keep most Americans from enjoying an extended trip. Lots of Americans grudgingly take their vacation time and sit at home because otherwise they might lose the time.

Americans sometimes like to complain and carry on about the socialist tendencies of European societies. Maybe there are some excesses but I can't help but think that we feel a need to pass judgment on those systems for a socialized safety net. It's un-American! Good Heavens...they have socialized medicine!! Poor folks, they must be slackers,  are living off the government or have some kind of tax-based subsidy!! Whatever happened to their devotion to hard work, duty, thrift, self-discipline, and responsibility, we ask. Being judgmental is one of the key components of the Puritan ethic system.  What on earth was Jefferson thinking when he listed "...the pursuit of happiness" as one of our inalienable rights?

Time in a Bottle

Big Horn Mountains 1975

I think everyone has at least one special image or photograph in their head that they pull up into their consciousness and experience it just from memory. Sometimes these may be images that bring back an unpleasant or even horrific experience...an image that they would want to forget if they could.

I hope that most people have another kind of memory image -- one that brings back pleasant remembrances.

In 1973, singer/songwriter Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash at the height of his popularity. He had a huge fan base and several of his songs were released as singles just after his death and became classics of the mid 1970s era.  I was "keeping company" with a young woman who was to become my wife in 1976 and she was a serious Croce fan. She was much more enthusiastic than I was but I enjoyed her enjoying Jim Croce's music because that’s what we did in the 1970s...music was important.

One of those posthumously released songs was "Time in a Bottle". The song was a classic love song of the era. It was probably included in countless weddings.  

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day

Till Eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

In the summer of 1975 I managed to talk this city girl into going on a backpacking trip to the Wyoming wilderness. This was very uncharacteristic of her and friends and relatives were astounded that she would agree to do something like that.  Going off to the mountains on a field trip with a guide and an organized group would be challenging enough but going off with one other person -- on foot -- was crazy talk.

We had a couple weekend trips to get in shape for the walk and check out our equipment. I had a stove that wanted to blow up in my face each time I turned it on.  We decided to take her car, which had a standard transmission, so I had to learn how to use a clutch. We had to waterproof everything and rub silicone into our hiking boots that weighed a ton. We tested out the freeze-dried turkey tetrazzini and granola bars. We packed and repacked but finally ended up carrying about 110 pounds of stuff in our two backpacks including the tent, sleeping bags, foam mattresses, food, water and that stove.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then,

Again, I would spend them with you

We scheduled the trip for late July and finally hit the road, camping along the way. We agreed that we would stay in a real hotel with a real bed after we came out of the mountains but would camp as much as possible.  Half the fun of the trip was just getting there. At one point she decided that she wanted to see a buffalo so we were off on a wild buffalo chase in an overloaded Ford Pinto. We found a small herd but almost left the oil pan at the bottom of a ravine in the process.

We said goodbye to civilization, hoisted our packs and staggered around the parking lot for a while until we eventually disappeared into the Big Horn Mountains and Cloud Peak Wilderness. (We heard that Jimmy Hoffa disappeared that day, as well...) 

Turns out that we had a great time. The mosquitos were bigger and the trout were smaller than we expected. We camped on a breezy ridge overlooking a lake and the wind kept the mosquitos away. We didn't get eaten by bears or mountain lions and had only one serious encounter with a Mule deer. We saw only three people the whole time we were on the trail. 

 If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory

Of how they were answered by you

We came out of the mountains and went on with the trip. We stayed in that hotel. We had a close encounter with a bear at a later campsite. I convinced her to go camping again. We eventually got married and had a wonderful life together for 31 years.

The picture that most often brings this trip to mind is scratched and faded but the memory is bright and clear.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with

It's Good to Have Money

Baroness Lucia von Borosini Batten died at the age of 93 about ten years ago.  She was a local person; a socialite in her heyday. She was a German Baroness who was well off to begin with and always married men with wealth...several times...and she accumulated things. Lots of things. Today, some would call her a hoarder but she was a collector that had a few odd interests. For example, she collected miniature liquor bottles. She also collected rare and expensive paintings, tapestries, books, folk and primitive items, New Mexico colonial furniture, and especially Haitian art long before it was fashionable.

Portal

The Baroness purchased a circa 1875 adobe hacienda in a woodsy area of Albuquerque complete with acreage and water rights access to the acequia system. This was around 1954. She and her second husband renovated and restored the adobe structure and moved in.  The Baroness started filling it.  Her third and final husband decided that they needed a library because her books were taking over the house so they built an adjacent structure in the same territorial style as the adobe house but with a large library space. The library looked like it was original to the property. Shortly after work was started, the husband died so Lucia was left to fill the library and the rest of the house with her collections. Nothing seemed to get thrown out.

When the Baroness died she left the house and contents and a large endowment to the local museum foundation. They had no clue that this was going to happen and had to figure out how to manage the property and care for the collections.  Some of her valuable paintings were hanging on the walls of the open courtyard and zaguan. The property was secured and repaired and work began on cataloging the contents. It is still going on. The UNM library took some of the books. Many of the items were sold during a couple estate sales but some of the art and the collection's better items are in the museum. Much of it remains in the house, which serves as the foundations offices. Some of it is warehoused. When the museum staff entered the house you had to walk sideways through some of the rooms because they were filled with art, furniture, carvings, pottery...everything.

Entry to the zaguan and courtyard

An organization I belong to was fortunate to hold it's annual membership meeting in the Batten library and get a tour of the house. The place does not offer tours and access is restricted. They have a live-in caretaker but the offices are busy during the day.  Photography is not permitted inside or outside of the house or library. These pictures are from the museum's brochure.

I wish there were more of these hidden gems. These old adobe structures are melting away...literally.  There are old churches and a few public buildings that are regulary maintained but the vernacular adobe dwellings will slowly disintegrate if left alone. It take someone with deep pockets to bring them back once they start to melt away.

Beer Week Progress Report -- I Survived

Albuquerque has a Beer Week each year. Who knew? The local brew pubs and trendy night spots host events and tastings. Out-of-town craft breweries "take over" local breweries for a day and serve their stuff. The big event is a beer festival with about 50 breweries and live music and food. Apart from that big event, things are pretty low key.

Several weeks before I went to California I was part of a group of people participating in a "Beer Geek" brewing contest. The contest judging was one of the opening events of Beer Week. There were five competing groups and we all brewed a full grain recipe at Tractor Brewery in Albuquerque on different days. Our beer was a California Blood Orange Pale Ale with a heavy dose of Citra hops in the wort and also Citra dry hopped. Of course, this was not my idea but the group seemed to be happy with it.  Brewing day was mostly people standing around as one or two guys did most of the work....as usual.

We were brewing two batches of our beer so it took almost the whole day. I was mostly interested in the process of full grain brewing at a brewery because I've only been involved in a full grain recipe once before and it was a makeshift, backyard operation. Tractor Brewing has a separate and smallish grain set up that made our task pretty easy.

Last week (actually May 22nd) was the judging...the start of Beer Week.  All five beers were sampled by the five competing groups and other patrons at the brewery. Everyone had a vote...the poll tax was $7.00 but you got a full pint of your favorite of the beers.   The beers included... ours (Blood Orange Pale Ale), a Green Chile IPA (spicy Hatch chiles...and Citra), a Rye IPA (Citra hops, again), a chewy and malty Stout (ABV 8%) and a hoppy Red Ale (included Citra and hopped twice after the initial wort hops).

Guess what...the winner was the malty Stout. The Rye IPA had an aroma of cat piss (sorry Watson) and was very bland otherwise. The Chile IPA was pretty middle of the road for a chile beer and I thought it wasn't bad even though the IBU was 88. The Red Ale was hopped three times but it didn't seem to stand out and the IBU was 65...semi-pleasant but unremarkable. Our Blood Orange Ale seemed very fizzy in the mouth and the oranges and the Citra combined to make a bitter and sour beer that might have passed for a cold and fizzy Belgian sour. The Stout was malty in the nose and taste with a good mouth feel and some fruitiness....it had six kinds of malt and a high alcohol value.  So the results of this flimsy and informal test tend to support my argument that too many hops spoil the brew. I could have enjoyed a pint of the Chile IPA but I'd be happy to have a couple of the stouts. The chile beer ran smack into the local preference for spicy chiles -- one thing Burquenos love more than hops is green chiles and they like them hot.

The winning stout 

Unfortunately, I've been too busy to attend many of the Beer Week events. I missed the big festival and some of the early tastings. They had a couple sour beer tastings at a local liquor store and at one of the brew pubs. Mostly it's about new brews being introduced by local breweries or visiting breweries.




Tuesday (5/27) I went to the Stumbling Steer brewery for a California vs. New Mexico beer event. The California brewery was Sierra Nevada and the New Mexico brewery was Stumbling Steer. Not a worthy match-up. Stumbling Steer is maybe four months old and hasn't made much of an impression yet. I had Sierra Nevada's Kellerweis and nursed it for an hour or so. This is a cellar wheat beer, sort of a farm house beer from Bavaria. It is fermented in open vats like some Belgian beers. The ABV was 4.8% and the IBU was 15 --- about what I guessed. It was a honey/gold cloudy beer. It had banana flavors and aroma but not overly strong. It got better as it warmed up. It was different but not bad...just a style I was not familiar with.

Wednesday 5/28 I stayed home and drank my own home brewed beer, Amber Rye. I haven't really described the beer. I'm coming down to the wire on this batch, it was bottled on November 2nd (Day of the Dead) and I'm running out. The ABV is about 5.3% and the IBU is 44. Hops were Warrior, East Kent Golding and Crystal in that order. I would brew this beer again. It pours dark amber thanks to a little chocolate malt...you could call it a brown ale. The head is pale tan/cream, firm, rocky and cavernous as the bubbles merge. My beer is bottle conditioned so there is some variation in carbonation from one to the next. This one, in a spring-top bottle, sounded like a champagne cork but carbonation was fine.  Aroma is light grassy. Taste starts off malty with a hint of maple sweetness and a little pepper (rye?) and then goes for a long (piney) hoppy finish. Mouth feel is chewy, something that I was striving for because a lot of my beers seem too thin in the mouth. There was a slight chill haze. I think the flavors come out more as it warms a little. This was a salvage brew. The ingredients were purchased a year before I brewed it and were moved twice. My yeast failed in the starter but everything else was great and it is good to know that the grains and extract have a decent shelf life. The hops were in the fridge the whole time as was the yeast.



Thursday 5/29 was Lagunitas Brewing's turn to take over Stumbling Steer. I had two beers. Hop Stoopid is a huge IPA  -- a double or Imperial with an IBU of 100+. I had one at my cousin's so I was trying to remember it while I was drinking. Maybe we are tricked by our memories a little because I expected something a little different. The color was lighter than I remembered. It is all about hops but not as much citrus as I remembered. Maybe a little floral and pine. The mouth feel was good and heavy but, for me, it was a little rough in the throat...maybe my problem. A strong, hoppy beer with not much of a malt presence.  I liked it and could have a couple -- if you drive.



The second Lagunitas beer was Cappuccino Stout. I like coffee and I like beer so I figured this would be right up my alley. This is strong coffee at 9.2% ABV. Color was a pretty, dark ruby brown. The head was not remarkable. I have no idea what the IBU is but it is probably low. Carbonation seemed low. Mouth feel was good, not too much either way. It was malty but not too sweet and it had a long bitter finish. I thought I'd like it more than I did but the coffee eclipsed everything else.



Friday (5/30)  was my last day to do anything for Beer Week. I went to Marble Brewery's west side tap room where they were having a cask ale night. Marble Brewery is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, craft brewery in Albuquerque. They were the brewers who introduced craft brewing and because of that they pretty much defined the taste preferences for folks just coming into craft brewing. When other craft brewers opened up after them they had the dilemma of having to produce beer that resembled Marble Brewery. That's how regional tastes develop. Marble Brewery produces good beer but it is heavily hopped with Citra hops. Most of the beer tastes like a variation on grapefruit juice. They have a good following so that is my opinion.  A voice crying in the wilderness....to coin a phrase.

But I digress... This was my first visit to Marble in about three years.   I walked in and sat at the bar and said I wanted a taste of their most malty beer. That stumped Bob, the bartender. He finally poured me a sample of Marble Red and it was over-hopped and very citrussy. Bob thought for a minute and got me a sample of Oatmeal Stout and Wildflower Wheat.  Both were good, malty beers. The stout was pretty standard but good and better than I expected. The wheat had malt and honey and was refreshing and a good summertime beer. I got a pint of stout.

I struck up a conversation with my neighbor at the bar. He has the same opinion that I have about hops. We hit it off. Turns out this guy is Juan Carlos, the king of Spain...actually he is named after the king of Spain. His mom is from Madrid and named him as sort of a protest against Franco. The "king" just goes by the name of Carlos so no one is confused. He was  drinking a Double White ale that he said was like the wheat. Actually it is a mild Belgian brewed light with coriander and orange peel. I tried it and it was a good, refreshing and light-bodied hazy beer. We had a good conversation about beer and then strayed into a host of other topics. I had a pint of the Wildflower Wheat.  Carlos next opted for a pint - half wheat and half white - and said he liked the mix better than either by themselves.  The cask ale that Marble was featuring turned out to be a beer brewed by a committee. Local brewers joined together to brew the cask ale and each one contributed something. Well, that's an idea, but not a good one. It tasted like a beer brewed by a committee. It's best quality was that it was wet.

I talked Carlos into going over to Kaktus Brewing so we struck out across the desert, heading for Bernalillo.  It is a fairly long drive and Carlos had never been that far north in the local area.   Kaktus was having a jazz night so there was a four piece combo playing out on the patio.  We sat at the bar and introductions were made. Dana, the owner was there and there was about 25 patrons scattered inside and out. Their newest beer is a Czech Dunkel, which I got. Carlos sampled a few and got a pint of Hefe. I got a phone call and ended up talking for about a half hour outside. When I got back, Carlos, who was just bounced out of his second marriage, was scouting out the single women in Kaktus. Kaktus draws a few women because it is quiet and off the beaten path and they also have troupe of belly dancers there every Sunday night...really. Carlos came up short in the date department but said he'd be back. I had a London Porter and Carlos had a second Hefe.  Kaktus has an 80 IBU Jaberwocky IPA but everything else is about 35 IBU or lower. That's not necessarily by design...that's what they have on tap today. Next week it will be different. Kaktus, like Bernalillo, closes early. We were closing the place down at 10 PM.  I headed for home. Carlos was still on the prowl. This was Friday night so he headed off to try his luck somewhere else.

Saturday, May 31st is the end of Beer Week. The last events take place exactly when I have to be at the New Mexico Architectural Foundation's annual meeting. That's OK. This has been fun and I tried a few new things. There is a lot more beer out there. I think I might have a glass of wine.

On Craft Brewing

This past month I just spent a few days with my cousin, Jim, out in the Bay Area.  Jim is a local expert on Bay Area beer. He's experienced and very focused on the Bay Area beer scene. Jim knows a lot about beer in general as a patron or consumer and the history of craft brewing.   I'm a patron as well but I look at things more as a brewer. Since I've moved to the Southwest from the Midwest I'm very conscious, now, of regional styles and tastes in beer. It used to be assumed that one beer fit all...more or less. The American lager was what you got if you wanted a beer.  I remember some variations..."fire brewed" Strohs was one. When Miller Lite came out it was called a Pilsner beer and no one knew what that was.  I recall people smuggling Coors into St. Louis like it was contraband...but why?  The "one fits all" idea is mostly dead thanks to craft brewing. As an example, my 76 year old neighbor had a 50th birthday party for his daughter-in-law. He served Newcastle Brown, Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Tecate, Sol and Dos Eqius. Three Mexican lager beers, an English ale and a California IPA.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm a beer snob. I am a traditionalist. If I have a bias it is that some brewers and many patrons are too enamored with hops and it seems that they think that more is better....sometimes way beyond the standard for the beer style. I think, too often, heavy hopping is a crutch for bad beer. I've talked to several brew-masters about this and they generally agree but they have to brew what sells.


I favor English Ales...which includes the IPA style and I've made several good IPAs. The Bay Area, and even Albuquerque to some extent, is hop crazy, especially for Citra hops.  IPAs, double IPAs and triple IPAs are popular and some of the IBU (bitterness) ratings are in the 130 range. IBU ranges for the standard American lager beer will be around 15 and the range for an American Pale Ale can reach 45. The IBU range for an Imperial IPA (heavily hopped) can go over 100 but most IPAs brewed to the standard will top out at 70-80 IBUs and some are lower.  Hops provide bitterness and aroma but also taste. Much of the Citra hopped beer tastes too much like grapefruit juice.

So - that was the general debate between Jim and me until we got into the Belgian sour beer up at Russian River Brewing. Sour Beer is a traditional style and I've had Sour Beer before but I've never liked it. Belgians have a long history of making innovative beer styles...often with fruit or wild yeast. If I made a beer that tasted like some of the sour beer we had at Russian River I would think that something went horribly wrong in my brewing process. The Belgians strive for that taste, which is achieved by allowing wild yeast or bacteria to intrude (infect?) the beer while brewing. This is yet more proof that there are regional preferences and tastes in beer.  Apparently, in the Bay Area, there are sufficient numbers of brewery patrons who have acquired a taste for Sour Beer because it is available at local breweries. This week was "Beer Week" in Albuquerque and I noticed two out of maybe fifty events offer Sour Beer tasting.


I like that most of the up and coming beers are ales. Some people make a strict distinction between ale and lager and get huffy if you call an ale "beer".  When I brew I favor ale styles and never do a lager. I can't do lagers because I don't have the equipment and there is so much I can do with ales I don't care go the lager route. I'm an extract brewer because life is too short to do a full grain recipe. I'm a slow and careful brewer as it is and an all grain recipe would add hours to the process. My last beer was a Amber Rye Ale and I will break out of my mold a little on my next beer and do a Kolsch but not with much of a cold storage....it's already late May and I'm thirsty.

"The Brewer's Lament"

Your beer conforms to the sour persuasion.

It seems so wrong on the few occasions

that I've given it my full attention.

If I brewed a batch that took on that taste

I'd think my effort had all gone to waste.

So what is the deal with regional beer?

There's Belgian and Baltic and Irish but

Mexican beer has an Austrian root.

So drink what you will, I won't call it swill.

Don't over think it - pour it and drink it.

Stay tuned...it's Beer Week.

The First Woods

Isn't it funny how memories come flooding back? Sometimes a smell or a taste or maybe a visual cue will open the flood gates. I had the occasion to spend the better part of a week reconnecting with several old friends. These were characters from my past and I hadn't spent time with them for several years. There are different types of friends. The 'facebook friend' is often someone you have never actually met face-to-face.  There  are also 'old 'friends and 'life-long' friends.

One life-long friend, a kid I first met in second grade, has been on my mind for a while even though I haven't seen him in almost twenty years. We have been friends for almost 60 years. Our own kids have grown up and we are looking at empty nests and a down-sized life in retirement. He lives in Silicon Valley. I live on the slope above the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico.  Those two places are pretty far apart in many ways.

Our time together was a little awkward at first. I complained about the traffic and the stressful and irrational life that folks lead in the Bay Area. He related, for the third time, an unpleasant experience he had travelling in New Mexico about fifteen years ago. We had a couple beers and burgers at a roadside restaurant and drove over the coastal ranges and along Highway 1. We stopped at a few places. We saw a Gray Whale and her calf swimming among the rocks near Santa Cruz. Many of our former experiences involved time spent in cars together and the afternoon drive seemed natural. It was a pleasant time but a little stiff.

Later that evening we talked more and watched a couple music DVDs of aging rock stars that we liked back in the 1970s. His wife was part of the conversation so we were trying to explain and elaborate on our mutual experiences. We talked of other mutual friends we had. We actually lived on the same dorm floor in college so we knew a bunch of people. We had a few small town college adventures and not all of them involved wheels or alcohol. Slowly the years started to peel away.

Finally we were talking about high school and grade school and cub scouts. Or school burned down in second grade so we spent three years huddled in make-shift classrooms in church basements. It was tough on the kids but maybe tougher on the teachers. Then we went on to stories about "the old neighborhood". We had the run of the place in ways that today's kids will never know. Back then it was a semi-rural suburban area and only sparsely developed. Little league games were played in an old wheat field. We were all so cool with little wheat stalks hanging out of out mouths. We had wars throwing Osage Oranges at each other. They looked soft but hurt like hell if you got hit. He used the term "first woods" at one point to relate a story. We had a "first" woods and a "second" woods but that term probably hasn't been spoken in fifty years and it just popped out of his mouth as if he used it every day. We were both surprised -- me to hear it again and him to have spoken it. That opened the flood gate and all sorts of stories poured out. Tales of running from snakes and chasing rabbits in the cornfield. We remembered the old abandoned trolley line that was unused since the 1904 World's Fair. We recounted our adventures in the creek that flowed through the Second Woods that was once called Dead Horse Creek -- what a great name for our adventures back in the 1950s.  We dug a deep "fox hole" out in the First Woods and used it as sort of a club house. It was camouflaged so no one would see it unless they knew it was there. My brother caught pleurisy from the dampness and a telephone lineman fell into the fox hole so we had to fill it in. We talked for hours and started up again the next day on yet another short road trip. We had most of it covered by the time my visit was over. We remembered a few things differently but most of it seemed to be right.

This was the tail-end of a trip to the Bay Area for a wedding of another old friend...his fourth. That went well. Then I spent a couple days with my cousin on his houseboat and we relived family history and shared stories and remembrances and drank some beer. Family, friends and remembrances are common and basic but are one of our most prized and cherished possessions. The time we spend together is a precious gift.

Sociopaths in Power?

Here's an idea....not mine, but worth considering...a blog post by Tom Fleming on his Red Room blog.   Shared April 10, 2014. He has a book: The President's Mortician

How Republican Sociopaths Have Ruined America

BLOG POST BY TIM FLEMING - APR.10.2014 - 2:21 PM

1

Much of what ails society today is the proliferation of sociopaths.  I’m not just talking about hardened criminals either; sociopaths are everywhere, in all walks of life.  In fact, the traits they possess are the very traits which impel one to succeed and rise to positions of power in a capitalistic society.  CEOs, Wall Street billionaires, politicians, military chiefs, intelligence operatives, and  right-wing talking heads are among those who have used their sociopathological personality disorders to rule America.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could identify a sociopath before he/she comes to power?  Think of how much better our lives and our country would be if only we knew who the conscienceless bastards really were before we voted for them, came under their employ, listened to their cons, fell prey to their manipulation.  The problem is, they are not easily identified because they wear masks.  They try to fit in by mimicking normal behavior in public.  Some are even charming.  They seduce us with their outward appearance of normalcy, but inside they are godless devils bent on perverting the greater good for their own means.

In the past 35 years America has slowly been transformed from a nation of common purpose  to a nation of the rich, by wealthy, and for the sociopathic few.  That’s because  many of the people in power (mostly Republicans) have been crass opportunists concerned with self- advancement  at the expense of the greater good.  In the age of Reagan, the self-centeredness was heightened to a virtue.  The 1980s gave rise to a rogue’s gallery of Gordon Gekkos and their “greed is good” philosophy.  It wasn’t just Reagan and his policies though, it was the sociopaths he ushered into public service—the Bushes, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Oliver North, William Casey  and a whole band of despicable criminals. The country became more selfish, less communal, and more cynical.  It was then that we started letting the Almighty buck rule all facets of American life.  The more money you had, the more admired you were.  Fuck generosity and compassion for the less fortunate. 

Since then, sociopaths have started illicit wars, drained the national treasury, raped Mother Nature, ruined the climate, and given rise to Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, et al.  There seem to be more sociopaths than human beings in positions of power.  Maybe that was the whole point.  Now the Extreme Court (uh..er…Supreme Court) has gotten in on the act, by making it easier for sociopathic billionaires to control (read subvert) the democratic process.  Smarmy Vegas casino operators (like Shel Adelson) and fascist industrialists (like the Koch brothers) have far more say in how our government operates than 99% of us.

As a public service then, I am herewith giving you tips on how to spot a sociopath.  If you recognize them in someone, alert authorities and resist the urge to succumb to their wiles.

Traits of a Sociopath (based on the work of psychologists Robert Hare):  While some experts believe that sociopathy has a genetic origin, Hare believed that a sociopath’s behavior “is shaped by social forces and is the result of a dysfunctional environment.”  Hare formed a list of traits common to sociopaths.  Here are the most prevalent:

--Sociopaths are manipulative and very skilled at taking advantage of the good intentions of others .  Allen Dulles, former CIA chief, is a good example.  He was appointed by President Eisenhower in 1953 after promising Ike that the CIA could avoid WWIII by overthrowing socialist and communist countries around the globe via bloodless coups.  Eisenhower, a decent man shaken by the horrors of the second World War, turned over foreign policy to Allen and his brother Foster.  The Dulles brothers, sociopaths of the worst kind, turned America into quasi-fascist Orwellian state by using their enormous power to control the media, murder innocent citizens, evoke hatred of America around the globe, and cover up the assassination of JFK.  All the while, the Dulleses were enriching themselves and their corporate partners—the Forbeses, the Browns, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, the Hunts—the oldest, richest families in the country.  And Kennedy haters all.

--They have a grandiose sense of self; they think they are better than everyone else, and if they have more money or power than others they use this to their constant advantage.  Moreover, the fact that a sociopath may be wealthier than others or in a position of power over others merely confirms in the sociopath’s mind that he/she is better than others.  In the modern age, who feels more entitled than the richest among us?  The Koch brothers, desperately trying to buy the government, runs roughshod over the poor, the elderly, minorities, and social safety nets.  They care only their own profits.  We should have carved a big “S” in their foreheads at birth, just as Brad Pitt marked Christoph Waltz with a swastika in “Inglourious Basterds.”  Our lives would be much better if we knew whom we were dealing with upfront. 

--They are pathological liars; when they are committing acts that harm the greater good of society, they never tell the truth, even if they are caught in a lie.  To this day, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and their lackeys still deny that the Iraq war was about oil, despite all evidence to the contrary.

--They have no remorse or guilt, regardless of how heinous their actions are.  When recently asked if he would do anything differently, if he had to do it all over again, Cheney responded, “No.”

--They lack empathy and are callous in their treatment of others.  Mitt Romney dismissed 47% of the country with one glib comment. 

--They are contemptuous of those who seek to understand them.  One of Allen Dulles’s protégés, Frank Wisner, head of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird in the 1950s, once famously bragged, “The press claims to be free and open in America.  But they are nothing but my personal puppets.  I can pull any string I want and they will follow along.”

--They do not perceive that anything is wrong with them.  Even if they are proven wrong, and even if all about them acknowledge their wrongdoing, the sociopath will never admit to wrongdoing.  See Dick Cheney quote above.

--They are authoritarians; in many cases, they were raised in authoritarian homes where the appearance of uniformity and conformity far outweighed love, compassion, empathy, and charity as laudable qualities.  Henry Kissinger once said of Richard Nixon (a raging sociopath), “Imagine what he could have been if anyone had ever loved him.”

--They are secretive; at all costs they strive to keep their true behaviors and thoughts hidden.  Allen and Foster Dulles, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Richard Nixon, and Oliver North were nothing if not secretive.

--They are paranoid.  Can you imagine anyone more paranoid than Dick Nixon?

--They diligently present a “normal” outward appearance when engaging others.  This is what confounds us about all sociopaths.  Usually we don’t unmask them until it is too late.

--They experience pleasure from enslaving their victims.  And all people they encounter are potential victims, even loved ones.  “Loved ones” is a misnomer, because sociopaths are incapable of love.  Again, Dick Cheney is the perfect example of someone who seemed to derive pleasure from inflicting pain.  Witness the detainees at Guantanamo.  Cheney does not consider what he did torture, yet a 600-page nonpartisan report says he did exactly that.

--When they collaborate, they feed off one another, and their actions become even more diabolical.  No better example of this than the Cheney-Rumsfeld partnerships during the two Bush presidencies.

 http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming/dp/098882907X