REAL "Steam Punk!"

The 1923 reproduction of the 1829 Stephenson "Rocket." for the film "Our Hospitality."
Uncovered/discovered by my ol' SMHS runnin' buddy, Mike Lord.

Eulogy For Hanna-Stella

(Albuqueruqe, May 5, 2014):A Tail for the Dogs: Farewell, Hanna Stella

Sad to report, I think it's time to do 'the right thing' for Hanna Stella. This foto was made 6 or 7 years ago. She's been with me since 2003. You can see how robust she was. But she's a shadow of that now. She's not eating, and has not taken nourishment in any noticeable quantities for several days. She's barely drinking any water. Her excretions are fluid, and it appears bloody. She was so weak this morning I had to lift her onto her hind-quarters, and she has advanced rheumatism in the spine, so she walks only with difficulty. There's none of her former spring there. Her coat's gotten dull, too.

I don't know her exact age as, when she literally followed me home 11 years ago, she was already an adult. Had been spayed, in fact. I was walking other dogs (Mischief and Dixie) along the acequia when Hanna strolled up with about 6 feet of clearly chewed-through of stout, manila rope around her neck and trailing along behind her, while we were crossing a busy thoroughfare (Griegos NW). She met no resistance from the other two when she attached herself to us and followed along back to the casita/perrara.

No leash, no tag, no chip. I tried to find her people, or to find her a home, neither successfully. There's an old adage I've heard all my life: Don't have more dogs than you have hands. She was a dog too far, as it turned out.

Hannah-Stella, I called her: black as pitch, head to toe to tip of tail. She's a Lab mix, with hound proportions. She loved to cavort; she seemed to dance, as she sprang and spun when the dinner pan showed up.

She was not at first aggressive, but eventually she and Dixiebelle (foto#2) didn't get along. I think it's because Hanna grew very possessive of me, but Dixie was "senior" dog. They battled any time they happened to not be separated. Between them, they inflicted a couple dozen puncture wounds to my hands and lower arms. When Dix passed, Hanna transferred her hostility, jealousy and animosity toward Budreaux, the Pink-Nosed-Pittie (see last foto). I had to separate them, too, though not with the loss of so much blood.

She was a very loving girl, though reserved. She didn't seem to need to be close all the time. I named "Walled-In Pond" for her. I had to fence my fish-pond in to keep her out, because she leapt in to chase the fish, if I didn't keep her out. She was assiduous in her subsequent "job": To patrol the edge pond and prevent the escape of any of the fish. She was serious about it, and none ever escaped past her that I know of...

I've called the Vet. She'll be here tomorrow. Hanna's not in pain, or even serious discomfort, that I can tell. But they have their ways of telling you when it's time. And it is.

When consoling others in similar straits, I always refer them to Robinson Jeffer's masterful, haunting elegy: The House Dog's Grave.  Here it is:


The House Dog’s Grave 
(Haig, an English bulldog)

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the nights through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read- and I fear often grieving for me-
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dears, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided….
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.
Robinson Jeffers, 1941

(The Next Day) Yer ol' Perfesser is quite touched and moved by the out-pouring of sympathy from some several hundred of you on the news that I have had to send my good, ol' grrrl- dog, Hanna-Stella, dancing queen of the night, on ahead. Her systems all seem to have failed simultaneously, and she went from robust, vibrant health to so completely debilitated a state, in about a month, so it seemed a kindness, and a necessity to let her go..

Again: I cannot say thank you enough to all those who sent good wishes and sympathies. Yer a great bunch!
Really! No shit...

Do You Hit Your Kids?

 

Woody's intrigued by the sentiment expressed here.
When people say "I was spanked/hit as a kid, and I turned out alright, I wanna ask: Compared to what? How do you know?
There seems to be the implication that, unless the "memerist' had been beaten as a child, he (presumably) would NOT have developed the "psychological condition known as 'respect for others'."
Does does it mean that if "your" parents had NOT beaten "you, you'd" now have NO 'respect' for others?
I don't know how "I turned out," or even if I did, but I was beaten when I was young. A lot.
My mother laid into me at every opportunity, hard, with her open hand to my face, mainly. Slaps. Any occasion on which I disappointed expectations or did any damage to anything, I caught hell for it, got slapped.
I got slapped around if I came home with grass-stains on my pants. I got slapped around if I broke a plate. I got slapped around for bad grades. I got slapped around for breaking a tooth (which were ALL things I got slapped around for).
I made a game of it, eventually.
I had no way to not be struck, if the mood took her, so I made it a point, eventually, to take it without showing any emotion. Stoically.
She required me to stand and take it. I couldn't raise a hand to deflect a blow. I had to just endure it.
This went on for about 8 years, starting right after I recovered from polio, and continuing until I was old enough to spend most of my life away from the house, at age 16 or so.
I know now she was driven effectively crazy by the effects of the steroids she was taking for a serious, debilitating medical condition. It was prednisone, which now has a bad reputation, but then was in wide use. Knowing about it LATER made my eventually being able to understand easier, but it had no effect on my experience at the time.
She could wail on me with all the crazed ferocity she could muster, and I took it, without so much as a flinch or a whimper. I would NOT weep.
It took a long time to get past that one.
And, though I cared for her carefully and lovingly as she was dying, I didn't weep at her death, either.

This Be the Verse, by Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, yer mum and dad.
They do not mean to, but they do.
They take all the faults they had,
And add some special, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By folks on old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were sloppy stern
And half at one another's throats.

Life hands on misery to man;
It deepens like the ocean's shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Don't Pray For Me: A brief phenomenology

---Prayer, as with any sort of meditative act, is not engaged in for the benefit of any external object or person, izzit?
---Zen meditation, as I understand it, is to empty oneself of all external attachments.
---"Prayer," the way it's commonly understood by most Murkins, involves begging for some sort of theosophical interference or indulgence
---Prayer the way monks and so forth do it is a kind of mantric chant which induces endorphins and calms their souls.
---Right now, I don't need any of that. And I appreciate the thought.
---But don't pray for me.
---Buy me a beer. Roll me a joint. Get us some burgers. Spot me $50. Gimme a ride to the welfare office...
---That'd be GREAT! Thanks...

In The Vecinidad..."Black Mesa, San Ildefonso Pueblo"

Image made by Kent Hansen, the Second of February, 2014, from his house in La Mesilla NM.
The mammoth object in the distance is known locally as "Black Mesa." It is on and is sacred to the people of San Ildefonso pueblo. In their legends, it is the only earthly remains of an Ogre which preyed on the people until the "Sacred Twins" were born, who were devoured by the Ogre, but killed it from within. It is the Ogre's black heart, still decaying...Fruitful for all sorts of hermeneutics. It is where the famed potters of the pueblo mine the clay for their distinctive, black pottery. Here's the link.
There is a geological term of the formation which I once knew, but have forgotten and cannot find.
This vista was obstructed from my family's place in Nambe, but is only about 10 miles, as the raven rambles, and it's shape is part of my geographical DNA.

The Happy Couple, My Parents, On The Day of Their Wedding: Jan 31, 1943

Ladies and Gentlemen, the happy couple: Ensign John O. ("Jack") Konopak and his bride, the former Joan Pace. She passed in 2000, he in 2001. Today would be their 71st Anniversary. R.I.P. 

These were my folks on their wedding day, waiting for a train to Santa Fe: Jan 31, 1943. Ensign John O. ("Jack") Konopak and his new bride, Joan (Pace, until a few hours before). He was on his way to his ship, the USS Litchfield, home-ported in Pearl Harbor. She would accompany him as far as San Francisco. While he was gone, she finished her bachelors degree at the University of Chicago. They had full, busy lives. Grand kids, and job fulfillment. Momma passed in 2000, Daddy in 2001. Cigarettes killed them both. Their kids (4) and their friends (hundreds) miss 'em both... (Coincidentally, today is also the 20th Anniversary of my quitting tobacco, altogether.)

Throw-back Thursday: Jauary 9, 2014

The Konopak sibs, circa 1986, at Pop's retirement. From the left: Pete, Joanie, Cary, and moi...

The Konopak Family, Nambe homestead, circa 1962. From the left: Joanie, Pete, Cary, me, Mom and Pop...