Loren Eiseley

The nature of literacy, the history of reading, the process by which books become sacred texts -- these are areas which we'll visit today. It is my hope that this will deepen our understanding of the need to expand the context within which we study the book if we are going to maximize our harvest of meanings and values.

It is the scorched shoulder blade of a hare

or a beaver;

the cracks made by the fire are like palm prints

over the surface of the bone

pointing the way to tomorrow's hunting;

a charred cluster of lines

marks a rockfall up country and a herd of caribou,

--things to be seen on the morrow

inscribed here by the fire.

This cosmos of a little band of hunting Indians

has meaning.

Every rock, every stream, every animal

is accounted for

and the deep underlying

rhythm of things

can inscribe the message of the forest

on the cracked bone of a hare.

It is true that instructions for getting one's food,

for hunting,

might seem the sole issue here;

but the shaman's reading

extrapolated

becomes mathematics and systems analysis

in the modern state.

I envy this man sitting by his fire.

His magic is not small, he is reading

something permanently bound into his universe

that he can decipher,

a code that can be read by the informed seer,

a voice from the universe reassuring for man,

hungry, enfeebled,

but knowing

there is a message to be read and one can find it

any time in the fire.

The world is held together

and man has his place:

that is the message; the food comes after and is acceptable.

Passing beyond the asteroids toward Saturn,

watched by radio telescopes and directed by the earth's great computers,

doomed to leave the solar system

and wander the far void of the galaxy,

our latest space probe whispers its messages among the stars.

A great triumph of the intellect, surely, but the whispers are only of our own devising.

They are lost

in infinitude and vanish

leaving us no equivalent of what the shaman

quietly accepts by the fire,

aiding himself, perhaps, in understanding

by a small song and the tapping of a skin drum.

He knows about the daily renewing of a pact with man;

we hear nothing

except the electrons beamed back to us

by our fragile probe.

Quite frankly, I do not know how to judge this matter,

sitting here in my study with my books and my computer,

but I believe I envy him,

the wrinkled old shaman

summoning his inner one for guidance,

with a little offering of tobacco leaves.

Keeping the motor idling

__________

KEEPING THE MOTOR IDLING

I relate well to the comment made by Barbara Johnson: "Patience
is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping
your gears." I know that if I can keep the motor idling, it will
be ready to go when I need it.

A kindergarten teacher practiced keeping her motor idling. A
story has it that she was helping one of her students put his
snow boots on. He asked for help and she could see why. With her
pulling and him pushing, they finally succeeded and she had by
now worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy
said, "They're on the wrong feet."

She looked and, sure enough, they were. It wasn't any easier
pulling the boots off, and then she had to wrestle the stubborn
boots on again.

Just as she finished lacing them he announced, "These aren't my
boots." She bit her tongue to keep from screaming, "Why didn't
you say so?"

Once again she struggled to pull off the ill-fitting boots. He
then calmly added, "They're my brother's boots. My mom made me
wear them." She began to realize how close she was to stripping
her gears as she struggled with the boots yet again.

When they were finally laced, she said, "Now, where are your
mittens?"

"I stuffed them in the toes of my boots," he said.

She may have been the same teacher who once commented about a
particularly difficult child in her class, "Not only is he my
worst behaved child this year, but he also has a perfect
attendance record.

A Dutch proverb observes, "A handful of patience is worth more
than a bushel of brains." I may never have to worry about having
a bushel of brains, but I can sometimes muster a handful of
patience. And that should be enough.

-- Steve Goodier

Fractal Art

The land of me

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.

We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.
;
We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me , Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me , Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me , Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T ,
And Oprah couldn't talk, yet, in the Land That Made Me , Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me , Me.

We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson, and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was a virgin in the Land That Made Me , Me.

We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they weren't grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed in the Land That Made Me , Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me , Me.

Buicks came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me , Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms in the Land That Made Me , Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me , Me.

But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.

They send us invitations to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me , Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me , Me.

For those of you too young to remember Bob Hope, ask your Grandparents!!! And thanks for the memories............






I HOPE THIS WILL PUT A SMILE ON YOUR FACE

AND IN YOUR HEART.
Tribute to a man who DID make a difference:





May 29, 1903 - July 27, 2003

ON TURNING 70 "You still chase women, but only downhill".

ON TURNING 80 "That's the time of your life when even your birthday suit needs pressing."

ON TURNING 90 "You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake."

ON TURNING 100 " I don't feel old. In fact I don't feel anything until noon . Then it's time for my nap."

ON GIVING UP HIS EARLY CAREER, BOXING "I ruined my hands in the ring ... the referee kept stepping on them."

ON NEVER WINNING AN OSCAR "Welcome to the Academy Awards or, as it's called at my home, 'Passover'."

ON GOLF "Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees."


ON PRESIDENTS " I have performed for 12 presidents and entertained only six."

ON WHY HE CHOSE SHOWBIZ FOR HIS CAREER " When I was born, the doctor said to my mother, 'Congratulations. You have an eight-pound ham'."

ON RECEIVING THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL "I feel very humble, but I think I have the strength of character to fight it."

ON HIS FAMILY'S EARLY POVERTY "Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother."

ON HIS SIX BROTHERS "That's how I learned to dance. Waiting for the bathroom."

ON HIS EARLY FAILURES " I would not have had anything to eat if it wasn't for the stuff the audience threw at me."

ON GOING TO HEAVEN "I've done benefits for ALL religions. I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality."







GOD BLESS AMERICA

Give me a sense of humor. Lord,

Give me the grace to see a joke,

To get some humor out of life,

And pass it on to other folks.