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This then the notion I confess,
A pure devotion have no less:
What lips to lips in soft caress,
Address in kind, I too profess,
And offer mine up to thy "bess",
To that which grants sweet Heaven, yes!
I penned this way back in 1985, but somehow forgot to include it in my little blog.
...with Birdie or, as she is better known on social media, Birdie Roy (Trish Keefer). To celebrate her birthday, I was asked to treat her to the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), which I did, and happily so.
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| Photo by Trish Keefer, who herself was actually in a James Bond flick, Vic! |
Continued from Part 1...
Running off the temporary splice, all appears to be okay. The flow of electricity has been constant since the patch was installed. Till the field crews show up this will have to suffice.
Then around 2pm I lose power at the laptop. Strange, three quarters of the house is down but the kitchen and livingroom remain supplied'. Yvette and I summon PG&E again.
Joe returns at 2:30. The underground line to 1379 Northwood Drive (our nextdoor neighbor) is out, but the temporary splice is still drawing limited energy for 1385 (our residence). Alfred Pulonco, our neighbor, now totally without electricity, has also contacted PG&E.
Joe decides to leave the splice in place so that 1385 will not be completely in the dark. He does show me the master power switch used to shut the meter down should any major disruption occur. A second step-up in the case will bring the crews tonight.
4:30pm sees Joe depart and 4:55pm has Ken of JB's High Voltage arrive. He's here to mark the street and to assure Yvette and I of the ETA of the crews (both contactors to PG&E). They are about an hour to an hour and a half away and enroute from their prior job.
Ken takes off at six.
Minutes later, a lone, non-company truck drives up and is joined by a public works vehicle from the City of Fairfield. The two occupants meet at the junction box across the street and after a little discussion the public worker leaves. The time is 6:15pm
7:15pm: At long last, the field crew arrives to join that lone occupant of the truck. Holy moly, they are many! There must be no less than five possibly six big work trucks, representing JB's High Voltage, Inc. and Henkels & McCoy West LLC. The vehicles disgorge around ten crewmembers. (One even brings his five children with him!)
That mystery man? It turns out, he's the onsite representative from PG&E, He spoke little and smelled a great deal of cigarettes (though I never saw him light up once the entire night). Hmm.
The crew gets to work, locating the trouble almost immediately. It's under a tiny rose bush in our front yard and near to the side fence and mailboxes shared by our neighbor and we. Placing the dug up plant in a wheel barrel, the workers use high pressure water nozzles to spray open a four foot hole in the dirt which they suction using a high power vacuum aboard their big bruiser of a truck.
I mingle among the workers with their permission taking photos and videos of the absorbing field repair.
Dominic of Henkels & McCoy West (he's the one who brought his kids with him) uses my camera to take a close-up for me of the particular damage the crews hove found.
He explains the "burnout" they uncovered. It was all due to a bad splice the construction people made when they hooked up both 1379 and 1385 Northwood Drive to the main, PG&E underground, electrical line some thirty-three or more years ago! The resultant short, decades later, took out twelve to eighteen inches of electrical line. Gone completely was the section!
Whoever the developer hired back in the nineties to do the hook-up, has, according to Dominic, so far resulted in forty or so such burnouts in the Cordelia Hills home development of which we are a part. it's almost endemic to our community. Luckily for us, the neither the front tree or the the fence was the cause for the burnout. Though early on they were both under suspicion, neither will be impacted.
by 9:15 pm the personnel expertly replace and hook the cables, fully restoring electric power to both homes. "Lovingly" they replant the tiny bush and with that, all is done.
The only snag to occur at all was a tree limb that snapped across the street having accidentally latched onto one of the departing trucks. The branch had to be sawed off and discarded.
Photos and videos:
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| The crews acted like the job was one big get-together! |
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| About twelve to eighteen inches of braided wire are completely gone! Photo courtesy of Dominic |
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| A souvenir clip of one of the burnt-out electrical lines. |
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| It only two the crew two brief hours to do the entire job and restore Christmas cheer. |
The following day, Joe came out once more to close out the work order the crews, the PG&E guy, or PG&E itself, forgot.
I will try to keep this concise.
Around three in the morning, Yvette awakens to the sound of the office cam security trying to boot. When she turns on the room lights, she discovers they are flickering. Thinking it a momentary issue, she returns back to bed and sleep.
At 5:55am I awake and think to use my iPad tablet. It cannot get internet. I go to the living room and find Alexa constantly cycling. When I turn on the lights, they are at reduced power and flickering. The kitchen refrigerator is turning on and off. I check the household electrical panel but the circuit breakers seem perfectly fine.
At 6;25am I put in a call to PG&E. They remotely test the meter and though there is power to to the vicinity, my meter is dead.
Joe arrives at 7:25am. I note to him that though our outside meter appears off, the next door neighbor's meter shows no such sign. Indeed, Joe finds our address receiving barely any juice and ratchets up the case calling in for a repair crew as he suspects a damaged underground line leading anywhere from the PG&E junction box across the street to our house. Other properties seem unaffected.
Finishing his paperwork, Joe leaves at 9:30am.
Yvette is well up by now.
10:20am sees the arrival of Jerry. As the field crews are currently tackling other emergencies, Jerry decides to place a temporary splice from the nextdoor meter to ours so that we will have a steady current. I text our neighbor to apprise him.
Temporary power is restored by 10:58am and Jerry leaves with our thanks in tow.
End of Part 1
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| The PG&E splice up close. |
In 1991, before the start of the Fall semester, I drew up a proposal for my year-long student project: to trace out the sun's analemma by following the shadows cast upon the SFAI student quad. Although Paul Kos, my teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute, very much liked the idea I proffered, he proposed another project of his own: to learn Spanish together with him. My idea was quashed as we set out to learn Spanish after hours, and I never did get to perform the analemma.
Here below is that very artpiece submission I put forward to Paul.*
As I was coming up with the idea, I thought surely the notion of recording the shadow must have occurred to others, but I never saw such a timelapse captured.
It would be that way for a great while.
Finally, in 2024, nearly thirty-three years later, someone, a certain Nick Wright of Falcon, Colorado took note of his driveway shadow as taken by his security camera. Voila! On November 29th, 2024 NASA's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) posted Wright's inverted "Driveway Analemma" on their YouTube Channel.
Again, the decades long wait is not to suggest that no one else had ever thought to document the aforementioned shadows before me or since. I merely say, that in my case, it took that long at last see it so recorded by another.
*ADDENDUM: Just to make the original 1991 proposal a little easier to visually follow, I added in some shading. Here it is with the building shadows in place.
My final view from the San Francisco residence, high on a hill, of Karl-Heinz Teuber, who at eighty seven, departed this life just ten days ago. It is hard at the moment to think him really gone, and not merely abroad.
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| The northwest view from apartment 507, The Crestview, 1980 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 |
This is a re-edit of the very last montage I made for Karl, celebrating his life. That was in 2020. With a new beginning and conclusion to the video to mark the sad occasion of his passing, I share this work anew. Karl's large life was a colorful one, and I am truly grieved, along with others, to see him go. His friends were many.
As always the music of Mozart was Karl's mainstay.
In memory of Karl-Heinz Teuber (Tuesday, February 2, 1937 ~ Thursday, November 14, 2024) seen here, in his film debut, playing the wig salesperson opposite Tom Hulce’s Mozart in the iconic “three heads” scene* from ‘Amadeus’ (1984).
Interestingly, on set Karl in his true capacity, was in fact, the assistant hair and makeup person for the production (his “bending hair” helping to snag the Academy Award-sweeping feature yet another win). This bit part, apropos to Karl’s then profession, was director Milo’s Forman’s onscreen reward to Karl for all his intensive labor.
Having earned it, Karl could rightly take pride, ‘Amadeus’arguably being the quintessential exploit crowning his stellar career.** The role was an honor.
And for nearly four decades, this notable person was also an intimate acquaintance of mine till we eventually went our separate ways. Nevertheless, I am profoundly surprised and sadden by the news of my former friend’s unfortunate and untimely demise .
That said, he has at last attained his one, driving desire and become, in effect, a star - a luminary now solely comprised of light, shadow, and sound, removed and remote, forever reaching down to us from the past - the final, heavenly curtain having lowered on his person, his vocation, and calling.
Karl was eighty seven.
Rest in Peace.
*Scene 44
**Karl often use to speak of ‘Amadeus’ “living on” for him long after he was gone, taking comfort in that knowledge and prospect. His would be a celluloid immortality, Karl assured himself.
That there now exists, only the celluloid memory, I for one, find it bitter at best; a cold comfort and solace alas.
This sentiment I like.
Guest Antoinette Lee's concluding remark from Olayemi Olurin's 'Olay and Friends'.
With only three to go until the 2024 Presidential Election as of this post, and the grave, growing concerns of a distinct way to yet "game the system" and steal the vote, I decided to update my graphic. Though the whole world is in turmoil, there is a mounting constitutional concern over the immediate future of the United States.
The drama may not end until the crucial date of December 11th, as spelled out by yesterday's news interview of The Nation's Justice Correspondent, Elie Mystal by Amy Goodman of 'Democracy Now!' It all has to do with former president Donald Trump, and the "little secret" he has with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, likely forcing the Twelfth Amendment to come into play. Through a deliberate series of delays in certifying the vote, Trump and Johnson can subvert the Electoral College's process calling on a “contingent election” by the house, to snatch the election from Vice President Kamala Harris’ grasp via the said amendment should she “win”.
To quote Mystal: "We in a constitutional crisis now, bro!"
For details, follow the link below:
ADDENDUM
It is now post election, Trump has won the presidency, the senate, and I believe the house. The court is already stacked as the country shifts hard to the right. Fewer people overall voted, with a decline on both sides. However, the number of disaffected voters was by far higher on the Democratic side. The tunnel we’s about to enter… well, it’s quite possible I ain’t gonna live long to see light at the other side. That’s depressing. Still, like I just heard Antoinette Lee state on ‘Olay and Friends’ YouTube cast, defiant in the face of racism and the coming fascist state, “If you’re gonna shoot me… I ain’t gonna be on my knees - ever.”
Just a little visual reminder I created for Facebook regarding tonight's upcoming time change. The clip is from the Marx Brothers' 'A Night at the Opera' (1935), the conclusion of the famous "stateroom scene". The unsuspecting actress is of course, Margaret Dumont.
;-)
"Wringing your hands won't help!" blurted the less than sympathetic listener to my friend's troubled concerns about our darkening geopolitical circumstances. Obviously - oblivious to real point at hand (no pun intended).
Anyway, with the nail-biting, presidential election just days away, that got me thinking and my creative juices flowing. With a twisted touch of wit, here was my comeback.
It won't help, but what the hey, it can't hurt!
;-)
Finally, a clear night and a clear shot at the comet!
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| Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan ATLAS) |
At the same time I was snapping my shot, Adam Block, a serious astrophotographer, was taking theirs. (See the difference below.)
%20by%20Adam%20Block.jpg) |
| Photo Credit: Adam Block |
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I thought to backdate this post. Unfortunately Blogger doesn't go back any further than January 1st, 1970, and this picture was taken well before then.
Sunday, January 21st, 1962, Genie, my twin, awakens everyone in the house, excitedly yelling "Frost! Frost!"
She had never seen actual snow.
Yet there it was, everywhere on the roofs, the parked cars, and hospital grounds across the street. In San Francisco, at the Eastern edge of the Inner Mission District, this was an extreme rarity! Indeed, one can go decades without sight of a single falling flake.* Therefore, the white phenomena just wasn't in our childhood lexicon, though we had already known of it through popular media and the personal accounts of others.
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| San Francisco General Hospital, Sunday, January 21, 1962 |
Most of the fall had melted by the mid to late morning, but not before we could gather enough of the material to mold and make a modest snowman.
However, my biggest unfamiliarity was in how to put together a snowball. Packing one too tight, I unintentionally turned the innocent projectile into an ice-ball, beaning of my middle sister upside her head! Angie could have murdered me!
The sunny afternoon later saw nary a trace left of the night's snowfall. Thankfully, our dad had slide film available and at the ready to record the exceptional event.
Above Photos Credit: Manuel Rubio Sanchez (our dad)
*Speaking of decades, Sunday, December 11, 1932: nineteen years before our family took up residence at 988 Potrero Avenue, and thirty years before our frosty encounter, it had last snowed on Potrero and 22nd!
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| Snowman at Potrero Avenue and 22nd Street (1932) |
Wednesday, February 13, 1991, 2PM: I stepped out of 988 onto Potrero, only to be struck in the face by a gentle snowflake drifting down from a passing cloud, the other flakes melting upon contact with the sun-warmed sidewalk.
Now, I could have gone back into the house, to get my camera from upstairs, but that would have prevented my seeing the remaining snowflakes wafting down from the aforementioned cloud which was almost past, and taking the time to retrieve my equipment would have definitely caused me to miss the soon arriving, crosstown bus and the start of my next class at the San Francisco Art Institute!
I chose enjoy the moment on my way to the bus stop.
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On this day, forty years ago, this person entered my life. Thirty seven years later, our friendship parted ways. That's me directly behind Karl-Heinz Teuber with the chalk and film slate in hand. Dan Gleich on sound, and Georgia Packard, assisting Emiko Omori (not seen) at the camera, are the other two crew members visible in the photo.
The reason why I am intently watching the performance is to keep an eye on the Canon NF1 Karl holds in his hand. It belongs to me. Karl is using the motor drive which deliberately stops after firing thirty six shots and has to be reset.When it does, that's when I step into the shot. Mine was the only "dummy" professional grade camera on set, available for prop use.
The film is director Issam B. Makdissy's independent feature entitled 'A Hard Act to Follow' (screenplay by Terry Eubanks-Makdissy) released six years later in 1990. Karl has a bit part in the film playing a studio portrait photographer. His was the very first scene of the production shoot, though the above photo is of the retake, filmed half a year later, in January of 1985. The character of a publicist was dropped, requiring a reshoot of all the scenes formerly involving them.
As for Karl, he was at the height of his career, his last role playing the wig salesperson in the memorable, “three heads” scene opposite Tom Hulce in ‘Amadeus’ (1984)! We would remain friends for almost four decades until our lives eventually went their separate ways.
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Alone,
Silent in the shadows,
You danced,
Unawares,
That one,
Only time.
Then froze,
Averse to,
Plain sight.
As for me?
Perchance,
My gaze askance...
I was the dark,
Having glimpsed,
The divine.
-antaresrichard-
While this short poem expresses the essence of the one and only time you permitted yourself to dance - before my passing shadow cut it short - it does not cover all the nuances of that brief instance, nor can it. Indeed, many unnamed factors figured into our chance encounter. Chiefly however, it was your trying to become invisible that struck me, whereas, I… always was - even to this day.
It just so happens that my cousin Peter J. Aguilar is also celebrating a big life event on his birthday today!
BEGINNING:
There flows in life,
This river wide,
That parts we two,
To either side.
But, where'er my lot,
My thoughts confide:
My heart, with you,
Doth there reside...
MIDDLE:
...Affluent was,
This pauper then,
Whose fortune was,
To know you when.
Your worth alone,
Was wealth, my yen;
Surpassing that,
Amassed by men...*
END:
...To you therefore,
These posies flow.
The fleeting days,
Per annum go.
Should yet they lead,
Not to, but fro,
I pen this note,
That you may know,
It's you I love,
And you I deem,
Hath the fashion,
Formed my dream:
Two hearts thus joined,
Two airs one theme:
A bridge to span,
That starry stream.
So part in peace,
I'll wait the more.
Upon this bank,
My treasures store.
Til lyral weaves,
Our flights implore,
No other love,
Shall go before.
-antaresrichard-
*(I only added the four stanzas just now, some forty years later!)
Speaking of momentous milestones and such, here is another entry on the heels of that theme.
To Laura, whose birthday falls today on what is a milestone for her, I offer this little bit of personalized humor.
Online clipart sources: "Roadway" by johnalberton04 at Vecteezy; "Stone Rock" by PNGTree; "Kilroy Was Here" by cdn-img.comIN PROGRESS
She.
Love at first sight it was, Friday, July 26th*¹, 1968, at approximately 9:20pm PDT, and the furthest thing from my mind.
To this day, how vividly I recall so many elements of the evening. I believe I only misremember one unrelated plot point. Save for that, a negligible confabulation at most, the extensive recollection which follows concerning everything else, has remained relatively unaltered, neither disturbed or distorted by time.
NOTE: Before proceeding, it should be mentioned that in writing this account largely for my own personal and permanent record, it will of necessity be verbose, as I endeavor, in my own arched way, to exhaustively catalogue all the inner feelings/thoughts/reactions I had and every instance that occurred. My observations will include the knowledge I have since gained/ So it will be the emotions I was having then mixed with the insights of the present, you will most commonly encounter.
I will also be using first names, including those I would learn at a later time (it’s just easier that way). Seeing as I am my blog's only audience, I think there should be no danger as well of violating anyone's privacy.
Lastly, I mean no one ill, nevertheless, should my occasional comment tend towards the critical, please understand I am merely and truthfully reflecting, to the best of my knowledge, the inner dialogue that was then presently taking place within my heart and mind. Then and now, whatever the critique, it’s solely specific to the overall context in which my fourteen year old ego suddenly found itself. My various misgivings and impressions ergo, were never personally directed to any singular individual or party. Their focus was the whole of the soteriological experience instead.
With that said, let the committing to record commence.
CUE FLASHBACK:
-THE INVITE-
It was the second time I was being invited to a church occasion by my childhood friend. John, who had just celebrated my 14th birthday with me, was a member of Bethel Temple, an Assemblies of God, Independent church located at 1325 Valencia Street in San Francisco, lying just beyond a small gas station occupying the southeast corner intersecting 24th Street. Two years prior, I had attended a Memorial Day picnic with him, hosted by the same church, but being skittish of religion, confined it pretty much to that one off site visit.
-DESPITE MY MISGIVINGS-
Still John never gave up asking me back, and so, acceding to his wish, I decided I would finally give it another go. It had been two years after all, and my best friend no doubt, meant well. Who knows, perhaps he thought this his birthday treat. What the hey, it was only for one evening, and hopefully, nothing too weird would happen!
You see, based on my previous personal experiences in church, religion was simply like another planet to me. Indeed, many years before as a kid, I use to be taken semi-regularly to an Apostolic church in San Francisco, where many of my relatives were active. First Apostolic was for a child, something else to say the least. The congregation and building survive to this day.
However, for a family, outliers to the faith and reserved as we were, our relationship to and involvement in the church was minimal at best. Preferring our emotional solitude to the social and political hustle and bustle of church life, my parents just were not into being regular attendees (my mom not all). Additionally, my not being conversant in Spanish (the primary language of the speakers) nor in liturgy didn't help.
Consequently, services were straight out strange and incomprehensible to me. Utterly mystifying; full of seemingly incoherent doublespeak they were (those times I could understand the intermittent translation). Yes, I was a youngster, and much of this is from that visceral, unknowing perspective, but distinct remains my sensory recall of the esoteric catchphrases employed, the, hymn singing, hard pews, the hour long sermons and drawn out exhortations.
Then there were those relentless, individually aimed, invocations and appeals to emotion. How dreaded, emphatic, and constant they were! Arm-wringing! The sole purpose of the meetings I assumed. Proselytization, I would later learn is the applicable term, best describing this subset of Christian behavior. I may have not been acquainted with the terminology associated with faith, but I knew without a doubt, the off-putting awkwardness. That the "Apostolics" were also Pentecostals only added to the stress.
I stopped going.
-ENTRY-
By 1968 therefore, albeit for one other instance unrelated to the picnic, I hadn't stepped inside a church's in five years. Cautiously then, I approached this new place of worship.
Bethel Temple was having a showing of 'The Restless Ones' (1965) and as John and I were often at the movies, it probably wouldn't be that much of a difference sitting in a pew, I rationalized, as opposed to sitting in a movie house seat. And with the lights off plus a little stretch of the imagination, I could always pretend myself at the local theatre.
Anyway, we walked up to the front entrance of the one story structure, which looked more like, and I later learned, was repeatedly mistaken for a bowling alley.*² There at the door, John and I were promptly met by Ken and Steve, who were first cousins to each other.
They enthusiastically introduced themselves, but I was shocked, for on the pair's clothing, each of them wore a Nixon for President button! Despite my being a fan of Democratic senator, Eugene McCarthy, this was simply unheard of! Church was a diverse place I had been brought up to believe, where out of diplomacy, respect, and consideration for others, you checked whatever your political leanings and secular persuasions were at the door. Yet here I was at the literal entry being confronted by these blatant badges!
I bit my tongue. Soon the feature would begin, and the faux pas fade. We all went inside. John and I chose to seat ourselves at the very back of the church, in the usher pew, a two-seater next to the sound and projection booth. He knew I was nervous and shy and so didn't chance taking me any farther into the sanctuary than necessary. Hey, dig that crazy ceiling, it's like all one big fluorescent light! (In reality it was a series of contiguous panels, translucent in nature, extending from wall to wall, and suspended beneath bank after bank of florescent tube lighting both cool and warm.)
-LIGHTS OUT-
When the last bank of lighting had gone dark, the black and white projection began. Oh wow, I recognize the principal players! That''s Johnny Crawford from ABC's 'The Rifleman', and Kim Darby, the pair playing two troubled teenagers! Little else I would remember of the film save that it like every other religious "message" film made no sense to me. I even misremembered a cat being run over (no such scene ever takes place) so I must have been nodding off and slipping into a semi dream state. The erroneous impression of the cat was either due to that or to memory's well-evidenced tendency to confabulate.
I'm sure at the time I also recognized actor Robert Sampson who elsewhere played the memorable scene from 'The Outer Limits' episode entitled "The Mutant" wherein Sampson portrays the doomed space personnel forced to literally eat his his hastily scribbled words by the mind-reading titled character just before his disintegration by that said character.
Otherwise, when it came to the Billy Graham Worldwide Picture I just viewed, it was zip for me. Nevertheless, as I watched the movie to its conclusion, once again there was that telltale, unmistakable pressure present, that forced insistence, that inexplicable mandate,urging all to make some kind of impending and immediate decision, of, God only knows, an intensely personal but utterly nonsensical nature.. Why is church and everything related to it, always like this?
-CURL-
The lights came up. Someone spoke, (possibly the pastor). It was more of the same; just a continuation of the flick I thought. Suddenly, I noticed the hairdo of one girl who sat directly ahead of me. Betty, who would later go on to marry Ken, was sitting alongside her best friend, Judy. The latter was a long haired blond, but Betty's auburn red hair was just about shoulder length ending in this large, overall curl that looped under and inward.
To my curious surprise, every now and again, whenever Betty's tresses parted at the back, I could see straight down the curl like it were a hollow, unobstructed tube. Amused, enjoying the peculiar vantage afforded me, I began to view the remainder of the service, through the forward end of the pipeline that was her curl. Poor Betty, I wasn't being discourteous, mind you, just intrigued and ever so slightly distracted by the accidental happenstance. I didn't even have to crane my neck to the side of her, in order to now plainly see the speaker up front. Neat!
-DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!-
With only a few words on the speaker's part the service quickly came to an end. Soon I would be returning home I gathered, but as I watched the people rise from their pews, it wasn't long before Ken and Steve made their way back to us.
How did I like the service, they asked. "Fine" I replied. The movie? "Okay" I guessed. The message? Uh-oh, are my ears beginning to tingle or the hairs on the back of my neck starting to stand, because now I'm starting to notice my lack of exits. The friendly huddle about me is turning ever so slowly and surely into an encirclement. Oh dear, John, Ken and Steve are gonna start talking that weird shit that inevitably plagues every church encounter I ever had. No doubt, they'll be expecting nothing less than tears from me.
They’re trying to recruit me, only I don’t understand a single word they’re saying. It might as well be gobbledygook. Whatever are they going on about? What’s all this talk of sin, the cross, repentance, finding Jesus, asking Him into your heart, being saved?? What does all that mumbo jumbo even mean?! Moreover, what's it to do with me? Hey, I just came here to enjoy a film, meet some new friends perhaps, and maybe engage in innocent, light-hearted activities… but this?!
This feels like the third degree a star chamber Why can't I ever seem to escape this this nutty side of church? Again with the strong arm. ! The guilt-laying finger pointing! Although the trio no doubt mean well, they’re after all in their mind, tying to rescue me from eternal damnation, I think I'd be better off at a convention of high-pressured salespeople!
-VEIL-
Again, all this was an opaque puzzle to me, with inscrutable ultimatums of supposed importance always taking place behind a veil in some unearthly realm disconnected from reality. Though I was okay with the concept of God, Hell, I daily asked Him to bless my meals, and nightly said my prayers, He was always incorporeal and distantly involved. Disassociated with active daily routine. Fine
No so, now.
Even as teen, I could understand an actual exchange or interaction at times due between people, be it owing a debt, an apology, or a favor. People were, after all, physically real. This owning some immaterial entity however, an immediate and personal apology (uttered no less) let alone taking up an active relationship with it, I mean, with something entirely invisible, and possibly not at all present, was a kind of one-way craziness. Better to leave God, if He, She, or They even existed, in the atmosphere, the ether, and outer limits of life! Behind the veil and beyond the pale if you ask me! God as an abstract comfortably made more sense.
Back to July, 26th, 1968!
-DISCOMBOBULATED-
I hem and haw, stalling for time, and anxious to escape.
Hey you guys, Jesus, was just alright to me. Really man, I was cool with what I knew about him. Having grown up exposed to Protestant Christianity, I even granted that he was God, and I assumed he was cool with me. Jesus, the counter-culture, anti-establishment, social justice hippie crusader, I dug (no pun intended. Plus, I was more than happy to emulate his decency and caring. Apparently, to the people of this church and others before, this simply wasn’t enough.
Discombobulated, I become obsessed with the secondary notion that John, Ken, and Steve are trying to get me to cry. They want me, a private person, to pray, and pray aloud. “Profess with your lips” they insist. Where total strangers can hear and see?! This is pure craziness! (It was, I later found, The Sinner’s Prayer they were trying to coax from me.) If only I could get up and somehow extricate myself from this predicament.
I’m not sure what exactly went down in the next few minutes, but I must have tried. We changed seats once or twice. I have fleeting memories of being in the center of the sanctuary. Desperate to diffuse the dilemma and diplomatically deflect some of the demands, still I could not shake their dogged pursuit. Hounds of Heaven they seemed. I was beset. The emotional fear inside me was palpable and mounting, but all I can blurt out is “I’m not being expected to cry?” catching the three a little off guard. “Well, no, not necessarily,” they fumble.
We change locations another time. I am vexed to the extreme. Now, we four are seated in the left hand section of pews, about four rows back from the front. I think I’m the only guest being worked. The rest of the congregants seem oblivious to us. They mill about quietly.
Here, in the circle, matters are getting intense. Indeed, my own psychology is begging to work against me. My self-consciousness and awkward awareness has reached such a unbearable level that suddenly the thing I dread and that which I fear the most befalls me. My lips begin to quiver. Like blood in the water, the boys lean in.
-BETRAYED-
I can’t believe the tick affecting my traitorous lips. My concentration only makes the quiver all the worse.
Against my will, I at last capitulate, my voice breaking as I repeat the proscribed prayer. It just nerves at this point. I’m blubbering out of sheer reaction, primarily musculatory. Instantly however, it’s like night and day for John, Ken, and Steve. Now, at the snap of a finger, so to speak, they’re showering me with welcome. You can’t imagine the relief, so open are their hearts and sudden their acceptance of me, that I am beside myself with alleviation! Ecstatic and susceptible even!
Meanwhile, down the aisle to my right, amble two young girls…
-THE PAIR-
Becky (Ken’s younger sister) and Becky head to the front and left side doorway and exit of the sanctuary, unnoticed by the exultant trio besides me, rejoicing over their win for Christ. The twelve year old girls, who share the same first names and age, are equally oblivious of John, Ken, and Steve and their new convert. They head instead, I would later find out, to the music room to rehearse. Giving the pair scantly a passing thought, I watch them go by, happily chatting among themselves, my nerves ever so glad of having just passed through the fire, and being on the other side of my harrowing ordeal. The worse is is over, hallelujah!
Then it happens.
With my tears in retreat, the corner of my eye clearing...
She walks by…
Out of an orange colored sky…
The time, close to 9:20pm
-SHE-
Radiant and resplendent, on the heels of the younger pair, Heaven itself crosses into the field of my star-struck view.*³ My mind and emotional state barely having recovered from my ordeal, reels as the earthly voices immediately next to me dim. No longer of importance; supplanted by the unexpected, they wane into the background din.
Moving in the direction of the aforementioned doors, I watch her progress, amazed at myself. I cannot take my eyes or attention off her. Her beauty, her auburn, shoulder length tresses, her seeming detachment. What is happening to me? This was the very last thing I anticipated.
I try to remember every detail about her I can before she quickly exits those double doors, the two Becky's have already entered, and disappears. Her left profile is all that presents itself to me as she rounds the front of the pews moving to the left. Bangs on her brow, a cute turned up button of nose, and olive complected skin. A white, long sleeved blouse, high collar and cameo, I gather, a dark blue skirt...
The valves close behind her.
Uncannily, the future ahead of me, the rest of my entire life comes into play, bending backwards on itself, in order to presently touch me. This is she, it declares. This is the one who, from now until forever, holds your heart. Imagine yourself ten, twenty, forty years out (it’s currently fifty six) it will still be she, and nothing of greater importance will impact you, ever.
Had I known what blasphemy was, I would have been shocked. I was committing it even as my gaze lingered on the wood doors Ruth had exited. It's a good thing for me the trio about me could not see that salvation had become but a precursor; a subordinate antecedent to this. Still, my future had its say.
Dear me, Ruth, it was true!
Love at first sight had struck me dead to rights, completely out of the blue nowhere of left field!
That was the truth spoken then.
And I have never loved another.
You are the rest of my life!
Was I unwittingly primed to receive you, having just undergone an emotional turmoil? It could be argued as much. Poor you. You never asked for it.
Yet, I have and shall never rue the day I first laid eyes on you. I would do it yet again. It was no sin.
Yet as I conclude this documentation, who knows but that my current self isn’t traveling back in time to alert my fourteen year old self to your importance? I think not, but we’re it in my power to do so, I would, without a moments pause.
A week later we met. On a beach off Pescadero at a "singspiration" I learned your name. How sweet it felt upon my lips.
*¹ For years and years, I was virtually sure the "smiting" occurred three days after my fourteenth birthday (July 23, 1968).
However, some evidence (a weekly, 1968 church bulletin) briefly came to light suggesting the event may have actually taken place, to my surprise, seven days later, on Friday, the 2nd of August! Unfortunately, as I happened only once upon the said bulletin - and that being some five decades ago - I have no extant record to produce, nor archived event calendar to reference, by which to conclusively determine, the absolute truth of the matter.
Therefore, in lieu of a definitive resolution, I will continue to observe the "traditional" anniversary of that momentous evening on the 26th of every July.
*²
 | |
| Bethel Temple's originally envisioned architectural design (circa 1954) |
When the building, intended to be the congregation's new home, was being constructed in 1955 there was only funding enough for the ground floor of the proposed five story edifice. It largely remained that way until the the late 1980's
*³ Odd it just dawned on me while writing this, that the last very time I saw her (Sunday, 1990-12-02 6:58pm PST) it was in that same aisle/section of the church. full circle
The cast of characters from that Friday night (in order of mention):
Richard Sanchez (me)
John Inson (my best friend)
Ken Jensen (would later marry Betty)
Steve Wessels (Ken's cousin)
Betty Anne Elmore (would later marry Ken)
Judy McLaughlin (Betty's best friend)
Becky Jensen (Ken's younger sister)
Becky Whitesell (Ruth's younger sister)
Ruth Ann Whitesell (SHE, who would also fulfill a prophecy, becoming Steve's sister-in-law. That however, is another tale.)
