Michael J. Holshouser: Life Resume


Michael J. Holshouser: Life Resume




CONTACT


1112 Cedar Creek Drive, Unit 4
Modesto, CA 95355-5213



EDUCATION

Cultural Language Acquisition Development Certificate
Humboldt State University, Arcata

Multiple Subject and Single Subject Social Studies Credentials
University of Pacific, Stockton

Bachelor of Science, Business Administration
California State University, Chico

Associate of Arts, Business
Modesto Junior College


TIMELINE

Turlock - Retired April 1, 2011

Aimless wandering and any general puttering that comes to mind in whatever time is left in the magical mystery tour for this aging sack of flesh and bones.

Santa Cruz – July 2023

 

Co-Host – Jasmine Garden Oasis Airbnb, Santa Cruz


Turlock - 2000 to 2011

Employee & Foster Care Training Coordinator and RFS Student Transportation –

Residential Care, Foster Family Agency & Reyn Franca School, Creative Alternatives, Turlock and Denair
RFS Coordinator – Reyn Franca School, Denair
FFA Coordinator – Foster Family Certification and Training, Turlock
Administrative Assistant – Creative Alternatives, Turlock –
Foster Parent and Employee Training, FirstAid/CPR Instructor, Advertising, Interim Human Resources Coordinator, Transportation Coordinator, ITFC Program Coordinator, Notary Public, Graphic Arts, Grace Bishop Scholarship Chairman, Christmas Party and Silent Auction Chairman, Special Projects Coordinator
Instructional Aide – Reyn Franca School, Creative Alternatives, Denair
Child Care Worker – Residential Care Homes, Creative Alternatives, Turlock
Technical Support – Sandpiper Technologies, Manteca

Chico - 1990 to 1999

Express Coordinator, Machine Operator, Copy Consultant – Kinko's
Sales, Craft Fair Coordinator – Meraz & Associates
Barista – Starbucks
Security – Grass Valley World Music Festival - Maple Creek Presents
Taxi Driver, Dispatcher – Eagle Taxi
Sales – Christensen Designs, Manteca
Author, Publisher, Website Design – "The Stillness Before Time"
ATM Technician – Wells Fargo Armored Service Corporation
House Restoration – 1111 Oleander Avenue – Lee Hoffmann
Security – Chico World Music Festival - Maple Creek Presents
Security – Shakespeare in the Park - Maple Creek Presents
Clam Shucker, Dishwasher – Annual Bravo Opera Ball - Zephyrs
Auction Aid – Public Estate Auction – Mansfield Auctioneers
Operations, Teacher, Partner – Residential Care – Chico Hedway Programs
Sales, Ferry Harvest Farmers Market – Mountain Fruit Company
Social Security Administration Payee – Patrick Dauwalder
Sales, Stock, Custodial, Inventory – Sierra Stationers
K-12 Substitute Teacher – Butte and Tehama County Schools

Ojai - 1988 to 1990

Morning Bread Baker – Ranch House Restaurant
Housesitting/Caretaking – Various Ojai Homes
Fifth-Sixth Grade Teacher – Oak Grove School
Summer School Director, Bus Driver, Yearbook Advisor, Options Instructor,
Drama Lighting Hand – Oak Grove School
Waiter, Host – Franky's Restaurant, Ventura
Arts and Crafts, Trail Riding, Counselor – Gold Arrow Camp, Huntington Lake

Hughson, Turlock - 1983 to 1988

Fifth Grade Teacher – Hughson Elementary School District
Child Care Worker – Creative Alternatives, Turlock
Assistant Social Worker, Foster Home Program – Creative Alternatives
Photographer – Weddings, Special Events, Portraits – Self-employed
K-12 Substitute Teacher – Stanislaus County Schools
Forklift Operator – Martella Walnut Huller
Publisher, Sales, Layout – La Grange Rodeo Program
Animal Trail Naturalist – Old Oak Ranch, Columbia
Word Processing Instructor – Alpha Com
Editor, Columnist, Photographer, Sales, Layout – Hughson Chronicle
US Festival Photographer – Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino
Children's Program – Strawberry Bluegrass Festival, Yosemite
Teaching Aide – Modesto Montessori School
Hired Hand – Roen Ranch Right Fork Cattle Company, Waterford

Los Gatos – 1982

Consultant – California Commission on Violence Prevention, San Jose
Photographer – Weddings, Special Events, Portraits – Self-employed
Sales – Chanticleer Children's Bookstore
           
Waterford - 1980 to 1982

K-12 Substitute Teacher – Stanislaus County Schools
Photographer – Weddings, Special Events, Portraits – Self-employed
Forklift Driver – Martella Walnut Huller, Hughson
Publisher, Sales, Layout – La Grange Rodeo Program
Home Reconstruction & Caretaking – Merritt Hulst

Hughson, Waterford - 1978 to 1980

Editor, Columnist, Photographer, Sales, Layout – Waterford News
Stringer  Modesto Bee
Yearbook Advisor – Waterford Elementary School District
4-H Photography Instructor – Waterford 4-H Club
Sales – Combined Insurance Company, Merced County

Sacramento, Reno – 1977

Department Manager, Home Division – Weinstock's, Sacramento and Reno

College Years: Hughson, Chico, Alameda – 1972 to 1977

Industrial Specialist, Engineering Branch – Alameda Naval Air Rework Facility

Waiter, Busboy, Dishwasher – Sizzler Steakhouse, Alameda

Circle K President, Weedpatch Newsletter – California State University, Chico

Swimming Instructor, Lifeguard –Recreation Department, Ceres

Forklift Driver, Weigh Station Master, Sample Machine Operator, Bin Tagger –

Joan of Arc Field Station, Hughson


The Early Years – 1953 to 1972


Farm Hand – Holshouser & Son (Family Farm), Hughson

Key Club President, Vice President, Sergeant-at-Arms – Hughson Union High School

Senior Senator, Class of ‘72 – Hughson Union High School

Secretary, Hughson Chamber of Commerce – Hughson

Community Center Sign – Hughson



SKILLS, HOBBIES, INTERESTS, ATTRIBUTES

Writing, problem solving, organizing, systems analysis, marketing, sales, human resource development, training, special events, bookkeeping, computer software, coding, copy machines, automatic teller machines, inventory control, form design, photography, drafting, housesitting, caretaking, general mechanics, bus driving, forklift driving, and other agriculture-related equipment handling.

String figures, knot tying, origami, paper planes, calligraphy, drawing, perceptual activities, military history and technology, trap and target shooting, archery, chess and other board, card, and dice gaming.

Walking, bicycling, swimming, racquetball, gym time, cross-country skiing, backpacking, spelunking, car camping, campfire design, sailing, paintball, four-wheeling, horseback riding, traveling, massage, yoga, macrobiotics, dancing, plants, reading, philosophy, channel surfing, aimless wandering, and general puttering.

Personable, articulate, disciplined, meticulous, punctual, eclectic generalist.


ADDITIONAL STUDIES

Learn to Sail in Four Days – J World Sailing Courses, San Francisco Bay
First Aid/CPR Instructor – American Red Cross, Stanislaus County
Notary Public – California, Stanislaus County
InDesign, Entourage, iPhoto, PageMaker, Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Eudora,
Communicator, Palm Desktop, Graphic Converter, ScanWizard,
iView MediaPro, PageMill – Creative Alternatives, Turlock
Michael Meade Mythology Workshop – Mosaic Multicultural Foundation,
Community Church of Mill Valley
10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course – California Vipassana Center, North Fork
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), HTML Web Design –
Humboldt State University, Arcata
Windows 98, Netscape, Internet Explorer, Regular and Color Copiers,
and other related technologies – Kinko’s, Chico
Automated Teller Machines (ATM’s) – Wells Fargo Armored, Chico Area
Appleworks, Quicken – Chico Hedway Programs, Chico
Hunter Safety and Self-Defense Firearms Training – Safer Arms, Chico
Inventory Control – Sierra Stationers, Chico
Hand Drumming – California State University, Chico
Joel Kramer Yoga Workshop – Northern California
Macrobiotic Workshop – Macrobiotic Center, Harbin Hot Springs, Middletown
Tri-County Math Project – University of California, Santa Barbara
Bill Martin Language Workshop – California State University, San Jose
Right Side Brain Drawing – California State University, Long Beach
Great Books Leader Training – Junior Great Books, Santa Barbara
Direct Instruction – California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock
How Children Learn – Ottawa University Extension Class, Modesto


A Poem for Michael

 

His goals are few,
with no worries to pursue.
A life well-stirred,
as variety is to stew.
Branching from his native view,
He's learned a thing or two:
How to handle a machine that spews,
Managing a newspaper crew,
How a lens can capture you,
Writing philosophy of the zoo,
Even joined a staff or two,
To teach others what to do.
Now he speaks with a clue,
Of how he's gained his world-view.
There's nothing left to misconstrue,
He's living life impromptu!

 

Rhonda Allen

Chico, California, 2002




Preface


Greetings,


Writing has been an enjoyable process ever since I first began toying with prose; scribbling poetry, keeping journals, corresponding with friends and acquaintances during the college daze. The philosophical/mystical/whatever-you-want-to-call-them thoughts, that have been popping into mind since 1989, have always been very out-of-the-blue spontaneous. Nothing planned or forced about them. They are being shared on the off chance that others may find them of interest, though, quite frankly, it really does not matter if no one else ever even reads them, for I am, first and foremost, my own audience. I got mine, so to speak. I played my little part. I had my share of fun. And it is, as it has ever been, up to each to discern their own, on their own. There are really no followers in this Don Quixote quest; only earnest seekers, who waylay their desires and fears and dreads, enough to discern that which is the end to doubt, the end to dueling with windmills. “Yay” if it is your fate to figure it out. “Oh well” if it is not. And “so it goes” either way, really. Ecclesiastes 1:2 is always a good reminder: “Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” Awareness can only, with great effort, regain control, regain sovereignty, from the usurper, imagination, creator of all that is time, creator of all that is space. Creator of all that is illusion, has never has been anything more than illusion, will never be anything more than illusion. Only as real as the given moment.

 

“The Stillness Before Time” is the original work that came together in 1992, including mostly aphorisms, an essay, a newspaper question-and-answer, ten reflections, and lists of both movies and books. Though an early self-published version, long since edited and expanded, can be purchased at major booksellers, a downloadable copy is available, no charge, at the link below. There are also links to a variety of blogs of other creations by me, along with links to many writings of a similar nature, by thinkers and seers from across all times, across all geographies.


"The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim" is the second published book, and is both blogged and available as a PDF download.

 

The “Breadcrumbs” titles, published annually since 2015, all include the core chapters: Leftovers, Soundbites, Breadcrumbs. In the Breadcrumbs chapters, I unleash thoughts of a more personal nature than in the other two. All just to show I was ensconced in a living, breathing, relativity mundane, oftentimes foolish, mortal mind-body. An actor playing the hand that was dealt; same as everyone else, vain as everyone else. No need to sculpt me into more than I was. No need for myths, nor legends, nor fables, nor miracles, nor cult followings, nor any other fictions, any other absurdities, over to which the human mind, and all its imaginary history, has so often given itself. The Breadcrumbs chapters prove me again and again to be yet another Shakespearian player, as full of the limited and arbitrary as anyone else born into this dream of space and time. So please be sure not to shape me, or these many random thoughts, into some dogmatic absurdity. Use them as a launchpad, not an orbit.

 

“The Return to Wonder” blog is a compendium of aphorisms not included in the three other works: The Stillness Before Time, The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim, and Breadcrumbs. It originally totaled 3,000 pages formatted in 300 ten-page chapters written since 1990-ish. A gradual editing that will likely never be completed, is changing that dynamic into something of a mishmash.

 

Please note that this sort of wordplay is very haphazard, way too much work to put into any order. Probably best read it in bits and pieces in the here and there. One of those open-to-any-page works. Especially well-suited for coffee shops, coffee tables, and porcelain thrones.

Also note that all writings are always subject to updates and editing, so if you are interested in the most current version – before this house of cards comes tumbling down, and the world grows large again – downloading PDF copies every once and a while might be a reasonable discipline. This applies especially to the current year of Breadcrumbs, which could well be an annual project until the last wheezing breath, though frankly, the temptation to stop writing entirely is not off the table. It is a pleasant way to pass some of the countdown remaining, but it is unlikely there is much ground that has not been wandered by this frame of reference far more than enough already. No matter how many times Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the mountain, it is more than a little doubtful the seven blind men and their true-believer followers, will ever discern, ever realize, ever embrace, the elephant in the middle of the room, without fabricating some new form of absurdity. It is the way we roll, it is the way we have always rolled, it is the way we will, far more than probably, always roll. Every species has its limitations, and we have in this mind’s eye, far-exceeded ours.


That said, if you do find these many thoughts at all worth preserving, for whatever times are ahead for this world and all its life forms, please feel free to share them with others who might also appreciate them. Else they may well swiftly slip back into the timeless oblivion from whence they came.

 

So it goes, either way. I said my piece, I had my fun.


All the best,

M

P.S. For best viewing online, using the largest screen you have available to explore my little theme park, is suggested. Scrolling down and down on a phone screen is just not going to give you the same entrée.


P.P.S. Regarding the name Yaj Ekim ... It is just a reverse spelling of the first and middle names ... Michael Jay Holshouser ... Mike Jay ... Yaj Ekim.

 

P.P.P.S. Coincidently, make of it whatever you will, or will not, Yaj is an Indian boy’s name meaning worshipper, sacrifice, another name for Shiva, a sage. And Ekim is a Turkish name for October meaning “sowing” (of seeds). All kinds of absurdity can be read into that by the many, so-inclined  – none of which was in mind when the idea came to reverse the letters to my name. See P.P.S. for details.

 

P.P.P.P.S. Yes, I am Shiva. And so are You. No, I am not Shiva. And neither are you. Irony and paradox rule.




The Stillness Before Time

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

 

 

Website

The Stillness Before Time
Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner
https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/

 

There is really only one Way.

It is without division or boundary.

It is without name or theology.

Awareness is its scripture.

Here now, its venue.

You, its witness.

Your life, the journey.


A PDF is available at:
https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/thestillnessbeforetime.pdf



One Through Thirty

 

One * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

 

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 * Thirty

 

 

Essays

 

Of the Human Journey

 

Got God?

 

Ten Reflections

 

 

Other Resources

 

Books * Movies * Links * Blogs

 

 

Main Blogs & PDF's

 

(All blogs and PDF's subject to change, so stay tuned)

 

The Stillness Before Time

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

Blog * PDF

 

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2015

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2018

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2019

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2020

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2021

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2022

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog * PDF

 

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

 

The Return to Wonder

Field Notes From the Unknown

(Major edit underway -- Edited copy colored blue)

Blog * PDF

 

 

Blogs & PDF's of Other Works

 

The Call of the Eternal
A Conversation With My Self
Blog * PDF

 

Michael's Rabbit Hole
A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms
Blog * PDF

 

Imagination: The Great Usurper
Blog * PDF

 

Lost in Translation
The Human Paradigm’s Linguistic Muddle
Blog * PDF

 

Mystery, Mystery & More Mystery
Blog * PDF

Imagination, Imagination & More Imagination
Blog * PDF

Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt
Blog * PDF

Science, Science & More Science
Blog * PDF

History, History & More History
Blog * PDF

Patterns, Patterns & More Patterns
Blog * PDF

Reincarnation, Reincarnation & More Reincarnation
Blog * PDF

Standouts from the Return to Wonder Edit
Selections from the First Sixteen Chapters
Blog * PDF

Of the Human Journey
Along with Got God? And Ten Reflections
Blog * PDF

 

To Be, or Not to Be
Blog * PDF

The Mystery of the Mystery
Blog * PDF

Who Was the First
Blog * PDF

The Real is Discovering
Blog * PDF

59 Moments to The Way It Is (And Is Not)
The Scribe's Guide to the Great Whatthe#$*!?
Blog * PDF

Definitions
An Incomplete Selection 0f Contemplative Definitions
Blog * PDF

Conversations
A Variety of Letters, Emails, Texts, & Sundry Odd 'n Ends
Blog * PDF

Titles, Titles & More Titles
Blog * PDF

 

Even More
Blog * PDF

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time
A Few Epiphanies and Other Hallmark Moments
Blog * PDF

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim
Blog * PDF

Possible Last Words & Epitaphs
Blog * PDF

The Standard Ripostes
The Scribe's Go-to Responses to This and That in the Day-To-Day
Blog * PDF

My (Not Quite) Haiku
Blog * PDF

Once Upon a Christmas
Blog * PDF

Ditties for the Bluegrass Pyre
Blog * PDF

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming
Some Written Works That May Help Get the Young up to Speed
Blog * PDF

Spam Responses (a.k.a., WTF Is This Shit!?)
Blog * PDF

 

 

Breadcrumbs: The Original Blog

 

Breadcrumbs: The Original Blog 

 

-----


Preface

Leftovers

Soundbites

Breadcrumbs

The Standard Ripostes

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

Possible Last Words & Epitaphs

Spam Responses (a.k.a., WTF Is This Shit!?)

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming

59 Moments to The Way It Is (And Is Not)

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time

 

The Real is Discovering Series

Quotes Worth Pondering

 

Of the Human Journey

Ten Reflections

Got God?

Books

Movies

Links

Photo Gallery

Michael J. Holshouser: Life Resume

 

 

A Collection of Miscellaneous Blogs

Final Exit and Related Links

COVID-19 Information Links

The Four Agreements

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Of A Philosophical Nature

The Joyful Curmudgeon

Quotes, Quotes & More Quotes

Fichier Circulaire de Michael

50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School

How to Work in Any Environment

12 Rules You Can Live By

Election 2016: The Rise (and Fall?) of Donald Trump

 

Michael's Little Warehouse of All Things Amusing, Absurd & Profound

 

 

Facebook

 

Michael Holshouser

 

Fichier Circulaire de Michael

(Michael's Circular File)

 

Yaj Ekim

 

 

Twitter

 

@YajEkim

 

 

Sivana East

 

Michael Holshouser

 

 

Eight Translations of the Ashtavakra Gita

 

The Heart of Awareness (Byrom)

https://theheartofawareness.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/theheartofawarenessbyrom.pdf

 

Ashtavakra Gita (Marshall)

https://theashtavakra.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakrafitamarshall.pdf

 

Bitten by the Black Snake (Schoch)

https://bittenbytheblacksnake.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/bittenbytheblacksnakeschoch.pdf

 

A Duet of One (Balsekar)

https://aduetofone.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/aduetofonebalsekar.pdf

 

Ashtavakra Gita (Richards)

https://anotherashtavakragita.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakragitarichards.pdf

 

Astavakra Samhita (Wood)

https://astavakrasamhita.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/astavakrasamhitawood.pdf

 

Ashtavakra Gita (Shastri)

https://ashtravakrageeeta.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakragitashastri.pdf

 

Ashtavakra Gita (Vedic Scriptures)

https://ashtravakrageeta.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakragitavedic.pdf

 

 

PDF’s of Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

 

Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva 
https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakragitaiamshiva.pdf

 

I Am Shiva Comparison Chart 

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/iamshivacomparisonchart.pdf

 

 

Translations of Other Ancient Writings

 

Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

https://ashtavakragitaiamshiva.blogspot.com/

 

Tao Te Ching: Verse One

https://taotechingverseone.blogspot.com/

 

Tao Te Ching (Marshall)

https://theperennialway-taoteching.blogspot.com/

 

Bhagavad Gita (Marshall)

https://bhagavadgitamarshall.blogspot.com/

 

Yoga Sutras (Marshall)

https://yogasutrasbypatanjali.blogspot.com/

 

Dhammapada (Marshall)

https://buddhasdhammapada.blogspot.com/

 

The Book of Ecclesiastes (Marshall)

https://21ecclesiastesmarshall.blogspot.com

 

Song of the Avadhut (Abhayananda)

https://songoftheavadhut.blogspot.com/

 

Avadhut Gita (Shastri)

https://avadhutgitabydattatreya.blogspot.com/

 

Atma Bodha (Chinmayananda)

https://theatmabodha.blogspot.com/

 

The Essence of the Ribhu Gita (Ramamoorthy & Nome)

https://theribhugita.blogspot.com/

 

Yoga Vasishta Sara (Ramasramam)

https://yogavasishtasara.blogspot.com/

 

Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Madhavananda)

https://crest-jewelofdiscrimination.blogspot.com/

 

Mandukya Upanishad & Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada (Panoli)

https://mandukyaupanishadpanoli.blogspot.com

 

Gaudapada: Advaita Vedanta’s First Philosopher (Jones)

https://advaitavedantasfirstphilosopher.blogspot.com/2020/02/on-tradition.html

 

 

Writings by Bart Marshall

 

Verses Regarding True Nature
https://versesregardingtruenaturemarshall.blogspot.com

 

One Hundred Two Haiku

https://onehundredtwohaikumarshall.blogspot.com

 

 

Translations of Ancient Writings by Bart Marshall

 

Ashtavakra Gita

https://theashtavakra.blogspot.com/

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/ashtavakrafitamarshall.pdf

 

Tao Te Ching

https://theperennialway-taoteching.blogspot.com/

 

Bhagavad Gita

https://bhagavadgitamarshall.blogspot.com/

 

Yoga Sutras

https://yogasutrasbypatanjali.blogspot.com/

 

Dhammapada

https://buddhasdhammapada.blogspot.com/

 

The Book of Ecclesiastes

https://21ecclesiastesmarshall.blogspot.com




A LIST OF INJURIES AND STRAINS

1960’s and 70’s – Tractor driving: lower back, left arm and shoulder; heavy lifting and moving.

1957-ish – Golf club backswing to forehead, and monkey bar fall causing classmate’s tooth to cut into top of head.

1967 through 1972 – Broke left eardrum three times, resulting in skin graft to ear drum.  This, coupled with driving tractor, forklifts, vehicles with open windows, and sitting too close to a few concert and nightclub speakers, worked together to cause loss of high range sounds. 

1969 through 1972 – High school physical education: running, jumping, throwing, wrestling, and other boy stuff.  First hemorrhoids because of lack of fiber in diet and the resulting constipation.

1969 through 1975 – High school and Sunday afternoon football; some broken knuckles and a jammed finger joint; two major memories during frosh-soph years in football practice of a block that caused a snap in lower back, and a tackle that caused severe pain to (left or right?) shoulder/collarbone.

1972 to 1977 – Day packs full of college textbooks.

1972 to present – Backpacking, car camping, hitchhiking with a heavy backpack in Europe.

1972 to present – Coffee, alcohol, marijuana.

1972 through 1985 – Forklifting at Joan of Arc field station and Martella’s Walnut Huller.

1975 to present – Transient working life with many moves.

1978 – Heavy lifting and moving at Weinstock’s.

1975 through 1980 – Two or three solid hits to left jaw.

1980 – Peed blood after prepping on cold day for calf-tying event at La Grange Rodeo.

1980’s to present – Two or three bicycle crashes.

1980’s – Carrying photography equipment for Waterford News, weddings, special events.

1980 – La Grange Rodeo calf-tying practice strain.

1981 – Motorcycle slide on asphalt on left side in light clothing.

1985 to present – Graveyard shifts and sleep deprivation: Creative Alternatives, bread-baking, Kinko’s, taxi driving.

1886 – Bicycle strain on left knee.

1989 – Wave head first into sand.

1989 to present – Gun shooting recoils and archery pulls.

1989 – Falling onto feet while tying down rack on VW van.

1989 to present – Hallucinogens and other drugs.

1990’s – Heavy lifting and moving at Sierra Stationers and Kinko’s.

1998 – Carpal tunnel syndrome disability from Kinko’s.

1999 to present – Bad posture in computer use.

2000’s – Heavy lifting and moving at Creative Alternatives.

2000 to present – A couple mild concussions after passing out tightening upper back and neck.

2008-ish – Twice hit in left eye by racquetballs, the second time causing temporary blurriness for several days.

2013-ish – Sidewalk curb slip onto left knee.


2014-ish – Rolling fall down Marriott Hotel marble stairs.


2016 – Diving concussion at summer swim party.


2016 – Trigger finger, left middle finger, one cortisone shot in early 2017, operated on in June 2018.


2017 – Right shoulder nerve damage by rolling fall over shouldered fold-up chair.


2018 – Right eardrum perforated twice from excessive pressure from chewing too much gum resulted in mild tinnitus.


2020 – Failed carpal tunnel operation on right hand, thumb and two fingers totally numb. Carpal tunnel also getting more challenging in left hand.


2021 – Spinal stenosis in upper back and neck.


2022 – Arthritis in base of left thumb.


Life, it’ll kill ya.




TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

 

It is certainly a curious thing to have gone this mystical direction in life. Most definitely a road less traveled. As far as discussing it with others goes, I think, as with any specialty, any sphere – science, mathematics, music, sports, business, politics, et cetera ad infinitum – that we all tend to search out like minds, to focus on our interests and passions. Scientists with scientists, mathematicians with mathematicians, musicians with musicians, athletes with athletes, businessmen with businessmen, politicians with politicians, et cetera ad infinitum. Our little “lost” tribe of seers, being somewhat scattered about the globe, are not always easy to run across. You just never know who will be sitting next to you in some coffee shop, bar, or park bench.

 

Personally, I have always been generalist and chameleon enough, to enjoy chatting with whoever, about whatever comes up. There is great freedom in anonymity. Many people I know quite well, have very little if any clue, about what I have done, or what I have written. It has just never come up. I may probe and plant seeds, but do not worry whether or not they take root. Some minds are fertile; some are barren. It is just the way it is.

 

As far as staying connected with family, friends, and acquaintances goes, we each have to decide what is important to us, and it may be for some, that burning bridges and moving on alone, is only option they allow themselves. The high school class of my small rural town origin celebrated our 40th reunion a few years back, and those who came had a great time reconnecting and sharing their life journeys. Very few of them would ever be at all interested in my thoughts on things – many of them are true believers in one dogma or another – and I am okay with that. No point beating yourself over the head, over things you cannot change.

 

The big view of it is, that I am one of who knows how many awakened eyes in this magical mystery tour, as likely are you if you are reading this. Whether anyone else hears the call, is something over which none of us has any say. Nor does it really matter. We may point the way to a larger vision, but it is each, abiding in their own set of capacities and limitations, who must, to whatever degree, wander the pathless mystery very much alone. We are but ephemeral seed crystals, of our own devices, for consciousness to do with what it will.

 

Everything I have written since 1989, except for a couple notebooks that were lost, along with a few other oopsie moments on the computer, is my gift to the future, such as it is. It is up to you, and others I have befriended through the years, to pass it on, if you deem it to have merit. It has been an interesting pastime, to give so much of my time over to it: to think it, to scribble it, to transcribe and edit it, to throw it about like Johnny did apple seeds. There may be in the neighborhood of five or six thousand pages worth by the time I exit this center stage. And what happens to it is for time to tell. I leave it to you to decide.

 

So it goes, either way. I played my part, I said my piece, I had my fun.

 

M




A LETTER TO KAREN HESLI

FORMER OAK GROVE SCHOOL DIRECTOR

 

 

Karen Hesli

c/o Oak Grove School

220 West Lomita Avenue

Ojai, CA 93023-2244

 

 

November 14, 2023

 

 

Hey, Karen,

 

A voice from the past.

 

People come and go in each other's lives, and sometimes when they flash into mind, you wonder what became of them. So, I thought I would offer you a little catch-up, since we crossed paths for a couple years in a meaningful way, and you still walking on the upside of daisies, more traceable than most.

 

The reason I am sending this, is that John Christianson – now married and dealing with a very debilitating dose of Lewy body dementia up in the Eureka zone – and I, have recently reconnected via phone every once and a while. Your name came up at some point of reminiscence, and he said you were on the school board. Looked you up on the Oak Grove website – the school definitely looks as if it has evolved nicely – and thought I would ramble for a bit down memory lane.

 

Have always remembered one of the last things you said toward the end of my two-year tenure at Oak Grove in the late 80’s, was something to the effect – somewhat wistfully by this ear – that so many people had come and gone, and you were still there. Which, by my estimate, in retrospect, was a perfect fit. I cannot be sure how I was as a teacher – always did my best, but would, were it possible, certainly push a rewind button on more than a few of the memories so vague – but I always thought your dexterity as a light-handed, well-intentioned administrator was admirable.

 

For me, it turned out, that after just under forty years of trying to come up with something that captivated this rolling stone – so many things did, until they did not – every variety of mostly aphoristic thought started streaming into mind. And I have spent the thirty-plus spins around our little star since leaving Oak Grove, enjoying the process of morphing together a sizeable labyrinth of my-two-cents, autodidactic, philosophical babble. All of which can be accessed through a website and several social media arenas.

 

The Stillness Before Time

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com

 

A theme park, one fellow called it. Something no one in any sort of right mind will ever even begin to wade through for long. And it is all most definitely non-profit, because – having no interest in the soul-sucking absurdities that it would take to cultivate it marketable – I out-of-pocket throw it out there, Johnny-Appleseed-town-crier fashion, for grassroots deliberation, no charge. Links to many other writings from across the world, across time, that have influenced my thinking in this quest – including Krishnamurti, of course – are also blogged. All titles can be accessed on the website command-and-control home page. Blogs are best viewed on a computer or tablet to easily access the sidebar menus. Click on “View web version” if using a smartphone.

 

Might have to dig deep for the Krishnamurti blog pages; they being early entries in the randomness of all things online. Mainly just links and a few quotes, so no big deal.

 

Of a Philosophical Nature: Jiddu Krishnamurti

https://ofaphilosophicalnature.blogspot.com/2021/11/jiddu-krishnamurti.html

 

Of a Philosophical Nature: Truth is a Pathless Land

https://ofaphilosophicalnature.blogspot.com/2015/02/truth-is-pathless-land-jiddu.html

 

Do not know if anyone realized – I certainly did not at the time – that I had suffered a life-changing head and neck injury while first-time boogie boarding, when my class joined Theresa’s during their end-of-year campout at the beach near Carpinteria. The wave that caught the board and sailed me head and neck first into the sand – if it had been rocks, I might well have drowned – really tweaked my world. Stumbled to Lena’s umbrella, and fell asleep (i.e., unconscious). Woke up somewhat dazed, and carried on, as has always been the farm-boy-trained nature. It likely contributed to the departure from Oak Grove. Probably why I left Lena, too. Who I might have in retrospect stayed with, had the domestic life called me.

 

The point being, curious as it is, that was when the aphoristic thoughts began bubbling into mind. At some juncture during that fog of time – before or after the injury, I am not sure – I made a comment about being so world-weary to Arthur Braverman, and he gave me a well-worn copy of Nisargadatta’s I Am That – my first dip into Vedic-Hindu thinking. Self-medicating on psilocybin mushrooms, accessed through an old-woman friend of Lena’s – my first late-bloomer experience with hallucinogens; it had been just alcohol and pot up until that; during off-teaching hours on weekends, of course – no doubt played a part as well.

 

Head injury, world-weariness, psychedelics – something of a perfect storm, so to speak. Threw the first batch of a couple hundred index cards away, when Lena said they sounded like Krishnamurti. But the thoughts kept bubbling into mind. And after a few months of heading the Oak Grove summer school program, and early morning bread-baking at the Ranch House Restaurant, I moved up to Chico for the next decade, and was on fire reading and writing and working, and so much more. What a time it was, it was. And the pile of small spiral-bound notebooks grew and grew, until I accessed a workplace computer, and began gradually shaping them digitally – into a relatively unknown work at this writing.

 

And probably for all future ones, as well, because I have never had any ambition, when it comes to making money and being in the limelight and trapsing about building a following. If Krishnamurti was a microphone, I am a keyboard, aided and abetted by word processing, and all that the online world offers. Both of us – and anyone else of similar ilk – playing our recordings over and over and over, watching the seemingly never-ending chatter issue forth. For me, it is first and foremost inhaling the process of writing. Of sculpting and editing every thought, every word, every comma. And then sharing it freely with whoever might be interested. All very spontaneous.

 

Given the laissez-faire atmosphere I was raised in, I was pretty much free to be self-actualized from the get-go. Had almost two years alone before my sister came along, and she never the rough-and-tumble sort. Whether playing with Tonka trucks and toy soldiers and cowboy pistols in the dirt in a corner of the yard … driving a roaring tractor and disc back and forth for hours and hours through the peach orchard, having fun battling branches every tree threw at me … spending whole afternoons throwing dirt clods and playing tag with other farm boys at the Tully Road bridge and the canal falls just upstream … three years of sitting at a drafting table focused totally on precision in high school … putting together newsletters and flyers for various clubs in high school and college … running the weekly newspaper in Waterford, a small town near hometown Hughson … riding horses and gathering and branding cattle with cowboy friends … putting together programs for the La Grange Rodeo … roaming the grounds, camera in hand, as Stanislaus County Fair photographer … producing yearbooks for several schools, including Oak Grove … or long aimless-wandering strolls wherever I have lived – the casual, timeless enjoyment of process, has always been the motivating force in my rolodex of work and play experiences. Goals are really no more than punctuation points in the maze of process, and often, in my zen-ish-slash-non-zen-ish reckoning, something of a let-down, if bestowed too much weight.

 

Krishnamurti got hijacked by Leadbeater and Besant and their true-believer following, into playing on a world stage. Meandering wherever, alone, anonymous, sitting in random coffee shops with notebooks and index cards and MacBooks – and someday joining the Dead Poets Society – has suited me just fine. And has kept me free to spout whatever comes to mind, whatever I please, without being trussed up in the politics of recognition, the dance of acquaintanceship. Free of the dogmatic, politically-correct groupthink, too often morphing into true-believer mania, that so often arises, when there are two or more. The axis of evil is nepotism and cronyism and favoritism, is how I often put it. The group mind, the tribal mind, that evolved in the jungles of long ago, has never been enticing to me as more than side-show, shake-my-head entertainment. Spent too much of this first-born existence alone, and have never not found it pleasant in an agreeably self-sustaining way. Was using the term ‘social loner’ to describe myself, until a more eloquent coffee-shop acquaintance rephrased it ‘sociable loner’ at some post-Y2K point.

 

Modesto Junior College in the early 70’s, had introduced me to Sartre, Camus, Hesse, Watts, and Voltaire in a philosophy 101 class taught by a very old, very waxen-looking German fellow with a thick accent, named Markgraf – the only philosophy class I ever took. And Vonnegut, Bradbury, Huxley, Machiavelli, and Orwell in English 101 and 102 classes, both taught by cowboy-boot-wearing Russ Kelly. And, of course, all the other curriculums, that liberal arts era of education offered; many taught by some of the best teachers I ever had. Over-the-top heady stuff for a bright-but-clueless hick coming out of small-town America, circa last of Old School post-WW II.

 

But it was Krishnamurti who became the great influencer during the first post-college year in the corporate retail world of Weinstock’s in Sacramento and Reno. Untold hours of reading and long walks. Attended three Ojai gatherings in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Never sought to meet him, or get involved with the following in any way. As I wrote above, anything like that has always been too much of a three-ring for me. Reading a couple biographies was window enough to the nonsense Krishnamurti and his brother had to endure in the hands of the Theosophical Society. Just listened to his weekend talks, attended the videos during the weekdays, and only very vaguely recall going up to the library a time or three. Otherwise, coffee shops, window-shopping, and a Los Padres campsite somewhere near a river. And though I pushed on through the years to many other writings from across this dreamtime, the no-holds-barred-take-no-prisoners foundation to this very unplanned, very impromptu, very unsought existence, was, in great part, set in stoneless by Krishnamurti, and his pathless-path, follow-no-one, you-are-on-your-own-all-alone stance. At least, that is the way I heard him.

 

No doubt, the small-town rural upbringing by modest, intelligent, stoic, naturally virtuous, non-invasive parents, on a thirty-acre peach ranch in the California Central Valley, also played a major part. As pure a relationship with nature, free of religious or political or any other dogma, that those modern times allowed. Was Huck Finn in the Mississippi canal across the road from our ranch house, and Mowgli in the jungle out back. Barefoot and free. Driving a tractor and grading peaches during the hot and dust and peach fuzz of summers by age seven, and playing tag with other farm boys in the canal by age nine. Our mothers never even looking out the window.

 

Add to that a slew of dogs and cats and a couple rats … dilapidated farm equipment littering the compound behind the house … buckets and bags of pesticides and weed killers out in the garage and dirt shed; twelve-foot ladders and a large pile of wooden props behind it … chess and a variety of board and card and dice games and three working channels of black and white aerial-fed television in the front living room … climbing the large walnut trees in the front and back yards … a tank house fort and a couple underground ones … a well-notched sparrow-hunting BB gun … me and my little dog Jerry racing through the orchard in a post-war Willys Jeep Batmobile … annual camping trips to Seacliff State Beach and Bass Lake … trolling for fish up in a reservoir lake in the dusk with my father and grandfather … mowing the front lawn and side-yard weeds, raking leaves, trimming ivy beds, bagging walnuts … disking and leveling the orchard … putting up and taking down levies … spraying weeds around the trees … irrigating through the night with my father with flash lights to track the water, and shovels for any gopher hole leaks … mixing cement with a hoe in an old wheelbarrow for his artwork sculptures … barbecuing steaks and chicken and burgers with him in the late afternoon shade of the tank house … hauling fruit to the field station that would inspire me to become a forklift driver during the college years … Fourth of July fireworks with Grandad Holshouser’s sweetened ice tea and homemade ice cream in my step-grandmother’s wonderland garden … playing tag for hours with cousins in the half-acre back yard of my mother’s parents … years of water balloon battles throughout the high school during Hughson’s annual Tractor Rodeos … swim team throughout the younger years at the local youth center … four years of high school football … two-page parts in the junior and senior plays … junior and senior proms and the first kiss … snagging watermelons with friends on the way home from drive-in movies … a patchwork of geeky sorts tagged MOB (Madly Organized Bunch) playing charades and toilet-papering each other’s homes … doing service projects all over town during the senior year as Key Club president … Hughson’s Chamber of Commerce secretary as it worked to incorporate itself from town to city … tearfully burying a favorite dog shot by the postman because he had to deliver the mail in the roadside post box where the dog had learned to chase cars with savage intent … and bawling at age twelve on the front lawn, when I fully realized, a month after his leukemia-caused death – my first human death – that I would never see my best friend, Lyle, again.

 

Very Dandelion Wine.

 

Sending the resume to you after going back to school to get the teaching credential, was an it-popped-into-mind impulse – over to which, I have, path-of-least-resistance given over to, more than a fair portion of this existence. And when you called back after the fallow year of substituting for more experience and a slew of classroom management ideas, I let the Fates spin me to Oak Grove. By the time I got down to Ojai, I was not all that much into Krishnamurti, as I was into trying to find something that would hold the interest. Thought teaching might finally be it – my mother and her heritage included a number of educators – but alas, that notion died, too.

 

Before Oak Grove, after Oak Grove. It was a great gift to finally find something that called me, engaged me, and held me ever since. And to leave something behind for this dust ball of dreamtime, as well. My aphoristic journal-chronical-diary-memoir-bulletin-log-dossier-scrapbook-commentary-thesis-hobby contribution, to whatever future the mystery has in store, for we, and all our fellow earthlings. Though, for it to gain legs of its own in this insane asylum – this irony-and-paradox-laden théâtre absurde, our kind has through unnatural selection created – seems extremely unlikely. Especially given its esoteric nature, and its being set in a lingua franca, that only a relatively minute percentage of the eight billion-plus two-leggeds could even begin to read, were they even interested.

 

Given our attachment to history and all its traditions, our kind is racing down an abyss-bound waxed slide towards a who-can-more-than-speculate dystopian endgame. Long lists of books and movies plumb every sort of possibility; few of them pretty. But our genomic strand and every other thread that manages to survive, will no doubt eek on as best they can, for as long as they can in the Darwin-esque future. What becomes of this offering is entirely up to the grass roots who read it, and I fully expect it will die on the vine, because imagination is in control of the helm, and all attempts to wrest awareness from its genetically-induced grip, are more than likely useless. Besides which, I have absolutely no interest in competing with the cacophony of all the who-knows-how-many talking heads, mystics at large, spouting similar grist-for-the-mill cuisine across the analog and digital, old-and-new-school realms. Philosophers wrangling with a universe absolutely indifferent to their struggle. All to a relatively small readership-slash-listenership; the regard for skepticism and critical thinking being what it is, has ever been, will ever be.

 

The sitting-alone-serenely-in-the-cave option, would have made much more sense.

 

I relish wordplay, but would certainly never lay claim to being great at it. And story-writing, forget it. Poetry, as well. Anecdotes and vignettes, maybe. And despite what Lena said, you can be sure that I do not consider my aphoristic silliness to be anything close to duplicating or mimicking Krishnamurti. I regard myself just another of countless philosophers – students of life who have nothing they would prefer doing than spending who know how many thousands of hours pondering anything and everything – that the human paradigm has spun across all time, in every geography. We are all walking the same stage in different universes, different perceptions, is how I have come to see it. All molded by very different mind-bodies, different cultures, different languages, different values, different draws of the genetic lottery. Overlapping observations and conclusions, no doubt – it is, after all, the same mystery, the same awareness, the same genetic monkey-mind predisposition, for all – but reflected upon in very different ways, different contexts, different frames of reference, different linguistic aptitudes, different motivations. And all no-doubt influenced by many others they happen across in their inquiries; no thinker has ever resided in a vacuum. Despite its mission statement to focus solely on Krishnamurti’s considerable output, the KFA could easily have a special room, filled with the works of all the ponderers he has influenced.

 

And I believe it important to keep in mind an aphorism from Voltaire: A witty saying proves nothing. Krishnamurti impacted who knows how many millions of people, and I perhaps more than a relatively few handfuls in comparison. But ultimately, all the philosopher-mystics who have ever spoken or scribed even the great insights, have really changed nothing. The genetic synergy of the human paradigm is spinning out of control across this pale blue dot. Our kind is really no different than any cancer, any genomic strain able to circumvent its constraints. Malthus was not wrong; just postponed for a few centuries by perpetual revolutions in agriculture and industry and technology. Made possible in very large part by oil and electricity, since their launch at the turn of the last century; not even 150 years ago. And thus, we are hell-bent on consuming our mother’s blood and breath in every way imaginable, and may well destroy all life on this spinning dust ball, if she does not manage to take us out first, or at least prune back the vanity and greed, the narcissism and hedonism, imbedded in our genes, to something less toxic. 

 

But alas, no matter the outcome, Gaia will be, for the rest of time, a twisted-maimed-crippled version of what she was before imagination took the reins of her immaculate creation, and trampled and twisted the world’s gene pool into a murky future. Which will be, of course, a very short-term ascendency in the lila, the divine play, of eternity. The natural selection that it took for us to reach this point in time – the genomic sequencing that regulates our kind’s every moment – cannot forever be usurped by the capricious, passionate whims of consciousness, of imagination, uniquely playing out in every unborn-undying eternal mind. The resumption of right-relationship with the rules of the game, is for the future to discern, in the ruins, the scar tissue, of a Darwinian garden undone.

 

But, that said, what thinker has ever known how his snowflake will roll down the mountain, in the whatever time our kind has left, before it is inevitably snuffed out in this garden percolated in extinction. I loosely subscribe to the Greek proverb: A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. Most of the things I have created in these seven decades of dreamtime, are already in landfills and the ashes of burn piles around Hughson, Chico, Alameda, Reno, Waterford, Los Gatos, Ojai, and Turlock, so no-big-deal-so-it-goes. This editorial-tutorial, philosophical-mystical creation has been a pleasant pastime, and the gypsy restlessness has finally matured content, fostered in some part by a Krishnamurti comment that struck and stuck somewhere along the timeline: Do what amuses you.

 

Of late, a new discovery, Ikkyū, Japanese zen poet, has become kindred-spirit cuisine.

 

Vaguely recall you telling me, that what made the resume stand out way back when, was the last entry in the ‘interests’ section: aimless wandering and general puttering. Whatever strength, whatever utility, whatever futility, my way too many words have – somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand-plus pages at this writing – is because of such a varied wisdom-is-the-distillation-of-experience existence. A nomadic, all-rounder, generalist, chameleon, look-under-any-rock, wander-all-camps, no-direction-known, the-dark-side-ain't-dark-to-me, frame of reference, that flips at ease through many lenses. It has indeed been a remarkably serendipitous walkabout. Somehow, there was always another vine as I haphazardly swung this way and that through the jungle. Had I been told how this dreamy existence would turn out back in the younger daze, I would have no doubt ha-ha-yeah-right laughed.

 

Here is how ye old many-lifetimes-in-one-lifetime resume stands as the endgame kaleidoscopes towards the Reaper. It can be accessed via Contact Michael on the website home page.

 

Michael J. Holshouser: Life Resume

https://michaelsbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/01/under-construction.html

 

Anywho, that be enough for now. This memory lane babble-on has turned out far longer than it started – kept adding things, fun putting it together, thank you – and is not intended as anything more than a sharing of what became of me after leaving Oak Grove. Hopefully, not too much of a chore to get through; the rambling, probably way-too-dark writing style being what it is. There was a couple-month, back-and-forth inner debate, whether to even slip it to the postman. And certainly, no need to reply unless it calls you. And-and, an FYI, that I shall probably post it in the Life Resume, Sketches of the Once Upon a Time, and Conversations blogs, where it will likely go unread by at least as many as eight billion-plus-plus people, not counting their progeny.

 

What is the future going to do with all those cadavers? I wonder.

 

You look somewhat blissful in the website pic. I think Oak Grove really has been a tolerably good destiny for you. No doubt many have been greatly enriched by your serene, gentle, clear-thinking, heartfelt best-wishes-to-all presence. Hope all is well enough for you, and Oak Grove, as our brief window in this grand mystery, gradually comes to a close. Will have made it seventy years as of the 14th of November, and this getting old is definitely getting old. The time of consequences I calls it, wherein I often-unsuccessfully try to keep my creaky old man whining to myself.

 

Thank you for the part you played in it.

 

Ciao, ciao, best wishes,

 

M

 

 

P.S.

 

Current issue, and a couple other recent titles:

 

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

https://breadcrumbs2023.blogspot.com/

 

Michael’s Rabbit Hole

A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms

https://michaelsrabbithole.blogspot.com/

 

The Call of the Eternal

A Conversation With My Self 

https://thecalloftheeternal.blogspot.com/

 

 

P.P.S. Five excerpts from another gradually unfolding never-to-be-finished short work:

 

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time

A Few Epiphanies and Other Hallmark Moments

https://sketchesoftheonceuponatime.blogspot.com/

 

 

The Entrée into Manhood

 

My introduction to manhood began at age seven, when I first began driving the very well-worn Ferguson tractor, the spine of our thirty-acre peach ranch, where I worked alongside my father and grandfather; both mild, unassuming, Depression-steeled, hard-working men. My father said, in his straight-forward manner, “You’re going to hurt yourself, and the best thing I’ve found to do, is to chew off the loose flesh, suck the blood until it stops, and then get back on the tractor.”

 

The Epiphany Voice

 

The Hughson Union High School Awards Ceremony for the Class of 1972,

was held out on the old football field a few days before graduation.

I was called up seven times for awards of recognition and small scholarships.

Looking out at my applauding classmates as I walked down the steps of the small stage,

the epiphany voice clearly stated, in its forthright way: “Surely, there must be more to life than this.”

 

Commentaries on Living

 

Sometime during my years at Modesto Junior College, while in the library walking through the stacks,

three small hardback, pastel-colored books leaped into the awareness and drew me like a magnet.

They were the “Commentaries on Living” by Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher.

Checked out the first one, and though it seemed worth reading, it made me sluggish.

So, I fairly soon returned it, and a week later nonchalantly pilfered all three.

It would not be until I had entered the working world a few years later,

that I was finally able to read them without drifting off into drowse mode.

It was the beginning of a lifetime of quixotic exploration, both inner and outer.

Finally, ten or twenty or whatever years later, in a twinge of rarely felt compunction,

I bought paperback versions, and dropped all three into the MJC sidewalk book return box.

Rest assured, that it was a move bemoaned many times since.

Wondering if they are still there …

 

Dean Evans

 

One early morning sunrise, soon after arriving in Chico after leaving Oak Grove School 1990-ish, I was sitting at a small table outside the Upper Crust coffee shop in the downtown. It was block away from California State University, Chico, my alma mater as a business major back in the 70’s. There was another fellow – tall, lean, long-haired and bearded, deep-voiced, about my age, could have passed for a white Jesus in some movie – sitting on the other side of the doorway. We began chatting at some point – instantly friends for life – and it proved to be a defining moment in this philosophical walkabout. Dean Evans was a high-wire electrician and autodidactic artist, who took to my writings, and ended up being a key catalyst in their gradual journey from scribblings in notebooks, to the digital format that current times allow. Their first entrée into the public sphere was in his two downtown coffee shop art shows. Dean taped several aphorisms, printed up on white typewriter paper, between his paintings. That led to someone connecting me to a local book agent, who was the one who suggested I select the 250-ish aphorisms from the 300 pages that I had digitalized by that point, that would become the first book, and years later, title to The Stillness Before Time website. The book never took off as anything marketable – it was too esoteric for the book agent, as well as any other publishers I have ever contacted – but Dean Evans was instrumental in everything that happened since. His “You are perfect. Pure gold. Brighter than the sun” is part of the flagship book’s preface, and “It’s a god-eat-god world” forwards the second book, The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim. He and I, along with his wife, Linda, and children, Jasper and Rafael, and their community of friends, had many memorable adventures together in the Chico decade, and a number of visits through the post-Chico years thereafter.

 

From a Back-And-Forth with Len Howard

 

Along with a moderate ABC education in small rural town Hughson, California, you can also thank Roland Russell for nonchalantly suggesting in early already mind-shaking college: “Mike, why don’t you write poetry; it’s kind of fun.” There was also a brief stint running the Waterford News early out of college, where I quickly learned to always have pen and paper and camera at hand as I wandered through the small-town metropolis and surrounding countryside searching for newsworthy fare. As for any brilliance, as you call it, it seems to be more about being something of a receiving unit, with the discipline to write down most the things that come to mind, along with a certain knack for word association, coupled nicely with an adroitness with word processing, greatly aided by the spellcheck and thesaurus functions. As to whether what I have written will ever be well known, or make any real difference in the future of humankind, or the welfare of the planet and all our fellow earthlings, I have many doubts and no time machine. A little too late to make the difference I would be seeking, anyway. I am afraid we are a little too whacked out at this stage of the game to turn the Titanic a less toxic direction. So, I have come to consider it an enjoyable diversion that fills some of the existential reverie, and am content that a few people in the here and there like yourself find it interesting.

 

-----

 

And something I wrote and framed for my mother’s 94th birthday in early September:

 

My Mother

 

If I have not said or implied it elsewhere,

In this thirty-years-plus philosophical walkabout,

It should well be counted a good destiny’s good fortune,

To have been given a mother, such as I have had.

So calm, so rational, so intelligent, so good.

A modest, humble-to-the roots woman,

Of whom Buddha would be in awe.

Beverly Jean Kurtz-Holshouser,

Is her name, born September 4, 1929.

In this worldly mind’s quantum dreamtime,

She, such an unfathomable part, has performed.

She is the source, the seed, the blessing,

For this scribe’s life work and play.

 

Her loving son, Michael Jay

 

 

P.P.P.S.

 

And for any of your high school readers interested in an Old School booklist that might help them prepare for the unfolding debacle.

 

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming

Some Written Works That May Help Get the Young up to Speed

https://listofbooksfortheupandcoming.blogspot.com/


Though, according to those who do such research, Darwin did not write it, he is credited with the well-worn meme – a maxim, a truism, a proverb, of which anyone bent on survival for themselves and their progeny, should be mindful: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

 

And change is coming. You and I have been very fortunate – always say anymore that the masses of our boomer generation have lived through the best of times, probably the apex, as far as my take on human history goes – but those kids out on the playground are in the line of fire in the times I see coming at them. It took 3.8 billion years for our kind to hit its first billion, and only another 200-ish to breed seven billion more. Which leaves me more than a little sure there is no happy ending to this Shakespearian you-can-take-the-monkey-out-of-the-jungle-but-you-can’t take-the-jungle-out-of-the-monkey template. This “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And in my thinking, depressing as it is to those idealistically wishing-hoping-praying for a better-kinder world, their education should, at least in part, prepare them for that. Darwin and Malthus 101, so to speak.

 

And what of those who do not adapt to the coming change? Well, as always, they shall be fodder in one stew or another.

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorian proverb – So it goes – comes to mind.

 

Lots of other interesting stuff, as well, in the blog with the Krishnamurti posts mentioned above. For them who have inquiring be-ready-for-anything minds.

 

Of a Philosophical Nature

http://ofaphilosophicalnature.blogspot.com/

 

 

P.P.P.P.S.

 

Another quick anecdote, that Doug Honeyman – who I had spent some time with while in Ojai, and was well-versed in Krishnamurti, and likely many other notable works – early on put me in my place, when he dropped by in up in Chico on a journey north sometime in the mid-90’s. He said of the early writings that I shared with him, “Nice words, but they don’t do anything for me.”

 

Ouch, but oh well.

 

 

P.P.P.P.P.S.

 

FYI that I still have that ivory-handle wooden letter-opener you gave me for taking care of Ernie when you and Jeff took off traveling for a week or so. I think during a Krishnamurti gathering, but might have been a vacation week. And whether in year one or year two, the memory is too vague. Definitely a great dog; easy to hang with. Like being back in the ranch daze with all the dogs we had through the years. Several of them victims to the relatively busy rural Hatch Road, because none were ever leashed or chained. Actually, my mother did chain one puppy we had gotten from a litter of a neighbor’s fiercely-raging mother who was chained her whole life, and Rennie broke his neck in panic. But all the rest who drifted through, and were offered a food bowl, were given a freedom every dog deserves. And got to sleep all alone rain or shine in the oily dirt-floor shed, to boot. And do not get sick or injured in our austere poor-white-farmer reality, because any visit to the veterinarian for more than shots or neutering, will be your last.

 

Let it be noted that Ernie lived a blessed existence.

 

But, I digress, as is my babble-on nature.

 

 

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. A few ditties from Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond to give you a taste of my banter:

 

Space and time are illusions, to which there is no direction.

There is no forward, no backward, no right nor left, no up nor down,

Nor any other bearing that imagination might in sensory perception envision.

The quantum dream is always, right here, right now, kaleidoscoping, no direction known.

And You are the centerstage, You are the awareness, You are the witness,

To the ineffable mystery playing out the given sentience.

All that is, all that is not, every moment.

 

* * * *

The body is always in the present moment.

Awareness is always in the present moment.

Only imagination wanders space and time.

Only imagination creates space and time.

Only imagination imagines itself alive.

Only imagination imagines itself real.

Only imagination imagines its Self.

Only imagination imagines totality.

Only imagination imagines nothing.

 

* * * *

Science is only is what it is, because of all the technologies,

That awareness, through imagination, has created to measure the cosmic illusion.

The dreamtime, that the electromagnetic spectrum – the quantum stardust, the divine dance, the Shiva –

Has spun into sentience upon this pale blue dot, is a sentience capable of exploring its mystery.

As to the question – whether it is intelligent design or naturally-selected happenstance –

Is it really, worth, all the absurdity, all the horror, our kind every moment inflicts,

Upon one another, all our fellow earthlings, and this whirling ball of dust?

We are all the same mystery, come unto the dream of existence;

What narcissism to give it more narrative than that.

 

* * * *

You are older than the stars, younger than the moment.

Right here, right now, this very, one-and-only, unborn-undying, timeless, ineffable instant.

Eternity … Bam!

 

* * * *

Awareness is the one and only You, the everything within all,

And it has no attachment to any shape, to any existence, whatsoever.

Its indivisible omnipresence-omniscience-omnipotence permeates all totality.

It is the unborn-undying, imbuing all dimensions, all illusions, cultivated by sentience.

If you are to realize the truth of that which eternity is, it must include everything, including You.

There is no need for deities, no need for souls, no need for angels, no need for saints, no need for demons,

No need for belief, no need for scripture, no need for dogma, no need for priests, no need for idols,

No need for worship, no need for prayer, no need for superstition, no need for cathedrals, 

No need for heavenly ecstasies, no need for purgatories, no need for infernos.

Awareness is witness to all, and You, a sparkle of that eternal now.

All You need do, is be the solitary witness You ever are,

Without the self-imagery chained to form.

Be the ever-present moment.

Be the awareness.

Be the ineffable mystery.

Be the flawless sentience of eternity.

Be the indelible Self of all selves, of all creation.

 

* * * *

You are already samadhi, ecstasy, bliss.

All you need do, is be still enough to discern it.

We are all that which is called God by many names.

Each of us exploring our own exclusive matrix of creation.

And why do you need to believe in anything concocted by mind?

Is not just being, enough, without all the nonsense born of imagination?

The infinite ocean is an infinity of drops; how could all this be, any other way?

Without the endless splintering, there would be no existence, there would be no witness.

And it is You, who must endure it all, with all your spirit, very much alone, a light unto your Self.




A LETTER TO ARTHUR BRAVERMAN

FORMER OAK GROVE SCHOOL TEACHER

 

 

Arthur Braverman

45 Taormina Lane

Ojai, CA 93023-3627

 

 

January 3, 2007

 

 

Arthur,

 

When you gave me Nisargadatta’s I Am That in my world-weary state at Oak Grove in the late 80’s, it was a crystal seed that precipitated a wild ride in the 90’s.  Lots of adventures, and an outpouring of thoughts that still have their moments.  Enclosed is a short work that came together for a few publishing inquires that never materialized, but is meanwhile a nice once-and-awhile give-away to people open to such things.  In retrospect, I sometimes joke that it should have been called The Silliness of Time, but the more serious-sounding title beat it to the punch.

 

Your name popped in my head a few weeks ago, and when I googled, lo and behold, you’ve been busy.  Will be looking forward to seeing what you’ve put together in your most recent work when I get the incoming Amazon order.  I still recall all the time you spent sitting in the Pavillion and up on the hill.  Am afraid I’m still not much good at anything so disciplined, but once and awhile I give it a lax shot.  Went to one of those 10-day Vipassana retreats in the Yosemite area a few years back.  Enjoyed it quite a bit, but I suppose you could call me zazen-challenged as far as being regular in the day-to-day goes.

 

Anywho, thanks for being one of the many catalysts in my little life journey.  Had read all sorts of Taoist, Buddhist, and a variety of other philosophers up until that point, but for some unknown reason hadn’t touched on the Bhagavad Gita and other Hindu writings.  The next few years were a real avalanche up in Chico, where I spent the 90’s in a variety of jobs and living situations.  Lots of coffee, walkabouts, and who knows how many notebooks full of scribbling.  Anthropological field notes, I sometimes call them.  Over 2400 pages transcribed, so far.  It does get old at times, and I don’t consider myself that great a writer, but the random enjoyment of stream of consciousness aphoristic wordplay, coupled with the discipline of running a newspaper pre-Oak Grove, keeps pen and paper at the ready.  And the thoughts keep rolling out, so much the same, yet each so different in its own little way.

 

Moved back to the original geography in the Modesto area in Y2K, where I work a bureaucratic job for a local nonprofit, spend time with the parents, and wander relatively anonymous about the sundry.  Not sure I’m really any less world-weary and bemused at times, this manifest realm is not always easy on mind, but so it goes.

 

Hope this finds you and Hiroko both well.

 

Thanks again,


M




AN EMAIL TO PROFESSOR JOHN MCWHORTER

SENIOR FELLOW AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

 

 

John McWhorter, Senior Fellow

319 Hamilton Hall, Mail Code: 2810

Columbia University

116th and Broadway

New York, NY 10027



January 2, 2023

 

 

Dr. McWhorter,

 

Picked up five Great Courses on language, four of them yours, Seth Lerer the fifth; each series with its own slot on a five-disk DVD player. Very enlightening, and well beyond my pale. Am dumbfounded by how little I know about how this mind babbles through its daze.

 

Without intending it – did not start playing with words until early college when a good friend, Roland, offhandedly said, “Mike, why don’t you write poetry; it’s kind of fun.” – I have, in work and play, done quite a bit of writing in this existence. Am sending a link to my life work, my for-all-practical-purposes-unknown contribution to the human paradigm, on the off chance that it might be of use in yours or another’s linguistic research.

 

The Stillness Before Time

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

Website: https://thestillnessbeforetime.com
Blog: https://thestillnessbeforetime.blogspot.com

PDF: https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/thestillnessbeforetime.pdf

 

An esoteric work in an exoteric language. All very stream of consciousness; as ‘camera back’ as this mind allows.

 

My linguistic roots:

 

Raised in Hughson, Central Valley, California (A small rural town southeast of Modesto)

Firstborn, with one sister, two years younger

Mother, of German descent via Pennsylvania-Ohio-Kansas

Father, of German descent via North Carolina and North Texas (post-Civil War)

Both sides with pre-Revolutionary roots

Both sides largely farmers, preachers, and teachers; content with their lot

Parents raised with little sense of German heritage

Parents raised with little involvement with Christian heritage

Father moved from Texas to California at age two, just before Dust Bowl and Great Depression

Mother, born in Southern California; moved to Modesto in early years of Great Depression

Mother, one of three daughters of a college science professor and kindergarten teacher

Father, the only child of a farmer and bi-polar mother, attended Modesto Junior College

Linguistic imprint likely mostly from mother, UC Berkeley graduate and kindergarten teacher

Was driving a tractor and grading peaches during harvest by age seven

Greatly influenced by fifties/sixties black and white television

Vaguely remember phonics flash cards at the dinner table

Mother had a small collection of classical records

A transistor radio showed sometime in high school; we listened to it while grading peaches

SRA Reading Laboratory in seventh grade; some of us raced each other, we were so hungry

Plebeian education; most male teachers in high school were probably coaches at some point

About one hundred students per class level, probably at least a quarter farm kids

English classes in high school – all classes, actually – are but the vaguest of memories

Was the top boy GPA-wise in my graduating class, behind seven girls

Business Major at Modesto Junior College and CSU, Chico, seemed like a practical choice

Teaching credential at University of Pacific in Stockton ten years later

Never had to write more than a ten-page paper and blue books until attending UOP

And in that four-class summer program, I used the same classroom management paper for all

Autodidactic gistmeister in a loosely-scholarly way; Joe Everyman one woman labeled me

Reasonably adept with technologies as they evolved from rotary phone to gizmos galore

Have never used Alexa; the keyboard is the instrument of choice, most often in coffee shops

Praise the gods for word processing with its spelling and grammar checkers, and thesaurus

 

College was the game-changer. Naive small town farm boy meets Sartre and Vonnegut. Bam!

 

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming
Some Written Works That May Help Get the Young up to Speed
https://listofbooksfortheupandcoming.blogspot.com/

 

Breadcrumbs: Life Resume
http://michaelsbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/01/under-construction.html

 

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time
A Few Epiphanies and Other Hallmark Moments
https://sketchesoftheonceuponatime.blogspot.com/

 

Breadcrumbs: Photo Gallery

https://michaelsbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/01/under-construction_50.html

 

Ancestry.com graphics are attached.

 

Mowgli in the forest out the back door,

Huck Finn in the Mississippi across the road,

Sisyphus daily pushing the boulder up the mountain,

Johnny Appleseed casting his ruminations across the world,

Sparrowhawk pursuing the shadow across the depths,

Phaedrus journeying down the asphalt pathways,

Paladin have-gun-will-traveling down the trails,

The Joyful Curmudgeon irreverently amused,

Jester Amok unleashing definitive cuisine,

Muad'Dib piercing the water’s secrets,

Bond sipping the shaken-not-stirred,

Joe Everyman wandering all camps,

And Peter Pan in the essence of all.

 

I hope my not-so-little online scrapbook will not be too intrusive. Thank you for so eloquently sharing your passion.


Happy 2023, hopefully.

 

Regards,

 

M

 

 

P.S.

 

Alas that all of the early poetry/prose and journals now reside in landfills in various parts of California, due to this gypsy’s impulsive proclivity for lightening the load. And all this current fare will likely at best suffer a similar obscurity in one Dead Poet Society catalog or another. Assuming, of course, the human paradigm manages to survive itself more than a little longer.

 

Sarlo's Guru Rating Service

http://web.archive.org/web/19991128202942/www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm

 

Nonduality List of Teachers

https://www.nonduality.com/gurus.htm

 

 

P.P.S.

 

New Rides in the Theme Park

 

Michael's Rabbit Hole

A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms
Blog
https://michaelsrabbithole.blogspot.com/

PDF
http://thestillnessbeforetime.com/michaelsrabbithole.pdf


Imagination: The Great Usurper
Blog
https://imaginationthegreatusurper.blogspot.com/
PDF
http://www.thestillnessbeforetime.com/imaginationthegreatusurper.pdf

 

Lost in Translation

The Human Paradigm’s Linguistic Muddle

Blog
https://lostintranslationyajekim.blogspot.com
PDF
http://www.thestillnessbeforetime.com/lostintranslation.pdf


 

P.P.P.S.

 

Hot Off the Press

 

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

Blog

https://breadcrumbs2023.blogspot.com/

PDF

http://www.thestillnessbeforetime.com/breadcrumbs2023.pdf

 

 

P.P.P.P.S.

 

Ditties for the Bluegrass Pyre

Blog

https://dittiesforthebluegrasspyre.blogspot.com/

PDF

https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/dittiesforthebluegrasspyre.pdf

 

A witty saying proves nothing ~ Voltaire




MY BACK PAGES


by Michael Holshouser


A personal preface to Mark Bava’s essay – My Back Pages – about growing up as farm boys in the small rural town of Hughson during the 50’s and 60’s written for the 2007 Centennial:


I was born and raised in the small rural community of Hughson, California, working my way from kindergarten through high school with a little over a hundred peers at all four school sites: Hughson Elementary, Lebright Middle School, Emily J. Ross Junior High, and Hughson Union High School. For the first seven years of my life, our family of four (Horace, Beverly, and a sister, Ann, a little less than two years younger) lived on what was then a cul-de-sac on the east end of Pine Street. When my widowed grandfather, Horace Senior, married Martha Sinclair in 1960 and moved to her place, we moved to the thirty-acre family peach ranch on Hatch Road.


Suddenly, I was a farm boy living in an old wooden ranch house a mile northwest of town, and life changed dramatically. Within a year I was driving an old gray and battered Ferguson TE20 tractor, spring-toothing and putting up and taking down levies; staying up all night irrigating opening and closing gates, listening the water trickle toward the ends of checks with my father; hoeing weeds and pulling suckers off walnut trees interplanted between the peach trees; grading peaches during harvest, and  picking up props at day’s end; walking rain or shine with my sister to the Mountain View bus stop a quarter mile away; watching three channels of black and white television reruns in the front living room; digging underground tunnel hideaways covered with plywood; shooting birds in the bushes and fish in the canal with a BB gun; climbing trees and frolicking with dogs and cats; exploring an aluminum corrugated shed filled with tools and whatever; wandering the surrounding countryside planted with planted with peaches, walnuts, almonds, and grapes; converting the second floor of the tank house into a fully-stocked-with-dirt-clods fortress keep; driving a Willy’s post-World War II civilian jeep on a winding and dusty orchard-wide racetrack with my little dog, Jerry, sitting in the passenger seat; sobbing my eyes out on a hot day digging a shallow grave in the roadside orchard, burying Macho, who had finally chased one too many trucks on the busy Hatch Road; carrying out pitched dirt clod sorties with other farm boys, and playing rousing games of tag with them all summer in the canal just across the road at the Tully Road bridge and upstream falls. It was a Mississippi out the front door, and a jungle out the back one. A blend of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli, without a Pap Finn or Shere Khan.


Breadcrumbs: Life Resume

http://michaelsbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/01/under-construction_68.html


Breadcrumbs: Photo Gallery

http://michaelsbreadcrumbs.blogspot.com/2015/01/under-construction_17.html


Ferguson Tractor, Old Commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELQgEa_JXJQ


Willys Jeep Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Sle8X4EZM


And the thing to realize about all the physicality of those younger years, is that all the pain and bother – all the hot and cold, all the choking dust driving the tractor, all the gnats and itchy peach fuzz grading peaches, all the splinters picking up props, all the cuts and scratches and tears and bruises and crunches and burns handling equipment, and all the tedious long hours of all of the above – is that the discipline to finish a task, the capacity to endure suffering, the ability to one-step-after-another abide a mundane pace, as well as the recognition of the intrinsic relationship with nature, have all played a huge underlying role in the life lived since. Gumption, grit, resilience, stamina, ingenuity, dependability, steadfastness, critical thinking, problem-solving, and can-do-it-will-do-it attitude, are concepts that ring true in this mind. And are significant factors in the evolution of the frame of reference that has sculpted the philosophical-mystical writings that have poured out since 1989.


* * * *

Fellow Class of ’72 alumni, Mark Bava, who also lived on Pine Street, and was also a son of a local farmer, caught Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine” flavor of it all in an essay he wrote for the Hughson Centennial in 2007.


My Back Pages

https://markbava.blogspot.com/2006/07/writings.html


Mark’s Blog

https://www.blogger.com/profile/04781808645805571682


Dandelion Wine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelion_Wine


Hughson Union High School Class of '72

https://www.facebook.com/Hughson-Union-High-School-Class-of-72-301790023189950/


Hughson Historical Society

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hughson-Historical-Society/169357353116469


Hughson Union High School

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughson_Union_High_School


Hughson, California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughson,_California


Stanislaus County, California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaus_County,_California


California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California




MY BACK PAGES


by Mark Bava

"The boys were chasing the city truck
spraying DDT
It kept the mosquitoes down ...
That stuff won't hurt 'em none
I heard the neighbor lady say …"

James McMurtry
from the song "12 O'clock Whistle"

In the central valley town of Hughson, California, canal swimming was a recognized talent. One could almost become hailed in comparable stature to surfing champions on the coast for their prowess in the water. And just as surfers wore nicknames such as Duke, Woody, or Steamboat, we had ace swimmers with names like Frog, who could stay underwater at length, and were rumored to have performed feats that made local legend such as diving from high bridges, or shooting the most gnarly and dangerous waterfalls. To keep the flow of the water controlled over the downhill grade of the terrain, these waterfalls, or "drops," were built at various stages along the large cement irrigation canals that crisscrossed their way through Central California from upland reservoirs, bringing precious water to the valley farm lands below. The most popular falls and bridges also had their nicknames, like Double Drop, The M, or Russell's, named after the family who lived nearby. These favorite spots would often be magically crowded with guys drinking beer and showing off as girls in bikinis watched on. And just as the surfers cruised the coast to check the waves and action in their favorite bays, we would cruise to see who and what was going on at our favorite swimming spots. Some of the waterfalls were larger than others, and most were forceful enough to drown an expert swimmer unless one knew the currents well. Despite the fact that a number of people who accidently fell in or drove their cars in were drowned every year, we grew up swimming in these canals and prided ourselves in our skill to navigate the rushing waters. But even for us, there were some falls with the fury of Niagara that remained unconquered.

Playing tag was the main pastime, with rules and boundaries conceived in some organic fashion within the unique parameters of a large cement canal, rushing waterfalls, canal banks, and catwalks. Aside from tag, another reckless sport was "shooting the falls,” which was daring to see who could go over the falls either head or feet first, or on inner tubes or some other random floating object.

Years later at a Hughson class reunion, a suggestion that some of us go swimming in the canal for nostalgia sake was met incredulously with the fact that no one swims in these canals any longer because it is now recognized that pollutants and pesticides infest these waters, not to mention the liability issues that come into play in today's lawsuit-happy world. It's another bygone era. We took chances then, and no one was sued when kids got seriously injured trying to water ski behind cars or dive off telephone poles into the canal. As far as the pesticides, in the town of Hughson, California, as in the Texas hometown of songwriter James McMurty, on blistering hot summer days we would peddle our bikes behind a cool mist of DDT coming from the back of the "Mosquito Man's" truck whenever he came to town spraying to keep the local mosquito population down. Back then, DDT was recognized as some kind of miracle chemical that was even sprayed on immigrants arriving at Ellis Island to insure that they didn't bring foreign germs with them into our shining new country. Which was equivalent to believing an advertising slogan at the time that smoking L&M cigarettes was "just what the doctor ordered.”  And just as McMurty's song suggests, our parents sat outside oblivious, fanning themselves with their evening cocktails in hand gushing, "oh, looooook … awwww, how cuuuute ... kids ... Mosquito Man ..." and would laugh at how adorable we all looked smiling in ecstasy riding along in a cool, wet cloud of pure DDT. From those episodes, I have often stopped to wonder if that is why I have remained free of many viruses now feared. That by all odds, I should have contracted long ago with all my excessive bad habits through the years. Maybe DDT was a miracle drug of some kind.

Hughson was founded in 1907. It was named after Hiram Hughson, who owned much of the land at one time. The Indians had referred to it as "a place of sleep," and it wasn't really much more than a whistle stop along the Santa Fe railroad line. For no apparent reason, its main street is the remarkable width of a four lane freeway, which is absurdly wide for only being seven blocks long. The buildings that lined the street bore facades much like towns of the old west, but of concrete rather than wood. This was the style of architecture that was typical of California valley towns in the early 20th century, that is now being replaced by the latest architectural contribution to the modern Americana aesthetic: the strip mall.

In 2007 the town will celebrate its centennial. There will be a parade down Main Street, the unveiling of a life size bronze sculpture of a migrant peach picker, and a "bean feed" among other events. Somewhere deep in the nostalgia of this small town was this cherished annual event called The Bean Feed that is being resurrected from the annals of Hughson history that was little more than what its name implies: a town feed of beans and a slice of white bread with butter on a paper plate. But the Bean Feed was a festive occasion. It equaled some of the local harvest parties where a pig would be sacrificed and roasted underground by some distinguished Mexican cooks, pallets of Lucky Lager beer would arrive, mariachi bands would play, and everyone got drunk and danced while us kids tried to sneak off with six-packs of beer.

There was something unique about this small town and the people it produced that is hard to put your finger on. Not that anyone will point out anyone of national importance from there, or a celebrity like neighboring Modesto with its George Lucas who epitomized his town with the movie American Graffiti. But much like the Lucas movie, coming of age in Hughson around that era had a very similar flavor of that which was portrayed that infused its people with a rare down to earth quality that you rarely find in today's neurotic world. 

The town on weekend nights was the scene of adolescent youth courting, flirting, getting drunk, and creating general mayhem ... cruising in cars back and forth on Main Street, making U-turn after U-turn at each end and cruising back again, eventually pulling up to others who were parked either along the street or in the dirt parking lot of M & M's Drive-In that took up the whole block at the top of the street. M & M's was our Mel's Drive-In, except occasionally some daring soul would fly into it's dirt lot with their car doing wild donuts and "rooster tails," satisfied at creating an enormous cloud of dust.

Across the street, standing side by side were the town's only two bars. One of these bars was frequented by Mexicans, and the other one by whites, and only a "bad ass" dared to go in either one. In valley towns like Hughson, you were either the toughest, had the fastest car, could drink the most, or risked some other dare devil craziness to prove your manhood ... that you were "bad.”  Fights and town rivalries over sports and anything else were the fashion. There were always "rumbles" between town football teams in school parking lots after the games, and to even be caught cruising in a neighboring town could prove threatening.

On top of that, the town had a bit of its own racial tensions. Despite the demographic breakdown offered by consensus figures, in Hughson it seemed you were either Italian, Portuguese, Mexican, or “Okie.”  The Italians had come there to be farmers, the Portuguese to be dairymen, and the Okies were those who had poured in from Oklahoma after the Dustbowl to work the fields in classic Woody Guthrie narrative, to be replaced by the Mexicans years later. There was friction between the latter that probably started over jobs. We knew little of the kind of prejudice that was prevalent towards blacks back then, or of the anti-Semitism discussed in WWII history for example. We had no "Afro Americans" in that town. We had mixtures of everything else. All we knew was that "Negros" produced most of the hit records on the charts ,and thought to be Jewish was just another religion. But there was this racism between the Okies and the Mexicans and the two town bars frequently erupted in violence on the street outside.

The town was violent, but only to a point. I watched people get in fights, friends get killed racing cars, and saw a policeman lie dying on the street, shot in a thwarted bank robbery attempt of our little town bank that shocked the town to its core. It was still the Old West fifties style to be sure, but we never locked doors, and the only big robbery we had heard about until then, was when the owner of the Five and Dime was rumored to have previously tried to tunnel into the same bank that was next door. For the most part, the most we feared was getting caught smoking in the school bathroom. Guns were for hunting or shooting mailboxes and stop signs, and they were readily available on our farms but no one could even dream of using one for assault, and certainly not to bring to school or town. It was all fists and feet.

Farming was the industry and peaches were king. The town once held the title of Peach Capital of the World (in cling peaches as Georgia held the title for freestone peaches). The town came alive in the summers as the harvest approached. It was hot, tipping three-figures on the thermometer. We were out of school and working on family farms buzzing in the middle of the season with their smells of Mexican food and sounds of Mexican music filling the air from farmhand cabins. We eagerly waited for when we could sneak away and go swimming in the canals, race cars, or cruise town in the hopes of finding a party or joining the ranks of couples making out on canal banks. On Sundays, neighboring Italian farm families got together following mass for huge meals at long tables with homemade wine and piles of ravioli. 

It was a Norman Rockwell portrait of the golden age of postwar bliss. A little ambition would buy the American Dream. Fathers worked and mothers stayed home raising the kids. We had rotary phones, party lines, and operators who knew family names. There were no answering machines to get a message if you weren't home. The latest news was commonly spread word of mouth or through town gossip, and much of that was from Hamilton's Cafe, the community nerve center where farmers convened every morning to discuss their crops over breakfast. Families watched the same TV shows like Bonanza, Leave it to Beaver, Have Gun Will Travel, Twilight Zone, Ed Sullivan, and Combat, a WW2 series showing the last just war our fathers had just won. Our mothers watched Jack La Lane, As the World Turns, and Queen for a Day, which had to be the most politically incorrect thing since Al Jolson wore blackface. We saw Mysterious Island for 10 cents at our local movie theater. Gas was 37 cents a gallon. We could burn piled leaves in our yards. Dry cleaning and milk were delivered to your door, and the town doctor, a man who seemed to know everything, made house calls. It was all the latest in the modern nuclear age with TV trays, kidney shaped tables, and the Space Race.

Teenagers watched American Bandstand and did the Twist. There was some hushed war in Korea that we knew little about. And then came something called the Cuban Missile Crisis, and our town doctor who knew everything proudly built a fully functioning concrete bomb shelter and began rotating stocks of canned goods.

Soon after came the British Invasion and Mod was the fashion. We started watching Laugh In and Walter Cronkite began to talk about another hushed war in a place called Vietnam. Eventually that war began to claim even the lives of children from this town not on any maps that few had even heard of. People started to wonder as we started hearing of protests.

I watched Woodstock at the local drive-in theater as the 1967 Summer of Love arrived in our town in 1969. Marijuana started to replace booze, and we piled in cars to cruise country roads with nicknames like The Crooked Mile to smoke joints safely away from authoritarian eyes with our 8 tracks blaring, listening to the Rolling Stones, Ten Years After, and Led Zeppelin. There were no local police, and we had driven trucks and tractors since the age of 10, and many of us could drive as early as Junior High School. Just as was portrayed in American Graffiti, we lived in our cars, but all of a sudden cruising became slower as we got more stoned.

I tried LSD, listening to Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" over and over on my portable phonograph. I started wearing fringed jackets, paisley Nehru shirts, suede moccasins, or black Beatle boots, and I watched our town become less violent as people cruising in cars flipped peace signs instead of the finger. Rivalries and fighting stopped, replaced by brotherhood and our attempt at being flower children. As we neared graduation, we began to think about the draft and our options other than following the war blindly. We saw JFK assassinated, followed by Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. We saw civil rights movements and civil disobedience. It was the beginning of the end of the last innocent generation, and I was about to graduate.

Following graduation, our doctor who knew everything took his life, followed by my father, whose increasing bouts of depression from a little-known syndrome called Manic Depression become too chronic for him to bear. With little time to think, the family farm was sold to pay the inheritance taxes, and with what was left, I went off to art school and to see the world, eventually moving to the coast. I never lived here again.

I never grew up. I never had kids. The rare times I have returned were either for a class reunion, a funeral, or a quick sentimental journey down Main Street when passing within proximity on my way somewhere else, and when I did, I sometimes wondered why anyone settled here in the first place. I have been physically, mentally, and spiritually almost everywhere. I've had my picture taken with Jackie and Aristotle Onassis on the island of Capri. I've sunk a ship in the Caribbean, shot the rapids of the Pequari River, been thrown into a dungeon in Bangkok, and made the pilgrimages to Burning Man in the Nevada Desert. I think I've been a puppet, a pauper, a poet, a pawn, and maybe not quite a king, but to this day, no matter where I am, there is a maudlin feeling that comes over me with the end of a summer and the coming of fall. It's hard to shake. It's ingrained in me. It's the feeling of a time when the winds come, and the leaves fall off the peach trees, leaving nothing but bare branches as they go dormant for the cold season ahead. The Mexicans would leave town on their sojourns back home for the winter, and the farm would become a deserted wasteland. The canals would go dry. Everything seemed to go black and white. And with all of this, I would have to face going back to school and wait for spring ... when everything would blossom, the Mexicans would return, the music would begin, and we could go swimming in the canals.

Mark Bava is an event producer, musician and artist now residing in Carmel California.

* My Back Pages - song by Bob Dylan (1964)
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now …"




HUGHSON CELEBRATES ITS CENTENNIAL THIS WEEKEND


​​An article in the Ceres Courier announcing the Hughson Centennial​:


Hughson Celebrates Its Centennial This Weekend

http://www.cerescourier.com/archives/53932/


By Jeff Benziger


September 19, 2007

Hughson turns 100 years old this month and there will be a celebration worthy of a hundred-year wait on Saturday, Sept. 22.


A full day of celebration is being organized by the Hughson Historical Society, the Hughson Centennial Celebration Committee, and the city of Hughson. "A Small Community With A Big Heart" is the guiding theme for the free event, which includes an all-day Main Street fair, that is open to the general public.


Hughson's township was filed in 1907. It didn't become an incorporated city until 1971.


From 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hughson Avenue will be converted into a fair. Free entertainment will be offered as well as displays of vintage automobiles, tractors and motorcycles. A Dust Bowl Days display will be available as well as commercial booths for shoppers. Food booths will feed the crowd.


A parade at 11 a.m. will pay tribute to Hughson's past and will feature a wide range of antique vehicles including a Wells Fargo stagecoach.


Activities for the children will include a petting zoo, pumpkin maze, jumping bins, kiddie tractor pull, and Centennial Children's Area.


A larger-than-life statue of a peach picker, called "The Harvest" - commissioned by Oakdale artist Betty Saletta - will be unveiled at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 22 at the corner of Charles and Hughson Avenue. The intersection has recently been rehabilitated into a showcase intersection complete with brick, planters and street furniture. Donors who helped pay for the statue will be recognized on bronze plaques at its base.


Inscribed paving bricks honoring or memorializing family or friends were sold to help raise funds and will be a central part of the Centennial Plaza design.


Hughson was once known for the peaches grown in its fields; hence the harvester was seen as an appropriate tribute.


A time capsule with memorabiia from 2007 will be placed at Centennial Plaza.


"Years ago, Hughson used to have a Tractor Rodeo and free beans so we're going to have that again," said Jean Henley, a member of the Hughson Historical Society.


Free peaches will also be given away.


The Hughson Historical Museum, located in the old Gilette Hotel which was moved from downtown Ceres in 1907, will be open for the day. The museum is located on Hughson Avenue.


A wide range of other food will be available for purchase, as well as centennial DVD's, T-shirts, polo shirts and hats. Shirts and hats may be purchased in advance at Bank of the West in Hughson or at the event.


A limited number of bronze maquettes of "The Harvest" are still available. A portion of the purchase of these 18-inch versions of the finished sculpture goes to the Hughson Historical Society.




FUNERAL PLAYLIST

 

Agnus Dei [The Scarlet Letter]

6:15

Samuel Barber 

Cinema Choral Classics

 

Be Here Now

6:25

Ray LaMontagne

Till the Sun Turns Black

 

Classical Gas

3:06

Mason Williams

Phonograph Record

 

For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her [Live] 

2:22

Simon & Garfunkel

The Best Of Simon & Garfunkel

 

From Russia With Love Theme

2:52

John Barry

More Music To Spy By

 

Gloomy Sunday

3:48

Sarah Brightman

La Luna

 

Goldfinger

3:03

John Barry

Music To Spy By

 

Heart Of Gold

3:07

Neil Young

Decade [Disc 2]

 

I Am A Rock

2:52

Simon & Garfunkel

The Best Of Simon & Garfunkel

 

The James Bond Theme

2:14

John Arnold

The Best of Bond … James Bond

 

James Bond Theme

2:00

John Barry Orchestra

Spy Magazine Presents Spy Music, Volume 1

 

Jerusalem

2:35

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

Classics, Vol. 1

 

Lara's Theme from "Doctor Zhivago"

5:48

Erich Kunzel & The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

Hollywood's Greatest Hits Volume 1

 

The Little Drummer Boy

3:15

Henry Mancini

A Merry Mancini Christmas

 

Love Theme From Romeo & Juliet

2:36

Henry Mancini

Collection

 

Lucky Man

4:41

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Best Of Emerson, Lake & Palmer

 

Minstrel Of the Dawn 

3:28

Gordon Lightfoot

Gord's Gold

 

The Mystic's Dream

7:43

Loreena McKennitt

The Mask and Mirror

 

Old Man

3:24

Neil Young

Three

 

On the Road To Find Out

5:08

Cat Stevens

Tea for the Tillerman

 

Over The Rainbow

3:32

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Alone In IZ World

 

Prologue

2:13

John Williams

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 

Watermark

2:24

Enya

Watermark

 

Silent Night

3:47

Enya

The Christmas EP

 

The Sounds Of Hatari

6:47

Henry Mancini

Pink Panther And Other Hits

 

Stairway To Heaven

8:03

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin IV (1994 Remaster)

 

Stupid (Worakls Remix)

7:02

N.T.O. Stupid (Remixes) - EP

 

Tapestry

3:14

Carole King

Tapestry

 

Thunderball Theme

2:18

John Barry

More Music To Spy By

 

Variations On The Kanon By Pachelbel

5:23

George Winston

December

 

007 Theme

3:01

John Barry

Music To Spy By

 

The Wind

1:42

Cat Stevens

Teaser and the Firecat

 

Young Girl’s Funeral

0:42

Rachel Portman

The Cider House Rules


Any Other Name

4:06

Thomas Newman

American Beauty


Cleopatra in New York

4:32

Nickodemus

Cleopatra in New York

 

The Promise

4:19

Michael Nyman

The Piano

 

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2:38

Ennio Morricone

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

 

Sleep, Dearie, Sleep

2:16

The Lone Piper

The Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

 

 
 

EVOLUTION OF THE STILLNESS BEFORE TIME

 

A timeline of phases in this little raison d'être project that began in 1989.

 

Ojai

 

Teaching at Oak Grove School in Ojai, California

Head and neck injury at Carpinteria State Beach on school fieldtrip

Psilocybin mushrooms & ecstasy

Nisargadatta’s “I Am That”

The first index cards, tossed after Lena’s comment

 

Chico

 

A box of spiral-bound notebooks

Access to a desktop computer at Chico Hedway

Dean Evans and two art shows

A book agent who had me put together The Stillness Before Time

Including: Of the Human Journey, Got God?, Ten Reflections, Books, Movies

Kinko’s and who knows how many spiral-bound copies out the back door

 

Arcata

 

More spiral-bound notebooks

CLAD certificate program at Humboldt State

First Apple PowerBook 5300 laptop

HTML programming class

Creation of The Stillness Before Time website

 

Turlock

 

Switch to index cards

Creative Alternatives and transfer of website

Five generations of Apple MacBook laptops through the years

Several attempts to publish, with support from Dawn Eden Fletcher and Ram Dass

The Return to Wonder

Matrix algorithm experiment

Google Blogger

Facebook

Twitter

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

Breadcrumbs series

Lulu Press

Retirement from Creative Alternatives

Transfer of website to Network Solutions

Evolution of website

A variety of offshoot titles

Sivana East

Instagram

Transfer of website to Skystra

Switch to smart phone texting

Editing of Stillness, Ponderings, Return to Wonder

The quest for a legacy caretaker

 

 

 

JUST A CLARIFICATION
 

Just a clarification, that any titles not listed below, are selections from the titles below.

And that the most recent, most accurate edits, will be the PDF versions uploaded to the website.

Also, most other titles will not have been completed, if the Reaper shows up too soon.

So, anyone who might be motivated, is welcome to fill in any and all gaps,

Being as mindful as possible, to hold true to the given formatting.

There may or may not be someone to answer inquiries,

At the mjholshouser@gmail.com address.

 

The Stillness Before Time

Including:

Of the Human Journey

Got God?

Ten Reflections

 

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

The Return to Wonder

 

Breadcrumbs 2015

Breadcrumbs 2018

Breadcrumbs 2019

Breadcrumbs 2020

Breadcrumbs 2021

Breadcrumbs 2022

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond

 

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

The Standard Ripostes

Even More

Definitions

Conversations

My (Not Quite) Haiku

Once Upon a Christmas

Titles, Titles & More Titles

Ditties From the Bluegrass Fire

Spam Responses (a.k.a., WTF Is This Shit!?)

 

Singles from various Breadcrumbs:

To Be or Not to Be
The Mystery of the Mystery
Who Was the First?
The Real is Discovering
59 Moments to The Way It Is (And Is Not)