1112 Cedar Creek Drive, Unit 4
Santa Cruz – July 2023
Co-Host – Jasmine Garden Oasis Airbnb, Santa Cruz
Employee & Foster Care Training Coordinator and RFS Student Transportation –
Technical Support – Sandpiper Technologies, Manteca
Chico - 1990 to 1999
Drama Lighting Hand – Oak Grove School
Photographer – Weddings, Special Events, Portraits – Self-employed
Photographer – Weddings, Special Events, Portraits – Self-employed
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
Personable, articulate, disciplined, meticulous, punctual, eclectic generalist.
iView MediaPro, PageMill – Creative Alternatives, Turlock
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
Blog and PDF
Blog * PDF
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
Michael's Rabbit Hole
A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms
Blog * PDF
The Call of the Eternal
A Conversation With My Self
Blog * PDF
Imagination: The Great Usurper
Blog * PDF
Lost in Translation
The Human Paradigm's Linguistic Muddle
Blog * PDF
The Gordian Knot of Ethical Thinking
Blog * PDF
Jesus on Prophets
What Any Seer Likely Faces Returning to the Cave of Origin
Blog * PDF
Aftershocks Autumn 2024
Blog * PDF
Of Meaning and Purpose
Ponderings About the Futility of It All
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
Jester Amok
Blog * Facebook * Facebook (Original)
Uncle Sam Says
Blog * Facebook
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
A Collection of Miscellaneous Creations
Final Exit and Related Links
COVID-19 Information Links
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Of A Philosophical Nature
The Four Agreements
The Joyful Curmudgeon
12 Rules You Can Live By
Quotes, Quotes & More Quotes
Fichier Circulaire de Michael
How to Work in Any Environment
50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School
Election 2016: The Rise (and Fall?) of Donald Trump
Michael's Little Warehouse of All Things Amusing, Absurd & Profound
Other Blogs and PDF's by Michael
Other Blogs and PDF's by Michael
Facebook
Michael Holshouser
Fichier Circulaire de Michael
(Michael's Circular File)
Yaj Ekim
Twitter/X
@YajEkim
Instagram
Michael Holshouser
Nine Translations of the Ashtavakra Gita
The Heart of Awareness (Byrom)
Ashtavakra Gita (Marshall)
Bitten by the Black Snake (Schoch)
Ashtavakra Gita (Richards)
A Duet of One (Balsekar)
Astavakra Samhita (Wood)
Ashtavakra Gita (Shastri)
Ashtavakra Gita (Saraswati)
Ashtavakra Gita (Vedic Scriptures)
PDF's of Nine Translations of the Ashtavakra Gita
The Heart of Awareness (Byrom)
Ashtavakra Gita (Marshall)
Bitten by the Black Snake (Schoch)
Ashtavakra Gita (Richards)
A Duet of One (Balsekar)
Astavakra Samhita (Wood)
Ashtavakra Gita (Shastri)
Ashtavakra Gita (Saraswati)
Ashtavakra Gita (Vedic Scriptures)
Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva
Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva
PDF's of Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva
Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva
I Am Shiva Comparison Chart
Four Translations of the Avadhuta Gita
Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free (Marshall)
Song of the Avadhut (Abhayananda)
Avadhut Gita (Shastri)
Avadhuta Gita: The Song of the Ascetic (Sinha)
PDF's of Four Translations of the Avadhuta Gita
Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free (Marshall)
Song of the Avadhut (Abhayananda)
Avadhut Gita (Shastri)
Avadhuta Gita: The Song of the Ascetic (Sinha)
Translations of Other Ancient Writings
Tao Te Ching: Verse One
Tao Te Ching (Marshall)
Bhagavad Gita (Marshall)
Yoga Sutras (Marshall)
Dhammapada (Marshall)
Ecclesiastes (Marshall)
Atma Bodha (Chinmayananda)
The Essence of the Ribhu Gitaj (Aiyer)
Yoga Vasishta Sara (Ramasramam)
Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Madhavananda)
Mandukya Upanishad & Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada (Panoli)
Gaudapada: Advaita Vedanta's First Philosopher (Jones)
Translations of Ancient Writings by Bart Marshall
Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free
Ashtavakra Gita
Tao Te Ching
Bhagavad Gita
Yoga Sutras
Dhammapada
Ecclesiastes
Writings by Bart Marshall
Verses Regarding True Nature
One Hundred Two Haiku
A LIST OF INJURIES AND STRAINS
1960’s and 70’s – Tractor driving: lower back, left arm and shoulder; heavy lifting and moving.
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 the 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/
http://www.thestillnessbeforetime.com/breadcrumbs2023.pdf
P.P.P.P.S.
Ditties for the Bluegrass Pyre
Blog
https://dittiesforthebluegrasspyre.blogspot.com/
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
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
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
Transfer of website to Skystra
Switch to smart phone texting
Editing of Stillness, Ponderings, Return to Wonder
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: