Back in 09 I wrote a couple of Blogs about the roots of Social Unrest, SU. Now here we are with SU. shaking much of the Arab Middle East right down to its bones. Back in 09 I was trying to show how SU. can effect change. Capitalists were really scared when the masses took to the streets. It was seen as a direct challenge to the very existence of the system in power. Back then the underlying fear was over a takeover by left wing organizations to establish a socialist system of government.
In the case of the present Middle East SU. the issue is not a threat of an alternative system of government. It is primarily a notion that if we throw out the Dictators in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt Jordan and Yemen etc. somehow, maybe, things might get better. As my Tunis born barber says, “listen things couldn’t be worse.” That’s the threat to the long time rulers.
However there is a real domino effect here. If Mubarak in Egypt goes down the US. and Israel lose their major Middle East supporter. Remember we give the Mubarak government $I.6 Billion a year for him to be nice to us and our ally Israel. What happens if the street protesters chase him out of country? (He will find somewhere to live happily ever after on the money he’s probably got socked away in a Swiss Bank?)
Oh, man this puts Obama once again between a “rock and a hard place.” If he supports the very justified protesters he is undermining our old, maybe only, Middle east ally. If he even appears to be supporting Mubarak and his oppressive regime he will lose all credibility as champion of Democracy. So, he tries the tightrope walk. “Now Mubarack we understand the spot your in just, please don’t start shooting the protesters. That would be shades of the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square running over student protesters. Yee Gods we don’t want that.
In case you haven’t noticed we are living in extremely volatile times. We now have many countries with emerging economies. They are the ones with a disproportionate number of young people looking for work. Their job markets are simply unable to absorb the millions in need of jobs. The anger of the frustrated gets directed at the corrupt dictators and their cronies. The basic problem however is the lack of a feasible alternative. That is exacerbated by the absence of any organized left
.
Here’s my “light bulb minute” (Thanks Miss Friedmen my 4th grade Public School teacher.)
In the good old USA it seems we have solved the above problem with the Two Party System. When the Dems are in power and folks get mad, ie The Tea Party Crowd yells, “THROW THE BUMS OUT.” Okay, in 2010 we throw them out. Maybe they even keep up their run and in 2012 they throw Obama out.
Hold on now. Comes 2014 the Dems.Coffee Party Crowd will yell "THROW THE BUMS OUT." And that's how the political dance of Tweedildum and Tweedildee came about. You’ve got to admit. For the Fat Cats it works pretty good. For an Old Geezer like me it remains a mystery why folks can’t see through it? My departed historian friend Herb Gutman would remind me how we suffer from “social amnesia.” Nobody remembers what happened two weeks ago. What happened two years ago? Ancient history, gone and forgotten.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sargent Shriver Poverty Fighter
The death of Shriver at age 95 reminds me that our 1960s breed of anti poverty fighters are rapidly dyeing out. I never met Shriver. Yet he played an important role in my career. It was at Mobilization For Youth. MFY it was one of several big city experiments to see what kind of interventions might help Ghetto youth become gainfully employed members of society. At the time MFY was far and away the best known of those efforts. I came to work at MFY when a sociologist Professor at Brooklyn College asked me if I would be interested in running a work program for 4-500 Juvenile Delinquents on the lower East side of Manhattan? As a result of being blackmailed I had ended up working as a Chief Engineer for a division of United Shoe Machinery Corp.
After a brief Washington meeting with Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General I had extensive interviews with the folks who were putting MFY together. After some tough bargaining about pay, that would be a lot less than I was making I took the job. It was a better fit for someone who had spent his working life in the Labor Movement. (I had been expelled 3 times from my union. A Guinness Record.) This time I would be helping Ghetto kids make it the world of work.
We were about 6-7 months into creating a series of workplaces, Gas Station, Restaurant, Print Shop, Woodworking shop sewing shop, construction, etc. when the Daily News made a front page attack. We were accused of printing a large Poster that showed a Policemen with a skull and crossbones over him. He had been accused of shooting a Black kid. Besides they charged that MFY was overrun with “commies and assorted radicals.” We were besieged with demands for people to resign. The City Administration got into the act be demanding the the Legal Aid an MFY Project stop organizing tenant strikes against landlords.(MFY Legal Aid for the poor continues to this day.)
We organized a Staff Committee to Save MFY. We raised a lot of money and declared “That nor single member of our MFY staff would be victimized as a result of the attacks. Now the real question was what would Washington funding source do? That’s where Shriver came in. I got a call from his office saying that he was dispatching Jay Rockefeller his I.G. to take a look at our Programs and report back to him.
The following Monday a tall skinny young man in dungarees appeared in my office door announcing he was here for Shriver to see what we were doing. “Can I just follow you around.” He asked. “Be my guest. It’s a public project with citizens money so I assume anybody can come here and see what we’re up to.” He said fine and we were off. He spent a week arriving every morning around 8. We had coffee, a bagel and we were off to the work sights. At each one of our operations he would wonder around ask the enrolees as well as the Crew Chiefs what exactly we were doing. Then he would ask the enrolees, "what are you learning?"
Upon realizing that he was a real "blue blood" Rockefeller I was duly impressed with his commitment and discipline n trying to understand what we were trying to do. In the print shop he made extensive inquiry about the alleged “Poster.” Of course we didn’t print it as we did not have the capacity to do so. Several times he would ask if we had any “printing facility in the basement.” My reply was always, “okay lets go look.” Of course there was none as we never had such a press. Our budget never would have approved it. We never would have printed such a poster even if we could have.
At the end of the week Jay and I retired to the local Bistro run by MFY. He wanted the answer to a few more questions. Most of which had to do with my background in the unions. We had a long conversation primarily about what the MFY type of programs could teach us about working with troubled Ghetto kids. With a warm handshake and a “Good-luck with all the great things going on here" he left.
A short time later we received a copy of a letter Shriver had written to the MFY Board. He said he was very proud of the work we were doing and held it up as exemplary for others to emulate. Sargent Shriver was a dedicated public servant. He would not be intimidated by all the Tabloid hysteria about reds and radicals running anti poverty programs. In his report Jay Rockefeller said, paraphrasing, “If we can’t have the kind of people we have at MFY running those work programs we can forget our anti poverty efforts.” He did eventually become the Senator from West Virginia. Shriver continued his own journey in making this world a little better place for the disadvantaged. He will be missed.
After a brief Washington meeting with Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General I had extensive interviews with the folks who were putting MFY together. After some tough bargaining about pay, that would be a lot less than I was making I took the job. It was a better fit for someone who had spent his working life in the Labor Movement. (I had been expelled 3 times from my union. A Guinness Record.) This time I would be helping Ghetto kids make it the world of work.
We were about 6-7 months into creating a series of workplaces, Gas Station, Restaurant, Print Shop, Woodworking shop sewing shop, construction, etc. when the Daily News made a front page attack. We were accused of printing a large Poster that showed a Policemen with a skull and crossbones over him. He had been accused of shooting a Black kid. Besides they charged that MFY was overrun with “commies and assorted radicals.” We were besieged with demands for people to resign. The City Administration got into the act be demanding the the Legal Aid an MFY Project stop organizing tenant strikes against landlords.(MFY Legal Aid for the poor continues to this day.)
We organized a Staff Committee to Save MFY. We raised a lot of money and declared “That nor single member of our MFY staff would be victimized as a result of the attacks. Now the real question was what would Washington funding source do? That’s where Shriver came in. I got a call from his office saying that he was dispatching Jay Rockefeller his I.G. to take a look at our Programs and report back to him.
The following Monday a tall skinny young man in dungarees appeared in my office door announcing he was here for Shriver to see what we were doing. “Can I just follow you around.” He asked. “Be my guest. It’s a public project with citizens money so I assume anybody can come here and see what we’re up to.” He said fine and we were off. He spent a week arriving every morning around 8. We had coffee, a bagel and we were off to the work sights. At each one of our operations he would wonder around ask the enrolees as well as the Crew Chiefs what exactly we were doing. Then he would ask the enrolees, "what are you learning?"
Upon realizing that he was a real "blue blood" Rockefeller I was duly impressed with his commitment and discipline n trying to understand what we were trying to do. In the print shop he made extensive inquiry about the alleged “Poster.” Of course we didn’t print it as we did not have the capacity to do so. Several times he would ask if we had any “printing facility in the basement.” My reply was always, “okay lets go look.” Of course there was none as we never had such a press. Our budget never would have approved it. We never would have printed such a poster even if we could have.
At the end of the week Jay and I retired to the local Bistro run by MFY. He wanted the answer to a few more questions. Most of which had to do with my background in the unions. We had a long conversation primarily about what the MFY type of programs could teach us about working with troubled Ghetto kids. With a warm handshake and a “Good-luck with all the great things going on here" he left.
A short time later we received a copy of a letter Shriver had written to the MFY Board. He said he was very proud of the work we were doing and held it up as exemplary for others to emulate. Sargent Shriver was a dedicated public servant. He would not be intimidated by all the Tabloid hysteria about reds and radicals running anti poverty programs. In his report Jay Rockefeller said, paraphrasing, “If we can’t have the kind of people we have at MFY running those work programs we can forget our anti poverty efforts.” He did eventually become the Senator from West Virginia. Shriver continued his own journey in making this world a little better place for the disadvantaged. He will be missed.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Public Workers Easy Targets
I was still in a union when the UAW negotiated 30 and out. Wow was that ever a union victory. 30 years on the assembly line and the UAW guy goes out with a full pension. My friend Herb Lerner a mathematician by hobby said, “Sure as we’re sitting here having lunch this’ll bankrupt GM.” “Herb” I said, “they must have actuaries who have figured this out.” And so it went. GM will never fund this sufficiently to pay the millions, no billions that this will cost down the road.
I must confess there was an attitude at the time that implied, “heah we don’t know where they’ll get the money from but that’s there’s. “the Robber Baron’s problem,” not ours.” Even the lefties at that time in the Labor Movement seem to express that same sentiment. We may have known in our hearts that they can’t afford it but that’ll be their problem not ours. Anyway thats years away so why worry about it. Funny thing that happened on the way. I’m one of the very few who is still around to see the train crash from those heady days. Pension funds are running out and the victims are being blamed for the crash. Yupp, the Media folks are ringing their hands because, “these public employees are bankrupting the States.”
So what is going on here? First of all the Public Employee unions negotiated what every employed person in the country wants. a decent old age pension to assure them a place outside the Welfare Line. These promised Pensions have been underfunded from the start. Meaning there never was a serious effort to set aside enough money for the pension pay-out. Many of the States assumed a minimum of 8 percent on there Funds Investment. Other States ran Ponzi schemes assuming there would always be enough people working and their contributions would keep the funds available for the retirees. Other Pension Funds made heavy if not all investments in the “booming” stock market. Of course when the bubble busted the Pension Funds went into the toilet. No not those financing the funds the major banks and Investment Companies. They did and are doing just fine. Let me back up here a little.
The Republicans who started us down the road to bankruptcy are now claiming that it is the fault of overpaid and over pensioned Public Employees. Oh how we suffer from social amnesia. So let me remind us. For 8 years of George W. Bush there was a saying around the Washington GOP members of Congress called, “Starving the Beast.” (My Friend Elaine often reminds me of the strategy behind that saying.) Translated it meant lets spend the Country into bankruptcy and guess what? There wont be a lead nickel for any social programs that the Dems. might want to enact. That is exactly where we are now. Must concede, “Starve the Beast” has worked. Now we have the spectacle of blaming the Public Employees because their Pension Funds are bankrupting the States. That’s like asking, “who killed the chickens after we put the Weasel in the Hen House?
What I find fascinating is how these same folks can sit and watch the banks be awash in recently reported profits and not find them culpable in the Pension crisis. Who exactly were the people who were managing, advising, investing Pension money? Same bunch again who the Government bailed out after the economic meltdown of the 80s. My dear long departed father had a saying, “no matter how bad things get you can always count on the top bankers and investment houses will come out on top.” His favorite back then was Rockeffeller’s Standard Oil. My favorite now is Goldman Sachs. They always seem to come out smelling like roses. Thanks papa for reminding me. It is not the fault of the people who wanted what all the folks at Goldman Sachs take for granted.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Culture of the Gun
It was back in 1953 I was, 36 and working in New Jersey for The Mine Mill & Smelter Workers union. The Unions number 1 Local at the Anaconda Copper Company in Butte Montana had been decertified. I was asked by the Union President if I would lead the campaign to get the Union re-certified. That meant a petition to the NLRB for a vote.
I was welcomed to Butte on a January night with 20 degrees below zero. Just kept mumbling, “what the hell am I doing here.” I wasn’t in Butte more than a week when I was introduced to Bob Ellenburgh. He was probably 60 a giant of a man who had spent his life working in the mines and was “dusted.” That meant he had Silicosis from the dust in the mines. The miners who saw me with “Big Bob” as he was known said “kid you got a hellova friend there. Listen carefully to what he tells you.”
In a few weeks of early organizing meetings Big Bob invited me to his home for a “family cooked dinner.” As we sat in the tiny living room of this A frame miners home he said, “son I.m gonna get you a couple things from the attic so you just set there and enjoy your drink.” He comes down with two guns. An old double barrel shotgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver. Big Bob chewed tobbaci. The house had conveniently placed old brass spittoons and he never ever missed a sssspit. He handed me the guns.
“Now son what I’m about to tell you is dam impotint.” (There was something very protective to being called “son.” I liked it.) “You gotta understand this town. Your from New York. People here think that’s a place of a bunch of whinin yellow belied sissys. If your gonna win this here election you’re gonna need to be one toughsonofbitch. That’s what these guns are gonna help you do.”
“What am I supposed to do with that shot gun?” “You keep that on the front seat of the car so everybody can see it. The hand piece you keep in the glove box. And now boy this is impotint. If anyone takes a shot at you. They don’t mean to kill ya. Just scare ya. You just shoot em back even if it’s up in the sky. This is who we are out here son. Everybody carries a gun.” The Montana Standard, company controlled newspaper, referred to me as, Double Barrel Schrank. Bob Ellenburgh just loved that.
That was my living experience of “the culture of the gun.” The people of Butte in 1953 were still living the myth of the “Wild West.” I believe the most telling cultural icon of the U.S. is “The Western Movie.” From Tom Mix, when I was a kid, to the High Noon showdown between good and evil Our movies regularly keep acting out this myth. That crazy man in Tucson has a twisted mind. He is probably hearing voices telling him that Gabreil Giffords is evil. So, it’s okay for him to go shoot her
.
The people of Arizona live on the border. Many of them like to believe that all evil is coming from across that border. Not unlike Frontiersmen who lived near the Indians. They really got themselves to believe, “the only good Indian is a dead one.” “That’s why we gotta carry guns to church, bars, restaurants schools wherever cause we need to protect ourselves from those evil ones who want to destroy us.”
Oh, you think I’m exaggerating? Listen to the Governor of Arizona, “we may be down but we’re not out.” Now what does that mean? It means, “lurking out there in the dessert between us and the border there are these bad people who want to destroy our way of life.” Fact is they are coming here looking for work. Or, yes to sell cocaine as we are the biggest market for the stuff. The drug trade is destroying Mexico. Their only solution is LEGALIZATION.!
Our Country is presently suffering one of its regular bouts of powerlessness. I have seen this phenomena go up and down with the economy. We are now living in a period of economic despair, People who lost their jobs, others their homes, some both. They are justifiably angry. The tragedy is they don’t know where to place that anger. So, it ends up free floating. That crazy in Tucson may be a metaphor for the frustration felt by so many people by finding a convenient target for his anger. It is far easier to deal with one crazy nut than to take a hard look at what our culture produces.
It has been so frustrating for me to watch this growing anger being targeted at all the wrong places, Oh, how I long for those days back in the 1930s when we could get hundreds of thousands of unemployed marching on Washington to “make FDR” build the economic network that became, “The New Deal” America’s safety net. Instead we are slipping back to the long gone days of playing out once again, “The Cowboy and Indian Myth.” The mythic war between Good and Evil.
Our tragedy is the absence of any serious left to organize and channel the anger at the ones who have perpetrated the exploitation of our citizens and now, as always are rolling in dough. Obama doesn’t understand that. Why should he? He spent his life being nice. Look where it landed him. Maybe he is learning that being nice to Mitch Mconnell is not going to get him the time of day. God I sure hope so.
And yes, whatever happened to the Grady gun law? Obviously in Arizona any whacko can walk into a supergun gun market plunck down $500. and pick up a very efficient little killing machine called a Glock. No computer check no nothing. Easy as buying a package of Wrigley’s. Is there something wrong with this picture?
I was welcomed to Butte on a January night with 20 degrees below zero. Just kept mumbling, “what the hell am I doing here.” I wasn’t in Butte more than a week when I was introduced to Bob Ellenburgh. He was probably 60 a giant of a man who had spent his life working in the mines and was “dusted.” That meant he had Silicosis from the dust in the mines. The miners who saw me with “Big Bob” as he was known said “kid you got a hellova friend there. Listen carefully to what he tells you.”
In a few weeks of early organizing meetings Big Bob invited me to his home for a “family cooked dinner.” As we sat in the tiny living room of this A frame miners home he said, “son I.m gonna get you a couple things from the attic so you just set there and enjoy your drink.” He comes down with two guns. An old double barrel shotgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver. Big Bob chewed tobbaci. The house had conveniently placed old brass spittoons and he never ever missed a sssspit. He handed me the guns.
“Now son what I’m about to tell you is dam impotint.” (There was something very protective to being called “son.” I liked it.) “You gotta understand this town. Your from New York. People here think that’s a place of a bunch of whinin yellow belied sissys. If your gonna win this here election you’re gonna need to be one toughsonofbitch. That’s what these guns are gonna help you do.”
“What am I supposed to do with that shot gun?” “You keep that on the front seat of the car so everybody can see it. The hand piece you keep in the glove box. And now boy this is impotint. If anyone takes a shot at you. They don’t mean to kill ya. Just scare ya. You just shoot em back even if it’s up in the sky. This is who we are out here son. Everybody carries a gun.” The Montana Standard, company controlled newspaper, referred to me as, Double Barrel Schrank. Bob Ellenburgh just loved that.
That was my living experience of “the culture of the gun.” The people of Butte in 1953 were still living the myth of the “Wild West.” I believe the most telling cultural icon of the U.S. is “The Western Movie.” From Tom Mix, when I was a kid, to the High Noon showdown between good and evil Our movies regularly keep acting out this myth. That crazy man in Tucson has a twisted mind. He is probably hearing voices telling him that Gabreil Giffords is evil. So, it’s okay for him to go shoot her
.
The people of Arizona live on the border. Many of them like to believe that all evil is coming from across that border. Not unlike Frontiersmen who lived near the Indians. They really got themselves to believe, “the only good Indian is a dead one.” “That’s why we gotta carry guns to church, bars, restaurants schools wherever cause we need to protect ourselves from those evil ones who want to destroy us.”
Oh, you think I’m exaggerating? Listen to the Governor of Arizona, “we may be down but we’re not out.” Now what does that mean? It means, “lurking out there in the dessert between us and the border there are these bad people who want to destroy our way of life.” Fact is they are coming here looking for work. Or, yes to sell cocaine as we are the biggest market for the stuff. The drug trade is destroying Mexico. Their only solution is LEGALIZATION.!
Our Country is presently suffering one of its regular bouts of powerlessness. I have seen this phenomena go up and down with the economy. We are now living in a period of economic despair, People who lost their jobs, others their homes, some both. They are justifiably angry. The tragedy is they don’t know where to place that anger. So, it ends up free floating. That crazy in Tucson may be a metaphor for the frustration felt by so many people by finding a convenient target for his anger. It is far easier to deal with one crazy nut than to take a hard look at what our culture produces.
It has been so frustrating for me to watch this growing anger being targeted at all the wrong places, Oh, how I long for those days back in the 1930s when we could get hundreds of thousands of unemployed marching on Washington to “make FDR” build the economic network that became, “The New Deal” America’s safety net. Instead we are slipping back to the long gone days of playing out once again, “The Cowboy and Indian Myth.” The mythic war between Good and Evil.
Our tragedy is the absence of any serious left to organize and channel the anger at the ones who have perpetrated the exploitation of our citizens and now, as always are rolling in dough. Obama doesn’t understand that. Why should he? He spent his life being nice. Look where it landed him. Maybe he is learning that being nice to Mitch Mconnell is not going to get him the time of day. God I sure hope so.
And yes, whatever happened to the Grady gun law? Obviously in Arizona any whacko can walk into a supergun gun market plunck down $500. and pick up a very efficient little killing machine called a Glock. No computer check no nothing. Easy as buying a package of Wrigley’s. Is there something wrong with this picture?
Friday, January 7, 2011
Remembrance Happy New Year
Of late things have been springing back to mind as if to say, “yes this really happened and it is a story I want to share.” (Pssst, don’t worry I’ll get back to the political mess soon enough.)
It’s a New Year Eve 2010 and I am going to let it have its way. I don’t know if this is a universal. With every New Years Eve, from somewhere inside me comes an automatic review of things past. This time around it was the power of dreams. New Years Eve was another wondrous night of best friends, feasting, dancing, hugging, dancing all rapped in the wonder of love. And of course drinking. Probably to much. That’s normal too.Then came a scary dream on the first night of 2011.
I am out in the cold searching for our departed cat Aldo. Unable to find him I’m desperate. Where is he? How could I have lost him? I awake. Think it through. What am I losing? Aldo was part of our family. The sudden loss of my mother as a child cause me to be obsessive about family. It represents security and safety. Any family related loss sets off high anxiety. Okay I got it. I am thankful for the ability to pay attention to dreams and learn to read them. How did I learn that?
It was in the late 50s I was in a mid life crisis. I was lucky to have found a “dream Guru." Ralph who became my guide and teacher. He would help me unlock the secret hurts that were hidden away in dreams. It was the beginning of an ongoing journey of understanding what my dreams could tell me. Being a born skeptic I thought, well I know he’s going to go over all that Freudian Unconscious stuff. I had been there and didn’t really get it. (Freud’s work was a remarkable discovery.) No we didn’t go there. But maybe we did? Just didn’t call it that.
Ralph asked, “what have you dreamed lately?” “This one has been a regular nightmare. I am going somewhere in the City. I park my car. Go to a party, meeting or just a visit . Time to go home sometimes with a friend some time alone. Start to look for where I’m sure I parked the car. Not there. Keep looking. Up one street down the next. Get desperate. car is stolen, the police took it. I wake up in another anxious sweat.
Ralph laughed, said “so who’s the car? and who’s lost?” “Oh, you don’t understand parking a car in New York City is an art. Only born and bred city people like me know the how to of parking.” Ralph had a little whimsy grin. “Now you really believe that would make you sweat and grieve looking for parking or looking for your car? What is the car to you?”
“ Are you kidding? I got my first car when I was 16 and have had one ever since. My car is my chariot to freedom. As a boy after my mother died I have always had an escape plan just in case I was to be sent off to an orphan asylum.” “So do you think the car might be you and you feel lost?" I was overcome from that hit in the gut. I left in tears, I am lost as I don’t know who I am. The dreams would soon help me out of that trap. It was in those dream sessions that I learned to keep a dream book. It sits right there on my bookshelf and is invaluable as a reference.My Dream Book is full of weird and amazing stories. A dream can tell us things that for some dam reason we just can’t tell ourselves.”
Sometimes I go back over my Dream book to check if any of those old dreams are returning? I am reminded, all dreams are not merely a reflection of deep seated hidden woes. Some dreams can be very reassuring. In 1975 on an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river I had a wonderful dream. I was part of a Traveling Circus. My covered wagon was full of crowns like the kings wore. Each Crown signified something good I had done. As I wore each one before an audience I had to say how it was won. It was a pot puree of things. Like going shopping for my aunt, cleaning the furnace for my uncle. Helping Papa change the spark plugs on the car. And for that very night on the Rogue for helping a number of the women to build a shelter out of a piece of plastic. (They had never gone camping.)
Jimmy Durante, comedienne from my childhood referred to the “unconscious as “the subnoxious” It isn’t always so. It can reveal to us many of our most hidden fears and doubts. In New Years 2011 I raise my glass in thanks to all those great teachers who helped me unlock those nasty little secrets hiding out in my dream vault. Salute, Cheers, Prosit.
It’s a New Year Eve 2010 and I am going to let it have its way. I don’t know if this is a universal. With every New Years Eve, from somewhere inside me comes an automatic review of things past. This time around it was the power of dreams. New Years Eve was another wondrous night of best friends, feasting, dancing, hugging, dancing all rapped in the wonder of love. And of course drinking. Probably to much. That’s normal too.Then came a scary dream on the first night of 2011.
I am out in the cold searching for our departed cat Aldo. Unable to find him I’m desperate. Where is he? How could I have lost him? I awake. Think it through. What am I losing? Aldo was part of our family. The sudden loss of my mother as a child cause me to be obsessive about family. It represents security and safety. Any family related loss sets off high anxiety. Okay I got it. I am thankful for the ability to pay attention to dreams and learn to read them. How did I learn that?
It was in the late 50s I was in a mid life crisis. I was lucky to have found a “dream Guru." Ralph who became my guide and teacher. He would help me unlock the secret hurts that were hidden away in dreams. It was the beginning of an ongoing journey of understanding what my dreams could tell me. Being a born skeptic I thought, well I know he’s going to go over all that Freudian Unconscious stuff. I had been there and didn’t really get it. (Freud’s work was a remarkable discovery.) No we didn’t go there. But maybe we did? Just didn’t call it that.
Ralph asked, “what have you dreamed lately?” “This one has been a regular nightmare. I am going somewhere in the City. I park my car. Go to a party, meeting or just a visit . Time to go home sometimes with a friend some time alone. Start to look for where I’m sure I parked the car. Not there. Keep looking. Up one street down the next. Get desperate. car is stolen, the police took it. I wake up in another anxious sweat.
Ralph laughed, said “so who’s the car? and who’s lost?” “Oh, you don’t understand parking a car in New York City is an art. Only born and bred city people like me know the how to of parking.” Ralph had a little whimsy grin. “Now you really believe that would make you sweat and grieve looking for parking or looking for your car? What is the car to you?”
“ Are you kidding? I got my first car when I was 16 and have had one ever since. My car is my chariot to freedom. As a boy after my mother died I have always had an escape plan just in case I was to be sent off to an orphan asylum.” “So do you think the car might be you and you feel lost?" I was overcome from that hit in the gut. I left in tears, I am lost as I don’t know who I am. The dreams would soon help me out of that trap. It was in those dream sessions that I learned to keep a dream book. It sits right there on my bookshelf and is invaluable as a reference.My Dream Book is full of weird and amazing stories. A dream can tell us things that for some dam reason we just can’t tell ourselves.”
Sometimes I go back over my Dream book to check if any of those old dreams are returning? I am reminded, all dreams are not merely a reflection of deep seated hidden woes. Some dreams can be very reassuring. In 1975 on an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river I had a wonderful dream. I was part of a Traveling Circus. My covered wagon was full of crowns like the kings wore. Each Crown signified something good I had done. As I wore each one before an audience I had to say how it was won. It was a pot puree of things. Like going shopping for my aunt, cleaning the furnace for my uncle. Helping Papa change the spark plugs on the car. And for that very night on the Rogue for helping a number of the women to build a shelter out of a piece of plastic. (They had never gone camping.)
Jimmy Durante, comedienne from my childhood referred to the “unconscious as “the subnoxious” It isn’t always so. It can reveal to us many of our most hidden fears and doubts. In New Years 2011 I raise my glass in thanks to all those great teachers who helped me unlock those nasty little secrets hiding out in my dream vault. Salute, Cheers, Prosit.
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