Hiatus

 It's been a long winter here. Not many opportunities for outdoor adventures or even walks at our favorite places. There haven't even been any atmospheric optics to run out and photograph. So, we're going to put The New Dharma Bums on hiatus for a while. We hope to return when the brightness of world calls us out there with beauty and sunlight. I'm going to keep on reading your blogs, so please keep on posting. Thank you, dear friends!

Here's a view of our neighbor's snowy yellow roses. The Yellow Rose of northern California gets a winter chill.

Take care.

Wednesday Morning

It's been cold here on the California north coast. Temps literally freezing with chill-to-the-bone winds (well at least for us cry-baby old folks... LOL). But Wednesday morning's sunrise pulled me out into the freezing temps to take a few photos of the beautiful sky. 

 

 

I ran out to photograph those crepuscular rays against the dark clouds. It looked so dramatic. I didn't even notice the beautiful hint of iridescent clouds above the darkest cloud. What a wonderful surprise that was. A short while later came an even bigger surprise.

 

 

I looked out the window and saw this... snow falling falling falling from our gray skies. I ran out into that cold air to take more photos. What a beautiful soft white flurry of soundless flakes fluttered to the ground. Nothing like the hail that had fallen just a few minutes earlier tapping crazily on the skylights and windows. 

And then the sun came out again.

Earthquakes and Sunrises

While reading about the huge and deadly earthquake in Turkey, I learned something that scared me down to my rickety old bones. The earthquake there occurred on something called a strike slip fault. So I read up on what a strike slip fault line is and found out that there is one in the United States. And not only that it's right here on the local San Andreas fault line. Uh-oh, said I. That does not sound good. I don't know why, but I always thought that all earthquakes were pretty much the same. They're not. So, now I'm a little more worried than I had been about those fault lines. The tragedy that unfolded in Turkey after the earthquake took my breath away. More than 34,000 people are dead, and there will be more. We have done our earthquake preparedness lessons and have plans, but sometimes the shake is more than we can possibly plan for. It's so interesting living on the planet Earth. 

So while I'm still here on planet Earth that's still revolving and orbiting around the sun, I run out most mornings to photograph the sunrise. It's a beauty that always calls me out even if it's literally freezing out there. So, here are a few sights of the morning light here.

February 2

February 4

February 10

February 12

What a planet we live on, what a beautiful crazy planet.

The Interview

It was only a little more than 11 years ago that this photo was taken.

That's me holding our first grand-daughter Delilah. Why am I posting this? Because that little girl is now in 5th grade and had a school assignment to interview someone about activism. She asked if she could interview me, and I said "Of course! Yes, I would be honored."

So she came by the other day with her mom and brothers. She pulled out the long paper with all the questions that the teacher had assigned to ask about activism. What an interesting journey back in time that was for me.

When did I first become politically active? It was back in 1967-68 during the Civil Rights movement. There were many marches and protests, and yes, my sibs and I got involved. We marched in the inner-city streets of Newark, NJ.

Then, of course, there was the war in Vietnam. My siblings and I protested the war and marched in many long demonstrations. The US still had a draft at the time, and we learned about draft counseling, deferments, etc. The war raged on, and we kept up with our protests and vigilance. We went to SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) meetings and my sister became the youngest member to join the local chapter. We were so committed.

In 1968 on election day we held Vote For Humphrey signs in the legal distance from the voting area. He was running against Richard Nixon and we knew how terrible that win would be for our country. Sadly, Nixon did win, and our marching and protesting went on. 

Then the worst happened the Kent State Massacre in 1970. Five days after the shootings my siblings and I drove to Washington DC to protest and joined 100,000 protesters. We marched. We chanted. We cried. Then we went home, and I never really marched again. Well, Roger and I did march at a small local rally back in 2018. I blogged about that back then. But it was nothing like the anti-war movement of the 1960s. 

It was interesting to remember these times and feel deeply honored that Delilah would ask to interview me. After she left, I thought about some of the things that really made me want to take to the streets to protest war and violence, racism and hatred. It made me remember my maternal grandmother and how she lost her mother and brothers and many family members in the hell that was Auschwitz. This is what pushed me to be an activist stand up for peace, for freedom, for acknowledgement that we humans are just one species on this earth. "Can't we all just get along?"

One Thing Leads To Another

After David Crosby's death one of my siblings found an interesting video that he shared with us. It was from 1969, a Dick Cavett episode right after Woodstock when the Jefferson Airplane played and then stayed for interview and David Crosby and Stephen Stills joined them. It was a wonderful trip back in time to watch it.

 

After watching it, it made me wonder if Grace Slick was still alive. So of course I googled around and found that she is very much still alive and is 83 years old. I read a bit more about her and found something that surprised me so much I just had to share it here. Back in the late 1960s she and Abbie Hoffman went to Washington D.C. to meet with the then President Richard Nixon. Here's what the New York Times wrote about it back then:

"WASHINGTON, April 24— Abbie Hoffman, the Yippie leader who was a defendant in the Chicago Seven trial was turned away from the White House today when he tried to attend a tea given by Tricia Nixon.

He was accompanying Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, a rock group. Miss Slick had been invited to the event, which was given for alumnae of Finch College.

Mr. Hoffman, conserva tively dressed and without his beard, said he was Miss Slick's “bodyguard and es cort,” but a White House Policeman would not permit him to enter the grounds, saying, “This is strictly for females.

Mr. Hoffman brought out a black flag emblazoned with a multicolored marijuana leaf and hung it on the White House gate. It was quickly removed by a White House policeman. The singer and Mr. Hoffman ran across the street and were driven away by a member of the Jefferson Airplane."

 

The one thing that the article doesn't mention is that they supposedly had a plan to dose the President with LSD. There were several links that I did not go to, but I was so surprised to see such headlines. We'll never know if it was true, I suppose, but it doesn't really surprise me given the times back then. 

So, one more take away from making this discovery is that I added a new handshake to my collection. I now have Grace Slick and so many musicians from those days, thanks to my weekend of chauffeuring Abbie Hoffman around for the Kerouac Conference in Boulder, Colorado in 1982.