Yes, I have a copy of that photo of grandmother and grandfather. It is a great picture, and grandfather does look like a happy Jack London. I didn't realize grandmother didn't like to be photographed, but that would make sense, since I've seen very few photos of her. I think the one you sent in the e-mail is maybe the only picture I have of her. Which is fine... it's a good image of her. So now anyone who sees that picture of her, and no others, will always think of her as a vivacious, happy person. Which is a good legacy, whether it's true or not.
That's a very good revelation about yourself, that you are happiest when you are making things. That reminds me of what Mira used to say about your father, that he would have been happier if he had stopped being a lawyer, and just had a little shop where he could tinker with and repair radios and record players and so on. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do think it makes a lot of sense that you should be making things, or repairing things. If there was some way to make money from a occupation/hobby like that, all the better. The real question is whether a revelation like that leads you to do something about it, or if it ends up being like your idea about getting to know the latino community and parlaying that into a newspaper job.... something to fiddle around with in your brain, like Gary toying with the idea of going to the gym, and happily looking at his year membership pass as evidence that it all amounted to something. Just for the record, I don't think that latino newspaperman idea was destined to ever come to fruition in any way, shape or form, so I don't see any point in getting down on yourself for missing the boat. On the other hand, the making things/repairing things revelation actually does sound like it has a genuine ring of truth to it.
I'll look forward to trying your beef jerky, though I don't see how it could compare to that Gary Weill jerky, or whatever it's called, that you've given me for a couple of Christmases.
I've been doing a spate of things lately that make it sound like I'm a dynamic, risk-embracing extrovert, which isn't true at all. Such as the men's retreat, and tonight we're going to some rest home dinner party to sort of be chaperones to a lady that Peggy sees as part of her hospice work.... the woman I was telling you about who loves it when the weather is gray, rainy and Oregon-like. Well, a couple of nights ago Peggy and I went to something called the Socrates Cafe, at the local library, where a bunch of strangers get together to discuss some semi-philosophical question. Turns out the question was "Is religion necessary?" You probably would have been right at home with this crowd, as they all pretty much mutually decided that religion is not necessary, and that religion has done more bad than good through history, and that only pathetic, unsophisticated losers believe in god, and that if religion was eliminated, mankind would soon settle into a state of natural peace, bliss and joy. I put in my own two cents' worth several times. Each time, I thought I was saying something calm, interesting and thoughtful, but I didn't seem to register at all on their collective consciousness... it was as if I only thought I was talking but no sound came out. Each time I finished talking, it seemed like everyone had gone into a temporary state of suspended animation, and the moment I stopped, they became reanimated, with no recollection that anyone had been speaking during the past two or three minutes. They just continued on from wherever they had been in the conversation at the moment before I started speaking. And then when we got home I woke up with a jolt in the middle of the with a deep sense of having humiliated and embarrassed myself somehow, and I just wanted to find a big rock to crawl under. And so, life goes on.
--edward
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