NOEL, LOVE, LOST AND FOUND

I am graced with being able to say, "a long time ago."

A long time ago, a tiny, black and white spotted dog came up to me on a crowed street near my Silverlake home and adopted me on the spot. He was the kind of dog I could fall in love with.

"Well, hello there!” I said, “Where do you live?" As little dogs do he jumped up and down and then licked my hand. From that moment on that “happy” dog became part of my family. As hard as I tried that day, I could never find his owner.

But Happy loved to run and he knew that "out there," beyond my front door, he could run forever. So one morning when I went out to get the paper, Happy ran out past me into the street and was immediately hit by a truck that just kept on driving.

Horrified, I swore I would never "feel" for a pet again. Oh, they could live with me; call my place home but there would be no more "love business." So many lost animals found a home, lived contented lives, even guarded the house but not with my “Happy” feeling.

That was until Noel (or Church Cat as the pre-school kids called him) jumped into my opened car door, despite repeated questioning and traveled home with me like an old friend on the front seat. I fell in love again.

When I sat down he would jump on my lap; when I gardened he followed alongside of me; no matter what I did, he always purred. And if he went outdoors on his own he would come back in when I called -- until last night.

This morning when the front door bell rang, a neighbor brought him home in a basket with half his head missing; another motor vehicle victim. It was a little different this time ... several weeks ago as I typed and Noel purred, I remembered Happy and said "goodbye." I guess I’ve come to realize that life is fleeting. And Noel was a wanderer.

In his brief four months here, Noel caught 10 squirrels, 8 mice, 3 rats, 27 lizards, three pigeons and two house finches ... if there was a fly in the room he would chase after it.

And so I dug a hole ... a really, really deep hole ... and put a pure white, ironed, linen handkerchief and a sterling silver St. Christopher medal over him to comfort him on his way, and said the ancient words, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes" ...

Damn it; damn it; damn it...

FREE AT LAST, GOD ALMIGHTY, FREE AT LAST!

"In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights," said the California Supreme Count last week.

What makes this ruling so important is that for the first time in American history, the ruling applies the strictest test, one of "suspect classification," on questions regarding any state law or policy that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. This meant that the 4-3 decision by the court, not only legalized our right to marriage, but also extended to sexual orientation the same broad protections against bias previously saved for race, gender, the disabled, and religion.

You just can't say to much else beside that, can you?

GOING HOME AGAIN ...

York Native Wants To Go Home Again.
Published in the York Dispatch when I was there

“Where are you from?” is a question every Californian learns to answer early on, and for good reason. Most of us are from "someplace else.” For 40 years I have said, “Oh, I am from York, a small town in Southeastern Pennsylvania, about 90 miles from Philadelphia.”

Three possible replies to my saying, "Where I am from have been." They are:
• “Oh?” That indicates a willingness to move onto the next subject.
• “Oh I know York.” That’s what I call a “nodding acquaintance” or "salesman’s” relay that translates to: “I traveled Through York one day in my life and I 'know' it well!”
• But the response I love is, “Oh, really. I come from a small town, too.” That response has led to conversations that have formed lifelong relationships.

York! The stories of my youth; the mythologies of my life are wrapped in a little town in Pennsylvania. As I sit here in my home in the Los Angeles area those years, those experiences there seem so rich and they have are the reason I have plan a trip back for the first since York Corp. moved us there when I was 1 ½ years old.

My first memory in life is of the Yorktowne Hotel. We lived there for three months before we moved into a house on Pinehurst Road and later into another on Eastern Boulevard in Yorkshire.

And in third grade I met Lewin Richmond Lutz, III of whom I say, “I still know a friend I met in third grade.”

To be able to say that is, for me, at the heart of what community is about. I remember an old Pennsylvania Dutch saying, true or not, “it takes seven generation to know a Dutchman but once you know him, you know him for life.”

As my trip gets closer, I am reminiscing. I remember my first date at the Strand with a girl whose name is now lost. I still have the newspaper as from the movie. In my mind’s eye, I see Yorkshire Elementary School, a two room schoolhouse.

I want to walk over the hills around Yorkshire. I want to eat at the Yorktowne and remember the many times my family did. I want to worship in the churches I grew up in. I want to...

I am, am however, not naive. The world around me in my new home here in Los Angeles has changed. It changes each day. And in my research on “going home again," I thought I saw an Army tank on the streets of York!

Could that have actually been the city of my memory? Are “big city” issues like race, homelessness and segregation that we struggle with here reflected in the town of my youth?

Did urban sprawl steal the farmlands and cornfields I wandered through? Is it still safe to walk around downtown York at night? Does the Cordorus Creek still look polluted and smell 40 years later? Does my best friend from third grade really have grandkids?

I do not know what it will be like when I am actually there. I do not know if you can “go home again.” All I know is that I want it a town called York of which David Rush writes, this place “can offer the very best of what American can offer." That is the place I remember.

YARDDOG AND RANDY

"Hey, Preacher Man ... that is how one of my best friends addressed his email to me this morning ... Want to have coffee at the "Christian place"?

There is a lot behind this email; I'll just unpack a bit of it.

The sender; he is a former Christian pastor who has more or less given up organized Christian Churches. Both of us are fond of saying we "have church" every Saturday morning. AS we have sat in some outdoor chairs that face the Sierra Madre Mountains, we have seen the seasons.

Funny part about it is that the coffee shop owned by the church down the street. But more importantly I suppose if I had such a thing as a "spiritual councilor" it would be him. Our lives change as we shared the deep parts of our then lives.