The Pambazo and the Peak
December 10, 2024
There is an everyday, every-person’s delicacy here in Orizaba, and it is called the pambazo. Quite possibly it originated right here in this very old, very down-to-earth, very workaday, yet utterly magical Mexican town.
Do not believe what you see on the internet. A pambazo—in Orizaba, at least—does not have potato, nor is it dipped in red sauce and fried. That’s a subsequent variation from a different region.
Instead, think white and fluffy. Picture a very round, very soft bread bun, powdered white on top with flour, split in half with its insides slathered with black refried beans, crumbs of longaniza sausage, maybe a little mayo, a sprinkle of grated fresh white cheese, perhaps some shredded lettuce. Before the vendor wraps it up, he or she will ask if you want a touch of salsa macha (red pepper sauce) added. Make sure and say yes.
It used to be that, as part of the baking, pambazo buns in Orizaba were tugged at to give them a sharp peak on top. This traditional ornamentation has largely gone by the wayside, and it’s no big deal. What is essential, however, is the powdery white flour on top of the completed sandwich, which wrapping it up to go does not interfere with.
Oh, the joy of sinking your teeth into a pambazo. The ultra-softness, the flavorful spiced filling, its delightfully smooth and bean-creamy texture imbued with chewy meat crumbs, the healthiness. The piece de resistance is the contrasting feeling you get of the dry, abrasive white flour on the outsides of your lips when you smack them.
Then there’s the fact that pambazos are for everybody. There’s a restaurant around the corner from my house, across from a college, that sells them all day to students and passersby from a case by the front register. Here their perfect, real-deal pambazo sets you back 58 cents. One makes a nice snack; two will fill you up.
How did pambazos come to be? Some sources, including Orizaba’s History Salon, claim that Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota had something to do with it. This would pin the pambazo’s origins to the very short, very strange period of time in the 1860s when France invaded Mexico and installed an Austrian archduke to rule it.
During their reign, Max and Carly understandably came to like Orizaba very much, and made it one of their hangouts. The lovely climate, lush green mountainsides, and rushing water were a nice respite from Mexico City. Carlota in particular was transfixed by the soaring snow-capped peak visible from town on clear days, which just so happens to be the highest volcano in North America and third-highest North American peak overall. It’s called Pico Orizaba today, and is also still often referred to by its Nahuatl name, Citlaltépetl.
“Can someone make me a dish that symbolizes the beautiful volcano?” Empress Carlota, according to legend, asked. And according to legend, French chef Josef Tüdös stepped up to the plate and delivered the doughy white sandwich, pulled to a sharp peak on top, doused with white flour to represent alpine snows.
This story seems about as plausible as Marie Antoinette actually saying “Let them eat cake”. I mean, come on, folks, a pambazo is not empress food! It’s refried beans, meat crumbs, and bread! And the bread used for pambazos has traditionally been low class at that. The name “pambazo” itself derives from the Judeo-Spanish words pan basso, literally meaning “low bread”. By the 1700s, bread consumption was widespread in New Spain, but all bread was not created equal. Viceroyalty and the upper class enjoyed bread made from the flower of the flour. The rest got pan basso, made from everything else.
It seems much more probable to me that orizabeños had been enjoying their pambazos long before Maximilian and Carlota came on the scene. Perhaps to “slum it up” a bit, the Austri-Mex royals sampled some of the sandwiches when they came through.
What is undeniable is that Pico Orizaba, or Citlaltépetl, is gorgeous, glorious, and right there. It makes 100% sense that orizabeños would have a longtime, everyday, signature food honoring it.
Of course, the mountain has its own legends. It is said that, in the heyday of the Olmec culture, there lived the warrior Nahuani who was always accompanied by her friend and advisor, the osprey Ahuilizapan. One day she had to face a great battle, and was killed. Ahuilizapan, upon witnessing this, with deep pain spread her wings and rose to the highest point of the sky before falling heavily to the earth. In the place where she fell, a mountain gradually formed that over time became an enormous volcano. Sometime later, the osprey returned to lay her eggs and thereby control the fury and eruptions of the volcano.
Pico Orizaba last erupted in 1846. Before that, it was 1687.
Which means I had to go! Not to the top; that’s a Kilimanjaro-scale endeavor which, curiously, almost no one does. I just needed to get as far up its side as a day trip would allow. And couple weeks ago, I finally found someone to take me there—on pedal-assist mountain bikes, no less!
The afternoon before we left, I stopped by my neighborhood pambazo case and got three to put in my rucksack. In addition to all of pambazos’ other attributes, they make a perfect trail food.
Pambazos at 15,000 feet, on the peak itself. What’s better?
Legends of Orizaba
November 9, 2024
When you live in one of the oldest towns in Mexico, you hear a lot of stories.
Orizaba is old indeed. This “Place of Pleasing Waters” (a possible Nahuatl origin of the name) was home to settlement long before the Spanish conquest. Abundant water resources made it a good place for cropping, and later, industry. Located near the mouth of a large fertile valley opening the mountains westward, it has long been an important stopping point for travelers between the Gulf and what is now Mexico City. By 1535 Spanish convoys were pausing on Calle Real, two blocks from my house, to rest up for three or four days prior to continuing the journey.
A rich orizabeño folklore has had time to develop. What follows are just a few of the tales that have been passed down through centuries. Many thanks to Orizaba’s House of Legends museum (adapted translations spliced in below), and to a recent dramatic production at the lovely Teatro, for helping to keep them alive!
The Crying Woman
If there is one song that is synonymous with Day of the Dead in Mexico, which occurred last weekend, it is “La Llorona”, The Crying Woman. If you’ve forgotten how this hopelessly-gets-stuck-in-your-head song goes, you could click here to become readdicted. This achingly beautiful, bittersweet folk song sounds anything but morose, but derives from a sinister legend to which Orizaba convincingly lays claim.
It’s no wonder that Orizaba is also called “The Lady of the Bridges”, what with the rushing Río Orizaba flowing right through it. Some bridges are very old such as San Juan de Dios, La Borda, San Antonio, and Santa Anita, to name a few, and it is precisely in these old places where, according to several generations of Orizabeños, the laments of a woman who is better known as La Llorona can be heard.
The legend has its origins in the mid-1500s when, according to the accounts of inhabitants, every night at midnight they heard a high-pitched and pitiful moan that exclaimed, “Aaaaaaay, my chiiiildren!” The tone of the voice belonged to that of a young woman who was painfully lamenting. Those who had the misfortune of witnessing the screams went from calm to nervous, snapped their fingers, and became engulfed in chills and terror. For those who fared best, the fright went away after a few days, but others never got over it and some died as a result.
Witnesses describe her as a beautiful woman, dressed in white, who wears a veil of the same color and who floats instead of walking. It is also said that if her cry is heard nearby, then she is far away, but if it is heard far away, then she may be closer than you imagine.
Some believe that La Llorona is none other than La Malinche, the woman who married Juan Jaramillo, an army officer of Hernán Cortés. Others claim that she is an indigenous woman whose Spanish husband cheated on her with another woman, so in revenge she murdered her two children and later committed suicide; therefore, her soul now wanders in pain because of her terrible act.
I have yet to stay out past midnight, so cannot comment.
Borrego Hill
The majestic Cerro del Borrego, whose name is due to the fact that for many years it was used for sheep grazing, rises west of Orizaba with an approximate height of 1,700 meters above sea level. It has been a silent witness to important events that have marked the country’s history.
For example:
After invading French forces were defeated by the Mexican army at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, as part of their (eventually successful, for a little while) effort to install an Austrian archduke as Emperor of Mexico, they holed up in Orizaba. In order to expel them, the Mexican general quietly gathered a battalion of more than 2,000 soldiers on top of Borrego Hill, and prepared to attack.
In many events in this nation’s history, betrayal has been a fundamental factor in ensuring victory or defeat for one side, and this event was not exempt. An indigenous man revealed to the French the presence of the Mexicans on top of the hill. On learning this very relevant information, the French decided to surprise their enemies, so they ascended in the middle of the night in a stealthy manner, and upon reaching the top they opened fire on the resting Mexican soldiers. The surprise of the attack and the darkness caused the Mexicans to become confused, so when they tried to repel the onslaught, they ended up killing members of their own troops. The French action bore fruit, despite having a much smaller number of soldiers in their ranks.
Faced with imminent defeat, the Mexican battalion had to retreat. They left behind a fort running in blood, a pair of cannons, and the corpses of almost 500 Mexican soldiers. Thus, June 13 and 14, the dates on which the above-mentioned events occurred, are days of mourning for Orizaba and the entire nation.
Some people have claimed that, at the top of the hill, especially when the sky is cloudy, they can hear various noises such as screams, moans, and even cries, like those that would be heard on a battlefield.
I hiked up Borrego Hill at night, on Day of the Dead. About halfway up I entered a thick cloud, and pulled out my umbrella as rain dripped down. I didn’t encounter another soul on top and experienced quietness, as the city hummed gently below.
The Abandoned Baby
Back to the bridges: It’s no wonder so many of Orizaba’s legends are associated with them! Here’s another:
One rainy night a watchman was making his rounds along what was formerly known as the old Calle Real. Despite the inclement weather he did not stop his work, and with a firm step he continued to watch the way. When he was passing over the San Juan de Dios Bridge he noticed a noise that he could not hear well. He stopped to listen to it better, and when he paid more attention he realized it was the crying of a baby. It was a high-pitched and pitiful sound. When he looked at the place where the cries were coming from he realized that, halfway across the bridge, a small bundle was lying on the ground. He quickly approached it, picked it up, and in the light of his lamp he realized that it was a baby wrapped in a blanket, about 11 months old. While he was looking at it he could only think of the evil mother who had abandoned it in such a vile way.
He treated the baby gently, covered him with his sarape so he wouldn’t get wet, and took shelter from the rain under a roof a few meters from where he had found him. While he waited for the rain to stop, he noticed that the baby was staring at him and smiling. Something caught his attention, and he looked more closely and realized that the little boy had a full set of teeth. At this, the night watchman exclaimed, “Oh my child, how is it possible that you have the teeth of an adult?” And to his surprise, the baby, in a malevolent voice said, “Yes, damn it, I have teeth and I also have a tail, like any other demon, turn me over and look at it.”
The watchman was so scared that, without thinking, he threw the abominable creature away and ran away. He arrived home, and his wife was frightened when she saw him because the poor man was white and his gaze was fixed, and to top it off, he could not utter a word. After three days he was finally able to tell what had happened, and fifteen days later he died.
Some people to this day recommend that you not dare to cross the San Juan de Dios Bridge late on a rainy night, if you do not want to meet the abandoned baby.
Many a rainy night I have walked home, late, along the Orizaba River path, and passed beneath the venerable San Juan de Dios Bridge. It’s the last bridge before my turnoff. I always walk beneath the bridge and not over it, and as such only hear the soothing sounds of rushing water and falling rain.
The Bewitched Houses of Orizaba
In addition to bridges, there are of course houses in Orizaba which are said to be haunted.
The most famous haunted house is located on Calle Sur 2. It is said that there, more than 50 years ago, a family died because of poisoning caused by their gardener, who envied the happiness in which they lived. This place was abandoned for a time, so it was a refuge for beggars and criminals. Some said that, when they spent the night in the house, they were expelled by the spirits that inhabited it because the next day they woke up outside on the sidewalk.
One of the most terrifying houses, due to the large number of paranormal events that have taken place inside, is found on Sur 12, near Alameda Park. It is said that there, a 13-year-old girl, daughter of the couple who lived there, began to make objects float, curtains tear, and windows shatter. Immediately the relatives sent for Father Rafael Rúa y Álvarez, who could not even enter because an invisible force prevented him from getting through the door. The girl, unconscious, was removed, and after three days the priest managed to revive her. After that, the family decided to go live in Mexico City. It is said that the girl suffered a case of demonic possession, and although they managed to exorcise her, they forgot to do the same with the house, which is still cursed.
Socies Street
I’ll close with a fun one.
In the 1800s, near the corner of Oriente Avenue 6 and Madero Street, there was an esplanade that reached the old San Juan de Dios hospital. It was practically a quagmire and looked too dark, as it was only lit by a small shop, property of Don Simón Contreras, and the lantern that illuminated the entrance of the hospital.
One night, around eight o’clock, Simón left the shop to feed his animals. To his surprise, he saw a dwarf monk floating in the distance, almost eighty centimeters above the ground! Terrified, he returned to the shop, where he told the story to some of his customers, who then spread the news to the rest of the population.
A couple of friends, Bernardo and Camilo, took courage and decided to go to that place to confirm if what was said was true. They arrived around six in the evening and stopped in front of Don Simón’s shop, but they could not see anything, so they decided to wait a few more hours. Their patience paid off, because around eight in the evening, in the distance, they saw the dwarf friar that everyone was talking about heading towards where they were. Not knowing what to do, they stood still and, when the specter passed by them, it exclaimed “Peace and good, brothers!” Their surprise was even greater when they saw that upon reaching the hospital door the being grew larger and disappeared.
Fearful, but intent on finding out what was going on, they knocked on the hospital door and begged the doorman to tell them who the dwarf friar who had just entered was. The doorman, surprised by these words, told them that no dwarf had ever entered and that the one who had just entered was Father Socies, a Franciscan who helped them look after the sick every night. The boys asked if it was possible to speak to the Franciscan, and the doorman told them that he would ask him if he wanted to receive them.
Fortunately for them, Socies accepted. Camilo and Bernardo greeted him and immediately asked if he had just entered. The friar nodded, and the young men told him that before entering they saw that he was small and then he became big. At those words, the brother smiled and told them, “What you have witnessed is a phenomenon of optical illusion, caused by the way I have to cross the square; as I have no legs I always walk on small stilts so as not to get dirty with the mud that abounds outside. I lift up my habit, so from a distance I look like a dwarf, because you only see my body. When I get to this place I let down my habit, so it seems that I grow bigger.” So that the boys would believe what he had said, Socies lifted his habit, leaving his knees uncovered.
In honor of this event, the street that was previously called Sacristia de San Juan de Dios was renamed Socies, a name it had until the nomenclature was changed to become known as Sur 3.
Tizi Hodson
October 11, 2024
This past Monday a story appeared on the BBC that looked entirely ‘ho-hum’ to click on: “Woman gets reply about job application—48 years on”.
Whatever, you might think as you skip it, or click on it only to kill a little time with a cute story.
When you click, a very short story comes up with a photo of a beaming, rail-thin, 70-year-old British woman in a zebra print dress. She’s standing in her garden in Gedney Hill, Lincolnshire (pop. 698), clutching a letter she typed in a London flat in January, 1976, seeking employment. Turns out the letter was stuck behind a post office drawer all these years.
“How they found me when I’ve moved house 50-odd times…is a mystery,” she told the BBC. Spoiler alert: she wasn’t exaggerating.
The plot thickens.
“I remember very clearly sitting in my flat in London typing the letter. Every day I looked for my post but there was nothing there and I was so disappointed because I really, really, wanted to be a stunt rider on a motorcycle.”
Stunt rider on a motorcycle?
The brief story goes onto explain that Tizi Hodson did not let this little setback prevent her from living the life she wanted to live, and includes a couple tantalizing photos from said life. By the end of the 30-second read you are saying, “Who cares about the letter? Tell me more about the woman! She needs to write a book!”
The article doesn’t mention this, but Tizi did write a book. It’s called To Live is to Fly: My Life in the Fast Lane.
***
At age 15, Tizi Hodson was found mangled in the bumper of an overturned van in the middle of a country road, skull smashed, one leg imbedded in the tarmac beneath the van. Her horse, which she’d been walking home from training for a prestigious competition, was in the ditch with two legs broken. The van driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and hit them. After several days of coma she was told there was no chance she’d ever ride again. Maybe she herself would walk, eventually.
Tizi rode a horse again. Quite soon.
Her head injury prevented her from returning to school which, for her, at the time, felt to be a waste of time anyway. She left home to work on a horse farm, then enrolled and passed the exams to become a riding instructor, while also teaching herself to mend and create saddlery. Her first job was at a very rough racing horse yard, where she also played guitar and sang in a bar. When it looked like she was about to be laid off, she rode her motorbike to London and saw all the motorcycle couriers—called “despatch riders”—zooming around. This looked like fun.
She moved to London and became a despatch rider to the max, and got involved in everything motorcycle, at the highest speeds possible. This included racing and clubs. And crashes, and bone breaks. It was during this period that she wrote the letter seeking employment as a stunt rider.
While on holiday in Germany with her motorbike club, she ran away with some Roma (gypsies) at a circus who ran a “Wall of Death” motorcycle event she was dying to try and eventually mastered. She stayed with the Roma into the second season, until the Wall really did almost give her death, quitting only because the Roma reneged on a promise to fix the bike she’d been on, which wasn’t hers. With one eye not seeing and stitched up, she checked herself out of the German hospital, walked down the road, and got a job as a barmaid (she removed the stitches later, herself).
While home in England for a wedding, her mother gently suggested that maybe she should begin training for a longer term vocation. At the same time, a family friend suggested she learn to fly a plane. Of her trial flight Tizi writes, “As soon as we were airborne, I realised this was where I belonged.”
While in pilot school, she really did become a motorcycle stunt rider. Each show she performed in paid for two hours of flight training. She got her solo license and went to Florida, where it was cheaper to rack up the flying hours she needed to enroll to be an instructor. As luck would have it, the plane she was given was of an aerobatic variety, and in it she (privately) taught herself loop-the-loops and rolls (“What could go wrong?”) over the Everglades.
Back in England she became a flying instructor, and also got accepted into the most prestigious of the aerobatic flying clubs. She proceeded to get a commercial pilot’s license, and flew privately for a company until recession hit.
This prompted her to move to Botswana, where she flew charters and had many, many adventures. She also competed in the Trans-Kalahari motorcycle race, not winning but completing with a respectable position. When that contract ended, it was on to South Africa, where she worked in aircraft sales, real estate, and motorbike sales. In Jo-berg she got knocked down in a hit-and-run and almost lost her eyesight (again), then moved to Zimbabwe where she started her own aviation school and was a drummer in a rock band. After that she became a charter pilot for the ultra-deluxe Chobe Lodge (where Liz Taylor remarried Richard Burton), flying folks from Jo-berg to the lodge in northern Botswana for a week and back.
Whenever her beeper for this job went off in Jo-berg, she’d ride her moto down to the phone boxes to call in for the assignment. These phones were usually all occupied by people idly chatting, so she’d ride there with a six-foot Burmese python named Monty draped around her shoulders (she was getting into snake handling at that time). As soon as she got off her bike, phones would be hung up or receivers dropped as people skedaddled.
Okay, you may be thinking by now. Tizi had fun. The world was her oyster. But what about all the drawbacks? For example, what about the hard time—the very hard time—society was going to give her for not following the status quo? (This is something I have more than a little personal experience with.)
Like all her bone breaks, Tizi does not dwell on this. In fact she gives it much less space than the bone breaks and head bashes. But she does allow this one story:
While flying for the Chobe Lodge, there were guys who wanted her job, especially after the company switched planes to one that was nicer to fly. Tizi was called into the office and fired, even though she was extremely popular with the passengers and all the staff at Chobe. She was told that they did not feel she was the right person to take high-profile people around. Someone had informed the office that she had “strange hobbies for a female” like taming snakes and wild horses, riding whitewater marathons, and mending saddlery. But what made them most uneasy was that she didn’t have a boyfriend: that is to (not) say, an unspoken accusation of being gay.
Tizi couldn’t tell them that she was engaged at the time, to a lovely Botswanan Bushman named !rey!rey (the exclamation points are spoken as clicks). She was wearing his engagement ring in fact—a cobra with its fangs wide open and hood spread and diamonds for eyes—but she couldn’t show it off because wedding a Bushman would be worse than being gay, as everyone in the office was very racist. It was a no-win situation.
What did Tizi do? Went home for a rare cry, but before she could get started, friends called her up and invited her to join their new air-safari company. She did that, and also dove into more flight instruction and piloting jobs.
One winter day, while solo-flying to deliver a single engine plane to Florida from South Africa (by way of Egypt, the UK., Iceland, and Canada), while over the North Atlantic, the engine died and wouldn’t restart. Tizi got ready to land in the dark freezing water and go for her final swim.
Minutes before splashdown, the engine kicked back on.
Eventually, to make some money, she got a “real job” as a commercial pilot for Air UK, and did that for 10 years. She writes that she was “grossly overpaid and underworked” and that all the fun was gone from flying, but there was a “nice view from the office window” particularly when flying over the Alps. In her free time she earned a black belt in Choi Kwan Do, and certifications in advanced scuba as well as Category 9 skydiving. For the latter years she based in Scotland, where she obtained and trained three birds of prey: a kestrel, a Ferruginous hawk, and a golden eagle, and rode her horse Snowy with a bird on an arm to go hunt. Finally she quit piloting to go back to instructing. Then, with a partner, she started an aviation company that specialized in flights, instruction, and aerobatics using Tiger Moth biplanes.
On a visit to Australia, she rode a bull for the required eight seconds until the bell, and galloped a camel on a beach.
After 17 years, her business partner died of cancer, and she was forced to liquidate the company. The previous year she had fallen off her bicycle and gotten a blood clot on her brain, which had ended her flying days.
Tizi now lives in sunny (for Britain) Gedney Hill, where she has a large garden she has found a passion for. She trained her dog to be a therapy animal, and now takes him round to care homes. Flying still rules her life, she says; she’s often out hunting with her dog and hawk, with the hawk bagging most of their meals.
***
“If I could speak to my younger self,” Tizi told the BBC in the story last Monday, “I would tell her to go and do everything I’ve done. I’ve had such a wonderful time in life, even if I have broken a few bones.”
In her book, she writes:
“Life is short, so I’d say that anything you want to do, you should go ahead and do it—preferably today.”
For the BBC story on Tizi, click here.
Her book is here.
Don’t Move the Fire (Reprise)
September 12, 2024
The Used Book Emporium, a beloved fixture on Main Street in Longmont, Colorado, will be retiring on October 15 after nearly three decades in business. There are a few weeks left to walk the hardwood floors of the building that was once a turn-of-the-century hardware store, peruse the well-curated stacks, breathe in the rich scent of the books, and talk with the conscientious staff. It’s not for lack of customers the place is closing, although economics of course play a role. The Used Book Emporium has had its run, and it’s time to move on.
The beat goes on. Like Eckhart Tolle wrote, it is important that we know “how to live and how to die, and how to not make living and dying a problem.”
Which is not to say we shouldn’t honor and pay tribute to, as emotionally as we wish, simple things in life like a good book. Or friendship. It’s part of living deeply and embracing the essentials.
It’s part of holding the fire, hot, in the center of our chest.
On March 9, 2020, in Navrongo, Ghana, three friends sat down to a simple lunch of Bambara beans, prepared by a fourth friend. It was somewhat of a symbolic lunch because Bambara beans don’t get a lot of respect. But they are a very significant food to me, and these friends knew this.
There was a sense of honor, of ceremony, of respect and dignity, not to mention a sentimental touch of humor to this lunch—this simple lunch, eaten outdoors beneath the shade of a neem tree behind the house, in the heat of March which is the end of dry season, the warmest month of the year.
The chef of the Bambara beans was Victoria Ayisala. The three friends were Alasko Wezena, Henry Pwazaga, and myself.
Victoria, in elegant head wrap and broad smile, brought out the pot of boiled beans. She brought out the bowl of oil for dribbling over them, and the clay dish of pepper-salt for pinching. Gourmet slivers of crispy onion floated on the oil, which was a nice touch.
It proved to be the last time these four people would all be together. This is stated not to make this a sad story; rather it is one of joy and gratitude, that we had this time together. That we had all the times together, for three decades before that.
Henry and I worked in the laboratory together at Navrongo Secondary School from 1989 to 1991. Alasko was the school’s Assistant Bursar. Victoria was my neighbor.
Within two years of our lunch, Victoria would pass away.
Alasko was next. He died a little over a year ago, in August of 2023.
Early in the morning of August 10, 2024, Henry Pwazaga breathed his last at the Navrongo Hospital, surrounded by family.
The simple things, the important things.
Happiness is a bowl of Bambara beans,
a lifetime of friendship.
Hawk Tale
August 11, 2021
I have this thing going on with a hawk, and it’s been vexing me.
Last year while home in Colorado in June-July, I reported a hawk couple nesting somewhere near the cottonwood tree I walk to a few times a week when I’m here, a mile out in the fields from my house. They’d perch quietly on the utility poles near the tree, or circle in the sky and make their beautiful, soulful cries.
Then I left for nearly a year.
On getting back, I resumed walking to the tree. I thought of the hawks, and wondered if they were still around. One of the first times I was sitting under the tree, I heard a solitary cry and thought, “There you are!” On heading back, I saw one bird in the sky, and figured it had lost its partner but was still hanging around. I felt a little sad for it. I also wondered why it cried so much as it flew. I assumed it was hunting for rabbits or prairie dogs or whatever, and I wondered why it was being so vocal about it.
After the third or fourth walk, I realized: Wait a minute. This is about me.
This hawk is following me!
It has been a ritual for us for the past month. I climb over my back fence and begin my walk, and say, “Where are you?” Within a minute I hear the familiar cry, and I don’t even need to look up because I can see the swooping shadow in front of me. It stays with me for the whole mile out to the tree, sometime swooping low, sometimes circling high, always crying. It flies and cries while I sit under the tree, and then follows me all the way home. Sometimes I hear it but don’t see it. In these cases, all I need to do is look straight up to see its speck circling directly above me—sometimes way, way up above me!
Things always get a little intense in the final stretch home, as it swoops from pole to pole and perches and really leans into its cries, which are focused squarely on me. When I climb over my fence and head to my backdoor, it treats me to one last, very low swoop right before I go under the cover of my patio.
I searched for information on this, googling phrases such as, “Why is a hawk following me?” The results were disappointing, sending me to metaphysical websites explaining the spiritual meanings of being visited by a hawk. Hasn’t anyone studied this? I wondered. I sought scientific data, not mystical mumbo jumbo!
Then, about a week ago, my eye caught on a passing comment in a completely unrelated magazine article I was reading: “Crows have been shown to hold grudges.”
I googled that. And, wow!
About fifteen years ago, researchers at the University of Washington learned that American crows can recognize and remember people, especially ones that have given them bad experiences. While wearing rubber Halloween masks, the researchers trapped, banded, and released small groups of crows at various sites. They kept the masks on while the birds were caged, while free crows nearby amassed and sounded the alarm. Over the next weeks, when the researchers walked through these areas wearing the masks, significant numbers of crows scolded, harassed, and even group-dive-bombed them. However, when they wore different, neutral masks, the crows pretty much left them alone.
These crows did not forget the bad Halloween-masked people, even after long stretches of not seeing them. “They hadn’t seen me with the mask on for over a year,” one researcher marveled, “And when I walked out of the office they immediately scolded me.” What’s more, as time went by, more and more crows joined in the scolding. Within three years, the percentage of scolding crows had doubled, and it continued to increase after that. These crows were sharing the information with their agemates, and passing it on to the next generations!
I considered my hawk case.
“My hat…” I thought.
Last summer, when I encountered and spent time with the hawk couple, I always wore my beloved Guatemala hat, a green-striped baseball cap I’d picked up earlier in the year while living in that country. Without fail, that was the hat I wore last year when I walked to the tree, the tree in which the hawks very likely had their nest.
It’s still my favorite hat, and I still always wear it when I go for that walk.
Does that hawk remember me because of the hat? I wondered. And then I exclaimed, “But I didn’t do anything! I only came and sat under the tree!” However, perhaps that was enough to make me a threat.
The hat hypothesis explained a lot. It explained why the hawk left me alone when I went running on alternate days on the exact same route, continuing past the tree but not going near it. At least, I have never noticed a hawk pursuing me then, haven’t seen a shadow, and don’t hear one through the earbuds of my iPod. And when I run, do I wear my green Guatemala hat? Of course not! I don’t want to get my favorite hat sweaty. Instead, I always wear one of my ratty old gray or black caps.
“Hmm,” I thought yesterday. It was a walk day, and time to do an experiment.
Going to my hat shelf, I selected a bright pink knit hat I’ve never worn for this walk these past two summers, and pulled it down low over my face.
“Where are you?” I asked, as I came over my fence. I walked, and walked. No swooping shadow, no cries. It wasn’t until I neared the tree that I heard a single cry, and saw the hawk way out over the field, nowhere near me. I walked past the tree turnoff and continued out into the freshly-cut hayfield opposite, and sat. Over the course of twenty minutes, I heard one other, distant cry. When I got up and walked home, I heard no cries and saw no hawk.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for solving the mystery as I neared home.
Then the cries began and intensified. Like always, it increased the closer I got to home, with the hawk perching on every pole in the final stretch and really yelling at me. And yes, I was treated to a dive-bomb-swoop in my backyard right before getting under the cover of the patio, pink hat notwithstanding.
Then I wondered, “Is it all the same hawk?” I remembered one time last week, at around the halfway point, that there had been two hawks perched on successive poles, crying. Could one hawk be handing me off to another?
Today I walked again, this time with the green Guatemala hat. A hawk arrived crying within minutes, followed me for a bit, and flew right over me to perch on a pole where it kept crying at me. But then it stayed back. I didn’t get another cry and sighting until the halfway point—by then I wasn’t sure if it was the same hawk. Nothing else happened until I reached the tree and had been sitting for a few minutes. I heard a few cries.
On exiting the tree, a hawk was on me as always—always, except yesterday, when I wore the pink hat—crying and divebombing me. It circled way above me as I turned north to approach the halfway point. When I turned west for the final stretch home, it divebombed me three more times. Each time, it retreated way to the east before circling back. The final time, it flew away to the east and was gone. I got the distinct feeling I had left its territory. At any rate, I am certain it did not follow me home.
Ahead, I saw a different hawk circling over my neighborhood. But curiously, as I neared my house, I received no “welcome” for the first time in weeks. I don’t know, but I wonder if that hawk was now busy with something else and unable to attend to me.
If there really are two hawks working in sequence, it’s a good example of the value of first-hand versus second-hand information. Any species—including us—experiences an evolutionary tradeoff between costly but accurate information gained first-hand, and inexpensive but possibly less-reliable social information. The tree hawk has direct experience with me being a threat, and makes it known it does not like me. The street hawk, on the other hand, has merely been informed that I am a bad person. It has no personal experience with me being one, but wow, it dislikes me intensely—more than the tree hawk!
You might say, “But the tree hawk leaves you alone when you wear the pink hat, whereas the street hawk hates you regardless of the hat you’re wearing. Maybe it’s just a grumpy street hawk that doesn’t like anybody.”
That’s possible, but consider this: through their multi-year studies, the crow researchers determined that the crows that directly experienced trapping later discriminated between the dangerous and neutral masks more precisely than crows that learned through social means.
This could explain why the tree hawk left me alone when I wore the pink hat, and the street hawk carried on with its useless angry ways regardless.
Of course, I would need a lot more data to draw any conclusions, and others would need to replicate my findings. I’m still not 100% certain about the hawk(s)—that is, whether it is one or more harassing me.
However I believe there is a message here—one that I love:
Live life first-hand, as much as possible. Be wary of all the social noise constantly flowing in. Rather, go out into the world and find things out for yourself.
Once Upon a Flower Killing Moon
July 11, 2024
The May full moon is known in many places as the Flower Moon, but the Osage, a Native American tribe based in north-central Oklahoma, call it the Flower-Killing Moon.
This is because in April the meadows and copses of the Osage Hills become blanketed in millions of vibrant little blue, yellow, cream, and purple wildflowers. Then, during May, taller plants and grasses take over and deprive the little flowers of light and water. Their necks break off, their petals blow away, and they return to the soil to begin anew.
I am Osage. As I walked my land a few weeks ago beneath an ebbing Flower Killing Moon, I became enthralled all over again by its beauty. The lush green hills, the rocks, the streams, the forests of blackjack trees, and yes, the flowers. There were still thousands of flowers out—mostly yellow black-eyed Susans. I also saw wild turkeys, deer, and rabbits. I heard coyotes howl. I stepped across a beavers’ dam to traverse Wild Horse Creek, on my way from the west pasture to the east.
I walked every evening for a week. And I understood, all over again, why my Granny saved it for me and my children. I even found myself getting a little annoyed with her, to be honest, the first few walks! “Granny, why did you leave us so much?” I panted, sweat on my brow, halfway through my walk which circumnavigated two-thirds of the ranch and took me a full hour to accomplish.
All of it absolutely gorgeous in a warm June sunset.
And silent! Except for the breeze. The pump jacks on the two oil wells located on my property no longer “chug-chug-chug” while their heads bob up and down. Some years back, their motors were changed out to electric ones, and now they nod ever so quietly.
On returning to the house one evening, fireflies aglow in the twilight, my cousin Matt sitting on the front porch, I had a vision. Actually it was an “auditory”:
“Helen, get in the car. The driver’s seat.”
That would be my great-grandfather, Charles Labadie, talking to my granny, Helen, as he hustled her and the rest of his large family into their 1922 Ford Model T to flee the Osage reservation and maybe stay alive. Neither Charles nor his wife, Iva, knew how to drive. So it was up to the two oldest children still living at home, Alvin (a.k.a. “Smoke”), age 14, and Helen—my Granny—age 12, to drive the family to New Mexico.
It had become too dangerous to stay on the Osage. Shortly before that, Granny’s older brother Buss’s house, which was located about two miles to the northeast, blew up suspiciously. Buss’s father-in-law was the main suspect, but law enforcement considered the explosion to be, naturally, an “accident”—much like all of the other “accidents” that happened during that period. In this case, the only real accident was that Buss, his wife, and his young daughter Hazel had not been in the house at the time, having driven to Bartlesville for dinner and a movie.
Let me back up a little.
In 1906, 45 years after the Osage Nation legally had bought (not “was given” or “was sent to”) its rocky, hilly land in north-central Oklahoma and had settled there, Chief Bigheart and his aides negotiated an agreement with the U.S. government confirming that all underground minerals were property of the tribe. At this time, every full-blood member was given a “headright” in the communal mineral trust, which meant they received a quarterly payment from the mineral estate. This headright could only be inherited by an Osage’s heirs.
The agreement proved fortuitous. A few years after it was inked, oil fields were discovered beneath the hills, and the Osage became some of the wealthiest people, per capita, on the planet.
Almost immediately the U.S. government declared all full-blood Osage to be “incompetent,” i.e. not capable of managing their own affairs, and required them to work through guardians who were almost always white men. In this manner thousands of acres and millions of dollars were looted. In those days, if you weren’t full-blood and you “acted white” or “looked white” it was possible to be deemed “competent.” But competency did not get you U.S. citizenship, of course, and although it theoretically gave you the right to vote, Oklahoma did not acknowledge this right. What competency did give you was the right to be taxed like crazy by state and local authorities. Guardianship did not end until 1934, but the legal status of being “non-competent” exists to this day, mostly for the purpose of avoiding taxes.
Guardians could steal a lot, but they couldn’t get their hands on the headrights themselves. Thus, the murders began. By 1921 the murdering had kicked into high gear, and by the end of that decade, dozens of headright-owning Osage had died suspicious, violent deaths. Being Osage meant that you had a target on your back, and the classic modus operandi was to target an Osage, marry in, and plot to kill.
My Granny survived. She and Smoke drove the family to New Mexico, where they pitched a tent in Raton and eventually built a log cabin at Red River, which is in the Sangre de Cristo mountains not too far from Taos Ski Valley.
They remained in New Mexico for a little over four years.
Granny returned to Oklahoma with her family in early 1926. She graduated from Bowring High School, six miles (by horseback) northeast of home, in 1930 at age 20—a family first. Then she moved to Texas, where she lived with her eldest sister and earned a nursing degree—another first. She married a doctor, they moved around, and eventually settled in the town of Sumner in the Pacific Northwest, in a house on a hill with Mount Rainier perfectly framed in the living room window. That’s where I came on the scene.
“I am COMPETENT!” Granny used to like to say. She’d be laughing, but she was fucking serious.
Unbeknownst to me (at first), my super-loving, classy, super fun, kind, fur-coat-wearing, doctor’s wife Granny, through all those years, forever had Red Eagle Route burning in her heart and soul. She’d always remained that aviator-capped tomboy, toting a rifle and straddling the bonnet of a Model T. By the time my grandpa had a few stokes in the 1970s, she’d bought up and reassembled what family land she could—mostly Smoke’s, who was dying of cancer but holding onto the land they grew up on—and moved there to live the final decade of her life. And we grandkids got to visit!
She was so amazing. We loved her so much.
I’ve kept that framed picture of her sitting on the car bonnet hanging in my kitchen for the past couple decades. I love looking at it from time to time, and talking to her.
“Well done, Helen!” I found my self saying the other day, as memories of my recent evening walks around our land pulsed in my mind.
And then I said, not for the first time, “I promise.”
I promise my children will inherit that land.
Which remains easier said than done. True, the murder-for-headright days are over, and guardianship is over, and you only have to be non-competent if you want to save on taxes.
But people still keep on trying to rip off Indian land. Again and again. Some things never change. I myself have fended off two attacks in just the past eight years.
“I promise, Granny,” I said. “My kids will get it, and then it will be up to them to carry forward.”
Eggs of Vietnam
June 12, 2021
May and June are bằng lăng months in Hanoi, when the teeming narrow tree-stuffed streets absolutely overflow with vibrant, luxurious purple blossoms. It’s a great time to sit on a balcony amidst them and enjoy a cà phê trứng, Hanoi’s famous whipped egg yolk topped coffee.
Or go to Hà Giang and get one!
There is a new trip in Vietnam and you need to know about it. It’s absolutely dazzling and thrilling, and has been going on for only a few years. It takes place in Hà Giang province, up in the jaw-dropping misty mountains near the China border. For about a hundred and fifteen bucks all-inclusive, you climb on the back of a motorbike with your own private driver and moto around through the most incredible eye-popping scenery imaginable for two full days.
Your driver handles everything and all you have to do is hang on, look around, and try to keep your eyes inside your head. It’s surreal and unbelievable. And everyone is so nice, it’s nowhere close to tourist-jaded yet. The babies in the villages still wave at you.
But you suffer from moto butt fatigue, you say. Not a problem on the Hà Giang loop! Your conscientious driving team makes regular stops at hillside viewpoint coffeehouses, where you can rest your tush and enjoy as many cà phês as your heart desires. You might want to switch to unsweetened đens from those sweet-milk infused, egg-topped trứngs, however.
Back to eggs: Vietnam certainly makes virtuoso use of them, as it does with pretty much every other ingredient available, in its vast, complex, harmonious cuisine. Here you can eat eggs from many types of birds, in many stages of development (we won’t go into the chick or duckling fetus thing). Quail is quite renown. Here are two more, lesser-known specialties:
1. Century Egg
What it is: The century egg, or trứng bắc thảo, is a preserved egg traditionally made by rolling the raw egg in a clay paste containing salt and quicklime, and storing it in a cloth-covered jar or basket for a few weeks or months. Probably an accident at first, the point is to gradually raise the pH inside the shell from 9 to 12. As this happens, the egg white proteins break down and reassemble into a flavorful, globular network of fine strands to make a dark-brown elastic gel that is stable even when boiled. Meanwhile the yolk becomes dark greenish or gray, and takes on a distinctive flavor due to traces of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia.
Where to get one: Just pull over to any sidewalk stall with a “Súp Cua” banner hanging above it, because here you’re in for an even bigger treat—a meal fit for a king. For about a buck thirty-five, a woman who has probably been making her special súp cua (crab soup) for her loyal customers for decades will serve you up a modestly-portioned bowl of her artful, delicate concoction and bring it over. That brown blob sitting in it, amidst tender chunks of crabmeat, will be half of a trứng bắc thảo.
Don’t be put off by any unfound belief that this egg was prepared by soaking it in horse piss for 100 years. That is simply not true! This vicious rumor has proven a little hard to shake, since in Thai and Lao the common names for this egg translate to “horse urine egg” due to its aroma.
2. Unlaid Chicken Egg
What it is: Exactly that. When an old hen stops laying much, it gets slaughtered, and inside the oviduct is a train of yolks ranging from pea-size to near-fully-developed. These yolks are rich in color and taste, and not runny; more like melted cheese. You can do with them whatever else you might do with an egg yolk. In Vietnam, they often come boiled in chicken phở (phở gà).
Where to get one: Just go to a phở gà place that serves them! In Hanoi this is easy to do, since chicken phở is more of a northern thing. This phở comes with a bonus in that the chicken meat will be the extra-textured protein of older birds, a chewy delight impossible to encounter anywhere in the ultra-soft, flavorless chickened West.
Don’t worry if you’re in Saigon; you can still get a great unlaid-egg phở gà. You can’t go wrong with the restaurant Phở Hương Bình, on Võ Thị Sáu street opposite its corner with Phạm Ngọc Thạch. This place has been serving it up since 1958. It’s a little more expensive than your average phở, perhaps due to the generous portion of unlaid eggs in your bowl and the little dish of molten chicken fat you get on the side. But a bowl here will still hardly set you back much, to the extent that you might eat two if you’re really hungry.
Then you can climb onto the moto and, beneath Saigon’s startling, towering boulevard trees, scoot home for a nap. Or alternatively…continue onward, to your next food adventure.
Pennywort at the Secret Garden
May 10, 2024
The commemoration posters are still up at Independence Palace in Saigon. It’s now 49 years plus a few days after the Fall.
The day before that, one afternoon in April, 1975, this neighborhood was the scene of a large helicopter evacuation. From a number of nearby rooftops, including that of the USA Embassy, people scrambled up ladders to board helicopters and be conveyed out to sea. By the time Operation Frequent Wind was shut down by Gerald Ford the following morning, about 7,000 people had made it out. It was a successful evacuation despite what the photos depict.
Less well-known but equally dramatic were scenes of what took place at the other end. Pilots were supposed to drop their passengers off on the ships and then ditch their helicopters in the sea, jumping out at the last minute to await rescue. Many did not want to do this, and the decks became so overcrowded with empty helicopters that they had to be pushed into the water to make room for more to land.
Back here in Saigon’s District One, one of the most iconic images is of the rooftop of an apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street, now called Ly Tu Trong Street. It’s hard to get up there now unless you live there. But there is another apartment rooftop nearby where you will be most welcome.
To get there, walk a block and a half down to Pasteur. Hang a right, and then make an immediate right into a nondescript, dead-end alley. Halfway down on the left, look for the sign for the Secret Garden.
You’ll enter, climb eight flights of steps past tenants and their cats, and arrive at a rustic open-air restaurant and tea house that feels much older than its eleven years would indicate. It’s a great place to linger, take time, enjoy some home-style Vietnamese cooking. If it is afternoon and the clouds have been building, you might want a table farther in underneath the canopies. Or else you can take one out by the railing and run for cover later if you need to!
After the walk and the climb, a cold drink of pennywort is a soothing elixir.
This is a common name for a number of different low-growing, fairly invasive green plants around the world. Here it’s a pseudonym for rau má, the round leaves of which find their way into salads, cold rolls, and, of course, a beverage. Often the drink is blended with beans and served with a little cup of sugar syrup on the side, to mix in and take the herbaceous edge off.
But if you want the full authentic, tooth-staining, “Hey I’m drinking grass!” effect, ditch the sugar and go for it straight!
A Life LIVED
April 13, 2024
There’s an old house on the corner, a stone’s toss from mine. I finally realized whose it was.
I’d heard of Aimé Bonpland shortly after moving to the little old town of Santa María, Paraguay, last year. I even attended an event at the town’s Municipal Center in August, presided over by the French ambassador, to commemorate Aimé’s birthday. But ever since moving into my cottage on a silent street in Santa María’s historic center in October, I’d walked past the house over and over again without registering its significance. All I knew is no one lived there and that it was lovingly preserved; probably associated with the museum across the street.
But now I know that, oh my goodness, have I ever had a neighbor! What a cosmic honor, to live practically next door to each other—200 years apart!
Amié Bonpland was born in La Rochelle, France (as were, incidentally, some of my ancestors), in 1773. By 1790 he relocated to Paris, where he was supposed to train in medicine—which he did—but his main passion became botany, which he studied with the greats of the day. This brought him into contact with Alexander von Humboldt, who he became partners with in their legendary, five-year exploration of South and Central America. They commenced in 1799, once the Napoleonic Wars let them.
Starting out in Caracas, Humboldt and Bonpland headed south to the banks of the Apure, a tributary of the Orinoco. During months spent in dense tropical jungle, they stayed healthy on ground cacao beans and river water, and proved a connection between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. They didn’t get sick until they got back to civilization (funny how that works), where they rested up and headed briefly to Cuba before moving on to the Andes.
From Bogotá they walked all the way to Trujillo, Peru on mountain paths now more or less the route of the Pan American Highway. They climbed almost all of Chimborazo, the peak in Ecuador that sticks out farther from center of the Earth than Mount Everest, all the while studying everything under the sun and moon—plants, geodesy, meteorology, ocean currents, you name it. In the spring of 1803 they sailed to Acapulco, and spent a year in Mexico before swinging through Washington, DC for a meeting with President Jefferson before returning to France.
Aimé got back to Paris with over 6,000 plant specimens and more than a few tales to tell. Impressed, Napoleon gave him a pension, and Empress Joséphine put him in charge of her gardens at Chateau de Malmaison, where Aimé managed to stay put all the way until 1816, writing up and publishing his findings and cultivating his wild South American seeds. But by 1817 he was back in Buenos Aires.
He was supposed to be a professor of natural history there, but he soon left to explore and study. One species that particularly caught his attention was yerba mate. Aimé was probably one of the first to understand the true potential of a plant now central to the lives of millions upon millions of South Americans.
In 1821 Aimé started a colony at Santa Ana, about 100 miles as a bird flies from Santa María, with the express purpose of cultivating and selling yerba. This caught the ire of Paraguay’s founding dictator, José de Francia, who intended to monopolize this trade for himself. As such, Paraguayan forces expeditiously destroyed Santa Ana, which was then in territory disputed by Paraguay and Argentina, and Aimé was arrested as a “spy” and imprisoned.
So, after all that, after such an extraordinary life of adventures and intentions and efforts and achievements, there Aimé was: under house arrest at age 48 for stepping on a dictator’s toes.
But then there’s the matter of the house he was under arrest in.
It was in Santa Maria.
I’m here to tell you: that doesn’t suck.
Aimé went on to live next door to me for eight years. The terms of his arrest allowed him plenty of freedom, and he married, had kids, and became a revered member of the community, working as a physician while continuing his botanical passions. A couple years after being “released,” in 1831, he left Santa María. But he remained in the region for the rest of his life, never went back to Europe, and made a living in yerba and the orange trees he introduced. He died at the ripe old age of 84, among his orange groves near Santa Ana.
It is autumn now in Santa María. As I wander into the depths of my luscious back garden in the evening, I notice the bird and insect sounds have ebbed substantially from the cacophony they sang all summer. I also notice another development. As I look up into one of my four orange trees, I see the green balls of fruit have gotten bigger. And they are not all that green anymore. They are getting ripe! I wonder if the monkeys who live in the neighboring plaza know this, and will be visiting me soon.
I reach up and pick a large, nearly-ripe one, and press it to the center of my chest. I smile.
Because I believe in my heart that this orange was brought here by my neighbor, Mr. Aimé Bonpland.
Dream of Life
March 10, 2024
A semi-wild, adolescent cat adopted me a couple months ago. His name is FredSmith.
It took a while for me to become his human. For the first few months after I moved into my cottage here in Santa Maria, Paraguay, he kept his distance, keeping to other portions of my large backyard. Occasionally he’d warily step through my open back door in the evening and head to the bathroom, presumably to get a drink of water. I made him feel as comfortable as possible by leaving him alone. Then I started noticing my little kitchen garbage occasionally tipped over in the morning, and the chicken bones I’d put there the night before rummaged out and gone. This was fine with me. A born acrobat, I realized he came and went in the night, silently, through the tilted louvres of my bedroom window. I gathered this was his house before it was mine, during the months it had sat vacant.
In January I tied up a hammock out back, between two trees growing the perfect distance apart. And that’s where I went every evening, exhausted after teaching, to decompress in the intoxicating summer twilight. Slowly but surely, FredSmith came closer and closer. Finally, we established contact.
Now we are inseparable.
Don’t worry about FredSmith when you see his photos. On first glance he might look ragged and ravaged, bare skin showing through sparse black hair. That’s what I thought, in shock, from a distance, the first night he came through my back door. In reality he has a gorgeous full coat of charcoal fur with lustrous mahogany highlights, which he keeps meticulously clean, and a patch of white on his chin. He’s skinny because he’s not yet full grown, and because he’s a born acrobat.
But why the name FredSmith?
It came about one morning in January, shortly after he and I became better acquainted. I was showering, getting ready for school, and having one of those mornings of grumbling in my mind about all the things in my life that were troubling me and/or challenging me and/or not going perfectly. And in the middle of it all, this cat walked into the bathroom, sat down, and laid his big green eyes on me.
I laughed, and thought, “Dream of Life.”
I repeated these words as I got out of the shower, got dressed, and walked to school in the tranquil Santa Maria morning, chickens pecking on the verges and a horse cart parked in front of the bakery on the corner. And I thought about how, if I didn’t have these particular things right now to struggle with and fuss over in my mind, I’d certainly come up with some different ones!
It’s the Dream of Life.
But why the name FredSmith?
Fred “Sonic” Smith (the human) was born in his parents’ home in Appalachian West Virginia in 1948. He relocated to Detroit, where in the 1960s and 70s, with his band the MC5, he helped pioneer the Detroit Sound, which was a forerunner to heavy metal and punk rock. In its 1994 obituary, the Village Voice stated that Fred’s “thick, muscular riffs provided the ballistic brawn behind the band’s sweaty mix of fist-pumping revolutionary rhetoric and incendiary proto-metal.” Rolling Stone puts Fred at number 98 in its list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
He was of course already named Fred Smith when he met Patti Smith, who was already named Patti Smith, before a show they both played in 1978. They married in 1980, and decamped to a Detroit suburb to live and raise two children. In 1988, with Fred’s collaboration and urging, Patti reemerged in the music world to release her only album of that decade. Together they wrote and produced all the tracks. The album is called “Dream of Life.”
I bought “Dream of Life” in cassette in 1988 and I have loved it ever since. The title track in particular—which Fred was the lead writer on—has always maintained a mesmerizing hold over me, and remains in heavy rotation on my iPod. The entire album holds up incredibly well in 2024, and it was to this album I was running at dawn over the lush green hills outside of Santa Maria one morning in January when the song “Dream of Life” came on and nailed me all over again.
But what does this have to do with grumbling in the shower about life’s tribulations?
I don’t know for certain, but I believe Fred and Patti were thinking of the writer and speaker Alan Watts when they created “Dream of Life” in the 1980s. Alan Watts died in 1973, but his words lived on and continue to live on. One renown spoken bit he used to do is called “The Dream of Life.” If you are unfamiliar with it, here it is:
“So then…
Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream.
And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream seventy-five years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure.
And after several nights, of seventy-five years of total pleasure each, you would say, “Well, that was pretty great! But now let’s, um, let’s have a surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something is going to happen to me, but I don’t know what it’s going to be.”
And you would dig that, and come out of that, and you’d say, “Wow! That was a close shave, wasn’t it?”
Then you would get more and more adventurous. And you would make further and further gambles as to what you would dream.
Finally you would dream
Where you are now.
You would dream the dream of living the life
That you are actually living today.”
Fred “Sonic” Smith passed away in 1994 in Detroit, from heart failure, at age 48. At the time he was working on a new album of material with Patti.
By the way, FredSmith (the cat) is technically female. But gender conformity doesn’t matter to me much here, and I can’t very well name my little helper cat Patti Smith, who is still alive.
Besides, it was Fred Smith who was the lead force behind one of my favorite rock songs, a song that got me over those hills that January sunrise, a song that propels me forward.
The Two-Minute Best Supporting Actress Monologue Complaining About Patriarchy
February 7, 2024
When Oscar nominations came out a couple weeks ago, there was buzz about America Ferrera’s “surprise” nomination for the tiny role she plays in Barbie. But it was clear to everyone what got her there: a two-minute speech she gives in the movie about “what it means to be a woman.”
We’ve seen this before. Florence Pugh performed it with aplomb in Little Women. Laura Dern nailed it in Marriage Story. It’s a trend that goes back at least as far as Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables: get an actor in a minor role to powerfully and passionately lament for two minutes (maybe Anne’s was three) about how unfair it is, was, and/or always has been to be a woman, and bag Best Supporting Actress.
Two of the four films just mentioned were screen-written and directed by Greta Gerwig, so it’s safe to say this is a Greta gig. Greta has learnt the game well. And because it’s a game, it is, at its core, insincere and therefore offensive—particularly in the case of Barbie. Greta knows that if she gives two minutes of lip service to this she can be praised and recognized.
And lip service is all it is, because Greta sure isn’t doing anything to address the actual problem—quite the contrary. More on that in a minute.
Back to America: there’s no question she’s a fine actress with a strong track record. But what she did in Barbie isn’t all that hard. In fact I’m pretty sure I, with my modest stage experience playing a variety of roles and memorizing/reciting lines, could don a wig and run through that “what it means to be a woman” thing for three or four takes while they film it from different angles, then splice together the best bits, and turn in a passable performance. Not Best Supporting Actress material, of course, but passable.
It’s not America’s acting skill that’s getting the accolades here. It’s the words that were written for her to say that are. And it’s lip service.
How about we have a different monologue? How about we have one in which a woman complains for two minutes about how women make sure the patriarchy keeps on going? About how women are patriarchy’s champions, perpetuators, prime enablers, and enforcers? How there’s no way it could continue without women’s enthusiastic cooperation, participation, and leadership?
Better yet, how about a two-minute monologue by a man, one who is actually offended by and doesn’t believe in the patriarchy, and who tried to do something about it, tried to live a different way? Who dared to go against it, and who was eviscerated for it, by society in general and especially by women?
How about a monologue a man who raised his children as a stay-home, primary caregiving parent for eight years, doing all that entailed, year in year out, and was disparaged for it by women, “Get back to your cubicle!” being the constant message. “What is wrong with him?” being the consistent vibe, emanating from the endless clusters of moms at after-school pickup. “Probably lost his job.”
How about a monologue by a man whose efforts weren’t even acknowledged as stay-home parenting at all, but rather as the pathetic premature ‘retiring’ of a deadbeat lazy ass. By a man who never even achieved the level of non-appreciation anguished about by stay-at-home moms and best supporting actresses through time, by a man who was never even seen, by women, to exist in his role. “Not going there,” their credo. Not acknowledging the trespass, the bucking of what society is based on.
How about a monologue by a man to whom it was made clear: “You are not allowed to do this. You are not allowed to invade our sacred woman-mother territory. We women can do everything men can do, yes, but men cannot, dare not, do what women do. For we, by virtue of our gender, possess magic mothering dust.”
How about a monologue by a man who seeks to debunk this magic dust bullshit? Who knows through his long, lived experience that although some parts of child-raising are difficult, most of it isn’t. It’s not that hard. Can you drive? You’re 70% there. Cook and clean? Kicks you up to 80%. Organize your life to match up with the schools’ appropriately short, totally non-professional-job-accommodating schedule, and always be there to fill in all the gaping gaps? You’re gold, you’re at 95%. Deal with the nonappreciation, the non-valuing, the non-acknowledgement, compounded all the more because you’re male? 98%. Even if you lack magic dust to get you that last two percent, that’s more than enough.
How about a monologue by a man who, at the end of the day, was condemned by a disgusted judge whose sole reference to all athose years of effort and intention, in twelve angry pages, was in the context of lambasting him for being “woefully voluntarily unemployed” by “his decision to be a stay-at-home father, forgoing a lucrative income.”
Yes. This is where we’re at, in 2024. And Greta isn’t helping.
Sure, Greta got America Ferrera to say some cool shit for two minutes in Barbie. But what is the closing, over-arching message of her movie?
“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come.”
Not: “We parents…so our children can look back…”
This, written by hip, progressive, earth-mother of two, wide-hipped, asymmetrically haircutted billion dollar director Gerwig.
But…stand still? What does this cryptic message mean? Here’s how one enthusiastic reviewer interpreted it, in Decider:
“After a certain point in raising a child, a mother has to “stand still” and let that child become their own person on their own. When that child comes into their own, they can look back to the point where their mother decided to “stand still” so to speak, and recognize how much of their personhood is their own making. We were raised by our mothers, but we build who we are on top of that foundation. A good mother lets us do that.”
I want to vomit.
But there is a silver lining, in the bigger picture.
Have you ever been surprised, when you’ve followed your inner voice, and worked hard to do what you believe is good and right, for yourself, for those around you, and for the world at large, but instead of getting approval or even ambivalence, you’ve received decidedly negative reactions?
This is a gift. This is important. Pay attention to it. This is information: when people react negatively to who you are and what you do.
Because it means you are living authentically. Moreover, it means you are on to something. You are making people uncomfortable for a reason. You are upsetting the status quo. You are moving forward. You are embodying evolution and change. Probably you are working towards a new way of living that is more like a solution than it is perpetuating the same old problems.
And this is threatening to people who are wrapped up and comfortable with keeping things the way they are.
Filadelfia
January 13, 2024
“The settlers made a mistake,” Hermann Ratslaff told me, as we stood in the hotel lobby in Filadelfia on Christmas Day.
The elderly gentleman and I were examining a satellite photo on the wall depicting Paraguay’s Chaco region, one that showed incursion and massive deforestation by vast and mostly-illegal cattle estancias. Behind us, wall-mounted charts listed each day in the past eight years in which it had rained, and how many millimeters each time.
“The groundwater here in the central Chaco is salty,” Hermann continued. “If only they had chosen a more southwestern area, we would have had fresh water from the Andes fifty meters beneath the surface.”
“Hindsight is 20-20,” I said. “Were you born here in Filadelfia?”
He shook his head and pointed to an area a few dozen miles to the northwest. “Originally there were thirteen villages. Filadelfia was centrally-located, and at the time it seemed to have enough fresh groundwater. So, it was designated as the center. I live in Asunción now.”
“And your…” I struggled to come up with the Spanish word for ancestors. “Antepasados?”
“My mother, she came from, well, at the time it was part of the Soviet Union.”
Back to the water issue for a moment: Riding a bus through the Chaco, you might be puzzled why water is such a challenge here, to the extent that the area has historically never had any human population except sparse indigenous bands. The place looks lush and green, Chaco-full of dense foliage supporting jam-packed biodiversity.
But much of the foliage has thorns, and specialized trunks and leaves, and has adapted over millions of years to tolerate highly arid conditions and the gray salty clay that makes up the substrate. Of the many endearing sights are the samu’u, or palo borracho (drunken stick) trees, storing water in their bloated trunks.
Look beyond the roadside thickets and you will glimpse the edges of gigantic cattle grazing estancias, where a couple decades ago all was low hardwood forest and thick shrubland. According to Global Forest Watch, an area larger than Switzerland was deforested in the Chaco between 2001 and 2021.
This region constitutes more than 60% of Paraguay’s territory, but pretty much everyone lives in the remainder, concentrated around Asunción and farther south (where I also live). The percentage of Paraguayans who inhabit the Chaco is in the low single digits. There’d be even less people if not for Filadelfia and its surrounding boroughs, which were founded less than 100 years ago. That’s when Hermann Ratslaff’s mom and dad arrived.
It can feel surreal, to encounter Germanic culture here in the empty outback center of South America. As Margaret Hebblethwaite writes in Bradt’s Guide to Paraguay, here the electricity does not fail, window frames fit, schools open like clockwork even in rain, and supermarkets are stocked as well as or better than in Asunción.
When Hermann Ratslaff’s parents arrived in the 1930s, it was a nonpopulated zone that was Bolivian if you asked Bolivia, and Paraguayan if you asked Paraguay. Foreign entities—USA being prominent—had announced the presence of oil, and suddenly Paraguay needed some people here to call citizens. Egged on by the USA and other powers, the two countries (Bolivia and Paraguay) fought a ferocious and appalling three-year war in which many died of wounds and many more died of thirst. Paraguay more or less won. To-date, it hasn’t proved feasible to drill for oil.
Hermann’s forbears didn’t have to fight. The government had given them “Privilegium” as part of their deal to immigrate, which among other things exempted them from military service. And over the next century, against very, very substantial odds, they forged and agrarian-industrial life that is unarguably economically successful. Nowadays, members of the Fernheim Cooperative live in attractive homes with fruit trees and water catchment systems. Their dairy factory supplies about half the country’s needs, their peanuts and sesame seeds churn out megaliters of food oil for export, and most significantly, their beef ends up on plates from Europe to Africa, Asia to the Middle East (but curiously not North America).
It began as the majorly humble Fernheim Colony, smack in the middle of the Chaco. “Fernheim” combines two low German, or Plautdietsch, words, and stands for “Far Away Home.”
Far away from where, exactly? Well, that’s a story.
Hermann Ratslaff, and pretty much every other person who are or were part of Fernheim Colony, know that their current home is far away from another home that never stayed put. But with good certainty they can trace themselves back to Holland in the early 1500s. There and then they were part of a new movement known as Anabaptist, which had radical ideas that got them into big trouble. One of their leaders was a former Catholic priest who had become attracted to this different way of thinking and quit. His name was Menno Simons.
Of the most offensive of the Mennonites’ ideas is that it is meaningless to baptize babies and children because they don’t understand what the heck it’s about. Rather, religious membership has to be a conscious decision, self-made by a rational adult who has gathered information and decided for themself if they believe that stuff or not, and who not only believes in “sin” but consciously decides not to do it.
Another huge problem for Mennonites is their conviction that violence is, without exception, not okay.
And, as a corollary: church and state have to be separate.
Since these ideas, especially the noncompulsory church membership thing, then as now were seen as big threats by the power structures that were, most Anabaptist leaders were dead by 1530. Their demise was expedited by the fact that they considered violence and force unacceptable to the extent that they were unwilling to fight for their own lives. Because they don’t believe in fighting, even for their own lives, Mennonites have since done the only thing they could do to stay alive: walk away. That is, leave—leave a world they do not belong in, and go and find another.
That’s what they did and have done. That’s why I was talking to Hermann Ratslaff in the middle of the Paraguayan Chaco on Christmas in 2023.
They survived by finding refuge in other regions and nations—always a tenuous safety to be sure, never certain how long it would last. As hardworking and peaceful people, political rulers would admit them and exempt them from military service, particularly if they needed to quickly populate a place that had shitty land. Inevitably the Mennonites’ practices over time would irritate powerful state churches, and/or war-hungry princes who would renege on exemptions for military service, and/or a new monarch would take power and they’d have to leave again…often to where a monarch in a different state welcomed them, at least for a while. As such the Mennonites learned to live simply and share possessions. Nonconformism and disconnection with the world around them became central to their identity.
On the run in the 1530s, some Dutch Mennonites avoided slaughter by settling in the Vistula River delta near what is now Gdansk, Poland (opposite the Hel Peninsula).
There they made a go of it for nearly 250 years. By the time their welcome had worn out in the 1770s, Catherine the Great had acquired a good deal of land north of the Black Sea via the Russo-Turkish war and needed people. She invited the Vistula Delta Mennonites to come farm these Ukrainian steppes in exchange for military exemption—which they did, eventually very successfully. Some left for Canada when Russia introduced general conscription in 1874, but many stayed on through the Russian revolution and civil war. By 1921, however, Ukraine was in the hands of Soviet Bolsheviks, and Mennonite life there became nearly impossible and very dangerous.
About 2,000 fled Communist persecution in 1930, fortuitously evading the Stalin-created famine of 1932-33 known as Holodomor (“death by hunger”) that killed upwards of 5 million. After a temporary stay in Germany, which then-President von Hindenburg made clear needed to be brief, the situation was worked out with Paraguay, which by then needed people in the Chaco to populate oil-rumored land. Some Mennonites were already there, having arrived from Canada a few years earlier, after Canada implemented universal compulsory secular English education.
And so, these Dutch-Vistula Delta-Ukrainian Mennonites arrived in the bitter grass-covered fields and thorn forests of the Chaco and started all over again. One of them was the little girl who would be Hermann Ratslaff’s mom.
As you can imagine, it was not easy. Water was only one of the many problems, but always the gravest concern, to the extent that a boy would have to be stationed at the bottom of a well 24/7, to hold a cup beneath a trickle to fill a bucket.
“Did your father arrive from Ukraine too?” I asked Hermann later, when I bumped into him in the parking lot. I had gone out for an afternoon stroll, to see what 104 degrees felt like. Hermann was apparently heading out into it.
“Ah no!” he grinned. “My father came from Siberia, by way of Shanghai. He survived by pushing trolleys in the Chinese airport!”
My goodness! One of 367 people of Fernheim with quite a different story! Here it is:
As communism was emerging in Russia, about 3,500 Mennonites were living in western Siberia near Omsk. They survived the revolution, and then the famine winter of 1921/22, but by 1928 were looking for alternatives.
One winter day, a small group left their village of Alexanderkrone and took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Blagoveshchensk on the Chinese border. There they waited for the Amur River to freeze, and when it did, they escaped across it in their sleighs. They reached Harbin, in Manchuria, and got in touch with some Mennonites in Canada and the USA to work out where to go next. Hearing that they had established a foothold, others crossed from Siberia and joined them. But Canada refused entry because their laws did not allow “Chinese” immigrants, and the USA was by then in a dire economic crisis called the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Herbert Hoover found out about nearly 400 stateless Harbin German Mennonite refugees and helped out—after making it clear that the operation had to be very low-key as it would not look cool to the USA public that he was admitting refugees. A small contingent went to San Francisco, as the first of these “not to be noticed by the American people” immigrants, and in 1932, to ensure they would never be noticed by anyone, about 370 German Mennonites from Harbin made their way, via Shanghai, the Suez Canal, and Buenos Aires, to Fernheim Colony in the Chaco.
Where they were welcomed, and needed, as some earlier arrivals were already leaving due to the almost unimaginably harsh conditions.
By 1937, nearly half had left, and the exodus continued over the next decades. Only by the 1970s did things stabilize as the economic situation began to improve. By then there was an airfield to diminish the isolation, as well as the (albeit very difficult-to-travel-on then) Ruta Transchaco. Telephone lines arrived in the late 1980s, and in 2009, Filadelfia got a bit of asphalt on its two main avenues. The rest of the roads remain gray clay to this day. But they work.
And everything else pretty much works here, too.
At least for now.
Of course, there is no certainty how much longer the Paraguayan government will honor Privilegium, and once again, the Holland-Vistula-Delta-Ukraine-Filadelfia Mennonites might have to be on the move. Some are investing money abroad, particularly in Canada, and looking to emigrate.
Hermann Ratslaff, however, looks contentedly set to spend the rest of his days in his far away home of Paraguay.
“Have a nice evening,” I said to him now in the parking lot, extending my hand.
“Ah! Meet my wife,” he replied, averting his eyes to an approaching hale hearty woman with bright white hair, who marched over to us waving a hotel key.
“Guten tag!” she said to me with a smile and with a brisk firm handshake.
And they walked on.
Holy shit, I thought, as I watched them move away.
Life, and the world, are wild.
