A Not So Boring Life

Do you remember 1979?  Do you remember Skylab?  The U.S.’s first space station was disintegrating and due to fall back into earth’s atmosphere, breaking up into small pieces that COULD FALL ANYWHERE!  I remember!  Did I worry, like thousands of people around the world, about suddenly being hit on the head by a piece of the debris?  Did I contemplate the damage that might occurs should a piece fail to disintegrate sufficiently and fall into, say, a nuclear power plant? Hell, no!  I saw a MARKETING potential!

FOKUS MOKUS!  FOKUS MOKUS!  The chant would usually begin at about seven thirty in the morning on Saturday and Sunday.  Anywhere from five to ten children from surrounding apartments in the three-story red-brick complex located on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz city of Osh would gather outside my first floor windows, calling for me to come out and do the same magic tricks that I had unwittingly shared with them shortly after moving in.  FOKUS MOKUS!! – What I surmised was the Russian equivalent (or child’s mispronunciation) of Hocus Pocus or ‘WE WANT MORE MAGIC TRICKS!”

VYZYATKA, HABAR, BAKSHEESH, PAYOLA (or A BRIBE BY ANY OTHER NAME …) “Dokuments, please.    Spaceba.   You are coming from where?  Going to where?” “And how many beers have you had, comrade?” I was ready for the question from the moment that the Kyrgyz policeman first stuck his head through the driver’s side window into the new Russian-made Niva truck.   “Beer?  I have had no beer, Officer...”  It was worth a try, wasn’t it?  But the look on his face immediately told me that it just wasn’t going to work.  “Oh, Okay.  Look, I had one beer with lunch.”  “But comrade, you must know that it is illegal in Kyrgyzstan to drink and drive.  It is the same in your country, da?”  Okay, okay – the bribe was offered, accepted and we were once again our way.  Given that we were stopped within 15 minutes after starting on our 12 hour drive SHOULD have given me an indication that it was not going to be an easy trip.  Not even CLOSE to an easy trip.

DID HE SAY NAKED?!? What could be more American than a Fourth of July weekend................ at a nudist camp?  After all, there was a parade, cookouts, volleyball, fireworks – even a skydiving demonstration.  No different than thousands of other holiday celebrations throughout the U.S.A. -just without clothing.  

I would like, someday, to try my hand at fiction.  I started one piece, based on a comment by a friend about another of these writings: he would “like to know what the group of old men in the deli were talking about when my leg broke through the ceiling over their heads”.  It has drawn me into a bit of character development based not on what happened, but on what could have occurred leading up to that moment.  I will see how it goes.  In the meantime, here is another vignette from my “Not so boring life.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Get out of the way!  Here comes Kenny!”  Don’t think that I am making this up.  You should have absolutely no hesitation.  Anyone standing in the rectangular hallway of the third floor of the hospital-like building when this cry is heard should quickly glance over their shoulder and seek shelter in the nearest doorway or room.  Listen carefully for the sound of sneakered feet sla

STEP RIGHT UP, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! In the early 1970s, there was still a pretty vibrant sideshow at the Bloomsburg State Fair.  Not like today, where the most you get is a chance to see some awful smelling South American wild pig that would kind of look like a really big rat if you didn't actually know what a real rat looks like.  My philosophy has always been that if you are going to pay a buck and a half to see a rat, it ought to be a real one.  But then, I guess finding a three foot rat to put in your side show these days is pretty hard.  You can also usually still find some kind of big snake to gawk at so the kids can say “Why ain’t it movin’?” while they try to get it interested in the two dollars’ worth of caramel corn you just bought them and that they are now throwing into the cage.  But there sure isn't anything like the sideshows they had when we were kids.  (You don’t get the hoochie kootchie shows anymore, either.  I guess the internet put a dent into that.)

YOU CAN GET ANYTHING YOU WANT… Okay, folks.  I admit it.  I have been kind of an activist in my time.  I have challenged the rationale for war.  I have questioned the foreign policy of the U.S. government when its foreign policy demanded questioning.  Campaigned for social, gender and racial justice.  Worked for and spoken out in favor of change when change was needed.  I have protested in the streets when I thought it warranted.  I have not been as dedicated or consistent as others, but when there was a cause that I considered just and with which I could get involved in some way, I did.   At times (many times) I have been lazy, centered on my own stuff, ambivalent about speaking out.  But I have always tried to keep informed of what is going on in the world and contribute what little grains of sand I can.    And yes, I was once even arrested. Thrown in jail. Had my day in court.

MUD BY ANY OTHER NAME… Before leaving the remote village where we had arrived after a half-hour motor-boat ride across a placid coastal lake and a pleasant, spirit-inspiring, forty-five minute journey in a dugout canoe through acres of mangrove trees, my hosts asked me if I wanted to borrow a pair of rubber boots as we continued on our way to visit a farmer who was planting nitrogen fixing trees on his small plot on the Atlantic Coast of Honduras.  “There will be mud along the way”, they said.

“YOU WANT TO VISIT ONE OF THE COMMUNITIES?  WHY SURE….!” Working with local partners in providing development assistance to rural populations in Central America made the objectives much easier to achieve.  The partner’s knowledge of and established involvement with the target communities was an important element in getting things done much more efficiently.  There were some disadvantages, though.  Whenever I would visit the projects we were implementing with them, the on-the-ground staff would invariably chose the most isolated and hardest-to-get-to locations; I believe mainly to show me just how hard they were working “for the cause.” In 2010, I traveled from Nicaragua to Honduras for a four-day field trip to communities in the mountainous region of Catacamas, in the south-central part of country.  The project involved providing community members with access to development funds to carry out small economic and community improvement activities.  It was a revolving fund; with t

“SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE…” In the summer of 1975, I left my studies in Theater Design at Penn State University to follow my then girlfriend Eileen to Pittsburgh, PA.  To be as near to her as possible (she had temporarily moved back in with her parents), I took a room above a bar about 18 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.  The bar, situated off Freeport Road, was typical of the area; a falling down, two-story, asphalt-shingled wood structure that catered to the after-work and weekend “beer and a shot” laborers of the surviving PP&L and other industries situated along the highway.   The building was surrounded by empty lots where once-thriving businesses had been razed as the economic slump of the mid-seventies took over. The bar took up the most of the first floor and consisted of metal tables, chairs and a wooden bar with high, vinyl covered stools.  A few dim neon signs and beer posters on the walls completed the decor.  An old jukebox from the 60’s played hit parade and countr

THE SHOW MUST GO ON...  I was a soldier stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa in the early 1970's.  While there, I became involved with and spent most of my spare time in an army-sponsored theater, organizing and acting in amateur theater productions with my friend Tim, an incredibly talented musician and actor who had also gravitated to the theater as a creative escape from the mundane world of the military.  The experience was what later prompted me to begin (although I ended up going through various courses of study before finally getting a degree) my college studies in Theater Design at Penn State University.  This is an edited (yes EDITED, my kind proof readers Maureen and Sherry!) version of just one of the stories from that long ago time.  

COULD I SEE THAT TRAVEL PLAN AGAIN? There seemed to be nothing but interminably rising mountains ahead.  Trees and plants succumbed to the altitude and gave way to rock covered by occasional patches of snow on the higher peaks.  Above was a crystal clear blue sky; not a cloud in sight.  The winding dirt road clung to the side of the mountains, carved out of natural pathways that had existed for centuries.  The mountain dropped off precariously into mile-deep chasms to the right of us, just inches beyond the wheel of our car.  The landscape was made up of gray and brown hues with spots of green where small clumps of grass and moss drew scarce moisture from between the otherwise barren stone.  Stone is what stood out the most; stone in the valleys below, sturdy stone houses with thatch roofs, stone fences and stone corrals, small pyramid shaped piles of stone randomly stacked where fields were cleared, fallen stone to be avoided in the road.

"AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND." In 1984 I was living and working in a rural farming cooperative in the north central mountains of Nicaragua.  I was a student, there to learn about the lives of people living in the midst of a revolutionary, left-leaning country and the effects of a civil war financed, in part, by the U.S. government then led by Ronald Reagan.

THE HATFIELDS AND THE MCCOYS I was getting ready for a trip to a project region in the south central Department of Olancho in Honduras, but there was some doubt whether conditions in the zone would allow for a safe journey back along the country roads leading to the isolated communities that were participating in the project.  There was talk of increased violence in the region; not that violence was something unheard of in these rural, frontier environments, but over the last year the level of reported deaths in the department (not by automobile accidents or natural causes) had risen to a point where additional safety considerations and analysis were needed.  The news coming out of the area consisted of a too-often vague and mixed up tale of gang rivalries, drug trafficking wars and/or family feuds.  It all seemed just too jumbled up to make sense.  But, by talking to staff of our local partner organization, I was finally able to piece together at least part of the story:

"WAR!....WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?" (Excerpt from a letter written in 1984 while living in  the rural farming cooperative "La Quinta", situated in the north central mountains of Nicaragua.)  On Tuesday, October 2 nd , the sound of mortar fire in the near distance shattered the normal tranquility of the mountains for most of the day.  At times like these, it’s hard to tell if the heightened sense of tension is coming from inside me or is being transmitted through the air.  Throughout it all life in the cooperative goes on in much of its usual pattern.  It just becomes more cumbersome to work in the fields while carrying a rifle.

DOUBLE-OH I was once recruited as an informant for the Soviet Union.  Well, almost.  If you've ever read any John Le Carré’s celebrated cold-war spy novels, you might have noticed his detailed descriptions of how intelligence service operatives routinely maintained an army of “Joes” –informants providing primarily low-level intelligence, either for pay or for some sense of exotic excitement - sometimes for a disenchantment with their own country’s policies or trajectories.

DO YOU LIKE PIÑA COLADAS? I was sitting at a table in a brightly-lit cafeteria on the outskirts of the city of Guaymas, in the southwest part of the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico, 242 miles from the U.S./Mexican border.  I was drinking a cold Modelos beer and reading the latest crime novel that I had found in a Mexico city tourist hostel.   I had been in the country for about two months;  sent by  a U.S. based international women’s village banking organization that provides low-amount but incrementally-increased solidarity loans to women so they can invest in small home-based businesses.  Originally hired by the organization to work in their corporate offices outside of Washington D.C., I had been turned into a roving “fireman”.  The day after I packed my bags and flew to 2,000 or so miles from Nicaragua – my residence for the last three years - I walked into their corporate headquarters in the early hours of a Monday, ready to take up my new post and begin the process of

CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND OTHER JOBS At the beginning of 1991, I was asked by some Jesuit friends of the family if I was interested in being a home-schooling tutor for the children of a North American family who had recently arrived in Nicaragua and had contacted the university for help and referrals.  I was between jobs, so what the heck.   I met with the father, an entrepreneur who said he had arrived in Nicaragua with his wife and three boys, aged five, seven and eight, in order to explore the development of a coffee, lumber and “other types” of export business for some unnamed Texas investors.  He was a big man, well-fed and well over 6’5” tall.  His wife was unassuming – a born-again Christian housewife dedicated to the raising of their children and determined to keep her children out of the evil, witchcraft-infected world of public education through home schooling.  The boys were being educated using an accredited fundamentalist Christian study course and they just wanted help t

YES, THEY ARE KNOWN FOR THAT TOO… For about four months, I had been in the city of Osh, second largest city of the ex-soviet and predominantly Muslim country of Kyrgyzstan.  Osh dates back to the 8 th century and was a key stopping and trading location along the ancient Silk Road that connected Central Asian countries from China to the Mediterranean Sea.   I was there on assignment from a U.S. based microenterprise organization, tasked with organizing anywhere from 15 to 20 women from a given village into solidarity groups that would function as a “Village Bank”, receiving and managing a series of small loans invested in individual businesses.

LEAVING HOME I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more Wel, I wake up in the morning Fold my hands and pray for rain I got a heafull of ideas that are drivin' me insane                                                                                                "Maggie's Farm" - Bob Dylan I left my hometown of Danville, Pennsylvania at about three in the afternoon on August 24, 1971.  It was a Tuesday.  Temperatures had been running around 85-86 degrees the past week.  (Out of curiosity, I just scanned the internet to see what other worldly or earth-changing events might have occurred on that particular day, but came up only with an India vs England cricket match won by India with a margin of 4 wickets and the birth of the Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, who played Christopher Columbus in Ben Stiller’s “Night at the Museum”)