Güd wrtr

We in the news business would like to ask
if you might support us with a small donation.
We would not normally make such a request,
but these are, as you know, far from normal timse.
As newspapers face rising costs and are forced
to drastically downsize personnel, despite being
owned by billionaires, we have decided to put
the onus on you, reader, if you would like to see
quality journalism continue.

We cannot promise that we will not cast a narrowed eye
on coverage that we deem unfair or on political cartoons
that do not agree with our views. (Oh, wait—we fired
all the political cartoonists. Never mind.) And for those
fretting over the fact that we (long ago) let our copy
editers go and more recently all photographers, let us
remind you that everyone has a camera in their
phone these days. And spelling and grammar (or
consistency, for that matter are overrated.

Not to worry that some of our best and brightest
staffers are wondering whether their unemploymnt
checks will arrive (keeping our fingers crossed), or that
prize-winning professionals are befuddled about their
futures as well as the state of newspapers in this great
country. The old practice of journalists holding power
to account is passé, after all. We have faith that you,
our readers, will step up and pony up your hard-earned
dollars so that we can continue to serve you as we
(and our powerful friends—not naming names) see fit.

Thank you very muhc.

•••

To my readers:

While I created this fictional letter for satirical purposes, it has elements
of appeals I’ve received from struggling media (including typos).

This is not to say suggest that readers should not help support media
they trust and believe in (Sacramento’s new local abridged.org site, for example).
But for those of us committed to fair and responsible journalism, it can be
infuriating to receive appeals like this from well-heeled corporations
cutting staffers (including reporters, copy editors and photographers)
and resources that are needed to do good work.

And you never need to pay me for what I do here. Thank you for reading!

At 2 a.m. I awaken with a sensation
I haven’t had in a week, a rumbly
in my tumbly, as Pooh sang,

rather than the struggling lower
digestives healing from infection
churning painfully.

And I rise, think what I might eat,
remember the split pea soup in
the fridge I’d made before all

this began, me the limited-ability
cook, which propels me slowly
to the kitchen. I find the little

container waiting and lift it
from its cold closet, locate a
small saucepan and scoop out

a ladleful, thinning it with
water, removing bits of carrot
that the recovering colon might

take issue with, and turn on
the flame. “Never microwave
homemade soup,” one of my

now-gone cooking mentors said,
joining me in the kitchen, so I don’t,
though I can’t remember why.

And then I sense my parents—
like me, cooking-impaired—
and my new saucepan

transforms into an old white
metal one rimmed in red,
my father at the stove, stirring

some kind of Campbell’s,
my mother smiling, and we all
stand in silence as I pour

the essence of pea into a small
white bowl. When I lift the spoon
for the first taste, I hear

the voice of the one who cooked
for me ages ago in this kitchen
say, “Atta girl, Toots. Easy now,”

as the companion spirits,
more arriving every second,
nod their approval.

And I feel my tumbly smile,
too, as the warm slips in,
quelling the rumbly.

•••

“Rumbly in My Tumbly” (written by the brothers Richard M. Sherman
and Robert B. Sherman) was first sung by Sterling Holloway as Pooh
in the 1966 animated Disney film, “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.”
You can watch the video here.

As a young musician, I thought Aaron Copland
composed the tune, coming as it does a good
way into his “Appalachian Spring,”

but there on the stage only a baker’s dozen
of musicians and a conductor, a double string
quartet, actually, playing melodies and variations

I hadn’t remembered. No brass. No percussion.
And it took a long time to get to the “simple gifts”
melody, deep into the piece, which I chalked up

to faulty memory. My little-footed former flutist
friend next to me, surprised as I by the small
number onstage, later read in the program

that we had just heard the composer’s original
version of the piece, a ballet composed for
Martha Graham. A year later, 1945, the suite

for full orchestra debuted, with plenty of
brass and percussion. And the composer grew it
again in the 1950s, adding the tympani part

I remember playing long ago. For years
I thought Copland wrote “simple gifts,” only
to learn in a music history class that

a mid-19th century Shaker minister from
Maine wrote the hymn. Like all good artists,
Copland borrowed it, no doubt inspired

by its message of simplicity and humility
that he wove into his composition, so smoothly
danced by, among others, Graham herself.

After the concert I came home happy
to find the elegant dancer on what must
have been live TV in 1959, delivering

the simplest of gifts unadorned—as
the best ones are, if we allow ourselves
to perceive them—as the song says,

“in the place just right,
in the valley of love and delight.”

•••

With appreciation to the Sacramento Philharmonic for its wonderful Feb. 28
performance of, among other pieces, Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.”

“Simple Gifts” was composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Bracket, a member
of the Shaker community in Alfred, Maine.

You can watch Martha Graham as the bride and Stuart Hodes as the husband
dancing this “simple gifts” section of “Appalachian Spring” for live television
in 1959 (though all parts of the ballet are also available on youtube).

I open the tiny change purse
of memory in which coins
jingle like the merriest

music, because you live
in that happy sound.
You were shiny bright

like new pennies, which
also no longer exist,
though now and then

a sparkling one appears,
pressed into my palm
by a young woman

about to make my sandwich.
And I study it like the copper
jewel I know it to be,

the color of your once-vibrant
hair, tucking it
into my wallet, feeling

rich, the missing you
replaced by your
equally bright smile

warming me as it did
each time you caught sight
of me for the first time,

as if I’d hung the moon,
you liked to say,
as you always did

and still do
for me.

•••

(In memory of Georgann Turner on what would have been her 75th birthday)

(for Clifford)

Lying in bed, thinking about the antibiotic
that needs taking, trying to figure out

what to eat with it that my recovering
innards will tolerate besides applesauce,

I have a rare wish: that he were here
to scramble a plain egg in a tiny bit

of olive oil, as he taught me, that I could
make the request and he would deliver it

to me in bed, on a plate with fork and
paper towel (our go-to napkin), teasing me

about how he resisted the urge to salt
and pepper it at the very least, add a bit

of garlic, maybe confetti some parsley
on top. But for me: one simple egg.

Because I asked. Because it was
no trouble, the least he could do,

he’d say, never understanding how
it was so much more than that.

As I sat at the stoplight,
looking at its outstretched arm,

the spindly fingers of a bare tree
reached for the cloud-streaked

blue-gray beyond, a signal that
spring is a coming attraction,

and, as if announcing its emergence,
other early bloomers have already

burst into popcorn-kernel blossom,
a reminder that there’s nothing

I have to do to deserve this,
except wait, practice patience

and admire the what is
in the right now.

1. Three weeks before your tax appointment, drag out last year’s box of bills/receipts/miscellany that’s bound to have pieces of paper needed to accompany…

2. …the stuffed-full file folder of what you imagine might be write-offable/reportable for your Super Tax Lady who is endlessly patient with math-impaired you.

3. Two weeks before your tax appointment put box and folder in a prominent place. Like in the living room where you will surely trip over the box or scatter the contents of the folder if you don’t tend to them pronto.

4. Regather the contents of folder after cat scatters them. Attempt to unsquash the squashed box lid after your late mother’s 20-pound cat decides that it makes a good nap spot.

5. Gather office supplies (your favorite part): paper clips, stapler, sharp pencil with new(ish) eraser. Steal a few sheets of white paper from the printer. Try not to get sidetracked when you realize that:

a. you need the big, rubber-coated paper clips, and while you think you’ve recently replenished your supply (didn’t you?), now you have to find them.

b. you need at least one giant clippie thingie for the fat pile (of say, bank statements or book receipts), and you just saw some of those in the boxes you brought home last year when you and your sister cleaned out your late mother’s house, and you’re pretty sure you know which box that is.

c. A half hour later, after opening and moving the boxes (again) that have resided in your back bedroom for a year, you still have not located the giant clippie thingies. (They will, predictably, turn up some time after tax season. Just watch.)

d. And don’t you still have a calculator in a desk drawer?

e. Wait. There’s a calculator on my phone? (Oh, yeah, huh?)

f. Success! A giant clippie thingie (that you probably brought home after you retired five years ago) in the top desk drawer!

6. Go through the box and sort the receipts, making neat piles on top of the marimba in the living room (a musical instrument transformed into a large, padded, horizontal table for now), and be grateful that former cats who liked to sleep up there are no longer. Likewise, there is also no dog (whom you loved but who one year barfed on the box).

7. Remember that all you have to do is add up receipts (on the phone! check the results at least twice) and change numbers in little boxes on the sample form the Super Tax Lady sends every year. She will deal with them. She will ask polite questions. Remember not to sound defensive. (You two have had a relationship longer than… well, a long time… and you really like each other.) “I don’t know,” or “I will go home and check that,” are perfectly legitimate answers.

8. Remember that your late husband was so freaked out by the process that he literally used to sweat sitting in front of the desk of a long-ago Tax Lady. You are a Grown-Up, and you have been doing this for a quarter century on your own.

9. Remember what the long-ago Tax Lady used to tell you:

a. You are not going to jail if you do your best to tell them what you’ve earned. And save your receipts!

b. The chances of an IRS audit are remotely on the order of flying yourself to the moon—or, in my case, doing my own taxes.

10. Before you leave for your tax appointment, leave the box with its sunken lid in the living room so the cat can nap on it. He had a rough year, too.

11. EGBOK, your mother used to say. Everything’s gonna be OK.

12. She was not wrong.

•••

Thanks to our Super Tax Ladies Sheila McGovern and Mary Walters of MPW CPAs in Elk Grove, California, for your always-excellent work on our behalf.

Clearly, I have taken colons
for granted for far too long:
both kinds.

For one, the sweet little piece
of punctuation that sets up
a list or example.

(Digression: How many times
did I repeat that to students
who were likely to never

use one? And truly, you
don’t need to unless, as
one of them pointed out,

“You’re trying to be fancy.”)
Two vertically aligned periods
that, I suppose, imitate

the verticality of human
innards, though that colon
is a snaky, winding thing

resembling complicated
plumbing, which it is.
And as mine heals from

a who-knows-how-I-got-it
infection, I am more aware
of my own than ever before,

which just shows to go you,
as a former newspaper photo
editor used to intone:

Be good to your colon,
and your colon
will be good to you.

•••

With thanks to Rick Shaw, a former assistant director
of photography for The Sacramento Bee, who imparted
that wisdom to at least one of his staff photographers,
Dick Schmidt.

Rick went on to a great journalism editing career
at other newspapers, as well as serving as a
photojournalism faculty member and director
of the Pictures of the Year International competition
at the Missouri School of Journalism.

May my heart unfold its pink
petals like the first flowering
plum blossoms of the season,

unabashed, unafraid of what
might come to jostle or dislodge.
Let the sparkling hearts

in the center pop up eagerly,
hoping to attract early bees
awakening from winter, ready

to offer pollen to those whose
job it is to transport it
to the next waiting flower.

May my heart always find
purpose and reason to remain
open till the last possible

moment, then, whether
because of rain or wind
or simply because it’s time

to let go, may I do so as
gracefully as a bee twirling
a pirouette, before landing

in an elegant arabesque
after a most useful,
productive life.

Not that I couldn’t, but more likely, I doubt I’m gonna:

• Become a rock climber (which I fantasized about decades ago)
• Or a hot air balloon pilot (ditto on the fantasy)
• learn to SCUBA or surf (ditto on the fantasy)
• Travel all the places I thought I would
• Take my late husband all the places I thought I would
• Give birth
• Become a plumber, electrician, roofer—i.e., acquire useful skills
• Learn algebra or chemistry, not to mention Latin or Greek
• Spend time in squat pose (especially rising from it)
• Ask my parents questions I wish I had asked
• Learn to drink coffee or martinis
• Hike high peaks

Though I did, at various times, learn to:

• Read books as naturally as breathing
• Climb some trees and not fall out of them
• Be a big sister (and adore my younger one, Donna Gail)
• Be a good friend (to many, I hope)
• Turn garters (the hosiery kind) into tiny people (thank you, Sue Lester, first BFF)
• Throw a softball (thanks to the late great husband Cliff Polland)
• Mow the lawn (another thing Cliff taught me)
• Make split pea soup (thanks to Lisa)
• Make a wicked cheesecake (thanks to Marge)
• Make Grandma’s brownies (thanks, Grandma)
• Become a fast typist (thanks, Gerry Colón, Oakmont High School)
• Become a versatile writer (mostly by writing and not stopping)
• Drink tea
• Swim/waterski/do a wicked ballet leg in synchronized (now artistic) swimming
• Coach/teach/encourage others, especially writers
• Ride a bike (big challenge for tippy me)
• Put color on paper (can’t really call it painting) and enjoy it (thanks, Eric and Terri)
• Drive (also big challenge for young me)
• Take care of waaaaaay too many cats and some dogs
• Love Hawaii and visit often (thanks, Dickie!)
• Sing a barbershop tag (thanks, Mom and Dad!)
• Publish books and anthologies (thanks to many writing students)
• Become a reporter/editor in the journalistic sense (thanks to teachers, editors, colleagues)
• Become a poet/novelist in the creative writing sense
• Learn to meditate, often while walking (thanks, Julia Ellen)
• Practice yoga and become a yoga instructor
• Play (in this order) the piano (not well), snare drum, bells, tympani, marimba and assorted percussion instruments… plus kazoo! (thanks to music teachers and band directors)
• Go back to band (at age 67) and play some of those assorted percussion instruments
• Help care for those in their final stages of life
• Be so well loved by so many
• Love so many people, I hope, so very well

Look at how long the second list is.
Look at how much I can add to it.
Gonna add to it. Not done yet.
In more ways than one.

•••

• With thanks to Amherst Writers & Artists facilitator Ann Bancroft,
one of my former journalistic colleagues, for the invitation that prompted
this piece,
and
• To my parents, Roger and Darlene Haag, who married 59 years ago today,
then made me about 17 months later, and my sister a little over two years
after that.