insearchofbud

Primer for time travelers.

I pondered time travel again. If people really traveled through time, wouldn’t we know it? We’d have people from the past and future in our midst. Can you imagine how they would look? Cavemen looking like Alley Oop walking barefoot. Or small guys looking like union soldiers with blue hats. You get the idea. Also space cadets, futuristic helmets, ray guns.

Okay. Alley isn’t there, nor the others. Not yet. Halloween is coming soon, but that misses the point.

Of course. Let’s just assume. Let’s pretend such people, such time travelers, were in our midst. Where are they? The answer is deplorably ordinary. They are everywhere, of course. They are not Republicans. They are not Mormons. They could be, of course, but they are not necessarily. They are our neighbors.

From the past.

My elderly friend two doors down from us grew up in Idaho in the 1930s. Don was drafted into the army for the Korean War, then he taught 8th grade science in Billings. He is a traveler from the past. I know because I sometimes sit and talk with him. He worked in several towns around Eastern Montana.
My friend Mark Fryberger remembers taking science classes from him, back in the 60s, sitting in the back of the classroom, clowning, as usual. The school building where Don spent many years teaching is now called Lincoln Center, used by School District 2 for administration.

To the future.

That would be today’s children, those sturdy, brave souls who must brave such terrors as first grade! Such persons are smaller than adults, but they really are not at a disadvantage, although they might think so. They will see a future we 60-somethings will never live long enough to see. A world that’s even more crowded, with even more poverty and strife, one with even more global warming and its sequelae. Hard not to become saddened by such prospects. Funny how the future is so less attractive to an old curmudgeon than the past, but how ultimately important.

Normally Susie uses her own yard, although we discovered four piles on our lawn yesterday, not necessarily hers. This morning I found some on our back steps, presumably where one of us tracked it, then scraped it off on the edge of the step. I swept it. Then broomed the driveway to get the bits off the bristles.

My neighbor children, perhaps 7 and 8 years old, have a slightly hyperactive black labrador, named Susie. I wrote about her before. A few months ago I was up in the night , maybe 3 a.m., walking through our dark house to the back porch when I saw Susie in the dim light wandering around our backyard. The screened windows were open, so I silently walked across the porch until I was within a couple feet of her, then said in an ordinary speaking voice, “Susie, go home.” Surprised, she let out a little “yip” and ran home. Surprised, I gloated. I still do.

I’ve watched the boys walk up and down their yard with bucket, rake, and shovel to pick up after Susie. These brothers are fun! I snapped a picture of them several weeks ago. They were at it again yesterday. Susie was out and about and she didn’t bark at me the way she used to, so I scratched her head all the while requesting that she stay on her own side of the fence. Of course she didn’t.

September 24, 2015

The trouble with writing is the trouble with writing. Some days I can say I did the right thing to leave it alone. I can’t seem to leave it alone. I don’t want to leave it alone. If so many people are writing these days, why can’t I seem to find them? I do read the paper. Our town has three: The Billings Gazette, The Outpost, and The Last Best News. Well, maybe even four or five “papers.” Some are online these days. I love them all. I subscribe to all three. I recommend them.
My kind of writing, well, isn’t really writing at all. Not in the grandest sense. Not in the way that I normally think about writing. Instead, mine is stupider. Something or other surprised me today. Life is like that. Something always happens.

The phone woke me at a quarter to 10 today. Phones don’t ring anymore. I don’t know what they do. Burble? Edward Barta said he had some posters for “Art Walk” for October 2 and wanted to bring them by my house. I didn’t want to admit I was still in bed, and I hoped I could go back to sleep. I lied and said I was just heading out but I’d be back this afternoon. Edward asked how soon I was heading out. I lied again and said, “Oh, in about half an hour.” Edward asked if I could pick up the posters at his house. He would wait for me.
He got me out of bed. Of course I muttered about the nerve of someone calling me. Without notifying me first. Wait. That makes no sense. I got dressed. Soon I was glad for Edward’s call.
Turns out the posters are beautiful. Rabbit Knows Gun is displaying art at our church. I got maybe six posters. Where will I put that many?
I headed over for gas at the Holiday Station. I pulled up head-to-head with a beat-up old black sedan. I figured I’d better write down the license plate number. I thought such a beat up looking car might run into mine when it pulled out. Wait, I thought. I never do that. Write down plate numbers. So I didn’t. After I’d filled the car a wispy white woman with a — I don’t know — five-year-old child, a boy, got into the car I didn’t write down the license plate of. By then, I was backing up to leave the station. I wondered if the child even had a car seat?
I got to Albertson’s. Picked up a bunch of meat. Sale: two for the price of one. That meant the butcher had to individually wrap the steaks into six packages. Took him a long time. We remarked about that, one to the other. Got corn. Got chips. Potato chips for my sister, who is visiting today. Normally I don’t buy potato chips. I doubt if my children ever eat them. I used to eat them when I was a child. So did my sister.
I looked for a bottle of sangria. Couldn’t find, so I grabbed a six-pack of Uberbrew “White Noise.” The guy who owns the brewery stopped me in the parking lot as I was putting the beer in the trunk. “Makes a lot of noise, does it?” he asked. I shrugged. Laughed. Thought, what the f—?

September 24, 2015

As I drove back from a church choir potluck tonight I passed Lake Elmo Road in Billings Heights. This brought back a terrible memory from about 1985 or ’86. Sometime about then, in the winter. I worked the night shift at Billings Deaconess Hospital in the pharmacy. In those days, pharmacists responded to every resuscitation attempt and they occurred about once or twice a week, on average.
One Monday, two of us pharmacists, Jean Carter and I, responded. Or maybe it was just me. Anyhow, I went down to the emergency department for the code blue, maybe 1 or 2 a.m., when this guy in coveralls brought in a body on a gurney. The patient was a man, maybe 25 years old, or so. He had been in a police chase that ended up when he crashed into a telephone pole. According to the guy in coveralls who wheeled him in, the patient had tried to get out of his car soon after the crash, but collapsed. The force of the collision was fatal. Although the nurses and doctor tried to resuscitate him, he died. I won’t forget how he looked. I remember my resentment against the know-it-all in coveralls who said the victim had no chance.
I still feel sad when I think about him. Jean and I sort of went crazy, laughing inappropriately, to think how someone would have to tell this man’s parents. I guess the police were chasing the guy on Lake Elmo Drive when he lost control of his car. The memory is painful.
The next morning when the day shift came to the pharmacy, one of our young, pretty, blonde technicians, a woman named Barbara, was in tears. She came to say that she couldn’t work that day because her brother had died in a crash that night on Lake Elmo Drive. I remember that her face was blotchy, red, with tears. Barbara. I don’t remember her late brother’s name, but I remember how he looked on that cold night. I’ve often thought how his car smashed into the unyielding phone pole.

September 21, 2015

I feel giddy, but I don’t know why. Fall equinox? I washed our sheets and hung them out to dry? Worked on framing the darkroom? All are true. I just feel giddy.
I think I feel elated because I bought some baby back ribs for supper, along with corn in their husks. I gonna put them on the grill, which is heating up. Outdoors, of course! Wait! Strike that “of course,” because I think I’ve been somewhere or other where they can barbecue indoors. No matter.
Maybe I feel giddy because I’ve finished four short stories about time travel.
I’m always interested to know how it works. I want to meet my uncle Carl, killed in WW II before I was born. That’s all.
Is time travel possible? Harry Houdini, about whom I know a great deal, would say not.
One could simply point out that we are not inundated with people from the future, interfering with things. Are we? I assume such folks from the future would be here, wanting to do something good to change a future lousy outcome. What if they were here to test the time-travel paradox. You know the one I mean. The one where you kill your grandpa, and so on.
Are the people from the future Republicans? Think about that for a minute. Go ahead.
What if people of the future look like horses? My angry neighbor across the street would like that! She loves her horse. She posts pictures of her murmuring endearments. I mean, people of the future may evolve into animals who know how to get along with each other.
However, none of these themes have come up in my reading.
The first story, written long ago, had the inevitable silver bullet spaceship. Arriving on planet X, the space men (and they were men) found a wrecked spaceship, their own, complete with bodies, their own. The trouble with spaceships, well, they are spaceships. Far too expensive for most, but not all.
The last one I read told about a telephone system, one using electrons and positrons to achieve instantaneous communications, faster than light. The author gave a section of his narrative to explain how such time travel via phone would work. In Wikipedia, under “time travel,” the anonymous author explains that the general theory of relativity includes a mathematical expression that allows for time loops, in which a person may travel backward or forward.
I think the telephone time machine story included some of that.
I especially liked the second story about time travel. The author, Mr. Silverman, I think, or was it Sterling? Anyhow, his story delved into the real nuts and bolts of time travel. What if a time traveler could go back in time and keep his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend from marrying another? In his story, the protagonist is the one who married the desirable woman. His nemesis, the ex-boyfriend, is the one trying to go back in time.
Ursula K. LeGuinn wrote a story with characters and situations so pleasing that I wanted to live in her world forever. No jealousy. Day people and night people intermarry so that each person has several compatible partners. Ahhh. Unfortunately, I was trying to read in an environment with a noisy bunch of actors! I didn’t want to taint my pleasure, so I abandoned her story until later.

September 20, 2015

I love acting in the play, “The Fantasticks,” and yes, I did complain about the sparse audiences the first few nights. However, the last two performances we’ve had good audiences. I mean, they were vocal as well as numerous. They laughed loud and long at the funny business. I’m not even sore about how they laughed at the obvious pain my character was in when his son was gone for more than a month.
I love the music, the songs. I love the story. Each time we do the play it seems to go by quicker. I checked and the difference really isn’t the time spent performing. Comes out to about an hour, 40. It is the perception. Oh, it’s not there yet! I’d be lying if I said the play was perfect. It’s not. But the music is still memorable. Most of the singers are strong and the weaker ones are still pretty strong. Very satisfying for me when I am in the show and most of the time, well, all of the time really, I’m onstage. Sitting with my back to the audience. I cannot see, of course, but I can hear and I shake with laughter. Gerry Roe asked me not to laugh out loud. I’m at the point where, if something goes wrong, I relax a bit more and like it!
Today I arrived about an hour before the matinee performance, about 1 p.m. Through the theater front door. I greeted the charming box office person. I don’t remember her name, but she is tiny. Cute, plain, lovely. Just the way I think women are, at their ultimate cutest. Today I also saw two police cars outside the theater, four policemen standing by talking to a civilian. I hoped they would let me past! Turns out the charming tiny woman tripped the alarm when she opened, summoning the cops. She told me all about it. Then she told me how she had trouble unlocking the money drawer. (I’m thinking, good!) She said it was a good thing she knew the police officer who responded, because he asked her if everything was okay. She told him it was. I was thinking, well, what if a crook had a gun trained on her? I realized I was borrowing trouble.
In our dressing room, which isn’t really a dressing room, but a carpeted room used for music practice. I encountered our lead man, a gentleman, choral teacher named “Q.” He teaches in the school in Lockwood. I am proud that we have him to play “El Gallo.”
After we had about a half-hour left until performance, I got myself over to the “green room.” It is just another big room with a table and lots of chairs. I usually find our two musicians there. One, named Myra, another named Brenda. Both play piano. Both are educators. Brenda is from Louisiana and she has a southern drawl. Fun to tease her, to mimic her drawl. Myra is a theater person and schoolteacher. She talks incessantly, very intelligent, very theatrical. Sometimes I leave the room because I want to think about my lines and my part, and Myra jags up the air with her chatter.
I am thinking because of word of mouth we will probably have large audiences next week. I know the audiences we have had have enjoyed themselves, whether they gave us a standing ovation or not. Today I think they didn’t, but I am not feeling bad about that. Not at all. I know they had fun because a couple of them told me so as I was walking across the Rex parking lot after the show. They called to me. I agreed the show is solid material.
My experience: Shortly after overture, I enter after the mute, make an elaborate bow, get coveralls from the mute. Then I go to the back of the curtain. I help Belamy with the bench.
When El Gallo drops the curtain, I wade out onto the stage, coveralls at my ankles. I hear the audience titter. I flop onto the stage, pulling up the coveralls. If I’m lucky I hear more laughter. Then I finish the coveralls, taking care not to interfere with the mute who is throwing oranges to El Gallo.
At last all of us (except the two old actors in the trunk) doctorate the stage with our arms raised in pretty fashion.
And so on. Until we take our bows at the end. I enjoy the blinding lights, circles of yellow in a row over our heads.

September 18, 2015

I remember my grandfather’s old friends, old “John.” My grandmother was so angry! “John” was a beautiful old Norwegian man. Nevertheless, grandma was angry. I don’t know why—never knew why. I have a picture of him in my collection. Grandpa and John posed near grandpa’s boat. I think John figured into the house fire that my grandparents had. I didn’t know why. Only that the house fire involved the upper floors where my uncle Bud had a bedroom. Possibly a closet. I wish I had known more about my uncle. Was there much my grandparents could have told me?

September 16, 2015

At last, the mailman delivered my copy of “The Time Traveler’s Almanac” by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Just what I craved. Do you want to travel to the past? I would, for a number of excellent reasons. But they may not be the same reasons as yours. No matter.
Then let’s face a few facts. Also, a few of my, okay I admit, crappy ideas.
(Here, I should interject, we should control any panic. Once we feel the racing heart, the fear, the adrenaline, we should sit down, if possible, and take pencil or pen and a piece of paper. An envelope is fine. Let’s be rational! We should have a method.)
1. Time travel is not prohibited by the laws of physics. I know this to be true because I heard it on NPR some years ago while I was driving near Crow Agency, Montana. I found that assertion comforting. To me it meant that time traveling is inevitable.
2. Time travel has been demonstrated experimentally on a damned small scale using apparatus on a damned large, expensive scale. By “small scale,” I mean in nano- or pico-second shifts. However, I find this to mean we have our toe in the door, so to speak.
3. The NPR voice said many universes may exist in parallel. Well, we know that billions of realities exist in parallel! Just look at all of the people on the earth, each with their own take on things. I just missed the point, however.
The NPR voice meant that if a person were to go back in time and change something that affected the future outcome (i.e., anything at all!) the parallel reality would ensue, incorporating the change. In fact, an infinite number of universes may co-exist. Somehow, this was less comforting. I felt a bit chilly to contemplate such a vastness, unbounded possibilities do not suit me.
4. The universe, you know, is a vastness, for all of the mundane features of life here on the block.
I sit, writing. Oh, all right, I am in bed with three blankets upon my lap. But it’s cold! That’s how I can drink the numerous cups of coffee, write, and stay warm enough. I look at the unused summer room fan, the windows to the backyard, the clock radio with its odd green LED numbers. My eyes are a bit blurry, but I think it is 10:14 a.m.
5. One question I always have: how large an interval is “now”? No, that is not a “question I always have.” No, I just thought of it. I’ll try to stick a bit closer to the truth. Okay, how long does “now” last? Instantaneous? Is it a millisecond? Does it depend upon brain function? Is it just an illusion? I’m sure I’m not the first to wonder about this. “Now” seems to string along for hours, even years. And yet, I wonder: is it the same “now” as I thought it was yesterday? Although tomorrow is not guaranteed, after all, I may have an accident. But if I survive, will it be the some “now” that I am experiencing now?
6. I’m not liking the “time machine” concept. Too many wires, moving parts. The printing press (pictured above) and the steam engine have already been invented. Same with the wheel.
7. In high school, or was it the 7th grade? I took money I had collected from my paper route and purchased a used 8mm Kodak movie camera. Of interest was the “slow motion” feature. I had supposed that one would slow down the mechanism to capture slow motion. Instead, the camera whirred like an out-of-control windup motor. In fact it had a windup motor. The motor went fast so the motion would go slow. Was the reverse true? Yes. When the windup spring reached the tail end of its energy the picture sped up. The motor went slow so the motion would go fast.
Tortoises live a long time, but move slowly. Unless they are running, that is. Is their experience of time faster than, say, ours? Is the experience of time slower for, say, a cricket?
8. Do organic time machines exist? Do very fast beings travel backward in time? Do slow ones travel ahead? How could we tell?

September 15, 2015

On this day in 1923 Carl Ralph Bonde, Jr. was born at home in Kalispell, Montana. He was my grandmother’s only son. He had three older sisters who adored him, at least that’s what they told me. You see, 1923 was a terrible year for him to be born. The great war had been over for 9 years and he had missed the terrible flu epidemic, but he graduated from Flathead County High School in 1941, subject to conscription for WW II. Practically every young man his age went off to war. The odds were fairly good he would return alive, weren’t they?
Carl died when his troopship, the SS Leopoldville, was torpedoed and sunk within sight of their destination port of Cherbourg, France, Christmas Eve, 1944.
Here’s what I learned about Carl. Everyone called him Bud or Buddy, an endearment. He was a happy youngster, and independent-minded. He liked to take things apart, to learn about the inner workings of radios and cameras. He and his friends liked to hunt and camp and fish in the forests near Kalispell, especially about 20 miles to the southwest, near Little Bitterroot Lake. He and my grandpa had lots of hunting and fishing stuff. I know because I played with it many years later as a child.
Carl was sort of a goofy teenager, very intelligent. He giggled in class. He did not join high school clubs or participate in school sports, band, orchestra, chorus, or drama. His junior year he didn’t even have his photograph in the school annual. He did have lots of friends, though, as evidenced by the 69 inscriptions in the Flathead County High School 1940 yearbook. Here they are:

The following 69 notes written to Carl Ralph Bonde Jr in a copy of the high school annual The Flathead 1940 were copied verbatim by DS 1/4/2011. Names are in boldface. These names were rechecked against a list of students published on the web by Gayle Collins, and annotated 1/14/2011 by DS.

First Page Spread autographs in approximate order clockwise toward the center:

Remember History & Lit. Classes Albert Keenan “41” Don’t forget Biology Romolo Pettinato
Good “luck” to a swell guy. I’ll see you next year. Chester Mahugh “41”
I hate to admit it but you’re really a good mathamatician Carl Bob Bryan
The good old Biology class we will not forget. Lawrence Johnson Well Carl you will probably always be a silly kid, but good luck I’ll see you next year Alton Lee.
OK Bonde — You Win. To bad you did about same as Me in Bozeman — Better Luck next time. Allan Crumbaker – ’41
Lotsa Luck to a swell kid Bob Jystad
Good Luck, Carl. Neoa [Neola Shepard?]
Dearest Carl hope you get to stay in the Library for at least a couple of weeks next year Bruce Johnson
Didn’t you have fun in Great Falls? I sure did too. Will have a good time this summer. Bertha-May Simon
Don’t forget the trip Bozeman. Vernon Johnson
Don’t play those machines any mo’ “Luck” Art Anderson
Rudolph Bergstrom ’41
Lots of Luck next year Don Bolton
Good luck to a Biology pal Mary Ellen Dyer
Lots of Luck remember Reeves classes Hope I see you next year. Carlene Wilke
Remember the trip to Bozeman and heres wishing you lots of luck in the future. Bill Ulrick
Best wishes for next year Flora Brownback
Carl Bonde Best wishes, Carl Bryce
Remember Bozeman Ralph Asbridge
Ransom H. Brown
Lots of Luck Robert Swenson
Remember Reeves and the Circular sitting in am. Lit and History George Rhodes
As one duck-hunter to another — ??!! Ernie Brooner [does not appear in annual]
Remember biology and me Harold Groot Class of “42” [does not appear in annual]
Lots of luck kid and don’t be so onery next yr. Andy McClelland
Good Luck to you. Elfred Martinson “41”

Second page spread autographs:

You’re all right when it comes to math Carl good luck Buck “41” [Walter?]
Loads of Luck, Carl. Janett Newell
Hope you have Loads of Fun during vacation. “Best Wishes” Dorothy Jean [Berry?]
I wish I knew as much about Geometry as you do. Good luck. Dorothy Nees
“Leslie Cornelius”
“Good luck” Donald Swanberg “1940” [does not appear in print in annual]
Listen you drop in the bucket if you don’t quit picking on me and taking me on those crazy boat-camping trips I’ll I’ll . . . I’ll, Oh forget it. Bob Huck [a caricature below, titled “you”]
good luck Lawrence Sonstelie
Don’t forget the ducks, Bonde, Douglas Penrod
Luck to you in your Geometry, next year Taking it over aren’t you K Jr.
Good luck to a fell History Scholar Lloyd George
Well Carl We had fun in our Hist & Lit classes. Don’t forget the chalk erasers grrrr. Beverly Hinman 41′
Good luck to a good Geom student & a “nut” You & Bob H. [Huck?] made a great pair of comedians. Carol Clark
Here’s luck Brother Bonde Alan Aggson
get along. Bob Evans
Maybe some day I’ll say it. Mabe Luck BJ Libert
Good Luck to a swell classmate A pal of ’42 Vergen Ainley
Confidentially I don’t know what you mean when you say what happened at my house. Betty Lou Nelson PS Do you remember Terman the Pigion

Third page spread autographs:

Luck to a good student – Bill Newell ’42
Lots of luck to you. Remember good old Hist & Lit. Evelyn Zimmerman “41”.
Hello Carl, Don’t work too hard. I’ll be on that camping trip in a few days. Don’t forget geometry off Thompson either. God, you know what. Don Huck
Bonde, Lots of luck to swell kid. Don’t forget your famous yodel when you learn to play Black Jack come around shorty [unsigned note]

Autographs throughout the remainder of the annual:

[Dedication page] Well Hi Carl, Say boy here we are going to be Juniors — Hope you are in some of my classes next year. Luck, Yvonne Johnson
[page of football players’ heads in star cutouts] I’d look more natural if there were bars over this but — Good Luck D. Christiansen Christy
[opposite Principal’s Message] Dearest Carl, The next time you lose a dollar to me I’m going to collect it in one piece Roger Baldwin
[Page 14 on faculty page by Lee Thompson mathematics athletics] Lee Thompson Geom Boseman
[Page 40 on junior student photos page] Here’s looking at a tough classmate but a friend I hope Johnny Rhone “41”
[Page 54 track and field page] Best Wishes Pat Talley
[Page 57 student council page] Luck to you Bonde. And that means that the “big ones” don’t get away (as always before) Dick Wendt
[Page 71 opposite senior and all school play page] Remember those rides to school with Turman last year? Fun? Yes. We still have one more year. Oh joy! Betty Bailey
[Page 76 on page with Baton Twirlers, opposite Pietro Yon “world-famous organist and composer.”] Good Luck – See you next year O[pal] Moe
[Page 83] Good Luck Russ Zobel
[Page 98, last numbered page in the annual] Lots of luck to you. Hope you get to go to Bozeman again next year. Dorothy Calvert
I’ll admit girls giggle alot but your just as bad as any of them. Virginia Clark
Goodbye you fast thing! Alfred Pedersen

Last page spread in annual:

Carl, Don’t forget Geometry. How can you. It’s great stuff! Bob “Riggs” Orser

Best wishes to a swell kid. Haven’t seen much of you this year. “Nadine”

Hi Elsie Garey

Leave the Wimmen in distant towns alone – You were just lucky – Best wishes – Harry Anderson

Good luck next year, Bonde. Dean M[arquardt].

Hope we’re together in some class next year. Tom La Samaire

-30-

September 15, 2015 0455

I was cold, hungry, so I got out of bed to eat cereal. Sore, from working on my darkroom perhaps, I took aspirin. Now I have to sit up for a few minutes so I don’t get a stomach ache from the aspirin. You know. Day around here doesn’t start until about 6.
I think of story ideas for this blog. Always something fantastic. Like yesterday I watched a squirrel running down the box elder tree. I wondered if he had an egg, somehow, in his mouth. You know, a smallish egg, like maybe a sparrow egg. Could he have, maybe, bit into the side of the egg and the egg stay together enough that he could carry it with his teeth? Like a teenager biting part way into an apple? I didn’t spend too much time. Do squirrels even eat eggs?
Answer: yes. Squirrels are something like rats and they like a nice, tasty egg. But I don’t know if they hide them. You know, like nuts. I don’t think there are any nuts on our trees. Except the squirrels. Enough. Time for bed.