It's September 26th.  Happy Birthday, Dad.  This is genealogy in motion.  He is 82 today, born the year of the stock market crash.  Not only did he weather it, he owns his own piece of land and owes nothing on his house.  Accidental blessing?  Not a bit.  This is a man who writhed at the thought of credit.  The only new car he ever bought was a Volkswagon beetle.  Vintage 1971.  End of season offering.  Sticker price $1999.99.  One of those bright orange jobs.  I was always surprised Dad had bright orange in him.  Since that time he has confessed to wanting a new RED car.  He's been driving an old faded, red Honda sedan for years.  Yes, I think he has red in his old soul.  He'd buy red if he ever bought again.  But I don't think he will.  The Orange Bug is planted like a fruit tree out on the twenty-seven acres.  Mom had possession of it once.  Painted a big non-conformist butterly on its woeful hood.  And that is how it spends its days (poor old Bug):  out on The Property, on the front ten acres closest to Dad's vintage trailer house, parked solidly next to the Honda classic with the worn red paint.  Those two cars are like brothers.  Can't part 'em.  And they look pretty good out there among the stick and straw. 

There are all those now-mature olive trees mom and dad planted in the late Sixties.  They planted them from the roadway back to the silver gate.  Must be pretty things by now. They planted them in a rhythm of Olive-Oleander-Olive-Oleander, and so on, for privacy, I guess.  When they bought the property, the chicken sheds were next door.  Back then you needed more than just a privacy screen, in other words.  There was no hope when the wind blew in the wrong direction.  But the sheds are no more.  And, I guess, the Oleanders wave in the breeze, they are so big and full. 

I have many memories of visiting the property with my parents.  But there was one in particular that was rather funny.  Dad and I drove out in the Bug.  This was before he retired and actually moved out there.  I went along so I could log in some running time.  I was a runner in those days (those were the days of Frank Shorter the marathoner, and Bill Rogers with the white gloves, the happy running days of the nineteen-seventies!).  Dad had driven the drag around the front ten acres to make a walking and running track.  And I'd go out sometimes and run on this rough dirt road.  Dad would also unlock the silver gate between the two halves of the property and set the gate open for the period of the visit.  And I would start my running clock 'n go clear back to the railroad tracks which form the natural back boundary to the place.  All along this back portion I ran on turned-over dirt  --  hardened clods  -- and so had to be rather careful.  Well, to get back to my original point.  We had gone out there.  But nearly as soon as I stepped out of the car my eyes swelled up.  Boy did they swell up.  I looked at myself in the rear view mirror.  The Bug gave me a no-holds-barred picture of what I really looked like.  I was only nineteen at the time.  But I looked like a frog, the way the pollen from the olive trees --  all those happy little olive trees  --   made my eyes swell.  There was nothing to do but go back home.  And that's what happened.  Silly memory. 

Dad made sure I could run out there.  And I had my first driving lessons out there, too.  I learned to drive right there on the property, in the bright orange Bug.  There, and along Pleasant Grove Road which fronts the place, I was allowed to work on my skills.  The clutch was really an awful concept to grasp.  I liked running better.  Guess that sounds immature.  But I'm in my fifties now and I haven't had a heart attack yet, thanks to my passion for moving. 

I wish my dad would have let me help out more.  He treated me rather carefully.  When he dug his well, I was not allowed to help.  I was along plenty of times, though.  Could have been a big help.  I tried to be.   But I did help out, in fact, pretty mightily, in the only real way I was allowed to:  I spent my money earned as a State employee on a used yellow truck with a camper shell.  This way my parents were able to truck barrels of water to the property to water the new plants and trees.  Dad had no notion of buying the vehicle if I was offering.  It's that Depression-era conservatism, you understand.   They hadn't yet dug a well; there was no usable source of water on the place.   Don't ask me why they put the trees in before the well.  But, I'd like to say in retrospect I helped their plan for their piece of land.  They were stalwart land-owners.  They dug all their own post-holes with an old-time post-hole digger that they bought at a garage sale.  I still remember mom out there on a blistering hot day trying to work that post-hold digger into the rock-hard, dry ground.  They trucked in the big round posts in the old yellow truck which they allowed me to purchase for them.  They put in the fence completely on their own, these two parents of mine.  They planted peach and apricot trees.  The eucalyptus must be purely gorgeous by now.  The last time I saw the place, at least one of these grand trees had fallen.  And Dad, in the way he tends to be, let the tree alone.  And it rooted along its trunk so naturally.  They bought some of the silver dollar variety.  I still remember mom and dad going through their personal copy of the Western Garden Book to determine the right plantings.  I think they did a good job.  Anyone would want olive trees and eucalyptus on their property.

Dad comes from farmers.  His father George's father Lewis raised his family in Michigan.  Lewis was a builder.  Built a log house in Michigan.  Got rather grumpy in his old age, attests Dad.  Dad said that none of the kids wanted to be around Lewis at the get-together's at his grandma's house in Chico.  So before Lewis and wife Myrta came out here, to California, they were land-owners in Michigan.  The census reports show that Lewis was a farmer by occupation and that he owned two, ninety-acre parcels.  Dad is a natural builder not unlike his grandfather Lewis.   Very meticulous.  Full of patience, even if a lot of cussing comes with it.  Dad held firm to a standard.  But he never farmed.  The only time he farmed the twenty-seven acres, he picked all his crops and gave them to the nearby supermarket to sell as "local" goods.  The supermarket gladly accepted.  He didn't ask for any of the proceeds.

Bravo to the solvent man.  Bravo to the man who let pheasant and foxes and other animals roam freely, away from the eyes of the local hunting crowd.  Dad was not a hunter.  I'll never forget the way he let the crickets go free.  He'd pick them up and place them outside on the porch and close the door.  None of us kids liked bugs.  We'd report on 'em.    But he never squished anything.  His old neighbors on Pleasant Grove Road always knew they could depend on him to let their horses graze on his land during floods, since Dad's property is on the high side of the road.  He once let us stay out there awhile.  He gets along quite well with very little.  We had very short showers in those days.  We were warned that the hot water supply amounted to a quick rinse of the head.  The amount of refuse is small, not much waste.  He used to take his Vitamin E and Vitamin C every day.  I remember the two bottles, along with a few cans of white tuna, sitting on his front table just inside the door.  This was his life.  He could and did keep a rather spartan existence.  Once I was grown, dad himself started running on the old dirt track.  He told me once he ran six miles a day.  No Nikes here.  He wore good gosh-darned farmer's boots.  They were better for the ankles, and weighed something.  They worked just fine.  Sometimes we think we have to BUY a life.  It's not true at all. 

Happy birthday to old dad.  ><  ><  ><  ><  GEC.

Yesterday I went back in time.  I closed my eyes.  The sound of the train was loud, the pitch high.  It is not hard.  It is easy to understand how it can be.  You wish for something.  You plan for it.  You take your scheduled train to the place where it is to happen.  You are the master.  This is your world.  It can be done. 

What I have discovered is that it is a dangerous thing.  You risk losing what you have.  Time travel doesn't really work the way you think.  You think all you have to do is want something.   You are certain that that something is good.  It is all very innocent.  You are young (young enough to still learn something).  You do your best.  It is intended to benefit somebody else.  You think, "I did this, I ran those races, we can do it too, here and now; let me see . . . . what is scheduled . . . . let's look for opportunities . . . . I can show you how it is done . . . ."  But when you sleep, you cast away your power.  And you wake up in another land.  You know that space.  But it is not what you planned.  It is hot.  It's not the right place.  How did this happen.  I simply fell asleep and I missed it.  I tried so hard.  I just wanted to share what I used to do when I was young, with this very important person.  I did all the planning.  I knew it could be done.  I knew how.

It is much later now.  There is only a slim chance of making it on time.  There was only ever a narrow window for entering, the two of us.  My young friend says it is alright.  I am furious.  We lost our chance.  My friend says the window was bigger than that.  We get back on board.  We don't fall asleep again.  We keep our eyes open.  Eventually we get there.  We rub the head of the guardian lion as we enter the gates to Chinatown.  The broad sparkly banner stretched across Grant Street reads (something like) "Remembering the 49th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China."  I nod.  I say to myself, 1949.  And I say, what are we doing here.
 
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I have had all the chance I need.  I have made something of it.  I have the best of the best, but I don't think you'll understand what I mean.  And I won't say it.  I'll just know it for myself.  How wonderful to have done (the running) at one time.  How wonderful.  The time is gone.  It lasted for only a second, for a few years . . . . 19, 20, 21 . . . . and then, a little more . . . and it was gone.  It was only that I thought I could pick it up at any time I wished it.  Sure you can.  If it's right, you'll find it.  But the point is, you've been on this train, you've taken it, you've come along, you did those things those good things (if you're lucky), and they left and now they're gone.  It happens like that.  That is the way it is.  The screaming train leaves you.  You're lucky to get on at all.  You did some things which made you feel like it was slowing down, like it was lasting.  As if there were a whole stream of consequences that would come, good things, that would just come up to you and take their time and move on when you decided.  But the train, that screams on.  You close your eyes and you see that you can't get back there again.  And you remember almost with fear that it could have been that you had nothing in the fast movement.  The past is really that.  It is that it won't come again.  It is, mostly, that you had it.  That you had control of life for awhile.  That you really did do some things.  And that it's gone.  And every day I think, it's still that train.  It can't help but move on, again.  It does so every day.   And you're there, you've got some memories to take account of, some people.  Everything. ( G. Claire. )   ><

I have sometimes, recently, had occasion to walk late at night.  What I have seen is the changing of the seasons.  Things at night are slow enough to notice the signs.  Before long it will be the Holidays.  For now I note that the leaves fall one by one on these windy nights and by morning have produced more for the gutters and the public walking spaces.  I am sometimes there to see it.

I take note that the world is far from perfect.  When I walk late at night I see the people sleeping in the doorways of defunct buildings from the '60s, buildings with floor-to-ceiling window panes framed in aluminum.  The empty old buildings are heartless at night.  The panes of glass look black.   No one cares about the old ideas or the old movements.  No one remembers the dedications that were photographed when the buildings were new.  Everyone walks right by.  The signs of the sellers or agents for the sellers remain in place through the years just in case someone has good ideas for an old building.   But their inset entry porches make clean mattresses for the poor who must sleep there.  This is the world I live in.  It is better seen after dark.

I have noticed one woman in particular.  When she sleeps, she sleeps outside.  But this is a large city.  So she sleeps in a doorway.  Doorways are locked at night.  Nobody goes there.  This is her place.  She rolls herself up tightly.  You know her by her bare feet.  Even among the homeless which one usually sees, no one sleeps like this.  She assumes no blanket.  She wears the clothes at night which she wears in the day.  She wears the same thing everyday.  The clothes by now are dark with filth.  You know her by her outfit.  But most of all you know her by her bare feet.  She rolls up against the left side of the entry, against the narrow window glass.  It is she; these are her bare feet with blackened soles.  When she rises she rises to no affair --  no bathing, no brushing the hair, no adding no tying the shoes to walk in.  Walking is the essential movement of a life.  She walks here, in this big city.  But there are no shoes.  She feasts when she feasts.  Oh yes she asks for money.  She is partly young.  You know what I mean.  Short blond hair.  Can't be bothered about anything.  Shoes don't matter.  Her blankets can't be found, even in a city where they exist and are offered.  Apparently she has never accepted what she has been offered.  Everyone here asks for money, not for food.  This is the way of life in a big city.  Even a big city sleeps after dark. Signed G. E. Claire.  All rights reserved by the author.  Copyright 2011 by G. E. Claire.

"I have heard the cock that is the herald to the morn/Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat/Awake the god of day, and at his warning/whether in sea of fire, in earth or air,/The extravagant and erring spirit hies/to his confine . . ."
Here, in Act I, Scene I of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Horatio describes the behavior of ghosts.  The word "herald" does not occur here in most print versions of the play.  The quotation I use is derived from Sir Laurence Olivier's own 1948 production.  His re-writing of the play for the screen produced in my opinion a truly memorable line.    As it was spoken by actor Norman Wooland, the word and the line in which it occurs are more sound than substance.  I am convinced that it is, in fact, poetry, and for one reason:  that the means by which it is spoken never leaves you.  Without "herald," the poetry would not have been possible.  I observe that the right words are the foundation for such a performance.

In Hamlet, the herald announces.  In medieval times, the herald delivered a message.  A heraldic message, then, would have been delivered by the herald.  Heraldic garb was worn by him (his tabard).  As the herald crossed the battlelines between both sides, delivering the messages of the warring lords, he would have been protected by both.  As the critical messenger he was untouchable.  Over time, "heraldry"  --  the matter of coats of arms  --  became his concern solely; for he alone would announce the two sides at jousts.  He would therefore have been familiar with the family coats of arms of the participants and could vouch for their authenticity.  His was the heraldric last word.

As I am a beginning student of Heraldry myself, I would like to share the key elements.  Here, today, I will talk about the language of Heraldry, briefly. 

Besides "herald," another vocabulary term of great value to you as you begin your study of Heraldry is "blazon."  This is the statement which describes the coat arms.  A blazon must follow basic rules of syntax (order of terms).  This must be done both for clarity and brevity.  Style is sometimes a consideration in blazon.  With regard to style, I have concluded for myself that perfect blazon (again, a description of a coat of arms) is a balance of tradition and taste.  Because tradition must always be a factor, perfect elegance is never possible in a modern or a contemporary sense; that is, contemporary taste will always be modified by the tradition which it serves.  Nevertheless I think that simplicity is best.  Anything which interrupts clarity will, at last, fall away.  This includes old, circuitous forms of blazon, as were prevalent (according to my reading on the subject) during both the Tudor and the Victorian eras.   In the best communication, style will yield to understanding.  Elegant simplicity will prevail.

..........(Today I will push you into the water a little and expect you to swim.  Next time I will give you oars and a boat.)

The proper coat of arms is issued to the grantee both emblazoned and blazoned.  That is, both an image and a formal written description appear on the grantee's papers.  Styles of visual representation of the coat arms will vary according to the artistry of the issuing party.  But the blazon holds firm, a matter only of linguistic discipline.   The categories of items which make their appearance on a shield of arms (and which, therefore, must be described, or blazoned) include the honorable ordinaries, the ordinaries, and the sub-ordinaries, as well as stylized and traditional versions of animals and plants.  Moreover, it is my understanding that just about anything can be applied to the coat of arms as a heraldic symbol, also known as a charge.  It is very important, however, that the rendering take on the formal and traditional heraldic form of the object.  Here tradition takes over and by means of this, heraldry maintains its distinguished and separate and valued character.   In describing a heraldic charge, one notices the item; one names it formally.  Then its essential nature is described (heraldry has, for example, names for all the stances of a lion or a stag).  Then its color is named, utilizing the Gallic terminology established for naming colors on the coat of arms.  

...............................................(Today's lesson is almost over.  Are you swimming yet?  Good!)

To continue the discussion of language:   here, following, is the syntactic formula of heraldry.  In general:
Describe first the field (the shield itself, that is).
Describe second the important charge.
Describe thirdly, other charges.
Describe fourth charges upon the charges.

The blazon for the English king's coat arms, anciently, is:  On a field Gules, three gold leapards.  This could also be blazoned as:  Gules, three lions or. This coat of arms is affectionately known as Old England.  In the earliest kingly armorial shield there were no
fleur-de-lis.  Nor was the shield subdivided in any way.  Later, in the era of Henry VIII, a manic level of subdivision of the family shield was dictated.  For Henry you had to over-prove your ground and your connection to the noble classes.  By then, the directness  --  the brilliant simplicity  --   of the original era of heraldic devices had passed. 

To continue our lesson in heraldic syntax, in broad terms then, the adjective (posture or color notation) follows the noun, which is the charge itself.  So in our example, Gules (red) follows the word "field," which it describes.  Also, "or," which is of French derivation (as many heraldic terms tend to be) means gold (yellow),  and follows the charge it describes, lions.  More on the standard terms for colors, metals, and firs, later, in Part III.

One general note.  The earliest English coats of arms derive from about the twelfth century.  The oldest were the simplest.  The charges were often nothing more than lines of division of the field, such as the cross or the pale (a vertical band),  or a bend (a sort of diagonal), or a bend sinister (a diagonal running in the opposite direction) . Variations on these lines of division depended upon differences in color (tincture), and the spare arrangement of rather earthly or (on the other hand) rather fantastical things.

.............................................................................................................(Yes, . . . I'm sure you're still swimming . . . . ..............................)

Best Regards  ----
G. Claire.  (Copyright 2011 by G. Claire.)