I lived in the Panama Canal Zone from June of 1971 until May 1972. During that time I became good friends with the two fellows pictured below......

                  Larry sent this picture, it's a couple of years old     
      
  That's Jerry on the left, and Larry on the right. I have seen neither one since we were teenagers.

I lost contact with everyone I left behind in the Zone. I knew only that Larry had joined the Air Force, and Jerry the Army.

Then I got a bright idea, why not do a google search on their names? I know, original it isn't. Anyway Larry's surname is less common than Jerry's, trust me, and I got a hit remakably fast. It turns out that Larry manages an e-mail group consisting of ex-CZ brats, mostly kids of FAA personnel who lived in Cardenas Village. I could not have found a better source of info without time-travel capabilities. I have caught up with so many people in the last few days that my head is reeling.  Maria, my girlfriend for a time when I lived in Cardenas married another guy who lived there at the time. They now reside in Tennessee, where David, a recently retired Air Traffic Controller, writes 'speculative fantasy fiction' novels. Here is his website for anyone interested in checking his stuff out. 

Sadly, another good friend died of a heart attack.  Yet another, who became a lawyer, lost his leg in a car accident. I know, most lose their soul after passing the bar.  And Larry had kept up with Jerry, who lives about a hundred miles east of him. As both live in South Florida, I hope to get together with them sometime next year. Might have to make a week of it, to catch up on 37 years. Obviously, they have seen each other since then. Coincidentally, both have Panamanian mothers, and Jerry is related to two past Presidents of Panama.

I got news about more than the Canal Zone. I got Jerry's e-mail addy from a guy, Steve, who lived in the Zone back in the day, but who now lives in Yakutat, Alaska. I lived in Yakutat 50 years ago, when I was 5-6 years old. We traded anecdotes; I told him how the airstrip would get flooded during rainstorms and freeze over, creating an ice-skating rink a half-mile long , that lasted until a plane was due to arrive. Then the FAA guys had to bulldoze the ice off to one side of the strip. He told me how Yakutat has been discovered by fishermen, who try their luck in the Situk River. The town is overrun with anglers from the 'lower 49' when the steelhead trout are running. When I was there, we would go to the river on a truck adapted to ride the railroad that led from the Situk River to the cannery in Yakutat.

Steve sent me the last two pictures....

       Mount St. Elias, which straddles the US-Canadian border, as seen from Yakutat.

   
    This was FAA housing when I lived here in 1959. Steve, the photographer, lived there
      in 1971. He stayed on after his dad was transferred, and works for Alaska Airlines.

It's never too late to try to renew auld acquaintances, but don't wait, or it will be too late to succeed.

My camera isn't suited for taking nighttime shots, but I had to try when a Great Blue Heron and a Black-Crowned Night Heron jockeyed for the best fishing spot last night.  Fish were attracted by our floodlights as we stood by for weather in Michoud Slip, I took all these photos from the wheelhouse, except for the last shot, wherein you just make out the Blue Heron flying off after seeing my clumsy approach on the deck.

 
Black-Crowned Night Heron

A rare moment this, seeing two herons of different species sitting together.
The Blue started shaking his head in an attempt to scare the Night Heron away. It worked.

 
The Great Blue Heron's corner as long as he wants it, or until...

 ....a certain flat-footed wheelman scares him off before making sure the camera was ready.

Don't listen to the Libertarians, ignore them and others who complain about the number of laws in America. We don't have too many laws, we have too small a number of crimes.

That is apparently the reason Congress passed a bill containing 'Hate-Crime' legislation. It doesn't make it a crime to hate, so all you right-wing radio hosts can breathe a sigh of relief. What it does is make it a crime to beat somebody up because you hate their religion, lifestyle, race, or facial piercings. For example, you could always be arrested for beating up an Inuit. Since the fifties, anyway. However, if you attacked him because you don't like the blubber-munching wife-traders who leave their old people on an ice floe to be eaten by polar bears, you get an extra charge. If you don't care one whit that the iglooists can't make up their goddamned minds, and settle on ONE word for 'snow', then it's still simple battery. You just felt like hitting somebody, and Nanook was too busy warming his hands in fresh road-kill to defend himself. You get out in a year or two, Nanook has a story to tell his grand-kids. Beat up a Hungarian because his paprika-stained long-overdue-for-a-trim mustache pisses you off, however, and you are now looking at a couple of extra years in the big house, giving your sweet roll to Big Jake. Plus, he'll take your dessert at mealtime.

Some people are against these new laws, their reasoning being that a crime is a crime, no matter why it was perpetrated. Proponents point out that motive matters in murder trials. Kill someone because they cheated on you, you get 5-15. Kill someone for their social security check, and you get anywhere from life to the electric chair. That's unfair, say I. Does it ever matter why someone robbed a bank? Nossiree, Bob. Whether you took money from the till for food. medicine or tickets to the Super Bowl, you get the same sentence. Say hi to Jake for me, willya?

But the argument is moot at this point. The law has been passed. Haters have seen their rights impinged. And the cat is out of the bag(putting a cat in a bag in the first place is a 'pet crime', BTW), insofar as hate-motivated criminal deeds are concerned. We can expect more such laws, creating new charges for our case-clogged justice system to deal with. Laws such as:

Happy crimes-You tore down the goal posts at the stadium after your cross-town rivals folded like corn-stalks under a UFO? Don't tell the cops you did it out of sheer joy. You fired a gun in the air during your daughter's wedding, and the bullet landed in an old lady's shoulder twelve blocks away? If you confess that you did it in a fit of exuberance because now someone else has to feed her and pay to fix her car every time she ignores the 'Check Oil'  light for too long, here come the Feds with extra warrants and tasers. And the 'Happiness Management' classes are a real downer.

Wait crimes- You've been in line at KFC for 30 minutes, only to see the last piece of Extra Crispy disappear into a bucket for some jerk at the drive-thru? I don't blame you for jumping the counter and pistol-whipping the manager for having only one cashier during rush hour. It needed doing, but now you are gonna 'wait' a while longer. 
You sat for an hour in the little 'waiting room' at your gastroenterologist's office? While you listened to him talking to a drug salesman just outside the door about last night's game(..and then we tore down the goalposts! Sweet!)? Don't steal the roll of adhesive tape. Don't slice the cushions on the examination table. The Seinfeld-Chinese Restaurant Bill should be in effect by the time you read this. Hard to believe, but the medical care in prison is even worse than on the outside.

Late Crimes- Sorry you're late? You're gonna be even sorrier soon, pal. Mark my words.

Author's note: No Inuits were harmed in the writing of this essay.

CHAPTER 27

In which Jack Moonlight's search for an old bluesman's secret life is seemingly hamstrung even as he learns more from a new source. Delano's past catches up to him, and Frank's threatens to. Here is a link to chapters posted thus far.

The two women did not even notice when Jack took their tea glasses to
the kitchen. Marisa was saying something about Delano's last concert
before he disappeared, then Jack was in the kitchen with her niece,
Dinah, who was preoccupied with stirring a pot of beans on the stove.

"I should have a banjo." He said to her back.

Dinah looked around, puzzled, then she smiled. "My grand-dad used to
sing that to me. Always made me laugh when we were in the kitchen
together."

"Did he strum an ol' banjo?"

"Not hardly, but he did play a mean set of drums. Played with Deleon for
a while."

"Did he ever talk about those times?" Jack asked, sensing an outlet for
some of the questions he had for her aunt.

"Some." Dinah seemed happy with the state of the beans, and took over
from Jack the task of re-filling the tea glasses. "He said Delano was
more than a blues musician, that they had been working on some songs
that were gonna shake things up some."

"Shake things up, how? Musically? Politically?"

"Both, and more, according to Grampy. They called him Shaggy back then,
'cause he was restless, and couldn't bear to sit still long enough for a
haircut." She picked up the tray with the glasses. Grampy played on
Delano's biggest hit, 'What's My Name'. Check the cornbread while I take
the girls their tea."

"Sure thing. I remember that song. It's like nothing else he ever
recorded."

Dinah was halfway out the door. She turned her head to reply. "It ain't
every night he had a nervous breakdown, either. Check that cornbread
now, stir the beans, I'll be back to tell you what Grampy told me."
---------------------------------

April 20, 1950

"Well, hell, old man. It's a big enough car." Frank picked up the
stringer of fish. "I'll get started cleaning these, while you two make
some more orphans and widows."
---------------------------------------

I could barely manage to caption these pictures, much less work on A Minor Blues. Maybe by this weekend, I'll get back into the story...

I think this vine is called Moonflower

This was drawn and signed by Hal Foster, creator of 'Prince Valiant

                                                               My Hero

 
          A friend on Guam carved coconut shells as a hobby. This piece is at least 48 years old.
                                   He had one shell with four birds sitting on it.

The giraffes are from Tanzania. The dish was a parting gift to my Dad when he transferred from
Panama to Key West in 1973. The dish depicts a turtle god with an alligator's head. It is inspired
by the Coclé Indian culture, circa 350 a.d.

           This campaign button might be worth a buck or two to some collector.

Our wedding picture. To the far right is my Canal Zone driver's license and our graduation photos.
 

                            I love jade flowers. We have another one similar to this.