HinesSight

Pregnancy can be cute

My daughter, Celeste, finally has shared some pregnancy photos. She's due April 10, so she's really pregnant.

We talked by phone this evening. Celeste said, "There's nothing cute about being pregnant."

Hey, this grandfather-to-be begs to differ. Patrick, her hubby, and she are Hollywoodish cute here (which fits, since that's where they live).

And this shows more than the belly of the demure mother-to be. Who, I'm told, is eminently ready for Baby Girl ______ to make her appearance.

They're down to three potential names, but won't choose the winner until they see their child and know that the name fits.

At the moment, according to Celeste, "Kicker" would win out. I suspect this won't be their ultimate choice.

2006 Christmas letter

Hot off my laptop is Laurel and Brian’s 2006 Holiday Greetings, a.k.a. our Christmas letter. I ponder my incipient grandfatherness and speak of dog walking, colonoscopies, Tango, land use activism, and why blogging beats book writing.

PDF and Word versions are available:
Download 2006_christmas_letter.pdf
Download 2006_christmas_letter.doc

My complete 1995-2006 Christmas letter oeuvre may be perused in “Collected Christmas letters.”

I like to say that a man's soul is revealed through his Christmas letters. Well, if God rewards humor, cynicism, and blatant self-promotion, my salvation is in darn good shape.

“Little Miss Sunshine,” a tribute to dysfunction

A VW bus that has to be pushed or rolled to start it. A family comprised of wildly disparate members, including a heroin-snorting grandpa, a platitude-spouting motivational speaker father, and a Nietzsche-obsessed son who hasn’t said a word for nine months.

What’s not to like about “Little Miss Sunshine”? We saw the movie last Friday, thanks to Salem Cinema’s decision to bring it back for another run. It’s a feel-good tribute to eccentric dysfunction, something I know more than a little about.

Automotively, I felt right at home watching the family of Olive, an aspiring seven year-old beauty queen, coax their VW from New Mexico to California so she could enter the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

In 1968 I became the owner of my mother’s ’57 VW Bug when she got a ’67 model. I loved it. And I hated it. VW’s of that era were equally (1) marvels of German engineering and (2) pieces of crap.

That’s what made them so interesting. You never knew whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde was going to appear when you turned the key. I remember the day my VW got me safely through a nasty Sierra snowstorm. I also recall driving along scraping ice from the windshield. On the inside.

There were a lot of positive qualities to my ’57 Bug. The heater wasn’t one of them.

So it was an enjoyable flashback to watch the VW in “Little Miss Sunshine” drive the family crazy with little quirks like a horn that wouldn’t shut off and a broken clutch that required the push-starting routine.

When my VW’s engine compartment caught fire on a San Jose street in the late ’60s it didn’t surprise me at all. I just pulled over, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and called it another day in the life of a Volkswagen owner.

I’m horribly un-mechanical. But with the aid of that marvelous book, “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive,” I learned how to crawl under my successor VW (a Karmann Ghia) with a screwdriver and get it running again when, for some forgotten reason, it decided that it didn’t want to start. Which was frequent, as I recall.

Still, I remember those cars with much more fondness than the blandly reliable Japanese models that, when I became a family man, I eventually turned to. A dash of dysfunction adds spice. Too much of it gives you psychic indigestion. But too little leaves a hunger for the wild side.

Growing up, I took for granted that the abnormal was normal. For that, I’m now grateful to my dysfunctional nuclear and extended family. We had alcoholism, divorce (lots of it), affairs, scandals.

I don’t know if the “cocktail hour” is still common. It was in my family during my pre-teen years. As the youngest in the room, usually, during family gatherings my job would be to hand out the drinks. Then I’d perch in a corner, sip a coke, and listen to the gossip.

I accepted all the dysfunction as part of usual family life, not having any other basis for comparison. My uncle played the bagpipes. And, polo. (Not at the same time, though, so far as I know). I thought that was normal too. Now I honor him for his eccentricity, and am sorry that I gave up so soon on the starter bagpipes that he sent me.

When I became a teenager I went through my own existential despair phase. I wasn’t into Nietszche, unlike Little Miss Sunshine’s Dwayne. But the weirder side of Bob Dylan (was there any other side to him in the ‘60s?) touched my dark soul. Also, Henry Miller, who wrote in “Tropic of Capricorn”:

But if you would laugh when others laugh and weep when they weep you must be prepared to die as they die and live as they live. That means to be right and to get the worst of it at the same time. It means to be dead while you are alive and alive only when you are dead. In this company the world always wears a normal aspect, even under the most abnormal conditions. Nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so.

I included this quote in a letter that I wrote to my high school girlfriend, Mary. She and her family were wonderfully functional. They helped keep me on as even a keel as I could manage during some extra-dysfunctional adolescent years. For that I’m also grateful.

However, I still resonate with Henry Miller. You’ve got to laugh and weep on your own terms, not anyone else’s. That’s what made “Little Miss Sunshine” so appealing to me. The members of this family march to their own dysfunctional drummers.

And by the time you get to the closing credits, they seem like the most engagingly normal people you’ll ever meet.

Embargo is lifted on my daughter’s baby news

I’ve gotten the go-ahead from Celeste to start my grandchild blogging. She told me the big news, that she’s pregnant, shortly after she picked Laurel and me up at the Burbank airport last Friday.

But she asked me to hold off on tooting my grandfatherly horn over the Internet until she’d told her boss. Which now has occurred. So here’s the first public photo of my daughter’s child.

Isn’t he or she cute? Celeste sure thinks so. She kept cooing over this ultrasound image as I struggled to make out any identifiable human (or even quasi-human) features. Well, that’s mother love. She’s excited. As is Patrick, her husband. As Laurel and I am.

Not so sure about her cats. Smokey and Cici have the run of Celeste and Patrick’s Hollywood house. They pretty much do what they want and are used to being fawned over, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the spoiled little felines handle some cuteness competition.

When we got to the Vos home after the plane trip from Portland, Celeste went all out and put together a cheese, cracker, and fruit plate, which we ate on their patio.

I was thrilled. My daughter is thirty-four. I can recall only one meal that she’s personally prepared for me: a macaroni and cheese (from a box) dinner at the apartment where she lived for a while after college. Even now, she and Patrick are mostly eat-outers. For my grandchild’s sake, I hope Hollywood has baby buffets.

Anyway, when we were done chatting on the patio Celeste took the snack plate back into the kitchen and laid it on a counter. We went into the living room to talk some more and await Patrick’s return from work.

Smokey walked in from the kitchen, dragging a large piece of cheese in his mouth. He dropped it on the living room floor. I glanced at Celeste, wondering how she’d handle the situation.

She got up. Strode purposefully over to Smokey. Looked down at him. And said, “Oh, Smokey, you’re so cute! Here, let me break the cheese into smaller pieces so you can eat it more easily.”

Well, that was my childrearing style with Celeste. Permissive. Like father, like daughter. Her mother was stricter, as I suspect Patrick will be. Currently he’s the cat disciplinarian, insofar as the discipline goes. It’ll be interesting to see how they work out baby-raising roles.

I’ll looking forward to helping out, when the time is right. Like, when the child is toilet-trained and can prepare his or her own bowl of cereal (it takes me a while to get going in the morning).

I told Celeste that I’d been fantasizing recently about how nice it would be to have a grandchild visit us on our rural ten acres, getting to play in the creek and run around our woods.

Celeste said, “Great, Dad. How does taking care of him or her for three months in the summer sound?”

“My thinking was more along the lines of three hours before my afternoon nap,” I told her. But I have a feeling I’m not going to hold to that. Since I was a permissive father, I suspect I’m going to be an even more permissive grandfather.

I go to Hollywood and eat lunch with Kirsten Dunst

Really. I did. For the whole meal we were just a few feet apart. I was sitting at the very M Café table shown in this photo. On the near end, next to the window. My new best friend, Kirsten, she of “Spider-Man” fame, was eating by herself at an outside table right behind the glass.

So our relationship has some room to grow. Like, we could be in the same room. And meet each other. But, hey, this was a good start.

Last weekend Laurel and I visited my daughter Celeste, her husband Patrick, and fabulously spoiled cats Cici and Smokey. After picking us up at the Burbank airport, Celeste showed us around their recently-purchased (and revamped) Hollywood home, looking slim and stylish as always.

My celebrity-seeing karma was even better this trip than last, when we ran into Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. As we walked into the 101 Coffee Shop yesterday to eat breakfast, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy were on their way out.

And on Saturday night, at the opening of a photographer’s show at a Santa Monica art gallery, Laurel and I were introduced to Annabeth Gish of Showtime’s “Brotherhood.” This time I actually shook hands and chatted with a celebrity. (She and Celeste share a yoga class).

What’s great about the Hollywood area, though, is that so many people look like celebrities, even if they aren’t one. Take Patrick, for example. He should be in the movies. Definitely. He already dresses the part. (Love the t-shirt, baby).

The four of us went for a walk in the Hollywood Hills—a different (and less steep) path than last year’s out-of-breath trek. Celeste acquitted herself admirably. I had to prod her into acting more tired than she was as she and Patrick posed in front of the mostly hidden “Hollywood” sign.

Naturally the fit older folks cruised up the hill without any problem at all.

I got to make another pilgrimage to the Bodhi Tree bookstore, a must-see for anyone who wants to browse the best collection of spiritual, mystical, new age, and religious books I’ve ever come across. Fittingly, the next block down is lined with marvelous trees.

Our last stop before heading to the airport yesterday afternoon was the Paul Smith store on Melrose Avenue. Patrick is the manager. It’s tres hip. And colorful.

Flying into nearby Burbank as we did, I was worried that we’d miss the classic LA experience: a freeway traffic jam. Fortunately, the drive to Santa Monica was just slow enough to fulfill me, without being a full-blown nightmare.

Leaving aside the freeways, there’s a lot for organic Oregonians such as us to like about the Hollywood area. We ate great. The 101 Coffee Shop looks exactly like its name. But the food, while coffee shop priced, is way above typical. Health-minded vegetarians can thrive there.

As they can at the macrobiotic M Café. The menu is typical of what we found whenever we sat down to eat at one of the restaurants Celeste and Patrick took us to (they’re a true Hollywood couple; they mostly eat out rather than cook).

Salem, get with it. I don’t expect to sit down with Kirsten Dunst every time I eat lunch. But it sure would be nice to have food like this to choose from. (Yeah, I know, Eugeneians and Portlandians; I should move an hour north or south).

21. Madras Tempeh Wrap 10.25 masala-baked tempeh, brown basmati rice, toasted almonds, raisins, frizzled onions & crisp vegetables with curried soy yogurt dressing in a whole wheat lavosh

A fabulous Father’s Day present

It was worth being woken up from my Sunday nap to get a terrific Father’s Day present: a phone call from my daughter, Celeste. Our connection was all the way from urban hip Hollywood, California to rural laidback Camp Sherman, Oregon.

Today I felt that I’d earned a nap after rousing myself enough to take my bike into Sisters and get a flat tire fixed. After talking with Celeste I felt like I needed another nap. Listening to her passionate 34-year old plans for the future with my lethargic 57-year old psyche was a vicarious energy drain.

And also, hugely satisfying. Yeah, it’s a cliché, but I kept thinking, “The torch is passed.” The flame of my own life is burning less brightly now. Outwardly, at least. I’ve lost much of my youthful desire to change the world and make a name for myself. Celeste hasn’t. I couldn’t be prouder of her.

Not just because of what she’s doing: planning to start three entrepreneurial enterprises while still working as a highly successful manager with Oliver Peoples designer eyewear. My daughter told me that she intends to be a millionaire by next year. I’m confident that she will be.

Celeste already is priceless to me, though, for who she is. I love her creativity, her enthusiasm, her competitive drive, her sense of humor, her intelligence, her good looks. (Here she is in 2005 looking L.A. shopping stylish at the Prada store on Rodeo Drive.)

Gosh, she reminds me of a younger me, as unhumble as that may sound. Which is a large part of the joy of fatherhood. I’d like to live much longer than my allotted life span. Through Celeste, I will.

And if she ever has the child that I shamelessly urge her to bear so that the one and only child of her one and only father will not have to leave this earth grandchildless, then I’ll live on even longer. If the wheel of life continues to revolve through her progeny, forever.

Hanging up the phone a few hours ago, I was filled with emotions. One of which was relief. For over thirty years I’ve been burdened with a semi-subliminal worry about that baby-shaking episode (see reason #4). It’s gone now.

My daughter has survived all the mistakes her father and mother made raising her. Not only survived, thrived. What a great Father’s Day gift you are, Celeste. Thank you. There are no more words.

A tale of two toothpastes

A man who doesn’t have any grandchildren yet, but who looks forward to telling bedtime stories one day, needs to be prepared. And dream…

“Grandpa Brian, tell me the Tale of Two Toothpastes. Oh, please, I love your stories so much!”

“Dear Grandchild, I just told you this story last night. Are you sure you want to hear it again?”

“Yes, yes, yes! I could hear it every night and never, ever get tired of it. Grandpa, I love your stories of the old days. And especially, especially about what you used to write about on your blogs. Did I tell you that my friends and me have started kindergarten blogs?”

“No, honey. But we can talk about you later. Bedtime is all about my stories, remember?

“Yes, Grandpa. Now, please tell me the Tale of Two Toothpastes. I can’t wait!”

“OK. Here we go…”
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Once upon a time there was a man, a lot like me, who went to the dentist. The man didn’t like to go to the dentist, even for a teeth cleaning. He especially didn’t like to see the dentist’s black Porsche parked out back, because he knew that his crowns and cavities had helped pay for that very nice car. And that bugged him.

So the man wasn’t in a wonderful mood when, after his teeth had been x-rayed, and cleaned, and polished, and fluorided by a hygienist, which already had cost the man more money than he wanted to think about, the dentist who owned the very nice black Porsche came in to look at his teeth for a few seconds so he could call it an “exam” and add even more to the man’s already outrageous bill.

And then what the dentist said made the man even more upset. “You got the bad luck of the genetic draw when it comes to your saliva. Your mouth is a natural breeding ground for nasty tooth-destroying stuff.”

Now, the dentist talked more dentistly than this, but the man, who was a lot like me, stopped listening closely after he heard “bad luck,” because he knew that these words, when said by a dentist, meant that the man likely was going to be helping to buy an even nicer black Porsche.

“You’ve got several choices,” the dentist said. “You could brush your teeth many times a day. You could brush with Listerine mouthwash, like I do. Or, if you don’t want to have Listerine running down your arms and chest, like what happens to me [eew! the man thought, wondering if the dentist brushed his teeth in his very nice black Porsche and, if so, how this affected the leather seats], you should at least brush with Listerine toothpaste.”

The man, who had a razor-sharp logical mind, a lot like me, ran through the possibilities in a flash and picked the very best idea, meaning, the easiest idea, because the man wasn’t interested in letting increased teeth-maintenance take time away from all the much more important things the man had to do—like look on the Internet for photos of that cute blonde member of the Russian women’s curling team he had seen on TV.

So after he had written a check to the dentist’s receptionist for more money than a new car cost not so many years ago, the man went to his local Fred Meyer store and bought a tube of Listerine toothpaste. He liked the looks of it. The outside had words like “clinically proven,” “powerful,” and “kills germs.”

This toothpaste, thought the man, would help keep him from buying the rich dentist an even more expensive Porsche. Plus, it would help him keep his teeth healthy. But that was a secondary consideration.

He had a new friend. He would call him “Listy.”

The only problem was, the man already had a toothpaste friend, “Remy.” Remy was what he called his Rembrandt toothpaste that supposedly whitened his teeth—which the man believed with all his heart, because it said “whitening” on the tube, and he felt that the government wouldn’t let someone make a claim that wasn’t true, though when he thought about what was happening in Iraq he sometimes wondered if his teeth were really getting any whiter.

Anyway, the man had been told by his dentist to use Listy, so he reluctantly put Remy away on a bathroom shelf. He often thought that he could hear his old friend Remy crying at night when he used his new friend Listy instead. The man was happy that he had a new clinically proven powerful toothpaste that killed germs, but he was sad that his teeth weren’t getting whiter anymore.

He would think to himself during the two minutes that he timed on his atomic watch every time that he brushed his teeth, “I am going to have germ free ugly teeth soon.” And that made him even sadder, especially when he thought about what a nice Porsche the dentist was going to be able to buy if the man’s Aging Ego ever led him to want ceramic veneers.

Then, one day, the man had a epiphany. Suddenly he felt wonderful! He wasn’t sad any longer. For one thing, he knew that now, if he ever had grandchildren, he could tell them a story with the word “epiphany” in it, which would do a lot for their vocabulary.

But just as important, he knew that he didn’t have to choose between his old friend Remy and his new friend Listy. And he didn’t need to brush his teeth any more often either to spend time with his old friend. The epiphany was so, well, ephiphanous, the man felt like the cosmos had opened up and revealed a Great Truth to him.

He could have it all. He didn’t have to choose. He had been thinking of Remy and Listy as separate things who couldn’t be combined. Yet, they could. There could be two toothpastes on one brush. He had been caught in a dualistic dream from which he'd been awakened by Unity.

“Come together. Right now. On my toothbrush.” The man, who was a lot like me, could hear the Beatles singing. Which might have been a flashback (but that’s another story, dear grandchild).
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“Tell me the moral, Grandpa! You forgot the moral!”

“All right. The moral is…don’t get caught in the Twosies Trap. It’s easy to believe that you have to choose between two things, two people, two ideas, two beliefs, two political parties, two religions, or two whatever. Our Twosies mind likes to divide stuff up, but Onesies is more how the world really works.”

“Thank you, Grandpa Brian. I love the Tale of Two Toothpastes. They’re really one toothpaste, aren’t they?”

“That’s right, dear grandchild. If you see them as Onesies, they are. Good night.”

[Next day update: as noted above, this is how I spent the time I saved by not brushing twice with two different kinds of toothpaste. Except, it took a lot longer than two minutes to find a photo of Ludmila Privivkova, skip (whatever that is) of the Russian women's curling team. If it weren't for hoos Mike, who asked, and Guy, who provided, I'd still be trying to prove to myself that anything can be found on the Internet if you search diligently enough.]

My daughter, the DJ

Finally. Destiny has lifted her skirt and permitted me a peek into her shadowy secrets. For now I realize what karmic impulsion, way back in 1972, led my ex-wife and me to name our one and only daughter Celeste Jeanne Hines.

At the age of 34 she has become a DJ. And, naturally, she is known as “DJ CJ.”

Friday was her coming out, after several weeks of DJ school in the back room of a Hollywood-area record store. With her husband off on a business trip, and her birthday the day before, this was the perfect time for her girlfriends to party on to DJCJ’s tunes.

I have little idea of what DJs do these days. My clubbing days are not only finished; they never started. My ignorance was evident when, in a recent phone conversation with Celeste, I asked her what she said while DJing.

“You don’t talk, Dad! That’s what DJs did in the old days.” OK, I stand corrected. But DJ Madman Mike Your Musical Slave says that some DJs talk and some don’t.

Of course, DJ Madman probably doesn’t live in Hollywood, as DJ CJ does, so I’ve got to believe that my daughter is higher up on the “what’s hip and happening” food chain (question: do hip people say “hip” anymore? probably not).

My daughter, the DJ. She’s so cool. Since I supplied half of her genetic heritage, I must be at least half-cool too.

But the evidence, I readily admit, is lacking.

Silver Falls State Park, rediscovered

Here we are, living in Salem, just 40 minutes or so away from Silver Falls State Park, and it took relatives visiting from Indiana to get our butts up there. Thanks, Jerry and Dee, who are shown here in front of the South Falls along with Laurel (who is Dee’s sister).

This photo fulfills a promise to Jerry, who is making a career move after a lengthy stint as Indiana State Parks director.

Jerry told me that he had Googled himself to find out what a prospective employer would learn about him, and my “Images of Indiana” post, which included a dramatic photo of Jerry being strangled by a kudzu vine, popped up. So I assured Jerry that I’d balance that image of him with another more professional-appearing photo.

It was interesting to walk the Silver Falls trails with Jerry and hear him comment on what he saw from a park director’s viewpoint.

Mostly he had lots of good to say about Silver Falls State Park. But Jerry said that he wouldn’t have put in the metal pipe guardrail that shows in the photo above (wood would look better, though isn’t as long-lasting or sturdy). And this sign next to a parking area struck him (and me) as overly controlling and busy.

But these little things mean nothing compared to the great natural beauty of the park and the generally excellent facilities. We hadn’t been there for so long, I’d forgotten what a enjoyable hike the shorter loop from South Falls to Winter Falls is (about five miles).

The South Falls weren’t falling a lot, given the time of year and Oregon’s semi-drought. The view from behind the falls was still beautiful though.

Here’s the Lower South Falls.

And the Lower North Falls.

As if all this wasn’t enough reason to visit Silver Falls State Park, the snack bar in the lodge serves a fine cup of hot chocolate. I’d also forgotten the joy of hot chocolate after a five mile hike--had quite a few memories refreshed yesterday.

My daughter buys a Hollywood house

If you think that it’s expensive to buy a home in Oregon, particularly in Portland and Bend, take a look at the listing for the Hollywood house that my daughter, Celeste, and her husband are in the process of buying.

$849,000. Two bedrooms, two baths. 1300 sf. Built in 1922. Whew!

And they’re happy to have found it. As they should be. It’s a cute house, nicely redecorated by the current owners. It’s just hard for me to get my head around the idea that this Hollywood house is selling for quite a bit more than double the assessed value of our 3,000 sf South Salem home that sits on five rural acres.

Portland home prices appreciated 11% last year. But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening in L.A. Last night Celeste told me that the Hollywood-area condo they bought three years ago has sold for 74% more than they paid for it. That’s amazing: an average of almost 25% a year.

I hope the southern California housing boom isn’t about to go bust. But even if it does, Celeste and Patrick were able to sell at the peak and buy at the peak. Plus, they’ll be living in their house, no matter what. It’s short-term speculators who likely will be hurt the most in a housing crash, not long-term homeowners.

Best of all, Celeste told me that "It's only two minutes to the hottest clubs!" If they ever get depressed about sinking LA home values, they can easily drink and dance their worries away.

My daughter redeems her hiking-self

After poking some fun at my daughter, Celeste, for letting Laurel and me leave her panting breathlessly in our dust during a hike in L.A.’s Runyon Canyon, I’m pleased to report that Celeste redeemed her hiking-self yesterday.

She and husband Patrick flew up to spend what I had hoped would be a pleasant sunny Memorial Day weekend in Oregon. Pleasant it was; sunny it wasn’t. Nevertheless, we took them up to the Little North Santiam trail, guided by William Sullivan’s recently updated great book “100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades.”

Though Celeste and Patrick had looked wonderfully fit and attractive standing on the Spring Lake dock near our home, I figured these admitted L.A. quasi-couch potatoes would find it hard to keep up with Laurel, me, and wonderdog Serena, avid Oregon outdoors people/canine that we are.

However, my view through most of the Little North Santiam hike was much like this: no sight of Patrick at all, who fell back into his fast-striding Aspen, Colorado hiking days as if he had never left the Rockies; a peek of Celeste’s back as she disappeared around a bend far ahead of me; and a closer view of Laurel, who, along with Serena, kept checking to see if I was still bringing up the rear (in my defense, I was carrying a pack with everybody’s lunch, which included four extremely dense peanut butter and jelly sandwiches plus a couple of gigantic Fuji apples).

When we stopped to appreciate what Sullivan calls the “little falls,” I was able to finally get a close-up look at Patrick and Celeste.

Then we were off again, past pristine Zen-like creeks cascading down to the river.

And through lush unspoiled old growth forest, which hopefully will forever remain so.

Celeste finally met her match (as I did) at the top of the steep switchbacks about two-thirds of the way to Three Pools, so we saved the end of the hike for another day. I reminisced with her about how nice it was to not have to carry her when she got tired, a fatherly memory from when she was three years old that is still fresh in my mind even though she’s thirty-three.

Even more fresh, though, is the memory of me now plodding along behind my daughter on the Little North Santiam trail, hoping that she won’t turn around and say, “Come on, Dad, you can’t be tired already. We just started walking!” She didn’t. But it would have been poetic justice if she had.

One hour with my father

Here’s a contrarian Mother’s Day story about the one hour I spent with my father. Note: the one hour, period. This wasn’t the best or worst hour, nor the happiest or saddest hour. It was the only hour I spent face-to-face with him.

Well, not counting a bunch of hours when I was a baby that I can’t remember. These are the only photos that I have of my father, John Hines. They always have been part of my Baby Book. I used to stare at them a lot when I was a kid, wondering what my father was like.

My mother never talked much about him. They were divorced in October 1952 when I was four. But they split up quite a while before that. I have no memory of my father other than that one hour, which I’ll get to in a little bit.

I don’t think about my father much. I don’t have much to think about. He came to mind recently because Friday I found an envelope in a filing cabinet that Laurel and I were cleaning out. Mice had gotten into the cabinet and shredded quite a bit of paper. Fortunately the envelope that I had gotten from my mother’s things after she died in 1985 was still mostly intact.

A clipping of her engagement to my father was in the envelope. It was the second marriage for both of them. This one only lasted five years. My mother had kept the probate court divorce declaration also. The cause was “that the libellee [my father] being of sufficient ability, has grossly wantonly and cruelly refused and neglected to provide suitable maintenance for said libellant [my mother] and their minor children [me and my sister, Evie].” Ouch.

Evie, my mother told me, was the reason they got divorced. She was born with a congenital heart condition. My father supposedly refused to move from Massachusetts to a drier climate where, the doctors said, she’d do better. He didn’t want to leave his job. My mother moved to Texas and stayed with my grandmother anyway. Good for her. Sadly, Evie died anyway.

My father was supposed to pay $50 a month to support me. He never sent a dime, at least during the time I was old enough to know whether he did or not. He also never sent me a line—no letters, no phone calls, no visits. Every Christmas I’d get a card from him with a check for a small amount of money. The card would be signed, “John.” Not “Dad” or “Your father.” No “Love” either. Just “John.”

So those were my memories of my father until my thirties. Two photos and a few laconically signed Christmas cards. I wanted more, naturally.

Divorce was very uncommon in the 1950s. I think I was the only kid in my elementary school whose parents were divorced. I wasn’t religious, but I did talk a lot to God in my room at night asking him, “Why don’t I have a father like my friends?”

My mother enrolled me in Boy Scouts and sent me to YMCA summer camp for some male influence. The first question boys would ask at camp, once everyone was settled in their cots, was “What does your father do?” I remember lying in my cot petrified as the question circled the room and was answered by camper after camper. I had no idea what to say. It was unthinkable to admit that I didn’t have a father.

My best friend bailed me out with a distracting joke at just the right time. I’ve never thanked him for this until now: if you read weblogs, Kenny Hart (you probably go by “Ken” now), bless you for being so sensitive.

When I was in my early thirties I picked up the phone one evening and heard, “Hi. This is John, your father.” Hmmmm. Okay. So? He did most of the talking. I could tell right away that he was much more interested in telling me about himself, than in learning about me and my family. That figured. The way he abandoned my mother and me, I didn’t have him pegged for a saint.

My father was sick. He had emphysema. Apparently he wanted to do some long distance conversing with his son before he got sicker. He told me a lot about himself. I don’t know how much to believe. A genius IQ? Maybe. One of the country’s top computer experts and a NASA consultant? Maybe. A founder of a high tech company, Systems and Computer Technology Corporation? Certainly—he sent me some stock in recompense for all those years of not paying child support.

A kick-ass efficiency expert for General Electric? Yes, I confirmed that later, during my one hour with him. Let’s see, what else? He said that he was adopted by the Hines’ and put a lot of work into researching his family history. He found out that his parents were Polish speaking Germans who came to this country early in the 1900s to work on the railroad. His mother died giving birth to him. His father cut and ran. Like father, like son.

At the time he told me about being a co-founder of Systems and Computer Technology Corporation, I had recently become a Ph.D. dropout after completing two years of coursework in a Systems Science doctoral program. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Like father, like son.” But I didn’t want to be like my father. Yet, obviously in some ways I was.

What little my mother told me about John Hines was along the lines of, “He was an ex-Marine, tall, good-looking, a fine writer, charming.” Also, a jerk. I didn’t mind associating myself with the 50% of my genetic heritage that had positive qualities. But it began to creep me out the more my father would phone and ramble on about his life. I started to realize that, as the saying goes, I was cut from the same cloth—or at least half of the cloth—but had just unfolded in a different way, owing to other influences.

During one of our conversations I told him that I was going to attend a Systems Dynamics computer modeling seminar at M.I.T. He was staying in a Boston hotel and getting treated at a local hospital. I agreed to meet him at his hotel the afternoon before the seminar started.

Most people have spent lots of time with their fathers. A few people never have seen their fathers because of adoption or death. I haven’t heard of anyone like me who got to spend just a single hour with his or her father. As you can imagine, I was nervous walking down the hotel corridor to his room. I knocked.

My half-brother, Mike, opened the door. Apparently my father needed some support during this visit. John walked up to me and shook my hand. We didn’t hug or anything. No tears of joy. Nothing that you see in the movies. Real life isn’t like the movies.

What is real life like? Real life is having one hour in your life face-to-face with your father, and spending that time looking at General Electric manuals that he had arranged on the bed prior to my arrival, efficiently opened up to pages that he wanted to impress me with.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. I dutifully thumbed my way through manual after manual, listening to my father’s stories about how he went into GE plants that were having problems and got them back up to speed. “What the hell?” I kept thinking to myself. “If this is how my father wants to spend his time with his long-ignored son, so be it.”

We got through all of the manuals. I shook his hand again. When the door shut behind me and I started walking down the corridor to my rented car, I was so happy. Not happy that I had finally gotten to meet my father—happy that I would never have to see my father again.

Which I never did.

Moral to this story? If there is one, it’s that fantasies aren’t reality and what you get in life often is better than what you want in life. Growing up, I wanted my father. When I was grown up, that one hour with him taught me that I was hugely better off fatherless. I’m already too much like him. If I had grown up with him, I might have become him.

That’s too scary to think about. Time for a mind-cleansing nap, hopefully with fatherless dreams.

Lori Ferguson of Concord CA, read this

Are you Lori Ferguson, born June 12, 1990, who lives in Concord, California, and whose parents are Cathy and Steve Ferguson? (Or do you know Lori? If so, pass this message on to her). I’ve got a message for you about your grandparents, whom you haven’t seen since December 1999..

Lori, I’m your great-uncle Brian. Yesterday I took this photo of your grandfather and grandmother—Bob and Carol Ann Gray—in front of the lilacs at our home in Salem, Oregon. They’ve been visiting my wife, Laurel, and me. We’ve talked, as we always do, about how much they would like to see you, to talk with you, to get a letter from you. Any connection with you would be better than nothing.

As I’m sure you know, since 2000 your mother and father have refused to let Bob and Carol Ann have any sort of contact with you and your brother, Bo. To put it bluntly, this is cruel and unusual punishment for grandparents. They love you a lot. This enforced separation has caused them a lot of pain.

You’re old enough to make your own decision about whether you want to see your grandparents again. I hope you’ll choose to contact them. Their phone number in Walnut Creek is 925-939-1474. Their email address is [email protected]. It’s time, long past time, to bring you together with them.

I’ve still got a stack of correspondence from your mother and grandmother about the family rift that led to this hugely unfortunate situation. I tried to serve as a go-between. Obviously I didn’t succeed.

Lori, I have no idea what your parents have told you about why they don’t want you to see your grandparents again. And I’m not going to make any judgments about who is right and who is wrong here. My personal impression is that your mother made a big deal out of a small misunderstanding.

I’ll end with some excerpts from a letter I wrote to your mother on March 20, 2000 (see continuation to this post). Please read them with an open mind. I spoke my own mind quite strongly. I didn’t intend then, nor do I intend now, to disparage your mother’s and father’s religious beliefs, which you might share. I just wanted to have them do some thinking about what it means to be truly spiritual.

Wide-eyed on Rodeo Drive

Really short shorts. A model you can stand on. Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. During our weekend trip to Hollywood and Beverly Hills we were wide-eyed at the never-in-Oregon sights we saw.

Here’s Laurel and my daughter, Celeste Vos, colorfully mixing with the Pacific Design Center. LA is bold and bright. It grew on us this trip, though we aren’t ready to trade in Oregon for southern California.

Speaking of bold, the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive featured these short shorts. Celeste’s husband, Patrick, manages the men’s department. [Note to Gucci security: he didn’t know I snapped the in-store photos] It was an erotic moment fondling the strategically-placed price tag. Which read, I believe, $375.

While I was fondling the shorts, Laurel was ogling Gucci male models strutting their runway stuff on a nearby monitor. I knew Laurel liked to watch TV, but I had never seen her so mesmerized. Must have been the clothes that were so fascinating (yeah, right).

The Prada store lobby featured models in underground grottos you could stand on, plus some headless naked mannequins. Inside, Celeste said the dressing rooms have cameras that show you a 360 degree view of yourself and your potential pricy Prada purchase. Way cool.

Here are some Rodeo Drive babes who were only too happy to pose for me.

Had to prove that we were really there.

I got to visit a place of pilgrimage for me, the renowned Bodhi Tree Bookstore. Since I’m a metaphysical bookaholic, I felt like a drunk set loose in the Jim Beam warehouse. Only bought two books though, a miracle.

Sunday morning Celeste took us for a hike at Runyon Canyon. We ran into Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. Not literally, but they were just a few feet away coming down as we were going up. I didn’t want to act like a doofus Oregon tourist, so waited until they were past to whip out my camera. The teeny tiny white dot way down the trail is Cameron. Or maybe Justin. People magazine, make me an offer on the photo (minimum bid, 25 cents).

Celeste printed out a trail map from Runyon-Canyon.com. Unfortunately, we didn’t read the part that said “Going anti-clockwise is a much more energetic climb up the steps and steep slopes between Inspiration Point and Clouds Rest.” Here’s Celeste trying to inspire some breath in this very location.

The 50-somethings left the 30-something panting by the side of the trail and zipped up to Cloud’s Rest. We were treated to a beautiful view of the Hollywood hills.

So many amazing southern California sights. But this tops them all: an eleven hundred square foot house on half a lot listed for $800,000. In Salem, you probably could get it for $150,000, maybe less. On Sunday we went to a couple of open houses with Celeste. She says, “Whenever I’m feeling too good and want to get depressed, I go look at houses for sale in the Hollywood area.”

Celeste and Patrick own a condo but want to move up to a home with character for $700,000 or less. If you’ve got one in West Hollywood, I have a buyer for you (as if you didn’t already have a crowd of would-be buyers on your doorstep).

I paparazzi myself

The guy sitting outside the Coffee House Café this morning looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Gucci jeans jacket. Oliver Peoples designer eyewear. He looked like he belonged in Hollywood rather than Salem.

I couldn’t tell exactly what he was saying on the cellphone, but I thought I heard “If you can’t get Leonardo and Julia for less than 30 mill, I’m out of this deal.” Or, maybe not.

After I snapped the first photo, the guy smiled, motioned me closer, and took off his dark glasses. Now I recognized him! It was me.

I just didn’t feel like myself after my West Hollywood daughter, Celeste, and her husband, Patrick, gave me the Gucci jacket for Christmas. I couldn’t wait to wear it in public today. However, the decidedly counter-culture Coffee House Café isn’t exactly the place to go if you want people to admire your Italian fashion statement.

I didn’t get one comment about the jacket, except from my friends: “Stop talking about how it says ‘Gucci’ on the buttons, please.” Well, at least it was a comment.

Patrick manages the men’s department at the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive, and Celeste is an account executive with Oliver People's Eyewear (note to the Gucci webmaster about the store locator page: it is “Beverly” Hills, not “Beveryly”—for this proofreading work I’ll accept another jeans jacket in a different color).

Celeste had given me the gradient lens, reflective Olivers People’s dark glasses about a year and a half ago, so fortunately I had cool shades to go with my new cool jacket. About the only thing I lacked was a cool cell phone, but my friend Hans loaned me his Samsung flip phone when he saw that I was planning to pose with an (ugh) basic Nokia.

Thanks to Celeste and Patrick for adding a dash of southern California style to my rather drab life. When Laurel and I visit you next month I’ll be heading right off to the Gucci store to do some shopping. But unless I win the lottery, it will probably just be for some socks. (How much is that employee discount, Patrick?)

A Christmas memory

I'm not usually all that sentimental, but I wanted to share a 1985 Christmas memory of my mother this 2004 Christmas Eve. I posted it on my Church of the Churchless weblog.

Life everlasting and joy. Christian or not, this is a message we all need to be reminded of. I'm thankful to the memory that did just that for me.

Images of Venice and Florence

Here's a glimpse of Venice and Florence through the camera lens of my daughter, Celeste Vos, and her husband Patrick. I've selected six photos from their Ofoto album that struck my eye.

A self-portrait of Celeste and Patrick at Venice's Piazza San Marco. What a great-looking couple! Don't you think it's time for them to reproduce their obviously exemplary genetic heritage into the form of a child (and grandchild)? This father thinks so.

Celeste lost at night in the streets of Venice. I like the gloomy atmosphere of this photo. Having been lost in Venice myself back in the late 1960s, I can identify with the situation: I would take a street that deadended at a canal and backtrack to a street that would curve around and lead me back to a street that I had a sneaking supicion would deadend at a canal because I was going around in circles.

A nice shot of Patrick blending with his surroundings. Do you think they carried different colored sweaters around with them on their Venice excursions? I doubt it. This must have been photo serendipity.

On to Florence, where Celeste looks tres European in front of the Piazza Duomo. Wouldn't it be great if we could combine the best of the United States with the best of Europe? I think this merging of bests would result in a USA that is a lot more livable, interesting, and attractive. I wish all those uber-patriotic Europe-bashers would go over there and see how much we have to learn from people who tend to put a higher priority on truly living well instead of merely working hard.

Celeste posing in front of a naked guy. This statue sure wouldn't be standing if it was at the Justice Department while Ashcroft was in charge. Another nice attribute of Europeans is that religion plays a miniscule role in their politics. Laurel and I have a friend of German heritage who tells us that if a European leader made a big deal about his religious faith, he couldn't be elected to a high office. Just the opposite is true in the U.S., sadly.

Here's Celeste and Patrick looking all dapper by what I assume is the Arno river. Thanks for sharing your European adventure, guys. Their complete photo album can be perused here.

The Tao of Paris Hilton

It’s dawned on me that I should pay more respect to Paris Hilton, my dear second cousin who, sadly, I have never met. In the past Laurel and I have enjoyed making catty observations about Paris’ seeming vacuousness. Though undeniably beautiful and sexy, her persona has a Barbie Doll quality that makes you wonder, “Is there anything there?”

However, a recent Oregonian article about Paris led me to look on her in a different light. Her emptiness is the key to her recursive ability to be famous for being famous. Not just for fifteen minutes, but for…who knows?...perhaps a lifetime.

The article’s author (Kristi Turnquist) quotes Jeannette Walls, a gossip columnist for MSNBC, on how Paris’ sex tape affected her career: A sex tape can ruin your career if you have a reputation that can be destroyed, or if you have any sort of credibility. If you don’t have any to begin with, it just enhances your fame. It’s like a postmodern study in public relations.

That’s so Zen, so Taoist. Paris has nothing, so she has everything. Unconcerned with the illusory dualities of right and wrong, wisdom and ignorance, light and dark, Paris has become one with the still point of Nothingness from which yin and yang emerge.

Yes, I can come to no other conclusion than Paris Hilton is an unrecognized sage whose sageness is magnified by its hiddenness. For confirmation from a revered text I turned to the “Tao Te Ching” and read about the Wise Man/Woman:

I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other men are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other men are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.

And let us also learn to appreciate Paris more by studying this passage from “The Book of Chuang Tzu,” where a long-lived, greatly-venerated tree appears to Master Shih in a dream and explains why it has never been cut down like other trees:

Because they are useful, they suffer, and they are unable to live out the years Heaven has given them. They have only their usefulness to blame for this destruction wrought by the people. It is the same with all things. I have spent a long time studying to be useless, though on a couple of occasions I was nearly destroyed. However, now I have perfected the art of uselessness, and this is very useful, to me! If I had been of use, could I have grown so vast?

All praise to uselessness! May Paris Hilton live long and prosper in her empty fullness! Paris, you have passed beyond the confining walls of decorum and entered the vastness of the Wu Chi void.

I long to follow in your footsteps, though not in your shoes.

West Hollywood condo for sale

OK, it’s unlikely that I’m going to find any buyers for a West Hollywood condo via my Oregon weblog, but I figured I’d take a stab at helping out my daughter and her husband. Theirs is the 950 Kings Road, #244 listing at $429,000 under "current listings." I figure that a percent or two should flow my way if I broker a deal, which would get me started nicely on a Mini Cooper S purchase.

Celeste and Patrick, if you’re interested in moving from L.A. to Sisters (Oregon), I found a nice home for you at the same price. Doesn’t it make you sick? Just had to taunt you with what you could buy in Oregon instead of staying in crowded, smoggy southern California. Of course, you’d have to get new jobs, probably, unless Gucci and Oliver Peoples wanted to open some stores in Sisters. That’s a small detail to be worked out.

Laurel and I would visit you whenever we went to our cabin in Camp Sherman. We’d even baby sit my grandchild, when there is a grandchild. Think about it. I still can’t believe that my Portland-born daughter has embraced the L.A. lifestyle. And Patrick, you’re from rural Wisconsin, so you don’t have any excuse either. Move to Sisters and you’ll feel right at home: cold (for a good part of the year).

A wedding miracle: I dance!

There is something magic about every wedding, though Britney Spears’ Las Vegas escapade just sprung to mind, which demolishes the universal applicability of my topic sentence. Okay, let’s make it: There is something magic about almost every wedding, including Brook and Corey’s here in Indiana yesterday (Brook is Laurel’s niece).

Laurel got to read a poem that she also had read at the wedding of Brook’s parents, Dee and Jerry, more years ago than any of them would want to remember. We worked on her delivery the night before. Laurel’s performance was great, in this drama coach’s entirely biased opinion.

The poem likens man and woman to kites and kite string holders. A kite has to be given enough loose string to fly, but you can’t let go of it entirely. Pretty apt. It’s got a line about Man that says “In the lust of his maleness,” which strikes the ear because it isn’t the sort of thing I’ve heard spoken at a wedding before. Acted out, yes, especially after the alcohol starts flowing at the reception.

Weddings feature some wonderfully mysterious rituals. I’m not sure what Corey is doing here, but it looks like the newly Mrs. Rieman is enjoying it. Guess he decided to take Laurel’s poem to heart.

The greatest miracle of this magical day was that I made it out onto the dance floor. By “made it out” I really mean “cajoled.” Since I don’t drink, I have a handicap that most of the dancing guys at the wedding lack. Namely, I’m fully aware of my dancing ineptitude. My sober mind observed that the number of men dancing at the reception bore a direct linear relationship to the number of beers consumed.

Laurel, however, got right out there when the music began to play with no cajoling and no alcohol. She is a dancing fool, whereas I’m a fool, dancing. Here she is with one of her grand-nieces, Mackenna, showing off her moves. I was happy watching, dancing voyeur that I am. Eventually, though, the Wedding Miracle came over me and I had an out of body experience, amazedly watching as if from a great height the physical Brian heave himself out of his seat and lurch onto the dance floor.

It wasn’t so bad once I realized that the lights were low and, given the quasi-rap music being played at the time, there was no way you could make a wrong move, since there were no right moves to make. When the dancing changed to the Macarena and similarly strongly-structured dances, naturally I fled the floor like a startled bunny.

Laurel and I had our own couple moment under the wedding arbor. Laurel looks great, as always. I look old. And this was before the dancing, which aged me even more. Well, I consider myself to be Laurel’s answer to plastic surgery and botox, since all she has to do is stand beside me looking as beautiful as she did yesterday, with me looking as Me as I always do, and a bystander can’t help but think: “Trophy wife.” Which she is.

Images of Indiana

Even with a bit of jet lag we’re pretty sure this is Indiana. I took some photographic evidence today to confirm that we’ve left Oregon.

I’ve never seen a Kudzu attack in the Northwest. I thought that Kudzu was a purely southern botanical nightmare, but the tenacious tendrils around the attackee here, Jerry Pagac (husband of Laurel’s sister, Mardee), prove otherwise. Jerry is the director of state parks in Indiana, so you'd think he'd know better than to get so close to rapidly growing Kudzu. Hopefully this non-native nuisance can't grow in Oregon. It'd be the devil's twin if it hooked up with that damnable Himalayan Blackberry that is such a nuisance in our south Salem lives.

I looked and looked during a walk in the woods today, and didn’t see a single fir tree. More proof. I also felt a lot of humidity, another unusual sensation in Oregon for which Oregonians can be hugely thankful. When we got off the airplane, at first I thought the sauna-like atmosphere was kind of cool (figuratively speaking, of course). But it doesn’t take long to realize that a sauna is pleasant because you can get out of it. This Indiana sauna is the very air.

Wonder of wonders, there are still places in the country where you can smoke in a Burger King. Probably there are lots of places. We non-smokers are spoiled in Oregon. Our Veggie Burgers had a faintly smoked essence to them, and that didn’t have anything to do with the ingredients or how they were cooked. The “smoking area” actually took up about ¾ of the Burger King, non-smokers being confined to a small strip under the sign. I guess the closer you get to Kentucky and points south, the bigger pull tobacco has.

I’ve gone into many public restrooms in Oregon and can’t recall ever seeing a bunch of Christian save-your-soul booklets scattered around. The first public restroom I entered in Indiana (other than at the airport) had this possibly blasphemously-positioned pamphlet right where I couldn’t miss it. Well, actually I could miss it, if you get what I mean, which saved me from engaging in a decidedly blasphemous act.

The real Indiana is, I feel, embodied in this vegetable stand in front of the grower's home. The guy was wonderfully polite and straightforward. He was manning the stand at the moment, but there was a plastic box on the table for when he wasn’t that said “Leave money inside. Thank you.” Yes, this sort of trust also can be found in Oregon. It just seemed so quintessential mid-West. We liberal West-coasties sometimes mock those with “traditional values.” Yet when you meet someone solidly Indianaish, you realize there is an awful lot to like about them.

Is Paris Hilton hot and heavy with Plotinus?

Not likely, since Plotinus is a long-dead 3rd century Greek philosopher and Paris Hilton is, well, Paris Hilton. But Google has taught me that it is weblog postings with subjects like this that lead to popularity in the blogosphere.

Not that I have a huge desire for HinesSight to have lots of readers, of course. If I did, I’d write about my relationship with Paris Hilton (see “Family” category) more than the two times I have. For my daily perusal of TypePad Visitor Stats has led me to a not very astounding conclusion: Internet users are a lot more interested in sex and politics than in philosophy and spirituality.

Ever since I wrote about my Hilton family genealogy and the fact that Paris and I are second cousins, I’ve observed on my TypePad statistics that Google/Yahoo “paris hilton relatives” and similar searches lead Paris acolytes to my weblog with wonderful regularity. However, I am quite sure that they do not stay around to peruse my profound and eloquent musings on so many other subjects, such as Plotinus.

Thus, I need to find a way to somehow associate Paris Hilton and Plotinus in a fashion that is both true and transparent (Plotinus would not want it any other way). I would feel bad luring people to my weblog with a provocative mention of Paris’ philosophical tastes—though admittedly I may be doing just that in this posting—which is not founded in rock-solid Hiltonesque reality.

So if a Paris Hilton publicist happens across this writing in a “what are people saying about Paris?” Internet search, here’s my pitch: Imagine Paris and Nicole sitting down with a Hilton relative at his home in rural south Salem to discuss his book about Greek philosophy. Great stuff. Much better than most of what was shown on “The Simple Life.” Like Paris, we’ve got an absolutely charming dog (see “Serena” category) and my wife has long blonde hair, so there are some connections we can build on.

Her person could call my person. Except, I’m my own person. So you can email me and we’ll take a lunch. Private jets are most welcome at the Salem airport. We can hang at the Coffee House café and do some organic chai.

If this plan doesn’t pan out, I’ll have to go the politics route. A few days after I wrote a posting called Hilarious “This Land” Bush/Kerry download, I was thrilled to log onto TypePad and find that thousands of visits were being made to HinesSight. The peak was 1,900 on one day, I think, and visits stayed over 1,000 for the rest of the week. (Without divulging my baseline popularity, let's just say that this was an above-average week--to put it mildly).

The first time I saw this action on the TypePad stats page, for a nano-second I said to myself, “Yes! Plotinus has finally hit the big time! People all over the world are flocking to learn more about mystic Greek philosophy!” But after that nano-second I saw that virtually every referrer was from a search engine query for “bush kerry this land,” or such. Somehow Google and Yahoo had plopped me near the top of their search results. Go figure. The power of weblogs, I guess.

I’m pleased that HinesSight has been able to guide quite a few people in the direction of the wonderful Jib-Jab “This Land” animation. It is both hugely entertaining and right on politically. Throughout the Democratic convention I couldn’t help but think of the “and I’ve got three Purple Hearts” line every time (and it was often) mention of Kerry’s war hero-ness came up.

I also thought: Hmmmm. When did the Vietnam War become such a great memory for liberals? All I remember in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were protests against the war. Bring the troops home! Watching the convention, I could almost believe that Vietnam was a high point for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Democratic operatives are as good at spinning history as Republican operatives. They just spin to the left rather than to the right.

Paris Hilton and I become more intimate

A belated public thank you to Isaac (I’ve already thanked him via an email) for giving me some genealogy education—and, most importantly, for increasing the intimacy between me and Paris Hilton. As noted in a comment on a posting a while back, Isaac assures me that Paris and I are second cousins, not third cousins.

Where I had gotten confused—and you have to admit that this genealogy stuff is indeed confusing—is that Conrad Hilton’s parents are my great-grandparents, whereas they are Paris Hilton’s great-great-grandparents. So I was looking at things from Paris’ perspective, kind of a scary thought, rather than my own.

But Isaac says that a relationship between two people is ruled, so to speak, by the more senior person. Thus, if I find that Paris is my second cousin, while she finds that I am her third cousin, the perspective of the 55 year old philosophically-inclined writer takes precedence over that of the beautiful twenty-something party girl/actress/model. As it should, of course.

However, after watching a VH1 program about Paris and Nicky earlier in the week while I was on a stairmaster at our exercise club, I started to see Paris in a fresh light. Her shameless self-promotion and seemingly non-stop partying actually can be viewed as the implementation of a savvy business plan.

She is bringing in big bucks through sales of her clothing and accessory line, plus her acting and modeling career. A music CD also is in the works, and who knows what else. Paris has had much more than her fifteen minutes of fame, which takes skill and smarts to pull off. I’m beginning to think there is quite a bit more to Paris than meets the eye (though that alone certainly is pleasant enough to observe).

My Paris Hilton relationship revealed

I’ve come to feel that it finally is time to reveal the nature of my relationship with Paris Hilton. Laurel and I have been following her “career” (so to speak) with considerable interest, observing with wonder the marvel of how—as others have noted before me—it is so easy in America to be famous for being famous.

While this tidy circularity implies that Paris’ accomplishment has been largely effortless, our research on E and VH1 tells us otherwise: Paris works very hard at partying, and she devotes much time and attention to looking naturally beautiful. Yet Paris is more than a party girl. In addition to her well-known “acting” career, CNN recently reported that Paris also helped direct the artistically-filmed short subject in which she also starred.

Up to now I have kept my personal relationship with Paris Hilton a secret, divulging this fact to only a few close friends and relatives—including my wife, who, thankfully, is understanding of why a fifty-five year old man would be so interested in someone who is much younger than his daughter. One reason, aside from the obvious reason, is that Paris and I are…well, something-or-other-relations, perhaps third cousins once-removed, though I’m not sure about this.

Perhaps some genealogy-expert reader could decipher the true nature of our relationship, so I could confidently speak of Paris Hilton, my dear [whatever]. As Wikipedia reveals, Paris Hilton is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the Hilton Hotel founder. Barron Hilton, Conrad’s son, is her grandfather, and Rick Hilton, Barron Hilton’s son, is her father. I am the great-nephew of Conrad Hilton (Eva Hilton, Conrad’s sister, is my grandmother, and her daughter, Carolyn Hines, is my mother).

This makes Paris and me something-or-other. Here I learned that a second cousin is a child of the cousin of your father or mother. And over here I found an impressive, yet confusing, genealogy chart that leads me to question whether Paris and I have any discernible familial relationship at all. This disturbed me, so I’m hopeful that someone can find a name for what links us. For I’ve become quite attached to the idea that underlying the obvious differences between Paris and me, there is some common genetic ground by which I can see myself in her, and she in me (assuming she ever were to come to know of me, which assumes that she would even have some interest in coming to know of me).

I was fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time with Conrad Hilton (senior) in my youth, and, like Paris, he certainly liked to party—though not quite in the same fashion as her. When I was twelve or so, I can fondly remember meeting a gorgeous UCLA “co-ed” at his home in Bel-Air who, in retrospect, may not have been the hotel management graduate student that I took her to be at the time. The core of “Uncle Connie,” though, was something rarely observed in today’s business leaders: honesty, faith, trustworthiness. Some of the reader reviews on Amazon of his (out-of-print) book, “Be My Guest,” speak about this. I suspect that he would look aghast on the likes of Donald Trump, since his style of doing business was worlds apart from what passes for “leadership” today.

(Note to con artists: a major difference between Paris Hilton and me is that Paris and her sister are heirs to Hilton corporate assets, while I am not. My mother received $10,000 from her uncle’s estate, and I got nothing. Sadly, not even a Lifetime Guest Pass to his hotels, which I always thought would be a great present for a great-nephew. On a serious note, Conrad Hilton was my godfather, and I like to think that somehow I have benefited from his guidance over the years. He was a rare human being, both as a person and as a businessman.)

Kentucky goings-on

We got back yesterday from six days in Kentucky—the annual reunion of Laurel’s family at her sister’s home outside of Lexington. Lynn and Randy were great hosts, as always, managing to keep many children, adults, dogs, and cats fed, entertained, and under enough control so nobody got seriously hurt. I did get scratched by the “good kitty,” which is a smidgen of what I would have gotten if I had ever met up with the “bad kitty” (never could get their real names straight; all that mattered was keeping their personalities straight).

As soon as we arrived in our rental car at the motel where we were staying, some Kentuckians came over and asked us what we thought of the new license plate, which apparently had just been released, and wasn’t on many cars yet (we had a late model Dodge). These guys looked like they were on a Memorial Day golfing outing, minus the wives, and seemed harmless enough, but “Deliverance” memories always pop up in my brain when I hear a southern accent in a semi-deserted parking lot.

So I tried to say something nice about the license plate, even though it clearly was the most bizarre and freaky plate I’d ever seen. Here’s a press release about it, which includes a photo. However, with a few beers under their belt, these guys weren’t shy about expressing their own hugely negative opinions, which fits with the general reaction of Kentuckians. Oregon may have lots of problems, and our license plate isn’t the greatest, but we sure are lucky we don’t have to drive around with a smiley face on our bumpers.

In the same neighborhood, Laurel had an ego-building experience when she got honked at by some good ol’ boys as she was crossing the road on her way to a convenience store. She figured that with her back turned, and her long blond hair, they might have taken her for one of the dancers at the nude nightclub (“Solid Gold”, if I recall the name correctly) next door to our motel. Regardless, it’s nice to get some wolf-whistles and wolf-honks when you’re, um, older than you used to be when you got such attention more regularly. I didn’t do as well, though the guy who was missing some of his front teeth in the Subway shop we stopped at on our way from the Cincinatti/Northern Kentucky airport did look at me with a little more interest than I would have liked (there goes that “Deliverance” banjo music in my mind again).

It was nice to see Kentucky, a beautiful state in its own right, but Oregon really is something special. Flying home on Delta Tuesday evening, we passed by Mt. Hood right at summit level, with Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Saint Helens standing proud on the right side of the plane. Oregon mountains put Kentucky mountains to shame, no doubt about that. And the benefit of Oregon land use laws are equally evident when you compare flying into Cincinnati with flying into Portland. Much less suburban sprawl here, compared to there. So its crazy that so many people in Oregon want to trash our greatest asset, this state’s natural environment, just to build more crap that could be built anywhere. Oregon should be founding its economic recovery on our greatest assets: nature, beauty, wilderness, conservation, a sustainable ethic. Unfortunately, few people here have the breadth and scope of internal vision to match the external vision we saw from 12,000 feet up.

Some hipness added to our drab lives

It was great to have Celeste (my daughter) and Patrick (her husband) spend the weekend, and part of Monday, with us. It was even worth driving through a seriously weird hail- and rain-storm on the way to the Portland airport Friday afternoon. The thermometer on my Volvo was at 48 degrees (outside temperature) just before the storm; it dropped to 36 degrees in the middle of the storm, during which I-205 was completely white—covered with hail—and cars were driving 30 miles an hour on an almost deserted freeway. Then, a few miles later, it warmed up, and traffic went 10 miles an hour because of numerous crashes.

So we were a mere half hour late, give or take half a hour, picking up Celeste. She had already phoned Patrick (who arrived on Saturday) once she stepped outside the airport doors, looking for us: “It’s freezing here, and my Dad hasn’t showed up yet. Do you think I should take the next plane back to L.A.?” Ah, I love my daughter’s hardiness. Patrick brought up her “puffy” jacket, which looked like it would get her up the slopes of Everest. She wore it on a walk around our nearby lake Sunday, when it was 65 degrees out, and Oregonians were in T-shirts and shorts.

Saturday we paid a visit to the one and only optical store in Salem that sells Oliver Peoples eyewear, and I got fitted for some mucho cooler shades. I can only hope that Celeste doesn’t forget about her promise to give me a pair of what I tried on. Famous actors wear them, I’m told. But not those oh-so-embarrassing Maui Jim dark glasses Laurel and I favor at present. Hey, I told Celeste, if I don’t have to pay $300 for Oliver Peoples glasses, I’ll be happy to wear them everywhere I go, a walking/talking advertisement for O.P. (which doesn’t advertise much, at least not in the magazines I read).

Patrick manages the men’s department at the Beverly Hills Gucci store, which puts him in the same coolness range as Celeste. It was interesting to hear tales of Gucci buyers, who clearly don’t live in the same universe as the rest of us. I learned that the trend among the superrich is to have complete wardrobes of clothes in each residence that one owns around the world, so you don’t have to go through the oh-so-gauche labor of packing suitcases and carrying them around with you. Apparently you just carry on the plane your little Gucci tote bag, get picked up by the limo driver, and open the Gucci-filled closets at your other home.

Aside from being exposed to the L.A. Rodeo Drive lifestyle that is so different from Salem’s Commercial Street lifestyle, it was wonderful to catch up with Celeste and Patrick. I got to make my usual pathetic speeches about how so many other guys my age have grandchildren, and how, in these uncertain times, one never knows how long a middle-aged man will live, and whether his only child will ever give him the joy he always has longed for—namely, the satisfaction of seeing Celeste’s child/children drive her as crazy as she did him.

At times...now, she helps me keep my sanity, what is left of it, and I'm hugely proud of the lovely, successful woman she's become. This is the real joy of parenting, when the children grow up, and you begin to relate to them adult-to-adult, rather than parent-to-child. We had some sort of a stuffed animal rite of passage experience together, in which I dragged down from the crawl space bags upon bags filled with her old stuffed animals, and Celeste chose the few she wanted to keep, the rest going to Goodwill.

Then, we hauled down boxes upon boxes labeled “Celeste’s treasures,” stuff she couldn’t bear to part with after graduating from high school. I pulled over a garbage can, and soon it was filled. Another rite of passage, leaving behind memories that once were precious, but now aren’t. Myself, I think this is healthy. I’ve never been one to keep, um, keepsakes. Why get stuck in the past when the present is, um, present?

If you want a taste of how cool I’m going to be looking when my Oliver Peoples glasses come in, check out the O.P. web site. The main page takes quite a while to load on my slow connection, but a lot of hipness is coming over the bandwidth.

Pancake recipe shared with world

Celeste, my daughter, is arriving from Los Angeles in a few hours for a weekend visit. (Her husband, Patrick, comes on Saturday, to enjoy with Celeste the all-too-common November-in-May Oregon weather. Our gutters were overflowing this morning, so I climbed up on the roof with my trusty high-powered leaf blower—a great way to clean gutters, by the way, even if water is in them—and ended up getting hailed on.)

In honor of Celeste’s visit, for it has been quite a while since I’ve seen my one and only offspring, I have decided to share with the world the pancake recipe which sustained Celeste throughout her childhood, and well into adolescence. Since she was a vegetarian who hated vegetables, other forms of nutrition had to be found that suited her fussy eating habits. This pancake recipe was one of them. I got it from a old friend who I grew up with in Three Rivers, California—Todd Wells.

Todd lived on a ranch. These are ranch pancakes. They have scared countless little girls who stayed overnight with Celeste, and innocently answered “yes” when I asked them if they would like pancakes for breakfast. Ha ha! I could hardly wait to plop these suckers down on their plate and hear them start crying. “What is that! They’re not pancakes!! I want my mommy’s pancakes!” “Tough luck,” I’d tell them. “You’re not at your mommy’s house anymore, and these are the pancakes you’re going to damn well eat. So, dig in!”

You see, these babies end up about an inch thick when they’re done. Eat a couple of them, and you could have been stranded with the Donner Party and survive the winter. In short, these are real pancakes, not those wimpy imitation pancakes most people make from a box, thin and insubstantial. I normally don’t make them with buttermilk, because I don’t like to drink buttermilk plain, but the original recipe used it. Strawberries and whipped cream make a good topping.

Todd’s (and Brian’s) California Ranch Pancakes
Mix: 1 cup oats (I use quick oats), 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, ¼ cup wheat germ, ¼ cup powdered milk, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda
Add: 1 ¾ cups milk, 2 tablespoons oil
Cook!

Academy Awards reprise

I knew it! As I surmised in my last post, I knew there was no way that Laurel and I, who go to movies at real theatres regularly, could have only gotten 10 Oscar winners right, while my sister and brother-in-law, who spend about half the year in St. Lucia, where movie-going plays a second (or nineteeth) fiddle to margarita drinking and lying in the hammocking, could have gotten 16 and 17 Oscars right. Today Carol Ann fessed up in a revealing email message:

"Anyway, you were right on our internet use for winning the annual first prize. Bob actually went to a web site where they listed 42 different people like Roger Ebert and all the movies they thought would win. But as you can see, Bob didn't get them all right, so the majority isn't always the one to vote for. I voted for Michael Moore because he has done some good documentaries. But after listening to his speech, I will certainly not see the movie and add to his pocket change."

Regarding Michael Moore, he did go a bit, or a lot, over the top in his "acceptance speech" (did he actually ever thank anyone? I don't think so.) Even though I like Michael, his fanaticism on the left is almost as disturbing as Bush's fanaticism on the right. I came across this supposed expose of "Bowling for Columbine", and it has a ring of truth about it. This guy, David Hardy, seems to have done a lot of research about the "facts" Moore puts forth in his documentary, which Hardy doesn't consider to be a documentary at all, but more of a diatribentary. Maybe so. But Michael Moore makes people think, and challenges the status quo, qualities which are deserving of an Oscar.

Oh, yeah, vegetarianism is cool

I know it is true, because Time magazine tells me so. Therefore, following some sort of possibly-twisted Aristotelian logic, since Laurel and I are vegetarians, we must be cool too. The article reports that nearly 25% of adolescents polled by Teenage Research Unlimited said vegetarianism is "cool." And college students rated salad eaters more moral, virtuous, and considerate than steak eaters. Well, obviously. Who needs a poll to tell us that? Vegetarians rule!

Real vegetarians, at least. Time says that in a survey of 11,000 people, 37% of those who responded "Yes, I am a vegetarian" also reported that in the previous 24 hours they had eaten red meat. The article hypothesizes that these folks may have considered that anyone who eats vegetables as a side dish is a vegetarian, sort of akin to the person who gets in a pool once a year saying, "Yes, I am a swimmer."

Anyway, the real news here is that vegetarianism finally is officially cool. Thirty-two years ago, when I became a vegetarian, that certainly wasn't the case. You had to search far and wide for a restaurant that supported your moral, virtuous, and considerate nature. And raising my daughter, Celeste, as a vegetarian from birth came close to branding me as a child abuser, in my uncle's opinion, at least. It didn't help that infant Celeste's least favorite food group was, naturally, vegetables, which led to her child-body being formed primarily from Cheerios and plain spaghetti with butter.

This was item 3 of my "30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter" piece, which I recommend to any couple considering whether they should stop using birth control, simply in the interest of informed consent (yes, having a child is a joy, but not like going to Disneyland is a joy; it's more like climbing a really steep mountain with a heavy backpack is a joy, because when you get to the top, and sit down, it feels so good).
Download 30 Reasons Not to Have a Daughter.pdf (25.8K)

30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter

In honor of my daughter, Celeste Vos, whose 31st birthday is today, I have reprised in a much more public fashion last year's birthday greeting, tenderly titled "30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter." I probably should have updated it to "31...", but the Super Bowl has started, and I really can't think of any new reasons, anyway. Now that she's past 30 (time to have children, don't you think?), Celeste has become wonderfully attentive and sensitive to her father, even when she isn't asking for money. I'm the one, this year, who didn't get a card in the mail before a birthday. Hope this weblog posting counts, Celeste--and I'll call tonight (after the Super Bowl, that is). Much love, Dad
Download 30 Reasons Not to Have a Daughter.pdf (25.8K)

Happy Birthday, dear sister!

click to enlarge
Carol Ann, this is a public online cyberspaced weblog birthday greeting from your brother, all the way from Salem, Oregon to Castries, St. Lucia. In other words, like always I forgot to mail a card so it could get there in time, so I have to say "happy birthday" electronically. Well, at least this is a refreshing change from email, or those "Blue Mountain" sorts of cyber-greeting cards.

Hey, I went to some trouble to find an old photo of us, scan it, and touch it up. I love how you are looking so adoringly at your brother. Of course, that also could be a look that says, "I'd be having a much better time on this trip if that little jerk brother of mine wasn't along." Your bobby sox are so '50s. And the shorts... Actually, they're just about the length you see on the cool street kids these days, except they needed to be about six sizes larger. I, on the other hand, have got down that poised left-thumb-hooked-in-the-corner-of-your-pocket look, and the cocked-head "what, me worry?" expression (I was a huge Mad magazine fan at that time, so this phrase naturally comes to mind). My quasi-shaved head is right in modern fashion, but those rolled-up jeans are a bit too retro for 2003.

Uncle Connie looks dapper, as he always did. And I like how Mother is sweetly clutching her uncle's arm. If she was alive, she probably would hate to have people see her stomach look a bit, um, protruding. But it was probably the light. Or we can always cite her oft-expressed explanation: "it's the Lewis stomach." Can't do anything about heredity, that was her eminently scientific (and wrong, in this case) opinion, which she held as strongly as her many other firm opinons.

As the cliche goes, "you're as young as you feel." Hope this photo, and my birthday greetings, make you feel as young as you want to feel. A few margaritas won't hurt either. Much love from Brian, Laurel, and Serena.