Treats on the Tongue

My dog, Spooky, accompanied me for another daily walk down by the railroad tracks, with a particular focus on performing the most fun action of our promenade: playing "Rock Pile."

This game consists of Spooky sprinting to the top of a mound of gravel, there to sit while I wound up and underhanded him a biscuit toss that he caught more reliably than the accuracy of my toss. After a couple of tosses, we continued our walk, his tail wagging and my mind delighted that he is awash in a world of smells, sweet, fetid or otherwise.

Tomorrow is a new deal. God willing, Spooky and I will exchange treats near the point where the Golden Spike was driven in 1887, this the final event that connected the railroad from California to Oregon/Washington.

Spooky is so good at catching cookies that I'm considering unleashing him on my network, there to sniff, track and tackle all things untoward.

Fierce Winds of Winter

Went for a walk in the strong, dry, warm winds that caused my hair to seek shelter even as my eyebrows were beating like bat wings.

I popped into the Airstream, there to sit in the dark for a few minutes to reflect. I went back in time to an dark Winter's eve on the Plaza. I was talking to a friend at Alex's when a sheet of solid rain began to fall with such prominence that I walked to the windows in amazement.

It went on for about 15 minutes, then the power went out. About then a fierce wind gusted through the Plaza and into the Park, there blowing over a half-dozen large trees. Seconds later a manhole cover in the street exploded upward for 40 feet, then fell back to the asphalt, barely missing a Volkswagen van that was hunting for a parking space.

I shook my head, went back to the table and lit a candle. Some entity was pissed and passed me by.

I like it that way.

Friendly Flames

I arrived at the Plaza today around 4:30 pm. The first thing I noticed were the twin chimneys, one at The Black Sheep and the other at Alex's sending out a plume indicating that a welcome hearth was ready to warm the chilled patron, there to enjoy something relaxing as the fires crackle.

Both of these fine establishments deserve our attention and devotion. Being able to invite family and friends to gather in a public place in the glow of a blazing fire, this over, perhaps, a warm beverage to sooth the chill of a Winter's Night...well, that's Ashland.

Drop by and let these fine folks know that you appreciate the little and important things in life.

Don't hold back. Go for the embers...

Calling All Cars...

I know that a some of you think that my writing is funny and occasionally a hoot...or not.

The truth of the matter is that my knowledge of grammar starts and stops with Sanskrit. My attempts at spelling are like watching a snow crab try to play a banjo, underwater.

So, here's the deal. I have a tour book and an anthology due out in two months. The only things I lack are an editor and a publisher. Sort of like a fuel dragster without an engine or a steering wheel.

Ashland has more writers, editors, publishers and other literary lions than dogs, except for typing pets, which are on the rise.

Drop me a line if you feel we can work something out. Otherwise, looks like I'll have to outsource my needs to a foreign worker in a mud hut.

Shoot me a line at: lance@journalist.com if you experience an epiphany or otherwise have insight into a solution.

The Lost Drums of Time

I walk my dog, Spooky, down through the Railroad Lands below "A" street daily. Some months ago I began to hear what sounded like a gushing of a pump or the beating of a drum, this from fenced off area which seemed like a diesel collection system, this to attempt to clean up after many decades of spills and other discharges of petrochemicals.

The sound seems to go upward, this from vertical tunnels in the earth. I'm sure that there is some explanation for the recent increase in decibels, but, truthfully, don't feel that the RR or the City care enough to look into it.

At some point the drumming will stop and if we don't find a fried pump, my money is that we'll find the sun-baked bones of Ancient Drummer, warning us away from the poison that we try our hardest to ignore.

A Rash of Renovations

It's now official.

The Plaza is being reconfigured.

No, this is not the doing of a City revisitation of the Downtown Plan, that citizen inspired document that morphed into a resume for a long-lost, though staff emulated, Department Head.

If you can't piece this together, just goose-step past the Perozzi Fountain in Lithia Park. The Idyllic baby exposed there is, according to local legend, none other than the likes of John Fregonese, whose mother starred in one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers, THIS ISLAND EARTH.

I'm glad that the City has chosen a large venue, unlike the council chamber, to hoist and host this sequel. During the many years that I owned the Historic Ashland Armory the City declined every and any free public usage of the building. Our Mayor, at that time, publicly bragged that he had never set foot into the building. That was when he was also Chairman of the Board for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This played, of course, a pivotal role, as that was about the time that the Festival felt the primeval call to expand to Portland, by "invitation."

That the Festival had been negotiating the design and use of the Portland Performing Arts Center was lost on our local reporting. Years later the Festival dropped Portland like a hot potato, yet not before the Historic Ashland Armory was denied any funding. The head of the Festival told me that a "regional" facility should be based in Medford, in a building owned by his long time friend, Otto.

Swell.

Ashland's economy is strangled and constricted because the Festival didn't want any competition.

The Armory had a State Grant for $500,000 set up by Lenn Hannon, though for reasons more symbolic than sincere. I used the State funded parking lot on Pioneer and Lithia Way as a grant match, this approved by the State's head of Economic Development. Our long-time City Administrator, loyal to the ways of the Festival, refused to sign a document to release the funds for many months, until catastrophic fires consumed the budget.

So, who won?

The Mayor protected the Festival.

The Administrator served his masters loyally.

The Senator got to slap the Admistrator with a cold cod, this for the fact that when the Senator worked for the Ashland Street Department, he was not allowed access to a phone during his lunch hour. Now there's a fat case for offering a half-million with no intention of delivering, this all just for show.

Bite Me!

Who lost?

The restaurants, retail businesses and general citizenry of Ashland. We now send the business to the Ginger Rogers/Craterian in Medford, perhaps in double effrontery to our local Meals Tax.

Be good and don't ask questions. Buy your Festival tickets in advance and stand in awe in the shadow of the Lenn and Dixie Hannon Library at Southern Oregon University.

The truth is between the lines.

JB has gone South...

Jerry Barnes(JB) and his wife, Shelly, have officially removed themselves from these Essential Climes to roost just North of Puerto Vallarta. I've been trying to get JB, who is a very talented writer, to contribute to my travel website.

Unfortunately, his latest dodge ball move is to hide behind a fictitious bot, while he and his wife wander through their village, aimlessly drifting towards lunch, dinner, margos or whatever.

The guard who protected their construction site is named Don Cleto and though getting on in years is immensely respected, owing mostly to the 3 foot machete that he handles as deftly as a toothpick in the hands of a dentist.

I relay JB’s note only with the deepest and most enduring respect and admiration to the Don, who I might meet, accidentally, at some point in my life.

"DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED MESSAGE

This is an automatic response to your email generated by AutoJibBot. The person or persons to whom you sent your email cannot respond as they are deeply under the spell of paradise and cannot move a muscle save to fix Cuba Libres, Margaritas, or, their latest fave, rum and tonic, which, for lack of a better name, shall be called a Cuba Jibre.

Any and all attempts to rouse the person or persons to whom you sent this email from their idyllic stupor will be summarily answered by a short, stocky Mexican wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a 3-foot long machete, answering to the name of “the Don.” DO NOT LET HIS AGE FOOL YOU. He is armed and very, very dangerous. If you answer the door, the first things you will notice are your ears traveling in a lazy arc over the Don’s head and into the bushes, even though he appears to be completely motionless. Do you have too many arms? Offer him one in a friendly handshake motion and watch the Don’s inventory reduction technique in action.

If and when the aforementioned person or persons ever escapes the gravitational pull of their hammocks and figures out how to turn on the computer and actually write anything, there is the wee slightest chance of receiving some communication in a form other than triple-DOD encrypted code buried up a worm’s ass at the bottom of a bottle of mescal."

So, folks, what should I do?

My best instinct is that I should fly down there dressed like a ninja, jump over their broken-glass capped high stone wall, then leap across the scorpion trench and sit myself under their palapa and ring the bell.

If you like my thoughts, please send your contributions to: Save JB from the Rot, C/O Lance Pugh. Email me for the correct bank, which I change daily. Stay tuned for more riveting events in The Daily Tidings on Mondays and daily at http://essentiallyashland.blogspot.com/.

More Dog Parks?

It's a delicate art to walk a dog in a politically correct fashion.

I take my dog, Spooky, out every day for a proscribed tour of the railroad tracks and alleys. Part of my baggage includes some plastic bags to recover what he thought deposited and a pocketful of dog treats destined to be delivered to him and a dozen other doggies along our route.

Ashalnd has a nice dog park, thanks to a groundswell of citizens and an eventually responsive Parks Commission. It would be nice to have another couple such parks around town.

I can think of several places where they would be welcome and appreciated.

What's your call?

Public Works Director Weighs Anchor

This deal in Iraq is beginning to touch more and more of us. Our Paula Brown, Director of Public Works, was called up for duty in Iraq. Since traditional warfare doesn't exist there, everywhere is dangerous. She's a Captain in the Navy Reserves, with decades in the military. I can only wish her the best and pray for her safety.

If Ashland ran things, of course we would not have invaded. Yet we all were told that Weapons of Mass Destruction were stockpiled to be used against us either by Saddam or Al Queda. We were told that Sadam constituted an imminent threat. What we were told was not the truth.

It reminded me of the vaunted Domino Theory that was the underpining of the Vietnam War. The fact that the Vietnamese had been fighting the Chinese for a thousand years was inconvenient and immediately dismissed. That war tore apart a whole generation of Americans. Iraq has the potential to do the same.

We dreamed up a little Gulf of Tonkin fantasy to get the public and politicians in a froth, then expanded the war. In the end we lost a bunch and the vietnamese lost millions, mostly civilians.

I know that Paula has only good in her heart, but many who are fanning the flames there have souls of coal.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I'd sure like to see the troops start coming home. An endless war on a noun or belief is, by definition, unwinable.

When we invaded we captured all the oil infrastructure, but didn't have the troops or the orders to protect the museums, libraries or other cultural institutions. We built a military base on top of Babalon and used artifact laden sands to fill sandbags for defensive positions.

I am happy that some rebuilding is being done, yet I can't help but lament our total disregard for the Cradle of Civilization. We refuse to count or acknowledge the many tens of thousands of civilians that we have killed.

We're going to need a lot of luck or a change of direction.