Today is my 70th birthday and I’m very happy to be here. One of the things about living this long is that you know you didn’t die young. Except for a diligent dermatologist I might not have made it. He found a funny looking spot on my head, tested it, and then passed me on to people who could remove my melanoma.

Our daily lives are shaped by many turns of fate. Probably most of them we slide past unknowingly.

Anyway, I’m glad to be alive. My blood pressure was low this morning and despite some cheating my weight continues to fall slowly. I have been exercising daily for a few years with an eye on raising the odds on being able not only to live but do some thinking.

Yesterday morning I got hung up in Charles Ives. I listened to his Concord Sonata as I exercised. I pulled out my piano score and despite the difficulty of reaching even an octave with my left hand played slowly and pretty accurately through several pages.

I also read a bit of Liszt’s piano transcription of the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th symphony. In his Essays before a Sonata as quoted in the piano score, Ives writes the third movement, “The Alcotts.” He seems to be thinking a lot about the “Orchard House” where the Alcotts lived.

Within the house, on every side, lie remembrances of what imagination can do for the better amusement of fortunate children who have to do for themselves—much-needed lessons in these days of automatic, ready-made, easy entertainment which deaden rather than stimulate the creative faculty. And there sits the little old spinet-piano Sophia Thoreau gave to the Alcott children, on which Beth played the old Scotch airs, and played at the Fifth Symphony.

That’s exactly what I do: “play at the Fifth Symphony.” The Symphony permeates Ives’ music. It is prominent in the first movement of the Concord Sonata. It helps to go back to Beethoven and sip from the well of Ives’ inspiration.

Once again our visit to the beach was made on a very windy September day. It is exhilarating to sit by the channel and read when it is so windy. We stopped at the library and I picked up some books including An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

Sandra Cisneros mentioned this book in her By the Book interview in the September 2, 2021 New York Times Book Review. I thought it sounded interesting and ordered a copy through the library.

I read the Introduction and the First Chapter sitting on the windy beach. Dunbar-Ortiz is helping me understand the history of how white people replaced all the brown people who lived in the Americas before them.

The short answer is settler colonialism.

The Wikipedia article linked above has a concise definition: “Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism that seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers. As with all forms of colonialism, it is based on exogenous domination, typically organized or supported by an imperial authority.”

Dunbar-Ortiz outlines a brief survey of the dizzying variety of civilizations that precede European colonization. She says it was not the “new world.” It has a history of technology and ideas and peoples. There were roads everywhere. The forests were cultivated. Corn was raised to feed large populations. It boggles my mind which has been shaped by a misunderstanding of the history of the land where I live.

Here’s a pertinent quote from Dunbar-Ortiz:

“The total population of the hemisphere was about one hundred million at the end of the fifteenth century, with about two-fifths in North America, including Mexico. Central Mexico alone supported some thirty million people. At the same tie, the population of Europe as far east as the Ural mountains was around fifty million. Experts hae observed that such population densities in precolonial America were supportable because the people had created a relatively disease-free paradise. There certainly were diseases and health problems, but the practice of herbal medicine and even surgery and dentistry, and most importantly both hygienic and ritual bathing, kept diseases at bay.”

Eileen just got up and is taking a shower. I’m hoping to get to the Farmers Market this morning. Time to quit. More tomorrow on Ives and other stuff.

As I put out my American flag, I notice that my neighbor two doors down is still flying his. I try to follow American flag etiquette and bring in my flag each evening.

Sometimes I forget. The etiquette I know says that you can keep your flag up at night if it’s lit. This morning my neighbor’s porch light was on despite the gentle dawn light. I guess it’s conceivable that it was his intention to follow flag etiquette.

I walk over to pick up my daily paper. My shoulders relax as I feel the morning breeze move over the neighborhood. As I once overheard a trucker say in the dead of an Ohio night at a truck stop: Another day in paradise.

I’m not that bitter but it’s good to remember that I benefit from my country’s paradise, largely built on the backs of other peoples not enjoying the fall of the planet not to mention my fellow countrymen and women who are not as fortunate as me.

A weird time to be alive. The planet is in full fledged shut down. My country is losing the shreds of democracy it has grasped at in its short little history. At the same time, I have a place to sleep, food to eat, and good health. Also I have a universe of information, beauty, poetry, and music at my fingertips via the internet.

Today is my last day to be in my sixties. Tomorrow I turn the big seven oh. My friend, Dave Barber, who is just a little older than me once told me that when he thinks about his own aging, he thinks to himself, huh, so this is what it’s like to be 69 or 70 or whatever. it’s a good attitude.

Today is also day nine of being retired from church work. I have a another friend who occasionally posts what day she is on in her retirement on Facebroke. I don’t remember the number. it’s in the two hundreds.

I feel fortunate and lucky in my life so far. If one lives and benefits from being fortunate in the lottery of life the least one can do is feel grateful.

I do.

Into The Zone Bingo!

I’m listening my way through Hari Kunzru’s podcast, Into the Zone. The September 4 2020edition is called “That Ain’t Country.” I’m about half way through. I felt like I had it the lottery when Kunzru began to interview Kevin Young, a poet I like and admire about Cowboys. Life is good.

Murders of environment and land defenders hit record high | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Killing people defending the planet. Who benefits?

“Colonialism is still running strong, even if it’s dressed up with corporate logos or hidden with offshore bank accounts.”

Behind The Scenes – Herman Miller houses visitors at historic lodge

A 2008 article. The Herman Miller private complex sits right on a site with all kinds of local history.

Point Superior was the original site of the winter camp of Chief Ogamah Winine’s Ottawa band. George Smith eventually convinced them to move to the Old Wing Mission site I mentioned yesterday. But before that white investors attempted to make a settlement there themselves. It’s not clear how this affected the Ottawa band but it can’t have been good. They bought the land from the state, platted nearly six hundred lots, built a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, and seven houses. But sandbanks blocked the easy access to Lake Michigan this outpost counted on and it quickly went bust.