Sep 4 2008

Sept.4,'08 It could be very disenheartening; To read your gladly-received missive of e-mail (or transcribed recorded conversations?) back 'n forths between members of our family. But to allow disenheartenment to enter, let alone affect my emotive self's tight grip mindset upon only allowing pleasant thoughts, is my ever-constant consciously-arrived-at decision, with respect to how I choose to structure my personnae. Disturbing? Sure. But no negatively-charged emotions will get any upper hand upon my desire to only deal in positive terms—and to only think in positive terms. * *  One reference in these communications—or, should I say communicational failures?--that I do feel a hearty disagreement with is the many references to my having brainwashed and otherwise badmouthed Francine to each of you. This is not the case, at all. In my private personal honoring of Francine's splendid efforts while we were a pair, I never went down that disgusting path that many so-often travel when a romance has dissolved. Conversely, I held a great respect for her goodness of heart and intelligence level. And I 'tell' myself: I never talked bad about Francine to you. Of course, there were the occasional snide references to her behaviors after-Adam; although I would volunteer that the incidences were very few and far between. But, I guess it is those very rare unguarded moments that must have escaped my overworked and overworried brain's lips now and again, that you, as youngsters, grasped at and held to your breasts to the degree that here and now, three decades after the fact, I read many references by the three of you about my badmouthing of Francine. I will state this again: I never did, never wanted to, because I felt that it was important that you two keep a good and positive image of your mother to the fore and not be handicapped by the kind of ill will stuff that you both seem to believe that I propagated. I complain that you are all operating on a misbelief or misconception about me and my opinions of Francine. I feel a love in my heart for her just as strong as I first felt it some three and a half decades ago. I feel this in spite of any and all negatives any one of you may see fit or chose to try to insert into this topic of discusion. I will feel this until the day I die. I do not care if anyone believes me or not. I know, for myself, what I know that I feel. Francine is from good stock. As good as the stock that I came from. We, both of us, deviated from what our parents had hoped for us to become. But, in spite of these deviations, we both kept a pretty darn tough hold of all the more basic good-hearted morals of our parents. No one ever got (physically) damaged nor went to prison or the poorhouse. No one got sexually abused nor in any way sexually disrespected. I know that Jadene believes otherwise, but as I think you two—Fran and Jerit—may have become aware of in your attempted dealings with the 'problem' of Jadene, she will not loosen up until she breaks completely. This is a hard fact to have to live with, but one that must be accepted and endured and understood with a forgiving heart always to the fore in our thoughts about and for her. Beyond that, my advice is to push your painfilled worries about how to get through to her out from your daily musings and try, try, try, and succeed, to do only things which will contribute to the growth of something that only has its roots and tenacles in the positive spheres; and let the negatives slide off your good-hearted backs and go infect some other more-accepting soul, is all we can do. It's either that or be forever hung up in negative spaces that can only deliver negative results into your life and livelihoods' pursuits-of-happinesses.

     You expressed a curiosity about how I handled my sixty-five hundred—ooops: minus the five hundred I gave Karen for me and Jadene's share; and plus the thousand I held back from Jerit. The wood-splitting machine cost fifteen hundred; two of which was the shipping charges. The cable-gripper rigging tool was $85. The 7 and a half ton rated snatch block was also about $85. The hundred feet of new 7/16ths wire cable with eyes swedged into each end cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars. The come-along was $450!! and is too goddamned heavy for me to other than barely bodily lift it off the ground high enough to get into the truck's front seat! But: I can use this tool—if only once or twice every other year—to crank just about any vehicle (or log) out from being stuck off road or in the ditch . . . with this come-along, I can extract heavy objects from being stuck or urge heavy stuff to roll or lift itself onto or into transport, etc. I paid eighteen-hundred for the truck, and probably another $1,300 upon getting it usable and fairly acceptably reliable, at least for my maximum twenty-four mile weekly round trips to town and back, and two mile excursions about the ranch. I blew maybe $600 on weed. I bought some other pieces of hardware, totaling maybe another hundred bucks. And, I bought a car-carrier tow-dolly for $500. Paid another ninety-five dollars to have a front wheel bearing replaced the other day, and am gonna pay another similar amount to have the trucks lube (zerk) fittings squeezed full of fresh lube grease, and replace the truck's rear shocks next Monday. I will not spend money on any of Spurling's trinkets, but will continue to enjoy the contemplations of their claims, with respect to my lifelong curiosity to know more about stuff that still holds mystery and offers intrigue to my thinker about how and why stuff does (or doesn't do) what it does, and where are the keys still eluding my mental (and spiritual) grasp. * * It is not that I am angrily anti-social, it's just that the kind or type of personnae that can unlock my intellect and inspire my being is such a rare commodity anymore these days that I mostly have just given up on that hugely energy-expensive social effort to go and seek out my kind of people, as being just fraught with such poor odds that I feel that I am just better off all by myself and doing what comes naturally to and for me and the simplistic life I have very consciously chosen since at least forty years ago, now. Though I hadn't the feeling written down before my very eyes until Jerit started sending me political/economic/and social critiques, I had already decided by 1966 that I wanted as small a part in the world, as defined by the monied-interests and crowd, as my braveheart spirit thinker could devise the ways outside of participation in the use of money as substitute for personal integrity and self-reliant imageries that I was born with but had it damn near accultured out of me before I ever had a chance to be the free-spirited animal/human with our inborn senses of right and wrong, good and bad, correct and incorrect. I am proud that my life does not require the dozens and dozens of things folks nowadays seem to believe are needs, and not only wants, which is what they really mostly are. Amenities? Who needs 'em? Adam don't. Figured I have saved myself having to feel that awful need for all that money I never felt the need to spend on stuff as most other folks I see, know, and hear about seem to just absolutely be unable to live without. Flush toilet, running hot water, a telephone, freezer, kitchen sink, what else am I and have I been living without for so very many years now? A woman . . . None for twenty-eight years now. None. And I aint dead yet. Although it sure could be a nice set up were two to be doing what all I be doing all by myself and never getting it all done; but done enough so that I don't starve or run out of gas or a good book to read (or write.) Oh, and for what I have left of my Fourman family inheritance? Bank balance is currently $1,300, but I am almost out of weed again . . . Heh heh . . I will try to come up with, as in compose, a letter to Jadene, but the challenge to not set her off into negative spaces will be maybe too tuff for me to actually succeed, but I want to encourage you that I do spend occasional thought-time considering her plight, but the world of American Dream imageries driving her desires seems not one to be badmouthed or explained as to how destructive to the human and humane spirit it is without her just becoming all defensive and getting depressed; which is exactly the opposite of what we all, I know, hope for her not to become more immersed within. We have to undepress herself, and this has very poor odds of other than just creating more havoc in her emotional and psychological sector, and therefore: counterproductive. U 'no I'm'sa'in? * * Hey: I live well on maybe four-hundred or four-fifty a month, so six hundred dollars socialsecurity every month is all right. And my work for the ranch is a labor of love—believe it or not—misguided love, maybe—and I refuse to attach any monetary value upon my wood-working on their wood-heating needs for the cooler months of '08 and early'09. In gratitude for a freedom not easily garnered by the many. They had 'retired' me as of July 31, this year, and before I had had much time on this year's firewood-gathering and rendering detAIL & was wrong to just quit.