work in progress
[ Home ] [ Up ] [ PUNS ] [ work in progress ] [ The Silver Roof ] [ The Statten Island Comune ]

Work in Progress (wherever that is...).

Click here to see the "Silver Roof" article.

The Leaky Roof

um... another true story

By Me

It may have only been a seven foot long piece of cardboard on a concrete floor but it was home.

The reality finally sank in as it does many students that have to drop out for economic reasons. "OMIGOSH. ICAN'TAFFORDIT." Add to that the great recession of 1969 California. No jobs anywhere. Emeryville, the richest square mile in the States, the nucleus of factorylands, fell silent. I asked the dean of CCAC and he sat across his desk from me and just congratulated me for stepping out of what he called the "milieu" of art stuendentia to become a true artist.

I was walking up Broadway and there it was just a couple of blocks from the CCAC. A little shack comprising a storefront with a modest picture window and a bathroom. Thirty-five dollars a month. I was soon to find out why as I so often do in that manor. As I always say, ignorance is expensive.

To be continued...work in progress.

The Pacific Way... Puttin' Up with the Mainlander.

"We're going to need something to eat today Baul," chief Moa said. "Why don't you in Joe go down to the fishing site?". most of the folks there in Samoa , couldn't pronounce their quote "P's", so instead of pronouncing my name Paul, they invariably pronounced it "Baul".

That was fine with me. Things always got kind of lean towards the end of the month, even though Moa was the chief of a tribe there in Eastern Samoa. His father had been the high chief of Manua back in the days when Western Samoa became a part of the United States; that is, a territory thereof.

Moa's father wisely adopted only parts of the Constitution of the United States and not all of it, giving the Samoans the link with the U.S.A. but also quite a bit of leeway as to what they wanted to do within the framework, so to speak. So back then in his day Moa's dad had a big say in the way things would go in the future of Samoa.

Now you have to remember those folks had their own way of life there. And things went along just fine, thank you very much. Well, to a certain degree. There always some problems , but there are problems everywhere with whatever situation you're in. I mean, no matter who you were when the guys walked out about five in the afternoon and slugged empty suspended acetylene tanks with baseball bats, you stopped in your tracks for about ten minutes of prayer time no matter what your belief was. Nothing wrong with that. It was probably good for a lot of those foreigners so used to running around non stop all the time.

But they did have a lot of troubles with the mainlanders. Usually people there for tourism, and also some who were there on business, such as the American and Korean tuna fishermen. The outsiders didn't understand the laid-back style of the Islanders, although some finely caught on after having almost died of heat exhaustion in the tropical afternoon sun. Everybody else who was smart was anywhere they could get to taking a nap.

So Joe ran over to the shed , grabbed the net and we two piled into the Chief's old green Toyota and Joe gave me directions to the fishing grounds. Now I thought we were headed to someplace out on the reef somewhere. Back then, the island people in Tutuila, the actual name of one of the islands in the American territory of the Samoan archipelago, Eastern Samoa, at that time when I was there in the late 1970's, were harvesting 40 tons of seafood a year off of the coral reefs surrounding the islands.

Imagine my surprise , when we got to Moa's fishing grounds. The chief was always doing such radical things! So of course, when he sent some of his boys to go fishing, we went to the best fishing hole: the burial grounds of the chiefs of Samoa. Now , Joe was kind of amused at my reticence and respect. As I minced gingerly through the area, he almost laughed out loud. He assured me it was OK , we have the right to be there. Still and all, of course, to me it was a great privilege. Maybe some of those buried there were some of the people who first came to the island centuries if not millennia ago.

We proceeded a little farther to the most beautiful cove I've ever seen on all the islands there. It was gorgeous. Joe walked up to a deep section where the surf was coming in gently and regularly and cast in the net. It was one of those round nets that you flung through the air kind of like a Frisbee. It was a gorgeous sight that would have made a great oil painting, and Joe was really good at it. I wish I had a camera , but that's the way it is: never one around when you need one!

It was a perfect fishing site. And when the net came up out of the water, it was filled with fish of a rainbow color as if Joe had caught himself a mess of rainbows. "OK, Baul," Joe said, "we can go now." And that was it. We already had enough for dinner; a whole bunch of dinners actually. It was quicker than buying them from a fish market.

When we got back some of the other boys were deciding that they were going to get some of those chickens running around. And they were shooting their 22s from the house. It's a wonder none of them ever got nicked. But they never did. Often they would shoot into the air, and would just laugh at me when I tried to tell them that what goes up must come down. Moa had about eleven boys, I think all of them adopted, plus his own son. There were several girls, including his own daughter. The guys slept in the bunk house adjacent to the house where everyone else slept.

It was a great house , built in the traditional Samoan style. It looked like it had no walls , but it really did. The walls were an ingenious construction of palm leaves woven together that could be pulled up and down. They were only deployed during times of inclement weather. All the rest the time, we were coming down the road, we could see everybody in Moa's house. Sitting on the floor on their mats , watching color TV.

... To be continued.

Hitch Hiking Coast to Coast

(the first time...)

another true story

By Me

When we got through the desert, our ride was at an end. Time to hitch again. When he opened the trunk of his Cadillac, I discovered that his spare tank had leaked gas right into my personal bag of home made musli that I had prepared for the trip.

So much for my provisions. And that was such a bargain at the Oakland food co-op. They don't have them any more so you probably don't know what I'm talking about. Quoth the raven, "nevermind". I left the plastic bag beside the desert road and stuck out my thumb with the rest of 'em.

But my bright idea had a contingency of sorts; Randy's bag of musli that I prepared for him remained unscathed so we still had plenty of the stuff for the trip until we separated outside of St. Louis.

To be continued...work in progress.