thinking on my rock

Yesterday, thinking about and picturing this place where I lived in Ohio, in third grade (and 4th-8th) I remembered that behind our houses -- all of us living along a main road -- out back, the yards stretched long and far -- enough room for baseball, garden, tree-climbing, running, whatever....golf practice, a couple of times, in one neighbor's yard...

And out beyond the end of the yards, was a big field.  High grass and flowering weeds...It seemed big, to me.  It stretched far, and you could walk through it and just be out there, alone and quiet.  Nobody out there.  I never knew whose land it was -- it was not farmed, and there were no signs cautioning against trespassing or anything...You could just go out there, if you wanted to.

Once when I was walking far back, deep in "the field" I came across some rocks, partially embedded in the earth -- big rocks, and one of them had words painted on it:  "My thinking rock."  I never knew whose Thinking Rock it was....

I thought it would be exciting, interesting, and fun if there was a cave back in the field.  There wasn't any cave, but I imagined what it would be like if there was one -- and when I was a little older, I wrote The Mystery At The Secret Cave, a story about a brother and two sisters who found a cave out in the field behind their property....I forget how it totally went...something with stolen jewels, jewel thieves, and they were mysteriously hiding out in that cave -- the kids solve the mystery and turn the thieves over to local police.

The police were grateful, and admiring of the children's detective skills, I think....
Hand-written on blank unlined 8 1/2 x 11 paper, my book was perhaps devoid of nuance and irony.
A plain and straightforward narrative, with law enforcement officials who were kind, happy, and pure.
(We would say, now, "transparent"....)

Secret Cave was the first of three or four "books" (piles of paper) produced between 6th and 8th grade -- all mysteries solved by enterprising people in my age group.

============== Back to third grade, and the Summer After (1968) -- after --
March 31, LBJ not running for reelection
April 4, MLK shot and killed
June 4, RFK shot & killed
then catch your breath in July and
then August 26 - 29 was Democratic National Convention in Chicago which nominated Hubert Humphrey to run for President, accompanied by energetic demonstrations and protests outside whose participants were held back by Chicago police, who, one might say, seemed neither grateful nor admiring....

I think what happened was the protesters were too obnoxious (it's ok to demonstrate, but not to riot), and the police got carried away.

A subsequent report on the incidents during the convention called it a "police riot."
And -- famously (and weirdly) CBS newsmen Mike Wallace and Dan Rather were "roughed up" on camera by security guards....(how did security guards get into the act? - the demonstration is outside, these guys were inside the convention hall, and they're news reporters, not demonstrators, and police should leave demonstrators alone anyhow if they're not doing anything wrong, not hurting anyone...and besides the punchers were, from reports I've read security guards, not police -- Security doesn't punch...)  [Well -- and -- police have no business "punching," either -- what am I saying...?]  All that violence was unnecessary.  Too much.

Too much stuff.
Too many assassinations.
Too.  Much.

It was like -- people having public tantrums. ...
Maybe in response to the chugging, slogging, trudging progression of events-and-responses which began 11.22.63 ...

~~~~~~~~~~ Everybody's building the big ships
and the boats
some are building monuments
Others, jotting down notes
Everybody's in despair
Every girl and boy
but when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody's gonna jump for joy
-- Bob Dylan

-30-