I am here to take issue with that for Brother Brossard’s sake. (I’m not sure I’m spelling his last name right.) He knew.

You may remember my occasional posts about the December Club, the once-a-year potluck brunch certain members of my ward (congregation) throw ourselves in celebration of having a birthday at the time that everybody else is worrying about Christmas.

When we first moved here twenty-five years ago, Louis Brossard was the elder of the group; I remember him as a sweet man, frail and old and kind. I remember him playing a bit on a harmonica year to year.

When the Loma Prieta quake happened, I found out at that year’s party that he had been one of the engineers working on the original Bay Bridge. He said it was designed not to fall into the Bay in hard shaking and that it did exactly what it was supposed to do–just one short segment took the brunt of it and went down while the rest stayed up, saving countless lives at rush hour. He also noted with definite pride that *his* section of the bridge had not fallen!

The last time he came to our group, he lifted that harmonica to his lips, looking almost too tired to from the effort of getting ready to come join us that morning, and he could not summon the breath to sound that first note. He was crushed. He tried again; there was just not enough wind in him to share the music only he could hear now.

I knew then, but so much didn’t want to know.

Very soon after, he was moved from the home he’d lived in forever to an assisted living place. We talked on the phone a few times; he so missed his garden, his passion in his widowed retirement.

I immediately resolved to bring him flowers to tend.

I went to the local nursery, trying to find something not too heavy, not needing too heavy a cup of water, and bought a small potted plant of bright, happy color, the first few flowers ready and blooming to cheer him as he watched the rest open up. A perennial, to make a statement that I wanted him to enjoy them the next year, too, and the next, and the next, and. I called and arranged a time to come over.

But an assistant had gotten him into the shower (I’m guessing on their schedule rather than his) at the time I arrived and then the person had left him for a moment. I knew he knew I was coming, but he didn’t answer the door. I was hearing impaired, he was more so; I knocked louder. I waited, wondering what to do; there was no one in sight to ask for help. At last I left the little pot in front of his door, praying it would be seen and not tripped over.

When I got home, I called again to make sure the little blossoms might cause no harm, knowing how frail he was. He told me he had called out to me, but there was nothing he could do on his own to get to that door just then; he’d gotten those flowers, though, loved them, loved the thought behind them, and wanted very much to thank me.

He was a gem.

And I never got to see him again.  Those flowers outlasted him.

Whenever I see the Bay Bridge, all these years later, always, I think of Louis Brossard.

The old eastern span will be totally gone when the new work is all done.

And I wish I knew how to play Taps on a harmonica.

The words themselves were completely lost to me at that distance, though they did seem more garbled than my hearing might account for and I wondered if the speaker had had a small stroke I didn’t know about.

Was that his grandfather on the reel-to-reel, I asked? I actually would have guessed his father if it hadn’t been for the distortion; it sounded that much like his dad.

No–it was Richard’s great grandfather, recorded in 1957 or ‘58 by his grandfather, who also recorded his mother-in-law during a trip back to where he grew up; her voice was next.

I tried to grok how a man whose father had been preached to by Joseph Smith in 1834, a man who had lived his life on a farm in Idaho, could sound so much across the years like how his grandson, who grew up surrounded by all that is official Washington DC, does now in 2012. That easy-going easily-laughing voice. Twins.

The generations are closer together than we know.

Quentin Cook, one of the last speakers, started to tell a story.

Okay, back up: he first made the point that bad things happen to good and bad people alike and those who would judge the ones that bad things happen to, just don’t get it.

But it is amazing how all the personal tributaries that flow into the Mississipi River of the lives of all of us eddy and tumble together. As soon as he started into his tale, I knew exactly who he was talking about: I’d read the biography by the man’s son about his father. Then he named the name. Yup.

There were six young Mormon missionaries nearly 100 years ago whose missions to Great Britain were ending at the same time and they were going to return to the US together. With much hype going on about the world’s greatest ship, the fellow named Alma booked passage for them all on that one.

And then one missionary simply could not make it that day and was going to have to ship out a day later alone. The chance at a trip of a lifetime, gone.

Alma said no way no how are we leaving you doing that long trip by yourself; you’re going with us. We’re just going to have to re-book our tickets and that’s that.

But, but!

No buts, we’re going together.

Which is why they weren’t on the Titanic.

Which is why, nearly 100 years later… I have the best daughter-in-law anybody could ever ask for and an adorable little grandson who has totally stolen our hearts.

Alma, Kim’s great-grandfather, was generous to the one who was disappointed.

Small choices matter.

Years ago, a shop owner showed me some very soft yarn new to her stock that she was quite excited about.

“Baby alpaca” as one of the fiber components was something I had never heard of, but I definitely liked it: all the scratchiness and guard hairs I associated with the word alpaca, gone.

It was about time someone did this. I’d always wondered why there were alpaca rugs that were just the softest fur you could hope to snuggle your toes into, but somehow alpaca yarns and sweaters, alpaca for wearing, were always a weird combination of soft and ick, keep that away from me!

I later read an article by a man who helped change the market. He had flown to Peru to try to convince the local mill owners  that paying alpaca farmers by the pound was resulting in the worst quality fiber going to market, because coarser hairs weighed more, while (he didn’t quite put it this way) the softer-haired animals were being Darwin-ed out by being turned into rugs.

First World knitters would pay a premium to be able to have those softer fibers to work with.

Many didn’t believe him. One mill finally took the leap and gave the idea a chance and did so well that others followed their lead, and in the end, one man and the people who listened to him changed the fiber world.

I must have found some of the very earliest out there. I looked for more over the next year or two and didn’t find it. The one had been a baby alpaca/angora/merino blend; was it possible to find pure baby alpaca? And if I did, how would the fabric I made with it behave?

The younger knitters may not remember when we had a list of web searchers to choose from and had to guess which one would be best at answering a particular type of question. Ask Jeeves?

Google was still new, but we had switched over to it entirely. It didn’t have a lot of pages out there online to search from yet, but my techie husband was sure this one was going to beat the others out totally, he said they’d done their homework with their algorithm.

“Baby alpaca yarn”. Two results. Hard to imagine now. One was not helpful, but the other: a link to a wholesaler who had imported a lot of cones of the stuff in fingering weight and I guess since nobody had heard of it, nobody bought it, and they were selling it on sale, eventually down to at or near cost and closing down their shop altogether.

I bought, I was quite surprised to count up later, over month after month while they sold it at $20, then $15, and even $8 I think on one of the colors PER POUND, three dozen pounds. It was cheaper than any good wool I could find.

As I bought it while I knew I could get it I was also knitting as fast as my needles could fly. I had found the yarn of my dreams. My four tall (or eventually tall) children all got soft afghans knit triple-stranded, long enough to pull up to their chins and curl around their reclining toes and down to the floor, the way my mother says an afghan should be. I made dozens of shawls.

And the light blue baby alpaca, of which there was much and it was cheap, I overdyed into a number of other colors. There’s a picture in my book of a stack of balls of yarn, the original light blue those others all came from at front and center to encourage others to look at the yarns in the closeout bins in a new way: if it’s soft, if it’s animal or silk fiber, if you love the feel but the color, not so much, you can go play with watercolors and do something about it. You will make it all the more uniquely your own in the process.

I was quite surprised to find, while stash diving last week, that I still had a little of that light blue left after all this time. It grabbed my eyes and my memories. I cast on. I’m 2/3 of the way through a lace stole.

I had long forgotten I had gifted Stephanie with some.

Tina at Blue Moon, this link is for you: a little of back home for us both and, for me, the memory of once, just once as a kid, letting the older neighbor kids’ peer pressure goad me into crossing over the fence (completely forbidden by both my parents and the signs) to come just close enough to the top of that quarry way over there to see some of the brown dirt of the rough sides and to know that no way was I going to get one inch nearer that drop off. Get me out of here!

My in-laws’ house in Kensington, MD had a beautiful stone hearth and fireplace, and the house I grew up in a half mile up Seven Locks from that scary cliff had a sturdy slate entryway in shades of gray, hewn just close enough to evenness to satisfy but that no snowman-building mud on the boots could ever make it past. The rocks for both surely came from Lilly’s quarry.

But I especially like that it was a woman born in 1862 who, beginning when she was 60, dug deep in the earth and crafted in stone.

Now there’s your original Earth Mother type.

His Central Asia Institute has provided education to 60,000 people so far in remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that previously had no schools or at best, madrassas, and aims particularly to provide opportunities for women; his aim is to build CAI up to the point that it is self-sustaining whether he is in the picture or not.  Some of the donations that 60 Minutes seemed to be implying he was not spending on the schools, CAI was banking to be able to pay the schools’ ongoing costs into the foreseeable future and to be able to build more schools.

He is having heart surgery this week. I fervently wish him well. The world needs the work of peace and empowerment that he has devoted his life to.

——

Ed. to add in response to my Dad: I did read the Bozeman Montana paper’s and the New York Times’ stories on him last night, which had quite a bit of criticism; the Bozeman one quotes their reporter, who did not work on that story but has covered Mortenson for years, as saying, “Greg is difficult to work with, he’s stretched too thin, but he is not a liar.” I’ve now read the transcript of the 60 Minutes piece as well as Mortenson’s rebuttals.

If 60 Minutes is right and indeed only 41% of the donations currently go directly to the schools, I would ask: and what percentage of our war dollars in Afghanistan has created a lasting chance towards peace through goodwill and empowerment of the poor and illiterate? Especially, the women? What other game is there in town? I’ll go with Mortenson any day, and if the scrutiny tightens up the financial end, then all to the good.

1. Today there was a newly-fledged Oregon junco, the little bird’s colors pale and its landing bouncy and uncertain. What seemed to be a parent, a tad larger and rounder, flew down a small space behind it. (Mother! I can’t be seen in public with you!) Not coming to eat too, but just keeping a careful eye out as the little one hopped around a bit on the box, found the food, and scooped it up rather open-beaked.

Good job, well done, honey, and they turned in tandem and the little one followed his mom back up into the air a split second behind.

2. In case others don’t know why the federal Tax Day isn’t till the 18th this year.

On April 16th, 1862, with the Emancipation Proclamation still eight months away, Abraham Lincoln declared slavery over in Washington, DC, paying $300 for the freedom of each one.  Your big government at work. It became a holiday in the Capital, and, to quote the Washington Post, “By law, local holidays in the nation’s capital affect tax deadlines the same way federal holidays would.” Most states changed their date to match.

April 16 being a Saturday this year, DC’s holiday is being celebrated the 15th.

3. I spent a lot of time winding yarn today, and found myself thinking, if I’m going to wind merino to have all ready to go then I just have to wind that qiviut too. I can’t let unwound hanks ever stop me from diving in at the right moment.

And so I got out the bag of 50/50 qiviut/merino from cottagecraftangora.com. As each delicate strand passed through my fingers, I realized that soft as these felt in skein form, actually handling the yarn was a revelation. Wow, this really is what I’d hoped for.

But I completely did not expect that it would also tell me in those minutes playing with my eyes and my sense of touch what pattern it wanted to be among all the lace swatches I’ve toyed with and what story it needed to tell, a story I love of people I love. It came to me, it took me by surprise, and it was and is going to be perfect.

Now I know. All I had to do was let the yarn come closer to hear it speaking its own language.

Parker could tell me all about that one.

To all who pulled off the impossible: thank you!

To President Pinera of Chile, who went ahead and authorized the operation after being told there was only a 3% chance of success but who still did the only humanly thinkable thing and ran with it, knowing those men were alive down there, who greeted every single man with the biggest smile and hug for 24 hours straight: thank you!

To the miners, who kept the faith with each other and God to get through it all, thank you for the example and strength you showed the world. May you hold fast to that forever.

I barely managed to tear myself away to go to my lupus group, but I did.

Back home, knitting in front of the monitor, cheering on each appearance of that funky-angled rescue capsule both above and below ground and the appearance of each man finally back up at the surface, stepping out into the arms of everybody.

BBC… It ain’t over till the skinny guy sings.

And then they all did, with all the celebration one could possibly put into it. CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE!!!

They’re not ready to go totally off on their own quite yet.  A little independence at a time.

But when those big Fourth of July booms started, Maya scuttled halfway down it towards the reassurance of her brother’s presence. After the booms stopped, she went back to standing  sentry duty at the far end from him, facing him, watching over him as their mother had watched over her young by night.

Meantime.  I knew my friend Marguerite’s mother grew up ethnic Chinese in Hawaii, and Marguerite’s father, whose family emigrated from China when he was two, taught their daughter that the only description that mattered was “American.”

Her mom got talking a little about that today.

She was a young woman coming out of church one day, wondering at what all that sound going on out there was about.  So did everyone else. It became immediately obvious as they stepped out the church door: Pearl Harbor was under attack! They watched and cheered on the American side of the fight.  Bearing witness. Remembering forever.

Today, as I listened and realized Hawaii hadn’t even been given statehood yet at that point, she bore fervent thanks for the privilege of being an American.

To which, with equally fervent thanks to my ancestors (here and here are two, others came later) who braved their trips across a different ocean, seeking freedom, I say, amen.

I wasn’t going to write about them.  Silence–the act of turning one’s back on them and walking away without a word–was the most they personally deserve.

But our children deserve more.  Our children deserve to know that the adults in their lives stood up for them, and so I add my voice here to the crowd.

There is a group whose name will not sully my blog who fancy themselves Christians.  They support themselves by screaming their hate, trying to provoke people into confrontations, hoping to be able to sue to make money.

As one reporter noted, zero degrees windchill factor in January where the group lives, or California sun, well, now, hey, let’s go on vacation.

So they came here.  They filed a report with the police.  They intended to protest at our high school and then over at Stanford University’s Taube Hillel House: to wave placards and yell at our children at their school that they were all going to hell for being tolerant of Jews and gays, and that the loss of their friends at the railroad tracks was very much what they rightfully deserved by the wrath of God.

The high school immediately announced school would start late today. No child had to go through that.  No child had to face pain deliberately inflicted by those who sought power over them in their most vulnerable and most painful moments.  They encouraged people to have the thugs speak to the wind alone.

Sage advice, that.

And yet.

Silence can also, at its worst, convey assent.  And that absolutely could not be.

Children from other schools came, even from as far away as the other side of the Bay.  Parents came. Teachers came.  Grandparents came.  Children of our own town came.  Signs were hoisted in peaceful counter-protest, with most folks staying on the high school’s side of the street, avoiding any possible charges of physicality with the haters (remember, assault means fear of being hit, battery, actually being hit; they could claim fear simply by someone coming close.)

On our side, placards read “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.” And one sign later at Stanford asked, simply, “Got Love?”

Listen to one of the thugs’ ugly response:

“You’ll be in front of the train next! God laughs at your calamity!”

No, He doesn’t.  And you, ma’am, don’t know what any one of those children at that school believes–but if you notice, they were preaching and exemplifying the best Christian values to you.  Love. Tolerance. Understanding.  Again, “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.”

Who were facing them across the street.

Our students: “After all we’ve been through, it’s wrong for them to be here.”

“It really helped pull us together. There’s a real solidarity at our school.”

Our children saw human faces that were evil. That took satisfaction in their suffering and hoped there would be more.

Thank you dear God, I think our train tracks just got a lot safer.