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The Blacksmith

I tell my guide I’m interested in people, culture, and village life – not mosques, museums, or churches – and he gets it. An example of this is his decision to take me to see the only blacksmith still working in the area, not something I specifically asked for, although I did say I wanted to see real traditional village life.
The blacksmith’s shop is really just a shed with a forge, anvil, and bellows set up years ago outside the smith’s very modest house on a small hill off the road. When we get there the smith is working on a sixteen inch long by eight inch wide hoe blade. The owner of the blade is seated on a bench with his wife watching the smith and the supporting cast strengthen and extend the blade. The forge bellows are being operated by the smith’s wife standing on a four foot high platform located a foot or two behind the forge where she alternately raises and lowers two huge homemade “plungers” on long bamboo poles into two twelve inch wide tubes that the smith has crafted by cutting the tops and bottoms off one gallon metal buckets and then welding the buckets together to form eight foot long bellows pipes. The smith’s wife raises one plunger up in its tube as she lowers the other, then lowers the raised plunger as the raises the lowered one. Her stroke is long and steady, her arms lift up from her waist to above her head and back down again, first left then right, in a graceful rigorous dance, the cotton sleeves of her shirt fluttering, her head bobbing, the embers rising in flame as one plunger descends in the tube and air is pushed from the back of the forge across the coals. And as the other plunger is raised in its tube, air is sucked in from the front of the forge. The embers burn brightly. The tip of the blade turns red. The smith lifts the blade from the fire with a pair of thongs in his left hand to rest on the ancient anvil. He holds a two or three pound hammer in his other hand. When the blade is lifted from the fire the smith’s two teenaged sons rise from a nearby bench with their twelve pound long handled sledge hammers and the three of them rain alternating powerful blows onto to the hot blade, shaping it, flattening it, stretching the steel, sending out hundreds of sparks in fiery arcs, their rhythm fast, precise, powerful, tympanic, the blows seeming to fall as fast as the sparks fly, the men’s coordination a thing of beauty as the metal yields to their will, the eternal wife and mother resting, the embers cooling, until the smith returns the iron to the fire and the bellows worker breaths life again into the coals with her stokes.
I watch this dance mesmerized. The smith is a small man, at least sixty years old, his wife no younger. And they are working hard, really hard, and fast. And along with their sons they render a most ordinary task into a thing of poetic and choreographic beauty, seeing the mother’s arms raising and lowering, the fire enflamed, the rhythmic pinging of the hammers, the shower of sparks, the cats crawling around my feet.

Africa

I think of myself as being on a “spiritual” path, on a spiritual quest, that experiencing spirit wisdom and sacred wisdom, whatever they turn out to be, if noting more than a greater attuning of my sensory instruments to feel the vibration of the others’ sensory instruments, the other hearts beating, the other molecules spinning in ritual dance. But let us move on.

Travel

Many travel books and travel videos are immensely well done, although no amount of reading about or videos of the pyramids at Giza or a village in India can compare to the overwhelmingly physical and sensual experience of being there.

My travel writings all seek to convey something intimate about the setting I am describing, to capture the “feel” of a unique place on the planet as experienced at a unique point in time by a unique narrator briefly passing through.

A reflection on the absence of agreed upon priorities and leadership on the Left

My focus is on organizing ourselves … the Rainbow Left … at this writing … specifically in the lands and with the blessings of the Massachusett and Wampanoag and many more Indigenous people who we owe a debt to and who lead us still.

Who speaks for and to the Rainbow Left nationally? Brother West? Rev Barber? The Abolish Prison and Prison Slavery movement? Bernie? Rise Up? The Squad? Bill Fletcher?

Who speaks to or for the Rainbow Left in MA? Jamie? Jo? Nika, Ayanna? Mahtowin Monroe? Big Mike, Jim McGovern?

We MUST be able to decide on our priorities, on where we can best direct our forces/resources at this critical moment.

There is no single organization on the left that doesn’t want more active volunteers. We all think about recruitment.

My focus is on organizing ourselves. Land back!

What I Left

In the middle of a mild winter on Cape Cod in Massachusetts on the land of the Wampanoag and the Nauset i escaped before the storm of ’22 that turned mild into wild.

I took leave of my home, dog, plants, coyotes, whales, oysters, sunrises, sunsets, birds, bays, and so much more to travel by air across an entire continent and land here – link to “what i found”

Skaket Beach, Orleans, Cape Cod

What I Found

I arrived in Temecula. It is beautiful. You can buy five acres of hillside here with 2 houses and 100s of highly productive avocado, orange, lemon, tangerine, grapefruit and more trees, hundreds!, for less than a bucket of sand on the beach in Orleans. You do not have to worry about sharks. You do worry about water availability and water’s price, especially water enough to quench a growing avocado’s liquid needs.

Mother’s end

1.      My mother is actively dieing, with a purpose and acceleration not previous part of the picture.  I hurt for her hurt, her fear, her aloneness, her paranoid hallucinations, the demon’s attack.  She called to start my week on Monday morning asking to see me, urgently, asking for my help to find a way to let go, to release her attachment to life.  She does not say this, but I know it.  She does not know where she is or if she is alive or dead, she says.  She wants “to see them again,” she tells me. 

I say, “Your husband will be glad to see you.” He’s been gone over twenty years. 

“You think so?” she asks with irony, “I’ve been thinking about that one and I’m not so sure.”  

A vast trove of data and information is dieing with my mother. 

She asks again, explicitly, if I can help her let go and I promise to do so, “But you have to wait until Saturday,” I say with a laugh to my petulant child, “I’m very busy, you know.” 

“I don’t think I can wait,” she says. 

“Well try, it’s important to me,” I tell her. 

2.      My sister calls.  She tells me my mother is asking for me daily.  It is so odd.  And yet I know with certainty that I am assigned the task of helping her release her grip on the things she can no longer hold on to or carry, that I can facilitate her dieing.  I must go to her.  I know it.  I don’t want to, but it is duty talking. 

“I’ll be there Saturday, Ma, hold on.” 

She hears my voice on the phone.  She hears the other voices that frighten and confuse her, both at the same time. 

“Who’s saying these words?” she asks. 

“I am,” I say. 

“No you’re not,” she insists.  “Who is it that is saying these words?”

“Your eldest son, Bruce,” I say. 

“No it isn’t,” says she. 

Apparently she is right. 

3.      I talk to her about my good fortune, about her granddaughter’s wedding announcement, about my involvement in the peace campaign, about her grandson’s basketball fortunes, the upcoming state championship game, his college acceptances, his athletic scholarships.  “Oh my god, oh my god,” she keeps repeating.  It is as if she is on the edge of tears that she cannot bear, that she is being overwhelmed by good fortune and grace in death.  “Oh my god,” she keeps saying, as if she were crying, as if what has been conveyed to her is too much good news at once. 

“Oh my god oh my god,” she offers in worship, in gratitude.
            

  4.       On Friday night late I arrive at friends who live in the appropriately named town next to her hospital of Valhalla.  I will see my mother on Saturday morning.  I have her release on my mind.  There is urgency, of course, but there is no urgency.  I have thought about it.  I have seen dark and enlightened thinking as well as the magical thinking in my speculations.  I know what I will say.  Whether it is projection, intuition, or knowledge-based I do not know, but it is clear to me what my words will be and that my words will have the power she wishes them to, that they will be a potent force and lead her to release from life unto death.  Besides, I have to be back in town for my son’s state championship basketball game on Sunday.

And I do want my mother dead.  It is what she has said she wants and I understand well why she would choose it.  I also want her death for my own convenience and expedience.  It is cold and disconnected and I do not know to what extent it is first my wish, made easier by my mother’s wishes, or if it is her wish first which finds fertile soil in her first born son.  I just know I will talk to her and she will die.  I think that truth is ridiculous.  I also think it is real.  Her physician has told me she will rally and recover, that the numbers are good, yet I feel her slipping away as the surreal and the real merge in me, surround me.  Before I go to see her I take a long walk in an unfamiliar cemetery and pause by a grave marker that reads Hug.

5.      I drive to the hospital feeling casual, relaxed, and in no hurry at all.  I arrive around 11A.M.  I ask at the nursing station what room my mother is in, and am directed to her.  I enter the room and walk past the woman in the first bed, whom I do not recognize.  Nor do I recognize the woman in the second bed.  I walk back to the nurses’ station to explain there has been a mistake but am again directed to the woman in the first bed in the room I’ve just been in.  It is, indeed, my mother, bandaged, stitched, her skin so old and thin it is everywhere black and blue. 

I sit by the side of her bed and talk with her.  I am not positive she knows exactly who is present but I think she does.  She responds to me with understanding grunts and nods to my inquiries.  “Do you want some water?”  “Do you want to change your position?”  She grasps one finger of my hand and squeezes it hard.  She holds my hand and I help pull her up to a more comfortable position.  The muscular strength and vitality in her arm is remarkable!  No one that physically strong can be close to death barring some other cause.  Her eyes are closed.  I lay down in bed with her positioned to my left, pulling up the guard rail behind me so that I can relax and not fall out of the single hospital bed.  I have not lain in bed with my mother in over sixty years.  It is quite possible I never did, that I was never provided that comfort or warmth.  I fall asleep next to her. 

6.      During my nap I dream of a house without windows on the north side that its owners have decided to put windows in, both to let in the light and to be able to see outside.  There are big rectangular spaces carved out of the house where the windows will go.  There are no frames yet built into the north wall, nor are the windows quite ready to be put in place. In the absence of windows the outside world of air and weather is also the air and weather inside the house.
            When I wake up from my nap my mother is laying on her left side and I rise up slightly to whisper into her right ear.  I kiss her check and her ear as I speak.  I brush her hair out of her face with my fingers.  I caress her face. 

         “You must let go of your beauty,” I tell her and she moans softly.  I know that were she fully awake she would advise me of my foolishness, tell me she has long ago let go of her beauty, tell me my ideas are foolish, silly, that I don’t know what I am speaking about, but I think she is wrong.  I speak softly to her, but definitely out loud.  It is more identity than vanity she must let go of. 

         “You must let go of your beauty and of your strength,” I tell her. 

         “You must let go of your body altogether, your wonderful body that has been such a good friend to you.”

         “You must let go of your sight, of your courage and determination, of your will to survive and your wish to be at your granddaughter’s wedding in this earthly form.”

         “You must let go of your father and mother,” I tell her, though this too she would see as the most foolish of thoughts, her father dead over 86 years then. 

         “You must let go of your children, of worrying about your children, of worrying about them worrying about you.” I can feel her relax in my arms.  Quite literally the tension in her body that I had not even realized was there passes out of her.  She relaxes and grows lighter in my arms.  Her breathing changes to an even slower pace.  I am aware my sister- in-law Ona has joined us.  I can’t remember when she came into the room. 

7.      “I don’t know what dieing breaths look like,” I tell Ona, “but these sure look like them to me.”  I have never lain next to anyone when they died.  My mother looks so peaceful between her slow deep breaths.  And then there are none.  It cannot be 15 minutes since I talked to her about letting go, and she is gone. 

“She’s dead,” Ona says, and I nod acknowledging it is so.  We do not call nurses.  We sit with her.  I hold her.  I whisper in her ear, “This is the last gift we will give each other, thank you, mom.”  I say “thank you” a lot.  I laugh and cry a little.  At some point a nurse comes in. 

“She’s gone,” I say and the nurse feels for any pulse and nods that it is so. 

A doctor with a stethoscope arrives and says it is so. 

My sister arrives and it is so.  It will be so forever.  My mother is dead. 

I call my brother to tell him it is so.  He arrives in an hour.  He waves an eagle feather over his mother’s remains and her lifting spirit.  He brushes her with sage.  He reads from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  We all leave the hospital before her body is enshrouded and wrapped.

8.      I drive back to Brookline.  I call and talk from the heart with whoever is up on the west coast.  I tell my daughter who cries more than anyone else, saying how she wishes she could have seen her grandma before she died.  My giant son welcomes me home at 3 A.M. with a big hug.  Everything is the same and everything is different.  I tell him that just because his grandmother has died does not mean he is not allowed to enjoy things or laugh and play basketball, that there will be time to be sad.  He says, “I know, Popi.”  I suspect he really does.

9.      I walk with best friend Steven on Sunday morning.  I pick up my daughter up at the airport in the afternoon.  My son starts at power forward for Brookline High in the state championship basketball game at the Fleet Center, home of the Celtics, that night.  The town police escort the team bus to the game.  I tell him to remember that the height of the basket and the dimensions of the court are the same as any other basketball court and he tells me that that was exactly what the coach told his players in “Hoosiers.”  He has painted, “I play for you, Grandma,” on his basketball shoes.

Brookline plays very poorly and is being shut out when Sam makes the first BHS basket, bringing the score to 7 to 2.  He makes both his first free throws.  At the half Brookline is down 10.  With seven minutes left in the game they are down 14.  With 10 seconds left they are down by one point and have the ball out of bounds on the sideline under the opposing team’s basket, but the inbound pass is stolen and the game is ended.          Sam is deeply dejected.   He is also fine.  We are all fine.  He has played for the state championship.  He has started every game.  His grandmother loved him, not as I would have had her love him, but genuinely and for all the right reasons.  The game is over.  The season is ended.

10.     We have a lovely memorial service in NY, something my mother would be pleased with.  Is it only Monday?  The service is simple and eloquent.  My brother talks about how he liked seeing his mother age like an olden tree.  My sister reads from a Gibran poem that speaks of sadness being the source of joy and joy the source of sadness.  I speak of half empty and half full cups, of cups that runneth over.

In the morning before the service I walk unconsciously into the lobby of an old castle on the top of a hill overlooking one hundred and eighty degrees of the Hudson River.  As I stroll over the palisades someone comes out to tell me that the grounds are only for private use.  “My mother’s stay at this castle is over,” I mumble. 
        We all drive back to the private day school where my sister works, after the service, to a lovely, quaint, Adirondack like apartment where we watch old 8mm family movies and just hang out.  Mom’s body is driven to a crematorium in New Jersey.  We drive back to Brookline.  It snows hard and takes us twice as long as usually and then it is over. What does love have to do with death?  Maybe the terror. Maybe the ecstasy.

The U.S. Army – Day One, 1960

         I leave from the Port Authority building in New York City by bus to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I’ll begin my two months of Army basic training.  I’m just shy of my twentieth birthday.  The Port Authority is like Grand Central Station where I was sent unwillingly to camp at age four.  This is different, a decision I have made.  And although there is a claustrophobic feeling of doors closing and choices made which cannot be changed, there is also the sense of adventure and maturity that is concomitant with actions taken by men.

         Almost everyone on the bus is an inductee from New York City.  The Jersey countryside, a dune-like succession of sandy low hills and chicken farms, rolls by until we arrive at Fort Dix, which is surrounded by barbed wire.  At the entrance to Fort Dix stands a tremendous statue of “The Infantryman,” the ultimate fighting machine I am about to become.

         We are herded into a huge building, formed into lines, and begin our transformation and processing from civilians into army troops, first swearing loyalty and fealty to the United States and then being given shockingly short, dare I say bald, army haircuts.  We put our civilian clothes into bags.  We are marched into line after line where we are inspected, questioned, sorted, and given a series of injections in both arms with air-powered guns.  We move down a lengthy counter where we declare our chest, waist, weight, height, and shoe sizes and are given shirts, pants, belts, underwear, shoes, and socks, more or less consistent with our size declarations.

         At the end of the counter we flow onto another line and approach a sergeant seated at a table filling out forms with the information necessary to issue each man his dog tags.  When I reach the table the sergeant finds my name and military identification number on a card and asks me my religion.  I’m not sure why, but I am just not able to answer him.  I don’t think it’s that I am afraid of anti-Semitism, or ashamed of being Jewish, quite the opposite, I am rather proud of being Jewish and eager to stand up to anti-Semites.  It is much more that I don’t really believe in religion and I’m sort of stunned and offended because I don’t think my religious beliefs are anyone’s business, especially in this context, I mean this is the United States Army is it not, and we were all equals right, brothers in arms.  I mean what does my religion matter?  It seems almost unpatriotic to make such a separatist declaration.

“What’s your religion?” the sergeant asks me again in a Southern drawl as I continue to stand there, in spite of my wish to answer him, quite mute, embarrassed, and dumb.

“What’s wrong with you, son” the peeved sergeant asks, “what’s your religion?”

And I just stare at him, unable to answer, unable to form the words, unable to fully understand what is going on with me.  Maybe I’ll say, “no preference, sir” but I can’t make up my mind and don’t really like that answer either.  So I just continue standing there, struggling with myself about these matters of personal and philosophical significance, as the sergeant grows more and more exasperated, and rightly so, thinking I’m a moron or something, and rightly so again.

“I said, ‘what‘s your religion, boy?'”  he says slowly, very slowly. And I just stare at him … frozen.

“Jesus H Christ,” he growls almost menacingly, “Who are your people, boy? “

People?  The word “people” startles me.  Who are “my People?”  Shit, I know that answer. People?   “Why the Hebrews, sir,” I say.

“Hebrew,” he repeats, and writes it down. “Next,” he says, and smiles.

I receive my dog tags two days later.  They read just that, “Hebrew.”  I still have them, of course.  I don’t imagine there are many other Hebrews in the U.S. Army, but the Hebrews are definitely my “people.” And were there ever to come a time to identify my scarred and unrecognizable mortal remains left on some desolate field of battle I think I would be far more comfortable buried as an ethnic American, dare I say tribal, Hebrew (for all that would matter) than I would be hypocritically declared a “religious” Jew.

Jews / Hebrews

Further explorations of the world as it is and the world as we wish it to be

HEBREWS!?

…one of the unique things about the jewish people is that historically – at least for nearly two millennia – they were not a state/nation per se altho they were and are an ethnically identifiable “people,” independent of their religion … albeit a stateless people … a little like gypsies … members/citizens of many diverse nation states in the middle and far east, in africa, asia, europe, and the western hemisphere – while simultaneously maintaining their jewish identity, but not as a nation with a state/territory as such.  the advent of zionism, the notion there should be an ethnically identified jewish state (designed initially as a nationalist movement primarily to protect jews from centuries of abuse), changed all that.

i personally never much favored the idea of there being a state for jews, especially on ethnically cleansed conquered lands, even as I celebrated the pre-1967 triumphs of Israel.  it is my naïve utopian hope that israel and palestine will merge as one state for all its people – a far better outcome in my view than a jewish national state living side by side in peace with a safe, just, and equitable state for the palestinian people – and equally unlikely an outcome as there being one just and equitable state for all the people of Palestine.  as Gideon Levy says, “the two-state solution is dead (it was never born); the Palestinian state will not arise; international law does not apply to Israel; the occupation will continue to crawl quickly to annexation, annexation will continue to crawl quickly toward an apartheid state; “Jewish” supersedes “democracy”, nationalism and racism will get the stamp of government approval, but they’re already here and have been for a long time.”  in light of that reality i’m left believing israel and palestine are one state already, albeit an apartheid state w a major civil rights problem.” and there is no palestinian state, regardless of the best intentions of the pope.

So how did David turn into Goliath?

Gathering of the Tribes

What made Franklin unique as a commune was our very explicit combination of political activism and back to the land self sufficiency.  To the social ethnographer’s eye Franklin looks a lot like a messianic movement, a contagious social delusion and belief on the part of some segment or all of an indigenous population that believes returning to the old ways, the ways of the ancestors, will serve to bring about heaven on earth.

Lou Andrews and I drove to every commune we could find – one leading to another – traveling the state to spread the word about the Gathering.  I remember doing a brake job on the vehicle.  Learning about brakes.  Very excited by the prospect of traveling around state and seeing what was going on.  I remember going to Packer’s Corner.  It seemed in a very diff place than we.  They seemed citified … less open than other places we visited.  More insular it seemed.  Not as warm a reception we got other places. 

I think the idea must have come from Bruce.  I recall the initial thoughts about it were to find out and connect w all of the other communes in state so we could have a connection and larger impact on our movement to mobilize, help, support, to devel a more active relationship, to build a larger tribal/communal nation.  Related to how we felt about Amer Inds and how we

Treated one another. 

Making it a spec event – espec for kids –

Wanted to estab our role as leader.  I thought that – my impression was that Franklin and Putney – we had diff roles – To Lou I and the commune we were leaders.

Gathering of the Tribes – Bruce

Was a vision.  Not sure where it came from altho I think I initiated.  Mixed reception more enthusiastic political less so more concerned for the farm tasks.  Winter travel.  Expectation folks disappear in sinter.  Winter of ’71 Jan & Feb.  Craig, Fletcher, in California.  Neal lifted gun from a demo – dope in van screwed back tight.  Stopped by police once, but nothing happened. 

The idea of traveling around VT in a van seems almost as if it’s out of the 1830’s not 1970.  We didn’t know phone number, internet, didn’t know where they were located.  Pieced it together

Only had incidental ino. No communication mechanism, but there was a vision.  Can’t say how explicit it was.  Shared fully by Barb, Jim, MP and Bruce before arriving in VT.  Understanding was Jane would buy land and they would go wherever Jim got a job.  Charlie and Lou turned on by it.  He was a Phd psychology with interest in primates.  High school graduate working class 2 kids and kind of empty life.  Who was open and eager for excitement and rescue & adoration.  Nothing excites the male crow more than this.  Formula for narcissistic romance.  One of my favorite memories:      Somehow in the summer after the fire when we were still living both at Franklin & Philo you had found a deserted perhaps hunting shack in the middle of a field somewhere somewhere south of Philo.  We somehow agreed to trip there one day.  Don’t know how we got there ….

Was a vision.  Not sure where it came from altho I think I initiated.  Mixed reception more enthusiastic political less so more concerned for the farm tasks.  Winter travel.  Expectation folks disappear in sinter.  Winter of ’71 Jan & Feb.  Craig, Fletcher, in California.  Neal lifted gun from a demo – dope in van screwed back tight.  Stopped by police once, but nothing happened. 

The idea of traveling around VT in a van seems almost as if it’s out of the 1830’s not 1970.  We didn’t know phone number, internet, didn’t know where they were located.  Pieced it together

Visiting Putney with our newspaper.

         Creating a newspaper was the first thing we all did together in addition to home schooling the kids.  Talking to Roger Albright, Grant Ctichfield – return address for VT RR.  When paper wss finished and Roger rejected we went on road w it.  We knew of existence of Putney. 

We presented our Newspaper – they were very interested bec they were totally political.  Met Robert John, Jane, Erika, other Jane?, next stop was to Juche’ in boston-  Political discussion w those 2 we were aligned.  It was always clear things needed to change.  I didn’t really believe the revo was coming, but that was what most people seemed to believe.

At one point Barb and Lou were selected by Putney to be trained … stayed a week or two.  Learned about first aid.  Shortwave radio.  Rifle practice.  Learned how to shoot a blow gun in prep for the revo.

Visited by Craig & Fletch by early 1970 looking for land.  Bruce Cohn served jail time.  Was set up for marijuana bust.  Nobody sets anyone up for child porn bust.  Not sure of truth.  He was part of lower east side scene.  Was a licensed locksmith – very paranoid.  He Craig& Bruce had an acid trip Jessup’s Audibon in Noyac Bay on the south fork of Long Island near Sag Harbor where MP’s father and his 3rd wife had a house.  Picked up “Horse Feathers Fletcher’s son.   Bruce into cryonics carried survival kit.  Folded down to 1×1” plastic square dime and fish hook inside.  Unfold for catching water.  Fish to eat.  Dime for phone call.

Only had incidental ino. No communication mechanism, but there was a vision.  Can’t say how explicit it was.  Shared fully by Barb, Jim, MP and Bruce before arriving in VT.  Understanding was Jane would buy land and they would go wherever Jim got a job.  Charlie and Lou turned on by it.  He was a Phd psychology with interest in primates.  High school graduate working class 2 kids and kind of empty life.  Who was open and eager for excitement and rescue & adoration.  Nothing excites the male crow more than this.  Formula for narcisistic romance.  One of my favorite memories:        Somehow in the summer after the fire when we were still living both at Franklin & Philo you had found a deserted perhaps hunting shack in the middle of a field somewhere somewhere south of Philo.  We somehow agreed to trip there one day.  Don’t know how we got there ….

Gathering of the Tribes – Bruce

Was a vision.  Not sure where it came from altho I think I initiated.  Mixed reception more enthusiastic political less so more concerned for the farm tasks.  Winter travel.  Expectation folks disappear in sinter.  Winter of ’71 Jan & Feb.  Craig, Fletcher, in California.  Neal lifted gun from a demo – dope in van screwed back tight.  Stopped by police once, but nothing happened. 

The idea of traveling around VT in a van seems almost as if it’s out of the 1830’s not 1970.  We didn’t know phone number, internet, didn’t know where they were located.  Pieced it together

Visited by Craig & Fletch by early 1970 looking for land.  Bruce Cohen served jail time.  Was “set up?” for marijuana bust.  Nobody sets anyone up for child porn bust.  Not sure of truth.  He was part of lower east side scene.  Was a licensed locksmith – very paranoid.  He Craig& Bruce had an acid trip Jessup’s Audibon in Noyac Bay on the south fork of Long Island near Sag Harbor where MP’s father and his 3rd wife had a house.  Picked up “Horse Feathers Fletcher’s son.   Bruce into cryonics carried survival kit.  Folded down to 1×1” plastic square dime and fish hook inside.  Unfold for catching water.  Fish to eat.  Dime for phone call.

Only had incidental ino. No communication mechanism, but there was a vision.  Can’t say how explicit it was.  Shared fully by Barb, Jim, MP and Bruce before arriving in VT.  Understanding was Jane would buy land and they would go wherever Jim got a job.  Charlie and Lou turned on by it.  He was a Phd psychology with interest in primates.  High school graduate working class 2 kids and kind of empty life.  Who was open and eager for excitement and rescue & adoration.  Nothing excites the male crow more than this.  Formula for narcisistic romance.  One of my favorite memories:        Somehow in the summer after the fire when we were still living both at Franklin & Philo you had found a deserted perhaps hunting shack in the middle of a field somewhere somewhere south of Philo.  We somehow agreed to trip there one day.  Don’t know how we got there ….