Posts by Terry
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7Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog
by Terry inportrait of a girl and her dog.
her name was cheryl ann draper and she was about 11 years old the day she begged her daddy to let her go with him to work at the gas station.
he had never let her come along before; no matter how many times she pleaded.
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Terry
GrreatTeacher
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7
Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog
by Terry inportrait of a girl and her dog.
her name was cheryl ann draper and she was about 11 years old the day she begged her daddy to let her go with him to work at the gas station.
he had never let her come along before; no matter how many times she pleaded.
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Terry
I write essays about people I know, have met, and love.
It is like putting a message in a bottle and casting it in the ocean.
Thank you for reading my note and "feeling" what I felt.
That resonance of emotion makes us human in an honest way and
amplifies whatever spark of individuality is unique.
Thanks so much for your kind words and for sharing.
Cheers to you for that.
My last words will be simply me reciting the names of my children aloud.
Children are the essence of all I love:
Laura, Jason, Vanessa, Terry, Nicholas, Lillian, and Helena.
That's my final prayer.
All the others live on ...in my writings. -
7
Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog
by Terry inportrait of a girl and her dog.
her name was cheryl ann draper and she was about 11 years old the day she begged her daddy to let her go with him to work at the gas station.
he had never let her come along before; no matter how many times she pleaded.
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Terry
PORTRAIT OF A GIRL AND HER DOG
Her name was Cheryl Ann Draper and she was about 11 years old the day she begged her daddy to let her go with him to work at the gas station. He had never let her come along before; no matter how many times she pleaded.
Her mom didn’t think it was a good idea either, she later told the police.“Gas stations are dangerous and dirty and there’s nothing for a little girl to do all day except smell fumes and get in the way.
So, I always discouraged the idea—but Cheryl Ann was crazy about her daddy and that day was a Saturday.
Just that one time I gave in. God help me, it was just that one time.”I was about 10 years old and lived across the street from the Drapers at 709 E. Baltimore.
My house faced hers directly across the dusty, unpaved street, and I never had the courage to say “Hi” to her. Nope. I couldn’t do it.She had naturally curly hair and a smile that could blind you when she stood in her front yard petting her beloved Collie named Trusty.
She didn’t speak to me either. I could tell she didn’t suffer from horrible shyness the way I did. She had the confidence I lacked.
In fact, I’d pretend I didn’t even see her most of the time because I didn’t want to appear rude for not saying anything in the way of a greeting.One day I sneaked into my grandfather’s room and “borrowed” the Kodak box camera, I steeled myself with the courage to do the unthinkable.
My plan was to sneak up behind the broad trunk of the tree in our front yard and photograph Cheryl Ann and Trusty when she wasn’t paying any attention, with a little luck, I’d capture a black and white photo of the most beautiful girl in the whole world!
My grandmother, however, possessed a clairvoyant sensibility about little boys and their daring schemes.
She had raised one son, my Uncle Jack, and used to recount stories of his escapades and exploits with a nostalgic sigh.
I could sense from the way she tilted her head and gazed off into the past, there was deep emotion attached to her memories of his childhood.He was 40 years old now and I had taken his place in her affections. After all, he was gone but I was always near.
Several times each day she would start to say something to me and inadvertently call me “Juh (pause) Terry.”
The “Juh” was an abortive “Jack” permanently affixed to the forefront of her thoughts. She corrected and said, “Terry.”
As a boy, Jack had hopped freight trains, explored in sewer pipes, or climbed into neighbor’s garages through open windows to steal things of no possible use to him. She made it sound vexatious—but she wasn’t fooling anybody. He was her delight.
She learned to keep an eye on him and grew highly skilled at pre-emptive intervention.
As in watching me when I was sneaky.This particular day, her keen eyes caught sight of me (rascal grandson) dashing out the front screened door with something partially hidden under my arm like a bank robber with an ill-gotten boodle on the lam. Naturally, she tailed me, observing as I hid behind the tree, up to heaven-knows-what. I didn’t get a chance to play paparazzi. (Jiggers, the cops!)
Cheryl Ann and Trusty plopped in their front porch swing.
This was the only shade, inasmuch as summer in Texas has the sun frying sparks near straight-up noon.
With no air-conditioning in any houses on our block, it was the only oasis available to escape stifling heat.I lurked for several minutes until my grandmother’s voice rang out behind me, “Terry! What are you doing?”
This young criminal, startled and embarrassed, caught out and no excuses handy.“Nothin’—I’m, I’m just playin’. . .”
“Playin’ what?”
“Nothin.”
She stepped down off our front porch in her steel blue cotton dress I had watched her create on her Singer sewing machine a long time back. She approached and pried the Kodak box camera from my sweaty hand.
“Looking to take a photograph of Cheryl Ann?”
Wow! There it was laid out in front of God and the neighborhood. I was made of glass; my grandmother could see through my intentions straight to the bone.
I sputtered innocently, although relieved to have shared my secret heart; if only by dint of insight into the snaky shadows of a boy’s soul.
“Follow me.” That’s all she said.
She took my sleeve between her fingers and tugged me forward. I was instantly panicked!
We were headed across the road toward the Draper house!
Oh my god!“Cheryl Ann, honey—could you come out into the sunlight so Terry can take a picture of you, please?”
I died inside, but my heart leaped—an exquisite intoxication of adrenaline galvanized my skin into tiny bumps.
I couldn’t breathe and my chest was heaving as though a bronco was kicking the slats out of my chest.
Yes, I could feel it—I was the man for the job; signed, sealed, and almost delivered!Cheryl Ann appeared delighted to have her photograph taken by the creepy kid from across the street!
Trusty pranced a bit into the grassy front lawn and struck a pose. Cheryl Ann stood facing full front.
She emblazoned that summer afternoon with a beam of her trademark Hollywood smile.The rush I felt was incredible!
I squared off, hunkered over the camera, caught her in the display as evenly framed as humanly possible, and clicked the shutter.
It was all over in an instant of time. Improbability and possibility fused themselves into memory.
The secrets of my Universe on a hot, Texas summer’s day, indelibly captured inside a Kodak box camera.I look back through the years at this moment, stuck as I am in the eternal “now.” I can vividly revisit that memory and recall the details of it and translate it partially into words for you at this moment.
Back then on that day, all I could croak was, “Thank you.”
Then, I whirled around, coward that I was, and ran as fast as my legs would carry me back across Baltimore Street.
Inside my grandmother’s house, too many feelings all at once needed to be processed, sorted, absorbed, and memorized for this world and possibly the one yet to come.I have no speculations what any of this ‘meant’ to Cheryl Ann. Being a friendly and lovely little girl she had likely had her photograph taken hundreds of times. What that amazing moment meant to me - is right here on this page for your eyes to read.
2 weeks later, the envelope from the Worth Drug Store was ready for pickup—all the Kodak prints from the box camera, spanning however many separate vignettes over however many months, had been processed.
Among the prints were some silly snapshots of my Aunt Molly with a tiger-striped kitten in the crook of her arm; a posed, squinty-eyed shot of my grandmother in that same house dress standing in our driveway; some shots of my mom wearing pedal-pushers in the front yard; a snap of me in a ridiculous cowboy hat, straddling a stick-horse, and sporting two-gun holster six-shooter cap pistols.There was one more photograph. . . my snapshot ... the last photograph anybody ever took of Cheryl Ann ... alive.
In a way, I am still angry with my grandmother for being so blunt about it—so matter-of-fact—not even trying to prepare me for the shock of discovering how this little girl with the amazing smile had been hit with a bullet in a gas station robbery when her daddy tried to stop the two men from robbing him of $32.68.
An eyewitness to the gas station robbery described for the police what occurred.
My grandmother read it out loud to me from the newspaper, the Fort Worth Press.I kept turning it over and over inside my head for weeks, months, and years ever afterward: how little her life meant . . . $32.68.
Shouldn’t it have been millions?I can’t tell you what I said or did when my grandmother read the newspaper story out loud to me. I’m not trying to hide anything—I just flat out cannot remember any part of it. Before and after - but not otherwise. My memory screeches to a complete halt at that point; like the tires on a car driven by two thugs with a pistol. I imagine the scene and I get to the stray bullet and everything comes to an end.
Well, not quite.
I have lots of old pictures from down through the years, hoarded and transplanted from house to home and state to state as the calendar pages fall decade by decade. Somewhere in a box or album, I still have in my possession the picture I snapped on one particular Texas summer day.
It is black and white.
The sun is extra bright.
The girl and her dog are there—forever—happy, young, with a future of endless possibilities ahead.
Trusty, the dog, has his tongue lolling out like all dogs do when the temperature shoots past ninety.
I can reach for my magnifying glass to try and make out the details of the expression on Cheryl Ann’s face.
After all, she is looking at me!Is there any trace of something in her eyes I’d want to know?
It’s my own damn fault if I don’t know. People without the courage to speak out their heart’s desires will never know.
So many moments in life are filled with promise if the intuition to jump in and create happiness out of it are grasped.
Now I’m an old man.
Few things in the past can break loose and do me any harm.
There are only tiny shadows of worry, regret, and longing.
There remains one small worry.I worry that when I die this photograph of Cheryl Ann Draper won’t mean anything to anybody, and it will be tossed away as callously as the way she was disposed of in her daddy’s gas station on Highway 80, west of Fort Worth.
It was a Texaco station with gravel instead of concrete in front surrounding the gas pumps.
There was an old Coca-Cola cooler right in front of the entrance. I’ve driven past it many times.
Once I parked and stepped out and walked about, staring at the little pebbles, bottle caps, and colored glass in the driveway.
I replay the scene inside my head. Am I morbid or just humanly curious? I really don’t know.
There is nothing to see but a rusted sign and a ramshackle garage topped by a sheet metal roof with peeled paint saying, “Draper’s.”It was shut down and abandoned long years ago after all that happened, happened.
I can tell you straight out and truly—the place is desperately sad. It sucks your heart out and you can’t stand there for more than a minute without feeling like there is only darkness in the heart of man.The photograph remains. I’m pretty sure I still own it. I don’t think I’ve ever been without it.
You’ve been to Antique Shops, haven’t you?
You’ve come across old photographs of unidentified people who mean nothing to anybody any longer.
They are hardly even a curiosity. Why would anybody want to buy them?
Sometimes, you buy it for the frame and toss the photo into the dust bin.
Well, this is my little worry—I’m the only person alive today who knows who she is.I wrote this little story for her—a photograph in words with her name attached.
She was Cheryl Ann and she was eleven years old.
She was beautiful to my eyes. She loved her daddy and her dog Trusty.
I shared a tiny moment on her last day as the silly neighborhood boy who had a crush on her from afar.
I dearly hope she was flattered. I truly do.
“I remember you,” I say in a whisper, thinking of her now.
Nobody ever dies, as long as there is somebody somewhere who remembers your name."I remember you, Cheryl Ann Draper."
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QUESTION of the DAY (a brain teaser)
by Terry inquestion of the dayeach man chosen of the twelve jesus selected had been called disciples, or "students" (meaning "one who learns").
(latin discipulus; greek μαθητής mathētḗs; hebrew לִמּוּד limmûdh;jesus is stated in the bible to have sent out the twelve using a new description: apostles, "whom he also named apostles" (luke 6:13), first before his death "to the lost sheep of israel" (matthew 10), and after his (resurrection to spread the message of the good news to all nations (matthew 28:16-28:20).with the above firmly in mind, the question arises: “why aren’t the governing body called apostles?”.
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Terry
Ahhhh...but the question is not why are they called Governing Body - but - why
they do NOT call themselves APOSTLES inasmuch as GB isn't a Bible term
but apostle IS from the scriptures.
Verisimilitude: verisimilitude is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory.
I'm wondering why it was a matter of choice. -
12
QUESTION of the DAY (a brain teaser)
by Terry inquestion of the dayeach man chosen of the twelve jesus selected had been called disciples, or "students" (meaning "one who learns").
(latin discipulus; greek μαθητής mathētḗs; hebrew לִמּוּד limmûdh;jesus is stated in the bible to have sent out the twelve using a new description: apostles, "whom he also named apostles" (luke 6:13), first before his death "to the lost sheep of israel" (matthew 10), and after his (resurrection to spread the message of the good news to all nations (matthew 28:16-28:20).with the above firmly in mind, the question arises: “why aren’t the governing body called apostles?”.
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Terry
Thank you each and all for some interesting opinions on the peculiar lapse on the
part of the Governing Body not to seize upon a connection with Jesus' most intimate companions whom he commissioned to take the Good News to the world at large.
My own guess (and that's all it is) as to why they do not self-designate as Apostles?
Two problems.
1. The Apostles weren't sub-divided into sheep and goats.
2. None of the Apostles were mediators; they always deferred to Jesus. -
5
My escape from Jehovah's Witnesses to seek a life as an artist
by Terry indream of the unborn butterfly.
my escape from jehovah's witnesses to seek a life as an artist .... (1974 - i pulled up stakes in fort worth, texas, packed my wife and 3 small kids into a ford maverick, and headed to california seeking a job of some kind where i could earn a living --not as a janitor, window washer, or minimum wage slave - but as some kind of artist.
) ________________ “konichiwa” he spoke with a smile wrapped in mischief.it was paul miyoshi.
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Terry
Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to read this long memoir.
I appreciate the feedback especially.
Cheers! -
12
QUESTION of the DAY (a brain teaser)
by Terry inquestion of the dayeach man chosen of the twelve jesus selected had been called disciples, or "students" (meaning "one who learns").
(latin discipulus; greek μαθητής mathētḗs; hebrew לִמּוּד limmûdh;jesus is stated in the bible to have sent out the twelve using a new description: apostles, "whom he also named apostles" (luke 6:13), first before his death "to the lost sheep of israel" (matthew 10), and after his (resurrection to spread the message of the good news to all nations (matthew 28:16-28:20).with the above firmly in mind, the question arises: “why aren’t the governing body called apostles?”.
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Terry
QUESTION of the DAY
Each man chosen of the Twelve Jesus selected had been called disciples, or "students"
(meaning "one who learns"). (Latin discipulus; Greek μαθητής mathētḗs; Hebrew לִמּוּד limmûdh;
Jesus is stated in the Bible to have sent out the Twelve using a new description: Apostles, "whom he also named apostles" (Luke 6:13), first before his death "to the lost sheep of Israel" (Matthew 10), and after his (resurrection to spread the message of the Good News to all nations (Matthew 28:16-28:20).
With the above firmly in mind, the question arises:
“Why aren’t the Governing Body called Apostles?” -
3
Ballad of Armageddon (to be sung sort of like Ballad of the Alamo
by Terry inthe ballad of armageddon _________________a sinner trudged to salem and he went down on his knee asking heaven for a token or a sign of what would be but a wind came out of nowhere and a thunderbolt flashed high as a sudden hush of stillness brought a rumble and a sigh.
the valley of meggido beckons hordes to reckon blood higher than a bridle comes that roiling, gruesome flood in the valley of the shadow where the dead will surely rise on the day (maybe tomorrow) you will understand if wise.
yet the sinner slept in salem and his dreams of monstrous fears woke him screaming much affrighted as he mumbled washed in tears
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Terry
Oh thanks, titch.
I was up in the middle of the night and sometimes I write
something crazy. Sure would like to hear Marty Robbins sing it :) -
3
Ballad of Armageddon (to be sung sort of like Ballad of the Alamo
by Terry inthe ballad of armageddon _________________a sinner trudged to salem and he went down on his knee asking heaven for a token or a sign of what would be but a wind came out of nowhere and a thunderbolt flashed high as a sudden hush of stillness brought a rumble and a sigh.
the valley of meggido beckons hordes to reckon blood higher than a bridle comes that roiling, gruesome flood in the valley of the shadow where the dead will surely rise on the day (maybe tomorrow) you will understand if wise.
yet the sinner slept in salem and his dreams of monstrous fears woke him screaming much affrighted as he mumbled washed in tears
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Terry
THE BALLAD of ARMAGEDDON
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A Sinner trudged to Salem and he went down on his knee
asking heaven for a token or a sign of what would be
But a wind came out of nowhere and a thunderbolt flashed high
as a sudden hush of stillness brought a rumble and a sigh.
The Valley of Meggido beckons hordes to reckon blood
Higher than a bridle comes that roiling, gruesome flood
In the Valley of the Shadow where the dead will surely rise
on the day (maybe tomorrow) you will understand if wise.
Yet the Sinner slept in Salem and his dreams of monstrous fears
woke him screaming much affrighted as he mumbled washed in tears
"There's a Harm a Gettin' closer
There's battle drawing nigh
And the Judge will render verdicts
Will you Live or will you Die?"
In that Valley of Meggido, scorpion stings will paralyze
and the wrath of God will tangle - with those captives demonized
Summon Satan and his warriors from the Pit of blackened smoke
as the prophecies of Prophets who so long ago bespoke.
Carrion and carnivore with raven beaks will share
every morsel from the torso of the fallen who died there
Comes a fearsome roar from every corner of the Earth with sword and shield
on that day the Lord of Warriors summons to his battlefield.
Sinner wept in Salem but his prayers were much despised
"Get away from me" God bellows to the fellows He derides
"There's a Harm a Gettin' closer
There's battle drawing nigh
And the Judge will render verdicts
Will you Live or will you Die?"
Moon, blood red, now overhead as stars from heaven fell
graves surrendered all the dead came crawling out of Hell
Oceans boiled over where the hissing serpents writhe
Rich and poor the whole world o'er gave feckless final tithe
Time for mercies have now ended every forehead marked for sign
Came the final trumpet ...some for living some for dyin'
Well, you should have been a preacher and you should have been a teacher
and you should have chose the narrow gate because your Fate is sealed
The Day the Old World ended
the last bell finally rang
Ending every sinner
with a whimper not a bang.
The Lord of Hosts gave blessings and a New World came with Dawn
But the memory of the sinners once and ever after gone.
"There's a Harm a Gettin' closer
There's battle drawing nigh
And the Judge will render verdicts
Will you Live or will you Die?"
Will you Live or will you Die?
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Terry Edwin Walstrom
(Sort of like the tune to The Battle of the Alamo) -
5
My escape from Jehovah's Witnesses to seek a life as an artist
by Terry indream of the unborn butterfly.
my escape from jehovah's witnesses to seek a life as an artist .... (1974 - i pulled up stakes in fort worth, texas, packed my wife and 3 small kids into a ford maverick, and headed to california seeking a job of some kind where i could earn a living --not as a janitor, window washer, or minimum wage slave - but as some kind of artist.
) ________________ “konichiwa” he spoke with a smile wrapped in mischief.it was paul miyoshi.
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Terry
DREAM of the UNBORN BUTTERFLY
My escape from Jehovah's Witnesses to seek a life as an artist ...
(1974 - I pulled up stakes in Fort Worth, Texas, packed my wife and 3 small kids into a Ford Maverick, and headed to California seeking a job of some kind where I could earn a living --not as a janitor, window washer, or minimum wage slave - but as some kind of Artist.)
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“Konichiwa” he spoke with a smile wrapped in mischief.
It was Paul Miyoshi. He was an old man.
The pupils of his eyes were black, mysterious, as from another world.
The first time I walked by him; he raised his head of white hair setting his gaze serenely upon me. There had been a slight bow that triggered in me a mirrored response.He was both riddle and pun, light and shadow, and his laughter danced in my ears.
Over the next year and a half, I’d get to know this man much in the way a box within a box reveals more boxes. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was about to become my first Sensei.(When the student is ready, the teacher appears.(Siddhartha-)
“This is how art and life are chosen, with Nature or against Nature --. Traditional Japanese life flows with Nature. We surrender as falling leaves surrender to the wind.”
Companion artists giggled about Paul Miyoshi; characterizing his epigrams as a “fortune cookie” style of speaking. But then, young men reared in Western ways go against Nature.
A true student must surrender to his teacher- a lesson to be learned; one for me to follow.“In Japan, traditionally, houses are made from trees. The bottom of our house is from the trunk wood of trees. The top is the boughs and branches. In between, everything fits, slides, rests by clever interlocking joints, and gravity itself. Windows are paper. Light diffuses serenity. In the West, you block sunlight, smothering your world in curtains and bathing your soul with artificial light and tangled electric wires. The western world builds Cities like stone fortresses in the battle for supremacy with nails, bolts, and steel. ”
I was a Texas boy in my mid-twenties. I escaped--a fugitive of my own life--fleeing westward into California with a dream of becoming an artist. I knew nothing about how it might be done.
I was full of an artistic impulse but only barely acquainted with reality.
In France, ducks are force-fed until their liver bursts. In Texas, I had been force-fed religious doctrines until my life burst.
What talents I possessed naturally were suddenly the focus of everything--I had decided it was time for this to be my focus. I would somehow become what I was inside all along.I simply couldn’t go on the way I had been--existing; uncreative, drone-like, endlessly warning others about Armageddon as I tried to “Stay Alive till ‘75.”
“You have a garden?” Miyoshi asked one day.
“No.”
“Nothing in life grows without a garden.”
“Say what?”
“The garden is our lesson: chaos becomes form. Nature flows as it happens. Life becomes shapes; nothing living truly resists that flow.”
“Um, okay.”
“You are an artist?”
“That’s what I’m here to learn.”
“Art isn’t about getting something right.”
“Well, you could have fooled me!”
“A fool learns technique. Other fools are fooled by technique.”
“Technique?”
“Monkey see--monkey do. It is the way of the monkey--not man as an artist.”
“Well. Okay. Art Schools teach technique for some reason.”
“Western schools teach how to lie. An enlightened teacher instructs what comes first.
First: how to see, then how to be.”“Oka-a-a-ay.”
Triangle Industries sounds exactly like what it was: a factory churning out ‘art’ objects representing decorative products at a reasonable price.
My place in this industry was as a production line artist.
Like Henry Ford’s factory assembling the Model T Ford, long rows of easels and artists duplicated copies of ‘artsy-fartsy’ paintings sold en masse as valuable object d’art.
These were: Handmade soulless imitations.
Our Art was like a painting of a piece of cheese in a mousetrap. It caught a certain kind of unwary mouse.You see, this was factory-style art.
Two highly talented artists came up with images that might sell at the market.
They would proceed to break it down into three different STAGES (single canvas examples) per stage: a background, a middle ground, and a finished subject with details and a signature.
I was in a group of living artists-as-living-copy-machines.
Instead of ink, we used paint and brushes.
Stage by stage we copied what was in front of us by rote.
(Monkey-see / monkey-do).Dozens of identical copies, hand-painted on real canvases: that’s the gimmick.
TRIANGLE’s Art Designers designed expressly to be copied like Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio: footsteps stuck on the floor indicating where to place your feet in order to learn to dance the Cha-Cha.Each (in-between stage) required ‘authentic’ flourishes--techniques. Talent was optional.
Personally, this was an exciting but hollow experience that I looked upon as an apprenticeship. It was but it wasn’t - simultaneously.
I was building technique but without any aesthetic dogma attached; mere practicality.“In Japan, a student works to exactly master every stroke of the Teacher. To graduate you must replace your teacher before you are allowed to become what makes you who you are.”
It felt like the joke about the guy who swept up elephant dung in the Circus parade.
A bystander yelled at him, “Hey, why don’t you get a real job?”
The man with the broom shouts back, “What? Leave show business?”Yes, my art apprenticeship was a bucket of elephant dung - but it was still show business.
The paintings were -- start to finish -- strange fiction.
A fiction biography and persona was invented for a non-existent Artist: a fake name, romantic tale of Dickensian struggles crafted into a counterfeit Certificate of Authenticity. The unwary customer could be wooed by the persuasive wording and adventure of it all.
This was the goal for Triangle Industry’s Nova Art department.
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It suddenly occurred to me one day. This kind of art I was doing was exactly the same sort of thing I had been doing as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses!
I learned to copy and imitate my teachers - learning by rote.
Our Governing Body broke down the doctrine and we reproduced it exactly - until they painted over it - and we copied that new version exactly. Over and over again.
Some of the householders at the doors we knocked took one look and said, “No” but others saw something beautiful. A painting of cheese looks delicious to a hungry mouse.
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“Japanese way of life is to go with the wind--to bend or we break.
China is our wind. Its army: irresistible. Survival is our first Art.
The great victory is the art of avoiding war--becoming like the water
flowing around the stones.”
Triangle Industries was a challenge.
I had no painting techniques because I was a pencil artist.
My teachers had told me, “Terry, you have a natural talent at portraiture.”
Okay, pencil talent but--my path had now taken me toward painting.
(Notice the word “pain” buried in the word “paint.”)
I was like a singer being asked to dance ballet.
It was a steep cliff climb from pencil to paint.
“You can be a Chess champion and a miserable Checker player.” They should have said.
I observed the other artists.
I tried asking questions and that was my first mistake.
Artists, for the most part, are not verbal. They don’t know what they know or why.
It is mere nature when they do this rather than that. Something mysterious and instinctive was theirs. The central “problem” is finding anybody who WANTS what they can do in exchange for money. In desperation - or merely in-between - artists take such jobs as we now performed. Actors wait tables and observe human behavior. So do Artists.
“We can know what to do and be unable to do it. Just as a religious man knows
all about heaven but his knowledge makes him no earthly good.
Knowing is nothing--doing a true thing is everything!”
My Jehovah’s Witness knowledge had been no earthly good to me or my family.
Spiritual meals do not quiet rumbling bellies.
Discouraged from ‘higher’ education, ours was a Last Stand against invisible enemies at the world’s end. We were protagonists in a first-century fantasy. Our only purpose, mission, goal, and ideal was warning fellow earthlings to come into our ‘ark’ of salvation before Armageddon arrived. We were conditioned to check for Armageddon the way a fisherman checks the weather. We saw “signs” of THE END every day for over 100 years the same way.“End of the world for the caterpillar is birth of new world for butterfly.
Transformation is escaping from life as the worm.”My Jehovah’s Witness life was the caterpillar’s life of devouring endless publications of Watchtower leafy nutrition. The only focal point in the universe is just over the other side of the finish line at Armageddon: survival depends on it.
“Art is the voice of Self. It says, “I am here. I am one blink of Nature’s eye.
Hear my voice before I go.”Eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses expect Armageddon slaughter of neighbors who said “no” to the magazines and books. Like an army of janitors and sanitation workers, they’ll haul away the corpses of the young and the old when it is over.
Paradise begins with holy grunt work in order to be perfected by the end of the Millennium.
“Art overflows into a full life. Disconsolation seeps from an empty heart.
Paradise is not Journey’s end - but is the full life well-lived.”A Jehovah’s Witnesses’ life is the garment fading into a coat of patchwork repairs; loyalty to a few well-meaning men who never quite get it right but always have the last word.
“In the West, the true believer dies in the dream of the unborn butterfly.”
I was thirty-one years old and I had been sixteen years old when baptized.
I had dutifully marched into prison, a conscientious objector, the way any sacrificed animal is tossed on the bonfire. 1967, 1968, 1969: smoke in the wind of true belief.To do the right thing, please God, and teach others how to survive the End of the World.
“Stay Alive Till 1975”. Prisons, morgues, and insane asylums are filled with our sort.
We believe another man's Truth and pay our price.“Catholic priests arrived in Japan; the Emperor asked what they wanted.
The priests explained. Their sole mission was to teach every soul in Japan
about God and his Son, Jesus, so they might become Christians.
The Emperor sat and listened through his interpreter.
Finally, he asked, “If people of Japan died ignorant of your Jesus--would your God send my people to burn in Hellfire for this ignorance?”
The priests explained, “God does not hold anyone accountable for what they do not know.”
The Emperor shouted, “Why do you seek to endanger us then with your words?”He ordered their execution.”
(Fattening the bull before the slaughter is the work of the untalented evangelist.
If you personally are unconvincing - the one listening must die thanks to your poor performance.)I quickly rose to become the head of Artists as Supervisor. This happened because I was rankled by the inefficiency I saw around me.
I devised more efficient methods of producing multiple paintings and filling orders. How? Motivating the artists with a monetary incentive system whereby each artist earned more money by turning out more canvases within the same time span.
The approval of the company’s owner, Zoltan Friedman, led to my tutelage by an efficiency expert, Erich Tilscher, for Motion and Time Management training principles.“For Buddhists, Divinity is not a person on a cloud with tablets of rules.
Divine means the eternal flowing motion of music and art to refine the ear and eye,
the flavor of food in elegant presentations, treasures of the mind.”Paul Miyoshi sculpted animals out of clay formed into statuary for homes and gardens; mold-produced ceramic/plaster statuary for orders sold by salesman out in the field.
Plaster animals he then brought to life with his artist’s brushwork and sealed in lacquer to a high gloss finish.
The hollow inside the plaster was filled with concrete. In fact, the heavier the statuary, the higher the price. A heavy statue is one that bespoke value in the mind of the consumer.“There are roads unwise to follow, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War ―
In 1979, I left the Kingdom Hall in tears. I stayed merely alive till ‘75 and an extra four more years beyond it. The mouse on the wheel, exhausted by motion for motion’s sake, stepped off. Surely there was more to life than that dizzy circle of fruitless determination!
__________
The last time I spoke to Paul Miyoshi, was the day I left Triangle Industries.
I was leaving to become part of a new atelier ( etching studio.)
Triangle’s chief designer, artist Ron Riddick, was starting on his Art company.
A few years later I would become the General Manager when Ron moved on.As I was explaining why I was leaving to Paul, Miyoshi took hold of my sleeve and walked me off to a quiet corner of the factory.
His head was bald on top with grey hair hanging on the sides and back. His beard and dangling strands of mustache would have done Hollywood proud. Those bushy white eyebrows fluttered like flower petals and his dark eyes glimmered as moonlight on a still pond.“You once asked me why I did not start my own atelier with my own students.
I have never answered you. Am I correct in saying this?”“I figured you’d tell me or not - when I was ready to hear it.”
“No - you are not ready.”
Paul’s gentle mischief is in his humor. His insight always carried a laugh. For Miyoshi, humor was a slice of orange at the end of a heavy meal. It cleanses the palate and leaves the sweet tang as a reminder of the perfect meal.
He was right. I was unprepared for what came next.
“At 10:30 A.M. on Aug. 9, 1945, my family died. American bombers couldn’t find the target city of Kokura. They found the city of my family instead, Nagasaki.My 14-year-old sister probably looked up into the overcast sky and listened to the rumble of engines. The last thing she would have seen - a bright flash of intense light. But I--I had been sent to Art school in Europe at the time. My father saved money for years to pay my way. My family’s love of Art saved my life from the atom bomb.
The flash of intense light incinerated my mother, my father, my sister. I honor them with a humble life. A life of contemplation and obscurity. It is not a Western choice. It is my choice.”His unexpected words were paralyzing to me. I am seldom at a loss for words--this was one of those times.
“When I received the news, I performed a Buddhist funeral ritual.
Today, with your leaving, it is another little death. What is this death?
Death is change. I would tell you of this ritual and its message is my parting gift.
Hai?”There was a sudden rush of forces in my head and chest at that moment. My casual goodbye-- a mere formality for me, I confess, was not casual to Paul Miyoshi. He did not take life in such a throwaway fashion.
I nodded to his question and he leaned in to whisper barely loud enough for me to hear.
He compelled me to listen.“The story of our life is written with our finger upon the water. We paint our love for others with deeds. We pass, like the river, only once through this valley of sunlight and shadows. What piece of us remains behind - is in the hearts of others--this is our Art.”
And we shook hands. We bowed.
I quickly headed straight to the restroom and wrote down what Miyoshi had said on my tiny spiral notepad. I did so with peculiar tears.Grateful tears.
_________
I became the falling leaf surrendering to the journey of the wind--my life yet to come.
My life of religious service had been somebody else’s design of art painted over and over--copies of copies. For sale with concrete inside to give the illusion of value.
I had been invited to a genuine studio of real artists to begin the happiest years of my life.
The friends I made would not desert me like the others who switched off their ‘love’ in an instant. Automatic. Everything or Nothing.
Truly, Paul Miyoshi was right when he said,“...the true believer dies in the dream of the unborn butterfly.”
Yes, I have seen the life I wanted flowing like a river and I felt the rush of time under my wings.
I have lived free.I am here.
I am one blink of Nature’s eye.
Hear my voice before I go.______
________________
We write the story of our life with our finger as upon the water...
