Candle Power

Candle Power

Noel Laflin

October 24, 2000

It has been an autumn of prayers and candles.  I don’t quite recall, in recent memory, when so many loved ones have been this ill.  I have become well stocked with candles.  I have whispered a litany of prayers.

      

My father’s candle is centered on my old wooden dining room table, where I am writing at this moment, watching my daughter sleeping peacefully upon the couch.  Its early morning, still dark outside and the candles are lit.  Here at this table, where so many good meals have been enjoyed, domino tournaments played out till the wee hours of the night and  quiet conversations over strong cups of  coffee have been held, I enshrine my small votive with smooth river stones.  Stones from sacred places I have visited, some time and again like the Virgin River in Zion, or the edge of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the coastline of Big Sur.  There are even stones from the banks of the Zambezi in Africa.  All hallowed places to me.  They sit guard around this candle since my father’s fall earlier this month and subsequent stay in the hospital and nursing facility.  My prayer is for his recovery of limbs, remembering how to stand and walk once more.  Other prayers are for the pneumonia and high fevers to dissipate, his sense of balance to return, his memory not to wander as it has recently.  The flame within the rocks toys with me as it flickers high and low, mimicking my spirits these past three weeks.  I like to be near this candle.

I have lit candles for friends and family throughout the years in this home of mine.  Many no longer burn on a nightly basis, but at special remembered times and anniversaries.  Some do not stay alight for long, such as the one for a friend’s father, which only burned for a week, and then was put away upon his death. The candle for Buddy, the cat, flickered for just a few minutes before drowning itself in soft wax.  I quickly replaced it, feeling guilty for the sputtering flame, which was no more.  But Buddy died that night, nonetheless.  My token ritual was not enough.

 

There are some nights, as I walk about the room, extending the flame to each wick, when I stop and panic. 

“Who have I forgotten?” I wonder.  A name, a face escapes me momentarily.  I recite the litany of names, I count on my fingers.  “Ah, yes, OK.  All accounted for.” I proceed about my nightly chores feeling like the forgetful village lamplighter of years gone past.

 

It has gotten to the point where I need one more candle to stand in quiet vigil for all of the others currently touched by pain and illness - the never-ending list is discouraging.  This candle sits near the front door to my home, greeting visitors and friends with its fragrant scent and deep red color.

I don’t want my home to be a shrine dedicated only to the ill.  I love candles when they fill the room with soft, romantic shadows on the wall or blaze with the anticipation of Christmas or the Winter Solstice. Sometimes I just like a candle for company to help me through the lonely nights and dark early mornings.  But the wicks are aflame for other purposes lately.  And whispered prayers to the many names for God linger in the room as I light another and another and yet another.

           

           

.

Just Dropping In

Just Dropping In

Noel Laflin

11-18-14

The small plane swooped in out of the cloudless blue sky and began to circle our patch of the flat dry lake bed, like a red-tailed hawk making a slow decent.

Three of us standing next to the van could clearly see the pilot and his passenger, a woman, as they circled ever lower.  She was waving gaily.  We waved back.

The forth member of our group, Steve, was struggling to regain control of both his trousers and his dignity.  He had ventured out just moments before, camp shovel in one hand – a roll of toilet paper in the other – heading off to a partially sheltered stand of tumbleweeds.  There wasn’t a porta-potty in sight for miles – so he was making do.  The unexpected appearance of the small Cessna interrupted his mission.  We could see him struggling behind the bushes.  All that was needed now was a stiff breeze sending the roly-poly plants tumbling down the lane, and making Steve’s embarrassment complete.

‘Who would have thought,’ he must have been thinking bitterly, (struggling with his belt at this point) ‘that this could occur on a dry lake bed, two miles off of a two-bit highway, in the middle of freaking nowhere!’

But such are the twists of fate in the unpredictable Nevada desert and the wild blue yonder above.

Four of us had departed for these parts just the night before.  We made late camp on the majestic sand dunes of Death Valley around one in the morning, but stayed awake most of the night watching a most spectacular shooting star production.  Come morning, we traveled on to Scotty’s Castle and then continued east on highway 267, crossing into Nevada a short time later.  One of several massive dry lake beds north of the two-lane road beckoned.  There was a stand of tall hills some miles away.  It looked both inviting and isolated this fine March day.  We were heading that way across the massive, beautiful dry lake bed when Steve felt the call of nature.  As there was not another vehicle in sight for ten miles, he felt it was a fine place to stop.  We had not planned on company coming in from above, however.

Well, that little plane circled low and wide one last time before making its final approach.  The lake bed was as smooth as hardened cement.  The wheels, once touched down, raised little dust.  The one-prop job braked gently and came to rest just yards from us.

The doors opened and a man and a woman stepped out, stretched a moment and then headed to a small compartment door near the rear of the plane.  Two pieces of equipment were taken out and quickly assembled.  The end product was a small motorized bike.  The man straddled the seat and turned the small engine over.  It purred.  The woman slipped in behind the pilot and they were soon gone, heading across the vast, empty lake bed, California bound.  Not a word had been exchanged between either party – theirs or ours.

It was kind of a Twilight Zone moment. 

We made camp and were just starting dinner when the faint purr of their bike, echoing ever so slightly off of the hills behind us, caught our attention.  Like a wavering mirage, they grew closer and closer until parked beside the plane once more.

The bike was disassembled just as quickly as it had been put together and re-loaded back into the plane’s back compartment.

Curiosity finally got the better of us of course, so we approached with questions.  They were delighted to answer.

They were husband and wife and lived in the San Francisco Bay area.

They thought that it would be nice to visit Scotty’s Castle today, so they decided to make an afternoon of it, hop in the plane and find a nice place to land not too far from their objective.  This lake bed was too good to pass up.

They had dinner reservations with friends back in the city tonight so were in need of departure.

They wished us a good evening, climbed back aboard their craft and started up. 

As they turned the plane into the wind, and revved the engine a bit before their take off, the woman cracked open the door and tossed a brown paper bag our way, waved, and closed the door.  The small craft was soon speeding down the old lake bed and lifting ever so gently into the air.  They circled back, coming in low once more and tipped the wing.  It then headed northeast.

We had near forgotten about the package.  Steve opened it and smiled. 

He reached inside and brought forth a pop-up umbrella.  It bore the image of Scotty’s Castle – obviously a very recent gift shop purchase

Attached to it was a small note which read, “Sorry for the interruption earlier today. May this small gift help protect you from future overhead intrusions.  You never know when we might just drop in again - unannounced as it were.”

Image - Stage Left

         Image - Stage Left

    Noel Laflin

      Nov. 16, 2014

The 1963 Lincoln Elementary School annual Christmas program is but minutes away and I have a very bad feeling about it.

The pageant, “Merry Christmas Thoughts,” co-written and directed by our fifth grade teacher, Dorothy Philipian, involves multiple grade choirs, sixteen poorly trained dancers, tone-deaf bell ringers, a nerdy narrated nod to Hanukkah by a nice Gentile boy aptly named Noel, two finger-cymbal novices and a covey of badly balanced tambourine players tripping about the poorly trained dancers. None of this is bothersome to me in the least. What does concern me, however, is the opening performance kicking off the festivities.  It's basically a morality play - of which I am a part; an old fashion, down to earth tale of a bad boy becoming good.

Mrs. Philipian has chosen me to play bad boy, Bobby - again, not a stretch for this ten-year-old drama queen.  However, what does scare the holy bejesus out of me is that in her philanthropic view of irony, she has chosen the school’s real bad boy, Robin, to play the good boy, Jim.

And I am not alone in my fear.

You see, Robin is as mad as hell over this demotion in character. He swears on a stack of Playboy Magazines that he has been miscast, slandered, and damn near humiliated for even being considered for this role. He laments, to no avail, that he will never be able to show his face again should he be forced into the role of the good boy.

"Image is everything," he wails.

But Mrs. Phlipian is not deterred. She is not moved. She proclaims that there is good in all of her students. And as it's nearly Christmas - not to mention that this is HER script- Robin acquiesces.  But I have this nagging feeling that he will ultimately be getting in the last word.

Despite our premonitions, Happy, the Elf and I take our roles seriously and learn our lines.  Robin does not.  In fact, the boy never takes too much of anything seriously, unless it involves sneaking a smoke behind the bushes, beating the tar out of someone, or telling a dirty joke.  But he can accomplish any three of these activities with the greatest of charm.  I know this first hand as he has become my friend over the years.  It's an unlikely friendship, as we are so very opposite and he is a year older than me - maybe two, as I am not certain whether he's ever been held back a grade.  But for some reason he takes me under his wing, imparts another dirty joke that I pretend to understand and laugh over, gives me a friendly knuckle knock to the head and never once beats me up.  For all of this I am filled with a bit of hero worship as well as gratitude for being liked by the baddest boy at Lincoln School.

But suddenly here it is, the second Thursday in December - our own little D-Day. The production is to begin at seven in the evening and I am sweating more and more profusely as the long hand on the old clock behind the stage ticks away my life.

By six-thirty, the back stage is rapidly filling with teachers and children of all ages.  Happy, the Elf and I are nervously pacing and muttering lines.  Robin is nowhere in sight.

With a full house of parents and siblings on the other side of the cheap red curtains eagerly awaiting the production - and with but mere minutes to go - Robin finally shows; the acrid-sweet scent of a recently pilfered Pall Mall still strong upon his breath. Happy, the Elf and I exchange sorrowful glances.  We are hoping for a forfeit, thus avoiding having to take the field altogether.  The elf and I share a strange telepathic moment; a single word coming through loud and clear – ‘FIASCO’.

The principal, a very tall man, strides dutifully to the center of the stage, bends slightly to first tap and then speak into the standing microphone. He greets one and all.  Without missing so much as a single beat he then dovetails into premature praise for the authors of the play and the outstanding cast of students who have worked so diligently to make this a most memorable evening for young and old alike.

Mrs. Philpian beams as she waltzes forth to take the microphone in order to set the opening scene. As that is our cue, Happy, the Elf and I step forward and begin our dialogue. My character is full of negativity of course.  Happy, on the other hand, is ... just that.  But it's clear that it's going to take a good boy in order to turn Bobby-The-Bad around - an elf, no matter how happy, isn't  up to the job. Mrs. Philipian's script sees to that.

And then it is nearly time for Robin to make his appearance.  Miss Happy  leaves the stage at this point, so there I am, all alone with nothing more than a thousand eyes cast my way - all awaiting conflict, turmoil and ultimately a good old fashioned ending.

I say my line that is to be Robin’s cue and wait for him to join me center stage.

No Robin.

I repeat my line and wait some more, all the while glancing hopelessly stage left and then stage right and then to Mrs. Philipian, standing off to the side steps ready to prompt a line at a moment's notice. She simply looks at me and shrugs.

And then,  miracle of miracles, here comes Robin entering from stage right!

Sauntering ever so causally across the platform Robin flashes a confident, brilliant smile to the audience. Some of his six grade cronies, scattered throughout the crowd, howl with delight.

He approaches me, hand extended, and draws me in close. 

“This isn’t in the script,” I whisper.

Robin whispers back, "I'll never be a good boy."

And with that he continues his brief walk of fame, soon exiting stage left and out the back door of the auditorium - image fully intact.

One Word

One Word

Noel Laflin

11-12-14

Isn’t it funny how a single word can bring about an entire barrage of emotions?

Furthermore, have you ever noticed how a lone and solitary word can take us places that we have either longed for or forgotten?

I ponder these questions at times - too much of the time I suppose.  But I usually keep these ponderings to myself.

So, no one was more surprised than I was when I found myself cutting and pasting and asking my friends to describe in one word where we met.  Just one word was the key.
 

The memory machine suddenly cranked into high gear.

Places met included elementary school, junior high, high school, work, church, Scouts, Camp Ahwahnee, old neighborhoods, a wedding, a funeral.

Personal connections happened because of relationships or via family members: sister, brother, mother, father, daughter, and significant others.

The first to respond to my post mentioned the fact that we had never actually met in person, but were friends via this social media outlet.  The question hung there: did it count?  Why, most certainly.  Some of the folks I admire most are ones that I have never met. But I like them nonetheless as our friendships have grown via warm key strokes over the span of months and in some cases years now.

The names and places kept rolling in throughout the day and evening.

 

There continue to be dozens and dozens of words scrolling before me at present. They fight for my attention.  As the word connections are recognized, brain cells fire in all directions: I’m five years old again – now ten – now twenty – now thirty, and forty, and fifty, and sixty. I’m in school, at work, at camp, at play, at this key board typing quietly through the night, talking to old and new friends alike.

Word associations grab hold of one another - like strangers at a party - just tipsy enough to be so bold as to start a conga line - and dance across my memory.

 

I Can Sleep On a Windy Night

I Can Sleep On a Windy Night

Noel Laflin

November 6, 2014

There is a very old tale about a farmer going to an annual spring fair in search of some help.  The story varies in the telling (sermons and campfires in particular), but the one that I am most familiar with boils down to this: In the old days, when the country was much more rural and agriculturally-driven, young men from nearby towns and villages would go to spring fairs in search of employment.  Farmers, in need of help with the tough summer and harvesting to come, would go to these same fairs in search of capable farmhands.  This one particular old farmer would always ask each young candidate the same question, ‘What can you do?’

Well, the first lad that he approaches appears capable enough, judging by looks alone. The young man is tall, strong and clean in appearance.  So, the farmer leads off with his question about what he can do – to which the young man simply answers, ‘I can sleep on a windy night.’  That is the extent of his reply.

The old farmer, somewhat befuddled by this, thinks the young man may have misheard him and so repeats the question.  The reply is the same, ‘I can sleep on a windy night.’  Thinking the boy to be not only dim-witted but insolent as well, the farmer moves on.

As the day progresses, the man finds no one to his liking. The fair is winding down and the first young man that he spoke with is still there.  Apparently, other would-be employers were also put off by his one sentence reply about the ability to ‘sleep on a windy night,’ and had passed on his hiring.

Out of sheer desperation, the farmer circles back to the youth and asks a third time, ‘What can you do?

The young man looks him in the eye and replies for a third time as well, ‘I can sleep on a windy night.’

Exasperated, but in dire need for help, the farmer caves and offers the young man a job.  The lad accepts.

Well, the weeks and months go by and the farmer is greatly impressed with the boy’s work ethic and attention to detail.  They operate as a good team.  The man marvels at his good fortune to have chosen wisely.  He quickly forgets his initial misgivings and why he had even been hesitant to hire him in the first place.  That is, until the night of the big storm.

The farmer awakes to a fierce wind blowing across his land.  He hears the sound of tree branches snapping, rain pelting his window, and the old farm house itself moaning in distress.  Jumping out of bed, he dresses and heads for the bunk house, where the young hired lad is sound asleep. 

The farmer tries to wake the boy, but no avail.  Both alarmed and discouraged, the old man decides to make the rounds himself and secure the farm.

But, nothing needs attending.  The cattle and horses are safely in the barn, both fed and watered. Tools are in place, clean and shining. The barn doors have all been securely fastened.  Dry matches lay close to filled kerosene lanterns, their wicks freshly trimmed, ready for emergency use.

In the fields, stacks of hay have been covered and tightly lashed to sturdy ground stakes.  Not a one has blown away.  Formerly brittle fence posts have been recently removed and replaced with hardy new wood.  Wires are tight, locks in place.

Even the rain gutters have been recently cleaned.  Water pours off the roofs harmlessly and unhampered.

The inventory goes on and on.  All is secure. Nothing has been left to chance.  All is in order.

As the old man leans into the wind, fighting his way back to his home and a warm bed, he recalls, ponders, and smiles at the words spoken by a young man several months back, ‘I can sleep on a windy night.’

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I have read where some preachers try to tie the tale to biblical teachings.

Fair enough.  But, I seek other analogies.

Having first heard the story told at Scout camp long ago, I was always under the impression that it was a tale of preparedness – as in their motto: Be Prepared.

And of all of the many campfire stories that I first listened to, memorized, and then told myself as I grew older, I still find this one to be the most satisfying of all.

There was a time in my life when I was desperately seeking work.  I must have gone on a hundred interviews before stumbling into the line of work that would eventually carry me for the next three-and-a-half decades.

If I had only remembered this tale of preparedness, that I must have told a hundred times in my youth, I might have secured something more quickly.

If only potential employers had asked, ‘What can you do?’ 

To wit - if I had only replied, ‘I can sleep on a windy night.'

A Real Wort of Art

A Real Wort of Art

Noel Laflin
November 2, 2014

When you are in need of quick artwork, it's always helpful to  have a blank canvas, a little paint and a cat at hand; no brush is even necessary.

With guests arriving within the hour, Tom thought the house to be ready, with the exception of our bedroom.

"It's that blank space over the bed that bugs me," he remarked, as we scurried about with last minute preparations.

There was an unknown quantity of folks liable to descend on our home that night and he wanted to make a good first impression of our new digs. He was an artist, after all.

"It just needs something," Tom lamented, staring at the open space on the wall.

That's about the time the new kitten happened to jump up on the bed. Little did he know that he'd be a star before the night was through.

You could almost see the proverbial light bulb going off over Tom's head at that moment.  And in that flash of inspiration he instructed me to grab hold of the cat while he went scrambling in the closet in search of a canvas and some paint.

Now, the kitten's name was Wort - you know, the very same nickname bestowed on a young King Arthur by Merlin way back in magical days. Just a week or two earlier we had gone in search of some plants at a local nursery. I can't recall whether we brought home a plant or not that day, but  we did most definitely bring home a kitten, as the owner of the nursery pressed one upon us. The soon to be named Wort was part Siamese with beautiful bright blue eyes. Who could resist?

So there I was holding Wort as Tom carried a large blank canvas and a can of blue paint out onto the patio. The paint was shaken so that there was some on the inside of the lid once it was pried loose.

With great care, remembering that we had a live feline with very sharp claws in our hands, we pressed each paw gently into the upturned lid of blue paint.  Tom then asked me to set Wort down at the edge of canvas and see what would happen.

The cat strode about, naturally enough, meandering here and there until he just walked right off intending to head back into the house.

We stared down in wonderment at the crisp blue paw print design. With a flourish of a final touch, Tom dipped his finger in the remaining paint and signed Wort's name to the bottom of the canvas.

We grabbed our new-found Picasso, walked him to the edge of the swimming pool and carefully dipped his blue stained paws in the water. This turned out to be the toughest part of the entire experiment as you can imagine a cat's  reaction to being held over a large body of water.

So while I went in search of a few Band-Aids, Tom found a nail and hammer and hung the canvas over the bed.

The paint was not even dry by the time the first guests arrived.  But, oh, did folks ever 'ooh-and-ah' over that piece. They all wanted to meet the artist of course. But he had turned into a sudden recluse and could not be coaxed out from beneath the bed.

Any guest foolhardy enough to try and do so was rewarded with a quick swipe from a very blue paw.