[The HobNob, today, by Billy Bucher]: If my records are correct, and, heaven forbid, they aren’t always, we lost Paul B. Miner ten years ago today.

It was a very great loss.

I think lighting a candle tonight would be in order.

I hope to get some of my favorite Paul B. pictures placed here over the next month. If you have a special Paul B. thought, hit [this link] and add your thoughts.

Paul B. loved plants and gardening as much as he loved reading and writing. Spring always was very special to him. Life and friends were very special to him.

Paul B. was one in a million.

[March 19, 1994, by the Bloggard]: Only a couple of years ago, Adrienne and I had lived in an apartment overlooking the Sausalito bay, where boats glided past on the silken blue water, and gulls wheeled in the sky.

With my nose buried in computers and dreams, I hardly noticed when Paul my best friend from college sent me new literary magazines, and letters. I didn’t really stay in touch.

Later, I understand that Paul, dying of brain cancer, lay for days in a bed, and one day asked his mom, “I wonder whatever happened to Richard.” (Which was my name way back then.)

I wonder, too.

News Flash! Now you too can have a custom beer label. So easy! So meaningful! Now persons such as Ray Ashley (citizen of New Jersey) can instantly create lables for the many and varied brews of his devising. And so can you!

Just visit The Beer Lable Site.

(A tip of the Hatlo Hat to J-Walk Blog for this item. J-Walk is my favorite weblog; I read it daily.)

USA Today newspaper, April 1, 1998: In a full-page advertisement today, Burger King Corporation of Miami, Florida, has introduced their new “Left-Handed Whopper,” especially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans.

According to Burger King, the new whopper contains the same ingredients as their popular Whopper hamburger sandwich; however, all the condiments have been rotated a full 180 degrees, for the benefit of left-handed customers.

Mount Shasta, May 20, 2004: This morning over coffee, Adrienne told me about how Chakras get clogged up with bad events, and I told her how Dianetic auditing is said to clear up clogged events. We came to agree that Dianetics was really Chakra theory, which will amaze and alarm any student of either Chakras or Dianetics, but it’s swell for Adrienne and me. To agree, I mean, if you follow me.

We then discussed the upcoming dog park in Mount Shasta, and Adrienne had made a collections jar that she took to the Pet Wash, and she said it was an “apocrothary” jar. I said “apothocary.” She corrected herself. I said it was no problem, and that such mispronunciation just showed the moo treening of a munctioning find.

So the morning was off to a great start, and the coffee pretty good.

As we discussed our theories of life and the meaning of meaning, I had a brainwave. In the (probably foolish) hope that you might find it as stunning as did I, here it is:

Probably all of the blunders that we make and all of the confusions that we experience come about because of the creatures that we are.

That is, the creatures that we are are exactly liable to make those particular blunders and experience those particular confusions. So what we are actually seeing is nothing but the cosmic dance unfolding, perfectly and just as it should, for creatures such as we are.

This means that there is nothing wrong here. Maybe it works out swell for us individually, or maybe we suffer and die. But there is nothing wrong. This is the perfect unfolding of the universe for exactly the creatures that we are.

What you think, kemo sabe?

San Anselmo, February 15, 2002: Joseph called me on the phone. I didn’t recognize his voice. His father, Paul, my brother, was dead.

Paul was very big, a very fat man. He edited one of the Sams books about dBase, once upon a time. A computer whiz, he graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, took up Scientology, married, had children, and on that day he was very happy because he’d landed a new consulting contract, and for the first time in his life, he had bought a new car.

Yesterday on Valentine’s Day, driving from his consulting meeting, exiting a car lot, he pulled out in front of a truck.

The truck, hell-bent for leather, barrelling along at high speed, and the driver admiring the shiny new cars parked along the side, crushed Paul’s new car, killed Paul.

There was nothing to be done.

Sally, his wife, got a call from the trucking company owner, the driver’s father, whining and crying and feeling so sorry, he said. And he also mentioned that they’d be suing Paul’s insurance for the damage to their truck. I suppose I could have arranged to shoot the negligent trucker, but it wouldn’t bring back Paul. The police called it an accident.

I wasn’t there. I want it to be somebody’s fault. My intuition says it was the trucker’s fault. But let it go.

Paul is gone, and the ceremony, as he’d have wished, is being held at the Church of Scientology in Austin, across from the university, on a very wide street. Everyone is very nice. My brother George, Paul’s older brother, and my younger, will be speaking. He’s minister at a ritzy church in Dallas.

Beforehand, sitting on the veranda at Paul’s house, I see that George has a tiny piece of paper. I nod at the paper.

“What is it?” I ask him. He holds it up, smiles. There are a few tiny words written there.

“My cheat-sheet,” he says. “To help me remember what to say.” I thought this was a good idea, and made some tiny notes for myself.

At the ceremony, no body lying around, no coffin, some flowers, and a woman minister speaking. She reads a ceremony written by L. Ron Hubbard. The mighty L. Ron is gone, too. He died a few years ago, as I read in the San Francisco Chronicle, just after I’d moved back from Texas. I felt so sad, reading it. Toward the end he’d lived, in hiding, on a ranch with white fences for horses, and a helicopter pad. I remembered how I’d seen him on a boat in the harbor in Valencia, Spain. He was eating a steak, and smoking Kool cigarettes. He was so full of life, wearing his Commodore uniform. Gone. Gone.

In the ceremony, the minister spoke of Paul as “our vedette”. A vedette is a scout who ventures far in advance of an army, to find out what’s there. That would be Paul all right. Gone.

My brother George spoke.

Then it was my time. I stood behind the podium. The room was packed. So many people, who knew my brother, people who cared. So many. Who were they? An entire life I’d not known.

“I was not a very good brother to Paul,” I said. I spoke loudly. “We only talked now and then. Sometimes a year or more would go by, and then I’d call him. When he answered I would say, Pabolo Stricklando? and he would say, Yes! This is Pabolo Stricklando! and I would say This is your brother, Arturo Cronoso, do you remember me? and he would say Why, yes, yes I do remember you! and then we would talk, for a while. I know it was goofy, but we liked it.

“I’ve heard it said that healthy families have a lot of jokes. I don’t know how true it is, but the bunch of us had a lot of jokes. For example, George there (nodding toward my brother George) he once saw a Danny Kaye movie where they had an elaborate plot about some poison in a chalice and all through that movie Danny Kaye would say to somebody: Get it? And then they would say: Got it! And then he’d say: Good!

“Except you have to say it real quick: Get it? Got it! Good. See? Or rather perhaps I should say: Get it? Got it! Good!

“I know it’s dumb. But that’s not all. At one point my brothers and I all learned to repeat the entire record of Daffy Duck Flies South. The record wasn’t really made for adolescents, but it was fun. I can’t remember the whole thing now, so you’ll be spared, but Paul thought it was great. We had fun. That was a good time.

“And now, when I think back, about my brother Paul, what I’ll remember is the fun times we had … and one more thing.

“He had a tiny red spot, right here, in the corner of his eye. I don’t remember whether he did it in his chemistry experiment, or the time he blew up the stove, but he did it, and it marked him. Our errors, and our pain, they become a part of who we are. And so it became a part of Paul, of who he was. And for the rest of my life, whenever I think of Paul, what I’ll remember … is that tiny red spot, just there, in his eye.

“You know, we hear people talk about ‘The Gift of Life.’ But that’s not quite right. It’s not a gift.

“It’s a loan. And, no matter how wonderful this life is, no matter who you are, how good you are, whether you’re good or bad, someday you come to the end. And you must give it up.

“There’s no use complaining. That’s the deal. That’s how it is. Life is only a loan, just for a time. Just the wink of an eye, sometime it seems.

“Paul would have understood that. And if he was here, he would be so happy to see you all, all of you today. He would be so happy to see you. But Paul, he came to the end.

“Right, Paul?” And here I turned, and looked up, looked up through the ceiling, up through the building, up into the sky. “Right, Paul?” I said, louder.

“Get it?” I yelled.

Pausing, we could all hear, faintly in the mind: Got it!

“Good!“

San Anselmo, March 31, 2004: A year ago, I began online publishing of the Adventures of Bloggard. Over 360 micro-stories have now been added to the bloggosphere, recounting people and places from my past, to create a sketchy autoblography.

Visitors here have found stories both happy and sad, serious and absurd, familiar and exotic. I use Marcel Proust’s method. From the scent of a madeline cookie, he recalled a bygone Parisian age. I do the same, except that I wake up and smell the coffee, as I have been advised to do by so many well-meaning people, and the stories themselves range over a century up till today, from Texas to California and beyond, and yes, even to Paris.

However, given this meandering method, some folks might like things more orderly, and some folks might like things brief.

For these people, and for visitors who might enjoy a review, here is a photo album with snapshots of the last year, and of a lifetime. I’m told that there will be a test at the end.

Henrietta, Texas, 1922: Tutti-Fruity

Henrietta, Texas, 1949: The Gypsies by the Slough

Henrietta, Texas, 1951: Wizard in a Cave

Henrietta, Texas, 1952: The Canyon

Henrietta, Texas, 1954: Diplomacy

Henrietta, Texas, 1955: Derley Davis and the Dew Drop Inn

Henrietta, Texas, 1958: A White Sport Coat, and Rocket Fuel

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1963: The Skydivers

Shady Shores, Texas, 1964: Band of Thieves

Denton, Texas, 1964: A Photograph of the Future

Denton, Texas, 1965: The Corduroy Coat

Dallas, 1966: The Abandoned Road

St. Louis, 1967: Carrie Street Station

Southern England, 1968: A Cottage in East Grinstead

Phnom Pen, 1969: Bravery

Hurnville, Texas, 1971: Young Fool

San Francisco, 1974: The Apartment From Hell

San Francisco, 1975: Phil Groves and Raskin-Flakkers Ice Cream Store

San Francisco, 1976: The Thumbtack Bugle

San Francisco, 1976: Network Answering Service

San Francisco, 1977: Mick Jagger’s Secret

San Francisco, 1978: The Robe

San Francisco, 1979: The Musical Idiot

San Francisco, 1980: 3304 Geary Boulevard

Newport Beach, 1985: The Christmas Present

San Francisco, 1990: The Chapman Stick

San Rafael, 1996: The Wacko

Paris, 2001: Koko Taylor in Paris

Mount Shasta, 2003: Leaving

Mount Shasta, 2004: Tulip, Gone

In a week, I’ll be 60. It makes one pause, or even stumble. One then asks, where does the time go? Perhaps these little stories hint at an answer. And thinking back on those times present and past, it makes one wonder … what will happen next?

But perhaps time is twisted. Perhaps it’s really running backwards, and we, trapped in that flowing stream, cannot see the true direction of things. Perhaps what is to come has in fact already happened.

Or, as a dear friend once said, perhaps not.

Los Angeles, Summer 1969: I’d parked my green MGB sportscar at the supermarket, and walking across the parking lot, I was approached by a young guy who started talking real fast.

Oddly enough, he was dressed exactly like me. And this is more odd than it might sound, because I was wearing a pale blue sportscoat with white stripes, over white slacks, and he was wearing identical clothes. I stared.

“Are you happy?” he demanded, “Would you like to have more money, a better job, more women? Would you like things to be better? Well it’s easy …”

He attempted to press a cardboard ticket into my hand.

“It’s easy!” he insisted. “All you have to do is chant these words — nom meyoho ringey kyo! — you just chant these words, and you can have more money, or a better job, or a lot of women. That’s all you have to do! And you can have anything you want!”

I continued walking. I smiled my superior smile. I knew better, of course, because I was studying Scientology. Chanting things, how silly!

He kept trying to put the ticket into my hand. “Just chant these words,” he demanded. “Come to this meeting. We’ll show you how. You can have anything you want, and-“

Ignoring him, I’d turned to the supermarket door, and perhaps because I’d been distracted, I walked into the Out door, at the very moment that a cute little child started out the door.

The door swung open, hitting me right in the middle of the forehead.

Stunned, I stopped. I felt the paper ticket slide into my hand, my fingers closing upon it.

“You see?” the guy shouted. “I don’t want things like that to happen to you!”