Some years ago, Adrienne’s friend Bruce described his grandfather, a thin and elderly man sinking into dementia. On some days he was unable to find his way around the house, but on this particular day he’d put on his uniform (from the second world war), and he’d started walking up the street.

They found him thirty miles up the road in the next town, patiently waiting for a bus. He said he was taking the bus to rejoin his unit.

Lately the radio has been full of news of Iraq, and yesterday we walked the dog in the beautiful Shastice park, where long meadows of lawn wind around the tennis courts. Lizzie rolled on the grass and drifting clouds folded around the mountain, and glided in our direction, promising weather to come.

While we were walking and enjoying the peace, some punk stole Adrienne’s purse from our parked car.

Driving away, she realized. “Stop the car,” she said.

We returned, interviewed folks, examined nearby cars, and peeked into trash cans. No luck. The thieves were long gone.

At the police station, I told the burly guy behind the glass that we’d been robbed, that her purse had been stolen from the car. He smiled. “That’s not robbery,” he said. “That’s burglary.”

“Ok, fine,” I said. “Burglary. How do we file a report?”

He fetched a patrolman who asked questions, and we went home. Somebody has our keys. Adrienne is mightily upset. I think it’s not just the loss of glasses, cards, and somebody having our keys. It’s the loss of the feeling that everything is so safe, here.

We’d planned on dinner, and so when some calm returned, we left Lizzie to bark away intruders and went out. In the restaurant, a lady in the next booth excitedly pointed and gibbered to her husband; a mountain lion was crossing the road. The husband didn’t seem very interested.

When we returned home, everything was fine, no problem. I’m guessing the thieves were kids, looking for thrills or dope money. We’re out about $300 for glasses and keys, and they got $24, plus a sweet picture of Tulip our border collie. But that’s the problem with criminals; they got no consideration.

Today’s been strange too, arranging for the locksmith to change the locks — just in case — and cancelling credit cards, atm cards, auto club card, kaiser card, etc, etc, etc. Voicemail jail and around the block. The Sears card lady in Iowa wrote down the information while tornado alerts boomed in the office behind her. Thank you.

And Friday was strange. We discovered a large white pickup parked mid-block, at right-angles to the street, rear wheels on a lawn with the tailgate pushed into bushes. No plates, keys dangling in the ignition. The cops came and drove it away.

Strange. Strange.

Adrienne tells me she feels like putting on her uniform, and taking the bus to rejoin her unit.

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.

San Francisco, 1977: I was the only operator at Network Answering Service, and our hours were 6AM to Midnight, seven days a week.

I took the messages that came in for my clients, and then they called me to pick up those messages. It was natural that we got to talking. And quite a few of them were friends, out there in the world.

Hokum W. Jeebes, for example, juggled on the street and occasionally at the Bohemian Club. He knew Lennie Sloan, the dancer, who produced “Three Black and Three White New Minstrel Show.” Lennie knew Doug McKechnie, who once played Moog synthesizer number three. And Doug knew Harvey Warnke, a self-taught electronics whiz who built computer-controlled light shows.

So when someone mentioned the benefit for Doug McKechnie, to be held at the Intersection Coffee House, on Pacific above North Beach, somehow I got invited.

And I went.

The show was a blast, featuring a film Doug had done for NASA, with a far-out soundtrack. Hokum juggled, and Harvey was operating the lights. The others were my clients, but I was meeting Harvey for the first time.

And that reminded me of a project, so I made an appointment for Harvey to visit at the studio apartment where I answered the phones. I’d envisioned a gadget that would answer the phoneline and make a sparkling sound. Then, after a delay, it would connect through to me. This way, clients could set their call-forwarding easily but I’d not be burdened with taking those calls. I described it, and Harvey sat in my bentwood rocker, with his finger to his temple, nodding sagely. Yep, he said, he could do that.

We never did the project, but we did become friends. I learned that Harvey had no memory of anything in his life before the age of twelve. And as a teen out of high school, he’d taken a job at the planetarium, and learned to repair and modify the machines that moved the stars across the heavens.

From there, he’d learned to read data sheets. A data sheet is kind of like a cheat sheet for a computer chip. A data sheet will describe how many pins you’ll find around the edge of the chip, and if you put a signal on this one and that one then this other one will show a signal … or some other complicated arrangement. You don’t have to know what’s going on inside the chip. The chip is just a black box, and the data sheet tells you how to hook it up. Your computer is filled with such chips, and somewhere there is a data sheet for every one of them.

From reading data sheets, he learned how to control lights with relays and circuits, and that’s how he came to design the light shows for the loud-music clubs over on Haight Street. When I met him, he was casting about for new projects.

And about then he met Lin, a dancer and conceptual artist. I didn’t know what that meant, but when I visited their apartment I found photos of Lin dancing, except that there was no light except the blue laser that painted her body as she danced. Huh! So that was what a conceptual artist was, I thought.

I remember a photo, included with their wedding invitation. It showed the two of them, climbing on some rocks, and they looked so young, so alive, so happy.

By then, I’d found my Lori, and we were getting married too. I guess it was in the air or in the water.

Projects and dinners came and went. Harvey made frames for Lin’s canvasses for a show. The canvasses showed invisible women wearing bikinis in colorful beach settings, and the frames were made of plastic pipe. They were a creative couple, and so many nights, sharing dreams, laughing, roaring with enthusiasm, so fun!

Harvey and I exchanged a project. He designed the relays and sensors for my “Line Seizer” device for my answering service. In turn, I wrote the software that drove his “Counter Intelligence” device, which was a clever add-on for movie film editing machines. You just stuck a colored wheel on one of the shafts, and an infrared beam bounced off the wheel to a receiver, and the thing would calculate how many feet and frames of film had moved beneath the editing head. A great boon for the cutting room floor, I think. But the marketing didn’t work and that was the end of the company.

At that same time, Harvey and Lin were trying to purchase the condominium they occupied in North Beach, but it all bogged down, and they moved away from San Francisco, down to the Hollywood area, where Harvey worked for the movies. If you saw the movie “War Games”, in the final scene where the large screens in the war room are showing the missles, then you saw Harvey’s work. He made those big screens.

Somehow, Harvey and Lin came to a parting of the ways. I don’t know much about it, though there was much sturm und drang in the air. By then, they had a son, whom Harvey loved, a lot.

So the youngster spent years growing up, sometimes with Lin, and sometimes with Harvey. Harvey continued attempting to resurrect the Counter Intelligence device. Lin went on to expand her art, and I learned of her only now and then, in the newspapers.

Sometime after my own marriage was fried, Harvey told me about a woman named Beatrice. I met her and I liked her, and she had a young son who became a friend for Harvey’s son, growing up. Harvey’s business teetered and tottered, but then he contracted a heart ailment. He invited me to a dinner, and seated at the counter, awaiting a table, he told me what the doctor had said; it wasn’t good.

He was smoking a cigar. I asked if it was wise. He said that it wasn’t going to make any difference in this case. “I’ve learned that my life,” he said, “my life is going to be very different than I’d expected.”

In short, unless a heart donor appeared — and Harvey was very low on the list — then Harvey could expect his own heart to fail, utterly and soon. It was not cholesterol or any of that, but another malady entirely. His heart was enlarged, and weakening.

Harvey’s office was locked up for back rent, and all his circuit diagrams thrown away as trash. Harvey moved in with a friend, a fellow who does soundtracks for movies, and spent his last days living there. One day, visiting at Bee’s house while she was out of town, his heart stopped, and he was with us no more.

Bee called me, and told me about the service.

“God***m it!” I cried out.

The service was on a remote beach which was very difficult to find. The soundtrack wizard was there, and other folks I didn’t know. There was some sort of a service, and then a lady let loose a cage of doves.

With a rustle and soft explosion of wings they wheeled and rose. One made a beeline for the horizon, out beyond the point, with the ocean far below. The others circled upward and became orderly, wheeled and turned to the north, and flew out of sight beyond the woods.

In the far distance, I watched the lone dove flying until it became a dark point, and then vanished into the blue.

Mount Shasta, 9 June 2004: At the end of the warmer days, as the house cools from the open windows, you can hear them more clearly.

The trains pass by on some schedule all their own, and as I drowse or sleepily read by the single light beside my bed, at first on the edge of hearing a vague rumble comes. This grows, into the churning sound of diesel growl, metal wheels ringing on the rails, and a thousand clacks like monstrous and rhythmic insects.

Then comes the wail. And again. Growing louder and louder, and again, and then so close you could touch it, it begins to grow faint, and changes in subtle timbre, and then fades away as it came.

Strange. It would seem I’d hear the same wail night after night. They must use the same great engines. Wouldn’t the train’s whistle sound the same?

But no. As the train blows its whistle — to warn the cars ahead in the crossings — it seems that every train’s voice is different. Some moan. Some shriek. Some beep long and hollow. Others wail.

An infinitude of voices, each one alone, shrieking in the night. A warning, jarring and sweet, above the roar of life, and then fading away.