​Early Years
 
Joseph Mileck was  born in a small German speaking village called Sanktmartin in Rumania in 1922.  The village was a peaceful one, where life proceeded in an organized predictable pattern honed over hundreds of years. Joseph was a happy, energetic child, with an older sister, two hard-working parents, and loving grandparents nearby. Farming was the main occupation and the Catholic church the center of activities and the yearly calendar. 
In 1926, the family left for Canada. Joseph's father had left earlier, working on the prairies of Canada. He soon learned of opportunities in Hamilton, Ontario, working for Dominion Foundry and Steel Company (known affectionately as Dofasco).  He found work there and sent for his family. Joseph, his sister Mary and his mother travelled to Hamburg, Germany to catch the ship to Halifax. Joseph had no memory of that trip. 

​The family rented a house a few blocks away from the factory and established a routine. In need of money, his parents rented out rooms to fellow emigrants, mostly Germans from Rumania and Yugoslavia. At times, there were up to 14 people in a house of three bedrooms. The living room was  often used as a bedroom by family members .Joe’s mother took care of the children, cooked  for the family and boarders, cleaned the house, and did all the laundry. All this while suffering migraines.  His father worked ten hour shifts at the factory which was operating day and night. Joseph enjoyed the many people in the house. He also  wanted to go to school and the school accepted him, although he was only four years old.  He soon proved himself quite able in the Kindergarten.
Joseph had many friends in the neighborhood and soon learned a few words in Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Polish. He picked up English in school from the teachers and thus acquired good pronunciation and vocabulary. Swearing and other salty language was done in the East European languages of his friends.  It was a happy life for the children.
In 1930, Joseph and Mary were sent back to Sanktmartin to live with their grandparents. The Depression meant his father might lose his job and the parents planned to follow the children back. Joe remembered being very sad  riding  on the train to Halifax. The next memory was of arriving in Arad,  Rumania, where their grandfather greeted them in the wagon drawn by spirited black horses. Joe remembered jumping off the wagon to pick the mulberries that grew along the side of the road.
Thus began the happiest year of Joseph’s life. He and his sister Mary were known as the Amerikaner. They were special. They didn’t have to go to school since they didn’t know Rumanian, the language used in school. Their grandparents were indulgent. Joseph never really said what his sister did that year. Perhaps as a girl and older, she was put to work. Did she enjoy the year as much as her brother did? I never found out. She did seem to have fond memories of Samktmartin. Joseph spent his days playing. His parents sent—one wonders how—his scooter from Canada and that made him everyone’s friend of course. His grandfather made him a whip and set him to work herding the pigs. Well, that was disastrous and he never had to do it again. He was free to explore, to play with his friends, to tag along after his grandfather, to join in wherever he wished.He even had silkworms as pets for a while.  He enjoyed the structured rhythm of village life. The women worked in the house, cooking, cleaning, helping each other, while the men tended the fields, the vineyard, and the livestock. Sunday was for church, the bell ringing to call the entire village together for worship and socialization. It was an honor for a boy to be chosen to ring the bell. Saturday night was for music and dances. There was the yearly calendar too, driven by the church, but allowing for merriment as well. Christmas, Easter, wedding and funerals were times to congregate, for music, for timeless rituals. The cemetery was all important as well, a symbol of the continuity of the village. When in 1990, the Germans began to leave St. Martin, they all regretted most leaving their departed ones in the cemetery and they appointed someone who was staying to tend to the graves. Emigrants to Germany regularly visited St. Martin when it was politically  feasible and raised money to keep the church and cemetery in good shape.

​But all good things must come to an end. In 1931, Joe and Mary’s parents decided they would stay in Canada. The factory had not shut down and his father still had his job. Meanwhile, war loomed on the horizon in Europe. So the parents sent for their two children and arranged with a woman emigrating to Canada to accompany them on the trip home. Joe’s one memory of that trip was the waystation where they stayed in Hamburg waiting for the ship and his sister Mary lamenting that she had left her underpants behind in the building. 
Back home, Joseph was now behind in school. He had forgotten all his English and had had no schooling for a year. He remembered his friends all gathering around him to welcome him home and the only word he could say was “sure.”  He started school and worked diligently to catch up. He was not one to sit back on his heels. This drive to catch up and to succeed was to remain with him for the rest of his life. His sister was behind too and older, and she developed a dislike for school, dropping out at age 14. But Joseph persevered and was soon at the top of his class .He loved to read and checked books out from the mobile library that visited the school each week .He liked the stories of the Royal Mounties in the North. He relearned English and modelled his language on that of his mostly British teachers. In the summers, Joseph worked on the farms, picking fruit. He enjoyed this work, was competitive and excelled at it, and never felt exploited. He was proud that at one point he was earning more money per week than was his father. 

Around 1932, the family bought a house in a nicer section of town. It was nearer to Ottawa Street where all the stores were, so that Joseph's mother could just walk there. They also did not take in boarders regularly now,, although the occasional newly arrived immigrant from  Saint Martin would stay with them. Joseph got his own attic room at one point, so that he could study in peace. Here, two more children were added to the family. In 1932, Joe's brother Martin was born then two years later, his sister Rose came along, born on the kitchen table. Their mother fell quite ill after this birth and was bedridden. It was up to his sister Mary, now 14 years old, to tend to the household and her baby brother. She and Joseph were well versed in the housework, as they had been helping wash dishes, wash the kitchen floor and other duties since their early years. Luckily, their mother recovered and soon took over the housekeeping once again. 
Joseph graduated from elementary school after the eighth grade.  Most of his friends went on to the Technical High School. His sister had entered the Commercial High School. But Joe was determined to follow the mostly British students to Delta Collegiate. After a few weeks, he found it too daunting, and he tucked in his tail and went to Tech. But this didn’t please him, so he tried Commercial. Typing was boring. So several weeks into the school year, he headed back to the Collegiate. Here he had to scramble to catch up, but he did so and soon loved the challenges of this academic high school. 
The tone was set. For years, Joe would enter school a few weeks late because he was working on the fruit and then tobacco  farms ,and he would have to hurry to catch up. But he did so and excelled. He studied French, German, and Latin, as well as English, Math, History and the Sciences. He played basketball for a while and played violin in the school orchestra .He studied hard and was at the top of his class.  
Joseph was awarded top honors each of his final three years of high school, and at the end was offered a four year tuition scholarship by the province of Ontario to attend the local McMaster University in 1941.  He had planned to go to Normal School and become an elementary school teacher but the scholarship persuaded him to go one step further. 

Adult Years
 
That McMaster was not far from Joseph’s neighborhood meant he could live at home and take the streetcar to school.. He got his own attic bedroom now  where he could study in peace. Just as In high school, he excelled at his studies. Joseph liked the rather formal British atmosphere at the university, where women wore dresses and stockings and men wore suits and ties. The professors and seniors wore robes. There was a daily chapel which most attended and which Joseph enjoyed. Most of the faculty was British and he continued to model his behavior and language after them. The college was also small, with only 700 students, so that the faculty and students got to know each other well.There was little time for socialization.. Joseph no longer had time for sports and violin. But he enjoyed his school work and continued to excel. 
The summers continued to be for manual labor. The summer after he graduated high school and each subsequent summer, Joseph worked at the Dominion Foundry and Steel Company, where his father and many other relatives and neighbors worked. He did have some time for other pursuits as well. All physical fit males were enrolled in the ROTC as well and took military classes two afternoons a week. In the summer, they had several weeks in camp. This appeared to have been more fun than toil and was conveniently located at Niagara by the Lake, a quaint little town by the touristy Niagara Falls. One incident that always remained in Joseph’s mind was war related. He was working night shift. One day, he was awakened by two Royal Mounties standing at his bedside. They insisted on searching his room. They found and took the family’s correspondence with family in St. Martin and took the little bit of American money that Joseph had from working on a cruise ship on the lakes in the summer. Indignant, Joseph went down  to the central office and demanded the letters back. He was told that he had better shut up and leave or they would jail him. Joseph’s father did listen to German radio and he did subscribe to an American German language newspaper, but he had nothing to do with Germany other than the language. He had been born and raised in St. Martin, as had his wife and the children, and their forefathers back to the 1700’s. 

​n 1945, it was clear that the war would soon end. Joseph had planned to go to the Teaching College in Toronto and become a high school teacher. But ever one to set his goals high, he decided instead to go on to graduate school, to study literature. He applied to, and was accepted by Harvard University. 
His first year at Harvard was difficult. He was away from home, in unfamiliar surroundings, rooming in the homes of strangers and eating in a cafeteria. The university was large and impersonal. For more than a month, Joseph was homesick. But he soon made friends, got to know the professors, and rose to the challenge of a rigorous graduate school curriculum. He studied Gothic, Old High and Middle High German, and brushed up his Latin and French. Literature study spanned all eras, from Old High German through the 2oth Century. 
By the end of his first year, Joseph was well acclimated.  He met the academic challenges, received a Master of Arts and was accepted into the Doctoral program. A teaching fellowship would help pay for his housing and tuition. He continued to study hard but was now more confident. He also found time for some socialization He found housing in graduate dorms and made friends,  he would visit the undergraduate houses for meals, and he even dated a bit. I heard stories about his dates with he daughter of a steel magnate. They sang opera together in the car, chaperoned by a family member, of course. He spent a memorable weekend on Cape Cod, went sightseeing in New York City and visited the sights of Boston. On Sundays, he visited churches of various religions, enjoying the ceremony and the music, but unimpressed by the dogmas and sermons.
 But study came first. His days began at 9 am and ended at 10 pm. his. He taught two elementary German courses three mornings a week and  took his own classes in the afternoon. Evenings were spent studying and writing papers in Widener library until it closed at 10pm. On at least one occasion he was locked in because he failed to heed the closing signal.. 
Joseph’s last two years at Harvard were the most enjoyable. No longer required to take courses, he focussed on his dissertation on Hermann Hesse, deciding to write  on Steppenwolf.
He submitted and defended the thesis  in 1950 and was awarded a PhD. that June. The timing was propitious. Post war, student enrollment at colleges and universities had grown rapidly and there was a shortage of professors. Joseph received offers from Brown and Northwestern Universities, but always one to accept a challenge, he chose instead to accept the offer from University of California at Berkeley

Becoming a professor meant more challenge and more grueling work. Joseph was given the elementary classes to teach, which met every day, and expected to produce articles and a book in order to advance to the next level. Then there were committees on which he was expected to serve. As with school, or even more so, his daily life was devoted to his work. He faced challenges too from senior faculty who were all too ready to find fault or to impede his progress due to personal reasons, not rational scholarly assessment. This only made Joseph try even harder. He taught modern German literature and began to focus on three authors: Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, and Thomas Mann. Student evaluations were positive and his courses on Hermann Hesse proved to be most popular, requiring large classrooms to accommodate all the students, and much to the chagrin of the professor trying to impede his progress. Joseph wrote and published a comprehensive biobibliography of Hermann Hesse’s works, including all his letters, articles written about him and so forth. This was a monumental undertaking that took many years of painstaking toil  and, unfortunately, took some time away from his family as well. 
In the end, Joseph became one of several internationally recognized Hermann Hesse scholars. He then wrote a shorter work : Hermann Hesse: Life and Art. This book was popular not only among scholars, earning praise even from a rival, but among the general reading population, and is still in print today, 
During the course of his career, Joseph also performed his duty to serve on committees or in various assignments.He was in charge of the teaching assistants for a number of years then undergraduate advisor then graduate advisor. He chaired the German Department for five years , was assistant dean In the College of Letters and Science for three years and the University’s ombudsperson for four years. This latter seemed to be a favorite position. He liked students, and liked helping them, while remaining fair-minded. 
All of these duties required time. Joseph was no stranger to long hours and hard work, so he applied himself continued his long hours, working fifty or more hours a week. In the summer, he did his research and prepared courses. Despite the long hours, Joseph found time to meet a Danish woman, whom he married in 1951. They bought a house in the Berkeley hills and soon had three children. This required a larger house, so they bought three lots in the Berkeley hills  for a thousand dollars each and had a house built to their specifications. Now he and his wife, a doctoral student, had to meet the demands of their scholarly work as well as take care of a family and home.

​
​I will leave the next part to Joseph’s own words:
​
But neither my wife (a doctoral candidate in the German Department and a Danish instructor in the Scandinavian Department) nor I were inclined to rein in our careers enough to meet the demands of home and growing family. For a number of years, continuous domestic help and childcare seemed to make possible both family life and careers. However, while careers flourished, family life was clearly more casual co-existence than warm interaction. Parents had too little time for each other and children were too often left to their own devices. That my wife was manic-depressive and suffered a breakdown in the sixties and again in the seventies, did not help matters. By the seventies, it was obvious that marriage had become too great a burden for my wife. She left home, husband and children in 1975 and filed for divorce the following year. Divorce was a godsend, a painful relief for all concerned. In the years following, my erstwhile wife fared better on her own, and I, in turn, became a more interactive father.
Left to our own devices, my children and I became quite domesticated. A house had to be kept in order, meals had to be cooked, and a garden and hill had to be tended to. We all had our duties and all went reasonably well. More time for family meant less time for profession, but this, fortunately, had no negative impact on my teaching, and my scholarly output, while slowed, continued satisfactorily until I finally retired in 1991.

 Post retirement activities: housework, gardening, cooking dinner, as well as continuing his research, writing and publication.

​
​Retirement  (in Joseph’s words)
 
Before retirement, University salary and good real-estate investment returns had made for a financially carefree and materially comfortable life, and had made it possible to see my children through college and to assist my ex-wife monetarily. After retirement, pension, social security and savings, together with investment and stock-market returns guaranteed a financially secure old age, and enabled me to assist my adult children and ailing ex-wife, and to see my three grandchildren through college. Being of help rather than being in need of help has been gratifying, but the freedom, in retirement, to preoccupy myself with whatever and whenever I please, has been absolutely exhilarating.
In the nineties, long-time academic interests shifted very quickly to a more mundane and more personal engrossment. Over the years, I had maintained contact with my Rumanian birthplace, had visited Sanktmartin numerous times, and had carried on an active correspondence with relatives and friends. I had also acquainted myself with the political, economic and general social lot of Sanktmartin in a Rumania become communist after the Second World War. After several more investigative returns to Rumania in the early nineties, I edited a collection of articles that focussed on Sanktmartin's lot in a communist Rumania. The book was published in 1993. A subsequent preoccupation with the eighteenth-century German dialect spoken in Sanktmartin culminated in a book-length linguistic study published in 1997. I then edited a collection of articles that dealt with the mass emigration of Sanktmartiner shortly after the assassination of President Ceausescu in 1989. Rumania's Germans were finally allowed to leave the country unharassed and without recourse to bribery, and they left en masse. A German Sanktmartin became a Rumanian Sin Martin.
Having paid my respects to my birthplace, I then turned my attention to yet another long-time interest, to poetry. My love of poetry began in high school, I started my own poeticizing while at McMaster, and then for decades and but for the occasional poem, the private interest lay fallow for want of time and active interest. Retirement rekindled my interest in poetry. I had written mostly romantic poems; I now began to put existential reflections and socio-political commentary to verse. Three booklets of rather piquant poems and epigrams appeared in print from 2008 to 2012.
I had become a citizen in 1953, but had for years, for want of interest and time, paid very little attention to the socio-political state of America. It was not until my retirement that America received the serious attention it merited. My preoccupation with its domestic and foreign policies, capitalism and individualism, its materialism and consumerism, and with its imperialism and militarism, found its way into America: An Empire in Disarray (2013), my latest and perhaps last book.(he went on to pen four more books of epigrams)
While the pace of my post-retirement writing differs little from that of my pre-retirement years, the pace of my private life has slowed progressively. I still tend to garden, house and kitchen, but ever more slowly and with less zest. My circle of friends has become painfully small, but children and grandchildren have remained a comforting compensation. Mary, my treasured bosom companion of the past thirty-five years and Píccola, my playful dachshund of the past four years--the last of my four-legged friends--have been and continue to be a constant joyful presence. But for the removal of tonsils, thyroid and cataracts, I have never really been sick, and do hope that I continue to be blessed with good health for yet another few years, for I plan to tarry yet a little while.
All in all, life was good and I was fortunate. Pain and sorrow were more than balanced by well-being and joy, and struggle had its ample rewards. I was blessed with good genes and fate was kind. And when my time comes, I hope to leave with thanks upon my lips.

written in 2013

 ​Final Years

Joseph continued to write epigrams up to the last month of his life. His last book, Catchy Thoughts, was published in time for his hundredth birthday in May of 2022. He filled one more lined paper pad in the ensuing six months, dictating them to me in the last few weeks. He would be sitting there at the dining room table, silent. I would think he was sleeping then he would open his eyes and say “Write.” I would take up a pen and he would dictate an epigram. His mind remained sharp up to the end. But he was more than frustrated with his failing eyesight due to macular degeneration. And just as determined to remain in control of himself. He continued to cook, albeit with my help, he watered the garden but now left the harder work to his son Paul, and  he was helping with the housework up to the last year of his life. 
He had a few falls, none serious, but became aware that he needed someone else in the house and asked me to move in on Solstice 2020. I did so and we soon established a pattern, two loners who liked to work in their studies, but met for meals and shared household duties. We had always done the grocery shopping together when I visited on the weekends. Now, when Covid hit, I took over all outside errands to protect him from contagion. We continued to do the housework together. Little by little, I took over more of the work, but he was cleaning his own bathroom up to a month before he died. I took over more of the cooking as well, making the recipes he had always liked, but he continued to make his salad with its ingredients and plenty of olive oil and vinegar. It was when, in the last month, he stopped making and eating salad that I knew the end was near

Still cooking at age 99, December 2021.

​In May of 2022, the family gathered at the house for a birthday celebration of Joseph’s 100th year. He appreciated the presence of the family and listened intently to the epigrams each had chosen from his many to highlight and explain why they liked that particular one. He, in turn, had his last book of epigrams ready to hand out. In my opinion, some of the finest ones he ever wrote are in this volume. Over his retirement  years, he had honed the art of the epigram, enhanced by the wisdom that came with age, experience and clarity of vision. 
Joe had for quite a while lost his sense of taste and ate only dutifully, not from pleasure. Then food started to not be tasteless but distasteful. Nothing pleased him. In November of 2022, he spent a few days in the hospital for jaundice. Tests showed three masses in his digestive system. A procedure was performed to clean out the masses but it was clear that this was only a temporary fix. Upon leaving the hospital, he was unsteady on his feet and I could no longer leave his side. I moved my computer upstairs to his study to be within earshot and we enlisted the help of our weekly housekeeper to come every afternoon. He regained his appetite for food briefly and I was cooking  real suppers  for him again. But after a few weeks, he found all food distasteful again and he would eat only canned soup, jello, and watermelon (yes, one can buy watermelon in November!). Whatever he asked for, he got. Previously,  he had developed the habit of spending several hours  on his lounge chair outside in the sun, but now the weather turned cold and he could not do so. So he now spent his days either in bed or on the sofa, covered with blankets and with a heating pad against his belly.  And his faithful Piccola glued to his side. 
But he still dictated epigrams, he still was in charge telling me what to do, and he could walk with a cane and my aid. I would joke that we were going for a promenade. 
It was only the last two days , December 21 and 22, that things changed. He could not walk even with aid, he couldn’t eat at all, and he stayed in bed. Piccola’s eyes were clouded with worry and she huddled ever closer. Anne, Joe’s daughter came down, we ordered a hospital bed, his son Paul brought in a wheelchair and we enlisted the aid of hospice, with whom we had contracted just a week earlier. 
The night of December 22, Anne stayed the night. Joseph slept more peacefully than he had been doing. He awakened once in the night and was convinced to stay in bed.  He fell back asleep and didn’t awaken until 6 am. He died peacefully at 6:15, with Anne and me each holding a hand and Píccola forever at his side. 
Joseph Mileck’s ashes were interred on January 6, 2023 at 12 noon at Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito, California.

​Joseph, I do not wish you to rest in peace, for that is not your way. Instead, may you journey on to distant heights, beyond the stars, to find your fellow souls Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, and other spirits whose achievements outlive them.  And may  we continue to learn from you, as we pursue our own paths.
Yours was  truly a life well-lived. 

"Each life has its trail and each trail has its tale."
​"Be someone and do something."
 -JM 2022

Last withered apple on a high branch, the tree drops its leaves.
Acorns and dry leaves litter the ground under the live oak.
The wildlife comes to forage: deer, squirrels, turkeys, towhee.
In high foliage, jays and crows argue raucously.

The sun sets early, its last rays light the supper table.
Dark settles, the air grows cold, outdoors all is quiet.
Hour earlier, we turn on the lamp above the table
And we sit quietly in companionable silence.

I arise, reluctant, a half hour late, but before dawn,
Walking along the dark street, the early wildlife greets me:
A two-pronged buck stands its ground, watching,
More worrisome, to a white and black skunk I give wide berth.
Songbirds awaken with soft musical morning greetings.

​Golden Autumn, last bright colors, has fled,
​Cold white gray Winter enters in its stead.

Thanksgiving

​Watch the news and see
Inhumanity
People huddled around
A meager fire, spooning
A small cup of soup, 
Their bombed apartment
In shambles behind.

In desert land, sand,
No green to be seen,
Children suckle at 
Withered breasts,
Mothers offer their souls,
Nothing else is left.

Soldiers, men young and old,
Huddle in foxholes, 
Bravery laced with fear,
Dream and long for home.

Homeless sleep under
Cardboard box shelter,
Resigned to the cold
Hard pavement sidewalk.

Then turn off the TV
To gather and eat
Thanksgiving dinner.
Give thanks for the bounty,
Feel guilt for the meal
That would feed a village,
But also gratitude
For having plenty,
For family and friends,
Untouched by cruel war,
For peace and safety,
Hopefully to last.
And then vow to give
More generously, 
Next you are bidden. 

The poets wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving filled with good food, good company, peace and goodwill. 

                                                         Summer’s End 
 
 
                                  The summer ended in  September blaze.   
                                  The leaves changed color under hot sun’s rays
                                 The Autumn wind blew them to the parched ground                                 
                                 Then swirled them up again, up and around.                                                            
            
                                 A blinding  sun burned in cerulean sky. 
                                 An east  wind swept in fiercely, hot and dry,
                                 As the last apple dropped down off its tree,  
                                 I saw pears ready to pick above me                                         
 
                                 The acorns brought the squirrels, the  jay, the crow
                                 The doe with speckled fawns who browsed  below.
                                 They all came to partake, calmly in peace,
                                 And giving their thanks to the oak, to feast.  
                                                                                                 
                                 Then just in time there came the winter rain,
                                 And parched brown earth soon  sprang to life again. 

​                                                                                                                -MW 

       Summer’s End
 
            They stored the lawn chairs, kiddie pool and barbecue.
            Then ate a last burger on the patio.
            While the children, popsicles dripping down chins,
            Chased fireflies on the lawn damp with evening  dew,
            The elders sat on the screened porch, rocking, talking, then telling stories
            When the children, tired, came to laps to rest.
 
            They went inside to bed, the windows open wide, for the heat lingered,
            But they slept long, as the sun was late to rise.
            And when they finally awakened, they felt a new coolness in the air,
            Smelled chimney smoke, heard migrating geese calling,
            Saw white frost dampening the fallen Autumn leaves, scarecrows on porches,         
            And they knew Autumn had arrived

-MW

 
In Autumn I think
Of my mother:
Born in September,
Lived in New Hampshire,
Land of red and yellow maple leaves,
Of maple syrup, you gathered
Blueberries in the woods.
As mother, you baked cookies
To put in our  back to school  lunch bag,
Sewed Halloween costumes for whatever
Crazy ideas your kids had: witch, Statue of Liberty,
 panther, tooth, Pied Piper,
(but Dad took us out to trick or treat)
Taught me how to wax leaves
To preserve them for Thanksgiving.
Gave me an empty oatmeal box
So I could make a turkey then
Write a story about it. 
Cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner
That took three days to prepare:
First pies then rolls, then cranberry sauce,
And stuffing, got up early Thanksgiving morning
To stuff the turkey and put it in the oven
Then all day preparing green beans with almonds,
sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and last, the gravy. 
(I set the table, with cornucopia and waxed leaves as centerpiece.)
And you were not done, for after dinner, the dishes 
Had to be washed. But you did it all willingly, lovingly
For your family. 
And then Fall was over
But Christmas  and Winter
were fast approaching

​MW

Wisdom from a 100 year old:

The old slip into somber silence, as a once familiar world slips rapidly away.

It is only the moment that is of moment, all else is memory and speculation.

A culture in twilight is a game without fixed rules.

​Life is its own purpose.


Píccola says, "Leave me alone. I'm sleeping."
​

All photos except as noted were taken by MW. Photos,poems and music  are the property of MW. 

                                                           The Game Players
 
Act I-
 
The game players have gathered around the Game Master to give their reports and get their next assignment. They are serious, somber, and silent.
 
Master: Greetings, All. I have called you together today to review what has been done, to analyze the results, and to discuss our next moves, in this Game called Life on Earth. At the last meeting, we discussed the turmoil on Earth and came up with a plan to try to counter it. I look forward to your reports. Player 1?
 
P1: Master, first I must say that there is still turmoil. You will recall that we decided to give the Earthlings a challenge to divert them and try to redirect them to helping each other instead of fighting. We introduced a clown into their election. As a joke. But many people embraced this clown and he was elected. 
 
Master: But he could not do much harm as a clown leader. 
 
P1: On the contrary, he tried to dismantle the democracy of his nation. And other leaders followed suit. So that there was danger of autocracy in many places of the world. 
 
P2: Fortunately, enough people saw reason and voted him out. There was still hope. But the country was seriously divided after this. There was no longer compromise as in the past but bitter acrimony and name calling. 
 
Master: Well, we all learn from our mistakes. At least the outcome was somewhat acceptable. Hopefully, the reasonable people will prevail. Did you come up with another plan then?
 
 
P3: Yes, we decided to come up with something worldwide that would unite the people in a common cause.   In this, we succeeded to some extent. We injected a dangerous virus into their environs. Many became sick, but the researchers immediately started investigating cures and the health officials imposed mandates for people to follow to keep the virus at bay. Player 2 can comment more on that.
 
P2: Yes, I was among the people. Most of them followed the mandates and the virus was contained. The doctors and nurses worked valiantly to cure those who contracted the virus.  Countries worked across borders. And the virus was kept at bay. It could have been much worse.
 
P3: May I interject? Not all  followed the mandates. The doctors’ advice became a political football. The researchers developed vaccines that worked, but some were suspicious. And they developed an effective medicine but it was in short supply so they had to ration it. People began to take sides and sling insults at each other. So the threat of the virus did not bring everyone together in one common goal as we had hoped. 
 
P4: Still, it did bring the world together. Everyone was in the same boat, all were fighting the same disease and all were aware of each other’s plight. There was a common enemy. Nations shared information and vaccines. 
 
P3: But some had the means to fight it and others did not. The vaccinations did not get to the poor countries, the poor could not get proper health care, and people fought over who should get the medicine. The drug companies got richer and food became scarce or too expensive for many to afford. 
 
Master: So there was no movement at all, no steps in the right direction?
 
P2: Perhaps one baby step? We can hope. So we tried something else. 
 
Master: And what was that?
 
P1: We introduced a war. We convinced a leader of one nation to invade the neighboring nation.
 
Master: And the result?
 
P1: Well, the attacked nation rallied, the people united and fought valiantly. The women and children evacuated and the men stayed behind to fight. All were brave and stalwart.
 
P2: Many other countries offered their help. People opened their homes to the refugees. They showed their better side.
 
P3: But the fighting continued and is still raging today. 
 
Master: Do you expect a positive outcome?
 
The four players look at each other then all shake their heads. 
 
Master: Well, then, what is next?
 
Player 1: We have done one more thing. It is a challenge not of our making but created by the humans themselves. But we have made them aware of climate change. Some parts of Earth have floods, others have droughts. There are hurricanes and there is extreme hot weather. 
 
Player2: Again, the scientists are studying what to do and have come up with some solutions. But they might be too late. Time is not on their side. The young people have taken on the challenge and many are working on solutions. People are beginning to conserve their resources. 
 
Player 3: But the big money resists these changes. They claim to be making changes but in reality, they are breaking the rules and finding new ways to line their pockets. 
 
Master: You four have described a dismal situation. Is it time to give up hope on Earth and launch the final asteroid?
 
The players all look at each other and shake their heads.
 
Player 4: Oh no, not yet! 
 
Master: But you seem to say there is no hope. 
 
Player 1: (pensively) I still have hope. As I lived and worked with these people, I saw them work together, play together and help each other. Many cared about the Earth, others cared about the poor people, and still others fought against war. Even those who didn’t think about the entire Earth cared for their own families, their pets, their neighbors and the Nature around them.  They do care and they have hope. They work hard in the face of doom and are resilient So I think we must do the same.
 
Master: Very well. Then you agree to continue your work among them? 
 
The players look at each other and each nods yes in turn.
 
Master: So what is next? Shall we start something new?
 
Player 2: With all due respect, dear Master, I think the people of Earth have enough to deal with at the moment. Let’s continue to watch and see how they deal with the virus, with the wars, and with the climate. Perhaps they will come up with acceptable solutions.
 
Player 1: But what will be our role?
 
Player 2: We can live among them and offer suggestions. We can model such values as caring and compassion. We can help the scientists find solutions. And we can be teachers to the young to help them find paths to solutions. As well as whisper into their ears to never give up hope. 
 
They all nod. 
 
Master: So it is agreed. I thank you all for your service. And wish you good luck. I have always had a fond spot for this planet Earth, so green and blue and full of life. Someday, of course, as all planets, it will disappear, but I would hate to see that happen to Earth so soon. For I too, have hope. These animals called humans are remarkably adaptable, they are intelligent beyond most other animals, they look beyond themselves. They have hope and resilience. Please do what you can to help them find the path to a better future. The master bows with hands before him and turns to leave. 
 
The players all bow back somberly and fade away into the darkness. 
 
MW 6-2022

                                                                      What is Next?

War raged across the land. Tanks rumbled down the roads, across the fields, and stationed themselves to aim a well-plotted missile. And a home was destroyed.
But the birds took to the air and flew off to other trees.
Heat flowed through the city. People sought relief in the shade and children played in fountains. But this only temporarily eased their discomfort. 
The fish swam deeper to cooler waters.
Fire roared through the forest and the little town in its midst. People fled in their cars, taking only their children and pets, leaving behind their houses and belongings. 
The deer and bears ran from the forest fleeing the searing flames. They ran until they came to the river, crossed it and fled up the hill away from the fire. They had no baggage, for they never do. 
There have always been fire, floods and extreme weather. In the past, humans did as the animals do. They left their homes and soon found another. They had no baggage, no ties, no infrastructure. And they soon found another home and continued their lives as before. 
Over time, the humans built houses, then towns. They waged war. Then they  built cities and cathedrals.  They had automobiles that used gas. Their lives became complex. They continued to wage war, but now with weapons of mass destruction. The fires and floods continued but they wreaked much more damage. They disrupted lives much more. 
The humans rose to the occasion and sought solutions. But the solution were as complex as the problems. 
Perhaps a return to the simpler life that had been would be the most reasonable of solutions.
But how does one undo centuries of “civilization”?
Or is the best yet to come?
​Will our complex ingenious inventions make or destroy us?


​-MW
 

Our Oxymoronic Lot

We humans are a wondrous lot,
An oxymoronic combination.

We are body, flesh and bones,
With earthy needs and appetites,
Physical skills and limitations,
And bound by the laws of the actual world.

But minds we are no less than bodies,
Consciousness in a physical world.
Given to the abstract realm of thought,
Of imagination and of emotions,
And bound by neither time nor space.

We have our beings in disparate worlds,
Live simultaneously disparate lives,
Disparate lives inseparately twinded
That grade and complement each other,
And are a challenge to harmonize. 

-JM

And an accomplished life it has been. From a small town in Roumania to Canada to the East Coast of the US to Berkeley, California. From child of a peasant village to immigrant to star pupil to  university professor and renowned author to writer of epigrams par excellence. Today we celebrate a life well lived.

McMaster’s scholarship notwithstanding, to make ends meet,  I took a factory summer  job immediately after graduating from Delta. Factory paid more than farm, enough to tide me over the following schoolyear. I was to continue to work in Hamilton’s Dominion Foundry and Steel Company (Dofasco) as a simple laborer for the next four summers while at McMaster, and yet another summer after my fist year at Harvard.
Laboring in a primitive pre-Second World War steel factory in Hamilton’s hot summer months was sheer torment. The constant din was deafening, the soot-filled air was stifling, and the heart and labor were exhausting. Earplugs were a necessity, salt tablets staved off muscle cramps, and steel-capped boots and steel-laced gloves protected my feet and hands. Shift work did not help matters (7-3, 3-11, 11-7): the factory was as hot during the night as it was during the day, sleep in the heat of day after a night shift was fitful at best, and the weekly change of shifts left my mind and body quite confused. it was a grind, but the income, together with scholarships, made continued study possible.
My four years at McMaster were both rewarding and enjoyable. In 1941, it was still a Baptist college with but forty professors and lecturers and with only some seven hundred students. Everyone at McMaster seemed to have at least a nodding acquaintance with everyone else. On the opening day of the autumn semester, the freshmen gathered in the chapel of the university, were always reminded that they were now young adults, and were expected to dress and deport themselves accordingly. Dress meant suits and ties, and dresses or skirts and stockings. A friendly, British-like formality prevailed. Professors wore their black academic gowns, as did the seniors. And the daily mid-morning chapel service was always well attended by both faculty and students
When it became apparent, at the outset of 1945, that Germany was about to collapse and the war would soon end, I had to make a quick decision. It had been my plan to proceed from McMaster to the Teaching College in Toronto, and from there to highschool teaching. This possibility had lost its attraction. My introduction to the study of literature at McMaster had whetted my appetite for further literary study and study at a good American university could be another exciting adventure. 
My first year in Cambridge and at Harvard was the trying test I suspected it might be. Away from home and friends, on my own in unfamiliar surroundings, rooming in the homes of strangers, and eating three meals a day in cafeterias left me decidedly homesick for more than a month. My transition from a tiny and ordinary McMaster to a colossal and world-renowned Harvard was equally discomforting, but only until I knew my professors and their expectations, and until I had struck up a friendship with a number of classmates.
By the end of my first year in America, I felt quite at home both in Cambridge and at Harvard. I had convinced myself that Harvard’s expectations were not beyond me, had received a Master of Arts, was accepted in the German Department’s doctoral program, and was awarded a teaching fellowship. The future was promising and I was content. The following four years were just demanding of time and effort as the first, but they were thankfully free of my first year’s apprehension.
My last two years at Harvard were the happiest of my five. I left private rooms, cafeterias and seclusion for a graduate dormitory, a graduate dining hall and greater interaction with my fellow students. I had completed my course work and was able to devote most of my time to my doctoral dissertation. Hermann Hesse had attracted my attention when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1947. When I read his startlingly innovative novel, Steppenwolf, I knew immediately that he would be the subject of my dissertation. I submitted the dissertation in early 1950, defended it orally shortly thereafter, and was awarded the doctoral degree that June.
All’s well that ends well! My student trials and tribulations were over and three universities had already offered me an instructorship. In the post Second World War years, student enrollment at colleges and universities burgeoned, faculties had to be expanded, and there was a shortage of Ph.D.s. Doctors of Philosophy had their pick of jobs. I could not have finished my studies at a more appropriate time. Rather than Brown or Northwestern University, I chose the University of California at Berkeley.The salary was acceptable, and the teaching load left ample time for research.  Furthermore, California, the land of sunshine and orange groves appealed to me. I have never regretted the decision!

Most readers will know the rest of the story: 41 successful years at UC Berkeley, as a popular teacher and a world renowned researcher on Hermann Hesse. A marriage and three children. He and Peggy built a house in the Berkeley hills, where he lives to this day. A divorce, the children left home but all live in California, three grandchildren, two of whom live in California. So family is nearby. A companion of over 40 years and numerous pets: cats, dachshunds, German Shepherds and a golden Retriever, and now his beloved dachshund Píccola.
After retirement, he wrote several books about his home town in Roumania and its dialect, then turned to poems and epigrams. His latest book of epigrams was published this year and is available on Amazon: Catchy Thoughts. Indeed a life well lived. And the epigrams just keep coming, albeit a bit more slowly than in the past. 

 25 EPIGRAMS.  (selected from Catchy Thoughts, his latest book of epigrams)

Happiness surfaces with one's unqualified acceptance of self and life.
Let the painful past be, and focus on a better present.
Be what you would be, and take the consequences.
Try to be what you would be if you could be.
Too many talk too much and do too little.
It's better not to do it, if you are likely to rue it.
Don't envy or belittle, admire and emulate.
Every epigram is an essay in the making.
When unfettered capitalism is in, democracy is out
Life is a drama for which there are no rehearsals.
To try is to learn, and to learn is to grow.
It is what it is, and not what you would have it be.
Mutual concessions pave the way to a better relationship.
If intent upon resolving a personal problem, don't argue your cause, describe your plight.
Listen, then reflect before you counter argue.
Master your hypersensitivity or it will master you.
To try is to court failure, not to try is failure.
Wisdom is a state of mind, not a mode of thinking or a thought. 
Every seed is much in little.
Help silently, before help is requested.
To hide your light is to be left in the dark.
Too much potential is never realized.
To tax where there is poverty, is to seed where there is no soil.
To be selfless is to be faceless.
​But for life there would be no death. 

Photos labelled as caps were taken from the osprey cam set up by the Golden Gate Audubon Society. You can access it at sfbayospreys.org.  All such caps are the property of GGAS and cannot be used or altered without its permission. Photos labelled at photos were taken by the person listed and belong to them, with all rights thereof. They gave permission to use the photo.

​Every year, the ospreys return to the Whirley Crane nest and to nests all over the Bay Area. This wasn’t always so, thus we watch with gratitude to those humans who, noticing a fellow being in distress, worked to save it. The ospreys represent the cycle of life, practicing the rituals that comprise a family and a life. The human observers delight in and learn much from these ospreys, who take life as it is, accepting the vagaries of weather, the little annoyances of life, and the larger: a dud egg or a chick’s death. While  we delight in their  daily lives and  their ability to fly above it all.
So this post is dedicated to the ospreys Richmond and Rosie of the Whirley Crane, who bring so much joy, fun and awe to our lives. And to the fun, quirky and multi-talented WWOC.

                                                               I Can Fly!
 
Once there was a boy named Ike who was born with wings. As a baby and young child, he didn’t know he had wings. He only knew there was something attached to his back. He kept them folded and left them alone. 
When the boy entered school, he met other children and made friends. They asked him about his wings and he shrugged. They were just there. His parents had never mentioned them.  But now he was aware of them and began to wonder. So one night when he was alone in his room, he tried unfolding his wings. Ooh, they were big. He looked in the mirror. They were beautiful! But why where they there?
He felt the need to move the wings, so he did. He folded then unfolded them. He moved them up and down a bit. That felt really good. But he heard his mother’s footsteps approaching, so he folded his wings and jumped into bed. 
From then on, the boy kept his wings folded when around other people, but at night he would unfold them and flap them. He felt happy when he did so. One night, as he flapped his wings, he said “I am me!” For indeed, he somehow felt more whole now. But at school, he wanted to fit in, so he kept his wings folded and the other children soon forgot about them. 
Spring came. The mockingbird returned to the bush below the boy’s window. The boy had always loved listening to the bird’s song at night and tried imitating it. He could sing many of the bird’s songs. Now, however, he noticed something else. When it sang, the bird would often flap its wings and hop up and down. 
The boy wondered if he could do that. He stood up on his bed to try flapping his wings. Then he gave a little jump. He fell. Flap then jump. He fell again. He watched the bird carefully and tried to jump and flap just when the bird did.  He lifted into the air!
Every night after that, the boy took lessons from the mockingbird. Soon he could jump and flap to rise in the air above his bed. And every time he did so, he felt a little more proud, as if he had finally discovered his real self.
But one day, the mockingbird flew off. How did the bird do that? Could he learn too? The next day, the boy went into the garden and watched the bird carefully. When it flew, the boy tried to imitate it and yes, he rose into the air and flew a little ways. But he saw the gardener coming towards him, so he quickly folded his wings and pretended to be looking for bugs.
Now the boy had an uncontrollable urge to fly. But he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He wanted to fit in; he didn’t want to be a freak. He didn’t even want to be famous. He just wanted to be an ordinary boy with a family and friends. 
But he also wanted to fly. So he found secret places in the woods, where there was a clearing and he would go there to fly. When vacation began, he went every day to the clearing and practised flying. The other children asked him to play with them, but he was now too busy with his wings. 
One day, it was particularly windy. There was a kite flying contest on the field by the school, but the boy went instead to his secret place to fly. He had no need of a kite. While he was flying, a gust of wind picked him up and carried him with it, all the way to the field on the other side of town. There the townspeople were flying kites of all kinds and colors: box kites, dragon kites, rainbow kites…
“Look at that kite!” one person shouted, pointing up in the sky. “It’s a big bird kite!”
“Wow,” another exclaimed.
“That’s not a bird, that’s my friend,” a boy answered. Hey, Ike, how did you get up there? With your wings?”
“Come down right now!” an official called out. “This is a kite contest not a bird contest.”
Ike reluctantly angled his wings tightly and flew in a circle to land in the middle of the ring of people. They rushed out to him, some laughing, some congratulating him. A few turned away and shunned him. He didn’t care about any of this. He didn’t want to be famous. He looked at his father, who gave him a thumbs up. Then he looked at his best friend, who did the same. Good. He still had his family and friend. That was all that mattered. So, ignoring the official,  he unfolded his wings and took off, shouting, “I can fly.”
And he circled high above the crowd, free from the ground, free from those who would laugh or shun, from those who would be jealous, free just to be himself. 

​-MW

 The Osprey How Graceful

The osprey how graceful,
Magnificent and regal,
As he sits upon his nest
Looking out over the Bay.

His great talons outstretched,
His keen golden eyes searching,
He glides over the blue water,
To search for his fish prey.

And I too, would be
An osprey just as he,
I would fly over the Bay
To catch my own prey.

Alas, I have no wings to fly,
No talons, no eagle eye,
So I will just stay here,
On Earth with you dear.

Rivers. Poems have been written about them and it seems as if every songwriter has written at least one song to rivers. There is something about the presence of water, the never-ending flow that inspires poets and composers alike. And more often than not, they compare the river to our lives, flowing inexorably downward, toward the sea, the water going through grassy valleys, rocky gorges, villages and cities alike. 
Below are a few examples, from others and from the poets themselves.
Píccola will abstain this month, as she has no idea what a river is and was not interested in entering the water the one time she saw the Eel River. 

​                                                                  Life’s River
 
The people stood on the bank of the river. One stepped gingerly into the water, wading until the ground gave way and he had to swim. Another dove into the middle of the stream and swam energetically downriver. Yet another waded in and turned onto her back to float wherever the current would lead her. 
One by one, they entered the water. A family made a small boat and launched it together. They took turns rowing. A larger group of people lashed together logs to fashion a raft. Together they pushed and pulled until the raft was afloat. Then they all climbed aboard and chose one man to pole them into the current. 
Swimmers, floaters, and boats moved downriver. Sometimes they hailed each other, other times they focussed on their own journey. Some cooperated, taking turns rowing, others just sat and watched the scenery. Swimmers stroked alone but some stopped to help other swimmers who were tired or needed help navigating an obstacle in the river. 
So it went, day after day. The river ran quickly down the mountain, then slowed through a meadow. Speeding up on a downhill slope, it hit a rocky patch and tumbled down the rocks, a waterfall. Boats were upended, swimmers battered, many found themselves swirling helplessly in an eddy. But they persevered, helped each other out of the eddy, and finally they were all back in the river’s current. 
The river entered a valley where it flowed smoothly and quietly. The people rested, they called back and forth to each other, they even sang. But then other small rivers joined their river and the waters were deeper. On stormy days, the water turned cold and wild. Still the people swam and rowed and poled. What else could they do? They had undertaken this journey and did not want to leave the river. 
The people grew tired. The journey had been long and hard. When would it end? They rested more and rowed and swam less as the river grew wider and more calm. The water was warmer now too.  The people could relax a bit. They let their boats drift or floated on their backs, as the river’s current inexorably carried them downstream.
Finally, the river widened into an estuary. Cold salt water waved up to meet them. It mixed with the river’s warmer, fresh water. Before them, the people saw a wide expanse of water, the all encompassing sea, where life began. And they were ready. They rowed and swam towards the vast ocean, ready to accept wherever the water would take them.
 And the river kept flowing from the mountain to the sea.
 
MW 3/22

February, Harbinger of Spring
 
The month of February by the Bay,
And Spring is whispering it’s on its way.
               Soft rustling  leaves in the old live-oak tree,               
I’m here, Spring says, just come out now to see!
 
Tulips, red and yellow, poke up their head,
Yellow oxalis decorates the bed.
White cherry blossom petals on the breeze.
Sneeze yellow pollen from acacia trees.
 
The mourning doves on warm deck softly croon,
The mockingbird composes a new tune
The robin chirps up in the apple tree
Around my head I hear a buzzing bee.
            
             We welcome Spring, can go out and about,              
But still we pray for rain to end the drought.
And listen for the call of the osprey
Announcing that she has arrived today.
 
-MW