Route 66

I’ve been to every town in the song

thumbing rides and lugging a duffel.

I don’t know who I should blame or credit

–books or television.

Buz and Tod or Jack and Neal.

The restless culture,

–or the culture of the restless.

Where meaning is sought

like a modern day pilgrim

moving through the geography.

In a car, usually.

I still have an admiration

for 1961 Corvette roadsters.

Or rolling through the desert night

listening to songs on the radio

bounced off the ionosphere

and piped out the speakers

of a shoebox Ford.

It’s in the meat and marrow

of the American soul.

I’ve been to the cornfields,

the onramps, the crossroads

trying to flag a ride.

The devil never stopped for me,

just the bored or the kind.

We swam in the rust red water

of a New Mexico flash flood,

got speckled with freckles

when we dried.

The season that lingers is the one

with moonlit cricket choruses

and the scent of alfalfa and orange groves

kissing my nose. Where the

midnight asphalt remembers

the black heat of midsummer noon.

The Fontainebleau

The fountain at the Fontainebleau Resort,

a bronze nymph pouring water from

a watering can, was nicely patinated

but dry. Morning glories twined

around her thighs and waist,

formed a modest vegetable

bodice over her pale green breasts.

The pool was still blue

on sunny days, clouds reflecting

like cotton puffs between

the lily pads and cat tails.

Large-mouth bass patrolled

the edges hunting for incautious

frogs and the occasional duckling.

The travelers who found their

way to the former mountain resort

spread their own towels and blankets

on the bare frames of ancient

chaise lounges. Children still

shrieked and splashed each other, but

there were no poolside waitresses

bearing trays of Cokes and margaritas.

Some of the cabins around the perimeter

were abandoned, doorless

and windowless, inhabited by foxes

and raccoons. Others had been reclaimed

by whoever took a break from their wandering

for a season or a year. A few had

settled for good.

And it was good. A vegetable garden

where the lawn had formerly lain,

chickens and fruit trees, a few goats.

Home for some, a respite for those

who paused on their journeys

to water their horses or recharge

their electric jalopies or take a dip

in the cool blue waters of the resort

formerly known as the Fontainebleau.

My hats

I have some trouble with hats.

With keeping them. I’ve left ‘em

in restaurants, on airplanes

-never to see them again.

Nice ones, genuine

Irish tweed, flat caps

or sometimes called

driving caps. Maybe

because they are

less likely to blow off

your head? In Ireland

they call them paddy caps,

in Scotland it’s a bunnet,

in Wales it’s a Dal cap.

They are iconic for golfers

or longshoremen, cabbies,

cartoon burglars.

I like them because they’re

practical and they mostly

stay on your head when

it’s windy. Until they don’t.

Like a month ago in Barcelona,

it was extremely windy and as I

crossed a six-lane boulevard

at Placa de Catalunya,

a gust snatched my cap

right off my head and

sent it rolling out into

the intersection.

As I stood there

watching it roll and 

cars, busses and bicycles

bearing down on it, I thought

oh no, not another one gone,

I just replaced the last one I lost.

Before I could step out into

the speeding traffic, a woman

restrained me, senor!  senor!

and she dashed into the street

and retrieved it. I guess she knew

what she was doing and suspected

(rightly) that I didn’t.

I have other hats, they are for

various functions and occasions:

a midnight blue fedora

is my Sunday-go-to-church hat

and a light woven straw version

for hot sunny climates,

an Indiana Jones style

Australian bush hat for rainy days

and various knit caps for cold days.

It is customary to remove your hat

during the national anthem

and when inside a church.

I’ve been gently reprimanded

in French and Spanish churches

if I forget to take mine off.

Only the priest wears a hat,

a biretta, or a saturno, a mitre

for bishops and cardinals.

The skullcap is a zucchetto,

only worn by popes, cardinals,

bishops and abbots.

It looks somewhat like a kippah,

or yarmulke which Jewish men are supposed

to wear in a synagogue or during prayer.

I was given a paper one when

I prayed at the Wailing Wall.

What I don’t have (except for one)

is the so-called baseball cap.

Which are of course adorned

with the logo of baseball teams.

Or golf ball companies,

automobile logos, political slogans;

almost anything one wishes

to shout, announce, or endorse.

I do have one with Ferrari on it

I got it to shield my face at the

Mexico City Grand Prix. It’s not that

I hate them, it’s just that they are so

ubiquitous. And there are the pretentious

ways of wearing them? Like white guys

wearing them backwards so they can look

more “street”? And do they take them off

in a church? Nope, might as well be glued

to their heads.

They seem to be popular with women joggers,

a ponytail hanging out the back

swinging like a pendulum is kind of cute.

There is one baseball-style cap

I used to have, the one hat I most

regret having lost. It’s actually what

the Army calls a fatigue cap. A olive drab

cotton cap with a wide bill. This one

had belonged to my best friend

in the Army, Jim Brown. It was an old style

cap from the fifties, and he decided

that he wanted the standard seventies

issue cap. So we traded because I liked

the oldstyle better. His cap had his name

and social security number inked inside.

So for years, whenever I wore it, I’d look

inside and remember Jim. Somehow we

got in touch over the years, he once tracked

me down in San Rafael, sent a letter asking

if I was the on who had served in Germany

twenty-five years before. He was still in the Army,

they had sent him to college and he got

a PhD in European history and worked

for NATO as an advisor. Made it from Private

to Lieutenant Colonel. Said I should

apply to work as a contractor. Really, Jim?

After my discharge from the Army

for conscientious objection, my subsequent

association with Maoists and anarchists?

He said, yeah, we need all kinds,

different points of view are not a problem.

Last I heard from him were emails

from his latest assignment, as a liason officer

between the US Embassy in Tel Aviv

and the Israeli Defense Force. Then

about eight years ago, I got a message

on his email account from his wife.

Jim had died of a heart attack in Tel Aviv.

I wonder what Jim would be doing now,

what would he be advising about

the war in Gaza? I wish I had that

hat, maybe it would have some answers.