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I’m so glad to be back in California. After only two weeks away, so much has changed. It’s that time of year, spring making its splashy debut. While I was gone, the mustard greens in my garden sprouted their tall spikes of yellow.

Screaming orange poppies are everywhere.

Only a month or so ago, this fancy perfumed showgirl looked brown and withered in the pot on my deck. Look at her now.

I took a break from work today and biked out to Wilder and all along my beloved coastal trail. Spring on the Central Coast. It was all so familiar, exciting yet comforting. The wild afternoon wind bringing the heavy scent of freshly fertilized crops all the way from Davenport. The hemlock with its “bloody” stalk, the wild radish taking over the bike path and getting in the way of any ant trying to walk a straight line. The sun was warm enough to lure a 3-foot-long snake from under a rock. The red-tail hawk with lunch in its talons and the wind chopping up the water of an extra low tide. Naturalists hate the non-native Scotch Broom with its proliferation of yellow flowers. They call it a noxious weed. But honestly, who can blame the plant for wanting to live here?

During my ride, I felt an idiotic grin on my face, like a drunk. No, more like a little kid who hasn’t yet discovered that the world of spring also contains war and suffering and cancer and death and pain and confusion and blight and heart break and bone break and petty meanness and profound wanton destruction and child abuse and animal abuse and ...okay, enough.

After more than 25 years in California, 10 of them by the ocean, this finally feels like home. I realized that during this past trip to Philadelphia. I no longer felt in tune with the geographic and human landscape of Langdon St. where I grew up, and downtown Philly where I spent my college and early working years, and New Hope, where I was married and where my sister still lives.

I didn't know the names of the trees there. The air felt and smelled foreign to me. I didn’t sense the subtleties of climate change as 80-degree weather turned overnight into an ice storm; the snow and sleet came out of nowhere. I felt like a tourist in my own past. Nothing wrong with that. It's just good to be home.

Legacy

There are some nice messages of condolence about my dad:
www.legacy.com/SunSentinel/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=86790045

Feel free to leave one. My family will enjoy it.

Semper Fi Father

Every family has its recurring and unchanging stories about its members, the shorthand for summing up who’s who and why they behave the way they do. My mom is a master at that, and honestly, it drove me crazy while I was growing up. I felt trapped by her version of me and of everyone else.
For example, my dad was a Marine who served in WWII and then worked for the Marine Corps after returning from overseas. His “Marineness” came to be the explanation for so much of his behavior: Dad’s insistence that dinner be on the table at 5:30 sharp. His politics during the Viet Nam War. The way he didn’t really have conversations with his children, but barked out opinions and interrogated. What I saw as his stubbornness and rigidity, my mother explained as “He was a Marine.” What I saw as bordering on obsessive-compulsive disorder, she admired as “his Marine training. He likes things precise.” It was enough to make a teenager scream, which I frequently did. Semper Fi my foot!
Even though I heard “He was a Marine” ad nauseum, I really never heard any of the details of his time in the service. It wasn’t that dad didn’t like telling stories. With the slightest prompt, he would go on about his boyhood growing up in South Philly, the crazy stunts he pulled, the way he did anything to make a buck to help support a sister and single mother (Dad was a rarity of the time; a child of divorce).
But when it came to the war, I don’t recall him ever going into any details. For a long time, I figured it was me, that in my snotty judgmental way, I tuned him out, or that he suspected that I didn’t want to hear, so he stayed silent on the subject. But even my mom admitted that he didn’t talk much about the war, and that it was out of character for him to be so reticent about an experience that clearly shaped and defined him half a century later.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I heard vague mention of his heroism as a member of the famous 5th division at Iwo Jima. It wasn’t until this latest trip home for his funeral that I came across dad’s scrapbook of his Marine years and took the time to go through it. There are photos from Japan and China and the Islands. A handsome, unbearably young soldier smiling with my dad’s distinctive underbite. This same soldier with his arms looped around a fellow soldier. Holding a weapon. Arms playfully around a Japanese woman.
There were also copies of several articles, including a long, detailed one written by a Marine Corps combat correspondent. In the Philadelphia Inquirer appeared the following brief article headlined Courage in that straight-forward, enthusiastic 1940s newspaper style:
Pfc. Gilbert Wolfson, 268 S. 5th St., was one of a group of volunteer litter-bearers whose courage resulted in the rescue of 28 wounded Marines on Iwo Jima. The Marines had been isolated almost three days and nights in an enemy dominated pocket.
More than 40 Marines had been killed or wounded in unsuccessful attempts to rescue the 28 men. The wounded had been without food, water, or medical attention. They lay under a constant cover of Jap fire, unable even to sit up. One very accurate Jap sniper hidden in a maze of caves used the wounded as a lure, and is credited with hitting 15 Marines and Navy medical corpsmen
Shortly before dusk on the third night, the volunteer stretcher-bearers moved out beyond the front, and crouching low, ran across the open stretches. The rescue work was doubly difficult, for the wounded were spread out over a large area, making it impossible to provide protective fire for the litter bearers.
By 8:30 that night they walked back through the lines. They had succeeded in evacuating the 28 wounded, nine of whom were in serious condition.

This story doesn’t mesh with the dad who raised me. As a snotty, know-it-all teenager and young adult, I so often criticized him for being so tame, so 9-to-5, so unadventurous, and so fearful of upsetting the status-quo blue collar life that he went on to establish with my mother --the life of 55 years in the same marriage and same house, the life of eating in the same restaurants and working at the same job and vacationing in the same spot decade after decade.
So, who was this fearless guy of Iwo Jima? Who was this dashing, wild, reckless hero who defied the odds of war and lived long enough to return to Philadelphia, to meet my mom, to marry, to become the only dad I ever had?
I’m so glad to have this new puzzle to puzzle over, to keep me from smugly thinking that I really know who’s who and why they behave the way they do.

Funeral for the Unknown

My sister’s house sits across the road from Washington Crossing State Park. You walk through her horse pasture, cross a road and you see the great Delaware River, warm and gentle in summer, but during this ice storm, a brown torrent with a steady flow of chunks of ice rushing south. The day the big storm hit, all the kids and I took a cold, slippery walk along the tow path that runs aside the canal. Alex tossed in a heavy branch and cracked the ice that had started to form. It’s a 60-mile path from Yardley to Easton that I want to walk some spring. Wouldn't that be a great adventure? Even with McMansions going up along the river, even with cars whooshing by at some points, you can feel the history in every step. I loved the Canadian geese – those bossy crotchety cranks of the bird world -- that quacked at our intrusion in their domain.
Not far from my sister’s house along the path, there’s a memorial and graveyard with a line of identical tombstones. Unknown soldier, Unknown soldier, Unknown soldier, Unknown soldier. 22 Unknowns, only one stone with a name. No gold here, no carefully chosen wooden coffin, only a line of small white markers like giant Chiclets in the snow. I so hope that some shabtis were buried along with these forgotten men. Buried on Christmas Day 1776, victims of sickness and exposure before the Battle of Trenton.

My kids and nieces and nephew ran along the line of graves, trying to get out energy before the brunt of the storm hit and we would be housebound for the next 24 hours. Even with L.L. Bean down parkas and snow boots and hats and gloves, our fingers tingled with the cold, our toes and noses in serious danger of going numb.

Funeral for a God

A few days after my father’s funeral, after the three days of sitting shiva, my mom, kids and I headed to the Franklin Institute in downtown Philly for the King Tut exhibit. We were looking for something fun to do, and I guess my mind was in such a swirl that I didn’t recognize the irony of our choice of “fun” until I set foot into the exhibit.

The replication of the tomb itself, the incredibly ornate coffins stacked one inside of another like Russian nesting dolls, the golden treasures placed upon the dead body of the 19-year-old king who the people saw as an intermediary between the gods and ordinary man. The bejeweled necklaces, the golden dagger placed on his chest as protection during the dangerous journey through the underworld. The gleaming amulets and startling animal fetishes. The representations of food that would spring to life all juicy and tasty to nourish the boy king. The jars of viscera, the golden crown, the throne of ebony. The glittering statues of the mighty Horus and the elegant Isis. The 22-pound solid gold burial mask. It was all so gaudy and ghoulish and astoundingly hopeful in its vision of a perfect life beyond.

When Tut’s tomb was uncovered, archeologists found hundreds of doll-like figurines called “shabtis,” which Tut would be able to summon as servants if he felt like slacking off when called upon to cook or garden or clean in the kingdom of the gods. To keep him company too, I suppose.

It reminded me of a few days earlier, looking down at my lifeless father in his coffin, his skin yellowed, his distinctive mustache that tickled his grandchildren during kisses now without its incessant twitching. My daughter Gwen had brought along a small white Beanie Baby seal that she had sent to him a month earlier for comfort when the cancer had spread into his brain and he no longer had words or much memory. My mom said that when it arrived in the mail, he placed it under his chin and fell asleep with it there. Now Gwen handed the soft, soft toy to my mother who placed it on his chest. Dad and the seal seemed to be eye-to-eye, a Beanie Baby shabti to do his tidings. My 9-year-old niece Brianna placed into the coffin a piece of paper with a poem she wrote. The part I remember most: My pop-pop taught me to never cry if you lose at poker. I love my pop-pop.

My mother, married to dad for 56 years, leaned over the coffin and left the scent of the perfume that he always loved. “He never called me his wife,” she said. “I was always his bride.”

Graves and Coffins

My week has been populated by graves and coffins, large and small, simple and elaborate, final place of the Gods and the unknowns, coffins filled with gold, filled with bones, filled with trinkets worthy of a museum, filled with a toy stuffed seal, filled with probably nothing extra at all.

Gravesite #1. My dad. It fell to my sister and me to pick out the "box" for my father. We stepped into the funeral home "shopping area," a set right out of 6-Feet-Under and perused the options, from ridiculously gaudy and ornate to the chillingly simple pine box used by the most strict of Orthodox Jews.

What standards does one use to make such a decision. What would my dad want? My mom? The small crowd that would gather to toss a handful of dirt on top and then watch it being lowered into the ground? My sister and I ran our hands along wood polished and unpolished, along brass handles and various cloth linings. What were we feeling for? Who would be feeling the high quality silk? Were we looking for wood that would withstand the harsh Philadelphia elements or that would deteriorate as quickly as possible, releasing my dad's flesh and bones into the soil, adding nutrients, adding life.

At a loss, we decided on the same coffin that my cousins Mark and Cindy chose for their parents and grandmother. Tradition seemed as good a standard as anything else.

Post Ice Storm Photos in New Hope

Here are the horses at my sister's farm. The larger of the two (white face) is Aibrean, which is Gaelic for April, and the other feisty girl is Crystal Beach.

I took a lovely St. Paddy's Day walk on the tow path that follows the Delaware Canal.

Here's my nephew Sean with awesome dog Chester picking up the mail.

Cover of White

For the past week, I've been in Philadelphia. After a year-long illness, my father died last Thursday night and I haven't begun to find the words to blog about it. Two days ago, it was 80-degrees here and it was easier on everyone, especially my mom, to think of him in the ground, spring with its promise of rebirth on the way.


Today, a late season ice and snowstorm hit the East Coast and we are all together in my sister's house in the northern suburbs. My California kids are thrilled for the beautiful snowed-in experience. There's a lazy, cozy feel, but also something unspoken. We are all aware of the extra finality of a grave being pelted by ice and covered with a 5-inch wet, heavy blanket of white.





The pictures show my sister's lovely home and grounds and also Alex and Brianna (13 years apart but two of a kind) engrossed in a computer game.

Books for "Bad" Kids -- Advice Needed

Each year at its Otter Award dinner, the Northern California Children's Booksellers' Association (NCCBA) gives out Literacy Grants to various organizations and people who work with kids, the goal being the promotion of literacy.


Months ago, I picked up an application and last minute on a whim decided to fill it out. I won! For many years, I've volunteered with an amazing organization called The Beat Within, which started as a single writing workshop in San Francisco juvenile hall and has since spread into juvenile halls and prisons all over the country. Each week, trained leaders help the "bad kids" put down their thoughts, ideas, poetry, drawings and life stories. The work -- You never know what to expect -- is then printed in a weekly newsletter that's sometimes 60 pages thick.

The best testimony comes from a participant named Nick: I thank the Beat Within for helping me find something that I didn’t know I had, which is the power to step up and be a good writer, which has helped me free my mind and soul.


You can read more about The Beat at www.thebeatwithin.org/news. I've also written on Salon.com about my own experience as a Beat workshop leader. Those essays are posted on my website at www.jillwolfson.com/journalism/pen.html and www.jillwolfson.com/journalism/mother.html

In my application, I said that I hoped to use the grant to make quality age and developmentally appropriate books available to incarcerated youth who do not have access to such material. I’m disappointed -- okay horrified -- by the selections on the prison bookshelf. It mostly holds well-used, poorly-written paperbacks in the action/horror/crime genres. Lord knows that those kids have enough of that negative energy in their lives. Also, over and over, I have been amazed at the positive response when I actually bring in a specific book for a specific student and give it to him or her. Many of these kids have never had the affirming experience of being handed a book and being told: “I got this with you specifically in mind.”

Sooooo yippee. Now I have $500!! to spend over the next 6 months in the children/YA department of my local independent book stores.


But help, I need lots of input on what to buy. As I said, the kids gravitate towards high action. I have nothing against a good horror or crime story, but I'd like to offer something exciting without all the gratuitous slashing, raping and gutting. They like poetry as inspiration for their own poems to girlfriends and for raps. There are a lot of minority students, no surprise given the hideous ethnic make-up of the prison system, so stories and biographies that reflect cultural diversity are must. Age range is 13-17; reading level spans elementary school through college. Lots of gang members, lots of kids with learning disabilities and histories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Honestly, I'd love to see them laughing while reading a book.


So please, post your suggestions. Books need to be in paperback. Hardbacks -- not the words, but the weight itself -- have be used as weapons. The kids have also opened their own skin using the edge of a cover. There's a metaphor there somewhere.

ON THE BOOK BUS

Janet of Capitola Book Cafe asked if I wanted to participate in this C-Span event this Friday night. Since I don't have TV, I've never seen the show but supposedly it's pretty popular or at least it runs again and again and again and again. Could be fun.

C-SPAN2’s BOOK TV BUS TO EXPLORE
THE MONTEREY BAY LITERARY SCENE
Bus to visit libraries, bookstores and interview local authors

WASHINGTON, D.C., (March 2, 2007) – C-SPAN2’s Book TV Bus, a 45-foot mobile television production studio, will travel to Monterey, Santa Cruz, Capitola, Sand City and Aptos as it continues its nationwide tour promoting Book TV's unique nonfiction book programming. The Book TV Bus, hosted by Comcast Cable, will visit libraries and bookstores and interview several local, nonfiction authors. A visit includes a tour of the state-of-the-art studio, a demonstration about Book TV programming and the opportunity to learn how a television show is produced.

Come see the Book TV Bus during the following dates and times:

Wednesday, March 7 in Monterey and Sand City:
1:30 - 3:30 pm Monterey Bay Books, 316 Alvarado St., Monterey
**Local author Zachary Shore, Breeding Bin Ladens, will be interviewed **

5 –7 pm Borders Books & Music, 2080 California Ave., Sand City

Thursday, March 8 in Salinas:
12 – 2pm National Steinbeck Center, One Main St.

Friday, March 9 in Capitola:
2 – 4 pm Capitola Public Library, 2005 Wharf Rd.
6:30 – 8:30 pm Capitola Book Café, 1475 41st Ave.
** Local author Jill Wolfson will be interviewed**
**Local author Michael Wolfe will be interviewed**

Saturday, March 10 in Aptos and Santa Cruz:
1 – 3 pm Bookworks, 36 Rancho Del Mar Center, Aptos
5 – 7 pm Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz

Sunday, March 11 in Santa Cruz:
11 am – 1 pm Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

About Book TV
Every weekend starting Saturday, 8 am ET to Monday, 8 am ET, Book TV airs 48 hours of non-fiction book programming on a variety of topics including history, biographies, politics, current events, and the media. Book TV features author interviews, readings, and panels at bookstores, libraries, and book festivals across the country. For more information, visit the Book TV Web site at www.booktv.org.

About C-SPAN
C-SPAN, the political network of record, was created in 1979 by America's cable companies as a public service. C-SPAN is currently available in 90 million households,
C-SPAN2 in 82 million households and C-SPAN3 in more than 12 million households nationwide.
Visit www.c-span.org for more information.
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Care for a Chicken Leg(ging)?

KNITTING PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Broken Hearts

Here it is, the dreaded post that I vowed not to write, the excuse post, the why I haven't written in a long time post, the lazy me, why-am-I-such-a-pathetic-poster-post, the when-I-can't-think-of-what-to-write, write-about-why-I'm-not-writing-post. It happens sometimes, not when nothing is going on, but frequently when too much is going on and trying to put words to it all seems like such a sham and such a bother. Father dying, weather changing, daughter getting ready to go off to college, chemo pending for Nancy, stuck in my writing, Helen's mother dying, every conversation I have carrying a weight that sits on my heart like an elephant.

Best to post pictures. I'm researching a novel about a teenage girl waiting for a heart transplant. The wonderful social worker at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital has given me such access to kids and to her own formidable experiences. Last week, I joined three children post-transplant as they got to hold their old, removed hearts in their hands.
I put on purple gloves as the pathologist placed Juan's former heart in my palms. It felt like a rubber ball. It looked like something my grandmother might have tossed into a stock pot.

I'm glad I have a long time to think about this experience, to try and understand what my characters will make of it.