Views from the Cyberhenge

Last weekend at Pantheacon (which has got to be the best Pagan festival, as well as the largest one, west of the Rockies), someone quoted to me the old saying that, “If you don’t ask for what you need, how are you going to get it?” So I’ve decided to post our current wish list, just in case any of our regular readers might be inclined to help manifest an item or two.

1) An Apple iSight web camera or two, new or used. This is the kind that will work best with our Mac G4s and will enable us to do web broadcasts (and recordings) of live chats, workshops, and seminars. We could even use them instead of flying all over the country, which would save the stress of flying for us and the cost of plane tickets for festivals and bookstores (booksignings can even be done remotely, with special bookplates).

2) More memory for those Mac G4s (one “mirror door” and one “Yosemite” model) would certainly speed up said video activities as well as my PhotoShop and Illustrator graphics work.

3) PhotoShop and Illustrator CS2 software for the Mac. An older version of CS would still work, and would let me upgrade to the current version at a reasonable price.

4) An intern or two who can help with filing, typing, sorting through papers, and other office tasks. We live in Rockland County, about 25 miles north of New York City. Since we have no room for guests, this would need to be someone local who could show up once a week or so.

5) Dover clip art books with CDs would be very useful for several of my graphics projects, including my tarot decks and my cafepress products. I’ve got their Celtic and Norse books, but several other ones of historical and ethnic costumes, art deco styles, ornaments, etc. would be lovely to have.

6) A laptop for Arthur. He’s starting to write his own books now and could really use something that wasn’t a slow-as-molasses, five-year-old desktop.

7) Books. Phae and I both have wish lists at Amazon.com, mostly comprised of books we’d like to have for research purposes.

8) Garlands of artificial flowers and ivy that can be woven into a large circle, for use at Pagan weddings.

9) More sponsors and patrons/matrons. If we had several people who could commit to making donations on a regular basis, our stress levels would go down considerably and more books and other creative projects would get produced. Donors might even get projects dedicated to them!

10) Our red “radar bait” vehicle is now over ten years old and on its second engine. We don’t dare drive it very far and we can’t pull a popup trailer with it for camping at festivals (we’re getting too old for tents). A replacement vehicle would be a wonderful thing.

My brother Richard called me a few days ago to tell me that our father Ed had died last Thursday. It had taken a few days for the family of his third wife Pat to track down any of us kids. I’m still in a bit of shock, but I thought I’d post a few lines now and maybe a bit more later.

It was my dad’s skepticism about all things religious that made me the weird kind of skeptical believer that I am today. He used to say that he was a “fundamentalist agnostic”—he just didn’t know for sure about God, and neither did you!

He was born on a farm in Monroe, Indiana, one of eleven (surviving) brothers and sisters. He got away from the farm as soon as he could, heading for the “big city” of Detroit. He met my mother Jeanette and married her in 1941. Five children followed, one of whom was me.

He earned his living as a salesman, a realtor, and a home contractor. He retired in his 70’s after falling off a roof. For a while he was a Mariposa County organizer for the Libertarian Party in California.

He always thought my career was weird but was happy if I was happy. I don’t know if he saw the dedication of The Pagan Man that mentioned him, though I believe I sent him a copy. Ironically, he died as the typesetting was being done on Real Energy, which mentions the two Eds in its dedication. Now he’s another face added to our ancestor altar, alongside Phae’s father Ed, whom we added last year.

No matter how old we get, we rarely really expect our parents to die. We know intellectually (at least from the age of ten or so) that it’s inevitable, but we always assume emotionally that it will happen “someday” in the indefinite future. We put off phone calls and visits thinking that we’ll be able to get around to it next week or month or year.

Phae and I were planning to visit my Dad this summer, as part of our “scouting expedition” for the long-planned move to Ashland, Oregon. He and Pat were living only a few miles away in Klamuth Falls, OR. Their presence there was one of the reasons why we were planning the move, so my dad would have at least one child nearby. We will probably still make the move in 2008, but now it will be to visit his widow and/or his grave.

Phone calls were frustrating for both my father and myself since his stroke a few years ago. I’d made one personal visit to see him a few years back with Arthur, who was then eight or ten. Art has no memory of the event and is now asking to visit my mom in Michigan as soon as possible, so he’ll have a few memories of her.

My mind is filled with all the obvious regrets. We were never a closeknit family. My sisters stayed in better touch with our parents than us boys did, though oddly my siblings have all started to gravitate towards Michigan and Wisconsin. I talk to my siblings two or three times a year, a little more in recent years, but not much.

If the money comes so we can afford it, I think Phae, Art, and I will visit my mom this summer. Right now, I need to call her and my sibs.