CHAPTER 1 The View From The Pond

"Like a Bird on a Wire,

Like a Drunk in a Midnight Choir,

I have tried in my way to be free."

- Leonard Cohen -

In that very first experience of Deja' Vu, we have had our first taste of eternity. It is not just the feeling of having been somewhere before, it is the marvelous awareness of knowing. It is the realization of existence; that one exists -is alive - and is objective enough to know it. Being aware of BEING is our first touchstone of eternity. It is rather like having dreamed of reading this passage over someone's shoulder and coming to know that the shoulder is your own.

For me it began at about the age of 18 months. I was dressed in a little sailor suit strolling through the streets of some California town near San Diego, with my mother and father. We were playing hide and seek in a crowd of very tall people. I would try to get them to go into a toy store or some other interesting place and they would refuse to obey. To teach them obedience, I would run and hide from them. To show their rebellion against my authority, they would keep me just barely in sight. It was a wonderful game except for several minutes of panic when they could see me and I could not see them. It was 1944 and World War II was the national occupation. Our beginnings were in Berkeley, California at an apartment overlooking the campus. The view to the south from above the football field was a major part of my semi-awareness as an infant. My mother and I often sat on the lawns above the field, I am told. Several coincidental visits to that spot in my adult life have brought on huge waves of remembrance, despite that spot having been moved several times by earthquakes.

When I was just a toddler my mother and I moved inland and took up residence in a stately old mansion owned by the Putnam family. Mr. and Mrs. Putnam had been involved in their own war and had declared a domestic cease-fire some years back. They treated each other with the kind of respect that sea captains at war must give each other when both their ships are sinking. There was entirely too much dignity. My father was a cook in the Navy, serving food on troop trains. My mother and I were in charge of the kitchen at the Putnam Mansion and I assumed the additional responsibility of being involved in everything that happened in the yard. It was a few days after we arrived that I located the pond. It wasn't large at all but it was lovely. There were lily pads, goldfish, snails and cool grass all around. It was a miniature world of its own and it was just my size. It became my haven. It was there that I saw my first frog and it was there too, that I found the toy boat. It hadn't been there the first time I saw the pond, I was certain of that. It wasn't a new toy by any means but it was in fine shape even though it was much older than I. Everything and everyone in fact, was much older than I. There was a little paint left on it and it was slightly waterlogged, as though it had been in the water a day or so. It was made of wood and had a tiny red smoke stack.

My main interests in life at the Putnam Mansion were my pond and my mother. We ate in the kitchen where she worked and, sitting in the cabinet beneath the sink where she washed dishes, I pestered her endlessly for chewing gum. Since Juicy Fruit was at a premium, she would often tear off a piece she was chewing and share it with me. Ipana tooth paste was at a premium as well. I remember we had to brush our teeth with bar soap and baking powder at times. Mr. Putnam was a gruff old grouch. He had a rule forbidding happiness in the house and his wife duty bound, saw to it that he enforced that rule. Dinner conversations were continuations of previous arguments that usually ended in a huff as soon as both had eaten just enough to survive until the next meal. They casually despised each other and took it out on the household staff, my mother especially. As for myself, I kept discovering more and more wonderful things about the yard.

The marvelous toy boat had disappeared. One day I was playing with it, the next it was gone. Being just about two years, I knew nothing of mysteries. I began to stumble around the yard in search of the boat, or new diversions. With Mr. Putnam eyeing me carefully, I made my first contact with a ceramic frog. It was a yard decoration, used as a drain stopper in a bird bath. Such things are not for little boys and Mr. Putnam had not yet learned that I had no grasp of certain words such as "no-no". I was taught by several warnings and a swift pop on the bottom. There was no doubt about it. I had a new friend and like it or not, so did he. In the weeks that ensued I learned many things from my new friend, much of it having to do with yard work. Other things had to do with obedience to him and my own personal safety. How and why to stay out of the way of the lawn mower, for instance. In those days a lawn mower had no motor. You had to push it. Within was a whirling, shiny reel that made a scissors sound as it sliced against the blade bar like a paper cutter. It was dutiful hard work, since it was powered by the person who was pushing it. It was a kind of neighborhood status symbol to be SEEN while doing this kind of work, so most of it was always done in the hot sunshine. There were few motorized versions and the person pushing the mower was in complete control. It was my personal duty to run in front of the mower, snatch up a handful of turf and throw it at the reel. I sometimes jammed the mower with small twigs. My gruff, grouchy old friend would pretend he was going to cut my fingers off with the mower and after repeated warnings from him we began an unspoken test of wills. It became our last. It was extremely important to me to win because the winner of this personality clash would it seemed, claim ultimate domain over the yard. It was more of a duel actually, almost the kind of exchange that you see between a matador and a bull. Closer and closer I would come with my tiny tufts of grass, faster and faster would charge the mower. After too long a time of this, came The Moment of Truth. The mower stopped. I moved very close with my handful of grass and placed it fearlessly within an inch of the cutting edge of the reel. As the last bit of grass touched the ground, the mower charged. The pain was enormous. I had never felt anything like it and the feeling was amplified many times over by the fear and surprise. Mr.Putnam had gotten me just as he had threatened. I screamed with the passion of a two-year-old who had been betrayed for the first time in his life.

I extracted my hand from the inner workings of the machinery, I covered it with my other hand. I then did a tuck and roll on the ground howling, kicking, crying and screaming with the remains of my mangled digits held tight against my stomach. In those days there were no air conditioners. Windows were left open for the breezes and you could hear conversations several houses away. It was almost a minute later after my mother and members of the surrounding neighborhood had arrived, that I managed to pull my hand away and look at it. There was green stuff showing on one of the fingers and a tiny pinched spot. All the fingers were there. They all moved. There was not one drop of blood. Some of the neighborhood folk grumbled. Some chided Mr. Putnam. Some chuckled. A few laughed. They all left.

The days at the pond were spent in peace after that. There were some arguments in the house and sometimes I would hear my mother's voice in those arguments. I had finally made up my mind that I didn't want the toy boat after all. I felt a tremendous loss about it but I felt a personal strength in having made that decision as well. I was a very little boy who had had his first revelation about growing up.

The water at the pond was golden and shimmering in the afternoon sun and it had been a warm, glorious day. My mood was one of entrancement. I was in a state of mind which has no explanation, a state of mind that I have experienced many times since. Not quite Deja' Vu, not quite full awareness, a kind of daydream you might have while reading. It was in this reverie that I looked up. Outside the back fence and moving along the railroad track was a flock of sheep. They were the first that I had ever seen and I was filled with wonder. They were kicking up a cloud of dust that seemed to glitter. It shined golden in the afternoon sun. I ran to the back fence to get a better look. There was something very special about all this, it was as though it were a circus show being presented especially for me. I felt very honored.

The shepherd was a tall and friendly looking man with reddish-golden hair and a beard. There was a feeling all around him of happiness. The thought flashed in my mind that it might be Jesus but I had seen the pictures my mother had shared with me. It was definitely not him. This man didn't have dark hair. I had no idea what sheep were, so I asked him "What are those?" 'Sheep.' he replied. "Where are you going with them?" said I. 'Down the road' he said - and he smiled. Soon after that, we left the Putnam Mansion in a Model-A Ford. My father did all the driving as he and my mother sang "Sentimental Journey", "A Bushel and A Peck" and many other songs of the day. The Ford had no radio of course, and was a coupe equipped with what was called a rumble seat. It was a seat which opened up where a trunk would normally be on most cars. I was desperate to ride in that rumble seat. Unfortunately there was some kind of law that my father knew of against little boys riding in the rumble seat. I was forced to straddle the gearshift knob, perched uncomfortably on the drive shaft hump or in my mother's lap. Occasionally I sat in my father's lap and had a hand in steering the car on the long and empty desert roads. After two days of this, an amicable agreement to seating was worked out among the three of us. I happened to fit nicely in the package tray in front of the rear window. In spite of the oppressive desert heat, I slept most of the way across the western United States on our way to Texas. It was there where we were to start our new life.

We returned to the Putnam Mansion for a visit years later when I was a teenager. Other than the Putnam's both having passed on, little had changed. I wondered who died first and who was happiest about it. The old bird bath with its frog was still in its place. The spot where Mr. Putnam and I had had our lawn mower duel was overgrown with weeds. The remains of my pond were still visible but had long ago run dry. I saw a piece of aging, rotted wood that might have been a toy boat at one time. What I was most anxious to see though, were the railroad tracks behind the fence where the Shepherd and his sheep had gone by. Of all my memories of the Putnam place, it had impressed me the most.

Some states of mind have no explanation. There is no railroad track outside that back fence, nor has there ever been one. There is only a stone wall where I had seen the Shepherd guiding his flock. That wall has been there for many years. It is just a foot or so taller than a two-year-old child.