Hundreds of stones upon the ground formed a spiral path.  I found it at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Rhyolite, Nevada.  Although it was in the midst of modern sculptures in a desert setting, it had no title or artist associated with it.  But I knew what it was; a place to walk and meditate.

I know that meditation, ideally, is about dismissing all thoughts from one’s mind and focusing on the here and now.  Given the disorder which is my mind, if I can get it to focus on only one thing, I’m doing well.

Bob and I came to the open air museum three days into our Death Valley vacation.  Before I left on the trip, I was plagued with worries about mortality and whether my existence on this earth has any meaning.  I highly recommend a drastic change of scene, if you can afford it, to chase away the mid-life angst I was feeling.  In particular, the works at the open air museum invigorated my mind and energized my mood.  The only question was, how could I keep this feeling with me when I traveled home at the end of vacation?

I stepped into the spiral and started to focus on one thought at a time.  In a way, I was making a request to the universe.  Please help me to accept life and its inevitable end.  Help me to appreciate the moment that I am in.  I repeated these two things as I strode the circle, looking down at the many stones on either side of the path.  Then I began to think of all the times in the recent past that I have felt as good about myself and about life as I did at that moment: finding the Hoodoo Marker, researching the Garden of Almanalogy, playing music with my friends.

I reached the center of the spiral, and looked up toward the sky, but nothing came to me at that moment.  So, I started winding back out of the spiral and as I did, noticed the variety of size, shape, and color of the stones.  There’s a place for everyone in this world, and no need for everyone to be the same.  I picked one of the stones to represent myself, and reached down to touch it with loving kindness.  The last thought that came to me in the circle is that I should seek out, as often as possible, those people, places, and things that make me feel happy to be alive.

Not long after this trip, I had another opportunity to follow the wacky side of life that I love so well.  I don’t know when or if I’ll get that story up on this blog, but if I do, at least you’ll know why I do what I do.

All that’s left of the Garden of Almanalogy and Astrometry is a two and a half foot concrete post with tiny mosaic tiles that trace the numbers 7, 13, 28 91.  In its day, the Garden, located in Northwest Washington, D.C.,  featured concrete sculptures and wooden placards demonstrating the concepts of a 13-month calendar that the Garden’s creator proposed.  Thirty-three years after Walter Rothe’s death, the Garden of Almanalogy and Astrometry (also known as The Calendarium) has nearly faded from local memory.

However, the current resident of the house on MacArthur Boulevard still gets the occasional question about the house which she bought ten years ago from an owner who told her nothing of its history.  After she moved in, passers-by began telling her what they remembered of the “Calendar House,” as it was known.  Still, no one had ever told her of the name of the man who was obsessed with calendar reform until I emailed her recently with my curious request.  I had found a reference to the Garden in an old guide book called Amazing America by Jane and Michael Stern, and wondered if there was anything left of it.  Taran Z kindly gave me a tour of the house, which is now home to her photographic studio (http://www.taranzstudio.com/).  We determined that the numbers on the post related to Rothe’s proposed  calendar: 7 days in a week, 13 months in a year, 28 days in a month, and 91 days in a quarter.

In 1947, confounded by the difficulty of knowing what day of the week a particular date would be, Rothe decided to fix the problem himself.  He came up with a 13-month calendar in which each month had exactly 28 days.  The 13th month would fall in the middle of summer, and be called “Solarius.”  Sundays would always be either the 7th, 14th, 21st, or 28th of the month.  But that only added up to 364 days.  No problem…Rothe added a 365th day, not part of any week or month, that would begin each New Year: Earth Orbit Day.  Every four years, another “extra” day would be added to the calendar called “Quadrennial Day.”  Another extra day would need to be added every 3,323 years.  But other than that, he dubbed his calendar “perfect.”

In 1954, Rothe’s “Universal Calendar” was one of several proposals before the United Nations in its search for a common calendar for all nations to use.  The debate was postponed at the request of the United States, representing the views of religious groups.  Christians, Jews, and other religions that observe the Sabbath every seven days, objected to any calendar that would disrupt the cycle, which the undated 365th day on Rothe’s calendar most certainly did.  The discussion at the U.N. was never resumed.  Rothe never lost faith in his calendar, and continued to promote it until his death in 1976.  He appeared on “To Tell the Truth” in 1964, and it is rumored that Einstein visited him at his home.

Rather than his convoluted calendar theory, it is the Garden that interests me most.  What must his neighbors have thought when he erected large concrete structures in his side yard with the numbers 7, 14, 21, and 28 and the slogan “Sundays Forever”?  Did they object to the 8-foot arch which honored Orbit Day, inscribed with the message “Climax Day after orbiting 687,803, 131 miles in 365 days at 66,000 m.p.h.”?  It would seem not.  I found several newspaper articles between 1955 and 1981 for which Rothe was interviewed, and none of them mentioned any conflict with the neighbors over his elaborate calendarium.

The Garden was actually located in two places over its approximately fifteen-year history.  It was created at Rothe’s home on MacArthur Boulevard in the Palisades area of Northwest Washington.  Later, he moved about a mile away to the Spring Valley neighborhood near American University, taking his sculptures with him.  A recent correspondence with the owner of the second property indicates that by 1989 (when he acquired it), there was nothing left of the Garden of Almanalogy.  It’s a pity that no one saw its value as a folk environment, and tried to save it.  I’m sure the American Visionary Art Museum would have loved to have had the sculptures, if it had existed back then.

A couple of interesting side notes to this story.  One of the articles about the Garden was written in 1966 by ace Washington reporter Carl Bernstein.  He moved on to more serious journalism after that, I’ve heard.  Another article was written in 1972 by Washington Post writer, Henry Allen.  It is this article that amuses me the most.  If you read between the lines, Walter Rothe comes across a quite a piece of work.  Speaking of the MacArthur Boulevard house, Allen writes:  “He has lived there for 30 years, since his German-born wife returned to Germany at the beginning of World War II.”  Maybe I’m being unfair, but I have to wonder how bad things were between them if she wanted to return to Germany during the height of Nazi power.  Later in the article, it is mentioned that “After he gets the world to adopt one calendar, he’d like to devise one religion for everyone.  ‘I don’t see why it can’t be done,’ he says.”

References:

Bernstein, Carl.  “Universal Calendar Lets Time Fly in Formation.”  Washington Post, Times Herald, October 30, 1966.

Allen, Henry.  “Hail Solarius!”  Washington Post, Times Herald, May 12, 1972.

Stern, Jane and Michael.  Amazing America.  New York : Random House, c1978.

This is my response to the 25 things challenge.  It was originally posted on Facebook, but I removed it during the Facebook Terms of Service shit storm of February 2009.  Since then, I’ve decided to use Facebook only for social networking.  Any of my creative output, such as photos or writing, will go on my own web sites, or on Flickr, where they respect their users’ intellectual property.  Occasionally, I will post links on Facebook.

I enjoyed writing my 25 things, and truly enjoyed reading other people’s 25 things.  That’s not narcissistic (as some newspaper stories about the trend alleged).  It’s a way to connect with people who are interesting.  As far as relationships go, the rest is up to us to follow through on.  A social networking site can’t do that for us.

Here are the rules:  “Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.”

1. I love tea. I hardly ever drink coffee. I love tea so much that I coined the phrase, “Tea…the other brown drink.” Yeah, that was me.

2. I avoid wearing light blue shirts or blouses because they remind me of the uniform I wore for eight years in Catholic school. Needless to say, saddle shoes are totally out of the question.

3. I went to the first 15 years of the Clifftop old-time music festival, and then got completely burnt out on the festival camping. I miss the people, the music, and the dancing, but not enough to camp there.

4. A few years ago, I finally found a sweet man who is at least as smart, if not smarter, than me. So, I married him.

5. I got married for the first time the day after I turned 52. Better late than never.

6. I have two black and white cats. One is named after the late, great Dave Grant. The other is not.

7. I was in Washington, D.C. working on Capitol Hill, on September 11, 2001. Ever since then, I always make sure I have comfortable shoes with me at work, so I can walk the ten miles home in an emergency, if I have to.

8. I learned Appalachian clogging in 1980, and picked up the banjo in 1986. Now I’m learning to play the ukulele.

9. I have three sisters and two brothers. I’m the third.

10. I had never heard of the Weekly World News until my younger sister was in it for teaching Bible study in the nude.

11. Most of my life, I haven’t worn make-up. I guess I’m more interested in cosmology than cosmetics. However, I have begun to wear a little lipstick now and then, because I am tired of seeing photographs of myself in which I look like I don’t have any lips.

12. Until I got on Facebook, I thought my name was unique. Then I got a friend request from someone named Julie Mangin. I checked her friend list, and she had another Julie Mangin already on it. Every once in a while my FB feed says something like, “Julie Mangin is a fan of KFC chicken,” and I think “how do they know?” before remembering it’s the OTHER Julie Mangin.

13. My niece and I share a birthday. On my wedding day, she went into labor and had to leave fifteen minutes before the ceremony began. If her daughter had been born a day earlier, all three of us would have had the same birthday.

14. I have souvenir plates from the Maryland amusement park, The Enchanted Forest, which I sell on eBay.

15. I’ve always wanted to do something on stage in the Galax band contest that would cause the Moose Lodge to create another contest rule. It would be referred to as the “Julie Rule.”

16. Every weekday, I read the Washington Post comics section on the subway in the morning. If I have time, I do the sudoku, too.

17. I’m thinking of retiring in a couple of years.

18. I’m the first person to win a prize in the Washington Post’s Style Invitational contest for an entry that they deemed too vulgar to print. Gene Weingarten called it, “a hilarious entry too revolting to be published on any planet inhabited by sentient beings.” I didn’t think it was that bad.

19. I used to be known as the Clog Mogul of D.C., but I always preferred to be called an impresario.

20. I have the world’s largest collection of Mark Eden Bust Developers. They are among the many tacky treasures I collect.

21. I have had one of my photographs published in People Magazine.

22. If I could start my own religion, I’d make Girl Scout Thin Mints the communion wafer. I would encourage meditation while listening to Uncle Bunt Stephens play “Candy Girl.” One of the sacraments would involve crabs, fresh tomatoes, corn on the cob, and beer.

23. I used to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day until the late 1970s. I quit because I was struggling through music school, and I needed to drop the smoke breaks to get more study and practice time in.

24. When I was in my 20s, I learned to drive a motorcycle. On the first day of driving class, I kick-started my motorcycle in gear, launched myself six feet in the air, and landed on all fours. On the last day, I got the highest score on the driving test. The instructor called me his most improved student.

25. I received a masters degree in library science about 25 years ago, and started working as a librarian. Now, I’m a web developer who writes dynamic pages in PHP/MySQL. What the hell happened?

When I was a kid, I grew up in Glenmont just north of Wheaton, Maryland, which at that time was considered a distant suburb of Washington, D.C.  Our house was built in 1951.  You should see the area now.  You’d have to drive out another ten miles to see rural scenes.  But in the 1950s, there was a horse farm on Georgia Avenue, where the subway station is now.

We lived on a sloping street with a row of brick, one-story Cape Cod houses on either side.  The late 1950s and early 1960s were my earliest memories.  Wives and mothers stayed at home all day while their husbands went to work.  Some of the wives didn’t even drive, and even if they did, it was rare in my neighborhood for a family to have two cars.  And because it was so far from the city there wasn’t dependable public transportation, the men had to drive to work.  The Washington Metro didn’t open until 1976, and the Glenmont station didn’t open until the mid-1990s.

That’s why, in the 1960s, Mr. Simmons made a living driving the grocery bus.  It was a little mom-and-pop stop on wheels, a full-sized school bus painted red and silver, with “Simmons Market” across each side.  The seats inside were gone, replaces by store shelves.  There was even a working refrigerator for milk and eggs.  Way in the back, fresh produce was stacked up: lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, etc.  As a kid, I have the clearest memory of the candy counter.  The Bazooka bubble was in the front row, with candy bars and other kinds of sweets behind it.  Every weekday, Mr. Simmons came through our neighborhood and stopped at the bottom of the hill.  He blew the horn three times, and the housewives would come out of the houses to shop.  The kids would come from wherever they were: backyards, the tetherball court, even the trees to crowd the candy counter.

My favorite treat was the chocolate Turkish Taffy.    I can still imagine the taste.  Before opening it, I would slam the candy on the sidewalk to break it into pieces.  It was too thick and sticky to bite pieces off of it.  Oh how I loved hat stuff.  If I were to eat it now, all I can think is that it would probably pull out my fillings.

I don’t remember what Mr. Simmons looked like.  I only had eyes for the candy.  I also don’t know when Mr. Simmons’ grocery bus stopped cruising the neighborhood.  I don’t remember it at all during my high school years, which started in 1969.  I only wish I had a photograph of the bus to prove to people that we really had a grocery bus in our neighborhood.  All I have are my memories, and my ability to write.

New experiences seem to jazz me up. I’ve just gotten off a three day weekend and had some good ones.

Bob and I went t the Takoma Park Independence Day Parade. What a wide range of participants! There were the usual politicians, public service personnel and veterans, the school kids and day care providers. There were also musicians (the steel drum players, the dc motors band, and even a Christian rock band).

There were dancers from Bolivia, the Virgin Islands, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Their costumes were crazy with color, and the V. I. Carnival troupe was simply over the top (think Carmen Miranda on steroids). Other floats/marchers dealt with local political issues such as the upcoming referendum on having slots in Maryland. While some of the marchers made their opinions known in a straight-forward way, others used satire and hyperbole.

“Bring casinos to Takoma Park,” they said. Their float included a pickup truck decorated as a casino, with little kids playing poker looking like little gamblers. There was a gangster representing the criminal element, and also an Elvis impersonator. (Actually, having Elvis could be considered a motive FOR a casino.) There were Shriners in their fezzes, some with custom clear plastic fez protectors because rain was predicted. (Only a sprinkle or two actually came down, thank goodness.)

There was even a float for a conspiracy theory that on 9/11, the World Trade Center Buildings were actually brought down by controlled demolition. Only in Takoma Park would you find such a diverse yet entertaining group marching together. After the parade, we went to the gazebo in the center of the old town to hear Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer performing for the kids. Then, we went to the new location of HMT on Westmoreland Avenue.

On Sunday, we saw the movie, “Get Smart” which was funny but not remarkable. I rarely see new movies in a theater, so that aspect of the outing was remarkable. We went to a Thai Restaurant in Silver Spring after the show. The food was good, but they were so efficient, we were out of there in 30 minutes. So much for lingering over dinner.

On Sunday, we went downtown to the National Mall for the last day of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, to hear Marcia Ball. She plays a rocking blues boogie woogie swing kind of music. We danced to two numbers, but it was just too hot. We listened to the rest of the set from the bleachers.We only visited a little bit of the Bhutan exhibit. It was fascinating, but we didn’t have enough time. I could only remark on what a beautiful country it was, and that it seemed that their art only used the most brilliant colors.

That’s it for now. I’m looking forward to taking a little trip to WV in August. I wish it could be a long trip, but I don’t know if I can be spared from work that long. I’ll have to figure out how much I care about that.

For more photos from the weekend, check out my flickr site: http://flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/