Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

The Millennium Past

My friend Bob “Daddy-O” Wade was on my mind as the New Year came closer so when I had a dream about him I was not surprised. What did surprise me were the revelations that the dream uncovered. Maybe that is how we find peace. We dream and then make it become real.

What a ride, what a dream, what a designated driver

     It was the strangest sensation, like waking in a dream while you know you're still asleep. Bob "Daddy-0" Wade, the Texas artist of Texas funky art, appeared suddenly in my bedroom, like one of Dickens' Christmas ghosts.

 "Come on. I converted the Iguana Mobile for time travel," he said.

  I peeked out the window in the darkness. Sure enough, the Iguana Mobile was outside, waiting.  

  "Do I need to pack?" I asked quickly.

  "No, I brought luggage: a six pack of non-alcoholic beer."

   So we left. Magically, the Iguana Mobile rode the time currents to 900 A.D. We parked under one of the flying buttresses at Notre Dame Cathedral. At the altar we felt the rising sound of singing fill the air and our bodies, uplifting us to a heaven on earth.

  Sunlight refracted through stained-glass and changed all colors of the world. Drawn upward to the upside-down, Gothic ship of the nave, we spread our arms and whirled in saintly joy.

  It was only departing this sanctuary of grace that we learned about the dark side of the Dark Ages. The power of the Inquisition surrounded the Iguana Mobile, envisioning it as some vehicle from hell. Luckily as Texans we know when we aren't welcome. We split for another century.

Witness to rebirth of science

   Suddenly it was Spain in the 13th. Invisible, we were in a small room with a Jewish scholar who read Arabic and a church scholar who translated into Latin for Europe the Jew's reading of "lost" classical papers from the Alexandria Library.

"This is the beginning of the new classical era," I said. "Washington, Paris and St. Petersburg will embrace Greek and Roman architecture after their chaotic revolutions. Hitler will try to use it as ev­idence of his Aryan empire's divine destiny.

  "This is the rebirth of Western science, art, scholarship, humanism, freedom for the individual, the birth of new democratic ideas," I said reverently.

  "From this simple start in this room with two seemingly-unlike scholars, nothing will be the same for the world. Faith and observation will compete for dominance. It is the 'Baylor thing' at its inception."

  Then the Iguana Mobile whisked us to Rem­brandt's 17th century Dutch home which, it turns out, would be just down the street from what would be Anne Frank's 20th century hiding place.

   In 18th century France we danced at Versailles. Louis XIV was gracious, but I was glad to leave because of the smell. No one bathed at Versailles. The air was filled with perfumes added to the aroma of horse dung from the dirt streets.

  Then we made a big leap, to the early 1940s. Daddy-0 parked his Iguana Mobile in front of my old grade school. My red-haired, old-maid, third-grade teacher was still transforming her classroom into adventures of mind and spirit. I remember her as tall. But everyone is tall when you are small.

  Again we were off in a whirl to the union halls where my grandfather and father fought the battles with the Pittsburgh steel mill barons of wealth. We were all "yellow-dog Democrats" to them. My football coach was a ward sergeant for the Teamsters. Eventually, he became a city commissioner.

  Later, I got to see a new Pittsburgh, a sunlit wonder of the East, unlike the city of my birth, where "you never see the light of day until you leave" because of the coal dust in the air.

  Finally, the Iguana Mobile pulled into my driveway in Waco. Daddy-0 beamed a Texas smile of satisfaction which was as wide as the state.

  "Next week, when the clock strikes three in the morning, expect me, and we will go to the future, Daddy-0 said.

  "This millennium has been a blast in more ways than one. The next will expand our minds to the stars and our souls."

Therefore when I awoke from dreaming, I had to make another wish list for the New Year. This is the process. After reading it, make your wish list for the next New Year.

New Year means making another wish list

    I look out on a quiet but com­plex neighborhood from some­one else's house. It is on a sub­urban street in an affluent section of Dallas where all the homes are priced at CEO amounts, children play with skateboards, trying to jump the curb and miss repeatedly.

     I take solace in a study lined with built-in bookshelves and a grand dark wood desk. The houses across the way appear like small Gothic cathedrals through the maple-shuttered windows.   The nine foot Christmas tree does not touch the ceil­ing of the spacious living room.

     When night comes the street sparkles like a Texas Vegas with prancing reindeers, carolers clutching candles, and icicle lights. Every tree is alive with light and color. Every block in this neighborhood sings out wealth and prosperity.

   And everywhere there is a silence except here inside with a 4-year old granddaughter and the 6-month-old grandson. Soon that too is silence as they sur­render to sleep. It is a time to enjoy one's heartbeat, breathing through the nose to firm up the stomach muscles. It is a time to reflect on a life well lived and to make another quiet wish list for a new year.

     It is almost humorous that when a relative asked the other day for a list of things that I wanted for Christmas, nothing appeared on the page immediately except a gift card for Kinko’s, JC Penney, Barnes and Noble, and Shipley’s donuts.  I am so well known at the corner Shipley’s that all I do I walk in and they have the one simple roll with nuts ready in a bag before I reach the counter.

  When you become a senior member of society, this is how you approach much of life.  If it works, you stay with it. In the past, when I was working full time, I would buy a dozen doughnuts and use the excuse that they were for others at work.  Now, I have no excuses left.  I must put a few excuses on my wish list of things that I need.  As Mark Twain said, “You always want a few vices so that they can be given up when needed.

  I do not wear a tie so that gift is out.  Anyway, I have 50 years of collecting ties in the closet (when I get rid of them, it will be the whole collection).  I wear a suit at funerals, weddings, and when I must give an academic presentation, so I have a single suit.  One day, in the last few months as an artist in the elementary schools, I word a Henry VIII costume (after using it with my college students to discuss royalty’s outlook on the arts and artists) and now kids are saying “Off with their heads,” when some of them disobey.

  Mostly, all I wear as a retired 72 year old artist/professor are sweat clothes in my relaxed time (and I make sure that I have no more relaxed time than “doing” times).  So you cannot put pants, shirts, underwear, and ties on a wish list.  Maybe I could put the price of my pills from Canada on that list? No?

  Last year, I made out a list of things like: Peace on earth, no political lying, feeding those who were starving around the world, playing with children at least once every day, and practicing Tai Chi because it feels good to move and breathe correctly, but that list was rejected this year with the statement, “You can’t turn that list in again!  We want something concrete.”

   Secretly, I still keep the “playing with children at least once a day” (or at least being a chick each day for a time) and practicing Tai Chi on the special, private list of things to keep doing.  Also, I have decided to retain fewer things on any lists.  Get rid of anything that has no purpose.

    Remembrance and sentiment have a good purpose, as does aesthetics. As my father once said, "Quality is cheap at any price," I keep that phrase around just because my father said it. Also I like the idea behind it. I use it often, even when it does not fit.

  So moving into a new year is not such a big thing. I have less to own now but more for which to be thankful. In January, I will be married to "almost-the-same- ­woman" for 47 years on our con­tinuing honeymoon. Love ages well (like a good wine).

    Secretly, being honest about a new year, I do wish for "peace on earth." Peace is much more difficult to achieve than victory in war as we found out in 2003 (and after every war before this newest one). What do I wish for everyone this year? It is simple! "May the beauty we love be what we do" and "Find another hand to hold."

RGHF peace historian Joseph L. Kagle, Jr.,   August 15 2006