Uncle Mike

(Wrote this a short while after some bad news in January. Kinda wanted to keep it private, and I’m still not certain if this is a lil too much show and tell. Some thoughts and items of info you handle with extra care, ya know? Maybe people that knew Mike Baldyga could still use the information. Either way, ‘ouch!’ I say!)

Everyone should have an Uncle Mike. Not just a nominal Uncle Mike, but a proverbial Uncle Mike. Not just a proverbial Uncle Mike, but my Uncle Mike. Then people would understand well who he was to me.

If there’s one person I can readily point to and say this man indubitably inspired me and shaped my whole being, I suppose it’d be him. Maybe my brother, dad, mom, helped too. It seems so obvious with my Uncle Mike though. What he did was teach me from the youngest age possible that it was cool to be smart, to know about things, to grow with youthful exuberance and mature complexity in tandem, to love science and nature, and to travel. His explanations of weather and thermal dynamics were music to my ears long before it was any other decipherable language. So were his stories of local gangsters and traveling the world to chase solar eclipses. So were gunshots at a rock to get the right “p-taw!” sound, and various other highly necessary science experiments and clown-tricks.

Actually my Dad’s best friend from childhood, and later a co-worker with my mother at a company that specialized in collectable classic book re-pressings and memorabilia, Mike lived, through most of my childhood, in his own childhood home (known as the yellow house regardless of whatever color it took on) with his brother and father, no more than a couple miles from me. Mike never married or had children. He was that uncle. Not the foil-wrapped chocolate one you’re Grandmother gives you when you go to her house to light the Chanukkiah; but that fella who maid the Ernest decision to check out on some of the prescriptives of adult life in order to be free and pass the seed of this type of freedom on through the generations where the ground receives it. A kind of Tom Robbinsian enlightened rogue/guru hedonist character comes to mind, a la Woodpecker or Larry Diamond, but cocooned in layers of caution, vice, and reluctant retiring-ness. Consider a small-time gestor that makes one feel regal to be around sometimes. One can see oneself pleasurably in the mishmash of visible qualities, including when he put on your little clown nose.

               Mike often joined my family on the greatest adventures we could afford as a child: like road-trips to relatives, or skiing. Obviously he was old and experienced enough to be my father, but he was bizarre, entertaining, and child-like enough to be like a second older brother, especially when things weren’t so tender between me and my actual older male sibling; although I was jealous at how my brother could win over Mike’s attention the way one does upon the cool kids with tools like experience and charisma. While with no known desire to have children of his own, he took his value to the Attenberg boys with enough serious dedication to warrant his frequent sharing in dinner at my family’s table and crashing on our couch. “Most exotic meal I ever had” was his refrain after dining with us. I’m not sure if it referred to anything specific, like the Chinese take-out from down the street, or my mom’s potatoes au gratin.

So often in my memory I can recall Mike on the couch with me and my brother, discussing MacGyver, racecars, and other such things that might unexpectedly string an intelligent man with two fawning children; meanwhile my parents and any other adult were about their business in another room. My early years were, upon close inspection, rather tumultuous, with tons of medical issues, nascent family troubles, and the upheaval of trying to integrate in a mainstream school with a facial deformity and poor vision, but memories like those painted by uncle Mike are why my brain, as brain’s do, kind of cursorily scrolls past that ugly stuff in reflection.

               It probably shouldn’t be much surprise that Mike was as into bird-watching, and plant and animal identification as I would become. Before there was the internet and my eventual expertise, there was Mike, who we would always share specimens with. In return, he would present us with something cool, like a snake-skin, feather, or book with audio recordings. If you add the time of magic and whit together with these objects, the value is hard to reckon. There’s really not enough time or patience inside me to plot out and justify his own significance. It is all a rush of feelings and time spent in incubation under the mass of his soul in the endless honeycomb of mirrors in my mind. Ephemera like snake skin or a feather will have to do then. The way they are cooked up and shed without any person’s artifice, like so much magic, is part of the stunning charm we can always take awe in.

               As I say, Mike had no children, and was never married. Perhaps it was out of a mix of fear of dedication and an idealist’s dedication to an ever insipient ruck-sack revolution. One thing I can say is he did retire from too much responsibility. Perhaps it was out of direct experiences I’m no expert in, or out of seeing turmoil produced in attachments like my parent’s marriage and family that told him such things weren’t for him. Instead of a clear path of gentle embraces and detaching with the wind like so many feathers and clouds, He had long-term vices, and stifling hang-ups that could break one’s heart. Adventures that could have been were set aside in drunken stupor alone on his couch with Bevis and Butthead; long overdue rendezvous were likewise flaked on; and whatever marriage might be was in principal out of the question in spite of a tight long-term, live-in relationship.

               A truly difficult time in my life was in bloom as my parent’s relationship fell apart at the seams. This wasn’t so much the divorce that would come – divorce in a sense is the tiny, pragmatic legal imprint concerning a more robust dystopia. Family friends stopped coming around. Tension filled the lonely air, free of all those little things you got used to. Escapist video game music struggles to fill the gaps in contest with shouts and door slams.

               I was 18, and about my uncle Mike’s Hight when I saw and quickly took him in my arms at my Dad’s wedding to my step mom at the end of 2001, perhaps four years after I last saw him. He still had the chocolate lab, Major, from the last time – the failed guide dog in training. Was Uncle Mike a failed guide dog in training? Why not – I was never so happy to see anyone. I never quite lost track of Mike since that time.  He came to graduation parties of mine, and attended my step sister’s wedding in Ohio, and my step mom’s funeral. I spent a gloomy autumn afternoon at his home, enthusiastically discussing hydrology and adiabatic systems a couple days after being released from the psych ward at a hospital near my University.

               I got Mike to visit me once after moving out to Portland, OR like a good Connecticut kid. We had a blast hiking around the waterfalls in the gorge, driving to the coast, dining out where the Vietnamese restaurant proprietors could call him Uncle mike… He was gushing with love and enthusiasm for the trip. While he came to Oregon for the solar eclipse in 2018, I didn’t manage to get him out a second time, although that seemed to be genuinely something he wanted. Getting a hold of him was notoriously difficult, though my communication with him was more sporadic than what he got with a couple others including my dad. If this wasn’t the case, I suppose I’d have a better understanding for the trouble he was in.

               I could see why one could have been mightily sated with the life he had when I dropped in his latest bachelor pad in exurban CT. It was a small two-level apartment, kept tidy with shelves of gold-lined, hard-covered books, a white cat with a single black spot named Spot (succeeding such feline friends as Orangy and Black Kitty), spring-fed forest pools and the wooded Aspetuk River -- although the landlord recently cleared much of the property’s woods – it was still quite lovely, quiet, and yet not far from the bustling New York metropolitan hustle. If one could live in peaceful, Zen-like isolation, this would be a practical place to do it. White-throated and Fox Sparrows were all over his feeders in the darkest of winter days. I was happy to pay a few visits there over the past couple of years to see him and the bird life when I was around my old Connecticut beat; although my visits came after last minute, drunken cancelations of plans to dine out, or cook out at my mom’s place. There were undercurrents of sadness and long-term loneliness plaguing the brilliant guy that seemed to want little more than lounging around with a bottle and NASCAR on the TV. They began to register as others hinted at them, although I saw them in part as the ironic mishmash of an enigmatic guy that never wanted much more than some personal concoction of freedom.

About a year ago, I spoke to Uncle Mike on the phone after several broken promises to meet while I was in the Northeast for the holidays. His voice was tremulous and weak as I’d never heard it before—sickly--elderly. A visit to his home revealed him to be gaunt and tremulous. He admitted to be in withdrawal. He’d binged and claimed he had given up the heavy stuff. He made the latter claim before departing for a liquor store after meeting at a Thai restaurant the next night. He also announced that he gave up his job of several decades just days prior without any fanfare. It was time for him to cash in and move on to a new chapter. I told him to come out to Portland with me. “I might just do that” said he, not for the first time.

He said he was feeling remarkably well and was off the heavy stuff as I spoke to him  on the phone the night before my departure for a stint on the other side of the world in august; though this came after several days of not getting a hold of him during a farewell visit to Connecticut. His voice was slow and tremulous, and he showed no interest in meeting me in the city for a farewell meal before my flight.

               Just days later, my dad informed me that Uncle Mike was taken to the hospital by his siblings for detox and rehab. I didn’t know that he was near death, with his liver and heart on the brink, and his legs barely able to support him.  

  I didn’t contact him directly over the course of the five months in Vietnam. His long-term sweetheart told me she shared with him my article in Chao Hanoi. I woke up on Saturday morning Jan 11 2020 my time to a message from my dad that Uncle Mike was found dead on the floor of his apartment. The shedding of a beautiful something, that while alive helped me fly and kept me warm, and in death has fallen to the deepest parts of me. He lies with the most beautiful dreamscapes of my memories.  

I guess it’s “done seeya bye!” It’d be nice if you told me you weren’t able to be here, but typical. I have missed you Uncle Mike. I will miss you more that I’ll never see you again, as is so with the most beautiful ephemeral springs.

Mike’s Obit.

P.S.

In spite of the funeral, Mike was decidedly unreligious. Probably a good idea to assume you are mortal, and leave instructions at some point, eh? He did leave me on the other side of the world with two Master’s Degrees pertaining to Environmental Science, and with a vast assortment of other steadfast conditions I’m happy to credit to him in his wake. When you are reminded of how the most immortal, larger than life elements inside you are attached to the most mortal in the course of life – ouch.

 Love,

Uncle Trev

6 Months -- On the Right Soundtrack

I

Six months in Vietnam as of last Thursday. And What have I done? Not very fluent in the language, and with apprehension for the future. It is good that I maintain a foothold with a routine of scribing observations, eh? First of all, I should give some recognition to the musical backdrop in the Saint Honore bakery/café place near my home. I’ll get to that in a bit.

First for something more pressing. Have any of you hirsute, masculine types ever examined your face during the day, only to discover that you neglected to shave about half of it? It’s more of a drag when your peach fuzz grows at about an inch per hour. That’s about 109 million cm per nanosecond in metric terms. I can thank 6 months of the metric system for that last ounce of wisdom, which a half beard by no means belies.

A region I’ve delved into, at least for the sake of articulation is something I’m sure a lot of blind, disabled, and other minority folks can relate to. We often use words like infantilization, patronization, or condescension to describe a persistent condition. These hover around the mark, although as words are wont, their package mightn’t make it completely.

               I suppose I have an internal dialogue, although often it uses voices other than my own. Maybe it is the voice of a less dour and condescending BBC reporter, or even the sound of a text-to-speech screen reader like JAWS. Maybe it is Stacy Keach, describing paranormal matters through the refinement of a mustache and reconstructed cleft palate. Anywho, when I hear my own voice down on Earth, too often there is this aggravating diminutive quality to it. It is a cerebral state more than anything. I become the pimple-faced teenager on the Simpson’s; the cute puppy that talks; the adorable kid that does adult things sometimes – “here, let me tie your shoe for you…”

One is not allowed the privilege of adulthood. I’ve never quite felt accepted into that the club of full-time, adult human beings. Privileges, encase you’ve heard otherwise, can be quite nice things indeed, often worthy of rights. But there is this small hiccup of a demon that tells me through my own voice, or that of others, that I, no matter what I do, will always be a child. It is stultifying and embarrassing. I’ve long had this sense of reality. An ironic thing is that many minority folk were never fully allowed into the fold as children. Childhood is a hierarchical, pseudo-meritocracy also, and thus thrives within a class of outsiders. Ostracization is one side of the coin, but so is childhood poverty and incrimination. I never really fell into the latter part. I was quite the good boy most of the time, as now, so the projection has it. I might’ve been jealous of those who commanded fear through a rap sheet or stories of classic woe. Even when you are not particularly short, your neck can grow soar from looking up at people all the time. Maybe this is why I don’t care for inspirational/motivational speakers much. I am tired of looking up and not seeing the moon. Maybe I’m using the term adult to refer to that enviable circumstance one finds oneself in, where you’re not constantly offered help or physically manhandled during human interaction, or where you are allowed to participate in common activities, like conversations, games, arts, exercise, etc. with no strings attached – speaking of which, I’m going to tie your shoes.

 Now, I shall describe in only the most interesting detail, this place that I’ve sometimes gone lately to get some work or relaxation done. You ever get the sense you don’t quite get the full story on anything from people? I call it “don’t tell Trev syndrome’. You can get by with snippets you can run with.

It’s a nice place – this place, although there’s often a guy that is out in front waiting for me to take too much time in finding the door, where upon he comes and grabs my wrist or arm like it’s a snake, and guides me in. I’ve tried some Vietnamese with progressively higher volume to try to extract myself beforehand. His response is invariably, “ok ok” with no change in the snake grip.

There’s something for you youngons to learn from such experiences. As I noted in a recent FB post, speaking for others in your shoes is not easy, and regularly not advisable. I do have a sense of justice though, and I will stick to it in spite of contradictions from others that share my cramped blind shoes. Indeed, there are many blind people that express great gratitude when someone comes and offers, not just assistance, but bodily manipulation without asking. I’m almost invariably not one of these. In Vietnam, I’m much more tolerant of this. I realize, as I’ve stated, that I may find myself in danger and need, while simultaneously not having the linguistic capacity to express or receive information on said danger/need. I’ve, somewhat reluctantly, shown gratitude to those that have come to physically guide me across busy streets. In fact, unlike in the U.S. or anywhere else I’ve been extensively, in VN, I have frequently asked for help in crossing some of the more maniacal streets. Here’s the deal though. I don’t think that my strategy here negates my general critique of unwarranted assistance. The difficulty in understanding where the line is drawn lies in the phenomenon of strangeness. It is hard for the general public to deal with something that is strange. People also want to be heroes. A need to shimmer and shine in our cast system of heroes is intertwined with a dread of the unknown. It is the sense we cannot allow for these free-radical beings, these folks plotting around with mobility devices – these blind people that move circuitously towards a destination, trailing walls, feeling about for things, rather than taking the strait, bold trajectories we all know and love. Surely if they could speak in your language, they would cry out for help, and it might as well be you, kid, they call upon. Here’s the deal, I say let them. Let them feel around, let them thrash, flail, spin around, get lost even. They have voices, and if they are deserving of adulthood, they can ask for help when they are ready for it. In fact, they might be getting lost, because they are panicking, sensing that someone is watching them, about to jump out and grab them, or at least judge them on their lack of grace at any time. There’s a quite good chance of it. Can adults be strange? I say if you don’t think so, that’s your problem. Everybody’s got problems, and I’ll try to understand yours… now get your hands out of the way – I’m going to tie your shoe – get!    

II

Now for that place I told you I’d give a fleeting glance at. Saint Honore has other locations, and I don’t know if what I hear here is representative. There’s a mix of Chicago blues, including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf, and cuts from the 1994 Jimmy Rogers’s ‘Blues Blues Blues’ all-star session album, featuring Mic Jagger, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal and others. The latter is a quite nice album, though the nominal album Artist, Mr. J. Rogers, on shared voice and guitar, is a wee overshadowed by the rockers and younger bluesman in his midst. We get some more old-timy stuff, like Robert Johnson and Bessy Smith as well. There’s also ‘Poor Man’s Moody Blues’ from Barclay James Harvest, a symphonic pop rock tune from 1977, in which the band (BJH) poke fun at their critical comparisons to the Moody Blues. The song stylistically alludes to the Moody’s hit ‘Nights in White Satin’ of ten years prior. Neither the BJH tune, nor the Moody Blues’ one bare much trace of blues. One might suspect the juxtaposition with genuine blues numbers to be a result of goofs in a streaming service; but then we get genuine classical symphony music from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (thanks to my iPhone for telling me that, I knew it wasn’t a BJH Mellotron.), plus New Agy stuff like Enya’s Oronoco Flow and Karl Jenkins’s ‘Adiemus’ (Jenkins used to play oboe and keys for Soft Machine). Michael Jackson’s Earth Song appears to slide into the latter genre. This makes for an uncanny patchwork, but it is a generally pleasant, sophisticated fare. Most inexplicable are the few blatant Christmas tunes I heard today, including Perry Como’s ‘There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays’. Perhaps this is with reference to the recent school cancelations prompted by the Corona Virus? The Urban Gentry jazz bar was also spotted playing Christmas music in recent days.

Unlike cases of Christmas music, last I’ve checked, there have been no new cases of the virus in the past week, and only some 16 total in the country -- no deaths. The flu and other diseases are likely having a more deleterious impact as we speak, although native folks are quite cautious. Expats are out and about more than ever it seems, like me, out of work until schools start back up.

               Back to the Saint Honor music scene, the volume is kept at an unobtrusive level, and is generally nice. The cozy, familiar, and peaceful atmosphere have enticed me to walk a little further and pay just a bit more money in order to frequent the place over the past week. Contrast this with the also chain Highlands Coffee, with its 10 or 15 V-Pop and American top 40 numbers on constant repeat, little changed in the past 6 months. My brain swings from acceptance to disgust when I pay Highland’s a visit. There’s something that reeks of a bland dog eat dog commercialism in the saccharin Highlands music, as well as in the smokey, loud hustle and bustle I pass through on the street to get there.

Sometimes I get trapped, if you will, in hints of the familiar: familiar music, people speaking English, fellow expats, familiar coffee shops and bars. One is wont to this in my condition I reckon, although attachment to the familiar can stifle adaptation to the unfamiliar, as might the lack of natural light in my studio apartment. What’s more, I suspect I’ll feel less infantile once I can actually learn to talk in the ears of natives.

Bonus observation – South Africans also regularly end sentences with ‘eh’ – a habit usually credited in the U.S., with shock and respect, just to Canadians.

Lots of frog sounds coming from behind the buildings, and to a limited extent, the edge of Ho Tay/West Lake. I believe they are brown tree frogs (Polypedates megacephalus). The common English name refers to other species, and there are other terms used, including Spot-legged Tree Frog and Hong Kong Whipping Frog. Their sound is a cross between a bark and a quack, a bit like the wood frog of the Eastern U.S.

Got a visa renewal for another 6, which, as I hear tell, may not be so easy to do come July – South Africans are to be thanked, eh?