Liking To Eat Onions All At Once

     When I was six years old my mother boiled cabbage. The whole house really stank. Yuck. I hated the odor and taste of cabbage. We sat at the table and gave thanks for our food. My mother put a really big leaf of cabbage on my plate. I mean really big. It covered the whole table. OK, I'm exaggerating. But that is what it seemed like to me when I was six.  The aroma was horrible. I pinched my nose so that I wouldn't have to smell it. I know that we had something else to eat besides just the cabbage. But the putrid odor of boiled cabbage is all I can remember. My mother told me that I could not leave the table until I ate all of the cabbage. I thought my mother was being real mean to me for no good reason. I ate everything else on my plate and then stared at that cabbage. I know that because all I remember is me staring at that gargantuan cabbage leaf on my plate. 
     By now I suppose you are wondering what does cabbage have to do with liking to eat onions all at once. Actually, it has nothing to do with it except it is when I first heard the onion story.
     I cut a small piece of the cabbage with my fork. I put it in my mouth and gagged. I spit it out. My mother glared at me and threatened to spank me. I reached to the middle of the table and grabbed a slice of white bread. I wrapped a tiny piece of cabbage in the bread and ate it. I must have eaten half a loaf of white bread by the time I finished eating the cabbage. My stomach was so full of bread and cabbage that I could hardly walk. 
     "That wasn't so bad, was it," my mother said. "I know you could finish it."
     I wobbled out of the kitchen. My father had long gone left the table. He was sitting on the couch, in the front room, enjoying his beer, and reading the paper while my mother did the dishes. My father called me over and asked me to sit down.
     Now I can tell you about the onions.
     "When your grandfather, Hope, (That is the name I called him) was a little boy like you," my father said, "he hated onions as much as you hate cabbage."  
     He told me that when my grandfather was about 10 years old, he forgot to close the corral gate before he went to bed. The next morning my great-grandfather was furious. One of the horses had gotten out of the corral and was nowhere to be seen. My great grandfather was so mad that he made my grandfather go look for the horse before he ate breakfast. 
     My grandfather saddled one of the other horses and went looking for the horse that had escaped. He hunted for that horse all day. He rode his horse into the mountains before he finally found the missing horse. He lassoed the horse and tied the rope around the horn of his saddle. He towed the horsed behind him.  
     It had taken him all day. He was starving. On his way back it started to get dark. He saw a little house on his way home. He tied the horses to a post and knocked on the door. He told the man who lived there that he had been looking for the horse that got out of the corral all day and that he was very hungry. He asked him if he had any food to spare. The man invited my grandfather in and told him that he had just made himself some onion soup. That was all the food he had in the house. He offered my grandfather a bowl of onion soup. 
     My grandfather was so hungry that he figured that even though it was the one food he hated the most, it would be better than starving to death. My grandfather was surprised by how good the onion soup tasted. My grandfather had liked onions ever since that day.
     My father resumed reading the newspaper and drinking his beer. I left my father and wished that we had a corral with horses. And if one got loose because I forgot to close the gate then maybe, just maybe, I might like cabbage. 
     And then the cabbage odor from the kitchen hit my nose and I changed my mind.

Orlando, Milton, and the Couch

The story of Milton

 

I drove into an unpaved alley and parked in a gravel parking lot behind Denise's office on a cold October morning in Albuquerque.  While getting out of the van, I noticed a white cat in the bed of a yellow pickup truck.  As I walked by, the cat strutted towards me in the fashion of a dog.  I petted the cat and walked through the back door of the office.

I told the staff about the peculiar cat that was acting like a dog in the yellow pickup truck.  They said that they had thought it was Milton's cat.  But, upon calling Milton (Milton was the owner of the yellow little pickup) they were informed that Milton's cat was still at home. 

 

The "dog acting" cat was gone when I left Denise’s office.  Thinking no more about the cat, I hopped into the van and drove out of the parking lot, down the alley, and onto the road.  As I crossed over the railroad tracks, I heard a horrible scream that sounded very much like a cat.  I immediately pulled the van over to the side of the road and got out.  I slowly opened the hood, half expecting to find splattered cat guts all over the engine.  To my relief, I found a very frightened young adolescent cat tightly hanging onto the radiator protective cover.  I took the poor thing home.  Since I had first seen him in Milton's truck, I decided to name my newly acquired pet, MILTON.

 

Milton grew very large.  He was so big that he could be heard walking on the roof or across the kitchen floor.  When Orlando was a baby he used to lie on the cat.  Milton was Orlando's constant companion.  However, we had to protect Milton from our son on certain occasions.  When we had Milton neutered, we turned Orlando's playpen upside down and put Milton inside.  Orlando often played roughly with Milton.  But, Milton never scratched Orlando.  Had I been a cat I certainly would have.  I think it is awesome, in a shamanic sense, that cats know that children are special, and put up with apparent abuse from them.

 

Once upon an Easter, a very long time ago, I had quite a bit of green Easter egg dye left over after I had finished coloring warm hard-boiled eggs in the prettiest of designs and shades. As I was wondering what to do with the leftover dye, Milton hopped onto my lap.  I smiled at him and put my hand in the green dye and began to stroke Milton's white fur.  He purred.  I continued to dip my hand into the dye and stroke him.  He continued to purr.  He purred and I stroked until he was all green.  "Far out!" I thought to myself.  We're the only family in the whole world to have such a groovy-looking GREEN cat.  As I was admiring my handiwork, the doorbell rang.  When I answered the door, my artwork ran out past the building manager.  (Pets were not allowed.)  The manager's eyes grew wide as he saw the cat run out.  He shook his head and grinned.  He mumbled to himself, "Did I just see a green cat?”

I put my palms up, in apology. The manager shook his head, smiled, and said, “Don’t worry about it. No one would believe me if I tell them you have a GREEN cat".

 

 ***

Death disguised itself as a little puppy.  Jeremy found it with its head stuck in a can and brought it home.  Milton looked at it as if he knew who it was.  He didn't hiss or growl, as is his normal fashion, at this strange little dog in his house.  He just stood there as the dog walked up to him.  When the puppy left the room, Milton went to the front door and, in his peculiar little way, asked to be let out.  That was the last time we saw Milton alive.  Denise gave Death a bath.

He was dirty and he stunk.  The next morning the motherless child, Death, disguised as a puppy, disappeared.  That puppy bothered me the whole time it was in the house.  I didn't want it in the house, and I didn't know why.  I just wanted it to go away. 

 

Milton had been missing for about two weeks when I brought his huge frozen body home.  Denise got a ride to work from the neighbors.  As they drove along the highway talking about Milton, and wondering where he had run off to, Lillian saw a large white cat's body lying on a corner off Coors Blvd.  She gasped and the car stayed silent all the way to work. Denise called me to tell me what she and Lillian saw.  I drove to the vacant lot and saw a great big cat lying on the ground.  It was gray, I told myself.  It couldn't be Milton.  But something made me get closer and push the hair back.  It was white.  White under the dust and dirt and grease which covered Milton's body.  A tear flowed down my face as I put him in the van.  I brought Milton home that evening with a lump in my throat.  I dug a large hole at the foot of the poplar tree.  And I put Milton in.  I pulled him out and dug the hole wider and deeper.  I was only able to hold back the tears until I covered his face with the soil. 

 

Even now my heart aches for our big white cat.  His bowls of water and food sat under the dresser filled with water and food for a long time.   I couldn't bring myself to put them away.  Someone else had to do that.  I will say," goodnight" before any more tears rolled down my cheeks and make my beard soggy.  I miss our gato.

Sometimes, the stories in our lives set the stage for shamanic understanding.  My relationship with Milton reinforced my understanding of my connectedness with the universe.  I realize that Spirit moves through ALL of us, even our pets.

 

P.S.  Milton left the way he came: covered with oil and grease.

We were living in Married Student Housing, a little more than a mile from the University of New Mexico when Denise finished making this couch. Orlando was born a few weeks later. It was so comfortable that many people fell asleep on it while visiting.
Milton was amazingly tolerant of Orlando, who used to pull Milton's hair. After we moved into our house on the West side of the Rio Grande, I heard Milton scream. I ran from the kitchen into the front room to find Milton's back legs wrapped around baby Orlando's neck and his front paws beating Orlando's head. When Milton saw me, he stopped screaming, stopped beating Orlando's head, and ran off. I fully expected to find blood all over Orlando's head. But there wasn't a scratch.
Orlando used to crawl to Milton, roll over onto his back and pound his head on Milton. I guess Milton's tolerance had been greatly exceeded when I found him "admonishing" Orlando. I miss Milton. He was my favorite cat. 

Selling Deseret News Final

I remember selling newspapers with my cousin, Robert when we were young, still in elementary school. He'd stand in front of the Kearns building in Salt Lake City and send me off, away from him. I'd walk, with a load of papers under my arm and yell, "Paper! Deseret News Night Final! Paper 5 cents." (The following year it went to 10 cents.)

Robert had customers in the Kearns building. We would get into the elevator and ride it to the top floor. Just before it stopped, Robert and I would jump up as high as we could. The kinetic energy helped us jump up very high. And when we rode the elevator down, we jumped with as much power as our legs could muster just before it stopped. The kinetic energy prevented us from jumping much at all.

When I worked in Forth Worth, Texas, (I was much older then, 31) I talked an elevator car full of engineers into jumping up as high as they could just before the elevator stopped on the 4th floor. They thought I was crazy, but they DID! and we all came out of the elevator laughing. There were a couple of people waiting for the elevator on the 4th floor. One asked, "What's so funny?"
"It's just Mushroom," one of the engineers answered.