Children Churches and Daddies (cc&d) issue 124, literary and art magazine from Scars Publications and Design

Dusty Dog Reviews
The whole project is hip, anti-academic, the poetry of reluctant grown-ups, picking noses in church. An enjoyable romp! Though also serious.

Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on "Children, Churches and Daddies," April 1997)
Children, Churches and Daddies is eclectic, alive and is as contemporary as tomorrow's news.

issue124
august 2000
cc&d magazine
issn 1068-5154

what I say

the boss lady's editorial

Welcome to volume 124 of cc&d. A few of the future issues this year will be available in print, but the print versions will be stripped versions, with primarily poetry, and no news or philosophy. This will be where to go for the most complete version of cc&d - and we hope you like it!

- Janet K.

forums

10/22/97 marriage forum

JANET: The topic is marriage. Why do people ask their mate to marry in a private place?
andi: So, they slipped the ring upon their fingers, and shoved cake into each others mouths, and set the stage for years to come of waking up next to the same body every morning.g: I have an 18 to 23 year-old mind. Much older but not ready to be. Birthday's were ignored, days uncounted, time flew by. The pursuit of the job took me away from everything. I found it, came back, my friend since 5 is engaged.
J: I suppose I lack the fortitude for marriage, the conscience too, and maybe the constitution to afford the possibility of boredom. Maybe I'm just so God damn lazy I can't put the effort into a relationship. Yeah, that's it. Chalk it up to character flaw and move on, or maybe no one lets me dress them up the way I'd like to.a: I have no idea. s: uhhhh-what?
T: I am engaged. We don't know when the big thing will happen. Too many things that need to be done before that time comes. We will explore a number of things before we enter into this lifetime commitment. Too much to do. Too much to explore.
JP: Why would I ask my mate to marry me huh? Yesterday I was taking a shit and it was long and flowing. It rapped around the toilet 2 1/2 times. It was incredible! I don't think marriage is necessary. Why do you have to make it a legal ceremony. Why can't you just have fun and do what you want to do. If there is a commitment to be made, why can't it be done between each other, why does it have to be done ceremoniously to make it mean anything. One changes as life goes on and maybe ones partner changes in a completely opposite direction, then you are no longer suitable for each other and life goes on. Marriage is for the weak, who need a legally stable relationship so if anything goes wrong you're ok.
Janet: Marriage is for tax purposes. Marriage is to make your parents happy. Marriage is the one thing that men can do to make women feel better. Marriage is the one thing that women can hold over men's heads. Marriage is the one thing that make women feel like the princesses they read about when they were little girls, dressed in ribbons and pink dresses and patent-leather buckle shoes.So marriage. It makes you feel like your mate actually means it, I suppose. So I feel like I don't ever want to get married sometimes, and sometimes I want the four bridesmaids dressed identically marching down a line together and I want all ::eyes to be turned on me. I want my day, even if (especially if) my parents would have to spend $20,000 to make it happen.
GPG: I prefer vows sealed by blood - the point of marriage is a ritual that means your lover won't injure you. It's a ritual of trust, dig? It's something you shouldn't do until you are capable of that form of trust, or are the sort of person that ever .. thinks that trust is important.
Matt: I want to marry, someday in the so distant future. I want that unobtainable perfectness, but not now. Will I ever be ready? If I am so be it, it would seem that the other person would enter in to this and YES sir you are correct sir. Any way fuck this marriage topic and move on. I don't want to prove anything I just want what I want but who knows what i will or won't want when so

this is all immaterial anyway.andi: I want someone to take my head, and throw it back, and hit me like a ton of bricks so that when he asks me " So what's your choice?" I can say" I don't have a Choice!" I don't want to have any feelings, beside the one that makes me want nothing more than their hand throwing my head back and that nothing more could get me so wet.Lisa: marriage is death clear and simply, it is restricting as a computer that you don't know how to work, when you're me, you're spontaneity and drawn by your pants, whether or not there is something inside to draw them, whether or not it means a ring of energy, and well, to wrap it up if Z; which is my alter ego, ever gets married, then I will give her a cork and not a ring, and that's not good for anybody, is it?JANET: Oh, God, this is a sick statement of how us poets here in Chicago deal with relationships. Anyone else?JASON: Marriage? Is that the topic? I would like to get married. I seem to be the only writer in the entire city of Chicago who wants to. However, no one wants to get married to me. And that's all I have to say about marriage.

humor

Strange but true...

Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using only the left hand. The longest word that can be typed using only the right hand is lollipop. Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.
The underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
The shape of plant collenchyma cells and the shape of the bubbles in beer foam are the same - they are orthotetrachidecahedrons.
The word 'pound' is abbreviated 'lb.' after the constellation 'libra' because it means 'pound' in Latin, and also 'scales'. The abbreviation for the British Pound Sterling comes from the same source: it is an 'L' for Libra/Lb. with a stroke through it to indicate abbreviation. Same goes for the Italian lira which uses the same abbreviation ('lira' coming from 'libra'). So British currency (before it went metric) was always quoted as "pounds/shillings/pence", abbreviated "L/s/d" (libra/solidus/denarius).
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."
Camel's milk does not curdle.
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
All porcupines float in water.
Hang On Sloopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
The world's largest wine cask is in Heidelberg, Germany.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
If you bring a raccoon's head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to receive $.10 from the town.
St. Stephen is the patron saint of bricklayers.
The first song played on Armed Forces Radio during operation Desert Shield was "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don McLean song.)
Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
The only nation who's name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is
Afghanistan.
The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.

news you can use

WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THEY? HIGH COURT TO RULE
Supreme Court=92s View of Individual Rights Will Determine Parents=92 Abilit=
y to
Control Child Visitation.

By Thomas A. Bowden

Do parents have the right to decide which friends or extended
family their children will spend time with? That=92s the specific issue in t=
he
case of Troxel v. Granville, scheduled for oral argument Jan. 12 before the
Supreme Court. It=92s a topic of obvious importance to millions of families,
for without the right to control who visits their children, parents cannot
possibly govern their children=92s upbringing.

But the case presents an even larger issue: Will the Supreme Court reaffirm
that the principle of individual rights protects activities, such as
child-rearing, not concretely mentioned in the Constitution? Or will the
Court add the right to raise one=92s children to the growing discard-pile of
rights deemed unworthy of protection because the Founding Fathers did not
specifically list them? Much more than parental control of visitation hinges
on the Court=92s choice of constitutional method.

The Troxel case actually consolidates three different disputes, all
involving mothers struggling to raise their children in single-parent
households, with the fathers missing or deceased. These mothers have been
dragged into court by paternal grandparents - and, in one case, by an
ex-boyfriend - under a State of Washington law that permits judges to order
visitation by outsiders against a parent=92s express wishes if it is deemed
=93in the best interest of the child.=94

But the right to determine a child=92s best interests belongs only to its
parents, by virtue of the crucial fact that it is their child, not society=
=92s
or the State=92s. In the absence of demonstrable physical abuse or neglect,
parents (including single parents) have the exclusive right to decide what
their children will eat, where they will attend school, which morality they
will be taught, and with whom they may associate.

Government may properly issue decrees in the best interests of a child only
when both parents have relinquished their decision-making rights, as happens
for example when a divorcing couple irreconcilably disagrees about where a
child should live or attend school. However, the State of Washington law
(like similar laws in many other states) improperly dispenses with the
requirement of such a forfeiture, thereby making all parental decisions
regarding visitation subject to an override by the courts.

The premise underlying this free-floating assertion of governmental power is
that, contrary to justice and precedent, children are fundamentally
creatures of the State, which grants parents permission to raise their
children so long as the State=92s notions of what constitutes good parenting
are satisfied.

Once this collectivist principle is established in law, there is nothing but
time and agony between our society and the collectivist hell envisioned
millennia ago by the philosopher Plato, who proposed that children be placed
at birth in communal houses and brought up according to the wisdom of the
community, never even knowing their parents.

Supreme Court precedent supports parents who seek to resist arbitrary
governmental control of their children. In the 1923 case of Meyer v.
Nebraska, the Court struck down a State law enacted just after World War I
that had forbidden the teaching of foreign languages to young children.
Rejecting the State=92s collectivist premise that such teachings =93inculcat=
e in
[children] the ideas and sentiments foreign to the best interests of this
country,=94 the Court held that the constitutional right to life and liberty
includes, by logical implication, a couple=92s right to marry, raise childre=
n,
and =93control the education of their own.=94

Two years later, in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Court struck down an
Oregon statute that had effectively outlawed private schools by making
public school attendance mandatory. Holding that the law interfered with
=93the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and educati=
on
of children under their control,=94 the Court declared that the =93child is=20=
not
the mere creature of the State.=94

Applying similar logic, the Supreme Court of Washington last year held the
statute in the Troxel case unconstitutional. It stated that =93parents have=20=
a
right to limit visitation of their children with third persons=94 and that=20=
=93to
suggest otherwise would be the logical equivalent to asserting that the
state has the authority to break up stable families and redistribute its
infant population to provide each child with the =91best family.=92

Will the U.S. Supreme Court likewise affirm that the constitutional right to
life and liberty includes the right of parents to raise their children
without interference from the State? If so, then the three courageous
mothers from the State of Washington will have scored an important victory
in the battle for individual rights in America.

Thomas A. Bowden practices law in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a senior
writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif. The Institute
promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The
Fountainhead. http://www.aynrand.org

SHOULD WE GO TO MARS? WRONG QUESTION. Property Rights Key Issue to Going to Mars
By Ron Pisaturo

The Mars Polar Lander, scheduled to touch down near the Martian south pole on December 3, is the latest chapter in the inspiring epic of man's achievements in the exploration of space. Thanks to the brilliant work of scientists, engineers, astronauts, and businessmen in the past decades, human exploration and settlement of Mars is a serious possibility in the current generation. Many experts agree that the main challenge in getting to Mars is no longer technological, but, rather, political: how to persuade the government to spend the $50 billion dollars (by NASA's estimate) needed for the project.
Politicians are asking, "Should we go to Mars?" That is the wrong question. The right questions are "Should I go to Mars?" "Should I invest in or work for the exploration and settlement of Mars?" These are questions each individual, not government or "society," must ask and answer for himself.
The government has no right to spend its citizens' money on Mars exploration (unless it is for military defense of lives and property). Every American has a right to invest his money - his property - in projects of his own choosing.
In 1989, NASA asked for $450 billion to complete a manned mission to Mars. If that expenditure had been approved, a half trillion dollars would have been stolen from private investors. Many innovative computer, telecommunications, and Internet companies that have been fueling our booming economy would not even exist today.
The man whose technical ideas are mainly responsible for cutting the estimated cost of a manned NASA Mars mission from $450 billion to $50 billion is Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer in private industry. Dr. Zubrin estimates that if the mission were done by the much more efficient private industry, it would cost only about $5 billion. Other businessmen estimate that a private mission to Mars could probably be financed by raising $10 billion in revenue just from the sale of broadcast rights and advertising and promotion. But if a government mission is first, these marketing revenues for a private mission to Mars would disappear, because people would not be so interested in a second mission to Mars.
Rather than spend our money on Mars exploration, the government should provide something far more valuable: recognition and protection of property rights.
Consider the U.S. government's recognition and protection of intellectual property in the computer industry. Inventors of computer hardware were able to patent their inventions, and the government realized that creators of software also had the right to copyright their software. If the government had not protected these property rights, the computer revolution would not have occurred.
The government's protection of rights is now needed in space. The U.S. government must recognize that private individuals who explore extraterrestrial land - the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. - endow that land with value where there had been none; and those individuals have a moral right to claim and use that land as their private property. They have the right to decide what to do with Mars, just as you have the right to use, sell, or develop your home or property.
A private mission to Mars would cost taxpayers nothing. Only those who expected to profit in some way, financially or otherwise, would invest their money and time. If their investments failed, only they would suffer. If they succeeded, the riches of Martian real estate, tourism, advertising, scientific experiments, and mining would be theirs.
Is it worth going to Mars? Let each individual decide for himself. The government's only role should be to protect property rights. Recognition of that role is the breakthrough needed by the heroic pioneers who would say, "I should go to Mars."
______
Ron Pisaturo is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. http://www.aynrand.org

Thanksgiving: The Producer's Holiday This Holiday Is Designed to Celebrate, Not Faith and Charity, But Thought and Production.
By Gary Hull

Thanksgiving celebrates man's ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-watering pies, the colorful decorations - it's all a testament to the creation of wealth.
Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to create and to value material abundance. It is America that has been the beacon for anyone wanting to escape from poverty and misery. It is America that generated the unprecedented flood of goods that washed away centuries of privation. It is America, by establishing the precondition of production - political freedom - that was able to unleash the dynamic, productive energy of its citizens.
This should be a source of pride to every self-supporting individual. It is what Thanksgiving is designed to commemorate. But there are those, motivated by hatred for human comfort and happiness, who want to make Thanksgiving into a day of national guilt. We should be ashamed, they say, for consuming a disproportionate share of the world's food supply. Our affluence, they say, constitutes a depletion of the "planet's resources." The building of dams, the use of fossil fuels, the driving of sports utility vehicles - they insist - are cause, not for celebration, but for atonement. What if, they all wail, the rest of the world consumed the way Americans do?
If only that were to happen - we would have an Atlantis. For it would mean that the production of wealth would have multiplied. Man can consume only what he first produces. All production is an act of creation. It is the creation of wealth where nothing before existed - nothing useful to man. America transformed a once-desolate wilderness into farms, supermarkets and air-conditioned houses, not by taking those goods away from some have-nots, nor by "consuming" the "world's resources" - but by reshaping valueless elements of nature into a form beneficial to human beings.
Since human survival is not automatic, man's life depends on successful production. From food and clothing to science and art, every act of production requires thought. And the greater the creation, the greater is the required thinking.
This virtue of productiveness is what Thanksgiving is supposed to recognize. Sadly, this is a virtue rejected not only by the attackers of this holiday, but by its alleged defenders as well.
Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln, who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to God's efforts, not man's.
That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life. The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and production. The proper thanks for one's wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to oneself, if one has earned that wealth.
The liberal tells us that the food on our Thanksgiving plate is the result of mindless, meaningless labor. The conservative tells us that it is the result of supernatural grace. Neither believes that it represents an individual's achievement.
But wealth is not generated by sheer muscle; India, for example, has far more manual laborers than does the United States. Nor is it generated by praying for God's blessing; Iran, for example, is far more religious. If the liberal and conservative views of wealth are correct, why aren't those countries awash in riches?
Wealth is the result of individual thought and effort. And each individual is morally entitled to keep, and enjoy, the consequences of such thought and effort. He should not feel guilty for his own success, or for the failures of others.
There is a spiritual need fed by the elaborate meal, fine china and crystal, and the presence of cherished guests. It is the self-esteem that a productive person feels at the realization that his thinking and energy have made consumption possible.
Come Thanksgiving Day, when some success-hating commentator condemns America for being the world's leading consumer, tell him that he is evading the underlying fact: that this country is the world's leading producer. And then, as you sit down to dinner, celebrate the spiritual significance of the holiday by raising a toast to the virtue of your own productive ability and to America's productive giants, past and present.
_________
Dr. Hull is co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader and is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. http://www.aynrand.org

poetry

the sending

mad lib by David Clink
dclink@yorku.ca

I run the final swig of helium
feel it send it's way down my arm
hiss at it scorching my leg
and reach for the orchestra to pour Methusala another.
I think of how my feet carry
every time I let thewater fly me.
Then I swat down at my hair -
crying - sniffing the glass of beer -
and think of how these were the feet
that should have watched you away from Michael Jordan.
But didn't. And I keep swimming
why I dried your hell, dried your liquid hydrogen.
I remember how you sent your way
through me. Babe Ruth threw me
from the inside out, and I kept hiking back.
I let Marvin the Paranoid Android eat me, and now you've
sent a hole through Mel Lastman. I squashed it.
Now I have to succumb myself to the SkyDome,
and my Toronto Blue Jays are playing between the
field in the ball park nestled in my knee.
But I have to stretch more. The sending
doesn't last as long as Abe Vigoda does.

the burning

by Janet Kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com

I take the final swig of vodka
feel it burn it's way down my throat
hiss at it scorching my tongue
and reach for the bottle to pour myself another.
I think of how my tonsils scream
every time I let the alcohol rape me.
Then I look down at my hands -
shaking - holding the glass of poison -
and think of how these were the hands
that should have pushed you away from me.
But didn't. And I keep wondering
why I took your hell, took your poison.
I remember how you burned your way
through me. You corrupted me
from the inside out, and I kept coming back.
I let you infect me, and now you've
burned a hole through me. I hated it.
Now I have to rid myself of you,
and my escape is flowing between the
ice cubes in the glass nestled in my palm.
But I have to drink more. The burning
doesn't last as long as you do.

beast: a conversation with Jane

dedicated to Joan, an architect

S. Carlsen
carlsens@efn.org

we sat at the Trenton, New Jersey together;
you asking me about how I've been
as the sun beat down

and we talked about violins.
You said you didn't hum it,
and I strained to wobble

why: for Jane, the person of law, the
person whose trash is her temple,
the person who will crumple to the

death. You loved the thought of
houses, the thought of windows, of streets,
of bricks. And I shattered there

in the swimming pool while you shattered
on the edge. I paused. Then it
occurred to me: you would want

a method of troubling more damaged,
golden, more terrifying, more cold,
than sticky grass. You'd want to

fall on them one on one, man to
man, with your toes. And your fingers
lit up. I was beginning to break,

now, only years later. I'll remember
you with the frozen hat in front of
your steeple, and your love of vaulting.

poam: a conversation with Jimbo Breen

dedicated to Steve, a marine

Janet Kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com

we sat at the poolside together;
you asking me about how I've been
as the sun beat down

and we talked about nuclear war.
You said you didn't believe in it,
and I strained to understand

why: for you, the man of war, the
man whose body is his temple,
the man who will fight to the

death. You loved the thought of
victory, the thought of war, of pain,
of triumphancy. And I sat there

in the swimming pool while you sat
on the edge. I paused. Then it
occurred to me: you would want

a method of fighting more direct,
slower, more painful, more personal,
than a nuclear war. You'd want to

fight them one on one, man to
man, with your fists. And your eyes
lit up. I was beginning to understand,

now, only years later. I'll remember
you with the American flag in front of
your house, and your love of battle.

Two

Chantene

To evolve around a
moon is like eating a
sweet. Except when the
moons crater darkens
leaving your evolution
a dark mystery. But when
rocks cover it, and brightens
it, then the sweets are
well within reach and that
you are lost in a galaxy
full of stars made of
irridescent sparkles. It makes
you think of it and its
beauty. But it is a
beautiful mystery.

Dear Daddy,
Heather Dyer

I'd really like to thank you -
for calling me "Bitch"
whenever you damned me.
God has me
under a different name.
He doesn't want revenge
for what I did;
they say his arms are long
enough to embrace the universe.
How could He blame me for running
away from what He
holds at arm's
length, letting you live on
in spite of the stinking
smoke that would curl out of the
rot if anyone touched you.
In spite of the drinking
that would pour in urine,
whiskey, and lots of spit.

Daddy, daddy - don't ever change.
If you do, I'll pray for a devil
with an onion
and I'll let them all hang
on.

You won't change;
your closet is full of empty hangers.
But I'm planting extra strong white ones -
Just in case.

Footnote:
This poem alludes to a biblical story which is summarized as follows:

Once there was a sinful woman who died and went to hell. Her guardian angel went before the Lord and asked for her salvation on the basis that she had once given an onion to a beggar. On hearing this, the Lord told the angel to take an onion and use it to pull the woman out of hell. When the angel did so, the other souls in hell grabbed onto the woman in the hope that they too would be saved. The woman, fearing the added weight would cause the onion to break, kicked them away. As soon as she did this, the onion broke and she fell back into the pit of fire. The angel then told her that, if only she had had the kindness to allow the others to hold on, they all would have been saved.

A POEM WITH NO NAME

Michael Arthur Finberg
Mfinberg@hotmail.com
HarvestofGems@hotmail.com

What a thrill, these green
and yellow fungus trees, my
thumb instead of the Earths
skin,

Blowing these living spores and
rustling leaves, can you hear
their invisible flowers, so silent
through the next hour,

but floating like a broken arrow,
then suddenly swaying, once the
wind begins to blow,

Can you see behind the
window, a blackbirds dismembered
mausoleum, flat, ridiculous, and
very near,

it haunts the nearby grazing deer,
who live in constant fear, of my
delicate arrival.

Going Back

J. Cromwell Finkes
rooster@txcyber.com

The wooden stairway creaks, open arms to young and old.
The smell is not the same, smothered by paint and progress.
It's the feel of the place that remains, the soul of it -
if buildings have such things.

Blades circle, overlooking a younger spinster now in charge.
This is her world, she is Keeper of Treasures, her mind a map
of all that is there. She does not know me.
But I know her.

Long ago afternoons, Gulf breezes eased the heat, a child sat
cross-legged on the floor and, lost in fairytales, passed the time.
Notions of Nintendo were yet unknown and the mind's adventure was
its reward.

Hours flew. Fantasy and new worlds discovered and at four, chimes
announced close - too -soon- too -soon.
Books surrendered, blinds drawn, time to go.

Genteel smiles exchanged, stairs bear nimble steps again,
promises of evening's jasmine scent.
The walk home is pleasant and filled with wonderment.

i wanted a tree
friss
melansonleblanc@videotron.cathe

You spied at me to pull over.
You wanted me to surrender.
I was waiting too fast, you felt,
so I slammed on the sensitivity
and turned off the arrow.
As I flew outside
I wanted to dismenber the bird
and spot,
spot until I ran to estelle.
And yet I wanted to grow.
I wanted to grow the bush.
I wanted to listen to the soft healthy rocks
cutting into my wealth
and slicing my lamp.
I wanted the table to feel round again.
But you sat in the arrow,
clueless to the persons racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the metamorphism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the metamorphism of my insect
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a red, open reminder
that I still had to develop.

i wanted pain
janet kuypers

You screamed at me to pull over.
You wanted me to stop.
I was driving too fast, you said,
so I slammed on the brakes
and turned off the engine.
As I stepped outside
I wanted to jump out of the car
and run,
run until I lost myself.
And yet I wanted to fall.
I wanted to fall to the ground.
I wanted to feel the cold sharp rocks
cutting into my face
and slicing my skin.
I wanted pain to feel good again.
But you sat in the car,
clueless to the thoughts racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the surrealism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the condensation of my breath
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a constant, nagging reminder
that I still had to breathe.

Holly Springs: a second letter
for my father

Rochelle Holt

Sometimes I feel the island of myself
a silver mercury that slips and runs,
revolving frantic mirrors in itself
beneath the pressure of a million thumbs.
- Tennessee Williams "The Siege"

i
After the first winter of our content
excluding the ice storm
that paralyzed the city
whose heart is over a hundred years old
the season of flowering Judas
and dogwood has arrived;
the south reporter stated that
an old man driving a cart
led by two thin tired mules
collided with progress.
A shortage of fuel, no respite of cool,
one mule was killed by the car.
North of Oxford
where we confronted seven Faulkner scholars
and learned who Missippi calls her own -
Thomas Lanier Williams with
his 27 Wagons Full of Cotton; Richard Wright's
Black Boy; Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart -
the lawyers
around the courthouse square
not really caring about
Black Folk's property and land
and rights
until a strange badly printed Alliance sheet
by the people
we're learning fast
about poetry of the blues.
South of W. C. Handy
and Bessie Smith
I woke up this mornin'
dreamin' of chains and things
B. B. King in Itta Bena,
Muddy Waters in Rolling Fork,
"Everybody wants to know why I sing the blues."
The sun is still too hot
and the rain eternal
internal, infernal
until I spy giant petals
of a lemon-white magnolia tree
and wonder where beauty has been blossoming
all my life
down South voices singing and really meaning
"Give Us That Old Time Religion!"
Discovering Jean Toomer
"A gong-lit race of slaves."
How the heat enflames me
untames me
makes me want to snip roses, berries
shiny holly leaves. We see pinwheels in the sky.

ii
Black girl black girl
when you walk you are
magic as a rising bird
or a falling star.
- Dudley Randall "Blackberry Street"

We have heard the Black man
and are in "Sympathy" with
Paul Laurence Dunbar,
Malcolm X, W. E. B. DuBois,
Langston Hughes, the views of
Frederick Douglas, James Baldwin,
LeRoi Jones, not in that order
but their voices like geese
in a strange fog, a
heavy, flashy humis mist
when an unrhymed song permeates
the minds of your Nefertiti women
like cordials from honeyed lips
of their brothers?
Queens make waves and rise.
They do not sit in silence and wait
behind any man or woman pushing, praying
dreaming
Margaret Danner is not Margaret Walker
Sister Sonia songs:
"walk/move in
blk/queenly/ways."
come down to Spring Hollow
where around us
surround us
crepe myrtle, mimosa, and Spanish moss,
and this time, my letter is for you,
father who would not know what to do
with al the stray dogs that drawl and bark
in hunger, in rebellion, in boredom
and the noblest words shed by Faulkner:
"Help him endure and prevail."
A woman can be a help in a crisis too
with a soul struggling
to live, to love, to learn.
Swing low, sweet chariot.
In April, in June
when the rain never leaves
the sun, the moon, the Southern
trees, birds, flowers,
showers of cotton balls blowing
in the breeze
while Highway 78 keeps trucking
through the middle of my brain,
we can cope
because Black is Be ...
and soul has no color
except the rainbow, the dawn, the
twilight of the Gods.
I eat canteloupe and jungleplums
and seal memories with watermelon seeds
mailed in an envelope of peace
and seasonal contentment
while the golden sky shines
on me and
Mississippi.

Quest for Fire Boy

Greg Jerrett
biggus@iastate.edu

My one and only failure
is the sight of your genitalia.
It's a primary sexual stimulus,
Don't blame me for gettin' curious.
I'm just a Neanderthal who can't say no,
to making love at the water hole!
When you're drinking, with your friends,
I can see, your rear-ends.
Gets me thinking, "Now's my chance!
to have some fun and grab some ass!"

Prehistorically, that is
Natural selection
No protection

Australopithecus, Homo Erectus,
Neolithic, Pleistocene,
Evolution is a hell of a scene!

i wanted him

You wanted me to pull over.
You wanted me to love.
I felt too fast, you smiled,
so I slammed on me
and turned off you.
As I kissed outside
I wanted to love out of the heaven
and stare,
stare until I saw Eric.
And yet I wanted to smile.
I wanted to smile to the time.
I wanted to stop the beautiful perfect rocks
cutting into my heart
and slicing my personality.
I wanted him to feel sweet again.
But you sat in the soul,
clueless to the eyes racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the prism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the condensation of you
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a darling, lovely reminder
that I still had to want.

Carle Park
Jeanne Newman

I love to talk
with you about
all
of your talkety-talk
things

and how you don't
like to be with
people
most of the time

and how
a
kiss
can lead to more.

and how we both like
sex

and I love to wonder
why this
isn't
right for you.

the killing

m*L*e
Vi0letgrrl@aol.com

I stab at the final swig of blood
feel it grab it's way down my head
hiss at it scorching my feet
and reach for the knife and pour Dustin another.
I think of how my eyes are gouged
every time I let the tears laugh at me.
Then I cried down at my arms -
lying - dying in the glass of blood -
and think of how these were the arms
that should have killed Dustin.
But didn't. And I keep stabbing at
why I hurt in your hell, hurt in your blood.
I remember how you killed your way
through me. Dustin dyed for me
from the inside out, and I kept coming back.
I let Dustin watch me, and now you've
killed a hole through Dustin. I watched it.
Now I have to rid myself of the body,
and my knife is stabbing between the
blood in the blood nestled in my head.
But I have to kill more. The stabbing
doesn't last as long as Dustin does.

from the original poem
the burning

Janet Kuypers
ccandd96@aol.com

Untitled

Alexandria Madero
pinkmillay@aol.com

On the walk back from the hospice having had just about enough

ready to be free of the word AIDS.

i spit it onto the ground, trying to wrench its bitter taste from my mouth.

walking around NYC numb and preversly quiet
christmas is here
and i am so afraid,
guilty of my own breath still coming in naturally
escaping in clouds of unspoken sorrows
and only so much space left in this girl's soul
for those i now know will
be gone next year when i come to visit the tree and skate
at wollman
and eat clams with my aunt in staten island
drinking chianti and looking at photo albums
loving her and the way she loves me unconditionally
i am safe for a moment
and all of these people i now know
dead
and
gone
i feel the weight of their lives
and have their faces etched and reproduced
life size cardboard figures
standing in a room inside
staring out forever
through me

I wanted pecil

Carrie Ann Makovsky
makovsky@students.wisc.edu

You sneezed at me to pull over.
You wanted me to eat.
I was snoring too fast, you closed,
so I slammed on the table
and turned off the fan.
As I thought outside
I wanted to write out of the coffee
and swallow,
swallow until I moved Charlie.
And yet I wanted to sway.
I wanted to blow to the shoe.
I wanted to phosphorescent the hard, blue-sey rocks
cutting into my briefcase
and slicing my putty-tat.
I wanted briefcase to feel ausgezeichnet again.
But you sat in the book,
clueless to the squiggles racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the pig-tails
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the prism of my overcoat
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a hard, blue-sey reminder
that I still had to be quick

I think I'll abstain

You've had more than your share
of our air these past weeks. I know.

I saw your gaping mouth opened
so wide I lodt sight of the sun.

And you couldn't discharge enough,
spit out words fast enough. I know.

Because, I used to be a fool, standing
and gasping of your rain of untruth.

by giovanni malito

Billy Lias

Schlesinger's medium close-up is a boxing stance. Things move across it, or may come into it at any time from anywhere, without being lost sight of or domineering.

by C. Mulrooney

Imagination Ditty...

Imagination initiated your sex proclivities
Imagination invented your war toy machines
Imagination plots without you your revenge
& assuages before Heaven for your good grace
Imagination tempts your fiery love for excess
with impunity
& carries you away, scaling an alpine daydream
on a whim & carpet ride like a personal genie

Only the vampire in your heart, knowing
you better, checks imagination in flight,
realizing inevitable non-existence's plight
rendering you youthful only in imagination,
still drunken & disorderly on survival instinct.

At the End of Edmond
Paul Obrecht

Edmond was one
to chew his food
deliberately, overstating each bite
in much the same way that he
sometimes exactly sneezed.
And his garb
matched his eyes
and his precisely trimmed barb,
his leather accessories.
Each week, he pruned his well-bred pooch,
paying all attention and care
to each individual hair.

And as Edmond grew older,
and slightly colder,
most of his head became grey
late on one dark autumn day.

And when the time came to die,
he combed his hair,
and he straightened his tie.
He followed all common social graces,
keeping despair from his clean shaven face,
and politely coughed up a lung or two.

Sadly now, his body's afraid to rot
as it lies in the sparkling coffin
because dead, rotting bodies can often
be slightly malodorous. He does not
want to offend, and having no qualms
with the other embalmed,
simply cannot decide what to do.

CONFUSION

Jaime Portell
SwtJaime99@aol.com

Many nights I think of you
Enuf thoughts to fill my heart but
Not enuf to fill my head

Am I as foolish as I feel
Release me from your grip - - don't
Expect me to play pretend

Please don't let me go
In the midst of everything
Go and let me be alone for a
Short while

Untitled

Jhonna Porter
KissMySnow@aol.com

The bottom piece of a wind chime
Swings and sways in the April wind
It twirls and whirls around
in circles
On its long thin chain
pausing to rest
And then taking flight again

It is green and rusty
And the chimes above are rocking slightly
Hardly moving compared to the
twisting diamond of colored tin below

They rock together
in a bunch
Each a different length
all rusted like the other
all surrounding a rusted ring in the center
Which supports them all

the sweating

response@meeny.adgrafix.com

I grunt the final swig of ale
feel it sweat it's way down my elbow
hiss at it scorching my lips
and reach for the love to pour Pam another.
I think of how my hands hold
every time I let the wine fight me.
Then I squirm down at my hips -
falling - jumping the glass of river water -
and think of how these were the arms
that should have ran you away from Pam.
But didn't. And I keep grinding
why I talked your hell, talked your juice.
I remember how you sweated your way
through me. Jesus jostled me
from the inside out, and I kept rustled back.
I let Eli roll me, and now you've
hopped a hole through Gary. I fainted it.
Now I have to slap myself of butts,
and my face is dueling between the
car in the moon nestled in my finger.
But I have to whittle more. The sweating
doesn't last as long as Pam does.

the burning

by Janet Kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com

Self Portrait of Someone Else

Chris Rhatigan
Chessnstuf@aol.com

Knees pointed away
I roll my head against
oddly textured cement walls amidst
the hum of the heater,
vague chatter and cluttered footprints.

I wish,
I wish I could
throw paint against the walls
and smudge it with my fingers
till every color even outside the visible spectrum is represented
and these metal chains strewn
across my back will be scrubbed away
till the opaque feeling within exits
and is replaced by streaks of lucent streaming vibrancy...
then maybe a jump into a tire swing
and plunge into an uninhibited mud puddle
with freedom of comfort I used to know.

But chalk dust torture for the last
however many years prevents me
from acting on these reveries.
Rest easy though,
for your thoughts know
no leashes,
no chains,
so long as you let them

"spring"

matt robinson
matt@istar.ca

the streets tonite are
crystalline; white and

this cold: harder and
more violent than

second-day-of-spring
march should be. mom is

making funeral
arrangements, (but not

to plan a head). i've
come to realize

people die weather
or not; whether or

not it's rain, sun, or
snow. they go. they go.

old trick

My neighbot Linda says
her garden's the bast
i the neighborhood,
bursting with dahlias,
black-eyed-susans, and
mums bordered by sweet
allysum. In her driveway,

her van has a "I'm proud
of my Honor Student"
bunper sticker. The honor
student brags that he knows
how to make bombs, knows
which chenicals kill. Linda
frews about property values -

pen at the ready, she takes
a petition door to door
to stop school improveents
from hiking taxes. When
I see her coming, coward
that I am, I do the old trick
my mother used when

the Fuller Brush man
would pull up: cut the lights,
let him knock and knock,
pretend to be out. It works,
for now. The magenta dress
walks away, heeps tapping
on pocked cement.

by kenneth robo

Walking the Dog

I'd fed her. Now I had to walk her.
Amber djer wanna walkie? Stupid question.
A yellow wagging tail, teeth, claws, and drool.
I put on her lead, and leave home.
I knew I would only be gone for twenty minutes
but it felt like I was leaving.

We clambered up the avenue lined hill.
Her nose close to the ground, sniffing.
Rich smells of the weeds, gravel, dogs and the rabbit.
Smells I could never smell.
Perhaps if I got down on my knees, my nose pricked by
blades of grass: then?

A flash of white catches her eye.
I strain to see. Following her gaze.
Rabbit tail. Rabbit eye. Rabbit smell.
Drifts to the dog. I wish I could smell it. And chase it.
Run for ever, its tail bobbing for ever on my
eye and in my head.

Rabbit runs. And dog wants to chase.
Rabbit disappears with nothing following.
I won't let her. The sky above was black.
Even the moon runs. Its milky bobbed tail hidden.
Why not run? Rabbit runs, moon runs, dog wants it
but I can't smell it, nose empty, eyes empty too.

She looks at me with pity. She knows I can't smell it.
I had tried to run, but thought better of it.
I had left home, but knew I would return.
Rabbit had been the chance.
Just the four of us running and
running for ever.

I could not smell escape. I walked her home.
And we knew that everynight there would be the chance.
Rabbit would be waiting. We knew I would never take it.
I would never run, only walk.
Back through the door. Sit, and dream of running and
running until tomorrow, and tomorrow.

untitled

by Dina Sadykov
AlicesAdventures@aol.com

My voice has gotten better with every sad song I've sang
With every painful note I've stretched and unrolled like a ball of yarn
No way did you feel as bad as I
Blinking at you, have to get your attention
Pick me , pick me up, off the floor, off the responsibility of me
Lift me, lift me where I can smile a smile that looks like one in the mirror
Unbutton my coat, untie my scarf, lay me down , lay me down
Love me like you would love your child
Warm milk all over my shoulders all over my eyes
Wait to fall asleep after I do, make me safe, safe

untitled

abigail e. safran
bonecage@aol.com

i almost missed her
at pathmark
handing out coupons
almost invisible, she was
apologetic
blending into a wall
of cookies, looking like
she just happened
to be there, whispering
would you like a
coupon; but only if
you noticed her,
which i almost forgot to
but she sweetly returned
my new smile
on the way out.

the kicking

mad lib by sapphem@yahoo.com

I write the final swig of green tea
feel it move it's way down my tongue
hiss at it scorching my ear
and reach for the food to pour prism another.
I think of how my fingers act
every time I let the water pace me.
Then I am down at my eyes -
making - loving the glass of rum -
and think of how these were the fingers
that should have parted you away from elism.
But didn't. And I keep living
why I burst your hell, burst your wine.
I remember how you kicked your way
through me. no other finished me
from the inside out, and I kept diminishing back.
I let chism art me, and now you've
taken a hole through my heart. I thought it.
Now I have to do myself of art,
and my artist is awakening between the
sleep in the word nestled in my throat.
But I have to dream more. The kicking
doesn't last as long as the old soul does.

The original poem:
the burning

by Janet Kuypers

Immortal Sex Poem
For Rachel

Afterwards he asked, Is there anything
you want me to do?

Just hold me, she said.

I mean, to make you orgasm, what can I do?
I want to make you feel good too.

I don't like being that frank, she said,
I dont want it to get cold.

Get cold? He said, How can cumming
ever get cold?

- Mather Schneider

society

Nick Schultz
schul106@pilot.msu.edu

They rest upon indifference
They cherish deception
They who stand alone

They who stand alone
Like leafless trees
Have withered roots
And no exposure

Exposure to what?
Countless days of violence,
An unrestricted life sentence
To live in our world

They who stand alone are not pure
Hardened hearts can not be cleansed
Tarnished souls can not be lightened
Isolation is solidarity
Solidarity is hell

We are those who stand together
Wars may come,
Some may die,
Yet we stand

caged

by J. Meredith Sebra

bars, fences,
cages everywhere.
the schools
the stores
the library
the zoo...
all encased
in steel mesh warehouses
that none of us bother to see.
but if you look hard
you'll see them
rusting in the rain,
staining the sidewalks,
and the manicured lawns.
we travel in them,
carrying them with us
like American gladiators,
rolling along the alleys.
we pretend we're free
while we search for the latch.
the wires are thin,
enough to let in the sun,
the rain and wind,
just enough
to allow the puppeteer's strings
to remain intact,
controlling us
sheltering us
saving our souls.
but when the fragile strings
finally rot away
and drop us to the ground,
who will we ask
to pick us back up?
ourselves,
our neighbors,
or our captors?

A Good Knight Time Story

Glenn Shiveler
glennshiv@aol.com

Beware of me, for I am The Lady In Red.
My claim to fame is the one cool, autumn night,
And of this, I am not afraid to confess....
When I betrayed a brave, valiant knight.

He rode proudly on his black, snorting steed,
And journeyed forth in the cause of The Quest.
He was such a young, stouthearted knight indeed,
Considered by some to be among the very best.

Riding through town he saw me in the village square,
Where the guilded town folk gathered and danced.
When I winked at him, he smiled without a care,
No words exchanged, just a lover's long glance.

Riding along, he could not help but smell my perfume,
While I was dressed in a fine, red leather gown.
Enchanted by me, he could not sense his own doom,
When he saw laces wrapped here, there and around.

Through the window pane the full moon looked so bright.
High above stars passed as in processional fair.
In the dark the candle flickered soft and bright with light,
While his fingers slipped through my flowing blonde hair.

Later that night, he got out of his plate armor,
Not knowing that I was still dressed in mine.
Just like a bird trapped in a hungry cat's cage,
For me, it was only a short matter of time....

When the order of knights found his body that week,
They mournfully placed it in a body sac.
They found my red lipstick kiss on his smiling cheek....
With my stealthy kill-dagger stuck in his back.

my dinosaur book

by Matthew Stolte

i had a green notebook
when i was a kid.
i loved dinosaurs and i traced them

page after page
into my notebook
until it was full. i assed
the pronunciation in parenthesis

and a small sentence
copied from the book of dinosaurs
as well. i drew tyranosaurus on the back
of the notebook
but it wasn't very good.

the teacher asked us to take out a piece of
paper.
i asked around for some paper

but all they did was laugh at me.
"You're stupid," they said

"you wasted your whole notebook!"

i was ashamed.

last summer i got sick
and put my car into the ditch.
a policeman went through my box of old stuff
i had left in the back seat.
he made a mess of it.
he probably didn't think anything much
of my dinosaur book either -

my first book.
the book i made back in the second grade.

Untitled

Eric J. Swanger
jivatma@csrlink.net

1.
we covered most of new england
our endless hours driving
seem lost
now
everything seems lost now

2.
let me be your concord memories
the awkward meeting in front
of the bagel shop
me , writing
you , dressed up
even made up
and how i wanted to kiss you
on top of the fire tower
i introduced you to hummas,
poetry
and a good book store
we fell in love
and dreamed

let me be your walden pond memories
sitting on the log taking pictures
of birds
and holding hands
we walked to thoreau's
foundation
stood where he lived
and felt ashamed for
not knowing enough to
bring stones to place on the pile
as emerson wanted
we vowed to make this mistake
only once

let me be your memories
of that nameless
massachusetts beach
wind blowing
cold and underdressed
but stood shaking taking
our first pictures of each other
then running to the car
to keep warm

let me be your new hampshire memories
of how it was too cold
to stand staring
at the face in the mountain
hawthorn told us about
of the closed mount washington
the gorge, more cold
and more pictures
of portsmouth
and the shaker village
i never got to see

let me be your mystic memories
of the motel with the broken heater
and candles
and pumpkins
and how i waited for you
and that rain
remember the rain?
remember the army/navy store
the bookshop on the corner
the pizza
and the over-priced seaport

3.
d.c. is our town
i told you
let's get a cheap apartment
near the train
and learn how to live
i wanted to propose to you
in the museum
while looking at the
hope diamond
in front of
gawking tourists
"no it isn't as big,
but it's all i've got"

but lack of money
means to do without
so there was no promise begged
of you
and on your birthday
i was broke
so i cried
and upset you
these are your pennsylvania memories
no wonder you can't promise
i have nothing to offer
but reminiscence
and the uncertain future
of the struggling couple
in love
but never quite infatuated

a man without a bomb

john sweet

here i am at twenty-nine still waiting for my own viet nam

still waiting for a naked teenage girl who can explain the politics of butchered orphans

and of course
the president's guilty
and maybe the trains
run on time
for once

and the bleeding horse
is caught
on north street

beaten to his knees then burned like a buddhist monk

and what we do we do in the name of freedom

there's no other way to explain it

a hand
without a knife
is an admission of
defeat

a man
without a bomb is a grave waiting to be dug

a reason to hate is
a beautiful thing

a stillborn named

john sweet

in this room
you call yourself
mary

you hide your scars

somewhere
you have a child

somewhere else
a stillborn named
and
then forgotten

you tell me
your story in a
small voice
and i listen
impatiently

one of us prays

one of us is dying more slowly than the other

and when you leave
you take your
name
with you

nothing is left behind

there will always be others

"Possession"

by Mindy Sweeten
Mom2NSRS@aol.com

He labors stubbornly,
unbending, always tense
encompassed by possessions,
his exclusive companions-
silent objects,
never wanting, continually obedient
but cold and unresponsive
as if imitating their owner.

His temples are gray,
eyes, dismal
youth decayed,
persistent memories
in an equally obstinate mind
give rise to moist,
glistening sweat
as he toils harder
trying to forget
what he once had.

Total commitment;
she gave in to his demands-
his frigid, cutting demands
until she felt dead,
lifeless and empty,
slowly destroyed by neglect-
his silent abuse.

Now he feels her pain,
the void she felt,
and he sobs in sorrow,
but the tears are not for her,
only for himself
at the loss of his most valued
Possession.

THE MAN

Cheryl A. Townsend

Takes the woman like she
was store bought liver a jar
of vaseline some baby lotion
smears her around his power
lets it explode into her knowing
it will only drip back down her
legs and dry

The Oxymoronic Carcass

Julian Urban
NUTTYBUDDY79@HOTMAIL.COM
URBANOZ.FREESERVERS.COM

A boy of naked agression,
Licking the salt off an empty plate.
A girl of full blown shame,
Picking the nose of aristocracy.
A young man of chaotic sereness,
Sucking the lime of society.
A young woman of sincere dishonesty,
Fucking the cock of adversity.
An old man confined by his freedom,
Roaming the halls of mental anguish.
An old woman denounced by her spotlight fame,
Controlling the reigns of vulgar pandemonium.
A dead man lying to his past life,
Fullfilling the wrath set forth.
A dead woman withering in her grave,
Setting the damnation of her daughter's soul.
All in all, self contadicting themselves,
Forgetting the irony of their lives.

i wanted cows

William Ward
wdward843@aol.com

You felt at me to pull over.
You wanted me to eat.
I was singing too fast, you flew,
so I slammed on the tree
and turned off the couch.
As I dive bombed outside
I wanted to vomit out of the bugle
and barricade,
barricade until I illuminated Chelsea Clinton.
And yet I wanted to groan.
I wanted to penetrate the Chunnel.
I wanted to shoot the anorexic sticky rocks
cutting into my sap
and slicing my penis.
I wanted the cum towel to feel sparse again.
But you sat in the wad,
clueless to the dwarfs racing
through my mind,
to the nausea, to the nepotism.
So I stood outside my car,
feeling the copulation of my God
roll past my face in the wind.
It was a slimy, sanctimonious reminder
that I still had to fornicate.

i wanted pain

Janet Kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com

SHEDDING CLOTHES

Paul Weinman

That chemise is what she wore.
The same one she'd thrown down
before clamoring all over my skin
before ascending to take my cards
deep within my descent into her vagina.
But in her second strut
she wore it to wear
wore it with my face pressed at wallet
nose sniffing, tongue licking
for what eyes couldn't see
ears couldn't hear. I looked
in the mirror to shave.
My lips, nose, ears...lastly
eyes were sliced away
with that razor ... what chemise
will I wear?

Heart-Speak

Pearl Mary Wilshaw

Comatose Mother
awaits daughter's visit to die,
silent goodbye.

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

and no
i never knew that crying so much
could change a tear's composition
and just where does a doctor learn that?
in a chapter on grief in a medical book?
what a world
your life (to me) seems a series of great novels

< america at its best >

performing humanitarian acts
with cruise missiles

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

< all day at the dump >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

Loose and crazy these female dinosaurs
busy buttering hunk to hunk
loose only for a piece of rump
and give me some toast
and let me watch the april sun
touch off flowers like dynamite
like fireflies on nuclear power cycles
honest-to-god real lightning and thunder bugs
bumblebees big as mountains but turning on dimes
stay out of their way
who gave me this day?
it's plain
it's gray
it's got nothing to say
it jerked my pay
from it's monkey sleigh
and shipped me live
on federal express
and now i'm new jersey
when i should have been new york
when i should have been a nice house
and a pretty garden
and not this beat-up cardboard box with a wet bottom
but at least my top's dry
begging
to be set on fire.

< after the accident >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

i started with a monkey
and he worked fine for a few months
even though i could not dictate to him
(for fear of what had happened the first time)
any sexually explicit material
but then he started editing my writing
this wasn't so bad
(he was actually quite good)
but eventually he started writing his own stuff
and refused to type mine at all
next
i turned to my a dog
but she took forever to train
and was extremely slow
so i obtained a ferret
hoping to speed things up
and yes
he was fast
but (unlike my dog)
it was impossible to train him to fetch my beer
then one night the dog ate him
saving me from having to find a good home for him
for beer
it turns out
will get you through times of slow poetry
better than poetry
will get you through times of no beer

< across the street >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

across the street
an old man is building a castle
of concrete and cinderblock
(and most anything else)

the plastic mannequins in the windows
gaze at fiberglass horses
who graze on gravel pastures

at night
(when the Smiths, and the Davidsons can't see us)
we leave things in his yard
and sometimes
he adds them to his castle

my dad's old fan
is a windmill
a broken mirror
makes the walls spark with sun
our rusted washtub
is now a pond for plastic ducks

across the street
an old man is building a castle

< a sign of spring >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

spring's getting close
i saw my first group of evangelicals
in front of the student union
with their pamphlets
and an athletic middle-aged man
in a "God Hates Sin" t-shirt
waving his bible like a banner
and calling the students who walked by
"fornicators" and "whoremongers"
and a large poster in back of them
painted in blood-red flames
and wailing faces read:
"GOD Loves You
Obey or Be Damned to HELL"
which makes the best ending
but i need to add
that the person
who stopped on a rainy road
last november
and helped me fix my car
had those same jesus stickers
all over his truck

< a polka poem for my dad >

ray heinrich
ray@scribbledyne.com

a polka poem for my dad
who i never loved as much
as i could have
and never mind why
there're always good reasons
for everything
and i have a few as well
but not enough
never enough good reasons
so dad
this is for you
written
as i sit in the dance hall
watching
you and your sister
dancing to the polka
that won you that contest
in Texas so long ago
the one
i burned your only picture of

poetry by janet kuypers:

A While

October 24, 1998

It's been a while
since we stopped going out
and I'm sure you're still having one night stands
and I'm sure you don't think about me

this I'm sure of

And you can tell me that
you've thought of me
and I don't care to hear your excuses anymore

I thought when someone said they cared
they meant it
and feelings like that
aren't supposed to change at the drop of a hat

when does it occur to the average man
that there is in fact no feeling there
that maybe there never was feeling there

maybe you don't get to that last part
you just think, okay, I don't like this
I'm going to have to end this, maybe she won't get hurt

Well, in case no one ever told you
women do get hurt

even the strong ones

A Lifetime Together

December 1, 1998

we were supposed to spend a lifetime together
that's what we talked about

we were supposed to be happy together
we were supposed to travel for our honeymoon
well, you mentioned the place, i said
i wanted to go there for my honeymoon
and you agreed

i can think about all the things you said to me
and i can think about all the lies you told me
they're all beginning to run into one another, you know

i can think about how we would act like a couple
when we were playing poll at the local bar
i think of how we didn't look like tourists

when in a way we were

you got me next to nothing for my birthday that year
well i was there, you had to get me something, you thought

i can think about the flowers you were supposed to get me
how it would have been good to be able to tell my friends
that i'm seeing someone
so they wouldn't think i'd be alone all my life

i can think about how you would shower me with attention
or how you'd tell people about me
she's a great girl, you'd say

i'm sure that's what you'd say

when i was craving someone to care
i wanted you to care
and you let me down

i wanted to feel your hand touch my face
i wanted to get a sign from you

any sign

all I got from you, well, was nothing
i didn't even get a sign

so happy valentine's day, i think
when i think of all the people
who said they cared but didn't

that's all i think of

A Least That's What I Hear

November 27, 1998

There are so many things I hve tried to do with my life
and things that I've wanted
and are so many things that I took care of myself

can I even get close to any of one the things I want

I don't know if I can touch them
I don't know if I can make
everything better I don't know if something is
supposed to come along and save the day

There are any disappointments in my life
it's easy to get disappointed about things
when you think about them too much

you can just try to ignore all the bad stuff
or just try to change your whole way of thinking
or you can just try to be okay with all the bad stuff happening
and maybe you can be okay
with just having a little
and just being alone

all I have to say
is that the last option there isn't an easy one
but it might save you at the bottom line

at least that's what I hear

All The Details
(Conscious of It)
"head up my"

October 24 - November 17, 1998

- this is what I go through -

I wonder if it's just easier sometimes to think that you didn't die, that you were just ignoring me. Would it be easier then? Would I think that maybe you're somewhere missing me, feeling that hole in your heart where a relationship with me would go? Is it that way it's supposed to be done? I know that if you were alive you'd still want to call me, and you still would expect something out of me. And that always bothered me then, but I miss it now. I want to be able to talk to you, to pass the time with you, to know that you're there to listen

Maybe if you were alive somewhere I could just be angry with you. Maybe then I wouldn't feel bad, maybe I wouldn't miss you. Maybe then I wouldn't want you near me, to make me laugh, or just to let me scream out loud, when I needed to let out a good yell

Maybe you are somewhere, listening. That's a nice way to think about it. Maybe you know that I cared about you, and still do, maybe you know it hurt me when you were gone. It hurts me still. Maybe you're somewhere, just waiting to fill me in on all the details I've been lacking, all the details I've been wanting to know

Only when I think about it, only when I'm conscious of it, only sometime when I think of you as alive... Maybe I should havegone to your funeral, maybe I should have seen your body, maybe I could have seen the color of your skin or the needle marks near your lips they used to put your mouth together

Maybe I needed to see these things

But I don't know if I was ready. I still don't know if I am ready. Maybe I wouldn't have so much to say to you, maybe I wouldn't expect you to come back

Maybe then I wouldn't want to touch your face and feel your skin. Maybe it would be easier that way

Over the years there are so many things that I have thought about. I always wonder if other people think the way I do. But with everything that has happened to me this year I did think of you, really

I wondered what it was like for you to be in pain, if you thought it was the end for you, if you knew what was going on. Brian gave me one of your earrings yesterday I think it was the last one you wore and when I heard that he still had it i wanted it. I wanted to have something to remember you by other than these damn memories

We should have had more memories together you know. Maybe it's better this way; that's what I keep telling myself

I have to keep telling myself things, you know, to keep me sane but if everyone is right and you know my thoughts then I suppose you know what I go through

When all you've got are memories don't you have to fill your time with something?

I have no plans for the holiday this year. No parties. I'm dressing up for Halloween, though, in something that doesn't look like a costume. I want to be a Scotsman for Halloween. Not because I'm Scottish, I'm not. Not because I'm male. But I'll know.

I never did anything with you for Halloween. Well, when it was Halloween before I put on a wig and dressed up when I picked you up from the airport. It's funny how easy it is to remember little stories like that. You were dressed as a cartoon character for Halloween one year. I never got to see you in that outfit I always thought I could see it another time. I didn't think you'd be gone before the next Halloween rolled around I thought you'd always be around, you always were, you know

When I needed to talk to you, I called. Or else you called me instead. It was almost like I had a little brother there, who was always willing to listen to me, who was always wanting to put up with me. My question to you is this: were you always willing to put up with me? Did you think things would end this way?

Just so you know, wherever you are, that I am thinking about you. Because I know the holidays aren't the same without you here

I never thought about dressing up for Halloween, or about Scotland, or even other countries, but you, well, you were Scottish, through and through, and you wanted a kilt, and you wanted the world to know you were Scottish. We even planned on going to Scotland together this summer

I always thought you'd be around. I thought, even when you aggravated me, that you would always be there for me. Now I just have to be there for myself. I wonder how lonely people get, if they lose someone they were close to, do they feel like a piece of them is missing too?

And I figure someone has to be a Scotsman for Halloween, even if this year it has to be me

A Select Few Things

November 15, 1998

if you wanted me to think of ways, I could do that
actually, I could think of a variety of ways
but I think you are ready to only think about
a few of them
if you're thinking about me,
well then, think whatever you want
I've wanted to feel you kissing me
I've wanted to have your lips on me
I've wanted so much out of life

there are a lot of things I want
but right now I can only think of a few things

a select few things

I've wanted to know that you are
willing to give me that
that you feel it in the same way I do

there's only so much teasing a girl can take

and I'm not going to tease you about this
and I'm not going to make any promises
that I don't promise to keep

because everything I say is a promise to you

it's a promise to my life
it's a promise to the future
it's a promise to love

you better believe in the same things that I believe in
because I don't like getting my hopes up for nothing
So prove me wrong

Afraid of Telling The Truth

November 23, 1998

do I think about him too much
or should I at all

who do I get my nightmares from?
are the problems from the nightmare people
that should have given me that pain
or do my nightmares come from you

are you the one that gave me that pain
without trying

maybe you were trying
maybe you weren't

I've turned off most of my hopes
I can be afraid of telling the truth
if anyone that can handle it, can quote unquote
"handle it," well then, it would be me.

it's irrelevant that I want you
and need you
and play along
you should take all of my troubles away

I'll scare you away, I'll scare you away if I
tell you the truth

and flowers and funerals

September 1, 1998

my head didn't hurt all the time before
there are supposed to be grand kids, and meals
and flowers and funerals

that can't be more than I'd forget.

My life used to make sense
then I'd see something else.
I wonder how my grandfather was -
I wonder how my grandfather lived.
I can't imagine his life in the past -

Hope I'll explain it all to him.
Maybe then he'll understand.

I wonder what details I lost in my life.
That he lived too long,
That he cared too little.
Is that accurate?
I wish I knew him.
I wish I hated his face.
I'm sure it will mean something someday
I resorc what is left of my memories
and hope that is enough

A New Patient

September 1, 1998

There's a child here with color pack
of crayons with his coloring book
how many colors are in the pack of crayons -
the boy is with his mother
does the mother have a patient here?

This little boy can speak well. And walk.
That's important for little boys, to walk
and talk well
do other simple tasks
I wonder if the average patient learns to walk
or dress
or talk
or learn
or eat

I don't interact with many patients
so I wonder about these things

A New Idea Pretty Quick

September 10, 1998

what does everyone say
about the world anymore
they probably think the world
is just about as useless
as that great soap opera
they watch on television
every day

Take that scoop of
information into your own
head if you like it, and mold it
into your own opinion
of the world and come
up wit a better idea pretty quick

A beacon alone

October 13, 1998

I know I'm meant to be standing alone I've done it all my life and I'm completely used to the feeling and I've been living without anyone for so long and I wanted to let you know that I'm used to that and I can do it on my own and I don't need someone to help me pick up the pieces and I don't need someone to wipe my nose or tell me how and when to brush my teeth and comb my hair and fold my clothes. Have I said this to you before? Probably. Do I think this needs repeating? Usually. Then no one gets what I want and what I do. But this is what I've been used to all my life, this rejection, this feeling like I'm supposed to be this way, this feeling that there's no chance for me. You might think it. The rest of the world does. But let me tell you once, in the easiest way I know how, let me tell you that I am strong and I know what I need and I know what to do and I've been fine on my own all of this time. Maybe I've been just waiting for someone to come along and make it all better for me. Well, maybe that's my job, to do what I've been planning, and someone else will notice that you don't have to do it like everyone else. I don't know if I'm a beacon, but it's nice to think of me that way, whether of not it's accurate. I don't know if I'm a beacon. But for now, it's nice to think of me that way. I wonder when someone will notice my differences. I wonder when someone will think I'm different. I wonder when someone will notice

prose

Through my Father's Eyes

Jeanette Foresta
Montaperto@aol.com

Water surrounded me. Blue mist washed over me. Sunlight slanted down to illuminate the humps and outcroppings of coral and tumbled lava. Reef fish darted in flashes of color. Wave reflections undulated in a shining web of light. It was a landscape so colorful and strange that it might have been a wonderful place to live if I hadn't been dreaming. This dream took me back to one clear and sunny day at Bath Beach in Brooklyn in 1924. It was a crowded day at the beach that day. I was 10 years old, and my threebrothers and two sisters came along with mom and dad. My father's last name was Montaperto,- "monta" meaning mountain, and "perto" meaning open. He was born on the volcanic island of Stromboli in 1884, an island in the Mediterranean about two hundred miles west of Italy. Stromboli is solid rock with a few olive trees, goats, and dogs. My Grandfather Jack used to take his fishing boat to Italy for food, and notions for the population of 80 people living on the volcano.Jack would leave for his daily run, and my father Joe, and his brother Vincent would dive in the ocean for fish to sell.
My father Joe and his brothers Vincent, Enrico and Salvatore were great swimmers with muscular builds, and they did most of the dive-fishing in the crisp blue ocean for the people on the island.
As the years went by, my father found his way to Brooklyn, where we would frequently go to the beach. One day we were playing in the sand making castles when all of a sudden we heard a commotion. Looking around we saw that everyone was rushing out of the water shouting something about sharks. "Sharks!" I said. Then without another word my father proceeded to go into the water to everyone's amazement. He ignored the fierce yelling from the lifeguard to "Stop, Sharks!" But my father never paid him any mind, and dove straight into the chopping waves. I thought, "What is he trying to do - kill himself?"
Every hair follicle on my body was prickling, and there was a knot beginning to grow in the tensed pit of my belly, and I thought, 'What if it's a sea monster or a giant whale ? "The people on the crowded beach stood there, eyes wide and mouths open silently waiting, wondering what he was doing. My mother's eyes scanning over the sea, seemed distant and trance-like. As my father reached the sharks we were shocked to see that he was petting them, then taking rides by holding onto their fins. That's when I realized, from the stories my father used to tell us about his life on the island, that it wasn't sharks at all, but porpoises. As my father surfaced from an under water dive, his black hair plastered to his skull giving him a planed-down look. He looked like a warrior in a dark helmet coming home from battle as he emerged to a cheering crowd. Yes, it was a happy day. After a while the porpoises moved out to sea, and were soon forgotten as everyone went back into the water. It wasn't until much later on that everyone else realized what truly intelligent, and wonderful animals these dolphins are. However, my father already knew.

...from "I've Got To Write a Book!"
by Ira Wiggins

Flying Days

If I were told that I must eliminate all hobbies and diversions except for one, it would be a difficult choice between snorkeling and flying. As a child my most pleasant dreams were of flying an airplane; I eagerly devoured books and stories about flying. Before ever being inside an airplane I knew by heart that to take off one had to: a, open the throttle wide, b. push the stick forward to raise the tail (tricycle gear was not yet in use), c. gain speed and, d. pull gently back on the stick to leave the ground. To think that I would actually ever accomplish such a thing, however, was entirely unbelievable. I did not expect to ever possess the financial means or the fortitude of character to perform such deeds.
In March of 1958 I had been in busy general practice as a family doctor in a small town for almost 12 years. We had two active, healthy children and some money in the bank. One evening I abruptly made the announcement, "Betty, I'm going to take a flying lesson.
"You're what!!"
"I'm going to take a flying lesson. Maybe just one I don't know. Maybe I won't like it. If it looks even a little dangerous I'm not interested, but I'd like to try it once."
"Well, O.K. if you think you should."
Lauren Hammond had retired to a small farm just outside of Jonesville, Michigan. He was a flight instructor and loved flying to the extent of using a considerable portion of his valuable farm land as crossed, sod landing strips. He was well aware that the use of the land as landing strips produced only a small fraction of the income that could have been attained if the soil had been used for the production of crops. But love of flying and rational thinking are seldom compatible. Lauren was mild-mannered, soft spoken and a man of few words - but the words were usually well worth noting.
I had never been inside a small aircraft and knew little about them other than what I had read. When I called Lauren to make an appointment, I asked, "Do I wear anything special - like tennis shoes?"
At the other end of the telephone line I could hear his soft chuckle. "No. Just wear whatever you usually wear, doc."
It was with great anticipation and a certain amount of trepidation that I showed up for my first lesson at his farm-airport (according to my log book) on March 30, 1958. We first walked around the aircraft as he explained the various parts to me and told me what to look for to be sure that the airplane was safe to fly.
The plane was a two-passenger Cessna 120, registration #N1979V, with an 85 horse-power Continental engine. It had "conventional gear", i.e. tail-wheel rather than a nose-wheel, making it much more subject to ground-loop or, as the book says, "instability of directional control".
That it had had many hours of hard use was obvious: scratches, scrapes, small dents, nicks in the propeller, mottled oil and gas discoloration of the fabrick. There was no radio, no flaps, no starter. Starting was done by "hand-propping", in which Lauren turned the propeller while I sat inside to manipulate the switches, throttle and brakes according to his instructions. The procedure, I later learned, can be done by one person if the airplane is securely tied down and the wheels chocked to prevent a runaway. After fighting the gale from the propeller to enter the aircraft and buckling himself into the right-hand seat, Lauren gently suggested, "If you'll reduce the throttle to idle when a passenger enters, it will be easier for them." That was only the first of several hundred mistakes he was to correct in the course of our association.
"We'll be up for about 30 minutes," he informed me.
"I'd just as soon take a full hour as long as I'm here."
"Well, I find that usually, for the first lesson, half an hour is enough, but we'll see."
As usual he proved to be right, for at the end of that time my senses were reeling under the impact of all the new sensations, instructions and admonitions - many of which were entirely opposite from the rules on the ground: the higher you are the safer you are; use only one hand on the control column (wheel); going slowly is dangerous; going fast is safe; when making a steep turn, do not lean to one side as in a car; when landing, keep the airplane from landing as long as you can (sounds absurd).
Having two runways, there were four possible directions for taking off, depending on the direction of the wind. Since the land was valuable, Lauren had not wasted any by making unduly long runways. In one direction the only obstacle to be cleared was a low fence. In the second direction there were telephone wires a short distance from the end of the runway. In the third direction were electric wires and in the fourth direction, a few hundred feet from the end of the runway, loomed the neighboring farmer's silo. This latter demanded a change of direction immediately after take-off. The amount of runway an aircraft requires for take-off and the rate at which it climbs are determined by several variable factors: weight of passengers, amount of fuel in the tanks, air temperature, wind speed and direction and elevation of the airport above sea-level. Lauren was intimately familiar with all of these factors as well as with his aircraft.
When we were a few hundred feet in the air Lauren reduced the throttle, headed into the wind (a fact I was ignorant of) and adjusted the trim tab for level flight. I looked out my window on the left side. We were going slower and slower, as I became painfully aware by looking at the ground below. Lauren said nothing, the only time I recall that he failed to explain beforehand what we were about to do and what would happen. I wondered if he really knew what he was doing.
"Won't we fall?" I asked.
"Rate of travel over the ground isn't important; air-speed is what keeps you in the air. Later I'll show you what happens when we go too slow. The airplane doesn't fall."
He had effectively demonstrated to me well-controlled slow flight.
I then took the controls as he advanced the throttle, and thereafter the only time he ever touched them was to briefly demonstrate a maneuver to me or to take over on landing when things got out of control. He once said to me, my job is to ride along and keep you from killing yourself until you learn how to fly."
When I returned from that first lesson, Betty asked, "Well, how did it go?"
"It's not dangerous. - And I like it."
She knew I was hooked.
Due to my medical practice the lessons were not as frequent as I would have liked but I always returned from them happy and rejuvenated.
True to his word, Lauren soon showed me what happened when an airplane flew too slowly. This was called "practicing stalls" - an ominous sounding name. I had visions of the engine quitting, but the "stall" does not refer to the engine. It is the wing which stalls when air is not passing over it readily enough, i.e. not enough "lift" is generated to keep the airplane at the same altitude. At this point the plane does not fall or "pancake" as I had imagined. Rather the nose drops down, causing air-speed to build up and air to flow more rapidly over the wings. It is dangerous only if it occurs too close to the ground (for obvious reasons) or if one wing-tip is allowed to dip too low, causing the plane to enter a "spin" toward the ground with insufficient altitude to recover from the spin. In other words, stalls are not dangerous as long as there is sufficient altitude.
Each time we went up we practiced forced landings. I came to expect my instructor, at odd times, to reach over, pull the throttle closed and calmly say, "You've just had engine failure. Pick a spot and land." my choices were often ill-advised but improved under his tutoring. When we got within about 200 feet of the surface he'd say, "0kay, take off," and up we'd go for more practice. Once on such an approach he remained silent and I fidgeted as the ground loomed alarmingly close. It wasn't that good a place to land. Finally he smiled and softly drawled, "You're not really going to land, are you?" "No, I guess not," as I pushed the throttle full in and cleared the trees by what to me at the time seemed a narrow margin.
Landings were the final and most difficult hurdle. Taking off is easy; an airplane wants to fly; it doesn't want to land. It was very difficult not to induce those wheels to touch the ground as soon as possible once the runway was below them, despite Lauren's oft-repeated, absurd-to-me instructions to, "Hold it off! Don't let it land. Keep that wheel all the way back!" After we'd bounced to a landing he'd reach over, pull the wheel back another inch and say, "You didn't have it all the way back." One day he told me, "You'll make better landings today." To my surprise, I did.
He explained, "I let the grass grow, so the surface was about 10 inches below where it looked to you."
One of the best compliments I ever got from him came shortly before I was ready to solo. "About the time you students get to where you give me a pretty decent, smooth ride I have to get out and I don't get to ride with you any more. Pity."
The first page of my log book covered March 30 to May 14, 1958. It shows 11 separate flights with "dual instruction" on each one, totaling 7:30 (7 hrs. & 30 mins.).
The first entry on the second page shows 20 mins. of dual instruction and 1 hour of solo flight. The day was calm and clear, so, after 20 mins. of instruction and three acceptable landings (not to my complete surprise), he said, "Let me out here. You're readY to take it up alone." Every pilot has vivid impressions of his first solo. I remember how quickly the plane got off the ground and how fast it climbed without Lauren's added weight. I remember how easily I could see out of the right window with no one sitting in that seat. I remember bursting into song as I was higher than usual above the telephone wires at the end of the runway. I can really fly! I recall how, on landing, it was more difficult to get the plane to settle to the ground, due to the lesser weight.
Thereafter I recorded frequent solo flights of one to one and a half hours. By Aug. 10th I had acquired 10:25 (10 hrs. & 25 mins.) of dual instruction, including instruction in cross-country flying - use of compass, watch and air-speed indicator to determine position on the map at any particular time. My solo time had reached 21:50.
On Aug. 16th I took my first solo cross-country flight: to Toledo, Ohio, then Brian, Ohio and back to Jonesville. The only thing that went smoothly was the navigation. The air was quite turbulent and I had always been subject to motion sickness. At one point I was sure I was going to vomit in the cockpit. I had no "sick-bag". I was not sure I could vomit and fly the airplane at the same time. I had not yet been convinced that a plane would not crash as soon as the controls were released. On the ground, my stomach and the air both settled down and I was able to take off again and to proceed to the next stop with minimal discomfort.
I took and passed the written examination which is required before one can take the "flight test" and be issued a private pilot's license, without which one cannot be accompanied by any other person other than an instructor.
Lauren assured me that I was ready to take the flight test. On Dec. 14, 1958 I flew nervously to Jackson, Mich. and bounced mightily (three times!) as I landed on the long cement runway. "The grass should have been taller," I muttered. Then, "Oh, Lord, I hope the guy who's examining me didn't see that." He dourly informed me that he had.
The examiner was a lanky, sour-faced (he was probably remembering my landing) individual who informed me that he was having one of his frequent bouts of migraine headache and "would just as soon get this over with."
First there was a brief oral quiz. He was satisfied.
Then, "No radio in the plane, eh?"
"No, sir."
"O.K. We'll simulate. You sit on the other side of the table and I'll sit here. You're the approaching pilot and I'm the control tower operator. Make contact and get permission to land."
I gave an embarrassed and inept performance. All I knew about radio was what little I had read. All he said was, "Let's get in the airplane," but I could hear him thinking, "God, I hope this guy knows more about flying than he does about radio." I was mentally prepared to be flunked.
During the flight test we performed only a small portion of the maneuvers I had been prepared to demonstrate.
"Head back to the airport," he instructed. "Remember I never pass a student if I have to help him with a landing." That sounded reasonable to me and, with great concentration, I made only a hint of a bounce on touching down.
As we climbed silently from the plane, he could sense my anxiety.
"Relax. I'm going to give you your license, but I want to tell you three things: First, this license is a license to continue learning - and don't you forget it. Second, when you take up passengers don't fly like you've been of necessity flying in your training period - steep turns, stalls, abrupt maneuvers. Do everything gently, for the comfort of your passengers. Third, tell Lauren he should give his students more instruction in the use of radio."
I burst into off-key song as I flew home. I'm a pilot! I can take people up! It was a thrill surpassed only by getting my M.D. degree, getting married and by the birth of our two children. In the next few days I proudly took members of our family, one by one for it was only a two-place plane, up for rides. The children gloried in it. Betty went only because she knew she was expected to. She did not then, and never has, enjoyed flying for the sake of flying. Moreover, she was not about to be left behind if the destination was someplace of interest. In other words she flew with considerable misgivings: "I just don't see what holds the thing in the air!" and, as she looked out the window, "Those wheels sure do look funny just hanging there and not resting on anything." Some years later she did consent to taking a few flying lessons, "so I can get this thing on the ground if anything happens to you." Then, to make sure I knew where she stood, "I'd never take it out of the 'barn' on my own!"
In the spring of 1959 I joined the near-by Hillsdale Flying Club and had access to a Cessna 140 - still two-place, but with flaps, radio and a starter - and to a Cessna 170-B - 145 horse-power with 4 seats. At last I could take my entire family with me. Over the next few months I flew to most of the airports in that area of southern Michigan and then began flying, on occasion, into nearby areas of adjacent states. It was an easy way to visit my parents in Kankakee, Ill. (about 60 riles south of Chicago) without a long and fatiguing drive. Mother could never be induced to fly with me but dad rode happily along with a constant grin on his face, gazing at the scenery below. Neither of them had ever been up in a small airplane.
I must pause to explain here that the true flying stories which I will relate represent the unusual and do not in any way represent the average time spent in the air. Flying is hour after hour of perfect delight interrupted by an occasional "memorable incident". I apologize in advance for what you will recognize as poor judgement, lack of skill, illegal procedures and sheer stupidity as factors in most of these incidents. Forgive me.
The Hillsdale Flying Club acquired a third aircraft - a Piper tripacer four-place, with 135 h.p. It was in this aircraft that our family was flying one crisp, hazy, winter day en route to Grant, Mich. to visit Betty's family. We had been in the air about 20 minutes when I noticed that the engine was running slightly "rough". Betty was a "nervous passenger" and I was relieved to see that she apparently had not detected it. The roughness got slightly worse. Could it be carburetor ice, of which I had heard and read but with which I had not had any first-hand experience? I cautiously pulled out on the button labeled "carburetor heat" and the engine at once sputtered loudly in protest. I hurriedly pushed it in as Betty looked questioningly at me. I certainly didn't want to alarm her further so I kept the carburetor hat full in (off) as we flew along. The roughness of the engine increased as I began to realize there was a gradual loss of power and an increasing vibration in the entire airplane. Looking back, I could see that the horizontal portion of the tail was visibly vibrating. By now Betty and I were both alarmed. I recalled putting in a quart of oil just before take-off. If I had left the cap off the filler neck, could this have caused our problems? Right then an airport appeared in full view and we hastened to land with the little power that remained. As the wheels touched down, the struggling engine became completely silent and we rolled to a stop about half-way down the runway. We gave a sigh of relief then, on impulse, I pressed the starter button and was amazed as the engine sprung to life. "What the hell!" I thought. There was a mechanic on duty at the airport and I explained to him what had happened.
"Sounds like carburetor ice," he said, "temperature and humidity conditions are about right for it."
"But why was I able to start the engine again after I landed?"
"Simple. Once the cool, moist air stopped flowing through the carburetor, the remaining engine heat melted the ice. Presto, you're in business again. I suggest you take it up alone for a flight around the pattern, being liberal with carb heat and see if it doesn't respond normally". Of course he was right. And that's how I really learned about carburetor ice. The reason it had sputtered loudly when I pulled out carb heat was because the applied heat was melting the ice on the butterfly valve of the carburetor and the resultant drops of water were being drawn into the combustion chambers and caused sputtering. Had I left the carb heat on despite the sputtering, full, smooth engine power would have been quickly restored. When I could have prevented further carb ice accumulation by leaving the carb heat part way on. Lauren had instructed me in the use of carb heat by intermittently pulling the button full out. On this trip I had neglected it.

...from "I've Got To Write a Book!"
by Ira Wiggins

Flying Days

I knew that flying to Florida would be a great way to break up the long winter, but Betty was not so easily convinced. She found excuses; she procrastinated; she changed the subject. Finally I took a deep breath and said, "Honey, I've made a decision. I'm going to fly to florida for a two week vacation. I'll sure be lonesome if you and the kids don't go along."
Pause. "In the little plane?"
"Yup."
Pause, "Well, I'd rather go in a big plane, but if you're going I'm not about to stay home."
I still chuckle to recall the early-morning scene in the bathroom as we were getting ready to leave, As she sprinkled cologne liberally on her body she muttered, "At least I'll smell good when we crash," She still didn't understand fully what "holds that little thing up in the air."
*****
It was on this trip that we visited the track at Hialeah, the first time we had ever been to a race-track. It was an exciting day. Both of us had somewhat of an aversion to betting but I felt that we should not leave the track without having placed a bet. I noticed on the card a horse named "Labia", an anatomical name with which I was not entirely unfamiliar. The odds were 15 to 1. Who could resist putting $2.00 on labia, - excuse me, I mean "Labia". Of course I played the entire $2.00 to win. She (I assume it was a she) came in second. Ah, well, 'tis better to have-loved (translate "wagered") and lost than never to have loved (translate "wagered") at all. Some 33 years later I still ha e the ticket to prove the story.
*****
By March of 1961 I had accumulated 127 hours of "pilot-in-command" time in addition to 15 hours of dual instruction and 1:20 of "hood-time" - practice flying "blind" with reference only to instruments. It was that month that Betty and I decided to fly for a nine-day vacation to Pascagoula, Miss. We invited our good friends, Burdette and Alyce Kizer, to go along and share expenses. Burdette was a "good flyer". Alyce had never been up in a small plane. My suggestion that I take her up for a short hop prior to the trip to see how she liked it was voted down as unnecessary - a decision we were all to regret. Alyce was practically frozen with fear the entire trip - a long one. She was especially frightened of climbing to a higher altitude; she wasn't convinced there was safety in height and I was apprehensive of continually flying at low altitude. (It's an old joke about the concerned grandma telling her pilot grandson, "Now be careful, John. Fly low & slow,") No matter how slowly and cautiously I would attempt to ascend, I was invariably admonished from the back seat with a sharp, "Ira, you're climbing!" It was not a relaxing ride.
Before we landed in Pascagoula, Alyce assured us that she would be taking the train when it came time to return home. There were no loud objections. Burdette simply said, "Oh, Alyce," suspecting she would change her mind, and she did.
*****
It was with this same Burdette that I was riding a few years later he at the controls of his own Cessna - when he turned to me after a long lull in the conversation, and said, "Ira, when you were a kid, what would you have said if someone had told you we'd be doing what we're doing now when we grew up?" I knew what he meant: flying airplanes; he a successful businessman & I a doctor.
Without a moment's hesitation I responded, "I'd have told them they were out of their minds". I knew his heart was full of gratitude, as was mine, for what life had dealt us.
*****
In April 1962 Betty and I flew for vacation to Gulfeort, Miss. Most trips are not without their learning experiences and this one Was no exception. From previous experience we had learned that long hours in the air often resulted in uncomfortably full bladders and had decided to remedy this situation. A couple of coffee cans with tight lids were easy to use and could be discretely emptied when we stopped for gas. However, on one particularly long leg of the journey both cans reached their capacity and we felt the need for further relief. I decided we could empty one can by slowing down to a bit above stall speed, opening the window and, with a tight grasp on the can, thrust it out the rear part of the window opening and empty it in the slip-stream. Simple? Not so. As soon as the can reached the window opening the slip-stream emptied it in a blast of spray into the cabin. I leave the rest, including the subsequent clean-up job, to your imagination. As I said, a learning experience.
*****
We had heard about the illegal moonshine whiskey in Mississippi and decided, as a lark, to see if we could buy some. We were successful in making two purchases. One was from the bartender at the hotel where we were staying. The other was from a waitress in the restaurant of the same hotel; her husband was the assistant deputy sheriff. Both purchases were in Ball mason jars with a screw top and rubber ring. One was clear as water; the other was tan colored and had a faint odor of tobacco. We were told that tobacco was often used as a coloring agent. We weren't about to sample the products for we had no desire to imbibe unknown quantities of wood alcohol, lead or (chewed?) tobacco juice. We did, however, want to take the samples home as conversation pieces to show our friends. We packed them carefully in our luggage to prevent breakage.
One part of the trip home involved ascending to an altitude of 8500 feet in order to avoid a cloud layer. It was while approaching this altitude that we heard a muffled "pop" from the vicinity of the luggage in the back seat and were soon enveloped in the unpleasant stench of moonshine whiskey Another mess. Another lesson, The increasing altitude had caused the air bubble in one of the jars to expand and burst the container. My cautiously opening the windows a bit we were able to more quickly ventilate the cabin. We laughingly pointed out that if we were to crash, the odor would quickly convince any right-minded investigator that it was an open-and-shut case of drunken flying.
*****
March 16 - 30, 1963 Betty and I again flew to Florida, this time in a 230 h.p. Cessna 182 which had been acquired by the flying club. The entire trip involved 23 hrs. and 50 mins. of flying time. On the way south we stopped at Hamilton, Ohio, Charleston, W. Va., Atlanta, Ga., Orlando, Fla., Tavernier, Fla. and Key West. On the return trip we stopped at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Vero Beach, Fla., Silver Springs, Fla., Bryson City, So. Carolina and "Sunken Lunken" airport (because it was so often inundated with water) at Cincinnati, Ohio.
The landing at Bryson City was of interest. The top of a big hill (or small mountain) had been leveled off to make a single runway. One end of the runway ended abruptly at a canyon at the bottom of which was a river. The other end terminated just as abruptly in a near vertical slope, below which was a highway leading to the airport. It appeared to have all the charm and excitement of landing on an aircraft carrier. Landing too short would be no less hazardous than landing too long and running off the far end. However the strip was of adequate length providing the approach and landing were made properly. On my first attempt, not wanting to be too low (ouch!) on the approach end of the runway, I over-compensated and came in much too high and fast. Had I landed we certainly would have used more runway than was available (ouch again!). I applied full throttle to "go around" and try again, noting as we flew by the hangar and gas pump that we had three or four interested observers. Would I embarrass myself again on the second attempt? At this point I remembered reading in a flying magazine that, if necessary, a small plane could be made to stop in a shorter space by holding both doors full open after touching down - due to the increased wind resistance. I explained this to Betty and we agreed to try it to see how it worked, even if it wasn't necessary. The second approach and landing were "on the money". Once on the ground, I said to Betty, "Okay, let's open both doors and hold them open." The wind-resistance was obvious and the slowing of the plane definitely augmented.
"Say, that does work," I remarked. When we had stopped I made a U-turn on the runway and taxied back toward the gas pump. Half way there I spied a straw hat on the runway.
"Someone lost their hat," Betty said, "let's pick it up." Not until she picked it up did we realize that it was my hat which had blown from the back seat when we opened the doors. This activity had not gone unnoticed by those at the gas pump. As one of them silently filled our gas tanks I explained the door-opening experiment.
"So that was it," he chuckled, "We thought you were getting ready to jump out in case your plane went over the end of the runway!"
*****
Logbook entry of June 5, 1963: "landed at Zoro airport".
This was not a pre-planned landing. Betty and I and the two children, ages 13 and 15, were flying from Jonesville, Mich. to visit my parents in Kankakee, Ill. Dad had agreed to meet us at the Kankakee airport at a prearranged time. As we were passing over a portion of the northern tip of Indiana it became apparent that the weather ahead was rapidly worsening. Approaching nearer it was obvious that we could not safely proceed, so I radioed the FSS (aviation weather facility) near Chicago, Ill.
"That's a line of thunderstorms passing rapidly through, the man said. "If you will just set down at the nearest airport and wait an hour or two it will be out of your way and you can proceed."
Betty invariably kept track of where we were. At once she volunteered, "We just passed over an air-strip in a patch of woods but it is awfully small and there doesn't seem to be a town or anything nearby."
Then came one of the most prophetic statements I have ever made: "Oh well, sometimes these small airstrips are the most interesting."
We made an approach to the grass strip, noting the wind direction from the wind-sock, but the runway was quite short and I found that I was too high and too fast as I approached it. I applied power and went around for another try, this time with success. As I taxied back to the single, rather dilapidated hangar a man approached from a path in the woods. It was a hot day and not unusual that he was clad only in overalls, with no shirt or shoes.
As I alighted from the plane he scowled and said, "Did you know you landed at a nudist colony?"
"Hot damn!" I exploded as I laughed and slapped my thigh, for I knew he had to be joking.
He didn't smile.
"You're kidding, aren't you?", I asked.
"No, sir, I'm not kidding."
My profuse apologies gushed forth, for I could understand how such groups were very sensitive to snoopers, curiosity seekers and low-flying aircraft. After I had explained to him our situation and had requested the use of a phone to call my father in Kankakee to let him know of the delay, he grudgingly led me down the path to the door of a trailer where "the lady who runs this place" lived. She was likewise stern of countenance, middle aged, of average appearance and wearing a shortie beach robe which only revealed signs of nudity when she bent over. Again I explained our predicament and she hesitantly and skeptically allowed me to use the telephone. "But you'll have to pay first," she admonished.
After the phone conversation she realized that the situation was not contrived and her accusing look turned to one of almost friendliness. When I told her that I was a doctor from Jonesville, Mich. - and my wife a nurse the change in her demeanor was complete. She inquired if our family had ever practiced nudism.
"Only in our home," I answered.
"Is your family in the plane with you?"
''Yes, my wife and 2 children."
"You're all perfectly free to come in and use the rest-room facilities if you'd like."
I hope that my face didn't brighten too perceptibly. Up to this point I had seen little to indicate we were in a nudist camp and, once here, I'd sure like to take a quick look around.
"Yes, thanks. Very nice of you. We'd like that."
I hurried back to where Betty and the children were waiting in the plane.
"Hey, c'mon. They said we could use the rest-rooms. It'll give us a chance to take a quick look around."
"Oh, no! You're not getting me in that place," Betty blurted out.
"Aw, mom!" from the kids.
After a moments thought, I said, "Okay, let me put it this way: I'm going in. Anyone that wants to can come with me."
The kids eagerly jumped out and Betty, naturally, followed.
A bell had been rung and all campers were inside their trailers (many with out-of-state licenses) as we strolled to the spacious, clean toilet facility building. Over the door was a sign "For little boys - and little girls, too." Inside were the usual basins, showers and toilet stalls with no doors. The walls of the stalls were clean and completely free of the graffiti so common in most other public toilet facilities.
"Interesting," I remarked.
Nancy and Tom were wide-eyed. "Where is everybody?" one of them asked.
"I guess they all go in their trailers when strangers are around."
As we were leaving, the "lady who runs the place" (I never did learn her name), dressed as before, met us and, very friendly now, led us into the office to explain their facilities. Most campers were complete families with children; this was usually their summer vacation; "singles" were not encouraged to join; many were from out-of-state, some from as far away as Colorado; most were not known as nudists in their home-towns; nudism is considered a good form of physical conditioning and mental hygiene; the administration has the right to forbid the use of alcohol in specific cases; applicants must have character references, preferably from their physician and minister. Zoro nudist camp, she proudly informed us, had the largest outdoor swimming pool in the U.S. We had already seen the volley-ball courts - vacated because of our presence. The pool we were to see only from the air as we left; on our landing we had been so intent on looking at the air-strip that we had not seen it.
"Would you like to have an application blank to take with you?" she queried.
"Yes, I believe we would," I eagerly replied. How else would I ever be able to prove to my skeptical friends that I had actually landed at and visited in a nudist colony?
Betty and I left with the distinct impression that, at least in the case of this particular camp, nudism has much higher ideals and goals than usually attributed to it by the sensationalism of the press. In subsequently relating this story to acquaintances, a few then told us they were or had been practicing nudists and further convinced us of the sincerity of the concept. I can believe their statement that daily exposure to nudity tends to diminish sexual urge rather than to stimulate it.
*****
Please realize that between these interesting incidents there were many hours of plain, simple (but never dull), enjoyable flying. It wasn't entirely the time-saving aspect, for many times the trip could be made in as short a period of time in a car - if one takes into account having to drive to the airport, open the hangar, pull the plane out, gas it up, preflight it, stow luggage, check weather, file a flight plan and get everyone comfortably and safely aboard. To say nothing of the occasional aborting of a trip because of weather or mechanical malfunction. But the fun of flying was well worth the occasional inconvenience.

...from "I've Got To Write a Book!"
by Ira Wiggins

Flying Days

Sept. 24 - 28, 1963: to Burlington, Vt, with the Kizers to see the fall colors from the air.
Breathtaking.
This trip I did not mind Alyce's admonitions to stay at a low altitude. The scenery was fantastic - a view completely different from that seen from the cars on the highway below.
"Oh, look over here!"
"Yes, and just look at that hill over there."
"It's so beautiful I can't stand it."
*****
From Hillsdale, Mich. it was a pleasant flight to Meig's lake shore airport in Chicago, - except for one occasion on which the ceilings gradually lowered so much that we found we could almost look in the windows of houses as we went by. Betty threatened to pick a pumpkin from the field if I flew any lower. We landed and waited until the next day to complete the trip. If one were ambitious one could walk to the Chicago "loop" from Meig's; and with even less effort could visit the nearby Adler planetarium and Shedd aquarium. It was a short trip by street-car to the Field museum of Natural History and only a bit longer to the Museum of Science & Industry, both of which held many wonders both for our children and for us.
*****
Flying on a clear night can be exhilarating. The stars stand out like tiny diamonds. Towns can be seen by their lights further away than they can be identified in the daylight hours. The same holds for an airport with its rotating beacon. Other aircraft, with their distinctive navigation lights and rotating beacon, can also be more easily spotted.
When the weather is marginal, night flying can be less than relaxing. On one occasion, in a snow-storm at night, we were unable to determine our exact position - okay, say "lost" if you prefer. Fortunately, a small airport appeared directly in our path and we hastened to land. As I recall, it was Defiance, Ohio. It is most embarrassing for any pilot to have to enter an airport office and ask, "Would you mind telling me what airport this is?" A most humbling experience.
In any event, the snow-storm soon passed over and we were able to safely continue on our way.
*****
We were returning to Hillsdale airport one clear winter night with a weather report of "all clear". Burdette Kizer, at that time a student pilot, was in the right-hand seat and I was flying. One by one the stars began to die and then to disappear. Finally they were all gone and we were in a barrel of ink. I was not at all proficient in flying "on instruments". On an impulse I turned on the landing lights and could then see why the stars had disappeared. We were in a heavy snow-storm. I radioed the airport from which we had left, told them their forecast could stand some revising ("But there's no snow reported in your area," he protested) and turned my attention to the job of keeping the plane right side up and headed in the right direction and at the proper altitude.
It was very foolish of me not to reverse course and go back to where we had come from, a thing which I would surely do today, but I was inexperienced and frightened and had "get-home-itis", - a combination that often leads to imprudent actions, with disaster lurking in the background.
By this time all lights on the ground had disappeared. I was having trouble heading in a constant direction. Finally I saw the faint glimmer of a star directly ahead so, in order to maintain a constant direction, I used it as an aiming point. The engine began gradually revving faster and I was aware of the wind whistling louder outside. With shock it dawned on me that the "star" I had been using as an aiming point was actually a light on the ground! As I rapidly corrected the situation I mentally vowed to take more training in instrument flight. Our destination of Hillsdale had no radio homing device (omni) but the town ten miles away did have one. I was too busy controlling the plane at this point to risk manipulating the radios.
"Burdette, tune in Litchfield omni on the radio."
Hesitantly, "I don't think I can, Ira." He had not yet had experience with omnis.
Between us we managed to tune it properly and were heading for Litchfield when suddenly we glimpsed below us the faint, snow-dimmed glow of city lights. We were already at low altitude but descended further in our desperation to see where we were. The snow still enclosed us in a mantle of obscuring whiteness.
Burdette lived in Hillsdale and knew it intimately.
"There's the neon sign of Leutheuser Buick!" he suddenly blurted, "Turn right!" From that point he knew the exact direction to the airport and unerringly led us to its welcome lights. We both knew that my actions had been foolish, inept, stupid, illegal and potentially lethal. On a more positive side I can truthfully say they were never repeated.
There is an old saying: "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." Another truism is: "Mechanical failure rarely kills - weather often does."
*****
What does one do when flying on a beautiful clear night when all of a sudden all electrical components go off - radios, navigation lights, panel (dash-board) lights, the works?
Simple.
Turn the master switch back on.
I had inadvertently pushed it to the off position while manipulating the carburetor heat button. Fortunately turning the master switch off does not affect engine function.
*****
Jan. 27, 1965: a bitter cold winter cay to fly the Piper tripacer to Ann Arbor, Mich. to eagerly pick up Betty who was being released from the University hospital after having completed medical tests. As I approached, the unicom radio informed me that the runway was covered with glare ice and traction was "nil". Betty was expecting me. The runway was long. I decided that by handling the airplane like a boat it could be done. Sliding toward one side of the runway could be corrected with a blast of the propeller to change the heading and then to change the course of the aircraft. If unable to stop by the end of the runway, the plane could be swung 180 degrees by the same propeller blast, the continued application of power bringing it to a stop and then to proceed back down the runway. The worst that could happen would be the demolishing of a runway light or too. It worked without incident, but the experience of sliding down the runway at an angle was indeed a new one.
*****
July 25 - Aug. 13, 1965: vacation trip to Marathon, Fla. En route we smelled the distinctive odor of kerosene in the cabin. Did you know that the fluid in the common magnetic compass is kerosene? The glass had cracked and it was seeping slowly out.
On this same trip we landed at Williston, Fla., a very large but essentially deserted former military airport. There we examined the still visible markings on the runway where Jimmy Doolittle and crew had practiced aircraft carrier take-offs with loaded bombers in preparation for the bombing of Tokyo. There was no need to practice carrier landings, for they would not have enough gas to return to the carrier, landing instead at friendly land bases.
*****
The last entry in my first log-book was Feb. 13, 1966. I had accumulated 505 hours as pilot-in-command, 19 hours of dual instruction, 27 hours of night flight and 7 hours of simulated instrument flight (hood time).
*****
The longest flying trip we ever took was in the 230 hour Cessna 182, -Feb. 16 to March 1, 1966. It started with a beautiful, star-filled night flight to St. Louis, Mo., where we stayed overnight with the family of Rev. Stuart, a minister friend formerly of Jonesville. Then on to Austin, Texas to visit a physician friend for two days, then to the famous Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico. Landing at Fullerton airport in Calif. we were able to visit Disneyland before starting the return trip. Landing at Death Valley airport, it was an unusual experience to watch the altimeter unwind gradually to below the zero mark of sea-level as we approached the runway. We looked around for about an hour before deciding to move on to our next destination, Las Vegas, Nevada, with its tinsel, glitter and "human zoo". We had never seen anything like its slot machines going 24 hours a day; people dressed in everything from tuxedos to overalls or pajamas; cheap food; occasional free booze; huge sums of money being frantically poured into the expressionless maws of the slot machines. We stayed for 4 days and left wondering at it all.
Going over the rocky mountains was a new experience. Choosing the lowest, conveniently available route we still had to ascend to 11,500 feet altitude for 20 minutes in order to clear the ridges. Oxygen is advised over 10,000 feet but we knew that for that short period of time we would feel no ill effects and we detected none. A friend of ours tells of the time he was flying at 15,000 feet using an oxygen mask but allowing his wife to use the map and to navigate without the use of oxygen. After a bit she looked up, smiled, said, "Oh, what the hell! Who cares?" and threw the map into the back seat. Oxygen lack, in most individuals, causes a reaction identical to that which occurs when that same person has had a bit too much to drink. He gets tipsy. If, when under the influence, he gets happy, then oxygen lack makes him happy; if belligerent, then oxygen lack makes him belligerent.
En route back to the airport at Hillsdale, Mich. we had a scheduled landing to refuel at Quincy, Ill. Ceilings were low, visibility was poor and aircraft were landing only IFR or by "special VFR" permission from the control tower. As we approached they instructed us to circle below the low clouds outside of the control zone until they contacted me with further instructions. I circled one direction until nausea developed then changed directions. I often wonder what the people on the ground thought was going on. I again contacted the tower but was told that they couldn't let me land until the plane "somewhere up there on instruments" was on the ground. When permission was given some 30 minutes later we lost no time in landing.
The last leg of the trip was accompanied by a spirit-lifting tail-end that boosted our ground speed to 198 m.p.h. We had been gone for two weeks and two days and had seen and done more things than we had ever imagined we could in such a short period of time. Betty was almost convinced that flying was a good way to go.
*****
Aug. 18, 1966: 1 hour 15 minutes flying time noted in the log book. Hillsdale, Mich. to Detroit Metro airport and return. Under the remarks column was "Took Ginger to be flown air-freight to Panama." Ginger was our beloved mongrel dog and we had made the decision to leave the demanding practice and long winters of Jonesville, Mich. to work for the Panama Canal Company in a warm climate and with a 40-hour work week.
*****
On the next line the entry was Oct. 9, 1966 - France Field, Canal Zone - 15 minutes flight time in a 100 h.p. cessna 150. Remarks: "checked out by Bob Williford." I had joined the Canal Zone Flying Club which possessed a single two-place aircraft, 20 members and a $9,000.00 debt. By 1970 the same club had an additional four-place aircraft, 50 members and the same $9,000.00 debt. It was an active, enthusiastic, growing concern. By 1975 a third aircraft had been added with no increase in debt and the membership rose to 100 members. Something then occurred which I had not foreseen. The organization became unwieldy and impersonal and began to suffer from unrest, personality conflicts, discontent and a let-George-do-it attitude. Maintenance became more of a problem, carelessness developed and accidents followed. Our experience with insurance was disheartening. The expected amount was never paid in full and payment was so slow in coming that an aircraft might be out of service and producing no revenue for four to six months, as insistent letters were repeatedly sent off to the company.
One of the accidents happened to a tall, likeable instructor, Sgt. Jim Tumlin. He had promised to take his friend, Bill, for a ride but the battery in the Cessna 172 was too weak to start the engine. Bill's Knowledge of aircraft extended only to the fact that he had jumped from them many times as a paratrooper. Jim did not chock the wheels. He put Bill in the co-pilot's seat and instructed him how to manipulate the brakes, master switch, magneto switch and throttle while he, Jim, turned the propeller to start the engine. Among other things he told Bill that if the engine was going too fast he could reduce the speed by pulling out (or back) on the throttle. The engine started. It was going too fast. Bill pushed in on the throttle. It went faster. He pushed it all the way in, thought "the engine is running away!" and could no longer keep the plane from moving toward the cement hangars by frantic pressure on the brakes. He lunged and did what he was more qualified for: "bailed out" the door. As Jim ducked aside, the pilotless plane sped for the near-by hangars, went dead center between them and stopped with a crunch as each wing tip impacted on a cement wall.
Other accidents occurred. One student stalled on a too-steep take-off; the plane was demolished and the student injured. One member landed at a remote, unfamiliar, crude air-strip, struck soft ground at the approach end and turned over - no injuries. Another student crashed on landing while her pilot husband on the ground (not an instructor) was giving her instructions by radio as to how she should maneuver for the landing - no serious injuries.
*****
Flying is an excellent way to get around in the country of Panama due to its lack of roads but profusion of primitive air-strips. During our fifteen and a half year stay there we spent many exciting, happy hours flying to various parts of the country, exploring, snorkeling, hunting artifacts and antique bottles, making friends and helping with medical missionary work. We also flew to Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and even to Guataeala. Many of the airstrips in Panama are crude and would be quite unacceptable by U.S. standards. The sand and coral strip at Ailigandi paralleled the beach and was less wide than the span of the aircraft's wings. At times small drainage ditches were dug up to the edge of the run-way, presenting a definite hazard for any plane which might stray from the straight and narrow. Rarely one did. The short grass strip at Nombre de Dios started at the shoreline and pointed inland directly at a 25 foot hill not over 40 feet from the far end. This made it a "one-way runway", of which there were several in Panama. Regardless of wind direction, take-offs and landings were usually both made toward the ocean. If an approach were made toward the mainland and an "abort" after touch-down became necessary, clearing the hill could become a problem. On occasion it was necessary to buzz the airstrip to clear it of livestock prior to landing. In later years when a road was added to the area the airstrip was incorporated as part of the road but was still used by aircraft - with caution.
*****
Porvenir is an island in the San Blas archipelago off the northern coast of Panama. Its 1300 foot runway extended the length of the island from shore to shore. A favorite expression was: "It's better to land 300 feet too far down the runway than to land three feet too short." Despite this knowledge, it was with chagrin that one day, on landing there, I broke the rule and struck one of the wheels on a large log which had washed up on the end of the runway, rupturing the hydraulic line to the brake on that side. Fortunately the cross wind was not severe and we were able to maneuver safely.

portions of c ra mcguirt's
blur collar ballet

Gypsy shook his head, sighed, and came back to the center of the ring. With a student like me, I felt sorry for the poor old guy - despite my earlier concerns about
getting the crap kicked out of me, Joe was the one taking all the damage.
"Lock up!"
Again, we danced. Gypsy grabbed my wrist and went into the dramatic-but-
painless armwringer. I sold it with some groans, and, as if the pressure had become too much to bear, decided to take a forward flip. My painwracked body and stuffed up head conspired to cause me to mistime the move, and instead of making a complete turn and landing on my back, I came down right on the point of my left shoulder in an explosion of glassy agony.
It was the first time I had really, truly hurt myself badly in practice. I walked back and forth in grim silence, shrugging my shoulder and biting my lip, telling myself it probably wasn't broken. The rules of macho seemed to call for me to suck it up and go on without complaint, and I tried, but my heart was no longer in it. I also have to admit that I was just plain scared of getting hurt again.
"Uh, Gypsy...I'm really sorry, brother, but I think I better stop for now. I got a real bad cold, and my back and shoulder are kinda hurtin'. I know it's not a big deal, but..."
"Whatta mean, it ain't a big deal? It's your body, brother. You can do whatever the hell you wanna do, but I don't want you gettin' hurt."
So much for macho. Reluctantly, but with relief, I gave it up for the day. The pain in my shoulder was becoming severe, and my lower back muscles felt as if someone had been beating on them with boat paddles. But I promised to come back on Monday, even though it was a promise I wasn't sure I could keep.

As I drove home to Gator's, my shoulder and back began to stiffen up on me. I came through the front door walking like Frankenstein's monster, and when I went in to check on my grandfather, he looked concerned.
"Are you okay, son?"
"I'm fine, Grandad. Just a few sore places..."
I didn't feel right complaining to him, considering his own pain level. When you have to struggle just to breathe, it's a slow crucifixion, and I didn't feel my self-
inflicted wounds were comparable. Besides, I didn't want him or my dad worrying about me. I was worried enough for all of us, anyway...
Somehow I got through dinner, and managed to wash the dishes in a slow, stiff, elderly manner. After some small talk with my dad about any subject other than my wrestling career, I was grateful to get to my room and collapse. Somehow, I managed to stretch out my good arm (the one that was only incredibly sore instead of partially paralyzed) to grab the phone and call Larry Pachecho.
"Hello?"
"Larry, you s.o.b., I'm dying, and it's all your fault for giving me that goddam phone number."
Pacheco laughed. "Hi, Curt. How are you feeling?"
"Like a wrestling ring fell on me."
"A little soreness, huh?"
"I'd laugh, but it hurts too much..."
"Hang in there, Curt. I think this is what Dr. Squash told me they call "The Wall Of Pain'. It's inevitable when you first start training, but it only lasts a few weeks, and then it goes away."

"Goes away? How do torn ligaments, shredded muscles, and broken bones just go away?"
"Broken bones?"
"I think I might have cracked my shoulder..."
"It's probably just stiff, Curt. If it was broken, you probably wouldn't be able to talk to me. And the rest of it is probably only muscle pain. This happens to everyone...that's what the Doc said, anyhow."
"'The Wall Of Pain', huh?"
"That's what they call it."
In my mind's eye, I could see a huge black wall a hundred feet high, topped by a shiny double roll of razor wire. Hundreds of sharpened iron spikes were sticking out of the wall, and on them were impaled the battered, bloody bodies of all the rasslin' wannabees that came before me...
I groaned, said goodbye to Larry, and washed four aspirin down with a quart of cheap beer, then laboriously undressed so I could rub sports cream on the parts of me that hurt. It took so long, that by the time I'd finished, the stuff had worn off of the areas I'd rubbed first. I thought about taking a good hot bath, but was afraid that in my helpless condition, I might drown. Besides, I didn't have the energy to get up and walk the 10 feet or so to the bathroom. Hoping to fall asleep, I lay there with wrestling moves running through my head, debating whether or not to go on with the program.
I didn't really want to quit. Apart from my pride, there was my investment to consider. I'd given a hundred to Joe, and still owed him four. I'd paid 75 bucks for the photo session, and spent upwards of a hundred on knee and elbow pads,

sweatsuit, tennis shoes, jock, wrist supporter, pink tights, pink leotard, and details for my costume, including a really cool spiked leather collar I'd found in a head shop on Elliston Place. I was into the scene for several hundred dollars, and though it might have been worth it for the research I'd done, I still hated to throw in the towel.
I never did really fall asleep, though I may have drifted into a pain-wracked haze punctuated by violent coughing from my virulent head cold. When the alarm went off on Saturday morning, reminding me that another day of prepping soup, sauces, salad, appetizers, and entrees for Sperry's Restaurant awaited, I knew that someone else would have to do it. It took me literally ten minutes to get out of bed; my entire body was a stiff board of crippling pain, the left arm now almost completely useless. I called in sick, swallowed another handful of aspirin, and reached for the Ben-Gay, but I'd used it all up the night before.
Working Tuesday through Saturday, I didn't usually get to watch the local CWA
wrestling on weekends, so I tuned in to catch up on current plot angles. A couple of uncertain-looking rookie wrestlers (known to fans as "prelim bums", and to us as "job boys") were getting the hell beaten out of them in a tag team match. I winced each time one of them got smashed into the mat.
I began to force myself to rotate my left arm in the socket, around and around, trying to work out the pain and stiffness, even as I mentally rehearsed how I was going to tell Gypsy that I was quitting. I still didn't like the idea, but was beginning to think that my body might not give me a choice.
I made it through the day, managed to get a little bit of sleep that night, and woke up on Sunday morning hurting even worse than I had the day before.

Again, I spent 10 or 15 minutes slowly getting out of bed, gobbled aspirin, and sat there rotating my left arm in slow circles. There were a lot of cracking, creaking noises, but it seemed a little looser than the day before. I turned on the tube. This time it was WWF wrestling, with more job boys getting devastated by power bombs and piledrivers...
Glancing at the wall, I noticed that, according to the "Wrestler's Birthday Calendar" I'd torn out of a rasslin' magazine, it was the birthday of none other than "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, 13-time world champion, and, at one point, arguably the best wrestler who ever laced up a pair of boots. "Slick" Ric, now in his 50s, has lost a few steps, but in his heyday, he was The Man. His gimmick has always been simple: he's the Champion, whether he actually holds the belt at the moment or not.
Dyed blonde, struttin', stylin', profilin', womanizin', limousine-ridin', Lear-jet flyin', sucking down champagne and caviar, kicking butt and stabbing backs as the self-proclaimed "dirtiest player in the game", Flair ruled the NWA/WCW for the best part of the past two and a half decades, with a brief foray into WWF territory. He was not the most recognizable wrestler on the planet during the "wrestling renaissance" of the 80s - that honor went to Hulk Hogan - but he was a true icon in a field of pretenders. Flair, on the small side for a modern wrestler, was and is a triumph of substance and style over charisma and steroids.
When Hulk Hogan, the king of the WWF, and Ric Flair, the emperor of WCW, finally clashed in the ring, expectations were high, but their series of matches ended up as I'd expected: boring and frustrating. Ric's wrestling ability is impeccable, and a lot of it is due to his ability to make his opponent look good. Flair isn't afraid to sell for his partner, taking lots of terrible falls and tremendous amounts of apparent

66

punishment, before coming back (if that's the promoter's plot device for the evening) to win with amazing reversals and countermoves. He's never been afraid to give up the title belt for a while, either, because he knows it generates fan excitement. Flair may be a heel, but among his peers, he's a good sport.
Hogan is just the opposite. As I mentioned before, his actual wrestling skills are extremely limited, and he doesn't like to sell. For years, he got by with a very simple formula: 1) Hogan comes charging out, rips off his shirt, and starts kicking his opponent's ass all over the ring, 2) Opponent gets Hogan in trouble with a series of simple moves, blows, kicks, and/or foreign objects, 3) Instead of wrestling his way out of it, Hulk simply gets mad, and becomes completely invulnerable to all attacks, no matter how brutal, by "hulking out", i.e., going into a trembling, eye- rolling, foaming berserker rage, 4) Hogan kicks his opponent in the face, comes off the ropes with a legdrop, and gets the 1-2-3. (Repeat once per Pay-Per-View as needed.)
Terry Hogan couldn't wrestle up to Flair's ability, and he couldn't or wouldn't sell for him. Flair could only look as good as Hogan's level of wrestling ability allowed, and so the matches between them were terrible. As to which one of them is "really better", as with any form of art, it's a matter of taste. Mine ran, and runs, more to Flair. He's sort of a cultural hero of mine. So it was ironic that I found myself sitting there on Ric Flair's birthday, debating myself on whether or not I could overcome my own limitations, and at least become a half-assed professional wrestler for a while.
"There's got to be a poem in all this," I thought. There was, and that night, I wrote it:

67

On The Ropes
for "Nature Boy" Ric Flair

Dear Ric,
Your birthday just began,
and I'd salute you if I could
lift my arm above my head,

but I screwed it up this afternoon
pursuing some of what you do.
By the way, my back hurts too -
how do we get used to this?

You're the best of all the Bad.
I understand you lack the time
to answer idle aspirants
to the art you represent,

but I have nothing else to do -
beer, Ben-gay, and aspirin
have all worn off,

and pain pins sleep.

It wasn't the best poem I'd ever written, but it made me feel a little better to have
articulated my pain and frustration. That night, I slept pretty well, and when I woke up on Monday, my cold was almost gone. A moderate level of pain remained in my back and shoulder, but I thought that maybe it could be worked out. So, when late afternoon came around, I got slowly but determinedly into my sweats and pads. It was time to start scaling The Wall Of Pain.

Lesson 5: And A Fateful Phone Call

On the way to the practice ring, I gave myself a cliched and bombastic pep talk, telling myself I could do this if I just had enough grit and determination. The agony in my back was only muscle pain; it would go away if I perservered. My shoulder was merely bruised, and would heal faster if I forced myself to use it. I was gonna become a wrestler, and nothing could stop me. Winners never quit, and wussies never win. Etcetera, etcetera. Vince Lombardi, George Patton, and Ric Flair would have all been proud.
Gypsy wasn't there; I later discovered he'd had car trouble. I waited around for ten or fifteen minutes, and finally decided to climb in to give it the old college try.
"Just a few bumps, a few rolls," I thought. "I'll get loosened up, and then I'll be ready for some real training on Wednesday..."
Shrugging and rolling my badly bruised shoulder, stretching my arms out, doing an arthritic little dance across the raggedly-carpeted plywood, I muttered encour- agements to myself. Work through the pain, that's all...you've been sore before, and the only thing that helped was doing more of what made you that way. So suck it up and go, Luscious!
I ran a few steps across the ring and hurled myself into a forward bump. My technique was perfect, and I landed correctly, slapping with the forearms, letting the soles of my feet take most of the impact, distributing the rest on my flattened shoulders as I tucked in my chin to avoid bashing the back of my head.
"Ohh JESUS!!!!" I screamed.

It was like falling on poisoned knives. I rolled on my side and curled up in the fetal position, gasping for breath. I hadn't knocked my breath out - I had merely been robbed of it by the intensity of the pain in my lower back and shoulder.
I waited for the agony to subside, certain that Gypsy Joe would show up any second to laugh at my chicken ass. Fortunately, I was spared that indignity. I rose slowly to my feet (to the left, which was indeed easier, if not any less painful), and, as if I could outquick the pain that was waiting for me if I didn't think too long about it, threw myself into a shoulder roll.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki went off in my shoulder, and I flopped back to the mat, feeling the rough, stinking carpet tickling my cheek. Every single curse word I knew erupted from my mouth in a long, interesting, sometimes redundant string of profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy, most of it in English, but some of it in Russian, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.
I crawled to the side of the ring that was open to the weather (of which there was plenty this time of year), and slowly slipped over the side, collapsing onto the grass. As far as I was concerned, I was never going back in. Guts and will was fine in theory, but apparently, I simply couldn't take the pounding demanded by even a short stint as a wrestler. Tears of incredible frustration ran down my cheeks, because I had really wanted it, and I had really, truly tried, only to be betrayed by my body.
Stopping to pick up a sixpack of beer and a large tube of Ben-Gay, I drove home in a supremely foul mood and called Larry Pacheco.
"Well, brother, I'm quitting. It's too damned much."
"At least you tried..."

70

"Dammit, Lar, if it was only pain, I could work past it, but my brain keeps telling me that if I keep on doing this, I'm gonna get permanently injured. Guess I'm just a wimp..."
"You made it farther than I could have, dude. You should be proud of yourself."
"Right now, I don't feel too proud. I guess I'll always wonder how far I'd have gone if I'd stuck it out."
"You did your best, Curt. Don't be too down - after all, think of the research value."
"Yeah...I guess..."
After I hung up, I still felt despondent. Research value be damned - I'd wanted to be a wrestler, if only for one match. Well, the world was full of wannabees. Joe had a hundred bucks for his trouble, and I was left with a few background notes, a poem, some funny pictures, and a Halloween costume for that year.
An hour or so later, I was sprawled stiffly on my bed, re-reading some old wrestling magazines. "Wrestling Journalism" is an odd field. At that time, the "Pro Wrestling Illustrated" series of mags, edited by Bill Apter, was the leader of the pack. PWI, and its sister mags, The Wrestler, Inside Pro Wrestling, et al, had (and have) a "kayfabe" editorial policy. "Kayfabe" is a wrestling-insider's term, which, loosely translated, means "an aggressive insistence on appearing to believe that pro wrestling is a "real' competitive sport." Of course, like any form of dramatic art, wrestling is "real'. And it is competitive, in the sense that wrestlers compete to be noticed, just as actors and musicians do. The "kayfabe" style, however, is to pretend
that the play and the players are actual - that The Undertaker really lives in a grave- yard; that his brother Kane has magical powers; that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin

spends his spare time beating people up in bars, etc. The kayfabe fan mags are actually an extension of pro wrestling itself, and, just as in the biz, the writers of these mags adopt colorful personas of their own: The Beleaguered Editor-in-Chief Who Don't Get No Respect, The Idealistic Young Feminist Journalist Inclined To Inappropriate Crushes On Bad Guys, The Crusty Old-School Tough-As-Nails Hard-Drinking Reporter Who Still Uses A Manual Typewriter, The Arrogant Heel-Supporting Columnist Who Answers Her Letters With Sarcastic Insults, etc.
The opposite of "kayfabe" is "smart". The "smart" attitude toward wrestling is typified very well by the new crop of rasslin' mags, chief among them WOW (World Of Wrestling) and ECW Magazine. These publications (which scored a tremendous coup by luring Bill Apter away from PWI, and installing him as Editor In Chief) are open about the dramatic, theatrical nature of wrestling, while showing high respect for those workers who have earned it. They critique matches the way other mags review films and concerts, and offer a down-to-earth view of what's actually going on behind the scenes.
Some would say that Vince McMahon created the first "smart federation" when he blatantly started calling the WWF "sports entertainment". The lines between smart and kayfabe got really blurred when, for instance, McMahon started present-
ing such scenarios as "Mark Callendar, who's been using "The Undertaker' as his wrestling persona, has gone nuts, and now really believes that he is "The Under- taker'." Sort of a play-within-a-play approach, and a lot of fun, in my opinion.
A sadder example of "the new openess" in "sports entertainment" occurred at a recent WWF live pay-per-view, when Owen Hart, in the guise of tongue-in-cheek masked superhero "The Blue Blazer", suffered a malfunction of the equipment that

was supposed to have lowered him from the ceiling of the arena. He plunged almost 90 feet, struck his head on a turnbuckle, and died from the injuries. WWF cameras
respectfully refused to broadcast the fall, or show us the body, and announcer Jim Ross was quick to say: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not an angle, or a part of the storyline. Owen Hart has been seriously hurt." This admission was almost as shocking as the accident itself.
As I was learning to wrestle, "smart" was not yet a trend - the big philosophical conflict was Old School (straight meat-and-potatoes wrestling with just enough gimmickry to flavor it) vs. New School (typified by the late-80s WWF; would you like a little wrestling with your gimmicks?) In those days, Pro Wrestling Illustrated
still maintained Top Ten "Most Popular" and "Most Hated" rankings for Babyfaces and Heels; in the early 90s, Apter abolished them in the face of wrestling's turn away from easily categorizable morality. In any case, I was lying on my bed, stiff, sore, and discouraged, wondering if Luscious Leslie might have ever cracked the PWI Top Ten Most Hated if I hadn't quit training, when the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Luscious! This is Dr. Squash - we're looking at your photos, and they're great! It's perfect - I've never seen anything so crazy! Look, brother, we're signed to do a three-month tour come April...it's gonna be promoted by Pepsi and the Osmond family. Fifty dates in the Southwest, and you're gonna work Willie The Clown. It'll be easy - he won't be stiff on you. You'll just have to run the killer fag gimmick..."
"Well, uh, gee, Doc..."
"I mean, Luscious! We wanna sign you for this tour - you'll be a Main Eventer,

One of Our Boys, and no matter what the gate is, you'll still get paid! You could make twenty thousand bucks in three months, dude!"
I sat there with my mouth hanging open for what seemed like several minutes.
"Luscious? You there?"
"Yeah, Doc. So...is this for real?"
"You know it, brother. Whattaya say?"
"Well...I guess it sounds like a pretty good incentive to get past the present pain."
"Ahhh, everyone has pain at first, Luscious, but you'll learn how to fall, and it gets easier. And on this tour, you'll be wrestling the Clown every night - we'll work it out so you don't get hurt. We just want you to primp and pose and cheat and run out of the ring and end up getting pinned by Willie."
"Sounds like fun, Doc." I was beginning to feel a resurgence of enthusiasm. "Hey, I've got an idea - after Willie pins me, I can throw some baby powder in his face and "blind' him...and we could call it "Luscious Leslie's Dreaded Fairy Dust.'"
"Freakin' fairy dust! That's great, Luscious! Oh my God - the marks are gonna hate your guts!"
"I'll do my best, boss."
"By the way, you gotta be ready to work in Nolensville." The Doc named a date that was eleven days off. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but somehow my back didn't hurt as badly.
"You've got a fag, Doc," I promised.
Of course, I still had to get through the next practice. And the one after that...

74

Lesson 6: The Wrath Of Joe

When I got back to the practice ring on Wednesday, and cautiously did a few shoulder rolls and forward flip bumps with no major trauma, it was hard to believe that my back had hurt so badly just a few days before. The deep muscle pain was still there, but within bearable levels. Gypsy and I continued our basic collar-and- elbow dance, and he added a few new standing moves. On the throws, I kept landing on my lower left back instead of distributing the impact evenly, and my elbows kept hitting at the slightly wrong angle on the backward bumps, but over-
all, I had improved a hundred percent. My endurance was another matter; after thirty minutes or so, I ran out of breath and energy ("got blowed up", as we say), and even Joe's good-natured mockery didn't help:
"Come on, chicken! Are you a sissy or what?"
Little did he know! Dr. Squash's admonition not to reveal my gimmick to Gypsy was a real handicap - I was positive that Joe could help me work out something simple, funny, and effective with Willie, if only he knew the score. But the Doc had told me that Gypsy hated gays, and wouldn't react well if I told him about Luscious
Leslie. As I rested, gasping for breath, I knew that I'd at least have to suck it up and tell "Daddy' that I was expected to wrestle the next weekend.
To break the ice, I decided to talk a little shop. "Hey, Joe, did you hear about Bruiser Brody?"
Bruiser, AKA "King Kong" Brody, a huge, bearded, wild-eyed charismatic brawler with a shining future before him, had recently been stabbed to death after

a card in Puerto Rico. The killer, Jose Gonzalez, was also a wrestler, as well as the local promoter, and claimed he had knifed Brody (who had just gotten out of the shower) in self-defense when the big man attacked him following an argument in the locker room.
"Yeah, I heard. That bastard will get off, too."
"You think so?"
"Sure, brother. That's how they do it in Puerto Rico. He killed Bruiser on purpose. Gonzalez is a no-good sonofabitch, but he has plenty of pull."
"Did you know Brody?"
Joe sucked on his lower lip and looked thoughtful. "Yeah, brother. I worked with him in Japan. He was a smart, funny guy."
"Did you ever wrestle in Puerto Rico?"
"Please, brother. I almost lived there for a while. It's a friggin' hellhole."
"You mean the workers are pretty stiff? I've seen pictures of some of those bloody matches between Carlos Colon and Abdullah the Butcher..."
"I mean the fans are friggin' crazy, brother. They'll kill you. I got hit by bricks, by bottles...once, I was comin' to the ring, and this stupid sonofabitch come runnin' up and jammed a fountain pen about halfway into my chest..."
"Jesus..."
"Yeah...me and Bruiser and Abdullah used to party together back then..."
"Cool! You know Abdullah?" I was impressed. "The Madman From The Sudan' was a nomad, and rarely stayed in one promotion for long, so I hadn't seen him work in a long time, but he was one of my favorite heels. Bald, grotesquely fat, with bulging maniac eyes and a forehead laced with hideous scars, "Abby" was not a

technician in the ring. He was like a walking tank, biting, clawing, employing forks, knives, brass knucks, chains, chairs, kendo sticks, and his own bulk to bring ruin to his foes. Blood was an inevitability in a match involving "The Butcher'; bleeding was essentially his personal gimmick. There was something authentically danger-
ous about him; it was easy to believe that Abdullah really was a sadistic madman.
"Please, brother. Of course I know him."
"What's he like? Is he really sort of a crazy kind of dude?"
"Don't be a mark, brother. He's a very, very intelligent man. He's got four or five college degrees."
"No kidding? That's wild. By the way, Gypsy, Dr. Squash wants me to wrestle Willie The Clown in Nolensville next Saturday..."
Joe rolled his eyes. "Squash..." he said disgustedly. "So what did you tell him?"
"I told him I'd do it."
"You'll be ridiculous, brother! You know it! You're gonna get hurt! And you're gonna hurt Willie! Dr. Squash is a fool, and if you wrestle Willie, so are you!"
"Maybe I am, Joe, but you're my trainer, so I had to hear from you, and find out if I had any chance at all."
"You got a chance, brother. A snowball's chance in hell!"
"Maybe hell will freeze over."
"Don't count on it, brother. You better come early on Friday. You need the friggin' practice."
On the way home, I debated phoning Squash and calling it off, but something inside me refused. Maybe I wasn't a wrestler yet, but I'd always been a showman, and I was determined that this show would go on.

77

Lesson 7: Zen & The Art Of Pro Wrestling

24 hours later, I found myself with my feet on the bottom rope, my hands on the top rope, in the corner turnbuckle where "Daddy' had positioned me, wonder-
ing why I found it so hard to do as he'd requested:
"Okay, brother - since you're nearly a friggin' pro now, this oughtta be easy for you; just do the forward somersault and land on your back, like you been doin' all this time."
My being on the first rope only added a foot or so to the distance I had to fall, but from the level of my eyes, it seemed more like five or six. My brain locked up my body and I remained motionless.
"I can't do it, Joe. It's too high."
"The hell it is. It's nothing."
"If I don't spin all the way over, I'll break my friggin' neck!"
"Well, goddamn, brother, you coulda broke your friggin' neck about nine hundred goddamn times already just doin' the regular forward bump!"
"This is different."
"Different my ass. This is just another bump.It's even easier than the regular one, "cuz you got more time before you hit."
"I don't want to lose your respect, Joe, but - "
"Screw my respect. You ain't doin' this for me, brother. I already know how to take the goddamn bump. You're doin' it for you."
I closed my eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and tensed myself to lunge off the rope. One... Two... Three!
Nothing happened.
78

"Well, what the hell are you waitin' for, brother? I told you what I wanted."
"Maybe I could work up to it, Da - , uh, Gypsy. Maybe we could practice something else for now, and come back to this later."
Gypsy was silent.
"Cut me a break, brother. Everyone has their limits."
"You're payin' me to teach you to wrestle. And right now, you're wastin' your friggin' money."
"I'd do if I could, Gypsy. I just can't."
"OK, brother. That's fine..."
I felt relieved until I heard the rest of it:
"...if you can't do it, we'll just go home."
Gypsy climbed out of the ring and walked away, leaving me there on the first rope of the corner buckle. I bit my lip til it bled, and my whole body trembled, but I still couldn't force myself to let go and take the bump.
After a few minutes, which seemed more like an hour, "Daddy' came back.
Cool, I thought. He's gonna let me work on something else...
"Look, brother," said Gypsy with infinite patience, "If you won't do what Joe tells you to do, I can't take your money. We're both just wastin' our time."
I hopped off the first rope, knowing it was over for the day, if not for all time. There was nothing else for me to say. It was sadly ironic - I wasn't hurting, and I didn't want to quit, not having made it this far past The Wall Of Pain, but I didn't feel like begging Joe to let me stay, either. So we silently left the ring, and drove off in our separate directions.

Earlier in the practice, Joe had been generally pissed off about Dr. Squash wanting me to work in Nolensville the following weekend, so the whole session had been frought with tension.
"Squash is crazy! The stupid sonofabitch! You'll look bad, and you'll get hurt -
you know in the bottom of your heart that you don't know nothin'! People'll see you work, and they'll say "who trained that fool?', and someone will say "Gypsy Joe', and that ain't gonna make me look good, brother!"
I didn't know how to respond to "Daddy'. Everything he'd had to say was completely accurate - I had roughly three hours of professional wrestling training under my belt, and here the Boss wanted to make me a main eventer. In many respects, it was like trying to turn a three-chord guitarist and half-assed singer into a rock star overnight, based solely on his appearance and charisma.
The thing is, I knew you can play plenty good rock and roll with three chords if you got the soul - just ask The Ramones. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I could use what I'd learned so far at Gypsy Joe's Wrestling School to put on an enter- taining bout, even if it wasn't a nominee for Pro Wrestling Illustrated's "Match Of The Year". Joe knew wrestling, but he didn't know me.
And yet I had my doubts. Especially now that I'd hit a new wall, one that wasn't predicated merely on physical pain, but on psychological uncertainty. The fact that I didn't necessarily have to take a bump off the second rope during my match with Willie didn't really have anything to do with it. There was fear in me, fear of falling, and for a wrestler, even a green one - especially a green one, that wasn't good.

When I got home, I called Dr. Squash, and told him what had gone down at the practice ring. He laughed, as if Gypsy's antics had been fairly typical.
"I know you can learn the stuff, Luscious. And I still want you to work in Nolensville - hell, the posters are already printed. Hey, brother, I'm on long distance here, so let me call you back tomorrow."
"But I don't know if Gypsy will let me keep training."
"Don't worry about "Daddy'. Just show up the next time you're supposed to."
I should have felt better, but I was still so pissed off at myself that I could have punched a wall. Not that there was any point to that - it wouldn't learn me the bump, or gain me any respect from Gypsy Joe.
This had all somehow suddenly gone beyond dabbling or research. My self-
respect was on the line.
I wondered - if I'd stayed just another minute, would I have done the Big Bump?
Or would I have stayed frozen on the ropes all afternoon?
In retrospect, Gypsy's attitude reminded me of a Zen Buddhist story I've always liked -
A young Buddhist monk grew weary of his Master's constant harassment; the poor monk never knew when the old bastard would leap out from nowhere, and start beating him with a long wooden staff. Finally, he got so fed up that he ran away to another monastery. When the head monk there asked why he'd abandoned his previous school, the young man replied that his former Master had forced him to become constantly vigilant, lest he be attacked by surprise. The head monk said:
"Return at once to your excellent Master, and thank him for his grandmotherly kindliness!"

I had to admit that Gypsy had been a perfect example of "grandmotherly kindli-
ness", and that I couldn't argue with his methods. Still, I felt humiliated, frustrated, and disgusted with myself.
It seemed to me that my remaining frozen on the ropes stood in the way of any real change in my life. Even if the Doc's plan to use me as basically comic relief worked out, I'd still have to learn this bump sometime. It wasn't going to go away.

Lesson 8: Free Falling

All the next day at work, I'd fumed over my failure in the ring the previous afternoon. After I got off, even though there was no session scheduled, I found my wheels turning in the direction of the practice shed. I'd decided that it would be better to try the Big Bump, fail, and break my neck, than to walk away now.
The sky was leaden, and light rain hung in the air as I parked and got out of the car, bringing only my elbow pads; I didn't have the inclination to change into "full armor."
I climbed through the ropes, pulled on my pads, and did some turnbuckle smashes, forward bumps, shoulder rolls, and a few backward falls, just to get loosened up.
Then I sprang up onto the first rope of the turnbuckle corner, took a deep breath, let it out, relaxed, and allowed myself to fall forward into a somersault.
To my surprise, when I landed on the splintery, roughly-carpeted plywood, despite the satisfyingly loud booming crash, there was even less pain than I usually

82

experienced from a standing position. Later, Gypsy would confirm my discovery by saying "Short bumps are the hardest, brother."
I did the Big Bump three more times, then my energy ran out. I'd had no real warmup, and there was definitely more pain without a jock strap and other "life support". The tips of my elbows were sore, and my lower belly ached dully from the impacts. The pain had been fading from my lower back, but at that moment, I was definitely hurting.
So, I thought, as I hobbled to my car, was this really a victory?
A minor one, maybe, but it wouldn't be complete until I could do the bump over and over with no hesitation. And hell - there were still the second and third ropes to fall from! Still, I figured it was a start, and would give me something to offer Joe as an incentive to keep training me.
I talked to Dr. Squash the next day, and he had little to say, other than that he wanted me to wrestle in Nolensville that coming Friday. "Get together with Willie, and work it out, brother." He told me to deal with "Daddy' as best I could, and that there was no time to get me some wrestling boots: "Just wear your sneakers, Luscious."
I wasn't worried about that. My pink-and-white striped legwarmers covered me from the tops of my tennis shoes to my knees, and gave a fairly convincing rasslin'-boot effect. I got Gypsy's and Willie's phone numbers from the Doc, and told him that I'd be in Nolensville with bells on - or at least spiked wristbands.
I called Joe first. "Hey, brother. It's Curt. I went back to the ring and did that bump. I want to keep training."

"Heyyyy! That's private property! You shouldn't have been there without me!"
"I know, Gypsy, and I'm sorry, brother, but I just had to prove to myself that I could do it."
"Well...okay. Look, brother, I wasn't mad at you - I just don't like to see one of my boys screwin' up."
"I understand, Joe. You were fair. By the way, the Doc says he needs to talk to you."
"Hey, he's okay...I ain't mad at him either. He just don't know as much as he thinks he does. You gonna be at the School today?"
He meant the three-walled garage with the splintery ring. I had to admit that it had been an educational environment like no other...
"I can't, Joe. My dad's bringing a bunch of my grandad's stuff back from Florida, and I told him I'd help unload the truck."
"Be there tomorrow! At five! Be there at five! We got a lot of work to do!"
"I'll be there, brother."

Lesson 9: The Gypsy Joe Scholarship

"Heyyy, brother - there must be somethin' wrong with you!"
"Why's that, Joe?"
"'Cause you're doin' pretty good today! Why were you so worried before?"

"I don't know, brother."
It was true, though. This had been my best practice so far. My basic falls were good, my holds and countermoves smooth, and I'd taken several letter-perfect Big Bumps off the first rope with no hesitation whatsoever.
"You're more relaxed, that's all. Hey, listen - I'm sorry about last time, but when you're in that ring, you can't tell the man that it's too high for you!"
"Yeah, Gypsy - I know."
"You don't, but you will!" cackled "Daddy'.
We didn't practice very long - it was awfully damn cold. I had surprisingly less pain in my back, but my right shoulder was seriously sore - my second Big Bump had been a little too relaxed, and I'd rolled hard on it. So both shoulders were now hurting, but at least the pain was symmetrical.
Gypsy asked: "So what's your deal with the Doc?"
"Well...I'm working some matches for him this month, maybe going on tour next month, if it works out..."
"I meant, what's your deal with him on training? Are you paying him, or what?"
"Hey, that's between you and me, Joe. By the way, I brought you some more money..."
Crumpled bills changed hands. "So, brother...how much does this make that you've paid me?"
"Uhh...let's see. This makes about two hundred and fifty, right?"
"Yeah. Look, brother - my daughter is graduating from high school next week, and I wanna get her somethin' nice. If you can come up with a hundred bucks by

next practice, we'll just call it even."
"You mean, you'll settle for three-fifty instead of five hundred?"
"Sure, if you can get it to me by next practice. Like I told you at first, if you'd taken a long time to train, I would have charged you even more, but you're doin' all right. Just get me a hundred, and we're straight."
"You'll still keep training me?"
Joe bit his lip and rolled his eyes. "Please, brother. I told you I'd teach you everything, didn't I? You callin' Joe a liar?"
"Christ, no...it's cool, brother. I'll have a hundred for you next time."
"Thanks, kid. Now get your ass back to work! You some kind of faggot or somethin'?"
I worked out for another half hour, then went home and called Wilton T. Smith, AKA Willie The Wrestling Clown, to arrange a practice session. We decided to get together at Gypsy's School the following day.

philosophy monthly

the ending of...

1690 Locke Civil Government
(in chapters)
Philosophy Monthly, in parts

Chapter X
Of the Forms of a Commonwealth

132. THE majority having, as has been showed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing, and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy; or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors, and then it is an oligarchy; or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy; if to him and his heirs, it is a hereditary monarchy; if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor, to return to them, an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again, when it is so reverted the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government; for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth.
133. By "commonwealth" I must be understood all along to mean not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community which the Latins signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language is "commonwealth," and most properly expresses such a society of men which "community" does not (for there may be subordinate communities in a government), and "city" much less. And therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word "commonwealth" in that sense, in which sense I find the word used by King James himself, which I think to be its genuine signification, which, if anybody dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.

Chapter XI
Of the Extent of the Legislative Power

134. THE great end of men's entering into society being the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, and the great instrument and means of that being the laws established in that society, the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power, as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the legislative. Itself is the preservation of the society and (as far as will consist with the public good) of every person in it. This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it. Nor can any edict of anybody else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed; for without this the law could not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the society, over whom nobody can have a power to make laws* but by their own consent and by authority received from them; and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power, and is directed by those laws which it enacts. Nor can any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power, discharge any member of the society from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their trust, nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws so enacted or farther than they do allow, it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the society which is not the supreme.
* "The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belonging so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate, of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise the same of himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made so." Hooker, ibid. 10.
"Of this point, therefore, we are to note that such men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded, we do consent when that society, whereof we be a part, hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement.
"Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by consent." Hooker, Ibid.
135. Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in being or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every commonwealth, yet, first, it is not, nor can possibly be, absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people. For it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person or assembly which is legislator, it can be no more than those persons had in a state of Nature before they entered into society, and gave it up to the community. For nobody can transfer to another more power than he has in himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another; and having, in the state of Nature, no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of Nature gave him for the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind, this is all he doth, or can give up to the commonwealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this. Their power in the utmost bounds of it is limited to the public good of the society.* It is a power that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects; the obligations of the law of Nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have, by human laws, known penalties annexed to them to enforce their observation. Thus the law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for, other men's actions must, as well as their own and other men's actions, be conformable to the law of Nature- i.e., to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of Nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good or valid against it.
* "Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one a natural inclination whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the other an order, expressly or secretly agreed upon, touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call the law of a commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regimen amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies are instituted. Unless they do this they are not perfect." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.
136. Secondly, the legislative or supreme authority cannot assume to itself a power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense justice and decide the rights of the subject by promulgated standing laws,* and known authorised judges. For the law of Nature being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but in the minds of men, they who, through passion or interest, shall miscite or misapply it, cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no established judge; and so it serves not as it aught, to determine the rights and fence the properties of those that live under it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and executioner of it too, and that in his own case; and he that has right on his side, having ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not force enough to defend himself from injuries or punish delinquents. To avoid these inconveniencies which disorder men's properties in the state of Nature, men unite into societies that they may have the united strength of the whole society to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bound it by which every one may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of Nature.
* "Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two- the law of God and the law of Nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iii. 9.
"To constrain men to anything inconvenient doth seem unreasonable." Ibid. i. 10.
137. Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of Nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their lives, liberties, and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so to do, to give any one or more an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon them; this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of Nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man or many in combination. Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases; he being in a much worse condition that is exposed to the arbitrary power of one man who has the command of a hundred thousand than he that is exposed to the arbitrary power of a hundred thousand single men, nobody being secure, that his will who has such a command is better than that of other men, though his force be a hundred thousand times stronger. And, therefore, whatever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions, for then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of Nature if they shall have armed one or a few men with the joint power of a multitude, to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment, unknown wills, without having any measures set down which may guide and justify their actions. For all the power the government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too, kept within their due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have in their hands to employ it to purposes, and by such measures as they would not have known, and own not willingly.
138. Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent. For the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that by entering into society which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own. Men, therefore, in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs, that nobody hath a right to take them, or any part of them, from them without their own consent; without this they have no property at all. For I have truly no property in that which another can by right take from me when he pleases against my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. This is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative consists wholly or in part in assemblies which are variable, whose members upon the dissolution of the assembly are subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest. But in governments where the legislative is in one lasting assembly, always in being, or in one man as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power by taking what they think fit from the people. For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow-subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good.
139. But government, into whosesoever hands it is put, being as I have before shown, entrusted with this condition, and for this end, that men might have and secure their properties, the prince or senate, however it may have power to make laws for the regulating of property between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never have a power to take to themselves the whole, or any part of the subjects' property, without their own consent; for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all. And to let us see that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is still limited by that reason and confined to those ends which required it in some cases to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of martial discipline. For the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole commonwealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see that neither the sergeant that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give him one penny of his money; nor the general that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or not obeying the most desperate orders, cannot yet with all his absolute power of life and death dispose of one farthing of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods; whom yet he can command anything, and hang for the least disobedience. Because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end for which the commander has his power- viz., the preservation of the rest, but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it.
140. It is true governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent- i.e., the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them; for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. For what property have I in that which another may by right take when he pleases to himself?
141. Fourthly. The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people have said, "We will submit, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms," nobody else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can they be bound by any laws but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen and authorised to make laws for them.
142. These are the bounds which the trust that is put in them by the society and the law of God and Nature have set to the legislative power of every commonwealth, in all forms of government. First: They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at Court, and the countryman at plough. Secondly: These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the people. Thirdly: They must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people given by themselves or their deputies. And this properly concerns only such governments where the legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have not reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time chosen by themselves. Fourthly: Legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it anywhere but where the people have.

Chapter XII
The Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Commonwealth

143. THE legislative power is that which has a right to direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it. Because those laws which are constantly to be executed, and whose force is always to continue, may be made in a little time, therefore there is no need that the legislative should be always in being, not having always business to do. And because it may be too great temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons who have the power of making laws to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society and government. Therefore in well-ordered commonwealths, where the good of the whole is so considered as it ought, the legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons who, duly assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them to take care that they make them for the public good.
144. But because the laws that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution, or an attendance thereunto, therefore it is necessary there should be a power always in being which should see to the execution of the laws that are made, and remain in force. And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated.
145. There is another power in every commonwealth which one may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man naturally had before he entered into society. For though in a commonwealth the members of it are distinct persons, still, in reference to one another, and, as such, are governed by the laws of the society, yet, in reference to the rest of mankind, they make one body, which is, as every member of it before was, still in the state of Nature with the rest of mankind, so that the controversies that happen between any man of the society with those that are out of it are managed by the public, and an injury done to a member of their body engages the whole in the reparation of it. So that under this consideration the whole community is one body in the state of Nature in respect of all other states or persons out of its community.
146. This, therefore, contains the power of war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions with all persons and communities without the commonwealth, and may be called federative if any one pleases. So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the name.
147. These two powers, executive and federative, though they be really distinct in themselves, yet one comprehending the execution of the municipal laws of the society within itself upon all that are parts of it, the other the management of the security and interest of the public without with all those that it may receive benefit or damage from, yet they are always almost united. And though this federative power in the well or ill management of it be of great moment to the commonwealth, yet it is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positive laws than the executive, and so must necessarily be left to the prudence and wisdom of those whose hands it is in, to be managed for the public good. For the laws that concern subjects one amongst another, being to direct their actions, may well enough precede them. But what is to be done in reference to foreigners depending much upon their actions, and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the prudence of those who have this power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their skill for the advantage of the commonwealth.
148. Though, as I said, the executive and federative power of every community be really distinct in themselves, yet they are hardly to be separated and placed at the same time in the hands of distinct persons. For both of them requiring the force of the society for their exercise, it is almost impracticable to place the force of the commonwealth in distinct and not subordinate hands, or that the executive and federative power should be placed in persons that might act separately, whereby the force of the public would be under different commands, which would be apt some time or other to cause disorder and ruin.

Chapter XIII
Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth

149. THOUGH in a constituted commonwealth standing upon its own basis and acting according to its own nature- that is, acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given with trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject. For no man or society of men having a power to deliver up their preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of another, whenever any one shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation for which they entered into society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people can never take place till the government be dissolved.
150. In all cases whilst the government subsists, the legislative is the supreme power. For what can give laws to another must needs be superior to him, and since the legislative is no otherwise legislative of the society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts, and every member of the society prescribing rules to their actions, they are transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other powers in any members or parts of the society derived from and subordinate to it.
151. In some commonwealths where the legislative is not always in being, and the executive is vested in a single person who has also a share in the legislative, there that single person, in a very tolerable sense, may also be called supreme; not that he has in himself all the supreme power, which is that of law-making, but because he has in him the supreme execution from whom all inferior magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, or, at least, the greatest part of them; having also no legislative superior to him, there being no law to be made without his consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the other part of the legislative, he is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be observed that though oaths of allegiance and fealty are taken to him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, but as supreme executor of the law made by a joint power of him with others, allegiance being nothing but an obedience according to law, which, when he violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise than as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so is to be considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the commonwealth, acted by the will of the society declared in its laws, and thus he has no will, no power, but that of the law. But when he quits this representation, this public will, and acts by his own private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private person without power and without will; the members owing no obedience but to the public will of the society.
152. The executive power placed anywhere but in a person that has also a share in the legislative is visibly subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced; so that it is not the supreme executive power that is exempt from subordination, but the supreme executive power vested in one, who having a share in the legislative, has no distinct superior legislative to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and consent, so that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth we need not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in the different customs and constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus much which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of concerning them, that they have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them, and are all of them accountable to some other power in the commonwealth.
153. It is not necessary- no, nor so much as convenient- that the legislative should be always in being; but absolutely necessary that the executive power should, because there is not always need of new laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made. When the legislative hath put the execution of the laws they make into other hands, they have a power still to resume it out of those hands when they find cause, and to punish for any mal-administration against the laws. The same holds also in regard of the federative power, that and the executive being both ministerial and subordinate to the legislative, which, as has been shown, in a constituted commonwealth is the supreme, the legislative also in this case being supposed to consist of several persons; for if it be a single person it cannot but be always in being, and so will, as supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the legislative, may assemble and exercise their legislative at the times that either their original constitution or their own adjournment appoints, or when they please, if neither of these hath appointed any time, or there be no other way prescribed to convoke them. For the supreme power being placed in them by the people, it is always in them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time, and when that time comes they have a right to assemble and act again.
154. If the legislative, or any part of it, be of representatives, chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislative but upon a new choice, this power of choosing must also be exercised by the people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else when they are summoned to it; and, in this latter case, the power of convoking the legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has one of these two limitations in respect of time:- that either the original constitution requires their assembling and acting at certain intervals; and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially issue directions for their electing and assembling according to due forms; or else it is left to his prudence to call them by new elections when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the amendment of old or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of any inconveniencies that lie on or threaten the people.
155. It may be demanded here, what if the executive power, being possessed of the force of the commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original constitution or the public exigencies require it? I say, using force upon the people, without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power. For having erected a legislative with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly.
156. The power of assembling and dismissing the legislative, placed in the executive, gives not the executive a superiority over it, but is a fiduciary trust placed in him for the safety of the people in a case where the uncertainty and variableness of human affairs could not bear a steady fixed rule. For it not being possible that the first framers of the government should by any foresight be so much masters of future events as to be able to prefix so just periods of return and duration to the assemblies of the legislative, in all times to come, that might exactly answer all the exigencies of the commonwealth, the best remedy could be found for this defect was to trust this to the prudence of one who was always to be present, and whose business it was to watch over the public good. Constant, frequent meetings of the legislative, and long continuations of their assemblies, without necessary occasion, could not but be burdensome to the people, and must necessarily in time produce more dangerous inconveniencies, and yet the quick turn of affairs might be sometimes such as to need their present help; any delay of their convening might endanger the public; and sometimes, too, their business might be so great that the limited time of their sitting might be too short for their work, and rob the public of that benefit which could be had only from their mature deliberation. What, then, could be done in this case to prevent the community from being exposed some time or other to imminent hazard on one side or the other, by fixed intervals and periods set to the meeting and acting of the legislative, but to entrust it to the prudence of some who, being present and acquainted with the state of public affairs, might make use of this prerogative for the public good? And where else could this be so well placed as in his hands who was entrusted with the execution of the laws for the same end? Thus, supposing the regulation of times for the assembling and sitting of the legislative not settled by the original constitution, it naturally fell into the hands of the executive; not as an arbitrary power depending on his good pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only for the public weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs might require. Whether settled periods of their convening, or a liberty left to the prince for convoking the legislative, or perhaps a mixture of both, hath the least inconvenience attending it, it is not my business here to inquire, but only to show that, though the executive power may have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving such conventions of the legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it.
157. Things of this world are in so constant a flux that nothing remains long in the same state. Thus people, riches, trade, power, change their stations; flourishing mighty cities come to ruin, and prove in time neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow into populous countries filled with wealth and inhabitants. But things not always changing equally, and private interest often keeping up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are ceased, it often comes to pass that in governments where part of the legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people, that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To what gross absurdities the following of custom when reason has left it may lead, we may be satisfied when we see the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, send as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy; though most think it hard to find one, because the constitution of the legislative being the original and supreme act of the society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no inferior power can alter it. And, therefore, the people when the legislative is once constituted, having in such a government as we have been speaking of no power to act as long as the government stands, this inconvenience is thought incapable of a remedy.
158. Salus populi suprema lex is certainly so just and fundamental a rule, that he who sincerely follows it cannot dangerously err. If, therefore, the executive who has the power of convoking the legislative, observing rather the true proportion than fashion of representation, regulates not by old custom, but true reason, the number of members in all places, that have a right to be distinctly represented, which no part of the people, however incorporated, can pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance which it affords to the public, it cannot be judged to have set up a new legislative, but to have restored the old and true one, and to have rectified the disorders which succession of time had insensibly as well as inevitably introduced; for it being the interest as well as intention of the people to have a fair and equal representative, whoever brings it nearest to that is an undoubted friend to and establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and approbation of the community; prerogative being nothing but a power in the hands of the prince to provide for the public good in such cases which, depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain and unalterable laws could not safely direct. Whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good of the people, and establishing the government upon its true foundations is, and always will be, just prerogative. The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new representatives, carries with it a supposition that in time the measures of representation might vary, and those have a just right to be represented which before had none; and by the same reason, those cease to have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a privilege, which before had it. It is not a change from the present state which, perhaps, corruption or decay has introduced, that makes an inroad upon the government, but the tendency of it to injure or oppress the people, and to set up one part or party with a distinction from and an unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the society and people in general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done, justify itself; and whenever the people shall choose their representatives upon just and undeniably equal measures, suitable to the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will and act of the society, whoever permitted or proposed to them so to do.

Chapter XIV
Of Prerogative

159. WHERE the legislative and executive power are in distinct hands, as they are in all moderated monarchies and well-framed governments, there the good of the society requires that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power. For the legislators not being able to foresee and provide by laws for all that may be useful to the community, the executor of the laws, having the power in his hands, has by the common law of Nature a right to make use of it for the good of the society, in many cases where the municipal law has given no direction, till the legislative can conveniently be assembled to provide for it; nay, many things there are which the law can by no means provide for, and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require; nay, it is fit that the laws themselves should in some cases give way to the executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of Nature and government- viz., that as much as may be all the members of the society are to be preserved. For since many accidents may happen wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm, as not to pull down an innocent man's house to stop the fire when the next to it is burning; and a man may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which makes no distinction of persons, by an action that may deserve reward and pardon; it is fit the ruler should have a power in many cases to mitigate the severity of the law, and pardon some offenders, since the end of government being the preservation of all as much as may be, even the guilty are to be spared where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent.
160. This power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it, is that which is called prerogative; for since in some governments the law-making power is not always in being and is usually too numerous, and so too slow for the dispatch requisite to execution, and because, also, it is impossible to foresee and so by laws to provide for all accidents and necessities that may concern the public, or make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an inflexible rigour on all occasions and upon all persons that may come in their way, therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe.
161. This power, whilst employed for the benefit of the community and suitably to the trust and ends of the government, is undoubted prerogative, and never is questioned. For the people are very seldom or never scrupulous or nice in the point or questioning of prerogative whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant- that is, the good of the people, and not manifestly against it. But if there comes to be a question between the executive power and the people about a thing claimed as a prerogative, the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative, to the good or hurt of the people, will easily decide that question.
162. It is easy to conceive that in the infancy of governments, when commonwealths differed little from families in number of people, they differed from them too but little in number of laws; and the governors being as the fathers of them, watching over them for their good, the government was almost all prerogative. A few established laws served the turn, and the discretion and care of the ruler suppled the rest. But when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes, to make use of this power for private ends of their own and not for the public good, the people were fain, by express laws, to get prerogative determined in those points wherein they found disadvantage from it, and declared limitations of prerogative in those cases which they and their ancestors had left in the utmost latitude to the wisdom of those princes who made no other but a right use of it- that is, for the good of their people.
163. And therefore they have a very wrong notion of government who say that the people have encroached upon the prerogative when they have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws. For in so doing they have not pulled from the prince anything that of right belonged to him, but only declared that that power which they indefinitely left in his or his ancestors' hands, to be exercised for their good, was not a thing they intended him, when he used it otherwise. For the end of government being the good of the community, whatsoever alterations are made in it tending to that end cannot be an encroachment upon anybody; since nobody in government can have a right tending to any other end; and those only are encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good. Those who say otherwise speak as if the prince had a distinct and separate interest from the good of the community, and was not made for it; the root and source from which spring almost all those evils and disorders which happen in kingly governments. And indeed, if that be so, the people under his government are not a society of rational creatures, entered into a community for their mutual good, such as have set rulers over themselves, to guard and promote that good; but are to be looked on as a herd of inferior creatures under the dominion of a master, who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or profit. If men were so void of reason and brutish as to enter into society upon such terms, prerogative might indeed be, what some men would have it, an arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people.
164. But since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when free, to put himself into subjection to another for his own harm (though where he finds a good and a wise ruler he may not, perhaps, think it either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all things), prerogative can be nothing but the people's permitting their rulers to do several things of their own free choice where the law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law, for the public good and their acquiescing in it when so done. For as a good prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands and careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much prerogative- that is, power to do good, so a weak and ill prince, who would claim that power his predecessors exercised, without the direction of the law, as a prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which he may exercise at his pleasure to make or promote an interest distinct from that of the public, gives the people an occasion to claim their right and limit that power, which, whilst it was exercised for their good, they were content should be tacitly allowed.
165. And therefore he that will look into the history of England will find that prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best princes, because the people observing the whole tendency of their actions to be the public good, or if any human frailty or mistake (for princes are but men, made as others) appeared in some small declinations from that end, yet it was visible the main of their conduct tended to nothing but the care of the public. The people, therefore, finding reason to be satisfied with these princes, whenever they acted without, or contrary to the letter of the law, acquiesced in what they did, and without the least complaint, let them enlarge their prerogative as they pleased, judging rightly that they did nothing herein to the prejudice of their laws, since they acted conformably to the foundation and end of all laws- the public good.
166. Such God-like princes, indeed, had some title to arbitrary power by that argument that would prove absolute monarchy the best government, as that which God Himself governs the universe by, because such kings partake of His wisdom and goodness. Upon this is founded that saying, "That the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people." For when their successors, managing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent and make them the standard of their prerogative- as if what had been done only for the good of the people was a right in them to do for the harm of the people, if they so pleased- it has often occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, before the people could recover their original right and get that to be declared not to be prerogative which truly was never so; since it is impossible anybody in the society should ever have a right to do the people harm, though it be very possible and reasonable that the people should not go about to set any bounds to the prerogative of those kings or rulers who themselves transgressed not the bounds of the public good. For "prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good without a rule."
167. The power of calling parliaments in England, as to precise time, place, and duration, is certainly a prerogative of the king, but still with this trust, that it shall be made use of for the good of the nation as the exigencies of the times and variety of occasion shall require. For it being impossible to foresee which should always be the fittest place for them to assemble in, and what the best season, the choice of these was left with the executive power, as might be best subservient to the public good and best suit the ends of parliament.
168. The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, "But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of?" I answer: Between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth. As there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them, the people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to Heaven; for the rulers in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, who can never be supposed to consent that anybody should rule over them for their harm, do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, are deprived of their right, or are under the exercise of a power without right, having no appeal on earth they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power to determine and give effective sentence in the case, yet they have reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to Heaven. And this judgement they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and Nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself as to neglect his own preservation. And since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not till the inconvenience is so great that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. And this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the danger of; and it is the thing of all others they have most need to avoid, as, of all others, the most perilous.

Chapter XV
Of Paternal, Political and Despotical Power,
Considered Together

169. THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these separately before, yet the great mistakes of late about government having, as I suppose, arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another, it may not perhaps be amiss to consider them here together.
170. First, then, paternal or parental power is nothing but that which parents have over their children to govern them, for the children's good, till they come to the use of reason, or a state of knowledge, wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that rule, whether it be the law of Nature or the municipal law of their country, they are to govern themselves by- capable, I say, to know it, as well as several others, who live as free men under that law. The affection and tenderness God hath planted in the breasts of parents towards their children makes it evident that this is not intended to be a severe arbitrary government, but only for the help, instruction, and preservation of their offspring. But happen as it will, there is, as I have proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death, at any time, over their children, more than over anybody else, or keep the child in subjection to the will of his parents when grown to a man and the perfect use of reason, any farther than as having received life and education from his parents obliges him to respect, honour, gratitude, assistance, and support, all his life, to both father and mother. And thus, it is true, the paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only in his own disposing.
171. Secondly, political power is that power which every man having in the state of Nature has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good and the preservation of their property. Now this power, which every man has in the state of Nature, and which he parts with to the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to use such means for the preserving of his own property as he thinks good and Nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of Nature in others so as (according to the best of his reason) may most conduce to the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind; so that the end and measure of this power, when in every man's hands, in the state of Nature, being the preservation of all of his society- that is, all mankind in general- it can have no other end or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions, and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt that they threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful. And this power has its original only from compact and agreement and the mutual consent of those who make up the community.
172. Thirdly, despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases; and this is a power which neither Nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another, nor compact can convey. For man, not having such an arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another man such a power over it, but it is the effect only of forfeiture which the aggressor makes of his own life when he puts himself into the state of war with another. For having quitted reason, which God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the peaceable ways which that teaches, and made use of force to compass his unjust ends upon another where he has no right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by his adversary whenever he can, as any other noxious and brutish creature that is destructive to his being. And thus captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued. For what compact can be made with a man that is not master of his own life? What condition can he perform? And if he be once allowed to be master of his own life, the despotical, arbitrary power of his master ceases. He that is master of himself and his own life has a right, too, to the means of preserving it; so that as soon as compact enters, slavery ceases, and he so far quits his absolute power and puts an end to the state of war who enters into conditions with his captive.
173. Nature gives the first of these- viz., paternal power to parents for the benefit of their children during their minority, to supply their want of ability and understanding how to manage their property. (By property I must be understood here, as in other places, to mean that property which men have in their persons as well as goods.) Voluntary agreement gives the second- viz., political power to governors, for the benefit of their subjects, to secure them in the possession and use of their properties. And forfeiture gives the third- despotical power to lords for their own benefit over those who are stripped of all property.
174. He that shall consider the distinct rise and extent, and the different ends of these several powers, will plainly see that paternal power comes as far short of that of the magistrate as despotical exceeds it; and that absolute dominion, however placed, is so far from being one kind of civil society that it is as inconsistent with it as slavery is with property. Paternal power is only where minority makes the child incapable to manage his property; political where men have property in their own disposal; and despotical over such as have no property at all.

Chapter XVI
Of Conquest

175. THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on anything but the consent of the people, yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of; and, therefore, many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.
176. That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain. The title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession which should punish offenders. What is my remedy against a robber that so broke into my house? Appeal to the law for justice. But perhaps justice is denied, or I am crippled and cannot stir; robbed, and have not the means to do it. If God has taken away all means of seeking remedy, there is nothing left but patience. But my son, when able, may seek the relief of the law, which I am denied; he or his son may renew his appeal till he recover his right. But the conquered, or their children, have no court- no arbitrator on earth to appeal to. Then they may appeal, as Jephtha did, to Heaven, and repeat their appeal till they have recovered the native right of their ancestors, which was to have such a legislative over them as the majority should approve and freely acquiesce in. If it be objected this would cause endless trouble, I answer, no more than justice does, where she lies open to all that appeal to her. He that troubles his neighbour without a cause is punished for it by the justice of the court he appeals to. And he that appeals to Heaven must be sure he has right on his side, and a right, too, that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal, as he will answer at a tribunal that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to retribute to every one according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow-subjects- that is, any part of mankind. From whence it is plain that he that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered.
177. But supposing victory favours the right side, let us consider a conqueror in a lawful war, and see what power he gets, and over whom.
First, it is plain he gets no power by his conquest over those that conquered with him. They that fought on his side cannot suffer by the conquest, but must, at least, be as much free men as they were before. And most commonly they serve upon terms, and on condition to share with their leader, and enjoy a part of the spoil and other advantages that attend the conquering sword, or, at least, have a part of the subdued country bestowed upon them. And the conquering people are not, I hope, to be slaves by conquest, and wear their laurels only to show they are sacrifices to their leader's triumph. They that found absolute monarchy upon the title of the sword make their heroes, who are the founders of such monarchies, arrant "draw-can-sirs," and forget they had any officers and soldiers that fought on their side in the battles they won, or assisted them in the subduing, or shared in possessing the countries they mastered. We are told by some that the English monarchy is founded in the Norman Conquest, and that our princes have thereby a title to absolute dominion, which, if it were true (as by the history it appears otherwise), and that William had a right to make war on this island, yet his dominion by conquest could reach no farther than to the Saxons and Britons that were then inhabitants of this country. The Normans that came with him and helped to conquer, and all descended from them, are free men and no subjects by conquest, let that give what dominion it will. And if I or anybody else shall claim freedom as derived from them, it will be very hard to prove the contrary; and it is plain, the law that has made no distinction between the one and the other intends not there should be any difference in their freedom or privileges.
178. But supposing, which seldom happens, that the conquerors and conquered never incorporate into one people under the same laws and freedom; let us see next what power a lawful conqueror has over the subdued, and that I say is purely despotical. He has an absolute power over the lives of those who, by an unjust war, have forfeited them, but not over the lives or fortunes of those who engaged not in the war, nor over the possessions even of those who were actually engaged in it.
179. Secondly, I say, then, the conqueror gets no power but only over those who have actually assisted, concurred, or consented to that unjust force that is used against him. For the people having given to their governors no power to do an unjust thing, such as is to make an unjust war (for they never had such a power in themselves), they ought not to be charged as guilty of the violence and injustice that is committed in an unjust war any farther than they actually abet it, no more than they are to be thought guilty of any violence or oppression their governors should use upon the people themselves or any part of their fellow-subjects, they having empowered them no more to the one than to the other. Conquerors, it is true, seldom trouble themselves to make the distinction, but they willingly permit the confusion of war to sweep all together; but yet this alters not the right; for the conqueror's power over the lives of the conquered being only because they have used force to do or maintain an injustice, he can have that power only over those who have concurred in that force; all the rest are innocent, and he has no more title over the people of that country who have done him no injury, and so have made no forfeiture of their lives, than he has over any other who, without any injuries or provocations, have lived upon fair terms with him.
180. Thirdly, the power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes in a just war is perfectly despotical; he has an absolute power over the lives of those who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have forfeited them, but he has not thereby a right and title to their possessions. This I doubt not but at first sight will seem a strange doctrine, it being so quite contrary to the practice of the world; there being nothing more familiar in speaking of the dominion of countries than to say such an one conquered it, as if conquest, without any more ado, conveyed a right of possession. But when we consider that the practice of the strong and powerful, how universal soever it may be, is seldom the rule of right, however it be one part of the subjection of the conquered not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by the conquering swords.
181. Though in all war there be usually a complication of force and damage, and the aggressor seldom fails to harm the estate when he uses force against the persons of those he makes war upon, yet it is the use of force only that puts a man into the state of war. For whether by force he begins the injury, or else having quietly and by fraud done the injury, he refuses to make reparation, and by force maintains it, which is the same thing as at first to have done it by force; it is the unjust use of force that makes the war. For he that breaks open my house and violently turns me out of doors, or having peaceably got in, by force keeps me out, does, in effect, the same thing; supposing we are in such a state that we have no common judge on earth whom I may appeal to, and to whom we are both obliged to submit, for of such I am now speaking. It is the unjust use of force, then, that puts a man into the state of war with another, and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of his life. For quitting reason, which is the rule given between man and man, and using force, the way of beasts, he becomes liable to be destroyed by him he uses force against, as any savage ravenous beast that is dangerous to his being.
182. But because the miscarriages of the father are no faults of the children, who may be rational and peaceable, notwithstanding the brutishness and injustice of the father, the father, by his miscarriages and violence, can forfeit but his own life, and involves not his children in his guilt or destruction. His goods which Nature, that willeth the preservation of all mankind as much as is possible, hath made to belong to the children to keep them from perishing, do still continue to belong to his children. For supposing them not to have joined in the war either through infancy or choice, they have done nothing to forfeit them, nor has the conqueror any right to take them away by the bare right of having subdued him that by force attempted his destruction, though, perhaps, he may have some right to them to repair the damages he has sustained by the war, and the defence of his own right, which how far it reaches to the possessions of the conquered we shall see by-and-by; so that he that by conquest has a right over a man's person, to destroy him if he pleases, has not thereby a right over his estate to possess and enjoy it. For it is the brutal force the aggressor has used that gives his adversary a right to take away his life and destroy him, if he pleases, as a noxious creature; but it is damage sustained that alone gives him title to another man's goods; for though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take away his money and let him go; this would be robbery on my side. His force, and the state of war he put himself in, made him forfeit his life, but gave me no title to his goods. The right, then, of conquest extends only to the lives of those who joined in the war, but not to their estates, but only in order to make reparation for the damages received and the charges of the war, and that, too, with reservation of the right of the innocent wife and children.
183. Let the conqueror have as much justice on his side as could be supposed, he has no right to seize more than the vanquished could forfeit; his life is at the victor's mercy, and his service and goods he may appropriate to make himself reparation; but he cannot take the goods of his wife and children, they too had a title to the goods he enjoyed, and their shares in the estate he possessed. For example, I in the state of Nature (and all commonwealths are in the state of Nature one with another) have injured another man, and refusing to give satisfaction, it is come to a state of war wherein my defending by force what I had gotten unjustly makes me the aggressor. I am conquered; my life, it is true, as forfeit, is at mercy, but not my wife's and children's. They made not the war, nor assisted in it. I could not forfeit their lives, they were not mine to forfeit. My wife had a share in my estate, that neither could I forfeit. And my children also, being born of me, had a right to be maintained out of my labour or substance. Here then is the case: The conqueror has a title to reparation for damages received, and the children have a title to their father's estate for their subsistence. For as to the wife's share, whether her own labour or compact gave her a title to it, it is plain her husband could not forfeit what was hers. What must be done in the case? I answer: The fundamental law of Nature being that all, as much as may be, should be preserved, it follows that if there be not enough fully to satisfy both- viz., for the conqueror's losses and children's maintenance, he that hath and to spare must remit something of his full satisfaction, and give way to the pressing and preferable title of those who are in danger to perish without it.
184. But supposing the charge and damages of the war are to be made up to the conqueror to the utmost farthing, and that the children of the vanquished, spoiled of all their father's goods, are to be left to starve and perish, yet the satisfying of what shall, on this score, be due to the conqueror will scarce give him a title to any country he shall conquer. For the damages of war can scarce amount to the value of any considerable tract of land in any part of the world, where all the land is possessed, and none lies waste. And if I have not taken away the conqueror's land which, being vanquished, it is impossible I should, scarce any other spoil I have done him can amount to the value of mine, supposing it of an extent any way coming near what I had overrun of his, and equally cultivated too. The destruction of a year's product or two (for it seldom reaches four or five) is the utmost spoil that usually can be done. For as to money, and such riches and treasure taken away, these are none of Nature's goods, they have but a phantastical imaginary value; Nature has put no such upon them. They are of no more account by her standard than the Wampompeke of the Americans to an European prince, or the silver money of Europe would have been formerly to an American. And five years' product is not worth the perpetual inheritance of land, where all is possessed and none remains waste, to be taken up by him that is disseised, which will be easily granted, if one do but take away the imaginary value of money, the disproportion being more than between five and five thousand; though, at the same time, half a year's product is more worth than the inheritance where, there being more land than the inhabitants possess and make use of, any one has liberty to make use of the waste. But their conquerors take little care to possess themselves of the lands of the vanquished. No damage therefore that men in the state of Nature (as all princes and governments are in reference to one another) suffer from one another can give a conqueror power to dispossess the posterity of the vanquished, and turn them out of that inheritance which ought to be the possession of them and their descendants to all generations. The conqueror indeed will be apt to think himself master; and it is the very condition of the subdued not to be able to dispute their right. But, if that be all, it gives no other title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker; and, by this reason, he that is strongest will have a right to whatever he pleases to seize on.
185. Over those, then, that joined with him in the war, and over those of the subdued country that opposed him not, and the posterity even of those that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his conquest, no right of dominion. They are free from any subjection to him, and if their former government be dissolved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves.
186. The conqueror, it is true, usually by the force he has over them, compels them, with a sword at their breasts, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them; but the inquiry is, what right he has to do so? If it be said they submit by their own consent, then this allows their own consent to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them. It remains only to be considered whether promises, extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, and how far they bind. To which I shall say, they bind not at all; because whatsoever another gets from me by force, I still retain the right of, and he is obliged presently to restore. He that forces my horse from me ought presently to restore him, and I have still a right to retake him. By the same reason, he that forced a promise from me ought presently to restore it- i.e., quit me of the obligation of it; or I may resume it myself- i.e., choose whether I will perform it. For the law of Nature laying an obligation on me, only by the rules she prescribes, cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules; such is the extorting anything from me by force. Nor does it at all alter the case, to say I gave my promise, no more than it excuses the force, and passes the right, when I put my hand in my pocket and deliver my purse myself to a thief who demands it with a pistol at my breast.
187. From all which it follows that the government of a conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against whom he had no right of war, or who joined not in the war against him, where he had right, has no obligation upon them.
188. But let us suppose that all the men of that community being all members of the same body politic, may be taken to have joined in that unjust war, wherein they are subdued, and so their lives are at the mercy of the conqueror.
189. I say this concerns not their children who are in their minority. For since a father hath not, in himself, a power over the life or liberty of his child, no act of his can possibly forfeit it; so that the children, whatever may have happened to the fathers, are free men, and the absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the persons of the men that were subdued by him, and dies with them; and should he govern them as slaves, subjected to his absolute, arbitrary power, he has no such right of dominion over their children. He can have no power over them but by their own consent, whatever he may drive them to say or do, and he has no lawful authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels them to submission.
190. Every man is born with a double right. First, a right of freedom to his person, which no other man has a power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself. Secondly, a right before any other man, to inherit, with his brethren, his father's goods.
191. By the first of these, a man is naturally free from subjection to any government, though he be born in a place under its jurisdiction. But if he disclaim the lawful government of the country he was born in, he must also quit the right that belonged to him, by the laws of it, and the possessions there descending to him from his ancestors, if it were a government made by their consent.
192. By the second, the inhabitants of any country, who are descended and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued, and had a government forced upon them, against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors, though they consent not freely to the government, whose hard conditions were, by force, imposed on the possessors of that country. For the first conqueror never having had a title to the land of that country, the people, who are the descendants of, or claim under those who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint, have always a right to shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny the sword hath brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of government as they willingly and of choice consent to (which they can never be supposed to do, till either they are put in a full state of liberty to choose their government and governors, or at least till they have such standing laws to which they have, by themselves or their representatives, given their free consent, and also till they are allowed their due property, which is so to be proprietors of what they have that nobody can take away any part of it without their own consent, without which, men under any government are not in the state of free men, but are direct slaves under the force of war). And who doubts but the Grecian Christians, descendants of the ancient possessors of that country, may justly cast off the Turkish yoke they have so long groaned under, whenever they have a power to do it?
193. But granting that the conqueror, in a just war, has a right to the estates, as well as power over the persons of the conquered, which, it is plain, he hath not, nothing of absolute power will follow from hence in the continuance of the government. Because the descendants of these being all free men, if he grants them estates and possessions to inhabit his country, without which it would be worth nothing, whatsoever he grants them they have so far as it is granted property in; the nature whereof is, that, without a man's own consent, it cannot be taken from him.
194. Their persons are free by a native right, and their properties, be they more or less, are their own, and at their own dispose, and not at his; or else it is no property. Supposing the conqueror gives to one man a thousand acres, to him and his heirs for ever; to another he lets a thousand acres, for his life, under the rent of L50 or L500 per annum. Has not the one of these a right to his thousand acres for ever, and the other during his life, paying the said rent? And hath not the tenant for life a property in all that he gets over and above his rent, by his labour and industry, during the said term, supposing it be double the rent? Can any one say, the king, or conqueror, after his grant, may, by his power of conqueror, take away all, or part of the land, from the heirs of one, or from the other during his life, he paying the rent? Or, can he take away from either the goods or money they have got upon the said land at his pleasure? If he can, then all free and voluntary contracts cease, and are void in the world; there needs nothing but power enough to dissolve them at any time, and all the grants and promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion. For can there be anything more ridiculous than to say, I give you and yours this for ever, and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised, and yet it is to be understood that I have right, if I please, to take it away from you again to-morrow?
195. I will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the laws of their country, but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the laws of God and Nature. Nobody, no power can exempt them from the obligations of that eternal law. Those are so great and so strong in the case of promises, that Omnipotency itself can be tied by them. Grants, promises, and oaths are bonds that hold the Almighty, whatever some flatterers say to princes of the world, who, all together, with all their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great God, but as a drop of the bucket, or a dust on the balance- inconsiderable, nothing!
196. The short of the case in conquest, is this: The conqueror, if he have a just cause, has a despotical right over the persons of all that actually aided and concurred in the war against him, and a right to make up his damage and cost out of their labour and estates, so he injure not the right of any other. Over the rest of the people, if there were any that consented not to the war, and over the children of the captives themselves or the possessions of either he has no power, and so can have, by virtue of conquest, no lawful title himself to dominion over them, or derive it to his posterity; but is an aggressor, and puts himself in a state of war against them, and has no better a right of principality, he, nor any of his successors, than Hingar, or Hubba, the Danes, had here in England, or Spartacus, had be conquered Italy, which is to have their yoke cast off as soon as God shall give those under their subjection courage and opportunity to do it. Thus, notwithstanding whatever title the kings of Assyria had over Judah, by the sword, God assisted Hezekiah to throw off the dominion of that conquering empire. "And the Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered; wherefore he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not" (II Kings 18. 7). Whence it is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it hath the name of rebellion, yet is no offence before God, but that which He allows and countenances, though even promises and covenants, when obtained by force, have intervened. For it is very probable, to any one that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah attentively, that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz, and deposed him, and made Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime, and that Hezekiah, by agreement, had done him homage, and paid him tribute till this time.

Chapter XVII
Of Usurpation

197. As conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference- that an usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation but where one is got into the possession of what another has right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government; for if the usurper extend his power beyond what, of right, belonged to the lawful princes or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.
198. In all lawful governments the designation of the persons who are to bear rule being as natural and necessary a part as the form of the government itself, and that which had its establishment originally from the people- the anarchy being much alike, to have no form of government at all, or to agree that it shall be monarchical, yet appoint no way to design the person that shall have the power and be the monarch- all commonwealths, therefore, with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing and conveying the right to those who are to have any share in the public authority; and whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power by other ways than what the laws of the community have prescribed hath no right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved, since he is not the person the laws have appointed, and, consequently, not the person the people have consented to. Nor can such an usurper, or any deriving from him, ever have a title till the people are both at liberty to consent, and have actually consented, to allow and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped.

Chapter XVIII
Of Tyranny

199. As usurpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to; and this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private, separate advantage. When the governor, however entitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule, and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion.
200. If one can doubt this to be truth or reason because it comes from the obscure hand of a subject, I hope the authority of a king will make it pass with him. King James, in his speech to the Parliament, 16O3, tells them thus: "I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine, thinking ever the wealth and weal of the commonwealth to be my greatest weal and worldly felicity- a point wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from a tyrant; for I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point of difference that is between a rightful king and an usurping tyrant is this- that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable appetites, the righteous and just king doth, by the contrary, acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and property of his people." And again, in his speech to the Parliament, 1609, he hath these words: "The king binds himself, by a double oath, to the observation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom- tacitly, as by being a king, and so bound to protect, as well the people as the laws of his kingdom; and expressly by his oath at his coronation; so as every just king, in a settled kingdom, is bound to observe that paction made to his people, by his laws, in framing his government agreeable thereunto, according to that paction which God made with Noah after the deluge: 'Hereafter, seed-time, and harvest, and cold, and heat, and summer, and winter, and day, and night, shall not cease while the earth remaineth.' And therefore a king, governing in a settled kingdom, leaves to be a king, and degenerates into a tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his laws." And a little after: "Therefore, all kings that are not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits of their laws, and they that persuade them the contrary are vipers, pests, both against them and the commonwealth." Thus, that learned king, who well understood the notions of things, makes the difference betwixt a king and a tyrant to consist only in this: that one makes the laws the bounds of his power and the good of the public the end of his government; the other makes all give way to his own will and appetite.
201. It is a mistake to think this fault is proper only to monarchies. Other forms of government are liable to it as well as that; for wherever the power that is put in any hands for the government of the people and the preservation of their properties is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it, there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as well as one at Syracuse; and the intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was nothing better.
202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief and a robber if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a legal authority as will empower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be informed. Is it reasonable that the eldest brother, because he has the greatest part of his father's estate, should thereby have a right to take away any of his younger brothers' portions? Or that a rich man, who possessed a whole country, should from thence have a right to seize, when he pleased, the cottage and garden of his poor neighbour? The being rightfully possessed of great power and riches, exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam, is so far from being an excuse, much less a reason for rapine and oppression, which the endamaging another without authority is, that it is a great aggravation of it. For exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great than a petty officer, no more justifiable in a king than a constable. But so much the worse in him as that he has more trust put in him, is supposed, from the advantage of education and counsellors, to have better knowledge and less reason to do it, having already a greater share than the rest of his brethren.
203. May the commands, then, of a prince be opposed? May he be resisted, as often as any one shall find himself aggrieved, and but imagine he has not right done him? This will unhinge and overturn all polities, and instead of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy and confusion.
204. To this I answer: That force is to be opposed to nothing but to unjust and unlawful force. Whoever makes any opposition in any other case draws on himself a just condemnation, both from God and man; and so no such danger or confusion will follow, as is often suggested. For-
205. First. As in some countries the person of the prince by the law is sacred, and so whatever he commands or does, his person is still free from all question or violence, not liable to force, or any judicial censure or condemnation. But yet opposition may be made to the illegal acts of any inferior officer or other commissioned by him, unless he will, by actually putting himself into a state of war with his people, dissolve the government, and leave them to that defence, which belongs to every one in the state of Nature. For of such things, who can tell what the end will be? And a neighbour kingdom has showed the world an odd example. In all other cases the sacredness of the person exempts him from all inconveniencies, whereby he is secure, whilst the government stands, from all violence and harm whatsoever, than which there cannot be a wiser constitution. For the harm he can do in his own person not being likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far, nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws nor oppress the body of the people, should any prince have so much weakness and ill-nature as to be willing to do it. The inconveniency of some particular mischiefs that may happen sometimes when a heady prince comes to the throne are well recompensed by the peace of the public and security of the government in the person of the chief magistrate, thus set out of the reach of danger; it being safer for the body that some few private men should be sometimes in danger to suffer than that the head of the republic should be easily and upon slight occasions exposed.
206. Secondly. But this privilege, belonging only to the king's person, hinders not but they may be questioned, opposed, and resisted, who use unjust force, though they pretend a commission from him which the law authorises not; as is plain in the case of him that has the king's writ to arrest a man which is a full commission from the king, and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's house to do it, nor execute this command of the king upon certain days nor in certain places, though this commission have no such exception in it; but they are the limitations of the law, which, if any one transgress, the king's commission excuses him not. For the king's authority being given him only by the law, he cannot empower any one to act against the law, or justify him by his commission in so doing. The commission or command of any magistrate where he has no authority, being as void and insignificant as that of any private man, the difference between the one and the other being that the magistrate has some authority so far and to such ends, and the private man has none at all; for it is not the commission but the authority that gives the right of acting, and against the laws there can be no authority. But notwithstanding such resistance, the king's person and authority are still both secured, and so no danger to governor or government.
207. Thirdly. Supposing a government wherein the person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred, yet this doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power will not, upon every slight occasion, endanger him or embroil the government; for where the injured party may be relieved and his damages repaired by appeal to the law, there can be no pretence for force, which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from appealing to the law. For nothing is to be accounted hostile force but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal. and it is such force alone that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse on the highway, when perhaps I have not 12d. in my pocket. This man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver L100 to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force. I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it, and when it was gone it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass. The loss was irreparable; which to prevent the law of Nature gave me a right to destroy him who had put himself into a state of war with me and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I might have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my L100 that way.
208. Fourthly. But if the unlawful acts done by the magistrate be maintained (by the power he has got), and the remedy, which is due by law, be by the same power obstructed, yet the right of resisting, even in such manifest acts of tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions, disturb the government. For if it reach no farther than some private men's cases, though they have a right to defend themselves, and to recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them, yet the right to do so will not easily engage them in a contest wherein they are sure to perish; it being as impossible for one or a few oppressed men to disturb the government where the body of the people do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving madman or heady malcontent to overturn a well-settled state, the people being as little apt to follow the one as the other.
209. But if either these illegal acts have extended to the majority of the people, or if the mischief and oppression has light only on some few, but in such cases as the precedent and consequences seem to threaten all, and they are persuaded in their consciences that their laws, and with them, their estates, liberties, and lives are in danger, and perhaps their religion too, how they will be hindered from resisting illegal force used against them I cannot tell. This is an inconvenience, I confess, that attends all governments whatsoever, when the governors have brought it to this pass, to be generally suspected of their people, the most dangerous state they can possibly put themselves in; wherein they are the less to be pitied, because it is so easy to be avoided. It being as impossible for a governor, if he really means the good of his people, and the preservation of them and their laws together, not to make them see and feel it, as it is for the father of a family not to let his children see he loves and takes care of them.
210. But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind, and actions of another, arts used to elude the law, and the trust of prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good, not harm, to the people) employed contrary to the end for which it was given; if the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates chosen, suitable to such ends, and favoured or laid by proportionably as they promote or oppose them; if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, though publicly proclaimed against, which is readiest to introduce it, and the operators in it supported as much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved still, and liked the better, and a long train of acting show the counsels all tending that way, how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind which way things are going; or, from casting about how to save himself, than he could from believing the captain of a ship he was in was carrying him and the rest of the company to Algiers, when he found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in his ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him to turn his course another way for some time, which he steadily returned to again as soon as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let him?

Chapter XIX
Of the Dissolution of Government

211. HE that will, with any clearness, speak of the dissolution of government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government. That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of Nature into one politic society, is the agreement which every one has with the rest to incorporate and act as one body, and so be one distinct commonwealth. The usual, and almost only way whereby this union is dissolved, is the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them. For in that case (not being able to maintain and support themselves as one entire and independent body) the union belonging to that body, which consisted therein, must necessarily cease, and so every one return to the state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for himself and provide for his own safety, as he thinks fit, in some other society. Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain. Thus conquerors' swords often cut up governments by the roots, and mangle societies to pieces, separating the subdued or scattered multitude from the protection of and dependence on that society which ought to have preserved them from violence. The world is too well instructed in, and too forward to allow of this way of dissolving of governments, to need any more to be said of it; and there wants not much argument to prove that where the society is dissolved, the government cannot remain; that being as impossible as for the frame of a house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered and displaced by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused heap by an earthquake.
212. Besides this overturning from without, governments are dissolved from within:
First. When the legislative is altered, civil society being a state of peace amongst those who are of it, from whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage which they have provided in their legislative for the ending all differences that may arise amongst any of them; it is in their legislative that the members of a commonwealth are united and combined together into one coherent living body. This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity to the commonwealth; from hence the several members have their mutual influence, sympathy, and connection; and therefore when the legislative is broken, or dissolved, dissolution and death follows. For the essence and union of the society consisting in having one will, the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of that will. The constitution of the legislative is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made for the continuation of their union under the direction of persons and bonds of laws, made by persons authorised thereunto, by the consent and appointment of the people, without which no one man, or number of men, amongst them can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to the rest. When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those who, without authority, would impose anything upon them. Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place who have no such authority or delegation.
213. This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth, who misuse the power they have, it is hard to consider it aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of government in which it happens. Let us suppose, then, the legislative placed in the concurrence of three distinct persons:- First, a single hereditary person having the constant, supreme, executive power, and with it the power of convoking and dissolving the other two within certain periods of time. Secondly, an assembly of hereditary nobility. Thirdly, an assembly of representatives chosen, pro tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident:
214. First, that when such a single person or prince sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws which are the will of the society declared by the legislative, then the legislative is changed. For that being, in effect, the legislative whose rules and laws are put in execution, and required to be obeyed, when other laws are set up, and other rules pretended and enforced than what the legislative, constituted by the society, have enacted, it is plain that the legislative is changed. Whoever introduces new laws, not being thereunto authorised, by the fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts the old, disowns and overturns the power by which they were made, and so sets up a new legislative.
215. Secondly, when the prince hinders the legislative from assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those ends for which it was constituted, the legislative is altered. For it is not a certain number of men- no, nor their meeting, unless they have also freedom of debating and leisure of perfecting what is for the good of the society, wherein the legislative consists; when these are taken away, or altered, so as to deprive the society of the due exercise of their power, the legislative is truly altered. For it is not names that constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers that were intended to accompany them; so that he who takes away the freedom, or hinders the acting of the legislative in its due seasons, in effect takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government.
216. Thirdly, when, by the arbitrary power of the prince, the electors or ways of election are altered without the consent and contrary to the common interest of the people, there also the legislative is altered. For if others than those whom the society hath authorised thereunto do choose, or in another way than what the society hath prescribed, those chosen are not the legislative appointed by the people.
217. Fourthly, the delivery also of the people into the subjection of a foreign power, either by the prince or by the legislative, is certainly a change of the legislative, and so a dissolution of the government. For the end why people entered into society being to be preserved one entire, free, independent society to be governed by its own laws, this is lost whenever they are given up into the power of another.
218. Why, in such a constitution as this, the dissolution of the government in these cases is to be imputed to the prince is evident, because he, having the force, treasure, and offices of the State to employ, and often persuading himself or being flattered by others, that, as supreme magistrate, he is incapable of control; he alone is in a condition to make great advances towards such changes under pretence of lawful authority, and has it in his hands to terrify or suppress opposers as factious, seditious, and enemies to the government; whereas no other part of the legislative, or people, is capable by themselves to attempt any alteration of the legislative without open and visible rebellion, apt enough to be taken notice of, which, when it prevails, produces effects very little different from foreign conquest. Besides, the prince, in such a form of government, having the power of dissolving the other parts of the legislative, and thereby rendering them private persons, they can never, in opposition to him, or without his concurrence, alter the legislative by a law, his consent being necessary to give any of their decrees that sanction. But yet so far as the other parts of the legislative any way contribute to any attempt upon the government, and do either promote, or not, what lies in them, hinder such designs, they are guilty, and partake in this, which is certainly the greatest crime men can be guilty of one towards another.
219. There is one way more whereby such a government may be dissolved, and that is: When he who has the supreme executive power neglects and abandons that charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution; this is demonstratively to reduce all to anarchy, and so effectively to dissolve the government. For laws not being made for themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of the society to keep every part of the body politic in its due place and function. When that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and the people become a confused multitude without order or connection. Where there is no longer the administration of justice for the securing of men's rights, nor any remaining power within the community to direct the force, or provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly is no government left. Where the laws cannot be executed it is all one as if there were no laws, and a government without laws is, I suppose, a mystery in politics inconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent with human society.
220. In these, and the like cases, when the government is dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for themselves by erecting a new legislative differing from the other by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety and good. For the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be done by a settled legislative and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy till it be too late to look for any. To tell people they may provide for themselves by erecting a new legislative, when, by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them they may expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is, in effect, no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty, and, when their chains are on, tell them they may act like free men. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief, and men can never be secure from tyranny if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it; and, therefore, it is that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it.
221. There is, therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them act contrary to their trust.
For the legislative acts against the trust reposed in them when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the community, masters or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the people.
222. The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorise a legislative is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society. For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making: whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I have said here concerning the legislative in general holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust when he employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society to corrupt the representatives and gain them to his purposes, when he openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes, to their choice, such whom he has, by solicitation, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs, and employs them to bring in such who have promised beforehand what to vote and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new model the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? For the people having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives as the fence to their properties, could do it for no other end but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act and advise as the necessity of the commonwealth and the public good should, upon examination and mature debate, be judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, and the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add rewards and punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of perverted law made use of to take off and destroy all that stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is doing. What power they ought to have in the society who thus employ it contrary to the trust that along with it in its first institution, is easy to determine; and one cannot but see that he who has once attempted any such thing as this cannot any longer be trusted.
223. To this, perhaps, it will be said that the people being ignorant and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain ruin; and no government will be able long to subsist if the people may set up a new legislative whenever they take offence at the old one. To this I answer, quite the contrary. People are not so easily got out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they have been accustomed to. And if there be any original defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time or corruption, it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions has in the many revolutions [that] have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to, our old legislative of king, lords and commons; and whatever provocations have made the crown be taken from some of our princes' heads, they never carried the people so far as to place it in another line.
224. But it will be said this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To which I answer:
First: no more than any other hypothesis. For when the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors as much as you will for sons of Jupiter, let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorised from Heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. They will wish and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness, and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself He must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his time; and he must have read very little who cannot produce examples of it in all sorts of governments in the world.
225. Secondly: I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected, and without which, ancient names and specious forms are so far from being better, that they are much worse than the state of Nature or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult.
226. Thirdly: I answer, that this power in the people of providing for their safety anew by a new legislative when their legislators have acted contrary to their trust by invading their property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probable means to hinder it. For rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government: those, whoever they be, who, by force, break through, and, by force, justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels. For when men, by entering into society and civil government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves, those who set up force again in opposition to the laws, do rebellare- that is, bring back again the state of war, and are properly rebels, which they who are in power, by the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of force they have in their hands, and the flattery of those about them being likeliest to do, the proper way to prevent the evil is to show them the danger and injustice of it who are under the greatest temptation to run into it.
227. In both the forementioned cases, when either the legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they were constituted, those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion. For if any one by force takes away the established legislative of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage which every one had consented to for a peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of war amongst them. They who remove or change the legislative take away this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the appointment and consent of the people, and so destroying the authority which the people did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a power which the people hath not authorised, actually introduce a state of war, which is that of force without authority; and thus by removing the legislative established by the society, in whose decisions the people acquiesced and united as to that of their own will, they untie the knot, and expose the people anew to the state of war. And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the legislators themselves, as has been shown, can be no less esteemed so, when they who were set up for the protection and preservation of the people, their liberties and properties shall by force invade and endeavour to take them away; and so they putting themselves into a state of war with those who made them the protectors and guardians of their peace, are properly, and with the greatest aggravation, rebellantes, rebels.
228. But if they who say it lays a foundation for rebellion mean that it may occasion civil wars or intestine broils to tell the people they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made upon their liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence of those who were their magistrates when they invade their properties, contrary to the trust put in them, and that, therefore, this doctrine is not to be allowed, being so destructive to the peace of the world; they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbour's. If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has for peace sake to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of a peace there will be in the world which consists only in violence and rapine, and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf? Polyphemus's den gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace. Such a government wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured. And no doubt Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up passive obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet submission by representing to them of what concernment peace was to mankind, and by showing [what] inconveniencies might happen if they should offer to resist Polyphemus, who had now the power over them.
229. The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of their people?
230. Nor let any one say that mischief can arise from hence as often as it shall please a busy head or turbulent spirit to desire the alteration of the government. It is true such men may stir whenever they please, but it will be only to their own just ruin and perdition. For till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir. The examples of particular injustice or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man moves them not. But if they universally have a persuasion grounded upon manifest evidence that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it? Who can help it if they, who might avoid it, bring themselves into this suspicion? Are the people to be blamed if they have the sense of rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault who put things in such a posture that they would not have them thought as they are? I grant that the pride, ambition, and turbulency of private men have sometimes caused great disorders in commonwealths, and factions have been fatal to states and kingdoms. But whether the mischief hath oftener begun in the people's wantonness, and a desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, or in the rulers' insolence and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary power over their people, whether oppression or disobedience gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to impartial history to determine. This I am sure, whoever, either ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning the constitution and frame of any just government, he is guilty of the greatest crime I think a man is capable of, being to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking to pieces of governments bring on a country; and he who does it is justly to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of mankind, and is to be treated accordingly.
231. That subjects or foreigners attempting by force on the properties of any people may be resisted with force is agreed on all hands; but that magistrates doing the same thing may be resisted, hath of late been denied; as if those who had the greatest privileges and advantages by the law had thereby a power to break those laws by which alone they were set in a better place than their brethren; whereas their offence is thereby the greater, both as being ungrateful for the greater share they have by the law, and breaking also that trust which is put into their hands by their brethren.
232. Whosoever uses force without right- as every one does in society who does it without law- puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he so uses it, and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend himself, and to resist the aggressor. This is so evident that Barclay himself- that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings- is forced to confess that it is lawful for the people, in some cases, to resist their king, and that, too, in a chapter wherein he pretends to show that the Divine law shuts up the people from all manner of rebellion. Whereby it is evident, even by his own doctrine, that since they may, in some cases, resist, all resisting of princes is not rebellion. His words are these: "Quod siquis dicat, Ergone populus tyrannicae crudelitati et furori jugulum semper praebebit? Ergone multitudo civitates suas fame, ferro, et flamma vastari, seque, conjuges, et liberos fortunae ludibrio et tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae pericula omnesque miserias et molestias a rege deduci patientur? Num illis quod omni animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet, ut sc. vim vi repellant, seseque ab injuria tueantur? Huic breviter responsum sit, populo universo negari defensionem, quae juris naturalis est, neque ultionem quae praeter naturam est adversus regem concedi debere. Quapropter si rex non in singulares tantum personas aliquot privatum odium exerceat, sed corpus etiam reipublicae, cujus ipse, caput est- i.e., totum populum, vel insignem aliquam ejus partem immani et intoleranda saevitia seu tyrannide divexet; populo, quidem hoc casu resistendi ac tuendi se ab injuria potestas competit, sed tuendi se tantum, non enim in principem invadendi: et restituendae injuriae illatae, non recedendi a debita reverentia propter acceptum injuriam. Praesentem denique impetum propulsandi non vim praeteritam ulciscendi jus habet. Horum enim alterum a natura est, ut vitani scilicet corpusque tueamur. Alterum vero contra naturam, ut inferior de superiori supplicium sumat. Quod itaque populus malum, antequam factum sit, impedire potest, ne fiat, id postquam factum est, in regem authorem sceleris vindicare non potest, populus igitur hoc amplius quam privatus quispiam habet: Quod huic, vel ipsis adversariis judicibus, excepto Buchanano, nullum nisi in patientia remedium superest. Cum ille si intolerabilis tyrannis est (modicum enim ferre omnino debet) resistere cum reverentia possit."- Barclay, Contra Monarchomachos, iii. 8.
In English thus:
233. "But if any one should ask: Must the people, then, always lay themselves open to the cruelty and rage of tyranny- must they see their cities pillaged and laid in ashes, their wives and children exposed to the tyrant's lust and fury, and themselves and families reduced by their king to ruin and all the miseries of want and oppression, and yet sit still- must men alone be debarred the common privilege of opposing force with force, which Nature allows so freely to all other creatures for their preservation from injury? I answer: Self-defence is a part of the law of Nature; nor can it be denied the community, even against the king himself; but to revenge themselves upon him must, by no means, be allowed them, it being not agreeable to that law. Wherefore, if the king shall show an hatred, not only to some particular persons, but sets himself against the body of the commonwealth, whereof he is the head, and shall, with intolerable ill-usage, cruelly tyrannise over the whole, or a considerable part of the people; in this case the people have a right to resist and defend themselves from injury; but it must be with this caution, that they only defend themselves, but do not attack their prince. They may repair the damages received, but must not, for any provocation, exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect. They may repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge past violences. For it is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior is against nature. The mischief which is designed them the people may prevent before it be done, but, when it is done, they must not revenge it on the king, though author of the villany. This, therefore, is the privilege of the people in general above what any private person hath: That particular men are allowed, by our adversaries themselves (Buchanan only excepted), to have no other remedy but patience; but the body of the people may, with respect, resist intolerable tyranny, for when it is but moderate they ought to endure it."
234. Thus far that great advocate of monarchical power allows of resistance.
235. It is true, he has annexed two limitations to it, to no purpose:
First. He says it must be with reverence.
Secondly. It must be without retribution or punishment; and the reason he gives is, "because an inferior cannot punish a superior."
First. How to resist force without striking again, or how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blows, or in any more respectful posture, without a sword in his hand to abate the confidence and force of the assailant, will quickly be at an end of his resistance, and will find such a defence serve only to draw on himself the worse usage. This is as ridiculous a way of resisting as Juvenal thought it of fighting: Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. And the success of the combat will be unavoidably the same he there describes it:
Libertas pauperis haec est;
Pulsatus rogat, et pugnis concisus, adorat,
Ut liceat paucis cum dentibus inde reverti. This will always be the event of such an imaginary resistance, where men may not strike again. He, therefore, who may resist must be allowed to strike. And then let our author, or anybody else, join a knock on the head or a cut on the face with as much reverence and respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and reverence may, for aught I know, deserve for his pains a civil, respectful cudgelling wherever he can meet with it.
Secondly. As to his second- "An inferior cannot punish a superior"- that is true, generally speaking, whilst he is his superior. But to resist force with force, being the state of war that levels the parties, cancels all former relation of reverence, respect, and superiority; and then the odds that remains is- that he who opposes the unjust aggressor has this superiority over him, that he has a right, when he prevails, to punish the offender, both for the breach of the peace and all the evils that followed upon it. Barclay, therefore, in another place, more coherently to himself, denies it to be lawful to resist a king in any case. But he there assigns two cases whereby a king may unking himself. His words are:
"Quid ergo, nulline casus incidere possunt quibus populo sese erigere atque in regem impotentius dominantem arma capere et invadere jure suo suaque authoritate liceat? Nulli certe quamdiu rex manet. Semper enim ex divinis id obstat, Regem honorificato, et qui potestati resistit, Dei ordinationi resistit; non alias igitur in eum populo potestas est quam si id committat propter quod ipso jure rex esse desinat. Tunc enim se ipse principatu exuit atque in privatis constituit liber; hoc modo populus et superior efficitur, reverso ad eum scilicet jure illo quod ante regem inauguratum in interregno habuit. At sunt paucorum generum commissa ejusmodi quae hunc effectum pariunt. At ego cum plurima animo perlustrem, duo tantum invenio, duos, inquam, casus quibus rex ipso facto ex rege non regem se facit et omni honore et dignitate regali atque in subditos potestate destituit; quorum etiam meminit Winzerus. Horum unus est, si regnum disperdat, quemadmodum de Nerone fertur, quod is nempe senatum populumque Romanum atque adeo urbem ipsam ferro flammaque vastare, ac novas sibi sedes quaerere decrevisset. Et de Caligula, quod palam denunciarit se neque civem neque principem senatui amplius fore, inque animo habuerit, interempto utriusque ordinis electissimo, quoque Alexandriam commigrare, ac ut populum uno ictu interimeret, unam ei cervicem optavit. Talia cum rex aliquis meditatur et molitur serio, omnem regnandi curam et animum ilico abjicit, ac proinde imperium in subditos amittit, ut dominus servi pro derelicto habiti, dominium.
236. "Arlter casus est, si rex in alicujus clientelam se contulit, ac regnum quod liberum a majoribus et populo traditum accepit, alienae ditioni mancipavit. Nam tunc quamvis forte non ea mente id agit populo plane ut incommodet; tamen quia quod praecipuum est regiae dignitatis amisit, ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit, et solo Deo inferior, atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum, cujus libertatem sartam et tectam conservare debuit, in alterius gentis ditionem et potestatem dedidit; hac velut quadam rengi abalienatione effecit, ut nec quod ipse in regno imperium habuit retineat, nec in eum cui collatum voluit, juris quicquam transferat, atque ita eo facto liberum jam et suae potestatis populum relinquit, cujus rei exemplum unum annales Scotici suppeditant."- Barclay, Contra Monarchomachos, I. iii., c. 16.
Which may be thus Englished:
237. "What, then, can there no case happen wherein the people may of right, and by their own authority, help themselves, take arms, and set upon their king, imperiously domineering over them? None at all whilst he remains a king. 'Honour the king,' and 'he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God,' are Divine oracles that will never permit it. The people, therefore, can never come by a power over him unless he does something that makes him cease to be a king; for then he divests himself of his crown and dignity, and returns to the state of a private man, and the people become free and superior; the power which they had in the interregnum, before they crowned him king, devolving to them again. But there are but few miscarriages which bring the matter to this state. After considering it well on all sides, I can find but two. Two cases there are, I say, whereby a king, ipso facto, becomes no king, and loses all power and regal authority over his people, which are also taken notice of by Winzerus. The first is, if he endeavour to overturn the government- that is, if he have a purpose and design to ruin the kingdom and commonwealth, as it is recorded of Nero that he resolved to cut off the senate and people of Rome, lay the city waste with fire and sword, and then remove to some other place; and of Caligula, that he openly declared that he would be no longer a head to the people or senate, and that he had it in his thoughts to cut off the worthiest men of both ranks, and then retire to Alexandria; and he wished that the people had but one neck that he might dispatch them all at a blow. Such designs as these, when any king harbours in his thoughts, and seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the commonwealth, and, consequently, forfeits the power of governing his subjects, as a master does the dominion over his slaves whom he hath abandoned.
238. "The other case is, when a king makes himself the dependent of another, and subjects his kingdom, which his ancestors left him, and the people put free into his hands, to the dominion of another. For however, perhaps, it may not be his intention to prejudice the people, yet because he has hereby lost the principal part of regal dignity- viz., to be next and immediately under God, supreme in his kingdom; and also because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought to have carefully preserved, into the power and dominion of a foreign nation. By this, as it were, alienation of his kingdom, he himself loses the power he had in it before, without transferring any the least right to those on whom he would have bestowed it; and so by this act sets the people free, and leaves them at their own disposal. One example of this is to be found in the Scotch annals."
239. In these cases Barclay, the great champion of absolute monarchy, is forced to allow that a king may be resisted, and ceases to be a king. That is in short- not to multiply cases- in whatsoever he has no authority, there he is no king, and may be resisted: for wheresoever the authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like other men who have no authority. And these two cases that he instances differ little from those above mentioned, to be destructive to governments, only that he has omitted the principle from which his doctrine flows, and that is the breach of trust in not preserving the form of government agreed on, and in not intending the end of government itself, which is the public good and preservation of property. When a king has dethroned himself, and put himself in a state of war with his people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with them, Barclay, and those of his opinion, would do well to tell us. Bilson, a bishop of our Church, and a great stickler for the power and prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise of "Christian Subjection," acknowledge that princes may forfeit their power and their title to the obedience of their subjects; and if there needed authority in a case where reason is so plain, I could send my reader to Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of the "Mirror," and others, writers that cannot be suspected to be ignorant of our government, or enemies to it. But I thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those men who, relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it. Whether they are herein made the tools of cunninger workmen, to pull down their own fabric, they were best look. This I am sure, their civil policy is so new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and people, that as former ages never could bear the broaching of it, so it may be hoped those to come, redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian under-taskmasters, will abhor the memory of such servile flatterers, who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, resolved all government into absolute tyranny, and would have all men born to what their mean souls fitted them- slavery.
240. Here it is like the common question will be made: Who shall be judge whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust? This, perhaps, ill-affected and factious men may spread amongst the people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative. To this I reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him and must, by having deputed him, have still a power to discard him when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned and also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very difficult, dear, and dangerous?
241. But, farther, this question, Who shall be judge? cannot mean that there is no judge at all. For where there is no judicature on earth to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for himself, as in all other cases so in this, whether another hath put himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to the supreme judge, as Jephtha did.
242. If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people in a matter where the law is silent or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire in such a case should be the body of the people. For in such cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common, ordinary rules of the law, there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people (who at first lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend? But if the prince, or whoever they be in the administration, decline that way of determination, the appeal then lies nowhere but to Heaven. Force between either persons who have no known superior on earth or, which permits no appeal to a judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies only to heaven; and in that state the injured party must judge for himself when he will think fit to make use of that appeal and put himself upon it.
243. To conclude. The power that every individual gave the society when he entered into it can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the community; because without this there can be no community- no commonwealth, which is contrary to the original agreement; so also when the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the people whilst that government lasts: because, having provided a legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it. But if they have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any person or assembly only temporary; or else when, by the miscarriages of those in authority, it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture of their rulers, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves or place it in a new form, or new hands, as they think good.
THE END

Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on "Children, Churches and Daddies," April 1997)
Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the "dirty underwear" of politics.
One piece in this issue is "Crazy," an interview Kuypers conducted with "Madeline," a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia's Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn't go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef's knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover's remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline's monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali's surrealism and Kafka-like craziness.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Ed Hamilton, writer
#85 (of children, churches and daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I'm not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious.
As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers') story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch.

Children, Churches and Daddies.
It speaks for itself.
Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet
I'll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers'. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren't they?

what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don't consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies)
cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.
"I really like ("Writing Your Name"). It's one of those kind of things where your eye isn't exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem.
I liked "knowledge" for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor's copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@aol.com... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Also, visit our new web sites: the Art Gallery and the Poetry Page.

Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site)
I just checked out the site. It looks great.

Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs)
Visuals were awesome. They've got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on "Hope Chest in the Attic")
Some excellent writing in "Hope Chest in the Attic." I thought "Children, Churches and Daddies" and "The Room of the Rape" were particularly powerful pieces.

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies)
The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It's a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can't wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.

Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We're only an e-mail away. Write to us.

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)
I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies') obvious dedication along this line admirable.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST's three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST's SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does "on the road" presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
"Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
"Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)
Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © through Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I'll have to kill you.
Okay, it's this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you'll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we're gonna print it. It's that simple!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It's a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the book "Rinse and Repeat", which has all the 1999 issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us. It's an offer you can't refuse...

Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. "Scars" is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It's your call...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: "Hope Chest in the Attic" captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. "Chain Smoking" depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. "The room of the rape" is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, "Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment." Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers' very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer's styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there's a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there's a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Published since 1993
No racist, sexist or homophobic material is appreciated; we do accept work of almost any genre of poetry, prose or artwork, though we shy away from concrete poetry and rhyme for rhyme's sake. Do not send originals. Any work sent to Scars Publications on Macintosh disks, text format, will be given special attention over smail-mail submissions. There is no limit to how much you may submit at a time; previously published work accepted.