I was talking to a friend about the different tiny spaces I have lived in. One of the first was a boxcar in Lahaina that was two blocks from the harbor. Great location. It was all wood inside with shelves and hooks and the bathroom and shower were in another building adjacent to the boxcar. It was simple but the price was right, I was surrounded by banana and papaya trees and I could live by myself. Not an easy thing to do in Lahaina 1976. As I was talking about the boxcar I remembered how the queen mum newly married had a fight with Captain Rolly and decided to move in with me. What? Next thing I know there we are cozy in the boxcar. After a couple of days the Captain shows up, and doesn’t leave. I guess they were feeling the boxcar; (newlyweds) so I found a new home. The queen mum did this more than once to me.showing up and moving into my digs. I think she liked my taste in beach living. Miss you mum, thanks for all the laughs.
Category: senior
Father’s Day
It rained all night. I slept with the window wide open because the sound of rain soothes my head and heart. As I sit drinking the perfect cup of tea on this wet morning I remember my dad. I think I started calling him Tom when I was about 13 years old, now I wish I had kept calling him Daddy. You can find Tom’s in the world but you only get to call one person daddy, I adored mine.
Washington state Covid deaths 1265. VOTE BLUE. BLACK LIVES MATTER
The words that surround me
Pandemic, Covid-19, virus, wash your hands, don’t touch face, wear a mask, I can’t breathe, stay at home, wipe everything down, sanitize, asymptomatic, super spreader, social distant, stay 6 feet away, wear your mask, don’t touch your face, wash your hands, I can’t breathe.
George Floyd, I can’t breathe, police brutality, I can’t breathe, Black Lives Matter, protest, racism, white supremacy, I can’t breathe, violence, looters, police brutality, tear gas, rubber bullets, racism, I can’t breathe, take a knee, white privilege, Karen, Black Lives Matter.
Climate change, food shortages, weather extremes, I can’t breathe, dictator, white supremacy, I can’t breathe. Wash your hands, wear your mask, stay home, I can’t breathe.
As of 6/6/20 1,149 people in Washington state have died of Covid-19.
Sunday
Good Morning Sunday, The birds have been singing gladly and I wonder how I could be here for so long and not know their song. So much to discover in my own backyard. I’m seeing paranoia rear it’s ugly head in pandemic posts and news. The latest is that the Democrats are manipulating the Covid-19 virus deaths to defeat Trump. The hospitals are lying about virus deaths to get Federal funds by including heart attack victims. That herd immunity works, look at Sweden. I guess we believe what we want to believe and I believe in community and transparency in government and that taking a long walk everyday is good for you. Have a peaceful Sunday
1,000 human beings have died of Covid-19 in Washington state 5/17/20
I am on the radio @ KPTZ.org.
What makes us Remember?
Monday I had a hard time with myself. I say that because I am the only one who can cause me anguish while I hunker down by myself in my comfortable cabin in the woods where the pines and fruit trees blow their pollen with abandon. I wondered why I was so sad that my body ached. Was it the bad dream the night before where I was challenged with tasks I didn’t know how to do as I worked my way towards this new world we are making? Maybe. Then is hit me, what’s the date? Of course it’s about to be April 28th. the day my father died. Even if I don’t want to remember I always do. I used to think it was the brain that helps me remember but I’ve learned that my body holds all my stories.
765 people have died in Washington state due to Covid-19. Very limited testing.
Easter
The word “Easter” and most of the secular celebrations of the holiday come from pagan traditions. Anglo Saxons worshipped Eostre, the goddess of springtime and the return of the sun after the long winter. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny. Eggs were a symbol of fertility in part because they used to be so scarce during the winter. There are records of people giving each other decorated eggs at Easter as far back as the 11th century. From Garrison Keillor.
I don’t know about you but having to sit with myself without the distractions of the outside world has forced me to look at where and what I want at this stage of my life. Am I too old for dreams? What is the point of me? Whenever it gets uncomfortable my instinct is to run. Move along go somewhere new and start over but I always take my baggage with me so I am still just repeating instead of creating. Just like Spring I am wanting to bloom.
We now have 28 confirmed cases in out county, testing is limited. 4/12/20
Sunday 04/05/20
I’m a janitor. Boy is it hard to say that out loud. I have been a janitor for over five years. I know I’m a janitor because when I got the job cleaning the yoga studio and office space that is what was written in the contract. It took me awhile to accept that being a janitor was what I did not who I was.
I am still cleaning the yoga studio and office space and even though only two people are working there I have noticed that I get physically ill every Sat night before I have to go clean the next day. I also clean the radio station where I volunteer, I’m sure that place is full of cooties. Most of the volunteers are men and most of them just don’t enjoy a good disinfectant wipe they way a woman would. Statistics are now saying the virus kills more men then woman and that scientist think it has something to do with female hormones or some such nonsense. I don’t think so. Men do not pay attention. Men do not wash their hands like woman do. Men think they can “tough it out.’ Not this time boys.
There are 20 confirmed cases in our town but testing has been limited so we are told maybe more like 200.
My friend Bonnie
I feel the desire to write about my friend Bonnie who died a couple of days ago. I have not seen Bonnie since around 1995 but up until a few years ago we kept in occasional contact. Her birthday, Christmas, maybe my birthday. Bonnie’s birthday was easy to remember as it is the same day we pay our taxes so those would be the two things on my mind April 15.
I have known Bonnie since I was 16 years old. I think my father Tom met her at some bar she was cocktail waitressing at. Bonnie liked to party and she was sweet and earnest and laughed at the right time. At some points she lived in my father’s house and helped care for the younger kids. She knew my family and our friends and we shared memories from my teenage years. When I left home we became roommates in Marin. We danced our way through San Francisco and ended up moving to Lahaina together in 1973. Lahaina Maui in the early 70’s was young and beautiful like we were and we embraced the island and the island loved us back. It was a time of laughter and love and sand.
Big Joy
I spent many hours planning my hour and a half radio show this week, It was a different kind of planning then the last three months. I was looking at the show in a different way. I worked all week on listening to new music and blending in my favorites. I thought the show was done and then I am changing everything again. I keep doing this until I go on the air and even while I am doing my show I am changing the rotation. Something has shifted. My ex poetry teacher suggests that I am creating my radio show like you arrange poetry and I believe she is right. I didn’t know how to express what I am doing but I think she did. Art. It comes in many forms. Big Joy.
Radio Baby
When I was seventeen years old instead of going to school I went to the radio station. My father was a disc jockey and his name is Tom Donahue. The radio station was KMPX in San Francisco in 1967. Up until then I hadn’t hung out with my father when he did radio in AM but the family was aware of Top 40, music hops and concerts as Tom was always was putting on some show. My favorites were the Cow Palace shows he and his partner Bob Mitchell and KYA radio put on in San Francisco in the early 60’s.
At KMPX I was the receptionist, the music librarian, an engineer and then when we moved to KSAN; a disc jockey. And now 50 years later I am a disc jockey once again at my local community radio station and loving it. I didn’t think I ever wanted to be a dj after I “retired” from radio and moved to Maui in 1973 to “work on my tan.” There were enough disc jockeys in the family; my father, my brother Sean Donahue and my step mother Raechel. I wanted to find my own path.
The Buzzy Donahue Show 