All great things have modest beginnings as is the birth of modern Immunology.  In the twentieth century at a place removed from the influence of the east began something that still shrouds in mystery.  For Wracks, it is the selection for Immunology Research as an elective because at the big U at that time, everything was about basic research.  The Immunology team located in the west wing of the Biology building in the science quad and the Wracks is now part of the team.  The preceptors are Eli and Dr. M with an Israeli with a funny sounding name as consulting physician.  They work with mice and the Wracks is going to work with mice until he moves to the Medical Center next year.  The mice they use as experimental objects are Balb/c and C57.   Balb/c mice are white spotted brown and c57 are all grey.  These strains represent highly inbred lines making their genes almost identical between lines and suitable for experimental design.   The Wracks and mike are going to assay bone marrow transplantation in line and between lines as a model for human bone marrow transplants.   The major organ of immunity in mice is the spleen.  A scientist challenges the spleen with an antigen and then harvests the spleen and does identity assays on the cells.   The identity assay Eli and Dr. M use is the plaque-forming assay.  A scientist harvests a primed mouse spleen, homogenizes it, blends it with gelatin containing the antigen identity being assayed on a petri dish and then counts the rings forming on the disk.  If rings form which are antigen-antibody complexes, then this connotes an antigen-antibody reaction and a positive test. 

Eli is tall and of Scandinavian descent. His long curly hair and grey eyes are set in a pair of worn jeans and tee shirt immersed in Mexican huarache sandals.   Today he wants the Wracks and Mike to drive to the radiation facility and irradiate some c57 mice with a cobalt 60 bomb so he and Dr. M can practice syngeneic bone marrow transplants.  Mike has a car and the Wracks carry the cage of mice to the facility at the Veterans Administration.  They leave the car at a parking lot which also was a radioactive waste dump and is still hot.  The administration paved over the dump with asphalt and conclude that people parking there will suffer little radiation exposure due to the brevity of their stay.  This is the great and opulent veteran’s administration on the west side of town and if a person knows where to go and what to look for, they can find an irradiation center with a cobalt 60 bomb in the center.  Mike and the Wracks find the building that no one knows about, enter it and display their student identifications to a soldier that guards the entrance to the building.  The physicist that maintains the bomb welcomes them and crosses off their names on the schedule that only he possesses.   The irradiation room is a small ten foot by ten-foot concrete grey room with beacon lights hanging from the ceiling and in the center is a podium that elevates to expose the bomb.

Be sure you are out of the room when the beacons and sirens go on exhort the physicist in charge.

Mike has walked out of the room and the Wracks sets the cage near the podium sunk in a lead scabbard in the ground.  The wracks make sure the door is open when he sets down the cage of mice because without the door closed the bomb will not elevate.  Keeping his eye on the door, he runs out, the door closes, lights like a police car flash and siren goes off and an atomic bomb like scenario happens in the room.  The Wracks smells lightning like a strike at the beginning of a rain storm and time freezes and then everything becomes quiet.   The door opens and the Wracks goes in to fetch the cage.   The mice are still alive but look strange like they have just been through a savage fight and they sweat and their fur is matted and askew.   Mike and the Wracks thank the Physicist and take the cage back to the Biology facility.

The mice have no white cells now says Eli.  We will transplant syngeneic and allogenic bone marrow cells in their abdomens and see if they take.   If they can mount an antibody-antigen response on a plaque-forming assay then the transplant is a success. If the mouse dies with allogenic cells which are mouse cells from other inbred lines than this is graft versus host reaction and cells from another similar but different strain attack the host identity antigens. 

The results from our group are as follows:   cells from genetically identical mice usually but not always are accepted by the host.  This means that there is enough genetic variability in identical inbred strains to prevent bone marrow transplants.  Allogenic cells from an entirely different but related strain never accept the host antigens and are rejected.  They conclude that bone marrow transplants do not work and should not be used in humans.   Cells from similar but different lines are universally rejected.

Every Friday the group meets in a conference room at the medical facility and Eli and Dr. M bring beer and pretzels and discuss research findings with their students.  The Wracks is not yet 21 and is under age but he drinks beer and eats pretzels and chips and listens to the high-tech research discussions.  He is on his third Styrofoam cup of beer and is feeling good.  He wolfs down the pretzels because he is starving and it is a free meal.  There is a virologist with thick glasses and wiry hair at the get-together as are other graduate students in Microbiology.  Eli is animated and his research excites him and he speaks and the Wracks listens with his good drunk buzz.

Our next phase of research connotes the transplantation of tumor cells.   Mice will be induced to produce leukemic cells and we will introduce them to syngeneic and allogeneic lines and note if there is an antibody response to cancer.   In other words, is cancer transplantable, and to what extent do mice make an immune response to transplanted cancer. 

The concepts are highly technological and cutting edge but the laboratory work is very simple to perform in context and the Wracks is part of it for two quarters, until the summer session.  Summer is now here and the Wracks has to take an English class to satisfy his major and he folds his hands in prayer at the student  cuad on the north campus early in the morning on the steps of Bunch hall.  No one could imagine what he has been doing for half a year and the findings are revolutionary and poignant.  Not even Crandalman has inkling of what the Wracks is doing in the school of Microbiology in the Biology building.

You will never get into Medical School with a B average asserts Crandalman.  You should become a lawyer like me. 

It really doesn’t matter says the wracks.   It really doesn’t matter.  

The Wracks has a counselor.  She agrees to give him advice on what classes to take in his academic career at the big U.  She is of average height with short cut brown hair, about middle-aged and dresses in a casual blouse with pants.  The Wracks does not notice if she is married.  She sits in a big office with an official oak desk and portraits of her alma mater here at the university.  Her grey Anglo-Saxon eyes look at him intently without displaying emotion.

What classes should I take in my Biology major at the university asks the Wracks? I would like to attend graduate school and eventually become a doctor of Medicine.

You should take challenging classes and get at least a B average in them says the counselor.  Graduate schools tend to favor high graduate exam scores over grade point averages because they are not inflated by which university you attend.

I would like to attend an Immunology Class offered by the graduate school chimes in Wracks.  It sounds interesting.  Do you think it is too much for me? 

No I don’t say the counselor.  You have until after the first midterm to drop the course.  You will probably enjoy it. 

Thank you very much for your advice says the Wracks.  I think I have fall semester planned.  Have a good day.

Fall quarter begins early in summer for students using the quarter system.  Instead of two semesters there are three quarters a year and a summer session.  Each quarter is ten weeks long.  Immunology class hosts in the main lecture hall in the chemistry building because that is what immunology is: cellular chemistry.  The science initially came into being from the discoveries of Sir Harvey Burnett and Professor Roit who discovered immunoglobulins and elucidated their properties. The big lecture hall fills with at least one hundred people, most of whom the Wracks have never seen before.  There are graduate students who sit in the front row, medical students in their white uniforms, and graduate students from other universities who drive here because this is the only place where the new science is being hosted and offered.   The professor is a researcher who wears a white lab coat and a tie and goes by the name Clark.  The Class is long and full of the chemistry of proteins that are called antibodies.  Antibodies have chemical properties just like salt; protein or sugar in a biochemical system and Medicine is studying them now avidly. 

It is now wintertime in California and the autumn winds have gone away and the professor lectures and the class goes on and finals are very soon.  Midterms have gone smoothly and the Wracks has an A average going into the final.  However the final is one-third of the grade and anything less than a B plus knocks your grade from A to B.  Dr. Clark gives Wracks the option of taking an essay exam or a multiple choice exam.  The Wracks options for the essay exam but chickens out when he sees the questions and asks to change to the multiple choice examination, and is given the change.  The exam fills with graphs and data spreadsheets for the Wracks to analyze and the Wracks is befuddled and make wild guesses.  It happens that the Wracks is a good guesser and scores one point below a B plus and Dr. Clark is feeling charitable today and gives him an A in the course.

Would you like to do research with mice asks Dr. Clark.  In the winter and spring quarters we have openings for students in the School of Biology to do murine research in Immunology under the auspices of the Graduate school.  The grants are fully funded and all you have to do is complete the work to get an A.  It’s a lot of work and your other classes will suffer.   Are You Up to it?

It sounds good to me says the Wracks.  My counselor told me to take challenging courses.

It will be challenging and I will inform the professors that you will enroll.  Good luck.

The Wracks sit in the refreshment venue newly built at the science quad of the big U.  All in white concrete, the picnic tables sit in an amphitheater in front of a grill and fry shack that serves delicious hamburgers, hotdogs, and French fries.  The Wracks doesn’t have any money to buy the delicious food and sit there and smell the delicious odors.  His mother who works at the big U told him to take a sack lunch because they built the science quad over a radioactive waste dump.  In the old days before government regulations, nuclear reactors and researchers dug deep holes to bury their radioactive isotopes and waste, and here and up in Northern California are unmarked graves of radioactive waste.  The Wracks savors his cheese and crackers packet and two slices of Wonder bread together with a V8 juice bought from the vending machine kiosk at Bummer Hall.  The savory odor of French fries boiling in grease suffuses the air and the Wracks reads some of his notes bought from an official note taker who sells her wares at the Student Union.  Soon it will be here at the Student Union where the Wracks eats his daily two dollar bowl of soup meal at the Student cafeteria with all the coffee you can drink for a quarter.   Then it is up to the research university to study for three hours and then take a vacant lonely bus ride home to prepare for another day.  For a student monthly pass, the bus ride home is only one quarter.

This was in the good old days when the government wanted all their new generation to succeed and subsidized intrepid learners with low tuition stipends and low-cost meals.  Anyone who wanted to work hard and better themselves could be a technician or professional and shoot for the stars.  Life has changed and everything is expensive and the middle class slowly phases out.  These are the good old days when the nation was great and its citizens were the bell ringers and shining examples in the known world.  Now it is all about money.

It is not part of the medical school at the big U but it is inside the Medical School.  A wanderer needs to enter the medical school and see the students with their huge stacks of Xeroxed notes loitering in the halls walk down the main hallway and then enter the big beige oaken wood door with a window five feet up.  A sign above the five-foot wide ten-foot high door reads School of Microbiology and Immunology. On the door is a deadbolt, and only the janitor can let a student in after six PM.  Inside the door are laboratories, each with an oaken door, and each with a deadbolt.  Only a researcher with the proper key can enter a laboratory.  Down near the end is the Tumor Virus laboratory.   The lab is long with open bulletproof glass windows lining the room so anyone, anytime can look in and see what is going on.  Small white centrifuges line up on the black lab bench and refrigerators and cryo freezers stack in the back.  There demonstrates ample workspace for isolation techniques and apparatus to be displayed.   The door to the unit has two deadbolts, one high and one low and the curator alone has the two keys to gain access to the lab.  In case of an emergency, two professors each unknown to the other has one key and the Dean of the Medical school is called to summon them because only he has both of their names.    The curator has the name Dr. Singh.   Slightly beyond the virus repository and to the left is the aviary.  Here monkeys with terminal cancer are evaluated with therapies and cats with brain tumors sit in cages and scream. Some have electrodes sticking out of their head.    Animals with cancer are in pain and bite.  The curator of the animal plant is a huge man in a white coat and his name is Charcot. 

The Wracks is in the happy part of the complex in the beginning of the hall near the mouse house.  In this room, syngeneic mice lab subjects run in circles is cages that are cleaned and changed once per week. The mice are fed a standard blend of brown kibble with ample water.  Occasionally a mouse gets loose in the hall is caught and euthanized because each group of mice in a cage is an Immunology experiment in the making and the scientist cannot be sure of the origin of the mouse.  The professor assigns the Wracks with a SJl/J strain infected with type B oncovirus that develops reticulum cell sarcoma.  The analog in humans is non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The SJL/j strain is a white purebred mouse line and when they are full of tumor, they puff up into huge balls and necrotic cinders protrude from their back.   The Wracks is assigned to sacrifice mice at end date, collect their serum and analyze the serum for tumor-specific transplantation antigens.  He is also to develop a 1 gravity sedimentation column that ultimately evolved to flow cytometry.    Their huge spleens which occupy their whole body cavity at term also harvest for isolation of type B virus-infected cells for transfer.   

The Wracks spends a day calibrating the fetal calf serum that will form the vehicle for the sedimentation column.  He tests each lot on a liquid osmometer to standardize the specific gravity of the solution so the experiment has validity.   After the final run, he cleans the osmometer and the researchers like him because he cleans up after himself.  Inside the animal morgue is a pathologist from the National Institute of Health who autopsies dead animals with cancer.  He dissects them piece by piece and makes slides and talks into a voice recorder while he works.  He has dark hair and looks like a person you would never want to cross ever anywhere.  He acknowledges the Wracks presence as the Wracks walks by. 

Tonight it is the end of the quarter and the Wracks is behind in his work because of his course load.  He has taken too much burden for a junior at the big U.  He finds the janitor for the medical school in his room on the main hall and the janitor opens up the door to the school of Microbiology and Immunology. The hall is dark except for the tumor virus repository where the lights are always on.  With his personal key he enters the lab, takes his supplies out of his refrigerator and sets up the column on the bench in a stand with a vice.  Taking his tumor cell suspension that he harvested earlier in the day and resuspended in pink minimal essential media, he layers the cells on the top of the column and sets the timer.  Near the front of the large laboratory is a coffee stand and hot water dispenser with a coin purse and he puts in a quarter and makes a cup of instant coffee.  He quaffs it down his throat and gets back to his timer set at ten minutes for the first aliquot.   During this time he cell counts the suspension in a manual cell counter microscope and notes the value in his experiment journal that he keep in his desk near his refrigerator. The timer goes off and he turns the siphon at the bottom of the column and pours five millimeters of fluid in the first tube labeled one and resets the timer for another ten minutes.  Putting the cells, labeled with trypan blue in the cell counter, he counts them and notes the result in his experiment book. Repeating this action until the three hundred milliliter Nalgene tube column empties the experiment is finally done.  He will have to repeat the run tomorrow.  The coffee wears off and the Wracks start to fall asleep at the bench.  The time signals well after two o’clock.  Suddenly a noise startles him and a man in a suit with glasses and a radioactive Geiger counter hosting a foot long rod sensor walks into the lab and asks him what he is doing here so late at night. 

Just running my experiment.   I am late and next week is finals week.  I have to finish up my work. 

The official-looking man looks at him intently and scans his body with the Geiger counter.  The machine starts to click.  

Radioactive chromium he says.  We use it to label white cells.   When you are done clean up and don’t forget to turn off the light. 

The official leaves just as quickly as he arrived.  He must be the head of the department thinks the Wracks, I haven’t met him yet.

When the experiment finishes, the Wracks washes the column and puts the supplies and the labeled aliquots in a rack back in the freezer.  He closes the laboratory door after turning off the lights. The white Ford Pinto borrowed from his father, parks in a loading zone in front of the school under a single street light.  The Wracks smiles, he hasn’t got a ticket.  The police are not up this late at night. The Santa Ana wind blows quietly and the Wracks drives back down Moonrise Boulevard to his home in tranquil hills.  He enters the house, finds his bedroom and falls into bed.  His brother’s bed is empty and the Wracks wonder where he is.  Tomorrow is another day.

Deep in a quiet enclave

Ina secluded kingdom by the sea

Set in the twentieth century

Lived a wonderful child in a wonderful place And her name was Aphrodite

Her eyes were silver grey

And quite fair, blond hair was she

Designed by angels, Made by God exquisitely

And she did not know from heaven below That she was to be loved and loved by me

Strong as a man but by her hands She was to bear my family tree

Written in the stars and in heaven Cherubic child, beautiful smile

She was to be loved and be loved by me

The evil things that dwell in hell

And Creep at night soundlessly Exist in this small enclave by the sea

Then they spied with lidless eye

And noticed my Aphrodite

As time goes on her family moved From the quiet enclave by the sea In my wild imagination

I saw her tomb from my little  room

For she died and she died to save me

Alone at a desk with lighted lamp In this quiet kingdom by the sea

I sit in the dark and read

She embraces me in my day dreams divine and lovely Aphrodi te

If there is a God and he visits This little kingdom by the sea Invited and boldly empowered

Those unspeakable things and their rings Will be found and be bound by me

Life goes on and it is late

I live sequestered in another place

Far from this sheltered enclave by the sea

Once in a while she appears far away

She waves and she beckons to me

I fall deep into slumber and dream I truly do want to believe Aphrodite aside my bed whispers

She smiles like a child and promises To be loved and be loved by me

it began without a tingling

not a pick or trilling ringing nor a pleasant festive yearning a black altar blazing burning losing power of          discerning

all those words words words

murmured soft subtle words in the chilling air of night when I am so alone

in my home away from home

they burn deep into my bones murmured liquid flowing words

loud shouted words

shoot straight through the air

from where they come I know not where leaving a fragile soul so bare

and my eyes begin to tear

infernal scolding shouted words

hissed whispered words

1hear them on the phone between a buzzing and a drone please leave me to atone

time to run  and somewhere roam

to escape the muted moan

of deceitful whispered words

sweet soothing words

how could  women be so mean and my mind begins to scream and the world becomes a dream Oh such sounds cut and ream something simple-seeming words

large looming hateful words from afar c;;o often roared somewhat versed in ancient lore knock me down upon the floor bruised::!..and battered and sore cursed infernal wasted words

simply spoken words

from everywhere  they ar.- heard and from close they lovingly lure into an action s0  absurd

will there ever be a cure

for the simple spoken word

smooth imploring words

from the walls, they boldly come in the bathroom from the tub

on composure grate and rub

please send help from up above

for unstopping urging words

cute muttered words

so often spoken to my back. and my senses they attack,

composure completely lacked such a grueling Cheshire cat

oh those cute uttered words

I hear some mentioned words in the forest lighted by the sun the remains of a coven

formless. banished they are done have I lost or have I won iridescent phantom words.

and all resounding words

cause effect when they re heard teach madness, loath and fear

so simple, so trite so mere gothic city  built so weird

the- ‘vibration of  spoken ‘Words

words are made up of many sounds and in nature  they abound

‘whether muted or very loud promised or  avowed

smiled or with a frown, They are all just words word words words

simply spoken seeming words

In the twentieth century Bells
In a twinkling render hell
A sad melody dothe fortell
In the dark and endless night
Beginning heartless tearing fright
I hear those bells bells bells
I hear the wind driven shameless shaking bells

In the day they merrily ring
With a ding a ling a ling
And my mind imagines things
Please my soul don’t fearfully wing
I hold my ears to stop the din
Of those bells bells bells
Of those piercing grinning banshee driven bells

Of bells with ringing chime
Ting ting shrilling sordid rhyme
Allah please deliver a sign
Marking the ending of this time
Instruct the fates to be so kind
At the yelling and the shrieking of the bells
Of those horrid screaming profane tingling bells

I always hear the bells
When I am sick or when I am well
With a flinch or with a yell
May my sanity be weld
Or my future be foretold
With those bells bells bells
Of those merciless tearing ringing pinging bells

Of course bells are only noise
And disrupt my natural poise
May their sounds I do avoid
Until I go unto my lord
In the far and distant future
O those bells bells bells
Of those bing bong binging evil bells

From a long adventure bearing
Bottled up my youth and yearning
In my home alone and fearing
Screaming, hissing, writhing, Fitting
Crucifix in my hand I dothe implore
Came a tapping at my window floor
So I looked outside and nothing more

In my bed in room alight
Demons hissing, flitting then alight
Turn up the juice I need more light
Monsters from the darkness come alive
And in my weakness I might die
Comes a rapping at my window floor
And I know for sure there is nothing there

It is like a peculiar tapping
not a coarse and raucous rapping
not a loud and boisterous crashing
A little pecking, clicking thrashing directed at the window floor
I dare not look ouside for gravest fear
I am sure there is nothing there

Laying in the hospital bed insane
Roommate dearest also bane
Booming air duct sounds along with pain
Darkness madness freedom maimed
Others here they are the same
Comes a tapping at my window floor
So I scream out loud and nothing more

In this hotel they shock and twist
And drug and startle and slap and rip
They come back shadows through the big oak door
Grinning devils bare and bored
And in the night returns the rapping
A little trite peculiar winking tapping
Tapping at my window floor
So I start to pray and nothing more

Back at home in just a wink
Once a week I see a shrink
Asking what I see and hear
What I think and what I fear
And my future goes amidst the tears
And in the blackness comes that tapping
The familiar simple shortened clapping
A clacking at my window floor
And I am sure outside there is nothing there

Even in the morning early
While I awaken slow and surly
Before the sun rises so cheery
The sound appears that I abhor
I hear a tapping at the front door
The little trifled intentioned clacking
The peculiar light and evil tapping
Tapping again at my front door
I am afraid to look and nothing more

Reading in the night so deep
No sounds, no light no insects creep
No mice to remind of loss of sleep
Then returns the peculiar click and ticking
Alight and brusque and sickening pecking
A tap tap tapping at my window floor
Gone and back and rotten fear
I am scared to death and nothing more

And this before the sounds and words
Are peculiar things that I have heard
In the blossom of my youth
Came a loving brush with death
And to this day sometimes I hear a tapping
Always a light and affectionate clacking
A click clack clacking at my new front door
And now my soul is not so bare
So I look away because nothing’s there

On PCH and moonrise Avenue, Next to Ted’s restaurant, God built a long reef of cobblestones that deposited from Sea Castle Mountain and the lair of Estat.  Too bad the beach sits in the shadow of Catalina Island and Clemente Island to the south. Farm Beige fishes the reef at moonrise and usually wins the halibut derby every year.   Seaweed covers the reef and forms a beautiful brownish-green canopy offshore in the water in front of the island.  The Towers hang off the cliff above the moonrise.  Huge pylons set into the cliff enable a huge hotel-like structure to perch precariously over the PCH.  The blue sky hover over the pebble-strewn beach with coarse white sand and buttressed point, where a parking lot saves paradise and Teds restaurant smells like a steak and French fries.  The white sharks that hover off shore love the garbage Ted’s pumps into the ocean and the huge beasts can be felt near and closer when a surfer cares to surf alone.  The fear, the sickening feeling of seizure, strikes lonely surfers because Moonrise heralds as an overflow surf spot for beginners, refuse and stooges.  The only way to get the break with tremendous form is to live there and call in sick to work when it happens.  Once a year or two or three, moonrise point breaks better then Lanikea on Oahu, Hawaii and fifteen-second tube rides become the norm rather than the exception.  The secret lies in the shallow reef that only functions when the swell impinges directly from the west, bypassing Catalina and focusing on moonrise.  When a fifteen-foot west swell enters Monica Bay, only surfrider beach breaks better and half the world is there and not at moonrise.

Lanikea on the North shore of Oahu lives a short drive up from Haleiwa, down from Eukai and next to Chuns.  When Lanikea works, a long wall a quarter-mile long breaks down the beach at light speed. A rider must live there to catch it.    Moonrise reef breaks rounder but rarely, and appears as an ephemeral spirit enlivening the life of a lonely nomadic wave rider who lives up the canyon a mile away close to the darkness those envelopes Tranquil Hills. When the moonrise reef breaks big, a rider enters the wave at the point in front of the restaurant.  The wave then slows down for a second and then lines up on the reef like a long wall and breaks as a vortex for fifteen seconds all the way to the Bell Air Bay Club.beach.  Swells like this hit moonrise for one day only and then drop off tremendously. The west swell must peak at ten or more feet for the reef to work properly.  People live near moonrise or they don’t.  Frequently the only other thing swimming at moonrise are great white sharks attracted by the garbage and runoff from Sea Castle.  They rarely come up but someone surfing alone can feel them close.  

Wracks had the pleasure of sharing big waves with that person who sang out of Seattle and died up there.  He was a student at the University of Seattle in the health sciences.  He and utopia would nab the big sets with scarcely anyone else to contend with except the Brazilian Jib jets expert who retired after a successful MMA career.  Wracks never bothered with the Brazilian even though he would propelknock shoot his board at Wracks and threaten a takedown.  The waves when they happened were just too good to think about doing anything else.  Wracks, utopia, and the Brazilian together with some white tips were the only ones out at moonrise and would watch the steady flow of traffic going north to rich man’s land while waiting for big sets. Most of the time Moonrise looks like a placid lake with ripples lapping up on shore in view of the windows at the restaurant. In his youth, wracks would walk down the canyon, past the swami realization center, and with his homemade surfboard paddle at moonrise. Wracks would the walk up Moonrise Avenue, up the canyon, and back to his home and family and friends and the darkness soon to envelope tranquil hills and mark the countryside for evermore.

In the free flow of consciousness existing in the mind of Wracks these memories flood consciousness and overflow into a keyboard hooked up USB to a cheap laptop. Late at night wracks wishes to share the beauty of the world, the accomplishment of athletic achievement and the free spirit of youth that reside in an older body now.  The girls, the waves, the dark force, they have all come and gone but what remains is moonrise, Surfrider, and Zero in the middle of the heart of terror set in opulent America. Wracks was there but not there anymore. A rider has to live there to get it because it is gone in a day like Lanikai, Pupa kea and El Cap. Just like life, peak experiences happen and then are gone in the short, long task called life. 

The scenario is a sleepy Texan town close to the border of Mexico.   A distraught 18-year-old mental patient, who has been coerced by unknown forces, buys two assault rifles, enters a suburban elementary school and starts shooting young children as a political statement.  The gunman is either apprehended or shot and a rampage of vocalizing pacifists demand that the government prohibit the owning or bearing of firearms.  The question here really is not the gun industry but the social fabric that caused a young citizen to run amuck.   However, this paper focuses on the second amendment and the right to bear arms. 

The memory of the public is very short.   Just one hundred years ago, outlaws armed with state-of-the-art repeating rifles and sidearms would commander whole towns, take all the money, rape all the pretty women and be off in a swirl of dust towards their next objective. This is called the wild, wild, west.   Farm owners had to maintain an arsenal of rifles and shotguns because occasionally, desperados would infiltrate and conquer their rancho.   It seems like the supply of criminals is endless but the human aspect of life is a topic for another dissertation.  It was only a militia of colonials armed with French long rifles that gave their lives, their liberty and their health to start the great and peaceful nation that we love and live in today. 

Pacifists and feminists and the like all believe unsavory characters should be poisoned and euthanized in the local hospital as a fitting punishment for their crimes because it is non-violent.   This sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me.   The pacifists mandate that violence is now a felony with one year of mandatory imprisonment so now the rich can poison who they like at will and get away with it.  It is logical to assume that the best recapitulation against a poisoning miscreant is to punch them out, but now violence is anathema in our present society.  In a developed high-class society where violence is prohibited, the one who can afford the best poisoner wins, and that is that.  Maybe this is why some seemingly innocuous teenagers go berserk and start killing.

This author is not a psychologist or licensed psychiatrist but notices that owning a firearm is masculine and almost all successful men have at least one.   They feel that bigger and more is better and this is the manly way to go.  All gun experts like big weapons like 357 magnum, 45 ACP and 50 caliber browning.  Watch U-tube and learn.  Little machos all have 22 rimfire and most of the handgun accidents in the United States are caused by 22 rimfire weapons.  If a reader has ever fired a handgun, they know that recoil is daunting and only experts prefer the big calibers.

A solution but now a panacea for this dilemma can be the statutes for firearm possession and licensing. May it be the age to possess a firearm for everyone be raised to the age majority of 21?   People, let it be so.   As a placation to all the incredibly wealthy gun manufacturers, a law should be added to the 2nd amendment as a rider to the effect that only new firearms bought from the manufacturer can be obtained and all old or used firearms be confiscated and destroyed.   Anyone owning or selling a used firearm without registration be subject to immediate incarceration for six months.  This way the rich can get richer but the poor will protected from a minimum of firearms in circulation.

This essay is a sample of Americana at its best and it does not take a 100 page treatise written by lawyers to convey the simple formula of gun control.  New guns only, ownership and possession by age of majority of 21.   There are thousands of used weapons floating around at gun shows, America only has to make it so!

“Bonk, bonk bonk,” goes the knuckle against the glass window in Wrack’s room. “Who is outside my window at three in the morning,” asks Wracks?  “Bonk, Bonk, Bonk, meet me outside,” says BG.  “bonk, bonk, and bonk, its me BG.” Says BG.  “Where is my dog,” asks Wracks. “I gave Punkin a milk bone and put him to sleep,” says BG.  “How did you get in my house,” asks Wracks who now is wide awake. “I reached through the dog door and opened it up,” explains BG. “I did not want to wake your parents so I put Punkin to bed and came around to your window.  Meet me in back.”   “I have to put on some pants,” says Wracks, “give me a minute.”  Wracks exits his room, walks down the hall, closes the hall door and looks at the cushion where Punkin the house dog sleeps.  Punkin dozes upside down with a smile on his face and stirs when Wracks walks by.   He opens his eyes, makes a whining noise and goes back to sleep.  Wracks let BG in the back door. BG wears a cardigan sweater and a large woodsman hat because it is winter in the best climate in North America on the west coast in December.  “The con is on,” says BG.  “It should be about eight to ten feet at the point and bigger at indicator.”  “A new swell is hitting today and then it will drop tomorrow. The con is on and we should go now and be out in the water at sunup. The tide is low at two PM so the swell should peak in the morning and then drop with the tide. Let’s have breakfast.  What do you have? “   “We have eggs and toast,” says Wracks.  “I’ll have two eggs sunny side up and two pieces of toast with butter,” states BG. Wracks takes out a pan from underneath the stove, adds butter to the bottom of the pan and turns on the electric range and then drops four eggs into the melting and then sizzling butter.  Five minutes later the two sit at the kitchen table and have breakfast with two cups of Yuban fresh brewed coffee.  “It will not be as big as last time we went but it should be real good and have excellent shape. “  BG takes a draw on his coffee and finishes his eggs. “Bring some gas money and a pack of Pall mall Gold.   We will need the nicotine.”  Says BG.  He rises from his chair, takes his dish and sets it in the sink like he would at home.  “Ill gets my stuff, “says wracks. The dog spins around right side up and yawns.  “Ill see you out front, “says BG as he exits the back door in the dark in December as the mist from the ocean puts a shade and shadow on everything.   The dog goes back to sleep.  Wracks gets his jacket, his coke and bread, his paraffin bar, a pack of cigarettes, two dollars in change, and an O’Neill super suit, and goes out the back door into the garage.  A red diamond tail Nat Pro gun sits in the rafters and Wracks pulls it down with a hook and brings his gear outside the gate to underneath the big pine tree on Bacon way as the street lights illuminate the misty air about the night. The green General motors durabuilt engine econocar hatch sits open and Cool is loading his surfboard into the car between the seats.  “I invited him along, “says BG. “The more the merrier.”  Cool turns his head in a Mexican pullover with a hood and says,  “Hey brau,”  He then takes a draw on his cigarette and finishes a Heineken beer in a dark green bottle then heaves the empty into the neighbor’s yard.   “tonight you are going coffin,” says BG.  “Wait till I get my motorcycle helmet,” says Wracks.  Wracks dashes back into the back, into the garage and extracts a black bell motocross helmet and puts it on.   The three surfboards sit in the middle of the car separating the two driver seats and the back folds down into a large cargo area.  The gear of the three surfers sits on the right behind the “passenger side,   On the left will go Wracks coffin style. “Get in,” says BG, we have to get going.”  Wracks climbs into the cargo section, sits down facing back and lays into the car like count Dracula going to sleep.  BG closes the Hatchback over him, enters the car, ignites the ignition, puts the car into gear and the three set off into history. Down Bacon, past Deadman’s, onto Quez lane and then sunrise avenue and Wracks looks up at the stars with his helmet on, chin strap on and starts to fall asleep and the car accelerates like mad up highway number one.  “We are going to take the freeway today,” stipulates BG.  Up Pang oh road the hatchback flies and the tires screech around the hairpin curves until the plateau and the freeway 101 appears as a green sign in the headlights at night perpendicular to the direction they were going.   Entering the onramp the car flies and BG accelerates until the car is in forth gear and floored at night with the high beams on traveling on the 101 north.  Wracks awakens from sleep to see the stars and the car fills with smoke and the windows are half way down and the wind whips around Wracks helmet, the icy coolness bringing him back to life.   Within a short time the three arrive at the junction, the junction of California street and highway one, and the ocean makes sounds and the moon sets largely on the ocean, illuminating the way to the little corner.   The little corner is the most consistent surf break in SB and gets a northwest, a hard north and a straight west swell.  BG says today the swell sweeps in straight west and Wracks dozes coffin style in the hatchback.   Kool becomes animated and says, “let’s stop at the little clam for provisions.”  BG acknowledges and the car comes to a stop a half hour later at a little market, in a shack, set against s a hill with a gas station a half block away and the ocean rumbles and roars.  BG buys a hot dog and a pastrami sandwich heated in the store microwave.  Kool gets a sandwich and a bag of candy.   Wracks stays inside the car.   The two eat in silence.   Then BG says, “Lets get going and be out in the water at sunrise.”  Kool acknowledges with a hand gesture.  BG ignites the car and heads out on the highway. Within ten minutes the three are at the little corner and pull into the big parking lot made especially for wave riders surrounding them with cyclone fencing and concrete blockades.   The night closes and the scene begins to lighten into a dark grey and morning arrives.  Eight cars situate inside the parking area.  Die-hard wave riders who scoff a normal life sit in their cabs or hang out of the cargo doors of their vans waiting for first light.  Sharks cruise in the darkness and light sends them back out to deep water until the sun sets again.  A number of young ladies arrive to watch the wave rider’s surf the long thin tubular swells of the little corner.  The little corner breaks mostly on a west or northwest swell.  On these disturbances, the wave’s line up perpendicular to the point and break with ruler straightness in cylindrical almond-shaped tubes.  From the outer first point three separate tube sections exist and a wave rider can situate his or her self strategically at each section to ride deep inside the wave.  The little corner holds a west swell up to fifteen feet, and then it starts to break erratically and close out.  On a rare hard north swell that refracts off the Channel Islands onto the west facing beach, thirty foot waves will break for a morning and then disappear in the afternoon.  For these waves people dedicate their lives and wait and watch for the perfect big day to arrive.  When it breaks, the little corner draws addicts from all over the coastal region of southern California.  Cool is the first out of the car. BG uncorks wracks who arises life a vampire from his tomb, the shucks the helmet and saunters with the other two down the little trail unto the base of the beach to catch a glimpse of what morning brings.   Today, the three are lucky, a solid ten to twelve-foot swell sends lines three to five at a time to break down the point into the bay.  The morning starts, the light arrives and a cool offshore breeze holds up the waves unto perfect spinning vortexes larger than ten feet and growling.  Cool screams out an unspeakable word and runs back to the green hatchback along with BG.  The hatch open, three wetsuits hang on the car and wracks shares the bar of paraffin with the other two, and white streaks appear on the surface of the three long surfboards. With boards in hand, the three run down the trail, through the flotsam and jetsam of wood and seaweed up to the point.  Timing the sets, they launch during a lull and are outside.   The sun comes up over the mountain interior to the little corner point and the day begins.  About twenty people ride the waves that morning and enough waves arrive to give each his or her own to enjoy.  When the sun raises to directly overhead, the offshore wind stops and the ocean becomes completely smooth and glassy like a window pane.  Three wave sets pour through endlessly.  Within an hour the wind reverses into a westward flow and the ocean surface starts to roughen up and chop.  BG turns to Wracks and says, “Were going in.” Wracks starts to paddle to shore without waiting for a wave to ride and then arrives on the beach by going along with the white water.    Cool waits up at the car. BG opens the car, Cool grabs a bag of candy and starts eating.  Wracks strips off his wetsuit and adorns his druid robe.  Cool takes off his wetsuit then noticing some young ladies down the parking lot, starts dancing stark naked and singing.  The girls laugh and blush and Wracks stows his gear in the hatchback and modestly puts on his corduroy jeans and tee-shirt and then his jacket.  BG smokes a Pall mall gold and drinks a coke.   The waves still pour in and the parking lot shows full.   Surfers run down to the beach with their boards and the wind is a light five knots on shore.   BG tosses his cigarette butt and says, “Lets go.  Wracks get in the coffin.”  Wracks dons the black bell helmet and descends into the hatch.  Cool drinks a beer and tosses the can as close to a trash receptacle as he can.  The green Chevrolet launches southward at light speed. “I told you so, I told you so,” chides BG….  Ten to twelve feet slides and churning green tubes.  What more can you ask for.”

“I have to go work for my father,” says Cool  “it is mellow.”    Wracks as customary fades into oblivion as the car enters the 101 at California street.    The three arrive back at Bacon way at three thirty pm.  “Service with a smile,” says BG.  “Wracks, get out, I have a new destination.”  Wracks grabs his gear in a brown grocery bag and plucks his red NatPro gun from the car.   “Thank you very much BG that was a session I will always remember.  BG and cool accelerate in a spinning circle and rocket up Deadman’s land to Charmed street where Cool lives.  Wracks stows his board in the rafters and washes his super suit with cold hose water.   The little dog sits on the kitchen step, growls and wags his tail.   Wracks enters the house.  “What’s for dinner” asks Wracks. “Grab a frozen bag of chicken and microwave it, “says mom.   “Where were you?” “I was surfing big waves up in SB with BG,” explains Wracks.  “go shower off and do your homework,” says Mom.   Wracks walks to his bedroom, the falls into his bed and is asleep.  The day closes, and night arrives again and the dark brooding in the silence becomes a reality.  Wracks wakes up when it is dark, makes his meal, boils water for a cup of coffee and reads by his little desk lamp.  The dog saunters in through the doggy door and falls asleep on his little cushion and wracks turns on the evening lights and locks up the house.  A light shines from under the door in Grandma’s room and Grandma is watching Tony Orlando on television.  “Do you need dinner,” asks Wracks.  “No she says and smiles and holds a speaker up to her ear.  “I already ate.”  The day ends, the night begins and another page turns over in the book of Wracks life.  Today he rode long thin tubular waves for a quarter-mile ride while the world turns.  No one noticed except Wracks and maybe his little dog and tomorrow he will wake up and read the Sunday paper and maybe go to church.  Then a new week begins again and wracks grow a little older.