Tag Archives: Frank W. Summers III

Just a Note on the Blog Readership

Posted on August 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is the nineteenth  day on this month’s calendar page and this  is already the month with the most views in the history of this blog. In addition it makes for four consecutive months with increasing viewership and  a rise in seven of the last eight months. However, there is plenty of up and down by the day and week. Nonetheless, I want to thank all of you who have chosen to make this a more effective form of communication than keeping a diary or slipping notes into bottles and throwing them into the sea.

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Some thoughts about marriage in America

Posted on August 7, 2010 | 1 comment

The US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has held that Proposition 8 which outlawed same-sex  marriage was unconstitutional and that this  is because heterosexual couples and same-sex couples were identical.  The judge ruled that the ban on homosexual unions was simply a kind of persecution which is at once entirely unmerited and simply cruel. There will be a lot of controversy as this goes through appeals and makes its way to the Supreme Court. But it does raise issues related to marriage and particularly polygamy that I wish to discuss here. I am going to point out a couple of my own posts where I have touched on issues relating to marriage, sexuality and the varied crises and have in one of them at least touched upon polygamy. However, the issues covered in this post do not require a close reading of these posts.  

 1. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/why-i-dare-to-advocate-radical-change/

I start with this post above because I think that it is vital that we recognize how far away from any ideal of marriage that has been proposed by the Christian faith in it its most idealistic and monogamous we really are.  If polygamy could be achieved for a portion of the many who are having children and expressing their sexuality with no reference to that ideal then it would be progress in terms of social and cultural nearness to both the spirit of Christ and the life of the gospel. That does not mean that there are not real risks and nothing that can be lost which is valuable and precious.

The link below is one in which I have discussed both the nature of human sexuality and also how it relates to social development and royalism.  We must find a way to address sexual reality. That is especially true for those of us who have the kinds of ideals that relate to humanism, Christianity and Judaism. It is imperative that we become conversant with reality again.

2. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/monarchy-and-royalist-culture-in-america-past-present-and-future-part-3-3/

I am a Christian and Christianity has never been the most polygamous religion. However, it has never been as completely anti-polygamous as it currently has almost entirely become. The Roman Catholic theologian Tertullian argued against the common and theologically supported practice  of priests (some of whom were celibate even then) commonly marrying two wives and especially sisters. When Tertullian was later disciplined for other reasons it is possible that in part it was because of the portion of the church which believed polygamy was an important part of the Christian tradition for some men in leadership both royals and some clerics especially. But there were few Christian royals (not none) in the third century. This is just part of the picture: Charlemagne who was able to add the filioque procedit   phrase to the Western version of the creed was an open polygamist as were all of his sons. 

One issue that I think has to be discussed if one is going to discuss polygamy at all reasonably is that one has to begin to visualize it in order to understand it and discuss. Where it has been so universally illegal for so long it is not so easy to visualize. I want to include some film and television references that deal with varied and complex glimpses of polygamy and make it possible to see where the institutions of plural marriage have found their way into American viewerships and audiences.  Here are some worth watching:

1. One Night With The King: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430431/

The first link is to a film that tells the Biblical story of Esther.

2. The Other Boleyn Girl: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467200/

The second link is to  a film telling the story of Henry VIII and his women.

3. King David: http://www.amazon.com/King-David/dp/B000JGD264/ref=pd_vodsm_B000JGD264

The third link is to the telling of the story of King David which is extremely important to both Judaism and Christianity.

4. Big Love: http://www.hbo.com/big-love

The  fourth link is to a fictional family trying to restore and modernize Mormon polygamy. It is complex, muddied by multiple perspectives at times but I think it is a good show nonetheless.

Then I want to show some examples of contracted relationships between Americans in our history and present.  These are real lives past and present that matter to those who live them quite a bit. As a committed son of Louisiana I am pleased to discuss one of the institutions that expressed polygamy in a new and workable way tied to old traditions. Take a chance to look at this and I may return to it later and have actually touched upon this before in other posts. Clearly the social realities of the quadroon ball are very far from where we are now. But if you take a global perspective it is entirely clear to me that  they were often superior values and ideals from which we could still benefit some day.

The Quadroon Ball:

I. http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/quadroons/quadroons2.htm

II. http://www.nathanielturner.com/livesandtimesofquadroons.htm

I also wonder how it would feel to be this young woman in the next video and be aware of all that is disastrous in our sexual realities in the world and still have one’s lifestyle just barely outside the criminal. I think it is horribly tragic.

Modern polygamy in the Mormon tradition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANXeiyGx7To&feature=related

It is to be remembered that if you are reading this blog you are reading the blog of someone who wants to change and reform the government and not either escape or limit it into insignificance. I think that governments of the States of the Union and of not yet existing institutions I have proposed would have a vital role to play in making any polygamous domestic institutions work.  It is not entirely clear to me whether the current king of Thailand can be said to ever really have entered into plural marriage. I have not confidential sources and the public sources that I have seen indicate all sorts of contradictory things. It is perhaps a powerful sign of anti-polygamy in the United States that the only true Oriental King to have been born to the rights of an American citizen is part of the possible complete dismantling of an institution so valued in Thailand. However, it may be that it has been a slightly concealed part of his life. To see something about the history of the royal polygamy of Thailand see the next link:   http://www.1stopchiangmai.com/articles/dara/

One thing to understand that is really vital is that those of us who would rather not lie, murder slaughter innocents wholesale or proceed blindly into the future have competitors and opponents who would  like to have all these thing happen routinely and others who would like most of them to happen often. We can still recognize that polygamy is something less than the best and highest forms of monogamy and acknowledge it has a role to play in the survival of anything that can be called civilization.

I will make on of my personal revelations here in this post. I have been married only once and to only one person. Although I am involved with Christian ministry I am not a regular churchworker and not reaping rewards that would cause me to greatly limit my romantic life on that basis alone. Given the actual realities of my life I think it is true that I have had a very limited sex life outside of the seven years of my marriage. However, I have dated a lot. I have sometimes had more than one girlfriend who knew each other. In a few of those instances I have dated two women who were lesbians and attached to each other. I would not flatter my self so much as to say that had polygamy been legal I might have married those gals, certified one as a covenant mistress and one as her maid or whatever else. But it has been an issue in my actual life. I am getting old and tired and mean and in every way less eager to marry but I feel personally that  I have been harmed as well as in the lives of my friends.  

There is so much more to discuss. Polygamy has dark potentials and sides that must be resisted and that is why government has a role to play. I am not interested in persecuting homosexuals but I do think commitments between wives or ladies and maids in royal harems meets the needs of those who really need commitment and maintains marriage between a man and a woman.  I do not want a world where all monks and canons are presumed homosexual. But I do believe homosexuals who care for each other can find civilized happiness as part of such groups. We must find ways to embrace sane civilized options that are imperfect and build again. We live in a world where ruin and deliberate evil  combine to threaten more than most people can imagine. Life will not be improved by further simplifying a too simple society nor by pretending same-sex couples are capable of marriage to each other as heterosexual couples are  capable of contracting such unions.

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The Other Side of this Blog: Discussing the Other Side of Me

Posted on July 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am writing this blog as a forty-six year old. I am sitting alone in a room where I often type these blog posts. It is because of this simple routine itself perhaps that I am inspired to write this post.  It is not so very easy to explain why I continue to blog the way I do. Perhaps it is not even easy for me to understand why I do it myself. Nonetheless, I am continuing to blog.  So I thought I would try to describe not only myself but also those parts of me that are most related to reasons why I am not deeply involved in any sort of public life.

It is certainly true that my own ability to describe myself is something less than perfect and total.  It is even more true that you and all my other readers have a limited interest in what I might be able to find to say or write.  I define myself mostly in terms of things that are not the center of my blog discussions. I sometimes  mention one or two things briefly from this category. However, only a few posts are examples of my having chosen to really attempt a portrait of myself in some verbal way. In this post I will attempt to discuss some things that I have not discussed in quite the same way elsewhere. It should not be surprising that much of the material will relate to other material in the blog if one is a serious reader of this blog. But it is not exactly the same sort of thing as discussing these things in the way I have up until now.

I wonder how possible it is for me to imagine describing myself to anyone who might actually have a legitimate interest in knowing me because of something that they have read in this blog. I am quite delighted to express the truth at this stage in my life. When the truth can be found it is easier for me to discuss it than almost anyone I know.  But I do not have a simplistic view of myself, the conditions of human life or the world in general.

One of the things that partly facilitates but largely complicates this effort is that a sort of complex record exists of my life to some degree. In other words if I generated enough historical interest to have a really professional biographer  try to put together my life story then there would be quite a bit that might still exist or not exist. First, there is the autobiography section of this blog. Second, there is the mention of me and the story of my family in my mother’s book Go! You are Sent: An Incredible Odyssey of Faith. There are the press releases and possibly some interview recording that were made when I received the Sophomore Class Award at Franciscan University of Steubenville and the similar if longer items produced when I received the USL  Alumni Association Outstanding Graduate Award.   There is a press release that was issued when I was named News Editor of the Abbeville Meridional in 1986. There is a handful of brief television and radio interviews and an even smaller group of longer ones that in some way or another asked about my life. Up until today these go from about 1980 to about 2005. Some I never heard broadcast and so cannot really verify that they have been. There is the biographical material I submitted for the Board of Regents Fellowship when I was preparing to do graduate work at Louisiana State University after I did receive that award. There is the biographical material that I submitted to Tulane Law School before being admitted there twice. In addition to all of this there are references to myself in things I have published about other people and events. At this moment many people who have known me quite well are still alive and able to speak well and probably have some documents that could be of use. I do not absolutely know that all these people are alive and not all would say favorable things but these are some folks that come quickly to mind. Tragically, some names of people I was very close to have slipped my mind and some others cannot be mentioned. In addition some others are women whose names will have changed although there is no rule here about which name I use for such women. Here is a list then:

Missi Summers Smith, Rachel Gremillion Broussard, Jed Gremillion, Brian Gremillion, Cecil Bruce Gremillion II, Clay James Summers, Charles Williams Massey IV, Dolly Marie Miller Brandt, Dannon Stokes, Dr. Philip Edward Noel, Dr. David Link Silar, Charlie Warner, Soane Paseka, Viliami Ufi, David Chapel, Larry Bordelon, David Dent, Myron Music, Christine Hebert Landry,Miguel Angel Barriga, Deianiera __________, Fr. Jim Mitchell, Benito Rodriguez, Bishop Carlos Talavera, Annabelle Vega, Michelle O’ Malley, Wayne Sebire, Henry Smith, Peter Smith, Anne O’Neil, Elizabeth Gallagher, Peter Gallagher, Cardinal Tom Williams, Dave Southey, Bishop Honesto Pacana, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, Benjamin Estrada, Dodong Batoctoy, Rudy Mercado, Tony Evangelista ,Melvin Valcorza, Mike Joseph, Laura Carloss Guidry, Dr. Allan Barry, Dr. James Stanley Cox, Dr. John Fiero, Steve Kroeger, Dr. Mark Roman Schultz,  Bill Schlick, Fr. Michael Scanlon, Michelle Denise Broussard Summers,  Ben Reed, Kathy Broussard,Brian Hollier,  Dr. Peter Reswebber, Fr. Richard Greene, Jonathan Turley, Jon Scialdone, Gabriel Sosa, Peter Wickersham, Walter Roper, Jim Rich, Lt. Governor Paul Hardy, Pat Slattery, Sharon McCarthy, Anna Mayes, Frank Harvey Bollich, Ray Simon, Monsignor Richard Mouton, Donna Lemaire,Kevin Daigle, Dr. WIlliam James Cooper Jr., Dr. Gaines Foster,  Greg Hospodor, John Marshall, Ben Price, Mary Hebert Price, Jack Paul Showers, Julie Anne Yannatta, David Widdoes, Blaine Saunier, David Dupuis, Ellen Arceneaux, Kevin Foote, Bruce Brown, Dan Macdonald, Robbie Dardeau, Red Lerille, Robin Gremillion, Gabriel Gremillion, Sheriff Michael Couvillon, Davis Frederick, Jabian Sellers, Scott Desormeaux, Xu Aina, Wang Guang rong, Liu Ting ting, Dean and President Song, Dean Edward Zhang, John T.Landry, Mayor Mark Piazza, John Bergeron, Bridget Khoring and there are many unmentioned. Such a list is useless to the casual reader of course. However, it could be useful to someone who wanted to try to piece together my life. I would not dream of taking the time and space to really identify these real people. In addition I want to say that I would not come up with exactly the same list on any two days.

So with a life that stretches across varied media and varied regions I have a lot of loose ends that keep me from  putting together a neat and coherent story that others might attempt. Beyond this simple complexity there is complex complexity. I am a person who has seen a goodly number of jails that I visited in Prison ministry or for lawyers or to help friends who were prisoners or for many reasons other than being an inmate. I was a youth minister that people unburdened themselves of their deep dark secrets to quite often. I have been a credited and uncredited journalist who followed stories into murky places. I have friends who told me they had abortions, smuggled drugs, were beaten by their fathers, had deadly diseases or had false identities who told few or no other people and whom I have never told upon or “outed” . I have had friends or acquaintances who secretly affairs, cross-dressed, smoked pot, or were fully professional cover agents in the Intelligence community. I have known prostitutes whose neighbors were unsuspecting of their ventures. Politically, my connections include communists, fascists, royalists, Klansmen, Greens and many others who are either not really committed to the mainstream parties they belong to or belong to parties far outside the US mainstream. Some are very much in the mainstream of their own countries and some are on the fringes overseas.   In my life I have been run off the road, shot at, bitten, hit with at least ten different objects, slashed by someone trying to stab me  and had dogs sicced on me — but those attacks do not exhaust the story. Oddly enough some of those responsible for those things are people I still have to deal with and relate to so that I am limited in what I can reveal in one way or another.

I am not now nor have I often been a very happy person. Nor am I a person who feels very succesful, lucky or prospered. While I am blessed with happy memories that I appreciate my mind usually goes to dark and dire memories if I let it run free. This is accentuated by the fact that I really do believe that lots and lots of things are wrong in this world.  I aspire to a wise activist stance. However, I do not always live up to my desired stance vis-a-vis the world.

As I read what I have written so far in this post I see that it skirts most issues and fails to explain why I am not running for some small office or teaching English in Japan. It fails to touch also on the effects that organizations of varied levels of secrecy have had upon my life. It fails to even allude to some burdens that I have long carried. It fails to name the brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews who are large in my view of my life and of the world. By accident of a few deaths and a few forgotten names my list has only one nun on it and she no longer uses a religious name nor Sr. as an honorific.  Then there is a whole cluster of celebrities whom I sort of know. How can you sort of know someone? Well if you were my constant companion you might find that this is the best description available for my relationships with these people.

All of this disclosure if taken seriously may make it seem that I really abhor lying. Unfortunately, I recall telling a fairly considerable number of lies along life’s road. I prefer the truth and have sacrificed for it but there are many lies I would not know how to take back if I could.

Partly I am documenting these things and others about myself because  a long time spent making better than could be hoped decisions and taking and beating very dangerous risks has left me more or less poor, tired and unsafe. It turns the mind repeatedly to mortality. In my case that sense of death’s nearness does not lead me to put a vast fortune in order because I do not have one. The impulse to put ones house in order is channeled into the narrative of one’s story. So while I do not retract any of the grandiose proposal I make in this blog it may be that they are rays of light thrown off of flickering wick closer to the end of its burning than to its middle. Or, I hope, I may be wrong. However, it is that sensibility that contributes to making me so different from change agents like David Duke, Al Sharpton, Ralph Nader  or lesser known local examples you may be thinking of. as you read this. I can type in this room for now. Beyond that it is hard to hope for much and be me at the same time.

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A Really Personal Blog Post. 50 Random Things About Me

Posted on July 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

1. I went to school in some very real sense at each of the following institutions: Happy Howards Nursery School, a kindergarten in London, Mount Carmel Elementary School in Abbeville, Louisiana and St. Hilda and St. Hugh Episcopal Day School in Manhattan. I also attended Tonga Side School and the Lord’s School in Our Lady’s Youth Center before returning to MCES. I attended the Instituto de Estudios America Latina in Cuernavaca, Viard College in Porirua, Scripture Ventures and the East Asian Pastoral Intitute.  I completed the Lay Evangelists course for the Diocese of Lafayette.  I count my brief participation in a short Introduction to Visayan Seminar at Bukidnon State College. I have a B.A. from USL, now the University of Louisiana where I was the Alumni Association Outstanding Graduate for my commencement. I attended the Franciscan university of Steubenville where I won the Sophomore Class Award ( they used to award one to a male and one to a female but both called “the award” of Sophomore Class Award) I completed the Catechist Certification Course for the Diocese of Lafayette.  I have an M.A. from Louisiana State University. I twice enrolled at Tulane Law School.  I completed a course at the Insurance Training School of Louisiana.  I have also attended many lectures and seminars not part of the schooling listed above.

2. I have three sisters Sarah, Mary and Susanna.

3. I have three full brothers Joseph, John Paul and Simon.

4. I have a deceased special situation half-brother named Paul.

5. I have in my life fired  12 gauge, 16 gauge, 20 gauge,  and 4-10 shotguns. I have fired 45 caliber, nine milimeter, 22 caliber and several other pistols. I have also fired M-16, AR-14, Kalashnikov and other automatic and semi-automatic weapon. In addition I have fired a reasonable number of rounds in sporting and hunting rifles.

6.  I have been interviewed for television in the USA, China, Mexico and the Philippines.

7. I have suffered the loss to death or displacement of animals I cared about including: horses, dogs, cats, goldfish, turtles, a rabbit, a hornbill bird and poultry.

8. I have hunted and killed ducks, geese, deer, rabbits, racoons, aligators, wild pig, snakes and other game.

9. I have been on the water in foot-powered paddle wheelers, canoes, pirogues, rafts, catamarans, outrigger canoes, steam-powered paddle wheelers, the QE2, the France and other ships as well as many small skiffs, sailboats and  rafts.

10. I have set foot on Europe, Asia,  North America, South America and Australia  and many islands.

11. I have never set foot on Africa or Antartica.

12. I have ridden motorcycles quite a bit but never had a license.

13. I have driven  cars only in North America and on some islands.

14. I was confirmed a Roman Catholic at the hands of a Cardinal of our Church.

15.  I was baptized, received my First Communion and was wed at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church. 

16. I have caught over a dozen species of fish.

17.   I spent a lot of time observing and studying bats (the animal) long ago.

18.  I have bought meals for more women or girls than I have held hands with, held hands with more than I have kissed, kissed more than I have cuddled with and the lines continue in that direection.

19.  I have enjoyed gambling in the form of poker, blackjack, lottery, slots, pool, darts and many other games. Most weeks I do not gamble at all.

20. I have been in love with more than one woman at a time more than once.

21. I have traveled to and from the USA to China and the the USA to the Philippines alone.

22. I have been bitten by a poisonous snake, horses, dogs, cats, angry men and curious babies.

23. I have been stung by wasps, centipedes. bees, hornets, jellifish, spiders and exotic fish.

24. I have at least spent the night and a day in New Orleans, Mexico City, New York, Tijuana, Los Angeles, Beijing, Hong Kong,Yantai,  Manila, Bogota, London, Paris, Rome, San Francisco,  Monterrey, San Diego, Montreal and many other big cities  but think of myself as mostly a small town and countryside guy.

25. I have owned over one hundred knives besides kitchen knives.

26. I am an FCC licensed radiotelephone operator.

27. In my life time I have at least participated to some degree in basketball, football, soccer, rugby, swimmin, water polo, sailing, boating  of many kinds, horseback riding, snow skiing, karate, Tae Kwan Do, Kung Fu, canoeing, fishing, hiking, cycling, weight lifting, calisthenics, putt-putt golf, bowling, horseshoes and ping pong.

28. I have never played a single game of golf.

29. I smoked tobacco in cigars, cigarettes and pipes.

30. I have fasted on water only for more than nine days several times.

31. I have stayed awake for more than 48 hours continuously.

32. I have driven a car over 115 miles an hour several times.

33. I have fought more than thee opponents at the same time more than a few times.

34. I have read over 1,000 books.

35. I have read the Bible in its entirety several times.

36. I have spoken to groups more than a thousand times.

37. I have been to more funerals than weddings.

38. I do not think most people are very good. I do think that the humanity all people share has great goodness in it.

39. I have had my appendix removed.

40. I have not had my tonsils removed.

41. I really like trains and have ridden many.

42. I consider Philip Norton, Baron of Louth a friend although we have never met or spoken and our correspondence has been topical rather than personal  — and even though I do not feel it fair to him to call him a friend under such limits.

43. I have quite few regrets in my life.

44. I have never dyed my hair with a permanent dye.

45. I have visited quite a few prisons.

46.  I drove a “hot-shot” truck service at one time.

47. I have published writing on football, baseball, soccer, drag racing, basketball and other sports.

48.  I watched the second tower get hit on TV live on 9-11.

49. I have toured the Forbidden City and the Temple of  Heaven in Beijing. I also toured Penglai and  other ancient sites.

50.  I love US National Parks.

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Why I Matter to Myself & Other Matters… in the News Cycle

Posted on July 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am aware that this blog is a tiny little piece of the world of formal electronic information. I am even more aware that the biggest outlet only doing what I do here would only meet a small part of the complete needs of people for information.

1. This evening Venezuela and Colombia broke off relations, that is as close as on could hope to get to being warned that we may be facing a real and full-fledged shooting war in our own hemisphere. I think that war between Venezuela and Colombia would have a great deal of geopolitical and regional significance. I think that we need to face the fact that we have sense of distance from affairs of state in our own hemisphere that never existed  in the same way in the past. We have so many level of reasons to be concerned about this matter. I do not feel this news has been broken to the US public very well.

2. There is a storm passing through the Gulf over the spill area. This tropical storm Bonnie raises a huge number of questions. I think that the US public is at least aware that this is true. However, this does not mean that they are prepared to understand all the questions…

3. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chelsea were given an image of themselves made of chips of precious stones. This is an ancient art from in Asia. The image is to valuable for them to be likely to be eligible to keep it under US ethics rules. In a country known for waste, consumption and greed how can these rules do anything but destroy what good will we do find in a large and dangerous world.

I am not going to do a good job analyzing and reporting these stories. However, life being what it is I am able to make sure my readers know that these things are happening. I want to move beyond the hell-hole of my real life for a moment and focus on how much we need a variety of perspectives in this society and I am going to rejoice that I am in this mix of needed voices.

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Why I Dare to Advocate Radical Change…

Posted on July 22, 2010 | 1 comment

As I start to get back into the swing of this blog and some of its long-term themes I am forced to consider and address those who might ask why I should dare to advocate radical social change.

Well, because young people in the United States seem confused about some of the meaning and consequences of their sexual-social choices.

1. http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/health_statistics_teen_sexuality_std_pregnancy

Because married filiation is under stress as is the American family structure and there is a real race to the bottom because only marriage is a recognized domestic regime. Society is destroying basic human community.

2. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm

Because, entirely unregulated sexual and domestic slavery is widespread in the united States and the world. 

3.http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html

4.http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-10-06/news/17316911_1_trafficking-victims-human-trafficking-new-owners

Because, after huge amounts of social change at gunpoint the black community in America is really in a downward spiral in many ways. The great project of this country in my generation is suicide.

5.http://www.blackangelnetwork.org/stats

Because, we have destroyed communities in favor of society and society is doing an increasingly poor job of holding things together. Corporations and governments are not able to care for all this dislocated people well.

6.http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Because our absurd idea of national morality focuses largely on the total prohibition of recreational drugs and prostitution and it is quite possible to argue that this is not only hypocritical but also misguided.

7.http://www.fleshandstone.net/press_releases/1812.html

8. http://www.liberator.net/articles/prostitution.html

So this is why my royalist American program for radical change is something I continue for as long as I can stay here. I do think that things are disastrous in many areas of society besides coastal policy. I favor radical change because I think we are radically off-track.

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Posted in Christianity, Frank W. Summers, Jesus Christ, Louisiana, Royalty and Empire, United States of America, Western civilization

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A Return to Perceived Eccentric Meanderings

Posted on July 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

I spent a large number of posts discussing the BP Oil leak and its consequences. That included a couple saying that the leak streak was going to end. I then have spent three posts discussing the passing, life and memory of my uncle Will. That brings  me to now and to today. I am ready to start blogging about other things. The truth is that the other things I blog about or not as likely to be seen as essential, necessary and compelling as the blogging I have been doing on the last two topics. In the eyes of many I am back to blogging about odd things that few think seriously about and which they don’t approve of when they do think about them. That is a particularly negative and jaundiced view that does not represent everyone reading. Some will say I discuss interesting things but from an odd and eccentric perspective. A last and probably much smaller group will say that I have offer a welcome glimpse at a sane perspective in a world gone mad. Some readers will not relate to any of these three  points of view.

I think some writing and writing venues consist of exploratory agitation. Some consist of a kind of journeyman’s daily craft. Yet another kind of writing is a victory lap that sets off a long period of success and accomplishment.  I think this blog is none of those things it is kind of like a defeat lap. The Marathoner who finishes eighth in a field with only three prizes taking a lap around the home stadium holding his country’s flag. One may ask why the hell he does it but also finds it difficult to dispute his right to run it if he wants to run it.

I comment here on many topics from the point of view of someone whose life has been for a long time a relatively unmitigated disaster. Economic, political and social disaster of a rather extreme kind or only mitigated by a few personal victories and satisfactions. Those include mostly relationships with people who are precious to me.

Since I finished my recent online novel, have stopped covering the oil leak closely and have buried my uncle I can return to blogging. I welcome almost all possible readers. The readership is almost certain to remain small compared to the largest readership I have ever written for in my past. It is as much expression as communication I suppose.  So before returning to these political, social and religious notations I am taking this post to discuss the blog itself in terms that seem real today.

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Posted in BP - British Petroleum, Culkathadreil, Frank W. Summers, Frank W. Summers III's family, media, novels by Frank Summers, William Charles Summers

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Remembering the Near Despair and New Hope in 2 Weary Souls

Posted on July 20, 2010 | 1 comment

 I am feeling a bit weary today. I feel a bit weary most days. Honestly, I require a certain infrastructure of life which I do not have here and now to ever live free of weariness. In addition I am aging and at 46 I think there is some sense of having hit the top of the hill of human energy and heading back down again. Yesterday I served as a pallbearer and as a lector at the funeral of my uncle William Charles Summers. For me weariness was part of the whole experience of Will’s last years. I felt some sadness and unease mentioning this because his marriage to his widow Brenda and his relationship with the stepdaughters he cherished — Jennifer and Kayler occurred during these weary years mostly. I do not want to make it seem like the man who worked their farm, hunted alligators, saddle broke horses, coached basketball, drove them on vacations and lived as their husband and father was some old weary guy. But honestly I never saw him since the year 20oo for any length of time when he did not communicate his weariness to me in some way.   That was ten years ago and he only married Brenda eleven years or so ago. But for all he did in those years his energy was a small and frail thing compared to the vast fountains of energy I knew in his youth. Will was almost 55 when he died and I am almost 46 now and I can relate to his sense of weariness.   That weariness inspires me to write this blog post.

Will found a new life with Brenda and her children. he had a working farm and was a friend of the husband Brenda had just buried before he took a different interest over coming years in the widow he was helping. But in a quiet way he was near despair. He already had several physical ailments and an active life had left him burdened with varied old injuries. His religious journey and relationships with women including one named Jackie and another named Lisa and a few others I choose not to name at all had all come to a place that had left him for short of satisfied. He had helped his sister who was raising a child alone to help rear her daughter in different ways for several years.  That had gone the way such sibling volunteer fathering often goes in our society. He had kept close bonds with sister and niece but new walls and borders had grown up between them as the years passed.

Will had sailed some rough seas and backed away from a lifelong love affair with sailboats. The hard-drinking, sharpshooting, world-traveling, mysterious side of Will that existed on the fringes (at best) of the legal world in several countries and could help play music in a bar of questionable reputation or move packages of obscure origin or help women get around whose movements some might want to limit could be a dangerous and angry man. He had mellowed. Maybe more than I have mellowed at a similar age now that he had reached then. Will and I always had things in common and also were very different. We also had lots of things in common. Partly, we found some grace in people we cared about to temper other aspects of our personalities.

There is a cycle in all lives but perhaps in ours more than most. I will no longer be able to look over a few miles away to see my uncle’s struggle between despair and hope and compare it to my own.  I will not have the chance to compare notes on the spiritual struggles we shared in common. I hope, yes I feel some hope that he both rests in peace and is well-remembered.

To see Will and not violate copyright laws: http://www.meaningfulfunerals.net/fh/obituaries/vt_view.cfm?o_id=666635&fh_id=11197&s_id=7DC1F0D026E57519378C8C9000056A1B&vt_type=1

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Posted in Acadians, Anglo-Acadians, Christianity, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Frank W. Summers III's family, Jesus Christ, Louisiana, Wetlands, William Charles Summers

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William Charles Summers Dies: An Acrostic Verse

Posted on July 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Will, I am stringing rhyming lines together to spell your name on the left side.

I feel a loss I just cannot pretend is gone and yet I have not shed a tear yet.

Let’s just say I will miss the crawfish boils and the days I matched your stride.

Loping across that farm and disagreeing about things most folks would not “get”.

I am thinking of that old guitar, the harmonica and the banjo too.

All the way back to a military school and Sousaphone you played with pride.

Music stitched through lands and colors was part of much you used to do.

***

Could it be I miss the Bible sharing that we had? I an 8-year-old lapsed Catholic,

Hearing your Jehovah’s Witness testimony to God as real for you,

And next I set Catholic tones to your hippie search in topics  exegetic.

Rather later, you and I and John read texts in a farmhouse too.

Latest of all, talking about your Roman Catholic ending road.

Every phase was marked by that Bible’s mental load.

Some same Bible problems we both too well knew.

***

So, I am making you a pious memory now Will.

Until, I remember all you knew about Marijuana,

Meaningful quarrels over laws that outlive you still.

Much agreed on: prostitution and pot in Louisiana

Each favoring regulation but angry words air did fill.

Remember wild child you surfed when we went to Malibu?

Summer before you ran to a Shenandoah hill. 

***

Do I mention Taurus and Cajun Blue in a line for you?

It seems seeing sailing sets  tests my simple poem can’t do.

Each day from now on I will know what we did not get.

Suddenly, the passing is clearer in a kind of regret.

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Posted in Acadians, Anglo-Acadians, family, Frank W. Summers, Frank W. Summers III's family, Jesus Christ, Louisiana, Louisiana Musicians and Music, William Charles Summers

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William Charles Summers Death Announcement

Posted on July 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

“My uncle William Charles Summers has died. Survived by his mother, 3 brothers, 2 sisters and my generation as well as by his wife Brenda his 2 stepdaughters and their husbands and children. Will was a musician, farmer, surfer, sailor, skipper, Bible reader, hunter, fisherman, horseman, outlaw and coach. His journey began and ended in the Catholic faith with deep spiritual searching elsewhere. May he rest in peace.” Such are the character limits on the status line in Facebook. However, shorter is possibly better here. I hope to do a longer post of both eulogy and complete obituary.

Will was the youngest of my father’s brothers. One of his sisters was also older and only one sister was younger. Will died the day they got the oil flow stopped in the gulf disaster for the first time since it started. I know that was something he cared about. Life was complicated for Will and Will could complicate it for others. He was a tall dark man with blue eyes and a whole lot of fight in him almost all his life. I will write some more about him later. I hope his passing is marked well in the meanwhile. I believe that Vincent’s Funeral Home in Abbeville, Louisiana will be handling the arrangements.

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Posted in Acadians, Anglo-Acadians, family, Frank W. Summers III's family, William Charles Summers

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