A Former Acquaintance

There's a guy in my town who (with some assistance from his wife, and lots of capitulation from a "gang that couldn't shouldn't straight" collection of board members) runs the little local lodge like his personal, private domain.

In the opinion of many, Mr. Moose has, virtually single-handedly, saved the little local lodge from construction devolution, but for many folks, his interpersonal destructiveness and ugly and vindictive machinations have done more to destroy the potential for a truly fraternal and caring organization in the midst of this well-intentioned, though not always fully functional community.

During the last few months I have been engaged with Mr. Moose in a battle to save the little local lodge from utter implosion, but recently I gave up the fight. There are better things to do, as far as I can see (at least for me), than fight a battle with a little caesar bent on shoring up his self-indulgent, acrimonious kingdom of obsequious devotees.

In the midst of it all, one thing that has been sticking with me is the vague sense of having encountered this pompous turd on some previous occasion. And then it hit me...

My first encounter with Mr. Moose occurred in the summer of 2005, shortly after I returned to Petaluma, homeless, following forced flight from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I had been living in Petaluma for nearly five years when I decided to move to New Orleans just three weeks before Katrina sent me scurrying back to California.

The encounter was precipitated by the fact that I was sitting at a table in a little westside Petaluma coffee shop in the early morning. I was drinking coffee and reading a book and I was not disturbing anyone. Mr. Moose arrived at the coffee shop, and moved directly to me, towering over me, and glowering with rage in the slight mist of the early morning air.

"You're sitting at our table!" he bellowed.

I looked up in confusion and screwed up my face with consternation. "What?"

As I looked around at the nearly empty coffee shop I couldn't figure out why THIS particular table was such a prime piece of real estate. Little did I realize that the contempt, oafishness, and territoriality Mr. Moose demonstrated on this particular occasion would manifest itself three years later over a different piece of property.

In screenwriting, this kind of incident would be referred to as "foreshadowing."

Ultimately, I gave up my space, despite absolutely NO courtesy, kindness, or even deference to my presence. I was already beaten down by my journeys, the storm, and the process of trying to exist without a place to live on two different coasts.

I moved to another table and composed a poem about the experience. I then put that poem up online at Speaklo.

This afternoon, while digging around in the archives (a little bit like rummaging around in my closet of anxieties) in preparation for restarting that blog, I found the poem.

Here's the poem...

I must acknowledge that I made one mistake. There's a sense in which I imply within the poem that all people in P-town (or at least all those at the coffee shop) are liberals. That would be very much incorrect. It would be equally as incorrect to assume, as I may have to some extent implied, that all Petalumans (whether liberal, conservative, or uncommitted) are unpleasant, ignorant, assholes. In the time I've spent back in this town since the day I wrote the poem, I have become very close with some of the dearest friends I have had in all of my life. They run the gamut of spiritual, political, and personality perspectives and I cherish every one of them.

Beyond that, I stand by my observations of nearly four years ago.

I would also like to point out to Mr. Moose (and those who are like him), what goes around... does in fact seem to come around.