from The Lantern Room

A thousand butterflies swarm the blooming lavender. The swish of wings little more than a hush of silence. Flitting to and fro supping from the waning nectar and Gleefully bounding away in to the sunset to Find a perch whereupon to spend the coming night.

Wolfinwool · Lavender and Little Women-esv2-90p-bg-10p

The Beginning

The day began brilliant, as most days do here in Dust Meridian. Fall and winter are fine times of the year with cool, dry weather most days that is inspired and close to perfect. I launched into the day by trundling around in the ankle deep dried mulberry leaves the two trees in the hard so lovingly dropped. Ankle deep, and still is seems the trees are full. There will be good crunching for long, long days to come.

As we do traditionally, my wife and I set out in to the ministry to find those who might wish to hear the word of God. Though most were out, and the doors barred. We would go on to discover that the whole town, it seemed, was occupied with the Christmas tchotchkes festival at the city's events center. A fact we discovered when stopping for coffee at the hotel next door.

On our rounds, we made a point to check on my parents who were doing much of nothing, as folk In their seventies are sometimes known to do. I encouraged my father to get out into the day in spite of his feeling tired. To walk in the leaves at least. And maybe brighten someone else's day in addition to his own.

Funeral Rites

About 11:30, we moved into funerary mode, and attended a memorial program for a longtime friend who passed way after falling in the bathtub and breaking his neck. It's never easy to experience that, but hardly survivable in our eighties. The function was well-supported and the program, while a tad wordy, was kind and honorable. No doubt, the family was greatly comforted by the showing and the words.

While the condition of the dead is as sleep, I am confident my friend would be proud of us all. We will not get over it, but as the speaker said, with God's help, we can get through it.

To the Theater

Heading out at 12:35, we drove to Seymour, a small town in West Texas. Our goal, a local theater production of Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. We are both fans of the tale, and though must admit having only read portions of the book can at least claim valid fandom in the fact that I have visited Miss Alcott's home where the story was written. It was a cold, wet winter day when we experienced the author's abode, once adjacent to an orchard of some kind and filled with items of her storied life.

Since this was a tiny town, and the cast mostly very young, I wasn't sure what to expect when the curtain rose. However what we experienced for just over two hours was a delightful and earnest effort by the director and the actors. I was dismayed at Jo's appearance, simply because I have long been enamored with Winona Ryder as Jo March in the 1994 film adaptation. But the young woman playing Jo, Savannah Sturgeon, did a lovely job of embodying the wild personality brimming with joy, imagination, and love. She was bright and big and had the range to give us an enjoyable, convincing character.

The whole cast was, in fact thoroughly enjoyable and the script was clearly based on the book (which I have not read in it's entirety) and so BRAVO for memorizing so much material written in a voice rarely seen in modern works. They had worked very hard to meet a standard that was far beyond the small-town theater we visited.

Reese Warren's Amy March was another highlight. She has the natural rhythm and grace to truly engage the audience. I found her moments on stage to be particularly captivating.

Nathaniel Rogers' Professor Bhaer was hilarious with a big, and assuming, fake German accent. But he completely owned the role and played it straight which only made him more endearing. It was quite the opposite of what I love of Louis Garrel's performance in the earlier adaptation. But still VERY entertaining. Just different than I expected. I will assume Rogers' performance is closer to as written by Alcott.

While I won't go on to list the entire cast, I will say outstanding was Jeb Stacey's Laurie. Jeb is very clearly a cowboy. A good ol' boy and while his performance was strong and entertaining, his mannerisms tended to overwhelm what is to me, a refined, but inexperienced personality. Having said that, I LOVED Jeb. He is the spitting image/personality of a lifelong friend. Terse, loud and a bit stiff. Ray, I you're out there and you happen to read this, your doppelgänger lives in Seymour. Any love-children I do not know of?

I found several parts of the play quite moving: 1. Reading father's first letter/telegram to the girls. 2. Father's outpouring of love for the girls after coming home 3. Laurie's expression of love for Jo 4. Amy's burning of Jo's manuscript (this one always shocks me, but today, it drew tears)

It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and I recommend you go see some local community theater. The smaller, the better. It promotes goodwill and it is a joy to see the production value of big budget stuff stripped away and just enjoy acting. Some good, some needing improving. But ALL entertainment!

The day was all lavender and each of us from the smallest to the star of the show were the flitting creatures, sucking up the nectar of life. Proving that even places like Dust Meridian can provide the sweet joy that we need to thrive.

Seymour Community Theater's Production of Little Women

Epilogue

Since one of my more heart-rending moments was the father's dotting on his daughters, I decided to re-read Chapter 22, and found that in fact this production is almost a 1:1.

As someone who struggles with self-esteem and self-worth, I found his attention to be just overwhelming. Parent's, your children 'know' you love them. But, take the time to tell them regularly, in detail. Not a throwaway I love you, but look for moments like Jo March's Father and genuinely tell them what you love about them. The goodwill you build in them will pay dividends throughout their life.

Wolfinwool · Little Women – Chp 22 – Pleasant Meadows

Little Women by Loiusa May Alcott – excerpt:

Chapter 22 – Pleasant Meadows

Like sunshine after a storm were the peaceful weeks which followed. The invalids improved rapidly, and Mr. March began to talk of returning early in the new year. Beth was soon able to lie on the study sofa all day, amusing herself with the well-beloved cats at first, and in time with doll’s sewing, which had fallen sadly behind-hand. Her once active limbs were so stiff and feeble that Jo took her for a daily airing about the house in her strong arms. Meg cheerfully blackened and burned her white hands cooking delicate messes for ‘the dear’, while Amy, a loyal slave of the ring, celebrated her return by giving away as many of her treasures as she could prevail on her sisters to accept.

As Christmas approached, the usual mysteries began to haunt the house, and Jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible or magnificently absurd ceremonies, in honor of this unusually merry Christmas. Laurie was equally impracticable, and would have had bonfires, skyrockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way. After many skirmishes and snubbings, the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched and went about with forlorn faces, which were rather belied by explosions of laughter when the two got together.

Several days of unusually mild weather fitly ushered in a splendid Christmas Day. Hannah ‘felt in her bones’ that it was going to be an unusually fine day, and she proved herself a true prophetess, for everybody and everything seemed bound to produce a grand success. To begin with, Mr. March wrote that he should soon be with them, then Beth felt uncommonly well that morning, and, being dressed in her mother’s gift, a soft crimson merino wrapper, was borne in high triumph to the window to behold the offering of Jo and Laurie. The Unquenchables had done their best to be worthy of the name, for like elves they had worked by night and conjured up a comical surprise. Out in the garden stood a stately snow maiden, crowned with holly, bearing a basket of fruit and flowers in one hand, a great roll of music in the other, a perfect rainbow of an Afghan round her chilly shoulders, and a Christmas carol issuing from her lips on a pink paper streamer.

THE JUNGFRAU TO BETH

God bless you, dear Queen Bess! May nothing you dismay, But health and peace and happiness Be yours, this Christmas day.

Here’s fruit to feed our busy bee, And flowers for her nose. Here’s music for her pianee, An afghan for her toes,

A portrait of Joanna, see, By Raphael No. 2, Who laboured with great industry To make it fair and true.

Accept a ribbon red, I beg, For Madam Purrer’s tail, And ice cream made by lovely Peg, A Mont Blanc in a pail.

Their dearest love my makers laid Within my breast of snow. Accept it, and the Alpine maid, From Laurie and from Jo.

How Beth laughed when she saw it, how Laurie ran up and down to bring in the gifts, and what ridiculous speeches Jo made as she presented them.

“I’m so full of happiness, that if Father was only here, I couldn’t hold one drop more,” said Beth, quite sighing with contentment as Jo carried her off to the study to rest after the excitement, and to refresh herself with some of the delicious grapes the ‘Jungfrau’ had sent her.

“So am I,” added Jo, slapping the pocket wherein reposed the long-desired Undine and Sintram.

“I’m sure I am,” echoed Amy, poring over the engraved copy of the Madonna and Child, which her mother had given her in a pretty frame.

“Of course I am!” cried Meg, smoothing the silvery folds of her first silk dress, for Mr. Laurence had insisted on giving it. “How can I be otherwise?” said Mrs. March gratefully, as her eyes went from her husband’s letter to Beth’s smiling face, and her hand caressed the brooch made of gray and golden, chestnut and dark brown hair, which the girls had just fastened on her breast.

Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort it is. Half an hour after everyone had said they were so happy they could only hold one drop more, the drop came. Laurie opened the parlor door and popped his head in very quietly. He might just as well have turned a somersault and uttered an Indian war whoop, for his face was so full of suppressed excitement and his voice so treacherously joyful that everyone jumped up, though he only said, in a queer, breathless voice, “Here’s another Christmas present for the March family.”

Before the words were well out of his mouth, he was whisked away somehow, and in his place appeared a tall man, muffled up to the eyes, leaning on the arm of another tall man, who tried to say something and couldn’t. Of course there was a general stampede, and for several minutes everybody seemed to lose their wits, for the strangest things were done, and no one said a word.

Mr. March became invisible in the embrace of four pairs of loving arms. Jo disgraced herself by nearly fainting away, and had to be doctored by Laurie in the china closet. Mr. Brooke kissed Meg entirely by mistake, as he somewhat incoherently explained. And Amy, the dignified, tumbled over a stool, and never stopping to get up, hugged and cried over her father’s boots in the most touching manner. Mrs. March was the first to recover herself, and held up her hand with a warning, “Hush! Remember Beth.”

But it was too late. The study door flew open, the little red wrapper appeared on the threshold, joy put strength into the feeble limbs, and Beth ran straight into her father’s arms. Never mind what happened just after that, for the full hearts overflowed, washing away the bitterness of the past and leaving only the sweetness of the present.

It was not at all romantic, but a hearty laugh set everybody straight again, for Hannah was discovered behind the door, sobbing over the fat turkey, which she had forgotten to put down when she rushed up from the kitchen. As the laugh subsided, Mrs. March began to thank Mr. Brooke for his faithful care of her husband, at which Mr. Brooke suddenly remembered that Mr. March needed rest, and seizing Laurie, he precipitately retired. Then the two invalids were ordered to repose, which they did, by both sitting in one big chair and talking hard. Mr. March told how he had longed to surprise them, and how, when the fine weather came, he had been allowed by his doctor to take advantage of it, how devoted Brooke had been, and how he was altogether a most estimable and upright young man. Why Mr. March paused a minute just there, and after a glance at Meg, who was violently poking the fire, looked at his wife with an inquiring lift of the eyebrows, I leave you to imagine. Also why Mrs. March gently nodded her head and asked, rather abruptly, if he wouldn’t like to have something to eat. Jo saw and understood the look, and she stalked grimly away to get wine and beef tea, muttering to herself as she slammed the door, “I hate estimable young men with brown eyes!”

There never was such a Christmas dinner as they had that day. The fat turkey was a sight to behold, when Hannah sent him up, stuffed, browned, and decorated. So was the plum pudding, which melted in one’s mouth, likewise the jellies, in which Amy reveled like a fly in a honeypot. Everything turned out well, which was a mercy, Hannah said, “For my mind was that flustered, Mum, that it’s a merrycle I didn’t roast the pudding, and stuff the turkey with raisins, let alone bilin’ of it in a cloth.”

Mr. Laurence and his grandson dined with them, also Mr. Brooke, at whom Jo glowered darkly, to Laurie’s infinite amusement. Two easy chairs stood side by side at the head of the table, in which sat Beth and her father, feasting modestly on chicken and a little fruit. They drank healths, told stories, sang songs, ‘reminisced’, as the old folks say, and had a thoroughly good time. A sleigh ride had been planned, but the girls would not leave their father, so the guests departed early, and as twilight gathered, the happy family sat together round the fire.

“Just a year ago we were groaning over the dismal Christmas we expected to have. Do you remember?” asked Jo, breaking a short pause which had followed a long conversation about many things.

“Rather a pleasant year on the whole!” said Meg, smiling at the fire, and congratulating herself on having treated Mr. Brooke with dignity. “I think it’s been a pretty hard one,” observed Amy, watching the light shine on her ring with thoughtful eyes.

“I’m glad it’s over, because we’ve got you back,” whispered Beth, who sat on her father’s knee.

“Rather a rough road for you to travel, my little pilgrims, especially the latter part of it. But you have got on bravely, and I think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon,” said Mr. March, looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered round him.

“How do you know? Did Mother tell you?” asked Jo.

“Not much. Straws show which way the wind blows, and I’ve made several discoveries today.”

“Oh, tell us what they are!” cried Meg, who sat beside him.

“Here is one.” And taking up the hand which lay on the arm of his chair, he pointed to the roughened forefinger, a burn on the back, and two or three little hard spots on the palm. “I remember a time when this hand was white and smooth, and your first care was to keep it so. It was very pretty then, but to me it is much prettier now, for in this seeming blemishes I read a little history. A burnt offering has been made to vanity, this hardened palm has earned something better than blisters, and I’m sure the sewing done by these pricked fingers will last a long time, so much good will went into the stitches. Meg, my dear, I value the womanly skill which keeps home happy more than white hands or fashionable accomplishments. I’m proud to shake this good, industrious little hand, and hope I shall not soon be asked to give it away.”

If Meg had wanted a reward for hours of patient labor, she received it in the hearty pressure of her father’s hand and the approving smile he gave her. “What about Jo? Please say something nice, for she has tried so hard and been so very, very good to me,” said Beth in her father’s ear.

He laughed and looked across at the tall girl who sat opposite, with an unusually mild expression in her face.

“In spite of the curly crop, I don’t see the ‘son Jo’ whom I left a year ago,” said Mr. March. “I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither whistles, talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale just now, with watching and anxiety, but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower. She doesn’t bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tenderhearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don’t know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn’t find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars my good girl sent me.”

Jo’s keen eyes were rather dim for a minute, and her thin face grew rosy in the firelight as she received her father’s praise, feeling that she did deserve a portion of it.

“Now, Beth,” said Amy, longing for her turn, but ready to wait.

“There’s so little of her, I’m afraid to say much, for fear she will slip away altogether, though she is not so shy as she used to be,” began their father cheerfully. But recollecting how nearly he had lost her, he held her close, saying tenderly, with her cheek against his own, “I’ve got you safe, my Beth, and I’ll keep you so, please God.”

After a minute’s silence, he looked down at Amy, who sat on the cricket at his feet, and said, with a caress of the shining hair...

“I observed that Amy took drumsticks at dinner, ran errands for her mother all the afternoon, gave Meg her place tonight, and has waited on every one with patience and good humor. I also observe that she does not fret much nor look in the glass, and has not even mentioned a very pretty ring which she wears, so I conclude that she has learned to think of other people more and of herself less, and has decided to try and mold her character as carefully as she molds her little clay figures. I am glad of this, for though I should be very proud of a graceful statue made by her, I shall be infinitely prouder of a lovable daughter with a talent for making life beautiful to herself and others.”

“What are you thinking of, Beth?” asked Jo, when Amy had thanked her father and told about her ring.

“I read in Pilgrim’s Progress today how, after many troubles, Christian and Hopeful came to a pleasant green meadow where lilies bloomed all year round, and there they rested happily, as we do now, before they went on to their journey’s end,” answered Beth, adding, as she slipped out of her father’s arms and went to the instrument, “It’s singing time now, and I want to be in my old place. I’ll try to sing the song of the shepherd boy which the Pilgrims heard. I made the music for Father, because he likes the verses.”

So, sitting at the dear little piano, Beth softly touched the keys, and in the sweet voice they had never thought to hear again, sang to her own accompaniment the quaint hymn, which was a singularly fitting song for her.

He that is down need fear no fall, He that is low no pride. He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have, Little be it, or much. And, Lord! Contentment still I crave, Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to them a burden is, That go on pilgrimage. Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age!

#story # journal #poetry #wyst #poetry #100daystooffset #writing #story #osxs #travel

 
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from The Lantern Room

Man cannot live on bread alone; sometimes, he needs a malt.

There is something nearly universal in our adoration of ice cream. Even people who can't eat dairy acknowledge how terrific it is and long for its enjoyment.

Even people who are at war with refined sugar know ice cream's appeal. How wonderful it makes you feel to scoop it out and watch that unique tearing texture the scoop leaves behind as it scrapes out that frozen treasure.

Ice cream is on my mind today, I have promised my muse I will taste the dream and speak of it in prose. And here I am cruising around on my death machine watching the sun set on a perfect day. The kind of day that demands a reward of the sweetest kind.

My partner and teammate in this thing called life squeezes me tightly in what is easily the best part of a motorcycle ride. Warm thighs wrapped around you, two lithe arms alternating between resting on my back, wrapping around my belly or squeezing my chest.

That last one is my favorite. It comes with the soft presence on my back of her breasts. A tender hug not for intimacy but because she doesn't want to be flung off. I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride. And tonight, I rodeo not for 8 seconds, but for 15 minutes with a cold delight.

We cruise slow and easy on back streets. This isn't a race. It's a savoring pleasure. The chug chug chug of the machine rolls through the neighborhood when I get a tap on the shoulder.

“You know, Braum's is close by. We should stop and get a drink.” She speaks loudly. Not a shout but with enough volume that I can hear through my space-helmet.

I smile to myself. Braum's is my mission tonight. Like Indiana in that cave, I plan to swap my bag of sand for the sweet golden nectar of a chocolate malt.

A lot fewer spiders though. And only one death trap: my rumbling steed.

The parking lot is hectic here as the sun drifts to the horizon in the west. Dodging traffic on a motorcycle is one of the first skills you learn. I'm pretty good at it. The author reserves the right to mask his incompetence with braggadocio... though 20y accident free on a motorcycle does deserve some praise.

Exiting vehicles whose operators are concerned with melting cones mean extra caution is required. We don't need a front-row parking spot, so I pick one out on the periphery. Drifting to a stop, I click the shifter into neutral with my left foot (always a satisfying 'clunk') and walk the silver and steel backing carefully, like a child learning to balance.

With that same foot, I push the kickstand down and rest the two-wheeler on its third leg. The angle is always disturbingly low. The lean puts the machine's center of gravity just were it needs to be. Tipping this over out of accident or malice while parked would take some pretty determined effort.

I step off to my right, but insist my wife get off on the low side (left). It's not only easier for short riders, it gets her bare legs away from the glowing exhaust. I know from experience that the last place you want your bare legs is leaned up against a motorcycle muffler after riding even a modest few minutes.

Helmets stowed we walk toward the newly remodeled southern institution. I am surprised there are places without Braums. For the uninitiated, they are a burger-place who specializes in ice cream but also have a pretty decent grocery store.

It's nice because they are usually in or near neighborhoods. This gives residents a place to grab an easy meal, enjoy sweet treats or pick up necessities. Maybe it is their intention to defy the food deserts most areas have become... maybe they just want to be first in line when you leave your house to get something food-related.

This location was closed for months while they remodeled. I note that it looks exactly the same, but everything is new. Gone are the scratches and dings from decades of wear. The floor is bright and polished and the backstage equipment is modern and clever-looking. I appreciate that the overhead menus are printed sheets, not the ubiquitous screens every place else in the world now uses. No surge pricing here, thank you.

Probably didn't have the ice cream kiosk thought.

Braum's tonight is a madhouse! It seems the good weather has driven everyone out for ice cream. The line at the ice cream counter is 30 deep. The burger counter is ghost-town. I count 20 employees back stage about half of whom are just loitering about chattering.

A logical brain (even a damaged one) knows where to order if it doesn't need to lust over that rainbow of cold colors.

I read our clerk's name badge, 'Faust'. I'm DYING to make some clever comment about the erudite scholar who makes a deal with the devil (were your parents fans of German literature? Or were YOU why they made the deal? Auspicious name, my friend). BUT Faust has the word 'trained' under his name. And Gladis is hawking him.

'It's his first day,' Gladis says, 'YOU are his first customers!'

They both beam. My clever commentary shifts away from that magnetic name and instead I say,

'Oh, that's great Faust! Welcome to the team. I'll be sure to keep it simple and straight forward. I'll have a double-double, easy on the spread, be sure you cook it exactly to temp, extra fruit, only ONE pickle, I'm aalergic but love them and have to have the savoriness, and be sure, uh Gladis, you still get those imported onions? Be sure you use ONLY those Faust, no white onions. NONE. And I would prefer if you can use the unsalted European butter to toast those buns.'

Said with a single monotone delivery with absolute seriousness and I can see the panic in his eyes. If this is simple, he thinks, Im dead. Gladis smiles behind him. She knows the score. I let it hang juuuust long enough for the relief to be comical and toss over my shoulder, 'dear, what will you have?' To which she responds in expected fashion with a question. Now Fausts brain is melting.

'Oh, that's a good question... Faust.' I insert this with urgency as thought I've remembered something. 'That makes me think, I changed my mind... I'll just have a small chocolate malt instead!'

Faust, a big guy in his late teens, visible relaxes. A small malt he can handle.

While we wait, my lady eviscerates the ice-cream team. She points out every flaw and mistake. Missing gloves, an uncovered cough, TONGS people, use the tongs. She should be a team manager here. They wouldn't like her directness, but they would love her easy-going side.

I smile. I don't like her negative side, but sometimes it's QUITE entertaining.

Our drinks arrive.

I am at war with sugar after a lifetime of addiction. Its power is still there though and I feel drawn to the little white cup. Unwrapping two straws, one for me and one for the muse, slip them into the viscous, rich substance. Not quite liquid, not quite solid... all shine.

The color mesmerizes me. My missus prefers strawberry, so I haven't had a chocolate malt in several years. But tonight, this is for me. She can enjoy her lime drink while I am enraptured in mine.

My first sip is a flood of flavor and emotion. It is smooth and cold. First is the sweetness smashes into my palette and my eyebrows go up to the top of my head, followed by my eyeballs. As the sweet subsides, a savory/nutty flavor settles in the back of my tongue. It tastes like wealth. This is ecstasy. No WONDER I loved these for 20 years!

As the flavor from the first sip starts to fade, the memory washes in. Unregistered in my conscious self, I hear the grind and whirring of the blenders and other shake-making paraphernalia. Ice cream Mission Control is at full bore. Somewhere in the ether, there is a scratchy radio voice counting down until the moment the treat is launched to the customer and the team of non-rocket scientists cheer enthusiastically.

More mundanely, the spinning blades bring in a vision of sheetrock and routers cutting and punching for construction. I am carried back decades to when I made my living in construction and spent countless hours volunteering to restore storm damage and build houses of worship. But these power tools are not for a new building but for frozen dairy.

The wet-sloppy sound of the whipped cream squirting from an inverted canister. It just keeps going and keeps going. How much whipped did that customer order?

I hear a 13 year old boy or girl, hard to define with this one, tell mom, 'Watch how many pull-ups I can do.' And the child proceeds to do inverted pull-ups from a waist high bar. 12-13-14. The young person is tired now. Energy burned and in need of that incoming sugar fix. She/he is probably who all that whipped cream was for.

The door bell dings, ring-a-ding-dingle. Followed by a tepid 'welcome to braum's'.

Gladis, the manager isn't having it though.

'WHERE YA'LL AT?!' She says forcefully. Not yell, but determined authority.

Then all twenty employees in unison say with force, 'WELCOME TO BRAUM'S!'

This makes Gladis smile. She knows her new crew needs training but they'll get there.

My chocolate malt continues to thrill. But toward the end, I've had my fill. My golden god has been snatched from the pedestal, my silver I exchanged was the perfect balance. No death-stones descent to chase me from this fluorescent-lit cave and I do not have to utilize my whip to swing across a chasm of doom.

The sun is setting and though neither werewolves nor vampires will hunt us after dusk, a motorcycle isn't exactly a great place to be as the diminishing light confuses already distracted drivers. We decide it's time to call it a day and cruise home.

My wife notes the 2nd straw. 'Why two?' She says absentmindedly.

I shrug and throw away the line, 'Eh, you never know when you'll need to share.'

But tonight, it was two straws, one drinker. Farewell, Braum’s, and your irresistible malts — golden gods in paper cups.

#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #WYST #MEMR

2025-09-09 12:20:00

 
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from jolek78's blog

There is a single encryption algorithm that mathematics declares unbreakable. Not “hard”: “impossible”, with a proof to back it up. And yet every time someone has tried to actually use it, it has fallen – not through a flaw in the mathematics, but through a banal human error. This is the story of a fascinating perfection that turns imperfect.

Almost all the cryptography we use every day – the kind that protects your bank account, your messages, your connection to this very site – rests on a bet: that certain mathematical problems are too slow or too hard to solve. Factoring six-hundred-digit numbers, computing discrete logarithms over elliptic curves: nobody today knows how to do it fast enough, and so we sleep soundly. But it's a peace with an expiry date, because “hard” is never “impossible”. The hardware changes, a cleverer algorithm comes along, quantum computing looms on the horizon, and the bet has to be renegotiated from scratch.

There is one, single exception. A cipher that isn't hard to break: it's impossible, and not in the advertising sense of the word. There's a proof, a theorem in the full sense. It's called the one-time pad, the single-use notebook. In a world full of threats to privacy and of governments playing “big brother” without knowing the basics of modern cryptography, it's worth telling the story of this cipher and of how, for a century, the real world has found a way to sidestep it every single time without ever scratching it.

An invention from 1917

It all begins in a room at AT&T.

In 1917 Gilbert Vernam, an engineer at Bell Labs, invents a cipher to protect teleprinter communications. Vernam's idea is elegant and simple: electrically combine each character of the message with a character read from a punched paper tape – what we can call “the key”. The combination is a reversible operation: whoever holds the same tape undoes it by running it backwards and recovers the message; whoever doesn't have it sees only noise. If the tape says one thing and the message says another, what comes out on the wire is a sum of the two, unreadable to anyone without that tape.

The structure is already very solid, but the conceptual leap is made by a soldier. Captain Joseph Mauborgne, of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, realises that if the sequence on the tape were completely random, cryptanalysis would become enormously harder. It's the intuition that turns Vernam's cipher into the true one-time pad: not just “any” key, repeated or derived from a phrase, but a truly random key, as long as the message and used only once. Hence the name: a notebook of sheets, each sheet a key, each sheet torn off and destroyed after use.

The intuition is right, but it hangs unproven. For a quarter of a century no one manages to explain why it works so well: the proof is missing that the system is not merely very robust, but mathematically unassailable.

Two lines running in the same year

Here the story forks, and the two lines that set off run in parallel for the rest of the tale. On one side there's the theory, which between 1941 and 1949 arrives at locking down the cipher with a proof. On the other there's the practice, which in those very same years begins to sabotage it. It's worth keeping both in view, because the whole point of the affair lies precisely in the distance between the two.

The line of the proof. The proof comes from the man who, in those same years, is inventing the entire theory of information from scratch: Claude Shannon. The special status of the Vernam-Mauborgne pad is established by him, about twenty-five years after its invention. In his Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems – circulated as a classified report in 1945 and published openly in 1949 – Shannon proves that the one-time pad is unassailable because every possible plaintext is equally probable given any ciphertext. This property is called perfect secrecy.

But Shannon isn't the first to get there. The Soviet mathematician Vladimir Kotelnikov – the same one behind the sampling theorem – had independently proved the absolute security of the one-time pad as early as 1941, in the very months of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, in a report that, as far as anyone can tell, remains classified to this day. Unable to share it with the Allies, Shannon would have to rediscover the same properties on his own a few years later. The USSR, then, possesses the mathematical proof that its own code is unbreakable earlier and better than anyone else.

The line of the sabotage. In the very same span of time in which it deposits that proof, the Soviet apparatus begins to demolish it with its own hands. Between late 1943 and the end of the conflict, the surge in communications traffic and the relocation of Soviet industry towards the Urals push the personnel to reuse the cipher notebooks. To this is added the often-cited hypothesis of a more concentrated episode: with German troops just outside Moscow between 1941 and 1942, staff at the Centre are said to have printed more than one copy of the same key material. Immediate contributing cause or prolonged drift, the result is the same – and fatal, namely: the moment the same key enciphers two different messages, the one-time pad ceases to exist and becomes an ordinary cipher, attackable with statistics.

Let's stop a moment, because this is the crack that everything else passes through, and it's worth seeing up close. Call M₁ and M₂ two plaintexts, K the reused key, and let's use XOR (addition without carry, the operation the pad uses to combine key and text). The two ciphertexts are C₁ = M₁ ⊕ K and C₂ = M₂ ⊕ K. An attacker knows neither the messages nor the key: they know only C₁ and C₂, fished out of the ether. But if they combine them with each other, something remarkable happens:

C₁ ⊕ C₂ = (M₁ ⊕ K) ⊕ (M₂ ⊕ K) = M₁ ⊕ M₂

The key cancels out. It vanishes, because K ⊕ K is zero. What's left to the attacker is the XOR of the two plaintexts, with no trace of the secret remaining: and from there, knowing the structure of the underlying code and the statistics of the language – which letters and words recur, where the spaces fall – one begins to separate the two messages and reconstruct them. The perfection of the one-time pad lies entirely in the “one“: one key, one message. Reusing it a second time doesn't weaken it a little. It cancels it.

Theory and sabotage, the proof and its demolition, in the same country and in the same years. It's the irony on which the entire story of VENONA rests.

VENONA: forty years inside a crack

On the other side of the ocean, someone finds that crack. In 1943 the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service launches an ultra-secret project against Soviet diplomatic traffic, believed impregnable precisely because it was enciphered with a one-time pad. It changes name a couple of times – JADE, then BRIDE – before settling on a word chosen at random, with no meaning: VENONA.

For a year, near-total darkness. The first breach is opened, in late 1943, by Lieutenant Richard Hallock, who works on Soviet commercial traffic – the so-called “Trade”, the messages dealing with matters of exchange – and notices that the Soviets are reusing the pad pages. Hallock and his colleagues recover a significant quantity of key tables, but it's only the outer layer of an onion. The messages aren't enciphered with the pad alone: they are first converted into numbers via a complex code, and then super-enciphered by adding the numerical stream of the one-time pad. With the pad broken, there remains the codebook to reconstruct, the one that turns words into figures.

To that work sets a young analyst, Meredith Gardner – a linguist, a veteran of breaking Japanese diplomatic codes, who after the war taught himself Russian. It's he who penetrates what will turn out to be NKVD traffic, and later GRU, reconstructing the code piece by piece. The first reconstructions of the codebook he owes, by his own admission, to the linguist Marie Meyer; and it's worth recalling, against a certain spy-novel imagery, that most of the cryptanalysts were young women. The dates of the breakthrough are precise and close together: on 13 December 1946 Gardner reads a KGB message discussing the 1944 American presidential campaign; a week later, on 20 December 1946, he breaks another – sent to Moscow two years earlier – containing the list of the leading scientists working on the Manhattan Project. The proof that the atomic bomb had been infiltrated.

As early as 1945 the very existence of VENONA had been revealed to the USSR by Bill Weisband, a Soviet agent embedded in the U.S. Army's SIGINT. The Soviets, that is, knew they could be read. But the mathematics of the pad offers no retroactive remedy: the messages already intercepted and enciphered with reused keys remained vulnerable regardless, whatever Moscow knew. There was no flaw to close; there was only an error already committed, frozen in the ether, that the Americans would go on squeezing for decades.

Putting a name to the ghosts

From there the work is slow and stubborn. In the summer of 1947 Gardner produces enough results to write a “Special Report” laying out the project's potential to the intelligence leadership: it's that document which triggers the long collaboration between cryptanalysts and the FBI to put names to the spies. Because even with the pad broken and the code reconstructed, one last layer remains: the people hidden behind the cryptonyms, the code names. New York is TYRE, Washington CARTHAGE, San Francisco BABYLON, in an imagery drawn from classical antiquity. Some cryptonyms appear dozens of times and are fairly transparent; others once or twice only, and remain unknown to this day. The system, after all, betrays the same vice as the pad: sometimes the KGB reused the same covername for different people, untangled only by context or geography. Reuse as the recurring sin, at every level.

When the cryptonyms find a face, the history of the Cold War is rewritten. Twenty-one decrypted cables, all from 1944-45, concern Julius Rosenberg, first “Antenna” and then “Liberal”. The Britons Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess of the Cambridge Five fall, and with them dozens of other Soviet sources inside the American and British governments. And yet, in proportion, the haul is tiny: the Venona Papers are some 3,000 cables, forced slowly over a project lasting nearly forty years, from 1943 to 1980 – three thousand messages out of several hundred thousand intercepted, a laughable fraction, made possible only by the reuse of the keys.

Important note: the cipher was not broken. The mathematics of Shannon and Kotelnikov held perfectly. No one “solved” the one-time pad. It was the wartime logistics of the Soviet apparatus – notebooks reprinted under pressure, keys reused to save time – that handed Moscow's secrets to the Americans for the next forty years. The theory was perfect. The hand that applied it was not.

The numbers still floating in the ether today

You might think a technique of teleprinters and paper notebooks is archaeology. It isn't. The one-time pad, precisely because it's the only system that requires no computer and fears no amount of the enemy's computing power, is still today the tool of whoever must communicate with an agent in the field without leaving a trace. All it takes is a radio.

Anyone with a shortwave receiver can stumble into them: synthetic voices, often female, reciting endless sequences of numbers in groups of five, sometimes preceded by a little tune or a signature melody. They're called number stations, they've been transmitting for almost a century and for decades were an officially non-existent mystery. They aren't an urban legend: several espionage trials have confirmed their use, and the messages are typically enciphered with a one-time pad. Those groups of five digits are exactly the method of the cipher notebooks: the services have long converted words and phrases into groups of digits via a codebook, and then combine secret numbers with them by modular addition – the same carry-less sum we saw cancel out in VENONA, only done by hand on paper instead of electrically on tape.

And if the number stations are the voice that calls the agent, at the other end of the line there was hardware built precisely to answer without being found: devices like the Soviet R-353 “Proton” (below), which pre-encoded the message onto a magnetic tape and then fired it off in Morse at very high speed – up to 250 words per minute – so as not to leave whoever was listening the time to locate the transmitter with radio direction finding. It's the same principle as the pad, but on the physical plane: if the one-time pad makes the content unassailable, the burst transmission makes the position of the sender unassailable. Two ways of vanishing, both perfect as long as the human link holds.

The case that brought them to court is Cuban. The station nicknamed “¡Atención!” – catalogued by radio listeners as HM01 – becomes the first in the world to be officially and publicly accused of transmitting to spies, at the centre of a federal trial after the FBI, on 12 September 1998, dismantles the Cuban Wasp Network. The arrests number ten; the five who go to trial will go down in history as the “Cuban Five”.

And here the lesson repeats itself. The one-time pad is mathematically perfect, and indeed the FBI doesn't break it. It doesn't need to: when it arrests the network, it recovers the pad software, the shortwave receivers and the decryption keys on floppy disk. Not only that. The enciphered messages found in the apartments matched the transmissions the FBI had recorded from the ether during surveillance. No one forced anything: the prosecution had in hand both the intercepted signal and the key taken from the drawer, and simply overlaid them – the two things every tradecraft manual insists you never keep together. The mathematically unbreakable secret defeated by a lock.

And it's precisely here that the system's residual strength lies, when used well: the transmissions leave no digital trace, receiving a signal is not in itself proof of a crime, and the moment the pad is used and destroyed the cryptographic trail is cut. Nothing to intercept, nothing to decrypt after the fact. It's not archive theory: ¡Atención! is transmitting to this day, nearly thirty years on from those arrests. Provided, always, that no one forgets a floppy in a drawer.

The perfect cipher lives only on the blackboard

Line up the pieces of this story: the one-time pad is, literally, the only encryption method humanity has ever conceived whose unbreakability we can prove. Used correctly, it remains among the most solid ever invented. And in a century it has never been beaten on its own ground – mathematics. It has always been beaten on ours.

VENONA doesn't stem from a weakness of the cipher, but from the logistics of an apparatus under wartime pressure. The Wasp Network doesn't fall because someone decrypted its numbers, but because it leaves the disks in a drawer. The weak point is never the algorithm. It's the key to be distributed, the randomness hard to produce, the discipline impossible to maintain, the physical medium that survives and accuses. It's always the friction of the real world against an idea born frictionless.

On the blackboard, in the clean abstraction where keys are random by definition, distribute themselves by magic and destroy themselves without leaving ash. But we live elsewhere: a world of approximate generators, of reprinted notebooks, of forgotten floppies, of exhausted people who at three in the morning cut a corner. The only mathematically unbreakable cipher we possess works perfectly everywhere – except in reality.

And perhaps this is the most honest thing cryptography can teach us, well beyond cryptography: perfection is provable, but it is not inhabitable.

(This article was born from a private experiment: I tried to write my own implementation of the one-time pad in Python. The code worked, but in doing it I reconstructed, without meaning to, exactly the errors you've read about here – the not-random-enough generator, the reused key, the details left in the clear. Touching with my own hands how easy it is to get it wrong was the best way to understand why, in a century, the perfect cipher has never held up on contact with us, poor imperfect human beings.)

References and further reading

The theory

  • Claude E. Shannon, Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems, Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 28, no. 4, October 1949, pp. 656-715. The paper that proves perfect secrecy.
  • Claude E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography, Memorandum MM 45-110-02, Bell Laboratories, 1 September 1945. The classified version, four years ahead of the open publication.
  • Claude E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, 1948. The twin work that founds information theory.
  • Vladimir A. Kotelnikov, report on the absolute security of the Vernam cipher, 1941 (still classified). Independent proof, earlier than Shannon's.

The history (VENONA)

  • National Security Agency, VENONA: An Overview (Cryptologic Almanac, 50th Anniversary Series) – declassified official document.
  • National Security Agency, The Venona Story – official monograph on the cryptonyms and Gardner's decryptions.
  • NSA-CIA, Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957, ed. R. L. Benson and M. Warner, 1996. The collection of the roughly 2,900 messages translated and made public from July 1995.
  • John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press, 1999. The reference work on the identifications.
  • Chronology of Gardner's decryptions (13 and 20 December 1946), the roles of Marie Meyer, Genevieve Feinstein, Cecil Phillips and Richard Hallock, pad reuse and the revelation of VENONA to the USSR by Bill Weisband (1945).

The number stations

#Cryptography #OneTimePad #VENONA #ColdWar #Espionage #InformationTheory #Shannon #NumberStations #History #Writing

 
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from the MPT Room

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.

My old friend,

I'm writing this in the final hours of your time here in Dust Meridian. This letter began a year ago, but time and tide have stood against it's execution. It stands to send tonight, Monday April 7, 2025.

Let me begin by saying how deeply I will miss you both.

Words fall short of capturing your presence in this place—a land not without beauty, but with a dearth of polished gems. You were rare among the common stones—shining not only to me, personally but to us as a couple, and unmistakably, to your fellowship.

I have cherished your clarity of spirit—your candor, creativity, and steady delight in spiritual things. That spark will be missed here in Dust, and far beyond.

I can only speak for myself, but you made me feel worthy in a way few others ever have in my time here. The work has been… costly. I love the people here and the men with whom I serve, but none of them have ever truly understood the weight I carry the way you did. I remember, during a visit last spring, you saw I was unraveling, and you said—

“I want you to know that our visits here are something we very much look forward too. And, you need to understand something— that is because of you. Everyone here is great, and we love them. But, we feel a specialness in you that we very much appreciate. Really... You... thank you.”

Your kindness helped me feel seen and loved in a way few others have since we arrived.

You probably don't recall it, but I will never forget it.

I’ve long counted on the understanding of others—and when that didn’t come, though I believe they were doing their best—I hitched up, said a prayer, and kept moving. But like a mule who only knows forward, even I have a breaking point. And I’ve reached it.

I’m not fine right now, but I will be—in time. Burnout set in last year, and it’s been deep, consuming. When I finally asked for help, what came was so inadequate it bordered on absurd—except it taught me something vital: when a man says he’s at his limit, believe him.

For now, I’m holding on. Just a body, waiting for the Spirit to mend what’s frayed. Trusting patience, His love, and His power to bring me back.

I wish I'd written sooner. Maybe I wouldn't have reached this place. Perhaps it's made darker by the loss of so many dear ones these past few months. The weight of my sister—and of my parents circumstance—certainly hasn't helped. Maybe if I’d taken the time to reflect on your kindness, to write it out, I might have sidestepped the pit of despair.

One thing is certain: your warmth, enthusiasm and patience made an insurmountable situation seem less daunting. Thoughts of the two of you kept me going many times. And, will do so in the future.

You've both had your own losses, challenges and setbacks. Yet you continue to move forward, bearing scars and the weight of it all, but still reflecting the glory of our God. I think that's beautiful.

At the funeral in February, you said something that struck me deeply. You looked at me and said:

“This is hard to bear—probably harder because you worry about her.” You were absolutely right. That was a bullseye.

All the success and privilege I’ve enjoyed—I only ever hoped it helped my partner feel supported and worthy. But I’m learning that no amount of effort or good intention can shield someone from life. No matter how hard I try to be a good husband (and I fall so short), she will still suffer.

That woman lost the only two people she truly trusts in this world. And there is nothing I can do about that.

While most people offered condolences for my loss, you were the only one who seemed to see the real grief I carried: not mine, but hers. You understood that what I truly lost was a part of her peace and happiness.

Husbands are replaceable. Little sisters—and the lifetime of comfort and care they carry with them—are not. We may be one flesh, but those girls were of one mind.

Your words helped me understand why the weight of all this has been so crushing. Thank you.

I’ve become an expired element here. The time to move on passed long ago—I just hadn’t caught up to it. Whatever change I hoped to effect has likely already played out. The needle has barely moved.

There’s an entrenched spirit here—tribalism, perhaps. The kind that circles wagons and draws lines rather than building bridges. The men on our body are not unkind, but they are not close. We are friendly, but not friends. That’s a dynamic I’ve never been able to crack.

Maybe, in time, with tenacity and a new generation trained to close ranks as brothers first and serve as older men second, that will change. I believe it can.

I’ve grown weary of the abundance of words that say little and mean even less—and of personalities content to sit back while others carry the weight of decision-making. They avoid commitment because it might require the sacrifice of their own time. It’s easier to sacrifice someone else’s.

Lately, I’ve come to see just how powerful a loving shepherd can be. I’ve spoken with men in positions of responsibility whose kindness and warmth honestly surprised me. There’s a new effort to train men to care in a way that makes people feel truly seen, valued, and worthwhile—in a world that constantly tells you otherwise.

You, my dear friend, have that same gift. That’s why I say you make me feel seen. And loved.

We are not problems to deal with, but people to be loved.

I will always remember standing on your deck in the rain and drinking icy tequila from that red bottle and I will never forget learning about bees from you. Both are treasured memories for me.

We will miss you. Even though we didn’t see each other often, just knowing you were close by was a comfort and an inspiration. It brought us real joy to know that those around you were benefiting from your care and attention. That’s not something easily replaced.

I wish we could have served together more closely—maybe one day we will. Until then, hold fast to your integrity. Never slow your service to, or love for, the Creator. But always, always make time to keep your foundations strong.

I’m sorry if this feels scattered... sometimes I write like a song, sometimes like a shotgun blast. I hope that two themes come through: Love and understanding.

Whatever comes next, and wherever you both go, know that a part of you stays with us both. We carry our dear ones in our hearts always. Some are stored in quiet corners, but souls like yours live in the lofty places of our love.

With deep respect and gratitude, Your friend.

#essay #letters #100DaysToOffload #Writing

2025-04-08 11:52:55

 
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