Let’s be honest – this is way more than you want or need to know! Stop reading when you are convinced.

There is now a new Table of Contents entitled After-Words and all the earlier tables have been reworked to follow a similar format. This was necessary because all the earlier Table of Contents had been linked to the articles, but those links ceased to work when we changed servers a couple of years ago. Having given up hope of solving that problem we have delinked the articles. To help navigate we have substituted the date of the works appearance on Cowboy in Paris; and an acronym indicating either the articles subject or its placement.

All these acronyms and abbreviations have been in use since the beginning and have appeared in the taglines at the end of each piece. Of course very few people ever read any of those taglines but they usually contained a wealth of information. Now that they are appearing in the Table of Contents it is necessary to clarify their meanings and connections. Every individual essay had its own number and either that number, or its range of numbers, is often useful in finding them.

Which particular Table of Contents a piece appeared in is very significant to its chronological order and its probable subject matter. The first three, for all intents and purposes are just one with three different categories. Each succeeding table is reflective of a new organization and purpose. They are all phases really of A Cowboy in Paris. If you are still reading just skim the rest:

NAME / ABBREVIATION / USE OR FUNCTION

1 – Tricolors / TRI / Internet site on the WWW.
2 – Magazine / SHE / On TRI in Paris.
3 – Common Denominator / CD / Game on TRI.
4 – Cowboy in Paris / CIP / On TRI in Paris.
5 – Categories / CAT / On CIP # 6-13 below.
6 – General / GEN / On CIP this covers organization.
7 – Table of Contents / TOC / On CIP this covers content.
8 – Places / GRT / Originally this covered Paris and now everywhere else.
9 – Good / GD / Originally this dealt with Paris, then Europe and now biography.
10 – Better / BTR / Originally this involved France, and now games and business.
11 – Best / BST / First it dealt with the best of France and now deals with physics.
12 – Mixed / MXD / After Paris this covered SHE, cancer and personal topics.
13 – Ugly / UG / Seldom used and the only in its first guise.
14 – Archives / ARC / On CIP this is by month and year.
15 – SHE / MAG / On CIP it now deals with the personal, health issues and family.
16 – OAR / OAR / This means Opposites Aren’t Really-Real and deals with physics.
17 – Game / GME / Covers Common Denominator and now other games (below).
18 – After-Words / AFW / Document and Table of Content on CIP, (the sixth).
19 – Organized / ORG / Coming document and Table of Content on CIP, (the 7th).
20 – Biography / BIOG / In CIP, AFW, and ORG deals with biographical material.
21 – Impressions / IMP / The first TOC on CIP covering numbers 1-100.
22 – Places / PLC / The second TOC on CIP with numbers 101-300, (to 200 used).
23 – People / PPL / The third TOC on CIP covering numbers 301-400.
24 – General / GEN / The fourth TOC on CIP with the ranges 400-456 and 500-569.
25 – Renewal / RNW / The fifth, ranges 457-480, 570-599, 600-626, & 680-87.
26 – After-Words / AFW / The sixth, with the ranges 650-656, 701-800, & 801-839.
27 – Organized / ORG / The seventh, ranges 657-679, 840-950, & 951-1100.
28 – 840-950 / OAR / Physics.
29 – 951-1100 / SHE / The Magazine and personal.
30 – 1101-1200 / BIOG / Writing, biography and books.
31 – 657-679 & 1201-1300 / GME / Games and business, includes CD (2nd) and:
32 – Game / CI / First game Categorical Imperative.
33 – Game / DV / Third game Da Vinci Quiz.
34 – Game / VERT / Fourth game Verticalize – French game.
35 – Game / GBU / Fifth game Good, Bad and Ugly, a Great Game.
36 – Game / YIB / Sixth game You In a Box.
37 – Category / EUS / Articles dealing with the relationship of the US & EU.
38 – Category / TPS / Unknown acronym used in business and games.
39 – Unknown / UNK / Abbreviations used with unk. derivation including COF & TPS.

December 10, 2009 / Alphabet Soup and Numbers / TOC pg 3, © 2010 / CIP # 659, Dec 2009 / GEN

Essentially it is done and the ‘die is cast’ …. I thought long and hard as I used that aphorism. A non native speaker might have difficulty understanding such an idiom. I used it because it is true in multiple ways. Since October 22nd you have been more on my mind than usual – since November 26th it has been close to constant. Slowly now the results will come into focus. So I will put this up on December 1st. That I believe is the day you are now scheduled to come home and this cowboy and his sweetheart wanted to welcome you.

It is your attitude that is your strength. Lean on your strength. Optimism always works better than pessimism. Proactive is usually best with an optimistic person. It got you to where you are today – which is where I don’t know exactly for sure right now, but I assume it is good because I know you. Lean on your loved ones and hold his hand. This paragraph is me speaking, but I know that is not the opinion you crave.

There is really little I can do for you except to tell you what I think your sister in strength would say to you now. I know that is vital for you. I believe her opinion would be quite different in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2007 I think she would have gently advised you against your current course of action. In 2008 gradually her experience would come into play. In 2009 I believe she would think you are doing the right thing – playing the odds the best you can. I also believe now she knows better than anyone else the road so many of us must travel. She is trying to tell you something. On February 23rd 2008, really within hours, you started to speak to me in her voice – I could hear it clear as a bell. Today I try to return the favor and speak to you in her voice. Vas, vas, ma belle. Her French would be better than mine.

One final note on ‘the die is cast.’ Remember that 7 is a lucky number. Adding the 30 you want to the 47 you have (your words, and your wishes, back on the 22nd) now it is doubly lucky! Let’s drink to time in a bottle.

November 29, 2009 / Time in a Bottle / AFW pg 123 © 2009 / CIP # 790, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

A few days ago I experienced the most astounding example of serendipity that it has ever been my pleasure to be involved with. A word of history is in order – literally history. Anyone who has been reading this blog since its inception almost 5 years ago will know that I am a proud Englishman, American and Frenchman – at least chronologically in that order. After 1950 it slowly evolved that I was more American than English – thus the name ‘Cowboy’ in Paris is explained.

But that is not the history in question. Until Brad Pitt burst on the scene a few years ago the most common question I was asked when someone heard my name was: are you related to William Pitt? Generally they didn’t ask the Elder or the Younger. For years and years I would answer: my mother tells me yes, but I don’t know. She tells me that we were, and that I have four or five admirals in my lineage. Gradually the answer became: I don’t think so, at least not directly. After I got to Paris I had the time and the interest to research the question more deeply and the answer became: no, at least not directly. And that is where it lay when I came back to the United States just over a year ago.

I hope most of you know that William Pitt the Elder and the Younger were father and son, and Prime Ministers of England during the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. Over there they would be somewhere around the stature of a Washington or a Lincoln over here. Thus the questions were not idle and I did do a considerable amount of research while in Paris. I know all of you know who Brad Pitt was. My answer to that question, especially if the person asking was a woman, usually was something like: ‘I certainly think so, we Pitts are all related you know’.

So where is the serendipity you might ask? On a completely different matter last Saturday I happened to be speaking with the daughter of the landlord of a little cabin I rented in Fish Camp 30 years ago. Her name back then was Zeifert, but now it is Wright – and I have a Wright in my name also. I wondered if she knew of a connection between Wright and Pitt. She suggested I look up William Sidney Smith. I knew I knew the name, but I couldn’t quite place it. A couple of hours later I did look up the name and very quickly excitement gripped me. Three or four hours later I knew for sure that I was related to William Pitt; I knew exactly how; and I knew the names of all 5 admirals. I had to come back home, 6,000 miles from my original home, to find the answers. Thirty, forty, fifty years of questions and it tied together all the original elements of our Tricolors – the United States, Britain and France. That is serendipity!

November 28, 2009 / Serendipity / AFW pg 123 © 2009 / CIP # 789, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

Finally I have a fairly good idea of where I am, where I have been, and where I am going. Finally my past, my present and my future are shimmering into something approaching clarity. Twenty months it took to integrate the preceding 20 months. Our preceding 10 years and my 40 years before that are also becoming clearer. My earliest 10 years are probably impossible to reach back to.

It was actually on writing that last sentence, and walking away and thinking about it, that I realized perhaps it wasn’t entirely accurate. Maybe, maybe, maybe the first 10 years of my life have been lost to my memory simply because I lost my father. Until today, right now – somewhere into my 67th year that never occurred to me. Maybe it took 20 months to understand her final gift. Anyway that is for another essay.

Now I want to concentrate on the clarity. Forty months ago in my little office overlooking all of Paris I had clarity. I knew where everything was, I had systems set up to aid my deteriorating memory. I knew my financial situation, and it wasn’t bad. The game was pretty successful and appeared to have a future. My wife and I were happy – truly and deeply happy. And my view outside my window was beautiful. Finally much of that has been restored. True, physics has replaced the game, but that process was already started in Paris. Memories have replaced my wife, but they are vibrant and alive. And the view outside my window is different but still beautiful.

It took the full forty months to restore a system where I had a reasonable idea of what I have and where it is. For sure it was stressful. With three moves and three triages I had to come to the realization that I did not have, and could not have, any real idea of where anything was. I could reorganize what I still had with me, and consign everything else to history. That is what I have done and finally I know where I am. It’s all good.

The way forward is backwards. I’m not talking here of ‘opposites aren’t’ or ‘the arrow of time.’ More the solidity of the truths of youth – mama said … the golden rule … the Desiderata. It was a line from the latter: “many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness” that led me back to clarity. I’m back with the birds and the wildlife – back to the words and physics. These are truths that I can understand.

November 21, 2009 / Finally a Path / AFW pg 118 © 2009 / CIP # 787, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

It’s anecdotal but it tells a story central to our central character. Our friend Doug Gross tells the story on Bill. Every December he recounts Bill would grab both a bottle of Kessler and a joint along with his backpack and settle on the floor of his cabin. Bill would then gather all his belongings together on the floor and then empty the backpack into the pile. Imbibing all along he would spend the next couple of hours packing and repacking that backpack. In the end what wouldn’t fit he threw away. He was set for another year.

That cabin – I call it Bill’s but of course it really was the Zeifert’s – tells another tale. At different times both Bill and I rented it. Bill only lived there for a short while before the end. Thereafter I rented it for about three years. It was the perfect rustic hideaway for a mountain man. In the winter it was occasionally a bit tough to reach through the snowdrifts. I remember once – this was a couple of years later – waking up one morning to a surprise. Everything seemed normal though even quieter than usual – quieter almost always meant snow. In the winter I would keep the storm shutters closed so I wasn’t immediately aware of the situation. When I went to open the front door I couldn’t. There was over 5 ft of snow on the front porch. Luckily the back door opened in, it had no screen and it had no porch. There I only had to dig through about four feet to get out. Snow didn’t bother Bill and he loved snow shoeing. I think it amused him that I was so inept at it.

In fact, at 5,000 feet in the Sierra you learn to deal with snow and all the elements simply because they are a frequent fact of life. Perhaps it encourages brotherhood. That first winter we had one particularly strong storm and it managed to knock out the power for 10 days. The surrounding areas came back on variously in three, four or five days – perhaps seven in Wawona – but Fish Camp was completely out for 10 straight days. It didn’t faze Bill, nor anyone else for that matter, so I learned it wasn’t supposed to faze me. As it happened, in the following 33 years I never saw an outage that lasted longer than four days. It was a baptism for me – but just an occurrence for Bill.

November 21, 2009 / A Free Man of the West (3) / Bill Fisher / AFW pg 119 © 2009 / CIP # 788, December 1, 2009 / Better / SHE

What if he got it only half right? Okay – 90% if you consider the other four papers in that Miracle Year; and 99% if you just take it as far as he got. Could he have gone further if he wasn’t exhausted from recreating almost the whole universe? Is it possible that his marathon debate with Niels Bohr distracted him and colored or clouded his judgment? Was the other half of Einstein’s monumental equation E = mc² just one step away? One more flash of intuition may have been all it took to reach the ultimate ‘eureka moment.’ Of course the penultimate was pretty astounding.

Do I know the other half? No – but I suspect the outlines. We’ll have a little more on that in a moment.

Modern physics seems to be a mélange of ‘almost there.’ Promising blind alleys abound; tantalizing tidbits scattered from here to eternity; fascinating possibilities almost created, but not quite complete. The recent Q2C Festival at Perimeter Institute is a case in point, and before that there was the Origins Symposium at ASU in April of 2009. Somewhere out there today – perhaps at Perimeter, possibly at Cambridge or MIT, even Caltech – is the next Einstein to bring order out of entropy – no matter which way the arrow of time points.

Physicists like to talk about standing on the shoulders of giants and that has often been the model. Einstein and Planck did indeed stand on the shoulders of Galileo and Newton. For years it appeared that Penrose, Hawking and/or Witten would replace Einstein and Planck as the clear giants of an age. They may yet, but time is running out. Youth is often served. Perhaps the 21st Century will coalesce around someone who we are just beginning to hear murmurs of.

The candidates are legion – PhDs, Professors and post-docs multiply. Some of my favorites are Sean Carroll, Frank Wilczek, Neil Turok, Fotini Markopoulou, Lee Smolin, and perhaps a half a dozen others. Of course many of them seem to be dancing around some of my favorite themes. Perhaps a new synthesis of time and temperature; mass and energy; light speed and the Planck constant; all taken together and remixed in something akin to DNA could produce the other half of that equation. Perhaps it might be inversely proportional. Perhaps we could conceive of space-time as the macro world and temp-time as the province of the micro world. Would then the speed of light correlate to absolute temperature? Perhaps in the end it could even lead to an understanding of the ultimate phase transition. Order and disorder just a Planck length apart. It is always symmetry, synthesis and simplicity. More questions than answers, but at least a direction for PI - that hotbed of cold calculation.

November 13, 2009 / The Other Half / AFW pg 116 © 2009 / CIP # 838, November 14, 2009 / Best / OAR

Our train picks up speed going downhill. Strangely enough our little Fish Camp actually does have a train. I’m not sure if I know of any other tiny town whose population in the winter hovers around a dozen or so – ballooning all the way up to a couple of hundred in the summer – that had, and still has its very own train. Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, a true blue logging railroad that actually operated till 1931. In the mid 60’s it was reopened by Max Stauffer as a scenic steam train for Yosemite bound tourists. It’s complete with a Vintage Shay locomotive, old number 10 if this memory of mine serves, chugging an 8 mile loop.

I mention all this mostly because our Bill Fisher was a wood cutter when he wasn’t being a poet. He wasn’t a real logger, but many of them still existed up here in the 70’s. The old mill still operated in Oakhurst, and another one in North Fork. While Bill was a woodcutter mostly for local firewood, he was big enough and tough enough to be a logger. He could drink like one too. So while our band of brothers couldn’t go all the way up and down the mountain on the train they could get looped.

Whatever mode of locomotion it was, it was picking up steam and headed downhill. Sadly to say I was serving them drinks. That’s how I met Bill. On my very first night as a bartender – at the time I didn’t even know how to make any drinks beyond my own bourbon and seven. I remember my very first customer – it wasn’t Bill – asked me for a boilermaker and I had to ask him what it was. Bill may have been my third or fourth customer and he only wanted a beer. I had mastered that. We became friends.

November 5, 2009 / A Free Man of the West (2) – Bill Fisher (2) / AFW pg 115 © 2009 / CIP # 785, November 14, 2009 / Better / SHE

In 2007 and early 2008 I watched it being done so I know for sure that it can be done. It inspired me to try to emulate – not to do it better, but to try to do it as well.

This is not about her - this is about me: my life, my first family, my future and my death. The latter, hopefully, will not come immediately; but, again hopefully, it is not far, far off. I just want, like her, to go with grace.

My life has been nothing if it hasn’t been learning how to love. First there was Ellen – I don’t know if that was love, but for certain I thought so at the time. I even had two hands back then with which to grope. She was the only person I might have loved who knew me whole. Before that there had been Adelaide and Diane, and maybe one or two others, but I know they were just youthful stirrings at best. Afterwards there was a series of which I am not proud. Then there came Nuisia (‘Niusie Baby’ to my first wife – as they were almost concurrent). Certainly she was my first intellectual love. So now we are up to Tanya – my first wife and my first certain love. It is worth remarking that I didn’t even know that I loved her until two or three years after we were married. I have been virtually certain ever since – sometimes it has hurt too much to be otherwise. I haven’t mentioned my children yet – Desiree and Danny – but I am positive I loved them from the start.

Strangely I am talking about love and I haven’t even mentioned my primary family. I did have a mother. I did have a father. I even had three sisters (and another sister and two brothers – one of whom was supposedly my twin – if my mother’s tale is true). Most of them are dead now. I didn’t know if, or how much, I loved them till they were. Later it will turn out that I have another different half brother and sister in England, but I don’t know that yet.

So we have the early cast of characters: some names, some relations – stick figures in the present, but many of them will have chapters in the bye and bye. There they will have meat and bones, they will laugh and bleed. There, there will be others too – some named, some not but mentioned in the thread. They will all, like me, become human. I hope during the telling that I will remember that I need to go with grace.

November 1, 2009 / Going with Grace (2) / AFW pg 113 © 2009 / CIP # 785, November 14, 2009 / Better / SHE

It is strange the lengths we will go to outwit and overcome our fears and superstitions. One year ago today I decided I would remain 65 for an extra half year and then become 67 for the next 18 months. It worked to perfection. I couldn’t, and thus I didn’t, die in that year with a horrible number. I didn’t even live in it. Voila! Now I am set for three and then we’ll see. I would like to live to seventy. Only a couple of little possible tremors or stumbles could block the path – the tick of an eye, the shortness of breath – all the frailties that age is heir to. Personally I don’t think they are likely to grow into anything to be overly concerned with. Besides I still have a couple of things that need completion. After that I would like to go with grace.

October 28, 2009 / Going with Grace (1) / AFW pg 113 © 2009 / CIP # 784, November 14, 2009 / Better / SHE

Certainly he was the brother of the brother who: “was the genuine article, a free man of the West.” ¹ That free man has been a dying breed now for at least a couple of centuries, but brothers keep up the rear guard action.

The brothers were Chuck and Mike Moulton, and their brother was Bill Fisher. These three and a few others made up a band of brothers. This is their story. I was a junior brother, a Johnny-come-lately – but I was there.

A tree; a truck; a deer; and a load of wood – these are the elements of an end, and a beginning. It was winter – early 76. The tree didn’t budge. The pick-up truck slammed into it. The load of wood shot forward. Bill Fisher and the deer died.

Bill died in 1976 and Chuck died in 1996 – they were the poets and poets die young. Mike and I are older now but live to tell the story. The quote above was written by another poet of some note – Philip Levine – it was written about Chuck when he died. A couple of other brothers – junior or otherwise – were Doug Gross and Les Pacheco. Four of us spoke at Bill’s service, but none of us were poets.

Let’s go back a few months and then we’ll go back further still. September 15th 1975. Mike Moulton moves up to The Whispering Pines, just out of Oakhurst in the Sierra Nevada. Within days – I don’t know the exact date but it was in the same September – I too move up to the mountains. I move in just a little higher – the White Chief Lodge in Fish Camp. It is a tiny burg at 5,000 feet – Les and Doug and Bill are already residents. The train is starting – all the characters are on board.

September 20, 2009 / A Free Man of the West – Bill Fisher (1) / YP 58/3 / AFW pg 108 © 2009 / CIP # 783, November 14, 2009 / Better / SHE