January 5, 2021

Dad and the Handy Plaid Pantry Constitution

There we were on New Year’s Day, discussing over coffee a finer point of the Constitution, since the Constitution is under siege by people who have never read it, when neither Dad or I could recall the precise language we needed to make a point, The language of the Constitution is sometimes incredibly vague, (see 2^nd Amendment) or absurdly outdated, and in fact, much of it needs a total rewrite with some major cuts (see Electoral College). I think Dad and I were talking about the definition of treason and how it requires the testimony of two people in open court to the same overt act or by confession for a conviction. If you define the enemy of the United States as the corona virus, then did the President provide aid and comfort to the enemy by his statements and decisions? If so, then you have a lot more than two witnesses. You have 400 million.

We needed a Constitution to consult and I didn’t want to dial one up on my phone or tablet. Dad then mentioned he had one at the ready and he got up and retrieved one from his desk. Just like that! It also included the Declaration of Independence and was a handsomely bound pocket edition with a faux leather cover! I asked him where in the world he had purchased it. He told me he saw it for sale in a Plaid Pantry years ago when he was with my stepmother and she bought it for him as a gift! A Constitution for sale in a Plaid Pantry! It was an utterly preposterous story and made me laugh but soon enough I was looking in the index for words we needed.

After talking about the treason provision in the Constitution we moved onto the 25^th Amendment and tried to make sense of that mess of a law for Presidential succession. To think that the drafters of this Amendment in the wake of the Kennedy assassination believed that a President’s cabinet would put nation ahead of President if the President went insane was naïve to say the least. It might one day prove fatal.

Next topic was Sylvia Plath as I reviewed a new biography of the tragic poet. Dad launched into some lines from her poetry and we worked through her moods.

I love having these kind of discussions with my father and I will be having a lot more in the future as I assist with his transition after losing his beloved wife and my incredible stepmother.

Support Meditations Blog

The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

$22.99 + $3 Shipping

Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.