Bless the beasts

Sarah Green loves pelicans!

I love pelicans!

But wait! (I protested in the guarded confines of my head) I don't know how the hell I can fit a pelican into the shirt design for Sarah's charity swim, the Humboldt Bay Critter Crawl.

(Thanks, Dixon Lanier Merritt — and sorry for thinking you were Ogden Nash.)

After all, the swim in far northern California benefits the North Coast Marine Mammal Center — seals and such. When asked if I could create the design, I pictured a seal in acrobatic swirl, enwreathing the swim's name in the bubbles of its wake. Or harbor seals and sea lions forming the words, or hidden in the words. Something like that.

I am thinking about expanding the concept to a larger population of ocean *critters* - water inhabitants, pelicans (a personal favorite) and other sea birds

Said Sarah,

. . .  swimmers swimming among them, Humboldt Bay, maybe The Fisherman statue from Woodley Island.

Having swum the inaugural event last summer, I knew the statue — knew it not only for its rough-hewn figurative style, but as a beacon ushering me to the finish line. It's a memorial by Eureka sculptor Dick Crane to Eureka's fishermen lost at sea; I already thought of including it in the shirt design.

But a pelican … !

They're lovely. When I see them, I feel I know the ocean is wild and thriving, and that they guard the water somehow, scooping in tight formation through the wave troughs. Ungainly and clownish on land (curse our anthropomorphic tendencies!), pelicans rule the sea air.

Now the challenge was to give bird and beast equal billing, using two colors (the screenprint ink and the shirt color). I tried and tried and tried, and sketched and sketched.

And sketched, trying to fit them into a seamless whole.

The filigree of pelican wing had to fit into the warp and woof of wave and fin — I just didn't see how.

I took a different tack as a result, trying a second solution, thinking I'd see the first solution out of the corner of my eye in an unguarded moment.

For the completely second solution, I decided the common element in this swim was in the eye of the beholder — swimmer human, swimmer pinniped and avian fisher extraordinaire.

I would focus on the eyes, and began sketching that idea.

The image taken together would be like a doorway, the eyes being windows of various and sundry souls, and at the top would be the landscape, the sweep of the north Humboldt Bay with The Fisherman in the foreground and the lush forest of Arcata Bay in the background.

It would be a kind of map for the 4.5-mile swim from the mouth of the bay into the marina at Woodley Island, done on a generous tide. It is a grand event, and I recommend it. You want a warm crowd applauding your finish, appreciative of your physical and fundraising effort (and relieved they don't have to swim the cold water)? This is the event.

Despite throwing energy into the other concept — or maybe because of it — the solution for the other still eluded. I batted the two ideas back and forth.

Maybe the pelican's wingtips could diverge into the rough diamond patterns of choppy water, and within the positive and negative spaces the words and a seal would emerge.

Hmmm.

I returned to the second idea, which I could see more clearly. I just had to make others see more clearly that these are the eyes of a pelican, a human and a seal.

It was getting close … I felt it was time to start messaging it on the computer at this point.

Back to the drawing board on the first idea.

I was getting nowhere fast.

The solution came, fittingly, on a long swim. It's counterintuitive, but my habit of counting strokes actually frees some part of my brain to see ideas in the jade depths of my beloved Lake Natoma.

Voices of reason sometimes also bubble up from the dark water. One voice told me, "Stop being so literal." I had kept the bird in the air and the seal in the water, neither to meet. What I really needed to do is fit the shape of a swimming seal into the curve of the pelican's wing, leveraging the yin and yang of positive and negative shapes.

Swim done, I was back on the computer, moving around sketch fragments until the seal's body formed the void of pelican flight, and everything else took shape, literally. Wingtips repeated and echoed in the shapes of liquid and the embrace of kelp, holding everything together with nothingness.


A towering stormcloud became at once the world in which the two could exist, and the swimmer's environment, sea and sky.

While I was at it, I finished out the second idea too, just in case.

The next challenge was creating a related image for the swim cap, perhaps by isolating an element of the art, because the T-shirt art would not reduce well.

I tried and tried and tried.

Again.

Nothing jelled. Until, without my looking the solution jelled on its own:

Stop being so literal, the voice repeated.

•••

In other news:

The Boy Scouts of America, pending ratification by its national board, has agreed to allow gay adult Scout leaders. About time!

New President Robert Gates called on Scouts to change its policy, after it had agreed to allow gay Scouts in the organization.

"We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be," said Gates, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. secretary of defense, in calling for a change.

Not exactly a warm welcome. More like a "(sigh) … if we must," but whatever. At least it recognizes this isn't 1955 anymore.

I'm curious how my old Troop would treat this. It's chartered to a Catholic church, and under the decision, if ratified, each chartering organization would be able to decide whether to allow gay adult leader for its Scouting units.

Religious organizations account for some 70 percent of Scouting's chartering organizations.

Our charter organization had an arm's length relationship when I was involved, probably still does, providing rooms for meeting and a shed space for equipment.

Except for one former pastor who wanted to know why he didn't recognize all the Scouts and why they all didn't attend Mass (uh, because they're not all Catholic? And I'm pretty sure some are agnostic?), the parish didn't pay a lot of attention to the Troop. We took part in Scout Sunday, which amounted to carrying the colors to the altar at the start of Mass, and feeding cookies to parishioners and showing them how to pitch a tent after Mass; and we gathered food for the food locker once a year. Other than that, we were invisible.

I'm going to guess someone with pull will pay attention and my old Troop won't be one of those including gay leaders.

It's always 1955 somewhere.

Two steps back

Somewhere in America, in a room off the main church, the following will never take place:

"Crisp opening, Scouts! Very patriotic. OK, Senior Patrol Leader, what is the Troop doing tonight?"

"Yes sir. Let's see … the new Scout patrol will meet to discuss 'What is homosexuality, anyway?' with David's dad. We were going to have Tommy's mom as guest speaker, but since she's one of the gays, we can't have her leading anything."

"That's being prepared. What else?"

"OK … the Bear Patrol needs to finish modifying its patrol flag to incorporate the rainbow colors … and the senior patrol will work on their Citizenship in the Community merit badge with an analysis of the Homosexual Agenda and how it will run the Troop. We'll play ultimate Frisbee and … that's about it."

"Great! Oh, one more thing, Scouts. BSA has issued this new oversized bandanna. It kind of folds out … look how large this thing gets … you wear it under your hat, like so, and it drapes over your body. What's that, Tyler? Yes, yes, it does look kind of like a burqa, with the mesh eyeholes and everything. With the new membership policy, we can't be too careful that you gays in our Troop may want to jump these straight boys' bones. This — burqa, if you will — will cover you up and deliver the gay guys from temptation. Keeps away mosquitoes too! OK, Senior Patrol Leader, let's get started!"

Ridiculous, of course, but some critics imagined as much when last week directors of the Boy Scouts of America decided to allow boys who are gay to join Scouting. Adults who are gay are still barred from participating as leaders.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout, likened homosexuality to a fad and said, "For pop culture to come in and try to tear that up because it just happens to be the flavor of the month, so to speak, and to tear apart one of the great organizations that has served millions of young men … that is just not appropriate.”

A fad. For as long as humanity.

Upset parents described how gays have forced their agenda on Scouts, as if Scouting is now about being gay and celebrating homosexuality. Some have said they'll leave Scouting; some others say they'll try to create a similar group that upholds Scouting values. The irony: Scouts opposed to the ban have been trying to do the same thing for years, while working with Scouting to change the membership policy.

As if being gay had anything to do with values, instead of being the way some people are born.

Scouting is about boys who want to go outdoors and cut things with knives and burn stuff. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Imagine if Scouting banned African Americans because they corrupted Scouting values. You'd laugh, but in Boy Scouts of America's early days, forces moved to do just such a thing.

W.D. Boyce, one of Scouting's founders, fought from the start to open Scouting to all despite race or creed. Of course, Scouting was right. It is right to lift this ban, too.

"While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting," Boy Scouts of America announced in its decision last week.

What I don't understand is why Boy Scouts didn't lift the ban entirely. Half a decision is no decision at all.

Judging by the first-day news stories, foes of the ban are happy, if not satisfied, with the decision. It's a stutter step, an appeasement to those outraged at even suggesting a change. Once the bluster and recriminations have passed — once some churches cut ties with Scouting and Troops find other places to meet — once everyone remembers that Scouting is about cutting things with knives and burning stuff, and adults telling them not to — then Scouting will lift the ban for leaders too.

I read the BSA board decision differently: This gay thing? Son, it's just a phase you're going through. Once you turn 18, you'll return to your "values" or you'll be through with Scouting.

The irony remains: An organization that purports to nurture citizen leaders in a country working toward liberty and justice for all, can't also say, "Well, it's really liberty and justice for some."

I hope this is just a phase Scouting is going through.