Corcoran as the Garden of Eden? Don't Laugh, Anything is Possible with Hard Work and a Good Scotch

      First things first, I have to admit something about the title of this blog. I know that it seems like complete and utter bullshit. I know that the Bible was written thousands of years ago when people kept in touch with each other by poking sticks in clay, smoke signals, and people running ridiculously long distances. I also know that Corcoran was incorporated in 1914 which means that it's only 105 years old making it  a mathematical improbability that it is the actual home of Adam and Eve and their kids. Or, does it?

       I like that last part. I stole it from those TV shows that are discussing stuff about a historical matter that any asswipe with a smartphone could Google for himself. They have to resort to saying stuff like, "The bullet smashed into the back of Lincoln's right ear, killing him. Or, did it?" or "Since then, the original Garden of Eden, where Cain slew Abel, where Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, and where Adam fathered mankind has lain hidden in the mists of time. Or, has it?"

      They always have a perfectly coiffed guy who looks like he's got a hardened turd pushing up against his sphincter when he says it, which makes  always makes me wonder if they taught that particular device in journalism school. Then, they also always put a commercial right there to give you time to mull it over.

          That makes me wonder too. How many hours do we waste mulling over such things like does Congressman Adam Schiff actually have alien DNA? Or, did they actually find the assassin who really killed JFK working as a greeter at a Walmart in South Dakota? I would like to know the percentage of people who decide to stay and find out the answer compared to those who either change the channel or go outside to take a smoke break.

         Just because the city of Corcoran was not incorporated when Adam and Eve settled down to raise a family doesn't actually prove that Corcoran couldn't  be the original Eden. I doubt very seriously that God would have waited for the incorporation to make that decision, whereas, he might have taken a real liking to the physical beauty of the area. (I'm talking about back then, not now.)

     We should all remember that at one time the San Joaquin Valley certainly had its Eden like charms back before they started paving over everything and a big yellow taxi came took away Joni Mitchell's old man.

      You had rivers and streams, fruit trees and artesian wells, plenty of game for the killing, and pretty much everything you would need to start a family back before they sold us on the idea of television and disposable diapers. You even had a lot of shit that two siblings could fight about, still do. There were even a plentiful amounts of mischievous snakes around, still are.

        The question then would become about the Tree of Life and where is it? Could it be that there is an underground group of people who share in the secret of where the actual historical Tree of Life was originally located, and that they we have ritualized this mystery in our community's annual placing of a giant Christmas tree smack in the middle of town at the corner of Whitley and Chittenden at the center where the roads make the shape of a cross. 

         I also believe that someday we will find that the whole damned thing is an allegory, much like they teach in all those sneaky secret societies, and that the Tree of Life will  be revealed as Life itself and its ability to electrify our bodies from our toes to the crown of our head with connections to our nasty bits, our hearts, and our sensory organs.

          Atheists and Secularists deny the existence of the invisible world by saying, "Prove it, Bumpkin. There ain't no proof, there ain't no God. There ain't no God, then there ain't no Garden of Eden. No Tree. No fruit. No sin." And as much as they think they are smarter than everyone else who thinks otherwise, they are missing the evidence right before their beady little eyes.

       Humans exist in the middle of it all, between heaven and hell and between life and death, and at one time we actually fucking understood this and what it meant. And I'm not talking about knowing it in a academic sense; I'm saying we knew of our place in the universe because it was written in our bones, our teeth, our eyebrows, etc, etc. And if the question ever came up in polite conversation, it never did, we could ask our eyebrows, and they would way in a squeaky voice, because that's how they talk, "No, everything's fine.  Just A OK. No temptations here."

       We knew back then that the invisible world existed too because it was there when we closed our eyes at night, it was there when we lusted after our neighbor's wife, and there whenever we watched two dimwits wrestle in the here and now and then used our hidden thoughts to mull over the significance and meaning of what we were witnessing in the material world.

      The serpent the Bible references lies within us all and the fruit that  tempted Adam and Eve with is self-knowledge, the knowledge that, in our own eyes at least, says that we are separated from God. And this is not to say, that a real Adam and Eve couldn't have been arguing about what this all meant a mile or two west of Sixth Avenue near the Homeland headquarters. I think I know the spot. I used to sleep there on my lunch break with a canvas beneath me and using a book as a pillow. I wrestled with an angel, no, nevermind that was someone else.

       Most theologians think of the eviction notice from the Garden as the greatest punishment ever, and in a large way, it was and is. But it is punishment in the way that doing things that you know you shouldn't be doing is punishment, a dark and heavy sense of shame that pretty much  each and everyone of us know intimately.

       We once basked at the edges of great Tule Lake spitting sunflower seeds into its water as they lapped against the shores while listening to Seals and Croft sing Summer Breeze. We farted when and where we wanted and belched just the same. And we never felt any shame when picking our noses. We naturally understood that boogers were a real thing, while now, we pretend they are not.

      Then we had to go and fuck it all up. Or, at least Adam did and since he's our OG grandpa we can't say nothing other than, "He must have had his reasons."

       The great secret of life is that we never actually left the Garden. We just couldn't see it anymore as it changed from heaven on earth into a never ending series of roads, homes, warehouse buildings, prisons, bar rooms, courthouses, churches, and schools. The last trace disappearing in 1914 when the incorporation papers for the City of Corcoran were signed and sealed and placed into the bottom of a drawer in somebody's desk.

        I like to think that I can still see the Garden from time to time after I've had a few drinks and some good conversation and step outside into a moonlit night. I remember those nights lying on my car trunk at the Pits, drunk and obliterated by the ongoing search for perfection and the countervailing feeling that my soul was as dirty as a six month old oil filter. The moon and those stars were calling to us then as they have always been to remind us that the shit we step in now was once a grassy sunlit field.

        I like to think that area where the city puts up the Christmas tree is the actual spot where the actual Tree of Life once grew. I don't know if it's true or not, but at least that way, I can step out of the Lake Bottom Brewery and look over towards the spot and understand before I go home and go to sleep that where ever it is,  it ain't there now. Or, is it?