I’ve coined the phrase “serendipity ring” to mean the way things come around again on the guitar. “Serendipity” is my favorite word (I’m saving it for my interview with James Lipton). What I mean by a “serendipity ring is that thing that happens when you’ve never heard of a certain book, or musician, or place, and then once you do, it’s EVERYWHERE even though you aren’t going out of your way to visit the library, music store, you’re not reading a lot of history books that mention that place, or that person, but there it is again. And again. And then it’s gone and then…it comes back.

Chez Roscoe, the code word for this phenomenon is “Antietam” the Civil War battle site that once a few years ago, kept creeping in everywhere. Like those damn slugs we had in the kitchen for a while. There it was on “Jeopardy!”. There it was on “Book TV” where Sarah Vowell was talking about taking her vacation to various Civil War battlefields (or whatever. She’s a little weird. Good weird, but weird.) and there it was in Stu’s latest copy of Archeology magazine or whatever. It died down after a while, but never out. It still pops up, like a mole needing whacking every so often (“Whacking. I’m hell at whacking.” Ten points if you recognize the movie, the actor, the reference.)

Antietam ain’t the only one, but it was a big one. Sometimes it’s not the word, or the song, or the actor or the book, but things that start there and spread out until it seems that everything is tied to it and yeah, there really are only 43 people in the world. It’s a sort of déjà vu for your entire life.

A couple weeks back, I bought myself a copy of DECCA: THE LETTERS OF JESSICA MITFORD as a birthday gift because Mitford was a hero of mine. I never met her, which seems slightly odd as we must have overlapped our lives in leftist politics in the bay area. Someone told me a while ago that a bay area fan lived next door to her. I never knew what to do with that information, any more than I did when someone years ago invited me to a party, using as a lure that one of Shirley Jackson’s children would be there. I adored Shirley Jackson as one of the best writers ever, and have practically memorized her two hysterically funny memoirs, but I could simply not get going to a party and trying to drum up a conversation with someone whose mother mattered to me. It seemed horribly rude. But readhing DECCA and seeing so many people we had, at least somewhat in common (I might have only met some of those people once, but it was in a meaningful place or time) but we simply never met.

The book by the way is well worth it if you’re a Mitford fan. While much of her life is out there in her own two memoirs HONS AND REBELS (it’s now been renamed in the US edition from DAUGHTERS AND REBELS) and A FINE OLD CONFLICT, and of course she wrote (and most folks probably know her for this one) THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH, her letters are pretty amazing. They sound exactly like her, and forgive me but they remind me of me, at least insofar as we both really like emphasizing things and speak in italics, even when we’re writing (in her letters, it’s underlining like crazy because her world was typewriting, not computer. Mitford died in 1996, and had only recently discovered the joys of a fax machine. But she wholly believed in communication by letter, to her sister Debo, to her daughter and son, various friends, fans, antagonists, editors, agents, her husband Bob Treuhaft, her grandchildren. And she wrote what she thought, leading at times to feuds, arguments, anger, hurt and reconciliations with various friends and loved ones.

She was a communist, or rather a Communist, member of the party who quit and never apologized for being misled, naïve or stupid. She refused to be in the same room as her sister Diana, lover and then wife of Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Fascists during WW II. Diana was imprisoned with her husband for a couple years, in what apparently was a suite of rooms, complete with servants provided because god forbid the upper class Diana not have her tea. Or whatever. This so infuriated Jessica that when the Mosleys were released, she wrote “cousin Winston” to complain and throughout her life refused to “be in the same room as murderers”, tolerating an exception only when they were in France when their sister Nancy was dying. Mitford saw her mother during her life, but never again saw Unity either after she, Jessica, ran away with her cousin (whom she married) to the Spanish civil War. Unity, whom she loved deeply, was enamored so of Adolf Hitler (descriptions in this book are pretty skin-crawly about her finding him so attractive) attempted suicide when Germany declared war on England and was severely disabled until she died a few years later. It’s a hell of a story, a hell of a familiy. Debo (Deborah) who only ever wanted to “marry a duke” did so and apparenlty never comprehended what it was that drove any of her sisters, remaining utterly apolitical but even more, not even understanding what politics was.

She held very strong views, but did not insist others hold them, although I suspect that’s how it came across (since that’s something I encounter regularly, often because what I say comes across as strong, although I never intend for it to sound insistent.) She assumed her friends knew her politics and could discuss disagreements, and were willing to hear her opinions – since we don’t see the letters to her or the replies to some of her chastisements, we simply don’t know.

Reading hundreds of pages of letters from Decca (as she was known) to dozens of correspondents, I met old friends and acquaintances along with surprises. Surprize number one: Hillary Rodham clerked for Bob Treuhaft in 1971 during one of her summers in law school. Treuhaft, also a CP member a huge activist leftist lawyer, alost up there with Kuntsler and Garry and Weinglass but somewhat less publicity-conscious, spent his entire law career, after leaving government service in defending labor unions, fighting for civil rights, all that lefty stuff. I have never, ever not once, read about this in any mention of Hillary Clinton’s career. The book hints that few people know and that it was discovered mstoly by Bush’s “dirty tricks” people to use against her. It dismays me to feel that this information has been swept aside by the official biographers of the candidate. Rodham probably could have chosen any big New York or DC firm for her summer internship that year; that she chose Treuhaft’s Oakland law practice says a lot, but apparently she would rather folks think of her differently. Okay, NOT that I read candidate biographies but had that ever ever been mentioned (I suspect it has been pounced on by the Fox news/she’s an evil bitch types) in passing, I would have caught it, because Treuhaft’s name is writ large in my brain.

Strange fact/surprise deux: not surprise, but one of mitford’s closest friendships was with Maya Angelou. I know what most folks know about this writer had have read several of her books, remember her poem on Inauguration Day. What I don’t remember is her support of Clarence Thomas, a decision which severely damaged her friendship with Mitford and which I was surprised to read of.

But then there are the more serendipitous items, which was really what I wanted ot get to. The first was that while reading DECCA, there were 2 or 3 stories in the newspaper about the famous, well-connected head ofhte car racing industry, a man named Mosley. Mx Mosley, son of Oswald Mosley, yes indeed, apparently videotaped himself cavorting (what a word, huh?) with five prostitutes. Mosley rejected all calls to resign even after the video which of course was seen by thousands (and no, I haven’t) was revealed. Stories range from Mosley speaking German 9out of courtesy, I read, as one of the whores was German) and doing all sorts of prison role play with German uniforms brought calls for him to resign from his job, which is as head of the body in charge of Formula One racing. Of course claiming it was private (arguably yes but) the whole thing gained a layer or two when it was mentioned that Max was Oswald M’s son, and you can’t quite ignore that, can you? It’s a creepy story, but took on a weirdness that was a little bigger just because of the book I was reading, you know? Should Mosley resign? I don’t give a fuck of course, but the rules of his organization do have a sort of “moral turpitude” clause which he appears to be blithely ignoring. But then, given the role models he’s had, maybe he doesn’t get it. He did, however cite a grand conspiracy out to get him. Apparently he does not draw a salary for the job. I haven’t noted any photo sessions with his “long suffering wife” by his side. Maybe that’s only in America. Or politics. But it IS icky, really really icky. And a smidgen weird and serendipitic (the adjectival form I just made up.

Further on in DECCA, I came across the name of Don Jelinek, who apparently practiced law with Bob T. I know that name because when I lived in Berkeley, he was newly elected to the city council and I’d written to him about a proposal he had before the council which I agreed with. It all had to do with granting business licenses to businesses who were not in compliance with certain laws. For quite a time when I lived in Berkeley, I spent hours reading plans and noting where business were not in compliance with ADA, by not putting in the ramps they had stated they would put in, or making doors too narrow, or not giving a shit. I thought they should not be allowed to operate their businesses. I never heard back from Jelinek, but I moved out of the bay area a few months later. Just a little click from my past (I left Berkeley for Boston in 1985). Berkeley’s a smallish world, though. But a little flutter here, a click there starts weaving the varying strands of memory and news and politics and stories and degrees of separation. I mean I was once in a car with Charles Garry (heading to Ying Lee Kelly’s house I think (yes, it is a great name) after attending the funeral of someone who mattered greatly to me (and whose name also appears in DECCA – Fay Stender.) but that sort of contact is to “knowing” someone as my being at the Parkersburg Airport is to saying “yes, I’ve been to West Virginia”. (oh ye gods, that airport).

But then it was reading about Benjy, Benjamin Treuhaft, Decca and Bob’s son that I felt the world get teeny. Really really tiny. And small too. For there on the page was a note about Benj (as he is known by his mother) who is a piano tuner. I knew a fair amount about his sister “Dinky” or “Dink” (Constancia Romilly) , but little about Ben. Ben, who, according to the letters in the book, has dealt with bipolar disorder was once (is no longer) married to Sue Draheim. Big whoop, right?

Except, see, I know who Sue Draheim is. I’m a Sue Draheim fan. I’ve got recordings of Sue Draheim playing fiddle because I’m a fan of Any Old Time String Band, a fine all women quintet which existed in the bay area when I lived there. The group was founded by and featured Susie Rothfield (now known as Suzy Thompson), whom I knew back in West Hartford, Connecticut back in he Pleistocene Era. We were in a musical together. I had one conversation with her in my life where she, a couple years younger than me, told me she wanted to play music for her life’s work. Some 15 years later or so, I learned that we’d both relocated in Berkeley and that she in fact was playing music for a living. In a band called Any Old Time String Band where she sang and played wicked good fiddle, especially in the Cajun numbers. You can even hear the band on the web, As did Sue Draheim, who played wocked good fiddle. I loved watching her play. Okay? All right? Is that serendipity enough?

Good grief.