NEXT YEAR

             Come New Year’s Eve, should you be looking ahead with anticipation or taking inventory, taking stock, whatever that evokes? I am such a corny old man; when I go back over my posts, I would mock anybody else who writes such stuff but I can’t help it. The words come and I write them down. If I were trying to impress, I’d be controversial or spin a better story. But I just say what the 11-yr old in my head tells me. I have the better vocabulary and he trusts me there but it’s really about what moves him. I love my family. What I really love is when they all come to my house. We usually get together at their mother’s place and that’s great. I don’t have to clean or make plans, I just arrive on time and do as I’m told. But sometimes I get lucky and they all end up in my kitchen. Finding the right day and time that fits everyone’s schedule is not easy. Last week I was checking calendar with friends and noticed that we all had things to do almost everyday but nobody had plans for the morning of New Year’s Eve. So I called my kids and simply said, “I’m making breakfast New Year’s Eve. If you can make it, we will eat well. Don't worry about the time, we’ll eat when you get here. If you can’t make it, who ever is here will eat without you, but I’m going to do it again next year so plan for it.” So what do you know, almost everyone made it. Omelettes for the early bunch, pancakes and scramble for the latecomers. When the last one pulled out of the drive my kitchen was in shambles. I felt so good that I didn’t care about the mess. I won’t go back to the kitchen again for a couple of days. Shortly after I got married, in the early 1960’s, my wife and I had a small disagreement about clean kitchens. I told her that I was not going to be held hostage by a kitchen full of dirty dishes. I think it resulted in a compromise, clean some, leave the rest but I still have that thing that lets me walk away from dirty dishes.
           Having kids in my house lights me up. All I need is to hear their voices and see them being children. The youngest was ready to go before the rest and she was frumping around impatiently. I put my hand on her head and smoothed her hair. She leaned my way, her head and shoulder into my side and hip. Body language, touch; what a wonderful medium. It told me all I wanted to know. I claim my own children and I claim theirs as well. Then I have surrogate children who lack only the DNA, in Michigan and California, in Kansas City too. We call them outlaws, as opposed to in laws. The K.C. troop was here this morning, with their kids. My job as a dad was to provide all those duties and fail safes that people write books about. But not to forget the letting go part. You really need to be aware; ready to let them go. It’s the role reversal in life where the child defines the relationship and the dad gives up the spotlight. I realized early that I never really wanted the spotlight, it was more struggle than reward. So as I start anticipating the after dark merriment that will certainly unfold in the next 6 or 8 hours, my year’s end has already been sealed with a hug and a kiss. Next year; are you kidding? I’m preoccupied with today, right now. The party is still hours away and I think need a nap. 

I DON'T KNOW

           While explaining the absence of weapons of mass destruction, Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense said, “There are things you know, things you know that you don’t know, and things that you don’t know that you don’t know.” Long before Rumsfeld, Mark Twain said, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”  Lack of good information explains the not knowing what it is that you don’t know. Unconditional belief in what you want to believe is risky business. It can leave you in the lurch, between the rock and the hard place; that’s the “just ain’t so” that Twain spoke of. 

           I kept company with a gaggle of friends last night. We had been to a movie, then went to the home of one couple, sat around a big table with wine and pizza. The conversation began with the movie but turned in on itself. Politics turns humming birds into vultures. Ten progressive, open ended thinkers became as narrow and closed as the politics they were condemning. But we know from the psychology of small groups, when like minded people are isolated from other points of view, openness and divergent thinking go away, in a heartbeat. That’s not good for people who pride themselves on openness and divergent thinking. For over an hour we tried to frame new, different ways of rebuking the immorality of conservative logic and fantasizing on how we could do something about it. I kept asking them, “Who do you mean by We?” They were too busy with rhetoric to go there with me. 

           David Hume, an18th century Scottish philosopher who, at the time, was unchallenged and renowned for his progressive views. He championed science and process over tradition and belief but he couldn’t avoid the fundamental fact of human behavior; passion drives and knowledge follows. We do, all of us, respond to our feelings before we do to knowledge. What we feel is more compelling than what we know. At first I thought, ‘How can that be?’ I didn’t want to believe it. I want to believe that reason is more trustworthy than emotion; knowledge trumps feelings every time. In a National Forest you look around and you see trees; take a few steps in any direction and you notice that all the trees are planted in perfect, evenly spaced rows. That geometry went unnoticed until you aligned yourself with it. Logically, my psychological trees lined up when I realized that my passion for reason and logic was driven by the way I feel about knowledge, not by the knowledge itself. It is not a rational choice. Every rational decision is channeled by the way we feel about rational decisions. The same can be said about decisions based on Faith and tradition. The feeling validates the source. 

           That is one of those things I didn’t know, for a very long time, that I didn’t know. Not changing the subject but off on a little side bar; Cognitive Dissonance is a psychological phenomena associated with conflicted feelings. When your belief is strong and new, credible information casts doubt on that belief, you are pulled in two directions (stress). The dissonance part comes in when you disregard, dismiss any new knowledge regardless of how compelling it may be in favor of a comfortable conscience and the old, belief based paradigm. You hang onto the comfort of a shrinking comfort zone at the risk of being not only incorrect but terribly wrong as well. We all do it to some extent. We want to believe whatever it is that makes us feel good about the world and about ourselves. If you’re a diehard Cubs fan and cling to that hope, the aftermath isn’t going to break the bank. Yet, if we are so invested in what we know, that “just ain’t so”, that we turn a deaf ear to good science and proven process, it’s a deep hole we are digging. The pathology of that folly only results in harder to climb out of, deeper holes. It doesn’t matter which side you come down on; if you deny an obvious truth because it threatens a moral principle you hold dear, you look foolish and the only consolation is to surround yourself with others who glorify the foolish.

           Rumsfeld was right to some extent; there’s too much to know, too much to grasp the scope of our own ignorance. Twain was, still is the uncompromising filter we would strain our Truths through. The truth will always be tarnished with what we want to believe. I would change that if I could, just like my friends last night. We would all welcome the truth, unvarnished, but whether we could live with it is something else. Once upon a time I hated the President. He was a spoiled, rich guy who only thought about rewarding his rich cronies. I couldn’t give him any credit for anything that had merit. But I mellowed and realized he was doing exactly what I do; he did what made sense to him and he loves his country. My friends last night think the other guys are all self righteous bigots. Those self righteous bigots think we are all self righteous bigots in the other direction. 

          There are two kinds of wisdom; the kind that others pass on in books and traditions and the kind that precipitates out of your own experience. This bit belongs to me with maybe a little nudge from Buddha: Those ideas and actions that offend you are enough of an insult that you will always distrust and oppose them. The ideas and actions you believe in make you comfortable, and in that comfort they make you vulnerable. You should challenge and test your own beliefs more rigorously and more frequently than the ones you hate. If you really believe that diversity and openness to possibility are important, then you have to keep them under the microscope. After all, you want to be capable of change, and we should change when reason dictates. I must have a powerful passion for the critical process to keep choosing it over everything else. It’s purpose is not to prove anything, but to disprove everything. What can’t be disproved must have pretty good legs. I am more comfortable with my liberal friends than the other guys but some of their truth just ain’t so either and I don’t know anything at all. 

UU CHRISTMAS

The very name, ‘Unitarian Universalist’ sounds suspiciously, ‘Science Fiction’ or worse; like where you might go for someone to read the bumps on your head. But it is in fact, a religious tradition with roots that go back to Romania in the 1500’s. With centuries of pushback against the Roman Church's doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ; with emphasis on reconciliation rather than ‘either-or’ judgment; the early UU's moved in another direction. Modern Unitarian-Universalism is a liberal religious movement that no longer identifies as Christian. If you need an ‘ism’ to associate with their roots it would be Humanism; that everything we need to fulfill our purpose was inherent at birth. We don’t need to please God; whether or not there is a God is irrelevant. Many UU’s are atheist or agnostic. So, when I tell folks I went to church on Christmas Eve they likely assume it was a Christian church and the traditions we keep are the same as theirs. 

But this is not a history of Unitarian-Universalism. It’s a short story about my Christmas eve. If you had been there you would have noticed a few different twists but it was pretty traditional. The story came straight from the New Testament book of Luke. Rather than read it from the bible, our children took turns describing the manger scene, one element at a time. As they did, characters and scenery were added; the nativity scene was assembled in front of our eyes. In the end, it was about a wonderful story. We sang traditional Christmas carols, with a few edits of course; just enough that it wouldn’t be confused with “Worship.” What we did fell short of worship. It was simply paying respect, honoring a cultural tradition that is so widely celebrated. The idea of peace on earth and good will to all people is certainly embraced in our religious principles. What we truly believe is that Myth is the foundation of all religion and Metaphor is what we are left with. Our job is figure out how to glean a kernel of truth from that mysterious mix and give it legs to stand on. 

There were readings from contemporary authors that uplifted the human spirit. We take it on ourselves to be instruments of peace and justice rather than depend on God to send us a savior. We sang all the verses of Silent Night, in the dark, as a single flame was passed candle to candle and the room took on a glow. I heard my own voice, amazed it was in tune with the musicians on the stage. The idea of peace crossed my mind; not the pause between fights but the flash of insight that we are all, everyone of us, bits of star dust on a timeless passage. Out of my mouth came the words, “. . . sleep in heavenly peace,” the melody tails and the words repeat, “. . . sleep in heavily peace.” 

Afterward, in the lobby, we rubbed shoulders, drank hot cider, wished everyone, even people we didn’t know, “Merry Christmas.” At the church down the street it would have been about Baby Jesus but in our case it was about, “God bless us every one.” We celebrate many holidays, from other traditions; not because we believe in their miracles but because we would be inclusive rather than exclusive. It’s not easy, even for people who make it their purpose, to be inclusive. Prejudice and pride are universal ills, no one is immune, we have to diagnose our own shortfalls and be our own medicine. On my way home I stopped for coffee with friends at their place. What a Christmas present; friends. Then, in the car, for no particular reason I remembered the movie ‘Chirstmas Story’ where Ralphie was obsessed with the Red Ryder BB gun. His BB gun was under the tree but their Christmas dinner was ruined and they had to eat Chinese at the only open restaurant, and it was the best Christmas ever. 

STRAWBERRIES IN DECEMBER

Solstice; this is the most celebrated day in human history. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were every bit as smart as we are, they just lacked the body of knowledge that we have inherited and a manageable means of assimilating information. There were only 3 or 4 cards in their deck and their mentality had to conform to that, but they understood the cycling of seasons, that spring brought new life, that summer was bountiful, that fall ushered in winter, a time to hunker down and endure. Whether or not they could count, they could make sense of how the sun’s arc slid lower and deeper in the south. The lower it dipped, the colder it got. Food was harder to come by and life itself, just making it through the day, ranged from challenging to near impossible. I don’t think they sat around like the Greeks, pondering the meaning of life. For practical purposes, they were not much different than a cluster of black birds I saw at a stop light yesterday. The wind was fierce out of the south and they were all perched in the same tree, facing into the wind, riding it out, only a meal and a drink between them and doom. Flying in that wind would have been self defeating and even birds know better. For our forbearers it was; take care of each other, be safe, find food and a safe place to sleep, take care of each other and then meet a new day. The birds had found a safe place and they were sticking together.

Prehistoric people made the connection between the sun’s low trajectory and the length of shadows. By word of mouth, oral tradition, they knew that there was one day, one particular day as the sun sank lower and lower, that it stopped sinking. Shadows stopped getting longer and in a few days, shadows began to shorten. Obviously, it would take a few months of arduous survival for long days and warm nights again but it was a cycle and they knew the cold, dark times would, in time, give way to spring and then summer. 

I can only imagine how primitive people took comfort in that knowledge; maybe an early link between trial & error and critical thinking. In the grips of winter, they knew that spring would come again. All they had to do was persevere and make do; the sun would rise higher and higher until flowers bloomed and bore fruit. The primitive part of me thinks that would be a good reason to celebrate. They knew about alcohol and they knew which plants would numb the brain, temporary relief from the stress and struggle that was normal as day and night. I suspect that was about the time people had begun attributing the mysterious to some kind of deity, religion. I think they celebrated, one way or another, being hopeful if not thankful, enjoying that short pause between the most recent crisis and what lay ahead. 

I’ll celebrate this shortest day, the longest shadow of the year as well. I have a couple of friends coming over this evening. We will feed a fire in the chiminea on my patio; something primal about fire, and feed ourselves high quality foods that our ancestors could not have imagined. When Isaac Newton was elevated to the Royal Society, UK’s National Science Academy, he remarked, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” If we see farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of thousands of generations of ancestors who did the heavy lifting, so we can set the thermostat to suit our comfort level; so we can have strawberries in December. I know people who take winter for granted so much so, all they do is buy a ticket and fly south. I must be weird because I tolerate cold weather, I actually like the cold. From childhood, there has always been something empowering about the crunch of snow underfoot and seeing your breath on a frosty morning. I don’t have to hope for good weather, or fly away; I hope I wake up tomorrow and my friends are all healthy and well, that we get together and celebrate something, anything that feels right and does no harm. 

NOT MY MONKEY

Why people do the things they do, say the things they say, assume that their priorities concern you at all; who knows, who cares? But you do care when it unfolds on your plate and in your lap. I once believed that the statement, “I don’t care,” was callous if not rude. Whatever it is that prompts such a response must have been important to someone. To say that you don’t care is, by extrapolation, a rejection of the other person. For a long time, that phrase was just not in my vocabulary; I might not have cared but I never said so.

“But I’m still hungry.” ~ It doesn’t matter, you can’t have another piece of pie.

“I’m angry with you.”  ~ That’s too bad, I do the best I can.

“That’s a terrible thing to do.” ~ That may be your opinion, still it doesn’t change anything. 

“The monkey escaped from the circus.” ~ Not my monkey, not my circus. 

Communication, dialogue in particular, is fraught with subtle cues that can be taken any number of ways. A raised eye brow, pursed lips, a sigh, a timely pause; they can all change the direction of what our words mean. Sometimes body language is enough to soften the hard edge on, ‘I don’t care.’ I've included 'IDC' back in my vocabulary. Under certain circumstances it’s exactly the right response. It may be about age or experience but I'm comfortable with it again. Propriety is still a good path to follow and callous, rude, condescending dismissal isn’t proper unless insult was the intent to begin with. 

“There is a problem.” ~ I know, but this one isn’t mine. It isn’t yours either. 

“No, we have a problem.” ~ If you think so, I hope it turns out.

“You don’t understand.” ~ I understand, I just don’t really care.

“You’ve got to care.” ~ No, I don’t care, not at all. I do not care.

You smile and buy your friend a cup of coffee, change the subject or explore why they think the way they do. It would occur to me that I might care under other circumstance; if it were my monkey, I might care. Outside the coffee shop, people leave their dogs tied to a tree or a table while they come inside to buy their latte. A Great Dane is busy licking the face of a baby in a stroller while the mother has her back turned, talking to a friend. I am entertained but should I care; I don’t think so. Not caring doesn’t have to be the rude indiscretion I once took it to be. I can only care about so many things at a time and if there isn’t enough room on my caring plate, then I don’t care. 

RITUAL

 

Nearly twenty years ago I had just returned to Michigan. Life had been a bumpy ride and things were smoothing out, looking up. I had fallen in with a group of writers, new friends and a reason to be writing. I penned a simple poem and used it in lieu of a Christmas card that year. I don’t know how many I sent out but since then it has become a custom if not a ritual; crafting a piece that I feel good about, updating an address book, choosing stationary and envelopes, printing, ink pad and stamps to add a personal touch, a personal greeting to go with the signature, addressing, stuffing, closing, postage stamps and finally a check list, inspection before dropping them in the chute at the post office. Yesterday I left about 85 {+ or -} envelopes with the postal service. Some folks will be traveling or unavailable and I send my best wishes via e-mail or FaceBook. Altogether I try to reach about 100 friends, near and far with the best I can offer. After all, it is the season for peace, and hope, and good will; and I want that to be my little light to shine. After twenty years I notice that my holiday mentality hasn’t changed. Here is that poem again, timely as ever, sincere as ever, hokey if you think it’s hokey but I’ll take that any time. 

Christmas Greeting:  1996

 .  .  .   colored lights border doorways and windows while the warm smell of food fills the house. Children anticipate first morning light and scurry off to bed.

 .  .  .   snow clings to pine branches and covers the mountain side.  An owl listens in the silence, and moonlight paints shadows on the night.

 .  .  .  Somewhere people remember the Christmas past, others hope and dream of times to come. And, some of us are content to live the moment, to treasure the company of loved ones, to bridge time and distance with our best wishes.

 .   .   .  Let the Holidays be a time of peace, and hope, and happiness. 

KINESTHETIC

I know: I talk about swimming all the time, but that’s how I start my day, six days a week. This morning there were two others in the water, I know them both, not by name but their styles. He is much like me, probably a decade younger and considerably heavier but he does freestyle, slow and predictable. We move at about the same rate but he stops between laps frequently and finishes before I do. Serina introduced herself to me; my age, average looking, another methodically slow freestyler. She only swims 15 or 20 minutes and leaves. Whatever else about them, I don’t know. The legacy they leave at the pool is not very wide, not very deep.

‘Legacy’ is either a tangible inheritance or what you leave behind of your nature or style that others remember. About the time your children begin to gray and their children get driver’s licenses, you begin to think about ‘Legacy.’ Although I live a comfortable life, I am not a man of means. My tangible worth will be meager. Certainly DNA is part of it; I carry genes and chromosomes that link my ancestors to my descendants. I am the conduit through which genes and chromosomes pass. When life is through with me they will still be out there, like butterflies going flower to flower. So, I wonder how I will be remembered. Presidents spend their first term doing controversial, polarized politicking. It makes for loyal supporters and strident opponents. In the last half of their second term, they do noble, endearing things with broad appeal. They want to be remembered in a good way. All of us will be remembered, one way or another, for a while anyway and it is comforting to believe it will be in a good light.

I think, for the most part anyway, that we act on our beliefs and that those beliefs will be the context of our ‘Legacy.’  I will be leaving a body of written work when I go and for anyone interested or willing to read through it, my nature and style will be quickly found out. But that’s for someone else to do. All I can do is share, on the page, what has been important and meaningful along the way. I’m not one for lists but I do keep track of quotes, ideas and principles that I fall back on when I need a reminder of what this life is all about. To begin with I’d lean on Carl Jung, 20th century psychologist-philosopher who noted; “There is no right or wrong, only what makes sense and what does not.” No question where I stand at the chasm between absolutism and relativism. Then I’d touch on ideas that have sustained. ‘Security is a myth and comfort is a shameless whore.’ I want to feel secure and I take comfort where I can just like everyone else but you need to understand. Will Durant, American historian & philosopher made the observation; “Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” It speaks to me of choosing reason and process over faith and tradition. Any collection of wise or otherwise, legacy bait need include Khalil Gibran. I would paraphrase; ‘Our children move through us, belong not to us; the fruit of life’s longing for itself.’ Our job as parents is to nurture and when the time comes, most certainly, you let go. So there isn’t any misunderstanding, the nurture part is lifelong and letting go does nothing to diminish being the parent.

I don’t know if I’ve advanced or enhanced my ‘Legacy’ potential but throwing out great quotes and embellishing great ideas comes easy. I’ll be back in the pool come dark-thirty and it’s about the only thing I do, repetitious and predictable that I look forward to. Nothing mysterious, I know exactly what it is, it’s about motion, the kinesthetic part of being. When I’m in motion, the mind goes to work at a level that is unavailable to the conscious part. I can think about other things but when the mind is ready, it lets me know what it has been up to. It’s like finding presents under the tree, any time of year. All I have to do is point myself down hill and burn some energy.

78

If you live long enough, you reach a point where the distance between, ‘Once upon a time. . .’ and the reality you meet in the moment is really, really far. I remember my childhood well enough and most of the stations in between but I’ve worn a lot of different hats and changed my style many times over that span. I suppose there is something to be said for being raised in a certain way and growing old, tried and true to that model but I can’t think of it now; probably not later either. My journey has been largely about discovery and change. The idea of getting it right the first time and, ‘Not fixing what ain’t broken. . .’ just eludes my sensibility. Where would we be without course corrections? Getting to the point, I have left so many things behind that were so important at the time in favor of curiosity and possibility that it’s hard to fit them into the same story. This is one of those stories. 

From as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was play ball. There was no junior high or little league football in my time but the school was small and they checked leftover equipment out to 7th and 8th graders. The high school coach let us practice, take part in drills, hold dummies, even get run over in the mix when numbers were short. I suspect the coach took some comfort in seeing 30 bodies on the field instead of 20. As a 115 lb. freshman, my playing potential was nil but come Friday night my name was on the program. I was the last to get a game jersey. It was white with gold sleeve stripes and blue numbers. When I slipped it on over my shoulder pads it looked like I was standing under a tent with my head out a hole in the top. It was so big that the bottom part of my number, ’78’ was tucked in my pants and the sleeves came down past my finger tips. 

Time flies and the world changes; you change with it or get left behind. Over time I have outgrown or jettisoned that, ‘Play-Ball-win one for the Gipper’ affinity. I’m not even a good sports fan now, don’t watch games, don’t care much who wins. Other than the University of Michigan, I have no particular loyalties, and that is much more about academics and their graduate school than about sports hype. I was a player and then I was a coach, for a long time, but I let it go because it didn’t serve my needs anymore. There were new ideas and interests on my plate. 

Yesterday I went to Costco, the wholesale warehouse store to get some photos printed. The lady said it would be about an hour so I took a cart and started pushing it around the store. I didn’t have anything particular to shop for but marketing strategies work and consumers that we are, I couldn’t resist a jar of almond stuffed olives. So, on about my third lap around the store, with my olives rattling around an otherwise empty basket, I noticed two men standing, talking across their shopping carts. The one was unremarkable, about my size and profile. The other was a tall, black man, probably my age with short, gray hair and beard. Perfect fit on the blue sport jacket, open collar shirt and black pants. My eyesight is poor and faces blur until I get close but I couldn’t, not pay attention. I stepped closer and just waited. Shortly he  turned to me, body language inferring, “Yes?” 

I said, “You are Bobby Bell.” He smiled and said, “Yes, I am Bobby Bell.” I felt like a little kid, trying to say something that would be appropriate in a lofty conversation, beyond my simple frame of mind. I told him that I was at Wm Jewell College when the Chiefs had their summer camps there, that I used to lifeguard the pool when they swam after practice. He laughed, said he loved the pool, that many players didn’t use it because it was so cold but he loved the cold water after those hot practice sessions. I thanked him for all the great years with the Chiefs and wished him Happy Holidays. As I started reaching my hand toward him, his hand was already reaching for mine, returning the holiday greeting. BobbyBell, NFL Hall of Fame, his number 78 is retired at Arrowhead Stadium. He was as splendid a combination of speed, strength and savvy as ever played the game. His cart contained two 12 packs of bottled water and a 12 pack of toilet paper. He was shopping at Costco, just like me. I got my photos and drove home but couldn’t help thinking about playing football. In high school I finally grew up some and as a senior I played both offense and defense. We lost more than we won but I got to play and that was my aspiration, to play. Of course you want to win but when it’s over it’s over and you move on, win or lose. In college I was older, in my late 20’s. I didn’t get to play much but I did get to practice against our first team a lot. There is something about Saturday afternoons in the fall, breaking a sweat, it stirs something primitive; the pursuit, the rattle of pads, the collision and the smell of turf; I’d forgotten how much I loved it. Being on the sideline was my reward for giving the 1st team a good preparation on Wednesday and Thursday; and sometimes, I got in for a play on offense or a kickoff or punt coverage. That’s not my game anymore but what do you know, there will be times when, unexpectedly, you cycle back to the, Once upon a time. . . and you are reminded how that was the perfect time to be the guy you used to be. 

IN THE BEAUTY WOOD

           This is going to be disconnected at best but then I suppose, it just is what it is. I write primarily for myself and then, if it makes it to my blog and someone finds it worth the trouble, I think that’s alright too. Something drew me to Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood this morning and his theme sone; “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood; a neighborly way in the beauty wood, da-dum-da-dum, please, won’t you be my neighbor?” I remember Mr. Rogers but it wasn’t until 2006 at The National Storytelling Conference in Pittsburg, PA that I learned his story. If he was a National Treasure, Fred Rogers was even more precious to the people of Pittsburg, his home town. What was it about the mild mannered, almost painfully polite Mr. Rogers that was so endearing? No swagger, he was not the stereotype, manly man, not heroic in traditional terms; I think it was the obviously genuine concern for others that he modeled for children and for adults as well. We could use another Mr. Rogers.

Like a pinball ricocheting off flippers and bumpers; ding-ding-clink-clink and the game changes. It’s not about the wonder of a peaceful, patient man anymore. It’s about the news. I have to be reminded, frequently, that the world is becoming a more peaceful, more safe place. Compared to 300 years ago, and how about 1000 years ago; it’s a much safer, saner place.  Considering population density, the ease and speed with which violence can be done, not as dangerous now as then. Violence still happens; innocent people still suffer and die but in relative terms, the world is a safer place. 

Still, today’s news is all about random and/or systematic killing. In California yesterday, 14 killed, 17 wounded by shooters at a holiday party. Only a few days before that in Colorado, innocents shot, wounded and killed at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Unarmed black men are dying at the hands of white police officers at an alarming rate. Suicide bombers are exploding themselves all over the world. The killing just keeps on, keeping on, like beads on a string, one after another, after another until it becomes so common, so predictable that evil becomes the norm, like bugs on the windshield. Gun advocates argue that guns don’t kill, people kill. On the other hand, gun critics point out that murder by other means is practically nonexistent compared to gun violence. If the law allows anyone to sell a gun out of the trunk of their car to whoever has money; if it allows any drunk to carry a loaded weapon into a bar, something is wrong with the law. We are a nation with a deeply rooted gun culture. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is. But the notion that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, it not only sidesteps the issue but insults everyone’s intelligence. 

Somewhere I stumble across passive but no less negative push back against, ‘Political Correctness.’ The phrase, ‘PC’ has become a code word for privileged bigots who resent being held accountable for bad behavior. There was a time when this land was so White, so Christian, so Straight, we could indulge our prejudices indiscriminately, without consequences. By definition, politics is the way we make collective decisions about how we live together in community. Civility is the price we pay to live in community. All PC requires is, be civil. We’re not all that White, Christian or Straight anymore and indulging in language and behavior, meant to insult and intimidate is simply, politically, morally incorrect. Abusive behavior, no matter how veiled, is never correct. The world is changing for the better, but it’s coming around really, really slow, maybe not in my lifetime but 300 years ago; knowing what you know now, nobody would like living 300 years ago.  I heard it said, "Change comes slowly, one funeral at a time." I thought it was crude at the time but it is proving itself out. After all, women now have more rights than domestic animals in developing countries and here they can vote, something my grandmother couldn't do when my mother was a child. Women can borrow money now without a man's cosignatory, something my mother could not do when I was a kid. White-Male-Christian-Straight-Class privilege is going away. You may not like it, you can complain all you want without insulting, degrading or taunting anyone. If you can’t or won't then you could be one of the Bigots I mentioned earlier. Mutual respect is less about the destination and more about the source. In the end, the only rule is the Golden one. 

That brings me back to Mr. Rogers. On the surface he was a Geek, he took off his shoes when he came inside and folded his sweater before he put it down, a man who never had to raise his voice or his fist; all he did was be nice and be fair and it works. I’ve looked up to different heroes as I’ve grown up and old. Right now, Fred Rogers is right there with Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter. In a few days the news will focus on newly hatched violence with its roots in some narrow ideology or a convoluted sense of entitlement. I am terribly disappointed in the human animal but I now understand that I will never understand; maybe in another 300 years. I’ll try to be satisfied with something uplifting, model someone who got it right and left things better than what they found. I’ll start with Carter and Mandela: Fred Rogers will live next door.

RED BLUFF

Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Thanksgiving + 2 days - 

“Hey, it’s the weekend; let’s do something, go somewhere.”

“OK, what sounds good?”

“There’s a place up in Mississippi a couple of hours, they call it Mississippi’s Grand Canyon.”

“So, Mississippi has a big hole in the ground?”

“Yea, Red Bluff is up on the Pearl River above Columbia. 

So we jump off mid-morning with a general idea where we are going, GPS set for Columbia, MS. Northbound on I-55, just across the Mississippi line we get the word to exit and head northeast. The road goes two-lane with deep ditches on either side and no shoulder to speak of. Within a few minutes we’re immersed in rural, south Mississippi. The road is curvy-winding, goes through a couple of paint peeling, ’Fried Green Tomatoes’ towns. We discovered unmarked hairpin turns and played chicken with old trucks that wanted their half of the road to come out of the middle. 

In Columbia, we wandered around looking for a place to eat but the streets took weird angles and loops with no particular pattern, maybe game trails from the 17th Century; stopped at a boutique/restaurant but they were redecorating instead of cooking. Since the tornado, a lady told us, nobody knows where to find good food. A man walked in and shared, “Go east on this street and turn right at every light until you come to Walmart and you’ll find a Mexican place in the parking lot.” We did and we did. The food was overpriced, more like a TV dinner but it was filling and we didn’t complain. 

Red Bluff is on state road 578, about 10 miles north. We missed a turn and ended up on hwy 13; took 8 or 10 miles to figure it out and had to back track. By the time we got to Red Bluff the sun was getting low. Mississippi’s grand canyon has not been developed, obviously private property except for the right of way. Some of the road along the edge has eroded and caved into the 200 ft. deep network of gullies and sloughs. The canyon/gully was concealed behind a thick woods. At the south end there was a great, steel barrier that stopped everything but pedestrian traffic and a new section of highway veered off around the woods. A mile later the old road emerged again from the trees. Several houses were on that road and you could drive all the way back to another old barrier, on the edge where blacktop was falling into the gorge. We parked next to other cars, next to the no trespassing/keep out signs and began to walk. Trees that had been growing along the top had oozed down and are now growing at the bottom. We peered over the edge and across the chasm, took photos and walked the feature end to end. What was left of the old asphalt road was in good condition; reflectors imbedded in the center and painted lines indicated that the cave-in was recent. 

Evidently it’s a popular place to camp, and to party. At a high point on the rim, if you will, someone had pitched a tent and there were ashes from a fire. All down the steep wall below, trash and junk had been dispatched. With a little imagination it might have been mistaken for modern art. The power line had run on the eroded side of the road and where it had been rerouted back across, people had started another art display; sneakers tied together in pairs, thrown up and hanging on the wire. It reminded me of a night-spot on the Florida/Alabama border, on the beach, where women threw their brassieres up and over several ropes stretched tight above the stage. I suspect some of those brassieres came from some red neck’s mother’s underwear drawer but the message is simple and straight forward. Flora-Bama is a rowdy place, home to an annual festival that satisfies the same need in song writers that Sturgis, SD does for bikers. I bet a lot to the same bikers do both festivals. 

Understand that I just returned from spending eight days and nights in the real-deal Grand Canyon, in Arizona, a mile deep and ten miles across, 260 miles long. Red Bluff is no grand canyon but it is certainly a geological anomaly. On a high point above the Pearl River, some exotic combination of gravity and ground water caused a hillside to begin slipping toward the river. Erosion works. If I were younger and had more time it would have been a hoot to climb down and explore but I satisfied myself looking and taking photos. It was worth the time and drive up; I’m glad we did it. Where else but in Mississippi would you find such a display of nature’s handiwork on the same page with white-trash trash and lewd, redneck graffiti painted on the old blacktop? It was after dark when we got back to Baton Rouge, to a bowl of ice cream and the last half of a football game. 

“Hey, what’s on for tomorrow? You want to drive down the coast, take photos in the salt marsh, maybe antique shopping on the way back?”

“. . . . . . . . . . . . .”

“What do you think about sleeping late and just hanging out?”

“Yea, I think that will do.”

MUCHAS GRACIAS

Sitting here in holiday aftermath, feeling thankful comes easy. I slept late this morning but I can sleep late every morning. I’m well, able to work at a job but haven’t answered the bell in over 14 years. I didn’t get fired or do anything wrong, I just got old and expensive. There were any number of people who wanted my old job who would do it just as well or better, for a lot less pay. Life is good; they have a job now while I have a pension and social security. If I were religious I’d thank God. Truth is, I don’t know who to thank but it really doesn’t matter, Buddha said that even if there is no god at all, prayer is a good thing; it puts good energy into the system, harms no one and uplifts the person praying. God or not, I am blessed. So my unaddressed prayers always begin and end with ‘Muchas Gracias.’ 

We’ve known for weeks what we would eat, anything we wanted. When I noticed that there was no celery for the stuffing, I drove a short, walkable distance to the market and got celery, plus vanilla ice cream to go with the pumpkin pie I bought three days ago. It sounded good in the moment so why not? Leftovers are all in the refrigerator and we’ve helped ourselves to a before-bed snack of pie and ice cream. We have smoked salmon dip that we didn’t get around to; maybe tomorrow, maybe we get to it Saturday. ‘Muchas Gracias.’ 

I’m in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the holiday so after dinner I pulled out my smart telephone, touched a button and listen to a phone ring, a long day’s drive away, to the north. My family was together, celebrating each other, their good fortune and blessings. They passed the phone around and I got to wish each one a happy holiday; how cool was that? I’ll get back in time to celebrate Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s; celebrate at every opportunity, that’s a big B Belief. Family and friends are expecting me. ‘Muchas Gracias.’

Moralists and control freaks use this time of year to dramatize what makes us different, to move us in the direction of their choice. They remind us about Free Will and the consequences of our decisions but I don’t buy it. I do believe in the perception of Free Will but whether or not Free Will has its own legs is speculation. I understand that sometimes you have life and sometimes it has you. I know that the decisions we make are limited to the choices at hand and they may only be ‘Really Bad’ and ‘Terrible.’ This life is about finding joy in the moment and every day, especially holidays, are cause to share the good will we find there. ‘Muchas Gracias.’ - And, everybody said, “de nada.”

WEIRD SHIT

My smart-phone alarm went off at 6:30 this morning and of course, it woke me up. I had been dreaming a weird dream, not unlike many that come and go as I sleep, where I was in a parent-teacher conference with a man I knew in the dream, but not in real life. His kid had failed and I was explaining why. He understood, perplexed that he had no influence with the malcontent teenager. The redundant buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz of my alarm interrupted both sleep and dream and I was back in my own world again but I had absolutely no idea where I was. In a minor quandary, I was trapped by the need to know where I was and the urge to get up and turn off the alarm. It seemed like a long time but then I remembered the rain and the unfamiliar bed; I was at Motel 6 in Horn Lake, Mississippi. It all came back and I got up. Sometimes it’s clear and lucid, other times, who knows why, I’m in a fog. But a long hot shower helps and I’m killing time as I have more time today than miles to travel. 

My better half-lady in Louisiana takes all dreams seriously and tries to analyze them all, hers and mine as well. I recall the old poster of an egg, burning to a crisp in a smoking skillet with the tag line, “Your brain on drugs.” I think my dreams are about a hot, empty skillet. Instead of eggs it is shuffling nonessential cards from different decks into a meaningless movie for me to suffer through. Sleep is better than insomnia but the dreaming is like most TV programming, best appreciated unplugged. But something else will require my attention soon as I have five and a half hours to drive today. A late start won’t be of consequence today and I can take my time over eggs and coffee. 

There is one dream that has never dissolved, never melted away in the chamber of nonsense. It remains fresh and clear even though it is really old. I was in high school, several years before I took up sky diving; maybe a precursor or a harbinger of things to come, but I had this dream. I was falling, free falling from high altitude and I could see the ground rushing up. All of a sudden I recognized where I was, where I would land. In junior high we had a barn yard between our barn and the house where we played baseball. We had to clean cow pies off the baselines before we started but it was level and had good grass. Anyway, I was going to land on our impromptu baseball field. It happened so fast, I just leaned back, hooked my foot behind the other knee and slid into second base. I left a trench, like a plow furrow, where I slid from out in right field straight up to the base and I thought I’d be in trouble for sure when my dad got home. I woke up, went to school but I didn’t tell anyone about my dream, they would have teased me about it. The last people in the world you tell your weird shit are your friends. 

THERAPUTIC

Albert Einstein once said that he had no particular talent, that he was just incredibly curious. Anytime I find something I can identify with that puts me in the same mode as Einstein I milk it for every drop. Obviously, the passion that drives my wanting to know does not measure up to A.E. but still, it takes me places that expand my world even if but a little bit. In my world, everything I see begs a question; Why this? How does that work? I would wonder why the setting sun glows orange one evening and white-hot, retina burning on the next. How is it that birds can fly and when I left the door open or tracked in dirt, sometimes my mom got mad and other times not; why is that? The school of life provides us with much of our understanding just by being there. A 2 yr-old starts figuring out the why’s and how’s without a lesson plan and the school up the road accelerates the process. In the army, in 1960, I decided I wanted to read better. At the time I was reading at about the 5th grade level, that of most news papers and magazines. I had friends who were taking a speed reading class at the base exchange. They shared with me, some of the exercises they did to read faster and for better comprehension. I was taxed just to identify words as they came, one word at a time. There was no context at the end of a paragraph, only the last word. So I started reading Stars & Stripes, the military news paper; speed reading and re-reading. At the end of an article I quizzed myself on the content, reading it again if need be. Then came magazines and paperback novels, Zane Gray westerns mostly. My reading improved.

In college I re-read everything several times. I improvised a crude shorthand system and took detailed notes. Many classes, I was able to get by without too much reading. But there was still lots of bookwork and I used tricks I learned in the army; read fast and read again, and again. I adopted a strategy where I needed to understand for the sake of knowing and I needed to pass exams. In the latter case, B’s were good enough and a C here or there wasn't worth losing sleep over. There were times when I was writing more than reading. When your philosophy professor and biology professor start correcting your grammar and paragraph structure as well as the object lesson, you start paying attention to syntax. I began to learn my native tongue like I was supposed to in high school. 

By then, my 3rd year, writing to satisfy someone else’s expectations, I found myself sitting in the library, writing down words that came from the voice inside my head. The inner-self had found its voice and I was listening. Writing in self defense does two things. It reinforces the connection between organizing-processing complex thoughts and ideas, and that requires good languare. There is another aspect of writing that one cannot appreciate vicariously. Remembering details that are filed away in long term memory is no simple task. Everything that comes in, as the day wears on, is filed away on a need to know basis. Trivial bits and pieces that don’t figure into the meat of the day may be lost forever. Some days, many days that are not particularly memorable will be filed away so deeply that those memories cannot be retrieved. 

It’s ever so easy to slip into a comfortable mood where you bundle the brain-mind collective into one package. Brain is one thing, like the mother board or logic board in a computer. The mind is the computer full of data, turned on, running, producing an outcome. When you want to remember something but can't recall, it’s because you can’t access that memory, not because it isn’t there. Writing about day to day experiences, feelings, ideas, etc. creates networks and connections in the brain that raises the likelihood of remembering. I remember with detail clarity a day when my firstborn was about 6 months old, I was on my back, holding him up above me, wiggling left and right and he was delighted, giggling and burbling. His mother had him in a pair of red bib pants and a blue pullover. He opened his mouth to laugh and a great string of viscous drool stretched out and down from his lip. As it hung over my face I had time to think about my options. I could change what I was doing and avoid the slobber or I could ignore it and keep playing our little game. We kept on playing. The drool came and went without incident. I wrote about that little vignette in the notes I had begun keeping. I remember the part I wrote about but nothing else about that day or the day before or the day after. 

I don’t know who reads my stuff but whoever pauses here, in my journal or blog, if you are not already listening to that internal voice, the one that will speak if only you listen; if you are not writing down, recording your day to day experiences and ideas then I encourage you to begin. You are never too old to begin; it's not a diary and you don't have to write every day. It doesn’t matter what you believe about your ability or the worth of your experiences. Someday, you will reach back for something and it will either be there on your finger tips or you will come away empty. With age comes the point of diminishing returns; being alone and lonely catches up to us all if we live long enough. We save our money because we will need it some day. No less the treasure trove of story, the simple tale of one day at a time; a simple kiss, a woodpecker drumming, the smell of fresh plowed earth, a string of gooey slobber. 

ILLUSIONS

I remember when life was so full of demands and expectations that I needed another pair of hands and a few more hours in each day. You are so immersed in the process that you simply do what you can, swept along through time and space with all the other, civilized flotsam. But that was then; if you have health and a shred of wealth, if you have people you trust and care about, if they care back, retirement is a sweet spot in an otherwise frantic scramble. The down side is that you’ve grown old in the meantime. The invincibility of youth is necessary for survival; you plunge ahead because the alternative is to die on the vine. You don’t look down, you don’t slow down, nothing is going to stop you because if you fail today you can get up and try again. When you get the message, “It’s time for you to step aside and let someone else push the stone up the hill,” you’re not invincible any more. If you lack any of those four assets; health, wealth, respect and affection, what's left of joy ebbs away on every breath. 

Old men's laments are as cliche as young lover’s, “I love you.” In either case they move on, like it or not, to the next circumstance. This is not a lament. I just understand that it is my time to remember, to remember the preoccupation and sense of urgency that drives people. It never occurred to me that my grandparents saw themselves in me; it was their time to remember. The illusion that there is plenty of time is ignorance in disguise but it feels natural and normal. When I was 12, I couldn’t imagine being 16. When I was 35, becoming a grandparent never crossed my mind. It never crossed my mind that old lives are as important to the old as young lives are to the young. They had their turn and it's not about them anymore. Like our pets, I remembered when they ran and played, barked at strangers but now all they do is lay on the porch hoping for a benevolent pat on the head. 

The stereotype that 70 is the new 50 takes too much for granted. Many of us do live longer, healthier, better than our predecessors but many do not. Out of sight in senior citizen warehouses or wheelchair bound in a caregiver’s back bedroom, they melt away anonymously. I have lived a charmed life; good fortune is my friend. Every time I fell, it was in a soft place. When doors closed, windows opened. For me to grumble now would be unforgivably narrow and selfish. But my eyes don’t see and my ears don’t hear like they should and when I try to run it comes off as a crude shuffle. I don’t like it but I do understand, it is my time to remember. If I want consolation I can turn to others like myself or to Buddha who said that suffering is life’s common denominator. It implies that if you are passed over in your youth, don’t be surprised when it comes back around. Joseph Campbell, ‘Hero With A Thousand Faces’ said, “We cannot cure the sorrows of the world but we can choose to live in joy.” That’s what I’m trying to do, choose joy over the illusions that cluttered my bumbling, stumbling youth. Khalil Gibran said, “Children live in the world of tomorrow and we can not go there with them. All we can do is peer through their window." So I’ll hang on the sill and watch for as long as there’s light to see by. 

THE SMALLEST ARC

          I’m going to a concert this weekend, a guitar guy of course who writes his own songs but none of them sound anything like the formula driven doo-da’s that come out of Nashville. There doesn’t seem to be any rule for line length or breaks and he tells his songs with only a hint at a melody. He is a musical storyteller and I like that. Way back in another century, Sam Baker was a guitar playing bank examiner from Austin, TX. On a train in Peru, on his way to Machu Picchu a terrorist bomb exploded in the luggage rack over his head. Everyone in his compartment was killed except for Sam. He suffered brain damage, hearing loss, kidney failure, gangrene and after a multitude of surgeries he still shouldn’t have survived but he did. 

I went to YouTube and found an interview he did recently. It touched on his music but centered on the bomb experience and how that had influenced his career. He said the one thing that permeated it all was empathy, the feeling and caring for those suffering and dying around him. “I think before that I was pretty self contained with a narrow view of the world. I never sensed others suffering,” he said. He made the distinction between viewing the world and sensing it, as viewing had some element of choice. Suffering and dying were going on all around him in the intensive care unit of the Peruvian hospital but he couldn't do anything, couldn't move. He had a lot of time to think, a lot of questions to chew on. “How does this lottery work, who lives and who dies?” He said he’d come to peace with living, carrying on for those who died. “It’s not a burden, it’s a gift.” The gift he spoke of is a value, to carry forward, to help others who are struggling. “All of us, everyone, we are living on borrowed time. We’ve all missed tragedy by the smallest fraction, the smallest arc of electricity has saved us, so it’s not just me; it’s not just me.” He felt that his job is to reciprocate that gift in some sort of fair trade, energy and good will for everybody. He had come out from a dark depression to the realization that we are all at the mercy of someone else’s dreams, that today is beautiful and that forgiveness and gratitude are miraculous. “I’m always where I need to be," he said, "and I believe that my will is a handicap.” 

I’ll be in the balcony on Friday night, listening to Baker’s take on what makes the world go round and how people treat each other. I've missed tragedy by the smallest fraction and we’ve struggled on different hooks but our stories have a common thread. The difference is that he tells it so much better than I could. His song, ‘Baseball’ is awesome and I hope for sure it is on his play list. 

WORLD SERIES

Reflection is like shit, it just happens. The older you get, the more you have to reflect upon and even if you don’t go there it will come back around and there you are. On my early morning swims you might think it would get tedious, back and forth, up and down the lanes. I touch the wall with one hand, catch an extra breath in the turn and go the other way. I am generally aware that the water is deeper at one end than the other, changing the mechanics of my turn but it’s a redundant, repetitious exercise. Still, there is nothing boring about it. The mind, at least the one I have, goes into default mode during  autopilot. I pay attention to stroke mechanics and notice changes in the fit/feel of goggles and ear plugs but that only lasts so long. On autopilot, very quickly, something will come to mind that I hadn’t prearranged. Then I let that new thought unreel itself, begging new questions and testing old understandings. By the end of the swim I will have reflected on a dozen experiences or ideas that I hadn’t prepared for. 

This morning, with air bubbling out of my nose, I realized that I didn’t know who won the baseball game last night. It's the last week of October, the only baseball is the World Series and the Kansas City Royals are American League Champions. They beat the New York Mets in 14 innings on Tuesday and were ahead last night when I went to bed. But I’d have to finish my swim before I could find out for sure. I do love baseball; it’s the first game I learned to play. I’m really not much of a sports fan anymore, must have spent that enthusiasm in an earlier life. I keep track of who wins but not compelled to watch them play. 

Swimming on autopilot and I’m thinking about baseball, but that’s how it works. Then another realization, I skew off in a new direction. When I was playing baseball that’s what it was all about, playing the game. You want to win but win or lose, you still want to play. I’d be disappointed when we lost but never unreconcilable. Tomorrow will be a new day and we can play again. I’m out of sync with my peers who live or die with wins or losses, whatever the game. After all, that’s why they keep score isn’t it? I think it goes deeper than that. Those people who fill stadiums in their home colors, immersed in that culture, there must be a need to identify with something greater than they are, to identify with others who mirror the same enthusiasm, loyal to a glorious or bitter end. It’s a tribal kind of thing where you can become a small part of something grand that doesn’t really need you. I don’t object to that principle but I was an average player who kept playing because somebody kept giving me a uniform. Since I was good enough to turn a double play and to hit a hanging curve, I’ve never been a good spectator. If I can’t play, I can read the box score later. 

I have friends who meet on a roof-top bar on Wednesday evenings, smoke cigars and sip whiskey at the end of happy hour. It’s a pretty heady group where conversations go wide and deep. Last night we were all wearing jackets, sitting under a propane heater with the baseball game on the big screen. We weren’t watching the game but then, we weren’t ignoring it either. With a runner on 1st, the Mets batter nailed a hard shot that might have gone through into left field but the Royal’s player smothered it, kept it in front of his body. The predicament was pure. In order to turn the double play, three fielders would have to perform with absolute perfection. Bam-bam-bam; the way the ball moved glove to glove it looked like special effects from a George Lucas movie. Instead of having runners in scoring position, the Mets were set down with no damage done. It’s true, to see the very best do their best, you have to watch big leaguers and I marvel at their skills. Still, I was just a spectator. I had no skin in the game. That was them and it was perfect. I was just me, on a rooftop, jawing with friends. 

I think it’s a throw back to Rome, the coliseum and gladiators. Spectators got to go thumbs up or down, whether or not the victorious gladiator should slay or spare his foe. Their influence gave them connection to the outcome. When sports fans talk about their team they use the pronoun “We” as if their names were in the program. Crowd noise has become the ‘thumbs down’ in an effort to intimidate or complicate communication by the other team. It’s understood. Home teams have come to count on it and I hate it. Professional sport is not sport; they've made a lucrative business out of a kid's game. Our sports heroes are businessmen and the game is serious business. 

It only takes a few seconds for me to process all this rationale as I move closer to the wall, glance at the clock and decide which stroke I want to use on the next lap. I like it when the Royals win but it has little to do with identity. The only team loyalty I recognize is to the University of Michigan. Even then I don’t watch and I don’t fret when they lose. In college, both baseball and football, our coaches played down winning. The message we kept hearing was that winning will take care of itself; that what you need to be focused on is preparation. In my experience the day after was a new day, win or lose.  What was worse than losing was not getting to play. That’s what I took with me from the pool today.