CHRISTMAS MORE OR LESS

My daughter from Texas has been in town for a week now, flying home this afternoon. She made it a point to spend those days with family. The spin-off good luck that touched me was that not only did I spend time with her, I got to see more of my boys and their families than usual. Late yesterday I was informed that we were going out to eat, to a Japanese Hibachi Restaurant where you sit around the grill as the chef juggles spatulas in a routine that entertains as well as it prepares the meal. At one point (I knew it was coming) with shrimp on the grill he chops one in half, scoops a piece up on the end of his spatula, looks at my daughter with raised eyebrows, gets the nod and flips the morsel in an arc that comes down in the vicinity of her face. With mouth wide open, like fly fishing with a wooly-worm she swallowed the hook. Everybody got their turn but most of the airborne shrimp missed their mark, bounced off faces and ended up on the table or in laps. 

He had only two shrimps left, four pieces, searching around the grill for the right person to finish with. With his tall, chef hat and spatula tapping the edge of the grill like the drummer in a band, he singled out our smallest, youngest member. She had missed both morsels when it was her turn and eager to try again. She got her mouth on the first one but it got away. The second slid off her forehead but number #3 went right in the pie-hole. There was only a short second to register delight and listen to cheers as the last shrimp arched through the air. Fueled by adrenaline and confidence from her recent success, my 10 year-old granddaughter had to stand up, stretch like a giraffe and strike like a snake to make it two in a row, and she did. We cheered so loud and so long, everyone in the restaurant stopped what they were doing and joined in their approval. 

She was caught off guard, not knowing whether to take a bow or hide under the table. She figured it out, took the bow. I realized I was standing, clapping hands and didn’t remember getting up. “Out of the mouths of babes” begins a familiar, biblical passage about young innocents and their wonderful contributions; but I felt totally proper reframing the idea. “Into the mouth of a babe.“ Who better to get me on my feet, clapping and cheering? I don’t know how I will weather another year or how I’ll receive Christmas next time but this one has been a hoot. 

RUN RUN RUDOLPH

“Spring has sprung, fall has fell; winter’s here and it’s cold as hell.” Christmas was the only time when all of my uncles on my mother’s side, four of them, when our families all got together. Before the party ended, the youngest, Bill, would find an excuse to throw out the “Spring has sprung;” quip. He and the next youngest, Hank, were in a lifelong competition to out-clever the other. Bill was always the more clever and Hank pushed back with insults when his humor fell short; he pulled us boys aside and told risqué if not dirty jokes, then laughed when we didn’t get it. I liked, even remembered the Spring has sprung ditty from year to year. It was easy to understand and I liked the rhyme. It never occurred to me that it went better with “Summer’s here and hot as hell.” Since when was hell cold in winter but that went over my head as well. At some time every holiday season my uncle Bill’s ditty rolls around and I identify again with those men and with the little boy in me. 

In the last decade I’ve been drawn to Solstice as the midwinter holiday of choice. It is after all the oldest, longest observed celebration if you will, in recorded human history. Speaking for myself, Solstice is a merry making time but also a spiritual reflection of the long strand of DNA that stretches from Neolithic pilgrims, all the way to me, even me. They used allegory and metaphor to make sense of mysterious, unexplained phenomenon while I rely on several thousand years of accumulated knowledge and reliable backstory. 

For the most part my little bonfire and moon-gazing (We had a full moon) went unnoticed by others, caught up in Christmas hype. But I’ve tapped into Christmas this year also. I fashioned a green wreath in lieu of a tree, hung face down from the ceiling, decorated with tinsel, ribbons, ornaments and lights. I hosted our family celebration this year, noticeably secular, not that religious tradition is bad but I attended to spiritual business a few nights earlier. I created an I-Tune play list for Christmas, burned it to a CD. The music ranged from Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” to Joni Mitchell’s “River”, Elvis’ “Merry Christmas Baby”, and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. In the weeks leading up, the upbeat, happy music pulled me into the retail frenzy, at least enough to feel good about the Winter Wonderland metaphor. 

Now it’s the day after. I have way-too much food left over in my refrigerator and I should go burn off some calories at the gym. Raised with the generation that was schooled not to waste anything, I’ll have trouble throwing good food away but I certainly can’t eat it. Then, out of the habit, I’ll struggle making myself start going to the gym again. So for all the good feeling and merriment that went down in December, January looks like all work and no play. I’ll get out of town by February with an understanding that wherever I go I need to come back in time to pay taxes in April. 

"THE PEOPLE"

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.” I allude to this Ellie Wiesel quote often, as a disclaimer. In the same vein, I understand that if you don’t want your writing to be read by others, burn it as soon as you finish. I think of it like explorers leaving tracks behind, should we need to find our way home. Likewise, should someone pass this way and read my sign, if it be useful then Godspeed: so I won’t be burning my work. It is for my benefit but in the end, if I choose, I can share it. 

I used to work for a lady at Hospice, we got along very well. Now that neither of us work for Hospice we remain friends. When it comes to religion and politics we live in different camps but value each other’s views. We can set aside our own beliefs long enough to gain better vision into the other. We agree to disagree and that is easier said than done. Years, maybe a decade back, after an election went her way she concluded her observation with, “The People have spoken.”  That seemed to be her validation. For me it begged a new question: Which people? We shook that tree for a while but without any resolution. 

If you want to learn something on the internet you must seek several sources and from the start, view each one critically. Emotionally charged or ideologically leading language indicates propaganda, even when it fits neatly with your own feelings. I’m not in the market for propaganda, only a better understanding. The phrase “The People” gained popular usage in the 1800’s along with the rise of Populism. It infers the virtue and high moral values of a class of people who feel like they have been denied something wonderful, that they deserve. “The People” historically felt cheated by another class of people who had power, the power that comes with wealth, education and, or opportunity. So “The People” were a good, moral force against the powerful “Elite”. 

Populism is, has been employed by groups, classes of people to gin up support for social, political push back against, as they see it, the powers that be. Populism has been, continues to be used by both the political right and left and by religious and ethnic communities of all stripes. If you want a revolution, even a bloodless one, you must raise the stakes, convince potential followers that their misfortune is the fault of another group and “We ain’t gonna take it anymore.” If you are sleeping with "The People" by virtue of your perceived high morals and deserving nature, your counterparts, the powerful, immoral, self obsessed "Elitists" become assailable. 

Populist leaders tend to be charismatic, convincingly easy to believe if they are selling what you think you rightly deserve. It’s not about physical attraction but in one way or another it does translate as a seductive personality. In 2016 there was DonaldTrump & Ted Cruz on the right with Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren on the left. Sanders narrowly missed his party’s nomination while Trump went on to win the White House. Personalities aside, it is widely agreed that a win for Sanders would have been as troubled and difficult as Trump’s reign has been. If populist leadership does not have widespread, loyal support it is very difficult to govern. FDR did it but he had The Great Depression and World War II to keep the country galvanized. Populist leadership tends to drive opposing interests even deeper and more committed into their beliefs, seeing themselves as the latest version of  “The People.” 

The leap from Populist Leader to Demagogue is not guaranteed but certainly not uncommon. Latin and South American countries have done that dance predictably for most of the last century. Some form of socialism was supposed to eliminate poverty and bring prosperity for all. But when new leaders took power they wanted to rule rather than govern and they want to be President for life. They traded Oligarchy for a Dictatorship, the poor were still poor and the change meant kill squads and the media was controlled by the military instead of Rupert Murdoch. “The People” were the same people but the “Elite” had switched chairs. 

Adolph Hitler in Germany and Joseph McCarthy in the USA are more familiar demagogues who took an opposite path. They used national security and fear of foreigners to gain power. At the end of their stories, “The People” vs. “The Elite” was redefined to suit their personal ambitions. Certainly, considering Germany's dismal outcome of World War I, Jews were the new threat and Europe needed to be punished for Germany’s humiliation. Hitler wanted to make Germany great again but it was all contingent on him being the new God. One of, maybe the most serious problem with a democratic form of government and free, fair elections is that free people are free to elect terrible leaders; Hitler the prime example. I don’t know what that says about the USA and its political turmoil but I’m sure both camps feel like they represent “The People” and “The Elite” are the other guys. 

Now that I’ve chewed on Populism, on The People and Demagoguery I can go do something else. My politics lean left naturally and my Faith has winnowed down to a conditional devotion to gravity and the speed of light.  But I am convinced that neither Faith nor political orientation are the choices we would like to believe. Most of what we believe in is driven inherently, by DNA and/or by seeds that were planted in our experience long before we learned to read. But that’s for another day.

TWICE AS GOOD

The alarm at my bedside goes off at 6:15 but it’s purpose is not so much to wake me but to announce the time. I wake up several times beginning around 4:30, maybe later, then periodically until I rise which could  be, rarely but just the same, as late as 9:00 a.m. The onset of consciousness is unconvincing, sort of like drizzle before it rains. I can remember when raising up on my elbow and swinging my legs over the side required a command, a conscious impulse but now-days they go on autopilot. Sitting or standing there, whichever, I concede that my body has acted without permission and of necessity, we must join forces. It won’t do any more by itself and I can’t go anywhere without it. By the time I’ve completed my wake-up duties I’m on my way to the kitchen. I keep thinking I should put the coffee pot on a timer so all I have to do is pour but convenience is overrated. I like the routine of brewing my morning ration, hearing a human voice on the radio. It’s more likely there will be good weather on any particular day than good news on the radio but I listen just the same. 

This morning, after detailing both natural and political disasters the lady and a well known stand-up comic plied their humor to the dangers and pitfalls of holiday, family get togethers. Somebody thought humor would be appreciated after the news. They laughed a lot but I didn’t. In my lifetime I’m afraid humor has been rejiggered to sell air time at the audience’s expense and the audience has been rejiggered to laugh on cue. Entertainers tell their unfunny stories with sharpened timing, with a calculated pause every 12-15 seconds. Audiences know to laugh at the pause even if they don’t get it. Humor has always come at the expense of someone else, their blunders or misfortune or out of some irony that begs the imagination to go along. I suppose it’s not that different than when Rodney Dangerfield gave an example of his wife’s craziness, “Take my wife;” then a pause, “Please, take my wife.” Oh, it’s a play on words, not an example, it’s a plea: laugh-laugh. I have to admit my lack of enthusiasm is about me more than some trendy stroke of humor. 

Yesterday I helped celebrate birthday #80 for a coffee-clutch friend. We passed all the birthday cards around, many if not most alluded to body parts and their disfunction; clever but not funny. Then there was one with simple text only; no insulting caricatures or brazen snubs. You had to read it. It went, “I am twice as good with math as half the people my age and I can tell you this; you look twice as good as  half the people who are twice your age.”  I heard myself laughing before I thought about funny. I know, it says more about old age than about humor but you have to work with what you’ve got. I thought Tommy Smothers was funny; I still do. He made fun of himself. He could get a laugh just raising his eyebrows and looking foolish. When he and his straight man brother Dick made music, it was real music. When they made funny there was no pause, no prompt to  laugh. They just kept on  through the laughter with more nonsense. He is 81, still alive, laughing all the way to the bank. “But I can tell you this; You look twice as good as half the people twice your age.”

LONGEST NIGHT

I woke up early today, dozed off and on until the alarm squawked 6:00 a.m. Sometimes if sleeping soundly, I turn it off and catch up on whatever sleep deficit I’ve accumulated. But I jumped up this a.m., did all of my wake-up-get-up protocol; it’s dark outside, of course it’s dark. Today’s daylight is packaged from 7:27 a.m. to 4:56 p.m. I know it’s a clear new day, my smart phone said it would be but I’ve downed a bowl of fruit and cereal, on my second cup of coffee and at 7:10 still nor a trace of light leaking in through the blinds. The good news is that I’m up. It’s a new day and I get to spend it. I can save today’s dollar and spend it tomorrow but not so with time. If you don’t spend it in the “Now”, on the fly, it goes wasted and I have the whole day to spend, maybe judiciously, maybe with reckless abandon.

We are ten days away from one of my favorite (if not my favorite) holidays. Back before Baby Jesus, before Confucius, before Gilgamesh; back when our ancestors lived the hunter-gatherer life style in small, family clans; the closest they came to religion was expressions of gratitude and reverence for their forbearers. They knew about the longest night. There is a tendency for we (smart, modern, intelligent people) to view those old sages as primitive no-so-smarts. But to the contrary, they were as smart as we are, knew just as much stuff, just different stuff. All knowledge was by first hand experience or word of mouth and they had to know everything, absolutely everything necessary to survive in a dangerous, hostile, low tech world where an impacted tooth could kill you and starvation was an ever present possibility. They were plenty smart. The anatomy and physiology of the human brain hasn’t changed significantly in the last thirty thousand years. Those paleo-people knew all there was to be known about everything to be found, within a day’s walking distance in any direction. They all knew about the longest night. 

We call it, Winter Solstice; the day when the sun’s trajectory sinks to its lowest path across the sky, when shadows are their longest and our photoperiod (daylight hours) is its shortest. As that photoperiod got shorter, weather got colder and food, harder to come by. They knew that winter equated to hard times. Even if they couldn’t count they could measure the length of a stick’s shadow. Sort of like Noah’s rainbow, the shortest day was likewise a promise that the high arching sun would return and with it, the warm, growing season. A cold, bitter winter lay ahead but its promise always kept. Winter Solstice is without a doubt the oldest, longest celebrated holiday, if you will, that humans have ever observed. I will be celebrating Solstice in another 10 days. 

The early Roman church made a practice of highjacking pagan holidays to coincide with Christian holy days, making it easier to convert the heathens. The biblical account of Baby Jesus birth aligns with March or April but moving it to late December had pagan appeal. I have devout friends who urge me to remember the reason for the season, as if Christmas was the only reason. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our own reasons and that’s alright. I like the Peace on Earth thing and Good Will To Man as well as the idea that a small child might reconcile the hopes and fears of all the years. But my belief is anchored farther back in the long shadows of mid-winter. 

Some friends are coming over to help me celebrate. With a bonfire and a few sips of peach brandy, we will dress for the weather. When it feels right, we’ll come inside for green chili and sopapillas. Last year we played hearts, and what’s a celebration without music, I might even dance. For myself, it will be about the good company I keep and about a Stone Age legacy; thank you for the DNA, all of you who shared, who made me who I am. I will take comfort in the longest shadow and the sun’s return; not as soon as we would like but in its own good time.