JUST SAYIN' 0.2: DAY 134

My writing usually starts in the morning, before or right after breakfast. It comes in spurts so by the end of the day there have been several sit-downs and certainly as many revisions. The next morning I look at what survived the day before and more often than not, I reject it and start over. That is the case this morning and yesterday as well. It's a lot like fishing, you put the first fish in the bucket but later you think better, too small or the wrong species and you let it go. 

At writer workshops, writer’s block comes up a lot. One strategy is to just start throwing words at the page, word after word, anything about anything. Soon your subconscious pushes back against the random nonsense and it sends you down one path or another. It often leaves you processing things you didn’t really want to run with. When provoked, my subconscious defaults to problems and issues that make for tedious writing and ho-hum reading. So I end up beating a dead horse until I can reload and start over. Even with isolation and distance, Covid-19 is a depressing distraction.

I watch the CBS morning show for news and the sound of a friendly voice. After 40 minutes or so, enough is enough. It can be overwhelming but they do a good job of mixing the hopeful with the grim. One self help expert recommended celebrating hopeful, uplifting memories. So I started trolling through my memory bank for long forgotten, uplifting bits and pieces. Rather than find fault and place blame, good stories seem a better option. Regardless who reads my stuff, I write it; good medicine. 

It is true that what you took for granted when your kids were kids becomes priceless in reflection as you pause on this mortal journey. Thanksgiving, 1972; our twin boys were barely walking and their firstborn brother was 5. We went over the mountain to observe the holiday with my wife’s cousin in Salida, Colorado. Our part of the meal included a fresh baked pumpkin pie. For the trip it was strategically covered with clear plastic wrap and placed on the floor behind the front passenger seat. Our little car was crowded with my oldest boy behind me on the driver’s side, away from the pie; what could go wrong! On arrival we discovered a full footprint in the middle of the pie that perfectly matched my son’s new cowboy boot. Lucky, the damage was deep but superficial; it had dreadfully disfigured the pie but it could be repaired.

Cousin Walt and his wife Irma lived in a tenant residence on a ranch outside of town. Next to their long driveway there was a trout stocked pond. While the meal was being assembled Walt and I took the 5 year-old up to the pond with a Zebco 33 spincaast outfit, the simplest of all fish-catching schemes. Our mission was for the boy to catch his first fish. Long story short: after some practice casting and retrieving, we got a strike. The boy wrestled with the cranking, trying to control the rod. When he saw the two pound rainbow he stopped cranking, turned and started running toward the house, rod in hand, dragging the fish through the waist deep weeds and grass. We caught him in time to salvage the fish and get it on a stringer. Too late for the turkey day meal, it would be saved for another day. 

It was traditional turkey and dressing but the meal itself was forgettable. When we came to dessert the pie with its facelift yielded everyone a token piece. But on the first bite we discovered an oversight in its making. The sugar had been left out. A sugarless pumpkin pie leaves a lot to be desired but we refused to concede. Add sugar. Sweeter but not like it would have been had it been cooked in with the crust. Then we added the whipped cream, lots of whipped cream. The kids ate it without complaining and we carried on about how tasty the turkey and dressing had been. 

On our two hour drive home, the kids slept. We shared how good it was to spend the holiday with family and how beautiful the drive had been. The near calamity with the trout and the salvaged pie were not important enough to recount. But now, 47 years later, the fish and the pie are the priceless, precious memories I recall. Amen, I needed that. 

In the USA, the Covid-19 death count topped 150,000 people yesterday, almost 3 times the number of fatalities in 11 years of the Viet Nam war. Then, the number was unthinkable and unacceptable. Currently our leadership takes lightly the big numbers choosing rather to play down the low percentage of total population. Coincidentally, of todays body count, a high, high percentage come from elderly seniors and people of color. The argument has been suggested that the old ones were going to die soon anyway. In Texas, a high level elected official used a wartime rationale to justify his politics, that we should be proud of grandparents who die of the virus for their sacrifice, saving the economy for their descendants. Just sayin’!

I didn’t need that. Next time I want to finish with more hope and less fact, something with a pause, something smileable. Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” Then, Joseph Campbell added, “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”  How do you move on when there is so much suffering? Leonard Cohen said and sang, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

JUST SAYIN': DAY 131

Those early explorers, navigators who sailed by the seat of their pants, their compass was a star and their map was the sky. They could say literally what I often joke, “I am not lost, I just don’t know where I am.” Now in the days of Pandemic, it is not a joke. When I wake up and look around, evert day looks like the day before; nothing but deep water in every direction. I know the sun up’s in the east, down’s in the west and at night, one particular star marks north. It is hard to know where you are in a storm so we pray for fair weather. In the days of Prince Henry the Navigator, you needed safe harbor somewhere along the way, a place to take on fresh water and ride out storms. This odyssey, this series of wanderings and hardships puts shelter from any number of storms high on my wish list. 

I have a FaceBook account but it’s under an alias, with only 9 friends. I might click ‘like’ on one of their posts but I can’t remember the last time I made one of my own. Two FB friends shouldn’t be on there. I have enough contact with them without FB. The others, it’s about the only way I can check up on them. One of those is a sweetheart from Grand Rapids, MI. Last week she ‘Shared’ some clever insight that got my attention. When irony and sarcasm are coupled with a revelation, I pay attention. The movement, Black Lives Matter has opened white eyes that have been clouded over, either by self serving denial or simply overlooked in a fathomless, cultural blind spot. I have been emerging from the blind spot for a long time, even before the George Floyd murder. I don’t know the original source of the post but I love its economy, no wasted words, nothing left unsaid.  

“Black lives matter ‘cause all didn’t cover Black when y’all said; All Men Are Created Equal. Black lives matter ‘cause all didn’t cover Black when y’all said; With Liberty & Justice For All. Black lives matter ‘cause y’all still struggling with the definition of all.” 

What made this one different; Covid-19 and George Floyd exploded simultaneously on the same stage. Many if not most white people consider themselves allies with people of color. Their sentiment would seem to be: “Those people demonstrating, I hope they keep it peaceful and they get what they want but they don’t need me.” They talk the talk but feel no need to walk the walk. What the pandemic did was to strip the pretense of emotional distance and physical safety away from the white majority. Infection and a failing economy are very real, waiting just outside the door. With everyone either disempowered or at risk, the disproportional Covid-19 infection rate among people of color is both obvious and significant. Hundreds of years of prejudice and systemic inequality has left African Americans at large (13%) of the population, predisposed to the virus. Adjusted per capita, by age, Blacks have been dying at a rate more than 3 times greater than whites. 

Without warning, too grizzly to defend and no time to fabricate an excuse, the video of George Floyd’s killing swept the internet and aired on every news program, we’ve all seen it too many times. It is not this murder that energized blacks and whites alike. George Floyd was the catalyst that triggered a response to tens of thousands of similar murders that stretch back to reconstruction, back to Jim Crow and the ever active masters of white supremacy. It affected me enough to explode my blind spot. A lot of us discovered our blind spot. If this is my country and I matter, then Black Lives Matter as well. I know, I know; all lives matter but the white ones are not subjected to the school to prison pipeline, not systemically funneled into predatory payday loan offices, owned by the same white people who own the bank where they can't qualify for a loan. They are not exploited by local courts that use bail bonds to punish the poor, to meet the city budget without raising taxes on property owners, not skillfully funneled into ghettos through housing covenants. This shameful story keeps on unraveling, it goes as deep into America’s dirty laundry as you care to dig. I love my country but I’ve moved through the blind spot and like losing one’s virginity, it can not be restored.

Now that I’ve stirred up shit that we (white people) have collectively, passively chosen to ignore, racists bigots who can’t function outside their comfort zone, they will craft arguments and logic that condemn me as a racial traitor. It validates pride with White Supremacy. “All they need to do is stop talking that jive shit, pull their pants up and stop killing each other. Blacks would do just fine if they start acting like white people.” Wow! There it is. Blame the victim; every playground bully, every lawyer knows how that works. Just sayin’ . . . we white people, we matter too but we can’t rationalize our failure to define the word, ‘all’.

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 128

I took the day off yesterday from riding the trike and today I passed as well. I have experienced some discomfort in my hips and knees, not pain but I get the message. On the pain scale 1-10 it would be a (1). I have never been an overachiever in the gym, more of a good enough is good enough when it comes to exertion. A low, slow, lactic acid burn in the muscles is my signal that I’m where I need to be and even then, I limit that slow burn to 5-10 seconds and back off. A few days away from the routine can’t hurt and I will slip back into it slow and easy. I don’t have anything to prove. 

In the epilogue to the movie, ‘Shawshank Redemption’, ’Red’ (Morgan Freeman) comments on the prison warden who committed suicide rather than be arrested for corruption: “I’d like to think the last thing that went through his head, other than that bullet, was how the hell Andy Dufresne got the best of him.” Clever word play; ‘through his head’ both the literal and the figurative. So, how does one juggle words and come up with suitable thoughts and ideas for a Pandemic Diary audience? The virus has us, it has me isolated as much as possible and you need something to keep you busy. So I write. I know of only a handful of friends who follow my blog but you never know who might be passing through. Sometimes I complain but I would rather take the high road than the low one. 

I have a friend (another teacher) who argues that travel isn’t necessary for one to live a full, rewarding life. I am pretty well traveled while he is not. I agreed, responded in kind with a short little story about Marcel Proust who wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” You don’t have to be a globe trotter, all you need is imagination and to pay attention. There is a right place for everyone, it can stay put or move around. Still, travel makes for the best education, a sentiment that has long been expressed universally. 

I was in Whanganui New Zealand, on the coast between Aukland and Wellington. At the library I met Sarah Tocker, a consultant/trainer, we both needed a wifi signal but we talked more than anything else. Whanganui is a small city so when she meets interesting people she invites them to dinner. That way her family can experience that diversity as well. I was invited. 

I met her husband Aneurin, a surfer and their two girls, Olivia, 6 and Sylvia, maybe 3. We sat on the floor, making bubbles and drawing cartoons. After dinner the girls played and the grown ups talked. When it came time for me to leave, Olivia gave me a small, hand made poster that showed us as stick people. The caption read, “Olivia likes Frank.” Then I was gifted a bubble blower, a small, soap-filled flask with a wire loop. Dip into the soapy water, wave it around and bubbles fly like bees from a hive. 

Six years later the poster is still in my guitar case where I see it often. The bubble blower is nested neatly with my other treasures in my trophy case. Sometimes I take it out and make bubbles. Some stories are good until another one takes its place. Then some are good to lsat a lifetime. Sure, I am old and my memory may slip but not enough to forget this story.   

Whatever your condition, wherever you may be, seeing with new eyes makes the difference between the mundane and the marvelous. People slip into and out of your story and they all make a difference. You have to pay attention. You can’t touch another life without being touched in return. My life could have been rich and full even if I never left the town where I was born. But my story from an Alaskan Ice Field would be make believe. Sleeping on sandy beaches in the Grand Canyon would need be imagined and for certain, I never would have met Olivia Tocker or her little sister Sylvia.

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 125

In the beginning I woke up frequently and had trouble falling back asleep. If I could sleep late it was a good thing so I stopped setting an alarm. But it’s been over four months and good gracious, good gracious: I know at least two unrelated people who use the expression, ‘Good Gracious’ or ‘My Gracious’ and if nothing else, I find it quaint. In the 1940’s & 50’s it wasn’t that strange but in the new century it is strange, a phrase abandoned for something less hallowed. Grace after all is generally associated with the all mighty. My natural inclination would be, ‘Oh my!’ or ‘Good grief.’ But I’ve been stuck on this merry go round since March and I don’t want my vocabulary to wither away from neglect so I’ve recommissioned ‘Gracious’. Oh yes, I have been setting my alarm again now for a couple of weeks. It starts peeping at 6:30. By the time I can get out of bed and across the room the peeping has increased in both pitch and volume as if to say, “Turn me off right now or I may explode.” 

By 7:00 a.m. on a typical day I am wheeling my way through the neighborhood. I stay on smooth streets within five blocks of my house. By 8:00, after an 11-12 mile workout I will have dismounted and parked in the garage. I really need the exercise. With pandemic Lock down, for the most part, my days are sedentary episodes of exploring on the computer and cleaning up after myself. But for an hour, riding the recumbent trike, the other me gets to live with the feel of the old normal. 

It is scary how how quickly cars come up behind you. True the limit is 25 mph but that only makes them less loud. My average speed is only about 11 mph. So I must constantly check my mirrors against 4-wheelers. The trike has 3 chain rings, 9 sprockets on the cluster which works out to 27 speeds. I leave it on the middle ring. That gives me 9 speeds although 6 or 7 of those are enough. It keeps me busy, navigating traffic, avoiding bumps and hazards and being in the right gear for the situation. I want my legs to get good work. On descents, gentle and short as they are, I don’t want to coast so I go to bigger gears and keep cranking. The gear changing is endless, trying to hold a constant speed on corners and subtle changes in grade. For that first hour of the day the physical and mental demands are greater than anything I will do the rest of the day. If I get rained out, it tends to spoil my day. 

Even at that, with everything to remember on the trike I think about stuff as I pedal; about life, family, about the world. My mind is like a three year-old with ideas that go nowhere and questions that only beg more questions. Certainly it crosses my mind, the day to day high risk reality of disease and of marrow minded, slow witted people who flaunt their ignorance and disregard for others, mocking pandemic as if it were nothing more than scare tactics or sneezing and a runny nose. Then of course, there is the consummate narcissist who throws American lives under the buss like sand on a slick street, traction for his reelection campaign. His moral compass has no dial, only an arrow that points at him no matter where he stands. I don’t want to say anything more damning lest I wake up some morning with a NSA van parked up the street, monitoring my every thought. 

Remember the movie, ‘Enemy Of The State’ with Will Smith and Gene Hackman. The goons from NSA repositioned satellites to track Will Smith. He stripped off his clothes getting rid of GPS devices they had planted, running near naked across rooftops with helicopters in pursuit. That would be me but my luck wouldn’t provide me with a benefactor like Gene Hackman. I’d be lucky to get a stumbling, fumbling Danny DeVito. 

My minister told me “You didn’t screw up this world and you can’t fix it.” It was 1999 and I was going to a UCC church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. UCC is the most left leaning, most progressive Christian denomination anywhere. I had been feeling bad about the way our ancestors treated America’s indigenous people. He tried to reassure me, “Your responsibility is to do no harm and to live the best life you can.” That washed for a long time but Black Lives Matter has put a kink in that logic. We may not be guilty of our father’s sins but by its nature, White Privilege and its systemic disparity leaves us with a blind spot. If we continue to profit from those sins, after the fact, we become complicit. Good gracious, I think about that too in the morning, riding my trike.  

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 121

Think about it; people, good, smart, well-intended people who have made it their life’s work to improve both the quality and delivery of health care services - they are all saying, “If it is not imperative that you go out, stay at home.” The pandemic is very real. I went to my local city hall this morning to do some necessary business. I made an appointment three days ago. Scrubbed clean, with my sanitary mask properly fit, I was screened at the door. The man took my temperature and pointed me to a waiting area. Every 6 ft. there was a stripe across the floor and a spot labeled, “Stand Here”. There were no protesters over wearing masks or maintaining social distance. The people at city hall are taking Covid very seriously. On the way home after I got my business taken care of I listened to an interview on the radio; an NPR investigator and an epidemiologist from a medical school somewhere. The doctor’s message was, we still don’t know enough about the virus, how it is spread or its long term effects. They are on a steep learning curve, processing much and fast but it is only six-months-new and in the USA, the government (White House) is doing more to confuse and distract from the virus than to respond appropriately. 

Forty five years ago Kenny Rogers recorded his smash hit, ‘The Gambler’. Right now it seems so suited to this brave new world with its new normal. His story is blunt, “. . .the secret to survivin’. . . is knowing what to throw away, knowin’ what to keep. . . Know when to walk away, know when to run. . . And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.” That would be nice, to die in my sleep someday, just not soon. 

Too much of a bad thing just gets worse. So I try to be philosophical with the big Sick. It makes me appreciate people who were born before the WHO and CDC, before antibiotics, anesthesiologists and pain medication. Doing without and making do with what you’ve got are only slightly different shades of the same color. When I did a Master’s Thesis it had to be typed on a typewriter with three carbon copies. But scholarly work required perfection, no errors, no corrections. White-out was a brand new miracle cure for typos. Only secretaries had white-out. Just like fingernail polish, you paint liquid paper over the mis-strike and ‘Voila’ there you are! That was alright for reports and cursory research papers but not with a Thesis. It had to be perfect from the first stroke to the last. How does one write anything without spell check? Maybe that’s why all of us (graduate assistants) hired our bosses’ secretary at $1.25 a page. She edited as she went, corrected grammar, improved word selection. Donna saved our bacon on every page. 

No photo copy machines then. You could cut a stencil and run 100 copies. You could patch and redo mistakes on a stencil and no one could tell but that would have been cheating. If you weren’t going to make a big run it was too much trouble. I guess the point is; you don’t miss what hasn’t been invented yet. I remember my first, Texas Instrument, hand held, four function calculator. It ran on six, AAA batteries that needed to be replaced frequently. Before that we (GA's, grad assistants) shared a mechanical adding machine with spinning dials across the top. It behaved more like an outboard motor than a calculator. You punch in the problem and hit the go key. The thing roared to life, the dials spun; in a few seconds it stopped with one number on each dial lined up in a row, in 12 different windows - the result. Repeat the action several times to rule out a malfunction. Making do with what we’ve got; that is what we are doing, what I am doing. If we had a cure for the virus now we would take two and feel better in the morning. Right now the cure is, don’t get sick.

I cling to some wannabe wisdom that sounded good, once upon a time and only improved with use. It came from my mother and I paraphrase her Faithful, born again rhetoric, not that it matters but I tend to do that. It goes; However the day arrives, regardless who sent it, it’s the only day available. Today, now, this moment is the only time that anything happens. So I’m grateful for today; I am alive right now. Gratitude is the perfect response to every condition. Be glad you feel well, well is its own reward. Be glad you feel poorly, at least you are alive. Buddha had a lot to say about suffering, that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. He advised we should all dismiss our desires and find joy in what we have. I have opted out of suffering for the time being but I need a haircut. I really, really do need a haircut. 

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 118

Modern Biology, the Blue Version; that’s the text book we taught back in the 1980’s. There was a Green Version available but it was written from an environmental perspective. I would have preferred the Green Version but someone higher up made that call. I was never able to get through the whole book in two semesters so I skipped chapters that I thought less important or that I just didn’t want to teach. By the end of April the choice was either microorganisms (bacteria & virus) or cellular respiration. Remember, to tackle a challenging subject after spring break was to beat one’s proverbial head against the wall. Cellular respiration has little or nothing to do with breathing or lungs. What it is is a long, complicated chemical reaction inside cells. In that process, chemical energy stored in a glucose molecule releases carbon dioxide and water as waste. After that, 38 molecules of ATP remain, pure chemical energy. Living cells burn that fuel, not altogether unlike the way a solar panel converts light into electrical energy. Memorizing long, branching equations full of brackets and byproducts was too much to expect. Young lovers have little or no motivation to engage with biology when they are totally fueled by run amok sex hormones. So we did microorganisms. 

In the early 1980’s genetics had not yet been made easy and high school text books didn’t do a very good job unraveling the mystery we now take for granted. DNA was enough. Making the RNA distinction was a high hurdle. Virus doesn’t have DNA, only RNA. It replicates itself but not like bacteria or birds or squirrels. How can virus live without DNA? That question always came up. Well, it isn’t really alive; but it’s not dead either. Virus is sort of a hybrid form that defies an easy answer. So, the Blue Version provided a simple story a 3rd grader could understand. It went as follows. 

Imagine a war with battle tanks, with tracks and turrets and big guns. The tanks roar all over the battlefield until they find a factory that makes something useful, like washing machines. The tank crashes into the factory, breaking a hole through the wall and goes inside. Its crew jumps out, takes washing machines apart and uses the parts to make new tanks. When all the washing machines have been repurposed, the tanks all go back outside and look for more factories to break into. In this example, Viruses are the tanks and living cells are the factories. Once a cell has been stripped of its parts it dies and many new virus have been created, and so the story loops and repeats itself. Everybody understood the 3rd grade version. Still, the only one who cared at all how RNA works was me. But I didn’t count then, I already understood and I don’t count now, I’m not in that business anymore.

Coronavirus is just another virus. One virus’s RNA can attack human cells (Covid-19) while another attacks sycamore trees or fungus or squirrels or blackbirds or bacteria, etc.. Our immune system can fight off the virus with antibodies that stay in our blood, make us immune to the virus next time. But Covid is new, never known before so nobody has preexisting antibodies until after they are infected or receive a vaccine. The tank/washing machine story sounded cool until I realized that I am a washing machine. I don’t have any antibodies for this virus and it can be deadly, especially if you are old like me. So I spend most of my time closed up inside my house, wash my hands even when they are still clean. I wear a mask outside or in proximity with other people and as much as possible, I keep my distance from anyone and everybody who may or may not be carriers. After four months of paranoia, this is still scary shit, for real. 

A Red Bellied Woodpecker brought its immature offspring to the suet feeder this morning while I ate my own breakfast. It loaded up a beak-full then let the neophyte nurse. Young birds nursing from the parent’s beak; is that the proper term? I don’t know. But they both flew away with a free meal. That part made me feel good. I can not forget for long that the virus is a relentless danger or that it requires people in order to access new hosts. I can not see the virus but humans who may be carriers are easy to see, to avoid, and I do. But I can’t forget to take comfort in my birds and my bike and my network of amigos who live at this strange, disturbing place in time. 

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 115

Funny thing; it’s not really funny, maybe ironic but not funny; what it is is language that misappropriates words yet the audience gets it. Anyway; funny how we string words together, how stories find their way, what we remember, what we forget. I remember a time when my children were children and my own childhood was still at my fingertips. The feelings and memories were not only available but actively engaged with being, becoming a grownup. My youth has been reviewed so many times yet recall wears thin over time, it slips away and all you remember are random flashbacks. It is not unlike revisiting a favorite book where you can thumb your way to a favorite passage. Years passing take their toll. This is too profound for me to claim it as my own but I borrow it frequently; “. . . memory loses its way not so much because the brain looses its function but because there is so much more to remember.” A man of fewer words might say, “I have all those memories filed away but have no idea where I left them.” 

I discovered Bob Seger’s music in the mid 1980’s, in my own mid 40’s. Young people thought me too old to be trusted and my elders saw me as an experiment in progress. So I was literally like the candle, burning both ends. In self defense I identified with Bob Seger. What a storyteller! If you can take a complex, 250 page story and reduce it to three verses and a bridge with rhythm and a tune, people will sell out your concerts.

My favorite Seger song is, “Against The Wind”. Somehow I think he must have tapped into my veins on that one, that I have a legitimate investment in that story. It spans a lifetime. As his journey closes in on its destination he reflects; “. . . life is full of deadlines and commitments, what to leave in and what to leave out.” I am a few years senior to Bob Seger but not many. The song is from another century but then so we are. “. . . breaking all of the rules that would bend . . . searching for shelter again and again.” 

The 5th grade is a blur of generalities other than our teacher’s name and that she was a mean old woman. We got to play softball on the big field with the 6th graders. When we chose sides I went in the middle round. Softball; that was one thing I could do but Mrs. Ervin didn’t know, didn’t care. I was still struggling with multiplication tables, slow reading. She was impatient, maybe even unforgiving with the likes of me. So now that I thumb through the pages, I do have some memories. 

I remember the Polio pandemic. They shut down swimming pools and we had to stick close to home. Some kids were left crippled. President Roosevelt had polio, needed steel leg braces and a wheel chair. We went to a clinic when the serum came along where they dropped a few drops on a sugar cube for us to chew up. After a few years, polio was gone. But we remembered the braces and crutches, nobody wanted that. Now the same kids, old men now, we are dodging a new virus. Kids for the most part get a free pass on Covid-19. The bad news is for senior citizens. Braces and crutches are nothing compared to a ventilator. Still running . . . against the wind.

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 113

David Brooks is best known as a commentator/writer at the New York Times. I have been reading his columns for some time, 6 to 8 years. I am predisposed to the idea that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. So I try not to immerse in any single source, no matter how compelling or how good it makes me feel. But I do lean heavily on several highly regarded thinkers to help me with mental gymnastics. How many correlated facts and opinions can I keep in the air (juggle) at one time. I’ve kept Brooks at arm’s length for the sake of single source fatigue but digging in that hole again feels right. 

We don’t need a profile on either his story or the stories he writes. But they read so well I feel inadequate when I try to frame language with balance, clarity and purpose. He has been labeled a moderate conservative but with politics upside down, you sense moderation much more than conservatism. I just read his posts from June and into July. It has been a while since I treated myself to his point of view. I always (almost always) come away with the feeling; if I could write like he writes, that is what I would have written. 

Other trusted sources include Yuval Harari, Jonathan Haidt, Daniel Lieberman, E.O. Wilson, et al. From human behavior to human history, I’ve pretty much maxed out with them. Their stories lay down a cause/effect grid that you can plot and graph. Brooks navigates in a social matrix with a snapshot of the present, providing a sound/sight bite for this particular place in time. His opinions reflect keen insight and deeply rooted values; admittedly though, one can’t be sure which one predicates the other. We are humans and we are always looking for ways to make our task easier, like trying to determine where we live. We live in a zip code but within that, our house, that’s a no-brainer but inside our house we live inside our own skin. When you try to make things simple, something is lost. Without caveats and applied mathematics, all you get are blurred vision and good intentions. 

With pandemic spreading unchecked, I have plenty of computer time for digging out better stories. Then there is the wisdom of, “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” So much for word play. I wish I were the one to have written Brooks’ NY Times post from May 28, “If We Only Had A Leader”. The same is true for his offerings of June 25 and July 2. I get a hollow feeling in my soul when I see my nation, see my countrymen, seeing our leadership fail so miserably in this global meltdown. What does it say about us when small but advanced cultures like New Zealand and Korea demonstrate both a clear, righteous command and a disciplined, selfless response? This is day 111. I’m still buttoned up in my cave with no end in sight. I really do need a hair cut. 

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 110

Good fortune would have it, PBS has a large library of documentary films. Even if you’ve seen one, watching it again and maybe even again can be a pleasure. For the past few Friday nights Public Broadcasting is featuring the 6 episode series of a Ken Burns Special, The National Parks. Last night was #4 spanning 1920-1933. What makes Burns’ work special is the way he tells the story, with photos and film clips from the period, overlaid with vignette narratives by famous personalities with easily recognized voices. Present day experts make cameo appearances, setting the stage for what comes next: storytelling at its best. 

I loved it. No commercials, just long fades with transitions to the next part of the story. I identified with people camping at roadside with their Model T cars and improvised tents, all beneath the backdrop of Half Dome and Yosemite Valley. Film quality was poor but feel for the experience was razor keen. In 1989 when everybody in the family had a job for the summer except my 15-almost-16 daughter, we threw our bikes and sleeping bags into the truck and headed west. In Yosemite Valley we sat on the same spot where the cameraman had taken the 1930 film, staring in awe at Half Dome. Nobody camping on the side of the road in ’89 but I recognize the spot, I had been there. 

Several days before that we arrived at Grand Canyon’s East Entrance. Driving west, you are near enough the rim to know exactly where it is with glimpses of wide open space but trees and terrain spoil the view. We drove past the first turnout before we knew what it was but not the next; Grandview Overlook. From the parking area you could see across to the north rim but not into the canyon itself.  As we walked closer to the edge our eyes must have been big as saucers. Each step teased our senses. Imagine a darkened theater as the lights begin to come up, the orchestra starts to play and the tension builds. With perfect timing you get the full effect of music, costumes, lighting, actors and you forget to breathe. In our first unobstructed, panoramic view of the Grande, I forgot to breathe. After a very long first impression we looked each other full eye to eye. Those moments come few and far between. Be with someone you love, share an experience that is too big, too powerful to process, same place in time and communicate instinctively, without words. Sharing that link compounds the effect exponentially; a very special, particular moment I’ll never forget. 

Every time I see the Grande now I get slack-jawed, it’s always awesome but you only get one, first time. In Burns’ black & white photos and film clips I recognized rock formations and river scenes. I’ve gone back to G.C. several times, more than several times. In 2015 the same daughter and I floated 8 days, down the river. The experience from the bottom looking up is even more grand than from the top. It helps that you spend a week or more sleeping on sandy beaches, breaching rapids that overflow the boat, hiking narrow ledges and slot canyons. In ‘1992, for a class at Northern Arizona University, we spent 11 days on the river from Lee’s Ferry to Lake Mead. The next spring my daughter graduated university and I promised a boat ride for her graduation present. Twenty two years later we took a big hit at Badger Creek, the first of over 80 big water rapids we would encounter. Water temp was 48 degrees. A great object lesson about keeping promises.  

When the PBS special spoke of basement rocks, nearly two billion years old, the camera panned across a cliff face and the story moved on as well. But I got up from my chair and opened the curio case where I keep my treasures. From a doily on the 2nd shelf I picked up two rocks, each sized to fit easily in a closed hand. The black one, Vishnu Schist dates out a little over 1.7 billion years. The pinkish/tan one, Zoroaster Granite probably a little older than the schist. While the program shifted to another National Park, I cradled them in the palm of my hand and pommeled them like a craps-shooter with his dice. My basement rocks have their own long story and now I'm just a footnote but a footnote in a Grande story is just that, Grnade. I picked them up in a place where you are not supposed to take souvenirs. At the time, everybody had rocks in their pockets, nobody cared. I don’t think anybody cares now; they are not coming to take them back. 

National Parks; America’s Best Idea. Those are Ken Burns words and I echo them. Right now, with Covis-19, enough to scare the B-Jesus out of any sane human I have begun thinking about what comes next. In the first month I worried, would I survive, couldn’t imagine anything beyond the moment and the next day. Anticipating the next year or the next adventure felt presumptuous but I’m getting over that. I need something to look forward to and I’m thinking it will include National Parks. I would like to watch the sun set again from Grand Canyon’s Desert View watchtower, to hike Point Reyes National Seashore and Muir Woods again. I’ve stalked the ghosts at Little Bighorn Battlefield and pondered Custer’s folly there and I need to go back. I’ve never been to the Dry Tortugas or Sequoia but with a little luck I may still have time. When that day comes I need a reason to be. Herding squirrels in my back yard is necessary now but there has to be more. My days of traveling alone are probably over but I’ve already begun looking for the right companion. 

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 108

This year, 2020; it started like so many others but by March it had derailed into a train wreck. First it was Covid-19, then Black Lives Matter and police brutality created a social firestorm. For the first time in my memory, there was no safe place to go, to be and you couldn’t count on the police to protect the people. With the most powerful military arsenal ever, with riches beyond imagination we faced a physical threat that we can neither explode nor buy off. There is no way to get around pandemic. The only way is through it and you have to be disciplined as people and as a nation. Populous hyperbole and partisan rhetoric seem to satisfy simple, selfish sheeple but bullshit by any other name . . . 

For the first time in my memory the ugly underbelly of White Privilege revealed itself so clearly it couldn’t be ignored, couldn’t be denied, couldn’t be defended. If you stack the cards in favor of any group, it means the cards are stacked against everybody else. People of color and poor people in general have been living under that yoke forever. It serves the status quo, it is good for business. It has been that way for so long you take it for granted, you learn not to bite the hand that feeds you. All white people benefit from White Privilege. It’s like daylight at dawn; it covers white people wherever they are. But the sun never comes up on people of color. 

So now, in response to this crisis the current strategy from our high command is denial. Racism is bad, law and order is good and the pandemic has been called off. Everything is fine now; go back to work, go play golf, life is good. Be glad America is great again. 

The date, July 4: our birthday. This nation celebrates 244 years of both great and sullied history. What kind of patriot are you? Are you like a child who idolizes the parent: my dad can whip your dad and my dad can do no wrong! So when my parent does do wrong I rationalize that it was a necessity under the conditions and rewrite the book of ethics. Or, it can be like the parent who holds the child accountable. “Do no harm; fix or replace whatever you break.” Nobody is perfect but the “Do no harm” thing feels better than “My dad can whip yours.” Can I love my country, can I celebrate its noble ideals and the virtue of good deeds and still hold it accountable? If I can mot do that then patriotism is simply the glory of ill gotten gain and not getting caught.

Happy Birthday U.S.A. We need to feel good, at least feel better about something. That something should be a universal plus for every American. It’s not us versus them, it’s just us. What we celebrate should reassure every human everywhere that America is moving in a more humane, a more generous, a more forgiving direction. That message has been received loud and clear. Playground bullies and self righteous bigots understand my drift and they don’t like it at all. Addiction to privilege is so deeply rooted it has been redefined. Now we should think of it as, “Divine Intervention” and “Inalienable Rights”. It works so well, God must have ordained it. In their scheme, what is more American than exercising my Liberty to exploit your weakness? What I’m asking for, what I’m hoping for won’t happen in my lifetime. I’m too old and progress is slow; one funeral at a time. But I have today. It’s all I have. I’m still breathing and food still tastes good. I’m celebrating 244 years of good and evil. We are human beings after all, we do the best we can; and that’s not bad for high functioning monkeys. 

PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 106

As much as our leaders beat the drum for economic recovery and return to normal, the message I keep getting from the credible, health care community is, “Stay Home!” Covid-19 is still raging out of control. From the people who actually know best, consensus is, things will get much worse before they get better. Ironically, the people who know best have no authority. All I can do is speak for myself and from that point of reference, leadership in American government is in short supply. 

Three stories come to mind. The first is about a man who wants to catch a monkey but doesn’t know how. So he hires a monkey trapper. They go into the jungle with only a  short rope, a 2 gallon pickle jar and a banana. He ties the jar to a tree, puts the banana in the jar and they hide in the bush. Soon, a monkey comes along, sees the banana and reaches in to grab the food. The neck of the jar is just big enough for the monkey to slip a hand inside. When it grabs the banana it makes a full fist and can not get it back through the narrow neck. So the dilemma is, let go the banana and escape or hang on and be captured. While the monkey is trying to force a solution that secures both the banana and freedom, the monkey trapper unties the rope from the tree and collars the now captive monkey. Governors DeSantis of Florida and Abbott of Texas look a lot like monkeys on the end of a rope with fists clinched inside a pickle jar.

A story from Japan: A small village sits on the seashore. Behind the village a steep cliff rises up to the heights, covered with terraces and rice paddies. Fishermen go out fishing while gardeners tend to the rice. In the predawn a man climbs up the cliff to watch the sun rise. Far out on the horizon he sees a great tsunami wave headed for the shore. If he doesn’t do something to warn the sleeping village they will either be drowned or washed out to sea. Too far to call out, shouting an alarm would be fruitless. All he had was a lantern. So he made a torch of dry grass and set fire to the rice. Soon the whole rice crop, all of the rice paddies were blazing. Someone in the village smelled smoke and everyone rushed up the cliff to put the fire out. At first the people were angry over the loss of their rice crop but then they looked at the flooding in the village. Nobody drowned or washed out to sea. The boats were trashed but there was enough seed to plant again and boats could be replaced. The tsunami had been a disaster but they had survived. There is a moral  in there somewhere.

Last, Damocles was a mythical king who dreamt the same nightmare every night. There was a great sword dangling over his head, held there by a thread. If it broke, he would be skewered like a chicken on a pike. He realized the dream was an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. Something addictive about leadership and power; you don’t want to give it up. In good times, leadership is easy enough but if you fail when times turn against your people; like a chicken on a pike. You get kicked to the curb and a new pretender takes your place.

After four months of pandemic I have an opinion, maybe biased but aren’t they all! I think I think; a combination of unique conditions have collided and a new kind of wisdom will be required. Collectively, humankind can regress to tribal hierarchy, of us versus them and we know how that narrow, self service unfolds. Or, we can push into an unclear future with a revolutionary sense of common cause. Not mythical religion or greedy economics but something really new. I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know what that would look like and I don’t think anybody else does either. But we have a well documented legacy of how paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology have reduced us to selfish monkeys with our fists trapped inside a jar. Nothing is static, everything changes. 

The last line of our Pledge of Allegiance, “. . . with Liberty and Justice for all.” Maybe the popular (White Privilege) perception of Liberty and Justice needs a face lift. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, that liberty and justice ring of devious duplicity no less than one of our leader’s tweets. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of us all!” 

I see this has turned into a rant. I usually try not to go there but sometimes you need to shake out the dirty laundry and make some noise. I missed out on the demonstrations but I did cut up some downed branches and burn them in the chiminea.