MORE THAN I PAID FOR: DAY 405

  Swimming laps early in the day you glide into the wall, touch, turn, catch a breath and reach into the next stroke. Then it’s back the other way until you come to the wall at the other end. It is sort of a metaphor for life. The repetitious business between the walls could be experienced as either a necessary tedium or timely little spells, too brief for enterprise but just right for connecting one dot to the next, to question one idea or affirm another. Life it seems is tedium or business until you meet an obstacle. Then you must alter your course, change direction and try to make another buck before you come to another wall. I like it because I know, whatever it is that has my attention, it won’t be long before I need to adapt. Even if it’s back to the same redundant thing, it is a change and even if that is an inconvenience, I know it is good for me. 
My time was nearly up. A glance at the clock, do the math and I knew there were only 4 or 5 more turns before time to climb the ladder, walk the walk and face the new day. After 45 minutes of nearly non stop swim, being horizontal in a gravity free, fluid medium feels more natural than walking back to the locker room. The last lap always generates the same idea; I don’t have to quit with this turn. I can slip in another couple of laps with no one the wiser. Sometimes I do just that, like getting more than I paid for.
Barely out of the water and my mind took an unauthorized detour from one metaphor to another. Life also delivers like a famous painting. I thought of two in particular. Albert Bierstadt was famous for his sweeping landscapes of the American West. ‘Lander’s Peak’ (1863) unique with the same combinations of sky and clouds, mountains, valleys and running water you find in all of his work. You can’t absorb the whole view in a single sweep. After scanning all the elements you study a little closer to see if maybe God himself isn’t beaming down on his creation from behind a cloud. Look and admire all you want but there is a rift between the eye and Bierstadt’s brush strokes. It keeps you at a distance, you can’t be drawn into it.
I can only guess how many short research papers (1,000 words) we had to do on famous painters. One I did was on Bierstadt. For those folks who took a Humanities Survey Course and played in the jazz band, thinking that constituted a liberal arts education, they should go back to their alma mater and ask for a refund. I had to write a paper on Andrew Wyeth also, at the time an American master, realist painter and a legend in his own time. If not his best work, ‘Christina’s World’ is his most recognized painting. A young woman is seated on the ground, turned away, looking up across a field toward a house and barn. Painted (1948) when I was in grade school, using few colors, few objects and subtle transitions, it is as compelling as any Bierstadt landscape. You can see individual stems of grass. With her head turned away, all you can glean is that she has on a plain dress, appears to be emaciated if not crippled and speaks to the melancholy of human experience. Unlike Bierstadt’s landscape, I couldn’t help being pulled into the untold story, to identify with the image and the feel. God was some other place and there was nothing eternal, only the moment. 
Both are famous, priceless paintings that say so much by the way of the eye. Both can be framed as metaphors for this life, just through different lenses. I identify with Christina’s World most. I can almost smell the dry grass, hear the sounds of insects and summer’s passing. It draws from the human condition and its temporary, fleeting nature. Maybe I’m just drawn to imagery that reminds me how fragile this life is rather than how grand something else may appear. 
Tomorrow will be a new day, a new chance to choose; should I shrink under the weight of boredom or come to the wall, breathe, touch, turn and stroke with new eyes and the chance to get more than I paid for. I’ll be in the water by 7:00 a.m.

CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET: DAY 393

  John Donne’s poem ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ it says to me, we’re all in this together. Somehow it flies in the face of a former president who was religiously faithful to his own quote, “. . . you can’t be too greedy.” Competition needs to strike a balance with cooperation or it doesn’t work at all. At this point I side with Donne. Death is the ultimate insult and every man’s fate, with its own unfolding, it reaffirms not only my journey but also our common destination. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. I remember the poem from college. Incredible how a few words can capture a powerful idea. That’s when I started collecting quotes.
There certainly is a lasting, formative effect that comes with writing something down that you don’t want to lose. If reduced to an equation it would stretch across the page with brackets, parentheses, symbols and scientific notation. The brain takes a mental prompt, searches through volumes of memory to identify and reconstruct meaning, transforms that into language (words in proper sequence) enervates muscles to either speak the words or move the pen on paper: “It tolls for thee.” When the brain goes through all of that, it tends to remember where it leaves things and how to recover them. Post It Notes have their place and I don’t know how I would survive without leaving reminders stuck on refrigerator doors and computer screens. But listening to your own speak or watching it go into print; somehow, for me a least, it is in the ‘doing’ and not so much in finding and rereading the notes you left behind. So I write lots of things down knowing if I never need it on paper, I’ll still have a link to it, buried down in a neural vault. 
Favorite quotes go into both my computer file and my gray matter file verbatim. After I have revisited them several times, rewritten them, repeated and shared them, I can remember the source, what the quote had to do with and I can paraphrase. If I need the verbatim, I know where to find it. Probably, the next quote I took to heart was Shakespeare’s: “This above all things, to thine own self be true . . .” from Hamlet. I neither read nor saw a performance of ‘Hamlet’ but this couplet has a life of its own. It has been passed on and on with the listener free to associate any set or moral or cultural values that make sense at the time. After skimming the Cliff Notes I was glad I did something else with my time. It is a disgusting story that flaunts man’s worst instincts and equally dysfunctional characters. 
Polonius delivers the famous line while giving advice to his son Laertes “. . . then you can not be false to any other man.”, whatever that is supposed to mean. We discussed it in a philosophy class without any of the backstory. As a group, we homed in on ‘True’ and‘False’ with moral connotations that were popular in the 1960’s. Our class’s interpretation on Polonius’ intent was that Laertes should be true. He would not only be of high moral standards and in doing so, not appear to be the opposite, or false. I remembered another discussion on logical fallacy, circular arguments in particular (the premiss is just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion). I didn’t want to leave my fingerprints on True & False morality and don’t recall having much input. But the quote is still fixed in popular culture. At the time, Polonius probably meant (I’ve since been informed) that the emphasis was on “Own Self” and “Other Men”, not so much on True or False. Do your own business, skillfully, taking care of your own need and be clear in that context. You don’t want to appear foolish, incompetent or someone who can be exploited. That would be about one’s moral responsibility the self rather that some greater good. I don’t default to it anymore but neither has it been downgraded in my reference catalog. 
Writing this piece I intended from the start to close with another long held treasure from my Quote collection. Perusing through them, they all have worthy appeal and some go back so far, I can’t date them. How can I pick one over another; I don’t know. But the upside of that dilemma is that, whichever I choose, it will be well worn, well appreciated and absolutely proper for any reading, any situation. 
The 1996 Summer Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia. The torch had been on a running relay tour across the nation with torch bearers from every walk of life. The final runner’s identity was a closely guarded secret. From a distance, entering the stadium, everybody knew at first glance who it was. His slow gate and waning physical form could not diminish his legacy or conceal his identity. Muhammed Ali ignited a love fest in the moment. 
His quotes are many and I could post a list, all of which would make your heart rise with hope and passion and good will. But I’ll choose one of his lesser known quips. Using it as a prompt, a good writer could write a great book. He said, “A man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years.” From my experience I would add, if the same man viewed the world at 80 the same as he did at 50, his failure as well as wasted years would have doubled.

 

IT WAS UGLY: DAY 388

  Red letter day today; two weeks after my 2nd Covid shot. I can feel relatively safe out there in the world. It comes with the disclaimer, still wear a mask, still distance but I can engage in the culture again and that’s a big deal. The virus has mutated several times and different variants are still unknown dangers. So you don’t go out without a mask. It may not kill you but a variant aftermath isn’t something to look forward to either. A haircut this morning, then the garden center. My coffee group is meeting again, still with caution, outside but none the less. After a year of self imposed lockdown, I be cautious and am good to go. 
I remember in 1st grade, my brother (4th grade) already had a tall bicycle with narrow, high pressure tires and we couldn’t ride double very well. It was September, 2.5 miles to school and there was no bus. Dad left for work at 5:30. It was walk or ride the bike. So a new, (used) bike with big, fat, 26” tires was bought for me to grow into. Until I grew longer legs and learned how to ride, my brother pedaled and I rode sidesaddle, hands on the handlebars. 
At school, I bragged on my new bike, showed it to classmates at recess. Someone challenged me, “Why doesn’t your brother rice his own bike and you ride this one?” I gave some lame answer but they all saw through it; “You can’t ride a bike. . .” I said that I could and they said, “So show us.” Too tall for me to get on by myself, they held it up for me. Once on board they gave me a shove and all I could do was hang on. Pointed down the school driveway, that’s the only way I could go. Legs to short to push back on the brakes, too much speed to turn up the street, I went straight into the front yard gate of the house across the street. It was ugly; knees over elbows, ass-upside-down under the bike and I couldn’t untangle myself. 
My gallery came running, recovered me and the machine. I confessed, yes . . . I could ride, just couldn’t stop or steer. In the crash, my head went into the wire gate, cut myself under my chin and I was bleeding. By the time we got to my teacher, Mrs. Loncosky, my neck and shirt were all bloody. She tried a bandaid but that was far too little, much too late. 
In 1945, the Hickman Mills School District had four elementary schools, each one with 3 rooms, 3 teachers, 8 grades and no nurse. My mom had no way to come get me so Mrs. Loncosky called our Superintendent’s office. Mr. Becklean, our Superintendent was the only one there so he drove the 3 miles, picked me up, picked up my mom and little (infant) brother and took us to the local doctor’s office where I got 2 stitches and a big gauze bandage. No more school for me that day. I didn’t get in trouble but then neither was it something to celebrate. I would rather have been at school with my friends. 
Come winter, a lady up the road whose daughter was in high school had a 1937 Chevy, panel, delivery truck. Today we would call it a van but then it was a panel truck with a bench seat in front and two doors at the rear instead of a tailgate. She put a bench seat on either side in the back and altogether, we could squeeze 9 or 10 kids inside. I have no idea how much my folks had to pay to transport us to and from school but not knowing any different, it was our normal. The next year, her husband bought a school bus and went into business. I would be in junior high before the district had its own school bus service. 
They built an annex on the high school and moved 7th & 8th grades up there (called it Junior High) By then I was a bicycle wizard. With good weather and my mother’s blessing I rode the 2.5 miles to school. With my brother headed another direction, I was on my own, the taste of almost-independence was liberating. I could stop at the pond on Bannister Road and skip stones if I felt like it, and I usually felt like it. It was the closest thing to freedom I could imagine. That brings us to today. My mom isn’t here to approve but the CDC and my doctor are and they do approve. Not since the the fall of 1948 have I anticipated this kind of liberating breakout. I may drive down to where Holmes Park Elementary School used to be. Today that spot is occupied by Kansas City’s South Patrol Police Station. What was once our playground is now a parking lot and the house across the street has given way to an intersection with divided streets and a median. If I let myself, it can be real déjà vu, like Yogi Berra said, “All over again.” Sandwiched in between I-435, I-49 and a big Home Depot store, I can still reflect on playing softball down by the creek. 
A longtime friend who I used to guitar jam with called me last night. He and a couple of other picker/singers I know have started jamming again on Monday nights, invited me to join them. We’ve all acquired vaccine immunity, able to meet in small groups without masks. We will be outside on Mike’s patio and I would think we still keep some separation. Old habits . . . you know. 

WHAT I THINK OF YOU: DAY 386

  ‘Fat, dumb & happy’ is an expression I first heard in grade school. It has never changed, never gone out of style. It can be taken as a benign default to a less pressure, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it sensibility but it’s not how one would want to be thought of. FD&H is an insult. That would be someone who is either content or resigned (given up), living their life in a microscopic comfort zone. If they needed to put that in their own words they might say , “I would take comfort in ignorance and indifference rather than suffer the burden of knowledge and accountability.” They may know better but prefer denial (surrender), and fall into the FD&H gap. Having an opinion is necessary but judgement leaves a self serving aftertaste that obviously appeals to some but when I catch myself in that mode, I want to spit.  Keeping that balance, balanced requires one’s undivided attention like balancing a broom handle on your fingertip. What I can’t escape is the fragile, vulnerable nature of maintaining a balance. It would be easy to fall off that narrow ledge into a thin, shallow comfort zone. In self defense, against common sense advice, not to look down, I look down anyway to see where my feet have done.
Fat, dumb & happy could be worse, I could dive into even less flattering, unforgivable truths about human nature/behavior. I hate cliches but when you need one; (been there, done that). As a student of human behavior I realize, every study, every theory adds to the body of knowledge. Still, when testing coffee in your cup the palate does very well without interrogating every bean in the bag. We do our best, not bad for high functioning monkeys. 
It’s been over a decade, I took my granddaughter to the zoo. They had a new facility for the great apes with a large, open space, trees and jungle-gyms with climbing ropes, a moat and high walls to separate great apes from people. But there was a sheltered alcove in the wall with a large, plexiglass panel, 20’ wide, 8’ high; no visible barrier between the captive monkeys and the civilized ones. You could walk up to it, sit down and gorillas on the other side might come up close, only inches away. The unspoken wish of every person is to touch hands through the glass with a great ape. They (gorillas) pay close attention to who’s at the alcove but act disinterested. It’s their game and they play it as surely as the kids and parents in the alcove play theirs.
A big, old silverback was up on a rise with his back to us, at least 100’ away. There was a sign in the alcove warning not to stare at the gorillas. They interpret direct eye contact as aggressive, threatening behavior and they don’t like it, especially the silverbacks. But kids don’t read the signs and neither do most adults for that matter. The old silverback did a slow turn of the head, staring eye to eye with his audience. Without overstating it; you simply can not imagine how fast an old, lazy looking gorilla can cover 100’. He knew exactly how to body slam into the plexiglass so it boomed like a cannon going off. It startled me even though I saw him coming and kids scattered like confetti from a popped balloon. In a heartbeat he walked away, finished with his prank, had his laugh in private. There was no smug, over the shoulder peek but he must have been feeling pretty good. 
Kids wave and pound on the window, try to stare down the gorilla, hoping for a response. The old silverback has his own game and it was all about scaring people. I noticed poop splattered on the gorilla side of the window. The zoo keepers clean it off every day. A friend who worked at the zoo told me, if they don’t like the people they let you know with a hand-full of crap. Throwing poop is a metaphor for people but with the apes, it is real. That has to be the ultimate insult. “This is what I think of you!” If they had the dexterity (opposed thumbs) they could give us the finger and wouldn’t that be a great P.R. for the zoo. I don’t know if gorillas actually think thoughts, I’m guessing they do; not with words but certainly conceptual constructs. But they do have feelings and know how to express them. “Sure Honey,” the lady said,  “make faces, wave your arms and tap on the glass. See if the gorilla will  wave back.” The same lady almost peed her pants when the big boy ‘Boomed’ the plexiglass. She recovered, collected her kids, looked up and there was fresh poop on the window. Even a human should comprehend that message. But more often than not, I think the people walk away, FD&H. “Yes Honey, they are God’s creatures but He loves us more. We get to go to Heaven and they don’t.” 
I know a lady who believes, seriously, that zoos are prisons for wild animals and that being on display is cruel punishment. If you want to spoil her day just mention how nice it was at the zoo. The big mammals often relate well to their handlers but then they depend on handlers for food. I get it. I know zoos are the only place most people have to see and experience wild animals and some species need support and protection. But that’s the result of poaching or habitat loss to human development. Again, trying not to judge but keeping that balance, in balance is not as easy as changing the subject when a monkey throws poop at you, not in your direction; aiming at you. If there had been steel bars there instead of the plexiglass you would reek of gorilla excrement. The gorilla would be smiling, hooting and thumping his chest like a Roman Gladiator.  

SPARSE ON TOP: DAY 380

  I must have slept pretty good. The wakeup was easy and the fallback no less. ‘Barely remember the alarm goin’ off, shuttin’ it off. There was a dream that felt real enough, thought I was there, stuff happened the way stuff happens which isn’t exactly the way my dreams usually unwind. 
Don’t know where I lived but it was on water, a stream I would guess with a barn and woods. I was old and I had a herd of what must have been river otters that split their time between the water and my barn. We got along famously and people came by to see how we were doing. They (otters) would climb on me, eat from my hand but I didn’t have any control over them. They just hung out in the barn with me and strangers who thought I was in charge, they got treated well too. 
I talked to the animals but don’t remember what I had to say. Had an accent, sort of a mishmash, not quite Irish or Scottish, Celtic yes but without roots. Part of the time I was inside my own head, other time I was removed, watching myself and the dream like an episode of Harry Potter. I looked the part, a lumpy old face hanging on the front of my head with gray hair scattered thick on the sides and sparse on top, like lightning just struck.
A car full of younger than me but not young enough to be young men stopped, inquired about my famous otters. Inside the barn they (otters) were acting like otters which the strangers enjoyed. We (people) made small talk. Talking was real enough but no script, no subject, no verbs, just mouthing words that wisp off before they could reach an ear. I could make out noise but never got to the end of a sentence. 
It was a feel-good dream, a feel-good wakeup. I sensed when I reached to shut off the alarm that it was dark outside but the waking up had daylight spilling in through the slats on the blinds. It registered that the discrepancy was about me rather than the daylight. I remembered I was waking up in the donut hole, after my second Covid shot and before my immunity kicks in, feeling good about that. 
‘Didn’t need the light on in the bathroom, the lumpy old face peering at me through the looking glass was the same old otter-meister from the dream. ‘Reached up, touched my nose and made a face, reality check. It was me after all, awake, no otters, no strangers come to see the otters, no stream just a blacktop street going down and around the corner. 
Just enough coffee left in the pot for a swish around the mug. I could fall asleep again easy enough if I put my head down in a soft place but I need to move about, get my systems up and running. It’s a new day and you know what my mom said about the ‘New Day’. “It’s a blessing, do something with it.” Her religion died with her but blessings supersede Faith and denomination. Anybody can offer their blessing and however one perceives it, receives it, it is what it is. I am blessed here with a happy dream and a new day.