IN REAL TIME

I just finished watching a six part Netflix series that chronicled the life and times of Alexander The Great (356 BCE - 323 BCE). Long story-short; from the Greek kingdom of Macedonia Alexander was thrust into a precarious position. He could seize the throne and go far away to prove himself in battle or try to hold down the home front and be murdered like his father before him. Alex was already a fierce warrior at 20 years, lacking experience but not the insight and cunning that would prove his metal. Always outnumbered, he led his army against the Persians, conquering what is now Turkey, then Egypt where they made him a god and he built a city worthy of his name, Alexandrea, at the mouth of the Nile. The Persian King, Darius III thought him of little consequence until the upstart from Macedon sent the Persian armies in full retreat several times and was approaching Babylon. Darius then led his full army in person to regain his pride and reputation. Seriously, these were real people, not made up characters in a Tom Clancy novel.

If Alexander led an army of 60,000 then Darius had an army of 150,000. But Alex wanted to defeat Darius in battle to secure his own place in history. Always a step ahead of the Persians, Alexander was a natural tactician. He maneuvered the puzzle pieces, dictated the time and place of every battle and used every advantage to rout the Persians. Darius fled with a small contingent and was killed by his own generals for his cowardice. Alexander came through Babylon’s front gate and took over as the new king of Persia (Iraq). In the next few years he took his army as far east as India, laying waste to whoever didn’t surrender.

The thought that a such a young man could lead his army so far, live off the land for so long and prevail is hard to fathom. Ironically, Alexander The Great died mysteriously in Babylon at the age of 32. He had run out of places to conquer. His concerns about surviving in his homeland, Macedonia seem moot as he never returned. I cannot get my head around that time factor, so many fighters on the move, relentless, up close, swords and spears. It took half a year to reposition troops for the next battle.

In the 2nd Iraq war in 2003, it took about 12 hours for 45 stealth fighters and bombers stationed in Missouri to fly the 7,000 miles and render Saddam Hussein’s radar and control centers useless. Saddam Hussein had boasted waging the mother of all wars as Darrius had done sone 2300 years before, both on the same landscape. Coalition troops found Hussein hiding in a spider hole and his demise was as pitiful as Darrius’ had been so long ago.

        Everything happens faster now. It took Alexander a decade to change the world. Babylon was a great city in what is now central Iraq but all that is left there is desert and ruins and anthropologists, digging and sorting artifacts. But Alexandria is still a great city, his city, where the Nile River spills into the Mediterranean Sea. I have trouble trying to imagine what he was like in person. I doubt I would want him for a friend as he was certainly preoccupied with an army to lead or lands yet to conquer. In Egypt he was a god after all and I don’t really put much stock in gods. I doubt, after the first victories in that first year that he wanted for anything. I’m just an old survivor who doesn’t want for anything that I truly need and and I don’t know how to improve on that. I enjoy an electric toothbrush and toothpaste made special for sensitive teeth and I doubt Alexander ever ate a BLT. Still, I can have a BLT whenever I feel like it. I don’t need to be feared or lead an army. Alexander The Great lived out a great story but I wouldn’t want that for myself, just like I didn’t want to wage war in Baghdad against Saddam Hussein. Watching that stuff on Netflix or YouTube is both enlightening and interesting enough to satisfy my curiosity. Some things are better experienced vicariously but in real time, I would rather go fishing. 

BOOTS & A PITCHFORK

  Too old to be a preteen and not quite a full fledged teenager it was my job to clean out the stalls in the barn. I had rubber boots, a pitchfork, gloves and a wheelbarrow but sh*t is still sh*t and I couldn’t clean the barn without wading through it. Our milk cow grazed the pasture but took her grain at the feed box in her stall. Cows are Ruminants, cud chewing mammals with a four chambered stomach and it takes lots of grain & grass to meet their nutritional requirement. So they sh*t a lot, everywhere, all the time. My dad milked twice a day and both the milk bucket and his feet were in close proximity to fresh cow poop. In the barn it didn’t dry up as quickly as outside so my job was to minimize the sloppy, smelly stuff in the back half of the stall. We kept straw down so the manure would stay together on the pitchfork. It was a twice a week chore and it didn’t take long to perfect a technique that let cow crap stick to my boots and the tines of the pitchfork but not on me. I rolled the wheelbarrow load outside, spread cow sh*t around and if I got back to the house without any crap on me it was like dodging the bullet. 
The 2024 Presidential election has spent itself and the writing is on the wall. I am not particularly upset with the winner himself but I can’t say the same for his admirers. I understand why the 1% want to protect their investments and how evangelical Christians (Pentecostal) and other like minded believers have clung to a religion that has been transformed into a political action group. The rest of the MAGA crowd can be separated into several profiles but to some degree they all have personalities that gravitate to self obsessed, charismatic leaders and populist bigots. Both would have us believe their quest is to realize a righteous purpose but in the end it’s a power grab with no sense of conscience or consequence.  The whole MAGA empire reminds me of an old story when dairies sold milk directly to customers. The milkman with his dairy truck delivered door to door several times a week. A man’s wife was cheating on him with the milkman and everybody except the man knew it. When friends and neighbors tried to convince the cuckoled husband of his wife’s infidelity he went straight into denial saying “No, no, and anyway, I love all the free ice cream.” 
I’ve spoken here before to what I see as extreme conservatives who are wandering in search of something even more extreme. If you go to the urban dictionary the noun, “Trumpfuckery” is defined as; “Anything involving racist, misogynistic, hateful speech and actions masquerading as patriotism.” I think the expression is spot on, not to fault Trump. How he got to be what he is was not his decision, rather a complicated process of some bad DNA, inherited fortune, timing, predatory role models and opportunity to exploit others; how could he have turned out any other way? On the other hand it is disappointing that the majority of voting Americans are smitten with a self-righteous, self-obsessed, authoritarian and the path they would have us go.
Amazing the way these two stories resemble each other. We survived four years with a narcissist demagogue at the helm. Then a four year break and here we go again. I get the feeling as long as his cuckoled followers are feasting on the free ice cream I’ll have to keep my boots and pitchfork on standby. 

CHLE RELLENOS OR CARNITAS

I voted early last week, got there an hour before they opened and still stood in line for two and a half hours. When I finished the line was twice as long as when I began which meant lots of folks were looking at a four or five hour wait. Today I’m getting text messages every ten minutes to vote for someone or something but I am out of ammunition. I get one vote and it has been spent. 

I have the same dismal expectation as in 2020. At the time I didn’t see how the good guys could win but they did. My friend’s optimism proved more reliable than my skepticism. It’s hard to feel confident about anything in this climate but my coffee group is more optimistic and I take some hope in that. Changing the subject: I haven’t done anything in the wood shop for nearly a year. If discretion really is the better part of valor then maybe I’m better as well. As I accumulate more years I loose something in the process, like coordination, keen sight not to mention physical strength. I still have all of my fingers and thumbs and I really like them but all it would take to change hat would be a little slip or miscue. So I’m not making serious sawdust in my basement nowadays. But I belong to the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild and we have a a modern, professional wood shop that I can use nearly every day. It’s about a forty minute drive but I don’t have to sharpen or adjust any tools, just be safe, get some oversight if I need some expert assistance and clean up when I’m finished. I got motivated the other night when I couldn’t fall back asleep after a middle of the night wakeup; I want to get back into the sawdust game. 

Back before Covid I made a tabletop from Spalted Maple, 24”x52” and an inch and a half thick. But I never got around to making the frame and legs. After the pandemic subsided I acquired several awesome Cherry boards; 7’ long, 2 1/2” thick and 8” to 12” wide. After a long spell in the dark basement I now have plans for them. With just a hint of twist and warp, they will straighten out flat after just a few passes through the joiner and planer. I drove 40 minutes in the rain today, got some good help from the foreman for the day and did the blocking out on a set of four tapered legs for my table. From the radial arm saw to the ban saw to the joiner and finish on the planer; tomorrow or the day after I’ll go back and pick up where I left off, learning how to ‘Taper’ the legs. I understand the process but need to get the sequence and angles exactly as they should be. 

‘Frieze’ is the proper name for the skirt or apron that connects the legs and supports the table top. It will be more sawing with the same tools, just thinner boards. The trick is to connect them at all four corners and attach the legs so there is no wobble but I’ll get help on that. I haven’t felt this good about sawdust in a long time. If nothing else it keeps my mind from tanking over election crap. Tomorrow is election day, no more campaign rhetoric just Trump making noise, “They cheated” if he loses or “I can’t wait to punish my enemies.” if he wins. He actually believes his own fiction. I’ll leave the radio turned off and listen to music on my smart phone.  Making sawdust today was better than I expected. I knew I would come back around to it but the basement has become a dangerous place and the drive downtown is a (PITA). It’s like the more often you make a drive the it gets easier. Besides, the Guild moved from its old location to a better building with more/better parking which are nice but the kicker is; it is just a couple of blocks from the best Mexican restaurant in Kansas City. So if I go early and break for lunch it’s either Chile Rellenos or Carnitas.  

SELFRIGHTEOUS

  If traffic is light and I make all of the stoplights it takes about twenty minutes to get to my coffee group. That time of day I can usually listen to the local NPR station without suffering election rhetoric. This morning the announcer reported on a speech President Biden made yesterday in Arizona. Central to the speech was a profound apology, both personal and official as President for the longstanding shameful practice of removing Native American children from their homes and families to be forcibly assimilated into a white, christian culture. I know the story very well, children were punished harshly for speaking their native language or letting their hair grow long. In recent years that attempt at cultural genocide came full circle with the discovery of unrecorded, unmarked graves at nearly every government Indian school. What’s worse, the government continued to fund those self-righteous entrepreneurs with their gentler but none the less sanctified scheme of ethnic cleansing up into the 1960’s. 
On the radio it was noted that the timing was significant. Arizona is an important swing state with a high percentage of Native Americans. They figured significantly, supporting Biden in 2020. I would not find fault in that detail. If someone does the long overdo right thing with an alternative motive it is still the right thing. The reporter noted that the President’s message was enthusiastically received. I just hope their enthusiasm will be demonstrated at the ballot box again in two weeks. 
Recently in this blog I shared a new-to-me Mark Twain quote, his definition of ‘Conservatism’. It is both clever, timely and can be found in my last post. But that wasn’t his only observation on the subject. I did a little deeper search and found this: “The radical invents the views, but when he has worn them out, the Conservative adopts them.”  Twain’s humor and sarcasm are subtle here but I thrive on it. The word ‘View’ in this context means; ‘a subjective opinion’ and suggests a relatively limited or a narrow idea. I cannot speak for all Progressive thinkers but I gravitate to a bigger picture or ‘World View’, which my critics find disturbing but then they prefer issues that exist in a vacuum. World View refers to a framework of ideas and beliefs that describe and interpret the world’s social reality.
With the campaign winding down I’m glad it will be over soon. I am prepared for either alternative. It is my View the former President should have won in 2020 but he blundered with the Covid pandemic to become his own worst enemy. The Donald Trump story fell in my lap in the early 1990’s while I was on a field trip to Atlantic City, NJ, researching environmental issues and I ran across local articles concerning Trump’s misadventures. I continued digging in that fertile ground until his pattern of ruthless greed had been established. By then he had evolved into a self-obsessed, misogynist, racist business man whose every effort was single purposed on accumulating wealth and power.
When Donald T. became a full fledged narcissist is unclear but his father was a narcissist before him. You can’t have two narcissists under the same roof so Donald was sent off to military school. The over-riding moral truth in that relationship was that cheating is alright but getting caught is not, a distinction that has marked the rest of his life. By the 90’s his guru was Roy Cohn, a New York attorney who helped convict Julius & Ethyl Rosenberg of espionage in the 50’s and consulted for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Communist witch hunt that soon collapsed under its own weight. Cohn & Trump were a perfect match. Cohn, the aging attorney was a Jewish, closet gay who could not come out and was pissed at the world. Trump was a hard-charging young blood who demonstrated the self obsessed self-worship that Cohn had never been able to harness. The bottom line was, still is; If you cheat enough you will get caught so beat the system at its own game. Hire and reward enough highly skilled, greedy, unscrupled lawyers who can win when they have the means. If not then tie case up with legal paperwork, appeals to postpone, file for continuation, change of venue or manipulate a miss trial. In the end the pursuant either runs out of time or money and drops charges. Cohn was the source of "Never admit anything, if you get caught in a lie, deny-deny-deny" As with legal manipulation, the lie becomes the story even when you know it's a lie. 
My View again: since I learned who he was and how he operated I cannot find a single initiative on his part that did not put his own selfish best interests above any other consideration. Being President did not change that. He is firmly convinced that whatever serves his ego is best for the nation. When his deals are associated with failure, contracts will have been framed in advance to shift responsibility for failure to subcontractors and middle men rather than draw costly penalties and tarnish The Trump name.  
MAGA has nothing to do with American Greatness. In all this time his personality and sense of purpose have not changed from the truculent teenager who was banned from the home to the ultra rich narcissist who is perched again, ready to become President. MAGA is all about what he wants for himself; power and money which are interchangeable. He needs political backing and an easily manipulated base. He can buy that or toss out crumbs to evangelical wannabes and malcontents who suck it up like swill. More than respect, he wants his enemies to fear him. 
I have little or no (Power=Money) and my little vote doesn't amount to p*ss in the wind. My dad was a union man who paid his bills and trusted my mother to maintain balance in our home. I cannot get my head around the idea that the more enemies you have that fear you then the more successful you are. This life has taught me that following the Golden Rule is preferred to destroying your enemies. I learned to fix as best I can whatever it is that I break and move on. What goes around has a way of coming back around and disenchanted malcontents shooting at me from rooftops is not my idea of good Karma. 
I normally don’t dump on politicians or others I disagree with. It doesn’t serve a purpose and I doubt seriously that I move the needle on anyone’s conscience. I don’t know what I’ll do if the old demagogue (look it up if you don’t know) if he wins. He has become even more pathetic than the bumbling old man he accused Joe Biden of being. He looses his way in the middle of speeches and the lies he tells are the same ones he told back in 2020. 
I am glad I don’t have to write this disclaimer again. It has no value other than it made me collect my thoughts and get them down in text. If I get accused of being a bleeding-heart Liberal then so be it. When I can no longer defend myself then this effort may shed some light on me and mine. I am not running for office but I approve of this. 

EASIER TO FOOL PEOPLE

  Mark Twain has been a hero of mine for a long time and for many reasons. His clear-eyed skepticism and mastery with language left a legacy that is as timely and relevant now as when he penned Huckleberry Finn. I dwell on his quotes as seriously as devout Christians do their favorite scriptures. He said, “Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.” He also said, "Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.”  With regard to religion he left no doubt; "I am quite sure now that in matters concerning religion, a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.” Today’s conspiracy and misinformation culture was foreseen by Twain when he observed: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” It has always been easy to point out flaws in human nature but all we see when looking at ourselves in a mirror is the lipstick on the pig. I tend to identify with others in Twain’s camp as he didn't exclude himself when it came to mocking human folly. 
After 40,000 years (a significant number if you know our backstory), the weight and measure of our checkered past can be as much an inditement as an accolade. Historically, small groups (hunter-gatherers) were egalitarian. They lived together peacefully (more or less) and sustained a stable culture for at least 30,000 years. Every person contributed to the greater good. Cooperation and resolution of conflicts were far more productive than competition and violence. The loss of a peer, even to an injury could threaten the clan’s survival. 
Civilization started evolving in many different places and at different times but experts agree it began with the Agricultural Revolution some 12,000 years ago and it was about 6,000 years later before they started building cities. I have a friend, a lady in her 70’s, educated, intelligent and very confident in her own opinions. At coffee maybe a year ago she was treating the words ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ as synonyms, as if they were interchangeable. The two have commonalities but they are not synonymous. Gently, I tried to share that with her but she was upset to begin with and gave me a dose of ‘What-for’. But culture is about behavior and beliefs, how people interact and frame their expectations. Civilization requires infrastructure. A civilization requires large numbers of people living in densely populated areas (cities), it must be able to feed all of those people, it requires specialized division of labor (work) which in turn forms a class system hierarchy, it requires leaders, some form of government, religion, a means of self defense and/or waging war. There are other criteria but you get the drift. There can be many cultures present in one civilization but not vise versa. My friend reminded me of the expression: “I know what I know so don’t confuse me with facts.” So I moved to another table.
I am reminded at this point that we are all civilized and we all fit into a culture, even a subculture; not a choice. What goes unobserved is that Civilization (as we know it) is driven by large numbers of people and serves its own organizational and technological needs with little or no accommodation for individuals. Whoever prospers in that culture wants to maintain status quo. They may give lip service to social reform but not if it call for them to sacrifice anything they value. 
What would you call a well aged, almost but not quite humanist with an ever so thin shred of misanthrope, a recovering Christian with spiritual leanings toward nature based (pagan) traditions? That would be me. I am comfortable with that identity and I fit there in a relatively small niche. I know what I know and like to believe but sometimes I miss the mark. When I must deal with my own, erroneous conclusions I certainly hope someone gently helps me balance the equation. 
When I began this writing I thought it would be about culture and herd mentality. Herd animals benefit from safety in numbers. Predators may pick off individuals that wander but inside the herd is a pretty safe place to be. For people who herd together the risk is falling out of favor with peers if you step outside the rule. We are social animals, we need each other and in order to enjoy that ‘Herd’ security we can’t wander too far from the herd’s agenda. So if your subculture tends to be racist or ultra political, one side or the other there won’t be much tolerance for an individual who deviates from those prejudices. Social rejection is hard to bear and it’s easy to fall back on the herd mentality rather than be rejected or worse. Here and now in our greater herd, I fear the herd at large is smitten with Twain's, blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals. 
It’s a delicate balance and often, more often than I like to admit; I surrender that independence for the sake of belonging to the herd, even if my herd is few and scattered. I’m sure Mark Twain would have something to say about people who take pride in their herd mentality. 

BAD DAY FISHING

  I had breakfast yesterday at the Sportsman’s Cafe  in Deer River, Minnesota. If you draw a line to the Northwest from Duluth, MN it’s about 90 miles on paved road. My son and I were headed home from a windy day on Sand Lake which is another 25 miles Northwest of Deer River, mostly paved. I will not find fault with anything as generations of fishermen before me have concluded, a bad day of fishing is better than the best day at work. The boat ran perfectly and we both got what we thought were hits but the line went slack and empty hooks were all we got back to the boat. Still, a good day on the water, good company and we slept sound. 
In Deer River our slow moving appetites woke up and required attention. The Sportsman’s was a plain storefront on the main street with blinds pulled against the sun and no clue to what we would find inside. Church parking lots were occupied so I would guess it was the Sunday morning breakfast crowd had left only two tables to choose from. There was a natural buzz but not too loud and several waitresses were scurrying to keep up. The menu listed the standard offerings but the prices were throwback to another decade, before Covid. We both ordered three-egg omelettes with American fries at under ten dollars and coffee was fifty cents. Not to labor the issue but my cup got topped off several times before I could empty it. It came as a pleasant surprise. Somebody somewhere has figured out how to stay in business, serve a better than average, full size meal, all you can drink coffee and a three dollar tip for under $15. I thought at the time; too bad they couldn’t get the fish to bite. 
Here it is Monday morning in St. Paul, my son was off to work while I slept in and I’m having to create my own itinerary for the day. I’ll stick around another day then go over into Wisconsin to see some longtime friends before I make the long-day drive back to Kansas City. I haven’t been fishing for so long I can’t remember when and I am thinking I should find a way to do that without needing a long drive time or a boat for myself. I don’t need to land a big fish or even fill a stringer with panfish. Catch & release sounds great and I can keep myself company. 

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT

Memory can be like a leaky faucet. When you turn it off it may slow down to a trickle but it keeps on giving. In 1977 we lived in an old farmhouse with a step-down from the kitchen to what had been a closed in porch with a door in the floor that led to the basement. Some time later, someone extended the room with a dirt floor and a back door. I finished the room with a real floor all the way to the back wall, paneling, a dropped ceiling, lighting and a wood burning stove with a hearth. I got a good deal on carpet samples, sewed them together by hand and we had a family room. There was just enough space between the kitchen wall and the pull-up door for a wardrobe we used as an entertainment center. If someone needed to go down in the basement while watching TV everyone sitting on the floor had to get up and pull back the carpet so we could open the door in the floor. 

Our television set was made of red plastic, about the size of a small suitcase with a handle on top, a 17” screen with a black and white picture. There was no remote control, to turn it on and off you had to twist a dial. To change channels you had to twist a different dial. The kids could all sit together, legs crossed on the carpet a few feet back from the screen. Two favorite programs were animated time-travel spoofs, The Flintstones were a typical Stone Age family with primitive technology and modern behavior. The Jetsons were from the future with yet to be invented flying cars & robot housekeepers. It was great entertainment, a time when adults were as simple as the program their kids were watching. 

Forty-plus years later I find myself going to a coffee klatch with my niece. She is living in her camper in my back yard this summer to avoid the heat and hurricanes in south Florida where her furniture lives. She usually drives her two year-old Tesla and I ride along in the all electric smart car. The experience rivals astronauts checking with Mission Control, switching from mode to mode as they prepare for docking. Almost everything with the Tesla responds to voice command and almost-radar displays other vehicles coming or going and won’t let you get too close to any of them.

Coming home from coffee she asked if I wanted to do a demo ride in the new, self-driving model. So the guy at Tesla checks her out and she knew as much as he did. She drives up the street, pulls off in a shady spot, touches an icon on the big screen and tells the car we want to go to Trader Joe’s on Ward Parkway. She folded her arms and leaned back in the seat while the car pulls out into traffic. We held firm at the speed limit, centered up in the proper lane, changing lanes when necessary and braking hard when other drivers misbehaved. I was grinning like my kids used to but they are too old now to grin like that. We drove around south Kansas City for almost an hour. At Trader Joe’s negotiating traffic around rows of parked cars was like running with the bulls at Pamplona. Terry pointed the car at the space on thee control screen. It was easy, just point and hit the ‘Go’ button. When I got out I looked down at my feet and the only words that came to mind were; “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 

O.M.G. I have seen it, done it in my lifetime. I have transitioned from Fred Flintstone’s Stone Age boulder-cars and pedal powered technology to George Jetson’s Artificial Intelligence and automated shuttles. I don’t think I have either the time or money to tap into the self-driving. Too much new stuff for me to assimilate and short of $$ for a retired biology teacher’s benefits. Having my own self-driving vehicle may be too much to hope for but you never know. I am still impressed with the superimposed lines on my car’s backup camera that guide me backward into spaces so I can pull straight ahead coming out. Talking to my car doesn’t do anything but I can unlock the doors and start the motor from inside the house. Wouldn’t it be great if I live long enough to have my own Tesla toothbrush that lets me sleep while it scrubs my teeth!

NEVER IN EXTREEMITY

  Recently my daughter in law sent me a poem, ‘Hope’ by John Roedel. We share stuff like that sometimes and she knows what I might like. I thought it like the Call part in a Call & Response from church tradition so I responded with Emily Dickinson’s poem, ’Hope’. Roedel characterized Hope as a treasured stone you carry in your pocket, just the feel between your fingers was uplifting. Then he turned it upside down, portrayed Hope as a river you can float in, it can carry you; a reassuring metaphor. In Roedel’s free verse he juggled with line length but otherwise it could have read like prose. 
Dickinson wrote with tight, measured phrasing that coupled like rhyme but not quite. I wrote recently about wordsmiths, writers who not only choose the perfect words but arrange them naturally as petals on the bloom. Emily Dickinson was maybe the ultimate wordsmith. Her poem ‘Hope Is A Thing With Feathers’ required only three verses, twelve short lines. Today, this little reflection opens with free verse and closes with Dickinson. 

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the Gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet never in extremity
It asked a crumb of me. 

FOLLOWING AN ASS

By definition, a Wordsmith is a skilled writer, an expert at crafting
language in creative ways that resonate with readers and listeners. I
have Wordsmith friends who have been a good influence but for me to 
think myself a crafter of language would be presumptuous. But with
the writing I can get inside my head and work ideas that are too many
and too big to organize and recall. Without the writing it’s like juggling. 
Back in the day I could keep three tennis balls in the air for a long 
time but never four. How does one recall the scope and sequence of
several thousand words just like they were issued? On the page I can
go back to edit, rephrase, even delete passages. The conscious mind
can master many tasks but not all at the same time. So I write, revise
and redo; and when nothing jumps out that needs a fix I can hang it
out to dry where new eyes can see for themselves. To be sure, 
nothing I write goes public on the 1st or 2nd draft.
In the army my Platoon Sergeant was a short, stocky man who
tried to make up for his short stature by crowding your personal space
and a booming, loud voice. Sergeant Crowe was no wordsmith as he
either botched or corrupted grammar as if it were the enemy and we
mocked him for it. One of his habitual language blunders was a
disclaimer concerning how little he cared about something. He would
boom, “I could care less!” But if he could care less then he must have cared at least a little bit. He should have said, “I could NOT have cared less.” He didn’t like being corrected and we were not going to take him there. But low ranking PFC’s, even me, the guy who barely passed high school English, we kicked him around in private like a tin can. His shortfall is still a reminder; pay attention to details and do your homework. It’s not that I don’t want to be corrected but there is a significant difference between making mistakes and serial stupidity; and I’ve been told, you cannot fix ‘Stupid’.
I check and double check words that could easily fall into misuse as a failsafe against ‘Stupid’. Creative license only goes so far and even then the intent should be obvious. Two words in that category are the verb ‘Perceive’ or the noun ‘Perception’, and another noun, ‘Insight’. The perceive-perception combo is about becoming aware or conscious of something. It is (what you think) about whatever it is. If we get the aroma of burgers & fries outside a McDonalds the mind processes the experience and either makes sense of it or begs the question. We decide (think about) whether the speaker is being truthful or selling a lie, a (perception). 
The other word, Insight is defined as the capacity to gain understanding, a deep understanding (emphasis on ‘Deep’). Now, we have to look at ‘capacity’ - the maximum about that can be accommodated; a full bucket has the same capacity as when it was empty. That deep meaning can be about anything you can perceive; a  person, idea or thing. But unlike a perception, it is not about what you think. Insight is about how you think. Not unlike baking bread, insight is partly the way flour, water and yeast interact at high temperature. The other part is how disciplined and persistent the baker is in the preparation and knowing when to take it out of the oven. 
To be insightful one must carefully, accurately observe and examine their perception (what they think) so that any conclusion is both reliable (consistently trustworthy) and credible (it truly is what we say it is). This pattern is also inherent in the discipline of Critical Thinking, the process of creating a bridge between being fundamentally uninformed to having full knowledge. But insight is sufficient to keep me occupied here. Think of perception as a library full of books and insight as the Dewey Decimal System, a library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. Once insight has been acquired there is no rule about what to do with it. Successful criminals and politicians have terrific insight or they could not bend and circumvent the rules like they do. 
Two other words that come to mind, often used erroneously are Presume and Assume. A presumption is an informed guess based on reasonable but insufficient evidence. Still, one need remember, a guess is still a guess, who knows? An assumption is a best guess based on little or no evidence at all; is the beggar on the street corner really destitute or maybe just lazy? There is a clever acronym for the word ‘assume’ that goes, “You & me following an ass.” 
It’s no secret, I write to understand as much as to be understood. That is what I’ve been about here, today. Most of it is little more than touching old bases but the digging puts distance between  ‘Insight’ and ‘Perception’. Being insightful requires a high level of integrity, something lacking in today’s polarized culture. How about ‘Integrity’, now there’s another potent word; it is ‘the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.’ I’ve dug in this hole about as deep as I care to go today. I may expand on that ‘Integrity’ thing after the November election. 

CLOAKED IN THE DUSTCLOUD

  One of the first things I did when I moved back to Michigan in 1996 was join a writers guild in Grand Rapids. That summer I attended their annual week-long workshop at Glen Lake. The 2nd night we had a potluck supper followed by an informal meeting with stories, Q & A’s, announcements, etc. Sitting in a big circle around the meeting room our leader for the evening explained our first activity: Introduce yourself with a short story about yourself that you think nobody knows. A lady sitting several spots to my left began and the rotation went away from me so I would be one of the last to speak. The stories were informative, funny, even profound and I was caught up in the camaraderie. Listening to the stories I forgot that my turn was coming up and was not prepared. Everybody focused on me and there was a long pause. I managed to say my name thinking something would inspire me but I drew a blank and another pause. When I opened my mouth this is what came out, “I am a Dirtboy from Missouri. I throw stones and sometimes I don’t play fair.” They liked it, some clapped hands, others hooted and we moved on to the next person. 
A bulletin board on the wall with workshop highlights and quotes was updated to include, “I’m a dirtboy from Missouri. . .”  I had branded myself with a new nickname. I keep in touch with writer-friends I made there and “Dirtboy” still pops up in conversation. Being a Dirtboy has little or nothing to do with where you come from. It is about the dirt itself, soil, dust, grit and I have an almost spiritual connection with Mother Earth. 
Pigpen is a character in the Charlie Brown comic strip who travels in his own personal dust cloud. Charles Schultz, the comic strip creator described him this way: He may travel in his own personal dust cloud, but Pigpen’s mind and conscience are clear. He’s confident in who he is and carries himself with dignity and respect. He treats others well and hopes they will do the same for him (they often do not, but he perseveres). Pigpen takes pride that he is cloaked in the ‘dust of countless ages.’  I don’t think I can improve on that; “cloaked in the dust of countless ages.” Any comparison with Pigpen that includes me, I take it as a compliment.
As for being from Missouri; what can I say? Your current zip code or the one before that doesn’t dictate your backstory but it is real and people want to know. It gives legs to the idea; the most important decision one ever makes is choosing their parents. If you were born into poverty in rural Mississippi you probably made a poor choice; shame on you. We don’t get to choose where or to whom we are born. Missouri was a slave state and still clings to its Southern, rural, conservative roots. I don’t want to be from Missouri if that rubs off. Missouri is sometimes described as a sea of Red with two Blue islands (St. Louis & K.C.). I keep to the Blue Island, refer to north Missouri as West-South Carolina and everything south of I-70 as New Mississippi. 
Moving away is just wishful thinking. I have a significant network of family and doctors here and too old to start over again. If being from one place or another is understood as where you feel most at ease I would be from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I spent a couple of summers there in 2001 & 2012. Good place, good people, good times, they keep their politics out of the gutter and their religion inside the church. I know a musician, song writer, we still keep in touch. After noting how crazy American politics are I asked her what it’s like sharing a border with us. Her reply was a gentle insult and she didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah, it’s like living next door to the Simpsons.” I bought her dinner and we joked about the bizarre neighbors next door. But for a guy who throws stones and sometimes doesn’t play fair, playing fair comes easier up there.

TO UNDERSTAND

  I like having heroes. But who you admire and respect, who you would want to emulate speaks as much of you as it does your hero. It’s not simple as squeezing peaches to find the perfect peach. I find myself coming back to the same question; what is it about this particular peach that keeps me coming back? Elie Wiesel was a writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. A Romanian Jew, his mother and siblings were murdered by the Nazis and his father was worked to death in captivity at Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps in World War 2. Elie Wiesel survived the holocaust but that’s not what makes him a hero. He is heroic for a life of reconciliation rather than hate. I’ve kept this Elie Wiesel quote on my refrigerator door for over 30 years. “I write to understand as much as to be understood.” We have that connection; I know exactly what he meant. The writing, organizing complex ideas, framing the language; it is the one venue where I can create a lasting image that exceeds my reach. 
Albert Bierstadt was a 19th century American artist who painted large (very large) highly detailed landscapes of the American west. When you stand close enough to appreciate the detail the canvas is too big to grasp the whole image and you find yourself moving left and right, looking up and down at small sections. Once satisfied you can back off and view the painting’s entirety but you cannot do both simultaneously. Still, at some point the viewer is able to appreciate individual brush strokes and texture variations from memory, just knowing they are there. That is when the whole painting becomes an experience. 
When a writer draws from his or her own experience and becomes the source, the work comes together much like a Bierstadt landscape with its multitude of brush strokes and textures. That process is what Elie Wiesel was trying to tell us with his, “I write to understand . . .”  quote. I went for the same idea with, “an image that exceeds my reach.” A fully formed idea that has a life of its own doesn’t need language. But if you want to share it exactly as intended, the only way I know is with word selection, phrasing, scope and sequence. I cannot do that with a single stroke. It requires lots of little strokes and rearranging before I own it, before I grasp the whole, like Bierstadt would do. 
From the beginning I was going to segue here, into the connection between two words; Perceptive and Insight but I think this little Elie Wiesel piece is steady enough to stand on its own legs. His perception and insight were remarkable. I have other heroes but he is the one who could have raged with hate and revenge but he didn’t. Exploring Perceptive & Insight can wait for another day.

DESTINY

  By definition, Destiny would be a specific, predetermined future outcome stemming from an inevitable course of events. It may be a popular, wannabe belief but when used in the context of human experience I have serious doubts. The problem I have with Destiny is the predestination part. After the fact, one’s Destiny is a given. That's how it happened and it is what it is. In the summer of 1953 an 18 year-old walked into Sun Recording Company on Union Street in Memphis, Tennessee. He paid $3.98 to cut a two sided demo to give his mother. The ‘A’ side was titled ‘My Happiness’. Three years later he walked onto the stage with a $50,000 contract to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. He sang ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hounddog.’ After the Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis’ destiny would be realized as the King of Rock’n Roll. But his destiny would continue to unfold for the next twenty one years. Every twist and turn in his life simply updated his destiny. Who could predict where it was going, how his career would play out. Who knew, 21 years after that first Ed Sullivan Show that the King of Rock’n Roll would die of a drug overdose, alone, sitting on the toilet, in the basement at Graceland? Great or small, famous or not, your destiny is about the present and the path you followed to become the person you turned out to be. As you age day to day, year to year, your destiny keeps measuring your life from just a step behind you. 
My destiny has been that of a fair-haired, blue-eyed, curious little boy transformed over time and experience into a retired old educator, still curious but the hair is thin and the blue eyes are camouflaged under bushy eyebrows. If you plot my destiny with predetermined, future outcomes, it simply does not compute. 
People continue to misuse the word and that’s alright. People have always been vulnerable to making up fiction to explain what it is they don’t understand. Curiosity is contagious, it always has been but our paleolithic ancestors lacked the experience and knowledge to solve for the unknown. After 20,000 years we are still hooked on myth and conspiracy theory. Our brain-mind hasn’t changed in structure and function in all that time but we connect the dots so much better now. But there are still throw-backs who swear by the unbelievable rather than do the math. The fact that we don’t understand everything may be inconvenient but it doesn’t require us to fabricate fiction just to satisfy the appetite. 
In 1985 Back To The Future, a cinematic trilogy foreshadowed what might happen with time travel if the Space Time Continuum were to be disrupted. Going back in time gives one the advantage of knowing what the future holds. Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) and Michael J. Fox (Marty McFly) fell into that trap and it took three episodes to restore space & time to their original backstory. In the end, Jennifer, Marty McFly’s girls friend was disturbed over an alternative reality from a different but parallel future. Since they were able to go back in time as well, they were able to restore the Space Time Continuum back to its original condition. If you didn’t see the movie then this may be too complicated to explain in this space. Doc Brown reassured Jennifer that her dreadful memories from the distorted future had been erased. “Whatever you do with your life from here on is yours to choose.”  that her future had not been written yet. I have watched the BTTF trilogy too many times to count. I especially like the way Destiny is weighed and measured. If you want to think destiny is out there in the future Doc Brown nailed it down; maybe it is but it has not been predetermined. Where it takes you is up to you and I would add, random chance is a wild card in the mix. I was destined to be here, now, just as I am, by the chain of events that got me here; destiny. There is a little expression I use; don’t know where it hatched but I’ve made it my own. It qualifies both the wiggle-room we get to choose for ourselves and the way we are driven like leaves in the wind. I say, “Sometimes you live life and sometimes life lives you.”

DON'T WORRY

  I get two or three hundred words into an idea before I remember something that needs my attention. When I come back to read what I wrote earlier it reads like something only an old man with nothing to do but throw words at the page would do. This is my 3rd or 4th attempt here, hoping for some inspiration before I remember something else that needs attention. In my last blog post I took the former President to task for simply being a terminal narcissist masquerading as a conservative politician. I don’t need to do that over and over. Get it right the first time and move on but sometimes it won’t leave me be.
There is usually something on YouTube that either informs or entertains but with presidential politics in high gear most of the menu offerings are ridiculous. I do actually try to avoid partisan hype. Still, YouTube has algorithms that tabulate and analyze which film clips you speed by and which ones you slow down for as you scroll along. I speed past Trump photos but I do slowdown just a little for Jon Stewart and Pete Buttigieg so that they know my preferences without me watching anything. I don’t need an insulting photo of DT or some MAGA dunce to get me upset. Getting upset wasn’t on my to-do list but I think it appropriate that his initials DT are synonymous with (Delirious Tremors) “symptoms of anxiety, panic attacks and paranoia.”  While I’m at it, I do like the alternative, a no brainer: a woman of color with real credentials, legitimate backstory and quality of character. 
I killed my facebook account years ago but revived it under another name; have 9 friends. I never post anything just follow those friends. Today one of them posted a quote by somebody I never heard of but it said; worry is the interest you pay on something that hasn’t and may never happen. Bobby McFerrin wrote & sang his song in 1988 - Don’t Worry, Be Happy. I am inclined to believe that people do not (Do Not) make history after all. I think it works the other way; History makes the person. Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt sang a duet back when they were young - Love Is Blind & It Cannot Find Me. Sort of the same idea; you can chase fame and fortune but if it doesn’t find you it’s just a long walk. So every time I start fretting on what else can go wrong I remind myself; don’t worry, be happy. I have good reason to be happy. Even if we get a leader that is both pathetic and unfit I couldn’t have changed history. I’m just on a long walk and it’s not all bad. I am reminded that change is the nature of nature and if you cannot adapt then you are like the egg that was dreaming about hatching into a chick but woke up in an omelette.

EDIT & REWRITE

        When I finish a written piece I give it a rest, often the next day I can come back to it with new eyes. My experience is that everything I write can be improved with an edit and revision. Sometimes you realize the story you wrote to begin with was not the story you were after and a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rewrite is necessary. After so many rewrites the story may take on a new life. I started writing this piece over a week ago and have edited & rewritten so many times it doesn’t resemble the first draft. 

I tend to stay away from political issues and politicians but I will speak to that here. It should be no secret that I lean to the left so no surprises there. I don’t think political parties are so much the issue but rather the Conservative vs. Liberal chasm that separates them. Both major political parties have been around since before the Civil War but their finger prints have changed with the times. Two hundred years ago (1820’s) the Republican North enjoyed a booming economy with big banks and heavy industry. They were Conservative in their business but relatively liberal in social policy and practice. Southerners were Democrats, extremely conservative in both business and social custom, especially with slavery. At the time Democrats were at odds with big business and banks that patronized the South.

Back in the mid 1700’s the British colonies couldn’t get along with each other for the same reasons and getting them to cooperate against the British (1776) was unprecedented. Getting a constitution written that would satisfy both sides was accomplished only by vague language on thorny issues that could be argued convincingly from either side; to be ironed out after the war but was never resolved. So the constitution we love so much is still too vague to negotiate. 

After the Civil War ended (1865) Lincoln was murdered and his Vice President took his place, a Southern Democrat who pardoned the South for Civil War crimes (1865). The nation wanted to put the war behind them and launched “Manifest Destiny” a major push to expand our borders and influence from the Canadian border south into Mexico and westward to the Pacific. That new adventure superseded any measure of reconstruction in the South. The Confederacy lost the war but dodged the bullet. They came back as strong as before with Jim Crow segregation and vigilante (KKK) violence. 

One hundred years later (1965) a Democrat administration (LBJ) passed Civil Rights legislation that enraged Southern Democrats. Their response was to abandon the Democratic party in favor of a more conservative Republican party. White supremacy had overtaken economic issues and southerners felt much better in the Republican camp. Now, sixty years after Civil Rights, people of color are still struggling against prejudicial policy and practice. White privilege is still very real. Political parties can change colors but philosophy and ideology tend to stand fast. Rather than debate parties by their names I will speak to values, ideals and practice that are embraced in either Conservative or Liberal camps.

Donald Trump served as President (2016-2020). He pleased evangelical Christians with his Supreme Court appointments and rewarded powerful (rich) cohorts with tax breaks worth $$-millions. His flamboyant distractions kept his base onboard but a self-serving legacy of unfulfilled promises, confirmed untruths, pandemic denial and an appetite for self edification will never be reconciled. 

Obviously, I am not one of his supporters. I thought Joe Biden was unfit for another term and I was along with many other Americans, facing a lose-lose situation where the options were either Bad or Worse. When sleepy Joe conceded his spot on the ballot to a powerful, young, highly qualified woman of color I was restored with new Hope. She earned her stripes through decades of serving the public. That sets her apart from her opponent who has never sacrificed anything for anybody. The Trump Brand is the only thing he worships. In all my life I have never thrown money at a political candidate but the other day I did just that. When I dropped that envelope into the outgoing mail I caught myself smiling. 

        I cannot get my head around the belief that poverty is the punishment for being lazy or stupid. I think that individuals can have too much money and that you don’t make helpless people more helpless by helping them. Competition should be for bettering the product and a just reward, not cornering the market and hostile takeovers. I think Liberty is being confused with License, to do anything you can get away with, whatever it takes. At the end of the day the idea of equity and parity are noble virtues but they don't come from raising the ceiling, it comes from raising the floor. 

I am an old man, 85 last week; one of those high-risk covid people Trump said were going to die anyway. I’m through insulting him with truth and I’d rather have nothing to do with him or his malcontent followers. Make America Great Again: get serious. That greatness started falling apart shortly after Columbus landed in 1492. Actually, all I really wanted to do here today was to let people know what it is that makes me smile. 

 

SMILE & SAY THANK YOU

Today is the day after my tribe gathered to help me celebrate my eighty five (that would be 85 years) of breathing in, breathing out, waking up every day, falling asleep, of just being. People say, “It’s only a number” but it’s more than that. Eighty five years back to back hold more stories than one might care to remember. Over the past five years I’ve weighed and measured the front end of my 80’s decade, knowing all along that what matters most is good health and loved ones. It is my good fortune, thankfully, to have both. 

I am an old hand at adding my kudos to other expressions of appreciation and respect.  Someone, usually an old-one but certainly an esteemed-one will be singled out for recognition. This time it was me. Never been good at handling complements, they always left me reaching for the right response. Then with my storytelling, woodwork and photographs I learned a good lesson: “Just smile and say Thank You.” That is the perfect response to any complement. Odds are they weren’t after a speech. If it feels less than adequate, after a short pause you can repeat yourself, “Thank You.” again. 

So our party started slow but the food was really good and people kept coming through the door. I kept busy talking to friends and family, thanking them for coming out on a hot August afternoon. A friend acted as master of ceremonies, called the meeting to order and started talking about my backstory. He started calling on people in the audience to fill in the blanks and I felt like the bull calf at the county fair, being paraded in front of the judges. But I don’t get to choose how I feel, just how I behave. Everybody wants the same thing; to enjoy good company, a good story, break bread together and to be nice. I was the catalyst. After all, they can’t all be wrong so I must’ve done something good. I had time to reflect on my tribe. We are super-social animals and we need each other. Everyone should, sooner or later, trust the tribe to love and forgive them, to do the dance, be the reason to celebrate. 

It occurred to me how much this life is like a lemon. Whatever it is that you want from the lemon you have to do something with it (the lemon). One of my boys loved lemons, he still does. At 7 or 8 with great stealth he slipped fresh lemons into the grocery basket. He would poke a hole and suck it dry, face wrinkled up in a lip smacking pucker, funny to watch. He knew if he wanted to absolutely drain the lemon he had to squeeze it and keep squeezing for the last few drops would not come easily. The idea’s application doesn’t need an explanation; keep squeezing the lemon. Numbers are necessary but nothing about me would change if we counted by 2’s. One hundred seventy years would be just another age or number and my party would have been a great adventure by any number. But the transition from beginning to the present moment is from one lemon to the next, and the next. It was near the end of my teaching career I realized I had to reinvent myself; I wanted more from the next lemon than I had squeezed out of the one before. I’m still squeezing this life for all I can get. Every day is a new day and I want my face to be wrinkled up and puckered at day’s end. 

There are still strange places I want to see and places I want to go back again but what keeps me squeezing the life out of every day is neither a new experience nor a distant landscape. I catch myself sharing my secret for a good life; to always wear the hat you want to be remembered by. You never know who is watching you, who is paying attention; and nobody, none of us knows the number of our days. Wear the hat you want to be associated with and treat each day as if it were the only day. My party was a grand coming together of like minded people and I take great comfort in such good company. 

I REMEMBER

  I remember: I can remember when old people would begin every other sentence with, “I remember!” Without a job to eat up the day and little kids who need new shoes, time can hang heavy. The brain was never an empty slate waiting for a story but there was a time when our tires had lots of tread and the odometer number was small. The brain does a good job sorting out experiences and picking out what to remember and what to let go. Some have no value at all and go straight in the trash, others get tucked away like grocery receipts and get lost before you know they are gone. Some memories hang around but lose their way when they go unremembered for too long. Then there are long term memories like books on the shelf, story after story at your fingertips. Sometimes you have to go find it and other times the backstory finds you. I have lots  of experience (years & years), breathing in and breathing out, stuff happens and over decades you remember first and notice how the world has changed, everything changes and I remember how it was.
I remember when US-71 Hwy. passed through Hickman Mills, Missouri, past the church we belonged to, past Albin’s Drive In where we hung out, cars backed into spaces around the drive with car-hops delivering cokes & fries. When all the slots were full the late-comers just cruised around and ‘round. The more I went to Albin’s the less I went to church. Decades later when US-71 was moved and widened the old highway was renamed Hickman Mills Dr. Then came I-435 and the Grandview Triangle, a convoluted 3-way interchange and US-71 was upgraded to I-49. Now, if you don’t know the exits by heart you can be well on your way to Wichita before you can get turned around. 
I still drive old 71 (Hickman Mills Dr.) just to avoid the crush on I-49. It snakes around below and between pillars of the GV Triangle, ending at a roundabout just up the hill from Albin’s. Maurice Albin died a long time ago, so have his two girls who I went to school with. The place doesn’t have a name now, just a tall, overgrown chainlink fence around it, parked full of old wrecked cars, trucks & boats, no signs of any activity when I go by. But I can remember when there was lots of activity. Late night if business was slow we could tell the car-hop we were broke and if he knew you (he knew me) old Albin would send out some food. He never kept track of how much or who owed him. That was the late 50’s. Everything was new, I was young and that’s what I remember. 
I remember the week before Xmas when I was 7 or 8. In the attic I discovered gifts we would open on Xmas morning, hidden in boxes and bags by my parents. I thought I had done something special. But to my surprise, opening presents on Xmas morning there were no surprises and I was disappointed. It was a good Life-Lesson and I still remember. 
I remember in 1959 at Fort Bragg, N.C., 82nd Airborne Jump School. We spent three weeks in preparation, lots of running and physical training, marching and running some more. Then there were hundreds of repetitions, putting the parachute on, hooking the static line onto the cable, shuffling to the door, jumping out, landing and rolling in the sand pit below the tower. One of many instructors were there to critique your technique (lots of cursing) and do it again. In all the training, after the guy ahead of you jumped you move up to the door, wait for the jumpmaster’s command to “Stand In The Door” and jump when he slaps you on the shoulder and shouts (GO!).  The worst thing ever would be to freeze in the door, not jump. I had so many leaps from the mock-up I knew I would not freeze in the door. 
The day we made our first real jump it went just like all of the practice except the parachute and the airplane were real. We flew around for half an hour then, just like training; Stand up! We stood up and faced the back of the plane. Check your equipment! We checked our buckles and straps and then the back of the parachute for the guy in front of us. Hook up! Hooked our static lines to the cable. After a few minutes of bumpy air the green light came on and the line started moving. I got my first good look at the door with two guys in front of me. The guy in the door stood there waiting for the shoulder slap and GO! but the jumpmaster was busy with both hands, pulling static lines back out of the way. There was no command; he swung his foot up onto the jumpers ass, kicked him out the door and motioned the guy in front of me up to the door. I was dumbfounded. When he did the same, foot in the ass trick I knew I wasn’t going to stand there and get kicked out the door. Too many practice jumps, too many pushups, too much running for some guy I didn’t even know his name, to kick me out the door. It was my turn and he motioned me forward but I didn’t stop, I just ran out the door before he could move his foot off the floor. My parachute opened just like it was supposed to and I felt smug about it. Over the next two years I made 24 static line jumps and never stopped at the door. I remember that. 

TONGUE & TOOTH

  In my mouth on the bottom left, the big molar tooth at the back, that would be #17; mine is gone. It worked for a long time but then it got a crack in one of its roots and my dentist made it go away. The gum healed nicely but there is an irregular recess there. Without permission my tongue goes back to that molar-footprint as if checking to be sure it hasn’t come back. It’s not that different from reaching to my nose. I was trained to keep my fingers away from my nose, must be a boy thing so when my hand goes there spontaneously I notice and redirect my reach to the bridge of my nose and adjust my glasses. 
I have another unauthorized behavior if you can call it that. My mind takes me to a familiar place but not one I want to revisit. When I am writing in particular, by association or habit or impulse I default to the religion I grew up with. My parents were devout Christians. My mom had a difficult upbringing where she was befriended my Mormons and would have preferred to follow that tradition. My dad was unchurched but open to the idea except he had a strong bias against the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Their compromise was joining a nondenominational Community Christian Church. That, along with my family’s practice made up my religious experience. It was middle of the road mainstream church but without any evangelical, fall-down-Hoot-and-Holler behavior as my dad wasn’t buying that hyperbole either. 
At my ripe age it has been a very long time since I gave up on their mild-mannered religion. Both of my brothers fell away early on but I didn’t. If I had to defend that reluctance it would be for the sake of pleasing my parents. From the get-go my faith was thin with doubt and that only compounded. I didn’t like controversy or disapproval so going through the motions was an easy adaptation. Later, living far away when my kids were little I didn’t have to pretend and I couldn’t go along with the hocus-pocus stuff they were getting at church. I had no problem with just walking away and not looking back but it’s like any habit. All that redundant behavior for so long has residual effects. 
I have neither doubts nor reservations about my system of unbelief. I’ve weighed and measured it from every direction with an open-ended a mind as I am capable. The fact that I keep falling back on that story, I believe, is an expression of disappointment for so many wasted years at that spiritual dead end. My devout friends think that God is still tugging at me but I wouldn’t expect anything less from them. I realize that true believers can benefit from their religious experience but I also realize it is tantamount to a self induced, psychological drug. It satisfied a primitive need to offset anxiety and ignorance in a dangerous, paleolithic world. Likewise, if one still needs that fix in the modern-day then they should have it. If it only functions to facilitate inclusion in a comfortable, social community then they should be able to have that too. 
My mindset neither wants nor needs persuasion to believe something that is so clearly unbelievable. When my tongue & tooth reaction defaults to uncomfortable reflection on that long suffering, wasted time in the medieval myth it is like eating peanuts; hard to stop. Hopefully my subconscious itch will go the way of tooth #17. I could spin off into the way human nature runs on outdated software and fills in the gaps with ‘monkey-see monkey-do’. That’s what I have been doing, exactly what I want to cull out of my system.  

NOT FOR SISSIES

  In the past when traveling I lived out of the camper shell on my pickup truck. Any inconvenience was offset by its affordability. On the road, I spent many if not most nights at truck-stop travel centers where every need could be satisfied. As much and often as I was on the road I had friends along the way who, like the Glen Campbell song, (let me leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind the couch.) But the combination of age and miles (on both me and the truck) begged for something more user friendly. Climbing in and out over the tailgate had always been (easy-peasy) but the knee bumping and slippery footing on the bumper reminded me that I break easier and mend slower than when I was in my 70’s. I knew someday I would feel the (age) element but feeling the age was already old news. 
I decided to change vehicles as the truck was still running great but approaching 200,000 miles I didn’t want to get caught holding the bag with expensive repairs. The 7 passenger van I now have is newer with fewer miles and it runs like it was designed to run; built for soccer-moms to haul kids and transport groceries but not so much for 500-700 miles a day, living out of the back. With seats removed the side doors and a hatchback are convenient. The controls are arranged nicely, everything works and I can heat & cool the back. But it drives awful and gas mileage is disappointing. 
The owners manual says I can tow a small utility trailer but I don’t trust it, so I haven’t installed a hitch and most likely will not. So it’s borrow or rent a truck to haul stuff, something I took for granted but it is too late now to reconcile. I can still stop at truck stops but I’m traveling less which sort of defeats the purpose.
I read a Betty Davis quote on a plaque at a Cracker Barrel gift shop; ‘Old age isn’t for sissies.’  But people don’t need a movie star to tell them. It’s the elephant in the room; if it isn’t leaning on you it’s easy not to notice. When they took my keys and gave them to a new hire I noticed the elephant. I didn’t have to be told; reinvent yourself. It’s never too late to begin again. So now, 23 years later I’m about to begin again. If I don’t change to fit my new normal I’ll dry up and blow away. My house used to be a friendly refuge. Now it feels more a burden than an asset. For all the years in this house I’ve accumulated way-too-much stuff and I would throw most of it away if I had a way to haul it off and a place to dump it. Crazy; now it seems it will cost more to get rid of it than it cost to begin with. 
This kind of age related anxiety is understandable. You don’t want to leave a mess behind for somebody else to clean up. It can make one feel, if not helpless then certainly inadequate. I understand that you don’t get over growing old, the only way is to get through it. Living long enough to deal with growing old is way-better than the alternative. I have a big birthday party coming up in a few weeks. Everybody will be there to help me celebrate 30,260 wake-ups. So I must be good for something. 
I’ll have to change my travel habits and spend more on comfort and convenience but it is what it is. If I want to keep going I have to do what works. Ive scrolled through hundreds of Growing Old quotes and the only one that really resonates with me comes from a woman I never heard of, a 1977 Nobel Laureate scientist named Rosalyn Yalow. Taking some creative license I have substituted a couple of my own words and made the statement my own. That would be; “The Joy of Discovery separates youth from old age. As long as you’re learning you’re not old.” In that context I would prefer to die young after several thousand more wake-ups. 

STILL NOT DEAD AGAIN

Every so often I think about Andy Rooney; passed away a dozen years ago at 92. He was spontaneous and irreverent on the CBS show, 60 Minutes. I’ll not eulogize him here, it’s enough now to just remember and imagine what he would say about our civilized, self-inflicted folly. Thank you Andy for the good times.

I use my smartphone as an alarm clock, set it to go off at 6:00 a.m. and again every five minutes until 6:20. The first alarm confirms that it is a new day, that I have survived the night and get another go-‘round. My body moves without permission and I get my bearings sitting up, my feet hanging over the side, eyes open but not seeing so well just yet. More often than not I frame an unspoken, unaddressed “I’m so thankful” and send it off into the universe: like Willie Nelson singing, “I woke up still not dead again today.” 

This morning at the 2nd or 3rd alarm I was remembering a misadventure from the day before at Walmart. I needed fresh vegetables and juice but this time of summer it’s hard to resist fresh corn. Two women were inspecting ears of corn, peeling back layers of husk and tossing the half scalped roasting ear back onto the pile. I may have condescended in my tone but I wasn’t being judgmental, just curious, “Why are you doing that?” The lady gave me a cold stare and said she was looking for fresh corn. I asked, “How will you know the fresh from the stale?” She was upset that I had challenged her and maybe didn’t know just why she was doing what she was doing. “What is it about one ear that makes it OK and the next one not OK?” Before she could tell me to go to hell I shared with her that nature has packaged corn perfectly. The husks keep it fresh and protect it so it can take bumps and thumps. Wormy corn may happen in your garden but farmers have resistant varieties and chemicals to deal with worms. Peeling back the husk and returning it to the bin is like trying on clothes in the fitting room and tearing off a pocket before returning it to the rack.         

With corn in the husk, 2-3 minutes in the microwave, no hot kitchen, no dirty dishes. The silk comes off easy, just peel, butter and eat; use the peeled back husk and stem for a handle as it may be too hot for your fingers. I didn’t share that good news, she was not in the mood. I didn’t wait for her reaction but I wondered if Andy might have given me a thumbs-up. 

Moving on I noticed a lady with two little kids (one in the cart and  one following on a leash). Her tattoo came down, hanging out from under her shorts, around her thigh and fizzled out on her calf. If it had been vines and flowers I would have ‘gotten it’ but her idea of body-art left me in a quandary. It was a bunch of straight and crooked lines and a few words too small to read. In the peace-time army of the early 1960’s there was none of that ‘thank you for your service’ stuff and parents called their daughters inside when we came around. 

Drunks returning to the barracks after a late night drinking session were often met with an insult; “Hey dude, you look like you’ve been shot at and missed but sh*t at and hit.” There would be some cursing, the drunks pass out fully dressed on their beds and it’s quiet again. Every time I notice an unrecognizable Walmart tattoo, the “Shot at and missed” phrase comes to mind. I have nothing against body art. My dad had an eagle on his chest and both arms full but I never thought more of it than of his mustache or curly hair. In my impulsive youth I kept still long enough to get inked but the image is small and strategically located so nobody sees it. By now the ink is so old, the flesh tone is all gone and it has blurred beyond recognition. I could get away with saying it is a birthmark. 

I wake up thinking about other things too. I was on the road last winter needing an oil change. In Albuquerque I scheduled an appointment at a local Dodge dealership. As I was turning my keys over to the service rep. I asked, “What exactly will I be charged for?” First he mentioned a diagnostic analysis and went into the long list of filters, sensors and switches. “Wait a minute.” I said, “I didn’t come here for a diagnostic exam. How much does that cost?” He didn’t look up, “Ninety two dollars.” What would Andy Rooney say? “I don’t think so, not me, not here today.” He explained: “That is how we do it, to guarantee nothing else needs repair.” I said, “Maybe; but that’s not how I do it.” The man behind the counter was not impressed, “That is our policy and I cannot add to or delete from the package.” I didn’t have to be prompted; “Then I will take my chances when I get to Amarillo.” and picked my keys up off the counter. Waking up is always an adventure; with a little luck I’ll wake up still not dead again tomorrow.