DON'T GO AWAY; I'LL GET BACK

  I sent a birthday card, it’s been a long time, can’t remember when but it was a small card and I started a personal note in the blank fold on the inside facing page. When I realized there wasn’t space to finish I wrote smaller. Then I wrote in the margins until I finally had to unfold the card itself and write on the reverse side of the card. I think that is how memory works. When you fill it up after so many years, memories overlap and run together for lack of space. It’s like digging in a laundry basket, looking for the missing sock. Back when Radio Shack was the computer store and Tandy was the brand name, when you hit the run-button on a seemingly complicated task it would default to a blank screen with a flashing green cursor. In computer-speak that meant “I’m busy working on the task you just gave me. Don’t go away, I’ll get back to you when I have what you asked for.”  After what seems to be sufficient time you question if it’s really working or stuck at a dead-end in a glitch. 
I am part of a coffee klatch, six of us meet mid morning at a noisy shop twice a week. Needless to say we are all retired. One couple, married to each other but his 3rd go-round and her 5th; he was a petroleum engineer, spent years in the Meddle East and she a photographer, landlord and I don't know what else. She is the only one without a graduate degree, any college for that matter but belongs to Mensa International (High IQ Society). She never flaunts it but when prompted, she thinks college would have been a waste of time for her, work hard - work smart is all you need. He is an incredibly deep well of reliable knowledge, current events, politics, history, etc. like his wife, he will tactfully correct errors but doesn’t condescend; really a good guy. Another lady is retired, like the rest of us. Formerly am Editor for a suburban, Wisconsin news paper, she is fun, a good listener, good in conversation, divorced with an edgy dash of humor toward her former husband and men in general (but she forgives us) and hates bad grammar. 
The man who recruited the rest of us to form a coffee klatch was curator at the State Museum of Natural History in another state. After his wife passed he did’t care for the big group we had belonged to for years and wanted to hang out with a small group of his closer friends, another really good guy. The rest of us  still hang out with the big group's Friday meet-up but it makes us butterflies of the coffee klatch kingdom. Number #5 is a retired nurse (educator) happily divorced. She is well versed, listens closely and contributes if and when she thinks it adds to the morning’s business. I like her, think she is the catalyst for the group. Then there is me. An old biology teacher but I have nearly a quarter century of reinventing myself and wanderlust to factor into my profile since retiring and I don’t know really how they measure my identity. They miss me when I’m not there and I take that as a good omen. 

Yesterday early evening we met at a small, local, authentic, Italian restaurant to break bread. It was half-price pizza night and I would have pizza. In making a distinction, I am the only one (I think) who feels more comfortable with paper napkins and one fork. My blue collar roots run deep and I notice when I’ve been bumped up the social ladder. My companions drank wine or beer and I instinctively stayed with water. On second thought with pizza, beer sounded good and I wanted to change my order. I was unfamiliar with their brands or style of beer and struggled with my order. When I do drink beer I order a Mexican brew. It was a no-brainer; they’re not going to stock Mexican beer in an upscale, Italian restaurant where everything on the menu is printed in Italian. In the moment I could not remember the name of my favorite beer. I couldn’t think of any Mexican beer by name. So my friends and the waitress helped me choose from the menu. When served I declined a glass in favor of the bottle. Of course, wine from a glass but beer would be from a bottle. 
Waiting for our order is part of the experience. Our conversation touched on a mutual acquaintance, a politically active woman who recently complained about homeless people sleeping outside, demonstrating in public places. When the Supreme Court recently took up a case against sleeping outside in public she concluded it would criminalize being homeless. Her opinion did a 180 turn around. Then our discussion turned to how easy it would have been for any one of us to have ended up homeless, due to a single devastating event and random chance working against us, it could be us instead of them. Our Mensa Society member commented that our good fortune was remarkable. 
I get hung up on particular social issues and responded, “Yes” I said, “but we had White Privilege on our side.” She thought about it, shook her head and said she didn’t think so, at least not on her part. I sensed by her tone and body language, she thought her ‘harder-smarter’ history had circumvented any white privilege she might have otherwise enjoyed. I remembered the same train of thought had been rebuffed: The very first white privilege we all experienced was probably the prenatal care our mother’s received while we were still in the womb. If one cares, the research is both compelling and easy to find. It’s not what comes to mind first when grappling with injustice but it certainly is real and it’s just one example. Opportunity in education, economics, health care, housing and cultural benefits simply exist more frequently and to greater extent for white people than people of color; significantly so. It is so integrated into the greater culture, so ubiquitous that we, the privileged, enjoy it as the norm without questioning its value or the cause. For one of us around that table to think we didn’t benefit from systematic, cultural bias was too much to digest. When the subject comes up we  slip into a form of benign denial. In the U.S.A., culture demands we earn our keep. We must deserve any and all success that we experience; the Puritan Work Ethic. Even if the work ethic is buried in layers of hypocrisy, we still want to take credit for every good thing that falls our way. So we make believe our passive connection to white privilege does not apply. 
The group really didn’t want to dig in that hole and no surprise, we moved on to a new topic. My pizza was just so-so but the beer was good. It made the pizza go down so much better. On my way to the car it came to me unannounced, the blinking green cursor on my subconscious monitor stopped blinking and from a deep synapse I was informed; “Corona; the Mexican beer you wanted me to remember is Corona.”

DESPOTS

  It only took a dozen years but I watched the final episode of The Hunger Games last night. Seventy-some years after a civil war, the oppressed underclass revolts against the ruler and a privileged upperclass. The only way to endure over 8 hours of screen time is that you know in the end the good guys win. The diabolical President holds out with his ruthless, vindictive schemes until he is killed in the end. His successor (a rebel) with her cadre of dedicated rebel followers replicate the same oppressive, dystopian government in reverse. The former, privileged, ruling class will be subjected to the same transgressions that sparked the rebellion. The heroine realized in the end that she had been manipulated by the devious new President’s promise of democracy and egalitarian rule. When The MockingJay is designated to execute (Bow & Arrow) the old President she kills the new President instead and the mob kills the old President. Then a good leader emerges, the sun comes out and it’s a happy ending for everyone. 
I like it when the good guys win. But even a long story on the big screen comes to an end but stories don’t end, movies end but stories keep unfolding with new characters and an evolving plot. It’s just a movie, one adventure in a larger story. Looking back all through the miniseries, President Snow (the evil schemer) grew more evil and more treacherous as his options died on the vine and he felt his grip slipping away. Donald Sutherland (Canadian actor) played President Snow. His appearance and demeanor made him appear as a warm and caring, fatherly figure but sooner or later everyone figures him out. Ultimately, with convincing bullshit, he justifies why the underclass must suffer an unthinkable,  devastating sacrifice in order for him to be (God) if you will and his tunnel vision, self righteous followers to live comfortably in that myth. 
When I was a little kid I peed on an electric fence, not knowing. The consequence was instantaneous. My experience with the movie was similar just in in slow motion. Sutherland’s character role modeled the Donald Trump stereotype. Narcissists around the world share the same self obsessed fixation but if they lack the means to suffer it upon the rest of the world, who cares. We all know a narcissist or two but we manage to avoid their insanity. However, if one falls into that niche (sinfully rich, powerful and omnipotent without a conscience) those despots and demagogues become world leaders. Vladimir Putin has the Russians eating out of his hand as he plunders Ukraine, making Russia great again. Hitler had Germans by the millions, signaling the Nazi salute as he attacked the Jewish problem. Cast from the same mold, Donald Trump takes aim on everyone who is not a white supremacist, an evangelical bigot, Misogynist, racist, self righteous nationalist or conspiracy addict. With seventy million voting admirers who think DT is God’s gift then he might as well be. The glaring weakness in a democracy is that voters can elect terrible, horrible leaders and the country is stuck with them. 
At the end of the movie you feel good but then it’s a movie. The real despots and demagogue leaders are like weeds in the flower bed. When you’ve pulled them all, a dandelion sprouts up underfoot and before you can uproot it another one pops up in its shadow. Trump bigots don’t surprise me. I just thought it would happen some other place, not here, not so soon. I don’t pick on him here in this blog often, no point. His loyal supporters won’t raise an eye lid. They can’t remember World War II.  Hitler comes off as a poor loser rather than a monster and we won it anyway. They want to make America Great Again, like it was when lynching blacks, beating your wife was legal and isolating people of color in ghettos was the rule. But watching the conclusion of The Hunger Games sort of set me off and see what that gets you. But I feel a little better getting it off my chest. 

HOLY MOLEY

  My Friday morning coffee group is made up of either members or friends of All Souls Unitarian/Universalist Church in Kansas City; that’s a mouthful. It’s not uncommon for people to confuse us with Unity, a left leaning, liberal, Christian denomination and though we do lean left and favor hard won knowledge over medieval mythology, we do not practice Christian religion. If we need a label it would be Secular Humanists. I can’t recall the source but I’m sure it has Buddhist roots, it goes; Whether or not there is a god at all is irrelevant. We are born with everything we need to live in peace and serve the greater good. In this coffee group our spiritual fingerprints can range from that of aggressive, hardshell atheists to passive disbelievers to simple unbelievers and agnostics, then come the philosophical agnostics and people who don’t like labels and balk at all of the ‘Come to Jesus’ hyperbole. Talk is cheap; we try to focus on what we do. What one truly believes is like cream in a jar, it comes to the top.
Yesterday (at coffee) one of our more aggressive atheists was chewing on a bone, that our minister was using the Big G (god) word and alluding to biblical wisdom way too much and it was not only inappropriate but offensive. How are you supposed to practice your atheist faith with all of that distraction. Me, on the other hand, I don't think of myself as an atheist rather, one of those philosophical agnostics. I don’t know and I don’t care. To my knowledge, no one has ever proven or disproved the God conundrum. I learned that the lack of compelling evidence does not prove anything. That was Bertrand Russell’s argument when debating his Christian adversaries in the late 1800’s. “In theory I am an agnostic but I go about my life with the atheists.” Leaning on Russell I feel like I am in good company. 
I make the distinction between unbelief and disbelief. I don’t believe because I have no reason to believe. It’s not an (Either, Or) but simply a vacant space. All logic and effort to find cause has failed so far and enough is enough. I don’t believe and I don’t care. Disbelief is simply belief turned upside down. It is a negative premise, predicated on the same emotional need that drives others to belief, some kind of direct or vicarious experience that creates an insatiable appetite to validate something that cannot be validated. Rather than keep digging in that bottomless hole I concur with Rhett Butler's rebuff of Scarlett O'Hara,(Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh); Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. 
Next time we will chew on a different bone and I will try to stay out of it. But when someone asks what I think, that old ‘Gone With The Wind’ quote doesn’t satisfy anybody. We, (Unitarians) pride ourselves on being tolerant with a high value on diversity but truth be known, sometimes we are neither, sounding more like upside down Pentecostals, more concerned about seizing the moment than turning the page. In the movie, ‘Grumpy Old Men’ when, from his bedroom window in the middle of the night, Walter Matthau first sees Ann Margaret on her snowmobile with her long hair and he mutters; “Holy Moley”. I don’t think he was sanctifying a righteous dude named Moley. Joseph Campbell said, “God is a metaphor to which we attribute everything profound and mysterious that we cannot comprehend, God must have done it.” (a metaphor). When I spit out an O.M.G. I am not claiming the big G. We take lots of liberties with religious language that resonates a secular if not condescending lack of piety. I know a guy who, when truly amazed, falls back on, “Jesus @%#king Christ!” and we all know he’s not preaching. So when our minister prefaces a humanist idea with something out of the bible, I understand and I take it for what it is. I’m really trying to be tolerant and appreciate the diverse nature of all things, temporal and spiritual. But ‘Spiritual’ is another loaded word for my hard-shell atheist amigos and I’m not up to another philosophical disclaimer. Holy Moley after all. 

LIKE A LAWNMOWER

  I’m not saying the World (Civilization) is worse and getting worser; all I’m  trying to say is that this world (planet) isn’t getting any bigger. Still, for the last few hundred years especially, Human population has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. Something to think about: world population was about 700 million people (six zeros after the 700) at the start of the Industrial Revolution (1750 CE) or Ebenezer Scrooge, factories. heavy machinery and wholesale burning of fossil fuel. After another 250 years (Now) population has surpassed 8 billion (nine zeros after the 8) an increase of about 1,040.% from then to now; a mind boggling gain in just 250 years. In the 240 years before factories and fossil fuels (1500 CE) Christopher Columbus, world population increased by about 450 million or 55.%. In the previous 250 years before Columbus, that would be (Marco Polo), world population increased by only about 50 million or 12.%. I see a pattern developing? For tens of thousands of years, human population gains using arbitrary 250 year increments were relatively modest. From 12% to 55% in two and a half centuries is significant but from that to over 1,000% in the next period is absolutely mind boggling.  
If you plot human population out on a proper line graph you get a gentle slope (increase) over thousands of years, until civilization shifts  into the Industrial Revolution. After that, the line takes a steep angle upward in what is described as a population ‘Spike’. Since people first started collecting data and plotting graphs, it has been accepted universally that the spike itself is unsustainable. One way or another there will be a significant correction (die off) that reduces the species to a sustainable number with the possibility of extinction. We have been caught up in a population spike for the past 250 years, brought on largely by our own collective ignorance and tunnel vision greed. The ‘Crash’ can come in the form of a cataclysmic catastrophe, pandemic, meteor strike, etc. or take several/many generations. When breeding adults become scattered or so few they can’t find each other the writing is on the wall. The process is arbitrary, does not recognize the Gregorian calendar or a human lifespan; no one in charge and the numbers do not play favorites. 
So why am I detailing such an obvious flaw in the human psyche? For one thing, people do not behave the same way in large groups like nationality, (kill the stranger) as they might  in small, familial groups (feed the stranger and see what we can learn). Immersed in a large, cultural construct it is nearly impossible to resist the tide of conformance. Being different is asking for trouble and people generally act accordingly. 
There is a great line from a movie (I’ve forgotten its name) where the Director of the CIA is being chastised by his superior for an unforgivable blunder. He says, “You’ve been given a Maserati (an expensive, high performance car) and you treated it like a lawnmower.” It was a warning if not a threat; if you can’t fix the problem it will come back on you. I make the obvious corollary; “We’ve evolved a wonderful mind but we treat it like a penis, play with it like a toy and think ourselves great thinkers and problem solvers when we pee downwind. For hundreds if not thousands of years, civilization has burned the candle at both ends, breaking natural rules in a quest for more material wealth and more power than we need. Dr. Robert Sapolsky (Stanford Univ.) neurologist and primatologist observed: “Male baboons are extremely violent in defense of their harems and territory and likewise in acquiring additional females and expanding their domain.” Then he adds, “The most common cause of death among male baboons is male baboons.” I get it. 
I love this self awareness and creative, problem solving nature with its language and collaboration. But they come with the warning; don’t treat it like a lawnmower. Not from a movie, rather an observation on human nature; Two passengers in an airplane flying over a wilderness. One, the smartest man alive and the other an illiterate laborer. The pilot has them secure seat belts, engine trouble, may have to ditch. The smartest person in the world asks, “Are there any parachutes?” The pilot tells him “Yes, there is one in the gear locker back by the door.” The smartest man on earth is not about to take a chance with the laborer who surely must be thinking the same thing and runs back to the locker, puts on the parachute and jumps out. The pilot feels the plane respond to the open door and wants to know what is going on. The illiterate guy answers; “The smartest guy on earth just jumped out with my backpack full of dirty laundry.” People, even me, we think that we think and it's a powerful feeling. I hate to admit, but I suspect that having the 'think we think' suspicion gives me an edge. But I have no idea what to do with it. 
I’m afraid the Barons of Business and Lords of Government all qualify as the smartest guys onboard with their contingency plans stowed away in a locker near the exit and we (the masses) we pick one of them to follow, like sheep, nose to butt with the next sheep in line. Most sheeple believe in a mysterious, supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient, angry, loving, self righteous god who punishes and rewards people as he sees fit. I was raised to believe that myth but it didn’t take. I’m lucky to be out from under that yoke. I enjoy the benefits that I have been afforded and both the affection and loyalty of friends and family. I’m not trying to make the world a better place or take more than my share, just treat people the way I want to be treated and also treat my lawnmower like the marvelous vehicle that it is. At the bottom of it all, I just don’t want to be lumped in accidentally with ultra-ego-inteligencia who see no downside from spending my grandchildren’s future for a profitable bump in the GDP. 

WITH A LITTLE LUCK

My Grandpa lived with us, with a few intermittent gaps, from about 1947 to his passing in 1961. In my lifetime he worked at Union Station (Railroad) In Kansas City, moving baggage carts to and from the trains. Roy A. Porter was neither a good husband nor a good father. My mother was next to oldest with five brothers. Her mother was a frail, sickly woman who required at least as much nurture as she was able to provide and my mom filled two roles, big sister and surrogate mother. In the 1920’s, Roy left his family for long periods on sketchy schemes that never panned out. The money he was supposed to send home never met their need and they survived on charity. 
My parents courted for a year before they married in 1930. Roy refused his permission and threatened my dad. Mom was savvy to his bad behavior all of her life and called his bluff. She told him if he would not sign for her to marry that she didn’t need his permission to get pregnant and he could add another mouth to feed at their table. My grandpa lost that battle and signed the paper. That netted a thin, troubled truce between may dad and the old rounder. Grandma Lottie died in her sleep in early ’46. By the fall of ’47 Roy couldn’t maintain a residence by himself and couldn’t draw social security yet. My mom Dorothy negotiated a deal with him to a live with us, all of it on her terms. He didn’t like being outranked by his daughter and her husband who never liked him to begin with. He had always been able to have his way but not any more and his pride was bruised beyond repair. It was either our back, upstairs bedroom or live in his car. 
I was 9 at the time. My brothers were 12 and 3, neither particularly interested in Grandpa but the two of us  grew a different kind of kinship. Mom called him ‘Papa’ but my dad wasn’t about to call him anything that familial. He just called him by his name, Roy. We learned early on that the old man liked be recognized in the morning; “Good morning Grandpa.” to which he would reply in kind. One day I greeted him with, “Good morning Roy.” He was taken aback, paused and replied, “Good morning Bub.” and went on about his business. His rank in that house was #3 and I don’t think he wanted to make waves but he needed to save face, even with a 9-year old. From then on I called him by name, Roy and he called me Bub; as if it were an insult but time has a way of softening insults. If any of us other than my dad tried to call him Roy he would correct them, with an implied “and don’t forget it.” My bothers and cousins wanted to know why I got to call him Roy but their interest waned and it became the norm. One way or another, between the two of us, I had risen to his rank or he had dropped to mine. I paid attention to him, found it entertaining and educational as well to ask him provocative questions like where he got his calendar with a naked lady for every month and then punctuate my leverage with, “I like February best.” We talked about planting trees and bird poop on his windshield; I never was his equal but certainly enjoyed privilege and tolerance that we kept between us. In a few years we had enough dirt on each other to explode the family. We both felt safe indulging in unauthorized activity, knowing neither would not betray the other. When I went too far teasing or taking liberties that even I couldn’t get away with, I let him catch me and give me swats which was absolutely against my mother’s rules. I knew where he kept his booze and ‘Girlie’ magazines which were not supposed to be on the property either. We manifest our own brand of (Honor among thieves).
I asked him about his alcohol consumption and sex and he would put me off. I kept on with the questions until he gave up, gave me something he thought I would believe and we kept each other’s secrets. He had women friends come to our house with him sometimes, just to prove he had a family and a roof over his head. I asked him if he used ‘rubbers’ and he would fake anger but his growling and disapproval was mostly camouflaged laughter. For a decade we were like spies in our own house. In the Army I was home on leave before shipping out for Okinawa in 1960, found him with two of my uncles, drinking wine. I asked if he had been getting any and he shot straight back with his own question. “How ‘bout you, you been getting any?” I told him I was, so much that I had to start taking naps in the afternoon. He laughed and slapped his leg, offered me the bottle. That was the last time I saw him alive. He failed at everything that called for taking care of family but he appreciated having a #4 who he outranked. Beyond that we had bent and broken rules, unforgivable as it was, we didn’t care. 
In 1961 he was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack when he had several more, one after another and at 75 his body gave up. I am anticipating my 85th birthday this summer and wonder how Roy would have navigated the 1960’s, another decade with its hippie culture, free love and smoking weed. I was an adrenaline junkie and never took comfort in the hippie experience. I didn’t approve but then neither did I judge. I was too busy with my own business. Here I am remembering my grandpa and the lessons I learned in his shadow. They say that as long as someone remembers your name and your smile, part of you remains. DNA is in there as well but we tend to value the conscious, memory link. I’m just feeling a little nostalgic. Whatever one’s place in time you want it to fit, and with luck to feel good.