EVEN LITTLE BIRDS KNOW

  I don’t remember exactly when but I must have been in Junior High, my grandpa lived with us. He was a cranky old man who kept to himself but we had an unspoken trust, what went on between us stayed between us. One day in the fall I came outside as he was coming around the corner of the house with a shovel and a bucket. I followed him to the middle of the front yard, asked what he was doing. There was some dirt in the bucket and a Maple whip (a small tree in its 1st or 2nd year with a single, unbranched trunk and a few leaves at the tip of its leader.) He was going to plant it.
He had me uncoil the garden hose at the corner of the house and drag it to he spot he had started digging. I asked questions and ran water into the hole then watched him nest the taproot into the mud at the bottom. He held the whip steady while I started back-filling dirt into the hole. We let the water trickle into the loose soil long enough for me to learn; “Planting a tree is always a good thing and the fall is the best time for it.” The house is still there, I don’t know who lives there but after 70 years, when I drive by the old place I see the tree is still making afternoon shade on the front porch. 
In the early 90’s I was a resource teacher at an Environmental Magnet Middle School and read an article that said; “People who have a keen sense of appreciation for nature and the environment can usually trace it back to a childhood experience that was shared with an elder role model.” That Maple whip was the first tree I ever helped plant and my grandpa and I did it together. 

        My job was infusing the environmental theme with plant science. I had a greenhouse and a lab where teachers brought their students for hands-on activities. We did lots of tip cuttings and seed plantings in paper cups with follow up to measure the seedling’s progress and took field trips to identify trees by their leaves. Before I got that assignment my biology had always favored animals. But the more one learns about any aspect of nature the more it draws you in. The chemistry of photosynthesis is complicated but it can be modeled with toothpicks and miniature marshmallows and we did that in small groups of 2 or 3. My plants vs. animals preference adapted considering that waste product of plants is the free oxygen we breathe and animal’s waste is - you know what cats try to bury and birds leave on your windshield. 
In the 1990’s Americans were polluting the environment at a record rate. Right wing politicians and big business knew what was happening but didn’t want to believe it. They stood to profit from irresponsible policy & practice and nothing would jeopardize those profits without a fight. In denial hey mocked and discredited researchers, called it a liberal hoax saying, “The sky is too big and there is too much water for us to do that.” and the threat of pollution had become a running joke. I was dismissed in my own family as a Tree-hugging, hippy, save-the-whales freak. After all, those plastic bottles and coal burning industry create jobs that drive the economy and corporate profit. We are still polluting at a record rate but everybody knows. Human nature is strange, they used to call cigarettes ‘coffin nails’ due to the cancer connection but millions keep on smoking. It’s no surprise that businesses that save money by polluting the air and water and land, they keep on doing it. 
John Muir was a pioneer naturalist in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s and instrumental in the formation of our National Parks system. He was quoted, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Out of sight-out of mind translates to, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Yet, that translates to, “Pay me now or pay me later.” Everything is connected, interconnected and the ‘Pay me later’ certainly will come around. When it does it may be too painful to bear. Even little birds know not to sh*t in their nest. 
I don’t know what my grandpa would think. His time was the 20th Century and suffered from the ‘Out of sight’ mentality. But he got the tree planting just right. In the 70+ years since we planted the Maple whip I have planted more trees than I can count. I like to think I would have grown to love and understand the nature of nature without my grandpa’s influence. 
I think about this stuff, I really do. If that makes me an old ‘save-the-whales’ freak then that’s alright. I do care about our Mother planet, especially the thin layer of air, land and sea that supports life. It is fragile, only about four miles thick and it’s the only place on earth where life can flourish. That’s not just human life but all life. Trees were here long before humans climbed down from the trees and started walking upright and trees will still be here when there are no more people. Thanks again Grandpa.

I GUESS IT DOESN'T MATTER

  I have deleted so much from so many unfinished written pieces I can’t remember what has survived and what was dumped without a second thought. Sometimes just framing the language meets the need to write. If nothing else it’s therapeutic.

                                   *    *    *    *    *

I don’t do this very often but this will be one of those times. I am rewriting my last blog post. So it’s a different piece of work even though it deals with the same ideas. The idea I came up with originally isn’t bad but it feels a little fractured and I can do better. I have a fifty-ish friend about the age of my kids, we don’t always see things the same but it doesn’t get in the way. His backstory is wide and deep and he likes to think he knows all of the why’s and how’s of how his journey has shaped his personality, values, beliefs, etc. I like to think that the self-analysis task is a lot easier said than done. The human animal is hard wired to overestimate our own ability to read the tea leaves and connect the dots. That is the premiss that I began with. 
I introduced ‘Confabulation’, the unintentional creation of false or distorted memories to fill in the gaps in an incomplete memory. Those distorted memories are usually attributed to a medical condition (amnesia, dementia, etc.) but a healthy mind can also loose or misplace parts of a memory. The remembering part of the brain is subject to a constant stream of information and there has to be a way to sort out the irrelevant stuff and keep the rest. Even then the mind keeps sorting and deleting; short term memory. The point is; even though we pay attention a great amount of detail in a particular sequence of events is lost from memory. So said, even a healthy memory bank can lose things and the mind creates a fix like a patch on a flat tire; an alternate reflection. 
That remembering part of the brain is a lot like artificial intelligence (AI) software. Give it a story that is full of holes and it will fill in the holes with a plausible but fabricated substitute to complete the story. The person remembering has no reason to doubt the authenticity of the altered memory. A healthy case of Confabulation: If it doesn’t cause a problem then I guess it doesn’t matter. But I can connect the dots and understand that it is what it is. I am old enough there has been plenty of opportunity for my old mind to ‘Confab’ my backstory. I like to think I have a handle on how I got to be the present version of ‘Me’. But I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t trust memory to be perfect. Personality is a complicated soup and develops over time so whatever I am is what I’ve become, one day at a time rather than following a recipe (stir this stuff and then add that stuff and keep stirring).
I’ve been told that the lawyer who defends himself in court has a fool for a client. I would think the same thing for those believing they can solve the riddle of how they got to be the person they are. My friend has a cut & dry rationale for the way he picked and chose his way up to the present. I cannot even address that idea without leaving space for the thousands of individuals whose finger prints are all over my backstory. It’s not only what one chooses but also experiences they never experienced and nobody lives in a vacuum. Add to that, how does one factor random chance into their own destiny?
How did I get to be the person I am? As I remember, I trusted and loved my parents. I always wanted to please my mother and going to church made her happy. I didn’t have to believe anything, just sit still and drop my coin in the offering when it came by. As a young adult my sanctified enthusiasm fell way short of the mark but Mom was looking the other way. It wasn’t until college I learned to question tradition and value the discipline of science and critical analysis. I never thought of it as a major change in course but what did I know? Since then “God is the metaphor that transcends all levels of human comprehension.” (Joseph Campbell). Everything mysterious that we cannot understand is attributed to the metaphor. It came easy, swapping Faith for Good Karma. How it came about is not as important as the fact that it did.
I’ve never been attracted to tobacco or booze. My dad smoked cigarettes but Mom got him to quit and she would not allow booze of any kind in the house. How that low profile unfolded I don’t know.
As memory would have it a good friend and I sneaked cigarettes out of our dad’s smokes and puffed away under a bridge near his house. After a week or so I couldn’t ignore that I didn’t like the taste or the smell and the buzz from getting away with mischief wasn’t fun anymore. It never made me feel grown up or cool. I quit before I could learn to inhale, he didn’t. My friend died of lung cancer twenty years ago. Dun! Good story I suppose, just can’t be sure it’s all true. 
I can only remember being drunk three times, twice in the army and once shortly after I was discharged. What I do remember is being sick and the vomit part. Whatever sense of uninhibited bliss it provided it did not survive the edit. I sip a little wine with food now and an occasional shot of peach brandy but the memory of my head in the toilet, vomit coming out my nose is both powerful and real, too much so for it to be a confabulation.
Yuval Harari is a scholar/writer/historian, the source for one of my favorite quotes: “Whatever it is that you believe, it doesn’t have to be true; it just has to work.” How we get to be the person we see in the mirror, the person others see from afar; that story doesn’t have to be true but it does have to work, to serve a purpose that can be either a virtue or a vice.
I’m going to change the title of this blog post. If nobody notices then it doesn’t matter either. I haven’t received any death threats and my retirement check has never been late so I’ll just stay with what’s been working for all these years. 

TOES & SQUIRT

  It’s early on a rainy morning here so naturally it’s more dark than light but my alarm still goes off just like it should. At 6:30 it takes me a little while to get vertical, serviced, dressed and become functional. I was at the kitchen counter trying to get my morning pills out of the pill caddy without scattering them. That can be a challenge with warm weather and high humidity; they stick to the plastic and to each other. If I’m not careful the whole cache can end up rattling around on the counter top or even on the floor. Two pill caddies, morning and bedtime, they date back a dozen years and the snap-caps have lost their snap. Their lids pop open while I’m liberating the stuck-together pills and pills escape like puppies through a hole in the fence. All together, morning and night I take nine nutritional supplements and two prescriptions that I could do without but my doctor says, “Just take them.” This morning, that’s what I was doing. 
Wearing sandals, a T-shirt and shorts I felt something squirt on my ankle. I wasn’t ready for that, it was too early for a mystery and I was preoccupied with pills. There was nothing down there except for my feet. The squirt felt like water, I wiped it away with a paper towel and racked my brain for a reasonable explanation. There was none but the obvious next step was to shine a light on the dark floor and look. Nothing there except the floor and the cabinet but I looked again. 
There, in the kick-space below the cabinet and in front of the kick-board was a tan blob the color of the floor. I bent over to shine the light closer and it leapt out and under the table. It was a treefrog, in that had squirted on my ankle. I grabbed a plastic cup and tried to capture the little amphibian but it was too fast for me and after the third try I didn’t see where it landed and with due diligence I kept searching. It had to be down there somewhere but I had looked everywhere and I gave up. It was not an unwelcome intruder like a mouse or a snake so no ref flags. I wanted then, still do, want to get it back outside where it can flourish and survive. 
Thirty years ago in Michigan we had sliding glass doors that opened from the dining nook onto the patio. The dining table was the best place to grade papers and make lesson plans so I saw a lot of those doors. In late summer especially we had a pair of tree frogs that stationed themselves up on the outside of the glass door at night, feeding on insects attracted by the light from inside. One was larger than the other and they had names. The big one’s name was Toes and I can’t remember the little one. Life was good there in ’97 and the performing treefrogs made it even better.
I did some research on my little tan visitor and yes, they squirt a toxic spray in self defense. It’s enough to ward off predators but apparently not enough to damage me. (Dryophytes versicolor) or Gray Treefrog; they can also change color to blend in with the environment. Squirt, I’ll just call it Squirt; it was tan on the tan floor and probably threw me a curve by changing color. I have no idea how it got inside but I leave a night-light on over the kitchen window. I guess a fly might buzz the night-light but I doubt that Toes will be able to make a living in my kitchen. I’ll keep looking, see if I can come up with a better catch and release strategy. 
The treefrog thing segues into another conversation. I have neighbors across the street who keep cats. By definition they are feral (domesticated animals that revert to a wild state either directly or through their descendants). The people feed the cats but they live outside which in effect makes people the pets. My yard slopes up to the house with a southern exposure and the cats love to sun in my yard and on my driveway. They climb on and under my vehicles with casual familiarity, even explore inside my garage if the door is up. These cats are absolutely fearless. They know when to fight and when to run and just how close you can get before they move away. Even then they retreat at the same speed you are approaching, stop when you stop and you can’t stare them down or shout them away.
Every year in spring and fall we get one or more new litters of feral cats. In my neighborhood the mortality rate for feral kittens is high. But at any time I can see and recognize 6 or 8 of my neighbors cats, some young and some mature but there is a constant turnover with no change in the way they behave. I’m sure they capitalize on pet food left outside by other neighbors. They prey on mice and voles, snakes and stalk birds at feeders. Young squirrels in the spring are also prey, before they learn that cats can climb trees too. 
I tolerate feral cats but I welcome treefrogs wherever I find them. I would be disappointed to find the brittle little, bone dry remains of a treefrog somewhere in the house. Good luck Squirt and let me know if I can help you find the door. And: who said retirement would be boring?

SORRY 'BOUT THAT

  I cannot recall another mid-August when things here were so green. I just got back from a 12 day road trip and the grass in my yard was lush, no brown spots. By now the big cottonwood should have leaves turning yellow and falling for lack of rain but not this year. Yesterday I had to mow a second go-round to shred the dense layer of clippings that blanket the yard, a third time in some places. 
I’ve shared this before but still it’s what comes to mind; most of the folks I talk to suggest that travel is great but the day you get home is the best day of the trip. I don’t argue the point but neither do I agree. Pulling into the drive and reacquainting myself with the familiar is my least favorite day of a road trip. I have to agree that sleeping in my own bed is better than any other bed but that’s about beds. I’ll wake up in a strange new place with open ended anticipation that never strikes at home. 
One advantage of being on the road is that I don’t hear the news. My little-old truck has a good radio but I rarely listen to it and never the news. The truck is old enough it has a built in CD player and I have a dozen of my favorite albums in the sleeve on the sun visor. When I want company I can pick a CD. I believe the axiom, "Never say never." so I won’t say the news is never good but the odds in favor of good news on the news is 1:99; the 1% scored when someone beats cancer and rings the bell at the clinic. Then again, the odds in favor of a terrific song are 99:1 with the 1% scored to a damaged CD.

People talk to each other about the news and that is where my defense is thin. “What do you think about (such & such or this or that?) and I’m left hanging on a hook. I can say, “I don’t think about it.” and I share that feeling often but it just compounds the issue. Between politics and religion I don’t have much in common with anybody. I dreamt a dream last night where I had been embraced by Canada and it felt so good. I’m too old and lack resources to become a citizen there but the dream was sweet. 
In my homeland Democrats want to serve the underclass without disenfranchising the 1% by raising taxes and helping those who need a 2nd or even a 3rd chance which is no better than wishful thinking. Republicans want to protect both big business and the 1% by slashing their taxes at the expense of the working poor which is what they’ve been doing for the past 50 years. I don’t like either party or the way they go about their business but I vote for the Dems in self defense.  
Religion is just as ugly. Evangelicals have joined with political conservatives so completely they are like fingers on the same hand and they cannot undo the damage. It is an unholy alliance but I’ll not dig in that hole today. The idea of religious freedom has been transformed into self righteous authority. In the name of religious freedom we should all be free to worship or not worship as we please as long as it doesn’t violate other people’s freedom, my freedom, my body, another person’s body, my daughter’s body, etc. Historically more people have been murdered in God’s name than have been saved. The Sons of Abraham (Jews, Christians and Muslims) have been killing each other for thousands of years and all in the belief that they are the same God's chosen ones. In God’s name they kill their fellow believers to gain wealth and power. Something wrong here, with the believers or with their god. 
There I did it (Damn!) and I hate it when I do that. That’s what happens when I listen to the news or to someone who won’t shut up about the news. I got this piece off to a good start with road trips and lawn mowing. Then I fell off the cart, must have landed on my head and started venting: sorry ‘bout that. 

I TAKE MY CHANCES

  August 8; I am sitting in the air conditioned comfort of a study room in Ludington, Michigan’s public library. It’s hot outside. The weather app on my smartphone says it’s only 83 but it’s hot. Still, if you’ve got nothing to do but wait, no place in the shade to take cover then ‘Hot’ is about how you feel and not a number. I parked under a shade tree on a side street but that only lasts a while. Then I thought of the library and it’s really nice here. I’ve got a few hours to kill before they start loading the ferry for the evening run to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Badger is a big ship by anybody’s measure and the hold will accommodate (I don’t know how many) but it takes an hour to load all the cars and trucks. All the people ride topside with lots of deck space to walk and retreat to a huge lounge. There will be a running bingo game, game after game until we dock in Wisconsin. You get one card and the prizes are token trinkets but it’s more like meet & greet than serious bingo. We get a free hour as we cross the line between Eastern Daylight and Central Daylight time. So we dock around midnight central time and I’m not driving in the dark so I’ll find a corner of the parking lot and wait for sunup, get some zzzzzz’s. 
The concert last night was good. The concert crowd from Grand Rapids is a heady, middle age collection (my idea of middle age is 60+) and they favor artists and their music from the 80’s, 90’s and early 00’s. Mary Chapin Carpenter (I Feel Lucky) fit that niche perfectly with old favorites and stuff from a new (to be released) album. I have new hearing aids and they hear everything, maybe too well. I have trouble filtering out background noise and lots of the band showing-off makes lyrics difficult if not impossible to comprehend. I know, I know; if it’s too loud then I am too old. But the beauty of that generation was in the lyrics, they told a story and if I can’t follow the story then it may be wonderful but still, if the vocals are just other instruments making awesome noise then I should have spent my money on something else. She did one song solo with the band off stage and her magic is still there. 
Meijer Gardens Amphitheater is surrounded by residential neighborhoods and the city requires all concerts to end by 9:00 and I’m told they enforce that rule vigorously. In that case they will be paying a fine as the encore went well beyond the 9:00 hour. They finished with a flurry and left the stage but everybody knew we would get the encore. The song was “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” which is a pushback against male dominance and without missing a beat, within the chord structure of the first song they slid right into “I Take My Chances”. It was an 9 or 10 minute treat and I loved it. 
“Now some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate - And for them I can not disagree - But I never learned nothing from playing it safe - 
I say fate should not tempt me - I take my chances.”

Addendum: 8/10/25
Lake Michigan was windy with big waves and we were late into Manitowoc. The ferry offloads late every nigh and the local authorities don’t want unauthorized travelers hanging around, waiting for sunrise so there is a curfew. Nothing is open and the my only choice was to drive after dark. Fifty some miles up the road I found a truckstop that was open and I stopped for a long nap. Back on the road at 5:30 there was  just enough Gray-light to see up the road but still need headlights to be seen by others. 
Arriving at my son’s place near Saint Paul, Minnesota just in time to unload and go into Minneapolis. Yesterday was the first exhibition game for the NFL and the Vikings were playing the Texans; we had tickets and off we went. In a few words, none of us really wanted to sit through an NFL game for the sake of the game. Our seats were six rows from the top of the top level, looking almost straight down at players so far below you had trouble telling the color of their jerseys; so far we couldn’t see the football. We (my kids) wanted to be in the new stadium with the crowd and hype. Football is what it is and we like it when our team wins but going to a game is more like running with the bulls in Pamplona. Too loud, too far away to watch; without the jumbo screens at both ends of the field one wonders how far fools will go to brandish team colors and spend a ton of money. We enjoyed the game and left a few minutes before the half ended. Getting out of the parking lot and downtown was very easy; good lesson, if you want to escape the bumper to bumper crush, leave at half time. 
It is Sunday morning. We are going out for breakfast. I am still really clean and fresh from my shower last night and the sky is overcast (weather is cool). The world is a pretty good place as long as you don’t watch the news. 

GOOD KARMA

  I am in Kalamazoo, MI at a McDonald’s across from the bus station. At 7:10 a.m. people traveling by bus are coming in and out for coffee or an egg McMuffin. I’ve been approached several times by panhandlers hitting on everyone with a suitcase or a samdwocj. If my mother were here she would surely say: “There but for the grace of God go I.” I never embraced her religion but she was a righteous soul; never let me forget that this life is fragile and that being smart and working hard is not enough when you’ve  been dealt a bad hand. Yes, there but for the grace of good Karma, that could be me. 
I belong to a travel club where members offer up their spare room to strangers (fellow club members) who need an affordable place to sleep while on the road. Last night I stayed with a retired biology teacher and his wife. Their home is 98 years old, brick two story with arched doorways and mahogany woodwork. The stairway railing to upstairs was so massive and detailed I couldn’t help stroking it like a favorite pet. She had already left for the morning when I got up at 6:15 and he was sleeping in. There is no formal charge but it is understood to leave a $15 gratuity. That way you cover the cost of changing sheets with no records or bookwork. 
I can’t get over the people here. They all had a mother who probably loved them, had high hopes for their future and would have been crushed to see them now. Nobody sets out to be a failure and they make choices that at the time, feel like their best chance to succeed at whatever the day brings. Even though I’ve turned away from Christian faith there is wisdom scattered through the bible’s stories. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” If not for the thousands of other people’s finger prints on my story I might be panhandling here as well. 
The sun just popped out from clouds to the east and I’ll think of it as a good omen. I have stuff to do and I’ll get out on the road. The truck is running well and I’m not hungry yet. Good karma.

HATS OFF TO MEIIJER

  Wednesday, August 6; Hats off to Meijer Stores, particularly the one on Westnedge in Kalamazoo, MI. For anyone not fluent in Great Lakes culture, Fredrick Meijer was a contemporary of Sam Walton just upstream several states. Meijer Stores are basically the same dream-come-true as the Walmart Super Stores, just not spread outside the Great Lakes States. I am sitting in a section between the main entrance and the produce where 8 tables for two line the walls and a countertop with half-a-dozen stools. Add to that, electric outlets are plentiful. You won’t find that in any Walmart store I’ve ever been in. The Walton plan is all about shopping carts that are too big and moving customers through the checkout lanes as fast as possible. They certainly don’t want computer hacks like me hanging around with a drink and sandwich while writing or doing research or play games or work at keeping their journal up to date. I even had my choice of large or small push-carts, something else most Walmarts don’t like to see. 
I stayed in a $73 motel in Grand Rapids last night. I try not to pay money for time spent unconscious making motels a last resort. Two nights ago my power station (high tech battery pack) either lost its charge or I misread the meter and I woke up in the wee hours without the support of my c-pap machine. So I didn’t get much sleep and had to resort to that last resort last night. The power station took a full charge and looks good so I’ll try camping at the truckstop again in a few days. That will be in Ludington, MI.; have to be there early to board the ferry for a ride across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I don’t like driving unfamiliar roads in the dark and motels in Ludington are all well over the $100 toll. If I don’t get good rest at the truckstop I can nap on the ride across the lake. That’s my plan. Like any other plan I anticipate the possibility of life throwing me a curve, followed by reboot, adapt and update the new plan. 
Tomorrow night the MaRY Chapin Carpenter concert is still on in Grand Rapids. I’ll go back up the road I came down today. The gates open at 4:00 and my good company for this show won’t get there until just before the music starts so I’ll fix food for the cooler and stake out a good spot (lawn chairs) as soon as they let people in. The worst part of this trip is pulling in the driveway. But I’ve got a plan for September.