HORSE POOP

  I heard a story ever so long ago about twin siblings, one a naive, unrealistic optimist and the other an unreconcilable pessimist. The parents tried every strategy imaginable to move them both to a more balanced perspective. On their birthday their presents were wrapped in large, identical boxes. The pessimist twin was first to open the gift. In the large box was a beautiful, new bicycle with a bell on the handlebars and a headlight on the fender. He looked at it for what seemed like a long time and began to cry. When asked what was wrong he replied, “I’ll crash and get hurt and then someone will steal it from me.” and he continued crying. The other twin started tearing the wrapping away from his gift, pulled open the lid and began to laugh and shout with excitement. The box was full of horse poop. He threw it down and ran from room to room, looking behind things, then outside in every space around the house. When his parents finally cornered him they asked, “What are you doing; your present was poop, why are you so happy?” The little boy could hardly contain himself replying; “I’m looking for my new pony.” 
Then I went to college, made a career and watched my children grow up and move on. Somewhere on that journey I learned that life is a bitch and then you die but I also learned that when a door closes a window opens somewhere. I have no idea how one becomes an optimist or pessimist but I made the connection between hard/smart work and a reward. I also made the distinction between pushing the rock up the hill and being dragged along behind it. I learned that living in the moment cannot be sustained but it can be framed into a repeating pattern, which I have learned to do. I cannot pause, rewind and undo a troublesome backstory but I can look for an open window.
Eckart Tolle wrote a little book titled, The Power Of Now. I am neither a fan nor a critic of Eckhart Tolle but his little book speaks a profound truth. “Nothing ever happened in the past nor will anything happen in the future. Everything that happens, happens in the present, in the moment, in the Now!  When tomorrow or next year arrive, in that moment they will have been transformed into the Now.
There was no ‘Ah-ha’ experience but I got it. It is good to reflect on good times and on lessons learned and making plans is good as well. But the message I get is this; don’t waste the moment waiting on the future or reflecting when there is something more important that can be addressed immediately. I don’t think anybody can keep track of every variable that lands in their lap or stay totally focused on the moment. But I nurture the pattern and with even the slightest prompt I am reminded; look for the open window.
I had one of those bad days recently and I got upset and angry, not knowing how to behave. But then it came to me like the hook-line from a favorite song. I can’t measure how good this life has been to me and even on good days sh*t happens, it’s the tail-side of life’s coin. I can be in the moment, find the open window. I’m not happy but neither will I beat myself up over a the consequence of a bad day last week and a new pony won't change anything. As long as there is no angst or malice on my part, I’ll keep moving my feet and let Happy find me. 

AS BLIZZARDS GO

  I don’t remember how wide spread it was but the blizzard of January ’77 brought West Michigan to a standstill for two weeks. I taught biology at the high school and we bussed kids home early on Friday, January the 7th; didn’t resume classes again until Monday the 24th. We lived on a blacktop road a mile or so south of town. The house was good but old, poorly insulated with inadequate storm windows. The wind changed direction every other day while the temp hovered around zero during the day and plunged in the dark. Snow plows ran but the roads drifted closed again immediately. Driveways were buried by the snow plow and if you didn’t have a tractor or front-end loader there was no way out. One family followed the snow plow into town and got stuck there for the night as the road drifted in before they could finish their business. We burned fuel oil in the furnace and the delivery truck couldn’t deliver; naturally our 250 gallon tank was near empty. We also burned wood in an airtight stove in the family room but with subzero cold it took both to keep the water pipes from freezing.
After the first week I walked to town every day with a 5 gallon can, filled it at the fuel depot, carried it home and funneled it into the tank to be sure we wouldn’t run out in the night. Our car was buried in the driveway. Cabin fever took over so several times a day we bundled the kids up and took them outside for supervised play. Fifteen or twenty minutes and back inside but the diversion and the cold took the edge off. I have a photograph of my twin boys, age 6, standing on top of a huge drift which was actually their snow-covered swing-set. 
From Kansas across through Indiana we have just hunkered down in a blizzard that took two and a half days to pummel us with subfreezing temps, high winds with freezing rain and snow. Most places measured 6” to 18” of snow over a layer of ice and many people who ventured out in it never got to where they were going. I got home on Friday just as the freezing rain began. This is Monday, the temp is forecast for 1 degree tonight but the snow and wind have moved on. I took it seriously, checked temperature in the garage and it stayed in the low 40’s while it was single digits outside. 
Meteorologists and TV stations treated it as if the end times were here and rightly so; it doesn’t take many aggressive, over-confident, unskilled drivers to shut down the Interstate network. Today YouTube was saturated with jack-knifing semi trucks and helpless commuters sliding backwards or sideways on ice covered bridges and banked curves. But as blizzards go, this was maybe a 5 on a 10 scale. The slippery conditions are enough to keep me off the road but uneducated or indifferent drivers send me hiding under my bed. The teeth of the storm lasted about 48 hours at best and public works had been treating roads long before the freezing rain began. 
I won’t criticize foolish people for their poor judgment, it has become a way of life. How many today would walk into town for a five gallon can of fuel to get their furnace through the night? Still I can’t help think about early settlers who wagon-trained and homesteaded here and on the plains in horse and wagon days. None of them had a town nearby or a five gallon can. Even more so we should admire those indigenous people who had survived and prospered on the North American plains for thousands of years. No permanent houses, no matches to start fires, no sharp, cutting tools, sleeping on the ground, under animal skins, in a tent; they had to function in blizzards as well. American Exceptionalism is an idea that feeds on modern technology and self-serving ambition. As awesome as we may be there is a dash of the evil stepmother’s arrogance, “Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is fairest of them all?” But good and evil come in the same package. I think exceptionalism should include those primitive people who prospered without a parachute, without investors or C.E.O.’s, before invading Spaniards brought horses to the great plains. For thousands of years they sustained a loosely organized network that was civilized. Their culture was not predicated on expansion and material wealth but they provided food for all, recognized leadership, demonstrated a spiritual investment and participated in a trade system with other nations. 
It will be cold again tomorrow and the next day but the sun will shine. I’ll shovel enough to get the car out onto the street and see how the roads look. The weather got everyone’s attention but likely soon forgotten. I’m too old to be taken seriously. This is the day of podcast, ‘X’ and TikTok and no blizzard is going to change that. If someone were to scold me over a hint of sarcasm then I credit them for paying attention. 

DÉJÀ VU

A person described as being Wiry would be lean, tough and sinewy. That would be my dad. He was hard as nails, couldn’t have been a fraction over 5’5” with a short fuse and an explosive temper.  On the other hand my mother was patient and soft-spoken. I compare my parents to a sailing ship. He would be up there in full view, the mainsail, catching the wind that drove us forward. Mom would be out of sight under the water at the bak of the boat. She was the rudder and the course we followed would be hers to say. She had a way with Dad like nobody else. It wasn’t until after I was grown that I sensed her patient persistence was the taproot of our family magic and that our moral compass had always been in her hands. 
My morning ritual takes about twenty minutes of transition from slumber to serviced, dressed and fully engaged. That is when I turn the corner to greet the kitchen and yesterday’s dirty dishes. It’s a good time. My chores as a kid included drying dishes. I was tall enough to reach the back of the counter-top and with a step-stool I could stack plates in the cabinet. After supper that was my inside job. My outside chore was to help hang clothes on the clothesline. I dragged the clothes basket and handed up clothespins from the bag as we moved along. 
Nowadays I begin with my morning pill regimen and put coffee on. Then I do dishes, alternating between washing and drying as counter space requires. Every time I run hot water and watch suds boil up in the sink I reflect on drying dishes for Mom. I have a good dishwasher but you don’t throw dirty dishes in the machine without cleaning them off first and I figure; might as well just do it all in one stroke. Besides, the machine is a major drain on both electricity and hot water.
I could dismiss the dish-washing déjà vu as coincidence but there is more. I like to think of growing old, with the accent on ‘Growing’. The word by itself implies a natural progression, something gained and when I stop growing there will be nothing left to appreciate. This will be the second winter with clotheslines stretched wall to wall in the garage. Again, the clothes dryer requires expensive energy while dry air in the garage is already paid for. So I am pinching clothespins again and letting nature air-dry things and I think of it as (still growing). The déjà vu has legs to stand on now. I don’t have a helper to scoot the basket along or hand me clothes pins but it is what it is. 
For decades she gently influenced him to stop smoking and curb his cursing. His profane vocabulary only had two phrases: God damn and Son of a bitch that he creatively crafted into angry free verse. He went from smoking two packs a day to a couple of cigars a week and the cursing subsided from impulsive outbursts to mumbling under his breath. On the other hand my cursing vocabulary runs both wide and deep but it never surrenders to impulse or outburst. When I think cursing is called for it comes crafted to its purpose, in a tone that infers some forethought. In truth, not to misrepresent myself; I do have occasional outbursts that escape unedited. But they don’t come framed in civilized language, rather a growling, howling complaint that lasts as long as the feeling prevails.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Winter Solstice. One of my boys came over to help me celebrate the oldest, continuously observed holiday in human history. Christmas was moved by the early Roman church from March or April (when baby Jesus was born) to align with Solstice, the pagan holiday as a ploy to help convert heathens. By now it can be perceived arguably as a secular holiday now that has more economic significance than spiritual. But either way, I want to reach farther back for a touch of prehistoric human history. So we sat on the patio, ran a fire in the chiminea, welcomed the return of the sun from its southern swoop to shorter shadows, to the promise of warmer days and shorter nights. As the fire died down we borrowed from Christian tradition, communion in the spirit of Mother Nature with peach brandy and chocolate. Then we went inside and ate green chili. Our conversation ranged from ancient history to my granddaughters futures. One is in college and the other is on the cusp, soon to stretch her own wings. All things in their own time. We create our own karma, what goes around comes back around and you never know who’s watching so always wear the hat you want to be remembered by.  

$ 3.50

  My opinion is respected far and near, so much so that along with $3.50 it can get you a cup of black coffee at almost any coffee shop in Kansas City. So said, I think of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as two, separate holidays. Imagine a big airport with a long runway. A jumbo jet at the end of the runway, full of passengers and their baggage has been waiting for clearance to take off. Out in the holding pattern a small Commuter jet with only the pilot onboard is waiting for permission to land. They both get the OK, begin their checklist and focus on opposite ends of the same runway. The outbound pilot sees his way clear but Jumbo is heavy and takeoff will take the full length of the runway. The Commuter jet has been closing in on the very spot where the Jumbo starts to throttle forward. 
Near the far end of the runway the Jumbo is ready to rotate nose up and rise up. Over a mile behind at the near end of the runway the Commuter has flared, settling down to touchdown. Imagine: for one or two seconds, in the same moment the tires of both planes are touching opposite ends of the same runway. One lifts off as the other throttles back into its rollout. The obvious point is the close proximity in Place & Time but also the absolute divergence in their stories. One is at its conclusion, the end of its story while the other takes possession, turns the page and shifts from reflection to anticipation. It is seamless and we embrace the anxious question mark with open arms.
Interpreting the metaphor is easy. Today, December 31 is the Jumbo jet with a weighty backstory that touches every sensibility. But its time has expired, not even an epilogue. For a split second the two calendar years interface. At the stroke of midnight we start counting again, turning over new pages and beseeching the powers that be for good if not better days. I have an open house to go to this evening. Good food and good company will be abundant. Sooner or later people will find their coats and head for the door; going to another party or maybe bedtime. In any case, get up early or sleep late, the wakeup will find us already invested in the new year. So there are two days that lean on each other so profoundly that neither can prevail without the other. Reflecting on 2024 I can say there were some days I slept later and slow to rise but always, every day from 1 to 366 (LeapYear) every wakeup I was grateful and happy when my feet hit the floor. 
Two different holidays, the first is a grateful farewell and resolute acceptance while a few hours later the waking up marks a new beginning; continue the same old story but it’s a new day, a new year and think of it as an opportunity. New Year’s Day, I think it will be a good year if I look for the best in the people I meet. That should be good for a cup of coffee anywhere.

SOME WIGGLE-ROOM

In the run-up to Christmas I left things where they landed and my house looks like the loading dock at the thrift store. So now we’re in the twilight zone between closing one door and opening the next. Still, I can’t put off until spring the overdue clean up. Otherwise the trash truck might start with the barrel at the curb and not know where to stop collecting. I should start with the garage as I want to park inside this winter and today’s weather may be damp but it’s well above freezing. That feels like a prompt to make a resolution.
New Year resolutions; I try not to do that. I don’t want to give up when I fall short and don’t want the failure to loom over me for the rest of the year. Making resolutions for a new day might give me some wiggle-room. I touting the same axiom so much I have taken some ownership with it: “Failure is a necessary step on the learning curve and If you never fail then you haven’t done much.” There are several ways to hedge against the weight of failure. I can lower my expectations or set a deadline. Tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning if I think of it that way. Buddha told us; “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.”  I like the idea that happiness is the chosen path (or the journey) rather than a destination. 
I’ve been making New Day resolutions for a long time. If it doesn’t bear fruit here is no sting of defeat, just let it go and move on. Maybe it comes with age but then I’ve never been a perfectionist. Excellence can be overrated. Sometimes excellence might not be good enough; at least we didn’t die. So be thankful. My trash barrel is half full and they pick up tomorrow. My resolution for today is to make it full with wanna-be treasures that have outlived their purpose and move them to the curb before bedtime rolls around. Have a Happy New Day. 

BY THE THOUSANDS

Murmuration; This time of year when food is getting hard to find, birds form up in large groups. There is safety in numbers and their search for food can find every morsel wherever they land. Blackbirds, (Grackles and starlings) by the thousands or many thousands, they are famous for that collective behavior. It is not uncommon to see them perched together on power lines, shoulder to shoulder. Last week I was driving on the interstate where a high voltage transmission line crossed the highway. The sun was still low in the east but I couldn’t help but notice those blackbirds perched on every cable like soldiers in formation that stretched as far as I could see. I was hoping to see some close order, tight formation flying but they weren’t ready yet. 

Blackbirds in the act of formation flying is called a ‘Murmuration’. That swarming, swooping concentration of birds, all following one leader; one can’t help but stop what you are doing and watch as they climb and swerve and fall away like a self propelled cloud. We’ve all seen PBS specials on sea life where huge schools of small fish swim so close together they must be touching, changing direction every few seconds. The birds do it in the air, all the wing flapping and course corrections and nobody crashes. Instinct doesn’t wait for a vote, like Yoda said in the movie Star Wars, “Do or do not!” When so many blackbirds “Do!” I get slack-jawed and marvel. 

I live in a social culture where we think about everything. When that low profile instinct that still works for us, when it chimes in we tend to believe we were thinking about it to begin with. We take thinking to extremes. When we think about our thoughts or about what others may be thinking it has a name; ‘Metacognition’. That’s how we negotiate; “Will they sell it for less than they are asking; and if not, will I buy it anyway?” We think a lot but even at that, we act on feelings before we can think. When one feels the Fight-or-Flight emotion they have defaulted to the animal at the core of our being.

Once upon a time in a far-away land like Ohio or Pennsylvania, where the Unitarian Church had stain glass windows; a little stain but mostly frosted glass. You couldn’t see outside still it let lots of light in. My hosts and I were either thinking about the sermon or something else, maybe navel gazing, I don’t remember but something extraordinary happened. All at once both the sky and stain glass windows grew dark and a muffled, rustling sound grew louder and louder. The minister spoke louder but the distraction was too much and everybody stared in awe at the windows. The din of noise was surreal, unrelenting and you could see the shadows of birds, fluttering against the windows, trying to avoid mid-air collisions and crashes.

From beginning to end, the murmuration that had swooped down on us lasted maybe 20 seconds but the effect was too much to simply resume the sermon. She changed the subject to ‘Murmurations’, reflecting a good knowledge of the phenomenon and what we might take from our experience that morning. I thought, how much would I have to pay for that experience if someone were selling tickets? The possibility of being there, aware in that moment; I am always prepared to stop what I’m doing and give myself to it. If I’m driving then the conditions dictate how much license I can afford to take with my life and others on the road but I will squeeze it for all I can get. 

I am convinced that humans are animals, mammals with extraordinary adaptations and attributes that allow us to think about thinking and about what others are thinking about us. We have stumbled our way forward with language, creative insight and never before patterns of social interaction: Civilization. When I pay attention to nature telling its story with sandhill cranes lifting off the water or standing in the shadow of an 1,800 year-old California Redwood, or by the precision and beauty of murmurations, I feel small. Even with my big brain and bright ideas, the stories I tell and the memories I treasure, I am just a fiber in the thread of life, a fleeting glimmer in nature’s scheme and that’s enough. 

IF I LIVE LONG ENOUGH

  I woke up today fresh off a four-day road trip. I had been dreaming; I never remember my dreams but I can tell if they’re good or bad and this one was not bad. My first conscious experience was listening to my feet as they celebrated in the warm pocket at the far end of my sleeping bag. It takes me about 20 minutes to ambulate or stagger or shuffle about; whatever it is that I do to reach the fully dressed, vertical state. In all that time I get familiar reminders that my body is still under my control but certainly there are other forces competing for that distinction. From arthritis in my fingers to rogue toenails that make putting on socks a snag-by-snag challenge, I conclude that I am fit to face the day. 
There are two pill regimes, morning and bedtime. Morning pills are all dietary supplements but different shapes and sizes and if you’re not careful they can send you to the floor in search of escaped vitamins and remedies like magnesium, lutein and turmeric. Waiting for coffee to make is peaceful and I start thinking about things, whatever comes to mind and that can be anything. They say that things happen in three’s and maybe so; recently I’ve been targeted with the argument, “Age, it’s just a number.” In every case the person was late 60’s or early 70’s and my reaction was a subdued, “How would they know?” But we tend to qualify the condition with a number and one’s quality of life, physical condition and overall security certainly do rise above the number itself. 
George Burns original quote drew distinction between aging and bing old, the one is unescapable while the other can be managed by maximizing what it is that you can do. The ‘. . .just a number’ slur could be shorthand for being all you can be. After discovering the Mark Twain quote I like to pair them for a broader, deeper meaning. He said, “Don’t complain about old age. It is a privilege denied to many.” So I take him at his word. I an well into old age but I see it as a privilege rather than a limiting factor. Other cultures have treasured their old people for their experience and wisdom and nurturing but my culture is not one of those. Be sure here, if I am complaining it is about the culture, not the old age.
My best friend in high school was a year behind me. When I graduated in ‘57 he dropped out and joined the Navy. The next time we saw each other was three years later when his ship the Cruiser USS Saint Paul docked in Naha, Okinawa. I was stationed with the Army’s 2/503 Airborne just up the road. He couldn’t get shore leave but I was able to go aboard and hang out with him for several hours. By the time I was discharged Earnest Howard was already home, married his high school sweetheart and working through an electrician apprenticeship. We lost touch when I went off to college but in my 2nd year I learned he had died from a drug/alcohol overdose. 
In 1984 my best friend was a Vietnam veteran and former high school wrestler. I taught biology and coached wrestling at a small-town high school in Southwest Michigan; he was my volunteer assistant wrestling coach. Our families were a match, our wives were great friends, both of us with three sons along with the wrestling connection. He had been in so many fire fights he couldn’t guess how many North Vietnamese & Viet Cong guerrilla fighters he had killed. He had a favorite expression when someone suffered difficulty or bad luck: “Better him than me.” One night he woke up with chest pains and they took him to the emergency room. They ran tests and couldn’t find anything wrong so they released him and sent him home. My best friend Ray Friel didn’t wake up the next morning, dead at 39 from a massive heart attack. We were all crushed. Since then for the next 40 years I have never, ever spoken or mouthed his words, “Better him than me.” other than to tell the reason why. 
Twelve years later in ’96 we had moved away to Missouri, my kids were grown and moved on, a marriage had lost its way and died on the vine and I returned to Michigan to complete my teaching career and retire there. I had a best friend from twenty years before and our families had never lost that magic. He was a pharmacist, our wives were best friends and their two girls were surrogate sisters with my daughter. We considered ourselves “Outlaws” rather than In-laws: family by choice rather than by the ring. John Ridgley had been fighting a losing battle with colon cancer for a couple of years. I was barely settled into my new job teaching physical science (an overlapping introduction to both chemistry & physics). John was under hospice care at home when the nurse told them his time was near. My phone rang in the wee hours, I took a personal day but he passed just before I could get there. I kept busy clearing ice from the sidewalk and steps, moving things that needed to be moved as people arrived with food and condolences. I never went into his room. I didn’t need that for closure, didn’t want to remember him that way. 
John was fixed in the gap between youth and old age but there was a lot of career cut short and grandchildren he would never meet. That was nearly 30 years ago. My three best friends had been denied the privilege of old age. In those 30 years I have lived, literally, lived another lifetime, full of joys and disappointments, triumphs and failures. Still I do not take any of it for granted. All I am doing is taking comfort in the privilege that has been denied to so many. I have not only watched my grandchildren grow up but also played a small part in their stories. In my Dad’s later years he often remarked; “The worst part about long life is that you lose all of your friends.” and I am beginning to see that pattern unfold. I doubt anyone will ever hear me say, “Old age, it’s just a number.” I would rather be identified with; “Be all you can be.” and you do that from moment to moment, in the present. The past is carved in stone and the future is simply beyond our grasp. This moment is the only time you can do anything.” I think it common for people of all ages to fear the idea of mortality. How we deal with mortality is an altogether different issue, better left for another day. But yes! I am an old man, growing older by the day. If I live long enough and good health and benefits prevail I can leave this place someday the same way I got here, with someone feeding me and changing my diapers.