$ 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. 

HUNKERED DOWN

  I am hunkered down for the second night at a Super 8 motel in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Cold weather camping in my van is absolutely in my skillset but I’m taking the easy way out this time. I still hate the idea of throwing way-too-much money at a second rate motel chain just to sleep warm and dry in one of their 3rd rate rooms. If the price seems too good to be true then think again; there is nothing all that good about it. Either the staff are under paid malcontents or nothing in the room works like it should. Room number 125 is on the first floor which is good and it is safe, warm and dry. There is only one working electrical outlet in the room but they did find an extension cord I can plug into the bathroom outlet. Part of my travel kit is a portable power station that can power my CPAP machine for three nights before need a recharge. Actually, I would have been just as well served by carrying it in from the van. The truth is that I love being out here on the road regardless of where I sleep. I sleep in a zero degree rated sleeping bag regardless. In this case it’s on top of the undisturbed covers of the bed and to that extent I am in my own little niche. But enough about second rate motels. 
I spent the afternoon, evening and next morning in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Since the 1870’s he town’s mineral springs have attracted all kinds of travelers to the healing spring waters. Today it is an incredibly well preserved, charming tourist destination. Be advised, the town is carved into a mountain side and any place you want to check out is a challenging climb up a steep hill. Streets are narrow, no place to park except at meters or in small lots at $5 for 3 hours. Even at that I was taken aback with the crowded space and vertical challenge. The motel on Friday night was, where else, at the top of a steep hill. I want to come back in the summer and stay at one of the classic old hotels in the middle of town that have valet parking. All I need is a companion to be good company on an easy roadtrip. 
Saturday afternoon it wasn’t too long a drive, winding along ridge-tops and twisty, curvy ups and downs. When things leveled out we were on the boundary with Fayetteville. The University of Arkansas is there. I have friends who sent their kids to U of A. The school has a good academic rating and affordable fees; and they don’t charge out of state fees. 
My reason for overnighting here was to visit the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship here. The difference between a church and a fellowship is simply numbers and the ability to employ a full time minister. Still, this morning there must have been twenty members show up for the adult discussion group at 10:00 and sixty or more for the service. I was impressed with the group. University town, Unitarian church, I’m not surprised with the well read, highly educated nature of thee congregation. 
Walking in the door a lady saw me standing in the lobby and challenged me: “You are a visitor?” She welcomed me and we sat together, she and her husband, a retired law professor at U of A. He was 89 and she must have been about the same. The church has a tradition for Thanksgiving Sunday; everyone brings bread and the room is set with tables rather than rows of chairs. Then toward the end they call attention to how important grain and bread in particular has been for the human experience. They placed sliced bread and rolls in baskets on the tables along with shot glasses and pitchers of cider. Then we took several pieces of bread, added a dash of cream cheese or jelly and took communion in the name of all humankind. We talked across the table, communed with bread and cider and it was way-cool. 
They invited me to lunch with them at the Senior Center where they live and I took them up after all, it would have been rude to refuse under the circumstance and by then we had struck a common chord. Nancy and Mort had both been widowed, him twice and they had been together for nearly twenty years. Reflecting on the idea of getting out of town on the long holiday weekend, I should do this more often. 
I’ll be back on the road tomorrow, up I-49. It’s about 3 hours and that’s perfect. I just discovered last week that my car radio is set up for Sirius radio. I didn’t pay for a subscription but it’s there and it works. I wouldn’t be surprised if a former owner is still getting billed for the service. So I can drive and listen to blues or classic rock or easy listening or Top 40 anytime, just about anywhere. For now anyway, life is pretty good. 

MORE THAN JUST A NUMBER

  By definition a Hero is a person who is admired for their courage, their achievements or for other noble qualities. Noble qualities would be high moral principles and greatness of character. My list of heroes has been amended and updated as I have moved through the seasons of my life and by now it is top heavy with accomplished writers, scholars and scientists. When I need a shot of clear-eyed skepticism and unforgiving truth I turn to Samuel Clemens (1835 - 1910). His quotes range from moral benchmarks to keen observations on the human experience. He was unapologetic, a skeptic of the 1st Order and I thrive in his shadow. He is a hero by means of both his literary achievements and of noble character.
I keep discovering or rediscovering Mark Twain quotes that are both profound and empowering. Today I came across these two. The one on ‘Majority’ is not new to me, just put away where I could not find it. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” I take that to mean, it may not require a change of position but he makes clear his suspicions about herd mentality. Certainly he would have us rethink where it is that we stand and how we got there. The glimpse of wisdom on aging is new to me. “Do not complain about growing old, it is a privilege denied to many.” 
George Burns is credited with; “Age, it’s just a number.” As I understand it, Burns didn’t actually say that but he got the credit. What he said was; “You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old”. Along the way someone took liberty with his insight and turned it into a clever punch-line. Burns made a distinction between inevitable physical decline and exercising a keen, informed presence at any age. I used to throw the (just a number) thing out in conversation but that was when I was a young 75. A decade later I concede that 85 is more than just a number, it’s a privilege that many have been denied. To deny that one’s sphere is shrinking may stroke a proud ego but it doesn’t hit the pause button. At 85 living in the moment is a sound investment. The axiom has never been more relevant: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” Today, in the moment, it’s the only day I will ever be able to my hands on. The "Present" requires gratitude and respect; I try to spend it on something noble, something that would please my mother.
Samuel Clemens is not alone at the top of my list. Carl Sagan and Sylvia Earle are right up there, champions of making science relevant to the layperson without dumbing it down. Helen Keller and Kurt Vonnegut reveal human nature with both its grand possibility and dark side as well. I lean on all of them when I feel the need.
Thanksgiving will be here in a few days. It is a time for both humility and gratitude. I have given up on the God that sanctions wars and racism and greedy bastards who abuse the planet, who take and put nothing back, profiting from human suffering. So my humble ’Thank-you’ will go out into the universe unaddressed. Before 1492 the true native tribes of North America believed, if you want to know what the creator expects of us then pay attention to how creation works. Take some, leave some, we’re all in this together. Thank you! Thank you for the plants and animals that replicate and regenerate their own kind so there is enough for us to eat and drink and sustain. If caution is the better part of valor (and I believe it is) then I would also think that humility is the better part of gratitude. “Mitakuye Oyasin, We are all related!”

TRACKING THE SUN'S ARC

  As a holiday gift to myself I write a Season’s Greeting, print it on appropriate stationery and send copies to my special people. Not that some people are special and others are not but certainly some are more special than others. When or where I read it I can’t say but reliable research indicates that we (humans) can maintain a limited number of personal relationships, about 100, give or take. It seems maintaining a personal relationship requires a time/energy investment and we can only spread ourselves so thin. My gift to me makes me take time to reflect on my more special people, even if it lasts only long enough to write a short remark, sign my name and stuff the envelope.
This is a good place to discriminate between my special people and others who share my place in time, who do meet the relationship requirement but don’t measure up otherwise. After all, not all relationships bear fruit. I have beaucoup special people and we don’t have to curry the other’s favor. Our backstory includes chapters and verse that circumvent the need for maintenance.
I’ve been working on my Season’s Greetings for 2024. The writing and printing are finished, all the envelopes are stamped and addressed. Later today I will begin the time consuming part, taking my time to remember what makes that person so special, then be thinking of them, make a comment and sign my name. That is the gift. In that moment I realize how wonderful this life has been and what a dreadful place this would have been if not for them and our special connection.
In the past 30 years especially, I have embraced the fall season with all of its holidays as my Holiday Season and I try in my own way to celebrate them all. For as long as humankind has been tracking the sun’s arc and the corresponding seasons, autumn has been a time of anticipation as well as a time of plenty. So they celebrated the bounty of summer and prepared for the long-dark-cold. Thanksgiving fills that breach now. Christians would have it be a religious observance but gratitude and dependance on natures whims don’t need a god to appreciate our place in the natural order. 
The oldest, longest observed holiday across human history is celebrated just a few weeks later. Winter Solstice might slip by unnoticed with all the hype on Christmas. The sun’s arc had been sinking lower in the south since early summer and the winter-cold was in close pursuit. Prehistoric cultures watched closely. The time of harvest plenty was long past and they needed evidence if not a harbinger of better things to come. When the sun’s arc stops sinking and begins to climb again it signals the return to longer, warmer days and shorter nights. It was a time to take courage and endure but better times were on the way. Solstice falls around December 20 or 21 since before we had a calendar. Its close proximity to Christmas is no coincidence. In the churches zeal to convert pagans they positioned the birth of Christ to coincide with Solstice. Reframing the holiday under false pretense to draw pagans into the church was devious but it worked. The biblical account had Jesus born when sheep were in the field, when Romans paId taxes in the cities of their birth. That would be in the spring. The Papacy knew that but was much more concerned with converting pagans than historical accuracy. I still celebrate Christmas but not the ‘Prince of peace’ story. I like the music, the tradition of exchanging gifts and in its own way the warm feelings that announce the onset of bitter cold. 
With my family scattered I will break bread with a few friends on Thanksgiving day but it’s a long, four day weekend and I am trying to hatch a plan for a roadtrip. My thinking now is to spend the Friday, Saturday & Sunday in NW Arkansas, exploring those tourist towns without the tourists. I’ll take my camera and see what unfolds. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m still thinking, still going over the maps.