Another Blast From The Past, 2007 May, I Believe

"I know sage, wormwood, and hyssop, but I can't smell character unless it stinks."  Edward Dahlberg

A long day at work finally wound down, and the thought of lemonade brought us to the local supermarket. I sat in the truck, two disappointed little dogs standing in my lap, watching through the window as my wife disappeared past the automatic doors. The radio murmured quietly as a gentle breeze filtered into the cab, and I watched a slice of the local population filter into and out of the store. People watching. My favorite pastime.

One of those imported sport/luxury sedans was parked two slots over. Nice chrome custom wheels graced four corners. Low profile performance tires were wrapped around those rims. He paid extra for those. The front tires were worn nearly to the chord. The rears looked almost new. Somebody appeared to have been smokin' those tires around the neighborhood more than absolutely necessary. And he had not mastered the art of rotating them. I put a mental check in the bad column over that one.

When the driver returned to this car, and unloaded his shopping cart through his passenger door, I watched. I won the bet with myself when he left the cart sitting in the adjacent parking slot, rather than returning it to the store or pushing it into one of those cart parking areas that the store provides. And no, I was not surprised when, after he had consumed the contents of those take-out food containers, they just slipped out his window to splat on the pavement. Two more checks in the bad column.

OK, so the guy is a slob. That is not exactly equivalent to mass murder, but I do believe his acts add up to what you might call bad character. And if you add up enough bad character, pretty soon you end up with a society like ours, which often seems sorely lacking in the good version.

Swinging your fists around in the air is not bad character. Swinging them into some innocent person's jaw in a crowded room is. Bad character has a signature. Trying to park your car in that slot in the parking lot in which the shopping cart sits reminds you of bad character. Finding the litter next to it confirms the suspicion. Watching the hillside go up in flames because someone thinks that smoking cigarettes is a license to litter, well that smells of bad character, too.

Lying, cheating, and stealing demonstrate bad character. Those merchants in China slipped melamine into the wheat and rice gluten that recently showed up in your pets' food. They just wanted their protein to assay higher, so they could sell it at a better price, and they didn't care a wit if somebody died. Bad character.

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly."  Samuel Johnson.

Perhaps this is where we end up. Spend enough time in a world rife with bad character, and our standards drop. A certain quiet resignation settles down upon our shoulders as we face the hopelessness of it all.

And then there is that mirror on the wall, where our own examples of bad character come home to roost. We live in glass houses. Perhaps we shouldn't be too quick with that stone. And we are not without sin, so we shouldn't cast the first one. So what should we do when we realize, as the radio guy pointed out the other day, "The world changes, but human nature does not."

Perhaps we could listen to Marcus Aurelius, from the 2^nd century:

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."

Dec 18, 2011

Not sure if I will be able to use this rifle on this occasion, but will give it a try.

Man, the toolmaker.

Homo hobilis, the “Handy Man” of prehistoric earth, began making tools back in 1.8-1.4 million years BC, that rocking time we now call the Stone Age. Not long afterwards, but well before “Tim the Tool Man Taylor” hit the airwaves, my father in law, Rex, built a rifle. Like H. hobilis before him, Rex didn’t make his tool from scratch. Back in the Stone Age, the locals picked up a rock that was already there, that had the right shape, and then they worked it into better shape, usually by sharpening it. Most often, they then attached a handle to the sharpened rock, a piece of wood, and it became a weapon. 

Of course such tools were also very handy when these guys needed to gather up a mastodon or two for the weekend barbecue. Over time, these stone tools were improved. Eventually, the sharpened rock weapon tools evolved in one direction, and the hunting tools in another. But a family resemblance remained.

Rex built a hunting rifle by improving a weapon rifle.  In 1917 and 18 manufacturers in this country built Enfield rifles chambered in the American service cartridge, the 30/06. They had been making Enfields chambered in 303 for the British earlier in the war, because we liked those guys. In World War I these rifles were sent across the Atlantic to help the Brits who were fighting the Germans, et al. When we sent homemade Americans across the Atlantic to help the Brits who were fighting the Germans, et al, we sent along rifles chambered in 30/06. We wanted to send Sringfield rifles chambered in 30/06 because this was an American rifle, albeit one “derived” from the German Mauser. (Some would say stolen from the German Mauser) But we couldn’t make enough of those, so we made some 2 million 30/06 Enfields, an English rifle “derived” from the German Mauser, and sent them along as well.

The German Mauser was not the original rock somebody sharpened, but it was a good one and folks still build rifles “derived” from it. 

Attached to each of these rifles was a piece of wood that was designed to make these tools better weapons. They weren’t very pretty, but they sufficed. When the next big war ended, a bunch of those Enfield rifles were still in government storage, and since the government wasn’t yet obsessed with taking guns away from its citizens, people could obtain these old weapon tools, and if they wanted, they could turn them into hunting tools. Cut a piece or two off the weapon, bend another, refresh the bluing, mount a telescopic scope, and pretty soon they had converted a weapon tool into a hunting tool. A family resemblance remained, but now it served its new job better than the old mass produced one. 

The biggest difference between the weapon tool, and the hunting tool the people created, was that piece of wood attached. Where the weapon tool had utility, the attached wood was not pretty.  But the people building the hunting tools specialized in attaching the prettiest wood they could find. 

Rex was very active in drum and bugle competitions after WWII. A friend on a competing corps gave Rex an Enfield rifle the team no longer needed. So in the very early 1950’s probably 1 or 2, Rex took a 30 year old weapon tool and turned it into a beautiful hunting tool. And much of that beauty came from the block of wood he carved and shaped and sanded and finished, which converted a mass produced weapon into a one of a kind hunting rifle. And Rex turned it into a piece of art.

Now, the story doesn’t end here. For when Rex had completed converting his rifle, save for that coating of finish that would highlight and protect the wood, he carried it into the hunting field. And as luck would have it, in the dark woods of Vermont, at a time when deer were far harder to find than now, the largest most antler endowed buck Rex ever saw wandered in front of him. But as luck also had it, the wood of the rifle had gotten wet the day before, and when it swelled and warped, it compromised the action, and when Rex pulled the trigger on that buck, the rifle wouldn’t fire. 

Other rifles came along in subsequent years, most lighter and easier to carry in the woods, and they put deer into the freezer for Rex. But to this day, 60 years later, the sporterized Enfield he built has not fulfilled its destiny.  It’s still as pretty, and Rex is very proud of his work, but this rifle has not yet helped to fill a freezer. And as Rex recuperates from some medical problems at the tender age of 96, I don’t believe he figures it ever will.   

But wait…

In two weeks we will drive to South Dakota, and we will bring back a bison for the freezer. I won’t insult this beast by calling this endeavor a buffalo hunt, for I certainly know where the bison will be, and the usual exertion associated with a hunt ain’t gonna happen here. But a rifle will be used to take this bison, and it’s gonna be Rex’s hand built Enfield rifle, which is now a treasured family heirloom. I don’t know if you can make a rifle happy. But I think I know how to do that trick for Rex. He deserves to know that the tool he made so many years ago finally had the chance to do its job.

Nov 29, 2011

“I am a rock; I am an island…and a rock feels no pain; and an island never cries.” –Simon and Garfunkel

We turned on to the road at a perfect time.  Headed almost straight east, the sunrise unfolded for us through our windshield as we fled toward Needles. Just enough smog overflowed into the desert from the LA Basin to the west to allow the sun, from its hiding place just below the horizon, to color the sky a gory red. It backlit the saw tooth mountain ridge which was our horizon, and cast just enough light to purple the lesser ridges lined up in front of the first, each veiled slightly by the haze. The vast foreground for this show was flat empty desert, blessedly devoid of manmade light, and thus still black as night.  

I have this special set of nerve endings for such moments. Groupings of said nerves are aligned along my shoulders, scattered about the back of my neck, loosely attached to the hair on my head, embedded deep in my chest, and buried in that special vault somewhere in the center of my belly. When stimulated, they go all gonzo, and they let me feel quite tingly and warm. They lie in these places, patiently waiting for the excuse, slowly building up the charge until ya gotta wonder how they can hold it. And then a such moment comes along, the trip wire goes tripped, the poles depolarize, the synapses hook up, and it’s Oh Goodie time. Often the levees are broached, (the ones inside, built up over the years, whose job it is to make sure I don’t let myself get too happy), for they are designed only for the usual floods and not the once in a long while weather event. The overflow triggers the seventh cranial nerve, which, as we all know, cannot help itself. The seventh cranial nerve operates the “muscles of expression” in my face, so this becomes the secondary trigger, and from its stimulation we get a smile. 

So with the cruise control locked on an expedient 73 MPH, the Jetta purring contentedly in 6^th gear at 2000 RPM, and while the satellite radio provided our old music, I watched the free show through the window. I exulted in the presence of the desert, experienced my pleasure, and sported my smile. Oh, and I got to thinking.

An artist might wonder at such a time how she might find the perfect clay to mix with some salts and minerals and a little oil to exactly match that luscious red color when she applies it to canvas or fine pottery. And the scientist might marvel at the refraction angles of light intermixing with smog, or the rod to cone ratio of our retinas, or even the cholinesterase levels flying around our nerve connections that allow us to see this scene. Meanwhile, the tortoise over there might only wonder how long before the sun would warm up a fellow enough for him to wiggle his toes.

But me…I chose to wander about inside my head, and therein I found a can of worms. And why not open a can of worms? I utilized this spectacular moment to wonder if all this exhilaration running around inside me meant that there really is a God, or not. Cause that’s what a gory red sunrise in the desert can do to a man.

I have no problem with the notion that so many religions got their start with folks who wandered about in deserts. I have tried to capture the beauty of the desert with mere words, and I don’t know enough words. So I guess I could say that the desert is something so wonderful that it defies description. The desert is also a bit harsh. It can and will kill you. And it doesn’t need a reason. Since much of what a god is supposed to do revolves around trying to explain the unexplained wonder of the world, and also the horror of it, where better could you find a place that almost demands such contemplation?

Many of these founders of religions wandered without food or water for extended periods in the desert before they began to observe what they thought they saw. A few sought or at least found visions. Some talked with bushes or went off their meds and then heard the voices. Others fermented grapes in goat stomachs or beer in the wash tub, or they nibbled on peyote buds or jimson weed to expand their awareness, and fine tune their synapses. So they were, shall we say, receptive to wandering about in their heads. Maybe this is how they concluded from all this that there must be a God, or several lower case g-gods, running the whole thing, because they sure weren’t.  

I was a bit sleep deprived, hadn’t had breakfast yet, and was more than half way through a Grande from Starbucks, so I wasn’t in my right mind either. I knew I was watching something I considered beautiful and exhilarating. And I could recognize those feelings generated in my nerve endings. I have a passing familiarity with the physiology and know that there are physical reasons why I felt so good, and thus I couldn’t credit a desert god pouring a bucket of rapture over my shoulders for this thrill. So I had no interest in starting a religion out of gratitude. But I did wonder if those nerve endings came about due to some random natural selection that favored an ancestor who enjoyed happiness in pretty places, of if just maybe a god put all that wiring in there as her gift to us lucky folks. So I caught myself thinking stuff that could get me into an argument with many different folks.

And right then that Simon and Garfunkel song slipped out of our radio, and I did the flashback. To 1966. I barely knew the girl who gave the valedictorian speech at our high school graduation. It was a small graduating class, but was clearly defined by its divisions, and I was relegated to one of the others. My group was small, insignificant, unwanted. So when this girl used that song as the theme for her speech, and she argued against the teen angst desire to become a rock and an island in defense against the unfairness of life, I figured she should shut up and go away. 

And I remembered how I felt at the beginning of that commencement ceremony, for all those gathered in the gym were expected to enjoy a prayer, and I had no use for that, either. I had just turned seventeen, so I figured I knew everything. I had things figured out, for when that girl’s favored social group was out having fun, I was spending time wandering about the inside of my head, concluding stuff. Among all the other stuff I knew without a doubt, I knew that there was no God. So why should I waste any more of my time with the trappings of religion?

I’m a bit older now, and hopefully some smarter, and I’ve opened my mind to some other thoughts. Mostly, I’ve noticed that I have fewer answers and far more questions than when I knew it all. I guess I’m allowed to play around with my questions when I wish. And I’ll admit that I now don’t know if there is a God, or gods, or just how this whole thing works.

Someone far wiser than me once wrote that if there were no God, people would invent one.  Most people, if they give this notion a thought, would have to agree. The there-is-no-god crew would suggest that every god or God people have come up with is an example of such a fabrication. And the my-god-is-the-only-true-God people would simply conclude that the fools who know other gods all brewed up theirs. Somebody out there may be right, but how might you tell? 

This conundrum often reminds me of the do-flying-saucers-exist(?) discussions. Some people fervently believe in them. Others tend to wonder if those people who believe in flying saucers are a bit off. I always figured I would believe in a flying saucer when I actually saw one for myself. Up to then, I’ll be skeptical, but not religiously so. For how, in the end, do you prove the negative? 

Meanwhile, if I sometimes wonder about the wonder of it all, while watching the sun rise over the Mojave or a thunderstorm booming from the top of some mountain, please lose no sleep over it. Cause if I do finally come to some absolute truth for me, it still won’t matter one whit to anyone else.

 “And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high,

I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky

You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply” –John Denver

Or not.

Nove 20, 2011

All the times I’ve talked of how a column of mine starts out in one direction, putters around a bit, and then takes off only to end up way over there somewhere…well that was never more apparent than the one I sent around on Thursday. Ya see, I never intended to do much more than mention the occupy people in Oakland, with their core of old worn out communists still rankling over the 60’s and 70’s, when they blew their chances to take over the world, and the latest delusional young generation living the obligatory we-can-save-the-world-and-Marx-is-the-way mantra which has been drummed into them by ALL those overpaid university and college professors. No, I was simply reacting to their harsh noise in support of Obamagenda, and of course, in the process, their need to reject the American way of life and that embarrassing successful capitalism thing. I know they simply want to save the world, which is a good thing, if impossible, and I cannot trifle much with that, for I was once that naïve myself. And besides that, they are probably going to win in the end, to all of our detriment.

No, I didn’t intend to spend the day riled about that. But I get carried away. You all know this.

What I wanted to eventually talk about was the simple logistics of saving the world. And that would mostly be the reality of paying for it. I didn’t have to invest all that energy in rehashing that same old stuff, cause ya’all already know it, and either nod your heads yes, or get all aghast when you disagree. No middle ground there, whatsoever.

My reference to leaping off a bridge had far less to do with the revulsion I feel for the rockthrowingshower-needingdisrespectfulmob, than it did with one phone call with one dimwitted but very persistent monotone speaking robotic clog person in the bureaucracy. And in that column I never got around to telling you about it. Sorry about that.

So, here’s what got me all stirred up…

Our mail comes, when it does, to one of those aluminum 8 boxes on a stick just down the street from our house.  I drive right past it every day coming home from work, but I’m usually too tired to stop. When I finally get round toit, the box is generally crammed so full of junk mail that ya gotta tear that all to heck just getting it out. Which you have to do to find those three bills and the bank statement you’ve been waiting for to see if you can afford to hit the Safeway tomorrow. So I finally got round toit on Wednesday night. And I carried two armfuls of shredded junk and my three bills and yea! my bank statement into the house. And I carefully picked through the junk before tossing it unread into the recycling bin, because every once in a while there is a fourth bill hidden in there, and you know how embarrassing that can be when you don’t pay that one. Very carefully I searched.

And I found something. It was a nondescript but official looking letter addressed to the two of us living in our home. And for some reason, I opened it. Two words on page one caught my eye. FINAL NOTICE. They were in large print and highlighted in a BLACK BOX, so I guess somebody wanted to catch my eye. Maybe, they should have done something similar on the envelope, but that is another argument. 

I don’t get many FINAL NOTICE letters, except from those out there who wish to refinance my home or in some other way put my money into some other pocket. And this was no different. Only this was to be a government pocket, so FINAL NOTICE takes on another meaning. Credit card companies can’t hurt me if I don’t want their card. Governments can.

The letter was a not so social, nor polite, request for a response from us, mostly me, since I had ignored all those other letters the city had sent to me in the past, and boy were they going to go serious on me now. Besides the HUH? part, as I have not received any such letters, I felt that little sense of outrage I tend to get when the government wishes to communicate with me. It’s that boot on my neck feeling.

The letter suggested that I should finally send in the money for the business license that the CITY OF CONCORD politely requested. Onna countof that home business that I run out of my home. You remember, the one I don’t run. Cause you see, I don’t run a business from my home. Oh, and don’t forget the 50% penalty because I’m so late. And while I’m at it, don’t forget to pay for the years 2008, 9, and 10. So with 11 tossed in there, that adds up to….let’s see…. That will be $366.00. Before 12/12, or we will start fining you up to $500.00 a day thereafter. ACK!!!

I’m still kinda naïve, so I dialed up the CITY OF CONCORD FINANCE OFFICE at the supplied number, for, ah, clarification. I was her first caller of the day. I was very polite, in the beginning. Marisol filled me in, and the call ended, abruptly. I applied for an exemption for 2011, per their rules. Maybe they will argue with that, cause I didn’t turn 62 until the year was part gone. I guess we will see. I’m doing my part to fund my government, and getting used to the fact that I’m gonna need to grow real comfortable with a lot more of this as we descend toward the future utopian world. 

Meanwhile, here is the letter I sent in, as the CITY OF CONCORD needs my version of an excuse to shirk my responsibility in this matter. I’ll have someone let ya know if I end up in jail over this.

11/16/2011

Robert G Hallstrom DVM

Delta Animal Clinic

295 E Leland Road

Pittsburg, CA 94565

925-XXX-XXXX

Dear City of Concord, California

My name is Robert Hallstrom. I own and work full time at the Delta Animal Clinic in Pittsburg, CA. I spend nearly 60 hours a week in that building. I sleep at YYY  XXX Place, Concord CA.

I am requesting an exemption from the Concord Business License Tax for the year 2011. I marked the exemption box for “I am 62 years of age, operating my business from home, and I make under $3600 per year.” under protest for I do not operate a business from my home.

I most certainly do not earn more than $3600 from any business in my home. And I am 62 years old. Ask my mother if you need verification.

I do attempt to write and once wrote a weekly column for the East County addition of the Contra Costa Times, for which I received the princely sum of $40 a week. I no longer write for this esteemed rag. And on one (1) occasion I sold a magazine article, but that was last year, and my income from writing this year (2011) will be zero.

I write in my office in Pittsburg, in my trailer while camping on the coast near Mendocino and in the Mojave, and only occasionally while staring at the ceiling of my bedroom in Concord in the dark of night when sleep will not come. I have never conducted the “business” of my “business” from my home in Concord. I have never emailed my newspaper column to my former editor at the newspaper from my home. I have never received payment at my home. None of my correspondence or phone calls with my editor were received at my home, and none of the tax related forms descending from my writing came addressed to me in my home. And the throngs of well-wishers clamoring for more of my writing rarely clog the street in front of my home.

If you wish to call my writing efforts a business, feel free. You flatter me. But I do not run a business from my home.

I do file state and federal income tax annually. And I dutifully included the small fortune I garnered from my writing when I submitted said tax forms. And I included my home address when I filed, figuring those folks expect that. If this means to you all that I run a business from this humble home, you have a much looser definition of business than anyone I can imagine, and frankly I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

But since you clearly hold the proverbial gun to my head, I shall pay your Business License Tax for the requested years: 2008, 2009, and 2010. I cannot afford to argue with you, and certainly do not wish to increase your booty to the tune of $500 a day simply because you get to write the rules. I would however, like to take advantage of your rule exempting us old folks from your victim pool, hence my request for this exemption.

I won’t be standing in Todos Santos Plaza with a sign, after skipping my showers for a week, in protest of this situation. But I do thank you for the inspiration as I write my next submission for my blog. In case you are wondering….you folks won’t come off well.

I apologize for contacting you folks so late in this process, but I have never received any previous notification from you regarding this little matter of a business license tax. And since I do not run a business in Concord, it never crossed my mind to ask. The young lady in the Finance office, Marisol, who answered my phone call this morning, was very patient and polite and you should laud her. She sounded a bit tired when I finally let her go. I hope I didn’t ruin her entire day. None of this nonsense is her fault, and I trust I wasn’t too hard on her. In fact, I kinda feel sorry for her, having to bite her lip as she implements her superiors’ mandates.

I retain my sense of humor. My editor at the paper fired me because my final column submitted was a defense of two of your fine Concord police officers. My editor was never in favor of complimenting any police officers, but since I have made the acquaintance of so many of your officers, I like to give them praise when I can. And I shall continue to do this. But I do find it ironic that the city these dedicated officers work to protect has so poorly managed its affairs that it feels it must stoop to this level of chicanery to extort money from its residents.

Thank you ever so much for your time

Bye the bye, this is written in Pittsburg, CA…not my home.

Robert G Hallstrom DVM

Nov 18,2011

I’m not even gonna apologize if this comes across as grumpy. This has been the week for getting used to the way the country is going to be. And I’m just about ready to make my reservation on the bridge. I figure lots of decent folks will be jumping with me, and I will want to book an early departure. Once all these people are gone, the feces will really hit the fan, for who will pay for the entitlements then?

The occupation is dragging on, and not everyone is thrilled with this. Some wish that the filthy mobs would just go home. And a few cities have reached and passed their tolerance for this nonsense. But the shouting begins as soon as the authorities step in to clean up the mess.

Civil rights are trampled across the nation, if you believe the hype. Imagine, peaceful civil disobedience crushed by excessive police force. What has become of the nation when peaceful exercise of 1^st amendment rights brings down the rain of police brutality? But one question, and then maybe I’ll shut up….

How big do the rocks have to be, ya know…the ones the “peaceful” demonstrators are throwing at the police, before a demonstration can no longer be labeled as peaceful? Cause some of these rocks were kinda large. And while we are on the subject…all the unfortunate people those demonstrators put out of work when they forced the closure of small businesses in the neighborhoods they are degrading with their squalid shanties, filth, and ranting…would this simply be collateral damage, perfectly justified casualties of the revolution? Has anybody asked those collateral victims how they feel about a bunch of career anarchists and troublemakers ruining the lives they once enjoyed?

These ragged demonstrations are destroying small businesses, but the demonstrators don’t care about that. But why should they? The guy they want to re-elect as president doesn’t much care if he runs every small business into the ground. Small businesses stand firmly in the way of the America he wishes to create. He disregards people who can think and work for themselves. He needs the people who are accustomed to and prefer government control.

The radical Left needs to make a point, for they must show Obama that they can carry the election after the Republicans recapture the center of the electorate that is so nauseated by the guy’s intentions. Which plays right into Obama’s supporters plan.

Wander around a bit through the “progressive” blogs on the net, and get a whiff of your future if these people succeed in tearing down our country. They aren’t even trying to hide their Marxist roots anymore. Most are very confident in their president and his agenda.

You folks can go on line right now, if ya want, and donate to a fund that will supply cold weather clothing so these protestors can continue their rant against capitalism well into the winter. Doesn’t that warm the cockles of your heart? And the unions will be helping all they can to deliver this clothing, because they want to see that guy re-elected, too.

Check out firedoglake.com    the occupy supply link.

They tell us that we need to redistribute the wealth, ya know. Make it fair. For everybody. Stop letting the rich punishing those folks who aren’t rich. It’s not their fault. Must be somebody else’s fault, for surely somebody must be at fault.

The American dream has been redefined by America’s enemies into the myth of:  “anybody who works hard will become rich”. And how few actually make that cut? Make the dream a myth and America becomes the myth. I remember it a little differently. I remember a version that stated that anybody who works hard can become rich. This subtle difference has been brought to you by the entitlement folks. The make-it-fair, everybody-the-same, folks. The Marxists.

They claim the new version of the American dream is bogus, which of course it is, the way they state it, and that this is simply an excuse for the haves to oppress those at the lower end of the sliding scale. They claim that if folks are poor it’s not because they are lazy or stupid. Oh no! It’s because of those people with all the money keeping them down. We may have the richest poor people in the world, but somebody is doing better than them, and that ain’t fair.

Well, I’m no expert, and I certainly haven’t met every singe poor person in American, but I have met a pot full of poor people. And I’ll even let the entitlement folks define “poor” for this argument. Pick a number. Doesn’t matter to my argument.

The poor people I’ve met are a bit harder to define than the Marxists would like. Some of them are victims of bad circumstances, and of things well beyond their control. The various illnesses and injuries that take people out of the game come into play. And some folks have legitimately been screwed by others and left in the dust. But the vast majority of poor people don’t fall into these categories.

The vast majority aren’t lazy or stupid either. Those are the Marxists words for what they think folks like me might say.

What I might say is that a fair percentage of poor people end up poor because of an unrelenting series of really bad decisions they have made through their lives. I’m not saying lazy, but I am laying blame. And this is not anybody else’s fault.

And some poor people are truly poorly equipped in the talent and intelligence departments, (if you can call Bush stupid, I can say this) and they simply cannot compete. 

And a lot of the rest have simply chosen not to vigorously play the game of life, because they are not interested. They simply don’t care. They are happy with their path. And more power to them. No one should be taking shots at these folks, just so long as they realize that the guy in the mirror knows why they are where they are.

This prompts me to ask…since the Marxists demand that society become equal, that all wealth must be redistributed, that all those people at the bottom simply need to be provided with the wealth stolen from them by the rich, and all would be right with the world. And of course, they get to define who the rich people might be, as well. So after the revolution, when the top is dragged down and the bottom nets the riches, what next?

Maybe paradise? It’s been tried many times before. Didn’t happen anywhere yet, but if they keep trying…maybe. Maybe you can bring the bottom up to meet the top.

More likely you fail to bring the bottom up to meet the top, but instead simply bring the top down to meet the bottom. Maybe ya give the wealth to the bad decision makers, the folks so lacking in any real talent, and those who don’t much care. That would be true redistribution. What then? What do they do with this new wealth? Just maybe they change the world. Or not. And this is what the Marxists want. For then they end up in control, either way. And weep for the poor all you wish, but it is power and control that is the goal of these folks.

Most likely, that wealth simply dribbles away. And the folks on the bottom remain on the bottom. And everybody loses. Oh, except America’s enemies.

Yeah, that’s what we need.

Addendum:

I’m waiting for the vermin from the occupy Oakland pestilence to migrate up to Vallejo to protest the arrest of that criminal yesterday. All he did was rob a bank and shoot a cop in the back, killing him. Banks and cops. Enemies of the PEOPLE.

This enemy of the PEOPLE served his country in the marines, his state in the highway patrol, and his city in their police department. He leaves a wife, three kids, plus the children he adopted when two friends passed away. Loved and respected by everyone he met. I’m sick to my core.

Nov 13 2011

I thought I was going blind. They say you start losing your night vision as you become ancient, and since I am fast approaching that definition, I figured that must be what was happening. When ya can’t see where you are going, it can be a bit disconcerting.

Where we were going was east on the New York State Thruway. We managed to catch the tail end of the evening commute, and the locals who knew where they were going were going there rapidly. Apparently, those speed limit signs on the shoulder are just for decoration, kinda like they are around here, and to stay in line I disregarded the traffic law and adopted the law of the jungle. So we motored on, in the dark, in the rain and the spray, in the traffic, at extra legal speed, and I couldn’t see squat. I couldn’t see the lane markers. I couldn’t see the shoulders. I set my sights on a pair of taillights and kept my foot in the throttle. It was an act of faith that I did not enjoy.

My blindness under these circumstances confused and annoyed me. Other folks seemed to see well enough to power through the darkness without care. Couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. Finally panic took over from where common sense had left off, and I pulled off the road for the night. And I concluded that I was simply too old for this nonsense any more.

Then two nights later I turned on the headlights while parked behind another car. And only half of that car lit up. Duh! The Jetta was a perdiddle. In case you don’t remember, a perdiddle is a car with one headlight burned out. And we was one. No wonder I couldn’t see in the dark. The Jetta needed a new headlight.

So I was sitting in the Volkswagen dealer in Springfield, Massachusetts making a cup of coffee in that little sitting area where they park the waiting folks, and thinking to myself that I needed to buy one of those coffee makers like they had, onnacountof how well it worked, and I looked to my left and there sat the new cars. I think they do that on purpose. Because right then and there a seed was planted. So while they changed out my old Jetta’s oil and put in a new headlight, I checked out the new models.

Once we arrived home, I wore out the internet looking at cars, and comparing features, and memorizing things like 140 horsepower and 236 foot pounds of torque, with EPA rating of 30/42. Then I put it all on the shelf, cause we really didn’t NEED a new car, and despite rumors to the contrary, I am a practical kinda guy.

During the drive to Boston, by the time we were cruising across North Dakota, we had realized that the nimble little Jetta had some advantages over the big diesel pickup truck on road trips, so long as said trips didn’t involve pulling the trailer. It was quieter, rode out the bumps better, and burned far less fuel. And we had amazed ourselves with how much stuff we had crammed into the back of that thing with the backseat folded down. So we added the possibility of touring with a small car after we retired, figuring on picking up something like the diesel Jetta sportwagen when the old Jetta died, so we’d even have room for the kayak and some camping gear for those times when we didn’t want to haul the trailer. It fit in well with the other dreams we hold for retirement time.

 Anyway, after taking our first two week vacation in over 14 years, and enjoying just how good that felt, we showed up back at the clinic to face the crush of catching up, the whining from those who couldn’t let us off the hook for slacking off when they needed us, the quiet resignation that we had years of six day/ 55 hour weeks to weather before we could even consider trying to retire, and the realization of all that settled around our shoulders with the subtlety of a 50 pound pigeon turd dropped from above. So rather than dutifully waiting patiently to grow old and die, we began discussing the possibility of having some fun before that happened.

Last Sunday we took the new Jetta for a nice long scenic drive to see a site that had been on the list of places to visit for decades. And it was wonderful! The weather cooperated with intermittent showers, cloud shows, cool weather, rainbows, and sunbeams highlighting the hills and valleys. Pinnacles National Monument lived up to its billing as a sparsely visited, well preserved, teaming with wildlife, and populated by rock spires and chaparral lit by fall color kind of place.

Did I mention that we bought a new car? Well, we did. We went for the sedan rather than the sportwagen, to enjoy a more nimble feel. We sprang for the turbo diesel for longevity and way better fuel economy. With the six speed manual transmission, satellite radio and GPS. And it rocks!

The way we figure it, the new Jetta will be nearly paid off by the time we might retire. So my practical side can sorta explain away this endulgence. The little diesel purred along at over 40 miles per gallon on this tour, which should improve after we get her broken in. And we are laying plans to actually take off a weekend every month and go do fun stuff, rather than just talking about doing this. And sometimes we will take the trailer, and sometimes we will fly low and fast in the new Jetta. We’ll see ya when we get back.

 

Nov 7 2011

We were talking about Michael Vick, and that whole nasty dog fighting business his wealth sponsored.  The we being a client and I, and the whole discussion was about how difficult it was for some to grasp the viciousness that resides in people in this day of advanced civilization. I ended up telling her that she wasn’t privy to half of the evil that went down on that property Vick owned, and that what he and his friends did to those dogs would turn the stomachs of folks far harder than her. 

My client suggested that Vicks’ mea culpa and public service excursions made the man look almost human, but his motives, whether he truly felt remorse or simply wanted to again enjoy the millions he would reap if he talked his way back into professional sports, are known only to him. 

You don’t have to walk very far to find people who will make all kinds of excuses for Vicks’ misdeeds. It’s cultural, you know. They will tell you it’s not his fault, for his entire background, and the background of his circle of friends encouraged such horrors for their amusement. They will tell you that many cultures enjoy violence and the infliction of pain on innocent animals. Those who promote and participate in cock fighting enjoy similar entertainment.  Blood, gore, pain, terror, and all that amuse them. And sadly, those who excuse this as cultural are mostly right.

The reality of the world today is that it contains a multitude of cultures, and very few of these are as sensitive about violence as the version of culture enjoyed by my client. The behaviors that so upset my client are the norm for much of humanity.  And even her own culture is not immune from this.

Heck, one of the most popular cultural pastimes these days pits two fierce humans against each other in a cage, and pays them to pommel, kick, and strangle each other senseless to sate the blood lust of millions. And that would be the premiere culture of this place. 

Yeah, we are an advanced civilization, but our civilization represents a very thin veneer. What lies under is the ole savagery many thought we left behind when we moved indoors and turned on the TV. 

The recent snowstorm in the Northeast pointed out again the vulnerability of modern civilization. A few inches of wet snow fell, and the trees came down and brought the power lines with, and thousands were without light, heat, and hot water for several days. Those in charge of repairing the damage were overwhelmed by the storm, and many people have been a bit miffed by all this.

Those responsible this time were public utility companies, that interesting consequence of trying to combine private enterprise with government control that results in such intense regulation to keep the private side in line that in the end these companies cannot do anything right.

 I haven’t heard too many reports of mass fatalities from this storm, for it did not arrive in the dead of winter, and thus inconvenienced more folks than it froze, but it sure exposed how poorly prepared the infrastructure and its caretakers were to handle this mess. And the average Joe, in this day of just flick a switch, looked out his window at a cold world knowing he didn’t have handy what it takes to deal with it either. 

We get to see the veneer of civilization peel off pretty fast when people get truly desperate.  New Orleans after Katrina demonstrated this well. Thousands of people accustomed to not needing to cope for themselves discovered that great disappointment you feel when your government doesn’t step in to take care of you when things go so wrong. And when the chips were down in the days following that storm, the many acts of civilized people trying to help others get through that mess were far overshadowed by the sub-human savagery of so many others.

I suppose you could make the argument that such storms are only temporary situations that merely put a dent in civilization. Which is true. But I suggest that such dents are an indicator of the vulnerability of civilization. And as we put more and more of our civilization at the mercy of the inconsistency of government control, or the unreliability of technology, we may find these dents will have greater impact.

Used to be ya kept your important documents in a safe deposit box at the bank or in that fireproof safe in the closet. The family bible held the dates of generations of the family’s births and deaths, marriages and celebrations. You kept your old checks to prove you paid that bill. The Mason jar buried in the garden held enough cash to get you through a weekend. And periodically, somebody sat down with the photographs spread out on the dining room table and names and dates were put to the faces long dead, so a piece of history persevered.

I was reading just yesterday about what our future holds for us. Checks will soon be a thing of the past. They say that plastic in your wallet will do a better job. Money will be a few electrons moving about. Photographs already are rarely more than electric impulses. And even all those documents, financial and insurance records, and the thoughts of lifetimes will leave paper and settle into electrical memory. It’s all faster and cheaper this way.

They promise that even the mechanical stuff we own to keep track of this electrical memory will soon disappear, and everything we commit to electrical impulses will settle in some cloud somewhere. And all of society’s eggs will be in one perfect basket. I’m sure this will all be perfectly safe and reliable. Aren’t you? You will never have to worry about someone carelessly exposing the film before the photos are developed. The house fire won’t destroy the insurance documents. No one will steal the Mason jar, or forget where they buried it. Gosh, things will be so convenient and safe you won’t be able to stand it. And we will relax and enjoy the fruits of our advanced civilization. 

Until…

One electromagnetic pulse. One clever criminal hacker or terrorist cell. One disgruntled guy with his finger on the right switch. Or a simple snow storm. And all that electrical memory goes vulnerable. And we will suspend our civilization for a bit as all that important stuff we need to run it simply evaporates. 

And then that other side of humanity will emerge yet again. Who will be ready for this? Look around at how poorly we’ve done lately with only those hiccups. Think the government will fix it in an hour? Think maybe those who know how to cope will know how to settle for a slightly less comfortable lifestyle? What of the majority who have no idea how to cope?

Oct 30, 2011

I won’t become involved in any arguments over who’s got the prettiest fall color. The local chambers of commerce no doubt would disagree with me, claiming that we should have been there last week, because it was so much better then. I won’t say we saw it all, but we saw a lot. 

Yellowstone had a good start on aspen color as we went by, and Montana truly had a big sky over the cottonwoods and various bushes that had changed. North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park can stand with any of its fellows. And Minnesota was delicious as we passed lake after thousands of lakes will boring through glorious forest.

Wisconsin was settling in for a long winter’s night, with groves of deciduous trees coloring the place. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula looked like a fine place to watch the colors peak, with large swaths of vibrant autumn delight. New York’s Adirondacks are a massive preserve of beauty, and Vermont should be immortalized on countless calendars, if it wasn’t already. And western Massachusetts deserves more press than it gets. surrounded by more famous colorful states.

On the way home, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were their usual unchanging Midwestern quiet unassuming pleasure. Missouri holds surprising interest, and Kansas, lowly Kansas, will be revisited and re-examined someday, for it is far neater that we’d been led to believe.  That is until you get almost to Colorado, where it becomes a place mostly for wind to blow unencumbered. 

Then, there is Colorado. Eastern Colorado is just a bit less anything than western Kansas, and you wonder why the creator bothered laying it out, except maybe just for contrast with the mountainous most of the state. When you finally reach The Greater Denver Area, the bland is supplemented by things of concrete with no particular appeal, a very weird and large airport, and talk radio that somehow becomes the only bastion of liberal raving from about Syracuse to Sacramento. We zigged north to the little town of Hygiene, which frankly didn’t seem any cleaner than any other little town I’ve ever met.

Shortly after, we slowed for the outskirts of Estes Park, a very pretty place. This is apparently the summer home of folks with more money than sense. And lots of em. Rich liberals. The most confusing version. The narrow streets were packed with slow moving cars, and the sidewalks filled with folks shopping expensive stores and galleries for things we don’t much need, so we passed on through. The sign on the side of the road upon entering this town reads, “Watch For Wildlife On The Street”. Which was indeed a good idea. 

A cow elk was walking in the slow lane. Slowly. I was momentarily confused by this incongruity, but immediately acknowledged the prescience of that sign. She was headed for the large group of elk lounging on the grass right there near downtown. We gave her the right of way. I recalled the tale of the massive bull elk that used to hang out in that town, the one killed for no reason whatsoever by a true idiot with a crossbow. A statue dedicated to that elk looms near his old hangout. Apparently he was a really cool dude, and he deserved better. I don’t know whether the local radio blamed the conservatives or the liberals for this crime, but I can guess.

Right on the edge of town stands the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. We passed through after flashing my FREE SENIOR LIFETIME PASS! 

About a mile in, while climbing up the switchbacks through the woods, we saw our first deer. The sky was cluttered with clouds. I’d been watching the clouds all morning, trying to decide if the weather gods were going to allow us to traverse the park and then later the great state of Colorado, or simply shut down the place with wind, snow and such. So far they had held off, but things looked to be changing.

Mountains everywhere, we understood how the place got its name. We were working our way up the side of one, switchbacks and views out across the valley, with a small snow shower over there. More clouds. A small herd of cow elk with their bull raking a bush with his antlers. The rut was still on.

We came to a small valley, with large crowds of aspen clinging to the side of yet another mountain, golden and glorious. Another 180 degree turn and back up in the direction from whence we had just come, always climbing, the clouds looking closer. Eventually we emerged along the sharp crest of an obvious ridge, with the world falling off dramatically on either side, and watch where you are going lest you test the laws of gravity in a most embarrassing way. The road is called the Trail Ridge Road, and I’ll bet this would be the Trail Ridge. Down there was where we once were, and it looked rather dramatic from up here. And the clouds were getting closer.

And then, finally swallowed by cloud, with the first snowflakes crashing into the windshield, we left the cowardly trees behind and climbed yet higher into the alpine tundra, with quarter inch tall vegetation and lichen covered rock. The views up there no doubt were wonderful on the last clear day, whenever that was. The sign beside the road claimed tenthousandandsevenhundredsomefeet, and we suspect this is the top of the Trail Ridge Road, for we no longer climbed. Snow was beginning to gather on the road. Not slippery, but still…pay attention time.

We dropped down the western side of the famous ridge, and since they say that the western side of ridges tend to gather the most snow, we start noticing they were right. Not a problem, but It was getting real pretty. Soon enough, we drop low enough to rejoin the trees, and they gathered the snow so they looked even better in their autumn color. And then we found the elk.

Have you ever seen the cow elk shake the snow off their backs as they graze their way across a meadow, heading into a copse of trees only thirty yards away? It’s really neat to watch. And then down the road a few yards we parked in a small lot next to a privy and watched elk calves cavort, playing tag and kicking up their heals in the clearing next to the snow covered trees, and yep, we took pictures. And a video.

The ranger was standing next to a gate closing the road as we drew near the end of the park. Apparently a few tourists up on top of the ridge were kinda frozen with fear at the three quarters of an inch of snow on the road, and they needed to be escorted out, and the rangers weren’t letting any more innocents wander up top to make more work for them. But we had made it through.

From there, our goal was good ole I-70 again, miles to the south. The country was mountains to the left of us, mountains to the right, and mountains across our front. The road designed in the drunken cow school of traffic engineering wandered apparently aimlessly between some of these mountains, and then over the shoulder of one, even higher than that Trail Ridge. Lots more snow, and aspen color everywhere we looked. My head was on a swivel while Joie converted pixels to photos out the window.

Once back to the interstate driving west, we were immersed for hours in more mountains, with jagged rock formations, fresh snow on everything, wisps of cloud filtering between the peaks, gaudy spectacular homes built for the skiers, and autumn color. Autumn color everywhere. Red and orange and yellow and gold. Everywhere. Simply breathtaking.

We will be back.

Oct 23, 2011

“Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand. Maybe I’ll be there to share the land. That they’d be giving away. When we all live together.”

Guess Who

The advertisement comes on the radio the same time every morning, right during our drive to work in the morning, right after we turn on to Bailey Road, if we are on schedule. 

“Mortgages should be illegal.”

Apparently, and this was news to some, when you take out a mortgage to buy a house, the bank (note: BANK is a four letter word) will charge you interest on the use of their money. Thus, it will cost you more for the house you are purchasing if you borrow the money used to buy the house than if you paid with the cash in your wallet. And according to the angry voice on the radio, this is so unfair that it should be illegal. A crime. And I suppose you should really be angry with the bank.

The advertisement suggests you call the number and find out how this guy will get you out of debt, now that the banks have you by the short hairs. Or so he says. Ya see, he is a tiny bit vague on how they’re a-gonna do this, which might be deliberate. But since some folks are growing weary of being in debt these days, there must be some appeal in this uh, appeal.

Later in our short drive another advertisement often comes along. This one is aimed at those folks who are up to their ears in credit card debt. It warns you about all those other outfits that claim they will help you get out from under your credit card debt. Ya see, some of those folks actually want you to work with the banks to pay down your debt. And…”They are making lots of money for the credit card companies!!!” So you should hire this company instead. Presumably so that you don’t actually have to pay the money you owe to the credit card companies. Wow, wouldn’t that be cool! And so convenient.

Now we have people camped out in the cities. Early in the course of this seemingly interminable nonsense, where gaggles of marxists, anarchists, and disenchanted young folks, of which we always seem to have more than we need, plopped down in the streets near the seats of power and commerce, hoping to convince the world that they were disenchanted marxist anarchists, cause we didn’t know it already, I guess. (Worst sentence I ever wrote, but they deserve it) And since this was a little weird, and the only other newsworthy stuff going on was the republican debates, which scared them to death because ANY of these guys is better than the incumbent, and the HUNT FOR GADDAFI, The Media was all over it.

That largest group of The Media, the supporters of the president, hoped this collection of discontented was the vanguard of a populist revolution in support of Obamagenda, and they played it up as just that. Meanwhile, the loyal opposition looked upon the pathetic rabble, and then walked among them with a microphone trying to get some notion of why they were there. And they got several versions. From each and every person in the group. All different. And all disjointed and mostly irrelevant.

But there was one position that at least three people in the group seemed to rally around. And that was the notion that we should simply cancel out all debt. Wipe it off the books, completely. Every one. Cause that would be fair to the People, and hurt the bank. That four letter word, again. Discharge every debt and what? Start all over again? Nobody seemed to know, but they sure liked the idea of magically being out of debt.

One lady told the story of how she had gotten her college degree in women’s studies, and accumulated $120,000 in student loan debt in the process, and she couldn’t find a job paying $100,000 a year in women’s studies to pay down that loan. And boy, was that unfair. Somebody told her the government would loan her the money to get her degree in women’s studies, and so the government made her education possible, and opened up her future cause that’s what government should do to grease the skids and make everyone’s life lovely, but now they wanted to get paid back, and WTF was that? (That’s code for, uh, nevermind. But that’s what the protesters were texting on their $500 smart phones while they complained about being broke. That’s onnacount of they bought those smart phones on their credit cards, and the damn bank wanted to be paid back for that, too.)

Credit. Seems that’s all we talk about anymore. We once were a nation that manufactured widgets, and other stuff. We were the class of the earth in manufacturing widgets. Widgets powered the economy. Ya got out of high school and landed a job at the widget factory, and ya put in your time and took your pension and that was your life. The union got you a better deal and that meant you could afford a house instead of an apartment, and a nice car, bought on credit of course. But you had the American dream. And then we stopped making widgets. And the only thing left to power the economy was credit.

Since our nation didn’t make anything anymore, we certainly couldn’t make more of nothing to expand the economy, so to make money, we turned to credit, which expanded the money in the world without actually making anything. And then we found out what that gets you. Fake nothing.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Round and round we go, which shell is hiding the pea? Don’t know if we can blame the unions or the corporations, but we stopped making widgets, and instead we expanded the economy with credit, because that’s all that’s left, until it became a bubble. The old shell game became our reality. The Wizards of Oz became our leaders. We have absolutely no reason to expect that we would end up with anything other than what we are living now.

And one president deregulated the savings and loan folks, and we saw what happened when we said that breaking the old laws designed to protect folks from thieves meant that the thieves could do whatever they want. And then another president deregulated the folks who limited the mortgage markets to some semblance of reason, and the crooks took advantage of that. The banks were the bad guys here, but all those folks who applied for those mortgages knowing full well they couldn’t pay for them don’t go without blame.

Our prisons should be full of people who abused this deal, but for the usual reasons that didn’t happen. It seems you don’t throw your buddies in jail unless somebody makes you. And all those people who borrowed money and then had no possible way to pay it back are just as easy to blame.

Got a mortgage you can’t afford? Whose fault is that? Bought too many flat screens and smart phones on your credit cards and you can’t pay it back? Well cry somewhere else. Gathering in the streets and blaming other people doesn’t cut it. It’s not somebody else’s fault. It’s our fault. Live with it. And then fix it. Yourself.

Or just concede that we can’t have an American way of life anymore, and buy into the European socialistic ideal, and spend your life collecting government checks and living crammed in a high rise apartment instead of your own family home, and the notion of owning your own home becomes only the province of the rich. And try on the ant suit, cause that’s what you will be.

A special place and time, from the past

I have homework for you, if you have the energy. Find any collection of the photography of Ansel Adams, anything at all that he did high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and when you have digested this magic, I hope you can find a copy of “Mountain Light”, by the climber/photographer, Galen Rowell. What Adams' genius revealed in the wonder of the mountains, with the detail of black and white photography, Rowel captured in the glory of the light up there, and in its color.

Meanwhile, I will attempt to recall some of that wonder with a few words. Where I fail, you can insert an Adams image, or a Rowell jewel, and with luck, you will gain a hint of what I'm trying to describe.

Ya see, I'm talking about a place of remarkable, if austere, beauty. Few people have seen it, although if you go there, and you actually see someone else, someone hiking the main trail that traverses north to south, for instance, you might say, “Go away, for you are crowding my space, and I resent you.” Because when there, you want it all to yourself, and you do not care if anyone else sees it. Certainly, this is selfish, but a crowd of more than a few detracts from the experience, so you gladly choose to be the hermit, at least during your brief time spent there.

The pass isn't much, just a low spot on the Sierra Crest, but it grants entry to the place. You can see part of the Great Western Divide from there, and as you wander down slope from the pass, the view opens up to include more of it. That spectacular row of 13,000 foot peaks is the western boundary, the awe inspiring Sierra Crest forms the eastern wall, and a less famous row of peaks, the King-Kern Divide closes off the north. You walk down to 11,000 feet or so, and then you can wander wherever you wish, giddy from altitude and awe.

Eleven thousand feet marks the end of the trees, and you pass that line going up or down every day. The trees are foxtail pines, a species that for whatever reason elected to live on the very edge of survival. They are picturesque, weather blasted freaks of trees, and they get even more spectacular after they die, and the wind sculpts them into modern art.

Beautiful lakes dot the sparse landscape, and some hold trout. We caught a bunch one day, under the sparkling high altitude sun. The photo is of Dan holding his spinning rod in both hands, and the fish are strung along the rod, and my friend has the big grin on his face.

Dan was on the hospice bed, in his living room, and the morphine was doing its job so that he didn't have to know about it, when I brought him the photo. He awoke while we were there, and I showed him the photo, and he remembered, and the grin came one more time. His wife placed the photo in a frame, and it lives there to this day. It's not an Adams or a Rowell, but it captures a piece of a place and a time, and it was special.

Another Piece Dating Back To Before My Regular Column

"Mork to Orsen. Mork to Orsen. Come in Orsen.”

”What is it, Mork?”

“Greetings, your blimpness. I was preparing my regular report on the behavior of the inhabitants of this planet; however, I am confused. I wanted to tell you about religion and marriage, but like so many things earthlings do, sometimes these two institutions just do not make any sense.”

Loud sigh: “Well, Mork, why don’t you tell me all about it?”

“Today I was watching children in a school playground when I saw a first-grader stop to help tie the shoelaces for a younger child who could not. I felt so good when I saw the smiles on both faces as they walked their separate ways. Later, I observed another first grade student walk away from a small child whose shoes were also untied. Instead of helping, this student insulted the little mite and then walked away laughing, leaving the poor child sagging in tears.”

“None of this should surprise you Mork. You should know by now that humans like to do things to feel better about themselves; some of the inhabitants of that planet elevate themselves by helping others, while some merely try to feel superior by pushing others down. What does this have to do with religion and marriage?”

“Well, Orson, what I have found while watching earthlings is that their organizations act just like individual humans. These groups can bring out the best in humanity and sometimes they produce only the worst. For instance, the earthlings founded a multitude of different churches to provide a venue for spiritual growth and social structure. Each church has done this job a little differently, some even contradicting the rules and methods of its neighboring churches. But when they did their jobs well, no matter how differently, these churches greatly improved the lives of their denominations. However, when the churches competed among themselves, or when they had flawed leadership interested only in self-aggrandizement, they have been guilty of bringing out the worst in their members. Like a child laughing at an untied shoelace, the leaders of some churches urged members to turn against their neighbors, plaguing mankind with inquisitions, wars, and generations of discrimination and persecution. Instead of building on a foundation of love, some churches turned to hate.”

“Well, Mork, I suppose you are going to tell me that the churches have messed up marriage too.”

“Not always, Orsen. Usually marriage that is blessed by a church is wonderful. Churches have provided a framework that reinforces marriage commitments by defining traditions and rules of behavior. Humans clearly benefit from this kind of structure, but the same problems kept popping up. The thousands of different churches, with conflicting rules about marriage, often fought more with each other than with the Devil.

Some churches have attempted to corner the market on marriage by claiming they are the only moral authority, and that civil law is not. Despite objections from these churches, marriages based on civil laws have always taken place. I watched many marriages begin as a religious endeavor with vows made before a man of the Cloth. When these humans divorce, however, marriage quickly loses the illusion of its religious cloak to reveal its civil roots, as the two involved fight for the money. Yet, some churches are still trying to force everyone to marry their way.”

“Mork, does this report have anything to do with Prop 22, the Knight Initiative in California?”

“Yes Orsen, it does. These earthlings have thousands of ‘right ways’ to be married. With all the different rules that have been applied to marriage over the millennia, rules about the age, race, origins, wealth, and number of participants in a marriage, what possible harm could arise from including same gender marriage? But, I guess some people don’t see it this way. Vigorous opposition to same gender marriage arises from two distinct groups. Some of the loudest comes from folks who have never been happy except when they are harming others; these people are called bigots. They act like they expect to be forced into gay marriage if Knight fails. And the funds to promote Prop 22 come mostly from a few churches that persist in thinking that they alone have the fast track to God. Several churches that have hated each other for years have, nonetheless banded together in support of Knight. One of these churches has never recognized the marriages performed by any other church. Another still winks at its own fringe members who practice polygamy. Yet, these organizations proclaim themselves experts in marriage with a moral imperative to run everyone’s lives. I believe the earthlings call this living in a glass house. Orsen, you would think that a group who thinks it is OK to make one man happy by letting him marry several wives would also want to make two men happy by letting them marry each other.” 

“Mork, you are being silly. You must realize that on that planet, rules have always been more important than people. If some folks get sacrificed in the process, it’s just too bad.”

“I know, Orsen, but it still seems a little sad.”

                                                                                   

           

A Very Old Column; One Of The First

Go for a ride?

Dogs are smart. They see through the clutter of life, right to the important stuff, things like dinnertime, walks, and pats on the head from the people they adore. And they know the value of rides.

My dog was sleeping on the floor in front of the fireplace, a perfectly reasonable thing to do on a chilly autumn day. He was snoring, oblivious to his surroundings, until I pulled my keys from their hook on the wall. The tiny clinking sound resurrected him and he shot past me to stand expectantly at the door. Go for a ride? You bet!

We piled into the cab of my truck and were off. My dog's nose stuck out of the window, taking in the smell of strange country. After only a short ride he bounded out of the truck and ran into the house, as eager to come home as he was to leave.

Recently I endured a period of quiet desperation; the world seemed off its axis. Trapped in that proverbial box with the walls slowly closing in, I didn't know what was wrong. My dinner dish was full, I didn't need a walk, and my wife gave me all the pats I needed, but I couldn't see the important stuff through the clutter… I needed to get the smell of strange country. Go for a ride? You bet!

No two rides are the same, but I know a few simple rules, which anyone may follow. The first day, go as far as practical to put that box behind. Drive across a place like Nevada if you can. The vast open spaces and distant blue mountains stretching to the horizon are so intimidating they force you to view your problems from a new perspective. Listen to country music, the poetry of the common folk, on weak radio stations that fade in and out as miles blur beneath your tires. Use the solitude to wander around inside your head and reacquaint yourself with the person living in there. In such desolate country you will discover time to clean out the closet a little. It is OK to cry.   

If you know where you are going, and there are two roads, take the smaller. If you don't know where you are going, take the smaller road anyway.

Explore a short detour, perhaps a spur road into the Ruby Mountains just before dusk, when shadows are long and colors warm. Spend time in aspen groves watching the sun sparkle through the golden leaves. Then drive on through all the phases of the sunset and into the darkness.

Breakfast on the second day should be in the coffee shop of a second-rate casino. Get up very early, the call of the road will prevent sleep anyway, and be sure to flirt with the old waitress with the gravelly voice. Talk with people who have lived their lives differently than you; do not judge, instead try to learn. Listen to the old folks. We may be in the information age, but we should acquire knowledge the old fashion way.

Seek out settings so awe inspiring that you lack words to describe them to your friends. Stand shivering alone on a sage flat in Jackson Hole for instance, just as dawn breaks and elk begin to materialize from wisps of ground fog all around you. Bugles from unseen bulls echo on four sides and you can see the small clouds of steam billowing from an antlered bull as he poses in front of you, silhouetted by the dawn. Remember to look behind and watch the summits of the Tetons turn to glowing embers with the first brush of the morning sun.

Later, note the wonder reflected in the eyes of a small boy as he watches half a ton of bison saunter past his dad's car, four feet away, as the great beast leisurely strolls down the yellow stripe in the center of a road in Yellowstone. Acknowledge the twinge of envy you feel when you realize the boy, unlike yourself, is just beginning to experience all the wonders he will see. Then go out and find some new wonders for yourself.

Find places so beautiful you don't know where to look first. It is OK to cry here, too. Then photograph or draw or write so you can prolong the lessons when you get home.

As you pass by, contemplate the lives of people memorialized by little white crosses on the side of the road. They also went for a ride, but they can never go home again. Hope that they were at peace with their lives when they were asked to leave. Then count your blessings.

When it is time, and the ride is over, you will bound out of the truck and run into the house, as eager to come home as you were to leave. And you will find the important stuff will be clear again.

So, the next time you feel the walls closing in and you cannot see through the clutter, take a lesson from a dog. Go for a ride? You bet!

Oct 16, 2011

“I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

Abraham Kaplan 1967

A disorganized mob composed mostly of young people poured into the streets. They were not in a good mood. Their country was engaged in an unpopular war. The world economy was seemingly forever trapped in a downswing. They had been promised much, but in their minds they had received little. They were disappointed. They were angry.

Some of these demonstrators seemed a bit out of place. They were college students like many of the others, but were much older. Instead of graduating in 4 years and getting on with their lives, they were on the 14-year plan. They took the occasional class at the university, but spent a disproportionate amount of time drinking coffee and smoking in the student union building or in neighborhood dives, talking among themselves, a Greek chorus of like thinkers. Somehow their majors kept changing, so they never graduated or got on with their lives. Many needed a shower. All were smarter than anyone else, just ask them, and they eagerly pronounced that they had all the answers, if only folks would listen.

Randomly distributed through the protesting crowd, a smaller collection of people attempted to direct and incite the mob. They all seemed to have the same assortment of talking points, as if they had been prepped for this role, and although none had any visible means of support, they were well funded from somewhere. When these people were done shouting into the microphone, the mob may not have known exactly what they wanted to say, but at least they knew which slogans to chant in unison.

On the outside of the demonstrations looking in, the old folks scowled in silence. They had seen tougher times than this and they had simply rolled up their sleeves and got on with things. To them the mob of young people were spoiled over-indulged brats. And they wondered about the future of a world they had worked so hard to improve, that they would soon turn over to the care of these naïve whiners.

Meanwhile the mob railed against their ineffective government that seemed unable to fix all their problems, and they railed against the great corporations and Wall Street, for they had been diligently educated to think that corporate greed was the source of all the world’s problems, and therefore the cause of their current disenchantment. And they watched themselves on the television at night and felt important.

And the people who worked got up each morning during these demonstrations, and they quietly went to their jobs, and they quietly prospered, and they watched the news each night too, noted the demonstrations, and shook their heads in disbelief and frustration.

I was in some of those demonstrations, many many years ago, and I saw how it worked. And as long as I was completely surrounded by like thinking people, I dutifully fell into step with them.

I won’t be attending any of the demonstrations that are “spontaneously” breaking out these days, conveniently timed to influence the coming election. Perhaps I’m simply one of those people who gets up and goes to work each day and has no time for such things, or maybe I’m just an old codger standing off to the side scowling. But I don’t see much difference between these latest demonstrations and the ones I attended.

Again, the aged college students on the 14-year plan are in attendance, and they are smarter than everyone else despite complaining that no one is listening to them. Many are in need of a shower. They are still spouting the same tired old slogans they borrowed from Marx.

Those few people who are directing and inciting the mobs look much the same. They are again well versed in their talking points and well funded from somewhere.

And the bulk of the mob are college students or recent graduates who continue to think like college students. They feel they have been promised much and yet delivered of little. They were told that they could do more with their lives if they obtained an education, and they interpreted that to mean they were entitled to everything, and when that everything didn’t instantly land in their laps, their entitlement sense became incensed. Instead of going home to watch themselves on television, they now pull out their latest model 4G phone or tablet computer and watch themselves demonstrating live. They may be impoverished, and terribly oppressed, but they are doing it with all the toys.

The why of these demonstrations isn’t quite clear, but those involved obediently vent their anger against the great corporations and banks, and Wall Street in general with predictable vehemence. And most seem distressed that their president and his side of the congress cannot yield their mighty hammer and fix everything they think wrong with the world.

You remember the hammer. That’s how this piece got started so very many words ago. The president wants to use his hammer to pound every problem into submission. Apparently, it is the only tool he has, so every problem is now a nail. The president’s hammer aims to drown our problems with money. Your money. More government spending. More government jobs. More manipulation of folks with government money and hence government control. Government fixing everything and then everyone will be so grateful that they vote the president and his party into power again. And individuals will fade away and government will be all.

Disregard the cost. We should simply raise the debt limit. We should raise taxes, just so long as somebody else has to pay them. Tax the rich, because we have all been taught that it is the rich we should hate for all the harm they bring us. Leave our grandchildren in debt for eternity while we disassemble a system that has improved the lives of each generation as it took its turn.

The president makes his proposals for massively expensive government projects that never work, but he says will solve our problems, and his opponents vote them down. And the president’s minions in congress and the media cry out, “OK, vote down our president’s genius, but where are your proposals for how government can solve all our problems? Let’s see them.”

So hung up are these folks with the hammer that they see no other way into the future, other than government control.

Perhaps we need different tools. Or perhaps we simply need more perspective. What if reality states that things go good and then bad in the natural course of things? Economies go up and down. Climates warm and cool. Great nations rise and then fall. What if the notion that you can fix this is the myth?

What if we realize that although government can surely screw things up, it rarely actually fixes anything? Where does that leave the president’s hammer?

And what becomes of all those entitled whiners marching in the streets when the reality settles upon their shoulders that somebody else will not be fixing their problems for them. And they better get busy working on it themselves. Do you wonder if America still has what it takes for us to do this?