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?

A Very Old Column Which Introduces My Invisible Friend

Shall We Debate Death?

                                               

I have an invisible friend with whom I argue. She and I rarely see eye to eye. She is well intentioned and moral, as I try to be, but we inevitably end up debating the issues that trouble thinking people. Some of our arguments become heated, and I must be careful to restrain my responses when we are out in public, for if I begin to shout and gesticulate when she provokes me, people tend to stare, because only I can see her. Still, I love these arguments. My invisible friend forces me to question and grow.

Recently, as we browsed through a craft fair, she tried holding me to task because I have not renounced eating meat. Realizing that we were headed for another nasty confrontation, I desperately tried to change the subject. However, when she charged me with the crime of insensitivity, of not caring about the lives that ended so that I might eat, I had to respond, for I am intimately acquainted with death. I know that death changes things…. and it is forever.

I discovered many years ago that nothing is the same in death as it is in life. My invisible friend was shopping for a dried flower arrangement, dead flowers, to decorate her home. So I asked her if those dried flowers, as pretty as they were, could compare to a natural garden of live flowers tousled by the breeze in a sunny mountain meadow. Of course, they could not.

Near where we stood, a display of photographs hung on the wall.  One depicted a rare beauty, the late Marilyn Monroe. I have seen her movies; they captured some of her essence, even the sound of her voice. But I can only imagine how this might compare to time spent with her, the soft whisper of her breath in my ear, the smell of her hair, or even the brush of her skirt on my arm as she passed by my chair.

My friend doesn't know it, but I have a trophy mount of a bull elk hanging on my wall. I like to think it serves as a fitting memorial to the fine beast that has been feeding my family for a year. A taxidermist did a marvelous job with the bull, he looks very life-like, but I am fully aware that his presence on a wall overlooking the pool table is not the same as the living bull elk I heard bugling in the mountains of Wyoming last autumn.

I concede that death is inevitable. Every seed that sprouts, every egg that hatches, every bawling newborn calf is going to die. Sometimes a life is wonderful and its death a tragedy; often the opposite occurs, a miserable existence but a merciful death. Nobody gets to choose, but nobody escapes, either.

Sometimes I try to deny death, for the images of death disturb me. I turn the page when the newspaper presents photos of a thousand bloated corpses filling a mass grave in some country most couldn't find on a map. I don't look at the tiny calico kitten struck on the road, never to snuggle next to a little girl again. And as a child I ran away from my strangely plastic looking Grandma, lying in a purple box at the front of a room that smelled funny, a room filled by evil sounding organ music and crying aunts that I never saw anywhere else.

 But I am concerned with the 'how' of death, for as a society we have no consistency in the way we deal with this. We are horrified by the grisly murder of a child, but would stand in line to torture her killer to death. Some people carry signs to protest a man hunting for elk, then go home to watch endless TV hours of cheetahs that feed their young by chasing down and killing impalas.

A part of a veterinarian's job is to offer relief to animals that are suffering an intolerable existence, a humane death we call it. In effect the doctor conveys a gift of death. This is considered a good thing. But if he were to offer the same relief to his ailing father he would be thrown in jail.

My invisible friend recoils at the thought that I eat meat, that an animal died to feed me, while she is comfortable eating fruit, the unborn babies of a tree. I wonder how anyone decides if any of this is right or wrong?

I'm not proposing we should "kill 'em all and let God sort it out" as some might suggest. But since we all have to live with that person in the mirror, shouldn't we have some latitude to judge ourselves in these matters?

I often ponder how to reconcile the causing of death. I know men who have killed their fellow humans in war with no apparent residual embarrassment, but were paralyzed with grief for accidentally killing their own dog. This year alone, I killed ten thousand ants in my kitchen for no more reason than they bothered me, yet I felt no remorse. And I killed one animal with a rifle, a resoundingly difficult task for me, to put food in the freezer for my family.

Years of introspection preceded, and no doubt will follow, the decision to hunt my own food. To the charge of insensitivity I plead not guilty. I don't know all the answers, or even if there are answers, but it is not for lack of consideration.

And the next time I see my invisible friend, maybe I will ask her this question. If it is wrong to hunt for food and be a taker of life, how can it be right to end suffering and be a giver of death?

                                                                                     

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Oct 9 2011

Hi all

Met someone very interesting and wonderful last week. Allow me to introduce her to you.

“Don’t worry, be happy!”

Kinda silly song. This time it was sung by a fake rubber fish mounted on a wooden plaque. You’ve seen these novelties…  Ya press the red button and the fake rubber fish moves its head and tail as if swimming, and the fish’s mouth opens and closes with the lyrics. Oh, and it plays songs, like the Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t worry; be happy”. This giz is best appreciated when tipsy or two years old. We weren’t imbibing. But Nova is two years old, and she loved it.

So OK…who is Nova?

Well, let’s see if I’m up to this. Some people you can sum up with a few short sentences. And frankly, most two year olds fall into this category. Many  two year olds will eventually grow and expand and their sentences will become longer and more enjoyable to read.  But some people will never warrant much more than a short story, and you gotta keep the descriptions uncomplicated with these. 

Not Nova. She is one in a million. After meeting Nova, I felt I wanted to tell you all something about her, and I’ve plenty of time and energy to do this, what with being on vacation and all. I have all those giga bytes on my puter to play with, and those dozens of words in my vocabulary to arrange and rearrange, and yet it will take me a bit to do this, and I will rewrite it a few times, and still I fear I shall only scratch the surface of who Nova is and what she does and how impressed I am with this tiny child. I know this already, and I have only spent maybe three hours with her.

The wedding was Sunday, and on Monday I had the headlight fixed and the oil changed early, and got the Jetta packed for the long journey home before noon, but we hung around because the offspring were gonna show up and we wanted to be there for this. We were at Rex’s house, Joie’s dad, and his grandkids wanted to spend more time with him and they showed up, since they were in town and home was far away for most of them. And Rex has some health issues and he is 96 and so you stop by when you are in town. Ya know.

Anyway, we found out that Nova’s parents could bring her by for a visit after she woke up from her nap, and we figured that was worth waiting just a little, since meeting her was on the short list. And we were so right.

I was washing the dishes after the pizza, onacountof I’m a nice guy and such (and I always need the points), when Jason, Elizabeth, and Nova arrived. So Nova was well into enjoying herself when I came into the room. She stood next to the little coffee table with all the magazines in front of the couch, and she was looking at fish. Pictures of fish. In the Orvis catalog.

Nova likes fish. She has been to the aquarium, and it’s full of fish and she saw every one of them. And she has books at home and she goes through them looking for fish. And she finds every one. So Nova found every fish in the Orvis catalog, and she was delighted. She was so delighted that she wanted to share, and so if somebody was sitting there watching her, and everybody was, she would pick someone, walk over and take that grownup’s finger, and haul them back over to see her fish. And she did this to several grownups. And when I walked into the room, she was doing this and I thought it was pretty cool.

Nova eventually had seen all the fish in the Orvis catalog, and so she found a rocking chair to climb upon, and she rocked herself for a while. And then great grandfather Rex brought in the rubber fish on a plaque that plays songs when you push the red button, and presented it to Nova. And WOW, was that OK with Nova. She had the red button figured out right away, and with each push she enjoyed a new song from her fish, and she danced with each, and the smile would melt steel.

Ya see, Nova has a hearing aide that puts the sound into the bones of her head so she hears the music just fine. The bones in her ear are just a bit mixed up, so the usual way to hear won’t work for her.  But with the help of the hearing aid the dancing comes naturally along with the smile. And she sees anything she wants by just cocking her head a little to get things into focus. And without question, this works fine for her, too. 

Once in a while Elizabeth or Jason need to suction out Nova’s tracheotomy tube, but she is accustomed to this. And she wears the back pack that holds her food that feeds through the plastic tube to that other tube into her stomach, and that’s just normal for her. No problem, ya know. She squeals with joy over life’s little discoveries and she is starting to eat tiny bits from a spoon finally, and some day that will be fine too.

Nova has about 200 words now, which ain’t bad for a two year old. She does this with ASL, which is American Sign Language, if you haven’t been paying attention. If you get the chance, you should learn some ASL, cause it comes in real handy with some folks who don’t talk with their mouths yet. Nova holds up the I Love You thing with her fingers, and it will melt your heart. Trust me.

Something about Nova that I just have to share. When she is pushing the red button and the fish is singing, and she wishes to show this wonder to you, she will walk over to you. And she WILL take your finger, and lead you over to experience this with her, and you will know you have been selected by someone very special for something very special, and if you don’t tear up just a little with how happy it makes you feel to be selected by Nova, you are beyond redemption. And yes, every single person in the room was so honored.

Nova doesn’t miss a thing, and she enjoys most things, and every eye in the room follows her everywhere and she enjoys the world, for she is just that wonderful.

And you are probably wondering about the hearing aid and the trach tube and the way Nova must be fed. Nova was born with a thing called Pfeiffer Syndrome. You can look it up, but what we have here is an incredibly uncommon, one in one hundred thousand babies-deal that happened to land on Nova. Craniosynostosis. Big word.

When things work as they should, a baby has these gaps between the bones in their skull, and this lets them grow into “normal” and then the bones knit together later and you have a “normal” head. With Pfeiffer Syndrome the bones fuse together prematurely and unless the surgeons move things around fairly often while the child grows, this messes up everything.  So Nova has had a few surgeries, and she will have several more, and when she is finally grown she will have a nearly “normal” head. And if the early returns bear fruit, Nova will be one heck of a neat human when it is all done.

Nova has several little friends with whom she plays, and they have a ball together. And you can tell that she is going to have many more. Because of the roll of the dice, Nova doesn’t look like every other child. She looks like Nova, a happy bright gifted child, but that isn’t enough for a few fools.  Apparently some moms have ‘rescued’ their little children from time spent with Nova, which proves that the human race is gonna go on like it always have, with prejudice and ignorance and irrational fears and dislikes propagated for eternity. And I feel so sorry for those little children, for they will not learn the joys of friendship with Nova, and they will advance through life incomplete and deprived because of their parents’ ignorance. 

Some folks would tell you that Nova is handicapped. But I would suggest that if you ask Nova, the operative word here would be inconvenienced. Not handicapped. And this is Nova’s choice. She seems totally cool with things as they are, which of course would be a lesson for all of us.

10/2/11

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.