Geezer Q & A

Q: How you know when you’re approaching geezerdom:

A: Your barber starts asking if you’d like  her to “trim those ears” and “do something about those eyebrows.”

Q: How you know when you’re a full-blown geezer:
A: She stops asking and just does the work.

More about stuff

I took apart Daughter Two’s desk the other day. She won’t need it when she’s only home for occasional holidays and it’s in good shape, so we’ll find someone else to use it. I can’t bear to throw it out. And we’ll gain about another 25 sqft in the process. Woo-hoo! The rec room moves one notch closer to its new identity.

After discussion with Two, I set about going through all the stuff in, on and around the desk. I approached the chore as drudgery. By the time I finished, I felt a bit closer to my daughter.

There were so many little nick-nacks and mementoes, it took me twice as long as I’d planned. I looked over each one before deciding where it went.  I recognized a few but mostly, I came to realize how little I really knew about what she chose to keep.

I couldn’t tell you why most of the items are special to Daughter Two. And I’m not going to ask her. These are her private special things and the fact that she ran out of cleaning time in the rush to leave for college makes them no less private.

So I put them in bins and boxes, separating old school stuff from keepsakes from awards from office supplies from obvious trash. I felt guilty that I’d never gotten around to fixing her rolling keyboard tray. But for the most part, I just wondered about the things passing through my hands.

And I thought about my own special things. I still have a number of them around here somewhere. I have  the “Little Grabber” folder clip and my Nixon button (I was young!) and my old notebooks and my horn made from a horn from Balloftwinetour and my Mardi Gras beads and an early letter from Mary.

I’d never seen most of Two’s stuff but I recognized every piece of it. These are the things that you collect over the years for reasons you might not even be able to articulate. This one is from a special friend, that one you made yourself and the one over there you just like, for no special reason.

It was an afternoon spent finding out how like me and how uniquely different my daughter is. It was a special time for me that I enjoyed immensely.

Next up – the bookcases.

Nouveau bus riders

There’s a lot of road construction going on in Seattle just now, including the demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct section of Hwy 99, one of the two major North-South highways through the city. It’s settling badly and located on land fill just behind a crumbling seawall. Can you say, “liquefaction zone?”

So, during the nine days that the jackhammers will be pounding away, about a quarter of the people who work downtown have to find an alternate route. And since we have a great bus system, guess where a lot of them are ending up?

Everyone should ride transit. It’s cheaper than operating a car and you can read or look at the sights the whole way home. But it’s not for everyone. Some folks are uncomfortable with giving up their rolling privacy palaces. I understand that.

What I don’t understand is why some of them look sideways at me and the other denizens of the coach. Anyone who doesn’t have to feed coins or bills is identified as one of the poor souls who actually ride the bus even when there are other choices.  The pass hanging from a lanyard around my neck is somehow a mark of shame.

They don’t want to sit too close. Okay by me, more room for my ample caboose. But I have to wonder what sort of ooze they think will rub off on them. It’s not like I didn’t shower this week. Wadda they think I do on Saturday nights?

You know, this might be an opportunity for some fun. After all, I am on my sixth whoopee cushion since I got married. I wonder how the temporary riders will react to a little concert.  Or I may feel a sudden need to talk to myself. Or perhaps rock out to my earphones that are connected to nothing!

I’ll definitely wear one of my special hats. Oh, yeah!

This will be a good week!

Still crazy after all these years

Writing is the most grueling chore with the most rewarding outcome (excepting family stuff) that I do.  In blogging, the pain comes when I forget the perfect idea I had on the bus but neglected to write down. Once I get going, the words basically flow out of the ends of my fingers. At least the fingers on my left hand. My right hand tends to stumble, but that’s a story for another day.  With blogging,  getting started in the first place can be a challenge.

Years ago, I wrote a lot of song lyrics, which was fun but ultimately not so fulfilling. I did a song for each Sunday’s communion service, a few here and there for gigs, and others just for fun, such as when one of the residents would give me a good story idea while singing at the rest home.

I wrote a book once and let me tell you, THAT was a painful experience. Four hundred pages of first draft, multiple pre-submission edits, and then multiple edits at the suggestion of my agent or various editors who held the carrot ju-u-u-ust out of reach. And all in the wee hours on a Smith-Coronomatic manual-electric with neither memory nor auto-correction. I still have the final paper copy somewhere around here. Three hundred, thirty-nine pages. I finally decided that By Other Means was never going to be published. And I got on with my life. (Incidentally, I re-read it a couple of years ago. Lack of publication turns out to have been merciful but we need not go into that.)

Since then, I’ve written overblown columns in tiny market college papers, letters to the editor, newsletters, and shopping lists ad nauseum. Presentations, lesson plans and articles for trade mags. And of course, this blog.

When I started The View From the Briarpatch, my intent was simply to exercise the muscles without taking on a major project. Turns out writing is a bit like smoking. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away, one blog or two and you’re off and running. I got bit again.

You may have noticed I’ve taken a break recently from my usual four-times-or-so-per-week blogging. I wasn’t ignoring my writing, I promise. And I was indeed extremely busy with matters both personal and professional. But the truth is, I didn’t have time for a very selfish reason. I was planning a manuscript. The story I’ve had rattling around in my brain bucket for some years has finally and fatally seized control of many of my waking hours.

So, here I go again. It’s insane to take up writing again at my age but then, my friend Michael has done so quite nicely. And Sindy and Larry still have ideas flowing. Why not me? I can keep this blog going for fun and pressure release and still spend a few hours several times a week with my masterwork.

So, though I promise I won’t completely neglect this conversation with friends I won’t be blogging every night. I’ll be spending more time with a cast of characters to whom I owe my attention. You see, having thought them up, I can’t really walk away from them. They can’t become who they are meant to be without me. And most of them have already become friends. Except one in particular but of course, that would be telling…

So please do check in every now and then and I’ll try to make it worth your while. I won’t walk away from this family of friends – I just have another circle requiring my parental attention.

Ahem….It was a dark and stormy night…

Message to my blog buddies

I've noticed that certain words and phrases in my most recent postings are intermittently changed to pink and converted to links which when clicked lead you to an advertising site. This is neither my doing nor is it a welcome intrusion. Please ignore them. If you know how to turn off this invasive feature, please advise. If I can't figure out how to turn it off, I'll move my blog elsewhere or just stop altogether. Watch for an alert.
Brer Michael

Nature or nurture or…

Da wife and I have had lots of time of late to think back on the years when we were raising our children and look forward to where they may go in future. Last weekend we spent some quality time with Daughter Two at her college and we’re thrilled at how she’s fitting in and loving her situation. We see big things in her life ahead.

She’s making lots of good friends, has a better roommate than anyone has a right to ask for and is doing pretty well academically. And while us oldsters don’t fit in with the college  crowd, it’s clear she loves us and is not embarrassed to introduce us to her besties.

It’s also clear that she loves her big “seester.”  It’s always nice for a Dad to see his children caring for each other. In this case, the love and admiration Two feels for One is well earned.  She could hope for no better role model than One.

Daughter One is doing what we all claim we’d like to do – following her dream. But more than that, she’s grabbing her dream by the short hairs and refusing to let go. She’s chosen a particularly tough field to get into and she’s earning her way into a niche that’s just the right size and shape for her.

Daughter One has had her share of challenges and even a few tough setbacks. But through each and all of them, she’s buckled down, put her shoulder to the wheel and kept on keeping on. And through it all, she’s been a true friend to her friends, a loving daughter to her parents and Two’s big seester.

Daughter Two has a lot to be proud of and I don’t want to belittle her accomplishments. But she did have one advantage over all her peers. She had Angela as a big sister.

Bystander

                I had an interesting experience the other day going through my fourth airport screening for the week. Interesting in the sense that it made me question my own courage and devotion to fair play.

                I should explain that if I can’t fly, I can’t do my job. And if I can’t do my job, I can’t pay for little things like the house and dog food and college fees. So I really can’t afford to get into a dustup with the good folks who screen us for air travel.

                The trouble is, they’re not all good people, are they? I mean, I put up with the indignity of a screening that involves standing in an imaging machine while some unseen stranger looks my body over. And I put up with the rudeness of the majority of the denizens of airport security. Oh, I’ve called supervisors a couple times when things got out of hand. But for the most part, I’m as cowed as the next guy at the thought of being put on a no-fly list.

                The trouble is that this is how totalitarianism begins. It’s no exaggeration that every despot in history could have been stopped cold if at the first signs of their bullying nature, people of good will had simply stood together and said, “No, this will not stand!”

                I know this. I’ve long understood where my duty lay regarding standing up to bullies. Elie Wiesel was right when he assigned guilt to bystanders. So I really have no excuse for my lack of reaction at the airport the other day.

                I guess the security guy figured I’d go along with his inappropriate joke.  And it turns out he was right. I should have called his supervisor and written the jerk up. I should have said it’s not all right for a person in a position of relative authority to use it to act hatefully without fear of retribution.

                I should have done something, anything. But I’d already had a run in with airport security earlier this trip and I was feeling a bit gun shy.  This brain-dead bully figured I’d just dummy up and let it pass. And it turns out he was right. I just didn’t need the hassle that day.

                I don’t much care for being a bystander. I’ll do better next time, or so I hope. Letting this guy get away with it is a nail in the coffin of the Bill of Rights. I should have done better.  

Bloggus interruptus

Not to worry, I will be back with you shortly.

Daughters

I have a better family than I've ever earned. My daughters are two of the best human beings I've ever met.
I'll try to write one of my more standard posts tomorrow on the plane but tonight, as I prepare to go to bed, I can't imagine a better life than the one I have as a Dad.

Poor execution

Thirty-six states, the Federal government and the U.S. military are currently holding a total of 3,251 inmates on assorted death rows. California (721), Florida (398), and Texas (321) lead the pack in terms of sheer numbers, although California is something of a pretender. After all, Texas (276 since the year 2000) and Florida (25 since the year 2000) do actually pull folks off death row fairly frequently and put them to death.

I’ve read – and occasionally written – so many opinion pieces over the years on the subject of capital punishment that I’d convinced myself I was tapped out on the subject. But today, something went twang in my brain and here I am, tapping again.

I’ve never had a problem emotionally or philosophically with execution per se. Some folks are never going to be rehabilitated and some crimes are horrific. Murderers, rapists, child molesters can all be dumped in the same convenient pit for all I care.

The thing is, we don’t administer the pit competently, fairly or even compassionately.

Troy Davis spent 22 years on Georgia’s death row for murder of an off-duty police officer before being executed by lethal injection September 21^st. Even after he breathed his last, some folks believe he was wrongfully convicted. Seems like 22 years might have been enough time to be sure. If so, why the wait and if not, well, oops!

Neither Charles Manson nor any if his minions were ever executed for crimes that were both horrendous and gleefully acknowledged. I would have willingly thrown the switch on any of that crowd. Of course, the difference between me and the Manson tribe members is that I wouldn’t have been doing it for personal entertainment.

Down in Oregon, Gary Haugen has been declared legally competent, allowing him to refuse further appeals, which in turn clears the way for his execution in the near future. He’s being snuffed for the murder of another inmate. He and a buddy crushed the guy’s skull and stabbed him 84 times. At the time, Haugen was already in prison for the 1981 murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother. I’m not sure there’s much doubt that this is a guy we don’t want walking around free. I’ve no problem at all with the prospect of his life being foreshortened.

And then there are the folks who’ve spent years on assorted death rows, only to be exonerated through scientific methods such as DNA comparison that weren’t available at the time they were sentenced to die. And of course, one must presume there were others who were actually executed for crimes they didn’t commit before forensic science techniques that might have cleared them were available.

We can argue ad nauseum  – actually have – about the pros and cons of capital punishment.  My own views have changed over the years. But I’ve settled on the following:

                We need not argue this question on the basis of ethical, philosophical, constitutional or religious precepts. In fact, for me, those arguments are just not reached. They’re moot. Because capital punishment just doesn’t work.

                They say there is a special place in hell reserved for people who commit certain crimes. Since I don’t believe in hell, this does nothing to balance the books for me. But neither does judicial execution. We just don’t do it effectively.

                This is not to say we don’t know how to kill people. We have that covered. But we don’t do a good job of choosing our candidates for state-sanctioned erasure. And once we do, we’re so unsure of our decision, that we end up storing them for years and spending obscene amounts of both money and emotional energy trying to be sure before we slide the needle in. In most cases, we never do. Slide it in, that is.

                It’s time to bow to the obvious. Execution for capital crimes in the U.S. is neither effective nor fair in its administration. Let’s just stop.

Direct action

Across the street from the office where I work, the entire urban park is taken over by tents erected by the “Occupy Seattle” group. I understand that they have a bone to pick with the distribution of wealth and power in this country. So in order to bring about societal change, they’ve elected to occupy the park where many local office workers, retirees and others take their lunch.  I’m so impressed, I thought I’d let them occupy the Briarpatch this evening.

I’m glad that the spirit of community action lives on and even that it is expressed in the willingness of these folks to put themselves out there to make their point. Well, perhaps “out there” doesn’t quite describe their action, since the park looks like nothing so much as an up-scale campground. I wish I had the cash to obtain some of the camping gear I saw out there.

I admit I was a bit taken aback to have a young woman shouting obscenities at us “blood suckers” riding the bus home from work today. I’m not sure what socio-economic strata she believes uses public transit in Seattle, but whatever else we are, those of us on aboard the  bus this afternoon – the elderly Asian lady, the young girl with Down Syndrome, me, the high school kids behind me – are all economic vampires. Or so she would have us believe.

I guess occupying our little park will serve some aim but I’m hard pressed to determine just what it is. Surely, there are people who work in these office buildings in the downtown core who make what I would consider big bucks. I don’t know any of them, but I’m sure that somewhere twenty or more floors above my workspace, with windows facing the water, there might well be a few blood-suckers.  Maybe.

But I have to believe that those fortunate folks spend most lunch breaks in more rarified atmosphere than may be found in the vicinity of the hot dog stand in Westlake Park.  And I’m also pretty sure that the guys I see playing sidewalk chess in the Park everyday are average Joes. I don’t recall seeing any millionaires plying knight-strong gambits. On the other hand, how would I know?

I don’t know who’s wealthy and who’s not. In Seattle of all places, the wealthy and the schlubs like me don’t seem to dress much differently. So how did the protesters choose this workaday park as the venue for their well-equipped but ill-defined camp-in?

Certainly, they didn’t choose this location on the basis of targeting the moguls and power brokers they claim to resent. There aren’t any to be seen in Westlake Park, and certainly not when people waving signs are taking up all the formerly free space.

I suspect they chose this particular venue specifically because it would inconvenience regular working folks, who don’t have friends on the City Council who can be counted on to send in the gendarmes. And face it, at Westlake Park, the well-appointed protestor has access to water, restrooms, plenty of space to set up all their REI gear. And of course, Starbucks within two blocks in any direction.

I agree that the concentration of wealth in this country has reached levels that would have made even Pareto shake his head. And I am dismayed as are many reasonable people to acknowledge that the power brokers have moved farther and farther away from the reality of everyday life for most citizens of this country. I would even go so far as to applaud direct action. But that’s not what this is.

These people aren’t serious, not really. If they were, the protest would be located at the Rainier Club or the Bellevue Athletic Club or perhaps some other venue of the rich and fatuous. They’d get plenty of coverage and they’d actually be inconveniencing people who have money and power.

Of course, there’s no good campground available at the Rainier Club. There’s not a lot of extra parking for the desired news vans.  No drinking fountains, the restrooms are decidedly un-public and there’s very little foot traffic to provide ready-made crowds of spectators for the evening news.

Face it, they chose to be where they are because they can be comfortable while inconveniencing those of us who have to be there. It has nothing at all to do with moral outrage or risking all for a principle. It’s designer activism, as transparent as the crocodile tears of the powerful that they claim to resent.

I’d love to see them make a difference. But due to their choices, their big accomplishment will be that a lot of working class people like me will have to walk an extra block to avoid them on the way to work in the morning.

Whatever…

My burden

Mary and I went for a hike this morning with Mary’s sister and a couple who’ve been PTA buddies for as long as our kids have been in school. Besides great company, it was a wonderful hike to Twin Falls. This hike is fairly easy with a few ups and downs (including the one when I was watching the flora instead of my footing – ahem). The weather was poifect and everywhere along the route you could hear rushing, falling water.

Sis-in-law knows more than anyone needs to know about hiking in this area and walking with her makes me hopeful that I’ll eventually make it back to many of those places. I’d love to do Lake Annnette again or Mt. Si any number of places for the first time.

Of course, the hike would have been infinitely easier had I not been carrying the equivalent of a fifth grader around with me every step of the way. I’ve started making inroads to that issue and making this hike really brought home the importance and immediacy of my need to calve off a few fat-bergs.

I’m laying this out for you not because there’s any profundity to be found in discussing my ampleness but rather because the readers of this blog are people I know and love and trust. So I guess this is my equivalent of coming out to you. I’m sick of being fat and I’m not going to take it anymore.

Hold my feet to the fire on this. I’d like to live to enjoy retirement.

Doggie triumphs

Both dogs clamored at the door to be let out and almost tore it out of its track when Mary tired of the cacophony and came over to slide it open. In a flash of raised back fur they were off after one of the neighborhood squirrels yet again.

They never seem to tire of chasing squirrels. As always, after much barking and frantic snuffling at the base of the tree that provided the squirrel with its escape route over the fence, they happily returned to  the family room, doggie grins and wagging tails providing evidence of their self-satisfaction at another hunt well played.

They seem not to be bothered one whit  by the fact that yet again, they’ve been outrun by an animal with legs the length of my index finger.