Meetup

I attended my first paddle tonight with a sea kayaking Meetup group in Seattle. It was wonderful! Three hours on Lake Union with lots to see and lovely people! Of course, my butt hurts and I may have overworked the shoulder a bit, but so worth it!

I’ll be back with you when I get this LAST EVER paper finished and submitted. Meanwhile, love and kisses to all!

Brer Michael

Memorial Day

This is a tough holiday for yours truly. But not as tough as it is for the many people for whom the day brings a reminder of loved ones lost in America’s wars.  I truly can’t imagine the emotional burden of these deaths far from home.

I wore my country’s uniform when I was young, went overseas, even to VietNam briefly (and relatively safely). There’s a good reason why you never saw my face on any newsreels. I never dealt with bombs and bullets. At the time, I would have gone wherever they sent me but I readily admit I’m glad I didn’t have to go places where people I didn’t know might have taken a personal interest in killing me.

Frankly, I wish there was no Memorial Day. No memorials, either. I wish they weren’t necessary. But they are. As long as politicians continue to be less than perfect and motivations less than honorable, there will be wars. And as long as there are wars, there will be young men – and now, young women – going off to place their lives and limbs between danger and home. And as long as that happens, we should honor them.

In some cases, we should do a much better job of honoring our fallen. The VietNam Memorial in Washington D.C. is one I personally find offensive. I have friends with their names on that obscene gash in the earth. We shouldn’t have to fight wars and this one was particularly questionable but those who fought there deserved to come back to a nation’s thanks. And those who died there deserved to be honored by a memorial that didn’t appear to hide in shame from public view. I’ve touched that wall, touched The Bear’s name, and I’ll never go back. Dave and The Bear and fifty-eight thousand other young men and eight young women deserved better.

There are many memorials that I’ll visit again and again because I feel that attachment of reflection on the deeds of those whose contributions pulled us all back from the brink. One of my favorite tourist things to do is to stand in the spot where King told us of his dream and Marian Anderson sang. The first time I saw the memorial to Korean War vets, I approached it from behind in a driving rain. As I came even with that eternal patrol, I glanced over and was consumed by the ghosts etched in the reflecting wall.

There are lots of memorials that pull at my heartstrings. I wish there weren’t. I wish there wasn’t a reason for them. And I hope someday we’ll erect a memorial to the men and women currently serving in the Middle East, and that we’ll do better by them than we did for the veterans of our ill-advised adventure in VietNam.

Obituaries

Speaking of obituaries, I read two of them side by side this week, both and each of which gave me pause.  It’s not that I knew either of these guys, except to the extent that they shared some of their most important thoughts and deeply felt convictions with me, which I suppose means I did actually know them on some level but not in the sense that you know a good friend except that I do actually consider them friends of a sort.

Hm-m…

Let’s start that one again.

I was reading the April 8^th TIME, which had somehow lost its normal place on my sequential reading list which sometimes happens when a particular cover catches my eye out of order or when I put some but not all of the unread issues in the throw bag I use when flying or when I don’t notice one in the non-bill mail stack until the stack threatens to spill over so I go through pulling out items in give-a-darn order and it finally manages to come up on my reading radar.

But, I digress. Again.

Here’s the thing: These two obits, out of everything else in this issue, really got to me to the point that I put the issue on my writing desk, open to the obits because I knew I wouldn’t turn another page until I’d put these thoughts down on paper. Chinua Achebe and Anthony Lewis both died in late March and while their passing may not create a crack in the world, I felt a tremor in mine because these guys affected the way I think, the way I care, the way I view the world.

I’m occasionally asked – either by people who understand me well enough to ask or people who don’t understand propriety well enough to refrain from asking – what possessed me to go back to college to finish my degree at my age. There are lots of disparate reasons why this choice was made but perhaps the best one I couldn’t have suspected when I began.

I guess it’s all about serendipity. I am not likely to have chosen to have read Things Fall Apart by Achebe or Lewis’ Gideon’s Trumpet had I not been required to for two separate courses at two separate colleges by two profs from entirely different disciplines. It’s not that I would have chosen not to read them but rather that I wouldn’t even have known enough to check them out had I not taken these courses.

At Bellevue College, I took a law course from a guy named Albert Raines who was then a municipal court judge in a city near where I live. He was a great guy and taught using the Socratic method which untold novelists and screenwriters have tried to convince us amount to intellectual terrorism on the part of law school profs but which I found fascinating and enriching. I loved the case analyses, the discussion of precedents and the argumentation as to the correctness of the rulings. And as a part of that course, Albert assigned us to read Gideon’s Trumpet. It’s the story (since made into a movie with Henry Fonda which was okay I guess but really, please do read the book) of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark Supreme Court decision that explicated the now-foundational Constitutional principle that criminal defendants have a right to legal representation regardless of their ability to pay.

It was not the first time I’d felt an interest in legal or constitutional topics but reading this book brought home for me that I had a personal stake in understanding the legal underpinnings of the society in which I live. The really amazing thing is that Clarence Earl Gideon submitted his case to the Supreme Court of the United States, written in pencil on lined paper from his prison cell and without the assistance of legal counsel. It was a stunning example of the Constitution working and a story every citizen should understand and embrace, especially since Gideon is under attack on several fronts these days.

Gideon’s Trumpet was not one of the best written books I’ve ever read but it was certainly one of the most compelling stories and one that led to an enduring fascination with reading appellate and Supreme Court decisions.

Things Fall Apart was both one of the best written books I’ve ever read and one of the most compelling. Set in pre-colonial Nigeria, the story of Okwonko is one of a man caught between tribal traditions and the need to respond to a personal ethic, of a man trying to live his life within the dictates of a society whose expectations are in flux due to forces he neither sees nor understands. I read this book as a requirement for a course on Third World literature and while the prof turned out to be something of a hack, his choice of required reading was inspired. I went into the course half expecting to need to have a translational dictionary on the nightstand and I was so glad to find out how wrong I was.

Things Fall Apart is often referred to as an “English language novel” but it’s actually written in the language of life. Reading it opened for me a world of literature written in unexpected contexts but about characters and issues that are merely human. Achebe said in a 1994 quote in Paris Review (reprinted in TIME), “…until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Achebe spoke for those on the ‘they’ side of history and in reading his words, one comes to recognize the inherent ‘us’ in the life of an African tribesman.

Reading these books widened my gaze even as it sharpened my focus and I’ll be forever thankful for the confluence of circumstances that brought them to my reading shelf. So, when I’m next asked ‘why college at your age,’ I think I’ll now have a fuller answer.

Sure, it’s about having the degree. And of course, it’s about a promise to Mom. It’s about ego and validation and the refusal to leave this job unfinished. But to a large extent, it’s about the opportunity to learn things I didn’t suspect I needed to know.

Sad and happy

Things that are making me sad:

1.       Storms in the Midwest

2.       The “tea party”

3.       Odin’s incision – has to itch by now

4.       The renters next door and their midnight campfires

5.       My sciatica

6.       I’m not finished with my thesis

7.       My diet

8.       The last two books I’ve read were clearly not well proof read

9.       The weeds I haven’t got to yet

Things that are making me happy:

1.       Daughter Two will be home for two weeks commencing in less than twenty-four hours.

Happy wins!

Influential people

There’s been a fair amount of angst expressed of late – including by yours truly – about the terribly imperious comments attributed to the CEO of a high end clothing company. It remains to be seen whether this idiot’s elitist pronouncements will cost or earn him business. After all, we should know by now that for every person like me who finds his stance disgusting, there will likely be a well-heeled and borderline anorexic patron who revels in the idea of the increased selectivity of his offerings.

I’ve calmed down considerably since my first outraged Facebook ‘share.’ Perhaps my pique should have been more sustained and it likely would have been if I considered this an important issue. But the sad fact is, there are oodles of self-impressed chowderheads only too eager to leverage their financial wealth into what I consider to be inappropriate channels. That some of them choose shallow paths is a very human failing and frankly, I just don’t have the time or the interest in spending my days analyzing the motives of people whose life experience I don’t share and whose motivations I don’t understand.

I’m much more bothered by a recent issue of Time magazine than by this tempest in a crystal martini pitcher. I use Time as airplane reading and consider it an important source for current events and analysis of same. The April 29 – May 6 issue of the magazine was themed as a compilation of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” And sure enough, there were a number of people I’d never heard of but whose profiles were sufficiently interesting to lead me to want to know more. Malala Yousafzai, Ren Zhengfei, Gina Rinehart, and a trio of forward-thinking AIDs researchers made the cut and reading their brief profiles added to my learning and inspired me in various ways. I found Joaquim Barbosa’s story heroic and Aung San Suu Kyi’s a reminder of Margaret Mead’s famous comment on the power of a committed few.

These and others made the issue worth the price I paid and if it had been limited to this group, I’d have had no complaint. Unfortunately, the world’s 100 most influential personages apparently include at least 26 entertainers (full disclosure - I lump actors, directors, athletes, etc. in this group), mostly famed for their impact in the U.S. Apparently, there is something globally important about the life work of Justin Timberlake, Mindy Kaling and Beyonce. Admittedly, I agree that Jennifer Lawrence is a fine actor but world-wide relevance? Important beyond her craft? Hm-m…Not so sure.

Since the days of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton, we’ve agreed that an informed electorate is essential to the democratic process. We have relied on the press and broadcast journalism for our understanding of current events, historical references and future trends. When one of the most respected – until now, that is – avenues for chronicling and informing our democracy fails to comprehend the difference in importance between Palaniappan Chidambaram and Jay Z, the degradation of our ability to understand the choices we make accelerates.

For me, the big problem is not the current snotty CEO of a limited market clothing retailer. We have much more to fear from the incompetence of Richard Stengel and his minions among the Time editorial staff, and from the sheepish attitudes of those who, entrusted with the historic right of democratic franchise, will read this magazine and think these 26 are really among the 100 most important people of our age.  

Thirty things I druther do than write my thesis

·         Laugh at Odin the Large and Lazy with the monster cone of shame

·         Write blog posts

·         Hang with Mary

·         Hang with Pat, Sherree, Sindy, Bill… you get the point

·         Talk to Daughter One and also, Daughter Two

·         Mow the lawn

·         Shop for groceries

·         Cook

·         Go to work

·         Take a road trip

·         Make staple patterns in scratch paper

·         Rock out with my pencil drumsticks

·         Fold clean clothes

·         Throw the ball for Zoey the Small and Annoying

·         Put together a Care Package for One

·         Look up the arrival date of Two for the nth time tonight

·         Stand in the sliding back door watching the rain

·         Stand in the sliding back door watching it not rain

·         Stand in the sliding back door

·         Cycle the dishwasher

·         Fold more clean clothes

·         Watch reruns of Restaurant Impossible

·         Wonder about stuff that occurs to me at random

·         Organize my materials for the yth time

·         Wonder about stuff that occurs to me at random

·         Check the toner in the laser prionter

·         Check my WeightWatchers score

·         Walk around

·         Sharpen pencils

·         Sit and stare at the computer screen

I promise to blog more when the thesis is submitted. Of course, this is predicated on actually starting…

A matter of scale

Mary and I have been trying to decide how to approach the new renters in the house next door. You see, they’re young and act it – staying up late making noise in their backyard, which is more or less under our window. And since the weather has turned nice, they’ve assembled a stone ring and each fair evening finds them burning a bonfire, again more or less under our bedroom window. Wood smoke and sixty-year-old asthmatics don’t mix all that well.

They seem like nice enough young guys, if a bit clueless. And they have a bloodhound that’s to die for. I’m a sucker for a big, galumphy dog. And of course, their arrival means we’re quit of the former renter whose presence was much more problematic for reasons we need not touch on here. Still, the noise and the smoke are annoying, especially at three in the morning. So, we’re going to have to have ‘the talk.’

I’ve been torn between hoping and dreading I’ll find them home each time I come home because while I look forward to having the problem resolved, I really don’t like complaining to neighbors, especially new ones. This whole thing has been weighing on my mind.

Shift focus. I spent a couple hours at the gym today and as I dragged my soaked corpus toward the locker room at the end of the session, my way was blocked by a quickly increasing crowd of first responders working feverishly to restore the heartbeat of one of my fellow overweight exercisers. The poor sap was stretched out on the floor and the display on the monitor which faced toward me did not look hopeful, if my years of watching medical dramas have taught me anything.

TV show miracles notwithstanding, most of the time it’s really not good news when the fireman has to administer CPR. This guy is at best headed for a difficult recovery. I wonder about and hope good things for him but who knows?

What I do know is that this guy’s problem de jour easily eclipses my little problem with the neighbors. I’ll man up and talk to them in the next day or two. After all, it’s not life or death.

(Side note:  Sorry for the silence these past several days. I was teaching in Fargo, ND and while it was a great trip, I didn’t have a lot of time to myself.)

Give aways

So, I’ve been cleaning out the garage and the other day, I put several old filing cabinets – yes, we’re gradually moving toward a paperless state – out at the curb and Mary put up the ‘free’ signs, just in case there was any doubt as to why empty filing cabinets would be where we put them.

Today, they’re all gone. No muss, no fuss.

Hm-m-m…

We actually have quite a few items around here that I don’t want to pay to take to the dump. And both our solid waste service and the local Goodwill et al have become somewhat picky as to what they’ll accept. “Donation” no longer carries the assurance of goneness that some of our objets deserve. But “free” seems to work like a charm.

I should have mentioned that one of the filing cabinets they took had a drawer missing and they also scooped up an old vacuum cleaner. I can’t imagine why anyone would discard a working vacuum cleaner, can you? So, doesn’t it follow that the taker must have known they were hauling away an item that sucks in the wrong sense of the term?

Well, now. Seems to me we’ve opened up a whole new path for saying goodbye to our crap…er…unneeded collectibles. Lemme see…

There’s the three-legged table that’s been out in the garage for years. Just because it once had four legs is no good reason to send it to the land fill.

We have several hose nozzles that will no longer screw onto a hose. And a small TV that could be repurposed as a perfectly serviceable paperweight.

The old barbecue still LOOKS like a barbecue grill. And you can always set things on it.

Paddles from a non-working ceiling fan must be of some use to someone. In fact, the fan motor itself is probably free-able, although it doesn’t go round and round no matter how hard you yank the pull. .

There are lots of lids from things we no longer have and I’m sure someone will take them. After all, they’re free, right?

I’m going to have some fun with this.

I wonder if anyone out there wants my collection of single socks? If so, they’re about to hit the bonanza!

The monster is loose

I’m going outside in a few minutes. My mission – assigned and to be closely monitored by mine own dear wife – is to clean up the grass and other weeds that have begun to sprout in odd areas around the yard. You know the drill. It’s Spring and the ‘wrong stuff’ is sprouting up and if we catch it now, it’s easier to eradicate than it will be if we let it get knee high.

I accept my assignment and I’ll get ‘er done. But still, I admit to a bit of a moral dilemma.

It’s easy, looking over the sea of sprouting green to see it as something evil, worthy of my destructive attentions. Left to their own collective aims, these weeds would inexorably infiltrate and overwhelm more worthy green things. That is, stuff that’s growing at our behest. Weeds are the anarchists of the plant world – ‘anarchists’ being a less than friendly descriptor in the Seattle area where I live – and they must be dealt with.

I get all that.

But that condemnation only works if you look at the weeds collectively. From the standpoint of an individual errant blade, of the tiny dandelion seeking only to raise its delicate, golden face to the sun, the world is a scary place. And today my massive presence will sow terror in gazillions of little weed hearts.

I am Godzilla and they are the Japanese. If I go through with this, untold numbers of budding weed lives will be snuffed out by the cruel blade of my Hula Hoe. They will be tossed onto piles and then hauled away like so much trash to lie rotting in a common and unmarked grave at the community composting facility.

I now know how it feels to be the monster that’s rightfully, abjectly feared by a whole society. An entire civilization will die today at my hand.

I’ll do it. I haven’t the courage to stand up against Mary’s demands. So I will become that monster set loose on the unsuspecting.

I’ll do it. But I won’t like it.