A new year

Another year has gone by, which will come as no big surprise to any of you.

Troubles and triumphs, fun times and sadness. I suppose you could say that in a retrospective of any year but the one ending in a few hours as I type this has been singularly spiky in terms of ups and downs.

We’ve marked a college graduation, a couple of new jobs, a close friend’s retirement, relocations, a book project finished (sort of), lots of progress on decluttering our dwelling, not so much on decluttering our lives.

Both daughters learned life lessons - many of them painful - and had experiences from which we wish we could have shielded them.  But they persevered and are both back to living their lives under their own direction.

The pride we feel in both our daughters is quite profound. And the love we felt during our collective visit over the holiday now ending reminded me of what family can and should mean.

I hope this next year finds each and all of you happy and healthy.

A holiday missive

I sit in my home office in my floppy sweater and slippers and sweat pants. Daughter One is preparing to go pick up her boyfriend to join us for the evening. Daughter Two and her boyfriend are just now waking up after late night cross-country flights. Mary is wrapping.

I have worries today. Such as, did I get enough stuffers for Mary’s stocking? Will everyone enjoy the meals we’ve planned? How will I get that durned Santa blow-up figure to stand upright?

Okay, I get it. Not exactly earth-shattering concerns. But I do have more substantial worries. Will my editorial readers like the book and give me the feedback I need to proceed with final edit? Will I receive Cochran’s book on ISO 9001:2015 in time to have it read before the training in two weeks? What to do with all the crap that has settled in this office as we work to de-clutter the house (and how did my writing space become the designated bin-de-crap)?

I admit I find myself somewhat ashamed of this paltry attempt to find drama in my life. The fact is, I am better off than a high percentage of dads in this world. My kids never had to wonder whether food or shelter would materialize. Or whether they were loved. Or welcome. And growing up, neither did I.

 Most of my friends and I grew up in a bubble of time and place and circumstance in which our subsistence was assured. We were halfway up Mazlow’s Heirarchy of Needs the day we were born. And if we missed out on ‘Esteem’ or ‘Self-Actualization,’ the failure was at least in part a function of our own choices, or lack thereof.

This is the time of year when many of us gaze upon the mountains of gifts under trees and wonder at the concept of ‘enough.’ Don’t get me wrong – I do not propose guilt at largesse. The urges to provide and to please are both positives, to my mind. But the charity we all seek this season will be more complete if we extend the ring outward, don’t you think?

I find myself reflecting on the people who through no fault of their own find themselves today in less secure circumstances.  Some of them are short on cash, some suffering from illness, some just having trouble sorting out life. I wish hope for them all.

One demographic that we can each and all help are the teens who are ‘aging out’ of foster care. Please consider helping one of these kids, many of whom just need a secure place to stand as they make their start. And perhaps every now and then a shoulder to lean on.

Many of these kids reside in the twilight existence of ‘almost.’ Many need not much more than a hand and a nudge.

You know what to do.

http://www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/aging-out/

http://www.jimcaseyyouth.org/about/aging-out

http://www.aecf.org/resources/helping-children-aging-out-of-foster-care-prepare-for-independence/

https://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-teen-issues/foster-care

Generation Betterthanus

Not long ago, I came across a posting on social media in which a young(er) person went off about how my generation has ruined the world and it’s up to the younger generation to save us from our folly by getting behind Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. (I will refrain from pointing out that Ol’ Bern is a member of the generation being slammed and widely supported by my own friends, also of the target generation. Oops, I said it!) What made this posting come to mind again today, since I saw it some weeks ago is that I observed some protesters in their usual place across from my office building this morning and they were similarly opining as to the worthlessness of generation mine.

I guess we’ve been the worst thing since smelly toe jam. Dang, and just when we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We’ve messed up the world and the youngsters wish we would just melt away and let them get on with the task of repairing the mess we’ll be leaving behind.

Fair enough, but I wonder if the current generation of young adults will give us any credit for all the things that were created prior to their arrival on the scene that make it possible for them to pontificate from the comfort of their computer chairs.

I was talking to a friend and colleague today who spent a significant portion of his adult life running a plant that made large moldings – think stackable chairs but on a much larger scale. This guy’s duties involved coordinating all the purchases of ‘stuff’ they needed to make their products. Everything from the smallest rivets to billets of aluminum, plastic resins to paint, operating manuals for huge machines to copier paper. Most of those items he purchased on a just-in-time basis, to arrive just as they were about to be consumed, so when I say coordinating, I really meant he spent a lot of time frantic running back and forth to keep the plates spinning. And I surmise that he did his job well.  

It made me think back to a couple of my jobs as a plate spinner for manufacturing startups. My point here is not about the job of coordinating all these inputs but rather about the sheer number of different inputs and inputs to the inputs that went into making the products that we rely upon and take for granted every minute of every day. You see, each of our upstream vendors – the makers of polyethylene beads and the ink formulators and the paper mills and so on – had their own list of vendors, who in turn had theirs. And all of these inputs worked together to create the world in which members of the next generation find themselves so uncomfortably ensconced.

Some of the things we made we would have been better off without, no question. We know now that asbestos is a killer in the long term but when I donned my ‘Hot Papa’ proximity suit aboard ship in the early 70s, I was glad that it would protect me from flames or from spills of liquid nitrogen. In those days, I was frequently elbow deep in asbestos while lagging a pipe in the machinery spaces. I wish we hadn’t used it and it may rear up to bite me yet but at that time it was what we had and we viewed it as a miracle material. So now we’re paying in spades for our ignorance.

I wish we hadn’t developed many of the weapons systems of the last century, not least among them nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. I look back and wonder how we could have been so misguided. Thalydomide was a horrid mistake as are assault weapons for the commercial market. Drones – that one is yet to bite us but trust me, it’s coming. For every technological generation, I’m sure there is something that we would have been better off not developing.

And we haven’t always been exactly prescient when it came to lending our support and casting our votes for politicians. You can be forgiven your screeds about how hopelessly hopeless my generation is as to politics, given the Klown Kar of candidates with which we have provided ourselves during this electoral cycle. Damn, wouldn’t mind a few do overs in that sphere.

This is not to be taken as apology. It’s not. I am not guilty of wrongdoing. Wrong deciding, maybe, I’ll own that. But here’s the thing about politics and about life, for that matter – you vote where you are, when you are, with the information then available to you. More than once, subsequent developments have proved the folly of my choices. But they were (usually) made in good faith and if you can’t accept that, I’m not the only one with a problem.

So continue to post your screeds if you must. If you want to feel superior, that’s probably the way to go. But if you want to avoid the condemnation of the generations that follow you, stop posting and get to work.

Do better than we have. I readily admit we’ve left room for improvement.

Writing

It’s an odd thing to do as a hobby, I suppose. After all, most of us during twelve years of mandatory schooling did everything we could to avoid writing assignments. When we couldn’t, we would scrutinize the wording of the assignment to discern the minimum effort that would meet the teacher’s requirement as to word count, spacing, sources, etc.

We all looked askance at the one person in our class who actually enjoyed writing and would turn in the well-researched paper, the interesting opinion piece, the compelling story. That person always seemed intent on ruining things for the rest of us, poisoning the well so that none of our more minimalist efforts would could possibly satisfy. Not as long as the ‘good student’s’ submission was available for comparison.

To this day I can bring to mind the faces of (names withheld to protect teacher’s pets), the students with whom I shared teachers and recess but not our dedication to our studies. With one of them I shared every classroom and teacher from kindergarten through eighth grade. She was my nemesis, that evil kid whose presence on the class roster each September quite effectively banished my own thematic offerings to the realm of less-than.

So, one might think that my emergence from state-sanctioned education would signal the end of my interest in writing. As you’ve probably figured out by now, it didn’t quite work out that way. After high school I found myself writing just to write – bad poetry, song lyrics, a couple of atrocious scripts, the occasional short story. During my time in the Navy I found that long hours sailing the ocean blue provided lots of ideas for story lines and plenty of time to explore them in writing. Foolscap became my single largest non-nicotine expense. I didn’t enjoy cards in the mess or board games, so my down time was divided between playing guitar in the shelter of the blast shield for the #2 Terrier missile launcher and writing at an unused desk in the calibration lab.

Writing settled my soul at a time that I felt a bit shut off from the world. Then, in the course of transferring back to the States for discharge, somewhere between Subic Bay and Treasure Island, I lost the bag that included all my writing to that point. Never got it back. Crushed me. But rather than being discouraged, I found myself even more attracted to writing. And it sort of freed me. I was released from the history and weight of all my earlier attempts at coherent writing.

And so, I started anew. Wrote a book (now lost to the ages), then another (got an agent but eventually abandoned it in a welter of rewrites). Wrote song lyrics as a volunteer staff singer for a church. Wrote essays and small stories, edited a few theses. Basically, I would write anything just to be writing. Took creating writing courses four different times at four different institutions of higher learning.

I’ve never stopped, never entirely. And now, I can’t stop. As I’ve shared before, anywhere I’ve spent any time at all is likely to be awash in scraps of paper, browbeaten notebooks, my computer filled with starts, a few paragraphs on this or that idea, the sourdough starter of the writing addict.

I have a monkey on my back. And this particular monkey is welcome to ride.

Michael whining

As I type this the temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska is reported by the National Weather Service as 17 degrees below zero. The highest the temperature is predicted to reach between now and Wednesday is 15 above zero.

Normally, I’m not particularly bothered by sub-zero temperatures. I always go fully prepared with warm clothing, including toasty socks and layers for the bodkin. I even take Long Johns. Heavy hiking boots. Ski gloves. My own window scraper, just in case the one the rental car company provides proves unequal to the task.

Of course, I take what we’ve come to call my Alaska Coat. It’s a REALLY warm parka with a plethora of pockets, each stuffed with cold weather accessories such as extra gloves, muffler, knit cap - you get the picture.

My preparation is complete.

Well, sort of.

The thing that’s missing at this point is health. I have a cold. Wait – did I say A cold? No,no,no, I have THE cold. The mother of colds. The cold from Hell!

I’ll be okay, really. I’ll ride in a heated tube, then drive a heated car, eat in a heated restaurant and settle into a heated room, where I will sleep under the covers from both queen beds. I will be working in a heated office until time to turn around and repeat the process in reverse order, all within a succession of warm artificial cocoons.

So, I can’t really whine about catching a cold just in time for a trip to Fairbanks, can I?

Sure I can! 

Waaaaaaah!

A time for heroes

             Monday morning, I will board an airplane for a three-plus hour ride to another large city, so that Tuesday and Wednesday I can work with a nonprofit that trains and employs people living with disabilities. Wednesday afternoon, I will board another plane for the trip home.

               As I board planes these days the same few thoughts occupy my mind. Ticket, check. All my stuff, check. What goes in the up bag and what in the throw bag, check.  Will seatmate be a troll, a heavy perfumer, a hulk?

               My status as frequent flier means I get to board near the front of the line and my routine is so long settled that I have plenty of time to scan the crowd as they file on. I find amusement in the people who clearly don’t understand the concept of checked baggage. Watching a person trying to stuff a ten gallon backpack into a five gallon space can be high entertainment, assuming you’re not the person in line behind them. Occasionally one of these people becomes truly nasty in their self-absorption and you get to watch the scene develop until they’re actually kicked off the plane. High opera!

               The cabin staff go through their programmed shtick of facilitating, guiding and yes, arguing in the attempt to meet that holy grail of the airline industry – the full-cabin, on-time pushback.

               All of this plays out in the twenty minutes or so required to stuff a couple hundred humans into a flyable metal tube. And at some point in the process, a small but insistent voice will whisper in my ear, causing me to wonder whether this will be the time.

               Our world has become a place in which carrying out your normal activities carries the weight of volunteering for martyrdom. Not dramatically, not even really likely. But possibly. Could happen. Has happened, and to people who thought it as unlikely as will I as I board those planes.

               Still, we board the planes. We go to work. We attend the big games, ride the subway, assemble for events, eat at restaurants, write what we believe, say what we feel.

               Because not to do so would be surrender. Because this is a time for heroes.

               I do not refer to the folks who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades, although certainly I honor them beyond measure. I do not refer to professional athletes, because I do not honor them.

               The heroism called for by these times is of a quieter, more personal nature.

               It is the heroism of London in the Blitz, of the miners who go back down, of the Syrian father in the photograph who faces drowning and starvation and hatred upon arrival to try to bring his family to safety, of the mother who will not lay down her burden although arms are leaden and back is strained because that burden is a life that deserves a chance.     It is the heroism of just carrying on.

               We face the terrorism heralded in the media. We get on planes that might be brought down and up elevators to heights not reachable by fire equipment. We assemble in places with too few exits if the shooting starts. We send the children that we love more than life off to school in the morning.

               Yes, I do believe all these and more are examples of the heroic actions we need to take every day.

               But we also need to display another kind of courage. The courage to not allow our distaste, distrust, outrage and fear to become broadly brushed across convenient canvases.

               Many of our politicians are willing to harness the power of collective fear in rallying support for hateful and counterproductive platforms. But the people I fear most are not ISIS and not Trump. The people I fear deepest in my soul are the people cheering for Trump. These are the people who are willing to trade who we are for the illusion of action.

               The people I fear most are those who are content to blame the massacre on mental derangement (or Autism? Really, you cowardly idiots?) rather than on the fact that in this country just about anyone has access to overwhelming firepower.

               The people I fear most are those described by Elie Wiesel as bystanders.

               I like to believe of myself that I would take the bullet for the child, run into the burning building to save the invalid, ram the car before it gets to the crosswalk. But those are opportunities I hope I never have to face, and probably won’t.

               The opportunity for heroism today, the opportunity presented to us, each and all is that of rising to the promise of the American social experiment. Of rising above the hate mongering of political opportunists and haters of every stripe. It is the opportunity to carry on, yes, but also to resist.

               I have the opportunity to challenge the hateful comments when I hear them, to defend the right as I know it. And of course, to simply carry on.

               I hope and intend to rise to the challenge. I will board the plane. And the next one, and the next. Because if ever it were true, this is a time for heroes.

 

Please Google “You will not have my hatred.” Listen to what Antoine Leiris has to say. Please.

Today

Today was a good ‘un. I finished recording a teaching module before lunch time and I think it’s one of my better efforts. I know business training might not seem sexy to some of you but it’s what I do and it’s always nice to feel you’ve done something useful, well.

Mary made elite status with her primary air carrier midway through her flight to Dallas today and I will do the same somewhere over Wyoming on my way back from Omaha next week. In this time of declining comfort and courtesy aboard airplanes, it sure is nice to be able to claim an exit row aisle or even (dare I say it?) get upgraded to First Class. Don’t care about the food; it’s all about leg room. Small victories, doncha know.

Having found and purchased appropriate binders to contain the manuscripts of my latest book last night, this evening I can begin printing and prepping the copies to go to my first round reviewers. I love writing, love the process and just don’t get the published authors who go on about what sublime torture it can be. Even so, it’s always nice to have one in the can, so to speak, especially one I like as much as I do The Patent Desk.

To top things off, when our office manager went through the desk of a former colleague who retired last week, what should show up but my copy of On the Nickel, one of my all-time favorite movies? Since it’s out of print and not likely to be reissued it was a big deal when I was able to find a copy and it had gone missing over a year ago. I must have loaned it to this guy to watch – we shared music and movies all the time - and we both forgot he had it.

I know none of these looms large on a global scale. We face immense societal problems that must be resolved and I hope to continue doing my part.

Still, for the moment and in my little corner of the world, I am content.

As I said, today was a good ‘un.