Dear thief

Okay, so maybe not ‘dear,’ eh?

The fact is, I spent much of the day - since Mary called this morning to tell me to come home because the garage was broken into - thinking of you in somewhat less friendly terms. This is not the first time we’ve been burgled but I have to say it’s no less infuriating the second time around. So you’ll excuse me if my initial impression of you, sight unseen, is less than charitable.

I’ve long understood that there are people like you in our world. Which is not to say I understand why there are people like you in our world. I can’t comprehend a mindset in which it’s okay to break into someone’s garage and ransack the place. I’ve tried and tried to visualize you, to no avail.

Oh sure, there are some things I know about you.

I know from what you took and what you left that you’re not really very good at the thief business. Hint: You took a hobbyist scroll saw and left behind an air compressor, proving you’re either stupid or a weakling. You took the cheap plastic toolbox and left the good one, took the ancient Sears jigsaw and left the really fine and fairly new Black and Decker. The list goes on.

I know that you’re a coward. The dogs that scared you off are both small and eager to meet a stranger. But perhaps you were afraid I’d hear them and come out to pound your sorry ass. Which, now that I think of it, would be a reasonable fear.

You broke into the freezer and stole some of the food there. Which leads me to ask, ‘Really, Lean Cuisine?’ You took six Lean Cuisines and left five pounds of jumbo shrimp? And I know the barking Chihuahua probably made you color your culottes but leaving a stack of pizzas to thaw on the garage floor qualifies as a food felony. And the ravioli you left on top of the shop vac – really?

A few of the things you took were special to me. My Lion miter trimmer. My chip lifter. Tools that not one woodworker in a thousand owns and fewer would know how to use well. Those hurt. Because they were items I’d hoped to pass on. My antique block plane. With the chisel well sharpened and the breaker set just so, that plane could take a shaving you could read through. I used that one building my daughters’ ‘big girl beds.’   Please don’t let it be a doorstop. Please sell that one so it might find its way back to someone who will appreciate it – it’s needs a working life.

I could go on but really, why? There’s no point trying to reason with a cretin.

It’s been a tough year for us McDermotts on a lot of fronts. We didn’t need this. On the other hand, having weathered an assault and several deaths in the family and with an ignorant, bigoted buffoon soon to occupy the Oval Office, your incompetent foray into burglary doesn’t even make the top ten in terms of stressors.

Still, we could have done without your attentions.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you. Do you really not know how of little consequence you are? You choose to steal from those who’ve spent a lifetime working hard and frequently doing without. If it weren’t for sexual predators, child abusers and perhaps hagfish, you would represent the absolute lowest life form on earth.

I sent my afternoon blanking off the window to ensure you can’t come back for the compressor and the shrimp, a dull chore for a guy who can do what I can with wood. This weekend I will spend hours putting things right, cleaning up after you and cataloguing our loss for the police and the insurance company. And then, I will put you out of my mind.

There are people in this world who have nothing and yet don’t steal. They are worth my time and attention. You are not.

Congratulations on being nothing.

Thanksgiving

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. I’ve found myself snapping at friends (sorry, Sindy!) and loved ones (sorry, too many to name here), staring into space, avoiding the news. Trying to make sense of some ugly truths that were revealed when 60 million people voted for this disaster. It’s been tough, as I’m sure it has been for many of you.

I got up this morning, did some house cleaning in anticipation of hosting dinner with friends, went to the gym and did my cardio, watched part of an even-more-insipid-than-usual Hallmark movie with Mary (confession: I love watching them but couldn’t tell you why). Ate a sandwich, showered and shaved and eventually found myself at my desk, trolling the internet while I revved up to do some writing.

I came across a video of the Obamas serving turkey day feasts at a veterans’ center and a homeless shelter. And I just watched. And clicked on the circling arrow thingy and watched again. And as I watched, I started to feel a bit better again.

For going on eight years, we’ve had the best. Barack and Michelle should be held up as exemplars of that the White House couple should be. What all couples should be.

As I watched them on the serving line, it occurred to me that these are people I’d love to have over to dinner. My one regret is the inability to get them alone with Mary and me and just chat about life.

We’ll go through some (expletive deleted) the next four years. Frankly, we have it coming because as a people, we took our eye off the ball. We’ll do better. I’ll do better.

Meanwhile, today I got to watch two people I respect doing a nice thing for people who deserve to have one nice day. As we sit down to dinner this evening our friend Susan will ask - as always - for what each of us is thankful. And I’ll know what to say.

All in all, a good day.

You have a good day, too. 

A (Very) Short Story

Richard was having a great day, perhaps the greatest day of his life. From the moment he rolled out of his just-the-right-firmness bed and slipped his feet into his favorite slippers, he knew today would be special. He managed to put just the right time on the microwave to yield two soft eggs with melted Parmesan cheese. His coffee was rich and hot, just the way he liked it.

A cab pulled to the curb almost before he put his hand out to flag it. The driver was a friendly but unobtrusive middle-aged woman who greeted him warmly, repeated back his destination and then concentrated on her driving, relieving him of the duty of forced conversation with a stranger.

Richard sincerely enjoyed his work most days but today was better than usual. His ten o’clock meeting with a new client turned out to include Freddy, a friend from college with whom he had intended to keep in touch but lost track of when Freddy went off to the Peace Corps in (Lesotho?).  After a cordial and productive meeting, they had exchanged personal contact information and Richard looked forward to catching up.

Lunch was provided by the company as part of a ‘getting to know you’ campaign by the new CEO, who seemed like she would be quick on the uptake and might even make some much-needed changes. Rather than the usual hackneyed pizza or box lunches, the caterer covered a long table with a wide assortment of fixings that allowed each diner to build a sandwich, assemble a meat and cheese plate or make a salad according to individual preference.

 As the lunch wound down and people began to filter out the new associate brought him the progress report on the Statler account. He had been a fence sitter on hiring her but in the last few months, she regularly completed assignments competently and well before the agreed upon due date. Today, she was not only ahead of schedule but on glancing through the report he realized she had included several analytical angles he hadn’t thought of but that made the data come alive. And now he stood in his private office, feeling like the king of the world as he surveyed the city below and beyond.

Yes, everything had gone swimmingly and he thought this might indeed be a singularly exceptional day.

He held that thought right up until the moment when he realized just a millisecond too late how far he had leaned out of his twenty-fourth floor window. 

While we're here

Like many of you, I have spent much of the last several days in stunned disbelief. Not because I didn’t suspect this might happen, but rather because my yearning for a less hateful outcome was so strong, so visceral that the news hit me as a personal failure.

I haven’t known where to turn or to whom I can safely bare my soul. I’ve been snappy with folks who deserve better and suspicious of casual comments. This morning – intentionally my first with WiFi access since November 6^th – I checked out the news and Facebook posts. My sense of horror swelled and threatened to overwhelm as I read of minorities being harassed and threatened. I had to stop reading the accounts of assault, invective, spewing of ignorant hatred (yeah, I know, as if there’s any other kind).

My shock was gradually overtaken and replaced by the realization that this wasn’t something that ‘happened’ on November 8^th or even within the scope of a single election cycle. One candidate did not create the unreasoning hatred, selfishness and stupidity that has been unleashed upon us. Or I should say, among us.

The crowds of braying asses had to have been out there, waiting. Held back by a more reasoned majority until just the right moment for all the wrong people to step forward and lead them. The candidates did not create the bigots and perverts who now tear hijabs from strangers’ heads and tell Hispanic kids to ‘go home.’ They did not create the mob. They merely emboldened it.

The ones who write epithets on doors and then slink away have been with us all the time, lurking in dark corners, needing only figureheads to bring them out into the light of day. And along came Trump and Pence – and frankly, Cruz and Ryan and McConnell and Conway and Giuliani, et al – to provide them with a Nuremberg at which to rally. And rally they did.

But as much as I despise this President-elect and his gay-hating, woman-diminishing batboy, I can’t place all the blame for this catastrophe on the people who voted for them. I don’t understand it, and I will never be able to fully trust anyone who is willing to admit this affiliation. But neither can I whole-heartedly damn them. Because although it’s on them that they voted for these wannabe despots, it’s on all of us that some of them (please gawd, tell me it’s many of them) simply felt they had no other direction to turn.

Those of us who care about equal rights, an even playing field for minorities and immigrants and women, and just basic civility handed this election to Trump just as much as the haters pushed him over the top.

This election exposes a failure of citizenship. Democrats put forward a very deeply flawed candidate who proved unelectable even in the face of a demonstrably evil opponent. We could have done better.

We should have done better. We didn’t. We took the easy path of the known face and the existing machinery. And we lost.

More than that, many of us who are old enough to know better simply failed to engage. The non-voters, the sheer number of citizens content with the label ‘bystander’ to this train wreck is the knife that cuts the deepest.

So, I decided I would turn away from the news and the social media firestorm but then I noticed something. And it gave me hope.

Look at who is most outraged, who is posting and responding to posts. Look for those with tears in their eyes, tears of frustration and rage and fear. And be glad and hopeful. They’re our children.

I thought back to the Sixties when I was a young white boy in a lower-middle-class family comprising both emerging liberals and couldn’t-quite-overcome-their-upbringing bigots. I thought of the incomprehensible newsreels of neatly dressed black people pummeled by truncheons, pinned to walls by high pressure streams from fire hoses, bitten by German Shepherds cheered on by grinning cops.  I recall my dad, who was not what you would call a liberal by today’s standards, being berated by one of the other ushers at our church for suggesting that Mr. Harkins join their number. I recall with great clarity the Harkins and Loving families of Lake Hills in the Sixties although I could name relatively few of the other families. The Harkins and Lovings stood out and came to reside in my long term memory because human brains manage by exception. And those two families were exceptional – they were the only ‘Negroes’ I knew before moving to California for high school.

Speaking of my dad, I recall him frantically waving down another driver to prevent two little black girls from being run over and then sobbing in relief as the oncoming car screeched to a halt just short of tragedy. But I also recall him laughing along with racial stereotypes in jokes with his friends. My dad was a product of his background but trying his damnedest to be better. So when there was no time to think, when those little girls ran out into the street or Mr. Harkins needed a lift to the hardware store, it didn’t occur to him not to act. That’s the Dad I choose to recall as my mentor. The other parts of him I forgave long ago just as I beg the forgiveness of my children for my own darker corners.

In the Sixties, it was mainly young people who forced change. And it was a tough fight. Not just for those like Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney who gave their lives for the cause, but for those millions of young people who made lesser stands in smaller venues but were nevertheless part of the movement. Mike, who stood up in church to defend the preacher who spoke out against VietNam was part of the movement. As was the young man who put flowers in gun muzzles. And yes, the girl who brought home the non-white friend to meet her parents and even – make that especially – the ones who in odd moments simply frowned and said “That’s not funny” to the racist joke.

I remember watching the smoke from the burning of Watts from the top tier at Dodger stadium. I was a twelve-year-old bystander in flood tide pants but even then I wondered what would make people burn down their own neighborhood. And I remembered. And I like to think I learned.

So, how do my memories of the Sixties relate to our current national shaming? Directly, I would say.

We thought we’d won when the troops came home from Vietnam, when the schools and city buses were integrated and a woman’s right to control her own reproductive destiny was secured. We cheered the lions like Martin and Thurgood and we thought, yes, we are moving forward. And we were.

But what we didn’t realize then was the difference between progress and completion. And we left the work incomplete. We outlawed the worst of the Klan’s activities but left much of the hatred intact to arise again under other banners. We elected candidates who were good enough but failed to find true leaders. And so we ended up with Hillary instead of Elizabeth.

We can do better, and we will do better. The reason I know this is that my daughters are as disgusted with the failures of my generation as was I with the failures of the Greatest Generation.  

Progress has been made and so we have a better educated, more worldly class of young people than we ourselves could claim to be. Witness: while I can name and picture the one black kid in my high school in the 67-68 school year, my daughter’s minority friends are too numerous to recall individually. And although I’m not sure I even had a minority friend over as a kid (maybe Deborah Loving who I really liked  but probably not because my buddy kind of had a crush on her so that would have been weird in ways unrelated to race) I can’t recall any grouping of my children’s school mates that was uniformly pale. In my daughters’ generation, being non-white is unexceptional.

Thanks to the Internet, our kids’ generation is amazingly connected and this gives them two distinct advantages: 1) they can share information and organize actions in ways and at speeds we would have considered fictional because in our day, it would have been; and, 2) the bigots, creepers, bullies and bloviating a-holes just can’t keep their mouths shut (as always) but now that means they self-identify on a wide stage.

My daughters and their friends are already studying, buckling down, making plans, preparing to sally forth and that’s as it should be. This is their fight. Not that we geezers won’t lend a hand. But the current disaster is a product, at least in part, of our generation having been too self-satisfied with the progress we made.

And as I said above, progress is not completion.

There can come a day, and I believe there will come a day, when the denizens of ‘white-is-right’ and similar camps will be forced back into the suppurating pustules from whence they sprang. But it will take a lot of courage and hard work and even once they’re defeated, we will need to post a watch. Because hatred arises from fear and ignorance and those are two ills that seem to be DNA-embedded in the human race.

We have to start now. Can’t wait for two years or four years or someday. Have to start now.

I will wear my safety pin because while I can’t tell the good guys from the bad on the basis of appearance, I can at least self-identify as a safe harbor for those who might need it. And I will seek out opportunities to be my better self - visibly, audibly so.

We have to start now. Because we can only do it while we’re here.

 “And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here”

Excerpted from “When I'm Gone” by Phil Ochs

Incommunicado

Tomorrow my brother flies in and the next day we begin our epic journey. Okay, perhaps not epic but fun, anyway. We will be trolling through the Olympic Peninsula and thence down the Pacific coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California. We will hike and stare at stuff and visit at least one each of museum, rainforest and waterfall.

I can’t wait to spend this time with him and particularly because as much as is possible, we will conduct our journey in a news vacuum.

The first two nights, the places we are staying have no TVs and no WiFi and no cell phone coverage. And even as we work our way down the coast, the radio will remain off, cell phone likewise and newspapers unperused. We will avoid discussions with strangers that threaten to bring us up to date on happenings in the outside world.

Don’t know if we can pull it off but the plan is to try to get through election day without knowledge of how it is going. We’ve both voted and for the rest of the cycle we would just as soon not hear, see or otherwise acquire knowledge of the insanity that passes for an election in the year 2016.

Regarding the presidential decision, neither likely outcome is one I can in good conscience embrace, although I readily admit one outcome would be horrifying while the other would be merely disgusting. I hope the party that presented the horrifying choice will be soundly defeated up and down the ticket because a) a public and humiliating spanking is the only thing likely to finally get their attention, and b) I don’t want them to continue to block judicial appointments, etc.

So I’m not uninterested in the outcome, even though an outcome I find uplifting became impossible when the two major parties chose their candidates. I am indeed interested in the outcome, very much so. What does not interest me is the ongoing wrangling and name-calling, lying and buffoonery that has characterized the last one hundred or more news cycles.

Pat and I sincerely hope to spend a nice several days largely alone together, looking at things we’ve never seen and that can only be seen where we’ll be. Oh, and getting rained on.

Kindly refrain from killing each other while we’re gone.