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.

Fall

This has to be my favorite season! I was sitting out on the patio tonight in an Adirondack chair, ostensibly reading but actually watching the dogs snuffling through the fallen leaves. The air was brisk – my spouse would say cold, but what does she know – and there was an intermittent breeze blowing.

Rustling sounds from the trees that frame our back yard soothed me.   I was reading To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield and although I’m only thirty-or-so pages into a six hundred page book, it feels welcoming and familiar and I can’t wait to get back to it in bed this evening.

I have a touch of flu or something, so I should have been craving the couch but the Fall owned me. It’s such an optimistic, selfless season. The leaves and other detritus fall to the ground and rot where they lay, preparing the soil for the spring foliage that will take up the baton. Fall is about letting go and trusting there’s a catcher on the other end.

Wish I could say this more clearly. Random thoughts, I guess.

Passing the baton – but to whom?

Andy Rooney will be delivering his last commentary piece for 60 Minutes this coming Sunday.

I’ve always enjoyed watching and listening to Mr. Rooney. I don’t always agree with him, although I do more often than not. But I do always respect his position.

Mr. Rooney is a charter member of the Greatest Generation, having flown as a correspondent on the first Allied bombing raid into Germany. He’s been there and done that in more ways than most other reporters can imagine. For that matter, more than most other people of any stripe.

He’s always been gentlemanly and his English is a joy to listen to. His wealth of cultural and historical knowledge gives his writing a depth and richness that has seldom been matched and never surpassed.

It’s a tragedy in this democracy that there are no Andy Rooneys being made anymore. Listening to or reading the output of younger “journalists” will convince anyone that the majesty of language is being lost to under-education and over-stimulation.

Reporters these days have barely enough time to record, and nowhere near enough time to notice. Forget sober reflection. Its all about the quick, shocking headline, and there’s no poetry underneath. Wit has given way to dimwit.

I know this is a harsh thing to say. Probably too harsh for a piece in which Mr. Rooney is highlighted. But you see, it’s not that he has been more courageous or smarter or even more artistic than the folks coming after him.

The thing is, Andy Rooney, if he graduated from college today, would never become Andy Rooney. The kids just don’t have the luxury of time. Everything is too immediate.

Andy Rooney is a great wordsmith but that’s not really what’s made him great. It’s sober reflection that set him apart. And these days, that’s an activity few of us take the time for.

The advantage of hindsight

Before I go to bed tonight, Daughter Two’s birthday will have begun. She’s at school on the Least Coast, so she’ll be nineteen there three hours before she’ll be nineteen here. Of course, to be precise, she’d have to wait until 10:43 am Pacific time to celebrate, but we’re counting the whole day as the proud moment.

I’ve been going through an old laptop (the one we purchased for the Ball Of Twine Tour in 2001), making sure I don’t leave anything on it I care about before we donate the thing. When we took that trip, Daughter Two was not yet nine and even then, she was her own person.

Looking at the pics from that decade-ago summer, I can see the curiosity, the brilliance and even the sly cursedness that have become key aspects of her adult self.  As her father, I would have given anything in 2001 if it would have guaranteed she’d turn out the way she has. Now that I’m on this end of the tunnel, it’s easy to see that she was always going to be this wonderful woman. Mary and I need not have worried – we were largely just along for the ride.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! Keep being who you are.

Dad

Josh Ripley of Minnesota

I just read a news piece that made my day, er, evening.

This kid is running a three mile high school cross-country race when he notices a member of the opposing team down and bleeding at the side of the road. They’re some distance from where all the coaches are waiting and the injured kid has a to-the-bone hole in his ankle from an accidental spiking.

So Josh Ripley picks up the injured runner and carries him ½ mile to get him to where he can be helped. Josh has enough blood on him that the other runners think he’s the one with an injury, but he goes ahead and finishes the race even though he's totally out of the money.

I say he won the real race that day. He deserves to be just a little famous; hence, the title of this post.

Yet another list

I-i-i-it's list time!

Things you can smell within one city block of my office:

1.       Hot-dog-laced steam from the cart in Westlake park

2.       Cigarettes, bluch!

3.       The sea when the wind is right

4.       The most incredible barbecue

5.       Wood oven baked pizza

6.       Stale urine (in the elevator down to the mezzanine level of the transit tunnel)

7.       Overdone perfume and colognes

8.       Burned brake shoes

9.       Great coffee roasts (NOT Starbucks)

10.   Irresistible Asian food

11.   Fresh bread

12.   Bus exhaust

Remembering Greg

      (Full disclosure:   This is a recycled piece that originally appeared in my column in a tiny market university paper some years ago. I came across it while retrieving files from an old computer and just felt like sharing it again. I hope you enjoy it.  - Brer Michael)    

I was reading in my local paper the other day about what they label “Student Standouts”.  These are usually high school students who have distinguished themselves in some way or another, frequently involving community service activity, excelling in one or more fields of endeavor or overcoming some adversity. These kids (and many more who never come up on the paper’s radar) richly deserve praise and I’m glad to see them get it.

I’d like to suggest a standout student of my own.  His name was Greg Pickering.  I say was because Greg’s been dead more than forty years, but he’s as alive for me today as you are, or you, or you…

I don’t know what Greg’s grades were like, although I suspect he did all right. His mom was one of the teachers at the school we attended and even had that not been the case, Greg never struck me as the kind to do anything halfway. But that’s not what made him stand out for me.

He was as popular a kid as I ever knew, was Greg. He had this wicked smile that made you just know he was contemplating some harmless mischief. That smile of his warmed and warned you at the same time. But that’s not what made him stand out for me, either.

We attended St. Louise School together through the eighth grade and we were in the same class every year as I remember it. Greg was involved in just about everything we did, every class play, every sports team, and every practical joke. Everybody liked him and with good reason – he liked everybody, without qualification or reservation. I never saw or heard any indication he disliked or disrespected anyone.

Greg was one of the best at every sport we played and I was one of the worst. But you never would have known there was any difference in our abilities, not from Greg, that is. He was generally one of the team captains and he always picked me and a couple of the other less-than-stellar athletes. Consequently, he frequently found himself on the losing team, at least according to the final score.

I never really cared all that much about the sports we played in the dirt field next to the church parking lot. I didn’t care about winning or losing or whether I could head the soccer ball. My inability to correctly hike the football mattered to me not one whit. And as for basketball, I thought for years that a fast break was an injury you faked early in the game in order to be allowed to sit on the bench and watch the rest of the team work up a sweat. 

I couldn’t be bothered about field goals or laterals or sliders. But I did care about one aspect of our sporting events. I cared about being chosen. I cared desperately about being waved over by a team captain who wouldn’t scowl and grumble when he realized I was the last available choice. I spent the first few minutes of every recess and P.E. period praying to St. Jude, patron of lost causes not to let the team captain who chose me spit on the ground before pronouncing my name.

St. Jude must have had a direct line to Greg Pickering. Greg always smiled when he chose me and sometimes even took me second-to-last. Trust me when I say there’s a wide gulf of self-esteem between second-to-last and not picked. Somehow Greg knew that although I would never be the best player, it was humiliating to have to acknowledge every day that I was the worst. He always seemed eager to have me on his team and I was grateful to have him choose me.

      
When some of the kids would pick on another for being chunky or having tape-repaired glasses or bringing something unusual for lunch, Greg would refuse to join in the taunting and he’d be particularly nice to that kid for a day or three. Most of us could be cruel from time to time and some of kids were downright nasty most of the time, but not Greg.  He just didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Greg and I were never especially close. His family operated a private resort on the shore of Lake Sammamish and occasionally a group of us would go there for a church youth group activity. Other than that, I never saw him outside of school. But buddies or not, he was one of the most important friends I’ve ever had. He let me carve out a little bit of space in the uncertainties of childhood where I could just be me without apology.

I have children in grade school now and I get torn up when some other kid hurts their feelings.  I want each of them to have one friend who’ll accept them as themselves no matter what.  I want so badly for them to have a Greg Pickering in their lives. It’s in honor of Greg that I’ve always told my own kids “If you want to have a friend, be a friend.”

I wish you could all have known Greg Pickering. I was about fifteen when he passed away.  My family had moved down to California by then and I hadn’t seen any of the old crowd in almost a year when I got that call. It was one of the worst moments of my life.

We should all have a friend like Greg.  Better yet, we should all be a friend like Greg. Thirty-odd years later, he’s still the very first person who comes to mind when I think about heroes. I’d say that makes him a standout in anyone’s book.

Wasted energy

Mary and I were having one of those really stupid he said / she said arguments tonight. The kind that you get all wound up about and then all you can think of is how you’re going to get back out of it.

We finally did work it out. You knew we would. We knew we would. We were meant to be here together and here we are.  Everything else is noise.

Meanwhile, an old, dear friend was dealing with her spouse having surgery. I didn’t know.

I find myself wishing I could have one tenth of the energy I’d wasted in a stupid argument to redirect to  sending healing vibes where they were needed.

Get well, buddy. My friend loves you and that would be good enough for me even if I’d never met you.

Tunes

Last night Daughter One, freshly back from the Land Of The Mouse, had Mary and me listen to the five or so songs she’s considering for an upcoming audition.  It was a succession of 32-bar clips from some really fine pieces from the musical theatre repertoire.  They were all pretty current - not a fringe on top of a surrey in the bunch.

Since my musical theatre education has been rather spotty since I stopped performing almost three decades ago, I don’t get far off the Les Miz / Wicked track. So it’s always fun to hear newer work.

What makes it especially enjoyable is that it’s my daughter doing the singing. I used to think I had a pretty good voice but oh man, the pipes on this girl! Even just singing casually without warm-up, she’s so powerful and expressive! And when she hits certain notes, it makes your head ring. I wish her well in the audition  but mostly, I wish she would put something on You Tube so I could listen to her whenever I want (Are ya listenin’, MeMe?).

So today, I drove the pickup over the bump to haul the daughter’s “stuff” back to school (you’ll recognize this as a minor victory for Mary and me if you go back a few posts).  Alone in the truck, I played an Oldies mix and one of the tunes was Easy To Be Hard by Three Dog Night.  The lyric got me to thinking about how we treat people differently in macro vs. micro. We frequently act more caring to a mass of strangers than to the one person standing in front of us.  I feel a future blog in the making.

I also got to thinking about how long it’s been since I really listened to a great lyric. I went through some Manhattan Transfer and Oak Ridge Boys during the same drive. Can’t imagine why I haven’t been listening to tunes as I used to. I’m talking about really listening – not just using music to distract me on the treadmill or to block out the loudmouth behind me on the bus or the plane. 

I quite enjoyed the poetry of the afternoon. I believe I’ll do more of this “listening thing” in the near future.

Unexpected advantages

Yes, it’s that time again – a new list!!!!!

Ten things I didn’t know would be cool about both daughters being gone to college but are (cool, that is):

1.       We have guest rooms that don’t involve mattresses on the floor of the rec room.

2.       I can walk around in my skeevies and only have to listen to ONE woman going “E-e-e-ew!”

3.       For the first time in my fifty-eight years, all the colors in the Crayola box are mine, mine, mine!

4.       We can re-design the rec room as a – wait for it – REC ROOM!

5.       We can finally put our television through the Gilmore Girls exorcism!

6.       Only one laundry day per week.

7.       I no longer have to pretend to like the damned cat (although I do still have to feed it).

8.       We can dine on one pizza and still have leftovers.

9.       I no longer have to pretend to understand homework.

10.   We can get out the door five minutes after deciding where to go.

The reading list

Since I’ve recently re-stocked the Dad Shelf with a new load of yet-to-be-read books (thanks to the Borders liquidation), it occurred to me that it’s been awhile since I blogged about reading. A couple of books recently have given me a great deal of food for thought, in addition to hours of enjoyment , so I thought I should spread the good news to my blog fans, who are legion.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot will take you awhile to read and sometimes gets bogged down in minutiae. Nevertheless, it’s one book that we should all read. It’s the story of  a woman who died at a tragically young age of metastasized cervical cancer, leaving behind a husband and children who came a bit undone when the glue left the family.

What makes the story worth a book treatment is that she also left behind one of the greatest legacies in the history of medicine. You see, some cancerous cervical cells taken from Henrietta during her decline became the progenitors of the HeLa line of cells that have had profound impact on medical and genetic research for the last sixty years. Hardly any of the advances in cellular research would have happened without this line of cells.

I might mention that Henrietta was African American and this was the early fifties. So-o-o, the good folks at Johns Hopkins apparently felt no need to obtain permission from Henrietta or her family to take and preserve her cells, or to inform any of them of the profound effect the cell line has had on modern science. Nor did they feel that her heirs should share in the untold millions of dollars generated through the marketing of HeLa cells to and between researchers worldwide.

For those who weren’t around to enjoy Jim Crow or the struggles of the Civil Rights movement, reading this book will help you understand a racial gulf that remains un-bridged in this country. I might also recommend We Lived In a Little Cabin in the Yard by Belinda Hurmence and Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall by Carl T. Rowan. Ignorance of history is dangerous and ignorance of our civil rights history unforgiveable.

Speaking of history, the other book I’d like to recommend is Hardly a Hero by Michael Young. The iconic books about our war on VietNam include The 13^th Valley by John M. Del Vecchio,  Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic, Chickenhawk  by Robert Mason and now one hopes, Hardly a Hero. Most of the young men who served in VietNam were neither helicopter pilots nor became figureheads of the anti-war movement. And not that many of them participated in the great battles at Hue, Ke Sanh, or in the Au Shau Valley.

Most of the young men who marched off to that ill-conceived conflict went there misinformed and came home confused, left to flounder their way through re-insertion into life in The World. They lost friends and their own innocence in a less-than-grand adventure for which the question “Why?” has still not been satisfactorily answered.

Michael Young has some minor wrinkles to work out as an author but his storytelling is spot on. This e-book is brilliant and gripping, compelling and most of all, honest. I enjoyed and learned a lot from the other books I named and I understand why they’re so well read. But if you aren’t moved by Young’s autobiographical treatment, you simply have no soul.  It is one of the few true books about a war that should never have been.

More to come but meanwhile, please consider reading these two books. You’ll be better for it.

Other people's dreams

I’m in Minnesota this week and we’ve taken several road trips getting from site to site. Since I wasn’t the car renter this trip, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to gaze out the window at the country passing by.

Like Washington and many other states through which I’ve passed, Minnesota has no shortage of abandoned homesteads and barns. They always seem to catch my eye.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the look of a nicely kept, working farm. White fences and well-conceived building layouts make me feel optimistic. No small number of such farms are to be seen on the roads north of St. Paul.

But what really gets me to thinking is the sight of a swaybacked, gap-toothed, long greyed out farmhouse with visible holes in the porch planking and perhaps a few blackberry vines growing out through long-empty windows. They draw my mind like quarks intrigue astrophysicists.

I can’t help wondering whose dream this building once represented. It requires almost no effort for me to imagine a young farm couple standing in front of the house, feeling that they’ve finally arrived. I can imagine the long hours, hearty meals and children borne without the aid of a modern hospital.

This old house saw triumph and tragedy, as they say. But mostly, it saw the steady progression of days that make up the life of a family.

I suppose there’s a note of sadness in the decay of these old structures. But they make me happy. Because they represent someone’s dreams and for some period of time, I like to imagine that the dream came true.

I'm a book snob

Today, Mary and I went to Borders Books to take advantage of their close-out sale. It was a bittersweet excursion. On the one hand, I was able to pick up a boat load of books for about 20%. On the other hand, I can’t get past the fact that the closing of Borders is a harbinger of the way things are going for the publishing industry.

As I’ve commented before, there’s no question that in the age of e-books, the economics of hauling blocks of wood around the country just won’t pencil out. Gutenberg has had his day.

As much as I love reading a book that I can hold and feel, comforted and invited by the combination of good paper, expert design and typesetting and the ability to make marginal notes, I have to admit I’m part of the problem. Because although I read almost entirely paper books when at home, I find my Nook infinitely more useful when traveling.

My e-reader has about thirty books in it at any one time, so no need to carry several pounds of wood in my carry-on bag on my frequent business trips. And on the bus, I don’t have to put up with nosey fellow riders asking about the book I’m reading. (I don’t know why that bothers me, since I usually welcome talking with anyone about books – I guess on a bus one likes to invoke the cone of silence.)

I suppose e-books are the undeniable wave of the future, and even of my present. But I can’t help feeling that an e-book is somehow cheating, less real than – well – a real book.

I’m a book snob. But my snobbery is not about the classics. It’s the wood pulp I have trouble letting go of.  Go figure.

My blog

 I don’t keep a diary. Neither do I make entries in a journal. But I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. It’s part of me.

I don’t consider myself a gifted writer by any means. What I am is a guy who has a lot of friends who are sensitive and generous enough to ignore the occasional tortured analogy in favor of letting the idea come through.

I don’t understand how anyone could fail to enjoy writing. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and there are people I love and respect who consider writing a 500-word essay nothing short of torture. I understand that they feel this way but I just can’t fathom why.

I write letters to my daughters that they will read when the time comes. I’ve written a full-length novel that went precisely nowhere, bad poetry and some really good essays. I’ve had regular columns in two tiny-market newspapers. But so far, this blog is my favorite outlet.

I’ve gone on at length about family and I can’t help that I’ll likely continue to use my loved ones as blog fodder. But I also feel like turning a corner, stretching the wings a bit. There’s a book I’m reading about Henrietta Lacks that’s started the wheels turning. I’ve been thinking about a few “colorful characters” of my acquaintance that might make for a good missive or two.

I’d like to go back through some of the notes we wrote during the Ball Of Twine Tour. And I have innumerable scraps of paper – physical and virtual – bearing lists of writing ideas. I can’t wait to take some of them on.

What it comes down to is this: I know there are lots of demands on your time. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you trusting me with a little corner of it now and again. Perhaps you could even recommend my musings to some of your friends.

There’s no question that I need you more than you need me. I hope to earn your generosity.

Things going well

Daughter Two gets to keep the room and roommate she's already come to love. Nervous about course planning - why should she be different - but otherwise settling in nicely at MIT.

Daughter One is spending her birthday helping a friend from college settle in as an intern at Disney. She gets to have one of her besties with her on her special day with unlimited access to Disney properties. I'm jealous!

Dogs are thrilled to have us home (it's nice to be needed). Large Dog upchucked in my honor.

Wife has decided to keep me.

More ideas than time to write in the last week, so there will be many good things to come from the Briarpatch.

Bloggus interruptus

All well with the Bellevue McDermotts. Not to worry about us. Our experience with Irene has been relatively mild. The folks from MIT and the Marriott have been just fabulous. Mary was able to find an open Target and cabbed there with Daughter Two to get the last necessities for the dorm room.

We fly home tomorrow (fingers crossed for flights going out of Logan) arriving late, so expect to continue blogging Tuesday - Wednesday at the latest.  Hope this finds all of my thousands of readers well and happy.

As the storm approaches!!!!!!!!!

Sitting in a hotel room in Cambridge, MA waiting for Hurricane Irene to hit, I thought I should come up with a title for this epistle that was as unnecessarily foreboding as the news headlines on the TV. How did I do?

It’s Saturday morning and the hurricane is supposed to hit the Boston area tomorrow. We came here for the parent orientation and campus move-in of our newly-admitted MIT student. Since all the main events for tomorrow – the main event day – have been cancelled due to the state of emergency, we’re using today to get the necessaries accomplished and then get in whatever looking around we can before the campus shuts down.

-Later-

So, Mary and I basically had a low key vacation day today, dropping off Daughter Two's stuff with her roommate, then walking around half soaked checking out the campus and environs. What a wonderful place for Daughter Two to go to school! She and her cohort are back from their pre-orientation trip and safely in the dorm.

Not to worry, will continue blogging tomorrow. Too pooped to pop at the moment.

Erosion of marital roles

Mary and I fly out tomorrow night to transport stuff to our daughter's college. We will have house-sitters here during our absence. Mary is thinking that maybe I should contribute to the house-cleaning and other non-packing-my-own-stuff preparatory activities.

I have to wonder, whatever happened to the concept of women's  work? Has the world gone crazy?

More about stuff

Many moons ago, when Daughter One and also Daughter Two were small, our house was burgled. It was a traumatic experience that made us feel violated just like in the books and movies. The worst part was the few things they took that were irreplaceable. Mary’s name necklace from her grandmother. I think that was the big thing.

I hope we’re never burgled again but if we are, I’m hoping that the burglar’s shopping list at least roughly parallels my list of stuff that’s sitting around here gathering dust:

·         DVDs of movies we didn’t like the first time;

·         About half of our Christmas CDs;

·         All the underwear that no longer fits my ample caboose;

·         Speaking of clothes, tees that fit the mid-twenties me;

·         Our old, old silverware;

·         Half of what’s in the downstairs closet, and I don’t care which half;

·         Every single thing that we bought on sale, thinking we’d need them someday and then never did;

·         The countertop appliances we don’t use;

·         Half of my coats, but I get to pick which half;

·         The nastiest eight of the dogs’ chew toys;

·         The two-thirds of our board games that no one ever plays;

·         All the out of focus photos, which is to say, the ones I took;

·         The broken shovel that even I don’t know why I kept;

·         The small dog (DO NOT tell Daughter One);

·         About nine of the dog leashes;

·         Speaking of dogs, Sam’s ashes – I still love that mutt and I think he’d get a hoot out of some low life opening the beautiful box to find a bag of ashes and bone chips;

·         The old barbecue;

·         The electric car that we got from a garage sale and which Daughter One played with precisely once;

·         The box of tuna helper that’s so old, neither of us will admit to ever having purchased it;

·         All the dandelions they can carry.

They should be able to get a good garage sale out of this much stuff. Chances are, we wouldn’t even press charges.

Dog love

The small dog clearly believes that its quota of loving actually increases as the number of permanent residents in the house decreases. I don’t know how she understands the concept of inverse correlation. Heck, I’m not sure I understand the concept of inverse correlation. But she does.

Daughter Two left only yesterday and now the small dog insists on pawing us ad nauseum, being patted constantly and staring at us with the rapt attention that is only possible when absolutely nothing else occupies your mind.

 I swear she can be sound asleep on the far side of the room but if you so much as turn your  head, she’s on you, licking with the tongue that knows no restraint, the whole back third of her gyrating in a wriggling cross between a tail wag and a drunken shimmy. And it’s getting worse as the night wears on.

Large dog mostly sleeps, so the data on him are inconclusive.

A message from Daughter Two

So, Daughter Two arrived safely in Cambridge, MA. She met up with a bunch of other new MIT students and collectively they got all their stuff from the airport to the school. (Okay, not really ALL her stuff, but I’ve already sort of covered that in an earlier post.)

We know for sure that she made it to campus and met her new roommate. We know for sure, because our several questions along those lines were collectively answered by a single text that read, in its entirety: “Yup:).”

Coming from Daughter Two, this translates to mean “I am here and safe, enjoying meeting people, love my roommate, had help getting my stuff from the airport to the dorm and don’t really want to take the time to converse with parents for the moment. I love you and am struck at this pivotal moment by how fantastic you have been as parents and how fortunate I am to have grown up in your household. I have eaten and taken my medication and am keeping hydrated. Please don’t worry about me and understand that I am intent on making good use of my first few days here. I will be in touch in more depth and breadth later, perhaps tomorrow. Meanwhile, know that you are in my thoughts and that I will always hold you in my heart. Love always, Daughter Two!”

It’s sort of a code. You’d have to know her.

Cupcake wars?

Daughter Two leaves for college in the morning.

She brought special gourmet cupcakes home for desert.

There are four cupcakes but only three people in this house this evening.

I have to wonder if Daughter Two has retribution on her mind, this being her last chance for awhile and all.

(For those of you who don’t understand the reference, you may want to peruse “An errant cupcake” from  January 24^th.)

Melancholy moments

Forgive the alliterative title; I couldn’t resist. I promise it’s appropriate.

Less than 48 hours from now, Daughter Two will be ensconced in her dorm room, already developing a history with her roommate, already shifting her cultural center of mass from our home to her college. She has worked her last shift at the shoe store, hugged her friends, packing is well along (or so she says). We’ve taken our last pre-college paddle and eaten the kayakberry  pies that resulted from the last picking expedition with Pat and Patty.

We’re thrilled for her and vicariously through her and can’t wait to see her in her new normal when we go for Parents’ Orientation next week. But of course, by then the Rubicon will have been crossed. We’ll be on the outside looking in. We’ll love what we see but still, a spectator is not a participant.

Still, I can’t wait to see her off. Is that irony or paradox – I’m never sure?

Advice to parents whose kids are NOT leaving this month for college: All those things that you want to do again before your child ceases to be a child – do them now.

A matter of priorities

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced that immigration officials will begin reviewing potential deportees to establish priorities for review. " Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons.” This in a letter sent to 22 senators today.

She goes on to say that "it makes no sense to expend our enforcement resources on low-priority cases, such as individuals... who were brought into this country as young children and know no other home."

Hm-m-mm…

So, on the tenth anniversary of 9-11, we’re finally getting around to targeting convicted felons for deportation? And 125 years after the Statue of Liberty began inviting the poor and downtrodden of the world to our shores, we’re just now going to give less objectionable asylum seekers such as children an easier nod?

So, I have two questions:

1.    Why on Earth are we not already targeting felons for the old heave-ho?

2.    When has it ever gone against our grain to welcome those just looking for a fresh start? Or kids needing a fair shot at life?

The Irish weren’t always entirely welcome, Africans were once entirely too welcome for their own good, and while we look on Canucks as our wink, wink, nudge, nudge step-siblings from mother England, we see the Mexicans and First Nations as second class peoples to be sequestered. Our priorities have been screwed up for a very long time.

OF COURSE, we should prioritize certified jerks for early departure! But perhaps we should have done so quickly and quietly. I’m thinking that announcing we’re just now realizing that not all immigrants are equally desirable is more than a little embarrassing.

P.S.: Just in case this is read by anyone at DHS, let me make my thoughts clear: kick out the crooks and embrace the kids. Call me when you have a difficult choice to make.

Stuff

Mary is helping Daughter Two prepare for the move to college. This apparently involves a significant amount of shopping.

I’d have thought with the great piles of unused stuff we have sitting around the house in various drawers and bins, everything a college bound daughter could need would be right here for the taking.  This turns out not to be the case.

I’d have thought that with the daughters moving on with their lives, the household would experience a net decrease in the amount of stuff we stumble over during the course of an average day. In my dream world, they would take significant amounts of what I’ve come to think of as their stuff with them to college and on into their future worlds. It would appear that I’ve harbored some unrealistic expectations. 

It seems that moving to college and beyond involves the accretion of great whomping piles of completely new stuff. Stuff that is in some ways similar to their old stuff but sufficiently different to require time-and-space-consuming adventures in the acquisition of entirely new stuff.

The old stuff will be left behind.

With me.  And Mary.

And the dogs.

And of course, our stuff.

(Editor’s note: Mary informs me that this is not an entirely accurate rendering, that in fact, lots of the existing stuff is being recycled as college stuff. Yes, dear.)

The line for the consulate

The building in which I work includes a consulate.  Two days per week, a line forms in the lobby of people waiting to be taken upstairs to conduct their consular business.

Usually when watching a crowd, I can’t help but run scripts in my mind, imagining back stories for each of the people. But this time, I can’t. Or at least, I won’t.

These folks are waiting to meet with officials who can make their dreams come true or dash them. Whatever reason they have for waiting in this line is intensely personal and I just can’t violate that privacy, even fictionally.

Most of them look at me as I walk by wearing business casual. I’m not stopped by the guard and I have a key card dangling from the loop around my neck. Clearly, I have access. Is it to the consulate? Am I maybe the person to whom they will plead their case later this pivotal morning?

I wish I could help them. I always feel the heart tugs when talking about persons caught by borders. Seems like such an artificial way to screw up lives.

One lady near the head of the line beams a smile at me that almost stops me in my heels. I think I’d like her back story.  

I hope all these people get what they came for. I’m lucky. I have a key card.

A great hike

I went for a hike today with my wife, brother and sister-in-law. We wended our way through deep coniferous forest along a rushing creek to a really gorgeous waterfall.  It was about a two hour hike in very warm weather but almost totally shaded.

We met lots of nice folks along the way including Amy, Daughter One’s fifth-grade teacher. She was one of the shining lights in our daughter’s education and it was so nice to see her with her husband and children and dog, clearly enjoying the day as much as we were.

This creek is a place where I spent a lot of time as a kid, and it’s pretty strongly identified in my psyche with some of my best memories of growing up. More recently, it’s a place we used to go when our daughters were young. One of my favorite family pictures was taken on the trail with the creek in the background.

This is the place where I gave myself my worst ever ankle sprain while performing in an ill-advised Cub Scout skit and where I was first given a job I would be in charge of (working on the trail). It was where I learned to make a fire without matches and where I accepted that there’s nothing inherently dangerous about nighttime.

My ashes will be scattered here. That’s assuming I’m not taken up bodily in an alien ship. And unless my survivors prefer another disposition (don’t want to put extra stress on a hard time). My brother does NOT get a vote!

This was a very special day that I could never duplicate and wouldn’t want to try.

The tardy blogger

Yes, dear readers, I know I'm behind in my postings. By way of explanation if not excuse, My brother and sister-in-law are visiting - their last visit before Daughter Two begins her new life at college. I've decided that family comes first and I'm devoting every spare minute to this family time.

Okay, that was the public  explanation. Here's the real one:
Pat annd Patty like to do a lot of physical activity. Between kayaking and hiking, I expect not to have the energy to blog for another couple of  days.
I'M TOO FAT!!!

Paddling the locks

Spent the evening paddling from Lake Union to Golden Gardens with Daughter Two. Paddling into the sunset, through the ship canal, the Chittenden Locks, past Madrona and around the head to Shilshole is about as fine an urban paddle as you could devise. Five miles of friends and cool stuff to look at.

I loved the locks, loved the paddle overall, and it was a very special evening with my daughter.

Unfortunately, there was the little matter of her hitting me in the face numerous times with her paddle spray. Particularly when we came through the eddy area by the fish ladders, where the water was covered with some extremely suspicious scud. For some reason, she seemed to splash more when we were in the crappy water.

I love her anyway. This was a good evening.

It’s all for my honey

I read on the news that it’s becoming fairly common for couples to have “snoring rooms” installed in their new or remodeled homes. That’s a special room where the snorer goes to sleep, thus leaving their partner free to enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep. Speaking as one who has occasionally been accused of emitting gentle nocturnal ululations, this seems like a reasonable approach to staving off marital meltdown. In fact, I’m so convinced of the merit of this solution, I’ve begun thinking about a design for our snoring room.

With Daughter Two going off to college and Daughter One already there, I have the perfect place in mind.  They won’t be using the downstairs rec room anymore. As a service to my dear wife, I’m going to redesign it as a snoring room. It will of course require some better sound insulation. That and the separation of a floor should leave Mary free to slumber without interruption.

Oh, and better carpeting. Just for the sake of noise abatement, doncha know.

Since I’m doing this primarily…er, make that entirely…for the sake of my beloved, I’ve decided to add other features that will make her life easier:

·         In order to save her the sound of running water, I’m going to put in a refrigerator with an ice maker so I can get midnight drinks without waking her.

·         And of course, a microwave so I can make popcorn with which to wash the water down.

·         I can’t always get to sleep right off, and the TV in the family room is too loud in the master bedroom, so I’ll bring in my own with earphones to avoid waking her.

·         I should probably move some bookshelves in there so I’ll always have something to read, helping me drift off without disturbing the peace.

·         If I’m going to read, I guess I should really get a Barcalounger.

·         Oh, and foosball. I really like foosball.

·         And maybe one of those foot massager things.

Some husbands would merely roll over on their sides. Not me, not for my baby. She deserves more, and I intend to give it to her.

The results of partisan politics

The United States of America today lost its AAA credit / bond rating.
Thank you, Tea Party!
It turns out that scorched earth may not have been your best approach.

Question of the day

Seriously - is there anyone in the world who WOULD eat yellow snow?