Altar boys

I was just reading an online article regarding the controversy currently raging over the refusal of some diocese of the Roman Catholic Church to allow females to act as altar servers. It seems that some priests and bishops have decided that altar service should be limited to males.

The Catholic Church has a long history of treating women as second-class citizens. I don’t agree with the attitude of the church toward women but then, I also don’t understand why any girl would want to be an altar server. Or any boy, for that matter, but that’s not where I’m going.

I was an altar boy back in the days of solemn high Latin masses. I can still rattle off a mean Suscipiat at lightning speed. I remember all the choreographed dance steps as though I’d last performed them yesterday.  

I went through my initial training under Father LaVelle, staying late afternoons after school to learn the Latin and the moves and the order of things. I picked it all up quickly and was soon awarded a special wooden cross to wear around my neck on a string. It was supposed to be an honor of sorts for those of us who were on the altar boy fast track.

I found myself assigned to Father Holland’s Sunday crew, on the 7:00am and 12:15 pm mass shifts, and on call for special masses. I altar-boyed for a lot of weddings and funerals.  Some assignments were better than others. We used to vie to work funerals with Fr. Holland, because he would always take us out for burgers and fries afterward.  After a Mass of the Angels, he’d take us for a swim at the neighborhood pool. He didn’t want our young psyches damaged through exposure to such sad events as the funeral of a child. He was a good guy with a huge heart and of course, we played him shamelessly. Looking off into space after a particularly sad funeral was usually good for onion rings.

When we worked weddings, we would make bets on the probability that one of the wedding party would faint during the service. There was usually a box of Jujy Fruits hanging in the balance. With stakes like that, arguments in the changing room behind the sacristy would rage. Nodders didn’t count, but what about leaners? If the first usher caught the best man, who then came around before going completely comatose, did that count?

A kid who went down in the pews was out of bounds. Stumblers didn’t count, although a really good one would make us bite our collective lips. As fun a guy as Fr. Holland was, even he frowned on laughing at stumblers.  And a dancer was highly entertaining but scored no points unless the noggin hit the carpet.

The bride and her women in waiting didn’t count. Which is not to say they never went down. But women were considered more likely to swoon, and therefore too obvious to bet on.  Only males earned points. The irony is that although women were exempted due to their assumed frailty, I can tell you from long experience that more groomsmen end up kissing the kneeler than bridesmaids. We should have doubled up bets on the fair flowers hitting the floor.

We weren’t totally heartless in our calculations. A fainter who also upchucked earned our sympathy and therefore, was outside our calculations. And bets were off for any service involving the use of incense, long regarded as the bane of potential passer outers.

Betting on syncope was not our only entertainment. One priest who frequently worked our room had two peculiarities that played right into our hands. Fr. X had a thing about always consecrating all the wine we brought him. This meant he had to drink it, this being before the days of pass-the-chalice. This particular cleric also had trouble holding his vino. So naturally, when the prep boy saw the poor chump’s name on the schedule, he would make sure to set out the largest wine cruets, filled to the  spout with the novitiate’s finest.

This poor guy would bravely drink down all the wine, and within a few minutes, would be struggling visibly and painfully to avoid burping into the microphone. And after mass, he would politely but firmly remind us to use the small wine cruets and next mass, we’d super-size him again. Great fun!

You know, come to think of it, we really were little monsters. Mothers, don’t let your sons – or daughters - grow up to be altar servers. It’s a bad crowd.

It’s list time again!

My thanks-giving list:

1.       None of my family were in the accident I saw tonight.

2.       The folks who were involved had a dozen responders on the scene within about four minutes, with all sorts of equipment.

3.       Daughter Two has a good friend with whom to spend the holiday.

4.       We were born in a place / time in which we’re able to live lives free from want. And when we can talk to Daughter Two in real time when she can’t come home for the holiday.

5.       Mary

6.       Family

7.       Old friends

8.       My turkey roaster

9.       The book I’m reading (Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West)

10.   The dogs, except sometimes.

11.   Writing

And a really special one: Mary and I are so fortunate that our daughters have had opportunities and have capitalized on those opportunities to establish their lives in wonderful directions, that they’re both smart and courageous enough to make course corrections when needed, and that they have each other.

Dear readers, I hope this finds each of you with uncountable reasons to be thankful.

Dogs

Today was a dog day. First thing this morning, the canines who allow us to share their house were upstairs urging us to come down stairs and feed them. Of course Odin The Horse paused at the door to Daughter Two’s bedroom, staring at her bed in the false hope that she would be where she belonged  at last. Failing to find her there, he came into our room looking for his morning pat on the head.

Mary and I really enjoy when Odin comes to my side of the bed because once I’ve scratched his ears, he has to back out, being too long to make a U turn between the bed and the set of shelves. This morning, he was further confused when I made those boop-boop sounds that trucks make when backing up.  

Of course, Zooey The Small And Annoying had already interrupted Mary’s sleep earlier to demand a trip to the backyard for her morning peering session. She goes out on the back stoop and peers at the backyard, as though she’s legitimately on watch for prowlers and such. Of course, she’s a major wuss, so the peering impresses no one. Not even the rabbits and squirrels.

Both the dogs eventually ended up outside at the same time. They wore themselves out with playing hard in the frost-cold yard most of the day so that now, they’re both zonked on their dog beds, where they will remain more or less inert until we go to bed, signaling time for them to need our attention once again.

We had dinner at the neighbors’ and their dog Ynez needed her share of loving. She is a Golden Retriever and had just been shampooed, so her coat was absolutely silky. It was great.

I went to the store for milk this evening. This woman with a service dog just barely missed the bus so I drove them home. The dog rested its head on my knee while I drove. It was a sweetheart and I’d like to think it was thankful to me for not making it and the woman wait in the cold for the next bus.

Lots of my good days involve dogs.

Indifferent beauty

The Fall colors are out in their riotous glory!

They don’t know. They don’t care.  They just are.

It would be easy to personify the trees and impute some intent on their part. I know that’s ridiculous. Trees only think in Oz and Hogwarts. But I can wish it weren’t so.

I could believe that the trees are crying out against the impending loss of their foliage, their incipient nakedness. Or perhaps giving the world the arboreal version of the finger – see what I can do when I try? Take that!

The truth is more pedestrian, I suppose. The trees aren’t doing this of their own volition.

They don’t know. They don’t care. The colors just come.

And I get to watch!

Extended family

I’m looking at pictures hung on the wall of our family room and one in particular has awakened my imagination. It’s one of those posed shots of everyone who happened to attend this particular family gathering - my cousin Sue’s wedding. We’re standing in careful ranks so that all the smiling faces are exposed to the camera.

I know all these people. I played with some of them as a kid and some of them played with my daughters when they were kids. The common thread runs through one person. Everyone in the photo is descended from my grandmother.

She was quite a presence in my young life. All of the cousins in my rung of the family have strong memories of pot lucks out on her patio, breakfast in the little yellow room off the kitchen, sleeping in the room off the porch, giggling at private jokes while the adults played cards in the dining room.

Many of my childhood memories revolve around the relationships represented in this one photo. And a foot away from it is a similar photo of Mary’s extended family, spreading across the lawn to left and right of their family matriarch. I suppose most families have a photo like this.

Some don’t, of course.

I won’t go back into the whole nature vs. nurture argument. But it does seem to me that a great deal of who I am now can be divined from studying this photo. As is true of Mary and the folks in her family team photo.

I feel a great deal of sympathy for folks who don’t have one of these photos on their family room wall. Growing up in a family that chooses to continue to come together over the years to mark the way posts of our collective lives must have something to do with the sense of belonging and self-worth that got me through down times.

Every child deserves to grow up in a family like this. Which is not to say that small families and single-child homes can’t produce wonderful human beings. Or that all large families produce only Nobel Prize winners.  But I’m thankful for the family in which I grew up – brother and sisters, my parents, uncles and aunts and of course, Grandma K.

Mary Fitzgerald Kersting was not a scientist or a politician or an entertainer. Few people outside our family would likely recall her today. But for me, my grandmother and the other folks descended from her formed the framework of my life.

She is long gone but certainly not forgotten. Not by me and not by anyone in that picture.

More about Fall

It’s blowing and raining today. Truly nasty. But yesterday was one of those days when nothing at all is moving.

Sometimes a cliché is the perfect descriptor: riding across the lake was like skating across a 22 mile long, three mile wide mirror. I could see two volcanos, one upright and the other upside down, two islands, two of each tree and house and dock along the shoreline.

There was one boat on the lake and it had been in the same place for some time, because there wasn’t so much as a ripple on the lake.  I could have spent an hour on the bridge, just taking in the view.

I wish a really good artist had been on hand to paint the scene. It helped me get to sleep last night.

Boot camp

I’m sitting on the concourse at Lindbergh Field in San Diego. Right across the field, clearly visible from where I sit is the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Driving here from the hotel, we went right past the site of the old Naval Recruit Training Center, where I took Navy boot camp. It was adjacent to MCRD, and while it’s mostly gone now, there are reminders still to be had.

TDE-1, the U.S.S. Recruit, still sails the concrete sea where we trained for shipboard emergencies. And we drove right past the bridge where it’s alleged that a certain recruit company threw the bridge guard over the rail into the estuary the day we crossed over from “Worm Island.”

Speaking of Worm Island, the barracks I lived in for the first three weeks was right there, no more than a hundred yards from the road we were driving on. The windows are all knocked out. I’m told it’s used now as a training facility for local firefighters. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s still standing at all.

Through the open (missing, actually) window, I could see right where my bunk stood. And the concrete tables where we scrubbed our grundies was in plain sight.

Memory is indeed selective. I couldn’t tell you with any certainty the layout of half of the places I lived while I was a bachelor. I have to really concentrate to bring forth my mental floor plan of the first house Mary and I owned.

Boot camp was different. If not for the damage wrought by practicing firefighters, I could walk blind-folded through that barracks and give you a guided tour. Part of it is the “first home away” effect I suppose. But more than that, it seems that the boot camp experience has a particular hold on my memories. I have to say, the memories are not entirely negative.

I wasn’t fond of the incessant marching and I could have lived without the obstacle course, where I dropped my lunch one afternoon in front of my seventy-man company. But I did enjoy the experience overall.

A large group of guys from all regions and walks of life came together and worked in close concert. For nine weeks, our fortunes rose and fell as a group. Even as a family of sorts. After those nine weeks, I remained friends with a few but even with them, I gradually lost contact over time. Still, I’ll never forget them.

I wouldn’t go back through boot camp for a million dollars. But neither, for the same amount, would I be willing to give up the memory.

Mixed tape

It was common in the days when tape players ruled the musical world to make a gift of what we used to call a “mixed tape”. I was never a big fan of them as a young man, since I had my own musical tastes which were sufficiently eclectic as to make it nigh onto impossible for even a good friend to make a mixed tape from their own music to which I’d enjoy listening.

Or so, I thought.

I’ve listened to several mixed tapes of late. One was put together by my brother years ago and was heavy on Credence Clearwater, Jackson Browne and other artists he used to love, with some Warren Zevon thrown in to provide the recommended daily allowance of headless Thompson gunners.  One that I can’t find and wish I could was by Vala Cupp, my then-girlfriend. Cab Calloway, Billie Holliday, Tom Waits and Manhattan Transfer – now, there was a mix! Vala died a few years back and I really wish I’d kept this momento.

My friend Lance Hamilton used to come up with really cool mixes and I wish I had some of them now. The ones he made during the Electric Light Orchestra years would be fun to have. And I REALLY wish I still had the one a friend of mine made that included the only known recording of me singing bass in the quartet for Music Man.

As I write this, I’m on a flight from Seattle to San Diego and the folks seated behind me are holding forth non-stop at full volume about topics only a computer wonk would care about. In self-defense, I pulled out the old iPod and - tired of both Beethoven and the Oak Ridge Boys - I went surfing and came across a mixed set labeled “Swerdloves.” It turns out to be just what I needed. It’s truly a “mixed” playlist, with new twists on old favorites interspersed with cuts I’d never have chosen for myself but that feel like home within the first 32 bars. The Il Divo cut is to die for. What’s really cool is that I haven’t listened to this set for a while, so it feels new.

I guess there’s probably not likely to be a resurgence of mixed tape gifting on the near horizon. Too bad. Listening to music chosen for you by a dear friend you don’t see often is one of the treats of life. It’s a bit like enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house. The meal’s not prepared precisely the way you’ve always done it at home, but while it will never supplant your own traditions, it’s nevertheless homey and familiar. And sometimes a little surprising.

Thanks, Swerdlove people! I can’t imagine why I never much liked mixed tapes thirty years ago. What was I thinking?

Geezer Q & A

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

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

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

More about stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next up – the bookcases.

Nouveau bus riders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This will be a good week!

Still crazy after all these years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem….It was a dark and stormy night…

Message to my blog buddies

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

Nature or nurture or…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bystander

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bloggus interruptus

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

Daughters

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

Poor execution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Direct action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever…

My burden

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

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

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

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

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

Doggie triumphs

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

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

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

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.