My Most Memorable Meal

A post on Facebook today caught my eye. It was an appeal to post something about “your most memorable meal.” That got me to thinking. And, when I think, sometimes my mind takes off in strange directions. Call it a lack of focus, or ADHD, or whatever – my mind is directed by little voices that sometimes send me into uncharted waters. Today, the little voices have me going in all sorts of strange directions. What would I choose as my most memorable meal, the writer asks? I can think of quite a few. My first communion? I’ll bet that’s not a common response! My first Thanksgiving dinner alone as a college freshman – shared with nobody as I sat at the counter at a local diner because the dorm cafeteria was closed? Most of my dormmates were either back home for Thanksgiving or else invited to dinner by their roommates – but not me. That was memorable to be sure, but not in a good way. Oyster stew on Christmas eve as a youth growing up in Denver? I hated oyster stew, but I never let it ruin the anticipation of gifts to be opened the next morning. I can think of quite a few candidates, but one stands out in my mind. It takes a bit of explaining.

The year, I believe, was 1970. Headlines of those days were dominated by news of the Vietnam war. Nixon was trying to figure out a way to extricate ourselves from that war “with honor.” Truth be told, we were getting our ass kicked fighting a war we were not willing to win. Folks like me were dying every day over there — the purpose known only to God. The draft was still in effect. Young men of my age were being conscripted to serve in Vietnam, like it or not. I was not against the war, really. The “domino theory”, being used to justify our intervention in Southeast Asia, seemed reasonable enough to me. But I had no desire whatsoever to be sent off into the jungle to fight, or even die. So, I managed to secure a good job working in the Pentagon as a civilian defense analyst on the staff of the Secretary of Defense. Crazy, huh? But the job did prove helpful in my quest for an occupational deferment, so there I was, and happy to be there.

What does this have to do with my most memorable meal, you might ask? Well, bear with me, folks, as I try to paint the picture. Working in the Pentagon, I became friends with a fellow named Ed. Ed and I were about the same age, and as I recall, his job in the Pentagon was being served in uniform. I cannot remember exactly what Ed did there, but like me and the other 20,000 people who reported to work at the Pentagon every morning, I am sure it was crucial to the success of our war effort. Ed was a strong fellow – a high school and collegiate football player from Minnesota. He was a “jock” – me, not so much. But we enjoyed good bachelor times together in Washington. Anyway, when the time came for me to take my allotted 2-week vacation, I mentioned it to Ed, and the two of us decided to do a European road trip together. Ed had never been to Europe before. I had spent some time there while a college student in France. So, I thought I knew my way around, and Ed was a fun guy to be around and would come in handy sharing car and hotel expenses. We decided to do it. I was excited to take this trip, and enthusiastically told my parents of my plans. I thought no more of my discussions with my parents, but unknown to me, knowledge of my travel plans set my father in motion on a secret mission I would only learn about later.

So, when the time came, off we went, Ed and me. As I recall, we flew from Washington, D.C. to Munich, Germany. There, we rented a VW bug (what else?!), and we were on our way. But as I learned later, between the time when I mentioned the trip to my parents and our flight to Munich, my father had contacted his brother-in-law, George Davis, who lived in Peoria, Illinois. George Davis was an interesting man. He had a kind spirit and an engaging grin – always seemed at the top of his game and fully in control. To me, he was a fun uncle to be around. But George was enigmatic. While a good husband and father to 2 children, Uncle George was not exactly setting the world on fire professionally. I remember that he had moved from one job to another, the last one being at a Chicago department store. But, from the recorded oral history of his son (Cullom) that I received after Cullom’s passing (and many years after George’s death), I learned that my Uncle George was a pretty good liar. For a period of about 6 months, as Cullom states, his father would take the train daily to Chicago to go to work, returning every evening, only to repeat the next day. The thing was, he did not have a job in Chicago. He would simply take the train to Chicago, and then sit in the public library scouring the newspaper for job openings or reading books that interested him. He just never bothered to tell his wife and kids that he was unemployed. That’s hard to pull off! Cullom did not explain how they paid the bills. So, in a nutshell, that was my Uncle George. He could not have been more different than his brother, Shelby Cullom Davis.

Shelby Cullom Davis

Known to my father by reputation only, Shelby Cullom Davis was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist from New York. He founded a leading investment firm under his own name. A graduate of Lawrenceville, Princeton, and Columbia, he received his doctorate in political science at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland in 1934. He was an advisor to Thomas Dewey during Dewey’s presidential campaigns. Today, he would be considered a prominent member of the “ruling class.” Politically, Shelby Cullom Davis was a proud conservative and a significant donor to conservative political figures, Richard Nixon among them. Whether because of his financial support or because he was an experienced international businessman, Richard Nixon nominated Shelby Cullom Davis to be the United States Ambassador to Switzerland, where he served from July 1969 through April 1975. My father was aware of Shelby Cullom Davis and his position in Switzerland. So, learning of my plans to visit Europe with Ed, my father called his brother-in-law, George Davis, who then called his brother, Shelby Cullom Davis, to advise of my plans. Go figure! You know how it works – you know a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy…. Anyway, all of this went on without my knowledge, until…

Prior to our departure for Munich, both Ed and I got a very formal letter in the mail. Under the letterhead of the United State Ambassador to Switzerland, the nearly identical letters began something like (paraphrased), “The Ambassador would like to invite you to a dinner in your honor at the Residence of the Ambassador in Bern, Switzerland on (some date that I do not remember) at 5PM.” Signed, Shelby Cullom Davis, United States Ambassador. Huh? Could this be real? I had never met Shelby Cullom Davis. Suspecting my father’s involvement, I called him to ask. Dad confessed that he had reached out to Shelby through Uncle George, but only to say that I would be in Europe on vacation. He did not know what Shelby would do with that information. Scratching our heads, Ed and I both RSVP’d that we would come to the dinner, and we set about to plan an itinerary that would put us in Bern, Switzerland on the date of the dinner.

Although it was not far from Munich to Bern, our road trip took us on a meandering path, stopping along the way overnight. By the time we got to Bern, we were both starting to get a little road weary. But after we arrived in Bern, we found a place to stay overnight and went about cleaning up our act and pulling out the suits, shirts, ties, and shoes we had packed for the occasion. We then drove to the Ambassador’s residence. The place was imposing. Located close to downtown and the Houses of Parliament, the residence dates back to the 19th century. It sits on about 4 acres and has served as the United States Ambassador’s residence since the U.S. purchased the property in 1947. We pulled our little VW bug into the courtyard in front of the residence, where we found a “gaggle” of big black Mercedes sedans parked with military precision. Our car did not seem to fit in the company of this crowd, so we found a little parking place behind a bush to hide the car while we were inside. A parking attendant directed us to the front door.

Immediately upon entering the foyer, we were met and formally greeted by Shelby Davis and his wife. We had our pictures taken with the Ambassador by a professional photographer, and we were invited to sign the guest book which had been set out for this occasion. As I signed the book, I glanced into the next room where I saw quite a few people, none of whom I knew, but all of whom looked very much like they belonged in those Mercedes cars out in front. Although Ed and I were pretty much tongue-tied, we ventured into the crowd and introduced ourselves. Cocktails, of course, were served as we attempted to find some common ground with these people, all of whom seemingly spoke English, but with a variety of accents. The Ambassador “worked the room” like a professional, and everyone (including Ed and I) were fully enjoying the chit-chat and the ambience of the place. The cocktail party warm-up got more interesting when Ed and I were introduced to two very attractive young French-speaking Swiss girls. They were to be our companions for the evening. How thoughtful of the Ambassador! I spoke a little French, so I had fun trying to converse with my date. Ed was lost at sea, being totally dependent upon his date speaking English. Notwithstanding the language barrier, they seemed to hit it off well, and I was having a great time with my date for the night. The time arrived for dinner, and we were invited into the dining room where we were all seated around a large rectangular dining table. I would guess that there were perhaps 20 people in attendance, husbands and wives included.

There were place cards on the dining room table indicating who was supposed to sit where. Ed and I were on opposite sides of the table, sitting alongside our female companions. Except for our companions, Ed and I were probably 20 years younger than the next youngest person in attendance. As others took their seats around the table, the Ambassador and his wife made their way to the head of the table, where, after wine was served, he proposed a toast to Ed and me. Yikes! Then, the most amazing thing happened. Speaking without notes, Ambassador Davis proceeded to go completely around the table, introducing each guest as he went. He recited their names, their countries and cities of residence, their jobs, or positions of note, and one or two little anecdotes about each person as he went around the table. Mostly, the men were bankers or involved somehow with international finance or commerce. When he got to me, Ambassador Davis described his “relationship” with me through Uncle George, my job in the Pentagon, and some other obscure fact that made me wonder – how did he know that about me? It seemed impossible. I wondered, as he spoke, what he would say about Ed, who was only there because he was my travelling companion. But without missing a beat, the Ambassador went on to describe Ed, his Minnesota roots, his job, his love of football, and whatever. It was spooky – how did he know all that about Ed? He must have a hell of a staff researching this stuff.

Anyway, we then started to eat. It was probably a 3 or 4 course dinner, and other than the general impression that the food was delicious, I recall nothing of what we ate – except for one thing. The first course, an appetizer, was fish. Two big fish, actually. Each fish was presented by one of two waiters, one for each side of the table. Each waiter carried a tray upon which was a huge fish, beautifully presented and garnished. Being observant, I figured out that each of us was supposed to scoop out a proper serving of fish to put on our plate, as the waiters made their way around the table. You know, when you are not exactly sure what you are supposed to do, “monkey see, monkey do.” Ed, sitting across from me, thought the fish was the main course. Totally understandable, as Ed hailed from the frozen wasteland of Minnesota – flyover country. He seemed oblivious to the actions of others seated on either side of him. As a guest of honor, the waiter on his side of the table served Ed first. When the waiter approached him, Ed exclaimed, “Wow, what a great looking fish!” As jaws dropped around the table, he then slid the entire fish down onto his plate and dug in. Not totally sure how we got past that, but the rest of the meal went on without incident.

After dessert was served and enjoyed by all, the Ambassador stood and announced that the ladies would be excused to the drawing room, while all the men at the table would remain for after-dinner drinks, cigars, and “man-talk.” I doubt that this protocol would pass muster today. Times have changed. With the current emphasis on political correctness, such an announcement would likely be considered insensitive, if not offensive. But, the ladies complied, and Ed and I remained in the smoke-filled room to join in the conversation about business, politics, or whatever manly subject came up. It was surreal – like a scene out of a Clark Gable movie.

Nothing else about the dinner stands out in my mind as I write. I guess Ed and I eventually made our way out the front door, sneaked over to our camouflaged VW bug, and headed back to our hotel for the night. I picture us driving out of the residence courtyard, slowly, with lights out, so as not to be noticed. Our conversation in the car was something like, “What just happened?!” I know that the Ambassador sent the pictures taken upon our arrival to my father, along with the guest book we signed. That was a nice gesture. I have no idea where those pictures are, nor the guest book, today.

Isn’t it strange how some random post on Facebook can elicit such memories?

The Great Society 60 Years Later – How Are We Doing?

During this tax season of 2022, I cannot help but ask myself what is being done with my tax dollars?  Or perhaps, more on point, what has been done with my taxes over the years since I became a legitimate taxpayer in the mid-1960’s?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not complaining.  I feel lucky as hell to be a citizen and a taxpayer of this Country.  The reasons are too many to list.  That might be a subject for another blog.  But I also feel obligated to look into the Federal government stewardship of my tax dollars.  I confess that I do so with some trepidation, as the headlines seem full of examples of waste and mismanagement.  In this context, I thought it might be informative to look into a number of major Federal initiatives that have consumed a huge share of my taxes – most now overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which traces its roots back to the Great Society initiatives in the 1960’s.

In 2014, the Washington Post attempted a deep dive into the cost effectiveness of the Great Society programs initiated 50 years earlier by Lyndon Johnson.  The Post reported as follows, “On May 22, 1964, in a University of Michigan commencement speech, President Lyndon B. Johnson formally launched the most ambitious set of social programs ever undertaken in the United States—surpassing even Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in its range and in its ambition to transform the country.

Most of the Great Society’s achievements came during the 89th Congress, which lasted from January 1965 to January 1967, and is considered by many to be the most productive legislative session in American history. Johnson prodded Congress to churn out nearly 200 new laws launching civil rights protections; Medicare and Medicaid; food stamps; urban renewal; the first broad federal investment in elementary and high school education; Head Start and college aid; an end to what was essentially a whites-only immigration policy; landmark consumer safety and environmental regulations; funding that gave voice to community action groups; and an all-out War on Poverty.” (Source: Evaluating the success of the Great Society – Washington Post)

Well, we are now 59 years into this program.  But back in 2014, when the Great Society was just 50 years old, the Washington Times newspaper offered a report card in their editorial dated May 21^st (EDITORIAL: The not-so-Great Society turns a rickety 50 – Washington Times).  “Most of the Great Society was designed to fight LBJ’s War on Poverty, the total cost of which has been the sum of $22 trillion in current dollars, as reckoned by the Heritage Foundation. The tally rises by about $1 trillion a year as more than 80 overlapping means-tested federal programs sap resources the country does not have. The $22 trillion figure is “three times the amount of money that the government has spent on all military wars in its history, from the Revolutionary War to the present,” says Heritage’s Robert Rector.” 

Continuing from the May 21, 2014 editorial, “…What do we have to show for all this federal largesse? The poverty rate hasn’t budged. Instead, we’ve seen the rise of multigenerational welfare dependency. For the $2 trillion the federal government has spent on education since 1965, test scores have plummeted and the achievement gap between minority students and their peers has barely budged. Families, the bedrock of an authentically great society, have suffered most in LBJ’s great social experiment. The overall out-of-wedlock birth rate has ballooned from 8 percent in the mid-1960s to more than 40 percent today; from 25 percent to 73 percent among blacks.”

In the 9 years since this editorial was written, Federal spending on social programs has, if anything, increased.  The national debt just surpassed $31 trillion, and Federal spending once again triggered a firestorm of political rhetoric as the legislated national debt limit was breached once again in January 2023.  Our government, in effect, has for many years been borrowing in part to pay interest on government debt – a form of Ponzi scheme that only governments can get away with. 

Some suggest that while government spending has grown, everything’s OK because the economy has grown as well.  But wait a minute!  The data reveals that government spending, measured as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP – the value of all goods and services produced) has skyrocketed since 2020. (Source: Government Spending in Historical Context – Foundation – National Taxpayers Union (ntu.org))

The graph shows that after the decade from 1940-1949 which was distorted by outlays for WWII, the share of GDP remained constant between 20% and 25% until very recently.  All the years after 1939 show the effects of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and then 20 years later, Johnson’s Great Society, compared to the decades before 1940.  But, the Biden spending programs, many of which are for social and environmental programs, have reached unprecedented new levels, both in absolute terms and relative to GDP.

Are social programs immune from any sort of cost/benefit analysis?  Is there any limit to the amount we should spend on these programs?  After nearly 60 years now of experience, have we learned anything?  Are we throwing good money after bad on these social programs?  Just a few years ago, in response to growing Federal budget deficits, politicians on both sides of the aisle seemed to agree that fiscal responsibility demanded some sort of “entitlement reform”.  Terms such as “workfare” instead of “welfare” came into fashion.  Governmental programs were sold as offering “a hand up” instead of “a handout.”  President Clinton once famously said that “…the days of big government are over.”  But government continues to grow, and growth of spending on social programs continues unabated.  The Federal department of Health and Human Services now has over 10,000 employees.  For comparison, Twitter employed a total of 7,500 people in 2021.  There remain roughly 50% of the members of the U.S. Congress today who consider any reduction in governmental social program spending as evidence of racism, white supremacy, xenophobia, or you can pick the “phobia” of your choice.  Spending on these programs appears, after 60 years of mixed results, to be on some sort of inviolable upward ratchet.  Even the mere mention of slowing the rate of growth of spending on social programs triggers an avalanche of accusations, handwringing, and a social media “hissy-fit.”

Citing continued disparities in income distribution, employment, access to healthcare, and other societal inequities, many people, both inside and outside of government, do not think we are spending enough on social programs.  Demands for equality of opportunity have morphed into strident calls for equity, and those same demands now extend far beyond what we think of as traditional governmental roles and responsibilities.  For example, increasingly vocal are demands that reparations be paid to African-Americans to compensate them for injustices suffered generations ago by their ancestors – injustices which are continuing, in their view, because of ingrained white supremacy.  These proposals seem to be gaining steam, as demonstrated by a commission formed in 2022 in San Francisco that is now suggesting payments of up to $5 million to each black resident of the City who has lived there for a prescribed period of time, plus debt forgiveness for these same individuals.  In a similar vein, a spokesman for the Black Lives Matter movement responded to criticism of the rioters during the chaotic summer of 2020 by suggesting that burning and looting stores was not a crime – it was a form of reparations for slavery and other injustices suffered by the black community over the years.

I wonder if Lyndon Johnson would be pleased by the social changes that have occurred over the last 60 years? There have obviously been some very important and beneficial societal achievements.  Civil rights come to mind.  Desegregation.  Affirmative action.  The Americans With Disabilities Act.  Improved access to healthcare.  The Head Start initiative.  I’m pretty sure that Lyndon Johnson would be proud of those changes.  Clearly, the last half-century has seen social responsibility taken far more seriously, and substantial progress has been made.  That said, at some point, one would think that spending on social programs must “hit the wall” in terms of its effectiveness.  Maybe it already has, and we are just not willing to see or accept that fact.

So, with a tip of the hat to Lyndon Johnson and the motives behind his Great Society, it seems to me that it is a totally legitimate question to ask if the trillions of dollars spent on social programs designed to help “level the playing field” were effective.  In 2014, the articles cited above give mixed reviews.  I think the jury is still out on the cost effectiveness of the Great Society programs, but a couple of things are pretty clear.  Based on the protestations of the party out of power during each election cycle, we have not made much progress in redressing grievances or strengthening the social safety net. 

The second thing that seems clear to me is that spending on social programs has reached a level which is not sustainable in the long run – and the resulting debt burden threatens the value of our currency, the rate of capital formation and investment, and therefore our national economic viability.  Interest on the national debt alone is already putting tremendous pressure on all Federal programs.  After the bills have been paid to sustain “third rail” untouchable programs (the Department of Defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security), paying interest on the Federal debt will “crowd out” virtually every other less sacred federal program.  There will be no room for student debt relief, environmental subsidies, free community college for all, infrastructure subsidies, NASA, national parks, medical research, NPR, and countless other existing programs.  Tax cuts are out of the question.  The private sector will have to pick up some of the slack.  Perhaps that should have happened 60 years ago – maybe that is not such a bad thing.  That gives me an idea.  Instead of paying all of my taxes this year, I wonder if it might be more effective to pay, say, half of my normal taxes to the Federal government and the rest directly to programs that are close to home and that I have determined to be highly successful.   Ah, but that might put 10,000 people out of work at HHS in Washington.  Hmmm…. Food for thought.

THE COLD HIGH PLAINS OF COLORADO

My Dad and I after a successful goose hunt

My dad learned to hunt ducks with his father on the Illinois River near Rushville, Illinois. He got the duck hunting “bug” from his father. I remember accompanying my Mom and Dad to the plains of western Nebraska for a mid-winter pheasant hunt – well before I could be trusted with a real gun. I do not know why I was included – my sisters were not there. I think Dad was trying to “prep” me for a life of duck hunting. That is where I remember having my first taste of coffee, as my mother took me back to our rented motel room to warm me up with coffee, leaving Dad out in the cold doing what he liked best. So, very early in my youth, Dad took me out in the country where he would hang up a big sheet of newsprint from a tree limb, hand me my mother’s comparatively small 16 ga. shotgun, stand well behind me, and coach me in the fine points of blasting away at the daily headlines. The point of the newsprint was to show me that shotguns do not shoot a single slug, but rather “spray” a wide pattern of shot, increasing the chances of hitting a moving target without real sharpshooter skills. Once convinced that I was not a danger to myself or anyone in the near vicinity, but only after I had demonstrated the ability to hit the newspaper more often than not, the real training began.

He belonged to the Riverside Duck Club. Members of this club spent 2-1/2 day weekends at the club every weekend during duck season in Colorado, which lasted from early October through the end of January. The club was located near Wiggins, Colorado – a 1-1/2 hour drive northeast of Denver out onto the high plains of Colorado. During duck season, it gets cold in Wiggins. Freezing cold. Every day. The average nighttime temperature in Wiggins in January is 19 degrees. Nights are long, and the coldest time of the day is just around daybreak, which is when the fun begins at the Riverside Duck Club.

Dad decided that when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was old enough to accompany him on his weekend outings to the “Duck Club”, as Riverside was commonly known. On Friday afternoons, he would pack us both up and we would drive out east on Interstate 76 to the intersection with State Route 91, a dirt road in those days. There (when I was a little older), he would turn the wheel over to me and I would learn to drive on that road for the 15 or 20 minutes required to navigate to the Duck Club.

The Riverside Duck Club was an unpretentious one-story building located adjacent to the levee surrounding Riverside Reservoir, a favorite of the migrating water fowl community in what is known as the “Central Flyway”. The clubhouse was shaped in the form of a “T”, except the horizontal part of the “T” was much longer than the vertical part. On the left side of the top horizontal part was the kitchen, the dining room, and the communal bathroom/shower. In the middle of the “T”, where the shorter vertical portion (the main living room) intersected, there was a big black potbelly stove that provided the heat for the entire building. The top right side of the “T” consisted of bedrooms on either side of a central hallway, each “assigned” to an individual member, and each private, with the member holding the only key. I never got inside any of the other bedrooms – I only saw my Dad’s room. I assume they all were basically the same, with decorations being the only difference. None of the bedrooms was heated, except by space heaters, at the option of the member-in-residence. It was not safe to operate space heaters all night, so we usually just turned ours on when we got undressed for bed in the evening and then in the morning as we dressed for the hunt. At all other times, I just remember Dad’s room as being COLD.

His room was small and spartan. Inside the door, on the left and right, were two matching twin beds – one for my Dad, and the other for me (or any other guest he might invite for the weekend). At the foot of each bed was a large, floor-to-ceiling locked closet, for storage of higher value items – guns, ammunition, binoculars, specialized clothing, decoys, and of course, the liquor (more on that later). The walls of the room were paper thin, so basically everybody could hear everybody else all night long, whether they wanted to or not.

The Riverside Duck Club

When none of the members was there, the club was overseen by Carl Maag, a farmer who lived across the road. Carl was amazing. He not only took care of the clubhouse, but served as our hunting guide, Uber driver, plumber, electrician, carpenter, auto mechanic, and general mister fixit. His wife Gloria cooked all the meals for the members in the well-appointed kitchen. She was the only woman I ever observed in the duck club. Carl worked hard. He kept the place clean and well maintained, and during the week, in addition to his normal farming life, he spent considerable time out around the perimeter of the Riverside Reservoir (where the club had leased property providing for a private hunting ground), maintaining the myriad duck blinds, or moving flooded blinds, or digging new blinds for use by the club members. The duck blinds ranged from simple “coffin blinds”, where one would sit upright, but with legs extended straight out in front, as in a coffin, to fancier blinds where once could sit on a dirt bench dug out of the sandy soil in a normal fashion, with a wood cover over half of the blind to provide a place to rest the guns, etc. Other blinds could consist of more simple seats placed inside sagebrush pulled together in a pile. The reservoir water levels changed all the time, so Carl would drive out during the week only to find that a blind that was perfect last week was now too far away from the water, or else was full of water, or whatever. He had to fix it, dig a new one, fill in the old one, or whatever. Tough work. Each blind location had a name (i.e., the “inlet”, the “outlet”, “drake’s bay”, etc.), although the blind itself might move a few yards from week to week. Members got to know the blind locations by name – some had a reputation for good duck hunting, others more for geese. Some were beside the main body of water. Others were on moving water on the reservoir inlet or outlet. Some were way more comfortable than others. I go into this level of detail not to bore you, but to provide background for what I learned was an important ritual among the club members.

Every morning at a sumptuous 5:30 AM breakfast, Carl would stand up and describe what changes he had made to the blinds during the week preceding. Carl would also comment on the flight patterns of the ducks and geese and their seeming preferences. Then, a basket would be passed around the table and the members would draw lots for the order in which they were to select their blind for that day. This was a big deal. Everyone really paid attention to what Carl said before choosing their blind location. Once chosen, breakfast was enjoyed by all, and then like everyone else, Dad and I would go to his room, suit up for the wintry weather, gather up our guns, shotgun shells, decoys, large thermos of hot coffee, and proceed outside. There, Carl would drive up with a large old open-back covered truck (like a military troop carrier), with wooden benches along the sides in back. We would load up our gear and climb aboard. Then, through the snow, ice, and sand, Carl would drive the truck around the reservoir, stopping at each blind along the way, bouncing all over the place. Typically, the ride in the truck took 15-30 minutes, depending on where the chosen blind was located. There was no road, but he knew exactly where he was going in the predawn darkness. He would then leave Dad and me alone to set up for the day’s hunt, saying as he left that he would return to pick us about at, say, 11:30AM.

Dad would decide which decoys to deploy and where to put them. I was just the “legs” of the operation. I recall feeling some pressure to get everything all out and set up quickly, before sunrise when the birds would begin to fly around or venture out to feed in the surrounding corn fields. And, not to beat a dead horse, it was cold. Damn cold! Frost on the gun-barrel cold. It was so cold that in the stillness of the morning, in total darkness, I could hear the talk between other hunters in their blinds located a mile away across the water. I stayed relatively warm if I was moving around, but once everything was set up, I settled in next to Dad in the blind and the cold would start creeping in. First, the feet and hands. Later, the face. We were prepared, I guess, for the cold. We had a big thermos of hot coffee. Other members of the club stayed warm with alcohol, but Dad knew who they were and chose not to hunt with them. The coffee tasted good, even when I was 8 or 9 years old. What was even better than coffee for me were those metal handwarmers. In those days, there were none of the current prepackaged and disposable chemical handwarmers that you can buy at the sporting goods store. There were only those big silver flask-like handwarmers into which we poured some flammable fluid (something like Sterno) before leaving the club. We would then light the handwarmers with a match, and presto, after a few minutes, we would have a toasty-warm temporary guard against the cold flaming-away in our pockets. I say temporary because, of course, they would eventually burn out, and go cold. As an aside, I think back now that those handwarmers might have posed a bit of danger. I mean, what if the flame found a way out of the “flask”. Clothing was undoubtedly flammable. And, then there is the dry sagebrush stacked up around the blind, not to mention the boxes of shotgun shells at our sides. What could possibly go wrong there? Anyway, I digress from my treatise on the cold. I did warm up a little when the ducks or geese would fly over. I could temporarily forget how cold I was in the excitement of blazing away at them (with mixed results), side-by-side with my father. He always credited me with the kill, although I am pretty sure that I was shooting “all over the sky” and he was likely the source of the kill shot. The arrival of the sun in the morning was a welcome sight, but on many overcast days, that joy was missing. Dad seemed impervious to the cold. I know now that he was probably just as cold as me, but much better at keeping on his game face.

I mentioned that the cold air and the stillness made it possible for sound to travel great distances over the water. Well, it seems to me that if I could hear other hunters chatting it up from their blinds located clear on the other side of the reservoir, so can the ducks. The ducks and geese knew we were there. It’s not like we were going to really surprise them. That is why the older and smarter ducks and geese would take off from their water perches and then fly in lazy circles out over the middle of the water until they reached a safe altitude to transit out across the land. They were willing and able to take the time and exert the effort necessary to ensure safe passage. They were not stupid. This was not their first rodeo. Only the younger, lazier, and impatient birds would take off low, some to their regret.

On one particularly chilly morning, Dad and I had placed floating decoys out in front of us in the water, and we were energized by all the flight activity that day. Seeing ducks flying all around us, Dad pulled out his fancy duck call and started “calling them in” to our location. I do not speak duck, but Dad’s attempts did not really sound much like real ducks, it seemed to me. Dad sounded like Dad, trying to imitate a duck. My guess is that he would have been equally effective putting the fancy duck call back in his pocket and just saying “Quack, Quack.” But maybe I am wrong, because on that day, one of the lower IQ ducks decided to give us a close look and he liked what he saw. I guess he was lonely or something, because this lone duck landed right in the middle of our decoys and started swimming around them, quacking-away. Dad signaled me to shoot the duck. I was reluctant. Somehow, it did not seem like a fair fight. But, Dad explained quietly that the duck was actually safer in the water than in flight, so I should not feel badly about “harvesting” it. Instead of shooting offhand, which would have required me to stand up (risking the duck taking flight and escaping unharmed), reluctantly, I laid my shotgun on the gun cases on the boards covering the front of our blind, taking careful aim at the poor creature in the water. Boom! It was a bad day for that duck. But there was something different about the sound of the shot. It was the normal boom of a shotgun, but seemingly accompanied by a sick sounding “rip”. As I emerged from the blind to fetch the hapless creature, I discovered the source of the strange sound. It seems as I rested my gun on the gun cases, I was too focused on the duck. I failed to notice that Dad’s gun case was in front of the barrel of the gun, not under it. I blew the end off of the gun case. Dad was understanding, but he did not turn down my subsequent gift to him of a new gun case. Next time, I thought to myself, I will take my chances shooting offhand.

Anyway, after the typical morning hunt was over, we could pack up our gear and await the arrival of Carl in the big truck. I always liked that return trip better – anticipating a hot lunch and the heat provided by that big pot belly stove. Saturday afternoon at the club was less regimented. Some members elected to hunt again in the afternoon. Others would take a nap. Dad would often nap and then take some time to clean his guns, organize for the hunt the next day, and then join other adult members in the large living room with the pot belly stove at one end for an afternoon of gin rummy, or bridge, or whatever, fueled by an adult beverage. The 5 o’clock cocktail hour rule did not apply at the Riverside Duck Club. I cannot remember what I did in the afternoons. I know I did not join the adult men in their card games. I do remember walking up the road leading to the levee around the reservoir where I could station myself at the top of the levee, gun in hand, hoping for an errant hungry goose on its way to an adjacent field to venture a bit too close to me for his own good. I had little success, as I recall, but I fancied myself as quite the accomplished sniper.

Earlier, I mentioned the pot belly stove. It was big, and when fired-up, too hot to touch. It was fueled, as I recall, with coal. It’s location at the intersection of the three legs of the “T” provided heat to most of the building, although as I said before, not to the individual private bedrooms. In the evenings, I went to bed early, but Dad stayed up and played cards with his friends until all hours. Jim Beam, of course, was one of his friends. Dad had other friends from Kentucky as well, but I cannot remember their names – only Jim Beam. A fair amount of liquor was consumed in the evenings, and although I had little difficulty going to sleep, the paper-thin walls did little to stop the noise of the card games, or the ice cubes falling into empty glasses, as the night wore on. Generally, the last adult to bed would “bank the fire” in the pot belly stove (cover the active portion with ash). I often wondered how my Dad and others were able to recover from the evening activities sufficiently to drag themselves out of bed for the morning hunt. But they all bounced right back and seemed 100% by breakfast time. Anyway, the first up in the morning would poke the fire back to life, add more coal, and the stove was fully operational for another frigid day.

Riverside Reservoir and the Clubhouse

Dinners at the duck club were filled with laughter and talk of the day’s hunt. One member would rave about the chosen location of his blind – another would rant. There were lots of suggestions made to Carl about how to improve individual blinds. The dinners were ridiculously good. Gloria was accustomed to cooking for this group, and she knew what they liked. She gave them exactly that. My Dad (who later suffered a heart attack – possibly because of these dinners) used to love the gravy and the heavy cream that came with coffee, ice cream, dessert toppings, etc. He would return home to Denver every Sunday afternoon with a container of this heavy cream (and often another container of gravy), which he shared with nobody around the family dinner table.

Sunday morning would be the same as Saturday – early up, big breakfast, dress warm, bounce around in the big truck, shoot at things, and then bounce back to the club to begin preparations for the return to Denver. I know Dad wanted me to follow him in his love for hunting, but I never really caught that bug. I still have his shotgun, but it sits in my closet as a home defense weapon of choice. When Dad died, I was pleased that another member of the club inherited most of Dad’s hunting “stuff.” I do not think technology has changed much – wouldn’t be surprised if that gear is still in use out on the high plains of Colorado, where if I was a betting man, I would wager that the winter nights remain long, and the temperature remains frosty cold.

2020 Reprise – the year of the 10 “C’s”

This year has not been a normal year, and because it seems such an “outlier”, I would be remiss, I think, not to commit some of what has gone on to writing.  So much has transpired, though, that I am having a little difficulty knowing where to start, and how best to organize my thoughts so as not to waste your time.  So, bear with me here.  I choose to characterize the year 2020 as the year of the 10 “C’s”.  There actually may be more than 10, but I stopped counting.  I think I will take them one at a time, more or less chronologically.

CRUISE.  That is my first “C”.  In February, Jan and I signed up for a fairly long cruise, starting in Bali, and visiting ports in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and then ending up in Hong Kong.  We have always wanted particularly to visit Vietnam, and this looked like a fun way to do so, and to see other places we have never been before along the way.  Before we left home, however, the trip started to get complicated.  A new virus, originating from Wuhan, China, was spreading, and seemed particularly nasty.  As a result, our flights from Boise to Bali had to be rerouted several times because of airport closures triggered by this virus.  We contacted the cruise line, Regent, to ask if they planned any changes.  The answer was no.  We would be screened before being allowed to board the ship in Bali, and if we showed indications of being infected, we would be sent home.  Otherwise, no changes were anticipated.  Off we went, face masks at the ready.  We passed the screening alongside the ship in Bali, and we sailed off westward on our big trip.  Along the way, we heard rumors of illness spreading in the region, but none of our stops were affected, and all planned excursions took place without much of a fuss.  Nobody wore a mask – ever.  After about 6- or 7-days aboard ship, we found ourselves dockside in Bangkok, one of the planned stops along the way.  While there, we took 3 or 4 shore excursions without incident. 

Back aboard ship on the second evening before dinner, the captain came on the loudspeaker to make a special announcement.  The cruise was ending in Bangkok!  We would all have to disembark and go home.  The reason – the China virus had made additional stops too dangerous, and excursions impossible.  The captain said that we would receive notices on our cabin doors explaining the procedures to be followed.  After dinner, we returned to our cabin to find our notice.  We would need to have our bags packed and in the hallway by 10PM that night, and Jan and I were in the first group to be “offloaded”, meaning that we had to be off the ship by about 1:30AM!  Not much notice!  We also learned that a bus would take us to the Bangkok airport where arrangements had been made by the cruise line to fly us home to Boise, through Taiwan and Seattle.  We later learned that our ship would then leave Bangkok and sail, basically without stopping, to Dubai.  That is where the ship sits today, 11 months later, empty.  The cruise line refunded our entire cruise fare, but not the cost of the airfare, so I guess we came out okay.  And, as it turned out, we were lucky we got home when we did.  There were many other cruise ships stranded out at sea, with full passenger loads, unable to visit any port in the region due to the China virus threat.  So, that is the first “C” of 2020 for us.

COVID19.  Actually, 2020 really can be best summarized as the year of Covid19.  This new virus, which many people think was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, spread worldwide in a matter of weeks.  As I write this today, deaths from this virus in the U.S. alone reached 300,000.  Ironically, today is also the day that the first vaccine was administered in the U.S. – an astounding feat, considering that most vaccines take years to develop.  This vaccine was created, tested, and received FDA certification in a record 9 months!  Projections are that 100 million U.S. residents will have been vaccinated within the next 100 days.  Until the vaccine can be widely distributed and inoculated into people, however, we remain in a state of Covid suspended animation.  Schools shut down, stores, restaurants, small shops all shut down, travel impossible, and face masks worn voluntarily by almost everybody.  I already mentioned how this virus caused the premature termination of our Southeast Asia cruise in February.  That was just the tip of the iceberg, however.  Air travel virtually ground to a halt.  Cruise ships are all sitting empty at ports all over the world.  Spectator sports are being attempted here and there, but without spectators.  Churches are closed to in-person attendance.  The virus is highly contagious, and is particularly dangerous for people over 65, and those who have other underlying medical issues. 

Experts believe that by the Fall of 2021, sufficient numbers of people will have been vaccinated in the U.S. to create “herd immunity”, meaning that the virus will wither and die away from the lack of adequate numbers of unvaccinated hosts.  But until all the other affected countries in the world are similarly vaccinated, Covid19 will remain a serious concern.  Speculation is rampant about whether this virus was an accidental release from a Chinese lab, or whether it might have been intentionally released (“weaponized”), for reasons known only to the Chinese Communist Party leadership.  But, whatever the reason for the release into the general population, this virus has proven itself to be seriously nasty – and the pandemic that has resulted is being compared to the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918.  This pandemic has basically placed everybody over 65 under “house arrest”, and visits from friends and relatives are not taking place, for fear of spreading the disease.  As I write this, hospitals are reaching their breaking point due to a monthlong surge in new Covid cases and hospitalizations. 

CANCER SURGERY.  Following a routine MRI taken of her head in March of 2020, Jan learned that the tumor that was previously removed 6 years ago by Dr. Little at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix has come back to life.  We always knew that this was a possibility since surgical removal of every last cancerous cell is not feasible without doing serious damage to the brain.  After 6 years of “no change” MRI’s, however, the news of a recurrence came as a bit of a shock.  So, Jan and I consulted with Dr Little at Barrow, and with Dr. Braun (a neuro-oncologist, also at Barrow) about next steps.  They recommended another surgical intervention at this time.  So, after passing a Covid test here in Boise, Jan and I jumped into our car and drove to Phoenix.  We arrived on a Sunday.  On Monday, Jan underwent a whole battery of tests at the hospital, and then on Tuesday morning, she was admitted.  Due to Covid restrictions, I was allowed to accompany her only as far as the surgery “prep” cubicle.  After the anesthesiologist gave her the “happy juice”, we were permitted to kiss and hug (challenging, with all the tubes and Covid face masks), and she was wheeled out into surgery.  I was escorted into the surgical waiting room, where I cooled my heels until I was summoned at about 6:30PM to see her briefly.  She was still “loopy” from the anesthesia, so she remembers nothing of that meeting.  Then, thanks to Covid, I was escorted out the hospital door and told that I could not reenter the hospital at all.  So, Jan spent the next two days at St. Joseph’s hospital without me, but that is all. 

Two days after the surgery, she was released to go home with me!  Home at that time was the home of friends in Phoenix who generously turned the whole house over to us for as long as we needed to stay in Phoenix.  We stayed there about another 2 weeks, healing, and awaiting the results of the pathology report.  Dr. Little then called to say that the tumor pathology was essentially the same as 6 years ago – still a Stage 2 oligodendroglioma.  He said that after consulting with Dr. Braun, they would be recommending a post-surgical course of chemotherapy and radiation for Jan.  But, until that starts, we were free to head home by car.  Overall, despite the reason for being there, the Barrow Neurological Institute hit another home run – skilled brain surgery, caring nurses, and great attention to detail.  This brings us to the 4^th “C” in 2020.

CHEMO/RADIATION.  Because Jan’s brain tumor had recurred, and even though it remained a Stage 2 cancerous tumor, remnants of the tumor remained, just like 6 years before.  But the recurrence dictated a different post-surgical path this time around.  Dr. Braun recommended a fairly standard course of 6 weeks of combined chemotherapy (Temozolomide) and radiation (IMRT), followed by a “month off”, and then a likely course of adjutant chemotherapy for an additional 6-12 months.  Implementing this plan became a bit of a challenge, with us living in Boise and Barrow being in Phoenix.  After considerable thought and research, we decided to do this all in Boise. 

The chemo would be administered in pill form and would be under the watchful eye of Dr. Braun in Phoenix.  The radiation would be administered at the St. Luke’s Cancer Center, just down the street from our house.  We met a genuinely nice lady doctor (radiation oncologist) at St. Luke’s (Dr. Kuhn), who would oversee the radiation side of things.  At the time of this writing, Jan has completed all the radiation (30 sessions) and the accompanying chemotherapy.  She is now in the 1 month quiet period, and was just advised yesterday that her blood tests were excellent.  She has tolerated these treatments very well, with no nausea and no hair loss.  Fatigue is the only side-affect of these treatments of note.  But we are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and if everything works as planned, Jan should be cancer free some time next year.  While all of this has been going on, there has been trouble elsewhere.

CHAOS IN THE STREETS.  All over the U.S., following a horrific murder of a black man by police “on camera”, riots and protests broke out all over the country.  Milwaukee, Kenosha, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles all suffered from prolonged protests – but the protests were soon usurped by anarchists.  Black Lives Matter became a movement that morphed into advocacy of defunding the police and looting as a form of black reparations for perceived past injustices.  Antifa was another group, making no secret of their advocacy of violence as a way to bring down the government as we know it.  Cities were burned.  Police stations abandoned to the anarchists, and then set on fire.  Historic statues were destroyed.  People were killed in the streets.  Entire neighborhoods were taken over by the anarchists, who were armed, and the police were not permitted in.  Local mayors in these cities were reluctant to support law enforcement, and in some cases, joined with the protesters.  All of this went on during a year characterized by Covid and a Presidential election.  Even though the election has now taken place, and Biden is to be our next President, these rioters and anarchists remain active.  As I write this, a neighborhood in Portland is now off-limits to Portland police.  No end to this chaos is in sight.

CANCELLED TRIPS.  In addition to the aborted cruise described earlier in this blog, Jan and I had several other trips planned for 2020.  Tickets were purchased for a flight to visit Justin and Jamie in Clarksburg.  But Covid cancelled those plans.  We also had tickets and RV park reservations for a country/western outdoor concert in Montana.  The concert was cancelled by the promoter due to Covid, so that trip did not take place either.  Then, Jan and I had a much-anticipated trip to Indianapolis all bought and paid for, including flights, hotel, all meals, and excellent tickets to watch the Indy 500 car race on Memorial Day. 

To nobody’s surprise, that race was first postponed (requiring changes to all related reservations), and then as Covid continued, the race was finally cancelled at the last minute.  So, we remained safe, but disappointed, here in Boise.  Our annual RV trip to Stanford to celebrate with old college friends was also cancelled, because the football season was both cut short and to be played totally without fans in the stadium due to Covid.  Justin and Jamie had planned to travel to Boise for Thanksgiving, but that was cancelled as the virus grew even more virulent.  John and Julia had planned a Christmas road trip with their family to visit Justin and Jamie, Yosemite, Joshua Tree National Park, and then to visit Julia’s parents for Christmas near Tucson, Arizona.  That trip has now also been cancelled due to Covid.  What more can I say?

CURBSIDE PICKUP.  As more and more people have tested positive for the Covid virus, our local and state elected officials have implemented varying levels of “shutdown”.  Hoping the slow the spread of this disease, visits to nursing homes have been prohibited, bars and restaurants closed or forced to offer carryout only or outdoor dining.  Barber shops are closed.  Even hospitals are closed to all but the most extreme illnesses and injuries.  Jan and I love to dine out.  We have 3 or 4 local restaurants that we frequent, including one in which we are investors.  All these restaurants are closed to indoor dining due to Covid.  Curbside pickup is often the only alternative and is offered by these establishments as their only means of generating any revenue at all.  Many local restaurants have simply closed, never to reopen.

CABIN VISITS.  The one safety valve for Jan and me this last summer has been our cabin near Ketchum, Idaho.  With all other travel having been cancelled, we have particularly enjoyed sharing cabin time with John and Julia and their family.  The cabin is only 3 hours by car from our home.  On short notice, we are able (seasonal weather permitting) to simply hop into our pickup truck and drive up to the cabin for a few days of rest and relaxation.  Our dogs, Tucker and Tulip, love these outings.  When they observe our preparations for a cabin trip, they go crazy.  They cannot wait to get to the cabin where they have the run of the forest, and where Tulip can bark at the sky and the trees to her heart’s content.  There are always projects for me around the cabin, and Jan loves the quiet time, particularly when she can settle back with a good book.  We have no TV or internet at the cabin, so news of the chaos in the streets, for a short time, goes unobserved by us. 

CATARACT SURGERY.  This was Jan’s way of biding time during Covid, before the chemotherapy and the radiation began in earnest.  A complete eye exam revealed the fact that Jan has some issues in both eyes, but particularly a cataract needing surgery in one eye.  So, with some time on our hands, Jan decided to go ahead with this one eye.  The surgery went well, with no complications.  But, to her dismay, the new lens in her eye did not improve her vision much, if at all.  A second surgery, a more complicated procedure, might improve her vision, according to the eye doctor.  But, as Jan is now in the middle of the chemotherapy and radiation protocol, I suspect that this second surgery may have to wait until next summer or fall.  Meanwhile, I also had a complete eye exam, because after many years of use, my glasses finally fell apart.  This exam revealed that I too need cataract surgery – in both eyes.  I have tentatively scheduled that surgery for early in 2021 – one eye at a time, one day at a time.

Finally, CONTESTED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.  After 4 tumultuous years as President, Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring for a second term, and the Democrats picked Joe Biden as his opponent.  Suffice it to say that the Trump campaign was spirited, if not a little unconventional due to restrictions imposed by Covid.  Biden chose to campaign virtually, with much of his public interaction occurring from his home in Delaware. 

They had planned for 3 debates, but one was cancelled due to last minute changes necessitated by Covid.  Unlike every prior national election, many states changed the voting rules at the last minute (allegedly due to Covid, but some say for political reasons) to permit mail-in ballots with significantly fewer safeguards against voter fraud.  In some states, signature verification of mail-in ballots was effectively waived.  Statistically implausible results were produced in some jurisdictions by voting machines that the Trump campaign said had been tampered-with.  But, overall, voters voted in record numbers, and Biden won the necessary number of electoral college votes – albeit by slim margins in 4 or 5 critical states.  The Trump campaign filed protests in these states, demanded recounts, and filed many lawsuits.  But the courts found little merit in these suits, and just a few days ago, the electoral college voted to confirm Biden as the winner.  Trump refuses to concede.  This is a fitting end to a year of difficulty for all – and tragedy for those families who lost one of the 300,000 souls lost to the Covid virus in the U.S. alone in 2020.

This has not been an easy blog to write.  Not fun, really.  But I guess putting this all down on paper is perhaps cathartic for this writer – maybe CATHARSIS is the final, and 11^th “C” describing the year to end in just 2 weeks.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

(a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise)

We worry about income inequality. We worry about racial injustice and prison reform. We stress out over evidence of global warming, and human rights violations, and increases in property taxes, regulations, and gun rights. Not to mention abortion, opioids, and who is going to control Congress and the White House after the next election. We obsess over these things. We worry them to death.

Until …. we cannot replenish our dwindling supply of toilet paper. Our children cannot attend school. Churches are closed. Travel is restricted. Some of us are forbidden from leaving our homes for any reason other than to purchase necessary food or in the event of a medical emergency. Our favorite brand of gin is no longer available because the distillery is now making hand sanitizer. Staples, like flour, beans, and bread cannot be found on the shelves. Shopping hours at the local grocery store are now restricted by age group. Foreign travel is unthinkable. Real estate open houses are cancelled. Neighbors and friends are out of work or have had to shutter their business. Weddings and funerals have been cancelled. Visits to nursing homes to visit elders residing there are no longer allowed. Grandchildren are discouraged from visiting their grandparents. Nonviolent “at risk” elderly prisoners are being considered for release on humanitarian grounds. Baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, soccer, cricket, and every other spectator sport where 10 or more individuals gather to watch are cancelled. People’s life savings are nearly cut in half overnight. Libraries, zoo’s, and other public buildings are closed to the general public. Elective surgeries are cancelled. Attending childbirth is no longer possible for the father. Owners are no longer allowed to accompany their pets during visits to the veterinarian. And the list goes on.

Where is the concern now about whether Biden or Sanders wins the Democratic nomination to run for President? We wonder now whether or not we will survive to witness the next general election, or whether society will survive in any recognizable way. Our priorities have changed. Do you remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? His psychological construct seems more than a little apt today. His idea was that there is a range of psychological needs, and the most basic needs must somehow be met before the next higher level can be attained. In order from the most basic to the highest, Maslow describes the hierarchical pyramid as physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Maslow suggests that the higher level needs are like icing on the cake – irrelevant really until and unless the more basic lower level needs are met. Before the coronavirus, it seems to me that life was pretty much lived at the top of the pyramid. Safety and the lower levels on the pyramid, in our society, were pretty much taken for granted. Now after only about 3 weeks living up close and personal with the coronavirus, we can no longer focus on the list of what seem to me to be higher level concerns summarized at the beginning of this discussion. Students on college campuses are no longer complaining about “safe spaces and micro-aggressions.” The students have all been sent home.

Overnight, the virus has reduced us to meeting our most basic physiological needs – food, clothing, and shelter (and I might add, healthcare). For the moment, most folks are in pretty good shape on clothing and shelter. But food is getting to be more of an issue with each passing day. And, healthcare is not accessible today unless you are desperately ill. Basically, in a nutshell, the “wheels have come off” life as we knew life before the virus. The experts say that the pandemic will end. A medical cure, or perhaps just an effective treatment, will bring an end to the medical emergency. But, when the crisis passes, and assuming we survive, what will remain of life as we knew it before the day the Earth stood still.

How will companies that formerly manufactured goods, provided services, and employed people get going again? Where will demand come from for their goods or services. Who will “jump start” the economy to begin the process of picking up the pieces? Will the skilled employees still be there waiting to begin work again, or will the necessities of life have forced them to move or take on other types of work? Who will want to travel again, and to go where, and for what reason? Will it still be important to people to venture out on cruises to far-away places when they have not even been able to share their grandchildren’s birthdays? How will colleges and universities be able to justify the overhead of tenure, classrooms, dorm rooms, and $50,000 annual tuitions after it has been demonstrated that students can learn effectively online from home? How will our healthcare delivery system be forever changed, having had to learn entirely new ways of taking care of people? Will telemedicine become the norm? Will people need a family doctor, or will the white coat on the computer screen at the moment be the doctor of choice for most people? How will our supply chains have changed – will we still be dependent on China, for example, for over 90% of our prescription drugs? Where will we get our essential rare-earth minerals, currently dominated by China. How will our financial institutions have changed as a result of the stresses imposed by the unprecedented breakdown of the financial “plumbing” that kept things running smoothly before the demand-shock occasioned by the virus brought all financial markets to their knees? How will societies ever repay the debt incurred by Governments all over the world in their attempts to prevent a global economic meltdown?

It is hard to see how we will ever be able to go back to the way it was before this crisis. That is scary, but it may also be good, in a way. Perspectives have been changed – some would argue in a positive direction. Appreciation for things formerly taken for granted is a good thing, it seems to me. After this is all over, when someone spots a package of toilet paper on a grocery store shelf, they might stop and think about how it got there, and maybe even how lucky they are to be able to buy it to take home. When this is over, we may no longer have to worry about the availability of essential antibiotics, almost 100% of which are currently provided at the pleasure of hostile foreign regimes. To be able to go to a sporting event, or just out to dinner, or to have friends over – these will be a little more special. As we climb Maslow’s pyramid, we will have a deeper appreciation of the underpinnings of society, I would think. The Earth will resume spinning. This is a good thing.

Memories

Memory is interesting. I am not sure how it works exactly. I mean, the conventional wisdom is that memory resides somehow in the brain, and memories can be brought to the forefront of our consciousness, triggered by a variety of stimuli. Scrapbooks, for example, warehouse all kinds of memories – photographs, letters, ribbons, locks of hair. Each of these items often opens up some pathway in the brain wiring that “gins up” associated memories. Some say that hypnosis can be very effective in helping people remember things. There are good memories, and there are bad memories.  In a posting dated back to 2007, Web MD published the following:

…There may be a good reason why most people remember exactly what they were doing when tragedies happen, like the JFK assassination or Sept. 11th, but have a hard time remembering birthdays and anniversaries. It turns out that remembering the bad times just comes more naturally.
A new study suggests that we recall bad memories more easily and in greater detail than good ones for perhaps evolutionary reasons.
Researchers say negative emotions like fear and sadness trigger increased activity in a part of the brain linked to memories. These emotionally charged memories are preserved in greater detail than happy or more neutral memories, but they may also be subject to distortion.

In this regard, I have a contrarian theory, supported only by anecdotal evidence. My theory, arising solely out of my own experience, is the exact opposite of the Web MD research findings. For me, the memories that seem triggered by some stimulus (ie. a scrapbook, scent, song, poem) are more often than not good, happy memories. There must be a superhighway in my brain leading to these “happy places”. Conversely, my brain pathway to painful or unhappy memories must be a winding dirt road full of potholes, gullies, and littered with fallen trees and rocks.  There is a great deal of “signal loss” along the way.

A few examples may illustrate my point. I have vivid recollections of playing with my across-the-street friends, Dave and Joe. We got into all sorts of mischief together. We never did anything seriously wrong, but we did push the limits from time to time.  We built a cave in a nearby vacant lot. That was pretty innocent, although I recall my parents not being too pleased that we chose to light the subterranean living room with candles.  We had a “clubhouse” under the stairs leading down to the basement in the house where I grew up — nothing but good memories there. We put gloves on long poles and scratched at the high windows of a small church during services across the street from my house. That was just good fun, but not appreciated by the congregation or the pastor.

We rode our bikes everywhere. Each morning at 5AM we sat on our respective front porches, sometimes in sub-freezing weather, folding newspapers which we then packed into those huge canvas bags hanging from the handlebars of our bikes, and then we set off on our own paper routes to deliver the Rocky Mountain News. We built a pole-vaulting pit in Dave’s back yard and spent hours learning how to pole vault, using whatever garden equipment we could find as our poles. During winter, we took great joy in “hitching” on the icy streets on the way to school – hitching involved running out into the street behind a moving car, grabbing the back bumper, crouching down low (so as not to be seen in the driver’s rear view mirror), and then sliding along in our street shoes on the ice (and trying not to inhale the exhaust fumes in the process). Hitching was made somewhat more difficult by the fact that we were almost always carrying an armful of books to and from school. Our daredevil actions rarely ended poorly. Occasionally, a driver would see us or sense our presence behind his car. When that happened, we would scamper away with no fear of being caught, since the driver could not really abandon his car in the street to chase us. Occasionally, the ice on the street would abruptly end in a patch of bare pavement. In our position behind the car, we could not see this coming, and would find that our graceful glide across the ice would end with a painful road-rash as we tumbled onto the pavement. One of my friends has a remarkable, seemingly photographic memory. He recalls the fine details of escapades that I recall only as vague shadows. But, what all of these memories, both his and mine, have in common is that, generally speaking, they portray events that were positive, joyful, adventuresome, or whatever. There are lots of memory road signs along that superhighway leading to pleasant memories, but few along that horrible dirt road. I am not sure how to “square” my experience with the research study cited by WebMD, above.

Notwithstanding the difficulty of remembering unpleasant things, I must mention my friend who now, with the benefit of about 60 years of hindsight, describes some things in his life that were not so great. Not happy times for him. Difficult times. Painful times. Some of what he describes now I must have known about at the time. I have only the vaguest impression that some of his home life was, let’s say, not something he liked to talk much about. We had far more sleepovers at my house than at his – and now I have a sense why. He seems to be able to recall these painful things in amazing detail. I do not. Nor do I really recall anything similar taking place in our house. Oh sure, I remember getting in fights with my sisters. I recall my Dad giving me the “silent treatment” for something I had done wrong. I remember when our Labrador retriever died and when both parents had heart attacks. But that’s about it. My parents were not at all reluctant to spank, and although I am certain that I was spanked from time to time, I do not really remember where or why. Lots of people suffer from PTSD (“post-traumatic stress disorder”)? They have vivid memories, which they cannot seem to “shake,” of traumatic events. In many cases, these memories are totally disabling. In fact, the study cited by WebMD suggests that the negative nature of these memories is what makes them so disabling. So, I cannot explain why most of what I remember of my youth, college days, career, and parenting puts a smile on my face.

There are a few exceptions to this memory pattern for me. Going back to my middle school days, I do recall one big bad troublesome memory. I remember laying awake night after night, dreading that my father would count his golf clubs. You see, I used to play a lot of golf, and apparently (for some reason that I do not recall), I had occasion to borrow one of my father’s golf clubs for a round of golf somewhere. After the round of golf, I went to return the club to my father, only to discover to my horror that it was missing. I had lost it somewhere! I never told him. Nor, did he ever mention anything being missing (although I suspect now that he knew – probably thought that he had lost the club himself). Anyway, I could not escape that cold pit-in-the-stomach feeling that I would be found out, and punished severely. Never happened. But I clearly remember the angst. And, by my mention of it here, I obviously have not forgotten about that incident. I also remember the passing of both of my parents, but when I think today of their passing, my mind veers off of the winding dirt road onto the superhighway leading to happy thoughts of time spent duck hunting or golfing with my Dad, going to baseball games, cheering my Mom as she competed in golf tournaments, and sitting at the dining room table with them (and my sisters) for breakfast and dinner every day. My mind does not want to linger on the pain of their passing. I was unable to see my father after the stroke that claimed his life, so my last memory of him was of a seemingly healthy retired man doing what he enjoyed the most – playing cards, golfing, travelling, and hunting waterfowl. Ditto for my Mom, who died alone in her apartment (7 or 8 years after my father died), finally succumbing to the ravages of time, smoking, a bad heart, and cancer. My memories of her declining health are there, but far less vivid that my memory of her sitting at the breakfast table dressed for a round of golf, smoking a cigarette while she enjoyed breakfast and a cup of coffee with her family.

The dirt road takes me back to an incident when I was in high school. I was not really very social in high school. I had lots of friends, both male and female, but rarely dated. I knew plenty of girls, but never thought of myself as much of a “catch.” So, I focused on sports (golf, swimming, skiing), and of course, on my studies. So, I was shocked when the old rotary phone rang one evening and I found myself talking to a girl who I (and many other male friends at my school) considered a total “fox”, and a person who was generally in the center of the social scene. She was calling ME??!! Okay. What the heck? Well, she went on to explain that she had been selected, or voted, to be Queen of the Senior Prom. She wondered if I had a date for the Prom. I said “no (duh!),” so she asked if I would be her date, which I guess made me the King of the Prom. To say that I was stunned is an understatement. I agreed and then hung up the phone. “She likes me!”, I thought to myself, “She really likes me!!”  This was a good memory – a great memory, in fact! I immediately called Dave, Joe, and a few other close friends to say what had happened. Nobody could believe it. Hmmm… What does that say about how I was perceived by my peer group? Anyway, that is where the good memories sort-of peter out. Now, the story veers off the superhighway onto the pothole-pocked winding dirt road leading to bad memories. The details remain fuzzy (probably to spare me the pain of recalling them), but I remember taking this girl to the Prom where we were feted as Queen and (tagalong) King of the Prom, in some brief ceremony at the beginning of the evening. The Prom was being held in the gymnasium of our high school. I remember going to get us both glasses of punch from a table across the room, and when I returned, she was gone. Nowhere to be found. Someone said that she had been seen leaving the gym. What?! Why? When was she coming back? Well, deep in the recesses of my unhappy memory cache, I recall learning after the fact that she left the Prom to go out on a date with her boyfriend, who attended another high school, and who therefore could not accompany her to the Prom at our school. Until this happened, I knew nothing of this interloper.  I was apparently a “placeholder” King.  She needed a King, and I was her King-for-a-Day, or night, or whatever! Color me naïve! I recovered, but apparently, I have never forgotten. It must have left a psychic scar somewhere, and even the difficulty of traversing that winding dirt road into the darker recesses of my brain does not prevent me from recalling that evening. But not the details. How did I get home? Who else did I dance with that night? Did I leave right away, or did I “tough it out” until the end of the evening? Did people console me? Did people laugh at me? I don’t remember any of that.

Elvis Presley apparently had a wide superhighway leading to the memory bank in his brain. Here is an example, extracted from one of his popular ballads:

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine
Quiet thoughts come floating down and settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories
Sweet memories
Of holding hands and red bouquets
And twilights trimmed in purple haze
And laughing eyes and simple ways
And quiet nights and gentle days with you

These lyrics trigger pleasant memories of my own – great images of fall colors, warm summer days, listening to KIMN radio as I drifted off to sleep to the banter of “Pogo Poge”, the DJ broadcasting for sleepless days and nights nonstop from atop a flagpole somewhere in Denver. I remember dozing off to the sweet sounds of Carl Dobkins, Jr. singing “My Heart is an Open Book” and Pat Boone singing “Love Letters in the Sand.”  These memories come flooding back as Elvis’ song triggers a journey down that superhighway in my brain. Rarely am I sent down that dirt road.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but there are, of course, lots of country and western songs that describe unhappy times, and sad ballads. Remember this one?

You’ve painted up your lips and rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby, are you contemplating going out somewhere?
The shadow on the wall tell me the sun is going down
Oh, Ruby, don’t take your love to town

Or, how about,

Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more

I guess that second song does make me think about my earlier high school Prom experience. But generally speaking, it seems that even these lyrics and melodies, which describe less pleasant images and emotions, just do not stimulate much of a trip down my dirt road memory lane. I conclude that there is either a physical or a psychological reason why the scales of memory tend to tip in the positive direction for me. I wish that was true for those suffering from PTSD.  That is a subject too deep for this blog – perhaps for another day. For now, if memory serves, I believe I never finished sorting the socks by color in my sock drawer.

A day at the dog park

My days are pretty free and unscheduled.  Having retired, I can choose what I want to do and when to do it.  But, not entirely.  You see, Jan and I own two dogs, Tucker (white) and Tulip (red).  Both are labradoodles, and they are inseparable.  They love to be right underfoot, and they spend their mornings and early afternoons napping, or eating, or asking to be let out to stretch their legs in the back yard.  Tulip loves to chase squirrels, and we love it when she does.  Tucker not so much – he seems content to sit on the back patio and watch Tulip do all the work.  For the most part, they are easy dogs to live with, and neither Jan nor I would have it any other way.  We love their companionship.

But, starting about 2PM every day, the energy in the house starts to escalate.  The dogs begin to stir.  They start pacing back and forth and they insist on putting a paw up in my lap or nuzzling up against my leg to let me know that something is up.  Not a word is spoken.  But, the communication is very clear – “Get up and moving, Jack, and take us to the dog park!”  I try to explain to them that they need to be patient, but patience is not easy for labradoodles.  I try logic, and when logic fails, I try a stern voice.  When that fails, I resort to diverting their attention by offering them an assortment of dog treats, including peanut butter right off the spoon.

I am not just dragging my feet for the sake of making it hard on Tucker and Tulip.  I simply cannot take them to the dog park off-leash before 4PM, because that is the hour established by the Boise City Park and Recreation department for legal off-leash use of selected City parks here in Boise.  I explain that to the dogs daily, but they seem not to be persuaded.  Civil disobedience is OK with them.  To hell with the rules, they seem to say, as they both stare at me incessantly.  But, the process continues the same way every day, and both dogs know that sooner or later, I will accede to their demands.  At about 3:50PM, I begin by telling Jan that I am taking “…the D.O.G.s to the D.O.G. P.A.R.K.”  Apparently, both Tucker and Tulip can spell – they begin wagging their tales crazily when I utter those words.  I then go to the closet where I fetch a handful of plastic bags – another dead giveaway!  Now, they start barking.  I then grab my hat, and when I put it on, all hell breaks loose!  The dogs run crazily from the front door to the back door, not knowing which door I will use to take them to the car for the ride to the park.  Usually, we go out the back door, and both dogs scramble out the door and engage in a wild, and somewhat dangerous, game of “chase” in our back yard.  Or, they run full speed at me, and stop only when their forward progress is impeded by my two 73 year-old legs.  It is a process fraught with excitement for them, and danger for me.

So finally, we are in the car, where the dogs are permitted only in the back seat.  But, Tulip cheats.  Whenever I stop at a stop sign or stop light, Tulip steps onto the armrest of the driver’s seat and puts her chin on my shoulder.  She then starts licking my ear while she inches her entire body forward – “Back!”, I say.  But, my command is ignored unless and until I start the car moving again, when I must physically push Tulip back into the back seat.  This dance goes on day after day.  Tucker is mostly an observer, but from time to time, he joins in the action.  The drive to the park takes about 10 minutes, and the dogs know every stop, light, and turn along the way.  Their joy is palpable!  Soon, they will be free to run, sniff, pee, and poop with reckless abandon.  Life, for them, does not get any better than this.

As for me, I am preparing for the next phase of the daily dog park dance.  First, I note the time.  I must not arrive before 4PM.  The City decided that dogs in city parks must be on a leash before 4PM.  Moreover, dogs must be on a leash for the first 50 yards or so (the buffer-zone) after exiting the car into the park.  And, the rules do not stop there.  All dogs must be licensed, there must be a leash for every dog, and each dog owner/handler must have plastic poop bags in their possession while in the park.  There are probably more rules, but these are the ones that come to mind.  You might ask, who cares?  Why even be bothered with these stupid rules?  The answer is simple.  The dog park is visited periodically by a City dog policeman/Nazi.  This guy is something else!  He loves writing citations ($75 per infraction, per dog, per day).  He often hides his City-owned truck around the corner and he then hides himself in the bushes adjoining the designated leash-free dog area of the park.  If someone shows up with a dog off leash at, say, 3:55PM, bingo!  The dog Nazi pops up, ticket-book in hand!  And, while he is citing you for an illegal early off-leash dog violation, he then checks to make sure that your dog is currently licensed, that the license is on the collar of the dog, that you have a leash for the dog, and that you have poop-bags at the ready.  Heaven forbid if you allowed your dogs to run into the park directly from the car, in violation of the 50-yard buffer zone rule.  If any of these are not in up to snuff, then the ticket book comes out again.  He loves his job, and he could care less whether the infraction is trivial or not.  He goes strictly “by the book.”

Knowing this, I arrive at the park, scanning the streets near the park for the dog Nazi’s pickup truck as I approach.  Seeing no sign of his truck is no guarantee that he is not there, but it helps relieve much of the anxiety.  I have explained all of this to Tulip and Tucker, and they nod their heads in agreement.  But, they have no intention of complying with the rules.  So, the minute that I open the car door with leashes in hand, both dogs jump out and race into the park at breakneck speed, breaking the 50-yard buffer zone on-leash rule.  Immediately, I think to myself, if the dog Nazi is here somewhere, I have just incurred a $150 fine, at a minimum.  But, the dogs usually cover that 50 yards in about 3 seconds, so I figure, what are the odds that we are going to get caught, right?!  So far, and for many months now, I have dodged this bullet.  But I do not want to brag.  Tomorrow could be the day of reckoning with the dog Nazi.

Next, Tucker somehow has set his body clock to ring his poop alarm the minute he is released into the park.  So, while I walk into the park and am greeted by other dog owners standing there throwing balls to their dogs with their “Chuck-it” devices, Tucker goes immediately and squats, often in the middle of the assembled humans.  These folks are dog people, so they are understanding, but in most social circles, Tucker’s behavior would be a source of some embarrassment.  Tulip, whom I have almost never seen poop, is delighted to search out the nearest squirrel or to sniff butts with the assemblage of other dogs at the park.  This is just normal dog behavior, as far as I can tell.  But it gets a little awkward for me, for the following reason.  When Tulip begins to show interest in another dog, or worse yet, when another dog begins to show interest in Tulip, Tucker makes his entrance.  He does not just poke his nose into the fray, he claims Tulip as his own by mounting and humping her incessantly until she runs to me and hides between my legs for protection.  The other “regulars” at the dog park know Tucker by this behavior – and they know him as “Humper”, not Tucker.  Jan is so mortified by Tucker’s actions that she refuses to go with us to the dog park.  One lady at the park told Jan some time ago that Tucker needed to go to some specialist she knew of to fix this once and for all.  When we explained that both Tucker and Tulip have been snipped, tied, fixed, or whatever you call it, this lady seemed unimpressed.  She apparently found the dog’s behavior to be disgusting.  So, Jan said to me, “That’s it….I am done taking the dogs to this park.”  I have gotten so used to this routine that I just ignore it.  People there may think I am a bit odd, but I cannot control what they think.

Our routine then shifts into “taking a lap” around the perimeter of the area in the park designated to be off-leash by the City.  For me, this is a relatively short walk, and not worth mention, really.  For Tucker and Tulip, however, this lap can be full of fun and adventure.  First, there is the dog that lives across the chain link fence adjacent to the park.  This dog loves to taunt Tucker and Tulip by running back and forth along the fence line, barking ferociously and stimulating Tucker and Tulip into a frenzy of barking, running back and forth, and growling.  This goes on for as long as the owner of the dog on the other side of the fence allows his dog this freedom, or until I intervene to distract my dogs.  Usually, it is up to me to bring an end to this fun.  I sometimes wonder how my dogs would behave if somehow this fence was removed.  Would they still want to play with the other dog?  Would they still act like they are so tough?  Or, would Tucker just start humping Tulip, who would then run to me for protection?

Anyway, we progress around the perimeter of the park until we reach the creek which runs alongside the park on one side.  Both Tucker and Tulip are labradoodles, and Labradors are supposed to love water, right?  Well, not Tucker.  He will have nothing to do with the water.  Tulip, on the other hand, is curious about the water, but will only walk in the water if it is really shallow – she does not want her tummy to get wet.  The other dogs in the park jump into the water, frolic in the water, lie down in the water, and love the cool-down.  Tucker and Tulip cool down only by drinking from the water dishes of other dog owners who brought them intending to serve their own dogs, not mine.  But, this has been going on so long now that these other dog owners are pretty understanding – they just bring along a little bigger jug of water, knowing that Tucker and Tulip will be there.

There is one final area, however, where Tucker and Tulip truly excel.  When it comes time to leave the park, I need to leash them up to cross the 50-yard buffer zone.  Leashes also facilitate getting them to the car and inside without incident.  Other dog owners play hell trying to get their dogs to come and submit to a leash.  Our dogs are different.  All I need to do is say to Tucker and Tulip, “Come get your leashes”, and they break into an amazing grin and run like the wind to my feet, where they sit and smile at me with tails wagging like crazy.  Go figure!  I have no idea why they like this part of our daily routine so much, but they do.  Other dog owners stare in disbelief.  I just smile and say to them, “Have a nice day”.  He who laughs best, laughs last….

And, then on the way to the car, I drop the plastic poop bag into the trash barrel.  The dogs settle into the back seat where Tucker gives Tulip one more little hump, and then we all relax until we reach the first stop light – when the front seat encroachment begins anew.  Whew, I’m exhausted…..think I will go re-sort the socks by color in my sock drawer.

“I’m mad as hell and can’t take it anymore!” (The movie “Network”, Paddy Chayefsky, 1976)

Today, Jan (wife) attempted to place a reservation with AirBnB – her first time with that particular vendor.  After considerable searching, she found an attractive room in the right location at what seemed to be an affordable price — $120 per night.  She then spent additional time trying to pinpoint this place on a map and beginning the registration process, only to find that the price had increased to $123 per night while she worked on finalizing the reservation.  Fifteen minutes later, as she continued the AirBnB reservation process, the price shown had grown to $125 per night!  I guess the deal is that it is cheaper if you just look – if you actually want to stay somewhere, all bets are off!  Similarly, yesterday, she received an unsolicited email from an airline offering a special rate on a route that we frequently fly.  She attempted to secure that rate, but yes, you guessed it, when it finally came time to confirm the reservation, the rate was more than double the advertised rate.  How many times has this happened to you?  How many times have you been surprised at checkout of a hotel to find the total charges significantly higher than the nightly rate you were quoted?  Oh, sure, there is always a reason.  You know, the original rate did not include hotel taxes, or perhaps you did not understand that mandatory resort fees and/or gratuities would be added to the bill.

Why doesn’t it ever go the other way?  I am still waiting to hear those magic words – “Sir….I am pleased to inform you that we overstated the cost of your room, flight, or whatever.  We will charge you the lower price, and of course, we will ‘comp’ you another $100 for the inconvenience!”  If one looks for protection from misleading or predatory vendor practices, lawyers will always advise to get everything in writing and to read the fine print, just so that there are no misunderstandings.  If you look at the fine print that accompanies an airline ticket, or the booklet of fine print that accompanies your cruise boarding packet, you will instantly recognize the impact that lawyers have had on these documents.  I quit trying to read this stuff years ago, concluding that there is virtually nothing that the vendor could do to me, my wife, children, or my pets for which they would accept legal responsibility.  “Oh, so you say you suffered a broken neck and total body paralysis as a result of a really bad landing, or when the ship ran at full speed into the dock?”  Or, “…your rental car would not start when it came time to get your pregnant wife off to the hospital, resulting in the delivery of your first child on the front lawn, attended only by the paper boy and your 85 year-old next door neighbor!  So sorry, but that’s not on us”, they say!

These are all variations of the same  theme — offering to sell someone a product or to provide a service at one price, and then charging another higher (sometimes significantly higher) price after the purchase commitment has been made.  Caveat emptor, some say!  This is a general rule of law that says that the purchaser assumes the risk of the purchase.  The presumption underlying this concept is that the seller will take advantage of the buyer at every opportunity.  “We need consumer protection!”, cry some folks.  “We need regulations, reporting, and penalties with teeth”, they say.  To them I say, “How are you doing on stopping those crank calls by putting your name on the Government’s “do not call” list?”  I have put my name on that list multiple times, just in case it takes more than one to finally get properly registered.  Have I seen any reduction at all in the frequency of the unsolicited telephone calls?  Au contraire!  Despite my best efforts to protect myself, I seem to be getting more of these calls than ever before.

When was the last time you carried one of those coupons you received in the mail for a $12.99 oil and filter change into the nearest Jiffy Lube (or equivalent) store?  The last time I tried to use one of those coupons, I escaped with a special low price of $44.50, by the time they added surcharges for the size of my car’s engine, additives, a cabin air filter, and a few more “essentials”, none of which I had ever heard of prior to driving in with my coupon in hand.  It turns out that the $12.99 oil featured on the coupon would destroy my engine in just a few miles, they said.  In good faith, they really could not recommend it!  I could use a much better grade of oil, but the cost would be higher.  And, because my car was fairly new, they told me that I really should be using that really high-priced synthetic oil.  So much for the coupon, I grumbled to myself, as I signed up for the $44.50 oil and filter change!

Speaking of coupons, a year or so ago, I received a scratch-off game in the mail from some hard-to-identify source, offering some pretty attractive prizes.  So, coin in hand, I scratched off the 3 squares and, yes, to my amazement, I WON!  Not only did I win, but I won the grand prize, which was something like $3,500 in cash.  All I had to do was show up with the game card in hand, verify my age and identity, and they would hand me the prize money!  Well, I did not just fall off the turnip truck!  So, I carefully read the small print on the game card.  No way was I going to be hoodwinked out of my money!  Indeed, the small print contained no conditions seeming to stand in the way of collecting my $3,500.

The instructions said to go to a certain address to claim my prize.  This address turned out to be just off the freeway on the way to our cabin, so with wife Jan and the dogs in tow, on the way to the cabin, I drove to the location indicated to claim my winnings.  It turned out to be the parking lot of a struggling outlet mall on the outskirts of town.  The lot had been converted to a big new car lot, with tents, balloons, cars, and signs everywhere.  It was a hot day – very hot!  I got out of my truck, game card in hand, excited to claim my prize!  I told Jan that this would not take long, so no need to even get out of the truck.  I was not to be delayed, nor denied!  I was immediately set upon by a short, sweaty, fat man with an open collar about 3 buttons down and lots of gold and chest hair.  Beads of sweat were pouring down from his face, making his shirt so wet that it clung to his body like a wetsuit – but I didn’t care!  He asked if I was interested in buying a car.  “Oh no”, I said.  “I am here to collect my prize money, because I won this game!”  The car salesman knew exactly what I was talking about.  He led me to the biggest tent and directed me to a large poster on an easel inside the door to the tent.  The tent was full of people sitting at card tables arranging financing for their new cars, sitting across from a cross-section of sweaty car-selling sales and finance personnel, all focused intently on their laptop computers.  My man asked to see my game card, and then he took it over to the poster, leaned over, put on his glasses, and came back to me with shocking news.  It seems that there was a small number on the bottom of the poster which must match a tiny, tiny number printed on the back of my game card.  If the two do not match, then the game card is not a winner, no matter what the scratch-off suggests.  There was no mention of this on the game card itself, although I confess that the card may have suggested that I visit some arcane website for the detailed game rules.  Anyway, without blinking an eye, the fat man handed the card back to me and explained that I was not a winner – offering no apologies for the inconvenience at all.  I suspect he had done this many times before!  But, he immediately returned to the script – “…are you sure that you are not interested in buying a new car?  We’ve got some killer deals here!”  Rage swelled up inside me!  But, I held my tongue.  I simply walked without saying a word, out the door of the tent, throwing my game card into the trash bin by the door as I left.  And, off we went to our cabin.  I wonder to this day if there was ever an actual winner of that scratch-off game – who knows, but I doubt it.

One of my favorites, and perhaps yours as well, are the satellite television vendors.  Every Sunday, our newspaper contains 4-color glossy brochures describing a variety of satellite television offerings, with free equipment, free multi-room installation, and prices that, at first glance, seem too good to be true.  The problem is, they are too good to be true.  The prices advertised are the promotional discounted 3-month (typically) prices.  After the discount period, the prices nearly double, and if you cannot afford the high prices, you are in a pickle.  You have had all the equipment installed.  You have no ready-made alternative.  And, depending on the vendor and the specific promotion, there may be early termination fees.

This subject cannot be discussed credibly without mentioning the sale of cars.  Yes, you know, when the time comes for you to purchase a new vehicle, you can get the “employee price”, or the year-end discount, or a loyal owner discount, or a first-time buyer discount, the Costco discount, or a discount because you are a combat veteran, handicapped, or because you are a particularly safe driver.  The thing is, the MSRP, which is usually the starting point, is meaningless, so the discounts are meaningless.  If and when you get past the discount deception and settle on a price for the car, then the games begin in earnest with the financing.  How about 6 months with no interest, or the first X month’s payments “on us”?  Then, after the dust settles and you drive off the lot in your shiny new ride having put only $500 down on a spiffy new $45,000 pickup truck, it will not be long until your monthly payments begin in earnest.  Remember, there is no free lunch!  Or, maybe your home mortgage loan has used up your current borrowing capacity.  Maybe you are saddled with a huge overhanging balance of student debt.  No problem, says the car salesman, I will just lease the truck to you.  That is much simpler.  Sure it is.  First, you give the salesman the keys to your current car.  Then, you put the same $500 down, you get a month “holiday” from making any payments, and then the lease payments begin.  But, wait a minute, it is not just the lease payments.  You will likely find after driving the truck for 3 years that you have fallen out of love with it.  When you go back to the dealer to turn it in on another vehicle, you may learn that not only do you have no equity in the truck being surrendered, you may well have to pay the dealer to take the damn thing back (depending on the residual value built into your lease, and also depending on the miles you have driven).  They make it so simple and pain-free at the front end – and the complications show up later!

What is to be done about all of this?  I am not exactly sure, but as I think about it, I am increasingly empathetic with the character D-Fens played by Michael Douglas in the movie “Falling Down”.  Fed up with the frustrations of modern day society that impede his every effort to get home for his daughter’s birthday party, D-Fens takes out his frustrations first by abandoning his car in the middle of stopped traffic on a freeway, then by attacking a Coke machine (with a bat), followed by an increasingly serious series of other attacks on people, places, and things.  The story does not end well for D-Fens.  That movie is reminiscent of the underlying theme of the movie “Network” – “I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore!”  I guess what is needed here is perspective.  What, in the big picture, is really important?  Should the fact that you know you are getting slightly screwed in any number of ways every day rob you of the joy of living that day?  If you know that there are a million potholes out there on your daily path, should that knowledge keep you from venturing out?  “Life is not always fair”, we teach our children.  Perhaps we should listen to our own teaching.  Justice is an elusive bride!  We should vote with our feet, staying away from vendors whose sales tactics are particularly offensive.  But, we should not stop living our lives in joy, nor should we spend our lives in an ill-advised effort to correct every wrong or every injustice that we see.  There just are not enough hours in the day to do that.  Yes, bait and switch exists, and examples are ubiquitous.  So what?  I will take my business, and my daily concerns, in another direction.

You’re in my space! – A story of mice and men

When Jan and I were being trained to be therapeutic foster parents, we learned a lot about taking proper care of children with severe emotional and/or psychological disorders. We also learned self-defense techniques, a bit about first-aid, and we learned where to go for help if needed. One of the things that sticks in my mind was the concept of “personal space.” If I was listening correctly, I learned that this concept is extremely important, and is culturally inculcated (great word!) in each of us. We were told that in certain cultures, people are quite comfortable conversing while nearly “nose-to-nose”. Europeans have no problem with getting up close and personal. Italians are famous for conversing with their hands, in tight quarters. In the United States, however, we tend to get very uncomfortable if someone invades our space, even if only for a minute. If that person persists, we shift into a different mode – fight or flight becomes the order of the day. This becomes particularly important when dealing with highly-vulnerable children. We were told that tensions could often be reduced by just backing away. Space is all-important. Perhaps I am a little hypersensitive on that subject. OK, so I am writing today to describe an invasion of my personal space – such an affront to my sensibilities that I have contemplated acts that would not look good on the front page of the New York Times, should WikiLeaks develop the capability to read my mind.

If you have read one of my earlier blogs (https://johnscripps.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/how-can-i-connect-squirrels-and-income-tax-preparation-in-a-brief-blog/), you will remember that I am not fond of squirrels. So, I begin this story in that context. I hope you will understand. If you are a squirrel lover, I am sure that you are still a good person – but in my view, you are misguided. You may want to stop reading at this point. Anyway, I digress. About 2 months ago, I was asleep in our downstairs bedroom at our cabin when I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of some small animal scampering back and forth. It sounded like it was upstairs, and I was able to relax thinking that a squirrel or something was just running back and forth on top of the cabin roof. It was disconcerting, though, because the sound was pretty loud, and seemingly close to where I was sleeping. Jan was in Boise, so she missed hearing the racket. I was there alone at the time. The next night, sure enough, the little fellow appeared again. Now, I was worried, because it sounded like he (or she) was inside the cabin. This constituted a serious invasion of my personal space. Action was required.
I have no “critter-cam”, so I could not determine the genus or species of the intruder, nor was I certain where he/she was in the cabin. For the purpose of this blog, I will call this animal Ratso Rizzo. I searched throughout the cabin, but to no avail. I talked myself into believing that Ratso was just having fun up on the roof. Then, when son John was up at the cabin with his family, he reported the same nocturnal riots, and worse, food was eaten out of bags left on the kitchen dining table. Animal poop was starting to appear in lots of places. A small hole had been chewed through the upstairs floor. John reported that he and others actually spotted Ratso scampering around at night. They attempted to slap him down with a broom, but to no avail. The little bastard was just too quick for them. Are you starting to understand how the concept of personal space applies here?

On my next visit to the cabin, I had hoped that our little guest had decided to move on, but no….once again, in the middle of the night, Ratso enjoyed the run of the place. So, after a visit to Home Depot, I pulled out the big guns. First, I put a nice fresh block of D-Con poison bait into a cleverly-designed plastic bait station, and I placed that station right next to the hole in the floor, upstairs in our cabin. I then brought out the really big guns – two huge snapping mousetrap devices, each large enough to dispatch an animal up to, say, 3 pounds. These are big traps! I carefully baited each of the traps with peanut butter, and I placed them where I had seen the most poops in the cabin. Then, I went to bed with a big smile on my face. I dreamt of peace and quiet returning to my personal space, only to be awakened at 3AM by the sound of the critter once again. I listened carefully for the sound of a trap snapping on the little fellow. But no — I heard no traps snapping, just scratching and running sounds, just like before. In the morning, coffee in hand, I ventured upstairs to check on my poison. I found the plastic bait station had been moved about 15 feet, and was turned upside down. Some of the poison had been eaten, but not much. To my dismay, all of the peanut butter had been eaten off the levers on the huge traps, without setting the traps off. Not a trace of peanut butter remained. I thought to myself, why you little shit! I am going to really get you now!

I spent some time thinking about how best to reclaim my space. Yes, I thought! I have the failsafe answer. I needed to make it more difficult for Ratso to eat the bait off of the trap triggers. So, I cut two little blocks of cheese, covered them with peanut butter, and I then zip-tied them to the two trap levers. No more easy-peasy dining, Mr. Rizzo! “You are going to have to work for your food”, I thought to myself. With a broad grin, I put the two big traps back where they were the night before, knowing that the critter would return for more peanut butter. I also replaced the plastic bait station by the hole in the floor, just to see what would happen. Once again, I drifted off to sleep. I was in a happy place, thinking for sure that the intruder would be enjoying his last meal on this earth that night. I awakened to the same sounds of scampering, scratching, and then more scampering. I lay still, eyes open, listening for the musical sound of a trap snapping. No such sound could be heard, though. Puzzling, I thought. The next morning was a repeat of the prior day. My trip upstairs revealed that the plastic bait station had once again been moved a great distance, and turned upside down. There was no evidence that any of the bait had been eaten, however. I think the damn critter just moved it around to mess with me! Worse yet, the little devil had managed to eat all of the peanut butter/cheese hors d’oeuvres off of the trap trigger levers, leaving the zip ties in place! This is some kind of devil rat! Lacking a wartime declaration from Congress, I used my presidential powers to declare a state of war anyway.

I went to work on the doomsday machine. First, I concluded that the plastic bait station was a joke. Ratso was just using it for some sort of sadistic sport – trying to get into my head. So, I spent no time on trying to improve its effectiveness. I concentrated on the two traps. I knew that Ratso had been trained to know not only the location of the traps, but also that the traps were seemingly harmless and contained good food. So, building on that knowledge, I started by removing the ineffective zip-ties. I then selected two big blocks of poison bait out of the D-Con package, and I got my cordless drill and drilled a nice hole through each of them. I then zip-tied the two blocks of poison tightly to the trap lever trigger arms. Do you see where I was going here? I was outsmarting the little bastard! If Ratso tugged too hard on the block of bait, he would meet his maker in a quick, but violent way. If he somehow magically was able to eat the bait out from around the zip tie and the trigger arm, then he wins, but not for long. He has eaten the forbidden fruit, so to speak. I was so proud of myself that I could not wait to put the traps back in their places and to get to bed.

It was going to be a great night – a victory for Darwinian evolution. Mind over matter! I drifted off to sleep again. And, like so many nights before, I was awakened by the sounds of scampering, scratching, and running around once again. But, this time, the sounds seemed closer, and Ratso could be heard running up and down the stairs as well as rustling some plastic bags somewhere in the house. I said to myself, “He’s in my space big-time now, but not for long!” I literally ran upstairs in the morning to check the traps. My jaw dropped. All of the bait on both traps had been carefully removed from the trigger levers, once again leaving the zip ties in place! How did Ratso do that without setting off the hair triggers of the traps?! My only solace was that I knew that the devil rodent had eaten the poison, so I was confident that my space was at least in the process of being reclaimed.

Well, this all took place several weeks ago, and we visited the cabin again this last weekend. How did this all turn out, you may be asking? Well, upon opening the door to the cabin last weekend, my eye went immediately to a section of the carpet near the downstairs bedroom door. It seems that the rodent had ripped up this section of carpet for some reason – perhaps angry that I had not been there to feed him more peanut butter, cheese, or poison. He also chewed up the wood doorframe at the base of the stairs going upstairs, and the hole in the upstairs floor was larger than it had been during my earlier visit to the cabin. My hope was that this damage was done prior to the poison doing its job. So, Jan and I went to bed expecting that we would hear nothing more in the night. We were there for 5 nights, and yes, it was quiet as can be for about 4 of the 5 nights. Then, on night number 5, I once again was awakened by the sounds of scratching, running, and scampering about. Was I dreaming? No! I got up out of bed and the sounds persisted!

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. This critter is like nothing I have ever seen! He will not die, nor leave my personal space. Ratso may be the proof that Darwin had no idea what he was talking about! I am reluctant to keep a loaded shotgun by my bedside, but that may have to be my next move. Is there such a thing as a rat whisperer? Suggestions anyone?

Guilty or Not Guilty – That Is The Question

When I sawed a corner off the windowsill in my bedroom with a “toy” saw, I am certain that my Mom or Dad said “Shame on you!”  I was guilty, and the verdict coming down from them was that I needed to feel shame about my misdeed.  Earlier, I suspect that I heard the same thing as I failed to demonstrate command of that all-important toilet training.  Guilt, and feelings of shame, starts young.  I do not know where feelings of guilt/shame fit into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but I suspect that these emotions are among the most basic in our makeup.  They are not really a need, in the same sense that hunger is a need, but they are always there, waiting to bubble up at the slightest provocation.

I grew up hearing that the Catholics had a “corner” on guilt.  They wrote the book…or so I thought.  They suffered from Original Sin, and all Catholics were sinners.  They were damned and certain to go straight to hell if they did not confess their sins at every opportunity.  Later, as I learned a bit more about things, I came to understand that not all Catholics viewed sin in the same way – there were “hard liners” and then there were good God-fearing Catholics who saw no problem cutting folks a “bit more slack”.  But, guilt and shame were always there – they were like the obnoxious dinner guests who won’t go home.  Then, to my dismay, I learned that other people, not just Catholics, were sinners – myself among them!  That realization was big trouble – not only did I misbehave as a youth, but my misbehavior was continuing, and even getting more serious, as I matured into an adult!  “Get thee behind me, Satan”, I thought!  People started telling me that I should feel guilty about things I really had never thought about.  I was now embarked on a big-time “guilt trip”!  I am not alone here.  The pervasiveness of feelings of guilt is described beautifully in this “Essay on Guilt” (by EMS, http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/645198-An-essay-on-guilt).

Guilt (gilt)n

1 the fact or state of having done wrong or committed an offence.

2 responsibility for a criminal or moral offence deserving punishment or penalty.

3 remorse or self-reproach caused by feeling that one is responsible for a wrong or an offence. 4 Arch. Sin or crime

Guilt is something I deal with every waking moment of my day. Guilt is part of me, part of my identity, a governing force in my self-narrative. I am a sufferer of guilt, a victim of guilt, a casualty of guilt. But there is no deep dark secret that explains it; it just exists inside me. I possess a limitless supply of guilt, gratuitous and needless, eager to be of service, and forcing its way into my psyche after any action. Perhaps it is an affliction, an inheritance, a neurosis or a mania woven into my unconsciousness forcing itself to be heard, rapacious in its need and beyond my command.

I do not know why this happens except I feel guilty about my life.

I feel guilt over not spending enough time with my family and friends, guilt over how I treat my body, guilt over my comfortable life and guilt over the opportunities afforded to me. Regret leads to guilt, shame breeds my guilt and reproach feeds my guilt. I feel guilty about money, about spending and not spending. I feel guilty over housework and guilty when in employed work; I am flawed by other people’s assiduity and this nourishes my guilt.

I feel guilt over my sex, because I am female and do not have a picture perfect glossy appearance. My orgies of gluttony, unwillingness to starve myself, to paint myself and change myself to suit another person’s needs worries me, I consciously reject manufactured beauty, the artifice I should embrace, and this supports my guilt but conversely vanity consumes me. My lack of progeny shames me but my lack of aspiration even more so. I am a walking contradiction. My body humiliates me on a daily basis, by its effluence, its desires, and its monthly treachery. A paragon of ignominy, I go to great lengths to conceal any evidence of this and this makes me feel guilty.

My guilt grinds me down, eats away, and crushes my spirit until I am convinced I should lock myself away, unassailable from all the guilt-inducing elements of the world but this would be futile, as I am the origin. I would do penitence for all those my guilt tells me I have hurt. I would repent fifty times, a million times over, sleepless and discordant with ineradicable guilt, a fountain inside me ready to drench my nerves and fray my mind at will, an unavoidable religiosity in my thoughts.

I do not understand those who do not suffer from guilt on a daily basis like me. They disturb me but also excite me, I am locked in reverential awe at their dissolution whilst they laugh and roll their eyes at me. Yet if I decide to rally against my guilt and commit some minor offence, a missed phone call, a slice of cake, some selfish act, their accusations of complicity weaken my resolve. My culpability haunts me.

This affliction can be used against me, as an instrument of torture, of repression, an effective deterrent and a controlling force. I am subjugated by my guilt.

I’ve seen a counselor (sic), a lady with soft eyes and an understanding expression. She asked me to list all my triggers and communicate my fears, so I did, and I watched my neurosis sink into her placid pools, to be later reflected and deflected back at me through a process of realization (sic). I failed, left her attentions and disappointment palpable in the air. Wretched with self-reproach, I never visited her again, the irony sickening me for days.

My guilt is self-punishment. My guilt is vindication. I am a purveyor of guilt. My guilt is justification. I am guilt personified, and I can’t run away from it. It is just me.

Now, I suppose that feeling guilty might be a good thing.  If guilt leads to feelings of shame, and feelings of shame cause changes in behavior or attitudes that are considered more in line with social mores, then guilt serves a useful purpose.  It keeps us pointed in more-or-less the right direction.  One might argue that the civil rights movement in the United States grew out of tremendous guilt over the treatment of African Americans, and this movement had beneficial results.  Ditto, perhaps, with women’s suffrage – and there are countless other examples of societal changes most folks would consider desirable, arising (at least in part) out of feelings of guilt.

But, there is a flip-side to this coin.  I am not sure that making me feel guilty about having had a toilet training “accident” did much to solve the problem.  That is a trivial example, but I suggest that the raining down, day after day, of accusations of guilt can have really detrimental (even counterproductive) psychological results.  There is a bunch of stuff out there on the internet linking depression to guilt.  Indeed, one definition of depression is anger turned inward – shame on myself!  I have wondered why rape victims are sometimes said to blame themselves.  Or, why are victims of mental illness made to feel like they are at fault for their afflictions.  Why is there such a high suicide rate among soldiers returning from armed conflict?  The psychological roots of guilt and shame, and the unfortunate consequences, are nicely summarized by Mark Zaslav, PhD. in the following excerpt, taken from Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201604/shame-and-the-pendulum-blame).

When things feel wrong who is to blame?  The very question, particularly when it seems to dominate mental life, indicates a special vulnerability to feeling judged.  As I have stated elsewhere (Zaslav, 1998), along with envy, the tendency to affix blame is often associated with defenses against feeling shame.

At the heart of the feeling of shame is a wordless, private awareness that one is deficient, fundamentally “bad” or unworthy.  This feeling is so painful that it can be experienced as an implosion of self-esteem, accompanied by fantasies of disappearing altogether or not even deserving to exist.  When feeling ashamed we instinctively turn away or hide from other people.

Clinical psychologists credit modern psychological research for the emerging understanding of shame and its connection to blaming.  But the impulse to blame in response to shame is well documented in history and literature. For example, the Genesis account in the Old Testament, written thousands of years ago, explicitly notes that the fundamental human responses to shame are to hide and direct blame.

The familiar Genesis story, in which Adam and Eve were warned against eating of the Tree of Knowledge (knowledge of what is wrong) can be viewed as a brilliant allegory for the installation and demonstration of the human capacity for shame.  After eating of the tree, and newly vulnerable to shameful self-awareness, Adam and Eve initially hid from God in response to their sense of nakedness.  When confronted for having defied God’s instructions, Adam immediately blamed Eve for tempting him, while Eve blamed the serpent.   Only a few pages later, their son Cain kills his brother Abel in a state of envious narcissistic rage, blaming his brother for having deprived him of appropriate acknowledgment for his offering to God.  This focus on shame is virtually the first, and presumably most important aspect of human nature described in the Old Testament.  The characteristic human responses to shame management were well understood in ancient wisdom.

Consciously or unconsciously, if you struggle with chronic shame you tend to experience misfortune as a negative verdict on your very sense of self. 

It is interesting to me that Zaslav goes all the way back to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, citing shame as “…presumably (the) most important aspect of human nature described in the Old Testament.”  He goes on to say that the natural human response to guilt/shame is to blame someone else or else to turn on yourself – to become self-critical – and I would add often depressed and dysfunctional.

This is all interesting theoretical stuff, but why am I concerned about it?  Why am I taking the time out of a beautiful sunny day to sit inside and write about such a dark subject?  Well, I suppose it is because I am bothered by the extent to which we, as a society (not just me personally) are bombarded by reasons to feel guilty about things for which we should not.  We are not guilty, but we are told that we are indeed awful people and “shame on us.”  Here is a current example.  In an editorial column in the Idaho Statesman (9/2/2016), Rabbi Dan Fink attempted to explain or describe what Jews think about Jesus.  His assertion is that Jews simply do not think about Jesus – Jesus is no more important in Jewish theological thinking than Mohammed or Buddha is to contemporary Christian theological thinking.  Point taken!  But, in making his case, Rabbi Fink says the following (http://www.idahostatesman.com/living/religion/article99584432.html):

…When I was in rabbinical school, I was taught to respond to questions about Jesus with something like this: “We Jews believe that Jesus was a rabbi or a teacher or a prophet who, in many ways, emerges out of the Jewish experience.” But that answer is apologetics, a half-truth, really, that reflected Jewish fear in the face of 2,000 years of persecution inflicted upon us in Jesus’ name. Yes, we Jews have thought of Jesus over the course of our history — but not in a religious manner. We thought of him as his followers raped and murdered and forcibly converted us. With that background, we came up with an answer to mollify our Christian neighbors. Thankfully, those days are past, at least here in the United States. I am grateful that most Jews now encounter Christians as dear friends, as colleagues, as husbands and wives and family members. Which means that it is now acceptable — no, it is a positive good — to recognize that we have profound differences in the way we approach religious life. I am happy that I can now unapologetically acknowledge that, thank God, we do not think alike.

I am aware that awful things have taken place in the name of religion in the past.  Awful things are taking place today, for the same reason.  I know that Jews were made to live in a ghetto in Rome, starting I believe at the direction of Pope Paul IV (in 1555) – for years and years and years.  That was terrible.  As a Christian, I am not proud of that, so yes, I suppose I feel some second or third-order guilt or shame.  But, I did not do it.  Rabbi Fink finds it necessary to remind the readers of the Idaho Statesman today that Christians persecuted Jews for 2,000 years, raping and murdering them, and forcibly converting them, along the way.  He then goes on to say that “all is forgiven” (my paraphrase).  But, it seems to me that at least in Rabbi Fink’s mind, all is not forgiven.  Not at all!  Otherwise, why bring it up?  This is not necessary to support his argument that Jews simply do not think of Jesus at all.  To my eye, this is just another example of a “guilt trip” being laid on folks unnecessarily and unjustifiably.  And, on top of the countless other guilt trips to which we are subjected, it is not healthy, and not at all helpful.

Let’s see – what are some other current examples of things for which I believe I am being made to feel guilty?

1. Faith.  If I am a little nervous in an airport because a few feet away, I observe a bearded man with a backpack who is wearing long robes, I am discriminating against all people of Islamic faith.  Shame on me!  Or, if I am on alert because I am being followed down a dark street by a black man wearing a hoodie, I must be a racist.
2. Wealth.  Wall Street versus Main Street.  The “top 1%” does not pay their fair share.  Accumulating wealth is a bad thing, so inheritance taxes should be increased.  If someone has been able to save more than enough money for a comfortable retirement, they should feel bad about having more than most folks.
3. Success.  If we are not all equally successful, even though I had the same opportunity for success as you, then I should feel guilty about being the more successful one.  According to Bernie Sanders, if I am a large successful business, I am a threat to the working man.  Even though there might be tremendous economies of scale in my business, my company should be broken up, because the presumption is that I am abusing my economic power.
4. Violence of War.  I should feel guilty if noncombatants are killed, even when the enemy purposefully hides in hospitals, schools, and among the general population.  I should feel guilty about the U.S. having dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though the evidence is incontrovertible that our doing so saved tens of thousands of lives.  In fact, I should feel guilty about spending taxpayer dollars on armaments, period.
5. Native Americans.  Our white ancestors treated them terribly.  I should be ashamed — it’s my fault.  They are due reparations.
6. African Americans.  See my comments about Native Americans.
7. Japanese Americans.  See my comments about Native Americans and African Americans.  We should not have put them in internment camps during WWII.
8. Mexicans, undocumented.  I should feel terrible about kicking them out, even though they came into our country illegally.  We owe them education, health care, and eventually, full citizenship.  If I oppose sanctuary cities, I must be uncaring and cold-hearted.
9. LGBT community.  They have been kept in the closet for too long.  I should feel guilty about how this community has been treated over the years.
10. Law enforcement.  They abuse their power every time a black man dies at the hands of a white cop (“Hands up, don’t shoot”, as is decried from the pulpit in my church).  I should feel guilty about “stop and frisk”.  The City of Baltimore somehow owes the family of Freddy Gray $5 million even though our legal system has found no fault at all with the way in which he was treated by law enforcement.  Shame on me if I support law enforcement, and particularly if I am critical of this unwarranted payment of reparations.
11. Gender.  If someone self-identifies as a member of the opposite sex, I should feel terrible about making him/her use the public restroom intended for his/her anatomical birth gender.  Indeed, abuse of gender identity is now illegal in San Francisco.  Moreover, today, the presumption of innocence no longer applies to allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination.
12. Ethnicity.  I am white, so I cannot help discriminating against people of color.  I can never really understand people of color.  My whiteness makes me blind to racism, and if by chance I am privileged, shame on me for that.  The color of my skin brands me as a racist, period.

And the list goes on and on….  To be perfectly clear, I know I am guilty of a few things.  I will not bore you with my list of self-identified shortcomings.  My confession is of no particular interest to you, I am sure.  But, the point of this whole discourse is that I do not feel guilty about much of what I am told I should feel guilty about today – I just don’t!  And, I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about not feeling guilty, either!  Moreover, I am getting a bit weary of the unwarranted use of the “blame game” to achieve social objectives – one result of which is a ferocity of class warfare, the likes of which I have never seen before.

Where wrongs exist, they need to be highlighted and righted.  But, where blame is unjustifiably directed in every-which direction 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, that simply needs to stop.  “Not guilty”, your honor!