IMPROVISATION

                                                                   IMPROVISATION

     Writing presents challenges – what story to tell? in what order?  what to emphasize?  It’s hard.  It can be frustrating.  But at least it’s done in private.  One can take one’s time, revise, work it out or, failing that, quit.  Imagine being an improv performer or jazz musician, needing to access ideas in front of a live audience.

     I’m way cooler today, more “with it” than I was last week.  I attended a jazz club over the weekend.  And it wasn’t Dixieland or watered-down Herb Alpert-type jazz.  It was the real deal, largely unmelodic and untethered to conventional timing.  Three performers appeared before about fifty audience members on a stage in a dimly-lit space in a warehouse-like building in Durham.  Very noir.  There was a pianist, a bassist and a drummer.  They wore sunglasses and hats even though it was dark and we were inside.  They played together.  I know they were collaborating because each piece began with a barely perceptible nod from the bassist, and each piece finished at the same moment, when he subtly caught the others’ eyes again and stilled his hands.

     In between, it seemed to me, a classical music afficionado, like total chaos.  First one riffed, then another.  Then they handed the reins to the third.  And, so it went.  Audience members more cutting-edge than I kept time with their toes, or moved their heads knowingly.  A look of pure ecstasy on the faces of the performers, who SEEMED to be making it up as they went along, but who were probably not, matched the expressions of many folks around the room.

     As to me, while I completely admired and appreciated the artistry, skill and inventiveness of the performers, I didn’t really “get it.”  I wondered when the cacophony might end.  I furtively checked my watch.

     Musical tastes are highly subjective.  I imagine they are formed by some combination of background, childhood exposure, subsequent experiences and temperament.  Who knows?!  What I do know is:  I came, I heard, and I failed to conquer.  Apparently, I am STILL not cool.

POST-PANDEMIC RESTAURANT DINING

                                                   

     It’s been nearly four years since the world shut down for Covid.  I remember enjoying our last restaurant meal in 2020 before the shutdown around March 10.  My wife, Katie, and I joined another couple for Indian food in Durham and, concerned with news reports, asked to sit as far from other tables as possible.  We also refused water glasses touched by the waiter and drank from our own bottle instead.  I guess we seemed nutty in that moment.  A week later, we seemed clairvoyant.  Now, four years later, who knows?  

     In fits and starts, we resumed dining out in mid-2021, then on and off for another year or so, following the vicissitudes of viral surges.  With mild weather in North Carolina, we took full advantage of outdoor dining options.  Now, in 2024, a return to indoor dining is relatively complete.  However, the experience is changed in numerous ways.

     First, the prices.  Somehow, breakfast now costs what lunch used to cost; lunch costs what dinner used to cost; and, dinner costs what a week’s groceries used to cost.  And tips?  We formerly paid fifteen-eighteen percent.  Now, we feel like cheapskates if we don’t leave twenty.  And twenty-five-thirty percent is not unheard of if the server presents a compelling personal story, e.g., “I’m saving up money to resume my courses in environmental science, or dog grooming, or early education at Chatham County Community College.”  

     The other way to earn a thirty percent tip from us is to provide “great service,” defined as remembering to leave out the onions when clearly told “no onions” in the salad and/or, cheerily agreeing AND REMEMBERING to bring an iced tea that is half sweetened and half unsweetened and, who doesn’t roll his or her eyes when we refuse a straw.  All the foregoing requests are achieved in our experience, about fifty percent of the time.  I’m sure it used to be better!

                                                            *****

     Another change in our restaurant experience is our relationship with fellow diners.  Formerly, we paid little attention to the tables around us.  Now, we at least subconsciously gravitate towards the emptier regions of a restaurant and feel claustrophobic if all the surrounding tables are occupied.  If a person at a nearby table coughs, we used to barely notice.  Now, one cough earns a glance, a second a glare and a third, a downright death-stare, followed by a feverish (no pun intended) survey of the room to see if there’s a safe table to move to.

                                                            *****

     How awful it must be to own a restaurant!  Even before the pandemic we felt like jinxes to half the restaurants we enjoyed.  Few survived our enthusiastic patronage.  Half the remaining ones disappeared between 2020 and the present.  New ones come and go before we can even try them.  Or, like a brand new Popeyes around the corner, which we thought we’d enjoy as a fast-food alternative to the politically conservative-inclined Chick-Fil-A, they turn out to be so terrible in terms of food, service, and atmosphere, that the latter retains our business.  (Good waffle fries and clean and friendly service outweigh social concepts like marriage equality, right?  I’d like to say “no,” but….)

                                                            *****

          With all those concerns, it’s a wonder we ever brave the anxiety.  Yet, it’s one of life’s pleasures to occasionally eat somewhere DIFFERENT and to each be able to sample whatever appeals to us individually and not to have to prepare and clean up.  It’s to be hoped the inflationary challenges relent and our now-baked-in leeriness of other diners and servers subsides.  After all, what American isn’t feeling better and better about the wisdom and judgment of fellow citizens these days as we round into election season?  

     Oops.

CRISIS OF COMPETENCE

                                         CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE IN COMPETENCE

     I’ve been around for over sixty years and realize, pondering the state of the world today, that my confidence in the foundations of government institutions grew for the first half of those years and has eroded steadily ever since.  This week’s calamity in Israel has ended my sense that someone, somewhere, is still on the job and competent.

     The mid-1950’s were a cheery time to be born in America, particularly if one were Caucasian.  The Second World War had recently ended and was fought and won for a just cause, the economy seemed boundless, and technologies were transforming everyday life for the good, e.g., appliances for the kitchen and laundry, dependable and safe cars, cheap consumer goods aplenty.

     The first president in my consciousness was Kennedy, handsome and young, eloquent in speech and bearing.  His assassination hinted at some insanity beneath society’s surface, but the new president was sworn in, institutions held strong, and, surprisingly, Lyndon Johnson succeeded beyond expectations in realms like civil rights and poverty reduction. 

     The 1960’s ended with turmoil, more assassinations, and the venal-seeming (to my family, at least) Nixon in charge.  But when he met his Waterloo at Watergate, once again, the institutions performed.  Public hearings illuminated what had happened, his own political party eventually agreed he’d behaved unacceptably and Nixon, hardly a paragon of virtue, resigned from office rather than drag the country through the trauma of his impeachment.

     In Israel, a country I admired in parallel with our own, the Six-Day War of 1967 bolstered my sense of security and pride.  Even a small democracy, given enough technology and motivation, could defend itself and even defeat much larger enemies.  I could check Israel off the list of places to worry about.  They had the smartest army in the world.  They had the Mossad, the world’s preeminent security service!

                                                            *****

     Repeated oil shocks shook the foundation of America’s economy in the mid-late 1970’s.  Yes, we had “malaise,” but no one thought the country would not survive.  We were still “The United States of America,” not some third-world backwater.  In 1980, the sunnily disposed Ronald Reagan became president and everyone seemed happy again.  His Trojan Horse containing ultra-conservative policies served with a smile, the real estate and stock markets boomed, and “happy days were here again,” as they say.  Again, the party was interrupted by a market crash in 1987 and a few recessionary years thereafter, but did I fear for the country?  Not at all.  If one is middle class and educated, like me, why worry about some inequality-inducing tax cuts and the promise of “trickle down” to mollify the masses?

     My personal second half arrived with the new millennium.  Again, new technologies, this time primarily in computing, were making life easier or, at least, more “connected.”  Though stocks and real estate still had their periodic crashes and slow recoveries, it was a fine time to be raising children in suburbia.  Life consisted of a great marriage, great kids, and lots and lots of soccer games.  Who had time to worry?  Sure, the Supreme Court probably stole the 2000 election, a hint of what was to come.  However, Al Gore and his party chose not to continue to fight, again “for the good of the country.”

     Alas, my mental comfort zone was cleaved on September 11, 2001.  First, the sense that oceans prevented an attack on American soil, which I’d internalized since around third grade, was pierced.  Second, even worse, our government and its panoply of security operatives, failed to “connect the dots.”  There was a total failure, followed by an overreaction that landed us in a twenty-year quagmire, just what I thought we’d learned to avoid from the Vietnam experience.

     We muddled along to survive the Bush years, humiliated ourselves with torturing POWs, and even entered “The Great Recession,” a seeming mandatory end to Republican administrations presided over by amiable dunces.   Obama won in 2008 against a decent human being, John McCain (though insanity to come was let out of Pandora’s Box in the form of his running mate, Palin, the apotheosis of willful ignorance in politics as a virtue), and America’s march to progress SEEMED to be on the move again.

     Within a year, however, the Koch-funded “Tea Party” began its racist and nihilistic campaign and the country began to fracture.  For the first time, I became acutely aware of the political leanings of neighbors and friends.  It immediately seemed like ancient history when, during the first fifty years of my life, or so, I had no idea which party dinner companions belonged to. 

      By the end of the Obama years, my faith in various institutions, was shaken, namely: The Supreme Court was shown by McConnell to be a wholly partisan enterprise.  He didn’t even bother to pay lip service to the concept that it was above politics when he denied Obama his Garland pick.  Next, the Congress, an institution I’d idolized as a child, and tolerated as an adult, seemed incompetent to pass budgets and avoid shutdowns.  Is there any other country in the world as incompetent as ours when it comes to funding its government?  With the advent of cable television, it had truly become what someone once called “Hollywood for ugly people.”  Finally, the US military, an organization that had seemed above the fray, began to fray.  First, the useless decades in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed the 2001 disaster;  then allowing itself to become politicized in the tRump years (though Milley has admitted he made a mistake accompanying the Menace across the street to show off his upside-down bible).

     I’m certainly not the only person to see January 6, 2021 as a sort of culmination of horror for American institutions.  We all know what we saw.  We all know who instigated it.  The nation barely survived.  Yet, Congress and the corrupt Clarence Thomas-Samuel Alito Supreme Court continue to whack at the foundations of any person’s belief that “our system” is sound.

     And, finally, there is this week in Israel.  The same security organization that brought us the Capture of Eichmann in the 1960’s, who systematically assassinated every 1972 Munich terrorist over a period of years, who rescued the airplane from the Entebbe Airport, who helped develop the Stuxnet computer virus to slow Iranian bomb development, who peddled Pegasus around the world to help tyrants and dictators (and a few good guys somewhere, I hope). Yes, those brilliant, shrewd and ruthless people who inspired “The Spy” (a fabulous Netflix series about penetrating the Syrian government), whose alumni are hired around the world to protect oligarchs.  Yes, THE MOSSAD!  Even THEY have been proven completely incompetent.  A collection of sociopaths on hang gliders penetrated the most secure country on earth, in my FORMER understanding, and slaughtered civilians.  Now war ensues.  I hope it does not consume the entire region or even the entire world.  But I am no longer confident.  Is anyone still competent?

STELLA

                                                            STELLA

     Stella no longer exists, physically.  She’s a memory, a feeling, a being who once was part of our daily lives and no longer is.  She is gone, but definitely not forgotten.

                                                            *****

     We picked up Stella on March 26, 2013.  To do so, we drove from North Carolina to Ridgewood, NJ in order to rendezvous with her breeder who’d traveled from Vermont with a carload of cocker spaniel puppies.  Half were black and white, the other half brown and orange, including Stella.  Reflecting my own weakness for sugar, I chose to describe her as mocha and caramel.

     Stella was an adorable puppy (what puppy isn’t?).  In our excitement, we lost her water bowl at the first rest-stop on the trip home, the sound of I-95 roaring past.  The next morning, back in Chapel Hill, we introduced Stella to our daughter, Sarah.

                                                            *****

     Stella was obtained as a gift to Sarah, in fulfillment of a promise, namely:  if Sarah were to move back from Wilmington, NC, where she’d graduated from college six months earlier, to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, where we lived, we’d get her a puppy.  We felt her job opportunities would be better.  Sarah’s initial reaction to our offer was unenthused, but a week later, she agreed.  Thus did Stella first play a crucial role in Sarah’s life.  Later, Stella was indispensable in Sarah’s first date with Matthew, who eventually became her husband.  It’s our understanding the two co-workers were intrigued at first sight, but needed a spur.  Stella inspired them to go on a “doggie date” with Matt’s dog, Boris.

                                                            *****

     Stella’s head in my lap; leaning in to being combed by my wife, Katie; waiting anxiously for medicine disguised as treats and sometimes catching them, Stella playing fetch, but never more than two throws – not a stellar athlete, alas; Stella laying in the middle of the staircase because I am downstairs and Katie is up.

     Stella listening at the sewer grates for frogs; her tail wagging at almost each new encounter with a person or a dog; greeting house guests as long-awaited friends, then settling down to enjoy the company in whatever room we humans settled; padding her front paws on the floor anticipating being petted; patiently being walked by five-year-old Henry and even by two-year-old Layla; clambering up to the couch to cover Katie’s legs with her head and paws.

                                                            *****

     Sarah and Stella continued to live with us in Chapel Hill until late June, 2013, when Sarah moved to a condo in Raleigh.  During those months, when Sarah went to work, I walked Stella numerous times a day.  We sat for hours on the front porch and watched the world go by.  She was 95% “house-trained” when she arrived, 100% when they moved.  The earliest walks with Stella revolved around playing with pine cones.  Though she couldn’t often get her little puppy mouth around them, Stella never gave up.  She exuded equanimity and calm.  I felt Stella imprinted on me, like a baby goose to its mother, during those quiet walks and long, languid sits.  In retrospect, maybe it was I who imprinted on her.

                                                            *****

     Stella raced to greet us each morning, sometimes missing a step in her excitement; she leaned greedily into a vigorous noogie; she staked out her spot under the kitchen table during our meals, always calculating the most likely spot for a falling morsel; she rushed to rest and cool down on the granite hearth after warm weather walks; she eagerly consumed her meals, but looked up thoughtfully while she chewed, seeming to savor every mouthful.

                                                            *****

     After Sarah moved to her own home, so that Stella would not be alone all day, Sarah enrolled her in half-day doggie daycare.  Missing her, Katie and I volunteered to visit each Wednesday afternoon and keep her company.  We took long walks around the neighborhood or at the local park.  Stella revealed some tiny vestige of her ancient wolf ancestors when Halloween approached; she growled, barked and shrieked at plastic skeletons or similar decorations, especially the blow-up figures that moved with the wind.  On another route, she attacked two stone figurines shaped to resemble lions.  We were well protected.

     After Sarah married and moved into a house, we continued to visit one afternoon each week.  We added Matt’s dog, Boris, to our walks.  An amiable hundred-pound black lab mix, Boris made a comical combination with twenty-five-pound Stella, but they enjoyed each other’s company and daycare was no longer necessary.

     In 2018, our grandson, Henry, was born.  Any concern that Stella might not appreciate competition for Sarah’s attention proved unnecessary.  Stella seemed fascinated with the baby, following Sarah to check on him if he cried, or sitting patiently on the floor or couch beside Sarah as she cared for him.  We speculated that Stella would have been an amazing mother, loving and calm, if she’d ever had the chance.

                                                            *****

     Around this time, as a middle-aged dog, Stella began to itch and lick more than usual.  She’d developed allergies, particularly to grass.  As if she understood her own condition, Stella avoided walking on grass as much as possible.  Still, she required various medicines to keep physically and mentally comfortable.  Increasingly often, Sarah needed to take her to the dermatology department at NC State University.  These appointments took hours and gobs of money and resulted in testing that revealed Stella was resistant to almost all the usual treatments.  Skin issues are common with cocker spaniels, but Stella’s difficulties were extraordinary.

     Shortly after our granddaughter, Layla, was born, in late 2020, Sarah found managing her job, her household, and the dog-walking and the medicines required by Stella to be overwhelming.  After all, unlike Boris, Stella could not just go out to the yard – the grass allergy wouldn’t allow it – she had to be walked by her human.  With deep sadness that we now understand more than ever, Sarah asked if Stella could live with us.  Though we’d always resisted having a dog of our own, considering the individual, we readily agreed.

     The adjustment to fulltime dog parenting took several months, however.  The worst was disrupted sleep since Stella was a bed-hog.  Once she settled in her spot, typically at a most inconvenient space between our legs, she still scratched and licked enough to keep us up.  Also, the routines of early-morning walks and late evening walks, though pleasant most of the time, were less-than-enjoyable as a 365-day commitment.  After all, sometimes it’s hot and sometimes it’s rainy and sometimes… a human just wants to sleep in.

     We resolved the sleep problem after several months by consigning Stella to a luxurious sort of dog crate, the downstairs bedroom in our house.  She howled like a baby during sleep-training for three nights but then settled into the new routine, seemingly satisfied.  We ALL slept better.

                                                            *****

     Stella’s “meds” sometimes overwhelmed us, too, especially when some acted as a diuretic and required her walks to become even more frequent.  Fortunately, Katie and I had the time to attend to her.  We developed some wonderful routines, such as:  the weekly walk at the Tobacco Trail in Durham, where she pranced like a puppy, sniffing happily; Stella leading the way on the “State Farm” walk, a destination to an office building near our home that she particularly enjoyed; cheerfully raising each of her paws to be wiped clean after each walk in an attempt to battle allergies; leaning in to being combed as though she knew the dry skin needed to be removed; excitedly taking her place in a “doggie car seat” when we’d drive to her other favorite walk, around the lake at a nearby community.

     At the suggestion of our son, Sam, we bought a raised 3’ x 4’ platform for Stella to sit on in front of our house. That way, she could sit outside unleashed, sniffing the air to her heart’s content, but not touching the grass.  Stella immediately loved the contraption and jumped to attention every time she saw us move towards the door with it.  Our neighbors rarely failed to smile when they saw the little “princess” gazing at them from her “throne.”  Several who professed to dislike or fear dogs told us that Stella was the one exception.

                                                            *****

     After Stella’s tenth birthday, in January, she seemed to slow down.  As predicted by the veterinarians, years of prednisone and several steroids were sapping her energy.  Stella began to eat less; she slept behind furniture more often, where we could not see her; she became less inclined to climb up on our laps, though she still did occasionally.  A patch of alopecia grew on her back like an unwelcome stain.  She didn’t always wake up from a nap to greet us when we arrived home.  And her licking and scratching increased.

     When a large rash covered Stella’s tummy, we took her to NC State once again.  The prescribed medicine was slow to work.  We took her to a local vet after several weeks to ask if the formerly red spots, now brown, were still of concern.  The vet initially encouraged us, opining that the rash in question was now inactive.  However, looking at her records and general health, she felt Stella was suffering, notwithstanding her continued sweetness (except when she dug all four paws into the pavement, to not be dragged away from a good smell).  The end was recommended.  “Better to be a month or two early than late,” she said.

     This recommendation shocked us.  Obviously, pets’ lifetimes are relatively short.  And Stella was no youngster.  But… In a daze of sadness, we took Stella to see Sarah’s family one more time during the ensuing weekend.  She reached up to Sarah and Matt in greeting, as always; she sniffed Boris like an old friend; she sat on the floor while Layla and Henry built a pillow fort around her, a goddess of good-natured patience.

                                                            *****

     Two days later, Stella’s last nighttime walk lasted an hour longer than the usual fifteen minutes.  She sat down at the corner of Barbee Road and Route 54 and watched the traffic.  She’d never done that before.  After fifteen minutes, I gently directed her towards our house.  However, she pulled towards the State Farm building, a destination we’d never visited at night.  I went along.  She sat there for a while, listening to traffic and sniffing.  When we resumed walking and had nearly returned home, she sat down again, unmoving, adjacent to the pond across the street from our house, and listened to a symphony of singing frogs, her frenemies.  I recalled the first time she’d approached one on the sidewalk.  She stared at it for a moment, then moved in to sniff it, at which point the frog jumped.  Stella leapt two feet in the opposite direction.  After that, her philosophy regarding amphibians became “live and let live.” 

      We remained still for fifteen minutes.  What was she thinking?  What was she sensing?  Finally, after Katie phoned to make sure we were okay, I pulled Stella towards home. 

THE NEWS IS UNWATCHABLE

                                                         THE NEWS IS UNWATCHABLE

     I did not watch the evening news for years after November, 2016.  In the wake of the “shocking” election result, I asked myself, “Why watch pundits and experts pontificate when it is obvious none of them know anything?”  I also could not stomach the focus on the malignant monster of Mar-a-Lago – not his laughable tan and hair, not his whiny voice, and not his pock-marked skin stretched over the omni-present Mussolini-like jutting jaw.

     I enjoyed the extra thirty minutes added to my evenings.  I didn’t miss the other stories either — the daily drone of weather or traffic disasters, official corruption and the treacly “happy” story designed to tug at the focus group-designed version of heartstrings.

     In January of 2021, however, I dipped my toe back in to televised news.  I was seduced by Jenn Psaki, Biden’s first press secretary, who exuded calm and competence.  After what went before, to call her performances “a breath of fresh air” understates my reaction.  I remained wary of network evening news, however, and watched PBS.  At least Judy Woodruff didn’t focus solely on the scandal du jour, tRump, or the daily once-in-a-century weather crisis; in a masochistic way, I prefer soporific dives into policy.

     Imagine my dismay, last week, when I failed to resist NBC’s broadcast on what I thought would be a memorable news day.  Three stories dominated:  once again, the omnipresent Orange Menace, this time for a federal indictment; the east coast choking on wildfire smoke; and, Natalee Holloway’s alleged killer being extradited from Peru to the US.

     As to the first, why is ANYONE wasting time and energy following the “story” of his indictment?  Here is how the situation is going to be resolve:  the cretinous tRump-appointed judge will let him stall the proceedings until after the 2024 election.  Then, either he will fail to be “president” again, in which case he is a spent political force, once and for all; or, he will be declared “president,” in which case he will pardon himself.  If some other Republican is inaugurated, they will pardon him.  There are no other choices.  No matter what, an 80-year-old “first-time offender,” who just happens to be a former “president” will not be jailed, no matter how satisfying that might be.  End of story.  Do not spend another moment on the subject.  Period.

     The second story was unhealthy air for tens of millions of North Americans due to wildfires.  Lester Holt related this as a weather story.  A bad situation, yes, but one that will resolve in several days.  Just a matter of a shift of the wind….  This maddens me.  Out-of-control wildfires in the wilds of Canada before the official “fire season” has even begun is a hugely important story.  It should be presented like Pearl Harbor for the whole world, as though Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were insufficient to make the point.  

     Government, industry and, yes INDIVIDUALS need to own this situation.  Make changes, make sacrifices (sorry to be un-American) and deal with this.  Don’t blame China and India.  If the US leads, they will follow.  Studies show, to my shock, that no, people do not “care” much about the world they will leave their grandchildren.  If something is not “relevant” to a short time frame, the human tendency to discount the future is huge.  Likewise, our politicians only think in terms of two, four or six years.  But these fires and their smoke are happening NOW, affecting US, not only our grandchildren, though they will certainly be a large part of their lives.  This story cannot wait!  This story should dominate every day!  Did Lester Holt say that?  No, because he had to cut to the breaking developments in the crucially important story of, wait for it…. Natalee Holloway!

     Yes, valuable broadcast minutes were allotted to the sordid tale of a 2005 murder because Peru finally agreed to extradite the likely perpetrator to face “justice.”  Would this be a story if Natalee Holloway had not been blond and blue-eyed?  Of course not.  Every day, an average of 120 Americans die from gun violence.  However, that story is never told except in fits and starts, whenever there is a mass murder or the killing of photogenic college students.

     I feel sorry for Natalee and for her loved ones.  A terrible thing happened to her.  But her story is not NEWS.  And the “justice” to be meted out to her sociopathic-looking killer is unnecessary in this instance because he is already serving a 28-year sentence in a Peruvian prison for a murder he committed in Lima.  Why not let him continue to rot there?  Perhaps he could be placed in a cell with a few cartel members who are informed he’s a sexual predator.  That would elicit justice.

     Instead, we will spend millions of taxpayer dollars to transport him to the United States and trudge him through our turgid “justice” system.  Thereafter, we will spend millions more dollars to jail him in conditions probably much-improved over whatever he is experiencing in Peru!

     That’s it.  I’m done with network news again.  Perhaps I will succumb to temptation in 2025 if our democratic system survives 2024 and if the air in front of my own eyes doesn’t already tell me everything I need to know about the condition and future of mankind.

                                                            Signed,

                                                            A Curmudgeon who is Losing his Patience

NIMBY COMES HOME

                                                NIMBY COMES HOME

     The homelessness situation, typically referred to as a “crisis,” is much in the news.  Cities and states struggle with what to do and who is to pay.  Cable television waxes hysterical.  Regular folks (like me?) are ambivalent about the issue.  I support a humane, just solution for people in dire straits, but I also sympathize with storeowners who cannot conduct business near an encampment or pedestrians and motorists who feel threatened on the streets.  Homeless individuals cannot be painted with a broad brush of moral shortcomings and criminality.  However, to the extent addiction and/or desperation is endemic in the population, it is naïve to think crime and chaos are not more prevalent around them.

                                                            *****

     Having lived my adult life as a homeowner in prosperous suburbia, I have not experienced the homeless issue personally.  However, my wife, Katie, and I purchased a second home last year in east-central Massachusetts to facilitate visits to our son’s home near Boston and our daughter’s second home in upstate New York.  This second home of ours is now in the vortex of the homelessness storm.

     Let me explain:  our Massachusetts condo is located in an over 55 community nestled amidst beautiful rolling hills adjacent to a sparkling lake.  The development presently has 250 newly-constructed homes in five 50-unit buildings and will ultimately have 700 units in fourteen buildings.

     Why was a wonderful 400-acre parcel available for condo development in densely populated Massachusetts?  The site was formerly the State mental hospital and also home to wayward boys and orphans.  It’s numerous large, brick buildings housed thousands of patients and juveniles, respectively, over decades ranging from about 1870 to the mid-1970’s.  Many of the State buildings were razed before our construction commenced, but six still stand and are actively used by the MA social services department.  These red brick behemoths ring the borders of our property.  I’m told it took a decade of negotiations between the State, the local town and our developer, to finally approve our development — an over 55 community satisfied the local desire to obtain significant tax revenue without adding an influx of school-age children.

                                                            *****

     When Katie and I first saw the site, we inquired about the use of the institutional buildings surrounding it.  

     “Those are social workers’ offices,” said the salesperson.  “They sometimes see outpatients but mostly just pass paper.”

     “But some of the buildings are forbidding,” we noted.  “They have fences and barbed wire around them.”

     “Yes,” said the agent.  “But there are only 10-12 juvenile in-patients left in just one of the buildings.  The buildings are largely empty.  There’s not anything to be concerned about.”

      Well, eighteen months later, the homeless “crisis” has deepened and Massachusetts is grasping for solutions.  Apparently, someone thought of the massive, State-owned, underutilized buildings around our complex.  Now, one building is being converted from office space to housing.  As it happens, that building is closest to our community, in general, and looms over our swimming pool, in particular.  It’s fenced-in (with barbed wire) and floodlit yard is just one hundred yards from two of our completed buildings though not particularly close to our unit.

                                                            *****

     How do we feel about this situation, insulated as we are by our building’s relative distance from the likely “shelter,” and the fact we are only present about ten weeks a year?  The year-around residents are abuzz with rumors and debates, not unlike what happens when a hornet’s nest is kicked.

     The first reactions I saw were on-line and uniformly negative.  Residents railed against the developer for not guarding against this possibility or, at least, warning about it.  Now that it is apparently happening, some demand, among other things, significant fencing, lighting and security cameras.  A few want armed guards.  Many protested to the mayor and local representatives though it is my understanding the town and developer have no say, whatsoever, in how the State uses its buildings.

     Before we arrived for our most recent three-week visit, the rumor mill variously described the characteristics of our likely new neighbors on line, as follows:

1. Hundreds of homeless and/or undocumented single men;
2. Single parent households with multiple children;
3. Non-English-speaking refugees awaiting sponsors; 
4. Recently released prisoners in need of half-way housing; and
5. All of the above.

     Upon arrival, however, I encountered a more divided and nuanced reaction.  A substantial number of residents perceive the new neighbors as an opportunity to do good, namely:

1. Tutor young children;
2. Teach music, art and drama;
3. Provide job and parenting mentoring; and
4.  All of the above.

     Surprising to me, a majority of the “men’s group,” which includes a number of retired and near-retired teachers and social workers, are itching to help.  Conversely, a substantial number of single women in the community, in particular, (obviously with exceptions in both male and female cohorts) are negative due to fear of crime. Basically, the lines are drawn on the issue of more fencing, the “do-gooders” see a positive mission of engagement and loath the idea of stigmatizing our new neighbors, while opponents argue the homeless will destroy our property values, endanger our residents and, more specifically, decry the “likelihood” their kids will invade our swimming pool after hours, maraud around our community on bicycles and will, in general, wreak havoc.

                                                            *****

     Who’s right?  The most recent information disseminated by community representatives is based on discussions with local and State representatives.  The latter are said to have spoken with levels of knowledge on the full spectrum between complete ignorance and total certainty, but generally indicated there will only be approximately twenty intact families, fully vetted, living on one floor of one building.  That took the wind out of the sails of the naysayers… for a day or two.  Then the questions began circulating, as follows: 

1. What if the homeless population keeps expanding?
2. What if the State views this limited placement as a “success” and chooses to expand the program?
3. What if (pick a catastrophe)?

                                           *****

     What, finally, is my position?  Child and grandchild of immigrants that I am, I’m inclined towards the liberal, more hopeful view of the situation.  However, I’m also aware of the definition of a conservative, by some, as “a liberal who has been mugged.”  Not having personally experienced an assault, am I just naïve? 

     For perspective, I look back to my parents, both of whom were mugged at different times in the 1990’s in Philadelphia.  My father’s head was bloodied, and his wedding ring stolen; my mother’s pocketbook was stripped from her arm, her shoulder permanently injured in the fracas. Most likely, their assailants belonged to the impoverished, if not homeless, strata of society.  Either or both of my parents could have become embittered.  Certainly, each felt disdain, or worse, for the individuals who accosted them.  However, they didn’t let the experience cloud their overall views.  They continued to vote for the more humane of our political parties, to support the right of all people to live in any and every neighborhood. 

     With appreciation for my parents’ moral consistency and admittedly with the luxury of our limited presence at our second home, I’m coming down in favor of this use of the State property.   There must be some little kid who needs help in tennis or pong pong or soccer…. 

HAPPY CAMPER

                                                         

     I thought there might be another adult or two.  At least, that’s what the club director told me to expect when I’d signed up for a week of summer table tennis camp at Triangle Badminton and Table Tennis (hereinafter TBTT) in Morrisville, NC.  However, when I arrived that fateful Monday morning, I appeared to be the oldest camper by half a century.  For sure, no other participant had driven himself to camp; many had a parent or two hovering nearby to make sure they signed in properly and remembered their paddle, water bottle and lunch bag.  Me?  I was on my own.

     The instructors, twenty-one-year-old twin brothers Gal and Sharon Alguetti, originally from Israel, gathered us near the tables promptly at 9 a.m.  There were eighteen participants, the youngest about eight, the second oldest perhaps fifteen.  About half were boys and half were girls.  Several appeared surprised to realize I was a camper, not a volunteer assistant from an old-age home.

     “This week you will learn about consistency,” announced Gal, while Sharon stood beside him nonchalantly balancing a ball on the edge of his paddle.  His act was, at once, distracting, mesmerizing and totally amazing. These guys, who the camp fliers noted are the sixth and eighth highest ranked players in America, are freakishly well coordinated.

                                                            *****

     Ping pong has long been part of my life.  Like many mid-twentieth-century Americans, I grew up in a house with a table in the basement.  More used by my mother for laundry than for play, it still hosted spirited games with my brothers as well as occasional friends.  Our equipment was basic – the “pimple” paddles that came in a set with the net, and balls that cracked more easily than eggshells and had the uncanny ability to hide behind furniture and appliances like skittish kittens.

     Thanks to playing with older siblings and also to practicing against a wall on my own, by high school, I was considered pretty good.  Of course, the concept of having an entire facility devoted to the sport, with thirty-five tables, as well as coaches, specialized rubbers on either side of the paddles, camps, tournaments and the like, was still decades away.  I’d never played with a person from Asia until law school in the early 1980’s; at TBTT in 2022, I represent a small and shrinking minority.

                                                            *****

     Before we could do the first drill, Gal announced, we would spend twenty minutes conditioning and stretching.  Not the same as taking the stairs at home a few times a day or the movement involved in a tennis match, this was actual RUNNING.  I hadn’t run a half-mile in decades.  Yet, here we were commencing ten laps around the facility.  And some of these laps included skipping, wind milling arms and sliding sideways.  We were led by the highest-ranked players among us: Carla Wu, Leah Wong and Tyler Zhang, who presently are the second and third-ranked 13-14-year-olds in the country and the number one ranked ten-year-old, respectively.   I immediately assumed my place at the back of the pack.  Mentally cuing up the theme from Chariots of Fire, and fighting the constant urge to cut corners (sometimes losing the fight) I managed to complete all the laps and proudly strode last into the stretching circle while everyone else was completing the first of ten exercises. 

                                                            *****

     Talking with Gal and Sharon during a water break, I learned how difficult it is to star in a non-mainstream sport.  Though members of the “national team,” and Olympic hopefuls, the brothers receive minimal funding, largely consisting of travel costs and occasional training sessions.  Their equipment, consisting of shoes, shirts and paddles, is provided by sponsors.  However, prize money from tournaments is minimal, certainly not enough to make a “living.”  Thus, they spend their summers away from college at Indiana University, teaching camps. 

     “How does it look for 2024?” I asked Sharon.

     “It’s tough,” he said.  “There are only four spots allotted to North American and the Caribbean.  And the top players from the US and Canada usually have freshly printed ink on their passports.”

     In other words, Chinese exports are not limited to consumer goods.  

     “Our best chance was in 2016,” added Gal.  “I was an alternate.”

     “You were fifteen years old,” I said.

     “Yep,” he agreed.  

     Apparently, gymnastics isn’t the only sport where one’s “prime” and one’s puberty are fairly closely associated.

                                                            *****

     After stretching (a wonderfully non-aerobic activity) the coaches paired us for the first drill.  We were assigned two to a table along a row of nine tables to hit cross court forehands for ten minutes, then backhands, then take turns looping (think lots of spin) while our partner blocked (a flat return to a predetermined location).  The coaches strode behind us offering corrections and suggestions.  “Don’t stand straight up.  Keep your chest forward,” said Gal.  “Follow through to the target,” said Sharon.  “You go a little sideways.”

     The rhythmic popping of ping pong balls hitting paddles and shoe rubber squeaking on floorboards resounded.  I concentrated so hard I almost forgot it was 80 degrees and humid inside TBTT on this 95-degree North Carolina day.  The next drill was a little more involved, with shots targeted from forehand to middle to backhand to middle, and so on.  Eventually, after cooperating with one’s partner to hit at least twelve rally balls, you could “play out the point.”  Yet, I knew not to play these points with game-like intensity because, well, you need your hitting partner’s respect and goodwill.  In other words, don’t act like a ten-year-old, even if you are playing with a ten-year-old. Don’t be “that guy.”

                                                            *****

     We switched partners several times during the three-hour session.  My first partner, Sara, played a straightforward game.  Her rubber was “normal” and she hit a standard mix of topspin, backspin and straight shots.  But my second partner, Xinwen, was a “chopper.”  That means he hit every ball with a maddening backspin.  He also used “pips” on one side of his paddle, and “long pips” on the other, meaning rubber surfaces that resembled the old “pimple” paddles of childhood in appearance, but with varied, more confounding rubber pips.  His goal was not to hit fast, but rather, to have you dump the ball into the net or pop it long in the futile effort to judge just how much backspin was coming.  As my blood pressure rose with each miss, it became more challenging to make the fine-motor adjustments necessary to return the ball on the table.  

     “This is good for you,” said Gal, laughing.

     Easy for him to say.  Gal then showed me several swing angles and techniques that might counteract various spins.  But all I could think is:  “Thank goodness most kids prefer to hit hard.  That I can handle.  If everyone ‘chopped,’ I’d quit.”

     After a few more drills and two more partners, I’d almost survived the first day.  The last activity consisted of playing games to 11, but starting with the scored tied 5-5.  “This will increase the pressure,” explained Sharon.  “You will quickly be at the end of the game.”  He was right.  In my experience, one can take an early lead, but in a game to 11, there is sufficient time to figure things out (a weak backhand or a strong serve, for example) and make adjustments.  However, essentially playing a game to 6, there is a premium on eliminating unforced errors, thus the theme of the camp: consistency.

                                                            *****

     I needed a nap after the first day.  Surely, I thought, I would not last the whole week.  Though I nearly “hit the wall” after Tuesday’s session, (shoulder feeling like dead weight, feet dragging, wrist announcing its presence during each point) each day thereafter seemed a little easier.  There was less anxiety about appearing out of place and out of shape.  While some of the kids surely found my presence in camp strange, most seemed to respect that my play was around the 60^th percentile of the group.  And they’ve all played in tournaments – one of the best aspects of of table tennis, in my opinion, is that participants’ ages range from about eight to eighty and gender is irrelevant.

     On the third day, the final competitive drill was to start at 10-10 and play out the game.  The winner must win by two points.  Therefore, total concentration is essential on each point.  The winner progresses up along the line of tables, and the loser goes down.  I stayed around the middle of the group except for one lucky streak that landed me near the pinnacle where I faced off against Carla.  She served first.  I lurched to get my paddle on the ball, but its spin exploded off my paddle at a forty-five degree angle.  “What just happened?” I wondered.  I served.  She blasted the ball past me in a blur.  Back down the line I headed.  So much for ping pong camp glory.

                                                            *****

     By the end of the week I felt my blocking had truly improved.  Several other aspects of my game probably improved as a result of daily repetition and its effect on muscle memory though I’d probably need ten more weeks to really be sure.  The highlight of the last day was to play five-minute-long games with the winners moving up and losers moving down.  I never reached the top but had played the nation’s best ten-year-old to a draw when the clock ran down.  A moral victory!

     Is it ridiculous to declare a moral victory over an opponent so vertically challenged?  Well, probably.  But while I have longer arms and more experience, he is much faster and his shots are naturally launched from a beneficial, lower angle.  My strategy was to tempt him with high, slow balls to his backhand (certainly not to his lethal forehand) and then block the resulting backhand loops to the opposite corner of the table where he couldn’t reach.  He wasn’t crying when we finished but he clearly was shook up.  Mental note to self:  do not play Tyler Zhang two years from now when he is several inches taller.  Revenge will surely be his….

Sportmanship

                                                           SPORTSMANSHIP

     Society prizes “good” sportsmanship.  When I coached youth soccer, coaching clinics always emphasized its importance.  For instance, we were encouraged to never allow a game to be decided by more than seven goals.   Profanity was not allowed.  The teams lined up to shake hands after the final whistle.

      My earliest lessons on sportsmanship took place at home.  At about eight, I witnessed my aunt fling the board across the room following a Scrabble defeat: clearly unacceptable.  I also knew of an opponent who hid an “S” in her hand throughout the game so she’d have it available in a crucial moment; also clearly wrong.  (Who knew Scrabble could be so treacherous?)

     However, baseball consumed most of my thoughts during the first decade of my life.  Through baseball I first encountered the moral question that confronts people on a constant basis, on issues big and small:  “Does the end justify the means?”   Then as now, the answer is often unclear.

                                                            *****

          What constitutes “good” sportsmanship evolves with society.  We’d be angered, for instance, to hear verbal abuse, based upon race or ethnicity that dominated professional sporting events in the first half of the twentieth century.  As shown in every recounting of Jackie Robinson’s career, athletes not only tolerated hateful speech, they often participated in it.  Yet, they also enforced a code of honor that’s now violated regularly.  For instance, imagine a football player dancing in the end zone following a touchdown in 1960.   The only question would have been who would beat him up first, the opposing team or his own. 

     A professional tennis player recently created controversy when she refused to shake hands and wish her opponent good luck before a match.  Her refusal represented a departure from tennis etiquette as old as tennis itself.  She said, in paraphrase:  “I’m trying to beat her.  I don’t want her to have good luck.  Why should I fake it?”  I found her honesty jarring.  Yet, it sort of makes sense. 

                                                            *****

      “We need a pitcher,” said my wife, Katie, as we prepared to host some friends for lunch, “for iced tea.”

     This quotidian statement dislodged a brain cell that hadn’t stirred since 1965.  I played second base on a summer Little League team named the Pirates.  Most of my teammates’ names are lost in the haze of memory.  However, I remember the excitement of Saturday mornings at the playground, the feel of the sunshine, the smell of fresh-cut grass, and the satisfying sounds of baseballs landing in leather mitts.  

     Creating a less satisfying sound, throughout the games, each team serenaded the opposing pitcher in a manner I can’t imagine being allowed nowadays:  “We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher.”  This taunt passed for wit among 8 and 9-year-olds.  Both teams employed the same chant, in the same teasing tone of voice, even if the opposing pitcher performed superbly; in that case, the losing team simply sounded more mean-spirited, more desperate.  (Picture Ted Cruz after an unfavorable judicial decision).

                                                            *****

     I lived for those games with the Pirates whose coach was Mr. Greenfield, a middle-aged man.  Almost unimaginably, in retrospect, he didn’t have a child on the team.  I don’t know if he even had children of his own.  He simply volunteered his time to coach other people’s kids.  Nowadays, sadly, I suspect we’d question his motives.  

     I wanted to play shortstop, the premier infield position, but I was consigned to second base.  Unfortunately, a kid named Scott played shortstop, and his seemingly advanced puberty made him our unquestioned star.  Hoping to be cool, I wore dark glasses on the field, even when it was cloudy.  When I batted, I held my bat at a jaunty angle, pointed down instead of up.  Bashful and retiring in every other aspect of life, I craved attention on the baseball field.

     Similarly, our team, consisting of a mostly nerdy bunch of Jewish kids from West Philadelphia, fashioned itself as stars, as though historical records were posted and the Pirates perennially topped the standings.  As an adult, I understand no one tracked historical records of Little League teams; I’m not even certain anyone tracked the standings at the time.  Drawing on his decades of experience, Mr. Greenfield simply excelled at making us feel good about ourselves.  

     The Angels, sponsored by St. Donato’s, the local Catholic Church, were the only opponents we feared.  They represented the mysterious “other.”  Since their players attended parochial school and my team attended public school, they were, indeed, unknown to us.  Objective facts recede to stereotypes and vagaries of memory, but my recollection is they appeared bigger and tougher than my teammates.  Their pitcher always inspired whispered speculation among my teammates:  “How old do you think he really is?”   

                                                            *****

     Following my two seasons under Mr. Greenfield’s direction, I aged out of the “minor league” and moved into the “major league” for ten and eleven-year-olds.  Mr. Greenfield remained with the younger players, and I worried if we couldn’t find another coach, the Pirates would disband.  I agonized.  I couldn’t sleep.

     Into the breach, like a savior, came my older brother, David, home from college for the summer.  Not only did he save the team, my own status rose:  Brother of the Coach!  To his credit, David didn’t practice nepotism.  I still played second base, subordinate to splendid Scott.  Yet, it was immensely satisfying to have David there; though the youngest coach in the league, by far, he had a firm grip on strategies and techniques.  He made practices fun, and we won nearly every game.  Crucially, David treated as many of us as could fit in his red Camaro to ice cream after wins.

                                                            *****

     The season proceeded routinely, as we whipped teams named the Mets and the Cubs and a team sponsored by an undertaker.  Boy, did that strike us funny!  We had no trouble beating a poor team wearing tee shirts instead of real uniforms and trounced a team drawn from a ritzy private school – they made us look tough, by comparison.  Looming in the last game, however, was St. Donato’s, with their big kids in their green-trimmed uniforms.  Even their coach was monster-sized!

     From the moment we arrived at the field, it was clear we were in trouble.  Their pitcher, who we speculated was growing a mustache, stood inches taller than our biggest player, Scott.  During warm-ups, we watched slack-jawed as he threw faster than anyone we’d ever seen.  Though only ten, I sensed the smug expression on St. Donato’s coach as he loomed over David in the pre-game meeting with the umpire.

     Once the game began, our pitching and defense performed well enough, but batting seemed hopeless.  We sat glumly between innings.  We didn’t dare taunt the pitcher with our chant.  From my first at-bat, I recall seeing his arm move and then hearing a thump in the catcher’s mitt behind me.  What had happened to the ball?  How fast was this supposed eleven-year-old throwing?  As the innings flew by, we’d only surrendered two runs, but we couldn’t get anyone on base.  How could we score?

     “Gather around,” said David, before our last at-bat.  “I have an idea.” 

     Following David’s instructions, though we were all right-handed, our first batter sidled up to the left side of the plate.  He crowded into the space just inches from the plate.  As a final touch, he crouched so tightly that his strike zone, the area between his knees and chest, compressed to just a few inches.

     The pitcher looked confused.  Left-handed batters were rare.  He threw his first pitch in the dirt.  The next pitch flew over the catcher’s head.

     “Hey ump,” shouted St. Donato’s head coach.  “That kid’s not left-handed!”

     The umpire shrugged:  “It’s not illegal.”

     “How close to the plate can he get?” asked the coach.

     “As close as he wants,” said the umpire, “so long as he’s in the batting box.”

     Our first batter walked.  Our second batter took the same left-handed crouch and took first base after four more pitches missed the tiny strike zone.

     “Hey,” shouted the coach.  “You gotta call some of these strikes!  They’re bending over.  This isn’t fair.”

     The umpire turned to David, who shrugged innocently.   David said to us:  “Hey, how ‘bout some life around here!”

     We started our chant:  “We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher!”

     The pitcher glared at us with anger, despair and humiliation.  He walked the next batter to load the bases and plunked the next batter with a pitch in the thigh to score a run.  By this time, in his fruitless effort to throw strikes, he threw so slowly the kid who was hit barely flinched before heading to first base.  

     “We want a pitcher….”  “We want a pitcher….”
      Shaking his head, St. Donato’s coach walked to the mound to calm his star, who may have been his son, and we saw the kid wipe his eyes.  After a moment’s discussion, the coach signaled he was replacing the big pitcher, who was now sobbing.  Scott was our next batter.  He hit the reliever’s first pitch for a double and we won the game.

                                                            *****

     Was it the right thing to do?  Was it good sportsmanship?  Did the end justify the means?  I know this:  we celebrated that day without any ambivalence, the day our David helped us beat Goliath.

A POLEMIC

                                                              A POLEMIC

   Nearly every person I know would answer: “Yes,” if asked if they are concerned about the environment.  Some even embrace the title: “environmentalist.” But beyond an occasional financial contribution and the use of reusable shopping bags when they remember to take them from the car, how many actually DO something about it?  The post below contains no nuance.  The resulting screed will strike some readers as self-righteous.  They may even conclude it is hectoring or a claim to be “holier than thou.”  It’s all those things, and more.   It is a call to action!

                                                            *****

          A beautiful moon lit my recent evening walk.  Low in the sky, it was a full, stunning ball of crimson.   To quote Procol Harum (why not?) the moon is usually a whiter shade of pale.  “Why is it red?” I wondered, alarmed, before I remembered the news:  western wildfires were so massive their smoke was affecting the air (and air quality) in North Carolina, thousands of miles away.  Alarming indeed.  The earth is in an emergency, and we mostly stand by and watch.  But what can we do?

     Well, I’ve “done” a few things and believe everyone else should, too.  

 I acknowledge not everyone is financially able to implement all the actions called for below.  Others, though financially able, live in circumstances, such as rentals, which make significant personal actions impossible.  One can only ask them to do what they can.

                                                            *****

     Of course, an individual cannot make a meaningful difference in healing the earth.  It requires full government, corporate, and systemic responses to achieve real progress.  But, just as indoor smoking became socially unacceptable over a fifty-year period, it’s possible for long-held perceptions to shift if enough individuals alter their behaviors.  Can that apply to single-occupancy automobile commuters?  To business travelers in the age of Zoom?  To purveyors and users of single-use plastics?  I hope so.  If enough individuals change their actions and advocate for others to do so, perhaps the politicians will be sufficiently prodded to act boldly.  Likewise corporations.

                                                            *****

     The largest expenditures in my personal efforts surround electricity, namely:  solar panels and cars.   We first installed solar panels on our house in Chapel Hill in 2011.  The out-of-pocket expenditure was large, about $19,000, but tax incentives then brought the final cost down to $4,200.  Saving about $700 a year on electric bills, the “payback” was conceivable in six years.  But that’s not why I did it!  I did it to deny revenue to our rapacious utility, Duke Power, and to shift a portion of our electric consumption away from the then-dominant source of electricity in NC, coal.  

     In the decade since, solar panels have become fifty percent more efficient.  We bought a new townhome in Durham in 2016 and installed an array immediately and doubled its size in 2021 to nearly wipe out our electric bill, which includes our heat!  Due to the expiration of state incentives the cost of installation had risen since 2011, but… again, recouping the investment is not why we did this.  My contention is: IF AN EXPENDITURE IS NOT SO LARGE AS TO AFFECT ONE’S LIFESTYLE IN ANY WAY, IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU “MAKE” MONEY OR NOT. Having said that, I’m confident (and studies have shown) the market value of my home increased as a result of my miniscule utility bills.  So, in this instance, over time, I will have done the right thing and will likely profit from doing so, eventually.

                                                            *****

     Depending on how one sees an obsession with environmental issues, credit or blame for mine falls on Friends’ Central School, where I graduated from high school in 1974.  To my recollection, the school didn’t do too much in that regard beyond establishing a paper recycling program, but that was enough to get me involved.   My family still received two newspapers a day, and it struck me wrong to throw so much wood pulp in the trash.  My parents were bemused at first, but ultimately cooperated in placing the finished papers in a box that was periodically loaded into our car and dropped off at the school’s receptacle.  My father was also an early believer in breaking down and separating cardboard boxes at his clothing store, like we all do now with Amazon’s debris, though I suspect his motivation was more space saving than environmental.  The boxes surely ended up in a landfill in those days, but at least I gained sensitivity to the waste involved and its stunning volume.

                                                            *****

     My next two efforts to “put my money where my mouth was” involved buying hybrid cars.  In 2007, the Nissan Altima cost about $5,000 more than the non-hybrid, and the salesman didn’t even know how to operate its mysterious, silent ignition.  But I enjoyed that car – quiet and efficient and delivering twice the mileage I was accustomed to, around 37 MPG.  After backsliding to a couple of non-hybrid cars that only managed 32-35 MPG, and feeling bad about it, in 2020 I bought a Honda Insight, another hybrid.  By then, the cost premium was only about $2,000 and the quiet car gets about 50 MPG.  Very satisfying.  But nothing to compare to this year’s acquisition, a Ford Mustang Mach-E, hereinafter, “MME.”

     Ford announced the availability of the all-electric MME around December 1, 2019.  At that time, President Con-Man was suing the State of California over its mileage standards because they were stricter than Federal standards.  Several automakers joined orange menace in his concerted effort to destroy the earth, but Ford supported California, as did Honda and Volvo.  For me, this decision was the perfect intersection of environmental concern with politics.  Accordingly, I was among the first to order an MME at about 9:05 a.m. that day.

     The order was “sight unseen,” of course, because the car was not much more than a concept at the time – some drawings on a website.  There was also some pushback on the home front.  My wife, Katie, so supportive of my earlier environmental efforts, was skeptical of this one.  Among her comments were the following:  “We’re not Mustang people.”  “We’re not car people.”  “We’ll look ridiculous in a car designed for teenagers.”  “Buying a first edition car is fraught with potential problems.”  “Buying a Ford is fraught with potential problems (recalling the Thunderbird I had in the 90’s that required its own mechanic, and the minivan that won us a Lemon Law settlement).”  

     For the next fifteen months, while Ford delayed delivery schedule several times, Katie asked if I wouldn’t like to just retrieve the $500 deposit and wait for a full slate of well-developed electric cars to reach market in the next few years.  Her point was fully rational, particularly when some of the completed MME’s were recalled to the factory in Mexico before even being delivered to dealerships.  Ford’s email, announcing yet another delay, said they’d identified technical glitches.  They “wanted to make extra, extra sure the car would be fully functional.”  There was some skepticism in this household.  Still, I stayed the course, and on a gloomy, drizzly February day, the local dealership called us to pick up our MME.

                                                            *****

     It is said there is no one more fervent than the converted.  From first sight, I’ve had to vie with Katie each day as to who gets to drive the MME. The car is sleek, spacious, silent and powerful, and in ten months, of course, has never visited a gas station.  Strangers photograph it at red lights and open their windows to ask about it.  It’s been a conversation starter at every public parking lot.  There is absolutely NO sacrifice involved in this particular environmental effort unless one considers having fun to be a sacrifice.

     The only aggravation around the MME is people’s tendency to ask, with a mixture of fear and schadenfreude:  “What’s the range?” and “How hard is it to charge?”  I answer patiently that it is about 270 miles for a full charge.  But what I really want to say is:  “How often do you drive more than 200 miles in a day?”  We charge the car in our garage for one-fifth the price of gasoline whenever we choose, with no inconvenience at all.  Public charging, which is admittedly a bit of a morass, is relevant only on that occasional (Every two months?  Every three months?  Almost never?) 200 mile day.  Even then, if we are feeling anxious about finding a charge, or the time that charging requires, we can drive the Honda instead.

     As to both solar panels and electric cars, there are those who say:  “I’m going to wait because the technology is still developing and it will be ‘better’ or ‘cheaper’ or ‘more efficient’ in a couple of years.”  Baloney!  That can be said of every new technology, always.  Come on, people!  Early adaptors are necessary to create the market that, in turn, will speed those developments.  If you can afford to do so, TAKE THE PLUNGE.

                                                            *****

     There are a host of additional lifestyle practices we’ve tried to introduce in our lives, some of more consequence than others, namely:  to always bring reusable bags when shopping; to only run the dishwasher when reasonably full, not daily as a matter of habit; to lower the heating and cooling at home; to divest fossil fuel-related investments; to refuse the plastic straws and utensils offered at restaurants; to run the laundry only when reasonably full, especially the DRYER, which is the worst energy hog in the house.  I’ve even dried clothes outside when the weather has cooperated.  It takes some time and runs contrary to the spirit of all those 1950’s housewives whose dream was to obtain their first dryer – I can only imagine my own mother’s shocked reaction if she saw me placing clothes on a drying tree – appalled or amused, I’m not sure.  But this is a win-win-win-win-win, since one saves energy, money, wear-and-tear on the clothes and the dryer, and the clothes smell terrific.

     Finally, there is an action that pays immediate, tangible dividends:  composting.  We’ve failed several at-home composting efforts, since the will to run garbage outside to a bin inevitably fails after a week or two.  But again, since we are fortunate enough to be able to afford it, we have engaged a composting company to pick up our scraps in a separate bin weekly.  Since we began, our contribution to the landfill has dropped by over fifty percent, and our trash does not smell!  Separating the compostibles takes a few moments after each meal, but we only need to put our the trashcan out about every third week.  And periodically, when our composting total reaches 160 pounds, the company delivers a forty-pound bag of beautiful, rich compost for us to use in the garden.  Anther win-win.

Sorry to have lectured, dear readers, but I warned you right up front. Most Americans over the age of forty and some people younger than that have lived their rich, materialistic existences without any awareness of the consequences to the earth. Many will continue to do so without any concern. For those of us who do care deeply, there is a tendency to feel hopeless and powerless in the face of such a huge problem. It’s time for that to change. Wastefulness needs to become socially unacceptable. Actually doing something will be better for the earth, our descendants and, I am confident, for our spirits.                                                           

    

A PRO-LIFE DECLARATION

                                                A PRO-LIFE DECLARATION

     I live in an extraordinarily diverse townhome community in Durham, NC, a city that recently voted for Joe Biden by a margin of 80-20.  When I walk around the block, I feel confident my neighbors share my political outlook even if we may have little else in common in terms of age, ethnicity, race and religion.  But there are still the twenty percent.  For instance, a gay couple, Pete and Jeff, shocked me when they moved in shortly after the 2016 election and, unasked, proclaimed themselves to be “proud Republicans.”  

     “How is that possible?” I asked.

     “We’re from upstate New York,” Pete responded.  “We’ve always been Republicans.”

     “Okay,” I said, cautiously.  “But being a Republican can mean you just don’t like taxes or you say you care about the deficit, or something.  It doesn’t mean you support….” 

     “We like Donald Trump,” said Jeff.  “He won’t be so bad.  You’ll see.”

     Fast forward to late October 2020:  After assiduously avoiding politics for nearly four years in favor of observing the weather or petting their dog, when I saw Jeff standing in his driveway one day, I thought I’d ask how he felt about Joe Biden.  After all, Biden should be his hero.  He’d declared support for gay marriage ahead of President Obama, pulling the latter along.  And, surely, contrary to Jeff’s prediction, the Orange Menace had not been as bad as originally feared; he’d been much, much worse.  Anyone could see that.  Couldn’t they?

     “We still like Donald Trump,” said Jeff.  “We think he’s good for the country.”

     I was so shocked I lost all sense of tact.  “I’m sure some Jews thought Hitler would be good for Germany, but…”

     Jeff had already turned his back on me and headed inside.  “That’s offensive, he blurted.”

                                                            *****

     Journalistic careers are being built speculating how 72 million of our fellow citizens voted to keep a mendacious sociopath in office for four more years.  The NY Times has an article or an op-ed nearly every day on the subject; it’s also a staple of The New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly and every other outpost of the presumably literate and rational.  

     Perhaps I’m not qualified to opine on the subject; then again, how qualified were the pundits and pollsters who predicted a victory for Clinton in 2016 or a blowout by Biden in 2020.   So here goes, a no-holds-barred analysis of Trump supporters.

      First, Trump voters fall into three categories:  1.  Low-income and/or low information racists;  2.  Greedy bastards;  and, 3.  Evangelicals, a/k/a/ Hypocrites.  No new ground will be broken by me on the first group.  Low-income whites find comfort believing someone is below them on the ladder of society, and they look to black and brown people to fill that role.  When the “minorities” get uppity, as when Obama became president, their anger and insecurities are triggered.  And we all know how they love their triggers as well as any other part of a gun.  Promise them coal jobs.  Promise them a wall to keep out more black and brown people. Promise then “cheaper health care.” It doesn’t matter what they are promised since they don’t care or notice when the promise is not kept.  Just keep messaging to them that their “supremacy” as the “real” Americans will be preserved.

     Next, the greedy bastards.  They are also fairly easy to analyze.  These are people who care exclusively about their individual financial situations.  No other issue matters.  Protect the capital gains tax rate, lower the corporate tax rate, keep interest rates low to juice the stock market, eviscerate the estate tax so they can salt away their winnings for future generations, and they will be happy.  The common good?  Forget about it.  Equality, forget about it.  Clean air or water?  Forget about it.  The message for them is “nothing will change.”  Their castles will not be breached.  

     Finally, the evangelicals, the religious, observant, God-fearing people who voted by 85-15% margins to have a philandering thrice married buffoon who makes fun of handicapped people and Gold Star parents atop our government.  How can they not be described as hypocrites?  Some, though not too many, are also greedy bastards and many are also low-information racists.  Of the three groups, to me, evangelicals are the most interesting and confounding.

                                                            *****

     When I venture outside, I sometimes encounter our across-the-street neighbors, Dell and Christina.  Neither of us goes out of our way to chat but we wave and exchange pleasantries whenever we see each other.  Dell and Christina are retired IBM employees who married late in life and who make clear their social lives revolve around their evangelical church.  Dell happens to be Black and Christina is not, which is irrelevant except insomuch as it created in my mind an assumption of political liberality on their parts.  Both are gentle in manner, and I’ve always been impressed by Christina’s thoughtfulness.  She is the only neighbor who commemorates my birthday each year with a card, a REAL, PAPER card.  Yet, Christina is another person who shocked my wife, Katie, a year or two ago, by telling her she “supports our president.”  

     “How is it possible?” Katie and I asked each other, when she relayed what Christina had said, our assumptions blown to bits.

     As with Pete and Jeff, we subsequently confined all small talk with Christina to the weather or gardening.  Dell’s politics remained ambivalent.  In conversation he presents himself as a deeply spiritual person inclined to view all earthly politics and even all human affairs as “insignificant in the cosmic sense.”  I respect that view – he may be right.  Who knows?

     But last summer, in an unusual move, Dell purposefully strode across the street to talk to me while I was puttering in the garden.  

     “I’m so upset about George Floyd,” he said, his voice cracking.

     “Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed.  

     George Floyd, a Black man, had been murdered the previous week by Minneapolis police.  Caught on video, the act was brutal and callous and without ambiguity.  The nation was wracked with demonstrations and expressions of agony.  However, the president could barely acknowledge George Floyd’s humanity; he focused on the violence being perpetrated by a small minority of demonstrators.

     “What is wrong with this country?” asked Dell.  “Where is our leadership?”

       Dell’s pain surprised me because of how emotional he seemed, without his usual detachment.  I didn’t really know what to say except to agree, of course, that what had happened was terrible.

      “I don’t know who to talk to,” he continued.   “I’ve experienced my own pain with the police.  It’s not easy being who I am.  And my own wife is blind to what’s going on.”

     My mind was racing through various responses.  Obviously, Dell was a Black man and, as such, far more entitled to emote about George Floyd’s murder than I.  But to me, his race had never seemed central to his being.  As he was a retired professional, now focused on gardening, bicycling and church-related activities, I did not associate Dell with the greater African-American community or its suffering.  And I certainly didn’t want to get in the middle of any marital issues.

     “Um,” I said.  “I’m sure Christina cares…”

     “She cares,” said Dell.  “But she supports whatever the president says.  She is pro-life and the president is pro-life.  End of discussion.”

     “That’s ironic,” I offered, thinking about what had happened to George Floyd.  “So that is her basis for admiring Donald Trump?”

     “She doesn’t ‘admire’ Trump,” clarified Dell.  “But she does support him because of the one issue.  She likes the judges.  That’s her thing.”

     “So if your main issue is equal rights,” I said, piecing my thoughts together, “or my main issue is environmental protection, and someone else’s issue might be health care, Christina feels her issue outweighs all of those.”

     “Precisely,” said Dell.  “It’s very frustrating.”

     It should not have come as a revelation, I suppose.  I’d often heard of the one-issue “pro-life” voters.  I disagreed with them and vaguely disapproved of them.  However, I didn’t realize until I spoke with Dell just what about them so infuriated me:  They are hypocrites!!! The newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, for instance, has made a career of being “pro-life.”  No doubt she would deny a woman’s right to an abortion and will do what she can to limit a woman’s ability to obtain one. 

      Barrett and other “conservative” judges will not only limit reproductive choice, but will also be less likely to support reasonable gun regulations, environmental protections, universal health care, and be more likely to support the death penalty and harsh border protections such as family separation. In balance, they are the complete opposite of “pro-life.”  In her first vote, just last week, Barrett supported the right of religious institutions to hold large gatherings during a pandemic in direct opposition to the recommendations of public health professionals.  Will she “own” the additional deaths that ensue?  Of course not.  She’s a hypocrite!

     Furthermore, self-proclaimed “pro-life” politicians and judges ironically support a set of positions that may as well be called fourth-trimester abortions: they wish to require poor women (because wealthy women who want to end their pregnancies will find a way) to give birth whether or not the child is desired, but these “pro-lifers” are less likely to support that child’s eventual access to healthcare, education, housing, voting, or nutrition.

     With my newfound clarity, I said to Dell:  “I appreciate that you told me about your feelings.  It helps me to understand many things, about you, and about so-called ‘pro-life’ voters.  Come talk about it any time.”

     “Thanks,” he said.  “It feels better just to have spoken to someone.”

                                                            *****

     Now that I’ve pondered the three segments of Trump supporters, I wonder what can be done to reach them.  First, I call on Democrats to declare themselves the PRO-LIFE candidates and explain the myriad ways that is true.  No longer should they cede that wonderfully clear message to the other side.  To me, “pro-choice” sounds like part of a cable television promotion.  

     Second, drop the “Green New Deal” as a slogan.  Given the ignorance of our electorate, I’d bet less than ten percent even know what the 1930’s-era New Deal involved.  Instead, call it the JOBS AND HEALTHCARE Act.

     Third, (and this idea is not original to me) cease referring to “defunding the police.”  Perhaps, “repurposing” is a helpful term, or “refocusing.”  In any event, it should be clear that everyone, of all political persuasions, appreciates and supports police officers who “Protect and Serve.”  Police work can be difficult and dangerous.  However, the minority of officers who tend towards panic and/or sadism must be ferreted out.  A concerted effort to have social workers take over most interactions with the mentally ill, homeless and non-violent domestic disputes could, it is hoped, limit the number of disastrous encounters.

     Fourth, Democrats have already moved towards referring to “gun control” as “commonsense gun regulations.”  That’s an improvement in messaging, but doesn’t have the bite of something like:  “Suicide and Mass Murder Protection Act.”  For instance, everyone in America should know that a stunning 90% of suicides occur in gun-owning households!  They might also be intrigued to learn that Australia hasn’t had a single mass murder since the 1990’s when they outlawed private gun ownership.  But I’m sure that’s a step too far, alas.  So stick with the suicide statistic that is readily available in about thirty seconds of research. 

     The election of Joe Biden, a normal (for a politician) person with a sense of empathy, is a good start to returning our nation to some sense of decency.  My benediction is this: May his and his party’s messaging be clear enough to penetrate some ignorance and dogma, and make my future walks around the block less fraught.