Thought for the Day

Ponder what is important in your life. Is it the Super Bowl and the social gathering it affords at this time of year? Or is it the people in your life who give your life dimension and meaning?

Think about that this weekend. People or things. Peace of mind or materialistic goods. Place or frame of mind?

Useful soundings from time to time. May this weekend be that for you!

January 31, 2015

What Goes Around

We are fans of HGTV – Home and Garden Television. We watch it during the day. We follow our favorite shows, mostly Fixer Upper from Waco, Texas, House Hunters – both domestic and international, and many other programs. We miss seeing the Kitchen Cousins but have faith they will return soon. Also David Bromstad them first Design Star winner is one of our favorites and hope he will have a new show soon. Then too there is Scott McGillivry Income Property, and John Giddings of Curb Appeal.

All of these shows are inventive, creative and somehow personal. The show hosts are personable and friendly. In someway they allow us to be up close and personal, friends of some kind. They draw out a positive facet or two from within ourselves.

Of course not all guests on the shows are personable or even lovable!  We especially react to the young home buyers who feel everything is too ‘dated’ or passé. And they often feel the price is too high for ‘that’. Hmm. Where have they been one wonders?

A common complaint from these youngsters is ‘too much gold’ when there is no gold in evidence. Brass maybe in the light fixtures and highlights in plumbing fixtures and faucets. Also door knobs and handles are often done in brass. Rather than a style or fashion, brass is an architectural feature. Maybe its popularity has its ups and downs, but as an architectural element it is always in for some contexts. Georgian design requires brass – some shiny bright while others are dulled and matte finish. But brass there is aplenty in early American architecture, 17^th century, 18^th century, even 19^th century designs.

We visited the Habitat for Humanity ‘store’ recently. What a treasure trove of goodies! It seemed like a garage sale on steroids to us. Copious supplies of used lighting fixtures, and much of them brass! Tons of gently used kitchen cabinets, odds and ends, counter tops, plumbing fixtures and much more. Retrofitting a home from these supplies would be fun and easy. And cheap!

Then in today’s press we learned that brass is making a comeback in plumbing fixtures AND lighting, too! Well, imagine that!

Fashion is like fad. It comes and goes. Style remains steady. It is a real component of a real design genre. Popularity of some styles come and go, but really, now, style is mostly an ‘in’ thing.

We like brass fittings. Whether bright or antiqued, brass has a solid heft that says quality and permanence. We are not talking cheap brass, now, but quality brass that shows its character and quality.

Perhaps brushed chrome and nickel fixtures were the fad? Just remember that if brass is permanent, and nickel is a fad, then there is a commodious supply of cheap brass fixtures available to be snapped up cheap. One era’s loss is another’s gain.

Get in a fresh supply of Brasso and soft rags. The brass needs polishing! Thank God we held on to ours.

January 30, 2015

Spying/Life-giving?

Rocky and I have turned into intrepid marathon viewers of recorded TV series. We like those series that may very well be off the air now, but ran successfully for several years. At their time of currency we did not watch for any number of reasons. As we get older we don’t want current shows because we are avoiding incessant advertising.

Yes, the marathon reruns are our own to program. We get the Netflix spooling download and watch at our convenience. Sometimes 6 shows in a row; other times only one or two. All without ads. All with continuity of plot well and fully played, connected. It makes sense this way. One wonders how the plots could possibly be understood with ad breaks?

So we've plodded our way through these shows in the past two years: Grey’s Anatomy; Bones; Crossing Jordan; House; Blue Bloods; Numbers; Modern Family; and others. You see some of the trajectory or theme here – mysteries, who-dun-its, medical mysteries. Currently we are well into the fourth season of CSI-New York.

One reality we have noticed is the speed the actors demonstrate in solving the current mystery. They think on their feet very quickly. They reference computer systems for data bases and consider possibilities and eliminate the unlikely options quickly. They have massive data archives at their fingertips. Technology on steroids is working for them! Only at times of heightened drama do they experience tech failures or temporary break downs. It fits into their plot, don't you know?

How unlike my real life! I can’t get the phone to finish making the connection. The battery dies in mid conversation. The data base fails to respond or demonstrates enormous gaps of information not yet entered to the system. That’s how technology interacts with my life. Not perfectly as in the TV shows. This is my drama!

And then there is the other issue unspoken – data gathering to fill the data bases in the first place.

All the history in the world has not yet been coded and entered to computer data bases. A lot has been, but not all. And not likely to be either. That is a reality we must accept and deal with.

Meanwhile data archives are building – license plates, GPS signals of our whereabouts from cell phones and accident recorders in our automobiles, public traffic cameras, crime surveillance cameras, private security cameras, networks of video data collected and shared. Then too we have the National Security Agency’s (NSA) and military data collectors in so many fine points of our daily lives. We do not know the extent of these data collections and interactions with other systems.

On TV they are instant, knowable and addressable. The detective keys in queries, shifts some assumptions and instantly knows the fact that was once elusive. He now knows the missing piece that solves the mystery.

If we are fans of mystery shows and police crime fighting shows, then we understand the need for the public sector to know the private sector data.

But a public policy issue is deeply embedded in this discussion. Who has the right to gather this data? For what end? How private must the data be maintained and not shared in order to protect the innocent? How costly is this gathering of bits and pieces of our lives? How valuable is this information? How useful is it for the common good of society? And what is its cost on the privacy of the people?

What balance is maintained in such matters? How do we protect and serve the masses while protecting and serving the individual?

A big question. No easy answer.

Public policy is like that. The common good weighed in the balance with private good. How do we decide? And at what cost?

It is easy for a pundit to deliver a sound bite here. For the more serious minded, it is not easy to utter a single word. Perhaps the latter is what we should be listening to.

January 29, 2015

  

Living Fully

Each day we live out our routine. Each day we have time gaps that allow us to do something different than on other days. But few of us alter our routines or make conscious choice to live differently or more fully than we did on other days. 

It’s OK. It’s how we humans live our lives. Routine helps us get through less pleasant tasks and obstacles. We do what we have to do. That’s the way life is. You sleep in a bed, you make it in the morning (or not!). You like to eat; you have either dishes to wash or a diner’s tab to pay. It is what it is.

For a moment, however, I want the reader to stop and cool it. I want you to pay attention to the words that follow. Fair enough?  Hear me out!

Let’s pretend for a few moments that you've just run into a major problem. You can’t ignore it. Maybe it’s a family member who has taken ill quite suddenly and a trip to the emergency room is the best option. You drop everything. You have little time to react and/or take care of other issues. You do what you have to do and make your way to the car and then off to the hospital.

At the hospital, you submit to the prevailing protocol (bureaucracy?) and let the process work. You follow orders. You watch the goings on around you. You are part of the goings on. You are a player with a role to act out; you are not directing the action. Your routine is broken. This is someone else’s field of play.

At these moments we wonder what is going on and how it will affect me, our lives, our future. We conjure the worst ends. We reject those. Now becomes a moment of value. Dear; precise somehow.  We want things to return to normal. But then the conjured thought re-enters our thinking. What if? What if things changed at this moment to the worst outcome? What then do we do with our lives? Or life?

Those moments have seminal impact. The ‘now’ is changed to a new paradigm and we see life differently.

If we have our old life back what will we do with it? Will we enjoy it more? Or just differently? Or will we slip back into the old routines and habits?

A disciplined life includes deep thinking, I think. It allows us the freedom to see things differently from time to time and to ‘try on’ new thoughts, viewpoints and practices. We grow in those moments. We become more fully human and experience things differently.

This is exciting stuff! This is exploration and discovery and change all in the same breath.

How sad there are those who cannot participate in life in this way. They see the good and bad in immutable pairings that cannot be changed. They are managed by this hierarchy. They are controlled, too. Depression is a ‘must’, you see; they have the dark abyss calling and they enter it, with some trepidation but also with familiarity. They have been here before. It is an odd home but it is home none the same. The down slope of life calls these people; and they give in to it because they know no other way to live.

We live with these people in all of our walkways of life. They are our work colleagues, our family members, neighbors, friends and fellow members of church or other organizations. They appear and disappear from time to time, not fully present or a part of us. We begin to see the cracks between their normal and ours. Then they disappear for a day, a week, maybe a month or more.

They do reappear. Sometimes sadder; sometimes wiser. They have been on a special journey whereof we know nothing.

We continue our exploration and discovery journey. We are living life openly and expectantly.

They do as well but in a cramped, dark and special place that cannot be shared. There is a wall between us, subtle at times but stark at other times. This is mental illness. This is the face of an America we do not often admit to.

Strange and lonely. But very real.

How do we help them?

January 28, 2015

Patterned Memories

Do others experience this sort of thing? A movement, routine nearly on a daily basis, triggers a moment once experienced years ago?

For example my morning shave recalls a number of ‘packaged’ memories. At one moment of the razor’s facial journey I remember a morning in Durango, Colorado when preparing for the day with my family. We were in a motel and were getting ready to go for breakfast, then on to a train ride on the Silverton/Durango Railroad. It was a beautiful day in late summer. The sky was blue and the air calm and comfortable. We were excited about the train tour. We were in the final week of a 3-week vacation which would take us on a total trip of nearly 7000 miles when finished. All by mini van and trekking through deserts high and low, mountainous regions (three of them!) and a lot of coastal sight seeing in California as well.

That morning in Durango was not super special. But the memory remains. Always triggered by a brief moment of the daily shave.

Another example: positioning the shower curtain so it will not leak shower spray, I’m bending down and sealing the curtain against the shower wall and I recall a small home we considered buying in Oregon, Illinois about two years ago. I have no idea why I think of that house or its shower at that exact repeated motion. But I do! Of course that gives me the urge to take a drive to Oregon, Illinois! For no good reason other than that past house hunting trip was an adventure in pursuit of a future life outside metro Chicago, and the prospect of country living, new friends, and new routines.

Rides during that period of our lives was focused on finding the next phase of our life. It was a bittersweet time; we didn't really want to leave our home, neighborhood and community, but financial realities said we needed to. So we looked far and wide for possibilities. We even considered Salt Lake City, for God’s sake. Not a happy place for a gay couple! Mormons don’t care for our kind.

Changing life phases is drudgery if you don’t capture the excitement of potential in it. Although not always welcome, a life change is an adventure and exciting. It is a pulling toward a new future. I find that interesting and energy boosting.

Two specific memories – well formed and often repeated. Nearly always triggered by the same motions and routines. Odd or interesting or both? Do other folks experience this sort of thing.

If I put my mind to it I will most likely recall more such triggers and memories. Certain aromas take me back many years to a time I lived in another region of the country. The sound of traffic, the smell of passing traffic, the waft of a breeze…that sort of thing triggers a memory of a morning in Pasadena, California.

Or passing a diner at a specific time of day will place me in a small western town once visited on a family vacation – road trip – when I was 9 years old. Very specific memory. Repeated in nearly identical fashion. From one very specific trigger.

This is not déjà vu. It is trigger and recall. Carbon copy memory of a long ago moment.

Why that trigger? Why that particular memory? What made the moment in past time so special to be remembered in this way? I don’t recall the specialness now. I doubt it was special, just a memory of a time of contentment and calm, perhaps?

If anyone has these same experiences, let me know. And if anyone in the readership has an explanation of this phenomenon, please share with the rest of us?

For now I am not in a panic. I see this as normal. I’m not calling a psychiatrist anytime soon. Or might I?

January 27, 2015

State of the Union

I think President Obama did a masterful job at the State of the Union address. In short I think his message was one of leadership and non-partisan. It focused on who we are as a nation and how we fit into the global community. We are the not protector of all, nor are we the leader of all. We are one of many nations and must get along with each nation as best we can.

If other nations choose to do their own thing in spite of the common good of the global community, so be it. They will have a tough go of it. Witness Russia’s current status. They are once again broke. Their currency is in free fall. They cannot satisfy their financial obligations let alone their daily routines. This is the result, once again, of trying to speak as the lone leader of the world and to rattle swords and military hardware as though to frighten other nations to toe the line.

That is nonsense for Russia. Likewise, it is nonsense for America. Or France, England, or any other nation. Israel or Palestine. Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Each has their sovereign self. Each has their communal role within the community of nations. Those who work at getting along with others do get along. Those that do not, suffer in isolation or in small gangs of misfits.

That’s the global statement from Obama’s speech. Now to our own internal issues.

The President mapped out an agenda 7 years ago when he ran for the presidency. Agendas do not run on their own timeline. They must adapt to the reality of context. And those who care about the agenda – the leaders – must be flexible. Obama has been the picture of flexibility, patience, and adaptability. He has invited discussion, inclusion of disparate viewpoints, and maintain hospitality throughout rude confrontation from political rubes. We know the latter as the ‘loyal opposition’.

There is a line not to be crossed, however; loyal opposition should never extend to treason. Confrontation is one thing. Obstruction of national progress towards healthy resolution of problems blocking other progress, goes beyond opposition.

In spite of obstruction the president’s agenda has prospered. It was a rocky ride. We had near economic depression tossed in the way, the most severe recession on record was encountered and outlasted. The financial system meltdown was repaired at great cost and restored to relative health. Government employment was gutted at all levels of governance throughout the nation. Not just federal or state government employment was sliced, but also county and municipal units of government were slimmed down.

Private sector employment was mightily reduced. But then slowly that sector rebuilt. Government sectors did not rebuild. Most of the economic recovery and expansion has been from the private sector. Just imagine if and when government is allowed back to do what it is supposed to do. Employment will further expand. The housing market will rebound, construction, too, and then mortgages, investment markets and much more gains through the economy will follow.  That is the way the system works. We could have gotten here far faster and easier had political leaders in Washington DC cooperated.

Now we have much more to do. Infrastructure recovery and repair is seriously needed. Then expansion of the infrastructure needs to follow soon after. Tens of thousands of bridges in America need to be replaced let alone massively repaired to extend their life. Water and sewer systems throughout the nation are in need of expansion as well. So too schools and support systems are in need of modernization.

This doesn’t even speak to the issue of nationwide internet expansion and universal access by all citizens in each community. Phone systems, electrical grid, and natural gas networks all need strengthening. Energy resources need expansion to fuel the growth of the nation so we can do the job we are most capable of throughout the world.

Our job is to innovate. In all things: education, transportation, technology, communication, agriculture, medicine…you name it we can redesign it, re-engineer it, and implement it. That’s our job. That’s what America can and should do.

Some people are negative souls. Others are positive ones. In the end the positive folk will lead us all out of the dark pits life delivers from time to time. We learn from these set backs. We learn about our ability to survive and to thrive. We rediscover our innovative genius and willingness to share.

When this happens we unleash a juggernaut of energy that sweeps problems away in a flood of new ideas and possibilities. That’s enough to support each and every one of us in this land. And enough left over to share with the rest of the world community.

And yes; that’s our job, too. Because we can.

And ought!

January 26, 2015

Thought for the Day

State of the Union. What is your thought on this topic? Are you satisfied with the state of America? If no, what would you think needs to be done? Whose responsibility is it to do? What role do you and I have in making this happen?

If you were King (or Queen) of the Universe, what priority issues would you focus attention and resources on? And how would you sell these ideas to the world population?

Are we Americans thinking big enough? For the good of all people?

January 24, 2015

Crashing Oil Prices

What does it mean? Here are a few topics we could explore related to oil prices.

1. Saudi Arabia will not reduce production to stem the oil glut; why? Because they want American oil producers to disappear from the market. If they do, oil production will fall along with American CAPACITY to produce; and that means Middle Eastern oil exporters once again control global prices.
2. Big oil producers are examining the size and trajectory of future energy demand. They are finding plenty to go around and wonder how market demand in 20 years will be supplied without enormous market disruptions.
3. Oil supplies are finite – that is, there is a limit to their availability over time. One day there will be no more oil.
4. Meanwhile, new means are used to extract oil deposits from wherever they exist – fracking, shale oil, and others are but a few methods. Each of those methods has collateral costs and impacts on our planet’s ecology.
5. At what cost are we willing to pay for oil energy? Ever higher? Ever more dangerous to our environment? What is the limit we set for ourselves?
6. What energy sources exist now? What are their supplies like projected 20 years into the future? Can they replace some or all of oil energy when oil disappear from the globe?
7. Higher gas prices caused a near economic depression in the restaurant industry over the past 8 years. The national and regional travel industry took a hit from rising gas prices as well. Are these industries deserving of protection for our greater national good?
8. Falling gas prices in the past 5 months had these direct effects: more miles driven, pent up demand to do so; more eating out locally; more local shopping for Christmas and seasonal expenses; higher consumption patterns at local grocery stores. Are these effects worthy of our extending them? Are we doing what needs to be done to manage both energy demand and energy supply, and thus energy cost?
9. Are American economists paying attention to the issues that matter for the long term? Are they encouraging investors and industries to pay attention to these long term trends? Or are industrial leaders once again focusing only on the 90-day results and decisions that make them happen?
10. Do gas prices/oil prices demonstrate once again short term myopic thinking of American business leaders? And where are our political leaders in all of this?

I am not a broken record. This myopic thinking is actually happening in our executive suites. And because those suites make fabulous profits political leaders quickly learn to follow the scent of money and support executive suite thinking.

Many generations have now lived with this dysfunctional arrangement. Oil ought not control energy supplies and pricing. There are other energy sources to be explored and used for the good of the global community. For the good of the human race.

We can and must find clean, safe forms of energy that will reduce oil consumption and preserve oil supplies for the uses it is uniquely suited.

I thought leaders were supposed to focus on long term needs and well-being of society at large, not narrow markets, industries and interest groups. That’s a proper role of government in my mind: doing the right thing for the most people for the long term. It is not always profitable to do so. It remains the right thing to do, however. Thus it is rightfully in the hands of government not private enterprise which is charged only with making money for private investors.

When will we do the right thing and focus on future energy supplies at affordable cost and reliable supply? And who will do this valuable work?

Just a few questions. Oil prices will not always be this low and manipulated. Can’t we see beyond this noise and find the real objective?

January 23, 2015

Taxes: Rich or Poor?

President Obama is challenging America and the Republicans on taxes. Republicans have chanted the broken record of ‘lower taxes’ for decades. It has become their brand. Trouble is very few benefit from this ritual except the rich and the very rich.

Of course there are the ‘wannabes’ who think that if things are made easier to gain wealth, then they too might become rich one day. I doubt those chances are real. The probabilities are stacked high against such results.

Rather, the easiness of wealth access is really this reality: the rich get richer. That reality precludes the poor getting rich. It is a basic truth of math.

What is factual is this: the gap between rich and poor in America is huge and increasing very quickly. It is probable that most of the wealth in this nation will be controlled by 1% or fewer by 2040 if not before. Shocking? No, not really.

That is why the rest of us can claim naturally that the republican ideal is not realistic nor good for the public. Something much broader than that is required in a free society to maintain itself.

The poor must have access to the ‘keys of the kingdom.’ Education is one key. Fair pay for equal work is another key. Access to healthcare is yet another key. Freedom of movement, access to transportation, affordable housing, adequate food and dietary supports, as well as clothing and freedom to think, exercise beliefs and religions, the whole nine yards of life’s capabilities and capacities.

We may have been born with differing degrees of capacities, but we are all born free to live life and experience its richness. We have the responsibility to work hard, study hard, and follow our dreams with the knowledge that these efforts will pay off eventually. Perhaps not with unlimited wealth of money and physical assets, but at least with the inner satisfaction of having lived life well and in our own way!

Of all people, Mitt Romney might have discovered this truth. He is placing himself in the presidential race of 2016 as the champion of the poor. And fellow republicans are scratching their heads! As they should. Because they don’t get it.

The poor must have access to the tools that will support their transition to full citizenship able to support themselves and their families. They must have education support to gain the skill sets needed to earn a living. Their family members need this very same support.

If only successful at a low level, the poor family will be unable to pay rents that will pay reasonable return on investment to the owners of the housing units being rented. The poor will not be able to buy the cars, furniture, clothing and food that they fully need and would provide more return on investment for the owners of wealth.

It is in the best interests of the wealthy, the society, and the poor that access to potential in their lives be provided.

It is why taxes need to be raised on those who have the means to pay them. The poor do not. The Middle Class is disappearing into the dust and most of the poor. Who then is available to pay the bill for repairing a broken society?  Well the very people who have complained the most about protecting what is theirs! Imagine that.

Free education to the highest levels of a person’s ability ought to be a right of passage and a rite of passage for all Americans. Government is the only vehicle that can provide this massive effort. I think it is about time we face this fact as a nation and make it happen.

Ignoring this need will continue to produce a nation ill-equipped to compete on the world stage of competition. Intellect needs sustenance. So does wealth. So does capacity. So does an economic system, and a cultural one. Who is learning today in the world? Asia far outstrips America’s output of educated and inventive peoples. Why is that?  Have we become so lazy, so inwardly focused that we are losing our very birthright?

Serious things to ponder I think. Many of us have already sacrificed much so that a few may prosper. It is time to redress these inequities.

If we truly lowered all taxes to zero, who would teach in the schools? Indeed what schools? Who would build the roads? Indeed what roads. And where would they be built? To the homes and business doors of the rich?

The last time I checked, America is not the land Of the Rich, By the Rich and For the Rich. No, it is and always will be Of, By and For the People. That is all of us. Not just the few.

Are we finally together on that point?

January 22, 2015

Freedom

OK, so today is January 21^st but I’m writing this piece on Monday, January 19^th. This is the day set apart as a national holiday marking the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A remarkable life indeed and one that somehow is so very uniquely American.

In the’ Land of the Free’ Dr. King felt free to pursue what he believed was right and righteous. More so, he believed this pursuit belonged to each of us – black, white, multi-hued, whatever. In fact Dr. King felt this was our rite of passage guaranteed by the freedoms warranted in our national constitution. A rite of passage. What is this?

A ‘rite’ is a ceremonial event in which a person’s transition from one phase of life to another is marked in a public manner. Think wedding, graduation, birthday party, funeral, and the like. Some are very formal and follow long-held social strictures or religious formats. Others are very casual; think birthday parties or anniversaries.

Most of us feel it is appropriate to recognize a person’s achievement or status change. A promotion in career, retirement from a successful career, a birthday, launch of a newly published book or lecture series, or whatever.

In most cultures we celebrate a youth’s transition to adulthood. In the Jewish faith male youth are given bar mitzvah parties following the actual religious ceremony. It is solemn and joyous. It means the youth has moved from an unknowing status of living to one of more awareness and growth potential. It is not the end point, but yet another beginning point. Like graduation ceremonies are termed commencements.

Weddings are similar. From single-hood to partner-hood, weddings mark the commencement of family formation and child bearing potential. Whether through natural birth or adoption family potential begins with the joining of two people. Whether the ceremony is performed in a justice of the peace office or in a cathedral, or in the forest clearing jumping over a stick in front of witnesses, the marriage is real. It is a marked occasion, with witnesses. It has status in our minds as a real transition.

Graduating from the bonds of slavery to freedom or from ignorance to knowing capacity, the rite of passage from within an individual’s consciousness to one of openness and potential is very real.

Often in our noisy society we miss those transitions. We do not take notice of another’s advancement from one stage of life into another stage. Sometimes, regrettably, that transition is missed by the individual himself. He skips the transition. Perhaps forever. We will not know. So many millions of people around us. Who is healthy and advancing in development toward the next phase – on schedule or off? Who has already experienced this change? And at what stage of development are any of us at any given moment?

Fat chance we will know these things. You and I live different lives. We advance our capabilities and capacities at different rates of change. Some of us keep advancing while others are arrested at one phase or another, far short of their true potential.

Dr. King wanted us all to keep growing. He knew we each had potential and promise. He loved knowing that a society has the ability to do the same mainly because it is made up of all of us. More so, he knew the society had a need to do this growing and stretching so its peoples could also experience the emergence of promise and hope.

With a formal rite of passage or not we each have the right to pass from one phase of development to another in our lives. That is the source of our Rights written in the US Constitution. These rights and freedoms are inalienable. They are not given to us by anyone or any government. They are our right to be who we are.  Regardless of ethnicity, bloodline, gender, national origin of birth, or age, we are all endowed with the right to be.

That is the message of Dr. King. That is what his life meant. That is what his life means. It transcends time and era. It is a message for the ages of the ages.

I am free to be me. You are free to be you. And no one can take that away from you or me. Only we can give it up or waste it. Dr. King urges us today not to let that happen.

Each of us has the responsibility to live in freedom and exercise our rights. We don’t need a holiday to remind us of this, do we?

Perhaps so.

January 21, 2015

Reflections on Ann O’Connor

Yesterday’s blog was the obituary of Ann O'Connor of Syracuse, New York.  Ann died on Saturday, January 17 at the age of 81. Those interested can read that blog and then turn back here for my reflections.

In June 1960 I rejoined my parents who had moved from Pittsfield, Massachusetts to Syracuse, New York six months earlier. I had remained in Pittsfield to complete my junior year in high school. And yes, moving to a small community (East Syracuse, New York) for my last year of high school, was not an easy thing to do. But it gave me a unique perspective on the growing up process! During that one year I made some pretty important friends, people who would influence my life for the rest of my years.

At any rate, during my senior year of high school, I met Bill Bronner who lived one block from our home in East Syracuse. On weekends Bill would join friends of his from his days living in Syracuse before Urban Renewal knocked down a lot of homes to build Interstate 80, the north/south highway connecting Canada to Tennessee through the heart of central New York. One of the last denizens of the old neighborhood to move out was Ann O'Connor. 

Bill introduced me to Annie and the gang. We came to know each other and to celebrate the turbulent times of maturing during the 1960’s when John F. Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower in the White ouHHouse, was assassinated in 1963, when Lyndon Baines Johnson succeeded JFK, poorly administered the Vietnam War, was succeeded by Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 and followed by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same year.

Yes it was that era of unrest, tortuous public policy, Civil Rights movement successes and drama, during the cluttered presence of war protests against Vietnam defense maneuvers. It was the years of the hippie, of free love, of Haight-Ashbury in California. It was the death of American social innocence and the birth of a truly more open, accepting and intellectual American social order. Or maybe that’s just my personal take while I aged from the teen years into my twenties. An era it was, regardless of who you were. That period of social upheaval was a time that changed lives and societies.

In that milieu I met Ann O'Connor. She had been crippled by a cruel and unceasing attack of rheumatoid Arthritis when she was 15 and a quadriplegic by 16. She graduated  from high school in her invalid bed at home. As tragic as that sounds, Ann’s personality showed forth in remarkable ways. She was Roman Catholic. She was deeply religious and faithful, but intellectually alive and resistant to dogma that was ill supported. She took us on her intellectual journey of discovery in all things theological, political, social and psychological. Deeply intelligent, she was self educated after high school. I bet if she had been mentored and assessed by university personnel, she would have earned at least a master’s degree in life. Probably more like a PhD.

We discussed everything. History. American regionalism. Economics, physics, math, sociology, politics and sex. Everything was on the table. We discussed these things seriously but with humor and ease. It was a remarkable thing to be a part of. My maturation from high school to college to graduate school all came from this experience.

In unique ways Ann took charge of our growing up and adult awareness of the world. We shared such personal things. Openness of the mind and emotions were part of that experience. Traveling within the mind on a journey of exploration shared with contemporaries was a joy I had not known before. It set a standard I followed for many years and even to this day.

It is hard to fathom Ann’s death. We had not had any contact for most of these past 40 years, Maybe even 50 years. But she was a part of me, still is. Always will be.

Ann O'Connor was part of many lives and many minds. That’s the kind of person she was. And is. She is finally free of her twisted, deformed, painful body. But her mind continues to range free in the universe.

She said goodbye to life as we know it, but we have no need to say good by to Ann. She is very much with us.

And that’s a wonderful thing!

January 20, 2015

The Passing of a Friend

With a heavy heart and a long look to the past I share this obituary from the Syracuse Post-Standard Newspaper.

By Ken Sturtz | ksturtz@syracuse.com 
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on January 17, 2015 at 10:06 PM, updated January 17, 2015 at 11:09 PM

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- One of the operators of Unity Kitchen, a soup kitchen that has helped the poor in Syracuse for more than four decades, has died.

Ann O'Connor died Saturday afternoon, her husband Peter King said. She was 81.

In 1971, O'Connor started working at Unity Kitchen, which patterned itself on Catholic Worker communities that serve the poor. She was attracted to the kitchen as an anti-Vietnam War activist because its founders - Bob Russell and Father Ted Sizing of St. Lucy's Church - were involved with sit-ins at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

She was recruited because of her organizational skills, King said.

"I couldn't believe the conditions," O'Connor said in an interview several years ago. "They were serving mashed potatoes and coffee."

Although she was confined to a wheelchair at the age of 16 due to severe arthritis, O'Connor dove in to her work. A year later, King began working at the kitchen. The pair met there, quickly became friends and married in 1980.

"We made Unity Kitchen our life's work for all those years," King said. "One of the things Ann insisted on was that a bridge be built between the poor and the non-poor," King said. O'Connor persuaded her middle-class friends to help with the kitchen, which is supported entirely by private contributions. When O'Connor and King would go and speak to people about their work, O'Connor usually did the talking, King said. "She had a way of speaking so you lost sight of the wheelchair she was speaking from," he said. "People realized they were looking at a person with courage and guts."

For years they ran Unity Kitchen, which amounts to an elegant soup kitchen on West Onondaga Street. Two dinners were offered to guests each week at tables set with china and silver by volunteers who served the meal. No one got paid, not even O'Connor or King. They call themselves "hospitallers." "We're seeing the hidden Christ in a dignified way," O'Connor said in an interview years ago. "We love the people who come here. It's not like any other place. It's real and deeply rooted in our faith."

O'Connor was sidelined last year when her health failed. King took time away from the kitchen to care for her.

After more than 40 years, King is working with help from others in an effort to keep Unity Kitchen open. He said his wife would want it that way. "We want to make sure that our limited, but lavish hospitality goes on," he said. "We feel we still have the gift of hospitality to exercise."

January 19, 2015

Thought for the Day

Think outside the box this weekend. What one idea could you explore that you have been putting off for a long time? Is it a work-related skill you think you are missing and would like to acquire? Or is it a leisure activity you've wanted to look into? Perhaps your family’s ancestry, genealogy? Maybe it’s playing with a new recipe, or even the basics of cooking?

You have the internet at your disposal. Begin there. Begin a search path of topics and subtopics that will help create the questions you really need to discover in order to explore more richly.

Make it a fun time. Have a joyous journey. See you back here on Monday.

January 17, 2015

Mid-Life Crises

I've been around the circuit a few times. A lot of years to practice with! Life changes, challenges abound, we make the best of it, and move on.

Dating. Marriage. Kids. House buying. House fixing. House maintenance. And cleaning! Car purchases, maintenance, gas, repairs, replacements. Then adding to the fleet! As more drivers enter the family and need transportation more cars are acquired. The maintenance schedule is mind boggling! And the gas bills, too!

Career concerns come and go. Career decisions are made and changed from time to time. Commuting patterns change. Industries change. Everything changes. And with it the need of new responses by the individual.

Lots of adjustments made living life. And the fun? Gatherings with family. Vacation trips as well. Shopping for interesting things and working with family members throughout it all. Planning new trips. Maybe buying a summer vacation home. Perhaps planning a long put off cruise? Or a grand tour of the canyons of the southwest, or of Europe. The Far East, or other exotic lands long wondered about.

Illness and death in the family provide challenges to fun times and happiness. Sadness intervenes. Not on schedule. But on its own timeline. Inevitable really. How we handle it is not inevitable.

Life is filled with joy. It is also filled with threat of interruption and pain, and sadness, and loss. The trajectory of our individual lives is a singular journey on the one hand, made livable by the sharing of it with others. Crisis cannot be avoided. It must be faced. Sometimes it is only a matter of time to get past it. Often hard work is required.

Crisis. Do we give in to it? Or fight back? Do we recognize the growth potential of the situation? Is this a learning experience that will bring us to full maturity or closer to it? Is that task ever truly done? Probably not. Who do we lean on to get through the troubled times? Are they trustworthy and helpful? Or do they help us avoid the hard work. Seek the fun alternative. Escape the reality of the life fully lived?

Each of us encounters these trip points on our own. We have friends and specific family members available to ease the passage through difficult times. But we have to ask them, involve them in our time of need. Going it alone is rarely a good strategy. Struggling with imponderables alone can lead to poor conclusions and decisions.

Life can be filled with regret. And resentment. Those are destructive, however. Best to actively avoid them. Seek love and sharing as the anecdote. Seek trust. Seek quiet and calm in which to consider options. Then make considered decisions.

Too many choose divorce rather than growth. They choose blame, resentment and regret.

Too many choose drugs or alcohol rather than personal honesty and hard work thinking through the problems that steer us toward avoidance through addictions.

Too many opt for no decision and allow the problems to fester unattended. Too many allow this form of remote control to rule their lives. Serendipity is the commander of all that follows. Whatever will be will be. Que sera, sera. You know the words. But do we know the tune?

The easy answer beckons but is usually wrong. Growth takes work. Commitment produces workable change. Maturity demands our attention and our work and commitment. Good marriages rely on these factors. Happy lives are intentional and the result of good work.

Divorce is often the result of a faulty decision at the start of the relationship. Divorce is often the faulty conclusion of messy thinking ill considered. It is also the result of irreconcilable differences. Enter into it with great caution so as not to compound the problems. Is this a moment for growth?

How do we separate all of these things so we can manage them well?

If I knew the answer to that question, I’d be famous! Meanwhile, I’ll continue to ponder the issue even though I’m well passed mid-life.

January 16, 2015

The Never Dry Towel

Many years ago my brother in law Bruce would drop in for a visit. Those were the days when he lived in Glen Ellyn and we in Wheaton (Illinois). He’d walk in, go directly to the kitchen, wash his hands and dry his hands. Only he couldn't find a dry towel with the exception of paper towels. He called out, “the house of the never dry towel.” And that phrase stuck in our minds for years.

As well over the years, we've adapted the phrase. Typically for me, Illinois is the Land of the Never Clean Car! In the summer it is dusty, then showery, with the result that cars are muddy, streaked, and rarely shiny clean.

In the winter the ugly increases. Streaked with salt residue, cars are universally gray or white during much of winter. Other times they are snow caked, ice-rimed and in other ways simply filthy. A car wash makes quick work of the dirt, but then the drive home dirties it all over again! Sprayed with salt mist and crud, the car is cleaner, but still quite dirty.

In other climes the car fares better but still dirty. Growing up in southern California I remember volunteering to dust the family car! There rain was fairly rare. So dust was the culprit. Shiny cars were that way only following a wash and polish. The rest of the time they were dusty or faded dim by the strong sun. If you were lucky enough to live close to the ocean, then your car was corroded by the salt air. Not much shine left in that neighborhood!

In the desert our cars were subjected to sand storms. Not good for the paint! Often repainted in that locale; but then windshields needed replacement as well! Sand-blasted don't you know?

This brief accounting for ‘the land of the never clean car’ is brought to you as a reminder that our dirty cars are part and parcel of our native area. Other regions have their own problem. Its just that with our driving conditions, we can’t see past our own dirt to notice others!

Only three more months until spring. But wait! As I write this, the sunrise just broke through. It is mid January. The temp is 19 and going to 5 tonight. So we will have sun, blue skies and…more salt on the roads. Yuck.

Still spring will arrive. Just wait for it a little longer.

January 15, 2015

Humor

What’s funny? What isn't? This is an age-old question. Lots of answers have been attempted and some good ones, too. But I bet no one has adequately or accurately answered the question. The reason: too many variables of taste, circumstance, language, environmental factors and those elements don’t even take into account the variableness of education and mental agility.

Humor is a sophisticated topic. When Bill Cosby appeared on stage early in his career, he was an astounding success. Most likely because he was/is a master of making sounds to accompany his routines, but also because he could morph from one personality to another to fit the intended script. Over the top impersonations of little kids squalling their ‘complaints’ and protestations of innocence. A rubber face that paralleled those same antics. He drew us into the moment and we experienced all the times we had experienced similar real antics in our own homes. Those stored memories flooded back to enhance the humor. And we roared our approval. And shed a flood of tears in laughter.

That’s one form of humor. There’s the funny bones of Bob Hope and Jack Benny. Bud Abbot and Lou Costello come to mind as well. But each of these names are historical. Most of today’s audiences don’t recall these humorists. They were from a different time and remembered accordingly, especially by those of us old enough to know their humor.

Eras are part of humor history. An era is a point in time associated with happenings that were connected. World War I humor is an example, also World War II, distinct and separate from other wars. And peacetime as well. Post war 1940’s generated a humor as specific as a fingerprint.  So too the 1950’s as America matured its way from war into prosperity and a sense of world leadership and pride. Then the Cold War dampened that bravado and brought George Carlin’s brand of sarcastic humor to the front. A genius mind focused on hippy dippy weatherman antics that grabbed our funny bones in ways unimagined before. And so it goes, era by era, humor drawing us out of ourselves and allowing us to laugh.

Even during hard times, scary times, moments of deep distress and lack of confidence. To laugh at moments like those is a gift of reprieve. An easing of mind and soul. To relax with a sigh and guffaw. Yes, a gift.

We need to laugh. It restores our emotional balance. It relieves tensions accumulated from days of unrelieved pressures of daily living. The kids, the bills, the job, the commute, the news, the….fill in the blanks. We know our own pressures. And we have social pressures large and small that add their pressure-valve presence in our lives.

In such times as my own, early married, early owner of a very old house tumbling down around our ears, tight financial times, learning to cope with all of these things, suddenly there was Dave Barry. And he wrote humor columns in magazines published by Rodale Press. I forget the magazine we subscribed to at the time, but it helped me cope with living with an old house, the challenges of maximizing utility efficiency in such a home, while also building a modern, healthy home surrounding the family. It was in one of those publications that Dave Barry’s column was printed entitled “How To Make a Board.”  I recall reading this to myself back in 1983 or so. I had begun to laugh. Then paroxysms of laughter, tears, and the beginning of an asthma attack. I stopped reading. Ran upstairs to our bedroom where my wife was putting on makeup for the day. I read the column to her. We both were reduced to quivering, giggling, guffaw-ing blobs.

Dave Barry had struck our funny bone. I didn't know the first thing about taking care of that old house but I had no choice. I was about to learn more than I cared to learn. About taking care of that old house. My weaknesses, my lack of experience, by fright at the prospect of repairing something only wizened old tradesmen could tackle, made me feel quite insecure.

And then Dave Barry entered that space in my mind and had a field day.

He knew how. He was our era’s funny man. From then on we read everything he wrote. Even books. Christmas after Christmas I received books and collections of his columns.

I have to admit I miss Dave Barry. I don’t read him anymore. But then I don’t read Bill Cosby anymore either. It’s the era difference. We are in another time and age. More importantly I’m in another time and age. My perspective has altered the reality of humor for me.

While writing this piece I admit to finding a copy of Barry’s “How to Make a Board” column. I laughed of course. And cried a little too. The times have changed. From one era to another, and yet another, and still another. Time does not stand still. No; our memories do that. And we laugh again. At the same old jokes.

I miss that old board.

January 14, 2015

Tearing Up?

That title is a little misleading. It can be read in two different ways. At least! The first is probably tearing up as in ripping up or apart, or tearing something down.

Of course, the second is more emotional, tearing up as in tears of weeping, filling the eyes with sadness or joy, or some other emotion that causes such a reaction.

So we have the two reference points: one is anger driven to destroying something; the other is emotional caring that moistens eyes.

I've written a lot of words on both fronts in this blog. I care enough about others and big ideas that demonstrate the caring perspective. I also have the anger and vitriol that demands venting from time to time and so I give energy to a good rant from time to time. It’s good for my soul. Don’t know if it’s good for yours. But hey, who’s writing this blog anyway?

Each time I sit down at the keyboard I wonder if the piece will be a positive item or a negative one. And if negative can I twist the piece to have a soul by the end of it? And vice versa, of course; if I begin on a positive note can the piece also demonstrate why this is more important than the rotten negative stuff others spew all the time?

I hope so. I hope I make points viable enough to serve two purposes.

The bottom line is this: we have breath in our lungs and ideas in our brains so we ought to do something good with both. If what we do is for selfish purposes or harmful to others, we ought not do those things. If both exist we should use the good to battle down the bad.

Too simplistic? Probably so.

Still the decision needs to be made by each of us. Are our lives to be of use to others or only to ourselves? And if the latter, how do we know the others will cooperate with us reliably? How do we know they won’t turn on us and take what’s ours for themselves?

We don’t. There’s no way to know this in advance. If we don’t trust others then we simply assume they will take advantage of us. And live accordingly.

Guess that might be the cause of some ideologies being so negative. Conservatives. They worry that government is the tool of the masses to take property and money away from those who have it. Or that the masses always want something for nothing and…..

If that’s true, then liberals are what? All things belong to the masses and so….No. That’s communism. Or at the very least socialism. Maybe that’s why ‘progressive’ is a term being used lately to replace ‘liberal’? Maybe so. Maybe so. Have to think on that some.

Positive or negative. Plus or minus. Rich or poor. Healthy or sickly. On or off; in our out. Which opposites should be used here. Any of them?

Probably not. I’d rather we focus on useful or not. Are we building something, fixing something, solving a problem, or what? Or are we making a problem?

Somewhere along the line those in government need to decide on this. Which role do the political parties align with? Seems to me the republicans and democrats have some thinking work to do. Which side are you on, folks?

Are you working for the few or for all? Are you defining problems or making them? How about solving some while you are at it?

Just maybe you ought to ask the people what you should do. God knows the elections don’t do that. Too fixed you know? Too much money from too few people buy elections for the special interests. You don’t believe it? Just watch Illinois. The new governor had $20 million of private donations (including $5 million of his own) to buy the election. It will be interesting to see who owns the state in fours years. Will the taxpayers own it? Or will the republican’s wealthy own it?

The perfect incubator for the nation is on view for all to see. Illinois mirrors the congressional mess perfectly. Same dynamics. Same selfishness. Whatever will they do with this?

Should we be worried?

January 13, 2015

Texas

Have you ever wondered what it would be like growing up in Texas? All that land, sand and mesquite. Hot and dry. Rolling landscape with occasional flora of scrub, grass, wildflowers and a tree. Miles of roadways endlessly getting you somewhere? But where?

It must be tough for a youngster to greet the world from Texas. There girls mature with bright white teeth showing from plump lips, on a beauty queen face atop a curvy body that screams feminine mystique. Somehow this presence is a stereotype of beauty and not sex, unless of course it’s on the field of the Cowboy’s football stadium in the form of cheerleaders with scanty uniforms.

In Texas the boys grow up macho. Full beard lines from age of 11, muscles prickling from every limb where they ought to be. The form of a man bursting early and with a mind centered on sports, horses and of course pretty girls.

Texas is the land of the Bible, you know. It is where one grows up knowing that boys and girls go together and marriage is one man – one woman. No deviation from this standard at all. No sireee! Tha’s the way it is in Texas…straight and down the narrow sights of a rifle. We do things reg’lar here, don’tcha know?

Of course all the oil in the universe comes from Texas. They discovered it, drilled it, refined it, shipped it and made the world market all about Texas. Not! Same for real estate deals, development, and the big supercollider. [Note: The original superdupercollider was to be built in Texas south of Dallas. After $4 billion federal tax dollars were dumped into the project it was shuttered due to too much sand and way too many fire ants! They grow giant failed developments in Texas, too!]

‘Lectricity is a foreign language we don’t talk about in Texas. Energy is all about oil, or maybe you pronounce it erl? Or may oll? We don’t hanker for anything that competes with oil. Well, maybe we make an exception for wind turbines. They’re big you know, Texas-size so it probably is OK to build those and use them. Besides we have all that land going to waste. Lots of space for wind farms.

Now guvmint is another thing we trouble with. Don’t like guvmint much, you know. Too many bureaucrats spendin’ our money on things that don’t matter. That the trouble with guvmint. People in it think they have the say. They don’t less we the people tell ‘em so. Like gay marriage. What in tarnation is that joke about? The Bible says one man, one woman, so where’s guvmint saying ‘tis the other way? They must have strange printin’ presses in DC. Changed the Bible, probably. Well, in Texas we do things our way.

Yep! It’s our way in Texas. Prob’ly otter draw lines around the state and declare us a separate country. Otter done that during the Civil War. Would have saved a bunch of time and trouble. Let’s see, we have nuf land, nuf people, bunch of illegal aliens to do the dirty work (thank God for those people!), and we’s got plenty of beef on the hoof to eat. We got the oil for world trade dollars. ‘Course I don’t know where we’d get the other goods we need to live with – clothes, food, trucks and cars, and all the rest of that. Guess the oil dollars will buy that stuff.

Another thing we got – our own electric power grid. Not connected to the rest of the country. Maybe those wind farms are a good thing after all! Let’s see, we got some good universities and the central brain shed for NASA. We could sell that stuff off. Don’t do nothing good anyhow.

Yep! I’m thinking we should have our own country, our own constitution, Bible and traditions. What’s good for Texas used to be what’s good for the US of A. Not anymore, though. Seems things are changin’ kinda fast in other parts of the country. That’s not like Texas. We gotta work hard to keep things the same. Somebody’s gotta do it.

Oh well, the sun’s a settin’ and I got a thirst. Where’s my beer? Hell, where’s my woman!?

Yep! Things ‘re fine in Texas. You just stay where ya are, ya’hear?

January 12, 2015

Thought for the Day

Taking the risk to be you. It is a big step to take. What do you want from life? What are you capable of doing? What interests you the most? How would you like to spend the rest of your life?

These basic questions bang around in our heads over and over again. They are begging to be thought about and answered.

Are you making progress with these questions? Are you willing to take the risk to be authentically you?  When might you be willing to commit to that and take the first step?

It’s a new year. Time to think seriously on these matters. Right?

January 10, 2015

Russia’s Woes

The polls in Russia appear to give Putin credibility among his countrymen. They believe him when he says the West has done in Russia’s economy. But then Russians don’t have unfettered access to global communications via the internet, Twitter, Google, Facebook and email. The Russian government ‘protects’ its people from the ideas and knowledge base of the rest of the world.

Under those circumstances it is easy for Russian leaders to forge public opinion and keep it disciplined. Not so in the West. Here we are free to explore, think and create in any manner that fits our interests and expertise. The process informs and enriches the person’s thinking machine so that entirely new thoughts and creations are possible. This is the progress machine of the future. And possibly Russia is missing out.

The West has had little to do with Russia’s woes. Russia continues to build a huge military and employ it throughout the globe for ideological reasons. It fulfills little functional task. But it costs a great deal.

So too is the overhead of such a society. Very costly. And with declining oil revenues, international trade flows and such, Russia’s cash register is struggling at the moment. It doesn't help that Putin has defined a singular role for Russia that continues to isolate it from the rest of its world partners. That’s the cost of going it alone. That’s the consequences of smirking his way through foreign affairs and sticking his tongue out at the rest of the world community.

This behavior may earn him support from his people, but it does not gain him any strength abroad. And he has only himself to blame.

Not the West. That’s just Putin’s way of dodging blame for the mess he has maneuvered his nation into.

I've said it here before many times. The global community requires each nation to give in order to get. We give up some sovereignty to gain participatory roles in a peaceful world. That is the objective. Not war. Not overwhelming influence. Not a victor’s dance.

The world community needs help. From all of us. It is not a begging proposition. It is a giving one. We want peace. We work for it. We share the load. We share the cost. We share the leadership. We build trust among the global community. This is not an easy route. It takes discipline and humility.

Perhaps the latter is what Putin lacks?

Influence is not demanded. Neither is respect. Both are earned. Vlad, it’s time for you to step up. Stop the war games and impish pouts. The adult world requires cooperation and collaboration. Your people are proud and talented. Allow them to show their merit and participate in the new world order.

The first step is not blaming others for your problems. Rather, the first step requires you to admit the need to work with others.

Might we welcome you aboard?

January 9, 2015

Getting There

No, we are not on a road trip. The kids are not wailing, nor repeatedly asking ‘are we there yet?’ Rather, today’s message is about ‘getting it’, you know, like understanding what it’s all about.

Awoke with electronic beeps this morning. At 3 am. Diminutive flashing lights suggesting activity outdoors. An arrhythmic thump and thud. Finally the sounds and light show came together – it snowed. Plows are busy getting ready for the commuters, City Hall visitors/parkers, streets along Main Street, and our own parking lot and driveway.

It is winter and it gets cold. And it snows. And with passing years housing options are more selective regarding chores, routines and effort. Ours is an elevator apartment complex. Indoor gang garage with assigned parking. And heat! No more frozen locks or waiting 30 minutes to deice the windshield. No slow cranking engine starts, either.

And of course work crews who clean the sidewalks, driveway and parking lot outdoors.

In our neighborhood the public walks are even cleared by city crews in mechanize mini plows. Lights flashing and beepers sounding (when backing up) there is no mistaking work activity. For the benefit of others, and us! A nice feeling, really. Comforting. I feel appreciated in this. I hope the workers feel appreciated as well.

When I witness emergency crews rushing down the street I wonder if it is a sudden illness, or an auto accident, or fire that has aroused the emergency crews. Or a crime. Do we citizens understand the vitality of these services regardless of cause? Do we appreciate the hard work and nasty business they often are called upon to perform? For us? The citizenry.

I recall the angry voices declaring all government as bad and wasteful. Yet government provides our fire and police departments. The same government provides street cleaning, snow plowing, road salting, road construction and repair, as well; the same government. And other specialized local governments provide the schools, libraries, park districts among the many other services we need and expect. Yes they cost money. That is what the tax bill is about. Are the taxes sufficient to provide for our needs? Or are they too much?

I guess it depends on who is in need of a service. Not all of us are; in need; of service. But I think we each are at some point in our lives. And we expect help, help we cannot do for ourselves. Or perhaps it is a need of a loved one, a friend, a respected neighbor? These are the services our community needs, even deserves. It defines who we are as a community. Do we care about each other? Do we provide a level of service that we all deserve?

I think so. And then there are the government services of the county – elections, public health, regional educational coordination and standards, sheriff’s department, emergency management services, disaster recovery services, flood protections and avoidance, waste water and storm water management, environmental protections, and so much more – if the county doesn’t do this, who does? And at what cost. Taxes again. Services, too. All in need, all for each of us. Taxes the life blood of these quality of life items.

No, government is not the problem.

Of course the food chain of services rises to regional and state levels. The legal system, courts, family welfare and social intervention systems, adoption, family and children’s services, life and death and social order issues we know we have to support but don’t like being involved in. There are people who rely on their ‘villages’ to survive. Food stamps. Medical care. Housing vouchers. The basics.

Police state? 1984 government environment? Big Brother breathing down my neck?

I don’t think so. The breath we feel is ours in caring for others. It is we the people who make this happen. Not always pleasant chores, but necessary ones. We tend to the needed business in group ways through government. It’s like a Hallmark Card – when you care enough to send the very best! From us to you.

All of the above is about state and local government services. But much of these have a home for research, development, financial assistance and a framework of equality regardless of means of the community. That home is the national government. So many programs. So many services. All to help other groups, governments and individuals produce services needed by so many.

That’s part of what being an American is all about.

Taxes make these good things happen. But it isn't about taxes.

It’s about caring for others. Something we learned from our grandparents, and kindergarten, too.

Swell!

January 8, 2015

  

Commute

Our apartment is across the street from a major commuter rail station. Hundreds of cars park in the lot. More hundreds enter the lot and swing by the front door of the station dropping off passengers. Still more walk to the station. I’m not sure a bus appears on a regular schedule, perhaps so. I've just not noticed it. But you get the picture. Thousands of souls appear daily to travel to work. In the evening the process is reverse. Dragging and rumpled, they reappear and travel toward home.

I used to do this. By bicycle, car, train…I made the daily commute to work. For many years it was by train – 4 hours each day including the wait on the station platform. In those days I walked to the station on each end of the commute. A mile on the home end, a mile an a half on the city end. That’s 5 miles a day. Of walking. In all kinds of weather.

Luckily then I worked at a university campus. Oh we wore ties and suit coats, but when the weather was foul we wore anoraks, boots, and turtleneck sweaters. If the cold snap was long enough and the snow piled high enough, we became downright slovenly. If it was important to cut a good appearance during the day, we would carry better cloths, or drop off extra garments over the weekend. Traipsing through bad weather was just not worth ruining good shoes and suits. Or putting up with the discomfort of snow down the ankles, soaked cold toes, or……

Later the commute was by car. Hours of driving, mostly sitting in traffic. Transmissions overheating, brakes wearing out, engine oil disappearing along with frayed nerves and sunny dispositions.

Then for nearly 20 years my commute was 15 feet from the master bedroom to the home office. Communication was by phone and email. Most of the work was done in my brain and recorded in reports and computer files. Upon occasion I visited the clients and performed planning sessions and consults. Then those drives were long but pleasant, to upper Minnesota, western Missouri, downstate Illinois, or anywhere in the Chicago metro area. Thirty-five thousand miles per year in client visits, not commutes. Trips with hotels and restaurants. Little towns and big cities, the cultures were many and varied. But not a commute.

In retirement there is no commute.

And that is a good thing. I didn't mind travel. Looked forward to it, even. It provided the cocoon in which to think and ponder things of importance. Without interruption. But commuting I detested. So routine. So drab. So time consuming. So boring. Until I converted the time to reading and studying. Then it didn't seem bad at all, unless I fell asleep and missed by train stop!

Yes, in retirement there is no commute. I still travel to client meetings, but now those clients are mentees and I am the mentor. Our meet spots are Panera Breads and volunteered office sites provided by SCORE, libraries and businesses. Our work is serious and valuable. But free. And challenging and fun.

We do these meets more than a few times each week. But never during commute times. That would spoil the fun of mentorship.

That’s the commitment. No commuting.

January 7, 2015

Body Shape

Well now! A little honesty. I don’t like my body shape. I think about it some. I know I’m lumpy and have flabby bits that are unattractive to others, but are OK by me. In fact they are more than OK; they are part of me and I’m beginning to accept them more than I thought I would.

Now this realization is startling to me. I was always a bit of a narcissist.  I cared if my hair was in place, the part just so, no individual hairs sticking up in odd places. Yes I tried Bryllcream and pomade to glue hair down. I carried a comb everywhere so I could touch up the hair just so after stepping outdoors. I checked out my hair while passing store windows, mirrors and other reflective surfaces. I didn't care if I stepped on a sidewalk crack, but I couldn't pass a window without checking the hair.

Now I’m glad I have hair. And not too bad either!

I don’t have much gray hair, wouldn't mind if I did. It’s a badge of honor these days, I think. I do have an enlarging thin spot. I can even see the shape of my skull under wisps of hair these days. But not as many hairs to stick up in odd places, don’t you know! And that’s a good thing. So, I have enough hair to keep it combed. But I don’t.

The mussy look is in. after all I have enough hair for it to be mussy. And that is a good thing.

The other day I had a hair cut. I asked the barber lady to take off a few inches on top, on the sides, and if she could, remove some of the jowls. She demurred with a weird little chuckle!

A few weeks ago I visited an eye surgeon. One wall of his office was mirrored. And there I was sitting in his examination chair in full view of the mirror. Never had I imagined myself appearing as a Buddha. But there I was. In living color, life sized and obese. Yes obese. Calories cascaded down my sides in blubbering sheets. I returned my gaze to his instruments and gadgets. I was there for my vision, after all, not an assessment of my body shape.

That image, however, stuck with me. Here I am a skinny guy in a fat man’s body. It is difficult to find clothes that comfort me, let alone fit. I’m ordering from an internet catalog firm these days, just to get pants that go around the waist and reach to the floor. The roominess of such garments is over the top. There’s room for two of me! But at least the waist fits.

As I shave or brush my teeth, I am poised naked before the mirror prior to my shower. There are body parts newly visible that have no name. Others more familiar are totally hidden.

How did this come to be?

And no! I do not have a New Year’s resolution to do much about it. I am not happy with my appearance, but I am not dedicated to reshaping it either. What is is. What will be, will be. I have committed to losing weight. So far I've shaved 40 pounds off my frame. Took a couple of years, but there it is. Now I should trim off another 20 pounds and keep it off. Then I can consider trimming another 20 pounds. I suppose I could attempt to take off another 35 but then I would be recalling my youth weight and that would be wrong.

I’m an elderly person. I accept that. That brings new freedoms, you know. Like accepting new weight, wrinkles and gray hairs. Even hairs growing where they have no business doing so. At least I have hair. I don’t like the prospect of going bald. My head shape is a bit odd, you know. I’d rather not contemplate that feature at this time.

So, no resolution to reshape the body. It is what it is and I’m OK with that. But the weight is uncomfortable and tiring. And it hurts to walk and to sit, and to stand. Perhaps another 20 pounds less will improve that? We shall try. Then we shall see.

The rest of it just isn't worth the trouble. I only own one comb now, and I’m not sure where I put it. Improvements come in bits, these days!

January 6, 2015

PS Today would have been my father’s 104^th birthday. He made it to the cusp of 88. Mom will be 101 in February. I can’t imagine such survival!