Worst of Both Worlds

Dear You,

Ben brought his Nintendo when he came for a visit recently, and he wanted to trade a Pokemon character with someone. His device can connect wirelessly with others. A quick check with Google located a "hot spot" at the McDonalds just down the street, so off we went.

There we were yesterday -- Ben, with his french fries, thumbs a-blur on his toy, eagerly looking for someone on the planet with a like mind; and Grandpa, with a "senior" coffee, looking around at the others inhabiting this public place, thinking of very different subjects.

Let me be plain: we are faced with an epidemic of childhood obesity, and SAT scores yesterday were reported to be, once again . . . down. And I took my grandson to a place where he was mindlessly ingesting 380 empty calories (20 g. fat / 47 g. carbs) and "interacting" with symbols that represent people he will never really meet. Our bodies and our minds can enter many different worlds; some much better than others. For that hour, Ben and I were in what I know to be the wrong ones. I write with shame that my curiosity overcame my good sense. Today I'll do better with the time I have to spend with Ben.

My Life, in shreds

Dear You,

Shakespeare wrote: Who steals my purse steals trash; / ’t is something, nothing;’ Twas mine, ’tis his, /and has been slave to thousands; /But he that filches from me my good name /Robs me of that which not enriches him /And makes me poor indeed. Wasn't he farsighted, though, in anticipating "identity theft"?

Today in fact it is far better that someone steals the moneybag from your car (oops! Did I just let on that I have one in mine?) than some documents from your mailbox. I bought a shredder recently -- and although it's generally too troublesome to carry the junk mail to the basement and the little diamond-shaped remains back up, I know I SHOULD be doing it. When I'm cleaning out the files of old records, the grinding noise in the background at least gives me the illusion that I'm protecting myself against an increasingly dangerous world.

As I am doing all this, however, it does not escape my thoughts that here is just another bit of evidence that there really were "good old days." I still remember leaving campsites all day with possessions in plain sight on the picnic table. I recall that if there were locks on the doors to the houses I grew up in, they most certainly were not locked. (What if the neighbors need something and we're not home? my mother would have asked.)

Simply put, honesty and trust were in greater coinage then; today too many are busily stealing them. Too much has already been shredded.

An oral tradition

Dear You,

I like to hold babies. There's something quite peaceful in their faces, and something very comfortable about sitting in a rocking chair cradling a baby in my arm. For whatever reason, I soothe them -- perhaps it's the timbre of my voice. The baby I held yesterday is a girl and only a month old. She slept most of the time, even through periodically being passed from one family member to another.

Now and then through the afternoon she whimpered, and -- you know this already! -- she cried. What I saw was how rapidly someone stuffed a pacifier into her tiny mouth. Anyone can tell genuine distress from "fussiness," but both were treated the same. Not I. During my tenure when her crying didn't stop after a few seconds, I stood up and walked a few paces. Really, that's all it took.

Certainly it is painful to hear an infant cry -- one's impulse is to Do Something. But I don't think the Something should be to further encourage the fact that we take pleasure from (and avoid unhappiness with) our mouths. Here we are with a national epidemic of childhood obesity . . . and I can't help thinking of all the adults stuffing kids' faces with things to make them happier. Is this for the sake of the children, or is it just too much trouble for the grownups to exert themselves in other ways?

While I'm on the subject, what about the distressing tendency to keep the bored older children occupied in front of a television screen? Must we ruin their minds as well as their bodies?

For richer, for poorer

Dear You,

On a radio call-in program yesterday, a teacher was decrying the No Child Left Behind legislation that she -- and many, many others! -- claim has taken away nearly everything that was good about school. It is a favorite topic of mine, even nine years after I left the classroom. Indeed, when I first heard it called the No Teacher Left Standing act, I felt its truth.

In all the protests, what I rarely hear is the core of the legislation : NCLB is designed to cripple public schools and advance the cause of vouchers for private schools. In essence, it is merely another case of rich vs. poor.

In recent years a variety of the government's policies have widened the gap between those who have much and those without. Bankruptcy regulations favor lawyers and credit companies; tax cuts gave additional millions to millionaires, but virtually nothing to the poor; bail-outs for the banking industry encouraged the issuing of "sub-prime" mortgages at interest rates far exceeding rates offered to wealthy people; tarrif changes cost the working poor their jobs, and those who held on to them are forced to work fewer than 36 hours a week so the companies won't have to pay their health benefits. Dozens of other examples present themselves. Even the fact that the ruinous war against Iraq does not require sacrifice (no draft; no increase in taxation) -- except, of course, for the blood of the children of the poor! -- further diminishes our faith in government.

A democracy is nourished by citizens who honor and trust their leaders. Thoreau observed that while thousands hack at the branches of a problem, few know to dig at the roots. The roots are too often hidden, and our current crop of leaders thrive on the walls of secrecy they have thrown up.

Try it; you'll like it!

Dear You,

Because my mother showed me how to run a sewing machine when I was 14, I wound up four years ago stitching together some quilt blocks that kids in fifth grade created for a class project. That worked out okay, so I've gone on -- in addition to side projects, I've determined to make a quilt for each of The Twelve, as I term the dozen kids who call me Grandpa. Seven are done, and this morning I selected fabrics to begin one for Benjamin.

Isn't it the way so many habits are born? On some not otherwise remarkable day, you try something for the first time, and a couple of years later, you find it's part of your identity.

I still remember the little Kodak Brownie I got for Christmas in 1949, when I was just seven. Dad had learned darkroom techniques when he was in Italy, in the Army. He set us up in the kitchen, where after dark we turned on the yellow safelight as we swished the exposures through the chemicals and printed our pictures. Today I spend quite a bit of time -- now it's in color, and I print online or through my printer.

Am I a quilter? A photographer? Sure, those and more . . . and I'm starting to become curious about what I'll try tomorrow.

Shuffle

Dear You,

The upstairs back bedroom got a new coat of paint, and the queen-sized bed is now installed there. The middle bedroom has the twin beds, stacked, so that turns it back into the office it was a dozen years ago. Yesterday, after many trips up and down stairs from basement to third floor our possessions have been sorted, shuffled, and reorganized.

Some are being discarded. For books that means two things -- I'll set up a table at the end of the driveway today: "Free Books!" and they'll be gone by early afternoon. For the others, I've added the serial numbers from my BookCrossing membership, and I'll leave them (anonymously, of course) in public places. You can find them online at BookCrossing.com -- look for me there -- I'm "Manomet" to that fraternity.

It's good now and then to turn stuff over, as one does with a compost pile; the result yields something more profitable than if it just sits there year after year. "Oh, I was going to read that book -- I'd forgotten it was there!" I exclaim. Or "I'll bet Chuck would enjoy reading this one -- I'll send it to him." "This old thing still hanging around, taking up space? Pitch it!"

And that's not even considering how clean and fresh things look . . . for now.

The pleasure of my company

Dear You,

With no expectation (and little hope) of increasing my wealth beyond my pension, my chief source of income now is time . . . a dwindling resource, one to be hoarded. As a result, I have no wish to spend it in occupations I dislike.

In recent years I have been declining invitations, and I have done my best to avoid the company of disagreeable persons. I leave it to others to increase someone's happiness in those instances where I can find better uses of my time.

For instance, by finding time to be alone. As it turns out I enjoy my own company; I have learned that solitude has nothing whatsoever to do with loneliness. "I'm bored" has not crossed my lips -- perhaps ever. Certainly not in my memory. And I am astonished to hear it from others. Indeed, it is one of the litmus tests about someone as to whether I might like to spend time or energy on them: "Tell, me. Under what circumstances are you bored?" Any answer but 'None!' would be the wrong one.

It is a crowded and noisy world -- I need no more distractions as I continue to search for what nourishes me.

Anniversaries

Dear You,

Another couple of mileposts drifted by yesterday. The more recent one -- thirty years' standing -- was the death of my mother. The cancer beat her to her 53rd birthday, and her death was a relief from more than two years of torment . . . operations and radiation and pills. With shame I note that our relationship in the years just before had been strained. Pride -- another of the rightly called "deadly" sins -- kept me away from her, turned away her overtures, stayed my hand from writing a letter or dialing a telephone. Then the cancer. Some reconciliation, but not enough. Thirty years has not lessened the guilt I carry when I think of her, and I think of Mother often.

The other was a promise I made on an August 17 just three years earlier, which if kept would mean celebrating 33 years of marriage. In a box in my bureau drawer is an antique gold pocket watch and a hand-made gold ring -- gifts on that long-ago day from my then-wife, and objects I rarely look at and cannot dispose of: ironically, because unlike the woman who gave them they cannot be discarded.

When I think about my life, I am aware that women have been more important than men to me, that women have affected me, shaped me, informed me more than those of my own gender. And I wonder -- often -- why I have been too often cavalier in my treatment of them. The passing of years has not done enough to solve this riddle.

Olden Days

Emily and I are talking about the past. We are sitting inside a cobblestone house built a century before the shopping mall across the way, decades before the invention of the automobile that brought us to the table where we are drinking my double-tall fat-free latte and her mocha frappaccino, years before my own grandmother was born. The house is still there because Starbucks saved it from the bulldozers clearing land on either side to make way for other shops.

We look at windows made of hand-blown glass, an original fireplace with bookcases on the side, wide moldings around the door, and we wonder about the lives that passed through what had been this front parlor before it held our table and chairs. Visitors must once have presented themselves at the front door, and tradesmen delivered goods to the back. What kind of outbuildings once stood nearby?

On what is now heavily traveled Route 96 between Victor and Pittsford, agriculture has given way to commerce, and unless the Starbucks sign above the portico turns heads, most passersby may not even notice this architectural jewel that has seen if not better days, certainly ones almost unimaginably different from our own.

Another day in school

Dear You,

If you work it right, each day of life is a lesson. Each person you encounter is your teacher. With my granddaughter Emily visiting from Long Island, I am once again reminded of this.

Emily, like me, loves to read. Unlike me, she reads really, really fast. More importantly, she reads -- and introduces me to -- stuff that would have escaped my notice. This time she brought me her copy of "The Twelve Kingdoms" by Fuyumi Ono. It's fantasy, a narrative and related to other forms from Japan: anime and manga. Not my taste, I would have said two days ago, but now I'm well into the story and its fictional world. Lesson: (excuse the cliche) don't judge books by covers. (How often do I need to learn this lesson? Apparently, on a regular basis.)

Emily has much more to teach me. Indeed, I could write eleven more blogs -- one for each of the children who call me Grandpa. Each one who has crawled into my lap has brought information from a world that no one else but they inhabit, news from places I might otherwise never have visited.

Free, at last

Dear You,

Cameras are coming to Rochester's streets. Here in Upstate New York, video policing will begin in a year or so, just as it does in several other big cities around the country. Bad People will be under surveillance . . . and so will I. And you, too. The police have already put audio sensors in the area to pinpoint the location of a gunshot. For years now I've noticed cameras watching me as I withdraw money from my ATM, shop at stores, pump gasoline . . .

No, I don't feel an increased level of safety. And it's because I don't trust "authorities" with the records of my life. The men who wrote the Constitution were justifiably wary of government -- it's why they wrote so many privacy provisions into our laws. Jefferson (was it?) said that a people who wanted to be both safe and free would be neither.

Safety is a chimera. I'm astonished that so many today embrace her. On a radio program recently, caller after caller endorsed recent laws that -- to me -- further weaken our Bill of Rights . . . and I'm not talking about that idiotic Rush Limbaugh show; it was National Public Radio!

Who said that we get the government that we deserve? And if that is true, what does this say about us in the 21st Century of "human progress"?

Pick and Choose

Dear You,

I've been listening to wives talk about their lives. And it's true -- they think and act differently from men.

An overheard example -- J. was talking with K. about how she (J.) had bought and owned houses in the past 30 or so years. Looked at a lot. Compared features. Talked about them with various friends. Finally settled on one: "Well, it has potential. We could . . ." and off would start a multi-year plan to fix this, add that, reorganize the other . . . paint or wallpaper or redo the kitchen flooring . . . you get the idea. Spouse: "Whatever you think, Dear." And I remember a process 15 years or so ago, trudging through several houses and opening the door to this one, thinking, "Ah, yes. Perfect." This morning I'm putting a second coat of paint on the walls of the back bedroom.

It was the same way a couple of years ago, when we found our "snowbird home" in Florida. Three days of "not a chance" (in my mind, at least) followed by, "Ah, yes. Perfect" for the one we now have there.

I suspect (not really knowing the female mind as well as I ought after all these years of studying them) that this process is consistent across a range of issues. In the early 90s I found myself in search of a companion. When I found K. I thought, "Ah, yes. Perfect." For her part, after several months of considering X, Y and Z, I can now imagine her thinking finally -- as now -- "Well, he has potential. I could . . ."

Oops, excuse me a minute . . . I hear her calling me. (Whatever you say, Dear.)

This Little Piggie . . .

Dear You,

Too often, I react to the sight and smell of food in ways that make me think about Pavlov's dogs. This is especially noticeable around 5 in the afternoon, when it's time for a little something to stave off the pangs and brace myself for the evening to come.

And it is especially so when guests are arriving, the cork has been pulled (with another bottle standing by in support), and I'm under strict instruction not to think about serving the entree until "at least 6:30!"

Last evening it was "something new" for an hors d'oeuvre: Texas Caviar. Mix black beans, black-eyed peas, shoepeg corn, pimentos and jalapenos with garlic and shallots . . . I'm uncertain about the rest of it, and come to think of it, you're perhaps better off not knowing. I tucked in, scoop after scoop onto corn chips. An hour later when I finally lighted the grill, I really had little interest in the dinner to come, but gluttony will be served. I did my best, and that nice little chardonnay helped me along.

Shortly afterward, I took to bed. Then (I blush to provide detail; I'll mention abdominal rumblings, trips to the bathroom, thoughts of suicide) the hour or so of pleasure became several hours of counting my sins. Around 2 in the morning, I was finally able to grasp pen and paper to sketch out these remarks. Now it is morning, and I'm wondering what's for breakfast . . .

Flowers and Weeds

Dear You,

Along my driveway is a post-and-rail fence, beneath which I have planted clematis and roses -- the last a climber and a hybrid tea. Properly tended, it all looks quite picturesque, especially in mid-June, when the climber explodes in a riot of red and the clematis on either side rewards me with shows of deep blue and opalescent white.

Now, however, as August deepens, the thing is a mess. I've been out of town often and neglected my weeding and watering, and a thicket of opportunistic weeds has flourished. I see crabgrass, cornflower, dandelion, a thistle and a couple of others I can't name. And isn't this a morality tale in the growing?

During my career I taught students Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," reading it over each year myself in preparation of my lessons. (Note to the reader: it really does become easier the eighth or ninth time, and by 20 it's a cinch.) In later readings I came to enjoy the way NH used Nature (as he capitalized it) to tell his story -- particularly the "burdock, pigweed, and apple-peru" of the opening chapter to balance the "wild rosebush" of that first June day. The careful reader comes to the conclusion that the weeds represent sins, failings, and flawed characters, and the flowers are the opposite. Later mentions of weeds and flowers work the same way and intensify the plot.

What happens when weeds are not uprooted? When flowers are not tended? Well, isn't that a lesson for us all? Sooner than later, I really must get my gloves and trowel and work along that fence. And what else? Well, as I work, I'll most likely be reflecting on other lessons of my life.

Sporting Life

Dear You,

Last weekend I found myself in proximity with a number of men -- friends of each other but of only passing acquaintance with me. Such encounters are never comfortable; since I am often not part of the conversation, I seek excuses to be elsewhere.

It was my wife's school reunion. Three dozen or so classmates, along with a number of us spouses . . . and several of us were at the same motel. The morning after the dinner/dance and before the traditional afternoon/evening soiree at a nearby home, a half-dozen or so men appeared at the complimentary breakfast area, all dressed in golf attire. Now middle-aged, they looked relaxed, easy with each other, joking and sharing their mutual past. And headed out for a morning of golf.

I do not golf. Unlike them, I played no sports in high school. I had no stories to share about the Big Game or That Winning Shot or a Beloved Coach. And I don't think that I "play" in life the way I concluded that they did and still do.

For example, it was interesting to see how they decided who would ride in whose automobile and in which seat as they headed out. It's the sort of detail that is not part of the plan to "play golf tomorrow morning" along with the course and tee time. But seamlessly as they must have made plays 40 years earlier, they created a natural formation, opened doors and drove away.

Not for the first time, I thought about how high school affects each of us in its time of sorting-out. And I felt a bit of envy for those who played games in addition to all that which has shaped our subsequent history.

Rightful Heirs

Dear You,

The first time I saw the bumper sticker, I laughed. "We're spending our grandchildren's inheritance" it read. Since I had only recently retired, I could appreciate the notion of the now "empty nesters" hitting the road and spending some of what they had accrued in their years of employment.

Years later it occurs to me that it's no longer funny. It seems that we, the aging generation, are indeed spending our grandchildren's inheritance, especially in the larger sense. We are using up that which each generation has handed down to the next -- our natural resources, our fossil fuels, our native forests, our wild plant and animal environment. Suburbs sprawl in all directions, and by sheer dint of our numbers we make for congestion and worse; even the air is unclean and the water fouled in many places.

Why this profligacy? Some time ago I read an interesting piece about diminishing resources. If, say, a certain fish stock is threatened with extinction, and only careful management will save the species, it is more likely that -- in the absence of governmental restriction -- a rush will ensue to take the very last one before someone else gets to it. In short, greed is powerful. It seems that those of us born after the world wars have become accustomed to luxury. We will not be denied . . . even if it means our grandchildren may have to do without.