February 20, 2008 started out as an ordinary day. I got up to go to work about 7, dressed and made my coffee. Before I headed out, I poked my head into Pierre's room to check on him. He was sleeping soundly. His heavy snore told me he'd been up late again--I'd heard him come back in the middle of the night--so I crept up close to see if he was alright. His posture was a bit odd and the sound of the snore wasn't the same, but details like this appear only in hindsight.
As both Readers know well, that day was the day Pierre died.
This year, as that day approaches now for the third time since his actual death day, the question of what to do about it becomes more acute even as I learn to cope with it. The pain of his death has begun to fade just a bit, falling back from the constantly excruciating to the merely constantly painful. It's a matter of degree, of course. There is one degree past which the human body ceases to function. Because of this one day, I will ever exist just a hair's breadth below that line.
Given that, I suppose I should not wonder why I am so moved to do something on this day, as opposed, say, to his birthday. Both days are worthy of marking, so in some ways, it's silly to imagine not marking either one of them.
Pierre's birthday was something we always celebrated, of course. We will continue to do that. Not in the same sense that one remembers a birthday with greetings and good wishes, but in the sense that every parent feels about their children's arrival dates, particularly their first-born.
There's no other experience like it. The births of subsequent children, while not necessarily a been-there-done-that sort of feeling, are simply different from what that first time was like. The moment when you realize that you've changed the world by bringing a new person into it is a factor in all births, I guess, but it is that first time that is really life changing.
Obviously, Pierre's death day was equally life changing, but for reasons that I would never have thought of at first. For example, one of the hardest questions I have to answer these days is, "How many children do you have?"
This question is hard to answer for a couple of reasons. It's such a simple, often innocently asked question, I can't fault people for asking it. But it does present me with a difficult dilemma.
My instinct is to answer as I always have since Maddie's birth in 1990, "Two."
While this answer isn't wrong, it also isn't truthful. I want to add, "But one of them died." Now that, as you can imagine, is a great conversation killer that I have learned to avoid. No one knows what to say after that, especially me. I hate to put people in that kind of an awkward situation so I often just dodge the question altogether. But why? Why shouldn't I be truthful? Why can't I simply say "Two" and just leave it at that?
Well, because it rarely gets left at that, and the subsequent conversation can be even harder to bear. The next question is something like "Oh? How old are they?"
If the previous question presented a difficult dilemma, this follow up is even harder to answer. Unknown to the questioner, the answer is difficult for me to even contemplate for a couple of reasons. Quite honestly, it means calculating how old Pierre would be today. Now, while I have no trouble remembering that Maddie is twenty, figuring out Pierre's potential age is an exercise in painful math. And as both readers know, for me, even simple equations are painful enough without some sort of a death factor.
The math will never get easier, I suppose, but talking about and dealing with the day itself certainly will. Thankfully, those awkward conversations with strangers become rarer with time and I find it easier to cope with when they do occur.
While it has been over a thousand days since Pierre's death day, we have only had just three chances to observe and cope with that anniversary. Time will not erase the memory of what happened that terrible day, but it has begun to cover the date itself with a soothing veil of grace, a soft shroud whose layers are spun and woven from our loving memories.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Warm Bubble
Last night I had new experience as a hospice volunteer. I participated in what they call an "11th Hour" vigil at a dying man's bedside.
When I went through the training over a year ago, they talked a bit about this service that Hospice Austin provides, and told us that we might expect to be asked to participate in one if we elected to. Since I have signed on for the whole deal, as it were, I decided that this would be one more way that I could contribute through this wonderful organization. I checked the box saying I was willing and interested in participating in 11th Hour vigils should the opportunity arise, but I really didn't give it another thought until yesterday evening about 5 o'clock.
That's when I got the call from the Gayle, the Volunteer Coordinator asking me if I'd like to join a vigil at the home of a man (Mr. C.) and his wife in my neighborhood that evening. I said yes, with the condition that I could not arrive till nine pm, because it also happened that I had a work commitment that would last until at least eight. Gayle said yes, that was fine. I was free to go by there whenever I had the chance.
As I realized that I was committing myself to this new experience, my apprehension climbed rapidly. While I wanted to simply say yes, I will go and be there for and with them, I found myself searching for the limits of this endeavor. Should I call before I come? Whom should I talk to? What to say? How long will I have to be there?
Gayle, as she always is, was most reassuring. She had answers for most of my questions. It was the Mr. C.'s wife who had apparently asked for a volunteer to come sit with her and her husband. Of course I should call her before I go. Just be yourself. Stay as long as you like.
That seemed so vague. Questions, a long list of them, emerged in my mind. Should I stay through the night? Gayle said probably not, but I should be prepared to stay as long as I could and as seemed appropriate. Despite Gayle's reassuring tone, I was still uneasy at the prospect.
The questions continued to reel in my head. What would I do if the soon-to-be widow was hysterical? What if the man died while I was there? What if he didn't? What if she asked me to stay all night? These questions I did not ask, out of a sense of respect and figuring that I would not be able to answer them till I was there. So, I went.
I arrived just after nine o'clock and was greeted at the door by Mr. C's daughter. She led me into the living room where I met Mr. and Mrs. C. He was in a hospital bed in the center of the brightly lit and very warm room. Also in the room were the daughter's husband, her two teenage children and another of Mr. C.'s sons. He sat by Mr. C.'s bedside, holding his hand and occasionally dropping some pain medication into his father's open mouth. This close to death, Mr. C. was open-mouthed and breathing almost involuntarily. I greeted him in an awkwardly formal way, bowing slightly instead of offering my hand as I am accustomed to doing.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath as we listened to the dying man.
Well, I am not a very good breath-holder, so it was to be expected, I guess, that I would break the ice. After thanking them for welcoming me into their home at this intimate moment, I tried to find out where I was . I asked about Mr. C. and who the other folks in the room were. They went around and introduced themselves. We had some small talk about Austin and the weather. Then they started to interview me.
This is where I entered into new territory. Many of my original questions had been answered as soon as I entered the room, only to be supplanted by newer, even harder-to-answer questions. Mrs. C. was definitely not hysterical, but was very quiet and subdued. What was I thinking? Of course she not going to be wild with grief. Of course she is going to be weighed down by the impending death of her husband. It wasn't to be said, but I knew that she was also secretly praying for the end to come soon.
I could see--in the presence and the eyes of her family--that she had their love and support. I could tell that Mr. C.--even if he could no longer acknowledge it--was appreciative of his family and their loving devotion to him.
I could also see that while he was close to death, Mr. C. wasn't going to die in the next few minutes. So, I settled down, took a seat on the couch by his bedside and somehow became the center of attention for the next two hours.
Now, both readers know that being on stage is not something I necessarily shun. While I'm not the trained actor that my brother is, neither the absence of training nor ability doesn't seem to be able to stop me from being a ham. And boy did I manage to pork it up.
In that ever-clear hindsight I use so much, I see that while they had invited me there to talk, I took the bait far too easily. Selfishly, I ran away with a long-standing conversation that didn't even include me up until last night. Somehow, almost before I knew it, the conversation was about me.
In my defense, I can say that they didn't seem to mind too much. The conversation moved around the room, but it always seemed to come back to me. There were a few awkward silences, made more awkward by the fact that silence never really reigned supreme, what with Mr. C. rasping away in the center of the room.
But for the most part we talked. We even laughed a bit.
After a couple of hours, it seemed like time for the party to break up. The grandchildren said their last goodbyes, followed by the daughter and her husband and suddenly they were gone.
I was left with Mrs. C., her husband and son, sitting by his Dad's bedside, medicine dropper in hand. We looked at each other for a moment or two. I had no idea what to do next, so I waited. Finally, Mrs. C. thanked me for coming. I shook her hand and the son's, then gave Mr. C. one final salute before turning to leave.
Outside the cold February air reminded me that the warm bubble was temporary, like life itself. A few moments of talk, a couple of laughs and it's back out into the night. I felt a bit guilty about hogging the conversation, but as I walked to my car, looking up at the new moon and evening star, it occurred to me that I had done exactly what they had wanted. What I perceived as selfishness was actually a welcome escape for them. This, especially during a moment when conversation seems to have turned in on itself and there is nothing meaningful that hasn't already been said.
In some ways, the very meaningless-ness of my presence provided blissful a moment of temporary relief. Despite the double negative, it ended up as a positive feeling for me. If the experience was a cathartic one for the family, it was learning one for me.
When I went through the training over a year ago, they talked a bit about this service that Hospice Austin provides, and told us that we might expect to be asked to participate in one if we elected to. Since I have signed on for the whole deal, as it were, I decided that this would be one more way that I could contribute through this wonderful organization. I checked the box saying I was willing and interested in participating in 11th Hour vigils should the opportunity arise, but I really didn't give it another thought until yesterday evening about 5 o'clock.
That's when I got the call from the Gayle, the Volunteer Coordinator asking me if I'd like to join a vigil at the home of a man (Mr. C.) and his wife in my neighborhood that evening. I said yes, with the condition that I could not arrive till nine pm, because it also happened that I had a work commitment that would last until at least eight. Gayle said yes, that was fine. I was free to go by there whenever I had the chance.
As I realized that I was committing myself to this new experience, my apprehension climbed rapidly. While I wanted to simply say yes, I will go and be there for and with them, I found myself searching for the limits of this endeavor. Should I call before I come? Whom should I talk to? What to say? How long will I have to be there?
Gayle, as she always is, was most reassuring. She had answers for most of my questions. It was the Mr. C.'s wife who had apparently asked for a volunteer to come sit with her and her husband. Of course I should call her before I go. Just be yourself. Stay as long as you like.
That seemed so vague. Questions, a long list of them, emerged in my mind. Should I stay through the night? Gayle said probably not, but I should be prepared to stay as long as I could and as seemed appropriate. Despite Gayle's reassuring tone, I was still uneasy at the prospect.
The questions continued to reel in my head. What would I do if the soon-to-be widow was hysterical? What if the man died while I was there? What if he didn't? What if she asked me to stay all night? These questions I did not ask, out of a sense of respect and figuring that I would not be able to answer them till I was there. So, I went.
I arrived just after nine o'clock and was greeted at the door by Mr. C's daughter. She led me into the living room where I met Mr. and Mrs. C. He was in a hospital bed in the center of the brightly lit and very warm room. Also in the room were the daughter's husband, her two teenage children and another of Mr. C.'s sons. He sat by Mr. C.'s bedside, holding his hand and occasionally dropping some pain medication into his father's open mouth. This close to death, Mr. C. was open-mouthed and breathing almost involuntarily. I greeted him in an awkwardly formal way, bowing slightly instead of offering my hand as I am accustomed to doing.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath as we listened to the dying man.
Well, I am not a very good breath-holder, so it was to be expected, I guess, that I would break the ice. After thanking them for welcoming me into their home at this intimate moment, I tried to find out where I was . I asked about Mr. C. and who the other folks in the room were. They went around and introduced themselves. We had some small talk about Austin and the weather. Then they started to interview me.
This is where I entered into new territory. Many of my original questions had been answered as soon as I entered the room, only to be supplanted by newer, even harder-to-answer questions. Mrs. C. was definitely not hysterical, but was very quiet and subdued. What was I thinking? Of course she not going to be wild with grief. Of course she is going to be weighed down by the impending death of her husband. It wasn't to be said, but I knew that she was also secretly praying for the end to come soon.
I could see--in the presence and the eyes of her family--that she had their love and support. I could tell that Mr. C.--even if he could no longer acknowledge it--was appreciative of his family and their loving devotion to him.
I could also see that while he was close to death, Mr. C. wasn't going to die in the next few minutes. So, I settled down, took a seat on the couch by his bedside and somehow became the center of attention for the next two hours.
Now, both readers know that being on stage is not something I necessarily shun. While I'm not the trained actor that my brother is, neither the absence of training nor ability doesn't seem to be able to stop me from being a ham. And boy did I manage to pork it up.
In that ever-clear hindsight I use so much, I see that while they had invited me there to talk, I took the bait far too easily. Selfishly, I ran away with a long-standing conversation that didn't even include me up until last night. Somehow, almost before I knew it, the conversation was about me.
In my defense, I can say that they didn't seem to mind too much. The conversation moved around the room, but it always seemed to come back to me. There were a few awkward silences, made more awkward by the fact that silence never really reigned supreme, what with Mr. C. rasping away in the center of the room.
But for the most part we talked. We even laughed a bit.
After a couple of hours, it seemed like time for the party to break up. The grandchildren said their last goodbyes, followed by the daughter and her husband and suddenly they were gone.
I was left with Mrs. C., her husband and son, sitting by his Dad's bedside, medicine dropper in hand. We looked at each other for a moment or two. I had no idea what to do next, so I waited. Finally, Mrs. C. thanked me for coming. I shook her hand and the son's, then gave Mr. C. one final salute before turning to leave.
Outside the cold February air reminded me that the warm bubble was temporary, like life itself. A few moments of talk, a couple of laughs and it's back out into the night. I felt a bit guilty about hogging the conversation, but as I walked to my car, looking up at the new moon and evening star, it occurred to me that I had done exactly what they had wanted. What I perceived as selfishness was actually a welcome escape for them. This, especially during a moment when conversation seems to have turned in on itself and there is nothing meaningful that hasn't already been said.
In some ways, the very meaningless-ness of my presence provided blissful a moment of temporary relief. Despite the double negative, it ended up as a positive feeling for me. If the experience was a cathartic one for the family, it was learning one for me.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Don't Blink
Much is made
to vanish before first light.
Screaming, it goes
into the hole
at a million miles an hour.
Fasten your seatbelt.
Don't blink
or
you'll never wake up.
Tears will wet
the way
for your imagination.
Oh, let mind fill in the gaps.
That's all there is
anyway.
to vanish before first light.
Screaming, it goes
into the hole
at a million miles an hour.
Fasten your seatbelt.
Don't blink
or
you'll never wake up.
Tears will wet
the way
for your imagination.
Oh, let mind fill in the gaps.
That's all there is
anyway.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Dead Poets
It comes
when no one
is watching.
Just that moment
in a torrent
of time.
Milliseconds
that
last forever.
Eternity in a bubble.
Come
fall back
with me.
The siren call
unlaces me.
I am a ribbon
in a hurricane.
Whipped by chance,
borne up by force.
Choices are such
cruel jokes.
Don't tempt
the razor
to cut your throat
but
sing so loudly
with it at your neck
that even
Dead Poets
will rise and turn
to see
at whose feet
the wreath is thrown.
Or,
be lost.
No one hears it
so
offer it
as though the blade
were held
to your son's
pulsing throat.
Be ready.
Do not disappoint.
Cry out.
Make the last note
clear.
Like a long
whistle
in the dark.
when no one
is watching.
Just that moment
in a torrent
of time.
Milliseconds
that
last forever.
Eternity in a bubble.
Come
fall back
with me.
The siren call
unlaces me.
I am a ribbon
in a hurricane.
Whipped by chance,
borne up by force.
Choices are such
cruel jokes.
Don't tempt
the razor
to cut your throat
but
sing so loudly
with it at your neck
that even
Dead Poets
will rise and turn
to see
at whose feet
the wreath is thrown.
Or,
be lost.
No one hears it
so
offer it
as though the blade
were held
to your son's
pulsing throat.
Be ready.
Do not disappoint.
Cry out.
Make the last note
clear.
Like a long
whistle
in the dark.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
That Guy
I am not a frequent flyer so I considered it a privilege when, last month on a short flight from Oakland to San Jose California, I actually got to sit next to That Guy.
Well, it wasn't exactly next to him, but in a small confined space like a commuter airplane, aren't we all seatmates, so to speak? And, for That Guy, were were indeed, all in this together.
That Guy? Who is That Guy? Well,if you don't know, you may want stop reading now and wait for the next post, but I'm guessing that both of you, dear Readers, know just who I am talking about. No, not me, of course, even though I can't claim never to have been That Guy, but you have met him, and more than once. You've had to sit next to him on a plane, ride in his cab or sit in on one of his meetings.
He's the guy who is too loud, too outspoken, too insensitive to the needs of others and is far too in tune with his own feelings and opinions. Opinions, alas, are not like assholes. Assholes have way more than just one opinion.
That Guy doesn't need to know anything about a subject, or at least no more than enough to have already made up his mind well past the point of change. Change isn't even a realistic possibility for That Guy. That Guy's most popular subjects are, of course, sports, politics and religion, often in that order.
Despite having (at least) these three popular and seemingly easy subjects to choose from, That Guy usually has taken the time to become an expert on just one of them, though depending on how drunk he is, he may try to connect two or more of the three. Sports and religion are the easiest to link up, but it isn't hard to imagine what political dialog at the bar or Fox News might sound like sans the language of gridirons and concussive campaign web hits.
Still you have your purists, like That Guy on the plane. He was a Sports Guy, and a one loud Sports Guy at that. Worse, he was a One-Team-One-Sport Guy, which, as we all know, is the most obnoxious kind. Worse, even, than the Religion Guy preaching on the corner, who, while as rabid and gesticulatory, is at least thinking of something grander than himself, however fanciful that vision may be.
By contrast, That Sports Guy is focussed on just the one thing. His Team. With a capital T, naturally, because It is The Thing to be Worshipped. It is also The Thing to be Paid For. As in tickets, hats, jerseys and most of all stupid squanderous bets, entered into in the worst and most ambitious kind of ignorant hubris: simple pride and vanity transformed into the false promise of monetary reward. In a word, faith.
But in this faith there is no hope for salvation, only for the next Sunday, for the next Super Bowl (that someone else's team is always seems to be playing in) and for the next season. No one is really a winner in this game.
And it's not just That Guy who's got a losing record. In the end, even (especially?) the players lose their much larger bets, having in their youth unsuccessfully put up a pair of knees, say, for a couple hundred thousand dollars that was gone before they were middle-aged. Ah but who cares, right? Not That Guy.
So this Sports Guy was all That. And he knew it. He even said so.
"I'm That Guy," he said as we settled into our seats at the beginning of the flight. It was a point of pride. He then talked at the top of his lungs for the entire hour or so that we were on that plane. He recounted every drunken episode from every drunken Sunday in the past drunken year. He talked about his 'Old Man' and the 'Old Lady' like he was a dockworker from On the Waterfront. Well, Brando he was not. That Guy, he was.
Thinking perhaps that it was a bit too quiet as we waited to get off, or perhaps that we hadn't already heard, he spoke up again. "I'm That Guy," he said. "If you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it."
Ah, true that. Well, almost nothing.
I hoped that the San Diego Chargers would kick the Forty-Niner's asses that evening. And lo and behold, they did.
Well, it wasn't exactly next to him, but in a small confined space like a commuter airplane, aren't we all seatmates, so to speak? And, for That Guy, were were indeed, all in this together.
That Guy? Who is That Guy? Well,if you don't know, you may want stop reading now and wait for the next post, but I'm guessing that both of you, dear Readers, know just who I am talking about. No, not me, of course, even though I can't claim never to have been That Guy, but you have met him, and more than once. You've had to sit next to him on a plane, ride in his cab or sit in on one of his meetings.
He's the guy who is too loud, too outspoken, too insensitive to the needs of others and is far too in tune with his own feelings and opinions. Opinions, alas, are not like assholes. Assholes have way more than just one opinion.
That Guy doesn't need to know anything about a subject, or at least no more than enough to have already made up his mind well past the point of change. Change isn't even a realistic possibility for That Guy. That Guy's most popular subjects are, of course, sports, politics and religion, often in that order.
Despite having (at least) these three popular and seemingly easy subjects to choose from, That Guy usually has taken the time to become an expert on just one of them, though depending on how drunk he is, he may try to connect two or more of the three. Sports and religion are the easiest to link up, but it isn't hard to imagine what political dialog at the bar or Fox News might sound like sans the language of gridirons and concussive campaign web hits.
Still you have your purists, like That Guy on the plane. He was a Sports Guy, and a one loud Sports Guy at that. Worse, he was a One-Team-One-Sport Guy, which, as we all know, is the most obnoxious kind. Worse, even, than the Religion Guy preaching on the corner, who, while as rabid and gesticulatory, is at least thinking of something grander than himself, however fanciful that vision may be.
By contrast, That Sports Guy is focussed on just the one thing. His Team. With a capital T, naturally, because It is The Thing to be Worshipped. It is also The Thing to be Paid For. As in tickets, hats, jerseys and most of all stupid squanderous bets, entered into in the worst and most ambitious kind of ignorant hubris: simple pride and vanity transformed into the false promise of monetary reward. In a word, faith.
But in this faith there is no hope for salvation, only for the next Sunday, for the next Super Bowl (that someone else's team is always seems to be playing in) and for the next season. No one is really a winner in this game.
And it's not just That Guy who's got a losing record. In the end, even (especially?) the players lose their much larger bets, having in their youth unsuccessfully put up a pair of knees, say, for a couple hundred thousand dollars that was gone before they were middle-aged. Ah but who cares, right? Not That Guy.
So this Sports Guy was all That. And he knew it. He even said so.
"I'm That Guy," he said as we settled into our seats at the beginning of the flight. It was a point of pride. He then talked at the top of his lungs for the entire hour or so that we were on that plane. He recounted every drunken episode from every drunken Sunday in the past drunken year. He talked about his 'Old Man' and the 'Old Lady' like he was a dockworker from On the Waterfront. Well, Brando he was not. That Guy, he was.
Thinking perhaps that it was a bit too quiet as we waited to get off, or perhaps that we hadn't already heard, he spoke up again. "I'm That Guy," he said. "If you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it."
Ah, true that. Well, almost nothing.
I hoped that the San Diego Chargers would kick the Forty-Niner's asses that evening. And lo and behold, they did.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tools Make the Man
As both readers know well, I am no master craftsman. Although I own a fairly complete set of tools, it is safe to say that when it comes to using them, I'm fooling myself if I say that I am in any way skilled.
Take something simple, say, like a wrench. Now this is a tool I've used a lot, but sometimes it feels like it's the first time I've ever held one, let alone mastered its use. I routinely look carefully at a nut or bolt, walk back to my tool kit and pick up the wrong wrench. I walk back to my work, discover that it is either the next one up or the next one down, but not this one. Then, I walk back to the toolkit and attempt to chose the right one. Often it is that damn third time that is the charm.
Oh well, at least I'm getting my exercise.
Some tools, however, I use so infrequently that it really is like the first time when I pick it up again. Yesterday, I picked up such a tool, a little 3-inch angle grinder. I've used this little power toy maybe two or three times since I bought it back when the car in my driveway was a partially disassembled MGB.
I used it for the first time in three years just the other day, when I cut down the angle iron that I used to make a frame brace before we lifted the body off the chassis. Yesterday, though, I had some serious work ahead for this tool--cutting the rusty body pans out of the frame--yet my lack of experience was to be no hindrance to the task.
When I first bent to the task, I was hesitant and sloppy. I revved up the cutting wheel and locked in the 'on' position, but when I touched it to the welds, I let it skip and bounce a bit. The result was a jagged line that actually missed the second weld.
Sparks were flying everywhere and I had to stop and wait cautiously for the smoke in the frame tunnel to fade away. A fire inside the frame would have been particularly hard to put out, to say nothing of the damage that it would do.
So, when the smoke cleared, I went back to work, this time resolved to use the tool with a bit more confidence. I began really cutting into the rusty bumpy steel intersection between the pan and the frame. It felt less like steel and more like bread. Instead of a sawing motion that I would use for bread or meat, I began to drawn the spinning blade back in a straight line as I applied downward pressure to the steel. I began to feel the material as something less than steel, more 'cuttable'. Soon a neat line appeared behind the blade and I was making good progress.
Better than that, I was actually learning to use this tool. It felt great.
It wasn't to last too long, however. Depending on how you look at it, the fact that the person who welded in the pans the last time (it was NOT a stock installation) was so unskilled or lazy (or both) with the welder, that half the pan was not even welded in. After I cut through the first half, the pan just peeled back and off the frame. In less than an hour, I had the left floor pan off the car.
The right half will be much easier, of course, because now I have acquired just enough skill with the cutting tool to make it barely so. I will be fooling myself if I allow myself to believe that the skill is anything more than rudimentary. After all, I won't be cutting out floor pans on a daily basis, so whatever skill I manage to develop next weekend will surely be lost before the next task comes along.
In spite of this sober approach to my tools and my skill at using them, I am never so fully engaged, so deeply happy as when I have a tool in my hand and I'm learning how to use it. I think this is a deep, primordial urge, something so basic that it compels me despite my lack of skill and experience. Holding and learning how to use a tool--teaching myself as I go--makes me more than a shade-tree mechanic. It makes me human.
Take something simple, say, like a wrench. Now this is a tool I've used a lot, but sometimes it feels like it's the first time I've ever held one, let alone mastered its use. I routinely look carefully at a nut or bolt, walk back to my tool kit and pick up the wrong wrench. I walk back to my work, discover that it is either the next one up or the next one down, but not this one. Then, I walk back to the toolkit and attempt to chose the right one. Often it is that damn third time that is the charm.
Oh well, at least I'm getting my exercise.
Some tools, however, I use so infrequently that it really is like the first time when I pick it up again. Yesterday, I picked up such a tool, a little 3-inch angle grinder. I've used this little power toy maybe two or three times since I bought it back when the car in my driveway was a partially disassembled MGB.
I used it for the first time in three years just the other day, when I cut down the angle iron that I used to make a frame brace before we lifted the body off the chassis. Yesterday, though, I had some serious work ahead for this tool--cutting the rusty body pans out of the frame--yet my lack of experience was to be no hindrance to the task.
When I first bent to the task, I was hesitant and sloppy. I revved up the cutting wheel and locked in the 'on' position, but when I touched it to the welds, I let it skip and bounce a bit. The result was a jagged line that actually missed the second weld.
Sparks were flying everywhere and I had to stop and wait cautiously for the smoke in the frame tunnel to fade away. A fire inside the frame would have been particularly hard to put out, to say nothing of the damage that it would do.
So, when the smoke cleared, I went back to work, this time resolved to use the tool with a bit more confidence. I began really cutting into the rusty bumpy steel intersection between the pan and the frame. It felt less like steel and more like bread. Instead of a sawing motion that I would use for bread or meat, I began to drawn the spinning blade back in a straight line as I applied downward pressure to the steel. I began to feel the material as something less than steel, more 'cuttable'. Soon a neat line appeared behind the blade and I was making good progress.
Better than that, I was actually learning to use this tool. It felt great.
It wasn't to last too long, however. Depending on how you look at it, the fact that the person who welded in the pans the last time (it was NOT a stock installation) was so unskilled or lazy (or both) with the welder, that half the pan was not even welded in. After I cut through the first half, the pan just peeled back and off the frame. In less than an hour, I had the left floor pan off the car.
The right half will be much easier, of course, because now I have acquired just enough skill with the cutting tool to make it barely so. I will be fooling myself if I allow myself to believe that the skill is anything more than rudimentary. After all, I won't be cutting out floor pans on a daily basis, so whatever skill I manage to develop next weekend will surely be lost before the next task comes along.
In spite of this sober approach to my tools and my skill at using them, I am never so fully engaged, so deeply happy as when I have a tool in my hand and I'm learning how to use it. I think this is a deep, primordial urge, something so basic that it compels me despite my lack of skill and experience. Holding and learning how to use a tool--teaching myself as I go--makes me more than a shade-tree mechanic. It makes me human.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Don't Make That
These days, it seems fashionable to be 'anti-art'.
It seems that no matter what art it is or where it is placed, somehow, someone will be against it. But what does that mean, to be 'anti-art'? Is this a new phenomenon, or is it something ancient, built-in, so to speak, to society itself?
I tend toward the latter explanation because while it is sometimes fashionable to be iconoclastic, it has always been safe to be anti-art. The most common example of this is trite.
"That's not art. My five-year old could have done better than that!"
While uttered often in our era, I suspect that down through time, there has always been some observer off to the side muttering that very sentiment, even stretching back to the Neanderthals. Critics, even cavemen, have ever been so cruel. Another, less articulated but still prevalent attitude is more direct.
"I don't care what you call it. Stop. Don't make that."
This is most often directed to artists at the extreme edge, whose position there is to elicit that very response, but it is what is really at the core of most objections to art. If being anti-art is somehow seen as being pro-order (or anti-anarchy to double down on the negative) then it is a rather common feeling, I suspect.
Many people feel--and, perhaps, have always felt--that art and artists have simply run away with (from?) the rules of society. There is a prevalent feeling that for most people, most art is no better than graffiti, and certainly is no less harmful to society. Art, like graffiti, is a sign of decay. Art is anarchy that threatens the order of society and some people think that they are defending not simply their opinion, but their very way of life.
Sometimes it's tempting to think this way. It'd be much easier to reject art than think about it. But common sense and some reasonable humility are in order. When we see ourselves as the last bastion of civilization, it's a sure sign we are overreaching.
It seems that no matter what art it is or where it is placed, somehow, someone will be against it. But what does that mean, to be 'anti-art'? Is this a new phenomenon, or is it something ancient, built-in, so to speak, to society itself?
I tend toward the latter explanation because while it is sometimes fashionable to be iconoclastic, it has always been safe to be anti-art. The most common example of this is trite.
"That's not art. My five-year old could have done better than that!"
While uttered often in our era, I suspect that down through time, there has always been some observer off to the side muttering that very sentiment, even stretching back to the Neanderthals. Critics, even cavemen, have ever been so cruel. Another, less articulated but still prevalent attitude is more direct.
"I don't care what you call it. Stop. Don't make that."
This is most often directed to artists at the extreme edge, whose position there is to elicit that very response, but it is what is really at the core of most objections to art. If being anti-art is somehow seen as being pro-order (or anti-anarchy to double down on the negative) then it is a rather common feeling, I suspect.
Many people feel--and, perhaps, have always felt--that art and artists have simply run away with (from?) the rules of society. There is a prevalent feeling that for most people, most art is no better than graffiti, and certainly is no less harmful to society. Art, like graffiti, is a sign of decay. Art is anarchy that threatens the order of society and some people think that they are defending not simply their opinion, but their very way of life.
Sometimes it's tempting to think this way. It'd be much easier to reject art than think about it. But common sense and some reasonable humility are in order. When we see ourselves as the last bastion of civilization, it's a sure sign we are overreaching.
Monday, December 20, 2010
California Wine Country: Sonoma & Napa
I took my first trip to California wine country last week.
Yes, truth be told, the secret is out: though I have sold many a bottle of wine from Sonoma and Napa, I have never been to see where they come from. While it might seem like a trivial thing--after all, I haven't been to most wine producing regions of the world, let alone the many in California alone, or even Texas for that matter--in fact it was a way of providing some background, a context, if you will, for the wines that I sell every weekend.
Seeing the sky, smelling the earth and experiencing the terrain where the grapes are grown is as important as tasting the wine they are made from.
That much I was prepared for, but only in the way of knowing that was how I wanted to experience it first; raw and unprepared except for a few appointments at wineries whose products I know and whose wine makers I have come to respect by virtue if that product. Some of the wine makers I had already met, like Robert from Deerfield, Paul from Red Car, Gove from Neal and John from Caldwell.
We went to see five wineries in Sonoma and Napa in two days. Our first winery was in a rainy, mossy, and foggy Sonoma, at Deerfield. Here we were met by Robert Rex and his wife P.J. Their home was full of wonderful smells, most cozy and welcoming, as were they. P.J. claimed that she was cooking stock and pea soup because Robert had left the freezer open when he'd gone for some ice late the night before. If it was just a ruse, it was a wonderful one, because it made us feel right at home.
Robert and P.J. were also most interesting and easy to talk to. We drank some of their wines and ate some delightful cheeses--an Argentinian 'parmesan' and a French bleu--with some little bits of toast and garlic oil in a little bowl. P.J. served us demitasse cups full of the fresh pea soup she was making along with a little truffle oil on top. it was bright green and fresh, and I could really taste the peas.
We talked around their table for about two hours. I learned a lot about Robert and P.J., their business and their passion for wine. The latter we already knew about, but finding two very likable and open people was a highlight of our trip.
Next, we drove through the rain to Dutton, where we got more of the classic 'tourist style' of tasting. We went to the tasting room, where we met Ruben, the General Manager. He tasted us on a couple of wines and gave us a nice, if rather perfunctory tour of the winery and warehouse where they store all the barrels. We bought a bottle of the syrah.
We ended the day with a trip to Red Car, which is actually winery but there isn't much to see. They were having an open house to celebrate the opening of their new tasting room. We were among the first people to arrive, mostly because we didn't want to go to our hotel till we had had a chance to say hello to Paul, who had come to our house a couple of years ago.
That night, we stayed in a Hyatt in Santa Rosa and ate dinner in a restaurant called Syrah. It was very good, and affordable only because we split an appetizer and an entree with no dessert. They had a wine list that looked more like a book; it must have listed 300 wines. I think the waitress was a bit disappointed when Valery had a glass of chardonnay and I had a beer.
The next day we went to Napa and began the day at Neal, whose Cabernet is unquestionably my favorite Napa Cab, and whose winemaker Gove was out to Hudson's for a wine dinner a couple of years ago also. The Neal winery is one of those complete shops. They have their own vineyards, all the winemaking equipment, including de-stemmer, crusher, press, tanks, barrels, cave, bottling room, label printer and tasting room. They've only been making wine since 2001, but they have lots of money. Mark Neal, the owner, is a grape grower.
That's something I learned, about all the different roles that people play in a wine producing place like Sonoma/Napa. You have your farmers, grape producers, and your brokers, who sell grapes to wineries. You have the wineries, which can be in a beautiful purpose-made building with a cave (like Neal) or just a warehouse (like Red Car) and the winemakers, who are mostly UC Davis grads, but there are still a few autodidacts out there, like Gove at Neal. You have grape brokers who are also winery owners (but not wine makers) like our fifth and final stop on our mini-tour.
We met John Caldwell outside his 5,000 square foot cave drilled into the volcanic ash of a hillside. Inside is a state-of-the-art winery, with all the trappings of the big-time, including a special tasting room that is actually a dome carved out of the rock inside the cave. Caldwell is bit of a curmudgeon, but only because he's been in the business long enough not to be impressed by money or power, only by passion and an earnest desire to learn about his wine, which he was happy to talk about for about two hours.
If anything sums up our experience, it was the feeling that if one were to live in Sonoma or Napa, one's life would almost necessarily revolve around wine. So pervasive is the industry that when I went to get a hot-dog at a roadside stand in St. Helena, they had a wine list. I wouldn't be surprised if they also had a sommelier.
While I learned a lot from this trip, mostly what I learned is how little I really know. It was wonderful to put a few wines in context, but I doubt I'll ever even learn a fraction of what there is to know about wine, wineries and wine makers. So, while what I know may not qualify me to be a sommelier at a Napa Valley hot dog stand, it'll have to do for Hudson's. At least I'm learning!
Yes, truth be told, the secret is out: though I have sold many a bottle of wine from Sonoma and Napa, I have never been to see where they come from. While it might seem like a trivial thing--after all, I haven't been to most wine producing regions of the world, let alone the many in California alone, or even Texas for that matter--in fact it was a way of providing some background, a context, if you will, for the wines that I sell every weekend.
Seeing the sky, smelling the earth and experiencing the terrain where the grapes are grown is as important as tasting the wine they are made from.
That much I was prepared for, but only in the way of knowing that was how I wanted to experience it first; raw and unprepared except for a few appointments at wineries whose products I know and whose wine makers I have come to respect by virtue if that product. Some of the wine makers I had already met, like Robert from Deerfield, Paul from Red Car, Gove from Neal and John from Caldwell.
We went to see five wineries in Sonoma and Napa in two days. Our first winery was in a rainy, mossy, and foggy Sonoma, at Deerfield. Here we were met by Robert Rex and his wife P.J. Their home was full of wonderful smells, most cozy and welcoming, as were they. P.J. claimed that she was cooking stock and pea soup because Robert had left the freezer open when he'd gone for some ice late the night before. If it was just a ruse, it was a wonderful one, because it made us feel right at home.
Robert and P.J. were also most interesting and easy to talk to. We drank some of their wines and ate some delightful cheeses--an Argentinian 'parmesan' and a French bleu--with some little bits of toast and garlic oil in a little bowl. P.J. served us demitasse cups full of the fresh pea soup she was making along with a little truffle oil on top. it was bright green and fresh, and I could really taste the peas.
We talked around their table for about two hours. I learned a lot about Robert and P.J., their business and their passion for wine. The latter we already knew about, but finding two very likable and open people was a highlight of our trip.
Next, we drove through the rain to Dutton, where we got more of the classic 'tourist style' of tasting. We went to the tasting room, where we met Ruben, the General Manager. He tasted us on a couple of wines and gave us a nice, if rather perfunctory tour of the winery and warehouse where they store all the barrels. We bought a bottle of the syrah.
We ended the day with a trip to Red Car, which is actually winery but there isn't much to see. They were having an open house to celebrate the opening of their new tasting room. We were among the first people to arrive, mostly because we didn't want to go to our hotel till we had had a chance to say hello to Paul, who had come to our house a couple of years ago.
That night, we stayed in a Hyatt in Santa Rosa and ate dinner in a restaurant called Syrah. It was very good, and affordable only because we split an appetizer and an entree with no dessert. They had a wine list that looked more like a book; it must have listed 300 wines. I think the waitress was a bit disappointed when Valery had a glass of chardonnay and I had a beer.
The next day we went to Napa and began the day at Neal, whose Cabernet is unquestionably my favorite Napa Cab, and whose winemaker Gove was out to Hudson's for a wine dinner a couple of years ago also. The Neal winery is one of those complete shops. They have their own vineyards, all the winemaking equipment, including de-stemmer, crusher, press, tanks, barrels, cave, bottling room, label printer and tasting room. They've only been making wine since 2001, but they have lots of money. Mark Neal, the owner, is a grape grower.
That's something I learned, about all the different roles that people play in a wine producing place like Sonoma/Napa. You have your farmers, grape producers, and your brokers, who sell grapes to wineries. You have the wineries, which can be in a beautiful purpose-made building with a cave (like Neal) or just a warehouse (like Red Car) and the winemakers, who are mostly UC Davis grads, but there are still a few autodidacts out there, like Gove at Neal. You have grape brokers who are also winery owners (but not wine makers) like our fifth and final stop on our mini-tour.
We met John Caldwell outside his 5,000 square foot cave drilled into the volcanic ash of a hillside. Inside is a state-of-the-art winery, with all the trappings of the big-time, including a special tasting room that is actually a dome carved out of the rock inside the cave. Caldwell is bit of a curmudgeon, but only because he's been in the business long enough not to be impressed by money or power, only by passion and an earnest desire to learn about his wine, which he was happy to talk about for about two hours.
If anything sums up our experience, it was the feeling that if one were to live in Sonoma or Napa, one's life would almost necessarily revolve around wine. So pervasive is the industry that when I went to get a hot-dog at a roadside stand in St. Helena, they had a wine list. I wouldn't be surprised if they also had a sommelier.
While I learned a lot from this trip, mostly what I learned is how little I really know. It was wonderful to put a few wines in context, but I doubt I'll ever even learn a fraction of what there is to know about wine, wineries and wine makers. So, while what I know may not qualify me to be a sommelier at a Napa Valley hot dog stand, it'll have to do for Hudson's. At least I'm learning!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Science and Superstition
I won the football pool this week. I won $100.
Now, before both Readers zip to the bottom of this post to add congratulatory comments, consider that this is the 12th week of the NFL season, and that I have bet $10 for 10 of those twelve weeks. Even I can do this math. Hurray! I broke even!
Actually it's not so good as that. Consider, if you will, that I bet on every single week of the NFL season last year--that's sixteen games--and won, well, not even once. Again, this math is not beyond my reach. I am, for the two seasons that I can recall for the purpose of this essay, down about $160.
Now I know it's really not fair to look at betting from a historical viewpoint, as this is most likely to prove the foolishness of the endeavor, but it is fair to say that I am under no illusions about the profitability. I know I am going to lose more than I win. Still I enjoy playing, for reasons that I have explored in another post, and this essay is headed in another direction.
Specifically, I have begun to wonder about what makes for a reasonable strategy when it comes to making my pool picks on any given week. I mean, is it knowledge that drives the decision-making process?
Or, is it luck? Common sense tells me that it is some combination of the two, especially because we all--football fans and non-fans alike--know that any given team can beat any other given team on any given Sunday (or Monday or sometimes Thursdays or Saturdays). Even the best teams lose one game per season.
And this underscores my point. Which, if I were to have made it by now would be this: it isn't so much what we know about something that informs us about future possibilities--like the outcome of any given NFL game--but it's what we don't know. Or rather, it is what we don't bring to the decision-making process that makes the difference between whether we pick right or wrong; whether we win or lose.
In this case, I think it's a case of what you know that hurts you.
Consider a particular case. N___. She's won the football pool twice this year. In terms of just this year--recall that we don't do the historical thing--she's actually ahead for the year! She's making money!
What does she know that we don't? What's her method?
Is she a football fanatic? A fan, perhaps, but no fanatic. In fact she doesn't even watch football except when she's at work and it happens to be what we have on. This is not to say that she doesn't know anything about football. She's actually knowledgeable about the game, the rules and even knows many of the players names. She knows how to watch the game on television and can tell good play from poor, good players from bad.
She ain't dumb, that's for sure.
But she doesn't know anything that we--read male football fans--don't know. She doesn't read the stats--except to look at the standings from week to week when making picks, which almost everybody does--and she doesn't look at or listen to any kind of post-game analysis or anything as detailed and particular as, say, injury reports. Not even a few minutes of SportsCenter before bed. Glee, perhaps.
So, it's fair to say that N___ isn't relying on knowledge for her picks. But of course, she would tell you that if you asked. In fact, I have asked, and she told me. She is quite candid about her method, which, it is safe to say, she will share with anyone. Here is the N___ method of choosing picks:
First, she looks at each match-up. Sometimes, she'll know from personal experience (she plays every week) which teams are doing better than others. Sometimes she'll check the standings sheet that Bobby (the HOB Football Pool Commissioner) prints off the net when he makes each week's sheet. But if N___ doesn't know--and this, by her own account, is often--which team is more likely to win, she has a method for breaking the tie, the N___ method, so to speak, and it has nothing to do with football.
She picks the team that is from the city she would rather live in.
Now, you might argue that this makes it easy for her to eschew choosing the hapless Buffalo Bills or the hopeless Dallas Cowboys, but then you'd have to explain why she occasionally chooses New England or Green Bay and why she doesn't always pick Tampa Bay (ok maybe not) or Miami.
Hey, I'm not saying that I endorse the N___ method for choosing which team is more likely to win on any given Sunday, but I am saying that at least N___ cannot be accused of over-thinking her choices.
This leads me to my final point. Over-thinking, I think, is the sure-fire way to lose. I have no better evidence to offer in this argument than the circular logic of this very statement or my own dismal 0-16 showing last year. By the way, I think N___ won at least once,if not twice last year.
I think that in order to really understand the complexities of decision-making, even those seemingly simple or mundane choices, we have to ignore the trees and look at the forest.
As Malcolm Gladwell observed in his book Blink, the powers of human observation and the synthesis of information is a much faster and less conscious process than we realize or even like to admit. Yet we trust that 'gut feeling' to get us through many a difficult decision, not just the ones that involve wagers of a monetary nature. We make far more choices based on our 'instincts' and 'luck' than our 'skill' or 'knowledge'. I put both in quotes to accentuate the irony; clearly neither instinct nor knowledge is 'it'.
My father Bill used to say--after he'd beaten one of us children at a game in a particularly easy or befuddling way--"It was just Science and Skill versus Ignorance and Superstition".
I certainly didn't use the N___ method when choosing teams this week, but I'll admit, it was Ignorance and Superstition rather than Science and Skill that yielded the winning combination for me this week.
Now, before both Readers zip to the bottom of this post to add congratulatory comments, consider that this is the 12th week of the NFL season, and that I have bet $10 for 10 of those twelve weeks. Even I can do this math. Hurray! I broke even!
Actually it's not so good as that. Consider, if you will, that I bet on every single week of the NFL season last year--that's sixteen games--and won, well, not even once. Again, this math is not beyond my reach. I am, for the two seasons that I can recall for the purpose of this essay, down about $160.
Now I know it's really not fair to look at betting from a historical viewpoint, as this is most likely to prove the foolishness of the endeavor, but it is fair to say that I am under no illusions about the profitability. I know I am going to lose more than I win. Still I enjoy playing, for reasons that I have explored in another post, and this essay is headed in another direction.
Specifically, I have begun to wonder about what makes for a reasonable strategy when it comes to making my pool picks on any given week. I mean, is it knowledge that drives the decision-making process?
Or, is it luck? Common sense tells me that it is some combination of the two, especially because we all--football fans and non-fans alike--know that any given team can beat any other given team on any given Sunday (or Monday or sometimes Thursdays or Saturdays). Even the best teams lose one game per season.
And this underscores my point. Which, if I were to have made it by now would be this: it isn't so much what we know about something that informs us about future possibilities--like the outcome of any given NFL game--but it's what we don't know. Or rather, it is what we don't bring to the decision-making process that makes the difference between whether we pick right or wrong; whether we win or lose.
In this case, I think it's a case of what you know that hurts you.
Consider a particular case. N___. She's won the football pool twice this year. In terms of just this year--recall that we don't do the historical thing--she's actually ahead for the year! She's making money!
What does she know that we don't? What's her method?
Is she a football fanatic? A fan, perhaps, but no fanatic. In fact she doesn't even watch football except when she's at work and it happens to be what we have on. This is not to say that she doesn't know anything about football. She's actually knowledgeable about the game, the rules and even knows many of the players names. She knows how to watch the game on television and can tell good play from poor, good players from bad.
She ain't dumb, that's for sure.
But she doesn't know anything that we--read male football fans--don't know. She doesn't read the stats--except to look at the standings from week to week when making picks, which almost everybody does--and she doesn't look at or listen to any kind of post-game analysis or anything as detailed and particular as, say, injury reports. Not even a few minutes of SportsCenter before bed. Glee, perhaps.
So, it's fair to say that N___ isn't relying on knowledge for her picks. But of course, she would tell you that if you asked. In fact, I have asked, and she told me. She is quite candid about her method, which, it is safe to say, she will share with anyone. Here is the N___ method of choosing picks:
First, she looks at each match-up. Sometimes, she'll know from personal experience (she plays every week) which teams are doing better than others. Sometimes she'll check the standings sheet that Bobby (the HOB Football Pool Commissioner) prints off the net when he makes each week's sheet. But if N___ doesn't know--and this, by her own account, is often--which team is more likely to win, she has a method for breaking the tie, the N___ method, so to speak, and it has nothing to do with football.
She picks the team that is from the city she would rather live in.
Now, you might argue that this makes it easy for her to eschew choosing the hapless Buffalo Bills or the hopeless Dallas Cowboys, but then you'd have to explain why she occasionally chooses New England or Green Bay and why she doesn't always pick Tampa Bay (ok maybe not) or Miami.
Hey, I'm not saying that I endorse the N___ method for choosing which team is more likely to win on any given Sunday, but I am saying that at least N___ cannot be accused of over-thinking her choices.
This leads me to my final point. Over-thinking, I think, is the sure-fire way to lose. I have no better evidence to offer in this argument than the circular logic of this very statement or my own dismal 0-16 showing last year. By the way, I think N___ won at least once,if not twice last year.
I think that in order to really understand the complexities of decision-making, even those seemingly simple or mundane choices, we have to ignore the trees and look at the forest.
As Malcolm Gladwell observed in his book Blink, the powers of human observation and the synthesis of information is a much faster and less conscious process than we realize or even like to admit. Yet we trust that 'gut feeling' to get us through many a difficult decision, not just the ones that involve wagers of a monetary nature. We make far more choices based on our 'instincts' and 'luck' than our 'skill' or 'knowledge'. I put both in quotes to accentuate the irony; clearly neither instinct nor knowledge is 'it'.
My father Bill used to say--after he'd beaten one of us children at a game in a particularly easy or befuddling way--"It was just Science and Skill versus Ignorance and Superstition".
I certainly didn't use the N___ method when choosing teams this week, but I'll admit, it was Ignorance and Superstition rather than Science and Skill that yielded the winning combination for me this week.
Monday, November 29, 2010
A New Chapter
In the six weeks after Mr. N died, I have to confess that at first I was relieved, not just for the cessation of his suffering, but for my own 'freedom' to go through a week without seeing him.
But if I was busy enough to need the time, I was not so busy that I didn't notice the void his passing had left. It's not a void of the painful type, which I know all too well, but rather the absence of the calming influence that this mission, if you will, has effected in my life. It's selfish, really. In those moments being with and dealing with others I am lifted out and away from my own self perceived miseries and find that I have, in fact, very few of of those miseries indeed.
This is not to say that my life seems so much better when compared to the dying, because if I can't say that I'm not trying hard enough for sure. Instead, it is the feeling of being outside myself, engaged with someone I don't know in a relationship that is meaningful to us both that I seek.
Yesterday began a new chapter in that story.
I met 'Buddy' B at his home in South Austin yesterday morning. He is 90 years old and rail-thin like me. He has bright blue red-rimmed eyes and a ready smile. He is very frail, of course, and a bit hard to follow in a conversation, but nowhere near the garble that I used to share with Mr. N.
At first, we talked about where I lived, worked and why I'd come. Then, I asked what he'd done for a living. He worked in the Piggly-Wiggly (long defunct in Austin but thriving elsewhere in the south) here in Austin for many years. He went to Austin High, which means that we share something already, but I am not sure if or how much of this he'll remember in our subsequent conversations. He was very pleasant to talk to and even a little funny. When I asked what he'd done in the grocery business, he replied "Not much!" He likes football and follows the 'Horns but said that he has to watch whatever is on the TV, which he noted with some dissatisfaction was "on all the time." I don't doubt him--while I was there, it was on some sort of a music channel, just playing Christmas music in a loud and seemingly endless loop.
I will learn more about him in the coming weeks and months, I am sure. He's old and frail but not ill or actively dying yet, and it looks as if it may be many months or even years before that happens.
I'm looking forward to this new relationship, not least because of the place where Buddy is staying. It's a home in South Austin, just off Slaughter Lane near our house. The home is similar to the one I managed to find for Lynda at the end of her days, privately owned and operated under a license from the State. These folks are young and friendly and I have to say that when I walked in, it smelled good! Not just ok, but actually good. They were preparing lunch for the residents--five or six in all--right in the open kitchen area behind the living area.
Buddy sat on the couch next to a man who didn't talk or even acknowledge me, but as I pulled up a chair next to the couch, the two ladies in wheelchairs at the kitchen table couldn't help but hear us talking and watched us the whole time. At one point, I turned to acknowledge them and as I left, I got to thinking about how this was going to be a much more interesting and pleasant experience than the anguishing and solitary visits I had for Mr. N for so many months. At Buddy's home, they are actually caring for the residents, with good food, a caring attitude and lots of smiles, which they shared with me. Of course the residents are old, but here they didn't seem so resolutely unhappy. It is amazing how far a little kindness--and good food--will go.
I left with the smile they gave me on my face. I like 'Buddy' and being a part of this new 'family'.
But if I was busy enough to need the time, I was not so busy that I didn't notice the void his passing had left. It's not a void of the painful type, which I know all too well, but rather the absence of the calming influence that this mission, if you will, has effected in my life. It's selfish, really. In those moments being with and dealing with others I am lifted out and away from my own self perceived miseries and find that I have, in fact, very few of of those miseries indeed.
This is not to say that my life seems so much better when compared to the dying, because if I can't say that I'm not trying hard enough for sure. Instead, it is the feeling of being outside myself, engaged with someone I don't know in a relationship that is meaningful to us both that I seek.
Yesterday began a new chapter in that story.
I met 'Buddy' B at his home in South Austin yesterday morning. He is 90 years old and rail-thin like me. He has bright blue red-rimmed eyes and a ready smile. He is very frail, of course, and a bit hard to follow in a conversation, but nowhere near the garble that I used to share with Mr. N.
At first, we talked about where I lived, worked and why I'd come. Then, I asked what he'd done for a living. He worked in the Piggly-Wiggly (long defunct in Austin but thriving elsewhere in the south) here in Austin for many years. He went to Austin High, which means that we share something already, but I am not sure if or how much of this he'll remember in our subsequent conversations. He was very pleasant to talk to and even a little funny. When I asked what he'd done in the grocery business, he replied "Not much!" He likes football and follows the 'Horns but said that he has to watch whatever is on the TV, which he noted with some dissatisfaction was "on all the time." I don't doubt him--while I was there, it was on some sort of a music channel, just playing Christmas music in a loud and seemingly endless loop.
I will learn more about him in the coming weeks and months, I am sure. He's old and frail but not ill or actively dying yet, and it looks as if it may be many months or even years before that happens.
I'm looking forward to this new relationship, not least because of the place where Buddy is staying. It's a home in South Austin, just off Slaughter Lane near our house. The home is similar to the one I managed to find for Lynda at the end of her days, privately owned and operated under a license from the State. These folks are young and friendly and I have to say that when I walked in, it smelled good! Not just ok, but actually good. They were preparing lunch for the residents--five or six in all--right in the open kitchen area behind the living area.
Buddy sat on the couch next to a man who didn't talk or even acknowledge me, but as I pulled up a chair next to the couch, the two ladies in wheelchairs at the kitchen table couldn't help but hear us talking and watched us the whole time. At one point, I turned to acknowledge them and as I left, I got to thinking about how this was going to be a much more interesting and pleasant experience than the anguishing and solitary visits I had for Mr. N for so many months. At Buddy's home, they are actually caring for the residents, with good food, a caring attitude and lots of smiles, which they shared with me. Of course the residents are old, but here they didn't seem so resolutely unhappy. It is amazing how far a little kindness--and good food--will go.
I left with the smile they gave me on my face. I like 'Buddy' and being a part of this new 'family'.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Way It Is
There is, after all, not much of a chance that 21st-century journalism will be adapted to conform with the old rules. Technology and the market are offering a tantalizing array of channels, each designed to fill a particular niche - sports, weather, cooking, religion - and an infinite variety of news, prepared and seasoned to reflect our taste, just the way we like it. As someone used to say in a bygone era, "That's the way it is."
Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."
So what Koppel? You say it like it's a bad thing.
I know the 'problem' as it exists for 'traditional' journalists. The problem I have is that you make it sound as if journalists have been around for as long, say, as priests, or even athletes or, heaven and/or glory help us, politicians.
Though I might wish otherwise, I think that what we have come to know in the last half of the 20th century in the U.S. as 'real' journalism--particularly print journalism--will be marginalized for quite some time, perhaps the first half of the 21st century. This is not to say that journalism has no value, or that it is irrelevant, or that it will be eventually erased.
What will be erased is the sense of altruistic entitlement that conventional journalists--not unlike the politicians that they 'cover'--feel they have inherited from their experience in the previous century. The boys from the old school think that writing about the world, covering a beat if you will, is best left to trained professionals who learned how to write 'back in the day'.
I come bearing news, sire. The world don't owe you no dime. It seems to me that what has really changed is one word in your conclusion. Frankly, I much prefer the 'infinite' variety we have now to the oh-so-very-finite and Neopolitan (three basic flavors) world of the 1960's and 1970's. I've had both, and I like the way things are now better, thank you very much.
Of course we trusted Uncle Walter (and you too, Uncle Ted), but that was because we had no choice. As children we looked up to you, literally, from the living-room floor. But we 'boomers' (your kids) are all grown up now. Or at least we think we are, though it's clear that we're still babies in the digital age.
Infants though we are, at least we have learned that we can absorb information from far more sources and at a far faster rate than we ever thought before. And even that rate of change is accelerating. Ok, so that's not really news. There were folks who doubted the ability of humans to drive automobiles faster than 60 miles per hour. There are still folks who doubt that men have walked on the Moon.
Oh well. In fact, we are capable--we must be capable, really, for we have no choice (again/always)--of dealing with this flood of information from more than three 'trusted' sources. We must--we are--learning to evaluate more information critically even as it comes at us faster. Watch twelve year-olds play "Black Ops".
Critical decisions come faster under many circumstances these days, and I think, are in many ways more reliable than the supposedly well-thought-out decisions that do not take into account the rate of modern information flow. Read 'Blink'.
Saying 'That's the way it is' is more than quoting Uncle W, it's what we call a cop-out, Ted. You are unfairly using his words, for that's not how it is, at least not any more.
And I really like it the way it is.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Two Books
Two new books--both purporting to be autobiographies--came out in print last week, both of which interested me enough to purchase. But, when it came down to a choice between one or the other, even though neither author will receive a penny of the proceeds, I picked the one who work I knew I could trust to be entertaining, if not entirely accurate.
No, I did not buy a copy of Decision Points, even though I am likely to at some point for much the same reason. Instead, I chose to buy a copy (albeit electronic) of Samuel Clemens' autobiography, otherwise known as the Autobiography of Mark Twain.
Since I haven't read either volume it would of course be a bit premature for comments on the works, but even before I open either one, there are some significant differences in the two works that swayed my decision.
First of all, even though he didn't actually write this work, Clemens did at least dictate it. This may seem like a trivial difference, especially these days when other equally famous but less literary types (no names here) are likely to have someone 'ghostwrite' the work for them, but for Twain the choice to dictate was forced upon him by time obviously grown short.
The introduction to his work, which I have already skimmed, makes prominent note of the fact that Twain not only tried and failed to write his autobiography on several dozen occasions after the age of forty, he had almost abandoned the idea till late in his life. Closer to death, however, he knew it was something he had to do, even if it meant stepping outside his boundary as a writer and examining himself instead as a famous and not entirely righteous character.
The other reason I bought Twain's book first is because it is anything but new. In fact, it is a hundred years old, and this by design. Claiming quite rightly that he would be unable to write an accurate and unvarnished account of his life and relate his opinions of his contemporaries without fear of damaging or embarrassing those people, he insisted that the work remain unpublished for one hundred years after his death.
This has been, I think, a troubling issue for every would-be autobiographer (not just the famous--me included), but none has ever taken it seriously enough to actually do something about it. Only Twain, with his supreme self-confidence and even, dare I say it, arrogance about his own opinions would have had the sense to know it wouldn't really be a good book--or a best seller--for at least a century. In fact, like many other famous and now dead authors, his wishes were largely ignored, but the incompetence of those writers who chose to ignore his wishes made their works instantly obsolete, thankfully for those Twain fans lucky to be alive in 2010.
Of course, now I am judging the book in advance of actually reading it, but I wanted to make note of the fact that when it came to a choice of how to spend my $9.99 this week, I chose to put it in the pocket of a long-dead but still admired literary hero.
Next week I shall likely succumb to the curiosity that is contemporary 'history' (having read the biographies--auto or not--of all the presidents since Kennedy), but this week I'll be gaining energy and insight for my own work from the greatest of old masters with a real sense of history.
No, I did not buy a copy of Decision Points, even though I am likely to at some point for much the same reason. Instead, I chose to buy a copy (albeit electronic) of Samuel Clemens' autobiography, otherwise known as the Autobiography of Mark Twain.
Since I haven't read either volume it would of course be a bit premature for comments on the works, but even before I open either one, there are some significant differences in the two works that swayed my decision.
First of all, even though he didn't actually write this work, Clemens did at least dictate it. This may seem like a trivial difference, especially these days when other equally famous but less literary types (no names here) are likely to have someone 'ghostwrite' the work for them, but for Twain the choice to dictate was forced upon him by time obviously grown short.
The introduction to his work, which I have already skimmed, makes prominent note of the fact that Twain not only tried and failed to write his autobiography on several dozen occasions after the age of forty, he had almost abandoned the idea till late in his life. Closer to death, however, he knew it was something he had to do, even if it meant stepping outside his boundary as a writer and examining himself instead as a famous and not entirely righteous character.
The other reason I bought Twain's book first is because it is anything but new. In fact, it is a hundred years old, and this by design. Claiming quite rightly that he would be unable to write an accurate and unvarnished account of his life and relate his opinions of his contemporaries without fear of damaging or embarrassing those people, he insisted that the work remain unpublished for one hundred years after his death.
This has been, I think, a troubling issue for every would-be autobiographer (not just the famous--me included), but none has ever taken it seriously enough to actually do something about it. Only Twain, with his supreme self-confidence and even, dare I say it, arrogance about his own opinions would have had the sense to know it wouldn't really be a good book--or a best seller--for at least a century. In fact, like many other famous and now dead authors, his wishes were largely ignored, but the incompetence of those writers who chose to ignore his wishes made their works instantly obsolete, thankfully for those Twain fans lucky to be alive in 2010.
Of course, now I am judging the book in advance of actually reading it, but I wanted to make note of the fact that when it came to a choice of how to spend my $9.99 this week, I chose to put it in the pocket of a long-dead but still admired literary hero.
Next week I shall likely succumb to the curiosity that is contemporary 'history' (having read the biographies--auto or not--of all the presidents since Kennedy), but this week I'll be gaining energy and insight for my own work from the greatest of old masters with a real sense of history.
Friday, November 12, 2010
If I was a Tiger
If I was a
Tiger
Oh sure
I'd terrorize
the villagers
but not the way
you might think.
If I was a
Tiger
I'd eat the
Important Ones first
The fat ones, rich
with crunchy bones
that scare
the skinny ones
when they pop.
If I was a
Tiger
Oh, I'd eat them all.
One by one
starting with the
tastiest
richest
of them all.
If I was a
Tiger
I'd eat
dessert first.
If I was a
Snake
Yes I'd still
tempt the villagers
but not with no
ordinary Apple.
If I was a
Snake
I'd tempt the
Strong Ones first
Them whose I
lights up
in their palm
fat Gucchi sacks
that pop
when you fill them
with MITunes.
If I was a
Snake
I wouldn't leave
the weak
just tempt them
with Dollar Stores
cheap makeup and
swarovski crystals.
If I was a
Snake
I'd save the best for last
to pair with the laughter.
Tiger
Oh sure
I'd terrorize
the villagers
but not the way
you might think.
If I was a
Tiger
I'd eat the
Important Ones first
The fat ones, rich
with crunchy bones
that scare
the skinny ones
when they pop.
If I was a
Tiger
Oh, I'd eat them all.
One by one
starting with the
tastiest
richest
of them all.
If I was a
Tiger
I'd eat
dessert first.
If I was a
Snake
Yes I'd still
tempt the villagers
but not with no
ordinary Apple.
If I was a
Snake
I'd tempt the
Strong Ones first
Them whose I
lights up
in their palm
fat Gucchi sacks
that pop
when you fill them
with MITunes.
If I was a
Snake
I wouldn't leave
the weak
just tempt them
with Dollar Stores
cheap makeup and
swarovski crystals.
If I was a
Snake
I'd save the best for last
to pair with the laughter.
Rush
Push past
the edge of
night nowhere
on the horizon
is it
as dark as
the inside of
my eye.
If you look
into that
abyss
I may not
let you out.
Scream
if you like.
Monsters don't wait
for me
to call them out.
They run
when I seethe.
Such is the
anger
they cannot rest
or hide
from my eye.
the edge of
night nowhere
on the horizon
is it
as dark as
the inside of
my eye.
If you look
into that
abyss
I may not
let you out.
Scream
if you like.
Monsters don't wait
for me
to call them out.
They run
when I seethe.
Such is the
anger
they cannot rest
or hide
from my eye.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Expectations
The greatest distance between any two points would have to be that between expectation and realization.
Though this a personal observation, rooted in my own inability to reconcile those two forces in my life, I feel that this disconnect underlies much of what frustrates people in general these days, whether it is politics, religion or simply familial relations that seems to be the cause.
In my own case, I know that my expectations are often unnecessarily high or out of line with what should be a reasonable outcome, yet I find that setting expectations outside of the realm of limitations is inevitable and a consequence of my particular personality. I attribute it to either unfounded optimism or simple hubris.
In the former case, I count those times when I think I can get a job done in a certain amount of time even though I know it's physically impossible. I am forever deciding to do things, setting aside too little time for too many steps, and then having to adjust my sense of accomplishment downward notch by notch until it finally gets done, a day late and not quite as well I'd hoped. The optimism in the back of my brain tells me that without it, I would just be assuming the worst, and even though I might get things done when and how I expected, the very idea of setting the bar low seems contradictory.
After all, why would I set out to do something that can't be done?
Now when it comes to simple hubris, many are the times when I have simply assumed I had either the wits or strength to pull something off when in truth I knew going in that I had neither. In this case, the wide gap between those expectations and the logical outcomes I knew to be coming are more of a head-in-the-sand sort of approach as opposed to a perfectly willful ignorance of reality, but the result is the same. Shoulda coulda woulda knew better, right?
My observation here is not just about my own inadequacies--both Readers know that would fill a volume or two--but to make the connection to what I see going on around me, particularly in the political realm. Having just gone through one of those endless 'election cycles' I feel particularly beat up and anxious to say something, not because my politics were not affirmed--are they ever?--but because the current appetite for strident and voluble rhetoric seems to have brought a huge load of horse shit to the communal table. The distance between expectations and realization is so great that we can't even see the two in the same field of vision. One or the other is all we see at any given moment.
Expectations dominate. Why for example, can't we simply just turn off the financial crisis? End the war? Plug the leak? What is taking so long? Why can't simply just go back to the 'good old days' when everybody got along? What happened? When did we start destroying our society?
Well, here's the big news, at least as I see it. We aren't destroying our society. Nobody has ever just 'got along'. Financial crises, wars and leaks take time to fix. What has changed, I think is the speed with which we adjust our expectations downwards to contrast with realization. Previously, it might have taken months, or even years to come to the realization that things weren't working out just the way we'd planned. No worry, though, as there was always time for a 'mid-course' correction. No need to steer the ship onto the rocks just to prove that they are there, right?
Just a generation ago, the President said, "Mistakes were made" even as he kept us off the shoals. A few years later, with goals set high for 'winning' a 'War on Terror' and 'finding' WMDs in Iraq or bin Laden in Afganistan, we have set out on a course of unreasonable expectations that have never been rolled back to match realizations. Some wars are un-winnable and some things are un-findable. The result of this gap has been dismal, to say the least, and not just to the left. The right has suffered from this disconnect as well.
It's like looking for the 'cure' to cancer. Is it really our expectation that we will eliminate cancer as we did smallpox? Do we really expect to avoid death altogether, or are we just conning ourselves so we can go to sleep at night?
Ah, easier said than done. While I think I'll be able keep my expectations about politics and religion in check, I am still convinced I can rebuild that rusty little green Karmann Ghia sitting in my driveway.
After all, without a little hubris, nothing would ever get done.
Though this a personal observation, rooted in my own inability to reconcile those two forces in my life, I feel that this disconnect underlies much of what frustrates people in general these days, whether it is politics, religion or simply familial relations that seems to be the cause.
In my own case, I know that my expectations are often unnecessarily high or out of line with what should be a reasonable outcome, yet I find that setting expectations outside of the realm of limitations is inevitable and a consequence of my particular personality. I attribute it to either unfounded optimism or simple hubris.
In the former case, I count those times when I think I can get a job done in a certain amount of time even though I know it's physically impossible. I am forever deciding to do things, setting aside too little time for too many steps, and then having to adjust my sense of accomplishment downward notch by notch until it finally gets done, a day late and not quite as well I'd hoped. The optimism in the back of my brain tells me that without it, I would just be assuming the worst, and even though I might get things done when and how I expected, the very idea of setting the bar low seems contradictory.
After all, why would I set out to do something that can't be done?
Now when it comes to simple hubris, many are the times when I have simply assumed I had either the wits or strength to pull something off when in truth I knew going in that I had neither. In this case, the wide gap between those expectations and the logical outcomes I knew to be coming are more of a head-in-the-sand sort of approach as opposed to a perfectly willful ignorance of reality, but the result is the same. Shoulda coulda woulda knew better, right?
My observation here is not just about my own inadequacies--both Readers know that would fill a volume or two--but to make the connection to what I see going on around me, particularly in the political realm. Having just gone through one of those endless 'election cycles' I feel particularly beat up and anxious to say something, not because my politics were not affirmed--are they ever?--but because the current appetite for strident and voluble rhetoric seems to have brought a huge load of horse shit to the communal table. The distance between expectations and realization is so great that we can't even see the two in the same field of vision. One or the other is all we see at any given moment.
Expectations dominate. Why for example, can't we simply just turn off the financial crisis? End the war? Plug the leak? What is taking so long? Why can't simply just go back to the 'good old days' when everybody got along? What happened? When did we start destroying our society?
Well, here's the big news, at least as I see it. We aren't destroying our society. Nobody has ever just 'got along'. Financial crises, wars and leaks take time to fix. What has changed, I think is the speed with which we adjust our expectations downwards to contrast with realization. Previously, it might have taken months, or even years to come to the realization that things weren't working out just the way we'd planned. No worry, though, as there was always time for a 'mid-course' correction. No need to steer the ship onto the rocks just to prove that they are there, right?
Just a generation ago, the President said, "Mistakes were made" even as he kept us off the shoals. A few years later, with goals set high for 'winning' a 'War on Terror' and 'finding' WMDs in Iraq or bin Laden in Afganistan, we have set out on a course of unreasonable expectations that have never been rolled back to match realizations. Some wars are un-winnable and some things are un-findable. The result of this gap has been dismal, to say the least, and not just to the left. The right has suffered from this disconnect as well.
It's like looking for the 'cure' to cancer. Is it really our expectation that we will eliminate cancer as we did smallpox? Do we really expect to avoid death altogether, or are we just conning ourselves so we can go to sleep at night?
Ah, easier said than done. While I think I'll be able keep my expectations about politics and religion in check, I am still convinced I can rebuild that rusty little green Karmann Ghia sitting in my driveway.
After all, without a little hubris, nothing would ever get done.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Engine Work
Rebuilding an automobile engine is a dirty, tedious and thankless task. I know because I did it. Twice.
The first time I did it, I did it because I wanted to. The second time I had no choice.
Choosing to rebuild an automobile engine by myself was a decision made in no small part due to outright hubris, but I can't rule out foolish ambition nor willful ignorance. This sad state of awareness was tempered only slightly by the musings of John Muir, who not only convinced me that I could do it before I did it, told me how to do it; guiding me through the process first bolt to last as though he were there in person.
Muir, of course, did not advocate rebuilding the same engine twice, but he was there for me the second time round with nary a note of recrimination.
His book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, is considered the precursor to the whole "S&*! for Dummies" phenomenon that swept through the pre-internet publishing world a scant decade or so after Muir's hard-edited typewritten and photocopied manuscript was spiral bound and set upon the Whole Earth catalog for hippies like me.
Muir was prescient that way, knowing that humans needed technology but also realizing that we needed humans to tell us how to fix technology. A couple of years later I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where Robert Pirsig explored and expanded on similar themes, so I was primed to work on my car both from a cultural, physcial and intellectual background that led to this desire.
Well, if you ask me, any amount of reading, no matter how much, just isn't enough. Muir's book, fortunately, was less about reading and more about the doing, so when it came time to find this bolt or that nut or just how-in-the-hell-do-I-get-a-screwdriver-on-that?, Muir was my guide. Emphasis is on the word guide, for as much as I concentrated on his instructions, at some point I had to set aside the book and actually assemble things, and that's where it got a bit tricky.
Actually I did pretty well at the tear-down part, but only in terms of speed. My organizational skills were decidedly lacking. For one thing, I didn't label things with anything like the detail that was really required, so even though the result of a week's work looked like I had the damn thing apart and under control, only the former was true. I had the thing apart alright.
Even though it was better than some of the places where I have worked on my bits of metal, including the present spot, my workspace for this engine rebuild was not exactly ideal. I chose to spread the pieces out on several tables under the carport at the the house where we were living. So, even though it couldn't technically rain directly onto my work area, it was exposed to the elements to a degree that made work intermittent and unpredictable even when I did get out there.
One thing that I learned from the experience was about the practical aspects of engineering. When working on a bit of metal as complex as an automobile engine, the consequences of how something has been cast, machined or milled can be serious. The order in which the thing is assembled may not be the way it comes apart, and it certainly is not often the way it is repaired.
Not only did I manage to get the thing apart, I also managed to get it back together.
Though all the details are lost to me already, I know that there were more than a couple of mistakes made along the way. I am pretty sure it took at least two sets of bearings before I learned how to properly 'seat' them in the crankcase, and I know I went through a couple sets of not-so-very-cheap rings before I got them into place. The various seals were not as easy to put in as I'd hoped either, and as a result, there were more leaks from that metal assembly than I have fingers and toes. Thank goodness there is no water system in a VW engine, or that would have leaked good and proper as well.
Suffice it to say that by the time I had the thing back together, I had made every mistake in the book. Plus, I had enough that weren't in the book left over to write a book. That is, if I hadn't already dismissed them all from memory. Muir's warnings notwithstanding, if it took several tries before I broke it, I broke it. To my credit, I did manage to step back from the brink often enough that the various critical systems eventually stopped leaking, grinding and/or scraping long enough for me to declare it finished and put it back in the car.
That, however, was just the beginning.
From the sound of it, the first time I started the engine up might easily have been the last, but for some quick reflexes and plain dumb luck. Instead of bench testing the engine before I put it back in the car, I simply pushed myself hard to get it all back in, wired and hooked up before I settled in and turned the key. Big Mistake.
The sound that came out of the engine with the first three or four revolutions (thankfully it was no more than that) was horrendous, to say the very least. It sounded like I had imprisoned a demon with hammer inside, and it was banging desperately to get out.
I felt sick. After all that work, it just didn't seem possible. What had I done? More likely: What had I missed?
It turns out that what I had missed was a simple little metal washer, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. Somehow--and family 'lore' has it being the innocent act of a small child, but no names will be named--that washer made it's way into the bowels of the engine through an uncovered hole in the block. It had to have happened sometime after the block was back together, but it obviously hadn't made it's way to a critical place before I put the engine back in the car.
I had no idea that a piece of metal that small could sound so loud. The pounding coming from the interior of an engine made me think that the entire guts had just been destroyed. As I stepped out of the car and took a look, the realization hit me. Sadly, the only way to find out what it was would be to tear it all back down.
As I said, rebuilding an automobile engine is hard, thankless work, but never so much as during the time I was tearing my handiwork apart. Two weeks later, through the tears, blood and motor oil filling my eyes and covering my hands, I found the washer, bent double and resting on top of the cylinder head. In spite of all the horrific noise, other than a small semi-circular dent in that head, there was actually no damage to the engine.
The second time, I figured out how to bench test the engine before I put it back in the car, but it was of little comfort to me when it finally passed. By this time I was exhausted and frustrated, which is not the way you want to start off working on the body.
Next: Body work: The bigger hammer
The first time I did it, I did it because I wanted to. The second time I had no choice.
Choosing to rebuild an automobile engine by myself was a decision made in no small part due to outright hubris, but I can't rule out foolish ambition nor willful ignorance. This sad state of awareness was tempered only slightly by the musings of John Muir, who not only convinced me that I could do it before I did it, told me how to do it; guiding me through the process first bolt to last as though he were there in person.
Muir, of course, did not advocate rebuilding the same engine twice, but he was there for me the second time round with nary a note of recrimination.
His book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, is considered the precursor to the whole "S&*! for Dummies" phenomenon that swept through the pre-internet publishing world a scant decade or so after Muir's hard-edited typewritten and photocopied manuscript was spiral bound and set upon the Whole Earth catalog for hippies like me.
Muir was prescient that way, knowing that humans needed technology but also realizing that we needed humans to tell us how to fix technology. A couple of years later I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where Robert Pirsig explored and expanded on similar themes, so I was primed to work on my car both from a cultural, physcial and intellectual background that led to this desire.
Well, if you ask me, any amount of reading, no matter how much, just isn't enough. Muir's book, fortunately, was less about reading and more about the doing, so when it came time to find this bolt or that nut or just how-in-the-hell-do-I-get-a-screwdriver-on-that?, Muir was my guide. Emphasis is on the word guide, for as much as I concentrated on his instructions, at some point I had to set aside the book and actually assemble things, and that's where it got a bit tricky.
Actually I did pretty well at the tear-down part, but only in terms of speed. My organizational skills were decidedly lacking. For one thing, I didn't label things with anything like the detail that was really required, so even though the result of a week's work looked like I had the damn thing apart and under control, only the former was true. I had the thing apart alright.
Even though it was better than some of the places where I have worked on my bits of metal, including the present spot, my workspace for this engine rebuild was not exactly ideal. I chose to spread the pieces out on several tables under the carport at the the house where we were living. So, even though it couldn't technically rain directly onto my work area, it was exposed to the elements to a degree that made work intermittent and unpredictable even when I did get out there.
One thing that I learned from the experience was about the practical aspects of engineering. When working on a bit of metal as complex as an automobile engine, the consequences of how something has been cast, machined or milled can be serious. The order in which the thing is assembled may not be the way it comes apart, and it certainly is not often the way it is repaired.
Not only did I manage to get the thing apart, I also managed to get it back together.
Though all the details are lost to me already, I know that there were more than a couple of mistakes made along the way. I am pretty sure it took at least two sets of bearings before I learned how to properly 'seat' them in the crankcase, and I know I went through a couple sets of not-so-very-cheap rings before I got them into place. The various seals were not as easy to put in as I'd hoped either, and as a result, there were more leaks from that metal assembly than I have fingers and toes. Thank goodness there is no water system in a VW engine, or that would have leaked good and proper as well.
Suffice it to say that by the time I had the thing back together, I had made every mistake in the book. Plus, I had enough that weren't in the book left over to write a book. That is, if I hadn't already dismissed them all from memory. Muir's warnings notwithstanding, if it took several tries before I broke it, I broke it. To my credit, I did manage to step back from the brink often enough that the various critical systems eventually stopped leaking, grinding and/or scraping long enough for me to declare it finished and put it back in the car.
That, however, was just the beginning.
From the sound of it, the first time I started the engine up might easily have been the last, but for some quick reflexes and plain dumb luck. Instead of bench testing the engine before I put it back in the car, I simply pushed myself hard to get it all back in, wired and hooked up before I settled in and turned the key. Big Mistake.
The sound that came out of the engine with the first three or four revolutions (thankfully it was no more than that) was horrendous, to say the very least. It sounded like I had imprisoned a demon with hammer inside, and it was banging desperately to get out.
I felt sick. After all that work, it just didn't seem possible. What had I done? More likely: What had I missed?
It turns out that what I had missed was a simple little metal washer, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. Somehow--and family 'lore' has it being the innocent act of a small child, but no names will be named--that washer made it's way into the bowels of the engine through an uncovered hole in the block. It had to have happened sometime after the block was back together, but it obviously hadn't made it's way to a critical place before I put the engine back in the car.
I had no idea that a piece of metal that small could sound so loud. The pounding coming from the interior of an engine made me think that the entire guts had just been destroyed. As I stepped out of the car and took a look, the realization hit me. Sadly, the only way to find out what it was would be to tear it all back down.
As I said, rebuilding an automobile engine is hard, thankless work, but never so much as during the time I was tearing my handiwork apart. Two weeks later, through the tears, blood and motor oil filling my eyes and covering my hands, I found the washer, bent double and resting on top of the cylinder head. In spite of all the horrific noise, other than a small semi-circular dent in that head, there was actually no damage to the engine.
The second time, I figured out how to bench test the engine before I put it back in the car, but it was of little comfort to me when it finally passed. By this time I was exhausted and frustrated, which is not the way you want to start off working on the body.
Next: Body work: The bigger hammer
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Bits of Metal: Part Two
My first car wasn't even a car. It was a truck. And, not just any truck. It was a used postal truck, with the driver's side on the right. It was called a "Step Van" because it had a step where the passenger seat would have been. It looked like a smaller, weaker, whiter UK version of a UPS truck.
Oh, and of course, it needed a lot of work.
I bought this bit of metal for what was a huge sum for a recent high school graduate with no job. I can't recall the exact figure, but it was over $1000. Ostensibly, I was only paying half of this because my friend Bryan was going to split it with me. We were also going to drive it out to California, after we fixed it up. Well, my friend never paid his half. We never fixed it up, and we sure never drove it out to California.
Well, instead of going to UT Journalism school with the full scholarship I'd been given, I chose to spend the last bit of savings from my two jobs on that truck. The engine needed to be repaired--twice--but I had no clue how to do even the simplest task like changing the spark plugs or the oil. We paid to have it fixed and wasted the rest of our money on the interior. Actually we struggled just to tear out the interior and never found the time or energy to upholster in in that lush 70's style that we imagined when we bought it. It never made it past the dream state, and two months after I bought it, the transmission fell out while I was driving it. I had to pull over and leave it on the side of the road. I tried to sell it, but eventually had to pay someone to tow it away so I wouldn't get a fine from the city.
When I came back from Paris the first time, I went to work at Gianni's and eventually saved up enough money to buy a '61 Ford Falcon convertible. I can't recall what it cost, but I do recall paying cash for it and getting it from a guy who had kept it garaged in a big home over on Balcones drive and called it 'Spooky'--which was the name of a hit song in the late seventies. It had red leather interior and the all the chrome and bling that the car designers of the late fifties and early sixties could hang on it. It was sharp.
The Falcon also had a motorized convertible top which actually worked. I used this car as my daily driver for over a year and sadly I never realized what I had or I'd have taken better care of it. Still knowing nothing about working on cars, I abused this old car way too much. I had it worked on several times until I could not afford to keep it running. Among other things, the radiator was broken, and eventually it was no longer drive-able. With the Falcon in the driveway under a car cover, I went back to my bike--the Raleigh Record I bought in high school--and it sat in my driveway for several months before I sold it to my friend Alex just before going back to live in Paris in 1980.
I didn't sell that bike, that sturdy bit of metal, thankfully, and took it with me to Europe--twice. I rode it many hundreds of miles through the streets of Paris, and once from Paris to Chartres. As a city boy, the Record was my mode of transport, and good one at that. I didn't even dream of owning a car until I came back from Paris for good in 1981. I couldn't have dreamed of owning this, my third car, mostly because owning it was a nightmare.
"Skylab" was a 1964/65 vintage Beetle Bug, painted white with some red trim around the bumpers. It wasn't mine or even a car I thought I'd ever own when I first rode in it. It was named Skylab. It was given that name by it's previous owner and my roommate, Henry whose roommate prior to me had actually owned it before Henry and who had worked on the Skylab project. When Henry moved to Houston (and Valery moved in with me) I bought Skylab from him.
Henry was driving Skylab when I moved in to his house on Duval street on my return from Europe. It was by watching him work on it that I first learned my way around a VW. To say that Skylab was temperamental was to understate the case by an order of magnitude or more. It was actually just barely functional, and that was on a good day. The starter/battery combination failed so often that if it wasn't parked on a hill, we had to push it to get it started. I think it was even on that very first morning, when Henry and I went to breakfast in Skylab that I got my first dose of heavy exercise after a meal. Not something I wanted to repeat, but, sadly, I did just that, way too many times at all time of the day and night.
Years later, I knew it was finally time to give Skylab up when I got a ticket from the UT Campus police for driving it backwards down a street at night in front of the art building. I wasn't actually driving, I explained, I was coasting backwards till I could pop the clutch and start the engine. The cop was sympathetic enough to my plight to allow me to leave the engine running, but reasoned that the situation still warranted the fine. I don't recall how or to whom I sold that bit of history, but I am sure I got more out of it than it got out of me. Well, sort of.
I was 'driving' Skylab when I met Valery. She was driving an old Corrola with a bashed in right front fender onto which she had painted stars. Just before we got married, Valery and I ditched our pieces of well, you-know-what, and got a '82 Renault Fuego from a neighbor of Henry's first wife's parents. The previous--and first--owner had been an astronaut, so he kept the car looking brand new. It wasn't your ordinary car, though. For one thing, it was French. Whi buys a French car? Who works on French cars? One dealer did, in San Marcos! Fortunately it never needed a lot of repairs, but when it did, they were very expensive.
The Fuego was a funny sort of hybrid sports/family car. It was turbocharged and had a retractable soft top--not exactly a convertible but way better than a sunroof. With the top back, you could actually stand up in the front seat--something Valery did for a picture or two while we were in Europe.
Yes, we took this car to Europe for our honeymoon. After we got married, we really wanted to go to Paris and see Europe. We also wanted the freedom of driving around in a car. We looked at our finances and figured that for just a little more than we would have paid for a couple of three-month Eurail passes, we could afford to ship our car over to Europe. So we did. We drove the Fuego down to Houston where it got put on a ship bound for Manchester, then we flew over and claimed it. We drove that car from Manchester to Crete and back to Southhampton, where we put it back on the boat for Houston when it was time to come home.
The only bad things that happened to us and that car were having the license plates stolen in Paris and Lyon on the way out and a minor fender bender in Paris on the way back. We drove it on some narrow mountain roads, the 'Autostrada' in Italy, the streets of London, Paris, Milan, Florence and Athens and many miles in between. It made it back from Europe with everything but those license plates,and we drove it for at least three or four years after we returned. It was the car we brought Pierre home from the hospital in, and it may even have served the same function when Maddie joined us.
When I was in graduate school, with two small children, we traded in the failing Fuego with it's almost non-existent rear seat for a nice, well-kept maroon '71 Beetle. This car appeared to be perfect mechanical shape, with no rust or body damage of any kind. The interior was aging but not destroyed or rotting and the engine seemed to be in great shape, capable of going thousands of miles more. Thinking that the power-train wasn't something to be concerned with, once again I spent my savings on fixing up the interior. I bought new seat covers, carpet and a headliner. I bought all new rubber seals for the body, windows and engine compartment. When I finished, it looked awesome. The car was a real cherry and I really loved it. For about a month.
Then, the engine threw a rod.
At the time, I had no idea what a rod was, how it could be 'thrown' or even what that meant. I really had no clue about how my car worked. Oh, I was clever enough to replace some of the bits and pieces that were attached to the metal, but I had never really worked on the metal itself. And when that engine blew, I knew it was time to try.
Now, part of that decision came from stubborn parsimony; after all I had just fixed up the outside and I would be damned-- a prophetic notion if ever there was one--if I'd just throw it away. I also just could not afford to pay for a new or even a rebuilt engine, and a new engine was going to be the only way to get this car back on the road.
Unless I rebuilt the engine myself.
Now, since I had owned Skylab I had owned a copy of "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" by John Muir. Millions of VW owners learned how to care for their cars without ever actually knowing much about auto mechanics because of Muir's excellent, well-written book. In this book, Muir didn't have as his goal teaching us--clueless mechanically dis-inclined ex or soon-to-be-ex hippies--how to repair cars in general. He set out to show us how to keep our Volkswagens on the road, even if we had a Bug, a Bus or a Ghia. Thanks to Muir, we didn't have know what that 'thingy' was or why it was there or how it worked. What was important to Muir was showing us how to get it out, how to clean/fix/replace it without much time, knowledge or tools. And, in the process, I came to know something about auto mechanics and grew to love it.
Thanks to Muir, I learned the art of adjusting the tappets, the relationship between the distributor and the engine timing and how to replace the ignition wires without screwing up the coil. In time, I even learned what and where the coil was.
But after all the 'fixing' I did on Skylab and even after redoing the interior of my '71 Bug, I had still had never even contemplated taking apart the engine, let alone putting it back together. But Muir had a chapter on how to do just this and I thought--just as he no doubt intended--'well if he can do it, so can I.'
Next: I did.
Oh, and of course, it needed a lot of work.
I bought this bit of metal for what was a huge sum for a recent high school graduate with no job. I can't recall the exact figure, but it was over $1000. Ostensibly, I was only paying half of this because my friend Bryan was going to split it with me. We were also going to drive it out to California, after we fixed it up. Well, my friend never paid his half. We never fixed it up, and we sure never drove it out to California.
Well, instead of going to UT Journalism school with the full scholarship I'd been given, I chose to spend the last bit of savings from my two jobs on that truck. The engine needed to be repaired--twice--but I had no clue how to do even the simplest task like changing the spark plugs or the oil. We paid to have it fixed and wasted the rest of our money on the interior. Actually we struggled just to tear out the interior and never found the time or energy to upholster in in that lush 70's style that we imagined when we bought it. It never made it past the dream state, and two months after I bought it, the transmission fell out while I was driving it. I had to pull over and leave it on the side of the road. I tried to sell it, but eventually had to pay someone to tow it away so I wouldn't get a fine from the city.
When I came back from Paris the first time, I went to work at Gianni's and eventually saved up enough money to buy a '61 Ford Falcon convertible. I can't recall what it cost, but I do recall paying cash for it and getting it from a guy who had kept it garaged in a big home over on Balcones drive and called it 'Spooky'--which was the name of a hit song in the late seventies. It had red leather interior and the all the chrome and bling that the car designers of the late fifties and early sixties could hang on it. It was sharp.
The Falcon also had a motorized convertible top which actually worked. I used this car as my daily driver for over a year and sadly I never realized what I had or I'd have taken better care of it. Still knowing nothing about working on cars, I abused this old car way too much. I had it worked on several times until I could not afford to keep it running. Among other things, the radiator was broken, and eventually it was no longer drive-able. With the Falcon in the driveway under a car cover, I went back to my bike--the Raleigh Record I bought in high school--and it sat in my driveway for several months before I sold it to my friend Alex just before going back to live in Paris in 1980.
I didn't sell that bike, that sturdy bit of metal, thankfully, and took it with me to Europe--twice. I rode it many hundreds of miles through the streets of Paris, and once from Paris to Chartres. As a city boy, the Record was my mode of transport, and good one at that. I didn't even dream of owning a car until I came back from Paris for good in 1981. I couldn't have dreamed of owning this, my third car, mostly because owning it was a nightmare.
"Skylab" was a 1964/65 vintage Beetle Bug, painted white with some red trim around the bumpers. It wasn't mine or even a car I thought I'd ever own when I first rode in it. It was named Skylab. It was given that name by it's previous owner and my roommate, Henry whose roommate prior to me had actually owned it before Henry and who had worked on the Skylab project. When Henry moved to Houston (and Valery moved in with me) I bought Skylab from him.
Henry was driving Skylab when I moved in to his house on Duval street on my return from Europe. It was by watching him work on it that I first learned my way around a VW. To say that Skylab was temperamental was to understate the case by an order of magnitude or more. It was actually just barely functional, and that was on a good day. The starter/battery combination failed so often that if it wasn't parked on a hill, we had to push it to get it started. I think it was even on that very first morning, when Henry and I went to breakfast in Skylab that I got my first dose of heavy exercise after a meal. Not something I wanted to repeat, but, sadly, I did just that, way too many times at all time of the day and night.
Years later, I knew it was finally time to give Skylab up when I got a ticket from the UT Campus police for driving it backwards down a street at night in front of the art building. I wasn't actually driving, I explained, I was coasting backwards till I could pop the clutch and start the engine. The cop was sympathetic enough to my plight to allow me to leave the engine running, but reasoned that the situation still warranted the fine. I don't recall how or to whom I sold that bit of history, but I am sure I got more out of it than it got out of me. Well, sort of.
I was 'driving' Skylab when I met Valery. She was driving an old Corrola with a bashed in right front fender onto which she had painted stars. Just before we got married, Valery and I ditched our pieces of well, you-know-what, and got a '82 Renault Fuego from a neighbor of Henry's first wife's parents. The previous--and first--owner had been an astronaut, so he kept the car looking brand new. It wasn't your ordinary car, though. For one thing, it was French. Whi buys a French car? Who works on French cars? One dealer did, in San Marcos! Fortunately it never needed a lot of repairs, but when it did, they were very expensive.
The Fuego was a funny sort of hybrid sports/family car. It was turbocharged and had a retractable soft top--not exactly a convertible but way better than a sunroof. With the top back, you could actually stand up in the front seat--something Valery did for a picture or two while we were in Europe.
Yes, we took this car to Europe for our honeymoon. After we got married, we really wanted to go to Paris and see Europe. We also wanted the freedom of driving around in a car. We looked at our finances and figured that for just a little more than we would have paid for a couple of three-month Eurail passes, we could afford to ship our car over to Europe. So we did. We drove the Fuego down to Houston where it got put on a ship bound for Manchester, then we flew over and claimed it. We drove that car from Manchester to Crete and back to Southhampton, where we put it back on the boat for Houston when it was time to come home.
The only bad things that happened to us and that car were having the license plates stolen in Paris and Lyon on the way out and a minor fender bender in Paris on the way back. We drove it on some narrow mountain roads, the 'Autostrada' in Italy, the streets of London, Paris, Milan, Florence and Athens and many miles in between. It made it back from Europe with everything but those license plates,and we drove it for at least three or four years after we returned. It was the car we brought Pierre home from the hospital in, and it may even have served the same function when Maddie joined us.
When I was in graduate school, with two small children, we traded in the failing Fuego with it's almost non-existent rear seat for a nice, well-kept maroon '71 Beetle. This car appeared to be perfect mechanical shape, with no rust or body damage of any kind. The interior was aging but not destroyed or rotting and the engine seemed to be in great shape, capable of going thousands of miles more. Thinking that the power-train wasn't something to be concerned with, once again I spent my savings on fixing up the interior. I bought new seat covers, carpet and a headliner. I bought all new rubber seals for the body, windows and engine compartment. When I finished, it looked awesome. The car was a real cherry and I really loved it. For about a month.
Then, the engine threw a rod.
At the time, I had no idea what a rod was, how it could be 'thrown' or even what that meant. I really had no clue about how my car worked. Oh, I was clever enough to replace some of the bits and pieces that were attached to the metal, but I had never really worked on the metal itself. And when that engine blew, I knew it was time to try.
Now, part of that decision came from stubborn parsimony; after all I had just fixed up the outside and I would be damned-- a prophetic notion if ever there was one--if I'd just throw it away. I also just could not afford to pay for a new or even a rebuilt engine, and a new engine was going to be the only way to get this car back on the road.
Unless I rebuilt the engine myself.
Now, since I had owned Skylab I had owned a copy of "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" by John Muir. Millions of VW owners learned how to care for their cars without ever actually knowing much about auto mechanics because of Muir's excellent, well-written book. In this book, Muir didn't have as his goal teaching us--clueless mechanically dis-inclined ex or soon-to-be-ex hippies--how to repair cars in general. He set out to show us how to keep our Volkswagens on the road, even if we had a Bug, a Bus or a Ghia. Thanks to Muir, we didn't have know what that 'thingy' was or why it was there or how it worked. What was important to Muir was showing us how to get it out, how to clean/fix/replace it without much time, knowledge or tools. And, in the process, I came to know something about auto mechanics and grew to love it.
Thanks to Muir, I learned the art of adjusting the tappets, the relationship between the distributor and the engine timing and how to replace the ignition wires without screwing up the coil. In time, I even learned what and where the coil was.
But after all the 'fixing' I did on Skylab and even after redoing the interior of my '71 Bug, I had still had never even contemplated taking apart the engine, let alone putting it back together. But Muir had a chapter on how to do just this and I thought--just as he no doubt intended--'well if he can do it, so can I.'
Next: I did.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Bits of Metal: Part One
I have always been fascinated by metal.
These days, that might imply an interest in what some people call music, but I am referring to the substance, not the genre. I'm talking about steel.
Not just steel. I routinely pick up bits of metal from the sidewalk: wires, pins, springs, washers, tags, and many other things I have never identified. Many of these things fall off backpacks and clothing, but I also find a lot of earrings and pieces of jewelry that have broken or fallen off. Of course, I find a lot of coins, and I have no hesitation about stopping to pick up a penny--heads up or not--even if it isn't worth the time to some people, it is to me.
But my real fascination is not with coins or random bits of metal on the sidewalk. It's with steel. More specifically, automotive steel.
Admittedly, it didn't start with cars. It started with the metal itself. My first bit of metal was a tricycle when we lived in Abilene. It was no different than most trikes today: red and white with a red metal seat and red and white streamer flowing from the ends of the handlebars. I cannot count the number of times that I 'fixed' that trike. Every day it seems I had to turn it over and do some 'maintenance,' even if that merely consisted of looking at the wheel while turning the pedal with my hand. I guess I managed to take the handlebars off, but I really can't remember.
I do remember my actually working on my bicycle in San Antonio, where we moved from Abilene in 1967. Here we lived in an apartment. I had a green 'stingray' bike, with no gears and an 'automatic' brake that worked by slamming the pedal backward. This bike was a simple machine, but I longed to 'work' on it, so I fiddled around with all the moving parts: the chain and the handlebars were all that availed themselves.
It was here, in the Seven Pines Apartments in San Antonio, that I developed the desire to work on something more than a bike. This was in south San Antonio, which at the time was a very poor neighborhood. Men would come out to work on their cars after work and all weekend, and boys like me would come out to watch them.
After school and during the weekend, I saw engines and transmissions pulled out in the white dust of the caleche parking lot. I saw oil and spark plugs and air filters changed. I saw guys doing bodywork and interior repairs. Even before I realized it, this was something I longed to do.
But I didn't get a car for a long time. I had to make do with bicycles. My first bike after moving to Austin from San Antonio was an "Orange Crate". This bike had a very small front wheel and a regular back wheel (with a knobby tire) which made it seem very much like a "chopper" in 1969 (think easy rider for kids). It had hand brakes, three gears (in the hub, not a derailleur) and was a piece of shit.
For one thing, it was hard to ride. For another, it was hard to 'work' on. Everything about it was cheap and everything about it broke. It was useless for my paper route so I tried to sell it without luck. I probably gave it away.
In high school, I bought a relatively expensive ten speed, a Raleigh Record, which I rode a lot. My best friend McDonald and I rode from 30 to 100 miles every weekend during our senior year. I rebuilt that bike several times, including the wheel hubs and crank.
By this time, I was really ready to move on, and fortunately McDonald had the means: an Austin Healy convertible that he bought and wanted to restore. I don't know what model and year it was not how he came by it. I do remember helping him to rebuild the engine, night after night after school we would work till we couldn't stay awake. One day we finally finished it and even managed to take it out for a drive. McDonald decided to rebuild the transmission next, and the poor Healy never woke up from the surgery.
Next: Cars of my own.
These days, that might imply an interest in what some people call music, but I am referring to the substance, not the genre. I'm talking about steel.
Not just steel. I routinely pick up bits of metal from the sidewalk: wires, pins, springs, washers, tags, and many other things I have never identified. Many of these things fall off backpacks and clothing, but I also find a lot of earrings and pieces of jewelry that have broken or fallen off. Of course, I find a lot of coins, and I have no hesitation about stopping to pick up a penny--heads up or not--even if it isn't worth the time to some people, it is to me.
But my real fascination is not with coins or random bits of metal on the sidewalk. It's with steel. More specifically, automotive steel.
Admittedly, it didn't start with cars. It started with the metal itself. My first bit of metal was a tricycle when we lived in Abilene. It was no different than most trikes today: red and white with a red metal seat and red and white streamer flowing from the ends of the handlebars. I cannot count the number of times that I 'fixed' that trike. Every day it seems I had to turn it over and do some 'maintenance,' even if that merely consisted of looking at the wheel while turning the pedal with my hand. I guess I managed to take the handlebars off, but I really can't remember.
I do remember my actually working on my bicycle in San Antonio, where we moved from Abilene in 1967. Here we lived in an apartment. I had a green 'stingray' bike, with no gears and an 'automatic' brake that worked by slamming the pedal backward. This bike was a simple machine, but I longed to 'work' on it, so I fiddled around with all the moving parts: the chain and the handlebars were all that availed themselves.
It was here, in the Seven Pines Apartments in San Antonio, that I developed the desire to work on something more than a bike. This was in south San Antonio, which at the time was a very poor neighborhood. Men would come out to work on their cars after work and all weekend, and boys like me would come out to watch them.
After school and during the weekend, I saw engines and transmissions pulled out in the white dust of the caleche parking lot. I saw oil and spark plugs and air filters changed. I saw guys doing bodywork and interior repairs. Even before I realized it, this was something I longed to do.
But I didn't get a car for a long time. I had to make do with bicycles. My first bike after moving to Austin from San Antonio was an "Orange Crate". This bike had a very small front wheel and a regular back wheel (with a knobby tire) which made it seem very much like a "chopper" in 1969 (think easy rider for kids). It had hand brakes, three gears (in the hub, not a derailleur) and was a piece of shit.
For one thing, it was hard to ride. For another, it was hard to 'work' on. Everything about it was cheap and everything about it broke. It was useless for my paper route so I tried to sell it without luck. I probably gave it away.
In high school, I bought a relatively expensive ten speed, a Raleigh Record, which I rode a lot. My best friend McDonald and I rode from 30 to 100 miles every weekend during our senior year. I rebuilt that bike several times, including the wheel hubs and crank.
By this time, I was really ready to move on, and fortunately McDonald had the means: an Austin Healy convertible that he bought and wanted to restore. I don't know what model and year it was not how he came by it. I do remember helping him to rebuild the engine, night after night after school we would work till we couldn't stay awake. One day we finally finished it and even managed to take it out for a drive. McDonald decided to rebuild the transmission next, and the poor Healy never woke up from the surgery.
Next: Cars of my own.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Jury Duty
I was called but did not serve.
That about sums it up. About two weeks ago, I got a jury duty summons in the mail. In the 'olden days' when one received such a noticed, it meant a trip to the courthouse, even if you couldn't or didn't want to serve. Nowadays, reporting for jury duty means a trip to the internet, to fill out a form.
So, that's what I did. This web form consisted of a series of what would be considered to be typical questions, about whether or not I could serve fairly plus some questions about my race and income. I answered honestly and in about ten minutes, I was 'impaneled'. I got an email about five minutes later with all the information about where and when to show up.
That day was Wednesday September 15. Municipal Courtroom 2B. I arrived about 1:15 and signed in and took a badge that said "Juror". There were twenty five of us in the room by 1:30, when the clerk came to bring us into the courtroom.
I was juror #1, so I sat on the end of the first row. In front of me were the prosecuting attorney and the Defendant, who was clearly acting as his own counsel. The Prosecutor was a young man of about twenty-five to thirty. He was a little overweight and wore an ill-fitting dark suit. He had close cropped black hair, dark eyes and a ready smile, which he flashed after thanking every juror 'for their honesty' when concluding his questions.
The Defendant was a large man of about thirty to thirty-five. He was obviously a blue-collar worker, for he was not wearing a suit but a day-glo yellow work-shirt with silver reflective tape around the shoulders and across the front. He was wearing work jeans and heavy dusty boots. He also had close-cropped black hair and sported a small gold loop earring in one ear.
The Judge welcomed us, introduced the prosecuting attorney and the Defendant. She told us a bit about the case. It was a criminal case, but not a felony, just a misdemeanor traffic case. Specifically, the defendant was charged with running a red light.
After introductions, the prosecuting attorney was given the first go. He asked us, in turn, whether or not we had had a traffic citation in the past five years and if so, what the disposition had been.
Since I was Juror #1, he started with me. In fact, I have had a citation in the past five years, but at first I couldn't be sure. I stammered a bit until I recalled that I had gotten that speeding ticket back in February of 2008. I told him that I'd taken it to trial and that it had been dismissed, to which he said, "Congratulations" and moved on.
By the time he got to Juror #25, there had already been a shorthand established: "Got a speeding ticket. Paid the fine and took Defensive Driving," or "No tickets," were the two standard replies that moved the whole thing along pretty quickly. There were a couple of people who had gotten tickets for running a red light, one of whom said it was an accident (she just rolled out into the intersection) and that she'd called the police on herself!
This revelation afforded the prosecutor the chance to tell us that since it was a traffic case, there was no room for considering motive. In other words, it didn't matter whether or not the Defendant intended to run the red light, just whether or not he had done it. In theft, the prosecution explained, the State must at least address intent, as it is integral to the crime. But, in a traffic case, intent is just not a factor.
In other words, I realized, the Defendant was probably guilty and there was probably nothing we could do about it. Nothing, that is, unless we had an agenda, which, quite candidly, is what the Prosecutor admitted he was trying to uncover in his line of questioning.
When he was finished with all twenty five of us, the Prosecutor turned over the floor to the Defendant, who stood up to face us. He began by telling us that he was a heavy equipment driver. He said that it was not always possible for him to stop as quickly as he would like and that he would ask us to consider that. Now, although my knowledge of courtroom procedure is limited to my many hours of watching Law & Order and Perry Mason, this seemed even to my amateur ear to be a bit too much information about the case given much too early in the process. Indeed, the prosecutor quickly objected.
The Judge called the Prosecutor and the Defendant over to the bench. After a couple of minutes of muffled voices, they turned back around to face us. When asked by the Judge if he had any questions for the jury pool, this time, the Defendant said no. He knew, it seems to me, that his was already a losing effort. His attempt to explain the circumstances so early in the process reflected his honest motive, which was to say that even if he had done it, he didn't mean to.
The presence of the police officer--dressed in his full Blues--in the back of the room seemed to already be enough evidence to set the process inevitably in favor of the prosecution. Obviously, to the Defendant, the Judge's admonition was merely the necessary proof of this inevitability.
Well, whether or not I was perceived to have had an agenda, I was not chosen for the jury. Since either the prosecution or the defense can effectively dismiss a potential juror for any number of reasons, I have no way of knowing which side dismissed me or even if they gave me that much consideration at all. Since four of the six jurors who were actually picked came from the first ten on the list, it's pretty likely that I was summarily dismissed by one or the other side, but it's also likely that neither of them wanted me to serve and that I was simply passed over.
So, called I was, but serve I did not. By two-thirty, just a little more than an hour after I'd checked in, I was back out in the heat, on my way home.
Just as well, too, since it would have been the rest of the afternoon and the verdict was already a foregone conclusion.
That about sums it up. About two weeks ago, I got a jury duty summons in the mail. In the 'olden days' when one received such a noticed, it meant a trip to the courthouse, even if you couldn't or didn't want to serve. Nowadays, reporting for jury duty means a trip to the internet, to fill out a form.
So, that's what I did. This web form consisted of a series of what would be considered to be typical questions, about whether or not I could serve fairly plus some questions about my race and income. I answered honestly and in about ten minutes, I was 'impaneled'. I got an email about five minutes later with all the information about where and when to show up.
That day was Wednesday September 15. Municipal Courtroom 2B. I arrived about 1:15 and signed in and took a badge that said "Juror". There were twenty five of us in the room by 1:30, when the clerk came to bring us into the courtroom.
I was juror #1, so I sat on the end of the first row. In front of me were the prosecuting attorney and the Defendant, who was clearly acting as his own counsel. The Prosecutor was a young man of about twenty-five to thirty. He was a little overweight and wore an ill-fitting dark suit. He had close cropped black hair, dark eyes and a ready smile, which he flashed after thanking every juror 'for their honesty' when concluding his questions.
The Defendant was a large man of about thirty to thirty-five. He was obviously a blue-collar worker, for he was not wearing a suit but a day-glo yellow work-shirt with silver reflective tape around the shoulders and across the front. He was wearing work jeans and heavy dusty boots. He also had close-cropped black hair and sported a small gold loop earring in one ear.
The Judge welcomed us, introduced the prosecuting attorney and the Defendant. She told us a bit about the case. It was a criminal case, but not a felony, just a misdemeanor traffic case. Specifically, the defendant was charged with running a red light.
After introductions, the prosecuting attorney was given the first go. He asked us, in turn, whether or not we had had a traffic citation in the past five years and if so, what the disposition had been.
Since I was Juror #1, he started with me. In fact, I have had a citation in the past five years, but at first I couldn't be sure. I stammered a bit until I recalled that I had gotten that speeding ticket back in February of 2008. I told him that I'd taken it to trial and that it had been dismissed, to which he said, "Congratulations" and moved on.
By the time he got to Juror #25, there had already been a shorthand established: "Got a speeding ticket. Paid the fine and took Defensive Driving," or "No tickets," were the two standard replies that moved the whole thing along pretty quickly. There were a couple of people who had gotten tickets for running a red light, one of whom said it was an accident (she just rolled out into the intersection) and that she'd called the police on herself!
This revelation afforded the prosecutor the chance to tell us that since it was a traffic case, there was no room for considering motive. In other words, it didn't matter whether or not the Defendant intended to run the red light, just whether or not he had done it. In theft, the prosecution explained, the State must at least address intent, as it is integral to the crime. But, in a traffic case, intent is just not a factor.
In other words, I realized, the Defendant was probably guilty and there was probably nothing we could do about it. Nothing, that is, unless we had an agenda, which, quite candidly, is what the Prosecutor admitted he was trying to uncover in his line of questioning.
When he was finished with all twenty five of us, the Prosecutor turned over the floor to the Defendant, who stood up to face us. He began by telling us that he was a heavy equipment driver. He said that it was not always possible for him to stop as quickly as he would like and that he would ask us to consider that. Now, although my knowledge of courtroom procedure is limited to my many hours of watching Law & Order and Perry Mason, this seemed even to my amateur ear to be a bit too much information about the case given much too early in the process. Indeed, the prosecutor quickly objected.
The Judge called the Prosecutor and the Defendant over to the bench. After a couple of minutes of muffled voices, they turned back around to face us. When asked by the Judge if he had any questions for the jury pool, this time, the Defendant said no. He knew, it seems to me, that his was already a losing effort. His attempt to explain the circumstances so early in the process reflected his honest motive, which was to say that even if he had done it, he didn't mean to.
The presence of the police officer--dressed in his full Blues--in the back of the room seemed to already be enough evidence to set the process inevitably in favor of the prosecution. Obviously, to the Defendant, the Judge's admonition was merely the necessary proof of this inevitability.
Well, whether or not I was perceived to have had an agenda, I was not chosen for the jury. Since either the prosecution or the defense can effectively dismiss a potential juror for any number of reasons, I have no way of knowing which side dismissed me or even if they gave me that much consideration at all. Since four of the six jurors who were actually picked came from the first ten on the list, it's pretty likely that I was summarily dismissed by one or the other side, but it's also likely that neither of them wanted me to serve and that I was simply passed over.
So, called I was, but serve I did not. By two-thirty, just a little more than an hour after I'd checked in, I was back out in the heat, on my way home.
Just as well, too, since it would have been the rest of the afternoon and the verdict was already a foregone conclusion.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
My First Love
Dear TV,
You've probably noticed that we have been hanging out a lot less lately. I really don't know how to break this to you gently, so I might as well be direct.
We are no longer best friends. Now, don't get me wrong, we are still good friends and all, but, well, our relationship just hasn't been as special--nor as exclusive--lately as it used to be. The thing is, as I've gotten older, I have made other friends. I've got other interests, you see.
No, I am not saying you aren't interesting anymore. I mean, you've got all those science and history channels now, as though you are really trying to become more cosmopolitan and to appeal to pseudo-intellectuals and dilettantes like me. So, I suppose if I wanted to, I could get some of the same information from you that I get from books and magazines. Of course, you've got your 'hard-hitting' news magazines like 60 Minutes and Dateline, and even whole channels dedicated to news and sports, but let's be honest, while these offerings are certainly entertaining, informative they are not.
Now I am not blaming you for FOX. I understand, it is a natural development in the steady decline you've shown over the years we've been together. But as a good friend, I have to tell you that, like bad teeth or rolls of fat, it's real turn-off, literally.
You see, even though I never have the patience to watch O'Reilly, Hannity or Beck, I see and hear enough of these 'fair and balanced' viewpoints in other media, so I have just started turning you off. I know you haven't noticed, what with all the other millions of fans you have out there, slavishly devoted to your quaint but aging twentieth-century style of 'infotainment'. But it is true: our friendship isn't what it used to be, and it's time for a break.
Now, I said it's time for a break, not that we are breaking up, so I won't be throwing you out of the house. No, I'll still continue to see you, just not every day and not for as long. You understand, don't you?
Actually, I have to admit that I am returning to my first love: books. In fact, you probably know that I've been secretly seeing them all along. Not just books, but magazines and the internet are all sources of the words I have so long loved. The thing is, words will be with me always, even when I don't pay the cable or electricity bills. I can always take my book outside and read under a tree for free.
And free is what I am when I read.
You've probably noticed that we have been hanging out a lot less lately. I really don't know how to break this to you gently, so I might as well be direct.
We are no longer best friends. Now, don't get me wrong, we are still good friends and all, but, well, our relationship just hasn't been as special--nor as exclusive--lately as it used to be. The thing is, as I've gotten older, I have made other friends. I've got other interests, you see.
No, I am not saying you aren't interesting anymore. I mean, you've got all those science and history channels now, as though you are really trying to become more cosmopolitan and to appeal to pseudo-intellectuals and dilettantes like me. So, I suppose if I wanted to, I could get some of the same information from you that I get from books and magazines. Of course, you've got your 'hard-hitting' news magazines like 60 Minutes and Dateline, and even whole channels dedicated to news and sports, but let's be honest, while these offerings are certainly entertaining, informative they are not.
Now I am not blaming you for FOX. I understand, it is a natural development in the steady decline you've shown over the years we've been together. But as a good friend, I have to tell you that, like bad teeth or rolls of fat, it's real turn-off, literally.
You see, even though I never have the patience to watch O'Reilly, Hannity or Beck, I see and hear enough of these 'fair and balanced' viewpoints in other media, so I have just started turning you off. I know you haven't noticed, what with all the other millions of fans you have out there, slavishly devoted to your quaint but aging twentieth-century style of 'infotainment'. But it is true: our friendship isn't what it used to be, and it's time for a break.
Now, I said it's time for a break, not that we are breaking up, so I won't be throwing you out of the house. No, I'll still continue to see you, just not every day and not for as long. You understand, don't you?
Actually, I have to admit that I am returning to my first love: books. In fact, you probably know that I've been secretly seeing them all along. Not just books, but magazines and the internet are all sources of the words I have so long loved. The thing is, words will be with me always, even when I don't pay the cable or electricity bills. I can always take my book outside and read under a tree for free.
And free is what I am when I read.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Gr3yghost's Green Ghia
It is my new toy, a 1974 lime-green VW Karmann Ghia convertible. Actually, it is my new project, since it doesn't actually run. Yet.
I bought it from a guy in Georgetown, who had it listed on Craigslist for $1800. We drove out early Saturday morning to have a look. It was sitting on a concrete pad in his front yard, and the first thing I noticed about it was the color. It's one of those unmistakable colors, the kind that make you stop and look, even when the car itself is in bad shape.
And, this car, man, is it ever in bad shape. That is the second thing I noticed, and the third. To begin with, it has a lot of rust, and that's an understatement. it has no interior, no convertible top (though the rusted frame is there). The windshield is cracked. The tires are shot and the wheels are rusted. The engine 'turns over--which means it isn't locked up with rust, at least--but a small fire in the engine compartment melted the wiring and boiled the paint off a big spot in the trunk, which is now rusting away. The floor pans look solid, but that's because they are probably replacements, and the passenger side is dented already. It doesn't look like it has ever been in an accident, but it has been repainted so it's possible when I start stripping off the paint I'll discover otherwise. The nose cone--one of those impossible to fix things--has never been dented as far as I can tell, so that is a positive.
And yet, I couldn't resist. I didn't resist. After all, I have looked at every Ghia posted on Craigslist in Texas for 18 months and so far, this is the only affordable convertible to come my way. This is not unexpected since even the coupes are fairly rare--they never sold more than 35,000 in a single year of production--the convertibles are even rarer. Altogether, there were no more than 75,000 convertibles of all model years made.
I didn't know those statistics when I was looking at the car, only that this might be my best chance for some time to come. So, as I rolled out from underneath, still shuddering at the sight of all that rust, I offered $1000. He countered with $1500. I paid $1300 for it, delivered to my driveway.
Gr3yghost's Green Ghia
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Losers Weepers
Finders keepers.
It may be one of the very first unwritten rules that we learn. I learned it from a classmate in kindergarten. What looked like theft to me was, someone explained, actually fair. Somehow, the sing-song delivery of those magic words seemed to make the act of appropriation more like an innocent windfall rather than the more contradictory reality that it was.
The contradictory part is not omitted nor even disguised. Losers weepers pretty much says it all, but this we conveniently choose to ignore. The thrill of finding something overrides the certain knowledge that anything found must have been lost, by someone. Using notion that it was simply left there for us to take as a defense isn't even a necessary if we invoke the finders keepers rule. We can simply take. And we do.
When I was a teenager, I was fascinated with Egyptian antiquities. I won't claim to have been offended or in any way concerned with the ethics of archaeology or the provenance of art. I loved the gold and copper sarcophagi and the mummies therein. I spent hours staring the blue and gold scarabs, and golden treasures looted from the tombs of the Kings of Egypt.
But I didn't actually think of them as looted. I read the stories about the discovery of Tut's Tomb, and even managed to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York during that King's famous road tour through the U.S. back in the sixties. Thanks Lynda.
It was Lynda who first informed me about the shady world of art collecting. One of her most beloved pieces of art in the world was actually a collection of sculpture fragments taken from the Parthenon in Athens. Known as the 'Elgin Marbles' after the British explorer who brought them from Greece to England, these are some of the finest examples of Greek art that we have in the world today.
Lynda, of course, had read a lot about the Elgin Marbles long before she lived in England. But one of her first excursions after arriving in 1975 was to the British Museum to see those statues. She often talked of the experience of seeing for the first time as being a very emotional and dramatic one. In spite of the fact that she was an abstract expressionist painter, she was deeply influenced by classical art of all kinds. Lynda loved art of all kinds. The Elgin Marbles just happened to be one of her first loves.
But Lynda also made it clear, whenever she waxed rhapsodic about these sculptures, that they were looted. She had to turn in some very tight circles to justify the looting, but she was enough of a realist to know that just because you 'own' something doesn't mean it's yours. Long before the talk of 're-patriating' art became fashionable, Lynda knew that someday the Greeks were going to come calling for their 'Marbles.'
As a student of art history, I too can turn in some very tight circles to justify my love for looking at things I probably shouldn't be able to see. It's too fascinating to turn away, so like rubberneckers at a crime scene, I leer and stare and soak up all the information I can. I am a part of the problem.
But, should we just stop archaeology? Just leave everything where it is? Return everything in museums?
Ok, so those are rhetorical questions. Suppose that the British Museum is seriously considering returning the Elgin Marbles. Would that make any difference? What about the Egyptian collection? The Sumerian stuff? Isn't everything in every museum simply looted or stolen?
The answer is yes. But are we seriously going to give all that stuff back? Not likely. To whom? No one knows.
Although the great age of museums is drawing to a close, even in response to the most dramatic weeping on the part of the losers, most of that stuff will stay right where it is.
It may be one of the very first unwritten rules that we learn. I learned it from a classmate in kindergarten. What looked like theft to me was, someone explained, actually fair. Somehow, the sing-song delivery of those magic words seemed to make the act of appropriation more like an innocent windfall rather than the more contradictory reality that it was.
The contradictory part is not omitted nor even disguised. Losers weepers pretty much says it all, but this we conveniently choose to ignore. The thrill of finding something overrides the certain knowledge that anything found must have been lost, by someone. Using notion that it was simply left there for us to take as a defense isn't even a necessary if we invoke the finders keepers rule. We can simply take. And we do.
When I was a teenager, I was fascinated with Egyptian antiquities. I won't claim to have been offended or in any way concerned with the ethics of archaeology or the provenance of art. I loved the gold and copper sarcophagi and the mummies therein. I spent hours staring the blue and gold scarabs, and golden treasures looted from the tombs of the Kings of Egypt.
But I didn't actually think of them as looted. I read the stories about the discovery of Tut's Tomb, and even managed to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York during that King's famous road tour through the U.S. back in the sixties. Thanks Lynda.
It was Lynda who first informed me about the shady world of art collecting. One of her most beloved pieces of art in the world was actually a collection of sculpture fragments taken from the Parthenon in Athens. Known as the 'Elgin Marbles' after the British explorer who brought them from Greece to England, these are some of the finest examples of Greek art that we have in the world today.
Lynda, of course, had read a lot about the Elgin Marbles long before she lived in England. But one of her first excursions after arriving in 1975 was to the British Museum to see those statues. She often talked of the experience of seeing for the first time as being a very emotional and dramatic one. In spite of the fact that she was an abstract expressionist painter, she was deeply influenced by classical art of all kinds. Lynda loved art of all kinds. The Elgin Marbles just happened to be one of her first loves.
But Lynda also made it clear, whenever she waxed rhapsodic about these sculptures, that they were looted. She had to turn in some very tight circles to justify the looting, but she was enough of a realist to know that just because you 'own' something doesn't mean it's yours. Long before the talk of 're-patriating' art became fashionable, Lynda knew that someday the Greeks were going to come calling for their 'Marbles.'
As a student of art history, I too can turn in some very tight circles to justify my love for looking at things I probably shouldn't be able to see. It's too fascinating to turn away, so like rubberneckers at a crime scene, I leer and stare and soak up all the information I can. I am a part of the problem.
But, should we just stop archaeology? Just leave everything where it is? Return everything in museums?
Ok, so those are rhetorical questions. Suppose that the British Museum is seriously considering returning the Elgin Marbles. Would that make any difference? What about the Egyptian collection? The Sumerian stuff? Isn't everything in every museum simply looted or stolen?
The answer is yes. But are we seriously going to give all that stuff back? Not likely. To whom? No one knows.
Although the great age of museums is drawing to a close, even in response to the most dramatic weeping on the part of the losers, most of that stuff will stay right where it is.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Bright Line
I could see the line the instant I opened the door.
Even before I knew that Mr. ____ was dead, I could see that line.
Actually, it's not exactly a line that you can see, but I could feel it. I knew it was there.
It's the kind of a line we are all familiar with: the demarcation between where you are supposed to be and where you aren't.
Sometimes, that line is pretty clearly marked. We've got lanes that make lines and lines that make lanes. Lines are just a part of being human. We have ID badges and keys and entry codes for our homes and workplaces. We have secure areas, velvet ropes and 'extens-a-barriers' in just about every public place.
We make and mark lines in many places and for many reasons. Though we profess to hate them, we are more often secretly glad to know they are there, just because they are there to make and mark our place.
Often the line an actual physical thing, like the line in a restaurant kitchen, which divides the waiter from the cooks in much the same way as the swinging doors between the kitchen and dining room divide the waiters from the patrons.
Most times, though, the lines that make up our lives are not so clearly marked. These imaginary lines are no less important, however. After all, they serve the same purpose: separating those us us who are supposed to be here from those of us who are not.
The line at the nursing home is an invisible one.
As long as Mr. ____ was alive, I didn't give it much thought; I simply crossed that imaginary line when I entered the nursing home where he lived. At first, of course, I had to show my credentials--just the Hospice Austin badge with my name on it--to the nurse when I came in, but after a while, I grew increasingly comfortable with my reason for being there and the line grew less and less visible.
It didn't take long before I began to forget that the line was even there. Anything done often enough can become routine, even watching someone die. Thursday after Thursday, I simply stepped over it and walked down the corridor to Mr. ____'s room. My routine developed over eight months--from the time I started making my weekly visits until last week.
Last Thursday, it was different.
As recently as two weeks ago, Mr. ____ was sitting up in his wheelchair and still recognized me. Last Thursday, when I arrived around 4:30, he was lying in bed, looking very peaceful. His eyes were open but when I approached, he didn't respond at all. He was breathing steadily, as though he was sleeping. In fact, he closed his eyes after a moment to actually 'sleep'.
So, I pulled up a chair and sat with him as usual. I figured this might actually be the last time I would have this opportunity. I was surprised, therefore, when at 5 o'clock, one of the nurse's aides came in to say that she was going to get him up for dinner.
I asked, "Really? Is he still eating?"
She shrugged and said that it was the nurse's orders. I must have looked startled because she went off to confirm this with the nurse. In the meantime, another nurse's aide came in to wake him up. She called his name and he opened his eyes but made no sign of recognition. I asked this woman if she thought he could eat but she just smiled and shrugged. Then the first woman returned to say, while shaking her head in dismay, that she had to get him up for dinner.
They asked me to leave the room and I did. In fact, I went ahead and left the nursing home. Before I left the room I went over to the bed to say goodbye to Mr. ____ and though his eyes were open, he made no sign.
I couldn't help but question what purpose was served in waking him up and rolling him down for a 'dinner' that he was clearly unable to eat. While I erred on the side of caution by keeping my mouth shut, I still feel guilty about it.
My expectation proved correct, however. This past Tuesday, Hospice called to ask if I would sit with Mr. ____ during what they call an '11th Hour' vigil. This is where they ask volunteers to sit with the dying person till the very end. I volunteered for an 8am to noon shift the next day, Wednesday.
But, when I arrived Wednesday morning and opened the door, I saw the resident nurse's eyes and just knew that the line had been drawn. She told me what I already knew and I withdrew immediately, feeling more like an intruder than the regular visitor I'd been for the better part of a year.
In some ways, this loss of access made me sadder than knowing of Mr. ____'s departure. Without meaning to or even realizing it, I had begun to cling, as we all do, to that safe haven, that semblance of order and rightness in the world which we call a routine.
Though I will miss Mr. ____, I selfishly confess that it is the routine I will miss. It is that unquestioned access to his intimate space, the unspoken permission granted to cross that oh-so-private life-line that I will miss most.
Even before I knew that Mr. ____ was dead, I could see that line.
Actually, it's not exactly a line that you can see, but I could feel it. I knew it was there.
It's the kind of a line we are all familiar with: the demarcation between where you are supposed to be and where you aren't.
Sometimes, that line is pretty clearly marked. We've got lanes that make lines and lines that make lanes. Lines are just a part of being human. We have ID badges and keys and entry codes for our homes and workplaces. We have secure areas, velvet ropes and 'extens-a-barriers' in just about every public place.
We make and mark lines in many places and for many reasons. Though we profess to hate them, we are more often secretly glad to know they are there, just because they are there to make and mark our place.
Often the line an actual physical thing, like the line in a restaurant kitchen, which divides the waiter from the cooks in much the same way as the swinging doors between the kitchen and dining room divide the waiters from the patrons.
Most times, though, the lines that make up our lives are not so clearly marked. These imaginary lines are no less important, however. After all, they serve the same purpose: separating those us us who are supposed to be here from those of us who are not.
The line at the nursing home is an invisible one.
As long as Mr. ____ was alive, I didn't give it much thought; I simply crossed that imaginary line when I entered the nursing home where he lived. At first, of course, I had to show my credentials--just the Hospice Austin badge with my name on it--to the nurse when I came in, but after a while, I grew increasingly comfortable with my reason for being there and the line grew less and less visible.
It didn't take long before I began to forget that the line was even there. Anything done often enough can become routine, even watching someone die. Thursday after Thursday, I simply stepped over it and walked down the corridor to Mr. ____'s room. My routine developed over eight months--from the time I started making my weekly visits until last week.
Last Thursday, it was different.
As recently as two weeks ago, Mr. ____ was sitting up in his wheelchair and still recognized me. Last Thursday, when I arrived around 4:30, he was lying in bed, looking very peaceful. His eyes were open but when I approached, he didn't respond at all. He was breathing steadily, as though he was sleeping. In fact, he closed his eyes after a moment to actually 'sleep'.
So, I pulled up a chair and sat with him as usual. I figured this might actually be the last time I would have this opportunity. I was surprised, therefore, when at 5 o'clock, one of the nurse's aides came in to say that she was going to get him up for dinner.
I asked, "Really? Is he still eating?"
She shrugged and said that it was the nurse's orders. I must have looked startled because she went off to confirm this with the nurse. In the meantime, another nurse's aide came in to wake him up. She called his name and he opened his eyes but made no sign of recognition. I asked this woman if she thought he could eat but she just smiled and shrugged. Then the first woman returned to say, while shaking her head in dismay, that she had to get him up for dinner.
They asked me to leave the room and I did. In fact, I went ahead and left the nursing home. Before I left the room I went over to the bed to say goodbye to Mr. ____ and though his eyes were open, he made no sign.
I couldn't help but question what purpose was served in waking him up and rolling him down for a 'dinner' that he was clearly unable to eat. While I erred on the side of caution by keeping my mouth shut, I still feel guilty about it.
My expectation proved correct, however. This past Tuesday, Hospice called to ask if I would sit with Mr. ____ during what they call an '11th Hour' vigil. This is where they ask volunteers to sit with the dying person till the very end. I volunteered for an 8am to noon shift the next day, Wednesday.
But, when I arrived Wednesday morning and opened the door, I saw the resident nurse's eyes and just knew that the line had been drawn. She told me what I already knew and I withdrew immediately, feeling more like an intruder than the regular visitor I'd been for the better part of a year.
In some ways, this loss of access made me sadder than knowing of Mr. ____'s departure. Without meaning to or even realizing it, I had begun to cling, as we all do, to that safe haven, that semblance of order and rightness in the world which we call a routine.
Though I will miss Mr. ____, I selfishly confess that it is the routine I will miss. It is that unquestioned access to his intimate space, the unspoken permission granted to cross that oh-so-private life-line that I will miss most.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Revenge
Ode to Louis L'Amour (1908 - 1988)
The sound of the rifle bullet
missing its target
echoed through the hot dead air
trapped between
high canyon walls.
A jagged piece of stone
nicked Buck's ear,
but he didn't move.
The sun was relentless.
No wind stirred the dust.
Buck held his breath
and closed his left eye.
The bead on the end
of the barrel
of his Winchester
came into focus
and split second later,
the sound
of a second rifle shot
echoed through the
narrow arroyo.
For what seemed like an eternity,
Buck waited.
Then,
when his lungs were about
to implode,
a body fell from the cliff
on the opposite side
of the canyon.
Buck had killed a lot of men
in five decades,
but never
had it felt
so
satisfying.
He stood and
squinted
into the sun.
He spit into the
white caleche dust
around his boots.
For a long time,
he just stood there
and stared at the body.
A little crimson leak
appeared in the chalk white dust
below the dead man.
Buck thought
about shooting him again,
just to be sure.
Not out of fear,
just simple rage.
But even the heat
of that anger
could not diminish
the coldness of his desire
for revenge.
He had no need
to waste another bullet
even if
he could have summoned the will
for another shot.
The blue-black barrel
of his rifle
dropped to his side
as thirty years of hatred
slipped
silently
from his shoulders.
The sound of the rifle bullet
missing its target
echoed through the hot dead air
trapped between
high canyon walls.
A jagged piece of stone
nicked Buck's ear,
but he didn't move.
The sun was relentless.
No wind stirred the dust.
Buck held his breath
and closed his left eye.
The bead on the end
of the barrel
of his Winchester
came into focus
and split second later,
the sound
of a second rifle shot
echoed through the
narrow arroyo.
For what seemed like an eternity,
Buck waited.
Then,
when his lungs were about
to implode,
a body fell from the cliff
on the opposite side
of the canyon.
Buck had killed a lot of men
in five decades,
but never
had it felt
so
satisfying.
He stood and
squinted
into the sun.
He spit into the
white caleche dust
around his boots.
For a long time,
he just stood there
and stared at the body.
A little crimson leak
appeared in the chalk white dust
below the dead man.
Buck thought
about shooting him again,
just to be sure.
Not out of fear,
just simple rage.
But even the heat
of that anger
could not diminish
the coldness of his desire
for revenge.
He had no need
to waste another bullet
even if
he could have summoned the will
for another shot.
The blue-black barrel
of his rifle
dropped to his side
as thirty years of hatred
slipped
silently
from his shoulders.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Tie That Binds
Loki waits for me at the door, ready for our evening walk. He knows that's what we're about to do, because I just told him. He may not understand everything I say, but he knows when we are going for a walk.
He sits by the door, waiting for me to put his leash on. Sometimes, as I clip the red lead to his collar, I wonder if he resents it. After all, he loves to run on ahead whenever he's allowed to go for a walk without it. But, if he resents it, he certainly doesn't show it. In fact, it's pretty clear to me that he sees the leash for what it is: a means of communication.
When we first started walking together our communication skills were rather poor. Loki always wanted to go faster than I preferred to, or stop to smell something just when I had my walking pace set. He was forever tugging forward or or pulling backward. I was never really sure how to make it work, or for that matter, if we ever would. It seemed like I was only using the leash to forcibly restrain him. The rule, not the exception, was for him to constantly strain at the end of the lead, anxious for me to either pick up the pace or let him go.
Now that has changed. Of course there are moments when he has to be restrained a bit. Sometimes, his constant, in-the-moment way of being leads to a sudden lunge or stop, but increasingly, these moments are rare.
A walk today is a far different one that it was when Loki was a puppy. He no longer lunges ahead, or even strains the leash. I hold the loop in one hand and take up the slack with the other. There is no tension on the leash at all. Granted, I do have a pretty fast walking pace, but Loki has learned not just to slow down, but to pick up on just how fast I am walking and match that.
What has changed? Is it him or me?
Obviously, it is a bit of both. We are both a little older and a little wiser, especially about the role of the leash.
The leash, we both have come to realize, is more than a means of control. It is a symbol, not of my dominance over Loki, but of our partnership. When we go out for the walk, the lead is our most direct way of communicating.
This is sort of like the cheap walkie-talkies my brother and I shared growing up. They were useful for communicating within earshot only and we could never be sure if it was the walkie-talkie or just the sound coming through the air. While I can't be sure if it's just Loki taking his visual cues better as he gets older and wiser, it sure seems like there is some communication going on between us, and it seems to be happening literally via the leash.
I know this because there is a reciprocal element at work. That is, Loki senses how fast I want to walk but I sense the same from him. Somehow, we compromise. Sometimes, we go a little faster than I'd prefer, but not as fast as Loki would like. Sometimes when he wants to stop, I just know it and don't have to wait for him to jerk at the lead in order to get a good long sniff of something.
Human arrogance might lead me to think that the difference between now and then would be Loki. After all, he's grown up and has learned how to handle the leash. But I have to admit that I have changed too. I have learned how to hold the leash. What I once perceived as an instrument of control I see now as a means of communication.
And, what I am communicating is not what I want him to do, but quite simply, my state of mind. When I am relaxed, Loki can feel that. When I am willing to walk faster, Loki can feel that. When he wants to stop and smell something, I can feel that. When we come to a curb and I come to a stop to look both ways, he too comes to a stop and sits at my heel.
Now, Loki's learned a lot about what we expect from him, not just when he's leashed but also when he's not. Likewise, I have learned a lot about what he expects from me, especially when we are tied together by that lead.
He sits by the door, waiting for me to put his leash on. Sometimes, as I clip the red lead to his collar, I wonder if he resents it. After all, he loves to run on ahead whenever he's allowed to go for a walk without it. But, if he resents it, he certainly doesn't show it. In fact, it's pretty clear to me that he sees the leash for what it is: a means of communication.
When we first started walking together our communication skills were rather poor. Loki always wanted to go faster than I preferred to, or stop to smell something just when I had my walking pace set. He was forever tugging forward or or pulling backward. I was never really sure how to make it work, or for that matter, if we ever would. It seemed like I was only using the leash to forcibly restrain him. The rule, not the exception, was for him to constantly strain at the end of the lead, anxious for me to either pick up the pace or let him go.
Now that has changed. Of course there are moments when he has to be restrained a bit. Sometimes, his constant, in-the-moment way of being leads to a sudden lunge or stop, but increasingly, these moments are rare.
A walk today is a far different one that it was when Loki was a puppy. He no longer lunges ahead, or even strains the leash. I hold the loop in one hand and take up the slack with the other. There is no tension on the leash at all. Granted, I do have a pretty fast walking pace, but Loki has learned not just to slow down, but to pick up on just how fast I am walking and match that.
What has changed? Is it him or me?
Obviously, it is a bit of both. We are both a little older and a little wiser, especially about the role of the leash.
The leash, we both have come to realize, is more than a means of control. It is a symbol, not of my dominance over Loki, but of our partnership. When we go out for the walk, the lead is our most direct way of communicating.
This is sort of like the cheap walkie-talkies my brother and I shared growing up. They were useful for communicating within earshot only and we could never be sure if it was the walkie-talkie or just the sound coming through the air. While I can't be sure if it's just Loki taking his visual cues better as he gets older and wiser, it sure seems like there is some communication going on between us, and it seems to be happening literally via the leash.
I know this because there is a reciprocal element at work. That is, Loki senses how fast I want to walk but I sense the same from him. Somehow, we compromise. Sometimes, we go a little faster than I'd prefer, but not as fast as Loki would like. Sometimes when he wants to stop, I just know it and don't have to wait for him to jerk at the lead in order to get a good long sniff of something.
Human arrogance might lead me to think that the difference between now and then would be Loki. After all, he's grown up and has learned how to handle the leash. But I have to admit that I have changed too. I have learned how to hold the leash. What I once perceived as an instrument of control I see now as a means of communication.
And, what I am communicating is not what I want him to do, but quite simply, my state of mind. When I am relaxed, Loki can feel that. When I am willing to walk faster, Loki can feel that. When he wants to stop and smell something, I can feel that. When we come to a curb and I come to a stop to look both ways, he too comes to a stop and sits at my heel.
Now, Loki's learned a lot about what we expect from him, not just when he's leashed but also when he's not. Likewise, I have learned a lot about what he expects from me, especially when we are tied together by that lead.
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