Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Senior Economics

I just finished reading an article in the January/February ATLANTIC ("Choke-Proof Food" - Rene Chun) Which talks about the problems an aging population is posing for Japan.  A fourth of the country is now over 65.  By 2060 that percentage is projected to rise to 40.

This, according to Chun, does not bode well for Japan's economy.  Elderly drivers are causing more accidents.  Old folks are falling off too-fast escalators.  Chun doesn't mention it, but I can imagine what the lines in grocery stores are like with shaky codgers digging through fanny packs for valuable coupons.  And what about the rash of coughing fits at huge all-you-can-eat buffets?  It gives one pause.

But the Japanese, ever resourceful, are figuring out a way for this onslaught of seniors to turn into a cash bonanza.  Escalator companies are enjoying the rising (so to speak) need for slow speed escalators.  Self driving buses for seniors are going into mass production.  Shopping carts are being equipped with magnifying glasses.  Video arcades are installing benches and games designed to ward off dementia.  Arcade Staffers are getting certified as "service attendants."  But the biggest economic coup has to be Softia G, a nutritional therapy product from Nutri Co.  Sofia G provides the means to turn "hard" foods into pureed blobs.  With Softia G a senior can, for example, take a salmon steak, puree it in a special blender, then reshape it into a salmon steak complete with grill marks, and then wolf it down without needing someone to stand by who is expert in the Heimlich Maneuver.  This is an idea whose time has come.  Just think how much quieter it will be at The Golden Corral.

There are other products whose time has come.  I'm thinking of starting a new business (the new tax overhaul will certainly facilitate this) to fill this senior niche.  Kathie saw a special report on some Sunday morning show that highlighted a large blue plastic boot-like contraption that would enable seniors with stiff backs to put on their socks without having to bend.  Let the market do its thing and boost these blue sock thingees into an investor's dream come true.

Two way earbuds would be a godsend for a lot of the seniors I hang out with.  Set them on receive and they act as hearing aids.  Reverse them to block out unwanted noise at hipster restaurants.

Coupon organizers would be nice.  It would speed up lines at the grocery store and prevent millennials from being apoplectic as they wait in line behind some old codger.

A Geezer Alert app would be welcome.  Seniors, the ones who still remember how to work a smart phone, could simply point the camera at themselves and take a picture.  The app would supply immediate advice about that day's outfit.  Do things match?  Do you really want to wear those calf high white socks with your wingtips and shorts?  Are you making an embarrassing attempt to look younger than you are?  Such an app would go a long way toward smoothing over embarrassing social interactions.

I'm saving my best idea till last.  How about walkers that can instantly convert to shopping carts with the push of a button?  A wobbly old person might be using his walker to cruise the mall.  If he sees someone walking toward him looking sympathetically toward his sad device, he can simply press the button and Voila, he's pushing a shopping cart. "Hey, I'm not old," the old guy might say. "I'm homeless."  Think of all the humiliation that will save.


Sunday, December 17, 2017

Waiting By The Stage Door

I have a recurring dream where I am in the basement holding Willa tightly while waves of radiation from an inevitable nuclear cataclysm slowly eat away at us.  In another fun dream, I am with all four of my grandgirls in the wilderness that used to be the C-470 corridor.  I am helping them, Cormac McCarthy style, find food and drink while fending off attacks of marauders transformed by nuclear devastation.  Those are my dreams lately.  I don't dream about stupid tax bills, or presidential faux pas, or frustrating Bronco games, or even about verbal fights with all the black Republicans at the Y.  I dream about protecting my grandchildren.

I don't worry about my health as much as I used to.  My children and their spouses are pretty much who they are and I couldn't be happier with them.  No bad dreams there.  And as much as I still worry about Kathie's health, I don't dream about dread cancer scenarios any more.  My grandchildren have become my primary focus, number one on my agenda.

Before Boss Tweet's election, I mentioned to a conservative friend at the Y that the environment was my main issue.  I didn't want my grandchildren growing up in a world where they would have to tread water.  Bob, my friend, said he didn't want his grandchildren growing up in a country that had an unsustainable debt.  That's why he was going to vote for Trump.  I wonder what his rationale is to the $1.5 trillion Trump and his minions are going to add to that deficit and eventually to the national debt?

Oh well, if my dream scenario comes true we won't have to worry about debts or treading water or anything anymore.  I take a perverse comfort in that.

In the meantime, I will bask in the glow emanating from my grandkids.

We saw Chris' production of "Home for the Holidays" at Lone Tree yesterday afternoon.  My twenty-three year old grandson Sage was up on stage singing bluesy versions of Christmas carols and engaging the audience with his huge voice and even huger smile.  Sammi, who had recently tripped on the stairs at her home and could barely walk, was there in the kids chorus being a trooper just like she always is.  And there was Brooklyn, who is always the only person on stage I can look at, moving and singing like only she can.  I cried through the entire production because it was so damn good.

A lot of my life has been spent waiting outside stage doors to congratulate my kids after great shows.  When they were in high school, I never missed a performance and even made it to the majority of their rehearsals.  I was so proud of them, but mostly I loved living vicariously through their achievements.  The same thing with the grand kids.  Sammi came out first and was assaulted by hugs all around.  Sage came out a few moments later and I hugged him and assured him that he was the best one in his row.

Brooklyn always seems to be the last one out of the dressing room and yesterday was no exception.  The thing is that every emotion she is feeling is immediately written on her face.  God, how I love that face.  I remember after a show at PACE a few years ago, Brooklyn just stood right outside the stage door waiting to be loved.  I'll never forget the little smile and the anticipation written all over her.

Yesterday was a little different.  In the second act, she missed her entrance and had to stay off stage for the "Twelve Days of Christmas" number.  It was her one solo in the show and she blew it.  One of the other kids saved the day by singing Brooklyn's lines.  Brooklyn was devastated and her barely dry tears were clear for all of us to see.  I think she might have been a little afraid to face her father.  I don't blame her.  Future super stars aren't supposed to miss entrances.

On the other hand, what's one missed cue when there was that glorious, tear stained face to contend with?  I'll bet she has recovered nicely.  All I know is that I can't wait for her next performance.

Friday, December 1, 2017

The end of White Male Privilege: What has the world come to?

There is an episode during the first year of "The Andy Griffith Show" where Ellie, Fred the druggist's niece, is new in town, just come back from pharmacy school in Mount Pilot I suppose.  Andy ends up asking her to the town picnic and dance that weekend and she agrees.  Of course, Andy, more Barney-like in the early seasons, somehow tells himself that he was tricked into asking her out as part of Ellie's devious scheme to get a husband.  He is convinced when Opie comes home with a free ice cream cone given to him by the desperate female.

He tries to throw her off the track by getting eligible bachelors around town to go into the drugstore and flirt with the new female druggist, but Ellie gets wind of Andy's behavior when Opie--it is always Opie--enters and repeats some of Andy's lunatic ravings.  Ellie quickly informs Andy that she wouldn't go to the picnic and dance with him if he were the last person on earth and to prove it she throws herself at the next person to walk through the door--wouldn't you know it--Barney.

It all ends happily.  Ellie and Opie, with Andy acting as chaperone, go to the picnic.  The episode ends there.  One can only wonder what happens after the dance.

I think it was my son Nate who once commented--if it wasn't him, it should have been--that the answers to all the questions in life can be found in "The Andy Griffith Show."  I just saw the above episode for the umpteenth time this morning on Sundance and it has crystallized my thinking on sexual politics.

Andy's attitude, while exaggerated, is kind of a cultural norm.  Men are full of themselves.  They can be shy and bumbling, the little dears, but eventually they'll act like assholes.  Women, at least the ones we are bombarded with on situation comedies, usually end up in control of the relationship and make their male halves look like bumbling morons.  But the thing is that this woman-in-control thing is always portrayed ironically.  As if to say, we all know that it is the man who is in charge, but wouldn't it be funny if it were the other way around?  Some joke.

Look at the difference in how we talk about acting out sexually.  Before the recent storm of sexual allegations--every "famous" man in America must be looking over his shoulder--male sexual predators were called leches, ladies' men, wolves, cocksmen, sugar daddies, babe magnets, studs, etc. Besides the term rapist, I can't think of a single term for a male sexual athlete that has a negative connotation  What do we call women who act out sexually, either for real or in our male imagination?  Slut.  Whore.  Hot for It.  Gagging for It.  Hot to trot.  Ho.  Easy.  Nympho.  I cannot think of a single word to describe this behavior with a positive connotation.

Definitions belong to the conquerers and it is pretty obvious who is doing the defining in this situation.

But it looks like things are changing.  "Me too" is starting to do a little defining of its own and that has only added to the rash of bad years old white males, the ones in my demographic, are having.  It appears at first glance that white males have regained their precious supremacy, at least for a little while.  But that doesn't change the fact that for a long time now, white males have been noticing the steady erosion of their power.  Long time neighborhoods have been changing their complexion.  It won't be long before whites are in the minority.  They already are in some areas.  (You can tell which because those are the areas that have been the most heavily gerrymandered.)  There are gay people on television!  There are lesbians getting married!  A black family occupied The White House!  A woman had the temerity to run for president!  Worse than that, women have the vote!  And as a final insult, it looks like women want to be equal sexually as well.  It is one more entitlement being stripped away from white male privilege and it is scaring the shit out of them.

Those poor white guys, embodied by our President, are discovering (well some are) that they can't talk the same way they used to.  They can't act the same way.  And if they want to get along, they can't even think the same way.  Trump's crotch grabbing braggadocio secured him a lot of votes.  Old white guys who tend to vote for all things Trump think that's the way you're supposed to talk.  To see a beautiful woman in front of you on the golf course and to comment that there is nothing better than great pussy is what a man's man is supposed to do.  I'll bet John Wayne said stuff like that all the time.  And if Rock Hudson hadn't been gay he would have probably said the same thing.  But now, if you are a member of the fake news media, you get fired for saying, thinking, or doing such things.  Of course, if you are a Republican running for office, you get elected.

What has the world come to?

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

I'm Falling And I'm Not Sure I Can Get Up

I didn't think it was possible, but I am more depressed today than I was last year when Trump managed to beat Clinton in the national election.

Back then I was depressed not so much because a serial liar and conman like Trump won The White House, but because so many of my fellow citizens chose pure selfishness over the welfare of the country as a whole and voted for the guy.  I figured my depression would eventually go away when he and his minions got voted out of office during the mid-terms and the next general election.  In the meantime, I figured, it would be almost entertaining to see this buffoon stumble through his first term.

And it has been entertaining to catalogue  his growing list of lies, to listen to his sycophantic supporters (Read:  Hannity) invent ways to excuse his inexcusable behavior, to notice that none of his pandering promises were coming to fruition, to notice not a single legislative achievement.  The government was at a standstill, but courageous individuals and courageous states and businesses helped pick up the slack and kept this country of ours holding the course against all of Trump's ham handed and vindictive attempts to undermine Obama's legacy.

All that has changed.  The world is in a mess.  Trump's agenda, to use a favorite Trumpean term, is a disaster.  Our position on the world stage has been weakened.  We have ceded control of the Pacific Rim to China.  We have ceded the lead in alternative energy, once again, to China.  We have earned the enmity and scorn of any nation with a diverse population.  We have goaded North Korea into even more brazen attempts to terrorize the world with a nuclear threat.  And through all of this, Trump and his ass kissers actually believe that all we have to do is get tough and the rest of the world will acquiesce.  What bullshit!

Look at today's (11/26/17) headlines:
"Discord in D.C.  Shutdown showdown may loom"
"Korean Missile Test - D.C. may be in reach"
"Activist group chimes in on Colo.  gay-wedding cake case"
"Air Force Academy - Scandal-filled sexual assault office 'derelict'"
"Bank drive big gains to record highs"
"More than 70% in U.S. shopped over weekend"
"Big contracts, no storm tarps for Puerto Rico"
"National Monuments - Trump announcement Monday in Utah"

There is a lot to worry about in those headlines.  But the headline that will actually shape our reaction to the current situation is the bank gains and the Black Friday shopping spree.  Voters can shout for equal rights and opportunities, can shout out their sympathy for the underprivileged, but they will quickly forsake those principles if it means padding their bank accounts.  It drives me crazy.

On top of all this, I am, as an article in last week's (11/20/17) New Yorker tells me, "Getting On."  I am one year away from 70 and that means that, like all OLD people, I am getting marginalized.  In other words, it really doesn't matter what I think about the appalling state of the world because just like me, my opinions are dinosaurs.  We are irrelevant.  We are overwhelmed by the speed and complete fucking mystery of technology.  Not only that, but the elderly are like "locusts who swarm the earth consuming all our resources."  We, people over 65, are "part of the dependent rather than the productive population;  [we] are the burden the young must carry."

This attitude is made even worse by the fact that households led by old people are fifty times as wealthy as households led by the young.  Lots of room for resentment there.  I guess I'm supposed to keep looking behind me at my children waiting patiently for me to take up residence in  their basement apartments where I will be safe and out of the way.  I'm supposed to feel like King Lear looking on his children like ravening wolves.

Did you know that the Marind Anim of New Guinea bury senescent elders alive.  The Chukchee of Siberia are more efficient.  They stab their senile elders through the heart.  That way they don't have to bury them alive.  In areas of Polynesia old people are looked on as the "nearly dead."

My mother at age 70 told me that she still felt like she did when she was sixteen.  She had the same fears, the same joys, the same dreams.  It was just harder for her to get up off the floor after playing with her grandchildren.  I feel just like that.  I'm 69.  I wish I was thinner, but I'm not obese.  I still work out.  Still hike.  I am still (ahem) wittier and quicker than any of my kids.  But I can see the end looming ahead whenever I walk into a restaurant and notice that I'm the oldest person there and feel that the place is too noisy.  I can see the end looming ahead whenever I have to ask one of my kids or grandkids to repeat what they say because I have tinnitus.  I can see the end looming ahead whenever I get paranoid and suspect that when my kids get together they shake their collective heads and comment on how much older I look, or act.

It is all quite sad making.  I am furious at the state of the world right now because I want my grandchildren to have long and full lives just like I have had.  But I'm also furious because now that I should be hanging out and basking in contentment, I have to be a first hand witness to the maddening unraveling of the world I used to love.

P.S.  Kathie and I stopped at Freaky's the other day to get some rolling papers (how young is that?) when I noticed that Masterpiece Cakes was right there in that same strip mall.  I had an urge to walk into the place and order a cake for an NRA party I was throwing and ask if they would please decorate it with a pair of crossed AK-47s just to see if, since I wasn't LGBT, they would fulfill the order, to see if the crossed guns might violate their religion.  But I went home without causing a scene, knowing it was something for a young person to do.



Saturday, November 4, 2017

Applauding Buffoonery

I know we're all supposed to be outraged at the Russians for planting hundreds of posts/ads on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media forums in order to influence the elections.  Actually, the posts were equal opportunity propaganda targeting all sides of the political spectrum.  They were designed to create chaos in our country and they were highly successful.

But Russia isn't the culprit here.  The American people are.  Russian computer whizzes counted on the collective ignorance of the American body politic and the partisan willingness to believe anything that seems to validate strongly held beliefs.  And we Americans did not disappoint.

I saw some of the ads yesterday after Facebook released them.  One memorable one had an earnest young man dressed in battle gear squaring off against Hillary Clinton who was wearing a red cape, carrying a pitchfork, and sporting horns.  Vote Against Satan, the ad said.  Others were equally ridiculous.  Evidently, people bought the propaganda.  Evidently, voters were convinced by that ad and others that Clinton was the devil, that she purposely had people killed in Benghazi, that she had Vince Foster murdered, that she colluded with Russia to give them uranium in order to bolster their nuclear program, that she was somehow responsible for everything wrong in America.

And there were other ads, just as obscenely deceitful, directed against Trump.  And there were obviously lots of us who believed those.  The result:  Our political divide got even more divisive.  We trusted one another even less than we used to.

I don't know if any of those spots came across my Facebook feed, but I can guarantee you that there were plenty of delusional posts proclaiming all sorts of nefarious things that compelled me and I presume every other individual with a brain wave to roll our eyes, shake our heads, and move on to something sane.

That's my take away from all this Russia shit and it is worth saying again.  Russia, like any good and amoral marketer, took advantage of the gullibility of the American people.  It is the American people who are at fault here.

It is possible to get at the truth.  There are ways to find out if the site spewing the propaganda is legitimate or not.  It is possible to cross reference things to determine if something is true or just another piece of bullshit.  If you are not on Politifact or some other fact checking site as often as you are on The Drudge Report, The Daily Beast, or (shudder) Breitbart, you are not getting your information responsibly.

I admit that if I saw a post suggesting that Donald Trump liked to kill babies during his free hours away from his Twitter feed, I would tend to believe it.  But then I would check the site, wait to see if the same news item appeared on a legitimate news site, read some pundit's explanation, read some opposing pundit's explanation, and finally form my own position on the issue.  I would not immediately rush off to the Y to breathlessly explain about Trump's penchant for killing infants.  I would not share the offending item on my Facebook wall.  In other words, I would act like an adult.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think I am an exception.  I just think we would all be better off if we would come to grips with the idea that our certainties might be wrong, might need some opposing input.  If I just buzz through social media looking for those screeds that reinforce what I already believe, I am being lazy and irresponsible and, dare I say it, not acting like a citizen is supposed to act.

Like most of my friends, I have been devastated about the state of my country since last November, but the devastation isn't because I think Trump is an incompetent, mean-spirited buffoon (although I certainly do believe that), but because fully one-third of the people in this country are willing to believe and applaud his buffoonery.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Edifice Complex, Green Mountain Style

Kathie and I are being inducted into the Green Mountain High School Hall of Fame next month.  The principal sent an email informing us.  When I first learned of this, I was momentarily taken aback. I immediately figured the nominating committee had to be composed of lots of our former students and probably not that many former administrators or colleagues.  I could understand former ad types and colleagues nominating Kathie, but those last years at good old GMHS I had a rocky relationship with the powers that be.  And I have to say that walking out of that building twelve years ago was an even more wonderful feeling than walking into it 35 years earlier.  In fact, I promised myself that I would never set foot in that building again and so far I've kept that promise.

The thing that is interesting me is my reaction to this honor.  I had heard a few years ago that Green Mountain was considering a hall of fame and they were asking for suggestions for inductees.  It never occurred to me they would be nominating teachers, so I thought it was a nifty idea and I started thinking of kids' names.  I came up with a ton of them.  But if I had thought teachers would be nominated, I would have rolled my eyes at the whole idea.  If I had thought Kathie and I would be among the inductees (Dale Moore, Dennis Shepherd, and Bruce Rolfing are the other honorees), I still would have rolled my eyes, but only for a second or two.  Then I would have happily acquiesced.

In my humble opinion, it is silly to choose individuals to be honored in something as artificial as a hall of fame.  It is kind of like being a restaurant reviewer writing an article ranking the best hamburgers in town.  The critic might choose the smash burger at Elways.  Of course, other critics would just as confidently choose the one at Park Burger.  They would both be correct.

The same thing with all this hall of fame business.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I think Kathie and I deserve this honor.  I would like to think that most of our students and colleagues would agree.  But there are so many others that similarly deserve to be the first inductees.

Dawn Troup would be the first name out of my mouth.  Next to Kathie, Dawn taught me more about teaching than anyone.

Ken Weaver is another.  He and I spent years together acting as union reps.  We played tennis in the summer.  We drank together every Friday afternoon.  He was the guy at faculty picnic everyone gathered around.

Cindy Fite.  How could there be a hall of fame that doesn't include her.  She had her finger in every aspect of Green Mountain and her students loved and respected her.

Gerry Oehm should be there right next to Denny and lets not forget Orval Seaman.  These guys made the math department in their image.

Bud Simmons ran the best theater program in the county.  I can't imagine anyone living through Bud's drama mill without looking back on every moment with fondness and laughter.

Don't worry.  I won't bother you with a list of worthy students.  If I did that I would be writing the rest of the day.

I will say again that I have my doubts about this hall of fame business.  Is there going to be a plaque somewhere affixed to a wall at school?  Will it be in a special case?  Will people walk by it in reverence?  Will former students, parents, and colleagues make pilgrimages to school to see the plaque in the flesh?

In the best of all possible worlds, there would be nothing approaching that.  I think our country has always suffered from an edifice complex.  We build monuments to things that end up being more important than the things themselves.  I can say that I love good old GMHS and also say that I never want to set foot inside the building again and it won't be a contradiction.  Let's face it.  The building sucks.  The first incarnation had a woefully inadequate HVAC system which was exacerbated by a paucity of windows.  The second incarnation--the remodel--was built on the airport terminal model with departments and kids spread out all over the place.  Science in concourse C.  Language Arts, concourse A, etc.

Green Mountain will always be about people.  It was the Williams family.  The Andersons.  The Monsons.  It was all those teachers I "nominated" above.  It was a steady stream of baby teachers who  wanted nothing more than to help kids.  It was Ted Fulte and Steve Meininger in the music department getting things out of those kids that outstripped all expectations.

So I am going to go to this thing.  I will not roll my eyes.  I will accept the honor in the name of all those kids and families and teachers that I have loved over the years.  It will be a good night.

I only have two things on my mind.  First, I hope the food at the banquet is not too terrible.  Second, I'm wondering when they are going to ask me to come in to get measured for my bust.


Friday, September 22, 2017

Observing Cretins

I think, at age 69, I am beginning to show signs of growing up.

Case in point.  I changed where I dress at the Y each morning.  I used to be back in the southeast corner with all the alpha males and FoxNews Republicans.  After the day I told the loudest of that crew to "just shut the fuck up," I moved to the opposite (northwest) corner because I couldn't stay where I was, listen to that garbage, and still be a civil person.  Kathie and I have also been coming later after all the alpha males pack up and go out looking for Muslims to terrorize.  Yesterday, however, that same loud guy wandered over to my part of the locker room and started a conservative rant.  "North Korea is good; America is bad.  That's what the Left thinks," he proclaimed.  I kept my mouth shut, pretended to be engrossed in packing up my bag, and ran through all the obvious comments I could summon to lay waste this moron, but I didn't say anything.  I zipped up my backpack and got the hell out of there before I started using language not appropriate for the Young Men's Christian Association.

Another case in point.  Earlier that same day I was in the weight room when a FoxNews Republican (It's hard to spot them at the Y just by looking.  They don't wear ill-fitting baseball caps there.), the same guy who turns pale every time he sees me because he thinks I'm a drag queen (He overheard me one day telling a friend that if I ever decided to go in drag, I had a nickname--Hyacinth), walked up to the old guy whose wardrobe alternates between his Knights of Columbus shirt and his tee from the NRA proclaiming "The Second Amendment.  America's First Homeland Security," and started freaking out about lazy welfare recipients.  "I worked hard to support my wife and children, by God.  Why should my tax dollars have to support people who are too lazy to work," or words to that effect. Again, I didn't say anything.  Don't worry, I had a wealth of good arguments guaranteed to lay waste this cretin's argument, but what would be the point?

But I've heard this argument from plenty of people who I number among my friends.  All those people, even the cretin, well, maybe the cretin, would be glad to offer help to someone who is "deserving,"  someone who is destitute through no fault of their own, but they get furious at the idea of helping someone who is "undeserving."

My response to that is always, "What difference does it make?"  Look at two individuals in need of help.  One of them is a mother who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.  Her husband, let's say, was killed while defending his country in one of those far off places where we think we need defending.  She has a little girl in need of day care.  Her illness makes full time work nearly impossible.  Breaks your heart, doesn't it?  Now look at another case.  A single mother with four children, all of whom have different fathers.  The mother has no clue who fathered who.  The mother is a crack addict.  Worse yet, she is black.  What money she makes comes from her part time job as a prostitute.  If she voted, if she even knew how to vote, she would undoubtedly vote Democratic.

Why would that YMCA cretin and some of my well-intentioned friends gladly offer tax dollar help to the first lady and get furious at offering help to the second?  It is the same tax burden, right?  The cretin will feel the same effect, or lack thereof, no matter who gets the money.  The cretin, by the way, is a big time church goer.  I wonder what Jesus would feel about those two miserable ladies?

The only reason I can put my finger on that explains the different reactions to those two welfare scenarios, is that the cretin wants to punish the prostitute for being lazy and immoral, the cretin wants to act as some kind of judge who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.  I suppose seeing the prostitute and her children dead outside of the homeless shelter at Lawrence and Park Avenue would be some sort of evidence that goodness has triumphed, that America was becoming great again.

If Jesus saw that he wouldn't be able to stop puking.  But I'm not gonna tell the cretin that.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

School Daze

I miss teaching every fall when school supply displays dominate every store and I see kids walking past my house loaded down with backpacks, sporting new clothes, on their way to Deer Creek Middle School or the elementary just on the other side of the park.  I loved the first day of kids, the getting-to-know-you activities, the inevitable explanations of rules, the feel of new groups of kids in my classroom.  I also miss school on the last day before Christmas vacation and the last day before the freedom of summer.  All the other times?  You can have them.

There are some things I don't miss about the beginning of the school year, especially now that I am a slave to social media.  I hate the inevitable articles and special reports every fall about our failing school system.  I hate the yearly push to take funding away from underperforming schools and divert it to charter schools that haven't even had time  to underperform.  Now that I'm retired and my only vested interest in schools is my grandchildren, I have found myself gathered outside of schools with parents who gossip about teachers, who threaten to go to the principal for the slightest transgression, who generally act like they have some idea about what it is like to be in a classroom.

Case in point:  My youngest grandchild, Jaydee, is starting preschool this year with Miss Karen.  As soon as Franny and Ken discovered that Miss Karen was the teacher, a friend and neighbor started telling them horror stories.  Miss Karen doesn't let kids talk!  Miss Karen isn't as warm and friendly as Miss Barb.  The thing is that after Jaydee's first day, they discovered that Miss Karen is in fact a sweetheart.  She lets kids talk.  She loves her job.  Jaydee can't wait to go back to school tomorrow.  I hate the gossip, the rumors, the stupidity.

But that isn't the main object of my loathing.  The thing I really hate is the rash of aphoristic sayings about the difficulties and sacrifices of teaching that litter Facebook every fall.  They always have the same messages:

"If you can read this, thank a teacher."
"I'm a teacher and I spend an inordinate amount of time grading papers at home."
"I stopped being a teacher because I had to lesson plan and call parents on my own time."
"I know a teacher who spends money out of his own pocket on extra pencils and pens, extra notebooks, boxes of Kleenex, drawers full of snacks for his students.  Isn't that noble?"
"I quit teaching, even though I loved it, because I could make more money as a waiter, or a waitress, or an Uber driver."

Whenever I see something like that on my feed, I quickly ignore it.  If I responded to it, all those teacher lovers out there would hate me.

Those messages, well-intentioned as they might be, demean my profession.  They make teachers out to be chronic whiners.  If we expect to be treated like professionals, we should try acting professional.  A lot of my former students are lawyers and doctors (probably due to the excellent instruction they received in high school) and as yet none of them have posted lamentations about all the travails facing them in their day to day work.

Someone, probably someone who has posted all those "lets love our teachers" screeds, will be quick to jump in now and remind me that lawyers and doctors make more money than teachers.  They have more security,  more respect from the community, etc.  Well, yeah.  What's your point?  Did you really become a teacher for the remuneration and the love pouring out from the community?  Is it possible that you are that stupid?

I went into teaching with my eyes wide open.  My professors all let me know that my pay would doom me to the middle class IF I was clever enough to marry someone who was also a teacher.  They let me know that I would be working 60 hour weeks, sometimes more.  They let me know that I would have to make troubling phone calls, deal with dull witted bosses and all the rest.  I didn't let that dissuade me.  Neither did any of my friends who ended up in the profession.  When I got my first job at Marycrest High School, my starting salary was $6,300 per year.  I chose to get paid on the ten month plan, $630 a month.  I worked driving trucks during the summer to augment my income.  That was 1972 and I thought it was all the money in the world.

Two years later, Jeffco hired me for a whopping $8,500.  My ship had come in.  I was lucky about buying school supplies.  I taught high school, so I didn't have to buy extra pencils and pens (although I did), extra notebooks (Big Chiefs--although I did), boxes of Kleenex (although boxes were stationed all around the room).  It wasn't a big deal.  Buying extra school supplies, putting up posters purchased out of my own pocket, bringing in spare furniture taking up space in my basement, that is what I did. That is what all teachers did.  I suppose we could have refused.  Could have marched on the ad building.  Could have written nasty letters to the editor.  But nobody did that.  We were all too busy working with kids to worry about how unfair every thing was.  For the most part, we loved every minute of it.

Looking back on my career through the prism of outrage that seems to be in vogue nowadays, I still can't see the problem.  I signed up to be a teacher.  The rewards continue to come in the form of Facebook friends who are former students, lifelong friends who are former teachers.  The sacrifices, the hassles, the parent complaints, the patronizing attitude of politicians and the media, none of that compares to the good stuff.

Please stop whining.  To my way of thinking, I had the best job in the world.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Old People at the Opera

Cosi fan tutti

My first live opera was Benjamin Britton's "Midsummer Night's Dream" at Central City.  I had somehow managed to get a "job" at "Cervi's Rocky Mountain Journal" writing drama reviews when I was fresh out of college.  It wasn't a job in the sense that I got paid or anything like that.  I wrote the reviews for free theater tickets and the pleasure of seeing my name in print twice a week.  I wasn't worried about the money, because I didn't really deserve to get paid.  I didn't know what I was doing, but the editor, a funny and mercurial drunkard, liked my voice.  So, I ended up going to all the local dinner theaters where the performances frequently matched my unenlightened 750 word reactions.  It was a kick to walk into, say, Country Dinner Playhouse and see one of my pieces stapled to the wall.

I was a little over my head, but when I went up to Central City to review the opera, I was completely at sea.  I was a good student, however, and I prepared by reading everything I could get my hands on about Britton's opera.  I did have one advantage; I knew Shakespeare's play quite well, so I could at least talk about the ideas underlying the production.

The production changed my life, just like four years earlier a Regis production of "A Man for all Seasons" changed my life, made me look at theater in an entirely new way.  I started crying half way through the first act.  The music was ethereal which seemed appropriate.  The unamplified voices were transcendent.  The director managed to ring every piece of business he could out of the libretto. At intermission I got to go out into the courtyard and drink champagne and pretend that I knew what I was talking about.  After it was over, I didn't so much drive as float home where I immediately got out my IBM Selectric (yes, it was a long time ago) and dashed off my review.  It was published two days later and the day after that, the paper got a lot of letters praising the production and by extension, my review.  A red letter day.

Since then, I've seen a number of operas at Central City.  Their production of "La Boheme" had me weeping from the first aria to the last.  Of course, all productions of "La Boheme" do that to me.  The only other production of note up there was "The Three Penny Opera."  It is of note, because it was barely mediocre and compelled me to get my opera fixes elsewhere, like Santa Fe.

Kathie and I saw "Cosi fan tutti" up there last night.  I'm not going to write a review here, because it was the last performance, but if I did I would urge everyone to postpone all future activities and make it up to The Teller House at their earliest opportunity.  Mozart's music was light, and tinkly (don't you love technical opera talk?) and perfect for a summer afternoon.  All the voices were excellent, especially Despina's (the chambermaid).  She stole the show.  Of course, Despina's part was written to steal the show.

Quickly, Mozart's light opera is nothing more than an extended episode of "Three's Company" with characters telling white lies to one another, parading around in disguise, all trying to catch the others in some transgression.  At the end, everyone's identity is restored, they all get married and presumably live happily ever after.  Yes, just like most sit-coms, the plot is stupid, but you don't go to the opera for plot.  You go to the opera to marvel at the music, the voices, the ambience, and the thrilling idea that you are a member of a species that could create something that enormous.

And there was champagne in the courtyard.  Kathie and I didn't avail ourselves of that because we were too busy standing in line for the bathroom.  My bladder isn't what it once was.

The main thing I want to talk about though, is the whole idea of age.  I don't like being a month away from 69.  I don't like the way my body looks and acts.  I don't like always being the oldest person in a room, or feeling like the oldest person in the room.  For that reason, the opera is the perfect place for someone nearing 70 to hang out.  We were decidedly not the oldest people in the theater.  With only a couple of exceptions (the youngish woman sitting in front of me looking at her iPhone during the entire production comes to mind), the audience was filled with gray haired, stoop-shouldered, old people and the aisles were littered with walkers and those cute little electric chairs that old people ride through the aisles of King Soopers.  It took almost as long for those old codgers to filter out of the theater at the end of the production as it took for the orchestra to tune up.

The scarcity of young people is worrying.  Whenever I go out at night, the chances are good that I will run into a former student or two.  I see them at baseball games, concerts, and the like.  The other night at Michelle Obama's speech to the Colorado Women's Foundation, there were at least a dozen former students in attendance.  I didn't see any of them at Central City last night.  I worry about what is going to happen to grand opera when my generation dies.  It will be replaced by things even worse than "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars."  Horrible.  Most horrible.

We are leaving for Santa Fe tomorrow morning.  We have great tickets to "Lucia Lammermoor" and "Die Fledermaus."  The opera at Santa Fe is beyond beautiful with the sun going down behind the stage just as the opening chords are hit.  Old people dressed to the nines get there early and tailgate in the parking lot with crystal glasses and plates of foie gras.  The next morning the opera goers congregate at some great place like The Compound or Cafe Pasqual and talk about their evenings at the opera.  I can't wait.  But I'm not going to see very many young people there.

I don't think this all means the end of Western Civilization (Trump has already initiated that), but it does mean the end of one little slice of beauty.  We have precious few slices to waste.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

FLOTUS at WFCO

Michelle Obama looked slim and rested at the Pepsi Center last night where over 9000 men and women, mostly women, gathered to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Women's Foundation of Colorado.

Here is some insider info.  Mrs. Obama had just finished spending some time at a "boot camp" in California where she hiked ten miles a day, ate a purely vegan diet, and ended up losing an aggregate of 12 inches off various body parts.  Franny filled us in on that little scoop over cocktails and truffled french fries at The Four Seasons before we walked over to the Pepsi Center to meet Mario and his wife (Laura?  Lori?).  Even though I am not completely sure of her name, Mario's partner is a middle school English teacher in Dougco.  We hit it off immediately.

It was interesting being one of the relatively few males at the gathering.  I was able to experience first hand the frustration women must feel when  there aren't enough restrooms to go around.  Since the event was ostensibly about empowering women, the organizers (Franny led the Obama team) designated most of the men's rooms in the place for women.  The long lines that persisted for ladies was probably attributable to their unwillingness to use the plethora of urinals in the erstwhile men's rooms.  As far as I could determine, there was only one men's room left on the third tier.  When I finally located the place, I was pleased to discover that, since men are able to use a variety of porcelain receptacles for their needs, there were no lines.  See, even in that female dominated situation, men still seem to have the upper hand.  I did keep looking over my shoulder just in case a group of hard core feminists tried to invade that solitary bastion of male dominance.

I couldn't help but think what some of my FoxNews Republican friends would have to say about the whole night, especially some of Obama's comments.  The whole evening was an ode to the accomplishments of women.  The entertainers were all women.  Except for a local DJ and Mayor Hancock, all the speakers were women.  The hallways circling the floor were filled with women taking selfies, women ordering beers, women laughing and slapping each other on backs.  They acted as if they didn't need menfolk at all.  My FoxNews friends would undoubtedly notch it all off to reverse sexism, just like Black Lives Matter was about reverse racism.

When the first lady spoke, she even had the temerity to suggest that women were tougher than men.  That men were unevolved.  That if a man (like her husband) ever found himself bleeding from wherever, he would sit down and not move until the bleeding stopped.  I thought she overstated her case there.  I remember I smashed my middle finger a few weeks ago while installing Ellie Leinaweaver's deck.  Did I stop?  No way.  I wrapped a bandage (several) around the gushing wound and soldiered on.  So there!  I bleed.  I'm a bleeder.

Obama mentioned the numbers of women who gave up on their power, presumably by voting for Trump, or not voting at all.  I know a number of women who voted for Boss Tweet.  Those same women probably didn't show up at the Pepsi Center because they resent being tied to "Women's Issues."  They voted for Trump because they thought he would shake up the system, reinvigorate businesses, and reassert American power.  They voted as Americans, not women.  Of course, that position seems less impressive when you take into consideration that Trump has done none of those things.

However, I understand their point about women's issues, but for different reasons.  Birth control, free pre-school and kindergarten, sexual abuse, sexual predators, universal pre- and post-natal care, all those things and more are typically designated "women's issues" and I take exception to that.  Those are issues that should concern everyone.

Ted Cruz, for example, is going to vote against Republican Obamacare replacements that mandate maternity care because "why should a man have to pay for some woman's maternity bill?"  Does that position rankle only women,  or does it fly in the face of what all decent human beings ought to believe?

When Donald Trump brags about his ability to grab pussy, is that a woman's issue, or is it everyone's?

I don't think we should have women's issues, or men's issues, or children's issues, or senior' issues.  These are American issues.  Michelle Obama certainly understands that.  So does her husband.  I hope all of us gathered at the Pepsi Center last night will come to understand that as well.


Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Big Mac Lessons

There is a moment in "My Dinner With Andre" when Andre Gregory invites Wallace Shawn to think about that moment of forgetting that is so integral to the act of sex.  After the sex, however, "the world comes rushing back in quite quickly."  You're there in bed next to your lover and you're on your back looking up at the ceiling, wondering if it is time to repaint.

Spending two weeks at Jenny Lake Lodge is kind of like that.  Like being up on Carol King's roof, "all my cares just drift off into space."  The pleasures of Jenny are so huge, the sensory bombardment so immediate that nothing else matters.  When I get up in the morning, shower, and walk over to the lodge to get Katherine her morning tea, the only thing I care about is the blazing fire place and the morning sun turning the cathedral group pink.  There is a stack of New York Times by the door when I walk in, but I never look at them.  If I did, I might see a headline that might bring me crushingly back to the world and I just can't allow that to happen.  Instead, I sit by the fire and read a book.

Katherine comes over right before they start serving breakfast and she fills me in on the latest Facebook scuttlebutt and any news from the kids.  I listen and I care about all that, but all I really  think about is that day's impending hike or kayak excursion.

The waitstaff filters in during those morning hours and always offer warm greetings.  Jim, the head waiter and twenty year member of the Jenny crew always stops by to say good morning and check up on what we're gonna do on any particular day.  On the last day of our stay, Jim makes his special bloody mary recipe for us so we can have our traditional final day ritual.  Most of the staff make it a point to give us hugs and assure us they will see us the next year.  More often than not, they do.  Thanks to Rachel and Connor and Jim and Maria and Jane and Luke and so many more, we are made to feel like the most beloved folks in the world for fourteen days and nights.  Many of my friends and family wonder why we keep going back there (We could be taking cruises all over the place for what Jenny costs us.).  We have to go back each year.  It keeps us sane.

Today it has been one week since we left Jenny and arrived home and just like Andre suggested in that first paragraph, the world has rushed in.  There was the traffic jam on I-25 on our way back into town.  Then there was the (always) dreaded moment when I look toward our neighborhood for the first time in two weeks convinced that I will spot a pillar of smoke over the spot where our house used to stand.  I'm pleased to report that the place looked just like it looked when we left.

After we pull into the driveway, I always go into the house to check for any disasters that I'm sure must have happened while we were away.  Pleased that the air conditioner still seems to be working, I run into the kitchen to see if the water comes out of the tap.  Check.  Then I do the same in our bathroom upstairs.  Check.  Next, I run down to the laundry room to make sure that the pipes haven't burst and flooded our newly carpeted lower level with water.  Check.

After a half an hour or so of unpacking (basically throwing everything in the dirty clothes), I go outside to see how decimated our yard has been by the string of 100 degree days in Denver while we were cooling off in the Tetons.  I am alway relieved to note that Rene, our next door neighbor, has done a better job watering and mowing than we would have done had we stayed home.

At the end of this last trip, Kathie, who by virtue of her ability to actually hear on the telephone, started making calls to all the various contractors who have to come and fix our kitchen walls and replace our hard wood floors and replace the skylight window that leaked and ruined everything a few months ago.

While she was doing that, I ran out to Virgilios for pizza and salad.  This, our first dinner back, would represent a rather startling departure from the five course meals we eat every night at Jenny.  You know how folks on vacation always say they are looking forward to getting some ordinary food after all the rich stuff they've been eating on vacation?  They look forward to a beef combination at some Mexican joint, or some pizza at their local Italian joint.  Well, people who say that are crazy.  The pizza was a poor substitute for the meals at Jenny.

We went to bed that night after watching some television for the first time in a fortnight.  That was kind of nice, but the next morning we woke up and the bed was a mess and there were towels hanging from the shower and even though we waited patiently most of the morning, Maria never showed up to change our sheets and get us a new set of towels.  Oh the drudgery!

Of course, part of the world rushing back in is us seeing our kids and grandkids again.  They all came over for a family dinner on Saturday.  Katherine made her wonderful fried chicken and I have to admit it tasted better than anything I had at Jenny (Well maybe).  And we all gathered around the table and had a great time laughing, catching up, marveling at our grandchildren.  But then my oldest child said something that brought me quickly out of my reverie.

Before I explain, I have to say that one of the greatest joys about being a parent of our three children is that when I tell people what my kids do, most folks are kind of amazed and invariably ask what we did to raise such impressive children.  I always shrug my shoulders and suggest that they were pretty much planted on me.  Of course, I'm really thinking about all those Andy Griffith moments when Kathie and I had long heart felt talks with our kids that of course set them all on the right path.  The point is that I feel rather smug about my parenting.  It is the only thing in my life, other than my choice of wife and partner, that I feel smug about.

Chris talked about such a moment at our family dinner.  Somehow we were talking about how his kids, Brooklyn in particular, are irritatingly picky eaters, even at McDonalds.  That reminded Chris of the day when I told him that he could order two Big Macs instead of his usual one.  It was obviously a red letter day for him because the memory had to be at least forty years old and I think his eyes were getting a little misty.

"You can't be serious," I said right before I leaned over to Sammi, Chris' oldest girl, and whispered in her ear, "You're dad is full of it."  She laughed and nodded her agreement.

"No, Dad.  It really happened and I remember Nate was really mad that he couldn't have two."

"Wait a minute.  You're telling me that we had a father-son moment where I said you could have two Big Macs?  It was kind of a rite of passage?  Tell me, did I shake your hand and start crying a little?"

The whole thing was kind of depressing.  There must have been some other big moments, some other pieces of sage advice I gave while Chris was growing up.  I'm sure I remember some.

"Always do your best."

"Care more about others than you care about yourself."

"Avoid the clap."

All of those were important lessons, but no, he remembered the one about Big Macs!

The world has rushed back; I'm officially home.

  


Sunday, June 18, 2017

Father's Day


I have major father issues.  My parents divorced when I was six or seven, right after I recovered from a year spent in bed with rheumatic fever.  My mom packed us up and we--my two sisters, little brother, grandmother, and aunt--moved from Freeport, Illinois to Estes Park, Colorado.  I vaguely remember my father coming to visit in the summers, but I have no memory of any details.

I do remember that, even as a seven year old kid in second grade, I was deeply embarrassed by the fact of my parents' divorce.  I explained my father's absence to my new friends by telling them that he was an assistant football coach at Notre Dame and had to stay in South Bend for his work.

Mostly, I have almost no concrete memories of my father and the few I do have I have already shared in these pages.  Therefore, I have always been surprised when I hear men talking about their father issues.  I have heard and read reports of men my age with their eyes brimming talking about going to ball games with their old man, going fishing with their old man, learning to use tools with their old man, getting disciplined by their old man.  I have nothing like that in my memory bank.

I know that when I watch a movie like "Field of Dreams," I'm supposed to cry when Kevin Costner "has a catch" with his father's apparition at the end of the movie.  I know I'm supposed to read father/son memoirs that inevitably crop up on days like this and be moved.  I'm not.  I'm also supposed to worry that, since I don't have any of these feelings, I am avoiding my problems by not facing up to them.

That might be so.  But I developed my own coping mechanisms when I was a kid trying to grow up in a house with one little brother and five older women.  Instead of having one father, I had an endless supply of father figures.  I never much gravitated toward any of my mother's dates and subsequent husbands, although Stewart, a salesman from England, taught me about poetry, John Donne in particular.  My Aunt Annie's husband, Carl, acted like my friend.  We talked about politics and business and sports.  He taught me--tried to teach me--to play baseball.  I spent a summer with him in Oklahoma City helping him put in a yard in his new home.  My sister Mary Jo's husband, Dick, taught me how to drive a tractor and a back hoe and generally how to act like a man.  My sister Jeri's succession of husbands combined to teach me how to smoke a pipe while driving a Mustang convertible, play basketball, read Joseph Heller, play guitar, and drink.  I was like a little pack rat and I took something from every man who came along.

The bottom line here is that no one really taught me how to be a father first hand.  I had Jim Anderson, Andy Taylor, Ward Cleaver, and Fred McMurray for that.  All those guys handled fatherhood with aplomb.  They never felt overwhelmed, or when they did it was always a funny kind of overwhelmed, something to laugh about in retrospect.

But being a father is in fact overwhelming.  Sure, one can still find things to laugh about, but not necessarily at the end of every episode.

That's how I feel today.  That's why I'm writing this even though I smashed the hell out of my right middle finger while working on a deck the other day and it hurts every time I hit the letter I or K.  Everybody says that when you get older, your worries get fewer.  That just hasn't been my experience.  When I was a young man, I had the same worries and concerns and dreams as all the other young men I knew.  When I had children, those worries doubled.  When those children had children, those worries tripled.  I don't think my worries are going to quadruple because I will be too old to remember who anyone is once I have great grandchildren.

Without going into gruesome detail, there are many things weighing me down today.  A leak developed in our kitchen while we were in Puerto Vallarta and now we are in a construction site with plastic sheets covering up our kitchen while folks get rid of mold, redo floors, and replace dry wall.  I feel like my house is being slowly raped.  That's the first thing I think about at night when I can't sleep.   I also lie awake worrying about Nate and Ashley in Los Angeles.  I worry about Chris and Christine's latest business venture.  I worry about Franny and Ken and their long term goals.  And of course, I rotate through the grandkids and all the worry that entails.

I just want everybody I love to be happy and wildly successful.  Whenever one of them gets sick, or frustrated, or angry, or sad, I get sick, frustrated, angry, and sad too.  So tell me again, why do we celebrate this day?

Please don't!   You're thinking about all the rewards of fatherhood.  The cute moments.  All the nights watching the kids perform.  The warm memories.  The laughter around the table.  The grandchildren shivering with excitement over new possibilities.  You don't have to tell me about all that.  Those rewards happen all the time.  I can't stop them.  I celebrate them daily, hourly.  So, tell me again, why do we celebrate this particular day?

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The Yellow Kayak

That is Sammi in the front of our kayak paddling around one of the ponds at Chatfield.  You can't tell here, but Sammi and I are singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and Sammi is about to do her big finish:  "Gently down the STREEEEEAM."  We time it so she gets to that final note just as the kayak lands.  It will be Brooklyn's turn next, then Willa, and then Jaydee.  Meanwhile, the rest of the family is up on the beach commandeering a picnic table which is home base for our impromptu picnic.

Kathie and I bought the kayak around twenty years ago for four hundred bucks so we could have it to play around with in the Tetons.  It was the best money we've ever spent.

I should add here that neither one of us likes getting wet and we are not particularly eager about shooting the rapids on the Snake.  We just like to paddle around the lakes near Jenny Lake Lodge as a way to rest from the other days we spend hiking.  The second day of our stay we always put in at the boat launch at Jenny Lake right after breakfast.  We do one lap alternating between a gentle float while looking for critters and RAMMING SPEED when we are trying to impress the tourists looking out at the lake from the trail.  Our Jenny lap takes about two hours.  Then we pull the thing out of the freezing mountain lake, hoist it on top of the car, and head back to the lodge to hang out on our porch with good books and a bottle of wine.

After our kayak break, we try to head up to Lake Solitude the next day.  The day after that we generally take our kayak to String Lake.  String Lake is actually more like a river that connects Leigh Lake to Jenny Lake, so it has a light current and killer views of the Cathedral Range.  When we get to the top of String, we take a two hundred yard portage over to Leigh and put in there.  Leigh is our favorite kayak destination because once we get past the portage, we have the lake pretty much to ourselves.  Occasionally there will be a fisherman in a canoe and the buggy campsites along the shore will be filled, but that is the extent of human traffic.  Leigh is a gold mine for critter spotting.  We have seen otters playing on an outcropping of rocks, an eagle stripping a fish, two eagles having sex in the sky just off shore (If we had been Native Americans conceiving a child at that moment, we would have named the kid "Two Eagles Fucking"), and once a moose was rude enough to impede our progress by wading across the lake directly in front of us.  The lap around Leigh is almost always a thing of wonder; however, the weather does roll in with alarming speed and we have been caught in the middle of the lake as the whitecaps swamped our little craft.  Those times are always Jack London moments.

We used to put in at Two Ocean Lake on the continental divide, but the put in there is swampy and leech-ridden.  We don't go there anymore.  We did have one memorable morning where we somehow got between two trumpeter swans and one of their babies.  No sooner had we noticed our mistake then one of the big birds stood up on the water, wings flapping, and ran toward us, coming to a skidding stop right next the kayak.  Then the other swan attacked and skidded to a stop in front of us. It was more than a little terrifying.  Mostly, I was trying to figure out how we would explain to the rangers that we just killed two trumpeter swans with kayak paddles.  Luckily, we extricated ourselves from the situation and made a bee line back to shore.

We always spend two days paddling along the south shore of Jackson Lake from Spaulding Bay all the way up to Moran Bay.  Great eagle spotting along this stretch and a whole new view of the mountains.  Once, we paddled up the north shore from Colter Bay to Leek's Marina.  We put our kayak up on shore about the same time a busload of Japanese tourists (I don't mean to sound racist, but the bus was in fact filled with Japanese tourists all armed with cameras) emptied into the parking lot.  When we came back for our vessel, two of the tourists were in the boat, holding our paddles, pretending to row, while one of their friends took pictures.  We politely told them that our kayak was not part of their tour and quickly got back on the lake.

We also put in on the Snake right below the dam.  Sometimes we team up with Jim Friend and his red canoe and go all the way to the Pacific Creek access.  One time Kathie and I floated down to Oxbow Bend, played around, and paddled all the way upstream back to the dam.  Paddling upstream on the Snake gave us both a more reverent regard for Lewis and Clark paddling and portaging all the way upstream to the Columbia River and their boats were probably heavier than our yellow kayak.

We don't use the kayak for family picnics at Chatfield any more.  It got to be such a drag hauling the thing on the top of our car with the Wyoming winds buffeting us all the way, that we asked the folks at Jenny if they would let us store the kayak there over the winter.  They were nice enough to say yes.  The nine hour drive to the Tetons became a lot more pleasant.  I'm sorry that Sammi and I won't get to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at Chatfield anymore, but I'm hoping that sometime in the not to distant future we can all go to the Tetons together.  Her big finish would echo off the canyon walls impressively.

Here's what I'm hoping will happen when we arrive at Jenny next month.  We will be greeted with smiles and hugs like always.  I will ask for a bottle of Veuve Cliquot on ice for our porch and when we drive into Bluebell's driveway, some enterprising bellman (Connor are you reading this?) will have already put our little yellow kayak along the side of the cabin.  I can't imagine a better welcome than that.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

You know what our motto is here at camp. Hubris or Ennui, take your pick.

The Two Great Greek Sins

Since Trump has pulled us out of the Paris Accord, I've read at least two analyses of why the GOP has abandoned its once firm belief in climate change.  The articles attributed the position change to massive amounts of money coming from fossil fuel champions like the Koch brothers and also to "Democratic hubris."

According to these articles, it was hubris that led President Obama to issue a flurry of executive orders that recognized the threat of climate change to our planet and future generations and attempted to put in place policies that would ameliorate that threat.  So what happened was that even though the majority of Republicans are aware of man's role in climate change, they reflexively blocked any legislative attempt to get it under control because those attempts were Obama initiatives.  Voting for ANYTHING Obama wanted was, in effect, treason against Republicanism.

So, in his second term and saddled with a Congress completely under Republican control, Obama abandoned any hopes for partisan consensus in the legislature and started issuing orders.  Now the Republicans had another reason to block any attempts at climate change mitigation:  They were standing firm against Obama's hubris and by extension the arrogance of the Democratic Party on all issues relating to the environment.

We can take that a step further and look at the plethora of Trump's executive orders as a "Fuck You" to anything Obama accomplished.  It makes no difference, for instance,  that Obama's recent detente with Cuba has injected billions of extra dollars into our economy--dollars that mostly help out farmers mind you--has helped normalize relations with one of our neighbors, and has helped the living conditions of Cubans.  Forget all that.  Detente with Cuba was an Obama thing.  Let's dismantle it.  Paris was an Obama thing.  Let's dismantle it.  Clean air and water is an Obama thing.  Let's get some good old American brown clouds back, just like the good old days when America was great.  Obama pissed off middle eastern powers by pointing out their records on human rights, let's stop that right now and assure Saudi Arabia that they can do whatever they want to their people because we won't lecture them anymore, especially if they give tons of money to Trump's going concerns.  We will, however, lecture our allies in NATO.  We will, however, be horrified at Cuba's human rights violations (of course, we have to find some first).  Let's make sure everything we do teaches Obama a lesson for having hubris.

My question is that in the face of the GOP's inflexible position on every issue, is there anything Obama, or any Democrat, could say or do that would not have FoxNews yelling "hubris?"  When confronted with an individual or a group willing to reject fact, logic, and the underpinnings of western civilization if they get paid enough, shouldn't we attempt to fight back?  Climate change is real.  Fully 95% of the scientific community understand it is real.  They have the data to prove that it is real.  And because they have that data, that proof, they tend to scoff at the notion that climate change is a hoax perpetrated on the world by the Chinese in order to get an economic advantage over the US.  That doesn't strike me as hubris.  It seems more like realism.

I've got two YMCA stories to illustrate this point.

A few years ago, right after Al Gore stormed the country with "An Inconvenient Truth," Dennis, a FoxNews Republican and small time entrepreneur, walked up to me as I was getting dressed after my shower, and told me that Al Gore and his push for climate change awareness was the biggest threat to American sovereignty.  It was undermining a healthy business community, costing jobs, making us less competitive with China, etc.  He further said that "An Inconvenient Truth," both the book and the film, were examples of communism at work.  I, of course, asked him if he had read or seen either version.  Guess what his answer was?  He certainly was not going to waste his time reading liberal spin.

"C'mon, Jim, don't you know you can spin anything?"  His tone was almost fatherly.

"Yes.  All I have to do is watch FoxNews to know that," I answered.  That was the end of our conversation for that day.  We would have more.  Was my flippant dismissal of a FoxNews speaking point an example of my hubris?  I don't think so.  It was almost nothing like Oedipus' refusal to give way at the place where three roads meet.

Another time.  Dennis again.  He came up to me while I was getting dressed (I can only assume that FoxNews Republicans like confronting people just when they're stepping into their shorts.) and asked me if I wanted Socialism (insert Gasp).  I laughed and said no.  I think capitalism works, but like the Pope, I think the excesses of capitalism, something that our (ahem) exceptional country is so good at, are evil.  Yes.  Evil.  I then asked him to give me an example of something, anything, that Obama had instituted that constituted Socialism.

"Well, everything," he fired back.

"That's no answer," I said.  "Give me one thing that in your opinion is creeping Socialism."

"Opening the borders," he instantly responded.

I finished up packing my stuff and slung my backpack over my shoulder and started walking out of the locker room.  Just as I was about to turn the corner, I went back (I couldn't help myself) and said to Dennis and the other FoxNews types gathered there in various stages of undress, "That's why I envy conservatives.  You get to believe anything you want.  You never let facts and logic get in the way.  Oh, and have a nice day."

I'll bet Dennis and the rest checked my comment off as just another elite liberal arrogantly telling everyone else what to believe.  If I had pointed out that Obama had not, in fact, opened borders and furthermore, opening borders has at best a tenuous link to Socialism, would I have been even more arrogant, more filled with hubris?

The alternative to hubris is ennui, a listlessness bred by indifference.  The constant lies, the misinformed certainties, the worship of the bottom line over anything else, all those things are designed to create indifference, ennui.  Everything is so up in the air that any reaction other than indifference is too depressing, too infuriating.  I can see the whole country slowly settling in for the "banality of evil" that Hannah Arendt described so eloquently.

If Obama's executive orders, if things like the recent Women's Marches all over the country, if our shared outrage is hubris, thank god for it.

It might be our only hope.

Friday, May 26, 2017

Mar-A-Lago West

I think a lot of my discomfort over our new president is with where he chooses to spend his weekends.  Instead of jetting down to Florida to play golf, mingle with his well-heeled guests, and occasionally leak top-secret info to visiting Russians, he should instead head to Jenny Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.  I'm convinced it would give him a new perspective on some of his signed presidential orders and it would certainly force him to look at the environment differently.

In the spirit of full disclosure, let us get some facts out of the way.  There are some similarities between Jenny and Mar-a-Lago.  They both rely on immigrants from Central America on temporary visas to get the work done.  Of course, Trump's Florida resort extends their head hunting to Middle Eastern countries when the pickings south of our border get slim.  Both resorts do manage, however, to help their housekeeping staffs get around walls both real and imagined.  Also, even though I've never been to Mar-a-Lago, I suspect it, like Jenny, is populated by mostly white people.  I've spent two weeks at Jenny for over twenty years now and I don't think I've ever seen a guest who was a person of color.

Come to think of it, one rarely sees non-white people, if you don't count all the oriental people with cameras around their necks, in National Parks.  Here is a case in point.  Katherine once used the outhouse close to the canoe launch at Colter Bay.  As she was walking in, a black woman dressed in hiking clothes was coming out.  As Katherine made a move to use one of the stalls, an elderly white woman warned, "Oh, don't use that one.  A negro was just in there!"  The white lady was taken aback when Katherine informed her that she was scum.  Sad to say, that so far has been our only encounter with a non-white vacationer in the Tetons

The comparisons between Jenny and Mar-a-Lago stop there.  There are plenty of differences that would probably give Boss Tweet pause.  First of all, there is the whole business with tweets.  Not happening at Jenny Lake.  In order to get enough bars to make some kind of a connection on a smart phone, you have to find a relatively open, unforested spot away from the cabins and hope to find a signal.  Once you do find a signal, you have to keep moving because signals come and go in the middle of a national forest.

Even more problematical, there would be nothing to tweet about.  There are no televisions at Jenny.  That means no FoxNews, no bottom crawls telling viewers the latest thing to be furious about.  The Donald would go crazy.  No more pacing up and down in his room ranting about fake news.  No more getting his intel in thirty second sound bites.  There is an old lady who delivers The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today each morning, but all of those involve reading and precious few of the articles in those publications (excepting USA Today) are illustrated.  There would be nothing for him to think about, no deals to make.

Jenny is in a national park.  That is another thing that is anathema to our President.  Just across String Lake from the lodge is prime fracking territory if it weren't for those annoying mountains.  There is no property for sale and if there was, the park service would not allow him to build a tower emblazoned with the name TRUMP all over the place.  And even if he could, the park service would frown on private golf courses running along the bottom of the Cathedral Group.  It would be the whole liberal bias (DISGRACEFUL) running rampant through the national park culture that would drive him up a wall.

To add insult to injury, Jenny Lake Lodge is completely powered by the wind turbine farm you might have noticed along I-80 between Laramie and Rawlings.  I mean here is Jenny, residing in the largest coal producing state in the country, relying on something as ephemeral as wind power.  There ought to be a law and if Trump ever figures out how to govern, there just might be.

Finally, Jenny is a pretty egalitarian place.  Just look at the photo above.  It doesn't shout posh luxury.  Sure, there are lots of wealthy people up there, but nobody seems to notice.  Everybody looks the same after a ten mile hike.  Everybody's cabin is spartan, old, weathered, with the same two rocking chairs on the porch.  Everybody spends time sitting on those porches in the late afternoon.  Everybody's views are at the mercy of the trees that keep growing and getting in the way.  You don't get to tell the park service to cut down a tree that might interrupt your view of The Grand.  Our cabin, Bluebell, started out with a great view of Mount Rockchuck (Wyoming for marmot) that is now being impeded by a stand of lodgepole pines.  Everybody's cabin will have a mouse from time to time.  Sometimes, you might end up with a bat.  Hey, it is a national forest.  The only special treatment is directed toward the critters.

The dining room is the most egalitarian place of all.  There are five prix fixe menus that rotate.  Boss Tweet would have a hard time.  There might be a small steak on one of the menus, but there are no ketchup bottles on the tables.  I doubt if there are any on the entire property.  There are no power tables to preside over.  And even though there are a number of "famous" people who show up, none of the guests seem to care.  They are all too busy getting advice from the wait staff on the best hike for the next day.  Harrison Ford lives in the area and he called up the main desk once to see if he could get a late dinner reservation for his rather large party.  The time he asked for would have made the staff work late and there really wasn't a table big enough to accommodate his party, so Angela told him to try elsewhere.  I mean, how cool is that?  Presidents Clinton and Bush have dined at Jenny, but I'll bet they had a hard time convincing Angela to give them a table and I'll bet none of the guests even looked twice.

I'm a pretty typical Jenny guest.  If Trump and Melania and company were sitting at table thirteen (that's as close to a special table as Jenny has), I wouldn't feel compelled to run over and get an autograph, or tell him what a fine job he was doing.  I would, however, be appalled if he tried to order a steak well done and drown it in ketchup.  For me, that would be a deal breaker.

Vail Associates bought The Grand Teton Lodge Company a number of years ago.  It was one of those mergers that business types would say made good sense (I guess), but most of the guests I knew were outraged by the whole corporate scene trying to invade our space.  One of Vail's first ideas was to build a conference center on the property that would act as a draw for corporate events, board of director getaways, society weddings, etc.  It would be the kind of space for corporate meetings complete with power point presentations, white boards, continental breakfasts, name tags, and team building exercises (Just as soccer is impossible without traffic cones, business must be impossible without team building exercises.).  But the long time guests at Jenny were having none of it.  We wrote letters, made angry phone calls, and were getting ready to storm Vail's corporate headquarters.  I'm proud to say that Vail caved and allowed Jenny to retain its charm.

Donald Trump just wouldn't fit in.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Desperately Trying To Think About Something Besides Politics

The String Lake Bridge

That is Katherine on the String Lake Bridge standing beneath the Cathedral Group in Grand Teton National Park.  We have a professional photograph of this same scene (sans Katherine) framed and hanging above our kitchen table.  It is possible to spend two weeks at Jenny Lake Lodge hiking a new trail every day without ever getting in your car.  We've tried it often, but the lure of the art galleries in Jackson and the need to haul our kayak to certain distant put-ins have always put a crimp in our plan.

The String Lake Bridge is notable because it is only a quarter mile from our cabin door and marks the beginning of most of our favorite hikes in the park.  From the exact point where Katherine is standing  it is a twenty-one mile loop up Cascade Canyon, into the North Fork, on up to Lake Solitude, up and over Paintbrush Divide, down past Holly Lake and finally back to the bridge.  Luckily, that trail is more often than not snowed in when we visit, so we've only made that circuit four times.  Snow or not, we always make the eighteen miles up and back to Solitude.  Making it up to Solitude every year is how we assure ourselves that we are still young.  We know there will be a time when the staff at Jenny Lake Lodge will fervently ask us to reconsider the hike and then when we still take our eighty year old selves up that trail, the front desk will undoubtedly alert the park rangers to keep a lookout for our bodies crumpled somewhere along the trail.

Actually, that has already happened.  We started out at eight one morning for the Paintbrush loop.  When we got back at five that afternoon, the relief on the faces of the folks behind the desk was palpable.  It seems that just after we left, there were reports of a mother grizzly and cubs foraging along the trail on the way to Holly Lake.  The rangers closed the trail just minutes after we set out.  We made it back, tired but still in one piece.  We did hear some major growling on the way up, but we just attributed it to overactive imaginations.

You can also access the String Lake Loop, the Jenny Lake Loop, and the valley trail that goes from one end of the park to the other, all from that bridge.  It serves as a milestone on the return trip from any of those hikes.  The last mile of a hike is always the worst.  You're exhausted, you are out of water, and your feet are beginning to hurt.  It feels like the trail head is just around the next curve, but it never is.  But there is a moment when the trail crests above the river rushing to feed Jenny Lake and the bridge is just visible.  When that moment comes, I feel just like a trail horse must feel when he can smell the stable and I start walking faster, thinking about the drink I'm about to have while I recover on the porch of Bluebell.

One year Katherine and I hiked up and back to Solitude on our first day.  Two days later, we did the whole loop.  We were feeling so good about ourselves that we went back up to Solitude on our last day.  That was also the year we did Jackson Peak for the first time (If I'm  not mistaken Jackson Peak is the summit where Rocky jumps up and down just before he has his fight with Drago.).  We also did Heart Lake in Yellowstone, The Lewis Channel, Hermitage Point, Amphitheater Lake, and, oh yeah, the loop around Emma Matilda.  That's right at 150 miles.  That's why, in spite of the amazing food and wine at Jenny, we usually come back home weighing less than we did when we left.

But we're getting older.  I can tell by the look on my kids' faces when they watch me, or when they roll their eyes and repeat things that I don't catch the first time.  This year, I am happy to report, it looks like there will be too much snow on Paintbrush to do the loop without crampons and ice axes (no way).  Jackson Peak is too precipitous.  There are too many grizzlies at Heart Lake, and Lewis Channel is just too buggy.  Our 150 mile vacations are history.

We will do Solitude, but that last stretch up through the camping zone and into the lake will be a lot harder than it used to be.  We will both be huffing and puffing.  But after that we will settle for pleasant little loops around Phelps, Bradley/Taggert, Bear Paw, String Lake, and Jenny Lake.  That will be more like fifty miles in two weeks.  Not bad for old people, but nothing to brag about.

Mostly, we will spend a lot of time hanging out on our porch, driving into town for lunch at Bin 22, one of the best tapas places I know, and checking out the art at Rare Gallery.  As one gets older, one must make adjustments.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Bear Sightings



















Above  is a photograph of a rather large black bear looking to catch a fish at Phelps Lake.  I remember the moment quite well.  It came as a fitting conclusion to a hike that was filled with such sightings.

Phelps Lake is on The Rockefeller Preserve in the Tetons and we always start our vacations at Jenny Lake Lodge by making it our first hike.  It works well as an reintroduction to the mountains we love so well.  It is about a six mile loop around the lake that the Rockefeller children used to play on when they vacationed in Jackson Hole.  Since the hike simply circles the lake, it is relatively flat with only a few uphill sections.  It gives us a chance to catch our breaths before we tackle more ambitious treks.  It provides wonderful views of the middle Teton with The Grand and Mt. Owen peaking out in the background.  And it never fails to offer a wildlife encounter or two.  We usually see a fox at the beginning of the trail.  There are, of course, plenty of deer and a few elk hanging out in the woods and almost without exception, there is a bear hanging out down by the lake far enough from the trail for comfort.  After the hike, we usually reward ourselves by heading to Teton Village for something to eat at The Mangy Moose.

The bear sighting pictured above was a little different.  We were hiking with Barbara, who came up to stay for a couple of nights, and the bear encounters commenced at the start of the hike.  We were walking up the beginning of the trail when we met a family of hikers hurrying back toward the trail head.  "There's a bear and her cub on the trail just ahead," they informed us, a little out of breath.  So, we had a decision to make.  We were looking forward to the hike and didn't really want to turn around.  On the other  hand, it would be embarrassing to get mauled by a bear on our first hike of the season.  I, being the brave outdoorsman I am, decided that we could just be patient and kind of follow the bears up the trail.  Bears, moose, elk, and the like prefer using the man made trails to bushwhacking through the dense undergrowth off the trails.  I'm not sure how they survived before the army corps of engineers built the first trails in the park.

Sure enough, we followed the mama and her cub all the way to the far end of the lake without incident and there were enough bear sightings of the two foraging to provide plenty of breathtaking moments.  When we got to the other side of the lake on our way back down to the trailhead, things changed.  I saw Barbara walking briskly back up the trail toward me.  "Bear!" she said.  I looked ahead and there was definitely a bear smack dab in the middle of the trail looking back at me like he was daring me to get closer.  This was not a mama bear and he was busy marking his territory with giant claw marks raking down the trunks of trees.  The sight, like every bear encounter, took my breath away.

Well, I wasn't about to turn around and retrace my steps that close to the trailhead, the prospect of a beer or two at the restaurant within reach.  I  held my ground and tried to look big and brave, all the while avoiding eye contact.  (Important tip:  Bears are like groups of old white Republicans walking down the street in ill-fitting baseball caps.  Avoid eye contact and move to the other side of the street.)  The bear finally mosied off the trail and down to the water's edge where he proceeded to decimate a few trout.  It was a great moment and I managed to get a few photos before we moved off.

I'm writing this memory in a valiant effort to forget about political stuff.  That's what is so great about going to Jenny every year.  I can fast from the news for two weeks, eat great food, drink from a remarkable wine list, hike those wonderful mountains, and commune with a few wild beasts.  They are so much better than the tame beasts I have to read about on a daily basis while I'm at home.

Running into bears makes you forget all your other troubles and just concentrate on the moment.  We had our first close up bear encounter some twenty years ago at Surprise Lake.  We were sitting on a rock on shore eating our lodge packed lunch when I looked up from my piece of chicken to notice a mama bear and her cub walking directly toward me.  I got up, grabbed my food, and backed away.  I told Katherine to do likewise and she did, but she noticed that I had left my camera on the rock and, unaware of the bear, went back to retrieve it.  She raised up with the camera in hand only to come face to face with the bear!  I mean, they were almost touching noses.  You would have been impressed by her aplomb.  She backed away slowly and let the two bears pass.  Another thrilling moment and she saved a very expensive Nikon to boot.

There was another encounter with a cinnamon black bear that we of course thought was a Grizzly on the trail to Amphitheater Lake.  We just turned a corner when there it was eating berries under a giant lodgepole pine.  Another thrill.

More often than not, there will be a bear wandering around the cabins at Jenny.  That's why it is a bad idea to have open bags of food available in your cabin while vacationing in a national forest.  Usually, it will just be an occasional mouse that attacks, but sometimes it might be a bear.  I was sitting on our cabin porch having a gin and tonic when I got up to look around the side of the cabin.  There it was.  A mother bear and her cub were walking right past my kayak and up to my porch.  I grabbed the gin and tonic (I figured bears like berries and gin is made from juniper berries.)  and went inside to watch the bear slowly walk past our porch headed for the main lodge.  When she was safely in the distance, I refilled my drink and reclaimed my porch.

We will be up there in just another month.  I can't wait for our reunion with all our friends at Jenny, both staff and guests.  I can't wait for the reunion with the mountains and lakes and the alpenglow that colors Teewinott at dinner time.  And I can't wait to show those bears that we have come back for more.

Friday, March 31, 2017

All my favorite sitcom characters were Trump voters

One of the many ways I can tell I'm getting old is that I would rather watch reruns of old television sitcoms than watch a new show.  I've never seen an episode of "West Wing," never watched "Parks and Recreation," and have no intention of seeing "The Young Pope."  I would list other examples here, but I don't know any of the titles.  Instead, I watch reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show" on the Sundance network.  That's on Thursdays.  On Fridays I watch reruns of "The Bob Newhart Show."  Wednesday means "MASH."  Since I have committed all those shows to memory, I can watch without having to pay attention.  That's one of the other signs of old age.  It is increasingly difficult to pay attention.

Yesterday, I watched the episode of Andy Griffith where Opie and his young friends get into Robin Hood and his Merry Men.  In the course of their play, they run into a derelict old bum living in a cardboard shanty outside of town.  The guy is a good story teller and he feeds Opie's desire to be the best Robin Hood he can be.  At the bum's urging, Opie and his gang run to their homes and abscond with left over fried chicken, maybe a ham or two, and one of Aunt Bea's prized apple pies.

Andy and Barney quickly jump on the Mayberry crime wave and discover, after one of those father-son things between Andy and Opie, that the kids are enabling the old bum.

Andy, being the wise father we have all come to love even though if he had been a registered voter back in November, he would have most assuredly voted for Trump, goes out to the old guy's cardboard camp with the kids and confronts him.  He assures him that he could get a job doing road work, or night watchman work, or security guard work and start off on the road to financial solvency and redemption.  The old guy wants no part of it and runs off, leaving his cardboard mess and a couple of partially consumed hams behind.  Opie and the rest of the gang are shocked and disillusioned, but wiser.  They have learned the important lesson that you have to earn your own way in the world and the people who don't are lazy liars and cheats.

I was probably 12 when I first saw that episode and I took the lesson to heart.  Watching the same propaganda at 68, on the other hand, was infuriating.  I started thinking of all the other shows of that era that used the lazy bum trope.  Beaver had a few run-ins with the homeless, all of whom were lazy and shiftless.  Ward came to the rescue just like Andy and exposed those bums and their hypocrisy.  Jim Anderson on "Father Knows Best" certainly ran his share of bums out of town.  Uncle Charley taught Fred McMurray's three sons about the value of self-sufficiency.

I loved those shows when I was a kid.  I still do.  But the message behind those shows is nothing more than right wing propaganda.  No wonder Ronald Reagan won an election by making us all outraged at "Welfare Queens."  No wonder that part of being a "compassionate conservative" for George W. Bush was giving tax breaks to the wealthy so their largesse might trickle down to the undeserving poor.  No wonder Mitt Romney excoriated the "takers" in a speech to his base of billionaires.  And no wonder pseudo-compassionate people like Paul Ryan want to eliminate anything that smells of income redistribution in an effort to help the poor develop the skills they need to not be dependent on the rest of us.  What a guy.

In one of the most horrible conversations of my life, I was talking to a couple of dear friends who were outraged at the idea of helping the homeless because they knew that a large number of the homeless were making more than 50 grand a year and didn't have to pay taxes!  God!  If that's true, being homeless pays more than being an Uber driver.  I asked them how I can tell, when I drive past a group of homeless gathered around a Sterno can and leaning against their shopping carts on the corner of Lawrence and Park Avenue, which ones are making the big bucks so I can be sure not to give them any money.  They didn't have an answer.  Neither does "The Andy Griffith Show."