Seawalls

When we visit Vallarta, we like to ride the bus from Villa del Palmar to the very beginning of the malecon.  It's a pleasant walk along the sea past Sergio Bustamante sculptures, acrobats twirling down and around impossibly tall poles while dressed in Mayan regalia, sand-covered chess players masquerading as statues, sculptors making sand castles on the beach, and vendors hawking shrimp on a stick and Mexican corn.

It is especially cool when the wind comes up and the tide starts lapping up the side of the concrete wall.  On many afternoons, only the malecon is keeping local institutions like Señor Frog's and The Cheeky Monkey from ankle high water on their patios with the ocean views.

The fate of Señor Frog notwithstanding, the malecon is a seawall that protects downtown Vallarta and its hordes of tourists from periodic flooding.

What the world needs right now are more seawalls.

Those Scandinavian coastal countries have faced reality and used public money to erect seawalls to protect against the frequent buffeting they receive from sea.  Makes sense, but to the American ear such forethought smacks of socialism (insert gasp).

When Atlantic City, along with much of the Eastern Seaboard got inundated by a hurricane a few years ago, I wrote a post in here speculating that the chances of the Eastern Seaboard getting inundated again were probably pretty good, so maybe we should start thinking Scandinavianly (great word) and erect a few seawalls.  I noticed that actual pundits in actual newspapers said the same thing.

A Side Story:  You can build seawalls to mitigate against other things than just, you know, the sea.  In the men's locker room at the Y (I hope I will see it again some day.), the drinking fountain is hanging on to the wall by a thread.  There must be just one bolt holding the thing on and I don't want to be standing in front of it when it blows.  I told the folks at the desk.  I even told one of the maintenance guys.  No luck.  The kind of foresight that would fix the fountain before it actually blows--let me call it "seawalling"--costs money.

Let's talk about seawalling vis a vis the Coronavirus in particular and pandemics in general.  We weren't prepared for this.  No one, with the possible exception of South Korea and Singapore, was.  It is of course a temptation to point a finger at Trump for his ham-handed way with messaging and his tendency to hide his head in the sand while pointing his finger backward at his predecessors, but let us be honest, any president--Franklin Delano fucking Roosevelt for Christ's sake--would have been overwhelmed by the events of the last few weeks.  Any stock market would have reacted the same way.  The fact remains.  We were not prepared and things would be better if we had been.

I don't want to be a prophet of doom, but I have a feeling that pandemics are going to be a lot like the periodic pounding of the Atlantic on the Eastern Seaboard.  We need to build seawalls!  We need to have masks and ventilators in reserve.  We need to have the infrastructure in place to get all those supplies to where they are needed.  We need to have an economic plan that will get us through time and again until the most recent hurricane, the most recent pandemic, fades away.  And someone, somewhere needs to develop a defense and an efficient way of delivering it.  Finally, we need to believe in science, get vaccinated, and do what the experts advise.

I wish I was in Vallarta right now, hanging out on the seawall, maybe even getting a drink and some nachos at Señor Frog's.  I wish we all were.  Maybe next year.

Caldwell's America

A Conservative Pundit Who Can Actually Write

Here is my big objection to Christopher Caldwell ("The Age of Enlightenment:  America since the 60's").  He does a masterful job of describing how awful the world is, but seems to take a couple things for granted that in my opinion are just conservative bullshit.  First, since his readership is primarily conservative, he can just assume as a given that all the crap inflicting our world right now is a result of the liberal direction our politics has taken since the civil rights legislation of the 60's.  Second, he takes it as a given that all of this bad stuff could have been avoided, that it was not inevitable.

His major thesis seems to be (N.B. please remember that I am new to this guy's stuff and so I'm basing everything I say on my reading of one review and one long op ed about France in City-Journal.) that our country is polarized because, thanks to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, we have two constitutions.  There is the original one written by the framers and then there is the de facto one created in 1964 which "curtailed freedom of association and property rights."  He goes on to lament the fact that civil rights activism in the 60's created "a newly emerging idea of fairness against all traditions."  In other words, the fairness we were trying to achieve back then ran counter to the intent of the framers.  I guess, according to Caldwell, the framers were not much interested in fairness.

So, Caldwell is an Originalist, just like Antonin Scalia, who believes that "the only way back to the free country of [Republican] ideals is through the repeal of civil rights laws."

This dual constitution situation has created all sorts of conflict within the body politic.  There is a clash of "civilizations" at work here.  On one side (this is Caldwell speaking and he sneers a lot) we find the high-minded elites (you could probably insert the word coastal here); on the other side we have a loose band of dissidents, patriots, cranks, and gadflies.  It is pretty clear which side Caldwell and most Republicans prefer.  They don't like all those coastal elites telling the rest of us what to do and, worse yet, making us feel guilty if we don't do it.

After all, Caldwell's, and by extension, all conservatives' principal concern is with cultural preservation and continuity.  Introducing new fangled laws championing the rights of people of color and the rights of women damages that continuity.  After all, the framers certainly were not interested in granting rights to people of color or women and what was good for the framers must be good for us.

And so we become a country of victims and oppressors and the victims' views are the ones that become the adopted views of our country.  All the changes of the past 50 years have been a war on the country and the civilization conservatives used to know and love.

In Caldwell's article about the situation in France, he presents a pretty convincing case against globalization.  The unintended consequences have torn France and America in two with those who benefit from globalization firmly entrenched in big cities and the rest of us relegated to the dead end poverty of the rest of the country.  The urban real estate market, he asserts, is a pitiless sorting machine.

He says, for example that at the turn of the century, London was 58% white.  Today it is 45% white.  The reader is supposed to GASP at that.  He lists lots of scary statistics like that and just assumes we, like him, look on the situation with horror.  He clearly implies that liberals' misguided belief in the good of diversity is making this whole situation untenable.  He also implies that none of the problems with immigration plaguing Europe and America would have happened if we had just employed some conservative common sense.

Liberals misunderstand the relationship between diversity and inequality, he asserts.  The fact is, as diversity grows, so does inequality.  Therefore, all the arguments we have are either sensible or superstitious, good or evil, depending on if you base your argument on the grounds of economics or identity.  Separating parents from children at the border makes sense to conservatives like Caldwell.  It is an economic necessity.  Those liberals freaking out about the policy simply misunderstand the economics of the situation; they are all hung up on personal identity, superstition, and political correctness.

Do you remember a couple of days ago when Treasury Secretary Munchin sneered that he would listen to Greta on the environment when she gets her degree in economics.  That explains the two sides of the argument in a nutshell.

I'm going to read more by this guy.  Marxist historian Perry Anderson said that his "columns in the FINANCIAL TIMES make much liberal opinion look the dreary mainstream pabulum it too often is."  That's what William Buckley's writing was like when I was an undergraduate.  I hated what he said, but I loved the way he said it.

See, I can be fair and balanced too.

Rolling Coal

When I first read about Trump rambling on about plumbing and appliances and lightbulbs and god knows what else, I just marked it off to Trump being an inarticulate buffoon, but it is more than that.  His ravings actually make a lot of sense.

I can say this because I can now hear people at the Y.  I always marveled at how two men could stand belly to belly and talk animatedly with each other for the time it takes me to go through a complete workout.  Before I had my hearing aids, I had no idea what they were talking about.  I just assumed it was political banter that I wanted no part of.  But now when I'm walking behind a couple of old white guys on the track, I can just make out what they're talking about.

They're talking about plumbing and appliances and lightbulbs and all the stupid liberal regulations that systematically take away their freedoms.

Plumbing is a good place to start.  Remember back in the fifties when men were men?  Back then no one had heard of low capacity toilets.  The thought of wasting water, except to coastal elites like Rachel Carson, was just silly.  I mean, just look at how much of it we had back then.  When you flushed a toilet back then, you knew you accomplished something.  If you got to close to the bowl, there was a good chance you might get sucked down the pipes.  But now!  Forget it.  Evidently Trump produces too much crap for the low capacity toilets at the White House (I'll bet Obama had them installed.) to handle with one flush.  So what happens to poor Donald, who in any other situation would be environmentally aware?  He has to keep flushing the toilet over and over, thus negating any water saving the toilet was designed to create.  The guys I'm walking behind at the Y have the same problem with the crap they produce.

What about light bulbs?  Again, back in the fifties when you flipped the switch on your wall, the light bulbs would instantly reach peak illumination and that peak illumination was clear and bright.  No more.  Coastal elites who think they know what is good for everyone else, started fiddling with incandescent bulbs.  So now, in the name of environmental awareness,  everyone is supposed to use fluorescent bulbs.  But the fluorescent bulbs don't immediately brighten up and when they finally do, it is still nothing like the light you could expect from an old fashioned bulb.

Hey, and don't even mention water saving washing machines!

And I'm just talking about hardware.  What about all the social changes?  In the fifties, we could make fun of gay people, or immigrants, or women, or anything.  Not anymore.  Now we have to use initials like LGBTQ, or hash tags like #MeToo, or shed a tear or two over immigrant families getting separated.  The world just isn't the same for white guys and it is driving a lot of them crazy.

It seems to me that movement conservatism has reacted to the seismic changes befalling our country by finding ways to piss off, to stick it to, the coastal elites they find as the cause of all the upheaval.

How do they do that?  Easy.  First of all, replace all the water saving appliances in your house (the ones that got planted on you) with their old fashioned alternatives.  Watch your water bill explode and you will know that you are showing those liberal elites that they can't tell you what to do.

Get rid of the fluorescent bulbs and buy some incandescent ones before they are no longer on the market.  Watch your electric bill rise and feel the satisfaction.

Arm yourself with guns and parade around in public while shouting threateningly at all the snowflake liberals cowering in the wings.

Make sure you don't vaccinate your kids.  That's the kind of courageous statement that will make people sit up and take notice.

Better yet, and this works best for young white males who look a lot like they belong to the Hitler Youth, rig up your F-150 to belch out black smoke at all intersections, especially at intersections where there might be some liberals riding their bikes to work.  Just think of the satisfaction you'll get seeing all those environmentally aware types eat your smoke.

That's the attitude that informs all of this isn't it.  A young white male with confederate flags waving from the truck, rolling coal and showing everyone how he's not going to let any government tell him how to run his life.  In other words, an idiot tailor made for Donald Trump's America.

Getting Visceral

I was at the Y yesterday when the Silver Sneakers class started up.  There were three rows of chairs lined up on the basketball court with about 30 folks in my age range sitting there ready to go through their paces.  I couldn't help but notice their first exercise involved sitting in chairs with fists clenched and held in front of their bodies.  The instructor led them through a series of punching exercises to warm them up.  Some of the participants led with their left, others with their right.  One lady in the front row wasn't really able to lead with either hand.  Just the effort expended holding her hands up was enough to do her in.  At least she is trying to keep moving.  Give her credit for that.

But I am haunted by the boxing warm-up.  On the track above the basketball court, there is an alcove holding a punching bag and a body bag for anyone who would like to use them.  The only folks I have ever seen at the bags have been old men in ill fitting baseball hats busily punching out imaginary foes.  I'm sure a lot of the men at the bags are imagining they are beating the shit out of Muslims, or Democrats.

My mother bought me a punching bag when I was eleven years old in Estes Park.  My brother in law mounted it in the basement for me.  I was never quite sure why she gave me the bag.  I didn't ask for it.  I guess she thought that since I had no masculine influence in the house, a punching bag would help train me how to defend myself if the need ever arrived.

To this day, that need has yet to arrive.

When the bag first went up and I was presented with a brand new pair of boxing gloves, I went downstairs and gave a few tentative swings at the thing.  It was pretty easy and the bag did in fact bounce off the rim and make the kind of staccato pulse that pugilists in sweaty gyms would create, but after that there wasn't much else to recommend it.  The punching bag remained idle in my basement through my high school years.

And the thing is that I feel a little guilty about that.  I didn't do the manly thing and rise to the occasion with my punching bag.  And by extension, I have to believe there have been plenty other occasions where I haven't risen to the "man challenge."

Do you remember the Andy Griffith episode where Opie has entered all of the events at Field Day, to take place the end of the school year?  He can't sleep the night before, dreaming of all the first place ribbons he was going to win.  Of course, Field Day arrived and Opie doesn't  win a single ribbon, not even third place.  He is devastated and goes home to pout in his room.

Andy goes up to talk to him and lets him know that Opie's poor sportsmanship won't fly in the Taylor household.  "I'm disappointed in you," Andy says as he walks out of the room.

But it all turns out okay, because Opie shows up at the jail and lets Andy know that he has learned his lesson.  Andy gives him a huge hug as the show breaks for commercial.

I've never had a "man lesson" like that, at least not one from a real live man.  I've never been on the  son side of a father/son relationship.  If I went fishing, it was with my grandmother.  If I learned to shoot, it was . . .well, I never learned to shoot.  If I learned to own my behavior, it was from my mother, or aunt, or sisters, or grandmother.

I never learned to place a value on being tough.  That's why all the commotion over the drone attack on the Iranian general is so hard for me to take.

Should I be like a FoxNews sycophant and glory in my visceral reaction to a murder.  Should I get orgasmic over the prospect of destroying cultural sites in Iran?

Should I be proud that my country is getting Medieval on countries we don't like?

In a recent ATLANTIC the cover story was lamenting the state of American boys.  What kinds of things are we teaching them?  What kind of values are we inculcating?  The answers are not pretty.

I'm glad, I think, that I don't salivate over the prospect of beating up on another country.  I'm glad I weep when I read about what is happening at our border.

But I still feel inadequate when confronted by a bunch of guys my age at the Y who stand around belly to belly getting visceral rushes at the thought of taking someone out!  I'm supposed to pump my fist and be happy about some, by all accounts, incompetent general getting splattered all  over the tarmac of some distant airport.  Or shake my head knowing it serves them right, when I hear about another child's death at the border, when I hear about  a child screaming and hyperventilating when he gets pulled out of his mother's arms.

Sorry.  I just can't do that.

Happy, Happy, Happy

Willa used to chant that whenever she was feeling good.

I'm thinking it is time for a happy list.  I like making lists.  I like assigning lists.  It is an easy way to write, kind of like doing improv.  You don't have to organize by anything other than instinct.  You think of something; you slap it down.  The order isn't important.  It is Christmas Eve morning, Willa's eighth birthday.  Katherine is here in the office printing cards.  And I'm at the keyboard, a familiar scene.

Here are the things that make me happy in no particular order.

-As long as I already mentioned it, Katherine printing cards in the office, a familiar scene.

-The thought of Willa being eight years old.

-Watching Sammi lead the chorus onto the stage at Havern during the Christmas Program.

-Being able to pick out Sammi's voice whenever the choir sang.

-Watching Brooklyn dance in HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

-Knowing that Chris has made that show happen for going on a decade.

-Being able to see Brooklyn dance on my iPhone.

-Jaydee getting out of the car in her Grinch outfit, the one that Anna Cash made for her.

-The fact that Jaydee is going to do an overnight at Autumn's.

-Willa's absolute thirst for knowledge and her retention of information.

-The way Willa shivers with anticipation.

-Being proud that Chris donated the profits from HFTH to a cast member whose little boy has cancer.

-Being even prouder that Brooklyn organized the elves in HFTH to donate a portion of their pay.

I do have three non-family items making me happy.

-Governor Polis, his decisiveness, and seeming ubiquitousness.

-The thought that Cory Gardner might lose this next election.

-The idea of President Trump studying wind.

Restaurant Chains

It seems like all the important events, all the important periods, of our lives have been somehow associated with restaurants.

I'm pretty sure Katherine and I discovered we were in love over beef combinations at That Mexican Place in Copper Mountain.  And of course there was The Riviera from about the same time period.

We went to see JAWS at a matinee at Century 21.  Afterwards, we had a early dinner at The Riv.  Any long time resident of Denver knows The Riviera.  They had cable reel tables on the patio and margaritas that went down like Seven-Up.  I always ordered the beef combo and it came out smothered in green chili.  The chile was great, but I never could precisely identify its particular shade of green.  After JAWS, we sat inside at a table near one of the aquariums filling the place and kept checking out the water inside to make sure we would be alright.

In the early days of our marriage, we were devotees of three places.  Barry's in Arvada for breakfast.  Whenever we drove down Wadsworth to get to the place (usually on Sunday mornings) we made the boys promise to act just like the Brady kids.  Nate and Chris, always ready to jump at a chance to perform, were perfect replicas of Greg and Bobby.

The Lakewood Bar and Grill was another killer breakfast joint and since breakfast could be had there for under two bucks, we went there a lot.  The Italian sausage sandwiches at lunch were also terrific.

The other joint in our three restaurant rotation was The Monterrey House close to Jefferson High School.  Franny was just a toddler at this time and she was famous at the place for wolfing down their enchiladas smothered in green chili.  The green chili at The Monterrey House was incendiary with big chunks of pork floating in the middle of the sauce as it was ladled over most of the dishes at the place.  I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that nearly every Friday night we were either in a corner booth at the place, or eating take out at home.

In the spirit of accuracy, we also liked the take home pizza dough from Vinnola's.  If we didn't have Monterrey House on Fridays, we were making pizzas at home to eat around the television set and the Friday night line up.

In a few years, we left our pretty little house in Wheat Ridge and moved closer to school.  We were also making a little more money; therefore, our restaurant rotation improved.  Now, we went to The Morrison Inn for Mexican.  Not nearly as good as The Monterrey House, but it didn't take 45 minutes to drive there.

We would drive down Alameda to Federal for wonderful Vietnamese food at The T-Wa Inn.  The soft shelled crab there is something I'll never forget.  Franny loved the food there.  We all did.

When we wanted to get upscale, there was no better choice than the 240 Union.  They had a fried liver and onion entree that I looked forward to for days before going there.  I think the 240 was the first restaurant in our lives where the waitstaff recognized us and treated us like old friends.  Great place.

Since the 240 was acclimating us to haute cuisine, we next ventured down to Cherry Creek and Mel's.  There was a jazz combo playing there on weekends and the food--Frank Bonanno was the chef--was the best I had ever tasted including my sister's cabbage rolls which are better than anything.

We also added Tante Louise to our rotation.  Corky Douglas continues to be the best host I have ever encountered and the food was almost as good as Mel's.  We liked taking Kathie's folks to Tante Louise because, to Ruth Ellen's way of thinking, it fulfilled every idealistic criteria of what a great restaurant should be .

Mizuna, the restaurant Frank Bonanno opened after he left Mel's, was the next step up on our restaurant odyssey.  We had dinner there with Franny the night we saw THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES and it was a magical evening.  Franny had the lobster mac and cheese and her life was changed.  For a long time we went to Mizuna at least once a month.  Every time we walked in the door it was like a family reunion.  I haven't been there in a while and I miss it, a situation I can easily rectify.

But we couldn't eat all our meals out at upscale places, so we found some great choices closer to home.  T-Bone Night at The North Woods Inn was a frequent date for our whole family.  The night Kathie learned she had breast cancer, we met Chris at the Inn and had a long and memorable dinner.  Chris, as always, rose to the occasion and was entertaining enough to help us forget, for a moment, the reason for our get together.

Romano's in Littleton was almost a weekly destination when it was just Kathie and I and Franny, the boys gone off to work at Disneyworld.  That was another place where it was a family reunion whenever we walked in.

Nowadays, our favorite thing to do is tour the DAM and then have lunch at French 75, Frank's awesome take on a French bistro.  After that, we like to walk down to The Milk Market, another Bonanno venue, and get the best fried chicken in town at his new version of Lou's.

If breakfast is in order, it is usually because we are coming back from some early morning doctor's appointment at Kaiser and so we like to stop at The Original Pancake House on University close to Southglenn.  The last time I was there, I discovered their green chili.  It was a revelation.  No more corn beef hash and eggs for me.  From now on, I'm getting green chili on everything.

We don't go out so much anymore and if we do go out to eat, it is usually for lunch rather than dinner.  It is just easier to get places at lunch time than dinner; besides, dinner ends up being way past my bedtime.

I've also noticed that most of the places I've mentioned no longer exist.  Oh well, as my Aunt Annie said repeatedly, "It is hell getting old."

Bon Apetit.

Ruptured Floors and Name Drawings

For the second time in as many years, our kitchen floor has been water damaged and needs replacing. This time the culprit was our dishwasher which suddenly started overflowing and soaking the first few rows of hickory in front of the sink area.  We tried to ignore it as long as possible by putting a runner over the damaged area.  No use.  The damage kept getting more profound and impossible to ignore.  I pointed out the problem to my kids during Thanksgiving.  They were sorry.  Chris, being Chris, immediately offered us the use of his contractor and even offered to help us pay for it if necessary.  Hey!  It just might be.

We called up the same mitigation company (Kinetic) that helped us through the first catastrophe.  Nate, the project manager, showed up the next morning, laid out a plan, and scheduled the first in a steady stream of technicians.  Jamie was the first.  I guess you could call him a tearing-out-the-warped-wood-technician.  A plumbing technician, actually a master plumber named Gercon, was the next to arrive.  Someone checking for mold (a little) and asbestos (none) were next.

The first thing Nate did when he showed up was to install a dehumidifier that has been droning away day and night for the past week.  Thank god, Nate took the thing away yesterday.  It will be another week before he is able to round up the matching wood and schedule the floor job.

In the meantime, our kitchen floor has been violated for the second time.  The droning is gone, but the hole in the floor is still there and the place is just not as comfortable as it usually is.  Furthermore, I am terrified to use the dishwasher.  What if it all happens again?  I have forced myself to use it.  So far, so good.

But the droning was there for the annual name drawing party we host for the family.  And the dishwasher was not yet functional.  And the stove was impossible to get to.  We ended up going to Jason's Deli on Green Mountain and ordered three hundred bucks worth of finger sandwiches (decidedly mediocre), fruit and cheese trays, and cookies.  I went out and bought a bunch of beer and wine and pop, filled up some coolers with ice, and we were ready to go.

The older people at the party, the people of my generation, gathered out in the kitchen just like they always do.  They didn't care about the drone or the hole in the floor.  In fact, they provided a nice conversation starter. The younger crowd hung out on the side porch smoking and guzzling beer.

Jaydee proudly helped Kathie put serving plates on the big table.  I think she has a future in food service.  Willa couldn't be bothered.  She was much too busy with one of her painting by sticker books.

Jaydee and Willa both helped with the name drawing itself.  Everybody who wanted to participate got a slip of paper with a name and a gift suggestion.  I won't reveal my name on the off chance someone in the family is actually reading this.  Kathie drew my name.  I fully expect a large gift certificate to Mizuna.

The holidays, floor or no floor, are here.  We somehow got our tree up in between visits from mitigation teams.  Of course, I somehow managed to bump it while adjusting the blinds and it fell over!  That's never happened before.  It doesn't seem like a good omen.

Kathie and I have already started making arrangements for our grandchildren's presents.  Chris and Franny are collaborating on hosting Christmas Day.  We'll all go over to Barb's on Christmas Eve.  A couple days before that, the family will meet at Sharon's for the gift opening.  And on Christmas Day Kathie and I can just hang and glory in our children and grandchildren.

I also think we will have a new floor by then.

Computer Chips and Refrigerator Boxes

I was rummaging through some old papers when I found an old piece I submitted to a few magazines.  It was the first thing I ever wrote that got summarily rejected.  There would be plenty more to follow.  What the hell.  I'll reproduce it here in order to give me the illusion it was published.


My eleven year old son's newest computer toy is an electronic football game.  It is a small device with a miniature football field on screen.  When turned on, it plays the first few bars of "The Star Spangled Banner."  It comes close to approximating the real thing.  It is possible for the offensive player to run down the field, dodging the glowing red tackler on the screen.  It throws passes.  It also throws interceptions to the tune of "The Raspberry."  When the offense scores a touchdown, the big, red offensive player spikes the ball and the electronic fans trapped somewhere in the transistors cheer.  My sons have been known to turn down invitations to real football games with the neighbor kids in favor of the electronic magic of their new toy.

They have an electronic version of Clue called Electronic Detective.  It has twenty suspect cards that can be used to ask questions of the computer.  The contraption flashes electronic answers on the little screen.  They can play an entire game without ever having to talk to each other.  Gone is the wonderful parquet floor game board of Clue.  There is no conservatory filled with plants, or library filled with books.  The mysterious Miss Scarlett is nowhere to be found and there is no Holmsian counterpart to Professor Plum.  Worse yet, there is no bumbling Colonel Mustard to provide comic relief.  The computer answers all the questions in black and white.  It has become a serious exercise in sleuthing.

They have a Computer Perfection received last Christmas.  The thing is guaranteed to beat its owner into submission.  Through a combination of flashing blue lights and clicks and beeps, it asks its players to follow a pattern of lights decided upon by the computer.  The room darkened, it hypnotizes its owners into following those flashing lights and beeps.  It wins every time.

Their most insidious possession is a complete set of Star Wars figurines.  The Star Wars player, thanks to the Mattel Corporation and over generous parents, does not have to get directly involved in the action.  A Star Wars fanatic does not assume the role of Han Solo or Luke Skywalker.  He simply moves the little plastic Han Solo one-tenth life size model to and from the one-one thousandth life size model of his X Wing Fighter.  If Darth Vader gets into a fight to the death with Han or Luke, the only things directly involved are the figurines.  The manipulators of the figurines are safe in their third person omniscient world.  They never spill their own blood, or personally feel the sting of a death ray.  Their play, even though I will grudgingly admit it is creative after a fashion, is depressingly risk free and antiseptic.

Playing Tarzan in 1954, on the other hand, was anything but risk free and antiseptic.  I didn't have a figuring to do my fighting for me.  It was my knee getting scraped and my elbows getting bloody and my wrists and ankles with rope burns from being tied up by invading hordes of Monkey People.  I must admit that my plots were not as elaborate or peopled by as many bizarre creatures or pieces of equipment, but my plots virtually stunk of humanity and the sweat that results from hours spent wrestling inside a refrigerator box.

I purchased a new refrigerator a few months ago and I proudly took my children to the back yard to show them the empty box waiting for the worlds to be created inside.  My oldest son looked at me with horror and beat a fast retreat to the safety of his bedroom where he was embroiled in a Pong game on his television.  The refrigerator box is still sitting in the back yard because the trash man refuses to pick up anything that big.  It is depressing to think that the computer chip has rendered refrigerator boxes obsolete.  The same technology that has opened up the universe for Carl Sagan, who I'm convinced logged a number of hours in his own refrigerator box, has turned the cosmos inside out for my children and their friends.  The entire Galactic Empire resides neatly in a black box on the second shelf of my children's closet.

I even had my first sexual feelings while playing Tarzan.  I'd like to see that happen with a Princess Leia figurine.  There I was dressed in my leopard skin loin cloth and there was the little girl who lived next door dressed up as Jane.  And there we both were, sweaty and nearly naked, inside a refrigerator box.  We would tie each other up a lot.  We would take turns untying each other in the nick of time..  I was after verisimilitude in those days and I knew that the real Tarzan, when tied up, was probably hurting a little.  I would be struggling in the refrigerator box in my loin cloth, waiting, but never screaming, for help.  The little girl would show up every time to free me.  We would take turns and I don't think it ever mattered who freed whom.

I had a lot of myself invested in Tarzan.  It was an important part of my life and to this day is one of my most vivid memories.  I have a difficult time believing that my sons, when they reach the ripe old age of thirty-one, will have the same kinds of memories of playing Star Wars.  I refuse to believe that plastic figurines of Han Solo, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are as memorable as the sweaty flesh of a little girl in bondage.

My Tarzan game was infinitely more portable than the plastic and electronic paraphernalia that characterizes my children's games.  When my family moved from Freeport, Illinois to Estes Park, Colorado, my game moved with me.  Instead of Tarzan, I became Marshall Dillon, or Paladin, or Lash Larue (my personal favorite).  Instead of that little girl by my side playing Jane, there was Cheri Quick playing Miss Kitty.  Nothing had changed.

We had an ideal set up for playing  cowboys and Indians in our neighborhood.  We lived next door to the fairgrounds, the home of the Morgan, Appaloosa, Arabian, and Quarter Horse shows, plus the Rooftop Rodeo every August.  When the fairgrounds were not being used, they made the perfect arena for our games.  The entrance was flanked by two guard houses made of logs.  These were the real thing.  They had a bottom level with a straw covered floor and a perfectly scary ladder leading to the upper level through a hole in the middle of the ceiling.  The upper level was where the men folk would stay to fight off Indians while protecting the women and children.  The top level was also straw covered and had little holes in the walls for guns to stick out of during Indian attacks.  Once inside the  fairgrounds, the verisimilitude became unbearable.  There was a horse race track, rows and rows of empty stable, a rodeo arena complete with five empty chutes.  There was also an empty stadium, ticket booths, grooming sheds, a few miles of winding dirt roads, and two covered wagons.

The covered wagons provided wild west realism for the rodeo.  They doubled as snack bars and occasionally they would be hitched up to a couple of horses so they could take a group of tourists from Chicago up into the hills for a genuine chuck wagon dinner.  I think they would serve hot dogs and something called "Trail Drive Beans."  I always wanted to go along for one of those chuck wagon excursions.  I was sure that Ward Bond ate the same menu while dodging arrows in Wyoming.

Our neighborhood was on the west side of the fairgrounds.  In fact, Ricky Carmack's house was just across the street from the entrance.  My house was next to Ricky's.  The fairgrounds covered four or five city blocks and on the east side stood the Estes Park Recreation Area.  This provided the final, key locale for our cowboy games.  The Recreation Area alternated as the stronghold for the Indians, or the hide out for the bank robbers, depending upon which fantasy we were embroiled in.  It made a great stronghold because while the Indians were waiting for the right moment to attack the fort on the other side of the property, they could fend off boredom by playing a few games of ping pong in the main building.

There were two groups of rock formations there.  Each of them were large enough to provide hiding places for as many as fifteen to twenty warriors.  There were climable cracks in the rock walls and flat summits large enough to safely allow an Indian lookout to stand full height with hand to forehead looking for unwanted company.  The rock formation furthest away from the fairgrounds provided the main camp.  It was forty feet high on all sides, but there was a crack in the formation that allowed access to an interior area surrounded by rock.  The only way in was through the crack, or up, over, and down again, the forty foot rock walls.  The central, fortified area was large enough to accommodate the whole Indian tribe in comfort.

Occasionally, a scout would be sent to check out the goings on at the fort.  He would sneak out of the crack in the main fortress and madly dash and dart from swing set to slide, hiding until he got to the other group of rocks.  The scout, if chosen carefully, could easily climb those rocks and post a lookout.  Then, when he had looked out enough, he would whistle.  If Ricky Carmack had been chosen scout, he had to holler because he hadn't figured out how to whistle yet.  The whistle, or shout, was the Indians' clue to attack the fort and the game was on.

Our neighborhood, on the other side of the fairgrounds, became Dodge City.  Cheri Quick's back yard became the main residential part of the city because it was surrounded by a white picket fence.  The cowboy families lived there.  The general store was there.  If the Indians ever managed to get by the protection of the fort, Cheri's fence provided the last barrier between the settlers and their attackers.  My back yard was the saloon and the glassed in porch at the end of my house doubled as the school.  Cheri's sister, Janelle, was usually the schoolmarm.  The Baker kids and my little brother rounded out her class.

We created in Estes Park a perfect scale model of Kansas,  We had our pioneer village, our old western fort, the wagon train to help increase the population, and the Indian stronghold to make the whole thing interesting.

I only had one item of store bought paraphernalia to aid my play.  Interestingly enough, it was made by the same people who manufacture my children's Star Wars toys.  I had a Mattell Fanner Fifty.  That gun was wonderful.  I wish I had it with me right now.  It was a shiny, silver six shooter with perfect balance and a flattened hammer that allowed me to fan it with the heel of my hand during particularly tight moments when I was surrounded by Gary Graham and his gang.

My entire life was given over to playing cowboys and Indians in our wild west replica.  Whole evenings were devoted to preparation for the day to come.  I spent one night pestering my mother for empty bottles to use in our bar.  I filled the bottles with various flavors of Kool Aid, wrote labels on them, and even thumbed through a copy of Old Mr. Boston's so I could help our bartender, who was only six, mix any strange orders.

My cowboy career lasted only a year, but it, along with my career as Tarzan, reserves a special place in my memories.

I think my childhood games were essentially more playful than the games my children play.  I was confronted by a world bigger than me and by manipulating that world, became part of it.  The scenario of my children's play can be captured at a glance.  Like dispassionate gods, they move their plastic and electronic world and have no stake in those movements.  Their imagination is not fueled by sweaty bodies and scraped knees.  They pack it away every night in a black box while a refrigerator box filled with yet to be discovered worlds waits in the back yard for a trash man willing to it cart away.

Megan

The last time I had any contact other than Facebook with Megan Cianfrance, she was a senior at Green Mountain.  The senior class had somehow convinced me to sponsor them for a trip to the Museum of Science and Nature during Senior Week.  I reluctantly agreed and found myself walking through the museum with a bunch of kids and quoting Catcher in the Rye as we walked by the glass enclosed dioramas filled with polar bears and sheets of blue ice and deer and badgers and pretty little Indian squaws convening over freshly woven blankets.  It was a nice time.

When we were headed toward the bus (it was only a small group of seniors making the trip), Megan came running up to me.  "Mr. S.  Mr. S.  Could I sit next to you on the ride back?  I want you to protect me from ____________(name withheld)."

It seems there was this lost little senior boy who had developed a crush on Megan.  Who could blame him?  He started a little friendly stalking at school, but I guess the stalking had gotten out of hand at the museum.  Megan, being a member of the Cianfrance family, was simply too nice to hurt the kid's feelings.  That's why she figured sitting next to me would be a harmless way to fend the little creep off.

I said sure thing and we rode back up to Green Mountain together.  The stalker ended up about four rows behind where he sat looking longingly at Miss Cianfrance.  Megan and I talked about what she had planned for the next year.  We talked about her brothers, school politics, prom, graduation parties, the usual stuff.  It was a nice time.

I went to her funeral yesterday.  She was 36 and died in her sleep about a week ago, leaving two children, a husband, and scores of devoted family members and friends behind.  The Reflection Pavilion at Crown Hill was standing room only, but I did manage to recognize a few faces of Megan's high school classmates.

Derek came up and gave Kathie and I tearful hugs.  I hadn't seen him since his first film, "Brother Tied," screened in Denver years ago.  He lives in Brooklyn now with his wife and children.  They are both filmmakers.  Derek and I spent a lot of time together in The Ram Page office years ago.

After the funeral proper, I managed to make my way to shake Jason's hand.  Jason was the first Cianfrance to appear in one of my classrooms and he was a terrific kid.  I discovered he is a 25 year veteran teacher along with his wife.  I can attest that a family with two teachers at the helm is a comfortable way to live.  I'm so happy for him.

This was the second funeral I have attended for a former student.  John Bezdek's was the first.  I didn't like the feeling at either one.  It just wasn't right.  Megan's beautiful little boy wept loudly through the entire ceremony.  He is just a year older than Willa.  I don't want to think about the trauma he faces.  Megan's daughter is older than the boy and the spitting image of her mother.  She managed, although I don't know how, to maintain her composure through the whole thing.

The two kids went up and put some keepsakes in the coffin and right before they shoved the coffin into the wall, the kids released a bunch of doves who kept flying in circles above the crowd with the traffic on Wadsworth roaring by.  The juxtaposition was, to say the least, disconcerting.

While the celebrant was saying a bunch of things that my unaided hearing had no chance to discern, I looked at the plaques on the wall.  There were a lot of last names that were familiar.  I was heartened to see that so many of the deceased were long lived.  There was one old guy who managed to last until he was a hundred and ten.  I wonder if they released doves at his funeral.

I leaned over and told Kathie once again that I wanted nothing to do with a formal funeral in front of a wall.  I want her to sneak into my old classroom and spread my ashes in one of the book cabinets, preferably the one that used to hold Brave New World.

On the other hand, I do want the doves.

Fire Alarms and Nuclear Explosions

I want to elaborate a little on the whole hearing aid experience.  My new (actually, my first) hearing aids will be here around the first of November.  My appointment is already set up.

I'm looking forward to them primarily because once I have them I can stop thinking about them all the time.  They aren't all that noticeable.  Jaydee, when she looked at my loaner pair, said they looked like part of my glasses.

I was at The Yard House at Colorado Mills with some friends a couple nights ago.  Every young person on the west side of town must number The Yard House as a destination beer hall.  It was packed to the rafters and there were another two dozen people waiting outside to get in.  I don't understand it.  The food was decidedly mediocre and the din made any attempt at conversation, at least for me, impossible.  Trust me.  I won't be going back.  But I bring the place up because if I had had my hearing aids on that evening, I might have stood an outside chance of knowing what my friends were talking about.  As it was, I just waited till we were on our way home and let Kathie explain what I had missed.

I'll be able to hear the girls in the car, anybody in the car, more easily.  I won't have to turn around while traveling on C-470 so I can read Willa's lips when she says something.  Things will be safer.

The most interesting thing about the hearing aids is that they come in different price ranges so as to accommodate any budget.  Each price range lists what the wearer might hear with the hearing device he or she chooses.  I guess I'm spoiled, or too stupid to worry about money, but it is hard for me to imagine getting hearing devices that don't offer the best sound.

The audiologist showed us a chart of five different devices, the cheapest starting at $800 with increments for the others going all the way up to $4800.

I asked how they were different, if there were any disadvantages to getting the most expensive devices, other than cost.  The chart explained everything in horrifying detail.  Let me see if I can remember.

The cheapest hearing devices would cost me $1600 for a pair and Kaiser forks over $500 per ear.  That leaves me with a bill of only $600 for the EconoAids.  That's not really what they are called, but it fits.  The EconoAids are clearly not for everyone, but if cost is a factor, they are the ones for you.  With them fitted neatly in place and stuck into both of your ears, you will be able to hear fire alarms and nuclear explosions.

For an additional $1200 or so, you will not only be able to hear nuclear explosions, but will also  be able to make out what another individual is saying as long as that individual is sitting facing you with knees touching.

The next increment is even more audiologically impressive.  You will be able to hear all the things the cheaper models insure, but you will also be able to make out words and phrases in a public setting.  Television shows will become instantly understandable.  Of course, closed captioning is also advised as an adjunct.

The devices just keep getting better.

I got the top of the line.  For that I will be able to hear the whole range of sounds that humans and machinery can make.  "Would you like to hear music," the audiologist asked.

"Why not," I answered.  "I remember liking music."

"Well, if you like music, these top of the line devices are for you."

"Will I still be able to hear a nuclear explosion?"

Sorry. No Jokes.

The images and descriptions are so visceral I don't see how anyone could react to them with anything other than horror, disgust, and tears.

I'm talking about the daily onslaught from the media of images and sound bites from all the trouble spots in the world and from all the trouble spots in Donald Trump's mind.  There is almost nothing else to look at, to think about, and I'm wondering how it is possible that our country is so divided that two people, one liberal and the other conservative, could look at the same phenomena and come away with two completely opposed opinions.

Let's start with something easy.  Do you suppose that Trump supporters looked at everything Obama and the Democratic coalition did with the same horror that I look at everything Trump and his minions do?  For instance, I love Governor Polis.  I love his daily Facebook messages.  I love how quickly he has moved.  When I think about free full day kindergarten I almost want to cry because it has been so long coming.  My education convinces me that full day kindergarten will be a boon, not only to parents who don't have to fork over tuition payments anymore, but to the entire state.  The money we will have to spend will be paid back tenfold.  But does a hard core Republican look at free kindergarten as some kind of harbinger of the end of the world.  Will it just start our state down the slippery slope to financial ruin?  Does that hard core Republican ever take into consideration the welfare of Colorado's children?

I saw a report on TV this morning about our country's new policy of keeping immigrants in Mexico as they wait to see if they can enter our country.  The report cited statistics showing the increased danger many of those immigrants face because of this policy.  And, of course, the TV showed grainy images of the living conditions those immigrants have to face.

I look on that situation with a combination of horror and shame.  I can't believe our country is treating people like that.  Does a Trump supporter (Wait.  Cross that out.  I'm going to stop using the phrase Trump supporter and just start using Republican instead.  If anyone can still call themselves a Republican after the last three years, they are complicit in Trump's systematic destruction of the country.).  Does a Republican look at that same situation at the border with pride and satisfaction?  Do they insist that it is about time we kept people from shithole countries out?  I can't fathom that reaction and I guess Republicans can't fathom mine.

On the same TV station there was a report from Syria.  A Turkish bomb exploded nearby, killing several civilians and injuring others.  One of those injured was a little girl with a bandage around her head and wounds all over her body.  Her mother explained to the reporter what had happened and the little girl tried to put her hands over her ears so she couldn't hear.  She didn't want to relive her nightmare and she started weeping and reaching for her mom.  She kept asking why.

I was overcome.  Is it possible that a Republican could look at that clip and take pride in our abandonment of the Kurds?  Would they be proud of Trump for having the "courage" to pull us out of this endless war in the mideast?  Would they just ignore the human toll Trump's pull out has caused and continues to cause?

There was yet another article about Greta Thunberg talking to a state legislature.  Whenever I think about her, I get happy.  I know what passionate teenagers can accomplish.  I think they are the only people who can lead us out of this morass we find ourselves in.  When a Republican looks at Greta does he just revert to Fox speaking points?  Does he/she see a kid who is mentally ill?  Are Republicans convinced that her crusade is all part of the Deep State's liberal plan to ruin the world?  Did Al Gore put her up to this?

I read an article yesterday in The New Yorker about black women fighting against anti-abortion forces in the South.  I came across some startling facts.  For instance, in Georgia prisons regularly shackle pregnant women during childbirth.  The state legislature actually debated the practice.  When I read that I am yet again horrified.  When a Republican reads that, does he or she believe shackling women (read: black women) during child birth is a good idea?  After all, we don't want them escaping, trailing their placenta behind them.  How is it possible that there could be two opinions about this practice?

In South Carolina in 1995, the state added regulations that required all clinics practicing second trimester abortions meet the same design and construction standards as "ambulatory surgical facilities."  The result:  More than half of the South Carolina women seeking abortions had to leave the state.  I look at those regulations as an obvious attempt to circumvent Roe v. Wade.  Do Republicans really see the added regulations as an honest attempt by the legislature to insure the good health of those seeking abortions?

TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws have been passed by Republican controlled state legislatures to subvert Roe v. Wade.  As a result, in Alabama, there are only three clinics in the entire state, down from twenty in 1992.  Now, I don't much like the idea of abortion.  But I like the idea of taking away choice from women even less.  Do Republicans look at this same situation and praise Donald Trump for reinstalling Christian values to mainstream America?  Please.

One more example.  A woman called up the two black crusading women and told them that she was in her early twenties, with two children, on Medicaid, unemployed, and eight weeks pregnant.  Her abortion would cost 600 bucks and she only had 200.  The abortion was scheduled for the next day and she was contemplating hocking her wedding ring.  They told her to "hold on to that."  They would figure it out before it got to that point.

When a Republican sees this pregnant woman's plight, does he/she see a threat to our country?  Does he/she just casually think that it was her fault?  She shouldn't be so irresponsible as to get pregnant again?  Does he think that it serves her right?

That's why I've been so depressed of late.  I don't want to believe that we are that far apart, all evidence to the contrary.

Sorry there weren't any jokes in this.

 

My New Ladder Is Ready To Climb

I was turning onto Yosemite when the tears started coming.  Kathie even put her hand on my shoulder and asked me if I wanted her to drive.

I was fine.

I assured her.

The thing is I cry over almost anything lately.  I think/hope it comes with being in my seventies.

How terribly strange.

I had to stop watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show because they had me crying so much.  Opie does it to me every time.  That's a slight exaggeration, but it makes my point.

We were just coming from my latest hearing appointment.  I've ordered hearing aids.  They'll be here the first part of November.  Kathie and I have from now (October 3) until then to figure out how to pay for them.  I'm almost in favor of forgetting the whole thing.  I have managed to cope with my abysmal hearing for over forty years.  I'm seventy-one.  What's another forty years asking Kathie what everybody is talking about?

Whenever I say stuff like that, Kathie and anyone else within earshot roll their eyes.  I guess they're right.

So, we ordered the things.  There were four or five price ranges, each reflecting the quality of the hearing device in question.  We chose the top.  I figure if I have to have hearing aids, I might as well have the best.

I got to choose the color.  It was a lot like buying a car.  The selections were limited, but if I wanted to get a children's hearing aid, the colors would be a lot brighter.  I went with the grey.  There was a flesh colored choice, but it looked too much like something that fell off a Barbie Doll.

But back to the tears on Yosemite.  This hearing thing has been the first thing in my life (rheumatic fever when I was six doesn't count) that required repeated visits to the doctor, the first sign that I'm getting old.  I know that sounds stupid--I've been getting old for years--but that's how I looked, am looking, at it.

You have to understand that it has been a terrible month, maybe even a little longer.  I had to have a root canal and a subsequent crown.  We had to buy a new television.  We had to buy a new lawn mower.  Then Kathie's crown broke.  And now we have hearing aids to buy.

There is a movement going through Congress to add hearing aid coverage to Medicare, to no longer consider hearing aids as merely cosmetic(!), but Mitch McConnell is working happily to keep it off the floor.

So I guess all that stuff coalesced in that one moment on Yosemite.

By the time I got  home, I was all better and ready to climb up my new ladder to paint my house.

It is what it is in the suburbs.

Papery Stalactites and Garbage

Meow Wolf

In the early 70's, I had a friend in Loveland who was a talented commercial photographer.  He was also something of a self-styled sage and philosopher, a middle aged hippy freak.  We had lots of fun conversations in between reading THE WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE and the collected works of Jack Kerouac.

He developed a theory I still cling to today.  He posited that the only truly beautiful things were isolated pieces of nature that man had not yet despoiled and the garbage that Despoiler Man had thrown away.  To prove his point, he made a slide show alternating little slices of nature (a wildflower growing out of a crack in a rock, a mushroom sprouting at the base of a tree, etc.) with pieces of junk he found in the local dump (an abandoned medicine cabinet with surprising patterns of rust, an old tennis shoe juxtaposed to a pair of crutches, etc.) .  He set the whole thing to "Rocky Raccoon."  It not only proved his point, but it was a delight to watch and hear.

Meow Wolf in Santa Fe celebrates this idea in an interactive "museum" filled with the detritus of our culture.  It is like the creators of this place spent a few years scavenging discarded things out of local junk yards, used book stores, used record stores, basements and attics filled with the accumulated stuff of lives fully spent.  Then they took all this stuff and rearranged it into a series of rooms, corridors, closets, and secret passages by classifying it into as many categories as they could.  There is a room lit in flickering blue and green lights with papery stalactites hanging down around the heads of all the museum goers.  There is also an old dinosaur skeleton in the room and you can play a song on its ribs.  Of course, you really can't because there are dozens of people already playing their dinosaur tunes and refusing to give anyone else a chance.

There is a room in black and white with black tea dripping down the white cups and onto the white table with the black outline.  There is another room that is meant to look like the bedroom of some kid from years gone by.  The room itself is too dark to determine a dominant color, but there is a bookcase against a wall filled with old textbooks.  You know, textbooks are what kids used to use before everything got placed on line.  If they had only asked us, we had enough old textbooks littering our basement that we could have made our own room.  When Meow Wolf starts scavenging Denver for their new installation, they should give us a call.  I have a stack of Big Chiefs that would be perfect.

Kathie posted our trip to Meow Wolf on Facebook and she got dozens of enthusiastic reactions from folks who had been there and loved it and from folks who were desperate to go.  I'm sorry, but I don't share the enthusiasm.

While standing in line to get in with the 10:20 group, people who  had been there before told us that folks spend anywhere from 30 minutes to six hours in the place.  Kathie and I lasted 25 minutes, thereby setting a new record.

I appreciate why so many people want to go.  I see the attraction, but I shared the opinion of a lady standing next to me in the black and white room.  "I just don't get it," she said.

On further reflection, Meow Wolf seems like a combination of a terrific haunted house and an after-prom designed by a group of incredibly creative and resourceful juniors.  If I could have managed to walk through the place in that spirit, it would have been a much more rewarding experience.  If I had my grandchildren with me, it would have been even more terrific.

I guess the thing I'm reacting negatively to is that they call the place an art museum.  Just because something has been collected and displayed doesn't make it art.  I felt the same way about my photographer friend's slide show.  It was clever and well done, but I won't accept the idea that putting garbage in a slide show or in an all black and white room magically turns that garbage into art.

I guess I make a distinction between art and archaeology.  In my classes I used to initiate a discussion about Art with a capital A by taking an old hammer and pounding three nails into my classroom wall.  Then I would take the hammer, place it at a slant on two of the nails and from the third I hung an old frame. The transformation of the hammer from a tool  to a piece of art in that scenario is a little startling to anyone open to the experience.  And, if I say so myself, it was a clever way to get a conversation started, but I don't think an entire building filled with those kinds of "framed hammers" constitutes a museum that anyone past puberty really needs to see.

I'm glad I went to Meow Wolf.  When one opens in Denver next year, I'll take my grandchildren.  But for myself, if I want to see art I'll go to DAM.  There are no backlit, papery stalactites there to get in my hair.

Overcoming Nausea

We had a get together in our back yard for a group of about eight or nine former students  a week ago.  Corey was there and Kevin and Tenly and their kids.  There was Joann and Mario along with their spouses.  Joanna and Dan and their little girl, Victoria, completed the group.

I had just gotten my "loaner" hearing aids and was pleasantly surprised to see that I could follow the conversation without asking people to repeat themselves.  Joanna and I had a nice side conversation and I remember telling her that I wouldn't bore her by listing my maladies.  Suffice it to say that getting used to the hearing devices was and continues to be number one on my list.  But the point I was attempting to make was that I had come to the conclusion that my maladies were the least of my problems.  They were not the reason that I get nauseated by almost everything, why I can't eat, or sleep, or get up the energy to do anything anymore.

When I told her that I thought I had just become overwhelmed by the state of the world and that nausea was the only sane reaction, I felt myself beginning to tear up.  I quickly changed the subject to life in Singapore, or something like that.

I was a philosophy minor in college.  I gobbled up all that existential stuff.  I read Sartre (Nausea, No Exit, and Being and Nothingness).  I read other French existentialists.  I switched to Nietsche (is that how you spell that?) and Heidegger and Mann and all those other German guys.  I understood the whole idea about existential nausea, but it was nothing more to me than an idea.  I was a husband, a new father, and a student teacher.  I was too pleased with myself to feel Nausea.

I understand it now.  Luckily, I have these new hearing aids to take my mind off all the existential dread that would normally occupy my attention.

My first outing with them happened at Chris' house.  Exactly what I didn't want to happen, happened. People assured me that they didn't even notice them.  Christian assured me that with my newfound ability to hear, people would be less likely to think me an asshole.  That was so comforting.  The thing Chris doesn't fully understand about me is that I've always been something of an asshole.  Hearing had nothing to do with it.  Just ask anyone I ever taught with.

I did have a lovely conversation with Christine's mom.  I think I shared a scrapple recipe.  I wouldn't have been able to do that two weeks earlier.

My best moment with the new hearing aids happened last Monday.  I was hanging out at the park with Willa and Jaydee, helping them swing, standing by while they tried to cross the monkey bars, the usual.  There was a moment when the girls were huddled up and looking at something on a catwalk leading from one slide to another.  I walked over to see what it was.

Do you know those sickeningly sweet commercials for miracle hearing aid companies?  There is always a distinguished looking, gray-haired gentleman in a cardigan sweater with pushed up sleeves. On his lap are two grandchildren looking at him adoringly as they whisper seven year old secrets to him.  He has a great big smile and if the picture moved he would be shaking his head.  His grandchildren smile, validated by their grandfather's new hearing.

That was me on that catwalk on Monday.  I sat between them and helped them investigate whatever it was, a bug I think.  I didn't once have to ask them to repeat themselves.  I didn't once pretend I heard them.

It would have made a nice ad.

It's Even Weirder Putting On Hearing Aids In The Morning

Hearing Woes, Part II

Do you remember the scene in SINGING IN THE RAIN when Ms. Lamont, she of the squeaky voice, is miked up for her first foray into talking pictures?  You could hear her every move, the crinoline creaking, her too loud steps across the stone floor, her breathing.  That's what my world sounds like now.  The BANGING of the keyboard.  The ROAR of the air conditioner.  Anyone's CRASHING steps across our wood floor.  When the refrigerator turns on, it is agony.  I stepped outside to get the paper and when I went back inside, the SCREECH of the screen door made me look quickly behind me to see which of our sadistic neighbors was strangling his cat.

This experience will not last, the hearing lady at Kaiser assured me.  After some initial testing, some adjusting, and perhaps a cochlear implant, I will be pleased with the results.  Again, the hearing lady assured me.  I put a little pressure on her when I told her if my world was going to sound like this from now on, I would surely kill myself.  I was only semi-joking.

The thing is I developed tinnitus about 35 years ago when Katherine was going to grad school in Greeley.  I didn't really tell anyone; I just coped.  I've been coping all that time.  I did go to Dr. Kaufman a few years ago (maybe 10) and told him about my ringing ears.  He just laughed and said that it was just Nature turning up the volume.  Some consolation.

Lately, it has been getting worse.  If I am in  a crowded room, I can't make out anything anyone says. I have an impossible time hearing the speaker at the drive-thru at McDonald's.  Katherine has to translate almost everything to me.  My children, I am sure, are making jokes behind my back.  And the thing that drives me the craziest, the thing that probably drove me to the damn audiology department in the first place, is that I can't hear my grandchildren when I am taking them for rides in the car.

So, to make a long story short, I have loaner hearing aids and they are tuned as loudly as I can stand it in an effort to acclimate my brain to hearing things again.  After a month or so, I will go in for more consultation, get my little surgery (big surgeries), get new hearing devices adjusted and be good as new.  And they will look so attractive too.

The thing I am being a little shocked by is how horrible the world sounds.  I guess it has been 35 years since I've really heard the daily din assaulting us.  I have been blissfully ignorant of the true horrors of leaf blowers, and out of tune cars, and planes flying by overhead, and neighbors talking to each other, and laughing, and yelling.  Not to mention the droning electric sounds coming from our television.  Was Mayberry really that loud?

How did you all stand it all those years?

I live in constant fear that something will set off our smoke detector.

Oh well, I can't take the sound of the computer humming anymore.  I'll keep you posted.

It's Weird To Wake Up Knowing You're Deaf

After my first round in the booth, the audiology tech walked in, took off my ear phones, and, looking a little paler than she did a few minutes earlier, said, "Well, you have a profound hearing loss!"

She used the same tone Richard Dreyfus used in JAWS when he examined Chrissy's body after the first shark attack.  "WELL, THIS IS NO BOATING ACCIDENT!"

She then asked me, the look on her face growing even more concerned, if I had ever had a hearing test.  I admitted that I couldn't remember.  She shook her head and put the head phones back on.  "I'm going to play a man's voice now.  I want you to repeat the last word he says in each statement."

So, I got serious.  I sat up straight.  Closed my eyes.  Concentrated.  I only got twenty per cent of the words correct, she informed me, now on the verge of tears.

I wanted to give her a little hug and tell her that it was gonna be alright.  Mostly, I felt guilty about being such a bad audiology patient.  I was also happy that she couldn't pull my license to walk freely around the world.  I mean with my hearing the way it is, there are a lot of things I could inadvertently run into without hearing them first.  Crying babies in carriages.  Angry honks from delivery trucks.  Buskers singing and dancing in the middle of the street.  The hazards are rife.

I didn't want to go to this appointment in the first place.  I knew what the results would be, but Christian, obviously growing tired of having to repeat everything he says when in my presence, made an appointment for me at one of those miracle hearing places that advertise on TV along with personal injury lawyers and Chia Pets.

I gave in and told him I would make an appointment at Kaiser.

All the loved ones around me knew I was not looking forward to the appointment.  Kathie even volunteered to rearrange her schedule so she could go with me.  Chris offered to hold my hand.  Christine said she would go if I really wanted her to.

I assured them that I was perfectly capable of taking myself to a medical appointment.  Just to prove it, I even managed to check in at a self-serve kiosk instead of going to the desk.  See.  Even high tech doesn't intimidate me.

I also kind of liked it at the Audiology Department.  Everyone there made it a point to look right at me when they talked and they pronounced their words carefully and loudly.  If everyone just talked and acted like that, we could all save a lot of money on hearing aids.  Maybe there are lots of people who could even lose their comfort dogs if we made a nation wide push for more articulation.

Finally, she told me to come out of the booth and have a seat.  She came in a few minutes later with two printouts of my hearing test.  She sat down with a sigh, looked me straight in the face, and shared her concern.

I couldn't help but laugh at the whole noirish feeling of the whole thing.  "I'll bet you're wondering how I manage to negotiate my world with my hearing."

"Yes, I am," she answered, holding back a sob.  "I have never seen anyone with hearing like this who could function without a hearing aid!   You have to promise me you'll come in for consultation.  I even think your loss is such that you would qualify for a cochineal implant."

At least that's what I thought she said.  I couldn't really make out all the words.

She went out and made an appointment for me and the lady at the desk spoke very slowly and clearly.

I couldn't help myself.  Before I left, I gave the tech a reassuring pat on her shoulder.  "Don't worry about me, okay?  I'm going to be alright."

She nodded her head as if to say I hope so and walked slowly away.

I meet with a doctor when I get back from Jenny Lake.  I'm going to take Katherine with me this time.

A Fire in the Morning; Ice in the Afternoon

I like to think I am easy to please.  Innkeepers and restaurateurs must like to see me walk in the door. When Kathie and I enter a place like Mizuna, everybody is happy to see us.  At Jenny Lake next month, staff members with smiles on their faces will give us hugs and welcome us back.

I remember a conversation we had in the lodge one evening before dinner with some friends who had some legitimate complaints about dinner (too many consommés), housekeeping, and the woeful job the concierge was doing.   Rachel, the sweetheart of a manager, was there with us and I said that I was easy.  Give me a fire in the morning and ice in the afternoon and I'm content.

The wonder then is that I end up in so many places and situations that go out of their way to please me, to make me happy.  Our recent travels are a case in point.

By our standards, the last two months have been pretty hectic.  We flew to Orlando for a four day weekend to see our grandson get married.  That was the end of March, beginning of April.  We flew back home for a few days and then got on another plane and traveled to Belize for two weeks.  Back home for another week and then off to New York City and then Ireland.

You have to remember that I hate to travel.  I think of all that money and I'd rather stay home and go out to restaurants.  But then when I am actually in the act of traveling, I end up having great times.  This is especially true of the last two months.

Let me make a list.

- After an easy cab ride from Orlando's airport to the Royal Carib just off Disney property, we met Chris and Nate at the bar for drinks.

-We had a great dinner with Nate and Ashley at Rick Bayless' place at the Disney Marketplace.

-We were at the pool hanging out with Chris and Franny and the grand girls.  Jaydee took off from one side of the shallow end and managed to somehow stroke and kick and squirm her way to the other side.  "Well, at least I didn't die," she said when she got her head above water.  I think that's my favorite memory from all of the travels.

-I liked giving Sage and Shannon a toast and reciting Sonnett 116.  I think I've got that sucker down pat.

-Kathie and I were walking the beach in Placencia one morning when we came across a golf cart that someone had managed to drive into the ocean.  A policeman and two others were surveying the scene, trying to figure out how to get the thing out of the ocean without getting wet.  The policeman motioned to me.  He pointed at my feet and said, "Bare feet.  Bare feet."  I told him that he was right and I was indeed barefoot.  I finally figured out that he wanted me to get into the  ocean and pull the thing out because I wouldn't be getting my shoes wet.  I gave it a try.  Finally, after a few fruitless tugs, the other guys jumped in and helped me pull it free.  I felt like a local and so useful.  And my shoes never got wet.

-We had a wonderful afternoon with Gavin at MoMA with a lunch afterward at The Warwick.

-I loved our walk through Central Park all the way up to the top of the reservoir and then down past all of the construction outside the Met.

-The fact that we were the only plane landing at Shannon at 6 in the morning made the entire experience easy.

-While our fellow passengers were looking for their tour buses or queuing up in front of car rental places, we were greeted by a gentleman in a vest and tie holding a sign with our names on it.  He led us to a black Mercedes.  The back seat had lap blankets and bottles of water to appease us during the fifteen minute trip to Adare Manor.

-Adare Manor!  Need I say more.  Our room was ready at 7 AM!  A friendly chap greeted us at a welcoming desk and led us through the maze of stone hallways to our room.

-Our room!!  Huge.  Two closets in their own hallway with mirrored double doors.  A bathroom with fluffy towels and robes and a rain head shower in a separate stall.

-Breakfast.  The breakfast at Adare was in the Great Hall, a giant room with two killer stained glass windows on either end hovering over the feast.

-Dinner at the Carriage House (day 2).  The Carriage House is at the golf course.  There is a bar, a golf shop, a rental shop, and a restaurant serving lots of fish and lamb.  The food and the service were exceptional, but the thing I most remember is an older couple (Read:  my age) sitting against the wall.  The woman was happily devouring her meal and drinking her wine.  The man, sitting grumpily with his arms crossed, was busily sending back every plate.  How could anyone be that sad in a place like this?

-Dinner at the Oak Room.  We were seated by a window overlooking the garden, the 18th green just on the other side.  A young Irish lad was our server.  He had a delightful sense of humor and timed the dinner perfectly.  I would have to say that the only meal I have ever had to equal this one was at Meadowood in Napa Valley about ten years ago.  Simply amazing.

-A different gentleman in a different Mercedes picked us up at Adare and drove us to the Ashford Castle.  Driving through the Irish countryside is fascinating.  The only other countryside not in the US that I have driven through has been in Belize.  The difference between the little towns and villages in a Western Democracy as opposed to a Third World Country, even a well developed one like Belize, is stark.  There is a lot to be said for infrastructure and a strong central government.  There, I had to get that in.  The Cliffs of Moher were certainly interesting, but the crowds there made me more worried than happy.  We told the driver that we would just as soon get on to the castle.  That made him happy.

-The arrival at Ashford was a lot like the arrival at Adare.  We were shown to a couple of velvet chairs and given drinks made out of gin.  We barely had our first sip when we were shown to a desk, signed in and ushered up to our room.

-Breakfast at Ashford, while not in a room nearly so glorious, was even better than Adare.  The best smoked salmon of my life.  In fact, all of the food was spectacular.

-I loved the walk along the river into Cong, the little village that doubled as Innisfree in THE QUIET MAN.  We stopped at Pat Cohan's pub more than once.  Good conversation; okay fish and chips.

-We spent one memorable morning walking the entire property.  We walked by the skeet shooting range, hoping that the rifles were pointing away from us.  Then we passed the archery area.  After that was the equestrian center.  Finally, the falconry range.  We ended up on a narrow wooded lane that somehow led to a series of gardens.  There was a hidden garden, yes there was.  A walled garden.  A terraced garden.  Each one was more secret, more impressive than the last.  What a place.

-One final thing that made me happy.  We were flying back to Denver and there was a couple in front of us who acted like they were returning from a honeymoon.  They held hands, and kissed a lot, and the girl rested her head against his shoulder.  Very sweet.  That's not what made me happy.  About half way through the flight (the five hour mark), the girl started running her nicely manicured nails through the guy's hair.  He wore his hair short.  She didn't do it once or even twice! She kept on doing it!  The rest of the way back to Denver!  The fact that it was his hair she was doing that to and not mine made me happy and the rest of the flight bearable.

I'm home now.  Except for Jenny Lake and one two night trip to Santa Fe in August, there will be no more travel in my life for a year.  I don't really need to.  As Buckaroo Bonzai said, "Wherever you go, there you are."  Besides, there are all kinds of things around here to make me happy.

We Were Eight Years In Power

Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is the other book I read on the plane rides between Ireland and Denver.  I love Coates.  I think he is the best polemicist currently writing in our country.  He has taken that mantle from James Baldwin and has proved his equal and that is saying a lot.

I didn't check the book out when I bought it, so when I opened it up somewhere while flying west over the Atlantic, I discovered that it was a collection of the pieces he has written for The Atlantic over the past decade.  I had already read them all, especially the Case for Reparations that catapulted him to the fame he currently enjoys.  Except for the reparations piece, which I had already read about five times, I read all of his essays again.  Reading then in the context of a Trump (the first white president, according to Coates) presidency gave the pieces even more urgency.

They held together and offered a powerful indictment of the racist history of this country.  The effect on me after reading this book along with all the other political things I've been pouring through lately has convinced me that White Supremacy has always been and continues to be the dominant story of our republic.  Every great political accomplishment or setback can be seen in the context of our country's uneasy relationship with race.  I mean EVERYTHING.  The biggest stumbling block to universal health care (something Truman tried to accomplish as his contribution to The New Deal) was the realization that people of color would not only get the lion's share of the benefits but such a health care scheme would mean that black and brown people might end up sharing hospital rooms with white folks (insert Gasp).  Evangelical types didn't get involved in politics until Nixon took away the tax exempt status of religious schools that refused to admit black people.  It wasn't the evil of abortion, but the fear of black people in their all white classrooms that drove them over the political brink.  Some 40% of self-identified Republicans still believe that Obama was born in Kenya.  If the football players taking knees during the anthem were mostly white instead of black, no one would be outraged about their supposed lack of patriotism. This list of outrages could go on for pages and pages.

The best thing about this book is that Coates has written a short introduction to each essay talking about the writing process and the difficulties he had conducting some of the interviews.  I found all of that fascinating and, as someone who would kill to get published, quite helpful.

There are three or four quotes from the book that are illustrative of the direction and quality of Coates' work:

"America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered."

"Studying the 2016 election, the political scientist Philip Klinker found that the most predictive question for understanding whether a voter favored Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump was 'Is Barack Obama a Muslim?'"

"The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support."

"So when Packer [George Packer] laments the fact that 'Democrats can no longer really claim to be the party of working people--not white ones anyway,' he commits a kind of category error.  The real problem is that Democrats aren't the party of white people--working or otherwise.  White workers are not divided by the fact of labor from other white demographics; they are divided from all other laborers by the fact of their whiteness."

Obama haters' insistence that their antipathy was not based on race was and continues to be laughable.  It was always about race.  It always has been.

If We Can Keep It

Michael Tomasky

I managed to squeeze in two books on the plane rides between Ireland and Denver.  The first was IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Michael Tomasky, my favorite pundit.  It falls right in line with all the other stuff I've been reading lately (THESE TRUTHS, THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, FREDERICK DOUGLAS).

After the constitutional convention, someone asked John Adams to comment on the strength of the thing they produced.  He said the constitution was good (or words to that effect) "If we can keep it."

That's quite an admonition and Tomasky's book suggests that we haven't been keeping it very well of late.  The subtitle adds "How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved."  And that's exactly what the book does.  It offers a tidy history of the US, focusing on the early seeds of polarization and how they grew and currently flourish.  He then offers suggestions to get us back on course.

The book starts with a really handy six page chronology of the events that got us to our current state of polarization.  This list starts with the Connecticut Compromise of July 1787 where the strange equations of representation in the legislature created the inherently unrepresentative United States Senate.  August, 1987 is another big date.  That is when the FCC, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, repealed the Fairness Doctrine.  The result was a proliferation of right wing talk shows.  And, of course, November 1994.  That is when Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House, a black day in American history.

Tomasky also offers a fourteen point plan to reduce polarization.  It is listed there right at the beginning of the book and elaborated on in the last section.  None of his points are particularly new or surprising, but they all make sense.  Seven of his points are aimed at revamping the way our politics work by getting rid of Gerrymandering, reintroducing at large congressional elections. eliminating the filibuster, getting rid of the Electoral College or making it obey the popular vote, etc.  The other seven are geared to society in general and most of those involve tinkering with the educational system, especially things like civics education and cultural exchange programs.

Like I said, the book doesn't really offer many surprise solutions, but it does offer a crystal clear explanation of the situation and it sheds new light on certain portions of modern history that we might have forgotten.

It also has some great quotes:

"Today, most of us, whether we like to admit it or not, are consumers first, citizens second.  In the 1930's most people didn't see themselves that way."

"The American Friends Service Committee found that segregated private schools were opened in 31 percent of counties in five Deep South states.  Because they were religious academies, they enjoyed a tax exemption.  But in 1969, some black parents sued and were granted an injunction, and then in June 1970 the Nixon administration unexpectedly ended the schools' exemption.  And that's what originally got the religious right into politics--the fact that they had to start admitting black children to their school."

"Most people resist introspection; whole societies are no different.  Liberals,  however, tend to welcome introspection, and liberals and Democrats of that era [Carter years], starting with the pious man in the Oval Office, did quite a lot of reflecting on what was happening to the national character.  So surely one of the great secrets perhaps the great secret, of the conservative movement's coming success, of Ronald Reagan's success in particular, was to free people of this responsibility of introspection, to release them from the guilt in which liberalism makes them wallow."

"My civic self has rarely been more depressed than it was after September 11 2001, when President Bush, New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, and others said that if citizens want to help the country, they should go shopping."

"Since 1990, not a single Republican House member or senator has voted for a tax increase."

"Before too long, the kind of car one drove, music one listened to, and salad greens one preferred were taken as indicators of political preference.  . . . The simpler, more straightforward choices (Branson, iceberg lettuce) were the preferences of 'real' Americans, while the fussier alternatives (Sonoma County, arugula) marked their adherents as elitists."

"Liberals want to fix the house up.  Conservatives want to burn it down and build a new one."

I've noticed, after rereading some of my recent book "reviews", that I keep mentioning the quote where James Baldwin says that "the world is held together, it really is, by the love and devotion of a very few men."  When I first heard him say that in a talk show interview years ago, it spoke volumes to me.  I always showed a tape of Baldwin's life with a clip from that interview to my AP classes, and I think it arrested them.

After reading the cross over history stuff I've been fascinated by lately, I see even more powerfully the truth in Baldwin's statement.  Jill Lepore's THESE TRUTHS,  Robert Kagan's THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, and now IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Tomasky all tell the story of a country populated by selfish and venal men willing to stop at nothing to have their way.  These despicable human beings are consistently opposed by all those devoted and loving men and women that Baldwin talks about.  These are the people who somehow manage to, in John Adams' words, "Keep it."

I'm desperately looking around for more men and women like that.  They are hard to see and hear amidst all the noise.

Perfect . . .Brilliant . . . Lovely

A lovely lady dressed in a full length heavy topcoat--the kind horsewomen wear in bad weather--and a motor cap complete with goggles, stood in front of a long carriage drawn by a single Irish work horse.  The lady told me the breed, but all I remember is that it was one I had never heard  of.  Standing next to her was the driver, a roundish gent dressed in pretty much the same outfit as the lady.

"This is like a fairy tale, isn't it?" were the first words out of her mouth.

I couldn't disagree.

This was our first full day in Ireland.  We were standing in front of The Adare Manor, about to climb into the carriage with our hot chocolates in hand to take a ride through the estate.  I've always wanted to take a carriage ride through an estate.

The previous morning, our plane landed at Shannon somewhere between six and six-thirty in the morning after a six hour flight from New York.  We cleared "customs" in the blink of an eye and were greeted outside by a man carrying a sign with our name on it.  We were escorted to a black Mercedes and by seven-fifteen we were at the manor.  The doorman, P. J., led us to the check in office, opening doors all the way.  Everybody knew our name.  On the way to our room, a random bellman wandered down the hall, nodded, and said, "Have a wonderful stay Mr. and Mrs. Starkey."  We assured him we would.

The room was huge and the linen, a thread count of alarming proportions.  The bathroom had a separate shower with one of those rain shower heads.

Most importantly, the place was quiet.  Everybody seemed to whisper.  Fur Elise kept playing in the background.

We had spent the previous three days in New York.  We figured we would break up the flight to Shannon with a stopover.  We spent a morning and afternoon with Gavin, a beloved student, and had three great meals with Joe and Carol, our Jenny Lake friends.  The company was great, the food was sensational, but the corner of 54th and 6th Avenue is a lot busier than the expanse of lawn and woods outside our window at Adare Manor.  And we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves whenever we took a walk around the grounds.  Central Park, while a truly amazing expanse, has other walkers and bikers and runners and strollers and dog walkers and guys selling things that you have to move aside for.  It is just different.

We sat in The Drawing Room one afternoon at the manor having drinks.  In front of us was a perfect garden in full bloom stretching to the victory circle above the 18th green--they plan on hosting the Ryder Cup in the not too distant future.  Off to the side, along the sidewalk, I noticed a groundsman (they have 70) with a straight spade and little rake making sure the edge was straight.  It took him two double scotches to finish the task.

Perfect.  I used that word twice in the last paragraph.  They use it a lot in Ireland,  "I'll have half a dozen oysters."  "Perfect, Mr. Starkey."

Brilliant is another word frequently in use.  "I'll have the pinot noir with the main course."  "Brilliant."

Lovely is the other.  "I'll have the lamb however the chef is preparing it."  "Lovely."

Katherine and I have tried to figure out the hierarchy of the three comments.  We even asked the lady serving us afternoon tea at the Ashford Castle.  She was of little help.  However, when I told her we would have the champagne pairings along with the tea, she smiled, nodded, and said "brilliant."  I took it as a compliment.

We left Adare after three days that were indeed like a fairly tale and then another guy in a Mercedes picked us up and we headed off to the Ashford Castle and the little town of Cong, where "The Quiet Man" was filmed back in 1951.

On route, our driver stopped at the Cliffs of Moher and told us to take our time nosing around.  There was a sign at the beginning of the trail that read "This is to honor those who have died at The Cliffs of Moher."  It was a little daunting, but we followed the mobs of people climbing up to the summit.  There were people posing on the edge while family members took photos.  This is happening in the beginning of May, remember.  When June rolls around and the temperatures climb, I can't begin to imagine the traffic jam going up the trail.  And the trail gets really close to the cliff and there are signs that say the cliff edge is in fact crumbling into the sea.  The Cliffs of Insanity indeed.

The room was smaller and the whole place was a little dark, but Ashford Castle is all about elegance and spot on service.  And the food was just as good as the manor, maby better.

Mostly though, Ashford Castle and grounds is a place made for exploring.  There is an easy walk into Cong (Innisfree for all you John Wayne fans) that goes right past the spot where Father Lonergin loses a monster salmon and scolds Maureen O'Hara for not sleeping with her husband.

We took one long walk past the archery range, the skeet shooting area, the equestrian center, and the falconry field and ended up in a series of gardens--walled gardens, terraced gardens, hidden gardens--each one more lovely, perfect, or brilliant than the last.

We stopped at Pat Cohan's Bar more than once.  The taste of Guiness (The Ashford Castle used to be the Guiness family home) has grown on me.  We shopped and bought a couple of tees and a big green hoodie for me.

Another driver; another Mercedes.  We left the Castle and stayed at the Bunratty Castle Hotel just outside of Shannon for our final night.  When we first got there, it was a little uncomfortable waiting for someone to open the door.  I finally rolled my eyes and opened the damn thing myself.  You just can't get good help anymore.   Our plane left at 7 am.  After a short flight to Heathrow, a long layover and a nine hour flight to Denver, we made it home.

Fairy tale over.

Memories just beginning.