I propose a toast: bravery, kindness and creativity in 2020
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
I just enjoyed the original True Grit with my family.
When my father came home from the hospital after his mini-stroke which left him blind in his right eye, he was already joking that his new nickname would have to be "Rooster Cogburn," because of the line in the film where a character yells, "That's bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"
Anyway, that was my first John Wayne film. Next, I will read the book
When my father came home from the hospital after his mini-stroke which left him blind in his right eye, he was already joking that his new nickname would have to be "Rooster Cogburn," because of the line in the film where a character yells, "That's bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!"
Anyway, that was my first John Wayne film. Next, I will read the book
Poker
Once again, I'm Even Steven.
After a year without any poker games, the original crew put one together in my friend's "man cave" this evening.
I admit, about an hour in, it looked like I was going to be the first of six contestants to bow out. I'd had my only sleep-deprived night of my vacation the night before and I couldn't seem to catch a break with my hand or the flops, plus I felt like taking a nap at the table.
Then, I actually went out, and thought that was it. I was down to my final three chips, went all in, and was barely defeated... when I noticed that ten cards from the previous hand hadn't been shuffled back into the deck. My friends were fair, and dealt me back in. I went all in the next hand, and won.
A few hands before I'd thought of going all in just to end my participation in the game because I wasn't feeling it, but a voice told me to be calm and ride it out to see where it went.
Somehow we went three hours before somebody got knocked out. It happened to be my friend who'd graduated from Wharton. He was low, so he went all in, pre-flop (this was Texas Hold 'Em). Everyone else bowed out, but I had pocket aces, so there was no way I was backing down before we saw the first three cards. It turned out he had Ace King, but the third ace was produced and I sent him packing. After that I took out my accountant friend on a full house. The third to leave was an editor at Bloomberg. Somehow, early in the game, I'd earned the nickname of "bully," possibly because of my style in previous games. Mr. Bloomberg had scoffed at the moniker later, claiming that one had to actually have leverage to be a bully, and seeing as how I had only three chips, I couldn't qualify. I tried my best to be gracious when he finally caved.
And then there were three. We kept raising the blinds, and when it got down to two, I just went all in because I kind of not-so-secretly wanted to be "Even Steven" for the fourth time in a row (with this group. I actually won with my city friends the one time we played).
So now I still have ten dollars, which will be spent at Northshire Books in Manchester, Vermont tomorrow.
That is, the first nine will be spent, as the first dollar I won back had the number 333 in that corner near the ONE on the pyramid side, which is nice
After a year without any poker games, the original crew put one together in my friend's "man cave" this evening.
I admit, about an hour in, it looked like I was going to be the first of six contestants to bow out. I'd had my only sleep-deprived night of my vacation the night before and I couldn't seem to catch a break with my hand or the flops, plus I felt like taking a nap at the table.
Then, I actually went out, and thought that was it. I was down to my final three chips, went all in, and was barely defeated... when I noticed that ten cards from the previous hand hadn't been shuffled back into the deck. My friends were fair, and dealt me back in. I went all in the next hand, and won.
A few hands before I'd thought of going all in just to end my participation in the game because I wasn't feeling it, but a voice told me to be calm and ride it out to see where it went.
Somehow we went three hours before somebody got knocked out. It happened to be my friend who'd graduated from Wharton. He was low, so he went all in, pre-flop (this was Texas Hold 'Em). Everyone else bowed out, but I had pocket aces, so there was no way I was backing down before we saw the first three cards. It turned out he had Ace King, but the third ace was produced and I sent him packing. After that I took out my accountant friend on a full house. The third to leave was an editor at Bloomberg. Somehow, early in the game, I'd earned the nickname of "bully," possibly because of my style in previous games. Mr. Bloomberg had scoffed at the moniker later, claiming that one had to actually have leverage to be a bully, and seeing as how I had only three chips, I couldn't qualify. I tried my best to be gracious when he finally caved.
And then there were three. We kept raising the blinds, and when it got down to two, I just went all in because I kind of not-so-secretly wanted to be "Even Steven" for the fourth time in a row (with this group. I actually won with my city friends the one time we played).
So now I still have ten dollars, which will be spent at Northshire Books in Manchester, Vermont tomorrow.
That is, the first nine will be spent, as the first dollar I won back had the number 333 in that corner near the ONE on the pyramid side, which is nice
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Friday, December 6, 2019
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Today I'm watching the snow that just started falling, happy I decided to ride home well after midnight rather than compete with the Thanksgiving crowd on slippery roads. I'm also listening to Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On" and "Ten Years Gone."
I've been this way ten years to the day
If you get an opportunity to travel, go on an adventure, or even embark on a lengthy international journey, please, for yourself, for your soul, for everyone who will meet you thereafter, go!
I've been this way ten years to the day
If you get an opportunity to travel, go on an adventure, or even embark on a lengthy international journey, please, for yourself, for your soul, for everyone who will meet you thereafter, go!
Saturday, November 30, 2019
10 years ago I embarked on a journey.
9 years ago I was very lucky to be alive with beautiful scenery after some serious risks
I'm sure a lot of other things happened 8 years ago, and so on.
As for today, I'm sitting in front of a fire place after spending a relaxing day with people whom I love, family and a hometown friend. This afternoon I will see many evergreen trees and then another hometown friend. I've been reading, writing, and relishing in the miracle that is the couch, something I took for granted the first 25 years of my life, and have rarely accessed since.
I've been reading a lot about how Benjamin Franklin spent much of his early career printing.
Even when I return to New York City, I will look upon the road as I sit in my chair, content with my place to be, at home in the universe, accepting I am always on a path, yet wondering when I will have worked enough to earn somewhere that feels as right as where I began this journey
9 years ago I was very lucky to be alive with beautiful scenery after some serious risks
I'm sure a lot of other things happened 8 years ago, and so on.
As for today, I'm sitting in front of a fire place after spending a relaxing day with people whom I love, family and a hometown friend. This afternoon I will see many evergreen trees and then another hometown friend. I've been reading, writing, and relishing in the miracle that is the couch, something I took for granted the first 25 years of my life, and have rarely accessed since.
I've been reading a lot about how Benjamin Franklin spent much of his early career printing.
Even when I return to New York City, I will look upon the road as I sit in my chair, content with my place to be, at home in the universe, accepting I am always on a path, yet wondering when I will have worked enough to earn somewhere that feels as right as where I began this journey
Thursday, November 28, 2019
As always, a day like this prompts one to give thanks for many things, especially family, friends, health, society, work, a place in space and time, and so on.
This year, I want to focus specifically on what I am thankful for in 2019.
Well, 10 years ago, I was enjoying Thanksgiving with my full family, and thinking deeply about a journey that was to come. I was nervous, but thanks to writers who had shared their adventures and lessons from their own travels, I had the courage to proceed with the most valuable, educational and worthwhile experiences of my life. And when I was on the move or needed something else for companionship, there was music.
2019 has been challenging in various ways, yet through it all, there have been books, and music. I'm always reading something on any given day, but in recent years I've mostly been content to read on the train, or, all too often, spend more time reading news magazines and articles online than in actual books. Even when I read books, it was rarely fiction. It seemed those days had passed.
Earlier this year I made a point of buying more fiction, interspersed with nonfiction. I would buy 5 to 8 books at a time, and tell myself that since I'd bought them, I'd have to spend more time reading them, as opposed to various other activities that had been taking up my time. A couple months ago, I was in a bookstore one of my few Saturdays this autumn when I was actually in the city, and I got carried away. I'm talking REALLY carried away. It was ridiculous, and it was beautiful.
You see, a couple days before I'd been in a Best Buy for some reason or other, and couldn't help but notice just how inexpensive these fancy new televisions were, and although I already had a nice large one I'd gotten in 2016 or so, I thought maybe I could use a new one without any nicks in it. Luckily, I talked myself out of that.
When I found myself in a bookstore the next Saturday, kind of on a whim, I intended to purchase one specific book, only to be entranced by the classics section, where each title was under ten bucks. I decided I could spare to spend more, and soon my arms were filled. After a while, I got out my calculator and started figuring out a new budget to see how much I could really get away with. Then I remembered how much money I had been prepared to invest in a new TV, and decided to make a comparable investment in books. Then it turned into a much larger investment. I thought of all the things I'd spent money on in my life, and how I'd never spent that much on books in one place at one time. Yes, libraries are important, and less expensive, but I had made full use of the New York Public Library during my first stint in New York. At this point, I figured if I was ever going to be monetarily rewarded for my written tales, I'd have to make a karmic investment in the industry first. That, and I really wanted to read all of them. I eventually had to ask for a basket, and they brought me a cart with wheels. It looked like a stroller. Luckily, I don't have kids (for now... who knows... ), which is all the more reason to take advantage of this free time I may not have forever. So I filled the stroller with books. They cry less and don't require diaper changes.
I've been averaging completing a book a week the past couple months, and, depending on the length, plan to increase my consumption in the winter months. Somehow I've managed to have a social life, stay employed, go hiking and have a few new adventures at the same time. Some of those mini-trips have involved explorations of notable quaint upstate New York towns, so naturally I had to check out their little bookstores and pick up a few titles. What I'm trying to say is that I'm thankful that people continue to write books, publish books, and still buy enough of them that people are willing to print them on paper.
As for music, I'll explain that strange project later. But I am very thankful for all the artists who amplify universal magic.
This year, I want to focus specifically on what I am thankful for in 2019.
Well, 10 years ago, I was enjoying Thanksgiving with my full family, and thinking deeply about a journey that was to come. I was nervous, but thanks to writers who had shared their adventures and lessons from their own travels, I had the courage to proceed with the most valuable, educational and worthwhile experiences of my life. And when I was on the move or needed something else for companionship, there was music.
2019 has been challenging in various ways, yet through it all, there have been books, and music. I'm always reading something on any given day, but in recent years I've mostly been content to read on the train, or, all too often, spend more time reading news magazines and articles online than in actual books. Even when I read books, it was rarely fiction. It seemed those days had passed.
Earlier this year I made a point of buying more fiction, interspersed with nonfiction. I would buy 5 to 8 books at a time, and tell myself that since I'd bought them, I'd have to spend more time reading them, as opposed to various other activities that had been taking up my time. A couple months ago, I was in a bookstore one of my few Saturdays this autumn when I was actually in the city, and I got carried away. I'm talking REALLY carried away. It was ridiculous, and it was beautiful.
You see, a couple days before I'd been in a Best Buy for some reason or other, and couldn't help but notice just how inexpensive these fancy new televisions were, and although I already had a nice large one I'd gotten in 2016 or so, I thought maybe I could use a new one without any nicks in it. Luckily, I talked myself out of that.
When I found myself in a bookstore the next Saturday, kind of on a whim, I intended to purchase one specific book, only to be entranced by the classics section, where each title was under ten bucks. I decided I could spare to spend more, and soon my arms were filled. After a while, I got out my calculator and started figuring out a new budget to see how much I could really get away with. Then I remembered how much money I had been prepared to invest in a new TV, and decided to make a comparable investment in books. Then it turned into a much larger investment. I thought of all the things I'd spent money on in my life, and how I'd never spent that much on books in one place at one time. Yes, libraries are important, and less expensive, but I had made full use of the New York Public Library during my first stint in New York. At this point, I figured if I was ever going to be monetarily rewarded for my written tales, I'd have to make a karmic investment in the industry first. That, and I really wanted to read all of them. I eventually had to ask for a basket, and they brought me a cart with wheels. It looked like a stroller. Luckily, I don't have kids (for now... who knows... ), which is all the more reason to take advantage of this free time I may not have forever. So I filled the stroller with books. They cry less and don't require diaper changes.
I've been averaging completing a book a week the past couple months, and, depending on the length, plan to increase my consumption in the winter months. Somehow I've managed to have a social life, stay employed, go hiking and have a few new adventures at the same time. Some of those mini-trips have involved explorations of notable quaint upstate New York towns, so naturally I had to check out their little bookstores and pick up a few titles. What I'm trying to say is that I'm thankful that people continue to write books, publish books, and still buy enough of them that people are willing to print them on paper.
As for music, I'll explain that strange project later. But I am very thankful for all the artists who amplify universal magic.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
William James' "The Moral Equivalent of War" was one of the best essays I've ever read, and it's the only essay I've ever read in the course of (kind of) watching a debate. I found his piece a useful mental respite during the many times the 78 candidates rehashed the same talking points and rhetoric I've been hearing since June.
I give Warren, Harris, Klobuchar, Gabbard and Yang extra points for not wearing ties, and the mayor a bonus point for saying he doesn't play golf. That billionaire who probably shouldn't be running made the most important point of the night when he got real about climate change. The former VP probably shouldn't have said "keep punching and punching and punching" when discussing how to reduce violence against women. Booker had the funny line about the latter being high, but I liked it better when he used to say "dagnabbit" on repeat.
Whoever gets the nomination, I hope they read Mr. James' ideas about the need for showing our youth how to obtain "toughness without callousness." May the nominee embody such virtues
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Thursday, November 14, 2019
In my 20's, my set weight was 175. Then when I got up to 30, I had already verged into the 180's. People said I was just filling out, getting more muscular, so I never thought much about my habits. Then I started enjoying alcohol on a more regular basis, and I was in the 190's. I've been blessed to never need to own a scale, so I would only see my weight every few months when I happened to visit my folks' home. Come February of this year, I was nearing 205. One of the guys at my company commented that I was getting larger more than a few times. I didn't care, although I was wondering why he was commenting on anyone's appearance to begin with.
Then, around that time, I had about a week of completely unrelated depression, and I just stopped feeling like rewarding myself with some kind of sweet each night. I would eat really healthily all day, and then figure I deserved cookies or a slice of cake or something, really all just so I could wash it down with milk. But suddenly, they stopped bringing me pleasure. I didn't really make any resolutions. I just stopped eating sweets regularly. Maybe on a weekend when offered, but not on my own. Sometimes I would get a craving, delay a few days, then resolve to indulge, and it wasn't as good as I'd remembered.
In May, right around when I started receiving disturbing messages from a student, I found myself conversing with students during our break time instead of getting my requisite daily sandwich. I was getting a "healthy" sandwich (Mediterranean), with lots of vegetables and so forth, but it had processed chicken and hummus and processed grains and all that. I was getting a literal "potbelly." So, once again, I didn't really resolve to stop eating them, I just happened to. I was kinda sick of them anyway. I could tell that I was dropping more pounds, I felt better, and I was saving lots of money.
By the time I went to the doctor in June for a checkup, I was down to 190, although their scale said 193 for some reason. He said I was very healthy, although, since my dad had his knees replaced years ago, likely due to the extra weight he'd been carrying, I could probably stand to drop another ten pounds. I was drinking much less and felt better, so I figured I could do that.
When September rolled around, I'd made it to 183, without really trying. I guess I was just eating fewer calories and getting around more.
Then I got sick and couldn't eat anything but saltines for 5 days, and voila, 175 again.
And then my students had to go and buy a bunch of croissants to celebrate completing their test, and left seven of them on my desk. An hour later, I felt like I could sumo wrestle with a grizzly bear.
I liked being larger, I gotta admit. I'd always been on the skinny side, but when I gained weight, I felt powerful. But now I just feel better, which is more important.
Anyway, the occasional croissant is still a beauty to behold, and I more deeply value and cherish the food which I do have the privilege to eat.
Then, around that time, I had about a week of completely unrelated depression, and I just stopped feeling like rewarding myself with some kind of sweet each night. I would eat really healthily all day, and then figure I deserved cookies or a slice of cake or something, really all just so I could wash it down with milk. But suddenly, they stopped bringing me pleasure. I didn't really make any resolutions. I just stopped eating sweets regularly. Maybe on a weekend when offered, but not on my own. Sometimes I would get a craving, delay a few days, then resolve to indulge, and it wasn't as good as I'd remembered.
In May, right around when I started receiving disturbing messages from a student, I found myself conversing with students during our break time instead of getting my requisite daily sandwich. I was getting a "healthy" sandwich (Mediterranean), with lots of vegetables and so forth, but it had processed chicken and hummus and processed grains and all that. I was getting a literal "potbelly." So, once again, I didn't really resolve to stop eating them, I just happened to. I was kinda sick of them anyway. I could tell that I was dropping more pounds, I felt better, and I was saving lots of money.
By the time I went to the doctor in June for a checkup, I was down to 190, although their scale said 193 for some reason. He said I was very healthy, although, since my dad had his knees replaced years ago, likely due to the extra weight he'd been carrying, I could probably stand to drop another ten pounds. I was drinking much less and felt better, so I figured I could do that.
When September rolled around, I'd made it to 183, without really trying. I guess I was just eating fewer calories and getting around more.
Then I got sick and couldn't eat anything but saltines for 5 days, and voila, 175 again.
And then my students had to go and buy a bunch of croissants to celebrate completing their test, and left seven of them on my desk. An hour later, I felt like I could sumo wrestle with a grizzly bear.
I liked being larger, I gotta admit. I'd always been on the skinny side, but when I gained weight, I felt powerful. But now I just feel better, which is more important.
Anyway, the occasional croissant is still a beauty to behold, and I more deeply value and cherish the food which I do have the privilege to eat.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Monday, November 11, 2019
Good fights
"You guys are, like, into war or something?" my friend's roommate asks.
"Well... I wouldn't say we're into it," one of us says.
In my friend's living room, we are watching a documentary about Vietnam. My friend and his roommate work together as defense attorneys in the Bronx, trying to keep troubled families together. They have been doing this for almost two years. My friend's roommate doesn't like to watch historical documentaries about countries fighting each other. He prefers "reality" shows where producers manufacture fights among members of wealthy families. Until a couple years ago, I preferred to barely watch anything at all.
About a year and a half ago, my friend invited me to come to his new place he shared with his girlfriend on a random winter Saturday. She was out of town and we hadn't done anything in a while, so he suggested we have a guys' day and start watching a 26 part documentary about the worst conflict in human history, the second world war. Yes, I know, it was a very depressing choice of how to spend one's time. But my friend was already dealing with defending people accused of all the most vile things one could imagine happening between family members, and I was still kind of attempting to understand some horrible things I'd witnessed in my life.
Before my friend became a defense attorney for the underprivileged... who am I kidding? He is for the destitute, the kicked about, the one's who weren't dealt much of a hand at all, even if they are the one's who may or may not be part of the difficult hand dealt their own offspring. Anyway, before that he worked in water filtration and was a vegan in Ithaca, where we had gone to college with many of our other friends. Back then, his girlfriend at the time had a passion for informing herself (and him) about all the injustice in the world, whether the victims were humans or not. He was already on that track in various ways, so they matched for some years, doing their best to either fight against all the injustice in the world, or at least participate in as little as possible. They broke up soon after they moved to NYC for his law school education. He soon got a new girlfriend, at law school, and she was all about racial justice, defending people accused of assault, battery, even murder, and trying to fix the world through the courts.
When I wonder about why I am in interested in learning about violent conflict, education and upbringing have more to do with that than any of my professional experiences. I was interested in war and had fantasies of being a soldier when I was very young. Some time around seven years old I read a bunch of encyclopedic volumes about the various wars in which Americans had fought, and they had lots of paintings or pictures. I was also obsessed with learning about presidents, many of whom, such as George Washington (Revolutionary War), Ulysses S. Grant (Civil War), Theodore Roosevelt (Spanish-American War) and Dwight David Eisenhower (World War II) were military heroes. I remember telling my mom that I was proud America had won every war it had ever been in. She corrected me and said that we didn't necessarily lose Vietnam, but we definitely didn't win either. And Korea was kind of a stalemate. But yes, we won many killing competitions, and got more land and power along the way.
What mattered most though, in my opinion, was that we'd helped stop Hitler from killing all the Jews (albeit a little late) and taking over the world, especially because my best friend the first ten years of my life (until I moved) was Jewish. We played most of our war fantasies together in our backyards, although they tended to be more the type where it was ancient times, he was a wizard and I was a warrior. The war fantasies were mostly fought by myself in our safe suburban backyard in Long Island. There were a few trees and a path to run through, so I had some foundations to pretend on. We also had a halfway functional sailboat to play on, so that helped with the naval scenes. I think it all had something to do with the fact both of my grandfathers had fought in the Pacific ("peaceful") Theater in World War II.
Michael ("Papa") of the North Country was already a man, perhaps in his early 30s, when he served loading bombs in the Philippines. After growing up on a farm, he was the first in his family to go to college, at Cornell University's New York State College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. In-state residents get more affordable tuition at the state parts of Cornell, so he was able to get by on much less food than I ate when I was privileged to go there (I've also been privileged simply to breathe and perceive... the definition of privilege depends on what you believe...). After college he spent some time as a traveling fertilizer salesman, riding around New York State before he served in the war, married my grandmother, and ran his own tree mill. I used his war photograph album from his experiences in the Philippines as my junior year "Show & Tell" project for my English class.
Grandpa Ted grew up on Long Island, just as his ancestors had since English people started settling in Connecticut and eastern Long Island in the late 17th century. His father grew up on a farm, because Long Island was mostly farms back then. Both his parents worked whatever jobs they could to get by, including being a chauffeur for wealthy people. Later his dad moved to North Carolina. But before he did, he drove his seventeen year old son, Ted, to Manhattan to lie about his age and enroll in the Marines. He was sent to battle in the first Replacement Division to Guadalcanal, which was the first vicious battle of the United States against the Axis in the South Pacific. He always downplays what happened, and my dad says he almost never talked about it. However, I do know his mom sent him tonic water so the quinine could treat his malaria, because he casually told me that like it was no big deal a few hours before I went to India/East Asia on my best attempt at emulating his courage and adventurous spirit. I already knew by then the only detail I'd ever learned about his combat experience, which was that one of his jobs was to go into caves after his group had used a flame thrower to torch any potential enemies during their jungle battles, where the enemy could be hiding anywhere. When you consider how dedicated and brave his opponents were (one soldier held out on an island until the 60's because he didn't know it was over), that must have been terrifying. I look back at playing Goldeneye when I was 15 and realize I never really thought much about how Grandpa had actually had real bombs exploding near him and bullets whizzing by him, killing and maiming people he knew, perhaps cared about or even loved, as opposed to pixelated characters that kinda turned red and then disappeared as you somehow carried seven different guns with you. Every once in a while, maybe a few times a year, I think about Grandpa's war experiences, going into caves, hoping to find either nothing or the charred corpses of his unknown enemies, people he'd never met who would have killed him given the chance, anything but a living fighter... or maybe he wanted a living fighter to go against. He volunteered after all, and he never told me how he felt about it, other than that many of his fellow marines were psychopaths. I guess that's who you'd want with you as you faced some of the best soldiers in the history of the world, ready to sacrifice for their divine emperor who supposedly had a mandate from heaven.
The only time my grandmother saw him get teary-eyed was in his 80's, when someone asked him about the war. Once, after a campfire with friends, he surprised me by emerging from the bathroom at 1 am and started chatting me up. We went until 3 in the morning, and he pretty much told me anything he could think about from his life... except the war. He waved that one aside as if it were nothing. At one point, he was considering how his children had turned out. His main judgment was, "Most importantly, they are all still alive." Perhaps he felt this way simply because he was a parent, and more so because of his youthful exposure to fatalities in combat, but I think he mostly felt that way because he had served most of his life as a highway patrolman in the 50's, 60's and 70's.
As you can see, I was set on understanding not only where my country came from, but where my first male role models had come from. Thus, I figured we could at least watch the first few episodes of BBC's The World at War. I'd read a military history of the conflict in 2014, so getting the video version with interviews from all sides (except China, because it was produced in the 70's) provided valuable perspective. We developed a pattern of spending every second or third Saturday afternoon watching 4 episodes or so (and once on a Thursday). Usually his girlfriend was away, but sometimes she joined us, because, after all, she was even more into diving into the darkness of the world than we were, seeing photos of victims her clients had stabbed. Even so, she didn't really have the stomach for the footage, and would find something else to do the few times she was around for the marathon. Anyway, by May we had completed the series. I think that's when I started drinking more. I drink much less now. I'm content with and without things I can take that temporarily alter my mind.
Whenever we brought it up to the other friends in our group at happy hour, they would mention they'd watched a few episodes of Ken Burns' Vietnam, but that it was very depressing. Understandably.
When my friend moved to Harlem last September after becoming single for the first time in a decade, we figured we could step into winter by watching Vietnam, which was about ten hours shorter than World War II despite being about a decade longer in real life. We watched it a lot less regularly, but we made it through a couple weeks ago. Prior to viewing, I'd already taken a whole course on Vietnam in college, seen dozens of movies (fiction, yes, but still soul stirring), read excerpts of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried for one of my writing classes in college, and actually traveled around Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for several months (including parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail) as part of my journey. As with most places, there were plenty of sweet people. I've also had a very pleasant Vietnamese student the past four months, among others from the past, so the people are very real to me. Obviously none of that educational experience was actual war, so I can't really say anything on the subject other than it's hard to fathom, and whenever I've met anyone of my generation who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan, I give them respect and ask them to say anything they care to, if they want to, so I can listen, regardless of how I felt politically about any of those government decisions. Courage is courage.
Years after my Asian adventures, I was hitchhiking and camping through the southern US, because I wanted to get to know my country. Also, my grandfathers had had similar experiences, albeit in very different fashions. When I was hitchhiking to Zion in the snow in late November, I got a ride from some guy whose brother had been in the army and just assumed I had as well. When I asked why, he said it was because I was wearing a blue army issue winter cap. My dad had given one to me for my snow camping because he's a hunter, and he liked the quality. Ironically, I did have my standard army combat jacket I'd warn on most of my adventures (unconsciously imitating Grandpa?), but I wasn't wearing it when the guy mistook me for a veteran.
A couple years later, I traveled through the northern United States in summer and stayed with a group of young musicians in Montana. One of them was from Idaho and worked security at the airport. He was a really funny Iraq veteran. His roommate, my host, was quite a hippie traveler, but hadn't been to many developing countries. When it came up that I'd done a seven month journey, mostly in Asia, beginning with two months of solo traveling in India, the veteran was blown away and thought I was very brave. Since he had been in firefights in Iraq, I was taken aback by his respect. I asked him why, and he said he thought he'd panic in a situation like that. I said that after I got past the start it was fine, and that at least there weren't, ya know, any bullets or bombs flying toward me, with not just people, but warriors actively trying to kill me, although there had been the low potential for landmines near the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia.
Despite all my childhood fantasies, I had never once considered signing up for any Central Asian or Middle Eastern wars, even though September 11th was the first day of my senior year of high school and the Iraq War began during spring break of my freshman year of college. I'd already read enough history, watched enough movies and seen enough news to know that I didn't want to kill anyone or risk my life for what the government was telling us at the time. But this guy came from a different experience, and joined the military a few years into the war. He said the fighting was sometimes scary, but mostly he had courage because the fellow soldiers in his unit were with him. Even so, he couldn't fathom traveling alone in such a strange country. We both agreed that the other was braver/crazier and left it at that. But just like most humans in conflicts, I think I'm right to be on the side I am. Why else would the world put me there? And of course he was braver. It was a freaking war! I met a 19 year old woman who was traveling alone in India, where a billion humans live their whole lives anyway. And I'd rather people fear war more than traveling...
Most young boys have energy, imagination, and genetic material giving them not just human nature, but life's natural urge to survive, defend one's self from being destroyed and destroy life in service of continuing life. Yet evolution takes us new places in our experience of spirit, and physical combat subsides the more we find our common humanity, whether it's brotherhood or sisterhood synchronizing.
That's likely the reason why my friend's roommate got the impression we were "into war." As with most people, I would be much happier if there were never any war again, but I respect those who have done what, at times, has been necessary to do so that we may have more love, as strange as that seems.
Viewed another way, like many other things in my life, my interest in being a warrior may have spawned from my parents' musical tastes. They often played Dire Straits' record Brothers in Arms around the house during my early childhood and early adolescence. I was surrounded by lyrics sympathizing with the plights of brave combatants while simultaneously bemoaning our inability to avoid such bloodshed. As with most of the music I listened to before the age of 11, I rediscovered those songs when I was studying government in college. Why study that? Because I wanted to learn how to prevent conflicts where humans unleash the most negative possibilities of existence upon each other.
As for the music, "Walk of Life" raised my spirits up when I entered college and was often depressed, so, of course, it was good for walks. "So Far Away" worked after talking to my ex on the telephone almost on a nightly basis for the first few weeks, because we were basically homesick. We had come from where we had, and like many from other places, we felt our home was special, and now we had to adjust to a new home with new people and a much larger way of living, and we reassured each other. The most powerful song on the record is the title track, "Brothers in Arms," which I would listen to when reflecting on much of the history and political science I was studying back then. We would invade Iraq the next semester.
When it comes to literature, although I've always loved reading, the first adult book I can remember truly loving reading was at age seventeen: Joseph Heller's classic irreverent, witty and dark depiction of World War II, Catch-22. I remember reading it during halftime of a Christmas basketball tournament where I would eventually win the first award of my career, and that a freshman who was already a starter and would become the most celebrated athlete in my town's history asked me, "What are you reading for?" Notice the preposition inquiring about purpose. He said he would rather do anything than read. Luckily, his opinion wasn't very important to me, and I kept reading. Two years later, right after my first creative writing class at the university Kurt Vonnegut dropped out of to fight in World War II, I read Slaughterhouse-Five. I've been devoted to writing ever since. My first year in the city, my father gave me Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, his first masterpiece, inspired by his experience fighting in the South Pacific.
Now, after all those adventures, I've been in New York for six years, working with people from around the world, including Germans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Spanish, Mexicans, and teachers from England and the South. Every once in a while, I try to enjoy some of the best America has to offer.
I first wrote this piece for Memorial Day, and have shelved it until now. Anyway, when I wrote this, my lawyer friend and I hadn't seen each other in a couple weeks (and also because his roommate's family was visiting), we spent some time focusing on the nice things in life instead of watching other people fight. After waiting five years, we saw the "Dark Universe" exhibit at the planetarium at the Natural History Museum, in whose lobby were gigantic quotes from Teddy Roosevelt, who has been my favorite president ever since I got my first teddy bear at the gift shop in his old mansion in Oyster Bay, Long Island, not far from where I was raised. Then we walked in the park, saw the "Play it Loud!" rock exhibit and wandered around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Next we paid tribute to John Lennon's Imagine memorial before going to Harlem for some food before ultimately taking the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and back to the glowing Financial District. Basically, things I'd done when I first came back to Manhattan five years ago and hadn't done since. Then we watched some comedy to enjoy existence a little more. There's a lot of darkness in the world, but you gotta keep exploring beauty and laughing.
I had a very peaceful Sunday with mixtures of solitude and walking among fellow New Yorker's. I took my third walk of the day an hour or so after it officially became Memorial Day, so I could look at the river and the gigantic flag that flies on the other side. My sister loves flags and knows every flag in the world. I'm not really that into flags, but America is more responsible for producing the story of my life than any other country. That, and it looks good flapping in the wind. Then I walked up to the Grant Memorial on Riverside, thanked him for leading the way against the Confederacy, and bowed to the inscription above his tomb. I read his biography about winning the most just war in American history, which was my companion project to watching Vietnam last winter. I don't go to pay respect to the violence, as noble as it can be to protect those who need protecting from lethal aggression. I go because he did what he had to do so millions of people could be free in our sweet land of evolving liberty.
I also pay tribute to my grandfathers, one of whom left this world the night I celebrated my 21st birthday. I had the honor of helping turn him on his side in bed the final night of his life. I'll never forget that look in his yes, even though he'd been through war and 94 years of what the planet can throw at someone. Maybe it was fear, maybe he just didn't like the idea of being helped so much.
My other grandfather left the world at age 85 as I was dancing on a train in Tokyo, Japan, having just had one of my first really successful lessons with elementary students. I happened to be wearing my army combat jacket.
On this Veterans Day, I say thank you not only to all the veterans, but I also say thank you to all ancestors for your bravery, your will power and your sacrifices in service of enhancing the quality of life for all who reside on the experiential pyramid built by our forebears. My joy is possible because you fought the battles of life with courage, and remembered to smile, learn and laugh along the way. The world will be even better when we understand that everyone is fighting a battle every day.
"Well... I wouldn't say we're into it," one of us says.
In my friend's living room, we are watching a documentary about Vietnam. My friend and his roommate work together as defense attorneys in the Bronx, trying to keep troubled families together. They have been doing this for almost two years. My friend's roommate doesn't like to watch historical documentaries about countries fighting each other. He prefers "reality" shows where producers manufacture fights among members of wealthy families. Until a couple years ago, I preferred to barely watch anything at all.
About a year and a half ago, my friend invited me to come to his new place he shared with his girlfriend on a random winter Saturday. She was out of town and we hadn't done anything in a while, so he suggested we have a guys' day and start watching a 26 part documentary about the worst conflict in human history, the second world war. Yes, I know, it was a very depressing choice of how to spend one's time. But my friend was already dealing with defending people accused of all the most vile things one could imagine happening between family members, and I was still kind of attempting to understand some horrible things I'd witnessed in my life.
Before my friend became a defense attorney for the underprivileged... who am I kidding? He is for the destitute, the kicked about, the one's who weren't dealt much of a hand at all, even if they are the one's who may or may not be part of the difficult hand dealt their own offspring. Anyway, before that he worked in water filtration and was a vegan in Ithaca, where we had gone to college with many of our other friends. Back then, his girlfriend at the time had a passion for informing herself (and him) about all the injustice in the world, whether the victims were humans or not. He was already on that track in various ways, so they matched for some years, doing their best to either fight against all the injustice in the world, or at least participate in as little as possible. They broke up soon after they moved to NYC for his law school education. He soon got a new girlfriend, at law school, and she was all about racial justice, defending people accused of assault, battery, even murder, and trying to fix the world through the courts.
When I wonder about why I am in interested in learning about violent conflict, education and upbringing have more to do with that than any of my professional experiences. I was interested in war and had fantasies of being a soldier when I was very young. Some time around seven years old I read a bunch of encyclopedic volumes about the various wars in which Americans had fought, and they had lots of paintings or pictures. I was also obsessed with learning about presidents, many of whom, such as George Washington (Revolutionary War), Ulysses S. Grant (Civil War), Theodore Roosevelt (Spanish-American War) and Dwight David Eisenhower (World War II) were military heroes. I remember telling my mom that I was proud America had won every war it had ever been in. She corrected me and said that we didn't necessarily lose Vietnam, but we definitely didn't win either. And Korea was kind of a stalemate. But yes, we won many killing competitions, and got more land and power along the way.
What mattered most though, in my opinion, was that we'd helped stop Hitler from killing all the Jews (albeit a little late) and taking over the world, especially because my best friend the first ten years of my life (until I moved) was Jewish. We played most of our war fantasies together in our backyards, although they tended to be more the type where it was ancient times, he was a wizard and I was a warrior. The war fantasies were mostly fought by myself in our safe suburban backyard in Long Island. There were a few trees and a path to run through, so I had some foundations to pretend on. We also had a halfway functional sailboat to play on, so that helped with the naval scenes. I think it all had something to do with the fact both of my grandfathers had fought in the Pacific ("peaceful") Theater in World War II.
Michael ("Papa") of the North Country was already a man, perhaps in his early 30s, when he served loading bombs in the Philippines. After growing up on a farm, he was the first in his family to go to college, at Cornell University's New York State College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. In-state residents get more affordable tuition at the state parts of Cornell, so he was able to get by on much less food than I ate when I was privileged to go there (I've also been privileged simply to breathe and perceive... the definition of privilege depends on what you believe...). After college he spent some time as a traveling fertilizer salesman, riding around New York State before he served in the war, married my grandmother, and ran his own tree mill. I used his war photograph album from his experiences in the Philippines as my junior year "Show & Tell" project for my English class.
Grandpa Ted grew up on Long Island, just as his ancestors had since English people started settling in Connecticut and eastern Long Island in the late 17th century. His father grew up on a farm, because Long Island was mostly farms back then. Both his parents worked whatever jobs they could to get by, including being a chauffeur for wealthy people. Later his dad moved to North Carolina. But before he did, he drove his seventeen year old son, Ted, to Manhattan to lie about his age and enroll in the Marines. He was sent to battle in the first Replacement Division to Guadalcanal, which was the first vicious battle of the United States against the Axis in the South Pacific. He always downplays what happened, and my dad says he almost never talked about it. However, I do know his mom sent him tonic water so the quinine could treat his malaria, because he casually told me that like it was no big deal a few hours before I went to India/East Asia on my best attempt at emulating his courage and adventurous spirit. I already knew by then the only detail I'd ever learned about his combat experience, which was that one of his jobs was to go into caves after his group had used a flame thrower to torch any potential enemies during their jungle battles, where the enemy could be hiding anywhere. When you consider how dedicated and brave his opponents were (one soldier held out on an island until the 60's because he didn't know it was over), that must have been terrifying. I look back at playing Goldeneye when I was 15 and realize I never really thought much about how Grandpa had actually had real bombs exploding near him and bullets whizzing by him, killing and maiming people he knew, perhaps cared about or even loved, as opposed to pixelated characters that kinda turned red and then disappeared as you somehow carried seven different guns with you. Every once in a while, maybe a few times a year, I think about Grandpa's war experiences, going into caves, hoping to find either nothing or the charred corpses of his unknown enemies, people he'd never met who would have killed him given the chance, anything but a living fighter... or maybe he wanted a living fighter to go against. He volunteered after all, and he never told me how he felt about it, other than that many of his fellow marines were psychopaths. I guess that's who you'd want with you as you faced some of the best soldiers in the history of the world, ready to sacrifice for their divine emperor who supposedly had a mandate from heaven.
The only time my grandmother saw him get teary-eyed was in his 80's, when someone asked him about the war. Once, after a campfire with friends, he surprised me by emerging from the bathroom at 1 am and started chatting me up. We went until 3 in the morning, and he pretty much told me anything he could think about from his life... except the war. He waved that one aside as if it were nothing. At one point, he was considering how his children had turned out. His main judgment was, "Most importantly, they are all still alive." Perhaps he felt this way simply because he was a parent, and more so because of his youthful exposure to fatalities in combat, but I think he mostly felt that way because he had served most of his life as a highway patrolman in the 50's, 60's and 70's.
As you can see, I was set on understanding not only where my country came from, but where my first male role models had come from. Thus, I figured we could at least watch the first few episodes of BBC's The World at War. I'd read a military history of the conflict in 2014, so getting the video version with interviews from all sides (except China, because it was produced in the 70's) provided valuable perspective. We developed a pattern of spending every second or third Saturday afternoon watching 4 episodes or so (and once on a Thursday). Usually his girlfriend was away, but sometimes she joined us, because, after all, she was even more into diving into the darkness of the world than we were, seeing photos of victims her clients had stabbed. Even so, she didn't really have the stomach for the footage, and would find something else to do the few times she was around for the marathon. Anyway, by May we had completed the series. I think that's when I started drinking more. I drink much less now. I'm content with and without things I can take that temporarily alter my mind.
Whenever we brought it up to the other friends in our group at happy hour, they would mention they'd watched a few episodes of Ken Burns' Vietnam, but that it was very depressing. Understandably.
When my friend moved to Harlem last September after becoming single for the first time in a decade, we figured we could step into winter by watching Vietnam, which was about ten hours shorter than World War II despite being about a decade longer in real life. We watched it a lot less regularly, but we made it through a couple weeks ago. Prior to viewing, I'd already taken a whole course on Vietnam in college, seen dozens of movies (fiction, yes, but still soul stirring), read excerpts of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried for one of my writing classes in college, and actually traveled around Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for several months (including parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail) as part of my journey. As with most places, there were plenty of sweet people. I've also had a very pleasant Vietnamese student the past four months, among others from the past, so the people are very real to me. Obviously none of that educational experience was actual war, so I can't really say anything on the subject other than it's hard to fathom, and whenever I've met anyone of my generation who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan, I give them respect and ask them to say anything they care to, if they want to, so I can listen, regardless of how I felt politically about any of those government decisions. Courage is courage.
Years after my Asian adventures, I was hitchhiking and camping through the southern US, because I wanted to get to know my country. Also, my grandfathers had had similar experiences, albeit in very different fashions. When I was hitchhiking to Zion in the snow in late November, I got a ride from some guy whose brother had been in the army and just assumed I had as well. When I asked why, he said it was because I was wearing a blue army issue winter cap. My dad had given one to me for my snow camping because he's a hunter, and he liked the quality. Ironically, I did have my standard army combat jacket I'd warn on most of my adventures (unconsciously imitating Grandpa?), but I wasn't wearing it when the guy mistook me for a veteran.
A couple years later, I traveled through the northern United States in summer and stayed with a group of young musicians in Montana. One of them was from Idaho and worked security at the airport. He was a really funny Iraq veteran. His roommate, my host, was quite a hippie traveler, but hadn't been to many developing countries. When it came up that I'd done a seven month journey, mostly in Asia, beginning with two months of solo traveling in India, the veteran was blown away and thought I was very brave. Since he had been in firefights in Iraq, I was taken aback by his respect. I asked him why, and he said he thought he'd panic in a situation like that. I said that after I got past the start it was fine, and that at least there weren't, ya know, any bullets or bombs flying toward me, with not just people, but warriors actively trying to kill me, although there had been the low potential for landmines near the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia.
Despite all my childhood fantasies, I had never once considered signing up for any Central Asian or Middle Eastern wars, even though September 11th was the first day of my senior year of high school and the Iraq War began during spring break of my freshman year of college. I'd already read enough history, watched enough movies and seen enough news to know that I didn't want to kill anyone or risk my life for what the government was telling us at the time. But this guy came from a different experience, and joined the military a few years into the war. He said the fighting was sometimes scary, but mostly he had courage because the fellow soldiers in his unit were with him. Even so, he couldn't fathom traveling alone in such a strange country. We both agreed that the other was braver/crazier and left it at that. But just like most humans in conflicts, I think I'm right to be on the side I am. Why else would the world put me there? And of course he was braver. It was a freaking war! I met a 19 year old woman who was traveling alone in India, where a billion humans live their whole lives anyway. And I'd rather people fear war more than traveling...
Most young boys have energy, imagination, and genetic material giving them not just human nature, but life's natural urge to survive, defend one's self from being destroyed and destroy life in service of continuing life. Yet evolution takes us new places in our experience of spirit, and physical combat subsides the more we find our common humanity, whether it's brotherhood or sisterhood synchronizing.
That's likely the reason why my friend's roommate got the impression we were "into war." As with most people, I would be much happier if there were never any war again, but I respect those who have done what, at times, has been necessary to do so that we may have more love, as strange as that seems.
Viewed another way, like many other things in my life, my interest in being a warrior may have spawned from my parents' musical tastes. They often played Dire Straits' record Brothers in Arms around the house during my early childhood and early adolescence. I was surrounded by lyrics sympathizing with the plights of brave combatants while simultaneously bemoaning our inability to avoid such bloodshed. As with most of the music I listened to before the age of 11, I rediscovered those songs when I was studying government in college. Why study that? Because I wanted to learn how to prevent conflicts where humans unleash the most negative possibilities of existence upon each other.
As for the music, "Walk of Life" raised my spirits up when I entered college and was often depressed, so, of course, it was good for walks. "So Far Away" worked after talking to my ex on the telephone almost on a nightly basis for the first few weeks, because we were basically homesick. We had come from where we had, and like many from other places, we felt our home was special, and now we had to adjust to a new home with new people and a much larger way of living, and we reassured each other. The most powerful song on the record is the title track, "Brothers in Arms," which I would listen to when reflecting on much of the history and political science I was studying back then. We would invade Iraq the next semester.
When it comes to literature, although I've always loved reading, the first adult book I can remember truly loving reading was at age seventeen: Joseph Heller's classic irreverent, witty and dark depiction of World War II, Catch-22. I remember reading it during halftime of a Christmas basketball tournament where I would eventually win the first award of my career, and that a freshman who was already a starter and would become the most celebrated athlete in my town's history asked me, "What are you reading for?" Notice the preposition inquiring about purpose. He said he would rather do anything than read. Luckily, his opinion wasn't very important to me, and I kept reading. Two years later, right after my first creative writing class at the university Kurt Vonnegut dropped out of to fight in World War II, I read Slaughterhouse-Five. I've been devoted to writing ever since. My first year in the city, my father gave me Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, his first masterpiece, inspired by his experience fighting in the South Pacific.
Now, after all those adventures, I've been in New York for six years, working with people from around the world, including Germans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Spanish, Mexicans, and teachers from England and the South. Every once in a while, I try to enjoy some of the best America has to offer.
I first wrote this piece for Memorial Day, and have shelved it until now. Anyway, when I wrote this, my lawyer friend and I hadn't seen each other in a couple weeks (and also because his roommate's family was visiting), we spent some time focusing on the nice things in life instead of watching other people fight. After waiting five years, we saw the "Dark Universe" exhibit at the planetarium at the Natural History Museum, in whose lobby were gigantic quotes from Teddy Roosevelt, who has been my favorite president ever since I got my first teddy bear at the gift shop in his old mansion in Oyster Bay, Long Island, not far from where I was raised. Then we walked in the park, saw the "Play it Loud!" rock exhibit and wandered around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Next we paid tribute to John Lennon's Imagine memorial before going to Harlem for some food before ultimately taking the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and back to the glowing Financial District. Basically, things I'd done when I first came back to Manhattan five years ago and hadn't done since. Then we watched some comedy to enjoy existence a little more. There's a lot of darkness in the world, but you gotta keep exploring beauty and laughing.
I had a very peaceful Sunday with mixtures of solitude and walking among fellow New Yorker's. I took my third walk of the day an hour or so after it officially became Memorial Day, so I could look at the river and the gigantic flag that flies on the other side. My sister loves flags and knows every flag in the world. I'm not really that into flags, but America is more responsible for producing the story of my life than any other country. That, and it looks good flapping in the wind. Then I walked up to the Grant Memorial on Riverside, thanked him for leading the way against the Confederacy, and bowed to the inscription above his tomb. I read his biography about winning the most just war in American history, which was my companion project to watching Vietnam last winter. I don't go to pay respect to the violence, as noble as it can be to protect those who need protecting from lethal aggression. I go because he did what he had to do so millions of people could be free in our sweet land of evolving liberty.
I also pay tribute to my grandfathers, one of whom left this world the night I celebrated my 21st birthday. I had the honor of helping turn him on his side in bed the final night of his life. I'll never forget that look in his yes, even though he'd been through war and 94 years of what the planet can throw at someone. Maybe it was fear, maybe he just didn't like the idea of being helped so much.
My other grandfather left the world at age 85 as I was dancing on a train in Tokyo, Japan, having just had one of my first really successful lessons with elementary students. I happened to be wearing my army combat jacket.
On this Veterans Day, I say thank you not only to all the veterans, but I also say thank you to all ancestors for your bravery, your will power and your sacrifices in service of enhancing the quality of life for all who reside on the experiential pyramid built by our forebears. My joy is possible because you fought the battles of life with courage, and remembered to smile, learn and laugh along the way. The world will be even better when we understand that everyone is fighting a battle every day.
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
A month ago, my father and I took a simple canoe trip:
Then I went up to Lake Champlain to enjoy a few days of solitude surrounded by peak foliage, some kayaking and canoeing, stars, fires, the sound of waves on the rocks, and to cap it all off, some family time, much of which was spent trying to repair plumbing and carrying heavy things up stairs. Also, there was no running water while we were there.
I didn't realize those storm clouds were portents of the storm building in my stomach that would make itself known the following evening. I would endure two days of fever, chills and aches, and then five days without a real meal because my gut wasn't having it. But nothing would stop me from seeing my favorite performer come back to New York for the first time in two years: HIROMI UEHARA!
After seeing four electrifying, soul-restoring shows, I had to go back to work, still without eating well. I had been tempted to call in sick, but I powered through the day, finally ate a real meal, and enjoyed reading in my journal that I had been working in this job for six years (after having previously never stayed in the same job for more than a year).
Maybe one would think that after all that I would finally enjoy a normal weekend where I could digest food and wouldn't feel pressure to go to some fancy club in Manhattan to take in a sophisticated musical performance that would bring me to tears at one point. I certainly wanted to. But I had made reservations to FINALLY camp on Long Island for the first time in my life. Even though my father (and his father... and his father before him... all the way back to Ezekiel Sandford, my first native born namesake ancestor, who was a wheelwright (built and repaired wagon wheels) that had moved to Bridgehampton from Hartford, Connecticut in the 1670's) had extensive experience in the Long Island wilderness, it had pretty much disappeared by the time I was born. Long Island was the birth of the suburbs, and home to plenty of urban/suburban sprawl. My grandfather helped build the first suburb, Levittown, just as Ezekiel had built the bridge that gave Bridgehampton its name (I'd never visited the bridge or even the upscale neighborhoods now known simply as "The Hamptons" until I made a point of visiting there two years ago). So I figured it was time I finally saw Montauk, the easternmost point of New York State, and camped at Hither Hills, the only state park I could find where you're allowed to camp. And it was just a simple three hour drive east of Manhattan.
I arrived at the lighthouse half an hour before closing, but three minutes after they stopped selling tickets. It would have been nice for the internet to have mentioned that. Even so, I got to walk around the rocks to the front of the lighthouse and technically touch the water at the easternmost point of the state. And the lighthouse was pretty large, so I still got to see it. Then I drove over to Hither Hills and camped for two nights and one full day.
I got beautiful stars much of the first night, and sparkling sun the entire next day before the clouds came in the evening.
Sunday morning was overcast, rainy, and VERY windy. I packed up my tent, showered, and then rode back in the rain for three hours.
Of course, there was one more adventure. I had to go back to Cambridge the next weekend to fulfill a plan I'd made with an old friend.
On Thursday, Halloween, I decided at the last minute to grab my Viking helmet from Halloweens past and do it again. I still had the hair and the beard, so why not? My colleague had told me he was going to repeat as Superman, so I figured I had the right. Most of the students weren't there the year before anyway. So I taught them about Viking history and mythology, including Odin, the one-eyed God of war and poetry who rules them all.
Afterward, I had a late drive home. The first hour was easy, albeit windy, but then it turned into a real ordeal. Intense winds were combined with a punishing rain which lasted the remainder of the drive. I had to go 45 to 50 on a 65 mph highway, and felt my tires slipping quite a bit. At one point I got a warning on my phone for a severe thunderstorm. But I made it home a little before 2 am. My mother had asked me to wake her up when I got home, and I didn't understand why. I figured she'd see my door was closed if she woke up and would be reassured. As it turned out, it wasn't about that.
She told me that I probably noticed my father's bed was empty. I figured he'd left a couple days early to go to the duck boat show on Long Island. As it turned out, his shooting days may be over. She gave the news well: "He's fine now and in good spirits, but he's in the hospital and coming home tomorrow because he had a tiny tiny tiny stroke [the day before Halloween], and he's permanently without vision in his right eye. He can still see fine in his left eye." My first question was if he would be able to shoot again. Hunting isn't my thing, but it's been one of his favorites for 54 years, and pretty much one of his main reasons for being outside family since his father and hunting mentor died eight years ago. Apparently his ophthalmologist also has one working eye and shoots guns, and assured him he'll be able to do pretty much all the things he used to, it will just take some time and readjustment. My next question was if he could still paint, carve decoys and build duck boats, and apparently that will be easier than shooting flying ducks without use of his right eye. So then I went to bed because I was exhausted and happy to be alive after that drive, with my parents still living.
The next day I was happy to greet my dad, that his stroke hadn't been worse, and that he could still see. He was already making cyclops jokes, and I told him his new nickname was Odin. He wasn't a professional warrior like my grandfather, but he sure shot a lot of ducks. And he's always been fond of reading poetry aloud. Then his two best friends showed up, including my "Uncle" Al.
On Saturday morning I woke up at 6 am, showered, ate, and drove to my friend Joe's house so we could ride another 2 hours to hike a mountain together for the first time in two years, and a high peak together for the first time in nine years. I hadn't been to the Green Mountains of Vermont in five years, so I was pumped. Also, seeing Joe reminded me how lucky I am to still have my dad, because his passed away many years ago. Joe is a strong man in many ways.
As an ode to my father, I decided to bring my plastic Viking helmet along. It was still Halloween weekend, after all. It was 32 degrees when we started, and 20 at the summit, but the sound of the streams, the trees, the quiet when we reached the evergreens, and the views from the top were worth the holes in my boots that made my toes a little extra cold. But my dad loves going out in the cold, and there was a sign on the way that said "Churchill" which reminded me we hadn't come that far because we were "made of sugar candy," so, like most of the month, I powered through. Also, I got some extra energy from the smiles/bewildered looks/obviously intentional attempts to look away from my strange Viking helmet, long hair and red beard. After yet another amused group approached on our descent, I said, "It's still Halloween, right?"
A woman replied, "Sorry, but I don't have any candy."
"You mean to say I just climbed a whole mountain with ice and snow, and I don't even get any candy?"
Lake Champlain in the distance
As I had my bamboo stick from China, I preferred to think of myself as more of a "Viking shepherd"
There may not have been candy on the mountain, but there was plenty of beer and pizza in nearby Rutland, Vermont.
Uncle Al's favorite animal
Back to Cambridge
A good night's sleep, then on to New York City
When I went back to New York City, I read The Odyssey.
Autumn has involved plentiful rewards, each preceded by rigorous challenges.
The latter brought more of the former.
I thank all the tough ones who teach with their example
Inspiring me every spin of the magic ball
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