161. More on “fun"

 More on “fun”

 

What I was trying to say on Tuesday was that Archie Bunker and Meathead, in the early 1970s, made it possible for my Republican and conservative-by-nature father, and me, thinking myself more worldly and aware of injustices, to laugh together. We could laugh with each other and at each other.

 

In the backroom of the Bookloft in those same years, and well into the Reagan years, Republican Chuck Gavin, the secret cigarette smoking, World War II-wounded vet who’d “done his backpacking” during that War, would regale us with stories of his fight with “John Barleycorn” in the hospital after being wounded; the old rodeo buddies who showed up at his door after he’d married a city girl—he’d hand them a few bucks for entry money and shoo them away before Shirley caught sight of them; and the way he’d put a wet finger to the wind when advising sheepmen when to sell their stock. Jack Finch would tell us that he and Ronald Reagan shared a birth year, and “that SOB doesn’t even remember the Depression.” And Max Bauer would take us on raucous tours of Wallowa County in the years following the big War. “A lot of war-widows around,” he’d say, and his mother shooed him off to college before he got caught in one scandal or another. He and Gavin shared getting their college educations on the GI Bill.

 

We’d all drink our coffee and laugh together—the two of my regular morning customers vying to out-story the one who had just finished his story. 

 

Which-ever side of this Covid thing you are on, it is near impossible to laugh with your sister or neighbor who lives on the other side, especially when it comes to the Covid itself. New York Times columnist Frank Bruni says today that religions’ falling believers are being replaced with worship based on political division, He quotes a new Times survey:

“Millions of Republican voters have decided that downplaying Covid is core to their identity as conservatives… Millions of Democrats have decided that organizing their lives around Covid is core to their identity as progressives.”

 

And not only can’t we laugh with the other side. We can barely laugh among ourselves, though comedy shows rooted to above-described political tribes apparently try. I guess—I don’t watch them.

 

I’m waiting for the next Archies and Meatheads, who were, despite their differences, “All in the Family.”

# # #

160. Fun

 Fun

 

Fun happens spontaneously, and the Pandemic doesn’t like it. The pandemic wants people to be measured and careful, and the people who do not want to live this way, the people who want “normal” life and choose to disregard Covid’s seriousness don’t have much room for emotions we normally associate with fun. Oh, I guess they have fun—when they are not listening to or making tirades about vaccines and masks, when they are with others like them. But as Covid and the fights over vaccinations and masking become prominent in their lives, there is not much room for fun.

 

Those of us who are careful and serious about keeping Covid at bay don’t have a lot of room for fun either. And our politics—like that of those on the other side—show it. We want the other side to see the truth and help us fight the Covid. We want the Democrats to get their stuff together and legislate. We are strident, which isn’t much fun.

 

Back in fun days, when I was in the bookstore and Chuck Gavin, my old boss at the Extension Service, was retired and hid a pack of cigarettes among the used books in the back room, he would come to drink coffee with Jack Finch, the retired school teacher from Imnaha and before that the head of vocational education in Alaska—with a time in between to serve on Governor Rockefeller’s Arkansas parole board. Chuck couldn’t carry his cigarettes because he was hiding them from his wife—a 70-year-old hiding cigs; now that’s fun. 

 

Finch was the avowed liberal, whose best story was about Rockefeller desegregating the Arkansas prisons. A big, white, farm boy complained to officials that it was nothing personal, but that with his upbringing and whatnot, he could not be expected to live with black prisoners. The warden found the biggest, blackest prisoner in the system and made the two cellmates. Jack would light up with a barrel-chested chuckle as he told it. 

 

Gavin was a Republican, and told any newcomer to the coffee clutch that he had me only five years at the Extension Office. Another five years and he would have had me wearing short hair and voting R. I always replied that I would have turned him D.

 

But for real fun in the back of the bookstore, we waited for Max Bauer, a retired accountant and jazz player who had grown up here, served in the Army Band in WW II (where band members had the job of retrieving corpses when there was not a band gig), and become an accountant courtesy the GI Bill. He’d recently moved back home to take care of his aging mother, her long-time lover, and a discarded husband who’d gone off to train polo ponies when she’d chased him out for the younger lover. He was an old man now, and passed the bookstore daily on his walks between the Range Rider card game and his basement apartment in his ex-wife’s house. 

 

Forty years ago we could make fun of WW II, the President, and the ménage à trois of an aging saxophone player’s mom—together! I can’t remember hearing or seeing one funny thing about this pandemic. 

159. Geological time

My friend Ellen is a geologist. When times get tough in the present—politicly, socially, personally—she thinks it useful to think in geological time, in which our moment is small. I’m not a geologist, cannot keep one “zine” apart from another in my mind, but I have read some amount of history, and tough times in the present get me thinking about the rise and fall of nations and empires. 

I went to Turkey in 1965, less than 50 years after the Ottoman Empire, long dubbed the “sick man of Europe,” collapsed in the course of the First World War. At the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, European powers sought to pick the skeleton of the old Empire, which had in the course of that War included what we now call Lebanon and Syria and parts or wholes of other current nations. Italy wanted this, France that, and Greece another bit of the centuries-old body. That old body, in the 1500s and 1600s, had stretched across the Middle East and well into Europe. It had grown and shrunk at its edges over centuries, and during the first War Lawrence of Arabia was leading Arab revolutionaries on its southern flanks, and the north—up against Russia—and central Anatolia were blaming Armenians for their woes.

Still, at the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that linked the Black Sea and the Aegean, a young Turkish general named Mustafa Kemal held of British and Australian troops at the Battle of Gallipoli. A British head of the Navy named Churchill lost his job over it; Mustafa Kemal fashioned a new country, Turkey, and became known as Ataturk.

I think of this now because it seems that we are in the middle of great movements—the Pandemic; drought, hunger, and refugees; rising seas and melting icecaps—and that we’re not sure where the edges are. Climate change had something to do with the industrial revolution, but pick your starting point. 

And the Pandemic? Do we go back to the battle with Ebola or AIDS? To the 1918 Influenza? Or to Europe’s bringing smallpox to the “new” world? 

I find some comfort in being in “the middle of things.” It’s not the end of the world—nor the beginning of a new age. We do what we can, not knowing where or what the far end of it is, but history, and the gift of curiosity, keep me looking for the signs, as my friend Ellen searches the markings on rocks for clues to understanding the past and the present. 

# # # 

 

158. Chaos Update

 

The recent surge in Covid cases and hospitalizations, CDC’s confusing “guidelines” on tests and quarantines, the airline turmoil over the holidays, the confrontations between teachers unions and school and city administrators in Chicago, schools and colleges dancing between in-person and virtual classes, job resignations and health care worker shortages, competition for hospital beds, and the open breaks between the masked and unmasked under the “Masks Required” sign in our local Safeway all bring chaos to mind. 

 

And “chaos” brings me to the book I am reading, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The two are married, and “Nic” Kristof is trying to run for Oregon governor from his childhood home in Yamhill. That is not the subject of this post! The book starts with the kids Kristof grew up with in Yamhill, and traces the severe declines in some families as blue-collar jobs are lost and alcohol, drugs, and violence increasingly permeate lives. The authors then go back and forth between Yamhill and other places in the country with stories of despair and others of hope. This morning, as I read this passage, the connection between Covid and Chaos and its impact on children sent chills:

 

“Evidence from neuroscience, psychology, and economics underscores that a crucial window for helping American children is in the first five years, partly because they often suffer lifelong brain damage when raised in chaos and deprivation… they are exposed to ‘toxic stress’ and their brains are flooded with cortisol, a stress hormone that changes brain anatomy.” 

 

With the pandemic, children are in school or daycare one day, and out the next. Rates of depression and suicide talk and attempts among teenagers are spiking. Parents are working from home one day, and not working at all the next. Parents disagree with each other or their neighbors on masks and vaccinations and Covid. My guess—although I have seen nothing official—is that stress levels in homes over work and child-rearing and housekeeping are on the rise. My guess is that alcohol and legal and illegal drug use are also on the rise.  

 

I don’t know where this leaves us, except to remember that the impact of our own actions and words on our children and grandchildren can be immense, and that kind words and caring for them and for all the small ones that are in our lives or just happen into them momentarily might be the most important things we do today. 

 

# # #

 

 

 

 

 

157. Chaos

The recent surge in Covid cases and hospitalizations, CDC’s confusing “guidelines” on tests and quarantines, the airline turmoil over the holidays, the confrontations between teachers unions and school and city administrators in Chicago, schools and colleges dancing between in-person and virtual classes, job resignations and health care worker shortages, competition for hospital beds, and the open breaks between the masked and unmasked under the “Masks Required” sign in our local Safeway all bring chaos to mind. 

And “chaos” brings me to the book I am reading, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The two are married, and “Nic” Kristof is trying to run for Oregon governor from his childhood home in Yamhill. That is not the subject of this post! The book starts with the kids Kristof grew up with in Yamhill, and traces the severe declines in some families as blue-collar jobs are lost and alcohol, drugs, and violence increasingly permeate lives. The authors then go back and forth between Yamhill and other places in the country with stories of despair and others of hope. This morning, as I read this passage, the connection between Covid and Chaos and its impact on children sent chills:

“Evidence from neuroscience, psychology, and economics underscores that a crucial window for helping American children is in the first five years, partly because they often suffer lifelong brain damage when raised in chaos and deprivation… they are exposed to ‘toxic stress’ and their brains are flooded with cortisol, a stress hormone that changes brain anatomy.” 

With the pandemic, children are in school or daycare one day, and out the next. Rates of depression and suicide talk and attempts among teenagers are spiking. Parents are working from home one day, and not working at all the next. Parents disagree with each other or their neighbors on masks and vaccinations and Covid. My guess—although I have seen nothing official—is that stress levels in homes over work and child-rearing and housekeeping are on the rise. My guess is that alcohol and legal and illegal drug use are also on the rise.  

I don’t know where this leaves us, except to remember that the impact of our own actions and words on our children and grandchildren can be immense, and that kind words and caring for them and for all the small ones that are in our lives or just happen into them momentarily might be the most important things we do today. 

# # #

 

 

 

 

156. French Toast

Yesterday morning I made French toast. Mixed a couple of eggs with (whole) milk and a generous dollop of vanilla. Let the bread soak and saturate before putting it on the cast iron griddle I’ve had for 50 years. (The griddle is as good as it was then, and good for another fifty, or 150, if I can get one of my kids or grandkids hooked on iron.)

 

I buttered the toast and flooded it with powdered sugar and fresh lime juice—and I ate. 

 

And it occurred to me that the French toast tasted as good as it ever had, better than it did when I was 30 years old and shoveling food into a mouth damaged by pipe heat and smoke, all the while hustling myself and family to get stuff packed for the ski run. 

 

This post could be about taking pleasure in simple things. About the pleasures of being in a warm home and being able to take care of myself. Or about the privilege that I enjoy with the eggs, milk, and bread it takes to make French toast—and having an ample and full belly. 

 

I could get nostalgic about kids at home and skiing on Sundays. Or tear up with the mistakes I’ve made that seem to get shuttled down the generations. Or dissolve with the new growing of Covid and the facts of family members and friends who are, even as I write this, sick with it.

 

It’s where we are, where I am. And maybe the simple lesson of this writing exercise today is to stay the course, support the son who is sick and the grandson who came home from his new job and life in nearby La Grande to do laundry and eat grandpa-cooked food—curry last night, sourdough pancakes this morning. 

 

I’ll keep working at the Josephy Center, keep writing blog posts and newspaper columns, keep advocating for causes I’ve taken on and grown with, and keep wearing my mask and pushing those close to me to vaccinate and boost. And count myself lucky to be doing it all.

 

Wishing you all well too in this crazy, fractured, and yet still familiar world. 

 

# # # 

 

155. Holy S(**&

The big difference between the 1918 Influenza and our Covid-19 can be said in a word: speed. The speeds with which news travels, medicine develops, and people and the virus we carry move. 

Here in Wallowa County we’d about settled in for a long winter’s nap, watching the snow fall from the sky and drift across our roads and yards. Some of us had tried to wash off the old year in New Year’s Day’s polar plunge in Wallowa Lake—while others vowed they’d never go in that lake in mid-summer.

 

We were finding routines, working from home again, but this time because it was too damned windy to go out and our cars might have blown off the road or been covered by a snowplow’s shower. When we woke from that January 2 storm and went to stores for milk and bread, we wore our masks or we did not. Those of us who are mask wearers put them on and off like a pair of mittens as we go in and out of stores. The unmasked don’t heckle us and we don’t heckle them. It’s a kind of standoff—although I know there is muttering from our side that the unmasked and unvaccinated should pay their own hospital bills when the Covid hit sthem, and I imagine the anti-vaxxers and maskers chuckle or fume quietly about our silliness. 

 

And then what? A month ago we hear about this new strain of the Covid that is faster than its predecessors, and that it seems to move right through the vaccinated. Yes, the second and third paragraphs in the news stories opine that the vaccinated suffer less and are hospitalized less frequently, and Dr. Fauci bravely takes the TV mike to say once again that our best defense is vaccinating the unvaccinated and wearing our masks. It is wearying.

 

And then yesterday, January 4, Covid explodes in Oregon, with 4540 new cases, and over 500 hospitalized. And we learn that a friend brought Covid back from a California holiday and another tested positive on returning from Arizona. And the news carries new warnings and directions on testing and quarantining and isolating (and what is the one and what the other?).

We’re well into the second year of this disease, and the second or third or fourth wave, depending on who is counting and where. 

 

A quick look back at 1918 shows an eerily similar trajectory. Mostly by train and troopship, the 1918 influenza circled the globe in 3 or 4 waves and infected some 500 million, a third of the world’s population. It killed 675,000 Americans when our population was 110 million. It petered out with less virulent outbreaks about two years after it started. 

 

We have vaccines—and we have airplanes and personal vehicles that allow us to go anywhere, and fast. Speed seems to be cancelling the advantages of vaccines, and if 1918-1920 patterns continue, the current omicron version will take its toll and play out in a few more weeks or months. Vaccinations and infections will continue to rise, but with luck, and following the path of its 1918 cousin, the Covid will mutate or wind down, and take its place alongside seasonal flu. Sometime in late 2022 or early 2023.

 

# # #

154. My Heart is Full

It was negative 13 when I got up this New Year’s morning and began thinking about the annual Wallowa Lake Plunge. By 9:45 it had climbed to -2, and when I got out of the water and into my waiting car at 10:05. my phone told me that the temp had slipped from -1 to 0. Our coldest New Year’s plunge in fifteen years of it.

 

State Highway plows had cleared the parking lot, but the walk down to the shore was still snowy. People gathered without much mingling and visiting—there was a job to be done and we were intent on it. I have the loudest voice—or have been at it longest, and was the only one there from year 1, so I started counting down at 30 seconds. By the count of “10-9-8..” there were 50 or more at the shore, not bothering this year to count off our numbers or even hold hands. We walked and ran and dived in, and then hustled out to waiting partners and warm hats and socks and cars. 

 

It was a gorgeous day. The waters were rapidly steaming off the lake, working hard at freezing it. The mountains at the lake’s south end, Mount Joseph to the right and west, and the east, “most perfect glacial moraine in North America” were all snow-covered white. There was not wind or moisture in the air above the land to slow sound; it was all happy noises and smiling faces as we quickly congratulated each other on what we had done and made our Happy New Year’s wishes.

 

I drove the short mile home, looking with wonder at the place I live. The mountains looked chiseled by a fine artist’s hand, the road was packed and clear. I fed the patient dog and jumped into a hot shower, got out to a bowl of hot left-over chile and a mug of coffee-d hot chocolate. 

 

***

There was a zoom call with Turkey earlier this morning, and I made my resolution to be there in May. We had a philosophical conversation about the Covid, acknowledging that it is now part of our world, one of the many global and personal events over decades that have shaped our different but overlapping journeys.

 

And now, sitting by a very warm fire and thinking about a ride on my studded-tire bike and a walk with my dog, it strikes me that I was born in 1942, and that this is my 80^th year. 

 

I’m a lucky man.

 

Happy New Year!  

153. Crazy

Crazy 

 

I think it is now—will be tomorrow, on January 1, 2022—15 years for the Wallowa Lake Plunge on New Year’s Day. There were five of us that first year, and one, Beth Gibans, passed away this year. Informally—and it’s always been informal—we are calling it the Beth Gibans Memorial Plunge. The plungers now number 70 or 80, and Beth has been with us every year that I can remember, even as she battled a ferocious cancer. 

 

Many call us crazy. They say they won’t jump into that lake in the middle of July! But if we are crazy, what is the world!

 

Denver and Boulder, in snow country Colorado, are burning; hundred-mile per hour winds and no snow on the ground took Denver suburbs from no fire at 10 AM to 500 houses burned and mass evacuations at 6 PM yesterday.

 

Meanwhile, it is snowing and freezing in Seattle and Portland.

 

What will the next crazy chapter in the “housing crisis” be? Extraordinary price increases in some areas, including Wallowa County, with more and more people sleeping on streets, in tents, cars and homeless shelters in cities and suburbs across the land. Million dollar houses next to tents. Crazy?

 

We have homelessness, Covid, inflation, dislocation of workers, and supply chain disruptions—and the stock market indexes hiccup their ways to new records, resting briefly for market pros to take profits, then marching upward again. Is that crazy? 

 

ESPN paid $470 million for the college football bowl games. Hawaii dropped out of its own bowl game, and UCLA dropped out of the Holiday Bowl—three others have been canceled due to Covid. If college sports—and pro for that matter—aren’t crazy right now, what is? 

 

Still in sports, a lawyer who worked hard against performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and cycling in the 1980s argues today for bringing Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The game was full of cheaters, so he argues the best of them deserve to be in the Hall.

 

At 10 AM tomorrow morning I will dive into Wallowa Lake and come up ready to begin another crazy year! I hope—but doubt—things get a little bit saner. 

 

I think of that old movie, “Mondo Cane,” a kaleidoscopic chronicle of humankind’s strange habits. I remember the German matron force-grinding food into the goose to make the best liver pate, and the cargo cult waiting in Australia for the next airplane to drop its goodies from the sky. People were just as crazy in 1962. 

 

Happy New Year!