CONSISTENCY

January 7, 2013 //

CONSISTENCY

Jimmy was our teenaged neighbor when we were freshly married and living in northern New Jersey. Unlike the typical high school students in our high-achieving town, Jimmy was not fixated on attending an Ivy League college and in obtaining the BMW that was certain to follow. Rather, he was interested in auto maintenance and handyman tasks. This desire was useful, since his parents’ collection of aged hatchbacks required the former, and our semi-renovated Victorian house required the latter.

When Jimmy was not peering under the hood of a car whose color was unknown to nature, he was in our house destroying old plaster walls and discovering new sources of seepage. He worked deliberately but charged so little that it never occurred to me to complain. Jimmy was a quiet perfectionist.

Jimmy’s parents were devout church-goers but his Dad truly sought salvation in the performance of his favorite football team. His mother found excitement and happiness in her garden. Besides odd jobs, surprisingly, Jimmy’s passionate interest was in fundamentalist Catholic theology. To that end, for a couple of years after graduating from high school, he sported hair and a beard like Jesus’s. He saved his earnings from repair jobs and a part-time position at an auto body shop to visit sites in Europe where minor miracles (as opposed to the big splashy ones, like the parting of the Red Sea) had taken place.

Jimmy’s eyes misted over when he described a shack in Poland or Romania where thorns had reportedly turned to flowers or water had turned to wine, or some similar cause for skepticism on my part. Each place was named for an obscure saint with a previously unheard of name. Jimmy’s absolute sincerity precluded overt ridicule; one had to respect his fervor.

When my office required construction of a wall, we called Jimmy. When our basement needed painting, we called Jimmy. Even though he finally entered Rutgers on what was to become a leisurely, seven year journey, Jimmy remained available to complete an assortment of household projects.

The primary personal characteristic of Jimmy, who, around age twenty-seven, became known as “Jim,” was a sense of indecisive acceptance. “Yeah, well, you know.…” he would say regarding almost anything. Faced with disagreement, he would say: “Yeah, sure, I guess.” Responding to a question, he would answer, “Well, maybe, I suppose.” Despite his extreme passivity, we sensed there to be acute intelligence somewhere deep inside. Jim was unfailingly patient and kind; he designed and built a soaring tree house for our children with leftover wood, and then refused payment for the work.

After he graduated from Rutgers, Jim found work as a mechanic for a trucking firm and moved to an apartment closer to work. One day, I saw him arrive to visit his parents and I rushed to greet him before he went inside.

“How’s the job?” I asked.

“Well, you know,” he replied.

“Is it interesting?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You should consider design school or architecture,” I stated, with conviction. “That tree house is amazing. You have a special talent.”

“Yeah, I guess. Never really thought about it,” he replied.

“Great to see you,” I said.

Jim took a moment to reply. He seemed to be pondering what I had said earlier.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, trailing off, more distracted than usual. Then he brightened, and his voice caught with emotion: “I’m going to Bulgaria next week to see where Saint (Unpronounceable) prevented a flood by reversing a river.”

“That’s great, Jim,” I said, trying hard to sound sincere.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to be a saint?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I definitely cannot.”

I was gratified, several months later, when Jim’s mother told me he was starting architecture school. I thought I might have made an impact. Shortly thereafter, we moved to a different town and lost touch with Jim and his family, except for annual holiday cards.

Several years later, we were having a vacation house constructed in Costa Rica. Our builder was confident that he could obtain all the necessary permits with the plans he drew up himself, but he was surprised to find out he needed a sealed and certified architect’s plan for the complicated roof line.

“It’s urgent,” he said. “I’m so sorry for this short notice. I’m afraid that if I do not have an official plan to present when the inspector comes out next week, he will not be in the region again for months. The whole project will be held up. Do you know any architects?”

We did not know any architects, we thought, at first, then remembered Jim. Sure enough, his parents told us that, at age thirty-five, he had recently become a fully licensed architect. He worked at a small firm in south Jersey and, they were sure he would be delighted to supplement his meager income with a moonlighting assignment.

“After all,” said his dad, “a roof system for a whole house is more exciting than the baseboards and mantel pieces they have him working on now.”

“Do you have an e-mail address for him?” I asked.

“He hasn’t gotten around to that, yet,” said his mother. “But here is his phone number.”

Like his dad, I thought Jim would be excited to create drawings for a vacation home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I was surprised it required several messages before he called back.

“Hi, yeah, I heard about the house,” he said. “I guess I could draw up something.”

“Jim, the floor plan is already done,” I explained. “We need a roof system drawn up, but we only have a few days. Can you do it? You can be creative, like with the tree house.”

“Okay, I guess…. I suppose,” he said.

Jim agreed to come up and meet with us the next day. We spread out the floor plan on the dining room table and provided photographs of the mountainside lot and its views of the Pacific Ocean. We waited in vain for some reaction as Jim stared impassively. He started to speak and stopped several times: “…this room, uhhhh… hmmmmm, yeah, okay, hmmmmm….”

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, after a long pause. “I guess, ummm, this will work out.”

After another hour of similar hemming and hawing, Jim said he would produce a plan in a day or two. He asked if he could charge $50 an hour and said he could finish in just six or seven hours.

“Jim,” I said. “This would have cost us a minimum fee of $5,000 with an architectural firm. I won’t pay you less than $1,000, no matter what.”

“Whatever,” he shrugged.

I could not resist asking Jim a question before he left: “Do you enjoy being an architect?”

“I suppose,” he said.

“Do you remember when I suggested you consider it?”

He looked perplexed.

“Hunh?” he replied.

I dropped the subject. Jim justified our faith by producing a series of precise and interesting drawings and calculations in just two days. We e-mailed them to our builder who pronounced them excellent. Our architectural crisis was averted. Jim needed weeks of prodding but he finally forwarded an invoice, his #001, for $1,000.

We forwarded early photographs of the construction to Jim since we thought he would find them exciting or, at least, interesting. We did not hear from him. When the roof finally went on and his job #001 was actualized, we mailed him color photographs and a note thanking him for his help. Again, we did not hear from him. Afraid that we did not have the right mailing address, we called Jim.

“Did you receive the pictures?”

“Oh, yeah, I got them. Thanks,” he said.

“The house looks stunning, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess. It looks pretty good, I suppose.”

We hung up feeling vaguely unfulfilled. Perhaps, we wanted to pierce his wall of seeming indifference. Perhaps, we wanted to hear an architect enthuse about our house. Perhaps, we wanted Jim to express just one iota of wonder at his own, earthly accomplishment.

Upon reflection, we had to conclude that Jim’s outlook and behavior is not ours to change. It is hard enough to influence immediate family members; how could we presume to influence what excites a mere friendly acquaintance? Finally, who knows? If consistency is a sacred virtue, Jim might well be a saint someday.

Tags Architecture, cars, Faith, Neighbors, parting of the red sea

Categories architecture, Modern Society, Reflections, Saintly belief

YOUTHFUL EMPLOYMENT

January 2, 2013 //

YOUTHFUL EMPLOYMENT

A common predictor of success in the business world is early industriousness. For instance, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP MORGAN, worked at three jobs as a teenager. Michael Bloomberg delivered papers. Bill Gates pulled all-nighters to assist professors at the University of Washington with programming issues. I was at the other end of the spectrum.

Until my senior year of high school, summer occupation for me consisted of watching re-runs on television, throwing or hitting tennis balls against the garage wall, and practicing golf putts in the living room. It is surprising my putting is so terrible now, considering how much of my youth was consumed with that activity.

My parents did not seem inclined to upset this leisurely routine. Perhaps, their lack of vigilance was due to my lack of acquisitiveness. I did not crave a car; I did not seek a social life; I was not interested in purchasing clothes or records, or any of the usual drivers of teen employment. In sum, I did not call attention to my lassitude and, so, for nearly all of my teen years, I was able to stay aboard a low-key gravy train.

The halcyon days ended abruptly when my aunt, the secretary (now called an “administrative assistant”) to the director of the Lower Merion library system, told my mother that the system needed a “page” for the summer (now called an “intern.”) Such a position involved floating among several of the system’s six branches doing odd jobs, such as: a little cataloguing; a little organizing; and, a little filling-in-at-the-front-desk-while-the-real-employee-is-on-vacation. Inevitably, I inquired if a “page” could be promoted to “chapter,” or even “book.” The answer was “no.”

The good news was that the position was paid, if one considered $1.75/hour payment. Among the bad news were that the shifts would be irregular – two or three hours one day, a full day the next, and the commute to several of the sites could be as long as an hour. As a money-making enterprise, this job stank, as I pointed out to my mother with modest understatement: “This will ruin my life.”

“It is appropriate for someone your age to experience a job,” she responded.

“Isn’t the point of a job to make real money?” I asked.

“If you have a better idea, you are free to pursue it. You could work at Dad’s store for no pay,” she added. Suddenly, libraries seemed tolerable.

My first project was at the Ardmore Library, an edifice dating to the 1890’s with vintage lighting and furniture. I was to work from 6-9 in the evening for two weeks “organizing” the magazine collection. A generic (I must have known her name and face at the time) middle-aged woman directed me up dimly-lit stairs to a mezzanine in the decrepit building where magazines had been accumulating for, seemingly, several centuries. These magazines were obtained via library subscriptions, and also donations from patrons who emptied their attics and basements. She asked me to sort each title chronologically and alphabetically. She did not suggest how I deal with the dust, cobwebs, and insects that enveloped the moldering piles of reading material.

Suffice it to say that I did not find the task stimulating. In two weeks, not a single patron inquired about the periodicals. Occasionally, an article in a ten-year-old magazine caught my interest. Reading was difficult, however, because the light was dim in the mezzanine and, theoretically, at least, I was supposed to be “working.” In reality, the librarian who remained downstairs was so uninterested in what I was doing that I feared she would forget about me. My suspicions were confirmed one evening at closing time when she turned off all the lights while I was still working. I shouted un-libraryistically and her reaction was barely audible, “Oh, sorry about that.”

The “magazines in the mezzanine” project was rendered particularly unsatisfying by my absolute certainty that no one would ever choose to peruse the fruits of my labor. There were no learned journals that a scholar might consult. Rather, the fare trended towards “Better Homes and Gardens” and “Boy’s Life.” When the two weeks ended, and I was to move to my next assignment, the project was incomplete.

I spent the next several weeks at the Gladwyne Library manning the front desk and shelving returned books. My knowledge of the alphabet again proved critical. Farther out Philadelphia’s “Main Line,” Gladwyne is wealthier than Ardmore, and considerably younger. The library, accordingly, lacked the same fossilized vibe. Actual patrons came to read and borrow books and there was a lively children’s program. The staff was pleasant. My only grievance was the commute. My mother’s car was not available for all-day borrowing and I had to take a bus from West Philadelphia. I joined a contingent of domestic workers at the stop each morning; my lack of a lovely Jamaican accent distinguished me, among other things.

The third and final assignment of my summer as a page was at the Belmont Hills branch. It was a tiny outpost in the war against illiteracy, more a kiosk than a real library. The librarian worked alone. My role was to learn all the necessary procedures with her for a day or two, then cover the next two weeks, while she vacationed.

My main memory of the Belmont Hills library is that there were hardly any books. Somehow, besides a collection of older classics, the “library” could borrow newer, popular books from the “real” branches in the system and lend them to local patrons who had ordered them. “Looking for Mrs. Goodbar” was the low-brow hit of that summer, I recall, and there was a list of over twenty women waiting their turn. Besides spending ten minutes each morning re-stacking the trickle of returned books from the previous day, my job involved calling people to tell them when a reserved book came in, and answering the telephone inquiries to advise Mrs. Jones, for instance, if she were number twelve or number fifteen on the waiting list.

My main memory of the Belmont Hills library is completely unrelated to the job itself. My older brother, David, took a several-weeks-long camping trip with friends that summer. He graciously insisted that I consider his Volkswagen Beetle mine while he was away. The problem was that the car had a manual shift, something I had never driven. David provided fifteen minutes of tutelage and pronounced me competent. His instruction took place on flat terrain, however, and, well, Belmont Hills came by its name honestly.

The experience of rolling backwards, repeatedly, on the way to my first day at the Belmont Hills library was traumatic. I am not generally a believer in miracles, but I am willing to consider the possibility, given that I did not crash. I hunched over the steering wheel, praying for green lights. I rolled through every “Stop” sign, and finally coasted into the parking lot at the library trembling. While I did develop a grudging semi-competence with the clutch by the end of the second week, I am forever a believer in automatic transmissions, as a result of my work at the Belmont Hills library.

In sum, my summer as a page did not launch an entrepreneurial career. It did not inspire me to value work. It did not inspire me, Carnegie-like, to value libraries. In fact, I was so unimpressed with the “value” of summer employment as an end in itself, that I never prodded my children to seek summer jobs. They all chose, on their own, to earn spending money, but not because their father insisted. I may have a moral failing in this regard, but that is a defect I am willing to concede. I approached my first job without enthusiasm, and I remained a page who never turned.

Tags Library Employment, manual transmissions, Summer jobs

Categories Coming of Age, Parenting

A GUN FOR PROTECTION? A Timely Story

December 27, 2012 //

A GUN FOR PROTECTION? A Timely Story

My father’s store was founded in the 1930’s in a relatively prosperous section of Philadelphia. As told to me, crime was not an issue during the first several decades of business. However, by the time I was old enough to be aware of such things, in the 1960’s, crime was an ever-present concern. Both society and the neighborhood had changed. As a result of various “redevelopment” schemes, vacant lots blighted the street; the surrounding residential neighborhood was grim.

As a textbook introvert, I was stupendously ill-suited to working at the store. I disdained nearly every aspect of it, from being obsequious to the customers (commonly known as “sucking up”), to breathing second-hand smoke, to straining to converse with my father’s employees. Fortunately, I was only required to work in my teenage years when Father’s Day or Christmas loomed, and the volume of business increased. My older brother, David, by contrast, was a social being who thrived in the retail environment. If the street and local economy had not changed, perhaps he might have used his gregarious skill-set to continue the business. But that is a different story.

Due to my limitations of age, temperament and personality, my main role was as an extra pair of eyes. I would feign melting into the background while, at the same time, try to make anyone who might consider shoplifting conspicuously aware of my presence. It was confusing. One had to project a welcoming expression while exercising vigilant suspicion. In politics, the phrase is something like: “Trust, but verify.” I had a similar task around the cash register when one of the employees might linger too long over the open drawer. Eventually, when it was completely clear I had no aptitude as a salesman, my father was happy to have me handle the cash register and perform my surveillance duties from that vantage point.

Happily, I never personally witnessed a criminal act at the store. Either shoplifting did not occur as often as my father feared, or I was not nearly as good at watching as we both thought I was. Unfortunately, during the slow times of the year, when my father was alone at the store with just one salesman, for hours at a time, robberies did occur. Every several years, while I was growing up, my father would be robbed, sometimes at gunpoint, of the contents of the cash register.

We also had some middle-of-the-night calls from the police when the store was burgled. These were truly terrifying events, especially when I was old enough to drive my father down at two or three in the morning to turn off the ringing alarm and assess the extent of the burglary. We would be met by a policeman at the door; they were always confident that the crook(s) had left the scene, carrying whatever merchandise they were able to carry, but one never felt certain. It was creepy to be in a room, sometimes ransacked, usually beside a broken window, that was so recently violated. Each nook or cranny might harbor a lingering thug; each floor squeak or footstep activated more adrenaline.

My father’s defense against the threat of crime was decidedly low-tech. He owned a large pistol that someone had given him long before I was born. He did not believe in guns, however, and did not know how to shoot, or even load the gun. It remained hidden in a corner of his office at the rear of the store for as long as I was sentient. For all I know, the gun might have seen action in Bonnie & Clyde’s era. The concept of actually confronting a robber with the weapon was not even considered.

There were gates pulled in front of the store each night to dissuade the casual burglar. One could reach between the bars and break the front glass to grab whatever was in reach, but the potential haul was not worth the trouble and the minor risk of capture. It was easier to climb up a ladder in the alleyway beside the store and break into the storage rooms on the second floor. There, one could find piles of out-of-season merchandise that a down-on-his-luck criminal might be able to re-sell at a flea market. For instance, one nocturnal crook made off with nearly one hundred pairs of shorts, in January. We almost felt sorry for him.

The real threat was the broad daylight, armed robbery, with its possibility for confrontation and violence. The only physical deterrent to that was a video camera, circa 1935, that was squeezed between packages of underwear behind the cash register. We positioned the lens to be visible to a customer in front of the cash register. We thought there was a chance that an extremely ignorant crook might fear the antique was actually functional and recording on a constant basis. In retrospect, this is laughable. (In truth, we all knew the camera was useless and, actually, embarrassing, but no one would ever say so).

The only actual deterrent to crime was the possibility that police would walk in while a crime was in progress. To that end, my father was friendly and solicitous to the long-time cop on the beat, an amiable African-American named Officer Seals. I perceived him as a mountain of a man, a pillar of strength. He was built like the football lineman he once was, and he projected safety and fearlessness. In any event, Officer Seals was plied with donuts and coffee in the morning and soda in the afternoon. If he would come in around lunchtime, my father would offer to order him a sandwich; anything to keep him hanging around.

Like my father, I craved Officer Seals’ presence. He was cheerful in a place where sincere laughter was rare. He allowed for a welcome relaxation of vigilance. My father and the salesmen vied to talk to Officer Seals like high school boys competing for the attention of a cute girl. One time, in the mid-1960’s, when I was about ten, my father came home and glowingly explained how Officer Seals arrived as a sullen young customer turned nasty. Hearing the man’s tone, the policeman grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. “Don’t you ever talk to Mr. Sanders like that!” he is said to have yelled. He dragged the malefactor out the front door and literally kicked him in the ass, sending him on his way. For the next several years, this heroic deed was brought up every time Officer Seals appeared; my father wanted him to know his actions were appreciated.

Finally, in the waning days of the 1970’s, my father, now in his seventies, was planning to close the store. Officer Seals, too, was slowing down. His sculpted muscles now sagged. Still a mountain of a man, the metaphor now conveyed more softness than strength.

Instead of opening the store seven days a week from nine to six as he had done for over forty years, my father was now opening only five days a week, and closing before dark. The street was simply too forlorn; business was too slow. Often, only one employee was present, and if that man went to get coffee or was late, my father manned the store alone. It was during one of those moments that the worst-case scenario arose. A robber in a ski-mask, who may have watched the only employee depart, burst into the store. He brandished a gun at my father and demanded he be taken back to the safe my father had in the office. How he knew about the safe, we never knew. There, he pistol-whipped my father and made him, trembling, open the safe and hand over an envelope of cash and some jewelry. He grabbed my father’s ring off his finger, which included a diamond, and hit my father one more time to show he meant business.

“Don’t you call the police, old man,” he yelled, “or I’ll come back and kill you!” At that moment, Officer Seals arrived at the front of the store and realized what was happening.

“Freeze!” he shouted, as he crouched among the underwear, fumbling for his revolver.

The robber raised his gun and fired at the officer. His shot missed and he ran towards the exit. He fired again, shattering a display case. Officer Seals finally got ahold of his gun and fired three shots. One barely missed my father; one brought down plaster from the ceiling; and, the last one killed the “surveillance” camera that impotently observed the event. The robber disappeared.

After a few minutes, my father emerged from the office and stumbled over to Officer Seals, who was sitting on the floor, leaning against a stool. He appeared to be hyper-ventilating.

“Are you okay?” my father asked, holding a handkerchief to stop his own bleeding forehead while shaking the officer’s shoulder.

“Thirty years,” he said.

“What?” said my father.

“Thirty years,” he repeated. “Thirty years. I never shot my gun in thirty years.”

Officer Seals had to be helped up and given a tall glass of water. The policeman’s heroism was appreciated though his marksmanship and intestinal fortitude had been vastly overestimated. My father smelled a terrible odor and could not imagine what it was.

My father’s employee returned from his coffee break and called the police. A young pair, who looked like newly-minted Marines, arrived and took my father’s statement, all the while attending to Officer Seals. The robbery helped my father overcome his reluctance to finally close the store several months later. Officer Seals went on disability to calm his nerves before transferring to a desk job at the precinct to finish his career. My father sent him a gift package in appreciation and, for several years, they met periodically for lunch or coffee. They reminisced about the “good old days” when the street bustled with happy shoppers. They always came around to the final incident. As the years went by, the actual memory of the trauma became hazy, and all they could remember distinctly was their mutual survival.

“I was quite a gunslinger,” said Officer Seals.

“Yes, you were,” agreed my father.

Tags Crime, Gun Control or Protection, herosim

Categories Coming of Age, Gun Prtoection, Modern Society

IMPY’S LAST ADVENTURE

December 17, 2012 //

IMPY’S LAST ADVENTURE

When I was nine we had a cat named Impy. He was a formidable Maine Coon cat with a bushy tail trailing a sturdy, striped body. Impy lived up to his name, lording over the neighborhood like a lion and terrorizing birds and mice. Often, he stayed out all night. He must have had some tender moments at home; why else did we keep him? But all I recall of life with Impy was that my arms were crisscrossed with scratches.

One particularly cold evening, Impy ignored our calls and evaded our flashlight search. The temperatures dropped to the teens and still, he did not surrender his nocturnal patrol. The next morning, we were concerned but not quite worried. Impy, we were confident, was a sturdy and resourceful fellow.

“He’s probably curled up next to someone’s furnace vent,” said my mother.

“I bet he crawled into a squirrel’s nest,” I said.

“Yes, after he evicted the squirrels,” said my older brother, Barry.

We all laughed. The three of us agreed to walk around the house for a few minutes before breakfast to see if we could locate our mischievous pet. I went around the front of our own house while my mother and brother searched around the neighbors’. Almost immediately, I saw Impy sprawled in the front garden.

“He’s sleeping!” I yelled, delighted to have been the one to find him, like the winner of a scavenger hunt. I realized almost immediately, however, that Impy’s evident stiffness indicated a condition more permanent than sleep.

My mother and brother arrived to find me staring at the frozen corpse. I recall more horror than grief. Impy presented a problem that did not have an apparent solution.

“Should we try mouth-to-mouth?” asked Barry.

We looked at each other. No one moved forward. Eventually, we resolved to bury Impy where several previous pets were interred, behind the garage. It became immediately apparent, however, that the frozen ground was impossible to dig.

“I have an idea,” said Barry. “Burial at sea would be dignified.”

“Which sea did you have in mind?” asked my mother. “We’re hours from the ocean.”

“We could drop him off a bridge into a river,” said Barry. “That’d be almost the same thing.”

“Yes. We can wrap him in his blanket,” I suggested, thinking of a pad on which Impy sometimes slept.

“Good idea,” said my mother.

We gathered Impy’s body up into his blanket-cum-shroud and piled into the car. As the youngest and smallest member of this expedition, I sat in the backseat beside my pet’s stiff body. I recall feeling sad for Impy but also a sense of excitement about our mission. Life with Impy, after all, had been a mixed blessing. And there was something almost spiritual about his restless, impetuous body being at peace. Already, we were thinking about how our next pet might be better.

“It should be female,” said my mother.

Barry added: “Perhaps a dog or cat that will curl up in your lap or in front of the fire.”

I looked down at the back of my hands and sighed: “I won’t miss getting scratched.”

We were silent as we arrived at the Fairmount Park Bridge over the Schuylkill River. Barry carried the bundle to the middle of the span as my mother and I followed a step behind. We were a self-conscious triumvirate, summoning what felt like proper solemnity to the situation.

“This feels sort of Mayan,” I observed, thinking of rituals we had just talked about in school.

“I guess,” said Barry.

“Do you want to say something?” asked my mother, looking at me.

“I can’t really think of anything,” I said.

“Well,” said Barry, taking on a grave tone. “Impy, we hope that you are in a peaceful place, um, with lots of good food, um, and plenty of mice to catch.”

I looked up to make sure he was finished.

“Amen,” I said.

“Amen,” said my mother.

With that, after looking both ways to be sure no one was watching, Barry flung the deceased into the air. We all raced to the railing to watch the anticipated splash. To our horror, we realized that the river was completely frozen. Our search for dignity ended with a thud.

We were speechless for most of the ride home.

“It will melt, eventually,” Barry finally offered.

Tags Burial at Sea, Death of a Pet

Categories Cats, Coming of Age, Reflections

THANKSGIVING SHOPPING

December 11, 2012 //

THANKSGIVING SHOPPING

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and we were readying our house for guests. We unpacked and washed new dishes, put away the deck furniture, vacuumed the carpets and swept the floors. When we appeared to be nearing an end, I fatefully asked:

“Is there anything else we need?”

“Well,” said my wife. “Let me think.”

Since I was determined to be agreeable, I waited more patiently than usual. After all, there is a lot of togetherness in a four-day weekend, and it helps to start off positively.

“I’ll go to Shoprite,” I offered, naming the disfavored local store where I was confident I would be among the few, bedraggled customers.

“No,” she insisted. “We need flowers, and the good ones are at Harris Teeter.”

This change of plans was critical, since Harris Teeter is a local juggernaut and would resemble the Beach at Normandy on D-Day. Still, I did not complain, since that would have ruined the effect of offering to go in the first place. She wrote me a modest list of other needs, including: fruit, a birthday cake for our nephew, and a roaster bag.

“What’s a roaster bag?” I asked.

“It’s for the turkey,” she replied. “It makes it juicier and prevents the oven from being splattered. It’s really important. Make sure you don’t forget it.”

Duly charged, I drove to Harris Teeter. I noticed the streets were hectic. People were driving to and fro, on missions like my own, as though they were squirrels gathering acorns before the winter. I blew my horn twice in the parking lot to avoid accidents, as much as I had used it in the previous six months. Finally, relieved, I found an open space, parked, and retrieved an abandoned cart that was looking for a car to dent. I pushed it past a throng of employees taking a smoking break and entered.

The scene inside evoked a Dante-like nightmare. Carts pushed by crazed shoppers careened in all directions. Lines snaked from the check-out counters requiring a newly-arrived customer to perform like a football running back; I found an opening and squeezed through. I turned my attention to the list.

My first target, the flower section, was easy to locate but difficult to enter. Adjacent to the entrance, it was ringed, like the check-out lines, by a line of customers, all of whom were ordering custom-made arrangements. With the benefit of long arms, I was able to reach a pretty, pre-cut bouquet. With the flowers obtained, I moved confidently to the bakery section. I picked up a birthday cake and, as a reward for my efficiency, a still-warm donut sample that required immediate consumption.

Next, I navigated to the fruit section. At Shoprite, I am confident about selecting fruit. I am often the only customer and can take as long as I need. Plus, there is not much of a selection, so choosing is simplified. At Harris Teeter, however, on the day before Thanksgiving, it was necessary to lean over and around other customers just to reach the fruit. I was jostled at the grapefruits by a woman in a pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt who glared at me as though I were taking food off her dinner plate. She seemed determined to make me, a rare, male shopper, feel out-of-place and incompetent. She may have been correct in her assessment, but that did not make it right. Losing confidence, I despaired at distinguishing good apples from mealy ones. And how did one determine if the grapes are good if there were too many people around to allow for stealthy sampling?

I added the routine items to my cart like milk, juice, yogurt and bread by following the traditional nutrition-neutral shopping plan, namely: choose whatever is on sale. I dodged several head-on crashes in the cereal aisle and realized the list was down to one item, the “Holy Grail of Shopping,” the roaster bag.

It is common knowledge men are loath to ask for directions. Although a roaster bag could be a challenge, I deduced they would be in the vicinity of the aluminum and cooking products. If I could locate that aisle, I could rouse a roaster bag. Alas, I was in aisle three and cooking products were in aisle twenty-four, seemingly half-a-mile away. No problem, I was nearly finished. I arrived at the appointed aisle and began to look, up and down, left and right. Alas, no roaster bags. I looked around to make sure no one I knew was watching as I sought an employee’s assistance.

First, I found a teenager stacking merchandise and asked where I would find a roaster bag. He stared blankly and did not even feign comprehension. He gestured towards a female employee at the other end of the aisle. I wended towards a short woman pasting price tags onto cans.

“Do you know where I could find a roaster bag?” I asked.

“You want a toaster?” she asked, in a thick accent.

“No, a roaster bag,” I replied, enunciating as clearly as I could.

“Oh,” she said, “Do you mean a trash bag? Try aisle ten.”

I sensed this encounter was not going well. “Thanks,” I mumbled. I contemplated going home and telling my wife that Harris Teeter was out of roaster bags and choosing among lame explanations, such as: “They had a run on them,” or “I read that it is better to cook the turkey without a bag,” or “they don’t make them anymore.” I felt hopeless, when I looked up one last time and saw an acquaintance I knew slightly from the kids’ soccer. I vaguely recalled her name was Debbie. From the extent of her girth, I suspected she might be an accomplished cook. I greeted her like my dearest friend and then broached my dilemma.

“Of course they have roaster bags,” she said. “They are in the miscellaneous aisle. Follow me.”

It was as though Moses was leading me personally to the Promised Land. Debbie navigated expertly among the carts. Once amidst the miscellany, she scanned the peculiar offerings there, such as: sifters, cheese graters and spice racks, and, finally pointed to a section with several boxes labeled “roaster bags.”

“You’ll want this one,” she said, and handed me a blue box. I hadn’t even considered that there might be a choice of sizes and thicknesses. “It’s for a turkey,” she stated confidently.

Vastly relieved, I refrained from asking why roaster bags were not with their culinary cousins in aluminum and plastics. I refrained from questioning the system that would prevent a logical, amateur from locating a roaster bag without expert assistance. I declined the opportunity to consider the entire roaster bag industry. I thanked Debbie profusely, checked out, and returned home in triumph. When the turkey turned out to be the most succulent ever, I felt a thankful glow of satisfaction.

Tags roaster bags, shopping, Thanksgiving challenge

Categories Modern Society

UPSETTING THE EQUILIBRIUM

December 6, 2012 //

UPSETTING THE EQUILIBRIUM

The apartment below the girls’ had been empty since the semester began. Tina and LuAnn never gave it a second thought. They completed their school work, participated in the social rituals of college life, watched their shows and, in general, enjoyed each other’s company. Both girls were attractive, but in different ways. Tina was tall and thin and had a luminous smile. LuAnn was curvier, with curly hair and a mischievous twinkle in her expression. Each girl garnered plenty of male attention, and occasionally conferred “benefits” on mere friends, but neither had a steady boyfriend.

The lack of a constant male presence was probably what secured Tina and LuAnn as long-term roommates. This was their third year together. There was no issue of rivalry or loneliness as often arises among girlfriends when one pairs off. There was no issue of having a third person waking up regularly in the apartment. When someone did stay over, as soon as he left, Tina and LuAnn usually broke into giggles.

“College boys are such babies,” said one.

“We run circles around them,” said the other.

“I can’t wait until we’re in the working world and find some real men.”

“That’s for sure! Guys who make real money and drive nice cars.”

This situation prevailed until the day his presence was announced downstairs by the un-muffled sound of his pick-up truck. The girls raced to the window to see what was causing the commotion. Wafting cigarette smoke before him, a roughly handsome, highly tattooed, sandy-haired behemoth emerged from the cab holding a key to the downstairs apartment. He tossed an empty beer can into the back of the truck as a sort of exclamation point to his arrival. It clattered to a stop among several others. His gas station attendant/landscaper charm fascinated the college girls like cat-nip piques the interest of a tabby, though they would not admit it.

“Ewwww,” said Tina. “He’s disgusting.”

“What a loooooser,” said LuAnn.

Within a week or so, Tina needed some help with her bicycle pump. She wandered downstairs.
“His name’s Jack,” she reported upon her return, moments later. “He seems nice enough, but pretty dumb.”

“Really?” said LuAnn, feigning disinterest. “I thought he’d be ‘Spike’ or ‘Rocky’ or something.”

“Well,” said Tina. “He looks strong enough to lift a car, so his name is about right.”

The girls snickered at her joke. A few days later, when Tina was not home, LuAnn found herself in need of a ride to class. Jack helped out. Over the weekend, Tina purchased a new bikini and, while modeling it for LuAnn, found that she needed to walk down to her car to get something from the back seat. Later that same day, LuAnn decided that someone besides Tina should try out her brownies before she brought them to a party.

“Did you see what Jack’s wearing today?” LuAnn asked, upon her return, appalled.

“Sure did,” said Tina. “That tee shirt is four sizes too small. It must be from when he was in seventh grade.” She shook her head in disapproval, and added: “That’s probably the last grade he completed.”

The girls laughed aloud together, eying each other carefully.

The following week, Tina barged into the apartment, outraged. “His damned truck is taking up half of my space again!”

LuAnn glanced out the window. “There’s still plenty of room,” she said.

Ignoring her, Tina declared: “I’m going to go down and tell him off.”

LuAnn jumped to attention: “Don’t do that. He’ll get angry.”

Tina continued towards the door. Radiating concern, LuAnn changed tracks: “I’ll come with you.”

“That’s okay,” said, Tina, flying out the door and down the steps. She called out over her shoulder: “I’ll handle it myself.”

Tina was not back after fifteen minutes. After twenty minutes, LuAnn sent a text. There was no response. LuAnn paced back and forth. She strained to hear any sounds from below, but could not. After thirty minutes, LuAnn called. Still no answer. LuAnn was deeply concerned. She did not know what exactly she feared, but she convinced herself that it was necessary to rescue her roommate, her friend. She virtually ran out the door and down the steps. Emerging from the apartment at that moment, flushed with exertion, was Tina. Her hair was mussed, her clothing askew. She was smiling broadly.

“Are you okay?” asked LuAnn. “You didn’t answer your phone.”

“Oh,” said Tina, blushing. “My phone must be on vibrate. I didn’t hear a thing. Anyway,” she continued, “Jack and I are going to the beach.”

Behind her, Jack emerged, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He smiled shyly.

“You and Jack?” sputtered LuAnn.

“Yes,” said Tina, nonchalant. “Do you want to come?”

LuAnn sat stonily in the back seat of the truck while Jack and Tina snuggled up front. A flood of emotions coursed through her mind ranging from shock and humiliation to remorse and recrimination, and back again. To think, just the night before, she and Tina were speculating about their weddings and how they would be each other’s maid of honor. Now, she was deciding if she would tell Tina she was defriending her on Facebook or just let her find out herself.

Tags college roommates, social relations

Categories Coming of Age, Modern Society

GOING HOME

November 27, 2012 //

GOING HOME

Now ninety, she sits each day at the Alzheimer’s facility thinking of who knows what. It has been five years since she ran her car through a fence and then professed not to have known she was driving. Tests were conducted, and it was concluded that “compos mentis” no longer described her. The moldy food filling her refrigerator added further confirmation, if any were needed.

Nothing much changes at the facility from day-to-day. The patients, ninety percent female, are wheeled out to breakfast. Only a few walk themselves, and those usually have canes or walkers. After breakfast, the televisions cater to those who appear interested. Others slump and sleep in their seats in the common area. Most are wearing diapers beneath their clothes. Conversations are few since the patients are generally too befuddled to formulate a question or an answer. An eerie silence is pervasive, except for an occasional buzzing sound at the attendants’ station when any patient touches an exit door. The noise is activated by the electronic bracelets they wear to assure there is no escape.

The staff, composed entirely of Caribbean women, circulates in pastel scrubs adding a touch of the exotic to a scene otherwise dominated by shades of gray. Their lilting accents can sound charming, if you do not focus on the content, which often involves bed-pans or infections or even death. The workers do not appear emotionally invested in the decay that surrounds them; perhaps, it is necessary for their self-preservation that they remain uninvolved, largely oblivious. It is just their job.

In her day, and, in fact, up until she was in her late-seventies, she was an athlete. She played tennis and hiked. She loved music and art and gardening. She was politically involved, and there was a sparkle to her blue eyes. However, her broad range of enthusiastic interests was accompanied by a powerful self-centered narcissism that left friends and relatives confused about their feelings. Did they like her? Well, yes, she was so “energetic” and “positive.” In the end, most of her relationships ended in disillusionment and disengagement on the part of the acquaintances, as they realized, finally, that she truly only cared about herself.

The rare visits to the center by relatives or remaining friends provoke a similar confusion. There is a slow, inexorable decline in her functions, juxtaposed with identical surroundings where nothing seems to change except, occasionally, the cast of characters.

“Did she recognize you this time?” someone will ask.

“Yes, perhaps. It’s hard to tell. She asked how the family is.”

“They often cover that way, with general questions. Was she alert?”

“She hasn’t been alert for several years. But she still moves her arms. Her neck supports her head, sort of. She seems tired. But if she sees ice cream, she revives.”

“She still has an appetite?”

“Yes, for sweets.”

Doctors rarely enter the building, unless there is an emergency or Medicaid allows payment for a “mental visit.” But a slew of other service providers arrive each day to trim hair and nails, lead exercise, or sing folk songs, etc. There are church services on Sunday for those who are interested, and even those who do not know if they are interested. Instead of the television room, they are wheeled into a small chapel to hear a simple sermon after breakfast. It is ironic that she, an adamant atheist throughout adulthood, is usually among the audience.

Some of the patients have numerous visitors, particularly when they first arrive. Children come with grandchildren in tow, bringing gifts and food and flowers. With some exceptions, these visits slow over time as the families realize that their ministrations are not acknowledged or, worse, not comprehended. Alzheimer’s generally is not an acute disease. It works faster on some than on others, but its progress is, so far, unstoppable.

“Oh, I’m just on vacation,” she used to say, when she first arrived. “I’ll be getting back to my apartment any time now.” More recently, with a decreasing grasp on reality, she will say: “I’m just visiting a friend for lunch,” or “I wonder about some of the people here.”

Such pronouncements were greeted with humor in the beginning. They showed her fighting spirit. In time, they were less amusing as futility outweighed hopefulness. When she asked if she lived in California or Connecticut, it emphasized her lack of mental function. Instead of repeating these stories to show how positive she was, visitors regarded her confused questions as disturbing, as indications of how far she had fallen. After three years or so, she stopped asking about leaving. Optimism finally disappeared under the grinding tedium of a diminishing mind.

It was surprising, therefore, to receive a call last month from the social worker at the facility. It seems that, in what must have been regarded as a fit of enlightened humanism, New Jersey passed a law requiring that each patient be asked to reaffirm, annually, that they wish to remain at the facility.

“We asked her if she would like to go home,” said the caller, “and she said she would.”

“Do you think she is capable of going home?”

“No, I don’t,” said the social worker. “But we have to ask.”

“What do you want us to say?”

“As her guardians, you have to instruct us to keep her.”

“Okay. Please continue to keep her.”

“Thank you. We’ll check with you again next year.”

“Is this really necessary?”

“It’s the law,” was the reply.

So, she will remain at the facility for another year. Barring a miraculous cure or a merciful death, she will not be going home.

Tags Alzheimer's

Categories Alzheimer's, Modern Society

TAILGATING

November 19, 2012 //

TAILGATING

Certain parts of the American experience have eluded me. One such element was the “tailgate party.” Having attended a small college whose football team struggled against Quaker schools, and a graduate school that did not have a football team, I never attended a tailgate party. And, while much of my adult life was spent in northern New Jersey where the Jets and Giants are known to attract partiers to their parking lot, I was never tempted.

This hole in my resume of life was recently filled when my wife’s employer at North Carolina State University decided it would be a good idea if the Chinese students she helps to acculturate attended a tailgate event preceding a football game. Always marginally willing to experience something new, I volunteered to go along.

The day loomed sunny and hot, a final scorcher squeezed into the last week of summer. I thought I would help at home by offering the bit of football-fan knowledge I had, namely: one is supposed to dress in the color of the home team. In this case, that would be bright red. I looked in every closet and every bureau. I ran up and down the stairs. Unfortunately, other than a long-sleeved platform-tennis shirt and a souvenir Panama national soccer team jersey, my wardrobe is devoid of bright red. My wife also was unprepared in this regard because her employer, an independent affiliate of the University, directed its employees to wear company polo shirts; they are blue. Luckily, the shade of blue is not close to the “Carolina Blue” of the detested rival, the University of North Carolina. Still, blue is a long way from red. I opted for what I hoped would be an inconspicuous white shirt. After all, I thought, there could not possibly be absolute adherence to this custom.

I had several other pre-conceived notions. Naturally, the tailgate party would feature food. I anticipated this food would likely be served from coolers stored in people’s trunks. I surmised it would have been made at home or purchased from a fast-food place along the highway. I even predicted some celebrants would have some form of barbecue sandwiches, since barbecue is the much-ballyhooed local obsession. There would also certainly be beer, perhaps a six-pack for each car-load, maybe two.

Finally, as to my expectations, large sporting events engender traffic jams. However, since the game was not scheduled until six o’clock and the tailgate event was to start at two, I did not expect crowding to be an issue. After all, how many people would be at a tailgate party in the parking lot four hours before game-time, perhaps several hundred? I groused we were going too early. “What if the parking lot is not even open?” I asked.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

We exited the highway about a mile from the stadium and immediately fell into a massive traffic jam. Pick-up trucks festooned in red flags and banners predominated. As we crawled towards the stadium, the challenge of locating our group’s designated location, “Space 2675,” became apparent. Hordes of fans holding plastic cups walked back and forth across the six-lane highway, seemingly oblivious to traffic. Music blared from speakers set up along the road by fraternities and sororities vying for attention from unaffiliated freshmen, like politicians looking for the last undecided voters. Everyone was shouting or laughing or throwing footballs or playing corn-hole, a horseshoes-like game indigenous to North Carolina that involves the throwing of beanbags. Each entrance to a parking area was blocked by a barricade indicating what sort of permit one needed to enter. There were alumni parking lots, season-ticket-holder parking lots, booster parking lots and staff parking lots. There did not appear to be any “regular people” parking lots within hailing distance of the stadium.

After fifteen minutes of circling, we were spun out of the main stadium area like satellites shot into orbit and alighted upon an open area abutting railroad tracks that was attracting random attendees like ourselves. After parking amidst the weeds, we asked several students and security officials about the elusive “Space 2675” and received looks blanker than an empty canvas. We started to walk towards the now-distant stadium, all the while receiving text messages and phone calls from bewildered Chinese students who were also somewhere in the vicinity. My wife tried hard to convey confidence that we would all eventually arrive at Space 2675 a confidence that she did not actually feel.

First, we walked through a dusty, unpaved lot that was staked out by student-aged revelers. Since they were uniformly dressed in red, we felt conspicuously out-of-place, both old and discolored. Food was not a major element among these participants, but beer certainly was. There were no six-packs in evidence – more like six kegs in the back of each pick-up truck. The guys were mostly dressed in T-shirts and shorts; the girls all wore cowboy boots. “Are we in Wyoming?” I wondered. I am still seeking an explanation.

As we reached the next level of parking lots grass and dust gave way to loose gravel, and the population changed. Vehicles were not mere pick-up trucks but resembled military-grade assemblages. They had tires appropriate for the lunar module. Others could certainly have towed airplanes. We were now amidst the Greek community at ground level. Nineteen-year-old boys were wearing white buttoned-down shirts with red ties over plaid shorts and sailing shoes. They smoked cigars and held plastic cups with alcoholic concoctions beyond mere beer. Every twenty yards or so, another tent was set up to house a booming stereo system and bar. Girls draped themselves over the boys and tried to out-do each other with enthusiastic, attention-grabbing gusto. Whose legs were longer? Whose shorts were shorter?

We rushed to move beyond the cacophony but still took time for a photograph or two, just as one would if surrounded by amiably oblivious, wild animals on a safari. Finally, after at least a mile of walking, we scurried across a highway to where paved lots began. The population shifted again. Here were alumni and boosters, the highest order of tailgating civilization. The music was quieter, the imbibing more dignified, but the infrastructure was amazing. As we rounded a corner behind the stadium, there was a sea of red tents as far as the eye could see. There were hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand North Carolina State-branded tents. Each was surrounded by a circle of support vehicles.

Several of the tents held a mere card table and chairs with some fast-food boxes. However, the overwhelming majority harbored folding tables with red table cloths, over-stuffed lounge chairs, flower arrangements, and massive barbecues aflame. The smell of sizzling meat competed to overload one’s senses with the noise of stereos and the sheer blaze of red bunting.

We must have looked conspicuously clueless because a kindly lot attendant in a golf cart pulled up and asked if we needed help. Actually, what he said was: “D’ y’all know whe’ ya goin’?” We gratefully sputtered something about space 2675 and he told us to “hop on in.” We hopped. Our savior chatted the whole time he drove us. We understood very little of what he said due to his thick North Carolina accent and the wad of tobacco contained in his cheek, but we were so grateful for the ride that we nodded and smiled encouragingly at every opportunity. At last, he deposited us in a relatively quiet outpost in the far reaches of the lot. A tiny sign informed us that we had arrived at the 2600 area, where non-regulars can set up a tailgate. Several of my wife’s co-workers were already there, looking exhausted. They gaped enviously as we departed the cart and casually bade our chauffer good-bye, as though our good fortune had been arranged on Expedia.

The company tent was modest and only a few students were present when we arrived. But staff and students alike were busy with cell-phones directing a far-flung Chinese diaspora to our location. More arrived every few minutes, appearing as though they had just crossed a desert. Culture shock was combined with shell-shock and provoked the inevitable question of whether we could/should provide the students something stronger than soft drinks and water. The answer was “no.”

The company van contained coolers of soda and ice water and several interns unveiled the feast that doubtless made our tailgate unique among its surroundings and, possibly, the history of tailgating – dumplings. Students and several employees had spent the morning shaping, filling and boiling vast quantities of pork, chicken and beef dumplings. A sign was unfurled to advise our neighbors, who were already amazed at the sight of fifty or so Chinese students in their midst, that we had dumplings to spare. When several sidled over to sample our dumplings and share their spicy boiled peanuts (definitely an acquired taste), our tailgating experience was underway.

Categories Adult Education, Coming of Age, Modern Society, Sports

TRAVELOGUE, A COSMOS TOUR OF SPAIN

November 13, 2012 //

Dear Readers:

I have spent the last two-and-a-half weeks on a tour of Spain with my wife, Katie. At times, the trip was exciting and fun and, at other times, somewhat of an ordeal. The last time a traveler covered this much territory in Spain, Cervantes wrote an 800 page novel about it. Compared to his efforts, my explanations, experiences and observations are not profound, literary, meaningful or worthy of being translated into 120 languages. However, they do offer something that he lacks, namely: brevity.

Much of what appears below was shared with several readers by e-mail. That content is reprinted here, with some editing and additional content, with permission from the author. The process of obtaining permission was extremely simple.

PART ONE: October 31, 2012, “Hello Mutha, Hello Fatha, We Will Eventually, be in Granada”

Congratulations to those of you on the East Coast of the US for surviving Hurricane Sandy. We have followed

your travails on BBC World and I have to say that they show an impressive degree of concern for the old colonies.
We are hurtling through Spain at an alarming rate. Chevy Chase surely did a movie on this experience. My first observation is that one should buy more stock in Philip Morris. Doubtless related to the first observation is that cough drops and sinus medicines also sell well over here.
Our guide is a character. He uses the word “well” like a teenager uses “like,” as in: “Well, Barcelona is a city, well, that is what can you say, well, it is well, Barcelona.” He has also shared with us that Portugal is the longest standing nation in Europe and that Portugal is the greatest exploring nation in the world and Portugal has the best wine and Portugal has the most soulful people, etc. This may have something to do with, well, he is a proud Portuguese who somehow drew the Spain assignment this fortnight, and he is not that thrilled about it.

Nonetheless, we have seen a bit of Madrid on our own, and several days worth of Valencia and Barcelona, respectively, with the group. The group consists of 35 people from seven nations, including: England, Australia, Austria, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and the US. Several who now live in the US are derived from Iraq. Since these people, collectively and individually, certainly (when the memories have fully sunk in) warrant entire writings dedicated to them, I will focus here on the travelogue.

As to Valencia, to the extent I ever thought about it, I thought it was in Italy. But I was happy to find it in Spain with all its great oranges and fish. And what architecture! We enjoyed the stunning beauty of Valencia… A very livable sort of place and we enjoyed the hubbub of Barcelona with its Gaudi and parks and walking areas and shopping, etc. Basically, as one who would rather live in Philadelphia than New York, if I had to choose, it should not surprise that I preferred Valencia. But, well, this has been too small a sample to well, make a real, well, comparison. And to the credit of Barcelona, it is likely the only place a hotel could be in the shape of a large mushroom. Well. So you see, well, that the guide is very, well, imitatable and I must stop doing so if, well, I wish to remain married, and if I wish any of you to continue reading.

The highlight, so far, was a sunset boat ride around a fishing and rice-growing village outside Valencia. We were fed paella accompanied by ample portions of sangria. Note that wine is less expensive than water at most restaurants. We travel towards Pamplona tomorrow where I hope the bulls are on siesta. More reporting from the paella tour in a couple of days.

PART TWO: November 2, 2012 “Pamplona is a Lot of Bull”

From Valencia, we traveled first to Zaragosa, with its massive town plaza featuring a double header, both cathedral AND basilica. Zaragosa also has a central market (as does nearly every town) featuring fresh fruits, pastries, and seemingly hundreds of pig-related foodstuffs. Our favorite part of Zaragosa features their native son, the Goya Museum (paintings, not beans, for all you Goya fans). From there, we traveled to Pamplona, which is a three-trick town: bull running street, holy walk destination and Hemingway hangout. We drank wine where Ernest did (every establishment in town claims him as a customer) and we ate tapas, which is a Basque term that may mean: “strange food served strangely.” I did enjoy the bread and local olive oil. Did you know that the world’s leading grower of olives is not Greece or Italy, but Spain? Apparently, most of the gazillion acres of olive trees in Spain are owned by Italian companies. They harvest the olives in Spain and transport them to Italy for processing, and then declare them products of Italy.

We marched gamely around Pamplona in a chilling rain and made such sage conjectures as this: no two ways of flushing a toilet in a Spanish town are ever the same. There are chains, buttons, handles, knobs, wall-based levers, two-sided contraptions to allow for choice of … Well, enough of that.

From Pamplona, we traveled further north to San Sebastián, a snazzy place nestled in the Pyrenees. Yes, it was nice to see a prosperous -looking town, as the so called “economical crisis” has not hit there. The Basques, like the Catalans in Barcelona, speak their own dialect and wish to secede from Spain entirely, so that they can be free of what they consider an unfair tax burden. Basques also have, we are told, a very Germanic, NON-Spanish sort of efficiency. The city, on the coast of the Bay of Biscayne, is clean and bustling and in close proximity to the French ski resort of Biarritz. We visited two or three more cathedrals there and in a town called Burgos over the course of several days, and saw a tower for the Knights Templar (powerful back in 1207, or so) in a town unfortunately named Peniscola. I dovened appropriately in each chapel with whatever I could remember from my long ago bar mitzvah.
Onward then to Bilbao where we visited the Guggenheim and admired Frank Gehry’s architecture. Tourism in Bilbao has increased several thousand-fold since the mid-1990’s construction of the museum and it, too, is a prosperous place. We noted windmills and solar panels all along the highways; nearly all of northern Spain is powered by wind and solar and it was stunning to see. It is amazing/sad to see how much farther along this relatively impoverished country is than we are… But I am trying hard to avoid political issues these days.

PART THREE: November 2, 2012. “The Rain in Spain Falls, Basically, Everywhere”

We managed to solve the drought in Spain. This is not the same magnitude of accomplishment as bringing a week of rain to Phoenix or sleet to San Francisco, as we achieved on previous vacations, but it is still worthy of a simple basilica or two in our honor. Nonetheless, we continued the transition from palaces and cathedrals to palaces, cathedrals, basilicas and castles.

From Bilbao, we moved south to Salamanca, a university town. There we saw the “new” cathedral (16th century) and the old original (11th century). I imagine the building fund is about to rev up again. All lit up, the town was magical to see. However, if one did look up, the discharge from a gargoyle might drown one, since it was raining gatos and perros. We also saw the walled city of Avila (El Cid, a/k/a/ Charlton Heston) played a large role in killing Muslims there.

Each town has a Jewish Quarter, which the tour guide makes an astonishingly big deal about, considering that there have been no Jews practicing openly in Spain since about 1492. He is under the impression that everyone got along swimmingly back in 1320 or so, but I remain skeptical. No one ever loved the tax collector and that was often the only job made available by the local royalty. In any event, the Jewish quarter now implies tiny shops in tiny streets with many souvenirs.

Last evening, we alighted upon Seville, a major metropolis. Dinner on our own was successful at a seafood restaurant. Ham is otherwise a constant at every meal. Katie’s suitcase is taking its own vacation, having been loaded onto the wrong bus at Salamanca, so we also had some shopping to do. We are told it will catch up to us later today or tomorrow. So far, she is coping admirably (and buying necessities on the tour company’s Euro) but if it does not show up by tomorrow, the sleepy province of Andalucia may see her inner-New Jersey.

We visited a major-league cathedral this morning, biggest in the world, and a palace constructed in commemoration of the Seville exposition of 1929. Tile was in style, at least for a while. The Jewish quarter is a massive shopping area where, potentially, I should open up a stand and sign autographs. We are happy to be missing the final throes of the US election. The 2016 race will not begin until about February, I imagine, during which time we may be writing from our new home in Panama.

PART FOUR: November 9, 2012

Perhaps some of our prayers in all these cathedrals were answered. America may yet go off the “fiscal cliff,” but at least it is not yet ready to go off the intolerance cliff. For what it is worth, (and it may not be worth one iota) nearly every non-American was delighted with the election result. It is nice not to feel a need to answer “Canada” as our home country, as we occasionally did when we traveled back in the Bush years.

Since the last installment, we have finished our stay in Seville and visited Granada and Cordoba, as well as various truck stops along the way that do not make the guide books. We have seen several towns where the Man of La Mancha failed to actually exist. We have also gotten lost in more Jewish quarters than they have in Israel. “A business with no street signs,” to quote what my father would surely have said. In the south of Spain, one adds mosques to the triumvirate of cathedrals, castles, palaces and gift shops. (I realize that is a quartet; just making sure you are reading carefully).

Our tour guide created some unusual expectations on our ride to Grenada when he assured us over and over that, well, we would discover there “the porpoise of life.” This made me wonder if there was an aquarium. By this stage of the trip, some of our fellow-travelers were audibly mocking him when he spoke. We actually cringed when we heard him activate the microphone. But, well, I digress…
The mosques initially left us underwhelmed. Even the Alhambra, an official wonder of the world, was a little dour. Pouring rain did not help, along with loud, polyglot crowds. Also, Grenada was somewhat grimy, its walls defaced with nasty-looking graffiti. There were clusters of swarthy young men in leather jackets hanging around the street corners, indicative of the sour state of the economy in southern Spain. Fortunately, lest my slightly skeptical view of Arab culture be confirmed, we ended our main travels at the Mezquite Cathedral in Cordoba. Along with the fact that the town of Cordoba is prettier and cleaner than Grenada, and the obligatory Jewish quarter is well-marked and interesting, the combo mosque/cathedral is stunning! Really, the architectural highlight of the trip. It seems that the Christians let the Muslims do much of the heavy lifting (literally) back in the eleventh century and then took over in the thirteenth century to complete an amazing cathedral over the top of a flamboyantly elaborate mosque foundation. While we saw some SERIOUSLY impressive edifices on this trip, this one topped them all. A tour has advantages and disadvantages, but I must admit that if we were not part of a tour, by this stage of the trip, I might not have visited “one more cathedral.” And that would have been unfortunate.

We broke up the so-so tour group meals in Cordoba by going out for Chinese food. The whole kitchen staff came out to stare at Katie, a Mandarin-speaking gringo. Random observation: Spain utilizes the same wealth redistribution strategy as most American states– from the lower class back to the government– via the lottery. There are kiosks on every other street that are humming with business from a deluded population, no matter how downcast the other businesses appear to be.

PART FIVE: November 11. The End of the Road

After two weeks of plying the highways and byways of Spain, it was nice to see our old, original hotel, however humble, back in Madrid. The tour ended today and some brain cells are coming available again as I delete the precariously remembered names (though not the peculiarities) of my fellow-travelers. Observation, after two weeks of travel: You know you have relied too much on BBC World when you know the daily average temperature in Rangoon and the name of the opposition party in Upper Mongolia.

We had two more days in Madrid, on our own. The highlight of the first day was the Thyssen Museum. We chose it over the Prado for its emphasis on modern art instead of the old religious stuff. Very nice museum.

The next day, our last, we walked the most, from the Plaza Mayor, to downtown, to the Prado where we listened to a wonderful classical guitar performer, to the huge Retiro Gardens, and back to the Plaza again from whence we returned to the hotel. The highlights were several serendipitous occurrences in the Gardens, which are like Central Park. There was an a capella choir practicing, a huge outdoor photography exhibit on wildlife with English explanations (not always present in museums/cites outside major cities). We saw the “silver palace,” a destination in the middle of the park, that is neither a palace nor silver. It is best-described as a huge glass greenhouse decorated with tiles around its foundation. Anyway, it has particularly beautiful flowers around it and a duck pond that is a favorite photograph destination for brides and tourists. Perhaps, park strollers are a self-selected healthier population, but it struck us that 90% of the Spanish population was NOT smoking there, a much better ratio than usual.

On the way back to our hotel, we had an experience that certainly will not happen in Chapel Hill, NC. We found ourselves overtaken by a demonstration in favor of independence for Western Sahara. It seems that Spain held it as a colony and then abandoned it in the 1990’s in the face of terrorist bombings. Instead of setting up an independent nation, Spain simply walked out, allowing neighboring Morocco to annex it. So… to make a VERY long story short, the Western Saharan emigrants (I’d like to have the deodorant concession) and friends of the cause are demonstrating for independence from Morocco in Spain, since, presumably, the Spanish government is less likely to shoot and imprison them. Got it? The 1,000 or so demonstrators were dressed in outfits typical of the Western Sahara, I presume. It was more a party atmosphere than an angry one, with drums and horns and ululating women (that has nothing to do with sex, I think). It was not scary, but it was chaotic and memorable; our faces are now probably somewhere in a security database in Casablanca. We’re the ones without facial hair (that goes for male and female participants).

What else can I say? We had one more so-so meal in what we began to think of as “our neighborhood,” and went back to our room to pack. We are ready for our comparatively dull existences again. We never thought we would CRAVE oatmeal, or ANY meal without twelve varieties of sausage, but we do.

Hasta la vista, Your Correspondent

Tags Human Nature, Travel, vacation

Categories Cosmos Tours, Spain travel

ROOMMATE ISSUES

October 23, 2012 //

ROOMMATE ISSUES

My situation shows why a kid can’t count on a college to pick his roommate for him. I should’ve answered that survey they sent, like my mother said. I can’t admit that to her, though. She’ll never let me forget it.

So I get to school the first day and I’m all psyched and ready to go. I’m gonna have a lot of fun and all that. Who do I find in my room, already reading a friggin’ chemistry book? None other than Nathan, a Chinese guy. I thought he was someone’s dad or something, what with his glasses and comb over. He looks like he’s forty-five! But no, he’s a “visiting student,” or some such thing. If he does good enough in English this year, he’ll get to stay for all four years and graduate. Hell, he’ll probably finish before I do.

Nathan’s not even his real name. It’s something no one can pronounce. His advisor decided “Nathan” would be easier to use in college. I think they could have come up with something better than “Nathan.”

That first hour or two, he just keeps smiling at me and offering to carry stuff. I say “no thanks” about ten times, but he keeps insisting. So I let him carry a few boxes though he’s not really up to it, if you know what I mean. I still have to take all the heavy ones.

Some guys from down the hall pop in. They have their weed and pipes out and are rarin’ to go. Jeez, the last parent only left the floor about ten minutes before! Anyway, I left my stash at home, safe and sound in the crawlspace where my mother will never find it. Who knows what she did back in college, but I didn’t want to take any chances packing it.

So I say to these guys: “I’ll join you tomorrow, but I gotta get downtown and load up on some stuff,” and they’re like: “Okay, dude, come on over when you’re cool.” Then they ask Nathan if he’s up for a little toke. Heh! The friggin’ guy doesn’t even know what they’re talkin’ about. They look at me and just start cracking up. I don’t like getting laughed at, y’know, but anyway, they kind of seem like jerks. Nathan just looks confused. I sorta feel bad for him, but also for me.

Nathan’s real quiet the rest of the afternoon. He gets back to his book while I unpack. He sorta follows me over to the cafeteria for dinner and sits at my table. It’s a little like having a pet, I guess. He just smiles at me and waits, and hardly ever says anything. I’m thinkin’, “How’s he gonna get any good at English if he never talks?” So I ask him some questions, like: “What teams does he root for?” and “Who’s his favorite band?”

He nails the first one – the Houston Rockets – ‘cause they had Yao Ming. But he doesn’t even know what I mean by “band.” I have to play friggin’ charades in front of a bunch of kids at the cafeteria making like I’m hittin’ a drum and strummin’ a guitar. They probably think I’m nuts. Anyway, there must not be much music over there ‘cause Nathan can’t name a group. After a long pause, he says: “Bwitney Spear’?”

I can’t keep myself from laughing, but I think he’s serious.

So we get back to the dorm, and I’m looking around for something to do. Everyone’s like hanging out in the lounge and getting to meet each other and Nathan just seems to want to say “hi” to that chemistry book again.

“Nathan,” I say. “What’s so good about that book?”

“I really want to know organic chemistry,” he says.

I guess he’s into growing vegetables or something. I tell him I’m going out and ask if he wants to come, but he just blinks at me from behind those glasses. Then he says, believe it or not, that he’s tired and will go to sleep soon.

“Nathan,” I say. “It’s your first night at college. You can’t go to sleep at ten o’clock.”

“Yes, very sleepy,” he says. “Long flight.”

I’m like, “Okay, dude.” So I leave. But I don’t feel good about it and the whole time I’m at the lounge, and the R.A.’s introducing everybody and the girls and guys are checking everybody out, I’m like thinking about Nathan alone in the room. It’s like I’m becoming a damned parent or something.

After an hour, I decide there’s really no one great to hook-up with so I go back to the room. And Nathan’s in pajamas. I haven’t seen a guy wearing pajamas like that since I was ten. Anyway, he’s putting away his clothes into his dresser, and he’s writing something with a marker on his socks. So I ask him about it: “Nathan. What’s with the socks?”

“Oh,” he says. “Each day, I use different pair so they will always be even.”

“Hunh?” I say.

“Yes,” says Nathan. “Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, and so on.”

“It’s Wednesday Thursday.”

“What?”

“Wednesday is before Thursday, not Thursday before Wednesday.”

“Oh, yes, thank you very much,” says Nathan. “You help my English so much.”

That was the happiest I’d seen him, organizing his friggin’ socks so he knows which pair to wear each day. How did this happen to me?

So I’m in my bed and it’s dark and Nathan’s asleep in his bed on the other side of the room. And I’m thinkin’ about how this is my first day of college and, so far, it’s been no fun. And what am I going to do about this roommate situation? Can I change rooms or something? And, all quiet like, Nathan whispers across to me:

“Are you awake?’

So I say “Yes.”

He says: “Thank you for being so nice to me.”

And then I feel bad again ‘cause I was just lying there thinking about how I want to get out of there.

“Ah, no problem,” I whisper back. And I’m thinking to myself: “Yeah, no problem for you, man. But I got a big problem.” Finally, I must have fallen asleep ‘cause next thing I know I’m waking up. And where’s Nathan? He’s already sitting at his desk reading. It looks like he’s been at it for hours. He tells me he is sorry if he woke me up.

Tags college roommates, visiting students

Categories Coming of Age, stereotyping