I study Spanish to keep my brain young

I’ve been studying Spanish for two hours a day for the last ten days. I heard that it’s important to exercise your brain as you age, so I figured I should either do math or learn Spanish, and Spanish seemed the more practical.

Spanish has a lot of charming words like la falda (skirt) and funny words like el excusado (toilet), and it seems logically constructed compared to English, which is more like a house that was added onto by each of its twenty owners, none of whom had any talent for carpentry or design. This isn’t to say that I don’t love English. I adore English, but that’s because it’s my language and the language of my cultural forbearers. On the other hand, if I were a Spanish speaker who was trying to learn English, I would be pulling my hair out. The only thing that bothers me much about Spanish is that every noun in the whole language is either a boy noun or a girl noun. Who thought that up? The wall (la pared) is feminine, but the floor (el piso) and the ceiling (el cielo raso) are masculine. Go figure.

My first peace rally

I just came from a neighborhood candlelight peace vigil. We were two men, four women, two kids, and a dog—a peaceful dog, unlike my dogs, which I left at home. We stood in the middle of 17th and Van Buren; lit candles; sang a song; ate cookies; watched two nutria amble by; and were kept on our toes by four passing cars. I went mostly to please the woman who invited me. I had only met her once before (ten years ago), and found her to be true to her reputation as aggressive, argumentative, and all around obnoxious. Still, she lives but a block away, so when she interrupted my work to invite me to attend an event that she was hosting, I saw a chance to mend our relationship. I doubt that the event contributed anything to world peace, but maybe it helped on a smaller scale.

I daresay that I was the only person at the peace rally tonight who would want to do other than help society’s enemies, and this is one of the reasons that I rarely attend peace rallies. In fact, I don’t recall having ever attended a peace rally. Six adults, two kids, and a dog…guess I started out small enough. I suggested that we start a riot, but peaceful people are more, well, peaceful than they are amused by my offbeat humor. Of course, I am more prone to making sweeping generalizations than I am to peacefulness, so I guess we’re even.

Phil is dying, optimist versus pessimist

My friend, Phil Conners, has cancer. His bones are breaking; his body is no longer producing blood; he is struggling to breathe; and he has run out of treatment possibilities. He is handling all of this surprisingly well. When your every other option has been taken away, you can still inspire people by the way you die.

Since I met Phil in 1992, his house burned to the ground, he lost an eye, his son drowned while trying to rescue a stranger, his wife had cancer, and he himself has fought cancer for years; yet I have never seen anything get him down. When I ask him how he is, he says, “Well, I’m breathing, and I can still walk for short distances, so I guess I’m doing pretty good.” I would need a lot more than that to pronounce life good, but I see no reason to rain on Phil’s parade.

I would like to think that Phil’s bravery is a choice, but I suspect that there are those among us who are congenitally upbeat. It’s as if they have a net beneath them that softens their every fall, no matter how far the drop. That stated, I can’t say that I too wouldn’t face death well. I haven’t faced an arthritic knee well (it being the worst thing that has ever happened to me), but I see no reason to conclude that despondency over a relatively small thing would necessarily indicate despondency over any and all great things. Just as an ordinary toothache might hurt worse than a fatal stroke, so might people’s emotional reactions vary.

At least if I were dying, I would know that the indignity of using the toilet was near an end. At least, there would be that advantage, whereas I can’t think of any advantage to an arthritic knee. The damn thing hurts so bad right now that I can hardly sit still. It keeps me awake at night; it threatens to collapse during the day; it has robbed me of the ability to engage in the activities I enjoyed most; and there is no good solution. There might be something that I could learn from it, but I don’t know what.

Peggy went skiing last week with a couple of fellows named Rick and Doug, who got into an argument on the drive to the mountains. Rick said that he is, and always has been, prone to depression, but that he has learned that there is a benefit to his depression; namely, that he has more philosophical and emotional depth than people who are inveterate optimists. Doug being an inveterate optimist, an argument ensued that got so nasty that the other people in the car ducked down and stayed quiet.

Most traits probably do have their upsides and their downsides, and these aren’t always obvious or even discoverable. Of course, I pretty much have to think this way, because if I were to judge my worth as a human being by the way I am handling this knee issue, I would come out looking bad; just as Phil Conners would come out looking bad if he were judged by how clean he keeps his house.

Okay, so maybe dying well is more important than keeping your furniture dusted, but then again, maybe it isn’t. Maybe all that God really cares about is cleanliness (it being next to Godliness), which would mean that Phil is doomed to burn in hell and me to have a front-row seat in heaven (where I would probably be put to work polishing something). Which one of us would be more content with our fate is another issue.

The tux search continues

I went to my Masonic lodge last night prepared for my first night in the junior deacon’s chair. As we were donning our aprons, the master told me that lodge would be conducted in the Entered Apprentice degree instead of the Master Masons’ degree, the latter being the usual degree and the part I had memorized. I protested his failure to tell me sooner, but there was nothing for it but to say the lines that the degrees have in common and wing the rest (either that or run from the building). I served as best I could, and felt that I conducted myself well.

I find beauty and comfort in the precision and predictability of a well-conducted Masonic lodge. It is like a formal garden in which every walkway is swept and every flower is in bloom, the difference being that Masonry changes but little and slowly. If I could travel back in time and emerge in the earliest Eugene lodge at the time of its inception in 1850, the primary differences would be the antique clothing and the absence of electricity. If I were to go back even earlier and attend lodge with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, I would still recognize the essentials and most of the superfluities.

After lodge, the senior deacon renewed his determination to find me a tuxedo. To this end, he engaged the help of another. They looked me up and down while debating what size I needed. I suggested a 42, but they agreed between themselves on a 40, and I saw no point in arguing over something that I was only 99.9% sure of. While they searched, I stood behind them, hoping fervently that nothing would be found. And nothing was found, at least nothing that was not moth-eaten, white, powder blue, or velvet. Just when I thought the danger was past, they decided to seek the assistance of the Scottish Rite. 750 of its 1,000 members have died over the last few decades, so this leaves a potential warehouse of tuxedos.

It might seem ironic that I am as determined to know my part well as I am to avoid wearing a tux while performing it. My reason is that the former reflects upon my resolve and my intelligence, while the latter is a matter of taste. I accepted the post only after being assured by the master that I would not have to dress for it. Last night, I wore a sports coat without a tie. No one complained, although I take this determination to find me a tuxedo to be a tacit complaint.

Two Years Before the Mast, thoughts on hardship

I am reading Two Years Before the Mast, an account of life aboard a U.S. merchantman in the 1830s. The author was nineteen when he left Harvard and shipped out, and the book was published when he was twenty-five. If I were to cite only the most memorable passages from the fifty pages I have read, I would need ten pages. I could not have approached such poetic insight or descriptive powers when I was so young, and I seriously question whether I could do so now. I might, after all, mistake my talent for writing just as I mistake my talent for singing, for my every note is as soothing from within as it is grating from without. Some people have even doubted that I am capable of forming a note—or at least more than one of them.

On Monday, November 19, 1834, a young Englishman on Dana’s ship fell from the rigging into the sea. He was so weighed down by ropes and tools that he never surfaced.

“Death is at all times solemn, but never so much as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and ‘the mourners go about in the streets;’ but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness to the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which gives to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore—you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event. There is always something that helps you to realize it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed…but at sea the man is near you—at your side—you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then too, at sea, to use a homely but expressive phrase—you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and, for months and months, see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is suddenly taken from among them, and they miss him at every turn…. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit has made them seem almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss.

“All these things make a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time…. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful, and the crew goes more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned…”

How much more beautifully poignant is this description of grief because of the last sentence. I suppose it is true at all times and in all places that there is much that men do not share with other men.

“Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of everything at sea; and if you were to fall from aloft and be caught in the belly of a sail, and thus saved from instant death, it would not do to look at all disturbed…”

Yet, I cannot say that there is no good in this prohibition. I have read many accounts of men who were trapped on mountains or in Polar Regions, and I have learned from them that the Stoicism, if not the outright cheerfulness, of some made the survival of others possible. Indeed, Earnest Shackleton’s men were so elevated by his bravery that they reported having been ashamed to voice their own discontent during the long months of cold, hunger, and mortal danger. Yet, how often have men like Shackleton survived unimaginable hardships with a cheerful countenance only to become despondent when those hardships were past. The ability to flourish in times of peril does not insure the ability to so much as exist on ordinary days.

When I consider my own state, I cannot see that I have a genius for either times that are good or times that are bad. While it is true that I have never been tested by the worst that man or nature offers, it is also true that I have never sought to be tested. The men who I read about went looking for the worst time after time. I’ve read of men whose fingers and toes were lost to frostbite, yet still climbed mountains. I do not know what to make of them, and so I continue to read. Especially when the long months of winter are upon me, and I can barely muster the will to get out of bed each day, I seek the literary companionship of those who were determined to keep going no matter what.

Books entitled Angels in the Wilderness, In the Land of White Death, and Ice, helped me survive December. Now that the daffodils are tall, the willows are swollen with buds, and each day is longer than its predecessor; I know I will last until better times. I am tempted to say that a forlorn day in summer is more agreeable than a happy day in winter, but this would make no sense, so I will not say it.

In her regard for the seasons, as in many things, Peggy is my opposite. The only good she can say about sunshine is that it makes the snow to sparkle most agreeably.

Questions of respect, of morality

I watched Saddam’s hanging, both the authorized photos and the secret taping. Peggy speculated that he died bravely because he lacked normal human feelings. Perhaps. Perhaps the presence of cameras helped too.

Would George Bush have died as well? Would I? Hang me outdoors on a warm sunny afternoon, and maybe. But in winter, before dawn, in a room that was cold and gray, surrounded by people who tormented me.... Peggy said she wouldn’t want to see the tape because she wouldn’t want it to get stuck in her head. I am glad to have it stuck in my head because it was a powerful—and even an inspirational—moment.

There was nothing in his life that so became him as the leaving of it. -Shakespeare

His last words were, “You go to hell.” They weren’t good last words, but defiance surely beats cowardice. Peggy thinks that terror would have been a more appropriate response. Maybe it’s a gender thing, but, despite the understandability of fear, who wouldn’t prefer solace, and what better solace than courage? Even if Peggy didn’t think less of me because I died trembling, she think better of me if I died with dignity.

If Peggy is right about Saddam’s lack of normal human feeling making his death easier, what does this say about the desirability of normal human feelings? And what does it say about good men like Nathan Hale who died bravely, or other bad men—like Ted Bundy—who died as cowards? I could not look at Saddam Hussein standing tall and proud in the midst of his masked haranguers and not feel respect. It is a grudging respect to be sure, but even the devil deserves his due.

Another difference of opinion arose between Peggy and me this morning. We were talking about our little dog, Wendy, when Peggy said she would give $100,000 to bring Wendy back to life. I never thought that Peggy loved Wendy more than I, but I would not give $100,000 to bring Wendy or anyone else back. So what then, would I give $10,000? Yes, but I hate to be forced to admit that I only value the life of a beloved dog—or a beloved friend—to the tune of a certain number of dollars. Besides, the issue is more complex than that.

For example, I might not pay a large sum to bring Wendy back, but neither would I have accepted any amount of money to end her life prematurely—except for humanitarian reasons—even if she hadn’t been my dog. There seems to be a paradox here. While I make little effort to rescue ailing and destitute dogs, I would not choose to profit from their deaths. But how might I defend this position? After all, I could use the money to help many other dogs. This leads me to wonder whether I care more about dogs or more about my self-image. It is the kind of dilemma that would never torment Peggy, because the right way would be obvious to her, and she would follow it regardless.

Of course, the proper use of such money as we already have is not an issue that concerns just me. Almost every dollar that either of us spends is a dollar that could have been used for what we would acknowledge to be a higher end. Instead of a new computer, we could have fed hungry children. What does this about our values?

I shudder to think, so I won’t think. I will go to the bank and deposit a $506 check that just arrived from the woman who bought my father’s house.... I like having money because money makes me feel safer than most of the other things that make me feel safe, and the truth is that I value my safety—and even my comfort--more than I value the lives of destitute children. Their numbers are unending, but there is just one me.

....The rain started back as I was leaving for the bank, so I didn’t go.

Peggy and I don’t talk about deep things much because they make her eyes glaze over. I consider it another paradox that she is more ethical than I, but that her values don’t arise from reflection. This used to frustrate me no end until I went through a string of lovers who could talk about deep things all day long, and still go out and act badly. This made me appreciate Peggy more. Now that Gerald Ford just died, I think of her as a little like him. She might not be razor sharp in some ways (although she is smarter than I in others), but if you’re looking for someone of unquestioned integrity, she’s your woman. When Ford replaced Nixon, someone asked him if he had considered creating a list of ethical guidelines so his staff wouldn’t get themselves into a Watergate-like fiasco. He replied that his own behavior would serve as their guideline. Like Ford, Peggy would consider it redundant to enumerate such standards.

An observer might suggest that, in many cases, my own depth appears to be a prelude to rationalization, but I would argue that, even though this is sometimes true, only one who cared about ethics would bother to rationalize. I would also argue against the possible implication that people who don’t think much about what their behavior means are more likely to behave well. Right and wrong are not always so obvious. If they were, life would be easier. Even in my own head, I often find myself in dilemmas in which my ambivalence is such that I feel screwed no matter which way I go. Some problems don’t admit of outcomes that are fair to everyone.

Dead climber

They found one of the Hood climbers yesterday. He was dead. The young wife of one of the other men said it was impossible that her husband would die because he had promised to be home for Christmas, and because God wouldn’t allow it. I feel deeply for that woman because she has a lot of sad things to learn about life, and a celebratory season is an especially bad time to start learning them. I suspect that, for as long as she lives, joyful bells will never again chime in her heart at Christmas.

Party greed

I went to the Eugene Mineral Club Christmas party today. Someone on the board must like Chinese food because the party is held at the same Chinese restaurant each year. I’ve been to several seasonal celebrations lately, so I would have sat this one out except that my term as membership officer is up, and I was eager to turn my files over to the new guy.

This was my first time at a gift exchange where people whose names were drawn could either open a gift or take away someone else’s gift. If you did the latter, the person whose gift you took could either open a gift or take away yet another person’s gift (but not the one you took from them). Many of the gifts were handmade jewelry and lapidary that took hours to create. Some people really didn’t want to surrender such gifts to the person who wanted to take them, and the resultant tension was painful to watch. Everyone wanted to pass themselves off as good sports, yet several people palpably wanted to say, “Go to hell. I’m keeping my goddamn gift.”

A few gifts truly were white elephant gifts (which is what we had been told to bring). There were ugly coffee mugs, a hideous candleholder, an enormous—and used—cast iron Christmas tree stand that someone must have brought to the party to save themselves a trip to Good Will. People who got these gifts looked as if they were praying that someone would take them away, but they were, of course, stuck. I didn’t bring anything, so I refused to take anything.

What I did do was to become very depressed. Here were people, many of whom were up in years, desperate to hang onto trinkets that would soon be ripped from their hands by death even if someone else didn’t take them. The ugliness of greed and the imminence of destruction overwhelmed me. I felt as if we had come together to whistle in the face of doom. All of life seemed hollow, and mass suicide struck me as a more appropriate response to the human condition than Chinese food and a gift exchange. Life is either too serious to take lightly, or too insignificant to take seriously; and I can’t decide which. I just know that neither is any good.

The DAC

I’ve been working out at the Downtown Athletic Club this week on a free pass. The DAC is a rich man’s club, and I had misgivings about going there. I was raised very strongly to believe that, on the one hand, there were rich people and, on the other hand, there was everyone else; and that what was on the first hand was better. My parents taught me this without beating around the bush about it, but I also got it at school where everyone—teachers included—deferred to the rich kids.

I thought about this when I got that free pass, and I worried that I would stand out poorly (I guess that was almost a pun). But one truth was that I had used up my free pass to the poor man’s gym (Oakway), and another truth was that I quite enjoy Jacuzzis, saunas, steam rooms, and swimming pools; especially when they’re free.

My father—and probably my mother—would not have known what a sauna or a Jacuzzi was. They might have heard the words at some point, but the words would have meant nothing to them. I even get them mixed up a little because some people call a Jacuzzi a spa or else a hot tub. I’ve settled on calling it a Jacuzzi, so I won’t have to think about which word to use.

I was quite curious what the DAC would be like, i.e. what does the rich man’s gym have that the poor man’s gym lacks. Well, it has a lot, so much in fact that it would take me a while to list it all. Their website (www.downtownac.com) lists a lot of it, but doesn’t really do the place justice. Mostly, I was curious about how I would get on with all the rich people since I haven’t known a lot of rich people and haven’t liked the ones I did know. My father’s boss was rich, and I hated that man because he was a deacon at the First Baptist Church, but he didn’t extend his Christian principals to his employees. Like a lot of Southern Baptists, he considered tithing as a ticket to heaven that excused greed in other areas. But the worst rich people I’ve known were the ones who inherited their money because they grew up thinking they were entitled to it, and that having it made them better than everyone else.

You might say I went to the DAC with a bad attitude, but I also went with a curious attitude. Right off, I learned a lot that I didn’t know about rich people. Some of it I would have known had I thought about it, but I actually spend almost no time thinking about rich people. To begin with, rich men and poor men look remarkably alike when they’re naked. Rich or poor, the young ones look like gods, and the old ones look like dried figs.

Upon making this observation, I started trying to think of a way to tell naked rich people from naked poor people, and I thought that maybe I could do it by listening to what they talked about. What I discovered is that the people at the DAC aren’t as friendly as the people at Oakway, so they don’t talk as much. I can’t say for sure that this is true of all of them, but I can say that it is generally true. Yet, some of them do talk, and I do listen. So far, they’ve mostly kvetched. For example, a couple of them were bummed about hearing cell phones going off in the locker room; and others complained about how slick the drive is from the South Hills, the part of town where the rich people live. I agreed with them about the cell phones, but I thought the other was an odd complaint because the streets coming out of the South Hills are at a thirty degree angle, and that part of town gets a lot of ice—things they would have known when they moved there.

The first person who I spoke to at the DAC who didn’t work there was Peter DeFazio. I didn’t know at first that he was Peter DeFazio because he was looking the other way. What happened was that my woman tour guide had told me that there was a way to get from the men’s locker room to the pool without having to go through the main hallway. She couldn’t very well take me into the men’s locker room to show me where the door was, so once I changed into my swimsuit, I started looking for it. The locker room is huge, and I walked around it twice without finding the door, so I asked this fellow who was getting dressed to point me in the direction of the pool. He turned around, and damned if it wasn’t United States Congressman, Peter DeFazio.

DeFazio campaigns on being a man of the people. He refuses pay raises, dresses ordinary, and drives a 1963 Dodge Dart. As soon as I saw him in the DAC, I felt like I’d been had. Like maybe the Dodge is just a prop, and maybe he turns down pay raises because he’s so stinking rich that the extra money wouldn’t mean anything. I mean here’s a man who is in D.C. much of the year, yet he has a membership at the DAC! Well, maybe someone gave it to him for all I know, but seeing him there made me wonder what he is really like, and it reminded me that no one can be taken at face value. All these years, I wondered when I would see DeFazio riding around town in his Dodge, and now I doubt that I will. I had really believed in him, you might say, and now I’m reminded that even I—with all my cynicism—can be taken.

But back to what I’ve learned about rich people…. Another interesting aspect of rich people is that they lose their keys a lot. I know this because I lose my keys a lot, so when I went to the desk to ask if anyone had seen the key to my padlock, the woman pulled out a box and started going through it while I described my key as best I could remember it. I couldn’t see the box because of a counter that was in the way, so I kept talking, and she kept looking, and I thought that, golly, this is taking a lot of time—what is wrong with this picture? Right away I knew, so I leaned way over so I could see what was in the box, and it was LOADED with keys, and there was my old rusty padlock key right on top. As I walked away, I wondered why she hadn’t put the box up where we could both go through it. All I could think was that rich people don’t like looking for their keys—they had rather pay someone to do it even if it takes longer.

The people who work at the DAC are all very nice. I get greeted coming, and I receive warm wishes going. There are also a lot of employees. There has to be because rich people use as many towels in a day as most of the people in Ecuador use in a year. They need two for the steam room, two more for the sauna, one for the pool, one for the shower, one for the Jacuzzi, one when they shave, and so forth. I really have a hard time making myself use more than two towels, and I only use that many so I will have one to sit on and one to lean back on when I am in the sauna or the steam room.

I like to look out through the windows when I am in those rooms. I watch naked guys use the urinals, which isn’t really all that interesting except maybe to a gay man, but when there’s nothing else to look at, I look at whatever is moving. I also watch loads of towels being wheeled away, and tall stacks of neatly folded towels being put in their place. I suspect that there are employees at the DAC who do nothing but stock towels.

I would join the DAC if it didn’t cost so much. For my purposes the poor man’s gym would serve as well, and it is a lot friendlier; but the DAC is closer to home. It is no more than fifteen blocks away, whereas the Oakway is too far away to count all the blocks. I would have to bike clean across the Willamette to get there, and while I can make the trip in about fifteen minutes, it is farther than I enjoy biking in the dark and the rain, and alongside one of Eugene’s busiest and noisiest streets at that.

Tonight, as I sat all alone in the sauna, I thought about how I could offset the cost of joining the DAC, and all I could come up with was stealing towels and reselling them, or else breaking into lockers. I wouldn’t really do either of these things, but my mind runs to crime quite readily when I am looking for a solution to a problem. This trait is so strong in me that I have trouble believing that everyone isn’t this way, although I know that Peggy isn’t, and that she is sorry I am.

But to return yet again to things I’ve learned about rich people…rich people are damn good swimmers. I had never paid much attention to people swimming, but when I was in the Jacuzzi yesterday, some young men were in the pool, and as I watched their powerful and confident strokes, I thought to myself that here is beauty. Rich women are good swimmers too, but women swimmers are like women in a lot of sports in that they can be good, even great, but they can never develop the raw power of a man. Women look their best walking or standing (or lying). Men look their best when they are engaged in athletics. I say this even though I suspect that women probably make better distance swimmers than men because women float better.

I’m afraid that my own swimming is not up to DAC standards because the only stroke I’m confident in is the dog paddle, and no one but me does it. I figure I’m as good as a lot of dogs at dog paddling (my hands and feet being broader than their paws), but my breaststroke is bastardized and inefficient, and I worry that my sidestroke is a tad off too. As for that other stroke, the one that people first picture when they think about swimming—the crawl, I think it is—I don’t even attempt that because it wears me out, and I splash so much that someone might try to rescue me.

The pools (yes, there are two) are in the basement, and people on the upper levels can look down at me, and people on the sidewalk can look in. If I worried all that much about how I look swimming, I wouldn’t swim at all, but I don’t worry, so I swim a lot. I’ll start out with ten minutes in the Jacuzzi, ten minutes in the pool, ten minutes in the steam room, ten more minutes in the pool, and then ten minutes in the sauna. After all this, I feel like I’ve been kicked in the head, but in a good way. It’s amazing how much difference even a little bit of the right activities can make. I leave the DAC as mellow as if I had gotten a massage.

I mentioned to Peggy that one of the things I don’t like about gyms is that I come into such close contact with other people’s bodies, partly because a lot of nude people take turns sitting on the same surfaces (sometimes on towels, sometimes not). She was greatly surprised that men use the sauna and steam room—and walk around the locker room—naked. She thought they wrapped towels around themselves. “That’s just in the movies,” I told her, “and it’s no more real than women in the movies who step out of the shower with towels wrapped around themselves.” At least it has been my experience that men who go to gyms are not men who are shy about their bodies. Maybe women are different. Rich or poor, I’ve never heard men talk about their issues with their bodies. They might not like the way they look, but they don’t obsess about it.

Rich teenagers who come to the DAC often look like sullen street people. They pull the look off so well that I would think they were sullen street people if I saw them on the street. I wouldn’t be surprised but what they spend hundreds of dollars for pants with holes in the knees; and it strikes me as a very degrading, disgusting, degenerate, and dissolute situation when rich people go around faking poverty. They get away with it in this country because the standard of living is high, but if I were some Third World guy who was barely able to keep clothes on my back, and one of these DAC people got off the plane looking like me, I’d want to kill him. He would be worse than men who have never ridden a horse but dress like cowboys. Frigging be what you look like. At least have that much integrity. I hate affect. It’s impossible for most of us to avoid engaging in it from time to time, but I still hate it.

I feel a little of that kind of fakeness just going to the DAC. I suspect that a lot of DAC members actually have less real money than I do, and I know that if I got it into my head that I wanted to join, I could do so without the expense being a hardship. Joining the DAC would simply mean that I had less money to put into savings each month—it would not mean that I couldn’t afford something else, or that I was sliding deeper into credit card debt. But I wouldn’t fit. I would be a pretender. I’ve heard guys at Oakway Gym grouse about how the cost has gone up to $35 a month. The DAC costs something like five times that much plus $750 just to join.

Joining the DAC is not just a matter of money but of lifestyle. It’s real slate on the floor, real ceramic tile in the bathrooms, and real cherry on the walls. There’s nothing wrong with these things if you’re willing to pay for them, but I’m a pine, formica, and linoleum guy. That’s what I’m used to, and that’s what I’m happy with.

I’ve been tongue-in-cheek in a lot of what I’ve said about the DAC—sort of a taking a position of reverse snobbery—but I don’t really have anything against it. In fact, if I valued having money less, I really would join because it’s the closest gym to where I live, and it’s also the least crowded. I might even make friends there if I went enough.

Casualties of winter

“The National Weather Service in Portland has issued a Blizzard Warning for the Cascades…winds of 40 to 60…gusts of 75 to 95. Gusts reaching 100 to 130 on peaks and ridges. Snow accumulations of a foot or more...whiteout conditions occurring frequently. Do not travel. If you must travel...have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded...stay with your vehicle.”

Relatives of the lost climbers have flown in from all over the country, but I believe the search will soon be called off. No matter how much relatives might want it to continue, the risk to the searchers must be weighed against the odds that poorly equipped climbers who have been at 11,000’ for eight days are alive. So far this winter, an eight-year old boy was lost (and never found) at Crater Lake; two snowmobilers were lost near Mt. Bachelor (both were found but one died); and a family was lost in their car (the woman and two children were rescued, but the father died).

There could be other exposure-related deaths that I am unaware of since the newsworthiness of a story depends upon how long the drama continues and how appealing the victims are. For example, the prominent parents and their two baby girls received national attention, whereas the male snowmobilers were hardly mentioned even locally.