Marvin and the junior warden's station

Marvin is an eighty-year-old Masonic brother. He is popular, does more than his share to keep the lodge running, and knows Masonic ritual better than anyone else in our lodge. In fact, he knows it so well that I told myself that here was an example of what diligence and intelligence combined with decades of experience could accomplish. Then I learned that Brother Marvin only joined the lodge six years ago.

The Worshipful Master, Senior Warden, and Junior Warden comprise the hierarchy of the lodge. Under normal circumstances, the lower two officers progress to the Master’s position. Brother Marvin served as Senior Warden this year, and will therefore become Master in December. A month ago, he asked me if I would “stand” for election as Junior Warden. I told him that I would only consider it if I didn’t have to wear a tux (the Master dictates how his officers dress). He looked displeased, but said nothing. I didn’t hear anymore about it, and I hoped he had found someone else because I didn’t want the job anyway. This week, on the night of elections, he asked me again if I would take the post. “You already asked me once, and I said I wouldn’t wear a tuxedo.” “I know,” he said, “So, will you stand for the office?”

“No, I’ve decided against it because it would put me in line to be Master in two years, and I don’t want to do that.” Marvin chews gum, and you can gauge how fast his brain is working by how fast his jaws are moving. “Why not?” he demanded as he moved his face close to mine, chomping furiously. Thus challenged, I laid out each of several reservations. Marvin agreed with some, disagreed with some, and then said: “Lowell, when they made me Senior Warden, I told them I wouldn’t accept the Master’s post unless I could get a slate of officers I could trust.” This unexpected mixture of flattery combined with a personal appeal was probably the only way he could have won me over.

Later, I remembered that he has no say about who will become Senior Warden since that post is normally filled by the former Junior Warden. I also realized that most of the other positions were also predetermined. For example, treasurers and secretaries stay put for years, because few are willing to take the jobs. Other posts are occupied by old men who don’t want to move. We have a few younger brothers, but they are too new to become Junior Warden.

I realized that I had been had. Marvin knew he couldn’t browbeat or shame me into accepting the office, but he realized that he might be able to lure me with flattery coupled with an appeal to loyalty. Upon realizing this, I vowed to evermore be on guard against the manipulating bastard. Later, I just smiled, because I knew I had been outwitted fair and square. Marvin hadn’t hidden anything from me. He had simply acknowledged that I am good at the work I do, and that it would be a loss to him and the lodge if I refused to move up.

Scavenging, profanity

I just came home with a knit cap that I found in the street. It was dripping wet and contained an earthworm, a scorpion, and leaf litter; but it was a Carhartt’s and almost new. Peggy hates my scavenging, but I ask her not to deny me such a simple pleasure, for I value my finds even though I usually pass them on to other people. Today’s hat is not even a style that I like, but I cleaned it well, and it is now drying in the laundry room. My father also scavenged, but he never got rid of his finds, and he brought home a lot of truly worthless stuff like broken toys and machinery parts of unknown usage—things that even a junk dealer wouldn’t want.

Peggy also hates it when I scream profanities in the front yard, and I can see her point there, but I was brought up that way, so it comes naturally. Mostly, I curse the dogs (“What the f___ are you rolling in?!”), but I have cursed other people and even inanimate objects. My father screamed profanities not only in the yard, but on streets, out car windows, in stores, in other people’s houses (while he was working), and every other conceivable location except church, but then he only went to church when he was in one of his theistic phases.

Peggy’s father never even whispered profanities, although her mother let loose on rare occasions. Like my father, she was emotionally unstable, and I suppose people who scream profanities in public are more likely to be unstable than are people who refrain. Nowadays, I hear loud profanity in public all the time, even from girls who are barely old enough to have breasts. Maybe our whole society is becoming unstable.

Chronic pain, fasting as a possible remedy

My knee has hurt so much this week that I have limped at times. Peggy asked if I ever think about going ahead and having it replaced. Her question threw me because I am so profoundly opposed to that particular surgery. If I become consistently miserable and utterly bereft of other options, I will go through with it, but I am disgusted by the surgery itself, by having an artificial joint replace the joint I was born with, and by the risk of infection or joint failure for the rest of my life. I would have to take antibiotics every time I had my teeth cleaned, and the next replacement would have less chance of working than this one, because there would be less bone to attach it to. I would also have to avoid heavy lifting. I have often wondered what doctors do when an artificial joint fails, and can’t be replaced. This week, I looked it up—they fuse the bones together.

I weighed 157 this morning. When I lifted weights, I looked buff at 182, so 157 is on the skinny side. Yet, I am fasting today, and I plan to fast at least one day a week, because fasting has been a health boon during those periods when I did it, and because, aside from fasting, I literally don’t know how else I might help myself in the short term.

I slept on my back last night because my shoulders hurt too much to sleep on my sides, but since my sleep apnea is worse on my back, I awakened at 4:00 with a headache, and never got back to sleep. My wrists never stop tingling, and my knees never stop hurting. Being in pain is like having a second job in that it tires a person. My primary care doctor suggested an exercise instructor, but I hurt in so many places that I am convinced I would aggravate the pain, and maybe hurt myself in other places in the process. Besides, I have little confidence in the experts right now.

My joints are in the shape they are because (a) I unknowingly did work that was tough on them, (b) I had a lousy knee surgeon, and (c) my yoga instructor was inexperienced. Count them. Experts caused or contributed to two of my three joint problems. My impression is that whether I get better or worse is entirely in my own hands, if indeed it is in anyone’s. I don’t actually know how much good I can do. I just know that I have never suffered any ill effects from fasting, whereas it has seemed to help me appreciably.

True, the hunger and low energy are no fun, but fasting also makes me mellow while I am doing it, and distracts me from things that I might otherwise worry about. It also feels good to succeed at something that is hard to do, but that is good for me when I do it. Then too there is the spiritual element. When I am fasting, I feel pure, and as soon as I put food in my mouth, I lose that purity, because food is, after all, either DEAD (as with preserved food) or it is DYING (as with fresh food). Even the best of us must live by killing, and this eliminates the possibility of innocence.

There are actions that are just, and there are actions that are necessary, and they are often in opposition. The fox kills the rabbit, not because the rabbit deserves to die, but because the fox wants to eat, and so it is with us. The difference is that we know what we do.

An alarming discovery

I carry pepper spray, and if I see someone whose appearance disturbs me, I take note of which way the wind blows. I know that such security measures seem excessive to most people, but then theirs seem lax to me. Just yesterday, a woman’s garage door opener was stolen from her car while she was at church, and she arrived home to find her house burglarized. I’ve taken my garage door opener out of the van for years.

I now have an embarrassing confession to make about security. While I was on the patio last week, the back door locked itself. The latch was apparently part way down, and the bump of the door closing caused it to drop the rest of the way. I didn’t have my key, so I decided to try something that I have been meaning to try for years, but hadn’t gotten around to because I didn’t think it possible. I stuck my hand through the dog door, reached up, and unlocked all three deadbolts faster than with a key. If a thief had made this discovery, I would have been too embarrassed to show my face around my friends. The door in question is still protected by an outer door of steel mesh, a bar that slides across the inner door, and a cover that goes over the dog door. The problem is that I seldom use the last two barriers, so I am now shopping for double-keyed deadbolts.

A woodland encounter with two large dogs

Peggy and I have been taking advantage of breaks in the weather to go biking in the woods with the dogs. Yesterday, we saw a pygmy owl sitting on a low limb. Our presence did not disturb it in the least. I wondered that an owl’s light sensitive eyes could bear the afternoon sun, but later read that pygmy owls are diurnal.

Last week, we encountered two large, strong dogs that stayed with us for a disturbingly long distance, although I thought they seemed more curious than aggressive. Peggy—who was at the rear of our little procession—later said that one of them had growled at her, and forced her off her bike by pushing against it. When we passed them on our return, I encouraged Bonnie and Baxter to run so we could get past them quickly. This did not work, because the other dogs were upon us too fast. I nonetheless persisted with my approach until Peggy yelled from behind that they were becoming aggressive. “They’re okay,” I yelled back. “I don’t think so,” she said.

I did a U-turn, and found them on the verge of attacking Bonnie who was snapping furiously but unconvincingly at her powerful foes. I parked a few feet away, strode between her and them, and warned them sternly that they had damned well better back off. Their eyes met mine unflinchingly as they searched for some sign of weakness. Finding none, and without any apparent communication with one another, they turned in unison and walked away.
I marveled at their intelligence and perceptiveness, for the encounter would have ended badly for them had they been brainless brutes. I had in my pocket a can of Fox pepper spray, and I sorely wanted to see what it could do after being choked for several minutes last week when I sprayed barely a whiff of it on the patio floor.

With the marauders gone, I expected to find myself alone, Peggy and the dogs having had plenty of time to make their escape. Instead, there stood Bonnie right by my leg. I didn’t know whether she stayed to protect me or for me to protect her, although she invariably comes to me when she’s afraid. Baxter shows no preference, being as apt to run to a shrub as to a person.

I kidded Peggy about running out on me, but she knew that I handle dogs well—and that I had the spray. More than that, she wanted to get Baxter to safety, because he’s dumb enough to attack a passive wolf yet cowardly enough to be panicked by an aggressive Chihuahua.

Laura Bush and the War in Iraq; my own part in evil

I dreamed that I was talking to Laura Bush about the War in Iraq. With many tears, I pointed to the utter and pointless waste of lives and money. She looked at me without expression. I think sometimes about George Bush’s family, about how it must surely contain dissenters who, out of loyalty to him, remain silent. I don’t think I could do that because I would think of the lives I might save.

The funny thing is that I don’t even like people, and this means that I don’t much care about people. Say what good you will about us, we are destroying our environment, and we WILL come to a bad end, perhaps shortly, and we WILL have deserved it. This negates all the good that we have done a million times over, so no, I don’t like us. We are a cancer upon the earth. Yet, I feel certain obligations. Sometimes, good is optional. Other times, the issue is too close to home, the obligation too pressing. I cannot always tell when this is the case, so I often choose to do nothing; other times I can’t deny it.

I’m not speaking only about big things. In fact, most good things are small things. Everyday and everywhere, I see people doing little kindnesses, and I reflect that, truth be known, these are what make life bearable. It’s people letting one another out in traffic; or holding a door open, or carrying a stranger’s groceries. It’s saying hello when you make eye contact. These I do. These I feel that I must do.

Other things, like not paying taxes to support a regime that is inept and evil, I would pay dearly for, and I seriously doubt that my resistance would do any good. Yet, if I lived strictly by principal, I would not pay taxes. But then I wouldn’t fly in a jet, because jets are too polluting. I wouldn’t live in this house, because it is too big. I wouldn’t buy products from countries that exploit their workers. I wouldn’t invest in a stock unless I approved of the company’s environmental and social policies. I wouldn’t buy merchandise that came in wasteful packaging or that had to be transported from the other side of the world. In such areas, I falter. I remind myself that I am married, and that many of my choices affect Peggy. I also rationalize that doing good would require too much time, too much study, too many hard choices, and, for the most part, it would make no difference.

Yet, I know that I act unjustly, and this means that I don’t like myself much more than I like the rest of humanity. I finance war. I support the destruction of the environment. I could point out that I seldom drive, and that I am an avid recycler, but no quantity of good justifies the least amount of evil. It’s like that diesel-tainted water on Pelieu. The diesel drums had been drained and washed; but still men doubled over in pain. I am like those drums.

It is the unnecessary suffering of other people and other life forms that make our affluence possible. But when I ask myself if it a completely good world is even conceivable, I doubt that it is. I suspect that we are evil simply because we are human, and that the most we can hope for is to ever expand our capacity for good.

Emily Brontë,Carson McCullers, Eugene Sledge

I just finished The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Wuthering Heights, both of which were written by women in their twenties. Who would have thought that authors with such little worldly experience could create characters so complex and diverse. They’ve forced me to rethink some of my conceptions about youth.

Now, I’m reading With the Old Breed, a memoir of battles in the South Pacific during WWII. I want to throw myself out a window, not to die but to distract myself from the torment. No shade. 115 degree heat. Too little water and it tainted with diesel. Enemy artillery and machineguns firing down on flat, featureless coral. Little sleep. Land crabs. Insects. Afraid to rise up to poop. Blue-hot tracers passing within inches of your body. Violent trembling. Facial muscles tense for so long that expressions become frozen. Desperately resisting the urge to scream cry. Instantly becoming a cigarette smoker. Wounded Americans mutilated, their genitals stuffed in their mouths. A wounded Japanese with his cheeks slit open by a Marine who wanted his gold teeth. Observing corpses as they decay. Realizing that your life is casually expendable to commanders who live at a safe distance in comfortable quarters. A projected four-day battle that lasts four months. Thousands killed, maimed, or driven insane on a tiny island that contains an airfield of no strategic importance. The author writes. I can but list.

When goddesses die; thoughts on aging

I woke up today dreaming that I was having an affair with a 27 year old. Bonnie awakened at the same time, stretched gracefully, and looked at me adoringly, but it just wasn’t the same.

My dream was probably inspired by an old Western I watched last night, one of many old Westerns I have seen while Peggy is away. In this one, Abilene Town (1946), Randolph Scott plays a marshal who is loved by women from opposite sides of the street—one a virtuous, church-going, but somewhat boring, merchant’s daughter played by Rhonda Fleming; the other a sparkling, vivacious, and scantily-clad dance-hall girl played by Ann Dvorak. I was quite stricken by Ann Dvorak, and did what I often do with stars I don’t recognize—I looked her up on the Internet. Nothing too unusual. Started her career in silent films at age four. Married three times. Argued with Warner Brothers over money. Died at 67 of undisclosed causes.

I invariably get stuck on the last part—the died at __. How could she die? I just saw her. She was 33, could sing, could dance, was flirtatious, had beautiful eyes, looked like a goddess. One of her fan sites even called her a goddess. I get really bummed about all these beautiful women dying. They’ve let me down. Cheated me out of my fantasy of immortality. Well, not taken it from me, but made me feel more stupid for holding onto it against my conscious will.

I saw Elke Sommer last week on an episode of Jack Benny. She was 23, and as beautiful as a woman could get. I commented to Peggy that a fireman would leave a baby in a burning building for a date with Elke Sommer. It was an impolitic remark. Peggy sees my fascination with beauty as…well, excessive and irrational. She is right. But then I don’t actually do anything about it other than wish I had done more earlier on, when I still had my looks. Back then, even when I did act morally, it was out of fear rather than virtue. Fear of being rejected, fear of getting a disease, fear of being divorced, fear of making a fool of myself…

I went to the doctor last week to talk about my carpel tunnel problem. Kirk is his name, he’s my age, and I’ve known him for seventeen years. In 1990, he was muscular, big-boned, confident, competent, and charming. Three years later, I lost him as my doctor because he left my HMO. Last year, I got him back, and I wasn’t prepared for how bad he looked. He has age spots, wrinkles, a bent back, a tremor, and an expression of wisdom coupled with something that looks almost like humility. I thought, “God, man, you look damn near as bad as I—maybe worse, yet the last time I saw you, you were so full of life that I didn’t think the years would ever overtake you.”

The passage of time is like hiking in an arroyo when a little bit of water starts flowing, and you think that it looks kind of charming and refreshing way out there in the heat and the dust, and then, WHAM, you’ve been washed away, and your corpse isn’t even pretty. Generation after generation looks at their elders and thinks about how old and ugly they are, and their elders look back at them, and warn them against taking youth for granted, but the young ones think, “Yeah, right. One Christmas is separated from the next by an eternity; 39 is practically the same age as the pyramids; and six week report card intervals feel like six months. And I will never look like you anyway, because I couldn’t get that pathetic if I lived a million years.”

I used to impress the hell out of old people just by reading medicine bottles. They would carry on as if I had juggled ten balls while standing on my head, and I would conclude from this that their eyes must have never been as good as mine, and therefore mine would never be as bad as theirs. Old people try to tell the young about age, but they are doomed to fail because the speed of time is proportional to how much of it a person has lived. The young are like people who are standing too close to a painting to take it in, so the distance to the edge of the canvas appears indistinct and distant.

Not too many years ago, I would look at myself in a mirror and think I rated at least a 7.5. Now, I just try to find something redeeming to say, but the only thing I can think of is that I could look worse. I could have my ears burned off or one eye an inch higher than the other. Age spots annoy me most. Of course, all of my skin isn’t covered with age spots. My lower legs are covered with white spots, places where the color pigment got up and went, making me look like a splotchy albino.

Something that I didn’t expect about age was that it wouldn’t be an evenly paced deterioration. I thought it would be something like a one percent decline this year and then another one percent decline next year. I had no good reason for thinking this (given that my youth wasn’t a steady progression), but I never questioned it. Then I had knee surgery in March of 2006, and I think it likely that I have declined more in the intervening twenty months than I did in the preceding twenty years. I’ve become so fragile that I can practically injure myself staring at the wall. This has led me to re-conceive of my body as a row of dominoes; if one goes, the rest are sure to follow. I don’t mean this literally anymore than I meant the fireman abandoning the baby example literally. It’s just that exaggeration sometimes serves better as a pointer to truth than truth does—which is why readers sometimes learn more from fiction than from real-life accounts.