Jack Ketch and his famous knot

I attended a presentation on public hangings in Oregon last night. I was specifically interested in the knots that hangmen used, because it is my understanding that the so-called Jack Ketch knot (named after a 17th century London executioner) of movie fame was less popular than simpler slipknots. The matronly speaker said that this was not the case in Oregon, adding that she had seen a Jack Ketch knot in a museum.

I hadn’t imagined that the same knot would be used repeatedly, although this would explain why hangmen’s ropes sometimes broke. Ropes can only survive a limited number of drops, which is why mountain climbers throw away ropes that still look good. Age also weakens a rope, four years being the maximum for climbing ropes even if they are unused.

I was also interested in the disposal of the bodies of the executed because my lodge has the skeleton of a man who was supposedly hung (literally a skeleton in the closet). The speaker said that the two men who were legally hung in Lane County were buried, although she couldn’t speak for those who were lynched.

Even many legal hangings were botched, with the prisoner either strangling or being decapitated. The real life Jack Ketch was notorious for such ineptness. Ironically, he never hung anyone, and didn’t even create the knot that is named for him. Instead, he used an axe, which he welded so badly that he once took eight blows to sever a man’s head. His victim spent much of this time complaining bitterly, because he had tipped Jack to expedite the proceedings. When Jack Ketch died, his name was popularly applied to subsequent executioners, which is why—when hanging became the method of choice for executions—the knot of choice bore his name.

Knotted ropes break under less strain than unknotted ropes. The common square knot, for example, weakens a rope by 50%, because it is tied with 90° turns. Knots with numerous and winding turns are stronger, which means that the hangman’s knot is a strong knit indeed.

I suspect that my knot repertoire numbers about a hundred, although I rarely have need of them. Tape, hooks, screws, nails, straps, buckles, buttons, snaps, zippers, Velcro, bungee cords, and tensioners, have made knots nearly obsolete. So, why study knots? People who love knots are brothers to those who love steam engines in that both are drawn to inventions that have been superseded in practicality while remaining unequalled in beauty. Much of life is that way. Few of us would want to cook over an open fire, yet stoves and microwaves are ugly by comparison.

Letter to a volunteer

My letter to the volunteer receptionist at Sacred Heart:

I am sorry that I do not remember your name. I tried to get it from Sacred Heart, but they have a policy against giving out even first names.

I came to Short Stay for knee surgery on February 6, at 11:30, and you checked me in. I noted that you were a volunteer, and that you were polite, efficient, immaculately dressed and groomed, and that you had what I took to be Parkinson’s. I was struck by how much work it must have taken you to get ready and come to the hospital, and I said, “May God bless you for the work you do.”

I learned during my surgery that I have advanced arthritis, and I was advised to permanently limit my activity. I had not expected this, and took it hard because I am a hiker and a lover of hard physical labor. I became increasingly depressed after surgery because my failing knee and enforced idleness caused me to look at the fact that, at nearly fifty-seven, I can only expect my body to deteriorate over the coming decades. I wondered how people cope with this, and I wrote of my problems to an elderly penpal who is battling bone cancer. He too had been a laborer and an outdoorsman, and he had much to say over the course of several letters. I will include some of it. Perhaps, it will cheer you too someday.

“Just keep looking on the bright side no matter how dark the other side looks. Enjoy out of life all you can and the other part won’t go away but will be easier to accept.”

“At the age I am now at, I’m just thankful that I can get out of bed in the mornings and do a few of the things I would like to do and not worry about the things I can’t do. A man can get to the point of worrying so much about what he can’t do that he can’t even do the things he is capable of doing.”

“I know what it means to have to give up things you enjoy doing, but keep a good outlook and other things can replace the ones you can no longer do and enjoy. I used to love stream fishing. I mean wading up a stream and casting bait ahead into the deep holes. That I can no longer do, but that doesn’t keep me from fishing the lakes and rivers with a boat, nor does it keep me from playing my guitar or driving my car on sight seeing trips to places I’ve never seen or to places I want to see again. A person just has to adjust their priorities. Sometimes a person has to change their whole way of thinking.”

Yet, he admitted that, at times, his illness really gets him down.

“I’ll tell you Lowell if it hadn’t been for my wife, music, and dog last summer I would have cashed it in. I was so sick, in pain, and tired of life I just wanted it to end. I’m 74 years old now and am enjoying what time I may have left.”

“I don’t do much work any more as I get tired very quickly, and my joints and muscles just won’t take it any more. I’m lucky if I can go out and clean up the yard of dog droppings every few days.”


Something else that helped was my thoughts of you. It was not just my observation that you were battling Parkinson’s, but that you were battling it with grace and heroism. I was humbled by your strength and goodness, and, when I was low, I would picture you sitting there at your desk, and a tear would come to my eye.

I would like for you to remember me if ever there is anything I can do for you. I would be honored to be called upon.

That awkward stage

I took a stroll Friday, eleven days after surgery. I couldn’t walk without limping unless I kept both knees bent. This gave me a Groucho Marx gait—a slow Grouch Marx gait—that attracted the curiosity of the few people who saw me. Saturday, I walked twelve blocks, almost normally; put my crutches back in storage; and returned my borrowed wheelchair to the lodge. Sunday morning, I took a bike ride, and worked on my feet the rest of the day.

Sunday night, I biked twenty blocks to the hospital to meet Peggy when she got off work. My knee was by then swollen and unbendable, so I had to pedal with my right leg while holding my left leg out to the side. (I propelled myself by repeatedly pushing the right pedal down half a stroke and pulling it back up with my toes.) The dogs ran behind me, off leash as usual. As soon as I awakened today, I got the bike out of the garage to see if I could still ride it, and was pleased to find that I could.

I have been spending a great deal of time during my convalescence wondering what to do with the rest of my life, and deprecating myself for being unable to think of anything. The house and yard will always require work, but I have finished the big jobs, either permanently or for the foreseeable future.

I always thought I would devote myself to writing and studying if I had the time, but I’ve found during my brief indisposition that sitting for very long might not be hell, but it’s pretty near purgatory. I am also utterly pessimistic of getting published and equally loathsome of the process. Finally, I cannot very well allow myself to write and study while Peggy is earning our keep, so, for now, I am at a loss. Each part of life presents its challenges, and all of them have struck me as what my mother called that awkward stage.

How low I have fallen

The surgeon drained 30 cc’s of fluid from the back of my knee yesterday. Fluid accumulation is a painful and recurrent problem for me, and I asked him for a couple of syringes so Peggy could drain it at home. He gave me some the size of canning jars so she won’t have to stick me twice. He was pleased with my progress; removed the bloody tape from the three puncture holes; told me I could begin taking showers, and said I should return in two weeks for a final checkup and a prescription for physical therapy. Meanwhile, I am to avoid walking as much as possible, and keep the knee iced and elevated.

Walking hurts, and I am obliged to do it slowly with my leg straight. If I am at one end of the house and need at from the other, I dread the trip; and God forbid that I should have to look for anything, because the pain increases with every step. I stopped taking Darvocet after I read about the side effects. I last took it in preparation for Fred’s funeral when I downed the maximum dose. Happiness and tranquility rolled over me in warm waves, and I understood how people get addicted to the stuff. On the downside, I felt as if my IQ had been reduced by a third.

I use one crutch around the house, and a combination of crutches and wheelchairs when I leave home. For example, I will use crutches to get inside a store, and then borrow one of the store’s wheelchairs. So far, I have had my pick of electric or manual, and I go for the manuals, because they are fun, fast, and maneuverable. I also have a wheelchair at home that I use when I want to take a little walk. Playing around with wheelchairs has been the only enjoyable part of all this. I often get myself into trouble while traversing slopes or trying to maneuver through heavy doors, and will use my good leg to extricate myself. Last night, I ran a wheel off the pavement, and, if I hadn’t been able to use my leg to push myself out, I would have been forced to yell for help or lower myself from the chair.

I’m unaware of any great change in the way people treat me now that I’m disabled. I am curious about how I look to others—like a cripple, or like a normally robust man who has been temporarily sidelined. Some tell me that I look like I’m in pain—I am—and those who know me say I look un-natural in a wheelchair. Indeed. How low I have fallen now that I am reduced to using elevators. I will catch myself grieving for my lost mobility, but will just as quickly feel ashamed since my condition is neither severe nor long-term. Sometimes, I pretend I’m Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July, not because I identify with Kovic but because pretending to be Franklin Roosevelt or Steven Hawkins is too much of a stretch.

I take a wheelchair ride to a funeral; comfortless dotage

Six days post-op. For several days, I could bear almost no weight on my leg, and since I was supposed to keep it elevated above my heart, I couldn’t even work while sitting. Now, I can walk short distances without crutches, but every step hurts sharply. Lying and sitting hurt too, though not as much. I am concerned about my slow progress, yet it is still a great boon to be able to ambulate without crutches, because I can at least carry things and do housework.

I attended a funeral yesterday. I could have driven, but didn’t want to. I also considered biking, but was daunted by the prospect of putting my left foot down gingerly and in a straight-line every time I stopped. Then came the realization that my range of motion was so scant that I couldn’t pump the pedals anyway. I finally went in a borrowed wheelchair (the funeral being but ten blocks from home). Peggy pushed me part way, and I wheeled myself part way. I left the wheelchair in an empty room upon arriving, because I didn’t want to make my situation appear worse than it is, and because I didn’t want to draw attention away from the service.

The deceased was an elderly lodge brother, Fred Haase, who united two seemingly opposite personality extremes. One was the courage and tenacity to fight vociferously and without regard for personal cost for what he considered right. The other was the ability to cry often and openly when touched by a kind gesture or a sweet memory. I had thought that many of the speakers would make mention of this, but none did, so I felt obliged to limp my way to the microphone and do it myself. His son spoke last and validated the accuracy of my perception. His first words were, “My Dad was a great Dad,” and I wished I could have said as much about mine. I also wondered what my son—if I had a son—would say at my funeral.

My recent surgery took me from being able-bodied and multi-talented in the morning to being an invalid in the afternoon, and I reflected that the latter state would draw more and more upon me with the passing years. When I combined this thought with my knowledge that there is no one who I can depend upon to care for me, I felt dismayed. I still feel dismayed. I cannot think but that the day might come when I will have to choose between suicide and a comfortless dotage. The decision might seem easy enough then, but now it strikes me as like being trapped in a burning high-rise and having to choose between flames and pavement.

I see the surgeon in three days, and, if all goes well, it will be for the last time. I have called his office four times since my operation (three time with the same concern) without once speaking to him or getting my questions answered. If I had listened to my pre-surgery reservations, I would have changed horses in midstream. It is bad enough to endure the aftermath of surgery, but the pain and disability combined are not so grievous as having a doctor who does not care.

Heroic old lady

The volunteer who checked me in at the hospital was a woman in her upper seventies. Two things struck me about her. One was that she was impeccably dressed and groomed. The other was that she had Parkinson’s so bad that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she succeeded in checking off my name. I thought about how much work it must have been for her to dress herself and come to the hospital to help other people, this against the hopelessness of her illness. “May God bless you for the work you do,” I said.

I seek out books by people who survived disabling injuries and became mentally stronger for the experience, but never have I seen one sitting before me on a day I was going to have surgery. I grew up thinking of young valorous men as heroic, not old ladies with Parkinson’s. Yet, the heroic acts of the young—soldiers in battle for instance—are often over in a moment, and might not have been done at all had there been time for reflection. That woman has to get out of bed everyday of her life knowing that she is facing a protracted and fatal disease that will make her every movement—her every breath—a little more difficult. As I lie around the house feeling sorry for myself, I think about her, and I think that, if God has a face, it must look like hers. In the quiet way in which she placed an X by my name, I saw all the courage and all the nobility to which I could ever hope to aspire.

The mountain lion of disability

I am of better cheer today, three days post-op. I had little pain until Peggy removed the ace bandage on Tuesday to change my bloody dressing. The bandage had done an admirable job of keeping the swelling down, and having it removed for even a few minutes caused significant pain. Until the dressing change, I had taken only one Darvocet—and it at Peggy’s urging rather than because I thought I needed it. The dressing removal changed all that, although I only drug myself when I am in such pain that I would feel silly not to.

I prefer some pain, otherwise, I would be apt to go back to work, specifically on the bathroom exhaust fan. I spent much of last week doing everything I could to get everything ready for this week, only to have the louver in the bathroom fan become stuck the night before surgery.

I slept with my bed tilted downhill last night so the knee could drain, and I found the position far superior to having my knee on pillows. I observe the disgustingly misshapen thing without recognition, and hope fervently that I never have to go through another surgery. If I do, perhaps, I will have learned to cope better.

I lay in bed yesterday looking at the walls and ceiling that I so recently painted; then out the window at the trees I so recently pruned; and I thought about how difficult it is now simply to make it to the bathroom. I reminded myself that all will be better in a few days, but the thought came to me that, if I live long enough, all my days will find me helpless. Then what? I will have no family to care for me (Peggy either being dead or in poor shape herself). I will have my savings, but how long will they last if I become as vulnerable to con men as many old people?

When I was younger, I could scarcely imagine my body disintegrating; my mind, not at all. Last night, I could not remember how to turn on the light over my bed. I stood on my crutches in the dark for thirty seconds before I recalled that it has a pull chain, the same pull chain that I installed years ago. I have many such lapses, and they tell me that the one thing I had trusted to last, the one thing that I had thought of AS ME, is as perishable as an arthritic knee.

Today, I am getting my strength back, and such thoughts don’t strike me as any new or great revelation, but it is one thing to contemplate my dissolution when I feel strong, and quite another when I need help putting my socks on. The difference is like that of going into the woods knowing that I might catch a glimpse of a mountain lion, versus going into the woods and seeing a mountain lion stalking me.

Assembly line hospital

Sacred Heart was like an assembly line in which patients were passed off as quickly as possible between admissions, short stay, pre-op, post-op, o.r., and back to short stay. I was seldom asked if I needed anything; and clerks, nurses, aides, stretcher pushers, doctors, and sundry technicians appeared above my face in surprising numbers only to disappear as abruptly as they came. Being flat on my back much of the time, I was frustrated by my inability to know what was going on or even who was in the room.

During surgery, two people who I couldn’t see stood in a corner disparaging conservative politicians before saying goodbye to still other unknowns. My surgeon was unrecognizable behind mask, cap, and glasses, and, since he didn’t speak to me, I didn’t know he was present until he began the procedure. The anesthesiologist stuck the deadener in my back, but never asked how I was, and I couldn’t even tell that he was in the room. The operating staff began discussing their next patient while I was still on the table. Such impersonal treatment angered Peggy who is accustomed to attending to one or two patients for an entire shift, and, if they are still there, attending to them again the next day. The best I could offer was that some of the staff had seemed more constrained by time than compassion.

I thought it a very great thing to be able to see—live and in color—the bones and ligaments within my body. No one had such an opportunity until a decade or so ago, and very few have taken it since. I also found it unsettling to look at structures that appeared so very fragile, and that served as vivid reminders of my degeneration and mortality. The glistening curves of my bone ends looked no different than those of a freshly slaughtered hog, and the bright surgical light bounced off the back of my knee cap like sunlight off the moon.

Despite the impersonality of the hospital, I remain very glad that I have access to modern medicine with all its drugs and gadgetry. The accounts I read of Himalayan expeditions often describe the extreme poverty of places where doctors are rare and their ministrations primitive. I’ve read of porters who had no economic choice but to work despite leg fractures. No matter how tightly bound, the bone ends stabbed into their flesh with every step, and, if not for their many dependents, their best hope would have been that infection took them quickly. These are the kinds of places where children still die from vitamin deficiencies. Yet, even in this country, we can but prolong the inevitable, which means that a Nepalese porter who dies from a broken leg might suffer less than an American who is kept alive as long as possible by every means possible.

I am still relatively new to age-related degeneration, and I have yet to understand how people bear it. When your joints, teeth, ears, eyes, and taste buds, are failing rapidly, and you know that a significant portion of your remaining years will be spent in doctor’s offices, hospitals, and nursing homes; how do you find a point to it all? I went to the hospital to have my knee fixed, but came home with the knowledge that its failure has only been postponed for a brief time unless I am willing to give up much that I love. I can try to measure the worth of my life in terms of how much I can still do rather than it terms of what I cannot, but for now I am overwhelmed by the latter.

I got through yesterday partly by quoting poetry to myself. One poem goes, in part:

My mind to me a kingdom is,
Such present joys therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind…

I laugh not at another’s loss;
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain;
I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will;
Their treasure is their only trust;
A cloakéd craft their store of skill:
But all the treasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.
Sir Edward Dyer

I really must find a way to remain at peace in the face of the inevitable.

Surgery day

I only slept a few hours last night before drinking a half-gallon of water and a mug of coffee before my NPO deadline. I am less nervous today. I am cheered that the sun is breaking through the low clouds; I am enjoying a few final sips of coffee; and I am happily anticipating stopping off at the library on my walk to the hospital. I’ve been reading one mountain climbing epic a week along with books on knots and orienteering. These are old interests that I return to at least once a year.

For all my love of knots and wilderness navigation, I do little of either. I often use a map and compass to identify one mountain from the summit of another mountain, but I seldom have to rely on them to find my way. I fantasy doing so, but would have to go without Peggy as she would object to the undergrowth and fallen logs. This means that I am not likely to go at all since the pleasure I find in going to the woods comes more from her companionship than from the woods itself.

I never climb any of the high mountains that I read about either, which strikes even me as odd since I don’t just read about climbs, I also read about climbing equipment and techniques. Am I not tempted then to give technical climbing a go? Not really. I get enough thrills from reading about other people’s thrills.

People who seek danger are of a different breed than I. It takes more to physiologically stimulate them, and I resent the fact that many of them glorify their need for danger as a hallmark of superiority. I must confess, however, that I am no better. I might admire the guts and determination that it takes to climb an 8,000-meter peak, but I also feel superior to those who need to do it. I don’t use the word need lightly, because people who are obsessed with danger are very much like people who are obsessed with liquor.

True, Peggy has climbed, but driving three hours to Mt. Hood and coming home the next day is worlds apart from traveling halfway around the globe and spending months on K2. These are people who evolution failed, and they in turn fail everyone who tries to be intimate with them, most tragically their children.

Time to shower and walk to the hospital. Check-in is at 11:00; surgery at 1:00.

Later

I had a spinal anesthetic without additional sedation so I could remain alert. My arms were positioned straight out from my body, Jesus style; and my legs tingled, although I couldn’t tell what was being done to them. I looked up at one point and was surprised to see my left leg being held two feet off the table while it was scrubbed with Betadine.

I was cold no matter how many blankets they piled upon me, and the surgeon joked that I would be charged for the extras. His description of what I was seeing on the color TV was very different from what I expected. Since cartilage is a membrane, I assumed that torn cartilage would appear as sheet-like fragments. Instead, it looked thin and feathery as it undulated slowly in the five quarts of fluid that were pumped through my knee. There was also a lot of it. The surgeon attacked it with a conical-headed device with revolving blades that chewed it up and suctioned it away.

I was pleased and entertained by the process until he said that I have stage three to four arthritis (four being the worst). I wasn’t prepared for this, and became nauseated when he suggested that I avoid long hikes and working on my knees. He pointed out jagged bone spurs that protruded ridge-like above the cartilage as well as spots where the cartilage was completely missing. The latter areas looked like the inner bark of a tree that had been ineptly blazed with an axe.

I was taken from surgery to post-op where I had to stay until I could wiggle my toes. I was the only alert patient there, so I lay listening to the others puke, groan, and talk incoherently. I tried so hard to move my toes that I trembled from the effort, but the anesthetic was tenacious. My fingers had long since become so cold that they could no longer be used to determine my oxygen saturation levels, and I placed them against my thighs to warm them.

My legs felt like lifeless lumps of hot fat that disconnected from my body. I touched something that felt like a rolled-up washcloth, and I speculated that it might be leftover from surgery. I soon realized that it was my penis. I glanced about to see if anyone had caught me playing with myself. As I moved my hands upward, I realized that everything below my navel was asleep.

Rat poisons and taciturn surgeons

While I was admiring the neighbors’ new motorcycle today, Baxter ate a box of rat poison that he found in their garage. I caught him in the act, and poured hydrogen peroxide down his throat until he vomited. When Peggy came home from her weekend in the mountains a short time later, she told me of a dream she had the night before in which she mounted a grill on Baxter’s head so he couldn’t eat anything harmful.

I dread surgery tomorrow. It is not major surgery, and I have never dreaded surgery before, but I dread it now. I don’t believe that my dread is a premonition. It’s just that I am not a person who can sit still, and I will be sitting a lot this week—the first week in months for which pretty weather is predicted.

Then too, I don’t like my surgeon. I have seen him off and on for a decade about one thing or another, but he has never operated on me, and I have never needed so much—or gotten so little—open communication from him. When I went for my pre-op, he quickly grew impatient with my questions, so when he left the room to take a phone call, Peggy got the answers by reading my chart. I can but hope he is a better surgeon than he is a communicator.

Any work is better than no work at all

I’m trying to tie up loose ends before my operation next week. Yesterday, I spent four hours installing a recessed light in the laundry room and still didn’t finish because:

1) Most of the work must be done from the attic, and there is so little clearance that I can barely squeeze into the space.

2) The part of the ceiling I needed to reach from the attic was beneath a sheet of plywood which was screwed to the joists, and over which eighteen electric cables were stapled.

3) Both of the cables that serviced the old light were too short to reach the wiring box on the new light, so I replaced one back to the main breaker box, and re-routed the other.

4) The new light will not completely fill the hole left by the old light, so I will have to patch it with sheetrock compound.

5) When I got everything else done, I discovered that the canister for the new light was too tall to fit beneath the plywood, so I had to return to the store and replace it with a shorter one that costs three times as much.

I reflected as I worked that even frustrating work is better than no work. I can look back at such a day, learn from it, congratulate myself on what I did right, and be thankful that I have the knowledge and the physical ability to do the job. I can also respect the fact that I never make an ass of myself by cursing God and throwing things the way my father did. I would rate me as an overall good workman. It’s not things that I screw-up and lose patience with, it’s people.

Hard time

I worked flooring the attic today. My left elbow never healed from a fall in 2003, and has increasingly come to limit how much I can crawl. I asked the orthopedist who is to operate on my knee if he could fix the elbow too. He said he could remove the injured bursa, but didn’t seem to want to, and gave me a foam support pad. I had already been using a pad that I made from a knee brace and a sponge, and his pad proved just as inadequate.

I have some carpentry, painting, roofing, and landscaping projects to do, but am holding off until better weather. For now, I’m catching up on paperwork, and the lack of exercise is getting me down. I take walks with the dogs when the rain lets up, but the best I can say for walking around town is that it’s better than not walking at all.

More flooding is predicted, and I am wondering what I will look like when I finally explode from the tedium of being mostly housebound. I’ve read of prisoners being isolated in a small cell for 23 hours a day only to be allowed to pace back and forth across a small enclosed yard the other hour, and I’ve wondered how they can face the rest of their lives with no hope for better days. At least, I know that summer will come, and that I can move to a drier climate else when I can’t bear the rains any longer.

There were several arrests here last week of so-called eco-terrorists (eco-vandals is more like it). All are in their early twenties—some of them women—and all are facing 42-plus years in prison. I think about what it must be like for someone who loves the outdoors to be looking at being locked up in a cage for twice as long as they have lived. Judges often sentence idealists to far longer prison terms than they do murderers and rapists, it being a graver matter to threaten the government or a corporation than to assault ordinary citizens.

The use of money

I just finished the first editing of my journal for 2003. The text came to 151 pages and the editing to thirty hours. I used to do three or more editings per journal year, but I can no longer endure so much work for so little benefit. I will go over 2003 once more, and call it good.

I have also been, at Peggy’s request, totaling our assets. She didn’t say why she wanted this done, but it seemed like a good idea. If I wasn’t agreeably surprised by the amount, I wasn’t disagreeably surprised either. After all, I have earned no appreciable income for three decades; Peggy only works 28 hours a week; our investment savvy is mediocre; and we haven’t received any large inheritances.

We have probably benefited as much from what we haven’t spent as from what we have saved. We drive a thirteen-year-old van that we bought used; we have never paid interest on a credit card; and our discretionary spending is modest. Peggy spends a good bit on her buttons, but we have come to peace with this by me putting an equal amount into my savings. She also eats out three times a month, but rarely spends more than $12.

Yet, we have never denied ourselves anything that we really wanted, and we buy quality merchandise. Sacred Heart supplies Peggy’s work clothes, and our closets are stocked with jeans and t-shirts that we bought on clearance. Our few dressy items came from Goodwill, and our most expensive clothes are the ones we wear in the woods.

We live in a modest—but attractive and well-maintained—house, but only paid labor costs on the furnace, fireplace insert, and windows; the rest of the work being done by me—and sometimes us.

The dogs run-up several hundred dollars a year in food and vet bills, but they also save us money by making it impossible for us to fly places together (we won’t leave them, and we don’t trust the airlines to transport them).
Medical care is another significant expense. I seem to need outpatient surgery for one thing or another every three years or so, and Peggy gets allergy shots.

We never travel far in our van, and we camp for free. We don’t even drive around town unless we really need to. Instead, I bike; Peggy walks; and we combine errands when we do use the van.

Peggy flies to Mississippi once a year, but stays with family, and travels on a free ticket that we get by charging almost everything to an airlines credit card. I do most of our shopping at discount stores and on the Internet, and micromanage every penny. I am an inveterate comparison shopper, and have never been one to say that something only costs five dollars.

If Peggy and I were very different in our financial philosophies, our marriage would probably have foundered (the importance of sexual compatibility being miniscule compared to financial compatibility). She does not squeeze a penny quite so tightly, or wail so loudly when it is gone; but she is loathe to owe money, and, aside from her buttons and allergy shots, has no significant personal expenditures.

Unless the item purchased is a no-brainer like a refrigerator or a hot water heater, we seldom buy any new electrical device without thinking long and hard about it. For example, I have been wanting a DVD recorder, but am debating whether to buy one now, or to wait until they come down in price. If I were to mention my desire to Peggy, she would encourage me to buy it now by saying the one thing that drives me damn near crazy: “It won’t break us. We have ____ dollars in the bank.” I can but respond, “We didn’t get ____ dollars in the bank by spending money like there was no tomorrow.”

It is a tiresome skit that has been performed more than CATS. Peggy feels badly that I don’t treat myself more, although I don’t see treating myself as the issue, but rather how to treat myself prudently. Otherwise, I feel weak, impulsive, and stupid. Spending money frivolously is so at odds with my value system that I wouldn’t do it if I were a billionaire. I would give the money to charity first, although x-rays have shown an absence of philanthropic bones.

I don’t hold my friends to my standards, although I have often been surprised to observe that the ones with the least money typically spend more on luxuries than I feel that I can afford. I silently wonder if they contemplate how many hours of their life they are exchanging for things that surely don’t bring great or lasting pleasure. Perhaps, it is not the item itself that is the motivating factor, but the feeling of deprivation they would experience if they did not buy it. As Peggy sometimes says when she is tempted: “I am worth it.”

This is not a sentiment that I relate to, because I see every purchase as a case of either/or. Either I spend money on _____, or I put it in the bank, or I spend it on _____. The decision has nothing to do with self-worth, but with the allocation of resources. I am also very aware of the cumulative effect of small expenditures. Three dollars spent on coffee each workday comes to $15 a week or $750 a year (allowing for a two week vacation). Such small but frequent purchases can add years to one’s work life. Likewise, small but frequent investments can add years to one’s retirement.

I do sometimes buy gifts for Peggy. Just today, I spent $26 for a set of eight ski movies. Such durable item purchases come as no great surprise to her, but if I were to suggest that we go on a luxury cruise, she would think I was having a breakdown.

Despite my frugality, I have never set a budget, recorded our expenditures, or tallied our assets. I couldn’t even offer a reasonable guess about how much we spend on groceries, electricity, or anything else. I consider budgets as only important to people who are hard-pressed or else trying to bring their spending under control.

Beyond the necessities and a few well-chosen luxuries, the greatest importance of money to me is that it affords a certain amount of freedom and security. There are millions of people in this country who can’t see their way to ever retire; people who lose teeth because they can’t afford crowns; people who have to work hard and long, not to get ahead, but to break even. If I were them, I would feel caged, and would take desperate measures.

The average American owes ten thousand dollars in credit card debt and is three paychecks away from being homeless. Yet, rare is the person in America who does not own luxuries that only the wealthiest possess in most countries. Everyday, we are hit with hundreds of enticements to spend money, but never a one to save it.

Flooding, tension over Peggy's cold

The local sewage plant flooded this week, making it necessary to dump raw sewage into the Willamette. All of the major rivers—and most of the minor ones—have topped their banks. The Amazon is higher than I have ever seen it, and the TV news described it as at capacity. Despite an optimistic forecast for the next several days, heavy rain awakened me this morning.

When the weather improves, I will bury additional drain lines in the backyard to keep water from flowing under the house. So far, all I’ve had a chance to do was to drill holes in the bottom of a bucket, bury the bucket so that its top was even with the ground, and run a hundred foot hose from the bucket to the curb. When the rains come, the bucket fills, and I suck on the curb end of the hose to start the water siphoning. The hose sometimes runs for days with a flow rate of fifteen gallons an hour. I also bought a sump pump, but never hooked it up because I had doubts that it could handle the muddy water—a drill powered pump broke in seconds. I’m told that I need an effluent pump, but they are so powerful that I suspect they would burn out from cycling on and off. Mostly, I am hoping that the flooding will end, so I can delay taking serious measures until better weather.

Peggy went skiing yesterday. Her throat felt scratchy when she left, and she returned with a raging cold. As I sit writing, I can hear her coughing and sneezing two rooms away. I feel sorry for her, and worry that I will catch what she has. When she’s sick, she wants cuddling, but I don’t even want to be in the same room. This hurt her feelings, and causes me to feel guilty. I prefer guilt to a cold, but don’t really know if my efforts to avoid one make a difference.

When I have a cold, I want to be left alone, both by preference and to spare Peggy from catching it. This too creates awkwardness since she wants to comfort me, and feels rejected when I cringe.

Raynauds, knee surgery, foul weather

I purchased a pair of $80 mitts today. It was a painful sum to spend, but Raynaud’s Disease has so affected my hands that the least chill puts my fingers at risk of turning a waxy, corpse-like yellow and losing sensation. There is no remedy so far as I have discovered, and, once they are chilled, no way to restore them without an outside heat source. At home, I hold them under warm water; in the woods, I use chemical hand warmers.

I am scheduled for arthroscopic surgery on February 6, to repair torn menisci in my left knee. The back of the knee looks—and feels—as if it has a golf ball protruding through the skin, and I experience shooting pains that threaten my ability to walk. I can still hike ten miles on fairly steep terrain, but, beyond that, I fear the joint will collapse.

I am finding it time consuming to get the weather report (on my weather radio) lately, as I have to first listen to a long list of the latest advisories. On the same day, they might include flood warnings, high surf warnings, winter storm warnings, debris flow warnings, and high wind warnings. The news is filled with scenes of rockslide-covered roads, and houses teetering on collapsing hillsides.

Adventurers

Oh, but the tedium of winter. Another month, and spring will come; another three months, and the worst of the rains will be over. Already the days are lengthening perceptibly, and daffodils are pushing their heads through the mud. But, for now, my most exciting news is that I have been fortunate in my choice of reading material. I have read A Test of Will by Warren MacDonald, Storms of Silence by Joe Simpson, The Hill by Ed Hommer, and two books about Sir Ernest Shackleton. These are all accounts of dangerous adventures to exotic places. Two of the authors Ed Hommer and Warren MacDonald lost their legs, but both went on to perform other dangerous feats, and one of them, Ed Hommer, was killed on Mt. Rainer in 2002, a year after his book was published. Few people who persist in such things see their fiftieth birthday.

God knows have no wish to undertake my adventures. How frivolous to risk one’s life climbing a mountain or exploring the Antarctic. After years of study, I have concluded that such people are simply not suited for much else. I have only met two such adventurers—or rather heard them speak. One was hundred pound Araceli Segarra a Spanish woman who climbed Everest in 1996, a year when so many were killed that the living had to thread their way among the dead. She showed clips of herself performing feats that would give most people nightmares. The other was Will Steger, an Arctic explorer who had the wildest eyes that I have ever seen in a—presumably—sane human being. His gaze only fell on me briefly, but I will carry the memory forever.

The following is Shackleton’s help wanted ad for one of his four Antarctic expeditions. Five thousand men and three women applied. What demons must eat at a person’s soul that he would seek escape at such a cost?

“Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small Wages, Bitter Cold, Long Months of Complete Darkness, Constant Danger, Safe Return Doubtful…”

A Tire Mountain Adventure

Peggy and I climbed Tire Mountain today where, after eating, I had a terrible spasm in my lower back. After I was able to stop cursing and writhing long enough to explain the problem, Peggy gave me four ibuprofen, and we sat—or rather she sat while I lay—wondering how the heck I was going to traverse the five miles (8 km) of mountainous terrain between us and the van. I couldn’t have very well crawled, so I thought I might have to break into my emergency kit and make camp. She offered to go for help, but I was unwilling to pay for my rescue—or risk seeing myself on the nightly news. I fortified my courage with the recollection that people with far greater injuries have made it down far higher mountains in far worse weather.

The spasm eventually lessened enough for me to get up, and finally to walk. Peggy carried what few heavy items I had, and, with the help of my trekking poles, I was able to get down without too much difficulty, the trail being mostly smooth and not unduly steep. Lifting myself into the van proved a greater obstacle than anticipated, but I succeeded, and felt considerably better an hour and a half later when we got home. I then made the mistake of getting out of the van while it was still in the driveway. To my chagrin, I found that I could neither remain standing nor get back in.

I slowly lowered myself to the concrete, and started crawling toward the house. Peggy got a furniture dolly, but I couldn’t lift myself onto it, and was forced to proceed on all-fours. I finally reached the laundry room, but was stymied by the single step into the kitchen. I had no choice but to remain on my hands and knees while trying to divine a solution. Peggy was determined to either help me to my feet, or get the neighbors to do so; but I was far more fearful of other people moving me than I was of finding a way to move myself.

Since I had needed to go to bathroom for the better part of an hour, but clearly wasn’t going to get there anytime soon, Peggy brought a jar, removed my pants and underwear, and held my penis while I urinated. She knew that men shake their privates when they are done—so as to avoid drips—and she gamely attempted to do so on my behalf. She first squeezed it, then jerked it, and finally banged it against the side of the jar. By the time she was satisfied that the job had been done right, I was satisfied that I knew how a cow feels when being milked.

She then attended to other things while I attempted various gentle and repetitive movements, my thought being that if sitting still had stove me up, then exercise might loosen my muscles. I was finally able to ascend the step by crawling sideways with my legs drawn up. Once at the top, I couldn’t get off my side—even to resume crawling—and was therefore as bad off as ever except that I had summited one very formidable seven-inch step. With Peggy’s help, I was able to propel myself on my side like an inchworm until I cleared the doorway. I was now directly in front of the refrigerator.

Peggy, being quite hungry, proceeded to make herself a salad. I was simply amazed by how much cold air exited the bottom of the refrigerator every time she opened it, and the afghans she covered me with were inadequate to stop my shivering since I was naked from the waist down and lying on a cold floor. Not knowing what else to do, I continued to gently exercise my legs in order to limber my back. I kept thinking that I could pull myself along by my arms if I had a rope, but I could see nothing to attach one to. An hour and a half after my ignominious descent from the van, I finally reached a chair in the den, and with care and patience lifted myself into it. I continued to stretch my muscles, and was eventually able to stand, though not completely upright. I was quite pleased with myself, the moreso because I had long since needed to go to the bathroom for reasons other than urination. 


A hard choice, if it should come to that

The Supreme Court’s decisions regarding displays of the Ten Commandments was extensively covered this week. The public reacts to symbolism like toddlers respond to colorful toys. Meanwhile, I brooded over the eminent domain decision.

If I make my stand in the garage, I can die in the same spot my father died. My building preparations for the event would focus on two goals: (1) To hold out for a respectable amount of time, meaning sufficient time for the national media to take an interest; and (2) To insure that the police could not take me by surprise, preventing me from either killing myself or being killed by them.

Media coverage would be important because I would be giving my life so that my home could not be turned over to another person or group, and I would assume that most people would recognize I was in the right, and that my sacrifice would inspire others to take up where I left off. While I have no desire to die a martyr, I would choose such a course if the terms of my continuing to live were made untenable. I see myself as like those revolutionaries who started this country, for they were not men who were impoverished or enslaved. They were largely wealthy men who were unable to capture the loyalty of two-thirds of their fellow colonists until the war had been won. They were also men who had been pushed and refused to live with the indignity of being pushed farther. How can a life be worthwhile if it must be purchased at any price? What joy can there be in arising each morning and looking in the mirror at a man who will accept any degradation if only those who are stronger than he will permit him a groveling existence?

I have given much thought to whether I would actually attempt to kill a policeman, and have decided against it if possible. The people who I would like to kill, I could not kill if I decided to barricade myself inside my house, because I could not afford to risk being caught on the way home. This is how little confidence I have in my ability as an assassin. Such endeavors require a cooler head and steadier hands than mine.

As for my fortress, it would need to be reasonably sturdy (re-enforced concrete would be better, but multiple layers of plywood might have to suffice) to reduce my vulnerability to a direct assault after an attack with tear gas or concussion grenade. It would also need to have an upward angling door close to the floor (or even beneath the floor) just large enough that I could crawl through it and seal it, so it couldn’t be flattened with a battering ram or pulled away with machinery—at least not before I could kill myself. The walls would require closable apertures (wider at the back than at the front, to see through, shoot through, and get air through. Since I could not prevent gas from coming through these same apertures, I would need a gas mask. Naturally, I would need a supply of food and a toilet (maybe a narrow pipe leading to a wider hole beneath the floor.

When I consider my plans and whether I would really pursue them, I ever run into the obstacle of having a wife whose property and fate are so linked with mine that I could not bring danger to myself without bringing suffering to her. The heroes of the American Revolution had families, but this did not prevent them from risking their lives and fortunes, although I don’t know how they brought themselves to do so. The sentiment, “I could not love thee half so much loved I not honor more,” never held sway with me: I would feel damned either way if I was forced to choose between honor and family. If I elected the former, I would not live at all; if I chose the latter, I would have to live with anger and humiliation. I would anticipate choosing the latter as the only loving option, and also as the choice that would reflect the direction of my responsibility. If I were alone, I would react very differently, the choice not being whether to respond violently, but how to best use violence to avenge myself and to inspire others.

Another thought that comes to mind when I consider taking a violent stand is that I am unlikely to ever be faced with eminent domain. The hotel, if it is built, might go up on the other side of the fairgrounds; or an economic downturn might eliminate the possibility. It could even happen that years might pass before it was built, and we might actually want to move by then. On a scale of realistic fears, eminent domain is low, but the magnitude of a fear is determined not just by its likelihood, but by its horror.

No more property rights

The Supreme Court ruled last week that local governments can seize people’s homes and businesses and turn the property over to private developers (Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108). Sandra Day O’Connor wrote a dissenting opinion:

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. ‘That alone is a just government,’ wrote James Madison, ‘which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.’”

I happened to turn on my computer and learn of the ruling within minutes of it being issued. I sat in shock, having known that the case was before the court but never imagining that the court would contradict my very definition of America. I listened to radio and television all day, switching from one station to another to discover the extent of the nation’s outrage, but was chagrined to learn that what struck me as cause for revolution, scarcely registered on the country as a whole. The proposed flag burning amendment was considered worthy of yet another daylong discussion, whereas only NPR even made mention of the Supreme Court decision. I am surely a mutant to a decidedly unintelligent species.

Free speech is worthless unless the speaker succeeds in raising sufficient support to intimidate politicians (a feat that requires money and status). Until then, the merits of his arguments and the persistence of his presentation are ignored. Property, on the other hand, is important because it gives the individual a measure of control and self-determination. By making my property available to whomever can generate the highest tax revenues, the court has effectively made it possible for the city of Eugene to sell my property to the highest bidder. I don’t say that the city will take my land and give it to the owner of a True Value Hardware Store, although this very thing happened to a homeowner in Arizona. And it is unlikely that my house will be torn down so Ted Turner can put up a parking garage, even though this was the case in New Jersey. But I might very well face a similar fate, because my house sets where the city wants a hotel that would serve the county fairgrounds.

Now, I am free to wonder if and when the axe will fall, free to decide how many more dollars and hours I want to put into improving my property. I am free to wait for the city to appoint advisory committees to hire feasibility experts. If their reports are favorable to the ears of the city, I am then free to take whatever money I am offered based upon the recent selling prices of similar properties in my area, no matter that the market is up or down, and no matter that there are no similar properties in my area. After deciding what it will pay, the city will send a policeman with a condemnation order telling me when I am free to leave so bulldozers can sweep away my years of work.

I suppose that, when all is said and done, the leaders of even the best governments spend their taxpayer financed careers looking for ways to take power away from taxpayers. Individuals come and go like fireflies, but bureaucrats are forever, weaseling, manipulating, and strong-arming; doing things in the name of government that they would never dream of doing in their private lives. Alone, they won’t put a gun to my head to take my property, but they will do it for government and sleep soundly afterwards. This is not because government is wiser or nobler than ordinary people, but because it relieves its minions of personal responsibility. They, in turn, can assure those whose lives they disrupt—or destroy—that they are just doing their jobs, just following the orders of the legislature or the city council. In any event, no actual person is to blame; it’s the system, it’s city hall. Soldiers are dying everyday so I can be free to rant all I want against governmental unfairness, but I had better be damned sure to be out before the wrecking ball arrives, or I will be killed (impersonally, of course); and that would be a shame because such deaths look bad on page 19-C of the local paper, and because they throw the builders off schedule.

If Ted Turner had persuaded the city to condemn my home so he could build a parking garage, I would take it very personally. I would blame him, and I would blame the mayor and any council members who went along with him. I would also blame the secretary who typed the order, the police officer who delivered it, and the contractor who demolished my house. My problem would not be who to blame, but who to kill since I would be stopped before I killed them all.

Of course, I speak as a fanatic, a hothead, and I probably wouldn’t harm anyone anyway because I have both a wife and a life to consider. But this is where I get confused. Is life a thing to be clung to regardless? Apparently, the government is also confused. On the one hand, it has gotten 1,729 American men and women killed in Iraq for a cause that makes no sense to me, while on the other, it has fought vigorously for the “life” of a brain dead woman along with the “lives” of test tube fetuses that would be destroyed anyway. Compared to war, snuffing Ted Turner would make perfectly good sense because it would be a direct attack on an egregious predator and oppressor. In war, directness is seldom the case. My countrymen have killed the youth of many nations, and their youth has killed our youth, not out of hatred or because one or the other was evil, but because governments ordained the killing.

I offer this as another example of individuals performing horrific acts because government claimed the power to relieve them of personal responsibility. I would suggest that this is not an ethically defensible position, and this is why the assassination of someone like Ted Turner would be an act of virtue and economy. War is like burning down a house to get rid of the roaches; assassination is targeting nothing but roaches. How much nobler is that man who takes personal responsibility for a justifiable assassination than is that soldier who kills strangers in war. The former knows that his own defamation and destruction are insured, while the latter anticipates honors and benefits.

These were some of my thoughts after I read the court’s verdict, but there were others. For example, I recalled that I am expected to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag at lodge, and I can no longer do that unless I substitute, “…the country for which it stood for “the country for which it stands.” I thought of America’s soldiers, and I knew that I no longer consider them my soldiers; and of America’s police, how they are no longer my police. Both have become the arm of an occupying force. I also felt relief, because, having lost connectedness to my country of origin, I am less concerned for its welfare. So what if illegals flood the borders and rob us of our culture and language? So what if terrorists set off a dirty bomb in Washington? I will grieve for the innocent dead, and I will regret whatever economic cost I incur, but I will not view it as a personal affront to something that is precious to me.

I experienced such feelings because property is my most intimate possession. For the government to take away my right to be master of my home and the little parcel of land upon which it sets constitutes such an intimate and degrading incursion that it would lead me to seriously question the value of my life if I acquiesced.

Simply put, I don’t know if I could in good conscience allow it to pass without resorting to violence. I would reflect on the fact that I have already lived a good many years, and that surely it would be better to die at sixty while fighting for something I believed in than at eighty of a stroke. The rub, as I have said, is that I have a wife; also, the worst has not yet happened, at least not to me, and I can’t honestly say what I would do. I can but say that I would equate surrender with weakness.

Social angst

I wince under the irony of the fact that I consider most people so vapid that I can scarcely tolerate them, yet I want them to enjoy their time with me. Most of my social interactions result in a net loss, for not only do I not enjoy my companions; I rarely learn from them; I don’t feel bolstered by my part in the interaction; I don’t believe my companions enjoyed my part in our interaction; and I even feel a loss of self-respect due to my failure to socialize in a mutually gratifying way. My need for society is analogous to my need for religion in that both are unabating and unrequited.

Somewhat in my defense, I have observed that if you record a conversation—or a speech, lecture, or sermon—and play it before an audience—no one but your family will voluntarily watch it. The situation is almost as bad if the conversation, speech, etc. is heard directly, but the act of recording it removes the listener from any semblance of a give and take relationship, causing the emptiness of content to become obvious. I suspect therefore that most people truly are as boring as I perceive them, and that any interest they appear to possess must be attributed to their relationship to their listeners.

As a boy in church, I was called upon from time to time to address the congregation. I was stricken by how bored and distracted my audience looked until I observed that the audience looked the same no matter who was speaking, and I concluded from this that I might indeed be boring, but at least I was no more boring than anyone else. It is still true that I don’t long to excel as a speaker or a conversationalist (such goals overtaxing my credulity), but only to equal some imaginary average. Even this I cannot do except on those occasions when I am drawn to someone for information (as when I am talking with a botanist or geologist), or when a person is gifted at drawing me out and affirming the worth of what I offer. I realize that the approval of people in the latter category can not usually be taken personally, because their interest extends to everyone. Like Will Rogers, they would say they never met a man they didn’t like (a claim that would hardly have astounded me more had the speaker been a woman who said she never met a man she didn’t sleep with).

I went to a funeral after I wrote the above, and I reflected upon what I had written as I interacted. Since I possess so little hope of either pleasing or being pleased by others, the best I could think to do was to be kind and to at least appear interested (as opposed to talking about myself, as is my habit). I have heard it said that we eventually become that which we pretend to be, but I have not found it so. Maybe the reason is that I am not kind enough, kindness being a haphazard endeavor for me. It is a virtue that my native empathy, combined with my considerable intuition, enables me to excel at when I think of it and resolve to do it, but these prerequisites are often lacking. It could also be argued that I expect too much of others—and of myself—and this might be true, but it can only lead to a resignation akin to that of putting up with an old dog that can’t help but piss on the carpet.

One of the reasons I prefer to write rather than to converse is that talking is so nearly effortless that too much is said, whereas writing takes time and dedication, and thereby encourages depth and conciseness. It also eliminates distractions and allows me to proceed at a slower pace. If my speech were as personal and profound as my writing, people would consider me peculiar and not know how to respond; but if my writing were as shallow and desultory as my speech, I could fill pages without saying anything of interest.