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.

Gavain's massage; frolicking goddesses

I got that massage. I knew from Gavain’s website that he was young, sensitive, intuitive, elfin, and, most importantly, cheap. He lives in a big blue bus with Kaseja, a woman with whom he shares a non-licensed counseling practice. They are into aromatherapy, urban Shamanism, human/plant communication, radical epistemology (I can only guess), and music therapy, but, fortunately, not astrology or Tarot—I have my limits.

Gavain and Kaseja ask that everyone who visits their website donate two dollars so they can build a communal household. They say the universe is generous to the generous, so no one need worry about wasting their money. As evidence, they point to a man in Canada who started with one paperclip and, fifteen trades later, owned a house (Donald Trump would be envious). They think such miracles are possible for anyone who believes they are and lives with hearts that are honest and open. I envision them as the progeny of Peter Pan and Andrew Carnegie.

Peggy surprised me some years ago by telling someone that I would prefer a woman masseuse. “God forbid,” I said. “I want a man with muscles like Schwarzenegger’s and hands as big as catcher’s mitts. I want someone who can pick me up and work me like pizza dough. And I really, really don’t want to be distracted by lust.” I finally found such a man, and I went to him a few times with backaches. He said, “Not many guys can take it the way you can,” and I wondered if he had any idea how close I was to not taking it. I imagined that we were in a contest to see how much pain I could endure versus how much he could inflict. But he was good. I knew this because he worked mostly with athletes from the U of O, so I also knew that what hurt in the moment would help in the long-term.

Gavain had hands that were as soft as they were little, like a woman’s. I hadn’t figured on this, and I felt disconcerted, as if he had boobs. I suggested to no avail that he massage me harder, and I smiled when my massage became, at times, like a laying-on-of-hands. With my eyes closed, I imagined him somewhere way there above me, standing in the ether, trying to see into my soul, trying to find mystical insight into what I needed. I couldn’t tell if he was succeeding. I just knew that he wasn’t going to be like the locker room masseuse I wanted; he was going to be…well, gentle, sensitive.

Eleven years have passed since another human being—other than Peggy—touched me so long and so intimately. I realized more keenly than I always do (a hundred times a day) that I miss that very much. I am not a one-woman man. I have forced myself into the mold, but it’s like a shoe that doesn’t fit.

I paid Gavain and left. The drizzle turned to a downpour, and I stopped my bike under an awning. Three minutes later, roof gutters were overflowing above, and street gutters were flooding below. Three more minutes and the sun came out. I continued. Near 15th and Lincoln, a teenage girl was giggling as she played beneath a hose in her bra and panties. Another giggling girl, braless in a wet t-shirt, was taking her picture. I wondered how they could stand the fifty-degree weather. Just as I passed, the camera flashed, and I knew I would be in their picture, smiling broadly at the vision of more adolescent feminine flesh than I had seen in decades. Their youth and beauty overwhelmed me; they could have been frolicking goddesses.

A few minutes later, a much older—but equally beautiful—woman placed her hand on my wrist for balance as she slipped going into the library. I felt her electricity. That is to say, I felt my own electricity that she awakened. As I continued biking, the world seemed softer, younger, more alive, and more colorful, but was Gavain responsible? I just know that I hurt as much as ever.

A night spent brooding; comfort from Marcus Aurelius

Over the weekend, I dug trenches and drove posts. I think I broke my hand, but the pain from that was minor compared to total-body soreness and severe tingling in both hands. Saturday night, I couldn’t turn onto my side because of leg cramps, so after two hours of lying awake, I drank wine until I was anesthetized enough to sleep. Five hours later, the alcohol wore off.

I lay in the darkness brooding over the news of the week—the contempt that President Putin showed Condoleezza Rice, the statement by General Sanchez that the Iraq war was doomed from the outset, the announcement by the official in charge of stamping out Iraqi corruption that the whole Iraqi government is corrupt. Despite all this, the Bush administration retains its habitual optimism. I don’t just fear for the long-term, I worry about whether we can survive another year of George Bush.

How would we feel if Putin started putting missiles on our doorstep? Come to think of it, we already know because we damn near went to war when Khrushchev did it. Yes, much of the world hates us, and, yes, we give them reason. We ARE the greatest threat to world peace.

I concluded that I was too screwed-up physically to allow myself to sink deeper emotionally, so I read from a book about medieval history, a subject that has fascinated me for years. Then I read from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Then I went back to brooding about all that money and all those lives we have wasted in the Middle East, and I felt so ashamed to be an American that I wanted to apologize to the world.

Sunday, Peggy and I biked in the mountains, exacerbating my hand numbness. I am now waiting for a call from a massage therapist. I don’t go to massage therapists because of the cost, but today I might make an exception.
Some miscellaneous thoughts from Marcus Aurelius that add a cheerier light to my ruminations…

Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, “What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing?” For thou wilt be ashamed to confess.

A scowling look is altogether unnatural; when it is often assumed, the result is that all comeliness dies away, and at last is so completely extinguished that it cannot be again lighted up at all.

Why art thou disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee? Is it the form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it. But besides these there is nothing.

…pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination.

Neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind.

When thou art offended with any man’s shameless conduct, immediately ask thyself, “Is it possible, then, that shameless men should not be in the world?” It is not possible. Do not, then, require what is impossible.

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible.

Wipe out the imagination. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine thyself to the present.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny.

Art thou wearied of enduring the wicked, and this too when thou art one of them?

Live as on a mountain…. Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

An encounter that might have gone badly

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 came from a house that stood between one gated Weyerhaeuser road and another. They 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.

Two non-vets reminisce

I visited a friend in the hospital during the recent PBS series about World War II. He was of military age during the war, but flunked his physical. He talked what that meant to him, and I talked about my maneuverings to avoid Vietnam and what that meant to me. We were hardly on the level of veterans comparing Iwo Jima with the Battle of the Bulge, but we shared such stories as we had, and congratulated one another on having never been shot at.

After 9/11, I would have seriously considered enlisting had I been younger, but now I am exceedingly glad that I was unable to fight in yet another pointless conflict based upon a lie; and I honestly don’t know if I would voluntarily risk my life for my country in any war. I’m not even sure my country is worth dying for, or what it would mean, exactly, to die for it.

I worked as a stock clerk at Woolworth’s when I was in college, and I took note, for the first time really, that my nation’s every sacred occasion was another excuse for a sale. Our nation was created by brave idealists—let’s have a sale. Millions fought for our freedom—let’s have a sale. Christ was born of a virgin—let’s have a sale. And, when we can get away with it, let’s move the sacred day to Monday so we can have a “three day sale.”

I sometimes wondered why almost no one seemed to object to this. I mean, come on, George Washington was born on February 22, but we’ll just honor him on whatever Monday comes closest—later renaming the day to honor all presidents (no matter how inept or evil)—and assume that Washington would be okay with that. True, every Christmas a few people write editorials about the real meaning of Christmas, but even they don’t usually object to commercialism per se, they just think we need to tone it down a bit, as in enough’s enough already.

So, I don’t know. To die for my country would mean…. To die so half of us can exercise our freedom to stay home from the polls? To die so the least among us can speak his piece, although most won’t bother because only the rich and famous are heard anyway? To die so …?

We lead the world in consumerism, waste, and obesity. In what else do we lead? Oh, yes, the cost of medical care, although our life expectancy continues to drop. If it is fair to say that our soldiers died for that which we do best, they died so that we can shop until we drop, and waste until we have wasted it all.

Most of my countrymen (adolescents mostly) who fought in wars probably thought about their sacrifice a lot less than I if only because I have been at it longer than they were able to remain alive. From what I can gather, they were entirely too trusting of their elders and too generous with their lives and fortunes. It’s not enough to be good, you also have to be smart lest your goodness serve an evil end.

This I call God

We decided to work in one last camping trip for the year. Our destination was the end of a logging road on Bunchgrass Mountain. When we arrived, the sky was clear, the weather warm. Within minutes, chilly clouds had descended to just above our heads, hiding Fuji, Diamond, Verdun, Wolf, Judd, and David Douglas. Then the sky cleared, and we were warm again. Then clouds rolled up from below and surrounded us completely. Then we went to bed. Baxter and I aren’t half the men Peggy and Bonnie are, so we slept in our coats while they passed the night au naturel.

Fourteen hours later it was light enough—and, we hoped, warm enough—to get out of bed. Then it snowed, and the wind came up. Peggy set out to climb Fuji (7,144’) while I biked some nearby roads. My hands and feet were cold even with chemical warmers, so I soon went back to bed and read, alternating the hand that was holding the book while I warmed the other against my legs. Peggy returned triumphant with photos of clouds two feet from her face and hoar frost on shrubbery. “Fuji fed my soul,” she exclaimed, and I remembered that the one in Japan is also said to do that.

Later, we biked together in the little warmth that splotches of afternoon sun provided. Skeleton trees from a forest long since destroyed by fire stood ghostly white against writhing gray clouds. Vine maples consoled glacier-scarred andesite with leaves of red, yellow, orange, and purple. A coyote crossed the road in search of a chipmunk. A red-tailed hawk hung motionless on an updraft. Pinnacles too steep to hold snow pierced high clouds. Sunbeams illuminated patches of trees in a u-shaped valley that rose thousands of feet above the rapids of Black Creek. Purple asters, yellow St. John’s wort, and white pearly everlastings gladdened the roadside. Thickets of snowbrush made the air heavenly with honey-flavored balm.

I grieved that twinflower, prince’s pine, and vanilla leaf, are about to go underground for more months than I can well endure. The star-burst sprays of mountain hemlock made my heart leap for joy, and the haughty limbs of young noble firs reminded me of Bonnie when she was a cocky pup and thought it would be great sport to attack a city bus. I ate a choke cherry from one of numerous fragrant groves, choked, and ate another so as to hold tight to that which God has spared from pruning snips and selective-breeding.

God. Three weeks ago, we camped near Windy Pass. I had been there twice but only knew it as a warm and sunny place where five logging roads converge. It is not high (3,800’), not barren, not surrounded by precipices, and not the least bit windy. Mediocre Pass, Nothing-Much-Happening Pass, You’ll Not Remember Being Here Pass; such names as these seemed more fitting.

The wind came up that night. It did not touch the van, but I could hear it overhead, waxing and waning as it flung itself out of Winberry Canyon and vaulted far into the sky. I imagined it as a great beast that was inhaling and exhaling, and gaining strength with every breath. It continued for hours under the clear sky, maybe all night. I don’t know because I drifted in and out. I just know that when I awakened, Windy Pass was warm, and sunny, and still, and not at all imposing.

During the night an interesting thing happened. The wind stopped waning. It reached a very high speed—there above the van—and it never slowed. Bonnie became so frightened that she did something she would never presume to do in ordinary times, she got into bed with us. I have camped above timberline when winds rocked the van as if it were a boat on a lake, but this wind was greater than that. To be so close to something that vast, powerful, and unwavering, and yet to be untouched by it! I felt as though I could have spread a map on the ground without it being disturbed, yet there, just a little way above me, the sound was such that God might have been passing by.

I think that to die in such a place would not be death at all. I would hope to lie in a snowbrush thicket and become a feast for the hungry. No crematory flames would waste my substance or formaldehyde poison my tissues. I would feed the earth that has so generously fed me, and I would count it as a worthy end to the narrow life that I have known thus far, for it is without excuse that I have lived nearly three score years, yet required a mighty wind to awaken me to the majesty of a mountain pass.

“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper…. And it said, ‘Why are you here?’”
1 Kings 19:11-13

Why indeed, except it be to praise that which created me and sustains me, yet which has no awareness of me and no desire for anything I might offer. This I call God.

The religious requirements of Masonry

I’ve been busting my butt memorizing Masonic ritual, which isn’t easy at best since only the first letter of every word is printed. To see the actual words, I would have to drive to Portland and ask the Grand Master to unlock his safe. By the time I got back to Eugene, I probably would have found another word I didn’t know, and would have to do the drive over. Instead, I call local Masons on the phone, and tell them I’m stuck on Page 52, Line 18, etc.
It’s a “Masonic offence” to make even a tiny pencil mark in a ritual, much less write the ritual out. A “Masonic offense” is even worse in Masonry than a mortal sin is in the Catholic Church, because Catholics aren’t ordinarily excommunicated for mortal sins, whereas Masons really are kicked-out for Masonic offenses.

Be that as it may, I learned my degree work from two wonderful men, and at least one of them had at least some of the ritual written down. I know this because when he couldn’t remember a word, he would turn his back to me and refer to a book that he kept in a drawer. I suspect the practice is common, and I interpret it this way. If you take a stretch of highway on which motorists can safely go fifty, and you post a twenty mile per hour speed limit, most people will ignore the law. They might not go fifty, but they will go over twenty simply because the law makes no sense. In the case of the Masonic ritual, you can find it on the Internet in a few seconds, and hardly anyone would want to read it anyway, because it would be—to use another Catholic comparison—like reading a mass. It’s an interactive affair—you have to be there to appreciate it.

Yet its attempt at secrecy does make Masonry more appealing. It’s not that Masons are hiding things because they are shameful or sinister, but because they are intimate and sacred. If just anyone could drift into a Masonic lodge, I would not be a Mason. There are no social connections, there are only private connections within a social context, and the secrecy of Masonry (along with its accompanying vows) facilitates that.

Masonry claims not to care what your religion is just so long as you have one, yet it requires its members to believe in one God, personal immortality, and the holiness of John the Apostle and John the Baptist. Well, so much for Hindus and Buddhists. Aside from this blatant hypocrisy on the part of Masonry’s Christian majority, I had to think hard about what these requirements mean to me. Could I in good faith affirm them so I wouldn’t be like my friend who got around Alcoholics Anonymous requirement that she believe in a Supreme Being by promoting her teddy bear.

I don’t believe in the supernatural, but I have no qualms about defining God as that which causes my heart to open—Peggy’s loyalty; Pachebel’s Canon in D; Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince; alpenglow on Diamond Peak; the kindness of strangers. These things I worship (and what a person worships is properly said to be his God). They’re as good as it gets, and they’re as real as it gets. When I pray, it is to the goodness within my own heart—a goodness that such things elicit. God is love and beauty. Love and beauty are God. Such is my religion.

Personal immortality posed a greater challenge. As with God, Masonry requires you to believe in it, but they don’t tell you what it is. Here is my problem. I am no longer the person I was when I was two, or ten, or even fifty. I even like to think that I am not the person I was yesterday, because yesterday was a lousy day. I ate nothing, drank too much coffee, and was pretty near psychotic by late afternoon. But being a tad psychotic from time to time is not always bad. Like LSD, it can show you the world through new eyes. Therefore the me who awakened this morning was, in a way, a different me than the one who awakened yesterday morning.

If Masonry meant by personal immortality that, if I died today, I would awaken in another realm as a white man with all his relationships intact, I would think them rather silly, but since they leave it to me to define personal immortality, I have to say that the personal (who I am at my deepest level) is unlimited in time or space. There is my ultimate reality, and there is my present incarnation, and the two are one. I am not a being but a passageway, within an indivisible whole.

Most Masons would shake their heads if they were to read this. Many might say that they can’t tell what the hell I’m talking about, and they doubt that I do. “But do you know what you’re talking about?” I might counter. “Do you know what you are talking about when you refer to personal immortality as if the next life were a perpetual family reunion with God carving the turkey? Do you truly believe that your existence is like concrete? Why even concrete is not like concrete; it contains atoms that are forever moving like an extremely slow river and, as Heraclitus said, ‘You can’t jump in the same river twice.’”

Personal immortality can only mean that we possess an inner core that is unchanging, and in this I believe. I just don’t believe that this core is synonymous with how I perceive of myself now/today/this minute or even this lifetime. “I” am bigger and older than that. So big that I see no end to me, and I am indebted to the Masons—and the Odd Fellows—for making me think about such things.

Seneca versus Wall Street

I’ve been doing some complementary reading. On one side, Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, which is about greed, depravity, competition, materialism, and drug abuse. On the other, the writings of Seneca and Epictetus. Wall Street looks even worse when compared so closely to the Stoic belief that virtue is the only good.

When Seneca was ordered to commit suicide by Nero, he first cut arteries in his arms and legs, but he had a clotting disorder, so that didn’t kill him. Then he drank poison, but that didn’t do the trick either, so he finally had himself carried to a steam room where he died of a heatstroke. All the while, he was exhorting his followers to remember the things he had taught them. Admiral James Stockdale spent eight years in the “Hanoi Hilton” after breaking his leg when he parachuted from a plane. He was nearly starved, often tortured, and kept in solitary confinement for four years. The writings of Epictetus enabled him to survive.

At 58, with all the mistakes of the past, how might I live better? How might I take life more seriously, not in a morose way but an intelligent way. First, I could be more polite. Am I rude then? No, I’m not rude, but I could go to greater pains to be nice. I could open more doors for more people. I could stand aside and let others go first. I could talk less about me, and ask people more about themselves. I could judge less harshly. I could try harder to see the other person’s viewpoint. I could show respect even when I’m not being treated respectfully.

Road clearing

We camped over the weekend for possibly the last time this year due to the shortening days. As we lay in the van reading on Saturday afternoon, something caught my eye, and I looked out to see a large owl observing Baxter from a nearby tree. This was the third time I’ve saved him from a predator. The first was a bobcat and the second a hawk. The bobcat was clearly on the verge of attacking, but the plans of the hawk and the owl were less clear to me, and maybe to themselves. Baxter is too heavy to fly away with, yet he is so enticingly helpless. A person doesn’t realize how many predators there are in the woods until he goes there in the company of something they would like to eat.

This was our fifth trip to the same abandoned roadbed. On the first, we biked as far as we could, often having to carry our bikes over logs and around brush. We got it into our heads that it would be fun to clear the roadway with the exception of a downed tree at the very beginning that we hoped would discourage ATVers. According to our map, the road went maybe two or three miles (crooked distances are hard to judge) and gained 800 feet before abruptly ending on the side of a nameless mountain. The map also showed a few spur roads and several creeks. None of the creeks were running, although some contained small pools for the dogs.

Some of the spur roads were still marked by plasticized signposts. The forest service really has a winner with these as they look almost new even after three decades. Our best map is supposed to show all the roads, even the abandoned ones, but some of the spurs were simply too old to be included. Yet, these faithful signposts continue to announce their existence.

Weeks later, we returned with a bucksaw and set to work. It was a lousy job for a man with a bad knee, but I enjoy few things better than tidying up the woods. As is often the case with abandoned roadbeds, the first part was easily discernible, but the latter completely covered by leaf litter and fallen trees. On an exploratory trip, Peggy actually became lost and had to follow the dogs out. Although she questioned their choice of direction, she had no ideas of her own, and was pleasantly surprised by how fast they found me.

The woods being shadowy, sword ferns had taken root in the leaf litter. They were huge, but so shallowly anchored that they could be easily peeled from the earth, exposing glimpses of the old roadbed. I hesitantly uprooted enough of them to create a passage. I often ponder ways to reduce the number of creatures that must die so that I might live, but my responsibility is unclear. For example, I’ve no doubt but what I often run over snakes sunning themselves on mountain roads, but what am I to do? I could drive fewer miles or even stay home altogether, yet it would be a terrific loss to me.

In their struggle to reach the light, quite a few big-leaf maples and western red cedars had grown so tall that their trunks couldn’t support them, and many had bent completely across the road creating an arbor effect. Maples can survive several years in this condition, and we let them be except when they were too low to bike under. Cutting cedars conjured memories of sharpening pencils in grade school. I felt guilty about killing even such stunted trees, but I consoled myself with the thought that they were doomed anyway.

Our work consumed a significant part of four days, and we did not expect to reach the end of the road even then, but the last few hundred feet turned out to be less challenging than anticipated, so at four o’clock Sunday we arrived at a spot beyond which no more gravel could be found. Some old growth logs awaited us there in company with a beer can, an oilcan and a Prestone anti-freeze container—all made of steel and requiring an opener. Since I didn’t remember anti-freeze coming in such a container, I assumed it must date from the early sixties if not sooner. A log had protected it from the elements.

Peggy wondered halfway through our work if we were breaking the law. I said that we probably could be charged with something, although I couldn’t imagine that we would be even in the unlikely event that anyone caught us. Then too, I offered, it is only a matter of time before the dozers return to reopen the area for another round of logging, so, in all fairness, we should be paid for our work. Without us, the forest service would have to send in surveyors to find the roadbed. Of course, they will probably send in surveyors anyway—as a matter of course—but those surveyors will be pleasantly surprised to find that someone did their work for them. As for us, our private treasure will be lost. Not just the road but the forest itself.

Lightning flashes

I saw lightning flashes in both eyes last night. The right eye got so bad that I couldn’t see anything on that side of my nose. I was biking with the dogs at the time, and we had to pass through several narrow gates to get home. I couldn’t even tell if a gate was open until I was upon it. When I got home, I found that I couldn’t read. I could recognize individual letters, but I couldn’t make them into words. I thought that, well, okay, I will separate the letters into syllables, but since individual syllables can be pronounced in different ways, I had to go through various combinations in order to figure out each word, and this made sentences impossible.

I hesitated to tell Peggy for fear she would freak out, but I did, and she did. “We’ve got to get you to urgent care,” she insisted. “No, no, no,” I insisted back. “I don’t know what this is, but I don’t think it’s serious. That migraine I had two years ago started with flashing lights, so I think this might be a repeat.” I reminded her of the time I had shingles around my eye, and, at her insistence, went to urgent care at 5:30 in the morning. I said this to convince her that I would be not only willing but eager to go to the hospital if I thought it necessary.

In this situation, I figured that, okay, if I go, they’re probably going to scan my head with some enormous machine. Then they’re going to run all kinds of other tests, and the bill is going to be a thousand dollars after insurance, and nothing will show up on any of the tests, and I will get well on my own after having spent hours lying around on cold gurneys waiting for people to do things.
Two hours later I could read but had a slight headache. Today, I am fine.

Biking with the dogs

We biked in the woods thrice last week, only stopping to water the dogs and to eat salal berries, thimbleberries, blackberries, dewberries, salmon berries, and red huckleberries. We covered ten miles some days, no more because of the dogs.

Baxter has diabetes incipitus, so he must never be without water. He drinks as much as Peggy, Bonnie, and me together, so much water that his pee looks like water. We carry a gallon for a ten-mile trip and, on warm days, stop every ten minutes or so to check him for heat exhaustion. We note whether he collapses in a heap or hunts for game in the bushes. We check his gums to be sure they are pink. We talk to him to gauge his alertness. We give him time to catch his breath.

We are aided in our attentiveness by reminders of how everlastingly guilty we would feel if we ran him to death. I say we, but Peggy leaves Baxter’s care on the road to me, which is a reversal of what we do at home where she looks at the dogs’ piss, pokes at their poop, feels their bodies for growths, observes their eyes; and sometimes works herself into a panic for little reason that I can see. I took Bonnie to the vet last week simply because Peggy was worried about a fleeting pain. The vet didn’t know what to make of it, and suggested x-rays. I demurred at the price, and came away with a bottle of anti-inflammatory pills of which only two were used—and them only because we had them.

Without dogs, we would bike faster, farther, and sometimes on pavement, but dirt and gravel are conducive to slower speeds and are easier on their feet. Their joy is worth our sacrifice. It is even worth having to bathe them when we get home.

Thoughts of investing

There are as many mutual funds as there are stocks on the Wilshire 5000 (which actually contains 7000 stocks). Many mutual funds charge a four to eight percent sales fee, a one to two percent advisory fee, and a 12b1 fee which goes for advertising. This in a market that averages ten percent. Less than half of these actively managed funds earn, after expenses, a return that is equal to the market, and that’s in one year. With every subsequent year, the winning funds have less chance of beating the market average again. By year five, the number is down to one in four, and those investors who own a market-beating fund pay higher taxes (due to the fund’s portfolio turnover) and incur greater risk.

Impartial financial writers often advise investors to not even try to beat the market. Instead, buy a fund that replicates the index. The passively managed Wilshire 5000 index fund that I own has no sales fee, no 12b1 fee, and a 0.1% maintenance fee. Furthermore, the portfolio turnover rate is almost nil (compared to 100% or more for many managed funds), so there are few capital gains. I also own a bond index fund that follows the broad American bond market, and a third fund that tracks the EAFE (Europe, Australasia, and the Far East) stock index. I own 50% American stocks, 5% foreign stocks, and 45% American bonds. If I were younger, I would own more stocks, but since there have been whole decades in which the market lost money, I can’t take the risk.

Yesterday, I heard over NPR that the stock market might crash this very week due to the domino effect of mortgage loan defaults. The brokerage houses are in a panic. The hedge fund managers can’t slow down long enough for their in-house shoeshine boys to polish their shoes. Some fund managers have even stopped honoring redemptions.

Maybe the sky is about to fall, but then again stocks are never more popular than at the end of a bull market or more shunned than at the end of a bear market. This is why I mostly ignore the prognosticators. I say mostly, because I understand only too well the twin emotions of greed and fear that drive the market.

Still, I’ve seen the market drop 38% without being tempted to bail. I’m not brave; I just think in terms of shares instead of dollars. If I own 100 shares of a mutual fund, I will still own those 100 shares whether they are worth a lot or a little unless I sell them. This means that I have reason to hope. If I owned 100 shares of stock, it would be a different matter because a person can ride a stock all the way to the ground. By contrast, a mutual fund is spread across many stocks, and my investments are spread further than any actively managed mutual fund. If big company stocks are rising, I rise with them. If small company stocks or Japanese stocks are having their day in the sun, I get in on some of that. If no stocks are going up, I have bonds to fall back on. And no matter what, I won’t pay high fees and taxes.

My only indulgence is 350 shares of a fund that invests solely in oil and gas exploration. It’s breathtaking to watch its movements on a given day, and, over the course of a year, it can go up or down by 80%. I tell myself that I should sell it while it’s flying high, but I love that fund. It’s like having a poisonous snake for a pet. The snake kills your rats, but then you can never trust the snake not to kill you too, and there’s something attractive about that.

Scandi Festival

I helped my Masonic Lodge staff a food booth at the Scandinavian Festival last week. When I arrived, I was handed a fake-embroidery vest and a pointed hat that looked like a limp dunce cap. Our specialty was meatballs on a stick. I assumed they were called meatballs-on-a-stick, so when a customer asked me for a frickadeller, I asked her what she was talking about. She pointed to our big sign (which I hadn’t read), and looked at me as if I had pretty much ruined the exoticism of her gustatory experience.

Another customer asked what kind of food we had. I knew what kind of food we had. We had Costco precooked sausages and Don Juan tortillas, but I didn’t know what kind of food we were supposed to have. I called Donald over since Donald was the only one of us who actually knew what he was doing. “It’s Swedish,” he said. Of course, Swedish meatballs, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe for the same reason that I don’t know what countries constitute Scandinavia. Sweden and Norway, I suppose. Denmark, perhaps? Finland possibly? Do I care? A little.

I neither hated my shift nor loved it. Mostly I watched women, felt mildly annoyed when we had customer, and wondered if everyone else who was serving food (eating appeared to be the point of the festival) was as fake as we were.