John and Paul, and our trip to Lexington

I worked hard yesterday making final preparations for the Masons’ first meeting in the Odd Fellow Lodge. Tension with the building manager made everything more difficult. I’ve been hated before, but rarely by people I see all the time. I ask myself why it should be a problem. Well, maybe there’s no good reason. Maybe it will just take some getting used to. I did as I thought right, and I expected to be treated as I am being treated. I see this as a learning experience, the lesson being that it’s okay to be hated.

I’ve known people who fell overboard in this regard, militant atheists being a case in point. I had two friends in Mississippi who se bumper stickers made fun of Jesus. On one of our trips together, we drove to Lexington, Kentucky, for an American Atheist convention. I was sick with a cold and only wanted to lie in the back and sleep, but I kept being awakened by horns honking and people screaming profanities. John and Paul were laughing their heads off, while I was wondering if I would live to get home. You might think that they were bad-asses, but they were anything but. John was 68 and weighed 450 pounds; Paul was 85 and hardly weighed 120; and neither was armed with anything.

In Lexington, I asked Robin (Madelyn Murray O’Hair’s granddaughter how she could survive having such hatred directed at her. She said she had learned to not take it personally.

It was meant personally, but Robin had the right idea. Regarding vicious people as if they were vicious dogs, and dealing with them matter of factly instead of hatefully is surely the best policy. This might be what’s hard for me. What I want to do is to let the building manager have it with both barrels, but I’m determined to conduct myself with dignity, because I know I would only make a bad situation worse. Why stomp on what’s already broken?

The meeting goes against me. We are not a rational species but a species that uses rationality.

The trustees’ meeting went against me, its purpose not to address the issues but to attack me personally. Being a pessimist, I was prepared for the worst, and the worst was what I got—yelling, wild accusations, red faces, popped eyes, quivering lips, trembling hands, faces contorted with rage, and people leaning forward as if to leap at my throat. Through it all, I remained calm. At one point, I even laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all.

If a person feels superior to his fellows, he risks being blinded to their virtues. Yet, how hard it is to not wall others up within the confines of a small and remote cell in my mind, a cell with a sign over the door that reads “worthless.” For example, when I was locking my bike up in front of the library yesterday I overheard the following: “Man, I was so fucking wasted that I fucking didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.” This level of exchange is commonplace. In the library’s new book section, I came across how-to books on graffiti and moonshine.

I know that my fellow trustees, the hangers-on in front of the library, and those librarians who consider it their First Amendment duty to instruct adolescents in criminality; are members of my species. I know that somewhere within them a light shines that is akin to my own. Yet, I am challenged to remain open to that light—it being so dim—and the fact that I am able to do so at all comes through considerable struggle. I want to see what is instead of seeing merely the labels I have placed upon what is. To feel that I know, really know, a thing is to close myself off from new information about it. The extent to which I am able to maintain objectivity is the extent to which reason reigns over feeling as my guiding principal.

But look at which of the two rules the world. Most of my fellow trustees were only too glad to give themselves over to anger. They even felt entitled to their anger because, as they saw it, I MADE them angry. Witness the slavery implicit within this conclusion. Look at the teenage drunks and druggies in front of the library. Where is the clear thinking that rules their lives? They too are slaves to feeling. School, society, and family being flawed, they feel justified in devoting their lives to drugs and crime. Look at how most people relate to food or sex. Is a “super-sized burger, Coke, and fries” a rational choice for lunch? Is losing your family—or your presidency—for a toss in the sack reasonable?

We are not a rational species but rather a species that sometimes uses rationality to achieve goals that were emotionally determined. There is no ridding ourselves of emotion as a central force in our lives, but we need to understand that emotions can become to our lives what cataracts are to our vision, and that rationality is the only antidote. We get into trouble when, instead of striving for congruence between feeling and reason, we embrace feeling and abandon reason. Our dilemma is that we often don’t know we are doing this. Indeed, in the absence of intelligence and maturity (maturity of character not years) we are doomed to fail much of the time. Just as a toddler trips when walking, we trip when we try to enthrone reason as our guiding principal.

And, if we live a long, long time, there is every chance that senility will rob us of whatever measure of reason we have managed to achieve. But our certain dissolution is of no consequence to us in the present. It’s as if life is saying, “You will lose everything anyway, but for today you can give yourself to the tutelage of reason, or you can surrender yourself a slave to feeling—you decide.” Look at the world and witness the response.

The cost of harmony

I am in wonder that there is so much violence in the world, as it has been my experience that people will tolerate a great deal before they strenuously object to it—much less kill over it.

Two members of one of my lodges have clearly shown the desire to take control of the lodge. I began to suspect this months ago, but said nothing because tolerance of bad behavior is the norm, which is to say that we get along by overlooking one another’s sins, both venial and cardinal. However, their particular behavior became so egregious that I tried to address it in lodge. They misused their power to silence me, so I wrote a letter to everyone who regularly attends lodge. I mailed that letter Saturday, and spent the weekend contemplating the effect of the bomb that I had sent on its way.

I go to lodge tomorrow and also to the trustee’s meeting that precedes lodge. I dread both so much that I can hardly get them off my mind. I have already received an angry phone call from the one lodge member who does more than anyone else to set the tone for avoiding disharmony at all costs. Our exchange put me in mind of children who were molested by relatives and later bring verifiable accusations against their molesters. Oftentimes, it is not the molester who is ostracized, but the victim who “made trouble” by bringing the molestation into the open.

This is an example of why I have trouble explaining the level of violence in the world. One key to the dilemma might be that proportionately more governments commit violence against other governments than do individuals against other individuals; and I should think that everyone has witnessed instances of smaller groups treating a person worse than the individuals within those groups would have done. Such could be my lodge’s response toward me. If so, I won’t be surprised.

Even my caller agreed with the facts I related, my letter being largely a listing of egregious actions followed by an appeal for the lodge to retake control. Yet retaking control will require aggressive action, and it might be easier to simply blame me for creating disharmony.

Such considerations are among those that prevent me from trusting any group. People like to think that groups are definable, but the larger the group, the less it can be contained within a definition. The Freemasons, the Catholic Church, and the U.S. government, for example, have all done so much good and so much evil that it is difficult to tell which is weightier. Whether a given person sees these institutions as a curse or a salvation depends upon who he is and where and when he is alive. The important points are that groups are not human beings; they have more power than human beings; and they exceed our individual capability to rationalize.

But how am I to behave tomorrow? First, I will not defend my letter. I started it a month ago, gave it serious deliberation, made it as fair and accurate as possible, and won’t, therefore, back down from any of it. Second, I will enter the lodge more as an observer than a participant, i.e. from a standpoint of emotional neutrality rather than reactivity. Furthermore, I will re-read parts of Marcus Aurelius.

“When you feel that you simply cannot live if a person or a group of people disapproves of you, remind yourself of what kind of people they are. Ponder their limited intelligence, their fickle sentiments, their often base motives, and reflect upon how little their opinion is worth” (my paraphrase).

Organizations; feelings of superiority

I got up this morning, opened the blinds, and turned on the radio. The first word spoken was Iraq, so I changed over to a classical music station and listened to Handel. Iraq has nothing to do with me except for the fact that the government will take my property at gunpoint unless I help pay the interest on our war loans.

I weary of the oppressive nature of organizations—all organizations, even democratic ones. In our society, we figure that one vote per person is about right, but I think we could do better. Instead of voting for only one candidate for an office, each voter could have ten votes and award them as he pleased. This could work out as follows: five votes for candidate A, three for B, one for C, and none for D. Or in the case of ballot measures, each voter could have 300 votes to distribute. That way, people who were deeply invested would have more say than people who were not.

One of the groups I belong to has been trying to decide whether to move a pool table from the basement to the dining room. Those who play pool oppose the idea, but others have the vague hope that it might encourage more people would come to meetings. Now, which group do you think is more invested? Yet, everyone has the same voting power. This reminds me of a cynical definition of democracy: “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

Another of my groups is moving its meeting place due to a rent increase. I brokered the move, which might reasonably have been expected to take nine hours but instead took nine months. I was the reluctant center of attention at meeting after meeting as I answered the same questions and addressed the same issues. I was emotionally finished well before the process was physically finished, and I often found myself almost too perturbed to stay in the room.

I could bear my fellows better if I respected their intelligence. As it is, I see more in me than I see in them, but I am unable to use my gifts to the benefit of either.

“…intercourse with others requires a process of leveling down. The qualities which are present in one man, and absent in another, cannot come into play when they meet; and the self-sacrifice which this entails upon one of the parties, calls forth no recognition from the other…. To show your intelligence and discernment is only an indirect way of reproaching other people for being dull and incapable.”
Schopenhauer

It would be appropriate here for me to say how it is that I am superior, but I cannot well do so, and this leaves open the possibility that I am deluded. After all, I have accomplished little. I do many things well but none outstandingly. The highest award I’ve earned was a bachelor’s degree. The most money I’ve made was a trifle. I excel in neither looks nor personality. I seldom took a class but what I was outclassed by some of my fellows. Likewise, I am strong and coordinated, but not remarkably so.

The only thing I can offer to support my claim to superiority is that I appear to think more deeply than most people, but I cannot say why this is the case. It could be a matter of intelligence, but I doubt it. I think that it is more a case of curiosity combined with intellectual courage, but I cannot prove this, and I have no way to account for it.

In any event and for whatever reason, I have felt this way for as long as I can remember. I first became aware of it in the context of religion, because I was one of those rare people in rural Mississippi who expressed doubts about what I was told in church. To my astonishment, even my fellow theology students at Whitworth College went to class like horses led to a trough. I initially surmised that other people didn’t ask questions, because other people already had answers, but if this was true, why didn’t they share them with me?

I concluded that I could think deeply or I could be a Christian, but I couldn’t do both because Christian belief necessitates an accommodation between a person’s intellect and his desire to believe. I came to see that faith in Jesus was like floating in water in that it could only happen if a person was able to let go and relax, but I could not relax, and I found a strange comfort in this. Other people appeared to sell their souls too cheaply. They made a pact with God that denied their intellect, and they called this pact faith, deemed it a virtue, and said that only “a fool” would disagree. I considered it a pact with the devil, because I could not see how such a God surpassed the devil.

So, what do I do with my life? As the years pass, I join organizations like the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows, organizations that require at least a token theism. Does this connote the personal superiority of which I boast? No, I think that it connotes a seriously ambivalent personality. One might even conjecture that I feel superior to other people to hide the fact that I don’t have it together nearly as well as they do. But I don’t believe it. In this, at least, I can let go and relax. The fact that I have not made the most of my abilities does not disprove their existence.

It is oftentimes the case that special gifts come with special liabilities. Whether this is necessarily true or co-incidentally true seems to vary, but, in my own case, I know two things: I could become a great deal more than I have ever been; and I am not yet dead. The fact that the same could be said of anyone does not concern me.

Why we eat badly; the holiness of good food

Peggy’s parents sent us a $60 fruitcake for Christmas. It’s a heaven-in-a-bite affair for someone like myself who loves fruitcake, but it’s also a gain weight looking at it affair. A really good fruitcake is one of the few gustatory evils that still tempt me. If the one at hand was less tasty, I would give it away, but—except for the revolving head and projectile vomit—fruitcakes are to me what demons were to Linda Blair.

Peggy and I were talking about the days of childhood when we believed that anything they sold in stores was good for us, or otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to sell it. This belief enabled us to eat all manner of horrible things with unmitigated delight. As we talked, I wondered whether the many obese adults we know are able to eat with such pleasure, or whether, even as they indulge, the voice of conscience is playing a discordant note. I thought that this must be the case, but Peggy speculated that they are able to stifle that voice so completely that it is powerless. Though she is not obese, I have watched Peggy eat compulsively, and I can but offer that I witnessed no such abandon in her. I just saw someone whose hand kept returning to the plate in a way that looked desperate instead of joyful. If such torture has been largely alien to me, it is only because I gain weight less easily.

It seems to be the human condition that we all, at times, will trade a portion of our health and our dignity for that which delights our palate—or our lower regions. Some say that a life without indulgence is not worth living. That might be true, but can’t we at least elevate our indulgences?

When I end a fast, that which is good for me tastes a thousand times better than that which is bad. A piece of salmon, a serving of collard greens, some lentils and barley, a slice of cornbread, a glass of wine; such things are a veritable symphony of taste. They are far too glorious to be consumed in front of the television. Anything more than dim lights, soft music, and quiet conversation would be irreverent. No doughnut or fruitcake could stand against them.

I have concluded from this that we eat things that are bad for us because we are sated. In food as in all things, intemperance deadens our ability to appreciate the good. I would even say the holy, because eating can be a religious observance. Maybe that’s why we—blasphemous species that we are—process our food until its nutritive content is gone, filling it with fake colors and other chemicals, and distorting it so that no can guess its origin.

My joy in baking

Since Peggy was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, I’ve become quite excited about the possibilities of barely processed grains, and am going through every book I can find on the subject. I’m also buying things like sorghum, buckwheat, pot barley, and teff, grains I have never used.

I began baking yeast breads in the mid-seventies. My mother made yeast biscuits, but she never made yeast loaves, so I was the first person I knew to do it. A few loaves didn’t rise as much as I would have liked, but I didn't see fit to throw them out. Of course, the only whole grain I could buy in rural Mississippi was wheat flour.

Over the years, my baking interests turned away from yeast breads and toward whole grain crackers, biscuits and cornbreads. Biscuits and cornbreads were Southern staples that I had always made anyway, but crackers were entirely new and exciting, and appealed to me aesthetically and by virtue of their toughness (you could throw them against the wall without hurting them) and longevity. Peggy and I were traveling a lot at the time, and I would bake enough crackers for a two-month camping trip, and they would keep without refrigeration. My first recipe was for whole-wheat communion wafers and was given to me by an Episcopal priest. I baked them for the church until someone with throat cancer objected.

After fifteen years or so, the thought occurred to me that maybe I didn’t have to stick to the recipe so religiously, and I began experimenting with various oils, flours, sweeteners, etc. I discovered that it is really hard to muck-up a batch of crackers unless you burn them, Unfortunately, that is easy.

I’ve seldom baked a cake, rarely a cookie, and I only bake pies at Peggy’s insistence, but crackers, biscuits, and cornbreads have retained my passion. I eat the last two with molasses or sometimes maple syrup.

People who don't acknowledge others

A man with two white dogs just walked by. I’ve seen him almost daily for years. His dogs are longhaired yet always clean. He is in his forties, and has the build of a runner. He never makes eye contact, almost never speaks, and he and his wife are known for an unwavering coldness that easily turns to rudeness. The one time he spoke to me, Baxter—who was off-leash—ran up to his dogs to say hello. Bonnie was close behind. “If you don’t control your dogs, I will,” the man said. “Fuck you,” I retorted in the sure and certain knowledge that hurting my dogs would not bring anything good into his life. “That was constructive,” he replied, and walked on. Three years have passed. I had seen him almost everyday for at least the preceding seven, and I’ve seen him almost everyday since.

I feel more curiosity than hatred. Why are he and his wife so unfriendly that their neighbors refer to them as “those hateful people with the white dogs”? And how does he keep his dogs show room clean? Most of all, why does he never make eye contact?

There is another man in the neighborhood who I have seen almost everyday for fifteen or more years. He is bald, but hasn’t shaved in decades. He rides a cheap bike at walking speed, and collects cans and bottles for the nickel deposit. He is fit, clean, in his fifties, goes hatless in any weather, dresses simply, and appears intelligent; but he too never, ever makes eye contact. Are these men self-contained or just self-absorbed?

I think back to Harry, who I knew in college and considered the coolest, most self-contained person on earth. He too never made eye contact, and I rather wished that I was like Harry because, except for having a wife and child, Harry was like the lone drifters in Western movies. One morning, Harry shot his wife and baby girl as they bathed, and then shot himself. This made me doubt my ability to judge cool. It also made me wary of—and intrigued by—men who are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of others.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.

Behavior at the library, the rewards of kindness

I go to the library several times a week, and have consistently found its environs to contain the most insane, criminal, and otherwise desperate people in Eugene. Yesterday, a wild-eyed man leapt in front of my bicycle and screamed, but I expect such things and was not startled. Mostly I am invisible to the crowd, and am therefore free to look and laugh at their appearance and antics.

Today, a young and attractive woman inside the library laughed at me, and I knew why. I wore a helmet with a yellow rain cover; gauntlet-length yellow mitts hung from my neck; the right pant’s leg of my thirty year old trousers (I stocked up) was rolled halfway to my knee and secured by a rubber band (to protect it from the bike chain); my shoes were paint-splattered; and I wore no less than one sweater, one fleece jacket, one windbreaker, and one rain coat beneath which a large daypack protruded.

I remembered my own youth and how ridiculous I thought older people looked. I pitied them because I assumed they were so out of it that they didn’t know any better. Now I see that that they were exercising the very nonconformity on which I so falsely prided myself—my own attempt at individualism consisting of long sideburns and a sleeveless military shirt that I wore unbuttoned over my regular shirt. My friends were identically individualistic.

As there are always several people entering or leaving the library when I am, I usually hold the door open for someone. Older people are more likely to acknowledge my courtesy than younger, and women are more likely than men, but most pass without recognition.

Such discourtesy offends me as do the times people in cars cut me off on my bike even when I have the right of way. I know they do this intentionally because they hold eye contact as they await my reaction. Sometimes, I reward them with obscene words or gestures, but mostly I go my way as if they were ordinary road obstacles, which in a way they are.

"Once your have determined that your fellows are unprincipled buffoons, and that you yourself are nothing to brag about, why then should you be shocked and outraged by their bad behavior? Should you not instead exercise compassion, and thereby endure them as best as you can given your own pathetic nature?" Marcus Aurelius

Such thoughts are a great help. I attempt to treat people as if they possess every virtue, not because I believe they do, but because it is a way I can make the world a little better at no cost to myself. In fact, being kind infuses me with kindness.

Winter mountain biking

Often, during our trips to the woods, Peggy has wanted to hike farther or stay out later than I considered safe. Last Sunday, we biked five miles up roads so steep that she had to walk in places, often in dense, frost-laden fog. We are new to winter biking—in the woods, I mean, our bikes being our primary transport in town—and despite our efforts to dress adequately, our hands and feet were slowly getting colder. In addition, we were in an area unknown to us; it was mid-afternoon; and our maps were woefully inadequate. We had planned to do a loop, but we still hadn’t come to our turn, and we probably wouldn’t be able to tell for sure when we did come to it (most of the logging roads being either unnumbered or numbered differently than on the map). What’s more, we would have no way of knowing whether our turn was passable.

The decision to turn back was a no-brainer as far as I was concerned, so I was surprised when Peggy wanted to continue. I told her of my reservations and, after much discussion, we turned back. As we re-entered the fog, the chill factor increased dramatically, and its effect was heightened by the fact that we were going downhill. Despite the bad roads and having to go at schnauzer speed, we reached the van in less than an hour. By then, Peggy was in tears from the cold.

I had told her during our discussion that I felt badly about always being the naysayer. She said I should take comfort in the fact that we have always made it home safely. I do. A young and fit math professor disappeared three weeks ago during a day hike on Olallie Mountain, an area that we love. He left his extra clothes in his car, probably because the day was fairly warm and the hike only six miles each way. The search-and-rescue effort was scaled back to a search-and-recovery after a week, but when his guidebook was found, a renewed effort was mounted. No other trace has been found.

Every winter brings such stories, and every winter I ponder the suffering that is taking place somewhere nearby, somewhere that I love. Being just a little bit cold and disoriented when darkness is falling is such a horrible experience that I cannot imagine what it would be like to multiply that horror many times over and continue it to death.

I assumed that mountain biking would be much like mountain hiking but have found that it imposes entirely new challenges. For example, we can’t carry as much. We initially thought to wear our daypacks, but discovered that the extra weight on our butts was torturous, and that the high center of gravity was a safety hazard. I purchased large bike bags, but they are far smaller than our packs, so we take both, placing heavier items in the bags and extra clothing in our packs. Still, we are obliged to leave most of our emergency gear at home in favor of tools and an air pump.

Despite having taken a class, I’m largely ignorant of bike mechanics. Also, my Reynaud’s Disease is sufficiently bad that my fingers often turn white just from taking food from the freezer. So where does this leave me? I have neither the knowledge nor the physical capacity to repair a bike of any but the simplest malfunctions, and my bad knee would make it difficult for me to hike out over steep terrain. If we were not on a gated road, one of us could go for the van, but we usually are on gated roads, and I don’t like the idea of separating anyway.

Peggy was so miserable on Sunday that she vowed to give up cold-weather biking. Perhaps, she will, but I think it more likely that we will carry even more “extra” clothing, and that I will learn more about bike mechanics. If the latter doesn’t help, at least it won’t hurt.

Problems with dog poop, hunting

As I mowed today for the last time this year, I observed that it is an unalterable law of the universe that no matter how fine a man a person a pet owner is or how thoroughly he searches his yard, he is still going to get poop on his shoes and in his lawnmower tires. This constitutes my chief argument against the existence of a benevolent deity.

Peggy and I took three bike rides last week on Weyerhaeuser roads, which we like because they are usually gated. It being hunting season, the gates were open, and we encountered several hunters. They were mostly young men, wearing camouflage, and driving pickups. We worried little about them running over the dogs, because they were barely moving. Presumably, they were looking for things to kill. I don’t know if hunters actually shoot their prey from inside their trucks, but I have only seen them outside on two occasions, and on those occasions they were leaning against the side panels. This raises the question of why hunters wear camouflage. All I can figure is that they want their prey to think their trucks are unoccupied.

The sport of hunting differs from human-against-human sports in two ways. The most obvious is that hunters kill things. The other is that human-against-human sports include rules that favor skill and fairplay. Even I could beat Tiger Woods at golf if I poked his eyes out, or I could knock Mike Tyson right out of the ring if I hit him from behind with a steel pipe. Such rules don’t apply in the world of hunting. If they did, hunters would attack grizzly bears with Bowie knives instead of shooting them from distant hillsides. Such considerations cause me to hold hunting in very low esteem, yet I know several people who hunt, and they all seem fair-minded and even kindly in their ordinary lives. I think of them this way …

Ken (a non-hunter) was my best friend in Mississippi. One day, Ken and I were at someone’s house, and this person’s little girl was flirting with us by “making eyes” as it is called in the South. After we left, Ken said, “That kid sure did want it, and someday somebody’s gonna give it to her.” I first tried to convince myself that I had heard wrong; then I felt dismayed and heartsick. All of the many little things I loved about Ken were still there, but I could never get past this one big thing.

Hunters say they hunt because they enjoy the outdoors, or the camaraderie, or the thrill of the chase, yet none of these things need end in the death of an animal. Some few say they hunt because they enjoy eating game. If you are going to eat meat anyway, I suppose you might as well kill it yourself, yet I find even this reason suspect due to the amount of money the meat costs. The price of trucks, guns, licenses, clothing, and, in some cases, trips to faraway places, make for some awfully expensive jerky.

I have no doubt that many hunters are among the finest people in the world except for this one thing that they do, but, as with pedophilia, it ranks as a very big thing in my eyes, and I can never get entirely past it. My life would be easier if I could. My best efforts involve a remembrance of my own sins, including that of hunting. From ages eight to eighteen, I hunted—nearly always alone even when I was eight. My reasoning was threefold. First, I was curious about death, and I thought I could better understand it by being near it. Second, I believed that hunting was what real men did, and I wanted to be a real man. Third, I hoped that the power of the animals I killed would pass into me. This sounded idiotic even at the time, but as with other magical thoughts, I later learned that it was both common and ancient. The best face I can put upon my years as a hunter is to say that what I wanted with animals was intimacy, even oneness. The problem with this is that I wanted them to be absorbed into me, and most definitely not me into them.

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.